I had to make myself edit this; it almost killed me. It's so hard to write/edit a fic when you're in anticipation of reading one that looks really well-written and lengthy, but I knew that if I didn't complete this and post now, I wouldn't get it done until next week. And that simply wouldn't do. So, voila.
It's Saturday again, and I'm supposed to be updating on Friday... I am strangely not surprised by this.
(18 March 2005)
add: The Sugizo PV mentionedis downloadable on my LJ is you're interested; sorry if this seems at all messed up. That would be the website being an arse. Or something.
Together
by Seph Lorraine
"Kenken!"
The brunette twitched at the name from where he was perched on a tall stool behind the counter of the Koneko no Sumu Ie flower shop. Reluctantly he forced his eyes up the magazine he had been reading, playing from the radio in the background were the suddenly very befitting sounds of Super Love by Sugizo and the Spank Your Juice, as if it were specially planned for the ladies man now entering the shop. 1
"Don't call me that. What do you want?" His tone was grudging and unenthused.
"What? I have to want something, now? I just stopped by to say hi!" The tall blond smirked, his green eyes twinkling mischievously, "And ask you what you're doing tonight, of course."
"Of course." The brunette rolled his eyes.
"Oh, don't be like that. I found the sweetest girl, just perfect for you, Kenken. She's cute, and she really wants to meet you. And my roommate's out right now, so we can all go back to my dorm and hang out after dinner..." Kudou Youji wiggled his eyebrows suggestively causing the slightly younger man before him to sigh in disinterest.
"I'm already kind of seeing someone, no thanks." He turned back to his magazine as if just trying to forget the other man was there.
The room was silent, even his co-worker's laptop, from where it was perched over on a table by the wall, seemed to stop it's consistent humming sound.
It started as a small chuckle. Then it grew into something so offensive, Ken thought he would snap the older-man's neck. Youji was actually bent over with laughter, "You have got to be kidding me!"
"No, I am not!" The brunette bit back sharply, dropping his magazine to glare hotly at the man before him. "I am very capable of making my own dates, asshole."
The older man just continued to laugh as if he hadn't even heard his friend's complaint, "Wait a minute, how did this happen? When did this happen?"
Ken shrugged, shoving his magazine into a drawer, "She just came in here every once in a while with the fan girls, so"
"Whoa! Kenken, what are you thinking?" Youji's green eyes were wide, "You can't actually date one of the fan-girls! Remember the chaos that happened when Omi dated that Ouka chick and they found out they were, like, cousins?"
"Shhh!" Ken slapped a hand over the older man's mouth and looked around frantically for his missing co-worker. Omi had disappeared an hour or two ago into the back room and had been unheard from since, "You know we're not supposed to talk about that!"
The lanky blond sighed, "You know what I'm talking about Ken. Those girls are just not worth getting involved with."
"She's not one of the fan-girls. Just every now and then she would show up with one of her friends and talk to me, she asked me to go out with her sometime, so I said sure. It's not serious or anything." He shrugged.
There was a scraping sound as Youji pulled one of the project stools up the counter to have a seat, "You don't sound exactly thrilled, here."
"It's not that." Ken frowned for a moment before elabourating, "I went to see her at her house last night, right? Well, I guess she just sort of forgot to warn me about her psychotically possessive older brother."
Youji winced at the implications in the other man's tone and frowned sympathetically, "Didn't go over well, I take it."
"The guy threatened to rip the skin off my face and sew it to his doormat if I touched her! He's a fucking psycho. Pretty face, but a complete nutcase."
"That rhymed," The older man remarked absently, "Gods, I hate the psychotic older-brother situation. Well, I guess the question now is whether she's worth" He was cut off as something seemed to click in his mind, "Did you just call him attractive?"
Ken shrugged, "You should see the guy, it's almost creepy how red his hair is."
"Like Schu's?"
"Redder."
"Damn." The older man sounded impressed, "Natural?"
"I wasn't about to find out."
"Is he gaijin?"
"Nope."
"Damn. Is he available?"
"Wasn't about to ask."
"Of course he's not available." Youji rolled his eyes, "The good ones never are."
Ken stared at the older man blankly, "Did you not just hear me say the guy's a fucking psychopath?"
"But a hot psychopath." Youji input thoughtfully.
Silence.
"Marriages have been built on less."
"Youji."
"You should ask him. Or if you're not interested, at least get me his number."
"Youji."
"But then again, is he even interested in guys? He's probably straight."
"Shut up."
Grinning widely, Youji leaned forward, "Regretting the old days?"
A narrow glare from the brunette and the sound of the stool-legs scrapping the floor as Ken lifted from his perch, "I thought we weren't going to talk about him, either."
Sensing the building fire in his temperamental companion, Youji tried to steer onto safer-ground, "We aren't. Just keep in mind that all men aren't filth; just look at me."
"Ha! That wasn't egotistical at all." This time the response came from Omi. The short blond walked briskly out of the back room, pulling off a pair of dirtied gloves as he did so.
"Omittchi! I barely knew you were here!" The older man chuckled.
"It surprises me that you were even that observant." The young man spoke dryly, as if he were already bored with the conversation, but that was just how tiring the older man's antics could be sometimes. He pulled out a pen and a notepad, jotting something down and pulling out a seed-catalogue. "I thought I heard you out here, considered just staying back there until you left, but I have to be leaving now anyway."
"You always act so dismissive! You're hardly one to speak, chibi. You know my matchmaking skills work wonders." He winked. "At least I'm sure Nagi thinks so."
Omi blushed lightly at the mention of his boyfriend; it was true Youji threw a lot of people together, but he actually had a way of picking good pairs (that meaning people who were actually agree-able and complemented each other). He had only been really wrong before once, and had almost lost his best friend over it. Since then he had been trying quite hard to find Ken another match, as if it were the only way his guilt could be lifted.
Ken and Youji still managed to hold on to their friendship; though it was obvious that most of the work in maintaining it came from the elder of the two.
Ripping the piece of paper off of the pad and stuffing it into a page on the catalogue, he turned to Ken, who was stacking some boxes to be moved to the curb, "Are you gonna' stay after and make these orders, or do I need to come in early tomorrow?"
The brunet looked up, "I'll stick around and do it; you should be at school."
Youji looked disappointedly at his friend, "Aa, you don't want to at least meet her?"
The youngest smiled, grabbing his bag and hanging his apron up in his typical genki fashion, "Thanks, Ken-kun! I gotta' be off! Bye Yotan!" He spared them both a wave before exiting and bouncing along his own way.
"Sorry, Youji. Just tell her I'm not interested right now."
The blond nodded with a sigh, "I guess I'll have to. I'm going to go pick up some cigarettes; I'll be back in a while, ok?"
"Sure," Ken shrugged, nudging the boxes he had stacked up with his foot, "Set those on the curb on your way out?"
"Tsch! You don't pay me anything, why should I"
"Youji." The name was almost a growl.
The man in question huffed, "There is no love here. No love at all." He made his way out the door, toting has cargo carefully only to drop it in an ungraceful heap upon the curb and take off down the sidewalk for a 7-11.
Once he was gone, Ken sat tiredly upon the stool again and picked up the catalogue Omi had left, reading the list of orders needed that he had left in the page. Several minutes of peace passed as the gentle sounds of a soft song drifted from the radio, and he began the tedious process of writing up order forms.
"Ken-kun!" The voice interrupted his request for three boxes of poppies, which made him wonder vaguely if Omi had taken to making opium, and he looked up.
"Aya-chan." He smiled lightly as the dark-haired girl entered the shop quite unexpectedly, "What are you doing here?"
The girl smiled, moving towards the counter, "'Niichan and I were eating at the cafe across the street. He's still paying, so I had to come say hello! It's also starting to rain, so I wanted to get inside before I got wet."
Ken nodded absently, "What have you been up to?"
Shrugging, she leaned across the counter to kiss him lightly on the cheek, "I have to go home and study for a maths test tomorrow."
The brunette blinked, "So happy I don't have to put up with that stuff anymore."
"Yea, it sucks." She laughed, wondering over to poke and point at the various assortment of flowers like an excited child, her voice a melody of soprano laughter in his ears.
Not for the first time, Ken questioned what he was doing with a high-school girl. He had wondered before. Yet, her purity was always amplified by the simplest things.
"I think about you all the time, Ken-kun, but I don't get to see you often. I'll have to come by more." She winked, and glanced over his work, "That looks awfully boring. I'm glad I don't have to work yet."
He rolled his eyes at her as she stood began trailing through the man flowers on display in the store.
Watching her walk across the room to examine an arrangement of violets, his world seemed to slow down around him.
He was young, yet he was old. Everything about her was younger and protected, whereas next to her he felt aged and somewhat out of place. She was just learning who she was and when she was officially an adult, that person would change; he had already been who he was for a while, having been ahead of schedule in the roads he had taken so far. She was still safe under the protection of her parent's roof, while he had abandoned that years before.
He enjoyed being simply listless and teasing around her; but it was unnerving to feel like he didn't belong there.
He vaguely registered the chime of the bell as the door opened and the elder Fujimiya sibling entered, clothed in black same as last time. His violet gaze flickered momentarily over the expanse of the shop, before turning their narrowed view to the counter, where Ken sat. He halted his advance into the shop when their eyes met.
Aya was asking him something, but he couldn't seem to decipher her words. Was she still speaking Japanese? Stormy violet eyes did not move from his own gaze but continued to watch, waiting for him to move or say something before their owner pounced on it with some scathing verbal remark.
"Ken-kun?" Aya sounded deeply confused.
Snapping out of his momentarily angst-induced daze, he turned his head only to find the girl leaning right into his face, and jumped back in shock, "Aya-chan! Hi! How was your day?"
Aya frowned.
Ran rolled his eyes, muttering something about spastic tendencies.
"Are you ok, Ken-kun?" She asked
Shaking his head, the brunet nodded, "Yea, sorry. It's just been a long day."
"Oh, ok." She looked mildly disappointed by something. "You just seem a bit spacy. I hope you're not getting sick or something."
"Aya-chan," Ran was moving towards the door again, "We should get going, now."
Nodding, with a slightly worried glance, she threw a wave at Ken and stepped out under the awning, "I'll call you! Take care of yourself and get lots of rest just in case!"
He made to turn back to the catalogue but the elder Fujimiya caught his eyes one last time, giving him only the acknowledgement of a small nod. Strangely though, the older man wasn't glaring, he almost looked teasing with a glint in his violet eyes, and as he turned away, there was no mistaking the slight smile that graced the redhead's thin lips.
Ken felt dimly that he might be blushing.
His head dropped to the counter with an ungraceful thunk.
It was a while later until Youji reappeared, smelling of fresh smoke, and attire somewhat soggy from the weather, "Well someone's just full of sunshine today!"
"Urusai." His head did not lift fromt he seed catalogue.
"Oh, come now. Placing flower orders can't be that difficult. If you can spell and count, you'll do fine." Ken raised his head only for a moment to give a narrow-eyed glare before dropping it once more.
Sighing, Youji took his seat on the stool to Ken's left and gave the younger man a tired look, "What's up, now?"
Shoulders shrugged.
"I can't help you if you won't tell me what's wrong."
"I don't want your help."
"Then what do you want?"
"To be left alone." The brunet grumbled, remaining in his slumped position, forehead to the countertop.
Youji slammed his fist down on the countertop instantly, causing his companion to spring up away from the vibration and give him a baffled look, "No, Kenken! You are not going to do this. You will not get moody on me like this! You're coming out with me and Schu, tonight. You will meet Yuriko, and then tomorrow you're coming again. And you're going to have fun and like it."
Ken groaned, "I'm not moody; I'm just thinking about something."
"Well, then, what is it?"
The brunet was silent for a moment, "You know when you're seeing someone, but you don't really intend on keeping up with them all the time like you would if it were someone else. Say someone else you liked more..." He paused for a moment, "And it's like sometimes you forget they're there?"
The blond blinked.
Ken frowned, "And you know those situations where, you meet someone and then you spend the following twenty-four hours just thinking about them? Not because you just want to make a good impression, or think they might be worth taking out or something, but you had an argument or something with them and they said lots of things and you really didn't have anything to say in return because you were caught off guard and you didn't feel like the odds were in your favour because she forgot to tell you that her psychotic mentally ill older brother who smiles at me and makes me all forget what I was doing because I was wondering why the fuck he was smiling at me, not that it was a bad thing for him to smile at me because yesterday he was glaring at me and threatening to rip my face off which I admittedly am a bit disturbed by because normal people would just say they were going to have you raped by a biker gang or, wait, no a normal person would say they were going to 'make you live to regret it' or something equally as ominous and over-used but then I don't know any biker gangs and why is it that my two-thousand piece puzzle of the Tokyo Tower is missing the one piece at the very tip of the tower and that is the only one which makes me angry because damnit I worked on that thing for nearly five hours last night but I wouldn't have been working on the damn thing if I could get some sleep but my mind just keeps coming up with all of these really cool puns and really sarcastic remarks that I really should have said but didn't because I was just really sort of confused and annoyed and couldn't think of anything quite that cool at the time!"
Youji was silent for a moment, simply staring at the panting brunet, "...I sense something dramatic approaching."
"I want her brother." And his head hit the counter with another thunk.
Youji's eyes went wide.
There was silence.
"I honestly wasn't expecting that." The stunned look on the blonde's face emphasized the truth behind that statement.
Ken's arms were now wrapping around his head on the counter and his voice was muffled as he asked, "What were you expecting?"
Youji shrugged, "I didn't really know what you were talking about in the first place."
If Ken hadn't been so comfortable in his slumped-over position, he would have beat the other man with his seed catalogue.
to be continued
1 Sugizo & the Spank Your Juice - Super Love, the PV is brilliant and features Sugizo acting like a sort of ladies man, and all. Quite a catchy song, too; something I could imagine Kenken cringing "wtf?" at. It reminds me fondly of Youji.
Thank you...
Zeto - Aya the matchmaker? But Ken's -her- boyfriend! And he's in high-demand, at that. Don't you think she'd be the -least- bit jealous? ;) He he! I'm happy you're enjoying the fic, though!
Wan wingu no tenshi - Yes, that song is absolutely wonderful! I'm happy you liked the chapter, too! I even giggled, myself, while I was writing the thing about the axe. It was somewhat goofy, I suppose.
C.re.ax - I'm so happy you're enjoying! Please continue to look for updates!
Hellcat81 - Yes, updating ever Friday, except for last time, when I updated on Saturday and today... when I'm updating on Saturday. Eh heh! I'm really not good about the schedule thing...Yes, I suppose Ran is being somewhat annoying, but he's concerned. So we have to love him anyway. :)
M4r1-chan - Yii! I'm so happy you liked it. :D It's so fun to write the funny scenes, I'm kind of sad that it started getting angsty in this chapter. I had to go back and edit twice just for the purpose of de-angstification! Oi. Please keep reading, though!
na - Don't like the RanKen pairing? Hate it? Oh, well. I don't know if you're really going to like this fic any further as here is where it really starts to diverge into a RanKen fic. I'm very honoured that you liked my writing enough to read anyway. :) Thank you for reading, and if you read on, I hope you enjoy!
The Weaver Atropos - Aa! Who are you? And what do you think you're doing reviewing my fic:P Just joking. :D I'm happy you liked that ending quote; Ran was going to say it to Ken, but then that revealed certain things for Kenken that weren't supposed to be out yet in the story. Happy you enjoyed the chapter! ;)
Amethyst Blosson - I'm so happy you enjoyed the fic. Ken and Aya are liars all over the place, it would seem, ne? Please continue to read!
meiflower - Happy you enjoyed:D
keishin - Yes, it would seem to be the HTML. When people make faces with the arrows/brackets, it just cuts off. Thank very much for your comments, though! So happy you enjoyed!
Narijima - Your parents are like Ran? Eek! That must be hard to deal with. I'm happy you enjoyed the chapter, and since you mentioned the allusions, I was relieved. I'm kind of trying to drop hints about different things but when no one was commenting on them, I kind of wondered if I had made some things not noticable enough. Those things will all be explained soon, at any rate. Thanks so much for reading:D
Ayaren - I'm happy you're enjoying the fic!
Krysana - Kenken getting backed up against the wall! Fanservice! One of these days I really do intend on writing a scene where Ran just accosts Kenken against a wall randomly and does all sorts of gorgeous things to him. The RanKen is literally within reach. Like, coughnextweekcough. :D Thanks so much for your comments!
yaumi - New plot? I'm honoured you think so! I try not to be too cliché, but I can never tell how well I'm doing about that. As for balance, I'm happy to hear it's pretty even. I worry it's starting to get a bit to angsty here, so I'm trying to lighten it up a little more. Thanks so much for your comments; they're most appreciated!
Anendee - Death by laughter? Hey, if you have to go, do so happily. ;) So happy you enjoyed!
Chitoshiya no Tohma - Thanks. :D
aki midori - Aw! I'm so very honoured by your reviewyou're really too sweet! I'm just happy to entertain and write something worth reading every once in a while, and if you enjoy my fics, then I'm happy. I hope you will enjoy this fic, and continue to read. RanKen is the holy pairing, and therefor it must prevail! It is a shame you don't write for RanKen, I haven't read your Slam Dunk stuff (I've heard of the manga vaguely, but other than that I know nothing about it, really), but RanKen could always use another lovely author. I shall have to read your fic as soon as I can. ;) Thank you so much for your lovely comments!
Chubby-King-Chocobo - I'm so happy you're enjoying this! As for sweet Aya, she goes anyway for me. She's virtually in a coma the entire time, so you can do a lot with her character. She's really somewhat spoiled by her brother (and assumably her parents) so she could be a rotten little villian, or just sweet. Character-bashing is always fun (flashback to the Relena-hater days of Gundam Wing) and so the worked for a semi-villian in SD, but sweet Aya's just more realistic and fun to write, in my opinion. Thanks for reading!
Rapunzel4 - I'm happy you liked the axe, too! Yes, the thing about the three-years seperating Aya and Ken are supposed to be kind of key to what they wouldn't work out. Those are the years when you go out and establish yourself on your own, you don't have your parents around anymore, and with Ken's situation, he and Aya are just not on the same mental plane anymore. A difference in a maturity, I suppose it could be said. Thank you so much for your comments!
HeatherR - Hurrah! I'm so happy it made you laugh! And yes, there is some majour tension between Ran and his father, but I'll get into that soon (the next part, probably). I'm so happy you picked up on that, but I should've expected as much from someone like you. ;) It is in the writer's eye to be observant. The schedule bit is very difficult. Here I've updated twice on Saturday, yet never on Friday. I would change the day to Saturday, but I fear I'll start updating on Sunday. Thank you so much for your comments! Please continue to read:D
"She was somewhere else. Somewhere he had been three years ago, and it hurt to be reminded of that."
Reviews are appreciated.