The Off Track
By Aoi Umi
A/N: Waagggh, don't shoot me. I've been very busy lately. I attended my first con between now and my last update. (I went as Shuichi – hehe.) My stone-age relic of a laptop also crashed on me, so I was forced to write part of this in the most basic DOS editor. Blue screen, blocky letters, lack of word-wrap technology. That sort of god-awful thing. But nevertheless, I am still writing this fic and I plan to continue, however slow the going...goes. Man, I need sleep. x.x On with the story. And my apparent animal obsession. Don't ask me; I don't know.
Chapter 12: "Nyaaande Ore?"
"Wait a minute." Eiri looked up from the brochure he'd been idly reading and re-reading while waiting for Shuichi to pick out camping equipment. "How the hell do you expect we're going to carry all of this?"
"Um." Shuichi set a blue electric lantern back on a shelf. "Heh. I don't know. Maybe if we still had our car..."
Eiri's eyes shot open. He had completely forgotten about that dumb, lavender hunk of metal by now. Not that he particularly cared about it, but it was a rental and he'd eventually have to return it and... "Dammit, we have to find that thing. Leave that stuff here and come with me."
"But Yuki, the sale on bug-repellant boxers ends in two hours..." he whined.
Yuki stared. His stare turned quickly to a glare. "Buy those and I'll also have to worry about finding a hearse in which to carry your dead ass."
Shuichi sighed, nodded, and returned his merchandise to the shelves. He trotted out of the store to meet Yuki on the sidewalk in front. He waited for Yuki to lead on, but Yuki led nowhere.
"There's a gas station over there, but then remains the difficult part," Eiri admitted. "How are we going to get a ride back out there?"
"We could walk?" Shuichi suggested.
"Are you kidding me? Why the hell would we want to walk that far?"
"'Dunno." Shuichi put his hands behind his head thoughtfully. "Wouldn't it be nice just to walk together, beneath the open sky, with nothing to do except talk to each other?"
"..." Yuki gave an odd stare.
"...Okay," Shuichi conceded. "You probably don't think so. It was just an idea," he sighed.
"Then stop having ideas, moron."
"Hey," Shuichi prickled. "You asked."
"Don't you recognize a rhetorical question when you hear it?"
"'Rhetor...ical?' What's that? Some kind of bird?" Shuichi glanced at the sky, shielding the sun with his hand.
Eiri tried to contain the frustration that had been building up from the sheer stupidity he'd been forced to put up with today. He turned and began to cross the street. Shuichi brought his gaze back down from the sky, blinked, and trotted after him.
"Cars are so much trouble," Eiri grumbled as he lugged a container of gasoline down the street. "I don't know why anyone bothers to drive them outside of a city, where there's a gas station every five blocks."
Shuichi rolled his eyes. "Maybe because they want to get away from a place where there are gas stations every five blocks," he replied, uncharacteristically carrying a valid point.
"Why am I carrying this, anyway?" Yuki changed the subject. He dumped the container on Shuichi.
"Gee, thanks, Yuki. You're awfully grumpy today. I mean, I know this is a day that was supposed to be started off with pancakes, and wasn't, and I know how upsetting that can be, but still..."
Yuki ignored his comment (which was ludicrously off-base anyway) and lit a cigarette.
"You really need to stop that, Yuki. Even if you don't care that you die, think about how sad it's gonna make me someday..."
He also ignored this comment. Although it held quite a bit of truth, this, in fact, for Eiri, made it easier to ignore.
"Man, this gasoline really is heavy..nngh," Shuichi chattered, not particularly complaining, but just making conversation. "I guess we can forget walking, anyway...right?...Yuki, why won't you say anything?"
"Do we have to have a conversation every waking moment of our lives?" Yuki spat uncontrollably, and unexpectedly. "It's been like this for...I don't know how many days now. I can't take much more of this 'vacation' thing. Just...shut up."
Shuichi complied, taken aback. After a moment, he ventured quietly, "I'm sorry, Yuki. I thought you were becoming okay with it. I mean, I even thought you might be having a little fun. I mean, I don't know why I'd think that, but..." He realized that he must've been being annoying still, and fell silent.
Eiri glanced (almost) reproachfully in his direction, but quickly stopped himself and continued stubbornly looking ahead.
They walked for a bit until they reached a busy road leading out of town. They hitched a ride without incident, which was in itself highly unusual and slightly unsettling. Shuichi remained silent and compliant until they arrived at the place where they had left the vehicle. And they departed from the generous man who had given them a ride. Yes, with no embarrassing clumsiness, no random exclamations in Japanese, no uncomfortable displays of homosexual affection.
And it pissed Yuki off. Ostensibly, this was because Shuichi now displayed the capacity to behave. So he obviously could have before, and didn't? However, that wasn't it. He couldn't admit it to himself. He wouldn't. But this Shuichi annoyed him more than the Shuichi to whom he was accustomed.
Then he spotted something upsetting. It wasn't quite as upsetting as it should have been, since it actually, thankfully, gave him an excuse to speak. "You idiot!" He addressed Shuichi. "Why did you leave the window partially down, especially during a storm?"
"Sorry," said Shuichi casually. And he really sounded sorry, but not spastic or overly repentant, leaving nothing left for Eiri to criticize. And besides, aside from still being a little damp, the seat was not damaged.
Shuichi dragged the gas container to the other side of the car and unscrewed the cap. He poured in the gas quite competently, much to Eiri's surprise and well-concealed displeasure.
Wordlessly, Eiri sat in the driver's seat and Shuichi stepped into the back. As Eiri started the car, he glanced irritably in the rearview mirror to see Shuichi sitting, arm resting on his face, staring calmly out the window. He looked...distant. Eiri knew, or at least supposed, that the reason Shuichi was sitting in the back was that the passenger's seat was still wet. But he couldn't help the nagging, irrepressible feeling of having been betrayed or ignored in some way. Dammit. This is crap, he told himself. Just drive.
And so he drove. He switched on the radio and some bland, crappy song filled the car, but he wasn't listening anyway.
Shuichi reached a hand into the front. Ha. He's going to grab my arm and whine, and I'll tell him to knock it off. But it was only to turn the dial in abhorrence of that terrible song. Then Shuichi sat back and entertained himself by thumbing through a manga he had found on the floor.
Eiri decided that he was simply not going to care. Care? Care about what? There's nothing to care about.
"Nyaa."
Eiri perked up in spite of himself. He turned around, but then realized that Shuichi wasn't the one who had made the noise. Shuichi looked just as mystified.
Shuichi reached a hand beneath the seat and pulled out...a kitten? And another. And another. There were five of them in all. Then their mother awoke and crawled out after them, alarmed.
"Yuki. There are six cats in here," Shuichi stated bluntly.
Eiri sighed. "Great. Too many to feed, and not enough to make a worthwhile profit at the violin factory."
"Yuki! That's horrible!" Shuichi screeched indignantly.
Eiri internally smiled. Shuichi had never held a grudge for very long. Things seemed right again. Well, things with Shuichi seemed right. Not the live animal situation. "Idiot. I was kidding."
"Well, how can I ever tell from that serious look of yours? You could smile or something."
I did, thought Eiri. Well, I guess not. It was easy to keep things inside, but it was often difficult to distinguish between what he had kept inside and what he had actually shown. "You already smile ridiculously enough for both of us. Just think, if I smiled, there'd be an overload and something catastrophic could happen, like an explosion or...something."
Shuichi narrowed his eyes. "Is that really why you don't smile? Because you know that doesn't make any sense. I—whoa! Owwowow...get off me, kitty!"
Eiri smirked. "There. Was that enough of a smile to meet your ridiculous expectations?" he asked.
"That wasn't a smile," Shuichi replied. He crossed his arms. "That was a smirk. I know the diff–Yaaaah! Kitty-cat, please don't use claws! I'm not gonna hurt your babies. Here, you can have him...it...back! Waaaahhghghh..."
"Out. Now. All of them," Eiri instructed after the vehicle had come to a stop at the motel.
"But Yuki! You can't just leave them in a parking lot!"
"Nyuuu," a kitten attested with the aid of its giant amber eyes.
Yuki grimaced. "...Well, think of something to do with them, then. They're not my responsibility."
"How about, name them?"
"What?"
"That's what I want to do with them." Shuichi snuggled the kittens around him. "Name them."
"Think of something else," Yuki replied flatly. "And don't say, 'tie ribbons around them,' or 'kiss them,' or anything like that." He looked back at Shuichi at the precise right moment to realize that it was too late for the latter. He turned back away in disgust. He also made a mental note to deny Shuichi indefinitely of any sort of mouth contact.
"Okay, okay," Shuichi agreed reluctantly. "They're probably old enough that they don't really need their mom. We can give them away, I guess," he sighed. Then he perked up. "...and make people super-happy!" he added excitedly.
A cute cat-eared boy sat grinning on a street corner next to a cardboard box. On the box was a sign that read, "FLEE cats." Several passersby threw odd glances in the boy's direction, but these didn't really affect his oblivious smile. Soon, though, he began to wonder why nobody was interested in the kittens. He picked up the box, carried it dutifully back to room 13 and a half, and knocked on the door.
"Yuki," he whined to the tall man in glasses who opened the door. "It isn't working! Nobody's adopted a single kitten."
Yuki lowered his glasses and set aside the novel he'd been reading. He took a look at the box, and then stared a bit condescendingly at the so obviously thick head in front of him, of whose product the sign had undoubtedly been. "English 101," he began. "In English, 'L' is not the same thing as 'R.'" He indicated the sign. "'Flee' means 'Run away.'"
"Oh." Shuichi blushed. "Um, okay. I guess that would make sense. I-I told you I don't know much about English," he mumbled in self-defense.
"Now get back out there and let me finish this chapter...er, find homes for the kitty-cats or whatever."
"'Kay," Shuichi nodded and hopped back out to the street. He took out his permanent marker and fixed the "FREE" on his sign.
Is it really a good idea to let him sit out there, left to his own illiterate defenses? Eiri wondered silently into space. He looked back at the book in his hands and flipped the page. Of course it is, he decided. Now he's got something to do, and that means, no pointlessly sitting prisoner outside and charring sugary food on a stick for me.
"Yuki!" Shuichi practically knocked the door down. "Now let's go camping!" he announced with fire in his eyes.
"..." Eiri, having lost his place, flipped another page randomly so as to appear busy. "I thought you had cats to get rid of."
"I did, but then this girl showed up who seemed to know the mom cat. She took them all and thanked me like a billion times. I wish I could've said something, but anyway, now the cats are gone and we can get out of this livestock house and into the wilderness...with marshmallows!"
"I was actually just beginning to grow fond of those lovely curtains," said Eiri without looking up.
"Yeah right," Shuichi huffed. "You just don't like marshmallows; is that it? You don't have to have any."
Eiri, becoming a little ticked off, was about to say something along the lines of, "Well, guess what? I don't have to go either, if I don't want to." But instead, that stupid, accursed glitter returned to Shuichi's pleading eyes and it unfailingly entrapped Eiri once again. There was no way it was going to allow any such words to escape from his defeatedly grimacing lips.
Shuichi was learning to read Eiri's faces to a fault (in fact, to the point where it took some definite willpower to refrain from exploiting the man for all he was worth). A little grin, and then a big smile, crept its way onto his face. He sprung onto Yuki in an absolute glomp.
What the heck did I do? Eiri wondered. "I didn't agree to anything, brat," he stated.
"Heeehe," Shuichi giggled. He reached down and slyly stole the car keys from Yuki's pocket. He leapt out the door, leaving his boyfriend to sit there wondering for a moment what had happened.
Eiri's mind quickly traced in sequence the events that had just momentarily transpired, and like a flash it hit him that he'd been robbed of an object that, in Shuichi's hands, lent access to a flaming metal death chamber.
And so he quickly hurried after.
Because he just couldn't afford the trouble to replace that rental car.
A/N: They'll get around to camping in the next chapter. I had to do something about the car. To the person concerned about the flow of time in this story...really, if you count the nights, they've only been here for a few days. I just tend to take a lot longer to write it, and when I do, I like to spend time developing each moment and conversation. I try to make this fic dialogue-driven more than anything. :) So maybe that's why it seems longer than it "is".
Reviews are appreciated. (See how modest I've gotten...I only plan to sic de-clawed cats on you non-reviewers this time, because I'm nice like that. u.u)