The Off Track
by Aoi Umi
A/N: It's been awhile, ne? I would like to assure you that this fanfic, despite its (dis)appearance, is most certainly not dead! (For better or for worse...who really knows. :rolls eyes:) I have been quite busy lately...I could sit here and make excuses all day, but you don't really care. And so, I bring you...lucky Chapter 13. :D (By the way -- thank you for over 200 reviews! I can hardly believe it. :smiles:)
Chapter 13: "To the Woods to Live Deliberately" or "Bad Luck"
Crash. A mountain of assorted camping gear and other junk spilled out of the car's trunk.
"I told you that wasn't all going to fit in there, Yuki." Shuichi bent down to gather some pots and sleeping bags off the ground. He struggled to pile it all back into the horde from whence it came.
"I told you the same thing not half an hour ago when you were buying it. Moron." Eiri walked away, indifferent to the younger man's plight, and took a drag of a freshly-lit cigarette.
"I'm glad you're so excited about this, Yuki," Shuichi complained as he laboriously compacted as much junk as he possibly could into the trunk.
"Be glad I'm coming, and don't create so many ridiculous stipulations in your head. We can dump this stuff in a ditch right now and head for the nearest airport, if you'd like." He sounded quite taken with his own suggestion.
"No!" Shuichi cried. "We're gonna—ngh—go camping—rrr—and it's going to be...fun!"
"I like my 'fun' with fewer cheap magnetic compasses and lawn chairs," Eiri snorted as he blew smoke in the other direction.
"Lawn chairs are useful!" Shuichi insisted rather lamely.
"..." Eiri ground the cigarette butt on the blacktop beneath his foot and opened the car's front door. "You don't have to make a case for your lawn chairs or whatever else. I don't care because I'm frankly not listening anymore. As long as you can fit it in this car, bring whatever the hell you want." He sat in the front seat and took out his sleek laptop. "So leave me alone while I work on this."
Shuichi smiled as he slipped a camera beneath one of the seats. He knew how Yuki hated having his picture taken when it wasn't for the purposes of his syndication as an author. Yuki sitting at the table eating breakfast. Yuki putting on his socks while getting ready to go out. Yuki lying shirtless on the couch, watching a stupid television movie. Shuichi kept and treasured an album of such snapshots, even though Yuki looked supremely pissed off in nearly every single one of them. It was very difficult for Shuichi to be candid with a camera. Then again, it was always difficult for Shuichi to be very candid at all.
Tick tick tap tick tick. Taptaptaptaptap (Backspace). Eiri ran a hand through his sandy, frustrated hair. Yes, even his hair was frustrated. Every single strand. He had neglected visiting this story for entirely too long. He had hoped that doing so would somewhat annul the distaste he'd had for it in the first place, but it had done nothing of the sort.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. Shuichi was compressing the junk with his foot, and with a final kicking shove, he slammed the door behind it.
"Okay, Yuki!" Shuichi slid almost instantaneously into the seat beside him. "Let's go!" He pointed ahead dramatically.
Eiri tapped the side of his computer irritatedly, concentrating on the screen.
"Yuuukiii." Shuichi waved a hand between the screen and his boyfriend's contorted face. "Yuki, smile!"
Eiri shoved that annoying little hand out of his face, accidentally pushing some buttons on the brat's wristwatch. He twitched at the obnoxious high-pitched noise the device emitted.
Shuichi shoved his hand right back again. This time he reached for Yuki's lips in an attempt to shape them into a smile by force. Yuki made a motion like he was going to bite off a finger or two, and Shuichi recoiled, to his smug satisfaction.
"Lookit you! You are smiling!" Shuichi laughed.
Damn. Eiri willed the muscles in his face to return to their usual stoic dis-emotion, but nonetheless he clicked the laptop shut and shoved it into his bag. He turned the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, and pulled onto the road. "Let's go. Tell me where to drive, and I'll drive."
"In that case, maybe it would be easier if I just drove?"
Glare of the century.
"Awright, this is perfect!" our hyper pink-haired hero exclaimed, leaning on the very edge of the seat. The car came to a halt and Shuichi's head lightly bonked the windshield, but it didn't faze him in the least. "Camping, camping," he chortled, exiting the vehicle and bouncing toward the trunk in order to retrieve the camping gear.
Eiri sighed and leaned on the wheel tiredly. To his left were some trees. Ahead: trees, a clearing, a bit of skyline. To his right – he turned his head – another downright fascinating populace of trees.
"I think – let's see – we should sleep over there..."
Eiri's eyes traveled lazily to the indicated spot.
"...we should set up a campfire here,"
Eiri envisioned the cheap, ugly lawn chairs positioned in that general area.
"...and...kyaaa! Yuki, it's a bunny-rabbit!" Shuichi squealed. He instinctively was drawn toward it in a mad rush, and instantly it vanished in a terrified leap into the brush. Shuichi leapt after it and fell into some brambles.
"Owowoww..." he complained, getting up and brushing himself off. "It's in my clothes and everything..."
Already? Eiri sighed. This is going to be the longest 24-hour period of my life. But thankfully, it was not to be any longer than that. He had promised to camp for one day and one night only.
"Yuki," Shuichi inquired, looking awkwardly over his own shoulder, "could you please get these out from the back of my shirt?"
Eiri complied for painfully apparent lack of anything better to do. He smirked a little as he ran his hand gently across the smooth, skinny backside of his cute but stupid little boyfriend. Suddenly he swore. A few tiny brambles had pierced his own skin, and he remembered what it was that he was actually supposed to be doing. "Just take off your own damn shirt and get them out yourself," he huffed.
"Alright, alright," Shuichi mumbled. After losing himself inside the cottony t-shirt, he struggled with the sudden mystery of which hole was which, and how he had managed to work himself into a situation in which he could neither move nor properly see. "Um..." He took a step, and then another. "Yu—kiyaa!" he screeched as he suddenly felt his sense of balance depart entirely from his body.
Thunk.
Yuki's attention was then captured by a series of noises that sounded suspiciously like a skull making contact with a car and then a body making contact with the ground. Although many would argue that color can't be inferred by the ears, Yuki was positive that the skull sounded positively pink. He stepped delicately to the other side of the car. Using the most basic of forensics (along with a regrettably intimate knowledge of the victim's habits), it wasn't difficult to figure out what had happened.
"Idiot." He stared with mock pity at the unmoving body before him.
After a moment, he shifted his eyes uncertainly. Should he do something? Was Shuichi seriously in need of assistance?
Yuki knelt down to examine his boyfriend's motionless figure. Well, he's breathing. Um. So, okay then. He began to get up again, but hesitated. He glanced around, then mentally reprimanded himself for doing so. (Hmph. As if anyone at all is within a ten mile radius.) He extended a delicate finger and slowly made a motion to poke Shuichi in the side.
A familiar pair of brilliant, violet-sapphire eyes shot open, nearly causing Yuki to lose his balance. Nearly simultaneously, a familiar stentorian voice erupted in hysteria...actually causing Yuki to lose his balance. (Yuki cursed at the brief pain from the fall, but more at the misfortune of getting dirt on his clothes.)
"EEYEEEEHHH! IT CAN'T BEEEEE! I FORGOT – I FORGOT – I FORGOT TO BRING THE MARSHMALLOWWWSSSS! NOOOOoooooo..." His voice faded into the distance as he ran. "...oooooOOOOOOO" ...And came back again. "OOOOOO—" And was interrupted by a firm hand shoved over his mouth.
Shuichi blinked. "Eheh." He panted. "S-Sorry, Yuki." He didn't even have to look in order to receive the effects of Eiri's undoubtedly present glare. "But, but...you know, I really did forget, and how...how, how can we go camping without melting marshmallows?" he whined. "I see it alllll the time on TV, and camping without marshmallows is like, like..."
"...Shuichi without yelling and screaming like a wild tiger that's just been shot in the leg?" Eiri supplied flatly.
"Er..." Shuichi scratched his head. "Maybe."
"Well then, maybe we'll have a nice time after all."
"But, but..." Shuichi fluttered his arms despairingly.
"Listen." Eiri halted the frantic motion by firmly grabbing ahold of one of Shuichi's wrists. "You have a moronic obsession with wanting everything to be 'perfect.' Not normal things. Not anything useful. Just stupid things. Like this vacation and its pointless little details. So why don't you let it go, and maybe everyone would be happier?"
Shuichi blinked again and looked in Yuki's eyes. "Yuki, I..."
Yuki returned his wide-eyed stare with a stern look. To Shuichi, it seemed to communicate something along the lines of "shut up because actions speak louder than words."
Shuichi thought about that for a moment. "That's ridiculous, Yuki!" he protested aloud. "You're a writer!"
"What?" Eiri turned from his travel bag, from which he was now removing his laptop computer.
"Um." Shuichi blushed. "Nothing."
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am a writer," Yuki commented as he unfolded a tacky lawn chair, plunked it on the ground, sat down and started the computer. "And so, I am now going to write. Now run along and set up camp, or whatever you want to do."
Shuichi nodded solemnly. He couldn't hope to keep Yuki's uninterrupted attention for the entire duration of the trip. He knew that, and he could live with that. This was one of the things he told himself, keeping in mind Yuki's recent – and accurate – psychological diagnosis.
Shuichi skipped off into the woods to gather firewood, humming to himself along the way. As he looked about, a plethora of interesting things captured his attention. There were so many different kinds of trees, old and knotted, tangled and untrimmed. Shuichi was accustomed to the sparse, neatly pruned trees of the city. Near the brushes, white flowers and yellow flowers bloomed, some in cheerful company and others in beautiful solitude. The bird songs here were different than the ones at home.
Shuichi leaned against a tree and breathed in deeply. Yuki is missing this to work on his stupid book, he thought sadly. Ah, who am I kidding? Yuki doesn't care! And I don't care that he doesn't care. He bounced around joyfully, making the most of it for himself.
He stopped. Still, what if I bring him a flower? Shuichi giggled boyishly, as if the idea were something risky that he'd been coerced into by a dare. "I think –" He swiped a yellow buttercup out of the ground. "—I shall! Hyahahahahahaaaa... ((heart))"
The ground was unlevel and Eiri didn't like it. He picked up the aluminum-framed chair and plunked it lightly in another spot. He sat down, grimaced, and moved the chair again. Move, sit, repeat. At least three more times he went through this sequence.
&!#&!
Concluding that perhaps the chair was unlevel, he spitefully tossed it aside and opted instead to work in the comfort of the vehicle. Ugly as it was, it did contain padded seats.
It also contained something else that the disgruntled novelist had most certainly not been expecting.
Roughly forty-five seconds after Eiri had situated himself in the back seat of the car, his creative process was once again interrupted (er, it would have been, had it gotten started in the first place).
"Myuuu, kyuuu," came a muffled sound from beneath the seat.
Deciding it was a figment of his fried brain's imagination, he shrugged it off and gave the appearance (to no one in particular) of working extra diligently.
"Myuuu, kyuuuuuu..."
It's probably Shuichi's mp3 player under the seat or something. Playing some idiotic song, like...that stupid Christmas song with the...cats...? Cats? Oh, no, please, no, don't be...
He urgently, awkwardly scrambled for a view of beneath the seat. Head upside down and golden hair brushing the dirty floor carpet, he was met with a pair of amber eyes – much the same color as his own – set in a fuzzy little pleading face. The small animal appeared to be helplessly stuck on something.
Eiri glared. It wasn't a glare at the defenseless animal, but rather a hollow one directed at whichever of the fates had been so mercilessly having her fun with him lately. At any rate, Eiri Yuki may have found it easy to be a heartless bastard to his annoyingly deserving boyfriend, but even he could not dismiss a small, furry kitten's pleas for help. He delicately reached beneath the seat and separated the animal's tiny foot from the seat's framework.
In a normal sitting position, he contemplated the slightly thin and quivering, but otherwise healthy young animal in his lap. Setting it gently in the seat, he went around to the trunk in order to look for some sort of cat-suitable food item. What he found happened to be more along the lines of canned liquid cheese, chocolate, and graham crackers (but, indeed, no marshmallows, he noticed).
"Where does that moron get the idea that such disgusting things are essential for spending a night sleeping outside?" he grumbled, tossing aside a small bucket of Spam. Finding nothing else even marginally better, he reconsidered the Spam a moment later and brought it to the backseat. He opened it and set it before the cat. (It wasn't as if he had any intention of eating it himself, anyway.)
After an interminable session of sniffing (Don't inhale it; just eat it already), the kitten finally took a bite and then several more.
Satisfied, Eiri returned his attention to his laptop.
It drifted back.
As far as Eiri's attention was concerned, that little grey thing with buttons just couldn't compete with a fuzzy baby animal. No. He turned resolutely back to the screen. How idiotic. His attention span is rubbing off on me. That Shuichi's got me latching onto even the faintest distractions.
He didn't want to consider the possibility that the kitten was just that cute. What kind of a man would he be if... That's a funny question, he smiled ironically to himself.
"Yukiiiiiii!" An exuberant figure appeared at the edge of the clearing. He was back.
Shuichi's leaps and bounds and pleas for attention were, in contrast to the kitten's quiet softness, actually very easy to ignore. So Yuki quite purposefully did just that.
Shuichi drew closer. "Yuki? Hey, Yuki, are you here? Where did you go? Yuki."
Yuki said nothing and remained absolutely still, except for the idle typing motion in his fingers.
"Yuki! Oh no, Yuki! Did you get eaten by a bear?" Shuichi paused, waiting for a response. "Well, did you? Yuki?"
Idiot, thought Yuki. How could I respond if I was—
"Gasp! Yuki!" Shuichi smiled and pointed. "There you are! What are you doing inside the car? It's a beautiful day out here. Even the pollen and the bugs think so because they're everywhere and...um, I guess that's kind of not a good thing, but it's okay! It's still really great outside; the sun is shining and stuff, and, and look! I brought back firewood so we can have a campfire later. Sounds like fun, huh? Huh, Yuki?"
"Shut up," said Yuki. "It's sleeping."
"Eh?" Shuichi blinked. "What's sleeping, Yuki?" he asked quite loudly. He peered into the car and caught sight of a small bundle of grey, storm-swirl patterned fur. "Aaaahhh, cuuute," he squealed like a schoolgirl.
"It ate your Spam, by the way. Just letting you know in case it vomits or something when it wakes up. Better leave it alone for awhile." Yuki shut his laptop, stepped indifferently out of the car, and stretched.
Shuichi ducked behind his lover's stance in an attempt to get closer to the kitten.
"Hey. Leave it alone," Eiri repeated sternly.
Shuichi's own temporary cat ears fell. Then he beamed and glomped Yuki's arm. "Yuki..." he began. "Let's go for a walk through the woods. Please? Together, just the two of us."
Yuki glanced at him from the corner of his eye. "We've been 'together, just the two of us' for how many days already? Why do we need to traipse through dirt and trip over sticks on the ground?"
"C'moooon, Yuki. I did not trip on a single stick when I was out there. It's nice! You'll like—" he tripped on a stick in the middle of the clearing and fell. "...it. Really. Ow," he finished weakly.
Yuki smirked a chuckle.
Shuichi smiled back. "We can bring food," he bartered. "I brought a whole bunch of good stuff. It's in the trunk."
Yuki balked. "You brought pickled cheese puffs. How can you call that 'good'?"
Shuichi laughed. "Well, there's other stuff, too. Like chocolate! Hey, everyone likes chocolate, right, Yuki?"
"Nn," Yuki idly agreed, staring off into the distance.
"Yuki? C'mon, Yuki, what's with you?" Shuichi leapt in front of him and waved his arms. "Yuki? What are you thinking about? Yuki?"
"You know, a lot of great authors were inspired by the outdoors..." he mused in a quiet tone. "I've heard that its silence can be somewhat relaxing...Perhaps I shall never understand."
Shuichi was getting better at interpreting these indirect commands to 'shut up.' He lowered his head submissively and did so.
"I think," Yuki stated, "that I'll walk by myself a bit. I need to gather my thoughts about this...book." He took a few steps toward the trees. "I'll be back shortly."
Shuichi closed his eyes softly. Sadly and regretfully, he tucked the flower into his pocket for later.
What am I doing here? Eiri asked himself frustratedly. He glared meanly at a green leaf in the air that happened to flutter rather too closely to his face.
He stopped, closed his eyes, and breathed.
It doesn't even smell good. I need a cig—huh?
His eyes darted toward a sudden movement in the bushes, but too late. Suspiciously, he returned to the task of fumbling about in his pocket for the pack of cigarettes he was sure he had put in there...
Whoosh—
Eiri turned in the direction of the foliage's disturbance, annoyed. What if it really is a bear or something? a stupid little voice suggested in the back of his mind. A voice that sounded a lot like Shuichi's, actually. He shook his head to rid it of this nonsense.
He walked on, picking up his pace just a bit. (Because the exercise would of course do anyone a little good.) He forgot completely about the cigarette, and in fact didn't even notice when his lighter slipped from his fingers and landed soundlessly on the soft carpet of dirt and leaves.
Thump, thump, thump, went his feet on the ground, nearly synchronous with his increasing heartbeat. Whatever that thing was, it was following him.
He stopped. Although he naturally didn't like to ask for directions, he didn't want to put himself into a situation where he couldn't ask for them even if he desperately needed to. Getting lost out here would be easy. No one at all was around, and it wasn't as if he were carrying one of Shuichi's cereal-box compasses around his neck. He should head back. So he turned around, moving quickly and hoping to elude the "thing in the bushes."
All of a sudden, the ground looked a lot closer than it had a split second ago. When he should have seen darkness, he was instead assaulted with a flash of blinding light. He lifted himself painfully off the ground.
"Kyahahahahahaaaa! Yuki, look at this funny picture I just got of you! I'm calling it 'Yuki trips over a stick.'" A fuzzy polyester/cotton-blend bear leapt out of the bushes. With its enormous paws (which would make one wonder how in the world it had worked a camera), it pushed its hood back to reveal a grinning pink-haired young man.
Picking himself up and dusting himself off deliberately, Yuki shot a very deep glare at the ridiculous face of this unwelcome paparazzi member. It wavered, though, and soon turned into a smug little grin, one quite appreciatory of irony. It was good to know that the forces of karma were still alive and well.
Shuichi looked around confusedly, then followed the blond man's gaze to a spot on the ground that was apparently beneath his own clawed, fuzzy feet. He stepped out of the way to see just what was so interesting. Upon taking the first step, something squished. Shuichi paled. "Ewwww! Yuki! Am I standing in..."
Eiri nodded, barely containing an evil chuckle.
"Eeeyaaaaa!" Shuichi took off running back toward camp. Eiri followed leisurely, hands in his pockets, taking care to walk around that particular spot.
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