Aurora Borealis
Girl Hunter D
Yzak sort of likes the Memorial Park. Normally he's certainly not one for cheesy flower arrangements and picturesque ponds like those lining the walkways here, and especially not for the monument among the plum trees that has given name to the recreational area, but before the local politicians got their grabby little hands on the Bloody Valentine tragedy this used to be the 4th District Park, which his nanny and his mother both were fond of, a fact that caused his spending countless childhood hours in it. Back then there were more features in it to take a liking to – higher, darker trees that could be climbed, wild birds to be chased, old benches to be jumped over rather than the painfully idyllic scenery of today.
He sort of likes it even so, with all these changes, because he's changed too, and he never really took to his childhood playground in any case.
Now he spots Dearka, who sees him as well after a minute and waves at him from under the bright fake sunlight that reflects off his golden hair and blue sweater and the fountain beside him. The fountain with the half-naked mermaids carved onto it, Yzak has no doubt.
"Hey," his friend calls. Repeating the greeting he pretty much stumbles into the open space around the horrible piece of water art. He could probably catch his balance and remain standing on his own, but Dearka has hurried forward, cheerfulness not entirely covering the worry on his face, and does it for him.
"You okay?" the darker blond inquires. "You don't look so good."
"Fine," he snaps. Dearka's grip hurts, but no more than he's used to, and he allows the other to take most of his weight and lead him to a nearby bench. He seats himself gingerly, his friend plopping down with frustrating carelessness beside him.
"You don't act fine." Dearka employs the serious tone used for missions rather than a friendly or teasing one. Damn him.
"Well, I am." He bites the words out, closes his eyes briefly against the glaring sunlight.
"Sure you are," his friend drawls, sarcasm fairly dripping from his words. Yzak should not be sufficiently taken by surprise to allow him to grab onto his wrist, just above the hand, and squeeze. "This ain't hurting you at all, huh? Or this?"
Reflex smashes his hand into Dearka's solar plexus before the blond can make contact with any other part of him. He watches with a kind of detached horror as his friend predictably topples over, half-lying on the bench and nursing the soreness. Sometimes he suspects that Dearka deliberately keeps himself one notch below his own level, as though to be able to stay close without rivalry. It should annoy him, make him furious even, but instead he gets this warm, fuzzy feeling. Fortunately it's not so strong now – he's rather certain that Dearka's lack of retaliation is caused by lack of ability rather than of intent. It's a full two minutes before he can even breathe without wheezing.
"Sorry," Yzak offers at length. But you know not to bring that up.
"Jeez, Juhle, learn to pull your fucking punches." He speaks painfully and slowly, for being him, but if he talks it's all right.
"Learn to keep your attention where it belongs, then."
"And where would that be, hmm?" Dearka must have faked some of the hurt, for he's uncurled now, leaning over Yzak, hands on his shoulders so softly that normally he'd be insulted that his friend thought such a weak grip could hold him. Dearka's known him for a very long time, however, and knows when to be gentle. The blonde stares at him, intense and incomprehensible, and Yzak stares back, for a moment frozen by the impossible certainty that Dearka's going to kiss him.
When the blonde leans closer, however, it's far from a seductive motion – instead it's a sharp, involuntary jerk caused by the ice cream cone landing on his neck. Yzak's not sure whether to stare in disbelief or laugh himself senseless at the sight; his friend playing poster boy for incredulity, eyes wide as saucers, melting pink ice cream dripping down his neck and tainting his sweater.
As Dearka turns around the cause of the incident is revealed to be a boy of perhaps six years, previously blocked from Yzak's view by the other pilot's larger frame. He does snicker, now; the kid looks wary but not outright scared, sandal-clad feet shuffling as though ready to bolt should the victim of his slip prove to be dangerous. Dearka, in turn, stares helplessly at the child before sighing and removing the cone, dabbing ineffectively with his hand in an attempt to rid himself off the ice cream still sticking to him. If it had been someone his own size or larger dropping/throwing a cone at Dearka Elthman this way, Yzak does not doubt that the perpetrator would be either scurrying off for some particularly unpleasant cleaning duty or laying flat on his back, but his friend isn't one to intimidate children.
"This yours?" he asks instead, holding the demolished ice cream cone under the kid's nose. Said kid nods in response, and Dearka sighs again. "Well, just hand me those napkins you got with it and I'll give you money for a new one."
The surprised and pleased expression on the boy's face yields no words; any intended reply interrupted by the arrival of a curvy young woman with curly, blond-dyed hair.
"Josh!" she cries at the child before turning to Dearka. "I'm very sorry. My little brother is so clumsy sometimes; I just let him out of sight for a moment, but… Oh, let me do that."
"Thanks," Dearka replies, smiling and letting her take the napkins and dab at his neck and sweater for him. "And it's no problem, really."
The girl looks like she's one of the pictures in Dearka's magazines given life – probably a little older than they are, almost as tall as the Elthman heir, with glossy pink lips and large dove-blue eyes. Enough make-up to have her look like a tramp, and her nipples are visible through the thin, tight white tank top she wears. His friend is impressively stealthy about it so she probably doesn't notice it, but Yzak realizes that Dearka's watching and liking.
He feels like shit. A restless night and general soreness combined with the damn artificial sunlight tried to give him a migraine from the start – aided now by his irritation, they're beginning to succeed. Closing his eyes against the unforgiving radiance he concentrates on taking slow, deep, regular breaths. When he opens them again the female and her brother are gone, Dearka standing close to him, worried again and reaching for his shoulder.
"I'm fine," he repeats impatiently. "You done?"
Dearka laughs. "Yeah, she had to go. I was lucky that kid messed up, though. Oh, don't scowl at me. This is a perfect day for girl hunting!"
"Girl hunting?" Eyebrows disdainfully raised, Yzak proves that Dearka is not the only person here with the ability to imbued his every syllable with so much scorn you'd think they're about to burst. "You brought me here to go girl hunting?"
"Well, actually I thought we might go rowing but you don't seem up for that."
"I can damn well row a boat around a park lake," Yzak states with crisp agitation, bolting up from the bench and regretting it instantly as pain lashes through his head. Refusing to show it or take Dearka's offered arm, he storms off.
Like most grand recreational areas, Memorial Park sports a fairly large lake and a number of small boats that can be hired for travelling it. They split the fair – though Dearka complains that he recently lost a good deal of his fortune through a certain bet – and push off from the shore. It's rather crowded out on the water, and birds and children are providing too much noise for any real conversation; instead they navigate in quiet. Dearka likes this kind of thing, Yzak knows, water and boats, and it's rather nice out here. Warm enough for his friend to dispense with his stained sweater and reveal the green T-shirt underneath. His headache has disappeared, and for a while Yzak is content to push his oar and watch the muscles of Dearka's back moving in front of him. After a while it gets boring, though, and he's tempted to splash the other long before they return to land. There, as an unpleasant non-surprise, a bunch of girls are standing, apparently waiting on them though trying to appear inconspicuous. Yzak sighs. Dearka perks up. It's not the first time females have been attracted to certain pleasant faces and well-trained bodies, and admittedly these represent a higher standard than the fake-blond slut earlier, but… Fuck. Just… fuck.
Yzak might have happily, if delusionally, intended/attempted to walk right past the ogling girls, but he knows from experience that Dearka sees it differently, and so when the horde closes in around them he's trapped. For twenty minutes he endures, even occasionally contributes to their mindless chatter and shameless flirting with primarily Dearka, but enough is enough. And, when all is said and done, he prefers not to hit girls, so…
"You look kinda… I dunno, gay," one of them says to him. "Some people like that, though."
With a very nasty smile plastered on his lips, Yzak slides his arms around Dearka's waist, letting one hand rest on a hipbone, the other suggestively trail up his chest. "Yeah, some people like it," he agrees, speaking lazily against his friend's neck before pressing a kiss on it. "And some just love it. Huh, hon?" Long eyelashes can be a good thing, at least when you need to bat them at your comrade-turned-pretend-lover.
Dearka seems to finally get over his shock and turns his face towards Yzak, a questioning look morphing into a challenging one as his right arm wraps around his friend, returning the embrace. His other hand fastens a few strands of silvery hair behind Yzak's ear before running along his jawline, tilting his face upwards. Yzak decides not to think about the disturbing fact that he doesn't have to fake the sharp intake of breath caused by how the blond's fingers delicately trace his lips. "Yeah," Buster's pilot agrees softly, "some of us just love it."
The idea of kissing returns, frightening and tempting, and maybe, just maybe, this has something to do with why Yzak has never been that keen on girl hunting. He's returned to the present by the still-present horde of girls, some of which are squealing, some of which look perfectly grossed out. In other words, he still needs to get rid off them.
"So," he husks, loosening his grip to let his hands glide downwards over Dearka's hips, "what do you say we go somewhere more private?"
"Sure." The word is practically breathed down his throat, the blonde tensing noticeably under his touch. Ignoring the shocked audience, Yzak grabs Dearka's hand and drags him away. They walk fast and in silence until they've left the girls behind; even when they arrive at the edge of the park neither of them disentangles his hand.
"That was some show," Dearka says at last.
"I had to pay you back for that car ride somehow," Yzak replies. He probably wouldn't believe himself.
"I thought that was what the pinching was for."
"That only made us even."
"And of course you had to win. As always."
"Well, isn't it proper that the one in the right prevails?"
Dearka snorts. "Let's just go eat. I have the perfect place in mind, come on."
Shrugging, Yzak lets his friend decide direction and lead him by the hand. From Memorial it's not very far at all to the restaurant district, and Dearka's sure stride brings them to one of the main pedestrian streets. Several of the establishments lining it are fine, fashionable ones in which the Duel pilot has dined with his mother; he remembers especially liking the traditional sushi house they're presently passing by. When at length they stop, at the far end of the street, Yzak is momentarily puzzled – the only building here is run-down and imbued with the stench of fried fat, crowned by a neon sign declaring it to be the house of "Punk Pizza".
"No way," he declares when Dearka opts to enter. "You're kidding. There's no way in hell I'll go in there."
Fifteen minutes of nagging, begging and teasing later he finds himself forcibly dragged into the establishment, which is every inch as bad as the outside led him to suspect. The grey tile floor is slippery with water from the frequent mopping, which is doubtlessly necessitated by the sloppy and disgusting table manners of the customers, a majority of whom are noisy teenagers. Loud music barks from the speakers fastened on the ceiling. In short, it's a very far call from the civilized and enjoyable restaurants he likes to visit and he can't believe he let Dearka drag him into this. Unfortunately the noise is so overwhelming that he can't be sure whether his friend is honestly oblivious to his protest or shrewdly hears and ignores them. Another day he might have attempted to flee, but he isn't up for any kind of physical struggle. Accordingly, five minutes later he's sitting at a free table, mercifully far from the speakers but sprinkled with pieces of salad and spilt soda, waiting for Dearka to order; too disgusted to study the menu, Yzak gave his friend enough money to cover anything he might get for him.
It feels like it's years before the blonde collapses into the chair opposite him, placing a number of colorful cardboard boxes on the plastic table.
"What is it?" Yzak asks, loathe getting in closer contact with the so-called food.
"Coke for drinks," Dearka says, pausing to push a paper mug filled with the brown liquid towards each of them, "a pizza for me," the largest carton is opened, "and a burger for you."
Yzak accepts a small, lukewarm package of thin paper which, upon unfolding, reveals a sticky, very unhealthy-looking assembly of bread, meat and a few unidentifiable somethings that does anything but stir his appetite. He is rather hungry, though, and it's here and paid for and he's not likely to get anything else. Fortunately it doesn't smell half as bad as the pizza Dearka is eagerly devouring. For someone having successfully attended so many dinner parties, the Buster pilot shows an astonishing lack of manners, pouring food and drink into a mouth not as closed as it should be. Kicking him in the shins below the table seems the only right thing to do, at least until Dearka's pained squirming transforms into something dangerously close to playing footsie. Yzak chokes on a bite as his body flares to life. It is as though it carries a memory of its own and is now, prompted by his friend's leg against the inside of his thigh, reliving every indecent touch Dearka bestowed on him in the car last night, his hands burning with the sensations he stole himself in the park among the girls. Gulping semi-cold coke isn't very effective as a means to quench the firestorm racing through him, but it's the best he can do.
Thankfully, when they leave the diner the unwelcome thrill has abided. Probably it was just some fluke hallucination brought about by the unhygienic odors from "Punk Pizza". Admittedly, that doesn't provide a satisfactory explanation as to why, out in the fresh air on the streets, he's still watching Dearka like this, stealing glances at how his blonde hair curls around his ears and at how his hips move when he walks.
"Kinda cold, now," his friend muses. "My place?"
Technical equipment dominates Dearka's room; there's a gigantic screen connected to both TV, computer and numerous consoles, there are speakers and tons upon tons of video games and CDs. While the black computer chair fits in, the bed looks slightly of out place – soft and messy where the electronics are neat and metallic. In the corners rest heaps of old pizza cartons, candy wrapping and empty soda cans. Tucked in underneath the bed are several stacks of magazines, some about technology, some featuring girls.
Sitting on the floor, they each grab a console and prepare to fight to a virtual reality death. Ironical, that they play a game about battle ships and robots and death when on a break from very real lethal struggle. While the Play Station loads they talk, shuffle, seemingly as an excuse to touch, and when the blond leans over him to get something – somehow they end up face to face, very close. Yzak has his back against the edge of the bed and is halfway sitting in Dearka's lap, an arm slung around his shoulders. Their mouths aren't quite in contact, but only millimeters apart, so that they exchange air with every breath. His eyes fall shut, hand clutching the other convulsively, as the tip of Dearka's tongue traces his lips in an echo of what his fingers did earlier but so much more, slowly gliding over moist, eager skin and leaving flames in its wake. There's a hard, painful twitch in the pit of his stomach.
It takes the combination of his own muffled curse as he puts weight on an arm that really shouldn't have to stand for that just now and the insistent beeping of the Play Station to break them apart. Through his strained swallowing he notices how Dearka's chest heaves with his almost-panting.
They play in quiet. By the time they venture down to the empty, spotless kitchen to grab a snack for dinner Yzak has managed to force the incident out of his immediate thoughts, and Dearka too has mostly reverted to his normal humorous self.
As years together have taught them, it's hardly even a question of Yzak spending the night. He doesn't like going home when it's not just him and his mother, and that's a rare occurrence, what with both their full schedules. Mr and Mrs Elthman are usually absent as well, and Dearka sleeps better with someone else's breathing to complement his own.
The only uncertain factor is who lies where. Normally when someone spends the night at a friend's house he sleeps on the floor, but the Buster pilot insists that's a morbidly bad idea. Knowing exactly what he's referring to and unwilling to discuss the subject, Yzak chooses not to delve into whether or not that's a correct assessment of the situation and flat out refuses – it'd be weird, he claims, if he were to take Dearka's bed and leave the other to the floor of his own room. Since much of the comfort in this arrangement comes from the closeness, the suggestion of utilizing one of the guestrooms doesn't even come up, and, since they're both stubborn, in the end they both sleep on the floor, having torn mattress, pillows and blankets from Dearka's abandoned bed.
Curling up around the still-present ache from yesterday eve and the ticklish sensation evoked by the other's half-naked presence, Yzak turns his back on Dearka and slips into slumber surrounded by the familiar soft snoring he wouldn't exactly classify as comforting.
xxxxx