Disclaimer: This story is the reason that I don't X.
I'm back (and a day late) with an all new chapter. Because it kept getting pretty long, I decided to cut off this chapter and write one more after this one. Unfortunately though, not everything I wanted to be in this one could make it because of that…I'm sure some of you will find me evil for that…
-Kyou-chan
I am MAN
"Inuki!"
"Here, Inuki!"
Kamui and Subaru halted their search as a large cheering crowd passed in front of them carrying the limp figure of Seiichirou Aoki, followed by a man in a panda suit dancing behind.
There was not much to say after witnessing something like that. Before they could renew their search, a frantic-looking Karen ran up to them and took Kamui by the shoulders. "Have you seen Aoki-san? I can't find Aoki-san! I got his buffalo wings!"
Kamui flinched as he was shaken, and forced out the last sentence he expected to say in his lifetime. "Follow the dancing panda…"
"Right!" she paused. "What?"
"A dancing man in a panda suit…he's near a crowd of people with Aoki." Subaru gave Kamui a soft nudge. "Oh, and have you seen Inuki?"
"No clue," she answered back before hurrying off. "Follow the dancing panda…Aoki-san!"
Subaru sat at the nearest table and buried his head. "It's useless!"
"Don't say that." Kamui pulled a chair next to him, and handed the Sumeragi a tissue for the black streaks of mascara trailing down his face. "Inuki must be around here somewhere."
"We've circled the place three times! Do you think we would miss a large dog with a key ring in his mouth?"
"Maybe he's hiding in the bathrooms?" suggested Kamui. "Can you check the women's room?"
Subaru looked past the chipped ceiling and cringed at whatever cruel deity was tormenting him. "…why?"
Amidst the onmyouji's sobs, and Kamui's awkward attempts to comfort him, one of the bartenders walked up to them carrying a Margarita.
Kamui stared at the drink in confusion. "We didn't order…"
"For the lady," he replied, and placed the drink in front of Subaru. "Compliments of the man wearing the blue shirt."
They both turned around in unison at the bar counter where a young man winked in their direction. Subaru moaned.
"Send it back," Kamui ordered the bartender.
"Not happening, kid," he answered. "The drink's been paid for...and aren't you a little young to be in here?"
"H-He's with me," Subaru managed to say. The bartender shrugged, and giving Kamui a suspicious glare, he returned to the counter.
Subaru's eyes widened as they fell over the Margarita. "He sent me a drink…what does that mean?"
"Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Maybe he just thinks you're pretty. Or at worse, he wants to dance with you."
"No! Not again!" cried Subaru.
Kamui sent another glance to the counter only to find the man was no longer in his seat. "Oh crap, he's coming over here!"
Subaru shot out of his seat. "I'm running away!"
"Where?"
"Somewhere, anywhere! Not here!" he exclaimed.
"You should try that drink!" exclaimed the man as he closed in on Subaru. "I picked it out especially for you."
Kamui blocked his path. "He—s-she doesn't need you to pick out her drinks."
Rolling his eyes, he shoved Kamui out of the way. "Get lost, kid." Turning his eyes back over Subaru, he drew close. "My name's Arata, beautiful. Why don't you ditch shorty here and get yourself a real man to dance with?"
Subaru shuddered back with disgust, but the man followed him with ease. His pulse hammered in him when he felt rough fingertips grasp at his chin. He could smell the liquor on his breath as his mouth inched closer.
Suddenly, the man broke away with a yelp. Kamui landed his strongest kick at his knee joint. "Don't call me shorty, you prick!"
"Kamui!" Subaru shouted in a mixture of relief and horror.
The man clasped his knee. "You little brat! You'll be sorry!"
"I'm only sorry having to touch a creep like you! Now sod off!" screamed Kamui.
"That's it! I'm beating some manners into you, little punk!"
"Bring it!"
"No! Don't hurt him!" cried Subaru. Everyone stared at him, and he swallowed hard. "W-why don't we go dance?" he shivered at his own words.
"Subaru, I can take him," hissed Kamui out of an earshot from the other man.
"If you start a fight they'll kick us out," Subaru whispered back evenly. "Then we won't be able to find the keys."
"Do you know what you're doing?" Kamui asked at a whisper.
Subaru looked back at him with panic in his eyes as the young man led him to the dance floor, but nonetheless continued forward. "Find Inuki. I'll look for you when we're done."
The others withdrew from Kamui, leaving the boy standing alone. He audibly cursed. Subaru had just whored himself out for his safety, and now he had to find an invisible dog in a crowded nightclub with a dancing man in a panda suit roaming around.
He sped to the first available bar stool.
Through the thick throngs of people in the nightclub there was a dark corner that went unnoticed. The shadows fell over two heavy chairs where ropes adamantly coiled the occupants to their seats.
"I told you!" Sorata shouted. "Didn't I warn you that the pandas were no good? I knew! But noooo….no one believes me. When I told you about the evil closet gnomes that steal buttons, did anyone listen? When I found the secret passageway into the holy land, did anyone listen? How about the time I found the cure to polio?"
Arashi was vigorously struggling against the thick ropes that held her captive to the monk's ranting. "You didn't cure polio, you cured Kamui's hiccups. The secret passageway was a beehive, and it was Nokoru-san who was taking the buttons so that he could embroider the quilt he was sewing! Stop making things up!" she growled.
"Making things up," replied Sorata with a smirk. "Like evil pandas? Huh? Huh, nee-chan?"
Arashi was about to hurl herself at him without regard for the ropes, when a familiar voice called from a distance.
"Aoki-san? Where are you?"
Her eyes shot wide open. "Karen-san! Karen-san, over here!"
Karen turned her gaze at the corner where both Seals were tightly bound. "Dear God! What happened?"
Sorata gravely nodded his head. "Panda."
Karen hurried to Arashi's chair, where she immediately began burning the ropes that bound the shrine maiden's wrists. "Was it a dancing panda? Where'd it go? Was Aoki-san with them? Did he already get his own buffalo wings?"
Her questions fell unanswered as Sorata began another tirade. "And then there was time that I freed that poor Kiwi Bird from captivity."
"You hurled it out of the top story window!"
"Exactly, so it could fly to freedom!"
"Kiwi Birds can't fly, you idiot!"
Sorata paused thoughtfully. "So that's why it wasn't moving…"
Karen's efforts to free the other two Seals were interrupted by a loud voice from the dance floor. "Hey! She's freeing the Panda-haters!" In moments, the three were surrounded by a crowd of panda mascot-enthusiasts.
She rose behind Arashi's chair and met the angry eyes of the mob with a whitened face. "Panda-haters?"
"Glory to Barty the Dancing Panda! Death to the Panda-haters!" screamed an untraceable voice from the crowd. The exclamation ignited a wave of agreeing shouts, and to Karen's astonishment, they pushed the body of the missing windmaster (which was now adorned with a cardboard fast food crown) to the front.
"Aoki-san!" she cried with relief.
"He'll destroy you panda-loathing heathens!" Aoki merely dropped to the floor when they unleashed him on Karen.
The crowd grew silent until someone from the back prompted, "Is he dead or something?"
"Oh no," Karen answered back with a smile. "He's just playing charades."
"Oh."
"He's a scarecrow!" exclaimed someone from the thick group of people.
"No, a dead, decomposing raccoon!" disagreed a second voice. The crowd exploded in an uproar over what Aoki was "acting" out.
"He's the first amendment!" screamed out a third voice.
"No, no," dismissed Sorata glumly. "We've already been there…"
As they continued their game of charades, Arashi managed to break her hands through the singed ropes. With this part of her body freed, she closed her eyes, and gathered the energy to summon a sword from her wrist. Unfortunately, what did emerge from her flesh was not a sharp blade, but something smaller and made of cheap plastic.
Sorata turned away from the game, and gawked at the item now in her hand. "Nee-chan, did you just make a spork come from your body?"
"Shut up! I ran out of space for it in my purse!" Casting away the eating utensil, she tried a second time to beckon the sword.
"Whoa! Now there's a Hello-Kitty pen coming out!" marveled Sorata.
Arashi panicked against the remaining ropes that held her to the chair. "Where's my sword?"
The third time wasn't the charm for the poor shrine maiden. A colorful handkerchief emerged, and like that of an old magician's, it was tied to an endless chain of bright cloths.
"Go Nee-chan!" cheered Sorata after a pile of the handkerchiefs was mounting under the girl's wrists. If he were free of the ropes, he would have been clapping.
"Wow…I can't believe it…this is like the fifth time a girl I've met told me this," remarked the young man in disbelief.
Subaru quivered in his arms. "I bet it is…"
"So when's the operation?"
"T-tomorrow," stuttered Subaru. Lying never was his strong point. "B-but the surgeons say that the chances of transplanting a new brain aren't very good."
"I'll let you go home to your family. Don't worry, the drink's on me." The man withdrew from him, and walked away on the verge of tears for the onmyouji's horrible predicament.
When he was out of sight, Subaru sighed with relief to be free. But his liberation was short-lived. Not more than a minute after the first man had left a second was at his side offering him a glass of Tequila.
"You smell pret-ty…" the newcomer slurred. Subaru sobbed.
Not far away, Kamui was sulking over his drink at the bar. Chocolate milk was a poor substitute for the hard liquor he desperately needed regardless of his age, but he had little choice in the matter. Turning to a woman sitting nearby, he decided to resume his search for the invisible dog-spirit.
"Excuse me, have you seen a key ring floating around in the air?"
The woman scoffed. "If this is one of those lines about the key to my heart or something like that, then buzz off. I'm not interested in short little kids."
Kamui flinched. "S-short?" He bit down on his bottom lip, but pressed on with his questioning. "W-well, have you felt something furry brushing up your leg lately?"
No sooner had he said those words did the woman deliver a sharp slap to his face. "Creep!"
He was still seeing stars when a heavy-set man materialized near the woman. "Hey punk! That's my girl you're getting fresh with!"
In seconds, Kamui was sprinting through the nightclub for his life.
"He's a noodle!"
"No, a slug!"
"You're both wrong! He's The Godfather III!"
As an increasingly large crowd gathered over Aoki, Arashi was frantically trying to materialize her sword. After a half hour, there was a sizable mound of junk pooled by her chair.
Sorata had so far counted the spork, the Hello Kitty Pen, thirty feet of handkerchiefs, two power bars, an umbrella, three coloring books, a banana, a rubber duck, several pairs of shoes, a sippy-cup, some sausage links, and currently…a full-sized refrigerator.
While the cord of the giant appliance was expelled from Arashi's wrist, Sorata stared with amazement at the disturbing and unholy scene he had just witnessed.
"W-where…do you keep all of this stuff, nee-chan?" he managed to whisper in shock.
"My sword!" Arashi wailed, while blatantly ignoring the monk's frightened question. "Why can't I find my sword! My precious sword…"
Karen stood with her back to the pair, more concerned with getting the incapacitated editor to eat one of the buffalo wings that she went to the trouble of purchasing. The most progress she had made was to smear the hot sauce all over his blue lips.
"Maybe he's a circus monkey that ran away from his master to make it on his own in a Broadway show, and just before he was about to make it big, he was struck down by a rogue lightning bolt and is now in a coma!" put in someone from the center of the crowd.
Everyone fell quiet and gave the person a hard stare.
…
"A puppet!"
"No, a rug!" They all exploded into a new frenzy as the game resumed. As their shouts escalated to their loudest, a track of dance music blared from the DJ's table. The upbeat melody rang across the dance floor, and it was not long before its bouncing rhythms summoned a familiar nightclub mascot.
"Hey everybody, Barty's back!" A new wave of ecstatic cries gushed forth as the furry panda man moon-walked across the wooden floor. The thick mob parted while the strange creature skipped forward, and Karen could only stare dumbfounded at the scene as buffalo wing sauce dripped all over her fingers.
She glanced back to the other two Dragons of Heaven, disregarding the enormous array of useless trinkets surrounding Arashi. "D-dancing Panda?"
Sorata's eyes blazed. "He's back…
"I got it!" exclaimed Arashi. They turned to her, and found a sharp blade emerging from the seemingly endless void in her wrist. With a triumphant cry, she set to sawing off the remaining ropes around her body.
The Barty the Panda was just beginning another round of "the robot" when the CD ripped off its track, and his large panda-eyes fell on Arashi.
"She's gonna kill Barty-the-Panda!" exclaimed the mascot.
The crowd gasped and set their menacing glares over the Dragons of Heaven, but it was already too late. The strand of frayed rope snapped under her sword, and she sprang from her seat at the panda before he could dance away. The dull edge of her sword went hammering at the top of the mascot's head, and in one fatal stroke, it came flying off.
Barty howled with a heart-rending scream, which without the muffling panda suit head was infinitely more deafening. Now exposed before them all was a balding man in his late 40s in thick-rimmed glasses.
"MY HEEEEAAAAAD!"
After some undeterminable amount of time, Subaru was sitting hunched at the bar over countless Margaritas, Tequilas, Martinis, and other colorful drinks whose names that he did not want to remember. His left arm felt strangely numb as he gazed over all the glasses and their vibrant umbrellas. He briefly wondered if he might be getting a heart attack after finding himself in the hands of at least a dozen different men that night.
Somehow a heart attack was more appealing to the Sumeragi than drinking himself to death with these dainty cocktails, but either way, Subaru found himself calmer than he had been the entire night. It took several drinks to get him there, and even then his thoughts were too lucid for his liking. But as he sat there, a dizzying euphoria worked itself through his body.
"Psst! Subaru!" whispered a voice. Subaru looked up from his half-finished Creamsicle, but found no one near him. Yet the voice persisted. "Subaru!" He stared curiously at the orange umbrella in his drink, wondering if it had sprung to life to speak with him.
"Subaru, down here!" hissed Kamui, whose voice was tainted with impatience.
The onmyouji blinked away from the umbrella, and glanced underneath the bar counter where two purple eyes burned up at him from the bottom of his chair. "Kamui…what're you doing under there?"
"Not starting a fight," Kamui muttered back darkly.
"Oh." Subaru paused thoughtfully. "And who told you not to start a fight?"
"You did."
"That's nice."
Kamui rose and looked him warily in the eye. "Subaru…are you getting buzzed on girl drinks?"
"Oh, these?" Subaru made a sweeping motion over the table of drinks before him. "Do you want one?"
"I'm sixteen," he blatantly remarked.
His face showed a flash of disappointed. "They're all free," Subaru tried to tempt him.
Kamui breathed out a heavy sigh, struggled to climb onto the barstool beside the other Seal, and slid a Death By Chocolate toward him. "I didn't find Inuki," he commented after taking a large sip of the drink.
"Ya know," slurred Subaru. "I've come to an, an incredible revelation: we are never going to find that dog."
Well, obviously, Kamui thought. Nevertheless, he felt an obligation to give his friend the smallest amount of encouragement. "I'm sure that he has to be here somewhere?"
Subaru did not react to his false assurance, much less the hopeless situation he was now trapped in. Kamui leaned forward from his seat to study his relaxed expression as Subaru drained the liquor glass. For the first time that night, he did not appear to notice the fact that he was cross-dressed.
Maybe Subaru getting plastered in this nightclub was a good thing.
That small hope was snuffed out for Kamui when his companion let out a mournful howl. "Oh, GOD. I'm a TRANSVESTITE!"
"Subaru, no—"
Several unintelligible moans left Subaru as he buried his face. "Mnwanaba… transvestite…"
The onmyouji's cries caught the attention of one of the customers. As Kamui was trying to calm him, a muscular man slinked toward them.
"Hey, Sumi-chan," the man's gruff voice coddled. "Is he bothering you?"
As he wept into his arms and against much of the counter, Subaru managed to shake his head, and the man grudgingly withdrew from Kamui.
"Listen, shorty— Sumi-chan's going in for heart surgery tomorrow, so you leave her alone!"
Inwardly cringing at the word 'shorty,' Kamui managed to stare at Subaru. "Heart surgery?"
Reddened eyes looked up at the boy. "And brain surgery, and a kidney transplant. I've already had six offers for a new kidney." He stopped to mull over another one of the excuses he had given as his eyes were drying. "Oh. And I also have an alien that lays eggs in my skin."
Kamui downed the rest of his drink with those words. Subaru really couldn't lie.
"Something's bothering you," Subaru perceived after a few awkward moments of silence.
He was already finished with his third cocktail by that time. "Everybody's…everybody's calling me shorty…I'm not short!" he whimpered.
"Don't worry Kamui," Subaru started with a dreamy smile. "When I was your age, I was—"
"No!" he cut off the Sumeragi. "NO, don't you start with 'when I was your age' again!" He growled, recalling that this was precisely how the night started.
Subaru looked down at the counter without saying anything more.
It was now becoming a habit for Kamui to avoid gazing at Subaru completely. He could not bring himself to look at what his fate would be in the next nine years. Already it was starting, and as much as he tried to fight it, Kamui's masculinity was steadily declining. It was only a matter of time before he was getting drunk on girl drinks while wearing a vintage black dress…perhaps with a small purse that would match his shoes with a little black bow on it with sparkles and—
"NO!" screamed Kamui against his thoughts. Subaru started, and looked up from his Tequila. "NO! I won't let it happen!"
"Let what happen?" Subaru inquired at a whisper.
He leapt off the stool and clasped his shoulders. "Don't you see?" he exclaimed frantically. "We can fight this! We don't have to be effeminate! We're going to be men!"
Something flared over Subaru's expression that broke him out of his drunken stupor. "You're right. We're not going out as women!"
"Right!"
Subaru pushed the Tequila away. "We'll fight the forces that are driving us to be like this!"
"Right!"
"Because we're men! And we're proud!" Subaru declared.
"RIGHT!" Kamui was beside himself in an empowered frenzy. "And what do men do?"
"We get drunk off our asses and yell at sports games!"
"Exactly!"
"Bartender!" called Subaru, who was half-perched over the table. "Two Strawberry Daiquiris!"
Kamui fell where he stood.
"What's wrong?" queried Subaru.
"Subaru…that's a girl drink."
He looked genuinely shocked. "W-what? But, but Seishirou-san always gets me one of these..." Subaru trailed away for only two seconds before sinking back to his seat in dejection. "Damn!"
The bartender set two bright pink beverages with cherries on top before them, and the color began to drain from his face.
"Maybe I can 'man' these up…" Subaru suggested to Kamui. "Bartender! Take those back and add three cherries to each drink!"
Kamui slapped his forehead, and his fellow Seal blanked. "What? Do you think I should have asked for whipped cream, too?"
Subaru was a lost cause. "It's alright, Subaru…you tried…" comforted Kamui.
"It is the whipped cream, isn't it!" cried Subaru. "Let me try again! I can order the drinks right this time!"
"Listen, Subaru," Kamui began firmly. "You're a great guy…you have to hold onto that. Maybe you just are effeminate. Maybe that's what you're supposed to be. But that doesn't make you a transvestite or a woman. It's just…you."
Subaru pouted. "So…no whipped cream?"
"No whipped cream." Suddenly, Kamui felt the drinks he had downed coming back up to his throat. He suppressed the urge to vomit, and continued, "You're a lot more than effeminate, Subaru. You're kind and powerful and a courageous friend. And," he began while turning slightly green, "for the record, I think you're handsome. And now I have to go throw up…!"
The boy ran out of sight, and Subaru stared after speechlessly. "Ka-Kamui…?" With a pink blush, he turned back to the two Daiquiris and the remainder of the drinks that were laid out in front of him. Maybe it was how he was supposed to be.
He continued drinking for a time, until he no longer felt the urge to completely poison his blood with alcohol as he mused over Kamui's last words with a faint smile. He was just about to pull away from the drink counter and resume their search for his apartment keys when the bartender pushed another drink in front of him.
"You know," reflected the man. "We've never had a girl who was so popular with the men in this club. It's amazing." When Subaru made no reply, the bartender simply shrugged. "Well, this one's from the man sitting at the far corner of the bar. He told me that this was your favorite."
Subaru thanked the bartender emptily, and fully intended to walk away from the drink and his newest admirer. However, the drink emerged at the edge of his line of sight, and he stilled.
Glistening on that table was a Strawberry Daiquiri—it had three cherries and was topped with whipped cream.
His heart must have stopped beating as he gaped at the drink. It was perfectly chosen for him; it was a calculated perfection, which characteristically transformed all simple gestures into something so personal, yet detached at the same moment. It was familiar, and Subaru felt a knot winding inside of him.
In horror, he raised his eyes to the man at the far corner, whose mismatched gaze sent a bolt of lightning down his spine.
Seishirou grinned wickedly. "Good evening, Subaru-kun."
I KNOW. I'm evil…I'm WORSE than evil. I'm evil times infinity plus two….
But it's like this…I was planning more Seishirou in this chapter…but it's already pretty long. And so by a certain tragic ending's plea, I will let this go on for at least another chapter…if you kill me you won't get anything…
Aggh…my thoughts were so muddled in writing this (one helluva week, let's leave it to that). Currently I'm so exhausted I can't spell the word "dark" on my own, and I have a really warm, snuggly cat next to me making me even more tired. With that said, I'm going to bed.
And once again, to those who are by some fluke still reviewing:
Meirav: It's chocolate with nuts! I'm mercilessly on crack.
0ri: Kamui can't help it! It's who he is. And as for Sorata…that's just a bridge that he can't cross…
Tanuki-dono: Woo! Brain-breaking! That's a new level of insanity for me.
LadyoftheBlackWings: Indeed you must be. And strangely enough, I have a horrible reaction to caffeine…so the crack's all me. It's in my blood!
tragic ending: Taco Hut—it's taco hut. And why? Haven't you ever tried to collect all the Burger King Kids meals toys? It's something to live for…
DerangedandLovinIt: Now that's just sick, traumatizing, and so strangely diabolical that I wonder why I haven't done that yet…
KleinerRabe: thank you! (blushes) I'll keep writing as much as I can!
SeriousSiriusFan: OMG! YOU'RE BACK! I LUVS YOUR REVIEWS. And, yes, fear the panda doomy doom…
Singe: Mmhm. And I say that X must be amusing time to time. Otherwise, it depresses the hell outta you…
oONekomataOo: Already ahead of you. In the next six months I shall be marketing my blood to the masses… huahaha…the world you say?
CalasstriaStar: Probably no Fuuma (pouts)…but if you try to resist the crack…oh my, you're head may explode because of that.
moongirlSelene99: No actually. I haven't heard of "Sukisho"…what is it?
TintAngel: Much chaos. Oh what chaos there be…
monkeyumbrella: Ah, three AM readings of nonsensical randomness. Your life must be good.
Jamie: Thank you for going to the trouble of emailing me! I know how it is with computers acting up...mine's doing it right now. Damn you, college wireless network...
Miss Midori: Thanks so much! I love your reviews too! And I'm sure in some way or another that this is illegal.