A/N: People here are so nice! I was actually waiting for a best friend of mine to at least read one of my other stories but she never read them. Bitch… Ah… I feel kind of… touched!
Smile, for the world is a pretty place!
Three: Black
Subaru reached his apartment late that afternoon, not that anyone can tell it was late in the afternoon, the rain made it look later than that.
The keys started to jingle as he took them out of his pocket. He twisted them left to right in the keyhole and there was the sound of a click. This was the confirmation along with the sudden open of the door to Subaru that he can come in.
There was no coat to throw aside because he didn't bring his long white overcoat with him.
The door was closed, locked and- never to forget- bolted, for obvious reasons, of course.
Running his free hand through wet hair, he let himself fall on the couch. His other hand wasn't free because it was holding a book.
A black book; no title on the front, no synopsis of the sort on the back
Just a simple book with nothing to boast or brag.
Subaru relaxed to the comforts his couch could give him. He smiled for a little while before flipping the book open.
How could he be so stupid? A book, a book of no great importance, had made him do this.
He remembered running through the city just to find this book. It was absurd; books were never a part of Subaru's life. The only books that even seeped through his life were textbooks in Algebra and Biology as well as some spell books that were forced on him by his grandmother.
He read along the lines.
He saw this book the other day after an exorcism. Details attached are too tiring to reminisce over, so he doesn't think about it.
It was on a shelf, he could see it from the outside with the glass window to separate them.
Its simplicity caught him.
That was a couple of weeks ago; every time he passes by this certain bookstore, the book would still be there waiting for him. Patiently sitting on that shelf
When he got up from bed today, he sees the book in front of his eyes.
He tried to keep it out of his head but when he managed to see it fade away, he heard the jingle of a bell. He was already at the store's doorstep.
Funny but true, the body doesn't really need the brain to do the thinking sometimes.
It's the first time in the longest that Subaru has been in a bookstore. They were never one of his stops anyway. He and his sister would stop by only to buy textbooks or fashion magazines that littered Hokoto's room.
He doesn't have to think about the reason behind; without even the aid of thoughts he walked to the shelf.
The book was still there, expecting him to pick it up.
The spine offered no identification, same with the back and the cover.
He paid, the employee beamed at him like every ordinary employees do, and he left the store with indifference; as if he never entered it in the first place. The only evidence of him gracing the place with his presence is the book in his thin fingers.
It started to rain. A bit of a drizzle as a start, really, so at first he didn't gave the sudden bit of downpour much thought.
I.
I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there's somebody nobody knows about.
Alfred Hitchcock and Thornton Wilder, Shadow of a Doubt
He wanted to say something sarcastic.
That's when the drizzle stopped playing and the small rumble of thunder zigzagged across the sky.
He looked up and he saw a sky of gray. A drop or two on his face which gave him the signal to stop staring and start walking; so stopped and walked.
The walking was more of a fast walk. Then he when he encountered the fat drops on his body then did he start to run more on intuition than anything else.
Not that he needed anything to tell him to pick the pace.
The body doesn't really need the brain that much, hm?
The boy plowed through the crowd, no need to go jumping from building to building now; his apartment wasn't that far-off.
Everyone was carrying an umbrella, mostly black, whether it was some trendy 'in' thing; but it seems that everyone was wearing black.
He ran and ran.
Not caring about the clothes people wear or the theme they suddenly adapted or the black shoes they wore.
Black just reminds him one thing.
It reminded him of…
…
…
…
The book in his hands, he decided.
He passed by another boy. Subaru was the type of person who'd spend half an hour apologizing for the most mundane things. But with the rain drenching him wet to the bone and only a book to keep cover, he didn't stop or look back.
The most that happened was their shoulders brushed.
Subaru knew he should at least turn to see if there were any items he knocked off.
But when he looked back the boy was lost somewhere in the crowd and he has already sunk deep in that sea.
The steady pitter-patter rain knocked on his window, begging him entrance.
It didn't matter now anyway.
Lesson 1
Honesty is of the utmost importance
Little did Subaru knew, it mattered, but not to him anyway.
Your husband doesn't know that you're writing this. It's quite easy to write it under his nose. Just as easy perhaps as sleeping with other people…
Subaru wrinkled his nose in a way that would make Seishirou say how cute 'his Subaru-kun' is.
Subaru was safe in his apartment with the falling drops making noisy sounds on his glass pane.
Green eyes looming over words that formed statements which quickly melted into a group of sentence.
The more sentences he reads, the more they become a paragraph. The first chapter consists of just one paragraph.
Subaru was safe in his apartment.
But Kazahaya wasn't.
The last sentence read:
But no one will ever know you are, or what you've done, you've always seen as the good wife.
Subaru snorted.
---Daily use of drugs may cause poisoning—
Rikou Himura was tall, had black hair that crowned around his head and green eyes that watched over the store with an indifferent stare.
Rikou Himura was sixteen but has the mind- and looks- of someone older. He works at the Green Drugstore with another boy around his age who could be easily mistaken as a girl than anything else.
That boy's name was Kazahaya Kudo.
Rikou Himura was Kazahaya's room mate and savior. Though Kazahaya would rather deny the last fact, there was no point in lying. Whenever he was in trouble, the first and last person to be there was Rikou.
No matter how trivial or how dangerous or how sticky a situation maybe, Rikou was there to save him before he falls into an even stickier problem.
Kazahaya would be grateful but he wasn't.
How can he when Rikou was a complete dickhead?
Every morning at the crack of dawn, a foot would find it way on his stomach, crushing what's left inside his body. That would be accompanied with an evil retort from the bigger of the two and a laugh that says 'making-fun-of-you' all over it. The raven-haired boy would always pronounce that he should be thankful, without him Kazahaya wouldn't be alive and wouldn't be having a job right now.
Yet, Kazahaya doesn't feel grateful. He hates Rikou, with every fiber in his being. Especially after encountering that memory in the park- he hasn't told anyone yet, he doesn't see the need to- he hates Rikou more.
Rikou wondered what happened to Kazahaya these pass few days. He came back to the drugstore from a walk and he… changed all of a sudden.
He is quieter now and when he does get mad, no insults, no shouting or kicking. All he does is glare at him for a few seconds and resumes stacking items on the shelves.
Rikou knew something happened to him on that 'stroll' of his. Every time he steals a glance at Kazahaya's green depths, he can't see the naïve, spunky, loudmouth anymore. He sees someone older; his eyes have gone a shade darker.
But somewhere inside, Rikou knew Kazahaya would be back.
Today, he made another pass at Kazahaya, just to see whether the boy is the same dork he loves to tease. Instead of going on a screaming fit that would last for about half an hour and drive a few customers away, Kazahaya didn't blow.
He stood.
He looked down on the floor and looked up at Rikou.
Rikou wanted to take back what he said.
His eyes, there were not flashed up in anger.
His face, it wasn't flushed up red in pure rage.
Instead, he looked at him with a sad expression, hurt flashed across his emeralds. The pain, the sadness, it looked at is it was there all along. As it was a part of Kazahaya that just manifested itself now
'Sorry' was the last word between them before the boy ran away, pulling his apron off in the process and throwing it the floor.
The rain started to fall, he wanted the boy back.
He worries.
Because from the moment he heard the jingling of the door's bells, to the sudden change of the whether from sun to rain and still not a hair on the boy's head appeared knew he should be worried.
Not that he ever worries over Kazahaya.
Okay, he worries about Kazahaya on a daily basis but that's what you get for living with the same person for the last three hundred sixty five days. He worries about Kazahaya, but from the other's point of view, it was another show of Rikou's so-called none existent Superiority Complex. Well, that's because Rikou loves a good façade. Everyone wears one; they need to hide a few things away from the world once in a while.
Kakei has his private smile.
Saiga hides behind his black, trademark shades.
Kazahaya used his clueless sense of nature fool everyone that he was okay- that until recently…
Was the real Kazahaya that gloomy?
Was the real Kazahaya hiding behind the shadows?
Who would ever think that Rikou, the Rikou Himura, would over get worried over a stray? A feisty one, he added as he chuckled.
Kakei thinks so. Insert trademark enigmatic smile here.
Saiga smirks. Insert trademark devilish grin.
Kazahaya pouts. Insert trademark screams of 'idiot' and 'lug'.
But there was no Kakei to twist his lips with his secretive beam. Saiga can't flash up any of his perverted grins because his presence was absent. Kazahaya walked out the store a good few hours ago, so any chances of hearing a few obscenities is a flat zero.
The store was bare of any living being except for Rikou.
How lonely…
He'd give anything to hear someone shout anything in his ear.
---Daily use of drugs may cause poisoning—
"What did you see?" smoke curled up in the air as he took a deep drag from his cigarette.
"The Sakura Star"
"Is he alone?"
"No, he's not"
"He has company? A victim then"
"If he was, then he should've been dead…"
A pause, he was thinking for words, "I'll bet it's that boy, the Sumeragi head"
Saiga raised his brows when Kakei looked at him, he was wrong again.
"If not the onmyouji, then who?" a bit annoyed at the fact that he hasn't been hitting the striking zones.
"Kazahaya"
Saiga could've swallowed his cigarette but he didn't; he kept his cool. If Kakei isn't panicking, then he shouldn't.
"Aren't we supposed to be… panicky or something?"
"Don't feel like it" Kakei smiled, "And I don't like getting jumpy, it's not me"
"Ah" another smoke forms the air and Saiga could clearly see the shape of an elephant… or was it a goose? He wanted to take his dark glasses off and looked a bit closer- now it looked like a rabbit- but decided against the thought.
It didn't really matter anyway. Puff, now it looks like a deformed dragon.
"Shouldn't Rikou go and fetch him?"
"No, there's no need for that"
"What makes you say that?"
"I'll tell you… some other time, 'til then you can go on guessing what animals the puff from your smoke makes" Looks more like a cross between a parrot and donkey, Kakei added thoughtfully.
Kakei exited.
"Sadist"
Was that Waldo?
Saiga looked at his cigarettes and decided he'll finish the pack later. He stubbed the one he was having.
A/N: Okay, I'm stopping. This is getting stupid. But it made me happy though. LOL
Actually, book is real and its cover is orange and yellow. I'll give anyone a cookie if you can guess what the title is! I just want to thanks the nice people who review me! Especially T.N. and Kiwi! Kag si Rachel! Gin basa mo gali?