Author's Note: Yuzuriha needs a hand puppet dressed like Robin. That's all I'm saying.
Actually no it's not. I have good news and bad news. The bad news first: I want to apologize in advance because it is probably going to take me a long time to upload the next chapter. ^^;;; School starts tomorrow and things are gonna be busy... The good news however!: The chapter is going to be... noticeably longer than usual soooo look forward to it! :D
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, I present Chapter 15: In Which Sakura makes a cameo!
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"Sora-chan!" Yuzuriha bounded up the steps two at a time as she caught sight of her cousin's distinctive yellow jacket. He glanced over his shoulder in search of the source of the sound and upon seeing her, raised a hand to wave hello.
"Um? What's that?" Yuzuriha asked, pointing at his hand.
"Hm? Oh this?" He nodded at the puppet covering his hand. "It's for the play our class is doing for the school arts festival- I told you about it remember?"
"Yeah I know but why does it look exactly like you… except in a batman costume?" Yuzuriha bent closer, examining the comically fierce expression sewn into the felt face.
"The play is about what all us students would be like as superheros!"
"Cool! Is that why you were practicing saying 'I'm Sorata' in that scary voice over and over again?"
"Yeah! You should really come see it between waitressing at your class's little dessert café thing!"
"Of course I will, you know I wouldn't want to miss your big theatrical debut!"
"Oho but it's not my big theatrical debut you know." Sorata puffed up his chest. "I was the second lobster in our 1st grade rendition of the nativity story!"
"There's a lobster in the story?"
"Two of them."
"I see."
"And a herring too."
"What's a nativity story without one?"
"Do you think any of the readers are getting this reference?"
"FOURTH WALL SORATA!"
"Right, right, sorry."
"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I was staying after school this afternoon to work on signs for the festival."
"Oh well that's cool, I'm staying after to practice anyway so wanna come by when you're done and we can still walk home together?"
"Sure!"
Sorata ruffled her hair with the felt puppet's hand. "See you later then kiddo."
She returned to her classroom and settled on the floor with a box of markers, some glitter glue, and some poster boards and quickly became absorbed in her work. She was determined to get people's attention for their café.
Meanwhile, other students were gathered around, looking up recipes, debating which ones they could feasibly use, calculating costs of ingredients, and generally goofing off as teenagers are wont to do when unsupervised. As such, no one else noticed when a young man with narrow eyes and a sincere smile knocked on the door with a fuzzy black pile heaped in his arms.
"Hi! Can I help you?" Yuzuriha asked, sitting up and dusting some of the glitter off her clothes.
"We have costumes for you!" Another girl called from behind the boy who had just walked, carrying an identical pile.
"Costumes?"
"Yeah, someone commissioned my best friend to make them for you guys for your café apparently." The girl replied brightly. "She's really good at this kind of stuff so she was really happy to do it."
Yuzuriha pulled a costume off of the top of the pile and held up. She laughed when she realized what it was. "Neko costumes?"
"Yeah! She said she was inspired by the title 'Cat's Eye Café' and just had to do them."
"They're great! Tell your friend thank you!" Yuzuriha replied, taking some of them out of the girl's arms and laying them on a nearby table. "You should come by and see us during the festival- I'll make sure you guys get free drinks or something for bringing us the costumes!"
"Really? You don't have to do that!" The girl quickly protested.
"Oh but I want to- it's the least I can do!" Yuzuriha took the other pile. "What are your names so I'll remember?"
"I'm Sakura Kinomoto." The girl answered shyly.
"Can I call you Sakura-chan?"
"Sure."
"That's great! Let's be friends Sakura-chan!" Yuzuriha grinned.
"Hey what about me?" the boy asked teasingly.
"We should be friends too! What's your name?" she asked, turning to him.
"I'm Yamazaki."
"Cool! Well thank you both again for brining the cat costumes!"
"You know they're a cover right?" The boy asked suddenly.
"Huh?" The two girls quipped together.
"Well you know the anime stereotype of the cat-girl?"
Yuzuriha nodded. Sorata loved anime of pretty much all kinds and Yuzuriha loved watching them with him just for his energetic commentary.
"Well you know, that kind of cosplay came about many centuries ago when the real cat people came from the planet Caton. They had trouble getting people to understand their ways because they didn't speak Japanese you see, they only spoke Catonese."
"I thought that was a dialect of Chinese." Sakura interrupted, puzzled.
"No you're thinking of Orange."
Yuzuriha giggled.
"What?" Sakura looked even more confused but Yamazaki continued his story regardless.
"So they got into the anime scene because well, anime defies words and even intergalactic aliens could see that. They quickly convinced people that they were just dressing up as cat-humans and so can now live peacefully among us, pretending to be avid cosplayers."
"How do you know if someone is really a cat person or just cosplaying?" Sakura inquired nervously.
"You can never know for sure." Yamazaki answered her very seriously.
Yuzuriha stifled another giggle at the girl's terrified expression.
"Hey! Are the signs done yet?" Someone called across the room.
"Oh- almost!" Yuzuriha yelled back before turning back to the visitors. "Sorry guys- I need to finish these. But thank you guys, I'll see you at the festival."
"Oh wait- before we go, what's your name?" Sakura stopped her momentarily.
"Yuzuriha… Yuzuriha Nekoi."
The boy's eyes widened (to about a normal width for once). "I see." He said knowingly. "You're descended from them aren't you. Have you had the ears removed or were you born without them?"
"Born without them. I have human blood as well on my mother's side." She answered, doing her best to keep a straight face as Sakura's jaw dropped.
"Well then, Ms. Nekoi, I look forward to seeing you in the garb of your natural heritage." The two waved goodbye as they left the classroom, leaving Yuzuriha to settle back on the floor with her markers.
He's a lot like Sorata. Yuzuriha thought with a smile and wondered if he had anyone to be his partner at the dance that was supposed to take place at the end of the festival.
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"Were you lonely?"
Hm. An interesting thought.
Seishirou rested an arm on the familiar railing surrounding the hospital roof and suddenly wished he had a cigarette even though he didn't smoke.
He didn't miss her, really, but he did wonder where the question had come from. He had his suspicions of course, but he couldn't broach the subject just yet.
Still, interesting.
He returned to the ER, taking up his scalpel again.
He never really looked at people's faces; there was no need, unless that was where they had been injured. Even in that case though, he was so focused on whatever specific part of the face was currently gushing blood or sporting a nail or some other foreign and invasive object that he didn't really see what they looked like. When he thought of people he imagined anatomy. He knew every bone in the human body, every muscle, the spiderweb of veins and arteries snaking through them, the layers of skin carefully protecting and hiding all of this as if it were some secret to be locked away. It was funny, he sometimes thought, that some people thought so negatively of the idea of hiding one's heart when doing so was necessary to even survive.
The body on the table at the moment was motionless. They usually were, and on the off chance that they weren't they were struggling, animal instinct taking over and prompting them with fear and pain to select fight or flight or possibly some interesting combination. The only difference really between humans and a rather complex doll was the various chemicals playing with their brains. He might have compared the chemicals to tiny controllers but that gave them too much credit he felt. It wasn't as if any of it was intentional or really purposeful. It was convenient though how predictable they rendered humans.
He recalled hearing once the notion that "the whole was greater than the sum of the parts". He found it ridiculous. The only reason anyone believed it, he thought, was because they weren't accounting for a few parts. The whole was exactly equal to the sum of the parts and in his mind all the little parts that made people up, their physical parts, their chemistry, their environmental influences, their emotional buttons, they were all carefully labeled and filed away neatly to be recalled when necessary at any given moment.
Some might have called his mannerisms obsessive compulsive, he reflected as he scrubbed the soap suds off of his hands. But there was an element of self-control to it that those with true obsessive compulsive disorder lacked. He did not have to wash his hands. He did not have to leave at precisely 5:15 pm. He did not have to take the same route home. It was merely convenient.
Although no one was challenging him, he proved the point by taking a side trip into a green pharmacy and picking up a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He wasn't going to smoke them. He knew exactly what smoke did to the lungs in minute detail and neither the need nor desire to mimic the millions of patients world-wide facing cancer, emphysema, and the like. He simply liked the feeling of a pack of cigarettes in his pocket.
When he opened the apartment door he caught sight of Subaru sitting on the couch alone, sipping tea.
"Is that my shirt?" Seishirou asked with a raised eyebrow, locking the door behind him.
Subaru glanced up at him over the cup with half-lidded eyes. "Yes."
Seishirou grinned into the coat closet as he hung up his jacket. "What's the occasion, if I may ask?"
The younger man shrugged, the too-loose material giving a quiet rustle of nonchalance as he did so. "Kamui is staying the night at the Aoki's to watch the kids."
Seishirou wondered if that was the answer or just additional information.
People were so predictably usually, so easy to read. He stared at the young man on the couch, reflecting that at least the claim that there was an exception to every rule seemed to be accurate.
He began to loosen his tie but Subaru quickly rose from the couch and, leaving his tea behind on the coffee table, pulled his hands away from it, replacing them with his own. Rather than taking the tie off however, Subaru used it to pull Seishirou down by his neck so that he could leave a lingering and possessive kiss on his lips. When he pulled back he was wearing an expression Seishirou had rarely seen.
People were usually so boring, their movements so easy to anticipate.
Subaru gripped the tie a little tighter and took a step backwards, leading Seishirou firmly into the bedroom.
But there was one person who could still take him by surprise.
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Sorata lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. At first he had thought that Arashi's awkwardness whenever they ran lines together was because she had been forced to play catwoman in the puppet show. Tight leather didn't seem to really be her thing, even in puppet form. Although it might suit her in person better…
He indulged in that mental image for a moment before feeling a little guilty and perverted. He flipped over to his stomach with a groan and pulled the pillow over his head to block out the image and returned to his previous thoughts.
He was pretty sure it wasn't just the puppet's outfit that was getting to her at this point. She had inexplicably gotten much quieter and shier than usual around him after she returned from ill. Not that anyone else believed him about this. When he asked his classmates if it seemed that way they just gave him strange looks and when he told Yuzuriha she asked how he could tell, considering how little Arashi spoke to him in the first place.
But he could tell a difference, he was sure of it. Sorata poked the mattress with a frown and a sigh before wriggling over to his side. There was something different about the way she acted around him and it seemed like she was nervous for some reason. But why? Was it something he said? Something he did? Was she really that tired of him always confessing his love for her?
He flopped over to his back, arms and legs splayed across the now entangled sheets. Maybe it was time to leave her alone, he considered.
Except…
Except he would really miss her. He hadn't thought much about what life would be like without her around but now that he tried to imagine leaving Arashi to her own business, the future looked incredibly dismal at best. He had friends, and Yuzuriha and had even been asked out on occasion before. It wasn't like he wouldn't have anyone else in his life. So he wondered why a life without Arashi sounded so… empty.
He curled back up on his side, clutching the pillow. But if it was what she wanted… He heaved another sigh.
"When you love someone, you've got to let them go." He remembered overhearing that for the first time several years ago when his parents died. He knew now that the expression had to do with letting someone out of a romantic relationship but at the time he hadn't known that and it had had a profound impact on him. He didn't want to tie anyone down; at the time he didn't want to make his parents become ghosts or not be able to move on because of him and so, as the expression went, he let them go. It was the hardest thing he had ever done at the time.
He wondered if it would be as easy this time.
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It was strange really. He remembered that first day when Hokuto had dragged Subaru into the clinic with a gash down his arm from falling out of a tree. Subaru had sheepishly explained that he had only been trying to rescue a little girl's cat. That part wasn't so surprising, he seemed like the type who had been taught that helping others was important and took readily to that theory. The part he didn't understand came when Hokuto began berating him for hiding the injury for the past hour or so. Subaru explained insistently that he hadn't wanted to "be a bother". Allowing an injury like this to go untended, even as the boy turned pale from loss of blood, just because he didn't want to take up anyone else's time seemed ridiculously altruistic to Seishirou.
He had quickly discovered that that was simply in Subaru's nature though, as the boy returned to the clinic on numerous occasions with other injuries. Seishirou tended them all without directly commenting on their causes, wondering how the boy could stand being taken advantage of as much as he was. He took it first for a lack of self-respect and wondered about his family situation.
It was a long time before he discovered that it wasn't that Subaru did not have respect for himself, but rather that he had more for others.
The younger man gave a soft sigh in his sleep and snuggled a little closer, Seishirou's shirt still cover his arms although the front had long since been opened.
Seishirou had thought he understood the boy after that but quickly learned that he was more complicated than Seishirou had given him credit for. He never would have expected him to have such a talent for martial arts for one thing, but that time the three of them had been jumped on their way back from karaoke and a man had held Seishirou at gunpoint, Subaru had very quickly dispatched of them. It was rather amusing actually as Seishirou himself could have more than easily taken care of it. But the fear of losing him had apparently struck some sort of unexpected nerve in Subaru.
Seishirou chuckled quietly to himself at the memory, jarring Subaru slightly. The young man's eyelids fluttered sleepily then settled closed with his lashes lying against his cheeks once again. He wriggled slightly though and Seishirou watched him at first with curiosity then with comprehension as Subaru wormed his way out of the shirt and shoved it off the bed before settling back in at Seishirou's side.
He chuckled again and wrapped an arm around Subaru. Seishirou wasn't the sort of person who needed to the protection of others; he was quite capable of taking care of himself. He neither need nor wanted to be provided for and he hated the idea of belonging to anyone.
Most of all, what it came down to was a need for control. He simply could not stand not being in control of his own life at the very least and was accustomed to being in control of the lives of others as they lay trustingly on his operating table. It may have been a kind of god complex but he was nonetheless reluctant at best to give it up.
He had always been like that too. When his mother died it was almost a relief in some ways because he was no longer subject to her whims and could do whatever he wanted, eat whatever he wanted, go to bed when he wanted, etc. Perhaps it was callous to think that way but having total control over his life was soothing and he never wanted to relinquish that feeling.
At least he had thought he didn't. Then again, as he had observed earlier, there were exceptions to every rule.
And after all, it wasn't often Subaru wanted to be on top.
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A/N: And you probably thought those handcuffs Hokuto mentionned earlier were for Subaru didn't you? ^_~
So why did Yuzuriha and Sorata randomly break the fourth wall there? Because it's late and I dunno. I felt like it. XD
And why did Sakura show up? Well see above plus she's Sakura... CLAMP's sort of main character of everything... I HAD to put her in here somewhere.
Also- okay so I'm curious now. XD Show of hands: who recognized the lobster thing?
And while I'm asking questions- who remembers Yamazaki from Cardcaptor Sakura? Because I kind of thought he was awesome. XD One of the best minor characters ever.
P.S. And you wanna know what the major inspiration for that Subaru/Seishirou scene was?
"I'ma get your heart racing in my skin-tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight. Let you put your hands on me in my skin-tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight."
Oh yes. Just imagine Subaru saying that to Seishirou. I can't decide if it's hot or hilarious. XD
EDIT: Soooo I'm currently working on a side story, one-shot type deal about how that shirt code developed. It won't appear in this story however as it's going to have more explicit content and I want to keep the rating to a T here, so if you are interested, you'll have to watch my profile page or check the M-rated stories.