the.astronomer
by liahime, a short ryuki tale.
bacchus.04
If it was a drink, it would be a strong one.
If love was bottled and sold, it would fly off the shelves and it would never be opened up. People were simply not brave enough to try it- because love went two ways. Like fine wine, it was beautiful, grew better with age, left you with a pleasant buzz for a long time.
But in the end, it leaves you with a hangover, your liver dying and your head cracking open in the morning when reality comes back into play.
The two in the bar did not look at each other, did not acknowledge anyone but the bottles they were emptying slowly, tiny glass by glass. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the classier side of the smoky place's alcohol spectrum were being downed, shot by shot by tiny glass shot.
Holding alcohol wasn't a problem when the money was flowing in, so the bar keeper poured one more glass for the young woman with the flame red hair, no matter how red her face was getting.
The other classy wallet on the west side looked up at him, his blue eyes blurred.
Stupid rich doctor's brat, he's going to get himself mugged as soon as he leaves. The barkeeper looked at him politely. "Sir?"
"Tell her not to drink so much."
"Who, sir?" He knew exactly who the boy was talking about, but with the drunk it was better to keep them talking long enough for their throat to feel dry enough for just one more cup, one more tip.
"That girl. The one with the hair."
Polishing a vintage beer bottle, the barkeeper looked at her, sitting still and cold among all the thrashing young life a few feet away. She really was drunk, her head drooping, hair matching the shade of her cheeks.
"She's a paying customer."
"Of course she is," the doctor's brat slurred, "she always finishes things. Always. I'll pay for the next bottle she'll have. Just don't give it to her."
"That's not possible-"
"Do it."
"With all respect sir, may I ask why-"
The brat looked at him, and for a moment his blue eyes unblurred, focusing. "She's not the one who's supposed to be sad."
If it was a sad song, it would be a long one.
The wine bottle was ordered, and delivered.
Full and sloshing.
Uncorking it, the red haired girl let the clear liquid pour into her cup. She raised her cup, and tilted her head back, letting the coldness flow down her throat-
And promptly spat it right out onto the table.
"Is this milk?!"
"Oh, my mistake, miss."
"I order a pint of Noir, and you get me a milk?" Her voice wasn't slurred for one who had been drinking so long. It was crisp, biting, the raw edge standing out like a ridge on an angry cat's back. "Throw this away."
"With all respect, miss, it was the gentleman over there who ordered it for you." He waved a hand at the left side of the bar table. "Him, over there. I can fill his next bottle with juice, if you'd like to pay for the revenge." Sniffing an opening for some extra cash in this pretty young rich girl and the stupid rich son on the other side of the room, he smiled. "I'll give you a discount."
"No," she said, her voice's ridge settling back down, "he's had enough."
"Enough, miss?"
"Yes," she said, a queen who had been contradicted by a peasant. "He has had enough."
The half-priced opening band for the night had wrapped up their last college rager song, the head banging and the wild thrashing and convolutions had slowed down. The microphones screeched to a halt, the drums crashed with a bang like kitchen pots falling from the counter, complete with the high pitched screams of an enthusiastic musician or two.
"And now folks, we're going to go slow—"
"Get me a beer," the flame haired girl said to him, letting her head fall to the counter. "Get me a beer now."
"Miss, if there's a health problem, I'm bound by law not to serve you-"
"I have a cardiac fracture," she said, "but that is all, and it's not important. Get me a beer."
The barkeeper, like all wise providers of alcohol to those who drowned things out, stayed silent and handed her a cold beer from the ice chest, suddenly fascinated with the plastic wine rack behind him.
Sometimes, it is best to shut up when the slow songs started to play.
The guitars strummed, the singer crooned into a static filled microphone. Couples gravitated to the floor, attached themselves together as if they were puzzle pieces finally finding their matching piece. Offtune and cracked, the words began to fill the air, thicken the sticky air with a tiny hint of sweetness.
"If the sun should refuse to rise-- And the moon doesn't hang in the night-"
She was staring, at everywhere and anywhere but him. The left side of the bar didn't exist. And if she had her way, neither did her ears, neither did the stupid sappy song and the pairs that used it for a chance to make out and lock lips and share saliva.
Because love is only beautiful to those that are already in it.
"Love is sweet misery-"
The beer joined the half bottle of expensive wine, all puddled up onto the floor around the stool, like dark blood dripping from a fracture of the cardiac heart. She didn't need any more buzzing- as if the thoughts in her head weren't enough of it already- as if the problems that were ricocheting off each other weren't too much for her to handle, even without a half drowned sense of sanity She simply needed something to do, something for her hands while the rest of her drowned in confusion.
Where to go, where to stay, what to do with herself after what she had had was all broken, all the awkward romance they had cobbled together for a few seconds one crazy night- and how to erase it all as fast as she could.
The band on stage got into an argument about the next verse, bickering as the drummer made a colossal attempt to drown out the sound and hide it into a makeshift drum solo, constant quarter notes banging like a military march as he ran out of ideas.
Maybe, she wondered, that was it. A drum solo to hide her escape. Something chaotic, something big enough that he'd be thrown off for at least for a few moments.
Head still down, hair spilling over the dim wood, she began to plot.
If it was a color, it would be deep, deep blue.
He was watching her, and knew she saw him as she stiffened and snapped.
He always had, she always had. It was one given in this chaos.
He wasn't sure who was supposed to be in love, wasn't sure who was supposed to have their heart broken, and how many times. Keeping score was beyond him. She was supposed to be happy, his heart broken quietly without anyone ever knowing. Plus one, her. Minus, him. Score, zero.
But he had messed it all up that night, in between dying stars and daylight.
He had never been much use at games that required thinking, after all. His excuse- he was a guy, honestly. At the point of his life where hormones took first control, his brain wasn't fully developed; there was the eternal use of immaturity to blame his rash actions on.
However, the wine in him mused, it was a game that required two people. And she had participated just as much as he did. So what if it lasted an hour, stuck in the fading dark blue, when she had lost all her careful safe guards with lack of sleep, lack of caffeine, way too much work than should be expected for a senior girl with a clear scholarship to the college of her choice. She had been there too, and when he had kissed her the night coming back from the restaurant, she had kissed him back.
The smug wine nodded, rocking back and forth on his pain and pushing its knees in. Of course it was right. He should be confident.
The band was screaming, the drums were rolling and rolling on, and he couldn't help wincing. He knew how she felt about loud noises, how they unnerved her and threw her off balance and the unshakeable sanity and clarity and all the maturity she had. Loud noises were chaos, they broke off her cycle of thought, made her not panic, but to stand on edge, like a cat in the presence of a supposedly tame dog- it could, at any moment, turn on her. The girl slumped over, her ears buried in a wave of hair.
She had always really hated loud chaotic things.
After all, he was one.
Ah, it was his fault, okay?! He'd just admit it now and get it all over with.
So couldn't he enjoy the memory if he wanted to, in peace for once? Without all this stupid guilt?
Looking at the girl slumped over, her wine a small sea underneath her feet, he knew that it was impossible. He could send her all the milk he wanted to, get her to an AA meeting, but he'd still feel guilty.
Because he couldn't help wanting another night in front of her house, late night in the deep blue while the stars were dying.
The boy always got what he wanted, in some way or another. And if he didn't, then he lived his motto- just try again until you get it in some way, legal or illegal.
And because of this, he wasn't going to stop and let her go.
She was sitting up straight, knowing a vague shadow of what she was going to do, an idea approaching her on the horizon.
The young woman stared forward, head proud and aligned, seemingly not drunk at all but for her sway and burnt face. She was looking at everyone, everything, all but the left side of the bar. She went first, her face still red as she fumbled with her cell phone, calling a hired car. He watched her leave, waited for her to weave her way through the crowd. Her hair was a memory of a candle in the electric lights- soft and bright and calming as it ducked and staggered unsteadily through the mass of impatient couples waiting for a love song.
A dark faced, ruddy sophomore draining an overflowing beer stared after her happily. Slapping his hand onto the counter, he grinned comradely at the quiet drinking man next to him. "Bet you next drink that I can get her into my car. What do you say, huh?" He winked knowingly. "Bet you that a cute thing like her wouldn't put up a fight at all."
The quiet man with the blue eye's was standing. His back was straight, his slur slowing, his wine not yet empty, but like him, slightly hollow inside, despite appearances. Not having a purpose anymore will do that to things, draining a bit of depth from their shadows, making them a bit smaller inside. He stared down at the sophomore, a man without a purpose, just a wine bottle, just a common drunk that would bet on a random girl's morality and a drunk's force.
But if we're talking about heartache, it would be you.
"You're wrong."
The wine bottle went up, came down with a crash and a howl.
Ryo Akiyama left the bar, the bottle lay in pieces.
At least one of them had found a purpose tonight.
Angy- thank you! High school can really get horrible sometimes. But I'll try to scrape through with this!
Ao-Senshi- First of all, thank you for the compliment! I've been seeing your names in the review lists and reading your stuff since I was just starting, and the review I got in the early stages of Thorns helped me turn the story around into the right direction. Please criticize my work so I can get better! If I go OOC, please catch me…It really is an honor to be told I've gotten better at writing!
asn water- Thank you very much! I'm not quite sure myself where the story's going yet. It'll probably end up crazily out of what I planned, just like everything else I write. Hopefully it won't be too bad though!
misanu- Ah, no, go do your homework! I can always make up a star and pretend it's somewhere. (And I'm sure bacchus is a star somewhere out in the universe..) Thank you!
LoneWolf and Hiei- I'll try to make longer updates! Glad you liked this. Thank you very much!
Kari Minamoto- Plot is coming, I swear. It's taking me such a long time because I want to establish things first, so readers won't get so confused, which is a mistake I've made in the past. Thank you very much for the review!
authoress note.
Yes, I suck for taking so long. I'm juggling everything right now, and I'm being lazy and uninspired. So I apologize.
Not having watched Digimon of any season since sixth grade kind of slows me down too. So if I'm OOC, please tell me right away! I really need to rewatch things on youtube. The only thing that keeps me writing is loving ryuki, and I guess you could call it a payback, in a way. If I hadn't written ryuki, I wouldn't have started writing in the first place.
I apologize, since the chapter updates will be erratic and slow. I'm tired, and writing like this is hard to do for me because I've never written ryuki like this. (By the way, this chapter is entirely flashback, for clarification..) But I still adore all the reviews popping up in my inbox! They flatter me waay more than I deserve for this kind of writing, really. My head will get too big! Please criticize and catch me when I get OOC, everyone!
Thank you, readers!