Urban theory; chapter 11 Accepting facts

Tatsumaru had left home at Saturday evening to meet Rikimaru, Jin and Dan as he had already gotten snapped by Hitoha, his roommate. Jin had snapped to Tatsumaru and he himself had snapped to Rikimaru. He went home and the evening continued the same as his roommate snapped at him. Tatsumaru was fed up snapping back and finally he got bored of all the snapping and left banging the door shut. He wasn't sure where had he exactly spent the whole night, but he was sure he had spend it alone and still snapping to himself. Now it was Sunday evening. The day he had spent on the couch in Rikimaru's and Ayame's apartment. He could walk straight to a bar, because he still got his bar clothes on and for second he thought had nothing else to do now that Hitoha was in his aunt's funeral.

He decided to walk home no matter that all that awaited him there was the blue emptiness of an apartment building. He should find maybe another roommate. Someone not cute and cuddly who resembled a puppy dog sometimes, preferably not male and not a crazy female person like his cousin. Was he asking too much of the world?

He could already see the house, it wasn't a long way anymore and in no time he was at his door, he thought. For an unknown reason Tatsumaru didn't feel comfortable going into his own home. Did he feel guilty, yes. He was older, okay much older, than Hitoha. He was beginning to think that maybe he really was all those things the other had said to him, calculative user among them. Tatsumaru hated those people he now was referred to.

They had used him but had they also made him to act like he was acting now, irresponsible and selfish. But of course he would have not acted if the other hadn't made the first move or maybe that was just it. Maybe he should have just said no and told him it was wrong.

Tatsumaru looked at the stairs but never stopped his walk. He almost ran the steps up, afraid the steps would disappear if he would slow down or stop. Despite he stood at his door stopped by his thoughts and half he wanted to know if the apartment was empty, like he thought it would be. How was it wrong, he questioned. Was it a learned reaction from his father? Or was it what he really thought? Or was it what Rikimaru had told him about his last evening? The ugliness of this world seemed to amaze him time after time.

It was wrong, because Hitoha was lost, looking for answers, over eight years younger and alone in a big city. It wasn't wrong for Hitoha to want him or think he might have want him, daub the boy knew even himself, but what was wrong was that Tatsumaru had want him and still did. When he thought about Hitoha he realized that. He should have been the wiser, older and become conscious of what would it all lead to. So the whole mess was his fault, Tatsumaru sighted accepting.

He woke up realizing he still was behind the door. How long had he stood there? A little shamed of him self, Tatsumaru looked over his shoulder before stepping in. It was dark in the apartment. He didn't put on the lights. He usually never did when he was feeling down. It was like having more room to think when the emptiness of the darkness rounded him or then it was just the easiness of not seeing too much. He liked his lips and swallowed before he managed a frail voice. "…Hitoha?" No answer came to him as his eyes were beginning to get used to the darkness.

Hitoha's shoes weren't there.

Now it felt even more empty, the house, the apartment, his heart. Why had he called Hitoha's name, they were in still hostile and he should not care to speak to him. But he did want to say he was sorry and put all the pieces back together again, if not to help his guilty conscious, but at least to make the boy feel better.

While he moved silently to the bathroom he thought to check were Hitoha's things still at their places in the closet or was the other planning to move out completely. He was surprised of how happy he felt that all was in order or not but at their usual places. He brushed his teeth remembering well in the darkness were everything he used was. He changed for a pyjama and went to bed.

Hitoha's aunt was buried today, Tatsumaru thought, looking at the ceiling above his head. Thinking about Hitoha's family got him thinking of his own. Ayame was still the only one who knew the truth about him. The horrible, ugly, condition that some man suffered because of a brain dysfunction, like his dad had told him what they meant about gay man. Tatsumaru usually called home once a month to be sure his parents were okay. They just kept asking him if he had already meat a nice girl and when he would bring her to show at home.

He looked at the clock and by a quick math he thought it was already morning in where his childhood home and parents were still. He rose up as he could get the thought out of his head. The phone was in a reach of a hand and he grabbed it dealing a familiar number. The phone rand only a one time as an old female voice answered cheerfully. She had always been a morning person.

"…Hi mom…"

---

Jin woke up in his bed that was actually a mattress on the floor. Pare, warm skin stick against his. The sun of a Monday warmed the bed nicely. The morning had come way too soon, he shouldn't have fallen a sleep, he wanted to make the most of it and pulled the other one closer, nuzzling his face to his chest not really wanting to look at his face to know was he awake or not. He should really get up and make breakfast.

Jin thought he was still in deep sleep as he didn't react in anyway, except mumbling something and sleeping some more. Jin smiled thinking that he just might have understood what that was and petted Dan's golden locks.

Jin got up under the planked careful not to pull it away from Dan, who only took a better position on the mattress as he now had the room for it. Jin looked at him smiling sadly before tearing himself to the kitchen that actually was in the same room just a bit further and separated by a table. Jin had nearly gotten away and turned his back as Dan dissuaded to roll on his back and rubbed his eyes waking up. Jin seemed surprised but said. "…Morning to you too…slept well in my bed…?"

"…Oh God…" He rose up to sit. "…What a feeling…" He held his head and it took a more than a moment for him to absorb Jin's words.

Jin sat down on a small living room table and waited. Dan started looking around him, narrowing his eyes. "…Jin?"

"Yes…?"

"Is this your apartment?"

Jin had to laugh, but not his usual happy laugh, this was more tired than that. "Yes, Dear… You drank too much, like Rikimaru the night before… wonder if he has managed to get up from the bed yet…?" Jin said looking smug drinking his apple juice.

Dan could get now his both eyes open at the same time and looked over at the bed and where his clothes were. He didn't spot them so he searched them on him self and he noticed there were only nothing. Dan looked worried over to Jin who seemed pored or tired or both and before the other could ask Jin said. "No, we didn't slept together… not like that. You just danced naked all the way up the top floor where I live…"

Dan pulled the planked upper acting shy. "…Ou?"

"…Maybe you and Rikimaru could go together to AA, huh? That would be fun?" Jin waked a crazy smile.

Dan didn't look at all amused. Jin could tell that now he really was ashamed of his behaviour or maybe it was because he was sitting on the floor only a thin bedspread to cover him self with.

"…Here…" Jin took a pile of clothes behind him and threw them over to him. "I'll be in the kitchen… Thought, you don't have anything I wouldn't have seen yesterday, babe…"

Dan started dressing up as Jin had disappeared. He leaned against the freezer door and drank his juice. This morning had just turned to sad.

Dan came to the corner and leaned the wall keeping his eyes almost closed. He didn't even notice how in thought his friend was. "…Remind me… never to go in a bar twice in a weekend…"

Jin looked at him in pity, but wouldn't get over tending because it was Dan's own fault if he felt bad.

"Shit head…"

---

Ayame drawled into the corridor to get the morning paper. She wasn't in a hurry because she had been doing extra hours and now dared to be away from work whole five hours before the lunch. It was Monday and her Sunday hadn't been at all what she'd expected it to be; lying in bubble path the whole day, but still she felt her self happier than usually. Had someone put something in her coffee?

It still was the Monday morning no doubt about that as she rubbed the sleep of her eyes and picked up the paper. She focused her eyes to the headlines…

"Oh my God!!"

After a minute Rikimaru stumbled up from his bed, eyes forced to be half open. "…What?! …Where's the fire…?" He yawned it out very concerned. If her scream didn't wake him up the sight sure did. "…Ayame…?!"

She was wearing the jacket Rikimaru had left on the bench next to the door. She twirled around happily like a little girl who just got her first black, leather jacket. She made a gangster pose crossing her arms and made different faces. "…Wow… How can you afford these things… You still haven't paid the rent, that's how…"

Rikimaru didn't get what was so special about one jacket. "…It's not mine… Actually I though to run burning a car over it…" He walked back to his room. "…Can I borrow yours…?"

It was a shame that Rikimaru didn't see her gaping air like a fish on a try land. "…W-who's it then?" She walked to his door still holding on the jacket. Rikimaru looked over her and thought would the piece of cloth look as good on someone else.

"Its… -his-…"

"…Why do you have his…?"

Rikimaru felt it very difficult to explain these things so early in the morning. "…Because… I lost my own and he insisted I borrow his because it was ice age outside… I should bring it back to him today, but…" He grinned viciously.

"Okay… I take back every bad thing I ever said about him…" She said and went back in front of an mirror, continuing from where she'd left before, posing. Rikimaru was a bit confused now and followed her. It was his turn to gape for air as he didn't know what to ask.

"…So, if you're not going to return it… which would be harsh… for me and, yes for him… can I keep it?"

"…What's so special about one jacket?"

Ayame was walking on her tip toes and humming some happy melody.

"…Aya..?!"

"Oh come on Rikimaru… You really are one strange gay man, when you don't recognise a brand name product even as it practically walked on you…"

So it was a mark product, so what he thought. "Looks a plain ordinary leather jacket to me…" Well it was nice to wear and looked like a piece of gold.

"…Of course the money -doesn't- matter, but… But this is like giving your house keys to someone, Rikimaru… And it's not just the price that makes these so cool… handmade, real leather and the finest wool, very enduring… God…" She couldn't continue as Rikimaru thought already that she could talk about this one jacket the whole day.

"…So? How much money precisely are we talking about here?"

She thought it a moment, but sounded very sure of herself as she said it. "…Last time I checked… About twenty… thousand…"

"Twenty thousand for a jacket?!"

"Yep… Only about sixteen if it is an old buy…" She continued to marvel it.

Rikimaru went all pale as he remembered all his thoughts of what to do with it in the morning.

"…But I don't think it's old… only a month… I'd say…"

The slightest thing he had thought was probably stabbing it with a knife or just cutting off the pockets or…

"Hey, Rikimaru…? You seem pale?"

"…Huh? …Y-You wanna… t-take that off?"

Ayame looked disappointed, but then looked over to him like crown up, knowing that he would do the right thing and return it. "…You gona return it?"

He put the jacket carefully in a hanger and said with his voice of –of-course-I-will-you-think-I'm-insane-. "Sure I will…! If I still wanna live…"

Ayame walked into the kitchen remembering the paper. "You wanna know what I think…? Well I tell it anyways…" She waited for him to come to the kitchen.

"What…?" He sneered getting over the greatest shock and then realizing that he would have to see him again. Unless he would broke in unnoticed. Return the cursed mark leather jacket like a shadow, moving silently like a snake and returning like a …whatever… where did that come from…?

"…He wouldn't send the bloodhound after you, if you wouldn't return it…?"

"Ayame… You can't have it…"

"Oh shut up, I'm not talking about me for once here… listen… So he apologizes, yes? And you tell him to stuff something in somewhere, like you usually do when you let that lovely side of you show…"

"Give me some of that coffee so can take you yapping…"

"…You leaving and oh, there's so cold and rainy outside…"

"What's with the drama, Romeo?" He laughed pouring some milk in his cup.

"…He sacrifices his beautiful rose to help you… and asks you only a one thing… To return it to him…if you dare to come see him again… Well anyways, my point is…" She got her normal voice back. "…You didn't forgive him and you two will probably never ever meet again, so he makes you to come back with this jacket, to make it easier for you to, you know, come back wiser and rested and maybe not tell him to stuff things again… But, if you won't return it, he has still made something for your good, as financially… Anyways my point… yes..! You have already forgiven him, only now you need to make a choice will it be a, Fuck you, I hate you, gave the jacket to my lovely roommate… and… I'm so petty and childish and I can't deal with this… b, I'm a crown up, you are maybe not, take the jacket, I don't care a shit about you… oh and there is a c, its kinda like the b but with an less cursing and plus one thank you… Got my point…?"

Rikimaru leaned his forehead over the kitchen table. "…You mean I should go with the C?"

"Hell no..! A is the best, I think… Come on now… He saved your ass, didn't he? Where were you friends, Jin, Dan and Tatsu? No talk about me… I was beating up an old man…" She crabbed Rikimaru's hair and lifts his face up. "…You are not perfect you're self… You could at least thank him… Because… trust me when I tell you… That man really regrets and… and… maybe, yes, wants to get in to your pants, again, but who of as wouldn't, cheesecake…" She smiled widely and petted him behind his ear.

---

Oni held his phone and waited someone to answer. Every second was torment, but finally a female voice answered. "…Hello?"

"You avoiding me, Kagami…?" He waited a long time before she answered.

"…Well what would you think smartarse?" She sighted as she didn't have the strength to think of anything else to say. "…You stalking me?"

"…Why would you say so?"

"…You saw the trouble to cover up your number… I should have known better…"

"…You just admitted you're avoiding me, Kami…"

"…Hmm, don't call me like that anymore…"

"Why?"

"…It's past… like… Oni…"

"Yeah, whatever, why are…?"

"Why am I what?"

"You weren't in our meeting, you don't answer my calls, and you don't talk to me anymore…?"

"…I'm talking to you, aren't I? I just…"

He should have said something, but only thing he could have said was already out and open so what was the point saying it again. He waited.

"…No offence… what happened then, feels so… unintelligent, pointless, stupid… And I'm kinda embarrassed by the whole thing. It's not like me to do things that I know I'll regret later…"

"…I know… But hey, at least we are certain now…"

"…Yeah… So, can we now forget it ever happened?" Kagami was only a little surprised as he didn't hear him answer right away. Maybe he was thinking the truth behind her words. "…Oni?" The self righteous ego of a man, she sighted with out a sound until she remembered that Oni was dating someone back then. Was it serious or not, did the third party knew, she didn't know.

"…Yes, by my side we're okay…"

"…Back to normal…?"

"As normal as we can?"

"Hmm…" She sighted accepting. "…How have you been?"