Urban theory; chapter 17Resident Spiky
Oh god how it was hurting, laying on the floor for fifth hour, broken and unable to function properly.
But what had he expected in this house hold? It was a bare miracle that he had survived this long as everyone else had died aside him. New one's came and new ones left, but he stayed. He was tougher than the rest, trained to survive in unbearable conditions. Until that damn cat came along! When was the last time anyone had notice him, talked to him, taken care of him in any way. It was obscene!
The cactus lay silently on the floor; it's inside storm visible for anyone else's eye. It noticed how a door opened. Finally someone would pick him up from the floor, off that unnatural position he was in, he thought. Great, big, white foot covered the last shade of sun the cactus would ever see.
"shIT…!!" Was the thought that Ayame shared with the so called vegetable, the cactus's last and Ayame's first thought for the morning. "God damn it…?!" She sat on the sofa and looked at the floor on what had she stepped on. Just her luck, it was the cactus Kiku had bought for them half a year ago. Now the old green thing was a new green mush thing on the floor and partly on her foot, looking like a green hedgehog with yellowish pikes.
"Shit-shit-shit-shitshitshitshit… Ou…" Ayame practically cried in the living room.
"You alright…?" Someone asked coming from the kitchen.
"…What are you doing in here?!" Her tone wasn't nice, not even close to friendly as she stupidly stared at Oni standing there next to her. Then she remembered she didn't have much on as she thought the flat would be fairly empty at her hours and she grasped the sheet over the sofa and tied it around her.
"Um, long story, what happened to you?"
"Hey I make the questions here…"
Oni was already examining her feet.
"This is a just a flat not a police station…"
"Yeah…? And it's my flat…?"
"…I lost my keys…"
Ayame thought his explanation for a moment and then smiled viciously. "So Rin kicked you out, huh? Good for her…"
"Whatever…" Oni grunted from the floor. "You got tweezers somewhere?"
"Stop graving for my leg, you… homeless bum… I'll just hop in to the bathroom…" She pulled her leg away sighting and started hoping towards the hallway. As she got to the door she felt like the morning needed a one more punch to get moving.
"…You didn't jack off on this, did you now?"
"…I wish now that I would have…"
They exchanged 'smiles' and Ayame slammed the door shut.
After fifteen minutes she came to kitchen, walking little carefully but otherwise fine, except the death feeling she got. Not her death and not even the cactus's or the cat's but someone else's.
"So does the lady eat breakfast at home or has her storage of fresh blood run out?" Oni sipped his coffee smugly. She pretended to be laughing and took some coffee. Oni was his back towards her reading the morning paper while she looked for a cup. She couldn't help to smell the delicious whatever it was and secretly looked over the pan.
"Have some breakfast… I just made it…"
She turned around and hissed to him. "…I rather not, don't wanna think with what you were planning to poison me…" She drank her coffee quickly or rather slow considering it was a cop in question. Oni couldn't take it anymore and hit the cup over the table, not quite breaking it or the table.
"What's you problem…? woman?!"
"…What's my problem…? Huh?" She wasn't a person to mess about at seven a clock in morning. "You gotta nerve to ask what's my problem, shit head!?"
The cat had woken up and came into the kitchen door meowing and started licking itself clean. Ayame lowered her voice as a quiet hiss. "Twist your brains and figure out what is my problem, asshole… If I could choose, I'd fix you behind bars like snap, you know why, because I-don't-like-ya, and neither would he, if he'd really know what you are about, just know, if you ever, never hurt anyone I know, you'll be real sorry, cause I'll know… where it hurts the most in you…" She backed away.
"You don't have to bullshit me, I've learned my lesson…!"
"Guys like you never do…" She threw a loathing look over Oni and turned away as she noticed the cat sitting in the doorway. "Oh look at you, how cute lambkin you are…" She kneeled down petting the kitten that instantly wanted to clime up to her lap.
Oni had to witness it and was sure she had to be schizophrenic. One was a harmless kid, second was the blood thirsty beast, third was psychopath, fourth was the psychopath's sister, the chainsaw murderer or was it brother, fifth…
She got up from the floor. "Break a neck…"
"Psycho…" He turned to the table sullen now that his morning was pashed to pieces. "You should have fallen over your face in that green goo…!"
"…Fuckface…!" The door slammed probably waking up half of the apartment building.
Meow, the cat said and leaped against his leg.
"Oh, not you… Let's see if he's up all ready...eh?" He picked up the cat from the floor. It was a small miracle if they hadn't waken Rikimaru up. All thought Oni knew he sometimes slept very much wakeless, but not to go there he just walked to see if there were any signs of life. And apparently there wasn't so he just let him continue with the dream.
Oni went back to sleep on the sofa, wondering where had she dragged his sheet and would he carry out the ultimatum.
---
Tatsumaru sat in a café at the early hours of Friday morning. His work would have started at nine this morning, but he didn't feel like going. Rikimaru was teaching him bad habits no doubt. It was eleven now, nearly time for lunch and he was holding onto his second cup of coffee that he'd patiently drank between the hours he had sat there alone.
"Tatsumaru…? Hi…?"
Unwillingly he turned towards the voice. "Hi Jin… How are you?" The question hold the same negative feeling.
Jin was his usual self, bursting out energy in small amounts. "Me? I'm fine… God damn Tatsu, I wish it would be me that's gotten you so gloomy…Can I sit with you? Promise to keep my hands my own, okay? Or are you with someone here?"
"No, just sit down…"
"Thanks man, you know I wasn't sure if you would ever talk to me after that one night or evening or who cares it's all forgotten as long as you'll forgive me?" Jin looked away briefly to the street. "…I didn't really know what to think when you didn't even come to that party Aya and Riki threw at us…"
"Oh, it wasn't about you… I really was tired…"
"I'll bet you were…" Jin said between grinning.
"How was it?"
"What, huh?"
"The time with the gang? I heard there was someone new?"
"Yeah…" Jin sat back little more comfortably on the chair as the waitress came to take his order. "One tea, please and…?" He caught Tatsumaru staring out of the window absently.
"Oh, nothing for me , thanks…" He showed his cup of coffee a little embarrassed, he'd been drinking it for quite a while. Time was apparently flying in this café.
Jin put his shopping bag on a chair as the waitress left. "Actually there were two newbies, did ya know?" Tatsumaru shook his head for a no.
"Kiku's father, who by the way is hotter than any man ever…" Jin sighted and rolled his eyes. "I remembered Riki telling me that he was young like thirty, but did he ever mentioned the looks, no, bet Riki just wanted to hock him all to himself…Like, hello, not in a million years and over my dead body…! I know, I KNOW, he's got a daughter but… Mat just has to be bi or else I'm gona die lonely and miserable…"
Tatsumaru was sure for a moment that that was what Jin was doing over the table; dying. He couldn't say what was Rikimaru's bet, but he himself could bet that Jin could talk about this to the end of the world and on. "…And how about the other?" He managed to get a word or two between.
"He was… not my type." Jin looked over his bags for a second. Just to be sure he hadn't lost anything valuable or that someone wouldn't try to steal his new shoes. "I dunno know really, where do you recon Riki knows him from?"
"Somehow I got the impression they have gone out sometime ago… and that their break up didn't happen in good terms…?"
"Oh so you know something?"
"Just guessing, Jin… Judging by the way he mentioned…?"
"Oni… something, can't remember… You know that Mat is abbreviation of Matsunoshin… ohh, that is so… brilliant…" Jin bit his lip.
"No, I didn't know that…" Tatsumaru gave up trying to dissuade was Jin being annoying or just plain Jin. The waitress brought his tea. "Here you are…"
"Thanks…" Jin paid the tea right away. As he stuffed his wallet back to his pocket he noticed that his friend had drifted back to dream world. Or in the middle of nightmares, how could he be sure? "Hey Tatsu, what's wrong…? Shouldn't you be in work or something, like all the decent people?"
"I felt sick, so I didn't go, because…"
"Hey, wou, you don't have explained it to me…" Jin smiled waving his hand over the table. "Tell it to your boss, big boy… but what's bugging you, else than guilty conscience…of course?"
"Other than that?" Tatsumaru asked stunned for his question. "Nothing at all…"
---
Oni walked up the stairs and pushed the doorbell of his house. No-one said a word from the speaker just opened the door for him. Was he really going to walk on in, he made a question to his self-protection instinct. Who knew what was waiting for him behind the door as Kagura probably knew he wasn't going to use the lift but the backstairs. Well no pain no gain had someone already dead said.
Inside it seemed that everything was the same as before. Except the kitchen that looked awful even from a far. Kagura had probably tried to bake something that eventually had blown up, no surprises there. No, I'm not going to go there yet, because if I am I won't be able to leave before it's clean, Oni told him self and thought it best to find Rin first.
And there she was, right where he had left her, sitting on the floor and watching TV. Oni sat on the sofa.
"So…? How was the girls-night with auntie-Kagura?"
First it seemed that Rin didn't react in anyway and was her usual uncommunicative self, but then she rose up a bit to sit on the floor. "Do I… Have to leave?" She looked at him straight into his eyes, trusting him to read her mind like a parent.
"Leave to where?" Improvement, she was somewhat more open than the night before but the conversation still seemed to happen in looks and subconscious gestures, not in words. Oni had blissfully forgotten all about this wordless interplay and had now hard time remembering how it was that a child or a young person saw the world.
"Away… from here, to live with her?"
"Oh? …Do you wanna leave? If you don't, you don't have to… You can stay here with me, that is, if you can stand me…?" Stupid Kagura, Oni thought, think she could step in line when it suited her and make Rin a little project of hers.
Suddenly Rin stood up and came to the sofa next to Oni. She reminded him of a certain cat when she snuggled under his arm pulling her self in a ball. "I wanna stay…?"
Yeah she really reminded him of the cat sometimes and he hugged her, already focused on the TV.
"So like what did you girls do while I was out…? Did she make you any breakfast before she left?"
"Yeah…" She spoke quietly, different than before. "I'm hungry…"
"Sorry, had to make someone else a breakfast, you mind?"
He wasn't sure had she just shook her head or not.
"Well what's it gona be this morning?"
"…Anything… as long as it doesn't blow up…"
For a passing second he hoped Kagura would still had been there to hear it, but then withdraw his wish, controlling the genuine burst of laugh. Rin looked up to him. "She does quite a lot of that, doesn't she? Blows things up?"
"…Maybe she isn't the best of cooks, but yes, she does it quite often…" Rin's question bothered Oni, because in truth Kagura really know how to blow things up and he wasn't sure how would she react on it. Especially now that her family had been murdered by an underground-group, that held a grudge for the silent assassins. Yes, her mom, her dad and her big sister were all living double life; other as a model citizens and the other as an outlaws.
"Does she kill people?"
"Rin?" He pulled himself further to make his point with stern look. "No."
"…Do you kill people?"
"No, I don't…" Not yet at least, he thought guilty and looked away as she kept on pushing.
"Have you killed anyone…?"
"No…! Rin, I haven't killed a single person in my life. But Kichigoro has and that's why he's in prison… When he gets out he'll keep you in better safe than anyone of us can." He got up from the sofa to see what kind of an effect his words had on her. "Until then… What shall we eat?" He asked lightly, but the atmosphere stayed the same. "Okay, pancakes…!" And he went to the kitchen.
Who was he kidding he thought and checked on her after a while. She was changing the channel. She didn't budge about much. But what else he really could expect from a girl who was to be trained to kill for money. The kitchen was ruined, curse that woman, he sighted and all of a sudden Rin was sitting across the table observing his cooking.
"I'll clean later, just wanna get something to eat first…"
"You're gona say to her that I'm not coming… when she comes to pick me up?"
"Did she say she was coming to pick you up?
And it was the doorbell. Oni and Rin looked at each other like waiting something to explode at any second. The speaker on the hallway wall yelled angrily. "Hellou…! Good morning…!" She trilled. "Rin? Please let me in, wake up, little girlie…"
Oni realized she wasn't just going to disappear in a thin air. "Wait here…" He told Rin and strode off to the corridor where the voice was coming.
"Rise and shine, Rin… No wait, is he already there? …Rin? Why did you let him in…?!"
Smart girl Kagura was, Oni thought grinning. "Hi Kagura, how have you been?"
"Oni, let me in…!"
"Yeah sure, oh wait… Why should I?"
"…You seem to know why, has she packed her things?"
"No, she hasn't."
"…Well can I come up there to wait, it's cold in here…?"
"It was cold last night too, Kagura…"
"Oh please, like you wouldn't got a place to go, Oni!?"
"That's not the point, the point is; What the hell happened to my kitchen?"
"…Just send her down when ever she's ready, I'll go and wait in my car…"
"She's not coming with you, K… She stays here…"
"Oh boy… Be reasonable Oni… What do you know about little girls and their needs? She can't live with you! My goddess, think about it a little, your bachelor lifestyle… "
"At least I can feed her, unlike some…!"
"That's not fair, one single…"
"Single?! Single my ass, K…! She doesn't want to move in with you, get that to your thick scull…!"
"Well I don't believe you, you are too… you! …to take care of anyone else…!"
As the custody dispute continued not really getting anywhere Rin went to the room that was above the entrance. She opened a window and looked down. "Kagura…?!"
The silence was ear piercing compared to the previous condition. Kagura stumbled from under the porch. "…Rin?"
"I'm not moving in with you, I wanna stay here, with Oni… Please, leave us alone…" Rin pulled the window closed and went back to kitchen to wait her food to be ready.
---
Had Oni forgotten something, was Rikimaru's first thought as his doorbell rang at two o'clock in afternoon. He hanged back and took his time to get to the door and as it happened it was Tatsumaru behind it. "Tatsu?" How strange, was it some public holiday or something or had the gay-parade come into town? Tatsumaru certainly didn't look like he was bringing good news. "Come in, shouldn't you be in work?"
"I should…" He stepped into the hallway not saying much. As he got his shoes on he walked straight to living room and sat down on the sofa. Rikimaru found his behaviour in away amusing. Tatsumaru needed to loosen up, but this was creepy. He followed him and sat on one of the armchairs. Meow and a cat jumped off under him. God knew which one had spooked most. The cat was visible in Tatsumaru's eyes.
"What's up?" Now it started to be real creepy. "What's happened?" Rikimaru asked genuinely concerned.
"Oh… Nothing that serious, Rikimaru… No one's died… I just don't know what to do…"
"With what? …Don't say, you quit your job?"
"No… Just took a day off. I can't concentrate on anything right now, Hitoha is coming home on Sunday, I dunno know will he be staying or leaving… but that's not really the relevant issue, I'd think…?"
"Uh-huh…?"
"I have to think something to say to him…?"
"…Yes, that would be a good plan…" It was obvious that his friend wanted to tell him something, but couldn'y get it out of his mouth.
"Only thing that is, my head is empty for all the thinking and… and…"
"And what…?" He was close telling, Rikimaru could see.
Then something changed and Tatsumaru sighted forgetting what had he ment to say in a first place.
"…I wanna get absolutely smashed tonight… Tell me I don't have to do it alone?" Tatsumaru looked his friend with average sanity ringing in his mind and eyes for the first time during this visit.