Disclaimer: Pet Shop of Horrors is not of my property, and will never be (sadly. My hopes are crushed). I am simply taking some of the characters that have been created by their wonderful author-artist, Matsuri Akino, and borrowing them, so that I can make them obey my flights of fancy.
Warning: Shounen-ai. This means boy's love. Not hardcore or anything like that—I doubt I could write anything like that. I think. blushes madly
Pairing: T-chan/Leon (one-sided at the moment)
Notes: English is not my native language. I'll do my best to revise, but if an error gets past me, feel free to point it out. Helpful reviews are appreciated. Flames….well, I suppose I'll simply ignore them. No, wait—I can use them for something much more useful: to feed the flame on my stove. They'll heat the ramen I enjoy so much quite nicely. That said, I'll mention that this is the first time I have ventured a post on the internet. Please be gentle and/or constructive.
I´m not particularly happy with this chapter; it´s been rewritten two or three times, and I´m not happy with it yet. Since I can´t quite fix it the way I want it to be, though, I´m posting it….and will fix it later on. Hopefully.
Length: Longer that the first chapter, that's for sure. Around 2,000 (o.O) words.
--------------------
Fixation
Chapter 2
Smoke slowly curled in eddies and swirled around the different objects that were located in the room. It was a strange smoke by any standards; coloured purple and smelling strongly of herbs and incense. The smell of the incense, at least, was recognizable—it was a smell that intimately made up the atmosphere of places such as sacred temples, monasteries, and…a certain pet shop located somewhere in the City of our Lady of the Angels. Current location of the shop: Chinatown. Owner: Count D.
The beast currently sleeping in the room, lying amongst the multicoloured cushions, twitched. Its nose moved in small, miniscule jerks. Scenting, decoding, analyzing the components of the odorous haze that had entered his room.
The usual incense, it thought drowsily, but with just a little something extra added. I don't know what, though. It makes me feel…The beast yawned widely, exposing a cavernous maw lined with oh-so-sharp teeth, sleepy…
So the beast turned, found a more comfortable position amongst the pillows, and returned to the land of the sleeping.
-------------------------
From his position at the door, the only thing visible was a great mop of reddish-pink hair.
It is about time, the Chinese man thought to himself, he has been pacing back and forth all night. The other animals were having trouble sleeping.
"Q!" The babbit on his shoulder cheeped.
"Yes, Q-chan. This is becoming most worrisome: my darling Totetsu has been very restless this last week. Something must be done…but what? I have drugged his sleep this night, but this cannot be done often…"
The Count's melodious voice, muted by his whispered tone, continued the conversation with his ever-present companion as he continued walking down the long corridor. He had to continue his rounds, after all: the lady cheetah was expecting, and her time would come soon. It simply would not do—ignoring the needs of all his pets, simply because one of his favourites was acting strangely? Let it not be said that Count D was neglectful. He could take it all in stride.
-------------------
"Mph…..morning already…." Pale eyelids, previously lowered, slowly lifted. Rose eyelashes fluttered, revealing striking gold eyes. Eyes that looked quite dazed, and still asleep. This pet was obviously not a "morning person".
T-chan stretched one of his arms while absently rubbing the sleep-gunk out of his eyes. As he looked towards the room's only window, his eyes widened—the sun was high in the sky already! He never slept this late…!!
Absently noting that he was in human form this morning, he slipped on a pair of his favourite white baggy trousers, yellow sash and an orange vest. The other animals always teased him about his standard gold-trimmed attire, comparing it to something that had come out of "Arabian Nights". What was the funniest, they said, was that he was supposedly a Chinese beast. Why should he be wearing something so…different? His answer was always a grumbled "What do you care?" or "´Cause I want to!", a reaction that amused the other pets—especially the ever-playful cats—endlessly.
This is just like when Chris lived here, he thought, as he walked down the hall towards the area of the shop that stood in as a kitchen. He put on his gold armbands and bracelets as he carelessly sauntered into that "crude place that really couldn't even be dignified with the name of a dump, much less kitchen" as he had once eloquently put. Truthfully, it was just a standard kitchen (albeit if a slightly dirty one) — working as a chef in restaurants while hunting humans, though, had spoiled him a bit. He wanted higher-quality facilities, dammit!! Was that too much to ask? He was in charge of feeding D properly and cooking snacks for the other pets when they felt like eating a bit of human food—it was his right to demand a place where he could cook more freely!
"You're brooding." A thoughtful female voice commented, "Stop working yourself into a tizzy."
"What?!" upon hearing that voice, T-chan had nearly jumped a mile, "What are you talking about, racoon-girl?"
"You haven't even realized what you're doing, have you?" Pon-chan commented, while idly twirling a strand of hair around her right index finger. She was sitting on one of the kitchen stools, leaning her elbows on the countertop as she stared at the Totetsu's now-rigid back. Immaculately clothed in her frilly dress, her small slippered feet dangled nearly fifty centimetres off the floor. She casually kicked them back and forth as she waited for the other pet's answer. T-chan wasted five seconds of his time wondering whether she would ever choose to "grow up", and get an adult form. She seemed quite fond of looking childlike, though. It must remind her of Chris, he concluded.
At that moment, he took the liberty of looking down. He promptly became confused. His left hand held a frying pan over the stove's flame, while his right hand had frozen in the act of cracking an egg. The bacon in the pan sizzled. Absentmindedly—his mind was still going round in circles, attempting to figure out how he had ended up cooking bacon and eggs, of all things, while he had been muttering about the not-kitchen—he shook the pan a little so that the bacon wouldn't stick, and dropped the now-shell-less egg into it.
"The Detective," Pon-chan had gotten into the habit of calling Leon this, due to influence from a certain deity, "mentioned that he enjoyed eating that on his free days, for breakfast." A pointing finger and a slightly wrinkled nose, both sent in the general direction of the frying food, accentuated her statement. Frying eggs and bacon have a strong smell. She mentally took notice of this fact.
"You're lying. I don't remember him saying that at all!" T-chan, eyes narrowed, lied through his teeth. The truth was that he did remember, quite clearly—nonetheless, that didn't mean that he was about to admit it.
"Really?" Pon-chan was amused. Her voice, uncharacteristically straying from her usual light and girly tone, drawled, "Then why, pray tell, are you making bacon and eggs? The Count is a vegetarian: he'd never eat the bacon. And I'm not particularly partial for eggs myself, so you can't say that you're cooking my breakfast, can you?"
"It's my breakfast, alright?" a heated reply and a glare at the annoying girl.
"Do you usually eat such greasy things, T-chan? I'm amazed you aren't fat yet, if you eat this every morning. You're usually into cooking more…complex things too, aren't you?"
"It's a special breakfast!!" T-chan could feel his eye start twitching. Was there going to be no end to those persistent and aggravating questions? He had no self-control: so what if he unconsciously started cooking breakfast for Leon….erm….the Detective? It didn't mean anything!!
He grabbed a fork and poked the egg. If he hurried, he could still scramble it…barely a moment had passed since he had thought that than he put his fork to work, scrambling the yolk and the white. It had been too late for an omelette, after all.
"The bacon is charring." Pon-chan deadpanned, fighting a grin. The Totetsu had to be quite flustered, if he was burning things. How amusing.
Suppressing an undignified yelp, T-chan managed to save the bacon and scrambled….thing….before it all went up in flames. Today just isn't my day, he morosely thought, while he tossed the "breakfast" into a plate and began to search for a clean glass.
"You have a fixation. Admit it. You're constantly thinking about that idiot—either that, or biting him." T-chan now knew that he definitely didn't like where this conversation was heading. He gathered up the plate, glass, and a fork, and prepared to flee.
"The biting has to stop. Even the Count is noticing it. I'm sure you can find a healthier way to express—hey! Where are you going, jerk? What about my breakfast?! Come back!"
While she was distracted, he had seen an opening, and lunged. Even though the racoon managed to scramble off the high stool in an amazingly short amount of time, when she poked her head into the corridor, she only saw a flash of colour rounding a corner.
"Make your own, breakfast, brat!" T-chan's voice, slightly distorted, echoed down the passage.
"Darn!" The girl-racoon stomped her dainty foot upon the ground in obvious anger. Her hand reached up to tug on one of her hair ribbons in an aggravated manner. I wanted him to make me pancakes!
-------------------
It was one thing to admit to yourself that you had a craving for a certain person; quite another to actually talk to another person about that craving. It had been a close call.
Where should I go? Totetsu-chan wondered. He still had to eat his breakfast somewhere, and it would most certainly not be in a corridor. What did Pon-chan say I had anyway? A "fixation"? I've never heard that term before.
Suddenly, it all clicked. Breaking into a resolute half-trot, T-chan turned right at the next fork in the corridor. Destination: the Count's Library.
---------------------
When he opened the huge dictionary and began his search for the word "fixation", he wasn't sure what to expect. Right now, with his finger on page 316, softly tracing the letters that made up the word, he began to regret having such insatiable curiosity. He had the feeling that he wouldn't like what he read. Even so, he found his gaze lowering and settling upon the text. He read the following:
fi∙xa∙tion \fik-´sā-shən\ n: the act, process or result of fixing or fixating: as a: a habit formation. b: an obsessive or unhealthy preoccupation or attachment. c: a persistent concentration of libidinal energies upon pregenital objects.
Ignoring the squiggly letters-that-were-not-letters, he started reading the first definition. By the second definition, he was frowning. His face, upon reading the third, blanched. A persistent concentration of libidi-what? energies upon pregeni-huh? objects… That sounds bad. Let's just ignore that one though. No sense worrying about a definition you don't understand, right
Still, it worried him. Could what he had with the detective be considered an "obsessive or unhealthy preoccupation or attachment"?
Yes, most likely, he admitted to himself, especially the biting part.
On the other hand, how was he supposed to have a "healthy" attachment? Leon thought he was a goat!! Surely nothing "healthy" could be seen in a relationship like that.
I'm thinking of actually having a relationship with that detective, he admitted to himself, I want an attachment to him that isn't "obsessive or unhealthy"…that in itself is a problem. How can I get him to notice me as something besides an annoyance?
T-chan leaned on his left elbow while scooping up food from the plate. He brought the fork to his lips distractedly, and munched on the bit of scrambled egg. A thoughtful look crossed his face.
What to do? The problem is that he can't see me in human shape. Right now, he's only seeing me as an animal, like Chris did when he left. Idiot detective—always causing me trouble. Who does he think gets overworked by the Count just to cook him pastries and sweets for when he comes to visit?
His train of thought abruptly halted as he remembered a certain occasion when—yes, it was perfect! A Cheshire-cat grin, looking slightly feral, spread across his face. Seconds later, his triumphant cry boomed throughout the reading room.
"I just have to get him drunk!!"
------------------
AN: What do you think? T-chan is planning something…I wonder what? Cookies for the person who guesses what T-chan remembered.
I decided to continue the story a bit, since several people asked me to. I hope that the characters aren't too OOC. I tried my best to keep the "mysterious air" of the pet shop for at least part of the chapter. I took long to update, and will take long to update in the future…
I still love reviews. They feed my ego and prompt me to write faster in my free time, instead of slacking off or reading fanfiction. .