A/N: One of the hardest sections of Komatta Toki for me followed the car accident in Volume 13, when Kiyomine very clearly chooses his sister Ayako over Takara, and leaves their relationship visibly scarred. I wished that there had been more consequences for Kiyomine's outburst, and that Takara had been able to lean on his friends, specifically Reiichi and Yoshiya, to get comfort after this betrayal.
With some prompting from a friend, I've decided to take up a multi-chapter project for Komatta Toki set after Volume 13, sort of a "what if" where Takara's father does go back to Africa and he turns to Reiichi and Yoshiya for comfort after Kiyomine's harsh words. Not totally sure how long it will be, but nine or so chapters at least, possibly with additional interludes afterward.
Note: Mostly a friendship story focused on Takara, Reiichi, and Yoshiya, with some light Kiyomine x Takara and Yoshiya x Reiichi pre-slash hints.
Chapter Six
Takara was totally mortified to have burst into tears in the middle of a cake shop—and not just any cake shop, but apparently like the Kashiwagis' private dessert depot, where everyone was rich and good-looking and even the two-year-old at the next table was too well-mannered to cry in public. Takara hadn't even known he still had that in him. Maybe the worst part was that he hadn't gotten to finish his glass of drinking chocolate, even though Reiichi had ordered it sweet just for him. He'd loved every mouthful of CocoaBella's rich, moist cakes and confections—and mourned the lost few bites of escapist pound cake—but this was goodbye: he was never going to be able to set foot in that store again.
Luckily, the next place on Reiichi's list was so awesome he forgot the whole incident five minutes in.
When they'd all clambered back into the town car, Okuno-sempai crunching himself up against the far window like he was paying penance for something, and Reiichi asked what he'd like to do next, Takara hadn't thought very hard before mumbling games. He'd been thinking about…well, whatever—but the entertainment center Reiichi took him to was nothing like a regular arcade. In fact, it reminded him more of an amusement park shrunk down to the size of a department store—and if it lacked some of the cheesy, neon-lights-and-funnel-cake atmosphere of the carnivals he'd been to as a kid, it more than made up for it with games he'd never imagined, absolutely no lines, and a full service wine bar (with a bartender who could also make a mean strawberry milkshake). Reiichi didn't even have to get them wristbands or anything—he'd just flashed his black AmEx at the door.
Takara wanted to lose himself in this place and never come out. It had a miniature roller coaster (modeled, Reiichi told him, off the one on top of a casino in Las Vegas), a human maze that took up an entire floor (and since Reiichi and Okuno couldn't agree on a strategy for solving it, Takara briefly worried they really would lose themselves in there), pool tables, poker tables, bowling and basketball and a track on the lowest level where, from the upper floors, he could look down and watch people racing mini motorcycles, their knees sticking out like spread-legged grasshoppers as they leaned into the turns. Reiichi promised they'd join the race at the top of the hour, provided Takara had finished his milkshake by then. Apparently Kashiwagi Senior was the reigning mini motorcycle champ in the family, crackly old knees and all.
"Fujishima! It's hovering! Quick, knock it back to my side!"
Takara blinked, pulling himself away from the mini motocross event going on three floors below. For the last ten minutes, he'd been helping Reiichi cheat at air hockey, bumping the floating puck back to him whenever it got stuck in the middle of the table. They were up 5-4, but Okuno was holding his own pretty well, even two on one—then again, Takara wasn't that good, and he knew he'd scored at least one of Okuno's points himself. Reiichi had reflexes like a professional goalie, but he was totally unprepared for Takara's mid-table friendly fire rocket shot. He swung the mallet he'd stolen from another table and then got out of the way as the puck zinged back and forth between the two end zones like an angry pinball, Reiichi and Okuno matching each other shot for shot.
Actually, they'd been pretty evenly matched at everything—at bowling, at darts, at navigating the insane miniature golf course one floor up that had an actual watermill wheel on the eleventh hole. Okuno had declined to ride the roller coaster, so technically Takara supposed that was Reiichi's victory, and had followed the older boy's lead in making faces at Okuno every time the coaster shot through the turns. And Reiichi had won the pool game in the end—but come to think of it, he'd cheated at that too, leaning up to blow in Okuno's ear as he took aim at the eight ball and making him scratch so badly he nearly tore the felt off the table. Ultimately, Takara decided, Reiichi wasn't necessarily better at most games, but he was a lot better at winning. Proved again by the victorious clank of the puck sliding into Okuno's goal one last time and the table hissing as it powered down, Reiichi holding out a gleeful hand for a high five.
"All right! Well done, my exceptional minion." Takara made a face at him, but Reiichi just laughed, crooking his fingers in a give me gesture. "Victory sip!"
Takara handed over the milkshake—they had gotten two straws so he and Reiichi could share, but admittedly he'd been hogging most of it, which was probably why his stomach felt a little sloshy. Though he'd been looking forward to it, he wasn't sure anymore if he'd be able to ride a mini motorcycle without rolling over on the turns like a bloated water balloon.
Reiichi took a drink, the straw making the telltale slurping noises that meant the milkshake was almost extinct. He twirled the bendy plastic around his finger as he shot their opponent a teasing smile.
"Come on, Yoshiya. There has to be one game here that you can win."
Okuno looked like he couldn't imagine anything he cared less about. In fact, he wasn't even looking at Reiichi; he was staring at Takara with that same wary attentiveness that had sort of been weirding him out ever since CocoaBella. "Do you need another milkshake, Fujishima?" Okuno asked as Reiichi handed back the mostly empty glass. "Or something to eat?"
Takara tried not to gag at the thought of putting anything else in his stomach. "Uh…no. I'm fine, Okuno-sempai. I'll just…finish this one off."
Okuno had been a little overly solicitous all afternoon, and Takara wondered if his meltdown at the cake shop had scarred the older boy for life, but was more immediately worried that Okuno would buy him like six milkshakes to try to assuage his guilt or whatever, and then Takara would have to drink those milkshakes, and then he'd vomit, and the guilt spiral would start all over again. He wanted to apologize, to tell Okuno that nothing that had happened at CocoaBella was really his fault, but he couldn't think of a way to bring it up without making things more awkward. With a sort of forced smile at his sempai, he tipped the glass to slide the last sip of milkshake into his mouth, hoping his stomach could handle it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, he didn't have to find out—the straws sabotaged him at the last second, sliding down into his face, and he choked, a few drops of milkshake escaping down his chin. He caught them with his wrist, licked them up again before they reached the sleeve of his new shirt—but apparently he'd committed some big taboo, because he looked up again to find Okuno staring at him, his forehead furrowed like he was fighting a headache. Takara frowned. It wasn't that big a deal—just because Okuno had never spilled anything in his entire life…but then, he'd dropped the pound cake, too. Was there a strikes system? How many violations did he get before they dropped him off at Chuck E. Cheese with the other serial mess-makers?
Reiichi was just laughing, though, sliding around the table to pat Okuno's shoulder. "Just a minor accident. Don't make that face, Yoshiya—you'll give him the wrong idea." He winked at Takara, though why Takara had no idea. "Why don't you pick another game, Fujishima? We'll get some napkins at the bar. Besides," he added, intertwining his fingers with Okuno's and then taking a step back, pulling the taller boy along with him, "you still owe me a treat for winning."
"What do you want?" Okuno asked, not even trying to get out of it as he let Reiichi lead the way backward to the bar, though Takara was sure he could make a pretty solid case for cheating.
Reiichi shrugged. "I'm sure I'll think of something." He waved at Takara over his shoulder, but then they were too far away to hear what they were saying anymore, weaving effortlessly through the maze of gaming tables. How Reiichi could navigate backward while holding Okuno's hand and not bang right into a chair or a foosball table, he'd never understand—but then, even if there was an accident, they'd probably just end up in the tango. It was sort of disgusting and impressive at the same time.
Takara shook it off, and then, since he hadn't seen a tray or a dish return or anything, tucked his empty milkshake glass a little guiltily behind the leg of the air hockey table and set off across the floor. Past the forest of Ping-Pong tables, he peered into side rooms set off for racquetball, croquette, and something that was like life-sized skeeball, where three boys a few years older than him were high-fiving each other over what looked like a very middling score. One of them stared at Takara as he passed, and Takara tensed under the scrutiny, a little self-conscious since the milkshake accident—but he forgot those losers in a heartbeat when he reached the room at the end, a gleaming basketball court with a full rack of basketballs so new there wasn't even any wear on the logos.
Takara had never been great at basketball—he was short, and somehow that had been true even when everybody was short because they were second-graders just messing around at the hoops in the park—but like everybody who was short and had played a lot of basketball anyway, there was one thing he'd perfected. He couldn't dribble between his legs, he couldn't really fake, and forget guarding a bigger player unless he wanted to end up on his ass, but he could hit his free throws every time—and not just from the line, but from the edge of the three-point zone where it hit the top of the key. Takara grabbed a ball and dribbled from one hand to the other to warm up, enjoying the feel of the pebbled skin on his palms. Here was something he was actually good at, good enough to impress Reiichi and Okuno when they came back—and then maybe Okuno would stop looking at him like he might burst into tears at any moment. There was no crying in basketball, right? Was that the saying?
He had barely gotten into it, was just starting to feel the satisfying burn that came with every swish, when he heard footsteps on the court behind him. Takara crouched low, dribbled once or twice for show before arcing up and letting loose, the ball plunging into the basket without even touching the backboard. He bit down a smile, knowing from experience how much cooler it would be if he turned around looking ultra-casual, made Reiichi and Okuno think he didn't cheer a little inside every time that shot went in.
But it wasn't Reiichi and Okuno who had come into the court behind him—it was the three rich punks from the skeeball game, all of them looking at him with condescending smiles while the ringleader gave him a slow clap. "Hey—that's a pretty nice shot. Especially for somebody like you."
Takara felt himself bristle, wondering just was somebody like him was supposed to mean. Somebody short? Somebody who didn't have money oozing out of every pore? The boy who was apparently top dog, just as slimy as the jerks he'd run into occasionally when Kiyo—when he'd hit the arcade, but better dressed with a red polo shirt and slick combover, moved in a few more steps, close enough for Takara to gag on the cologne he'd apparently bathed in.
"You look kind of lonely. How about we keep you company for a while?" the boy said.
Takara glared at him. Keep you company—yeah, right. He'd dealt with this kind before, always trying to cut in line or bully little kids off the pinball machines. Takara knew he wasn't as dignified as Reiichi-sempai, or as cool and powerful as Okuno-sempai, but did he really look like that much of a pushover? He snagged another ball from the rack, staking his claim.
"You can wait your turn," he snapped. Apparently rich jackasses were just as shameless as broke ones—and come to think of it, hadn't these been the guys trying to coax him into joining their pool game earlier, when he'd wandered away from Okuno and Reiichi's long endgame? Man, they'd really taken him for a mark.
The leader clicked his tongue, moving in until he was all up in Takara's space. "Aw, c'mon. Don't be like that. This doesn't really seem like your game. How about we get out of here, find somewhere a little more private?"
Private, yeah—like a dark alley, no doubt, wherever rich kids took people they wanted to mug. Takara could handle himself in a scrap, if it came to that, but he was having too much fun to get into it today. Plus, the joke was on these losers—the panda backpack Reiichi had given him didn't have any money in it at all, just a few boxes of Hello Panda and a bunch of chocolate panda-head lollipops that might have come with the bag, he wasn't sure. Takara shrugged the guy's arm off his shoulders and took a step back, situating himself at the top of the key.
"Actually, this is my game," he replied, taking a deep breath. He was at the limit of his range, but clearly these guys weren't going to back off without a show—Takara took careful aim, ran forward a few steps and then jumped back, shooting his free throw on the fadeaway. It was still a work in progress, and Takara had to bite down on a whoop when the ball rolled the rim twice and then dropped in, the best fadeaway shot he'd ever made. The boy whistled, but Takara could tell he was being mocked because it sounded more like a catcall than anything else.
"Fancy stuff. I bet that's not all you're good at," he said—and what the hell was that supposed to mean? Takara was considering showing the punk exactly how good he was at kicking out someone's knee, but a voice from the doorway stopped him before he'd more than lifted his foot.
"Not at all—he's also quite good at the hook shot and having very powerful friends." Takara turned his head to find Reiichi leaning against the door with a smile, though Okuno, at his shoulder, looked decidedly grim-faced. Reiichi clapped as Takara's eyes found his. "Excellently done, Fujishima. Did Asou teach you that shot? We may have to put a bell on you, though—Yoshiya was afraid we'd misplaced you once and for all."
Apparently Reiichi was far more impressive than his fadeaway—the three jerkoffs who'd been lurking around Takara backed up fast, the leader running a hand through his greasy hair. "Kashiwagi. You, uh…you know each other?"
Reiichi gave a little laugh that didn't sound all that friendly. "Fujishima is my guest. You know what a guest is, Sato—I assume that's the only way you could be here, after that failed merger gutted your father's company. Such a shame to hear he lost the yacht." Then he turned back to Takara and beckoned with one hand, reminding him of a lucky cat. "Fujishima, come on. It's time to suit up for the motorcycle race." Then, glancing at the boy over his shoulder, he added, "We'll wait for you in the locker room, Yoshiya."
"Why is Okuno-sempai staying behind?" Takara asked as Reiichi led him down the hallway toward the elevators. If he craned his head, he could just see Okuno blocking the door out of the court, the three rich jerks trapped on the other side.
Reiichi flicked his hand. "Oh, he just wants to have a little talk with them about etiquette. Nothing to worry about. Now let's go—Grandfather keeps three sets of racing jackets here, and if we hurry we can stick Yoshiya with the purple one."
Takara wasn't sure whether to believe Reiichi, as a general rule, but in the end he decided he didn't care. Those guys deserved what was coming to them, and anyway Okuno probably wasn't going to approach it the way Takara would have, which boiled down to kicking them in the shins. Canvas shoes weren't really the right footwear for that, anyway.
"Can you believe those jerks were trying to kick me off the court?" he asked as they stepped into the glass elevator. Reiichi shot him a startled look. Then he broke into a laugh, wrapping an arm around Takara's back and pulling him into a hug.
"You're so cute I could eat you with a demitasse spoon," Reiichi told him, and even though Takara wasn't sure what that meant, he laughed too, and closed his eyes for just a second, enjoying where he was—not because of where he wasn't, not because he was running from something, but just because he was having fun, and he liked Reiichi and he liked Okuno, and nothing could be better than mini motorcycles.
Except maybe the heaping pile of French fries Reiichi bought him when he won.