Number 9 Number 9 Number 9
Asami thought he saw the waiter sigh, rather than heard him sigh, but the appearance of a blue glowing sweat drop on the boy's shiny blue-black hair substituted for a sigh that wasn't audible over the booming beat emanating from the club's speaker system.
"Asami-sama, you don't look well." The boy said, but the words didn't match the mouth and instead came out as sub-titles across the front of his chest. The subtitle read: Asami, you idiot, you blew up my shoe locker!
"What?" Asami's face froze halfway through saying the word, so it only came out 'wha' instead. His brow furrowed, at least that's how it felt, as the frozen face travelled until it affected his ears.
What? He thought again, thinking about the word and wondering its origin for some reason. At least he thought he was thinking about the word 'what.' When the word failed to roll off his thick tongue he chuckled instead.
"Uh…" Said the boy with very few features other than blue-black hair and a black jacket, buttoned all the way to the top of his neck. The boy exited the room, sliding the panel to the left and then closing it, all from a kneeling position, even though he was sure the club had swinging doors. Then, the boy did it again, although he was sure the boy had left. All that was left of the boy was his aura, repeating the action over and over again until it finally faded into nothingness, making nothing something.
"Uh….indeed?" Asami wondered aloud forcing his inner thoughts outer. He scratched the back of his neck, frowning at the feel of the back of his smooth hair. Right then, he wanted to sport a bad ass top knot with a swinging ponytail hanging down his back. Only Samurai wore ponytails and he felt ronin-like, with no topknot and no lord to fight for, which kind of sucked. He chuckled again, admiring the echo of his chuckle, which made him laugh harder.
What was in that stuff…uh….the whiskey he drank earlier?
It wasn't long, although Asami couldn't tell the difference between a long time or a short time, until Kirishima came in. He assumed it was Kirishima. He'd never seen the man look so two dimensional. He turned to the side and Kirishima disappeared, and then came back when he faced him. "Asami-sama? Are you all right?" Again the mouth moved but it didn't match the words that were written below him. The subtitles read: 'Catch him if he's alive, if he's not, kill him.' Which didn't make any sense.
"The day is auspicious." Asami told his paper-thin second in command, imagining him kneeling before him. "I suggest we withdraw to the third castle." Kirishima cocked his head, and then did it again, and again, and again, until the man in the shiny glasses leaned over to the right and stayed there, crooked and cockeyed. "I'm sorry, Asami-sama, but are you all right? Should I hail a physician?" Did he say hail? "Hail all you want, Kake….that's your new name. Kake….but I do believe that the whiskey's gone bad." Again, the head cocked to the right, as if Kirishima was practicing some sort of yoga pose. Yoga pose….the leaning tower of Kirishima, made entirely out of cake, like his new nickname. Kirishima's right eyebrow rose until he could actually see it peeking above his black framed glasses. The other joined it, until it was one long caterpillar like eyebrow across the top of his forehead."Okay, Kake, I'm obviously hallucinating." Asami said slowly, his mouth seemingly crammed full of perfect teeth, almost too many. He smiled for some reason, and his whole face felt like teeth. "What was in that whiskey I drank?"
He tried to sit, not knowing if a chair existed or if his legs would cooperate. Of course, even in this weird world, he was right about both things. No chair backed him up and his legs wobbled slightly and felt rubbery. He edged his butt backward until his rubber-like legs hit the chair and then, slowly he sat in it.
Then, stood back up. The chair felt warm on his butt and he hated when someone else sat in his chair before him. It was like kissing someone else's butt. He never kissed butt (unless it was Akihito's), but to actually kiss butt, as in brown nose, was rule #2 on the tough mob boss list of no-nos. He liked his butt kissed though (literally and figuratively). He planned on asking Akihito for just that service later tonight.
"Asami-sama, I'll get some help." Kirishima poofed out of the room. He was there one minute and gone the next, the only proof he'd been there was a little speck of blowing dust in the otherwise still room.
As soon as Kirishima left, he realized Kirishima was still standing there, waiting for orders, or to be excused to go the bathroom. Once he thought about Kirishima, two more popped up next to him, exact duplicates (because that's what exact means) of the other Kirishima.
"The gang is all here, all except Akihito, he's not in this arc." All the Kirshimas said at the same time. Asami finally noticed about twenty Kirishimas (although one was enough) in the room, it was rather hard to tell how many, because the edges of their bodies blurred together in a mess of vibrant colors.
"Is this an intervention?" He hoped it came out coherent but judging by the blank stares from some rather oversized identical eyes (which was odd) he guessed not.
Asami took a breath, feeling the air expand in his lungs, it felt cold, and only got colder once it touched his heavy frozen heart. "I can't wake up." Asami said in a tone that he hope would invoke fear but it didn't have the intended effect. "I'm hallucinating."
All the Kirshimas laughed instead.
"No, you….." He paused and when he did, a chill wind blew and pink petals floated in front of his eyes, even though they were inside. "…. don't understand."
The Kirishimas faded once he stopped thinking about them, so he thought about something else, someone else, as in Akihito the brat, hoping twenty Akihitos would show up and dance for him. Of course, he was right. He was always right. Even when he was wrong he was right.
"Bastard." The twenty or so odd Akihitos said loudly, all at the same time. It sounded like a booming beat and he felt it in his bones, the word bastard. He actually wished he was one, and then he wouldn't have to deal with MOTHER.
Mother….oh shit…don't think about her. Akihito flounced away (which was a funny word so he said it aloud) just to prevent his mother from appearing.
"Flounced."
"Flounced."
Asami wilted in his chair (not like the flower), but like a piece of lettuce left out in the hot sun. He felt his soul come out of his mouth (if he had one), either that or his tongue no longer fit. He swung his legs over the side of the chair and they dangled as he thought about himself.
His favorite subject.
He meant to have a conversation with himself about some things, like the future, or why the past mattered or what he would eat for breakfast tomorrow (eggs and aspirin, lots and lots of aspirin). He closed his eyes, because he had nothing better to do. This party bored him or excited him, he couldn't tell actually.
"Good evening, Ryuuichi. You don't mind if I call you that, do you?" His other self appeared sometime when he was thinking about having that conversation with himself, quite convenient really. He cracked a red gritty eye open and stared at his other self.
"Self, you're so gray. What happened to your color?" He asked himself.
"This is how you appear. To most people." Gray Asami replied back to himself, the more colorful (although not much) version of Asami. As in 2.0. "No matter how gallons of paint you throw at it, underneath you're still gray. Get used to it."
"Che." He stuck his tongue out at his other self, mainly because he couldn't get his tongue to fit in his mouth. "I'm not having this conversation with you."
"Yet you are. And I must say it's not like you to take candy from strangers." Gray Asami sat on the edge of the coffee table and crossed his legs. "You trust too much."
"And you, gray one, don't trust at all." He went back to closing his eyes, enjoying the pink color behind his lids. That view was calming, more soothing than looking at ashen gray Asami.
"Has the middle ground swallowed you up? Or are you still teetering on the edge of the sane and the insane?" Gray Asami started smoking. Not just smoking, but smoking several cigarettes at once. Five maybe? Ten? Asami lost count after the first one.
"In an insane world, only the mad are sane." Asami hid his nose in his jacket, hoping it would filter the smoke out. No luck, as his jacket reeked of smoke and cologne. Unfortunately his cologne, and not Akihito's.
"Nice quote, Ryuuichi, still on the Shakespeare kick?" Gray Asami stubbed out his multiple cigarettes under his black shoe, as the ashtrays next to him appeared full.
"Akira Kurosawa, actually, you should know that." Asami pointed out. "Unless you're telling me you don't know who that is, although I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't."
"I only know what you, yourself have forgotten." Gray Asami's gray eyes flickered in the purple hued room. You would think they'd reflect purple, but they only stayed gray.
"And what is it I'm supposed to remember?" Asami's headache built trying to remember what he'd forgotten. Dry cleaning? Lube? Underwear (black of course)? Toothpaste?
"Your crotch is on fire."
"My…crotch?" Well that explained the pain in his crotch. Without comment, or panicking (rule #3) he poured water from a vase containing ugly purple flowers onto his smoldering crotch. The sizzling sound it made and the smell of burnt fabric overwhelmed his already overwhelmed senses and he sank in his chair, hoping it would swallow him whole. Now his wet crotch had flowers growing out of it.
"You have a holey crotch." Gray Asami pointed out. "Should we erect a shrine?"
"Erect a statue for all I care."
"Ahh….here comes the calvary, I think they'll be seeing a side of you they've never seen."
"And what side is that?"
"Just a man, nothing more than that. So…see you later." Gray Asami blended with the drifting smoke from his burned crotch. "Because I'll still be around. By the way, you should have someone look at that."
"Yeah…." He straightened his hair as if that would distract him from his ripped pants, still wishing for that cool top-knot. Gray Asami Ryuuichi floated away, at least, that's how it appeared when Kirishima crashed into the room with a thud.
"I brought some help, Asami-sama. The senseis, they…" Asami smirked at his second in command, still wafer thin, although becoming thicker with each passing moment. "Uhh….."
"Sensei….sensei…sensei." He said in some sort of greeting at the three senseis: his teacher, the teacher's pet, and Akihito's weird pierced tattooed specialist.
"What seems to be the trouble?" They all said in unison, sounding like sirens ready to capture his ship and perhaps his soul as well.
"Something caught on fire and also, someone poisoned the water hole." He pointed to his crotch, and then to the carafe of whiskey with the drop of amber liquid left in the bottom. "Either that or I'm drunk."
Kirishima's nose twitched like a little rats in a cage, the white rats, with red eyes - that kind of rat. "You took up smoking, you should give it up again."
"That's insightful of you, Kake."
"Asami-sama, I would appreciate…" He closed his mouth, opened it again, and then closed it again. He was so tight lipped, his lips almost disappeared into his face.
The three senseis peered at his crotch. One adjusted his glasses, one flicked his tail, and the third shoved her enormous breasts into his face. He didn't remember her having such ginormous (another word that shouldn't be a word, but actually was) breasts. Perhaps she was wearing a push-up bra underneath her Japanese school girl costume. The thought of him thinking about bras made him ponder about bras and why he didn't like thinking about them.
Shudder.
"Are you wearing a push-up bra Booby Sensei?" He called her that because he couldn't remember her name. What was it again?
He couldn't remember his name either. Oh that's right…Bastard.
"Sensei…sensei…sensei….." Asami muttered, giving up on saying anything coherent and wondering why everyone ignored him. Perhaps he should say something else. "Bullocks." He said in English, which didn't get the reaction he wanted.
"Get the liquor analyzed, but from his eyes, it looks like ecstasy." Luckily, Booby Sensei actually went to real medical school for humans and not pets. "I would suggest you get him home, let him sleep it off."
"His crotch?"
"Please…I can take care of my own crotch." He said too late. They all leered at his crotch, rubbing their chins (even Booby Sensei).
"Your opinion, Sensei?" Booby Sensei said to the Pet Sensei.
"I'm not sure, it looks red, but it could be the natural color of his penis, what do you think Sensei?" He asked Glasses Sensei.
"STOP LOOKING AT MY PENIS!" Now he understood why Akihito yelled so much, it felt good.
"I would suggest lots of lotion and rest the area for at least ten days, it could blister."
"TEN DAYS! DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?" He yelled again, giving the person nearest him a blast of his liquor breath.
"Look at it as an opportunity. Perhaps you can actually talk to Akihito, instead of chasing him around the house. You know….talk? You can actually do something with that mouth other than grunt, right?" Sensei, the one with the glasses, adjusted them and gave his pet a kiss on the lips. "We like talking sometimes, it beats silence."
"You…..it's all a conspiracy….all of you…" He pointed to each person in the room, including the real statue of Hercules in the corner. "All your fault and I'm going home." The door seemed far away and getting farther as he approached it. "You and Suoh are off the clock. Go on…shoo…."
The three weird Senseis bowed as he walked….no staggered out of the room, the door jam poking him in the ribs a couple of times before he finally navigated the door.
It was going to be a long night.