Chapter 3 – Hot Chocolate / Cold Vanilla

8 am rise and shine:

it was a long night.

Bright lights, long fights—against the weary eyes—and all night, what a sight was the life.

Even Graceville had a little black dress.

The night is full of different —what's the word— things. Yomotsu was bored of things. They were not enough for him. He was not a things kind of guy. They were too vague. Who knows what sort of things happen when things are involved: sort of like hot chocolate. In the warm, sultry night, no thing belonged.

Nothing belonged? Yeah. He could drink to that.

Some go for alcohol. "Pour me another," they say. "Gimme something hard." A shot glass is one route to take, but it is the easy way.

Yomotsu was not an "easy way" kind of guy. When he played Touhou, he played Touhou. An "easy way" kind of guy carries an umbrella when it rains. An "easy way" kind of guy wears a coat when it's cold. Not Yomotsu. He wears only his conscience and skin-tight "pajamas." There ain't nothing "easy way" about Yomotsu—he is a blind man on a motorcycle, riding on toward the burning sunset.

"Burn on, little sunset," he would say. "You know ya gotta put the moon in its place."

The moon

was nothing compared to this cup of hot chocolate.

Yomotsu seemed like a marshmallows kind of guy. On the outside, some might describe him even as "squishy." Some might think that if you submerge him in the heat too long, he will become all soft. That might work for some men, but Yomotsu was not having that right now. He had too much to deal with to let himself get squishy. No—not at a time like this.

Already, he had slept the morning away. He took a shower and thought to himself, "This is a waste of time. While I get clean, the world gets dirtier." He stuck his bread into the toaster, and he realized that at the same time, the world was being fried by scourge of injustice. Everything was such a meaningless occupation, with all the work that still needed to be done. Everything was time wasted—except for one thing:

This cup of hot chocolate.

"Mmmm." He pressed his lips to the mug. "Play me that sweet jazz." He tipped the cup down slightly, and—ah—the soothing liquid passed through the parting of his lips. It heated his blood. "Play me that sweet jazz of justice."

It reminded him of his childhood, back in—

Not now. He faced the window. There was too much evil in the world to spend time reminiscing. Besides, that would be filler for a later chapter. He knew it in his heart. Character development needed to precede that backstory. He told himself that this morning, when he felt like telling a passerby the truth behind the mask.

Yomotsu sipped the hot chocolate. He was so glad there were not marshmallows in it. Hot chocolate was something sacred. It was like an ideal and personal world, and in an ideal and personal world, such breeches of natural order are breeches of moral order. To tamper with perfection: that is criminal behavior.

The mug was from Target. He was in one day for an interview, and there was this nice mug on the gentleman's desk. He considered asking where he could procure one, or if he would be able to get one once he started on the team. After all, he was going to be working in the clothing department, and what are mugs if not clothing for beverages? So, he thought about asking.

Instead, Yomotsu grabbed the mug and ran. The man had just barely finished saying, "Well, I'm certain you'll make a great addition to the team," when Yomotsu's instincts kicked in. He grabbed that white mug with the red bullseye on it and dashed out of the room, out of the Employee's Only area, out of the store, and out of the running for Target's opening in the clothing department. In his moment of weakness, he figured—it's not stealing if it was never for sale to begin with.

That same mug was in his left hand, half full with hot chocolate. The inside was stained with a light brown where he had already polished off some of the drink. He used his right hand to bring the morning paper closer.

He could just imagine the headline: "Sudden Internet Blackout Causes Mass Terror."

He took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was a dark, depraved world; that was for certain. Dark as the contents of this mug: but within the world, perhaps there were little white lights of hope.

Then it occurred to him: perhaps not everything needed to be so abysmally dark. Perhaps there was something to be said of a little pleasant company, a twinkling étoile in the night, a few marshmallows to occupy a little of the space. Schaumgummi.

Life was not meant to be lived alone.

There was always room for something different, right?

Some go for coffee. The mornin' cup'o'joe, right? The best part of waking up… Yomotsu sighed. That was one way to put it.

But for him, there was only one drink that could both give a warm ending to a cold night or bring in a new day on a soothing note. That could only be done with a nice mug of hot chocolate, with or without marshmallows.

Yuri used the big toe of his left foot to scratch at his right leg. He had been so inactive during the day that now, after the sun had gone down, he was suddenly restless. These past few moments had actually been spent in his mind, where he was debating what to blame most for how uselessly the day had gone by.

He could, of course, blame himself. That was the first thought that came to mind. Then he realized that even if he were to blame himself, he would have to go a bit deeper than that. He normally was not like this. Back in Sternbild, he had a reputation among his coworkers and associates as a natural busybody.

Something was definitely to blame, beyond just his simple nature. It was Yomotsu who seemed like the real lazy pile. After all, Yuri had to ask himself: What self-respecting man walks around in his pajamas up to and often through noon, watches Power Rangers recordings ritually, and appears to drink only Grape Fanta and hot chocolate with his food?

And where did the food even come from? Not as in where it came from literally—although he was as concerned about GMOs and ingredient origins as the next guy—but where it came from monetarily. No evidence presented itself that the man had a job of any sort. At first, he just presumed that Yomotsu was self-employed and worked at home. He was eccentric; perhaps he was a graphic designer. All of his guesses fell short of having evidence.

There was the chance that Yomotsu was the inherent of some hidden fortune. He fit the image of an oddball child from a wealthy and prominent family. Nowhere in the house, however, were there photographs of people who could be Yomotsu's family. Nothing seemed to fit. Everything about the man seemed unattached to anything of value. He appeared to have no job, no decent taste in clothing or food or television, no interest in tea or fine wine, no interest in women, and as for friends...

Yuri's knees lifted up from within the sheets. He stared up at the Stucco ceiling. He connected some of the random dots together in his head, without really thinking about it, and they appeared to him like a fox's head. He saw the triangular ears the most distinctly, but the rest filled in enough to justify the illusion when he questioned it.

It reminded him of this story his father had told him. He had only been told the story once, but he remembered it, for probably the dumbest reason he could think of. He remembered the story because it was told to him the same night that he made his first snowman. That day left an impression, which seemed weird now, because he never made another snowman in his life. Then again, that also might have explained why it was so important that one time.

His father was a good story teller. It is not a trait most people expected from him. "Most people" constituted a lot of people in his father's case, but little Yuri Petrov would not figure that out until later, along with all the glaring misconceptions. His father's imagination and oratory skills satisfied Yuri, who often would walk into his parents' room at night, long after he was supposed to have dozed off, and ask for a bedtime story.

"Sure, Yuri," his father would say. Then he would make a lot of noise, as he got up from the bed. Yuri would run to his bed, really fast, barefoot, and jump back in and under the covers. He'd curl up into a ball, holding the sheets tightly. Squeezing the cold, bundled up sheets always gave him a good feeling.

He would face the door, where the moonlight from the big kitchen window would be concentrated. His father would whisper a few words to Yuri's mother sometimes, and then come in through the moonlight and sit by the side of Yuri's bed. His father would sit cross-legged, and at such a height while sitting, he was on just the right level with Yuri on his bed. Before beginning the story, his father would brush some of his shaggy, white hair away from his eyes and clear his throat in this noisy, gross manner. Then he would begin in a quiet voice that commanded Yuri's attention, let it rise into normal speech, and then let it sink once more, until it was soft enough to lull his son to sleep.

That was how it almost always went. Yuri would usually fall asleep well before a story was close to concluding. When he woke up, he would remember only bits of what his father had told him, if that. This one particular time, however, he had remained awake through the whole story and fell asleep only after his father had returned to bed. That, and the fact that this was the day he and his parents built the snowman, made it so easy to remember the story.

He had long forgotten the actual words his father had used, but the story went something like this:

A pack of wolves was traveling through the snowy woods for several days and still had not found any food. The area was foreign to them, and they were becoming so hungry that their growling stomachs were making them snap at their leader, the alpha wolf. They were blaming him for everything they could think of, whether it was leading them to areas that obviously would have no prey, to scaring prey away with his howling, to even secretly killing all the prey when they were sleeping and eating even the bones, so no one would notice there had ever been an animal there. They were too hungry to notice how their leader was the most desperate among them, with his ribs jutting out and his eyes sunk in deep.

Then, one day, a bright red fox appeared against the clear snow. "Food, food!" The wolves began to growl. They were all licking their chops, except for the alpha male. The others began to discuss who would get what portions of the fox, but the leader was studying something else about the fox. He turned to the others, before some of the more eager ones among them could lash out, and suggested to them that they ask the fox for help. He agreed that the fox looked like a nice plump meal, but to him, that meant something else other than just a nice portion to eat: it meant that this fox was finding food when they were not. He proposed that instead of eating him, they should find out how he lives so well in this region.

The others hated the idea, but they were too weak to argue or fight their alpha male. Even in his weakness, the leader still had power over them. The alpha male approached the fox and, with the others behind him, explained their situation. The fox listened and responded after a moment with only a few words. He said that nothing he could tell them could make them good hunters; he wisely said that was like trying to tell a human how to ride a bicycle. If they were going to become better hunters, he said they would have to go with him and join him for a hunt.

By this point, this seemed like a great solution. The fox said that, while they were on the subject, he was a little on the hungry side. The wolves could not have agreed more, and they encouraged the fox to go hunt now, rather than later. When the fox went rushing ahead, the other wolves followed anxiously. For how much this fox stood out in the snow, they knew that his hunting methods must be very impressive. Most prey would be alerted by the bright red furball. The fox darted through the trees, and the wolves could barely keep up—the fox had his route all figured out. When the animal moved, he would make leaps and bounds rather than simple and short steps with his paws. He had a fierce stride.

The wolves were clearly dealing with an animal that could find food better than any other carnivore in the woods. This delighted the desperate hunters, who knew that finally their situation was about to change. They all trained their eyes on the red fox. On and on they went, through the blinding white, until they began to get dizzy from focusing on that red subject amidst all the snow.

Suddenly, before any of them were aware of what had happened, they all found the ground no longer beneath their feet. They would look around, as they fell, and notice they were nearing the bottom of a chasm full of rocks. Each wolf, starting with the alpha wolf and ending with their weakest link, fell into the small chasm, over which the fox had glided with its huge steps.

This was why the fox was healthy and successful, and why the wolves were starving. When no opportunities presented themselves, the wolves did not work out their own solutions but decided to become followers. For their reliance on others, the wolves became food. When the fox found no opportunities, he took advantage of the full situation and converted the useless wolves into something he could use.

Even now, Yuri thought it was an odd story to tell a small child, but something made him think of it while he looked up at the dots on the ceiling.

This was his last night with those dots. Tomorrow he would get to see what Yomotsu had whipped up for him in the basement. He was a bit worried about what these mysterious "preparations" his housemate had in mind might turn out to be. He was hoping that Yomotsu was just setting up an arcade machine or something.

Yuri sat upright. The sheets gathered above his waist, and he brought his arms out from their warmth. The window was inviting. It was a very dark night. He squinted his eyes, but try as he might, he could not make out much in the darkness. This mystery invited his mind to wandering, and he thought about ice cream. Ice cream is for many a lovely thing for a mind to wander towards, and Yuri happened to be one of those people.

He thought of cold vanilla ice cream, one of his favorites in all its forms. Classic vanilla, with its slightly yellow color, was a staple, but vanilla bean made him feel more sophisticated. It felt to him like nothing but a grown up's excuse to eat ice cream, but that did not mean he did not appreciate the excuse. French vanilla was such a treat as well. He hoped there was some in the freezer, but because he had not really checked the freezer lately, that was subject to much speculation.

Yomotsu had insisted on ordering pizza the past few days. They thought they would collide on toppings, but it turned out they both preferred simply cheese. Yuri just was not much of a fan of most toppings and wanted to cut cost, and Yomotsu went on some little rant about how the perfect oasis of cheese should not be soiled by imperfections. It was really good pizza, if not a little greasy.

The odd truth was that no new food had entered the household other than pizza. They really did need to go grocery shopping sometime. Yuri had plenty of money to spend, and he was sure that Yomotsu would magically pull some out of his fantastic mystery money source. Yuri made up his mind. He would ask—no, he would tell—Yomotsu to go shopping with him tomorrow.

"T'CHOHHHH!"

Yuri's attention snapped back to the window. He could have sworn he had just heard some sort of high pitch noise, almost like—

He heard an unmistakable dull thud. With the sort of swiftness that accompanies someone who had been lying awake in bed for some inordinate amount of time dreaming about ice cream, Yuri rushed to the window. Down the sidewalk, there was a shadowy figure running. It was far too dark to make out the details.

Yuri opened up the window. It was as still outside as it was dark, the sort of environment that conducted an excellent awareness to sound. Yuri crawled out of his window, and a second later his feet landed on the soft grass. From the side of the house he advanced in pursuit, mindful in the darkness not to wander onto Yomotsu's precious garden.

The reason for why it was so dark became obvious as soon as Yuri prepared to close in on his subject. From the hedges that separated their lawn from their neighbors', he could see the line of streetlights. None of them were on. When he looked up, he saw that the night's moon was covered up with clouds. If he was going to figure out who this figure was, he would have to get much closer.

He would grant this mystery person one thing: this guy could really run. If Yuri stood around deliberating for too long, he would totally miss his chance. Making too much of a ruckus as he followed, however, could both tip off his target and possibly draw attention by someone else still awake at this hour. Neither possibility seemed inviting, since he hardly had an excuse if cornered. If asked why he, a strange man in demon ducky shorts, was creeping around at night like this, few words would explain away the situation.

"I just have to stay off the sidewalk, that's all," Yuri told himself, silently. "The rest will take care of itself." With this confidence, he ran ahead. The figure was still within view. Just as his target could run, so could he. After hopping the hedge, Yuri sprinted through the neighbor's lawn and did the same for the next few houses. This residential area was no obstacle course, thankfully.

There was one streetlight ahead that was flickering on and off. Finally, Yuri had his chance. He bravely increased his speed and closed in. There was the great chance he would be spotted, but it was worth the risk. In the moment the figure passed through the light, he wanted to make sure he caught an impressionable glimpse.

It happened so quickly, but the image certainly remained in his mind for a while after: the figure he had been pursuing was in Yomotsu Hirasaka's pajamas and had a giant eyeball mask on. Considering that no one else could match Yomotsu's knack for apparel, Yuri apprehended that in reality, it had to be Yomotsu himself. That eyeball mask looked so familiar, too.

Yuri realized it was the one Yomotsu shoved into the kitchen cupboard the first day they met. If the Yomotsu could have seen his face at this very moment, as clearly as the latter could see his, Yuri's face would have been very _". Very _".

"WHAT A FINE TIME TO GO FOR A NIGHTLY RUN," Yuri wanted to shout after him. "AND IT'S CHILLY, SO YOU DECIDED TO COVER UP YOUR HEAD AND FACE AND EVERYTHING. HOW VERY CUTE."

Case closed. It was Yomotsu. He would go back to bed and hope that this would not give him weird dreams. Yuri turned around and began in the direction of their house. His foot landed on a dog's squeaky toy on his very next step.

"CRAPCRAPCRAPCRAP."