FLCL Fan Fiction ❯ N.O Return Address ❯ cinco ( Chapter 5 )

Suzume's driving doesn't seem nearly as reckless without the strobing neon flashing past the windows at what my injured head interpreted as breakneck speed. Sitting upright is better. I don't get lost. I know we're going to Chisune's place.

 

Of course he's got a huge garage so Suzume has a place to park. I'm the last one out of the car because I think Chisune is still mad at me.

 

He's not.

 

"Oh for fuck's sake, you're alive," he grunts, and in some parallel dimension where that was the kind of thing we did he would have hugged me. As it is, I see it in his eyes.

 

"Has she been back?" Reiko asks without even trying to mask the eagerness.

 

"We haven't been that unlucky," he answers. "Have fun staring at the motor oil and blood that they left on the floor."

 

The mention of my own blood pulses through my brain with a dull spike like landing on your ankle funny.

 

This is my crack team, I realize suddenly. These are the people that are going to keep me alive until I turn eighteen. A pair of lesbians, one crouched on the floor and staring at a mix of plasma and Pennzoil with her ass in the air like she thinks we can't see her underwear. It's magenta. The other leaning against the wall and staring at the first like she thinks we can't see her jealousy. It's green. A socializing half-bitch I've liked since I knew her. A struggling half-junkie I've known since I liked him.

 

And me.

 

Something tells me we're really going to need some more help if I have to live like this for another six months.

 

"When's the next train," I say, trying not to mumble, "to Mabase?"

 

~-~-~-~

 

We can buy two round-trip tickets between us. It's further away than we thought originally because Raharu-whoever made it so quickly on a vespa. That, and we bought fast food.

 

"I can ask Kaa-san for money, you know," Mika reminds us. Lips, teeth, straw. Milkshake. Cherries.

 

"Uncle," says Suzume.

 

"Fuck Uncle."

 

"Please don't," Reiko cautions.

 

Suzume throws a ketchup packet at her. "Duh."

 

"So who's going?" Chisune asks. "'Cause if it's not me, I expect to be paid back."

 

"Taro has to go, of course," Reiko states obviously around both gum and fries. Disgusting. "It's his head with the alien's memories in it. He knows who we're looking for."

 

"Do I?" I question, almost to myself.

 

Reiko answers. "Eyebrow! We've gotta find him, he clearly knows what's going on. Better to not involve anyone else you had a flash-sideways to."

 

"It'd be easier if we could stay with my family, though. In case."

 

"But then it would only made sense if you went. I don't think it's gonna work if Cheeze goes."

 

"You guys are missing school," Suzume deadpans. She finishes her chicken. I'm curious. She wants to go?

 

"You want to go?" Mika wonders. We think alike. I should tell her that sometime.

 

Oh fuck, what did I say to her last night?

 

"It'd just be most convenient." She also finishes her diet Sprite.

 

"We may also need an adult to go that far," I realize. No, no, that's wrong. I'm supposed to make Mika come with me. I try to focus on the pickles that fell out of my burger and not on my confusion.

 

"We should draw straws," Reiko insists. Naturally she wants to go.

 

Hearing her voice again brings me back to the last couple of things she said. "Wait," I realize. "Wait, hold on. I can't…" At least I don't think I can. I try, just as a test. "I can't get at everything she left in me at first. I'm forgetting." No more guitar solos, no more batting averages. "Bet she's forgetting too."

 

"That's good! That's our advantage, because you wrote everything in my book!" Reiko waves it around like it's some kind of western Bible. A Bible with a smear of mustard on the upper-right-hand corner. It's almost enough to make me laugh.

 

Except goddamnit, laughing hurts my head.

 

"Yeah," I agree at last. "Maybe you should - "

 

"No." I almost feel bad for Reiko that the other three answered so vehemently in unison. Almost.

 

"We should vote. It's easier. And whoever wins we'll take Reiko's book, regardless." They look at me like this is a respectable answer. Well, except Reiko, because she's not looking at me at all and is instead busying herself with cleaning up our McDonald's trash so that she doesn't have to look at me. Or Suzume.

 

"Suzume does seem like the most logical choice. I'm just jealous because she gets to miss out on one of Uncle's…memorable visits." Mika wrenches her milkshake cup back out of Reiko's grasp because Reiko's trying to throw it away and she isn't done with it.

 

"Doesn't bother me."

 

"Well, I want to go." No pretenses, Sai Reiko.

 

"No." It's all four of us this time. I just can't help myself - I just can't bring myself to think that a three-hour train ride with Reiko wouldn't drive me insane. I don't know how Suzume does it.

 

Maybe that's why she wants to come.

 

Hope she knows what she's signed herself up for.

 

~-~-~-~

 

By Sunday all I can remember is what I already knew. What I already knew, and Samejima Mamimi. She's a character that doesn't leave your head easily. Her pattern of speech, her panties, her pyromania.

 

I fortunately had missed out on any weird dreams beyond the night at Mika's house. After that, all the dreams were about that night at Mika's house. The concussion did nothing to my libido. The rest of Saturday we made a game plan for a game we'd never played before. It wasn't bad for a first try. I memorized what I wrote in Reiko's notebook. By this time, Nandaba Naota would be in the seventh grade at the secondary school. His dad's shop was easily avoided as we had no fucking clue where it really was. I could see in his face that Chisune almost wanted me to contact them but he never asked.

 

Medical Mechanicca looks like a clothes-iron. A big fucking clothes-iron. Riding into Mabase on the train it would be hard to miss. Find that, and from there we could find Eyebrow-sama (I don't even remember who started calling him that) and his crew, talk, negotiate, leave. Be back in time for dinner. Mrs. Morita was making something with miso.

 

Suzume sits across from me with Utada Hikaru in her ears. We're both staring out the window although I think for different reasons. I can see it in her face that she hasn't had sex with Reiko in over a week. That's usually around the time that it becomes visible. It's mostly in her cheekbones and the way her hands sag loosely around the armrests of her seat. On a good day they're clenched with confidence.

 

It's hard for me to straddle the line between do you want to talk about it and I've got bigger hurdles to jump. Maybe it's because in the back of my mind I know what's going on with them. It's what's always going on with them.

 

I know she can't hear me so I ask, "Who started screaming first?"

 

"Me," she answers.

 

Of course. It's always Suzume.

 

She tugs away her headphones. "Why do I go back to that bitch."

 

"All her friends are your friends."

 

"She just gets so goddamn hung-up on things that only half-exist. I'm real. I'm here. I'm what she wants."

 

"That's a pretty cocky thing to say."

 

"It's a pretty honest thing to say!" she snaps and other passengers look at us. It's not too many other people this early on a Sunday but it's enough to quiet her down and I'm glad for that. "She used to scream at me for a good reason."

 

"Part of being with people is getting over their weird habits."

 

"What would you know about a lover's habits?"

 

You've developed this terrible habit of staring at my boobs.

 

"…You've got a point."

 

"Bet she'd fuck me if I got a crop circle tattooed on my - "

 

And that's when the conversation is forced to end and I plaster a magazine over my face.

 

Raharu-Haruko strides up the aisle of the train with swagger oozing all over the place in a way that neither of us can miss. And whether the sentence she whispers after "Where is that brat?" is I know he's near or I know he's here is naturally irrelevant.

 

With her headphones back on it looks like Suzume is mouthing the lyrics when she asks, "That's her, right?" With my hair falling into my face it looks like I'm flipping it back when I nod. I turn a page of my Jump and pretend like I care what Train Heartnet is doing. Damnit, I'm way too blond to be inconspicuous. What I'd really like to do is slam my head through the glass window of the train in an attempt to remove my motherfuckingOW brain.

 

Once she's past I can breathe again and the non-N.O simmers back down to a moderate migraine. She walked the other way and I can't see her any more but Suzume's following after her with her eyes.

 

Following after her a little too closely.

 

Oh, fuck.