Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Of Shooting Stars and Supernovas ❯ Chapter 1: I'm a Loser Baby, So Why Don't You Kill Me? ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 1: I'm a Loser baby, so why don't you kill me? [Loser, by Beck]

 

Aya sat before the breakfast counter, staring at the countertop unmindful of Yohji as the older man bustled about in the kitchen. The swordsman's face was well-scrubbed, but paler than usual, drawn and gaunt. His nightly gallivanting was showing on his visage, and what once were fiery eyes are now dim ones. Dark circles stained the skin under his eyes, his lips pale and chapped, here and there a bruise from God knows where. He could barely stop the yawns coming one after another, and he fought the great urge to slump over the breakfast counter lest he hurls yet again (he missed the toilet twice, and he'd be damned if he had to clean up any of last night's happy hour for the third time). Yohji turned from the stove with a plate of breakfast in one hand, and some undecipherable murk in a glass in another. He placed both before Aya, dragged a stool over to his side and sat down opposite the redhead. Aya mechanically began eating. Yohji pushed the glass of something unpleasant towards Aya.

 

“Drink this first, or else you'll be vomiting that breakfast again.”

 

First, Aya eyed the glass of undecipherable murk with distrust, then disgust. Looking to Yohji for some kind of reprieve, he found none, and so with a shrug of a shoulder he took hold of the glass and tried to down it all in one go, almost choking at some points. Aya may have changed, but some things are beyond changing, like his trademark one-track mindedness. And if Aya decided he'd do something, he'd damn well finish it, just as he did with the glass of the worst possible thing one can drink. Finishing it for what seemed to Aya an eternity, he brought the glass down on the counter hard, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. His face in a very dark grimace, Aya tried scraping off the taste from his mouth with his teeth, then when he instantly realized it only made it worse, he looked about for a table napkin to scrape his tongue with, and found that Yohji had one ready to hand over. Mumbling his thanks, he took it and started going about the business of wiping the taste from his tongue as fast and as thoroughly as the table napkin would allow. As such, his tongue now had shreds of table napkin, but that was way better in Aya's perspective. When he turned to Yohji again, he found the blonde already had a glass of water ready and placed right before the redhead to drink. Aya managed a smirk.

 

“Ah, yes, almost forgot this had been your routine for what, 5, 7 years?”

 

Yohji frowned at the smart-aleck comment, and then replied in a grumble. “Longer than that.”

 

Aya's smirk widened into a malicious smile, and then he looked about him. He seemed to nod in approval. “You've been cleaning the place?”

 

Yohji leaned back into the stool's small backrest, and though he found it extremely uncomfortable he toughed it out, and sighed. “Nothing else left to do `round here. C'mon, eat your breakfast.”

 

Aya's gaze finally rested on the plate before him, a breakfast of pancakes, crispy bacon, and one happy sunny side up egg*. Aya gave a wry smile. Lately, Aya's been smiling a lot, although his smiles aren't the happy kind, unlike the egg looking up to him. They're more of the cynical type, and a little of the ghostly kind. He straightened his back, shoulders in, chest out, chin tucked, and gave Yohji a smart salute. When he saw Yohji scowl he smiled another of his wry smiles and took a fork, speared the smiling egg straight in one eye, piercing the yolk so that the yellow gushed out under the one ketchuped eye, and it seemed like the sunny side up egg was crying as it smiled. Yohji got the symbolism, and sure that Aya was aware of it as well, his frown deepened. His work was going to be harder than he thought.

 

Nine hours later, Yohji set the table for dinner, only now for two, since Ken was somewhere on his bike with a girl, and Omi was over at a classmate's pulling out an all-nighter (though to be sure Omi didn't need it himself, he just likes helping out). As for his dinner date, the redhead was taking a bath, a very long one to Yohji's opinion**. He sighed, as he tended to do often these days, as he tossed his seafood caesar salad and set it on the table. There wasn't much to do while looking after Aya, the redhead spent the afternoon cooped up in front of the television, standing up only to relieve himself, grab a can of beer, and throw out the overflowing contents of the ashtray (only when overflowing, never before). And as Aya lit a new cigarette with an old one, chain smoking the afternoon away, Yohji would've shouted and ordered the younger man to stop smoking, if it weren't beneficial to him as well (at least now he can smoke inside the house).

 

He knew his hypocrisy and cringed at it, but then again he never smoked that much when he was starting out. “Yes, Yohji, justify away…” he whispered to himself.

 

Placing the bowl of salad in the middle of the table, he wiped his hands on the apron before taking it off and taking to the stairs, to annoy Aya into having dinner with him before the redhead bolted out the house for his nightly debauchery. Just as Yohji used to do every night without fail. In the middle of the stairs Yohji stopped and looked up. “Yes, yes, it's all very funny, isn't it?” Then he flipped heaven the bird before resuming his trudging.

 

Aya was hard pressed to eat, and Yohji alternately cajoled and threatened the younger man into having dinner. After all, he worked hard on that dinner, and though he knew Aya cared little for western food, he did his best anyway and took out his big culinary guns- mouthwatering baby back ribs, corn on the cob, shrimps and pasta. Whatever left-over they'll have, Yohji was sure Ken would eat with relish. He was kind of surprised that Aya polished it all off, he's never seen the redhead eat so much with gusto, and without care for table manners (which Aya used to cherish as much as his katana). After dinner, Aya predictably bolted towards the stairs and back to his room to get himself ready for another night of serious drinking, leaving Yohji the chore of dishwashing. Yohji finished the dishes, had time to clean up himself, have a smoke, and the redhead still wasn't finished getting ready. When Yohji was about to give up waiting and was half-off the sofa he heard the familiar sounds of Aya's boots on the stairs. Looking up, he watched Aya as the redhead descended, unconsciously scrutinizing the outfit worn by the younger man. “Well, at least he wasn't as slutty as I was”, Yohji commented to himself, and was a bit surprised that he did so.

 

The redhead looked like a rock star, wearing a tight-fitting button down dark violet shirt with the sleeves rolled up halfway, on closer inspection it had an image of a dragon starting from the right-side breast pocket and ending with the tail at the bottom left of the shirt's front so that the whole of the back was made up of sequins making up the scales and stitching made with thread of a lighter shade of violet. Half of his shirt was tucked into rock star jeans with the proper rips and acid-washing, with a bit of white-paint spattering at the flared bottom worn with a big black leather belt (you can be sure there were some chains dangling from it's right side) with one big bad-ass buckle (Yohji could make out the engraving of a Celtic cross on it, with some other embellishments), and to cover his feet he had on pointy leather boots. With one hand he held a stylish black leather jacket, and for accessories Aya wore chunks of black leather arm-bands and a wristwatch that looks like it can hurt someone, and rings that look like they can render someone blind, his various silver necklaces and black-beaded rosary seen due to the fact that the top buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing alabaster skin. Yohji noted that Aya was sporting an earring on his left eyebrow as well, his violet eyes enhanced by the use of a bit of dark eyeliners, and his trademark red hair more lustrous than ever, grown out and put up in a loose ponytail, leaving the bangs to frame the face.

 

Recovering himself, Yohji scoffed. “Where's the concert?”

 

Aya smirked as he reached into Yohji's shirt pocket for the pack of cigarettes he knew the blonde was sure to have, took a cigarette out with his lips as his left hand fished into his jeans' pocket for his silver lighter. He lit the cigarette and closed his eyes as he took in the first hit of nicotine. Patting down Yohji's pack back into the blonde's shirt pocket, Aya turned his head to the side as he blew the smoke and looked back to Yohji, a mischievous smile on his face.

 

“Why don't you come with me to find out?”

 

Yohji scowled, if only to hide his confusion. Was Aya coming on to him? Stealing a glance at the clock, Yohji tried to dissuade the younger man.

 

“Why don't you just stay at home and, I dunno, read something instead of going out to get wasted and puke on your fancy shirt?”

 

Aya cocked his head to the left, his gaze still on Yohji's face, as if musing on the color of the blonde's eyes. One end of his lips lifted, and he pulled on the cigarette before answering.

 

“And why don't you go out for a drink with me and get a life?”

 

Somewhere inside Yohji's mind, he watched and listened to the ensuing argument with slight amusement. He'd often heard this argument, was actually in this kind of argument, only before he was playing the insufferable cad that Aya was playing now, and not the self-righteous bore that he was playing now and Aya used to be. In the end, though they switched places and attitudes, Aya still won and Yohji gave in, just like before, though somehow it was all wrong, the blonde mused as he trudged up the stairs. Oh well, better to be by Aya's side so that the redhead won't get as wasted rather than worrying the night away alone.

 

Yohji had to dress in haste, but he was used to that***. He chose a striped pale red cowboy shirt, complete with floral stitching on the shoulders (on brown cloth, as cowboy shirts are wont to be made of different cloths), a dark blue pair of denim pants properly faded in places where jeans are expected to fade, brown suede boots and a weathered brown leather belt with a proper Marlboro country-looking buckle. Vanities he took in stride- the earrings, the big, vintage ray-ban sunglasses^, deo, cologne, etc etc etc. The essentials he took a bit longer with- brushing his teeth, combing his hair, choosing the right jacket, stuffing the wallet and checking the important cards within (credit, credit, credit, i.d., license, and the V.I.P.s.), stocking up on the cigs which he promptly placed in his shirt pocket, and if Aya has a big bad-ass buckle, well Yohji has a big, bad-ass Zippo. He took a moment to decide on whether to bring the cowboy hat or not, and decided he might as well. He could always leave it in the car, anyway.

 

As he checked his appearance in the mirror one last time, it occurred to him how foolish he looked; keeping up with his vanities when he only agreed to go drinking with Aya only to look after the younger man, and a duty like that required no preening. Also, he earlier mocked the redhead for being so vain when in the end the only thing he'll be close to would be a toilet, and here he was, doing the very same. He clucked his tongue as he went out of his room, making sure to lock it. In the end, as he backed out the driveway in his car with Aya in the passenger seat, disaffected and occupied with staring into nothing out the car window, Yohji decided that he might as well be vain; this was the first time he's been out for a night of supposed fun in months.

 

 

 

 

* It had a drawing of a smiley face on the yolk, medium: ketchup on sunny side up egg canvas.

 

** Though he wasn't that sure if Aya's time in the bathroom was longer than his all-time record.

 

*** All those mornings in other people's bedrooms helped, he could do buttons real fast and can wear his boots while hopping towards the door, or towards the window, wherever the girl's boyfriend/husband/parents weren't.

 

^ You know the kind that is standard issue sunglasses for pilots in a Top Gun flying school…