Monday 1.6 - Waiting

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

With his mood considerably less bleak than it had been an hour ago, Yohji meandered into the kitchen in hopes of social interaction. While his talk with Omi had surprisingly made him feel better, he didn't think it would necessarily stay that way if he continued to hide in his room with only his own thoughts and a battered photograph of Neu for company.

The kitchen, to his disappointment, was empty. Ken was probably still out getting the pizza, and the others were probably in their respective rooms. Oh well. He considered for a moment stepping outside for a cigarette, but then decided that was still too introspective an activity for his own good.

Yohji grabbed a beer and wandered down to the mission room to make an attempt at watching TV.

Comments

[plotbunnytiff.livejournal.com]

Ken returned home juggling two large pizza boxes and one small one, along with a grocery bag of mysterious contents. He seemed quite pleased with himself.

After spending a few minutes fussing around in the kitchen, he grabbed a newly purchased Pocari Sweat and searched the house until he found Yohji.

"Food's here." He announced with a pleasant smile. "Want me to bring you a slice?"

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

Yohji looked up at the sound of someone entering and smiled at Ken.

"Well..." he said, carefully, "Omi said something along the lines of wanting to have a group meeting over dinner.... But seeing as I couldn't find a trace of anyone when I came down here I suppose it's fair game. Would love one, actually."

He regarded Ken with a little bit of anticipation, not sure if Ken was expecting things to pick right up where they had left off in the car. The previous night already felt like eons ago, and Yohji felt as though his reality had once again been subtly shifted.

[plotbunnytiff.livejournal.com]

"Mmm." Ken made a non-commital noise and hiked back up the stairs. A minute later he was back with the small pizza box.

"Today was your lucky day." He set the box on the table in front of Yohji, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "The pizza place wasn't that crowded, so they were happy to take a special request. They charged me extra though, so you owe me."

He flipped open the box lid to reveal a personal sized pizza, topped with bubbling extra cheese, huge succulent chunks of pineapple...and mounds of saurkraut.

"Just like you asked for," Ken managed to blurt out before dissolving into a mild fit of laughter.

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

Yohji looked at the pizza in disbelief.

"Ken Hidaka, you are seriously warped."

It looked positively toxic. On the other hand, Yohji had a fairly extensive repertoire when it came to ingesting toxic substances.

He poked at it cautiously, shrugged, and took a piece. He almost managed to keep a straight face as he chewed.

"Hm," he mused, "This beer is totally wrong for it. If I'd known you were going to take me seriously, I would have asked you to pick up a bottle of Shiraz."

[pichi.livejournal.com]

Omi stood at the top of the spiral stairs, invisible to the occupants in the mission room below. He heard the laughter, the playful banter, the voices of everyone else down there. Even Aya-chan. It was such a warm aura down there. Almost like real family. With all the tension and arguing he'd seen, he was afraid of treading down and disrupting the atmosphere. He liked hearing them get along.

Part of him wanted to join, to be down with everyone in his life that he had left to love. And yet his body didn't move, not daring to transcend the invisible divider from looking in to joining in.

It wasn't really a waste of time to hold back. They couldn't very well discuss anything with Aya-chan down there anyway. Omi quietly sat down at the top of the stairs, keeping himself hidden, and contented himself, for the time being at least, to simply listen and appreciate the good mood from a safe distance.

It sounded fun down there.

[plotbunnytiff.livejournal.com]

"Give me about a week, and I could find something even you couldn't swallow." Ken took a healthy bite of his slice and chased it down with the last of his Pocari.

It was a risky move, but it was exciting. A game. It had been so long since he had the inclination to just horse around with someone without other things lurking in the background that he simply bowled ahead full speed.

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

"What am I, a garbage disposal?" Yohji crossed his arms and shot Ken an incredulous look, "what do you need a week for? Give you an hour and I don't doubt you could dig up something I wouldn't eat. The question is, can you find something that you'd eat that I wouldn't."

He let his gaze drift over to Ran, curious to see his reaction to the surmounting bad judgment.

"I'm not agreeing to anything yet, mind you," he added. The expression that had materialized across Ken's face was a little bit worrisome. He was probably calculating the easiest way to get his hands on some live eels or something...

[genuinelie.livejournal.com]

Ran stared in undisguised disbelief at the two of them and wondered where their fourth teammate had gotten to. He could usually count on Omi for some sanity.

Why did he care? This was ridiculous. If they wanted to poison themselves, that was their business.

Or maybe it's jealousy. The niggling little voice came out of nowhere. Maybe you're just jealous of their comraderie.

Another idiotic thought on his part. They were like children. He didn't want to take part in that.

Yohji's gaze flicked across to him, gone again before he could be sure. The unexpected consideration made him blink.

That almost seemed like Kudoh cared what he thought. It had been...almost assessing.

He mentally shook it off. Yohji was just showing off, one of his many innate characteristics. It didn't matter who it was for.

Yohji was too lazy to win, Ran found himself suddenly deciding despite himself. Ken had the competetive edge.

"Don't be an idiot, Kudoh," the words slipped out of his mouth in the face of his resolve to stay out of it. "Ken would eat anything."

[plotbunnytiff.livejournal.com]

Ken jerked away from the door as though it were on fire.

"OK! Ok...I--"

--didn't mean to make you mad

He finished the beer and walked over to the trash can to throw out the bottle. For a moment he felt like a complete moron. Was it really such a bright idea to *tell* him after all? Omi was probably still a little shell shocked, but despite his reassurances, he was obviously freaked out, anybody could see that, why why did he do something that stupid--

The cheese was sitting in the trash can.

On the top.

The itch turned into a gently painful pulse.

[pichi.livejournal.com]

Omi grabbed the nearest can of soda from the fridge and felt no decrease in the tension after the SssstCrack of the pop top. Particularly as he recognized a painful and telling silence in the air. Looked over his shoulder-- there was Ken at the trash and... Shit, the cheese. The cheese he had just lied about throwing out days ago. Man, he was batting 1000.

"I... Ken-kun. I'm sorry! I just didn't want you to get sick and I panicked and..."

[plotbunnytiff.livejournal.com]

Ken didn't turn around.

"And *what* Omi? And you thought that instead of just *telling* me that, you would just fucking *lie* about it?!"

He clenched his eyes shut, then forced them open again. They hurt so badly.

"It's cheese, Omi! You could have just said you thought it was a bad idea from the start. Especially since you know how much I hate being *lied* to!"

It was a slow motion nightmare, like the grocery store all over again. One second his hand was around the bottle. The next, the bottle was hitting the opposite wall, shattering.

[pichi.livejournal.com]

Omi cringed. Ken was right, of course. It was just pure habit. He used little white lies all the time to smooth things over. They didn't usually backfire like this. Especially this badly.

The bottle shattered against the wall and Omi shrunk tightly. Ken was really mad, wasn't he?

"Ken-kun...! You're making a mess!" It was a desperate shot, anything to avoid addressing the actual topic that Ken was well and truly pissed off at him. Any way to make him calm down without actually addressing that.

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

After a few minutes Yohji checked his watch, surprised that Ken hadn't returned with the cheese yet.

"I'm starting to wonder if that cheese has mutated some kind of sentience and escaped," he gave Ran a puzzled look, "I can't say I'll be sorry if he doesn't find it."

[genuinelie.livejournal.com]

After Ken had bounded up the stairs, Ran stared Yohji down.

He raised an eyebrow at Yohji's comment. "A food eating contest. With Ken." He didn't make it a question. "Not enough women lately to occupy your time?"

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

Yohji blanched at Ran's words. That had been about the last thing he'd expected the other man to say.

"What the fuck do women have to do with anything?" He was genuinely offended. He didn't spend *that* much time on dates. Only 2 or 3 a week, on average. He'd actually been going out alone more than anything these days, not that Ran had any way of knowing that.... "We're just goofing around. Are you saying you'd rather have me out running around with women than here with you guys? I can leave if you want."

[genuinelie.livejournal.com]

Ran settled into a scowl.

What did what he want have anything to do with this?

"What do I care if you're out with women?" He demanded. Glancing at Aya-chan out of the corner of his eye, he drew in a breath and reigned in his irritation.

His own words were ringing in his ears.

On some level, he did care if Yohji went out with women.

It was bad for the team, not knowing where members were. Or who they were with.

He covered his unease by falling silent.

[plotbunnytiff.livejournal.com]

The sound of Ran's shout made Ken flinch, his hand involuntarily crumpling the pancake box.

Shit. Ran was going to find him in a vunerable state and probably swoop in for the kill--

Wait. What the hell kind of thought was that?

"NOTHING!" The reply came out as a loud, pained roar instead of a mere yell. Ken dragged his grimy hands on his pants as another tear tried to struggle out of his badly abused eyes. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, silently willing it to stop.

[pichi.livejournal.com]

Omi's body seemed to lock up on him, forbidding any change of position. There he sat, kneeling on the floor beside Ken amongst the trash, the cursed chunk of moldy cheese to the left of his knee as a crowning centerpiece to the spread of garbage. He worked his jaw, staring up the towering figure of his teammate. "A... Aya-kun!"

A minute ago, he'd have been relieved to have him run up and help. Now that Ken's anger seemed to have fizzled off, there was nothing to see or help with except one giant mess.

Crap.

"D-...Daijoubu!" He said, with the most reassuring smile he could plaster onto his face. "Ken-kun just..." And what could he follow that up with? His mind felt blank.

"I'll clean it up. Don't worry about it."

[genuinelie.livejournal.com]

Nothing. Nothing meant it was definitely something.

He reached the kitchen only to find it destroyed, Ken and Omi on their knees in a sea of trash sweeping the floor.

Omi's humble response was a sidenote to the expressions on each of their faces. Ran's eyes took in one, then the other.

It had been personal.

Yohji's earlier warning, disregarded at the time, came back to him. Ken fraying.

But something else must have gone on here. There was simply too much tension in the room.

Aya might have exploded.

Ran didn't.

Ran crossed his arms, and leaned back against the doorway, eyes falling half-lidded in a smirk he didn't feel. "You're going to kill Yohji if you give him something to eat from that," he said. His tone fell down to the register he used in the shop when one of them wasn't pulling his load. "It needed to have been taken out last week."

This wasn't good. But they were Weiss. Either they pulled through this, or they didn't. But so far, there wasn't any indication that what was going on affected their job.

All you care about...

Again, Yohji's voice in his head. Damn Kudoh. He pushed it aside.

[7bladed.livejournal.com]

Aya-Chan stood alone in the middle of the room, still rather stunned by the exchange between Ran and Yohji that had gone on only moments before and by the abrupt exit made by both men. I suspect Ran doesn't want you to anyway. Yohji's parting comment seemed to be the only thing going through her mind.

"I suspect there are a lot of things I'm not wanted for..." she muttered to nobody in particular before turning her attention to clean up the mess the pizza had left behind.

[genuinelie.livejournal.com]

Ran stormed down the stairs, put in a foul mood by the exchange with Yohji. The sight of his sister dissipated all of it.

He put a hand on her shoulder. "You didn't have to clean up after us," he said.

[7bladed.livejournal.com]

Aya-Chan looked up from picking up a piece of mushroom off the ground. "Oh, no. It's alright, you were busy..." she trailed off a little, staring at Ran, unsure of what to say. Finally, "is everything... alright?"

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

Yohji lingered on the stairs for a few minutes, not quite sure what to do with himself. He had the impression that Omi still wanted to have some sort of meeting, so he didn't think he should leave. Yet he also felt that he'd more or less worn out his welcome of talking to Ran. Returning downstairs might not be in his best interest just yet.

He decided to start by going to the fridge and getting another beer.

The sight of the garbage on the floor made him cringe all over again. What happened here? It must have been Ken, and the thought of Ken getting upset enough to cause this mess was sufficient to bring his good mood down several notches.

He checked to make sure no one was around--his reputation of not being especially helpful was one he did care about maintaining, the last thing he wanted was for people to start expecting him to clean all the time--and started to pick up the floor. Maybe if he did it quickly the others would just make assumptions that someone else was responsible.

Making the mess go away was pretty much the only thing he could think of that might help Ken right now, even if it was only a little bit.

[plotbunnytiff.livejournal.com]

It took Ken a few minutes to pull himself together enough to make his way downstairs. He still had a look like a slightly stunned cow on his face when he entered the kitchen; the delightful shock of what Omi had done hadn't worn off yet.

It did occur to him that maybe he was just being lead around by the balls.

It also occurred to him that maybe he really didn't care.

When he came across Yohji cleaning up the trash on the floor, he colored just a bit in embarrassment.

"Ah...you don't have to do that." Ken made a vague dismissive motion at his teammate and grabbed a trashbag himself.

[skyrat13.livejournal.com]

Yohji nearly dropped his handful of trash, surprised at being interrupted again so soon.

Damnit, he should have taken Omi's appearance as a warning and scrammed. Ken was the last person he wanted to catch him in the act of cleaning up. But where else would he have gone? He didn't want to shut himself up in his room already, and he certainly didn't get the impression that he was welcome downstairs right now.

"It's no problem," he said awkwardly.

He looked up from the mess and evaluated Ken's expression. He seemed...far more okay than Yohji would have expected. There wasn't a trace of whatever emotion had been present to cause him trashing the room.

"How are you doing?"

((ooc: we should move this to a new post I think))