Exactly one year ago I was watching some dumbo 'Winnie the Pooh' Christmas Special and I was inspired to write this drama. So, because this is the most fun I've ever had writing a fic, I figured an update was due to celebrate the good times. One year and only seven chapters...I must be writing a la 'the process of erosion'.
Well I hope you guys enjoy this chapter...I don't like it quite as much as some of the previous chapters but there are still a few amusing moments floating around and Ken has yet again fucked himself over. Oh Ken when will you learn? There's just no hope for the boy.
Happy reading and happy holidays folks!
~*~Chapter 7~*~
Well slather me sideways on a sacrilegious Saturday, if the hullabaloo of this locale wasn't the very limit...as in 'pushing the limit'.
I could almost feel my grunky kicks, scruffy cargos and wrinkled hoodie dissipate in the heavy ambiance of this lofty dive. If Aya hadn't had pupils that could roast a ram raw then I most definitely would have been hefted ass-to-asphalt right out the crystal-cut, be-canopied doorway.
Compelling, I know...like Aya was good for some kinda shemozzle.
But here's the thing you gotta know...the very limit of these posh premises...beyond the velvet squabs my ass was filthing up or the spread of silverware and china that was worth more then my claws to Kritiker or the fucking fountain that stood upon a dais of black-veined Italian marble...the limits that were beyond this pinnacle of panache were the menus.
The menus, by Takashi's toenail.
The twelve paged, vanilla-scented, butter-hued vellum was engraved in loopy, gold script (because when words looked that fancy they weren't writing anymore but rather script) and bound with tendrils of maroon-coloured satin ribbon. Staples were much too 'of the merchant class', obviously.
Hells below, this volume wasn't even a menu but rather a confection of frippery and finery. It was a tome to be perused by the philosophical in nature, the scholarly in spirit and those in possession of a sturdy monocle.
My fingers, all rough and ruddy and peasant-ish, looked like brown sausages against the crisp press of the bound digest. If I would've put the friggin' fraffery down then I would've left oil-drools a la fresh serving-STD Tokyo vendors, I'm sure of it. Next thing I'd've known, those hippy granola-fuckers would've been sponging my ass, bellowing about oil spill disasters.
Seriously, I'm not making any kerfuffles here, it's the truth of the times. As far as I knew, and indeed I have read over three books this year, menus here were the puggiest things around town...especially if you toss in all this froufrou French fruffery. This supercilious who-ha didn't slick well with me at all. While I wasn't much of a food vendor skewered-grub kinda guy, neither was I an es-car-goto kinda guy. Sure, I'd just followed Aya into the first restaurant that had derailed our meanderings...I'd been still silently fuming over his gormish ways but taking a good goose at the drama of this place...well I couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't more of a stupid scheme on Aya's behalf. Like trying to embarrass me inside the Frenchies in a classic 'platypus outta Auzzie-land' type of ruse.
Trying to play mental tiddly-winks with the guy was a nomadic experience, I'll grant him that. I'd been mincing around in corners of my mind that hadn't seen visitors since the Polynomial exams of elementary. I may not have been that ten-year old kid studying Nuclear Physics at Tokyo University but nor was I any Tot. I had only misled Aya into thinking I wanting to be his 'special friend' to ditch the empty chicks those tools Yohji and Omi had been tossing off on me. Was a guy's sense of self preservation enough to merit well thought-out plans of revenge and hatred? Yeah I'd kissed Aya but I for sure as falafel didn't like it anymore then he did. Even less in fact; I'd been the one who'd been pinned under his bulk and I'd been the one with his skin under my teeth...like that prissy bonehead better not've given me no gingivitis...and I'd been the one who'd had to initiate that meeting of man mouths, which wasn't even to jiggle the Jello on all the abuse Yohji and Omi had preluded the entire debacle with. If anything I was the victim here and I deserved respect! I didn't deserve Aya's sneaky notions of revenge and I didn't deserve trying to out-wit him at every corner-pocket.
And I certainly didn't deserve to force myself into eat snails and sheep and aardvark in some eatery that looked like its patrons farted lilac perfume and shit rose petals...all in the hopes of placating the moody guacamoleguts sitting across from me.
"Can I get you gentlemen anything to drink?" came the hushed, pretentious voice of our hoity-toity waitress. "Something from the bar perhaps?"
Aya looked at me and a flush the color of a candy cane, though obviously not striped, spread over his cheeks.
Oh by Yamawarashi's bulging belly, what was that arsejam plotting now? That fruity sunset there wasn't going to make a lug out of me, yeah that's right. No puddings to melt here, carry on then. Ahem motherfuckers. I met Aya's gaze with a keen spirit about me.
"Well we could have wine if you want to," Aya mumbled, quickly glancing away.
I stared down at my eight silver forks, five silver spoons and three silver knives blackly. Well. Well now. Was subtly a lost art? Where was the creative sport I'd come to expect? This was shoddy my friend, I thought, this was shoddy. How much more obvious could Aya get, dragging me into this phoofy Frenchie dive and then wanting to suck back some mashed grape guts? What next, the old yawn-n-stretch arm throw at the local drive-in movie matinee?
Maybe then I should have some wine, to go with all the theatrical Havarti around here.
The waitress cleared her throat delicately and sniffed down her snub nose at me.
Well if I hadda play the game then I'd go for the gold, obviously. I wasn't about to let Aya do whatever he was gonna do. And speaking of…what exactly was he gonna do? Seduce his way into my aorta and then reject me? Take pictures of my junk and compare it to twig? Spread rumours of how crap in bed I was to Omi and Yohji? Leave me with Schwartz for a night?
"Uh Ken?"
Oh when was this damn constant badgering ever going to head for a finale? Already the guy was acting like my frooging wife, bossing me around and nagging my ass a la Persia to Manx.
"Wine, the nectar of the Gods," I boomed heartily. "Yes, wine would be the exact kicker for a special evening such as this!" I caught Aya's eyeball, grinned widely, tipped him a wink and topped off this bit of roguery with a display of the 'call me' hand position.
The sunset deepened, heading straight for haemorrhage junction. "We'll take a bottle of Beaujolais white," Aya mumbled.
The waitress was goggling at me, looking revolted by my boisterous, bourgeois attitude. "Have you cataracts?" she demanded of my wink, sniffing down her ski slope of a nose.
"Have you a congestion in your sinuses?" I returned waspishly.
She huffed, scrounged away the wine list from Aya and stalked off.
"Stupid tartlet," I snarled, vexed. "She's filled with some kind of pointless Crème Brulee froth, she is."
Aya cleared his throat and looked down at his menu. "You don't have cataracts," he muttered, his ears as scarlet as his eartails.
Oh when would the compliments ever end? I could scarcely bear it. Byron, the guy was NOT.
For lack of something better to do, I peered down at my menu...and had to suppress the urge to feign Turret's Syndrome to get an Italian loafer kick-off from this pistil of a place. What I'd like to know is when did these grub guides morph from set lists of ingredients and preparation to full-flavoured self-help paths to enlightenment? Since when did an upscale, upmarket, up-the-arse restaurant like this pissant become synonymous with 'Shambala Buddhist Meditation Centre'?
Mans, I just wanted some nosh.
Okay, so just get a stack of this hullabaloo.
'Like a slice of the late September twilight, these brandy-soaked Austrian truffles, lightly sautéed in a scrumptious dandelion-peppercorn vinaigrette, are tantamount to a sensation of fragrant autumnal harmony. Served solely to enhance two fillets of a raspberry-hued Atlantic sturgeon so delicate its lush flavours are sure to induce a glimmering abyss of decadent pleasure within the heart of any pursuer. Completed on a bed of crisp endive, lemongrass and gooseberries, this is an entrée worthy to be savoured by both the connoisseur of gourmet repast as well an adventurer of oceanic spirit.'
It was a vinaigreet-smeared dungfest enough to make anyone's brain fart. What a nautical nightmare. If all those 'adventurers of oceanic spirit' actually ate all this sort of snotty smezzle then why in the name of the Caspian Sea did they get scurvy every twenty-three leagues? How was chowing down on some fish and berries gonna get me a hook up with this 'glimmering abyss in my heart' shit? What did that even mean...other that I wasn't of an oceanic spirit?
And above all that jazzmosis...by Lady Kesho-in's cross garters how could one sauté truffles? It smoggled the mind, I thought. Like wouldn't they melt, the truffles? Who even ever heard of mixing up dandelions and peppercorns with chocolates? That was disgusting!
The waitress minced back with the wine. She poured a tiny slice of white into the hull of Aya's glass for him to test. He took a sip and pronounced it worthy, though I was of the opinion that he didn't know arse over teakettle about what good gushed grapes tasted like.
Snootsville refilled Aya's glass and then mine, still sniffing and not condescending to gander down at my plebeian-like facial bonery. "Have you finished ordering yet?"
"A few more minutes please," Aya requested genially and she smiled at him before sashaying off.
"So what should we drink to?" I asked, a plastic smile glazing over my features. It too must have been 'tantamount to a sensation of fragrant autumnal harmony '...blank smile + my face.
Aya tugged at his collar and looked uncomfortable. "Um...friendship?"
Getting demure were we?
"Or to successful relationships?" I countered boldly.
Aya blinked at me and suddenly, quite unexpected really, smiled. A real smile; that it to say none of that ruthless, butcher-of-men business he favoured on occasion to make the galoots thoroughly sweat it up.
A warmth, similar to chugging brandy or at least 'brandy-soaked Austrian truffles' I'm sure, swamped in the area of my small intestines. The cardboard grin on my face faltered before falling off like a cheap toupee. Ah hell no. Motherfucker no. By the Tale of Genji no way. I was not going to get all pansy-assed over Aya making a parabola with that pale, wormy, frowning though oddly pouty...
I wondered which fork you used if you wanted to slop out a cornea.
Aya raised his glass slightly. "To successful relationships then."
What choice did I have? I'd been the one to put my gullet into the throat-thumper and that was what they called 'fucked five ways to Friday'. "Yeah man, if you say so."
Sad part was, he never did said so, it was all me and my lardo fatlip.
We knocked our glasses together.
Aya took a hesitant, almost fussy sip of his wine.
I drained my glass. "You want some leaves and grass or what?"
Aya dabbed at his mouth with the corner of his gossamer-blue linen napkin. "What?"
I was transfixed. What was the guy doing, scrubbing at his mug like that? He hadn't eaten anything; we hadn't even ordered any food yet and here he was, scouring away. Did he ever fit into this place, like how.
"Sturgeon my good man, sturgeon. Or aren't you a 'connoisseur of gourmet repast'?"
Aya blinked at me. I could tell he didn't have no clues to what I was harping on about. "To eat you mean? I was thinking about this chicken." He gestured vaguely at his menu. "I've always been partial to cilantro. Has a rather subtle flavour, wouldn't you agree?"
Huh? I shut my mouth and checked for drool. I didn't know nothing about no cilantro. I'd never even heard of that...whatever it was. Sounded like a snobby French word for that brown meat sauce British people put on smashed potatoes. Lordsdamn that Aya for trying to show me up! He knew I knew exactly squatter's settlement about fancy foreign foods beyond pizza and still he was trying to make me look the fool. Was that why he'd carted me into this praline-nosed reef? I was outta my element here and he knew it.
Well then. If that was how the beans were gonna ferment then so be it.
"Oh I much prefer a dandelion-peppercorn vinaigreet," I trilled breezily. "Now there's a real taste you can sink your chompers into!"
"You mean vinaigrette," Aya corrected, his lips quirking. "I've never tasted such a vinaigrette before."
Well neither had I but you didn't see me whining about it. Jezebels below, could the guy be more condescending? Vinaigreet, viniagreta whatever, I wasn't French. I didn't even know what this viniagreet business was and frankly it sounded revolting. Who put dandelions in with their eats anyway? Dandelions were weeds and they tasted bitter. I know, having eaten a handful on a drunken dare once.
Petunia's goddamn pansies was my upchuck ever jaundice-yellow that night.
"That's what I meant," I replied through gritted teeth. "Vinaigr...uh you know. That good stuff."
Aya smiled at me. Again.
Yeah I'll bet he was dancing in Lah Lah city, all jubilant over my obvious screw-ups. Well excusefuckingme for not having had the privilege of working in a restaurant prior to offing evil folk. I could hardly stand to stare at his smug expression. Stupid bimbo.
I glanced back down at the menu for consolation and saw the theatrics that had won Frosty over.
'A startlingly bold myriad of seasonal fresh, rhubarb-cilantro glazed garden vegetables served along side Rose Whiskey basted chicken breasts plumped to maximum opulence make Rose Poulet avec Legumes a veritable fest for the senses as well as for the soul.'
So now my soul was gonna have a time with some veggie bird was it?
I had to wonder what made the chicken and vegetables such 'a startlingly bold myriad'. Ever since the union of hunters and gatherers, man and woman have been cramming meats and leaves down their faces. This wasn't anything new, least of all not startling bold, now matter how much you froofed it up.
Figures Aya'd order something that stupid.
I poured myself another glass of wine and took a vigorous chug. When in France and all that kaka.
"So uh..." Aya fiddled with his napkin a bit. I was instantly on my guard. He was up to something alright; I could see right through his coy facades. "When you...um when you said you...er you know...likedmeforalongtime..." He looked up from his lap and blinked coquettishly at me...yeah like that drama worked when you were a dude. "Did you...well did you mean it?"
Ugh to the power of nineteen. Here came the reaffirmation process. Like I hadn't already played the Bozo around here. It was enough to make a guy wanna maul his face up with his own claws...or at least the faces of his scheming, sneaking, conniving boulderbrains of three pair team-mates.
"Yeah man what would I lie for?" I guzzled some more wine and gave him an 'earnest' look. Yohji may have been a third-class schmuck but he was always rhapsodizing about making eye contact with the ladies to look like you meant all the crap you were spewing.
And here's to hoping my proboscis would stay the same length in the wake of all this new melodrama I was about to sprout up. I leaned forward. "I do like you a lot Aya. You're a state-of-the-art kinda guy, know what I mean green bean?"
Aya blushed...like AGAIN. For such a prissy, cold-arsed prick, he really did have this facial-flooding business down to an art...a state-of-the-art cheap shenanigan, you might say. "A-ah. Well then. Um...why? Why me, exactly?"
I goggled at the guy. Don't tell me this. He didn't genuinely expect me to sit around and extol his virtues, did he? What, did I look like that Sakura trend-whore jogging in her underpanties? This was nadir...so very nadir...even for a Schuldich like Aya. What was he trying to ascertain, other then a lesson in Ken Humiliation 1102?
Like it wasn't rancid enough, that I had to kiss him and then date him and hold his hand and pretend to be in LOVE with him...all in the hopes of avoiding that tack-fest Yohji and his twice as losery sick-kick and their combined match-mixing muddles. Where was the humanity in this putrefying beef-brew?
This called for a snoggle of the old liquefied jolly. I drank with all the festive cheer of a fellow just dumped by his waif. "Because Yohji and Omi are lousy hosers!" And wasn't that the karma-kissing truth...hell yes toast to that. "Of all the people I know in this whole entire world you're the most, how d'you say, quiet. And broody and moody...hey that was rhyming!" Cheers mate and a world of glugs. "You're all-" Mean and nasty and vindictive, giving me a contaminated swab of cruched-up fennery like that. "-nice looking when you get pissed at chicks who buy shit-all at the store or at Takatori or drivers who cut you off. An' I like the way you only gotta scowl at Yohji and he backs off your food. That stupid screwdriver's always grabbin' and pokin' at my foods." Was that enough mush talk or what? Like I was NOT gonna be comparing Aya's eyeballs to frosted plums or counting the ways I loved him or any other tutti-frutti, nancy-boy dung natter.
Aya adopted a shifty-shy sort of expression. "You think I look...nice when I'm angry?"
Talk about choking the cluck outta that chicken. Some folks were just never satisfied with a few love words...like this guy wanted a whole damn dictionary. "Yeah whatever bud sure, why not?"
"Oh." Aya wiped at his cheek a bit, face brimming with pseudo-embarrassment.
The waitress decided to prance back to our table then. She curved her lips at Aya. "Ready to order gentlemen?"
I planted my glass onto the table with a loud thunk. "Bring us another bottle, my good wench!"
The smile dropped off of pretension's phizog like dumb off Tot. "Excuse me?!" She seemed irate. "I am NOT a wench you cheap drunk!"
"Drunk?" What in the molten core was this putz saying? "Off almost two glasses of this winery? Lady, I'm no lush!"
"Ken?" Aya gestured to the bottle of Beaujolais. "Only about one quarter of the bottle is gone. Maybe we should wait for another?"
Here came round fucking TWO of naggings-ville. Who was Aya to make the rules at this frou-frou table...Persia?
"And we're ready to order," he continued without waiting for me to reply. He smiled up at that bitchy hussy, a huss if I ever saw one and she softened like a bowl of lemon crème glacee in front of an anorexic. "I'd like a small garlic lobster bisque and the Rose Poulet, please."
So Aya was gonna go garlic, was he? Scarf down some protection eh? As if I WAS going to mouth him again, yeah right, keep hoping there Frenchie.
"And for you?"
But I didn't really hear her a foul and appalling thought had suddenly occurred to me. Aya was a diabolical character, to be sure and I'd almost missed this one but just...what if? What if indeed. It could be possible, I didn't dare below-estimate boulder face.
Say Aya had foistered me into this den of boujee to give me some kinda clue? Like to quiz me on how step-to-the-moment I was? What if he was gonna try to top my kiss with a kiss of his own and make that kiss French a la this bistro? He probably didn't want to lock lips with me anymore then I did him...and now he was trying to gimme warning signs. He was THAT desperate, the dumbbar. He thought he could ladle the ladoos but chaps on Piccadilly was his daal bits ever getting smushed! This French eatery, his bossy mannerisms, the endless 'that's not how you pronounce vinaigreet' spiels, the crafty ordering of garlic...all the signs were brighter then Farfarello in the Congo.
Aya was trying to repel me!
"Well? You can still talk can't you?"
Such a damn catty witch.
"Yes I can still talk," I snapped, adding 'you shabby floozy' under my breath. "I'll have this truffle-sturgeon-endive hoopla..." I didn't even know what endive was, to think the truth. And who ever heard of, like eating fish and chocolate together? It sounded like a mess and six sevenths but if that wasn't gonna give me halitosis of the year then I was gonna keep chowing down. I hastily scanned the food-fare tome, as it were. I would out-stink Aya if I hadda use my friggin' life savings in this stuck-up kettle of pretension. "And some of this onion pork soufflé along with the brie-stuffed eggplant."
HAH! See if you can scope this, eartails!
"Oh and a dish of this clam and parsley consommé." Just for added reinforcements, you understand.
Snobby-skirts scribbled quickly, looking like she'd been made to clean the toilet with her tongue. "Is that all?" she demanded, sneering prissily at me.
"For the moment, merchant," I replied haughtily and waved her away in the manner of master dismissing serf.
She scowled, appearing quite in fact like a long-lost sister of Aya's, before stamping off.
"You must be hungry," Aya commented, watching me above the rim of his wine glass.
"Starving," I proclaimed and polished off my second glass of wine. I scrutinized Aya...a teammate yet an enemy. How paradoxical. How peculiar. He was looking sorta funny though, like he was far-off or something. What was he thinking right now? What was he up to? What was his next scheme?
"I didn't know you cared for soufflé," Aya continued, dabbing daintily at his mouth.
Yet another diaphanously-gauzed insult. "Yeah well I didn't know that you cared for lobster brisk."
"Bisque," he amended. "And I do make it every other Sunday."
That's what that stank lobster upchuck Aya made every Sunday was? Revolting! I had to suppress the old gag-a-thon reflex with much élan of fortitude. Aya was turning into a pure sleaze, what with his truculent 'You don't really know jack shit about me' attitude. He was trying to call my bluff, the wily balloonbrain. Some sneaky he was. You didn't live together and then kill together with a guy and not know a few of the more base details about said guy.
"Just like you rotate your mimosas two and a quarter inches towards the sunlight every week."
How's that for a factus obscurus, asshat?
"Uh yeah, that's true."
He undeniably sounded good and put-off!
I chortled as I helped myself to some more wine. Whatever else this poshella place might be...they sure knew how to serve up some satisfactory spirits.
"Uh Ken?" Aya leaned forward a bit and gestured to my face with his white hand. "Your face..."
OmigodsinCandyLands Aya was gonna try and kiss me!
I panicked. I couldn't understand what he was gelling on about...I could see his thin, vine-like lips move but his wordy spectacle didn't compute inside my cerebrum. He'd taken me off guard and now I was left pissing like a ham hock.
I grabbed his wavering fingers and pulled him further towards me. The yammering stopped. His pansy-boy eyes grew enlarged with shock. Stupid barbell, I always won…'cept when I didn't. "I'll kiss you first pal!"
And I did...a great hullabaloo of a smacker right on the lips. And I slipped him a bit of the tongue, just 'cause. He wasn't gonna be able to crown that King 'Beacon of Manhood'...short of boning me and even he wouldn't go that far to revenge me up.
Would he?
Aya's face resembled nothing more then a fried-up aubergine. "You had an eyelash on your cheek," he whispered and then he drained his wine glass in one helluva of knock back.
"You taste sweet," he whispered, gazing at me like Yohji would crotch-less panties.
He didn't even wipe his mouth with his napkin either.
Shitter's cramp was I ever in some deep diarrhea.