A Seaside Story (part 14)

Apr 05, 2009 04:26

Happy birthday, nira_chan! ♥ Have a few hundred more words! ...Though they're pretty angsty words. :|


By chance, when he’s passing the bar, he hears a voice call his name. It doesn’t register at first, but then the voice calls again, and when he turns to look, Mr Tsuji is standing outside the door. He nods, but doesn’t quite manage a smile.

“You alright?” Mr Tsuji asks jovially. Thankfully, before Subaru can reply, Mr Tsuji slings a friendly arm around his shoulders. “Come on, let me buy you a drink. If Sadako says anything about you being out too late, you can tell her it’s my fault!”

Subaru gratefully accepts the beer Mr Tsuji puts in front of him. He’s glad he’s not expected to start the conversation - Mr Tsuji cheerfully starts speaking as soon as he sits down.

“So, how come you’re out at this time?”

“I… went to see Yasuda,” Subaru mumbles. He can’t bring himself to confess the reason why he was going.

“Oh, that’s good!” Mr Tsuji enthuses warmly. “It’ll be good for you both to have a pal your own age. Most of the kids, when they get to 18, they’re off to the mainland to college or find better jobs… Well, they say better. I don’t know what could be better than this, not for me,” he says, chuckling. “But him, he came here, right when most kids are getting out. Must be lonely for him,” Mr Tsuji goes on. Subaru doesn’t really want to bother stopping him. “After all he must’ve been through.” Mr Tsuji shakes his head.

Subaru hesitates, looks up from his beer at Mr Tsuji. Damn, what a thing to say - of course Subaru can’t help but be the tiniest bit curious! He’s trying to fight the urge to ask - he doesn’t want to seem nosy, or, even, interested in the slightest - but he doesn’t need to, because even his glance is enough to spur Mr Tsuji on.

“Ahh, I guess you won’t know,” he says, and this really is one of those communities where everyone’s business really is everyone’s business, because he barely even pauses for breath before going on. “Young Shota came to the island about, oh, must’ve been two, three years ago… Yes, three, because it was just after that container ship went down, we were cleaning up timber for weeks! Good year for barbecues though,” he adds. Subaru makes a note to never ever set foot out of line within sight of Mr Tsuji, because it would surely come back to haunt him, possibly years later.

“Anyway,” Mr Tsuji continues. “Yasuda arrived in the autumn, when the season was pretty much over. He didn’t know anyone here - he had hardly anything with him. I remember seeing him just after he arrived, he only had one bag. We wondered why on earth he’d come here! Wondered if maybe he was on the run from the police or something!”

Subaru almost snorts. The only crime he can imagine Yasuda committing is being sickeningly nice to someone till they’re so sick of they give up and die. Though hot on the heels of that thought is the more sobering one that, if they thought that about Yasuda - maybe they thought it about him, too… He tried to put on an interested, innocent expression, though he wishes Mr Tsuji would hurry it along. He doesn’t care about bloody Yasuda, he doesn’t want his whole life story!

“He stayed with Sadako for a bit, like you, helping her out a bit,” Mr Tsuji goes on again. “He was quiet at first, withdrawn, like, but he was so helpful and did all the jobs he took on without one word of complaint,” he says, and Subaru feels another surge of resentment for that goody-goody, acting all better than Subaru without even meaning to, and probably without even thinking about it!

“But everyone took to him,” Mr Tsuji says blithely, as Subaru’s thoughts get progressively more bitter. If he wasn’t quite so sure Mr Tsuji wasn’t the type to drop concrete hints into a conversation, he’s be feeling even more sour than he already is. “And then when we found out… Well, everyone in the town wanted to take him under their wing. Yuuko, who owns the snack shop, she offered him a place to stay, and there’s plenty of other ladies offering him a mother figure…”

Subaru glances at his watch. It’s getting dangerously close to 9, despite Mr Tsuji’s assurances he’ll take care of it. He’s getting more and more irritated at having to listen to the praises being sung of the guy he hates. Furthermore, he doesn’t even know what the big deal was, that makes Yasuda so special. Besides his nauseating niceness and ability to somehow charm anyone over 40 (making Subaru, of course, immune).

He still doesn’t want to ask. But he wants to know. Wants to know what the extra secret is, whether it will make everyone’s love for this guy somehow more explicable.

Subaru takes a deep breath, a swig of beer, and asks, as neutrally as he can, “What exactly… happened?”

Mr Tsuji shakes his head. “Well, it’s a terribly sad thing, but his parents were killed, in a car accident. Had a sister too, he’s talked about her a lot. Whole family died, he was left on his own. Terrible.”

“Yeah, that’s awful,” echoes Subaru distantly. Much as he doesn’t want to admit it, wasn’t prepared for that. He’d rather been hoping for the on-the-run scenario, possibly with a false accusation of something or other, that would’ve at least been entertaining. But there’s really nothing he can say, upon learning that the guy he was mentally badmouthing just a few moments ago… lost everything.

He must be younger than Subaru, too. And he’s already been here three years. Alone.

Well, Subaru thinks. Just because a person is bereaved, doesn’t make them somehow better! They don’t deserve to be liked, just because of their loss! He tries to convince himself it doesn’t sound hollow, even to himself. Because while that might be true, if you’re liked, then the sympathy comes naturally.

Trying another tack, Subaru wonders if maybe it’s all a lie. The people here have got no reason not to believe it - perhaps it’s all a con. But what does Yasuda have to gain from coming all the way out here and, well, being nice to people? He doesn’t have any reason to make it up. He doesn’t need to beg for sympathy, this much is clear, Subaru thinks, even more bitterly than before.

This hasn’t helped his thinking one bit. He feels worse than when he left Yasuda’s, uncomfortable inside, twisting and turning, like he was on the boat.

“I’d… better get back now,” he says awkwardly. You don’t leave after a story like that, Subaru berates himself, but he needs to straighten his head out. Something’s gone wrong and he needs to figure it out. “Thank you for the drink,” he says, bowing politely and accelerating through the door.

When he thinks of Yasuda it feels like probing a loose tooth, it makes him grimace. He’s already made a mess of this, though he came here with the clear intention of keeping his head down and out of trouble. He should’ve known it was too tough.

Little thoughts keep popping up, making Subaru’s mind take a different turn. He suddenly remembers what Yasuda told him - he’d been to see his family. Why would he lie? Why didn’t he want to tell Subaru the truth? He obviously doesn’t want Subaru’s pity. He doesn’t want him to go easy on him because of his background. Damn, Subaru can’t even find reasonable grounds to dislike him there! The guy’s too fucking good!

But what does Subaru do now? Should he act the same as he always has, because Yasuda doesn’t know he knows? But it feels like cheating, feels like Yasuda has something over him, he thinks Subaru’s under an illusion! That feels too much like letting Yasuda think he has an advantage!

Subaru realises reluctantly that he can’t let this go. He already felt, when he’d yelled at Yasuda, like he’d messed up somehow. Now he knows it. But, as he’s learning rapidly, fixing it will be a lot more hassle than just not making the mistake in the first place.

TBS

wip, seaside story, subaru

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