24-Hour Denny's 1/1
Title: 24-Hour Denny’s
Rating: PG
Bands: Dir en grey, MUCC
Pairing(s): Hints of TatsurouToshiya, MAYBE TatsurouKyo if you squint hard enough.
Warnings: Weirdness.
Summary: It does not appear that he is waiting for anyone. He is just alone, though it is impossible to tell if he actually enjoys being alone, or if he wishes someone would come over and talk to him…
Notes: Inspired by/based on “After Dark” by Murakami Haruki. Kyo is younger than Tatsurou in this fic.
A young man is sitting in a booth at a Denny’s. It’s ten-thirty PM and he is alone. There’s a book on the table, an old, thick book with no pictures and a worn, brown cover. Next to the book is an ashtray which has obviously been used quite a bit since he arrived, and there is a glass of melon soda along with a plate with a half eaten egg sandwich. The man is sitting with his elbow propped up on the table, his chin in his hand. He is staring blankly out the window.
His features are basically nondescript; his hair is black, short, his eyes are brown and almond-shaped, and he wears a simple pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with a red and white logo. The only thing that sets him apart from others is his series of lip piercings. There are four to be exact; one on the right, one labret, and two on the left. He’s had them for a few years now, since he turned sixteen.
It does not appear that he is waiting for anyone. He is just alone, though it is impossible to tell if he actually enjoys being alone, or if he wishes someone would come over and talk to him.
Occasionally, he opens up the book and flips through the pages with a disinterested expression on his face. There’s a cigarette clenched between his lips, smoke filtering up to the ceiling in a lazy trail. He sighs and taps ash into the plastic ashtray, dark eyes flicking from the window to the book on the table every few minutes. The book isn’t something he is even trying to read. It’s obviously boring to him, but he makes no move to shut it and leave.
The entrance door slides open and a tall man strides in. The young man glances at him briefly before returning his gaze to the window. He doesn’t find the newcomer all that interesting; he is tall, somewhat built, and has long, messy black hair. If anything, the man just looks like trouble.
Unfortunately for him, though, the newcomer approaches and points down at the empty seat. “Mind if I sit here?” he asks, a slight grin on his lips.
“No.”
The newcomer gives him a curious look. “No as in you don’t mind, or no as in I can’t?” he continues.
With a quick roll of his eyes, the young man shrugs. “Do whatever you want,” he replies.
“Okay, cool,” the new man says and sits down, “My name’s Tatsurou. Are you waiting for somebody here?” He pulls his long hair off of the back of his neck and into a sloppy ponytail with a red band he’d been wearing around his wrist.
The young man shakes his head. “No, I’m just here,” he says simply and takes a long drag on his cigarette.
Tatsurou nods slowly, not once taking his eyes off of him. “You know, you look really familiar,” he says after a moment of thought, “I think I met you at a party a couple of months ago…Your name’s Kyo, isn’t it?” He seems proud of himself for remembering.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Kyo says with a curt nod, “You were drunk at that party. I’m surprised you remembered my name.” He talks with in monotone. It isn’t that he doesn’t care that Tatsurou remembers him, it’s just that he’s not particularly interested in talking to anyone.
“Well, you’d be surprised the kind of stuff I remember, even when I’m drunk,” Tatsurou says with an awkward laugh. A waitress comes over to the table, and he orders a chicken salad sandwich with a glass of orange juice. When she leaves, he turns his attention back to Kyo.
“Aren’t you a friend of Toshiya’s?”
Kyo smashes the end of his cigarette into the ashtray and doesn’t look at Tatsurou. “I am. Toshiya had asked me to go to that party with him,” he says. He didn’t really like that party very much; everyone was drunk. Alcohol makes him sick, so sick that normally he has to go to the hospital, so when Toshiya had invited him, he almost said no.
Tatsurou makes a ‘hmmm’ sound and taps his black fingernails against the table top in an odd rhythm. “Toshiya’s really beautiful. Isn’t he a model or something?” he asks.
“Yeah, he’s done some stuff for a few brands,” Kyo says distantly. He doesn’t want to talk about Toshiya.
There’s a moment of silence. It’s strange for Tatsurou, but Kyo pays it no mind. “That’s cool. I remember you from that party. You were wearing a leather jacket,” Tatsurou says as if he needs to fill the silence, “It looked pretty cool on you.”
Kyo gives Tatsurou a bland look and takes another cigarette out of his slowly vanishing pack. “Look, I know you’re just interested in Toshiya,” he says as he sticks the cigarette between his lips, “You don’t have to compliment me to get to him or anything.” Kyo is used to being Toshiya’s ‘ugly best friend.’ It’s a position he readily accepted the moment Toshiya declared that they were friends.
Tatsurou shifts uncomfortably as the waitress sets his orange juice on the table. “That’s not it, really. I mean, well, okay, sure, Toshiya’s gorgeous and…you know,” he fumbles, “But I saw you in here alone so I thought I’d come say hi. I don’t really need you to help me to get to him.”
“Toshiya’s not really interested in having sex with people,” Kyo says as he attempts to light up his cigarette a few times. The flame flickers on and off, on and off.
“What? That’s not what I meant. I just want to be friends…”
Kyo cuts him off. “Okay, maybe ‘interested’ isn’t really the right word,” he says, correcting himself, “It’s more like, right now, I guess he can’t have sex with anybody, much less be your friend.”
Tatsurou looks at Kyo with a heavily confused expression. “Huh? I don’t get what you mean,” he says, stating the obvious.
For once, Kyo meets Tatsurou’s gaze. “He’s asleep,” is all he says in reply. He lowers his gaze to his half eaten sandwich, his brow knitting slightly in what looks like frustration.
“What? It’s only ten-thirty,” Tatsurou says, bewildered.
“He’s been asleep for a week,” Kyo says quickly, “He told me he was gonna lie down for a while the other day, and he’s been asleep since then. Sometimes he gets up to go to the bathroom or to eat something, but I don’t think he’s really awake when he does that stuff. I live with him, so I see him when it happens.”
Tatsurou’s eyes grow wide and his mouth falls open a little. “Whoa, that’s weird. Do you think he’s depressed?” he asks.
Kyo shrugs and peels the crust off of the bread on his sandwich. “No, I don’t. He just went to sleep, that’s all. I don’t know when he’s gonna wake up. When he gets up to eat, I talk to him, but he doesn’t say anything. His eyes are all glazed.”
“…Do you think he’s doing drugs?”
“Nah. Toshiya’s not the sort to do stuff like that,” Kyo replies as he lowers his cigarette to eat the crust. He isn’t so sure if Toshiya really wouldn’t do drugs, but he won’t admit that.
Tatsurou purses his lips thoughtfully. “Damn, that’s really strange, then,” he says, “I hope it’s nothing serious. It’d be a shame if he was sick or something.” He takes a sip of orange juice and clears his throat. “So anyway, what’re you doing here if you’re not waiting for somebody?”
Kyo blows smoke out of the side of his mouth. “I just didn’t want to go home tonight,” he says, “Toshiya’s still asleep and I’m not tired, so I thought I’d just stay out.”
“You’re gonna stay out all night, then?”
“That’s what I’m planning on.” Kyo knows that there’s no point in even trying to get to the station. The last bus leaves from the station by his apartment at eleven and it’s almost ten-fifty now.
Tatsurou fiddles with a napkin he’d picked up off of the table. “Huh…You’re just gonna hang out here? The whole night?” he persists, “What’re you gonna do? Read that book? It looks really boring…”
Instead of replying immediately, Kyo chews on his lip rings. “I guess so. I didn’t really think I should do anything else,” he replies, “I just don’t want to go home, that’s all.”
The waitress delivers Tatsurou’s sandwich. He peels off the top slice of bread and starts eating the chicken salad with a fork. “You should come with me. I’m going to karaoke with some friends of mine in about an hour. We’re just gonna be there all night. It’s like, eight-hundred yen for eight hours. Really cheap.”
Kyo’s eyebrows rise curiously. “Karaoke? I don’t know if I could sing all night…”
Tatsurou laughs. “Who says we sing all night? It’s just a easy way to get cheap booze and have some fun,” he says, “You’d like it. We sing some stuff, but you don’t have to sing if you don’t want to.”
Actually, Kyo likes to sing very much, but he won’t admit that his favorite song is “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. He can’t ever get the song to sound right.
“I don’t really like to drink,” he says.
“No big deal,” Tatsurou says, shrugging casually, “There’s no law saying you have to get drunk or anything. None of us really do. Just get enough to get loosened up, y’know? That way when I sing ‘Precious’ it doesn’t sound so horrible.”
Kyo thinks it over for a few moments, an unsure look on his face.
Tatsurou decides to use this time to try to entice him even further. “It’d be better than spending the night alone. There are a few hours in the night that are really dark, so I think it’s better to spend them with people, rather than by yourself, especially if you’re awake.”
This makes a lot of sense to Kyo. So much sense, in fact, that Kyo gives Tatsurou a surprised stare. “Okay…I guess I’ll come,” he says finally.
A grin slips onto Tatsurou’s face. “Cool! Let me finish this and we’ll get going, then,” he says, “…So what’s that book you’ve got?” Apparently, he likes to talk and be talked to, constantly.
Kyo has practically forgotten that he brought the book with him. “It’s just, uh, a history thing. I dunno. It’s not very interesting.” He shuts the book in a self conscious manner.
“If it’s not interesting then why are you reading it?”
“…I’m not really sure. I just found it last time I was at my parents’ house and I thought I’d take it with me,” Kyo replies. His stories are never very interesting.
Tatsurou nods as he shovels more chicken salad into his mouth. He chews thoughtfully, swallows, and downs half of his glass of orange juice. “Where do your parents live?”
“Kyoto.” This is another thing that Kyo doesn’t particularly want to talk about. He moved away for a reason.
“Oh, cool. It must be nice there,” Tatsurou says wistfully, “I’ve only been once, just to see Kinkakuji. It was for a literature class I took in college. We were reading that Mishima novel, the one about the crazy priest who burns down the pavilion.”
“It’s okay. I don’t like it much,” Kyo mumbles, snuffing out the end of his cigarette. It’s number six for the night. Maybe he should lay off a little.
Tatsurou brushes some stray strands of hair away from his face. “Nobody likes where they grew up. I’m from Ibaraki, for example. There’s absolutely nothing there.”
Kyo doesn’t understand why Tatsurou is still talking to him. It’s not like he wanted company or anything, but then again, he’s the one who let Tatsurou sit there, and now he was about to go to karaoke with him…Oh well. He supposed some things could not be helped.
“There’s nothing in Kyoto, either, once you’ve lived there for seventeen years.” He shoves his almost empty pack of cigarettes into the pocket on his jeans so that he (hopefully) won’t be tempted to smoke another one in the next couple of minutes.
Tatsurou finishes off the last of the chicken salad and sets the fork down on top of the other slice of bread. “Yeah, I figured,” he says, “So are you ready?” He doesn’t seem like the sort of guy who likes to waste time.
Kyo nods and grabs his book as he stands up with Tatsurou. It’s only a little embarrassing that Tatsurou is more than a foot taller than he is.
The two of them go to the front and Tatsurou pays for everything. Kyo doesn’t bother to argue because he isn’t about to deny the chance to save a bit of money, especially since he didn’t eat most of his sandwich, anyway.
As they step outside, Tatsurou offers Kyo a friendly smile. “I think Toshiya’s going to wake up soon,” he says.
Kyo returns Tatsurou’s smile, though it’s lopsided and somewhat puzzled. “Why do you think that?”
“Because this is gonna be a long night for you and me, so Toshiya’ll be sick of sleeping by the time you get home. You just better be ready, Kyo-kun; he won’t want to sleep for a while, I bet.”
Somehow, Kyo knows Tatsurou is right.
Rating: PG
Bands: Dir en grey, MUCC
Pairing(s): Hints of TatsurouToshiya, MAYBE TatsurouKyo if you squint hard enough.
Warnings: Weirdness.
Summary: It does not appear that he is waiting for anyone. He is just alone, though it is impossible to tell if he actually enjoys being alone, or if he wishes someone would come over and talk to him…
Notes: Inspired by/based on “After Dark” by Murakami Haruki. Kyo is younger than Tatsurou in this fic.
A young man is sitting in a booth at a Denny’s. It’s ten-thirty PM and he is alone. There’s a book on the table, an old, thick book with no pictures and a worn, brown cover. Next to the book is an ashtray which has obviously been used quite a bit since he arrived, and there is a glass of melon soda along with a plate with a half eaten egg sandwich. The man is sitting with his elbow propped up on the table, his chin in his hand. He is staring blankly out the window.
His features are basically nondescript; his hair is black, short, his eyes are brown and almond-shaped, and he wears a simple pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with a red and white logo. The only thing that sets him apart from others is his series of lip piercings. There are four to be exact; one on the right, one labret, and two on the left. He’s had them for a few years now, since he turned sixteen.
It does not appear that he is waiting for anyone. He is just alone, though it is impossible to tell if he actually enjoys being alone, or if he wishes someone would come over and talk to him.
Occasionally, he opens up the book and flips through the pages with a disinterested expression on his face. There’s a cigarette clenched between his lips, smoke filtering up to the ceiling in a lazy trail. He sighs and taps ash into the plastic ashtray, dark eyes flicking from the window to the book on the table every few minutes. The book isn’t something he is even trying to read. It’s obviously boring to him, but he makes no move to shut it and leave.
The entrance door slides open and a tall man strides in. The young man glances at him briefly before returning his gaze to the window. He doesn’t find the newcomer all that interesting; he is tall, somewhat built, and has long, messy black hair. If anything, the man just looks like trouble.
Unfortunately for him, though, the newcomer approaches and points down at the empty seat. “Mind if I sit here?” he asks, a slight grin on his lips.
“No.”
The newcomer gives him a curious look. “No as in you don’t mind, or no as in I can’t?” he continues.
With a quick roll of his eyes, the young man shrugs. “Do whatever you want,” he replies.
“Okay, cool,” the new man says and sits down, “My name’s Tatsurou. Are you waiting for somebody here?” He pulls his long hair off of the back of his neck and into a sloppy ponytail with a red band he’d been wearing around his wrist.
The young man shakes his head. “No, I’m just here,” he says simply and takes a long drag on his cigarette.
Tatsurou nods slowly, not once taking his eyes off of him. “You know, you look really familiar,” he says after a moment of thought, “I think I met you at a party a couple of months ago…Your name’s Kyo, isn’t it?” He seems proud of himself for remembering.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Kyo says with a curt nod, “You were drunk at that party. I’m surprised you remembered my name.” He talks with in monotone. It isn’t that he doesn’t care that Tatsurou remembers him, it’s just that he’s not particularly interested in talking to anyone.
“Well, you’d be surprised the kind of stuff I remember, even when I’m drunk,” Tatsurou says with an awkward laugh. A waitress comes over to the table, and he orders a chicken salad sandwich with a glass of orange juice. When she leaves, he turns his attention back to Kyo.
“Aren’t you a friend of Toshiya’s?”
Kyo smashes the end of his cigarette into the ashtray and doesn’t look at Tatsurou. “I am. Toshiya had asked me to go to that party with him,” he says. He didn’t really like that party very much; everyone was drunk. Alcohol makes him sick, so sick that normally he has to go to the hospital, so when Toshiya had invited him, he almost said no.
Tatsurou makes a ‘hmmm’ sound and taps his black fingernails against the table top in an odd rhythm. “Toshiya’s really beautiful. Isn’t he a model or something?” he asks.
“Yeah, he’s done some stuff for a few brands,” Kyo says distantly. He doesn’t want to talk about Toshiya.
There’s a moment of silence. It’s strange for Tatsurou, but Kyo pays it no mind. “That’s cool. I remember you from that party. You were wearing a leather jacket,” Tatsurou says as if he needs to fill the silence, “It looked pretty cool on you.”
Kyo gives Tatsurou a bland look and takes another cigarette out of his slowly vanishing pack. “Look, I know you’re just interested in Toshiya,” he says as he sticks the cigarette between his lips, “You don’t have to compliment me to get to him or anything.” Kyo is used to being Toshiya’s ‘ugly best friend.’ It’s a position he readily accepted the moment Toshiya declared that they were friends.
Tatsurou shifts uncomfortably as the waitress sets his orange juice on the table. “That’s not it, really. I mean, well, okay, sure, Toshiya’s gorgeous and…you know,” he fumbles, “But I saw you in here alone so I thought I’d come say hi. I don’t really need you to help me to get to him.”
“Toshiya’s not really interested in having sex with people,” Kyo says as he attempts to light up his cigarette a few times. The flame flickers on and off, on and off.
“What? That’s not what I meant. I just want to be friends…”
Kyo cuts him off. “Okay, maybe ‘interested’ isn’t really the right word,” he says, correcting himself, “It’s more like, right now, I guess he can’t have sex with anybody, much less be your friend.”
Tatsurou looks at Kyo with a heavily confused expression. “Huh? I don’t get what you mean,” he says, stating the obvious.
For once, Kyo meets Tatsurou’s gaze. “He’s asleep,” is all he says in reply. He lowers his gaze to his half eaten sandwich, his brow knitting slightly in what looks like frustration.
“What? It’s only ten-thirty,” Tatsurou says, bewildered.
“He’s been asleep for a week,” Kyo says quickly, “He told me he was gonna lie down for a while the other day, and he’s been asleep since then. Sometimes he gets up to go to the bathroom or to eat something, but I don’t think he’s really awake when he does that stuff. I live with him, so I see him when it happens.”
Tatsurou’s eyes grow wide and his mouth falls open a little. “Whoa, that’s weird. Do you think he’s depressed?” he asks.
Kyo shrugs and peels the crust off of the bread on his sandwich. “No, I don’t. He just went to sleep, that’s all. I don’t know when he’s gonna wake up. When he gets up to eat, I talk to him, but he doesn’t say anything. His eyes are all glazed.”
“…Do you think he’s doing drugs?”
“Nah. Toshiya’s not the sort to do stuff like that,” Kyo replies as he lowers his cigarette to eat the crust. He isn’t so sure if Toshiya really wouldn’t do drugs, but he won’t admit that.
Tatsurou purses his lips thoughtfully. “Damn, that’s really strange, then,” he says, “I hope it’s nothing serious. It’d be a shame if he was sick or something.” He takes a sip of orange juice and clears his throat. “So anyway, what’re you doing here if you’re not waiting for somebody?”
Kyo blows smoke out of the side of his mouth. “I just didn’t want to go home tonight,” he says, “Toshiya’s still asleep and I’m not tired, so I thought I’d just stay out.”
“You’re gonna stay out all night, then?”
“That’s what I’m planning on.” Kyo knows that there’s no point in even trying to get to the station. The last bus leaves from the station by his apartment at eleven and it’s almost ten-fifty now.
Tatsurou fiddles with a napkin he’d picked up off of the table. “Huh…You’re just gonna hang out here? The whole night?” he persists, “What’re you gonna do? Read that book? It looks really boring…”
Instead of replying immediately, Kyo chews on his lip rings. “I guess so. I didn’t really think I should do anything else,” he replies, “I just don’t want to go home, that’s all.”
The waitress delivers Tatsurou’s sandwich. He peels off the top slice of bread and starts eating the chicken salad with a fork. “You should come with me. I’m going to karaoke with some friends of mine in about an hour. We’re just gonna be there all night. It’s like, eight-hundred yen for eight hours. Really cheap.”
Kyo’s eyebrows rise curiously. “Karaoke? I don’t know if I could sing all night…”
Tatsurou laughs. “Who says we sing all night? It’s just a easy way to get cheap booze and have some fun,” he says, “You’d like it. We sing some stuff, but you don’t have to sing if you don’t want to.”
Actually, Kyo likes to sing very much, but he won’t admit that his favorite song is “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. He can’t ever get the song to sound right.
“I don’t really like to drink,” he says.
“No big deal,” Tatsurou says, shrugging casually, “There’s no law saying you have to get drunk or anything. None of us really do. Just get enough to get loosened up, y’know? That way when I sing ‘Precious’ it doesn’t sound so horrible.”
Kyo thinks it over for a few moments, an unsure look on his face.
Tatsurou decides to use this time to try to entice him even further. “It’d be better than spending the night alone. There are a few hours in the night that are really dark, so I think it’s better to spend them with people, rather than by yourself, especially if you’re awake.”
This makes a lot of sense to Kyo. So much sense, in fact, that Kyo gives Tatsurou a surprised stare. “Okay…I guess I’ll come,” he says finally.
A grin slips onto Tatsurou’s face. “Cool! Let me finish this and we’ll get going, then,” he says, “…So what’s that book you’ve got?” Apparently, he likes to talk and be talked to, constantly.
Kyo has practically forgotten that he brought the book with him. “It’s just, uh, a history thing. I dunno. It’s not very interesting.” He shuts the book in a self conscious manner.
“If it’s not interesting then why are you reading it?”
“…I’m not really sure. I just found it last time I was at my parents’ house and I thought I’d take it with me,” Kyo replies. His stories are never very interesting.
Tatsurou nods as he shovels more chicken salad into his mouth. He chews thoughtfully, swallows, and downs half of his glass of orange juice. “Where do your parents live?”
“Kyoto.” This is another thing that Kyo doesn’t particularly want to talk about. He moved away for a reason.
“Oh, cool. It must be nice there,” Tatsurou says wistfully, “I’ve only been once, just to see Kinkakuji. It was for a literature class I took in college. We were reading that Mishima novel, the one about the crazy priest who burns down the pavilion.”
“It’s okay. I don’t like it much,” Kyo mumbles, snuffing out the end of his cigarette. It’s number six for the night. Maybe he should lay off a little.
Tatsurou brushes some stray strands of hair away from his face. “Nobody likes where they grew up. I’m from Ibaraki, for example. There’s absolutely nothing there.”
Kyo doesn’t understand why Tatsurou is still talking to him. It’s not like he wanted company or anything, but then again, he’s the one who let Tatsurou sit there, and now he was about to go to karaoke with him…Oh well. He supposed some things could not be helped.
“There’s nothing in Kyoto, either, once you’ve lived there for seventeen years.” He shoves his almost empty pack of cigarettes into the pocket on his jeans so that he (hopefully) won’t be tempted to smoke another one in the next couple of minutes.
Tatsurou finishes off the last of the chicken salad and sets the fork down on top of the other slice of bread. “Yeah, I figured,” he says, “So are you ready?” He doesn’t seem like the sort of guy who likes to waste time.
Kyo nods and grabs his book as he stands up with Tatsurou. It’s only a little embarrassing that Tatsurou is more than a foot taller than he is.
The two of them go to the front and Tatsurou pays for everything. Kyo doesn’t bother to argue because he isn’t about to deny the chance to save a bit of money, especially since he didn’t eat most of his sandwich, anyway.
As they step outside, Tatsurou offers Kyo a friendly smile. “I think Toshiya’s going to wake up soon,” he says.
Kyo returns Tatsurou’s smile, though it’s lopsided and somewhat puzzled. “Why do you think that?”
“Because this is gonna be a long night for you and me, so Toshiya’ll be sick of sleeping by the time you get home. You just better be ready, Kyo-kun; he won’t want to sleep for a while, I bet.”
Somehow, Kyo knows Tatsurou is right.