Fic: Welcome to Mars (1/2)
Title: Welcome to Mars (1/2)
Pairing: Pin, Ryoda
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Sort of Yamapi gender!switch. Kinda. Only not really.
Disclaimer: Don't own nothing
Summary: Pin's adventures in a mental asylum. Enough said.
When Jin awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked around. The sun was rising in a soft glow of crimson behind the sprawl of evergreens encircling the sandy hills. He inhaled deeply, smelling the coolness of the spring night ebbing into a faint but definite warmth.
He reached to his left and shook the sleeping figure beside him; gently at first, then with growing impatiency when there was no reaction. He slapped the boy lightly on the cheek.
Yamapi slept on, unconscious.
Jin slapped harder; Yamapi's face was red all over and starting to swell.
Still no result from sleeping boy.
By this time Jin was panting from his extertions. He took a rest and then puffed himself up and fetched a quick succesion of admirable slaps until he thought he heard a rather nasty crack emitt from somewhere near Yamapi's neck. Not wanting to be held responsible for the murder of his best friend, he switched to a less violent, but more efficient method.
"Oh, Takki-senpai, fancy seeing you here!"
Yamapi shot up and connected with a hard surface.
"Damnit, Pi!" yelled Jin, grimacing when he spat out a globule of blood. Bit his tongue.
"You tricked me!" Yamapi wailed. "Takki-senpai's not here!"
"Never mind that," Jin said hastily, not eager to experience Yamapi's scorned wrath. "Look around you, will ya?"
Yamapi did so, raising an eyebrow, unimpressed. "...And?"
"What do you mean, and?" Jin said indignantly. "We're on Mars, dipshit!"
"Oh!" Yamapi took in his surroundings in a new light. "So that's why it looks so different!" He squirmed around, elbowing Jin in the nose and clambered over the older boy and out of the box. Jin bit back a curse and yelped when the box fell sideways and he tumbled into Yamapi.
They untangled their limbs and stretched, deciding to poke around Mars a bit. Now the question remained as to what to do with their 'rocket.'
"Does it really matter?" Jin kicked the box half-heartedly. "'Cause I think it died."
As it was true (the box was little more than ripped up cardboard with the words Black Cat Moving Co. scrawled on the bottom), they decided to just leave it there and not bother with hiding it, before hacking through the thick underbrush to the space ahead.
They blinked in unison.
Mars was a rugged terrain, a savagely red land, blood-colored after storms of dust and rain. Deep, bottomless craters ravaged the flat landscape. They walked a bit, until they reached the edge of a jagged fissure, so wide they couldn't see the opposite side. They peered down, and were surprised to see a large city nestled snugly at the bottom of the ravine.
The large city seemed an island set in a wild red sea, an oasis in the middle of a vast, lifeless desert, uneven with tall columnar rocks - buildings, maybe, and presumably hollow, as figures were racing in and out of them. Drivers propelled their vehicles through the treacherous traffic, generally driving on the wrong side of the road and cussing out the screaming pedestrians in five different languages.
The city was big!
It was polluted!
It was overcrowded to the point it could be compared to sardines in a tin!
Most importantly, it was called...
"Tokyo."
Come again?
***
The Martians were an unique race. Not one exceeded a hundred seventy centimeters. All had large, liquid dark eyes with long, dusty lashes casting soft shadows in sharp, angular faces. Jutting cheekbones, spindly limbs, and so freakin' skinny you could play the xylophones on their ribcages.
And they didn't tolerate any nonsense.
Yamapi found this out the hard way after knocking on the door to one of the stone buildings. An old widow, hunched-backed and smoking a corn cob, came out and eyeballed Yamapi and Jin disdainfully.
"Hiya, we're from Earth!"
The door promptly slammed in their faces.
"Hey, wait!" Yamapi pounded the door and nearly got brained when it was thrust open again. "I don't think you understand, we're from-"
"Earth, yes, I heard you the first time," the woman snapped. "I don't know what game you're playing at, but this is by no means Mars, the people here aren't Martians, and if you don't get off my property in ten seconds I'm going to call the police." She blew a smoke ring and waved her corn cob threateningly.
"That's no way to treat visitors!" Yamapi cried, outraged. He raised a fist, then lowered it, scowling.
"Look," she sighed and raked a hand through her bushy gray hair, "go see Johnny-sama for this. He's the expert." Then she shut the door again.
The boys stared at each other, shrugged, and decided to abandon trying to convince the old widow they were from Earth in favor of exploring the rest of the foreign territory.
The city was full of people drifting in and out of doors, crisply greeting each other with 'hellos' and 'how do you dos'. Children ran barefooted along the streets, chasing fellow playmates and being chased by exasperated mothers.
The two boys, muddy from their walk in the dusty roads, stopped by a building that looked like a preschool for Martian children. Sitting on a swing in the playground was a little girl with pigtails and a white sundress.
Jin was enraptured by the little girl. "Hi there," he smiled sweetly, kneeling in front of her. "I want to tell you something." The girl watched him with wide eyes and shifted her foot, but did not run.
Jin took this as a sign to continue. "Once upon a time, two men decided to go on a journey. And so they built a rocket ship-"
"It's a cardboard box."
"Thank you, Pi." Jin's voice was acidic. "Anyway, so their rocketship flew all the way from Earth (for that was their home planet)..."
The girl idly flicked a piece of dust off her dress and stared her toes wriggling in the dirt while Jin talked on.
"So, do you believe me?" he finally asked.
She stuck her thumb in her mouth. "I think you should see Johnny-sama," she mumbled, and ran off, leaving a confused Jin staring folornly after her.
"Again with the Johnny-sama," Yamapi mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "He must be the mayor of the city or some other important political figure."
Jin brightened. "So if we talk to that guy, we'll be famous, right?"
"I think so."
"First off, we need money." Jin furrowed his brow in thought. "There should be some way to make money fast."
Yamapi waved his hand in the air. "Pick me, I know!" he said enthusiastically.
Jin crooked a finger, beckoning him closer. Yamapi tilted his head upwards until his lips brushed the older boy's ear, and whispered one word. "Beg."
"You kinky bastard!" Jin spluttered, pulling back, a blush adorning his cheeks.
Yamapi rolled his eyes. "Not that way, perv. I mean, beg, like what those kids over there are doing."
Jin looked in the direction Yamapi was pointing and blanched. "No...no way," he said, shaking his head firmly. "I have dignity, y'know?"
Yamapi pouted.
Jin glared.
And the next thing he knew he was standing at the intersection of two streets, holding out his hand and calling out in English: "Hey, mister/miss, can I have some money?"
This went on for about ten minutes without any success before Yamapi impatiently shoved Jin aside and stepped up in his place.
"Watch and learn."
Yamapi smeared some dirt from the road onto his cheeks, shoved his hands in his pockets and did a sort of hop-skip shuffle up to a Martian woman who was haggling furiously with an exasperated shop manager. He widened his eyes and jutted out his bottom lip. "Think sad," he chanted to himself, "like that one time Jin ate all the instant ramen." That did it; tears instantly welled up and ran down his grimy cheeks.
"Ma'am, spare some change for a poor orphan down on his times?" he wheedled, adding in a sniffle for the desired effect. The woman melted at the sight of the adorable puppy-dog face and handed him a hundred yen. Yamapi thanked her profusely and scurried back to Jin with money in his fist and triumph in his eye.
Jin stared at the little coin in dismay. "That won't even buy us lunch!" he cried, throwing his hands in the air. "Whatever happened to your special skills, oh Great and Wise Begger Rat?"
"Ha ha. You wound me, señorita." Yamapi said sourly. "So disappointed? Fine." He carelessly tossed the coin on the street. The coin hit the ground, bounced once, and disappeared into the gutter.
Jin's mouth worked furiously, but no sound came out. Yamapi laughed and howled and snorted with mirth. That is, until Jin got this brilliant idea to run after the coin. Across the street. With only a bajillion cars in the middle.
"Bakanishi!" he roared, watching Jin dart between the perilous jam. Yamapi had no choice but to follow and the first step he took nearly got him run over. The second step he barely avoided being skewered by jagged piece of rusty metal sticky out of the hood of a beat up Toyota. The third he slipped and ended up with a mouthful of mud (mixed with a dozen other pollutants Yamapi would rather not think about), though he had the good sense to lay flat or his brains would've gotten smashed clear out of his skull.
Finally he made it through, unscathed save his...overall appearance, now splattered with muck and road scum. He cracked his knuckles, about to give Jin the worst pounding he'd ever have the misfortune of receiving when he realized Jin wasn't paying the slightest attention to him.
"Look," Jin said, oblivious to the waves of murderous intent radiating from his best friend. "Johnny & Associates. Pi, this must be it!"
Yamapi tsk'ed. "You really think that lame excuse will save you from your pitiful end at my fists?"
"No, seriously, look!"
He looked.
And his jaw nearly unhinged from his head.
There, in the middle of a desolate desert, sat a gigantic pumpkin-shaped building, only this pumpkin was colored a positively seizure inducing purple and looked like it'd dipped in a lake of toxic radoactive nuclear waste. Which probably means it can't be called a pumpkin. How about a prune?
"...Do we have to go into that thing?" Yamapi said weakly, pushing his muddy hair from his eyes.
Jin rolled his eyes, declared him a sissy, and pulled the unwilling Yamapi into the building. ("Ooh, automatic sliding doors," Jin said appreciatively.)
At the front desk sat a Martian boy, with big, narrowed eyes and longish hair framing his thin face attractively. He was beautiful, and Jin was sure he would've been more so had he not been screaming into his phone loud enough to wake the dead.
"It doesn't matter if your wife's sick!" the Martian howled, practically foaming at the mouth. "She can keel over and die for all I care...what do you mean, you quit?! Those files are due tomorrow, jackass...Yeah? Well, back at you!" he slammed down the phone and turned to the speechless duo. "WHAT?!" he bellowed.
Jin stood as still as a statue, trying to make himself smaller. Yamapi drew himself together and mustered up all his courage to greet the...scary boy. He cleared his throat self-consciously, trying to make his voice deeper, more intimidating.
"Um, is this a bad time?" He ended up sounding like a pre-pubescent boy.
"It will be for you if this isn't important," the boy growled menacingly. "I have work to do. Superintendent's coming tomorrow and I need to finish all this paperwork by then-" he pointed to the stacks of papers covering the whole desk and the surrounding area, "-and if you're just wasting my time I suggest you get out before I shoot you!"
It was amazing how small Jin could make himself. It was almost like there was nobody there at all. Yamapi wished he could do that. He settled, instead, for an insolent, slightly bored look that hid how much he scared he was of the puny, bordering on anorexic little Martian.
"Is this how all Martians treat visitors?" he demanded, squinting at the boy's name tag. "...Er, Secretary Kamenashi Kazuya?"
Kamenashi blinked. "Martians?" Then comprehension dawned on him and he groaned and banged his head against the wall. "Kusano!"
A young boy sailed in the room and halted at the front desk. "Sir!" he trilled out, bowing in an exaggerated fashion.
"Have you been drinking again?" Kamenashi asked suspiciously.
Kusano beamed, "Uchi got his hands on some real good stuff - want some?"
Kamenashi scowled and smacked the younger boy lightly on the head. "Idiot. Keep this up and Johnny-sama will suspend you both."
Kusano scratched his hair sheepishly. "So did you need me for something?"
"Tell Johnny-sama we have guests." Kamenashi put an emphasis on the last word, raising a perfectly trimmed eyebrow meaningfully.
Kusano nodded enthusiastically, snapped his heels together, and backed out of the room, still bowing.
"Eager little squeaker, isn't he," said Yamapi offhandly, drawing back as the full force of Kamenashi's baleful glare turned upon him.
"Sit down," Kamenashi said, gesturing at a couple of small plastic chairs that looked like they were made for five-year olds. Jin silently took a chair, dragged it to a corner, and sat down with a small pout. Yamapi shook his head at his friend's sudden shyness, but followed suit. They sat in silence, listening to the secretary pounding away on his keyboard.
The minute hand on the clock slowly ticked by.
They both meep'ed with fear when Kamenashi's fist came crashing down on his desk, overturning his coffee cup.
"AUGH! Those imbeciles, where are they?!"
As if on cue two doctors (judging by their white coats) strolled in, arguing energetically. Well, not really, seeing as the shorter one was doing all the snarking while the taller one just listened with a slight frown marring his pretty face. They cast identical curious glances at the sullen pair in the plastic kiddie chairs and nodded politely to Kamenashi.
"Johnny-sama sent us to fetch them," the quiet one murmured.
"Took you long enough," Kamenashi grumbled from behind his tower of paperwork. He pulled a sheet from the middle and handed it to a nonplussed Jin. "Sign here and you can meet Johnny."
It took Jin about a full minute to finish reading the terms of agreements. "Swearing to secrecy?" he frowned confusedly. "Isn't that a bit-"
Kamenashi cleared his throat, irritation plainly written on his thin features.
And another half a second to scrawl his signature messily across the bottom, shove it into Kamenashi's waiting hands, and vanish without a trace.
Yamapi laughed at the disgruntled Kamenashi and quickly followed, dragging the two doctors along.
A shadow silently detached itself from the wall, slinking up to the doctors and whispering in a slightly hoarse voice: "You're not going to yell at us too, are you?"
Yamapi let out a yell and, like the drama queen he was, swooned neatly into the shorter doctor's arms, who merely rolled his eyes and deposited him ungraciously on the floor. "Only if you annoy me," he drawled, sticking out a bony hand. "Nishikido Ryo. I'm the Sexy Osaka Man, remember that."
Yamapi, over his brief fainting spell, leaped back to his feet, grinning broadly as he pumped the proffered hand warmly. Jin heh'ed uneasily and spent the rest of the day avoiding Ryo like the plague. When Ryo questioned this behavior, Yamapi waved a hand airily and said:
"Ignore him; despite his playboy looks, he's really shy around strangers."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, really."
"That's rich."
"I know, right?"
Jin punched Yamapi and sulked over to the quieter doctor, who smiled shyly. "Ueda Tatsuya." His voice was soft and feathery, like a bird's sigh. "Please forgive Kame-chan; he's not usually so snippy." He paused. "However, Ryo's always like that. Sorry."
Jin nodded stiffly. Perhaps he sensed a kindred spirit in the gentle doctor; in any case, he detached himself from Yamapi's side and stuck to Ueda, engaging in an upbeat conversation about guitars. Before he knew it they halted in front of an extravagently decorated door.
"We're here," Ryo interrupted impatiently. "C'mon, hurry up." He pushed them into Johnny-sama's office.
The room was surprisingly dull; the walls, peeling with smudges of dark brown, looked like someone puked on them and left it to dry. A few framed photos of scowling chubby-faced boys hung over the desk, which was neat and orderly with few papers - very different from the Kamenashi's desk, Jin thought. A single gray-haired man stood next to the window, hands clasped, back ramrod straight. At the sound of footsteps he turned around, showing a stern, wrinkled old face with little granny-glasses perched on his nose.
"Excuse us, Johnny-sama" said Ueda, bowing deeply. Johnny-sama stared blankly at Jin and Yamapi, but his confusion didn't last for very long, because he broke out into a wide grin, flying over to Jin and nearly smothered him with a massive hug.
"Omigawd!" he wailed, bouncing up and down. "You're soooo cute!" He pinched Jin's cheeks playfully.
Jin shot Yamapi a desperate why-are-you-standing-there-HELP-ME look. "Er, can you please let go of my face?" he pleaded, only it turned out more like, "ecannapuhlegamifae," - a valient attempt for someone's whose face was being pulled in seven different directions.
"SPEAK UP, BOY!"
"I SAID, LET GO OF MY FACE!" Jin bellowed, tearing away from the grabby hands and once again hiding behind Yamapi, who was bent double with laughter.
Ueda swiftly interjected before Johnny-sama burst into tears; judging from the wobbling of his lip, he was awfully close, too. "They're new patients, Johnny-sama."
"New draftees, eh?" Johnny-sama said, tears forgotten. He crowed with laughter and heartily slapped the fragile Ueda on the back. "Keep up the good work. Stiff upper lip, I say!" He leaped forward and shoved them out of his office. "Give my salutations to the sergeart!"
The four were left standing in the hallway, two staring stupidly at the closed door, the other two exchanging knowing glances.
"...What was he blathering about?"
"Johnny-sama's a bit...strange, you could say," Ueda said, making the universal gesture for when you want to say something but didn't know how to say it.
Ryo snorted. "You mean touched in the head. Of course, nearly everyone at this hospital is mentally impaired in some way."
"Hospital?" said Jin.
Ryo gave him a scathing look. "...Yes," he said slowly. "This is Johnny's Entertainment, the biggest psychiatric hospital in Japan."
Yamapi was disgusted, for the wrong reason. "Mars is such a disappointment," he complained. "So far it's the exact same as Earth."
Ryo glanced at his wristwatch. Ueda hummed a low tune.
The shock hit both Earthlings at the same time.
"Psychiatric hospital?" Jin gasped.
"Mentally impaired?" Yamapi's eyes bugged out.
"Everyone?" they chorused. "Even you guys?"
Actually, it wasn't so much a shock that Ryo was insane (he had the aura of a chainsaw-wielding sociopath), or Kamenashi (he didn't just have the aura, he was so scary it wouldn't be a surprise if he really was one), but Ueda? No one so quiet and gentle could possibly be lumped in the same group as the former two.
"I see fairies," Ueda said serenely and pointed to Jin's shoulder. "Look...there's one right there. Hello."
Oh. That kind of insane. The kind with pretty hallucinations. Jin nodded thoughtfully; now that was perfectly understandable.
"What about you?" Yamapi said to Ryo.
Ryo grinned. "If you don't lock your doors at night," he curled his right hand into a fist, extending the index finger and thumb straight out and raising it to his temple, "bang."
Jin grew smaller until he seemed only half the size he really is.
"So," Ryo said, breaking the awkward silence, "You'll be staying here, I suppose?"
"EH?!"
"Well," Ryo shrugged, "since you're new to...Mars and all, you'll need a place to sleep, yeah?"
"We're not desperate enough to spend the night under the same roof as a bunch of lunatics," Jin said flatly.
"Frankly, I couldn't care less about what you want." said Ryo. He snagged Jin by the collar, and, tugging Yamapi along by the arm, forced them both into Room 501, locking the door behind them. "Bye bye!"
He left, laughing.
"OI!" Jin yelled, banging against the wall. "You bastard!"
"Please, Jin," came Ueda's voice from the other side of the wall, "we only want what's best for you."
"Yeah, Jin, calm down," Yamapi said, lounging on the double bed. "Yeesh, you'd think someone had died."
"How can you be so calm?" shrieked Jin, kicking the bed viciously. "We're being held hostage!"
"They didn't kill us, for one," Yamapi pointed out, unperturbed by his friend's act of violence. "And they didn't leave us to starve out on the streets. That's a pretty good deal, if you ask me."
Pairing: Pin, Ryoda
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Sort of Yamapi gender!switch. Kinda. Only not really.
Disclaimer: Don't own nothing
Summary: Pin's adventures in a mental asylum. Enough said.
When Jin awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked around. The sun was rising in a soft glow of crimson behind the sprawl of evergreens encircling the sandy hills. He inhaled deeply, smelling the coolness of the spring night ebbing into a faint but definite warmth.
He reached to his left and shook the sleeping figure beside him; gently at first, then with growing impatiency when there was no reaction. He slapped the boy lightly on the cheek.
Yamapi slept on, unconscious.
Jin slapped harder; Yamapi's face was red all over and starting to swell.
Still no result from sleeping boy.
By this time Jin was panting from his extertions. He took a rest and then puffed himself up and fetched a quick succesion of admirable slaps until he thought he heard a rather nasty crack emitt from somewhere near Yamapi's neck. Not wanting to be held responsible for the murder of his best friend, he switched to a less violent, but more efficient method.
"Oh, Takki-senpai, fancy seeing you here!"
Yamapi shot up and connected with a hard surface.
"Damnit, Pi!" yelled Jin, grimacing when he spat out a globule of blood. Bit his tongue.
"You tricked me!" Yamapi wailed. "Takki-senpai's not here!"
"Never mind that," Jin said hastily, not eager to experience Yamapi's scorned wrath. "Look around you, will ya?"
Yamapi did so, raising an eyebrow, unimpressed. "...And?"
"What do you mean, and?" Jin said indignantly. "We're on Mars, dipshit!"
"Oh!" Yamapi took in his surroundings in a new light. "So that's why it looks so different!" He squirmed around, elbowing Jin in the nose and clambered over the older boy and out of the box. Jin bit back a curse and yelped when the box fell sideways and he tumbled into Yamapi.
They untangled their limbs and stretched, deciding to poke around Mars a bit. Now the question remained as to what to do with their 'rocket.'
"Does it really matter?" Jin kicked the box half-heartedly. "'Cause I think it died."
As it was true (the box was little more than ripped up cardboard with the words Black Cat Moving Co. scrawled on the bottom), they decided to just leave it there and not bother with hiding it, before hacking through the thick underbrush to the space ahead.
They blinked in unison.
Mars was a rugged terrain, a savagely red land, blood-colored after storms of dust and rain. Deep, bottomless craters ravaged the flat landscape. They walked a bit, until they reached the edge of a jagged fissure, so wide they couldn't see the opposite side. They peered down, and were surprised to see a large city nestled snugly at the bottom of the ravine.
The large city seemed an island set in a wild red sea, an oasis in the middle of a vast, lifeless desert, uneven with tall columnar rocks - buildings, maybe, and presumably hollow, as figures were racing in and out of them. Drivers propelled their vehicles through the treacherous traffic, generally driving on the wrong side of the road and cussing out the screaming pedestrians in five different languages.
The city was big!
It was polluted!
It was overcrowded to the point it could be compared to sardines in a tin!
Most importantly, it was called...
"Tokyo."
Come again?
***
The Martians were an unique race. Not one exceeded a hundred seventy centimeters. All had large, liquid dark eyes with long, dusty lashes casting soft shadows in sharp, angular faces. Jutting cheekbones, spindly limbs, and so freakin' skinny you could play the xylophones on their ribcages.
And they didn't tolerate any nonsense.
Yamapi found this out the hard way after knocking on the door to one of the stone buildings. An old widow, hunched-backed and smoking a corn cob, came out and eyeballed Yamapi and Jin disdainfully.
"Hiya, we're from Earth!"
The door promptly slammed in their faces.
"Hey, wait!" Yamapi pounded the door and nearly got brained when it was thrust open again. "I don't think you understand, we're from-"
"Earth, yes, I heard you the first time," the woman snapped. "I don't know what game you're playing at, but this is by no means Mars, the people here aren't Martians, and if you don't get off my property in ten seconds I'm going to call the police." She blew a smoke ring and waved her corn cob threateningly.
"That's no way to treat visitors!" Yamapi cried, outraged. He raised a fist, then lowered it, scowling.
"Look," she sighed and raked a hand through her bushy gray hair, "go see Johnny-sama for this. He's the expert." Then she shut the door again.
The boys stared at each other, shrugged, and decided to abandon trying to convince the old widow they were from Earth in favor of exploring the rest of the foreign territory.
The city was full of people drifting in and out of doors, crisply greeting each other with 'hellos' and 'how do you dos'. Children ran barefooted along the streets, chasing fellow playmates and being chased by exasperated mothers.
The two boys, muddy from their walk in the dusty roads, stopped by a building that looked like a preschool for Martian children. Sitting on a swing in the playground was a little girl with pigtails and a white sundress.
Jin was enraptured by the little girl. "Hi there," he smiled sweetly, kneeling in front of her. "I want to tell you something." The girl watched him with wide eyes and shifted her foot, but did not run.
Jin took this as a sign to continue. "Once upon a time, two men decided to go on a journey. And so they built a rocket ship-"
"It's a cardboard box."
"Thank you, Pi." Jin's voice was acidic. "Anyway, so their rocketship flew all the way from Earth (for that was their home planet)..."
The girl idly flicked a piece of dust off her dress and stared her toes wriggling in the dirt while Jin talked on.
"So, do you believe me?" he finally asked.
She stuck her thumb in her mouth. "I think you should see Johnny-sama," she mumbled, and ran off, leaving a confused Jin staring folornly after her.
"Again with the Johnny-sama," Yamapi mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "He must be the mayor of the city or some other important political figure."
Jin brightened. "So if we talk to that guy, we'll be famous, right?"
"I think so."
"First off, we need money." Jin furrowed his brow in thought. "There should be some way to make money fast."
Yamapi waved his hand in the air. "Pick me, I know!" he said enthusiastically.
Jin crooked a finger, beckoning him closer. Yamapi tilted his head upwards until his lips brushed the older boy's ear, and whispered one word. "Beg."
"You kinky bastard!" Jin spluttered, pulling back, a blush adorning his cheeks.
Yamapi rolled his eyes. "Not that way, perv. I mean, beg, like what those kids over there are doing."
Jin looked in the direction Yamapi was pointing and blanched. "No...no way," he said, shaking his head firmly. "I have dignity, y'know?"
Yamapi pouted.
Jin glared.
And the next thing he knew he was standing at the intersection of two streets, holding out his hand and calling out in English: "Hey, mister/miss, can I have some money?"
This went on for about ten minutes without any success before Yamapi impatiently shoved Jin aside and stepped up in his place.
"Watch and learn."
Yamapi smeared some dirt from the road onto his cheeks, shoved his hands in his pockets and did a sort of hop-skip shuffle up to a Martian woman who was haggling furiously with an exasperated shop manager. He widened his eyes and jutted out his bottom lip. "Think sad," he chanted to himself, "like that one time Jin ate all the instant ramen." That did it; tears instantly welled up and ran down his grimy cheeks.
"Ma'am, spare some change for a poor orphan down on his times?" he wheedled, adding in a sniffle for the desired effect. The woman melted at the sight of the adorable puppy-dog face and handed him a hundred yen. Yamapi thanked her profusely and scurried back to Jin with money in his fist and triumph in his eye.
Jin stared at the little coin in dismay. "That won't even buy us lunch!" he cried, throwing his hands in the air. "Whatever happened to your special skills, oh Great and Wise Begger Rat?"
"Ha ha. You wound me, señorita." Yamapi said sourly. "So disappointed? Fine." He carelessly tossed the coin on the street. The coin hit the ground, bounced once, and disappeared into the gutter.
Jin's mouth worked furiously, but no sound came out. Yamapi laughed and howled and snorted with mirth. That is, until Jin got this brilliant idea to run after the coin. Across the street. With only a bajillion cars in the middle.
"Bakanishi!" he roared, watching Jin dart between the perilous jam. Yamapi had no choice but to follow and the first step he took nearly got him run over. The second step he barely avoided being skewered by jagged piece of rusty metal sticky out of the hood of a beat up Toyota. The third he slipped and ended up with a mouthful of mud (mixed with a dozen other pollutants Yamapi would rather not think about), though he had the good sense to lay flat or his brains would've gotten smashed clear out of his skull.
Finally he made it through, unscathed save his...overall appearance, now splattered with muck and road scum. He cracked his knuckles, about to give Jin the worst pounding he'd ever have the misfortune of receiving when he realized Jin wasn't paying the slightest attention to him.
"Look," Jin said, oblivious to the waves of murderous intent radiating from his best friend. "Johnny & Associates. Pi, this must be it!"
Yamapi tsk'ed. "You really think that lame excuse will save you from your pitiful end at my fists?"
"No, seriously, look!"
He looked.
And his jaw nearly unhinged from his head.
There, in the middle of a desolate desert, sat a gigantic pumpkin-shaped building, only this pumpkin was colored a positively seizure inducing purple and looked like it'd dipped in a lake of toxic radoactive nuclear waste. Which probably means it can't be called a pumpkin. How about a prune?
"...Do we have to go into that thing?" Yamapi said weakly, pushing his muddy hair from his eyes.
Jin rolled his eyes, declared him a sissy, and pulled the unwilling Yamapi into the building. ("Ooh, automatic sliding doors," Jin said appreciatively.)
At the front desk sat a Martian boy, with big, narrowed eyes and longish hair framing his thin face attractively. He was beautiful, and Jin was sure he would've been more so had he not been screaming into his phone loud enough to wake the dead.
"It doesn't matter if your wife's sick!" the Martian howled, practically foaming at the mouth. "She can keel over and die for all I care...what do you mean, you quit?! Those files are due tomorrow, jackass...Yeah? Well, back at you!" he slammed down the phone and turned to the speechless duo. "WHAT?!" he bellowed.
Jin stood as still as a statue, trying to make himself smaller. Yamapi drew himself together and mustered up all his courage to greet the...scary boy. He cleared his throat self-consciously, trying to make his voice deeper, more intimidating.
"Um, is this a bad time?" He ended up sounding like a pre-pubescent boy.
"It will be for you if this isn't important," the boy growled menacingly. "I have work to do. Superintendent's coming tomorrow and I need to finish all this paperwork by then-" he pointed to the stacks of papers covering the whole desk and the surrounding area, "-and if you're just wasting my time I suggest you get out before I shoot you!"
It was amazing how small Jin could make himself. It was almost like there was nobody there at all. Yamapi wished he could do that. He settled, instead, for an insolent, slightly bored look that hid how much he scared he was of the puny, bordering on anorexic little Martian.
"Is this how all Martians treat visitors?" he demanded, squinting at the boy's name tag. "...Er, Secretary Kamenashi Kazuya?"
Kamenashi blinked. "Martians?" Then comprehension dawned on him and he groaned and banged his head against the wall. "Kusano!"
A young boy sailed in the room and halted at the front desk. "Sir!" he trilled out, bowing in an exaggerated fashion.
"Have you been drinking again?" Kamenashi asked suspiciously.
Kusano beamed, "Uchi got his hands on some real good stuff - want some?"
Kamenashi scowled and smacked the younger boy lightly on the head. "Idiot. Keep this up and Johnny-sama will suspend you both."
Kusano scratched his hair sheepishly. "So did you need me for something?"
"Tell Johnny-sama we have guests." Kamenashi put an emphasis on the last word, raising a perfectly trimmed eyebrow meaningfully.
Kusano nodded enthusiastically, snapped his heels together, and backed out of the room, still bowing.
"Eager little squeaker, isn't he," said Yamapi offhandly, drawing back as the full force of Kamenashi's baleful glare turned upon him.
"Sit down," Kamenashi said, gesturing at a couple of small plastic chairs that looked like they were made for five-year olds. Jin silently took a chair, dragged it to a corner, and sat down with a small pout. Yamapi shook his head at his friend's sudden shyness, but followed suit. They sat in silence, listening to the secretary pounding away on his keyboard.
The minute hand on the clock slowly ticked by.
They both meep'ed with fear when Kamenashi's fist came crashing down on his desk, overturning his coffee cup.
"AUGH! Those imbeciles, where are they?!"
As if on cue two doctors (judging by their white coats) strolled in, arguing energetically. Well, not really, seeing as the shorter one was doing all the snarking while the taller one just listened with a slight frown marring his pretty face. They cast identical curious glances at the sullen pair in the plastic kiddie chairs and nodded politely to Kamenashi.
"Johnny-sama sent us to fetch them," the quiet one murmured.
"Took you long enough," Kamenashi grumbled from behind his tower of paperwork. He pulled a sheet from the middle and handed it to a nonplussed Jin. "Sign here and you can meet Johnny."
It took Jin about a full minute to finish reading the terms of agreements. "Swearing to secrecy?" he frowned confusedly. "Isn't that a bit-"
Kamenashi cleared his throat, irritation plainly written on his thin features.
And another half a second to scrawl his signature messily across the bottom, shove it into Kamenashi's waiting hands, and vanish without a trace.
Yamapi laughed at the disgruntled Kamenashi and quickly followed, dragging the two doctors along.
A shadow silently detached itself from the wall, slinking up to the doctors and whispering in a slightly hoarse voice: "You're not going to yell at us too, are you?"
Yamapi let out a yell and, like the drama queen he was, swooned neatly into the shorter doctor's arms, who merely rolled his eyes and deposited him ungraciously on the floor. "Only if you annoy me," he drawled, sticking out a bony hand. "Nishikido Ryo. I'm the Sexy Osaka Man, remember that."
Yamapi, over his brief fainting spell, leaped back to his feet, grinning broadly as he pumped the proffered hand warmly. Jin heh'ed uneasily and spent the rest of the day avoiding Ryo like the plague. When Ryo questioned this behavior, Yamapi waved a hand airily and said:
"Ignore him; despite his playboy looks, he's really shy around strangers."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, really."
"That's rich."
"I know, right?"
Jin punched Yamapi and sulked over to the quieter doctor, who smiled shyly. "Ueda Tatsuya." His voice was soft and feathery, like a bird's sigh. "Please forgive Kame-chan; he's not usually so snippy." He paused. "However, Ryo's always like that. Sorry."
Jin nodded stiffly. Perhaps he sensed a kindred spirit in the gentle doctor; in any case, he detached himself from Yamapi's side and stuck to Ueda, engaging in an upbeat conversation about guitars. Before he knew it they halted in front of an extravagently decorated door.
"We're here," Ryo interrupted impatiently. "C'mon, hurry up." He pushed them into Johnny-sama's office.
The room was surprisingly dull; the walls, peeling with smudges of dark brown, looked like someone puked on them and left it to dry. A few framed photos of scowling chubby-faced boys hung over the desk, which was neat and orderly with few papers - very different from the Kamenashi's desk, Jin thought. A single gray-haired man stood next to the window, hands clasped, back ramrod straight. At the sound of footsteps he turned around, showing a stern, wrinkled old face with little granny-glasses perched on his nose.
"Excuse us, Johnny-sama" said Ueda, bowing deeply. Johnny-sama stared blankly at Jin and Yamapi, but his confusion didn't last for very long, because he broke out into a wide grin, flying over to Jin and nearly smothered him with a massive hug.
"Omigawd!" he wailed, bouncing up and down. "You're soooo cute!" He pinched Jin's cheeks playfully.
Jin shot Yamapi a desperate why-are-you-standing-there-HELP-ME look. "Er, can you please let go of my face?" he pleaded, only it turned out more like, "ecannapuhlegamifae," - a valient attempt for someone's whose face was being pulled in seven different directions.
"SPEAK UP, BOY!"
"I SAID, LET GO OF MY FACE!" Jin bellowed, tearing away from the grabby hands and once again hiding behind Yamapi, who was bent double with laughter.
Ueda swiftly interjected before Johnny-sama burst into tears; judging from the wobbling of his lip, he was awfully close, too. "They're new patients, Johnny-sama."
"New draftees, eh?" Johnny-sama said, tears forgotten. He crowed with laughter and heartily slapped the fragile Ueda on the back. "Keep up the good work. Stiff upper lip, I say!" He leaped forward and shoved them out of his office. "Give my salutations to the sergeart!"
The four were left standing in the hallway, two staring stupidly at the closed door, the other two exchanging knowing glances.
"...What was he blathering about?"
"Johnny-sama's a bit...strange, you could say," Ueda said, making the universal gesture for when you want to say something but didn't know how to say it.
Ryo snorted. "You mean touched in the head. Of course, nearly everyone at this hospital is mentally impaired in some way."
"Hospital?" said Jin.
Ryo gave him a scathing look. "...Yes," he said slowly. "This is Johnny's Entertainment, the biggest psychiatric hospital in Japan."
Yamapi was disgusted, for the wrong reason. "Mars is such a disappointment," he complained. "So far it's the exact same as Earth."
Ryo glanced at his wristwatch. Ueda hummed a low tune.
The shock hit both Earthlings at the same time.
"Psychiatric hospital?" Jin gasped.
"Mentally impaired?" Yamapi's eyes bugged out.
"Everyone?" they chorused. "Even you guys?"
Actually, it wasn't so much a shock that Ryo was insane (he had the aura of a chainsaw-wielding sociopath), or Kamenashi (he didn't just have the aura, he was so scary it wouldn't be a surprise if he really was one), but Ueda? No one so quiet and gentle could possibly be lumped in the same group as the former two.
"I see fairies," Ueda said serenely and pointed to Jin's shoulder. "Look...there's one right there. Hello."
Oh. That kind of insane. The kind with pretty hallucinations. Jin nodded thoughtfully; now that was perfectly understandable.
"What about you?" Yamapi said to Ryo.
Ryo grinned. "If you don't lock your doors at night," he curled his right hand into a fist, extending the index finger and thumb straight out and raising it to his temple, "bang."
Jin grew smaller until he seemed only half the size he really is.
"So," Ryo said, breaking the awkward silence, "You'll be staying here, I suppose?"
"EH?!"
"Well," Ryo shrugged, "since you're new to...Mars and all, you'll need a place to sleep, yeah?"
"We're not desperate enough to spend the night under the same roof as a bunch of lunatics," Jin said flatly.
"Frankly, I couldn't care less about what you want." said Ryo. He snagged Jin by the collar, and, tugging Yamapi along by the arm, forced them both into Room 501, locking the door behind them. "Bye bye!"
He left, laughing.
"OI!" Jin yelled, banging against the wall. "You bastard!"
"Please, Jin," came Ueda's voice from the other side of the wall, "we only want what's best for you."
"Yeah, Jin, calm down," Yamapi said, lounging on the double bed. "Yeesh, you'd think someone had died."
"How can you be so calm?" shrieked Jin, kicking the bed viciously. "We're being held hostage!"
"They didn't kill us, for one," Yamapi pointed out, unperturbed by his friend's act of violence. "And they didn't leave us to starve out on the streets. That's a pretty good deal, if you ask me."