ｐａｒａｌｌｅｌ ｌｉｎｅｓ．
//
Suppose a man could find meaning in a shirt, suppose a shirt changes its colours when it leaves the washing machine. It probably wouldn't make much sense unless you substituted the word 'shirt' for 'woman', or even 'man'. So suppose we took the shirt out and put in a (wo)man-
"-dude, we've been having this one-sided mental conversation for the past half an hour. "
"... Sorry, what?"
"Nothing. So I was just talking about how I shave myself in the wrong places all the time."
"Oh, cool. Where?"
ｐａｒａｌｌｅｌ ｌｉｎｅｓ．
uruha, kai of The GazettE
with Reita, Aoi and (hidden) Ruki cameos.
pg-13, unbeta'd awkward au with a ton of dialogue, overuse of 'freaky' and the like
bad humour, metaphors and car stereotypes, 2800w
two worlds with slight differences.
//
Reita wears things that make Uruha cringe for the first hour or so after they meet at the vending machines next to the recycling bins down the busy street. While Reita talks about how his pet bird's been doing, Uruha walks slower, just a few steps behind the blonde. Reita says, stop staring at my butt and hurry up which earns them a few burning stares topped with some giggles, and Uruha tries to blend into his surroundings. When it happens for the third time, he informs Reita that he was just admiring his exquisite Aloha shirt. Which then brings him to the thought of shirts as metaphors, which then rolls his brain into a hole in the ground called Life Philosophy albeit slowly, but steadily nonetheless.
Later on, he realizes they are sitting in a cafe with cups of coffee in front of them, but that's only when his Shirt Theory is interrupted by Reita.
"You should pay attention to people when they're talking to you. "
"Uh-huh." Uruha tries his coffee. It's cold and disgusting, like what Reita's wearing.
"You missed a great fight back there," Reita sighs so Uruha asks what fight and he replies, "Aoi got pissed at some small guy, it was funny."
"Fighting while working, I like that."
"The guy asked for a specific latte art and he didn't get it because Aoi's an ass like that and did an shit job out of the foam. Probably even spat in it. So then bam! Things got out of hand. It was like watching ten cars crashing and piling on top of each other."
"So basically." You give terrible descriptions? Uruha drowns his voice in cold shitty coffee because he can. "You were checking out their trunks while they were at it."
"Dude."
"You were checking out their cargo compartments."
"A heavily tattooed Mini Cooper and a black Audi that got so mad it turned red."
"What? Aoi's far from it."
Reita grins and he looks like he's nine all over again.
A long time after that, Uruha makes the mistake of labeling Kai as a Toyota, to which Kai replies something along the lines of, I don't have any babies and I drive a foreign car.
For now, he lets Reita wear that shirt
(a) so that his best friend can embarrass himself
(b) because he hasn't met Kai yet.
//
The setting:
A normal apartment. The walls are cream-coloured, the walls in the bedroom are decorated with posters of rock bands and musicians. There are clothes on the bed which may or may not be clean, the bedsheets are pinstriped and crumpled. A guitar here and a guitar there. A clean bathroom with too many bottles of hairspray, cologne. A clean kitchen with a clean table with a cup of instant noodles half-eaten. Saturday sunlight at 10.40am.
The first time it happens, Uruha is more than just freaked out. He'd moved in not too long ago, and things had been going good for him so far, but God likes to play games with him and make his furniture move or acquire weird stains that smell strangely familiar. Usually he does not catch God in the act, but this time it's different.
This time he sees the kitchen chair shifting just a little, making this low scratching sound against the floor. Then he sees a white stain appearing on the kitchen table. Then he freaks the fuck out and falls over his own legs, kicking the kitchen chair in the process and knocking it over. Uruha stares on in horror as nothing happens... until a minute later, when suddenly the chair fucking levitates and sits itself back onto the floor properly.
"This crazy shit's been going on for two days now and I'm absolutely fucking certain that there's something really unclean in this house," Uruha breathes harshly into the phone and Reita just laughs.
"You mean like something other than you?"
"Fuck you."
Reita laughs again.
So Uruha spends the rest of his day having his meals out. I'm so tired. He thinks as he chews on his burger, a slow clenching of his incisors and rolling of his tongue. He smells and tastes something familiar in the burger. It is white and sour-ish and it's been appearing in his house for the past two days even though he doesn't have any of it in his fridge.
I think I'm going to be sick, Uruha swallows.
//
One statement to describe Uruha's feelings at 10pm: 'I am sick of all these fucking mayonnaise stains that might otherwise be taken for something else.'
He's curling up by his bed with his guitar and wine when the house phone rings. He picks it up quickly and this is how the phone conversation goes:
"Hello?"
Hello? Um...
"Who is this?"
Are you the other owner of this apartment?
"Yeah. Wait, what other owner?" Bad feeling go away.
Well, yes, just another owner.
"What do you mean by that?"
How are you? The weather's great, right?
"... ..."
It's a great evening to go out and see the stars, isn't it?
(add some nervous laughter and Uruha pictures a boy with rainbow candy in his eyes and mouth.)
Uruha pulls the phone away from his ear, then hangs up slowly. The phone rings again immediately after and he picks it up by mistake:
"Hello?"
Why did you hang up on me?!
"Who the fuck are you?"
Well, I'm... !
1 minute, 2 minutes.
I'm calling to complain about... about the wine stains on my carpet.
//
Aoi tries not to get mad, but he can't not get mad when Uruha's pissing him off by saying things about his coffee and being paranoid about everything. Reita attempts to calm the both of them but he's wearing the wrong shirt again.
Then Uruha receives a phone message halfway through avoiding Aoi's nails near his cheek and groans.
"Who was that?"
"Sister."
"What did she want?"
"Sanitary pads, tampons. Ten of each."
Aoi puts his hands away. "Is her uterus ok?"
"You... probably shouldn't ask."
Reita steps in again. "But hey, at least you get to stay out of that freaky place you call home, huh?"
"If it means getting to stay out of that place because I don't want to die, I don't want to die, then feminine hygiene products don't intimidate me in the least."
//
The phone rings when it strikes twelve and Uruha picks it up with cold fingers.
"Hello... ?"
Good evening, I'm your worst nightmare, I'm here to suck the life from you via telephone and it will hurt like you've never been hurt before and you will die.
It's only human to be afraid of unfamiliar things. So when the 'person' on the other end of the phone talks, all Uruha thinks about is how he can move out as soon as possible and get to somewhere far, far away.
- and I'm terribly sorry if you've been frightened, because believe me, I know exactly how that feels... Hello?
"What? Sorry, what were you saying?"
I was just talking about how I've been freaked out by the wine stains and late-night guitar strumming but came to face it and discovered you through that. (He talks in patient, human syllables.)
"You discovered me? Wow, you make me sound like... like a new continent or something."
(He laughs. He has a nice laugh too. Harmless.)
"So am I talking to some mayonnaise spirit?"
(He laughs again, sounding too human.)
No, you're talking to Kai, the other owner of this apartment who just happens to be a mayonnaise maniac.
//
It happens when there's a crack between different worlds, a slippage between two different realities. Uruha asks Kai to describe his house for him. It is similar to his, but Kai has white walls mostly and he knows time through a huge wall that acts as a clock and calendar. He tells him about his neighbour next door, who is some kind of policeman, who carries a light that can shine through opaque objects and expose things.
Uruha says it's scary, it's like the highest evolved form of the common Peeping Tom. Kai says well when I found out, I started going to the gyms. He assures Uruha that they can't see each other (especially not in the bathroom) because the gap between their worlds is probably too small.
"How did you even manage to make this phone call in the first place?"
Oh, that? I... just picked up the phone and dialed my own number.
"... Why would you do that?"
I was getting scared of this puddle of red something spreading across the carpet, so I thought of getting some kind of help on the phone, but...
"That was just me." Uruha can see the both of them smiling sheepishly, except for Kai maybe, he can imagine just the smiling mouth.
Yeah. I thought it was blood, so I panicked. And then... I realized that I couldn't remember anyone else's phone number.
"You know, this whole thing... feels too surreal."
At least we're not paying long-distance?
Uruha listens to Kai talk about his drawer-fridge and how it holds at least three bottles of mayonnaise (which reminds him of his own wine cooler that holds at least three bottles of wine), he talks about a friend who likes coffee and noisy places so that he can talk to himself without making it obvious that he's actually talking to himself.
His house phone is wireless and he uses it to check the news and plays music on it but it doesn't have a phone address book function because it's a second-hand model that's broken, which sucks (Uruha looks at his house phone and cellphone sadly). He makes muffins and cakes and all sorts of things that Uruha wishes he could see.
When both his ears get too red and warm from being on the phone for too long, Uruha yawns and says goodnight to Kai.
//
Reita calls him and asks if the 'unclean' thing is still there, and Uruha tells him that it's still there, but he's not that bothered by it anymore since it's not going to take his life or anything. He doesn't tell his best friend anything more.
But he still informs Kai over the phone that he is not to spill mayonnaise or anything in general, especially not on places like the couch, the bed, the cushions...
Kai agrees to it, on the condition that Uruha doesn't spill his wine whenever he drinks and he shouldn't start going crazy on his guitar at an ungodly hour because he can hear it sometimes, which is more than strange. It's good music though, Kai adds.
They also agree that friends generally do not levitate things in each other's presence or lack thereof because it's distressing.
//
K: I spotted some wine stains in my bathroom.
U: Well, sorry?
K: I'm not your invisible house cleaner, Uruha-kun...
K: And you have to cut back on alcohol, you know? It isn't healthy.
U: Please say something else before this gets too awkward for the both of us.
K: I'm sorry. I think. I'm just tired.
U: What happened?
K: I told my friend to get some groceries and he messed it up along with our dinner.
U: Hmm. (I'm not laughing, really)
K: He doesn't know his vegetables well, you see...
U: That's sad. At least I can tell cabbage from lettuce.
K: Well, maybe you should do the groceries for me instead?
U: Maybe? (If we ever get to meet each other.)
//
One day, Kai calls up as usual and tells Uruha that he's fallen sick and that if Uruha gets any germs that manage to float into his space somehow, he would be terribly sorry. Uruha listens quietly, and then tells him to go to sleep. Some time later, Uruha catches a cold and he blames it on Kai, who then apologizes profusely and offers to make him tea and soup and porridge. So Uruha reminds him that they are not actually living together, so there's no need for that. Kai's voice changes like a shirt gone wrong in the washing machine.
Suddenly, Uruha realizes that Kai is an expert in the language of Laughter which he doesn't really understand. Suddenly, he doesn't know what to say anymore. Suddenly, the phone calls stop.
What happens now?
Now, the wine stains will come back and they will be everywhere, from the couch to the kitchen to the carpet to the bedsheets to the bathroom. There will be guitar music past midnight, eventually there will be loud singing in the bedroom too, the neighbours will complain but nothing will change. He will start with one bottle of mayonnaise, which he will then decide to leave on the table, just to see if it will move, if stains will appear on the wood again. The phone will not ring and he will not be able to get the call through either.
Uruha waits, and by the time a third bottle of mayonnaise appears on the table, he knows he's done for.
//
"That is some trippy shit you're talking about."
"You mean the mayonnaise?"
"Are you sure that you haven't been going around your own house just... leaving stains while you were drunk? Or voicing your internal conversations and pretending there's a real person on the phone?"
Uruha drags his hand through his hair several times and Reita knows it means stop talking already can't you see I'm tired of it.
"You've been wearing the same shirt for three days already."
"What, this? Oh no, no, I do wash it," Reita points to himself. "With my sweat."
Aoi gives Uruha a latte for free, and it has a smiley face on it made with foam. "Cheer up and go get yourself laid, man. It might help."
//
Uruha has not gotten himself laid in two months which shocks Reita and Aoi and the drilling and hammering noises downstairs annoy him to no end. His sister annoys him with her messages too, telling him that he could use some of the stuff he bought for her, so he raises a middle finger at his cellphone.
Life is pretty normal now and Uruha hires a house cleaner because he's got his own job to care about. The house cleaner is a nice lady who likes to talk about the latest TV dramas whenever he's around.
Today, Uruha is sleeping in till about 12pm when the noises downstairs start again. It gets pretty rhythmic after a while, and he isn't that disturbed by the hammering, so he drifts in and out of consciousness until it's all quiet again. It's 1pm, and the doorbell rings.
He rolls out of bed and drags his feet to the door. He runs his hands through his hair and shakes off loose strands of gold stuck between his fingers, then opens the door.
"Who is it?"
"Hello."
Uruha sees the scary levitating chair, the out-of-this-world phone conversations, all the waiting and nothing happening. This person standing in front of him smiles. He is real. He says hello and this is much more frightening.
"How would you describe me?"
Uruha finds his jaws again and tries not to stumble over any words while biting it out, "Selfish."
The person is shorter, has darker hair and brighter eyes.
Selfish, irresponsible, unpredictable, crazy. An incoming train with blinding lights that never really seems to move fast enough but hits you before you know it. Smiles too much, laughs too much, hides too many things behind the smiles and laughs like toys or memorabilia kept under beds.
But I made you a cake.
Will give me diabetes one day.
Kai smiles with his teeth. Dimples. "I'm the one downstairs. I'm sorry I took so long, the gap was smaller than I imagined. I wanted to give you a surprise."
"You need to stop scaring the living daylights out of people," Uruha mumbles. For the first time ever, Kai laughs in front of him and his face is made up of moving lines on skin that Uruha wants to touch. The brunette extends a hand.
"It's nice to meet you."
kai knows magic