[APH] The Six Degrees of Separation (4th°)
Title: The Six Degrees of Separation
Category: Axis Powers Hetalia / Hetalia World Series
Characters: Greece, Egypt, Japan, Turkey, France, England, America, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Sealand, North and South Italy, Russia, Germany, Prussia, Spain, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, China, South Korea
Pairings: France/England, Spain/South Italy, Germany/North Italy, Lithuania/Poland, Turkey/Japan, Finland/Sweden
Genre/Rating/Warnings: friendship, romance, drama, family/PG/AU, human names, shifting POVs, language shifts (which I really hope people won’t get confused by)
Summary/Excerpt: The Six Degrees of Separation is the idea that everyone in this world is connected by at most six people. It’s an empowering, intimidating thought to know that the world can be shrunk within just one city and that lives begin to affect one another as people converge and intersect. Our story begins with a pair of brothers who manage a fruit shake stand in Dotombori, Osaka and bear witness to different fates being drawn together from all over the globe.
Prologue | 1st° Part 1 | 1st° Part 2 | 2nd° Part 1 | 2nd° Part 2 | 2nd° Part 3
3rd° | 4th° | 5th° | 6th° | Epilogue
In this installment: It's seemingly fantastical how Feliks and Toris get back together, and how Yung Soo too plays his part. In reality, how the world conspires to bring us pleasant surprises happens everyday.
The Six Degrees of Separation
Fourth Degree
♠ i'm not tired yet, i just want to share all this with you
Feliks Lukasiewicz loved airports.
He loved the thrill of alighting a plane and drinking in the sights a first visit to another country meets-small embellishments such as flags or souvenir shops to large ones such as the architecture of glass and steel, intricate wood carvings in waiting areas and sculptures in the lobby. He enjoyed seeing people of various nationalities in stuffy coats or skimpy beach outfits, flushed and excited as he was about travel. It was a most fascinating occupation, observing the peculiarities different travelers, their language, the ribbons on their luggage, their clothes and whatever else. He loved watching huge planes fly in from the infinite skies, proudly emblazoned with flags and flight companies they were sponsored by. Most especially, he loved the sight of families, friends and lovers reunited under a roof that seemingly symbolized the point in every country where the world converged.
Feliks didn’t like the immigration much though, waiting in line could be a total bummer especially if he didn’t have anyone to talk to. Still, watching the people come and go was mighty cool.
“This is so exciting!” Im Yung Soo beside him declared as they left the Kansai International Airport and headed for the train into the city. It was 8:22pm and despite the summer season, this particular evening felt chilly.
Feliks huffed superiorly. “Like, you aren’t the only one. I’m totally psyched to eat.” The pair came to a stop behind the ticket line. “…and I totally can’t read this.” He turned to his companion. “Yo, thought you could read a bit of kanji.”
Yung Soo stood squinting at the railway map of Osaka with its plethora of stations, train lines and fares. “Well yeah, back when I was a kid. Where are we going again?”
Feliks looked at the print out he had received from Hotel VF regarding their reservation and instructions on getting there. “Shinsaibashi-sushi…suji, or whatev. Come on, I’m starving.”
“A thousand six hundred yen.”
Feliks pulled out a couple of crisp bills he had exchanged at the airport and paid the fare. As soon as the funny-looking guy in uniform handed over their tiny tickets, the pair raced down the subway to catch the train charted to leave in a few minutes. They collapsed on a couple of empty seats with relief as the doors closed and the train slowly lumbered out of the airport station, picking up speed as it passed through the bridge across the sea.
Im Yung Soo bounced excitedly in his seat.
“My god. You’re like, more excited about this than I am,” Feliks said grinning.
“It’s my first time traveling for recreational reasons,” he said. “I’ve been giving volunteer tours for so long, it’s about time I received one!”
“Well then I’m totally glad I could help you with that.”
Indeed, Im Yung Soo was the volunteer tour guide Feliks met during his trip to Seoul barely three months ago. In actuality, the man was a freelance writer, but due to the instability of his income, he took up a number of odd jobs to get by. The amusing variety of what he and Feliks did to earn cash was a usual topic of conversation during their sight-seeing. And when Feliks told him that the saving enabled him to fulfill his dream of traveling the world, Yung Soo has been utterly fascinated with the nature of his backpacking that he had begged to be brought along Feliks’ next destination, which happened to be Japan.
“This is so not awesome when you’re riding the train at night!” Yung Soo said, looking over his shoulder with some difficulty. The window behind them showed dimly lit streets, powerful neon lights, clean empty highways and apartments after apartments all silhouetted against a bright half moon in the inky black sky. “How long till we get to Shinsaibashi again?”
Feliks shrugged. “IDK. S’my first time here as much as yours y’know. But the email thingy says like an hour. Gosh, I’m hungry.”
They passed several stations, each different from the last, dotted with people going home, having already missed the stress of the rush hour. Feliks broke out in giggles as they watched young employees in suits come and go. Yung Soo looked at him curiously.
“Oh my god, like that guy over there is totally cute.” Feliks said and pointed to a clean-faced male with chinky eyes and a pointed nose sitting a few feet away.
Yung Soo looked and frowned, not in disapproval but from puzzlement. “Dude, that guy looks normal. I see those types of guys everyday back home.”
“Tch!” Feliks exclaimed, clearly put out, and playfully shoved his companion. “Like you’re no fun. …ooh! This station totally looks like the horror movies!”
The Korean laughed. “Naturally!” he said and continued to look out the window of their rattling train.
Feliks considered him for a moment before tearing his own gaze from the outside and straightening in his seat. He was quite surprised at the number of people standing and gripping the safety handles in front of him. He nudged his backpack closer to him with his legs.
“Yung Soo, like why didja come with me to Osaka?”
“Hm?” Yung Soo turned to him with bright question on his face. “Oh. Well, I can afford it and I want to travel! It’s win-win!”he grinned and Feliks returned it. “You? I never really got to ask why you’ve been traveling for so long.”
The train pulled into Namba Station and the pair squeezed themselves out of the crowd. They joined the throng of people rushing to and from train lines in a bemused daze.
“It’s a long story, really,” Feliks said as they were jostled about in leaving the subway.
“I’d like to hear it,” Yung Soo answered cheerfully, hitching his large bag higher on his shoulder.
“Why not,” the Pole replied amusedly. “But we’re totally late for our check-in and I’m super starving.”
They stood before a maze of escalators, trying to decipher the signs they needed to follow and completed their journey without much fuss and a lot of travel jokes that earned them stares from the more prudent natives.
♠ the night is long and the tea overflowing
9:14pm
Yung Soo stared at the lone bed that occupied half the small room and glanced at Feliks flitting about excitedly, opening drawers, taking out teacups and the thermos, going in and out of the bathroom and laughing at the bidet, turning on the TV and flipping through the local channels.
“This is totally cool!” the Pole exclaimed, pulling out the complimentary foot massager and pressing random buttons.
“You do realize there’s just one bed here.”
“Small, innit?” Feliks said as he took a large cup noodle from the things they bought from the nearby AM/PM. “Chill pill, hun. I’ve totes seen worse. This is like…cute small.”
Yung Soo shrugged it off with a bemused expression on his face. He decided he’d be the one to offer to sleep on the carpet tonight. “Hey hey, you promised to tell me why you’ve been traveling for such a long time.”
Feliks was about to shove a plastic fork full of instant noodles in his mouth when he tore his eyes away from the slapstick comedy show on the screen to consider him for a few moments.
“Oh fine, since y’wanna know. Let’s eat first. It’ll be a long night’s worth of stories if you’re up for shizz like that.”
Yung Soo raised both eyebrows in mild surprise. “That many?”
Feliks grinned. “You’re totally gonna laugh.”
“Come on, hyung. Try me.”
The Pole turned the foot massager off, sat on the carpet and continued to eat. “Even though I travel a lot, I don’t really get to talk to people about things like this, y’know.” He had a sheepish expression on. “Totally ironic how travelers have all these stories to tell everyone except for ones about themselves.”
Yung Soo paused before smiling. He moved their backpacks to the foot of the bed and prepared his own convenience store dinner before joining Feliks on the floor.
“Like, I suppose I don’t have to tell you I come from Poland…”
♠ i am golden
How did Feliks Lukasiewicz describe himself?
Absolutely fabulous.
And someone as fabulous as him should be seen by the world, right? Or rather, the fabulous world shouldn’t be kept from him. His parents had been teachers and writers for travel journals and magazines. Growing up in a humble compound in Warsaw with the restlessness of the city fostered a yearning in Feliks to see the world. He wanted to experience everything he’s read in travel books, cultures his parents wrote about, taught and wove into their lives’ works. He loved anything about traveling and was told that when he was a baby, he screamed with joy every time a plane passed overhead. People described him as fickle, but Feliks wanted to call it opportunity-grabbing. His ambition was to travel the world.
Aside from fabulous, Feliks could call himself practical.
Traveling the world wasn’t as easy as buying pazulsha from the store, not in these days. Feliks took humanities in college and became a professor in his Alma Mater like his parents. Aside from saving like crazy, he earned extra doing odd jobs and hobbies. His friends often called him to help plan their weddings for some reason.
He only had one close friend who, much to his dismay, didn’t quite share his views of the absolute gorgeousness of the world.
Toris Laurinaitis was his neighbor in the compound and had been his school mate since elementary. He had funny Lithuanian grandparents and a really caring family. Toris and Feliks did everything together, tending tiny window-ledge gardens, flying kites on weekends and going to each other’s houses for their mothers’ homecooked lunches.
If Feliks had one secret, it was that he’d been incredibly shy when he was a child. Till today, Toris was the only person he could be truly comfortable with. In hindsight, he was the only one who ground Feliks to a sense of home. He wanted to fly and Toris wanted him to stay. It wasn’t something bad though. At some point, Feliks was aware he did have his head in the clouds more often than needed. He dreamed with Toris. The guy was an economics major doomed for some lame desk job but they dreamed together.
Feliks saw a home to come back to in Toris. He had been a professor for three years in his old college and Toris a clerk at a nearby accounting firm for roughly the same amount of time. The allowance they saved allowed them to purchase both their houses in the compound and tear down the wall that separated them, creating a larger, more comfortable living space as their parents had retired to the country. By then, Feliks had saved a handsome amount to go touring Europe with relative ease. He planned to keep earning through online tutoring. He was absolutely thrilled about his achievements and wanted to surprise Toris a day before his flight.
He didn’t understand it then and he didn’t understand it now, why Toris has held back what he wanted to say till the very last minute. Feliks wasn’t dense, contrary to popular opinion. He knew the Lithuanian didn’t want him to leave. Feliks simply wanted to hear why. He had badly wanted to hit Toris on the head when he, laughing, said, “I…I’m very happy for you Feliks…but you can’t leave. I…I love you.” But his heart warmed. And as his dear friend looked right about ready to kill himself over what he just said, Feliks placed a hand on his shoulder and said,
“Like, I totally knew that, Toris. Listen, I want you to be where when I come back home, ayt?”
In that way, Feliks was sure, that wherever he’d find himself, he had a home waiting for him. In his excitement to travel, Feliks forgot to correspond with his old friend and within four months, Toris quit his job in the firm to work elsewhere Feliks had no idea of. It was a chilling moment, when the Pole thought he had lost his home and walked the world in order to find it. He had a sneaking suspicion Toris thought he’d been rejected and cut a bitch but seven years of sulking was an awful long time for anybody.
“Yeah. There’s tons of days when I totally wanted to go home,” Feliks told Yung Soo, who listened surprisingly diligently. They’d forgotten the time and were on their fourth thermos of complimentary hotel tea that they were sure their teeth were green.
“Since I didn’t know where Liet was, I kept traveling cuz coming to an empty home is so not fabulous.”
“Why Japan this time?” Yung Soo asked.
Feliks grinned. “I haven’t been to Japan before. Besides, friends told me he was working round these parts. It’s a lucky break…”
♠ stitching torn seams
10:00am
Toris Laurinaitis traversed the empty streets of Shinsaibashi-suji to Hotel VF, wondering for the life of him why Sir Ivan tasked him to oversee tour guides when he’d never left the office save for going home, buying lunch and weekends. He turned right along a quaint street with crispy cream pastries and made a mental note to buy some before entering the small lobby of the hotel. Guests were still having breakfast at the small makeshift buffet-dining space near the reception area. There was a small collection of summer tourists chatting in hushed yet animated tones about how to spend their day an one or two locals (most likely from other cities) enjoying breakfast in pajamas while trying to butter their toast with chopsticks. Toris smiled quietly to himself and adjusted his SF tours jacket. The receptionist bowed a greeting and he returned it.
A few paces away, the elevator ding-ed open.
“I thought you backpackers like roughing it. I see no roughing it with the native folk. Why are we on a tour?” Yung Soo asked as he and Feliks stepped out on the lobby, dressed and ready for a full day of sight seeing.
The Pole laughed with the air of one veteran teaching a young apprentice. “Chill. Like if you’ve got the option not to go roughing it, you so totally don’t. Waaaay easier, well if you’ve got money.”
“Oh I get it. Since it’s your first time here, you go on a tour just like you did in Seoul.”
Toris stood from the couch in the waiting area, unable to believe the conversation he was overhearing. Nevermind what they were saying, it was their voices, his voice.
It was funny how things seemed so simple.
Toris Laurinaitis turned to see Feliks Lukasiewicz, smiling like there wasn’t a world between them, no time, space or grudges. He hated him so badly, and screamed and cried as Feliks hugged him tightly. He didn’t see the people staring or Feliks’s own tears and he weakly punched the man in the chest, sobbing where were you, where were you ?!
Feliks merely laughed and answered, Looking for home, like duh, and deep inside, they both felt complete.
to the Fifth Degree
Category: Axis Powers Hetalia / Hetalia World Series
Characters: Greece, Egypt, Japan, Turkey, France, England, America, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Sealand, North and South Italy, Russia, Germany, Prussia, Spain, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, China, South Korea
Pairings: France/England, Spain/South Italy, Germany/North Italy, Lithuania/Poland, Turkey/Japan, Finland/Sweden
Genre/Rating/Warnings: friendship, romance, drama, family/PG/AU, human names, shifting POVs, language shifts (which I really hope people won’t get confused by)
Summary/Excerpt: The Six Degrees of Separation is the idea that everyone in this world is connected by at most six people. It’s an empowering, intimidating thought to know that the world can be shrunk within just one city and that lives begin to affect one another as people converge and intersect. Our story begins with a pair of brothers who manage a fruit shake stand in Dotombori, Osaka and bear witness to different fates being drawn together from all over the globe.
Prologue | 1st° Part 1 | 1st° Part 2 | 2nd° Part 1 | 2nd° Part 2 | 2nd° Part 3
3rd° | 4th° | 5th° | 6th° | Epilogue
In this installment: It's seemingly fantastical how Feliks and Toris get back together, and how Yung Soo too plays his part. In reality, how the world conspires to bring us pleasant surprises happens everyday.
The Six Degrees of Separation
Fourth Degree
♠ i'm not tired yet, i just want to share all this with you
Feliks Lukasiewicz loved airports.
He loved the thrill of alighting a plane and drinking in the sights a first visit to another country meets-small embellishments such as flags or souvenir shops to large ones such as the architecture of glass and steel, intricate wood carvings in waiting areas and sculptures in the lobby. He enjoyed seeing people of various nationalities in stuffy coats or skimpy beach outfits, flushed and excited as he was about travel. It was a most fascinating occupation, observing the peculiarities different travelers, their language, the ribbons on their luggage, their clothes and whatever else. He loved watching huge planes fly in from the infinite skies, proudly emblazoned with flags and flight companies they were sponsored by. Most especially, he loved the sight of families, friends and lovers reunited under a roof that seemingly symbolized the point in every country where the world converged.
Feliks didn’t like the immigration much though, waiting in line could be a total bummer especially if he didn’t have anyone to talk to. Still, watching the people come and go was mighty cool.
“This is so exciting!” Im Yung Soo beside him declared as they left the Kansai International Airport and headed for the train into the city. It was 8:22pm and despite the summer season, this particular evening felt chilly.
Feliks huffed superiorly. “Like, you aren’t the only one. I’m totally psyched to eat.” The pair came to a stop behind the ticket line. “…and I totally can’t read this.” He turned to his companion. “Yo, thought you could read a bit of kanji.”
Yung Soo stood squinting at the railway map of Osaka with its plethora of stations, train lines and fares. “Well yeah, back when I was a kid. Where are we going again?”
Feliks looked at the print out he had received from Hotel VF regarding their reservation and instructions on getting there. “Shinsaibashi-sushi…suji, or whatev. Come on, I’m starving.”
“A thousand six hundred yen.”
Feliks pulled out a couple of crisp bills he had exchanged at the airport and paid the fare. As soon as the funny-looking guy in uniform handed over their tiny tickets, the pair raced down the subway to catch the train charted to leave in a few minutes. They collapsed on a couple of empty seats with relief as the doors closed and the train slowly lumbered out of the airport station, picking up speed as it passed through the bridge across the sea.
Im Yung Soo bounced excitedly in his seat.
“My god. You’re like, more excited about this than I am,” Feliks said grinning.
“It’s my first time traveling for recreational reasons,” he said. “I’ve been giving volunteer tours for so long, it’s about time I received one!”
“Well then I’m totally glad I could help you with that.”
Indeed, Im Yung Soo was the volunteer tour guide Feliks met during his trip to Seoul barely three months ago. In actuality, the man was a freelance writer, but due to the instability of his income, he took up a number of odd jobs to get by. The amusing variety of what he and Feliks did to earn cash was a usual topic of conversation during their sight-seeing. And when Feliks told him that the saving enabled him to fulfill his dream of traveling the world, Yung Soo has been utterly fascinated with the nature of his backpacking that he had begged to be brought along Feliks’ next destination, which happened to be Japan.
“This is so not awesome when you’re riding the train at night!” Yung Soo said, looking over his shoulder with some difficulty. The window behind them showed dimly lit streets, powerful neon lights, clean empty highways and apartments after apartments all silhouetted against a bright half moon in the inky black sky. “How long till we get to Shinsaibashi again?”
Feliks shrugged. “IDK. S’my first time here as much as yours y’know. But the email thingy says like an hour. Gosh, I’m hungry.”
They passed several stations, each different from the last, dotted with people going home, having already missed the stress of the rush hour. Feliks broke out in giggles as they watched young employees in suits come and go. Yung Soo looked at him curiously.
“Oh my god, like that guy over there is totally cute.” Feliks said and pointed to a clean-faced male with chinky eyes and a pointed nose sitting a few feet away.
Yung Soo looked and frowned, not in disapproval but from puzzlement. “Dude, that guy looks normal. I see those types of guys everyday back home.”
“Tch!” Feliks exclaimed, clearly put out, and playfully shoved his companion. “Like you’re no fun. …ooh! This station totally looks like the horror movies!”
The Korean laughed. “Naturally!” he said and continued to look out the window of their rattling train.
Feliks considered him for a moment before tearing his own gaze from the outside and straightening in his seat. He was quite surprised at the number of people standing and gripping the safety handles in front of him. He nudged his backpack closer to him with his legs.
“Yung Soo, like why didja come with me to Osaka?”
“Hm?” Yung Soo turned to him with bright question on his face. “Oh. Well, I can afford it and I want to travel! It’s win-win!”he grinned and Feliks returned it. “You? I never really got to ask why you’ve been traveling for so long.”
The train pulled into Namba Station and the pair squeezed themselves out of the crowd. They joined the throng of people rushing to and from train lines in a bemused daze.
“It’s a long story, really,” Feliks said as they were jostled about in leaving the subway.
“I’d like to hear it,” Yung Soo answered cheerfully, hitching his large bag higher on his shoulder.
“Why not,” the Pole replied amusedly. “But we’re totally late for our check-in and I’m super starving.”
They stood before a maze of escalators, trying to decipher the signs they needed to follow and completed their journey without much fuss and a lot of travel jokes that earned them stares from the more prudent natives.
♠ the night is long and the tea overflowing
9:14pm
Yung Soo stared at the lone bed that occupied half the small room and glanced at Feliks flitting about excitedly, opening drawers, taking out teacups and the thermos, going in and out of the bathroom and laughing at the bidet, turning on the TV and flipping through the local channels.
“This is totally cool!” the Pole exclaimed, pulling out the complimentary foot massager and pressing random buttons.
“You do realize there’s just one bed here.”
“Small, innit?” Feliks said as he took a large cup noodle from the things they bought from the nearby AM/PM. “Chill pill, hun. I’ve totes seen worse. This is like…cute small.”
Yung Soo shrugged it off with a bemused expression on his face. He decided he’d be the one to offer to sleep on the carpet tonight. “Hey hey, you promised to tell me why you’ve been traveling for such a long time.”
Feliks was about to shove a plastic fork full of instant noodles in his mouth when he tore his eyes away from the slapstick comedy show on the screen to consider him for a few moments.
“Oh fine, since y’wanna know. Let’s eat first. It’ll be a long night’s worth of stories if you’re up for shizz like that.”
Yung Soo raised both eyebrows in mild surprise. “That many?”
Feliks grinned. “You’re totally gonna laugh.”
“Come on, hyung. Try me.”
The Pole turned the foot massager off, sat on the carpet and continued to eat. “Even though I travel a lot, I don’t really get to talk to people about things like this, y’know.” He had a sheepish expression on. “Totally ironic how travelers have all these stories to tell everyone except for ones about themselves.”
Yung Soo paused before smiling. He moved their backpacks to the foot of the bed and prepared his own convenience store dinner before joining Feliks on the floor.
“Like, I suppose I don’t have to tell you I come from Poland…”
♠ i am golden
How did Feliks Lukasiewicz describe himself?
Absolutely fabulous.
And someone as fabulous as him should be seen by the world, right? Or rather, the fabulous world shouldn’t be kept from him. His parents had been teachers and writers for travel journals and magazines. Growing up in a humble compound in Warsaw with the restlessness of the city fostered a yearning in Feliks to see the world. He wanted to experience everything he’s read in travel books, cultures his parents wrote about, taught and wove into their lives’ works. He loved anything about traveling and was told that when he was a baby, he screamed with joy every time a plane passed overhead. People described him as fickle, but Feliks wanted to call it opportunity-grabbing. His ambition was to travel the world.
Aside from fabulous, Feliks could call himself practical.
Traveling the world wasn’t as easy as buying pazulsha from the store, not in these days. Feliks took humanities in college and became a professor in his Alma Mater like his parents. Aside from saving like crazy, he earned extra doing odd jobs and hobbies. His friends often called him to help plan their weddings for some reason.
He only had one close friend who, much to his dismay, didn’t quite share his views of the absolute gorgeousness of the world.
Toris Laurinaitis was his neighbor in the compound and had been his school mate since elementary. He had funny Lithuanian grandparents and a really caring family. Toris and Feliks did everything together, tending tiny window-ledge gardens, flying kites on weekends and going to each other’s houses for their mothers’ homecooked lunches.
If Feliks had one secret, it was that he’d been incredibly shy when he was a child. Till today, Toris was the only person he could be truly comfortable with. In hindsight, he was the only one who ground Feliks to a sense of home. He wanted to fly and Toris wanted him to stay. It wasn’t something bad though. At some point, Feliks was aware he did have his head in the clouds more often than needed. He dreamed with Toris. The guy was an economics major doomed for some lame desk job but they dreamed together.
Feliks saw a home to come back to in Toris. He had been a professor for three years in his old college and Toris a clerk at a nearby accounting firm for roughly the same amount of time. The allowance they saved allowed them to purchase both their houses in the compound and tear down the wall that separated them, creating a larger, more comfortable living space as their parents had retired to the country. By then, Feliks had saved a handsome amount to go touring Europe with relative ease. He planned to keep earning through online tutoring. He was absolutely thrilled about his achievements and wanted to surprise Toris a day before his flight.
He didn’t understand it then and he didn’t understand it now, why Toris has held back what he wanted to say till the very last minute. Feliks wasn’t dense, contrary to popular opinion. He knew the Lithuanian didn’t want him to leave. Feliks simply wanted to hear why. He had badly wanted to hit Toris on the head when he, laughing, said, “I…I’m very happy for you Feliks…but you can’t leave. I…I love you.” But his heart warmed. And as his dear friend looked right about ready to kill himself over what he just said, Feliks placed a hand on his shoulder and said,
“Like, I totally knew that, Toris. Listen, I want you to be where when I come back home, ayt?”
In that way, Feliks was sure, that wherever he’d find himself, he had a home waiting for him. In his excitement to travel, Feliks forgot to correspond with his old friend and within four months, Toris quit his job in the firm to work elsewhere Feliks had no idea of. It was a chilling moment, when the Pole thought he had lost his home and walked the world in order to find it. He had a sneaking suspicion Toris thought he’d been rejected and cut a bitch but seven years of sulking was an awful long time for anybody.
“Yeah. There’s tons of days when I totally wanted to go home,” Feliks told Yung Soo, who listened surprisingly diligently. They’d forgotten the time and were on their fourth thermos of complimentary hotel tea that they were sure their teeth were green.
“Since I didn’t know where Liet was, I kept traveling cuz coming to an empty home is so not fabulous.”
“Why Japan this time?” Yung Soo asked.
Feliks grinned. “I haven’t been to Japan before. Besides, friends told me he was working round these parts. It’s a lucky break…”
♠ stitching torn seams
10:00am
Toris Laurinaitis traversed the empty streets of Shinsaibashi-suji to Hotel VF, wondering for the life of him why Sir Ivan tasked him to oversee tour guides when he’d never left the office save for going home, buying lunch and weekends. He turned right along a quaint street with crispy cream pastries and made a mental note to buy some before entering the small lobby of the hotel. Guests were still having breakfast at the small makeshift buffet-dining space near the reception area. There was a small collection of summer tourists chatting in hushed yet animated tones about how to spend their day an one or two locals (most likely from other cities) enjoying breakfast in pajamas while trying to butter their toast with chopsticks. Toris smiled quietly to himself and adjusted his SF tours jacket. The receptionist bowed a greeting and he returned it.
A few paces away, the elevator ding-ed open.
“I thought you backpackers like roughing it. I see no roughing it with the native folk. Why are we on a tour?” Yung Soo asked as he and Feliks stepped out on the lobby, dressed and ready for a full day of sight seeing.
The Pole laughed with the air of one veteran teaching a young apprentice. “Chill. Like if you’ve got the option not to go roughing it, you so totally don’t. Waaaay easier, well if you’ve got money.”
“Oh I get it. Since it’s your first time here, you go on a tour just like you did in Seoul.”
Toris stood from the couch in the waiting area, unable to believe the conversation he was overhearing. Nevermind what they were saying, it was their voices, his voice.
It was funny how things seemed so simple.
Toris Laurinaitis turned to see Feliks Lukasiewicz, smiling like there wasn’t a world between them, no time, space or grudges. He hated him so badly, and screamed and cried as Feliks hugged him tightly. He didn’t see the people staring or Feliks’s own tears and he weakly punched the man in the chest, sobbing where were you, where were you ?!
Feliks merely laughed and answered, Looking for home, like duh, and deep inside, they both felt complete.
to the Fifth Degree