L'Arc en Ciel fanfiction .::. Three is Company...

Episode 1 – The big City –

Sakura turned around in his bed and dragged a pillow over his head. The light coming from outside the window was definitely annoying, but the constant ringing of the telephone was gritting his nerves.
He extended his right arm, skin the shade of alabaster flashing under the sunlight, and with all intention of smashing the damned noisy device against the wall, he grabbed it and held it trying to crush it.
He sighed, pulled the pillow away from his face, exposing notoriously dark circles under his squinting eyes, and answered the call with a slurry voice.
“What?!”
“Ah! Finally! I’ve been calling you since early!”
“Do you know what fucking time it is?!”
“10:42…”
“Great! You can tell time, so now fuck off and let me sleep!” Sakura hung up in annoyance and went back to cuddling his pillow searching for the same warm spot, like a white pool of sheets, he was nested in before.
The telephone rang again.
Sakura jumped back at it at light speed, and grabbing the receiver as if he was going to strangle the person on the other side by strangling the very device, he answered. “Damn you! You, bastard! What now, time-telling man?!”
“We know about your job.” The voice on the other side of the phone simply stated, trying to conceal a tint of anger.
“Good. You’ve spared me the trouble of breaking the news.”
“Third job you lose in a month… What was the reason this time?”
“D&D…” Sakura muttered while rubbing his eyes.
“And what was the reason the former two times?”
“D… and D…” Sakura replied wearily.
“I think we got a pattern here.”
“Listen, bro… leave me alone. I just… wasn’t made for that kind of job, OK? I’m not supposed to be teaching music theory to those brats.”
“Oh? Really? So what would be your ideal job? Tycoon, maybe?”
“Tycoon sounds nice, but I’m a musician. I am not a teacher! I’m a musician!”
“Listen to me, you retard…” The other voice interrupted Sakura’s declamation angrily. “…you are nothing but a hopeless drunkard! You are bringing nothing but shame to our family! Ever since you graduated from conservatory all you do is hang out with your bum friends fancying up stories of rock and roll stardom… but you get nothing done! We are all tired of you! You are a big hole in the family income and this is it! We’ve had it with this situation already!
Our mother is crying for you every fucking day, don’t you have any shame?!”
“Hidetaka… We’ve had this conversation before…” Sakura relented… he had barely paid attention to half of his brother’s harangue.
“Oh, really? Because I’m thinking the whole concept behind it escapes you! You don’t seem to process the information I’m generously granting you!!”
“Yeah… I process it… mom’s been crying… tell her I’m sorry… I’ll call her later…” Sakura relented and rolled on one side, squeezing the receiver between his face and the pillow.
“No! That’s not the fucking point!”
“So what is the fucking point?! I wanna sleep already!”
“Pack your stuff and meet me at the inn.”
“What?”
“You fucking heard me!”
“Why the inn?”
“I got you a job.”
“A job? At the family inn? I don’t think guests need to be musically entertained… Are you gonna be hiring performers?”
“Don’t play idiot… wait, rather, stop being an idiot. Your musician days are over. You’re gonna be running the family inn, and you better do it well, Sakura, or I’ll take care of you really bad, man… really bad… and you know that means coming back to Nerima where you’re gonna be errand-boy for the rest of your life! You got that? You wanted to be away from home? Well, prove yourself capable of it!”
“You can’t do that! I’m not a kid anymore!”
“Wanna bet on it, pal?”
“Shit! Man… you can’t force me to go back home! You know it’s not my lifestyle…”
“I don’t fucking care what your lifestyle is! From now on, you’re gonna be managing the family inn, and that’s gonna be your job… You’ll be responsible for it and let me remind you the inn has never given us money troubles, so I’ll be watching you and the business… the smallest faux-pas will get your ass down here!”
“You can’t! You can’t!” Sakura protested madly.
“Oh, ho, ho… yes, I can.”
“What happened to uncle? He was running the inn!”
“He died! You didn’t even have the decency of showing up at his funeral!”
“Oh… he died? When…? Oh, wait… I think I got a message from mom a month ago about…”
“Noon. At the inn. I won’t tolerate unpunctuality!”
“Fuck you, bro!”
“I heard you!”
“I expected you to!” Sakura said and hung up furiously. He rolled on to the side of the bed, and dropped his arm over its border, keeping his face sunk inside the pillow.
“This has to be a nightmare… it can’t be real… Why is everything working against my career? Why?
I know I was born to be a rock star! Rock stars don’t run family inns! Damn crap…
Hidetaka… you are the pain in the ass… I can’t believe just how stuck up and bigoted you are…
Why me of all people?! First our band gets kicked out of a club before we even start playing… and it wasn’t my fault… that guy started the fight, I didn’t! Then these morons in the band come to me and blame me while I can’t figure out how to keep my nose from bleeding… and when I finally get around to finding my motorbike and somehow riding back home… this bitch calls me acting all horny and starts sweet talking me on the phone and I tell her to come over… Now she’s gone in the morning and my brother finds me a stupid job I never asked for and is a total nightmare… and… and… and… Fuck it! Where is my wallet?!
That bitch…”

Tetsu dragged his luggage behind him in a state of detached effort provided by hours of traveling by train. His body felt sore, and his joints felt like they were about the start creaking like an old, rusty door. He puffed and pulled from his luggage with effort making his way to the other side of the platform.
“Hey, Tetsu… We have a situation here…” Ken hissed in unconcealed annoyance. “Your buddy says he lost one of his bags.”
“Screw him…” Tetsu sighed displeased and gradually stopped his march. “What did you lose now, Haido?” He relented without turning to take a look.
“My bag! My bag with my sketchbook and my pencils!” A vexed voice protested a few steps away, in a tone of desperate worry.
“Your bag, huh? Isn’t it by any chance the bag you asked me to carry because I had less luggage than you?”
A few seconds of silence ensued.
“Gee-zus…” Ken exclaimed. “I told you, Tetsu… I told you we shouldn’t have brought him along!”
“I’m sorry! OK? I’m sorry! I had forgotten that!” Hyde protested kicking the rest of his bags in front of him. “You needn’t pick on me at just any trifle thing!”
“Leave him alone, Kennie…” Tetsu sighed. “Let’s not start this conversation again.”
“Yeah! Really!” Hyde exclaimed. “We should rejoice! We are finally in Tokyo!”
“What.ever.” Ken snorted and dragged his bags following Tetsu.
“Ah! Tokyo! The biggest city in the world!”
“It’s not the biggest city in the world.” Ken pointed out wearily.
“Well… almost biggest! Are you happy now?” Hyde corrected himself rather annoyed. “And by the way, it’s certainly a lot bigger than my hometown.”
“Any city is bigger than your hometown.” Tetsu snorted.
“OK… You guys are in a really bad mood today. I don’t know why a positive person like me hangs out with such a pair of pessimists. You should be happy we reached our destination! The hardest part is over! From now on everything will be fun and games, and…”
“Will you please shut up? I’m trying to rest my ears.” Ken interrupted.
“How… just how… rude!”
“Shut up.” Tetsu sentenced and took a longer step towards a bench. He sat down, pulled his luggage closer and took a map out of his backpack.
“OK, Tetsu… where should we be heading to?” Hyde asked eagerly sitting down by him and cuddling his friend’s left arm while grinning widely.
“Well… we gotta find a place to stay for a couple of weeks. Besides, we need an address where we can be contacted when the resumes we send get answered.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Ken agreed leaning against a wall next to the bench where Tetsu and Hyde were sitting.
“OK! We should go to some nice place, ne? I’ve always dreamed of this. Some world-class five star hotel, with haute cuisine, complimentary drinks, maids and…”
“I suppose a students inn should do for the time being.” Tetsu went on without paying attention to Hyde.
“Huh? No…! Those places are so uncool!”
“Yeah. Anything in mind, Tetsu? We were checking some brochures back in Osaka…”
“Yeah, I think there are two or three that could do. They are close to the station so that’s a plus for mobility, and they aren’t too expensive.”
“Good. Let’s go check them.”
“Sure… just let me catch some breath…” Tetsu answered smiling wearily.
“Oh, of course.” Ken nodded lighting a cigarette.
“Can I have a word in this?” Hyde butted in.
“No.” Both Tetsu and Ken answered.
“Why not? I’m a fellow traveler!”
“Because you are here on vacation, we are here for the sake of our careers.”
“That’s…! That’s…! That’s not true! I’m also here for the sake of my career!”
“Yeah, right… what career?” Ken snorted and looked away.
“I’m a designer!” Hyde protested irritated.
“Really? I missed your graduation, then…”
“Ah… I… I…” Hyde tried to answer back, but he remained gaping. “I am really close to graduating, you bastards!”
“You’ve been close to graduating since… two years ago.” Tetsu replied tiredly.
“And THAT’s why I’m here. Because Design Schools back at home are run by idiots… bigoted idiots who discriminate people and won’t let me graduate on grounds of blatant discrimination… so I’m changing to a Design School in Tokyo, where people are more open-minded and…”
“Haido… you are colorblind. You won’t graduate as a designer because a lot in being a designer has to do with matching colors.”
“I will graduate!”
“Even if you got some cheap, third-rate school to accept you and eventually you graduated, nobody would hire you.”
“You don’t know that! That is not true.”
“You are colorblind! Why would anyone hire a colorblind designer when they can hire one in full use of his capabilities?”
“That’s… that’s…”
“Enough.” Tetsu grunted. “Enough, guys. I’m really sick and tired of this. Ken, let him be.”
“There!” Hyde stuck his tongue out at Ken.
“Haido, shut up and don’t talk again in the next 24 hours.” Tetsu finished his sentence.
“But…!”
“Shut up!” Tetsu and Ken replied in unison.
Tetsu pulled out a small folder from his bag and opened it.
“Guys…” Hyde started.
“I told you to keep silent.” Tetsu scolded him mildly without looking.
“…I gotta go pee…” Hyde said with a pained voice.
“Go.” Ken answered.
“You… Will you take care of my stuff while I go pee?”
“Sure.” Ken answered absent-mindedly.
“I mean… really… please don’t be careless with my…”
“Go already!” Tetsu screamed.
Hyde pouted and gave them a sorrowful look. “…some friends you are…”
“Go pee already because if you pee on your pants I’ll put you back in that train and I’ll send you to your mom.” Tetsu scolded squinting his eyes in anger.
“Fine…” Hyde relented and walked away, occasionally glancing back at his luggage. “If my luggage gets stolen I’ll never –ever- talk to them again… some friends… they treat me like dirt… ever since they graduated their attitude sucks…” Hyde chewed the words as he walked down the hall towards the restrooms.

“Will you tell me once again why you brought him along?” Ken asked tossing the butt of his cigarette into a large ashtray.
“Come on, Ken-chan… you know why…” Tetsu replied tiredly. “You know his parents wouldn’t have let him come to Tokyo if it wasn’t with me.”
“Tetsu! He’s 23!”
“I know, I know… but still… you know how he dreams of Tokyo… ‘the big city’, and all that stuff…”
“This is our post-graduate trip! He hasn’t even graduated!”
“Ken-chan… you know why that’s so… “
“He’s a retard. He’s only gonna be a hindrance. We are here to send resumes and CV’s. We are not on vacation!”
“I know, I know, Ken-chan. But, look… What wrong can he do? We’ll find lodging, we’ll go job hunting and he’ll just be happy to spend some time here with us. You know him. Soon he’ll start missing home and he’ll want to go back to mommy. I give him a month.”
“A month is too long a time. We need to land a good job like… now. Man, you are too kind. He’s only gonna give us trouble.”
“Come on, Ken-chan. He’ll behave. He’ll sign up for every city tour there is, he’s gonna buy presents for his parents and then he’ll start crying for mommy and daddy and he’ll go home. It’s our good action of the year!”
“I haven’t gone through six years of college only to see it go to waste because some retard wants to go sightseeing in Tokyo, Tetsu! And neither will you!”
“That won’t happen, Ken-chan. He’ll behave…”
“And he couldn’t even graduate!”
“Ken-chan, it’s not his fault if he’s colorblind…”
“But it definitely is his fault if he chooses a career like “Design and Advertising” when he knows he can’t tell red from green! It’s like trying to be a musician when you know you are deaf!”
“Well… you’ve got Beethoven…”
“Please… don’t give me that shit, man. Haido is far from being a genius.”

“Guys! Hey, guys! Look what I’ve found!” Hyde came running over-excitedly towards them.
“Oh, no…” Ken sighed and rolled his eyes. “Probably a plush doll reading ‘Tokyo’”
“What’s the matter, Hai-chan?”
“I’ve found us lodging!”
“Huh?”
“Yeah… I was on my way to pee… gee… the station restrooms are so dirty! Well, anyway, I was on my way to pee and I saw this information booth with a big blue sign that read “information”. I thought it was cool. Well, anyway, I went to pee, and I couldn’t find any hand towels. Can you believe it?
“Make it short, already!”
“Kennie… you are so nervy…” Hyde said pursing his lips and leaning his head to a side, then he went on with his fascinating story. “Well, I went to the information booth after I had dried my hands with this little hand towel my mom gave me when I left… wasn’t it thoughtful of her? And then…”
Tetsu, irritated, snatched a leaflet from Hyde’s hand.
“Sakurazawa Inn…”
“Uh… yeah… and the nice lady at the information booth said it’s not far from the station.”
“Prices?” Ken asked Tetsu.
“Says to call for prices.” Tetsu mumbled.
“Let’s call!” Hyde cheered.
“This place must be expensive… besides, we’ve already made a list of places to…”
“But it looks classy!”
“Haido… we’ll go for classy when we can afford it. Right now none of us has a job. We need a cheap, convenient place to stay at and start looking for jobs, so that… Haido… Haido!! Haido!!”
Tetsu called fuming while Hyde walked towards a payphone.
“Thank goodness I took like… five of these.”
“Well… let’s see the bright side…” Ken started with sarcasm. “… He’s not trying to push us into the Hilton.”
“Well…” Tetsu said lowering his head. “…it looks like he’s motivated.”
“Ooohhh… I don’t know whether to be happy or scared.”
“Moshi, moshi!” Hyde chirped on the phone. “Ohayo, I’m calling about the prices of the rooms? I’ve picked up your leaflet at the station. By the way, I’m a designer… well, actually, I’ll be one soon. I can design very pretty leaflets for your inn… customers will be swarming around your… uh… hello? … hello?! Dammit… he hung up.” Hyde pouted at the phone and redialed.
“Hello? Please, don’t hang up… I’m short of coins… the price of the rooms?”
“It varies.” A cold, deep voice answered. “According to the rooms that is. Prices range from 3000 yen a week to 15 000.”
“Kya! That’s a lot!”
“Well, welcome to Tokyo, Kansai designer. If you are interested, come over and I’ll show you the rooms.” Sakura answered and hung up.
“The nerve…” Sakura said gritting his teeth… Why does oniichan make me do this? I’m not into P.R.!” He protested and, picking up a bucket with paint he padded angrily towards the back of the inn. “Nor into painting…”
Hyde blinked and stared at the receiver. “Uh… yeah… this isn’t Wakayama… or even Osaka… OK. I’ll go take a look.” Upon saying this he turned around and bumped into Tetsu and Ken.
“Ah! Guys!”
“So?” Tetsu asked.
“Uh… well… it’s not too expensive… I mean, for Tokyo. And considering we would be so close to the station….”
“How much?” Ken asked.
“Around… 3 000 yen a week. I say we go take a look. It’s not too far.”
“It’s ten blocks from here according to the map.”
“I’m not gonna be dragging luggage around, man… Especially when we already had picked other places…”
“Maybe they have a courtesy shuttle?”
“Yeah, right, you wish… We better compare prices…”
“No! Wait! I’ll pay us a cab.”
“Are you nuts? We can’t afford to waste money!”
“It’s OK, Kennie. Mommy and daddy gave me money for a cab… at the station…”
“Geez… no wonder you took so long saying goodbye at the station…” Ken observed and puffed.
“We almost did lose the train…” Tetsu observed while browsing other leaflets.
“I’ve a feeling Sakurazawa Inn is gonna be great for us! Please, let’s go there… I’ll pay for the cab… I promise I won’ be borrowing money from you, guys… please…”
“OK.” Ken said. “Let’s be democratic. All of us who vote for taking a cab to Sakurazawa’s, please raise your hands.”
Hyde raised his hand eagerly.
“Good. Now all of us who vote for checking other places and comparing prices, please, raise your hands.”
Tetsu and Ken raised their hands tiredly.
“Good. It’s settled. Let’s check other places, then.”
“Mou!” Hyde cried sadly.
“Hyde, stop it!” Tetsu yelled. “Stop it now. I’m not in the mood to put up with your whims!”
“And we aren’t going to waste time and money to satisfy your delusions of grandeur and world class life.” Ken added.
“But… but…” Hyde sobbed. He grabbed his luggage suddenly and adopted a diva pose. “Fine! Fine! Do as you wish!”
“Good boy…” Tetsu started, and watched in awe how Hyde started walking away from them. “Oe! Oe! Where the hell do you think you’re going to?” He screamed and ran after him, reaching him and yanking from his arm.
Ken looked at the scene shaking his head and watching the bags.
“Sakurazawa Inn! That’s where I’m going! When you two get tired of walking around bargaining for a place to stay, come visit me there!” Hyde yelled in fury.
“Listen to me!” Tetsu matched his tone while shaking him by the arm. “You aren’t going there just out of whim! Your mother asked me to watch over you!”
“It’s your decision… not to come.” Hyde answered bitterly.
“Fuck, dammit!” Tetsu exclaimed kicking a can of soda against a wall. “Ken! Grab your bags! We’re going to Sakurazawa Inn for today.”
“What?!”
“We’ll check other places tomorrow, man… well rested, shaved, bathed, full stomach and all.” Tetsu replied in a mix of tiredness and anger.
“Tetsu!” Ken retorted pointing at the bags.
“Don’t worry. We won’t unpack.” Tetsu replied shaking his head in annoyance. “it’s just… for the day, man… no more than 24 hours… 48 at most.”
“Hontou?!” Hyde asked with sparkling eyes.
“You…” Tetsu hissed. “You… you don’t talk to me, brat! You don’t even dare to talk to me!” Tetsu exclaimed fuming and picked up his bags with effort only to start walking towards the exit as if he were to kill the first clueless soul that dared cross his path.
“Yoshi!! Tete banzai! Tete banzai!” Hyde exclaimed happily, and was promptly silenced by a smack on the back of his head, courtesy of Ken.
“You big retard…” Ken mumbled. “If I lose this job interview I’ll kill you. Slowly… painfully… but certainly.”
“You won’t lose it, Kennie… You’ll see how Sakurazawa Inn infuses peace and happiness in your soul and… Oh! There’s a cab!” Hyde exclaimed waving anxiously at the taxi.

You can print this page!