Description: Chris learns something about Hitler! Yashiro balances his diet! Shermie is a terrifying woman!
Previously, on the Continuing Adventures of Yashiro Nanakase...
LAST NIGHT
"Aaahh!"
Yashiro jerks up from his giant bed in his penthouse apartment, sweating profusely, the white-haired muscular man's eyes wide. The silk sheets fall from his body as he rises to a sitting position; he is, of course, completely naked save for his heart choker. Gradually, his breathing slows, but his pupils quiver like those of a man in withdrawal.
"S... Sakazaki..."
Swallowing, he reaches up to palm his own face, seeking to banish the dark memories haunting him, squeezing as though he might pressure them out his own ears.
"Your hair was... terrible!"
THIS MORNING
Yashiro is slumped on the couch, dark circles under his bleary eyes.
Each of the members CYS has, among other abodes of course, an apartment to their own in this, one of the most expensive complexes in Paris, but for the purpose of a common room, they rent a fourth suite. This is where the magic happens, where songs are written and YouTube videos recorded and slanders slandered and animal refuse gets strewn all over the place to be cleaned daily by the resigned staff.
Before him, on their absurdly expensive lacquered coffee table into which has been carved images of hawks, hamsters, and butterflies, sits a pad of paper, which also looks expensive but only because the hulking star casually stole it from the last fancy hotel he was at, along with several towels. The paper is blank.
Yashiro has dropped his solid gold pen, and not noticed.
"D... death... blood... umm..."
He's muttering to himself.
"...damn... I thought I had something, but..."
The big guy looks a little out of sorts.
Shermie does not really follow the rules of individual apartments. It might be because she has several apartments and jetsets between them because she is by far the most cognizant of having money and the most willing to spend it. It might also be because she gets really drunk and ends up sprawled on a couch or bed somewhere with the nearest computer dragged over and about eighteen dozen IM windows still open on it.
BEEP
BEEP
BEEP
"Mmmf."
A glass clatters to the floor and Shermie staggers to her feet with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She kicks the beeping laptop over on her way toward the Best Table.
"Yashiro," the Frenchwoman coos, draping herself over the back of the couch and one of his shoulders. "Are you having good dreams again? You're so excited about writing lyrics these days."
While the two adults, or teenagers, or teenagers with shockingly adult bodies and sums of money have their discussion in the living room, Chris remains in his own abode. He's been up for hours already, hair perfect, form pristine, and quite frankly everybody in the apartment probably knows it. It's one of those things that simply spills out of his room, seeps past his Miley Cyrus-studded door like the Black Plague surely seeped through medieval serfs' Miley Cyrus-studded doors.
Within, Chris is ensconced in a bean-bag chair, surrounded by bright colors and the pictures adoring fans have sent him, bed festooned with stuffed animals and covered in race car blankets. He's been watching cartoons since 7 AM, practically swimming in an enormously fluffy bedrobe that obscures from shoulder to ankle. It is bright, unforgiving blue - its rhinestones mutlicolored. They spell out ROCKSTAR along the back, but you can't see the back, don't worry.
Fully four boxes of Sugar-Dusted Chocolate Balls lie empty on the floor beside his beanbag chair, while three cartons of milk lie beside THOSE. His lips are the slightest bit brown-stained, and his eyes are wide as dinner-plates. The current television program - a chilling look at the Holocaust - comes to a close, prompting Chris to finally tune back in.
'Are you having good dreams again'?
Scramble.
He pops his head out of his door, a little, neon-furred, crack-addled prairie-dog. His voice is unforgivingly chipper, startlingly piercing.
"Hey! Hey, guys! You're awake? You slept all morning, but I think Yashiro was having bad dreams or something again. I hope you met interesting boys online last night, Shermie. Anyway I made eggs and some toast it's in the fridge but otherwise i've been really super bored but there's a neat show about the Holocaust on right now and holy crap, did you know how many people DIED!?" He is a small, sugar-crazed animal.
"Nnnghhh," Yashiro replies eloquently. Like all the most attractive specimens of man -- or those who consider themselves to be -- he exudes comfortable disinterest as Shermie drapes herself over his shoulder. In fact, now that he thinks about it, he's been having bad dreams about all sorts of things these days. Last time Shermie's current favorite pet hamster -- she has always seemed notoriously fickle about men and hamsters -- grew so large it ate his hawk. He woke up tearing at his sheets with his teeth, as though he /were/ the hamster.
That was fucked up.
"Nnnnghh," he continues, his bloodshot eyes swiveling in their sockets toward where Justin 'Chris' Beiber has emerged from his saccharine retreat chattering like caffeine incarnate. Slowly, lumbering, he rises in a stupor, gently shifting Shermie to the couch -- a soft touch he demonstrates only with the two of them -- before dragging himself over to the fridge, opening it and reaching it, fumbling around. At last he extracts a slice of bread. "Tooooast."
He pauses for a moment.
"Toast!!"
Whereupon he surges around, eyes wide, fist clenched.
"That's it!"
Stuffing the toast in his mouth, chewing furiously, he rushes over to his third-most expensive guitar, hoisting in and suddenly and without introduction beginning to wail unintelligibly upon it.
o/~ "The blood in my veins booooils"
o/~ "At these for-sak-en earthly toooooils"
o/~ "I've cast my soul to hell to rooooast"
o/~ "Where I will only eat... no... wait... /fuck/!"
Slowly, he lowers his guitar, squinting at nothing.
"...I thought I had it."
Shermie politely vaults over the back of the couch when Yashiro gets the hell out. She shifts her blanket around to toga-style which makes her look imperious.
"Chris, darling, you have food on your lips. Consume your meal completely. Always." She raises her arms and makes grabby hands at him, which is a signal to come to her. It is unwise to refuse Shermie.
"I suppose it's alright, since you made breakfast for us. Aren't you energetic?" She waits patiently while Yashiro almost writes another hit single while shoving things into his mouth. It really is like Hollywood. "Yashiro, no carbs right now," she says, flatly.
Her tone shifts to doting as she lays hand on Chris, ruffling his hair. "Ahh, little Chris! You look so cute in that robe, but go change into your exercise clothes. It is gym time."
Chris watches Yashiro with wide eyes, obviously *very* impressed with his bandmate's alacrity. There's a bit of reverence in those baby-blue eyes, even if it is juxtaposed with all of that freaky-deaky amusement and neverending smug. Chris slinks from his bedroom door to one of the couches near that fantastic table; well, slink isn't really the right word. There's a shakiness to it, a sort of needless intensity that isn't really going away, at all. He collapses in a puddle of mind-bogglingly soft fabrics, brown mop-top sticking out and vibrating, occasionally, as he croons,
"Yashiroooooo~"
Pause. Chris thinks.
"Where I will only eat... ghosts! Yeah, like, the ghosts of all the thousands of people you killed, because you wanted to prove a point! That sounds like a super sweet idea for a song, I think the girls're gonna love it, most of my girlfriends want me to do a gothy thing anyway, it could maybe be a good direction to go because if you get the bad-boy image down all of the trashy girls with the low self esteem wind up throwing themselves at you and it'll make all of the pretty girls jealous if you reject them which'll make YOU look great and US look aweso-..!"
Chris has obviously been spending too much time with... well, he doesn't spend that much time with many people. Online?
Shermie, ever the voice of reason, interrupts the kid by putting a hand firmly on Chris' head. It is, much like with any other obnoxiously loud appliance, the best way to get him to shut up. And Chris doesn't seem to mind the scalp massage.
Yeah. Yeaaaaaah.
"...OK~. What gym are we going to today? I think we've been kicked out of all of the other ones, so it might have to be that weird place." Chris rubs at his face, halfheartedly trying to rub the remnants of his Chocolate Balls-feast from his lips. It winds up smeared over his cheeks. He looks like a small man-whore.
"Maybe we can go box with somebody? I've always wanted to box."
Yashiro, who has been brooding in silence, suddenly stirs.
"...Box..."
His eyes flicker.
"What... what rhymes with box..."
Uh, well, there's--
"NO!"
In a sudden tantrum, Yashiro throws his guitar to the ground. It lands on several pillows, and is not damged. There are often pillows strategically strewn around for whenever this happens.
"I'm not gay," he mutters under his breath.
He looks over at Chris's face, and nods once, as though in acknowledgement. Can he even see clearly through those eyes right now? His gaze drifts over to Shermie, resplendent in her blanket-toga like some Greco-Roman goddess, and pauses for a moment, before a bit of alertness and alacrity begins to return to his eyes.
"Speaking of boxing," he says in his usual deep voice, speaking like a normal human being now, "what's been all this talk about King of Fighters lately?" It's not clear to whom he's referring; he might just be talking about the world in general. Or the people he's been fighting. "It's been a little crazy recently," he continues almost thoughtfully, "but I've had fun having an excuse to fight strong opponents." That's funny, usually he likes to only fight people who talk shit. "My memory's been real fuzzy recently, though. And the lyrics aren't coming so well."
He squints momentarily.
"Though I do feel like the violence has been a bit inspiring."
He does not appear to be speaking ironically.
"Fundamentally, though, I don't really know wh--"
Suddenly, he slams a fist into his palm, glowering.
"Fuck!! No CARBS!"
He forgot.
Shermie wraps an arm around Chris and bodily drags him next to her. She moves a hand over his cheeks and lips and the man-whore effect mysteriously disappears. His hair stands on end. She wiggles her fingers over the table, wiping off processed sugar.
"If you're a good boy and put on your exercise clothes I'll call the YMCA across town and let you box some local boys. Okay?"
The Frenchwoman releases Chris, folding her hands in her lap as she considers Yashiro. "I'm glad you're finding all of this--" CARBS, FISTPALM, "--inspiring. It doesn't look like we're any closer to getting an invitation, though."
"I might have to... do it myself."
SOME TIME AGO
Shermie kicks down the door and throws an invitation at Yashiro with enough force to leave a bruise. She is drenched in sweat and holding a basketball. There are sirens blaring outside as first responders rush to the ruined basketball court downtown.
NOW
"It was the most devastating one on one game of b-ball the world has ever seen, Yashiro. The least you could do is take care of it this time."
Sugar is a funny thing. Maybe it's Shermie's head-rubbing that gets him, or the way she's so chill in spite of Yashiro's completely understandable fury. Whatever she's doing, it's bringing him out of his rush, and straight into that awful decline. Wide eyes begin to lid, suddenly heavy, and Chris winds up slumped against the older Frenchwoman, yawning. Dimly, he regards Yashiro, settling down to finally get his thoughts out an-
'Fuck, no CARBS!'
"Aaaa-fuck carbs!" It's enough to wake Chris back up, and he's suddenly back in the conversation, robe slinking down his shoulders to reveal yet another custom-made outfit; he's taken Shermie's gogo dress and turned it into a trendy leotard. It is bright pink, dotted with brilliant orange, and completely eye-searing.
He pulls Yashiro's words from the hazy veil of half-sleep. It's sobering; even the effect of sugar-rushes and crashes loses its hold on him. His expression darkens.
"...I've been kind of a bully, lately." Self-loathing wracks his tone, while shoulders slump. "I beat up a quiet girl because she didn't want me to help walk her home. I didn't really like that she didn't need me. I felt really bad about it afterwards - I think I got confused - but..."
Chris sobers when Shermie interjects, and it's clear that the mention of b-ball is bringing back poignant, troubling memo-
ONE HOUR BEFORE SOME TIME AGO
"I'll bet the boy."
"..Sh-Shermie?"
Shermie and Chris stand before an entire team of lifelong street ballers. Shermie is holding a basketball as though it is a Faberge egg, delicate and mysterious. Thinking quickly, Chris shoves the rest of his sno-cone down his throat.
NOW
Chris has vanished into the depths of his eyerending robe, everready to vanish at the first sign of Shermie becoming Active.
"...I, uh, I'll help."
"What? Oh..."
Yashiro stirs once again, his grimace of carb-guilt-induced displeasure fading as he's reminded of his cohabitants' respective existences. What remains is a faint, absent-minded frown as he regards Shermie, and he nods once, as ever instinctively acknowledging her words. "Yeah... you're right. Sorry, Shermie." Because she's a hot babe, is what he tells himself, in the rare moments in which he wonders why, despite the ostensible leader because he is huge and awesome, that always happens.
It's not like he's whipped, or anything.
"I'll figure something out, definitely."
It's not like he's not a manly, manly man.
"Hey, Chris, think you can use your power over the Internet to help me figure out another good way to get us some invitations?"
It's not like he's g--
"...Chris."
Yashiro sobers as he hears Chris's words, the proud giant of a man's eyes softening in an all-too-rare expression of concern. Groupies dream of being the object of this gaze. Doujinshi authors have written fairly disturbing pornographic fan-fiction inspired by it. Disturbing in an objective sense, anyway. Maybe not by comparison to other doujins.
"It's okay, Chris."
Without hesitation, he affirms the troubled youth.
"Even if you made a mistake, it's not your fault. We all make mistakes," he rumbles, reaching up to rub the back of his head through his close-cropped white hair. Yashiro's certainly made a lot of mistakes himself recently. He's not particularly good at giving solace to others, but then, for that matter, it only comes naturally around Shermie and Chris. They're not exactly friends. Not really. But sometimes it seems even to Yashiro as though they are united precisely by the impossibility of any of them ever being able to have real friends. In that bizarre sense, empathy becomes possible for those otherwise bereft of it.
"Maybe we'll see her again, and you can apologize."
Or, if she's a bitch, they can just beat her up again.
"Was she hot?"
The memories of b-ball past fade all too quickly as Chris, hidden in his ridiculous robe, is wrapped in a further layer of Shermie. Try as he might to avoid her, she has her freakishly strong arms around him! There's really no escape. Ever.
"Chris, you should never be ashamed of who you are. Strange things happen when you're being you, but that's better than faking things, right?"
She lowers her voice, but not by much, squirming close to whisper nearer to his ear. "I think you felt bad because you were not acting how you wanted to. You got confused because you were trying to act how other people want you to act and you really didn't want to. You will feel bad every time you do that."
Shermie suddenly springs to her feet, thrusting Chris toward the door with a steady hand on his shoulder and managing to look perky and not hung-over. "Okay, time to get ready to go outside! No more talk about this little girl. Go, go, time to be productive!"
There IS something about Yashiro and Shermie. It's tough to describe, and certainly Chris isn't anywhere near quantifying it himself. Whatever it is, it's something they share, and he's eternally grateful for it. The fans, the agents, the "friends"; he's clever enough to see the insincerity that drips through. There's none of that with Yashiro and Shermie, though.
Friends 4 lyfe.
It's why he's so quick to brighten at Yashiro's hamhanded but genuine attempt at cheering him up. It brings a quick nod from the Swede - he's adept at replacing his dismal frown with a bright smile, at endorsing everything Yashiro's giving him. "Yeah, yeah! You're so smart, Yashiro. I'll apologize to her when I see her next, and then we'll see if she wants autographs! That'll make it up to her, I bet. Everybody wants our autographs." He's about to get up off of the couch, to rush over and give Yashiro a great big hug, when Shermie leans in.
Her words bring a bit of startled width to his eyes. "Y-y'mean... I'm caving in to the agents?" Chris remembers Yashiro and Shermie quite firmly telling him NEVER to cave. "I can't sell out! I haven't even sold a platinum record yet!!" She continues on, and he leans into her, simultaneously comforted by a familiar presence and confused by sweet words.
"-I don't think that's who *I* am, th-"
Go to the gym, Chris.
"Okay!" He's to his feet in a moment, rushing to his room in a show of exuberance that frankly, Yashiro and Shermie will never be able to match. It's that ephemeral rush of youth lending flight to spindly legs, vibrant energy propelling him straight into the certain catastrophe marked by the distant sound of a young man crashing into *something* in his room.
He'll be fine.
"But was she /hot/!?" Yashiro calls after the fleeing Chris, only to frown slightly as he hears a loud crash emit from the other room. Oh, well.
Idly, he rolls his shoulders, glancing down at his fallen guitar as though seeing it for the first time. "Well, I'll be productive too," he murmurs, leaning his considerable height over to heft the instrument in one wide hand. "I'm going to see if I can figure out how I can get us all set up right for King of Fighters." If that's what Shermie is set on, Yashiro's going to see it through. It's not out of kindness.
You don't want to see Shermie when she doesn't get her way.
"It'll be fun."
Quirking an eyebrow, he reaches up to rub his chin.
"I wonder why they don't just know well enough to send us some?"
ELSEWHERE
A postal worker glowers at the elaborate envelope in his hands.
"'To the residence of CYS'? Sure, I know who they are, but..."
He shakes his head.
"/Which/ residence?"
BACK IN THE HAWK'S NEST
"Well, if I can't beat them out of someone, I'll bribe someone."
He pauses for a long moment, and then grins.
"With my /fists/."
...What?
As Chris goes darting out of the room to likely get sidetracked by the follow-up to the Holocaust documentary (it's also about the Holocaust because let's be honest it's the History Channel), Shermie follows him to the threshold and locks the door afterward. She lets the bed sheet drop from her shoulders.
"I know you're a very dependable man, Yashiro," she says, gracefully leaping across the open windows of the high-rise apartments, prancing on her tip-toes. "Rock-solid, yes? You'll find something."
She ends up with her back against his chest, bobbing her head back and forth to the toast song that tragically died with Yashiro's dietary frustration. "After this you can go find us some tickets. For Chris's sake. You don't want to mess this up for him, do you? We had tough childhoods, no need for him to have one too. It'd be very bad."
The Frenchwoman spins around. "Of course since you're not going to the gym with us, we'll have to work those calories off some other way. The things I do for you."
Log created on 23:31:55 01/05/2011 by Shermie, and last modified on 14:09:43 01/12/2011.