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Aftermath
By TalithaX
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His eyes springing open in perfect sync with his alarm turning itself on to his favourite pop music station, Ken threw back his bedding and jumped – full of life and bursting with love and enthusiasm for a brand new day – out of bed. Stretching, he hummed discordantly along to the Green Day song on the radio and, weaving his way expertly through all the scattered shoes and piles of clothing on the floor, bounded over to the window in order to pull back the drapes. As he’d expected given the early hour of the morning, the sun was still only a rumour on the horizon and the world that greeted him outside his window was lit solely by the orange glow of the street lamps that lined the rain slicked street.
Unbothered by both the darkness and the telltale drops of rain running down the glass, Ken shrugged and made his way over to the door to turn on the light. Despite the earliness of the morning and the rain, he felt strangely happy and was eager to get out of his room and start the day. A quick sniff under his left armpit confirming that, yes, a shower was very much in order, Ken grabbed a handful of relatively – or so he hoped – clean clothes off the floor and, mentally crossing his fingers that he was still early enough to beat the rush, made his way jauntily along the corridor to the bathroom. Finding it empty, he indulged in the time honoured – as favoured by male tennis players the world over – gesture of victory and, entering the room, triumphantly locked the door.
Pleased with himself for having gotten into the bathroom first – thus avoiding both the sneezing fit he experienced every time he had to use it after Chloé had been in there splashing around his numerous bathing products and the threat of falling spectacularly on his ass courtesy of the amount of water Michel, for reasons known only to himself, managed to spread all over the floor – Ken took his time showering and, in no hurry to face the queue of disgruntled faces he just knew had to be waiting for him outside the door, even celebrated his early morning success with both a cursory shave and a leisurely gargle of Yuki’s mouth wash.
Once he was clean, smooth faced, dressed and very much smelling of peppermint, Ken reluctantly accepted that he couldn’t hide in the bathroom all day and, very much hoping that the only person lying in wait for him would be Free (as he, unlike everyone else, seemed to practice what he preached about patience being a virtue and didn’t get vitriolic and antagonistic when he’d had to wait), forced himself to open the door and step out into the corridor. To both his relief and considerable surprise, there was no one waiting outside the door for him, the corridor was dark and empty, and the house still remarkably silent.
Taken a little aback by this, Ken wondered whether he’d mistaken Sunday for a work day again and decided to check out the calendar – the one Aya, who was nothing if not obsessive about minor details, religiously kept up to date – in the shop before hitting up the kitchen for breakfast. Happy that he had a plan, Ken made his way along the corridor towards the stairs. Passing the living room, he saw that the light was still on and, wanting to save himself the hassle of listening to one of Aya’s lectures on electricity wastage, paused in the doorway to switch it off.
It apparently being his morning for surprises – first having the bathroom to himself, then finding the house still in deep sleep mode – Ken stared in astonishment at the state of the living room and slowly shook his head. Good grief! The room looked like a mini tornado had hit it – surfaces that weren’t covered in empty snack food wrappers were playing home to beer cans and, well, the less said about the somewhat ripe aroma of the room the better—and he couldn’t believe that the mess had just been left, that Chloé, who was as obsessive about everything being kept neat and tidy as Aya was about keeping the calendar up to date in the shop, had somehow found it in himself to leave it in favour of simply going to bed.
Not quite sure what to make of the mess – but at the same time not for a second thinking it was his place to take the matter into his own hands and do something about it – Ken shook his head again and, after turning the light off, quietly pulled the door shut after him. After all, what couldn’t immediately be seen couldn’t hurt anyone, and he thought that it probably really was in everyone’s best interests if neither Chloé nor Aya saw the mess until they’d at least had their first cup of tea for the morning.
Pushing all thoughts of what he’d seen and how it was really going to hit the fan when the mess was discovered out of his mind, Ken made his way down to the shop and could hardly believe his eyes when he saw that it was hardly any tidier than the living room. Instead of food wrappers and beer cans though the floor of the store was littered with ribbon off cuts, decaying flower petals and tissue paper, while watering cans and scissors were strewn carelessly over the counters. Wrinkling his nose at the smell of the dying flowers, Ken peered without success around the shop for Aya’s beloved calendar and sighed. Just what the hell was going on here? Aya’s – date ‘bible’ -- calendar was missing, everything was in complete disarray, he was beginning to feel as though he was the only living soul in the entire house and…damn it! Everything was just odd and it was all beginning to add up and put a dint in the good mood he’d woken up in.
Frowning, Ken felt momentarily at a loss as to what to do next. Instinct told him to go back upstairs and find Aya, but logic – which was the far stronger emotion as it went hand in hand with self preservation – told him it would probably be best to leave Aya alone for the time being and that he really should try to get to the bottom of things himself. Not wanting to be defeated by the unknown, Ken looked around the store for inspiration and as his gaze swept over the front door he remembered the sign proclaiming their opening times that hung in it. Although it was a long shot and he didn’t hold out much hope of it actually helping him any, he gingerly made his way across the floor – an open grave for the mass murder of flowers if ever there was one – to the door and turned the sign over.
‘Due To Unforeseen Circumstances This Store Will Be Closed For The Rest Of The Week. Your Understanding And Forgiveness Is Asked For.’
Gasping at both the wording on the sign and the fact that it was written in Free’s hardly legible hand writing – as opposed to Chloé’s pretentious calligraphy or Aya’s precise script – Ken let the sign fall from his hand and, spinning on his heels, bolted out of the store and back into the house.
The house seemed dead, the store abandoned… Shit! Just what the hell was going on here? Whatever it was, Ken was already certain that he wasn’t going to much like the answer and he was just beginning to wish that he’d never gotten out of bed when, to his great relief, a door opened in front of him and Chloé half lurched and half staggered into the corridor.
Looking – remarkably like something a not overly discerning dog had dug up and dragged in – as though he was hardly awake and wearing mismatching pyjamas (black top covered in white spots over blue pants with the finest of white pinstripes) and with his usually immaculately styled hair sticking up in all directions, Chloé came to a frozen stop in front of Ken and, to both his bemusement and horror, stared at him in obvious dismay.
“Chloé!” Choosing to ignore his – admittedly somewhat odder than usual – behaviour because he was just so happy and relieved to see that he wasn’t alone in the house, Ken opened his arms and, smiling, advanced towards his team mate. “My God! Am I glad to see you. I mean, even looking as… ah… crappy as you do… you’re still a sight for sore eyes.”
“No! Not again!” Chloé exclaimed breathlessly as, his eyes widening, he held the robe he was holding in his hands out towards Ken as though he hoped it would keep him back. “I… I’m still recovering from the last time,” he added faintly, taking a decidedly unsteady step backwards. “Please… Just… Just stay away from me. I… I’m not up to it…”
“Not up to what?” Feeling as though his confusion levels were in danger of reaching hitherto never before reached levels, Ken let his arms drop back to his sides and shook his head. “Chloé! Just what on earth is the matter with you, huh? I’m just, believe it or not, relieved to see you and was going to give you a hug. That’s all. I certainly wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“That’s what you probably thought last time,” Aya announced with a huff from the doorway as, out of nowhere, a wooden crutch suddenly appeared in front of Ken. “You heard Chloé. Stay the hell away from him. Oh. And while I’m at it, you’d do well to give me a clear berth too.”
“Huh? But…” Holding his hands up in a placating gesture, Ken moved away from the door in order to let Aya – who didn’t, despite the fact he’d managed to better co-ordinate his sleep wear, look any better than Chloé did – hobble into the corridor. “Hey… Shit! What’s with the crutch, huh? Have you fractured something?”
Snorting, Aya narrowed his eyes and gave Ken a glacial look – that he just had to admit to himself was lacking most of its normal fearsome intensity – before presenting his back to him and limping over to Chloé. “I’d watch it if I were you as you’re skating on extremely thin ice,” he muttered, linking his arm around Chloé’s elbow and slumping against him with a small sigh. “Come on. Let’s go and get some breakfast before I give in to my urge to beat him to death with my crutch.”
“But… But what have I done? Aya? Chloé?” Confused as to what exactly was going on, Ken reached out his hand and – saying a quick prayer of protection under his breath – snagged his fingers in the back of Aya’s top. “Did I hurt Chloé somehow? Oh… Oh my God! Don’t tell me I was drugged? I was drugged as a result of a mission and… and not being in control of myself I went on a rampage and lashed out at everyone, yeah? Shit… That’s why everything’s in a mess and I can’t really remember anything from the past few days. I… Hell! I’m sorry. I never…”
“Shut up!” Aya interrupted with a hiss as he gave him a truly evil look over his shoulder and batted his fingers away. “It’s bad enough that you’re… responsible… for all this without you foolishly pretending that it was both out of your control and erased from your memory. Just… For God’s sake, Ken! If I were you I’d be in damage control, not seeing what I could do to make things worse.”
“But…” Quietly convinced that he had to be dreaming, that the surreal situation he’d somehow found himself in couldn’t possibly be real, Ken stepped back from Aya and, plastering an imploring expression on his face, turned to Chloé. “Please… I know you’re more reasonable than… ah… Aya is, so, come on… Give me a break here and tell me what’s going on…”
“Break?” Chloé repeated in a whisper, sharing a look of dismay with Aya. “I’m sorry, Ken, but I’m really not in the mood for your sense of humour at the moment. In fact, as harsh as this may sound, I’m not really in the mood for… you… period.”
“That makes two of us,” Aya interjected as, tightening his hold on Chloé’s arm, he shot Ken a final malevolent look before turning around and beginning to limp slowly towards the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s take a page from Ken’s book and simply pretend this encounter never happened.”
“But… But I wasn’t trying to be funny!” Accepting that trying to continue this – for the want of a better description – conversation probably, given the moods they both appeared to be in, wasn’t really in his best interests, Ken shook his head dully and gazed after Aya and Chloé as they disappeared into the kitchen.
Injured, cranky and, for no discernible reason Ken could think of, wanting to mess with his head… Aya and Chloé’s behaviour simply made no sense to him. Hell, nothing since he’d left his bedroom this morning was making any sense to him. In fact, as far as Ken was concerned anyway, things seemed to pretty much be royally fucked.
Shaking his head again, Ken sighed and, wanting to get to the bottom of all this peculiarity, made the snap decision to go looking for the household’s resident font of knowledge, Free. If anyone was going to know just what the fuck it was that was going on then, no question about it, it would be Free. Sure, he hardly ever knew what day of the week it was and, yeah, okay, a lot of what came out of his mouth was cryptic in the extreme – to the point where Ken sometimes wondered if even he knew what he was going on about – but, all of this aside, Free as a rule knew… stuff. And, what’s more, sometimes it was even relevant stuff.
Hoping like crazy that today was going to be one of Free’s more lucid and coherent days, Ken hurried up the stairs to the second floor. Intent only on getting answers to the ever increasing number of questions piling up in his head, he only just saw Michel lurking outside Yuki’s door in the nick of time and, with a spot of creative footwork that would have done his old coach proud, came to a stumbled stop next to him.
Although he looked as tired and under the weather as both Aya and Chloé had, Michel was at least dressed – more or less, given the way his shirt was buttoned crookedly and the way his tie gave every impression of having been knotted by a blind, one armed drunk – in his school uniform and, turning away from the door, he flashed Ken a lacklustre smile in greeting. “Ken! It is good to see that you are back with us again.”
“Back with us again?” Ken echoed as, frowning, Michel returned his attention to the door and hammered on it heavily with both hands. “But… Uh… I haven’t been anywhere.”
“Well, not physically, of course,” Michel murmured, flashing him another clearly half-hearted smile as sounds of slow, somewhat laborious movement began to emanate from Yuki’s room. “Oh, thank God he’s awake. I was afraid that we were going to be late to school again and would be sent to the head master’s office. Now, if you’ll excuse me Ken, while it’s wonderful to see you back with us, I really must make sure that Yuki doesn’t doze off again and that we keep moving.”
“Uh… Sure,” Ken grunted as, feeling very much as though he’d just been dismissed, he left Michel to his self imposed task of getting Yuki off to school and continued along the corridor to Free’s room. Reaching it, he knocked cursorily on the door before – taking a deep breath in anticipation of being hit with the overwhelming scent of incense that always dominated Free’s bedroom – pushing it open and, without waiting for an invite, stepping into the room. “Sorry for barging in like this, but… God, Free, you’ve got to help me. I mean, what the freak is going on here, huh? The house looks like a bomb has hit it, Aya and Chloé look like death warmed up, Michel’s having to make sure Yuki gets out of bed, and… and I feel as though I’m going out of my mind!”
His piece said, Ken folded his arms across his chest and waited impatiently for Free – who just happened to be sitting cross legged in a circle of tarot cards in the middle of his bed – to dutifully bring him up to speed.
“The cup…”
“Uh-uh,” Ken interrupted with a quick shake of his head. “No offence or anything, but all I want are the bare facts. What I don’t want are words of so-called advice from the ten of freaking cups or the five of swords or whatever the damn things are called. Sorry, but I’m desperate here and just want to know what’s going on in… this... realm, not in your second home.”
Looking sublimely unbothered both by Ken’s presence in his room and the way he had just been cut off, Free shrugged and turned over another card. “The cup of which I speak belongs to no deck,” he stated softly, “yet for some it holds vast importance. A cup of competition, prestige and power, it is a cup that has held millions captive. You, my friend, are but one of its followers. Your life on hold as the battle raged, your only reality the fight for ultimate victory. Only now as the cup makes its way to its temporary home do you wake and return to your life.”
“Just what on earth are you…” Trailing off as something in Free’s cup-themed babble suddenly clicked in his head, Ken fell silent and hung his head. “Oh…”
In fact, oh… shit. Cup… As in the… World Cup.
As in weeks and weeks and weeks of living and breathing football. As in living so thoroughly in the world of football that functioning in the real world was kept to the bare minimum at best. As in finding excuses to avoid mission work because it would have meant having to venture out of reach of the television. As in hardly ever leaving the living room because for some reason all the repetitive interviews, replays, and documentaries were as fascinating at the time as the games themselves. As in declining everyone’s – even Aya’s – orders to help in the store. As in all but setting up permanent residence in the living room and celebrating the final in beer-swilling style. As in grabbing an already injured and fragile Chloé in a bear hug to celebrate Italy’s victory over Germany solely because he was in the living room looking for his book at the time and breaking one of his ribs. As in time standing momentarily still as tripping over an empty beer can on the floor stopped Aya’s diatribe dead in its tracks and caused him to go crashing down.
As in the World Cup that finished yesterday and the first decent night’s sleep in his own bed that he’d had for ages.
“Uh… I think I may just go and clean the store,” Ken mumbled, keeping his head lowered as he turned around and made his way back to the door. “Then… Well… Then I think I’ll clean the living room… before… uh… possibly hiding out in my room for the rest of the week.”
Leaving Free’s room, three unmistakeable facts played over in Ken’s head as he scurried down the stairs to the shop. The first was that he knew he had a lot of ground to make up with his team mates and that he’d be lucky if Aya had found it in himself to have forgiven him by Christmas. The second was that it was incredibly fortunate that the World Cup only happened every four years.
And the – aftermath and physical injuries of his friends aside – third was…
Gee was it fun while it had lasted!
~ end ~