090 » so we dance to the break of dawn

[nayamashii]

[for a good while, akari actually regrets inviting kaworu over to his home. it's not because of anything kaworu did. it's just that if his parents happen to come home early and see him with another boy in the house, they're going to assume the worst — even though, well, what the hell were they expecting sending him to an all-boys' school anyway? — and even if they don't come home, the neighbors might say something. someone from his old middle school might be walking by. any number of scenarios might come up.

and it's not that akari's worried about himself. it's just that he's not entirely certain that kaworu would understand what was going on — and that's worse, somehow, than if he understood and hated akari for it.

anyway, all those considerations go out the window when he opens the front door and finds kaworu just... there. in their school uniform. does he not have anything else to wear? akari wonders. he... might not, actually. kaworu's never given off the impression of someone who doesn't have enough money to buy clothes — in fact, akari suspects, he might be the kind of guy who has too much money, and substitutes coin for common sense — but they've never really talked about that kind of thing. when they're together with all of the other guys, there's not a lot of time to get into details about personal life, or personal wealth, or matters of the heart.]

Hey.

[he stands aside a little to let kaworu in. akari himself is dressed as though he plans to go out: a t-shirt, a cardigan, jeans. socks, no shoes. they're not nearly close enough that akari would greet kaworu nagisa in his pajamas, but, well, it probably wouldn't have mattered to kaworu even if he did. his brow furrows at the additional bag in kaworu's hands; a long frond of pink plastic leaves is sticking out of its opening.]

What's all that for?

Comments

[unaccustomed]

[Above all, it must be the lack of understanding that keeps Kaworu from being the among most enthralling creatures to grace the school. He's great at sports. Most of his schoolwork leaves nothing to be desired (it's really just literature and composition that bog him down). He's very handsome, of course, though maybe in the foreign, alarming way that characterizes his personality. Yeah, the personality is what he's left with outside of his good face and weird aptitudes. The confident way he smiles when he's saying off-the-wall shit like this:] I think things with working eyes want to look at something. [And now he's crossing the threshold of Akari's doorway.

He's at least got the social graces to remove his shoes. He's already well into the entryway when he belatedly returns the greeting.]

Hey.

[He's glancing around as if to demonstrate his own remark: he just likes looking at things. It's a nosiness, yeah, but not a judgmental one. He looks for the sake of looking. Then he turns back to Akari and lifts the clear bag with the fish in it. It's yellow, no spots. Google-image-search-variety goldfish.

No segue, he tries his hand at explaining what he opened with.] If I were in a tank, I'd probably want to look at these. And if my brain worked like a fish's, I wouldn't really need anything more than that. That's what I figure, anyway.

[Above all, the lack of understanding is what makes Kaworu so hard to understand in turn--but then there's this. His own abstract sort of empathy.

He shrugs.]

I thought it would be nice.

[nayamashii]

...Oh.

[well — it makes sense. it makes sense in the weird kaworu way, where akari just has to accept how he explains his actions in piecemeal fragments. like he's been filtered twice through automatic translation, and akari needs to reverse-engineer it twice over to get to what the original intent was. his lips twitch a little, but he doesn't say anything about how that's weird, or that he doesn't get it. he gets it. it makes sense.

in its own way.

akari's family home is nice. it's also sterile. clearly, his own parents have a fair amount of money, or at least, they're willing to invest money in appearances. there's an emptiness to the house, too, as if everything is in its perfect place, and therefore not to be disturbed. it's a house for display and not to be lived in. past a living room that looks as though it was cut and pasted out of a furniture catalogue, there's a big tank full of water, with a little sand and a handful of rocks, and an empty goldfish bowl next to it. the fish, as discussed over text, is nowhere to be seen.

akari's expression tenses a little when he walks over to the bowl again. he radiates guilt despite a flat expression. the floor bears the telltale streaks of water that's been freshly mopped, and — very subtly — a faint salinity in the air. akari shrugs.]

...See, my little brother's been keeping this goldfish he won at a festival in this bowl. But then he found out that goldfish bowls aren't that good for fish, so he nagged my parents into getting a real talk with a filter and everything.

[there's another thing that goes unspoken, too: his parents surely knew that the goldfish would inevitably die in that bowl. they just wanted to pretend that that would be the natural end of things. they decided that the best course of action was to keep his little brother in blissful ignorance — and, just as tellingly, akari complied.]

My dad didn't really want to set up the tank, though, and he has a doctor's appointment today, so he told me to do it. Of course I fucked it all up. Tried to kind of — pour the fish from the bowl to the tank, but then it jumped out and flopped away. [pause.] It's not flopping anymore, I guess. I don't know where it is. Like I said, I think it's under the couch.

[he sets the bowl down on the table again.]

...Anyway, it's good that you brought that stuff. You didn't have to, but I was thinking we didn't buy enough, anyway. It looked too empty. You want me to pay you back?