"... out. Get out. Get out of bed. And no better way to start your day than with Miss Namie. You are my Sunshine and a good morning to all from Kaze 102.6. "

The ceiling looked down at him in silence, cracks darting towards the corner, meeting half way and stumbling down the walls. He had considered painting it, but had never found the time. Too much trouble. Sprained backs and one more reason to live on painkillers. He turned on his side, scratching at the back of his neck. Amuro Namie bounced along the radio waves, skittering on static, bubbly and bright in packaged happiness. He liked the song. He liked the bed. His covers smelled of flesh and perfume and soap. Just as he liked them. The corners were a bit cold, and empty, but the covers were warm. They smelled of him. Him and Saturday afternoon and no work that day because everyone would be out watching the cherry trees and it was just him and the covers and the bed. He snuggled in deeper. He could hear an alarm clock, somewhere. Alarm alarm.

"There is no cause for alarm. Try the new Takamura Press Eigo Jissho and you'll be on your way to better English at your fingertips!"

Ken Hidaka flipped quickly through last week's Nihonjin no E magazine, advertisements and models and clothe and too much sensationalism crowding into his eyes. He had been at the bookstore for almost an hour, just walking up and down the aisles, listless and half awake. He looked down at his clock. 11:43am. Yoji had promised to meet him at 10:30. He sighed and replaced the magazine in its rack. He didn't know why he bothered. He could have been eating an hour ago. Trust Yoji to do this. Just trust Yoji. Hands shoved deep into his pockets, he made his way out of the store.

Bright sunlight spilled down on busy sidewalks outside, pedestrians steaming from one end to infinity, swallowed by a horizon he couldn't see. He squinted across the traffic exhaust. The Tokyo Tower rose above him, glinting in the sunlight, casting shadow. He turned the corner and headed north. He knew his feet would carry him back to the Koneko no Sumu Ie, but he didn't mind. Spending his Saturday at the apartment wouldn't kill anyone, least of all him. At the busiest intersection, a red Porsche sped by, a bright streak of red as he jumped out of the way, loud music stretching out behind it, melting into its surroundings.

"Of course! That's it!"

Omi Tsukiyono started awake. All he could see was bright blue pink rain washing down the green avenues after dark, and. What was I...? He rubbed at his eyes, the room around him coming into focus. The TV set hummed to itself from its corner, black and white pictures flickering across the screen. Omi blinked. I fell asleep... during Gasaraki...? He didn't know what show was on. Something about guns. Something about screaming. He reached for the remokon and flipped through the channels. Static impaled by faces. Garble, a lady selling knives. Morinaga Glico empires and he was drifting off again. Eyelids dropping, body sliding down the couch. Little pink flowers in a navy blue sea of blurred reception cables and his eyes were closing. He wished commercials were more entertaining.

"But now there's nothing we can do about it. You'll have to close your applications and re-start the computer."

The assistant was bowing, one hand behind his head. His body looked so apologetic. His eyes were dead, just bow and his hands seemed to battle down the urge to take the mouse from his hands and shut the computer down himself. Aya Fujimiya squared his shoulders and thanked the young man and sent three hours of wasted effort into microchip cyber waiting parlours. Just like that. He guessed he deserved it. There was no concretizing anything, not like Omi said. Just write about what you feel. What he felt was two Microsoft Word pages in font ten crucified by little red lines and green squiggles. He didn't feel any better. He left the computer labs, pocketing his server access diskette, stepping out into the bright sunshine of the streets beyond.

The sun seemed to hang in the very centre of the sky, spinning within itself. White yellow light capsules bouncing off car windows as traffic crawled past him. A sea of humanity heaved left and right and swallowed him, his feet guiding him. Left at the Pokki wrapper, right at the bubble gum, straight past the spit mark. One foot in front of the other. He thought about buying shoes. Comfortable shoes. His own looked up at him in shabby embarrassment, scruffy and brown and worn at the sides. He didn't walk that much, not really, dirt just seemed to gather around him. He looked up, taking in the sea of pedestrians. He wanted to see red bangs, a dirty shirt, oily faces, bad teeth. Black suits stared back at him, slick combed hair. Precise neat industrious dark hair salariman. A bleached blonde boy turned a corner. Clubbing hip chick market Western arm he didn't think about too often. What he wanted to see when he looked in the mirror.

He stopped in front of a display window. His reflection looked back at him, ghostly, suspended above a tie rack, a display of handkerchiefs. Middle height, scraggly hair, eyes sunk in dark circles he traced with his fingers. He looked alien. Red hair. He pulled at his two long sideburns, momiage and he didn't even know if the word really meant anything. He grimaced, lips drawing back over his teeth. He drew his lips back into a thin line quickly. Crooked. Hopeless. He buried his hands in his pockets. The sun had invaded the window. A second him stood impaled between the tie rack tables and empty space, looking out at him in a solemn vigil.

"Virgil guided Dante through the Inferno."

Ken's head snapped up. "Eh? W-what did you say...?"

Omi sighed, stirring his vanilla ice cream into a symbiotic relationship with almond chunks and whipped cream. "Nothing." His ice cream was melting. "You weren't listening, were you, Ken? If you're not interested in the answer, then why do you ask?"

Ken shrugged, feeling sheepish, feeling trapped. "I just wanted to know how your day had been."

Omi dipped his spoon into his ice cream and twirled it around. He wasn't very hungry. One day he knew he had to break his fascination with ordering ice cream. Just step up to the counter and decorate vanilla with new toppings. He hadn't tried amaretto bits yet. "It's been boring. Normal, I guess. I'm almost done studying. Just one last chapter and I'm scot-free."

Ken leaned back in his chair. His clock read 2:45pm. He had given up on Yoji and had grabbed a quick bite at a street stall. Omi had just been coming out from the flower shop when his feet had finally returned him there, and they stood for a while in the side walk and talked as if half asleep. Ken could hear his voice inside his ears, echoing. He was shouting. It seemed as if he was shouting. Omi sounded sluggish. He wanted ice cream. "That's nice." He paused, looked down at his hands. Palm up, palm down. "I hope Yoji shows his face soon. I'm beginning to think something swallowed him."

Omi took a spoonful of ice cream and held the spoon out to Ken. He could tell the older boy wanted some. A car radio sped by behind them, outside. The coffee shop they had stepped into was dark, air conditioning keeping the streets at bay, curving the sun onto the asphalt. Omi watched Ken swallow his spoonful of ice cream. "Probably got stuck to his bed covers again. You know Yoji. If Aya doesn't physically get him out of bed, he'd stay there all day."

"And the problem is?"

Aya pulled open the blinds and frowned and the balcony outside. White. High rise biru in Tokyo. Mochiron. Shiroi. Atarashiku nai. "You can't just stay in bed, Yoji. It's three in the afternoon."

Yoji sat up in bed, rubbing at the sleep in the corners of his eyes. Aya had switched off his bedside radio, the Pocket Biscuits dissolving into nothingness before the third chorus. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Something ugly had died in his throat. "I don't care. It's Saturday, man. That Sainted Leader of ours keeps us slaving at that flower shop all week, then our shadowy Magnimonious Slave Driver sends us off to investigate every murder in the bloody city and I am tired mah man and I want my shut eye and I'd like to get it, thank you kindly, please take small children by the hand."

Aya stepped away from the window. Yoji had buried himself under his covers again, tangled bleached blond locks peeping out from the corners of the pillow he had pulled over his head. He looked like a rag doll, one leg sticking out, bony back arching in directions it shouldn't arch, two bits a trick. "And by the time they're old ladies they... they... Damn, I forgot the rest of the quote."

Yoji sat up in bed, pushing the pillow away. "What?!"

Aya buried his hands in his pockets. "Nothing. Just thinking about something I read once."

Yoji settled back into comfort, pulling the pillow over his back. He wished Aya hadn't opened the window. The sunlight bounced against the corner of his eyes. He heard himself mumbling, his breath pleading for breakfast but breakfast meant getting up, no thank you. "Oh, that's good. Thought you were saying som'thin' 'bout me, you know...?"

Aya turned the door handle. Yoji looked like a rag doll again, a human pretzel taffy machine with messy curls. Normally he'd pull it by the legs and demand that it get up, but he didn't feel like it. Yoji had a point. It was Saturday. Omi would be cooped up all day Sunday studying for that test of his, what ever class it was. Ken would work. He would work. Someone would find himself at the end of the barrel of a gun, a company hanging by hemp threads and women who saw and understood that the men owned the world and owning the men was as simply as lopping off their heads, slice through the neck and hang them up along the walls and they would have to kill every one of them and make the next five seconds safe to breathe.

"See you tomorrow, Yoji."
 
 
 

Coda

A Hello Kitty mug filled with coke on ice. A tin cup filled with pineapple juice. A bottle of mineral water. A can of blue liquid swirling around purple bubbles.

"What is that anyway, Yoji?"

"It's, ah, what's the label say...? Orubitto. I dunno. Looked cool in the delly fridge, so I just picked it out. What's up with Hello Kitty there, Omi?"

"Um... Well... Oh dear. It's embarrassing. I got it last Christmas. They had a gift exchange in Economics II, and I got this mug. It was a joke. Kind of grows on you, though."

"I see. Yoshi. Care to explain the mineral water, Ken?"

"What can I say? It's good for you. You know."

"Not incredibly filling. I mean, what does water taste like...?"

"It tastes like... like water. What does orange juice taste like?"

"Sun baked oranges, ne? I told a funny joke. I knew it, the Yoji-meister goes one joke a second, baby. Ok, but all right, settle down kids. You are so kids. Simmer down. Now then, explain the pineapple juice, Aya kun."

"And maybe the tin cup."

"What Omi said. But try to keep it short, eh?"

"Anou, hidoi desu ne... Well, but, the pineapple juice I blame on Tokyo Disney."

"Get out of town!"

"No, it's true. They, ah, they have this booth, ne?, where they sell this pineapple ice cream. Yeah, really good. Ken's had... Yeah, that one. Oishii, ne? Well, they have a float too and it has pineapple juice..."

"And so he developed a pineapple juice fetish. Stock up! Stock up! Must re-live pineapple tenku!"

"More or less."

"What about the tin cup?"

"The tin cup is from... from some time back. I can't remember. I just kept it from... somewhere."

"The elusive Yokohama tin cups, ladies and gentlemen."

"This is nice, though, 'cause I'd have an attack if we all had to drink Ken's mineral water."

"You can always just gulp down my Orubitto, Omi kun. Close your eyes and just swallow. Gah. I think those purple balls are foam..."

"Pour pineapple juice into them, maybe that will help."

"Ho-oh. Very interesting."

"A bit pointless, I think."
 

May 20th, 1999. Finished writing this out after a whole week of nothing but studying while Yoji and Dave and Ken and, yes, even me, sat around waiting for Phantom Menace on the 19th. This story's a bit pointless, it tried to be surreal. I just wanted to write something about the Weiß characters that didn't include any dead bodies for once. Just because. There's always a group song in the CDs, right?

The coda was inspired on those hilarious bits at the end of the Weiß Kapitel where the seiyuu just sit around cracking jokes and all that. Of course, mine is decidedly un-funny, but I wanted to put it in anyway. Actual drinks are based on my room mates, with me as Aya. Well, but I'm rambling too much. Want to send in mail? Feel free: Electric Jane Lollipop Circuit

@April 15th-May 20th, 1999 Team Bonet. Weiß Kreuz is @1997 Koyasu Takehito and Project Weiß. Please do not copy or use without permission, or at least without identification. Thanks for reading!