By Blind Faith by Amykins
I guess the running theory is that, if not by blood, why not use blind faith? That's always an easy way out, huh? Wouldn't matter. We're stuck the way we are. It's nice, and maybe it gets on our nerves sometimes, but that's gotta be part of the 'test'. As if being tested to see if we can really do this. Oh, but believe you me, if we keep up this blind faith, we sure as hell can. It's so nice and quiet around here, I think as press my face into my pillow. How can we go wrong? Just us and the peace...
"Dammit! The central cooling decided to fail on us! Seiya, will you please come fix this? I don't want to spend the whole night burning up!"
The only one who could ruin perfect silence like that was, of course, Yaten. I sighed.
"Yeah, yeah, be there in a second." I got up. It was late but it really was really hot. I wondered briefly if anyone would care if I just put it to freezing...
"Hurry it up!" Yaten yelled back at me. I rolled my eyes, thinking that life would be a lot easier without Yaten around sometimes. But I wouldn’t trade him in for anything.
"Okay," I said, adjusting the half-broken knob, "if you just tape it like this, it'll stay that way. "
"Good." Taiki came in with duct tape and taped up the knob. When the going gets tough, the tough get duct tape.
"Now, will you leave me alone for the rest of the night?" I asked, giving Yaten a mock glare.
"Sorry, man. But I promise you'd have been complaining in two hours anyway." He snapped.
"I would have been asleep in two hours and I wouldn't have cared!" I yelled, throwing my arms up in frustration. I doubt I could ever fall asleep in two hours, but if I could make my point...
"No, Seiya, you'd have complained." Taiki said. I resisted the urge to sock him, because he was just making it harder for me to fight Yaten in this.
"Okay! Okay! I would have! Can I go back to sleep now?" I pleaded, tired. I knew I wasn't going to fall asleep right away, but I didn't care. I was tired! My muscles were killing me.
"Go!" Yaten yelled at me, so I left. As I turned to go in my room I heard Yaten sneeze three consecutive times. Taiki laughed, I think it must've been a rather funny sight because Taiki rarely laughs.
Once I was my room, I resumed my thought pattern. It really is blind faith, I thought, that keeps us from scattering and doing this on our own. Otherwise, I'm sure that we'd have all split up a long time ago. I mean, I thought, we're total opposites. We're nothing alike; there isn't even a reason for us to be in the same apartment. But here we are, living together and somehow getting along. Maybe we get along better than we let people think we do. Hey, it must be the faith.
My thoughts trailed off into sleep within no time. I felt the cool air come on as I hit the first stages of dreaming, and it felt nice. They were right, though. I would've complained.
***
"HEY! Will you get up already?"
"I'm up!" I replied. Someone had been nudging me for the past five minutes and would not stop. It had gotten annoying.
"Well then get up or don't go!" The person yelled.
"Go where?"
"To the studio!" As my brain began to register more things (pillow, books, lamp, sheets, annoying voice...) I realized that the voice belonged to Taiki.
"Why the hell are we going to the studio?" I asked, trying to pull myself out of the bed.
"Hm. Because we could use a little practice." Taiki spoke that as if there was no reason to go to the studio other than to get me out of the house. "And probably because you don't want Yaten's cold."
"When did he get a cold?" I muttered, pulling a shirt over my head. The duct tape fell off the knob, I concluded, because it was damn hot in my room.
"Yesterday. I though he was getting sick. Well, I was right." Taiki sighed. "If you don't care or you just don't want to go to the studio, you could stay here with him." Taiki offered.
"Not that I wanna stay here with someone who's sick, but I really don't have it in me to head off to the studio today." I told Taiki. "I don't feel that hot, but I'll get better once I'm up."
"You better not be gettin' sick, Seiya." Taiki warned me.
"I'm not! I'm just really, really tired." I yawned.
"Okay, whatever. I'm going, okay? You need anything, you give me a call." He started to leave. "Oh. And I promise I'll get more food on my way home." He said as an after thought. I sighed. This meant that there was little food, if any, in the house. I admit that I probably ate most of it, but I didn't want to go a day with practically nothing to eat. Guess I'll just have to order in my lunch, I thought, walking into the living room.
Yaten was quite a sight. He was bunched up under a few blankets on the couch with a box of tissues on the table next to him. He looked like he'd been through hell, and I figured he must have something worse that a simple cold.
"See ya." Taiki said, grabbing a portfolio and leaving. Yaten, who had been watching some random cartoon, turned to me.
"Oh, just *what* are you still doing here?" He complained. I beamed. Might as well make the best of the day.
"I’m stayin' home. I don't want to go to the studio, I'm too tired." I told him, heading into the kitchen. The walls are paper thin, so I could hear him as he continued to argue with me.
"You're gonna catch by cold!" He sniffed. I grinned to myself.
"No I'm dot." I replied, mocking his stuffed-up protests.
"Hey! Dat's not funny." He yelled. I poured what little orange juice there was left into the paper cups we'd been using because it seemed worthless to buy glasses and things like that.
"No, it's actually really funny." I laughed, walking back into the living room. The TV channel had been changed to what appeared to be a music station. I handed him the paper cup as I sat down.
"Drink this."
"Why? What did you do to it?"
"Nothing!" I said, innocent as you please. I hadn't done anything
Then why are you making me drink it?" He asked.
"Because you have a cold. And orange juice is good for you when you have a cold. Because it has Vitamin C in it, and that's good for you."
"So, you're saying it's good for me?"
"YES!" I sighed. He's just trying to bother me because he's sick and he's really, really bored, I told myself. Even I know that it really sucks to be stuck at home when you're sick. It isn't any fun, you can't do anything, and when it's summer it's worse because you've got a ton of free time.
"I still don't understand why you're staying home with me." Yaten said, eyes fixed on the screen.
"Who said I'm staying home with you? I just don't wanna go and work today, that's all! This has got nothing to do with you." The words came out sounding harsher than they were meant to be. Yaten seemed unaffected by the response, but he's not that good and locking in his feelings. You can tell when something hit him a little hard. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean it like that."
"Of course you didn't. No one ever means anything they say to me." The words almost came out as a whisper.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. He looked at me, surprised, as if he didn't expect to be heard.
"It's fairly self-explanatory, Seiya." He replied, still refusing to meet my eyes. He pulled the blankets closer to him.
"Are you still cold?" I asked. He makes a noise, as if he's shocked that I care.
"A little. But what would it matter anyway?" He replied. I gave him a funny look.
"Well, because I can turn the air down." I said, cocking my head to the side. "Are you feeling that sick?"
"I'm fine, as fine as a sick person can be. Besides, you must be burning up anyway, so why bother turning it off?" His eyes darted to me for an instant, and then he looked back to a place in front of him. He wasn't really watching the show.
"Well, since you're sick, I'd rather I accommodate you. You're the one that needs to get better anyway, right?" I grabbed his empty cup away from him and headed for the kitchen to toss the cups away. On my way back out, I turned the air up a little so it wouldn't be as cold. "Something's bothering you and you won't tell me what it is." I said, sitting back down.
"Maybe because it's nothing at all." He pushed his straying bangs away from his face.
"Well, it's something other than being sick. Even when you're sick you've got this little attitude thing goin', but this is worse than your normal attitude." I said. He sniffed and reached for a tissue.
"I'm tired, Seiya. I'm tired, just like you, but in a different way. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't like it here. It's not home. The searching seems worthless sometimes because I feel like we all forgot why we're here." He said, leaning on the arm of the couch.
"Did you forget why we're here?" I asked. He shook his head in response. "Oh? Why are we here then, Yaten? Maybe you educate those who forgot." I crossed my arms over my chest.
"We're here because we have to find our princess. Not to make music, not to help in other people's fights and not to get attached to anyone else. We're here to find our princess, that's why." He said firmly.
"But Yaten, you're gonna get attached and it's our duty to fight..." I started.
"To fight for ourselves, yes. But we get involved when we are not needed. We should let them defend themselves. I don't care about other people, and I don't care about other fights. If we're here to fight for anything, then it will be for the life of our princess and nothing else. Maybe you'll get attached, but I won't. I don't want to be here." Yaten pulled the blankets just a little closer. How could he possibly be getting any colder, I wondered.
"We're not here just to fight for the life of our princess; we're here to fight the force that wants to keep our princess from us. And you and I both know damn well that that would be the forces of Galaxia." I said, maybe just a little angry.
"We shouldn't have to defend anyone else." He replied.
"But we do and we will! Do you want them to think of us as soldiers who don't care about anyone but ourselves and our missions? No! Because we do care, and I think even you care. So maybe you don't want to admit that you care, but you do. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be here, would you?" I asked. He stayed silent. "Would you?" I asked again.
"I'm here because you guys are here." He said softly.
"If we left this place?"
"I'd go, too."
"If we decided to stop looking for the princess?" I asked, wondering what kind of answer I'd get.
"I'd say you were damned fools. I wouldn't stop."
"So, it's not our decisions you agree with..." I was at a loss after that.
"Its you."
"What?" "I'm here because of you guys. I told you that. We're a team, aren't we?" He asked. I nodded softly. "I'd be a bad person if I abandoned you guys now. Even if sometimes I really want to, even if sometimes I don't agree with you, here I am." He sniffed. "And I'm not going any where anytime soon." And then he sneezed. "Except maybe to bed."
"So, you don't plan on leaving?"
"Why would I?"
"Well, I guess to rephrase that, you don't hate us?" Yaten blinked at me. He got up, and pulled the blankets around him. He started to leave but stopped in front of me. He bent down and kissed my forehead.
"No. I could never hate you." I smiled as he left, carrying his blankets with him. Then I sat there and thought about what he just did.
"HEY!" I yelled in the direction of his room. "You better not have gotten me sick!"
End