[Ebizo, Kaoru, Shinya] Cat Attack
Notes: Continuing a scene between Kaoru and Shinya as a group scene in the comments. Posting order is Kaoru, Ebizo, Shinya!
Big green eyes were winning in their staredown.
Kaoru stood in socked feet and a tee that didn't fit him, wasn't rock enough to fit him because he'd taken it from his boyfriend's closet, and was eyeing with trepidation the kitten across from him. They were crouched on opposite ends of Ebizo's bedroom, each armed with their own weapon of choice-- Kaoru had a fistful of paper towels in one hand and his cell in the other, and the kitten had a growing puddle of spittle beneath its jaws.
"Shit," Kaoru said again, for the fifth time, and he looked down at his phone again, watched Ebizo's voicemail pick up again and thumbed it to hang up. It was pointless. He was on the strage, draped in thick heavy fabrics and body paint.
He was going to come home and find his cat dead and break up with him, Kaoru thought blindly, and it was all his fault.
"Are you done?" he asked, hesitantly, and with one foot gingerly pushed Pekko back from the scene. He didn't need her to join in. Rambo looked up at him, meweld pathetically, and began to hack again, his little black body twitching with the force of it.
"Shit," Kaoru half-wailed again, despairing, and crouched down in front of the kitten and wiped up the mess as it came. His fingers twitched rapidfire over his phone, and he held it to his ear impatiently with his shoulder as he tried to, through gesturing only, convince the kitten to stop hacking.
"Pick up," he muttered, anxiously, "pick up."
I shut others out when I'm depressed. Bolded.
Sighing, Shinya closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair. Could this be depression? Were people who were depressed question their state of mind like this? Did people who were depressed do things repeatedly (clean, for instance, something that was useless when he hardly used the space he lived in)? And did they listen to only sad songs because happy ones felt weird?
He hadn't seen Kyo outside of work setting in a long time, and it didn't get any easier.
He'd noticed things in this period of being a hermit, however. His apartment was too quiet now that Miyu was older and wasn't constantly in need of attention and wanting to play. The small dog only cared about curling up somewhere and sleeping, and though that was a nice thing for someone who traveled as much as he did, it wasn't as comforting as the dog who used to drop a toy at his feet and begged him to play with her.
Just when Shinya was tempted to find something to do, his ringtone cut into the silence as his phone vibrated against his thigh. The sudden noise made him jump, and with a mutter, he reached into his pocket and pulled it out with a slight glance towards the display.
"Moshi moshi," he said softly.
Shinya. Hope and relief hinged on the sound of that familiar crackly voice.
Kaoru dropped the papertowels and hoped the cat would aim for them, so he could clutch his phone with both hands and say desperately, "Help me."
Shinya expected something band related would come from the other side of his phone. A reminder of a photoshoot, perhaps, or a question about a song he'd been working on. The words that came would perhaps be something normal had the tone that was tacked onto it not been there at all.
It made him feel panicked, and he sat up immediately, his heart already racing as his eyes widened a little. "With what? Where are you?" Did someone get into an accident? Was someone hurt? Was Kaoru stranded somewhere? Before Kaoru could answer his questions, Shinya was already gathering his things and heading for his door.
"He keeps throwing up. He's like--- he's, I don't know. Is he-- he's sick, is he dying?"
Kaoru usually managed control over his voice, even when arguing or upset; it was a steady low rumble in the best and worst of times, usually only breaking for laughter or roars. Now it cracked like a high-school boy's, as he tried to sooth a hand over the kitten's bowed black head gingerly, afraid he'd touch it with too much force and it would break. Pekko jumped on his toes from behind and he didn't even have the focus to awkwardly maneuver her off as he normally did.
Shinya's eyes widened when Kaoru said that, and he swore his heart stopped as he was in the process of sliding his feet into his shoes. Throwing up. Dying...
Alcohol poisoning?! Was it Die?!
"Kaoru, where are you? Who's throwing up?" It was difficult to stay calm as images of Die dying because of alcohol poinsoning, and he struggled to keep his knees from shaking and to keep a steady voice instead of growing hysterical.
"Rambo," Kaoru said, voice cracking in panic, and tiny hacking gagging noises filtered in through the phone, "Rambo, I don't know what's wrong with him, Shinya! I don't want him to come home and find him dead, shit, shit, help me!!!"
Shinya was going crazy with all the images in his head of their beloved guitarist in the hospital, but they all stopped when Kaoru finally told him who was throwing up.
"Rambo?" He asked, his brows raised in confusion. The name sounded familiar, but it definitely wasn't a name of someone he knew! Despite his confusion, he continued slipping on his shoes and left his apartment, the gagging in the background making him cringe. "Where are you? I can't help you if I don't know."
"I'm at Ebizo's place. In Ginza." He named the building, the apartment, as he rocked in place anxiously, poking at the kitten ineffectually. "Fuck, I don't know what to do, he'll be home in a few hours and he'll be dead."
Pathetic cough cough splutter and a gross sounding haaaacckkk and Kaoru moaned in trepidation.
Shinya nodded when Kaoru finally gave him the destination. "Okay, I'll be there in a little bit, just... Relax or something." He said, nervous of the sight he'd see when he finally got there.
True to his word, Shinya arrived at Ebizo's appartment as fast as he could have without breaking any laws, and ringing the doorbell, he shifted from one foot to another anxiously, waiting for some sort of response on the other end.
The apartment was swank. Kaoru was used to it, didn't think about it, didn't even think about how he looked in his boyfriend's white designer teeshirt, with his tattoos and nipple ring showing through. He dragged on scruffed jeans as he passed expensive sofas and televisions and antique fans, denim hanging low to show his underwear and he peeked through the door before opening it with a visible sigh of relief.
"Get in. Get in, get in," he said, exhaling as he wiped his hair back from his face and let him in. "Shit, I was worried you were him. Rambo stopped the past twenty minutes, but he keeps coughing up a bit, I'm still-- I'm worried, what-- what if something's wrong? He's in the bathroom. Come in."
Shinya could have questioned why Ebizo would be ringing his own doorbell, could have taken a moment to look around the apartment or take in the other details of Kaoru's appearance that didn't include the look of absolute panic on the guitarist's face, but he was too anxious and scared himself to think about details.
Still unsure of who Rambo was, Shinya stepped inside the apartment and quickly toed off his shoes before following Kaoru towards the bathroom, his pace quick. "Just relax," he said in an attempt to reassure Kaoru as they approached the bathroom, "if something is wrong--" words stopped as he found himself in the bathroom and saw not a person on the floor, but a small kitten. Shinya took a moment to absorb all of this, to put the pieces together as he looked down at the animal, and it wasn't until he heard a gag that he came back. "Is he actually throwing up?" Shinya asked as he crouched down as if getting on the kitten's level would help him figure things out.
Relief. If anyone could solve this, it would be Shinya.
He sat his butt on the edge of the huge tub, sinking back into the opening slowly with his hands folded on his knees. Sighing heavily, he shook his head.
"A little bit, but not a whole lot, just some spit and shit when he hacks. It seems like he can't get it up, because it hasn't stopped. I'm freaked out. I gave him some tuna this morning, did that do it? Is it my fault?"
There was a few key words in what Kaoru said that made Shinya sigh in relief. Nobody was going to die, not even the kitten. He'd been so worried about Die dying and Kaoru's anxiety that he didn't seen the obvious when it stared him in the face.
"Kaoru," he said seriously, looking up at the older man as he seemed so helpless sitting there in the tub. "It's probably a hairball." The gagging continued, making Shinya wrinkle his nose a little. Knowing what was behind it didn't make those sounds any more pleasent. "He's not going to die, but if it doesn't come up soon he might need help."
Pursing his lips, Shinya looked towards the medicine cabinet. "Do you know if he has any vaseline?"
".... oh."
Kaoru sank a bit, staring, his mouth a little 'o' of confusion and the feeling of his own stupidity sinking in, heavy. Within a few seconds, his anxious face had gone slack, and beet red.
Looking down at the ground, he mumbled a yes, trying not to choke on the word.
Shinya couldn't help but smile as Kaoru's expression fell. "It's okay, Kaoru," he said, a bit of a teasing tone in his voice as he stood up and stepped towards the medicine cabinet, wondering if it would be weird that he opened it when he didn't even know Ebizo.. "Hairballs scare everyone when they first see a cat having them."
Tapping his fingers on the sink for a moment, Shinya glanced towards the older man who still seemed ashamed of freaking out over something that seemed so normal before he reached up and carefully opened it. Thankfully, the vaseline was in plain sight and popped out at him first.
Crouching back down again, Shinya opened the pot of vaseline, and, dipping his finger into it, he reached over and smeared a bit of it across the kitten's fur.
Kaoru stared, mumbled finally, "What good'll that do?"
He had sunk progressively as the minutes went on, deeper and deeper into the tub. It was a nice tub. The top of his head was visible over the top of the tub, his feet still dangled outside of it, but Kaoru's shame was palpable.
Shinya was laughing at him. He felt like an idiot. Thank fucking god Ebizo hadn't been here.
"When he finishes gagging, it'll bug him and he'll clean his fur, and vaseline helps hairballs pass easier," he said as he replaced the lid on the vaseline and replaced it in the medicine cabinet. "He just won't puke it up, so that will be one less heart attack for you," he said with a chuckle as he washed his hands, finally taking in some of the finer details about the bathroom.
He'd love to have a bathroom like this, rather than the small one he had back in his apartment, but it was so much space for just one person...
Glancing over at Kaoru as he began drying his hands, Shinya wondered why the older man was here in Ebizo's apartment... Alone.. Wearing a shirt that obviously didn't fit him. It wasn't hard to place two and two together--what men had sleep overs when it didn't include Kyo and didn't have some sort of sexual undertone?
He could question it, but it wasn't any of his business.
"If Ebizo hasn't experienced hairballs yet, you should pass that on in case it happens again."
".... okay."
He mumbled still, voice dropping by degrees as his color grew. Kaoru finally forced himself from the tub, climbing out just in time to brush Pekko off of his toes where she was contemplating climbing up to the tub. Sighing, he nosed the cat away and looked over at Shinya with a rueful smile.
"Thanks. So he'll be okay. He's not going to like-- keel over. Promise?"
Shinya returned the smile before he nodded. "I promise. No kittens are going to die." With a sigh, Shinya shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking Kaoru over again before frowning a little. "Next time you have a pet emergancy, can you be more straight forward? I thought someone in the band was dying."
Pekko and his toes. It was like an obsession. He nudged her away again, shoved hands deep in his pockets, and sighed, laughing faintly under his breath.
"Okay. I'm sorry, I didn't realize it would sound like--" Kaoru cut off, replayed his own voice and laughed in embarassment, downcast eyes and pushing his hair back nervously. "I guess I did sound like there was a real problem. Sorry. You were the first person I thought of. Fuck, I'm so nervous around them, I keep worrying I'll accidentally crush one of them without noticing."
Shinya watched the kitten as it continued to go after Kaoru's toes, his heart warming a little. It was the same feeling he got around any baby animal--there was just something about the awkwardness about animals that were so new to the world that warmed his heart. Maybe a kitten would help make appartment life a little easier to endure..
Kaoru's voice brought his attention back to the other man and he smiled a little. "I can't help you if you crush them. Just watch where you sit, I guess."
Shifting from one foot to another, he looked down at the kittens once again, and that maybe began to lean more towards 'I'm going to get one.' Another shift, and his eyes made their way back up to Kaoru's. "Any other questions? I have a few errands to run.." Like a trip to a pet store.
Pekko jumped on Rambo, who wheezed. Kaoru sighed, bending down to scoop the fluffier, smaller kitten up, holding her gingerly and wrong in his small hands to his chest. She wiggled and mewled, and he looked up at Shinya with a wry, stressed-looking smile.
"I don't get it. Pets. I have a hard enough time looking after you guys, you know? If I wouldn't get in trouble I'd hand 'em off to you." He laughed again, awkwardly shifted her in his hands. Pekko hissed the fluffiest, cutest hiss.