zukkokya | Monday Excerpt the Second

This time, I present an excerpt from

spurious's fic:

Hina imagines the rest of his night as he drives home from the recording studio: pick up dinner from the convenience store, watch last night's match of the World Cup, bathe, go to sleep. Wake up four hours later for filming/concert meeting/more recording for the mini album/something to do with alpacas.

He doesn't check his phone until he's in the elevator fishing his keys from one of the many interior pouches in his bag, and he doesn't scroll down far enough to see Yoko's email until he's standing in front of his door with the key halfway into the lock.

Never mind. See you tomorrow.

Hina frowns and looks through the rest of today's emails, but there aren't any others.

He sends back, Huh?

Fifteen minutes later, as he's tearing open a new box of spaghetti, his cell phone chirps with Yoko's response.

What?

Hina groans, "What the fuck?" under his breath with emphatic disdain.

He switches on the TV and types, You wrote me a weird email earlier. Was it for me? Maybe he meant to send it to someone else.

After thirty seconds–the time it takes for Hina to put down his phone, load the match on his TV, and walk halfway back to the kitchen–Yoko replies.

Yeah, but never mind.

It occurs to Hina as he's writing a response that this is incredibly pointless and it would be faster just to call. He deletes his email and finds Yoko's name on his contact list.

When Yoko picks up, he says, "Oh," in a small voice. "Hey."

Hina pauses the game and flops down on the sofa. "You sound weird," he says.

"Oh. Um."

"What's with you?"

"Nothing. Um. I'm kind of...a little...um."

Hina picks up on the slurring halfway through Yoko's rambling and says, "Why are you drunk? We have to be at work early tomorrow!"

"No reason."

"Who are you drinking with?" It's suspiciously quiet on Yoko's end.

"No one."

Hina doesn't say what he wants to say ("you fucking idiot") because Yoko sounds like he's been in the bottle for quite some time. Instead, he asks, "Where are you?"

"Bar close to your place. I asked in an email if you wanted to drink with me but then I decided not to send it but I forgot that I didn't send it so I sent an email telling you 'never mind,' only I decided not to send the first one, so...so I'm going to go. Good night, Shin-chan."

The line disconnects with Hina tremendously lost and convinced that he should go find and then help Yoko get home. Or just have him stay here.

He turns off the stove and shelves the box of pasta on his way out.