Ryo had not been expecting this kind of news in the middle of his exam.
He almost hadn't answered his phone. He felt it vibrate in a lower pocket of his pants, and the thought of answering it in the completely silent auditorium and calling attention to him was somewhat daunting. However, Ryo knew he couldn't just let the call go – he could at least see who it was. He put aside the question he'd been agonizing over for the past couple of minutes – what the hell was the name of the one bone that's suspended in the throat and not connected to other bones?
Ryo took a quick glance around the room – heads were bent towards their papers, and the professor was grading papers at the desk in the front. He slipped the vibrating cell phone from his pocket, and flipped it open to read who the caller was.
Sage.
Why would Sage call him now? He knew Ryo had his finals. He would never call and risk disrupting one of Ryo's exams. This had to be important, and Ryo, for reasons unknown to him, suddenly dreaded what he could be calling for. The black haired youth put his pencil down on the paper and slid silently out of his seat. He walked up the steps, glad he had chosen a seat closer to the exit, and tried to open and close the door as innocuously as possible. The hall was equally still and silent, and just at the end of the hall, he could see outside the doors and into the pitch black of nighttime. He hit send the moment he was in the hallway.
"Hey," Ryo said quietly. "What's up, Sage?"
There was a slight pause on the other end, and then Sage cleared his throat. "I wasn't sure you were going to answer. Did I interrupt a test?"
"I'm taking my biology exam, but that's okay, it's not a big deal. What's up?" Ryo repeated. His palms felt a little sweaty, and he paced over to a nearby bench but did not sit down. He had a strong, awful feeling that he was not going to like what Sage called for.
The blonde had never minced his words before, and he did not keep Ryo waiting.
"Cye's mother died tonight. From a heart attack due to a car accident she was in two days ago."
There was total silence on either end for a long minute. Ryo almost didn't believe what the blonde just told him. Struggling to grasp the concept, Ryo couldn't shake the surreal feeling that it was giving him. "Mrs. Mouri's dead?"
It took Sage a moment to reply. "Yes."
An image of Mrs. Mouri immediately sprang into Ryo's mental eye, and his mind went back to the last time he saw her: dinner at her house over a weekend stay, when everyone had a few free days and decided to visit her and take a small vacation off of school. Sitting outside on her patio, laughing at something Kento had said. She had been thrilled when they had showed up on her doorstep, and had cooked like a fiend and talked up a storm to all five of them. Ryo remembered sitting in her kitchen on that weekend, watching the slim woman make omelet's for breakfast with her son and teasing Ryo over the test he almost got a zero on for oversleeping and nearly missing the class. She had been grinning at him, spatula in hand and brown hair pulled back in a messy bun. Ryo had always thought that she was a lovely woman, with her British accent just like her son and her ability to make them all feel as if they belonged in that house just as much as her son did. And there was such love between her and Cye; they simply adored each other.
The pain that hit Ryo's chest drove him to sit hard on the bench. A fist squeezed his heart, and Ryo had to take a few deep breaths. She was dead.
"Ryo?"
"Yeah." His voice shook. Cye. Cye had to be devastated. How could he be so far away while this was happening? "I should leave now –"
"You should finish your test first," Sage interrupted gently. "I know it will be hard to concentrate, but you're not helping anyone by failing your biology exam."
"How's Cye?"
"I don't know, I haven't seen him yet. I'm driving to his house now. I missed him at the hospital."
"All right." Ryo let out a shaky sigh and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. He stood up. "I'll finish this, and then I'll be on my way."
"Don't drive like a maniac, Ryo."
Ryo blew out a breath and couldn't help but be amused. "Pot and kettle, Sage."
He was awarded with a slight chuckle before they said their goodbyes and respectively hung up.
He walked back into that auditorium; still quiet, heads still bent, although a few glanced up at him as he walked back down the steps to his seat. He stared at the packet of paper on the desk, and willed himself to finish the test. He stared blankly at the question that had been eluding him for the past few minutes.
"Hyoid," he said quietly. He remembered the answer, and in record time, finished the rest of the exam. He knew the results of this test would be less than stellar with his last few minutes rush job, but he suddenly didn't care very much.
When Ryo had sped walked back to his dorm and found that his car decided it didn't want to start, he couldn't believe his bad luck. After a bout of cursing the car and trying to swallow past the lump in his throat over the combination of grief and frustration, Ryo called Sage back to ask for a ride.
Of course he had said yes. So now Ryo was sitting outside the dorm, his hastily packed bag at his feet. Thankfully he had no roommate to answer to; being an RA on his floor had its perks. Since he had no choice but to wait the hour and a half it would take Sage to get there, Ryo had been able to find someone to keep an eye on the floor while he was gone, a pretty decent guy who's room was a few doors down from Ryo's. He wasn't worried about the kids on his floor, though; they liked Ryo, and hardly any of them gave him trouble or brought trouble to the floor.
After an hour or so of waiting, Ryo heard a car pull up. The purr of the engine came to an idle, and finally shut off. Sitting on the bench outside of the dorm, Ryo watched Sage. He cut a dramatic figure, as always, stepping out of a sleek black car, wearing tan slacks and a deep purple dress shirt, looking for the entire world like a blonde, Adonis-like model that hailed from some romantic, cultured country in Europe. No matter how hard Sage tried, he would always stand out, and Ryo never thought that was necessarily a bad thing, like Sage did. Sometimes Ryo really did wonder if Sage had been born in the wrong era; not the wrong country, since Sage took to Japanese tradition like a duck took to water, but when Ryo looked at Sage, he thought he saw a glimpse of what ancient warriors had looked like back when swords were still the weapon of choice, and chivalry was not dead.
"You haven't been sitting out here for the past hour and a half, have you?"
Ryo gave him a look. The expression on his face told Sage all he needed to know, and the blonde sighed in resignation.
"Are you up for driving back, Sage?" Ryo asked, voice subdued. "Or do you want me to?"
"You're not driving my car, Ryo."
A faint smile crossed Ryo's face, and he unfolded his length from the bench and slung the duffel bag over one shoulder. He followed Sage to the car and got in the passenger seat, tossing his bag into the back.
The car ride was silent for the first ten minutes or so. Sage did not seem inclined to talk, and Ryo, quite frankly, didn't want to, either. He contented himself to watch the darkened fields, forests, and small towns pass by. Faint classical music played from the stereo system, and Ryo found it calming, as he imagined Sage did.
He felt terrible for Cye. Losing Cye's mother felt like losing the closest thing Ryo had to one besides his own grandmother and to another extent, Kento's mother. He didn't know what was going to happen over the next few days, but he knew it would be painful.
Sage, surprisingly, ended up breaking the silence. "Kento is with Cye."
Ryo closed his eyes in relief. "Good. I take it we're just staying with Cye, then."
Sage nodded slowly. "I hadn't planned for it. I don't have anything with me, but that shouldn't be a problem for tonight, at least. I can swing by my parents in the morning. I imagine Cye doesn't have anything with him, either."
"It's his mom's house; she'd have kept some of his clothes there," Ryo said. It just felt like something she would do. They fell silent again. Thirty minutes into the car ride, Sage had to stop for gas at a small town. Ryo offered to pay for the gas, to which Sage sent him a glare and walked in and paid for it himself.
They were past half way there when Ryo asked, "Does Mia know?"
"Not home. She's at that seminar, remember?"
Even as Sage said it, Ryo nodded, recalling that the last time they all spoke; Mia had been talking about a seminar at a university farther north she was attending to. It was almost over, however, and if Ryo remembered correctly, she would be home as early as tomorrow. Ryo agreed with Sage in that it would be pointless to leave her a message and spoil the one thing she'd been looking forward to for months. They would let Mia know when she got back.
Moments later, it occurred to Ryo that he would have preferred fighting Talpa to this. At least then there was someone to place the blame on. Now, however, the only one to blame for this death was mortality.
The lights were on in the kitchen, making the creamy white counters and oak cabinets reflect off it and gleam. The tiles under Kento's feet were cool, and the un-drawn window above the sink told the lateness of the hour. Rowen had stopped in the middle of the empty kitchen and was staring at the L-shaped counter top between the sink and the refrigerator in the corner of the room.
"What?" Kento asked automatically. He walked up next to Rowen's still figure and followed his gaze to the counter. "Oh . . ."
Someone had been in the middle of making something. A box of pasta lay open on the counter, next to a cutting board with a long knife and two plump, rotting tomatoes resting on it. A can of mushrooms sat on the other side of the board, and further away a package of hamburger meat lay, now spoiled from sitting out for two days.
Spaghetti.
Mrs. Mouri had died in the middle of preparing dinner for herself.
Rowen and Kento were struck with a pang of grief for the woman, so sharp it took their breath away. It broke Rowen's heart to know that she'd been alone for so long with both of her children living elsewhere, and she'd been preparing a meal by herself. Apparently she had been missing something for her dinner, or else she wouldn't have left the food to rot. Just a quick trip to the store. A quick trip that ended her life.
"Oh, man," Kento breathed, a bit shaken up at being confronted with the unnatural suddenness of her death and the ordinary task of her cooking a meal. He half expected her to come through the door, bright eyed and smiling, and continue making her meal, but he knew this particular dinner would never get finished.
"We should . . . clean that up," Rowen said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. He cleared his throat, blinked a few times. "Before Cye sees it."
Kento shifted, feeling a little uneasy about disturbing the last thing Mrs. Mouri had been doing in life. It didn't sit well with him. "I don't know, maybe we should -"
"We can't just leave it there," Rowen gestured to it with a hand, and then ran that hand through his blue locks. "It needs to be picked up sometime. I mean, the meat's rotted, we should just toss it, clean the rest up."
"All right," Kento agreed reluctantly. Neither of them moved for a long minute, and then the bearer of Hardrock took the initiative and walked towards the hamburger meat. He picked it up gingerly, and then carried the stinking meat to the garbage can, careful to keep any of the juice it expelled from spilling. Rowen reached down for the knife on the cutting board and hesitated while picking it up. He, too, was struck with a sense of wrongness, as if he were disturbing something that should be better left alone.
The knife had never been used, and after opening a few drawers, he found the utensils drawer and put it back. He used a few paper towels to gather up the tomatoes and put them in the trash, too, and then lifted the lid completely to take out the garbage bag. It would smell to high heaven in an hour or two if they didn't put it out now. "Garbage cans in the garage?" Rowen asked. Kento nodded, and Rowen walked over to the garage door, quickly located the cans, and tossed the bag in. When he came back, Kento had the refrigerator door open and was pulling out a few different lunch meats and some condiments.
Rowen helped himself to the cupboards, and perused their contents until he found some things he could use. "I could make some of this pasta, too. Although, I'm not sure if he'll eat it. I don't think his appetite's going to be up to par."
"Make it anyway. Whatever he doesn't eat, I'll eat."
Rowen smiled to himself and pulled out the bag of pasta. She didn't have any pre-made sauces; she and Cye were big on making things from scratch, so he inspected the fridge for anything he could use. Rowen found enough ingredients to make a good white sauce that could go with, and if he made enough, they would have leftovers for when Sage and Ryo arrived. Rowen set to cooking the pasta while Kento made the sandwiches.
With the water heating on the stove, Rowen leaned against it, arms folded and head down. He could see Kento in his peripheral vision, pulling out slices of white bread. Rowen mentally counted the sandwich tally as Kento kept adding bread; two sandwiches, three, four, five, six . . . Rowen shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips.
"How many sandwiches do you plan on having?" Rowen asked.
Kento shrugged. "Probably as many as you. Ham, turkey, or beef?"
"Ham and beef."
"Mayo?"
"And mustard. Lettuce, too, if there is any." Kento nodded, and Rowen allowed his mind to wander off while Kento made the sandwiches.
Rowen assumed Sayoko would get the message tonight – in the morning, at the latest. She would call; and weren't they all looking forward to that conversation? He closed his eyes and sighed. He simply could not believe this. Mrs. Mouri had been far too young. And Cye was too young to be an orphan already. Was Mrs. Mouri's house paid for? Cye might have to sell the house if he and Sayoko couldn't afford the upkeep and utility payments. It would feel strange to never be able to stop by this house again.
Rowen checked on the water, and found it near boiling. As he put in the pasta, he became aware of Kento humming a nameless tune to himself while he made sandwiches, to which Rowen couldn't help but snort out a laugh.
Kento looked up from the mayonnaise he was spreading. "What?"
"Never mind."
Kento shrugged and let it go. "You think Cye's okay in there?"
"I think that Cye needs some alone time. The last thing I would want if I was hurting that bad would be everyone flocking around me like mother hens."
"Yeah, well, that's you," Kento replied, almost absently as he finished the fourth sandwich and started on the fifth. "I think Cye needs to get in touch with his sister."
Rowen nodded his agreement. He stirred the pasta every so often, and his eyes happened to be focused on the kitchen counter. There was a small basket filled with envelopes and papers; bills and stray notes, all in relatively good order. A few receipts. The last one was from a donut shop down the street. That made Rowen smile. Near the basket was a small deformed cup glazed with bright blues and purples. He assumed it was either a young Cye's handiwork or a grandchild's. Resting against the cup's handle was a yellow note that read, in Mrs. Mouri's flowing handwriting: Pick up flowers for Mr. Santori, send vase to Sayoko. Call Cye.
A lump formed in Rowen's throat. That woman had always thought of everything. From what he saw of her – and he saw more of Mrs. Mouri than he ever saw of his own mother – she had been an ideal mother. His vision blurred, and he turned his eyes away from the note and down to the pasta. He bit back an oath when he realized the water had nearly boiled over, and then turned the heat down and kept stirring. Rowen cleared his throat and ignored the fact that Kento was now watching him.
"Is there any of that tea that Cye likes?" Rowen asked.
Kento nodded, and cleared his own throat. "In one of the cupboards. I'll get it ready." He finished the last sandwich, and as he walked past Rowen, he his hand on Rowen's shoulder and, instead of patting it like Rowen assumed he would, the hand moved up and went straight for his hair.
"What the hell, Kento!" Rowen ducked as the bearer of Hardrock sunk his fingers in Rowen's blue locks and completely mussed them up as hard as he could. Rowen reached up to grab Kento's hand and possibly throw him to the ground, but Kento withdrew his hand with a chuckle.
"Might want to fix that."
"Asshole. I can't believe you just did that."
"I can't believe you freak out every time someone touches your hair."
Rowen just glared at him as he tried to smooth his hair back into place. "No one bothers to touch my hair but you."
"Lighten up, Rowen. Your hair's pretty the way it is."
Rowen let loose an almost involuntary chuckle.
"Now go in the bathroom and fix it up nice for Ryo and Sage."
"Kiss my ass."
"Okay." Kento moved towards Rowen and, startled, the blue haired young man darted out of the way and gave Kento a wide-eyed, ‘What is wrong with you?' look. Kento chuckled and held up his hands to appease Rowen. "Relax, your masculinity's intact." Rowen watched him with bemusement as the bearer of Hardrock moved around him to get the tea ready. He turned back to the noodles and, finding them almost done, turned off the heat.
Fwapp!
The bearer of Strata let out a high, strangled squeak as the dish towel from the stove cracked his behind, and the young man nearly jumped half a foot at the sting. He immediately whirled around to tackle Kento and take the dish cloth away from him, but Kento, laughing, kept it just out of reach. Half fed up and half terribly amused and relieved at Kento's attempt to lighten the atmosphere, Rowen sprinted across the kitchen tiles, prepared to take Kento down by plowing into his midsection – and then maybe –
"What the bloody hell is going on in here?"
Kento looked over and Rowen skidded to a stop on the tile. Cye stood in the doorway, looking confused and amused at the same time.
"Kento's hitting on me," Rowen supplied before Kento could get a word in. "Literally and figuratively."
Kento snorted. "Yeah, I only want you for your body, Ro."
Cye didn't even want to know, so he told them so. His eyes shifted over to the sandwiches balanced precariously on top of one another on a plate, and the boiling pot on the stove. A smile tugged at his lips. "Isn't it a bit late to make dinner?"
Kento slanted a glance at Cye, as if to say when is it ever too late to eat a meal?
"You're forgetting who's standing in your kitchen, Cye," Rowen said, along the lines of Kento's thoughts. The blue haired young man shut off the heat to the stove, and proceeded to drain the water from the cooked pasta. "Do you want the white sauce or a marinara?"
Slightly befuddled at watching Rowen play homemaker in his kitchen, Cye watched him place the lid on the pot and pour the steaming hot water into the sink. "The…alfredo sauce is fine. I suppose Ryo and Sage could eat the leftovers when they arrive."
"That's right," Kento agreed. "Now, eat a sandwich." Kento picked up two, handed on to Cye, who took it out of reflex, and began to eat the one in his hand.
"I'm really not very hungry," Cye started, but Kento cut him off with a wave of his hand.
Through a mouthful of food, Kento said, "You'll eat it, and you'll like it."
"Way to spray your half eaten food everywhere, Kento."
"Shut up, Rowen."
Cye was again caught between amusement and exasperation with them. He knew what they were doing, and he appreciated it, but a small part of him just wanted to sit in a room by himself and find some way to get this horrible thing out of his chest. If he thought about it too much, though, he'd nearly incapacitate himself, so Cye struggled to come back to the here and now and focus on Rowen and Kento.
Rowen had the pasta drained and was making the sauce, and when Cye offered to help, he almost declined. He took a better look at Cye, though, and then relented. Cye needed to do something other than work through the funeral arrangements.
When he finished the sauce and Rowen mixed it together, Cye pulled out a few bowls and Rowen dished out portions of pasta, leaving a fair amount in there for Ryo and Sage.
"We should leave a note on the fridge for them," Kento suggested.
"If they even come in the kitchen," Rowen said.
"Ryo will," Kento and Cye said simultaneously, and made Kento and Rowen laugh while Cye gave a small smile. They ate their small meal standing up in the kitchen; Kento leaning against the table, Cye with his back to the refrigerator, and Rowen with his hip resting against the countertop.
"Kento, don't you still have finals?" Rowen asked.
Kento shook his head while he chewed his food, and once he swallowed, he said, "Just a paper for an English class. My last test was yesterday. Paper's not due for another few days, no big deal there. It can wait."
Cye's hand briefly clenched the fork he held. He didn't want them all to put their lives on hold for him. He had only taken two of his finals; he had two more to take the day after tomorrow. He would have to call his professors and explain what had happened. Scratch that; he would have to call quite a few people and explain what was happening. The mere thought of having to wake up and do it tomorrow filled him with dread. He needed to think about something else.
"Are you missing exams, Rowen?" Cye asked.
Rowen shook his head. "Nah, I just finished mine. The only reason I'd need to go back is to get my stuff, and campus is still open for another week or so. I'm not in a hurry."
Rowen was lying through his teeth, and Kento knew it. Rowen had one more final – an advanced trigonometry final – tomorrow night. Hadn't he talked about it to Kento about a week ago when they'd gotten together for lunch? Kento passed Rowen a strange look, to which the blue haired young man gazed coolly back before turning to Cye to speak with him.
Kento understood why Rowen had fibbed, though; he could see it in Cye's face. Cye felt like this was inconveniencing everyone, and God only knew why. He needed to get it through his head that this was more important to them than finals. Rowen would work his way around it; the kid was a genius, he could probably sweet talk his professor into letting him make it up.
It was almost one in the morning when bowls scraped clean of food were set into the sink. Rowen and Kento had kept Cye talking until he finished most of his sandwich and about half of the pasta. It was good enough for them; now they would have to get him to sleep.
"Well, I'm freaking tired," Kento remarked as they left the kitchen for the living room. "I can crash on the couch and Rowen can sleep in the garage."
"Har har," Rowen said dryly. "You're a barrel of laughs, Kento."
"And don't forget it. Hey, Cye, doesn't the –"
"The couch folds out into a bed, yes," Cye finished. "Two of you can stay there; someone can stay in the guest bedroom, and the other couch should be long enough for someone."
"Kento, you can have the bedroom," Rowen immediately put in. "And yes, that was an insult. No one's getting any sleep if your snoring isn't boxed within four walls."
"Now who's the funny monkey?" Kento swatted at Rowen's head, who easily slid out of the way. "I don't care, that's fine. See you in the morning, Cye?"
Cye nodded. "Thank you both so much for staying."
Rowen sighed and Kento snorted. "Like we would do anything less, Cye," Kento chided gently. Cye gave him a weak smile, and after helping Rowen pull out the couch's bed, he walked with Kento into the hallway where the bedrooms were. Cye studiously ignored the closed doorway at the end of the hall that was his mother's room; he couldn't go in there yet. Instead, he veered off into his own room.
The guest bedroom was across from his, and Kento paused in the doorway to look at Cye. Deep blue eyes looked him over, a reflection of some of the grief that Cye felt; grief and concern. "You gonna be all right to sleep tonight?"
"I think so. Goodnight, Kento." Cye turned to go into his room, and before he could get in, he felt Kento lay a hand on his shoulder. Cye turned, and was enveloped in a solid bear hug from his friend. Immediately, a lump formed in Cye's throat, making it hard to swallow, and his heart clenched with a mixture of pain, gratitude, and warmth. The physical contact of being hugged at a time like this was almost more than Cye could bear; he didn't want the sympathy, but a part of him needed it. Hot tears stung his eyes, and he blinked them back rapidly; he heard Kento sniff and disguise it by clearing his throat.
"Just hang in there, all right?" Kento said softly in his ear, and then pulled away. He clapped another large hand on Cye's shoulder, and smiled athim before turning away before his friend could see the fine sheen of tears in his eyes.
Cye went to sleep in his old bedroom that night exhausted, grief-stricken, and feeling enormously thankful for his best friends.