(fic) When it Alteration Finds
Aug. 13th, 2007 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cicerHey, that WIP meme really does work at providing inspiration! In my case, it's less inspiration to write than inspiration to get off my duff and finish editing, but hey. Whatever works. At any rate, here's the full Antique Bakery fic that I posted a snippet of.
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
Tachibana leaned against the counter and looked at Ono sourly to emphasize his proclamation. Had he been around, Kanda would have squawked at him for speaking to Ono that way. But Kanda had already gone home for the night, and Tachibana felt justified in his complaint. When he’d decided to open up a bakery, he’d expected there would be some unpleasant jobs that would have to be done. However, he had not considered that one of them might be forcibly ejecting some of his pastry chef’s more ardent suitors when they came to call on him at his workplace. Tachibana was thoroughly displeased at this intrusion. Ono looked almost amused.
“I’m sorry about that.” Ono picked up the bowl he’d set aside when their latest ‘customer’ had rushed in to declare his undying love and resumed stirring. “I did tell Daisuke I didn’t want to see him anymore.” He looked vaguely regretful and sighed almost theatrically. Tachibana rolled his eyes. He found himself entirely unable to scrape up any sympathy for Ono’s plight. At one point he’d thought that he would love to have women throwing themselves at him the way men did at Ono. But he’d seen the way the same men didn’t seem to be able to let go, and he’d changed his mind. Gratifying as it might have been to have women respond to him like that, the idea of them bursting into his workplace to fling themselves prostrate on the floor, begging for another chance until they had to be hauled outside by the manager was less than appealing. In fact, Ono’s latest paramour had neatly demonstrated the sort of behavior Tachibana found most unattractive in his potential partners.
“Can’t you do something about that?” Tachibana muttered. As he spoke, he checked to make sure the ‘Closed’ signed was facing the outside of the shop. He considered that he wouldn’t be surprised if another of Ono’s boyfriends tried to break into the shop despite the announcement that they were closed. At that thought, he double-checked the lock and the alarm system.
“About what?” Ono blinked at him over the almond extract he was adding bowl of cream. Tachibana glared at him and swept the remaining dirty plates into the sink, ignoring the clatter of expensive dishware and snatched up a rag.
“That,” he snapped. He gestured vaguely at the door as he scrubbed the countertops roughly with a damp cloth. “Do you have to do…whatever it is you do to them, that hard? Don’t you have some kind of lower setting?” He was loathe to show his interest, but he really was curious. He’d always found Ono’s assertion that he possessed special ‘powers’ hard to swallow and if he hadn’t seen it firsthand he never would have believed it. Having just dragged a sobbing man out onto the street, though, his disbelief was shattered again. Ono still looked bemused, and the fact that he almost seemed to have enjoyed the display grated Tachibana’s nerves.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Ono answered, sliding his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, leaving a tiny smear of whipped cream on his cheek. Tachibana threw the rag down and stared at him hard.
“You can’t tell me you don’t have any control over it at all,” he said. Ono set down the half-finished pastries and blinked.
“Well, some,” he admitted, still not looking as if he felt terribly guilty about the trouble he caused. “But I can’t turn it off and on, you know. It really only works when I find someone attractive. And I can’t help that,” he added. Tachibana sighed and slumped, pitching the dirty rag in the laundry bin.
“You really can’t do anything about it?” he said skeptically. He’d never regretted hiring Ono. He knew there was absolutely no way they could have gotten where they were without him. But the little speed-bumps that occasionally arose as a result of Ono so-called ‘demonic powers’ were something he could do without.
“Sorry,” Ono smiled, still infuriatingly cheerful. Bastard, Tachibana thought sourly. Naturally, he wouldn’t think it was a problem. The inconveniences of overly aggressive suitors aside, it had to be nice to have a built-in guarantee that if he found someone attractive, they’d feel the same way about him.
“People would kill for that, you know,” he said sullenly, “The ability to attract anyone you want.”
“Oh, Tachibana, don’t be jealous!” Ono laughed as he spooned the whipped cream into the pastry shells. “I’m sure lots of people find you attractive too.” Tachibana glared at him and considered dumping the bowl of cream over his head. He was forced to admit that he had been going through something of a dry spell lately, but he refused to entertain the idea that his situation was pathetic enough to warrant sympathy from Ono of all people. He straightened resentfully.
“Damn right they do.” Ono smiled patiently at him. Tachibana was not appeased. It was the sort of smile most people reserved for hobos who approached them on street corners babbling about the end of the world. Tachibana stifled a sigh. More depressing than Ono’s pity was the realization that only his pride was bothered by it. If he was desperate enough, he could hit a bar or let his family set him up with one of their acquaintances. But he couldn’t really see the point. He already had a string of failed relationships to his name and he just couldn’t work up the effort to add another to the list.
He realized he was becoming maudlin. Worse, he was beginning to think that growing old with no one but Chikage to keep him company wasn’t such a bad prospect. Forgetting his irritation with Ono, Tachibana considered dumping the cream over his own head in sheer self-disgust, but settled for getting himself a cup of coffee and leaning sullenly against the counter to watch Ono finish the pastries. He visualized himself in thirty years, living in an apartment with two dozen cats and an assortment of cardigans, yelling at the neighborhood kids for straying onto his property. The idea was mortifying. His mood was not improved by the sympathetic looks Ono kept sending him, as if he could read Tachibana’s thoughts and pitied him his inevitable cat-filled future. Desperately, Tachibana tried to steer the subject back to Ono.
“So it never fails, huh?” he said. Ono looked blankly at him and Tachibana made a vague hand-motion, which upon reflection he realized probably looked pretty questionable. “The thing,” he added. Ono looked thoughtful as he fussed with the pastries and didn’t meet Tachibana’s eyes.
“Well, only with you,” he said, sealing the two halved of each pastry together and dabbing them carefully with egg wash. Tachibana paused and stared at his coffee, momentarily startled. He forgot, sometimes, that Ono used to have some kind of feelings for him. He didn’t even know how to classify those feelings. The word love made him profoundly uncomfortable. It was how Ono had described his own feelings, but they’d been so young then. It had probably just been a crush. He tried not to think too hard about it. Aside from that horrifically embarrassing incident when Ono was being headhunted by the French asshole, Tachibana had generally managed to avoid acknowledging Ono’s past attraction to him. He had no idea how to respond whenever Ono brought it up.
Shifting uncomfortably against the counter, Tachibana took a sip of his coffee to prevent himself from having to say anything else. Ono seemed mostly unbothered as he continued to fill the pastries, and his nonchalance calmed Tachibana a little. They stood in a silence for a few minutes. Tachibana finished his coffee and contemplated letting Ono lock up so he could go home. If he was lucky, Chikage would already be asleep and he’d have a few moments to himself. He savored the thought of privacy. Caught up in his fantasies of a hot shower and quiet meal, he almost didn’t notice when Ono spoke up again.
“It’s strange,” he said as he slid the last trays of finished pastries into the refrigerator. Tachibana blinked, and almost asked what’s strange. He had a short attention span sometimes, and his thoughts of dinner and a warm bed had pushed everything else out of his mind. Fortunately Ono continued before he had a chance to embarrass himself by revealing that he’d lost the thread of the conversation in less than thirty seconds. Ono shut the refrigerator door and leaned against it thoughtfully. “You know, you are the only one who’s ever resisted me. I wonder what it is about you.”
Tachibana busied himself with rinsing out his cup in the sink, hoping he might be able to escape answering. In truth, he didn’t have the faintest idea. He hadn’t spent much time questioning it, really, and had been somewhat disconcerted when Ono had lightly brushed the whole thing off when they’d first met again. In some small petty part of his mind, he was almost offended when Ono didn’t recognize him. As much as it discomfited him to think about it, Ono had claimed to love him. Granted, it had been a long time ago, but Tachibana had recognized him right away. Rapidly growing more and more uncomfortable with his own line of thought, Tachibana began to regret bringing up the subject of Ono’s weirdness.
He tore off a piece of paper towel and wiped off his clean cup, carefully replacing it on the shelf. If he had any luck at all, Ono would drop the subject and he could lock up, go home, and hopefully not think too much why the whole thing bothered him so much. But he quickly realized he didn’t have any luck at all, because when he turned around he discovered Ono behind him. His hand rested on Tachibana’s waist, sliding around to play with the buckle of his belt. Tachibana turned around so quickly that he knocked against a stack of dishes which toppled over and crashed to the floor. He found that he didn’t have time to worry about the destruction of some fairly expensive china, though, because Ono nudged him back against the counter, put his hands on Tachibana’s chest, and kissed him before he had a chance to even think about slipping away.
Tachibana found himself remembering a long-ago college party where, after far too much cheap beer, he’d kissed a man for the first and last time. He’d spent years trying to forget it, but for the first time he tried to dredge up the memory, hoping it might provide him with some clues about exactly what he was supposed to do next. The memory didn’t help much, since he was fairly sure that Ono wasn’t going to throw up on his shoes immediately afterwards like his college friend had.
Tachibana realized rather stupidly that he hadn’t had anyone kiss him with so much tongue in a long time. He would have returned to worrying about a future life of male spinsterhood if Ono’s hands hadn’t been lingering so perilously close to his zipper. But they were, and his awareness of exactly where Ono’s hands and mouth were prevented him from thinking too hard about exactly how long it had been since he’d last touched anybody like this and what he was supposed to do now. But before he has a chance to decide what to do, Ono pulled back at Tachibana was left gasping stupidly like a fish out of water.
Ono looked at him rather intently as Tachibana struggled to figure out how he should react. Should he punch him? Pretend nothing had happened? His hands gripped at the counted weakly as Ono’s hands left his waist. Finally, Ono gave him a puzzled, rather amused smile. “Nothing, hm? That really is strange.” And then suddenly he was taking off his apron and fetching his coat, cheerfully bidding Tachibana good night, and walking out the door like nothing happened.
Tachibana listened to the bell over the door chime as Ono left and slumped against the counter. He couldn’t even muster up a response to Ono’s goodbye. Slowly, he remembered the broken dishes and reflexively bent down to pick up the pieces. He swept up the smaller shards with a stray towel and tossed them in the trash. Flicked off the lights, he fumbled through his pockets until he found the keys. He grabbed his jacket and threw it haphazardly over his shoulders. As he struggled with the lock, he paused briefly to wipe a hand over his mouth. He repeated Ono’s words in his mind like a mantra. Nothing. Nothing. Right.
He locked the door and went home alone.
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
Tachibana leaned against the counter and looked at Ono sourly to emphasize his proclamation. Had he been around, Kanda would have squawked at him for speaking to Ono that way. But Kanda had already gone home for the night, and Tachibana felt justified in his complaint. When he’d decided to open up a bakery, he’d expected there would be some unpleasant jobs that would have to be done. However, he had not considered that one of them might be forcibly ejecting some of his pastry chef’s more ardent suitors when they came to call on him at his workplace. Tachibana was thoroughly displeased at this intrusion. Ono looked almost amused.
“I’m sorry about that.” Ono picked up the bowl he’d set aside when their latest ‘customer’ had rushed in to declare his undying love and resumed stirring. “I did tell Daisuke I didn’t want to see him anymore.” He looked vaguely regretful and sighed almost theatrically. Tachibana rolled his eyes. He found himself entirely unable to scrape up any sympathy for Ono’s plight. At one point he’d thought that he would love to have women throwing themselves at him the way men did at Ono. But he’d seen the way the same men didn’t seem to be able to let go, and he’d changed his mind. Gratifying as it might have been to have women respond to him like that, the idea of them bursting into his workplace to fling themselves prostrate on the floor, begging for another chance until they had to be hauled outside by the manager was less than appealing. In fact, Ono’s latest paramour had neatly demonstrated the sort of behavior Tachibana found most unattractive in his potential partners.
“Can’t you do something about that?” Tachibana muttered. As he spoke, he checked to make sure the ‘Closed’ signed was facing the outside of the shop. He considered that he wouldn’t be surprised if another of Ono’s boyfriends tried to break into the shop despite the announcement that they were closed. At that thought, he double-checked the lock and the alarm system.
“About what?” Ono blinked at him over the almond extract he was adding bowl of cream. Tachibana glared at him and swept the remaining dirty plates into the sink, ignoring the clatter of expensive dishware and snatched up a rag.
“That,” he snapped. He gestured vaguely at the door as he scrubbed the countertops roughly with a damp cloth. “Do you have to do…whatever it is you do to them, that hard? Don’t you have some kind of lower setting?” He was loathe to show his interest, but he really was curious. He’d always found Ono’s assertion that he possessed special ‘powers’ hard to swallow and if he hadn’t seen it firsthand he never would have believed it. Having just dragged a sobbing man out onto the street, though, his disbelief was shattered again. Ono still looked bemused, and the fact that he almost seemed to have enjoyed the display grated Tachibana’s nerves.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Ono answered, sliding his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, leaving a tiny smear of whipped cream on his cheek. Tachibana threw the rag down and stared at him hard.
“You can’t tell me you don’t have any control over it at all,” he said. Ono set down the half-finished pastries and blinked.
“Well, some,” he admitted, still not looking as if he felt terribly guilty about the trouble he caused. “But I can’t turn it off and on, you know. It really only works when I find someone attractive. And I can’t help that,” he added. Tachibana sighed and slumped, pitching the dirty rag in the laundry bin.
“You really can’t do anything about it?” he said skeptically. He’d never regretted hiring Ono. He knew there was absolutely no way they could have gotten where they were without him. But the little speed-bumps that occasionally arose as a result of Ono so-called ‘demonic powers’ were something he could do without.
“Sorry,” Ono smiled, still infuriatingly cheerful. Bastard, Tachibana thought sourly. Naturally, he wouldn’t think it was a problem. The inconveniences of overly aggressive suitors aside, it had to be nice to have a built-in guarantee that if he found someone attractive, they’d feel the same way about him.
“People would kill for that, you know,” he said sullenly, “The ability to attract anyone you want.”
“Oh, Tachibana, don’t be jealous!” Ono laughed as he spooned the whipped cream into the pastry shells. “I’m sure lots of people find you attractive too.” Tachibana glared at him and considered dumping the bowl of cream over his head. He was forced to admit that he had been going through something of a dry spell lately, but he refused to entertain the idea that his situation was pathetic enough to warrant sympathy from Ono of all people. He straightened resentfully.
“Damn right they do.” Ono smiled patiently at him. Tachibana was not appeased. It was the sort of smile most people reserved for hobos who approached them on street corners babbling about the end of the world. Tachibana stifled a sigh. More depressing than Ono’s pity was the realization that only his pride was bothered by it. If he was desperate enough, he could hit a bar or let his family set him up with one of their acquaintances. But he couldn’t really see the point. He already had a string of failed relationships to his name and he just couldn’t work up the effort to add another to the list.
He realized he was becoming maudlin. Worse, he was beginning to think that growing old with no one but Chikage to keep him company wasn’t such a bad prospect. Forgetting his irritation with Ono, Tachibana considered dumping the cream over his own head in sheer self-disgust, but settled for getting himself a cup of coffee and leaning sullenly against the counter to watch Ono finish the pastries. He visualized himself in thirty years, living in an apartment with two dozen cats and an assortment of cardigans, yelling at the neighborhood kids for straying onto his property. The idea was mortifying. His mood was not improved by the sympathetic looks Ono kept sending him, as if he could read Tachibana’s thoughts and pitied him his inevitable cat-filled future. Desperately, Tachibana tried to steer the subject back to Ono.
“So it never fails, huh?” he said. Ono looked blankly at him and Tachibana made a vague hand-motion, which upon reflection he realized probably looked pretty questionable. “The thing,” he added. Ono looked thoughtful as he fussed with the pastries and didn’t meet Tachibana’s eyes.
“Well, only with you,” he said, sealing the two halved of each pastry together and dabbing them carefully with egg wash. Tachibana paused and stared at his coffee, momentarily startled. He forgot, sometimes, that Ono used to have some kind of feelings for him. He didn’t even know how to classify those feelings. The word love made him profoundly uncomfortable. It was how Ono had described his own feelings, but they’d been so young then. It had probably just been a crush. He tried not to think too hard about it. Aside from that horrifically embarrassing incident when Ono was being headhunted by the French asshole, Tachibana had generally managed to avoid acknowledging Ono’s past attraction to him. He had no idea how to respond whenever Ono brought it up.
Shifting uncomfortably against the counter, Tachibana took a sip of his coffee to prevent himself from having to say anything else. Ono seemed mostly unbothered as he continued to fill the pastries, and his nonchalance calmed Tachibana a little. They stood in a silence for a few minutes. Tachibana finished his coffee and contemplated letting Ono lock up so he could go home. If he was lucky, Chikage would already be asleep and he’d have a few moments to himself. He savored the thought of privacy. Caught up in his fantasies of a hot shower and quiet meal, he almost didn’t notice when Ono spoke up again.
“It’s strange,” he said as he slid the last trays of finished pastries into the refrigerator. Tachibana blinked, and almost asked what’s strange. He had a short attention span sometimes, and his thoughts of dinner and a warm bed had pushed everything else out of his mind. Fortunately Ono continued before he had a chance to embarrass himself by revealing that he’d lost the thread of the conversation in less than thirty seconds. Ono shut the refrigerator door and leaned against it thoughtfully. “You know, you are the only one who’s ever resisted me. I wonder what it is about you.”
Tachibana busied himself with rinsing out his cup in the sink, hoping he might be able to escape answering. In truth, he didn’t have the faintest idea. He hadn’t spent much time questioning it, really, and had been somewhat disconcerted when Ono had lightly brushed the whole thing off when they’d first met again. In some small petty part of his mind, he was almost offended when Ono didn’t recognize him. As much as it discomfited him to think about it, Ono had claimed to love him. Granted, it had been a long time ago, but Tachibana had recognized him right away. Rapidly growing more and more uncomfortable with his own line of thought, Tachibana began to regret bringing up the subject of Ono’s weirdness.
He tore off a piece of paper towel and wiped off his clean cup, carefully replacing it on the shelf. If he had any luck at all, Ono would drop the subject and he could lock up, go home, and hopefully not think too much why the whole thing bothered him so much. But he quickly realized he didn’t have any luck at all, because when he turned around he discovered Ono behind him. His hand rested on Tachibana’s waist, sliding around to play with the buckle of his belt. Tachibana turned around so quickly that he knocked against a stack of dishes which toppled over and crashed to the floor. He found that he didn’t have time to worry about the destruction of some fairly expensive china, though, because Ono nudged him back against the counter, put his hands on Tachibana’s chest, and kissed him before he had a chance to even think about slipping away.
Tachibana found himself remembering a long-ago college party where, after far too much cheap beer, he’d kissed a man for the first and last time. He’d spent years trying to forget it, but for the first time he tried to dredge up the memory, hoping it might provide him with some clues about exactly what he was supposed to do next. The memory didn’t help much, since he was fairly sure that Ono wasn’t going to throw up on his shoes immediately afterwards like his college friend had.
Tachibana realized rather stupidly that he hadn’t had anyone kiss him with so much tongue in a long time. He would have returned to worrying about a future life of male spinsterhood if Ono’s hands hadn’t been lingering so perilously close to his zipper. But they were, and his awareness of exactly where Ono’s hands and mouth were prevented him from thinking too hard about exactly how long it had been since he’d last touched anybody like this and what he was supposed to do now. But before he has a chance to decide what to do, Ono pulled back at Tachibana was left gasping stupidly like a fish out of water.
Ono looked at him rather intently as Tachibana struggled to figure out how he should react. Should he punch him? Pretend nothing had happened? His hands gripped at the counted weakly as Ono’s hands left his waist. Finally, Ono gave him a puzzled, rather amused smile. “Nothing, hm? That really is strange.” And then suddenly he was taking off his apron and fetching his coat, cheerfully bidding Tachibana good night, and walking out the door like nothing happened.
Tachibana listened to the bell over the door chime as Ono left and slumped against the counter. He couldn’t even muster up a response to Ono’s goodbye. Slowly, he remembered the broken dishes and reflexively bent down to pick up the pieces. He swept up the smaller shards with a stray towel and tossed them in the trash. Flicked off the lights, he fumbled through his pockets until he found the keys. He grabbed his jacket and threw it haphazardly over his shoulders. As he struggled with the lock, he paused briefly to wipe a hand over his mouth. He repeated Ono’s words in his mind like a mantra. Nothing. Nothing. Right.
He locked the door and went home alone.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 04:23 am (UTC)Hee! Nothing, right. Of course. Oh, poor Tachibana. <3 I really enjoyed that. They are so perfect together somehow, even when they're not together.
also, you have an italics tag open.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 05:29 am (UTC)oops. so i do. thanks for catching that. how come whenever i doublecheck my html it's always fine, and whenever i don't it turned out i messed something up? murphy's law in action, folks. XD
no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 04:40 am (UTC)It was the sort of smile most people reserved for hobos who approached them on street corners babbling about the end of the world.
I love how utterly patronizing Ono can be while somehow still managing to come off as sweet rather than irritating. This was delightful.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 08:52 pm (UTC)Hee, I always thought Ono was adorable. In spite of all his flaws, he's just way too cute. I love him almost as much as I love Chikage, who will always be my very favorite simply because no one can ever be quite as adorable as he is.
Speaking of adorable, your icon is way too cute! What's it from?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-21 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-10 11:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-24 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 04:26 am (UTC)Hee, I only just recently read read (and blogged) Antique Bakery. Poor Tachibana - he's a better guy than he thinks, but he's lousy at presenting himself. This was very true to him. (BTW, yaoi_daily recently had postings of the author's own doujinshi!)