Chapter 2
New Place, New Mind
Eiichi opened his eyes the next morning to the maniacal tones of Jake Adler’s gritty, skeleton voice snarling at him while the chaos of a band on a collision course with the new world order erupted from his phone – ‘My eyes open to a deep, dark blackness—Nothing makes sense and I cannot breathe—Couldn’t feel a damn thing around me—Where the hell am I!?—Where the fuck did I go!?’
The song cut into a fast-paced one-note interlude that sounded like the rapid fire of machine guns.
His hand floated over to his nightstand and hit the cancel button for his alarm.
He didn't sit up in bed for several minutes. He just stared at the ceiling, taking comfort in his solitude, satisfied that he had time to think while the air around him was clear, as his mind drifted and reviewed exactly what had happened the night before.
While there was so much going on, and so much noise, he had not been thinking about what he was doing at the time, and he couldn’t figure out why. He supposed it was maybe because of the rush of everything. A situation presented them with a challenge, and they responded. He realized now that everything that had happened had caused his day-to-day to go way outside its intended course. Things had not gone in the direction he wanted them to. And what was even more fascinating was how everything seemed to go back to normal afterward. He had figured, if anything did happen, he would likely not be lying in his bed right now, but somewhere much less comforting. He had Noda to thank for that.
After they had left, he’d walked Noda home, noticing how she didn't feel safe going by herself. From her shaken nerves, but somewhat calm front, he knew she thought it only made sense, since they had both been through such a threatening situation. They were both pretty burned out.
After getting home, he ate the dinner Torio had plastic wrapped and left on the table for him, with a note: 'Hope you had fun! ^_^'
He had told Torio earlier that night that he was meeting with a friend, which was pretty much true. Torio asked if it was a girl in that annoying way that made him wonder who the real emotion reader was, and Eiichi, who was already in a rush to get out, did not answer. As he was on his way out, Torio wished him luck and said he should bring her by sometime.
He didn't think it was all that important that he tell Torio exactly what was happening. Torio would have most likely warned against it, asked him a bunch of questions to cleverly waste his time and then allowed him to go anyways. What he wasn't sure about was whether he should tell Torio any time soon about what really did happen.
In the silence and solitude of his house at one-thirty in the morning, his mind felt different. It was somehow...tingly. When he laid down, he must have fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
At present, Eiichi yawned, his arms and legs stiffening in a stretch. He sat up and yawned some more, and then his half open eyes loomed over his room.
His desk, with textbooks, clutters of school assignments, old and new, and stacks of nearly-finished classic titles he had rented from the city library – For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sound and the Fury, Heart of Darkness, 1984, Atlas Shrugged...
His walls, mostly blank, save for a Dethkon poster adorning the off-white panel close to his desk, Slaves of Dependence, and a God Have Mercy poster on the wall opposite his bed, Primal. His boxing gloves hung on a hook close to the door, over his shoes, which he used for both casual wear and training. He had been saving up for a real pair of boxing shoes, though his income was minimal to nil, so that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. His nightstand had his pack of Sparrows on it, along with two fresh, unopened packs and a few spare lighters.
This was definitely his room, but what happened last night had not been a dream. It wavered there in the back of his head, like the memory of something he meant to do, but couldn’t recall what it was. He knew for certain, if he saw Torio before he left for work, he would be asked all sorts of questions. Whether he would answer them honestly or not, he was still unsure of.
‘I stopped a robbery last night.’
‘You’re messing with me, aren’t you?’
‘I’m being serious. I went on a stakeout, just to get pictures, they laid a trap for us, and the cops showed up just before it got ugly.’
‘No you didn’t...Oh, I see! You seduced that poor girl and ‘staked’ claim to her heart before you ‘robbed’ her of her innocence, in which case, her parents showed up just before things could get more interesting. I’m sure photos were somehow involved.’
This was basically how it went in his head. Torio would find a way to make it sound erotic. That was when it made sense to him why he shouldn’t tell Torio…It had taken him a minute, he was still waking up.
Eiichi thought he should probably just go along with Torio’s assumption that he had gone out on a date, but even if he did that, it would still conjure suspicion from his crafty, outrageously intuitive older brother.
Just then, Eiichi heard scratching and whimpering at his door. He got out of bed and shuffled over.
“Hey Connor, sorry I locked you out, buddy.”
Connor’s paws clacked into the room and he greeted Eiichi with a good morning yip. Eiichi gave his ears a good scratching before letting the husky wander back into the hall, him following behind.
The black tea he’d had before he left and the cigarette he’d had during his walk to school had done little to wear off the pleasant grogginess he was feeling. Really, he just enjoyed those things, and wasn’t in any rush to wake up to the reality that faced him.
Eiichi P.I., Vol. 1 Page 10