Chapter One – Let's Get Out Of Here

(A/N: Gulp... my first full-length Akira fic. Okay. Everyone in this chapter is © Katsuhiro Otomo, not me. Also, this fic is yaoi, slash, shonen-ai, boy/boy, whatever you want to call it. So if you don't like that sort of stuff, don't read. And please don't flame! Oh, and also, I've only seen one version of the Akira movie - the latest one - and I know that there's some dubbing differences been made, so if I've misquoted something, that's (probably) why. First and second chapters reposted due to formatting problems- no new material added.)

"Discipline! Discipline! Discipline!"

Kai winced as Mr Takaba charged along the row of boys in front of him. Why the hell had he stood at the end of the line anyway? You knew this was gonna happen so why prolong the agony? His heart rattled in his ribcage. Suddenly the sun-soaked floor seemed very far away.

Not that he was scared. Right? It'd happened before, lots of times before, a bleeding nose or a loose tooth was nothing to whine about.

But still, his knees were knocking slightly. The gym teacher was three guys away from him…two…one…

Kaneda swayed as the fist hit his face, gritted his teeth. Kai hoped he wouldn't fall on him, he was gonna have enough trouble in the next few seconds of his life –

Bam

"Discipline!"

He was knocked to the floor and lay, crouched, on the itchy beige carpet. Slowly, slowly, the pain spread over his face like lava, like melting metal, clung to his skin and started to burn. He could feel blood oozing from his nose, down over his upper lip. Warm, sticky. And dull resignation heavy in his mind. Just great.

Mr Takaba's shadow fell over him as the teacher called out, "You're dismissed!"

The others bowed, sending blood spots spattering onto the carpet, and droned, painfully, "Thank you very much, sir."

"Come on," Kaneda hissed. He pulled Kai to his feet, and they followed the others out into the warm, grubby corridor. It smelt of old soup and dirty feet, and their shadows slid over wave after wave of graffiti splashed over the walls.

Always the same, Kai thought, licking some of the blood off his mouth. We go in. We get smushed. We come out, and…

Three…two…one…

"You sick freak!" Kaneda hollered as they started to walk down the stairs. This was the signal, and the rest of the gang joined in, shouting between groans.

"One of these days you're gonna get it, Jaws!"

"Coward!"

"Mother!"

"You think you're such a big-shot!"

Kai didn't say anything. For one thing, he'd bitten his tongue when he got hit, and it hurt to talk. And for another, it didn't seem important any more. They always yelled. And sure it had been fun once, but what was the point now? Wouldn't change nothing.

None of the others seemed to realise that, though.
He sighed, and tasted some more blood. Now what? Oh, yeah…head out into the courtyard…

The sun was blazing, and he screwed up his eyes as it tried to slice through them. Then the shrieks and giggles began, and he wished he could close his ears too.

Yeah. Head out into the courtyard, and be besieged by a bunch of sex-crazed girls.

"Look, there they are!"

"Hi, Kaneda!"

"Yamagata! Over here!"

The girls swooped down on them. Kai wrinkled his nose. They stank of perfume and hairspray, plastic smells that made his eyes water. And under that, they smelt of sweat. Vain, stupid sluts, that was all they were, with rattling jewellery and chipped nail varnish. They drove him mad.

No. You're just jealous cos you don't have one.

I am not! He straightened his shoulders, walked tall, rubbed away the blood that was oozing down his chin. I don't need one of those stupid bimbos hanging on my arm, thanks. I can just listen to everyone else's.

The chatter rattled around him like smashing glass.

"So what did you do this time? Trying to smush the Clowns again?"

"No, babe, we didn't try. We succeeded. Kind of. Not our fault the cops turned up too early…"

"And I told her, I said, if you're going to talk that way about my boyfriend…"

"Who'd that be then?"

"You, you idiot!"

"Tetsuo, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, okay, Kaori? Stop whining at me all the time!"

"Mr Takaba is such a jerk. I mean, how could he ruin such a gorgeous face, huh, honey?"

"Hey, I'm used to it, sugar. Don't worry 'bout me."

Stupid voices. Stupid girls. He didn't care that none of them ever draped themselves over him. Hell, who'd want that? He didn't care. He didn't. If any of them came near him he moved away, hunched up his shoulders. His back became a shield against the world, and he walked alone.

But he did care when the others said he was too small for any girl to notice.

And he cared when girls patted him on the head instead of kissing him on the lips, and everyone snickered.

And he cared when the other guys went on and on and on about what they'd done with this girl last night, or that one last week, or this other one way back when in some bar they could never remember the name of…

All right. Maybe he cared a little.

But who'd want a girl oozing herself round them like that? Sometimes he wondered if he'd missed out on some puberty thing that said You will now want smelly bimbos covered in perfume to try and suck your tonsils out. This will become one of your sole reasons for being. Sometimes he couldn't make the other guys out at all. He felt like he was watching them in a foreign language and needed subtitles to understand what was really going on.

Above him, the chatter, like shrieks, was still going on.

"If you're not going out to smush people tonight, we could meet up…"

"Oh, really? Well, smushing people can wait…I guess…"

"Don't worry, I'll kiss your bruises better, sweetie!"

"Hey, any time. Y'know, I got really badly bruised today…like all over my –"

"I'd never let anyone put me off going out with you."

"We're going out?"

"Come on, Kaori. Let's get out of here."

Kai looked round and saw Tetsuo and Kaori splitting off from the crowd, slinking off to the dark, shady-cold playground corner. They did this nearly every time. Kaori was shy, and Tetsuo was sulky, and they both preferred to spend time with each other alone when their friends met up.

Let's get out of here.

That wasn't a bad idea, actually. After all, what was there to look forward to? Just hanging around in the battered playground with the sun burning the back of his neck; until next class, when he'd be falling asleep in a stuffy, sweat-stained classroom, probably with a fan going that didn't work properly, so you sat listening to the endless clicking until your brain turned into mush.

And more watching. More wishing for subtitles.

Kai shoved his way past two of the girls, and started to walk away.

"Hey, watch it, you little jerk!"

And then going out with the guys and girls that night…and listening to the guys talk about them over and over and over…and no biking because, oh, Hiroko didn't like going so fast, and dear me, Ima didn't want to get oil on her dress, and damn it, Suki hated riding behind Yamagata because she couldn't see his face…

No. Let's get out of here.

Slowly, the chatter faded away as he walked round the corner, through the playground to the parking lot, and then he sat down on his bike, and it had gone.

That had to be an improvement, right?

Probably.

But although it was quieter, it wasn't better. It was only the girls he objected to, he liked hanging with the guys. They were cool. And now the day seemed so long and hot and tiresome.

Wasn't there anything better to do around here?

He could ride out. Go drive somewhere on his own.

But even biking didn't thrill so much when you weren't with a gang. Besides, he didn't want the Clowns breaking his nose as well.

Shrugging, he let his head fall back, and stared up at the white-hot sky, and the surrounding skyscrapers biting into it, and let the faint sounds of everyday school life wash over him; shouting, footsteps, breaking glass…

Footsteps.

"Kai, what the hell are you doing?"

He sat up, blinked the sun spots out of his eyes, and squinted through them at Yamagata, who had just walked round the corner.

"I was…looking at the sun. What do you want?"

"Why'd you suddenly run off like that? Forgot to hand in homework?"

Kai snorted. "Just got sick of the bimbo talk cluttering up the air."

"Hey, you wouldn't be so down on girl talk if you got girl something else."

Kai felt his face tense into a glower. "Look, just cos they give good head doesn't mean they're actually interesting."

"It doesn't?"

Kai turned his back on Yamagata, and stared at the sunlight as it glinted on a broken bottle someone had left by the wall.

"Oh, come on, what's with you? You're acting like Tetsuo when someone calls him dumb kid."

"I am not!"

Yamagata sighed, and then said, in a patronising-trust-me tone, "I suppose it's hard for you younger ones."

"Look," Kai said through gritted teeth, "I am not a younger one. I am older than Tetsuo. Way older."

"A few months older."

"Oh, yeah? Well, if that's what you think, why'd you bother to come see where I was? Why didn't you just stay with your wonderful, sensitive, oh-so-adorable girlfriend?"

"I just –"

"Yamagata honey! There you are!"

Kai heard the clacking of high heels on tarmac, and then the girl launched herself at Yamagata and twirled her arms round his neck.

"Um, yeah, hey Suki…look, Kai, don't go crazy on me…yeah, Suki, I'm coming –"

"I can see you're busy," Kai said, wondering if running Suki over with a bike would be defined as murder or pest control. "See you around, okay?"

He revved up his bike, and roared out of the school gates, and into the quiet of the Neo-Tokyo streets.

Riding took the edge off his temper, and as he charged through light and shade, the rage cooled at little as the rational part of his mind argued it down. There was no need to get so mad. Sure, the guys seemed obsessed with girls, but when it came down to it, nothing was gonna change, was it? They'd still go riding, they'd still have fun, no one was going to be married or nothing. No need to get mad.

And yet.

Over and over again, Suki came running over the baked tarmac, throwing herself onto Yamagata, and over and over again he yelled at her from the safety of his mind Get away from him! I was talking to him!

The scene itched at him. He wanted to rip it out of history, make it so it had just been them talking. Just the two of them. Then he wouldn't have stormed off, and he might actually have been hanging with someone, instead of skimming alone down a dustbin-lined street with a bunch of bikers at the other end of it –

Gaah?

He squinted as he moved closer. A lot of them there, and, uh-oh, it looked like they were wearing masks and stuff, and shit, there was Joker, sat right in the middle of the group, and stop stop stop…

He squinted as he moved closer. A lot of them there, and, uh-oh, it looked like they were wearing masks and stuff, and there was Joker, sat right in the middle of the group, and

A motorbike was not normally the kind of thing you thought of as being quiet, but he did make an effort. Unfortunately, taking too long to stop would mean he rolled right up to the Clowns, and so he was forced to come to a screeching halt rather than a slow, silent, unobtrusive glide.

"Huh?"

One of them looked up. Kai tried to send out I'm an innocent bystander who just happens to be on a bike vibes, and hoped they'd ignore him.

"Hey, isn't that…"

Oh crap oh crap – he leapt off his bike and started to turn it round, his feet slipping on the dusty ground. Then he leapt back on, and started to ride, but –

"Get him!"

And the roar of engines behind him.

Okay, move, move fast, he told himself as the derelict houses rushed past him. You could take down one Clown, maybe two, but you sure as hell won't survive eight or nine or however many this is –

He glanced over his shoulder. They were gaining.

Well, no problem yet, his bike wasn't great but it could outrun them, right? He clattered over kerbs, through a row of parked cars, down another alleyway. And he was lighter, and a better rider, than a lot of those dumb Clowns, he could handle this no sweat. No reason to be scared.

He wasn't scared when it was a gang battle.

It wasn't a gang battle now. If they caught up with him it would be a massacre. And he didn't like massacres.

"Get a load of this, punk!" one of them hollered.

That wasn't good –

Bang

He felt the heat of the explosion first, waves of it rolling over his back and neck, then a millisecond later the ground shook and he was falling, his bike skidding across the ground on its own, hitting the dustbins with a clatter.

He lay there, watching it, his head singing slightly like it was bored. Maybe he'd hit it on the wall…

Bikes screeched to a halt around him.

"Well, well, well."

Was there any villain, anywhere, who didn't start their confrontational speech with well, well, well?

He blinked, stared up at the Clowns, who were edged with burning sunlight.

"I know him," one of them said. "Little punk knocked me off the road last night."

"Good. That means we can return the favour, heh, heh."

Kai fought down the urge to say You just did.

"This'll teach their stupid two-bit gang a lesson."

"Show 'em they can't mess with the Clowns."

"Let's get him, boys."

Dull iron bars smacked against gloved palms.

Okay, think, Kai told himself, wriggling backwards until he felt himself leaning against the sun-drenched wall. There's got to be a way out of this one…there's got to…

Being Beaten To Death With Iron Bars was, like, his least favourite way to die. Right up there with Being Run Over Several Times By A Bunch Of Drug-Crazed Bikers. Both of them looked depressingly likely.

The first bar shot towards his head, and he threw himself out of the way, and heard a ching as it bit chips out of the wall. One of the Clowns kicked out at him, catching him in the chin, and he nearly cried out as he bit his tongue again.

They stepped closer.

He was gonna die. That lump of mouldy chewing gum stuck to the kerb would be the last thing he ever saw. The panic buzzed in his ears, a faint, terrified growl. It was getting louder.

Hang on…

A bike! He sat up, dodged back and a bar clipped the front of his forehead – but yes, it was getting louder, and someone – someone was calling his name –

"Kaaiiiiiii!"

And as the rider shot past them, he stood up, clutching a length of piping, and swung it at the Clowns, and they dodged and scattered, rushed to their bikes –

"Kai, get on, quick!"

It was Yamagata.

Kai leapt to his feet and charged towards the bike. The world was full of roaring as the Clowns did the same, but he was a faster runner. He leapt onto the back and then they took off, zigzagging round the corner, left, right, left again, deeper and deeper into the backstreets of Neo-Tokyo. The Clowns tried to give chase, but the alleyway was too narrow for all the bikes to be used at once, and by the time they'd worked out the idea of taking turns, Yamagata and Kai were back on the main road, vanishing into the distance.

Slowly, as they rode down the street, Kai took stock of his injuries. A bruise on his jaw. A sore tongue and a bleeding mouth. A cut on his forehead. And a slightly woozy pain in his head which was probably due to hitting it on the wall.

But he'd had a lot worse before. Yeah, this was good.

"Thanks," he called to Yamagata over the roar of the engine. "How'd you find me?"

"Followed you. Once I threw off Suki, I took a guess on which way you'd gone, and then suddenly you come back the other way being chased by a bunch of Clowns. So I found a pipe, and came after you."

"I – thanks."

"Geez, why'd the hell you go off on your own anyway? Those Clowns were bound to find you, they spend way too much time hanging about on the streets."

"Not like us, with our burning desires to study and learn a vocation?"

Yamagata laughed, and Kai felt the sound vibrate through the other guy's body. "Nope. Not like us at all. But seriously – you do something that dumb again and I'll pound your head in myself."

"I get it…" Kai blinked. He could see the road, stretching out ahead of them, and the specks of grit flying up from the bike wheels, and the sunlight striking blazing light off the windows around them…but it was all going sort of blurry.

"Yamagata…"

"Yeah?"

"Uh…I don't feel so good…"

Way back in his memory, someone was telling him it wasn't a good idea to get dizzy on the back of a bike.

Yamagata glanced behind them to see if the Clowns were anywhere near, appeared to decide that they weren't, and screeched to a halt. "You don't look so good. You hit your head or anything?"

"Maybe…on the wall…"

"Crap. Okay, you better come back to my place. Yours is too far away, and if we go back to school Jaws'll knock you down by breathing on you."

"Heh…we all know his breath stinks, but I ain't that – that –"

The rest of the sentence seemed to evaporate somewhere in the darkness seeping over his eyes.

"Hang on," Yamagata said, and started the bike up again. Kai gripped him round the waist as they gathered speed, wishing he didn't feel so cold. The bike's motion wasn't helping his dizziness either; it just made his head swirl worse. He rested it against Yamagata's back, and tried to focus on that instead of the roaring and juddering below him. Skin under cloth. Muscles. Breathing.

Dimly, he remembered something.

"What – what about my bike?"

"We'll go back for it later, 'kay? It'll probably be…well, sort of still there."

"They're gonna bash it up…"

"You never know. Maybe they forgot to notice it when they started chasing us, and they won't remember where it is."

"Do…do you remember where it is?"

"Uh – sure I do."

Kai snorted. "Do not."

"Do too."

"Do…not!"

"Do too!"

He wanted to say do not again, but they hit a kerbstone and the resulting jump nearly made him black out, and all he could do was close his eyes.

"What…what if I can never ride a bike again?" he said a little later.

"That ain't gonna happen, don't worry. Hey, we're here now. You can stand, right?"

"Sure I can."

They skidded to a halt, and he swung himself off the bike and stood up. The world didn't quite catch up with him; everything wobbled when he looked at it, and the sun hurt his head.

He stumbled –

Then Yamagata caught his arm, and was helping him along into a shady hallway, cool on his eyes and skin.

"Oh, so you can stand, can you?"

"Ha, ha…very funny…"

"Well, can you manage stairs?"

"Course I can."

Shit, he felt so dizzy. The world seemed to be melting – shifting, strange, nothing stable, he could hardly even feel the floor. The only constant was Yamagata's hand holding him up.

And then they stumbled into a bedroom – a small part of his brain noticed the smell of old socks, half-drawn broken blind, lumpy bits of bikes…and then he was falling, being helped onto a bed, such a lovely soft bed, and then the darkness spilled all over his sight, and there was nothing for some time.

When he woke up, the sun had moved. It seeped through the blind, turning the room orange and humid.

He felt better, anyway. Things weren't melting any more.

"Kai? You okay?"

"I'm fine." He sat up a little. Yamagata was sitting in the far corner, wrenching at something oily with a screwdriver. "What're you doing?"

"Wanna see if I can customise this. Then I'd have twice the horsepower. I found it on a junk heap someplace."

Kai remembered his own bike, and sighed. Thinking about the Clowns wrecking it made him feel squirmy inside. They'd probably laugh as they did it. Burn it a bit, scratch the paint off before they actually bashed it to pieces. And it was all his fault.

Most of him wanted to go after them and get his property back, but a small part of his brain advised against standing. It could bring on unexpected side-effects.

"Worrying about your bike?"

"I'm just pissed, that's all."

"Hey, I told you, I bet they won't even have found it. They've got better things to do."

"I liked that bike," Kai said, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. "It was my bike."

"Well, if you hadn't gone off –"

"If you say anything about being older and smarter –"

"Hey, don't get mad. It ain't good for your head, remember?"

"How would you know about what's good for my head?"

"Hey, you could have…concussion. Or…you know…dehydration. Or something."

Kai grinned. "Dehydration's what you get when you don't drink, you moron."

"Is not."

"Is too."

Yamagata stood up, rubbed his oily hands on his T-shirt, and strode over to the bed. "Well, whatever you've got, you got to rest. And not worry about anything. So quit getting edgy. Tell you what, when you're asleep, I'll go out and look for it myself."

"Why when I'm asleep?"

"Cos if you're awake, you'd wanna come with me, and the next thing I know you'd get your head beaten in with an iron bar. Again."

"Hey, I didn't –"

Yamagata flicked his fingers against the cut on Kai's forehead. "You did."

"Did not."

"Don't start that again, okay? Just get some more sleep."

Kai sighed, and lay back again, staring up at the ceiling. To tell the truth, he did still feel pretty tired. And it was kind of nice just lying here, in the dark warmth, not doing anything, not worrying about much. He felt floaty, light-headed. Yamagata had left oil on his forehead, but he didn't mind. It felt warm, made his skin tingle.

"Do you like her?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"That Suki girl."

"Kai, what is it with you and girls? You're one of those – those – misdirectives or whatever it is, people who hate women."

"No, I'm not. I'm just asking."

Normally he wouldn't have asked. But the sleepiness and the shade made it okay. He could always put it down to delirious ravings later.

"Course I like her. Why else would I put up with her?"

"No, but, but, if she was…fat, and ugly, and she didn't put out for you, then would you like her?"

There was a pause, then Yamagata said from above him, "You're bein' weird."

"Am not."

Yamagata snorted. "You're not jealous of her, are you?"

"I'm n –"

He stopped, puzzled, because maybe that was it…maybe he wasn't jealous of the other guys for having girls. Maybe he was jealous of the girls because they got to spend time with his friends.

Yamagata didn't seem to have noticed the hesitation, anyway. "Cos you don't need to be. She can't knock Clowns off the road, can she?"

Kai laughed, and raised himself up onto his elbows. "What, there's something the amazing Suki can't do?"

"Oh, get over it. She's just a bit of fun, is all. Here, pass me that spanner, I got to get working on this."

"Where's a spanner?"

"On the bedside table."

Kai rolled over to stare at the bedside table, which was buried in mouldy cups, more old socks, and faded magazines. "Where?"

"You're blind…" Yamagata sprawled himself over the bed, and over Kai's legs, and rummaged about behind the cups. "It's here." He slid back again, clutching the spanner, and shook it in front of Kai's face. "Idiot."

Kai blinked. Yamagata was so close to him, and so – so warm. And he smelt of oil, and sweat, and bikes. Nice smells, sensible smells, he wouldn't mind going out with a girl if she smelt like that.

He didn't even remember making a conscious decision. It just seemed so natural – like scratching an itch – to lean forward and kiss him.

So he did.

Hey, this is good, his mind said. So this is why they all go on about kissing and stuff – only –

Only it's –

For a moment they sat, frozen in the shade.

Then suddenly Yamagata dragged himself away as if he'd been burnt.

"What – what the hell are you doing?" he hissed. He'd gone very pale, and his eyes stood out in his face like blots of oil.

"I – I'm sorry –"

"No wonder you're so jealous of Suki." Yamagata rubbed a hand over his mouth, leaving a smear of oil across his face. Kai could see he was trembling slightly.

"I said I was sorry," he muttered. "I dunno know what happened. Probably the bang on the head."

No, it wasn't, I wanted to do it and I'm glad I did because it felt so nice. So there. Only I won't say that, cos I don't want you bashing my skull in with a spanner.

Yamagata glowered at him. "Get some sleep, okay. I'm – I'm – I'm going out."

He marched over to the door, opened it, Kai felt the stuffy air ripple.

"I'm not like that," Yamagata said over his shoulder. "I'm not like that."

And then he slammed the door behind him, and Kai heard his footsteps echoing down the stairs.

He lay back on the bed and tried to think.

It sure would explain why he didn't understand the others' fascination with girls.

But…

Why the hell'd you have to do that with Yamagata? I mean, of all the people…he's your friend. Now he thinks you're…well, whatever he thinks, it isn't good. He looked so mad.

He didn't want Yamagata to be mad at him. They were friends, weren't they?

And you want another kiss.

Do not.

Do too.

We're friends. Okay? Friends.

Had been friends. Now what were they?

Yamagata sure didn't look like he wanted to be friends any more.

And that was the only option for them.

Right?

A lone sunbeam crept in through the window and tiptoed over his feet.