Title:: Ken Ichijouji: Closet Headbanger
Main Characters:: Ken and Matt.
Location:: Ken's room.
Brief:: Matt comes to pick T.K. up from Ken's house... and finds Ken's hidden collection of old school rock 'n' roll. Whilst Teeks is chucking his guts up in the bathroom, the pair discover a beautiful new friendship...
Phrase(s):: "Well, this one time I walked into T.K.'s room and found him in bed... with an onion."
"Whole or halfed?"
"Whole."
"That's... That's simply barbaric..."
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Note to self, Ken thought, face-palming his way to a concussion.
Make sure others foreign to this household can differentiate between beef jerky and the dog treats Wormmon loves so much.T.K. was currently suffocating the Ichijouji toilet with an audible vomit, making Ken almost want to join the activity. He usually wasn't squeamish (he once watched a gore marathon on Halloween while indulging in American-false Japanese food, not once looking away from the screen), but the noises that were coming out of the bathroom were worse than any Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Saw movie out there.
He had called Matt as soon as T.K. jetted to the bathroom like a man with his pants on fire, informing the older sibling that his little brother was a dunce for not reading the label (although, not quite worded that way; kindness was his crest, after all). Matt said that he'd be right over to pick up his puking kinfolk. So Ken was waiting outside the bathroom for the man who would save his toilet, listening to a soundtrack whose genre was “sick and disgusting.”
Knock, knock!
Speak of the devil, Ken thought, hearing his mother open the door and greet Matt in her ever-so-overly-kind way. “Oh, good to see you, Matt. I baked cookies! Come in and have some!”
“Thanks, Mrs. Ichijouji.”
Ken waited some more, at least five minutes. It may not have seemed like a lengthy amount of time, but when bodily fluids were being regurgitated in the next room, time seemed to slow down. Ken leaned his back against the wall next to the door, relieved when T.K.'s heaving ceased. He was about to open the door to see if the boy was even still alive from the loss of his insides when the hacking started once again. Ken sighed. T.K. sure knew how to put on a show.
“Where is he?” Matt's dark-clothed form appeared in the hallway, munching on a gooey, warm chocolate chip cookie that made his question sound like "Wah ih he?"
Ken immediately reverted to being shy and reserved, feeling undeniably uncomfortable around one of the original Digidestined. He couldn't help it, they intimidated him and he assumed it was pretty obvious with the way he practically became a mute around them. Matt was somewhat an exception, they got to know each other a bit better in Mexico, although Ken still felt weary and a bit of a nervous tick whenever he came into contact with him.
“In there.” Ken pointed to the bathroom, which he would put under quarantine after the two brothers left. A hybrid of a cough, hack, and sneeze reached their ears and Matt's expression showed his distaste, swallowing his cookie with a bit of difficulty.
“What did he freakin' eat? Dog treats?” Matt scoffed, staring at the door as another wheeze erupted from the other side of the wall.
“Actually, he did.” Ken couldn't help but smirk at the coincidence of it all.
“You guys don't even own a dog.”
“Wormmon. He likes them for some reason that's beyond me.”
“It's all good. Gabumon likes cardboard.”
Ack, pleh, spew. Plop!
“Oh, that's sick.” Matt frowned, stepping away from the door as if it contained the last strand of the black plague. It reminded him of when his entire family had caught the stomach flu a few years back. Coincidentally, T.K. turned out to be the biggest barfer. Yes, his little brother had probably the weakest stomach in all of Japan; chances were he'd out-puke Americans as well.
“Uh,” Ken started, feeling awkward with his offer. “This may take a while. How about we go in my room so we don't have to hear this?”
Matt, shrugged, secretly grateful that they would escape the awful noise. It was the equivalent of nails down a chalkboard to them. Upon opening up the door to Ken's room and taking a look inside, the cleanliness of it flabbergasted him. Things were organized, books were put away, clothes weren't strewn about the floor like a typhoon just swept through... It almost sparkled, for heaven's sake!
The closet was open...
And in of it's twelve-stringed glory, the most marvelous electric guitar Matt had ever laid eyes upon stared back at him from the stand it was perched on. Its royal blue finish sparkled much like Ken's room, the off-centered vertical black stripe was a nice touch as well. Even though he played bass, this certainly was like finding buried treasure.
“You play?” Matt asked, wide-eyed.
“Just 'Smoke On the Water',” Ken joked.
“Who am I kidding? Of course you play. Geniuses are musically inclined. Just look at me!” Matt smirked, stalking closer to the guitar. He picked it up, delicately strumming as if not to hurt the fragile little baby. “It's even in tune.” he gawked. “You got an amp?”
Ken pointed to the closet again, where, in fact, an amp sat, waiting to be plugged in and begin its explosion of sound. But something else caught Matt's eye, something black, something with slots.
A CD holder, tons of them stacked upon each other with their side-covers facing out. They seemed to be organized by name, which was such a Ken-thing, Matt noted. He was impressed though, very impressed indeed. Practically every band that had ever influenced him was present, making his ears crave a listen.
“Damn, Ken...” Matt whistled, fingering through the CDs with a newfound musical respect for the younger boy, who was just standing awkwardly to the side. “You got David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Def Leppard before they went gay, Iron Maiden, Tool, Deftones, Pantera, Megadeth, Led Zeppelin, and even The Misfits when they were good...” He trailed off, wracking his brain for anything that would actually link Ken to this type of music. “You're officially amazing.”
“Um...” Ken mumbled. “Thank you?”
“No, really, I always thought you were a weird techno kid.”
“I like techno, too-”
“Shush, I don't wanna hear that.” Matt grabbed the guitar. “What I wanna hear is you playing. My guitarist has really been pissing me off lately...”
“Matt...” came a weak, straining voice from the doorway. Startled, Ken and Matt looked over to see a rather green-looking T.K., who was putting up a great effort to keep himself steady by clasping the frame of the door like a lifeline. “Can w-we go home? I think I'm gonna be sick again...”
“You can go on ahead.” Matt shook him off casually, as if his brother wasn't just in the bathroom spewing all of his guts into a toilet. “I'll meet up with you later. I'm gonna chill here with Ken.”
T.K. gave a pitiful look that resembled a basset hound, coughed, then turned around and zombie-walked to the door, practically tripping over himself in sickly and dehydrated disorientation. Ken was taken aback by Matt's actions. He made his ill brother walk all the way back to Odaiba by himself, just to hang out and play the guitar with the former dictator of the Digital World? Knowing better, he wouldn't question the older boy's motives.
“Do odd things like this happen often?” Ken asked, since puking for an hour would definitely be considered odd in his book.
“You have no idea.” Matt replied, strumming on the guitar as if it were a bass to a tune Ken faintly recognized.
“Enlighten me.” Ken rested his head on his hand, bangs falling in front of his face. In annoyance, he jerked his head to the side to reclaim his vision from his hair.
"Well, this one time I walked into T.K.'s room and found him in bed... with an onion."
"Whole or halfed?"
"Whole."
"That's... That's simply barbaric..."
This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Sat Oct 25, 2008 11:15 pm
