Ken awoke the next morning; the sun had not even fully banished his nightly shyness before the face of the moon. Indeed, had the clouds not obscured them, both should have been seen hanging in the heavens that morning. Only a mingled, dim turquoise light escaped and made it's way to Ken's supine form and his redolent slumber.
He awakened after the first dreamless night that had graced him in years, to find that due to the hour and the firmament's garb, his room existed in not so different a state of sweet dawn limbo. Though quite awake at once, he remained in his bed for a few extra moments trying to memorize the exact curves and folds of his sheets before he rose. Peace had come to him at last, through the whispering feeling of unshed tears. This was all his sadness swept away, leaving but a film of pearly anticipation. And a certain sort of happy dread.
Today he would leave this sorry Ken behind, and find the one hidden in the coffin of his heart that had been buried so many years ago. This one seemed to be returning already, even as he bathed that morning, and he could not claim to feel very much like Ken at all. Like anything more than a few feathery words floating on a page.
But the weights from his heart would finally be lifted! And today! When the day before he had seen naught but the oceans tears from his island where he stood stranded as Siberian.
There would be plenty of times for lazy baths tonight, and so he merely showered, but still washed his hair three times and borrowed a dollop of Youji's conditioner. Which didn't exactly help. He smiled softly at his reflection as he dressed- it seemed small and bluish and fading in the foggy glass.
It took him awhile to find among his few possessions the rather new pair of blue sneakers he'd bought a week or two ago and, owing to missions diverting his roughhousing time, not yet completely destroyed. He skipped the socks, the gloves, the goggles, and otherwise put on his most presentable jeans, an aqua tunic that was somewhat too long for him... and a thong he had stuffed in the back of his drawer for a special occasion. If this wasn't one, he knew not what was. He also considered buying a new jacket for a moment, but found himself rather attached to the old.
Then came the hard part. He looked over his quarters, his few unremarkable possessions. The trophies belonged to the other Ken. He'd never owned a knickknack in his life. No one ever took snapshots of assassins, so he had none to stuff in his pocket. He did however remember the picture of Kaze he kept hidden face down in his sock drawer.
The one that shortly flew out the window and landed with a crash in the dumpster. Ken left the window open with the shades sighing in the cool morning air.
Then he went to check on Ran, opening his door with not the slightest shudder of the hinges. He found him lying in haze of diffused luminescence -- naked and sleeping like an angel.
I'm glad. Weiss's resident redhead stirred in his rest then. Shh! Don't wake up! Just stay like that, please? For me, just once more... ah, there.
So he left him and as he did, his chest went tight, and his hands faltered.
What about Youji and Omi? I can't exactly say goodbye... not now! Not ever... oh now...
Ashamed, he crept to Youji's room and peered inside. Then he had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from crying out in girlish surprise.
Omi was in that bed too.
So he gave them one last parting gift, and unplugged their alarm.
Then he left the Koneko, and didn't realize he had until he stood on the empty street. Because there were things he would need to learn to forget. In time. And nothing hateful.
But things that would still fade. He kept Omi and Youji stitched to his vision the whole way down to the Sanrio store, where he bought a set of Pochacco stationary for his next task.
The notes.
To his two companions, left behind on Antiterra:
Aya and I are alright. Farewell, Ken.
(Anything else and he feared he would become quite melodramatic.)
To the little old woman, who owned the store, Momoe:
Sorry we didn't give notice, please fire us at once. -- Aya and Ken
Should he leave one for Manx? She'd just be offended.
To speak for his bike, who had been well-behaved:
Please find me a good home! -- Ken's Bike
To Hitsuki, the eldest of his students:
I'm sorry. This is very short notice, but a friend of mine needs help and I am going to take care of him. I'll be gone at least a month, if I come back at all. Please tell the others I love them. Enclosed is enough money for a few rounds of that punch gatorade they love so much (The exact amount was 20,000 yen). I'm leaving you in charge. Thank you. Good luck in the Olympic trials! -- Ken Nichan
To little Tetsuo, who he didn't mind favoring that he was going away:
Thank you for all the laughs over the years. Inside the box is the ball from my first J-league game you always wanted to see and I never seemed to remember to bring. It's yours now, but don't tell the others ^_~ -- Ken Nichan
By this time, mid morning had arrived, and the souls about him on the sidewalks have flourished into the usual daily thrum. Which would have been perfectly worth overlooking, if it hadn't been his last day there, and is their presence didn't seem to have chased away the clouds, who had left only their children in their wake. Warmth came, and the sense that this world was his for a few moments, so he stood still on the pavement, admiring his domain.
Until it left him.
Left them.
Emptied his checking account, which took longer than he'd expected. He was shocked by the amount he'd saved up by living lightly between terrors. Now that they were gone, he decided to start doing away with what they had left him in possession of.
He bought his Ran a pair of ruby studs, with crystals that had been cut with starbursts on their tables. Sure of their perfection, he then collected a hardback edition of Ada or Ardor, and copies of two Final Fantasy Games: nine and the anthology edition of six.
At exactly 11:42, Hidaka Ken sat down on a bench in front of the library to wait for the beloved he had not even known about the day before, when he had chanced to cross this very spot, though then not so fresh, and still, and anxious as he found himself.
Omi woke up just about the time Ken assumed his waiting, and knew nothing of it, naturally. He did know however, he had awakened in the arms of his beautiful boyfriend, who was buried with him among a small army of pillows.
Which proved somewhat difficult to creep out of, as his playful nerves had all demanded he do, not to mention adding his shirt and shorts had better come off. He then sneaked down to the kitchen, and, while wearing nothing but his socks, melted a cup of butter in the microwave, which he set on the counter closest his own chair.
At 11:52, he flopped down on the table to wait for Youji.
For him, leaving Koneko no Sunu ie had been much easier than he'd first thought it would be. Not that he ever expected actually being able to leave it alive and walking.
He, too, had taken stock of his room, of his scant possessions, and found he wanted none of them. A few cds and a secondhand player, a scrapbook of snapshots from his former life. The books he had enjoyed, but taking them would be foolish. They would be an burden.
He didn't want anymore burdens.
Everything after awaking was done with an eye for speed. A quick shower and a hasty dress. Black jeans, T-shirt, and boots. His favorite oversized black sweater lashed around his skinny hips. A letter and a safe deposit key for Birman. The katana he'd unsheathed in the morning light, then replaced and set it back on its shelf.
The earring he'd left in his ear.
He'd glanced over at Ken's room as he'd left his own, and smiled slightly.
Past the stairs to their rooms with a last lingering look, and Weiss' swordsman was gone.
No further farewells had been deemed necessary.
It was now 11:34 AM.
The one called Abyssinian stood at a window in a lonely hospital room watching the wind toy with the maples outside. Listening to the beep of a monitor, and the ghostly slide of her breath. Same as always.
Except...he was no longer Abyssinian. He had left him behind with the katana.
He'd said his name was Ran, not Aya. But who was Ran?
He didn't know. He couldn't quite remember.
The girl on the bed could have told him, but she was between the worlds playing with the sylphs. Neither here nor there.
He turned around to look at her. Same white sheets, same pale blue gown, almost the same arrangement of roses -- pink this time and not white. But somehow, if she could -- would -- open her eyes then and see it, he didn't think she would mind.
If she would just open her eyes...
He pushed away from the wall and walked over to the bed to look at her closely again. The last thing in the world he would cling to. The only person he had loved for so long. Still loved. He slipped his hand under hers and gently folded his fingers around it. His eyes never left her face. Ken had never told him they were actually leaving, but he sensed that they were.
"I'm going away for awhile, Aya. I hate to leave you, and I don't want you to think I'm deserting you. But...I have to leave."
Have to leave...
Someone's waiting for me for a change...
"I know someone who knows about you. I guess you might say she's a friend. I guess you might say she's not. But she likes you, I believe. She'll look after you."
He gave her hand a squeeze, then bent and kissed her on the forehead. Antiseptic instead of violets. He lovingly petted one of her thick, coiling braids.
"Goodbye Aya-chan."
I'm giving you back your name.
"I love you."
With that, the one they had named Abyssinian spun on his heel and left.
Slitting open his aching eyes, Youji emerged from a dream involving an angel-winged Omi and a bottle of warm fudge sauce to find himself alone.
Now, he usually did wake up alone, frankly, having had had more one night stands than actual relationships. And he usually didn't mind it. But this morning he did. It was...wrong, somehow, being alone.
Stretching sinously across the insanely soft sheets, Youji sat up, tossing his mussed hair out of his face. His hand crept across Omi's side of the bed, and found it warm. That made him smile a bit.
But the sight of Omi's shirt and shorts on the floor made him grin.
He bounded out of the bed, the room, without a care that he was still as naked as he had been at bedtime. Without a thought about Ken or Aya as he made his rounds.
No beautiful naked boy in the den. No desirable little blond in the shower. Which meant...
The grin on his face grew wider, and he laughed with glee...
...And was caught off guard anyway. Youji had expected to find his luscious Omi making breakfast. He didn't expect Omi to be his breakfast.
Nor did he expect to find him as he did, with the sun spilling across him and glinting off his hair and pale skin, dazzling his eyes. As if they weren't in a kitchen but in some secret glade and Omi wasn't a human boy but a sleeping godling.
Correction: An awake godling. Awake in all sorts of heavenly ways.
A hand went to his hair, smoothing it back as he bent to kiss him hungrily. A hand ghosting down his side to his hip.
"Just what I wanted to wake up to."
He swiped at Omi's breastbone with his tongue.
"Must have read my mind, Omi-ai."
Dipped said tongue tip into Omi's navel.
"It's little wonder that I love you."
Kissed the moist tip of him and straightened up with a feral grin. It was then that he noticed the cup of melted butter at his side.
"Why, is that for me?" He took the little cup in hand and dipped his pinky into it, raising it promptly to his mouth to lick it clean. Eyes locked with Omi's.
"Mmm. It's still warm, too. How...delicious."
He dipped two fingers into it, holding them over the cup to drip and smirking mischievously. "There all sorts of uses for melted butter, you know, Omi-ai. But I have a feeling you want me to use if for something specific."
The cup was gently replaced on a nearby chair, and Youji's slick fingers slid around Omi's penis, stroking slowly.
"So...What do you want me to do, Omi?"
Some warmth had finally begun to creep back into the summer morning. He could have thrown his jacket off, but he didn't. Was he cold himself? No, not at all. But what if he took it off and forgot it? He couldn't exactly go back for it.
That would be like walking in and out of a dream between nights.
And he didn't want to go back. Not ever.
This is just about the craziest thing I've ever done, isn't it? But I'm not crazy! I'm not! I'm more lucid than I've ever been. I'm only doing what it's in my nature to.
This isn't just to pay Ran back. This is to... is too... it's what should be, should have been and will be!
He checked his watch: 11:55.
He needs me...
And then the cold hand of doubt made one appearance upon his shoulder. What if Ran never showed up but chose rather to sink back into the throes of his hot, small life that was meant to go super-nova sooner or later?
Doubt melted in the warm sunshine as he tilted his face towards it.
He'll be here. He has Aya to say goodbye to. I'll be patient! I'll be a good little boy!
A smile crossed his lips with the wind and a song of a few sparrows that swirled down from the branches of the ginkos above him. Sakura would be better but eh, they're not blooming this time of year...
It's a great, shiny day.
We're free... we're really free.
Then the same voice that had questioned the rose yesterday afternoon. You're free, but what about him?
And Ken the Terran answered what he knew to be Ken the Antiterran. He will be.
But as if forsaking this in his own mind, he hoisted his knees to his breast for a moment, rubbed his face against the fabric of his jeans.
"Why'd I do that?"
"Because I feel like a little kid!"
Two passing college girls took the time to stop and snicker at him a moment. He didn't hear them. They were just specters on Antiterra, albeit pretty, elfin ones.
He just sighed and reveled in the moments without time, felt the little velvet box in his pocket.
I wonder what he'll think...
I wonder if this is all madness... all reality I...
Oh shut up you. Forget it. Let's go back to the place where time and space mean nothing to one another.
I wonder if that's my Ran over there?
Even the question made his heart take a tumble and his cheeks catch alight.
Omi arched his back against the stiff surface of the table. At first he left his moan in his throat. What if Aya or Ken heard? What if anyone heard? What if...
This was this their house and they were perfectly welcome to make all the noise they wanted.
So, actually, he ended up making a sensual little squeak like a baby doll that has been hugged a little too tightly. He lifted his bare toes and ran them over Youji's side. Youji who hovered over him with a halo of familiar cheery light from the fixture in the ceiling... but how wild and indecorous those spackled boards seemed now! How lewd the cupboards seemed to rest! How he would never ever be able to eat off this table again without laughing.
He wrapped his legs around his lover and hoisted himself up on his arms and the heels of his hands.
"Well," he began with a flick of his tongue over his grinning lips. "I was kinda hoping... me. But whatever you want, Youji-kun. I don't think you can hurt me. I'm not..." He paused, leaning forward for a long, frantic, wet kiss. "... as inexperienced as you might think. Well not with anyone."
And then it hit him. His eyes grew wide with a sudden fear- both of being mistaken for not being a virgin and of a certain red-head's wrath. He blushed and shrugged embarrassedly. "Oh Youji-kun! Please don't tell Aya what happened to those cucumbers! He'd never forgive me!"
Head down and eyes closed, Ran paused on the curb and savored the feel of the sun upon his bare nape. A warm as a lover's caress.
Or so he reckoned. Soon, he would know for sure, and the idea of it made him giddy. Made him blush.
Made him wish it was night and they were where Ken wanted to take him.
The light changed and the people around him started forward, and he opened his eyes. Let the flesh and blood cocoon swallow him and carry him along.
It was sweet, the air that day. But it wasn't as sweet as the sight which met him as he crossed the last street to the last block between him and his future.
Of all the smiles he'd ever been given after Aya's accident, Ken's affected him the most.
Snared by the full force of it, heart stuttering from the pure affection he saw within it, Ran was nearly overwhelmed. Just like a boy in the presence of his first real love.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and shyly locked eyes with his newfound beloved.
"Am I late?"
This boy dressed for a funeral, and flushed as with a glut of sunshine was Aya?
No, of course not. This was Ran.
He looks so small to me, without his burdens and his sword. He looks like I could fit him in palm of my hand and hug him with just my fingers.
But that surreal though was shaken away with a toss of his head. He found he could only speak slowly though, and with a wet whisper of excitement.
"No, of course not, Ran! In fact," he held up his watch and pointed to the dial. "it just turned twelve."
That said, he pulled off the watch and tossed it into the bushes. Ran stayed where he was, utterly still and with faintly glassy eyes. Ken guessed he looked the same himself. "We're going away now, but I guess you figured that out. It's only about a half hour walk, and then we can get a ride. But I... I kinda can't touch you until we take that walk. It's... really had to explain, and I can't."
He could only hope his own disappointment at this bothersome custom was only half as much as his sweetheart's. Could he call him sweetheart? That would have to wait too.
"But it's a safe and lovely place. And I got you these to make up for it." Saying this, he rooted around in his pocket until he came up with the grey velvet box, which he flicked open. "I know you're pretty partial to the one you have on, but just in case. You don't have to wear 'em."
Ran took the little velvet box from Ken in wonder. And in a little sorrow. They were so gorgeous, those starred rubies, glittering like vampire tears in the summer sunlight. And Ken was so gorgeous, all smiling and expectant. But...
...A hand flew up to his left ear to touch Aya's earring.
"I can't take this off. I can't...I won't forget my imouto."
He closed the tiny box with a hard snap.
"So I'll just have to get my ears pierced again."
The box disappeared into a front pocket, and his expression softened slightly in a smile. Ran wandered over to him, coming to stand very close to him but not touching him at all.
"They're beautiful, but they don't quite make up for not being able to touch you."
He jammed his hands into his back pockets.
"Cause if I could, Ken..." Ran's voice dropped to a whisper. "I'd kiss you now, right here on the street."
With that he took a step away from him, and glanced down the street, hard-eyed and somewhat sullen. All business again, so to speak.
"So...I guess you should lead the way."
Cucumbers?!
The shocked look on Youji's face dissolved in a fit of laughter. One which grew wilder at the thought of how Aya would take the news of Omi's little experiment.
"Don't worry, Omi. I...I won't tell...A-hahahaha!"
He hopped up on the table at that, positioning himself suggestively between Omi's lean legs. Smooth as cream to the touch. He idly stroked him there, hips shifting against Omi's as he leaned in for another searing kiss.
"A cucumber is one thing. This is another," he said, taking his sex in hand and rubbing it as he lustily eyed the youthful body in front of him.
"And as for what I want...Well, Omi-ai, I want what you want." He reached for the precious cup of still warm butter and dipped his fingers in it, swirled them through it. All the while smiling brightly.
"I want to fuck you."
He set it down on the chair seat again out of harm's way and bent over his new lover. One butter-smeared hand trailing down and around him to tease at the opening of his body.
"And I'm going to do slow and careful." He came closer, and lapped at Omi's lower lip, index finger inching forward between the creamy globes of his ass.
"Much...like...this."
His tongue slipped into his softly parted lips at the same time as his finger breached the entrance to his body.
Omi shook so violently at this first caress, he feared he had scared his lover off at first. It wasn't fear or pain that had drawn his shudder, but rather the sensation of a touch that was not his own tracing over him. He had been so used to having complete control over his play, his nerves could always anticipate the jolts of anything he used to play with himself.
Youji was right. This was different.
And he seized his wrist to keep him from pulling away, Omi being stronger than he looked. He then gave it a little yank forward, letting the two wet fingers slide further in than the first time.
So much for Youji looking sleepy most of the time...
"And I want fucked in the worst way, you don't even know. Everyone thinks I'm just a kid! That I don't even know what sex is or that I don't pay attention, but you know better."
Still holding on Youji's wrist, he gave himself another buttery shove.
"But I get horny too, Youji-kun! Itoshi. I guess you figured that out after last night though..."
Then he took his own free wrist and started pulling on his lover's neck, lowering the two of them in unison as he sank back to the surface of the table.
"I've learned something about you too... you like surprises? Oh, I hope I'm right! I LOOOOOOVE surprising people. In fact, why don't you surprise me and do me however you want? I've been waiting... seems like forever."
Ken chuckled warmly and took a deep breath, both of Ran's creamy non-smell and of his delightfully delinquent desire to take everything he could without breaking the (stupid) rule.
"Hey, I said it's OK. I understand, Ran. But you don't have to get your ear pierced again on MY account."
You'd hurt yourself for me? Punch holes in the milky skin for me? Aw geez Ran! You're tearing my heart out! You... make me want to cry so bad.
But then, in a brief interlude of silence, it came to him that this vague choking sadness may well have been him own, selfish wants to cuddle his sweetie as hard as he could. He made no response to the offer of a kiss, fearing his own lips would start to sear with their being alone.
"Sure thing. Like I said, it's not too far." He stood up and scampered across the pavement, almost skipping or looking to have lost his balance on the gravity of Antiterra. But be beckoned and he caught himself...
And the two of them stepped into the flock of pedestrians on their way out to lunch that summer morning. It was then they truly vanished. Not before, and not after.
The walk wound through the narrow by-streets of older Tokyo -- those still haunted by lovely old ladies with flowers in the windows, and rusty bikes and the occasional noodle house still run by the owner's children. But for every byway came the fields of glittering macadam and oceans of puddles muddied by pumps and loafers. Two faerie lands, coexisting. They seemed to cross miles and miles -- space such as years required to find the edges of. Their path was never straight, and the minutes never longer. The noise never ceasing.
They even passed a few rice fields filled with their own very confused crickets.
What an omen...
But the stalks peering up from the water and the tadpoles grew younger and younger. "We're almost there."
He added then, "I have to say I fibbed about the little girl. Not that you hadn't figured that out. I'm sorry. I didn't think then... I wasn't thinking at all. She's from where we're going..." another laugh. "In fact, she's from right there!"
Up ahead stood one of the grey sentinels of Japanese education. Just ordinarily hidden between two unrelated places, close but not too close.
The sign, in blue and gold letters read -- "The Humberuto Academy for Gifted Young Ladies."
The melding of the two worlds had been so seamless that Ran had scarcely felt the switch between them. As easy as crossing a threshold, it was, and he had been somewhat surprised by it all.
Same time, another place. A patchwork quilt of tableaus. Ran felt like he'd fallen through the Looking Glass.
He fervently hoped that the flowers wouldn't start talking.
Curious violet gaze shifted to his companion at the sound of his cheery voice, then moved to the stately granite structure of learning sprawled before them. A school. Fresh faced girls in starched pleats and blazers and ties.
Like Aya had been.
All roads led to her -- even those which seemingly separated them.
He looked over at Ken again. Imagined what he must look like under his clothes and choked a little. Flushed and ducked his head to hide it.
"It doesn't surprise me that you know children even here...Wherever 'here' is." He threw a look at the sign, hands clawing out of his back pockets (wished they'd been Ken's) to unlace the sweater and shake it out.
It went over his head, ruffling his hair madly. Ran pushed his bangs back from his eyes but otherwise left it alone. Hem down to his thighs and sleeves up to his elbows, and hands stuffed back in his pockets; less temptation that way.
"Is this where we go next? Where whatever needs to happen does happen and then...What?"
Ken smiled warmly... bit his lip... and finally burst out laughing. "Ran! Ran! We haven't gone anywhere just yet... well, besides our little walk. Believe it or not, this is still Tokyo. Just the part of Tokyo no one goes to anymore. Isn't it neat though? This school's so well hidden, you can't even find the uniform design listed on those fetish sites for middle-aged, perverted men!"
Indeed, if he hadn't run into that girl the other day, he would have been infinitely startled by the queer garb of these children -- for it was not of the usual duns and naveys and crimsons -- not even white. The uniforms here were gold and cobalt. Not to mention the profusion of ages, all in one campus. Rather than exhibiting a clean line between middle and highschool, a host of girls from six to... to nearly his own age fluttered about little park that stood before their classes. Some in sailor suits and some in blouses; some in frightfully skimpy gym wear, some even in the verbose garb of a marching band.
And there was no gate at the end of the driveway -- just a blue line painted on the pavement. He and Ran simply passed the break, as the students did not. Speaking of the students, once they had crossed, eyes of a thousand different colors darted away from their games and their song to look upon them. He didn't know a one of them, and only one of them knew him. No, he wasn't their responsibility. Just... Savil's.
He took a moment to ask a tall teacher in a long, violet coat where the office was, and she directed him to the top floor.
No sooner had he and Ran entered the building, than he let out a sigh -- the only noise in the spotless white halls. "We're here now. Don't be cold."
Saying that, he endeavored to make the sweater jealous and slid his arm around his companion's shoulders. "You could have said something. I would have walked faster."
So they started down the hall, and he took glances into the classrooms.
Not a one of the teacher's was male.
This had to be the place.
Free rein; he'd just been given free rein by his beautiful lover to ride that sweet little ass as hard or as slow as he liked! It was like the door to his libido had been unlocked. Lust more than love drove him now.
He slid his fingers into him again, simply to watch him writhe. Youji found it bewitching, the way he arched and squeaked. "Aa, Omi- ai. I love surprises. I love this surprise. Better than any gift I could have gotten, finding you lying here, naked."
Youji dipped his head down to kiss him, but shifted at the last moment to gently bite at the curve of his neck. "All for me to devour."
He jerked his wrist out of Omi's grip and sat up a little, leaning over to take the butter up again. Scooped it out and coated himself thoroughly from root to tip, dripping butter onto the table top, onto Omi's legs. Grasped those lean, strong legs and pushed them apart and up, hefting them around his waist, his tip nudging between the shadowy cleft. He had him pinned and helpless and he loved it!
A kiss, soft and slow and nibbling. "I'm sorry I ever called you a kid."
A brazen caress of rosy, peaked nipples. "I'm sorry I made too many assumptions about you."
His hands clutched at Omi's hips. "And I've waited for this..."
One hard shove forward and he slid into the blond, filling him completely. Slick and hot and tight -- oh, was Omi tight around him! Youji moaned with the sheer ecstasy of being inside him, not giving a damn who heard or came or what they might say or do if they did.
"Mari Kurisumasu!" Omi whispered.
And then he screamed as Youji pushed into him. There had come but a split second of pain, utterly obliterated by the rush of his body opening up, and giving into this most perfect of assaults.
"Youji-kun!" he gasped. "If I would have known how hot you were for me, I would have showed up at your bedroom door with a dildo and a bottle of whipped cream ages ago! I... I... Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh... do that again." His teeth ground, he felt a film of sweat starting not only on his own body, but on his lover's too. His calf slunk up around the form that hovered over his, pulled his hips higher... he had almost managed to curve himself into a ball at a very odd angle. His whole body jerked with each of those delicious thrusts, which was fine, except his head was starting to creep closer and closer to the edge of the table, which was only intended to seat four.
He didn't care. His nearly nailess fingertips snatched at Youji, clawed at Youji, did no good. There was only enough room in him for so much of his companion.
He felt as if he was jiggling away and melting into a puddle that would ooze down onto the floor and have to be mopped up by Aya.
A laugh bubbled out between his yelps. "So what are we going to say if they walk in, huh? How about we tell them to go have breakfast in another room, as politely as we can? Because we've already ate. You know just like that? Just like I'm not..."
Another scream, Youji had paused for a second, so Omi ground their hips together, felt Youji grating around inside him.
Wait... I forgot something...
But it was an easy thing to fix. "Fuck me Youji-kun! I love you! I love you! I... I... YOUJI!"
He head made it off the edge, his left arm collided with the chair that unfortunately had the butter on.
Crash!
It was nothing compared to what he felt. He couldn't stop laughing between his moans.
A crash and a transparent yellow puddle smeared a few inches of the white linoleum floor. Youji merely grinned and hooked his hands over the edge of the table, his arms resting atop Omi's shoulders. All the better to hold him up while he ravaged him, head dangling and that pale, graceful throat exposed for the touch of his lips.
Hands tightening, white knuckled, he continued his steady assault on Omi's body. Eyed that laugh-twitching throat. He laughed too, low and huskily.
"You tell them that, Omi-ai. Look Aya dead in the eye and tell him that. Cause I don't care what he says. What either of them say. Let 'em come in. Let 'em see how beautiful you are, and what they're missing." He bent his head and licked down the center of his throat, arching up the underside of his chin.
"Ah, but you're sweet. I must have been a very, very good boy this year, to have such a treat as you. Either that, or the old bastard must have made a mistake." He laughed again, thrusting just a little harder. Gasping and grunting softly with the effort. He moved one hand between Omi's neck and the hard table edge, padding him.
"Either way, I'm happy, happy, happy."
He shifted a little, so as to caress Omi's penis with the soft skin of his lower belly as he pounded into him, moaning.
"And I want...you to be happy too...Ahh!"
"I am Youji-kun! You don't know! You don't know!" The only thing that could have made him gladder was bragging to the faces of his comrades, especially bragging to their faces while he remained firmly beneath his beautiful boyfriend. "This is no mistake! Never! Never! Never! You think I wouldn't want them to come in? See me like this? I can't think of what would... what would..."
Omi's head lolled back into the cup of Youji's hands and he shook again with a soft cry. Not yet... not just yet. But soon, awfully soon. What of his lover?
He tensed and squirmed his inner muscles, felt himself drip a little against the table.
As for Youji -- his eyes actually swam shut for a moment, closing him in a split second image of surreal guilelessness.
"What would make me gladder! Oh! Youji-kun."
But the world began to dissolve around him. The table vanished, his own form vanished -- he was but a puff of delicated fog, a bit of pressure, something weaving in and out of Youji, enrapturing him, holding him... taking everything of his. Rising and sinking with the sea. He burned inside. He was helpless as a newborn and he was the universe of his lover as the air swam with their cries, the creaking of his skin on the varnish...
And then the sound all lovers rue. A door opening.
"Are you boys alright? I heard something break and I... AIEEEEEEEEEE!"
Thud.
Omi's upside down eyes caught everything, so he was first to cry out, on the peak of his orgasm, something not dreadfully indicative of an orgasm. "Oh my god! We've killed the little old lady who runs the flower shop!"
"But I...didn't want to walk faster. I might have missed something."
And I wanted to watch you. I've done that a lot in the past two years. More and more and more...
Ran, too, peeked into the windows of the classrooms as they passed. Peered around the corners; glanced at the stairwells.
And as they were walking down the hall towards 'the office', Ran realized two things:
He was in the Looking Glass land.
The flowers were the least of his worries.
Girls who simply stared blankly, silently, when they entered; as they passed by: A novelty, that. Not that he was so vain as to expect every female in the world to fall at his feet at the mere sight of him, but after being treated thus by Koneko's young patrons...
And the women! Women, women, women everywhere they had gone, he had looked. Youji would have been in paradise.
He already knew he was.
Ran wore no watch, but he surmised that thirty minutes had elapsed by the comfortable weight of his...Boyfriend's? arm across his shoulders. Hesitantly, more out of the fear that he was about to break that strange rule than out of not wanting contact, a hand popped out of its pocket and crept across his back like a spider to tickle his side with cupped fingers. He let them rest there above the slope of Ken's hip.
Prayed that he wouldn't disappear like Eurydice, never to be held again.
"Ken? Why are we at a girls' school?"
"And...Why do we need to go to 'the office'?"
And when can I have you all to my self?
Ken didn't answer at once -- it was not a question of phrasing or memory. Not a fear, or an attempt to hide anything any longer.
He just liked the feel of Ran's words linger in his ears, the shy tapping of his fingers against him, just how they were, without the clumsy intervention of his own voice. Ran's pretty, smooth, clean hands. They didn't even feel like they'd ever held a sword. Ever would and...
Oh, right, Ran's question.
"Well, the answer to both of those questions is we need to find a little girl named Savil, and she goes to this school. You'll seen soon enough why. It's better you see than I tell you." And added with a smile. "More fun too!"
They had ascended the last flight of stairs and quite at once found that on their left was a long stretch of glass partitioning, with a door labeled: Office. Ken held the door for Ran and they both stepped inside, finding that beyond laid not only what looked from the outside to be a perfectly mundane office with blue carpet and the hum of keyboards in the air...
But what WAS a perfectly mundane office with blue carpet and the hum of keyboards in the air!
Perhaps it was a bit large, and there seemed to be a extra lot of chairs for waiting visitors. Perhaps the only thing that made it unique, was the people waiting there.
Three men. Two in their late twenties who were whispering and giggling as they sat entirely too close to one another on a double bench, and an elder chap by himself, who smiled saccharinely at Ken and Ran.
Ken smiled back but in the end approached the woman at the desk- a plump, cute, darkly flossed dame with 1950's glasses and a bun.
"Hello," He began with an uncharacteristic politeness as he set his collection on the counter- Ada rested atop the two games, but revealing their slip covers. "I'm here to see Savil."
"Of course, just a moment please," The receptionist replied. "It's almost time for class to end, I'll have her called down in a bit. Please have a seat over there."
"Thanks." Ken waved to her and turned back to ran, to whom he made a little gesture with his head, surrendering the right to choose their seat to his sweetie.
Somewhere a bell rang, and another woman's voice called over the speakers: "Would Akiko Ashigawa, Anna Carter and Sapphire Marlow please report to the office. Akiko Ashigawa, Anna Carter and Sapphire Marlow."
(Note: Sapphire = Savil, you may find that interesting in a bit.)
Choosing a place to sit wasn't hard at all. Ran had taken notice of the place he wanted when they entered the office: A Victorian love seat curved in an S shape; the back of it low and scooped. Perfect for hands to traverse across. It was on the uninhabited side of the room, in front of an impressionistic painting of a Dutch tulip field. Dots of red and yellow and green and blue skies and windmills. Ran pictured himself there, clad in muddy wooden shoes and dodging curious honeybees.
He crossed over to it, and took the ice cream cup seat in front of it, leaving the other to Ken. Sweater sleeve covered hands in his lap. He wanted to look at it, but not at the trio or any of the office clerks. They made him a little nervous.
And he wanted a moment to think.
You've left it, you know, Ran. Left everything behind.
Yeah...
Left it all, and you don't know what you've gotten yourself into.
I've made all my decisions like that.
This might be a wrong one.
And Weiss wasn't?
You didn't make that decision. It was made for you. You had to think of Aya then, anyway.
Aa. And now...Now I have to think of Ken.
Think of Ken?
Yeah, I mean look at him. Ken's happy. Carefree. I've never seen him like that before -- not outside of the soccer field. He was always like that with those little boys. I've always wanted...
He could have come here on his own. You didn't have to come with him.
Oh, yes, I did.
When the hell are you going to think of yourself, Ran?
I...think I just did.
He looked over at Ken then, and found his hand had wandered up from his lap to the other's shoulder. Was saddled there as if it were perfectly natural for it to be there.
Ken happily took the seat Ran had suggested to him, and even more happily taken the unsure little hand that ghosted onto his shoulder -- one he patted and stroked. Most Japanese were so picky about touching in public, but Ran didn't seem that way, just a little reluctant, confused maybe. Ken certainly wasn't that way! Being Terran and all, so he leaned over and brushed his face against Ran's hair, whispering a little reassurance to him.
"Thank you so much for coming with me."
No chance to answer came, for they were both rather startled by the loud banging of the door as an adorable Asian lass who looked far too small to have made the racket, entered and was greeted with open arms by the lone fellow at the other end of the room. As they started out together, a demure athletic redhead, almost their own age, came to greet the couple at the other end, and they included her in their jolly covert conversation.
The woman at the desk leaned forward and surveyed the hall through the class. She said to Ken then, "Have you met yours?"
To which Ken replied truthfully, "Umm... not well."
"I should warn you, she's got this uncanny ability to finish people's sentences."
Ken pursed his lips in a quiet musing, but went back to working on petting his little kitty Ran.
Another minute or two had passed since the halls had cleared, when one last little girl appeared on the other side of the indoor window. One the proved to be the very same who had approached Ken the day before; one who looked as if the uniform had been colored just to fit her brilliant faerie-tale looks.
She seemed quite lost in thought at first, but somewhere in the middle of a complaint uttered to herself, she rather looked inside the office, and promptly did something quite unladylike: she jumped up and down, clapping gaily and waving even as she lunged for the door. That obstacle removed, she took a few prancing steps past it, before leaping into the air and coming down in one and a half cartwheels that flashed her pink panties to all assembled. She paused in the middle of the second, as if dropping into slow motion. Of course then, she flipped to her feet and performed a perfect feminine bow.
"I didn't think you'd come at all."
Before Ken could answer, the office lady spoke up: "Now Savil, what have we told you doing that without a gym mat and in front of the guests?"
"Well, you told me not to of course! But I..." Her shoulder shrugged and she examined her shoes for a moment. "Gomen Nasai, minna-san."
Ken still couldn't help smiling at her as he took her little hand in his and kissed it. "You're forgiven."
"Thank you, Ken-san." She reached over, and ran her hand through his hair, as if he was much younger than her. But she spoke to Ran, "We have to go speak in another room for a bit. Won't be long, I promise. It's still nice to meet you!"
The door opening, Momoe-san tumbling to the ground in shock and Omi's subsequent horrified little cry -- all registered in Youji's brain, and his emotions with it. Distress. Irritation. Concern. Any other time he would have reacted in the usual proper way.
However, Youji was on the verge of orgasming, and damned if he was going to deny his body release for some nosy old woman's sake.
Eyes screwed shut, he buried himself deep inside him once more and felt him grab at him... Hard. It was just enough of a wave to carry him over, and shuddering violently, he fell into a field of stars, all sparking white and hot. Felt only Omi inside and outside. Rocked his hips against him frantically until the warm stickiness ceased to flow.
Then he slumped on top of him with a soft moan. Damp and shaking and bruised and blissfully content.
A few deep breaths and at last he raised himself up on his elbows and looked sleepily towards the doorway. And everything came back to him in a rush.
"Oh, fuck."
If Youji had made any attempt to leave him, Omi found himself conceivably panicking, screaming, crying.
All the things he should have been doing anyway, for totally different reasons. But the fall and the climax appeared to his consciousness with such rapid succession, one seemed to crash into and bolster the other. One shock to another, one rush to another.
But there just the same, he threw himself fully into his last moments of joy, burying his mouth on his lover's, before sinking, down, down, finding himself in the haze below sex.
With his head hanging off the edge of the table, his cheeks flushed, his stomach soaked with his own juices. Something warm and sweet above and... his eyes shot open.
"Momoe-san! Oh no! Oh no!" And he slipped backwards out from under Youji, wincing horribly as they parted prematurely. Surely a good bought of love-making deserved a good bought of afterglow, relishing the pressure and the sinking, wild aroma of Youji. And this was good.
For everyone but Momoe. He called to her again, dropping on his knees and reaching one hand out to her silver hair. But where had that hand just been!? All over Youji and himself. Not to mention the rest of him! He was cumsoaked! He was dripping butter he... somehow managed to pluck up the courage to feel out her pulse with that not exactly saintly hand.
"She's alive! I think she's just fainted. Quick! Call the hospital!" Then rubbing his fingers down the traces of his orgasm. "And maybe you should get me a towel too... Pants... Oh dear..."
Ran had watched the whole little scene from the moment the mysterious Savil had made her gold medal entrance. Rather surprised he was at her effusiveness, at her way of expressing joy. Quirked a brow at her unladylike exhibition but said nothing. She was a little girl at that.
And Aya had been a show off at that age herself.
He'd smiled a little, both at the memory and at the sight of Ken comforting the abashed child. A smile that promptly disappeared upon hearing Savil's comment.
Going to talk...?!
"But..."
Why did that sound so...ominous?
Ran's eyes flickered from Savil to Ken. Just a moment of panic, and then he looked away with a stiff nod. Descended back into Aya to hide.
"Aa."
He turned around in his seat and looked up at the picture. Behind him he heard footsteps. A door opened and closed and he was alone with his tulip fields; could almost hear the wooden blades creak in the wind as it turned them.
"I'll be...here."
Ken had almost lingered a moment to pat Ran's head. But that would have been condescending, especially in front of what appeared to be a mere child. Not to mention the rudeness of keeping a Herald waiting.
Even if she happened to be the littlest one he had ever seen.
As he watched her close the door to the innocuous little room where they had shut themselves, he asked, "How long have you been doing this?"
She winked and flicked one of her pigtails behind her shoulder. "You're my very first assignment. I don't exactly work for this Villa. I've just been going to school here."
He knew where she was from. The name gave it away. He nodded. "I'm honored."
"And you'll be taking us up on the offer? Hmm?"
"Yes, I have to. I can't stay away now that you've decided to let me come back. But I..."
"Want to bring your friend? He gets in free too."
Ken raised his eyebrows in surprise. This WAS one hell of an apology offer. Five years and the both of them could stay on Terra all they liked! "Wow... alright! That's great, but will he be your charge or...?"
"Mine because he's yours." A wink.
"Well he calls himself Aya but..."
"His real name is Ran Fujimiya. You just found that out last night."
This lead to quite a lengthy pause. Holy shit, the secretary wasn't kidding! This is giving me the creeps. But that all vanished with a long, assuaging smile on her part, as she stretched her arms behind her head.
"Do you know Carly? I was just wondering if you knew how she was..."
"Hey! You know I can't tell you anything like that until you ARE back. I talk to her -- of course I do! I'm from... well, you know."
Valdemar... Saying the names of places on Terra while still on Antiterra was almost as taboo as telling Terran secrets. But he knew, recognized the name from one of the stories he'd been read as Kaze's.
Which brought up question after question and a sharp pain through his fingers and the places on his body the betrayer had once liked to kiss above all others. Kaze's membership had been charged to the Heralds of Valdemar. Once...
In a much more solemn tone he asked one more question of Savil, who stood, patient, but fixing him over and over again with those two blue eyes. "What made you all suddenly decide to take me back after all this time?"
How polite of her to let him finish. "We know."
"About..."
"...him."
"Then do you know I'm the one that...?"
"Of course!" She laughed and the tension in him shattered like cold glass. "You're my charge. I'm supposed to know these things! I do know these things. I also know there's a nice surprise waiting for you. Something that wasn't yours is now."
His eyes grew wide. "But you won't tell me what it is, will you?"
"It doesn't exist here, it's from where we are."
"Well, you've piqued my interest there, Savil. If I wasn't planning on going back tonight, I would have asked to with that."
Oh, did she ever grin!
Ken meanwhile, glanced the two PSX games under his arm -- two he'd once played all the way to the end. "Hey, I don't know if you have a platform or anything, but you can have these if you want."
"Really?" The little girl skipped over to him and, with her hands clasped behind her back, bent down to have a look at the offered jewel cases, which he pushed joshingly in her direction. "Wow! Sure! My brother has one he let's me borrow to play Atlier Marie. Domo arigatou gozaimasu!" She bowed again. "Now, I have a feeling Aya's out there needing dusted, and it'd be rude not to let him in on the travel plans. I'm done if you're done!"
She held the door for him and just like that, they were back in the office.
(OOC: Atlier Marie is a Japanese little girl's game about a potion maker.)
"Fainted. Hospital. Pants. Right."
A somewhat disoriented Youji clambered off the table to the floor, only to bark his shins on one of the chairs as he hastened away.
Muttering curses, Youji staggered past Omi, stepped awkwardly over Momoe's body -- which was no mean feat as she blocked the whole of the threshold -- and headed off for the bathroom for the (bloody) towels. Found Ken's green terry cloth bathrobe hanging on a hook behind the door and slung it over his shoulder as he left.
One of the towels he dropped on Omi's head; the robe he held out to him. "Come on, Omi, and get into this. Surely she won't be offended by the sight of you in a robe. And I'm calling the hospital now! Don't give me that look."
A punch of buttons and Youji leaned up against the wall outside the kitchen, the towel held over the lower front half of his butter-and- semen stained body with his free hand. Gave the address and the problem (but not the reason for it) and shut up the phone with two clicks.
And then he began to laugh.
The paramedics arrived quite contemporaneously, and proved quite polite enough as to refrain from inquiring as to why there were two half-naked chaps in the kitchen with the injured woman, both of whom where laughing hysterically, even as they did their best to perform first aid on the still unconscious Momoe.
But paramedics, by their nature, do see an awful lot. Would that the same could have been said for the host of schoolgirls who had gathered outside the shop, arrayed for battle and complaining loudly about the lack of their favorite peep-show being, well, still closed at this hour!
It was determined within a few moments of the medic's arrival, that the matron of the flower shop have not hurt her neck or suffered even a mild heart attack. Somehow she had missed smashing her nose. Had she fallen on the butter? No, her shoes were clean so no further questions were asked for the moment. She had however, probably broken her hip.
Still, clutching Ken's robe to him (the terrycloth kept threatening to part or drift away from him) Omi followed as they walked her out to the ambulance, and was promptly assaulted by the waiting hoard of groupies.
"Not now! I'm very sorry! I have to talk to the medics a moment. Hey! Stop that! Sumimasen! Sorry but could you move?"
This was all eased after a shrill shriek which indicated just as clearly as the hand on his shoulder, that Youji had appeared behind him, willing to assist with the inquires: how long would she be out? Which hospital was she being taken too? Did they need to make a statement?
Just as he was scrawling the name of the establishment on his wrist, Omi noticed Momoe's eyes starting to flutter open under the influence of some pungent smelling salts. "Momoe-sama!" he cried, stooping beside her gurney. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. Momoe-sama? Can you hear me? I..."
That's when she screamed. And not just a frightened squeak but rather: "KYA! Okama! Atachi Ike Yo! Okaaaaaaaaama!"
Omi would never he so red in his life as he was at that second. "But Momoe-sama! We didn't... we thought... We... Youji... I..." he couldn't even hear himself think over the titter that had arisen behind him among the stunned and shrieking girls.
"Not now!" One of the paramedics gave him a little push. "Please don't upset the lady. She's going to need surgery soon after all."
He obeyed. A gust of a passing car snatched at his robe.
"Wait..." the little old lady began with a bit of a wheeze. "I need to tell him... it's important."
So Omi was once more allowed to approach the gurney, something it turned out he really didn't need to do.
"YOU'RE BOTH FIRED AND EVICTED! I WANT YOU OUT BY THE TIME I'M OUT OF THE HOSPITAL!"
"But Momoe-sama!"
"YOU HEARD ME!" And then, as she was hoisted into the ambulance. "Ohhhhhhh Kimochi warui! What an awful day! First the two good ones and now you... ohhhhhhhhh..."
Which left Omi standing on the curve, baffled and forlorn.
(OOC:
KYA! Okama! Atachi Ike Yo! Okaaaaaaaaama = EWE! Fags! Get the hell away from me! FAAAAAAAGS!
Kimochi warui = I feel awful
Just in case ^_^;;;)
The door opened, and at once, Ran was whisked from his Dutch tulip field back to Looking Glass land. He tentatively cast a glance over his shoulder at the entryway, at Ken and his young friend, and then turned around and rose to his feet. More a wraith-like drift upwards than a hard jerk of joints and muscle. His eyes lit upon Savil and he bowed formally towards her. Unsmiling but polite. He saw Ken's psx games resting in her dainty hands, but neither reacted nor commented upon the switch.
"Well..." he began as he stepped around the loveseat and started towards them, sweater-engulfed hands in nervous fists at his sides, "I trust that everything is all right?"
As Savil returned Ran's bow wordlessly, Ken marveled at the shift in persona he had just witnessed. Aya, bowing to a little girl? That notion bordered on preposterous. But Ran.
This is too adorable to deal with... He grinned himself now. "Everything's just great! We can leave as soon as it's evening in fact, if that's alright with you."
"That's a long time to wait!" Savil suddenly remarked. And why did you come so early anyway? Most Terran's aren't even up at this unholy hour! I just am since I'm little and I have to go to school. Poor ninny, he really needs to go home. But this gave her a bit of an idea, just the same. Why, if she had been looking forward to something all week, maybe they would like it too? Surely Ken would.
Even though he was presently telling her, "We'll be alright. We've waited longer."
"Welllll, actually, if you get bored, I've got soccer practice after school and it'd be really cool of you two wanted to come play with us, or just watch even though it's not for awhile yet. You can come to the field at three if want. In the mean time, I have to get back to my physics class. Tomorrows my lecture on Einstien's theory of gravitational waves. Bai now!"
And with that, she skipped out the door, leaving one confused Aya and one somewhat frightened Ken.
"I guess they weren't kidding about the gifted part. Wow..." And then with a sigh, he turned back to his sweetie, patting his back a bit. "It's up to you. I know how you feel about kids."
"No, I don't like kids." Ran looked from Ken to the door where Savil had just passed through, musing aloud. "But she certainly isn't like other kids. Isn't...common." He shrugged lightly, and shifted his attention back to Ken. His lovely Ken.
"And I wouldn't mind watching you play soccer." Again.
He let himself relax a little bit now that Ken's most important meeting had come to an end and he himself had apparently passed muster. "We probably have a bit of time before then," he said, searching for a clock and finding none. Frowned a little at the oddness of that.
"So...What do you want to do in the mean time?"
Ran actually is willing to capitulate... and watch me... I...
Oh! This is too good to be true!
Ken mused on this, but took a moment, to comb at his sweetie's hair with his fingers. The whole notion tickled him, but of Ran... something was making him unhappy still.
Well, can't expect it to all be roses and peaches... or something generally to that effect.
And I was pretty damn scared the first time Kaze brought me here I...
I will not think about that! I won't.
"Well, we could go for a walk around the grounds, or they usually let you sit in on classes if you ask nicely. Hmm..." then to the office lady. "How's your library?"
"Twice the size of the average highschool's, but there's no one in there this time of day, or almost no one."
"Well," Ken turned back to his Ran, "I know we just were to one, but we could always go hide out there if you want some quiet."
The ambulance heaved away into traffic all blaring sirens and spinning lights. The schoolgirls, now more giggling than squealing with glee were still gathered around, entranced by the unexpected show they had been treated to.
But Youji didn't care about them, or the old woman, or the fact that he was clad only in a towel in public. All he cared about was Omi.
With a cocky grin and an arrogant toss of his blond locks, Youji clapped a hand on Omi's shoulder and guided him back into the shop. Shoved the door shut and locked it -- locked out the whole damn world.
He twitched the slipping towel at his hip, adjusting it higher, then remembered where he was and who he was with. With a flip, it slipped loose in his hands and fell to the floor with a soft plop.
"Oi, Omi-ai!" Youji said as he came up behind him, his hands kneading gently at his lover's tense shoulders. "Don't worry, hm? There are other flower shops and other apartments. And we do have our other job."
He nuzzled him behind the ear. "Manx and Birman might even help us find a new place. I mean, Kritiker's not going to let two of their best go homeless."
Youji raised his head a little to let it rest on top of Omi's. "Damned old bat just's jealous, you know. That was probably the most action that table had ever seen the whole time she's had it." He chuckled softly, and gave him a hug. "Unless Aya and Ken..."
"Er...Wait a minute...What do you think she meant by 'first, the two good ones...'?"
It had seemed like an eternity there, on the street, snatching at his robe, surrounded by a caconophy of girlish words for gay and references to many an unsavory Yokai Club Doujinshi. If their laughs had been hours, centuries left him on the street, and the ocean of his tears rose with the heat of his warming face.
I did it. This is all my fault. God, if I hadn't been such a pervert, I'd never have hurt poor Momoe or made her hate Youji so much, who cares about me? I wouldn't have broken that cup... I... I wouldn't have made us loose our jobs! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I...
Then Youji came. His guilt remained, but the need to weep left him with the first caress. He reached up, scrubbing the unshed tears from his eyes, sniffling a little. That was it. His heart had been quieted.
And he leaned back just a bit to brush his hair over his lover's nose, and laid his palm against the hand that was working his right shoulder. "I don't think so, Youji-kun. They don't like each other much..."
And then it hit him too... "I don't know what she meant I... they're not home, are they?" Still cradled by the tender embrace, he turned and glances among the flowers, as if expecting to find their two teammates standing there, clad like wood sprites and going about as normally as possible. The realization that Aya and Ken were not at all about seemed alien and unhappy to him somehow. Just because he had taken so long to notice? "I but that still doesn't explain what Momoe said." He sighed and shook his head, accidentally jiggling Youji's nose in the process. "It's all very queer..."
Then he gulped and raised his hand to his brow. "Oh geez."
It really wasn't the time to laugh, but Youji couldn't help it then. He did so with his face pressed against the golden mop of his hair.
"Queer. What an appropriate word, Omi-ai. It is a queer situation for two queer young men to be in." He snatched at one of Omi's hands then and spun him around. Pulled him back into his arms with a jerk and a laugh -- this one much freer than the first.
"We're homeless and jobless and..."
He pressed a smacking kiss to his forehead, sobering a little when he looked back down in his eyes. "...And we've got a mystery on our hands."
Youji held him like that for a moment more, cuddling him like he was a woolly, stuffed bear. Then he let him go and went back to retrieve his towel. Slinging it around his waist again, he walked back to his boyfriend and took one hand in his.
"Come on, Omi. Let's go play detective."
Ran arched into Ken's touch, adoring the feel of his fingers combing through his mussed locks. Eyes closed briefly in consideration; in pleasure.
For those few seconds, he forgot all about the office clerks, and the girls, and the chattering couple across the room.
Ah, if you'd do that at least once for the rest of the time we're here...
No one's ever touched me like this. For that matter, no one's ever...
Tonight...Tonight, we're going to be...No, I can't think of that. I'm already too damn nervous as it is.
I keep thinking I'm going to lose you. Like someone's going to take you from me.
And why not? I never get to keep anyone I...I...
...Love.
His eyes snapped open again to settle upon Ken.
This is too good to be true.
"The library it is."
"Ah, alright then. It's on the bottom floor, I'm pretty sure we passed it..." Admittedly, few of those words had any particular purpose, for that they were obvious and all toned wrong. Like he was soothing someone. And in a way, he was. That last caress lasted for ages in his mind. They might not have been on Terra, but the timelessness of the place had crept back into him at least.
He held Ran's hand all the way to the library. It was a bit of a stuffy place, but bright enough, for it stood as an extension of the building, rather than a mere compartment of it. A few skylights broke the ceiling, and the skylight's themselves were faceted to look uniformly shattered.
The librarian looked up, watched them for a moment and went back to her work.
Almost no students had chanced the place that afternoon. Ken lead Ran to a little study nook behind the volumes of Latin poetry and their bad translations.
"I don't know... do you feel less nervous here? This isn't where I came through my first time there, but I was pretty much a mess."
That was the truth. He'd had such a wretched time lying to whoever had taken him that first time... banish the name, the thought, the golden eyes.
Ran's purple ones were much prettier. And he red, red hair. Ken reached over to pet it once again, and was finally reminded of what... well, Ran's reaction reminded him of. "My little kitty. I'm so glad you came with me..."
Hidden away alongside the quiet, dusty stacks, with Ken's fingers sifting through his hair, Ran relaxed even more. Wrists laid in an 'x' across his lap, eyes closed as before. Tiny, twin furrows between his brows.
Little kitty...?
If anyone else had called me that...!
But it was you, and...Well...
He felt his cheeks go warm, and he opened his eyes to look at Ken.
"I do feel a little less nervous, now, yes. Being around books..." He noticed Ken's free hand was lying on the table, and clumsily, he reached for it; lightly traced circles across the tanned back of it.
"Being around you, alone..."
He glanced over at the stacks opposite. So silent. Not one footfall or hushed voice. Just the dust motes swirling in the sunlight from the far windows and the sound of their breathing.
"I've always liked libraries."
This feels so odd, doing this...Never thought I'd ever have the chance.
"I'm glad you asked me to come."
"But why do we have to wait until tonight before we can leave?"
"Well," Ken began, "I guess the long and the short of it is the same. Because. It's just something they do about where we're going. Maybe it seems silly at first, but trust me, if you play along, it'll be a lot more fun. It's all about getting into it and letting go, these little games. Most of them at least, and yes, illusions are plenty upsetting sometimes. They'll make things easier in the long run. We'll learn to get by without clocks. Do things have to be easier? No, they just are. So again, because. This wouldn't seem special if we'd just up and driven there ourselves, would it have?"
Ken sighed and leaned a little closer, his finger tips still lost in their red silk. "Well, for me, it would have. Because I have Ran with me. But I've been there before. It's like my home." And then he allowed his lips to hover ever so close to his sweetie's ears. "Terra that is."
Before Ran had a chance to react, he leaned back, and reached for his copy of Ada, which he thumbed through for a few seconds. That he managed to recover the page so quickly seemed almost impossible, and he chuckled to himself. "It's all about... a little sense of wonder."
And then he read:
[Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution. Sick minds identified the notion of a Terra planet with that of another world and this "Other World" got confused not only with the "Next World" but with the Real World in us in us and beyond us. Our enchanters, our demons are noble iridescent creatures with translucent talons and mightily beating wings; but in the eighteen-sixties the New Believers urged one to imagine a sphere where our splendid friends had been utterly degraded, had become nothing but vicious monsters... ]
I am NOT a stuffie!
...
Ok, I'm a stuffie.
Omi banished the last of his fears for the moment, and relished the cuddle, the smooth chest beneath his face. The tell-tale smell of them both.
Well, he's played along with me plenty so... He had to admit that he really was enthused by the prospect of the little game, grim results or not. If only because it was Youji he would be playing with and Youji actually made it sound like fun. "Oh boy! I love to play detective! Hmm... to start off with, I'll take Aya's room, and you can take Ken's! I'll kiss you for every clue you find!"
Saying that, he wriggled away and bounded up the stairs into the quarters of their resident swordsman- something he ordinarily never would have done if he had any caring thoughts for his neck, but since Aya wasn't home and this was quite proven.
The bed wasn't made. Had Aya ever made his bed? Omi, having otherwise avoided the room, had no idea. But it didn't seen Aya-like.
Aya's sword was still on it's self. Aha, so this wasn't a mission they were on! Or if it was, it would have to be some super-secret one... but then they would all have known about it. Hmm... there didn't appear to be any info folders lying about either. No, no mission at all.
Aya's trenchcoat he usually wore on such calls remained on it's hanger.
Just to make sure the computer hadn't been involved, Omi darted into the den and tried it. No, that was ice cold. Back to Aya's room.
That happened to overlook the front of the shop.
"Youji! Ken left his bike behind wherever they went!"
Ken's room yielded few real clues. His bagh-nakh gloves and goggles and spare, orange sweater were still in their box on the top shelf of his closet, and it hadn't even been touched by the look of it.
His few indulgences and mementos were just as he'd left them. Trophies, gundam models and all.
The window was open, and the sheers fluttered in the breeze, but the bed was made. Fluffed and folded just so.
His clothing now, that was a different story. One dresser drawer stood half-open, its contents (mostly socks and underwear) jumbled about as if they'd been dug through.
His few shoeboxes were scattered about, with one empty one sitting in the middle of the floor. Hangers had been pushed this way and that, holes gaping between the hastily sectioned groups, as if Ken had been searching for something specific to wear -- much as he himself did whenever he was getting ready for a date.
Did Ken go on a date that morning?
Omi answered that question for him.
Youji darted over to Aya's room, and found Omi standing by the window, peering down into the street.
"Ken's left more than his bike behind, Omi. His equipment, everything: It's all there."
He leaned against the jamb, rubbing his hand across his chin in thought as he looked around Aya's room. "It's not like Ken to leave that bike, as you know. I mean, why would he walk anywhere, when he could ride?"
I don't like this. I don't like this at all.
Omi ran his hands through his hair and sighed. "Yeah, I know... the only time I've ever seen him leave it behind is if he was going on a mission, but we know there isn't one, or if he was walking down to the market for some candy, which if he'd done that, he'd be back by now, and I'd be explaining why I had his robe on!"
Which, obviously I'm not doing... hehehehehe.
He took a moment to pace back and forth, looking quite distressed, both because of the present situation, and the apparent inability of the oversized robe to conceal his form with any continuity. Just then, his eyes caught the gleaming digital numbers on Aya's clock. He gasped. "It's after one! I had no idea it was so late. I mean, thank you for letting me sleep in and..." Something about the faint puzzlement of Youji's face bothered him then. He had to think of something else to say.
"You know what, I'm going to go check his bike. Maybe it's broken or something so he couldn't take it. I'll be right back."
A rather long peck and he went fluttering out the door, down the steps, and back onto the street where a few particularly etchi young ladies were still camped out, marveling over previous events. He paid them no heed and rather scurried over to the curb to see what he could find.
What he did sent him running back inside calling his lover's name.
Ran had listened quietly while Ken had read, and had stayed quiet afterward, mulling over everything he'd said to him.
Terra. He rolled the name around in his head like a child would a sweet.
Another world co-existed in this one, and Ken was from there.
And he was going there.
Illusions and playing games. Well, that was nothing he couldn't handle, right? After all, he'd been living his life that way for two years.
But as for the rest...What sort of sense of wonder did he have?
None.
Magic was a farce. Fairy tales were only lies. Happy endings only came in dreams.
And he no longer dreamed.
He looked down at his hand where it lay on the table, so close to the edges of the book, to Ken's own. He could reach over and touch him so easily.
But Ran pulled away, and let it drop back in his lap. Clasped them both together as if they were cold. So dead looking against his inky clothing.
"What if you've made a mistake, Ken, by bringing me here?"
Ken closed the book. He knew not what else to do that would betray his suddenly sinking heart.
"Ran I... I didn't know how you I..." His eyes fell all the way to those two ever so fair hands that had been tugged away.
"Ran... if you want."
You can go back but I... I couldn't bear to see it. Ran please don't do this to yourself. It's alright. I don't think anything like that I...
Well then stop babbling to yourself and SAY SOMETHING!
"Ran you can go back if you really want. I won't keep you here, games or no games! But I think... no, I know I haven't made a mistake. I want you with me. I know they'll want you back there. And I think... I think maybe... m-maybe I can help you there. Just a little. I know you probably don't believe me or any of this... that there could even be a place like it, or that maybe I'm not what I seem but please I..."
His throat had gone dry. A little caught took him and he stifled it.
"Ran, there are places where we don't have to be what we think we are in Antiterra. And besides I..."
But the words faltered all together then. It was all he could do to snatch up one of those fair hands and place it against his one chest with a sigh.
Ran sat very rigidly in his chair, facing forward, head tilted down slightly. Fingers twisting nervously.
Ken was...pleading? with him. Sounded anguished. He never wanted that, Ken hurt, and Ran felt like he'd just done exactly that.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but...
"But that's just it, Ken. I can't go back. I...don't want to -- not when you're going to be elsewhere. I'd...I'd be alone for sure if I did."
"I'd have nothing...No one. Not even myself...Whoever the hell that is."
"Cause you see, Ken..."
He slanted him a look then, shy and slightly dewy-eyed. Tears shimmering vaguely but not daring to fall from his eyes.
"I...I..."
"...Love you."
"Ran I..."
If the floor had fallen out from Ken, he never would have noticed it. If the skylight had shattered, he wouldn't have cared. He was blind all over with morning and a little swell of gleaming, weeping moonlight in his heart.
Did you ever expect to hear him say that? Even after last night?
I guess I was thinking Aya, who's always serious would mess around with you for the hell of it? Would play?
Since how could he want you?
Even if he wouldn't do that...
Now? Anywhere? Any place, here or on Terra?
Did you?
I don't know I... I... I'm even stuttering to myself.
"... I won't let you be alone anymore! Not ever again. I promise. Not really alone. Not like before. And that's not true! You have something, somewhere inside you. You are someone. You have to be."
Don't be scared. Please?
And then it was as if time, for they were still on Antiterra after all, had broken, and they were back at the night before. Even before the shy moments on the bed, far before the door that had broken just for them.
They were back at the table. At supper. And Ken did more or less what he'd wanted to then.
He scooted his chair up beside Ran's and draped his arms over his shoulders, tipping the crimson head against his collerbone.
"'cause I feel that way too. About you. Sweetheart."
It was so sweet now, not to be afraid any longer.
Sweetheart. Never thought I'd hear that being said to me.
Never thought...anyone would love me.
Never thought I'd hear Ken saying either of those things to me.
But I'm glad...So glad.
"So glad..."
He brought one hand up to his shoulder, squeezing it gently and sighing.
"I don't know if I am someone or not, Ken."
He tipped his head up a little and nuzzled his neck.
"I can't remember what I was like before."
Kissed him there.
"But...for you..."
So the super nova had come at last, the one event in the cosmos that was suppose to wreck havoc on the very threads of the earth and the space there, and already it felt like Terra.
It was better than Terra.
It was such a quiet, easy little flash of light that Aya died in leaving only Ran behind like a blinking neutron star still wrapped in a cloak of crimson stellar debris.
Oh but Ken shook inside with the gravitational waves. (It seemed like ages had passed now -- was it already the next day? Did Savil stand before her class giving that lecture?) But forever, no, forever would not be long enough to feel Ran against his neck. And still he quavered, remembering not Savil the girl, but Savil the wise mage in a book read to him years ago. The one who told those two lovers, warned them about feeding off of each other.
Vanyel and Tylendyl, martyrs of Terra, children of fancy.
But I'm not like that. He's not like that.
He's been through... god, I don't even know. I don't care. This isn't Aya, this is Ran!
And maybe I wish I could say he was all I remembered.
I will.
Ken leaned down and kissed his way up his sweetheart's neck, across his cheek, and finally onto his lips. Just a little. A flutter.
"I want nothing more than for you to be happy, sweeth -- ... are you sure it's alright if I call you that? I'll use whatever name you want, just say it."
Such tiny kisses they were, strung up his neck and across his lips, but...they were enough to wake him up; cause desires he'd long squelched to rear up and make themselves known again.
But now, he no longer had a reason to deny them, and it both scared him and thrilled him.
Just keep your head, Ran. Don't get carried away...Just a little...
"Call me sweetheart, if you wish it. I...don't mind."
That said, Ran arched up again and pressed a clumsy, eager kiss to Ken's lips.
Ken just chuckled in reply, and leaned down, smoothing his lips over the softness of Ran's face in another long line of miniature motions. He chuckled a little back in his throat, tilting his head to change the angle of his little game.
Savil, standing patiently off to one side, waved.
Ken choked a bit on a gasp but didn't exactly take his hands off Ran. Just looked up. "How long have you been...?"
"Not too long!" The little herald replied, turning her eyes away as she stretched her arms behind her head. "I'm not supposed to interrupt after all, and your face when you saw me was shocked enough as it was." She sighed, and then said to Ran, with a little wink, "I won't tell anyone."
I am SOOOOOO relived, a sarcastic voice grouched in Ken's head. But he sighed. "Don't tell me. It's..."
"Three O'clock." Said with a gesture to the yellow and blue soccer uniform she had now donned... specifically, what appeared to be a brand- new set of goalie equipment. But she reached behind her back then and held out a bundle of white clothing, dotted with two dark blue bandanas, much like the one she wore on her own left arm. "So you don't get sweaty. I brought some for you to, Aya, if you wanna play too."
"Hey thanks..." Ken offered.
"Just don't change in here." Another wink and she scampered off. "The soccer field's out in the back, it's not hard to find. And you don't mind actually being out on the field, do you?"
"No, not at all!" he laughed a bit, petting Ran's hair.
Good! thought Savil. Because I'm goalie and I'll be damned if I'll give that up! She smiled, not smirked.
After receiving that delicious kiss, Youji padded into the room, to the rumpled bed, and picked up the clock from the nightstand. 1 p.m., just like Omi'd said.
So what had happened to his clock?
With a shrug, Youji set Ran's digital on the table, and flopped down on the bed. Unhitched the towel from his waist and let it sag around his hips. He had no reason to hide now, was there?
He glanced around the room, wondering what, if anything, they were missing, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just the thing to make a detective's job easier.
With a sigh he scooted back on the bed, his weight resting on his elbows...and felt something hard under his left one. A bulge.
Frowning, he sat up and flipped the covers back...
And found his first real clue: A letter, addressed to Birman in Ran's precise, tiny hand. Something hard pressed between the pages by the feel of it.
And then, Omi called to him from somewhere below, and he left off speculating. Whipped the towel over his shoulder and ran down the stairs to meet him, clue in hand.
"Youji!" Omi cried, out of breath from dashing up the stairs faster than he was usually accustomed to. Or had worry seeped his breaths? He didn't know. He couldn't exactly think straight.
A more or less nude Youji didn't make things easier.
"Youji I..." The note in his hand sagged and started to feel like a dead baby bird. "I found this on Ken's bike."
He held it out, petty little sad gesture that. So he sat down beside his lover instead, unfolding the crumples, letting the loopy, blue pen emerge against the lavender paper and the little dog's visage.
[Please find me a good home! -- Ken's Bike]
"Oh no..." The feel of permanence and loss behind the nearly cute script snagged him then. He suddenly felt dreadfully, dreadfully cold.
And thusly snuggled against Youji.
Youji slipped an arm around him, holding him close. Aya's letter he set on the nightstand, face down. Birman would get it, of course, but Youji saw no need to show it to Omi now.
Besides, it was clear now what they'd done.
He took the crumpled note from Omi's hand and laid it on the nightstand. His fingers going directly to his hair to stroke it. Stroke his cheek.
"It's okay, Omi-ai. It's okay."
He looked around the room, thinking of the surly redhead who had occupied it. The one who always nagged him about something or other.
Yeah, Fujimiya Aya was a damn bastard.
And he was going to miss him terribly.
He dipped his head down and kissed the top of Omi's. "How about a shower, and then some breakfast, and then...I'll call Manx. What do you say?"
With a deep sigh, Omi reached over and mirrored the touches which had befallen him. "Alright, Itoshi. But only if you get in it with me!"
It's true! If Aya and Ken had been home, then I wouldn't dare ask but...
"They're not..." he bit his lip a bit, relaxing he had actually spoken. To take his mind and his lover's mind away from that, he got up and started tugging both of them to the bathroom.
The bathroom that they no longer had any right to call their own.
In a house that they two were utterly alone in. Now and forever perhaps, if it would have still been their house.
Like a honeymoon in limbo.
No! No I can't be glad but I...
I have to think of something happy! I do! I'm supposed to be happy... for my lover. For everyone.
Even if he is everyone.
"Ah, one moment..." he finally added though, just in front of the Ohora door. He waved and stepped aside into the water closet for a moment...
Suddenly, he couldn't have peed if his life had depended on it.
Admittedly, it was a perfectly logical place to hide a note in a house occupied by four men.
Tacked to the wall above the toilet was a piece of paper with Pochacco on it.
Well...damn...
Ken's hand in his hair felt as good as ever, but...much to Ran's embarrassment, there were other places on his body which needed Ken's attention much more urgently than his hair did.
Not that he was going to say anything about that.
He pulled out of his embrace and straightened up, still feeling rather horrified over being discovered -- and by a child! -- and began to fumble with the uniform in his lap. Then he handed it over to Ken.
"I'm not trying to be difficult, and I don't want to offend your little friend, but...I don't think I should play. I...never have before, and I would only cause them to lose."
One day at a time, Ken. You can't exactly expect him to be fine in one blink of an eye.
A single flicker of a pitying smile still crossed his face, and then it was just a regular smile again -- heartening and sweet. Maybe too sweet but anyway...
And who says playing soccer makes you fine?
"Hey, that's just fine! I thought maybe you wanted to try getting dirty..."
O.O ooops! Quick save! Quick save!
"Since you told me you never played in the dirt as a kid and all." He shrugged, more for himself. "We don't have to like all the same things. But hey, just so you know, so you won't be embarrassed either way: They're little girls -- most of them probably smaller than her and you, you being a grownup of course. You're the coolest thing in the world to a child. You're just as distracting playing as not playing, and there's nothing you can do but enjoy it. But Ran, I won't make you play, I wouldn't. I like you just the way you are. And if you change your mind..." He handed the uniform back at this. "That's great too. It's nothing written in stone."
He kissed his sweetie's brow as he stood. "Oh, and just so you know, Savil isn't my friend, she's my Herald. Out Herald. It's not quite the same. More like... an honorary mother."
Even if she still has to go to bed before we do, eat her vegetables and makes sure she washes behind her ears.
"Just a sec."
Actually, it was more like a minute before he returned, clad in the white uniform that had been handed to him. Being in the J-league had made him a master of quick changes if nothing else.
This is really, really, thin... I hope Ran can't see my thong! I'll never live it down.
But he appeared at the door to the library, to find Ran hovering near the poetry section, waiting for him.
"Let's go then!"
Pristine uniform tucked under one arm, Ran preceded Ken out the door reaching back for his hand as they started down the hall.
Well...Maybe I'll play a little. Maybe. Just watch Ken and see how it goes...
But I hope you won't be too embarrassed if or when I screw up.
Ran snuck another look at him then. He thought Ken looked devastating in his uniform -- the white setting off his tanned skin just so. And then, of course, those marvelous legs of his were on display -- a sight he very rarely got to see.
A sight which made his thoughts turn to subjects of a more risque nature.
He let him walk a bit ahead of him, all the better to admire him from the back, all the way to the field. The sunny, blue sky capped field.
And Ran looked again...
And there, just a shadow under the thin, snow white garment, he saw it. And gaped slightly in disbelief.
Ken's wearing a...a thong?!
And then...
Ooh! Ken's wearing a thong!
But Ran said nothing, simply smiled at his oblivious boyfriend.
The array of chibi-shojo on the field however, did not fail to notice Ran's face, and being as most Herald's, even those more or less still in training, had taken specific classes on how to read even the most subtle emotion, they all began to giggle a bit, a reaction Ken interpreted as sheer embarrassed glee at getting to play soccer with a man twice their age and their coach saw as a sign of distinct immaturity.
Thusly, she tooted at them with her whistle at them.
Ken hung away from the acre of emerald and girls for a moment, assuring that Ran was comfortably seated.
The coach, a small, sinewy woman with bobbed auburn hair, summoned her jejune charges to her.
"Alright, no drilling today."
A deafening chorus of chirpy "yay"s.
"We're just going to play. But not for fun! This is still practice and that man..." at which she pointed to Ken, "... a former J-league player. His name is Ken, and he's a lot better than all of you put together, so it'll be a real challenge, understand? And you'd better not Wuss-out in front of him, right?" Unbelievably, this was uttered with the utmost fondness. "He'll be on Blue team and I'll play for Yellow."
"AWWWWW!" Said yellow team.
The coach pushed her lips with displeasure. "HEY! None of that now! Chins up and let's get started already!"
Ken waved to Ran and jogged out onto the field at last, where Akiko form the office surrendered her spot to him, and plunked down on the bench instead, a respectable distance from Ran. Oh, they all smelled like sunshine, shimmered like pixies... he looked out across the field and all he could see were there heads and the feathers of their hear flitting in the breeze.
His little boys... no! No, these were little girls.
One of whom booted the ball right into his stomach as soon as the whistle blew.
"OOF!"
Youji, meanwhile, was fiddling with the knobs in the shower, trying to get it just right. Not too hot, and definitely not too cold. Singing one of his favorite Luna Sea songs whilst he was at it.
After all, he was about to have his beautiful little lover under his hands again. All soaped up and wet and...
Watch it, Kudou! You'll have an erection before Omi even gets in here.
Maybe I should I have a cold shower before hand?
Of course, if he doesn't show up soon, I will have to have a cold shower. Cause, I don't think I could hold it off forever...
He flicked his hand under the streaming water and then turned to get his favorite shower gel out from under the cabinet. Lotion-y in feel and lavender scented. Then he padded to the doorway and called to Omi in his most seductive voice.
Omi simply found himself in the hall. He had no memory of leaving the water closet, no memory of turning off the light... no memory of adjusting his robe.
He just ended up there, holding the note, and feeling nothing but the paper in his hand.
"Youji-kun I... I found this... the wall I... I didn't read it. I can't make myself... would you...?"
His quavering hand held out the paper, and his eyes remained dull and dark. Not wobbling with tears. He closed them and listened to the shower run.
He felt very, very dirty all of a sudden. And cold.
And deaf.
With a worried frown for his clearly distraught Omi, Youji took the letter and opened it. And read.
"Aya and I are all right. Fare...well. Ken."
And then, he too, stared at it. Swallowed back the sudden, surprising lump in his throat. Of course, he'd suspected it, but...having it confirmed so succinctly...
Slowly he folded it, sliding it between forefinger and thumb as he raised his eyes to Omi again.
"Omi-ai?"
Nothing. No raising of eyelids. No sweet voice rising in answer.
Slightly frightened now, he reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders. Slipped his fingers under his chin and tilted his face up to his. Traced its outlines gently with kiss after soft kiss, until he reached his mouth.
Where he murmured his name against his lips.
And then he was Omi again, after a few long, long hours in the sub-space void where the nightmares so long had hidden. Why did they return now, and more than ever, more than just a flitting ache more than...
But then there was Youji, and he remembered the dream that had banished the beasts of his unconscious once again. In reality. Albeit not with pink tarts. "Itoshi?" He murmured back to his own name. "I'm OK... it's just a little... scary for me. You know how I am with that. I'm sorry."
He returned all of the kissed of his lover with one long, deep and sticky one that seemed to go on for hours. Hey, I have to apologize for all this too... I...
Oh, not now! Not now I...
The shower was still running, wasn't it?
"Well, we can't exactly do anything about this until we're dressed, and we're not getting dressed just standing here in the hallway. Come on, Youji-kun! I'll wash your back!"
And he ushered the both of them into the shower, towel, robe and all, though they ended up on the floor.
Much like more or less all of his insecurities, and his thoughts of Ken and Aya, which would take forever to pick up without cutting himself.
Ah, but it felt so good, standing under the steaming spray with his Omi at his back. Lazy swipes of a sudsy cloth across his neck and shoulders.
I lost you there, Omi. Lost you and it scared the hell out of me!
He dipped his head under the water and soaked it, preparing it for a dollop of bright blue, Freesia scented shampoo. Something new he'd bought just the day before. Smelled so clean and sweet and fresh.
He'd thought of Omi when he'd taken the first whiff of it in the store, standing there in between two aisles lined with rows and rows of shampoo bottles. All those bottles, sleek and squat; floral and herbal and medicinal; brightly colored and plain -- all begging his attention, but it was the Freesia on the bottom shelf that won it.
Right under his nose.
He scrubbed at his scalp, all over, then dunked his head under the spray again. Watched the creamy suds flow down his body in rivulets to the drain.
"Ah, that feels good!"
He raised his head, and, eyes closed, let the water course over his face. Ducked his head again and wiped his face with his hand.
"You're next, Omi-ai!"
Concentrating always brought him back a little faster, if he left, and not of his own will. It was only a matter of finding the right thing to focus on.
Youji's back seemed to work wonders. Well, all of Youji there, all wet and shiny, and yet inviting. That he bathed almost restored his standing as a mere mortal in Omi's mind: not the warm shadow, the seraph, the bliss incarnate. No, that lingered, and it deserved to linger, rather this state restored? That of someone he could hold onto if he liked. Ah, that was close enough.
Someone to touch.
And yet, he could feel the way his wrist seemed tense, the shyness of his wet caresses. He hummed, but the sound was lost only the whirring of the breaking droplets.
He was just about to reach his fingers into the kinky threads of sopped gold when Youji went for the shampoo.
Aww...
And then he got a whiff of it and blushed furiously.
But I... Freesia... you... wash that... are you thinking of...
But he just giggled a little. "Oh, I bet it does!" he words still proved oddly soft. He didn't know if he'd been heard, and then...
"You're next, Omi-ai!"
"I am I mean I... OK."
And he rather shyly took his place under the showerhead, feeling his bangs faint into his eyes almost as once.
Didn't you expect him to offer to wash you too? Isn't that what he's supposed to...?
No, I guess I didn't... then again, I never really saw myself in the shower with anyone this morning...
Especially not...
"Youji-kun? Were you ever with another boy... before me?"
Faced with such a sight as that of Hidaka Ken, J-league superstar, doubled over and panting from a surprise attack by a tiny seven year old named Kagome, Ran did the only thing he considered to be proper.
He laughed, loud and long.
Oh, Ken would never live that down! He would make sure of that.
Still chuckling, Ran stretched out across the bleachers, long legs crossed at the ankles, one hand propped over his eyes as a shield for the sun. The little girls darted about the field like hummingbirds, the ball spinning and weaving between their quick, cleated feet as they passed and dribbled.
Such a beautiful picture they made! Ran couldn't help but smile as he watched them.
And then there was Ken...
Once recovered from the blow, he was in top form, but he never tried to overshadow the girls, never tried to spoil it for them. He was better, but he held back a little and let them have control; let them have their fun. Ran knew he was, for he'd seen Ken play with men his own age. He knew how much of a fierce player he truly was, and he saw glimmers of it in him as he dodged and sprinted up and down the field after the ball. That same hunger. That same brilliance.
It made him want to weep.
Ken didn't know which was more stunning- the imminent size of the soar spot he would find covering his stomach in the morning, or sound of Ran's laughter. He'd expected neither one, and in the end, the sheer joy of hearing those chuckles, seeing his beloved gleaming on the bench with giggles -- that drowned out the pain. He was flying for the rest of the game on those few, precious sounds.
After having congratulated Kagome on her terrific foot... ("You'll go far in the world of soccer with that!", "Actually, I like tennis!", "o.o; Honey, you are wasted on that game!")... he expected it to be a quiet, little game. Well, so much for that. It turned into more of a surprising, exhilarating game. There came no need for him to deliberately destruct himself -- knowing Ran was there seemed more than enough, glancing at him between passes...
He had to admit, back on Antiterra, he'd seldom played with girls. The reason was silly, but simple and true. Here now, at just this age -- rambunctious, surly, lively, spontaneous and wild -- they were more beautiful than even a hoard of similarly typed boys. But back there... it didn't last. They grew up and grew old and turned into ladies of only ordinary social graces. Tomboys donned dresses, explores turned to minding one apartment... but on Terra, that didn't seem to happen nearly as often. He knew Heralds older than his grandmother would have been who would have dropped their robes and jumped into the fray.
Needless to say, his white garb stayed white for only about four minutes. The yellow and blue uniforms fared no better. The ground happened to be a little damp yet from the previous rain. Just wet enough to stick. He got grass in his hair bumping the ball with his head.
Another thing he considered on and off was Savil -- since she usually appeared behind him, he didn't exactly get to watch her. That and she was opposite Ran too. Was she the sort who didn't mind what became of her clothes, or had her dainty mannerisms demanded she stay clean, something quite undesirable in a goalie.
He got his answer upon watching her all but deliberately fling herself into the dirt, trying to keep the ball her from spaces. Although legal, she preformed a very peculiar maneuver which involved flipping in mid air and landing on her back, well-muddied and giggling. She'd caught the ball between her feet and flung it out before even climbing back to an upright position.
And since he was taller than then, there were plenty of incidences of spritely things diving between his legs after their quarry, and their running into each other trying to avoid him, since he was the guest. He felt rather bad about that, and one other thing... "Hey, you're making me into a ball hog here! You think I don't want to see how you pass to each other?"
So then they ran loop-de-loops around him, passing and giggling. He finally gave up and nailed the ball into the yellow teams net. Was he overdoing it? No, they were tied now, actually...
Meanwhile, Ran was thoroughly enjoying himself. Not that he was surprised. Not that he had thought he wouldn't. After all, it was Ken he was watching.
And Ken seemed to have met his match, much to Ran's amusement.
All around the field he tracked him, watching him spar with the girls, smiling at the way they were teasing him.
That Savil...!
Ha, Ken! She's making you work for it!
Not that the other kids aren't. He laughed a little. You're going to end up bruised from head to toe.
And I bet you aren't going to regret a one of them.
Ah, do you realize just how beautiful you are, Ken?
If you don't, then...I'll just have to tell you.
A goal, and Ken's team cheered wildly, little Akiko along with them. Ran grinned then, and stretched his arms out across the bleacher behind him, his head tipped back towards the sun, savoring the warmth both inside and out.
Congratulations, Ken-kun...
Youji twirled the milky-brown colored bar around and around the cloth until the rag was thick with foam, all the while eyeing the smooth expanse of flesh before him.
And then he lay the cloth on his back, stroking him in circles, and relishing every second of it; grinned even.
Such a fragile, pretty neck...
Such a graceful back...
An artist would go mad with wanting to draw you...
But you're so tense. Why?
A question, timidly asked.
Ah. I see.
His hand came to rest on the small of Omi's back, just above the tempting swell of his rear, and then rose upwards to slither across his shoulder. Slid down to his chest as Youji wrapped his arms around him.
He nibbled playfully at his ear, lips just brushing it as he murmured, "No, Omi-ai. There's never been another boy."
A kiss on the cheek and a soapy cuddle.
"You're the only one I've ever wanted."
Omi gingerly snatched at soapy arm that encircled him. Twirled his fingers against it. Held it closer.
Giggled at the tongue against his ear.
"I... well I... you're not mad I asked, are you? I didn't mean it like that I just... I guess I just wanted to know I..."
He found himself turning around, bringing his own arms up around Youji's neck, and smiling... rather pathetically.
"I'm not jealous of anyone of yours, you know I kinda thought so actually. About being the only boy but I... wow." And he rather fell into half chuckles -- the sounds of blushing without the pinkish tint.
"I've never liked girls, but there were days I wished I was one. So maybe you'd go out with me. And here you like me anyway..."
You can't know how happy that's made me. Even if I had a thousand years to tell you...
You felt that way? Aw, Omi...I wish I'd seen it sooner....
Youji slid his hands up Omi's back, grazing his ribs and shoulder blades with tickling fingers, only to tangle said digits into Omi's sodden hair.
"I'm glad you aren't a girl. I'm glad you're who you are -- my Omi."
His heavy-lidded gaze fell upon the boy's softly parted lips, tip of his tongue moistening in anticipation of a kiss...
Which was promptly delivered. Deep and slow and gentle.
"And I don't merely like you, Omi."
"Youji-kun..." Omi complained with acheery little lilt. "I do too! And I have for just ages but... I didn't mind waiting. And if I did, I don't now. Did I ever try to tell you before? Did I even tell you I was like this? How could you have known? That I used to like you... but I guess I don't anymore..." saying this, he dragged his hands behind his back and shuffled with a somewhat fibbish shyness.
"I adore you. Even if I seem kinda... kinda unhappy sometimes. It's not you, or anything you've ever done."
"It's me, because that's just how I am. And you love me anyway, so even if I loose everything else, kinda like today, and even if I cry, because I know I'm a cry baby, I'll still love you, and somehow, I'll be happy."
Finished, he reached up and pawed at the fingers in his hair, giggling. "Even if it seems funny to everyone else... I'm not afraid of that part of me. Just everything else!"
Youji drew his hand away, only to replace it with the other on top of Omi's head and muss his hair, laughing.
"Afraid of everything, are you?" He cried, reaching for the shampoo and squirting a good-sized blob onto his palm. Worked it into Omi's hair, whipping it into a frothy lather. "Well, we'll just make sure your Badtz-Maru nightlight is on when we go to bed, and if you wake up in the middle of night, then I'll rock you to sleep." This last said with a leer, followed by a happy sort of laugh.
He resoaped the cloth and began finish up the job of scrubbing himself whilst Omi rinsed his hair clean. Almost lovingly sponged the tattoo on his upper left arm. "And no matter how much you cry, I'll love you too, Omi."
He bent and kissed him then, draping the cloth over the boy's shoulder and smacking him soundly on the ass as he pulled away.
Then he took up residence against one tiled wall, eyes trained on Omi. Grinned as he gestured for him to continue.
"Did you know I was a voyeur, Omi?"
"Well, Youji-kun," Omi began then, rather striding forward again, as if unable to exist for too long outside of his lover's shadow. "I did figure that out as soon as we moved in together! After all... you need to learn to be more careful with your laundry! Hentai magazines don't wash very well."
Saying this, he lovingly tweaked him on the nose. Then he evaded a pair of snatching arms, diving for safety on the other side of the bathroom, nearest the door, scampering all the way, wearing nothing but a long and lustrous grin that betrayed just how much he knew about Youji, and how much he had played into his hands.
"And well, itoshi-pi-pa-kun, you can watch me make breakfast now if you want."
And he took off down the hall, dripping, cackling, and otherwise naked.
(OOC: In this case, Pi-pa = peeper)
You already know?
And from the looks of things...! Why, I believe I've been had...
Youji lingered for a minute in the steam-warmed shower, all agog. And then he grinned. A flip of the faucet and he was gone, rubbing vigorously at his goose-pimpled skin as he sprinted down the stairs. A flick through his tangled, Freesia-scented locks and the towel was tossed away and forgotten.
Forgotten, because the most alluring boy in all of Japan was standing in their (well formerly theirs) shared kitchen digging through the cupboards. The stove was already on, ticking at measured intervals as its insides grew hotter and hotter.
If Youji were a stove, he would have been ticking too.
He skulked into the room almost noiselessly, and took a seat, watching his lover hungrily. Water beaded and trickled down Omi's lithe body, glistening in the pale, creamy light of the overhead lamp. Streamed into secret places. He wanted to dry him off with his hands. Drop to his knees in front of him and warm him with mouth.
The thought of that made him squirm in anticipation, but he forced it away.
Ah, better not think about that right now...Not the time for that...
Oh, but...he is so...So...!
Omi reached for a bowl on the uppermost shelf of the cabinet, affording Youji a lip-biting view of his firm, little rear. Thighs that had been wrapped around him only an hour ago, were stretching and slackening most seductively.
Ah, what a way to spend the day.
"I swear, Omi," he purred, fixing him with his sleepy stare. "You're going to give me a heart attack."
"Oh, I wasn't planning to overdo it that much!" Omi winked to his lover in the reflection of a cookie sheet. "I just wanted to pay you back for all the times I had to watch you bending over your Cattleyas, not to mention having to hide those soggy etchi books from... everyone!" he didn't dare say the names just yet. Perhaps he would go the rest of his life without uttering them ever again.
How long would that be? He wondered...
"And if anything does give you a heart attack, it would be these!" His line accented with the production of a box of chewy-cheesy teriyaki chicken bits from the freezer. Hmm... one of his melon sorbet cups had gone missing... no matter.
In the mean time, he made a great big production of arranging the first course of their "breakfast" out, and added to the starburst pattern he finally decided on, a pair of potato croquettes, the non-sweet kind, all of which he took forever popping in the oven, so as to prolong the time his ass spend hovering unprotected in the air.. Then to the cupboards after the bonito flakes, which, for once, had not been moved.
However, a quick jiggle of the soy sauce bottle revealed it rather empty. No matter, he only put a dash in the miso soup. The rice in the cooker was still gooey and soft (bless the people at fuzzy logic!). Now for the vegetable.
The obvious choice was cucumber but...
... he couldn't claim to be particularly hungry for that. So he set about shredding some lettuce, destined to be crowned with big dollops of QP mayonnaise.
Now what am I forgetting? I'm only cooking for one other person, he likes me with no pants on...
"Aha! Tea."
Ducking into that cupboard however brought him face to face with Pochacco and his purple companion.
I guess you just don't know what you're missing guys. Thought as he dug up his own sakura spangled cup and Youji's black one with the dragon painted in blue and gold.
Gorgeous, gorgeous Youji, who sat so serenely enjoying his peep show.
You just don't know what you're missing.
(Second OOC: I had chewy-cheesy teriyaki chicken bits for breakfast in Japan. I wonder what they were really called though...)
"Teriyaki Chicken?" Youji put his hands over his heart in mock horror. "Ah, I'm sunk!"
He laughed then, chin on hand, not missing one move of Omi's as he crisscrossed the kitchen. Swept his hand down the back of his thigh when he brought their cups to the table.
He made a playful grab at him as he turned away, but Omi was too fast for him, much to Youji's vague disappointment. He sat back in hia seat again, chin once more in hand and a lazy smirk on his face.
"Mmm...I don't think I'll ever get sick of looking at you, Omi. I propose we do this every morning when we get our new place. What do you say?"
Omi applauded this suggestion most ecstatically. "I'd love to! But on one condition..." This drawled as he sauntered over, saucer of teabags in hand. "You do the cooking sometimes so I get to watch you!"
Just as that was uttered, he giggled once more and the timer for the chicken went off, so he was obliged not only to retrieve it, but to don a piece of clothing to do it! Even if that happened to be and oven mit. He then produced the two blue, crackle glaze serving plates Aya always insisted they NOT eat off of, arranged their various dainties there, and carried them both over to the table.
That now oh-so saucy looking table! He smirked just looking at it, which he did the whole time he dished their soup.
As for the two plates, he sat down to his own, and was about to utter the usual few words, when he realized his breakfast looked very lonely.
So he took his over to the other side of the table, pulled Youji's chair back and sat on his lap.
I've heard whole stadiums cheer. Whole playgrounds. Japan. The world. The other world. Here. There. Everywhere.
But nothing he'd ever witnessed sounded quite as good as Ran and Akiko, two little voices lost in a whirl of shuffles and squeaking grass.
A few of them tugged him into a bow, and he nearly had to shake them off. Little fingers, everywhere. Places where maybe they shouldn't have been... Ah, but they didn't know any better.
He hoped.
And here you thought your last day on Antiterra would suck.
You said yourself, nothing you've done has ever come out right. But there's coming out worse...
And then there's this.
And he lost himself in the second half of the game, with no interest to return. Well, not exactly. After all, now he had someone to perform for. Not a million someones -- faceless fans who would hiss if he flubbed up. Not press agents, not golddiggers.
Had he ever been really happy in the J-league?
Yeah, but a long time ago and...
"... It was not this world!" Savil completed what was probably an insult.
But she was so right. So Antiterra began to wane, and so did the afternoon. So they kicked at it, snapped at it, threw themselves into it and the mud. It just happening to have assumed the form of a soccer ball.
And then the sneaking sensation he was growing tired at last. But how? Why? He stood surrounded by flickers of energy immune to the laws of physics! Electric sugar-pop speed children who...
Completely wore him out.
Still tied, Savil ended the life of the yellow team's goal with the heal of her foot, as if the thing had been intended to roll into her realm.
And as if preordained, the others drew back, and she lobbed the thing at Ken.
Who, as if be request, bumped it into the yellow goal with his forehead.
OK, so maybe it was a little hokey, but it was fun.
Once more, Ken was swarmed en masse by hopping, groping, giggling little girls, who, surging on a high, were blithely ignoring their coach's shiny, screaming whistle. And who could blame them? They'd just won, and Ken had been absolutely brilliant. Had given them one of the best practices they'd ever had.
Akiko cheered and clapped, and finally jumped up to sprint away across the field, black hair swishing from side to side behind her. Excited and happy and giggling.
And Ran got to his feet as well, and made his way across the field at a more dignified pace, no less happier than she was.
And you won the game for them. How many times in your life have you done that?
More than you can remember?
He walked up to the little group, only halting at a respectful distance when the teacher finally managed to call her charges to order. He didn't want to stir them up anymore than they already were.
And...He wanted the chance to ogle Ken.
He was grinning from ear to ear practically. Face glowing with sweat, cheeks flushed. His uniform clinging to him in the most interesting ways. Grass stained and mud stained, and damn was he gorgeous.
And, from the way he'd just sighed, quite tired. Ran smiled. Barely noticed the coach when she called them to order for her usual bout of pointers and praises.
At last, the coach led her team away, amidst a flurry of farewells and thanks for Ken, and Ran walked over to him, sneaking looks back at the straggling group en route. Checking to make sure they all were leaving.
And then, when the last little girl had left the field, he looked back over at him. Skin still flushed, and his eyes as bright as a sun-dazzled lake. Still smiling softly.
He smelled like summer, and Ran couldn't resist him.
Dropping his uniform to the ground, and with one hand resting upon Ken's heaving chest, he leaned forward and drowsily kissed him.
Someday, Ken told himself halfway through that kiss, I may get used to you doing this. Not that I want to but... oh well.
He gave up more or less and smiled through his smothered lips, nibbling a Ran's, combing their fingers together. They parted, he sighed and stole another moment of the soft, clicking closeness.
"Ah-ah, no more than that for now, even if Savil has finally gone! Not until I've gotten a shower and changed. After all, I don't want you to stink too!"
Now if I can just keep my hand out of his hair for one moment...
Too late.
Well, you can snuggle me in the car all you want.
Snuggling... with this guy I used to call Aya? This guy I used to be afraid to pat on the back?
It's not AYA for the last time, it's RAN. Why do you keep getting them mixed up! They have almost nothing to do with each other.
Except they live in the same body and one made the other to hide from something you'll never understand...
For yet another time that day, he returned to the present, a little dazed, but not so weary... his concerns seemed to have shown on his face... not that he'd ever had any talent for burying them but anyway...
What really took him was that Ran seemed to be mirroring them.
"This'll be the fastest shower in the history of man kind! I swear. I'll be right back!" A quick peck on the forehead, and he ran off shouting, "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there!"
He also whipped off his shirt as he ran, waving it like a large, sodden hankie.
Which left Ran standing alone on the field, wreathed by the first notes of sunset -- pinkish gold threads slithering into the otherwise cerulean sky and leaving long shadows behind.
"I still think I have him beat." Said Savil, who had appeared behind Ran on the field... behind him? Yes, indeed! And wearing what appeared at first to be her uniform. But no, though more or less the same, it had been trimmed with gold brocade and her hair was wound rather with ribbons of deep blue.
And one of her socks was lopsided.
Ran had watched Ken flee towards the locker room with a mixture of mirth and regret. Mirth because such joy was infectious. Because he loved him so and he was happy.
Regret because...Well...He had wanted to watch him take that shower.
Ah, well. He glanced up at the shifting twilight sky above him. Tonight is almost here. We will be alone, and..
Shimatta...I'm fantasizing about Ken. I never did that sort of thing before...now.
But then...Aya would never have had gone along with any of this. So I'm not Aya anymore.
Am I?
Maybe...I'm Aya, and I'm Ran, and I'm...so screwed up.
Savil's voice fell on his ears then and he started, his train of thought hastily derailed. Hunched over very slightly. Ran had never heard her approach. Slowly, he turned around, his shoulders creeping back into their usual place and his arms gliding down to his sides again. He regarded her solemnly for a few seconds, then made her a formal bow.
He had a herald -- whatever that was -- who was a lovely, precocious little girl.
But she was more than that, too. He could see it easily just by staring into her penetrating eyes. They were too, too wise for such a young face.
He bent down and scooped up his discarded uniform shirt and shorts, brushing off the stray bits of grass and dirt that had collected on them, then tucked them under his arm.
"Do you, Savil-sama?" he asked, tripping over the honorific; he'd nearly called her Savil-chan, and somehow, Ran considered that last to be improper. "How so?"
And then, anticipating the next response. "I didn't PEEK though." Another giggle. "I love Japanese boys -- they're much more decorous than American ones. Acting all shy and everything. You won't have to do that where we're going, if you don't want to. But I was never shy, so I'm not sure if you can want to do that or not. I'm me, even if I watch you for the rest of my life."
She finished her line by taking a graceful twirl on the toes of one of her shoes -- one that seemed to last forever like a slow-time raindrop breaking on a movie screen. Maybe it was just the light of the evening as it lingered. "And you can keep those if you want -- I bought them just for you. We can go wait by the car too, so Ken won't have to come back here for you."
A few steps up to Ran and she begged once more with the faux-bashful tilting of her shoulders, more or less returning his bow. "And I will watch you for the rest of your life! Even if I'm little now."
What could he say to her? Tell her that shyness wasn't something one could so readily give up? That he had been like that all his life, and there wasn't much hope of him changing? Tell her that she shouldn't watch him all the time, for there were things she shouldn't see him doing, her being a child and all?
Yeah, right.
So he said nothing, simply fussed a bit with the bundle in the crook of his arm and tried NOT to blush.
With a polite nod, Ran inquired about the whereabouts of the car, and, in a flurry of giggles from her, she bounded away backwards, beckoning to him to follow, looking more like a fairy than a child. Ran reckoned that there was something to that.
Across the field they went, the school looming up at them in the distance. Ran tore his eyes away from it to glance down at a flash of dingy white to his left, and saw the soccer ball, all imprinted with smeared, muddy cleat prints and broken bits of grass.
Ken's soccer ball.
He forgot about Savil, and walked over to where it lay, regarding it thoughtfully for a moment. And then, as deftly as if he'd known how to do it all his life, he hooked the tip of his boot under it, and heaved it into the air, to catch it in the cupped palm of his free hand.
Something he'd never done in all his life.
His solemn expression crumbled away in a grin. He glanced over to the side doorway, and found Savil watching him, eyes bright and curious.
"If you don't mind, Savil-sama," he began as he drew nearer to her. "I would like to take this ball with me as well."
To this Savil applauded quite gleefully... well, more to Ran's deft handling of the ball. Oh, but now he would have to come play with her someday... "Of course you can have it! It's special to you and not so many other people, so it should be with you after all. But don't mind me, or anyone else who starts getting philosophical as the sun goes down."
A temptation seized her to snatch at one of those milky-smooth hands of his, but she held off. For now. It was had to touch someone so readily when they called you -sama and you were supposed to be acting like a -sama.
Oh but Ran was so happy with that one little thing! A somewhat battered ball and he smiled so much inside. She couldn't help but skip the rest of the way to the car.
Well, calling the waiting automobile a "car" was somewhat of a misnomer.
"I'm sorry, all the limos were booked for tonight."
As if anyone was going to be complaining about a jet black Rolls Royce!
Ran didn't. In fact, upon seeing it, he couldn't have been said to be doing dreadfully much of anything. His expression revealed by the mirrored windows more than revealed this.
The driver, a tallish woman in her early thirties, quickly tossed her cigarette to the ground, and stomped it out with the heel of her black leather boot before going about otherwise making sure no ash had landed on her emerald uniform.
"Gwen!" Savil complained as she confiscated Ran's things and went about relocating them to the trunk.
"Sorry..." the woman huffed, and shortly started as one of the windows started to roll down, seemingly if its own accord.
Ken peered out and waved to his Ran. "Ready to go?"
The little girl nodded -- not in answer, but in joining suggestion. Ken leaned back and let her open the door, which she did with a little bow.
Damnit! Maybe he's got me after all! How'd he end up here. Grr... But none of that showed on her face.
It seemed a little...well, odd, to Youji, sitting there at the table where he'd just made love to his new boyfriend, and NUDE, with an equally nude Omi on his lap, and they wouldn't be disturbed. They could have sex in every room of the house -- hell, they could do it in the shop -- and no one would walk in to bother them.
No one meaning, no Aya and no Ken. No blushing or sputtering or furious glares.
Youji was a touch disappointed -- just a touch. But he soon got over it. It was hard to remain out of sorts when he had such a delicious boy on his lap.
He plunked one tea bag into his cup, then laid that hand back on his downy thigh to pet it. The other hand ghosted along Omi's spine, traced his ribs and shoulders.
"Mm hmm, Omi. I would be more than happy to oblige you," he breathed, leaning forward to kiss him behind his ear.
"More than happy to oblige you in anything you might request."
Omi was all out of blushes for the time being, so his face remained its more natural shimmery porcelain hue. "I don't really want anything else, Youji-kun." Uttered with a hint of near regret. "I'm perfectly happy, right now, just like this." And then, with a wide, wide grin, "But I'll let you know if I think of anything!"
For now... no, it's too soon. Not just yet... maybe this evening again...
And shifting a bit so his sore bottom rested at a more comfortable angle.
Maybe not just that either.
Maybe not that for awhile...
Aww... bother!
So he eased over a little closer to his lover, and kissed him back, caressed he hair more like a sister would have. I could ask... well... he kinda said.
"Actually, umm... if you wouldn't mind, making the phone call to Manx. After breakfast I mean. I don't think I should. But that's all."
"And after all, who knows how long this will take!"
Saying that, he lifted a sliver of his croquette to his lips and took forever to nibble on it.
Youji'd noticed Omi's wriggling; it was hard not to, as he'd brushed against him each time he'd moved, enticingly. His thoughts drifted down to topics of a lewd nature -- and he let them linger there, just as he let his hands linger on Omi's body.
And that was all he did.
You lout! Making advances to him so soon, when you know just how much he's hurting down there. Or have you forgotten how it feels?
...No, I haven't forgotten.
And suddenly he felt like an ass. Like a jerk.
He took his hands off Omi and directed his thoughts onto the food which lay before them. Taking up his chopsticks, he began to eat, satiating one sort of hunger since he couldn't do anything more about the other which currently (constantly) plagued him.
"Mm. Yes," he replied between bites of cheesy chicken, "I was going to call her after I've eaten. She doesn't really come out until dark anyway, our oh-so-beautiful Manx."
And he smirked and took a sip of his tea.
It was Strawberry.
What could Omi do but pout. A sad, not-quite-genuine pout that he came out of laughing.
"Hey, at least we still have one person who'll be utterly mortified when she finds out!"
And then his lettuce went down at a most peculiar angle.
Manx WOULD be mortified! Mortified beyond belief!
"Umm... Youji-kun..." he fidgeted with his shoulders in his most uncomfortable manner. "I don't mean to... to be really dishonest or to make you... really dishonest but... err... are we going to tell her just WHY Momoe passed out and evicted us or are we going to... umm... hope she doesn't ask?"
The Rolls was sleek and sexy and chrome trimmed and black as ink on the outside, but on the inside the whole of it was glossy white like newly fallen snow. He almost didn't want to get in for fear of scuffing the smooth leather seat.
Almost.
He paused to brush the mud and grass off the soccer ball as best he could with his hands, then dropped it onto the milk-colored mat with an apologetic look towards Savil. Brushed off his hands and climbed in.
A twitch of a smile and a "ja" for Savil-sama and the door was slammed shut. A pane of jet black tinted glass hung at half mast between the front and back seats. On the other side of it, lay Gwen and her magnificent, green cap covered, French-twisted, russet hair. A sliver of pale skin shone just above her high collar.
And then the glass rose to the roof, and all Ran could see was his own pale reflection -- his and Ken's.
And Ken's.
Ran laid his uniform on the seat beside him and turned to face him then, looking him up and down speculatively.
"I brought this for you," he murmured, tapping the soccer ball with his foot.
Ken found himself awfully tickled. "You did? Wow! Thanks!" He bounced the ball into his hand, giving the damp leather a friendly squish. His beloved was obviously more into mementos than he was, but knowing he had become the secondary subject of one now... it was all he could do to smile. "Now we have something we can play with on Terra if you want, or we can always just keep it somewhere for all the little Terran children to smile at... although I tend to think of soccer balls as wanting to be played with. I never thought I... aww..."
With that, he leaned forward for a little kiss on the cheek.
Not to mention that the mirror partition shortly rolled down, revealing Savil, who was not exactly in the car... more of leaning in and letting all the freon cooled air depart.
"Umm... I hate to be a pain but I just wanted to warn Aya that I kinda... have to come along."
Ken smiled, and nodded. "It's another little custom. You can't officially leave Terra or go there without a Herald or a..."
"Mage. That and I kinda don't have another way home." Shrugging, she got in, slammed the door, seemingly oblivious to its expense, and waved. "Besides, someone has to read the ordinances off to you when we get there!"
He blinked a moment, "Have they changed at all?"
"Egh, not really." And she finally got the hint, sending the partition back up.
As for Ken, he gave a little chuckle, and then looked a bit forlorn. "Sorry I forgot to mention that..." his sentence trailed off as he reached for the intercom to the front seats. "Umm... how long until we get there?"
"Well," the little girl, sounding quite at home with her job of reporting to them. "It's 6:49 ATT now, so... two hours after dinner... and yes, the glass is mirrored on both sides." A titter of a verbal wink.
"Three hours!" he sighed awfully, and leaned back in his seat, seeming at first to be frustrated, but then he turned back to Ran. "You're welcome to my shoulder or my lap if you get tired."
Actually, I was kinda hoping you were...
Thought and spoken just as the Rolls took its first glide forward.
The chopsticks left Youji's mouth with a tiny, nearly inaudible slurp.
"Tell Manx of the tremendous temper the truth?" he exclaimed, chewing and swallowing the bit of potato he'd just popped into his mouth. "Are you serious?" He shook his head and reached around Omi for his tea. "Oh, no, my love. We are going to lie!"
"Question is," he added, wildly pinching up a bit of lettuce. "What do we tell her? Thieves? Rats? The teapot was flying around the room?"
Omi pursed his lips together and swayed from side to side with the ripples of his thoughts.
"Well... how about a mouse? In the teapot? Most old ladies are afraid of mice, and we could say she's mad at us for keeping such a dirty cupboard! That we're shameful people to have in her house... Well, shameful that way and not the other."
And then he heaved a sigh. "Even though I'm not sure if Momoe-san WAS afraid of mice, or if her cat's ever left a mouse loose in this house... and I did rather like her after all."
"Oh well."
He dipped his chopsticks into his miso soup and fished out the last square of tofu, which he held up to Youji's lips as small offering. "I certainly don't like her any better than I do you. I'd give up a hundred Momoes for you... ten Kens and an Aya."
Youji made a show of taking the proffered bit of tofu, locking eyes with Omi as he freed it from the tapering sticks, slowly drawing it off and chewing happily. Chanced a caress of Omi's back. Let his hand linger on his hip.
With a shrug of half-hearted apology, Youji took a sip of tea, smiling still around the rim at him.
"The mouse in the teapot sounds good to me. And we'll add the bit about her hating us for keeping a filthy house. Manx'll believe that I think. Four guys in one house -- such things were bound to happen."
He chuckled. "And, of course, she already knows I'm shameful."
The cup landed on the table with a distinct tap, and Youji wrapped his other arm around Omi.
"But then you do too, hm, Omi-ai?"
He dropped a kiss on his shoulder and pulled him a little closer, his hands wandering aimlessly again. "Mmm...No pressure. I just can't stop myself from touching you. And since, you are on my lap..."
He leaned in again for a playful kiss.
Omi leaned over then for a not-so-playful kiss. That they both chuckled at, just the same. "But I LIKE it Youji! I've... I've... I'm just fine with it. Touch me all you want! Just so long as I can do the same to you..." His words trailed off as he snuggled up to his lover's chest, pressing his hands between then, letting his fingers dart just beneath his arms.
And then he nuzzled him again with a deep, dark sigh. "And I might be only seventeen, but I know the difference between a lusty touch and an I-love-you touch. Mmm... it's just so nice... all of this... you..."
But reaching up to nibble Youji's ear, he found himself stopping cold.
From this vantage, after all, he could see the kitchen quite well... and the hall.
"Youji-kun! But the house isn't actually dirty! Oh no! We'll have to mess it up before she gets here!"
Actually, Ran was tired, just a little. And the idea of having his head in Ken's lap, with the latter's fingers combing his hair sounded wonderful.
But suddenly, he couldn't bring himself to relax, and all because of the word "ordinances".
What sort of laws did Terra have, anyway?
What would he be prohibited from doing?
Was he really going to be allowed to stay with Ken, or was this all a joke?
Again, he had the overwhelming feeling that they could be separated at any moment. That they would be, and that he himself would find himself right back in the hell from which he'd just escaped.
Ran had a notion to ask him about it in the hopes of having his worries allayed, but he didn't want his companion to know what he was thinking; didn't want to spoil his good mood.
Didn't want to find out that his worries weren't unfounded.
Edgily, he scooted over to Ken, and laid his head down in his lap, hands curled into fists on either side of his neck.
Make the best of it, cause it's not going to last...
I... I... I...
I'm stuttering in my head even! AGAIN!
I never thought he'd actually do it.
Ken found himself overwhelmingly touched, swathed all over in a sort of sleepy peace like children know not too close to bedtime and dreams.
After all, he'd not ever had the sense of tending someone. No, not before Ran. Not of being wanted, not of...
No, no! I mustn't think of that! I can't let him see me how I used to be. I would be like dying, over and over. Every night when I looked in the mirror, every time I got close enough to smell his skin. I can't!
He can't...
It's not fair to him. He does... need me and even if I can't get used to that, I have to get used to... you know...
Being in love.
But why does this feel so different?
He looked down and he knew. Smoothed the crimson bangs and he knew. Let his fingers cross Ran's shoulders like mere feathers might have.
And he admitted it. At least, part of it. His words came far too bright for his liking, as if something made them unholy... the joy. How wrong. "I always wanted someone who'd let me do this. I did. Thank you but... you feel so tense, Ran!"
Are my fingers still that knowing or am I feeling you this way because I am?
"You don't have to be. I promised. I did. You're my sweetheart..."
"I'm your sweetheart..." Ran echoed softly. It was such a sweet sentiment, really, and it made him want to scream.
One hand had somehow freed itself from the frantic curl the redhead had forced it into, and was now cupped around Ken's knee.
"Yes. I'm tense. There's a old woman in a child's body in the front seat who told me she's going to watch me for the rest of my life. I'm going to a place I never knew existed before, with a man whom I have only just realized I'm in love three hours earlier." He squeezed his knee. "Whom I do love, and it scares me because..."
"Because..."
The hand on Ken's knee tightened its grip slightly, as if by clutching him, Ran thought he could summon his courage back from whatever hole it had fled to.
He took a deep breath.
"I was once told that to be an effective warrior, one should not indulge in one's emotions. Never show them. Never feel anything. I took all that to heart, and I tested it every time I went to see Aya; every time I went on a mission and killed someone. And after every test, it became easier to deny them."
"And then..." He reluctantly looked up at Ken from his sideways perch, then looked back at the buttery soft leather back of Savil's seat.
"And then I met you, and everything I was taught went to hell, little by little."
He turned his face slightly towards Ken's leg, eyes closed in pain.
"And I could lose you in an instant."
"Ran... I can't... I won't sit here, and tell you that's not going to happen, because I don't know. It's only what I think and even if I think it with every atom of my being, that might not mean anything. Nothing I have ever done has come out just right and I may keep telling myself that over and over and over, but it won't change."
He heaved a sigh, and forced a smile upon his lips. His eyes shone in the passing glimmer of the first streetlights that began to catch alight. Ran's had too, and rather like a blind man, Ken reached down and ran his finger tips over them. Maybe he was trying to bless them with sleep or pretty visions. He couldn't even say so himself.
"But we don't have to fight anymore. That IS true. That's gone and I know it can't all be perfect at once, to loose something like a whole life in one day but..." He sighed, hard. His chest hurt. "Ran, what kind of a life did we have? If we were afraid to care so much about each other? If we were afraid of each other because of it?"
"Can't we be happy now? For now... just because... Ran, I want you to be happy. Not afraid. No one's going to be able to hurt us anymore where we're going. No one's going to make us back into what we were and Ran, no one's even going to care. Because if they're not like us well... then they're like Savil. And they know it's not worth caring."
One of his hands he found himself pulling away and stuffing a finger of it between his lips to keep them from trembling. "Now, I hope you understand that once we get a moment alone, the first thing I'm going to do is get one of those baby brushes and brush your hair for as long as you let me."
So much for sleep.
So much for having your hands in my hair, like I want...
But I'm not supposed to have what I want...
Ran suddenly sat up then, his back to Ken, long legs strung out at an angle across the bench seat. Watched the streetlights race past them in silence as he mulled over the other's remarks. No comfort, but comfort. All confidence and hopeful, yet he kept sighing as if in grief.
A paradox of a sort.
But then, so was he.
But...you don't have to be that way.
You can do what you want...
So what do you want, Ran?
Frowning, he shifted in his seat, now facing Ken. The streetlights flashed pink and gold across him.
"So all this is for nothing then," he said softly, "because you even though you don't think I'll lose you, you expect that I will anyway. Because you can't do anything right."
"So then, Ken, why the hell did you ask me here? You could have just left, and left me there in Japan, or Earth, or whatever it is that you call the place where I was born. Left me to my fate."
He quietly studied him for a moment, then hesitantly lay a hand on his arm and let it glide upwards towards his trembling hand. Gently withdrew it from his mouth and cradled it to his chest.
"Maybe you think I'm being ridiculous, that I'm too desperate. But everyone I've ever loved I've lost. Every dream I've ever had crumbled to dust. I suspect you went through the same thing as I did, only it affected you differently. You didn't end up so bitter and vengeful."
"You..."
The word died away into utter silence. A moment more and Ran lunged forward and gathered Ken up in his arms, pulling him back to sit between his sprawled legs. His lips just brushing his ear as he softly spoke.
"You've done nothing but pet me since we got here, and I liked it, Ken. And I want you to pet me some more when we are alone again. However...all I've ever needed was to simply have you around me, as corny as that sounds."
He slipped his hands down to catch Ken's own, lacing their fingers together. "And now, it seems to me that you are in need of some petting, so to speak."
"So...Tell me what's troubling you, anata."
"Ran... don't... please I..." And then he realized what he was saying, crushed somewhere against a soft, dark warmth. He felt nothing but Ran's pulse against him. His own heart seemed to have stopped. His muscles no longer offered him reply.
And the streetlights had vanished before his eyes... just like the glimmer of they two, cast on the window.
Ken was blind and shuddering in Ran's arms. "Please don't be mad at me, Sweetheart. Please, I can't help it... I can't... I-I-I... I'll be alright though."
He felt his face turn upwards, thought nothing came to his eyes save a staticy grey halo that wavered with his quaking form.
His chest HURT. And of all things, he felt himself crunching into a ball. As if that would do any good.
He felt like choking himself for making Ran worry about him.
"So...Tell me what's troubling you, anata."
An answer burned his lips.
So you would turn him away from you, even after everything of himself he's surrendered?
He doesn't deserve to hear me... he doesn't need to. He'll be fine... he needs me, but maybe not all of me.
Wouldn't it be nice if he did though.
You know he's right... about you leaving. At least, if he knew.
He'll leave if I make him worry.
Self-fulfilling prophecy. For him at least. I'm doomed.
I'm doomed.
And still, somehow he whispered... "I'll be alright if you just hold me for awhile."
"But that's not..."
an answer to my question...
Ran nevertheless did as Ken bid, releasing one of his hand to snake an arm around his waist, and pull his quaking body close. Heart sinking deeper and deeper into misery with every passing second.
Why won't you tell me what's wrong?
"I'll hold you for as long as you need me to," he said, voice strangled.
But that won't be for very long, will it, Ken?
Because you don't need me.
You don't trust me at all, and after all I've told...
And if you don't trust me -- or you can't -- then you don't really...love me.
Ran reluctantly released Ken's other hand then, but made no move to push him away. Simply sat with his head bowed, and his arms crossed loosely around Ken.
He shot a look at the mirrored wall between the seats.
I guess you aren't going to be my herald after all, Savil-sama.
Wordlessly, he reached around to the armrest behind him, and fumbled across it until his fingers found the intercom switch.
"Pardon me, Savil-sama, but Ken is ill."
Maybe you'll let her help you, since you won't let me.
"Mnn?" A vague squeak on the other side of the partition. A pause. "Oh, I see. Please don't worry, we'll be there soon enough. Wonderful doctors on Terra after all. As if I'd let my two first charges do back to some antiseptic nightmare on Antiterra. BAH!" Then uttered with her finger still clamped over the button: "Step on it." Click. And the line went off.
The Rolls, had it been a car of less auspicious make, would have lurched forward. As things stood, the increase in speed barely even registered within. Nothing had registered in Ken for many minutes.
"Ran I..." he finally whispered. His tongue felt thick and soar. "I really am OK. This isn't your fault, it's all mine..."
And I can already feel you slipping away from me, even if it is too late to go back... even if there's nothing I can do I.
"I just... I have... a..."
He swallowed. Spoke with words fantastically even. Almost ghoulishly.
"I have a little bit of a problem being touched, but not the other way around. It's nothing you did. It's from a long, long time ago. And if you put me down, it's just gonna get worse."
"I-I was hoping... I wouldn't do this. But I can't help it... no... as if I could get rid of it by wishing. I tried... I did... I'm sorry."
"You don't seem too worried." Gwen grumbled, her foot clamped down on the accelerator.
Savil sighed, and leaned back in her seat. Not an annoyed sigh, certainly not a fretful one. Just a sigh. She stretched her legs. Seemed to be gleaming in the last of the streetlights as they started to dissolve. With speed or magicks it could not be told. "They're my responsibility, Gwendolyn. I know them. It's my job. In fact, Ken isn't sick at all. He's having a nervous fit, a panic attack. Even if we were allowed to stop, don't you think he'd get even worse if we took him to a hospital?"
"I guess I have no idea." The chauffeur replied with a blank little honesty.
"Well, Ken would. I think most Terrans would. I mean, the way they get treated in those places."
A finger snap, there in the semi darkness. "Shimatta ne! Almost forgot."
Two little hands started groping for the glove box, which sprung open a few seconds later, producing a long, flat wafer of a laptop.
"Now what are you doing?"
"Logging onto AIM. But just for a minute."
The last person who'd used the computer had been kind enough to leave the thing suspended, so no start up time was wasted. The program booted in it's usual glitchy thirty seconds, someone signed on as Miffy the Herald and sporting an icon of the darling, albeit minimalist rabbit.
In full whites and wearing an amber necklace.
Savil whistled a bit as she punched in the other user's ID by hand, and sent then the following message.
[Hey Su-dono! ^_^V I guess you know who this is.]
[I certainly do. How are you, to-night. Little lady?]
[Very well, thank you. Et vous?]
[Tired -_-]
[Ah, too bad. Well, I can't stay too long and all.]
[Of course not. ^_~]
[I just wanted to let you know I've got two of your kitties.]
[o.o!]
[^_^V]
[Umm... wow. I know one of them is the Siberian.]
[Of(f) course!]
[Haha. Very funny. Who's the other one?]
[The Abysinian! My, he's a cute, cute little kitty. Don't worry. I'll take good care of them.]
[I don't know why, but I trust you. Really. No sardonism.]
[I'm honored... but you still owe me a box of chocolate.]
[Godiva or Ghirardelli?]
[Hmmm... Ghirardelli, please.]
[I'll send it over tout de suite.]
[Wai! Thanks! And have a nice night.]
[They're all nice... oh, and Savil?]
[Ne ne?]
[Thanks for letting me know.]
(OOC: -dono is like -sama only not as affectionate.)
Savil's unconcern over Ken's situation had left Ran cold. How she could be so nonchalant at a time like that...! Wasn't he more important to her than that?
He had been about to let Ken go in the wake of her dismissal, an apology poised on the tip of his tongue, but stopped short of moving away when he'd heard Ken's warning.
Uncertainty and dismay ensued.
"I can't let you go, even though you can't stand having my hands on you?" Ran breathed. "But, Ken...I..."
Another violent tremor rocked Ken's body, and Ran's protests were quickly forgotten. He simply rode it out, staring down at his hands where they lay fisted on either side of Ken's lap. He started to rub his cheek against Ken's cool brown mop of hair, but checked himself.
You don't want me to touch you, but I can't let you go...
What do I do, then?
What if you're wrong, and it will get worse if I don't let you go?
And...why can't you stand be touched?
Yet another wild shudder lurched through Ken then. Silently hoping that he was doing the right thing, Ran brought his hands up to Ken's shoulders, taking care not to touch his skin as he did so, as if that might make a difference.
Again, he hoped it would, for Ken's sake.
"Gomen nasai, Ken."
By now he had stopped shivering out of fear... and the old sensations. The traces of pain that laved his form. His shudders were all the signs he could give of the battle between the two Hidaka Kens.
What else could he call them? His insecurities? They were both wraiths of whispers clad as men. Visions of things unsaid.
And both confined to his thoughts and the need in him to witness the forms of his sorrows... confined to one form already.
"...just like you..."
I am... I am Ran. I am Aya. I'm just like the two of them, aren't I? I'm sitting here with my eyes gone out whole body shaking like I'm having a damn seizure and all because.
"Ran, no! Please... it's not that! It's not what you think. I'm alright. I just... yeah, I know I never told anyone but... oh please don't think I hate to have you touch me! That's not what it is. But I can't say it has nothing to do with you... Ran, I love having you near me, I like it when you run your hands over my back but I... I have to learn sometime! How can I love you if I don't? Even if it's not your fault. I didn't... I tried so hard, I did! Don't be sorry."
Though his shaking had far from abated, if he tensed himself enough, Ken found he could move a bit, and so snuggled up as close to Ran as he could, taking one hand from his shoulder and twining his fingers around it.
Gave it a long, hard squeeze.
"Ran, I was so happy you sat down with me last night... so very happy. Because I know, how you feel. About being someone you're not."
"I am too. I'm not everything I told you I was."
"And maybe... I'm more. But not like that I'm..."
So do you want to know why I'm so scared?
"I'm a burden if I tell you."
No matter how much I wanted to watch over you...
Ran wanted to kiss him, longed to skim the lines of his form with gentle fingers. But...he knew all that was out of the question. Ken was as stiff as a statue in his arms, such was his fear. Ran could practically feel it soaking into him, and it hurt him badly.
But he said nothing, merely squeezed Ken's warm, desperately clutching hand, and drew his other away from his lover's shoulder. Let it rest on his own bent knee instead.
"You say you're a burden, but I might feel differently. Or didn't you ever consider that?"
He risked a quick peck on Ken's temple, murmuring another hasty apology as he drew back.
"I'm capable of making up my own mind, Ken, so...Please. Won't you please tell me why being touched frightens you?"
Ken nodded, and leaned back in Ran's arms, his eyes tilting open just the littlest bit.
The inside of the rolls seemed blurry and bright like a washed out photograph.
All save Ran, who came in clear and smooth above him. And so, so pretty.
"B-b-because it's what I want more than anything else in the world, and there's this part of me that just can't... just c-c-can't accept that. Because of... b-b-because... oh god."
An interminable moment passed with nothing but Ran's pulse to hold him in the sphere of any world. Doki... doki... dukun...
You're scared too... you know then... maybe... I...
"Ran, the night... the first w-w-we were supposed to be hunting down Kaze and the Creepers... I-I-know you were tailing me... now..." Just like a guardian angel... even though I'm Terran, I don't believe in angels, just demons. But I believe in you. "...and I was glad... even then th-th-that you did but... I d-d- don't know if you followed me back to h-h-his house. And if you d-d-did... did you listen? Did you hear me?"
And then in one bursting second he stopped shivering and the world came in bursting clear. Crystal. Sane. Gone.
"When I screamed out his name in the middle of the night?"
His Ken -- fiery tempered, fearless Ken -- was so terrified that he was actually stuttering. And he could do nothing to assuage his fears.
He was helpless. Ran absolutely despised being helpless.
He stroked the back of Ken's hand with his thumb, his mind racing all the while. Just as dark as the sky beyond.
So you knew I was tailing you. And I thought I had fooled you.
I wonder if you know that I tailed you every time you went out...Just because...
I never wanted anything to happen to you, and...DAMN IT!
He very nearly said that last out loud in his anger. Eyes screwed tight and jaw working, he held it in. Tense and his hand twisted into a clawing fist on his knee.
He'd tried so hard to protect him, but he'd clearly failed.
"I heard you, Ken, yes," he hissed, "But I don't know...exactly what happened."
Oh, how it pained him to admit that, to even remember that night. It was like he'd just been raked across the chest by both of Ken's bagh-nakhs.
"Did...Did he hurt you, Ken?"
"Not the way you're thinking..."
Ken closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "It's alright if you're angry. I am too. But this was... my fault. Not yours. There was nothing you could have done." This whispered, he reached down and brushed his hand to Ran's. "You were there after. Just there, even if you hated me back then. And that made me happy."
A long silence fell then and it seemed that the speed of the Rolls had finally begun to drop, though it hadn't been long enough. No, a million years would not be long enough, but things still existed and the sky outside by now was hung with twinkling stars and a host of fireflies clinging to the earth and watching the heaven's from the grass. The moon could not be seen.
Ah, neither moon could be seen. If they were on Terra.
Ran felt like he was made of ice.
But he asked, and he hasn't wrung my neck yet. I can't let him think this...
"Kaze was my lover. He had been since I was eight... I guess. I can't really remember. But I was his, and no one else's."
And then he did dearly wish that the two little cynthia twins would appear, even though the thought made him shudder again. The two little orbs, one danced around the other, over and over. Three times a night -- casting off her silver robe and putting it on again for laughs.
"He made sure I knew that too."
Ken could still see himself draped over the heather, save for one hand, which had wound its way down Kaze's trousers, just like a good boy's. Always. Thinking the two of them were like the moons. Just drunk and happy and revolving around each other. Over and over.
Even though for a second, Kaze winked out and turned into Ran. Just for a second. If he could have caught that fancy and stuffed it in his pocket...
"He kept me. And I was happy. That's why..."
"That's why...You don't want me to ever touch you."
Ran had raised the hand atop his knee to transfer that caress to Ken's hair, but stopped short. Ken didn't want it, would probably go into spasms again, and who ever liked to be touched by a hand that was trembling like gelatin anyway?
So he rubbed his own face instead, gazing solemnly at the myriad stars through the rear window.
Ken was a warm, comfortable weight against his thin frame, meeting him from shoulder to groin, their two hands still entwined -- just liked he'd always hoped they would end up. Except...
...And this was the funny part...
Nothing had really changed. They were together, yes, but Ran still couldn't have him because Ken belonged to someone else.
And that someone was nothing but a moldering corpse now, but Ran silently, roundly cursed him anyway.
"No, it wasn't what I thought, but it's just as bad, isn't it? Because you can't stand to..."
He sighed then himself, face still turned towards the night sky to the side of him. He'd escaped one hell only to be trapped in another, and he saw no way out of it.
"I won't touch you anymore, Ken," he said sadly. "I won't even kiss you anymore. From now on, if you want that sort of affection from me, you're going to have to ask for it. I don't want you to think I'm...trying to force you."
I don't want you to think I'm like him.
He suddenly yanked his hand into a stiff fist again and brought it down hard on the back of the seat.
"If he wasn't dead, Ken...I'd..."
go back and kill him myself.
Omi was in the middle of scraping toast crumbs around the kitchen floor, when he heard someone begin to sing in the living room.
Which happened to be quite amazing as thusfar, no one had ever dared sing in that house, especially the living room. Well, not since the night everyone had begged Ken to cease his dreadfully off key rendition of "Let's Go to Bed", particularly, Youji's latest conquest.
But that had been more than a year ago, and latest conquest for Youji had always been closer to "that conquest which appears in the next five minutes". And besides, the present possessor of that honor and that ignominy happened to be him. If there had been a clean pot left in that kitchen, Omi would have stopped to admire himself in it, but presently, he made due with the spaces between the greasy bubbles that hovered in the sink.
He grinned at himself and fumbled his own cheek, which was still a little red from his escapades early in the afternoon.
And he repeated to himself then, out loud, with no one around to hear unless by chance some mice were already negotiating property deals in the tea cupboard. "I'm special. I'm his only boy." Said with great wonder, and great insistence. Not to mention a giggle.
Then he got up on his tiptoes and plucked Aya and Ken's teacups from their places, and he held them both against his palms, as tightly as he could, even as he waltzed across the be-crumb-ed floor. He had no other tokens of his friends that had meant so much, and he took them into his room, stuffing them into his one little crate of beloved things. Things he intended to pack. Since he would be packing. Just not... now.
Now it was time to dare, now it was time to sing in that house. In the midst of the decadent dada of their dirtying, he found himself sweeping across the stairs to his Youji, being very mindful of where he stepped in lieu of their experimentation with accelerated grim collection, and even though, he feet were suddenly sticking to the floor, and even though, he had so many a mission memory beginning in those quarters, he forgot it all, and felt sweet as the morning breeze, newer than the dawn, sweeping into this! The remnants of their past made into one great, big, purple fanta joke!
They truly were free there, beneath the shower of amaranth sugar water. Youji especially. After all, he still happened to be quite naked.
Omi stepped up beside him and started humming along. My, did his beloved have a voice!
And maybe now he could actually use it. In another apartment. Somewhere in Tokyo, where Aya and Ken were no longer. Maybe in another life, they could have been a pair of singers, a pair of stockbrokers or noodle vendors. Two girls who still like-liked each other. But now at least, they could pretend.
There was one thing Omi could not pretend though... that he knew who's BeXBoy Gold that was... and his eyes grew quite wide as he stared at it.
That more than anything made Ken shiver... and then as Ran, still holding him, began to creep away, he wished beyond all wishes, he could find his voice and scream.
But he couldn't even murmur. He just collapsed inside, shut his mind up, and let himself revel in these last few minutes of the day that had begun back on Antiterra, and the last few heartbeats of Ran, that he had always longed so to hear. You did this Ken, you know it. You're too afraid.
In his fancies, fear meant nothing and he cried out --
This isn't nearly as dramatic or as complicated as it sounds! Ran, you don't understand, that's not right. I'm fine, Ran. I love you, Ran.
But I used to...
The words went out. The engine's barely noticeable thrum seemed to be dying down, and his real fears shattered and caught themselves on the new ones. Didn't you think I was happy when you sat with me yesterday on the bike? Didn't you think I would have kissed you forever in the library...
I don't even know what I used to be anymore.
"We're here..." And he drowned the vicious unrealities of himself as he sat up, in this one consoling sigh.
But I'm home.
His hand crept over and the tips of his fingers at least brushed Ran's lips. "Smile a little. It's over. And where we're going looks a lot prettier if you're happy. I know it's been one hell of a day."
So they were actually sitting apart, his hand already having left his sweetie's lips, when Savil opened their door with less than the usual flourish. In fact, she looked downright forlorn and was twiddling something in a hidden pocket.
"Gomen-nasai, minna-san. I know long car rides aren't any fun..."
"It's just fine." Ken nodded, and reaching down after the soccer ball, managed to retrieve some pale echo of his usual smile. After all, it had been a present... from someone he adored.
The little girl then pulled two little boxes form the folds of her skirt. "I know this doesn't really make up for it or anything... you sure you're alright now?"
"Sure-sure!"
She pressed the little box into his hand then -- it was ordinary clear plastic, but inside, on a bed of spun sugar rested a bouquet of crystallized violets and rose petals. Or at least, what appeared to be that. Ah, he knew them as some remarkable buttery cream that melted if it even thought of the sun... Terran candy was notoriously delicate.
The other box she passed to his beloved.
"I'm sorry I was snippy, Aya. But we're not supposed to go back once we've gotten on the main road, and stupidly enough, I wasn't allowed to tell you that until now. Besides, we're treated really badly if we go into Antiterran hospitals. In fact, if you ever go back, and you need a doctor, you're probably better off coming here."
Despite that "here" presently constituted a more or less mundane parking garage.
"So we still friends?"
Ran took the box from Savil without expression, wondering why she'd bothered to give him candy in the first place. He never cared much for sweets, and he didn't really want it -- didn't want anything or anyone except the man sitting across from him.
Not that it fucking mattered anymore...
But the little herald did matter.
His eyes only met Savil's for a second, and he more or less mouthed his assent to her question, his voice was so low when he gave it. And then he turned away, the candy and his uniform in hand and he got out of the car; slammed the door and walked away, the tiny jewelry box digging into him as he moved.
Ran came to rest behind the Rolls, head down, and facing the entrance. He'd had to stop, because he'd begun to cry; a mild, stinging mist welling up at the corners of his eyes, but tears all the same. Tears he didn't want any of them to see.
So it'll look better if I'm happy, huh? Well, that's just too damn bad, Ken.
Because the way I feel, Terra's probably going to look like a gigantic ruin.
How the hell do you expect me to be happy now, anyway?
He caught the sound of murmuring voices behind him, and, with a few shaking breaths and a hastily scrub of his smarting eyes with the heel of one hand, Ran found the will to speak again.
"So...what do we have to do now, Savil-sama?" he asked, hoarsely, and without looking around.
"Follow me and listen to the obligatory rant." Whether that particular reply stood as a deadpan joke or just dead serious could not be easily ascertained. What could be was that Savil slid up beside Ran, seized his hand, and started leading him along.
Actually, she had Ken in her other one, and glanced back and forth between then, rather anxiously. Ken wasn't watching where he was going and tripped a few times as he thumbed through his rose petals. He didn't dare look up, or speak up, or even try to think.
And Savil was really hurting his hand.
Kinda the same way a mother drags a kid around. He could hear Gwen sighing somewhere behind him as they climbed into an old-fashioned elevator with a safety grate of peeling white. He didn't however notice as the little girl's arm slid around Ran's waist on the way up.
Savil herself wondered if Ran himself noticed, but nonetheless spoke what she had been born to speak. And not flatly nor flowery. She sounded like she was reading from a story book.
"Well, this is Terra, and it's a big secret of course. You're absolutely not allowed to talk about Terra while you're on Antiterra -- that's the most serious thing you can do wrong if you've ever been here, but of course, you can't actually do it while you're here. You're also not allowed to make movies, tape your conversations, or digitize anything Terran and oh, no flash photography. I guess you're used to that sort of thing though
"The rules are pretty simple -- don't kill, don't maim, don't rape, don't steal, don't get in fights. All the usual stuff, although I'd like to see someone get away with most of that considering weapons aren't permitted. But you can smoke weed if you want, get drunk, and since this is the Japanese annex, do all the hiropon you want. But nothing else.
"While you're here, listen to your herald. But also, don't hesitate to come to me if you have any problems. Taking you between here and Antiterra is only ten-percent of my job.
"Since you're new here, Aya, you're going to have to stay for at least a month before we let you go back. That's so you won't be tempted to hurt us, not that you would, but it's what we do. No one is allowed any contact with Antiterra, unless it's by messenger. See, it's not so bad."
The elevator had ground to a stop by now. Ken's rose petal had gone to slush in his mouth. They stood now in a short, dark hallway.
"Any questions before we go?"
Ran snuck a nervous, uncertain glance at Ken, then hurriedly averted his eyes. Studied the slightly wrinkled garments that were tucked under his arm, while his heart went crashing down to his boots.
"Iie, Savil-sama."
A month of playing look, but don't touch with the only person I've ever been in love with.
And I failed him just as badly as I have everyone else in my life. Never mind what he said...
It was there in front of me the whole time. I should have seen it. I should have stopped it somehow.
He abused you, didn't he? And you stayed with him, and all the time I...
Savil's arm was still around his waist, but he'd only just noticed it then, as they began their journey down the gloomy hallway. Thin and fragile like a shell. Just the way Aya had felt when they were children and she would try to hug him out of his blue funky mood.
But he didn't want to be consoled.
Still, Ran said nothing.
Savil took her leave of her first two charges before they had come up to the door -- a great, heavy black thing that looked as if it was made of stone, and bore two rings instead of knobs. She stood before it, hands behind her back and knees knocked. Smiling awfully upon the two sets of forlorn eyes that traced her up and down. She seemed to be hiding a birthday present. She made herself smile.
Ken made himself too. Just a little. Glanced at Ran, who hadn't.
"Sorry, but this is my only chance to say this, since they only do it in Japan." A giggle. And then she shouted to the darkness. "Gei-boi-san-tachi to enjoi shite kudasai!"
And she, despite her small stature, flung the doors open.
There was nothing to be seen of Terra at first for the world behind came as blinding after the sated dimness of the hallway. Oh but the smell Ken took in as he held his eyes closed... an overpowering, almost physically filling sensation of violets. It claimed and calmed his senses, but not his heart, for besides the flood of light, their came memories, many a first time, now all long past.
His first sight of this place seemed to mingle with the present. Nothing had changed, nothing ever would, for those the spaces beyond were called properly indoors, they seemed as timeless and as lasting as the hills -- the suppositions of dragons and fairies who no longer came there, or so one could not help but guess.
The Planet, this place on Terra was immense with a breeze that chased itself through the gleaming catacombs. No cathedral on Antiterra could rival this, no heart of the earth. The ceiling hovered above, high as the clouds and its golden ribs seemed mere threads across the vault of the night sky that shone through -- two moons, hand in hand, hovering among the cherry-mint aurora traces above the arcade.
If in truth it could be called that for no end could be guessed for the procession of ivory marble buttresses that raced before them and into the distance. Now and again they stood graced with signs: Hyacinth Villa this way, hotel the other and if you're looking for your herald...
All this and not one light could be made out, as if the endless aisle itself illumed or took on the glow of the spirits within. For its benches stood not empty, its fountains not unwished in, its small, winding groves not unoccupied by lovers speaking softly.
And therein the most surprising thing of all. Not one woman walked here who was not clad in the yellow and blue of herald Savil, and of those they all dashed about like vivid sparrows. The men paid to them only the heeds of social graces and kept the kisses for each other..
As if nothing better stood within the confines of the world.
This world at least.
"Welcome to Terra," said Savil.
(OOC: Gei-boi-san-tachi to enjoi shite kudasai = Please enjoy yourself with the Mr. Gay Boys; a message frequently appearing outside Tokyo gay clubs.)
The smell of violets had a completely different effect upon Ran. No bittersweet memories assailed him, no hope pervaded his thoughts, no sudden giddying joy overwhelmed him. He simply became ill.
His heart tripped madly within its bone cage, and he felt lightheaded, as if his soul was about to leave his body and go for a walk. What he saw when he dared to open his swimming eyes, was hazy and dull, as if he were viewing the scene through a piece of heavy, dark grey gauze. It all tilted crazily at intervals as well, but Ran wasn't sure if it was the picture or himself that was moving.
The moons seemed to him to be the two great pearly eyes of some beast.
The heralds and the lovers were only shades in the dusk.
But he kept quiet about his distress, merely clutched his bundle to his chest and took step after quavering step forward until he realized he'd crossed the threshold. The breeze sprang upon him almost immediately, enveloping him in its embrace. Instinctively, Ran drew a deep lung full of it, and immediately began to cough; it burned cold like peppermint. Not entirely unpleasant, just unexpected.
And altogether too much for a disoriented Anti-terran.
Somehow, Ran made his way to what looked to be an ash-colored pillar, and leaned his slender body against its chill marble bulk.
"Where..." he began weakly, "will we be staying, Savil-sama?"
"Sweetheart, are you OK?" Ken asked. His joys and sorrows all forgotten, he brushed Savil to one side and crept over closer to his Ran, who stood like a cataryd against the arch of a buttress -- a splash of red and black against the cream and gold.
A wheezing one. One he could not deny his hands, and so reached out for one of his bony shoulders, intending to cradle it with his palm. Would that make him understand? That it wasn't his fault? That their exile from one another was neither total nor permanent.
Unlike his own troubles? Perhaps. No. But I... oh please. Oh please don't be mad at me. Please, Ran. I do love you. I know you need me and maybe...
But that thought was silenced by Savil, "Oh for crying out loud!" She groaned.
And as heralds had little reason to say such things, Ken ended up turning away in alarm, his fingers only grazing his beloved's shoulder.
A little ways down the hall had appeared a flock of heralds -- all older than Savil. Stately women of their thirties mostly, bearing standards some. And one snippy, dark child. About fourteen.
At least one carried the crest of Valdemar.
"Fiona!" Savil protested.
"Oh calm down, dear," she replied, waving her hand dismissively. "I'm not here after you at all."
The little girl seemed delighted at this at first, but then just as the other was opening her mouth, "You want Ken, don't you?"
Ken gulped.
"There's a mage from Valdemar here. Just flew in, wants to see him at once. Something about settling the estate before it moulders. Yadda yadda. Blah Blah..." and then to the horribly flustered Ken. "Come with me."
"Hey wait a second!" the herald of the usurped chap demanded. "He just got here! He's tired! He doesn't feel well and neither does his BF!"
"I'm sorry!" Spoken with true sympathy. "But you know how mages are." With that line, she took a look around all three of the recently arrived guests, as if her words would say even what they might not have understood at once. "And besides, the mage they sent is..."
"MON DIEU!" Savil buried her face in her palms. "Ysanne?"
"Exactly." Fiona sighed and seized ken by the arm. "So the sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can say you survived a meeting with..."
"... the bitch."
"SAVIL!"
"But it's true ;_;."
"I know..." Ken heaved a sigh and reclaimed his arm. "I met her. Back when I was in Valdemar. I'll be..." But he never finished his sentence. Rather he cast a longing look back at Ran, a little look. "Don't worry, it's nothing serious."
"Exactly!" Fiona encouraged, stamping her foot. "Now can we please get on, don't you know..."
Savil again, "You mean they've decided to give him the ENTIRE VILLA!?"
Ken went stiff with shock. Savil giggled with delight. Ran looked like they were all speaking Flemmish. Not that Savil couldn't do that...
"More or less." Fiona sighed. And then to Ran. "I'll bring him back in one piece. Ciao!"
With that, she hauled Mr. Hidaka away through and aisle of staring men and clapping girls.
"I love you Ran!" had he even heard, or were the words lost in the swell of the crowd as it took him away.
The last thing Ken saw before they vanished from his eyes, was his herald, stepping up beside his lover, her head hung as she reached for his hand.
A long, heavy sigh came from Youji at that, and his hands stopped their tickling race down Omi's side. It was just what he'd dreaded...Omi's painstaking attention to detail coming into play.
Ah, yes! Thank you, Hidaka Ken for being such a damn neat freak.
His eyes wandered over to the chair where Ken always liked to sit -- the one which stood nearest the window -- and he bit his lip, remembering how the morning sunlight would hit Ken from behind, turning his dark hair copper, his skin golden.
Remembering how Aya would gaze at him when he thought no one was paying attention.
His expression softened a little in a smile, and he gave Omi one last pat on his hip and a kiss on the top of his head.
"You take the bathroom, I'll take the living room, and we'll both do the kitchen."
"Right!" Omi threw him a bit of a mock salute and leapt up, gathering the breakfast dishes with a skill even the most experience waitress would have envied.
These were originally headed to the dishwasher, but ended up sitting beside the sink in the most precarious arrangement Omi could manage on such short notice. Suddenly struck with inspiration, the younger of the two remaining Weiss members went upstairs, threw on a very, very tight pair of denim cutoffs he usually wore to sleep during the summer, and tore down the street to the nearest soda machine. There, he purchased one coke, one peach fanta, two grape fantas, two calpis waters and a pocari sweat. The peach fanta he somehow managed to drink on his jogging trip bag with the other chilly cans pressed entirely too tightly to his bare breast. He left the rest, by the living room door for Youji to use, except for the coke and his own empty can. Then he doubled back and tracked some muddy water from the shop into the hallway.
As for that coke, he plugged up the drain and poured it into the sink basin, where it was allowed to ferment during the rest of duty. It left a wonderful brown stain... not to mention the fact he left the can behind.
"Forgive me Momoe-san." He said solemnly to the shower. Then he doused its walls with shampoo that left big, sticky, green marks in their wake. It was Ken's actually, not Youji's beloved Freesia, which he spared during the ravaging moments of uncapping every single bottle in the room.
As for the tub, he yanked some hair from his own hairbrush and gummed it into the drain fixture with some soap. He really had liked soaking in it a lot, and so spared it otherwise. The rest of the hair he tore up and decked the floor and vanity with.
As for towels, he soaked a few and carelessly cast them about the entire room. It was like unwrapping a bunch of Christmas presents.
Then, for added realism, he added a wet towel to his own room, not to mention the peach fanta can, upset his computer disks, added a wet towel to Ken's room...
So Ken the little housewife trashed the place before leaving...
Arigatou, Ken-kun.
And added a wet towel to Aya's room as well. One right in the middle of the bed. Beside a book of haiku he laid face down, hoping the spine wouldn't bend too much.
Actually, I guess I can leave your room alone.
It'd seem funny otherwise.
But, as for his coupe de gras the bathroom, he took everyone's toothpaste tubes and squeezed them so they appeared to have been emptied from the improper middle as opposed to the bottom, and left all of the caps off when he was done.
Ah, the living room. How many pleasurable hours had he spent there, both alone and with his latest conquest(s)?
It was with a dreamy sigh that Youji entered said room, and looked around slowly, as if he were trying to commit every detail to loving memory.
Then he popped the top on one of the cans of grape fanta he'd brought with him and upended it over the carpet with a whoop of delight. Waved it around so that the deep violet, sour smelling liquid fell across the green carpet in drunken splatters. Then he dropped the can to the floor and kicked it under the coffee table.
After that, it was a study in chaos.
The neatly folded newspaper on the table was snatched up and pulled apart and scattered about in a wide swathe beside the room's sole armchair. The sofa's throw pillows were torn out of their corners and tossed about the room.
And then, after donning the pair of beat up, black boots which he kept by the door for impromptu trips to the market, the liquor store, he padded back into the living room with a smile towards the bathroom where his lover was at work.
A lamp -- a vomit green glass ginger jar one of his exs had given him -- wound up in shards, thrown there more than pushed. He'd always hated the damn thing anyway.
Youji nudged the emerald slivers around with his toe, smirking. Then he looked around the room, thinking that it needed something which blared his name in neon letters.
And then it came to him.
With an wicked look of delight, Youji stumped over to the sofa again and, crouched down, began to sort under the cushions until he found what he was looking for.
His nudie magazines.
He stood up, grinning like a jack-a-lantern, and started to thumb through the one on the top of the thin pile. Leered at the beautiful centerfold, tossed the magazine on the sofa, and arranged it so it looked as if it had been recently "read".
Insult my boyfriend and throw him out on the street will you? Ha!
He draped another one in the middle of the coffee table, again artfully arranged, then went to do the same to the third...
And then he saw the cover, and Youji froze.
It wasn't a girlie magazine, and it wasn't his.
Not that he didn't have any which featured men, because he did. But he kept those in a box under his bed, away from prying eyes.
So whose is this, hm?
He smirked as he slipped it under his arm. Another little mystery.
Singing a Gackt song softly under his breath, Youji thumped over to where the other soda cans awaited him. He laid the magazine down and picked up the other can of grape fanta and started to shake it as he walked back to the center of the room.
With a flip of thumb, an amethystine shower rained down, coating nearly every piece of furniture around him as Youji's voice swelled in song.
The empty soda can went flying through the air in an angled flash of purple and silver, and bounced off the far wall with a metallic chirrup to the sound of Youji's croon. He whirled around then, and slung his arms around Omi, his soda-sticky fingers instantly pouncing upon the boy's ticklish places as he roared out the last two lines.
And then the tickling dissolved into stroking, and the song died away in a hearty laugh. Youji pressed his face to Omi's hair and kissed him soundly.
"My boy!" he bellowed, scooping him up in his arms. He caught sight of his too-tight cutoffs then, and jokingly waggled his fine, dark brows at him.
My first boy. My second real love.
You said you know so much about me, but I bet you don't know that, do you, Omi?
"Mmm...I like your choice of clothing. Pity I've never seen you in those before."
Youji swung him into a dip, and placed a nibbling kiss on the hollow of his throat before straightening up again. "But I'm ever so glad I have now."
He grinned slyly, and slowly turned around and around, glowing with pride. "So, whaddya think? Am I a master redecorator or what? A lot of care went into this, Omi, my boy! A lot of care! And guess what?" he said, his eyes darting impishly to the side table by the entry way. "I've found another mystery for us to solve!"
He laughed, and laughed... and laughed until he had to pinch his eyes to keep them from leaking. Then came the moment he pranced away for a moment, and slid his hands down the sides of the cutoffs, which had no pockets and pulled so very, very tight at that movement.
"I'm glad you like them. I didn't used to wear these outside my room before... since... well, you know."
And taking a moment to straighten the seam that ran between his legs. "They feel so nice on. I'll wear them whenever you want..."
And then, stretching his lanky arms behind his back and leaning from side to side for a better look, "Oh! I would say I know what you should do for your new job! I love what you've don't with the newspaper- juxtaposed with the puddle like that. It rather reminds me of a pseudo-post-modern reinterpretation of Mondays. But what really pulls the room together, is the grape fanta! And its that post-classical unity that really elevates this work from mere deconstructionism. Anyway, mystery?"
This inquired, he leaned down, dancing around Youji for a better look at the Be-boy. "Oh, so this isn't yours unlike..."
He pointed to the sprawled picture of the sprawled woman with the sprawled legs revealing more or less everything that could be revealed. (Omi had an astounding tolerance for such images, since they never had and never would do anything for him, not to mention having seen plenty doing the wash.)
"Hmm..."
A quizzical quirk of a brow, and Youji smirked, and made a frantic grab for the magazine, only to have it jerked out of his reach.
"So, I have an appreciation for beauty in all its forms." He shrugged, lazily looking Omi up and down. "I am an artiste, after all."
This last said with a sweep of a hand, indicating the newly redone room. He bowed with a flourish.
With that, he turned and took the Be/Boy Gold magazine in hand, and began to thumb through it, flicking Omi a look every so often.
And I thought Kizuna was explicit...
"So...You don't know who this belongs to, hmmm?"
Omi shook his head, most sincerely, "I haven't the faintest, Youji-kun." But faintest or not, he slunk up beside his lover and peered over his arm only to behold a particularly juicy panel. Ow, that looks painful... I'm double jointed and I wouldn't even try that! These hentai little mangaka!
"Maybe they wrote something on it... probably not their name, but something nonetheless. Writing a name on one's smut isn't too bright of course."
This suggested, he ducked down and admired the cover, hoping for some sort of discerning mark. "Well, it's a sci-fi themed issue... I can't exactly see Aya or Ken going for that!"
Then a long pause, during which he regarded Youji with wide, vexed eyes. "I can't even see either of them as gay! And even if they were... does this mean... they ran off with each other!?"
He suddenly felt very, very, very unobservant.
At that, Youji flipped the magazine shut and lightly smacked Omi on the head with it.
"And I'm sure neither of them saw me going for a person of my sex, but I did."
And I have...
He tousled his hair wildly with his free hand, and smiled down into his lover's eyes. "And just where have you been these last few months, hm? Why, Aya's done nothing but sneak lovestruck looks at Ken when he thought no one was paying attention to him. In the shop, in the kitchen..." He shot a smirking look in the direction of the redhead's room. "Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if..."
A pause, while Youji considered that offhand notion.
"Nah...Not our Aya..."
He twisted a look at Omi then, and lunged forward to press a kiss to his slack, rosy lips.
Pulled away with a soft sigh.
"Let's go get dressed, and start -- or finish in your case? -- packing, what do you say? Our ever gorgeous Manx will be here soon, and I'd rather not greet her like this."
She'd only laugh, anyway...
The Be-Boy Gold got another wondering look, before it was tucked once more under Youji's arm.
"I think I'll take this with me. Never know," he added, with a lazy, seductive glint of dark-fringed green in Omi's direction. "It might just come in handy later on."
Omi couldn't exactly say that idea struck him as anything but hypothetically amusing, if not utterly frightening. Though that was not the most frightening thing of all.
True, not there was no point to arguing with his Youji, and he didn't want to at all but...
... he simply could not see Aya and Ken ever admitting anything for each other. Aya behaved as if feelings were a weird alien disorder suffered by his associates, and Ken was all glee or anger.
I should have taken that psyc class. I just know it. Those two need help, and the worst part of it was always that they couldn't ever admit to needing it! And now they're off alone, together somewhere, doing god knows what. Oh, I hope they really are alright! I hope they can get along.
I hope this really is about how they feel for each other.
But just then, as he was creeping up the hall to his room, he stopped, and went into Ken's, where the socks still dotted the floor, and the window stood still open over the glorious afternoon tokyo skyline, all diamonds and silver. Marie Antoinette in steal in glass.
And he was seized with a pang of intense jealousy.
If you two are allowed to run off and be each other's forever and ever without Kritiker on you backs... what about Youji and I?
He could just see them... OK, little chibis of them... off frolicking in an idyllic field of daisies somewhere, pausing occasionally to kiss and fondle one another's bottoms. But that daydream degrading into not their happily screwing each other, but a dust cloud raised by a cat fight over...
... nothing save themselves.
Omi sighed. He knew they'd never be like that, Aya and Ken. Maybe they could love each other. But not like that. And he pitted them. And he wished them luck.
And then all of a sudden he was honored to be left behind and take their places and their Be-boy Golds.
So he went back to his own room, to his own closet, and pulled on a pair of long, black shorts, followed by a purple tank top and a backwards baseball cap, that failed in making him look delinquent, at least in his won eyes where all he could see was his naked self under Youji when he looked in the mirror. He smiled, mismatched his earrings, and fished his keepsake box out from under his bed. The disks on the floor could be shoveled into his duffel. He'd leave his clothes out until they had somewhere to go.
"Well," he said to no one at all. "I'm packed."