Fic for reddorozette (1/5)
Title: Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow {1/5}
Written for: reddorozette
Pairing: pikame (& a bit of ryokame)
Words: 36 427
Rating: PG-15? (somewhere between PG-13 and R)
Notes: thank you very much to my beta!!!!! <3333
Summary: From the first moment that he met Kamenashi Kazuya, Yamashita Tomohisa knew, just knew, that somehow, he had done something horrible to the younger boy. Is it possible to hate someone in one life, but love them in the next? In one life, Yamashita Tomohisa murdered Kamenashi Kazuya but in this life, he's in love with him...
--
From the first moment that he met Kamenashi Kazuya, Yamashita Tomohisa knew, just knew, that somehow, he had done something horrible to the younger boy. Somehow. Even though they had never met before.
They were thirteen and the moment he took his seat next to Kamenashi Kazuya in class, looked over, and his eyes met Kamenashi Kazuya’s, he had been assaulted by words that drowned out the short self-introduction that Kamenashi Kazuya gave him, leaving the younger boy to stare at him strangely beneath bushy eyebrows.
Those words, a mixture of yelling and screaming and which seemed to hold nothing good in them, kept buzzing in his ears as he struggled to ignore them and he introduced himself to his classmate. Then, the sounds had been replaced with a dizzying myriad of images that assaulted his mind the moment they shook hands, like the teacher had required them to do with their neighbours.
Those images had involved something so horrible that Yamapi couldn’t think straight for nearly ten minutes, and by the time he could clear his head and try to ignore them, everyone else was done with their introductions and they were all staring at him and Kamenashi Kazuya, who was looking at him strangely.
Yamapi had quickly muttered an apology. Then, his heart had skipped a beat when Kamenashi Kazuya had sent him an odd look and then flippantly turned back to the front of the room, almost determined not to look at Yamapi.
Yamapi couldn’t blame him, not really.
After all, that was the day Kamenashi Kazuya would probably always remember as the day he, Yamashita Tomohisa, had tried to shake his hand and had, instead, held on for ten whole minutes. And it wasn’t even one of those manly strong grips of a handshake so he couldn’t lie and say he was trying to intimidate Kamenashi Kazuya.
So, basically, that was the day that Yamapi had been branded a weirdo in Kamenashi Kazuya’s mind.
The images also never stopped coming. They were sometimes weak, like a nagging little thought, but sometimes, they overpowered him, making him unable to do anything coherent, or remotely cool looking, for whole minutes, which only reinforced Kamenashi Kazuya’s perception of him being a weirdo.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if after that grade and that class, they had simply gone off in different directions and had never seen each other again.
But no, fate hated Yamapi apparently and he was stuck with Kamenashi Kazuya all through high school. He had gotten his share of weird looks and his share of disturbing images, and Yamapi could only be relieved when he set off to university.
In fact, that was where he was now.
Trudging a suitcase up a flight of steps to his dorm room in the university’s residence, he opened the door to his room, ready to greet his roommate with as much coolness as possible, determined not to go through another four years doomed to weird looks and being thought of as a weirdo.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” was the first thing he heard. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and then closed them again. Then he slowly opened them again.
“Goddamn it.”
He hated his luck. Really hated it.
Kamenashi Kazuya stood in front of him, in the middle of opening up a box.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
* * *
They were even in some of the same classes. Yamapi wasn’t sure whether to be exasperated at fate, his luck, or whatever otherworldly power that had it in for him, or be completely mortified because the way it looked now, Kamenashi probably thought he was a stalker or something.
But there was really nowhere else to sit.
Of course, he could take that nice comfy looking spot on the ground there, right on the stairs leading down to the front of the lecture hall, but he had a feeling that would make everyone else look at him oddly and really, wasn’t it enough that he had Kamenashi looking at him like he was an alien?
So, he gathered up all the manly courage he could - which, he admitted grudgingly, didn’t feel like that much in the long run - and took a seat next to Kamenashi, issuing an as-cool-as-possible, “Hey” as he did.
He stubbornly ignored that telltale, nagging, little sensation at the back of his mind. He made sure he wasn’t even looking in Kamenashi’s direction before he let his eyes glaze over and the images invade his mind. He had learnt long ago that there wasn’t much he could do to fight it but at least he could try to control when they overtook him.
Kind of.
He heard movement from beside him and shaking his head to get rid of those confusing, slightly blurry, images that he was now fairly used to, he turned to look at Kamenashi, determined not to look like Loser of the Year.
I am cool. I am very cool. I am the epitome of coolness. The very definition. I am -
His eyes met brown ones that matched the perfectly plucked eyebrows that were scrunched in confusion. He could just see the thoughts that Kamenashi was probably hiding beneath that confused look. One thing that Yamapi had gotten suitably frightened of in the years that he had known Kamenashi was that odd look he always got.
It was enough that he got those weird images hitting him nearly every time he was near Kamenashi, but he didn’t exactly want anyone else to know how weird he was - especially not Kamenashi.
I am a coward and I’m looking away now.
He quickly did just that.
At this point, Yamapi was sort of hoping that Kamenashi would just get freaked out by his weirdness and just move away. But he knew he would have no such luck.
Whether it was from pure nerve, stubbornness, or just a really good method of ignoring Yamapi’s weirdness, not once in the years they had known each other had Kamenashi ever moved away. It was probably stubbornness; Yamapi had heard that Kamenashi was an extremely stubborn guy.
That didn’t stop him from repeating his little mantra though.
Move away. Move away. Move away. Move away. Move -
“Hey.”
Yamapi whipped back around to look at Kamenashi so quickly that he fell out of his seat. He was on the ground, staring up at Kamenashi with wide eyes.
Kamenashi’s lips were curled up into a little smirk, eyebrows raised in amusement. Yamapi probably looked so stupid right now, that was why. So stupid.
Kamenashi was still smirking at him.
Yamapi had a feeling he planned this, that he knew exactly how Yamapi would react to him acknowledging Yamapi with more than just a weird look.
I think my roommate may be evil, no wait, this is probably his revenge for getting me as a roommate. Or he really does think I’m stalking him and this is his revenge for that and oh god, he’s evil. All these years and I never even knew! Yamapi thought with a rising horrified feeling as
Kamenashi turned away from him again, acted like nothing happened and had a calm look on his face as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the front of the room.
It was then that he realized that he was still sitting on the floor, staring like an idiot at Kamenashi. It was like their middle school introductions all over again, because he was being stared at by everyone else.
Yamapi groaned as he fell back onto the ground.
He felt a foot poking him, “Hey, are you okay?” someone asked from the table behind him.
Yamapi put his wrist on his forehead, “I’m going to die.”
“What?”
“I’m going to die from embarrassment now,” Yamapi announced, as he pulled his notebook off the desk and opened it so he could plop it on top of his face.
* * *
Kamenashi had a blank expression when Yamapi walked into their dorm. The younger man was sitting in the main area of the room, at the table, feet propped up on one of the other chairs and flipping through one of his textbooks. He looked up briefly when Yamapi came in, but after a blink of his eyes, seemed to deem Yamapi’s presence as unimportant and turned his gaze back to his book again.
Yamapi stared, utterly perplexed; he was sure that Kamenashi was going to be all dark and evil and torment him for the rest of the time they had to share the room, so why wasn’t there some sort of clever little quip to make fun of the embarrassment Yamapi had undergone in class today? Or even extending a foot out to trip him or something?
Kamenashi looked up at him again, and Yamapi regretted not immediately going to his room because he was then assaulted by that familiar wave of images and sounds again. He saw a blur of more than just random colours this time; this time, it actually resembled a person. Sort of it. It was as though he was half-blind and was looking at the world, but he couldn’t see the world in anything but blurs of colours and shapes.
So basically, nothing entirely out of the ordinary.
That odd stare that Kamenashi was levelling at him was nothing out of the ordinary either. Yamapi was so used to it, but he was chagrined to admit to himself that being used to it didn’t seem to make it less effective on him. He shifted uncomfortably under those brown eyes.
It was like a replay of their first meeting again.
Kamenashi’s odd look was soon replaced by a flippant one, as he dismissively turned back to his book, seemingly content to pretend that Yamapi did not exist.
Yamapi wasn’t sure whether to be utterly mortified or relieved. On one hand, Kamenashi probably still thought that Yamapi was some sort of creepy stalker that he was forced to room with; on the other, at least he wasn’t subjected to that look anymore. It was amazing what that look could do to Yamapi’s nerves and confidence.
He put on an air of bravado, repeating a version of the failed mantra from earlier.
I am cool, I am cool. I am totally cool. I am a rock and nobody can get to me, certainly not Kamenashi. I am cool, I am the epitome of coolness. Of coolness-ism. So cool I can invent my own words, that’s how cool I am. I -
Yamapi looked up when Kamenashi slammed his textbook shut; the younger man stood up from his spot, stretching, and Yamapi blinked at how that movement seemed to make Kamenashi’s shirt rise just a little.
I am cool, I am cool, he continued his mantra, sure that it was working. A little.
He was shocked out of his mantra when Kamenashi’s palm suddenly hit his forehead. Then he furrowed his brow, and stared at the bright piece of fluorescent pink paper dangling in his vision.
“You seem strangely capable of taking up space for someone who’s dead.” Kamenashi commented in an idle tone as he walked toward his room. He didn’t wait for Yamapi to react, much less respond, before he closed the door.
Yamapi stared at the door.
Had Kamenashi just…
What…
This defied the whole order of things! Kamenashi wasn’t supposed to speak to him, ever. Well, unless he was forced to. And he wasn’t, right? Well, kind of, since he was forced to share a room with Yamapi and it would be really weird if they were forced to share a room and they didn’t speak to each other, right?
But it still defied the very order of things! Yamapi’s rules of Things That Are Supposed To Happen When Faced With Kamenashi Kazuya were being shattered with that one sentence.
Yamapi decided he had better take a walk in hopes that when he came back into the room, he would be in the right universe again, because obviously, he had just walked into an alternate universe of his room. Somehow.
Yamapi walked out of the room, paused as someone pointed at him and laughed, and feeling dread creeping up his neck, Yamapi looked down at himself. No, nothing out of place; nothing on his clothes…
Yamapi moved his fingers to his head, running them through his hair, and that was then he heard the rustling sound of paper. His eyes flew open in realization as he slapped his palm onto his forehead. The sticky note that Kamenashi had stuck on him was still there!
Yamapi groaned.
“Why me? Why?” Yamapi intoned to no one in particular as he retreated back into the dorm room as quickly as possible, feeling, for the second time that day, mortified. It was like fate was determined to constantly embarrass him and undermine his confidence.
And it was like fate’s messenger was Kamenashi Kazuya.
Because Yamapi swore, swore, that Kamenashi Kazuya, who was now standing at the fridge and holding a cooled can of beer to his neck, was looking entirely too satisfied.
* * *
Yamapi was reassured by the fact that, at least, when he wasn’t around Kamenashi Kazuya, the harbinger of embarrassment, he was indeed as cool as he had to tell himself he was when he was around Kamenashi. Well, somewhat anyways. He had made a couple of sort-of-friends. He certainly didn’t feel as though he was Loser of the Year like he always did when Kamenashi was around. Of course, Kamenashi had good reason to treat him like a weirdo, because all of Kamenashi’s previous experiences with him normally ended up with Yamapi being blindsided by those damn images that he couldn’t explain, and he would end up staring at Kamenashi for a while.
But he still couldn’t help but bemoan the fact that he was so utterly uncool when it came to Kamenashi.
If Kamenashi was aware that he was the bad omen of embarrassment for Yamapi, he didn’t show it. Every time he saw Yamapi, he would, at most, raise an eyebrow as a general acknowledgement, as though there was a hidden language conveyed through eyebrows that Yamapi was completely unaware of, and then Kamenashi would go back to what he was doing.
It was both a relief and infuriating.
Relief, because at least Kamenashi wasn’t pointing out all the instances in which he ended up staring at the younger man, and infuriating because it felt as though Kamenashi was brushing Yamapi off as inconsequential.
And Yamapi wasn’t.
He was determined not to be.
Especially not to the bad omen that was Kamenashi Kazuya.
So, it was with gritted teeth that Yamapi returned to his dorm room after wasting a day in the library hoping to run into someone from his class. After dying of embarrassment in that first class, he had stupidly neglected to copy down the book list and he had been unable to find anything on the class website, meaning that he had to ask someone from class.
But the only other person in that class that he regularly saw was Kamenashi, and Yamapi didn’t want to remind the younger man of one of his less than shining moments, not when he was becoming more and more determined to prove to Kamenashi that he wasn’t as much of a weirdo as the younger man probably thought he was.
And so, Yamapi had spent a day at one of the most public tables in the library, hoping that he would see someone from that class - or reading a textbook that seemed about right - and hoping that, eventually, that feeling that he was slowly becoming some sort of creepy stalker would eventually fade and he could be completely shameless while waiting for classmates to show up in the library.
But, with no luck, Yamapi braced himself for going into his dorm room and needing to face Kamenashi - as well as remind Kamenashi of the failure that was Yamapi in that first class.
Kamenashi was sitting at the table in the main area once again when he walked in; the younger man seemed to like that spot a lot.
An eyebrow was raised at Yamapi when he walked in, but a second later, as Yamapi predicted, he lowered his eyes to the magazine he was reading, but not without giving Yamapi a look that seemed to have the very purpose of brushing Yamapi off.
Trying to be nonchalant, Yamapi lingered in the main area for a while, edging closer to Kamenashi each time he gathered enough courage. He wasn’t scared per se, but he was wary of those images coming back...well, that and the fact that the ‘what a weirdo’ look Kamenashi often gave him freaked him out. It made him feel as though he was suffocating each time, and Yamapi wouldn’t be too surprised if fate’s messenger - also known as Kamenashi Kazuya - had the power to kill him with a single look.
Fifteen minutes, and seventeen steps closer to Kamenashi, later and Yamapi was standing in front of him. Kamenashi seemed content with pretending that Yamapi wasn’t hovering stalker-ish-ly close to him, and with a flippant air, turned a page in his magazine.
Yamapi cleared his throat.
Kamenashi didn’t look up.
Yamapi cleared his throat louder.
Kamenashi turned another page.
Yamapi cleared his throat like he had a hairball stuck inside it.
Kamenashi looked up, an amused smirk on his lips, his eyes flicking over Yamapi.
“I - do you have the booklist for our class tomorrow? You know. The one.”
“The one…?” Kamenashi repeated in a slow drawl.
Yamapi wanted to crawl under a rock and just hide there until their four years of university were done and over with.
Kamenashi adopted a look of realization that Yamapi knew, just knew, had to be fake, “Oh, you mean the one in which you died of embarrassment?” he asked, lips twitching.
Yamapi cleared his throat loudly, “Yes. That one. I…I was too busy dying to copy the booklist.”
Kamenashi went back to his magazine, “I’m aware of that.” He stated calmly.
Yamapi stared.
“Wha…”
He didn’t get an answer.
Yamapi shifted awkwardly, “So…about that…list…”
“Perhaps I should have gone with a blue paper. They say blue sticks in your memory. Apparently almost illegally bright pink doesn’t work for you.” Kamenashi commented, not looking up from his magazine, but Yamapi did not miss that twitch of his lips that indicated a goddamn smirk.
Then Kamenashi’s words sunk in.
Yamapi’s hand went to slap his forehead in reflex.
Of course, there was absolutely nothing there but the sound of skin hitting skin was enough to spur him into action and he made a beeline for his room, brushing things aside on his desk until he found that piece of post-it paper that he had spent two days cursing the existence of from across the room. He had even buried it under a pile of his junk in order to forget that he had walked out in public with it on his forehead.
There, written in Kamenashi’s handwriting, was the booklist Yamapi had been agonizing over for days.
Days.
I hate my life, Yamapi thought as he stared at the bright pink piece of paper.
* * *
Yamapi sat as calmly as possible in the seat next to Kamenashi; he hadn’t really wanted to sit next to Kamenashi, because he knew that would end up in disaster, because Kamenashi was the bad omen of disaster for Yamapi, but unfortunately, Yamapi hadn’t been able to muster up the courage to thank Kamenashi for the booklist yet and he figured that he had better do it before class started or look like a total idiot for doing it weeks after the fact.
It was totally not because Yamapi was slowly, embarrassingly but slowly, getting used to embarrassing himself in front of Kamenashi.
Because Yamapi was determined not to embarrass himself anymore.
Yamapi turned to look at Kamenashi, and blinked many times as images assaulted his mind again.
Okay, so he would start not embarrassing himself starting tomorrow, Yamapi thought ruefully as the images faded away and he was faced with Kamenashi’s signature ‘why is this weirdo staring at me?’ look.
By the time he had stopped cringing mentally, Kamenashi was leaning forward in his seat, half-sprawled across the desk, as he talked to someone from the row in front of them. There was a huge grin on Kamenashi’s face, as he talked animatedly about something, even waving his hand exaggeratingly.
Yamapi caught the words ‘diamond’ and ‘pitch’ before he realized that his obsessive staring was getting the attention of both Kamenashi and Kamenashi’s friend. They were both staring at him with that patented ‘what the hell?’ look of Kamenashi.
Yamapi pointedly looked away, trying to divert the attention to anything else that he could.
Oh my god, it’s spreading. One by one. It’s like world domination, starting with our classroom!
Yamapi sneaked a look in Kamenashi’s direction again, trying to determine if under that mask of good looks and pretty face, Kamenashi was really the reincarnation of evil.
And now, Yamapi really knew that he was losing it.
He groaned, sure that he was driven insane by Kamenashi. Perhaps this was his plan all along? Drive Yamapi insane so that he wouldn’t have to room with Yamapi?
Yamapi let his head fall onto his desk with a loud thump, “I hate my life,” he muttered into his notebook.
“Is that why you’re ‘dying’ in this class again?” a clear voice cut through and Yamapi jumped and just managed not to scream in surprise.
Kamenashi raised an eyebrow as Yamapi nearly fell off his seat again.
“Don’t do that,” Yamapi said breathlessly, sure that Kamenashi had just scared ten years off of his life.
“Do what?” Kamenashi smirked, leaning back in his chair.
“Do the - whatever you’ve been doing since university started!” Yamapi hissed under his breath; the shock of Kamenashi doing something other than giving him weird looks was finally getting to him, it seemed
“Which is?” Kamenashi drawled.
“You know - the acknowledgement. It goes against everything that’s supposed to happen! You’re supposed to think of me as some sort of weirdo and give me weird looks and not talk to me. Ever.” Yamapi stated finally in a low tone, so that nobody could listen in at least. He had a feeling he would be getting more than Kamenashi’s weird look if anybody heard him right now.
Kamenashi propped his chin on his palm, half looking at the front of the classroom and half looking at Yamapi, “Is that why you act like such a freak sometimes?” he wondered, “Don’t you know that university’s supposed to be about fresh starts, Yamashita?” he intoned.
Yamapi twitched, first at the acknowledgement that Kamenashi really did think of him as some sort of a weirdo, and second at the fact that Kamenashi had yet to realize that his presence wasn’t exactly giving him the fresh start that Yamapi had wanted.
“Well, with you around, it’s pretty much impossible to get the fresh start I want.” Yamapi snapped harshly in response.
Kamenashi turned toward him, looking almost calculatingly at Yamapi for a moment. There was a flash of something in those brown eyes - and Yamapi should know, considering how many times he’d been caught staring into those eyes all through high school.
In a tone devoid of any hint of emotion, “Move out then.”
Then, a second later, Kamenashi was suddenly sitting on the desk and swinging his legs over, “Oi, Uchi, stop taking up the entire table and make room for me,” he called to the classmate he had been talking to earlier and promptly gathered his stuff, flippantly ignoring Yamapi.
Yamapi stared, open-mouthed, at Kamenashi who was suddenly not acknowledging him anymore, and even seemed to be purposely ignoring him now. Not even in the ‘what a weirdo, look away now’ way, but completely ignoring Yamapi.
Not once did he ever look back at Yamapi for the entire three hours they were in the classroom.
And Yamapi, for some reason, despite this being what he thought he wanted - being left alone by Kamenashi - felt an unpleasant feeling go through him.
* * *
Yamapi hadn’t heard anything from Kamenashi all week. Ever since that class, Kamenashi hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to Yamapi, not even to torment him in those little ways that Yamapi had sort of come to expect now. Whenever they ended up in the main area of the dorm together, Kamenashi would briefly glance up if he had been there first, like a reflex, and then he would go back to what he was doing without any hint of acknowledging Yamapi. If Yamapi had been there first, Kamenashi wouldn’t even bother glancing at him at all, just doing what he was in the room for and then leaving soon after.
It was incredibly disconcerting.
Yamapi hadn’t realized until now how much Kamenashi hadn’t really ignored his existence all these years. He used to get those odd looks from Kamenashi from time to time - mostly when he was caught staring at Kamenashi when those images came at him - but now, even when he stared at Kamenashi, there was no reaction.
This was Kamenashi truly ignoring him, Yamapi realized.
And he didn’t like it, even though this seemed to be exactly what he wanted. It left a strange and very unpleasant feeling in him.
Although there was a hidden blessing in all this. He hadn’t been assaulted by any of those damn images since Kamenashi had begun to ignore him; well, that wasn’t quite true. There were one or two, in the form of odd little nightmares, but otherwise, he hadn’t been caught unaware by one in the middle of the day since then.
It was a small blessing, but not much of one since it seemed that the nightmare forms of those images were even clearer and troubling than the daytime versions. And he could never really make sense of them; he would only remember random things about them, like his view was one of a camera going round and round in circles to catch the intended image. In other words, it made no sense.
Yamapi was starting to dread going to sleep; he hated those nightmares even more than the daytime ones. The nightmares lasted longer, much longer, and there was nothing to distract him from them once he woke up. He didn’t know what he saw, but they affected him more, leaving him in a constantly cold state until the sun rose and then he would be lucky to fall asleep again before his alarm went off.
Which was why it was three o’clock in the morning and he was still up.
Yamapi rubbed his eyes as he stared at his textbook; they were growing heavy, but he was determined not to fall asleep just yet.
He couldn’t…
Sleep…
Yet…
Not…
He couldn’t even get a “damn it” past his lips as his head fell forward, and he collapsed on his bed.
--
A sakura tree in the distance, two people staring up at it -
A face hidden by shadows, a familiar smirk -
A red cloth, the colour of blood -
And a blood-curling scream, shattering the world…
--
The world came back in a swirl of images that was his room and the sound of screaming. Why was there still screaming? Why? It should be gone by now, the dream was over right? This was his room and -
“Yamashita!”
Yamapi’s eyes snapped to the side and looked into the familiar brown eyes of Kamenashi Kazuya; a damn it crossed his mind as he stared up at Kamenashi, who was standing over him, obviously having been woken from his own sleep.
They stared at each other for a while, neither of them saying a word, while Yamapi tried to ignore the fact that his throat was burning from his own screams, and that Kamenashi was shirtless and staring at him with a raised eyebrow. Yamapi supposed that even random screaming could break the silent treatment that Kamenashi had been giving him.
Finally, Kamenashi rolled his eyes, “I’m going to sleep.” he muttered before turning away and leaving the room. The door slammed shut behind him.
* * *
The next few days were incredibly awkward. Yamapi was completely mortified that Kamenashi had seen him in the midst of a nightmare - and what’s more, he had been woken up by him. Kamenashi hadn’t been the only one; Yamapi woke up the next morning and was about to head out to the bathroom they shared when he heard Kamenashi and someone else talking in the main area. He opened his door a crack and peeked out.
Kamenashi’s posture from behind had the air of being pissed off, but considering Yamapi had woken him up at the crack of dawn with his nightmares, Yamapi couldn’t blame him.
“ - could hear it last night!” the other person in the room said, an irritated tone in his voice.
Kamenashi crossed his arms, and he was leaning against the door frame in a way that gave him a good view of the two rooms. His eyebrows raised a little, just a little, when his eyes settled on Yamapi’s door. Yamapi swallowed, and opened the door just a little more, to make it seem as though he hadn’t been eavesdropping.
He kept his eyes down as he walked to the fridge to get something to drink, ignoring the guy who was at their door.
“Just keep whatever it was down! I could hear it all the way from my room!”
“You’re next door, so I’d hope so,” Kamenashi drawled sardonically.
“Well, it’s not normal to wake up to screaming like someone’s been murdered!”
Yamapi stiffened; his screaming must have been heard beyond their room. That had to be it. He glanced up surreptitiously at Kamenashi, who looked even more pissed off than ever. It was his fault, he should speak up; after all, like the boy was saying, he wasn’t normal…it couldn’t be normal to have dreams like this, to…Yamapi never knew how much the word normal could hurt. He caught Kamenashi’s gaze; the fury in his eyes was all-consuming, like it would burn up the room if it could…
“I -” he started, ready to apologize, or try to make up some excuse. He wasn’t sure he wanted to admit to anyone that he had woken up screaming from a nightmare.
Especially since it was a nightmare that had disturbed him more than he thought it should.
“Well, it was normal, because it was the alarm clock going off,” Kamenashi cut in loudly before Yamapi could try to start his sentence, taking a step toward the other boy, “If you have a problem with a simple mistake, you can take it up to the dorm advisor instead of banging my door demanding explanations at seven in the fucking morning.” Now that he mentioned it, Yamapi did notice that Kamenashi was currently just as shirtless as he had been the night before.
The boy glared at Kamenashi, “I just might -”
“Go ahead.” Kamenashi cut in harshly, “Why don’t you try it? We’ll see if he laughs in your face or not.”
And with that, he closed the door on the boy, deeming the matter closed. There was an angry silence for a few moments, before the sound of footsteps stomping away could be heard.
Kamenashi turned to look at Yamapi, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to go back to his room, brushing past Yamapi as he did.
Yamapi winced just a little as he did, but turned to stare at Kamenashi’s retreating back. Even when the door closed with a loud sound, he kept staring at where Kamenashi had been.
Why did Kamenashi just cover up for him?
He would have thought that Kamenashi would have been the one to go to the dorm advisor and demand a room change; he wouldn’t have been surprised if Kamenashi had been packed and gone by now. It wasn’t exactly normal to wake up to screaming. Yamapi shuddered, wrapping an arm around himself as he remembered that nightmare.
It was an intensified version of what he had been seeing for years, but clearer…clearer than it had ever been. It seemed as though as time went on, the clearer they got.
Yamapi looked up when Kamenashi’s door opened again; the younger boy had changed into a t-shirt and shorts, holding a baseball bat and a pitcher’s glove, obviously heading to play some baseball. Yamapi swallowed as Kamenashi’s eyes swept over him for a few seconds, and then the younger boy was heading toward the door.
“Wait. Kamenashi.” He choked out with difficultly, even as that voice inside his head demanded what the hell he was doing.
Kamenashi made an irritated noise and turned around, giving him a ‘you’d better have a good reason for bothering me’ look.
“Why…” Yamapi tried to ask, but couldn’t really find the words.
Why didn’t you tell the truth?
Why didn’t you tell him that I had woken up screaming from my own nightmare?
“He pissed me off.” Kamenashi answered, eyes glittering as he did, “People like him, who use normal like it’s a weapon, like they’re better.”
Yamapi could only nod; he had heard that sneering tone in the boy’s voice when he had talked to Kamenashi. He was probably the kind of person he had been afraid of nearly the entire time he had known Kamenashi, someone who would find out how not average he was and hate him for it, hurt him for it.
“Small-minded bigots.” Kamenashi continued. He held Yamapi’s gaze for a moment longer, “It’s none of my business, and it’s definitely none of his.”
And with those parting words, he left the room, and left Yamapi to stare at the door like an idiot again. Yamapi retreated to his room after that, lying on his bed on his stomach, but refusing to let his eyes close on him. Even if it was normally okay if he slept during the day, he didn’t want to. He feared closing his eyes; those images had been annoying before, when they attacked him out of nowhere throughout his day, but he wished for those now. When they had been little snippets, they weren’t intense, they weren’t so frightening.
The idea of sleep had never been so frightening to Yamapi.
* * *
To Yamapi’s shock, the guy from next door really did go get the dorm advisor, and it was only because Yamapi had good luck for once in his life that Kamenashi was back by the time the two of them came knocking at their door. Kamenashi was in a better mood, apparently. He was covered in sweat and looked like he had spent all day in the sun, but there was a certain glow to Kamenashi when he had come back from playing baseball.
The visit from the dorm advisor came just as Kamenashi had stepped out of the shower; being closer, Kamenashi opened the door, as Yamapi slowly walked out of his room to see what was going on.
“Oh, you’re back,” Kamenashi said in a callous tone, neither looking nor sounding all that concerned.
The one who was obviously the dorm advisor raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, “There was a complaint about someone screaming…” he started after clearing his throat.
“I told him this morning,” Kamenashi said, crossing his arms, “that there was no one screaming. It was the sound of the alarm clock going off really loudly because of a little mistake like setting the volume too high. If he’s too much of a baby to admit his overactive imagination had him thinking morbid thoughts because an alarm clock scared the shit out of him, then he shouldn’t live in the dorms, where there are loud noises all the time.”
Yamapi stared.
Kamenashi stared at the dorm advisor.
The dorm advisor stared at the squirming student beside him, “An alarm clock…”
“Yeah, an alarm clock.” Kamenashi said, with a disarming smile, “I could always play back the track it was set to for you; it’s really just an alarm clock ringing.” He added.
Yamapi looked at Kamenashi in panic; what was the younger boy doing? That had just been an excuse! They couldn’t really back it up! They would be found out if the dorm advisor really took him up on his offer and -
Yamapi prepared to bolt into his room and lock the door, because that seemed like his best option right now.
He was startled from this plan when, with a roll of his eyes, the dorm advisor swatted the student upside his head, “You called me for an alarm clock. I should write you up for wasting my time.” He didn’t say anything more, and walked away muttering under his breath about babysitting for idiots.
Kamenashi had an entirely too satisfied look on his face as he began to close the door on the enraged student’s face. Before he did though, he paused, “If I were you, I’d either get some earplugs or find a way to switch rooms with someone, because this is the second time you’ve disturbed my day. And I really don’t like you.” He added, before closing the door.
Yamapi looked at Kamenashi as he stood there, looking nonchalant, as though he hadn’t just done what he had.
“Um…”
“You do realize that I’m not here to clean up after your messes right?” Kamenashi commented before retreating to his room.
Yamapi blinked after Kamenashi’s retreating form, hating the fact that Kamenashi had a point. This was the second time today that Kamenashi had had to help him out, because he didn’t want to make a big deal about his nightmares, and as a result, hide and draw as little attention to himself as possible. Where did Kamenashi even learn to be so dark anyways? Yamapi was almost sure that Kamenashi had never been like that in high school…
Except, it was a Kamenashi that Yamapi had never seen, but one that made his breath catch in his throat when he realized that there were so many sides to Kamenashi that Yamapi had no idea about.
* * *
-----> part 2
Written for: reddorozette
Pairing: pikame (& a bit of ryokame)
Words: 36 427
Rating: PG-15? (somewhere between PG-13 and R)
Notes: thank you very much to my beta!!!!! <3333
Summary: From the first moment that he met Kamenashi Kazuya, Yamashita Tomohisa knew, just knew, that somehow, he had done something horrible to the younger boy. Is it possible to hate someone in one life, but love them in the next? In one life, Yamashita Tomohisa murdered Kamenashi Kazuya but in this life, he's in love with him...
--
From the first moment that he met Kamenashi Kazuya, Yamashita Tomohisa knew, just knew, that somehow, he had done something horrible to the younger boy. Somehow. Even though they had never met before.
They were thirteen and the moment he took his seat next to Kamenashi Kazuya in class, looked over, and his eyes met Kamenashi Kazuya’s, he had been assaulted by words that drowned out the short self-introduction that Kamenashi Kazuya gave him, leaving the younger boy to stare at him strangely beneath bushy eyebrows.
Those words, a mixture of yelling and screaming and which seemed to hold nothing good in them, kept buzzing in his ears as he struggled to ignore them and he introduced himself to his classmate. Then, the sounds had been replaced with a dizzying myriad of images that assaulted his mind the moment they shook hands, like the teacher had required them to do with their neighbours.
Those images had involved something so horrible that Yamapi couldn’t think straight for nearly ten minutes, and by the time he could clear his head and try to ignore them, everyone else was done with their introductions and they were all staring at him and Kamenashi Kazuya, who was looking at him strangely.
Yamapi had quickly muttered an apology. Then, his heart had skipped a beat when Kamenashi Kazuya had sent him an odd look and then flippantly turned back to the front of the room, almost determined not to look at Yamapi.
Yamapi couldn’t blame him, not really.
After all, that was the day Kamenashi Kazuya would probably always remember as the day he, Yamashita Tomohisa, had tried to shake his hand and had, instead, held on for ten whole minutes. And it wasn’t even one of those manly strong grips of a handshake so he couldn’t lie and say he was trying to intimidate Kamenashi Kazuya.
So, basically, that was the day that Yamapi had been branded a weirdo in Kamenashi Kazuya’s mind.
The images also never stopped coming. They were sometimes weak, like a nagging little thought, but sometimes, they overpowered him, making him unable to do anything coherent, or remotely cool looking, for whole minutes, which only reinforced Kamenashi Kazuya’s perception of him being a weirdo.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if after that grade and that class, they had simply gone off in different directions and had never seen each other again.
But no, fate hated Yamapi apparently and he was stuck with Kamenashi Kazuya all through high school. He had gotten his share of weird looks and his share of disturbing images, and Yamapi could only be relieved when he set off to university.
In fact, that was where he was now.
Trudging a suitcase up a flight of steps to his dorm room in the university’s residence, he opened the door to his room, ready to greet his roommate with as much coolness as possible, determined not to go through another four years doomed to weird looks and being thought of as a weirdo.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” was the first thing he heard. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and then closed them again. Then he slowly opened them again.
“Goddamn it.”
He hated his luck. Really hated it.
Kamenashi Kazuya stood in front of him, in the middle of opening up a box.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
* * *
They were even in some of the same classes. Yamapi wasn’t sure whether to be exasperated at fate, his luck, or whatever otherworldly power that had it in for him, or be completely mortified because the way it looked now, Kamenashi probably thought he was a stalker or something.
But there was really nowhere else to sit.
Of course, he could take that nice comfy looking spot on the ground there, right on the stairs leading down to the front of the lecture hall, but he had a feeling that would make everyone else look at him oddly and really, wasn’t it enough that he had Kamenashi looking at him like he was an alien?
So, he gathered up all the manly courage he could - which, he admitted grudgingly, didn’t feel like that much in the long run - and took a seat next to Kamenashi, issuing an as-cool-as-possible, “Hey” as he did.
He stubbornly ignored that telltale, nagging, little sensation at the back of his mind. He made sure he wasn’t even looking in Kamenashi’s direction before he let his eyes glaze over and the images invade his mind. He had learnt long ago that there wasn’t much he could do to fight it but at least he could try to control when they overtook him.
Kind of.
He heard movement from beside him and shaking his head to get rid of those confusing, slightly blurry, images that he was now fairly used to, he turned to look at Kamenashi, determined not to look like Loser of the Year.
I am cool. I am very cool. I am the epitome of coolness. The very definition. I am -
His eyes met brown ones that matched the perfectly plucked eyebrows that were scrunched in confusion. He could just see the thoughts that Kamenashi was probably hiding beneath that confused look. One thing that Yamapi had gotten suitably frightened of in the years that he had known Kamenashi was that odd look he always got.
It was enough that he got those weird images hitting him nearly every time he was near Kamenashi, but he didn’t exactly want anyone else to know how weird he was - especially not Kamenashi.
I am a coward and I’m looking away now.
He quickly did just that.
At this point, Yamapi was sort of hoping that Kamenashi would just get freaked out by his weirdness and just move away. But he knew he would have no such luck.
Whether it was from pure nerve, stubbornness, or just a really good method of ignoring Yamapi’s weirdness, not once in the years they had known each other had Kamenashi ever moved away. It was probably stubbornness; Yamapi had heard that Kamenashi was an extremely stubborn guy.
That didn’t stop him from repeating his little mantra though.
Move away. Move away. Move away. Move away. Move -
“Hey.”
Yamapi whipped back around to look at Kamenashi so quickly that he fell out of his seat. He was on the ground, staring up at Kamenashi with wide eyes.
Kamenashi’s lips were curled up into a little smirk, eyebrows raised in amusement. Yamapi probably looked so stupid right now, that was why. So stupid.
Kamenashi was still smirking at him.
Yamapi had a feeling he planned this, that he knew exactly how Yamapi would react to him acknowledging Yamapi with more than just a weird look.
I think my roommate may be evil, no wait, this is probably his revenge for getting me as a roommate. Or he really does think I’m stalking him and this is his revenge for that and oh god, he’s evil. All these years and I never even knew! Yamapi thought with a rising horrified feeling as
Kamenashi turned away from him again, acted like nothing happened and had a calm look on his face as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the front of the room.
It was then that he realized that he was still sitting on the floor, staring like an idiot at Kamenashi. It was like their middle school introductions all over again, because he was being stared at by everyone else.
Yamapi groaned as he fell back onto the ground.
He felt a foot poking him, “Hey, are you okay?” someone asked from the table behind him.
Yamapi put his wrist on his forehead, “I’m going to die.”
“What?”
“I’m going to die from embarrassment now,” Yamapi announced, as he pulled his notebook off the desk and opened it so he could plop it on top of his face.
* * *
Kamenashi had a blank expression when Yamapi walked into their dorm. The younger man was sitting in the main area of the room, at the table, feet propped up on one of the other chairs and flipping through one of his textbooks. He looked up briefly when Yamapi came in, but after a blink of his eyes, seemed to deem Yamapi’s presence as unimportant and turned his gaze back to his book again.
Yamapi stared, utterly perplexed; he was sure that Kamenashi was going to be all dark and evil and torment him for the rest of the time they had to share the room, so why wasn’t there some sort of clever little quip to make fun of the embarrassment Yamapi had undergone in class today? Or even extending a foot out to trip him or something?
Kamenashi looked up at him again, and Yamapi regretted not immediately going to his room because he was then assaulted by that familiar wave of images and sounds again. He saw a blur of more than just random colours this time; this time, it actually resembled a person. Sort of it. It was as though he was half-blind and was looking at the world, but he couldn’t see the world in anything but blurs of colours and shapes.
So basically, nothing entirely out of the ordinary.
That odd stare that Kamenashi was levelling at him was nothing out of the ordinary either. Yamapi was so used to it, but he was chagrined to admit to himself that being used to it didn’t seem to make it less effective on him. He shifted uncomfortably under those brown eyes.
It was like a replay of their first meeting again.
Kamenashi’s odd look was soon replaced by a flippant one, as he dismissively turned back to his book, seemingly content to pretend that Yamapi did not exist.
Yamapi wasn’t sure whether to be utterly mortified or relieved. On one hand, Kamenashi probably still thought that Yamapi was some sort of creepy stalker that he was forced to room with; on the other, at least he wasn’t subjected to that look anymore. It was amazing what that look could do to Yamapi’s nerves and confidence.
He put on an air of bravado, repeating a version of the failed mantra from earlier.
I am cool, I am cool. I am totally cool. I am a rock and nobody can get to me, certainly not Kamenashi. I am cool, I am the epitome of coolness. Of coolness-ism. So cool I can invent my own words, that’s how cool I am. I -
Yamapi looked up when Kamenashi slammed his textbook shut; the younger man stood up from his spot, stretching, and Yamapi blinked at how that movement seemed to make Kamenashi’s shirt rise just a little.
I am cool, I am cool, he continued his mantra, sure that it was working. A little.
He was shocked out of his mantra when Kamenashi’s palm suddenly hit his forehead. Then he furrowed his brow, and stared at the bright piece of fluorescent pink paper dangling in his vision.
“You seem strangely capable of taking up space for someone who’s dead.” Kamenashi commented in an idle tone as he walked toward his room. He didn’t wait for Yamapi to react, much less respond, before he closed the door.
Yamapi stared at the door.
Had Kamenashi just…
What…
This defied the whole order of things! Kamenashi wasn’t supposed to speak to him, ever. Well, unless he was forced to. And he wasn’t, right? Well, kind of, since he was forced to share a room with Yamapi and it would be really weird if they were forced to share a room and they didn’t speak to each other, right?
But it still defied the very order of things! Yamapi’s rules of Things That Are Supposed To Happen When Faced With Kamenashi Kazuya were being shattered with that one sentence.
Yamapi decided he had better take a walk in hopes that when he came back into the room, he would be in the right universe again, because obviously, he had just walked into an alternate universe of his room. Somehow.
Yamapi walked out of the room, paused as someone pointed at him and laughed, and feeling dread creeping up his neck, Yamapi looked down at himself. No, nothing out of place; nothing on his clothes…
Yamapi moved his fingers to his head, running them through his hair, and that was then he heard the rustling sound of paper. His eyes flew open in realization as he slapped his palm onto his forehead. The sticky note that Kamenashi had stuck on him was still there!
Yamapi groaned.
“Why me? Why?” Yamapi intoned to no one in particular as he retreated back into the dorm room as quickly as possible, feeling, for the second time that day, mortified. It was like fate was determined to constantly embarrass him and undermine his confidence.
And it was like fate’s messenger was Kamenashi Kazuya.
Because Yamapi swore, swore, that Kamenashi Kazuya, who was now standing at the fridge and holding a cooled can of beer to his neck, was looking entirely too satisfied.
* * *
Yamapi was reassured by the fact that, at least, when he wasn’t around Kamenashi Kazuya, the harbinger of embarrassment, he was indeed as cool as he had to tell himself he was when he was around Kamenashi. Well, somewhat anyways. He had made a couple of sort-of-friends. He certainly didn’t feel as though he was Loser of the Year like he always did when Kamenashi was around. Of course, Kamenashi had good reason to treat him like a weirdo, because all of Kamenashi’s previous experiences with him normally ended up with Yamapi being blindsided by those damn images that he couldn’t explain, and he would end up staring at Kamenashi for a while.
But he still couldn’t help but bemoan the fact that he was so utterly uncool when it came to Kamenashi.
If Kamenashi was aware that he was the bad omen of embarrassment for Yamapi, he didn’t show it. Every time he saw Yamapi, he would, at most, raise an eyebrow as a general acknowledgement, as though there was a hidden language conveyed through eyebrows that Yamapi was completely unaware of, and then Kamenashi would go back to what he was doing.
It was both a relief and infuriating.
Relief, because at least Kamenashi wasn’t pointing out all the instances in which he ended up staring at the younger man, and infuriating because it felt as though Kamenashi was brushing Yamapi off as inconsequential.
And Yamapi wasn’t.
He was determined not to be.
Especially not to the bad omen that was Kamenashi Kazuya.
So, it was with gritted teeth that Yamapi returned to his dorm room after wasting a day in the library hoping to run into someone from his class. After dying of embarrassment in that first class, he had stupidly neglected to copy down the book list and he had been unable to find anything on the class website, meaning that he had to ask someone from class.
But the only other person in that class that he regularly saw was Kamenashi, and Yamapi didn’t want to remind the younger man of one of his less than shining moments, not when he was becoming more and more determined to prove to Kamenashi that he wasn’t as much of a weirdo as the younger man probably thought he was.
And so, Yamapi had spent a day at one of the most public tables in the library, hoping that he would see someone from that class - or reading a textbook that seemed about right - and hoping that, eventually, that feeling that he was slowly becoming some sort of creepy stalker would eventually fade and he could be completely shameless while waiting for classmates to show up in the library.
But, with no luck, Yamapi braced himself for going into his dorm room and needing to face Kamenashi - as well as remind Kamenashi of the failure that was Yamapi in that first class.
Kamenashi was sitting at the table in the main area once again when he walked in; the younger man seemed to like that spot a lot.
An eyebrow was raised at Yamapi when he walked in, but a second later, as Yamapi predicted, he lowered his eyes to the magazine he was reading, but not without giving Yamapi a look that seemed to have the very purpose of brushing Yamapi off.
Trying to be nonchalant, Yamapi lingered in the main area for a while, edging closer to Kamenashi each time he gathered enough courage. He wasn’t scared per se, but he was wary of those images coming back...well, that and the fact that the ‘what a weirdo’ look Kamenashi often gave him freaked him out. It made him feel as though he was suffocating each time, and Yamapi wouldn’t be too surprised if fate’s messenger - also known as Kamenashi Kazuya - had the power to kill him with a single look.
Fifteen minutes, and seventeen steps closer to Kamenashi, later and Yamapi was standing in front of him. Kamenashi seemed content with pretending that Yamapi wasn’t hovering stalker-ish-ly close to him, and with a flippant air, turned a page in his magazine.
Yamapi cleared his throat.
Kamenashi didn’t look up.
Yamapi cleared his throat louder.
Kamenashi turned another page.
Yamapi cleared his throat like he had a hairball stuck inside it.
Kamenashi looked up, an amused smirk on his lips, his eyes flicking over Yamapi.
“I - do you have the booklist for our class tomorrow? You know. The one.”
“The one…?” Kamenashi repeated in a slow drawl.
Yamapi wanted to crawl under a rock and just hide there until their four years of university were done and over with.
Kamenashi adopted a look of realization that Yamapi knew, just knew, had to be fake, “Oh, you mean the one in which you died of embarrassment?” he asked, lips twitching.
Yamapi cleared his throat loudly, “Yes. That one. I…I was too busy dying to copy the booklist.”
Kamenashi went back to his magazine, “I’m aware of that.” He stated calmly.
Yamapi stared.
“Wha…”
He didn’t get an answer.
Yamapi shifted awkwardly, “So…about that…list…”
“Perhaps I should have gone with a blue paper. They say blue sticks in your memory. Apparently almost illegally bright pink doesn’t work for you.” Kamenashi commented, not looking up from his magazine, but Yamapi did not miss that twitch of his lips that indicated a goddamn smirk.
Then Kamenashi’s words sunk in.
Yamapi’s hand went to slap his forehead in reflex.
Of course, there was absolutely nothing there but the sound of skin hitting skin was enough to spur him into action and he made a beeline for his room, brushing things aside on his desk until he found that piece of post-it paper that he had spent two days cursing the existence of from across the room. He had even buried it under a pile of his junk in order to forget that he had walked out in public with it on his forehead.
There, written in Kamenashi’s handwriting, was the booklist Yamapi had been agonizing over for days.
Days.
I hate my life, Yamapi thought as he stared at the bright pink piece of paper.
* * *
Yamapi sat as calmly as possible in the seat next to Kamenashi; he hadn’t really wanted to sit next to Kamenashi, because he knew that would end up in disaster, because Kamenashi was the bad omen of disaster for Yamapi, but unfortunately, Yamapi hadn’t been able to muster up the courage to thank Kamenashi for the booklist yet and he figured that he had better do it before class started or look like a total idiot for doing it weeks after the fact.
It was totally not because Yamapi was slowly, embarrassingly but slowly, getting used to embarrassing himself in front of Kamenashi.
Because Yamapi was determined not to embarrass himself anymore.
Yamapi turned to look at Kamenashi, and blinked many times as images assaulted his mind again.
Okay, so he would start not embarrassing himself starting tomorrow, Yamapi thought ruefully as the images faded away and he was faced with Kamenashi’s signature ‘why is this weirdo staring at me?’ look.
By the time he had stopped cringing mentally, Kamenashi was leaning forward in his seat, half-sprawled across the desk, as he talked to someone from the row in front of them. There was a huge grin on Kamenashi’s face, as he talked animatedly about something, even waving his hand exaggeratingly.
Yamapi caught the words ‘diamond’ and ‘pitch’ before he realized that his obsessive staring was getting the attention of both Kamenashi and Kamenashi’s friend. They were both staring at him with that patented ‘what the hell?’ look of Kamenashi.
Yamapi pointedly looked away, trying to divert the attention to anything else that he could.
Oh my god, it’s spreading. One by one. It’s like world domination, starting with our classroom!
Yamapi sneaked a look in Kamenashi’s direction again, trying to determine if under that mask of good looks and pretty face, Kamenashi was really the reincarnation of evil.
And now, Yamapi really knew that he was losing it.
He groaned, sure that he was driven insane by Kamenashi. Perhaps this was his plan all along? Drive Yamapi insane so that he wouldn’t have to room with Yamapi?
Yamapi let his head fall onto his desk with a loud thump, “I hate my life,” he muttered into his notebook.
“Is that why you’re ‘dying’ in this class again?” a clear voice cut through and Yamapi jumped and just managed not to scream in surprise.
Kamenashi raised an eyebrow as Yamapi nearly fell off his seat again.
“Don’t do that,” Yamapi said breathlessly, sure that Kamenashi had just scared ten years off of his life.
“Do what?” Kamenashi smirked, leaning back in his chair.
“Do the - whatever you’ve been doing since university started!” Yamapi hissed under his breath; the shock of Kamenashi doing something other than giving him weird looks was finally getting to him, it seemed
“Which is?” Kamenashi drawled.
“You know - the acknowledgement. It goes against everything that’s supposed to happen! You’re supposed to think of me as some sort of weirdo and give me weird looks and not talk to me. Ever.” Yamapi stated finally in a low tone, so that nobody could listen in at least. He had a feeling he would be getting more than Kamenashi’s weird look if anybody heard him right now.
Kamenashi propped his chin on his palm, half looking at the front of the classroom and half looking at Yamapi, “Is that why you act like such a freak sometimes?” he wondered, “Don’t you know that university’s supposed to be about fresh starts, Yamashita?” he intoned.
Yamapi twitched, first at the acknowledgement that Kamenashi really did think of him as some sort of a weirdo, and second at the fact that Kamenashi had yet to realize that his presence wasn’t exactly giving him the fresh start that Yamapi had wanted.
“Well, with you around, it’s pretty much impossible to get the fresh start I want.” Yamapi snapped harshly in response.
Kamenashi turned toward him, looking almost calculatingly at Yamapi for a moment. There was a flash of something in those brown eyes - and Yamapi should know, considering how many times he’d been caught staring into those eyes all through high school.
In a tone devoid of any hint of emotion, “Move out then.”
Then, a second later, Kamenashi was suddenly sitting on the desk and swinging his legs over, “Oi, Uchi, stop taking up the entire table and make room for me,” he called to the classmate he had been talking to earlier and promptly gathered his stuff, flippantly ignoring Yamapi.
Yamapi stared, open-mouthed, at Kamenashi who was suddenly not acknowledging him anymore, and even seemed to be purposely ignoring him now. Not even in the ‘what a weirdo, look away now’ way, but completely ignoring Yamapi.
Not once did he ever look back at Yamapi for the entire three hours they were in the classroom.
And Yamapi, for some reason, despite this being what he thought he wanted - being left alone by Kamenashi - felt an unpleasant feeling go through him.
* * *
Yamapi hadn’t heard anything from Kamenashi all week. Ever since that class, Kamenashi hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to Yamapi, not even to torment him in those little ways that Yamapi had sort of come to expect now. Whenever they ended up in the main area of the dorm together, Kamenashi would briefly glance up if he had been there first, like a reflex, and then he would go back to what he was doing without any hint of acknowledging Yamapi. If Yamapi had been there first, Kamenashi wouldn’t even bother glancing at him at all, just doing what he was in the room for and then leaving soon after.
It was incredibly disconcerting.
Yamapi hadn’t realized until now how much Kamenashi hadn’t really ignored his existence all these years. He used to get those odd looks from Kamenashi from time to time - mostly when he was caught staring at Kamenashi when those images came at him - but now, even when he stared at Kamenashi, there was no reaction.
This was Kamenashi truly ignoring him, Yamapi realized.
And he didn’t like it, even though this seemed to be exactly what he wanted. It left a strange and very unpleasant feeling in him.
Although there was a hidden blessing in all this. He hadn’t been assaulted by any of those damn images since Kamenashi had begun to ignore him; well, that wasn’t quite true. There were one or two, in the form of odd little nightmares, but otherwise, he hadn’t been caught unaware by one in the middle of the day since then.
It was a small blessing, but not much of one since it seemed that the nightmare forms of those images were even clearer and troubling than the daytime versions. And he could never really make sense of them; he would only remember random things about them, like his view was one of a camera going round and round in circles to catch the intended image. In other words, it made no sense.
Yamapi was starting to dread going to sleep; he hated those nightmares even more than the daytime ones. The nightmares lasted longer, much longer, and there was nothing to distract him from them once he woke up. He didn’t know what he saw, but they affected him more, leaving him in a constantly cold state until the sun rose and then he would be lucky to fall asleep again before his alarm went off.
Which was why it was three o’clock in the morning and he was still up.
Yamapi rubbed his eyes as he stared at his textbook; they were growing heavy, but he was determined not to fall asleep just yet.
He couldn’t…
Sleep…
Yet…
Not…
He couldn’t even get a “damn it” past his lips as his head fell forward, and he collapsed on his bed.
--
A sakura tree in the distance, two people staring up at it -
A face hidden by shadows, a familiar smirk -
A red cloth, the colour of blood -
And a blood-curling scream, shattering the world…
--
The world came back in a swirl of images that was his room and the sound of screaming. Why was there still screaming? Why? It should be gone by now, the dream was over right? This was his room and -
“Yamashita!”
Yamapi’s eyes snapped to the side and looked into the familiar brown eyes of Kamenashi Kazuya; a damn it crossed his mind as he stared up at Kamenashi, who was standing over him, obviously having been woken from his own sleep.
They stared at each other for a while, neither of them saying a word, while Yamapi tried to ignore the fact that his throat was burning from his own screams, and that Kamenashi was shirtless and staring at him with a raised eyebrow. Yamapi supposed that even random screaming could break the silent treatment that Kamenashi had been giving him.
Finally, Kamenashi rolled his eyes, “I’m going to sleep.” he muttered before turning away and leaving the room. The door slammed shut behind him.
* * *
The next few days were incredibly awkward. Yamapi was completely mortified that Kamenashi had seen him in the midst of a nightmare - and what’s more, he had been woken up by him. Kamenashi hadn’t been the only one; Yamapi woke up the next morning and was about to head out to the bathroom they shared when he heard Kamenashi and someone else talking in the main area. He opened his door a crack and peeked out.
Kamenashi’s posture from behind had the air of being pissed off, but considering Yamapi had woken him up at the crack of dawn with his nightmares, Yamapi couldn’t blame him.
“ - could hear it last night!” the other person in the room said, an irritated tone in his voice.
Kamenashi crossed his arms, and he was leaning against the door frame in a way that gave him a good view of the two rooms. His eyebrows raised a little, just a little, when his eyes settled on Yamapi’s door. Yamapi swallowed, and opened the door just a little more, to make it seem as though he hadn’t been eavesdropping.
He kept his eyes down as he walked to the fridge to get something to drink, ignoring the guy who was at their door.
“Just keep whatever it was down! I could hear it all the way from my room!”
“You’re next door, so I’d hope so,” Kamenashi drawled sardonically.
“Well, it’s not normal to wake up to screaming like someone’s been murdered!”
Yamapi stiffened; his screaming must have been heard beyond their room. That had to be it. He glanced up surreptitiously at Kamenashi, who looked even more pissed off than ever. It was his fault, he should speak up; after all, like the boy was saying, he wasn’t normal…it couldn’t be normal to have dreams like this, to…Yamapi never knew how much the word normal could hurt. He caught Kamenashi’s gaze; the fury in his eyes was all-consuming, like it would burn up the room if it could…
“I -” he started, ready to apologize, or try to make up some excuse. He wasn’t sure he wanted to admit to anyone that he had woken up screaming from a nightmare.
Especially since it was a nightmare that had disturbed him more than he thought it should.
“Well, it was normal, because it was the alarm clock going off,” Kamenashi cut in loudly before Yamapi could try to start his sentence, taking a step toward the other boy, “If you have a problem with a simple mistake, you can take it up to the dorm advisor instead of banging my door demanding explanations at seven in the fucking morning.” Now that he mentioned it, Yamapi did notice that Kamenashi was currently just as shirtless as he had been the night before.
The boy glared at Kamenashi, “I just might -”
“Go ahead.” Kamenashi cut in harshly, “Why don’t you try it? We’ll see if he laughs in your face or not.”
And with that, he closed the door on the boy, deeming the matter closed. There was an angry silence for a few moments, before the sound of footsteps stomping away could be heard.
Kamenashi turned to look at Yamapi, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to go back to his room, brushing past Yamapi as he did.
Yamapi winced just a little as he did, but turned to stare at Kamenashi’s retreating back. Even when the door closed with a loud sound, he kept staring at where Kamenashi had been.
Why did Kamenashi just cover up for him?
He would have thought that Kamenashi would have been the one to go to the dorm advisor and demand a room change; he wouldn’t have been surprised if Kamenashi had been packed and gone by now. It wasn’t exactly normal to wake up to screaming. Yamapi shuddered, wrapping an arm around himself as he remembered that nightmare.
It was an intensified version of what he had been seeing for years, but clearer…clearer than it had ever been. It seemed as though as time went on, the clearer they got.
Yamapi looked up when Kamenashi’s door opened again; the younger boy had changed into a t-shirt and shorts, holding a baseball bat and a pitcher’s glove, obviously heading to play some baseball. Yamapi swallowed as Kamenashi’s eyes swept over him for a few seconds, and then the younger boy was heading toward the door.
“Wait. Kamenashi.” He choked out with difficultly, even as that voice inside his head demanded what the hell he was doing.
Kamenashi made an irritated noise and turned around, giving him a ‘you’d better have a good reason for bothering me’ look.
“Why…” Yamapi tried to ask, but couldn’t really find the words.
Why didn’t you tell the truth?
Why didn’t you tell him that I had woken up screaming from my own nightmare?
“He pissed me off.” Kamenashi answered, eyes glittering as he did, “People like him, who use normal like it’s a weapon, like they’re better.”
Yamapi could only nod; he had heard that sneering tone in the boy’s voice when he had talked to Kamenashi. He was probably the kind of person he had been afraid of nearly the entire time he had known Kamenashi, someone who would find out how not average he was and hate him for it, hurt him for it.
“Small-minded bigots.” Kamenashi continued. He held Yamapi’s gaze for a moment longer, “It’s none of my business, and it’s definitely none of his.”
And with those parting words, he left the room, and left Yamapi to stare at the door like an idiot again. Yamapi retreated to his room after that, lying on his bed on his stomach, but refusing to let his eyes close on him. Even if it was normally okay if he slept during the day, he didn’t want to. He feared closing his eyes; those images had been annoying before, when they attacked him out of nowhere throughout his day, but he wished for those now. When they had been little snippets, they weren’t intense, they weren’t so frightening.
The idea of sleep had never been so frightening to Yamapi.
* * *
To Yamapi’s shock, the guy from next door really did go get the dorm advisor, and it was only because Yamapi had good luck for once in his life that Kamenashi was back by the time the two of them came knocking at their door. Kamenashi was in a better mood, apparently. He was covered in sweat and looked like he had spent all day in the sun, but there was a certain glow to Kamenashi when he had come back from playing baseball.
The visit from the dorm advisor came just as Kamenashi had stepped out of the shower; being closer, Kamenashi opened the door, as Yamapi slowly walked out of his room to see what was going on.
“Oh, you’re back,” Kamenashi said in a callous tone, neither looking nor sounding all that concerned.
The one who was obviously the dorm advisor raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, “There was a complaint about someone screaming…” he started after clearing his throat.
“I told him this morning,” Kamenashi said, crossing his arms, “that there was no one screaming. It was the sound of the alarm clock going off really loudly because of a little mistake like setting the volume too high. If he’s too much of a baby to admit his overactive imagination had him thinking morbid thoughts because an alarm clock scared the shit out of him, then he shouldn’t live in the dorms, where there are loud noises all the time.”
Yamapi stared.
Kamenashi stared at the dorm advisor.
The dorm advisor stared at the squirming student beside him, “An alarm clock…”
“Yeah, an alarm clock.” Kamenashi said, with a disarming smile, “I could always play back the track it was set to for you; it’s really just an alarm clock ringing.” He added.
Yamapi looked at Kamenashi in panic; what was the younger boy doing? That had just been an excuse! They couldn’t really back it up! They would be found out if the dorm advisor really took him up on his offer and -
Yamapi prepared to bolt into his room and lock the door, because that seemed like his best option right now.
He was startled from this plan when, with a roll of his eyes, the dorm advisor swatted the student upside his head, “You called me for an alarm clock. I should write you up for wasting my time.” He didn’t say anything more, and walked away muttering under his breath about babysitting for idiots.
Kamenashi had an entirely too satisfied look on his face as he began to close the door on the enraged student’s face. Before he did though, he paused, “If I were you, I’d either get some earplugs or find a way to switch rooms with someone, because this is the second time you’ve disturbed my day. And I really don’t like you.” He added, before closing the door.
Yamapi looked at Kamenashi as he stood there, looking nonchalant, as though he hadn’t just done what he had.
“Um…”
“You do realize that I’m not here to clean up after your messes right?” Kamenashi commented before retreating to his room.
Yamapi blinked after Kamenashi’s retreating form, hating the fact that Kamenashi had a point. This was the second time today that Kamenashi had had to help him out, because he didn’t want to make a big deal about his nightmares, and as a result, hide and draw as little attention to himself as possible. Where did Kamenashi even learn to be so dark anyways? Yamapi was almost sure that Kamenashi had never been like that in high school…
Except, it was a Kamenashi that Yamapi had never seen, but one that made his breath catch in his throat when he realized that there were so many sides to Kamenashi that Yamapi had no idea about.
* * *
-----> part 2