Title: Esclave (Chapter 7/?)
Author:
keeconkPairing: AriYama.
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2,628
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine and the story is solely fantasy, totally has nothing to do with the real life persons. Some facts, however, might be based on magazine translations.
Summary: It all came too soon that Yamada felt like accusing Daiki for something that was just created by his mere anger and emotion.
A.N.: AU. Self-beta'ed.
( Chapter 1: Rejected? ) ( Chapter 2: A Step Behind ) ( Chapter 3: Confusion ) ( Chapter 4: Turning Point ) ( Chapter 5: At Dawn ) ( Chapter 6: Chaos )------
Carefully, he stepped out from his room, the door was opened slowly, widening up more as his whole body tried to go through it without making any noise. It was dark; the only light that helped him to see was the dim moonlight that managed to slip through the narrow hallway’s transparent blinds.
No sound was heard as he walked slowly, barefoot so that he wouldn’t make any unnecessary noise with his every step. His sweatpants hung low on his hips while his rather big t-shirt did nothing to warm him up, the heater of the mansion seemed not making that much different on that windy night.
He walked up to the only stairs that he always climbed on, remembering every familiar step as he got closer to the room that he wanted to go to. The carpeted floor gave a different feeling to Yamada, realising how they make the staff area a lot simpler than the main house itself.
“Daiki-san…” he muttered, slowly opening the grand wooden door.
The room wasn’t as dark as the hallways that he went through earlier; Daiki was sitting on his bed with his reading light on, a comic book on his hands. The older boy looked up from the page that he was reading, seemingly surprised but the reaction was pretty subtle.
“Yamada… what are you doing here?” Daiki put his comic book down, straightened her body up as he kept his eyes on Yamada.
Pursing his lips, he closed the door behind him, fidgeting a little as he stood before the door, eyes timidly looking back at Daiki. As Yamada stepped forward to the bed, he bit his lower lip, his hands urging their ways to his sweatpants’ pockets. He settled down on the edge of the bed, inhaling a deep breath as his eyes spacing out to a random spot on the floor.
“Is something bothering you?” Daiki asked, pulling off the duvet away from him, tapping his lap as he did that.
Resting his head on Daiki’s lap, Yamada didn’t answer his owner right away. He looked up to the older boy from where he lied down, closing his eyes when he felt the other’s fingers running through his brown lock, his heart jumping a bit because that was the first time Daiki did that.
“Are you really gonna disown me?” Yamada spoke up at last.
He felt Daiki’s fingers stopped, making him sure that there was hesitation to answer his question. The room was filled with silence, the reading light felt rather hot as it was directed right to them, and shining right on Yamada’s face.
“Only if you’re okay with it. Besides, it’s hard to decide when I don’t know how you feel about this.”
“I’m not ok with it,” Yamada answered.
“Well, I just want to be with you…”
“You are with me! I live here,” Yamada scowled, sitting up and turning his body to face Daiki.
“No, you don’t get it.”
“Then enlighten me, please?”
“I love you okay! Stop asking!” Daiki yelled at him.
Yamada blinked, finding the sudden confession shocking. He inched away from Daiki, with jaw opened up. His mind flew back to when he first came to the house and how things had been since there. “How can that be possible? I’m just your pet,” he questioned Daiki, couldn’t understand what he had done to make this happen.
“I don’t know…”
Turning his head away, his eyebrows furrowed, finally all these things that the other had been telling him made sense to his poor little brain. He stared at Daiki right into the eyes, part of him wanting to tell Daiki that love was such an exaggeration of feelings towards a pet like him.
“Why are you so surprised?” Daiki frowned, seemingly unhappy with the way Yamada reacted. “I admit that I didn’t want a pet at first, I don’t see a reason in replacing a slave with a pet if it would end up somewhat the same way. When you first came you acted exactly like how slave would act, every single move you made, you were waiting for my instruction. I don’t want that,” he explained.
“That doesn’t explain why you love me!”
“It does! Because look at you now. You’re shouting back at me! Not even Ryutaro shouts back at Nii-chan. Ryutaro does as he wishes to, but when Nii-chan says no, he’ll stop doing it. But you're different,” Daiki scratched his hair furiously, trying to express himself. “You didn’t do as I said when we were at Chii’s house. You didn’t answer me when I asked you questions in the car, you were even upset with me because you thought it was just going to be the two of us going out.”
“You’re saying that I’m a bad pet? That’s what you mean, isn’t it?” Yamada quivered. “You just want a new one!” he stood up from the bed, his eyes were shooting right straight to Daiki, fingers clutching with strength.
“Damn it, Yamada! That’s not what I’m saying here! What I’m saying is that you act more than just a pet! You’re like… you’re like a friend… or something else. Or whatever,” the older guy yelled back at Yamada. “At least that’s the impression I’m getting from you.”
“…and so disown me? You don’t make any sense, Daiki!” Yamada growled.
Sighing, Daiki took the duvet, covering his body back underneath it, eyes looking up to Yamada with a fond expression plastered all over his face. “See… there you go. You did it again.”
“I did what?”
“You yelled back at me. And you called my name without honorific…”
“I didn-… Oh… I’m sorry…” Yamada’s expression softened up, realising that whatever Daiki was saying actually made sense to him now.
When Daiki took Yamada’s wrist, pulling him to the bed. Daiki shifted to his side, giving Yamada a space to sit on, almost demandingly yanking the younger boy’s hand down so that Yamada would sit there with him. “Stay for the night… I’ll tell Inoo-chan to pack your stuff the first thing in the morning,” Daiki mumbled.
Yamada felt his chest tightened up, both anger and frustration mixing into one. He really didn’t want to go back to the basement, and they would just going to confiscate his stuff once they took him back anyway, so packing would just be such a waste.
Even as he felt a pair of arms wraping around him, dragging him down to lie down on the huge bed, the other’s warmth advancing to his own body, he didn’t feel safe at all. The quiet night felt even more distant when Daiki turned off the reading light, letting the darkness hovering them, making Yamada remember those darkness nights he had spent for the past eight years of his life at.
He found it hard to sleep that night, especially when Daiki was kicking around like a little boy sleeping in a king-size bed for the very first time. Staying still with his stomach flat on the bed, the position that he usually slept in, Yamada closed his eyes multiple times even when he noticed the way the sun was already peeking up to the whole world - judging by the way it was brightening up outside, trying to sleep but even the expensive bed did very little to calm him down from the idea of being disclaimed.
Suddenly he heard something vibrating, pushing his upper torso up with his elbow, and trying to check what the sound was. From where he was, Yamada saw a small red light flashing on the coffee table. He got up from the bed as his curiosity built up in him, making his way to the table to grab the flashing phone, opening it up the moment he got his hand on it.
Yamada-san…? Yamada blinked at the name that the phone screen was showing him.
“What are you doing with my phone?” Daiki suddenly spoke up.
Startling, he held the phone tight, not wanting to accidentally drop it. He gulped as he watched Daiki walking to where he stood, the other’s hand quickly snatch the ringing phone from Yamada’s hand, his eyes showing of how much he wasn’t pleased with the younger boy checking his phone out without his permission.
“Go shower and eat your breakfast before someone picks you up,” Daiki pushed Yamada aside, waiting till Yamada was far enough before answering the phone call.
He left backward, keeping his eyes on Daiki with lips pursed un-amusedly, wanting to know deeply why this person was calling Daiki. The boy waited for awhile even when the back of his head hit the wooden door, trying to come out with something sensible to his head while trying to read Daiki’s lips’ movement.
When he realised that he wouldn’t get anything by eavesdropping because he couldn’t catch a single thing Daiki was saying, Yamada turned away, leaving the big room to shower, the idea of not able to get to that room again suddenly making him miserable. Even until then, he wasn’t sure how he felt about Daiki. He loved the house, he really did, and he liked his owner, but this seemed to be something that was at a whole different level for him, something that he couldn’t quite reach just yet.
He looked down as he walked through the staff constricted hallway, not liking the way everyone was staring at him. Things always spread really fast in that household; he wasn’t even sure why he believed that the entire house already knew that he was leaving. And he was sure that he wasn’t wrong when they just let him take the bathroom first even when he came late and that he should have actually queued for his turn.
The little pat Keito gave him before he stepped inside the bathroom wasn’t helping at all, making him feel that he was really going to an endless misery after this, his chest felt so tight that it was ready to burst any minute. I can’t believe he really is disowning me… he said to himself, staring at his reflection on the mirror on top of the sink.
His hair was brown, but he could see the black root, making him wonder if Inoo would redye it if he were to stay longer there. Never in his life he ever imagined that his skin could look that smooth and flawless, not a single dirt staining its surface. He might look tired from the lack of sleep, but he never realised that his eyes were big and rounded, unlike most Japanese.
Not sure how he should really feel about the whole idea, he sighed when he saw bags right in front of his own room after he showered - Inoo seemed to do his job really quick, he noticed. Yamada leaned down, unzipping the bag to have a peek of what the butler had packed for him.
“So you’re leaving…”
Yamada turned his head to his side, finding Yuto not far from him, leaning to the door’s frame of the room beside his. Yuto’s hair was half wet, there was towel hanging on his neck with his hands holding each of its edges. Standing up, Yamada nodded, slipping his hands to his jeans’ back pocket.
“Because he told you to or because you’re returning his feeling?” Yuto asked.
“... does it matter? I’m gonna go back to where I came from. Getting back to those baggy pants, dirty apron and working butt off on that filthy kitchen,” Yamada replied.
“Why are you so pessimistic? I’m sure if Ari-chan really does have feelings towards you, he wouldn’t make you suffer,” the taller guy rolled his eyes, stepping forward to close the gap between them.
“He let me go. He made me go. Which part of that you don’t understand? Which part of that says that he doesn’t want me to suffer?”
“Well, the part that he had been driving Inoo-kun insane with all those weird paperwork, maybe?” Yuto smiled, much to Yamada’s surprise.
“Wh-…what?” he frowned. “Why does everyone seem to know everything? And why am I the only one that never knows what is happening around me?”
“Aren’t you adorable? Come~, let me help you with your bag,” Yuto offered. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“I don’t feel like it. It would feel like the last supper or something.”
Shrugging, the boy took one of Yamada’s bags, cocking his head to the side - signalling Yamada to follow him. Yamada did clearly not like that morning, his heart suddenly pumping uneasily, almost as if it was trying to tell him not to leave the mansion. His steps felt draggy, and the backpack that he put over only on a shoulder seemed to make the gravity deemed a lot more intense.
He saw Inoo standing by the big extravagant, talking to Daiki, and he could sense that they seemed to be in some sort of argument. Daiki looked quiet while Inoo was swaying his hands around, his hair was tied and unstyled, almost as if he didn’t have time to work on it that morning.
What surprised him most was to see Ryutaro there. He was still in his sweatpants and jumper, his hair was a mess and he was fidgeting as he walked around in a somewhat a circle. “Oh my God, dude! You’re really leaving?!” Ryutaro exclaimed when he saw Yamada, making everyone else that was in the grand entrance turning his or her eyes to the said boy.
“Yeah… my owner doesn’t want me, sadly,” Yamada stole a glance to Daiki, quickly diverting his eyes back to Ryutaro.
“This is ridiculous. That is so not cool, Daiki-san,” Ryutaro scowled.
Inoo shook his head when Daiki didn’t answer Ryutaro at all, turning to Yuto to grab the bag from the barn boy as well as the backpack that Yamada was holding. He didn’t say a word to Yamada, quickly walking out through the door to a silver Lexus RX outside.
…a Japanese car? Yamada stared to the unknown car. He knew that Hikaru was driving a black limo, and Yamada remembered the older boy once mentioned that the Ariokas never used a Japanese car, even when Hikaru personally loved local cars because according to him he loved the defined curves Japanese cars had.
“What’s with the…” Yamada tilted his head, ignoring Ryutaro and Daiki as he put on his parka, stepping out as his eyes pierced to the car. If he remembered correctly, the basement did not use such a fancy car to pick him up.
He heard Daiki and Ryutaro arguing behind his back when Ryutaro started to throw Daiki with so many questions in the same time as they followed Yamada out, but he kept on walking as he saw Inoo putting his bags to the car’s trunk - a man with a casual white shirt and black pants was helping him.
There, by the car, a lady was standing by the opened passenger’s seat. Her hair was short, well cut in a poshy bob style and there was a very familiar pearl necklace wrapped on her slender, tall neck. His eyes widened up when he realised who the person that was standing before him was.
Inhaling a deep breath, his jaw dropped, it felt like a déjà vu just like when he first came to the house. Not a single thing made sense to him at all, especially this one. The sound of Ryutaro and Daiki arguing faded away from his senses because this was the very last thing he had in mind when Daiki told him that he was going to disown him.
"Ryosuke," she smiled to him.
“Mum…?” he cocked his head, believing that his eyes were playing trick on him.
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Sorry for skipping yesterday for the posting, but I had stuff to do and my brain wasn't working at all.
Anyway, critiques?