Cultural Exchange
Italy and Japan are at war. Sort of. PDA negotiations start now - gird thy loins.
Cultural Exchange
Marco squinted down at the open book in his hands, trying to make himself focus on the words there. He didn’t ordinarily mind his studies at all, but since the Dinosaurs’ loss to the Devilbats last year, he found it hard to concentrate on classes when he knew he’d much rather be out on the field, training for the new season. It made it very hard to learn. Like right now - he was pretty sure he’d been staring at the same three sentences in his history text for the last five minutes, and he still had no idea what they said.
The dense shadow being cast over the pages wasn’t helping. Marco had been gamely trying to ignore the distraction, but he was starting to get eyestrain, which was just silly when he was sitting in full daylight in the middle of a park. He stared down at the meaningless passage on the Meiji Era for several more minutes before finally giving up and turning to the shadow’s source, sitting beside him.
“Gaou - no offense - but is it absolutely necessary for you to be this close to me all the time?”
Gaou stopped glaring at a nervous-looking group of first years that were having lunch in the grass several feet away and turned to look down at Marco.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, frowning. “I’m not any closer to you than normal.” His frown deepened. “And what do you mean 'all the time?'"
Marco winced. He knew he had to pick his next words carefully.
“Gaou. Listen. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, and don’t take it the wrong way, but - for the past three weeks you have been herding me around like a sheepdog. I mean I can’t seem to go farther than three feet out of your shadow without you getting bent out of shape about it.”
He watched Gaou’s face as he spoke. In the distance, one of the first years risked a peek at them and went white at the black scowl he saw on the savage-looking second year’s face.
“Don’t make things up. I haven’t been doing anything out of the ordinary and I can’t help it if you’re always underfoot.”
He folded his arms and leaned back against the tree they were sitting under, redirecting his unpleasant gaze up into its branches. People nearby looked amazed when deceased or terrified birds and wildlife didn’t start raining to the ground around him. Marco wondered if he realized how stubborn he looked.
A great big immoveable mountain of stubborn. And it was all up to Marco to conquer that mountain.
Lucky, lucky him. He sighed and forged manfully on.
“Come on, Gaou. You’ve got to admit you’ve been following me everywhere lately. Everywhere I go, you go. That didn’t used to happen. And even when we were together, you never used to glower at everyone and sit this close to me all the time. I mean look at this,” He poked a finger at the nonexistent space where their sides were pressed together. “You couldn’t fit a credit card through there.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?” A glare as the squirrels and the birds got a momentary reprieve.
“Be-fore.”
“Before what? Before sex? No it wasn’t!”
“Well I’m saying it was!” The glare went back to the unfortunate lunch group.
“And I’m saying we were having sex before that and you weren’t doing it then, so what’s happened in between then and now?” Now it was Marco’s turn to frown. “Say?”
He reached up and tugged at Gaou’s sleeve, trying to get his full attention.
“Hey, quit shortening the first years’ lifespans and talk to me.”
No response. The corner of Marco’s mouth tipped downward.
“Well, all right. Have it your way.” He sighed and glanced back down at the book still open in his lap. He turned a page. “I’ll just assume it’s about Harao and we’ll leave it at that.”
He contemplated his schoolwork for a moment more, riffling the pages between his fingers. He wasn’t too surprised when he looked back up and Gaou’s face was only a few inches away from his own.
“Who said anything about that weak Taiyou worm?” Gaou’s jaw was tense as he gritted out his words.
Across the grass, the little flock of first years finally decided to take flight, leaving bento and utensils scattered behind them in their haste to get away.
Marco was less impressed.
“Nobody had to say anything about him. It’s kind of hard to ignore that your, your problem -“ Marco gestured at the tiny gap between them, “ - didn’t start until after our first spring game, and that was right after we started practicing with the old Sphinx players.”
“He went around kissing you all the time.”
“I know.”
“With his tongue.”
“I know! I was there, believe me, I know, no one was more aware of it than me!”
The discussion had moved a little further out of control than Marco had been anticipating. He’d known that bringing up Harao was a little risky, but, well.
The simple truth was that Marco had a little trouble taking the guy in question seriously enough to get mad at, even if he had been sticking his tongue in Marco’s mouth on a fairly regular basis for a while. Because - really? Who went around frenching people because they’d been told that it was “very European?” The British exchange student that had laid that one over on Harao must have gotten a really good laugh out of it. Marco would’ve very much liked to locate the guy and sit him down for a special talk. He strongly suspected that Banba wouldn’t have minded a little chat, either.
The first time Marco had been subjected to one of Harao’s random tonsil exams - right after he’d innocently mentioned his (nearly nonexistent) Italian heritage in conversation - he’d wound up feeling sorrier for Banba than for himself. The usually dignified lineman had looked like he’d rather be banging his head against the nearest wall of lockers than having to explain his teammate’s bizarre social habits to the baffled Dinosaurs.
Marco had never shared that sentiment more than now.
___
“But you never cared!” He stared up at Gaou in genuine frustration. “You never cared before. Or at least you said you didn’t. And it didn’t seem like you did. Did you?”
He peered hard at Gaou’s expression, trying to decipher what was there. His chances didn’t look too good; the focus of his attentions was looking pretty confused himself.
“I - “ Gaou stopped and ground his teeth together, then started again. “I didn’t care before. That guy’s just an idiot with no real strength or skill. It was fine until - “
Another pause. More grinding.
Marco found himself reflexively checking his pockets for Gaou’s mouthpiece while he waited for him to speak again. When he finally did, every word was forced out with careful precision.
“I was fine until that Hiruma Youichi.”
Oh.
“Oh.” Marco shifted uncomfortably. “That.”
Gaou shot him a sharp look.
“That. ”
“When he kissed me?”
A growl. “If we’re calling it that.”
Marco cringed. He knew exactly what Gaou meant when he said that.
Harao had been pretty thorough in his upholding of fictional European customs, but what Hiruma had done had been more like an oral deflowering. And Marco hadn’t even thought he had a flower anymore.
He wasn’t sure if Hiruma having done it - at a game, in front of an audience - for no other reason than to fuck with his former opponents’ heads made the whole thing better or worse. Although if he were really pressed about it, he thought he’d have to say “worse.” There were just some situations in life - like getting grabbed, groped, and bent over backwards on a football field by a gun-toting, gum-snapping psychopath and tongued within an inch of your life before a full game’s worth of onlookers - where positive words like “better” just ceased to be an option.
“Ahhh. Well. If it’s any help, I generally try not to think about it.”
“Hn.”
“The whole thing, really.”
“Nn-hn.”
“You know. The part with Harao kissing me. The part with Hiruma kissing me. The part with you stomping across the field and picking me up like a doll and kissing me right after Hiruma. On a field. In front of fifty thousand people.”
“He started it. And it was not fifty thousand people. Don’t exaggerate.”
Uncomfortable silence settled over them.
Almost ten minutes of awkward tension later, Marco decided he’d had enough, if only because he was going to permanently maim the pages of his book if he didn’t find something else for his hands to pick at. Sighing, he turned and tucked the book back into his bag and started to get to his feet. He didn’t quite make it before a massive arm grabbed him around the waist and pinned him to the ground. Startled, he tried to sit back up, but then Gaou rolled on top of him.
“Why are they allowed to do things like that and I can’t even stand next to you? You’re not even doing anything with either of those guys, so why do they get more rights than I do?”
His expression was oddly sullen. It was a look Marco wasn’t used to seeing on Gaou’s face, and he was at a total loss as to how to react.
He’d really meant it when he’d said that Gaou hadn’t seemed to care about what had been going on with Harao during their weeks of practice with the former Sphinx. Even aside from the fact that the whole thing had been more like some bizarre comedy act that he had accidentally stumbled too close to than any sort of threat to either of them, Marco would have ordinarily been a bit more concerned. But it was Gaou. Gaou just tended not to think like most other people - like anyone else Marco knew, actually.
In Gaou’s world, people said what they meant and they meant what they said, or they were just cowards or liars that weren’t worth bothering with. The same went for your actions. Actions spoke louder than words, so whatever you did around Gaou, he was going to assume you damn well meant. So if Marco had truly wanted to be kissing Harao Kiminari in the locker rooms, he would’ve been doing it instead of, say, hiding in the showers (the sanctity of which had thankfully not been violated) until Harao left.
But everyone had limits. Marco knew that. And he also knew that if there was a boundary-breaking, envelope-pushing, line-crossing, zone-violating head case dangling a bale of damn straw over a testy and overloaded camel’s back, it was Hiruma Youichi. The man was a wild card if there ever was one and adding him to any situation, no matter how stable or well established, was going to get you explosive results.
Marco still wanted to know just how Hiruma had found out about them in the first place. He’d used Harao as a convenient excuse for the impromptu make-out session - “Just bein’ friendly, Fuckin’ Eyelashes, don’tcha know it’s how they do it over on the Continent?” - but the very significant look he’d directed across the field at Gaou hadn’t been without intent.
(The fact that his manager and kicker had had to literally drag him off the field on his back while he screamed with laughter in the auditory void left in the stands after Gaou set Marco back on his feet might have also been a tip off.)
They hadn’t mentioned what they were doing to anyone else, mostly because it had never seemed necessary. Two guys having a lot of sex after randomly jumping each other in the locker rooms one night (Gaou still blamed Marco for that. He’d said it was his fault for suddenly smelling good all the time. Marco still didn’t know what he was talking about, but he’d decided to take it as a compliment and leave it at that) just didn’t seem like a thing worth letting people know about.
Add in the fact that they were both still in high school and hadn’t been planning on whatever it was they were doing in the first place - Marco had hardly even given the thought of other guys much consideration before, much less Gaou - and it wasn’t too surprising that they hadn’t bothered sitting down and defining their relationship. If that was even what it was. Either way, it looked like Marco was about to have to find out. And he had no idea where to start.
It would have been nice if he could’ve referenced his previous relationship with Maria for help, but she’d never been the type to get jealous. It had been one of the things he’d found attractive about her. And now, here he was, facing the issue with Gaou, instead. Who was still frowning down at him, waiting for an answer to his question. Marco very much wished he knew what to say.
“Ah,” he started hesitantly. “Do you…do you want to do things like that? I mean in front of other people?”
Gaou looked surprised. Apparently he hadn’t thought this out very far, either.
“It’s not that I want to it’s that - it’s that I should be able to, shouldn’t I? Why can’t I?”
Marco frowned.
“It’s not that you can’t. It’s just more that it would be…uncomfortable. At least I would be uncomfortable. Wouldn’t you?”
“Other people do it all the time.”
“Tasteless people. People with no, no - quality.”
“So I’m supposed to care about what other people think of my quality? Why should I care what other people think? I never have before.”
Good point.
Time to try another angle.
“It’s not like I have a problem with everything. I mean look,” Marco waved a hand alongside the two of them, ”You’re lying on top of me in the middle of a public park and I haven’t freaked out, right? But there are just - “
He stopped, sighed, frowned. How to put what he was trying to say into words?
“There are just some things - some things that are private and some things that are public. That’s all. You know what I’m saying? And you have been following me, lately. Not hanging out, but following. That’s weird. I mean you even showed up at that model fitting I was helping my mom out with and the last time I checked, fashion design was not a driving interest of yours.”
Marco met Gaou’s eyes with as much earnesty as he could. He meant what he was saying, and what he was saying wasn’t that he didn’t want Gaou around or that he was afraid of what other people would think if he were to touch Marco in public. It wasn’t about that. It was about…personal taste. Everyone had their different preferences, their different feelings on what you did or didn't do with the person you were with.
When Marco had been with Maria he’d always enjoyed their casual touches. He’d liked to lean over her and kiss or smell her hair; he’d loved putting an arm around her and pulling her close, or having her lean on him whenever they were just sitting or standing around together. He’d never been much of a hand holder, though. He didn’t know why. Something about it made him just the tiniest bit uneasy, that feeling of not having both of his hands immediately at his disposal. Maria had thought it was funny.
He never tried to get really serious with her around other people, either. Sure, he’d kiss her, touch her face, things like that. But never anything involving open mouths, nothing he wouldn’t have done in front of his own mother. Or her mother, for that matter.
Even when he’d invited her into the bath with him that one time, it’d been more a bittersweet jest than anything else. He’d have never really made such an offer seriously - not without kicking everyone else out of the bathhouse first. That was private. No one else needed to see that because it was just for them.
He just wasn’t sure how to explain that to Gaou.
“What if…what if there was some name I had for you. A nickname, just between us. And one day I just started addressing you that way all the time.”
“Again. Why do I care? What kind of nickname would you even want to use?”
Marco stared blankly up at the clouds and tried to think of something appropriately saccharine and humiliating.
“All right. Pookie Bear. What if I decided I wanted to go around calling you Pookie Bear out in public all the time, and - don’t look at me like that, I’m being serious!” Despite his words, Marco couldn’t stop the grin spreading over his face in response to the look of flat incredulity on Gaou’s face.
“Why would you ever want to do something like that in the first place? You never would, you’re being ridiculous.”
“Ah, ah, ah!” Marco quickly swallowed his laughter and raised a finger. “That’s not the point! The point is, if I, for whatever reason -“
“Brain disease.”
“For whatever reason, I did decide I wanted to call you Pookie Bear and by some miracle you decided not to drop me off at the nearest mental hospital or landfill or whatever, it would definitely be something private, yes? Something just between us, hm?”
He looked up at Gaou, waiting for a response. Gaou eyed him back, practically dripping skepticism.
At length, he said, “That would take a very big damn miracle.”
“Shut up and answer the question, you know what I mean.” Marco rolled his eyes and thumped Gaou on the shoulder.
Marco could see him struggling to come up with an indifferent answer for several seconds, with no success. He frowned at Marco at last, and sighed heavily.
“Pookie Bear? Really?”
“Pookie Bear. Really.” Marco silently congratulated himself for being able to say it with a straight face. Gaou looked to the side and scowled.
“All right, fine. I get it. I can kiss you in front of people and you can call me - my name, I guess - but the kissing can’t get serious, no more stalking, and you can’t call me Pookie Bear or any other stupid name. Ever.” He huffed and then slumped forward over Marco, resting his face in the grass.
“And,” Marco added, “if Harao or Hiruma or anyone else tries anything again, I won’t just avoid them, I’ll tell them to knock it off. Or hit them with a cola bottle. Something. Although Hiruma would probably shoot me for that.”
Gaou snorted.
“And if anyone tries something with me?”
“Um. I think you’re probably pretty capable of handling that on your own.”
“So if that Deimon guy - “
Marco had never felt the muscles around his mouth turn down quite so quickly or so violently before.
“No.”
Gaou’s eyebrows rose. He sat back up.
“That was fast.”
It hadn’t been just fast. It had been automatic. Marco could feel his face getting hot.
Now that other parts of him, like his libido, had had time to take a look at it, the basic concept didn’t seem so bad, maybe even a little bit hot. But when it came right down to it, just. No. No.
“No.” Marco scowled and slanted his eyes to the side so he didn’t have to look at Gaou. He felt like a sulky girl.
Gaou stared at him a second longer, one eyebrow still cocked - before he grinned and just started looking amused.
“So that’s settled, then. No making out in public, no pet names, and no one gets to kiss Hiruma Youichi. I’m fine with that.” Definitely, very amused.
Marco glared at him, face still redder than he’d like.
“Glad to know I’m here for your entertainment.” He said, sourly.
And then his mood suddenly lifted when he remembered something.
“By the way,” he said, smirking, “rather than Hiruma coming on to you, I think we might want to be worrying more about Harao.”
Gaou frowned. “What do you mean? Why would I worry about him?”
“Well, he seems to think quite a lot of you since that game, you know. I would honestly expect a very enthusiastic greeting the next time you see him. You see, after you walked off again, he came up and told me how surprised he was. Said he’d been thinking you were - “
Here, Marco’s voice altered in imitation of Harao’s signature, haughty diction.
“ - a rough, uncultured brute, but thou hast proven thyself to possess far more couth and savoir-faire than one had first thought.”
In more normal tones he said, “He did say that you were a bit, ah, “showy,” but that that could be forgiven due to the excitement of the game and all. I thought that was nice.” He beamed cheerfully.
Gaou, he was gratified to observe, looked about as close to horrified as Marco had ever seen him. He couldn’t help what came next.
“You know,” he continued benignly, “I’m sure Harao wouldn’t mind thinking up a much better nickname for you. Brutus, maybe? Or maybe Caesar. Oh no, I’ve got it, Big Caesar, that’s better. Or something more Egyptian, like Pharaoh, I mean you’ve got “king” in your name and all, so - ow, hey, Gaou!”
Marco wheezed with laughter as a stone-faced Gaou placed one dinner plate-sized hand on his chest and started applying pressure, squishing him straight down into the dirt.
“Stop. Talking.”
Marco almost couldn’t speak through his laughter.
“I will as soon as you - ah! Hey! Hey, what are you doing?”
“Shutting you up.”
Gaou still had one hand pinning Marco in place, but he’d stopped trying to crush him and had started biting along the side of his neck, instead.
“You realize this - hah - this goes completely against the rules we just - nn - just established?”
“You don’t like this?” Another sharp nip, right behind his ear.
Marco hissed, softly.
“No, actually I think all of my higher brain functions just shut off. I think I actually felt them stop working.”
“So why are you still talking?”
“Because I - ahhh! - because I don’t want this conversation to have been totally pointless!”
“It wasn’t. Everything goes into effect tomorrow. This is the interim period.”
“I see.” Marco turned his head to give Gaou better access to his jaw. “What about the Hiruma clause?”
“You see him around here?”
Paranoia actually made Marco do a quick check of the trees around them.
Fortunately, he didn’t see anything other than some kids on roller skates and an admittedly rather scandalized looking elderly couple walking their dog.
“Nope, can’t say I see him anywhere.”
“Fine, then.”
Marco sighed and put his arms around Gaou’s neck. He idly picked up a hank of thick, dark hair and started playing with it, separating it into smaller sections.
“Ohhh, we’re gonna get kicked out of the park,” he sang softly, looking up at the trees. “Any minute now, I’d say.” His breath hitched at something Gaou’s teeth did to his shoulder. He swallowed a small moan and added, “And you can stop grinning all over your face, I’d say too.”
“You can’t even see my face, how can you tell what it’s doing?”
“I don’t have to see it. Some things you just know.”
A low chuckle next to his neck sent pleasant shivers through his skin. He decided he could definitely deal with one more day of lawlessness. There was just one last little thing…
“Okay, one more thing.”
A sigh. “What?”
“No more roaring, either. Okay? I mean it’s fine at games, whatever, but not - “
“I get the point.”
“I know. It’s just that last time, all of the not-fifty-thousand people present got it, too. They were still rubbing their ears and shouting at each other after they left.”
“Marco?”
“Right. Shutting up now.”
“Shut up.”
“Right.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Fic Notes: Because I'm lame and talky. And a language/fan-dork.
Mm-kay, so aside from having been generally AT WAR with this fic for a month now, one of the things I was a little concerned about was Marco's whole "I'd say" thing, and whether or not I wanted to include it somewhere. When I first saw it mentioned on Wikipedia as something he said all the time, I immediately wondered if that was really what he was saying since it sounded pretty odd. I took it to a patient friend of mine who is awesome and reads Japanese, and she confirmed that it's not a direct translation, but that's because there really isn't one.
Your Lingual Geekery For The Day:
What Marco is actually saying when he says "I'd say" is "Cchuu hanashi" which is a slurring of "Tte iu hanashi."
Tte = Quoting or quotation, iu = to say, hanashi = the noun form of "speech," so to talk or to speak
So. No direct translation for that, really. At least partly because Marco is apparently a big freak and that's just a really weird, manga-characterish thing to say. My friend even snagged a passing coworker who's a native speaker, and he pretty much said that that was fucking bizarre and nothing he'd ever heard used in actual conversation. If I was going to try to translate that, I'd probably have to resort to something like "It's a matter of - " or "The matter of - " Using "I'd say" was pretty awesome on the translators' part imho, and I kind of have to wonder what they said when they first encountered that.
I also asked my friend about Gaou's "guys with weak sperm" thing because I thought that had to be too awesomely hilarious to be true. So I was all prepared to be disappointed when he turned out to just be saying "those weak/impotent guys" or something, but no! Gaou is just awesome and that is really what he is saying! He says "seieki ga tsukkanai" or "seieki ga usui."
seieki = sperm, tsukkanai = can be translated as "lacking" or "empty," usui = weak, watery, diluted
So. There's your pointless, ghetto Japanese lesson for the day. I thought it was interesting. But I am also obsessed with these characters and a complete dork. Yaaaayyy!!! XD;;;
(If anyone disagrees with anything here, please feel free to chip in. I trust my friend completely, but I don't trust me not to have accidentally screwed up or misinterpreted something she said OTL)