FIC: Untitled, YanaKiri, NC17 (Happy Birthday, Yanagi Renji!)
Title: [Untitled thus far]
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 4700
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: The night before the Nationals final...Spoilers for EVERYTHING. Do not whine to me if you spoil yourself reading this, okay?
Author's Notes: Written for Yanagi's birthday. Happy Birthday, Renji! Unlocked because of a sign from above Kento- &hearts
After practice, after the steaming showers, dripping with water now instead of just sweat and effort and exhaustion, Renji says, “We could be playing doubles tomorrow, Akaya.”
Kirihara’s towel stops mid-ruffle. Two eyes pop out from under the terrycloth and black tendrils of hair a curtain his face. “Huh? But-”
Renji shrugs. The locker room is subdued from the late hour. No one speaks much, not with the worry of what if we lose again looming in the back of their minds. They won’t, they won’t, Yukimura is back, and yet… the spectre of defeat to Seigaku hangs over them like a thunder cloud. They failed Yukimura once when he counted on them. Renji’s stomach still prickles with guilt. His was the first lost, and unacceptable all the more for it.
Genichirou gives Renji a long, hard look, then tosses him the clubhouse keys. Not one word, just the expectation that it’s his turn to lock up tonight. Yagyuu and Niou leave in tandem, perfect doubles in their side-by-side steps over the threshold. Only Jackal says “Good night, sleep well” but he is quiet, overcome by his own thoughts too.
The fluorescent lights flicker. Grey light spills in through the window, casting side-long shadows over Kirihara’s scrunched brow. “You wanna sleep over and talk strategy and stuff, senpai?” he murmurs.
***
The bus is half-empty. The late summer evening spills out onto the pavements packed with pedestrians. Renji leans into the rush of wind fluttering through the bus windows, but they are too high above his head to be of much help. Sweat dribbles down his face, his neck, staining his shirt collar dark.
Kirihara sits beside him, even though the seats around are free. He pulls his knees to his chin, his head bobbing along with the motions of the bus. “I thought they’d have their Golden Pair play,” he says. His words are thick and slow, oozing from the heat.
Renji nods. “They will, doubles one. We’d be doubles two. They’ll field their second strongest doubles pair, Kaidoh and-” Sadaharu “Inui.”
Kirihara blinks, his movement lethargic. His sigh stirs the dark hairs on his knee and he looks straight ahead, following the line of the road and not once looking to Renji. “You wanna play him again, don’t you?” he says. Kirihara shifts. His head drops as his words trail off.
His throat feels tight, his words equally forced when Renji says, “We need to do our best, whatever position Yukimura thinks we should play. He’s counting on us.”
All seven of them said the same thing last time, and they lost. Renji hates to say the words twice. He’s not superstitious, he doesn’t believe in jinxes, in curses, he can’t, not now, when they’ve come so far again from defeat, when they picked themselves up and trained anew. His muscles ache from the day’s practice in the beating sun. His head floats from the roasting weather. His body is eager to grab some food and then collapse into an exhausted heap.
Kirihara keeps staring ahead. His pupils reflect the stoplights, the headlights, the glittering city and the constant rush of red restaurant lanterns and glittering golden shopfronts lining the streets. Renji can’t understand what Kirihara is thinking, but it makes his throat even tighter, it makes it even harder to say anything more.
***
Kirihara’s mother feeds them cold udon with ponzu sauce that must sting the small cuts on the sides of Kirihara’s mouth, the ones that still haven’t healed, a week on from the semifinals against that gaijin school. They eat cold beef slices, pink and tender in the centre that Kirihara slathers in mayonnaise. Renji eats his plain- the mayo makes him cringe, then twice as hard when Kirihara squeezes more onto his plate.
Kirihara’s sister is out shopping, his father “on another business trip to Seoul,” Kirihara’s mother tells them. She leaves a tray of barley tea and melon pan on the table, stacks of bread just calling out to be eaten. She leaves them, too, after setting up a spare futon in Kirihara’s bedroom, telling him to clean up his mess if he wants friends to spend the night.
The tv drones in the background, flashing iridescent lights of the show his mother watches on the windows: some shoujo drama that neither Renji nor Kirihara would ever be caught watching.
Shifting his eyes, Kirihara hauls to tray to his bedroom, sloshing the tea inside the cups onto the carpet by Renji’s feet. His mother says nothing, only turns the volume up louder.
“I wish we had those frozen energy drinks,” Kirihara grumbles, sending a scowl behind his mother’s back as they walk past her. “I told her to buy some for me, senpai, and she didn’t.”
His apartment is large and immaculate. Renji has been here before, always feeling slightly out of place among the sharp glass tables and pristine cream-coloured leather furniture. No wonder Kirihara shows up with bruises at practice sometimes. Kirihara practically walks into a metal bookcase shelf in the hallway. Nothing here is child-proof, let alone his bedroom.
Stacks of Kamen Rider figures pile up his shelves where textbooks should be. His bedframe is stainless steel, more square edges begging to be bumped into. It smells like teenage boy here, and looks the part- tennis socks and shoes and food crumbs littering the floor. The futon lying on the floor is crammed into the only free space by Kirihara’s wall. His sheets are rumpled, smelling musty and sweaty and heady and Renji knows that Kirihara does more than sleep there now.
His body has taken on the lankiness of a teenager in the recent months. His voice cracks when he speaks sometimes- Marui might laugh, but Renji recalls all too well being in the same embarrassing place last year.
The night is hot and distant fireworks burn through the sky, molten reds and yellows over the glittering lights of the Yokohama harbour. Tomorrow there will be the same bursts of copper green and cobalt blue in the stadium after the winners are announced, medals hanging heavy around their necks.
Renji touches his own neck, searching for the ghost of ribbon of the past two years’ wins. Instead, he feels nothing but hot, clammy skin.
They eat melon pan in silence. It is too dry and too sweet in Renji’s mouth. It makes him want to gag, but he’s polished off his cup of tea already and has nothing to wash the taste from his mouth. Unlike Marui, he won’t steal food. He watches Kirihara take the last couple swigs of his own cup, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his thin neck.
They aren’t the only ones having a sleepover tonight. Renji knows that Jackal and Marui will be staying over at Jackal’s house, the way they always do before a tournament. It must be a good ritual- they’ve never lost a game yet, except when they mean to.
Genichirou will be brooding in his dojo, his movements sleek and careful as he channels whatever he needs for tomorrow into his steel sword. Renji assumes that Niou and Yagyuu must be plotting something, judging from their exit this afternoon and Yukimura…
Renji has heard rumours about a boy haunting the YMCA courts near the city university. Yukimura wants the win more than anyone else- Seigaku can’t understand his illness, how hard he has come since his surgery when those first few balls from Genichirou he wasn’t even able to hit. Only Kirihara could ever come close to understanding Yukimura’s relentless pursuit of victory.
I’ll be number one, he screamed that day, almost three years ago.
Renji looks at Kirihara, lying back on his carpet floor, idly picking at the edge of another melon pan. He swallows thickly. We’ll be number one, he thinks.
The minutes tick like hours, time trickling slowly by as they sit and sweat and chew without a word passing between them. They are each lost in their own thoughts.
Renji can’t absorb anymore data. He doesn’t need anymore data at this point. He’ll play his game tomorrow and if he pushes himself hard enough, he’ll be the one to reach the Muga no Kyouchi first. Sadaharu will be one step behind, where he ought to be.
It is too hot, but the wind outside has picked up, swishing loud through the trees and the high-rise apartment blocks. It would be cooling if only it came up off the bay, instead, it feels just as oven-like as before. Kirihara peels his t-shirt off first, then his shorts too. He exhales, flat on his back on the carpet, looking more like he wants to sink into the floor and never, ever come back out. His chest glistens with sweat, his nipples dark in the dim light.
There’s no light- Kirihara didn’t flick his lamp on and Renji didn’t ask. The shadows don’t help the swelter, but Renji can pretend they might. He takes off his own socks, unable to stand the sweat and gritty lint between his toes any more. Then, another blast of wind entices him to pull his shirt off, which he folds up on top of his tennis bag.
They lie beside each other on the floor, Renji on top of the futon. It’s the only space left in the room now that Kirihara’s legs have grown lankier over the past month. He breathes, then Kirihara- they never reach unison, just one after the other. How they will fare in doubles together, Renji can’t quite calculate. If they were both to reach the Muga no Kyouchi- would that work in doubles? He’s never seen it, not even when Genichirou and Yukimura played doubles in second year once. They played a good, solid game and won 6-0, but that was in an entirely self-conscious and conscious state.
“Senpai?” Kirihara whispers.
The sound of the tv permeates the walls on the far side of the room. If Renji squints, he can almost imagine seeing the blue-tinted glow of the television, too, shining through the filmy white paint. His mind must be playing tricks on him in the melting heat. He flings his hand over his forehead, closes his eyes and mutters, “Yes?”
“Senpai, what if…what if I can’t play doubles tomorrow? What if…” Kirihara trails off, but Renji can hear him swallow, the slight smack of sticky lips together close to his ear. He cracks an eye open to see Kirihara’s wide eyes glowing, Kirihara’s face inches from his own.
And he can feel the feverish heat of Kirihara’s body, so close but just far enough to avoid physically touch. Renji’s skin burns, and then it sears when a knee brushes his thigh. Kirihara’s eyes flicker, and cringing, he moves back, the touch accidental and unintended. “What if…I only played doubles once in practice before and-”
His breathe is wet on Renji’s upper lip. Renji can’t stop his tongue when he reaches out to taste it. There is something heavy in the air between them that Renji can’t compute. He doesn’t know if he wants to, but he’s not dumb enough to not realize that his cock is swelling against his boxershorts and that Kirihara’s closeness is only making it harder.
“Do you doubt Yukimura’s judgment?” he asks. He stares at Kirihara through slitted eyes, drooping with lethargy. Sweat makes his forehead itch. Sweat makes his back hot and uncomfortable, pressed against the futon.
“No!” Kirihara insists, his voice rising. Then, he sniffs softly and mumbles, “No, senpai. I’ll do whatever buchou says, but…”
His fingers stick together. Renji rolls onto his side, peeling his back off the futon sheets. Kirihara’s face is lost in Renji’s shoulder, damp hair brushing his neck, and Kirihara’s tea-sweet mouth presses on his skin. It is Kirihara who reaches out first, but Renji accepts. The heat is too much: his head is too light, his chest too fluttery, his dick too hard. The sudden wetness on Kirihara’s face, Renji hopes, isn’t from tears, but he can’t tell.
They’ve touched before on the courts: pats on shoulders, fistbops after tournament wins, adjustments made to Kirihara’s stance, his posture, his racket grip. Renji has had too many wet towels flung at him in the lockerroom, too many times Kirihara has needed a bandaid to the knee, elbow, face after practice, after Genichirou’s fist.
And then to have Kirihara’s mouth to his lips, sticky and sweet and slow and hot, it shouldn’t be any different. In the hazy temperatures that drip time and sweat and worry about tomorrow, Renji opens his mouth, moaning into the tongue that slides over his.
If he’s thought about this before, it hasn’t been consciously. Hands wind through Kirihara’s hair- are they really his, feeling the damp curls so thick his fingers tangle? Are those Kirihara’s hands wrapping around the back of his neck, bringing their faces closer? They must be, because for an instant, the fingers are sharp, digging into Renji’s skin hard enough to make him gasp and open his mouth wider at the shoot of pain down his spine.
Kirihara is never gentle, methodic or slow- that’s Renji. Kirihara is fast, furious and determined. But this heat changes them, melts them into each other’s bodies, worrying more about tennis than being caught, at least until Renji’s brain faintly registers the sound of their bodies, the slight squelch of their sweaty limbs and the low groan at the back of Kirihara’s throat, the moan that Renji feels first more than hears.
He pulls back enough to be able to see saliva sheen on Kirihara’s mouth. Do his lips pout more than usual? A car rattles by somewhere on the street, several stories down. The voices from the television, and then sad, melodic music drift through the walls as Kirihara looks at Renji, who looks back and feels his insides liquefy even more.
“Senpai,” Kirihara’s lips say. He is silent, his concentration evident as his unwavering eyes focus on Renji the entire time Kirihara peels off his boxershorts, hobbles his legs out of them and then kneels back down. He leans over Renji, his erection burning Renji’s leg and then his lips burn too, scorching his jaw, his throat, his collarbone.
“Akaya…” he whispers, his voice becoming a shuddered moan. Renji’s hands shake on the futon, his fingers curling into the sheet and his toes too when Kirihara bumps his head against Renji’s chin, teeth grazing his chest. He gasps again at the pleasure rippling through his body a second time, making every vein in his body pulse, especially between his legs.
“Senpai, it’s okay if I don’t think about tomorrow right now, right?” Kirihara asks. His voice sounds strangely distant, strangely old, but his eyes when he looks at Renji, they are as big and as dark as ever.
Renji’s answer is a knee hooked around the back of Kirihara’s leg and the arch of his back when their erections brush, separated only by his boxershorts. Teeth graze his neck, then lower still, sharp against his nipples, enough to make him buck again, feeling as if his body will break if Kirihara keeps biting him there and sending those bolts through his body that shrivel up all coherent though.
He can’t think straight and it’s distressing, and then multiplied when a hand snakes under his boxers. Kirihara is bolder than he is. Renji just lies back and accepts the lips, tongue, hands on his body, the legs twining with his, sticky and hot and swelteringly wonderful, rubbing all over his skin. This can only end up messy and gross but when that hand pushes his boxers down and wraps around his dick, Renji doesn’t care anymore.
“Senpai,” Kirihara breathes, kissing Renji’s name into his navel. He runs his hands down Kirihara’s back, searching for a hold but finding only sweat-slick skin and muscles shifting under his fingertips. His shoulder blades move and Renji digs his hands in harder hearing Kirihara hiss, feeling Kirihara’s dick on his thigh, pushed closer to his own, hips thrusting and mouth panting.
The city lights through the window cast a gold-tinted darkness over their skin. Renji can’t tell if Kirihara’s eyes are bloodshot now the way they would be in a tennis game, but he breathes and pants and sweats just as if he were playing. If they can do this, they can do doubles. If they can do doubles, they can do this. Another wave of numb pleasure sweeps through Renji’s body, racking it, forcing his thighs to shake and his hands, too. He clings to Kirihara’s back, jerking forward to whisper, “Won’t your…mother hear?”
The hand on his cock stops. Renji sucks in a breath when, for the briefest moment, reality sets in. The reality that Kirihara is heavy and squishing him and that they are sweaty and slimy and he’s hot and his dick aches and he’s naked with another boy and doing things instead of strategizing about tennis and the games tomorrow- the most important games of the year, if not of his junior high school career and-
The little laugh that escapes Kirihara’s lips catches Renji off guard. It stops his trail of thought, too, when Kirihara shuffles down the futon, staring up at Renji through his bangs as he drags Renji’s boxershorts all the way down to his knees.
“Akaya, no-” he insists. A flush of embarrassment comes over him when he sees the outline of his dick in the shadows before it’s covered by Kirihara’s body again.
“Oomph!” Kirihara bites his lip. He leans down to press his mouth to Renji’s stomach, making Renji suck it in with surprise. “Senpai, she doesn’t hear anything when she watches those dramas. It’s fine.”
He means to stop Kirihara, he does, but somehow his “Akaya!” comes out more as a moan than a threat and somehow the hands that should have pushed Kirihara off him thread through Kirihara’s hair instead.
How can she not hear the slapping of skin on skin, the panted moans, the strangled gasps, the rustle of sheets and the mewling noise Renji hears himself make in the back of his throat? How can she not hear the creak of the floor as they roll around, writhing and kissing at awkward angles. Renji ends up on his hands and knees, quivering and barely able to hold himself up were it not for Kirihara’s arm around his waist. His back presses to Kirihara’s chest as Kirihara runs his lips along the back of Renji’s neck.
The hand on his dick is even faster now, harder, thumbing the end, smearing pre-cum everywhere. Renji shivers, his left knee buckling but Kirihara’s hold is firm and he humps the back of Renji’s leg, rocking his hips almost as though….
They were fucking.
Kirihara’s dick slides under his ass, along the top of Renji’s thigh, rubbing in some sweaty crevice that Renji never knew could feel so good that he’d be begging with moans underneath someone else for it to never stop. He pushes back against Kirihara, gasping at the shudders running through his body. His legs shake, he wants to fall forward, except for that hand furious on his cock, clenched so tight that Renji can’t tell if its tears in his eyes or sweat from his forehead.
It doesn’t matter.
Not when Kirihara’s hot tongue licks the shell of his ear and sharp teeth nip his earlobe. Kirihara’s sloppy, dragging his mouth and teeth over the side of Renji’s face, but his hands are strong, tight, so fucking tight and amazing that each movement they make- pushing forward, rocking back sends explosions through Renji’s body.
And Kirihara’s shaking pants and gasps and moans, vibrating on Renji’s skin- he knows Kirihara likes this, wants this as much as he does right now.
Somewhere, in the background of humming bugs and rattling taxis and buses, the dulcet tones of music swell, probably from Kirihara’s mother’s television. Renji hangs his head, squeezing his eyes shut and unable to stop the groans surfacing on his lips.
“Se-senpai!” Kirihara gasps. His hand squeezes hard enough to make that numb between Renji’s legs scald, the coiling in his belly lashing back.
One last gasp of “Akaya!” and he’s gone, he can’t hold back from the rushing wave inside, the wave that makes his knees give out and he stiffens, his back arches, shuddering hot and wet come into Kirihara’s clenched hand. Someone moans. Kirihara slams into his back and as the waves course through his body, Renji can feel something equally hot and wet new between his legs, and Kirihara’s hard dick pushing into his skin, along his balls as Kirihara grunts and comes too.
They slump forward onto the futon. Renji first, then Kirihara after. Heaving panting in his ear makes Renji turn his head slowly, the hot breathe no longer quite as desirable as it had just been. They are a sticky pile of legs and sweat and arms and come and saliva, too. A funny taste lingers in the back of Renji’s mouth- it’s not bitter, just the faint taste of tea and salt.
Kirihara’s breath smells the same way, but their bodies stink of sex and heady sweat, too much teenage boy in too close a proximity. Not even the floral fragrance of Kirihara’s home can overpower it.
The gym shoe wedged at the side of Renji’s head probably doesn’t help. He leans over, pulls it out from under his head and chucks it across the room. Kirihara barely acknowledges the thwop it makes when it hits someone’s tennisbag.
Now, it’s awkward. Now, it’s weird when Kirihara looks up, his eyes big and his pupils wavering. He bites his bottom lip, which is puffier than usual. Renji resists the urge to mimic Kirihara’s hesitance. But he doesn’t resist the mouth when it meets his in a slow, warm press of dry lips.
“Senpai,” Kirihara whispers. “Is- what-” He sighs against Renji’s mouth, looking away as he rests his head under Renji’s neck, choking him for a moment until Kirihara wriggles a bit, peels his arm off Renji’s leg and lies down again. “This isn’t gonna be weird for tennis, is it?” he murmurs.
The television noises stop. The silence makes Renji hold back an answer even more. He swallows, the funky taste even thicker on his tongue now. “No, we…we’ll play like always.” His voice shakes and Renji wants to crawl somewhere dark and quiet and hide entirely from Kirihara because he’s lying and Kirihara knows it. He knows Kirihara knows- the tense shoulders, the hands clenching on the futon sheet, the deathly quiescence between them because Kirihara is holding his breath, too.
“We…I like you, senpai,” he murmurs. A beat follows, and then the distinct sounds of sniffled sob. Against his chest, Renji can feel Kirihara’s mouth trembling. Something pokes him in the stomach- more his own guilt than Kirihara’s dick this time.
“I…I like you too,” Renji mutters. He’s crap at emotions and mushy things. He’s always been about the data, about qualitative factors that can be assessed rationally. Kirihara’s small sniffles and the filmy sweat between their too-hot bodies isn’t something that he can wrap his mind around and it makes Renji all the more uncomfortable. He wants to sneak off to the bathroom and clean himself up, but Kirihara is too heavy, too still and the thought of putting clothes again with come and who knows what else on his skin isn’t entirely appealing.
The rattling breath over the side of his neck, though…Renji lays quiet and tries to ignore the ticklish shudders running down his body. His dick is too sensitive, but then Kirihara shifts and brushes his knee along it making Renji gasp. He can’t, not again, not right now.
It’s just too hot out.
The stagnant air, thick with city smog, hasn’t cooled with the nascent darkness. Summer is heavy, heady and the small fan propped up on Kirihara’s shelf sits dormant- not that Renji suspects it would make much of a difference, given the size and distance from the floor.
I should move, he thinks. His skin crawls and the more he tries not to think about it, the heavier the scent of their sex grows, the more his legs feel like they are glued to Kirihara’s, the more sweat continues to sluice down the sides of his face, stinging the corner of his eyes.
He should have heard the footsteps, too. He should have realized the drama soundtrack and the voices from the television stopped and it was nothing but their alternating breathing resounding in the room.
Kirihara’s curse tells Renji something is up. He untangles his leg, ripping skin and falling back on his ass, ungraceful and swearing under his breath. Only then does Renji hear the flutter of delicate knocking.
“Shit,” he mutters, scrambling onto his knees, fumbling in the semi-dark to try to find his boxershorts, his shorts, something to cover himself.
Hobbling on one leg, Kirihara shoves his boxershorts on- or are they Renji’s? in the dark, everything looks the same!- and yells, “Just a minute!”
“Akaya,” his mother says through the door as they both fumble with any pieces of clothing they can grab. “It’s getting late. Do you boys need anything? Are you guys hungry?”
“N-no!” Kirihara insists. His voice cracks. He throws himself against his door, hand locked around the handle. Renji looks away, biting his lip at the fresh surge of memory of that hand and how it felt, so tight and hard around his aching cock. His face is on fire just thinking of that. He yanks a t-shirt on. It might be Kirihara’s jersey. It might be on backwards, judging from the choking pressure of the collar wrapping around his neck. Or, it might just be that his neck is sensitive, marked with kisses that set his skin alight before.
“Akaya,” his mother says, her voice getting louder. The handle rattles, but Kirihara doesn’t relent. “Are you playing videogames right now with your friend? I thought I said no videogames after 9. You’ll wreck your eyes like that.”
“Yes, mom!” Kirihara shouts. “I mean, no, I’m not playing any. We’re busy.”
A beat of silence.
The rattling stops.
Renji sits down on the edge of Kirihara’s bed, crossing his legs and trying to look as inconspicuous as he can. Be calm, collected. You have not just jerked off with your kouhai…
His eye twitches.
“We were talking about tennis stuff!” Kirihara’s voice raises another octave, then falls dramatically when he adds, “Hon-est!”
From the underside of the door, the shadows and light move, footsteps retreating back somewhere in Kirihara’s home. A late-chirping bird sings outside, and then the sound of a cupboard groaning from the kitchen.
Kirihara backs away from the door. Head hung, he sits down on his mattress beside Renji. The bed sags under his weight, their thighs falling close together, close enough that their knees brush in a fresh electric touch.
His shoulders hunch, the way Niou’s do, constantly, only with Kirihara, supposed to be so confident, Renji knows he’s still worried about tomorrow. He clenches his fist, unwilling to reach out, but the soft sigh and the shuddered sniffle that follows twists his stomach.
Renji pats Kirihara on the shoulder, awkward at first, then he pulls Kirihara against his chest, resting his chin on top of Kirihara’s damp hair. It’s sweaty and dusty from rolling around on his floor, but it’s soft and faintly scented with shampoo from the showers they had after practice. “Have faith,” he says. There is nothing else he can say.
“That’s not very data-like,” Kirihara says, his lip sticking out in the faintest of pouts.
“I think tomorrow we’ll need something more than data, Akaya.”
Silence descends again. The tense set of Kirihara’s jaw slackens, his posture stops resisting Renji, instead leaning into him, spooning their chests together as his hand curls around the back of Renji’s neck.
“Senpai,” he whispers, “if we win tomorrow, can we…can we do this again?”
Kirihara pulls his head away and looks up at Renji. His eyes reflect the gilded lights of the cityscape outside the window, full of light. Full of hope, too.
Slowly, achingly slowly, Renji starts to nod. A smile plays at the side of his mouth, but doesn’t spread any further because, instead, he murmurs back, “I know we’ll win, Akaya. I know we’ll win this time.”
In the moment when Kirihara’s lips meet his, it could never be a lie.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 4700
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: The night before the Nationals final...Spoilers for EVERYTHING. Do not whine to me if you spoil yourself reading this, okay?
Author's Notes: Written for Yanagi's birthday. Happy Birthday, Renji! Unlocked because of a sign from above Kento- &hearts
After practice, after the steaming showers, dripping with water now instead of just sweat and effort and exhaustion, Renji says, “We could be playing doubles tomorrow, Akaya.”
Kirihara’s towel stops mid-ruffle. Two eyes pop out from under the terrycloth and black tendrils of hair a curtain his face. “Huh? But-”
Renji shrugs. The locker room is subdued from the late hour. No one speaks much, not with the worry of what if we lose again looming in the back of their minds. They won’t, they won’t, Yukimura is back, and yet… the spectre of defeat to Seigaku hangs over them like a thunder cloud. They failed Yukimura once when he counted on them. Renji’s stomach still prickles with guilt. His was the first lost, and unacceptable all the more for it.
Genichirou gives Renji a long, hard look, then tosses him the clubhouse keys. Not one word, just the expectation that it’s his turn to lock up tonight. Yagyuu and Niou leave in tandem, perfect doubles in their side-by-side steps over the threshold. Only Jackal says “Good night, sleep well” but he is quiet, overcome by his own thoughts too.
The fluorescent lights flicker. Grey light spills in through the window, casting side-long shadows over Kirihara’s scrunched brow. “You wanna sleep over and talk strategy and stuff, senpai?” he murmurs.
***
The bus is half-empty. The late summer evening spills out onto the pavements packed with pedestrians. Renji leans into the rush of wind fluttering through the bus windows, but they are too high above his head to be of much help. Sweat dribbles down his face, his neck, staining his shirt collar dark.
Kirihara sits beside him, even though the seats around are free. He pulls his knees to his chin, his head bobbing along with the motions of the bus. “I thought they’d have their Golden Pair play,” he says. His words are thick and slow, oozing from the heat.
Renji nods. “They will, doubles one. We’d be doubles two. They’ll field their second strongest doubles pair, Kaidoh and-” Sadaharu “Inui.”
Kirihara blinks, his movement lethargic. His sigh stirs the dark hairs on his knee and he looks straight ahead, following the line of the road and not once looking to Renji. “You wanna play him again, don’t you?” he says. Kirihara shifts. His head drops as his words trail off.
His throat feels tight, his words equally forced when Renji says, “We need to do our best, whatever position Yukimura thinks we should play. He’s counting on us.”
All seven of them said the same thing last time, and they lost. Renji hates to say the words twice. He’s not superstitious, he doesn’t believe in jinxes, in curses, he can’t, not now, when they’ve come so far again from defeat, when they picked themselves up and trained anew. His muscles ache from the day’s practice in the beating sun. His head floats from the roasting weather. His body is eager to grab some food and then collapse into an exhausted heap.
Kirihara keeps staring ahead. His pupils reflect the stoplights, the headlights, the glittering city and the constant rush of red restaurant lanterns and glittering golden shopfronts lining the streets. Renji can’t understand what Kirihara is thinking, but it makes his throat even tighter, it makes it even harder to say anything more.
***
Kirihara’s mother feeds them cold udon with ponzu sauce that must sting the small cuts on the sides of Kirihara’s mouth, the ones that still haven’t healed, a week on from the semifinals against that gaijin school. They eat cold beef slices, pink and tender in the centre that Kirihara slathers in mayonnaise. Renji eats his plain- the mayo makes him cringe, then twice as hard when Kirihara squeezes more onto his plate.
Kirihara’s sister is out shopping, his father “on another business trip to Seoul,” Kirihara’s mother tells them. She leaves a tray of barley tea and melon pan on the table, stacks of bread just calling out to be eaten. She leaves them, too, after setting up a spare futon in Kirihara’s bedroom, telling him to clean up his mess if he wants friends to spend the night.
The tv drones in the background, flashing iridescent lights of the show his mother watches on the windows: some shoujo drama that neither Renji nor Kirihara would ever be caught watching.
Shifting his eyes, Kirihara hauls to tray to his bedroom, sloshing the tea inside the cups onto the carpet by Renji’s feet. His mother says nothing, only turns the volume up louder.
“I wish we had those frozen energy drinks,” Kirihara grumbles, sending a scowl behind his mother’s back as they walk past her. “I told her to buy some for me, senpai, and she didn’t.”
His apartment is large and immaculate. Renji has been here before, always feeling slightly out of place among the sharp glass tables and pristine cream-coloured leather furniture. No wonder Kirihara shows up with bruises at practice sometimes. Kirihara practically walks into a metal bookcase shelf in the hallway. Nothing here is child-proof, let alone his bedroom.
Stacks of Kamen Rider figures pile up his shelves where textbooks should be. His bedframe is stainless steel, more square edges begging to be bumped into. It smells like teenage boy here, and looks the part- tennis socks and shoes and food crumbs littering the floor. The futon lying on the floor is crammed into the only free space by Kirihara’s wall. His sheets are rumpled, smelling musty and sweaty and heady and Renji knows that Kirihara does more than sleep there now.
His body has taken on the lankiness of a teenager in the recent months. His voice cracks when he speaks sometimes- Marui might laugh, but Renji recalls all too well being in the same embarrassing place last year.
The night is hot and distant fireworks burn through the sky, molten reds and yellows over the glittering lights of the Yokohama harbour. Tomorrow there will be the same bursts of copper green and cobalt blue in the stadium after the winners are announced, medals hanging heavy around their necks.
Renji touches his own neck, searching for the ghost of ribbon of the past two years’ wins. Instead, he feels nothing but hot, clammy skin.
They eat melon pan in silence. It is too dry and too sweet in Renji’s mouth. It makes him want to gag, but he’s polished off his cup of tea already and has nothing to wash the taste from his mouth. Unlike Marui, he won’t steal food. He watches Kirihara take the last couple swigs of his own cup, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his thin neck.
They aren’t the only ones having a sleepover tonight. Renji knows that Jackal and Marui will be staying over at Jackal’s house, the way they always do before a tournament. It must be a good ritual- they’ve never lost a game yet, except when they mean to.
Genichirou will be brooding in his dojo, his movements sleek and careful as he channels whatever he needs for tomorrow into his steel sword. Renji assumes that Niou and Yagyuu must be plotting something, judging from their exit this afternoon and Yukimura…
Renji has heard rumours about a boy haunting the YMCA courts near the city university. Yukimura wants the win more than anyone else- Seigaku can’t understand his illness, how hard he has come since his surgery when those first few balls from Genichirou he wasn’t even able to hit. Only Kirihara could ever come close to understanding Yukimura’s relentless pursuit of victory.
I’ll be number one, he screamed that day, almost three years ago.
Renji looks at Kirihara, lying back on his carpet floor, idly picking at the edge of another melon pan. He swallows thickly. We’ll be number one, he thinks.
The minutes tick like hours, time trickling slowly by as they sit and sweat and chew without a word passing between them. They are each lost in their own thoughts.
Renji can’t absorb anymore data. He doesn’t need anymore data at this point. He’ll play his game tomorrow and if he pushes himself hard enough, he’ll be the one to reach the Muga no Kyouchi first. Sadaharu will be one step behind, where he ought to be.
It is too hot, but the wind outside has picked up, swishing loud through the trees and the high-rise apartment blocks. It would be cooling if only it came up off the bay, instead, it feels just as oven-like as before. Kirihara peels his t-shirt off first, then his shorts too. He exhales, flat on his back on the carpet, looking more like he wants to sink into the floor and never, ever come back out. His chest glistens with sweat, his nipples dark in the dim light.
There’s no light- Kirihara didn’t flick his lamp on and Renji didn’t ask. The shadows don’t help the swelter, but Renji can pretend they might. He takes off his own socks, unable to stand the sweat and gritty lint between his toes any more. Then, another blast of wind entices him to pull his shirt off, which he folds up on top of his tennis bag.
They lie beside each other on the floor, Renji on top of the futon. It’s the only space left in the room now that Kirihara’s legs have grown lankier over the past month. He breathes, then Kirihara- they never reach unison, just one after the other. How they will fare in doubles together, Renji can’t quite calculate. If they were both to reach the Muga no Kyouchi- would that work in doubles? He’s never seen it, not even when Genichirou and Yukimura played doubles in second year once. They played a good, solid game and won 6-0, but that was in an entirely self-conscious and conscious state.
“Senpai?” Kirihara whispers.
The sound of the tv permeates the walls on the far side of the room. If Renji squints, he can almost imagine seeing the blue-tinted glow of the television, too, shining through the filmy white paint. His mind must be playing tricks on him in the melting heat. He flings his hand over his forehead, closes his eyes and mutters, “Yes?”
“Senpai, what if…what if I can’t play doubles tomorrow? What if…” Kirihara trails off, but Renji can hear him swallow, the slight smack of sticky lips together close to his ear. He cracks an eye open to see Kirihara’s wide eyes glowing, Kirihara’s face inches from his own.
And he can feel the feverish heat of Kirihara’s body, so close but just far enough to avoid physically touch. Renji’s skin burns, and then it sears when a knee brushes his thigh. Kirihara’s eyes flicker, and cringing, he moves back, the touch accidental and unintended. “What if…I only played doubles once in practice before and-”
His breathe is wet on Renji’s upper lip. Renji can’t stop his tongue when he reaches out to taste it. There is something heavy in the air between them that Renji can’t compute. He doesn’t know if he wants to, but he’s not dumb enough to not realize that his cock is swelling against his boxershorts and that Kirihara’s closeness is only making it harder.
“Do you doubt Yukimura’s judgment?” he asks. He stares at Kirihara through slitted eyes, drooping with lethargy. Sweat makes his forehead itch. Sweat makes his back hot and uncomfortable, pressed against the futon.
“No!” Kirihara insists, his voice rising. Then, he sniffs softly and mumbles, “No, senpai. I’ll do whatever buchou says, but…”
His fingers stick together. Renji rolls onto his side, peeling his back off the futon sheets. Kirihara’s face is lost in Renji’s shoulder, damp hair brushing his neck, and Kirihara’s tea-sweet mouth presses on his skin. It is Kirihara who reaches out first, but Renji accepts. The heat is too much: his head is too light, his chest too fluttery, his dick too hard. The sudden wetness on Kirihara’s face, Renji hopes, isn’t from tears, but he can’t tell.
They’ve touched before on the courts: pats on shoulders, fistbops after tournament wins, adjustments made to Kirihara’s stance, his posture, his racket grip. Renji has had too many wet towels flung at him in the lockerroom, too many times Kirihara has needed a bandaid to the knee, elbow, face after practice, after Genichirou’s fist.
And then to have Kirihara’s mouth to his lips, sticky and sweet and slow and hot, it shouldn’t be any different. In the hazy temperatures that drip time and sweat and worry about tomorrow, Renji opens his mouth, moaning into the tongue that slides over his.
If he’s thought about this before, it hasn’t been consciously. Hands wind through Kirihara’s hair- are they really his, feeling the damp curls so thick his fingers tangle? Are those Kirihara’s hands wrapping around the back of his neck, bringing their faces closer? They must be, because for an instant, the fingers are sharp, digging into Renji’s skin hard enough to make him gasp and open his mouth wider at the shoot of pain down his spine.
Kirihara is never gentle, methodic or slow- that’s Renji. Kirihara is fast, furious and determined. But this heat changes them, melts them into each other’s bodies, worrying more about tennis than being caught, at least until Renji’s brain faintly registers the sound of their bodies, the slight squelch of their sweaty limbs and the low groan at the back of Kirihara’s throat, the moan that Renji feels first more than hears.
He pulls back enough to be able to see saliva sheen on Kirihara’s mouth. Do his lips pout more than usual? A car rattles by somewhere on the street, several stories down. The voices from the television, and then sad, melodic music drift through the walls as Kirihara looks at Renji, who looks back and feels his insides liquefy even more.
“Senpai,” Kirihara’s lips say. He is silent, his concentration evident as his unwavering eyes focus on Renji the entire time Kirihara peels off his boxershorts, hobbles his legs out of them and then kneels back down. He leans over Renji, his erection burning Renji’s leg and then his lips burn too, scorching his jaw, his throat, his collarbone.
“Akaya…” he whispers, his voice becoming a shuddered moan. Renji’s hands shake on the futon, his fingers curling into the sheet and his toes too when Kirihara bumps his head against Renji’s chin, teeth grazing his chest. He gasps again at the pleasure rippling through his body a second time, making every vein in his body pulse, especially between his legs.
“Senpai, it’s okay if I don’t think about tomorrow right now, right?” Kirihara asks. His voice sounds strangely distant, strangely old, but his eyes when he looks at Renji, they are as big and as dark as ever.
Renji’s answer is a knee hooked around the back of Kirihara’s leg and the arch of his back when their erections brush, separated only by his boxershorts. Teeth graze his neck, then lower still, sharp against his nipples, enough to make him buck again, feeling as if his body will break if Kirihara keeps biting him there and sending those bolts through his body that shrivel up all coherent though.
He can’t think straight and it’s distressing, and then multiplied when a hand snakes under his boxers. Kirihara is bolder than he is. Renji just lies back and accepts the lips, tongue, hands on his body, the legs twining with his, sticky and hot and swelteringly wonderful, rubbing all over his skin. This can only end up messy and gross but when that hand pushes his boxers down and wraps around his dick, Renji doesn’t care anymore.
“Senpai,” Kirihara breathes, kissing Renji’s name into his navel. He runs his hands down Kirihara’s back, searching for a hold but finding only sweat-slick skin and muscles shifting under his fingertips. His shoulder blades move and Renji digs his hands in harder hearing Kirihara hiss, feeling Kirihara’s dick on his thigh, pushed closer to his own, hips thrusting and mouth panting.
The city lights through the window cast a gold-tinted darkness over their skin. Renji can’t tell if Kirihara’s eyes are bloodshot now the way they would be in a tennis game, but he breathes and pants and sweats just as if he were playing. If they can do this, they can do doubles. If they can do doubles, they can do this. Another wave of numb pleasure sweeps through Renji’s body, racking it, forcing his thighs to shake and his hands, too. He clings to Kirihara’s back, jerking forward to whisper, “Won’t your…mother hear?”
The hand on his cock stops. Renji sucks in a breath when, for the briefest moment, reality sets in. The reality that Kirihara is heavy and squishing him and that they are sweaty and slimy and he’s hot and his dick aches and he’s naked with another boy and doing things instead of strategizing about tennis and the games tomorrow- the most important games of the year, if not of his junior high school career and-
The little laugh that escapes Kirihara’s lips catches Renji off guard. It stops his trail of thought, too, when Kirihara shuffles down the futon, staring up at Renji through his bangs as he drags Renji’s boxershorts all the way down to his knees.
“Akaya, no-” he insists. A flush of embarrassment comes over him when he sees the outline of his dick in the shadows before it’s covered by Kirihara’s body again.
“Oomph!” Kirihara bites his lip. He leans down to press his mouth to Renji’s stomach, making Renji suck it in with surprise. “Senpai, she doesn’t hear anything when she watches those dramas. It’s fine.”
He means to stop Kirihara, he does, but somehow his “Akaya!” comes out more as a moan than a threat and somehow the hands that should have pushed Kirihara off him thread through Kirihara’s hair instead.
How can she not hear the slapping of skin on skin, the panted moans, the strangled gasps, the rustle of sheets and the mewling noise Renji hears himself make in the back of his throat? How can she not hear the creak of the floor as they roll around, writhing and kissing at awkward angles. Renji ends up on his hands and knees, quivering and barely able to hold himself up were it not for Kirihara’s arm around his waist. His back presses to Kirihara’s chest as Kirihara runs his lips along the back of Renji’s neck.
The hand on his dick is even faster now, harder, thumbing the end, smearing pre-cum everywhere. Renji shivers, his left knee buckling but Kirihara’s hold is firm and he humps the back of Renji’s leg, rocking his hips almost as though….
They were fucking.
Kirihara’s dick slides under his ass, along the top of Renji’s thigh, rubbing in some sweaty crevice that Renji never knew could feel so good that he’d be begging with moans underneath someone else for it to never stop. He pushes back against Kirihara, gasping at the shudders running through his body. His legs shake, he wants to fall forward, except for that hand furious on his cock, clenched so tight that Renji can’t tell if its tears in his eyes or sweat from his forehead.
It doesn’t matter.
Not when Kirihara’s hot tongue licks the shell of his ear and sharp teeth nip his earlobe. Kirihara’s sloppy, dragging his mouth and teeth over the side of Renji’s face, but his hands are strong, tight, so fucking tight and amazing that each movement they make- pushing forward, rocking back sends explosions through Renji’s body.
And Kirihara’s shaking pants and gasps and moans, vibrating on Renji’s skin- he knows Kirihara likes this, wants this as much as he does right now.
Somewhere, in the background of humming bugs and rattling taxis and buses, the dulcet tones of music swell, probably from Kirihara’s mother’s television. Renji hangs his head, squeezing his eyes shut and unable to stop the groans surfacing on his lips.
“Se-senpai!” Kirihara gasps. His hand squeezes hard enough to make that numb between Renji’s legs scald, the coiling in his belly lashing back.
One last gasp of “Akaya!” and he’s gone, he can’t hold back from the rushing wave inside, the wave that makes his knees give out and he stiffens, his back arches, shuddering hot and wet come into Kirihara’s clenched hand. Someone moans. Kirihara slams into his back and as the waves course through his body, Renji can feel something equally hot and wet new between his legs, and Kirihara’s hard dick pushing into his skin, along his balls as Kirihara grunts and comes too.
They slump forward onto the futon. Renji first, then Kirihara after. Heaving panting in his ear makes Renji turn his head slowly, the hot breathe no longer quite as desirable as it had just been. They are a sticky pile of legs and sweat and arms and come and saliva, too. A funny taste lingers in the back of Renji’s mouth- it’s not bitter, just the faint taste of tea and salt.
Kirihara’s breath smells the same way, but their bodies stink of sex and heady sweat, too much teenage boy in too close a proximity. Not even the floral fragrance of Kirihara’s home can overpower it.
The gym shoe wedged at the side of Renji’s head probably doesn’t help. He leans over, pulls it out from under his head and chucks it across the room. Kirihara barely acknowledges the thwop it makes when it hits someone’s tennisbag.
Now, it’s awkward. Now, it’s weird when Kirihara looks up, his eyes big and his pupils wavering. He bites his bottom lip, which is puffier than usual. Renji resists the urge to mimic Kirihara’s hesitance. But he doesn’t resist the mouth when it meets his in a slow, warm press of dry lips.
“Senpai,” Kirihara whispers. “Is- what-” He sighs against Renji’s mouth, looking away as he rests his head under Renji’s neck, choking him for a moment until Kirihara wriggles a bit, peels his arm off Renji’s leg and lies down again. “This isn’t gonna be weird for tennis, is it?” he murmurs.
The television noises stop. The silence makes Renji hold back an answer even more. He swallows, the funky taste even thicker on his tongue now. “No, we…we’ll play like always.” His voice shakes and Renji wants to crawl somewhere dark and quiet and hide entirely from Kirihara because he’s lying and Kirihara knows it. He knows Kirihara knows- the tense shoulders, the hands clenching on the futon sheet, the deathly quiescence between them because Kirihara is holding his breath, too.
“We…I like you, senpai,” he murmurs. A beat follows, and then the distinct sounds of sniffled sob. Against his chest, Renji can feel Kirihara’s mouth trembling. Something pokes him in the stomach- more his own guilt than Kirihara’s dick this time.
“I…I like you too,” Renji mutters. He’s crap at emotions and mushy things. He’s always been about the data, about qualitative factors that can be assessed rationally. Kirihara’s small sniffles and the filmy sweat between their too-hot bodies isn’t something that he can wrap his mind around and it makes Renji all the more uncomfortable. He wants to sneak off to the bathroom and clean himself up, but Kirihara is too heavy, too still and the thought of putting clothes again with come and who knows what else on his skin isn’t entirely appealing.
The rattling breath over the side of his neck, though…Renji lays quiet and tries to ignore the ticklish shudders running down his body. His dick is too sensitive, but then Kirihara shifts and brushes his knee along it making Renji gasp. He can’t, not again, not right now.
It’s just too hot out.
The stagnant air, thick with city smog, hasn’t cooled with the nascent darkness. Summer is heavy, heady and the small fan propped up on Kirihara’s shelf sits dormant- not that Renji suspects it would make much of a difference, given the size and distance from the floor.
I should move, he thinks. His skin crawls and the more he tries not to think about it, the heavier the scent of their sex grows, the more his legs feel like they are glued to Kirihara’s, the more sweat continues to sluice down the sides of his face, stinging the corner of his eyes.
He should have heard the footsteps, too. He should have realized the drama soundtrack and the voices from the television stopped and it was nothing but their alternating breathing resounding in the room.
Kirihara’s curse tells Renji something is up. He untangles his leg, ripping skin and falling back on his ass, ungraceful and swearing under his breath. Only then does Renji hear the flutter of delicate knocking.
“Shit,” he mutters, scrambling onto his knees, fumbling in the semi-dark to try to find his boxershorts, his shorts, something to cover himself.
Hobbling on one leg, Kirihara shoves his boxershorts on- or are they Renji’s? in the dark, everything looks the same!- and yells, “Just a minute!”
“Akaya,” his mother says through the door as they both fumble with any pieces of clothing they can grab. “It’s getting late. Do you boys need anything? Are you guys hungry?”
“N-no!” Kirihara insists. His voice cracks. He throws himself against his door, hand locked around the handle. Renji looks away, biting his lip at the fresh surge of memory of that hand and how it felt, so tight and hard around his aching cock. His face is on fire just thinking of that. He yanks a t-shirt on. It might be Kirihara’s jersey. It might be on backwards, judging from the choking pressure of the collar wrapping around his neck. Or, it might just be that his neck is sensitive, marked with kisses that set his skin alight before.
“Akaya,” his mother says, her voice getting louder. The handle rattles, but Kirihara doesn’t relent. “Are you playing videogames right now with your friend? I thought I said no videogames after 9. You’ll wreck your eyes like that.”
“Yes, mom!” Kirihara shouts. “I mean, no, I’m not playing any. We’re busy.”
A beat of silence.
The rattling stops.
Renji sits down on the edge of Kirihara’s bed, crossing his legs and trying to look as inconspicuous as he can. Be calm, collected. You have not just jerked off with your kouhai…
His eye twitches.
“We were talking about tennis stuff!” Kirihara’s voice raises another octave, then falls dramatically when he adds, “Hon-est!”
From the underside of the door, the shadows and light move, footsteps retreating back somewhere in Kirihara’s home. A late-chirping bird sings outside, and then the sound of a cupboard groaning from the kitchen.
Kirihara backs away from the door. Head hung, he sits down on his mattress beside Renji. The bed sags under his weight, their thighs falling close together, close enough that their knees brush in a fresh electric touch.
His shoulders hunch, the way Niou’s do, constantly, only with Kirihara, supposed to be so confident, Renji knows he’s still worried about tomorrow. He clenches his fist, unwilling to reach out, but the soft sigh and the shuddered sniffle that follows twists his stomach.
Renji pats Kirihara on the shoulder, awkward at first, then he pulls Kirihara against his chest, resting his chin on top of Kirihara’s damp hair. It’s sweaty and dusty from rolling around on his floor, but it’s soft and faintly scented with shampoo from the showers they had after practice. “Have faith,” he says. There is nothing else he can say.
“That’s not very data-like,” Kirihara says, his lip sticking out in the faintest of pouts.
“I think tomorrow we’ll need something more than data, Akaya.”
Silence descends again. The tense set of Kirihara’s jaw slackens, his posture stops resisting Renji, instead leaning into him, spooning their chests together as his hand curls around the back of Renji’s neck.
“Senpai,” he whispers, “if we win tomorrow, can we…can we do this again?”
Kirihara pulls his head away and looks up at Renji. His eyes reflect the gilded lights of the cityscape outside the window, full of light. Full of hope, too.
Slowly, achingly slowly, Renji starts to nod. A smile plays at the side of his mouth, but doesn’t spread any further because, instead, he murmurs back, “I know we’ll win, Akaya. I know we’ll win this time.”
In the moment when Kirihara’s lips meet his, it could never be a lie.