FIC: Love is a Many-Tentacled Thing, SanaYuki, NC17 (3/6)
Title: Love is a Many-Tentacled Thing (3/6)
Author: Ociwen
Pairing/characters: Sanada/Yukimura with others
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 47 000
Warning (if any): Bad fic ahoy! This fic contains spoilers for 40.5, crude humour, bodily functions and crabs.
Summary: Sanada experiences a sea change in order to begin a relationship with Yukimura. Can he balance his secrets, the Rikkai Dai tennis club, and still achieve his goal?
Notes (if any): Thank you pixxers for all the help and koneko_meow for the beta. Written for a rude and ungrateful recipient in balls_it_up. Hopefully others can appreciate the humour-and horror-involved in badfic. Have your umbrellas ready!
This fic has been truncated into 6 sections due to length. These are not chapters. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]
It's a Saturday, the first day in weeks that Yukimura has enough time off to relax. He can have a few moments to himself, to collect his thoughts and think and be.
He packs his pencils and his pad of paper. He lifts his leg over his bicycle, waving to his mother sticking her head through the fourth floor window. His stomach is still full from breakfast. His bike squeaks when he pedals those first seconds down the street, feeling the cool morning rush over his face.
No tennis this morning.
No school.
No nothing but a boy and his bicycle and the beach.
Yukimura grins and pedals harder, racing through the streets with sharp turns that make his heart pound in his ears, heavy and fluid like the sea. His seat is hard, so he lifts himself, stretching his legs as he coasts past a long stretch of houses, still sleepy in the last vestiges of the dewy cool that lingers when the sun hides behind the puffy clouds.
He rides through the suburbs, down to the beach, feeling more alive than ever, more awake than ever. He mounts that crested dune and feels the dry grass brush his bare ankles. His toes are cold in his flip-flops and they slip on the pedals; Yukimura keeps riding over the bumpy pathway until he swerves and jumps off.
Yukimura inhales deeply and stares out at the deep blue of the water. Long fingers of white crested waves crash to the shore and seagulls squawk and circle overhead. Sand whips up as he walks into the wind. The grit on his face and between his toes makes his head feel light, makes his fingers itch because today might be the day.
Today he might be able to paint the sea.
The cliffs skirt the pathway down to the beach and Yukimura keeps one hand on the rough edges to keep his balance as he descends. Morning sun glistens, turning the dew drops on the overhanging rocks into glass beads, cool and wet on his fingertips. An immense sense of pleasure fills his belly, more than the salad and toast for breakfast ever could.
Yukimura walks across the sand, his footsteps sinking into the grains and pebbles. He walks along the shore, gasping at the cold water flowing over his feet when the waves come in to greet him. His usual piece of driftwood has long since vanished into the sea in the weeks he's been away, unable to find the time to come and paint, to come and suck in the ocean air. The biting breeze perks him up and his spirits too.
At the far end of the beach-not his usual spot-Yukimura can see the bleached outline of a knobby piece of driftwood. As he approaches, he sees flat rocks that are smoothed by the sea like the glass underfoot. There's enough room for him to sit down on one of the stone shelves, and room to set down his backpack.
He sketches first, loose outlines with a blue pencil. One page, no good. Yukimura crumples it up and throws it into the waves, huffing when he starts a second. He looks up, squinting into the distance. He sticks his tongue out and bites the tip, thinking and gauging the distances he sees with the distances he draws. It's never right, he can never copy it.
Maybe that's my problem, he thinks. I'm not being original enough.
But he knows his problem is more than that. It's not about drawing or painting a seascape, the way he could in art class, all washes of blue and green and grey with a few dotted clouds and a couple black outlines for gulls. He wants more, he wants to capture it-the essence-on paper, the way the painters do in galleries. Like the gallery nearby that Niou's dad's firm designed.
Yukimura frowns at his image. It's a mess of lines, erased and changed over, too many thoughts scattered too many directions as the waters change, shifting over the sands and rocks and pulling back, returning to the deep.
I want to capture the feeling.
The feeling of fullness in his chest. The feeling of salty air in his lungs. The feeling of freedom that walking through the water's edge gives him, the feeling he craves more and more, ever since he got sick.
Ever since he got better.
He sets his pencil down and turns his hand over, staring at the back. Tiny blue veins comb the flesh under his pale skin, flushed with the chill of the spring breeze coming up over the sea. No hint that he was ill two years ago, no hint that he lost all feeling in his body and these hands, with all their callouses from tennis rackets and pencils, were dead and numb.
Yukimura sets his paper pad down too and pulls his lunch from his bag. Cold rice and pickled cucumbers. He opens the lid and slips his chopsticks out from their holder. On the top layer, a slab of fried fish from last night.
"Sea bass," he murmurs with a smile.
The waves break all around him, their droning roar soothing as he chews his food. He picks aimlessly, dangling the pickles from the ends of his chopstick like seaweed. Little movements keep him occupied-turning to see the scurrying of a lone crab across the sand, turning the other direction when something splashes in the water, maybe a fish, maybe nothing at all.
The back of his neck prickles and a chill follows down his spine. Yukimura jumps up from the leaning hunch he had over his bento box. No gurgling noises this time, no plinks of his pencils falling into the water either, no…
Someone walking toward him. For a moment, he frowns and gathers his pad, shutting the cover so no one sees what he's been doing. He's been caught in a private moment and anger surges in his chest, pressing up hard into his throat.
Until he sees that figure.
That person, whom he knows. Sanada walks slowly, his eyes constantly shifting like the sea and unable to keep Yukimura's gaze. The brief flush of anger washes away from Yukimura, replaced with a different warmth.
Breathless, Yukimura waves first. "Sanada! What are you doing here?" Then, he cringes. His tone sounded wrong and Sanada looks awkward, staring at his feet instead and leaning back, as if he's about to leave and that isn't what Yukimura intended in the least.
Yukimura clears his throat and pushes his backpack away, scooting across the rock to give Sanada room. His bum left an imprint on the grey stone from where he's been sitting all morning. "I mean, it's just…no one else ever comes here," Yukimura says. He looks up at Sanada, hoping with a smile.
"I…" Sanada exhales. "I saw your bike up there," he says, motioning with his hand.
Yukimura nods. Then he nods down to the rock, urging Sanada to come sit. He pats the stone. Please, he thinks, staring at Sanada, trying to speak through his eyes. But Sanada's cap hides everything, his emotions, his responses, his dark eyes. Yukimura itches to grab it and fling it into the sea and ask Sanada every question about him, about his life.
About Yukimura, too.
His face feels hotter than ever when Sanada sits down beside him, as close to the edge of the rock as possible, but even then, Yukimura's thigh touches Sanada's. He shivers, all the hair on his arms standing up.
"Are you cold?" Sanada mumbles. He dumps his bag down on the sand.
Yukimura shakes his head. It's his turn to look away, out over the ocean. He sighs, wishing that his heart would stop pounding and that his blood would stop rushing in his ears the way it is now. Sanada's bag is getting wet, sitting on top of hissing, dying sea foam.
"You were playing tennis," he says.
Sanada ducks his head when he fidgets with his cap. "Aa, yes. With Renji."
"So its Renji now, is it?" Yukimura says. He can't resist teasing Sanada with a poke on the arm. Sanada stiffens, grunting something under his breath, too low for Yukimura to hear.
"It's good to have friends," Yukimura says. Immediately, he regrets it; his words echo in his ears, sounding dumber and dumber with each time. They lapse into silence, broken only by the sound of the waves. Yukimura pulls his hand back and winces. Sanada shifts closer to the beach, nearly off the stone if it wasn't for one of his feet planted firm in the sand. Did he touch Sanada's arm too long?
His fingertips burn from the touch of Sanada's warm skin. If he was braver, if they were closer, Yukimura would wrap that arm around his shoulders and burrow into Sanada's side, sniff his neck, be tickled by the hair sticking out from under his cap. But he doesn't. It scares him to sit like this with Sanada, alone for the first time.
Truly alone.
The fear is almost delicious, a shudder down his spine that settles between his legs. All the nights of thinking about Sanada, of wondering about him pour back into Yukimura's mind and his Capri pants feel too tight. His cock begins to throb.
He frowns a little, just as Sanada turns, his mouth open to speak. Sanada falters and turns back around until Yukimura swallows his worries long enough to ask, "Have you had lunch?"
Their eyes meet. For the briefest of moments, their eyes meet and Sanada's cap lifts up in the wind, showing Yukimura his soul in those dark, consuming depths. He can feel himself falling forward into them and his mouth parts, eager for something he can't grasp yet, so instead he places his palm down on the cold rock. The surface is solid, but nothing like Sanada, who breathes so shallow that Yukimura thinks he must be light-headed too.
And then Sanada wrenches his eyes away. And Yukimura inches back to the other side of the rock, berating himself with a mental kick. Idiot! he thinks. My form is terrible!
What does Sanada think?!?
Sanada doesn't say anything, but he does unzip his tennisbag and pull out a bento. Yukimura peers inside, curious, as Sanada picks up one of the sandwich halves.
"Cucumber and tofu," Sanada says. "Niou-san made it."
"It must be odd staying with Niou," Yukimura says. He exhales heavily, wishing the press on his ribs would subside and leave him be. He feels like he's drowning, gulping at the salty air to catch his breath when Sanada moves, when he shifts, when he wiggles just enough onto the rock that their thighs brush again, closer and warmer.
Yukimura's stomach twists up like a net.
Sanada blinks. He chews on the sandwich and then fixes the brim of his hat. "Perhaps…" he says, conceding a small smile.
Yukimura laughs. When he sees the expression on Sanada's face, the shifting light in his eyes that darkens, the lips parting to reveal teeth, the slight flush on his face, it gives Yukimura a fresh confidence: he laughs even louder.
They spend the whole day on the beach and Yukimura has never been happier. He's never felt lighter, though his blushes are fiery and as fierce as Sanada's when Sanada asks him what he does here.
It's private. It's secret. It's something close to his heart, but for Sanada, he would answer the truth.
"I come here to paint," Yukimura says simply.
Sanada's eyes go wide. He nods, blinking, and nods again. "Aa," he says. "Do- do you come here often?" he adds. His gaze settles on the pad of paper on Yukimura's far side. It has the same sort of inquisitive quirk to his eyebrows as Yukimura's classmates in art lessons, when they ask to see his paintings of apples and sketches of pine trees. But Sanada's is magnified, and that much more intense.
Yukimura is not cold, but he shakes. "I can't show you yet," he says and Sanada turns away, back to the direction of the sea. Guilt twists him inside and Yukimura knows he can't leave it like that.
"Please," he murmurs. "I have to make it perfect. I can't show you until then." Sanada nods. A breeze floats around them, filled with the misted salt spray of the water.
"I want to show it to you," Yukimura whispers.
I'll show you first…
Sanada seems to accept this answer, but he sits with his back to Yukimura. His arms are folded over his chest as his eyes reflect the blue of the ocean, wavering with the crested waves. Yukimura stands up, stretching out a sleepy leg and twitching at the numb prickles in his shin. He wobbles on top of the stone, his balance off and he shrieks at his sudden tipping, his arms flailing and his eyes going wide.
But something solid, strong and warm stops him from falling into the tidal pools under the far side of the stone shelf. His heart flutters, his stomach seizing and throwing a hard lump up into his throat. One of his flip-flops has fallen off and his bare toes touch cold stone when Yukimura looks up, leaning into Sanada's arms.
Sanada's hat has skewed to the side and Yukimura can feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, their bodies pressed together like this. He drags his eyes to Sanada's face, unconsciously licking his lips at the look he finds.
Sanada's eyes are focused nothing except Yukimura. Yukimura's knees have turned to jelly and he goes slack, holding onto Sanada's arms like a lifeline, clinging to Sanada as he surfaces and his head clears with realization.
Yukimura has never done this. He's never felt this before, never been this close to someone that he can taste the mayonnaise from Sanada's sandwich on his own lips, along with something else. Something deeper, saltier, headier.
Something he wants more than anything else.
With a shaking hand, he lifts his fingers up between their bodies and pushes Sanada's hat off his head. Sanada's mouth opens and his eyes flutter shut. His throat bobs and the sight of him, here so close, holding him like this, makes Yukimura's throat close up too and his eyes sting with emotion.
"Sanada…" he murmurs.
His hand slips around the back of Sanada's neck, feeling hot sweat under his fingertips. Nervous excitement fills his body and his dick-half-hard before-burns against Sanada's thigh.
Yukimura isn't ashamed, but he does blush. I want you to feel this, he thinks as he threads his fingers through the damp silky hair on the back of Sanada's head. He revels in Sanada's shuddered breath, growing closer and closer as he closes the gap, his mouth ready and eager to bridge the distance to Sanada's lips-
"OI! Sanada!"
Sanada groans. Yukimura cringes at Niou's voice. Then a rush of cold air hits his body when Sanada jerks back, pulling away from Yukimura without a word.
Niou hops down the pathway to the beach, jumping from stone to stone until he hits the sand and arches his back, leaning his hands on his hips. "Nice place here," he says.
By now, Sanada has broken apart from Yukimura. It feels like a scab has opened, picked raw on Yukimura's arms because the warm solidity is gone and he's alone, even though Sanada is standing just a few feet away. He picks up his cap and brushes it off, placing it back on his head and covering his emotions once more.
Yukimura sighs and bites back a frown. Niou raises an eyebrow. "Didn't interrupt anything, did I?" he asks. A smirk forms at the side of his mouth. Niou waggles his eyebrows at Sanada, who grunts and stomps off, leaving the beach in a huff.
"Mom wanted me to find you and tell you supper's gonna be ready soon," Niou calls out to Sanada. Then he steps across the beach to Yukimura, squashing down tiny holes in the sand that creatures live under.
"You know he likes you, right?" Niou says.
Yukimura blinks. The words sink in like the cold chill of the late afternoon as the sun creeps behind a cloud and the water takes on a murky darkness. "What?"
Niou runs a hand through his hair and cocks his head to the side. "Sanada. He like likes you, Yukimura."
When he rides home on his bicycle, coasting through the quiet alleyways and streets of the suburban landscape, Yukimura doesn't stop the whoop of victory that bubbles up out of his mouth.
*--+--~--U--~--+--*
The keeper of the sea magic gave Sanada one month. One month of (mostly) being terrestrial, with the clause that Sanada has to confess before the end of his time. Confess his love and his secret.
It eats at him inside. He has five days left, or he'll forego everything and lose Yukimura. Sanada blinks and swallows the bile in his throat. Niou's mother hands him another rice bowl to dry. Soap bubbles drip from the sides like sea foam, the reminder ever-present that he can't hesitate any longer.
"You're so helpful," Niou's mother says. She wipes her brow, getting soap over the rim of her glasses. "Father was so thankful when you helped sweep the garage last night, Sanada-kun."
Sanada nods. He looks out the window above the sink, staring out at the twinkling suburb lights from a thousand prefab homes, all like Niou's. His thoughts settle on Yukimura as he sets the bowl on the counter then picks up the next to dry. The towel is damp in his hands, but his skin feels drier than ever.
He kicks himself inside, and he sucks his stomach in at the mental blow. The other day, on the beach, they'd been so close. Yukimura's eyes fluttered shut, his lashes dark on his pale skin. His mouth was parted, lips shiny from having licked them, anticipating something. Sanada felt Yukimura's erection. Even now, the memory burns his face, burns his body and his cock twitches, eager to repeat the sensation. Sanada shifts his weight and grabs another rice bowl to distract his dick. It's awkward having an erection around Niou's mother, as nice as she is.
He could have confessed then. He should have confessed. He should have whispered, "I love you. I'm a merman" in Yukimura's ear before Niou got too close, but he hesitated. He was scared, too nervous, and the moment shattered before it got a chance to begin.
As much as Sanada grinds his teeth and blames Niou in the privacy of his mind, it's as much his own fault too.
You must not hesitate. One of the tenants of the mersamurai code, and Sanada's broken it. He rolls over on his futon that night, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing Niou would fall asleep faster. The cat is a heavy weight wedged between his knees. Sanada listens to the faint rustles and heavy breathing Niou makes; he knows what Niou is doing.
"Yagyuu…" Niou whispers. The sound of something slick and squidgy follows. Sanada cringes although his dick is swollen in sympathy. Niou has all the time in the world to confess. Sanada doesn't.
Having to listen to Niou masturbate is uncomfortable enough, but listening to him come-squeaks of his mattress springs and mewls from his throat-is more than Sanada wants to hear. Waves surge in his body, and Niou's noises make his cock even harder, numb and aching and demanding between his legs, hot underneath the futon cover. Sanada sweats. He clenches his jaw and balls his fist tight above the covers to keep from touching himself too.
"Sanada?" Niou whispers in the dark.
Sanada grunts.
"You sure you don't need a hand?"
Sanada stiffens. His cock stiffens, too, at the prospect of having someone else's hand ease the ache. "No," he says. "Go to sleep."
Niou hums. Sheets rustle and Niou must have rolled over. Sanada ignores it and listens to the sound of crickets chirp outside the open window. Cool night air blows across his face.
"Ne, Sanada?"
"What?"
"You should confess," Niou says.
Sanada doesn't need another reminder.
He has four days left.
Three simple words, followed by three more are all he has to say, and yet, thinking about it makes his throat close up. At lunch time, he and Renji eat on the roof, not far from the rooftop garden where the beautification committee plants new seedlings. Yukimura is in sight, and sometimes, when the light hits the right way, making his black hair shine on the top of his head, Sanada feels the same warmth before he looks away.
"The swim team is competing this weekend," Renji says. He lifts a dumpling to eat, waving it in the air first as he speaks. Sanada smells the shrimp and pungent garlic. His stomach churns, but he's unable to swallow the rice Niou-san packed him.
Sanada makes a noise.
"They're away," Renji adds.
"Aa," Sanada says.
"Do you think I could meas-"
"No."
Renji nods slowly. He tucks the measuring tape back into his bag. "It was worth a try."
"You try everyday," Sanada says.
"I do it all for the data."
Sanada looks at him. Renji raises an eyebrow.
"You have no scruples," Sanada says. The lump presses the back of his throat when light throws itself from the garden and Yukimura stands up, stretching his arms above his head. His shirt rises, exposing a thin line of his stomach. Sanada's mouth feels woolen. Whatever else he might have said is lost in the dryness sticking his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
"None," Renji says. "I won't tell him. Don't worry."
Sanada hisses, "Quiet!" His insides curl up, freezing and twisted when his eyes inch to Yukimura's direction, seeing Yukimura dig around the black earth with a trowel, his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth in concentration.
Renji waves his hand. "I know. You have to do it yourself."
I don't need the reminder, Sanada thinks.
The problem is that they never have time alone together. The tension caused by the knowledge that he cannot hesitate any longer makes Sanada sweat cold. It makes his grip clammy on his racket during tennis practice. Yukimura teases him and shakes his head, cupping his hands around his mouth to call out, "Your grip is terrible!"
His trilling laughter only makes it worse. Sanada can barely breathe for all the wrenching of his heart and the pounding of his pulse, compiled with everything else that makes his step off and his head too light and too leaden at the same time. He searches for opening, moments to catch Yukimura by himself, but there's nothing. Sanada follows him to the ball machine, but Akaya is there practicing. Sanada follows Yukimura to the shed for a replacement net on the third court, but Yagyuu emerges from the shed shadows.
Sanada blinks. Yukimura hands Sanada his racket. "Hold this for me," he says, stepping into the shed.
Niou pops out next, ducking his head and pulling up his collar. Sanada's eyes go huge when Niou glances away. Niou avoids anyone else's eyes as his cheeks redden.
So you did it, Sanada thinks.
Jealousy churns inside and Sanada purses his lips. Before he can think to speak, to ask Yukimura to stay for a second because he has something to say, Yukimura slams the shed door shut.
He trades his racket for the net. "Could you help set that up?" he asks Sanada. A smile graces his lips and Sanada cannot say no. Sanada helps with the nets until the sun hangs low in the sky and the flies start to swarm, eager for the evening to descend. He swipes the sweat from his brow, momentarily distracted until he sees Yukimura heading into the clubhouse, his racket slung over his shoulder.
Sanada's heart leaps. And his cock, too. He swallows down a wad of fear and nerves because he needs to confess before his time runs out. When he sees the rest of the team in the locker room, everyone but Yukimura, Sanada struggles to find air and keep his head up. One, lone shower runs, and steam drifts into the locker room.
Renji gives Sanada a sly look from the side. His lips quirk. Sanada turns away from him, unable to finish their silent conversation. Marui and Jackal pick up their tennis bags, waving goodbye. Akaya trails behind them, waving his arms even wider. "Senpais, WAIT!" he yells as he flings the clubhouse door open. "Can we go to the Centre 70 Arcade?"
Yagyuu, Niou and Renji remain. But Niou is buttoning his shirt up and Yagyuu fixes his tie. Renji's smile sharpens.
Sanada pulls his t-shirt off slowly, focusing on the bubblegum stuck to Marui's locker door. He inhales and exhales with a careful rhythm, keeping his hands steady on his waistband as he tugs his shorts down. Yagyuu and Niou leave. Niou bumps into Yagyuu's shoulder, closer than ever when he whispers something into Yagyuu's ear.
Something that makes Yagyuu clear his throat and flush. Either that, or it's the reflection of the pinkish sun on his face.
And then Renji leaves, flashing Sanada a thumbs up before the door swings closed.
Sanada rushes for the showers. His heart pounds, his feet slip on the floor and a chill runs down his spine. He sucks in his stomach and puffs his chest up. He has to do it. He has to use this opportunity and strike.
Yukimura stands in the shower, dripping wet as shampoo suds run down his back. Sanada gulps. The pressure in his chest is heavier than ever, and his dick is too. The steam covers enough that Yukimura doesn't seem to notice Sanada's erection when he walks into the shower room and takes the shower next to Yukimura.
He could say something to Yukimura. He could make the small talk that humans are so good at, but Sanada fails. He wrings his hands together and closes his eyes. Yukimura sighs, a hum in the back of his throat that shoots straight to Sanada's swollen cock, aching for release, aching to be touched, aching for Yukimura.
His hand shakes. He opens his mouth to start Yukimura, I have something to say, but nothing comes, no sound, just a forced choke. Sanada shakes his head. He reaches for the soap, needing something to hold onto before he begins, but his hand hits something warm and solid and not soapy first.
Sanada stares as Yukimura's hand, closing over his in a fairy touch, skimming the back of his hand. He shivers. His knees waver and Yukimura sucks in a breath as he bites his lip.
Wide, dark eyes stare into his. A limpid pool of sensations blooms in Sanada's stomach, pulsing blood and feeling to his cock, his thighs, his stomach, tightening and tensing as Yukimura's fingertips paint wet circles over his hand. Sanada opens his mouth, words sounding in his ears as he speaks:
"Yukimura, I have-"
"Buchou!? Fukubuchou!!!?"
Akaya's disembodied head pops through the mist of the shower spray. He blinks and looks at Sanada and Yukimura's hands, cackling to himself when Yukimura pulls away in surprise.
"Uh…have you guys seen my wallet?" Akaya asks.
When Yukimura's chest sinks with a forlorn sigh and he offers to help the kid look for his wallet Sanada wants to wring Akaya's neck.
Three days left. Sanada lay awake last night, lamenting his failure at acting faster in the showers and cursing Akaya for his intrusion all at once. Niou was on his cellphone with Yagyuu for an hour straight tonight, murmuring and whispering things Sanada didn't want to hear as he tried to fall asleep.
He has the words memorized, practiced over and over in his mind: Yukimura, I have something to say to you. Please hear me out. I love you. I became a human for you. Please understand this. Please don't hate me.
It sounds mechanical and foolish, but Sanada doesn't know how else to express it. These emotions are strange. They overwhelm his body, leaving him a sticky mess when he wakes in the mornings. He's lost in a sea of feelings, of nerves and shuffling and cracked voices when Yukimura appears, when he hears Yukimura's voice, when he smells the damp earth under Yukimura's fingers and the rubber tennis balls burned into his palms.
Tennis practices run long. No one leaves early. Morning, afternoon, Sanada is surrounded with his teammates as he grinds his teeth and doles out extra laps because frustration mounts as the time flies, disappearing with the spring blossoms into a haze of humid summer. His body itches more and more. His legs scream with a rash down the inside of his thighs, where his tail transforms each night in the school pool. Sanada makes sure to clean the pool, to dump the bucket into the fourth floor toilets. When Renji shows up, he helps, but Sanada prefers to be alone. Having his friend know is one thing, having his friend stare and take mental notes as Sanada writhes and flops on the rooftop as his legs reform, cramping and sliced apart through the magic of the sea…
It's private.
If he can't even share it with Yukimura, he doesn't want to share it with his friend either.
I could write a letter, he thinks as he packs his bag up. Wet hair clings to the back of his neck, dripping down his shirt collar. I could phone him the way Yagyuu and Niou phone each other.
Sanada shakes his head. His temple throbs. He wants to crawl back into his cave under the sea and think. He needs more time, but it's running out. Losing Yukimura now is unthinkable, yet more and more a close reality. It eats a hole in his chest, fear curdling in his guts.
He lingers over his tennis bag, zipping his racket up, then unzipping it, pretending to adjust the gripe tape, then zipping it back up. He glances around. No one leaves. Marui whips a wet towel at Akaya's knee to make him scream and run to Renji. Akaya clings to Renji's naked chest. "Stop it!" he shrieks. "It hurts when it's wet!"
Sanada rummages through his school bag, ostensibly checking his homework, but in reality hoping someone-anyone-will leave and start the flow to the bus stop, the train station, home.
No one moves.
At his locker, Yukimura paws through his tennis bag, murmuring something about a sock. Sanada looks down, but Yukimura has one on each foot. He frowns, confused, and lifts his eyes again.
Dark eyes stare into his. He shudders and all of the hairs on his arms stand up, prickling his skin.
"Sanada," Yukimura whispers.
Sanada nods once.
"Will you walk home with me?"
He can barely believe his luck. It's perfect. It's ideal. He can confess finally! Sanada bites back a grin and nods a second time. "Aa," he says. When Niou and Renji watch him with penetrating eyes, knowing his secret crush, Sanada rushes to add, "If you'd like."
Yukimura's smile is softer than the smoothest shell.
They walk through the suburbs together. Yukimura pushes his bicycle and the tire squeaks, a repetitious noise that almost soothes Sanada's nerves. He takes his hat off, although the sun is bright enough to warm his hair. He twists the brim. He inhales through his nose; there's a tinge of salt on the air and the smell of fish that never leaves the ocean. Sanada feels at home-even on land-when he smells it, when he feels the thick sea air in his lungs, giving him strength to speak, to walk beside Yukimura and keep up.
Their footsteps fall into place in perfect tune. He can drown out and push away the noises of the city: the rings of bike bells as other students ride past them, the rush of traffic and trains, the ticking noises the crosswalks make as they count down until the next "walk". It's too public by the school to say anything, but the swollen feeling in his heart tells Sanada it will be today.
He's nervous.
He's scared.
He's ready.
"Are you all right?" Yukimura murmurs as they wait to cross another set of lights. The canals snake through the city and the water calls out to Sanada in its siren song, even as stagnant and greenish as the canals are, filled with plastic bags and lost love notes.
He digs his fingernails into the brim of his cap. Love…
The insects are quieter here as they turn a corner. They walk down a shaded alleyway, filled with ramshackle sheds and littered bottles. Damp gravel crunches under Sanada's sneakers. Yukimura looks ahead, not at him, and steers his bike around a parked scooter.
"The prefecturals are coming up," Yukimura says. "Two weeks."
Sanada nods. He refuses to think that he won't be here then. He refuses to think he'll fail. "They should be easy," he says.
"They will be easy," Yukimura says, correcting Sanada with a smile. He shifts his hands on the bicycle's handle, turning right onto another street. The air is filled with the smells of the food stands that dot the street, all red hanging lanterns swaying in the breeze and the smells of fried meat, the oil cloying to Sanada's nostrils and sending hunger pangs to his stomach.
There are also few people on the street. It's too early for supper yet and the salarymen aren’t out trawling for beer. Students have mostly gone home. Sanada scans up and down the sidewalks and finds only a few housewives and elementary school children, none of whom would know him.
None of whom would care.
They walk.
Sanada takes a deep breath. The tension has risen. The sun casts a gilded shade over Yukimura's face, illuminating him like a summer sunset over the ocean, calm and bright and lovely to see. So lovely it twists Sanada's heart.
He drops his cap. Yukimura stops, his eyes widening when Sanada stands there, unmoving, and doesn't pick his hat up. Before he can speak, Sanada does it first.
"Yukimura," he says. The words sound hollow, they sound surreal and foreign, emerging from his mouth in his low voice before he realizes it fully. "Yuki-mura." His voice cracks.
Sanada cringes.
But he must fight on!
You must not hesitate…
"I have something to say."
Yukimura's expression melts, softening as his eyes waver, big and golden and wet.
"I lo-"
Help us!
Sanada whips his head around. "Did you hear that?" he asks.
Yukimura leans back, biting his bottom lip as he shakes his head. Hair falls over his eyes as he scrunches his brow. "Sorry?"
Sanada blinks.
Help us, please! They’re going to kill us!
His eyes go wide. "Yukimura, someone-"
Help us! Please! Please, someone!
Sanada starts to run, following the sound of the high-pitched shrieks. One of the voices screams and cold terror runs down Sanada's body, making his runners slap the pavement harder as he races down the street. He looks left, right, ahead, but there's nothing but rows of food shops and noodle bars and conbinis with white and blue and green signs. He doesn't have time to feel guilty for Yukimura, who rides behind him, calling out Sanada's name, asking what's wrong, what's going on, what-
Help! You have to help us!
Sanada stops in front of a shop and his jaw drops. In the window sits a tank of water, filled with a dozen-maybe more-small eels. They wiggle as they shout at him in terrified voices that meld into one. Help help help! They're going to kill us tonight!!
His shaking hands press to the window and his eyes flood with tears. "No…" he whispers, his throat choking up. Sanada shakes his head. "No…." His chest heaves as he claws at the glass, unable to reach the screaming eels as they swim frantically, wiggling and twisting and staring at him, knowing he's like them. Knowing he can understand. Hot bile rises in his throat, scorching its way to his mouth as salty tears sting his eyes, sliding down his face when he sees the sign in the window.
Open for dinner at 1900
It's six thirty now.
"No…" Sanada moans, but he can't tell the eels he wants to help, he needs to help them because his stomach jumps and he can't stop the wave of vomit that rises, spilling out onto the pavement as Yukimura rushes up to his side.
He has two days left.
And his stomach aches faintly from the heaving of last night. Yukimura helped him home. Yukimura held his hair back as Sanada puked on the sidewalk. Yukimura picked up his cap and helped Sanada onto the bus to get back home, despite the tears, despite the croaked protests that the eels would die. He couldn't explain any more without having Yukimura think he was insane and speaking to eels. Humans can't speak to eels. Humans can't understand.
Thinking about it now, seeing all those terrified eels staring at him, pleading with their liquid eyes and their frenetic twisting, it hurts-almost as much as thinking about Yukimura does. Sanada knows they're gone. He knows they're in some salaryman's belly now, and their blood stained the sushi kitchen last night and he fights fresh tears back.
His emotions will cost him everything if he isn’t careful. He's delayed so long already.
He cannot wait.
He cannot hesitate.
No matter what.
Yukimura asks him to walk home today. After a sleepless night and too many fumbles with the ball machine at afternoon practice, Sanada accepts without a moment's hesitation. He feels scummy and scaly today, his skin too dry and his neck and back aching. He didn’t have time last night to walk back to the school rooftop, so he soaked in Niou's bathtub.
They pass through a park where the last of the plum blossoms dot the ground, pale purple and white wilted petals strewn over the green grasses and knobby roots under the new leaves of the trees. His mouth still tastes faintly bitter from the vomit and his throat aches.
Sanada swallows. Yukimura's throat bobs, too. He stops walking-no bicycle today-and he sits down on a bench, sniffing and blinking quickly.
Sanada ducks his head, looking at Yukimura from under the safety of his cap. Yukimura coughs, covering his mouth with his hand. His eyes are watery, his lips parted as he breathes. His chest shudders and Sanada is overwhelmed with the need to take Yukimura into his arms, as he did that day on the beach. He wants to hold Yukimura to his chest and tuck his chin over Yukimura's hair before the tears spill.
"Can…can I say something?" Sanada says. His practiced words are gone, forgotten in the mess of yesterday. He struggles now, desperate to keep the mood right, terrified it will be ruined.
But a gust of wind smelling faintly fishy rustles the trees. It swishes leaves and scatters the petals across the ground. Sweet spring cloys to everything and the damp sea air comforts Sanada, forgives his sins from yesterday.
He needs courage.
Deep down he has it.
Yukimura tips his head up. He blinks and the first tears come, making Sanada bend down to help, but his hands falter. He breathes heavily, his words sluggish when he mutters, "Please let me say something…"
Yukimura sniffles. "Sanada," he says, but his voice isn't that light, bell chime that rang out over the beach. It's a nasal whine, a drawn out sniffle before he sucks in a shuddered breath, leans back and blows a large wad of snot onto the ground near Sanada's toes.
Yukimura sniffs again. "Sorry for the trouble," he says. He fishes around his pocket and then moans, a plaintive noise that cuts through Sanada's chest, as desperate as he is.
"Shit," Yukimura moans. "I don't have any Kleenex. And I didn't take my allergy pills this morning." Yukimura rubs his nose with the hem of his tennis uniform jacket, sniffing another wet drip from his nose.
"My mother's gonna kill me," Yukimura says. He groans and tips to the side before he sneezes three times in a row. "I'm sorry, Sanada. I have to get home."
Sanada opens his mouth, but no protest comes.
One more day.
Yukimura is home sick.
The tennis club is frantic.
"Is he ill again?" Yagyuu asks.
"Is buchou okay?" Akaya asks.
"Is he in remission?" Jackal asks.
Even if Sanada showed up at Yukimura's home after dinner with a thermos of nameko miso soup and a box of three-ply tissues, they wouldn't be alone. There would be too many people at his home, too many flaws that could happen.
He needs more time.
Sanada excuses himself after dinner, apologizing to Niou's mother when he says he can't help with dishes because he has homework to do. He bows his head, face on fire with the lie.
Niou gives him a sidelong glance through slitted eyes. "Homework, eh?"
Sanada mumbles, "Yes. I'm going to a classmate's home."
Niou snorts. "Puri."
Sanada grabs his backpack for pure show. He walks to the end of the street, rushing past hydrangea and hibiscus bushes, all waxy green leaves dotted with early evening dew. He starts to run when he reaches the main street, legging it toward the beach in the same direction, the same path he took that very first night.
He runs up the crest of the sand dune, the swishing sea grass rustling by his legs, pricking his toes in the sandals he wears. Sanada pants, his breathing long and laboured as he leans over. When he looks up, he can see the vast expanse of the sea, slate grey and swollen with the evening tide, beckoning him to join it once more.
He hops down the stony pathway to the beach, jumping from rock to rock and scraping his hands up on the cliff side to keep his balance. In his haste, he doesn't notice the blood on his palms until he's peeling his clothes off, leaving a small pile near a piece of driftwood.
Sanada runs across the pebbly sand and dives into the waves.
*--+--~--K--~--+--*
Author: Ociwen
Pairing/characters: Sanada/Yukimura with others
Rating: NC-17
Wordcount: 47 000
Warning (if any): Bad fic ahoy! This fic contains spoilers for 40.5, crude humour, bodily functions and crabs.
Summary: Sanada experiences a sea change in order to begin a relationship with Yukimura. Can he balance his secrets, the Rikkai Dai tennis club, and still achieve his goal?
Notes (if any): Thank you pixxers for all the help and koneko_meow for the beta. Written for a rude and ungrateful recipient in balls_it_up. Hopefully others can appreciate the humour-and horror-involved in badfic. Have your umbrellas ready!
This fic has been truncated into 6 sections due to length. These are not chapters. [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]
It's a Saturday, the first day in weeks that Yukimura has enough time off to relax. He can have a few moments to himself, to collect his thoughts and think and be.
He packs his pencils and his pad of paper. He lifts his leg over his bicycle, waving to his mother sticking her head through the fourth floor window. His stomach is still full from breakfast. His bike squeaks when he pedals those first seconds down the street, feeling the cool morning rush over his face.
No tennis this morning.
No school.
No nothing but a boy and his bicycle and the beach.
Yukimura grins and pedals harder, racing through the streets with sharp turns that make his heart pound in his ears, heavy and fluid like the sea. His seat is hard, so he lifts himself, stretching his legs as he coasts past a long stretch of houses, still sleepy in the last vestiges of the dewy cool that lingers when the sun hides behind the puffy clouds.
He rides through the suburbs, down to the beach, feeling more alive than ever, more awake than ever. He mounts that crested dune and feels the dry grass brush his bare ankles. His toes are cold in his flip-flops and they slip on the pedals; Yukimura keeps riding over the bumpy pathway until he swerves and jumps off.
Yukimura inhales deeply and stares out at the deep blue of the water. Long fingers of white crested waves crash to the shore and seagulls squawk and circle overhead. Sand whips up as he walks into the wind. The grit on his face and between his toes makes his head feel light, makes his fingers itch because today might be the day.
Today he might be able to paint the sea.
The cliffs skirt the pathway down to the beach and Yukimura keeps one hand on the rough edges to keep his balance as he descends. Morning sun glistens, turning the dew drops on the overhanging rocks into glass beads, cool and wet on his fingertips. An immense sense of pleasure fills his belly, more than the salad and toast for breakfast ever could.
Yukimura walks across the sand, his footsteps sinking into the grains and pebbles. He walks along the shore, gasping at the cold water flowing over his feet when the waves come in to greet him. His usual piece of driftwood has long since vanished into the sea in the weeks he's been away, unable to find the time to come and paint, to come and suck in the ocean air. The biting breeze perks him up and his spirits too.
At the far end of the beach-not his usual spot-Yukimura can see the bleached outline of a knobby piece of driftwood. As he approaches, he sees flat rocks that are smoothed by the sea like the glass underfoot. There's enough room for him to sit down on one of the stone shelves, and room to set down his backpack.
He sketches first, loose outlines with a blue pencil. One page, no good. Yukimura crumples it up and throws it into the waves, huffing when he starts a second. He looks up, squinting into the distance. He sticks his tongue out and bites the tip, thinking and gauging the distances he sees with the distances he draws. It's never right, he can never copy it.
Maybe that's my problem, he thinks. I'm not being original enough.
But he knows his problem is more than that. It's not about drawing or painting a seascape, the way he could in art class, all washes of blue and green and grey with a few dotted clouds and a couple black outlines for gulls. He wants more, he wants to capture it-the essence-on paper, the way the painters do in galleries. Like the gallery nearby that Niou's dad's firm designed.
Yukimura frowns at his image. It's a mess of lines, erased and changed over, too many thoughts scattered too many directions as the waters change, shifting over the sands and rocks and pulling back, returning to the deep.
I want to capture the feeling.
The feeling of fullness in his chest. The feeling of salty air in his lungs. The feeling of freedom that walking through the water's edge gives him, the feeling he craves more and more, ever since he got sick.
Ever since he got better.
He sets his pencil down and turns his hand over, staring at the back. Tiny blue veins comb the flesh under his pale skin, flushed with the chill of the spring breeze coming up over the sea. No hint that he was ill two years ago, no hint that he lost all feeling in his body and these hands, with all their callouses from tennis rackets and pencils, were dead and numb.
Yukimura sets his paper pad down too and pulls his lunch from his bag. Cold rice and pickled cucumbers. He opens the lid and slips his chopsticks out from their holder. On the top layer, a slab of fried fish from last night.
"Sea bass," he murmurs with a smile.
The waves break all around him, their droning roar soothing as he chews his food. He picks aimlessly, dangling the pickles from the ends of his chopstick like seaweed. Little movements keep him occupied-turning to see the scurrying of a lone crab across the sand, turning the other direction when something splashes in the water, maybe a fish, maybe nothing at all.
The back of his neck prickles and a chill follows down his spine. Yukimura jumps up from the leaning hunch he had over his bento box. No gurgling noises this time, no plinks of his pencils falling into the water either, no…
Someone walking toward him. For a moment, he frowns and gathers his pad, shutting the cover so no one sees what he's been doing. He's been caught in a private moment and anger surges in his chest, pressing up hard into his throat.
Until he sees that figure.
That person, whom he knows. Sanada walks slowly, his eyes constantly shifting like the sea and unable to keep Yukimura's gaze. The brief flush of anger washes away from Yukimura, replaced with a different warmth.
Breathless, Yukimura waves first. "Sanada! What are you doing here?" Then, he cringes. His tone sounded wrong and Sanada looks awkward, staring at his feet instead and leaning back, as if he's about to leave and that isn't what Yukimura intended in the least.
Yukimura clears his throat and pushes his backpack away, scooting across the rock to give Sanada room. His bum left an imprint on the grey stone from where he's been sitting all morning. "I mean, it's just…no one else ever comes here," Yukimura says. He looks up at Sanada, hoping with a smile.
"I…" Sanada exhales. "I saw your bike up there," he says, motioning with his hand.
Yukimura nods. Then he nods down to the rock, urging Sanada to come sit. He pats the stone. Please, he thinks, staring at Sanada, trying to speak through his eyes. But Sanada's cap hides everything, his emotions, his responses, his dark eyes. Yukimura itches to grab it and fling it into the sea and ask Sanada every question about him, about his life.
About Yukimura, too.
His face feels hotter than ever when Sanada sits down beside him, as close to the edge of the rock as possible, but even then, Yukimura's thigh touches Sanada's. He shivers, all the hair on his arms standing up.
"Are you cold?" Sanada mumbles. He dumps his bag down on the sand.
Yukimura shakes his head. It's his turn to look away, out over the ocean. He sighs, wishing that his heart would stop pounding and that his blood would stop rushing in his ears the way it is now. Sanada's bag is getting wet, sitting on top of hissing, dying sea foam.
"You were playing tennis," he says.
Sanada ducks his head when he fidgets with his cap. "Aa, yes. With Renji."
"So its Renji now, is it?" Yukimura says. He can't resist teasing Sanada with a poke on the arm. Sanada stiffens, grunting something under his breath, too low for Yukimura to hear.
"It's good to have friends," Yukimura says. Immediately, he regrets it; his words echo in his ears, sounding dumber and dumber with each time. They lapse into silence, broken only by the sound of the waves. Yukimura pulls his hand back and winces. Sanada shifts closer to the beach, nearly off the stone if it wasn't for one of his feet planted firm in the sand. Did he touch Sanada's arm too long?
His fingertips burn from the touch of Sanada's warm skin. If he was braver, if they were closer, Yukimura would wrap that arm around his shoulders and burrow into Sanada's side, sniff his neck, be tickled by the hair sticking out from under his cap. But he doesn't. It scares him to sit like this with Sanada, alone for the first time.
Truly alone.
The fear is almost delicious, a shudder down his spine that settles between his legs. All the nights of thinking about Sanada, of wondering about him pour back into Yukimura's mind and his Capri pants feel too tight. His cock begins to throb.
He frowns a little, just as Sanada turns, his mouth open to speak. Sanada falters and turns back around until Yukimura swallows his worries long enough to ask, "Have you had lunch?"
Their eyes meet. For the briefest of moments, their eyes meet and Sanada's cap lifts up in the wind, showing Yukimura his soul in those dark, consuming depths. He can feel himself falling forward into them and his mouth parts, eager for something he can't grasp yet, so instead he places his palm down on the cold rock. The surface is solid, but nothing like Sanada, who breathes so shallow that Yukimura thinks he must be light-headed too.
And then Sanada wrenches his eyes away. And Yukimura inches back to the other side of the rock, berating himself with a mental kick. Idiot! he thinks. My form is terrible!
What does Sanada think?!?
Sanada doesn't say anything, but he does unzip his tennisbag and pull out a bento. Yukimura peers inside, curious, as Sanada picks up one of the sandwich halves.
"Cucumber and tofu," Sanada says. "Niou-san made it."
"It must be odd staying with Niou," Yukimura says. He exhales heavily, wishing the press on his ribs would subside and leave him be. He feels like he's drowning, gulping at the salty air to catch his breath when Sanada moves, when he shifts, when he wiggles just enough onto the rock that their thighs brush again, closer and warmer.
Yukimura's stomach twists up like a net.
Sanada blinks. He chews on the sandwich and then fixes the brim of his hat. "Perhaps…" he says, conceding a small smile.
Yukimura laughs. When he sees the expression on Sanada's face, the shifting light in his eyes that darkens, the lips parting to reveal teeth, the slight flush on his face, it gives Yukimura a fresh confidence: he laughs even louder.
They spend the whole day on the beach and Yukimura has never been happier. He's never felt lighter, though his blushes are fiery and as fierce as Sanada's when Sanada asks him what he does here.
It's private. It's secret. It's something close to his heart, but for Sanada, he would answer the truth.
"I come here to paint," Yukimura says simply.
Sanada's eyes go wide. He nods, blinking, and nods again. "Aa," he says. "Do- do you come here often?" he adds. His gaze settles on the pad of paper on Yukimura's far side. It has the same sort of inquisitive quirk to his eyebrows as Yukimura's classmates in art lessons, when they ask to see his paintings of apples and sketches of pine trees. But Sanada's is magnified, and that much more intense.
Yukimura is not cold, but he shakes. "I can't show you yet," he says and Sanada turns away, back to the direction of the sea. Guilt twists him inside and Yukimura knows he can't leave it like that.
"Please," he murmurs. "I have to make it perfect. I can't show you until then." Sanada nods. A breeze floats around them, filled with the misted salt spray of the water.
"I want to show it to you," Yukimura whispers.
I'll show you first…
Sanada seems to accept this answer, but he sits with his back to Yukimura. His arms are folded over his chest as his eyes reflect the blue of the ocean, wavering with the crested waves. Yukimura stands up, stretching out a sleepy leg and twitching at the numb prickles in his shin. He wobbles on top of the stone, his balance off and he shrieks at his sudden tipping, his arms flailing and his eyes going wide.
But something solid, strong and warm stops him from falling into the tidal pools under the far side of the stone shelf. His heart flutters, his stomach seizing and throwing a hard lump up into his throat. One of his flip-flops has fallen off and his bare toes touch cold stone when Yukimura looks up, leaning into Sanada's arms.
Sanada's hat has skewed to the side and Yukimura can feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, their bodies pressed together like this. He drags his eyes to Sanada's face, unconsciously licking his lips at the look he finds.
Sanada's eyes are focused nothing except Yukimura. Yukimura's knees have turned to jelly and he goes slack, holding onto Sanada's arms like a lifeline, clinging to Sanada as he surfaces and his head clears with realization.
Yukimura has never done this. He's never felt this before, never been this close to someone that he can taste the mayonnaise from Sanada's sandwich on his own lips, along with something else. Something deeper, saltier, headier.
Something he wants more than anything else.
With a shaking hand, he lifts his fingers up between their bodies and pushes Sanada's hat off his head. Sanada's mouth opens and his eyes flutter shut. His throat bobs and the sight of him, here so close, holding him like this, makes Yukimura's throat close up too and his eyes sting with emotion.
"Sanada…" he murmurs.
His hand slips around the back of Sanada's neck, feeling hot sweat under his fingertips. Nervous excitement fills his body and his dick-half-hard before-burns against Sanada's thigh.
Yukimura isn't ashamed, but he does blush. I want you to feel this, he thinks as he threads his fingers through the damp silky hair on the back of Sanada's head. He revels in Sanada's shuddered breath, growing closer and closer as he closes the gap, his mouth ready and eager to bridge the distance to Sanada's lips-
"OI! Sanada!"
Sanada groans. Yukimura cringes at Niou's voice. Then a rush of cold air hits his body when Sanada jerks back, pulling away from Yukimura without a word.
Niou hops down the pathway to the beach, jumping from stone to stone until he hits the sand and arches his back, leaning his hands on his hips. "Nice place here," he says.
By now, Sanada has broken apart from Yukimura. It feels like a scab has opened, picked raw on Yukimura's arms because the warm solidity is gone and he's alone, even though Sanada is standing just a few feet away. He picks up his cap and brushes it off, placing it back on his head and covering his emotions once more.
Yukimura sighs and bites back a frown. Niou raises an eyebrow. "Didn't interrupt anything, did I?" he asks. A smirk forms at the side of his mouth. Niou waggles his eyebrows at Sanada, who grunts and stomps off, leaving the beach in a huff.
"Mom wanted me to find you and tell you supper's gonna be ready soon," Niou calls out to Sanada. Then he steps across the beach to Yukimura, squashing down tiny holes in the sand that creatures live under.
"You know he likes you, right?" Niou says.
Yukimura blinks. The words sink in like the cold chill of the late afternoon as the sun creeps behind a cloud and the water takes on a murky darkness. "What?"
Niou runs a hand through his hair and cocks his head to the side. "Sanada. He like likes you, Yukimura."
When he rides home on his bicycle, coasting through the quiet alleyways and streets of the suburban landscape, Yukimura doesn't stop the whoop of victory that bubbles up out of his mouth.
*--+--~--U--~--+--*
The keeper of the sea magic gave Sanada one month. One month of (mostly) being terrestrial, with the clause that Sanada has to confess before the end of his time. Confess his love and his secret.
It eats at him inside. He has five days left, or he'll forego everything and lose Yukimura. Sanada blinks and swallows the bile in his throat. Niou's mother hands him another rice bowl to dry. Soap bubbles drip from the sides like sea foam, the reminder ever-present that he can't hesitate any longer.
"You're so helpful," Niou's mother says. She wipes her brow, getting soap over the rim of her glasses. "Father was so thankful when you helped sweep the garage last night, Sanada-kun."
Sanada nods. He looks out the window above the sink, staring out at the twinkling suburb lights from a thousand prefab homes, all like Niou's. His thoughts settle on Yukimura as he sets the bowl on the counter then picks up the next to dry. The towel is damp in his hands, but his skin feels drier than ever.
He kicks himself inside, and he sucks his stomach in at the mental blow. The other day, on the beach, they'd been so close. Yukimura's eyes fluttered shut, his lashes dark on his pale skin. His mouth was parted, lips shiny from having licked them, anticipating something. Sanada felt Yukimura's erection. Even now, the memory burns his face, burns his body and his cock twitches, eager to repeat the sensation. Sanada shifts his weight and grabs another rice bowl to distract his dick. It's awkward having an erection around Niou's mother, as nice as she is.
He could have confessed then. He should have confessed. He should have whispered, "I love you. I'm a merman" in Yukimura's ear before Niou got too close, but he hesitated. He was scared, too nervous, and the moment shattered before it got a chance to begin.
As much as Sanada grinds his teeth and blames Niou in the privacy of his mind, it's as much his own fault too.
You must not hesitate. One of the tenants of the mersamurai code, and Sanada's broken it. He rolls over on his futon that night, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing Niou would fall asleep faster. The cat is a heavy weight wedged between his knees. Sanada listens to the faint rustles and heavy breathing Niou makes; he knows what Niou is doing.
"Yagyuu…" Niou whispers. The sound of something slick and squidgy follows. Sanada cringes although his dick is swollen in sympathy. Niou has all the time in the world to confess. Sanada doesn't.
Having to listen to Niou masturbate is uncomfortable enough, but listening to him come-squeaks of his mattress springs and mewls from his throat-is more than Sanada wants to hear. Waves surge in his body, and Niou's noises make his cock even harder, numb and aching and demanding between his legs, hot underneath the futon cover. Sanada sweats. He clenches his jaw and balls his fist tight above the covers to keep from touching himself too.
"Sanada?" Niou whispers in the dark.
Sanada grunts.
"You sure you don't need a hand?"
Sanada stiffens. His cock stiffens, too, at the prospect of having someone else's hand ease the ache. "No," he says. "Go to sleep."
Niou hums. Sheets rustle and Niou must have rolled over. Sanada ignores it and listens to the sound of crickets chirp outside the open window. Cool night air blows across his face.
"Ne, Sanada?"
"What?"
"You should confess," Niou says.
Sanada doesn't need another reminder.
He has four days left.
Three simple words, followed by three more are all he has to say, and yet, thinking about it makes his throat close up. At lunch time, he and Renji eat on the roof, not far from the rooftop garden where the beautification committee plants new seedlings. Yukimura is in sight, and sometimes, when the light hits the right way, making his black hair shine on the top of his head, Sanada feels the same warmth before he looks away.
"The swim team is competing this weekend," Renji says. He lifts a dumpling to eat, waving it in the air first as he speaks. Sanada smells the shrimp and pungent garlic. His stomach churns, but he's unable to swallow the rice Niou-san packed him.
Sanada makes a noise.
"They're away," Renji adds.
"Aa," Sanada says.
"Do you think I could meas-"
"No."
Renji nods slowly. He tucks the measuring tape back into his bag. "It was worth a try."
"You try everyday," Sanada says.
"I do it all for the data."
Sanada looks at him. Renji raises an eyebrow.
"You have no scruples," Sanada says. The lump presses the back of his throat when light throws itself from the garden and Yukimura stands up, stretching his arms above his head. His shirt rises, exposing a thin line of his stomach. Sanada's mouth feels woolen. Whatever else he might have said is lost in the dryness sticking his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
"None," Renji says. "I won't tell him. Don't worry."
Sanada hisses, "Quiet!" His insides curl up, freezing and twisted when his eyes inch to Yukimura's direction, seeing Yukimura dig around the black earth with a trowel, his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth in concentration.
Renji waves his hand. "I know. You have to do it yourself."
I don't need the reminder, Sanada thinks.
The problem is that they never have time alone together. The tension caused by the knowledge that he cannot hesitate any longer makes Sanada sweat cold. It makes his grip clammy on his racket during tennis practice. Yukimura teases him and shakes his head, cupping his hands around his mouth to call out, "Your grip is terrible!"
His trilling laughter only makes it worse. Sanada can barely breathe for all the wrenching of his heart and the pounding of his pulse, compiled with everything else that makes his step off and his head too light and too leaden at the same time. He searches for opening, moments to catch Yukimura by himself, but there's nothing. Sanada follows him to the ball machine, but Akaya is there practicing. Sanada follows Yukimura to the shed for a replacement net on the third court, but Yagyuu emerges from the shed shadows.
Sanada blinks. Yukimura hands Sanada his racket. "Hold this for me," he says, stepping into the shed.
Niou pops out next, ducking his head and pulling up his collar. Sanada's eyes go huge when Niou glances away. Niou avoids anyone else's eyes as his cheeks redden.
So you did it, Sanada thinks.
Jealousy churns inside and Sanada purses his lips. Before he can think to speak, to ask Yukimura to stay for a second because he has something to say, Yukimura slams the shed door shut.
He trades his racket for the net. "Could you help set that up?" he asks Sanada. A smile graces his lips and Sanada cannot say no. Sanada helps with the nets until the sun hangs low in the sky and the flies start to swarm, eager for the evening to descend. He swipes the sweat from his brow, momentarily distracted until he sees Yukimura heading into the clubhouse, his racket slung over his shoulder.
Sanada's heart leaps. And his cock, too. He swallows down a wad of fear and nerves because he needs to confess before his time runs out. When he sees the rest of the team in the locker room, everyone but Yukimura, Sanada struggles to find air and keep his head up. One, lone shower runs, and steam drifts into the locker room.
Renji gives Sanada a sly look from the side. His lips quirk. Sanada turns away from him, unable to finish their silent conversation. Marui and Jackal pick up their tennis bags, waving goodbye. Akaya trails behind them, waving his arms even wider. "Senpais, WAIT!" he yells as he flings the clubhouse door open. "Can we go to the Centre 70 Arcade?"
Yagyuu, Niou and Renji remain. But Niou is buttoning his shirt up and Yagyuu fixes his tie. Renji's smile sharpens.
Sanada pulls his t-shirt off slowly, focusing on the bubblegum stuck to Marui's locker door. He inhales and exhales with a careful rhythm, keeping his hands steady on his waistband as he tugs his shorts down. Yagyuu and Niou leave. Niou bumps into Yagyuu's shoulder, closer than ever when he whispers something into Yagyuu's ear.
Something that makes Yagyuu clear his throat and flush. Either that, or it's the reflection of the pinkish sun on his face.
And then Renji leaves, flashing Sanada a thumbs up before the door swings closed.
Sanada rushes for the showers. His heart pounds, his feet slip on the floor and a chill runs down his spine. He sucks in his stomach and puffs his chest up. He has to do it. He has to use this opportunity and strike.
Yukimura stands in the shower, dripping wet as shampoo suds run down his back. Sanada gulps. The pressure in his chest is heavier than ever, and his dick is too. The steam covers enough that Yukimura doesn't seem to notice Sanada's erection when he walks into the shower room and takes the shower next to Yukimura.
He could say something to Yukimura. He could make the small talk that humans are so good at, but Sanada fails. He wrings his hands together and closes his eyes. Yukimura sighs, a hum in the back of his throat that shoots straight to Sanada's swollen cock, aching for release, aching to be touched, aching for Yukimura.
His hand shakes. He opens his mouth to start Yukimura, I have something to say, but nothing comes, no sound, just a forced choke. Sanada shakes his head. He reaches for the soap, needing something to hold onto before he begins, but his hand hits something warm and solid and not soapy first.
Sanada stares as Yukimura's hand, closing over his in a fairy touch, skimming the back of his hand. He shivers. His knees waver and Yukimura sucks in a breath as he bites his lip.
Wide, dark eyes stare into his. A limpid pool of sensations blooms in Sanada's stomach, pulsing blood and feeling to his cock, his thighs, his stomach, tightening and tensing as Yukimura's fingertips paint wet circles over his hand. Sanada opens his mouth, words sounding in his ears as he speaks:
"Yukimura, I have-"
"Buchou!? Fukubuchou!!!?"
Akaya's disembodied head pops through the mist of the shower spray. He blinks and looks at Sanada and Yukimura's hands, cackling to himself when Yukimura pulls away in surprise.
"Uh…have you guys seen my wallet?" Akaya asks.
When Yukimura's chest sinks with a forlorn sigh and he offers to help the kid look for his wallet Sanada wants to wring Akaya's neck.
Three days left. Sanada lay awake last night, lamenting his failure at acting faster in the showers and cursing Akaya for his intrusion all at once. Niou was on his cellphone with Yagyuu for an hour straight tonight, murmuring and whispering things Sanada didn't want to hear as he tried to fall asleep.
He has the words memorized, practiced over and over in his mind: Yukimura, I have something to say to you. Please hear me out. I love you. I became a human for you. Please understand this. Please don't hate me.
It sounds mechanical and foolish, but Sanada doesn't know how else to express it. These emotions are strange. They overwhelm his body, leaving him a sticky mess when he wakes in the mornings. He's lost in a sea of feelings, of nerves and shuffling and cracked voices when Yukimura appears, when he hears Yukimura's voice, when he smells the damp earth under Yukimura's fingers and the rubber tennis balls burned into his palms.
Tennis practices run long. No one leaves early. Morning, afternoon, Sanada is surrounded with his teammates as he grinds his teeth and doles out extra laps because frustration mounts as the time flies, disappearing with the spring blossoms into a haze of humid summer. His body itches more and more. His legs scream with a rash down the inside of his thighs, where his tail transforms each night in the school pool. Sanada makes sure to clean the pool, to dump the bucket into the fourth floor toilets. When Renji shows up, he helps, but Sanada prefers to be alone. Having his friend know is one thing, having his friend stare and take mental notes as Sanada writhes and flops on the rooftop as his legs reform, cramping and sliced apart through the magic of the sea…
It's private.
If he can't even share it with Yukimura, he doesn't want to share it with his friend either.
I could write a letter, he thinks as he packs his bag up. Wet hair clings to the back of his neck, dripping down his shirt collar. I could phone him the way Yagyuu and Niou phone each other.
Sanada shakes his head. His temple throbs. He wants to crawl back into his cave under the sea and think. He needs more time, but it's running out. Losing Yukimura now is unthinkable, yet more and more a close reality. It eats a hole in his chest, fear curdling in his guts.
He lingers over his tennis bag, zipping his racket up, then unzipping it, pretending to adjust the gripe tape, then zipping it back up. He glances around. No one leaves. Marui whips a wet towel at Akaya's knee to make him scream and run to Renji. Akaya clings to Renji's naked chest. "Stop it!" he shrieks. "It hurts when it's wet!"
Sanada rummages through his school bag, ostensibly checking his homework, but in reality hoping someone-anyone-will leave and start the flow to the bus stop, the train station, home.
No one moves.
At his locker, Yukimura paws through his tennis bag, murmuring something about a sock. Sanada looks down, but Yukimura has one on each foot. He frowns, confused, and lifts his eyes again.
Dark eyes stare into his. He shudders and all of the hairs on his arms stand up, prickling his skin.
"Sanada," Yukimura whispers.
Sanada nods once.
"Will you walk home with me?"
He can barely believe his luck. It's perfect. It's ideal. He can confess finally! Sanada bites back a grin and nods a second time. "Aa," he says. When Niou and Renji watch him with penetrating eyes, knowing his secret crush, Sanada rushes to add, "If you'd like."
Yukimura's smile is softer than the smoothest shell.
They walk through the suburbs together. Yukimura pushes his bicycle and the tire squeaks, a repetitious noise that almost soothes Sanada's nerves. He takes his hat off, although the sun is bright enough to warm his hair. He twists the brim. He inhales through his nose; there's a tinge of salt on the air and the smell of fish that never leaves the ocean. Sanada feels at home-even on land-when he smells it, when he feels the thick sea air in his lungs, giving him strength to speak, to walk beside Yukimura and keep up.
Their footsteps fall into place in perfect tune. He can drown out and push away the noises of the city: the rings of bike bells as other students ride past them, the rush of traffic and trains, the ticking noises the crosswalks make as they count down until the next "walk". It's too public by the school to say anything, but the swollen feeling in his heart tells Sanada it will be today.
He's nervous.
He's scared.
He's ready.
"Are you all right?" Yukimura murmurs as they wait to cross another set of lights. The canals snake through the city and the water calls out to Sanada in its siren song, even as stagnant and greenish as the canals are, filled with plastic bags and lost love notes.
He digs his fingernails into the brim of his cap. Love…
The insects are quieter here as they turn a corner. They walk down a shaded alleyway, filled with ramshackle sheds and littered bottles. Damp gravel crunches under Sanada's sneakers. Yukimura looks ahead, not at him, and steers his bike around a parked scooter.
"The prefecturals are coming up," Yukimura says. "Two weeks."
Sanada nods. He refuses to think that he won't be here then. He refuses to think he'll fail. "They should be easy," he says.
"They will be easy," Yukimura says, correcting Sanada with a smile. He shifts his hands on the bicycle's handle, turning right onto another street. The air is filled with the smells of the food stands that dot the street, all red hanging lanterns swaying in the breeze and the smells of fried meat, the oil cloying to Sanada's nostrils and sending hunger pangs to his stomach.
There are also few people on the street. It's too early for supper yet and the salarymen aren’t out trawling for beer. Students have mostly gone home. Sanada scans up and down the sidewalks and finds only a few housewives and elementary school children, none of whom would know him.
None of whom would care.
They walk.
Sanada takes a deep breath. The tension has risen. The sun casts a gilded shade over Yukimura's face, illuminating him like a summer sunset over the ocean, calm and bright and lovely to see. So lovely it twists Sanada's heart.
He drops his cap. Yukimura stops, his eyes widening when Sanada stands there, unmoving, and doesn't pick his hat up. Before he can speak, Sanada does it first.
"Yukimura," he says. The words sound hollow, they sound surreal and foreign, emerging from his mouth in his low voice before he realizes it fully. "Yuki-mura." His voice cracks.
Sanada cringes.
But he must fight on!
You must not hesitate…
"I have something to say."
Yukimura's expression melts, softening as his eyes waver, big and golden and wet.
"I lo-"
Help us!
Sanada whips his head around. "Did you hear that?" he asks.
Yukimura leans back, biting his bottom lip as he shakes his head. Hair falls over his eyes as he scrunches his brow. "Sorry?"
Sanada blinks.
Help us, please! They’re going to kill us!
His eyes go wide. "Yukimura, someone-"
Help us! Please! Please, someone!
Sanada starts to run, following the sound of the high-pitched shrieks. One of the voices screams and cold terror runs down Sanada's body, making his runners slap the pavement harder as he races down the street. He looks left, right, ahead, but there's nothing but rows of food shops and noodle bars and conbinis with white and blue and green signs. He doesn't have time to feel guilty for Yukimura, who rides behind him, calling out Sanada's name, asking what's wrong, what's going on, what-
Help! You have to help us!
Sanada stops in front of a shop and his jaw drops. In the window sits a tank of water, filled with a dozen-maybe more-small eels. They wiggle as they shout at him in terrified voices that meld into one. Help help help! They're going to kill us tonight!!
His shaking hands press to the window and his eyes flood with tears. "No…" he whispers, his throat choking up. Sanada shakes his head. "No…." His chest heaves as he claws at the glass, unable to reach the screaming eels as they swim frantically, wiggling and twisting and staring at him, knowing he's like them. Knowing he can understand. Hot bile rises in his throat, scorching its way to his mouth as salty tears sting his eyes, sliding down his face when he sees the sign in the window.
Open for dinner at 1900
It's six thirty now.
"No…" Sanada moans, but he can't tell the eels he wants to help, he needs to help them because his stomach jumps and he can't stop the wave of vomit that rises, spilling out onto the pavement as Yukimura rushes up to his side.
He has two days left.
And his stomach aches faintly from the heaving of last night. Yukimura helped him home. Yukimura held his hair back as Sanada puked on the sidewalk. Yukimura picked up his cap and helped Sanada onto the bus to get back home, despite the tears, despite the croaked protests that the eels would die. He couldn't explain any more without having Yukimura think he was insane and speaking to eels. Humans can't speak to eels. Humans can't understand.
Thinking about it now, seeing all those terrified eels staring at him, pleading with their liquid eyes and their frenetic twisting, it hurts-almost as much as thinking about Yukimura does. Sanada knows they're gone. He knows they're in some salaryman's belly now, and their blood stained the sushi kitchen last night and he fights fresh tears back.
His emotions will cost him everything if he isn’t careful. He's delayed so long already.
He cannot wait.
He cannot hesitate.
No matter what.
Yukimura asks him to walk home today. After a sleepless night and too many fumbles with the ball machine at afternoon practice, Sanada accepts without a moment's hesitation. He feels scummy and scaly today, his skin too dry and his neck and back aching. He didn’t have time last night to walk back to the school rooftop, so he soaked in Niou's bathtub.
They pass through a park where the last of the plum blossoms dot the ground, pale purple and white wilted petals strewn over the green grasses and knobby roots under the new leaves of the trees. His mouth still tastes faintly bitter from the vomit and his throat aches.
Sanada swallows. Yukimura's throat bobs, too. He stops walking-no bicycle today-and he sits down on a bench, sniffing and blinking quickly.
Sanada ducks his head, looking at Yukimura from under the safety of his cap. Yukimura coughs, covering his mouth with his hand. His eyes are watery, his lips parted as he breathes. His chest shudders and Sanada is overwhelmed with the need to take Yukimura into his arms, as he did that day on the beach. He wants to hold Yukimura to his chest and tuck his chin over Yukimura's hair before the tears spill.
"Can…can I say something?" Sanada says. His practiced words are gone, forgotten in the mess of yesterday. He struggles now, desperate to keep the mood right, terrified it will be ruined.
But a gust of wind smelling faintly fishy rustles the trees. It swishes leaves and scatters the petals across the ground. Sweet spring cloys to everything and the damp sea air comforts Sanada, forgives his sins from yesterday.
He needs courage.
Deep down he has it.
Yukimura tips his head up. He blinks and the first tears come, making Sanada bend down to help, but his hands falter. He breathes heavily, his words sluggish when he mutters, "Please let me say something…"
Yukimura sniffles. "Sanada," he says, but his voice isn't that light, bell chime that rang out over the beach. It's a nasal whine, a drawn out sniffle before he sucks in a shuddered breath, leans back and blows a large wad of snot onto the ground near Sanada's toes.
Yukimura sniffs again. "Sorry for the trouble," he says. He fishes around his pocket and then moans, a plaintive noise that cuts through Sanada's chest, as desperate as he is.
"Shit," Yukimura moans. "I don't have any Kleenex. And I didn't take my allergy pills this morning." Yukimura rubs his nose with the hem of his tennis uniform jacket, sniffing another wet drip from his nose.
"My mother's gonna kill me," Yukimura says. He groans and tips to the side before he sneezes three times in a row. "I'm sorry, Sanada. I have to get home."
Sanada opens his mouth, but no protest comes.
One more day.
Yukimura is home sick.
The tennis club is frantic.
"Is he ill again?" Yagyuu asks.
"Is buchou okay?" Akaya asks.
"Is he in remission?" Jackal asks.
Even if Sanada showed up at Yukimura's home after dinner with a thermos of nameko miso soup and a box of three-ply tissues, they wouldn't be alone. There would be too many people at his home, too many flaws that could happen.
He needs more time.
Sanada excuses himself after dinner, apologizing to Niou's mother when he says he can't help with dishes because he has homework to do. He bows his head, face on fire with the lie.
Niou gives him a sidelong glance through slitted eyes. "Homework, eh?"
Sanada mumbles, "Yes. I'm going to a classmate's home."
Niou snorts. "Puri."
Sanada grabs his backpack for pure show. He walks to the end of the street, rushing past hydrangea and hibiscus bushes, all waxy green leaves dotted with early evening dew. He starts to run when he reaches the main street, legging it toward the beach in the same direction, the same path he took that very first night.
He runs up the crest of the sand dune, the swishing sea grass rustling by his legs, pricking his toes in the sandals he wears. Sanada pants, his breathing long and laboured as he leans over. When he looks up, he can see the vast expanse of the sea, slate grey and swollen with the evening tide, beckoning him to join it once more.
He hops down the stony pathway to the beach, jumping from rock to rock and scraping his hands up on the cliff side to keep his balance. In his haste, he doesn't notice the blood on his palms until he's peeling his clothes off, leaving a small pile near a piece of driftwood.
Sanada runs across the pebbly sand and dives into the waves.
*--+--~--K--~--+--*