[Fic] Better than the Real Thing (for Onlysayitonce)
Title: Better than the Real Thing
Author: emmayori
Recipient: onlysayitonce
Pairing/Characters: Yagyuu/Niou (only slight)
Rating: G
Warnings: None that I can think of.
Disclaimer: Were I the owner of this marvelous series, I'd have enough money to buy Suwabe Junichi. Seeing as I don't own him, draw your own conclusions.
Summary: Niou and Yagyuu visit a gallery of forgeries and fakes.
Notes: Set prior to the Kantou matches against Seigaku, and references (obliquely) the manga canon. Here's hoping this is your cup of tea, onlysayitonce! And thanks to my lovely beta readers!
Better than the Real Thing
Though Kantou boasts a number of galleries and exhibitions, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum is by far Yagyuu’s favorite. Five of the six galleries in the oddly-shaped building are perpetually for rent, resulting in a changing parade of pieces. Here, he has seen cubism on canvas and monochrome photos of New York City’s subways hanging side-by-side, and warped tangles of wire and wood standing amidst the marble prowess of Greek sculptures. Contradictions abound within the building’s staggered walls.
Though today, the greatest pair of oddities in the museum is not actually part of the exhibit. It is Yagyuu with his new doubles partner, fresh from their first match the previous day. They carry a prince and pauper dynamic, Yagyuu with his impeccable posture and carefully-polished glasses, and then Niou, whose bleached hair is all gel and angles and whose tie is knotted sloppily at the juncture of his clavicles. They look out of place together even on the courts, and as they wander the hushed halls of the gallery, Yagyuu wonders why Niou asked him here.
They head straight through the main hall to the fifth gallery, and are greeted there by a grab-bag of bright canvases. From the entrance, Yagyuu recognizes a Monet, two Picassos, a Van Gogh and a Dali amid the myriad works. It’s a bizarre and disjointed assembly, a mix of classical and modern art, and Yagyuu turns to Niou with some confusion.
“Niou-kun, what was the name of this exhibition?” he asks as Niou edges past him and up to the first picture, hands buried in the pockets of his trousers.
“‘Fakes and Frauds,’” Niou offers with a grin, addressing the piece rather than his companion. “It’s a collection of the best forgeries the art world has to offer.” Yagyuu watches his eyes move up and down the canvas. There’s an intense deliberation as he examines even the gilt frame of the work with a discriminating eye.
“They’re all forgeries?” Niou dips his head to one side and gestures broadly with his right arm, sweeping the room. Yes, each one is a fake, a copy, and a deception.
When Niou offers no further commentary, instead beginning to move from work to work, Yagyuu backtracks to the entrance of the exhibit and seeks out the plaque poised there to inform spectators. He adjusts his glasses and steps up to the solid black podium, scanning the text. The collection belongs to a Belgian couple, and by the cropped photo in the upper left corner, they look on the wealthy side of normal. The majority of the text is consumed by an italicized quote from the husband.
The art of forgery deserves the same recognition and respect afforded to the creative arts. Indeed, a talented forger may be more adept than even the most promising artist.
“Whatcha think?” Niou calls to him from across the gallery, still scrutinizing the paintings. His back is turned to Yagyuu.
“I haven’t examined any of the works yet,” he responds, prompting a head shake and a shrug from his partner. Niou turns on his heel and saunters over to the plaque, his shoes shuffling noisily against the tile floor.
“Not about the art.” He drapes one arm across the square black top of the podium, and runs his fingers across the Belgian man’s words. “About this.”
In the two months that Yagyuu has been playing tennis with Niou, he has learned that, though he largely leaves them unspoken, Niou has intent and motive in every comment and question. Yagyuu can almost hear the gears starting up in Niou’s brain, already processing his body language even as he collects his thoughts.
“I am not sure that I can really agree with the idea that originals and forgeries should be regarded as being of equal significance,” he says finally. It’s a careful answer, non-committal but not without intention, the kind that really tend to spark Niou’s interest. Niou isn’t the only one who enjoys picking another person’s brain.
Niou taps his long fingers on the quote a few times, nodding slightly as though he’s considering how best to respond to Yagyuu’s comment.
“I can see that,” he says thoughtfully, eyes sly and bright. “The original and the copy are definitely not equal, and they shouldn’t be seen as such.” He rights himself and rolls his shoulders back, stuffing his hand back into his trouser pockets and motioning for Yagyuu to follow him.
They cross the gallery to the Monet forgery, hanging in a gilt wooden frame on its own free-standing wall. It has been given an unusual amount of presentation, Yagyuu thinks, considering what it is. The decorative frame and the commanding presence of the white wall are more deserving of what the picture is supposed to be.
Niou leans back against the wall beside the forgery, and eyes Yagyuu as though he himself is part of the exhibit.
“Tell me what you see,” he prompts. Yagyuu looks first at Niou and then at the painting.
“It’s a Monet, from the water lilies series.” Then he adds, “a copy, that is.” In actuality, Yagyuu doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be seeing, and he’s sure that Niou knows this. His obvious comments are meant to let Niou play his game. In response, Niou motions with his thumb and forefinger: Yayguu should take a closer look. So he does.
Whatever Niou expects Yagyuu to see isn’t overtly apparent. The brush strokes and the swirls of pigment in the paint look very real, and even though Yagyuu has always thought of himself as having a discriminating eye, he realizes that, if it hadn’t already been identified as a fraud, Yagyuu would have assumed it to be the real thing. This painting could have tricked him and he wouldn’t have even known it.
“What am I looking for?” Yagyuu tries. Niou cocks his head to one side and rubs his chin with his fingers, contemplative.
“A comparison would help,” Niou says, pushing off from the wall and sidling up next to Yagyuu. His right arm pops up and he rests his elbow across Yagyuu’s shoulder as he fishes his cell phone from his pocket and flips it open. Yagyuu glances over his free shoulder towards the exhibit entrance, where the bored security guard is paying no heed to the beeps as Niou scrolls through the images on his phone. It’s not that Niou doesn’t know that cell phones are not allowed in the gallery (in fact, Yagyuu is sure that he saw the signs), or even that he believes that such rules don’t apply to him; rather, what Niou takes delight in is sliding unnoticed around the system.
“Look,” Niou finally says, and he holds up the cell. It’s hard to see the full detail of Monet’s original as displayed on the screen of Niou’s phone, but Yagyuu tries. At first glance, the two paintings still appear the same, and so Yagyuu turns his head and catches Niou’s eyes. Niou makes a face full of feigned exasperation and, still leaning against Yagyuu, taps his thumb against the picture on the phone screen.
“The trick with something like this is all in the flow.” He speaks like an artist, or a docent, or a master forger; Yagyuu is prepared to believe that Niou could indeed be all of these things. “It has to look natural, because that’s how the original artist painted it. But at the same time-” and he illustrates this point with a circular wave of his phone “-the copy has to mimic those easy strokes absolutely. No room for a little smudge out of place, hmm?” The hum at the end of the sentence is to make sure that Yagyuu follows him, so Yagyuu nods and Niou continues.
“So look at the forgery-which isn’t very good, actually-and what do you see? It’s too perfect, the lines are too…” He stretches out the word as he searches for another, one that is already on the tip of Yagyuu’s tongue.
“Intentional.” At this, Niou cocks his head to one side and a lazy smirk tugs across his face approvingly.
“Really sticks out now, doesn’t it? The fake.” And it really does; Yagyuu doesn’t even have to step closer to the painting to see how rigid and deliberate the curves of each lily pad are, how apparent the deception. It brings the text from the plaque into a new context, that truthfully, a master forger must not only produce a copy, but trick the audience into believing that what is false is true. The forgery must be better at being the painting than the real thing.
Sufficiently convinced that his partner now has a complete understanding, Niou slides off of Yagyuu’s shoulder and approaches the next painting.
“You really have to hand it to the masters,” Niou comments, half-lidded eyes dissecting a sweep of cobalt on a Van Gogh knock-off. “They make it difficult to do a good imitation. But that makes the best copies all the more magnificent, don’t you think?” This is the game, Yagyuu realizes, to pick out what makes the forgery, and Niou is frighteningly good at it.
Watching his new doubles partner move through the gallery, it occurs to Yagyuu just how terrifying a fake could be on the courts. After all, a forgery deceives and disconcerts until it is discovered, and even then the ruse itself distracts from the actual piece itself. Focus shifts from the uselessly broad to the insignificantly detailed, areas to be exploited both in art and in tennis.
“Niou-kun.” Yagyuu turns from the painting and faces Niou, who cranes his neck over his shoulder quizzically. “If you are not too busy, would you be interested in stopping for a cup of coffee? There is a potential strategy for the upcoming matches that I would very much like to discuss with you.”
Such a deception would require a master forger, and Niou, with his crooked fox grin and clipped nod of agreement, is more than up to the job. Yagyuu smiles a little to himself before joining Niou at the Van Gogh. What they will do will be talked about for years as a fearsome and brilliant tactic, provided, of course, that their fake is better than the real thing.
Author: emmayori
Recipient: onlysayitonce
Pairing/Characters: Yagyuu/Niou (only slight)
Rating: G
Warnings: None that I can think of.
Disclaimer: Were I the owner of this marvelous series, I'd have enough money to buy Suwabe Junichi. Seeing as I don't own him, draw your own conclusions.
Summary: Niou and Yagyuu visit a gallery of forgeries and fakes.
Notes: Set prior to the Kantou matches against Seigaku, and references (obliquely) the manga canon. Here's hoping this is your cup of tea, onlysayitonce! And thanks to my lovely beta readers!
Better than the Real Thing
Though Kantou boasts a number of galleries and exhibitions, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum is by far Yagyuu’s favorite. Five of the six galleries in the oddly-shaped building are perpetually for rent, resulting in a changing parade of pieces. Here, he has seen cubism on canvas and monochrome photos of New York City’s subways hanging side-by-side, and warped tangles of wire and wood standing amidst the marble prowess of Greek sculptures. Contradictions abound within the building’s staggered walls.
Though today, the greatest pair of oddities in the museum is not actually part of the exhibit. It is Yagyuu with his new doubles partner, fresh from their first match the previous day. They carry a prince and pauper dynamic, Yagyuu with his impeccable posture and carefully-polished glasses, and then Niou, whose bleached hair is all gel and angles and whose tie is knotted sloppily at the juncture of his clavicles. They look out of place together even on the courts, and as they wander the hushed halls of the gallery, Yagyuu wonders why Niou asked him here.
They head straight through the main hall to the fifth gallery, and are greeted there by a grab-bag of bright canvases. From the entrance, Yagyuu recognizes a Monet, two Picassos, a Van Gogh and a Dali amid the myriad works. It’s a bizarre and disjointed assembly, a mix of classical and modern art, and Yagyuu turns to Niou with some confusion.
“Niou-kun, what was the name of this exhibition?” he asks as Niou edges past him and up to the first picture, hands buried in the pockets of his trousers.
“‘Fakes and Frauds,’” Niou offers with a grin, addressing the piece rather than his companion. “It’s a collection of the best forgeries the art world has to offer.” Yagyuu watches his eyes move up and down the canvas. There’s an intense deliberation as he examines even the gilt frame of the work with a discriminating eye.
“They’re all forgeries?” Niou dips his head to one side and gestures broadly with his right arm, sweeping the room. Yes, each one is a fake, a copy, and a deception.
When Niou offers no further commentary, instead beginning to move from work to work, Yagyuu backtracks to the entrance of the exhibit and seeks out the plaque poised there to inform spectators. He adjusts his glasses and steps up to the solid black podium, scanning the text. The collection belongs to a Belgian couple, and by the cropped photo in the upper left corner, they look on the wealthy side of normal. The majority of the text is consumed by an italicized quote from the husband.
The art of forgery deserves the same recognition and respect afforded to the creative arts. Indeed, a talented forger may be more adept than even the most promising artist.
“Whatcha think?” Niou calls to him from across the gallery, still scrutinizing the paintings. His back is turned to Yagyuu.
“I haven’t examined any of the works yet,” he responds, prompting a head shake and a shrug from his partner. Niou turns on his heel and saunters over to the plaque, his shoes shuffling noisily against the tile floor.
“Not about the art.” He drapes one arm across the square black top of the podium, and runs his fingers across the Belgian man’s words. “About this.”
In the two months that Yagyuu has been playing tennis with Niou, he has learned that, though he largely leaves them unspoken, Niou has intent and motive in every comment and question. Yagyuu can almost hear the gears starting up in Niou’s brain, already processing his body language even as he collects his thoughts.
“I am not sure that I can really agree with the idea that originals and forgeries should be regarded as being of equal significance,” he says finally. It’s a careful answer, non-committal but not without intention, the kind that really tend to spark Niou’s interest. Niou isn’t the only one who enjoys picking another person’s brain.
Niou taps his long fingers on the quote a few times, nodding slightly as though he’s considering how best to respond to Yagyuu’s comment.
“I can see that,” he says thoughtfully, eyes sly and bright. “The original and the copy are definitely not equal, and they shouldn’t be seen as such.” He rights himself and rolls his shoulders back, stuffing his hand back into his trouser pockets and motioning for Yagyuu to follow him.
They cross the gallery to the Monet forgery, hanging in a gilt wooden frame on its own free-standing wall. It has been given an unusual amount of presentation, Yagyuu thinks, considering what it is. The decorative frame and the commanding presence of the white wall are more deserving of what the picture is supposed to be.
Niou leans back against the wall beside the forgery, and eyes Yagyuu as though he himself is part of the exhibit.
“Tell me what you see,” he prompts. Yagyuu looks first at Niou and then at the painting.
“It’s a Monet, from the water lilies series.” Then he adds, “a copy, that is.” In actuality, Yagyuu doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be seeing, and he’s sure that Niou knows this. His obvious comments are meant to let Niou play his game. In response, Niou motions with his thumb and forefinger: Yayguu should take a closer look. So he does.
Whatever Niou expects Yagyuu to see isn’t overtly apparent. The brush strokes and the swirls of pigment in the paint look very real, and even though Yagyuu has always thought of himself as having a discriminating eye, he realizes that, if it hadn’t already been identified as a fraud, Yagyuu would have assumed it to be the real thing. This painting could have tricked him and he wouldn’t have even known it.
“What am I looking for?” Yagyuu tries. Niou cocks his head to one side and rubs his chin with his fingers, contemplative.
“A comparison would help,” Niou says, pushing off from the wall and sidling up next to Yagyuu. His right arm pops up and he rests his elbow across Yagyuu’s shoulder as he fishes his cell phone from his pocket and flips it open. Yagyuu glances over his free shoulder towards the exhibit entrance, where the bored security guard is paying no heed to the beeps as Niou scrolls through the images on his phone. It’s not that Niou doesn’t know that cell phones are not allowed in the gallery (in fact, Yagyuu is sure that he saw the signs), or even that he believes that such rules don’t apply to him; rather, what Niou takes delight in is sliding unnoticed around the system.
“Look,” Niou finally says, and he holds up the cell. It’s hard to see the full detail of Monet’s original as displayed on the screen of Niou’s phone, but Yagyuu tries. At first glance, the two paintings still appear the same, and so Yagyuu turns his head and catches Niou’s eyes. Niou makes a face full of feigned exasperation and, still leaning against Yagyuu, taps his thumb against the picture on the phone screen.
“The trick with something like this is all in the flow.” He speaks like an artist, or a docent, or a master forger; Yagyuu is prepared to believe that Niou could indeed be all of these things. “It has to look natural, because that’s how the original artist painted it. But at the same time-” and he illustrates this point with a circular wave of his phone “-the copy has to mimic those easy strokes absolutely. No room for a little smudge out of place, hmm?” The hum at the end of the sentence is to make sure that Yagyuu follows him, so Yagyuu nods and Niou continues.
“So look at the forgery-which isn’t very good, actually-and what do you see? It’s too perfect, the lines are too…” He stretches out the word as he searches for another, one that is already on the tip of Yagyuu’s tongue.
“Intentional.” At this, Niou cocks his head to one side and a lazy smirk tugs across his face approvingly.
“Really sticks out now, doesn’t it? The fake.” And it really does; Yagyuu doesn’t even have to step closer to the painting to see how rigid and deliberate the curves of each lily pad are, how apparent the deception. It brings the text from the plaque into a new context, that truthfully, a master forger must not only produce a copy, but trick the audience into believing that what is false is true. The forgery must be better at being the painting than the real thing.
Sufficiently convinced that his partner now has a complete understanding, Niou slides off of Yagyuu’s shoulder and approaches the next painting.
“You really have to hand it to the masters,” Niou comments, half-lidded eyes dissecting a sweep of cobalt on a Van Gogh knock-off. “They make it difficult to do a good imitation. But that makes the best copies all the more magnificent, don’t you think?” This is the game, Yagyuu realizes, to pick out what makes the forgery, and Niou is frighteningly good at it.
Watching his new doubles partner move through the gallery, it occurs to Yagyuu just how terrifying a fake could be on the courts. After all, a forgery deceives and disconcerts until it is discovered, and even then the ruse itself distracts from the actual piece itself. Focus shifts from the uselessly broad to the insignificantly detailed, areas to be exploited both in art and in tennis.
“Niou-kun.” Yagyuu turns from the painting and faces Niou, who cranes his neck over his shoulder quizzically. “If you are not too busy, would you be interested in stopping for a cup of coffee? There is a potential strategy for the upcoming matches that I would very much like to discuss with you.”
Such a deception would require a master forger, and Niou, with his crooked fox grin and clipped nod of agreement, is more than up to the job. Yagyuu smiles a little to himself before joining Niou at the Van Gogh. What they will do will be talked about for years as a fearsome and brilliant tactic, provided, of course, that their fake is better than the real thing.