[fic] an apology to insect life; d1, pg13
an apology to insect life
or, a story about niou, yagyuu, and a very small apartment. and a title shamelessly stolen from a british sea power song, but.
note: this is a disjointed mess. fandom is prince of tennis. concrit is welcome. thanks.
warnings: none at all, promise, except that it's long and there's references to sex and drinking and things.
i.
Niou, Yagyuu thinks, doesn't seem quite real. Niou can kick out at the world without it kicking back. He'll throw himself into the ocean knowing he can't swim and walk along high ledges without falling, and situations that'd kill anyone else just leave him a little out of breath, maybe with a new scar or two.
It’s something in the sea-bright blue of his eyes, about the electricity that flickers with every motion of his narrow fingers, about the way the wind catches at his hair.
"I’m thinking about getting a job," Niou says one day, triumphant. Light slips off the sharp angles of his face, leaving his eyes and smile dark as the cluttered corners of his room.
"Oh?" Niou never works, his lack of work is proven by a stream of stories about where he’s been and what he’s done and how he found something near-sentient growing inside the cover of a long-forgotten physics book.
"Oh." Niou nods, whole body loose as he slumps against the wall. His room’s a mess, and Yagyuu is not thinking about cleaning it. At all. "Oh, indeed."
Yagyuu doesn’t bother giving that a response.
The way the light hits Niou's face, there’s a deep wedge of shadow under his nose. "I was thinking, you know. I’d move out of my parents’ place, and we could, you know."
"No, Niou-kun."
"I mean it." Niou says, smiling. He raises his head again. The shadow all but disappears, receding into the dip above his upper lip and the circles under his eyes.
"I know." He didn’t.
"Starting pay is good enough, and I think it'd be easy to go places," which means that Niou plans on going through with it.
"Ah."
"Here. Look." Niou reaches into his back pocket, where he’s stuffed a little brochure with apartment listings. He tosses it to Yagyuu, saluting sharply when the other boy catches it.
"And these’re mine, by the by." Niou grabs Yagyuu’s glasses, pulling them off before he walks out. He’s got what might as well be an agreement out of Yagyuu, and there’s no reason to stay after that.
iia.
Niou is all flat planes and sharp angles, and his jagged hipbones cut sharp strange diagonals above his legs. He’s narrow, built thin all the way down with narrow shoulders and narrow waist and narrow hips.
Yagyuu’s a bit bigger all ‘round, and he's got two centimeters on Niou even though Niou seems the taller of the two. He’s got wide shoulders, a solid build, steady and dependable as his mind; his elbows are a sight less dangerous than Niou’s.
And, with a simple change of wardrobe - because they have to change clothes, even if it’s technically the same uniform - it’s impossible to tell them apart. Well, the hair’s an issue, but not one that can’t be fixed with a pair of scissors and a bit of squabbling over what’ll work best.
Yagyuu doesn't always see himself in the mirror.
Which is sort of interesting, really. He bleached his hair again a few days ago, so it’s that strange pale silver-blond all the way through, and his eyes have always been that impossible shade of blue. (It’s such an unusual color that Yagyuu actually takes the time to look into Niou’s family history, to make sure it doesn’t overlap with his own.)
He's staring at his-not-Niou's face in the mirror and trying to remember the differences when his phone rings. The noise is loud and jangling and makes him jangling because he's forgot that it was there. He’s never heard the ring-tone before in his life, which makes him think that Niou must have downloaded it for him at some point -
And it’s Niou calling, of course. "Yes?" he says, picking up and not trying to sound polite.
"Yeah!"
"What?"
"Let’s go somewhere."
"Where, Niou-kun?" Yagyuu closes his eyes for a moment, refusing to sigh before he heads back to his room to find a shirt.
He imagines Niou asking him out to see some obscure American play that’s only showing for two nights at a theater Yagyuu’s never heard of. Niou will laugh when Yagyuu asks what it’s about, and tell him that knowing ruins the fun. Yagyuu will ask one more time before agreeing, going and pretending that he really doesn’t like it at all (he’ll claim the actors are rubbish, the set hideous, and the stage direction misguided; he’ll love it).
"There’s this band playing tonight," Niou says through the hiss-crackle of static, and Yagyuu’s elated at how far off his guess was, "that I absolutely hate, so we’re not going to see them, right? The bassist is a fucking bastard, and I think he might want to kill me."
Yagyuu nearly laughs. Nearly, not quite. "Indeed." He ignores the phone for a moment, shrugging on a white cotton T-shirt, completely plain. That doesn’t take long, though, and he manages to catch all of what Niou says next despite himself.
"Indeed. And that is why, sir, you and I are instead going to waste our time seeing The Importance of Being Earnest together." Yagyuu feels smug for a moment before remembering that, first off, he’s heard of the play, and second, that the play is British.
"Do you have tickets?" There’s a knock at the door. Yagyuu flips his phone shut, undoes the chain and the deadbolt and and the lock so he can open the door.
"No." Niou’s grin is absolutely obnoxious.
"When’s curtain?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"… Of course." Yagyuu starts buttoning up a striped oxford he pulled from who-knows-where, nodding agreeably.
They run - or, Niou runs and Yagyuu will only admit to being dragged unceremoniously and, if asked, will claim he had no choice in the matter. The house is sold, but Niou’s lucky enough to know one of the girl’s doing lighting, and she manages (in the last three minutes before the show is due to start) to get them a spot behind the curtains at the edge of the stage.
Niou loves it, and Yagyuu spends the night thinking up reasons not to.
iib.
Yagyuu finds himself dragged along to a concert the next week, and ends up going as Niou "because your hair’s bleached anyway, so why not, it’ll be fun," which he doesn’t bother arguing with.
Niou keeps staring at Yagyuu instead of the stage (or the backs of the people in front of them) - he's always been a bit narcissistic, maybe rightfully so. He takes Yagyuu's hand at one point, like he's maybe going to lead him (his doppelganger, his shadow) somewhere; Yagyuu's only answer is to shrug.
There's too many people near the stage to get through effectively, not without pushing and being rude about it. Niou says something and is completely drowned out by the speakers, so Yagyuu-as-Niou just shrugs again, mouthing I can't hear you.
Niou grins and eventually gets Yagyuu to dance.
When the show's finally over and they've managed to get outside again, Niou asks, "What’d you think of the band?" He takes a long drag from a cigarette stolen from Yagyuu. The smoke trails upwards, a pale wraith against the dark of the building behind them.
"That show was the worst I've ever been to." That doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t like the band, just that an amp ceased to work halfway through the show and the drummer is boring and the building was too hot and the crowd was too drunk. Yagyuu might actually end up liking the band, given time and a better venue.
"Yeah, they did kind of suck." Yagyuu frowns a little at that, because Niou's not supposed to agree, and because thatt's not what he meant.
"But the bassist was quite good. And their singer’s got a voice on him," Yagyuu adds, stubborn.
Niou looks smug.
iii.
Niou is perched on the arm of the sofa, body curled in on itself, when he asks "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
After a lengthy conversation about whether or not hedgehogs are the greatest invention since sliced bread, Yagyuu’s not expecting that. "What?"
"You." He leans forward a little to stare at Yagyuu, who’s sitting properly thank you very much. "Have you gone you crazy, maybe?" Niou so rarely sounds serious that Yagyuu's caught off guard.
"Of course. I think anyone who spends any amount of time with you can’t help but go a little insane."
"You hate everything." His eyes are dark, but Yagyuu’s pretty sure that’s because neither of them bothered turning the light on earlier; he leans close enough that strands of his light-pale hair make Yagyuu’s face itch, nostrils flaring in what isn't quite distaste.
"Do I, now?" Yagyuu thinks about pushing Niou away, thinks that maybe he’ll lean away or Niou will. Neither happens. What he doesn’t think about is brushing Niou’s hair back behind the curve of an ear, doesn’t think about letting his hand fall to rest at the nape of Niou’s neck with half his fingers against bare skin and the other half in Niou’s hair.
"Mmhm." Niou lowers his head, and there’s that triangle of dark under his nose when he does, shadow covering the middle of his mouth (which is bow-shaped, skin of his lips too-red save for the chewed-at bits of dead white skin). "Everything."
"I don’t. There’s, I like plenty of things." Yagyuu’s not half as articulate as he should be, doesn’t know why. Doesn’t care as much as he should. "History. Tennis, doubles, with you. With you, or anyone, I mean. Not just you."
"No?"
"No."
"Don’t you like me, then?"
"I, no. Not like how you mean, I don’t think. So no."
"Well, then."
Niou walks out. Yagyuu doesn’t watch him go.
iv.
Niou is finally moving into his new apartment, after two months of saving up and hardly talking to Yagyuu. Yagyuu doesn’t mind; he’s got classes and a job of his own, one he’s had for years, assistant manager at a fast food place until he can get himself an internship.
He plans to quit in a year.
It’s been three weeks, two days, six hours and twenty five minutes since they last spoke, a terse conversation about the weather, and now Yagyuu’s carrying a box of books up the stairs. It's all unspoken required reading - books you don’t ever read in school but have to read anyway just because you look like an idiot if you don’t. There’s even a few untranslated novels, in English.
Niou refuses help carrying the big queen mattress, which is old and dingy and stained with what the previous owner claims is cat piss, the information offered up unsolicited and unwanted.
Niou’s got the money to pay rent now, though, on this dingy little wannabe-apartment.
Yagyuu is impressed.
The place is described in all the adverts for it as having three rooms. It turns out that it's mostly a big room with a microwave and refrigerator at one end, where they put the card table Niou steals (from his parents, since "they don’t remember this thing anyway, c’mon, it’s fine!"), and the rest of the room is wide open and rather dreary. There’s also a bathroom, which probably shouldn’t count as a room of its own since it’s so small, with just a toilet and a sink sticking out of the wall and one of those stand-up showers, the floor tile yellowed and coming up a bit in places.
Sort of off to one side, there’s an empty room big enough to serve as a bedroom. There's already an old unstrung bass guitar leaning up against the wall when they get there, and a few year-old snowboarding magazines on the floor; Niou doesn't know where they came from and Yagyuu doesn't bother asking.
"You’ve got," Yagyuu says, and Niou nods carefully. Only thing he’s done carefully today that Yagyuu can remember. "Have you been sleeping well?"
"Yeah." With a bit of a grunt, Niou gets through the door with the stupid mattress, and sort of shoves it in on its side. "There we go." Wiping his hands together a few times, he steps back, giving the thing an appreciative grin.
"Will you leave it there, do you think? I don’t believe that it would be particularly prudent to sleep on a sideways mattress, but your choices are, as always, your own." His tone is flat and level, posture straight and upright as ever. "Please do not allow me to unduly influence your actions, though." Bit more formal than usual, really, though not by much.
Niou’s got dark circles under his eyes, so Yagyuu, for no good reason he can explain, leans forward to look. "Oh, right."
There’s thick dark rings drawn under Niou’s eyes, making Niou look sort of tired. Eyelids a deep deep blue, and his eyelashes thick and dark, and Yagyuu hadn’t noticed any of it before now. He steps forward, brushes a hand against Niou’s face ‘till his thumb is resting on Niou’s cheekbone.
"Yes." Niou, eyes half-closed and dark, leans forward. His breath is warm and damp and reminds Yagyuu of summer.
For a second, Yagyuu’s willing to believe that maybe he’s shaking before he realizes it’s the whole apartment doing it, floor near humming. From somewhere outside, there’s the sound -- clak-clak-clak -- of a train rumbling past. Yagyuu guesses from the angle of the shadows in the room (there’s a surprisingly decent window off to one side) it’s got to be the 2.15 out of the nearest station, and steps back from Niou to check his watch.
It’s 2.16pm. "At least your clocks will never be off," Yagyuu says instead of So that’s how you afforded this.
"You are one crazy sonuvabitch," Niou says with a pseudo-bemused tone that would sound pretentious and stupid from anyone but them - Yagyuu’s managed that tone more than once in the past, proving that it’s not a one-of-a-kind talent.
"Mm."
"Think I’ll get cancer?"
"Wait, what?"
"From the train. Cancer. In my head, maybe?"
"You don’t - that’s cell towers, and maybe power lines. Nuclear plants. Trains have no known carcinogens."
"Nuclear plants? Like radioactive tomatoes that try to take over the city and the only hope you’ve got to get rid of them is to eat them only they keep moving and are nuclear so doing that gets you cancer and then the only other thing you can do is chop ‘em up?"
"Yes. No. No, I meant to say that- nuclear power, if you live too close to that you can probably get cancer, possibly. Maybe."
"Oh, well then. But. Trains. Cancer. What kind d’you think I’ll get?"
"You’re not going to get cancer."
"Hepatitis C, then, maybe? Scabies?"
"Trains don’t carry diseases, Niou-kun."
"Yeah, well. They are pretty promiscuous, you know."
They stare at each other for a while before Niou starts wandering around. Niou’s trying to shove the mattress into the bedroom when he asks, "So when’re you going to be bringing your stuff by?"
v.
There are a few days when Yagyuu refuses to talk to him, days that don't really count by Niou's reckoning, so that in the end it only takes about a week for Yagyuu to come ‘round. It’s when Yagyuu finally calls his mobile and says he’ll be by in an hour that Niou figures he’s won.
Yagyuu doesn’t own much beyond two shelves worth of books, some clothes, and a set of sheets for a twin bed. He's able to carry all of it up on his own.
"What’re the sheets for?" Niou asks him, perfectly cheerful as he settles back into a beaten old chair rescued from where it had been abandoned on a nearby sidewalk.
"My bed."
"You haven’t got one, have you?"
"Not yet, no." Yagyuu’s answer is relatively noncommittal; he’s mostly ignoring Niou in favor of unpacking books onto the mostly-empty shelf that’s sticking out from the wall, acting as a sort of impromptu demi-wall between the door and the rest of the room.
"You're not going to, either. Haven't got room for one." Niou's voice is a bit smug and condescending, and Yagyuu would point it out if it weren't for the near-wistful tone in Niou's voice (like he knows he could do better). If it weren't for that, Yagyuu would probably think Niou was being a prick. As it is, though, he sort of thinks that anyway.
Yagyuu sighs and puts another book on the shelf. "I will have my own bed, Niou-kun."
"Seriously, have you looked at this place, really looked at it?" At that, Yagyuu looks around but doesn’t see much of anything. It’s more to make Niou happy than anything that he does it. "No, I mean it. You look out the window and you can see the bottom of the train tracks, and all these wires and metal struts and a brick wall. Look out there. This place doesn’t need another bed."
Yagyuu doesn’t think that makes much sense, and says as much.
"And anyway, the one bed's big enough for the both of us." For once, Niou doesn't grin - he smiles.
A train goes by, and the bookshelf shudders a bit, though luckily nothing falls off. Yagyuu’s not sure he’ll be able to stand this.
"I’ve even got sheets on the it, proper sheets that fit and aren't ugly and all. Could make a wall of pillows down the middle if you wanted, if that’s your problem with it."
"It’s not."
"So what is it?"
"I can sleep on the couch," Yagyuu decides after a little while, "though the thing does look rather questionable." He's got all his books unpacked, his clothes all still in a large box in the middle of the floor.
Niou shrugs. "There’s not a lot of closet space, by the way, so you'll maybe want to find something else to do with those clothes?"
"No, Niou-kun, we are not going to set them on fire."
"But it’d be funny."
"While it might provide amusement, the neighbors would hate us and we'd probably get arrested for arson. Again. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?"
"But what about if we -"
"No. No it wouldn't, and anyway, I don't think the KGB exists anymore."
Later, Yagyuu drags the old couch back out to the curb and buys a new one he can sleep on.
vi.
Yagyuu is making breakfast when Niou finally comes back (doesn’t come home, exactly, because that’s not what this place is yet for either of them). His back is to the door as he whisks a few eggs, amused at how you can't tell anymore that one used to have a double yolk. It’s as he clicks the electric oven on, grabs their lone frying pan and some butter, that the door swings open.
Niou’s talking to someone loudly; whoever it is isn’t anywhere near so outspoken. Yagyuu doesn’t bother turning around, because this is something he really should have expected the second he even considered living with Niou.
It’s been fine up ‘till now, really, though he gets the feeling that Niou’s waiting for something.
"Masaharu!" The voice is all soft-edged and teasingly scandalized, and the way it sings the name makes Yagyuu guess Niou’s brought a girl home and that they really should have discussed the policy on this sort of thing beforehand.
"So I take it you'll be wanting the grand tour of the master bedroom, then?" Niou's voice is calm, each word sharp and precise. Yagyuu's heard that tone of voice before, twice: first from himself on the only time he ever actually got intimate with a female; the second time from Niou, who was so drunk he'd flirted with Yagyuu the entire evening.
The butter's beginning to cook off the pan. Yagyuu continues (not) to ignore them, finally pouring the eggs into the pan and turning down the heat on the stove a little.
Footsteps, Niou and the girl heading (together, and from the way their feet hit the floor and Niou's keys jingle he's probably got his arm around her waist) to the bedroom.
Yagyuu takes his eggs with him on a plastic plate when he leaves, and throws away the extras.
vii.
Yagyuu doesn't smoke. It's an awful habit, one he's vowed never to pick up because he knows too much about tar and cyanide to want to. The thought of it makes him sick.
He flicks open the lighter he just bought, taking a deep breath. A swift motion of his thumb later and flame springs forth, and he still finds himself impressed that mankind has evolved from stick-bearing bug eaters to this in less time than it took for the dinosaurs to grow wings and turn into birds. It seems absurd that such a simple race is now on top of the world.
He brings the light up to his cigarette, the end flaring up bright orange. Flicks the lighter shut again, putting it deep in a pocket where he hopes Niou won't find it (doesn't know why he's even thinking about that). Takes a deep breath.
And lets it out, coughing, holding the cigarette away from himself. He thinks that, from all the time he's spent watching Niou smoke, he should know how to do this better.
Ten minutes and another cigarette later and he's got the hang of it, though the smoke burns his throat and eyes. He supposes it could be worse; he's had enough second hand smoke over the past years that it probably doesn't matter anymore.
A boy walks over, unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Nn, help a guy out, would you?"
Yagyuu shrugs and holds out his lighter; the boy, whose hair is bleached on top and natural on bottom, doesn't take it. It takes a moment for Yagyuu to realize what's expected of him.
He gives his best Niou-grin when he finally lights it, cupping his other hand around the light as he holds it up. He thinks, they are standing closer than they really have to be. He thinks, this is why he came here anyway, isn't it, even if he didn't realize it. Not to get drunk, because he hasn't had a single drink yet.
For this. For a person he doesn't know and for a mindless time-killer, as if to say I can do this too you know even though he knows that that's stupid, that it makes him more like Niou than anyone should be.
He has no reason to prove himself like this, which makes it worse.
He never asks the boy's name, and the boy doesn't ask his, and Yagyuu's only a little disappointed that Niou's not in the apartment when they get there.
Niou is, though, back in time to see the boy giving Yagyuu head on the sofa. None of them says anything, though Yagyuu sees (watches?) Niou disappear into the bedroom before everything goes white behind his eyes.
Later, after the boy is gone (only thing left of him a phone number and a mark on Yagyuu's neck) Niou won't talk to him, which doesn't leave Yagyuu half as smug as it should.
There's been times before this when they haven't spoken. It's usually only a few days, Yagyuu distancing himself again; during high school, at one point, they stop talking to each other for nearly two years. Yagyuu can't remember what his reason (excuse) for that was anymore.
Anyway, this time seems different. The other times, it's been because of minor things, not that this isn't minor. A lot of the time it's just been because of time, and having better things to do.
This time is different. This time they're living together, and Yagyuu cooks breakfast every morning, and Niou doesn't acknowledge it.
"I," Yagyuu says finally, "suppose that I should apologize."
"What for?" Niou looks up from his magazine, which is nearly all photographs of girls in various states of (un)dress. The only good thing about it is that Niou doesn't claim he reads it for the articles.
"For offending you?"
"You didn't."
"Then for not asking your permission," Yagyuu decides.
"You don't need my permission to fuck strangers." Niou smirks. "I'm not you. I can't make you do anything."
"Ah," Yagyuu says, because it is, he realizes, true. "Ah. Well, then. I should move out."
"You should?"
"... No, probably not."
"Alright, then. It's none of my business what you do."
"Yes, it is," Yagyuu says after a moment. "It is."
"That's news to me. Do you know his name?"
"No."
"Kojirou knows yours. I told him."
"... Ah."
viii.
Niou doesn't come home for a week and a half, and Yagyuu can't help but worry. He calls Yukimura and Yanagi and Sanada, glad he's kept in contact with them even though he doesn't see any of them often. None of them know where Niou is either.
Kirihara refuses to get a phone, which means that Yagyuu has to track down his dorm room. Sanada's the only one who remembers offhand where it is that Kirihara lives - what building, what floor, what part of the hall, what room number.
"Have you seen Niou?" he asks, once Kirihara has asked him in and shooed his roommate off to a corner of the room.
"Oh, yeah, yeah." Kirihara nods. "Saw him yesterday, actually, he was kinda pissed. Like, drunk-pissed, not mad-pissed. Kept bitching about some prissy chick what betrayed him or something at whoever'd listen to him, you know, even though most of us were trying to listen to the fuckin' music and not his lame stories."
"Ah," Yagyuu says. "Where was this?"
"Oh, down at The Shelter," and it's obvious that the name deserves capital letters, "was seeing Ellegarden play, you know, they're good. He, Niou, he kinda chilled out a bit once the opening act gave up. Hung with me for a bit. Didn't say anything much after that, though, so yeah."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"What's it matter to you?"
Yagyuu can't answer that. "I," he says. "I want to know."
"Heh!" Kirihara snorts, his grin good-natured and friendly on his near-mature face. Yagyuu hasn't seen him outside of photographs for a few years, and only just now realizes that Kirihara is growing up -- has grown up, in fact. "Well. He told me he's got a place now, so I'd guess he went back wherever that is."
"I live with him," Yagyuu says simply. He doesn't think he's mentioned this to anyone other than his mother, not even Yanagi. "He didn't come home."
"Oh, oh, that's how it is then." Kirihara looks sympathetic now, the expression one Yagyuu never thought he'd see on the younger boy's face. "Sucks, man, but you two can work it out, yeah, like always? Or maybe it's, I dunno, maybe it's time for you to move on and all. Other fish in the sea and shit?"
"We're not, it's not like that. Whatever you're thinking, we're not. It's pure convenience, because we can pay the rent and have money left over. And we know each other already, which is better than the risk of an un-met roommate, really, right?"
Kirihara's roommate eyes Yagyuu from across the room. He doesn't look too pleased.
"Whatever you say, man. And - aw, fuck, you've boned him at least once, right? Or he's boned you?"
"I -- we have not." Yagyuu takes a step back, tense, eyes wide. "Akaya. Even if we had, that would be a private matter."
"You goddamn sunuvabitch," Kirihara whines, rolling his neck in a slow circle. "You just lost me ten thousand yen to Marui. Chrissake, I don't have that much to spare. Maybe I'll just lie."
"As you wish, Akaya. You don't need my permission to lie needlessly. I'm not you. I can't --" he cuts himself off, realizing what it is he's saying, and then just says, "I'll be going now."
"Hey, sure, whatever. Y'all come back now, y'hear?"
Yagyuu doesn't bother answering before leaving.
ix.
Niou finally comes home, alone, with deep shadows under his eyes. Yagyuu hardly has to look up from the book he's reading to tell that Niou is tired as anything, and stands up.
"I'll make you some tea, if you'd like," he says.
Niou looks like he's about to refuse, standing in the doorway for several over-long moments with his lips parted. Finally, he shrugs. "It's not my call."
"Yes it is."
"Is not."
"It is."
"Not."
"Is too."
"I'm surprised you didn't use a 'times infinity' there. Would've fit the way the argument was going. I mean, seriously, I'm pretty sure we're not in third grade anymore."
"Well." There's not much worth saying to that. "Would you like some tea?"
"Yup."
"Why didn't you say that in the first place?"
"Because it wasn't a question, before"
"Ah." Yagyuu doesn't admit to annoyance, nor to defeat.
"Like I've said, Yagyuu, I can't make you do anything. You do what you do of your own fucking free will, all right?" Niou looks tired, his eyebrows low and his shoulders slumped.
"Obviously."
"And that's why you're so paranoid about ever liking anything I do, right? Because you're so sure of yourself. Everything's so goddamn obvious, isn't it."
"We have different tastes, Niou-kun."
"Aw, fuck you. That was a goddamn good production of that play I took you to, and I saw you laugh. So there."
"That's mature of you."
"And you deciding to dislike everything I like, that's mature too."
"That's not what it is."
"So why is it that all through junior high and last year you liked doing stuff with me, and now you hate it?"
"People change."
"Only you haven't, at all"
"So maybe you have."
x.
Yagyuu's got to finish reading this book by the end of the week, so that's what he's been spending his time doing: sitting on the couch, drinking tea, and reading. He's got a highlighter in one hand and will, occasionally, mark off a line he thinks is particularly important; will, when it's important enough, turn down a corner of a page dog-eared so he can find it again when he needs it.
Niou's watching TV. They bought the set just last week, this huge flat-screen that Niou says he's been saving for since high school. Yagyuu's willing to believe that. Yagyuu's also willing to pay for a third of the price.
So Niou is watching their new TV, sitting on the floor with his head resting on the sofa back near Yagyuu's feet. He's put some movie on in the aging DVD player that Yagyuu once bought for 1500 yen, and Yagyuu is patiently ignoring him and the movie both. He's more than willing to ignore most things about Niou these days, anyway, even though they live together and he still makes breakfast for the both of them sometimes
"Hey," Niou says, and when Yagyuu doesn't answer, says again. "Hey, come on. What are you up to?"
"I'm getting work done. You're watching TV." Yagyuu is impatient; this is part of why he's starting on his work so early, because he expects pointless interruptions. There is nothing unusual about this.
"No, no, pay attention," Niou says. Yagyuu sighs and puts his book down, and gives Niou the sort of long-suffering look he's been giving him all week.
Niou is leaning forward, a notebook on the table. He pauses the movie now, and leans back, gesturing towards the notebook with a pencil. "You see this? You see? Now guess what I'm doing."
"I'm afraid I don't know, Niou-kun."
"Film goddamn Studies. How's that for you, huh?" Niou shows his teeth, the expression not quite a grin, his lips drawn up to show his canines and incisors. The inside of his mouth, back behind his teeth, is dark and glistening.
"And?"
"And, I'm getting work done too."
"I never said you weren't."
"It was implied."
"Was not."
"Yagyuu, if the only argument you can come up with is 'was not'? Then you've already lost. Don't even try."
"Alright, Niou-kun."
xi.
They don't talk for two days. This sort of thing is becoming more and more common, these tense stretched-out silences interrupted only by the murmur of the television and the regular clatter of the train. As it starts heading towards summer, there's also the building whirr of the cicadas and the unsteady rattle of an air conditioner upstairs somewhere.
It's Saturday morning, around eleven. Niou's just gotten up; Yagyuu always wakes up at seven, and today is no different. Today, Yagyuu spends the spare morning-hours cleaning until Niou finally emerges from the pseudo-bedroom and doesn't say good morning.
All Niou does is go to the bathroom to wash his hands and brush his teeth, reemerging later to wander to the kitchen-area. Niou doesn't bother asking if he can have the left-over scrambled eggs before taking them and making some toast. Making toast has always been an involved process for Niou, and this morning is no exception.
Yagyuu leans back a little in the apartment's loan chair, since it's not like anyone is there to notice the temporary lapse in his perfect posture, and watches Niou with half-lidded eyes.
Niou takes a slice of bread from the plastic bag that's kept on top of the refrigerator; adjusts the temperature on the toaster and waits for the too-loud ding. When the piece of toast pops up, he picks it up daintily between his middle finger and thumb and gnaws at the bottom corner of it, frowns, and puts it aside. He repeats the process with at least six more pieces of toast, letting them pile up next to the sink, scorched testament to just how useless Niou is at cooking - even with something as simple as a toaster.
"Niou," Yagyuu finally says, "we have to stop this."
"Stop what? Trying to make breakfast?"
"No. You know what I mean."
"Do I, now?" Niou shrugs, carefully turning his back to Yagyuu as he tries another stab at making toast. "I'm quite certain I don't, Hi-ro-shi."
"I hope you realize that this . . . not-talking thing simply does not work."
"No? Seems to've worked out okay so far." He pauses before adding, "Besides, we do seem to be talking now, don't we?"
"Niou," Yagyuu says, mentally counting down from ten.
"Yagyuu?" Niou says, far too chipper for his own good when the toaster finally goes off again, offering up another slightly-scorched piece of toast. "Want some breakfast?"
"You're evading the issue, Niou."
The toast gets added to the growing pile, discarded.
Niou ambles over, sitting down on the edge of the chair and grinning down at Yagyuu, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth a little. "Yagyuu," he repeats, drawling this time.
"Don't." Yagyuu looks out the side window and admires the view of the bottom of the train tracks, mentally cursing whatever deranged urban planner decided this was a good location for both an apartment building and a rail line.
"Don't what?"
"Do that."
"You're being awfully obtuse, Yagyuu-kun. I do think I might become distressed!"
"Mm." Yagyuu closes his eyes and ignores the whisper-soft feeling of Niou's breath warm against his neck, ignores the way Niou's fingers press heavy against his shoulder, ignores the fact that he's ignored this sort of thing more than once before.
What Yagyuu thinks about is this: tomorrow, he is going to have to go to work yet again. The weekend isn't close enough, and even the weekend is too busy. He's going to have to buy new dish towels, find something they can both agree on. They're out of milk again.
What Yagyuu tries not to think about is this: he's being terribly domestic. There is no reason for him to sleep on the sofa. He wants to go somewhere this weekend, somewhere he won't feel responsible for anything, somewhere he can be with Niou.
He doesn't want to fight. He's breathing too fast, a fact he realizes a second too late. Niou whispers something -- alright, later -- in his ear and Yagyuu can feel the weight of the chair shift as Niou stands, walks off.
There's the clank-click of locks being undone before the door creaks open, Niou's footsteps fading away. Yagyuu should go after him and doesn't.
Something is wrong, or at least something isn't quite right. Yagyuu is sure there's a different, though he can't say just what it is. All he knows is that it's best to be specific - that's the path to brevity, the soul of wit, the best way to keep things entertaining the way Niou does. Can't just mention "a dog;" it's got to be a golden retriever or an Irish terrier or a German shepherd.
There's no such thing as just a dog or just a favor or just a friend. Everything, everything, is far more complicated than that. Even common courtesy isn't so common anymore, and is always second-guessed.
Yagyuu leans his head back, eyes still closed, and tries not to think of anything at all.
xii.
Considering that they live together, managing to avoid each other for nearly an entire week is rather impressive; doubly so considering that they're both coming home regularly, and getting eight hours of sleep each.
So Yagyuu's really not expecting, as he sits rereading the first sentence of his textbook repeatedly, for Niou to come home and fall down on the couch with a loud fwump. If there's one good thing about Niou, it's that he's always been useful for providing strange onomotapeia.
Yagyuu's also really not expecting for Niou to yawn and declare, "Yagyuu-kun, I'm sorry, but you're just not the kind of girl that I like."
"How tragic," Yagyuu says. "And after I've tried so very hard to please you."
"I know. Sad, innit?"
"See how my eyes are all red? That is, obviously, because I've been crying over you all day. All week, even." Yagyuu's tone is bland, his expression blander. Saltine crackers would have a hard time being milder than he is. "And it's got nothing to do with allergies at all."
"Aw. This kind of thing practically merits an after-school special. An hour-plus-commercials of teen romance and moralizing and nonsense. What do you think?"
"Mm, but do you really think they'd be able to find anyone to play you?"
"'Course not. It's not as if those things are pinnacles of good acting, though."
"That is true. They could kidnap some random youth off the streets, bleach his hair and tell him to act like a prick - tah-dah, instant actor for you. Might even do a decent job of it."
"Nice to know you think so highly of me."
"You'd better not be serious," Yagyuu says after a moment, resisting the urge to rub at his temples.
"I find your lack of faith ... disturbing." Niou sounds completely serious saying that, which means he probably isn't.
"Aha."
"Let's buy a farm," Niou says suddenly. "And raise chickens and goats and things."
"We've got enough trouble paying our bills here, Niou. Do you really think a farm will help matters any?"
"Out in the country with all those wide open spaces and tumbleweeds and things you don't need TV or radio or --"
"Niou, just what part of the 'country' are you talking about?"
"America, maybe."
"Oh, of course. I should have known."
"Really!" Niou sounds exasperated, shaking his head slowly. "I'm definitely disappointed with you this time."
"We could buy buffalo," Yagyuu decides.
"Or bison."
"They're the same thing, actually."
"I don't think people would call them different names if they were the same thing," Niou opines, though this is the first and only time Yagyuu will actually think that word an appropriate adjective for actual, human speech. Niou, simply by being Niou, seems to deserve the stupid verbs that no one ever uses.
"So what are you laughing at? Have you got the plague?" Niou asks cheerfully, which elicits a solid frown from Yagyuu, who's realised that maybe laughing without explanation isn't the proper course of action.
"Of course not. No one's had the plague in years."
"Actually, there's plenty of cases of it every year, and I'm sure the train could have given it to you. Like a moving-in present, only a bit belated, right?" The train, as if on cue, chooses that moment to rumble past again.
"How kind of it." Yagyuu pauses. "We could buy cougars, then."
"Are those like leopards?"
"Not particularly, no. Cougars are much too yellow to be leopard-like."
"Leopards can be spotty." Niou's a bit indignant, maybe. "And yellow. It's that or they're all black and slinky."
"Cougars are not spotty."
"They could be, I'm sure. If they really felt like it." Niou's making the sort of expression he only ever makes when he's trying very hard not to pout - this sort of smirky grimace, that ultimately ends up looking odder than a proper pout would.
"Well, they're not."
"Are pumas?"
"Pumas are the same thing, and thus aren't at all spotty."
Niou wrinkles his nose in disgust, shaking his head a few times like he's just got his face shoved into a box of half-rotten chicken and is trying to forget the smell. "Americans," he says disdainfully. "They've got too many names for things."
"Have you ever heard of a synonym, Niou?"
"Yeah, but that's a bit different, isn't it, than just another name for something. A synonym's never just the same thing."
"... You know, actually, I'm fairly sure that mountain lion is another name for a cougar too."
"Oh, that's brilliant then."
"Isn't it, though?" Yagyuu looks almost smug. "It's not exactly my fault, though, now is it?"
"Sure it is."
"How?"
"Because."
"Because what?"
"Because it's your fault."
"Like the black plague? And the goat?"
"I thought we agreed that thing with the goat wasn't anybody's fault. Are you saying it's yours?"
"Of course not."
"That's awfully suspicious, though, bringing that up again. Don't you think?" Niou asks, turning his head to the right like he's addressing someone else entirely.
"Who are you talking to?"
"No one."
"Ah. Not even me?"
"Maybe. Maybe not."
xiii.
It's Saturday and Yagyuu is making lunch for himself, a sandwich and some pre-packaged ramen. Niou, oblivious, is rooting around in a cupboard looking for god-knows-what when his arm brushes against Yagyuu's.
Yagyuu freezes.
They stare at each other, unmoving until Niou grins and brandishes a butter knife.
"Found it!" A pause. "I'm going to steal this."
"From yourself?"
"Yes."
xiv.
On Saturday evening, Yagyuu gets talked into a party and Niou gets drunk and Yagyuu ends up having to keep track of him. Niou's spent half the time trying to talk to one girl; her dark hair is cropped close and short, her skirt's just short enough to look cute and just long enough to still be modest.
The girl, whose name may or may not be Ami, has white socks and black patent leather shoes. Her bag is small, too small to really carry much of anything useful (other than nailclippers, a little money, a derringer). Her wrists are dainty, her fingers short and blunt; when she smiles, her pale eyes squint closed.
Maybe-Ami is quiet and polite and obviously completely oblivious as to how to deal with Niou. Particularly drunken Niou, who's just that much more difficult than usual and keeps brandishing his teacup full of gin like it's a weapon of mass destruction.
"Your eyes," he's telling her earnestly, standing slouched with nearly his whole body arced towards her, "are like a sheep's. They're brown and round and really very pretty, and I can tell you don't like to make trouble, right? D'you let sheepdogs chase you around and herd you into pens?"
"Uhm," she says, frowning at him. This is one of the few things she's managed to say thus far.
"Alright, maybe not like a sheep's eyes. How about like the water out in the harbor? That's brown, too, and water's more poetic than sheep, right? Only sheep are at least pastoral and gentle and such. Water out in the harbor's all brown and full of dead fish. Dead fish and chemicals and maybe some drowned yakuza, if you listen to what the movies say, I don't know. Do they do that sort of thing, the yakuza? Throw people into the harbor? Seems a good way to get rid of someone, to me. After the fish've nibbled at them a bit you can't figure out who they are anymore, and they get all bloated up and nasty anyway. Good way to camoflauge things."
Niou pauses, giving his teacup the sort of long, thoughtful look that only drunks trying to look sober ever give to inanimate objects. "Yeah, that's it. Your eyes are like the water out in the harbor, all brown and deep enough to hide dead people in."
"Why," Might-Be-Ami says, "that's very. I don't think I've heard anyone describe my eyes quite like that, Niou-san. I don't know if I should be flattered at your creativity or horrified at ... well, that's not, well. It's different."
Yagyuu (who's been a step away, calmly trying to convince a young boy that no, there are no spiders, and that no, the spiders are not going to eat through anyone's clothes) decides that he should maybe step in at that point. "Excuse me," he says, nodding politely.
"Oh," Niou says, "lookit this. Do you know who this is?" he asks the girl, with a wide smile.
"No." She doesn't sound particularly enthused.
"This is Yagyuu Hiroshi, craziest sunuvabitch on this side of the Pacific. You know," and now he lowers his voice conspiratorially, "he once --"
"That's quite alright, Niou-kun. You do not need to inform her of the reasons for our arrest." Niou laughs, so Yagyuu offers the girl the blandest look he can manage when she stares at the both of them, looking vaguely horrified. "I assure you, Miss, that it's nothing to worry about. I was merely wondering if my friend was bothering you."
"Of course not," she says, for the sake of politeness; Yagyuu takes that as a cue to grab Niou by the arm and pull him away from her. A bit excessive, maybe, but it does the trick and entertains Niou in the process.
Why he still bothers trying to keep Niou entertained is beyond him. It shouldn't be among the things important to him; Niou's tried his patience enough times that he should, by rights, hate him by now. And the fact that Yagyuu's got to rescue girls from Niou shouldn't be funny anymore (though this is only the second time he's had to do it; he hopes that that's where the charm of it comes from).
"Let's go," Yagyuu says quietly, voice low so only Niou can hear. "You shouldn't drink any more tonight."
"I should've stopped half an hour ago," Niou answers, too-slow and too-loud, grinning.
Niou can't walk anything resembling a straight line. Yagyuu sighs, and puts an arm around Niou's waist. "We're going home," he says patiently.
"Oho." Niou leers, then, leaning heavily against Yagyuu as he announces to the whole room that "I've got the best friend in, in Japan, the whole world maybe, and he's going to take me home now, right?"
Niou slings an arm around Yagyuu's shoulder an limps alongside him like a casualty of war. A few people stare sidelong at the two of them on the way out but they are otherwise (thankfully) ignored. They take a cab home, instead of the subway; Niou sleeps through the ride, sprawling over most of the back seat, head heavy on Yagyuu's shoulder.
Yagyuu manages to pull him out of the cab and carry him halfway up the stairs before Niou actually wakes up, looking confused for a moment before throwing his arms around Yagyuu's neck.
"Hiroshi, you. You're so romantic." Niou's breath smells like cheap liquor, a bit musty and stale and generally bad.
"Mmhm," Yagyuu says agreeably, "and you're still drunk."
"Well, yes, probably."
"Not probably."
"Alright, alright. Definitely. At least I'm not, not, uh. High. On crack. That would be worse, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, yes it would, and I would kindly request that you stay off of the harder drugs, Niou-kun."
"Would you still love me if I quit?" Niou's giggling a bit, which would make Yagyuu nervous under other circumstances.
"You haven't started in the first place, have you?" Yagyuu frowns at the door.
"Of course not. Here, c'mon, I can walk, I think. Yeah, there we go, thanks. But if I had, then I'd quit the drugs just for you." Niou is at least able to stand, which is a relief while Yagyuu is trying to unlock the door.
"'N then we could get married and have 1.5 children and a white picket fence." Niou's claim of being able to walk turns out to be less than true, and he ends up meandering his way to the sofa. Sitting down isn't as easy as it should be, either, and Niou ends up tripping over something and collapsing onto the sofa, sinking into it like spilled coffee and laughing at himself.
"How do you propose we get that half a child?"
"Oh, we just have to find one that's broken, and it'll never fully belong to us 'coz there's that missing bit."
Yagyuu doesn't know what to say to that, so all he does is sit on the arm of the sofa furthest from where Niou lays fallen and watches a silverfish make its crooked stop-and-go way across the floor. He considers taking a shoe off and smashing it but doesn't.
"Hey," Niou says, voice pitched a little low, "what'cha looking at?"
Yagyuu slides to the ground, dropping to a crouch on the floor. Quick, quick enough to catch the thing, he grabs the silverfish - holds it in his hand and watches it try to crawl up his arm. He nudges it back into his palm and takes it over, shows it to Niou. Niou, who's been watching the whole thing a bit dimly.
It takes a moment for Niou to notice Yagyuu's outstretched hand and the flash of quicksilver darting over it, up across Yagyuu's palm to the end of a finger. "This," Yagyuu finally says.
Niou blinks, staring for a moment before he says "oh, alright," and reaches out to crush the thing between his thumb and forefinger. For a moment it seems like he doesn't know what he's done, staring blankly until he lets out a sudden bark of laughter. The sound echoes strangely.
"What the hell ...?"
"Squish," Niou declares, laughing again. He looks down, slowly, and is about to wipe the wet grey remains on the couch before Yagyuu grabs his wrist.
"No," Yagyuu says, pulling a Kleenex out of the box on the table, wiping Niou's hand clean, slow and careful about it. He holds onto Niou's hand longer than he should, examining the bony joints of Niou's wrist, running his thumb down along Niou's life line. Niou just grins at him, dull-eyed and lazy. Yagyuu sighs.
"I," Niou declares, "think I am going to vomit. Would you care to - to - escort me to the bathroom, m'dear Yagyuu?"
"Not particularly, no," Yagyuu says, but he helps Niou to his feet, and ends up holding back Niou's hair and wiping off his face.
Niou, blessedly, does not have a hangover the next day.
xv.
They're watching TV together, something they don't do often. Lately they've either not seen each other for days on end, or gone out together every night for weeks. The both of them being at home and tired isn't unusual; both of them being at home and awake is.
Niou lights up a cigarette, taking a long drag from it and letting the smoke rise from his mouth, like a ghost, like his spirit escaping. Yagyuu nearly complains, nearly reminds Niou that they're not allowed to smoke inside (too much wood in the building, it could catch on fire, they could die); he doesn't, though, and instead he holds out a hand.
Niou laughs, and laughs again when Yagyuu coughs
They end up passing the cigarette back and forth for the next few minutes until there's not enough left of it, and then Niou leans over to rest his head on Yagyuu's shoulder. Yagyuu is about to turn and ask him something when he does this, and ends up with his face buried in Niou's hair. It smells like smoke and cheap 2-in-1 shampoo conditioner Niou buys at the convenience store across the street.
Yagyuu feels very cold, and Niou is very warm. The light from the window has a strange cast to it, turning everything blue and soft-edged.
It doesn't take much movement at all for Yagyuu to press his lips against Niou's temple, the tip of his nose, very lightly against his mouth; so little effort that Yagyuu can't see why he hasn't done this before.
And then Niou reminds him, cheerfully saying, "You know, this'd be really hilarious if we switched right now," and it's all Yagyuu can do not to take a swing at him.
or, a story about niou, yagyuu, and a very small apartment. and a title shamelessly stolen from a british sea power song, but.
note: this is a disjointed mess. fandom is prince of tennis. concrit is welcome. thanks.
warnings: none at all, promise, except that it's long and there's references to sex and drinking and things.
i.
Niou, Yagyuu thinks, doesn't seem quite real. Niou can kick out at the world without it kicking back. He'll throw himself into the ocean knowing he can't swim and walk along high ledges without falling, and situations that'd kill anyone else just leave him a little out of breath, maybe with a new scar or two.
It’s something in the sea-bright blue of his eyes, about the electricity that flickers with every motion of his narrow fingers, about the way the wind catches at his hair.
"I’m thinking about getting a job," Niou says one day, triumphant. Light slips off the sharp angles of his face, leaving his eyes and smile dark as the cluttered corners of his room.
"Oh?" Niou never works, his lack of work is proven by a stream of stories about where he’s been and what he’s done and how he found something near-sentient growing inside the cover of a long-forgotten physics book.
"Oh." Niou nods, whole body loose as he slumps against the wall. His room’s a mess, and Yagyuu is not thinking about cleaning it. At all. "Oh, indeed."
Yagyuu doesn’t bother giving that a response.
The way the light hits Niou's face, there’s a deep wedge of shadow under his nose. "I was thinking, you know. I’d move out of my parents’ place, and we could, you know."
"No, Niou-kun."
"I mean it." Niou says, smiling. He raises his head again. The shadow all but disappears, receding into the dip above his upper lip and the circles under his eyes.
"I know." He didn’t.
"Starting pay is good enough, and I think it'd be easy to go places," which means that Niou plans on going through with it.
"Ah."
"Here. Look." Niou reaches into his back pocket, where he’s stuffed a little brochure with apartment listings. He tosses it to Yagyuu, saluting sharply when the other boy catches it.
"And these’re mine, by the by." Niou grabs Yagyuu’s glasses, pulling them off before he walks out. He’s got what might as well be an agreement out of Yagyuu, and there’s no reason to stay after that.
iia.
Niou is all flat planes and sharp angles, and his jagged hipbones cut sharp strange diagonals above his legs. He’s narrow, built thin all the way down with narrow shoulders and narrow waist and narrow hips.
Yagyuu’s a bit bigger all ‘round, and he's got two centimeters on Niou even though Niou seems the taller of the two. He’s got wide shoulders, a solid build, steady and dependable as his mind; his elbows are a sight less dangerous than Niou’s.
And, with a simple change of wardrobe - because they have to change clothes, even if it’s technically the same uniform - it’s impossible to tell them apart. Well, the hair’s an issue, but not one that can’t be fixed with a pair of scissors and a bit of squabbling over what’ll work best.
Yagyuu doesn't always see himself in the mirror.
Which is sort of interesting, really. He bleached his hair again a few days ago, so it’s that strange pale silver-blond all the way through, and his eyes have always been that impossible shade of blue. (It’s such an unusual color that Yagyuu actually takes the time to look into Niou’s family history, to make sure it doesn’t overlap with his own.)
He's staring at his-not-Niou's face in the mirror and trying to remember the differences when his phone rings. The noise is loud and jangling and makes him jangling because he's forgot that it was there. He’s never heard the ring-tone before in his life, which makes him think that Niou must have downloaded it for him at some point -
And it’s Niou calling, of course. "Yes?" he says, picking up and not trying to sound polite.
"Yeah!"
"What?"
"Let’s go somewhere."
"Where, Niou-kun?" Yagyuu closes his eyes for a moment, refusing to sigh before he heads back to his room to find a shirt.
He imagines Niou asking him out to see some obscure American play that’s only showing for two nights at a theater Yagyuu’s never heard of. Niou will laugh when Yagyuu asks what it’s about, and tell him that knowing ruins the fun. Yagyuu will ask one more time before agreeing, going and pretending that he really doesn’t like it at all (he’ll claim the actors are rubbish, the set hideous, and the stage direction misguided; he’ll love it).
"There’s this band playing tonight," Niou says through the hiss-crackle of static, and Yagyuu’s elated at how far off his guess was, "that I absolutely hate, so we’re not going to see them, right? The bassist is a fucking bastard, and I think he might want to kill me."
Yagyuu nearly laughs. Nearly, not quite. "Indeed." He ignores the phone for a moment, shrugging on a white cotton T-shirt, completely plain. That doesn’t take long, though, and he manages to catch all of what Niou says next despite himself.
"Indeed. And that is why, sir, you and I are instead going to waste our time seeing The Importance of Being Earnest together." Yagyuu feels smug for a moment before remembering that, first off, he’s heard of the play, and second, that the play is British.
"Do you have tickets?" There’s a knock at the door. Yagyuu flips his phone shut, undoes the chain and the deadbolt and and the lock so he can open the door.
"No." Niou’s grin is absolutely obnoxious.
"When’s curtain?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"… Of course." Yagyuu starts buttoning up a striped oxford he pulled from who-knows-where, nodding agreeably.
They run - or, Niou runs and Yagyuu will only admit to being dragged unceremoniously and, if asked, will claim he had no choice in the matter. The house is sold, but Niou’s lucky enough to know one of the girl’s doing lighting, and she manages (in the last three minutes before the show is due to start) to get them a spot behind the curtains at the edge of the stage.
Niou loves it, and Yagyuu spends the night thinking up reasons not to.
iib.
Yagyuu finds himself dragged along to a concert the next week, and ends up going as Niou "because your hair’s bleached anyway, so why not, it’ll be fun," which he doesn’t bother arguing with.
Niou keeps staring at Yagyuu instead of the stage (or the backs of the people in front of them) - he's always been a bit narcissistic, maybe rightfully so. He takes Yagyuu's hand at one point, like he's maybe going to lead him (his doppelganger, his shadow) somewhere; Yagyuu's only answer is to shrug.
There's too many people near the stage to get through effectively, not without pushing and being rude about it. Niou says something and is completely drowned out by the speakers, so Yagyuu-as-Niou just shrugs again, mouthing I can't hear you.
Niou grins and eventually gets Yagyuu to dance.
When the show's finally over and they've managed to get outside again, Niou asks, "What’d you think of the band?" He takes a long drag from a cigarette stolen from Yagyuu. The smoke trails upwards, a pale wraith against the dark of the building behind them.
"That show was the worst I've ever been to." That doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t like the band, just that an amp ceased to work halfway through the show and the drummer is boring and the building was too hot and the crowd was too drunk. Yagyuu might actually end up liking the band, given time and a better venue.
"Yeah, they did kind of suck." Yagyuu frowns a little at that, because Niou's not supposed to agree, and because thatt's not what he meant.
"But the bassist was quite good. And their singer’s got a voice on him," Yagyuu adds, stubborn.
Niou looks smug.
iii.
Niou is perched on the arm of the sofa, body curled in on itself, when he asks "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
After a lengthy conversation about whether or not hedgehogs are the greatest invention since sliced bread, Yagyuu’s not expecting that. "What?"
"You." He leans forward a little to stare at Yagyuu, who’s sitting properly thank you very much. "Have you gone you crazy, maybe?" Niou so rarely sounds serious that Yagyuu's caught off guard.
"Of course. I think anyone who spends any amount of time with you can’t help but go a little insane."
"You hate everything." His eyes are dark, but Yagyuu’s pretty sure that’s because neither of them bothered turning the light on earlier; he leans close enough that strands of his light-pale hair make Yagyuu’s face itch, nostrils flaring in what isn't quite distaste.
"Do I, now?" Yagyuu thinks about pushing Niou away, thinks that maybe he’ll lean away or Niou will. Neither happens. What he doesn’t think about is brushing Niou’s hair back behind the curve of an ear, doesn’t think about letting his hand fall to rest at the nape of Niou’s neck with half his fingers against bare skin and the other half in Niou’s hair.
"Mmhm." Niou lowers his head, and there’s that triangle of dark under his nose when he does, shadow covering the middle of his mouth (which is bow-shaped, skin of his lips too-red save for the chewed-at bits of dead white skin). "Everything."
"I don’t. There’s, I like plenty of things." Yagyuu’s not half as articulate as he should be, doesn’t know why. Doesn’t care as much as he should. "History. Tennis, doubles, with you. With you, or anyone, I mean. Not just you."
"No?"
"No."
"Don’t you like me, then?"
"I, no. Not like how you mean, I don’t think. So no."
"Well, then."
Niou walks out. Yagyuu doesn’t watch him go.
iv.
Niou is finally moving into his new apartment, after two months of saving up and hardly talking to Yagyuu. Yagyuu doesn’t mind; he’s got classes and a job of his own, one he’s had for years, assistant manager at a fast food place until he can get himself an internship.
He plans to quit in a year.
It’s been three weeks, two days, six hours and twenty five minutes since they last spoke, a terse conversation about the weather, and now Yagyuu’s carrying a box of books up the stairs. It's all unspoken required reading - books you don’t ever read in school but have to read anyway just because you look like an idiot if you don’t. There’s even a few untranslated novels, in English.
Niou refuses help carrying the big queen mattress, which is old and dingy and stained with what the previous owner claims is cat piss, the information offered up unsolicited and unwanted.
Niou’s got the money to pay rent now, though, on this dingy little wannabe-apartment.
Yagyuu is impressed.
The place is described in all the adverts for it as having three rooms. It turns out that it's mostly a big room with a microwave and refrigerator at one end, where they put the card table Niou steals (from his parents, since "they don’t remember this thing anyway, c’mon, it’s fine!"), and the rest of the room is wide open and rather dreary. There’s also a bathroom, which probably shouldn’t count as a room of its own since it’s so small, with just a toilet and a sink sticking out of the wall and one of those stand-up showers, the floor tile yellowed and coming up a bit in places.
Sort of off to one side, there’s an empty room big enough to serve as a bedroom. There's already an old unstrung bass guitar leaning up against the wall when they get there, and a few year-old snowboarding magazines on the floor; Niou doesn't know where they came from and Yagyuu doesn't bother asking.
"You’ve got," Yagyuu says, and Niou nods carefully. Only thing he’s done carefully today that Yagyuu can remember. "Have you been sleeping well?"
"Yeah." With a bit of a grunt, Niou gets through the door with the stupid mattress, and sort of shoves it in on its side. "There we go." Wiping his hands together a few times, he steps back, giving the thing an appreciative grin.
"Will you leave it there, do you think? I don’t believe that it would be particularly prudent to sleep on a sideways mattress, but your choices are, as always, your own." His tone is flat and level, posture straight and upright as ever. "Please do not allow me to unduly influence your actions, though." Bit more formal than usual, really, though not by much.
Niou’s got dark circles under his eyes, so Yagyuu, for no good reason he can explain, leans forward to look. "Oh, right."
There’s thick dark rings drawn under Niou’s eyes, making Niou look sort of tired. Eyelids a deep deep blue, and his eyelashes thick and dark, and Yagyuu hadn’t noticed any of it before now. He steps forward, brushes a hand against Niou’s face ‘till his thumb is resting on Niou’s cheekbone.
"Yes." Niou, eyes half-closed and dark, leans forward. His breath is warm and damp and reminds Yagyuu of summer.
For a second, Yagyuu’s willing to believe that maybe he’s shaking before he realizes it’s the whole apartment doing it, floor near humming. From somewhere outside, there’s the sound -- clak-clak-clak -- of a train rumbling past. Yagyuu guesses from the angle of the shadows in the room (there’s a surprisingly decent window off to one side) it’s got to be the 2.15 out of the nearest station, and steps back from Niou to check his watch.
It’s 2.16pm. "At least your clocks will never be off," Yagyuu says instead of So that’s how you afforded this.
"You are one crazy sonuvabitch," Niou says with a pseudo-bemused tone that would sound pretentious and stupid from anyone but them - Yagyuu’s managed that tone more than once in the past, proving that it’s not a one-of-a-kind talent.
"Mm."
"Think I’ll get cancer?"
"Wait, what?"
"From the train. Cancer. In my head, maybe?"
"You don’t - that’s cell towers, and maybe power lines. Nuclear plants. Trains have no known carcinogens."
"Nuclear plants? Like radioactive tomatoes that try to take over the city and the only hope you’ve got to get rid of them is to eat them only they keep moving and are nuclear so doing that gets you cancer and then the only other thing you can do is chop ‘em up?"
"Yes. No. No, I meant to say that- nuclear power, if you live too close to that you can probably get cancer, possibly. Maybe."
"Oh, well then. But. Trains. Cancer. What kind d’you think I’ll get?"
"You’re not going to get cancer."
"Hepatitis C, then, maybe? Scabies?"
"Trains don’t carry diseases, Niou-kun."
"Yeah, well. They are pretty promiscuous, you know."
They stare at each other for a while before Niou starts wandering around. Niou’s trying to shove the mattress into the bedroom when he asks, "So when’re you going to be bringing your stuff by?"
v.
There are a few days when Yagyuu refuses to talk to him, days that don't really count by Niou's reckoning, so that in the end it only takes about a week for Yagyuu to come ‘round. It’s when Yagyuu finally calls his mobile and says he’ll be by in an hour that Niou figures he’s won.
Yagyuu doesn’t own much beyond two shelves worth of books, some clothes, and a set of sheets for a twin bed. He's able to carry all of it up on his own.
"What’re the sheets for?" Niou asks him, perfectly cheerful as he settles back into a beaten old chair rescued from where it had been abandoned on a nearby sidewalk.
"My bed."
"You haven’t got one, have you?"
"Not yet, no." Yagyuu’s answer is relatively noncommittal; he’s mostly ignoring Niou in favor of unpacking books onto the mostly-empty shelf that’s sticking out from the wall, acting as a sort of impromptu demi-wall between the door and the rest of the room.
"You're not going to, either. Haven't got room for one." Niou's voice is a bit smug and condescending, and Yagyuu would point it out if it weren't for the near-wistful tone in Niou's voice (like he knows he could do better). If it weren't for that, Yagyuu would probably think Niou was being a prick. As it is, though, he sort of thinks that anyway.
Yagyuu sighs and puts another book on the shelf. "I will have my own bed, Niou-kun."
"Seriously, have you looked at this place, really looked at it?" At that, Yagyuu looks around but doesn’t see much of anything. It’s more to make Niou happy than anything that he does it. "No, I mean it. You look out the window and you can see the bottom of the train tracks, and all these wires and metal struts and a brick wall. Look out there. This place doesn’t need another bed."
Yagyuu doesn’t think that makes much sense, and says as much.
"And anyway, the one bed's big enough for the both of us." For once, Niou doesn't grin - he smiles.
A train goes by, and the bookshelf shudders a bit, though luckily nothing falls off. Yagyuu’s not sure he’ll be able to stand this.
"I’ve even got sheets on the it, proper sheets that fit and aren't ugly and all. Could make a wall of pillows down the middle if you wanted, if that’s your problem with it."
"It’s not."
"So what is it?"
"I can sleep on the couch," Yagyuu decides after a little while, "though the thing does look rather questionable." He's got all his books unpacked, his clothes all still in a large box in the middle of the floor.
Niou shrugs. "There’s not a lot of closet space, by the way, so you'll maybe want to find something else to do with those clothes?"
"No, Niou-kun, we are not going to set them on fire."
"But it’d be funny."
"While it might provide amusement, the neighbors would hate us and we'd probably get arrested for arson. Again. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?"
"But what about if we -"
"No. No it wouldn't, and anyway, I don't think the KGB exists anymore."
Later, Yagyuu drags the old couch back out to the curb and buys a new one he can sleep on.
vi.
Yagyuu is making breakfast when Niou finally comes back (doesn’t come home, exactly, because that’s not what this place is yet for either of them). His back is to the door as he whisks a few eggs, amused at how you can't tell anymore that one used to have a double yolk. It’s as he clicks the electric oven on, grabs their lone frying pan and some butter, that the door swings open.
Niou’s talking to someone loudly; whoever it is isn’t anywhere near so outspoken. Yagyuu doesn’t bother turning around, because this is something he really should have expected the second he even considered living with Niou.
It’s been fine up ‘till now, really, though he gets the feeling that Niou’s waiting for something.
"Masaharu!" The voice is all soft-edged and teasingly scandalized, and the way it sings the name makes Yagyuu guess Niou’s brought a girl home and that they really should have discussed the policy on this sort of thing beforehand.
"So I take it you'll be wanting the grand tour of the master bedroom, then?" Niou's voice is calm, each word sharp and precise. Yagyuu's heard that tone of voice before, twice: first from himself on the only time he ever actually got intimate with a female; the second time from Niou, who was so drunk he'd flirted with Yagyuu the entire evening.
The butter's beginning to cook off the pan. Yagyuu continues (not) to ignore them, finally pouring the eggs into the pan and turning down the heat on the stove a little.
Footsteps, Niou and the girl heading (together, and from the way their feet hit the floor and Niou's keys jingle he's probably got his arm around her waist) to the bedroom.
Yagyuu takes his eggs with him on a plastic plate when he leaves, and throws away the extras.
vii.
Yagyuu doesn't smoke. It's an awful habit, one he's vowed never to pick up because he knows too much about tar and cyanide to want to. The thought of it makes him sick.
He flicks open the lighter he just bought, taking a deep breath. A swift motion of his thumb later and flame springs forth, and he still finds himself impressed that mankind has evolved from stick-bearing bug eaters to this in less time than it took for the dinosaurs to grow wings and turn into birds. It seems absurd that such a simple race is now on top of the world.
He brings the light up to his cigarette, the end flaring up bright orange. Flicks the lighter shut again, putting it deep in a pocket where he hopes Niou won't find it (doesn't know why he's even thinking about that). Takes a deep breath.
And lets it out, coughing, holding the cigarette away from himself. He thinks that, from all the time he's spent watching Niou smoke, he should know how to do this better.
Ten minutes and another cigarette later and he's got the hang of it, though the smoke burns his throat and eyes. He supposes it could be worse; he's had enough second hand smoke over the past years that it probably doesn't matter anymore.
A boy walks over, unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Nn, help a guy out, would you?"
Yagyuu shrugs and holds out his lighter; the boy, whose hair is bleached on top and natural on bottom, doesn't take it. It takes a moment for Yagyuu to realize what's expected of him.
He gives his best Niou-grin when he finally lights it, cupping his other hand around the light as he holds it up. He thinks, they are standing closer than they really have to be. He thinks, this is why he came here anyway, isn't it, even if he didn't realize it. Not to get drunk, because he hasn't had a single drink yet.
For this. For a person he doesn't know and for a mindless time-killer, as if to say I can do this too you know even though he knows that that's stupid, that it makes him more like Niou than anyone should be.
He has no reason to prove himself like this, which makes it worse.
He never asks the boy's name, and the boy doesn't ask his, and Yagyuu's only a little disappointed that Niou's not in the apartment when they get there.
Niou is, though, back in time to see the boy giving Yagyuu head on the sofa. None of them says anything, though Yagyuu sees (watches?) Niou disappear into the bedroom before everything goes white behind his eyes.
Later, after the boy is gone (only thing left of him a phone number and a mark on Yagyuu's neck) Niou won't talk to him, which doesn't leave Yagyuu half as smug as it should.
There's been times before this when they haven't spoken. It's usually only a few days, Yagyuu distancing himself again; during high school, at one point, they stop talking to each other for nearly two years. Yagyuu can't remember what his reason (excuse) for that was anymore.
Anyway, this time seems different. The other times, it's been because of minor things, not that this isn't minor. A lot of the time it's just been because of time, and having better things to do.
This time is different. This time they're living together, and Yagyuu cooks breakfast every morning, and Niou doesn't acknowledge it.
"I," Yagyuu says finally, "suppose that I should apologize."
"What for?" Niou looks up from his magazine, which is nearly all photographs of girls in various states of (un)dress. The only good thing about it is that Niou doesn't claim he reads it for the articles.
"For offending you?"
"You didn't."
"Then for not asking your permission," Yagyuu decides.
"You don't need my permission to fuck strangers." Niou smirks. "I'm not you. I can't make you do anything."
"Ah," Yagyuu says, because it is, he realizes, true. "Ah. Well, then. I should move out."
"You should?"
"... No, probably not."
"Alright, then. It's none of my business what you do."
"Yes, it is," Yagyuu says after a moment. "It is."
"That's news to me. Do you know his name?"
"No."
"Kojirou knows yours. I told him."
"... Ah."
viii.
Niou doesn't come home for a week and a half, and Yagyuu can't help but worry. He calls Yukimura and Yanagi and Sanada, glad he's kept in contact with them even though he doesn't see any of them often. None of them know where Niou is either.
Kirihara refuses to get a phone, which means that Yagyuu has to track down his dorm room. Sanada's the only one who remembers offhand where it is that Kirihara lives - what building, what floor, what part of the hall, what room number.
"Have you seen Niou?" he asks, once Kirihara has asked him in and shooed his roommate off to a corner of the room.
"Oh, yeah, yeah." Kirihara nods. "Saw him yesterday, actually, he was kinda pissed. Like, drunk-pissed, not mad-pissed. Kept bitching about some prissy chick what betrayed him or something at whoever'd listen to him, you know, even though most of us were trying to listen to the fuckin' music and not his lame stories."
"Ah," Yagyuu says. "Where was this?"
"Oh, down at The Shelter," and it's obvious that the name deserves capital letters, "was seeing Ellegarden play, you know, they're good. He, Niou, he kinda chilled out a bit once the opening act gave up. Hung with me for a bit. Didn't say anything much after that, though, so yeah."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"What's it matter to you?"
Yagyuu can't answer that. "I," he says. "I want to know."
"Heh!" Kirihara snorts, his grin good-natured and friendly on his near-mature face. Yagyuu hasn't seen him outside of photographs for a few years, and only just now realizes that Kirihara is growing up -- has grown up, in fact. "Well. He told me he's got a place now, so I'd guess he went back wherever that is."
"I live with him," Yagyuu says simply. He doesn't think he's mentioned this to anyone other than his mother, not even Yanagi. "He didn't come home."
"Oh, oh, that's how it is then." Kirihara looks sympathetic now, the expression one Yagyuu never thought he'd see on the younger boy's face. "Sucks, man, but you two can work it out, yeah, like always? Or maybe it's, I dunno, maybe it's time for you to move on and all. Other fish in the sea and shit?"
"We're not, it's not like that. Whatever you're thinking, we're not. It's pure convenience, because we can pay the rent and have money left over. And we know each other already, which is better than the risk of an un-met roommate, really, right?"
Kirihara's roommate eyes Yagyuu from across the room. He doesn't look too pleased.
"Whatever you say, man. And - aw, fuck, you've boned him at least once, right? Or he's boned you?"
"I -- we have not." Yagyuu takes a step back, tense, eyes wide. "Akaya. Even if we had, that would be a private matter."
"You goddamn sunuvabitch," Kirihara whines, rolling his neck in a slow circle. "You just lost me ten thousand yen to Marui. Chrissake, I don't have that much to spare. Maybe I'll just lie."
"As you wish, Akaya. You don't need my permission to lie needlessly. I'm not you. I can't --" he cuts himself off, realizing what it is he's saying, and then just says, "I'll be going now."
"Hey, sure, whatever. Y'all come back now, y'hear?"
Yagyuu doesn't bother answering before leaving.
ix.
Niou finally comes home, alone, with deep shadows under his eyes. Yagyuu hardly has to look up from the book he's reading to tell that Niou is tired as anything, and stands up.
"I'll make you some tea, if you'd like," he says.
Niou looks like he's about to refuse, standing in the doorway for several over-long moments with his lips parted. Finally, he shrugs. "It's not my call."
"Yes it is."
"Is not."
"It is."
"Not."
"Is too."
"I'm surprised you didn't use a 'times infinity' there. Would've fit the way the argument was going. I mean, seriously, I'm pretty sure we're not in third grade anymore."
"Well." There's not much worth saying to that. "Would you like some tea?"
"Yup."
"Why didn't you say that in the first place?"
"Because it wasn't a question, before"
"Ah." Yagyuu doesn't admit to annoyance, nor to defeat.
"Like I've said, Yagyuu, I can't make you do anything. You do what you do of your own fucking free will, all right?" Niou looks tired, his eyebrows low and his shoulders slumped.
"Obviously."
"And that's why you're so paranoid about ever liking anything I do, right? Because you're so sure of yourself. Everything's so goddamn obvious, isn't it."
"We have different tastes, Niou-kun."
"Aw, fuck you. That was a goddamn good production of that play I took you to, and I saw you laugh. So there."
"That's mature of you."
"And you deciding to dislike everything I like, that's mature too."
"That's not what it is."
"So why is it that all through junior high and last year you liked doing stuff with me, and now you hate it?"
"People change."
"Only you haven't, at all"
"So maybe you have."
x.
Yagyuu's got to finish reading this book by the end of the week, so that's what he's been spending his time doing: sitting on the couch, drinking tea, and reading. He's got a highlighter in one hand and will, occasionally, mark off a line he thinks is particularly important; will, when it's important enough, turn down a corner of a page dog-eared so he can find it again when he needs it.
Niou's watching TV. They bought the set just last week, this huge flat-screen that Niou says he's been saving for since high school. Yagyuu's willing to believe that. Yagyuu's also willing to pay for a third of the price.
So Niou is watching their new TV, sitting on the floor with his head resting on the sofa back near Yagyuu's feet. He's put some movie on in the aging DVD player that Yagyuu once bought for 1500 yen, and Yagyuu is patiently ignoring him and the movie both. He's more than willing to ignore most things about Niou these days, anyway, even though they live together and he still makes breakfast for the both of them sometimes
"Hey," Niou says, and when Yagyuu doesn't answer, says again. "Hey, come on. What are you up to?"
"I'm getting work done. You're watching TV." Yagyuu is impatient; this is part of why he's starting on his work so early, because he expects pointless interruptions. There is nothing unusual about this.
"No, no, pay attention," Niou says. Yagyuu sighs and puts his book down, and gives Niou the sort of long-suffering look he's been giving him all week.
Niou is leaning forward, a notebook on the table. He pauses the movie now, and leans back, gesturing towards the notebook with a pencil. "You see this? You see? Now guess what I'm doing."
"I'm afraid I don't know, Niou-kun."
"Film goddamn Studies. How's that for you, huh?" Niou shows his teeth, the expression not quite a grin, his lips drawn up to show his canines and incisors. The inside of his mouth, back behind his teeth, is dark and glistening.
"And?"
"And, I'm getting work done too."
"I never said you weren't."
"It was implied."
"Was not."
"Yagyuu, if the only argument you can come up with is 'was not'? Then you've already lost. Don't even try."
"Alright, Niou-kun."
xi.
They don't talk for two days. This sort of thing is becoming more and more common, these tense stretched-out silences interrupted only by the murmur of the television and the regular clatter of the train. As it starts heading towards summer, there's also the building whirr of the cicadas and the unsteady rattle of an air conditioner upstairs somewhere.
It's Saturday morning, around eleven. Niou's just gotten up; Yagyuu always wakes up at seven, and today is no different. Today, Yagyuu spends the spare morning-hours cleaning until Niou finally emerges from the pseudo-bedroom and doesn't say good morning.
All Niou does is go to the bathroom to wash his hands and brush his teeth, reemerging later to wander to the kitchen-area. Niou doesn't bother asking if he can have the left-over scrambled eggs before taking them and making some toast. Making toast has always been an involved process for Niou, and this morning is no exception.
Yagyuu leans back a little in the apartment's loan chair, since it's not like anyone is there to notice the temporary lapse in his perfect posture, and watches Niou with half-lidded eyes.
Niou takes a slice of bread from the plastic bag that's kept on top of the refrigerator; adjusts the temperature on the toaster and waits for the too-loud ding. When the piece of toast pops up, he picks it up daintily between his middle finger and thumb and gnaws at the bottom corner of it, frowns, and puts it aside. He repeats the process with at least six more pieces of toast, letting them pile up next to the sink, scorched testament to just how useless Niou is at cooking - even with something as simple as a toaster.
"Niou," Yagyuu finally says, "we have to stop this."
"Stop what? Trying to make breakfast?"
"No. You know what I mean."
"Do I, now?" Niou shrugs, carefully turning his back to Yagyuu as he tries another stab at making toast. "I'm quite certain I don't, Hi-ro-shi."
"I hope you realize that this . . . not-talking thing simply does not work."
"No? Seems to've worked out okay so far." He pauses before adding, "Besides, we do seem to be talking now, don't we?"
"Niou," Yagyuu says, mentally counting down from ten.
"Yagyuu?" Niou says, far too chipper for his own good when the toaster finally goes off again, offering up another slightly-scorched piece of toast. "Want some breakfast?"
"You're evading the issue, Niou."
The toast gets added to the growing pile, discarded.
Niou ambles over, sitting down on the edge of the chair and grinning down at Yagyuu, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth a little. "Yagyuu," he repeats, drawling this time.
"Don't." Yagyuu looks out the side window and admires the view of the bottom of the train tracks, mentally cursing whatever deranged urban planner decided this was a good location for both an apartment building and a rail line.
"Don't what?"
"Do that."
"You're being awfully obtuse, Yagyuu-kun. I do think I might become distressed!"
"Mm." Yagyuu closes his eyes and ignores the whisper-soft feeling of Niou's breath warm against his neck, ignores the way Niou's fingers press heavy against his shoulder, ignores the fact that he's ignored this sort of thing more than once before.
What Yagyuu thinks about is this: tomorrow, he is going to have to go to work yet again. The weekend isn't close enough, and even the weekend is too busy. He's going to have to buy new dish towels, find something they can both agree on. They're out of milk again.
What Yagyuu tries not to think about is this: he's being terribly domestic. There is no reason for him to sleep on the sofa. He wants to go somewhere this weekend, somewhere he won't feel responsible for anything, somewhere he can be with Niou.
He doesn't want to fight. He's breathing too fast, a fact he realizes a second too late. Niou whispers something -- alright, later -- in his ear and Yagyuu can feel the weight of the chair shift as Niou stands, walks off.
There's the clank-click of locks being undone before the door creaks open, Niou's footsteps fading away. Yagyuu should go after him and doesn't.
Something is wrong, or at least something isn't quite right. Yagyuu is sure there's a different, though he can't say just what it is. All he knows is that it's best to be specific - that's the path to brevity, the soul of wit, the best way to keep things entertaining the way Niou does. Can't just mention "a dog;" it's got to be a golden retriever or an Irish terrier or a German shepherd.
There's no such thing as just a dog or just a favor or just a friend. Everything, everything, is far more complicated than that. Even common courtesy isn't so common anymore, and is always second-guessed.
Yagyuu leans his head back, eyes still closed, and tries not to think of anything at all.
xii.
Considering that they live together, managing to avoid each other for nearly an entire week is rather impressive; doubly so considering that they're both coming home regularly, and getting eight hours of sleep each.
So Yagyuu's really not expecting, as he sits rereading the first sentence of his textbook repeatedly, for Niou to come home and fall down on the couch with a loud fwump. If there's one good thing about Niou, it's that he's always been useful for providing strange onomotapeia.
Yagyuu's also really not expecting for Niou to yawn and declare, "Yagyuu-kun, I'm sorry, but you're just not the kind of girl that I like."
"How tragic," Yagyuu says. "And after I've tried so very hard to please you."
"I know. Sad, innit?"
"See how my eyes are all red? That is, obviously, because I've been crying over you all day. All week, even." Yagyuu's tone is bland, his expression blander. Saltine crackers would have a hard time being milder than he is. "And it's got nothing to do with allergies at all."
"Aw. This kind of thing practically merits an after-school special. An hour-plus-commercials of teen romance and moralizing and nonsense. What do you think?"
"Mm, but do you really think they'd be able to find anyone to play you?"
"'Course not. It's not as if those things are pinnacles of good acting, though."
"That is true. They could kidnap some random youth off the streets, bleach his hair and tell him to act like a prick - tah-dah, instant actor for you. Might even do a decent job of it."
"Nice to know you think so highly of me."
"You'd better not be serious," Yagyuu says after a moment, resisting the urge to rub at his temples.
"I find your lack of faith ... disturbing." Niou sounds completely serious saying that, which means he probably isn't.
"Aha."
"Let's buy a farm," Niou says suddenly. "And raise chickens and goats and things."
"We've got enough trouble paying our bills here, Niou. Do you really think a farm will help matters any?"
"Out in the country with all those wide open spaces and tumbleweeds and things you don't need TV or radio or --"
"Niou, just what part of the 'country' are you talking about?"
"America, maybe."
"Oh, of course. I should have known."
"Really!" Niou sounds exasperated, shaking his head slowly. "I'm definitely disappointed with you this time."
"We could buy buffalo," Yagyuu decides.
"Or bison."
"They're the same thing, actually."
"I don't think people would call them different names if they were the same thing," Niou opines, though this is the first and only time Yagyuu will actually think that word an appropriate adjective for actual, human speech. Niou, simply by being Niou, seems to deserve the stupid verbs that no one ever uses.
"So what are you laughing at? Have you got the plague?" Niou asks cheerfully, which elicits a solid frown from Yagyuu, who's realised that maybe laughing without explanation isn't the proper course of action.
"Of course not. No one's had the plague in years."
"Actually, there's plenty of cases of it every year, and I'm sure the train could have given it to you. Like a moving-in present, only a bit belated, right?" The train, as if on cue, chooses that moment to rumble past again.
"How kind of it." Yagyuu pauses. "We could buy cougars, then."
"Are those like leopards?"
"Not particularly, no. Cougars are much too yellow to be leopard-like."
"Leopards can be spotty." Niou's a bit indignant, maybe. "And yellow. It's that or they're all black and slinky."
"Cougars are not spotty."
"They could be, I'm sure. If they really felt like it." Niou's making the sort of expression he only ever makes when he's trying very hard not to pout - this sort of smirky grimace, that ultimately ends up looking odder than a proper pout would.
"Well, they're not."
"Are pumas?"
"Pumas are the same thing, and thus aren't at all spotty."
Niou wrinkles his nose in disgust, shaking his head a few times like he's just got his face shoved into a box of half-rotten chicken and is trying to forget the smell. "Americans," he says disdainfully. "They've got too many names for things."
"Have you ever heard of a synonym, Niou?"
"Yeah, but that's a bit different, isn't it, than just another name for something. A synonym's never just the same thing."
"... You know, actually, I'm fairly sure that mountain lion is another name for a cougar too."
"Oh, that's brilliant then."
"Isn't it, though?" Yagyuu looks almost smug. "It's not exactly my fault, though, now is it?"
"Sure it is."
"How?"
"Because."
"Because what?"
"Because it's your fault."
"Like the black plague? And the goat?"
"I thought we agreed that thing with the goat wasn't anybody's fault. Are you saying it's yours?"
"Of course not."
"That's awfully suspicious, though, bringing that up again. Don't you think?" Niou asks, turning his head to the right like he's addressing someone else entirely.
"Who are you talking to?"
"No one."
"Ah. Not even me?"
"Maybe. Maybe not."
xiii.
It's Saturday and Yagyuu is making lunch for himself, a sandwich and some pre-packaged ramen. Niou, oblivious, is rooting around in a cupboard looking for god-knows-what when his arm brushes against Yagyuu's.
Yagyuu freezes.
They stare at each other, unmoving until Niou grins and brandishes a butter knife.
"Found it!" A pause. "I'm going to steal this."
"From yourself?"
"Yes."
xiv.
On Saturday evening, Yagyuu gets talked into a party and Niou gets drunk and Yagyuu ends up having to keep track of him. Niou's spent half the time trying to talk to one girl; her dark hair is cropped close and short, her skirt's just short enough to look cute and just long enough to still be modest.
The girl, whose name may or may not be Ami, has white socks and black patent leather shoes. Her bag is small, too small to really carry much of anything useful (other than nailclippers, a little money, a derringer). Her wrists are dainty, her fingers short and blunt; when she smiles, her pale eyes squint closed.
Maybe-Ami is quiet and polite and obviously completely oblivious as to how to deal with Niou. Particularly drunken Niou, who's just that much more difficult than usual and keeps brandishing his teacup full of gin like it's a weapon of mass destruction.
"Your eyes," he's telling her earnestly, standing slouched with nearly his whole body arced towards her, "are like a sheep's. They're brown and round and really very pretty, and I can tell you don't like to make trouble, right? D'you let sheepdogs chase you around and herd you into pens?"
"Uhm," she says, frowning at him. This is one of the few things she's managed to say thus far.
"Alright, maybe not like a sheep's eyes. How about like the water out in the harbor? That's brown, too, and water's more poetic than sheep, right? Only sheep are at least pastoral and gentle and such. Water out in the harbor's all brown and full of dead fish. Dead fish and chemicals and maybe some drowned yakuza, if you listen to what the movies say, I don't know. Do they do that sort of thing, the yakuza? Throw people into the harbor? Seems a good way to get rid of someone, to me. After the fish've nibbled at them a bit you can't figure out who they are anymore, and they get all bloated up and nasty anyway. Good way to camoflauge things."
Niou pauses, giving his teacup the sort of long, thoughtful look that only drunks trying to look sober ever give to inanimate objects. "Yeah, that's it. Your eyes are like the water out in the harbor, all brown and deep enough to hide dead people in."
"Why," Might-Be-Ami says, "that's very. I don't think I've heard anyone describe my eyes quite like that, Niou-san. I don't know if I should be flattered at your creativity or horrified at ... well, that's not, well. It's different."
Yagyuu (who's been a step away, calmly trying to convince a young boy that no, there are no spiders, and that no, the spiders are not going to eat through anyone's clothes) decides that he should maybe step in at that point. "Excuse me," he says, nodding politely.
"Oh," Niou says, "lookit this. Do you know who this is?" he asks the girl, with a wide smile.
"No." She doesn't sound particularly enthused.
"This is Yagyuu Hiroshi, craziest sunuvabitch on this side of the Pacific. You know," and now he lowers his voice conspiratorially, "he once --"
"That's quite alright, Niou-kun. You do not need to inform her of the reasons for our arrest." Niou laughs, so Yagyuu offers the girl the blandest look he can manage when she stares at the both of them, looking vaguely horrified. "I assure you, Miss, that it's nothing to worry about. I was merely wondering if my friend was bothering you."
"Of course not," she says, for the sake of politeness; Yagyuu takes that as a cue to grab Niou by the arm and pull him away from her. A bit excessive, maybe, but it does the trick and entertains Niou in the process.
Why he still bothers trying to keep Niou entertained is beyond him. It shouldn't be among the things important to him; Niou's tried his patience enough times that he should, by rights, hate him by now. And the fact that Yagyuu's got to rescue girls from Niou shouldn't be funny anymore (though this is only the second time he's had to do it; he hopes that that's where the charm of it comes from).
"Let's go," Yagyuu says quietly, voice low so only Niou can hear. "You shouldn't drink any more tonight."
"I should've stopped half an hour ago," Niou answers, too-slow and too-loud, grinning.
Niou can't walk anything resembling a straight line. Yagyuu sighs, and puts an arm around Niou's waist. "We're going home," he says patiently.
"Oho." Niou leers, then, leaning heavily against Yagyuu as he announces to the whole room that "I've got the best friend in, in Japan, the whole world maybe, and he's going to take me home now, right?"
Niou slings an arm around Yagyuu's shoulder an limps alongside him like a casualty of war. A few people stare sidelong at the two of them on the way out but they are otherwise (thankfully) ignored. They take a cab home, instead of the subway; Niou sleeps through the ride, sprawling over most of the back seat, head heavy on Yagyuu's shoulder.
Yagyuu manages to pull him out of the cab and carry him halfway up the stairs before Niou actually wakes up, looking confused for a moment before throwing his arms around Yagyuu's neck.
"Hiroshi, you. You're so romantic." Niou's breath smells like cheap liquor, a bit musty and stale and generally bad.
"Mmhm," Yagyuu says agreeably, "and you're still drunk."
"Well, yes, probably."
"Not probably."
"Alright, alright. Definitely. At least I'm not, not, uh. High. On crack. That would be worse, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, yes it would, and I would kindly request that you stay off of the harder drugs, Niou-kun."
"Would you still love me if I quit?" Niou's giggling a bit, which would make Yagyuu nervous under other circumstances.
"You haven't started in the first place, have you?" Yagyuu frowns at the door.
"Of course not. Here, c'mon, I can walk, I think. Yeah, there we go, thanks. But if I had, then I'd quit the drugs just for you." Niou is at least able to stand, which is a relief while Yagyuu is trying to unlock the door.
"'N then we could get married and have 1.5 children and a white picket fence." Niou's claim of being able to walk turns out to be less than true, and he ends up meandering his way to the sofa. Sitting down isn't as easy as it should be, either, and Niou ends up tripping over something and collapsing onto the sofa, sinking into it like spilled coffee and laughing at himself.
"How do you propose we get that half a child?"
"Oh, we just have to find one that's broken, and it'll never fully belong to us 'coz there's that missing bit."
Yagyuu doesn't know what to say to that, so all he does is sit on the arm of the sofa furthest from where Niou lays fallen and watches a silverfish make its crooked stop-and-go way across the floor. He considers taking a shoe off and smashing it but doesn't.
"Hey," Niou says, voice pitched a little low, "what'cha looking at?"
Yagyuu slides to the ground, dropping to a crouch on the floor. Quick, quick enough to catch the thing, he grabs the silverfish - holds it in his hand and watches it try to crawl up his arm. He nudges it back into his palm and takes it over, shows it to Niou. Niou, who's been watching the whole thing a bit dimly.
It takes a moment for Niou to notice Yagyuu's outstretched hand and the flash of quicksilver darting over it, up across Yagyuu's palm to the end of a finger. "This," Yagyuu finally says.
Niou blinks, staring for a moment before he says "oh, alright," and reaches out to crush the thing between his thumb and forefinger. For a moment it seems like he doesn't know what he's done, staring blankly until he lets out a sudden bark of laughter. The sound echoes strangely.
"What the hell ...?"
"Squish," Niou declares, laughing again. He looks down, slowly, and is about to wipe the wet grey remains on the couch before Yagyuu grabs his wrist.
"No," Yagyuu says, pulling a Kleenex out of the box on the table, wiping Niou's hand clean, slow and careful about it. He holds onto Niou's hand longer than he should, examining the bony joints of Niou's wrist, running his thumb down along Niou's life line. Niou just grins at him, dull-eyed and lazy. Yagyuu sighs.
"I," Niou declares, "think I am going to vomit. Would you care to - to - escort me to the bathroom, m'dear Yagyuu?"
"Not particularly, no," Yagyuu says, but he helps Niou to his feet, and ends up holding back Niou's hair and wiping off his face.
Niou, blessedly, does not have a hangover the next day.
xv.
They're watching TV together, something they don't do often. Lately they've either not seen each other for days on end, or gone out together every night for weeks. The both of them being at home and tired isn't unusual; both of them being at home and awake is.
Niou lights up a cigarette, taking a long drag from it and letting the smoke rise from his mouth, like a ghost, like his spirit escaping. Yagyuu nearly complains, nearly reminds Niou that they're not allowed to smoke inside (too much wood in the building, it could catch on fire, they could die); he doesn't, though, and instead he holds out a hand.
Niou laughs, and laughs again when Yagyuu coughs
They end up passing the cigarette back and forth for the next few minutes until there's not enough left of it, and then Niou leans over to rest his head on Yagyuu's shoulder. Yagyuu is about to turn and ask him something when he does this, and ends up with his face buried in Niou's hair. It smells like smoke and cheap 2-in-1 shampoo conditioner Niou buys at the convenience store across the street.
Yagyuu feels very cold, and Niou is very warm. The light from the window has a strange cast to it, turning everything blue and soft-edged.
It doesn't take much movement at all for Yagyuu to press his lips against Niou's temple, the tip of his nose, very lightly against his mouth; so little effort that Yagyuu can't see why he hasn't done this before.
And then Niou reminds him, cheerfully saying, "You know, this'd be really hilarious if we switched right now," and it's all Yagyuu can do not to take a swing at him.