Fic, Fujicest, "A Fuji By Any Other Name"
I wrote this fic for top_cagnotte in September, posted it in November, and then forgot to post it permanently here! Better late than never, I suppose?
Anyway, I was requested to write a fic where Fuji and Yuuta go on a date to Tokyo Tower, with Fuji wearing a St Rudolph girls' uniform, so that's exactly what's inside the tin. Three thousand words of comedy cross-dressing and Yuuta being embarrassed when they come across half of the Sei Ru tennis team... >:D I had tremendous, tremendous fun writing this.
"Aniki, remind me again why we're doing this."
Yuuta was looking straight ahead and refusing to catch his brother's eye as they walked down the street - too packed for Yuuta's liking right now - from the subway station. There were worse things to be doing on a Wednesday afternoon during summer, but not many.
"Well," Shuusuke began, putting a finger to the corner of his lips in a way that would have annoyed Yuuta were he watching (which he was). "I rather thought it was your idea."
"What." Yuuta didn't believe in wasting question marks on things that really shouldn't need to be asked.
"You asked me to," Shuusuke said, sounding as if he was enjoying this (which he was).
"What."
"You said to me, last month, that if I really wanted to go on a date with you, I'd have to dress as a Rudolph's girl." Shuusuke picked up the edges of his skirt in demonstration of the fact that yes, he actually had. "I don't know what you're being so testy about."
Yuuta did look at his brother now, an all-too-familiar blush starting to grace his cheeks. "I didn't mean for you to actually do it! I didn't think - I mean, I didn't expect - I didn't want...!"
"You didn't expect me to make the effort to go out with you? Yuuta, do you know me at all?!" Shuusuke wrung his hands together in a way that made Yuuta wonder if Rudolph bows could somehow transmit girliness by proximity, but no, it was just aniki being embarrassingly over the top, as usual.
"I wish I didn't," Yuuta muttered, although they both knew that that wasn't true. It was just that Shuusuke would spontaneously combust if Yuuta let him know that he did care for him, that was all.
And then Yuuta stopped. And peered down, incredulously.
"Are you... did you shave your legs?"
Shuusuke looked down at his legs too, as if he'd only just noticed they were there.
"No," he said sweetly.
"But - but... what?" Yuuta stuttered, still looking at aniki's unnaturally silky-smooth thighs. Wait - legs, not thighs. That way lay madness.
"I waxed." Shuusuke ran a hand down his thigh - leg, not thigh! - in demonstration.
"You... what? What." Yuuta was used to having his speech reduced to single syllables around his brother. A lot of other people were too, he knew, so it was nothing to worry about. Really it wasn't.
"I didn't want the hairs growing back all prickly, so I waxed. It was quite enjoyable, really." Shuusuke ran a hand down his other thigh - leg! his leg! - apparently wanting his money's worth of smoothness.
Only Fuji Shuusuke would find waxing an enjoyable process. Yuuta knew, from reading the magazines that got left in the clubroom (everyone thought they were Mizuki's; only Yuuta knew Akazawa-buchou's secret), that waxing hurt like hell. No wonder aniki liked something that was the wasabi of women's beauty regimes.
"Stop doing that!" Yuuta hissed, looking furtively up and down the street, as if people would forever brand him as the boy with a girlfriend who felt herself up in public. "You can... I don't know, stroke your legs all you want when we get back home! Just, don't do it here..."
"Don't you want to feel them too, though, Yuuuuta? They feel so good..."
"I am not touching your legs in public!" Yuuta exclaimed, louder than he'd meant to. A couple with a pushchair passed by, giving them strange looks. Yuuta's cheeks burned brighter than a can of petrol on a campfire. Shuusuke seemed unaffected.
"So you'll touch them when we get home?" He sounded hopeful.
"I'll touch whatever you want, aniki, as long as you stop touching yourself here."
"Whatever I want, Yuuuuta?"
And then Yuuta realised what he had said.
"No no, I didn't mean - I was just - I was... I...!"
But Yuuta sighed in defeat as aniki caught his hand in his own and started walking again, swinging their arms as if they were a showy couple in the full blossoming of young love. If only the world knew the truth.
Well, actually, maybe it was best for the world that it didn't.
***
"So what do you want to do here?" Yuuta said with resignation as they approached the infamous Tokyo Tower. "We've been here a million times - there can't possibly be anything that exciting here, can there?"
"Mmn, you're forgetting," Shuusuke said, "that you're here and we're on a d-a-t-e. Isn't that exciting enough? Besides, they have live music on Wednesdays..."
Yuuta sighed. "What kind of live music? Couldn't we just have caught a movie instead?"
"You have no sense of romance, Yuuta! We can see a movie any time, and I can't put my legs up on the cinema seats if I'm wearing a skirt, anyway. As such a gentleman, you should be thinking of these things!" Shuusuke swatted playfully at his shoulder. "And it's jazz they're playing tonight. So you can't say no to me now, can you?"
"No; no I can't." Yuuta's tone was long-suffering, but he was smiling really. Deep down, where he hoped Shuusuke couldn't see it, because his brother could smell weakness. "What are we doing in the meantime, then?"
"I thought we could look at the wax museum and have you pose next to Brad Pitt. I know he's your idol, and I brought my camera!"
"He is not my idol! I don't have an idol!"
"Oh? I must've been thinking of my other brother. Oh well, you can just take my picture with the Beatles, then! Won't that be fun?"
Yuuta knew very little about the Beatles, but there was that song, wasn't there?
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away...
Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe he could accidentally open the back of the camera at the end of the day so that no photos of his brother in a skirt ever saw the light of day (or the dark of day, since it would be a black day indeed if it ever happened). Shuusuke'd be temporarily disappointed, but if Yuuta was having to stroke his legs and... more, once they got home, then he'd surely be able to get over it. Yuuta wasn't sure if he'd ever get over this, but as long as his brother took the uniform off before any of the activities he'd been coerced into began, he'd probably survive.
Probably, that was, until Mizuki Hajime appeared before them, somehow having escaped Yuuta's peripheral vision until it was too late.
"Ahh, Yuuta-kun! And a lady friend, I see!" He had looked as if he was going to say more, but he seemed to be stuck on looking at Shuusuke curiously.
Aniki, please don't say anything, please don't say anything, please don't say anything!
Yuuta needn't have worried, however, as Mizuki, instead of looking surprised or confused or incredulous, just looked enchanted, and Shuusuke had remained silent.
Why was Mizuki looking at his brother like that? He couldn't possibly be working up to recruiting him to the team, especially as he was, well, a she, as far as Mizuki was concerned right now. Which left only one conclusion: that Mizuki really was obsessed with the Fuji family, even if he didn't know it. Was crushing on Yumiko really not enough for him?!
"Aren't you going to introduce me to this delightful creature?" Mizuki asked, beginning to twirl his hair. "Are you two attached, or merely... acquaintances?" He looked hopeful for the latter.
Shuusuke didn't have a name yet. Oh God. Yuuta's mind went blank and all he could see was a line of hair-twirling Mizukis, all trying to hit on his brother.
"You'll have to excuse my Yuuta," Shuusuke said, kicking Yuuta's ankle while Mizuki's eyes were otherwise engaged. How had he made his voice do that?! "He didn't get enough sleep last night, if you, ah, know what I mean..." He didn't giggle, but he may as well have done, and Yuuta's cheeks burned.
"I - I - I got plenty of sleep!" Yuuta stammered, while trying to sound masterful and in control. "Mizuki-san, this is... Fujiko-chan. She just, ah, transferred to St Rudolph this holiday; she's in the third year so you'll probably be seeing her around after the summer. Fujiko-chan, this is Mizuki-senpai, the manager of my tennis team. I've told you about him already, haven't I?"
"Oh yes, you certainly have," Fujiko-chan said, smiling like a werebear. Hopefully Mizuki wouldn't notice. "I hear you've been training Yuuta hard, teaching him new moves!"
"Well, yes," Yuuta said, before Mizuki had finished puffing himself up to speak. The last thing he wanted was the sure-fire disaster that having his brother talking to his manager about the Twist Spin Shot would be. Why couldn't aniki just behave himself! "I've certainly been training hard, and Mizuki-san is a very good manager." Yuuta fervently wished that he was managing right now. Why was his world full of the most eccentric personalities that Japan had to offer? "How are you doing today, anyway, Mizuki-san? Are you meeting someone here...?" Steering the conversation away from his brother seemed sensible. Unfortunately, Mizuki had other plans.
"Not exactly a rendezvous, but I'd heard talk that your brother was going to be here, and I intend to invite him to match ourselves skill for skill in a game of tennis, if he does meander into this locale. Do you know what he's doing today, Yuuta-kun?"
"I'm afraid not, Mizuki-san. I have no idea what he's doing today." This was not strictly a lie; just, he didn't mean it the way that Mizuki would take it. That was okay, though, wasn't it? He wouldn't feel guilty for what was really just telling the truth, would he?
"I see..." Mizuki looked disappointed for a moment, and then brightened, putting a fatherly hand on Yuuta's shoulder, oblivious to the looks that Fujiko-chan was now shooting him because of it. "Do you have your cell phone with you, Yuuta-kun? You could give him a call for me, see if he'll come out to meet with me? He'd do anything you ask of him, you know, and you'd be pleasing your senpai..."
Yuuta hoped, very, very fervently, that his phone, secreted in his pocket, would not ring at the moment he chose to open his mouth.
"I'm afraid I don't have it with me, Mizuki-san," he said, in the most apologetic tone he could muster. (And this was really quite apologetic, because spending too much time being flustered made you very, very sorry for everything.) "This was, er, supposed to be a date with no interruptions, you know?"
"I understand completely," Mizuki said, entirely oblivious to his overly-large contribution to Yuuta's rising blood pressure, the only 'rising' technique he'd be experiencing today. "There's nothing worse than some plebeian stealing away precious quality time with your beautiful girlfriend with inane chit-chat." He then paused for a moment. "You don't suppose your brother's on a date, do you?"
"It's quite possible that he is," Yuuta said edgily, facing the dual trials of questioning and Fujiko-chan's hand starting to grip his far too tightly.
"Where do you suppose he'd go? Who would he take? How long would he stay?" Mizuki was beginning to sound a little bit manic. Had he planned his whole day around playing and defeating aniki?
"Er, I'm not sure..." Yuuta said at the same time as Shuusuke said, decisively, "Hello Kitty Land."
"Hello Kitty Land?" Mizuki's eyes lit up with a neon bulb, and Yuuta's with a hundred watts of pain.
Fujiko-chan nodded and smiled, or, at least, showed teeth. "Yuuta takes me home with him all the time, and I get to have conversations with his brother while he's freshening up. He's told me all about where he intends to take the person he has his eye on if he had the chance. It closes at five, so perhaps you should hurry!"
"Yes, perhaps I shall..." Mizuki took a moment to twirl his hair one last time for Fujiko-chan's benefit, and then smoothed down his shirt. "I shall bid you two adieu for now..."
And then, luckily, he was gone.
"Oh God, what was that." Yuuta sighed and was about to beseech some more deities, but Shuusuke had pulled him into some bushes on the side of the path and was now looking at him expectantly.
"What?" Yuuta was trying to stall the inevitable.
"Aren't you going to give me a kiss for being so good back there?"
"Good? Hello Kitty Land?!" Yuuta didn't feel that his brother had even had 'good' in view when he'd opened his mouth.
"Pink, purple, what's the difference? He'll have a good time."
As much as he wanted to refute this, Yuuta felt he had to admit that his brother was actually on the mark this time. He had other ammunition to keep him temporarily at bay, however.
"But what was all that about bringing you home all the time and freshening up and not getting enough sleep?! He's going to think... well, he's going to think that we...!"
Shuusuke smiled innocuously. "Well, if he's thinking it, then there's no shame in making it real, is there?"
Yuuta had to kiss him then to make him stop talking; in retrospect, probably a bad idea, but around aniki, you always had limited options. He'd intended no tongue, but it seemed a small price to pay to avoid a plaintive look afterwards. It also felt kind of nice, maybe, if he tried to forget that he was in the bushes at Tokyo Tower kissing his brother who was dressed as a schoolgirl, but only maybe. He'd deny it if asked. Yuuta was good at denial by now - often it was the only way to cope with his ludicrously ill-fated life.
"Mmm, I love it when you're masterful," Shuusuke purred, looking very much like a tiger with a little bell round its neck.
"Don't say things like that...!" Yuuta's blush had returned with a vengeance. It was just a shame that the target of its vengeance was himself. "And if you'd wanted to kiss me all day, then why did we bother coming all the way out here?"
"Because that's what we're doing tomorrow!" Shuusuke's tone was playful, but the fangs were tangible.
Yuuta no longer had the strength to argue. "Let's just get going again, before we run into any other crazy people, okay? Okay?"
Fate, however, was mocking him; as soon as they stepped out of the bushes, they were met with a wild call of "Wa-HOW, Yuuta's girlfriend is CUTE, DA NE!" and for the only time in his life, Yuuta wanted to step back into the bushes with his brother.
"Yanagisawa-senpai!" Yuuta's good-natured smile was starting to look a little forced. "And Akazawa-buchou!"
"Having fun, Yuuta?" Akazawa said with an embarrassingly exaggerated wink. "You didn't tell us you had such a beautiful woman all to yourself!"
"Didn't he?" Fujiko-chan asked, for what Yuuta believed to be solely the purpose of stirring up trouble. "Why haven't you told anyone, Yuuta, after all we've done together? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?"
"Looks like you're in for it now, da ne!" Yanagisawa crowed, laughing and hitting himself accidentally with his tennis racquet.
"I, ah, just didn't want to have the possibility of any delinquents stealing you away!" Yuuta stammered, trying his very best to not look as if he was everyone's bitch.
"Scared of the competition, hey?" Akazawa nudged Yuuta in the side in a jocular fashion, completely missing the point of Yuuta's last remark.
"Oh, Yuuta does his very best to satisfy me," Fujiko-chan said helpfully. "He better try extra hard tonight, though..."
"Yeah, try your hardest, Yuuta! Show her your super rising, da ne!"
Yuuta wanted to scream "Aaaaargh!" very loudly, for an extended period of time, but his vocal cords were, fortunately or unfortunately, no longer working. Standing there dumbly with a look of horror on his face wasn't quite the same thing, but it was what he was going with anyway. It was comforting in its familiarity, at the very least.
"Er, senpai, what are you both doing here today?" he asked as suavely as possible (which was not very), but in the time he'd taken to scream internally, Fujiko-chan had started a hushed conversation with Akazawa that could be nothing but damaging, and Yanagisawa had started to snort about cute girls to him and was asking if Fujiko-chan had any sisters. She did, of course, but Yuuta was forced once more to lie, for he'd rather even Mizuki had Yumiko than Yanagisawa, and he thought Yumiko would wholeheartedly agree.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a purple-tinted haze for Yuuta; the last of Mizuki's legacy. He had to take pictures of his beautiful girlfriend posing in ways the Beatles would never have expected in the wax museum. He was dragged through the Trick Art Gallery, aniki all the time pointing out the optical illusions that took on an impolite flavour if you looked at them right (which his brother always could). By the time they reached the holograms of the Mysterious Walking Zone, which would have been impressive had it still been the 1980s, Yuuta was ready to break down and offer to touch aniki as much as he wanted if only they could go home now.
"You really mean that, Yuuuta?"
"Yes," said Yuuta, a broken man.
"Let's go home, then. Wait 'til you see what I'm wearing underneath all this!"
It was a pity the viewing platforms were enclosed completely by glass for safety reasons.