Fic, Fujicest, "Only Self-Defence" for 30_lemons
Part three of what was started by 1001 Tokyo Lights and continued by Letting Go.
Fuji has a conversation with Taka-san, and doesn't have a conversation with Yuuta.
I've never written anything quite like this before, so I hope it works...
1. Anonymity, or, "Taken by the Faceless Stranger"
Back in junior high, Kawamura Takashi had been one of Fuji Shuusuke's best friends. They had remained friends through high school, Fuji had been Taka's best man at his wedding during Fuji's last year of university, and even though Fuji's communications had become less and less frequent afterwards, Taka had been fine with it all. Fuji had had his reasons, he knew, and lives just... grew busier. Fuji had his photography, Taka had a restaurant and a family, and Taka certainly didn't begrudge Fuji for his absences from his life. There was something more than photography, he knew, that was keeping him distant, but he'd always had faith in Fuji that one day he'd share it with him, if ever it was appropriate to do so.
He hadn't imagined that today would be the day, but as soon as he walked into the small café that they'd been meeting in for years (carefully selected by Fuji for its avant-garde décor, and Taka for the generous coffee refills), something about Fuji's face told him that something had changed.
"Fuji! You look... good!" Taka said, as he sat down at the table with him.
"I do, don't I?" Fuji's smile was almost the same as ever, but he sounded nearly surprised at himself as he spoke.
"Did something good happen, or...?" Taka was hedging, in case nothing had happened at all and Fuji was just having a good day, but from the way Fuji was sitting and holding himself, like he was warping all the light in the room to focus just on him, he almost knew that something had happened to make a change.
"Yes... something good did happen..." Fuji looked for a moment as if he was in two minds about continuing, and Taka figured that that was his signal not to pry any further, but Fuji then said, "Yuuta moved in with me a few months ago," looking a little shy as he did so. Taka wasn't used to seeing Fuji look shy, so he tried to choose his words in a way that would be, he hoped, the least embarrassing to him, since for Fuji to be shy about his little brother moving in, there had to be something more to it that he didn't yet know about.
"Oh, Yuuta-kun? You must be really pleased - I know how much you care about him! I take it you're both getting on well...?"
Fuji smiled a small, genial sort of smile, and said, "We're both doing very well, yes. We still have... disagreements, from time to time, but he always forgives me." He laughed, and Taka joined in, because he was well aware of the sorts of things Fuji subjected his brother to, but he thought that Fuji sounded a bit nervous, beneath it.
"What made him move?" Taka asked. "He was living at your parents' before, wasn't he, after he..." He didn't add on "split up with his boyfriend", because Fuji had always acted slightly strangely whenever anything like that was brought up. Yuuta was probably lucky that his brother was so protective of him, but Taka couldn't help wondering about it; wasn't Yuuta-kun twenty four now?
Fuji laughed, but it didn't sound right. "He eventually discovered that one can have too much raspberry pie, and he found he needed a break. My apartment's closer to the sports centre, too." He then folded his hands together and looked straight at Taka. "I'm sorry, I've just told you something that's not quite true."
"Fuji...?" Taka looked puzzled. It wasn't like his friend to lie to him and make things up - in fact, Fuji had always taken great delight in telling the truth, no details spared even when met with scrabbling resistance. It was the way he was.
Fuji hesitated - again, something unusual - and then said, quietly, "We're not just sharing an apartment." Taka looked as if he was going to ask something, most likely for Fuji to clarify his statement, but Fuji put a finger to his lips, asking his friend to stay quiet, at least for now.
"Yuuta and I are... in a relationship. He's my lover. We've... well, I've tried my best to stop it from happening for a long time, but I've... really always loved him. And now that we're together, I don't think I've ever been happier." He sprinkled more chocolate powder on his coffee than he would have liked, for want of something to do with his hands, and then, unable to look Taka in the face now, said, "I'm sorry if this has made you uncomfortable."
"No! Or, well... I can't say that I'm not at least a little bit shocked, but... somehow, I don't actually think I'm as shocked as I should be. Or think I should be. One of those, anyway. And it's probably going to take me a while to get used to the idea, because it's -"
"Weird? Unnatural? Unorthodox?"
"Unconventional," Taka said emphatically. "But I... it's you, Fuji - I'm... well, everything you do is okay with me, because it's you who's doing it. If I was afraid of a little eccentricity, I, ah, wouldn't have stuck around since junior high, you know? I hope you know..."
"I do know, Taka-san," Fuji said, allowing himself to look at him now. "But it's... are you really okay with this?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Taka said, as if Fuji was asking him a trick question. "Like I said, it's... unconventional, but I'm not going to be disgusted with you or anything like that when you're so happy! Really, don't regret telling me. Please. Unless you want me to tell you it's wrong?" He said it with a laugh, but Fuji couldn't bring himself to join in just yet. It had been a joke, and he knew that Taka-san hadn't meant anything real by it, but... what if it was true? He'd done the same thing with Yuuta, after all. But that was something to think on later; for now, he had a friend, whose care and loyalty was probably more than he deserved, to drink coffee and eat cheesecake with, and once more, Yuuta had been right that things would work out okay.
*
"Don't let me interrupt you," Shuusuke said with a barely-suppressed smirk as Yuuta tried very hard to pretend that he hadn't been sliding on his knees on the wooden floor of the living room playing air guitar when his brother had come home.
Turning the volume of the stereo down, Yuuta said, very quickly, "You weren't interrupting anything. You saw nothing."
"There's a price for seeing nothing, though..."
"And that's seeing everything, right?" Yuuta gave him an exaggerated wink and then started to laugh. "Maybe later, okay? I have a new album to finish listening to, and honestly, it's better than any aural pleasure you can give me, dear aniki..."
"Yes, I suppose I don't yet make you play air guitar in bed... maybe I should start working on that."
"You do that - but first, how was your afternoon with Kawamura-san? Did it... go okay?" Yuuta had assured his brother that he thought it was a good idea to tell such an old friend, if it was what he wanted to do, but what if he'd been wrong? It was always so hard to know what aniki was thinking when he'd just come back from somewhere; you had to wait until he settled into his surroundings a bit before his standard demeanour would start to crack a bit and reveal clues.
"Taka-san is far too good to me," Shuusuke said, laying his arms on the back of the sofa and resting his chin on them. "You were quite right, I shouldn't have worried about it. He didn't even seem all that surprised; perhaps, like Yumiko, he can see things." He laughed, but Yuuta didn't. "The word he used for it was 'unconventional' - I think he's still trying to adjust to the concept, but yes, he's... fine with it."
"Well, that's great, isn't it?" Yuuta said uneasily, a smudge of suspicion entering his voice at his brother's tone. "You're happy, aren't you? At Kawamura-san being happy for us?"
"Of course I am," Shuusuke said. "He's a wonderful friend." Standing up straight, he smiled at Yuuta, a smile that Yuuta had been seeing a lot of recently, and headed off to their bedroom. "I'm going to work on making you play air guitar. Enjoy your album."
After his brother closed the door, Yuuta turned the volume up.
*
"Hey," Yuuta said, softly, as he entered their bedroom later and carefully shut the door behind him. "You look tired."
"Mmn..." Shuusuke sat up on the bed, and Yuuta had to stop himself from smiling stupidly, because it would never do to show his brother that he thought he looked cute when he'd just woken up; his hair fluffy and his pupils larger than usual. "I fell asleep..."
"Did you get any guitar practice in?"
"Unfortunately not... but we could put band practice in session, if you wanted...?"
Yuuta sat down on the side of the bed and began taking his socks off. "I do want, just as long as we stop with the cheesy metaphors." He laughed and then joined Shuusuke up by the pillows, deciding to try removing his brother's socks using his feet while he kissed him.
Something was wrong with the kiss, though. Or, well, maybe not wrong, but it wasn't right, either. Instead of how it should have been, it felt to Yuuta as if he was kissing him with his eyes open when they were actually closed - a sensation of thinking and considering when he should have been merely feeling. It had been like this for a while, too. Weeks.
"Are you okay...?" Yuuta asked, separating from Shuusuke and distracting himself by removing his brother's socks properly - foot manoeuvres were not yet his forte. "You seem... distant, today. Like your mind's gone on holiday or something."
"I'm fine," Shuusuke said quietly. "I was just so keyed up for meeting Taka-san that I haven't come back down from it yet."
"Were you really so worried...? You should have said, you know..."
"I wasn't worried, though," Shuusuke said, staring out of the window, focusing himself on the falling of night outside. "I wasn't worried at all. Don't you think that's bizarre?"
"Well, maybe not really... it's Kawamura-san, after all. He's probably the nicest person in the entire world, so it's not entirely surprising that you wouldn't have been worried. And hey, nothing usually fazes you anyway, you know. Stop thinking about it so much, okay?" Yuuta punched his brother gently on the arm and smiled at him, wanting to ease away whatever it was that was making him act like something of him was missing, but Shuusuke said nothing. He did remove Yuuta's shirt, which under any other circumstances would have been considered a welcome consolation, but Yuuta just couldn't feel excited when his brother felt less like aniki and more like everyone else's 'Fuji', a man who moved through life always one step ahead and two steps removed.
They shared another kiss that felt distant to Yuuta, and he then took Shuusuke's shirt off as well, his brow furrowing when he caught himself feeling surprised that his skin was warm. His brother still looked incredible enough to glue his heart to his mouth, but he seemed sharp today, as if he were a kitchen knife trying surreptitiously to change careers. There was still something hypnotic about him, but it was wrong, and Yuuta didn't like it, but he still couldn't stop himself from running his finger along the blade to see if he'd bleed.
They were both naked, now, and Yuuta felt warm and good as Shuusuke did amazing things with his mouth, but again his brow furrowed, for a second, at the fleeting thought that he was glad that Shuusuke was unable to speak to him right now. Since when had hearing his brother's voice been anything but a powerful aphrodisiac?
Since his brother had fallen away from him, something inside supplied, but Yuuta pushed it away instead of pushing Shuusuke, whose given pleasure was greater at the moment, just, than the qualms he stirred up inside him.
He wanted to touch his brother, wanted to forge at least some sort of connection to him, even if it was only one-sided, but Shuusuke was keeping him lying down, and Yuuta was finding that he didn't want to touch him anymore, if he had to fight for it. Everything was a fight, everything had always been a fight, and he didn't like fighting when it was becoming more than obvious that his partner didn't want to be fighting at all. All the other times, he'd known that his brother was wanting him to fight and prove him wrong, but now... now, for weeks, Shuusuke had been letting Yuuta devote himself to him less and less. And this was stupid, because Yuuta knew that aniki wanted his fingers, wanted his lips and his tongue and his everything - and he didn't know why aniki wasn't letting himself have it, because Yuuta was more than eager, if only Shuusuke would play. Why wasn't he playing? Yuuta didn't understand it, and he didn't like it.
But he did like being stroked and teased, and he did like the sensation of being filled as his brother pressed into him, and he did like being made to moan as if every thrust of Shuusuke's would be their last, so it was okay, at least for now, wasn't it?
"You said you'd try to let go of me," Yuuta wanted to say, though, between his own exhalations of pleasure. "You said you'd stop deciding what's bad for me and let me choose on my own." Having sex with someone this emotionally unavailable was worse than just having a dark fling with a stranger; it felt good, but every stroke and sigh was like running his finger over that knife, painful only in his psyche, where no one should ever dare to cut him. Why did it still feel so good, and why was he still showing his brother that it did, when really it hurt so much he wanted to howl?
Yuuta felt horrified at himself, at both of them, at everything that was happening and had been happening, but he knew there was no way he could stop until it was all over and he was spent and gasping. The only thing he felt capable of salvaging was in not calling his brother's name; words of passion were spilling from his lips, but none of them were anything that meant anything; none of them were 'aniki'. This wasn't aniki. Not the aniki that Yuuta wanted and needed, at least. How was Yuuta supposed to be okay when his brother obviously didn't believe they could stay together, and was holding something of himself back so that he at least wouldn't be destroyed when they fell apart?
Maybe, maybe, this wasn't it, and something else was causing things between them to melt and dissipate, but it seemed too obvious that not all of Shuusuke was here now, and all other explanations seemed flimsy and forced, just like their sex right now. Yuuta wanted to get away and shout and scream and yell until his lungs were empty and then just keep on going, as otherwise, he was never going to feel purged of the tainted love bleeding all over his body.
Where was Shuusuke? He could hear him and see him and feel him, but where was he? They were as intimate as it was possible to be, now, but where was he?
Yuuta felt used by himself as he climaxed and the world went white for him. This meant, though, that he didn't have to be aware of anything when the same happened to Shuusuke, but the thought, piercing through the fog of satiation, made him feel sick, because normally his brother was beautiful.
Normally his brother was beautiful.
"Keep away from me," Yuuta said, voice unsteady as he leapt off the bed, scrambled into his jeans and backed out of the room. "Do you really not know?"
Shuusuke had had the audacity to ask him if he was alright.
To be continued, in more parts than I'd ever have envisioned myself writing. :o