Like, So Married (FAKE/Ra-I, Bikky/Rai)
Like, So Married (FAKE/Ra-I, Bikky/Rai)
Title: Like, So Married
Fandom: FAKE/Ra-I - Bikky/Rai with Dee/Ryo and Al/Rei mentioned
Author: kirikiri aka misura
Recipient: Priscian aka ranmaxryoga
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: pre-slash post-manga AU
Summary: Bikky makes an attempt to figure out how he feels about Rai.
A brief Who's Who for FAKE-only readers: Rai Spencer (Lai), Rathe Goldman (Lass), Rou Spencer (big brother Law), Rei Foster-Spencer (big sister Lei), Al Foster (Rei's husband, a private detective).
"Look, I've explained this problem to you three times already."
"I still don't get it." Bikky slumped in his seat and absent-mindedly chewed on the end of his pencil.
"Maybe it'd help if you paid more attention," Rai said, sarcastically.
"Maybe it'd help if you stopped being such a jerk about it, and actually explained it /right/."
"Oh, sure. It's not that /you're/ dumber than a brick, it's that /I'm/ bad at explaining things." Rai snorted.
"Well, you /are/," Bikky said. "Your explanations suck as hard as your b-ball skills."
"You take that back, you shrimp! I - "
Rou coughed, reminding Rai that yes, he'd been stupid enough to assure Rou that he and Bikky would be perfectly quiet and that Rou'd be perfectly able to use the living-room to read some last-minute reports for the board-meeting tomorrow morning.
"I totally kick your ass in basketball," Rai whispered.
"Yeah, in your dreams." Bikky snorted.
"It's getting fairly late, Rai, Bikky. Why don't you wrap things up and I'll give Bikky a ride home?" Rou rose and picked up his empty mug.
"Awww, man, it's half past ten already? And we're not even halfway."
"You're totally slow, dude." Rai smirked. "Keep this up and you'll still be in middle school when I graduate."
"Humph."
"And FYI, there's nothing wrong with my explanations. Rathe's never had any trouble following them."
"I still say you suck as a tutor," Bikky said.
"Could the two of you lay off the bickering already?" Rou asked. "You're beginning to remind me of Rei and Al on a bad day."
"Okay, see you tomorrow." Bikky shrugged into his jacket and quickly stuffed his books in his backpack.
"Sure thing. And after class, I'll show you just who's kicking whose ass in the court."
"You're on!"
x
Bikky didn't really feel like trying to talk to Rou during the ride home - Rai's brother was an okay guy, he supposed, but he was always so /serious/. Plus, he'd been the one to insist Bikky'd accept a ride home on his study-nights with Rai, as if Bikky was some sort of kid.
That comment about Bikky and Rai arguing like Rai's sister and that guy she was married to bothered Bikky more than he could say, too. Part of him wanted to dismiss it as just some stupid remark from an idiot adult. Dee gave him shit like that and worse all the time, and Bikky never paid /that/ any attention either, but, well, Dee was Dee.
Maybe Rou hadn't meant anything by it, anyway. Maybe Bikky was just hearing way too much in a simple complaint about him and Rai keeping Rou from being able to concentrate on doing whatever it was he'd been doing with that laptop of his.
Bikky supposed the one sure way to find out was to ask, but then Rou'd know there was something going on, and since Bikky himself hadn't even figured out just /what/ was going on, that seemed like a really bad idea. It was just that recently, Carol was always busy with girl-stuff, taking Rathe shopping, or things like that, and Bikky seriously needed to work on his grades, so he'd asked Rai for some extra tutoring, and now it seemed he spent most of his free time hanging out with Rai, instead of hanging out with Carol. He missed her, too. It wasn't that.
It was just that sometimes, he'd look at Rai and find himself thinking Rai was pretty good-looking. Not like he was a girl or anything weird like that, just ... good-looking.
"Rai likes you a lot, you know," Rou said, waiting for a red traffic-light. "When it turned out that he wasn't just 'special' but also had a far higher IQ than most people his age, Rei and me were worried about him finding any friends."
"Yeah, I noticed he's kind of arrogant, isn't he?" Bikky blurted out, his mind still on what it meant that he thought of another guy as 'good-looking'. "Uhm."
Rou chuckled. "That's one way of putting it."
The traffic-light turned green.
"I just feel it's unfair sometimes, you know?" Bikky said. "I mean, it's like he doesn't even have to study to get an A, and I stay up all night and I still only get a C, and that's when I'm lucky."
"Pulling an all-nighter on the night before a test is, in general, not such a good idea."
Bikky groaned.
"And just the fact that he gets good grades doesn't mean he's good at tutoring," continued Rou. "In fact, I'd say it results in the exact opposite; he doesn't see why someone else would have trouble solving a specific maths-problem, and because he'd be able to solve it without even needing to think about it, he can't really put into words which steps lead from the problem to its solution."
"Rathe never has any trouble following him," Bikky quoted Rai.
Rou cocked his head, considering. "Well, perhaps he does think about it, a little, subconsciously."
It took Bikky a few moments to understand what Rou was getting at.
"She reads his mind? Man, that's /totally/ unfair."
"Rathe's the only one who can decide that, and anyway, it's only a possibility, not an actual fact. She's assured me it's hard, not to say impossible, for her to simply read anyone's mind, but she and Rai have a special kind of bond, so /his/ mind, she can read fairly easily, as long as he lets her." Rou shrugged, as if the mind-reading abilities of his brother's best friend were no concern of his.
"The two of them are really close, huh?"
Rou smiled. "Do I detect a hint of jealousy?
"No way!" said Bikky, a little too quickly, perhaps.
"As I said: I'm certain he likes you a lot. Please remember that." Rou halted the car in front of Ryo's apartment-building. "Even if he gives you a hard time every now and then."
"Uh, sure." A bit belatedly, it occured to Bikky that Rou didn't suspect anything weird was going on between Rai and Bikky. Rather, Rou was just worried that Bikky'd stop being Rai's friend because he'd heard them argue - and if Bikky'd have thought about it for two seconds, he'd have figured that out himself, he thought sourly. In the two years he and Rai had been friends, he'd seen Rou maybe a dozen times. "You can bet I give him a hard time every now and then, too."
Rou nodded. "That's fine then."
x
"Hey, Ryo, when did you figure out that you were gay?" Bikky asked.
Ryo choked on his breakfast. Dee put down his morning-paper and stared at Bikky suspiciously.
"Uhm, well." Ryo coughed. "Could you pass me the milk, Dee?"
Dee passed the milk.
"It was just a question," Bikky said.
"Why do you want to know?" Dee inquired. "Carol finally dumped you?"
"Get lost, you, I'm talking to Ryo." Bikky stuck out his tongue at Dee.
"I really couldn't say. I mean, before I met Dee, I never thought I might be ahem inclined that way." Ryo stared at his cereals. "I didn't simply wake up one morning and decided I was attracted to other men."
"Ryo's not really gay, anyway," Dee put in.
"What are you yapping about? The two of you have kissed, haven't you?" Bikky grimaced. "Sounds plenty gay to me."
"Bikky!" Ryo's face flushed scarlet.
"We've done a lot more than just kissing, too, monkeyboy." Dee grinned. "Not that it's any of your business or anything."
"Dee!"
"But basically, Ryo's only madly attracted to /me/, not to anyone else, be they male or female. So I guess that makes him Dee-sexual."
"I'm sitting right here, you know," said Ryo.
"And looking edible, too," Dee replied. "Mind if I take a bite?"
[this part was censored for extreme violence and has been cut]
"Thank you, Bikky," Ryo said, pouring himself a cup of tea.
"My pleasure."
x
"Hey." Carol dumped her bag on the ground and sat down next to Bikky.
"Hey back atcha." Bikky didn't look up.
"So, let me guess: Rai totally kicked your ass at basketball and now you're sulking." Bikky's head snapped up and Carol lifted her hands, grinning. "Just joking. But c'mon, seriously, what's with the moping around? You've been acting weird all week."
"How would /you/ know?" Bikky demanded. "Half the time you're not there and the other half you're hanging out with Rathe and completely ignoring me."
"Aw, you poor baby." Carol snorted. "Something wrong with your legs? If you wanted to talk to me, you should've just come over and talked to me."
"Last time I did that, you got me involved in a discussion about which movie-star had the sexiest hands." Bikky shuddered. "No, thanks. If you ever wanna talk about /female/ movie-stars, I'm all ears, but I'm /not/ interested in three hours of squealing about guys like Brad Pitt."
"Brad Pitt's cute, but he's way too old," said Carol. Bikky glared at her. "Oh, lighten up, will you? I'm only teasing you. I don't know what your problem is, anyway."
"Well, that makes two of us, then," said Bikky.
Carol's expression softened. "You know you can always talk to me, right? I mean, not about female movie-stars, but ... "
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks, Carol."
Carol nodded. "You're welcome."
Bikky hesitated for a moment, then decided that he might as well. "Uh, can I ask you something really weird?"
"Hmm. What?" Carol eyed him curiously.
"Have you ever looked at another girl and thought she was real pretty? I mean, not like, pretty from a guy's point of view, just ... pretty." Bikky made a vague gesture.
"Uhm." Carol frowned. "Like, pretty, how?"
"I dunno." Bikky sighed. "Never mind. Forget it."
"Omigod. You're gay?" Carol stared at him wide-eyed.
"What? Of course I'm not! Where the hell did /that/ idea come from?"
"Okay, maybe not gay," Carol amended. "But you're thinking about it, aren't you? That's why you asked if I'd ever thought another girl was pretty."
"Maybe," Bikky admitted cautiously.
"I guess ... Rathe's real pretty, and some of the other girls in our class are, too. I wouldn't want to kiss them or anything like that, but I guess I'm cool with a hug." Carol shrugged. "So, who is it?"
"Who's what?" Bikky asked irritably. He'd thought he could just ask and get an answer, without Carol figuring out most of what was going on right away. And he /still/ wasn't sure if he really liked Rai /that/ way, or if it was just ... well, not normal, maybe, but kind of normal.
"Who's the guy that's got you thinking about this kind of stuff. I mean, you've known Dee and Ryo for years, so it can't - it's not either of them, is it? 'cause that would totally suck. I don't think there's /anything/ that could come between those two."
"No, it's not Dee or Ryo." Bikky rolled his eyes. "Seriously. Dee's just ew! Ryo's okay, I guess, but - no."
"So there /is/ someone else."
Bikky opened his mouth and closed it again.
"Fess up! Or else ... I'll ask Rathe to read your mind!" Carol winked.
"If you mention /one word/ of this to Rathe, I'm never talking to you ever again!" Bikky threatened.
"Fine. Then you won't come whining at me about how I'm supposedly ignoring you ever again either. Now, let's see, who could it be? There's really a lot of cute guys in our school, you know."
"I told you: I'm not gay. I'm just a little ... confused, I guess. And you're not helping!"
"Chill out, will you?" Carol huffed. "What do you want me to do, faint or something? It's not the end of the world, Bikky. So what if you saw a guy and thought he was cute? It's a free country. If someone gives you any shit about it, you can just kick their sorry asses."
"But I don't /want/ to look at another guy and think he's cute!" Bikky protested. "I mean, this time it's Rai, but what if it's some complete stranger next time? What if I can't cross the street without seeing some ... some guy and thinking he looks pretty? That's totally gross!"
"Would you stop freaking out already?" Carol shook her head. "Seriously, Bikky, is that what you think gay people are like?"
"/Dee's/ like that," Bikky pointed out. "He's a total horndog."
"/Ryo/ isn't," Carol riposted. "And Dee likes girls, too. He's bi, not gay."
"Well, but Ryo's never been attracted to another guy before Dee," Bikky said, wondering if Carol could really have missed his having flapped out Rai's name.
"Bikky ... you're just a complete /moron/ if you think - " Carol started.
"Are we interrupting something?" Rai asked, his grin informing Bikky that Rai had at least heard those last words of Carol's.
"Nope. We were all done." Carol beamed at Bikky and rose. "Oh, and Bikky thinks you're cute."
Rathe and Rai exchanged a look.
"You're sooo dead," said Bikky.
"Ooh, I'm scared." Carol smiled at Rathe.
"Cute or not, I'm still going to kick your ass, shrimp," said Rai.
"Bring it on, monkey. Bring it on."
Title: Like, So Married
Fandom: FAKE/Ra-I - Bikky/Rai with Dee/Ryo and Al/Rei mentioned
Author: kirikiri aka misura
Recipient: Priscian aka ranmaxryoga
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: pre-slash post-manga AU
Summary: Bikky makes an attempt to figure out how he feels about Rai.
A brief Who's Who for FAKE-only readers: Rai Spencer (Lai), Rathe Goldman (Lass), Rou Spencer (big brother Law), Rei Foster-Spencer (big sister Lei), Al Foster (Rei's husband, a private detective).
"Look, I've explained this problem to you three times already."
"I still don't get it." Bikky slumped in his seat and absent-mindedly chewed on the end of his pencil.
"Maybe it'd help if you paid more attention," Rai said, sarcastically.
"Maybe it'd help if you stopped being such a jerk about it, and actually explained it /right/."
"Oh, sure. It's not that /you're/ dumber than a brick, it's that /I'm/ bad at explaining things." Rai snorted.
"Well, you /are/," Bikky said. "Your explanations suck as hard as your b-ball skills."
"You take that back, you shrimp! I - "
Rou coughed, reminding Rai that yes, he'd been stupid enough to assure Rou that he and Bikky would be perfectly quiet and that Rou'd be perfectly able to use the living-room to read some last-minute reports for the board-meeting tomorrow morning.
"I totally kick your ass in basketball," Rai whispered.
"Yeah, in your dreams." Bikky snorted.
"It's getting fairly late, Rai, Bikky. Why don't you wrap things up and I'll give Bikky a ride home?" Rou rose and picked up his empty mug.
"Awww, man, it's half past ten already? And we're not even halfway."
"You're totally slow, dude." Rai smirked. "Keep this up and you'll still be in middle school when I graduate."
"Humph."
"And FYI, there's nothing wrong with my explanations. Rathe's never had any trouble following them."
"I still say you suck as a tutor," Bikky said.
"Could the two of you lay off the bickering already?" Rou asked. "You're beginning to remind me of Rei and Al on a bad day."
"Okay, see you tomorrow." Bikky shrugged into his jacket and quickly stuffed his books in his backpack.
"Sure thing. And after class, I'll show you just who's kicking whose ass in the court."
"You're on!"
x
Bikky didn't really feel like trying to talk to Rou during the ride home - Rai's brother was an okay guy, he supposed, but he was always so /serious/. Plus, he'd been the one to insist Bikky'd accept a ride home on his study-nights with Rai, as if Bikky was some sort of kid.
That comment about Bikky and Rai arguing like Rai's sister and that guy she was married to bothered Bikky more than he could say, too. Part of him wanted to dismiss it as just some stupid remark from an idiot adult. Dee gave him shit like that and worse all the time, and Bikky never paid /that/ any attention either, but, well, Dee was Dee.
Maybe Rou hadn't meant anything by it, anyway. Maybe Bikky was just hearing way too much in a simple complaint about him and Rai keeping Rou from being able to concentrate on doing whatever it was he'd been doing with that laptop of his.
Bikky supposed the one sure way to find out was to ask, but then Rou'd know there was something going on, and since Bikky himself hadn't even figured out just /what/ was going on, that seemed like a really bad idea. It was just that recently, Carol was always busy with girl-stuff, taking Rathe shopping, or things like that, and Bikky seriously needed to work on his grades, so he'd asked Rai for some extra tutoring, and now it seemed he spent most of his free time hanging out with Rai, instead of hanging out with Carol. He missed her, too. It wasn't that.
It was just that sometimes, he'd look at Rai and find himself thinking Rai was pretty good-looking. Not like he was a girl or anything weird like that, just ... good-looking.
"Rai likes you a lot, you know," Rou said, waiting for a red traffic-light. "When it turned out that he wasn't just 'special' but also had a far higher IQ than most people his age, Rei and me were worried about him finding any friends."
"Yeah, I noticed he's kind of arrogant, isn't he?" Bikky blurted out, his mind still on what it meant that he thought of another guy as 'good-looking'. "Uhm."
Rou chuckled. "That's one way of putting it."
The traffic-light turned green.
"I just feel it's unfair sometimes, you know?" Bikky said. "I mean, it's like he doesn't even have to study to get an A, and I stay up all night and I still only get a C, and that's when I'm lucky."
"Pulling an all-nighter on the night before a test is, in general, not such a good idea."
Bikky groaned.
"And just the fact that he gets good grades doesn't mean he's good at tutoring," continued Rou. "In fact, I'd say it results in the exact opposite; he doesn't see why someone else would have trouble solving a specific maths-problem, and because he'd be able to solve it without even needing to think about it, he can't really put into words which steps lead from the problem to its solution."
"Rathe never has any trouble following him," Bikky quoted Rai.
Rou cocked his head, considering. "Well, perhaps he does think about it, a little, subconsciously."
It took Bikky a few moments to understand what Rou was getting at.
"She reads his mind? Man, that's /totally/ unfair."
"Rathe's the only one who can decide that, and anyway, it's only a possibility, not an actual fact. She's assured me it's hard, not to say impossible, for her to simply read anyone's mind, but she and Rai have a special kind of bond, so /his/ mind, she can read fairly easily, as long as he lets her." Rou shrugged, as if the mind-reading abilities of his brother's best friend were no concern of his.
"The two of them are really close, huh?"
Rou smiled. "Do I detect a hint of jealousy?
"No way!" said Bikky, a little too quickly, perhaps.
"As I said: I'm certain he likes you a lot. Please remember that." Rou halted the car in front of Ryo's apartment-building. "Even if he gives you a hard time every now and then."
"Uh, sure." A bit belatedly, it occured to Bikky that Rou didn't suspect anything weird was going on between Rai and Bikky. Rather, Rou was just worried that Bikky'd stop being Rai's friend because he'd heard them argue - and if Bikky'd have thought about it for two seconds, he'd have figured that out himself, he thought sourly. In the two years he and Rai had been friends, he'd seen Rou maybe a dozen times. "You can bet I give him a hard time every now and then, too."
Rou nodded. "That's fine then."
x
"Hey, Ryo, when did you figure out that you were gay?" Bikky asked.
Ryo choked on his breakfast. Dee put down his morning-paper and stared at Bikky suspiciously.
"Uhm, well." Ryo coughed. "Could you pass me the milk, Dee?"
Dee passed the milk.
"It was just a question," Bikky said.
"Why do you want to know?" Dee inquired. "Carol finally dumped you?"
"Get lost, you, I'm talking to Ryo." Bikky stuck out his tongue at Dee.
"I really couldn't say. I mean, before I met Dee, I never thought I might be ahem inclined that way." Ryo stared at his cereals. "I didn't simply wake up one morning and decided I was attracted to other men."
"Ryo's not really gay, anyway," Dee put in.
"What are you yapping about? The two of you have kissed, haven't you?" Bikky grimaced. "Sounds plenty gay to me."
"Bikky!" Ryo's face flushed scarlet.
"We've done a lot more than just kissing, too, monkeyboy." Dee grinned. "Not that it's any of your business or anything."
"Dee!"
"But basically, Ryo's only madly attracted to /me/, not to anyone else, be they male or female. So I guess that makes him Dee-sexual."
"I'm sitting right here, you know," said Ryo.
"And looking edible, too," Dee replied. "Mind if I take a bite?"
[this part was censored for extreme violence and has been cut]
"Thank you, Bikky," Ryo said, pouring himself a cup of tea.
"My pleasure."
x
"Hey." Carol dumped her bag on the ground and sat down next to Bikky.
"Hey back atcha." Bikky didn't look up.
"So, let me guess: Rai totally kicked your ass at basketball and now you're sulking." Bikky's head snapped up and Carol lifted her hands, grinning. "Just joking. But c'mon, seriously, what's with the moping around? You've been acting weird all week."
"How would /you/ know?" Bikky demanded. "Half the time you're not there and the other half you're hanging out with Rathe and completely ignoring me."
"Aw, you poor baby." Carol snorted. "Something wrong with your legs? If you wanted to talk to me, you should've just come over and talked to me."
"Last time I did that, you got me involved in a discussion about which movie-star had the sexiest hands." Bikky shuddered. "No, thanks. If you ever wanna talk about /female/ movie-stars, I'm all ears, but I'm /not/ interested in three hours of squealing about guys like Brad Pitt."
"Brad Pitt's cute, but he's way too old," said Carol. Bikky glared at her. "Oh, lighten up, will you? I'm only teasing you. I don't know what your problem is, anyway."
"Well, that makes two of us, then," said Bikky.
Carol's expression softened. "You know you can always talk to me, right? I mean, not about female movie-stars, but ... "
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks, Carol."
Carol nodded. "You're welcome."
Bikky hesitated for a moment, then decided that he might as well. "Uh, can I ask you something really weird?"
"Hmm. What?" Carol eyed him curiously.
"Have you ever looked at another girl and thought she was real pretty? I mean, not like, pretty from a guy's point of view, just ... pretty." Bikky made a vague gesture.
"Uhm." Carol frowned. "Like, pretty, how?"
"I dunno." Bikky sighed. "Never mind. Forget it."
"Omigod. You're gay?" Carol stared at him wide-eyed.
"What? Of course I'm not! Where the hell did /that/ idea come from?"
"Okay, maybe not gay," Carol amended. "But you're thinking about it, aren't you? That's why you asked if I'd ever thought another girl was pretty."
"Maybe," Bikky admitted cautiously.
"I guess ... Rathe's real pretty, and some of the other girls in our class are, too. I wouldn't want to kiss them or anything like that, but I guess I'm cool with a hug." Carol shrugged. "So, who is it?"
"Who's what?" Bikky asked irritably. He'd thought he could just ask and get an answer, without Carol figuring out most of what was going on right away. And he /still/ wasn't sure if he really liked Rai /that/ way, or if it was just ... well, not normal, maybe, but kind of normal.
"Who's the guy that's got you thinking about this kind of stuff. I mean, you've known Dee and Ryo for years, so it can't - it's not either of them, is it? 'cause that would totally suck. I don't think there's /anything/ that could come between those two."
"No, it's not Dee or Ryo." Bikky rolled his eyes. "Seriously. Dee's just ew! Ryo's okay, I guess, but - no."
"So there /is/ someone else."
Bikky opened his mouth and closed it again.
"Fess up! Or else ... I'll ask Rathe to read your mind!" Carol winked.
"If you mention /one word/ of this to Rathe, I'm never talking to you ever again!" Bikky threatened.
"Fine. Then you won't come whining at me about how I'm supposedly ignoring you ever again either. Now, let's see, who could it be? There's really a lot of cute guys in our school, you know."
"I told you: I'm not gay. I'm just a little ... confused, I guess. And you're not helping!"
"Chill out, will you?" Carol huffed. "What do you want me to do, faint or something? It's not the end of the world, Bikky. So what if you saw a guy and thought he was cute? It's a free country. If someone gives you any shit about it, you can just kick their sorry asses."
"But I don't /want/ to look at another guy and think he's cute!" Bikky protested. "I mean, this time it's Rai, but what if it's some complete stranger next time? What if I can't cross the street without seeing some ... some guy and thinking he looks pretty? That's totally gross!"
"Would you stop freaking out already?" Carol shook her head. "Seriously, Bikky, is that what you think gay people are like?"
"/Dee's/ like that," Bikky pointed out. "He's a total horndog."
"/Ryo/ isn't," Carol riposted. "And Dee likes girls, too. He's bi, not gay."
"Well, but Ryo's never been attracted to another guy before Dee," Bikky said, wondering if Carol could really have missed his having flapped out Rai's name.
"Bikky ... you're just a complete /moron/ if you think - " Carol started.
"Are we interrupting something?" Rai asked, his grin informing Bikky that Rai had at least heard those last words of Carol's.
"Nope. We were all done." Carol beamed at Bikky and rose. "Oh, and Bikky thinks you're cute."
Rathe and Rai exchanged a look.
"You're sooo dead," said Bikky.
"Ooh, I'm scared." Carol smiled at Rathe.
"Cute or not, I'm still going to kick your ass, shrimp," said Rai.
"Bring it on, monkey. Bring it on."