(OshiGaku) Of Peacock's Thighs and Moonlit Balconies (Part 2/2)

[alsepang]

© 2006 Gold

Title: Of Peacock’s Thighs and Moonlit Balconies, Part 2/2

Pairings: Oshitari/Gakuto.
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-sama or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of Prince of Tennis .  It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any false association with Konomi-sama or aforesaid entities.
Summary: The moonlit balconies appear...Notes: I like writing about Atobe the busybody. That aside, you might want to read this with a mug of your favourite hot drink, while you’re curled up somewhere comfortable. Please also prepare toothbrushes and toothpaste. Finally, I record my sincere thanks to Forrest Gump, because I decided to mangle a line from it .

The balcony was flooded with moonlight.

Gakuto lay on his back on one of the two French-style récamiers that were on opposite ends of the balcony, with one hand across his eyes. All around, it was quiet and peaceful, and the sounds of the lavish dinner party below were, thankfully, muted in the distance.

“Gakuto.”

And even in the most peaceful of worlds, there was the occasional annoying gnat.

“I’d like to be alone,” Gakuto snapped.

“Of course,” said Atobe Keigo smoothly. “Kabaji, leave us.”

“Usu.”

Gakuto knew Atobe of old. He wouldn’t desist until he had finished whatever he had come to do. With a sigh, Gakuto uncovered his eyes and sat up wearily. “Look, Atobe. I’d just like to be by myself for a while, okay? I’ll come down, I promise.” Without waiting for a reply, he lay down again, and this time he turned his back to Atobe.

Atobe narrowed his eyes, studying Gakuto. This one was stubborn and had to handled with kid gloves, although being direct with him was the best way to go. Some things, though, just had to be hit with a sledgehammer, because there was no softer way.

“Gakuto, you’re in love with Yuushi.”

Gakuto rolled off the récamier and hit the marble floor of the balcony with a heavy thud.

All right, Atobe conceded silently, perhaps he should have used something other than a sledgehammer.

Oshitari snapped the lid of his mobile phone shut and turned around.

“Good grief, Atobe.”

Atobe Keigo, looking somewhat put out, had just stepped out from a room along the corridor and Oshitari had nearly walked into him. “Oh, it’s you.”

Oshitari arched an eyebrow. “Yes, it’s me, one of your invited guests. My name is Oshitari Yuushi, in case you’ve forgotten. Also, we used to be classmates at Hyoutei. You know Hyoutei? That elite school-”

Atobe glared hard at him. “You think this is funny? I’m still not going to forgive you for not getting your sister to ship Shishido here pronto. Do you know just how many of my parties he’s missed?!”

Oshitari shrugged. “Well, she’s my sister, and she likes having Shishido around to torture. She says it’s twice as fun as torturing her husband.” His older sister had married Shishido’s older brother last spring, and Oshitari was still getting a kick out of Shishido’s dismay. The fact that Shishido Ryou was trying (successfully) to avoid Ohtori Choutarou by skipping all of Atobe’s little gatherings was a problem for Atobe, who took every absence as an insult. For Oshitari, though, getting Shishido to attend Atobe’s parties didn’t rank very high on his list of priorities in life.

Atobe deepened the intensity of his glare.

“You’re not on Shishido’s side, are you?” asked Oshitari, feigning surprise.

“Stop that,” snapped Atobe. “Did you just break up with your ex-girlfriend?”

Oshitari paused, his eyes narrowing. “Some things just aren’t done, Atobe,” he said coldly. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the sort of person who likes eavesdropping on other people’s telephone conversations. Now if you’ll excuse me, I-”

Instead of expressing some semblance of apology, Atobe shot him a glance that could have fried him alive. “Excuse you? Not a chance.” Without further ado, he grabbed Oshitari by the arm and threw open the doors of the nearest room. “Inside.”

Oshitari found himself on the other side of two massive oak doors before he could protest. “All right, Atobe.” The best way to deal with a rampaging Atobe was to let him rant and rave until he had cooled down. “What’s with all this subterfuge and cloak-and-dagger? If this has anything more to do with Shishido and Ohtori, I’m out of here.”

Atobe made a brief, imperious gesture with one hand. “It doesn’t. Have a seat.” He indicated the sideboard. “Also, your choice of poison. Help yourself.” He himself was already filling a wine glass with a clear, dark red wine.

“If you say so.” Still somewhat irked, Oshitari strode across to the sideboard and uncapped a decanter of his chosen vintage. He tipped a portion of its contents into a wine glass. “This has to be really short, say fifteen seconds, Atobe, because Gakuto’s mad at me again, and I have to go back and apologise.”

Atobe absently swirled the wine round in his wine glass. “Apologise?”

“Yes. You know, say I’m sorry, tell him I was hauled up here out of the blue by our beloved host, and possibly prostrate myself before him in abject humility. Maybe I’ll have to stand in line again to get those limited edition natto-filled chocolates so he’ll think twice about slamming down the ’phone every time I call him… And if you suggest that I try anything else, you can really go and fly a kite, Atobe. I’m not going to have Gakuto more upset with me than he already is.”

Atobe snorted. “You spoil him rotten, Yuushi.”

“Nonsense.” Oshitari began to look around for a suitable chair. Clearly Atobe was trying to tell him something, but obviously it would be some time before they got to the point. Until then, he needed something really comfortable while he sparred verbally with Atobe.

Atobe arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t spoil him? Natto-filled chocolates, forsooth.”

Oshitari gingerly settled himself on to the Louis XVI gilt-edged chair just across from Atobe. “Fine. So I spoil Gakuto. But I like doing it. So would you please cut to the chase?”

Atobe shrugged. “Very well, then.” He drained his glass before he spoke. “Yuushi, you’re an idiot.”

“Explain that or you’ll need a new nose,” returned Oshitari easily and without rancour.

Atobe rolled his eyes. “If you weren’t quite so blind, Yuushi, I wouldn’t have to call you out in the middle of a party to spell things out to you. Now, what I need to talk to you-” Atobe paused. “Let’s see, we need to talk-” He halted again, searching for the right words.

It was Oshitari’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Atobe Keigo, rendered speechless? This had to be more serious than he had anticipated.

“Don’t look so surprised, Yuushi.” Atobe pursed his lips, looking irritated. “Really, there isn’t an easy way to talk to you about this.” He looked at Oshitari over the rim of his now-empty wine glass. “Now, Yuushi, I’d like to ask you about Gakuto.”

Oshitari looked genuinely astonished. “Gakuto?”

“Yes.” Atobe put down his wine glass. “I need honest answers, Yuushi. I have a certain idea in mind and I need to confirm it with someone who knows Gakuto as well as you do. How would you describe him?”

Oshitari tilted his head to one side. “Fun, feisty, talkative, has a temper I’d prefer not to get on the wrong side of, very sensitive, my favourite tennis partner, possibly my favourite person in the world-” Oshitari paused. “And there is a reason for this interrogation, Atobe?”

Atobe’s brow was wrinkled. “Yes, of course.”

“If it’s got anything to do with Gakuto, you’d better tell me,” said Oshitari, sitting up suddenly. His eyes were narrowed to near slits. “What’s going on?”

Atobe leaned back in his chair.  He pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Well, you see… Gakuto’s in love with you.”

Oshitari’s glass fell to the floor and shattered.

The balcony was flooded with moonlight.

Gakuto lay on his back on one of the two French-style récamiers that were on opposite ends of the balcony.

Gakuto, you’re in love with Yuushi.

No.

Yes.

Maybe.

I am not gay.

Just… it was Yuushi.

Tall, dark, handsome, charming, elegant, intelligent, fine brows, clever eyes, straight nose, sensual mouth, heart-stopping smile, velvety voice, sappy, romantic, kind, patient, humorous, fan of chick flicks…

… just Yuushi. Not gay. Yuushi only.

Yuushi, who would queue in the rain for hours to buy him limited-edition chocolates, the kinds filled with natto and laced with edible gold dust.

Yuushi, who would follow him patiently for hours and hours while he flitted through Yokohama’s cramped and food-filled Chinatown.

Yuushi, who would obediently try everything he forced upon him, and suffer through upset stomachs for four whole days after.

Yuushi, who thought Gakuto had the prettiest nose he had ever seen, even when it was turned an ugly strawberry pink by the biting cold of the winter season.

Yuushi, whom he spent hours and hours with, everywhere and anywhere, talking and sometimes arguing, but never bored.

Yuushi, whose every girlfriend Gakuto was jealous of-he might as well admit that-because they took up Yuushi’s time, and left Gakuto with less.

Yuushi, who was like every girlfriend Gakuto had ever had.

Yuushi, whom he’d liked very, very, very much since the first time he laid eyes on him.

Yuushi, who really couldn’t be loved that way by Gakuto, because it would mean that the skies had come crashing down and the earth had opened up below and the mountains had fallen into the sea and the oceans had come rising to drown the earth and all its inhabitants and-

Just couldn’t.

Gakuto felt strangely calm about it all. Nearly all his break-ups with his ex-girlfriends (and there were many of them) generally involved sobbing and screaming on the girls’ parts. It would have been nice to be a girl, Gakuto thought vaguely. Then he could sob and scream too... though that was really girly, and anyway, there was nothing to sob and scream about here. On the other hand, if he’d been a girl, Yuushi would have been his by now. No two ways about that, because Yuushi was a friggin’ good catch, and he’d have been stupid to let him run off with another girl. And if Yuushi had been a girl, Gakuto would have him eating out of his hand by now, because Yuushi would have been a great girlfriend-and Gakuto wasn’t going to let any other guy have Yuushi.

But Gakuto wasn’t a girl. He hadn’t been made that way. And Yuushi wasn’t a girl either, which made everything moot. So things had to be different. Plus, Gakuto didn’t really know-it wasn’t as if Atobe waltzing in and saying it would magically make him capitulate and proclaim that he did think of Oshitari Yuushi that way, God forbid.

Besides, it wasn’t the yes, I do that frightened him. It was the fact that if he took a step forward, he would Most Definitely fall off the edge of the cliff that he was standing on, right through the protective railing that he had been constructing like crazy all this while. And if he fell, he wouldn’t be able to climb back up again. No, he would shatter on the rocks below. He liked his view on the safe side of the cliff, thank you very much.

“Gakuto?”

And in this most imperfect of worlds, on the safe side of the cliff, there was always Oshitari Yuushi and their friendship. Below, it was all or nothing, and the odds weighed heavily on the side of nothing. Gakuto much preferred his chances on the safe side of the cliff.

With that in mind, Gakuto did not move. He simply closed his eyes. “Mm,” he mumbled incoherently. He hoped Yuushi would take the hint and go away.

There was the sound of someone sighing very softly, and Gakuto could feel Yuushi sink down, right on the edge of the very récamier he was lying on. Gakuto searched his brain for foul words and found about two hundred and thirty of them, in six languages.

“Gakuto... I apologise for leaving you so abruptly just now... Ayumi called.”

Ah, Yuushi’s current girlfriend. An extremely intelligent, extremely attractive, extremely available woman who was part of some top-notch investment banking team in a foreign bank.

“We... broke up.”

Again? Yuushi’s super-smart, super-bodacious, super-employed girlfriends always initiated the break-ups. What were they, super idiots?

Yuushi’s light chuckle was without mirth. “Yes, again.”

Oops. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Gakuto cracked open an eyelid apologetically. “Oh. Find another one?” He wasn’t very good at being tactful, but he didn’t like Ayumi anyway. Loud and opinionated and a little bit spoilt. A fashion plate with brains like Isaac Newton and entire outfits from Chanel and all those girly luxury labels. All of Yuushi’s girlfriends were like that. Petite, talkative, strong-willed, with big bambi eyes, voluptuous curves and fiery tempers. Yuushi was better off without her. Funny thing was, Yuushi didn’t sound too deeply affected by the break-up, which was very strange. Usually break-ups put Yuushi in a dismal mood for weeks on end and Gakuto always tried to be extra nice to get Yuushi back to being his confident, women-magnet self faster, because a moping Yuushi was very un-Yuushi. “I don’t like her anyway.”

Yuushi just smiled, which made Gakuto feel even stranger.

There was a long silence while Yuushi sat there, smiling thoughtfully down at him. Gakuto fidgeted slightly in the silence. Usually he had a lot to say, and he would even yell at Yuushi as a kind of payback for having left him so abruptly, but tonight the quiet was a bit odd. In fact, it was downright creepy. Plus, Yuushi was looking at him with a gaze that sort of deepened in intensity by the second.

Gakuto’s survival instincts kicked in and he sat up in a horrible hurry, nearly banging his nose against Oshitari’s. “We’d better go back down,” he said quickly and loudly, to fill the empty silence. “I’m sure Atobe’s going to want us suddenly and if we’re not there, he’ll throw a hissy fit and-”

Oshitari’s hand closed over Gakuto’s, warm and firm, and Gakuto’s voice trailed away promptly in a squeak as a sort of sunset pink washed over his features (Gakuto would have died then and there if he had seen his reflection in a mirror).

“I ran into Atobe,” said Oshitari finally.

Gakuto glanced at him sharply.

“We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we, Gakuto?” Oshitari continued conversationally and irrelevantly. He caught Gakuto’s wary gaze and held it. “Junior high, high school, university-”

“We didn’t go to the same university,” pointed out Gakuto shortly, trying to pull his hand away from Oshitari’s clasp, and failing utterly. The railing and the cliff-he could not afford to fall through the railing...

Oshitari shrugged. “That’s not important.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “We spent a lot of time together. In fact, we still do.”

“I’m your best friend next to Atobe,” Gakuto told him flatly. “If we don’t spend time together, you can’t call us best friends. Yuushi, have you gone soft in your head?”

Oshitari laughed. “That’s what I like about you.” There was a curious expression in his gaze, which was beginning to go beyond ‘thoughtful’ and ‘intense’. “I like the way you say things. I like the way you say it straight out to me, without trying to be tactful. You are a little temperamental, but I like it. I wouldn’t have you any other way, you know.”

Gakuto, forgetting about falling off cliffs, was indignant. He had never been so insulted before! “Temperamental? I am not! Your stupid girlfriends are the spoilt, temperamental ones!”

Oshitari barrelled on as if he hadn’t heard Gakuto. “I like to spoil you. I like to stand in the rain for hours to get you those awful natto-filled chocolates that you like, and-”

Okay. Drunk. Yuushi was drunk. It was the only reasonable explanation. “You’re drunk,” announced Gakuto firmly. “Yuushi-”

“-and the adorable way you smile when I surprise you with something-”

Gakuto knew that he needed to take drastic measures. Yuushi was being sappy, and Gakuto’s whole face was going to be hot enough to fry bacon and eggs if he didn’t stop Yuushi from being sappy and saying things like that! Gakuto took a deep breath. “Sorry, but I have to do this.”

Yuushi caught Gakuto’s free hand before the slap could land. There was a sudden flash in his eyes that made Gakuto freeze. He knew this look; it was Yuushi when his mental faculties were at their finest, assessing the opponent, calculating his weaknesses and strengths, and then closing in for the kill-all in the space of probably less than two seconds. Gakuto swallowed hard and felt a sense of commiseration for their past opponents; he had always been on the same side as Yuushi before, and had never felt how utterly terrifying it must have been to be on the other side of the net.

Oshitari looked down at Gakuto, who was now very still, and staring up at him with wide, limpid eyes that were just a little bit wild.

Well, you see… Gakuto’s in love with you.

Easy for Atobe to say, Oshitari thought. It wasn’t as if he could open his mouth to ask Gakuto. More likely than not, Gakuto would hit him, and he would well and truly have deserved that punch. But Atobe had set him thinking in another direction. Life was like a box of chocolates. If you didn’t open it, you would never know what you were going to get.

If Mukahi Gakuto had been a girl, Oshitari Yuushi would most certainly have pursued him fiercely, until Gakuto caved in. However, Gakuto was male through and through, and Oshitari was not interested in males in that way, although like any person with half a grain of aesthetic sense, he appreciated good looks in people from his own gender. The fact that Atobe had set Oshitari thinking about Gakuto in a different sense altogether didn’t mean that Oshitari was immediately going to do an about-turn and decide that he was interested in males too. Nor did it mean that Oshitari was going to avoid Gakuto like the plague, ignore him altogether, or take advantage of him. Those were the common reactions of most people in such a situation, but Oshitari Yuushi thought differently. As a matter of fact, he actually felt enormously flattered. Gakuto had very fastidious tastes, after all. Besides, it really wasn’t such a bad thing to have Gakuto falling at his feet in worship. Oshitari quite liked the idea. The question was whether he liked that idea enough to push forward with it. He didn’t want to play with Gakuto’s heart, after all. But first, before he decided on anything, he had something more important to attend to.

“You can let go of my nose now, Gakuto. I’d like to breathe.”

Gakuto, who had managed to free one hand, was pinching Oshitari’s nose with said hand for all he was worth. “Then stop looking at me like that!”

But he released Oshitari’s nose, and Oshitari breathed in and out deeply and gratefully. “Looking at you like what?” he asked courteously, trapping Gakuto’s free hand again.

Gakuto shrugged uncomfortably and frowned as he turned his face away. “I don’t know. Just-you’re creeping me out, Yuushi.” He leaned back as far as his trapped hands allowed. “And leggo of my hands, Yuushi.”

Oshitari narrowed his eyes. If he let go, Gakuto was bound to run off somewhere. He didn’t want that to happen, but then again, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to proceed. On the other hand...

“Yuushi!” Gakuto was beginning to look rather angry. “This isn’t funny-urk-” Gakuto hitched his breath and his eyes stretched to their widest and roundest ever.

Oshitari cocked his head to one side, eyes soft and dark, and then leaned forward again and calmly pressed a second kiss to the other corner of Gakuto’s mouth. Not on the lips, just a little bit to the side. The first touch had been experimental; the second was just for sheer wickedness, because Gakuto looked so funny with that stunned expression on his face. Maybe a third would be nice. Gakuto was temptingly pink-lipped and blushy, and he had lovely skin, most tender and succulent. Oshitari repressed with some difficulty the urge to smack his lips cannibalistically. Instead, he gave Gakuto one of his best and most charming smiles-in fact, the very one that had won him Best Smile 2005 in the Hyoutei Valentine’s Day awards in the senior high division of Hyoutei (that year, Atobe won the inaugural crown of the All-Hyoutei Prince of Hearts, which reconciled him a little to the loss of the Best Smile title sash).

“Are you free tonight, Gakuto?”

Gakuto, not surprisingly, looked a little dazed, as if he had just fallen off a cliff. “... wh-what?”

Oshitari smiled, very gently. “I was thinking... a movie? Not a sappy one, I promise. Perhaps a foreign film?” Gakuto liked French films a good deal, and Oshitari firmly believed that nothing could go wrong on a first date that involved a movie.

“Oh,” said Gakuto intelligently, still caught by the deep, dark depths that were Yuushi’s very beautiful eyes. “Gtfsjk;kl.”

Oshitari took that to mean that Gakuto was agreeable. “Good, darling.” The term of endearment slipped out easily and Oshitari decided that it was a good sign. “I’m going to borrow Atobe’s private cinema and you can pick out anything you want-Gakuto?”

Gakuto had jerked back suddenly. His eyes were gradually losing their glazed look and there was a dawning look of shock in them. “Wh-what did you-what did-what happened?”

Oshitari quirked his eyebrows. “Well, I kissed you. Then I asked you to watch a movie with me, and I called you darling. You didn’t object, you know.”

“Kissu?” Gakuto’s voice was rapidly beginning to sound a bit like a high wail.

“Yes, darling.” Oshitari grinned. This was both adorable of Gakuto, as well as dreadfully amusing. Getting to call Gakuto ‘darling’ was an added bonus.

“But I...” Gakuto flailed helplessly, and then seemed to draw himself up like a little thundercloud. “Yuushi-mmph!”

Oshitari had laid a large and warm hand across a furious Gakuto’s mouth. “Let me declare my intentions formally.” He cleared his throat. “I, Oshitari Yuushi, hereby state without reservation that I wish to date Mukahi Gakuto. My intentions are wholly honourable and I swear on my mother’s life that I am completely sincere.” He smiled, taking his hand off Gakuto’s mouth. “I mean it, Gakuto. What do you think?”

Gakuto clamped his gaping jaw shut and took a deep breath of air. “Fine.” Yuushi had already sworn it on his mother’s life, for goodness’ sake. Gakuto lifted his chin, his mouth set. “But if this doesn’t work out, I’m never going to speak to you again, Oshitari Yuushi!”

“As you wish.” Laughter bubbled from Oshitari. Somehow, he had a feeling that just because Gakuto had threatened that, everything was going to work out after all. Still laughing, he stood up, pulling Gakuto to his feet. “Come on, darling.”

“Huh? Where are we going? -And would you please stop calling me that?!”

“Well, would you prefer that I call you lambkin? Honeybunch? Sweetheart? Dearest of my heart?” Oshitari watched with amused satisfaction as Gakuto turned pale and gurgled with horror. “Anyway, darling, as I was about to say, we’re going to Atobe’s private cinema. We can’t get there without the assistance of one of those little go-carts and a map. So let’s find Atobe.”

Atobe’s mansion was located on a twenty-acre estate and getting from one part of the mansion to another frequently required the services of Atobe’s servants or security team, who drove about the estate in little electronic go-carts that were equipped with Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) systems.

Gakuto found himself following Oshitari meekly as the latter, still holding him by the hand, led the way out of the room.

“Atobe? Yuushi here.”

Gakuto dropped his gaze to his and Yuushi’s hands, clasped so tightly together. He glanced back up at Yuushi, who was talking animatedly into his mobile phone.

“Yes, we want the use of your private cinema. -Well, tell them you promised the cinema to someone else. They can go skinny-dipping in your pool. -No? Well, then the onsen. They can have swimming races inside. -Hey, you’re the one who’s responsible for this.”

Gakuto bit his lip. He didn’t know if it would work out. He didn’t know where they were headed. One moment, they were near-best friends, and he was hopping mad with Yuushi for one reason or another. Next thing he knew, they were holding hands, Yuushi had “declared intentions”, whatever that meant, and they were on their way to what-a first date? That cliff-he’d crashed through the protective railing, and he was falling, falling down to where the rocks waited for him below-

Suddenly he was pulled close, into a warm, tight embrace. It was Yuushi; Gakuto could smell the Armani cologne on him.

“Gakuto.”

It was Yuushi’s voice, deep and comforting, speaking through Gakuto’s hair (Gakuto could feel his hair wave up and down with every breath Yuushi took) and into his ears.

“We’re going to take this one step at a time, Gakuto. Little by little. We won’t rush. I know you’re not sure of this. But let’s try. If you feel like you’re falling, I want you to know-I’m falling with you, too.”

I’m falling with you, too.

Gakuto wasn’t a sap, and there had been many, many times in the past when Oshitari could be so cavity-inducing that Gakuto wanted to squirm. But this time, somehow, it felt different. It was kind of-nice, even. Gakuto’s fingers clung on tightly to Yuushi’s.

I’m falling with you, too.

Maybe there was a chance for them after all. At any rate, he was going to try. With Yuushi.