FIC: Rewind Forward (D1) 49/63
Title: Rewind Forward (49/63)
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
Before was tough, when Yagyuu hated him and avoided him. Now is agony, when Yagyuu avoids him, but doesn't hate him. Niou drags his body into the clubhouse following afternoon classes, but the tension is so palpable when Yagyuu turns his head and narrows his eyes at Niou, that Niou walks right back out the doorway.
Sanada be damned, Niou's not dealing with this.
"Oi, moron! Where are you going?" Marui asks.
"NIOU!" Sanada booms.
But it's the last voice he hears that makes Niou stop for a moment. Yagyuu sticks his head out the doorway. He's got his shorts on, but he holds his t-shirt bunched up in his hand. Sunlight glints off his chest, all over his warm skin except for the shadowed trail of hair underneath his bellybutton. "Niou-kun," he says.
Niou swallows the shuddered lump in his throat. He balls his fist and keeps walking. Sanada yells his name a second time, but Niou doesn't hear it. His tennisbag cuts into his shoulder. The strap of his schoolbag cuts into his other shoulder-the weight of his textbooks is nearly unbearable, but he can't do it. He can't face Yagyuu yet. He's cut through to the core by something he knew was true and never wanted to acknowledge.
The sun is merciless as he waits at the bus stop by the school gates. Niou lurks in the shadows of the red brick. Slapping sneakers from the main pathway run up to him and Jackal says his name. "Sanada says you're supposed to get back to practice," he says.
Niou doesn't turn around. The bus pulls up to the curb and Niou joins the throng of other students lining up to get on. Jackal shouts, "OI!" Niou shows the bus driver his pass. The doors close behind him-he's the last one on.
It's surreal to ride the bus this early. Almost never has Niou not been at tennis practices, three years running (before this past summer, at any rate). It's surreal to stand packed between other students: high school, junior high, even a few elementary kids in short shorts and hard plastic backpacks poking into Niou's stomach. He holds onto a pole with a tight grip-no loose tennis grip with the bus constantly swerving through traffic, pulling up and pulling away from stops along the streets.
Through the windows, the sun is hot on Niou's arms. Another stop, another group of students pushing around his bags and shoving into his side. Niou gets an elbow to the gut in the process. He winces, but it doesn't hurt the way the numb hollowness in his chest does.
Home is one of the last stops on the route. As more students get off-and a few grannies with pushcarts too-Niou shuffles down the aisle to an empty seat. He stuffs his bags in the adjacent seat and curls up. He rests his elbow on the window sill and his chin on that. he swallows hard, but the ache doesn't go away. He closes his eyes and he can see the light filtering through the leaves of the confession tree, dancing around Yagyuu's hair as he leans down to kiss his girlfriend.
Niou's face is wet. He sniffles and wipes his cheeks on his shoulder in case someone sees. But mostly, he doesn't care.
He's defeated.
Fuck the Regionals, he's lost something more important.
His mother asks why he's home so early. Niou looks at her through his hair. It hangs limp over his eyes. He dumps his bags in the front hallway and peels off his sneakers, and his damp socks too.
"Masaharu?" she asks. Her smile wavers. "Do you want some tea or a snack? Is everything okay?"
Niou sits at the kitchen table and sips the cold tea-it's barley, he hates the taste, but he can't be bothered to say anything. The mochi sticks to the roof of his mouth. It tastes chalky and bitter. Niou leaves half of it uneaten.
His mother touches the back of his shoulder right when he scrapes the chair back to stand up. Her touch is cool and comfortable, kneading the taut muscles of his neck and shoulders that Niou didn't realize were stiff in the first place. He sighs and leans back. His ribs constrict and his stomach is all knots-she can't help that at all. Niou wants to cry and hide and phone Yagyuu and tell him he's an asshole and find Yagyuu and flick coins at his window and scream WHY NOT ME?!?
Instead, he's here at home, sitting in the A/C and shivering.
"Do you want to have yakiniku for supper?" his mother asks. Her voice is low and calm. Her fingers continue to rub circles through his shirt. "I haven't started anything yet."
Niou shakes his head. He stands up and shrugs her hands off his back. "Don't touch me!" he snaps. Niou stomps upstairs to his room and slams the door behind himself. The walls shake and he winces-guilt pricking for a moment, but not enough for him to do anything about it.
He needs to do something beyond wring his hands and sniffle. Niou kicks his dartboard-lying on the floor, it's useless. He flops onto his bed and bunches up the sheet. He flings his window wide open, then closes it again. The air is thick and it smells like rain will come tonight. It's too damn hot to leave open anyway. He sweats on his window sill then paces his room.
Niou pulls his cellphone from his pocket. One by one, he deletes the phone numbers, starting with Yagyuu. He grinds his teeth at the sight of Yagyuu's number and Yagyuu's name. His hands shake when he presses "Delete", but at the same time, the heaviness inside his gut doesn't disappear. If anything, the loss of Yagyuu's number from his phone feels like someone's cut his arm off. Niou bleeds onto his floor and sinks down until his cheek presses to the Pergo and sticks. He closes his eyes.
"Why…?" he whispers.
Then his cellphone buzzes.
Niou peels his face off the floor and props his chin up. He stares at the flashing LCD screen, vivid blue in the dimness of his unlit bedroom. The way his blood sinks through his body and pools in his dick tells him it's only one person. Despite the "Unknown Sender", he knows.
He could delete the message. It would be so easy now, to press that button and never see what he has to say. Nothing says Niou has to deal with it. He can ignore. He can move on.
But curiosity has always gotten the better of him. He needs to know what Yagyuu wants.
Niou takes a deep breath, then he opens the message. His eyes skim the screen once. They linger longer on the second read-through as the words sink in.
Yanagi-kun said you have a math test Friday. Do you want to study tonight at my place?
Niou doesn't even realize he's laughing until he feels his stomach heaving and he hears the sound loud in his ears.
***
Supper is yakiniku beef on rice. It's tasty, it's Niou's favourite next to an actual yakiniku buffet, but his stomach still roils even though his tongue savours the sweet, salty taste and the tender texture of the strips of beef against his molars.
"Seconds?" his mother asks.
Niou hesitates, then he nods once. "Just meat," he says.
"Don't be so uneconomical," his sister says. "Meat is expensive." She pushes her glasses up her nose and lords over him, looking down at nose with a small frown.
Niou holds out his bowl. "More please," he drawls. His mother heaps a scoopful. Niou shakes his bowl and nods. "Bit more, don't be cheap."
He picks meat out of his teeth in the bathtub.
He picks meat out of his teeth after he brushes.
He picks meat out of his teeth as he sits at his desk and stares at his textbook. Niou scratches his head. Yagyuu was full of it-there's nothing he needs to study. And Niou doesn't appreciate the second, cheerful and polite text he got in the bath, either.
Sender: Unknown
Would you like to study tonight at my house? If your parents say it's okay, we still have time. Please respond.
"Fuck you," Niou whispers. He works on a problem on his own. Easy as fucking pie, he doesn't need help. x = 8/2, reduce to 4. He can do it in his head.
Besides, Yagyuu probably has that girl studying over at his place instead of Niou. He's not braindead, he probably realized Niou isn't coming and called his girlfriend. Niou's eyes blur over the problems in his book and clear in his vision he can imagine Yagyuu sitting on his bed-sheets rumpled and smelling faintly sweaty and heady. He'd stoke her hair and lean down, kissing her on the lips nice and polite and chaste at first before taking her hands and holding them down and pushing himself on top all offensive and aggressive and-
Niou moans. His dick is hard and his eyes sting. The air conditioning rustles the pages of his textbook and he can't concentrate anymore, not with his cock and heart throbbing, aching and hollow and begging for attention, both of them. He crawls into bed and jerks himself off until he comes.
It's not satisfying. It's just empty, physical sensations that make his back arch and his cock shudder. It's empty emotions that sink his heart when he falls back into the pillows and shakes his head, shakes all over, because he's alone and lonely and angry and bitter.
If he could get over Yagyuu…
Niou doesn't think he would choose that. He can adapt, he can change, but Yagyuu is his constant.
His cellphone hums with another message. A fat tear slides down his cheek as Niou rolls over to the other side of his bed and tries to ignore it. The fact he's crying just makes him even angrier.
***
He's awake early enough to eat breakfast in the dark, cool kitchen by himself. Niou raids the fridge. His stomach is in knots, there's heartburn in his chest and his intestines churn with morning gas, but he picks and prods at the leftover yakiniku beef bowl in the fridge with his fingers.
The sun peeks out in the east when he leaves home. The morning air is cool-last night it rained. He woke up in the middle of a summer downpour, the rain pattering over the roof and his bedroom window. Now, all the potted pansies lining the streets and fences of ivy are green and lush and glimmer with the last of the steaming water droplets.
Niou hasn't checked his messages this morning, but his cell beeps periodically in his pocket. The sound makes his skull throb. He scowls and turns his phone off. Yagyuu can go fuck himself-or his girlfriend.
Niou swallows. He shakes his head. Puri! Stop thinking about that!
Near the shrine near the school is a small Starbucks on the busy main road. Niou checks his wristwatch-he's got more than enough time to kill before practice. He ducks inside and stares at the menu. Something sweet and fruity-no cream, his stomach is sore enough as is and his throat scorched too.
He orders a cold tea and flops down at a table near the window. The door chimes Another customer comes in. He orders, his voice low and grumbling and then Niou blinks.
"Sanada?"
Sanada stares at him. He blinks too and takes his order-what looks to be a venti chocolate chip blended cream frap, Niou starts to snicker at that-and walks over to Niou's table. Sanada sets his cap down on the edge furthest from Niou. His black eyes bore into Niou's sore scalp.
"Why the hell did you skip practice yesterday?" Sanada says.
Niou rolls his eyes. Typical Sanada. He knew that would be the first thing Sanada would say. Niou snorts and leans forward, pushing his tea out of the way. "Why'd you skip earlier this week?" he asks.
Sanada sputters. Niou smirks. He taps Sanada's leg under the table with his sneaker. "Touché?" he asks.
Sanada scowls. "Shut up."
Niou leans back. He looks out the window. A bus drives by and a handful of students get off, most heading for the conbini first before school. The Starbucks is filled with the sounds and smells of grinding coffee-Niou hates the shit, but loves the deep, rich smell. He inhales, and then stirs his tea with the straw.
"Everything cool with Yukimura?" he asks. Sitting with Sanada is about as inspiring as sitting with his math teacher: awkward and silent and full of disapproving frowns. Only, Sanada's frown slips for a half-second and his eyes soften until he looks down at his cap.
"Yukimura is working hard," he mutters. "We have to work just as hard for his return."
"Soon then," Niou says.
"Soon." Sanada nods.
They leave Starbucks together at ten to seven. There's no reason not to. It's more than tempting to hold this above Sanada's-hah hah, look at that ass, he drinks girlie Starbucks fraps in the morning-but as soon as Niou walks onto the school grounds and sees that familiar, ram-rod straight posture and megane boy, all thoughts of tormenting Sanada wash away as a wave of uncomfortable and tight desire twists inside Niou's body.
Yagyuu waves to them. He nods to Niou and jogs over, leaving a lap right in the middle of it. He says good morning to Sanada and then looks at Niou. Yagyuu cocks his head to the side a bit, his long neck flexing and delicious to Niou. He swallows hard. Yagyuu's throat bobs, too.
"Did you get my messages?" he asks.
Niou says nothing for a moment, then he fakes a yawn to cut their silence. The back of his skull hurts, the bone is sore and his brain throbs. His cock is half-hard and rubs inside his underpants. "Didn't check," he says at last. "I was busy."
"Oh, I see," Yagyuu says. "Do you want to work on drills together?" he adds.
Niou looks at him. His insides are squashed. His chest is heavy and his skin flushed with anger and embarrassment and confusion, too. "No," he says. "Got other things to do."
He leaves Yagyuu standing there under the rustling trees as he pivots on his sneaker and walks off to the clubhouse.
Niou slams balls into the school wall near the basketball court all morning practice. Sanada says nothing in the showers-even if he did, Niou wouldn't care.
***
Morning classes are easy. There's no shared classes with Sanada and Yagyuu. Niou takes notes. Niou writes down the problems from the blackboard. Yanagi stands up to answer three literature questions from the readings they did last week-Niou didn't read the book at all. Soseki and his high-brow writing can go screw himself.
"-Niou-kun, what about the section in blah blah blah…?"
Niou looks up. The teacher fixes his glasses, pushing them up his nose with a single finger. Niou stiffens and sits up straighter in his chair. His mind zips around, filled with a hundred, a thousand images of Yagyuu doing the same thing. And for a long minute as his classmates stare, he's caught in the headlights.
Niou exhales and looks down at his notebook. It's filled with writing and doodles and words here and there that he likes, sudoku puzzles he's made up and half-drawn characters that almost look like the strokes of Yagyuu's name.
He purses his lips and slides his hand over his notes, terrified in the instant that someone will recognize them. Someone like Yanagi sitting across the aisle and looking at his notes right now.
"Dunno," he says.
"Pay attention," the teacher says.
Niou rolls his eyes behind the teacher's back when he turns. Inside, though, Niou's kicking himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he gives Yanagi a glare. Fuck you, Data Master…
Lunch time is easy, too. Niou can hear the insects through the windows: half the classrooms have the windows wide open and cross-breezes spill air through the hallways. The rest of the classrooms are stuffy, windows closed to let the weak A/C fan through, but nothing helps with the heat.
Niou sits at a desk, chair backwards and eats his bento. With the rest of the team here in the classroom, he's not alone with Yagyuu. Marui sits to Niou's left, Sanada and Yanagi sit to his right.
He's safe.
Yagyuu is beside Jackal. He eats his lunch, all proper, bowing his head and murmuring "Let's eat" first. He shares his pickles with the kid and offers Marui his packaged bread. He glances up over the rim of his glasses to Niou so many times that Niou squirms in his seat and finally leaves to the bathroom.
"Gotta take a dump," he announces.
"Fall in a toilet and don't tell us your shit," Marui says.
Niou flashes his middle finger as he leaves the classroom. In the hallway, he leans against a row of lockers and sighs. He stares at the ceiling. Two girls walk past him and their eyes give up a long one-over. He waggles his eyebrows at them, but he's not in a teasing sort of mood.
Biology is easy, too. Niou slices up the frog and flings chunks of frog liver across the lab bench onto Yanagi's tray.
Phys ed is not. Niou's basketball team (blue) plays Yagyuu's (green). Niou stays in the far corner of the court, avoiding the ball and the rest of the players. No one passes to him. Yagyuu starts to walk over. Niou moves to the other corner. The ball dribbles past him and someone shouts his name. Niou runs behind a group of players.
I'm not fucking playing! he wants to scream.
He moves. Yagyuu follows. He moves again and Yagyuu frowns, then jogs back to the rest of the action, leaving Niou sitting on the bench with a stomach ache from the omelet he had for lunch.
Tennis practice is the same. Niou pushes himself through laps, but the sun is hot and heavy and bears down on everyone-at least he isn't alone in exhaustion. The late afternoon heat blinds them and the courts shimmer with mirage-like puddles, waving and baking under the too-bright sun. Niou kicks stones under the bench, scuffing up his sneakers. Marui and Jackal play tic-tac-toe in the clay dust, and then janken afterward. Yagyuu practices with the kid. Niou can't stop his eyes constantly moving to Yagyuu, watching him throw the ball up to serve and snap his long body. Yagyuu sweats and wipes his neck, leaning back and exposing his Adam's Apple.
Kirihara says something.
Niou's mouth waters, although it's dry and dusty. He squeezes his thighs together. His dick burns his thighs and his balls, searing onto his skin underneath his shorts. Niou hangs his head between his knees and tries to breathe, but all he can see is Yagyuu's shadow moving across the court, messing with his head when Yagyuu yells, "Adieu!"
Niou shivers. His spine tingles from his scalp all the way to the base under his bum. He clenches his butt cheeks and moves a bit on the bench. His cock twitches and throbs.
He dumps his waterbottle over his head. Beside him, Marui gulps orange Gatorade. The smell is sickening, fake and sweet and almost as bad as the gum that fatty chews all the time. Niou turns the other way and gulps at the air to stop himself from gagging.
He hangs back after the rest of the team heads to the showers. Only Yanagi and Sanada remain and they stand across the courts, heads bowed in conspiracy as they mutter about something. Probably planning a new menu or drill or lineup for round-robin games. Sun burns the back of his neck until Niou can't take it anymore. He grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder, covering his erection as best he can as he walks to the clubhouse.
Yagyuu, Jackal, Marui and the wonderchibi are all changing. Perfect. Niou has the showers to himself. He's bold enough to risk masturbating today and the feeling of his palm squeezing his dick is like heaven. Sweet and tight and hard as he pumps himself once, twice, maybe twice more before his body falls forward and he gasps, shuddering his orgasm into the swirling water around his feet.
Niou sighs. He presses his hand to the wet tiles and scrubs his body down. His legs are unsteady and the soap slippery on his feet, but he doesn't fall. He shampoos with Sanada's salon brand-his own, used up a month ago. Sanada will never notice anyway.
Exhaling in a semi-relaxed state, Niou pads back to the lockers. He dries himself, careful around his sensitized dick and balls, and dresses. He rubs his hair with the towel and lets it air dry: the wax doesn't work as well in this heat anyway. As he works on the last button of his shirt, Sanada and Yanagi walk in. Yanagi raises an eyebrow. Sanada grunts. Sun silhouettes their bodies until the door fully closes.
"The Nationals are coming up in a couple weeks," Sanada says.
"Sixteen days," Yanagi says, correcting Sanada. Sanada's eye twitches, but Yanagi doesn't seem to notice-or he doesn't seem to care.
Niou shrugs. He grabs his bags and leaves. His stomach rumbles: he did nothing but five laps and his body is sluggish with the sweltering heat. He droops, his posture more hunched than ever, rather like the stalks of flowers on the hydrangea bushes around campus.
Niou stretches his arms up and rolls his shoulders a bit. He starts to walk to the front gate when a long shadow steps out from around the corner of the clubhouse.
Mid-step, he stops dead in his tracks.
Yagyuu says, "We need to talk."
***
With anyone else, Niou would shrug it off and tell them puri, go fuck yourself.
With Yagyuu, he's weak.
He follows Yagyuu to the bus stop. Yagyuu flashes him a thin smile and says they can study together for math tonight. Niou calls his mother on the bus. His hands shake on his cellphone. "I won't be late," he says.
Yagyuu raises his eyebrows. His glasses slip on his nose, but he says nothing, he betrays nothing.
The closer they get to Yagyuu's house, the more Niou doesn’t want to go. It would be so easy to jump off the bus and walk away, catch another bus-or even the subway-and go home. But Yagyuu holds him here with just a gaze, just a glance, even the reflection of the dusky sunlight on Yagyuu's lenses glues Niou to the bus seat.
Out side Yagyuu's home, as they walk and their staccato footsteps fall into a tandem rhythm, Niou says, "I got nothing to say to you."
"That's fine," Yagyuu says. He opens the gate and holds it open for Niou. Just like he would for a girl. Just like he probably does for that girl. Niou clenches his jaw and stands there, refusing the offer. Yagyuu sighs through his nose and lets himself in first.
"We can study upstairs," Yagyuu says. "My class has the same test tomorrow before the break. It would be unfortunate to fail it."
Outside, the fingerling clouds are streaked mauve and pink in the west as the light dims to orange, then gloaming blue. Bushy cypresses and the stumpy lemon trees in the planters by Yagyuu's front door are dark against the sky. Trains and traffic rush in the distance.
Inside, it's quiet. Niou toes his shoes off-there are no red pumps by the doorway, just heaped up health slippers and a pair of scuffed Mary-Janes. Niou looks up the stairs and he can make out a crack of bluish light from under the doorway of Yagyuu's sister's bedroom.
"I'll get some drinks," Yagyuu says. "I'm afraid we don't have much, but please go upstairs, Niou-kun."
A command, not a request.
Niou tightens his jaw more. "When's your girlfriend coming for the study group?" he whispers under his breath. He can hear Yagyuu moving around the kitchen, opening a fridge door and then a cupboard. Other than his breathing, it's silent like a mausoleum. The sterile marble flooring and the large Chinese vases in the alcoves make Niou think of tombs and the dead. Yagyuu's house is pristine in its cleanliness, though dust motes catch the light when Niou turns.
He climbs the stairs. He pauses outside Yagyuu's sister's room and raps his knuckles on the door, drumming them in a rhythmic pattern. She doesn't notice. Niou sniffs and wanders into Yagyuu's room instead.
It's the same as always-messy bed, tv on his desk, empty pepsi cans and packages of jelly scattered with half-read novels, their spines crushed and bent. Niou picks one up and reads the title.
"Death on the Nile," he murmurs. "Lame." Niou chucks the book on the floor, Yagyuu's page lost. It doesn't matter, Yagyuu probably wouldn't find the book again anyway in the piles of junk. Clothes strew the floor, dirty socks and cosplay wigs, tennis balls and papers, papers, papers stacked everywhere.
Niou jumps back onto Yagyuu's bed. The mattress bounces more than his. He bounces for a moment, but something presses against his butt. Pulling it out, he finds the tv remote and flicks a button.
Golf channel.
Fields of green and boring commentary, blah blah Tiger Woods and birdies and eagles and damned if Niou sees any eagles on the screen flying around. Nothing but some dorks clapping politely along the fairway and some brown guy in khaki pants putting a ball into a hole.
At the sound of a door clicking, Niou looks over. In surprise, he presses the remote to turn the tv off. Yagyuu smiles blandly at him and shoves a pile of papers off his desk to make room for a small tray with two glasses of tea. "I don't mind if you want to watch golf," he says.
Niou narrows his eyes. He stands up from the bed when Yagyuu walks closer. Niou walks to the window and looks out across the roof. He can see rows and rows of homes gilded by the setting sun, and down closer, on Yagyuu's rooftop, there are scattered cigarette butts and even the gleam of yen coins. Niou tries to smirk, but his mouth is set in a thin line.
He turns. Yagyuu stands there and stares. "Where's your girlfriend?" Niou asks. Anger rises in his throat and his voice gets louder. "When's-" that bitch "-she coming?" he spits. He's breathing hard and his body is on fire as his hands shake. Niou touches the window sill for balance, but his vision still swims. Yagyuu spins and moves as he comes closer.
Yagyuu sits down on the edge of his bed and says nothing. His brow knits, his glasses slip and Niou just shakes his head. The idiot megane didn't know that Niou knows. Typical. Niou clicks his tongue and throws his hands up. He paces back, then forward and plunks himself down near Yagyuu.
"You think I'm stupid?" he asks. Harsh, brittle laughter sounds in Niou's ears, but he keeps talking as Yagyuu takes his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose. "Do you think-"
"I don't have a girlfriend," Yagyuu says.
Niou's mouth hangs open for a moment. When Yagyuu turns his head and gives him a long look, Niou closes it and tries to remove his foot as best he can.
Oh.
Oh.
"Oh."
Yagyuu keeps looking at him. His eyes are indeterminate and dark. Shadows hang deeper and thicker around the edges of the room. Niou breaks the stare and looks down. He touches Yagyuu's sheets and his hands knead them, feeling the soft cotton and rubbing absently. Yagyuu keeps looking, closer and closer until Niou can't see anything except the black pupils reflecting a strange light within.
Then he feels something on his mouth. Like a tickle, almost, but not quite and he can't place the sensation-it's new and unfamiliar and only when something touches the side of his face does he get that it's not the air conditioning on his lips, but Yagyuu.
Yagyuu kissing him.
Every single thought process in his body shuts down. All Niou can feel, see, smell is Yagyuu's face in his and the soft press of lips to his own. Yagyuu's lips are dry and all the pores on Niou's body are sensitized with the feeling of Yagyuu against him. In one moment, all those awful thoughts and worries and fears flee when his mind erupts in a panic of what do I do?!
He doesn't move-he doesn't know what to do except sit here and not breathe because he can't breathe with Yagyuu in his face like nose, nose brushed up against his, warm and solid and real when something wet and hot replaces that soft tickle. Niou tries to swallow, but he can't. He tries to speak, but his mouth is only encouraged by Yagyuu, who nudges his face and runs his fingertips over Niou's skin, brushing the side of his jaw over and over as his lips tease and his tongue tells Niou something he doesn't understand.
Until he parts his lips. And opens his mouth. And then he gets it.
Yagyuu pulls away. Niou sits there, head spinning and body burning, buzzing, his lips humming and his muscles reduced to mush. He stares at Yagyuu, his gaze blank over Yagyuu's shoulder when Yagyuu touches his own lips with his index finger.
Niou swallows. He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and he can taste something like Lotte Green gum and tea that Yagyuu must have drank. It's foreign and new and different and the flush creeping over Niou's face is too. When Yagyuu frowns and breathes through his nose, Niou's chest constricts.
Did I do it wrong?
Rapid-fire fear shoots across his mind and the dying sunlight streaming through Yagyuu's window flashes and blinds Niou for a moment. Yagyuu's eyes are dark, hooded with shadows when he looks at Niou. The hand touching Niou's jaw and ear lingers on his skin for a moment, then it pulls back too, leaving nothing but a cold memory. Niou shakes his head and breathes hard. I did it wrong. He hates me. He didn't want this. He didn't kiss me. I'm losing it…
"Isn't that what you want?" Yagyuu asks.
Niou's hair stirs, but the curtains are still. Nothing but the faint blowing of the air conditioning sounds between them, and Yagyuu's steady, even breathing too. Niou's heart pounds. His mouth is burned and his head feels too light. He feels nauseous, ill, like he's going to vomit if Yagyuu doesn't stop staring at him like that. But at the same time, he can't run either. Yagyuu's hand pushes down on his, sealing it to the sheets with a clammy embrace.
Niou swallows. The lump is thick and dry in his throat. The lingering taste of Yagyuu's lips is turning ashen. He forces his mouth open, but he still can't speak. The lump rises, threatening a sob and Niou can feel his body shake. Yagyuu probably feels it too, because his eyes widen a bit when Niou finally manages to shake his head.
"It…it is," he mumbles. "I-" Yagyuu's stare is too dark, too intense and he has to close his eyes to escape it. Niou turns his head slightly, but Yagyuu touches his chin once again. His fingertips are light as they stroke his skin. Niou shivers. Goosepimples erupt all over his arms when Yagyuu pushes his jaw closer with nothing more than his fingers.
"You've done this before," Niou says. He waits for that moment of denial from Yagyuu, but it never comes. Yagyuu's lips quirk. They are shiny with saliva. Niou's dreamed time and again of licking it off, but now that he has the opportunity, he's scared. This isn't a dream. Yagyuu isn't pliable the way he is during Niou's fantasies-he can't shape Yagyuu's reactions. A pang of something unintelligible blooms in his chest as Yagyuu nods.
"Yes," he says. His words are slow. His hand is slow, too, all over Niou's face: touching his jaw, his cheeks, his eyelids, then brushing his mole. Yagyuu is in his face again. Anticipation makes Niou's heart patter doki doki and his pulse rushes in his ears. Yagyuu breathes into a smile.
It's something Niou has never seen before. A smile so light and easy that the world stops spinning and Yagyuu's eyes are crinkled at the sides and dark and beautiful and Niou falls all over again, down down down when Yagyuu nudges the side of his face and murmurs, "Don't think about it, Niou-kun."
He kisses Niou a second time. Niou isn't surprised and when he feels that hot, wet tongue on his lips again, he opens his mouth. A rush of pleasure floods his belly when that hot, slick thing that must be Yagyuu's tongue slides over his own tongue, confident and slow and exploratory. Niou savours the sensation, making every nerve in his body stand at attention and buzz. It's a weird feeling: he expected kissing to be a bit more like masturbating, instant pleasure and results, but instead, Yagyuu isn't doing anything quickly, just curling his tongue over Niou's until Niou manages to think enough to move his own too.
He does what Yagyuu does: Yagyuu pushes, he pushes back. Yagyuu pulls away and runs his tongue over the roof of Niou's mouth and only then, with a ticklish jolt, does Niou gasp into the kiss. He closes his eyes and tries to go with it, he tries not to think about anything except that Yagyuu wants this.
And it feels good, even if he is scared and nervous and doesn't know what to do with his hands or legs other than sit on Yagyuu's bed and kiss him back.
Yagyuu knows what he's doing. Niou takes a back seat to him, letting Yagyuu take his hand and put it on his shoulder. Yagyuu's skin is warm, solid under his school shirt. There's too much to think about and it takes Niou a bit to get the hang of kissing back and tentatively splaying his hand over Yagyuu's shoulder, feeling the muscles contract under his touch when Yagyuu leans the other way, tongue roving over Niou's lips when he pushes him down on the bed.
This has been his hope for months, maybe even years, Niou can't remember in the instant that his head touches those pillows and sinks down, Yagyuu all over him, all around him, everywhere. Niou pushes back and Yagyuu kisses harder, deeper, his tongue so far and filling Niou's mouth that he might gag if it wasn't for the knee wedging between his legs. His eyes roll back in his head and he gasps. Yagyuu pulls back, but his lips don't leave his skin: he presses kisses all across Niou's chin, over his jaw and then his mole and Niou shakes.
"Yagyuu…" he whispers. The sound of his voice is harsh and he cringes. Yagyuu's hands are on his shoulders, his arms, holding him down. But even if he didn't, Niou wouldn't move away for anything. Hair brushes over his cheek and Yagyuu kisses his throat. Another wave of desire floods through Niou's entire body, all the way down to his toes that start to dig into the sheets when his knees lock up and bend and shakily, shakily wrap around the back of Yagyuu's calf.
He doesn't know how long they kiss for. He doesn't know how long they have been kissing for. Time stills and swells, told only by the intervals between Yagyuu's hot, searing lips on Niou's neck and earlobe. Yagyuu sucks on his earlobe and licks the inside. Niou hunches up and digs his fingers into Yagyuu's shoulder. That's gross, he thinks, but the feeling of Yagyuu's voice breathing, blowing, whispering into his ear sends shudders down his spine.
He's hard. Yagyuu has to feel Niou's erection poking his leg, but he does nothing, saying nothing to discourage it. "Niou-kun," he murmurs. Niou stiffens against Yagyuu's body.
"Niou-kun…" Yagyuu says. He licks the shell of Niou's ear, his teeth grazing the side and making Niou gasp again and bite down on a moan that shakes his body.
"Niou-kun," Yagyuu whispers. His weight settles down more on Niou, heavy and wonderful as his fingers weave between Niou's and push their hands above Niou's head. Yagyuu holds him down firm as he kisses Niou on the mouth. Niou kisses back and cocks his head to the side for a better angle. He can do this, it's not too hard. It makes his blood rush and his heart pound, like he's playing tennis and Yagyuu is at the net, defensive and wiggling and wonderful, only now he's on top of him, kissing hard and real and Niou moans.
He moans.
Yagyuu moans back and it's the most beautiful sound Niou has ever heard.
***
They kiss for ages.
They kiss forever.
When Yagyuu finally pulls away for the last time, Niou mourns the loss of his mouth and warm body. His cock is swollen and aching between his legs, but his heart is swollen and soaring in his chest. Niou exhales and touches his mouth. It's dark outside, but dim in Yagyuu's bedroom. He never did turn on the light-the brightness in his eyes was enough.
Yagyuu's stomach growls. Niou's does too, churning with a hungry reminder. Yagyuu slips his glasses back on and flicks a lamp on the table near his bed. Niou blinks and as his eyes adjust to the light, he can see the messy mop of Yagyuu's hair, all cowlicks and combed by fingers. His fingers.
Niou can hardly believe it, until Yagyuu looks at him. His lips are swollen, his cheeks are flushed. He touches the back of Niou's hand and turns it over, holding it and squeezing once. "Are you hungry?" he murmurs.
Niou tries to say yes, but Yagyuu is quicker. "We have leftover Thai take-away in the fridge," he says. Yagyuu starts to stand up and he pulls Niou's hand to do the same. Niou shakes and his knees buckle and he feels like an utter lame fool, but the sharp shame in his belly dissolves when Yagyuu's fingers twine with his, tighter than before. He smiles and his glasses slip. Niou reaches out with his free hand and pushes them back up Yagyuu's nose.
Yagyuu blinks.
Niou blushes this time. "Your glasses-"
Yagyuu nods and whatever Niou might have said never materializes. He's too floaty to care and he doesn't want this hazy dream to end. Yagyuu lets go of his hand when he walks to the doorway. His head nods to the tray with tea. "It's gone warm," he says, picking it up to take back downstairs.
Niou smiles under the hair hanging over his face.
They eat red beef curry and tofu noodles in the kitchen. Yagyuu's dad has a strange shift and won't be back until past midnight. Yagyuu's mom is off shopping, he says. "Summer sale on in Tokyo on Omotesando," he adds, rolling his eyes. "She left this morning before I went to school."
Niou nods. His mother would never, ever shop there-too frivolous, too expensive and too posh, probably.
Yagyuu's sister is still on her computer upstairs. It's just the two of them. The tap drips, the faint wet sounds punctuating their quiet when Yagyuu's chopsticks don't tap the edge of the take-away container, or when Niou doesn't slurp his glass of water. He feels raw and exposed, like at any moment Yagyuu will trip him up and laugh at him with cold, unfeeling eyes and tell him it was all a joke.
Instead, their chopsticks both reach for a piece of tofu at the same time and click. Niou jerks back and Yagyuu pauses for a moment, then picks up the piece of tofu himself. Not that Niou really cares-his stomach twists and turns so much that he doesn't know if he's really all the hungry for food.
Yagyuu holds the tofu piece out and looks at it. Without turning, he says, "Niou-kun."
Niou says, "Yes." Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Yagyuu's glasses catch the overhead light and gleam.
Yagyuu's smile is sharp. For a split-second, Niou's insides plummet.
But then Yagyuu says, "Here." He turns and holds out the tofu, right in front of Niou's face. Niou stares at him, then he raises an eyebrow. Yagyuu jiggles the tofu piece a bit and his smile widens, showing his teeth and sending a wave of melting numbness between Niou's legs.
Carefully, he opens his mouth-if that's even what Yagyuu is suggesting.
It's like dinner the other night in Chinatown, only now Yagyuu's hand is on his knee, steadying Niou when he leans forward and bites the tofu. Yagyuu pulls his chopsticks away and sets them down on the ceramic rest. His fingers rub tiny circles through Niou's pants: close enough to his dick to make him hard, but far enough down his leg not to notice Niou's erection.
The tofu is creamy and crumbly. It melts in Niou's mouth the way his stomach turns to a liquid puddle as Yagyuu watches him, studies him through a slightly cocked angle. Niou chews, then swallows. Yagyuu makes him shiver, through nothing more than a long look.
"Do you like feeding me?" Niou asks. His voice breaks and the tension inside only rises higher in his throat. He forces a laugh, but it chokes in his chest.
Yagyuu laughs. Just a little. Enough to make Niou's insides turn gooier than before. His knee twitches and his cock pulses, hard and swollen with rushing blood that comes in numbing waves, deeper and stronger than the last.
"Do you like me doing that?" Yagyuu asks.
Niou's face is on fire. He sets his chopsticks down, too, and clears his throat, hiding his feverish blush with his hand until Yagyuu touches his wrist. All it takes is two long fingers brushing the side of his arm and he's gone, liquid and leaning into Yagyuu, throat bobbing and lips parting.
He's a fool. He's a lovesick fool, but when Yagyuu kisses him, nothing matters except the sensation of Yagyuu's mouth pressed to his, Yagyuu's tongue sliding over his lips, Yagyuu's teeth nipping at his bottom lip and Yagyuu's hand snaking around his waist.
Vaguely, Niou thinks that the kitchen isn't a very good spot, not if Yagyuu's sister comes down for supper, too, but he stops thinking when Yagyuu kisses deeper and harder than before. Yagyuu's good at this. Yagyuu's good at this slimy, saliva-filled press of their mouths and lips and tongues, throwing the play back and forth like a tennis match.
Yagyuu serves and Niou plays defense. He lets Yagyuu back him up into the wall. He lets Yagyuu's hands rest on his hips. His own hands are shaky-but getting better-as he reaches for Yagyuu's shoulders, loving the feel of Yagyuu's solidity under his clothes. Niou tips his head back. Yagyuu groans a bit, the sound vibrating through their mouths and sending new shivers down Niou's spine.
But at the sound of someone shuffling down the stairs, Yagyuu pulls back. They break apart and Niou wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Yagyuu's saliva is shines across his skin, sticky and faintly salty from supper. Niou exhales with a loud huff. He slumps his shoulders and stuffs his hands in his pockets. His fingertips are tingly. If he imagines it, he can still feel the memory of Yagyuu's tongue lingering on his lips. He turns away from Yagyuu's sister, just in case she saw him blushing or giving away their burgeoning secret.
Yagyuu's sister asks about the food. She stares at the table and pouts at Yagyuu. "Did you guys eat all the leftovers?" she grumbles. "Pigs."
"Sorry about that," Yagyuu says. His expression is so neutral, his face so bland that Niou can't stop himself from bursting out into laughter. Yagyuu's sister whips her head around and glares at Niou. She opens her mouth to say something-or maybe yell, her eyes glow with anger-but Yagyuu grabs Niou's arm fist and says, "Come Niou-kun, we have a math test to study for."
***
Niou blinks at the textbook. He's flopped down on Yagyuu's bed, lying on his stomach as Yagyuu pads around the room, opening desk drawers for pencils and paper. "Didn't think you actually meant we'd study," Niou mumbles.
Yagyuu pauses, then he tosses Niou a pencil. He lifts his head and looks over the top of his glasses. "Of course," he says, "we both have a test tomorrow. Gentlemen don't lie." Yagyuu's smile, however, is lopsided and when he sits down in his chair and scoots over, the wheels rolling over his floor, Niou just rolls his eyes.
He's better at math than Yagyuu. He can do these problems just by sight, whereas Yagyuu meticulously copies the problems down, then each step in the process, showing his thoughts on the page. Niou shakes his head and points.
"You didn't carry right," he says.
"Aa, thank you," Yagyuu says. He erases and re-writes the step, correcting his numbers. Niou rolls onto his back and lifts his arms up, stretching his fingers out as far as he can over his head. He draws on the ceiling, numbers, figures, the kanji for Yagyuu's name, and then the next math problem that Yagyuu reads out loud for him.
"Answer's twenty eight," Niou says.
"No," Yagyuu says.
Niou frowns. He turns his head and looks at Yagyuu upside down. It looks like his mouth is quirked down from this angle. Shadows play with his features, highlighting his eyes and darkening his cheekbones and the wet open way Yagyuu licks his lips.
Niou's heart flutters. His belly coils up and his legs widen, just a bit, then they widen further when Yagyuu closes the textbook and crawls across the bed. He's set his glasses down and then he sets his body down, covering Niou as he twines their legs together, rubbing knees and hips and Niou gasps when his erection brushes Yagyuu's thigh.
Yagyuu says nothing. He presses his weight down heavier and Niou sucks in a breath. He closes his eyes and leans back, leans into the hot kiss searing the edge of his jaw and the dip of his neck.
"No," Yagyuu whispers on his skin as Niou arches up, "the answer was eighty two."
***
He's in a complete daze on the bus home. Niou stumbles up the bus steps. He trips over his feet on the way to finding a seat near the back. He misses his stop and has to walk an extra twenty minutes in order to get home. He's late-it's late and his mother frowns at him-but nothing can kill the feeling he has inside.
Nothing can change the fact that Yagyuu kissed him. Not once, not twice, but lots and lots of times. Yagyuu weaved their hands together and messed up his sheets. Yagyuu kissed his neck and his face and his lips and he didn't run away or scream or yell when Niou gasped and moaned. Yagyuu moaned, too. Yagyuu rubbed his thigh on Niou's dick and even now, thinking about it in the privacy of his bedroom with his hands furiously jerking himself off, Niou only comes harder and louder because of it.
He falls asleep and he can't stop smiling.
Nothing can ruin this.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
Before was tough, when Yagyuu hated him and avoided him. Now is agony, when Yagyuu avoids him, but doesn't hate him. Niou drags his body into the clubhouse following afternoon classes, but the tension is so palpable when Yagyuu turns his head and narrows his eyes at Niou, that Niou walks right back out the doorway.
Sanada be damned, Niou's not dealing with this.
"Oi, moron! Where are you going?" Marui asks.
"NIOU!" Sanada booms.
But it's the last voice he hears that makes Niou stop for a moment. Yagyuu sticks his head out the doorway. He's got his shorts on, but he holds his t-shirt bunched up in his hand. Sunlight glints off his chest, all over his warm skin except for the shadowed trail of hair underneath his bellybutton. "Niou-kun," he says.
Niou swallows the shuddered lump in his throat. He balls his fist and keeps walking. Sanada yells his name a second time, but Niou doesn't hear it. His tennisbag cuts into his shoulder. The strap of his schoolbag cuts into his other shoulder-the weight of his textbooks is nearly unbearable, but he can't do it. He can't face Yagyuu yet. He's cut through to the core by something he knew was true and never wanted to acknowledge.
The sun is merciless as he waits at the bus stop by the school gates. Niou lurks in the shadows of the red brick. Slapping sneakers from the main pathway run up to him and Jackal says his name. "Sanada says you're supposed to get back to practice," he says.
Niou doesn't turn around. The bus pulls up to the curb and Niou joins the throng of other students lining up to get on. Jackal shouts, "OI!" Niou shows the bus driver his pass. The doors close behind him-he's the last one on.
It's surreal to ride the bus this early. Almost never has Niou not been at tennis practices, three years running (before this past summer, at any rate). It's surreal to stand packed between other students: high school, junior high, even a few elementary kids in short shorts and hard plastic backpacks poking into Niou's stomach. He holds onto a pole with a tight grip-no loose tennis grip with the bus constantly swerving through traffic, pulling up and pulling away from stops along the streets.
Through the windows, the sun is hot on Niou's arms. Another stop, another group of students pushing around his bags and shoving into his side. Niou gets an elbow to the gut in the process. He winces, but it doesn't hurt the way the numb hollowness in his chest does.
Home is one of the last stops on the route. As more students get off-and a few grannies with pushcarts too-Niou shuffles down the aisle to an empty seat. He stuffs his bags in the adjacent seat and curls up. He rests his elbow on the window sill and his chin on that. he swallows hard, but the ache doesn't go away. He closes his eyes and he can see the light filtering through the leaves of the confession tree, dancing around Yagyuu's hair as he leans down to kiss his girlfriend.
Niou's face is wet. He sniffles and wipes his cheeks on his shoulder in case someone sees. But mostly, he doesn't care.
He's defeated.
Fuck the Regionals, he's lost something more important.
His mother asks why he's home so early. Niou looks at her through his hair. It hangs limp over his eyes. He dumps his bags in the front hallway and peels off his sneakers, and his damp socks too.
"Masaharu?" she asks. Her smile wavers. "Do you want some tea or a snack? Is everything okay?"
Niou sits at the kitchen table and sips the cold tea-it's barley, he hates the taste, but he can't be bothered to say anything. The mochi sticks to the roof of his mouth. It tastes chalky and bitter. Niou leaves half of it uneaten.
His mother touches the back of his shoulder right when he scrapes the chair back to stand up. Her touch is cool and comfortable, kneading the taut muscles of his neck and shoulders that Niou didn't realize were stiff in the first place. He sighs and leans back. His ribs constrict and his stomach is all knots-she can't help that at all. Niou wants to cry and hide and phone Yagyuu and tell him he's an asshole and find Yagyuu and flick coins at his window and scream WHY NOT ME?!?
Instead, he's here at home, sitting in the A/C and shivering.
"Do you want to have yakiniku for supper?" his mother asks. Her voice is low and calm. Her fingers continue to rub circles through his shirt. "I haven't started anything yet."
Niou shakes his head. He stands up and shrugs her hands off his back. "Don't touch me!" he snaps. Niou stomps upstairs to his room and slams the door behind himself. The walls shake and he winces-guilt pricking for a moment, but not enough for him to do anything about it.
He needs to do something beyond wring his hands and sniffle. Niou kicks his dartboard-lying on the floor, it's useless. He flops onto his bed and bunches up the sheet. He flings his window wide open, then closes it again. The air is thick and it smells like rain will come tonight. It's too damn hot to leave open anyway. He sweats on his window sill then paces his room.
Niou pulls his cellphone from his pocket. One by one, he deletes the phone numbers, starting with Yagyuu. He grinds his teeth at the sight of Yagyuu's number and Yagyuu's name. His hands shake when he presses "Delete", but at the same time, the heaviness inside his gut doesn't disappear. If anything, the loss of Yagyuu's number from his phone feels like someone's cut his arm off. Niou bleeds onto his floor and sinks down until his cheek presses to the Pergo and sticks. He closes his eyes.
"Why…?" he whispers.
Then his cellphone buzzes.
Niou peels his face off the floor and props his chin up. He stares at the flashing LCD screen, vivid blue in the dimness of his unlit bedroom. The way his blood sinks through his body and pools in his dick tells him it's only one person. Despite the "Unknown Sender", he knows.
He could delete the message. It would be so easy now, to press that button and never see what he has to say. Nothing says Niou has to deal with it. He can ignore. He can move on.
But curiosity has always gotten the better of him. He needs to know what Yagyuu wants.
Niou takes a deep breath, then he opens the message. His eyes skim the screen once. They linger longer on the second read-through as the words sink in.
Yanagi-kun said you have a math test Friday. Do you want to study tonight at my place?
Niou doesn't even realize he's laughing until he feels his stomach heaving and he hears the sound loud in his ears.
***
Supper is yakiniku beef on rice. It's tasty, it's Niou's favourite next to an actual yakiniku buffet, but his stomach still roils even though his tongue savours the sweet, salty taste and the tender texture of the strips of beef against his molars.
"Seconds?" his mother asks.
Niou hesitates, then he nods once. "Just meat," he says.
"Don't be so uneconomical," his sister says. "Meat is expensive." She pushes her glasses up her nose and lords over him, looking down at nose with a small frown.
Niou holds out his bowl. "More please," he drawls. His mother heaps a scoopful. Niou shakes his bowl and nods. "Bit more, don't be cheap."
He picks meat out of his teeth in the bathtub.
He picks meat out of his teeth after he brushes.
He picks meat out of his teeth as he sits at his desk and stares at his textbook. Niou scratches his head. Yagyuu was full of it-there's nothing he needs to study. And Niou doesn't appreciate the second, cheerful and polite text he got in the bath, either.
Sender: Unknown
Would you like to study tonight at my house? If your parents say it's okay, we still have time. Please respond.
"Fuck you," Niou whispers. He works on a problem on his own. Easy as fucking pie, he doesn't need help. x = 8/2, reduce to 4. He can do it in his head.
Besides, Yagyuu probably has that girl studying over at his place instead of Niou. He's not braindead, he probably realized Niou isn't coming and called his girlfriend. Niou's eyes blur over the problems in his book and clear in his vision he can imagine Yagyuu sitting on his bed-sheets rumpled and smelling faintly sweaty and heady. He'd stoke her hair and lean down, kissing her on the lips nice and polite and chaste at first before taking her hands and holding them down and pushing himself on top all offensive and aggressive and-
Niou moans. His dick is hard and his eyes sting. The air conditioning rustles the pages of his textbook and he can't concentrate anymore, not with his cock and heart throbbing, aching and hollow and begging for attention, both of them. He crawls into bed and jerks himself off until he comes.
It's not satisfying. It's just empty, physical sensations that make his back arch and his cock shudder. It's empty emotions that sink his heart when he falls back into the pillows and shakes his head, shakes all over, because he's alone and lonely and angry and bitter.
If he could get over Yagyuu…
Niou doesn't think he would choose that. He can adapt, he can change, but Yagyuu is his constant.
His cellphone hums with another message. A fat tear slides down his cheek as Niou rolls over to the other side of his bed and tries to ignore it. The fact he's crying just makes him even angrier.
***
He's awake early enough to eat breakfast in the dark, cool kitchen by himself. Niou raids the fridge. His stomach is in knots, there's heartburn in his chest and his intestines churn with morning gas, but he picks and prods at the leftover yakiniku beef bowl in the fridge with his fingers.
The sun peeks out in the east when he leaves home. The morning air is cool-last night it rained. He woke up in the middle of a summer downpour, the rain pattering over the roof and his bedroom window. Now, all the potted pansies lining the streets and fences of ivy are green and lush and glimmer with the last of the steaming water droplets.
Niou hasn't checked his messages this morning, but his cell beeps periodically in his pocket. The sound makes his skull throb. He scowls and turns his phone off. Yagyuu can go fuck himself-or his girlfriend.
Niou swallows. He shakes his head. Puri! Stop thinking about that!
Near the shrine near the school is a small Starbucks on the busy main road. Niou checks his wristwatch-he's got more than enough time to kill before practice. He ducks inside and stares at the menu. Something sweet and fruity-no cream, his stomach is sore enough as is and his throat scorched too.
He orders a cold tea and flops down at a table near the window. The door chimes Another customer comes in. He orders, his voice low and grumbling and then Niou blinks.
"Sanada?"
Sanada stares at him. He blinks too and takes his order-what looks to be a venti chocolate chip blended cream frap, Niou starts to snicker at that-and walks over to Niou's table. Sanada sets his cap down on the edge furthest from Niou. His black eyes bore into Niou's sore scalp.
"Why the hell did you skip practice yesterday?" Sanada says.
Niou rolls his eyes. Typical Sanada. He knew that would be the first thing Sanada would say. Niou snorts and leans forward, pushing his tea out of the way. "Why'd you skip earlier this week?" he asks.
Sanada sputters. Niou smirks. He taps Sanada's leg under the table with his sneaker. "Touché?" he asks.
Sanada scowls. "Shut up."
Niou leans back. He looks out the window. A bus drives by and a handful of students get off, most heading for the conbini first before school. The Starbucks is filled with the sounds and smells of grinding coffee-Niou hates the shit, but loves the deep, rich smell. He inhales, and then stirs his tea with the straw.
"Everything cool with Yukimura?" he asks. Sitting with Sanada is about as inspiring as sitting with his math teacher: awkward and silent and full of disapproving frowns. Only, Sanada's frown slips for a half-second and his eyes soften until he looks down at his cap.
"Yukimura is working hard," he mutters. "We have to work just as hard for his return."
"Soon then," Niou says.
"Soon." Sanada nods.
They leave Starbucks together at ten to seven. There's no reason not to. It's more than tempting to hold this above Sanada's-hah hah, look at that ass, he drinks girlie Starbucks fraps in the morning-but as soon as Niou walks onto the school grounds and sees that familiar, ram-rod straight posture and megane boy, all thoughts of tormenting Sanada wash away as a wave of uncomfortable and tight desire twists inside Niou's body.
Yagyuu waves to them. He nods to Niou and jogs over, leaving a lap right in the middle of it. He says good morning to Sanada and then looks at Niou. Yagyuu cocks his head to the side a bit, his long neck flexing and delicious to Niou. He swallows hard. Yagyuu's throat bobs, too.
"Did you get my messages?" he asks.
Niou says nothing for a moment, then he fakes a yawn to cut their silence. The back of his skull hurts, the bone is sore and his brain throbs. His cock is half-hard and rubs inside his underpants. "Didn't check," he says at last. "I was busy."
"Oh, I see," Yagyuu says. "Do you want to work on drills together?" he adds.
Niou looks at him. His insides are squashed. His chest is heavy and his skin flushed with anger and embarrassment and confusion, too. "No," he says. "Got other things to do."
He leaves Yagyuu standing there under the rustling trees as he pivots on his sneaker and walks off to the clubhouse.
Niou slams balls into the school wall near the basketball court all morning practice. Sanada says nothing in the showers-even if he did, Niou wouldn't care.
***
Morning classes are easy. There's no shared classes with Sanada and Yagyuu. Niou takes notes. Niou writes down the problems from the blackboard. Yanagi stands up to answer three literature questions from the readings they did last week-Niou didn't read the book at all. Soseki and his high-brow writing can go screw himself.
"-Niou-kun, what about the section in blah blah blah…?"
Niou looks up. The teacher fixes his glasses, pushing them up his nose with a single finger. Niou stiffens and sits up straighter in his chair. His mind zips around, filled with a hundred, a thousand images of Yagyuu doing the same thing. And for a long minute as his classmates stare, he's caught in the headlights.
Niou exhales and looks down at his notebook. It's filled with writing and doodles and words here and there that he likes, sudoku puzzles he's made up and half-drawn characters that almost look like the strokes of Yagyuu's name.
He purses his lips and slides his hand over his notes, terrified in the instant that someone will recognize them. Someone like Yanagi sitting across the aisle and looking at his notes right now.
"Dunno," he says.
"Pay attention," the teacher says.
Niou rolls his eyes behind the teacher's back when he turns. Inside, though, Niou's kicking himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he gives Yanagi a glare. Fuck you, Data Master…
Lunch time is easy, too. Niou can hear the insects through the windows: half the classrooms have the windows wide open and cross-breezes spill air through the hallways. The rest of the classrooms are stuffy, windows closed to let the weak A/C fan through, but nothing helps with the heat.
Niou sits at a desk, chair backwards and eats his bento. With the rest of the team here in the classroom, he's not alone with Yagyuu. Marui sits to Niou's left, Sanada and Yanagi sit to his right.
He's safe.
Yagyuu is beside Jackal. He eats his lunch, all proper, bowing his head and murmuring "Let's eat" first. He shares his pickles with the kid and offers Marui his packaged bread. He glances up over the rim of his glasses to Niou so many times that Niou squirms in his seat and finally leaves to the bathroom.
"Gotta take a dump," he announces.
"Fall in a toilet and don't tell us your shit," Marui says.
Niou flashes his middle finger as he leaves the classroom. In the hallway, he leans against a row of lockers and sighs. He stares at the ceiling. Two girls walk past him and their eyes give up a long one-over. He waggles his eyebrows at them, but he's not in a teasing sort of mood.
Biology is easy, too. Niou slices up the frog and flings chunks of frog liver across the lab bench onto Yanagi's tray.
Phys ed is not. Niou's basketball team (blue) plays Yagyuu's (green). Niou stays in the far corner of the court, avoiding the ball and the rest of the players. No one passes to him. Yagyuu starts to walk over. Niou moves to the other corner. The ball dribbles past him and someone shouts his name. Niou runs behind a group of players.
I'm not fucking playing! he wants to scream.
He moves. Yagyuu follows. He moves again and Yagyuu frowns, then jogs back to the rest of the action, leaving Niou sitting on the bench with a stomach ache from the omelet he had for lunch.
Tennis practice is the same. Niou pushes himself through laps, but the sun is hot and heavy and bears down on everyone-at least he isn't alone in exhaustion. The late afternoon heat blinds them and the courts shimmer with mirage-like puddles, waving and baking under the too-bright sun. Niou kicks stones under the bench, scuffing up his sneakers. Marui and Jackal play tic-tac-toe in the clay dust, and then janken afterward. Yagyuu practices with the kid. Niou can't stop his eyes constantly moving to Yagyuu, watching him throw the ball up to serve and snap his long body. Yagyuu sweats and wipes his neck, leaning back and exposing his Adam's Apple.
Kirihara says something.
Niou's mouth waters, although it's dry and dusty. He squeezes his thighs together. His dick burns his thighs and his balls, searing onto his skin underneath his shorts. Niou hangs his head between his knees and tries to breathe, but all he can see is Yagyuu's shadow moving across the court, messing with his head when Yagyuu yells, "Adieu!"
Niou shivers. His spine tingles from his scalp all the way to the base under his bum. He clenches his butt cheeks and moves a bit on the bench. His cock twitches and throbs.
He dumps his waterbottle over his head. Beside him, Marui gulps orange Gatorade. The smell is sickening, fake and sweet and almost as bad as the gum that fatty chews all the time. Niou turns the other way and gulps at the air to stop himself from gagging.
He hangs back after the rest of the team heads to the showers. Only Yanagi and Sanada remain and they stand across the courts, heads bowed in conspiracy as they mutter about something. Probably planning a new menu or drill or lineup for round-robin games. Sun burns the back of his neck until Niou can't take it anymore. He grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder, covering his erection as best he can as he walks to the clubhouse.
Yagyuu, Jackal, Marui and the wonderchibi are all changing. Perfect. Niou has the showers to himself. He's bold enough to risk masturbating today and the feeling of his palm squeezing his dick is like heaven. Sweet and tight and hard as he pumps himself once, twice, maybe twice more before his body falls forward and he gasps, shuddering his orgasm into the swirling water around his feet.
Niou sighs. He presses his hand to the wet tiles and scrubs his body down. His legs are unsteady and the soap slippery on his feet, but he doesn't fall. He shampoos with Sanada's salon brand-his own, used up a month ago. Sanada will never notice anyway.
Exhaling in a semi-relaxed state, Niou pads back to the lockers. He dries himself, careful around his sensitized dick and balls, and dresses. He rubs his hair with the towel and lets it air dry: the wax doesn't work as well in this heat anyway. As he works on the last button of his shirt, Sanada and Yanagi walk in. Yanagi raises an eyebrow. Sanada grunts. Sun silhouettes their bodies until the door fully closes.
"The Nationals are coming up in a couple weeks," Sanada says.
"Sixteen days," Yanagi says, correcting Sanada. Sanada's eye twitches, but Yanagi doesn't seem to notice-or he doesn't seem to care.
Niou shrugs. He grabs his bags and leaves. His stomach rumbles: he did nothing but five laps and his body is sluggish with the sweltering heat. He droops, his posture more hunched than ever, rather like the stalks of flowers on the hydrangea bushes around campus.
Niou stretches his arms up and rolls his shoulders a bit. He starts to walk to the front gate when a long shadow steps out from around the corner of the clubhouse.
Mid-step, he stops dead in his tracks.
Yagyuu says, "We need to talk."
***
With anyone else, Niou would shrug it off and tell them puri, go fuck yourself.
With Yagyuu, he's weak.
He follows Yagyuu to the bus stop. Yagyuu flashes him a thin smile and says they can study together for math tonight. Niou calls his mother on the bus. His hands shake on his cellphone. "I won't be late," he says.
Yagyuu raises his eyebrows. His glasses slip on his nose, but he says nothing, he betrays nothing.
The closer they get to Yagyuu's house, the more Niou doesn’t want to go. It would be so easy to jump off the bus and walk away, catch another bus-or even the subway-and go home. But Yagyuu holds him here with just a gaze, just a glance, even the reflection of the dusky sunlight on Yagyuu's lenses glues Niou to the bus seat.
Out side Yagyuu's home, as they walk and their staccato footsteps fall into a tandem rhythm, Niou says, "I got nothing to say to you."
"That's fine," Yagyuu says. He opens the gate and holds it open for Niou. Just like he would for a girl. Just like he probably does for that girl. Niou clenches his jaw and stands there, refusing the offer. Yagyuu sighs through his nose and lets himself in first.
"We can study upstairs," Yagyuu says. "My class has the same test tomorrow before the break. It would be unfortunate to fail it."
Outside, the fingerling clouds are streaked mauve and pink in the west as the light dims to orange, then gloaming blue. Bushy cypresses and the stumpy lemon trees in the planters by Yagyuu's front door are dark against the sky. Trains and traffic rush in the distance.
Inside, it's quiet. Niou toes his shoes off-there are no red pumps by the doorway, just heaped up health slippers and a pair of scuffed Mary-Janes. Niou looks up the stairs and he can make out a crack of bluish light from under the doorway of Yagyuu's sister's bedroom.
"I'll get some drinks," Yagyuu says. "I'm afraid we don't have much, but please go upstairs, Niou-kun."
A command, not a request.
Niou tightens his jaw more. "When's your girlfriend coming for the study group?" he whispers under his breath. He can hear Yagyuu moving around the kitchen, opening a fridge door and then a cupboard. Other than his breathing, it's silent like a mausoleum. The sterile marble flooring and the large Chinese vases in the alcoves make Niou think of tombs and the dead. Yagyuu's house is pristine in its cleanliness, though dust motes catch the light when Niou turns.
He climbs the stairs. He pauses outside Yagyuu's sister's room and raps his knuckles on the door, drumming them in a rhythmic pattern. She doesn't notice. Niou sniffs and wanders into Yagyuu's room instead.
It's the same as always-messy bed, tv on his desk, empty pepsi cans and packages of jelly scattered with half-read novels, their spines crushed and bent. Niou picks one up and reads the title.
"Death on the Nile," he murmurs. "Lame." Niou chucks the book on the floor, Yagyuu's page lost. It doesn't matter, Yagyuu probably wouldn't find the book again anyway in the piles of junk. Clothes strew the floor, dirty socks and cosplay wigs, tennis balls and papers, papers, papers stacked everywhere.
Niou jumps back onto Yagyuu's bed. The mattress bounces more than his. He bounces for a moment, but something presses against his butt. Pulling it out, he finds the tv remote and flicks a button.
Golf channel.
Fields of green and boring commentary, blah blah Tiger Woods and birdies and eagles and damned if Niou sees any eagles on the screen flying around. Nothing but some dorks clapping politely along the fairway and some brown guy in khaki pants putting a ball into a hole.
At the sound of a door clicking, Niou looks over. In surprise, he presses the remote to turn the tv off. Yagyuu smiles blandly at him and shoves a pile of papers off his desk to make room for a small tray with two glasses of tea. "I don't mind if you want to watch golf," he says.
Niou narrows his eyes. He stands up from the bed when Yagyuu walks closer. Niou walks to the window and looks out across the roof. He can see rows and rows of homes gilded by the setting sun, and down closer, on Yagyuu's rooftop, there are scattered cigarette butts and even the gleam of yen coins. Niou tries to smirk, but his mouth is set in a thin line.
He turns. Yagyuu stands there and stares. "Where's your girlfriend?" Niou asks. Anger rises in his throat and his voice gets louder. "When's-" that bitch "-she coming?" he spits. He's breathing hard and his body is on fire as his hands shake. Niou touches the window sill for balance, but his vision still swims. Yagyuu spins and moves as he comes closer.
Yagyuu sits down on the edge of his bed and says nothing. His brow knits, his glasses slip and Niou just shakes his head. The idiot megane didn't know that Niou knows. Typical. Niou clicks his tongue and throws his hands up. He paces back, then forward and plunks himself down near Yagyuu.
"You think I'm stupid?" he asks. Harsh, brittle laughter sounds in Niou's ears, but he keeps talking as Yagyuu takes his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose. "Do you think-"
"I don't have a girlfriend," Yagyuu says.
Niou's mouth hangs open for a moment. When Yagyuu turns his head and gives him a long look, Niou closes it and tries to remove his foot as best he can.
Oh.
Oh.
"Oh."
Yagyuu keeps looking at him. His eyes are indeterminate and dark. Shadows hang deeper and thicker around the edges of the room. Niou breaks the stare and looks down. He touches Yagyuu's sheets and his hands knead them, feeling the soft cotton and rubbing absently. Yagyuu keeps looking, closer and closer until Niou can't see anything except the black pupils reflecting a strange light within.
Then he feels something on his mouth. Like a tickle, almost, but not quite and he can't place the sensation-it's new and unfamiliar and only when something touches the side of his face does he get that it's not the air conditioning on his lips, but Yagyuu.
Yagyuu kissing him.
Every single thought process in his body shuts down. All Niou can feel, see, smell is Yagyuu's face in his and the soft press of lips to his own. Yagyuu's lips are dry and all the pores on Niou's body are sensitized with the feeling of Yagyuu against him. In one moment, all those awful thoughts and worries and fears flee when his mind erupts in a panic of what do I do?!
He doesn't move-he doesn't know what to do except sit here and not breathe because he can't breathe with Yagyuu in his face like nose, nose brushed up against his, warm and solid and real when something wet and hot replaces that soft tickle. Niou tries to swallow, but he can't. He tries to speak, but his mouth is only encouraged by Yagyuu, who nudges his face and runs his fingertips over Niou's skin, brushing the side of his jaw over and over as his lips tease and his tongue tells Niou something he doesn't understand.
Until he parts his lips. And opens his mouth. And then he gets it.
Yagyuu pulls away. Niou sits there, head spinning and body burning, buzzing, his lips humming and his muscles reduced to mush. He stares at Yagyuu, his gaze blank over Yagyuu's shoulder when Yagyuu touches his own lips with his index finger.
Niou swallows. He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and he can taste something like Lotte Green gum and tea that Yagyuu must have drank. It's foreign and new and different and the flush creeping over Niou's face is too. When Yagyuu frowns and breathes through his nose, Niou's chest constricts.
Did I do it wrong?
Rapid-fire fear shoots across his mind and the dying sunlight streaming through Yagyuu's window flashes and blinds Niou for a moment. Yagyuu's eyes are dark, hooded with shadows when he looks at Niou. The hand touching Niou's jaw and ear lingers on his skin for a moment, then it pulls back too, leaving nothing but a cold memory. Niou shakes his head and breathes hard. I did it wrong. He hates me. He didn't want this. He didn't kiss me. I'm losing it…
"Isn't that what you want?" Yagyuu asks.
Niou's hair stirs, but the curtains are still. Nothing but the faint blowing of the air conditioning sounds between them, and Yagyuu's steady, even breathing too. Niou's heart pounds. His mouth is burned and his head feels too light. He feels nauseous, ill, like he's going to vomit if Yagyuu doesn't stop staring at him like that. But at the same time, he can't run either. Yagyuu's hand pushes down on his, sealing it to the sheets with a clammy embrace.
Niou swallows. The lump is thick and dry in his throat. The lingering taste of Yagyuu's lips is turning ashen. He forces his mouth open, but he still can't speak. The lump rises, threatening a sob and Niou can feel his body shake. Yagyuu probably feels it too, because his eyes widen a bit when Niou finally manages to shake his head.
"It…it is," he mumbles. "I-" Yagyuu's stare is too dark, too intense and he has to close his eyes to escape it. Niou turns his head slightly, but Yagyuu touches his chin once again. His fingertips are light as they stroke his skin. Niou shivers. Goosepimples erupt all over his arms when Yagyuu pushes his jaw closer with nothing more than his fingers.
"You've done this before," Niou says. He waits for that moment of denial from Yagyuu, but it never comes. Yagyuu's lips quirk. They are shiny with saliva. Niou's dreamed time and again of licking it off, but now that he has the opportunity, he's scared. This isn't a dream. Yagyuu isn't pliable the way he is during Niou's fantasies-he can't shape Yagyuu's reactions. A pang of something unintelligible blooms in his chest as Yagyuu nods.
"Yes," he says. His words are slow. His hand is slow, too, all over Niou's face: touching his jaw, his cheeks, his eyelids, then brushing his mole. Yagyuu is in his face again. Anticipation makes Niou's heart patter doki doki and his pulse rushes in his ears. Yagyuu breathes into a smile.
It's something Niou has never seen before. A smile so light and easy that the world stops spinning and Yagyuu's eyes are crinkled at the sides and dark and beautiful and Niou falls all over again, down down down when Yagyuu nudges the side of his face and murmurs, "Don't think about it, Niou-kun."
He kisses Niou a second time. Niou isn't surprised and when he feels that hot, wet tongue on his lips again, he opens his mouth. A rush of pleasure floods his belly when that hot, slick thing that must be Yagyuu's tongue slides over his own tongue, confident and slow and exploratory. Niou savours the sensation, making every nerve in his body stand at attention and buzz. It's a weird feeling: he expected kissing to be a bit more like masturbating, instant pleasure and results, but instead, Yagyuu isn't doing anything quickly, just curling his tongue over Niou's until Niou manages to think enough to move his own too.
He does what Yagyuu does: Yagyuu pushes, he pushes back. Yagyuu pulls away and runs his tongue over the roof of Niou's mouth and only then, with a ticklish jolt, does Niou gasp into the kiss. He closes his eyes and tries to go with it, he tries not to think about anything except that Yagyuu wants this.
And it feels good, even if he is scared and nervous and doesn't know what to do with his hands or legs other than sit on Yagyuu's bed and kiss him back.
Yagyuu knows what he's doing. Niou takes a back seat to him, letting Yagyuu take his hand and put it on his shoulder. Yagyuu's skin is warm, solid under his school shirt. There's too much to think about and it takes Niou a bit to get the hang of kissing back and tentatively splaying his hand over Yagyuu's shoulder, feeling the muscles contract under his touch when Yagyuu leans the other way, tongue roving over Niou's lips when he pushes him down on the bed.
This has been his hope for months, maybe even years, Niou can't remember in the instant that his head touches those pillows and sinks down, Yagyuu all over him, all around him, everywhere. Niou pushes back and Yagyuu kisses harder, deeper, his tongue so far and filling Niou's mouth that he might gag if it wasn't for the knee wedging between his legs. His eyes roll back in his head and he gasps. Yagyuu pulls back, but his lips don't leave his skin: he presses kisses all across Niou's chin, over his jaw and then his mole and Niou shakes.
"Yagyuu…" he whispers. The sound of his voice is harsh and he cringes. Yagyuu's hands are on his shoulders, his arms, holding him down. But even if he didn't, Niou wouldn't move away for anything. Hair brushes over his cheek and Yagyuu kisses his throat. Another wave of desire floods through Niou's entire body, all the way down to his toes that start to dig into the sheets when his knees lock up and bend and shakily, shakily wrap around the back of Yagyuu's calf.
He doesn't know how long they kiss for. He doesn't know how long they have been kissing for. Time stills and swells, told only by the intervals between Yagyuu's hot, searing lips on Niou's neck and earlobe. Yagyuu sucks on his earlobe and licks the inside. Niou hunches up and digs his fingers into Yagyuu's shoulder. That's gross, he thinks, but the feeling of Yagyuu's voice breathing, blowing, whispering into his ear sends shudders down his spine.
He's hard. Yagyuu has to feel Niou's erection poking his leg, but he does nothing, saying nothing to discourage it. "Niou-kun," he murmurs. Niou stiffens against Yagyuu's body.
"Niou-kun…" Yagyuu says. He licks the shell of Niou's ear, his teeth grazing the side and making Niou gasp again and bite down on a moan that shakes his body.
"Niou-kun," Yagyuu whispers. His weight settles down more on Niou, heavy and wonderful as his fingers weave between Niou's and push their hands above Niou's head. Yagyuu holds him down firm as he kisses Niou on the mouth. Niou kisses back and cocks his head to the side for a better angle. He can do this, it's not too hard. It makes his blood rush and his heart pound, like he's playing tennis and Yagyuu is at the net, defensive and wiggling and wonderful, only now he's on top of him, kissing hard and real and Niou moans.
He moans.
Yagyuu moans back and it's the most beautiful sound Niou has ever heard.
***
They kiss for ages.
They kiss forever.
When Yagyuu finally pulls away for the last time, Niou mourns the loss of his mouth and warm body. His cock is swollen and aching between his legs, but his heart is swollen and soaring in his chest. Niou exhales and touches his mouth. It's dark outside, but dim in Yagyuu's bedroom. He never did turn on the light-the brightness in his eyes was enough.
Yagyuu's stomach growls. Niou's does too, churning with a hungry reminder. Yagyuu slips his glasses back on and flicks a lamp on the table near his bed. Niou blinks and as his eyes adjust to the light, he can see the messy mop of Yagyuu's hair, all cowlicks and combed by fingers. His fingers.
Niou can hardly believe it, until Yagyuu looks at him. His lips are swollen, his cheeks are flushed. He touches the back of Niou's hand and turns it over, holding it and squeezing once. "Are you hungry?" he murmurs.
Niou tries to say yes, but Yagyuu is quicker. "We have leftover Thai take-away in the fridge," he says. Yagyuu starts to stand up and he pulls Niou's hand to do the same. Niou shakes and his knees buckle and he feels like an utter lame fool, but the sharp shame in his belly dissolves when Yagyuu's fingers twine with his, tighter than before. He smiles and his glasses slip. Niou reaches out with his free hand and pushes them back up Yagyuu's nose.
Yagyuu blinks.
Niou blushes this time. "Your glasses-"
Yagyuu nods and whatever Niou might have said never materializes. He's too floaty to care and he doesn't want this hazy dream to end. Yagyuu lets go of his hand when he walks to the doorway. His head nods to the tray with tea. "It's gone warm," he says, picking it up to take back downstairs.
Niou smiles under the hair hanging over his face.
They eat red beef curry and tofu noodles in the kitchen. Yagyuu's dad has a strange shift and won't be back until past midnight. Yagyuu's mom is off shopping, he says. "Summer sale on in Tokyo on Omotesando," he adds, rolling his eyes. "She left this morning before I went to school."
Niou nods. His mother would never, ever shop there-too frivolous, too expensive and too posh, probably.
Yagyuu's sister is still on her computer upstairs. It's just the two of them. The tap drips, the faint wet sounds punctuating their quiet when Yagyuu's chopsticks don't tap the edge of the take-away container, or when Niou doesn't slurp his glass of water. He feels raw and exposed, like at any moment Yagyuu will trip him up and laugh at him with cold, unfeeling eyes and tell him it was all a joke.
Instead, their chopsticks both reach for a piece of tofu at the same time and click. Niou jerks back and Yagyuu pauses for a moment, then picks up the piece of tofu himself. Not that Niou really cares-his stomach twists and turns so much that he doesn't know if he's really all the hungry for food.
Yagyuu holds the tofu piece out and looks at it. Without turning, he says, "Niou-kun."
Niou says, "Yes." Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Yagyuu's glasses catch the overhead light and gleam.
Yagyuu's smile is sharp. For a split-second, Niou's insides plummet.
But then Yagyuu says, "Here." He turns and holds out the tofu, right in front of Niou's face. Niou stares at him, then he raises an eyebrow. Yagyuu jiggles the tofu piece a bit and his smile widens, showing his teeth and sending a wave of melting numbness between Niou's legs.
Carefully, he opens his mouth-if that's even what Yagyuu is suggesting.
It's like dinner the other night in Chinatown, only now Yagyuu's hand is on his knee, steadying Niou when he leans forward and bites the tofu. Yagyuu pulls his chopsticks away and sets them down on the ceramic rest. His fingers rub tiny circles through Niou's pants: close enough to his dick to make him hard, but far enough down his leg not to notice Niou's erection.
The tofu is creamy and crumbly. It melts in Niou's mouth the way his stomach turns to a liquid puddle as Yagyuu watches him, studies him through a slightly cocked angle. Niou chews, then swallows. Yagyuu makes him shiver, through nothing more than a long look.
"Do you like feeding me?" Niou asks. His voice breaks and the tension inside only rises higher in his throat. He forces a laugh, but it chokes in his chest.
Yagyuu laughs. Just a little. Enough to make Niou's insides turn gooier than before. His knee twitches and his cock pulses, hard and swollen with rushing blood that comes in numbing waves, deeper and stronger than the last.
"Do you like me doing that?" Yagyuu asks.
Niou's face is on fire. He sets his chopsticks down, too, and clears his throat, hiding his feverish blush with his hand until Yagyuu touches his wrist. All it takes is two long fingers brushing the side of his arm and he's gone, liquid and leaning into Yagyuu, throat bobbing and lips parting.
He's a fool. He's a lovesick fool, but when Yagyuu kisses him, nothing matters except the sensation of Yagyuu's mouth pressed to his, Yagyuu's tongue sliding over his lips, Yagyuu's teeth nipping at his bottom lip and Yagyuu's hand snaking around his waist.
Vaguely, Niou thinks that the kitchen isn't a very good spot, not if Yagyuu's sister comes down for supper, too, but he stops thinking when Yagyuu kisses deeper and harder than before. Yagyuu's good at this. Yagyuu's good at this slimy, saliva-filled press of their mouths and lips and tongues, throwing the play back and forth like a tennis match.
Yagyuu serves and Niou plays defense. He lets Yagyuu back him up into the wall. He lets Yagyuu's hands rest on his hips. His own hands are shaky-but getting better-as he reaches for Yagyuu's shoulders, loving the feel of Yagyuu's solidity under his clothes. Niou tips his head back. Yagyuu groans a bit, the sound vibrating through their mouths and sending new shivers down Niou's spine.
But at the sound of someone shuffling down the stairs, Yagyuu pulls back. They break apart and Niou wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Yagyuu's saliva is shines across his skin, sticky and faintly salty from supper. Niou exhales with a loud huff. He slumps his shoulders and stuffs his hands in his pockets. His fingertips are tingly. If he imagines it, he can still feel the memory of Yagyuu's tongue lingering on his lips. He turns away from Yagyuu's sister, just in case she saw him blushing or giving away their burgeoning secret.
Yagyuu's sister asks about the food. She stares at the table and pouts at Yagyuu. "Did you guys eat all the leftovers?" she grumbles. "Pigs."
"Sorry about that," Yagyuu says. His expression is so neutral, his face so bland that Niou can't stop himself from bursting out into laughter. Yagyuu's sister whips her head around and glares at Niou. She opens her mouth to say something-or maybe yell, her eyes glow with anger-but Yagyuu grabs Niou's arm fist and says, "Come Niou-kun, we have a math test to study for."
***
Niou blinks at the textbook. He's flopped down on Yagyuu's bed, lying on his stomach as Yagyuu pads around the room, opening desk drawers for pencils and paper. "Didn't think you actually meant we'd study," Niou mumbles.
Yagyuu pauses, then he tosses Niou a pencil. He lifts his head and looks over the top of his glasses. "Of course," he says, "we both have a test tomorrow. Gentlemen don't lie." Yagyuu's smile, however, is lopsided and when he sits down in his chair and scoots over, the wheels rolling over his floor, Niou just rolls his eyes.
He's better at math than Yagyuu. He can do these problems just by sight, whereas Yagyuu meticulously copies the problems down, then each step in the process, showing his thoughts on the page. Niou shakes his head and points.
"You didn't carry right," he says.
"Aa, thank you," Yagyuu says. He erases and re-writes the step, correcting his numbers. Niou rolls onto his back and lifts his arms up, stretching his fingers out as far as he can over his head. He draws on the ceiling, numbers, figures, the kanji for Yagyuu's name, and then the next math problem that Yagyuu reads out loud for him.
"Answer's twenty eight," Niou says.
"No," Yagyuu says.
Niou frowns. He turns his head and looks at Yagyuu upside down. It looks like his mouth is quirked down from this angle. Shadows play with his features, highlighting his eyes and darkening his cheekbones and the wet open way Yagyuu licks his lips.
Niou's heart flutters. His belly coils up and his legs widen, just a bit, then they widen further when Yagyuu closes the textbook and crawls across the bed. He's set his glasses down and then he sets his body down, covering Niou as he twines their legs together, rubbing knees and hips and Niou gasps when his erection brushes Yagyuu's thigh.
Yagyuu says nothing. He presses his weight down heavier and Niou sucks in a breath. He closes his eyes and leans back, leans into the hot kiss searing the edge of his jaw and the dip of his neck.
"No," Yagyuu whispers on his skin as Niou arches up, "the answer was eighty two."
***
He's in a complete daze on the bus home. Niou stumbles up the bus steps. He trips over his feet on the way to finding a seat near the back. He misses his stop and has to walk an extra twenty minutes in order to get home. He's late-it's late and his mother frowns at him-but nothing can kill the feeling he has inside.
Nothing can change the fact that Yagyuu kissed him. Not once, not twice, but lots and lots of times. Yagyuu weaved their hands together and messed up his sheets. Yagyuu kissed his neck and his face and his lips and he didn't run away or scream or yell when Niou gasped and moaned. Yagyuu moaned, too. Yagyuu rubbed his thigh on Niou's dick and even now, thinking about it in the privacy of his bedroom with his hands furiously jerking himself off, Niou only comes harder and louder because of it.
He falls asleep and he can't stop smiling.
Nothing can ruin this.