Misled (for Jain)

[giving_ground]

Title: Misled (by yuki_scorpio)
Recipient: jain
Pairing/Characters: YukiNiouYuki
Rating: PG
Warnings: Swearing. And Sanada abuse. (what's new...)
Disclaimer: PoT belongs to Konomi
Summary: Niou doesn't like to think too hard.
Notes: Erm, I tried? ^^"


Niou had never been the type to think hard before doing something. Thinking hard and analysing consequences were for people like Yanagi and Yagyuu. Niou preferred to be unpredictable, even to himself. Impulse and instinct kept life from being dull.

That said, there were times when he questioned himself afterwards. Or when Yagyuu questioned him and would not take a shrug for an answer, forcing Niou to think hard on the "why".

"Why did you do that?"

Niou had no answer to give. He bent down, removing the extra weights he had to wear for his punishment laps, and looked up to find Yagyuu still frowning. He shrugged. So what if he imitated Yukimura and called Sanada "honey"? "Sanada's fun to tease."

"There are things that should not be joked about."

"What, like you don't think he and Yukimura are practically married?"

"I don't think about such things," said Yagyuu, nudging his glasses once, a gesture that said to Niou Yagyuu was not telling the truth. He let the matter drop and got ready for service drills.

Niou thought about such things. He did not know why.

Yagyuu was still looking at him with that expression on his face when practice finished. Sanada, Yanagi and Akaya took the nets down and cleaned the courts, as they would continue to do until their victory at the Nationals. The two doubles pairs stayed behind until it was all done. No one asked them to, but they were a team. They won as a team before, they would lose as a team now.

Everyone gathered around Sanada afterwards. They knew he had something to say.

Half way through Sanada's very clipped speech, Niou looked around him, and saw the faces of his teammates darkening. Niou himself had very little interest in the actual words being said, but he knew their general meaning. Everyone knew Sanada thought himself solely responsible for their loss. He considered himself more influential than he really was and this pissed Niou off.

Sanada wasn't important. Sanada didn't matter.

Although when Echizen took that final match, Niou had thought that was it, that Yukimura was going to die on the operating table.

"I have failed Yukimura. I have failed all of you. I deserve the same punishment I deal at you all."

Niou was the first one to step up and slap Sanada across the face with all that he had.

His hand stung for days afterward, until Yagyuu suddenly approached him and took Niou's hand in his own.

"Does it still hurt?"

Niou shook his head.

"Niou-kun."

"Even now, I can't hate him."

Yagyuu put his hand on Niou's head and pressed it to his shoulder. Niou closed his eyes.

"I want to hate him."

+++

Niou licked his lips. They did not taste of anything, not of the energy drink he just had because Yukimura was running them all into the ground, or of anything else.

Sanada bore the brunt of Yukimura's wrath, and did so unflinchingly. Niou heard Yanagi say to Yukimura that given the restrictions he had placed on Sanada on what techniques he was allowed to use, it was impossible for him to beat someone who had reached the self-actualised state. Yukimura said he knew it was his own miscalculation, but Sanada needed this to get over it in his own head.

Niou looked out the club room's window to see Sanada slaughtering Akaya with tennis, and thought that Yukimura still knew Sanada the best.

When Sanada and Akaya finally returned to the room after their extra game, everyone else had got changed and was ready to leave. Yukimura put a hand on Sanada's shoulder and Sanada smiled for the first time since the Regionals.

Niou licked his lips again, remembering a vanilla-flavoured kiss, hands caressing his hair and then holding him. Two bodies sharing a small bed, clinging onto each other. A secret. A one-time thing that meant a lot more to him than it should.

He scratched the back of his head. "Anyone wanna head to the ice-cream place near the station?"

The suggestion drew a collective agreement, except Sanada, who said he was going home. Yukimura looked at him, shrugged and said he would go.

"Sanada doesn't like sweet things much," he whispered into Niou's ear when they left the club, as if to share a secret.

Niou licked his lips again.

+++

"For fuck's sake Sanada, he ain't gonna break," Niou heard himself say. When Sanada glared at him, he blew a bubble with the gum he got from Marui earlier, popped it, and asked, "what?"

There were four of them: Niou, Yanagi, Yukimura and Sanada. Yanagi's footsteps slowed, his attention drawn by the exchange. Niou was as nonchalant as he could be. Sanada looked at Yukimura, who was not letting go of his book bag.

"Thank you, Sanada. I can manage," said Yukimura, not quite smiling. Sanada lowered his offered hand. Yanagi continued walking. Niou felt very pleased for some reason.

Sanada and Yukimura took the bus. Niou wanted to walk, even though it was going to take him an hour to get home this way and it felt like a typhoon was on its way. Yanagi was still here too, he noticed.

They went further down the road, away from the homeward-bound crowd of students, before Yanagi began to speak. "I have a few questions."

"Fire away." Niou did not always answer questions, and when he did, he did not necessarily give the truth, but everyone knew that. He could choose to hear Yanagi first, though.

"Has something happened between you and Genichirou?"

A very surprised Niou arched an eyebrow. "Say what?"

After musing for a moment - could he be analysing Niou's reaction? - Yanagi shook his head once, smiling apologetically. "Never mind. Forget that I asked."

"But now you've got me curious." Niou walked closer so that they almost rubbed shoulders. "You were saying?"

"It's only a feeling. Lately you appear to be catching his attention much more than usual," said Yanagi. "You've been deliberately rubbing him up the wrong way."

"Don't you do it too?" Niou smirked. "Love that look he gets when he goes 'tarundoru', like his head's gonna explode from high blood pressure."

Yanagi smiled in agreement, but then he lowered his voice. "I do not, however, stare at him when we get changed in the club room."

That caught Niou off guard, but his reply was smooth. "Wouldn't you have to be looking at me to see me looking at him?" He did not bother to deny what Yanagi said.

"That is true. But as you once said, I have small eyes, so no one knows I have been observing them until I choose to inform them of the fact."

Niou had to laugh. "So who else observed me observing Sanada, then?"

"Only Seiichi and me."

"And your analysis?"

"I don't have one."

"Would you like a hint?"

"If you don't mind providing one."

"How should I put it..." Niou said with a bit of drama, rolling eyes into his head as if to look inside his own mind. "Sanada's got a really nice arse."

Niou grinned as his companion furrowed his brows, dissecting the answer he had just received. Yanagi brought a hand to his lips, trying to think.

"Is that truly your answer, Niou?"

"What do you think?" Niou gave a lopsided smile.

"I don't know what to think." Yanagi studied his friend.

"Haven't I told you before? Truth is just a lie spun differently."

Niou watched Yanagi's face. When Yanagi looked back at him, genuinely surprised, he knew the analyst had found the truth, but did not know what to make of it.

"The more we talk, the more I don't understand you."

"We just live differently; I'm not zen like you." Niou smirked again. He had to hide the look of relief; Yanagi had chosen not to judge. "Besides, if you understood, then you'd be me."

"That's a lie." Niou never understood Niou, too; this Yanagi was certain of.

Laughing, Niou put an arm across Yanagi's shoulders. "I don't just like him. I love you too, you know? Honest."

Yanagi just chuckled. These not-conversations with Niou always amused him, and they were the reason why he never gathered much data on the Trickster, but he did not mind; he had a feeling any attempt to do so would be in vain.

+++

Niou plopped back down on the cushions on the floor and passed the spoon to Akaya. Shifting legs and just about avoiding knocking the drinks over, he leaned against Yagyuu, yawning loudly. Across from him, Yukimura smiled and clapped as Akaya began to sing, turning left and right to say something to Yanagi and Sanada. Marui was busy polishing off the food and encouraging Jackal to do the same.

It had been a week since Yukimura's return. The swell on Sanada's cheek had gone. He was smiling because of whatever Yukimura just whispered to him.

Niou got up.

"Niou-kun?"

"Just want a break," he said to Yagyuu before catching Sanada's attention. "Can I go lie down somewhere?"

Sanada studied Niou for a moment, as if suspecting something. "You can use my room."

"Cheers."

Niou went upstairs, pulled out Sanada's futon and dropped himself atop it. It smelled clean. That was probably how Sanada smelled: clean and crisp. He wondered if sleeping here would make him smell just a bit like Sanada.

The door slid open. "Niou?" Yukimura poked his head in. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Niou smiled briefly. Yukimura went inside and sat down on the floor beside him. "Just wanna avoid the brat's singing. You enjoying yourself?"

"Definitely. Thanks for organising all this," said Yukimura. "Renji said it was you."

Niou smiled lopsidedly.

"You know, we haven't talked properly since my surgery."

"You're always too busy; everyone wants your time, can't get a word in edgeways."

Yukimura hit Niou's head playfully. "You, Niou..."

"Hmm?"

"You seem to have developed an interest in Sanada."

"What?" Niou laughed. "I'm not a friggin' homo."

The hand lifted from Niou's hair. "I'm sorry if I confused you," said Yukimura, his face still strong and authoritative even in apology, a thing only he could do.

Niou turned towards the pillow a bit more, so that he was almost speaking into it. "It's fine. It didn't cost us a limb or something. We didn't force each other."

A shadow fell over Niou as Yukimura nudged himself a bit closer. "You say that, and yet your eyes are on Sanada. You wouldn't even look at me."

"I just think he's interesting to look at. I'm looking at you now."

"Do you like him, or are you jealous?"

"What?"

"He's my best friend. He's the closest friend I've ever had and probably ever will have. He isn't the one I want to touch or kiss, but he is the first person I talk to when I think I like someone."

Niou's throat went dry, but still he smirked. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I've told him about you. And how you sneaked into hospital one night with ice-cream for me, and what happened afterwards."

After a long pause, Niou sat up a bit. "And what did he say?"

"That I'm insane, but he's happy for me."

"Really?"

"Really. He wished me good luck, just now."

Niou rolled onto his back and laughed.

It didn't look easy for Yukimura, but he went on. "I didn't kiss you because I needed comfort and you happened to be there. But did you let me kiss you because you wanted to comfort me? Tell me what you're thinking. Do you like Sanada?"

Raking a hand through his hair, Niou didn't answer the question directly. "I thought you liked Sanada."

Yukimura shifted even closer, moving onto the futon. Suddenly they were touching, hands stroking each other's hair, legs tangling. "You were the one checking him out."

"Just making notes," Sanada was taller, better looking, more determined in everything he did, played better tennis. There was no reason for Yukimura to choose him. But he probably should just not think too hard; he must've been hanging around Yagyuu and Yanagi too much lately. "He's got a nice arse."

"He has," Yukimura almost purred. "But it's not his arse that I like."

Niou laughed again when Yukimura held him down. The curly hair was tickling his face. "We might have a problem, because I rather like yours, too."

"Well, I suppose we'll just have to work things out as we go, then..."

Between playful kisses and fumbling hands, they briefly forgot about the party downstairs, where they were, and did not even hear the sounds of people running towards the room.

"Buchou! Niou-senpai!"

"Akaya! Wait!"

Their hands were still under each other's clothing when the door flew open. "Come down and- what the fuck fukubuchou?"

Sanada caught Akaya and had a hand over Akaya's eyes just before the boy could look inside the bedroom. This, however, meant he got himself an eyeful.

Yukimura and Niou hastily removed themselves from each other.

Turning away immediately, Sanada pushed Akaya towards the general direction of the stairs, telling him to get the ice-cream out. When they heard Akaya's footsteps disappear down the stairs, Niou and Yukimura exchanged an embarrassed look. Niou sat up. "Er, hey, Sanada."

"For heaven's sake, the two of you, don't do that in my house, and especially not in my bed!"

It was impossible to tell which one of their faces was the reddest.

"Sorry," Yukimura said with a sheepish grin. "Won't happen again."

Keeping his eyes firmly on the wall in front of him, Sanada grumbled something about having to buy new bedding before saying, "come down for ice-cream," and heading downstairs.

Yukimura and Niou stared at Sanada's retreating form.

"Nice arse," Niou said. "I think I like him."

Yukimura nodded. "Agreed."

They put their heads together and laughed.