Prince of Tennis - The Bird - Yuuta, St. Rudolph (AU) - 2/?
Title: The Bird (2/?)
Previous Chapters: 1
Characters/Pairing: Yuuta, St. Rudolph, eventual Fujicest
Notes: Futuristic AU.
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me.
In the city, the people don't live in houses anymore. Not in the clean parts.
In the clean parts, they live in units stacked one on top of the other so the buildings are tall and slim. They enter and leave through the same door and stand in the thin glass chamber long enough to be cleaned. The air they breathe keeps them safe.
But the contaminated people live in old houses, soft and broken in. They drink tea and play games. And they die while they are young.
In a small cafe in the clean part of town, a woman looks out the window and notices how beautiful the city is at night. It is a stunning contrast to how ugly it is in the day.
The owner of the cafe is much older than she looks. She says that the air treatments keep her preserved to anyone who will listen. The customer has heard it already and sort of believes her.
A television drones the news in the background.
"They're taking about SI again." The owner says. "Haven't heard much about them in years."
She shuts off the television right when they get to the interesting part.
"Do you mind if I take a picture of you?" The customer asks.
"Me? Why?"
"I'm a tourist."
The owner poses next to a sign with a stylized coffee cup and fake, steamy curls drawn around it.
The customer stays in the air chamber for the suggested five minutes watching the timer count down. She traces the indented "SI" on the door with her fingers while she waits and wonders if the woman in the cafe was really paying attention to the news.
---
Yuuta calls it the the third day in his mind when it is actually the ninth. The second day he spends trying not to think about it and the morning of the third it is slowly sinking in. His memory may not return and he will need to move forward.
This is what Mizuki tells him from the middle of the second day.
Yuuta finds that all of the boys have tattoos in the same place as his own, but all of them clearly have two names. A second name that connects them to something outside. It makes him feel even more like he has nothing.
But Mizuki says that he will help Yuuta find his brother and that makes him feel like he has a little more than nothing.
There is a plan, but it is still formulating. It can be seen in the edges of Mizuki's smile, but it hasn't been formed into words yet. He is experimenting and gets into an argument with one of the adults on the afternoon of the second day. The time they spend in the Waiting Room, Mizuki is studying. He is still the only one who is not afraid.
Mizuki disappears for one hour between the time that they run from the Waiting Room and the time that they wait for dinner.
By the end of the second day, Mizuki has argued with the adults three times. Yuuta does not hear the exact words but he can hear Mizuki's voice turn up at the end of a question and the adults do not seem to tolerate questions.
The adults take him somewhere out of sight and he is gone again while they eat.
Yuuta sits at a table with Yanagizawa and eats slowly. He isn't hungry. Yanagizawa looks slightly pale and Yuuta tries to ask him what is wrong. Yanagizawa answers before the question is asked.
"Stir crazy." he says and Yuuta notices that he is smiling. "Just a little stir crazy."
Yuuta wonders if Yanagizawa knows anything about the plan.
"Remember anything yet?" Yanagizawa asks and Akazawa clears his throat loudly from the neighboring table.
There are adults in the room.
Yanagizawa ducks his head down as if Akazawa's glare will fly across the table somehow. He asks again in a whisper. "Well?"
Yuuta just shakes his head and twists his spoon around in the chunky white food paste.
Mizuki does not return to the rest of the group until the lights are shut off.
Yuuta is still awake when he returns. Mizuki opens his mouth to speak and Yuuta is ready to hear the plan.
Mizuki tells him to go to sleep.
---
Yuuta dreams that night about the bird. It rolls to him while he sits in the black recliner chair. He sees venom dripping off of the ends of the needles and he can't move. He's heavy and frozen.
He's alone in the room and the lights are all dim. The music is soft in the background and the bird rocks back and forth as it gets ready to lunge.
Before it can touch him, the room bursts alive with lights and whistles and sirens and Yuuta folds back into the chair, pulling his knees up to his chin and waiting and waiting.
Bells and sirens and screaming.
And now he's awake and Yanagizawa is screaming and lurching out of his cot. He's trying to say something, but heaving and the words can't come fast enough. He's vomiting on the floor and Yuuta is standing with his back pressed against the wall. He can't remember when he left his cot.
The adults burst into the room and hold Yanagizawa as he tries to claw through the sheets. His skin is pale and Yuuta can see dark veins underneath. He looks like he might die.
And then his body shudders and he spits blood between his teeth and Yuuta can't look anymore.
The other boys are all the same as him, lined against the walls and unmoving. Wide eyes and holding their breath. One of the adults is trying to move them all into the same corner. The boys scatter.
Somehow Yuuta ended up on the other side of the room. Somehow he has been inching closer to the open hallway as he watches the backs of the adults.
He sees Akazawa on his knees and his eyes beg something of Yuuta before his wrist is pulled around the corner.
Mizuki looks at him for only a moment. Then he says "Run".
So he does, down the long hallway, the opposite of the way they usually run and something feels wrong about that like something is trying to pull him back. They turn a corner that they haven't turned before and Mizuki is saying "faster, faster" and pulling him forward with his words.
The hallway turns again and there is a door and a staircase at the end. Mizuki starts to climb and Yuuta follows him. Mizuki pulls a silver key out from his sleeve. It is bright like a beacon.
They are far away from the room with the cots but he can still hear Yanagizawa. He is getting quieter and there is more silence than there is noise. And then, at the middle of the stairs, it is too quiet.
There is another door at the top and Yuuta can just barely see it. It is painted the same color as the walls around it. Yuuta's chest burns as he runs upwards but there is sunlight coming from around the door frame so he can't stop.
"This is it." Mizuki whispers. And Yuuta believes him. Mizuki opens the door with his key.
Then Yuuta sees a bright lamp, two adults, the push of a needle and everything is dark.
---
It is a long drive across the city, but she stops to photograph every color.
They are talking about SI now on the radio and how they are under investigation. Someone died in a chamber. And then another only a week after. SI insists that they are looking into the problem and rival manufacturers are springing up to reap the benefits of bad publicity.
She develops the pictures and puts them in a ring. They are mostly of landscapes and people and the people are all smiling like the woman near the coffee cup sign.
Yumiko is not afraid of getting sick, but is still careful.
She took a picture of some of the old houses from a hill and all that is in the picture are rooftops.
And then a sunset peeking between two buildings and an empty street.
She clamps the ring shut and drops the pictures off in the mail. Shuusuke will probably like them.
---
Yuuta calls it the fourth day in his mind when it is actually the tenth. Mizuki has not spoken since the adults let him and Yuuta go.
During the morning run down the hallway, Yanagizawa woke up and now Kaneda is explaining. Atsushi thinks that the injections are wearing on them somehow. Yuuta was the first and now Yanagizawa and he's afraid of a day when they all wake up at once and there is no one but the adults to rely on.
This thought makes Yuuta cold.
They tried to break Mizuki.
In the afternoon when they go to the room with the bird, for the first time, Mizuki looks terrified.
Previous Chapters: 1
Characters/Pairing: Yuuta, St. Rudolph, eventual Fujicest
Notes: Futuristic AU.
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me.
In the city, the people don't live in houses anymore. Not in the clean parts.
In the clean parts, they live in units stacked one on top of the other so the buildings are tall and slim. They enter and leave through the same door and stand in the thin glass chamber long enough to be cleaned. The air they breathe keeps them safe.
But the contaminated people live in old houses, soft and broken in. They drink tea and play games. And they die while they are young.
In a small cafe in the clean part of town, a woman looks out the window and notices how beautiful the city is at night. It is a stunning contrast to how ugly it is in the day.
The owner of the cafe is much older than she looks. She says that the air treatments keep her preserved to anyone who will listen. The customer has heard it already and sort of believes her.
A television drones the news in the background.
"They're taking about SI again." The owner says. "Haven't heard much about them in years."
She shuts off the television right when they get to the interesting part.
"Do you mind if I take a picture of you?" The customer asks.
"Me? Why?"
"I'm a tourist."
The owner poses next to a sign with a stylized coffee cup and fake, steamy curls drawn around it.
The customer stays in the air chamber for the suggested five minutes watching the timer count down. She traces the indented "SI" on the door with her fingers while she waits and wonders if the woman in the cafe was really paying attention to the news.
---
Yuuta calls it the the third day in his mind when it is actually the ninth. The second day he spends trying not to think about it and the morning of the third it is slowly sinking in. His memory may not return and he will need to move forward.
This is what Mizuki tells him from the middle of the second day.
Yuuta finds that all of the boys have tattoos in the same place as his own, but all of them clearly have two names. A second name that connects them to something outside. It makes him feel even more like he has nothing.
But Mizuki says that he will help Yuuta find his brother and that makes him feel like he has a little more than nothing.
There is a plan, but it is still formulating. It can be seen in the edges of Mizuki's smile, but it hasn't been formed into words yet. He is experimenting and gets into an argument with one of the adults on the afternoon of the second day. The time they spend in the Waiting Room, Mizuki is studying. He is still the only one who is not afraid.
Mizuki disappears for one hour between the time that they run from the Waiting Room and the time that they wait for dinner.
By the end of the second day, Mizuki has argued with the adults three times. Yuuta does not hear the exact words but he can hear Mizuki's voice turn up at the end of a question and the adults do not seem to tolerate questions.
The adults take him somewhere out of sight and he is gone again while they eat.
Yuuta sits at a table with Yanagizawa and eats slowly. He isn't hungry. Yanagizawa looks slightly pale and Yuuta tries to ask him what is wrong. Yanagizawa answers before the question is asked.
"Stir crazy." he says and Yuuta notices that he is smiling. "Just a little stir crazy."
Yuuta wonders if Yanagizawa knows anything about the plan.
"Remember anything yet?" Yanagizawa asks and Akazawa clears his throat loudly from the neighboring table.
There are adults in the room.
Yanagizawa ducks his head down as if Akazawa's glare will fly across the table somehow. He asks again in a whisper. "Well?"
Yuuta just shakes his head and twists his spoon around in the chunky white food paste.
Mizuki does not return to the rest of the group until the lights are shut off.
Yuuta is still awake when he returns. Mizuki opens his mouth to speak and Yuuta is ready to hear the plan.
Mizuki tells him to go to sleep.
---
Yuuta dreams that night about the bird. It rolls to him while he sits in the black recliner chair. He sees venom dripping off of the ends of the needles and he can't move. He's heavy and frozen.
He's alone in the room and the lights are all dim. The music is soft in the background and the bird rocks back and forth as it gets ready to lunge.
Before it can touch him, the room bursts alive with lights and whistles and sirens and Yuuta folds back into the chair, pulling his knees up to his chin and waiting and waiting.
Bells and sirens and screaming.
And now he's awake and Yanagizawa is screaming and lurching out of his cot. He's trying to say something, but heaving and the words can't come fast enough. He's vomiting on the floor and Yuuta is standing with his back pressed against the wall. He can't remember when he left his cot.
The adults burst into the room and hold Yanagizawa as he tries to claw through the sheets. His skin is pale and Yuuta can see dark veins underneath. He looks like he might die.
And then his body shudders and he spits blood between his teeth and Yuuta can't look anymore.
The other boys are all the same as him, lined against the walls and unmoving. Wide eyes and holding their breath. One of the adults is trying to move them all into the same corner. The boys scatter.
Somehow Yuuta ended up on the other side of the room. Somehow he has been inching closer to the open hallway as he watches the backs of the adults.
He sees Akazawa on his knees and his eyes beg something of Yuuta before his wrist is pulled around the corner.
Mizuki looks at him for only a moment. Then he says "Run".
So he does, down the long hallway, the opposite of the way they usually run and something feels wrong about that like something is trying to pull him back. They turn a corner that they haven't turned before and Mizuki is saying "faster, faster" and pulling him forward with his words.
The hallway turns again and there is a door and a staircase at the end. Mizuki starts to climb and Yuuta follows him. Mizuki pulls a silver key out from his sleeve. It is bright like a beacon.
They are far away from the room with the cots but he can still hear Yanagizawa. He is getting quieter and there is more silence than there is noise. And then, at the middle of the stairs, it is too quiet.
There is another door at the top and Yuuta can just barely see it. It is painted the same color as the walls around it. Yuuta's chest burns as he runs upwards but there is sunlight coming from around the door frame so he can't stop.
"This is it." Mizuki whispers. And Yuuta believes him. Mizuki opens the door with his key.
Then Yuuta sees a bright lamp, two adults, the push of a needle and everything is dark.
---
It is a long drive across the city, but she stops to photograph every color.
They are talking about SI now on the radio and how they are under investigation. Someone died in a chamber. And then another only a week after. SI insists that they are looking into the problem and rival manufacturers are springing up to reap the benefits of bad publicity.
She develops the pictures and puts them in a ring. They are mostly of landscapes and people and the people are all smiling like the woman near the coffee cup sign.
Yumiko is not afraid of getting sick, but is still careful.
She took a picture of some of the old houses from a hill and all that is in the picture are rooftops.
And then a sunset peeking between two buildings and an empty street.
She clamps the ring shut and drops the pictures off in the mail. Shuusuke will probably like them.
---
Yuuta calls it the fourth day in his mind when it is actually the tenth. Mizuki has not spoken since the adults let him and Yuuta go.
During the morning run down the hallway, Yanagizawa woke up and now Kaneda is explaining. Atsushi thinks that the injections are wearing on them somehow. Yuuta was the first and now Yanagizawa and he's afraid of a day when they all wake up at once and there is no one but the adults to rely on.
This thought makes Yuuta cold.
They tried to break Mizuki.
In the afternoon when they go to the room with the bird, for the first time, Mizuki looks terrified.