Who: Yuuta & Mizuki
What: Yuuta turns to Mizuki for advice. Of sorts.
Where: Outside...?
When: May 31st, 2013 -- set after the events in
Family Matters (May 27, 2013).
Warnings: Crossed lines. We mean that.
For the second time in one week, Yuuta found himself eating with someone. Afternoon tea, more accurately, but it was never "just tea" with Mizuki. And it was a beautiful afternoon to be outdoors, spring-green and full of golden sunshine. Haku sat by his side, lulled by the sun, lazy but quietly watchful.
"You seem preoccupied with something," Mizuki noted as he cut a slice of cake and pushed the plate over towards Yuuta. Yuuta wasn't very talkative to begin with, but there was a certain distracted air about him at that moment. Mizuki could help but wonder if, like most times Yuuta looked troubled, Fuji was the source of the problem.
Haku gave him a mental equivalent of a kick under the table, and Yuuta started. "Huh? Oh. No, I was just. Thinking." In a manner of speaking. The memory of his conversation with Shuusuke drifted back to him, unbidden. He was past the initial surprise, of course, but in its place, something else he could only describe as Does-Not-Compute had taken over.
"Thinking...about what?" Mizuki nudged. He was doing his best not to sound too nosy, as that might make Yuuta clam up completely. "It must be something quite serious for you to neglect your sweets completely!" He smiled encouragingly. "I'm here to listen, if you need me to~" Mizuki was just about dying of curiosity.
Oh right. Sweets. It would be a shame, letting them go to waste. Yuuta picked up a petit four and started munching. "Just stuff. Nothing important." Just his brother, gallivanting around, displaying unseemly amount of PDA with Atobe Keigo of all people. Seriously, why Atobe? Granted, Yuuta knew very little about Atobe, but he couldn't see the attraction. Besides, if his brother was attracted to a guy, he'd have expected someone more like...Niou maybe, since they got along so well. Or Tezuka. Didn't Shuusuke have a fansite for Tezuka and everything?
"Why do people become attracted to someone?" Yuuta wondered aloud, more to himself than to Mizuki.
Mizuki nearly choked on his tea. His imagination started running wild. Was dear, sweet, innocent Yuuta... in love? And the way he sounded almost rueful-- was it someone unattainable? Someone already attached? A much older person? A teacher? As long as it wasn't Ryuuzaki-sensei... Mizuki decided to stop his train of thought right there.
At any rate, Mizuki felt compelled to offer some advice to his poor suffering kohai (despite the fact that Mizuki was hardly the expert on such matters, given the disastrous nature of most of his previous relationships).
"Well, people can't help who they like," Mizuki said slowly. "Sometimes it's a specific set of circumstances, or a case of compatible personalities, but I'd say it's one of the great mysteries of the universe."
"But someone so different?" Maybe Yuuta shouldn't make a snap judgment about someone he hardly knew, but at a first glance Atobe Keigo really didn't have much in common with Shuusuke. He supposed Atobe wasn't too hard on the eyes, for a guy, but somehow he didn't think outward appearance was the biggest consideration for his brother's choice of (ugh) a boyfriend. Haku's attention was wandering, mostly preoccupied with thoughts of bird-chasing, but the wolf contributed a reminder about the food-procurement bit before trotting away. Well, okay, there was that cooking part. Maybe Atobe harbored a secret love for cooking crazy inedible foodstuff like Shuusuke did? But surely the universe couldn't hold two -- okay, three, counting Inui -- such individuals? "Hey Mizuki-san, do you know if Atobe is a good cook?" By that, Yuuta meant of actual edibles, not Shuusuke-styled consumables.
Atobe? Yuuta liked Atobe? Mizuki's emotions cycled through shock, irritation and a little bit of unacknowledged jealousy before settling on confusion. Both Fuji siblings liked Atobe? Was this a familial weakness to divas? Did Fuji know? Since the elder Fuji was unlikely to bury Yuuta alive, rival or not, would they share? Would this degenerate into an incestuous threesome? Mizuki shakily put his teacup down, where it made an unseemly clatter on contact with the saucer.
"I'll have you know that I'm a much better cook than that...that person," Mizuki replied with an air of indignation. "Oh, I suppose he is decent, but tragically flawed in his thinking..." Delicately, he added, "It is unusual for you to show such an interest in a specific person, Yuuta-kun."
"Flawed in thinking?" Shuusuke had mentioned creative death threats. Ugh, memories. Yuuta's eyebrows knitted together as he leaned forward in his seat. "What do you mean?" It was Shuusuke, and Yuuta wasn't really worried, but if there was something...problematic about Atobe, it might be worthwhile to find out. Purely for, ah, precautionary purposes. That was it.
Were they really going to discuss Atobe during one of Mizuki's sanctified tea-times? Mizuki had to suppress a sigh. He supposed he could do this for Yuuta's sake. Perhaps try to subtly warn him that pursuing Atobe would be a Very Bad Idea.
"Well...he's...unique, that's for sure," Mizuki began. "It would take a certain kind of personality to be able to get along with him. What I meant about him being ...'flawed in thinking' is his skewed perspectives on certain things, I suppose. But we can't all be perfect~"
Yuuta nodded. Shuusuke did have a certain kind of personality that was all his own -- maybe that contributed to overall compatibility (if any). And if Mizuki called him a decent cook, chances were, Atobe was probably okay as far as his culinary skills were concerned. Briefly Yuuta wondered if Niou or Tezuka cooked, but thinking about them as cooks was oddly disturbing for the former and weirdly dissonant for the latter. The whole skewed perspectives thing needed further exploring, but there were a couple other things to consider. Like strength and physical attractiveness.
His mind immediately shied away from the florid descriptions Shuusuke used for Atobe, and Yuuta was profoundly grateful Haku was too busy chasing birds to remind him. Some things were best left forgotten. Still, strength was more or less quantifiable. What about attractiveness?
"Mizuki-san, do you think Atobe is--" The words stuck in his throat and Yuuta grimaced, getting the rest out in a rush. "--Cute or handsome?" Granted, Mizuki had a unique sense of aesthetics, but hell, it wasn't like Yuuta could go around polling the entire school on Atobe's attractiveness.
Mizuki was very, very glad that he had decided not to pick up his tea for another sip. Yuuta was obsessed. Mizuki wondered how best to turn Yuuta's misguided affections around. Should he tell horrible lies about Atobe? Perhaps slightly tweaked and exaggerated truths would be more believable...
Except Atobe was really quite hot, once one got past the whole obnoxiousness and tendency towards Wagnerian angst. Mizuki let out a sigh before he could stop himself and tried to hide it with a cough. "Well...there are surely better looking people..."
Well, that wasn't an unqualified no. Maybe, like his cooking, Atobe's looks were above average but not the best. But Yuuta was never a fan of rating people by their relative attractiveness, and wouldn't know how to judge, especially a guy.
On the other hand Mizuki seemed to have given this attractiveness thing more thought than Yuuta had. "Better-looking? Like who?" Yuuta asked, genuinely curious.
Like me!thought Mizuki, wondering how Yuuta was dense enough to miss something as obvious as that. "Surely you can't just think Atobe is the most handsome thing on the planet!" he exclaimed, unable to contain himself any longer. "Well like..." He had to pause for a moment. "...Yukimura-kun? Though he is not particularly my type..."
Yukimura? Yuuta mulled over the choice for a moment. He supposed his current roommate was good-looking, now that he thought about it. But Shuusuke had roomed with Yukimura for an entire year and nothing had happened.
Well. That he knew.
Let me know if you decide to ask that one about it. This, I'd like to see. Yuuta started. He hadn't realized Haku was even listening, let alone following their conversation. Although, it figured Yukimura's name would catch the wolf's attention. Yuuta wasn't sure just what Haku's problem with Yukimura was. And it wasn't even a strong dislike, per se. On the wolf-hate scale, it was more of a snap-at-the-heels dislike, not rip-out-the-throat dislike.
And just think: for all of last year it was just Nii-san and that one in the room. Alone.
Yuuta gagged. “Ugh. I sincerely hope not.” Great, now his mind was in that scary place of too much information. Or terrifying mental images. Same difference. Particularly when it came to his brother.
Mizuki blinked at the unusual reaction. "....Not your type either, it seems," he commented, shaking his head. Was it just Atobe then, that Yuuta was so hung up about? Perhaps it was time to be blunt about the issue. Yuuta was never very good at picking up subtleties.
"Yuuta-kun," he began. "Sometimes people become obsessed with another person, for whatever reason. If there is a lack of compatibility, however, this feeling may not last."
Yuuta supposed it could be considered an obsession, for Shuusuke to be so -- adamant. Even dismissing the rest of what Shuusuke said, it was clear his brother was determined to be with Atobe. He wished he knew Atobe well enough to tell if they were compatible or not. While he would be happier not to imagine any happily-ever-afters for Shuusuke at the tender age of nineteen, the thought of Shuusuke with a heartbreak was...
Not if we can help it.
The thought was a double-echo of steel in his and Haku's mind, and Yuuta couldn't help feeling -- just a tiny bit -- better. "I hope it does last," he murmured, and meant it: in the end, for both Yuuta and Haku, a happy Shuusuke was always preferable to any other Shuusuke. Meeting Mizuki's eyes, Yuuta flashed him a smile. "Thanks, Mizuki-san."
No, no, no, no, no! Nothing was going right, Mizuki thought despairingly. Why was Yuuta smiling and looking encouraged? This would not end well. Mizuki needed a major rethink on his strategies.
"I..you are welcome," he managed as he took a fortifying drink of tea. "Well...if something happens...anything at all, you can talk to me. I'll be here." The last was completely sincere. If it came to that-- when Atobe and Fuji decided they were done with the kinky threesome or Yuuta got too overwhelmed by the insanity of the whole arrangement-- Mizuki would still be there, smiling and ready with tea and berry pies to comfort poor traumatized Yuuta.