roman candle;
this is probably my favorite fic out of everything (yes, everything) i've ever written. the only problem is: it's unfinished. i've attempted a great deal to end it satisfactorily, to no avail. i might be able to finish it one day, but for now it stays in its incomplete form. the tentative title is "roman candle," because one of the endings i wrote involved yamamoto and hibari watching a fireworks show together, which ended up too shoujo-y and i scrapped it; nonetheless, i still kind of like the idea of it.
-
“you’re always lost in thought.”
“what?”
“i said, you’re always lost in thought these days.”
“oh.” he blinked stupidly, watching as hibari gave him one of his trademark irritated looks and simply turned away. “um, thanks, i think?”
“don’t mention it. and wipe that stupid look off your face.”
“yes, yes.”
-
yamamoto is full of stupid looks, apparently enough. he has a whole stockpile of them, stored away neatly in his brain, labeled down to the last detail like a database. he’s found out (he’s found this out a lot, for many things) that they’re pretty multipurpose. i mean, just take a look at the following situations - uncomfortable atmosphere? stupid look. beaten up at school and dad is fretting? stupid look. mom’s death? stupid look, stupid look, stupid look.
let’s do the math: if hibari got a penny for every time yamamoto plastered a wide smile on his face hiding the tears he ought to be crying, would said cloud guardian be a millionaire?
he’d be a billionaire, possibly.
so on a sunny day when stupid looks are deemed to be impossible, yamamoto is giving gokudera a very stupid look, an extremely stupid look, one that possibly transcends all his previous stupid looks, and gokudera is raising his eyebrow in complete confusion (because unlike hibari, he hasn’t figured it out yet) and sucking his cigarette like a smoking lollipop.
“wha’ do ya want?” he said between a mouthful of smoke and tobacco.
“nothing, it’s nothing.” another stupid grin. hibari notes that the debt of tears yamamoto has racked up amounts to about a googolplex litres.
“then stop smiling at me like that. it’s creeping me out,” he said disdainfully, and shook out the nonexistent century-old dust from his grey hair.
hey, isn’t it weird for an eternally young kid who will always stay younger than everyone else, has grey hair like an old man’s? (because gokudera carries no scars on his body, unlike the rest of them.)
“yamamoto.” hibari breaks the silence because they are all sitting around like damp posterboard with nothing to say. “come spar with me.”
“o…okay.” yamamoto always gives him this confused, puppy dog look whenever hibari speaks out of the blue like that. like it’s some conditioned response from pavlov’s dog. and like a dog he bounds after hibari - hibari the loyal master, what a laugh. he turns around and faces yamamoto with arms crossed.
“you’ve been smiling stupidly all day.”
“oh. have i?” he laughs in his stupid way again. which means he was completely aware of it all along.
“what’s wrong with you?”
“huh?” the smile breaks, confusion surfaces. he scratches the back of the head, as if that would help with comprehension.
“around you, i always have to repeat myself, don’t i.”
“maa, because when it come out of you, senpai, even the normal stuff sounds unreasonable.” caught red-handed. he drops the face, eyes cast to the side, his lips fumbling into a straight line. it’s the first time hibari’s seen him make such an expression. sit, yamamoto.
he looks up at hibari again. “i’m fine.”
drop and roll, yamamoto. “you’re not.”
“even if, i wouldn’t tell you.”
cry, yamamoto.
(but of course he won’t.)
“have it your way then.”
-
but of course hibari already has a very clear idea of what-the-hell-is-going-on-in-yamamoto’s-head, because he is the 100% accurate analytical type, while yamamoto is the 100% please-read-me type. it’s so clear that hibari kind of wants to laugh except if he laughs, it’ll be out-of-character, so he won’t, thank you very much. so instead he’ll straight up tell you - again because he’s that type of guy - that yamamoto takeshi is IN LOVE with gokudera hayato. (i mean, it’s so obvious. have you seen the way he looks at him? have you seen the way he traces his body with a paintbrush and tucks away every bit of information about him as carefully as he keeps his stupid looks?)
and then hibari will laugh at the stupidity of it all - because it’s just so funny - because today he’s so out-of-character - because to complicate things further - he who has all of two facial expressions, he who can’t show emotion just like yamamoto - is in fact - in love - can you believe it, in love? - with yamamoto.
cue studio audience laughter. make it long, loud, and every bit as biting and bitter as hibari himself, please.
(mom always said DON’T PLAY WITH LOVE TRIANGLES because they prick and pull)
-
mom always said DON’T RUN WITH SCISSORS, yamamoto remembers.
it’s in all capitals because she didn’t place emphasis on any one word, she stressed every single one of them, like it wasn’t the run or the with or the scissors that was important, it was the whole fact that you can’t run with scissors - or else.
so it amuses him one day to see gokudera hayato sprinting down the school halls, hell hounds seemingly nipping at his achilles’ heels, clutching a pair of scissors as if his life depended on it.
yamamoto stops him easily with one hand on his chest.
“hey -!”
“no no no, gokudera-kun. hasn’t your mom always told you, don’t run with scissors?”
gokudera’s face suddenly contorts into a sour look, as sour as oranges and strawberries, and yamamoto knows he said something wrong. (because he didn’t exactly know about you-know-how his mother was murdered yet.)
“hey, i’m sorry if -”
“whatever.” gokudera tries to stalk away but yamamoto pulls him back by the arm. there they stand, facing each other, perhaps like in a duel, as yamamoto searches gokudera’s deep vast eyes for - i don’t know, something, anything. (they’re blue and glassy, like the ocean, only better.) then he smiles. not a stupid smile, not a stupid look, but an actual genuine smile that means he’s okay, for once in his life. he says to gokudera, “your hair’s gotten long,” and just starts cutting it with the scissors gokudera was holding, just like that, in the middle of the school hallway.
gokudera can’t stop stuttering - “h-h-h-hey - w-what are you doing? everyone’s looking!” and yamamoto’s laughing to himself as he runs his hands through surprisingly soft grey hair - “let them look then” (AND THAT WAS WHEN HE FELL MADLY DEEPLY IRREVOCABLY MISERABLY IN LOVE)
-
(unfortunately, hibari says, like the innocent bystander he is, it is unfortunate for yamamoto that gokudera hayato is the 100% type to-not-confuse-work-with-pleasure, to-not-fall-in-love.)
hibari is waiting for yamamoto to hurry-the-hell-up and finish whatever-it-is-he’s-doing in the bathroom, mostly because he is an impatient person and can’t stand using hyphens in his sentences. he scowls when he sees the boy leisurely stroll out of the bathroom as if he was on an afternoon walk.
“what took you so long?” he says through his teeth.
“oh, i was just washing my face,” he responds very innocently enough.
“do you wash your face like a cat? or perhaps did you accidentally drown yourself halfway in?”
“maa, maa. i’ll buy you lunch or something. what do you want to eat?”
hibari starts staring at his feet for a while. yamamoto blinks. “senpai?”
“you’ve gotten better since we last sparred.”
“thanks.”
“sushi’s fine.”
“alright.”
-
what everyone doesn’t know is that hibari is the one yamamoto tells his secrets to. on the way to lunch, arms crossed behind his head, this is what he said:
(the stupid look was first facilitated when my mom died. it was for two reasons. one - my dad was practically broken down by the loss. every time i saw him he moved around like a rusty machine, creak creak creak around the sushi shop. then he’d lift his head when he saw me and pretend he was fine and say, “how was school, takeshi?” maybe i got it from him, i dunno, but i’d shoot that stupid look right back at him, say, “fine!” and go upstairs to my room and cry. and he never knew about it, because i’m a very silent crier. the tears just roll down my cheeks, i don’t speak, i don’t move. and after i’m done i just take a shower or something as the my puffy eyes and cheeks swell down.
the second reason was for a very good reason. after my mom’s death, after i came back from mom’s funeral, everyone at school started looking at me differently. treating me differently. like, they expected me to break down in their arms while they cooed in my ear, it’s alright, it’s alright. it’s like they expected my mom’s death to change who i was. but i was still the same person, you know? i was still takeshi, still a person, not a piece of sushi to poke and prod. i was pissed they tried to pity me. so if i said, i’m alright, i’m alright, i figured they’d stop. and they did.
if there’s anything i found out about myself during this time, it’s that i’m very good at keeping secrets. except from you, hibari. whenever i see you my mouths just blabs all over the place
“hibari-senpai?”
“what is it?”
“nothing, just…you were silent for a while.”
-
okay, so i lied. (except for the part about everything and everyone and everywhere - those are all true.) because yamamoto really did say those exact same words to hibari, just a few years ago, when he was finishing up middle school and hibari had just started high school. but now that they’re both in high school in the same place in the same building even sometimes in the same hundred square feet of each other - yamamoto doesn’t want to say things like that anymore.
hibari overhears it one day -
“gokudera, can i tell you something? it’s a something, a really important something.”
“go ahead.”
“before i met you guys, my dad and baseball were the only things i had left.”
“…why did you tell me this?”
“i felt like it.”
-
they are alone, just the two of them, in the sushi shop. yamamoto senior has trusted yamamoto junior with temporary care over the shop and gone to retire in his room upstairs. hibari pokes at a piece of dead fish.
“yamamoto, i have a question.”
“yeah?”
he pauses to inspect the sashimi. “gokudera hayato.”
yamamoto waits. “…is that the question?”
“yes.”
he chuckles. “i don’t know what you mean by that, but uh, what can i say? what do you want to hear?”
he instead selects a piece of sushi. “anything. everything.”
“truthfully, i don’t know that much about him.”
gods, are you stupid or just avoiding the question? “but you do know that much about yourself, don’t you?”
yamamoto laughs an easy breezy laugh. “what are you getting at, hibari-senpai?”
tell me how you feel about him, yamamoto. tell me if you really love him, yamamoto. tell me why you don’t tell me your secrets anymore, yamamoto. love me instead of him, yamamoto. roll over and play dead, yamamoto.
hibari shakes his head. “i don’t know.”
now who was avoiding the question?
TBC (not)
-
“you’re always lost in thought.”
“what?”
“i said, you’re always lost in thought these days.”
“oh.” he blinked stupidly, watching as hibari gave him one of his trademark irritated looks and simply turned away. “um, thanks, i think?”
“don’t mention it. and wipe that stupid look off your face.”
“yes, yes.”
-
yamamoto is full of stupid looks, apparently enough. he has a whole stockpile of them, stored away neatly in his brain, labeled down to the last detail like a database. he’s found out (he’s found this out a lot, for many things) that they’re pretty multipurpose. i mean, just take a look at the following situations - uncomfortable atmosphere? stupid look. beaten up at school and dad is fretting? stupid look. mom’s death? stupid look, stupid look, stupid look.
let’s do the math: if hibari got a penny for every time yamamoto plastered a wide smile on his face hiding the tears he ought to be crying, would said cloud guardian be a millionaire?
he’d be a billionaire, possibly.
so on a sunny day when stupid looks are deemed to be impossible, yamamoto is giving gokudera a very stupid look, an extremely stupid look, one that possibly transcends all his previous stupid looks, and gokudera is raising his eyebrow in complete confusion (because unlike hibari, he hasn’t figured it out yet) and sucking his cigarette like a smoking lollipop.
“wha’ do ya want?” he said between a mouthful of smoke and tobacco.
“nothing, it’s nothing.” another stupid grin. hibari notes that the debt of tears yamamoto has racked up amounts to about a googolplex litres.
“then stop smiling at me like that. it’s creeping me out,” he said disdainfully, and shook out the nonexistent century-old dust from his grey hair.
hey, isn’t it weird for an eternally young kid who will always stay younger than everyone else, has grey hair like an old man’s? (because gokudera carries no scars on his body, unlike the rest of them.)
“yamamoto.” hibari breaks the silence because they are all sitting around like damp posterboard with nothing to say. “come spar with me.”
“o…okay.” yamamoto always gives him this confused, puppy dog look whenever hibari speaks out of the blue like that. like it’s some conditioned response from pavlov’s dog. and like a dog he bounds after hibari - hibari the loyal master, what a laugh. he turns around and faces yamamoto with arms crossed.
“you’ve been smiling stupidly all day.”
“oh. have i?” he laughs in his stupid way again. which means he was completely aware of it all along.
“what’s wrong with you?”
“huh?” the smile breaks, confusion surfaces. he scratches the back of the head, as if that would help with comprehension.
“around you, i always have to repeat myself, don’t i.”
“maa, because when it come out of you, senpai, even the normal stuff sounds unreasonable.” caught red-handed. he drops the face, eyes cast to the side, his lips fumbling into a straight line. it’s the first time hibari’s seen him make such an expression. sit, yamamoto.
he looks up at hibari again. “i’m fine.”
drop and roll, yamamoto. “you’re not.”
“even if, i wouldn’t tell you.”
cry, yamamoto.
(but of course he won’t.)
“have it your way then.”
-
but of course hibari already has a very clear idea of what-the-hell-is-going-on-in-yamamoto’s-head, because he is the 100% accurate analytical type, while yamamoto is the 100% please-read-me type. it’s so clear that hibari kind of wants to laugh except if he laughs, it’ll be out-of-character, so he won’t, thank you very much. so instead he’ll straight up tell you - again because he’s that type of guy - that yamamoto takeshi is IN LOVE with gokudera hayato. (i mean, it’s so obvious. have you seen the way he looks at him? have you seen the way he traces his body with a paintbrush and tucks away every bit of information about him as carefully as he keeps his stupid looks?)
and then hibari will laugh at the stupidity of it all - because it’s just so funny - because today he’s so out-of-character - because to complicate things further - he who has all of two facial expressions, he who can’t show emotion just like yamamoto - is in fact - in love - can you believe it, in love? - with yamamoto.
cue studio audience laughter. make it long, loud, and every bit as biting and bitter as hibari himself, please.
(mom always said DON’T PLAY WITH LOVE TRIANGLES because they prick and pull)
-
mom always said DON’T RUN WITH SCISSORS, yamamoto remembers.
it’s in all capitals because she didn’t place emphasis on any one word, she stressed every single one of them, like it wasn’t the run or the with or the scissors that was important, it was the whole fact that you can’t run with scissors - or else.
so it amuses him one day to see gokudera hayato sprinting down the school halls, hell hounds seemingly nipping at his achilles’ heels, clutching a pair of scissors as if his life depended on it.
yamamoto stops him easily with one hand on his chest.
“hey -!”
“no no no, gokudera-kun. hasn’t your mom always told you, don’t run with scissors?”
gokudera’s face suddenly contorts into a sour look, as sour as oranges and strawberries, and yamamoto knows he said something wrong. (because he didn’t exactly know about you-know-how his mother was murdered yet.)
“hey, i’m sorry if -”
“whatever.” gokudera tries to stalk away but yamamoto pulls him back by the arm. there they stand, facing each other, perhaps like in a duel, as yamamoto searches gokudera’s deep vast eyes for - i don’t know, something, anything. (they’re blue and glassy, like the ocean, only better.) then he smiles. not a stupid smile, not a stupid look, but an actual genuine smile that means he’s okay, for once in his life. he says to gokudera, “your hair’s gotten long,” and just starts cutting it with the scissors gokudera was holding, just like that, in the middle of the school hallway.
gokudera can’t stop stuttering - “h-h-h-hey - w-what are you doing? everyone’s looking!” and yamamoto’s laughing to himself as he runs his hands through surprisingly soft grey hair - “let them look then” (AND THAT WAS WHEN HE FELL MADLY DEEPLY IRREVOCABLY MISERABLY IN LOVE)
-
(unfortunately, hibari says, like the innocent bystander he is, it is unfortunate for yamamoto that gokudera hayato is the 100% type to-not-confuse-work-with-pleasure, to-not-fall-in-love.)
hibari is waiting for yamamoto to hurry-the-hell-up and finish whatever-it-is-he’s-doing in the bathroom, mostly because he is an impatient person and can’t stand using hyphens in his sentences. he scowls when he sees the boy leisurely stroll out of the bathroom as if he was on an afternoon walk.
“what took you so long?” he says through his teeth.
“oh, i was just washing my face,” he responds very innocently enough.
“do you wash your face like a cat? or perhaps did you accidentally drown yourself halfway in?”
“maa, maa. i’ll buy you lunch or something. what do you want to eat?”
hibari starts staring at his feet for a while. yamamoto blinks. “senpai?”
“you’ve gotten better since we last sparred.”
“thanks.”
“sushi’s fine.”
“alright.”
-
what everyone doesn’t know is that hibari is the one yamamoto tells his secrets to. on the way to lunch, arms crossed behind his head, this is what he said:
(the stupid look was first facilitated when my mom died. it was for two reasons. one - my dad was practically broken down by the loss. every time i saw him he moved around like a rusty machine, creak creak creak around the sushi shop. then he’d lift his head when he saw me and pretend he was fine and say, “how was school, takeshi?” maybe i got it from him, i dunno, but i’d shoot that stupid look right back at him, say, “fine!” and go upstairs to my room and cry. and he never knew about it, because i’m a very silent crier. the tears just roll down my cheeks, i don’t speak, i don’t move. and after i’m done i just take a shower or something as the my puffy eyes and cheeks swell down.
the second reason was for a very good reason. after my mom’s death, after i came back from mom’s funeral, everyone at school started looking at me differently. treating me differently. like, they expected me to break down in their arms while they cooed in my ear, it’s alright, it’s alright. it’s like they expected my mom’s death to change who i was. but i was still the same person, you know? i was still takeshi, still a person, not a piece of sushi to poke and prod. i was pissed they tried to pity me. so if i said, i’m alright, i’m alright, i figured they’d stop. and they did.
if there’s anything i found out about myself during this time, it’s that i’m very good at keeping secrets. except from you, hibari. whenever i see you my mouths just blabs all over the place
“hibari-senpai?”
“what is it?”
“nothing, just…you were silent for a while.”
-
okay, so i lied. (except for the part about everything and everyone and everywhere - those are all true.) because yamamoto really did say those exact same words to hibari, just a few years ago, when he was finishing up middle school and hibari had just started high school. but now that they’re both in high school in the same place in the same building even sometimes in the same hundred square feet of each other - yamamoto doesn’t want to say things like that anymore.
hibari overhears it one day -
“gokudera, can i tell you something? it’s a something, a really important something.”
“go ahead.”
“before i met you guys, my dad and baseball were the only things i had left.”
“…why did you tell me this?”
“i felt like it.”
-
they are alone, just the two of them, in the sushi shop. yamamoto senior has trusted yamamoto junior with temporary care over the shop and gone to retire in his room upstairs. hibari pokes at a piece of dead fish.
“yamamoto, i have a question.”
“yeah?”
he pauses to inspect the sashimi. “gokudera hayato.”
yamamoto waits. “…is that the question?”
“yes.”
he chuckles. “i don’t know what you mean by that, but uh, what can i say? what do you want to hear?”
he instead selects a piece of sushi. “anything. everything.”
“truthfully, i don’t know that much about him.”
gods, are you stupid or just avoiding the question? “but you do know that much about yourself, don’t you?”
yamamoto laughs an easy breezy laugh. “what are you getting at, hibari-senpai?”
tell me how you feel about him, yamamoto. tell me if you really love him, yamamoto. tell me why you don’t tell me your secrets anymore, yamamoto. love me instead of him, yamamoto. roll over and play dead, yamamoto.
hibari shakes his head. “i don’t know.”
now who was avoiding the question?
TBC (not)