A Day in the Life
Title: A Day in the Life
Pairing: Koyama/Ryo
Rating: Hard R
Words: 2,600
Summary: Ryo has been wandering for seven years across the wasteland of Japan, fighting for his life and nothing more. One day he stops.
Notes: Post-apocolyptic dystopian AU. Seriously. I just wrote this tonight and I want to know why my remix isn't coming so well. XD But yay! Because I've been wanting to write a KoyaRyo for a while. *loves them*
Ryo approached the house cautiously in the twilight, shotgun raised at chest-level. The place didn’t feel deserted but there was no movement that he could detect and the windows were boarded up. He climbed the steps and stood in front of the door, listening carefully. Still nothing. He took a step back, braced himself and kicked the door in, jumping to the side in instinct just as he saw the very surprised face of the single occupant and heard a shattering noise.
The man inside slowly raised his hands and rose to his full height, all long, lean lines. Ryo stepped quickly inside and shut the door behind him, keeping his back to the wall. “Is there anyone else here?” he demanded harshly, eyes sweeping the room quickly.
The man shook his head. “I’m unarmed,” he said. “But you’re making me nervous. Could you lower your weapon, please?”
Ryo ignored him and moved forward to frisk the man one-handed, feeling nothing but muscle and bone under the t-shirt and jeans the man wore.
“Koyama Keiichiro,” the man said, and Ryo gave him a confused look. “I figured if we were going to be getting this friendly, you should know my name,” he said with a wry grin, eyes trained on Ryo’s.
“Nishikido Ryo,” he replied gruffly.
“Can I put my hands down, please?”
“Yeah, sure, be my guest.”
Koyama put his hands down and bent over to start cleaning up the pieces of a shattered plate, trying to salvage the food between the shards. Ryo watched him put the food on another plate and ladle water into a second small glass, placing both on a low table and sitting down in front of it so that his back was to the open room, clearly letting Ryo have the side with the least exposure.
“Please,” he said, graciously, gesturing toward the other side of the table.
Ryo grunted and sat down, dropping his pack beside him and laying his shotgun across his thighs before digging in with a quick muttering of thanks. Koyama ate delicately, watching Ryo openly but not saying anything.
Once they’d finished and Koyama had, under Ryo’s watchful eyes, put the dishes in the sink, Koyama sat down across from Ryo again, hands folded in his lap. “Why this house?” he asked. “I don’t mind, of course, but… you’re the first in a long time.”
Ryo watched his eyes slide to the side and his breathing increase just a little bit. “Last visitor not so polite?” he asked.
Koyama bit his lower lip and tears sprang to his eyes and he shook his head. “Not that kicking my door in and pointing a gun at me was polite,” he added sarcastically, and Ryo had to smile.
“Sorry.” Koyama was looking at him expectantly so he sighed and went on. “I don’t know. I just picked this one. It was just a random choice.”
Rising gracefully to his knees, Koyama gestured behind Ryo. “It’s early, but if you’d like to wash up…”
“You have enough water that you can wash up?” he asked suspiciously.
“There’s a well about a mile away. Hidden. I’ll show you where it is tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Ryo rose and followed Koyama to the bathroom.
“Do you… want me to stay?” he asked hesitantly, eyes dropping to the shotgun.
Ryo’s first instinct was to trust the man but trust didn’t do much for a person these days. “Yeah,” he replied and watched Koyama lick his lips and half-sit on the edge of the sink, facing away from Ryo. His eyes raked over the other man’s tense form before stripping down to his boxers, shotgun in reach, and wetting a stiff washcloth in the large bucket of water, half-full, and rubbing himself down. He watched grimy water run down the drain and the washcloth steadily turn a darker shade. He rinsed it out after and laid it on the edge of the tub. He pulled a second pair of pants out of his pack, slipping them on and bending back over the tub to wash his clothes as best he could with as little water as possible. “You can turn around now,” he said, scrubbing at his shirt before laying it and his pants over the edge as well. When he looked up, Koyama was watching him interestedly and he felt his face flush. “What?”
“You’re beautiful,” Koyama said without a trace of shame. “I haven’t seen another person in a long time.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he growled. “Be glad. They’re not all as nice as I am.”
It was like shutters came down over Koyama’s eyes and he frowned. “I know.”
Ryo felt a trickle of guilt and snatched up his gun and gestured harshly at Koyama to leave the bathroom first. Koyama walked into another room and rolled out a futon and Ryo watched him pat it down, eyeing the man’s long legs as they bent and stretched in his endeavors. He flushed again and forced himself to look away, looking instead at the peeling paint on the walls, carefully stripped in places it had peeled enough to grab a hold of. “How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Mmm… five years probably.”
Ryo stared at him. “That long? Where do you find food?”
“Where I can,” was his short reply. “I grow some things I put out on the back porch for a few hours a day. I had just brought them in a couple hours before you came. They’re in the other room.” He paused to smooth out a blanket over the futon then shrugged. “It’s safe enough here. There are so many houses and pretty much everyone left this area after the explosion and just… never came back. The chances of anyone picking this house are slim enough.”
“You don’t have a gun?”
Koyama shrugged. “No bullets. I have a few kitchen knives and that’s it. But like I said, I haven’t really needed them much.” He stretched out carefully on one side of the futon and rolled to face away from the center. “Good night.”
Ryo blinked at the man before lying down on his back next to him, one hand behind his head and the other on his gun. “Good night.”
He slept better that night than he had all year, much to his displeasure, probably a combination of the feeling of being clean and having an actual bed to sleep in. He woke to dusty sunlight filtering in around boarded windows and the sound of movement in the kitchen. He sat bolt-upright, hand clutching automatically around the barrel of his gun. Still there. And his pack looked undisturbed. He moved curiously out into the kitchen/living area.
“Good morning,” Koyama said, without looking up from the food he was preparing.
It looked meager and smelled unappetizing but his mouth watered anyway. Ryo grunted in response and moved to ladle himself a glass of water.
“You can… stay as long as you’d like,” Koyama said quietly. “But I’ll need help finding enough food for the both of us. Either way, I’ll show you where the well is today.”
Ryo didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t actually thought about staying but right now it sounded like a damn good idea. He’d been on the move for seven years now, wandering wherever he felt like going, living day-to-day without any thought to the future past the next few meals. Well, maybe for a little while. He was suddenly tired.
Koyama looked over at him through long bangs, warm brown eyes seeming to read his mind when he smiled. “You’ll feel better once you eat.”
And he did. He helped Koyama carry out several large tubs of soil with plants growing in them to sit in the sun before they left. “How do you get these out by yourself?” he grunted as they moved them.
Koyama shrugged. “I drag them.”
The walk to the well was long and hot, dust rising up around them and trying to choke them even through the cloths they wore wrapped around their heads to protect them from the sunlight. Koyama looked like a farmer, yoke stretched over his shoulders and two large buckets hanging over the sides, but Ryo admired the way the muscles of his back bunched and moved under the weight, his own lone bucket banging against his shins as he followed. The trip back was longer and hotter with the added weight of the water, but Ryo had memorized the layout and could make it back to the well anytime now.
“What do you do?” he asked Koyama after they had put their burdens down in their places.
“Hmm?”
“When you’re not getting food or water.”
“Think, mostly. But I spend quite a bit of time finding food. I have traps laid out, but there’s not much here for animals to eat, so I have a lot of traps and it takes time to check them all.”
He followed Koyama around to all his traps and they found a scruffy raccoon caught in one. Koyama cooed sympathetically at the still alive and very pathetic-looking creature before reaching down with quick fingers, carefully avoiding its teeth, to snap its neck expertly. “Lucky day,” he said, all smiles. They checked the rest of the traps anyway because Koyama couldn’t bear the thought of leaving any animals in them for longer than they had to be, but they were all empty. They moved the tubs back into the house on their return, Koyama carefully watering each before settling down to strip and cook their dinner.
They didn’t say much, so used to having no one to talk to that they’d almost forgotten how to converse, maybe. Ryo didn’t mind. It felt comfortable, companionable. Koyama didn’t ask if he’d be staying or leaving which was good because Ryo still didn’t know beyond tonight. When they stretched out next to each other again that night, Ryo felt more peaceful than he had in years and the thought scared him a little bit, just before he drifted off into the dreamless sleep of the truly exhausted.
One day turned into one week and Ryo reveled in the feeling of routine. Every day they followed the same path, did the same chores, played cards for an hour before lying down to sleep. He was content, he decided, listening to Koyama’s even breathing next to him. He hadn’t even slept with his hand on his gun the last two nights and he wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. He didn’t want to get soft in this place, only to get himself killed because of it once he left. Once he left. Was he leaving? He felt like he was in a stasis here and he sort of understood why people stayed in the small towns now. He found them highly unattractive - full of desperate, dirty people trying to live a “real life” and he had thought that ridiculous until just now. There was no such thing as a “normal” life, he’d thought. At least outside the towns if you ran into someone, there were no false promises about what would happen like in towns where one expected protection and received something much less because that’s just how it was. Outside there were no illusions, just reality. Now, though, he could see the attraction in the security of repetition. He wanted to resent the man who had started it all with his quiet demeanor and polite words but he couldn’t bring himself to.
He turned on his side in the dim light of a full moon edging into the room from cracks in the boards to watch the rise and fall of Koyama’s shoulder where it jutted up and followed the curve of his body to his hips and down to his feet. Reaching out, he gently touched his fingers to Koyama’s shoulder, letting them rest there for a moment before lightly trailing them down and splaying his fingers gently over the man’s hip. Koyama mumbled something in his sleep and rolled over to face Ryo, cuddling up against his chest and tucking his head under Ryo’s chin. Ryo stayed absolutely still before curling a hesitant arm around Koyama’s waist and shutting his eyes again.
He woke to movement in his arms and looked down into Koyama’s eyes from where he lay in his embrace. “Uhh,” he said intelligently and went to move his arms but was stopped by Koyama shifting up to press a chaste kiss against his lips. “Buh.”
Koyama giggled and stretched impossibly long limbs, pressing their hips together. He thought it was innocent until Koyama opened his eyes again, looking at Ryo, his lips twitching up at the corners, and Ryo’s breath caught at the heat in his eyes. He swallowed thickly and Koyama rose, smoothly, leaving Ryo in a confused tangle on the futon only to return with a glass of water and offer it to him. Ryo’s eyelids fluttered involuntarily as he accepted the glass with both hands and drained it. He let Koyama take it from unresisting fingers and place it on the ground before he slipped down onto his knees next to him and drew him up to kiss him gently.
Koyama waited until he started to respond before nipping at his lower lip then running his tongue across it, getting Ryo to let him in. Ryo heard a low moan issue from his own throat and he was rising to his knees to fist his hands in the back of Koyama’s shirt and pull him closer. He could feel Koyama trembling under his fingers as he released his hold on his shirt and ran them up under his shirt, calloused fingers across smooth skin, and they both moaned when he ran the pads of his fingers across already hardened nipples. Then they were wrestling each other out of their clothes and fighting to lick and bite across every bit of exposed flesh they could find.
When Ryo wrapped his fingers around Koyama’s cock, the man arched up off the ground and practically howled. Ryo smirked and jerked him slowly and watched one of Koyama’s hands scrabble to grab Ryo’s bicep while the other went to tease at his own nipple.
“Shit,” Ryo whispered, wide-eyed, and Koyama’s eyes flew open and locked onto his before he pulled Ryo up to kiss him fiercely.
Then Koyama fisted Ryo’s erection and jerked it harshly, ripping a moan from Ryo’s throat but muffling it with his mouth. Just a few moments and Koyama’s panted “RyoRyoRyo” and Ryo was spilling across Koyama’s fingers. Koyama followed slowly after, the feeling of Ryo’s slick release on his skin sending him over the edge. They panted together a moment, foreheads together before Koyama kissed him and stood, retrieving a washcloth and wiping them both down with it. It was so easy to just add it into their routine, a moment of bliss in a day of mediocrity.
One week turned into one month and one month into one year and it was like they were in their own private world with nothing to do but eat, and sleep, and love and it was all so much easier than Ryo had ever expected it might be. Amazing, he thought, after all he’d seen and heard and done, all the violence and indifference, that he was still capable of finding pleasure in the miniature joys that could only be found in the presence of another person. And he thought that maybe, just maybe, there was hope after all.
Pairing: Koyama/Ryo
Rating: Hard R
Words: 2,600
Summary: Ryo has been wandering for seven years across the wasteland of Japan, fighting for his life and nothing more. One day he stops.
Notes: Post-apocolyptic dystopian AU. Seriously. I just wrote this tonight and I want to know why my remix isn't coming so well. XD But yay! Because I've been wanting to write a KoyaRyo for a while. *loves them*
Ryo approached the house cautiously in the twilight, shotgun raised at chest-level. The place didn’t feel deserted but there was no movement that he could detect and the windows were boarded up. He climbed the steps and stood in front of the door, listening carefully. Still nothing. He took a step back, braced himself and kicked the door in, jumping to the side in instinct just as he saw the very surprised face of the single occupant and heard a shattering noise.
The man inside slowly raised his hands and rose to his full height, all long, lean lines. Ryo stepped quickly inside and shut the door behind him, keeping his back to the wall. “Is there anyone else here?” he demanded harshly, eyes sweeping the room quickly.
The man shook his head. “I’m unarmed,” he said. “But you’re making me nervous. Could you lower your weapon, please?”
Ryo ignored him and moved forward to frisk the man one-handed, feeling nothing but muscle and bone under the t-shirt and jeans the man wore.
“Koyama Keiichiro,” the man said, and Ryo gave him a confused look. “I figured if we were going to be getting this friendly, you should know my name,” he said with a wry grin, eyes trained on Ryo’s.
“Nishikido Ryo,” he replied gruffly.
“Can I put my hands down, please?”
“Yeah, sure, be my guest.”
Koyama put his hands down and bent over to start cleaning up the pieces of a shattered plate, trying to salvage the food between the shards. Ryo watched him put the food on another plate and ladle water into a second small glass, placing both on a low table and sitting down in front of it so that his back was to the open room, clearly letting Ryo have the side with the least exposure.
“Please,” he said, graciously, gesturing toward the other side of the table.
Ryo grunted and sat down, dropping his pack beside him and laying his shotgun across his thighs before digging in with a quick muttering of thanks. Koyama ate delicately, watching Ryo openly but not saying anything.
Once they’d finished and Koyama had, under Ryo’s watchful eyes, put the dishes in the sink, Koyama sat down across from Ryo again, hands folded in his lap. “Why this house?” he asked. “I don’t mind, of course, but… you’re the first in a long time.”
Ryo watched his eyes slide to the side and his breathing increase just a little bit. “Last visitor not so polite?” he asked.
Koyama bit his lower lip and tears sprang to his eyes and he shook his head. “Not that kicking my door in and pointing a gun at me was polite,” he added sarcastically, and Ryo had to smile.
“Sorry.” Koyama was looking at him expectantly so he sighed and went on. “I don’t know. I just picked this one. It was just a random choice.”
Rising gracefully to his knees, Koyama gestured behind Ryo. “It’s early, but if you’d like to wash up…”
“You have enough water that you can wash up?” he asked suspiciously.
“There’s a well about a mile away. Hidden. I’ll show you where it is tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Ryo rose and followed Koyama to the bathroom.
“Do you… want me to stay?” he asked hesitantly, eyes dropping to the shotgun.
Ryo’s first instinct was to trust the man but trust didn’t do much for a person these days. “Yeah,” he replied and watched Koyama lick his lips and half-sit on the edge of the sink, facing away from Ryo. His eyes raked over the other man’s tense form before stripping down to his boxers, shotgun in reach, and wetting a stiff washcloth in the large bucket of water, half-full, and rubbing himself down. He watched grimy water run down the drain and the washcloth steadily turn a darker shade. He rinsed it out after and laid it on the edge of the tub. He pulled a second pair of pants out of his pack, slipping them on and bending back over the tub to wash his clothes as best he could with as little water as possible. “You can turn around now,” he said, scrubbing at his shirt before laying it and his pants over the edge as well. When he looked up, Koyama was watching him interestedly and he felt his face flush. “What?”
“You’re beautiful,” Koyama said without a trace of shame. “I haven’t seen another person in a long time.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he growled. “Be glad. They’re not all as nice as I am.”
It was like shutters came down over Koyama’s eyes and he frowned. “I know.”
Ryo felt a trickle of guilt and snatched up his gun and gestured harshly at Koyama to leave the bathroom first. Koyama walked into another room and rolled out a futon and Ryo watched him pat it down, eyeing the man’s long legs as they bent and stretched in his endeavors. He flushed again and forced himself to look away, looking instead at the peeling paint on the walls, carefully stripped in places it had peeled enough to grab a hold of. “How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Mmm… five years probably.”
Ryo stared at him. “That long? Where do you find food?”
“Where I can,” was his short reply. “I grow some things I put out on the back porch for a few hours a day. I had just brought them in a couple hours before you came. They’re in the other room.” He paused to smooth out a blanket over the futon then shrugged. “It’s safe enough here. There are so many houses and pretty much everyone left this area after the explosion and just… never came back. The chances of anyone picking this house are slim enough.”
“You don’t have a gun?”
Koyama shrugged. “No bullets. I have a few kitchen knives and that’s it. But like I said, I haven’t really needed them much.” He stretched out carefully on one side of the futon and rolled to face away from the center. “Good night.”
Ryo blinked at the man before lying down on his back next to him, one hand behind his head and the other on his gun. “Good night.”
He slept better that night than he had all year, much to his displeasure, probably a combination of the feeling of being clean and having an actual bed to sleep in. He woke to dusty sunlight filtering in around boarded windows and the sound of movement in the kitchen. He sat bolt-upright, hand clutching automatically around the barrel of his gun. Still there. And his pack looked undisturbed. He moved curiously out into the kitchen/living area.
“Good morning,” Koyama said, without looking up from the food he was preparing.
It looked meager and smelled unappetizing but his mouth watered anyway. Ryo grunted in response and moved to ladle himself a glass of water.
“You can… stay as long as you’d like,” Koyama said quietly. “But I’ll need help finding enough food for the both of us. Either way, I’ll show you where the well is today.”
Ryo didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t actually thought about staying but right now it sounded like a damn good idea. He’d been on the move for seven years now, wandering wherever he felt like going, living day-to-day without any thought to the future past the next few meals. Well, maybe for a little while. He was suddenly tired.
Koyama looked over at him through long bangs, warm brown eyes seeming to read his mind when he smiled. “You’ll feel better once you eat.”
And he did. He helped Koyama carry out several large tubs of soil with plants growing in them to sit in the sun before they left. “How do you get these out by yourself?” he grunted as they moved them.
Koyama shrugged. “I drag them.”
The walk to the well was long and hot, dust rising up around them and trying to choke them even through the cloths they wore wrapped around their heads to protect them from the sunlight. Koyama looked like a farmer, yoke stretched over his shoulders and two large buckets hanging over the sides, but Ryo admired the way the muscles of his back bunched and moved under the weight, his own lone bucket banging against his shins as he followed. The trip back was longer and hotter with the added weight of the water, but Ryo had memorized the layout and could make it back to the well anytime now.
“What do you do?” he asked Koyama after they had put their burdens down in their places.
“Hmm?”
“When you’re not getting food or water.”
“Think, mostly. But I spend quite a bit of time finding food. I have traps laid out, but there’s not much here for animals to eat, so I have a lot of traps and it takes time to check them all.”
He followed Koyama around to all his traps and they found a scruffy raccoon caught in one. Koyama cooed sympathetically at the still alive and very pathetic-looking creature before reaching down with quick fingers, carefully avoiding its teeth, to snap its neck expertly. “Lucky day,” he said, all smiles. They checked the rest of the traps anyway because Koyama couldn’t bear the thought of leaving any animals in them for longer than they had to be, but they were all empty. They moved the tubs back into the house on their return, Koyama carefully watering each before settling down to strip and cook their dinner.
They didn’t say much, so used to having no one to talk to that they’d almost forgotten how to converse, maybe. Ryo didn’t mind. It felt comfortable, companionable. Koyama didn’t ask if he’d be staying or leaving which was good because Ryo still didn’t know beyond tonight. When they stretched out next to each other again that night, Ryo felt more peaceful than he had in years and the thought scared him a little bit, just before he drifted off into the dreamless sleep of the truly exhausted.
One day turned into one week and Ryo reveled in the feeling of routine. Every day they followed the same path, did the same chores, played cards for an hour before lying down to sleep. He was content, he decided, listening to Koyama’s even breathing next to him. He hadn’t even slept with his hand on his gun the last two nights and he wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. He didn’t want to get soft in this place, only to get himself killed because of it once he left. Once he left. Was he leaving? He felt like he was in a stasis here and he sort of understood why people stayed in the small towns now. He found them highly unattractive - full of desperate, dirty people trying to live a “real life” and he had thought that ridiculous until just now. There was no such thing as a “normal” life, he’d thought. At least outside the towns if you ran into someone, there were no false promises about what would happen like in towns where one expected protection and received something much less because that’s just how it was. Outside there were no illusions, just reality. Now, though, he could see the attraction in the security of repetition. He wanted to resent the man who had started it all with his quiet demeanor and polite words but he couldn’t bring himself to.
He turned on his side in the dim light of a full moon edging into the room from cracks in the boards to watch the rise and fall of Koyama’s shoulder where it jutted up and followed the curve of his body to his hips and down to his feet. Reaching out, he gently touched his fingers to Koyama’s shoulder, letting them rest there for a moment before lightly trailing them down and splaying his fingers gently over the man’s hip. Koyama mumbled something in his sleep and rolled over to face Ryo, cuddling up against his chest and tucking his head under Ryo’s chin. Ryo stayed absolutely still before curling a hesitant arm around Koyama’s waist and shutting his eyes again.
He woke to movement in his arms and looked down into Koyama’s eyes from where he lay in his embrace. “Uhh,” he said intelligently and went to move his arms but was stopped by Koyama shifting up to press a chaste kiss against his lips. “Buh.”
Koyama giggled and stretched impossibly long limbs, pressing their hips together. He thought it was innocent until Koyama opened his eyes again, looking at Ryo, his lips twitching up at the corners, and Ryo’s breath caught at the heat in his eyes. He swallowed thickly and Koyama rose, smoothly, leaving Ryo in a confused tangle on the futon only to return with a glass of water and offer it to him. Ryo’s eyelids fluttered involuntarily as he accepted the glass with both hands and drained it. He let Koyama take it from unresisting fingers and place it on the ground before he slipped down onto his knees next to him and drew him up to kiss him gently.
Koyama waited until he started to respond before nipping at his lower lip then running his tongue across it, getting Ryo to let him in. Ryo heard a low moan issue from his own throat and he was rising to his knees to fist his hands in the back of Koyama’s shirt and pull him closer. He could feel Koyama trembling under his fingers as he released his hold on his shirt and ran them up under his shirt, calloused fingers across smooth skin, and they both moaned when he ran the pads of his fingers across already hardened nipples. Then they were wrestling each other out of their clothes and fighting to lick and bite across every bit of exposed flesh they could find.
When Ryo wrapped his fingers around Koyama’s cock, the man arched up off the ground and practically howled. Ryo smirked and jerked him slowly and watched one of Koyama’s hands scrabble to grab Ryo’s bicep while the other went to tease at his own nipple.
“Shit,” Ryo whispered, wide-eyed, and Koyama’s eyes flew open and locked onto his before he pulled Ryo up to kiss him fiercely.
Then Koyama fisted Ryo’s erection and jerked it harshly, ripping a moan from Ryo’s throat but muffling it with his mouth. Just a few moments and Koyama’s panted “RyoRyoRyo” and Ryo was spilling across Koyama’s fingers. Koyama followed slowly after, the feeling of Ryo’s slick release on his skin sending him over the edge. They panted together a moment, foreheads together before Koyama kissed him and stood, retrieving a washcloth and wiping them both down with it. It was so easy to just add it into their routine, a moment of bliss in a day of mediocrity.
One week turned into one month and one month into one year and it was like they were in their own private world with nothing to do but eat, and sleep, and love and it was all so much easier than Ryo had ever expected it might be. Amazing, he thought, after all he’d seen and heard and done, all the violence and indifference, that he was still capable of finding pleasure in the miniature joys that could only be found in the presence of another person. And he thought that maybe, just maybe, there was hope after all.