Eyes Full of Darkness [4/?]
Title: Eyes Full of Darkness
Pairings: Nishin (Nishii Yukito/Akutsu Shintarou), others TBA
Genre: AU
Chapter Rating: PG.
Word Count: ~2950
Summary: After returning home, conflict arises when Yukito discovers Akutsu told Shion his secret.
Notes: At first nothing happened in this chapter and then things started happening all at the end D: Dear genichirou_nei, sorry it took so long to finish this one :( (speaking of which, you should go back to the earlier chapters and see the pretty banners she made for this story if you haven't already :D)
←To Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
--
Chapter 4: Your reflection in the eyes of another
A few hours after his initial excitement had worn off, Akutsu came to the conclusion that he hated hospitals. They were boring and smelled funky and people freaked out at you if you so much as started dancing to the Mahou no Tenshi opening theme in the middle of the waiting room. There wasn’t even anybody else around, but they’d still made him stop and go outside and it had been hours before enough regular patients had started showing up that he could sneak back in. Then when he’d gone back to Yukito’s room, the boy had been fast asleep and hadn’t woken up at all. He’d managed to entertain himself for a while by trying to think of any other Yukitos he had ever known that could possibly be this one as well, but hadn’t come up with any ideas other than to check old yearbooks and, failing that, ask his mom. He’d danced around a bit again after he suddenly remembered that oh yeah, this was all totally happening, but that had been short-lived and had only resulted in him wanting to crawl into bed with Yukito because, as it turned out, it was hard staying awake after so much excitement and being up all night. He only managed to refrain from it on the grounds that probably as soon as he fell asleep, some hospital person would come in and a hilarious misunderstanding would immediately take place. As previously determined, hilarious misunderstandings were not hilarious at all, and probably it would get him thrown out again.
With that in mind, he spent some time trying to sleep in the chair by the bed, but the little sleep he managed to get only left him more exhausted. That, he decided, was patently unfair, and whoever had decided to put super uncomfortable not-good-for-sleeping-in chairs in a hospital like this deserved to have a family member or someone get sick so that they would have to spend all night sitting in one of them miserably, not sleeping, and understanding the horror they had unleashed on the world. The bed began to look more attractive, and he was on the verge of actually sliding back the covers when a nurse came in and he quickly pretended he was smoothing them down.
She checked the bandages, made some notes on a clipboard, and started interrogating Akutsu with regards to what had caused the injuries, what had taken them so long to get to the hospital, the patient’s medical history, and the like. Akutsu had already answered several such questions before, and he had no problem regurgitating the same answers he had previously. The nurse looked less than satisfied with some of them, and admittedly “We were rp-ing and he insisted on finishing the campaign before coming here” wasn’t that great an explanation, but you had to assume that answers that stupid had to be true, if only because they came from an obvious otaku.
Yukito woke up about half an hour later. Akutsu was about halfway into the bed this time and he quickly got out, not even bothering to make any excuses. Yukito didn’t ask either, which could mean that he was still kind of out of it or that he was totally okay with Akutsu climbing into bed with him. Further analysis showed it was probably the latter, as the first thing the boy did was stretch and begin testing his injuries. Akutsu wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but since he had been the one throwing around words like “destiny” last night, he figured it was par for the course.
After testing his chest wound one last time and wincing, Yukito swung his legs around. “Okay, you ready to go home?” he asked, with only a slight hesitation in his voice on the last word.
Akutsu dragged his eyes open. “Yeahuh? Sure?” He blinked a few times and pinched himself in an effort to wake up. “Wait, you want to leave already?”
He had already started changing into his clothes. “Yeah, I’m fine now so we can leave at any time. You get used to healing fast in this business.” He winked. “And if I’ve got you, it’ll be no problem taking care of it.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess.” Akutsu didn’t think he had managed to pick up anything new in the way of wound treatment, but decided that he probably mostly just wanted him for moral support, or was overlooking his inability to perform basic tasks out of affection.
They managed to escape the hospital after entirely too much time and effort and arguing with foolish and dangerously un-genre savvy women. Akutsu reached in his pocket for the key to the bike, but it wasn’t there. He panicked a little and started searching his other pockets, but it was nowhere to be found. He glanced at Yukito, who smiled and held it up. “You’re too sleepy to drive, so I’ll do it. Make sure you hold on tight!”
Akutsu thought about arguing, but crushed his own objections with flawless logic. Having determined that he was sleepy and Yukito was an assassin and therefore could not only drive a motorcycle but had already memorized the way back even though he had been half-conscious, and furthermore was quite cuddly, he sat down and put his arms around his waist. If he had been hoping that the boy knew some tricks that would make a bike run faster or more quietly or if he’d just wanted him to pop a wheelie or two, he was disappointed. The trip home was smooth and uneventful, except for when some douchebag turned right in front of them and Yukito had to hit the brakes a little hard. Akutsu made a mental note of it, because it was probably some other character that was going to be introduced later, especially considering it was a strangely large black vehicle with tinted windows, but he couldn’t bring himself to care too much, and figured they’d find out about it when they found out about it.
When they made it to the apartment, Akutsu let Yukito deal with parking and locking things up and such and climbed up the stairs by himself. He threw the door open (Shiramata fell off the couch in surprise) and went into his room. Before closing that door, he made eye contact with Shion. With his bed lying tantalizingly close by, it took him a second to figure out what he wanted to say. “Please play with Yukito while I pass out. Please make food for him. Please don’t write any fanfiction about us,” he eventually managed. Shion looked like he wanted to argue, but in the end he decided to save it for when Akutsu was awake enough to listen to explanations of how RPS was a glorious pastime steeped in tradition and beauty.
Akutsu turned to Shiramata. “Please don’t be weird. I’m trying to be a protagonist.” Shiramata started to say something in response, but Akutsu had already slammed the door and thrown himself into bed.
When he woke up, it was past lunchtime and he was starving. He thought about just helping himself to something from his marathon stash, but decided he should go socialize, if only so he could make sure Yukito hadn’t left in disgust after properly meeting his roommates.
He opened the door to find Yukito sitting cross-legged on the couch, Shion next to him with an arm around his shoulders, and Shiramata on the floor staring up at the two of them with something approaching awe. On the way to the kitchen, he smacked Shion in the head, and luckily he got the message and backed off of Yukito a bit. “What’s up, you guys? You better not be expositing without me, Yukito,” he said, grabbing an instant yakisoba and setting the hotpot to boil.
“It’s nothing like that, we were just talking about anime and stuff,” Shion said, but Akutsu thought there was a little guilt in his voice.
“Right, and Shion-san was telling me all about how he’s going to be a writer someday! He has so many great ideas,” Yukito said. He looked at Akutsu conspiratorially. “One of them even sounds sorta familiar, if you know what I mean.”
Akutsu did know what he meant. In fact, he rather thought he had a clearer picture of the situation than anyone other than Shion did. “It wouldn’t happen to be some kind of romantic drama with action elements, would it?” he asked, smiling a little menacingly at Shion.
Shion got off the couch and sat down next to Shiramata, partially because Akutsu was going to shove him off and no doubt partially for nefarious shipping purposes as well. “I have no idea what you mean by that?” he said, face going a little red. “I-I mean. I haven’t even started it yet, and you know how stories take on a life of their own, ahaha…”
“That reminds me of that one story you wrote, about those wizards. It’s so weird how one of them ended up being sorta like me and the other one ended up being sorta like Akutsu,” Shiramata said. “I guess these things just happen!”
Shion and Akutsu both glared at him. Shiramata fell back a bit. “What? What did I say? It happens, you know!” he said defensively. “Like, this one time I was trying to put together a classical medley, but I ended up with some kind of bizarre postmodern electro-cello track. You never know what’s going to happen when it comes to art!”
Yukito didn’t seem to have picked up on anything, so Shion decided to take that as a positive sign and flung his arms around Shiramata. “That’s exactly right! Who knows how things are going to turn out? Not me! You’re a good kid, Mata.”
“Thanks?” Shiramata said a little dubiously. Akutsu rolled his eyes and went to finish making his yakisoba.
Yukito laughed. “You guys are all really good friends, huh?”
“That’s right!” Shion said, and took advantage of Akutsu’s distraction to give him a hug too. Akutsu waved the pot of boiling water threateningly at him and he went back to Shiramata. “And we’ll be friends with you too,” he said, resting a hand on Yukito’s knee.
“Great!” Yukito immediately started babbling something about how friendship was the strongest force in the world and how it was so great that Shion could say something like that even though he had just met him. Akutsu tuned out a bit because he had heard it all before and he had kind of figured that Yukito would be that kind of hero.
Meal prepared, he grabbed a pair of chopsticks that looked clean and sat down on the couch. Yukito leaned in close. “Give me a bite?” he said, looking up at him with huge, pleading eyes.
Akutsu didn’t fall for that kind of thing, but he was in a good mood, so he handed over the container and the chopsticks and went to get another pair. Shion made various unhappy noises, but Akutsu wasn’t up to being his personal fanservice monkey and he wasn’t interested in indirect kissing either. Eventually he ended up engaging Shiramata in a conversation about the more technical aspects of the OST he had just bought. Yukito ate and listened and kept getting closer and closer until he was practically on top of him. He ended up eating about half the yakisoba and got up to throw the container out as a way to make it up to him.
When he came back, he plopped himself into Akutsu’s lap like it was the most natural thing in the world and asked Shion about his Akumata story. Shion didn’t respond immediately, being too busy giggling and very obviously trying to figure out if he could sneak a picture somehow. Akutsu took the opportunity to gently push Yukito off of him and stand up. “Sorry, bathroom,” he said when he made a face at him.
He returned to find that Shion was getting dangerously close to the part where the Akutsu character used a love spell on the Shiramata one. He immediately grabbed Yukito by the wrist and pulled him to his feet. “I think we should definitely check to make sure your wounds are doing okay,” he said loudly. “Also, you haven’t seen my room yet, right? Come on!” He shot a glare at Shion as he did so. He hoped his face was able to convey something along the lines of “You’re a terrible person and should reevaluate your life choices,” but he’d tell him again anyway later, so it didn’t really matter. Shion shrugged with an innocent-looking face that said “He asked.” Akutsu glanced at Shiramata. All his face said was “I don’t know what’s going on but that’s okay!” so he decided to leave him be.
Akutsu slammed the door shut as soon as they were in his room and jumped onto the bed. Yukito sat down beside him and started taking off his shirt. Akutsu freaked out for a second before realizing that he was only doing that so he could see his injuries better. He poked him. “Hey, you don’t have to do that. I just wanted to get you away from those guys for a bit before they corrupted you.”
“What do you mean?”
Akutsu shook his head. “It’s better that you don’t know,” he said darkly. He still remembered how that fanfiction ended, after all.
“Okay!” His face turned serious. “There’s just one thing. Please don’t tell them the truth about me. I don’t mind telling you, since… you’re Shin-chan, after all. But I can’t just tell everyone, and I don’t want to let nice people like them get hurt.”
“Um.” Akutsu wriggled around and thought about the plots of various anime before deciding that owning up to it now would be better in the long run. “I kind of already said something about it to Shion.”
Yukito looked unhappy. “You did? Why did you do that?”
“Um. I kind of got too excited and I felt like I had to tell somebody. But! Shion won’t tell anybody, no matter what. And I’ll never do anything like that again, I swear!” An idea occurred to him. “I can always tell him I was just making the whole thing up. Or make up things so weird that he’ll think I was lying to him.”
“Well…” Yukito frowned. “It’s fine for now,” he said a little hesitantly. “And if you say he won’t tell anybody, then I believe you. But can you talk to him and make sure?” He lay down next to Akutsu. “I’m glad you told me that,” he said after a second. “Even if I’m kind of mad that you did that, at the same time, I’m kind of happy that you’d own up to it, you know? Like I sorta feel like I can trust you even more now. Does that make sense?”
“Not really.”
“Mouu.” Yukito hit him. “Now I really am mad!” He laughed and rolled over, throwing an arm over Akutsu. “Thanks for bringing me here. I’ve forgotten what it’s like, y’know, just being around normal people. Or maybe I never really knew in the first place.”
“You still don’t know, then, if you think those two are normal. They’re pretty much as weird as you get without being, well, me.” Akutsu sighed. “You really must have had a hard life, huh.”
Yukito went very still. “Yeah,” he said at last. “I… Growing up wasn’t very fun for me.”
“Growing up isn’t fun for anyone,” Akutsu said, “but I get your point. Do you… do you want to tell me what happened?”
Yukito took his arm off of Akutsu and rolled back. “No,” he said at first, then: “Maybe. But not all of it, and not now. It’s not something I can talk about that easily.”
“Okay,” Akutsu said. He thought it was probably time for another heartwarming speech, so he found Yukito’s hand and squeezed it. “I just want you to know that no matter what you’ve done or what was done to you, it won’t change anything about the way I feel about you. I’m not trying to get you to tell me now, or anything. I just wanted you to know that you shouldn’t be scared to tell me anything. I promise I’ll understand.”
Yukito didn’t say anything in response. Just as Akutsu was about to go into part 2, or “I don’t care even if you killed my family, but if we’re secretly related please tell me now before this gets awkward,” a knock sounded on the door.
“Hey, Akutsu? There’s someone here to see you guys,” Shiramata said, sounding more out of it than usual. Yukito immediately got to his feet and grabbed one of the katana Akutsu had on top of his desk. He drew it, muttered something about quality, and sheathed it again. Akutsu would have yelled at him to be careful with it and that it wasn’t meant to be used in actual combat, but he was too excited for the first real fight to worry too much. At a nod from Yukito, he opened the door.
Shiramata had collapsed in the doorway. Beyond him was Shion, lying unmoving on the ground. A man wearing a similar outfit to the one Yukito had been wearing last night was sitting on the couch. He stood up. “Yukkii.”
“Senpai,” Yukito said, gripping the sword more tightly. “What do you want now?”
The man smiled slowly. “I just want to finish what I started last night,” he said, and brought his gun up to point directly at Akutsu’s heart.
--
Next Chapter→
Pairings: Nishin (Nishii Yukito/Akutsu Shintarou), others TBA
Genre: AU
Chapter Rating: PG.
Word Count: ~2950
Summary: After returning home, conflict arises when Yukito discovers Akutsu told Shion his secret.
Notes: At first nothing happened in this chapter and then things started happening all at the end D: Dear genichirou_nei, sorry it took so long to finish this one :( (speaking of which, you should go back to the earlier chapters and see the pretty banners she made for this story if you haven't already :D)
←To Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
--
Chapter 4: Your reflection in the eyes of another
A few hours after his initial excitement had worn off, Akutsu came to the conclusion that he hated hospitals. They were boring and smelled funky and people freaked out at you if you so much as started dancing to the Mahou no Tenshi opening theme in the middle of the waiting room. There wasn’t even anybody else around, but they’d still made him stop and go outside and it had been hours before enough regular patients had started showing up that he could sneak back in. Then when he’d gone back to Yukito’s room, the boy had been fast asleep and hadn’t woken up at all. He’d managed to entertain himself for a while by trying to think of any other Yukitos he had ever known that could possibly be this one as well, but hadn’t come up with any ideas other than to check old yearbooks and, failing that, ask his mom. He’d danced around a bit again after he suddenly remembered that oh yeah, this was all totally happening, but that had been short-lived and had only resulted in him wanting to crawl into bed with Yukito because, as it turned out, it was hard staying awake after so much excitement and being up all night. He only managed to refrain from it on the grounds that probably as soon as he fell asleep, some hospital person would come in and a hilarious misunderstanding would immediately take place. As previously determined, hilarious misunderstandings were not hilarious at all, and probably it would get him thrown out again.
With that in mind, he spent some time trying to sleep in the chair by the bed, but the little sleep he managed to get only left him more exhausted. That, he decided, was patently unfair, and whoever had decided to put super uncomfortable not-good-for-sleeping-in chairs in a hospital like this deserved to have a family member or someone get sick so that they would have to spend all night sitting in one of them miserably, not sleeping, and understanding the horror they had unleashed on the world. The bed began to look more attractive, and he was on the verge of actually sliding back the covers when a nurse came in and he quickly pretended he was smoothing them down.
She checked the bandages, made some notes on a clipboard, and started interrogating Akutsu with regards to what had caused the injuries, what had taken them so long to get to the hospital, the patient’s medical history, and the like. Akutsu had already answered several such questions before, and he had no problem regurgitating the same answers he had previously. The nurse looked less than satisfied with some of them, and admittedly “We were rp-ing and he insisted on finishing the campaign before coming here” wasn’t that great an explanation, but you had to assume that answers that stupid had to be true, if only because they came from an obvious otaku.
Yukito woke up about half an hour later. Akutsu was about halfway into the bed this time and he quickly got out, not even bothering to make any excuses. Yukito didn’t ask either, which could mean that he was still kind of out of it or that he was totally okay with Akutsu climbing into bed with him. Further analysis showed it was probably the latter, as the first thing the boy did was stretch and begin testing his injuries. Akutsu wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but since he had been the one throwing around words like “destiny” last night, he figured it was par for the course.
After testing his chest wound one last time and wincing, Yukito swung his legs around. “Okay, you ready to go home?” he asked, with only a slight hesitation in his voice on the last word.
Akutsu dragged his eyes open. “Yeahuh? Sure?” He blinked a few times and pinched himself in an effort to wake up. “Wait, you want to leave already?”
He had already started changing into his clothes. “Yeah, I’m fine now so we can leave at any time. You get used to healing fast in this business.” He winked. “And if I’ve got you, it’ll be no problem taking care of it.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess.” Akutsu didn’t think he had managed to pick up anything new in the way of wound treatment, but decided that he probably mostly just wanted him for moral support, or was overlooking his inability to perform basic tasks out of affection.
They managed to escape the hospital after entirely too much time and effort and arguing with foolish and dangerously un-genre savvy women. Akutsu reached in his pocket for the key to the bike, but it wasn’t there. He panicked a little and started searching his other pockets, but it was nowhere to be found. He glanced at Yukito, who smiled and held it up. “You’re too sleepy to drive, so I’ll do it. Make sure you hold on tight!”
Akutsu thought about arguing, but crushed his own objections with flawless logic. Having determined that he was sleepy and Yukito was an assassin and therefore could not only drive a motorcycle but had already memorized the way back even though he had been half-conscious, and furthermore was quite cuddly, he sat down and put his arms around his waist. If he had been hoping that the boy knew some tricks that would make a bike run faster or more quietly or if he’d just wanted him to pop a wheelie or two, he was disappointed. The trip home was smooth and uneventful, except for when some douchebag turned right in front of them and Yukito had to hit the brakes a little hard. Akutsu made a mental note of it, because it was probably some other character that was going to be introduced later, especially considering it was a strangely large black vehicle with tinted windows, but he couldn’t bring himself to care too much, and figured they’d find out about it when they found out about it.
When they made it to the apartment, Akutsu let Yukito deal with parking and locking things up and such and climbed up the stairs by himself. He threw the door open (Shiramata fell off the couch in surprise) and went into his room. Before closing that door, he made eye contact with Shion. With his bed lying tantalizingly close by, it took him a second to figure out what he wanted to say. “Please play with Yukito while I pass out. Please make food for him. Please don’t write any fanfiction about us,” he eventually managed. Shion looked like he wanted to argue, but in the end he decided to save it for when Akutsu was awake enough to listen to explanations of how RPS was a glorious pastime steeped in tradition and beauty.
Akutsu turned to Shiramata. “Please don’t be weird. I’m trying to be a protagonist.” Shiramata started to say something in response, but Akutsu had already slammed the door and thrown himself into bed.
When he woke up, it was past lunchtime and he was starving. He thought about just helping himself to something from his marathon stash, but decided he should go socialize, if only so he could make sure Yukito hadn’t left in disgust after properly meeting his roommates.
He opened the door to find Yukito sitting cross-legged on the couch, Shion next to him with an arm around his shoulders, and Shiramata on the floor staring up at the two of them with something approaching awe. On the way to the kitchen, he smacked Shion in the head, and luckily he got the message and backed off of Yukito a bit. “What’s up, you guys? You better not be expositing without me, Yukito,” he said, grabbing an instant yakisoba and setting the hotpot to boil.
“It’s nothing like that, we were just talking about anime and stuff,” Shion said, but Akutsu thought there was a little guilt in his voice.
“Right, and Shion-san was telling me all about how he’s going to be a writer someday! He has so many great ideas,” Yukito said. He looked at Akutsu conspiratorially. “One of them even sounds sorta familiar, if you know what I mean.”
Akutsu did know what he meant. In fact, he rather thought he had a clearer picture of the situation than anyone other than Shion did. “It wouldn’t happen to be some kind of romantic drama with action elements, would it?” he asked, smiling a little menacingly at Shion.
Shion got off the couch and sat down next to Shiramata, partially because Akutsu was going to shove him off and no doubt partially for nefarious shipping purposes as well. “I have no idea what you mean by that?” he said, face going a little red. “I-I mean. I haven’t even started it yet, and you know how stories take on a life of their own, ahaha…”
“That reminds me of that one story you wrote, about those wizards. It’s so weird how one of them ended up being sorta like me and the other one ended up being sorta like Akutsu,” Shiramata said. “I guess these things just happen!”
Shion and Akutsu both glared at him. Shiramata fell back a bit. “What? What did I say? It happens, you know!” he said defensively. “Like, this one time I was trying to put together a classical medley, but I ended up with some kind of bizarre postmodern electro-cello track. You never know what’s going to happen when it comes to art!”
Yukito didn’t seem to have picked up on anything, so Shion decided to take that as a positive sign and flung his arms around Shiramata. “That’s exactly right! Who knows how things are going to turn out? Not me! You’re a good kid, Mata.”
“Thanks?” Shiramata said a little dubiously. Akutsu rolled his eyes and went to finish making his yakisoba.
Yukito laughed. “You guys are all really good friends, huh?”
“That’s right!” Shion said, and took advantage of Akutsu’s distraction to give him a hug too. Akutsu waved the pot of boiling water threateningly at him and he went back to Shiramata. “And we’ll be friends with you too,” he said, resting a hand on Yukito’s knee.
“Great!” Yukito immediately started babbling something about how friendship was the strongest force in the world and how it was so great that Shion could say something like that even though he had just met him. Akutsu tuned out a bit because he had heard it all before and he had kind of figured that Yukito would be that kind of hero.
Meal prepared, he grabbed a pair of chopsticks that looked clean and sat down on the couch. Yukito leaned in close. “Give me a bite?” he said, looking up at him with huge, pleading eyes.
Akutsu didn’t fall for that kind of thing, but he was in a good mood, so he handed over the container and the chopsticks and went to get another pair. Shion made various unhappy noises, but Akutsu wasn’t up to being his personal fanservice monkey and he wasn’t interested in indirect kissing either. Eventually he ended up engaging Shiramata in a conversation about the more technical aspects of the OST he had just bought. Yukito ate and listened and kept getting closer and closer until he was practically on top of him. He ended up eating about half the yakisoba and got up to throw the container out as a way to make it up to him.
When he came back, he plopped himself into Akutsu’s lap like it was the most natural thing in the world and asked Shion about his Akumata story. Shion didn’t respond immediately, being too busy giggling and very obviously trying to figure out if he could sneak a picture somehow. Akutsu took the opportunity to gently push Yukito off of him and stand up. “Sorry, bathroom,” he said when he made a face at him.
He returned to find that Shion was getting dangerously close to the part where the Akutsu character used a love spell on the Shiramata one. He immediately grabbed Yukito by the wrist and pulled him to his feet. “I think we should definitely check to make sure your wounds are doing okay,” he said loudly. “Also, you haven’t seen my room yet, right? Come on!” He shot a glare at Shion as he did so. He hoped his face was able to convey something along the lines of “You’re a terrible person and should reevaluate your life choices,” but he’d tell him again anyway later, so it didn’t really matter. Shion shrugged with an innocent-looking face that said “He asked.” Akutsu glanced at Shiramata. All his face said was “I don’t know what’s going on but that’s okay!” so he decided to leave him be.
Akutsu slammed the door shut as soon as they were in his room and jumped onto the bed. Yukito sat down beside him and started taking off his shirt. Akutsu freaked out for a second before realizing that he was only doing that so he could see his injuries better. He poked him. “Hey, you don’t have to do that. I just wanted to get you away from those guys for a bit before they corrupted you.”
“What do you mean?”
Akutsu shook his head. “It’s better that you don’t know,” he said darkly. He still remembered how that fanfiction ended, after all.
“Okay!” His face turned serious. “There’s just one thing. Please don’t tell them the truth about me. I don’t mind telling you, since… you’re Shin-chan, after all. But I can’t just tell everyone, and I don’t want to let nice people like them get hurt.”
“Um.” Akutsu wriggled around and thought about the plots of various anime before deciding that owning up to it now would be better in the long run. “I kind of already said something about it to Shion.”
Yukito looked unhappy. “You did? Why did you do that?”
“Um. I kind of got too excited and I felt like I had to tell somebody. But! Shion won’t tell anybody, no matter what. And I’ll never do anything like that again, I swear!” An idea occurred to him. “I can always tell him I was just making the whole thing up. Or make up things so weird that he’ll think I was lying to him.”
“Well…” Yukito frowned. “It’s fine for now,” he said a little hesitantly. “And if you say he won’t tell anybody, then I believe you. But can you talk to him and make sure?” He lay down next to Akutsu. “I’m glad you told me that,” he said after a second. “Even if I’m kind of mad that you did that, at the same time, I’m kind of happy that you’d own up to it, you know? Like I sorta feel like I can trust you even more now. Does that make sense?”
“Not really.”
“Mouu.” Yukito hit him. “Now I really am mad!” He laughed and rolled over, throwing an arm over Akutsu. “Thanks for bringing me here. I’ve forgotten what it’s like, y’know, just being around normal people. Or maybe I never really knew in the first place.”
“You still don’t know, then, if you think those two are normal. They’re pretty much as weird as you get without being, well, me.” Akutsu sighed. “You really must have had a hard life, huh.”
Yukito went very still. “Yeah,” he said at last. “I… Growing up wasn’t very fun for me.”
“Growing up isn’t fun for anyone,” Akutsu said, “but I get your point. Do you… do you want to tell me what happened?”
Yukito took his arm off of Akutsu and rolled back. “No,” he said at first, then: “Maybe. But not all of it, and not now. It’s not something I can talk about that easily.”
“Okay,” Akutsu said. He thought it was probably time for another heartwarming speech, so he found Yukito’s hand and squeezed it. “I just want you to know that no matter what you’ve done or what was done to you, it won’t change anything about the way I feel about you. I’m not trying to get you to tell me now, or anything. I just wanted you to know that you shouldn’t be scared to tell me anything. I promise I’ll understand.”
Yukito didn’t say anything in response. Just as Akutsu was about to go into part 2, or “I don’t care even if you killed my family, but if we’re secretly related please tell me now before this gets awkward,” a knock sounded on the door.
“Hey, Akutsu? There’s someone here to see you guys,” Shiramata said, sounding more out of it than usual. Yukito immediately got to his feet and grabbed one of the katana Akutsu had on top of his desk. He drew it, muttered something about quality, and sheathed it again. Akutsu would have yelled at him to be careful with it and that it wasn’t meant to be used in actual combat, but he was too excited for the first real fight to worry too much. At a nod from Yukito, he opened the door.
Shiramata had collapsed in the doorway. Beyond him was Shion, lying unmoving on the ground. A man wearing a similar outfit to the one Yukito had been wearing last night was sitting on the couch. He stood up. “Yukkii.”
“Senpai,” Yukito said, gripping the sword more tightly. “What do you want now?”
The man smiled slowly. “I just want to finish what I started last night,” he said, and brought his gun up to point directly at Akutsu’s heart.
--
Next Chapter→