[fic] The Cat and His Boy (1/2) {8018, PG}
omg aggy T___T this is turning out to be longer than i expected. the second part ran away from me and i don't know if i can get it back, but HI. 8018 FIC FINALLY ♥
subtle shota alert. tread lightly. and if shota is not your thing, please just skip. i'll just try to make up for it in the next installments or... something XD;
PS: sketchy thing is sketchy. just something i meant to accompany this fic, although i'm really not an artist and ahaha even as an oekaki it is made of fail.
this is a very, VERY late birthday gift for hibari, btw ^^ um, enjoy?
The Cat and His Boy
You've never really been here before.
Like this.
Torn and broken in many places, on your back, in a place you seldom pay attention to and hardly ever visit. The rain carves out a cradle for you in the dirt.
The rain washes.
Everyone else has gone. The playground is deserted. It must be late, you think - if someone were waiting for you at home, this person would be worried sick by now.
But fortunately, you're all alone. There's just you, and the sound of water falling all around you.
The cold has made you numb. If you're still wounded, you no longer feel it. If you never move again, maybe you'll never feel pain.
Hey. Kid. You okay?
You open your eyes and they meet the voice of the rain head on.
You squint and blink the water out of your eyes; that wasn't very smart. This would probably be funny if it were somebody else in your place, and the shadow peering into that somebody else's face was yours.
...Guess not, huh?
Surprisingly small, surprisingly warm hands slide between you and the earth. A hiss escapes you, as the pain returns.
You struggle, but the small, warm hands are surprisingly strong and they slide back out from under you to hold you down.
Cut it out, the rain says. I'm trying to help you. Your back isn't broken, is it?
Your arms are still too numb to effectively swing, so you contemplate spitting up into the face that's impudently close to yours, the face you can barely see, as it's against the light and the wide open sky.
But before you can do anything, this person is already picking you up. His small strong hands are propping you up and drawing you close.
Then you're on his back, your arms draped over his shoulders and your bare legs locked in his arms. You couldn't attack him or get away even if you wanted to. He's already taking you out of your cold, wet cradle and bringing you to shelter.
Trapped like this, you realize you aren't hurt, not really - it would take a lot more than the beating you just went through to incapacitate you. You're almost eleven years old and you're much, much stronger than anyone you know.
You're just tired. And the warmth that emanates from the back of this person with the voice of the rain tempts you to sink into it.
What happened? Who did this to you? Was it more than one guy? Do you remember their faces?
He doesn't totter under your weight. He doesn't bump into things or lose his way. He doesn't seem like he's hurrying, either. Before you close your eyes again, you take a moment to acknowledge that he's being careful, very careful, not to get you any more hurt than you already are.
It barely registers that this person holding you up, ferrying you to dry land, is only a little taller than you are.
What's your name?
"What?" Your eyelids fly open. Did you pass out after all?
"I said what's your name."
You sit up. You should not have done that. Something stabs at your side, forcing you to be absolutely still for a second. Your eyesight starts to twist everything into weird shapes.
"Don't move around too much!" the very young voice says to you. A shadow appears, kneeling by your mattress. "I think you broke a few bones or something... and you got this big nasty bump on your head. Just... don't move around."
This isn't your room. The smell is different. The mattress underneath you is harder, lumpier, more used. There also seems to be too little by way of empty space. There are more things.
Your swimming eyesight is just starting to focus, when the moron in your presence turns on the overhead light. Open wounds or no, you wince.
"Sorry," he says. "I thought I heard you say something, so I thought you were awake. I guess you were dreaming?"
Shielding your eyes from direct light, you look at him. He's just a kid - a lanky kid, with scruffy black hair and a ridiculously open face.
He seems to be around your age, though the naked cluelessness all over him is probably some sort of indication that he's younger.
You seem to be in this kid's bedroom. You ponder punching him unconscious and fleeing the scene - except you realize quickly enough that you aren't in the best shape to knock out a boy who looks bigger and stronger and far healthier than you do. Also, that your clothes are nowhere to be found, you're not wearing any underwear and some parts of your exposed skin are covered in bandage and salve.
"Surprised?" the boy chirps. "I'm really good at patching up." - This isn't exactly what you'd call "good at patching up." You feel like a damn voodoo doll, all safety pins and rags. Still, the dumb kid looks mighty pleased with himself. - "My dad always freaks out when he sees me bleeding... and it's hard not to get beat up now and then when you play baseball, so..."
Even if you're interested in anything he has to say (which you're not) you find it much more interesting to lie back down until the room stops spinning.
"If you're still feeling bad by tomorrow, I'm going to tell my dad about you and - and we're going to take you to the hospital. But you heal really fast, don't you? I do, too, so... so what's your name?"
You ignore him and take as many notes as you can. There are sports medals and trophies on display in a corner. There's a baseball bat and a mitt somewhere close to the foot of the bed. Worse comes to worse, you could grab that bat, hit the kid over the head, and make a run for it. Somehow, though, you doubt you'll have to go through the trouble.
There's a large window nearby, looking out at the bleak night sky, and some tree branches swaying lightly in the downpour - it's safe to say you're not on ground level.
You aren't lucid enough to calculate if those branches outside can support your weight when you're ready to get the hell out of this place - but you're definitely taking your chances.
"Okay, um..." Weariness and surrender have crept into the other boy's voice. "I'm going to let you rest. I'll be right here, so don't worry about a thing, okay? Wake me up if you need anything, okay? There's a glass and a pitcher of water right beside you and... I'll make you something to eat if you're hungry."
You lie still, training your face toward the window, tensed up in case he tries anything stupid like touch you or pull the blankets up around your chin.
He doesn't do any of that, just turns off the lights again. He curls up on the floor somewhere next to your mattress, and in just a few minutes, you start to hear him breathing regularly. You relax.
The rain doesn't seem to be letting up. It probably won't be smart to go back out into the dark, slippery streets in your condition. In a few hours, you guess, it's going to be dawn, and you're going to be well enough to go your own way again.
As if you were never here.
The first thing you do when you wake up is find your clothes. The idiot kid has washed the blood from them and left them to dry in his private bathroom. They aren't dry enough for you, but they're just fine for wearing out of that place.
You still feel sore in many places, but you can think more clearly now. You can think, for example, of how you shouldn't ever be found here, lest you be reported to your parents and your teachers and entirely new scandals are attached to your name.
(It's not that you're scared of what other people will think; it's just that talk is annoying and know-it-all adults tend to hover over you trying to "fix" you and generally being inconvenient. A little damage control is in order.)
You take another look at the boy who might have saved your life, to see if he's awake. He doesn't seem to be.
So you make a jump for it.
The branch holds; it is surprisingly strong. It can probably hold three of you. The boy who's sleeping peacefully on the floor in his own room has probably used this branch to sneak in and out a number of times.
You don't really care.
And then you hunt down the high school dropouts who beat you up.
Other people can put it mildly as "giving them a dose of their own medicine." The only way you can put it, however, is "biting them dead."
The sad thing is, they're not dead, not really. They just won't be hanging around causing trouble in the Namimori Central Park playground anytime soon - although to you, that's the next best thing.
It has to rain tonight, too. It's strange, you realize, how you're perfectly all right just standing like this. Letting the vicious earth drink the blood dripping from your hands.
The rain washes.
When the torrent stops, there won't even be any footprints here. The water would erase the tracks and the blood, would bury the tatters and bits of hair and teeth and skin. As long as it's raining, you can get away with anything. The rain is on your side.
There's something lying on the ground. You pick it up. It must have fallen from one of the youths who had attacked you.
It's a leather wristband. Simple and sporty, the kind lots of young athletes wear these days; probably owned by someone who used to be in a high school varsity team.
It's intact. It's drenched. And it's yours now. You know exactly what to do with it.
Amazingly enough, the first thing he says when you hold out the wristband to him is not "Wow, I've always wanted one! Thank you! I might have saved your life and you gave me a cool wristband, now we're even!"
It's "Let me see your hands."
He takes both of your hands in his and brings them up close to his eyes.
"You're bleeding!" For the first time, he sounds angry. And older. And somehow not the same idiot kid you fled from just a few hours ago. "Who keeps doing this to you?"
You take back what's yours. You drop the wristband on the floor and clench your fists and get ready to punch him in the face for his tone of voice alone. Your knuckles might have been torn open in your latest encounter with the scum of Namimori City, but you won't let him get away with talking to you as if he's someone who fucking knows you.
But when he says "Come here," you stand still. Something keeps you still. He grabs your arm and pulls you into the bathroom so he can clean your hands first... then he gets some salve and some bandages and carefully, methodically, patches you up, just like he must have done the last time.
Such small hands. Just as small as your own. But so sure of what they're doing and so intent - even if the bandaging is crooked and you can still see slivers of broken skin peeking out the gaps when you flex your fingers.
You doubt anyone could have handled you with that much need to make sure you feel better.
"Why..." he asks, trying to catch your gaze. "Why are you always getting hurt?"
You don't have to answer that. So you don't. You stand up. Without looking at him, you take the wristband you've brought and you get ready to leave out the window again.
But something happens. You're not sure what. You decide to leave the wristband behind. You toss it toward him, and he catches it, and before he could toss it back at you, or throw it out after you, you've gone.
Why are you always getting hurt?
The question is something no one's ever bothered to ask. This is why it's going through your head right now, though you're barely aware of it.
"Why?" There's no reason. There never is.
People always just assume you're a troublemaker, a bad weed, born under a bad sign. They leave you alone - or they worship you and promise you all their parents' money, plus their firstborn - because they're scared of you. You live by your own rules and those rules are going to kill you someday.
In a way, they're right. You know they are. There's a fire, a need to feel the blood rushing through your veins, and it drives you on to live. No one else has it, and it burns. It fuels you.
But it's only the fact that you don't see it in anyone else that makes it hurt.
Who keeps doing this to you?
You shut your eyes. You let the words slide off you. You don't need to care about it, so you don't.
But there's no explanation for why you keep finding yourself back here.
All you know is that you need to just be close by - to watch him cleaning up, doing his homework, gabbing on the cell phone, getting ready for bed.
And wearing the leather wristband you gave him - still a few years too big for him, held in place by a lame rubber band, but there.
Sometimes you make yourself known. You stand on the large branch just outside the big window, and then look at him as if you're expecting him to welcome you. And he does.
(Are you hungry? I got some sushi left over from tonight's meal. Come in and have some!)
And sometimes you just don't bother. You watch him from the shadows of the tree in the yard, as he stands or sits by the big window near his bed - looking around, sometimes, waiting for something. Then when it gets too dark or too dangerous, because people are starting to notice, people are starting to worry - why are the lights in Takeshi's room still on so late? what's Takeshi doing by the window, he'll catch a cold in this weather - he'll shut the window but not lock it, turn around, turn off the lights, and vanish.
Takeshi. His name is Takeshi. He always leaves the window unlocked. He sees to the latest wounds you've incurred - the only things that could ever make him angry. He makes the bed so it's always clean and ready in case you need a place to rest.
He isn't asking for your name anymore. He never will again.
Takeshi is a popular boy. In the grade school he attends, everyone knows his name - "Takeshi! Come here! I want you to introduce you to somebody!" "Takeshi! Great job on your last game! Good luck on your next one!" He answers every greeting with a wide open smile - stupid from a distance, but quite powerful up close, infectious and overwhelming.
Of course you know this. You know this because you take time off to stalk him. You don't make yourself known, of course, that would defeat the purpose of "stalking" - and if anyone knew, it would certainly be disastrous for him. Imagine, being stalked by a disreputable older student from another school.
You're not sure why you care. But you don't know what it would benefit you either, if you don't.
In my yard, there is a stray cat. English class. He has to write a few sentences and read them aloud, in front of everyone.
He's never been good at academics, but he doesn't have to think too hard for this; the task is simply to "write about one of your favorite things."
Sometimes I give him food because he is hungry. I talk to him, but cats do not talk. He climbs the tree outside my room. He sleeps on my bed. His eyes are very beautiful. That cat, I very much like.
A bunch of his classmates hoot and make fun of him because his eyes light up as he talks about the "cat." They're sure he's not talking about a real cat - what else would make him blush like that?
He laughs and plays along and says I'm blushing because English is HARD, okay, shut up, you pervs. And he sits back down and covers his face with his no-longer-so-small right hand and waits for the color on his face to go away.
He pretends to duck his head in embarrassment, but that hand ends up resting on the back of his neck, and he turns his head so that some part of that wristband lies flat against the side of his mouth, his right cheek.
From a distance it's nothing - just an awkward kid with a wristband. But from up close - the precise distance of an evening, say, when he's lying on the mattress just beside you and his face is up close to yours, and you're sharing breath and that hand with the wristband is moving through your hair, your collarbone, the back of your neck - it's him saying "I like you" even without knowing you can hear him, placing your bruised fingers against his lips, watching over you while you sleep. It's him pretending to be dead to the world while you slip out, careful not to be seen, careful not to leave a single trace.
(Look, he says, raising his hand a bit, showing off the wristband that's being inevitably deformed by the tight band keeping it from sliding off, it almost fits me now! I'm growing bigger, did you notice? Soon it's going to fit just right.
(You say nothing. You have noticed. He's almost 11 and you're almost 12 and he's still awkward, still thin, but you believe him when he says it's going to fit soon.
(When he says it, it's a promise.)
You're almost 12 and he's almost 11, and he touches his lips to stolen leather and from a distance, makes you feel like no one ever has - like you're home, you're all right, and there's no need for the fire: he's there, always, waiting for you, keeping you from burning up.
His name is Takeshi. He never locks the window in case you come. And there are nights when you just enter and when your feet are solidly on the floor you get on your knees and you crawl under the blankets, seek out his heat and the sound of his voice saying You're late falling on the leaves, on the rooftops, wrapping around you and holding you close and warm and safe.
You've never really been here before.
Cut open and poorly patched together and vulnerable like this.
That's why you've made up your mind to stay away from him.
(tbc?)
--------------------------------
i'm lame and i actually have a yamamoto-in-love theme. over time it's also become my yamahiba inspiration. if you want to hear it, download it here:
[ Yiruma - When the Love Falls ]
there's also a [rain version] of this song that i don't like as much, but probably fits the opening scene of this fic more. it's here:
[ When the Love Falls [rain version] ]
Part 2 is here.
subtle shota alert. tread lightly. and if shota is not your thing, please just skip. i'll just try to make up for it in the next installments or... something XD;
PS: sketchy thing is sketchy. just something i meant to accompany this fic, although i'm really not an artist and ahaha even as an oekaki it is made of fail.
this is a very, VERY late birthday gift for hibari, btw ^^ um, enjoy?
The Cat and His Boy
You've never really been here before.
Like this.
Torn and broken in many places, on your back, in a place you seldom pay attention to and hardly ever visit. The rain carves out a cradle for you in the dirt.
The rain washes.
Everyone else has gone. The playground is deserted. It must be late, you think - if someone were waiting for you at home, this person would be worried sick by now.
But fortunately, you're all alone. There's just you, and the sound of water falling all around you.
The cold has made you numb. If you're still wounded, you no longer feel it. If you never move again, maybe you'll never feel pain.
Hey. Kid. You okay?
You open your eyes and they meet the voice of the rain head on.
You squint and blink the water out of your eyes; that wasn't very smart. This would probably be funny if it were somebody else in your place, and the shadow peering into that somebody else's face was yours.
...Guess not, huh?
Surprisingly small, surprisingly warm hands slide between you and the earth. A hiss escapes you, as the pain returns.
You struggle, but the small, warm hands are surprisingly strong and they slide back out from under you to hold you down.
Cut it out, the rain says. I'm trying to help you. Your back isn't broken, is it?
Your arms are still too numb to effectively swing, so you contemplate spitting up into the face that's impudently close to yours, the face you can barely see, as it's against the light and the wide open sky.
But before you can do anything, this person is already picking you up. His small strong hands are propping you up and drawing you close.
Then you're on his back, your arms draped over his shoulders and your bare legs locked in his arms. You couldn't attack him or get away even if you wanted to. He's already taking you out of your cold, wet cradle and bringing you to shelter.
Trapped like this, you realize you aren't hurt, not really - it would take a lot more than the beating you just went through to incapacitate you. You're almost eleven years old and you're much, much stronger than anyone you know.
You're just tired. And the warmth that emanates from the back of this person with the voice of the rain tempts you to sink into it.
What happened? Who did this to you? Was it more than one guy? Do you remember their faces?
He doesn't totter under your weight. He doesn't bump into things or lose his way. He doesn't seem like he's hurrying, either. Before you close your eyes again, you take a moment to acknowledge that he's being careful, very careful, not to get you any more hurt than you already are.
It barely registers that this person holding you up, ferrying you to dry land, is only a little taller than you are.
What's your name?
"What?" Your eyelids fly open. Did you pass out after all?
"I said what's your name."
You sit up. You should not have done that. Something stabs at your side, forcing you to be absolutely still for a second. Your eyesight starts to twist everything into weird shapes.
"Don't move around too much!" the very young voice says to you. A shadow appears, kneeling by your mattress. "I think you broke a few bones or something... and you got this big nasty bump on your head. Just... don't move around."
This isn't your room. The smell is different. The mattress underneath you is harder, lumpier, more used. There also seems to be too little by way of empty space. There are more things.
Your swimming eyesight is just starting to focus, when the moron in your presence turns on the overhead light. Open wounds or no, you wince.
"Sorry," he says. "I thought I heard you say something, so I thought you were awake. I guess you were dreaming?"
Shielding your eyes from direct light, you look at him. He's just a kid - a lanky kid, with scruffy black hair and a ridiculously open face.
He seems to be around your age, though the naked cluelessness all over him is probably some sort of indication that he's younger.
You seem to be in this kid's bedroom. You ponder punching him unconscious and fleeing the scene - except you realize quickly enough that you aren't in the best shape to knock out a boy who looks bigger and stronger and far healthier than you do. Also, that your clothes are nowhere to be found, you're not wearing any underwear and some parts of your exposed skin are covered in bandage and salve.
"Surprised?" the boy chirps. "I'm really good at patching up." - This isn't exactly what you'd call "good at patching up." You feel like a damn voodoo doll, all safety pins and rags. Still, the dumb kid looks mighty pleased with himself. - "My dad always freaks out when he sees me bleeding... and it's hard not to get beat up now and then when you play baseball, so..."
Even if you're interested in anything he has to say (which you're not) you find it much more interesting to lie back down until the room stops spinning.
"If you're still feeling bad by tomorrow, I'm going to tell my dad about you and - and we're going to take you to the hospital. But you heal really fast, don't you? I do, too, so... so what's your name?"
You ignore him and take as many notes as you can. There are sports medals and trophies on display in a corner. There's a baseball bat and a mitt somewhere close to the foot of the bed. Worse comes to worse, you could grab that bat, hit the kid over the head, and make a run for it. Somehow, though, you doubt you'll have to go through the trouble.
There's a large window nearby, looking out at the bleak night sky, and some tree branches swaying lightly in the downpour - it's safe to say you're not on ground level.
You aren't lucid enough to calculate if those branches outside can support your weight when you're ready to get the hell out of this place - but you're definitely taking your chances.
"Okay, um..." Weariness and surrender have crept into the other boy's voice. "I'm going to let you rest. I'll be right here, so don't worry about a thing, okay? Wake me up if you need anything, okay? There's a glass and a pitcher of water right beside you and... I'll make you something to eat if you're hungry."
You lie still, training your face toward the window, tensed up in case he tries anything stupid like touch you or pull the blankets up around your chin.
He doesn't do any of that, just turns off the lights again. He curls up on the floor somewhere next to your mattress, and in just a few minutes, you start to hear him breathing regularly. You relax.
The rain doesn't seem to be letting up. It probably won't be smart to go back out into the dark, slippery streets in your condition. In a few hours, you guess, it's going to be dawn, and you're going to be well enough to go your own way again.
As if you were never here.
The first thing you do when you wake up is find your clothes. The idiot kid has washed the blood from them and left them to dry in his private bathroom. They aren't dry enough for you, but they're just fine for wearing out of that place.
You still feel sore in many places, but you can think more clearly now. You can think, for example, of how you shouldn't ever be found here, lest you be reported to your parents and your teachers and entirely new scandals are attached to your name.
(It's not that you're scared of what other people will think; it's just that talk is annoying and know-it-all adults tend to hover over you trying to "fix" you and generally being inconvenient. A little damage control is in order.)
You take another look at the boy who might have saved your life, to see if he's awake. He doesn't seem to be.
So you make a jump for it.
The branch holds; it is surprisingly strong. It can probably hold three of you. The boy who's sleeping peacefully on the floor in his own room has probably used this branch to sneak in and out a number of times.
You don't really care.
And then you hunt down the high school dropouts who beat you up.
Other people can put it mildly as "giving them a dose of their own medicine." The only way you can put it, however, is "biting them dead."
The sad thing is, they're not dead, not really. They just won't be hanging around causing trouble in the Namimori Central Park playground anytime soon - although to you, that's the next best thing.
It has to rain tonight, too. It's strange, you realize, how you're perfectly all right just standing like this. Letting the vicious earth drink the blood dripping from your hands.
The rain washes.
When the torrent stops, there won't even be any footprints here. The water would erase the tracks and the blood, would bury the tatters and bits of hair and teeth and skin. As long as it's raining, you can get away with anything. The rain is on your side.
There's something lying on the ground. You pick it up. It must have fallen from one of the youths who had attacked you.
It's a leather wristband. Simple and sporty, the kind lots of young athletes wear these days; probably owned by someone who used to be in a high school varsity team.
It's intact. It's drenched. And it's yours now. You know exactly what to do with it.
Amazingly enough, the first thing he says when you hold out the wristband to him is not "Wow, I've always wanted one! Thank you! I might have saved your life and you gave me a cool wristband, now we're even!"
It's "Let me see your hands."
He takes both of your hands in his and brings them up close to his eyes.
"You're bleeding!" For the first time, he sounds angry. And older. And somehow not the same idiot kid you fled from just a few hours ago. "Who keeps doing this to you?"
You take back what's yours. You drop the wristband on the floor and clench your fists and get ready to punch him in the face for his tone of voice alone. Your knuckles might have been torn open in your latest encounter with the scum of Namimori City, but you won't let him get away with talking to you as if he's someone who fucking knows you.
But when he says "Come here," you stand still. Something keeps you still. He grabs your arm and pulls you into the bathroom so he can clean your hands first... then he gets some salve and some bandages and carefully, methodically, patches you up, just like he must have done the last time.
Such small hands. Just as small as your own. But so sure of what they're doing and so intent - even if the bandaging is crooked and you can still see slivers of broken skin peeking out the gaps when you flex your fingers.
You doubt anyone could have handled you with that much need to make sure you feel better.
"Why..." he asks, trying to catch your gaze. "Why are you always getting hurt?"
You don't have to answer that. So you don't. You stand up. Without looking at him, you take the wristband you've brought and you get ready to leave out the window again.
But something happens. You're not sure what. You decide to leave the wristband behind. You toss it toward him, and he catches it, and before he could toss it back at you, or throw it out after you, you've gone.
Why are you always getting hurt?
The question is something no one's ever bothered to ask. This is why it's going through your head right now, though you're barely aware of it.
"Why?" There's no reason. There never is.
People always just assume you're a troublemaker, a bad weed, born under a bad sign. They leave you alone - or they worship you and promise you all their parents' money, plus their firstborn - because they're scared of you. You live by your own rules and those rules are going to kill you someday.
In a way, they're right. You know they are. There's a fire, a need to feel the blood rushing through your veins, and it drives you on to live. No one else has it, and it burns. It fuels you.
But it's only the fact that you don't see it in anyone else that makes it hurt.
Who keeps doing this to you?
You shut your eyes. You let the words slide off you. You don't need to care about it, so you don't.
But there's no explanation for why you keep finding yourself back here.
All you know is that you need to just be close by - to watch him cleaning up, doing his homework, gabbing on the cell phone, getting ready for bed.
And wearing the leather wristband you gave him - still a few years too big for him, held in place by a lame rubber band, but there.
Sometimes you make yourself known. You stand on the large branch just outside the big window, and then look at him as if you're expecting him to welcome you. And he does.
(Are you hungry? I got some sushi left over from tonight's meal. Come in and have some!)
And sometimes you just don't bother. You watch him from the shadows of the tree in the yard, as he stands or sits by the big window near his bed - looking around, sometimes, waiting for something. Then when it gets too dark or too dangerous, because people are starting to notice, people are starting to worry - why are the lights in Takeshi's room still on so late? what's Takeshi doing by the window, he'll catch a cold in this weather - he'll shut the window but not lock it, turn around, turn off the lights, and vanish.
Takeshi. His name is Takeshi. He always leaves the window unlocked. He sees to the latest wounds you've incurred - the only things that could ever make him angry. He makes the bed so it's always clean and ready in case you need a place to rest.
He isn't asking for your name anymore. He never will again.
Takeshi is a popular boy. In the grade school he attends, everyone knows his name - "Takeshi! Come here! I want you to introduce you to somebody!" "Takeshi! Great job on your last game! Good luck on your next one!" He answers every greeting with a wide open smile - stupid from a distance, but quite powerful up close, infectious and overwhelming.
Of course you know this. You know this because you take time off to stalk him. You don't make yourself known, of course, that would defeat the purpose of "stalking" - and if anyone knew, it would certainly be disastrous for him. Imagine, being stalked by a disreputable older student from another school.
You're not sure why you care. But you don't know what it would benefit you either, if you don't.
In my yard, there is a stray cat. English class. He has to write a few sentences and read them aloud, in front of everyone.
He's never been good at academics, but he doesn't have to think too hard for this; the task is simply to "write about one of your favorite things."
Sometimes I give him food because he is hungry. I talk to him, but cats do not talk. He climbs the tree outside my room. He sleeps on my bed. His eyes are very beautiful. That cat, I very much like.
A bunch of his classmates hoot and make fun of him because his eyes light up as he talks about the "cat." They're sure he's not talking about a real cat - what else would make him blush like that?
He laughs and plays along and says I'm blushing because English is HARD, okay, shut up, you pervs. And he sits back down and covers his face with his no-longer-so-small right hand and waits for the color on his face to go away.
He pretends to duck his head in embarrassment, but that hand ends up resting on the back of his neck, and he turns his head so that some part of that wristband lies flat against the side of his mouth, his right cheek.
From a distance it's nothing - just an awkward kid with a wristband. But from up close - the precise distance of an evening, say, when he's lying on the mattress just beside you and his face is up close to yours, and you're sharing breath and that hand with the wristband is moving through your hair, your collarbone, the back of your neck - it's him saying "I like you" even without knowing you can hear him, placing your bruised fingers against his lips, watching over you while you sleep. It's him pretending to be dead to the world while you slip out, careful not to be seen, careful not to leave a single trace.
(Look, he says, raising his hand a bit, showing off the wristband that's being inevitably deformed by the tight band keeping it from sliding off, it almost fits me now! I'm growing bigger, did you notice? Soon it's going to fit just right.
(You say nothing. You have noticed. He's almost 11 and you're almost 12 and he's still awkward, still thin, but you believe him when he says it's going to fit soon.
(When he says it, it's a promise.)
You're almost 12 and he's almost 11, and he touches his lips to stolen leather and from a distance, makes you feel like no one ever has - like you're home, you're all right, and there's no need for the fire: he's there, always, waiting for you, keeping you from burning up.
His name is Takeshi. He never locks the window in case you come. And there are nights when you just enter and when your feet are solidly on the floor you get on your knees and you crawl under the blankets, seek out his heat and the sound of his voice saying You're late falling on the leaves, on the rooftops, wrapping around you and holding you close and warm and safe.
You've never really been here before.
Cut open and poorly patched together and vulnerable like this.
That's why you've made up your mind to stay away from him.
(tbc?)
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i'm lame and i actually have a yamamoto-in-love theme. over time it's also become my yamahiba inspiration. if you want to hear it, download it here:
[ Yiruma - When the Love Falls ]
there's also a [rain version] of this song that i don't like as much, but probably fits the opening scene of this fic more. it's here:
[ When the Love Falls [rain version] ]
Part 2 is here.