Caged (PoT, R, Yanagi/Kirihara)

May 21, 2004 15:30

Aishuu Offers:
Caged
~ A Prince of Tennis Fanfiction ~
Yanagi/Kirihara
mbsilvana@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Konomi-sensei’s.
Notes: For the “pet” challenge. Yanagi/Kirihara, angst. Rated R for some rather heavily implied sex. And it's about 1,800 words.



It was Fuji Syuusuke who was always called the genius of the tennis scene, but Yanagi Renji knew that there was one other who was his match - Kirihara Akaya.

Kirihara was a prodigy as well, the best of the best, and it was through no sacrifice of his own that he had risen to the top of his field - unless you considered the sacrifice of his sanity. No one would call Kirihara “sane” and spending any amount of time with him was a dangerous proposition.

Yanagi knew this.

And Yanagi still loved him, despite it all, fascinated by the mercurial moods of the younger man, drawn like a moth to the hissing fire that was Kirihara. Fire, unpredictable and life giving, but dangerous and doomed to burn itself out. Somehow, Yanagi attached himself to Kirihara in attempt to keep the conflagration under control, while warming himself in the evanescence of Kirihara’s glow.

Kirihara didn’t care of the dangers he posed to himself - or to those closest to him.

So it was Yanagi who paid the price.

*

Kirihara was simple, and complex. Simple, basic, instinctual.

He wanted to win, and would win throughout whatever it took. But he saw through things without trying to, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place without having to work on sorting through them.

It fascinated Yanagi. The data he strove to gather through painstaking work was Kirihara’s in an instant. All Kirihara needed to do was look at a person, and he knew. He could do a full-analysis in that instant, rip a person to their core, and be done with them. It would have been extremely frustrating for Yanagi, who worked so hard to achieve the same, had Kirihara actually had the brains to realize what his gift was.

But he didn’t. He wasn’t stupid by any means, but he wasn’t brilliant.

Maybe that was where the complexity came in. An idiot savant, Yanagi sometimes thought. But then he would do something so astoundingly brilliant and well-thought out that Yanagi would be forced to re-evaluate.

That was how they ended up together, after all. Yanagi hadn’t realized Kirihara was seducing him until it was too late.

Kirihara was cute, and Yanagi had always had a fondness for the demon of their team, but hadn’t realized that Kirihara was interested in him as well. He knew that Kirihara cared, especially after he stepped between Sanada’s fist with his racket in an oh-so-casual manner.

Later, he would realize that was the first part of a carefully staged seduction.

Kirihara seemed to be everywhere he was, ditching Jackal at every turn so Yanagi would be the one forced to make sure he made it home - and then Yanagi would be invited to dinner with the family. Seeing Kirihara with his family made him realize that the boy was more than just a tennis player, but a son as well. When Kirihara needed help on his homework, it seemed natural for him to come to Yanagi, and then as a thank you, there was a pair of tickets to an amusement park, and would Yanagi-senpai be interested in joining him? Before he knew it, they were together every weekend.

Niou began to tease him about his boyfriend, asking if he bit in bed.

He had been too thick to take the Trickster seriously. He’d retorted with a comment about Yagyuu and Niou’s switching roles in bed as well as on the court in a dry voice, not realizing that Niou tended to find truth in all of his taunts. Niou knew better than any that truth was the most dangerous weapon.

It was too late, anyway. It only took a week for a naked Kirihara to push up against him in the locker room shower. Those blue-green eyes shimmered as he trailed his mouth down over his Yanagi’s wet skin, finding the data player hard and wanting.

“Fuck me,” he commanded. “I want to feel you.”

Yanagi had run a hand through the dark curls, petting the soft face gently before lifting the other boy by the waist and pushing him against the wall. Kirihara had driven him insane with lust and sex and maybe a bit of love.

He’d never been able to deny the younger boy anything ever since.

They had been together steadily since that moment, though at times he thought Kirihara was about to wander. Fuji Syuusuke and Kirihara had a strange love/hate relationship, and he knew that if Yukimura ever indicated a bit of interest, he’d be dropped in a second. But none of those concerns ever manifested themselves, so he and Kirihara stayed together.

When it came time for college, he chose Tokyo University. It was a two-hour trip from Kanagawa, and he knew that Kirihara wasn’t going to be happy. However, Kirihara accepted it philosophically.

“I’ll see you on weekends, right?”

He had nodded. He couldn’t imagine not seeing Kirihara, not feeling the touch of his skin. They had sex fairly regularly, in the locker room, or at their homes when one of their families were away. Once they had tried a love hotel, but Kirihara had been so busy laughing at the materials in the room that it had been impossible to perform.

“Then... what’s the problem?”

He couldn’t tell Kirihara his fear that “out of sight, out of mind” would happen. He couldn’t let the younger man know that he didn’t think Kirihara loved him - that he doubted Kirihara knew what love was.

His concerns were valid, to a point. Kirihara never wrote, never returned his phone calls.

Kirihara seemed to drop off the face of the earth, too busy to be involved with the one who loved him. When Yanagi returned home those first few weekends, he was informed by Kirihara’s mother that Akaya was training with his private coach, and shouldn’t be disturbed.

He gave up after three tries.

The only times he saw Kirihara was in Tennis Weekly, as the magazine lay colorful spreads on the hottest player of the year. Kirihara was in high demand by recruiters, and had offers for both college and the pros. He wondered what Kirihara would choose. His data on Kirihara tended to be skewed, because the boy never thought in predictable patterns.

Then in October, out of nowhere, he returned to his room to find his roommate standing in the hall, sporting what looked like the beginnings of a beautiful black eye.

“Who the hell is that psycho?” His roommate asked in disgust with a trace of fear. “How dare he throw me out of my own room!”

Yanagi knew who it had to be.

Kirihara was going through his roommate’s belongings curiously, messing with his CD’s. He perked up and grinned at his lover as Yanagi entered.

“Yo,” he said casually. “What’s up?”

No undying promises of love, no excuses, no sudden demand for sex. Just... Kirihara. Yanagi knew then he’d never be able to throw him about of his life, because as those eyes sparkled at him, he was at Kirihara’s mercy.

Kirihara didn’t exist linearly. He lived in a world unconcerned with time and place. It didn’t matter to him what was appropriate - societal mores meant little, as long as he could get away with what he felt like.

He got away with more than he should. Yanagi wished sometimes he had the courage to restrain him, but truthfully it was Kirihara who held the leash, and Yanagi who wore the collar. A bit of attention, and Yanagi would fall at Kirihara’s feet, doing anything to see that smile, make him happy. The other was everything he was not - charismatic and willful, impetuous and daring. Being around Kirihara was to truly live.

Kirihara wasn’t a deliberately hurtful person. Once he had talked to Sanada about it, when Sanada had been angry at his former kohai. He hated the way Kirihara waltzed in and out of Yanagi’s life, and the way his best friend allowed it.

Yanagi had shaken his head after Sanada had spilled his bile. “You don’t understand him.”

“I understand he doesn’t love you.”

The words had hurt, a bit, but Yanagi’s impassive face didn’t show that. “Probably not. But I’m more important to him than anyone else.”

“He treats you like a dog he forgets to feed - and you’re pathetically grateful when he does remember you do exist,” Sanada had shot back.

It had been too close to the truth. “Dogs are known for their loyalty,” he shot back.

“Even to those who don’t deserve it?”

“Especially then.”

Kirihara became even more erratic as they entered their twenties, and he entered the professional scene. He both loved and hated the audiences, and would sometimes skip matches to get away from them - but on the court he rivaled Atobe Keigo in glorying in their attention. Only with Yanagi could he find peace, but he resented being beholden to anyone.

Yanagi, who was working on his doctorate, had immense patience with Kirihara, letting the other man choose their path. For a month, Kirihara would live with him, then vanish without an explanation for two to the apartment he maintained in Okinawa. That was around the time that Kirihara started to talk to himself, mumbling at first and then holding full-fledged rants.

Yanagi wondered if Kirihara was losing his mind.

So did Kirihara. He would yell and scream at Yanagi, who would listen calmly until the tennis player threw something. It seemed that the sound of shattering glass would calm him, and then the other would stop, and calm down.

The period only lasted until Kirihara left for Wimbledon. There, he was eliminated at the quarter-finals, and he returned to Yanagi, instead of Okinawa. He was sedate and reasonable, and instead of being depressed over losing the title, he seemed to have relaxed, now that the stress was gone.

That night, for the first time in ages, they had sex with the lights on. Kirihara, mischievous, kept Yanagi from coming in a long, torturous love-making session that lasted for hours.

The next day, Kirihara was gone.

And Yanagi knew that when he returned, he would accept him back, because he couldn’t picture life without Kirihara in it.

He was trapped as surely as a bird in a cage, and though Kirihara had the key, even if the door was open, he wouldn’t fly free... because he enjoyed the tantalizing and deadly dance of Kirihara’s coils. One day, Kirihara would destroy himself. He didn’t need to analyze his data to know that - and when that day came, there was a ninety-nine percent chance that he would take Yanagi Renji with him.

And Yanagi didn’t see any way out of the mess which he had so thoroughly entrapped himself in - nor was he sure he wanted on.

He was loyal to those he loved, even if they didn’t love him.

caged, yanagi/kirihara, oneshot, tenipuri

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