FIC: Shibuya 109, Niou/Kirihara, NC17 (2/5)
Title: Shibuya 109 (2/5)
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 32 000
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Eight months later, and Kirihara is more confused about Niou than ever. Sequel to Six Percent Doki Doki
Author's Notes: Written for pixxers' birthday- Happy Birthday, Pix! &hearts
This fic has been truncated into five parts due to length: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]
Problem one:
In math class, the teacher tells Kirihara, "I've arranged for one of the seniors to come and tutor you this afternoon after classes have finished."
The girls hear the teacher. The girls start hissing whispers around the classroom that Kirihara needs extra curricular lessons, hur hur hur, isn't he dumb? Their lipstick smiles curl up and their purple eyes roll as they point with their fluttering mascara and laugh behind their hands and sneers.
Tennis practice also happens to be after classes.
Not that it's stopped raining, either.
Problem two:
Marui sends a text message in art class. Kirihara had been working on a coil pot. Nothing fancy, just a mass of clay arranged artfully in a bowl-shaped form that looked more like a lopsided worm than anything useable. Kirihara had mud on his hands, clay on the floor and now clay in the buttons of his cellphone trying to turn the damn messaging off before the teacher took his phone away.
u need some GIRL HELP!! this Genius will send u some LOVE HELP asap (^o^)v
Kirihara groans. He presses his elbows to the table and shakes his head, moaning under his breath. His arm slips. The stool he's sitting on starts to tip forward, slow at first and controlled by his toes on the floor, but then his right sneaker slips across the linoleum.
And the clay pot he'd been working on for an hour falls onto the floor with a wet, slick plop.
Kirihara closes his eyes. His temple throbs and a pulse of blood pushes on the back of his eyeballs. He forces himself to breathe through the anger, to control his emotions as the teacher turns to the mess and the laughter begins anew.
Kirihara cleans it up. He stays late, past the bell, and his classmates step around and through his pile of sludge on the floor. Kirihara's knees hurt-he hasn't done this much kneeling since junior high, when he picked up balls as a first year the very first day of tennis practice before he figured out who those three were. Now his kneecaps roll and grind on the gritty art classroom floor, messing up his pants even more.
"Unfortunately, you'll have to take a zero on the pot project," the art teacher says. She pushes up her glasses and her broomstick skirt whirls around when she turns to go back to her desk. Kirihara can't even muster up enough effort to care that this is another class his marks will bomb in.
And it's all his fault.
Or Niou's… a little voice tells him. The voice sounds suspiciously like Marui-senpai. Kirihara touches the back of his neck and rubs the bone. It aches from being bent over like this. He sighs and scoops another handful of clay into the dustpan. Akaya, the Marui-voice says. Akaya, you know I'm only here to help.
"Yeah right," he mutters. "Like you'd get what I'm going through right now."
Why not? I'm a GENIUS!
Kirihara starts to laugh-a brittle, forced noise that bubbles up out of his throat, which only seems to get tighter and tighter the more his conflicting thoughts cloud his brain. Niou. Math mark. Niou. Art mark. Tennis. Niou. English.
Something jabs him in the shoulder. Kirihara twitches, curling his shoulder into his chest and cringing. He rolls it back to stretch the muscle and then he looks up at the clock above the watercolour Impressionist prints on the far wall. Nearly half past four. Yukimura's gonna kill him for being this late to practice. Leaning back onto his heels for a beat, Kirihara scratches his nose. Wet clay gets up his nostril; he winces and spits but mostly he ignores it.
He's pretty sure he had something else to do, too, but he can't remember what.
Huh.
A second jab pokes Kirihara, and only then does he whip his head around. In the doorway, Marui leans and looks down at him with a smirk. He lifts his hand and winks. "Hey," he says. "You finally noticed me, Akaya. Took you long enough."
"Oh," Kirihara says. His shoulders slump. Vaguely, he knows that he would have rather it be a lurking, bleached-haired senpai instead of Marui in all his gum-popping Genius glory.
Marui chews his gum. It smells like Lotte Green this time. The green scent reminds him of the autumn, and behind the tool shed, after practice, when he and Niou were putting away baskets of balls and they stayed late. Kirihara kissed him there, near the bushes, and Niou tasted like Lotte Green gum. His tongue was wet and warm and his mouth open for Kirihara. He moaned and slid his hands down Kirihara's back, right to his waistband. Niou had been hard and he pulled back with a sigh, licking his lips and looking at Kirihara through slitted black eyes that ate him up.
The memory grows more and more dim. Now, Kirihara doesn't feel the sensations electrifying his skin the way it used to. Now, Kirihara has a hard time recalling what Niou's hands felt like on his back-were they warm? Were they rough? Were they big? Were they fast and insistent, or hesitant and feathery, searching for an answer without words?
Kirihara pushes the memory away. He shakes his head and closes his eyes. They prickle with a slight sting that Kirihara shoves aside when he puts the dustpan away and grabs his bag. Marui keeps smirking from the doorway.
Maybe he's dumb in school, but the waggle of Marui's eyebrows and the way he leans nice and close to Kirihara as soon as they leave the classroom is something even he can get.
"Girl problems," Marui says.
Kirihara says nothing. He walks faster. Then, he turns heel and Marui walks into him, before jumping back with a scowl.
"Oi!"
"Senpai," Kirihara says. He uses a firm voice and makes sure to look down at Marui, knowing it irritates Marui down there. Any other time, it might be funny. Right now, the knowledge of laps and punishment from Sanada weight heavily on him, heavier than all the textbooks in his bag.
"Senpai, don't we have practice?"
Marui blows another bubble. The green smell makes Kirihara stiffen as it permeates the air, thicker than the nitrogen in the atmosphere and the vague smell of bleach and lemon cleaner from the students scrubbing the other end of the hallway. Marui chews loudly, then he taps the window pane. It's open a crack at the bottom, blowing cool misty air inside.
"Yukimura's there, yeah, but the rest of us aren't. Courts are too wet and the soccer team filched the gym first." Kirihara blinks and Marui takes the opportunity to snicker and wiggle his finger, telling Kirihara off with a glow to his eyes that says only one thing.
"We're off to pick up chicks and save you from turning into a hikikomori. Unlike some people…" Marui adds. His eyes shift left. Kirihara follows them and he sucks in a breath when the echoing footsteps give way to someone walking past them.
Niou.
Kirihara stands up tall and his tongue catches in his throat, along with his voice. Marui says something, but Kirihara doesn't hear a word. He tries to speak, he tries to say Niou's name and get his attention, but his mouth doesn't open and he can't move, he can't do anything except watch. Time slows and swells and moves in slow-motion as Niou moves, shuffles, walks right past him without so much as lifting his head in recognition. His eyes are glued to the floor, dark and grey like the sky outside, but they reflect nothing except the linoleum below. His hair falls over his face and there are black roots, maybe an inch or two, all along his scalp.
Kirihara never noticed that before.
Senpai… he thinks.
And then, as soon as he showed up, Niou is gone behind them and time fast-forwards, a rush of colours and blurred motions and the faintest scent of Niou: his fresh shampoo and green gum and hair product and hurt.
Kirihara's mouth falls open.
Marui says, "This Genius is going to take you to pick-up central. We are going to Shibuya 109-"
A train chugs by, tatan tatan tatan rattling on the tracks and someone squeaks a mop down the other end of the corridor. Kirihara shakes his head furiously. His insides squeeze and contract and he can still smell Niou, more and more, swirling around him so much that the air is choked from his lungs and he has to gasp to breath. "No!" he says. Kirihara slams his fist against the window ledge closest to him. "NO!" he shouts.
"Jeez, Akaya. Lighten up!" Marui snaps. He snaps his gum, blowing a bubble backwards into his mouth before wrapping his tongue around it again and chewing some more. "I'm just here to help. Don't take it if you don't want it."
Kirihara swallows. His face twists up and falls as Marui's lip curls more and he rolls his eyes. Guilt pokes Kirihara between the ribs, but he can't stop seeing Niou's dead eyes out of the corner of his vision, walking past in slow, slowest motion and it makes him sick inside. Bile rises in his throat and clay clogs his nose. Kirihara looks back over his shoulder: there is no one down the hallway.
Niou is gone.
"Hn," Marui says. "You know, you seem really weird around Niou all the time."
Kirihara spins back around. His eyes snap open, widening so huge that they go dry. He tries to breathe out and keep cool, but Marui looks up at him and takes a small step back. Then he inches further away, one careful step at a time. Kirihara starts to breathe faster. Panic sets into his pulse. His heart races, pounding against his ribs in perpendicular rhythm to the rain falling outside.
"And you both have those really gay charms on your bags," Marui says.
Kirihara pants. He swallows hard, but the wool lump forming in his throat doesn't leave. His hands are so sweaty that they slip off the window ledge.
Marui takes another step back. His lips tighten. "I don't believe you that your sister gave it to you. I think you're a f-"
Fight or flight sets in. He could punch Marui in the face and shut him up. He could turn the other way and catch up with Niou. He could slam Marui's round face into the wall to see if his sneer slides off. He could shove it aside with a forced laugh and run out to the courts and scream at someone for a game.
He can't do it all.
Kirihara runs.
***
The rain clears up, partly, by the time Kirihara gets home and slams the front door. The bus was wet and miserable, packed with students and OLs, and everything smelled like rank sweat and old geranium perfume. The road was wet and miserable. Kirihara lost count how many times he stepped in puddles in the cracks of the pavement. His sides ache from running to the bus stop. He's red in the face and cold everywhere else.
Marui's words cut him.
Marui knows.
Kirihara gags into the bed of flowers outside the apartment building. He can't breathe in the elevator-it's too stuffy and confined and the words keep echoing in his ear, matching the curl of Marui's lip and the way he backed off, his Genius realizing that Kirihara was infected with gay germs.
He punches the wall of the elevator. He screams and punches all the floor buttons, then he screams again. No one can hear him. No one can see him slide to the floor and moan, rocking back and forth over his bags because he doesn't know what to do anymore.
There is no one home.
But there is a message on his cellphone. Fifteen, actually.
Kirihara shakes when he opens the first one. Bile rushes to the back of his mouth and stings his tongue. He gags again, but he doesn't puke. Kirihara shakes his head and makes funny noises, so low and animalistic that he doesn't recognize them as his own until he feels the vibrations against the back of his teeth.
The first is from Jackal.
UR GAY??????? :O :O :O
He screams so loud that his throat is burned raw. Kirihara cranks his window open and throws his cellphone out as hard and as far as he can. His screams dull the sound of the phone cracking on the pavement. It breaks into a hundred pieces, shattering like the ribs in his chest when he slumps to the floor.
***
His sister comes home first. It's dark out. The rain has stopped and left a cold trail that filters into Kirihara's bedroom. The lights of his Playstation glow in the corner, underneath a stack of comics. His eyes blur the lights. He stares at them, and through them. He doesn't know if he's been crying, but his face is wet and his eyes are itchy.
They feel bloodshot. And not from tennis.
There is a vague, hollow strain of voices from outside, in the kitchen maybe. The answering machine beeps, voices come and go. Another beep, another message. Kirihara can make out the occasional word, "fag" "gay" "Akaya".
He lies on the floor and breathes in the dust bunnies along his baseboard. He can hear the knock on his doorway and his sister calling his name. "You're really dumb this time, Aka-chan," she says. "What's all this shit about you being a fag?"
The words sink in, through his damp skin and tight muscles and into his bones, his marrow, his mind. Kirihara sits up and his head throbs, his brain pressed to his skull and pushing at his eyes. "Shut up!" he says. He takes a deep, shuddered breath and tries again. "Shut up! SHUT UP YOU STUPID BITCH!"
The door handle rattles, but he must have locked it before. His sister bangs on the door and shouts, "Don't be so fucking obnoxious, you little brat! The machine's swamped with your gay friends' messages!" She bangs again. He cringes at the pulsing pain in his skull, pounding on the inside and making his vision fuzzier and grey. He hiccups, then gags, then hiccups and gags at once so hard in his lungs that they burst in a congealed, bloody mess all over his floor.
She keeps banging. Kirihara flops back down on the floor and covers his ears, screaming right back at her to shut the fuck up. He keeps yelling. "SHUT UP! FUCKING SHUT UP!" She keeps banging and only when the noises are cracked and broken and his throat too raw to scream does he stop.
Silence.
Except for a single cricket and the music of a dorama on tv in the main room of the apartment. It's a love song, too, sad and sung by a pop star, probably, who warbles about one love and always feeling and souls and hearts.
Kirihara's heart has stopped entirely. He presses his palm to his chest and feels nothing.
***
He stays awake until half-past two. His mom came home at eight. His dad didn't come home at all-probably out with coworkers and drunk in a ditch or at work overnight. In the morning, he comes when Kirihara is asleep. He grabs his suitcase and goes off to LA for another business trip. Kirihara doesn't notice, but his fitful dream involves the sound of a door slamming.
Niou was behind it. His eyes were cloudy and his face blank. Kirihara pried at the lock, but it never opened. Niou left.
He wakes up, flopping in a cold sweat. The A/C is on, even colder, and his window is open. There is nothing but the sound of early trains and the low bellows of bullfrogs, somewhere in a canal across the road. Kirihara huddles under his blankets, but he's wide awake. Yesterday floods back in an instant.
No wonder he feels like he's been run over by a bicycle three times. His hair crawls. His skin is clammy and smelly and when he reaches over to grab his cellphone and check the time, his hand finds nothing on his table except a fistful of candy wrappers and dog-eared notes. His tennis list is gone too.
A pigeon coos outside his window, the noise seeping through the seal. Then a crow caws, solitary in the grey morning, just before dawn. Kirihara drags himself into the shower. He stands under the spray of water, head hung low as it sluices through his hair and drips down his face, getting in his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He stands under the water long enough for his fingertips to turn pruney. Kirihara sucks on a shriveled fingertip, feeling the ridged skin on his tongue. He chews a nail, then slaps his palm to the tile wall. His stomach is beyond knotted-it's crawled out of his body up through his throat. He tries to think about Niou. He tries to think about what he can say to his senpais and his friends.
But he's got nothing.
There is no one awake when he eats breakfast at the table. Bread sticks to the roof of his mouth and tastes ashen. The rice from last night-he assumed-is too dried out. His mom popped it in the fridge without clingfilm on top. It clogs his throat when he swallows. The answering machine flashes, a red light by the phone, and Kirihara knows what those messages are about. He stares at the blinking light, feeling something build up inside, harder and harder as he balls his fist and clenches his jaw. He seethes through his teeth and spit flies.
"Shit!"
The cord rips from the wall. It rips from the machine and the light goes dim. He bunches it in his fist and tries to shred it into pieces, but the plastic catches and pulls, but not more, despite his growling.
It still doesn't feel any better.
He walks to school. He takes his tennisbag, catches the bus, and walks the rest of the way. The morning air bites his skin and he shivers under his jacket. Kirihara squints through the first rays of the sun that stream through the rows of houses in the suburbs. His shoes crunch on the moist gravel and the last of the crickets from last night go to bed.
Inside, he feels empty. The closer he gets to school, the slower his pace becomes. Kirihara doesn't know what to say or do, but his feet keep moving. His tennisbag keeps bouncing on his right shoulder, and his backpack on his left. The courts are a mess of clay and bleeding white lines, mud and torn leaves from yesterday's rain.
Sanada hits balls across a court. Kirihara's bags fall to the ground as his shoulders slump. Sanada throws a ball up high, arches back, bents his knees and he snaps his body through a serve, like he's slicing the air with a sword and charging forward. It's fast and the whoosh zooms right by Kirihara. His shirt flutters. Sanada looks up and his eyes flash under his baseball cap. He bounces the next ball on the ground, but he doesn't toss it up.
Instead, he looks at Kirihara. Sanada raises his eyebrows when Kirihara keeps standing there, motionless. Kirihara shifts his weight. Gay germs crawl all over his body and radiate off. He shivers. His face feels too warm and the anger from yesterday courses through his veins. Pressure builds behind his eyes and there is a new coil of tension in his belly. Kirihara can hear himself breathing hard. When he looks down at his numb hand, he can see his knuckles are white.
"Well?" Sanada asks.
Aren’t you afraid of gay germs?! he wants to shout. Aren't you going to ask me about gay shit and fags and what Marui told the whole school, fukubuchou?!?
Sanada throws the ball. It bounces in front of Kirihara's sneakers. Sanada snorts.
"Get on the court," he says.
Kirihara blinks. He does a double-take, eyeing Sanada for a moment because fukuobuchou just stands there and looks at him with a weird little smile than makes Kirihara's insides twist up. He waits for Sanada to say something more, to call him a lazy ass and tell him to get his ass into gear for three hundred laps for being a fag and wanting to touch guys, but Sanada doesn't.
"Well?" he asks.
Kirihara unzips his bag. The unicorn charm jingles against the nylon fabric, catching the golden light of the morning and sparkling up at him. The horn glows. Seeing it there, smiling with wide, cute eyes makes Kirihara choke on a thick lump. Niou has the same charm.
His stomach churns.
Kirihara stuffs it into his bag and closes the zipper up on it. No one can see it this way, but his stomach doesn't settle, not even when he stands on the court opposite Sanada and bounces the ball. Tennis used to be a relief, tennis used to be fun, and a challenge sometimes. Kirihara looks at Sanada, who leans low and sways to the right-fukubuchou expects a low ball, angled and arced, almost like a snake. He's expecting Kirihara to snap himself into his game full-out to start.
Instead, Kirihara serves a lob.
Sanada bursts out laughing. "What is that?" he shouts. He swings hard and the ball shwooshes across the net. Kirihara runs for it, grinding his teeth and charging to the ball to catch it just in time with a backhand that he flings back. Sanada rolls his eyes. He laughs again, snorting and telling Kirihara he's getting careless.
"Didn't you want to be number one?" he asks.
Kirihara seethes. He doesn't really want to be playing with Sanada. He doesn't really want to be playing with anyone else. All he really wants to do is to slam tennis balls into the brick walls of the school so hard that they burst open and bleed and feel the confusion inside that he feels, twisted up and messed up and tangled. He grinds his teeth harder, hard enough to make his jaw spark with pain. Kirihara digs his fingernails into his racket and split-steps to the left, throwing himself into his next shot. It's messy, but calculated at the same time. The ball rolls over the racket face and gathers enough of a spin that it sings in the air, curving away from Sanada and making him run this time.
Sanada flips the game around-he always does, he always has and Kirihara can feel the anger and tension rise as Sanada swings his arm back. It's a ground smash, he's invading the court and there's a fire in Sanada's eyes as he cuts the ball with his racket. Kirihara screams. He's sick of this: he's sick of losing, he's sick of being less than number one, he's sick of all the fucked up shit right now and-
"RAAAAAH!"
He screams. He screams so loud that his throat is burnt raw and bleeds and his eyes pop out and his body twitches and stiffens and falls forward, then back, then limp and there is something flowing through his veins, soft and silken and electric all at once.
Then he's floating in the State of Self-Actualization.
Kirihara moves his arm an inch. His racket swings a meter. He experiences in slow motion and his body moves in an instant. Sanada shakes his head and yells, "You can self-actualize all you want, but if you can't control yourself it's pointless!"
His words ring in the air, but they're hollow in Kirihara's ears.
Huh, he thinks.
He doesn't really think. He can't really see anything but the ball making steady, easy arcs across the net. He stretches and hits it. The ball bounces gently on his racket and the impact makes a pleasant little ping sound. Kirihara's hand, arm, and his entire body tingle with numbness, like his muscles have all gone to sleep. He looks down as the ball starts to move from his racket gut-it's slow enough that he could wave his hand in front of it and the ball wouldn't touch his fingers.
Huh, he thinks.
It's been a while since he's played Sanada this hard. It's been a while since he's self-actualized. When he played Niou in September of last year, when everything between them was fresh and new, they both glowed and floated across the court, connected by a red thread across the net…
Niou…
Kirihara slumps onto his knees. Sanada smashes into his baseline and the world crashes down in a leaden weight.
***
One by one they show up, and one by one, they slink past him and snicker.
"Fag."
"Cocksucker."
"Pillowbiter."
"Asslicker."
"Sicko."
Each time, each barb that pierces Kirihara through the chest, he winces. He fights back and shouts, "Fuck off!" and "I'll crush you!" but more and more they are the ones crushing him. Try as he might, he can't fight the collective crowd.
Oikawa, a senior, the one before Niou-senpai on his list, looks at Kirihara and scrunches his face up. Kirihara remembers the one-set match they played last year, and the way Oikawa's Adam's Apple bobbed with fear. Kirihara remembers how the blood started to pump under his skin, through his veins and muscles and bones all the way from his toes to his eyeballs. Thump thump, thump thump. It was a rush of satisfaction, even before the game, and then five times as good after he won.
Now, his blood is cold and crawls through his body. Now, his veins constrict and twist up in his limbs, pinching off feeling to his toes. His eyes are huge and dry when Oikawa spits, "Faggot!" at him. Kirihara shakes in his sneakers as Oikawa pushes into his shoulder, shoving him aside with a little sneer and a noise in the back of his throat. Kirihara's balance is off and he can't side-step out of the way. He stumbles. His heart pounds against his ribs, no more doki doki and elation. This time, his heart slams into his rib cage and presses on his lungs the other way. This time, Kirihara growls and balls his fist and he lunges with a scream.
Oikawa's head slams into the pavement and something new fills Kirihara, something that makes his body hum all over and his skin tingle. He digs his hands deeper into Oikawa's scalp, feeling the hot skin and hair under his hands and the hotter, wetter blood too. Oikawa kicks him in the leg. Pain sears through his knee, but Kirihara bites back another scream to smash Oikawa back down. They roll over, fighting for control and someone else shouts. Kirihara doubles over with a fresh jolt to his stomach, which only makes him smash harder and harder, faster and faster until Oikawa becomes a rag doll in his hands.
"Stop! Kirihara-kun!"
Yagyuu.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Sanada.
"AKAYA!"
Yanagi.
Kirihara whips his head around. Spit flies. His eye stings. He swings a blind shot and hits soft, yielding flesh. Oikawa punches his arm again and Kirihara seethes, struggling through the arms pulling him back away. He has to crush Oikawa and feed the insatiable need inside his shaking body to shut Oikawa's fucking hole up!
"Fuck you!" Kirihara shouts. "Fuck you, asshole!" Sanada steps in front of him, his eyes blazing under his cap, but it's nothing to Kirihara. He pulls away from someone's grip and dives around Sanada's side. Sanada's faster than him, faster than lightning, and he grabs Kirihara in a squeeze to the ribs until they start to crack. Kirihara gasps, winded for a moment, and he trips forward into Sanada.
He lands on the ground, on his knees, panting and sucking in air that floods his lungs in a painful burst. The crowd of teammates around him snickers and laughs, five, ten, fifty leering faces all laughing at him.
Buchou steps forward as the masses part. They fall into silence as Yukimura's tennis jacket blows behind his back and billows up. His lips are tight and his eyes narrow when he looks at Kirihara. Kirihara breathes through his nose, nostrils flaring and hands unsteady on the gravelly clay court.
"What is going on?" Yukimura asks. His voice is low and steady and, above all, dangerous. Yukimura glances from Kirihara to Oikawa, then back again. The sleeves of his jacket swish in the soft breeze that seems to whip up all around him.
"He started it," Oikawa says. With the back of his hand, he wipes his mouth and smears blood across his chin. Kirihara can't remember punching him there, but he can taste metallic blood in his own mouth too.
"No!" Kirihara snaps. "You're the fucker who-"
"Akaya!" Sanada shouts. He raises his fist and Kirihara winces in anticipation, but Yukimura holds his hand up first. Sanada backs down.
"Everyone!" Yukimura says. "100 laps for standing around!"
The crowds start to move, pouring out onto the edge of the courts. Sneakers slap the baselines, but the back of Kirihara's neck still prickles. The team is still watching him, still judging him. His ears perk up and pick up the whispered "faggots" that hang heavy in the damp, morning air.
"Oikawa," Yukimura says. "Get to the school nurse."
Oikawa stumbles to his feet and hobbles off. He's covered in cuts and bruises on his knees. Blood dribbles down his chin from his nose and his left eye is swollen shut and purpling. Kirihara's body throbs with indeterminate pains, jabs and stabs here and there. He wipes his mouth. He spits out a wad of blood onto the court, foaming spit and red by the net when Yukimura says,
"I don't care what this is about-we're here to play tennis."
Then, Yukimura walks off. His racket hangs in his hand, at his side, and his back is turned to Kirihara. His dark hair catches the light, like a halo, as he disappears into a stream of sunlight on the far courts.
Sanada lingers longer. He looms over Kirihara, his shadow long and deep and dark, cast over Kirihara's face. The only light inside are his eyes, white rims around hard, black pupils. Kirihara hunches his shoulders and squeezes his eyes closed. He holds his hands up to protect his face.
No blow ever comes.
His shoulders sink even lower when Sanada walks off. Teammates run laps around Kirihara and he's alone, on his knees, in the middle of the court. Kirihara looks up, searching for Niou. His breath catches when he sees Niou standing near the benches. Niou is right beside Kirihara's abandoned tennisbag, which he looks at for a long, strange moment.
Kirihara scratches his scalp. He can feel warm, wet blood under his fingertips. The skin stings. But his heart stings more when Niou's chest moves. He exhales and his lips are down-turned before he joins the group of runners doing laps.
Kirihara watches Niou run beside Yagyuu. He leans into Yagyuu and whispers something. Yagyuu raises his eyebrows and looks at Niou. Their shoulders brush and Kirihara's stomach flips over.
Bile rises in his throat, but when he gags, there's nothing but red-foamed spit that comes.
***
His classmates hide his uniform in PE.
"Where is it?" he shouts. "WHERE IS IT?" Kirihara turns his backpack over. He opens his desk and flings out a pile of scribbled school notes and old mangas. A classmate snickers across the classroom, already dressed in his pants and school shirt.
Kirihara screams. He kicks the backpack and dumps it out. There's nothing. He glares at his classmates, who swarm around him like the flies in the skip behind the gymnasium. Blood rushes through his body. All the work he'd done trying to control his bloodshot modes swirls down the drain when a megane laughs at him.
"Did you check the girls' bags, Kirihara?" he asks. He laughs louder and his lenses flash. Kirihara dives for him, hands balled up and blood pooling in his eyeballs, when the teacher walks in.
Detention for fighting.
Detention for losing his uniform.
"I didn't lose it!" he shouts. He digs his fingernails into his palms to keep himself in check. He digs them in harder to keep himself from shaking the teacher when he shakes his head at Kirihara.
"He already lost it," Kimi-kun in the front row says. Her boobs jiggle when she giggles behind her hand. Kirihara, at the front of the classroom, can feel his body burning up; most of all, his face flushes.
I'm not crazy! he thinks.
But in his gym uniform, with the white t-shirt and grubby white shorts, his knees scraped up from the fight this morning, he feels exposed. He's alone up here, with the teacher lecturing him in front of the classroom about proper uniform care, and his classmates laughing at him behind knowing smirks and disgusted sneers.
Maybe he is crazy.
Maybe he should just give up and be like them.
Maybe it's not worth it.
Kirihara shuffles back to his desk. As he walks past the window, he catches sight of something white in the deep green of the willow trees on the campus grounds.
In the branches of the largest tree, half-hidden in the tendril leaves, is a shredded white uniform shirt and a cut-up pair of pants.
***
At lunch time, Yanagi stops by the classroom. He slips inside without a noise. Kirihara doesn't notice until he stops clapping the chalk brushes and hears a single cough, a throat cleared.
"How is detention going?" Yanagi asks.
Kirihara drops a brush. He glares at Yanagi, who favours him with a small, bland smile that says nothing and everything as it gathers his data.
"Piss off," Kirihara mutters.
The windows are open in the classroom. Outside, a cheery bird chirps and mocks him. Kirihara's stomach rumbles, but he's too barfy to eat. He turns his back to Yanagi and claps the brushes together. Dust clouds the air, making him sneeze and sniffle. A chair scrapes the floor and Yanagi gets up.
"Yukimura expects us to be in our best form for the season," Yanagi says. It's so obvious, Kirihara rolls his eyes. It's tempting to chuck one of the brushes at Yanagi's head and wipe the little smile off his face.
"By the way," he adds, "Bunta was looking for you."
Kirihara ignores Yanagi when he leaves and closes the door. It's left open a crack, wide enough for Kirihara to hear the students in the hallway as they walk by, eating their lunches and not on detention. The insults cut as deep as ever. A sniffle rises in Kirihara's throat, so hard that he can't hold it back when it surfaces.
He drops the brushes, grabs his bags and runs.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 32 000
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Eight months later, and Kirihara is more confused about Niou than ever. Sequel to Six Percent Doki Doki
Author's Notes: Written for pixxers' birthday- Happy Birthday, Pix! &hearts
This fic has been truncated into five parts due to length: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]
Problem one:
In math class, the teacher tells Kirihara, "I've arranged for one of the seniors to come and tutor you this afternoon after classes have finished."
The girls hear the teacher. The girls start hissing whispers around the classroom that Kirihara needs extra curricular lessons, hur hur hur, isn't he dumb? Their lipstick smiles curl up and their purple eyes roll as they point with their fluttering mascara and laugh behind their hands and sneers.
Tennis practice also happens to be after classes.
Not that it's stopped raining, either.
Problem two:
Marui sends a text message in art class. Kirihara had been working on a coil pot. Nothing fancy, just a mass of clay arranged artfully in a bowl-shaped form that looked more like a lopsided worm than anything useable. Kirihara had mud on his hands, clay on the floor and now clay in the buttons of his cellphone trying to turn the damn messaging off before the teacher took his phone away.
u need some GIRL HELP!! this Genius will send u some LOVE HELP asap (^o^)v
Kirihara groans. He presses his elbows to the table and shakes his head, moaning under his breath. His arm slips. The stool he's sitting on starts to tip forward, slow at first and controlled by his toes on the floor, but then his right sneaker slips across the linoleum.
And the clay pot he'd been working on for an hour falls onto the floor with a wet, slick plop.
Kirihara closes his eyes. His temple throbs and a pulse of blood pushes on the back of his eyeballs. He forces himself to breathe through the anger, to control his emotions as the teacher turns to the mess and the laughter begins anew.
Kirihara cleans it up. He stays late, past the bell, and his classmates step around and through his pile of sludge on the floor. Kirihara's knees hurt-he hasn't done this much kneeling since junior high, when he picked up balls as a first year the very first day of tennis practice before he figured out who those three were. Now his kneecaps roll and grind on the gritty art classroom floor, messing up his pants even more.
"Unfortunately, you'll have to take a zero on the pot project," the art teacher says. She pushes up her glasses and her broomstick skirt whirls around when she turns to go back to her desk. Kirihara can't even muster up enough effort to care that this is another class his marks will bomb in.
And it's all his fault.
Or Niou's… a little voice tells him. The voice sounds suspiciously like Marui-senpai. Kirihara touches the back of his neck and rubs the bone. It aches from being bent over like this. He sighs and scoops another handful of clay into the dustpan. Akaya, the Marui-voice says. Akaya, you know I'm only here to help.
"Yeah right," he mutters. "Like you'd get what I'm going through right now."
Why not? I'm a GENIUS!
Kirihara starts to laugh-a brittle, forced noise that bubbles up out of his throat, which only seems to get tighter and tighter the more his conflicting thoughts cloud his brain. Niou. Math mark. Niou. Art mark. Tennis. Niou. English.
Something jabs him in the shoulder. Kirihara twitches, curling his shoulder into his chest and cringing. He rolls it back to stretch the muscle and then he looks up at the clock above the watercolour Impressionist prints on the far wall. Nearly half past four. Yukimura's gonna kill him for being this late to practice. Leaning back onto his heels for a beat, Kirihara scratches his nose. Wet clay gets up his nostril; he winces and spits but mostly he ignores it.
He's pretty sure he had something else to do, too, but he can't remember what.
Huh.
A second jab pokes Kirihara, and only then does he whip his head around. In the doorway, Marui leans and looks down at him with a smirk. He lifts his hand and winks. "Hey," he says. "You finally noticed me, Akaya. Took you long enough."
"Oh," Kirihara says. His shoulders slump. Vaguely, he knows that he would have rather it be a lurking, bleached-haired senpai instead of Marui in all his gum-popping Genius glory.
Marui chews his gum. It smells like Lotte Green this time. The green scent reminds him of the autumn, and behind the tool shed, after practice, when he and Niou were putting away baskets of balls and they stayed late. Kirihara kissed him there, near the bushes, and Niou tasted like Lotte Green gum. His tongue was wet and warm and his mouth open for Kirihara. He moaned and slid his hands down Kirihara's back, right to his waistband. Niou had been hard and he pulled back with a sigh, licking his lips and looking at Kirihara through slitted black eyes that ate him up.
The memory grows more and more dim. Now, Kirihara doesn't feel the sensations electrifying his skin the way it used to. Now, Kirihara has a hard time recalling what Niou's hands felt like on his back-were they warm? Were they rough? Were they big? Were they fast and insistent, or hesitant and feathery, searching for an answer without words?
Kirihara pushes the memory away. He shakes his head and closes his eyes. They prickle with a slight sting that Kirihara shoves aside when he puts the dustpan away and grabs his bag. Marui keeps smirking from the doorway.
Maybe he's dumb in school, but the waggle of Marui's eyebrows and the way he leans nice and close to Kirihara as soon as they leave the classroom is something even he can get.
"Girl problems," Marui says.
Kirihara says nothing. He walks faster. Then, he turns heel and Marui walks into him, before jumping back with a scowl.
"Oi!"
"Senpai," Kirihara says. He uses a firm voice and makes sure to look down at Marui, knowing it irritates Marui down there. Any other time, it might be funny. Right now, the knowledge of laps and punishment from Sanada weight heavily on him, heavier than all the textbooks in his bag.
"Senpai, don't we have practice?"
Marui blows another bubble. The green smell makes Kirihara stiffen as it permeates the air, thicker than the nitrogen in the atmosphere and the vague smell of bleach and lemon cleaner from the students scrubbing the other end of the hallway. Marui chews loudly, then he taps the window pane. It's open a crack at the bottom, blowing cool misty air inside.
"Yukimura's there, yeah, but the rest of us aren't. Courts are too wet and the soccer team filched the gym first." Kirihara blinks and Marui takes the opportunity to snicker and wiggle his finger, telling Kirihara off with a glow to his eyes that says only one thing.
"We're off to pick up chicks and save you from turning into a hikikomori. Unlike some people…" Marui adds. His eyes shift left. Kirihara follows them and he sucks in a breath when the echoing footsteps give way to someone walking past them.
Niou.
Kirihara stands up tall and his tongue catches in his throat, along with his voice. Marui says something, but Kirihara doesn't hear a word. He tries to speak, he tries to say Niou's name and get his attention, but his mouth doesn't open and he can't move, he can't do anything except watch. Time slows and swells and moves in slow-motion as Niou moves, shuffles, walks right past him without so much as lifting his head in recognition. His eyes are glued to the floor, dark and grey like the sky outside, but they reflect nothing except the linoleum below. His hair falls over his face and there are black roots, maybe an inch or two, all along his scalp.
Kirihara never noticed that before.
Senpai… he thinks.
And then, as soon as he showed up, Niou is gone behind them and time fast-forwards, a rush of colours and blurred motions and the faintest scent of Niou: his fresh shampoo and green gum and hair product and hurt.
Kirihara's mouth falls open.
Marui says, "This Genius is going to take you to pick-up central. We are going to Shibuya 109-"
A train chugs by, tatan tatan tatan rattling on the tracks and someone squeaks a mop down the other end of the corridor. Kirihara shakes his head furiously. His insides squeeze and contract and he can still smell Niou, more and more, swirling around him so much that the air is choked from his lungs and he has to gasp to breath. "No!" he says. Kirihara slams his fist against the window ledge closest to him. "NO!" he shouts.
"Jeez, Akaya. Lighten up!" Marui snaps. He snaps his gum, blowing a bubble backwards into his mouth before wrapping his tongue around it again and chewing some more. "I'm just here to help. Don't take it if you don't want it."
Kirihara swallows. His face twists up and falls as Marui's lip curls more and he rolls his eyes. Guilt pokes Kirihara between the ribs, but he can't stop seeing Niou's dead eyes out of the corner of his vision, walking past in slow, slowest motion and it makes him sick inside. Bile rises in his throat and clay clogs his nose. Kirihara looks back over his shoulder: there is no one down the hallway.
Niou is gone.
"Hn," Marui says. "You know, you seem really weird around Niou all the time."
Kirihara spins back around. His eyes snap open, widening so huge that they go dry. He tries to breathe out and keep cool, but Marui looks up at him and takes a small step back. Then he inches further away, one careful step at a time. Kirihara starts to breathe faster. Panic sets into his pulse. His heart races, pounding against his ribs in perpendicular rhythm to the rain falling outside.
"And you both have those really gay charms on your bags," Marui says.
Kirihara pants. He swallows hard, but the wool lump forming in his throat doesn't leave. His hands are so sweaty that they slip off the window ledge.
Marui takes another step back. His lips tighten. "I don't believe you that your sister gave it to you. I think you're a f-"
Fight or flight sets in. He could punch Marui in the face and shut him up. He could turn the other way and catch up with Niou. He could slam Marui's round face into the wall to see if his sneer slides off. He could shove it aside with a forced laugh and run out to the courts and scream at someone for a game.
He can't do it all.
Kirihara runs.
***
The rain clears up, partly, by the time Kirihara gets home and slams the front door. The bus was wet and miserable, packed with students and OLs, and everything smelled like rank sweat and old geranium perfume. The road was wet and miserable. Kirihara lost count how many times he stepped in puddles in the cracks of the pavement. His sides ache from running to the bus stop. He's red in the face and cold everywhere else.
Marui's words cut him.
Marui knows.
Kirihara gags into the bed of flowers outside the apartment building. He can't breathe in the elevator-it's too stuffy and confined and the words keep echoing in his ear, matching the curl of Marui's lip and the way he backed off, his Genius realizing that Kirihara was infected with gay germs.
He punches the wall of the elevator. He screams and punches all the floor buttons, then he screams again. No one can hear him. No one can see him slide to the floor and moan, rocking back and forth over his bags because he doesn't know what to do anymore.
There is no one home.
But there is a message on his cellphone. Fifteen, actually.
Kirihara shakes when he opens the first one. Bile rushes to the back of his mouth and stings his tongue. He gags again, but he doesn't puke. Kirihara shakes his head and makes funny noises, so low and animalistic that he doesn't recognize them as his own until he feels the vibrations against the back of his teeth.
The first is from Jackal.
UR GAY??????? :O :O :O
He screams so loud that his throat is burned raw. Kirihara cranks his window open and throws his cellphone out as hard and as far as he can. His screams dull the sound of the phone cracking on the pavement. It breaks into a hundred pieces, shattering like the ribs in his chest when he slumps to the floor.
***
His sister comes home first. It's dark out. The rain has stopped and left a cold trail that filters into Kirihara's bedroom. The lights of his Playstation glow in the corner, underneath a stack of comics. His eyes blur the lights. He stares at them, and through them. He doesn't know if he's been crying, but his face is wet and his eyes are itchy.
They feel bloodshot. And not from tennis.
There is a vague, hollow strain of voices from outside, in the kitchen maybe. The answering machine beeps, voices come and go. Another beep, another message. Kirihara can make out the occasional word, "fag" "gay" "Akaya".
He lies on the floor and breathes in the dust bunnies along his baseboard. He can hear the knock on his doorway and his sister calling his name. "You're really dumb this time, Aka-chan," she says. "What's all this shit about you being a fag?"
The words sink in, through his damp skin and tight muscles and into his bones, his marrow, his mind. Kirihara sits up and his head throbs, his brain pressed to his skull and pushing at his eyes. "Shut up!" he says. He takes a deep, shuddered breath and tries again. "Shut up! SHUT UP YOU STUPID BITCH!"
The door handle rattles, but he must have locked it before. His sister bangs on the door and shouts, "Don't be so fucking obnoxious, you little brat! The machine's swamped with your gay friends' messages!" She bangs again. He cringes at the pulsing pain in his skull, pounding on the inside and making his vision fuzzier and grey. He hiccups, then gags, then hiccups and gags at once so hard in his lungs that they burst in a congealed, bloody mess all over his floor.
She keeps banging. Kirihara flops back down on the floor and covers his ears, screaming right back at her to shut the fuck up. He keeps yelling. "SHUT UP! FUCKING SHUT UP!" She keeps banging and only when the noises are cracked and broken and his throat too raw to scream does he stop.
Silence.
Except for a single cricket and the music of a dorama on tv in the main room of the apartment. It's a love song, too, sad and sung by a pop star, probably, who warbles about one love and always feeling and souls and hearts.
Kirihara's heart has stopped entirely. He presses his palm to his chest and feels nothing.
***
He stays awake until half-past two. His mom came home at eight. His dad didn't come home at all-probably out with coworkers and drunk in a ditch or at work overnight. In the morning, he comes when Kirihara is asleep. He grabs his suitcase and goes off to LA for another business trip. Kirihara doesn't notice, but his fitful dream involves the sound of a door slamming.
Niou was behind it. His eyes were cloudy and his face blank. Kirihara pried at the lock, but it never opened. Niou left.
He wakes up, flopping in a cold sweat. The A/C is on, even colder, and his window is open. There is nothing but the sound of early trains and the low bellows of bullfrogs, somewhere in a canal across the road. Kirihara huddles under his blankets, but he's wide awake. Yesterday floods back in an instant.
No wonder he feels like he's been run over by a bicycle three times. His hair crawls. His skin is clammy and smelly and when he reaches over to grab his cellphone and check the time, his hand finds nothing on his table except a fistful of candy wrappers and dog-eared notes. His tennis list is gone too.
A pigeon coos outside his window, the noise seeping through the seal. Then a crow caws, solitary in the grey morning, just before dawn. Kirihara drags himself into the shower. He stands under the spray of water, head hung low as it sluices through his hair and drips down his face, getting in his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He stands under the water long enough for his fingertips to turn pruney. Kirihara sucks on a shriveled fingertip, feeling the ridged skin on his tongue. He chews a nail, then slaps his palm to the tile wall. His stomach is beyond knotted-it's crawled out of his body up through his throat. He tries to think about Niou. He tries to think about what he can say to his senpais and his friends.
But he's got nothing.
There is no one awake when he eats breakfast at the table. Bread sticks to the roof of his mouth and tastes ashen. The rice from last night-he assumed-is too dried out. His mom popped it in the fridge without clingfilm on top. It clogs his throat when he swallows. The answering machine flashes, a red light by the phone, and Kirihara knows what those messages are about. He stares at the blinking light, feeling something build up inside, harder and harder as he balls his fist and clenches his jaw. He seethes through his teeth and spit flies.
"Shit!"
The cord rips from the wall. It rips from the machine and the light goes dim. He bunches it in his fist and tries to shred it into pieces, but the plastic catches and pulls, but not more, despite his growling.
It still doesn't feel any better.
He walks to school. He takes his tennisbag, catches the bus, and walks the rest of the way. The morning air bites his skin and he shivers under his jacket. Kirihara squints through the first rays of the sun that stream through the rows of houses in the suburbs. His shoes crunch on the moist gravel and the last of the crickets from last night go to bed.
Inside, he feels empty. The closer he gets to school, the slower his pace becomes. Kirihara doesn't know what to say or do, but his feet keep moving. His tennisbag keeps bouncing on his right shoulder, and his backpack on his left. The courts are a mess of clay and bleeding white lines, mud and torn leaves from yesterday's rain.
Sanada hits balls across a court. Kirihara's bags fall to the ground as his shoulders slump. Sanada throws a ball up high, arches back, bents his knees and he snaps his body through a serve, like he's slicing the air with a sword and charging forward. It's fast and the whoosh zooms right by Kirihara. His shirt flutters. Sanada looks up and his eyes flash under his baseball cap. He bounces the next ball on the ground, but he doesn't toss it up.
Instead, he looks at Kirihara. Sanada raises his eyebrows when Kirihara keeps standing there, motionless. Kirihara shifts his weight. Gay germs crawl all over his body and radiate off. He shivers. His face feels too warm and the anger from yesterday courses through his veins. Pressure builds behind his eyes and there is a new coil of tension in his belly. Kirihara can hear himself breathing hard. When he looks down at his numb hand, he can see his knuckles are white.
"Well?" Sanada asks.
Aren’t you afraid of gay germs?! he wants to shout. Aren't you going to ask me about gay shit and fags and what Marui told the whole school, fukubuchou?!?
Sanada throws the ball. It bounces in front of Kirihara's sneakers. Sanada snorts.
"Get on the court," he says.
Kirihara blinks. He does a double-take, eyeing Sanada for a moment because fukuobuchou just stands there and looks at him with a weird little smile than makes Kirihara's insides twist up. He waits for Sanada to say something more, to call him a lazy ass and tell him to get his ass into gear for three hundred laps for being a fag and wanting to touch guys, but Sanada doesn't.
"Well?" he asks.
Kirihara unzips his bag. The unicorn charm jingles against the nylon fabric, catching the golden light of the morning and sparkling up at him. The horn glows. Seeing it there, smiling with wide, cute eyes makes Kirihara choke on a thick lump. Niou has the same charm.
His stomach churns.
Kirihara stuffs it into his bag and closes the zipper up on it. No one can see it this way, but his stomach doesn't settle, not even when he stands on the court opposite Sanada and bounces the ball. Tennis used to be a relief, tennis used to be fun, and a challenge sometimes. Kirihara looks at Sanada, who leans low and sways to the right-fukubuchou expects a low ball, angled and arced, almost like a snake. He's expecting Kirihara to snap himself into his game full-out to start.
Instead, Kirihara serves a lob.
Sanada bursts out laughing. "What is that?" he shouts. He swings hard and the ball shwooshes across the net. Kirihara runs for it, grinding his teeth and charging to the ball to catch it just in time with a backhand that he flings back. Sanada rolls his eyes. He laughs again, snorting and telling Kirihara he's getting careless.
"Didn't you want to be number one?" he asks.
Kirihara seethes. He doesn't really want to be playing with Sanada. He doesn't really want to be playing with anyone else. All he really wants to do is to slam tennis balls into the brick walls of the school so hard that they burst open and bleed and feel the confusion inside that he feels, twisted up and messed up and tangled. He grinds his teeth harder, hard enough to make his jaw spark with pain. Kirihara digs his fingernails into his racket and split-steps to the left, throwing himself into his next shot. It's messy, but calculated at the same time. The ball rolls over the racket face and gathers enough of a spin that it sings in the air, curving away from Sanada and making him run this time.
Sanada flips the game around-he always does, he always has and Kirihara can feel the anger and tension rise as Sanada swings his arm back. It's a ground smash, he's invading the court and there's a fire in Sanada's eyes as he cuts the ball with his racket. Kirihara screams. He's sick of this: he's sick of losing, he's sick of being less than number one, he's sick of all the fucked up shit right now and-
"RAAAAAH!"
He screams. He screams so loud that his throat is burnt raw and bleeds and his eyes pop out and his body twitches and stiffens and falls forward, then back, then limp and there is something flowing through his veins, soft and silken and electric all at once.
Then he's floating in the State of Self-Actualization.
Kirihara moves his arm an inch. His racket swings a meter. He experiences in slow motion and his body moves in an instant. Sanada shakes his head and yells, "You can self-actualize all you want, but if you can't control yourself it's pointless!"
His words ring in the air, but they're hollow in Kirihara's ears.
Huh, he thinks.
He doesn't really think. He can't really see anything but the ball making steady, easy arcs across the net. He stretches and hits it. The ball bounces gently on his racket and the impact makes a pleasant little ping sound. Kirihara's hand, arm, and his entire body tingle with numbness, like his muscles have all gone to sleep. He looks down as the ball starts to move from his racket gut-it's slow enough that he could wave his hand in front of it and the ball wouldn't touch his fingers.
Huh, he thinks.
It's been a while since he's played Sanada this hard. It's been a while since he's self-actualized. When he played Niou in September of last year, when everything between them was fresh and new, they both glowed and floated across the court, connected by a red thread across the net…
Niou…
Kirihara slumps onto his knees. Sanada smashes into his baseline and the world crashes down in a leaden weight.
***
One by one they show up, and one by one, they slink past him and snicker.
"Fag."
"Cocksucker."
"Pillowbiter."
"Asslicker."
"Sicko."
Each time, each barb that pierces Kirihara through the chest, he winces. He fights back and shouts, "Fuck off!" and "I'll crush you!" but more and more they are the ones crushing him. Try as he might, he can't fight the collective crowd.
Oikawa, a senior, the one before Niou-senpai on his list, looks at Kirihara and scrunches his face up. Kirihara remembers the one-set match they played last year, and the way Oikawa's Adam's Apple bobbed with fear. Kirihara remembers how the blood started to pump under his skin, through his veins and muscles and bones all the way from his toes to his eyeballs. Thump thump, thump thump. It was a rush of satisfaction, even before the game, and then five times as good after he won.
Now, his blood is cold and crawls through his body. Now, his veins constrict and twist up in his limbs, pinching off feeling to his toes. His eyes are huge and dry when Oikawa spits, "Faggot!" at him. Kirihara shakes in his sneakers as Oikawa pushes into his shoulder, shoving him aside with a little sneer and a noise in the back of his throat. Kirihara's balance is off and he can't side-step out of the way. He stumbles. His heart pounds against his ribs, no more doki doki and elation. This time, his heart slams into his rib cage and presses on his lungs the other way. This time, Kirihara growls and balls his fist and he lunges with a scream.
Oikawa's head slams into the pavement and something new fills Kirihara, something that makes his body hum all over and his skin tingle. He digs his hands deeper into Oikawa's scalp, feeling the hot skin and hair under his hands and the hotter, wetter blood too. Oikawa kicks him in the leg. Pain sears through his knee, but Kirihara bites back another scream to smash Oikawa back down. They roll over, fighting for control and someone else shouts. Kirihara doubles over with a fresh jolt to his stomach, which only makes him smash harder and harder, faster and faster until Oikawa becomes a rag doll in his hands.
"Stop! Kirihara-kun!"
Yagyuu.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Sanada.
"AKAYA!"
Yanagi.
Kirihara whips his head around. Spit flies. His eye stings. He swings a blind shot and hits soft, yielding flesh. Oikawa punches his arm again and Kirihara seethes, struggling through the arms pulling him back away. He has to crush Oikawa and feed the insatiable need inside his shaking body to shut Oikawa's fucking hole up!
"Fuck you!" Kirihara shouts. "Fuck you, asshole!" Sanada steps in front of him, his eyes blazing under his cap, but it's nothing to Kirihara. He pulls away from someone's grip and dives around Sanada's side. Sanada's faster than him, faster than lightning, and he grabs Kirihara in a squeeze to the ribs until they start to crack. Kirihara gasps, winded for a moment, and he trips forward into Sanada.
He lands on the ground, on his knees, panting and sucking in air that floods his lungs in a painful burst. The crowd of teammates around him snickers and laughs, five, ten, fifty leering faces all laughing at him.
Buchou steps forward as the masses part. They fall into silence as Yukimura's tennis jacket blows behind his back and billows up. His lips are tight and his eyes narrow when he looks at Kirihara. Kirihara breathes through his nose, nostrils flaring and hands unsteady on the gravelly clay court.
"What is going on?" Yukimura asks. His voice is low and steady and, above all, dangerous. Yukimura glances from Kirihara to Oikawa, then back again. The sleeves of his jacket swish in the soft breeze that seems to whip up all around him.
"He started it," Oikawa says. With the back of his hand, he wipes his mouth and smears blood across his chin. Kirihara can't remember punching him there, but he can taste metallic blood in his own mouth too.
"No!" Kirihara snaps. "You're the fucker who-"
"Akaya!" Sanada shouts. He raises his fist and Kirihara winces in anticipation, but Yukimura holds his hand up first. Sanada backs down.
"Everyone!" Yukimura says. "100 laps for standing around!"
The crowds start to move, pouring out onto the edge of the courts. Sneakers slap the baselines, but the back of Kirihara's neck still prickles. The team is still watching him, still judging him. His ears perk up and pick up the whispered "faggots" that hang heavy in the damp, morning air.
"Oikawa," Yukimura says. "Get to the school nurse."
Oikawa stumbles to his feet and hobbles off. He's covered in cuts and bruises on his knees. Blood dribbles down his chin from his nose and his left eye is swollen shut and purpling. Kirihara's body throbs with indeterminate pains, jabs and stabs here and there. He wipes his mouth. He spits out a wad of blood onto the court, foaming spit and red by the net when Yukimura says,
"I don't care what this is about-we're here to play tennis."
Then, Yukimura walks off. His racket hangs in his hand, at his side, and his back is turned to Kirihara. His dark hair catches the light, like a halo, as he disappears into a stream of sunlight on the far courts.
Sanada lingers longer. He looms over Kirihara, his shadow long and deep and dark, cast over Kirihara's face. The only light inside are his eyes, white rims around hard, black pupils. Kirihara hunches his shoulders and squeezes his eyes closed. He holds his hands up to protect his face.
No blow ever comes.
His shoulders sink even lower when Sanada walks off. Teammates run laps around Kirihara and he's alone, on his knees, in the middle of the court. Kirihara looks up, searching for Niou. His breath catches when he sees Niou standing near the benches. Niou is right beside Kirihara's abandoned tennisbag, which he looks at for a long, strange moment.
Kirihara scratches his scalp. He can feel warm, wet blood under his fingertips. The skin stings. But his heart stings more when Niou's chest moves. He exhales and his lips are down-turned before he joins the group of runners doing laps.
Kirihara watches Niou run beside Yagyuu. He leans into Yagyuu and whispers something. Yagyuu raises his eyebrows and looks at Niou. Their shoulders brush and Kirihara's stomach flips over.
Bile rises in his throat, but when he gags, there's nothing but red-foamed spit that comes.
***
His classmates hide his uniform in PE.
"Where is it?" he shouts. "WHERE IS IT?" Kirihara turns his backpack over. He opens his desk and flings out a pile of scribbled school notes and old mangas. A classmate snickers across the classroom, already dressed in his pants and school shirt.
Kirihara screams. He kicks the backpack and dumps it out. There's nothing. He glares at his classmates, who swarm around him like the flies in the skip behind the gymnasium. Blood rushes through his body. All the work he'd done trying to control his bloodshot modes swirls down the drain when a megane laughs at him.
"Did you check the girls' bags, Kirihara?" he asks. He laughs louder and his lenses flash. Kirihara dives for him, hands balled up and blood pooling in his eyeballs, when the teacher walks in.
Detention for fighting.
Detention for losing his uniform.
"I didn't lose it!" he shouts. He digs his fingernails into his palms to keep himself in check. He digs them in harder to keep himself from shaking the teacher when he shakes his head at Kirihara.
"He already lost it," Kimi-kun in the front row says. Her boobs jiggle when she giggles behind her hand. Kirihara, at the front of the classroom, can feel his body burning up; most of all, his face flushes.
I'm not crazy! he thinks.
But in his gym uniform, with the white t-shirt and grubby white shorts, his knees scraped up from the fight this morning, he feels exposed. He's alone up here, with the teacher lecturing him in front of the classroom about proper uniform care, and his classmates laughing at him behind knowing smirks and disgusted sneers.
Maybe he is crazy.
Maybe he should just give up and be like them.
Maybe it's not worth it.
Kirihara shuffles back to his desk. As he walks past the window, he catches sight of something white in the deep green of the willow trees on the campus grounds.
In the branches of the largest tree, half-hidden in the tendril leaves, is a shredded white uniform shirt and a cut-up pair of pants.
***
At lunch time, Yanagi stops by the classroom. He slips inside without a noise. Kirihara doesn't notice until he stops clapping the chalk brushes and hears a single cough, a throat cleared.
"How is detention going?" Yanagi asks.
Kirihara drops a brush. He glares at Yanagi, who favours him with a small, bland smile that says nothing and everything as it gathers his data.
"Piss off," Kirihara mutters.
The windows are open in the classroom. Outside, a cheery bird chirps and mocks him. Kirihara's stomach rumbles, but he's too barfy to eat. He turns his back to Yanagi and claps the brushes together. Dust clouds the air, making him sneeze and sniffle. A chair scrapes the floor and Yanagi gets up.
"Yukimura expects us to be in our best form for the season," Yanagi says. It's so obvious, Kirihara rolls his eyes. It's tempting to chuck one of the brushes at Yanagi's head and wipe the little smile off his face.
"By the way," he adds, "Bunta was looking for you."
Kirihara ignores Yanagi when he leaves and closes the door. It's left open a crack, wide enough for Kirihara to hear the students in the hallway as they walk by, eating their lunches and not on detention. The insults cut as deep as ever. A sniffle rises in Kirihara's throat, so hard that he can't hold it back when it surfaces.
He drops the brushes, grabs his bags and runs.