Fic: Ad Interim (for aoiyuzu)

[redpocket]

Author/Artist: giving_ground
For: aoiyuzu

Title: Ad Interim
Characters: Yagyuu/Niou/Yukimura, Yagyuu/Niou, unrequited Yukimura/Sanada.
Rating: NC-17

Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is property of Konomi Takeshi. No profit is being made from this fanwork.
Warnings: Yukimura's imagination. Niou's lack of shame.
Summary: Uncertainty can lead to frustration; living with Niou can lead to all sorts of interesting things. (University fic.)
Notes: I hope you enjoy this, aoiyuzu, and that it's somewhere near what you had in mind (or a good alternative if not). Thanks to A and various other partners in crime for your help.

Comments are love~!



Something thudded against the door of his room, and someone outside swore quietly, an exhaled hiss of breath; there was the sound of things being rearranged, put back on the table in the hallway maybe, and muffled laughter.

"Shit," Niou's unmistakable voice said, more amused than remorseful, "bet that woke Yukimura up."

Yukimura rolled over and pulled the sheets closer around him, pretending he couldn't hear anything.

Out in the corridor Niou gave a faint gasp, another. Perhaps he'd brought home some girl; it would be a first, but stranger things had happened. Frequently, even. With Niou, anything was possible.

Another voice murmured something, too low to hear, but it was enough to make Yukimura do a mental double-take.

That voice sounded more than a little masculine.

"Ah," Niou said, and then, "Yagyuu--"

Yagyuu. Really? There'd been moments when he'd suspected, but...

Yukimura lay there in the darkness, far too awake, and tried not to listen to two of his friends all but having sex in the hall outside his room: heavy breathing and unmistakable noises of pleasure, whispered words, another dull thud and a sharp hiss of breath.

Perhaps in the morning he'd go out and buy some earplugs, just in case.

Yagyuu was there in the morning, sitting at Niou's desk to eat breakfast while Niou himself lounged against the wall, cup of coffee in hand.

Yukimura gave them a cursory nod and made straight for the kitchen in search of something to make him feel somewhat closer to alive. He hadn't slept well the previous night, to say the least.

"Good morning," Yagyuu called politely after his retreating back.

"Don't bother," he heard Niou say. "He ain't human first thing in the morning."

"You speak as if you're an authority, Niou Masaharu," Yukimura told him, sticking his head back out into the living area to give Niou a token glare. "I don't remember the last time you even saw a morning since you stopped playing tennis. What happened to get you up today?"

If he tried really hard he could pretend he didn't know what Niou and Yagyuu sounded like having sex; could just block the whole thing from his mind. He could imagine what had got Niou out of bed today. Possibly better than he would have liked.

Niou smirked at him. "I see plenty of mornings."

"From the wrong side, usually," Yagyuu put in.

"This is bullying," Niou protested.

"This is the truth," Yagyuu murmured. "If you can't handle it..."

Yukimura ducked back into the kitchen and resolutely did not remember Yagyuu murmuring other things late at night, barely audible through the walls.

He fell asleep in his morning class until Sanada nudged him awake again, and then spent time staring right through the lecturer without really registering anything he was saying. It didn't make much of a functional difference to how many notes he took or the extent to which he understood what was being taught, but usually he did a better job of pretending to pay attention at least.

"Lend me your notes?" he asked Sanada as they left. Sanada raised an eyebrow at him mock-stern.

"Perhaps try making some of your own."

"Mmm. I didn't sleep well last night."

"Are you alright?"

"Sure. I just got more details on Niou's sex life than I wanted." Sanada was beginning to look just a little shocked. "Our flat has really thin walls," Yukimura clarified, laughing at his expression.

"Please don't share," Sanada said, with mild distaste. "I have to eat lunch in a minute."

By the time Yukimura got home that evening the flat was mercifully empty, and when Niou eventually showed up he was alone.

Yukimura ignored him in favour of pretending to work, staring at his laptop, typing sentences and deleting them again over and over.

"Deadline soon?" Niou asked, emerging from the kitchen and dropping into a chair, bowl of noodles in hand.

"Soon enough," Yukimura told him, fixing his attention more firmly on the screen. Tomorrow, actually, but he'd been a little off all day, and it'd been hard to get anything much done. He needed a few less distractions, and Niou was distracting by nature -- even at the best of times.

"You're ratty today."

"I didn't sleep well."

"Oh, really?"

"I can't imagine why."

"Sarcasm," Niou said, "isn't nice." Yukimura looked up at him, sceptical. Niou shrugged. "What? Never said I was nice."

Yukimura shook his head. "I don't know why I agreed to live with you."

"'Cause of my natural charm and charisma."

"Sure. Now take your natural charm and charisma somewhere else, I need to work."

Niou snorted, but he did take himself off to his room, leaving Yukimura to try and think.

It wasn't really working. At least he should be able to sleep well tonight.

Yagyuu started coming and going more after that, travelling up from Kyoto where he was studying Medicine. Niou and Yukimura had stayed at Rikkai, but Niou's family had moved on, leaving Niou with a flat and instructions to find a flatmate to help with his rent.

It seemed to work out well enough for everyone, although Yukimura was beginning to wonder exactly what he had let himself in for.

Tonight, for example, the bed in Niou's room was creaking in a suspicious sort of way. At least they'd made it to the bed this time, Yukimura thought irritably. Not that it made much difference to the sound levels, but at least he knew he could go to the bathroom without getting an eyeful.

Speaking of which.

It wasn't that he really wanted to think about what Niou and Yagyuu looked like having sex, but somehow, with the noises coming through his bedroom wall, it was hard to avoid. It was like someone telling you not to think about pink elephants; it'd never normally come to mind, but once it had...

Almost against his will Yukimura imagined Yagyuu on his hands and knees on the bed, Niou leaning over him, rubbing up against him or maybe thrusting into him; imagined that the sudden hitch in someone's breathing was Niou's hand finding Yagyuu's cock, curling around it, jerking roughly. They would work well together, he was sure -- they'd always worked well together, so well that he'd sometimes wondered if there was something more to it. But it'd only been an idle thought, something to amuse himself with when his brain was more active than his body could keep up with. Actually knowing what they were doing was something entirely different.

By the time they seemed to be finishing Yukimura was half hard and restless, not to mention disturbed.

did you know niou and yagyuu are together? Yukimura typed, and hit send.

I believe they have been for some time Renji sent back a day or two later.

you could've warned me.

Where would the fun have been in that? I was wondering when you would notice.

Yukimura stared at the message. "Renji, you're an asshole sometimes."

about when they started having loud sex in the middle of the night

I suppose this is why Genichirou has been commenting on your poor concentration lately. He's worried about you, you know.

why would my flatmate having sex damage my concentration? Yukimura sent.

Renji didn't reply. Email silence really shouldn't have been able to feel so pointed.

Damn him.

"Hey," Niou said, cheerful in a way which had to be deliberately obnoxious, "I've got beer, and Yagyuu bailed on me. Come and get drunk in a park somewhere. Drown my sorrows."

"I have work."

"You always have work. Tonight your mission is to see how many cans of Asahi you can drink before you fall off the pavement in front of a bus. You don't get a choice about accepting or whatever."

"You're a git, Niou."

"I'm a git who's offering you free booze and a taste of the world outside the university campus. C'mon, I know you have an obsessive personality, but seriously."

There was a determined glint in his eye. While it was entirely possible to get Niou to leave him alone it always led to more long-term discomfort than it was really worth, and he didn't seem to be getting on very well tonight anyway.

Yukimura sighed and closed his laptop, standing up and stretching the stiffness out of his limbs.

"Fine. You win. You'd better not be lying about the amount of alcohol on offer."

"I wouldn't lie to you," Niou said, his expression probably intended to be the very picture of innocence.

"Hmm," Yukimura said, as it seemed to be all the necessary commentary, and went to put on some warmer clothes.

They sat on a bench overlooking the river, drinking from cans of only vaguely cool beer. Yukimura watched reflected lights blur and sharpen on the surface of the water where the current was strong, and thought about how he would describe them if he was writing. In his head it sounded good, but by the time he got a chance to try the words would probably be dry and dead. Oh well.

Easy come, easy go -- or something like that.

Niou's attitude was obviously working its way into his mind along with the alcohol.

"If Sanada could see this," Niou said, chuckled. "Underage and drunk in public. Ain't it beautiful?"

"Tarundoru," Yukimura intoned, and then, "is this what you usually do with Yagyuu?"

"Not exactly."

No, Yukimura thought, probably not exactly.

He took a swallow of beer to try and fight off the image of Niou and Yagyuu together here, hands sliding under clothing, stolen touches.

It fit into his mind surprisingly easily. Yagyuu had never been all that proper when Niou was around, had only pretended to be. It hadn't escaped Yukimura's attention, the way those two had drawn out things hidden in each other. Even thirteen year old boys could be emotionally aware if they had nothing much to do for months on end but lie in bed and think, and had been a bit odd to start with.

"Whatever," Niou said eventually. "He's an asshole for bailing anyway."

"What a nice way to talk about your--"

"--friend," Niou finished, sounding as firm as possible while slurring words; gesticulated with his beer can for emphasis. "My special friend."

"Who you have noisy sex with more or less every week."

"Yeah. Friends share. Hey, you been listening in every time?"

"It's been a little unavoidable."

"Coulda listened to music. Blocked us out."

Yukimura shook his head and kept drinking, fuzzily aware that he'd probably regret it in the morning but too far gone already for the thought to seem important.

"Pervert," Niou drawled. It was later, and it took Yukimura's brain a moment to sort through the conversations they'd had, trying to find a connection of some kind.

"What?"

"Listening to us having sex. You like it?"

"I'm not as sick as you, Niou."

"Sure, whatever. I bet you-- oh, shit." Niou's phone began to buzz, and Yukimura had to fight down laughter as Niou hunted through pocket after pocket for it, hauling it out after a struggle. There was a cute cat ornament dangling from it. Yukimura stared. "Hi, asswipe."

An indistinct voice said something from the other end of the phoneline.

"Yeah, pretty good. No thanks to you."

More of the quiet noise from the phone, a gentle rise and fall, the sound of someone being Reasonable in the face of a drunk Niou. Brave or Suicidal.

"Fuck yeah I'm drunk. You think I'm gonna let perfectly good alcohol just sit there until you decide to show up?"

Pause, murmur, murmur.

"Hell with that. Yukimura's here drinking with me. Maybe I'll fuck him too, seeing as you're so busy."

In the darkness Niou's eyes were even more unreadable than usual, black and still, a little glazed. Yukimura tried to smack him lightly across the shoulder, almost missed. "Don't drag me into your little domestic, thank you."

Niou smirked at him. Yagyuu was saying something again, and Niou's expression shifted just a bit. Yukimura couldn't say what it meant, not right now. But it meant something. "Yeah, that's true," he said into the phone. "You do, at that. Huh. Have fun with immunolo-whatsit." He hung up, slumped lower on the bench, eyes drifting half closed.

"I'm not planning on carrying you back to the flat," Yukimura pointed out, just in case.

"You'd leave me to freeze to death and get eaten by stray cats. Heartless."

"You'd deserve it."

Niou laughed, reached for the beer; not much left. "One more, then."

Yukimura thought about this very slowly and carefully, and nodded. "Okay."

"I propose a toast," Niou said, raised his can, looking sidelong at Yukimura. "To absent partners and oblivious crushes."

"Oblivious crushes?"

"What, he isn't oblivious?"

"Do you really stick your nose in everyone's business?"

"Nah, that's your job. This is just revenge."

Yukimura rolled his eyes, but he did knock his can clumsily against Niou's too. "Absent partners and oblivious crushes, then."

"Yanno," Niou mumbled when they were almost home, leaning against each other, weaving just a little back and forth across the pavement, "was lying about Yagyuu. We ain't friends, more like... more like..." he shrugged, almost dislodged Yukimura's arm from his shoulder made both of them stumble slightly. "He's just... Yagyuu... y'know? We're..."

"You're wasted, is what you are," Yukimura told him. There were some things he didn't actually particularly want to hear Niou be honest about. It was just weird and uncomfortable to hear Niou come close to talking about feelings in a way that hearing him talk about sex just wasn't, even with all the weird thoughts in Yukimura's head lately.

Niou laughed, sounding almost bitter, though Yukimura wasn't sure why. "You too, captain. You too."

The morning was hell.

"Are you ill?" Sanada asked. "You should be in bed if you are."

"Fuck off," Yukimura mumbled, slumping forwards onto his notebook. "'M not sick."

"Ah."

"I can feel your disapproval. Stop it. It's making my head hurt."

"I'm inclined to believe whatever you drank last night is making your head hurt," Sanada told him. "It serves you right." He sounded amused. It wasn't funny.

"Yeah, thanks for the sympathy."

Sanada snorted quietly, and Yukimura buried his face against his arms, blocking out as much of the world as he could. Oblivious crushes, indeed.

He should probably just resign himself to the fact that Sanada was never going to clue in, although resignation had really never come easily to him.

Pretending to concentrate on accounting or whatever this lecture even was proved more challenging than usual.

Yukimura had hoped Niou might not have remembered what they'd talked about that night -- he'd never mentioned it in conversation since -- but the next time Yagyuu actually did visit it began to seem as though that was pure wishful thinking.

"Ah," Niou was saying, all too clear, obviously enjoying himself, "mm, fuck. Fuck me. Aah, that's good, yeah..."

"I can hurt you," Yukimura mumbled, as though Niou could actually hear him. He covered his eyes with a hand, rubbed at them, sighing tiredly -- but his imagination was already taking over.

Yagyuu said something breathless-sounding, muffled, as though he was speaking against Niou's skin -- Yagyuu's body pressed to Niou's, Yagyuu's face against Niou's shoulder, their fingers tangled together, Yagyuu pushing into Niou hard and fast. Yagyuu looking disheveled, halfway to being Niou, wild and intense.

Yukimura's hand was between his legs without him having decided to put it there, touching himself, taking his cock from half hard to almost aching far too quickly. Maybe Yagyuu would bite at Niou's shoulder, making Niou hiss. Maybe he would refuse to touch Niou's cock at all, tease him until he was almost ready to beg. That intrigued him: Niou losing his precious control, begging anyone for anything, even just for a moment. God. If anyone could make that happen it'd be Yagyuu, surely.

His fingers tightened, and he stroked himself harder, urgently, his free hand pressed against his mouth to keep himself safely quiet.

Pervert, Niou's voice said in his head, an echo. I bet you--

Yukimura tensed and came, biting his hand, and collapsed back against the bed, exhausted.

He cleaned himself up as best he could without chancing leaving the room and let himself drift, trying to ignore Yagyuu and Niou.

It had probably been far too long since he had sex himself, really. Too much time chasing after Sanada and being frustrated again and again, focusing too hard on too many other things. He hadn't even realised he was really this frustrated, but apparently there was enough there to prompt repeated fantasies about his flatmate. This new awareness wasn't entirely welcome.

He wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep with so much going on in his mind, but somehow it was morning again before he knew it.

Sometimes girls on their course asked Sanada out. Yukimura had thought it was a really high school sort of phenomenon, but apparently he'd been wrong, at least where Sanada was concerned. He didn't get asked out at all, himself.

"You always say no," Yukimura told him, poking at a suspicious-looking plate of cafeteria food. "Some of them are kind of nice-looking. Not your types?"

"Hm," Sanada said, looking as though he wished he still had that damn baseball cap he'd always used to wear to tug down and hide his face with. "I'm not interested. There are more important things."

"Becoming a success and making your family proud? Mm, I'm sure a few dates would destroy that."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what?"

"It doesn't matter."

He had his stubborn I'm-not-telling face on. Yukimura raised an eyebrow at him, questioning.

"Really. Huh. You get all the attention, anyway. No-one asks me out."

"That's because you're so--" Sanada stumbled to a halt, embarrassed, and took up staring at the table.

"I'm so...?"

"Nothing, don't worry."

"I'll get it out of you sooner or later," Yukimura warned, pointing an accusing pair of chopsticks at Sanada. "I'll tickle you if I have to. What am I? And just for the record, you're still a crap liar, so don't even think about it."

"You're intimidating, Seiichi. I'm sure plenty of people look, but..."

Yukimura laughed. "Great. Destined to be alone forever because I'm just too handsome and talented for the world. Would you ask me out, or am I too scary for that?"

"Now you're being perverse," Sanada told him, a bit grumpily. "That's not the sort of question you just spring on your male friends."

"Watch me," Yukimura said, but he kept it light; it's a joke, that's all, I don't really mean it if you don't want me to.

Sanada focused on eating his food in a suspiciously intent way, and didn't answer.

Yukimura was still thinking about that conversation when he made his way home in the evening, trying to figure out what was going on in Sanada's mind. He thought he knew Sanada well, but there were things it was still so hard to work out; he didn't know exactly how many lines he was allowed to cross before he really offended Sanada or said something that was just too much.

Uncertainty wasn't something he had a great deal of time for on the whole, but when Sanada was involved things became strange.

It was early when he arrived at the flat, only just getting dark; he hadn't felt like staying on campus to socialise. With a little luck he'd get some peace and quiet for the evening. Maybe Niou would even be out and about somewhere, causing trouble for other people.

He fumbled with the keys and let himself in, feeling slight disappointment when he saw two pairs of shoes sitting just inside the door. No peace and quiet, then.

Still, whatever he expected to have to deal with, walking into the living room to find Niou bent over his desk with Yagyuu standing close behind him really hadn't been on the list.

He stopped dead in the doorway and stared, not sure if he was horrified or fascinated or just shockingly turned on. Months worth of fantasies presented themselves for comparison with reality.

Niou's jeans and underwear were pushed down below his hips, and Yagyuu's shirt was unbuttoned, but they were completely dressed otherwise. Niou's hair hung loose around his face in unruly pale strands, and his expression was like nothing Yukimura had seen on him before, not so much softened as changed.

Yagyuu was doing something, hands moving with intent, and it took Yukimura a moment to realise that his fingers were buried in Niou's ass, fucking him slowly. There was something intense and possessive about his expression, almost a little frightening.

Niou's hands were pressed against the desk, and his fingers tensed convulsively, sliding on loose sheets of paper.

Both of them looked up at Yukimura in unison, Yagyuu unreadable, Niou insolent and daring, smirking, pushing himself back against Yagyuu's hand as if to tell Yagyuu not to stop. Yagyuu didn't stop, anyway. They just watched him like that, Niou's lips parted a little and Yagyuu... was Yagyuu playing along with some game of Niou's, or did he really not care that they were being watched either?

"This seems to be a bad moment," Yukimura observed, as dryly as he could manage. "Are you going to be finished soon, or should I come back later?"

"Dunno," Niou told him, "could be... mmm... a while. Wanna watch?"

This was not in any way a part of his plans for the evening, Yukimura thought, and almost laughed at himself.

"Niou," he said, taking a step further into the room, sliding his bag from his shoulder and dropping it by his own desk, "you really are a sick, sick man."

"I ain't the one who's still watching," Niou said, and let his head fall forward to rest against the desk, groaning as Yagyuu's fingers pushed into him a little more roughly.

"But you're enjoying being watched," Yukimura murmured, walking towards the pair of them, glancing from Niou to Yagyuu and back again. "Is it because it's me, or do you just get off on this sort of thing?"

"Could ask you the same question."

"It's you," Yagyuu said, breaking his silence, lips quirking a little. His eyes behind his glasses seemed to be weighing Yukimura up. "You're... important."

"What he means," Niou put in, shifting his hips experimentally and looking up again to meet Yukimura's eyes, "is you're hot."

Yagyuu's words sounded closer to true today. Niou always could look someone straight in the eye and lie to them, but only when it amused him.

"And you'd let just anyone watch if they were hot, is that it, Niou?" Yukimura stepped closer, leaned in to lift Niou's chin, making him crane his neck.

"What d'you think?"

"No. I don't think that's true."

"I guess the captain knows best," Niou said, twisting to grin up at Yagyuu.

"I'm no-one's captain now, thank you."

Yagyuu had pulled away from Niou, was meticulously cleaning his fingers with wipes from the desk. "Perhaps not in the most technical sense, but..."

Niou just made an annoyed noise as Yagyuu stopped touching him and pushed himself upright, moving awkwardly around to shove clutter out of the way and sit on the edge of the desk facing Yukimura, legs dangling. Skinny he might be, but the desk still creaked a bit under his full weight. He seemed unselfconscious about the mess of his hair or the fact that his cock was completely hard and not even slightly covered by his clothes. "But you're still ours. Always gonna be. Deal. Anyway, seems like you're pretty much not getting any anywhere else. Sure you just wanna watch? Special offer, one day only."

"Is shame a concept you're even familiar with?" Yukimura asked. Yagyuu chuckled, leaning over to tweak a stray strand of Niou's hair.

"In theory only," Niou told him. "Never had first hand experience."

Yukimura's eyes met Yagyuu's for a moment, a silent understanding exchanged, it's fine, go ahead, and Yukimura reached out to tangle a hand in Niou's hair and tugged, encouraging him to the edge of the desk and down onto his knees, shooting him a questioning look. Not that Niou was going to refuse him.

He was seriously aroused already, and fumbled with the button on his trousers more than he would've liked; not quite the intimidating picture of perfection. Oh, Sanada.

Then Yukimura's flies were open and his underwear had been pulled down just far enough for Niou to touch him, to lean in with warm breath and run his tongue up the length of Yukimura's cock. Niou's jeans were around his knees now and his hand was between his legs; Yukimura could work out that much, didn't need to be able to see more to know what he was doing. The next thing that happened was Niou taking Yukimura's cock into his mouth, sucking at the head, making Yukimura take a shuddering breath, hands catching in Niou's hair again, guiding him, encouraging him. Though the beauty of sex with Niou, it was rapidly occurring to him, was that he actually needed very little encouragement once he'd made up his mind.

It seemed he'd definitely made up his mind about this. It was almost dizzying, making Yukimura wonder if he'd keep his feet, making him stretch out one hand to catch on the edge of the desk behind Niou's head for support. It'd really, really been too long, and he was going to come far too quickly at this rate. He tugged sharply on Niou's hair, warning, pulling him back.

Yagyuu was watching them as though intrigued.

Yukimura straightened up carefully, feeling the urgency of impending orgasm fading back, leaving him aroused but not about to lose it.

"Man, you really haven't been getting much," Niou said, pulled himself upright, kicking off his jeans and pulling his t-shirt over his head, dropping it carelessly on the floor. "Just as well we got t'you now."

When Niou kissed him it was almost shocking, something else he hadn't expected, but he responded anyway. Niou's mouth tasted just a little salty, and his kisses were rough, biting. It was good; something more affectionate would have felt too strange, too unlike Niou.

"So," Niou muttered against Yukimura's ear when they broke apart. "You want something else?" Yukimura's eyes went to Yagyuu, what do you think...

"How about you fuck me?" he told Niou eventually, smiling, phrasing it as a gentle suggestion.

Niou laughed; a gust of warm breath against his neck. "Yanno, the more gentle you sound, the less you want people to refuse you."

"How many years of observation did it take you to figure that one out?" Yukimura asked.

"About two days."

"Mm. Well, how about it?"

"Why not?" Yagyuu murmured. There was a challenge there, but a quiet one.

Niou pushed Yukimura's trousers and underwear right down, letting him step out of them, and Yukimura discarded his shirt; it felt too strange to be wearing only that, worse than being entirely naked right at that moment.

When he bent himself over the desk its metal top was cool against his forearms. Yagyuu threw something to Niou, a faint, faint smile on his lips. It was Yagyuu who Yukimura watched as Niou's hands skimmed over his hips, across his back... slick fingers pushed into his body, stretching, testing, then the rustle of tissues, a condom packet being torn open.

There was something dark and fascinated in Yagyuu's eyes as Niou pushed into Yukimura; an unexpected depth of interest. After that Yukimura almost lost track of what Yagyuu was doing, too intent on Niou's cock inside him, Niou's hand reaching around to tease between his legs with little touches that weren't enough to give him any sort of relief. It was only when he felt a hand on his shoulder that Yukimura became aware of Yagyuu leaning in across the table, reaching for Niou, drawing him into a kiss. Yukimura could hear the noises they both made into the kiss, could feel the rhythm of Niou's thrusts against him falter, become irregular, more desperate.

Yagyuu's fingers dug into Yukimura's shoulder harder, and Niou groaned as Yagyuu did something Yukimura couldn't see, making Niou's cock shove deeper into Yukimura in response, hitting a spot that made Yukimura gasp and swear at the surprising rush of pleasure. Someone's hand -- Yagyuu's? -- combed through his hair, and then Niou was jerking him off hard and fast, pushing him further and further until he came, body shaking.

Niou kept thrusting into him right through it, until Yagyuu murmured something and he stilled, pulled out.

Yagyuu stepped back from the two of them, straightening up, that enigmatic smile in place again.

Yukimura rested heavily against the desk, regaining his breath, feeling his heartrate beginning to calm down again. It felt good to get rid of some tension, to let Niou and Yagyuu take away even a fragment of the frustration he'd been feeling.

He let himself drift, eyes falling closed, and he opened them to see Yagyuu sitting in Niou's chair without clothes, slouched to let Niou settle himself on Yagyuu's lap. Yagyuu's cock was sliding deep into Niou's ass. Yukimura watched the place where their bodies joined, watched the way they touched each other, hands exploring as though they didn't know each other better than themselves already. He couldn't see either of their faces, but he could draw a lot from the line of Niou's body, the way he wrapped himself around Yagyuu, his head bowed to rest against Yagyuu's shoulder, Yagyuu's fingers digging into his hips to help him move. Closeness and a bizarre kind of trust, both of them letting go; kisses shared, and the way Yagyuu shifted, turning in his seat to let him see when their mouths met... that probably wasn't coincidence.

The morning after was a haze of sleep-deprivation and aches in places he'd forgotten could be sore, along with the realisation that he'd managed to slip further behind on meeting deadlines. He drank cup after cup of coffee until he felt he could pretend to be human again, threw a teatowel at Niou in a fit of mock-rage, and seriously considered just not going to classes for fear Sanada would somehow gain psychic abilities, realise what he'd done the previous night and never speak to him again.

He wouldn't even be able to tell Sanada he was sorry for his behaviour, on balance, should the psychic powers scenario somehow come to pass. It'd been thoroughly enjoyable.

Damn.

"You're frowning," Niou told him, prodding him in the ribs. "Hell. We tried. I guess you're just beyond hope, then."

"Funnily enough, sex doesn't actually solve everything," Yukimura pointed out, but he stopped frowning. Despite everything, he did feel marginally less inclined to actually murder people today.

"Fuck, man, nothing's gonna solve a problem the size of Sanada."

"I don't know. One of these days I'll think of something."

Niou snorted. "People have got Nobel peace prizes for less."

"Then they'll just have to come up with something even better to give me when I manage."

"Sure," Niou said. "Good luck with that. You know where to find us if it doesn't work out."

They got food from a nearby convenience store instead of the canteen, and ate it sitting on benches by the university gates. Sanada didn't comment on the choice, but it was nice, a bit more peaceful in the early autumn sun.

"Let's go somewhere at the weekend," Yukimura suggested. "I feel as though I haven't left this place since... oh, I don't even know when. Hakone's nice."

"Hm."

"Come on. Hotsprings. Mountains." Time alone together to figure things out. "It beats cleaning the dojo floor, right?"

"Of course. I was just wondering what prompted all this."

"Nothing much. I've just been thinking."

Yukimura smiled distantly, staring up at the trees whose leaves were beginning to turn dry and brittle. He might as well make the most of whatever chances he'd got, really.