notes this is an old fic i started writing four years ago for fyerigurl, not knowing where it was going and how it was going to turn out. i came back for this fic recently and still have no idea how it came to be. but i sort of like to think that while writing this fic, i grew up a little. not a lot, but i'm getting there. there are a lot of things i wanted to say through this fic. mostly to myself. to those who might be reading this, thank you muchos! :D
warning i have no experience in love.
tell me a story, tell me a secret;
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An unexpected text message lights up briefly on the screen of her cell phone and startles her out of exhaustion, long enough for her to stare in surprise—her sister's friend's brother's acquaintance? Something about being on a tennis team together? Sighing, she replies with a hello and strains her memory to recall what she knows of this boy from their few brief meetings. His name is Oshitari Yuushi. Tall. Neat, shoulder-length hair. Olive green eyes, hidden behind thick glasses lens. Younger, by one or two years. Maybe three or four. She lies across her desk and pads over the keys with her thumb, one at a time.
Hey, she types, eyes drowsy. Tell me a secret.
Why should I put my trust in you? he types back.
She calls him, then. Picks up her phone and starts dialling, wondering if it is strange to have an undetermined bond that cannot be explained, with a person she barely knows.
He picks up, not with the courteous hello, but with a voice full of mirth, saying, "So?"
"Who better to trust than a stranger?"
A rough chuckle sounds from the other line. His voice is deeper than she remembers. She smiles, twirling her finger around a loose thread unravelling from her shirt. "So," she prompts, gently. "Tell me."
He does.
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He catches her eye at one of many fancy dinner parties almost a month later. Excusing herself politely from the dinner table, she smooths out her evening dress and pours a cup of water for herself, walking over to greet him.
He's standing behind another one of the round tables, holding a violin in his right hand and speaking to one of the other patrons. He's attracted a small audience—younger high school girls whose parents have money are in glamorous dresses, leaning against the table and listening to him talk. He doesn't seem to pay them any mind even as he continues to speak, chuckling under his breath every once and again.
She waits until he steps away from conversation to talk to him. He raises an eyebrow when he sees her with her arms crossed, holding an empty glass with manicured nails.
"Hello," she says.
He smiles at her, politely. "I didn't expect to see you this evening."
"Well, here I am."
He shrugs. She nods slowly. Then, gesturing to his violin, she smiles. "You mentioned you played, but I didn't know you'd willingly play at these sorts of events." In her mind, she'd pictured him differently.
He sighs, reaching up to adjust his glasses. "The last time I took it out was more than several months ago. My teacher visits regularly to help me dust it off."
"But you're playing tonight?"
"My parents insisted."
"Don't say that," she says, laughing. "Don't you like playing the violin?"
He shrugs again. Sighs. "I feel quite… apathetic about it." He chuckles and pauses as she takes a drink from her glass. "In any case," he adds, twirling the bow once in his hand and resting his hand on his hip, "I have been given a request. If I were to turn it down, my mother would be very displeased."
There is light applause from behind them; the guests, as another act on stage finishes. Oshitari sighs, tightens his fingers around his violin, and turns to the stage. He looks back, head turned to the side so that it weaves behind his ear.
"Well, wish me luck."
She smiles and gives a little wave. "There exists a difference between luck and skill."
He chuckles, dipping his head low. "You flatter me."
It is not his violin playing that attracts her to him. It is the somber expression on his face, with his eyes half-lidded and his clenched jaw. It is the way his fingers tense even when the notes he plays are smooth and lighthearted. Oshitari Yuushi is a cunning young man, she notices, but he is not without vulnerability.
She claps politely with everyone else in the audience once his performance has ended. Even as he bows, the only person whose gaze he meets is hers and she cannot help but feel that the two of them are connected in a way that words cannot explain in beating hearts or clammy palms. He comes down the steps, still holding her gaze, and holds his hand out.
"The dance floor is open," he says, raising a delicate eyebrow.
She smiles. "I suppose it is."
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"Is this a picture of your violin teacher?" She's walking around in his living room and observing the pictures hanging on the wall. He returns from the kitchen with two glasses of water and sets one on the table. "She's very beautiful," she comments.
"She is," Oshitari agrees, crouching over the table to remove the pile of magazines he'd been looking at. "Until she opens her mouth. The illusion has gone. She says atrocious things, sometimes."
She moves on to the next picture. "Tennis," she remarks, trailing a finger along the border of the frame. "Is this from high school?"
"Indeed," he says. She waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn't. Instead, he walks over to the sofa and beckons her to sit. She follows him, still curious.
"Bad memories?" she asks, glancing once more at the photo.
"Not really."
"Want to talk about it?"
"No."
She's surprised at the hint of irritation in his voice, but when she turns to face him, he's already masked it. Pinches the bridge of his nose. "It's a little bit personal," he says, upon noticing her silence. "Tennis has always been something personal to me."
"You stopped playing though," she murmurs. "Your father was pleased about that." It was true; his father even gone so far as to announce it at a press conference, once. He'd mentioned it off-handedly so no one really took notice, but the few that did took hold of it and the news had spread. Once his high school had caught wind of it, he'd been kicked off the team in his last year of high school.
Atobe had been disappointed. Oshitari had never been able to forget.
She places a hand on his shoulder. "It must have been hard," she says, closing her eyes.
He chuckles. It sounds too forced, too loud, less calm. Anger. Frustration? She can't quite identify it, but there's a flicker in his eyes she's never seen before.
"Don't pretend to understand how I feel." He stands up and her eyes widen. In a small state of panic—had she done something wrong?—she grabs at the end of his sleeve and doesn't quite know what to say when he turns to her, surprised.
"Daring," he comments, after a moment's silence. She lets go, embarrassed, and runs a hand through her hair.
"Maybe I should leave," she whispers. She is not welcome. Not now, anyway.
"What's stopping you?"
She shakes her head. "Nothing, I guess." No one. Cunning, she thinks. Bastard.
Desire makes bastards of us all.
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There must be a reason why heavy tongues are the most honest, whether it's because the alcohol has built up so your mouth is sandpapered to a blank state upon which you lay upon your deep-setting words or that the shit o'clock am morning has twisted your teeth apart so that everything you regurgitate gets out.
She considers it a cleansing.
She tips the glass to her lips again and bows her head low, resting it against the counter. The bartender stands across from her, wiping a shot glass carefully and with dextrous hands.
"What do you know about love?" she asks him.
"Vague question," he comments. His face is pale and his hair is slicked back. The wrinkles that spread like veins at the corners of his eyes crinkle.
"What about fame? Fortune? Desire?"
To this, he does not answer. He turns his back to her and continues his cleaning. "It's very late," he tells her.
"I know."
She sits there for thirty more minutes, until he comes back with a tall glass of water.
"You might want to sober up if you're driving, miss."
She's aware of her own tight-lipped smile. "That's quite all right. All the lines are blurred. Whether or not that can be amended is not up to me."
Ten minutes later, there's a hand cupping her elbow and a jacket over her shoulders. It's no one she can recognize at shit o'clock in the morning. Her stomach sinks. "Love doesn't care," she whispers to herself.
But this isn't love.
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He kisses her in an alleyway on a Tuesday night, around a bend of the city at one. The streetlights can't find them there and footsteps patter on the sidewalk outside, but the noise is lost through brick walls. It's electrifying, almost, she thinks, because nothing's holding them back. A rat squirms out of the dumpster to their left and drops to the ground, scuttles off. The smell is putrid but she breathes it all in, wraps her arm around his shoulder, and presses into him. Her dress is hiking up, her heels digging into the pavement. No real strings attached, but she likes to think that there are, spider web-thin.
It's the wanting that's driving him mad, it's the hand that's going too far.
"Leave enough of me to love," she tries. Reaches out.
He chuckles into her neck, hot air against her collarbone. Talks into her neck where angry red and purple marks branch out into one another like maps of her swollen, broken capillaries. "Not a chance."
It was a stupid thing to say.
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We're all made up of cheap metaphors.
Oshitari Yuushi is a beautiful man and although this is not the first time she has realized it, it is the first time she has tried to hold it close and understand. Oshitari Yuushi loves by hating, hating the family he was born into and hating titles, collared shirts, the violin.
She wants to believe it's more than a one-night stand playing on repeat. At least, it's supposed to be different. She wishes it would be.
There are men like him out there everywhere, and it's true. But he's the only one who holds her like she's the only one keeping his world up. Her sister is too fragile for intimacy, her brother does not speak, and her parents do not touch her.
It's so easy, to fall in love with someone who is kind. It only gets easier, when you think of loneliness as a disease. Everyone is infected, then. Everyone is the same. She isn't the only person who wants escape. It makes her feel better like that, then.
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"Do you regret it?" she asks.
"What is there to regret?"
"Tell me."
Oshitari doesn't even turn to look at her. "We're not strangers anymore."
"Aren't we?"
He pauses. This time, she doesn't feel threatened.
"Tell me," she says again, quieter.
Oshitari peers at her over his glasses. "I have nothing to say." Everything else speaks volumes. She tugs on the cuff of his sleeve and begins to count.
One, for every time his guard is down.
Two, for every time he exhales.
Three, for every time she thinks she's fallen in love.
She doesn't forget to stop.
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Somewhere in the dark recesses of Oshitari's heart, a dam breaks and a door opens.
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She walks in.
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Finally, he lets her.