White Elephant
Chance
If someone were to ask him when he'd fallen in love for the very first time, Takano Masamune might look up from his coffee mug, across his messy desk, splayed with countless shoujo manga—each with their own stories and own individual plots, but always so monotonously similar—and he would groan, tiredly,
"It's none of your goddamn business."
…Followed closely by a "Get back to work!" or "Get the Hell out of my office!" depending on who the asker was.
Afterward, however, he may have stopped to contemplate it, as the cogs and cranes in his head reeled to rewind his memory all the way back to ten years prior, when a spastic but truly genuine underclassmen blurted out a love confession over a copy of a novel that he was sure they'd both read more times than any other student.
As it is, Masamune finds himself thinking about that day a lot—even without the help of some curious questioner—and sometimes, in the depths of his musings, he wonders if fate had been smiling at him when it had placed Onodera Ritsu back into his life.
It's their destiny, he decides over a cigarette, while Yokozawa argues with an editor from another department about something that sounds suspiciously unlike business. It's their destiny to dance around each other's lives like a petty cat-and-mouse game until either he catches up to Onodera or the younger man allows himself to be captured.
Secretly, he hopes for the latter, and not-so-secretly, he regularly confesses this to Ritsu.
Yokozawa is choking on smoke when he zones back in to the conversation. The other editor is patting him on the back as if that sort of thing actually helps, and Takano wonders if the flush on his old friend's cheeks is from pain or something else entirely.
His friend is a sure person—someone who knows himself and his emotions well enough to understand when wanting something is really important enough to sacrifice for.
That sort of skill has always been lost on someone as dysfunctional as Takano-san, who finds himself throwing away everything at the mere mention of Onodera Ritsu. He wonders if someday, he'll regret this decision.
However, at the end of his shift, the younger man is waiting for him with an umbrella. It's pouring rain outside and he hadn't had a moment's rest to notice, but Ritsu is on top of things.
Ritsu is the type of person who watches the news and reads the Sunday paper, who thinks about other things aside from shoujo manga and his long-lost love, and Takano wonders if maybe fate had that in mind when it entangled their lives.
Maybe if Onodera understood how much he was needed, he wouldn't pull away from Takano-san's affections.
They're sharing the umbrella, and when their shoulders brush, the shorter man doesn't sputter or pull away as he usually would. He blushes, but it's a quiet embarrassment, and when Takano bumps into him, and it may or may not have been an accident, he isn't angry. He doesn't screech or stumble away. He doesn't leave Takano-san in the rain.
He makes a face that isn't quite a smile but isn't quite a frown. He lets Takano-san's hand brush his as it dangles by his side, and once they're safely behind the clumsily locked door of his apartment, he lets himself be undressed and only grumbles when the older editor leads him to bedroom.
Takano-san wonders if he'll ever be the type of person who saves his best chips for the safest bet. He wonders if he'll ever be Yokozawa, if he'll ever be Ritsu. He even wonders if he'll ever be the other editor—comforting and amused by someone else's blunder—but he realizes that no, he never will.
Ritsu is moaning quietly. The sound is vibrating against his collarbone. He places soft kisses against the younger man's forehead as his fingers invade places that he's sure only he's ever been, and he's content.
He's reckless, yes, and he's stupid. He's risked everything on a person who once broke him into a billion tiny pieces, but he thinks that maybe, if ten years of pain and ten years of hurting has earned him this single moment—maybe it was worth it.
Paper
With his heart fluttering like the wings of a fear-filled little butterfly, Ritsu Onodera secretly slipped a very small, very simple, heart-shaped piece of notebook paper into none other than Masamune Saga's current addiction: an informational book about the eating habits of pandas.
Masamune, after chugging down a full bottle of water, answered nature's call by taking a quick bathroom break, ultimately leaving Ritsu all alone at their shared table.
The abandoned library had become a second home to Ritsu. He made it a daily routine to meet up with his upperclassman and spend multiple hours chatting away, reading, and getting tutored in his least favorite subject: Math.
Hiding his flared cheekbones by quickly burrowing his nose into one of his own books, Ritsu tried desperately to not focus on the fact that Masamune was returning from his trip to the bathroom and sitting back down at their work table.
As curious as a cat, Ritsu peeked over the tops of his book pages, interested to see if his senpai would actually notice the newly acquired sheet of paper within his book.
Fishing for the page he had left off on, Masamune came to his number with ease, an expression of solitude painting his face. That expression was quickly changed, however, when a very small, very simple, heart-shaped piece of notebook paper fell softly and slowly out of its hiding place from within his pages and down onto the smooth and wooden surface of the table below.
Watching this notion in its entirety, Ritsu gulped just a little too loud for his cover to remain in the clear.
Cowering behind his literary shield as Masamune's fingers carefully grasped a gentle hold onto the flimsy piece of paper, Ritsu could only feel the butterflies within pit of his stomach grow all the more excited, flapping this way and that, causing him to feel nauseous.
Bringing the oddity up to his face, Masamune allowed his eyes to silently scan the words before him, presumably resting the very small, very simple, heart-shaped piece of notebook paper back down onto the table it had landed on once he had finished.
Raising an amused brow, Masamune folded his arms and leaned back against his chair, something that the librarian regularly chided him in doing.
"'The words to my blank pages'?" Masamune quoted in question, a smug complexion overtaking his relaxed one.
"S-Saga-senpai!" Ritsu shouted in distress, completely and utterly embarrassed from Masamune's redirected response. His note didn't look as stupid on paper as it sounded when spoken aloud.
Chuckling quietly to himself as he shook his head in disbelief, Masamune swiftly placed a firm hand on the table in front of him, allowing his body to be carried with ease as he leaned forward, cast his underclassman's book aside, cupped the anxious adolescent's chin in the palm of his hand, and pressed a petal-soft kiss to Ritsu's very unsuspecting lips.
Hushing him quickly, for Ritsu's sanity was immediately exploding like that of a candy-filled piñata, Masamune placed a silencing hand over the underclassman's mouth.
"You know, when you're pretending not to notice someone, it would really help to hold your book the proper way and not upside down."
And with that, Ritsu Onodera was quickly taught to never experiment with the cultures of different countries. He was never going to celebrate Valentine's Day ever again.
House
It was a small house, he decided, running the pads of his fingers over the smooth cloth covering of Saga's kotatsu as he warmed his feet beneath. He listened to the idle clinking of glasses and plates in the other room and the foreign hum of the refrigerator.
It might have even been small for a commoner's house, but he didn't know any other commoners and Saga was really anything but common.
He wondered what the smell was that hung in the air— something thick and salty like the lingering scent of an overly processed meal, like the smell at those fast food restaurants, and then he wondered if commoners were aware that their arteries were surely clogged from years of unhealthy diets.
He hoped Saga was healthy. He wanted him to live for a long time.
The cat was mewling softly in the other room, and while the baritone of Saga's voice was far too deep to decipher his words, the affection in his tone seemed to reverberate through the walls and rattle Ritsu's erratically-thumping heart.
He recognized that tone. It the way Saga would speak when he thought Ritsu was too far gone to comprehend, but he didn't understand just how much Ritsu loved him, just how long Ritsu had loved him, and the younger boy couldn't waste any observation just because he was in the depths of passion.
He wondered how much more his love could grow before he drowned in it.
Saga pushed open the door with and ugly creak that caused Ritsu to jump and sputter and flush, and though there was mirth in his eyes, the older boy was silent as he set two steaming mugs of tea on the table. Ritsu apologized because he knew he'd been caught in his love-struck musings, and he noticed, with a flush that was ten times hotter than he wished it was, that there was affection in Saga's voice when he told him it was okay.
Worm
"Come on, Rii-chan," a loving mother once said, as she held out a careful hand to her fallen son, "It was just a worm. Continue to garden with mommy."
A young boy, one with auburn hair and overgrown bangs, shook his head at his mother's offer, turning away and rejecting her hand.
The mother was very displeased with her son's response.
She fit her gloved hands into her the curves of her hips, her face wearing a threatening glare.
"You know," she had begun, "if you don't help mommy with the soil, the pretty flowers won't be able to bloom in the summer!"
The young boy's gumdrop-green eyes had widened at his mother's words. With such a simple statement, realization had hit him. His mother needed him. He could be a hero. Because of him, the garden was going to be saved from the villainous worms.
"I'll rescue the garden!" the young boy had cheered, as he stood tall and extended one of his almighty fists into the air.
Within moments, the young boy was, once again, toppled over and on his side because of the sight of a worm.
Without
Ritsu was a mess.
Soft hair dusted the expanse of his scrawny little legs, bare and feminine while most boys his age were more rugged. He was short and delicate, almost like a girl but so very different, and Masamune chuckled at the thought of the stuttered apologies that he would surely receive if he ever spoke those words aloud.
Those legs were currently coiled around him, resting against the backs of his shoulders as he worked the hot erection in his mouth with the flat and sometimes pointed surface of his tongue. The noises Ritsu was making were so much more erotic than he'd expected from someone with blood so much bluer than his own.
He'd heard those noises before, from girls who he admittedly couldn't match their names and faces, but hearing them from someone like Oda was a different experience entirely.
"S-Saga-ah-ah- senp-pai," he gasped, entangling his fingers in Masamune's already tousled hair and working his nails wondrously against his scalp, "I-I'm—going to—I'm going to—"
"Cum then," he breathed, working the shaft with clumsy fingers, and he knew for a fact that Ritsu couldn't tell just how nervous he really was.
Ritsu was somehow even less experienced than him, even as the younger teen could so effortlessly sweep him away.
"N-no, I c-can't! N-not without S-Saga-senpai—"
He paused for a moment, and without even a disappointed huff of breath, Oda waited—like a saint, like some sort of sexual pietist.
"Fine," he sighed, pulling away from those legs and spreading them wide— one on each side of him, "have it your way."
His pulse was erratic in the depths of his throat. Ritsu never let himself finish if he thought Saga wouldn't follow soon after.
He was thoughtful in the very worst way. He was so kind that Masamune felt bare and vulnerable before him, and somehow since the moment that they'd met all those months ago, Masamune found himself crashing, more so than falling, hopelessly in love.
Ritsu cried and Ritsu mewled and both of them, somehow, finished in unison.
Dress
As the sun set to the west, the ever chipper Ritsu Onodera strolled down the sidewalk, his destination aimed for home. He had just spent one of the loveliest afternoons with his beloved "Senpai".
Their little date came to a quick close, however, when Ritsu's cell phone continued to buzz and beep every time the two tried to share a kiss.
Ritsu would then flip open his cellular, much to Masamune's disdain, and realize that, yet again, he was receiving a text message from his mother. She sent him multiple messages in text-yell, informing him that she had something very important for him and that he needed to head home that very instant or he would be in lots of trouble.
Opening the front door of his quaint family home and entering through the threshold, Ritsu looked to his left and to his right. Whatever was so very important wasn't in the doorway, it had seemed.
Kicking off his shoes and setting them to the side of safety, Ritsu walked up the winding stairs that led to the house's bedrooms and bathrooms. Maybe the importance was in one of those places. Ritsu knew, however, that it was highly unlikely for whatever it was that got his mother in an urgency to be in a place such as the bathroom.
All of his hypotheses had come to a quick conclusion, because Ritsu was sure that what he was looking at, what his eyes were witnessing at this very moment, was the very important reason why he had been forced to cut his time with Masamune short.
It was An.
Ritsu was forced to blink twice, however, because this beautiful maiden before him did not resemble the sisterly figure that he had pegged An to be. She was a goddess; one of ornate beauty and grace. Her hair was draped over her shoulders in curtains of curls, while her face was illuminated with just a touch of make-up and a window-full of setting sunlight.
Her neck was craned high into the air, elongating the length of those very curls, causing them to shimmer and shine within those sun rays. She was busying herself with the difficult task of pulling up the back zipper that held her eloquent dress together.
With that notion in mind, Ritsu's eyes now traveled downward to admire the color and textures of An-chan's cropped, yet innocent dress. It was a pale yellow color, the same color that most expecting parents used to paint nurseries when the gender of their bundle of joy was still unknown.
Black lace adorned the skirt of her dress, while a matching black ribbon, knotted into a large and perfect bow, rested around her bodice. With a beep of his cell phone and a high-pitched squeal from An, Ritsu was immediately caught in the act of spying.
Even with the multitude of apologies and head bowing motions that he had made, An quickly ran up to Ritsu's bedroom door and slammed it in his face. He should have expected such, but such a dramatic display of frazzled emotions seemed a little offbeat, even for An.
In the days of their youth, there had been many times where Ritsu and An would do lots of things together. They would roll around in the grass together, they would bathe together; they would even sleep together. That had to be what confused Ritsu the most. If he and An had done all of those things together in the past, why had such trivial things become so looked down upon now?
With the creak of his bedroom door being opened, Ritsu's head shot up, curious as to see if An had forgiven him for earlier.
"I'm really am sorry, An-chan…" Ritsu repeated for the millionth time, his words etched with sadness and regret.
"I'm the one who's sorry, Rii-chan," she began, tucking a stray curl behind her ear, "I should have never freaked out like that. It's not like I was naked or anything…"
Ritsu nodded, his cheeks heating up at her statement. Ritsu wasn't all that sure if he would be able to bathe or sleep with An anymore. Both of their bodies had changed, developed; it would just make things awkward.
Scratching his cheek and hoping to break the forming silence, Ritsu slowly asked, "So, um…why are you here? And why are you dressed so beautifully?"
Ritsu himself was still only dressed in his everyday school uniform. An's princess-like beauty made him look like a peasant.
"Your mother scheduled a dinner date for the both of us. Did she not tell you?"
Ritsu could clearly see the confusion painted all over An's face. It was the truth, though; his mother had not told him of any such thing.
"No, she didn—"
"Ritsu! An-chan! Come downstairs! Dinner is ready!" Ritsu's mother called from the bottom of the stairs, cutting Ritsu off mid-sentence.
Eyeing the stairs with a soft huff, Ritsu turned his focus back to An. "It would be bad to keep her waiting, huh?" he asked, mostly in a rhetorical sense.
An nodded, a simple smile warming her cheekbones. The movement of her head had caused that same stray curl to fall out of place one more time. Ritsu caught it in time, however, and carefully tucked the pesky lock behind her ear once more, causing her cheeks to bloom into the color of roses.
Mimicking the gestures of a gentleman, Ritsu held out his hand for An to take. He could feel his heart give a few quick thu-dumps when that gentle hand fit oh so perfectly into his own, his own face heating up with embarrassment.
Carefully and gracefully, Ritsu guided his princess down the stairs, another unknown soon to be unraveled. He could only hope, however, that the smell of burnt rice was only a figment of his imagination.
Unique
Onodera is scowling again. He's perpetually sour these days, Takano notices—having staled after remaining sweet and fresh for so long— and he wonders just how soon after they broke each other's hearts that the younger man began frowning more than he smiled.
Or maybe, he muses, that bad attitude is just for him.
Even while Onodera's knowing glare is cold enough to freeze hell over twice, he is warmed by the idea of it—that Ritsu is still saving a small part of himself just for him. It might be the worst part, the bitter, broken pieces of himself that no one would want anyway, but loving someone truly means accepting even the ugliest parts, and Takano is positive that once he fell for the charmingly pure and genuine little Ritsu, there was really no getting back up.
Bookmark
Taking the small, white, ribbon-like object into his hands, his expression perplexed, Ritsu Onodera looked up to Masamune Saga and questioned, "What is this?"
Scratching the back of his head, Masamune replied, "It's a bookmark. Today is White Day."
Ritsu still seemed to be a little slow on the topic, not fully understanding what Masamune was trying to get at.
Sighing, Masamune continued onward by saying, "You gave me something on Valentine's Day, so I'm giving you something on White Day. Now we're even."
Even? What did Ritsu do to deserve such a beautiful gift? All he had done was write a cheesy phrase on a piece of notebook paper…
Flipping the ribbon over within his dainty hands, Ritsu had to stop himself from crying, for embroidered into that white lace were eight words that made his heart skip a beat.
'You are the words to my blank pages.'
Looking up to Masamune with eyes wider than ever before, Ritsu was quickly stopped before he could ask any questions, make any comments, express his gratitude.
He had been stopped by Masamune's lips.
Keeping his own shut tight, just like always, Ritsu nervously puckered his lips outward, lifeless compared to Masamune's own.
With the conclusion of their awkward lip lock, Ritsu was finally free to ask, "Why are you giving this to me?"
With that, Masamune simply repeated himself, answering, "Because today is White Day."
Cat
"I don't think the cat likes me," Ritsu mentioned one chilly morning in late autumn.
Masamune almost laughed at the audacity of it— not at Ritsu's words, but the fact that they were talking at all, that he, Saga Masamune, was walking with and actually listening to the words of a little spaz like Oda Ritsu.
"Why?" He questioned simply, and if Oda noticed the slight rise in his voice, that light chuckle that was sandwiched between all of that smugness and utter indifference, he didn't mention it.
Ritsu seemed rather intent on tiptoeing around the fact that his presence brought out all of the little happy parts of him that Masamune thought he'd smothered years ago.
"It scratched me," Oda answered, meek as a group of girls ventured past, giggling amongst themselves about the handsome older boy in a way that made Saga want to roll his eyes.
"Why do you care if he likes you?" He found himself asking, voice bland as he wondered if Oda would ever tire of carrying on half-dead conversations.
Ritsu's face ignited like clockwork, and even though Masamune had no idea why, he wasn't surprised in the least.
"W-well, because you like him," Ritsu all but whispered, clutching at the strap of his book bag while simultaneously shaking visibly in the light breeze.
Surely he was too hot with humiliation to feel cold. Masamune stifled a laugh nonetheless, slowing his step so the shorter boy wouldn't have such a hard time keeping up.
Why was his heart hammering? Why was blood racing through his veins?
He wondered about Ritsu sometimes— how he could claim that he was so helplessly in love when he could obviously see that Masamune was the one who really couldn't help himself.
Regardless of all of his blind questioning, the way that their semblance of a relationship shouldn't have made any sense but somehow did, and the discomforting way that Ritsu's smile had suddenly begun to ignite tiny explosions of sunlight across his skin every time he looked his way—Masamune found that he didn't mind in the least, as long as Ritsu would continue to walk by his side.
Memory
Sighing with triumph and setting aside the latest edition of Muto-sensei's manga series, the much older Ritsu Onodera picked up another book; a novel this time.
It wasn't unusual for Ritsu to think back and reminisce the days of when he was a literary editor. He felt a certain satisfaction in that field, one that couldn't be beaten compared with the many sleepless nights and days of an achy head. Oh no, editing the great Usami Akihiko's novels was a privilege; working under a stuffy boss who tried to hit on you all the time, not so much.
Speaking of which, with that thought in mind, Ritsu was promptly whacked over the head by a rolled up manuscript, the action quickly startling him out of his daydreams and shifting him back into reality.
"What was that for?" Ritsu shouted in defense, angered at just how hard he was hit.
"It was for being lazy and not getting your work done," his boss, none other than Masamune Takano himself, replied.
Grumbling in protest, Ritsu countered, "But I did do all of my work! Muto-sensei hasn't sent in her newest layouts yet. I've been passing the time by reading her newest volume, which, I just finished, too!"
Picking up his glasses by the ear piece, Masamune looked up to Ritsu with an expression that was not amused in the slightest. "So you plan on passing the time by reading another book?"
Ritsu's cheekbones flushed in embarrassment and anger. Why did Masamune have to ridicule him so outwardly? It was that kind of behavior that made Ritsu question his feelings for his boss over and over again.
"That's exactly what I plan to do. Something wrong with it?"
With a simple shake of his head, Masamune continued to busy himself with his own work, filing papers into many different folders and laying out pages from manuscripts. Popping off the cap of a red correction pen, he began to work.
Hours had gone by and many of the other workers had gone home. The only ones left in the office were Ritsu and Masamune, something that made the subordinate very uncomfortable.
Turning the page of a new chapter, Ritsu sighed and reached for his bookmark. It had been an easy day, but a long one nonetheless.
Catching a wide stare, Ritsu turned his head over to look at Masamune, almost taken aback at the size of the man's eyes as he looked at him.
"Is…is something the matter, Takano-san?" Ritsu asked, bookmark in hand.
"That bookmark…" Masamune whispered, almost too shocked to even speak.
Looking down at the flimsy white thing, time most certainly not kind to it, Ritsu's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "What about it?"
Blinking and pulling himself together, Masamune stood and began to pack up all of his things.
"I'm just surprised that you kept it," he concluded, shoving a manuscript into his work bag.
"Excuse me?" Ritsu asked, clearly confused, as he placed the white ribbon inside of his book.
Sighing with an almost amused smile, Masamune shook his head. "Never mind, Onodera. Maybe if you were to read the words on that bookmark, you'd fall in love with me again."
Packing up his own things and shoving the novel into his own work bag, Ritsu shut down all of Masamune's hopes with an abrupt, "That's not going to happen, Takano-san," his voice as cold as ice.
Laughing wholeheartedly, Masamune rounded a corner, almost delighted by the fact that Ritsu was following him, and pressed the down button on the elevator.
"You never know, Onodera. Some words are pretty powerful."
'Especially when they're your own…'
Fin
Chappy: When Kelsey first asked me to do a collaboration with her for her 100th published story, I was definitely very nervous, but I was also very honored at the same time. Writing these drabbles, knowing that they would soon be put together with hers into one, big, bit-by-bit story, was really one of the best feelings I had ever had. Thank you for that, Kelsey! (: And thank YOU for reading! I hope you've enjoyed! (:
kc: Thank you so much for reading! As a way to celebrate writing my 100th story, I asked the wonderful Chappy-the-Bunny if she would care to do a sort of drabble-collaboration with me, and like the kindhearted person she is, she agreed. I appreciate the time you've taken to read this story and I really hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it!
So please feel free to leave a review and let us know what you thought and I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day—single or otherwise!
(I, for one, volunteer to be the Valentine of anyone who is interested~)