Disclaimer: Takeshi Konomi owns Prince of Tennis, and Cambridge owns their dictionary definitions.
1: Obsession
His Way of Suffering (Rikkai D1)
Niou, Yagyuu reflected, could get drunk on oxygen. Wait. It was not a reflection, it was a conclusion. Yagyuu had noticed this when he first noticed Niou. The white haired boy had pulled Yagyuu's chair from behind him, which caused Yagyuu minimal distress but maximal curiosity. Yagyuu concluded his theory when Niou flipped the teacher off during a reprimand that led to a full blown detention in the first week of school. He only took 4.35 minutes to arrive at such a conclusion.
Yanagi would have been proud.
It was difficult, Yagyuu found out, to ignore Niou Masaharu after you noticed him. Not due to the fact that Niou was usually too loud, too flamboyant, acted like he was dead-drunk most of the time…No. His mere presence was intoxicating. Yagyuu found himself taking note of redundant things like, how he was breathing in the air Niou breathed out… and chucked that piece of information to the back of his mind so it could be sent to the "ignoring section" of his brain. The fact that they were in the same tennis team made them more or less in the same vicinity most of the time, so Yagyuu had no choice but to continue noting redundant things about Niou.
Yagyuu would never admit that he could not grasp at the complexity which is Niou. He had no reason to tell Niou that he was trying to fathom the other boy's mentality, because the other boy would probably complicate matters further, just for kicks.
Sometimes, Yagyuu wondered what world Niou lived in. He seemed to stay just beyond the reach of Yagyuu metaphorical hold, such that Yagyuu could see the insanity, which was the main component that made up his doubles partner, but could not even dream of touching. He knew he could not understand Niou, not in the way Niou read him like a book. However, Yagyuu was known for being polite, patient, and persistent.
Character-wise, Yagyuu liked to think he got Niou's down-pat. Niou Masaharu did not regret. That much, Yagyuu knew. Niou certainly did not regret almost hurting Yagyuu back in first year; the smirk on his face when asked told Yagyuu that much. Even after they became partners, Niou never felt sorry for all the times he dragged Yagyuu into unnecessary trouble. This was due to Niou's firm belief that misery loved company. He wished he could beg to differ. Sometimes, Yagyuu wondered if he was to Niou like Sanada was to Yukimura. Just watching over and waiting on. Just loving, really. Or not. Yagyuu could not say that he knew what love was. But, with a dictionary definition, he knew what obsession was. Continuous or unreasonable thoughts or desires which the obsessed person often finds very upsetting.
Niou was obsession to him.
There were times, when staying in the same room as Niou could take its toll out on Yagyuu. It felt like being close to a livewire, the feeling was electrifying. Niou was dangerous, was like static on the back of Yagyuu's neck. And his lack of predictability just added to the thrill of the unnamed feeling, which Yagyuu thought he hated until he missed it. Never in his whole life, did he dream that he would miss excitement.
If Niou was like fire, uncontrollable, then Yagyuu would be like the water that controlled the boundaries he danced to. As long as within that boundary, Niou could burn with Hell's fires. He would only scorch Yagyuu that way. Perhaps Yagyuu was masochistic. He HAD to be, if he kept himself around Niou. He heard voices whispering on the corridors, whenever he walked by with Niou hanging off his shoulder, mentally screwing everyone up and creating the general ruckus that was typical of the nightmare he made everyone believe he was. These voices asked why the Gentleman would want to have anything to do with the Trickster.
They never understood, but that was just as well with Yagyuu. He would rather they did not understand Niou. That way, Niou would always be his, contained, controlled, confined. Yagyuu never realized how deadly stupidity could be.
Once, after training, when everyone was just sitting around and it was too early to go home, Marui breached the subject about the interesting relationship their D1 had. Yagyuu was asked persistently by their Genius on why he would bother trying to keep Niou, the Devil incarnate, in track. Yagyuu had no answer he wished to divulge, thus giving Yukimura the opportunity to be as astute as ever. Yukimura had smiled that indulgent smile of his, easy-going on the surface, razor sharp beneath. He told them that Yagyuu had sold his soul to the devil from day one. Yagyuu left with a polite farewell, not understanding Yukimura's words, or the implications of the smile exchanged between his Captain and said Devil.
Yagyuu never realized that his ignorance was his own folly. In third year, when he initiated the switch (for what he assumed was strategic purpose only and nothing else) and he looked at him-that-is-not-him in the mirror, he realized that it was not Niou which he kept and hid from the rest of the world. Niou never belonged to him. He belonged to Niou, and was allowed to BE Niou for a few glorious moments during the switch. It was the closest to having Niou that Yagyuu had been. It did not help that he was filled with an odd sense of gratitude towards him-that-is-not-him.
Pale pink tinge on the skin, slight heating of the cheeks, if Yagyuu had been asked to do a show-not-tell on the word "shame" he would have summarized his reflection. The reflection that he saw when he thought of his obsession with the boy that had hurt him that had become his doubles partner that had became terms that Yagyuu would ignore as if his life depended on it.
Denial was a word that was not in Yagyuu's dictionary, and he always hated Egypt anyway.
Senior High flew by in a whirl, and it consisted of Yagyuu next to Niou and serving his purpose of just being there. It was hard, really, to believe that his presence was all Niou needed, when Niou presence was just not enough, but Yagyuu kept his mouth shut because he knew Niou, had been Niou, and had learned that fucking was Niou's substitute for love, and love was as foreign to Niou as French was. So Yagyuu never said a thing, because he knew that even if Niou listened, which was not likely, he would misinterpret if Yagyuu ever said anything about love.
Besides, Yagyuu was not utterly convinced that it was love, anyway. He had agonized over it for 6 years, and thought that his feelings came closer to – nevermind. He was not going to walk the thin line of love to infatuation to obsession.
Entrance exams to university arrived, with Yagyuu forcibly shoving Niou out of his mind, his thoughts, his dreams, because dreams to Yagyuu were just dreams, and nothing more. No one told him that dreams reflected inner desires, and even if he knew, he would have ignored it like he had been ignoring everything else when it came to his relationship with Niou.
Yagyuu graduated and got into one of the top universities, like everyone had expected really. Niou, who had been one part tolerance, two parts resignation, three parts attraction and overall obsession, had vanished on the night before the entrance exams, sending one of Yagyuu's pillars of stability crumbling. Yagyuu often reminisced, when people around him marveled at how unconcerned he was now that his other self was gone… and Yagyuu remembered the feeling of heaviness in his heart when he looked at Niou when the boy was around. He identified it as longing, long after Niou was gone. People, other students mostly and his parents, used to whisper darkly behind his back about how he must be crazy to mix with that boy who grinned with the Devil's own, and gave everyone a metaphorical fucking with his mere state of being… Yagyuu did not know if he was crazy. But, he did know that dictionary definition of high. A period of extreme excitement when you feel full of energy often caused by a feeling of success, or by drugs, or alcohol.
Yagyuu Hiroshi could get high on Niou Masaharu.
Hehe, bad fic done. Sorry if it was really lousy, am new, so…whooee. Constructive criticism welcome, please don't flame, can't do anything about it, but it's just not nice.
This is mainly just a series of Rikkai-related fics that talks about the individual characters.
Rikkai because I love them. And also because they were so obsessed that they fitted nicely with the title. :P