Title: The Shadow and the Knight
Fandom: Rookies
Pairing: Aniya Keiichi/Yagi Touko
Disclaimer: I love my characters but unless I can get one of them for Christmas this year, I don't own any of them.
A/N: My first Rookies-fic, be gentle with me! I hope you like it!
"Why the hell do I keep insisting on walking home alone?" Touko asked herself, pulling her coat closer around her body.
She had asked herself that question for months now, every single night that the team's practice had ended late. The guys had all gotten used to her refusing them to follow her home by now so they had basically stopped asking, even if Aniya sometimes threw her glances as she left on her own.
Touko didn't know why but for some reason tonight felt different, and it wasn't a good different. She kept looking behind her, afraid that someone might be there. Following her in the cold, just waiting for an opportunity to...
"No! Stop being ridiculous, Yagi Touko. That kind of stuff may happen but not on quiet streets like this one." She tried to calm herself down but the knot still lingered in her stomach, whispering to her not to let her guard down just yet. Not until she got home.
It was with trembling fingers that Touko unlocked her frontdoor. The cold must really be getting to me, she lied to herself. But she didn't have the courage to face the fact that the knot in her stomach was still there when she had locked the door behind her. Not even when she woke up in the middle of the night, screaming and sweating from the repeating nightmares did she want to admit that not everything was alright in her life.
"Yagi-kun..."
Touko frowned, the voice speaking her name seemed so distant and yet so familiar.
"Yagi-kun!" The sleeping girl flew up from her schoolbench, her tired puffy eyes trying to make sense of where she was while one of her hands reached up to straighten out her messy hair.
"Yagi-kun. I realize that being the manager of the baseball-club is tiring but please refrain from falling asleep during my class." Her math-teacher looked down at her with annoyed eyes.
"H...*yawn* ..ai." Touko said but instead of turning her eyes to the blackboard she looked down at her notebook where the words "Everything is alright" shone back at her in blue ink.
"Must have written it before I fell asleep." She thought and closed the book. She had no idea why but the words seemed to be laughing at her, as if whispering: "Sure, everything is alright. That's what everyone thinks when they try to avoid the horrible truth. That's what murder-victims say to themselves just before they face their deaths..."
"Yagi!" Touko jerked back to reality at the teacher's angry voice. She could feel herself shaking and she didn't think she had ever felt her heart beat so hard before. "Yagi, please leave this classroom, go join your 'team' or something. You're welcome back when you feel like paying attention again." Her teacher turned his back to the students again.
.
The other students whispered and mumbled silently between themselves when Touko stood up in silence, grabbed her stuff and walked out the door. She knew that nothing would get better if she talked back to the teacher, nothing ever got better from talking back to a teacher... Well, maybe when it came to Kawato but then again he could never really be labeled as a "teacher".
.
"I never thought I would miss that god forsaken pinball-game." Touko said under her breath as she entered the clubroom and realized that she had nothing to do. She, a model-student, had actually been thrown out of class and never having been in that situation before she had no idea what to do. She sighed when she sat down on one of the benches in the clubroom, pulling out the books from her bag as she did, realizing that studying might be the only thing to do. But before she had barely even opened the physics-books her mind traveled back to the nightmares that had been pestering her almost every night for the past weeks.
It was the same every night. She was walking home from another late practice, alone as always, when suddenly a shadow appeared in front of her, it had no real shape, but the sight of it never failed to make Touko twist in agony in her bed.
It always came towards her. Reaching out for her, making it harder for her to breath as she tried to run away. But she never could.
It frightened her even the during the day, the darkness closing in on her. Devouring her until there was nothing left. No sound, no sight... Just dark and excruciating pain.
.
Rustling sounds coming from the other side of the door woke Touko from her nightmare and she managed to wipe away the tears on her cheeks before the door opened and revealed the star-pitcher of the baseball-team.
"Oh.." Aniya gave a surprised noise when he saw their manager sitting there on one of the benches, looking back at him with puffy eyes.
"Why are you doing here so early?" He asked while opening his locker and dumped his bag in it.
"What are you talking about? You're probably just late or something." Touko closed the books and stuffed them in her own bag. But she wasn't fast enough to get her pencil before her childhood friend had grabbed it and was studying it with surprised eyes.
"This is broken... Right down the middle." He said aloud, making Touko's palms turn sweaty.
This had happened before. Whenever she was scared she grabbed whatever she had in her hand so hard the item would break. Today was no exception.
"Must have dropped it." She simply said and tried to get the broken pencil back but Aniya just took a step back from her, making it impossible for her to reach it even though they were about the same height.
"It doesn't get like this just from being dropped." He raised the pencil high in the air to really get it out of her reach, and realizing that she found it annoying he examined it closer just as if he had missed some important clue the first time.
"Come on, Keiichi. Just give it back." Touko could feel her heart beating harder, the fear gripping onto her once again. Pulling her down into the darkness...
"No, this needs to be examined." Aniya pretended to look at her through a magnifying-glass but that did it for Touko. Just as she could feel the anger exploding inside her the rest of the happily unknowing baseball-team entered the clubroom.
"Hi guys..."
"GOD DAMNIT, KEIICHI! GIVE IT BACK!"
Her outburst left everyone speechless, least of all Aniya. He had known her for a long time and yet he had never seen her explode like that. Not even when he had "accidentally" beaten up her asshole of a boyfriend in junior high.
Aniya reached out the broken pen to her and she grabbed it harshly before rushing out the door, successfully managing to shove the big Shinjo out of the way in the process.
"Okay..." Sekikawa looked at the door with wide eyes. Shinjo rubbed the sore arm that Touko had shoved and Mikoshiba looked like he was about to cry.
"TOUKO-CHAN!" Hiratsuka wailed loudly, sounding more like a sea lion than an actual human being.
"I've never seen Yagi that mad." Okada decided to speak his mind.
"Something must have happened, nya!" Yufune filled in, scratching his hair in bewilderment before joining the others in getting dressed for practice.
"What are you hiding from me, Yagi?" Aniya wondered silently to himself as he pulled the T-shirt over his head, his eyes still lingering on the door Touko had ran out of.
Yagi didn't show up for practice that day.
Aniya was worried about her but unlike Kawato he didn't go around talking about it. He tried to keep his head in what he was supposed to be doing but no one really seemed willing to put any energy into practice.
Hiratsuka was sulking, sitting on one of the bases mumbling about Touko with big manga-like tears running down his face. Mikoshiba still looked like he was about to cry, Wakana didn't yell at everyone to do their job like he usually did and Shinjo just did what he was supposed to do, although even more silently than usual.
Once practice was over the team was tired but unlike usual they weren't happy-tired. Just... tired.
Usually when practice came to an end, Yagi would cheer them on and praise them for doing a good job but today she wasn't there. The team felt empty and useless and even if Kawato tried his best to praise them it had to be Yagi.
.
"Touko... Are you sure you don't want eat something?" Yagi Minami knocked on her daughter's door, worry evident in her voice. It had been hours since Touko had come home, claiming that practice had ended early and she still hadn't eaten anything yet. To say that Minami was worried was an understatement.
For a couple of weeks now Touko had come home late from club-activities and suddenly practice had been canceled? She just couldn't believe it...
"Touko." She sighed, resting her forehead on the door to her daughter's room. "I have to go to work, but please be sure to eat something. You're going to get sick otherwise." She lingered at the door for a moment, waiting for an answer but when her little girl didn't even give her a grunt in return she tiredly ran a hand through her hair. "I love you." She said, this time not even waiting for an answer before heading down the stairs again, already late for work.
.
Touko heard the door close when her mother left the house but she didn't move from her bed. Her stomach was growling for food but she just didn't feel like eating.
She had hurried home after the incident in the club room, wanting to come home before darkness fell. Once at home she had lied to her mom, the first time in a couple of years, and had gone to bed despite the sun still shining weakly outside.
.
"What the hell is happening to me?" She mumbled into her pillow as a tear fell down her face. She felt so confused, so scared and so vulnerable. She closed her eyes, she was tired beyond her senses but too afraid to relax. If she fell asleep the shadow would come after her again.
.
Despite her best efforts Touko could feel her body growing heavier as she slowly started slipping, getting closer and closer to sleep when suddenly...
"Yagi!" She sprung from her bed in the blink of an eye, startled by the loud yelling outside her window. She walked up to her window and was shocked to say the least to find her childhood friend and classmate standing outside, wearing that stern look on his face.
"Don't yell, you'll disturb the neighbors." Touko said, knowing that the neighbors had a tendency to complain about everything and everyone but Aniya couldn't care less.
"Yagi! Come down here and open the door before I kick it down."
.
He wasn't serious... Not really, but he kind of enjoyed seeing the horrified look on the girl's face as she rushed from her window to do as he told her.
He personally couldn't care less about what Yagi's neighbors thought, they were all a bunch of middle-aged hags with nothing to do all day but complain about their neighbors after all but he knew she cared so that's why had chosen to raise his voice. She wouldn't have hurried to let him in otherwise, if she would have let him in at all that is...
"Hurry up, will you?" He looked at Yagi who was now standing in the doorway, hissing at him as he slowly made his way over to her. He wasn't about to hurry, he had all night after all.
.
"So what's going on?" He looked into her eyes, trying to find an answer in them since he wasn't really expecting Yagi to give him one willingly.
"What do you mean?" She asked, trying to feign ignorance but he was bound to know she was avoiding the question from the way her hands shook nervously when she placed the teacups on the table in front of them. Aniya grabbed a hold of her hand and held it firmly in his own while continuing to look her in the eyes.
"You're shaking."
"So?" She tried to get her hand back but Aniya's hand remained where it was.
"You never shake, Yagi." Suddenly his expression softened, gentleness replacing seriousness and Touko could feel her heart stop for a second when he smiled a comforting smile. "You should know by now that you can't hide anything from me, so spit it out."
"You'll think it's stupid, you're going to laugh for sure." She couldn't help but pout, she knew how Aniya Keiichi worked by now but on some level she still wanted to tell him.
.
"Well, I won't know if it's stupid until you tell me so... Spill it." He raised a meaning eyebrow but Touko still stayed silent for a couple of seconds before speaking up again.
"Lately I've been having these nightmares..." She started but not even a second after she had mentioned the word 'nightmare' Aniya was cracking up.
"You know what?" Touko jerked her hand away from Aniya and stood up from the couch they were sitting on. "I made a mistake in thinking that you would actually listen seriously to my problems! You keep saying all of these things all the time but you never mean any of them, do you?!"
She couldn't help herself, she was yelling at him.
"What sort of things?" He asked, still holding his stomach in laughter, although it was more like chuckles by now.
"Saying you'll listen to me! Saying you'll do me..." Suddenly he stood up, an action that successfully brought him face to face with the angry girl in front of him.
"Who ever said I was lying?" He leaned closer, close enough to count his friend's long eyelashes and despite her being angry he could hear her catching her breath at the unexpected closeness.
"You're too close." Touko whispered, the anger still lingering in her voice but there was something else in it... Sadness.
"Depends on what we're doing." He smirked playboy-ishly, enraging Touko enough to push him away and head up the stairs leaving the boy behind.
Aniya looked after her for a couple of seconds, he wasn't going to give her the pleasure of rushing after her straight away... Although he kind of wanted to.
"Yagi?" He walked up the stairs and noticing that the door to her bedroom was closed he ran a hand through his long hair. "Yagi, I'm coming in." He opened the door slowly. He didn't know why but for some reason he felt that storming in would only lead to more trouble from the girl than he was already in.
.
He found her in the furthest corner of the room, crawled up into a ball pressed against the wall with tears running down her face as she tried to steady her breathing.
"Yagi..." Aniya walked over to her, sitting down next to her, shoulders touching each other as he did. "I'm sorry. I really will listen to you this time so please... Tell me."
It wasn't often that he said please, least of all to Yagi but you know what they say: Desperate times call for desperate measures.
.
Touko looked into his calm eyes. Trying to find anything that might not support his statement but all she found in those deep, dark orbs were true words and warmth so with a deep breath she relaxed her tense body and started telling him the truth. The whole truth.
"Lately when I'm walking home at night, I can't help but feeling that I'm not alone. Like there's someone watching me from the shadows, just waiting for an opportunity to do something bad to me..." She started, glancing carefully at Anya to see if he had started laughing yet but was surprised when she saw a worried, serious look in his eyes.
"Why didn't you tell us?" He asked, his hand found hers again and squeezed it comfortingly as he looked into her eyes. "We're all more than happy to walk you home after practice but we kind of figured that you didn't want that anymore seeing as you kept rejecting our offers."
"I know, but that's all to do with my stupid pride. Once I start rejecting someone's help I can't bring myself to say that I do need it after all..."
"That's just stupid." Aniya said, his voice serious but a smile on his lips.
"I don't need you to tell me that." She bumped his shoulder a little and he chuckled as she did. "Anyway, I don't know why but I've been having these nightmares lately. I know it's ridiculous but it's gotten so bad I even have them when I'm awake, I can't concentrate in school... Today I even got thrown out of class because of it." Touko broke eye-contact. She was ashamed of what had happened and it was kind of hard to tell that to Aniya.
"What? You, the honor-student of the class, got thrown out of class? Then this must be serious..." She thought he was joking but there was no sign of a smile on his lips or in his eyes when he spoke.
"I can't sleep, I can't eat... All I see is that god-damn shadow, hunting me... Hurting me..." The tears started rolling down her cheeks again and despite how much she tried she couldn't stop the, from coming.
.
Suddenly she felt a pair of strong arms embracing her. She jerked at the contact but when she felt Aniya's heart beating as fast as hers she relaxed, knowing that she wasn't the only one affected by the situation. The warmth from his body hugging hers broke something inside Touko, sobs that she didn't even know she was holding in escaped her lips. The tears left her eyes with more speed than before and she could feel herself grabbing a firm hold of the arms across her chest belonging to her best friend.
"It's going to be okay." He whispered in her ear, causing her to shake even more from the crying. He placed his head on her shoulder, gently leaning his face onto her neck with a small smile.
"I'm here now, nothing can hurt you." This time his words were nothing but a mere mumble and before he could stop himself he had pressed a kiss against her tear-striped cheek.
He could feel how her heartbeat sped up through her ribcage but other than that she didn't acknowledge his action in any other way than to press her back closer to his chest, almost snuggling into the warmth he was emitting.
"Thank you." She simply mumbled with her eyes closed and a blissful expression playing on her face.