DISCLAMER I hope, with all my heart, that I don't delude you into believing I own anything that's worth much. I also don't own Peter Pan. But I do believe in faeries. I do! I do!
WARNINGS T, for slight incest (suggested; YumikoxShuusuke, flirting/crush; YuutaxShuusuke) for suggested shonen ai (Fujicest, TezuFuji), cough a hicky, and het!kisses, YuutaxOC. On the cheek. Aww…
Amour: Frères et Soeurs
In English class, they read Peter Pan. It's only a children's tale, Yuuta knows, but it just stays in his mind.
He comes home and looks at his siblings, and sees only the Lost Boys. He knows that doesn't make sense, because Yumiko is a girl and they do still have their parents, and technically they aren't lost at all, but as he comes home and again his parents are out, it's difficult not to make certain comparisons.
He watches as his sister and brother mess around in the kitchen, playful in the almost flirty way that Shuusuke always tries to tease him with.
Yumiko has a smudge of flour on her right cheek, and Shuusuke is wearing a flowery apron and half a stick of butter rubbed in his hair. He supposes they are making a pie, because every time he comes over there is a pie in the oven, baking, and he supposes someone must've made it.
They still haven't noticed he is standing there by the door, and she leans over and carefully plucks larger bits of the butter out of his hair and flicks it into the sink.
They seem to be doing fine without him, and he tries not to feel left out; because he knows it was his choice that did this.
'They've been changing,' he thinks, 'without me.'
He can see something in their eyes, and he tries to look bored. He finds himself wondering just how much they've changed because this is different, somehow.
-
There is a loud crash, and feet scamper lightly down the hallway.
Slate eyes look in from a crack in the door. Yuuta's hands are clenched on the sides of his jeans, and he is torn between wanting to run, not caring, or laughing because perfect Aniki is not so perfect.
There is a broken pot on the floor, soil scattered, spreading out from the radius of where it dropped, the cactus nowhere to be seen. He watches as Shuusuke stares, trembling, at his hand, and at the blood dripping from the dropped shard of porcelain. Shuusuke sinks to the ground, slowly, slowly, and at nearly the same pace his wide eyes rise to the black gap between the wall and the door itself.
Yuuta flinches, and before his brother's eyes reach where he is he takes off down the hall, and retreats to the safety of his room. The smell of apple pie is wafting up from the kitchen, and he grabs his pillow and holds it tight, and tries not to think of Aniki.
There is a light knock on his door, and he gives his pillow one more squeeze before getting up and cautiously opening the door. His sister tells him dinner is ready, but she gives him a look and he wonders how many time she's seen Aniki having a… episode.
In the end, Yuuta comes down for dinner, as does Shuusuke. Yuuta sits, and tries to pretend he isn't there, Yumiko pretends that all is well and they're not alone in the house, again, and Shuusuke is all smiles and closed eyes as he sprinkles more pepper on Yumiko's newest casserole experiment.
-
'Forget them, Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again.'
Mizuki is reaching out to him, shining words of promise floating around him, and Yuuta finds himself reaching back every time. Mizuki is easy to understand, and it isn't at all confusing like some things are, like smiles and puzzles and love between siblings. Mizuki is tennis, but he is not Aniki, so that makes it better. However much Mizuki lies to him, his brother lies to him more.
'Never is an awfully long time.'
It's impossible to hide behind Mizuki forever, and he finds himself coming home with increasing frequency.
-
Yuuta looks in the mirror, and practices his scowls. He runs one finger over the cross-shaped scar on his forehead. With each passing day, he realizes, he is looking less and less like his brother.
The next day St. Rudolph has ranking matches, and his brother somehow finds time to come and watch. He sees his brother, his thin and pale fingers hanging loosely around the cold metal of the fence, and wonders when his brother started seeming so small.
-
Yuuta sits on the bed in his room at the house; and still, nothing has changed. It's been a week since he last came home, but everything is still in place and there is not a speck of dust to be seen.
He leans back swiftly, cushioning his head on his elbows. The ceiling is perfectly white, he thinks absently, before he sees a small black speck of a spider sitting in the corner.
He is tempted with going and running to his Aniki, because he is remembering a time when he would have done so with the hopes that Aniki would get rid of it for him, and he stifles a laugh and closes his eyes.
-
He knows this is a dream, because his brother would never show this much of himself to anyone.
Dream- Shuusuke is standing there with his eyes wide open and a variety of emotions running through the blue.
Dream- Mizuki is on the other side of him, directly opposite to dream- Shuusuke. They are both reaching out to him, and when he looks in his brother's eyes he can see the promise that he will be kept safe, and when he looks dream- Mizuki in the eyes he can see the promise that he will be made famous and shown the world.
He reaches for dream- Mizuki, because he doesn't want to be sheltered all his life.
As he is turning, almost in slow motion, he can see his brother flickering, flickering, before he fades away completely. His eyes remain for a fraction of a second, unyielding and electric blue.
-
It is his brother, again. He is with that captain of his, Tezuka, and Yuuta is unnoticed. It makes Yuuta wonder, sometimes, why his Aniki never seems to notice him when he is at home, with all the persuading he's used.
Then he thinks of saving money in piggy banks while they were still young, and he remembers that Aniki always wants what he can't have.
Yuuta is sitting at the table in the dining room, and they walk in the door. Shuusuke's smile reaches from one side of his face to the other and is laughing, and Tezuka has an amused half-smile, which is more of a smile then Yuuta has ever seen the man-boy with.
He sees how Shuusuke's hand accidentally brushes against Tezuka's as he reaches down to remove his shoes. Tezuka blinks and blushes, a barely-noticeable tinge of pink.
Later that evening, when they have finished their homework and Tezuka has gone home, he walks by Shuusuke's room and hears a smattering of words over the classical music playing on his Aniki's stereo. He hears 'Tezuka', and knows Shuusuke is plotting with Saeki about something.
(whether what Shuusuke wants is his brother, his captain, or the newest gaming console, Yuuta doesn't care to think very hard about it.)
-
When Yuuta wakes up in the morning, Yumiko offers to read his fortune.
He declines, because he knows he won't like what she finds.
-
He dreams, again.
Yuuta does not believe in the supernatural like his siblings do. Yumiko has her tarot cards, and uncannily the outcome isn't far from the truth. Shuusuke, too, has strange abilities. But Yuuta does not believe in fortune-telling, and he does not believe in mind-reading, and he does not believe that his dreams mean anything.
He is sitting alone on a shore. The waves are crashing, and the cry of gulls can be heard in the distance.
Dream-Shuusuke walks up, and dream-Yuuta asks him-
"If I come with you, what will you do?"
Dream- Shuusuke replies, "I will keep you safe from the world."
Dream- Yuuta shakes his head and says "No, you're not good enough. You will protect me, and I will forget how to defend myself. I will be ruined." and dream-Shuusuke walks away towards the west.
Dream-Mizuki walks up, and dream-Yuuta asks him-
"If I come with you, what will you do?"
Dream- Mizuki replies, "I will make you grow."
Dream- Yuuta shakes his head and says "No, you're not good enough. You will push me too hard, and I will be injured beyond repair. I will be ruined." and dream-Mizuki walks away towards the east.
Yuuta is alone on the beach, and the ocean air is positively stifling and he is angry at this isolation. He knows, he is ruined.
He wakes up, sweating, and wonders why his fate seems to be torn between those two, always.
-
"You will push me away every time."
"Hai, Aniki."
-
Shuusuke walks in the room with a light blush and a red mark half-hidden by his shirt.
Yumiko asks him how his study session with Tezuka went, and Shuusuke replies with heavy-lidded eyes that it went fine.
Yumiko smirks at him, and he gives her an identical smirk, and it's obvious they both know what happened.
Shuusuke throws his arms around Yuuta and gives him a playful kiss on his cheek, and Yuuta flushes embarrassed/angry and mumble something about his 'baka Aniki.'
(Yuuta also has a pretty good idea of what happened while his brother was at Tezuka's. He wishes he didn't know, but he isn't sure whether that's because he's disgusted or jealous. He decides he doesn't want to know that either.)
He can hear Shuusuke ringing Saeki up over the telephone.
-
Yuuta thinks about his first kiss.
He remembers it as a girl in his grade when he was eight. He can't remember her face, or her name, or anything else about her except that he kissed her.
-
Technically, his first kiss was from his sister. The next was from his brother.
He knows sibling kisses don't really count.
(he remembers the tongue, though, and thinks that doesn't belong in a four-year old's kiss. But then again, Shuusuke was always excelled at everything.)
-
When Yuuta was younger, Shuusuke was never called a genius.
Now, Yuuta has realized Shuusuke never played all out, and never showed that he could gain the status of a tensai.
He hates the word, because it is the beginning of the end for them, and it has three vowels in either English or Japanese, he learns.
It's a stupid word, either way, he thinks, but he doesn't let that fact stop them from pulling them away.
-
When they were younger, they were inseparable, or so says the dozens of photo books collecting dust in the closet.
-
When asked by the rare 7th grader who was brave/experienced enough to ask such a thing, he would answer he was definitely heterosexual.
"There are just a few exceptions to that."
But he didn't say that out loud.
-
Yuuta had never seen his brother cry. Therefore, it was easier to assume he couldn't cry.
Of course, that would be implying a lot more, and he certainly hoped his brother was human. Even if sometimes he had his doubts.
Yuuta hoped he would never see him cry.
-
He meets a cute girl who just transferred into his class.
Her name is Aiko, and she has shoulder-length brown hair. Her eyes are perfectly brown, and they close only as much as most people's do. She is talkative and outgoing, but polite and probably a good student. She has pink lips, just slightly redder than is natural.
He stares all through class, and looks away with a blush when she catches him.
He makes up his mind to ask her out tomorrow.
-
Yuuta didn't like classical music.
He like jazz, and rap, and American rock, and J-pop singers.
He was getting sick of hearing his Aniki's voice giggling over the decrescendos as the cellos dipped and the violins reached high points, and decides he will definitely talk to her tomorrow.
-
He realizes it is simply easier to act like this. At St. Rudolph, he is only Yuuta and there is nothing to worry about more than grades and tennis and girls.
With his siblings, with Shuusuke, it was so complicated. He didn't want to worry about measuring up, his parents fighting when his father came back from a three month-long business trip overseas, his brother huddled in a corner in his room with the lights off, his brother teasing, his brother…
His roommate called out another card, and Yuuta told him to ''go fish.''
He still wasn't ready to come home, and he instead of thinking about Aniki and his blue eyes, he thinks of Aiko and her brown eyes.
-
He asks Aiko out the next day, and she accepts. The next few weeks are full of blushes and careful kisses on the cheek and hand holding, and Yuuta is in love.
On his calendar, Wednesdays are reserved for dates with Aiko, and Saturdays are to spend with his family.
-
A month later, and he decides to invite her over to dinner at the house.
His sister is all hospitality and is gushing over her baby brother, finally having a girlfriend, and he can smell an apple pie in the oven.
Shuusuke's eyes are open, and he is looking Aiko up and down, obviously deciding if she's good enough for Yuuta. She catches him looking, and he grins and winks. His eyes close, again, and the slight glimmer of jealousy and regret are hidden.
He nods at Yuuta, (as if Yuuta needs his approval, he thinks irritably.)
His smile suddenly turns more mischievous, and he asks to be excused for a second. He runs up the stairs, and Yuuta gets a sinking feeling as he hears the thumps and scrapes upstairs.
Finally, Shuusuke comes back down with a pastel green photo album, and lays it out on the table.
Yuuta blushes brightly as Aiko starts cooing over his baby pictures.
by T.I.B.E.-sway- completed 9.22.2007
ZOMG! It's sooooo long! 2355 words! 7 pages! Wow, even I am surprised at myself. Anyways, I hoped you liked… and… yeah. If there's anything that wasn't clear to you, please don't hesitate to ask! I want to know if I made any sense at all… since this fic went EVERYWHERE. My oneshots that are like this tend to be jumpy, I know, but I think this topped them all…
Anyways, people who want to pick apart and analyze my fic are loved. Don't fret about leaving a huge comment. I really want to be able to improve my writing, so that really helps me!
CRITICIZE! COMMENT! COMPLIMENT!
…and now I need to get to work on my Fruits Basket multi-parter. Less that two paragraphs in… bleh.
…and I need to stop listening to Rammstein. It's starting to affect my brain.
And if you were wondering about the title… well, heh. My policy: When in doubt, write it in French.