A Caress of Flesh: Part One
"For some moments in life, there are no words."
By Rykea Night
Winter's threshold laid trembling, vulnerable, a festering wound spilling translucent crimson and vicious cries of agony, completely susceptible to the vile melancholy of a corrupted reality. It rested pale, veiled in the harmless pity of the frozen artist, tears of the purest crystalline slithering down a pallid face. It was broken, raging, screaming its revenge, its excruciating pain. And yet he refused to let the match end.
Fuji shivered, resting hunched at the baseline, his eyes fixated upon the young child with the arrogantly stunning glare, his golden irises glistening within the moonlight's captivating brilliance. The boy coiled his scarf around his neck tighter as the ivory serpent of the sky hissed her cries through the blizzard's deathly embrace. Beneath the layers of clothing, his flesh quivered, prickled by December's frozen needles, and yet he ignored them idiotically, his gloved hands curled around the spine of his racket and the damp tatters of a ball.
"You're going to catch frostbite," Fuji sighed, feeling the heavy weight of damp cloth tugging at his limps. "We both are."
In reply, the boy's racket thrust at the ball, pivoting it over the snow-veiled net with casual elegance. The match continued, feathered specks of unique crystal raining down upon them, only the sounds of ragged breathing and the sickening plummet of a wet ball onto an ivory-cast ground tainting the icicle air. It was an atmosphere carved in tragedy and conceit, spite and immaturity. Yet, despite it all, only Fuji seemed capable of understanding such an omen's consequence.
"This is foolish, Ryoma," Fuji tried again, lunging at the return as to easily place it over the net. "These court conditions are perilous."
"I'm not going to lose to you," the boy replied sharply, his onyx tresses dripping fragments of ice. Fuji hissed a frail breath through his teeth, watching with agony as the boy dived for the ball, his sneakers sliding through the thick mess of liquid cotton, his fragile frame turning in coils, collapsing into winter's cynical embrace. With his motionless defeat, Fuji's heart cringed, beads of worry slithering down his spine as he approached the fallen figure, his racket lost within between his panicked footsteps.
"Ryoma," he eased gently, resting his hand on the boy's hunched shoulders. He stiffened with Fuji's touch, keeping his back to the older boy's gaze. There was resentment in the coil, boyish innocence, defeat. Fuji almost smiled despite the heavy stone of guilt lodged deep within his chest. "Can you move?"
"I'm fine," the first year replied, shaking away Fuji's hand as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Still, Fuji saw the grimace latch onto the youth's features with the move, the light twitch of his left leg, the throbbing wound of pride. The resemblance was uncanny; the boy's stubbornness, his raw sense of self, his resentment towards the image of the pained. In so many ways, Ryoma reminded him of the young Kunimitsu boy he met three years ago; the same arrogance, the same seclusion, the same untainted, bleeding heart.
Gently, subtly, Fuji ran his hands down Ryoma's outstretched leg, using the tips of his fingers to apply pressure in various spots, prying at the tendon, the muscle, the bone. With a brush of flesh against the boney ankle, the boy flinched, a deeply heated throbbing sensation burning beneath Fuji's numb hands.
"It's sprained," he said lightly. "Maybe even fractured." Looking to the boy's face, Ryoma adverted his bitter gaze, his pride persisting to shatter. It hurt, Fuji realized, the knowledge of your own faults. It pained more than any physical wound received. Any.
Coiling his arms around the boy's damp frame, Fuji lifted him into his arms gently, his own fragile frame possessing more strength than the boy imagined.
"It's alright," Ryoma protested fiercely. "I can wal—"
"No, you can't," Fuji finished, clutching the boy tighter as they traipsed through the blizzard towards the dim light of the change room. It seemed a distant dream of forbidden warmth in December's morbid grasp, a forlorn mirage within the white sandstorm. Ryoma shivered, nestling into Fuji's warm chest, resting his dew-covered features against the dripping cloth of Fuji's jacket. He smelt of lavender, the boy decided, breathing in the intoxicating scent, letting it coil through his senses, dulling the throbbing pain. A flower blooming in snow.
"Ryoma."
He opened his eyes to the dim golden haze of the change room's overhead lights, his body stretched upon the floor, wrapped and coiled in a series of blankets and towels, his leg positioned within a makeshift splint and resting upon a pile of white cloth. The warmth of the blankets was soothing, yet there rested a damp chill deep within his bones, only further irritated by the room's dank frost. It tore at him, the sensation of rime, each bead of water slithering down his spine like a sliver of ice.
"How long was I out?"
"An hour or so," Fuji replied, his jacket peeled from his black cotton shirt, the Seigaku sweatpants soaked in patches and parts, clinging to his thin legs. Droplets of melted frost clung to his flesh, turning the pale porcelain to glimmers of glass—a beautiful doll of melting ice. Sitting across from him on a bench, Fuji ran his hands up and down his arms, his tongue clicking against his teeth as he clenched his jaw, gazing around the gloomy depth of the room imperturbably.
The boy felt a pit of guilt form in his stomach, a single butterfly of fire scraping its crimson wings against his innocence blood. "We're trapped, aren't we?"
"Just slightly snowed-in," the older boy answered with his masking smile of compassion and familiarity, a smile even Ryoma could pick apart, witnessing the ache and misery beneath.
"Are you alright?"
Fuji, still smiling, ran his bare hands back through his sun-speckled tresses, liquid drops spilling from its messed beauty. "Tried, perhaps. How's your leg?"
The boy paled with the question, attempting to lift his body, showing a fake strength Fuji was almost too used to seeing. Apparitions of pain bled into the first year's features, coating a blank façade in glimmers of strain, physical strife. A cold hand coiled around Fuji's heart, the image so familiar, so blissfully haunting, scaring. The sickly sweet expression, the slick glimmer of sweat, the trembling flesh. Everything was the same, a seamless mirage of desire and lust, the reflection of the beautifully injured.
Lost within the portrait of cynical splendor, he found himself kneeling before the boy in the dim light, his chilled fingers gently tracing a trail of melted fear from the first year's cheek, his gaze trapped within the valor and innocent seduction of such penetrating eyes. It tore at him, invited him, coiled through him—the sense of wanting, of heartless lust. It was there, lingering in the back of his mind, prying ever so gently, whispering the satisfaction of nipping the boy's lips, tearing into his flesh, tainting his purity with sinful thirst.
"Senpai," the boy whispered, Fuji's lips hovering over his own. There was caution held in his voice, childish confusion, and a sense of waiting, almost as if he willingly knew what was going to happen, yet at the same time, he couldn't let himself know.
"Close your eyes, Ryoma," he replied, his breath hot against the boy's flesh. "Close them and forget."
With a single, trembling gasp, Ryoma felt the gentle press of Fuji's mouth against his own, hesitant, unsure. The boy clutched his eyes closed, gradually opening his mouth to the other, letting the tingling sensation of liquid flesh move over his lips, his teeth. The kiss deepened, and he let it, running his tongue over Fuji's, the sweet sensation of his senpai moving within him, coiling around him.
With a light parting, Fuji rested his forehead against Ryoma's, his breath slithering through his teeth with their detachment. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his tone deadened, pained. There was resentment, displeasure, loathing. Loathing for himself, for his actions, his enthrallment. The boy rested mute, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his blood burning in his veins, his skin flushed and tingling. The look grasped at Fuji's consciousness, his morality, and he hated himself for it. He had finally crossed the line of sexual sadism, his own loneliness preying upon his sense of reason, his own control.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered once more, turning from the first year, moving to stand, to walk away, but with his resentment, Ryoma grasped his hand, turning his gaze back to his own. Without a sense of reaction, the boy wrapped his hands around Fuji's head, pulling his mouth back to his own, a raw rush of need and desire bleeding from his mouth into Fuji's, saliva dripping poems of unsatisfied lust. Falling to his knees, Fuji coiled his hands around the boy's neck, gently working his hands through the series of blankets, peeling them from the paled flesh. Heat radiated from beneath the skin, each kiss, each wordless breath trapped within a spell of sensuality. And he was lost.
Pushing the naked boy back upon the bed of cloth, Fuji let Ryoma's unknowing hands fumble with his discarded clothing, let the child's crimson tongue slither down his chest, lower, deeper. Taking Fuji into his mouth, Ryoma lowered himself on his haunches, leisurely sucking the sweet nectar from within the older boy's body, letting the thick, creamy liquid slide down his throat. Fuji shivered with the sensation, hardening within the boy's mouth, feeling his trembling lips bring a wash of raw pleasure and cruel warmth. Coiling his fingers around the boy's hair, he pulled him up, running his hands down the pale, untainted threshold, lying him back against the mess of blankets once more.
"I want you inside me," Ryoma panted, his voice raw, desperate, pulling Fuji's mouth into his once more, uncaring of a reply. Fuji could feel the boy pressed against him, hard, ready. Gently, stealing the boy's mouth away in a rush of violent thrusts and bites, he trailed his fingers down the small bend of the back, working them between the child's buttocks until finding his opening, gently slipping his middle finger into the hot entrapment of pure flesh. Ryoma whimpered in virginal pleasure, pressing harder against Fuji, mutely asking for more. Sadistically, cruelly, he slithered another finger into the boy's tight hold, another cringe of pleasure coursing through the victim's body. Heat flamed between them, cold sweat and melted ice slithering over their flushed flesh, kisses of poisonous passion bleeding sickly sweet drops of crimson spit. Removing his fingers, he let the heated liquid act as a lubricant as he ruthlessly thrust into the child, Ryoma's screams of blissful pain deafening the silence of the room. The boy was tight as Fuji pulled back before tearing into him again, another cry shattering the air. And within that moment Fuji felt the cold grasp of December's embrace trail her frostbitten fingers down his naked back.
Raising his oceanic vision, his throat burned dry, his frame turning to porcelain stone. The beautiful figure of dominance stood veiled in frozen elegance, his black coat a swirl of gray and white, his beige scarf coiled around that stunning, high neck. Chestnut tresses dripping droplets of liquid rime framed a face of masculine perfection; high cheekbones and pallid flesh set in stone, his full lips pressed tight, his jaw unmoving. But his hunter irises spoke of the mute, whispering their tales of betrayal and hatred, disappointment and broken lust.
Fuji's heart shattered, his own guilt—his own betrayal—towards the only thing he knew—believed—looking him in the eye. He longed to run into those arms, close those bleeding eyes, steal away those voluptuous lips, but he couldn't. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak, he couldn't breathe, even as he watched the only one he had ever adored turn away, slamming the open door behind him.
Cursing under his breath, his thoughts running wild, Fuji thrust into Ryoma once more, burying his self-loathing in the suffocating waves of the boy's heated screams. He made Ryoma his that night, violating every inch of flesh on the boy's willing corpse. Using the boy's body as an escape, he poured into him, relentless, captive, sadistic. And throughout it all, he could only wonder if he had opened his body to Tezuka the way the foolish first year had to him.
With the unspoken answer, another shard of glass fell from the shattered dream, and the hatred continued to burn.