Gelly: Happy birthday, Riku! :3 Much thanks to Jazzykins for the prompt- 'music' and Melo for the songs.
Summary: It was an unknown fact that Riku was an avid fan of music.
Warning: Hints of Shounen-ai (RikuxSena and RikuxKamiya).
Genres: Very light fluff, angst, and humor, in that order.
Disclaimer: I do not own Eyeshield 21. Nor do I own the songs that will be mentioned.
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Lyric
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Lucky – Jason Mraz, Colbie Caillat
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He knew.
As he watched the two boys sleeping soundly, deeply, that they tossed about in their beds, so engrossed were they in their dreams, one raising all four limbs in the air, mimicking an odd form of catching stance, the other, lying on his side, arms and feet moving about in an action that could be depicted as sprinting—he knew.
As he listened to their garbled mumblings which gave him an odd sense of amusement at the idea of talking in their sleep—he knew.
As he laid still on the bed in between the two seemingly restless figures, one earphone lightly attached to his ear, listening to the soft, jazz-like rhythm of the duet intended to help him drift off to sleep (and failing; it made his mind active, allowing it to wander into different trains of thoughts)… he knew.
He finally closed his eyes, tired of staring at the black ceiling of their shared hotel room. Despite the familiar music resounding into his ears, he could make out the sounds of his two roommates' restless slumber. He cracked one eye open when efforts to fully drift off to sleep failed, squinting, adjusting his sight to the small brunet figure at his left.
Sena grimaced. Riku made shushing sounds to calm the other boy. It was effective, Riku thought with a smile.
That's right. He knew. He knew that while he wasn't the one that Sena turned to in times of trouble or self-conflict, that Sena had once treated him as his teacher, a big brother and a rival (forgetting that it was partially forced on Sena's part) and not as his best friend, and that instead, the title was given to Deimon's receiver, he knew.
He knew that even if he did not manage to take the 'best friend' route in reaching Sena's side, he knew he was still able to get there.
And as he snuggled closer to the brunet's body, as he lazily draped one arm over in a loose hug, as he smirked at the thought of succeeding in persuading Sena to move their own single-person beds to form one large bed for two… he knew was lucky to be able to stay on that same side for the rest of their journey, together.
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Bring Me to Life – Evanescence
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A trickle of sweat, one of the many that traced the contours of his tanned face and body, fell towards the ground, adding to the abstract design made of different sized dots on the rocky canvass.
The gravel was piercing through his palms and knees from where he was kneeling, he was sure. He wouldn't be surprised to see them stained with blood, and later, he was definite that he'd see bruises of various shapes and sizes all over his small body.
He was panting heavily. He had been running, dashing, sprinting, pushing, twisting, lifting, catching—training since the early morning. The sun had set a couple of hours ago. It was only the dim light from the lamp post that illuminated the road he was on.
He was overworking himself, his body screamed. He wanted to agree. But no. No, no, no. Not yet. There was still more to do. There was something that he needed to fix. It was himself.
He felt lost, empty, dry… dead.
Training, yes, that was what he needed to find himself, his life. To get things back to normal after the whirlwind of events that passed in just one game. One simple game in which he lost. One single loss, and yet he felt like it made him lose everything.
Greedy gulps of Gatorade helped restore some of his strength. He was still trembling from the fatigue but the liquid should give him enough energy to make him last another run around the park.
He turned the volume of his music player up, letting the heavy beat of the instruments and the powerful soprano of the rock song take over him. Slowly, painfully, he leveled himself until he managed to stand straight.
Funny how, at the moment, the song was horrifically and strikingly appropriate... in a twisted sort of way.
It reflected the silent cry he made.
The stones gave a noise of disagreement as he took another step, but Riku turned deaf to the crunching, just as the world turned deaf to him. But it wasn't fair to blame the whole planet for the paradoxity of his actions, now was it? He had to do something. It was up to him if he wanted to be heard. It was in his discretion whether to reach out or not. Should he? Must his voice be louder? Must he wail? Screech? Shout?
He opened his mouth; a reaction to hurricane of thoughts going through his mind.
But nothing came out. No grunt, no scream, no sound.
It was impossible, after all, since at the same instant, the world turned black.
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Photograph – Nickelback
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"Riku, you look so… small!" Riku could hear Taiga exclaim all the way from the living room. Riku was inside his own room. On the second floor. All the way on the opposite side of the house.
The statement made him freeze. It wasn't an easy feat when you're stretching across to reach a piece of paper that flew outside the window. The stillness didn't last another second though, when Riku realized that that comment could only mean one thing.
The rushing of his feet made loud thumping noises on the wooden floors as he ran towards the living room. Once there, he made a dive towards the remote, fumbling to press the stop button.
"Taiga, what the hell! Don't go around looking through stuff in another person's house!" Riku said, successfully turning the television off. He faced the older boy with a glare.
The accused boy raised his arms in a surrendering gesture. "Sorry, sorry, my bad." He stuck out his tongue. "I got curious when I saw all those music CDs, I didn't know you had so many! Anyway, I wanted to listen to them, so I got the first one off the top. It read 'Photograph', right? It sounded familiar, made me want to listen to it, but I didn't have my CD player, so I had an idea when I saw the DVD player—I could just play it there since we were going to watch a movie anyway—"
"We were supposed to do our homework."
"…Oh. I thought we were going to watch something? Can't we?" Taiga did a puppy-face. Riku wanted to say he looked stupid, but then he only managed a sigh and, "Fine, after finishing our work."
"Yeah! Sure, of course!... Where was I? Ah, right. So I placed it on the DVD player thinking it was that English song—and it was—but I didn't think that it'd have actual pictures, too!"
Riku began glaring again.
"I didn't recognize the baby at first, but then after the boring… okay, the baby costumes were sorta cute and not boring… I thought it was a girl since the kid was wearing those lacy dresses. I was thinking 'hey she's kinda adorable' and I remembered you telling me about your sister!"
Glare.
"But, after that, I saw toddler pictures and it was you! It was like… like, your digital photo album! That's the new fad right? My mom wanted to make one for me and we fought about it because I didn't want my stupid kiddy pictures on a CD for everyone to see."
Riku swore he could be boring holes on the wall by now.
"Anyway— you were really cute as a kid, Riku! I knew you'd make one adorable brat, ahaha, oh man, I remembered that look on your classmates face when you told them off for pulling the pigtails on that one girl! Where'd you get all those pictures? They all look like stolen shots, haha! "
Taiga wasn't shutting up. Why were his glares not working?!
"And you were so small! Like… tiny! Well, you were almost as tall as the other kids, but you were like a mini you! I mean, you looked like you now only smaller—did that make sense?"
Riku walked out of the room, fuming.
Then came back, but only to retrieve the CD. He wondered if it would burn as well as firewood.
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Random Birthday Omake
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It was an unknown fact that Riku was an avid fan of music. Or so he thought.
One by one, he opened his gifts to reveal various music-related paraphernalia. New headphones, earphones, speakers and the most common, CDs of almost every music genre.
'Someone must've noticed when they saw my house,' he thought as he carefully organized the items—CDs on the rack, every other item on the table next to his player. 'They probably just knew now, though, because otherwise…' he trailed off.
He gave a grin as he stood up, amused at having another copy of the CDs he already had.
At least he can be sure that he still has another even after exhausting the first one. Those were some really great gifts.