a/n: Hi! This exact story was published quite a while ago and taken down because I had intended to revise it and post it on another website. As you can see, I've failed to do that out of pure laziness and am reposting it again after one of my friends (peachbebay) asked me to. The author is one and the same. Enjoy!
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For Akashi, he becomes.
me t a mo rph osi s
"I think I preferred it when you were silent. Those times you kept your lowly opinions to yourself."
"I don't care."
Mayuzumi has no clue how Akashi does it. That is, maintain a daily front as fluorescent as the tresses atop his head and have people, with the so-called authority over brats, dismiss his behaviour. He finds a person like that is the outlier of all outliers, including Mayuzumi himself.
If he casts his eyes on him long enough, the people around him seemed to fade, as if he was some network of incomprehensible energy. Akashi's alien only seems more prominent; how they reduced into a mere background
The current of people surrounding him makes it all the more prominent. How they're dull in comparison to Akashi's sheer energy is irritating. The
But Mayuzumi does know that he's definitely not the only one wondering if a person like his first-year basketball captain could really exist. Akashi truly was a horrific monster with a deceivingly beautiful physical appearance. Yet he couldn't go past the proposal of a tangent that should the captain be blindfolded, his menacing aura will disappear along with his voice and authority. Somehow, it felt like a treacherous fiend lurked within Akashi's eyes, but was a separate entity entirely.
It was all in the eyes; the window to the soul.
Does Akashi have a soul? He doubted it. For it to reflect those frightening hues, inside he has to be filled with burning passion, intelligence, crooked wisdom, anger, hatred...and everything else must be hollow. He had to say, if his captain of a junior was capable of feeling love, it was definitely not Mayuzumi's feelings that he would reciprocate.
Most times after Akashi came to visit him unannounced, and after he was one hundred percent certain that the other had taken his departure, Mayuzumi would lean over the sink and vomit. One day he thinks he wants to vomit right in front of the junior captain, but somehow he knew that the boy would only stop, stare and watch him. His unique orbs would rake over him in fascination; maybe he'll even display a disgusting little smirk.
'Look what I have for you.' Chihiro thinks, grimacing when the remnants of his waste drained down the sink. 'Look at how revolting I am. You don't want to associate yourself with someone like me. Now leave me alone.'
Now leave me alone.
What would Akashi's response be to that? Or something with that base? When this idea visited him, he didn't get one wink of sleep that night. It was somewhat comforting – just the mere thought of it. However, deep inside, he knew that it wouldn't be that easy to bat off Akashi. Nevertheless, that didn't mean he couldn't try.
And so he decides to do it, one day. How he had ever worked up the guts and the mindset he still doesn't know. But this one day while he was leaning into the hand that was cupping his cheek, his mouth opened to his own accord.
"Why won't you leave me alone?" Mayuzumi says.
Pale fingers cease stroking his hair and through his bedroom lamp's reflection, he could see striking orbs flicker thoughtfully. He almost wonders if he had asked the wrong question, or at least toyed with a nerve.
"Because you need this." Akashi answers, though 'Because you need me' is what his words earnestly mean. The other shifted under his touch, experiencing a burning sensation behind his eyes. He swallows dryly.
From the dual meaning, Akashi reveals that he pities Mayuzumi. Well the joke's on him; Chihiro pitied Akashi back with more power than the former's revelation. He pitied the boy who seemed so broken, in relation to the dark mist of karma that the captain was always surrounded by. He pitied the boy who knew so much but knew nothing better.
"Oh yeah?" Chihiro's blank eyes narrow in the first clean stage of anger. "And why are you here?"
His sports superior picked up the signals but merely raised a single eyebrow. Most times, Mayuzumi can admit to Akashi's charm. Other times, every single aspect that was involved for the creation, product and development of this boy infuriated him to the fiery pits of hell. Funny how the image of said pits emanated through Akashi's burning orbs.
"Because you don't want me to leave." Akashi tells him like it was a logical explanation.
In that moment, all the anger and hatred surged up well within him handled a nine on the Richter scale. Through a movement that fluctuated so heavily, the third year swipes Akashi's arm off of him in a hostile manner. "Fuck. Off." His tone was hardened by foreign gravel, eyes frenzied and his soul alive. "Don't ever come near me again!"
"Chihiro, learn to control your outbursts." His tone was unimpressed.
"How dare you degrade me!" His blood could have been boiling by now. "You don't let me go, you treat me like shit, you constantly toy with me and then you have the audacity to – to –"
And the evil mastermind slapped him, right across the face. Hard.
"I said, calm down." Akashi's words were solid ice, eyes so intense that Mayuzumi cringed. Akashi misses the first stages of the complicated relationship, Chihiro could tell. In that era, Mayuzumi's behaviour was as docile as his impassiveness. And now that sempai was misbehaving, showing his true colours - we can't have that now, can we...? Not when we're so close...so close. Not when he's made it this far – he can't do this to us – he won't disregard absolution for the life of him.
Chihiro lost his dignity, the ground on which he stood for and possibly his sanity. However, the one thing he mourned for was the loss of his pride.
"..." Chihiro carefully grasped his stinging cheek, and quietly hissed in pain before jerking his hand back and lowering his head. "...I'm sorry, Akashi. Are you upset? Please don't be. Here, I can fix this-"
Akashi flinched away from his reaching hand, his face livid as he eyed his teammate.
"What, you think you can pull those emotions out of me? The only thing I'm feeling is disgust. Disgust and irritation from your disobedience and the way you've been acting, especially since all of this, everything I am doing is for your benefit."
Mayuzumi narrowed his eyes in hatred but stayed silent nonetheless. Finally, he ducks his head and releases a silent exhalation. "It won't happen again."
"Good. I'll take my leave now, Chihiro. Farewell."
He stays inside the comfort of his room, but the walls are thin. So when he hears the front door thudding to indicate Akashi's departure, he bolts into the bathroom, picks up a glass ornament and slams it into the wall. He solemnly watches as it shatters into millions of tiny, diamond-like shards which scatter across the floor. When he needs to take a shower, he accidentally steps on a few of them and a small trickle of blood spills over pristine white tiles.
Who the fuck even says farewell any more?
He could only watch in fascination as Akashi writhes beneath him. His junior's face was pinched in an irresistible way that could be interpreted as the effect of pain – but it was indeed the complete opposite. Chihiro knew for a fact that when he dug his fingernails into protruding hip bones and plunged himself into the tight, wonderful heat, all pain is diminished in Akashi's sinning body for it converts into pleasure.
He knows because the boy always tells him; always praises him. Always strokes his head as if he was a well-behaved little pup, murmuring things like: 'wonderful. You were wonderful tonight.' And all he can do is cave into that drug-like touch that inflicted more amazing sensations he felt in that moment than he felt all his life. He wanted more than ever to tell Akashi to piss off, stop ruining his life, stop messing with his head, stop messing with his body...
Yet as he stares into those heterochromatic orbs which were temporarily affected but only through the surface, he notes with fury that the feeling wasn't mutual. As if the prodigy already knew what he was doing was evil but through Mayuzumi's terms, his actions were justified, acceptable. It wasn't.
It wasn't.
On another note, he knew there was no such thing as a perfect human being but Akashi Seijuro was so damn close. Chihiro wasn't referring to his appearance, even though that was one of the main factors for his personal attraction, and many of others'. He didn't mean wealth even if the boy was probably the richest individual he ever had the integrity of personally knowing. Not his proper breeding, or his mental strength and social detachment whilst being socially acceptable.
While these tiny building blocks combined to create his comrade, he was thinking more of the lines of how Akashi looked like when he surrendered into euphoria.
Because he couldn't take his eyes off him. Not now, not ever.
Especially not when Akashi revealed his pale, unmarked throat to tilt his head back. Chihiro could tell exactly when Akashi comes even if his gaze was focused on strained, shut eyes, parted pink lips and the flushed, handsome face.
Once again that night, Akashi calls him by that name. Not Mayuzumi's name, but his name.
Chihiro thinks, with the sinful way of how Akashi arched his figure and groaned, it couldn't have been possible for the previous victims to have left him. Chihiro thinks Akashi is a siren. A trap, dungeon and cage.
He was naturally red-headed. Akashi was born with this colour. This Mayuzumi wasn't certain to begin with, but when they played for the first time, he remembered counting the fine strands of red pubic hair. Anyone would agree that his condition was more than atypical for a Japanese man. This didn't excuse Mayuzumi's grey hair either but his appearance and existence were overlooked by default anyway.
Unlike Akashi. Who was, as it seems, such a popular topic that even his fellow third years were gossiping about him, a first year. Of course they would know Akashi's existence but indirectly ignore Mayuzumi's. They seemed to be in a debate. Participating were people who hated his smile, stature, wealth, power. People that envied him. People that were drunk with admiration. People who were as smitten as Mayuzumi himself.
"He's short." One of them says. "He looks like a sissy."
"Shh! be quiet; he might hear us!"
"So what? He's like half my size, and teacher's pets keep everything G-rated anyway."
"Yeah." Pure deadpan. "On school grounds. Ryuuga, that guy is wicked scary; I don't think you should go picking fights with him."
Snort. "What can he do? He's a nerd and a psychopath. Did you see what he did to that kid who tried to pull a knocker off him?...He's probably just all talk and no show."
"He is no talk and just show, idiot."
"Wait, what does that mean?"
"Haven't you noticed how he doesn't speak to anyone of us? But when he does, I can't describe it, but it feels like he's looking down on us."
"I know exactly what you mean..."
"Every time I see his smug face and freaky eyes, it makes me want to punch him so hard."
"Haha, but Akashi is powerful and Ka-chan is a coward~"
"Shut up!"
"I guess I see your point though...bias aside, I really don't get what's so special about him."
"He just has that kind of air around him, eh?
"The 'holier than thou' attitude."
"—and the favour he wins with most people. Think about it, the teachers, the girls, I even see some of our classmates hang out with him. If we take that away, I wonder if there'll be anything left."
"Oh please. The teachers are only there from fear because he's loaded and his family is downright upper class. I've heard he's captain of the basketball team which is why he wins all the 'sempais'. And the girls are just blinded by his wussy looks."
"Awh, it sounds like someone's jealous."
"I'm not!"
"I never said you were — ow ow! Okay, I give!"
'Lucky.' Chihiro thinks when he walks unnoticeably past them, jealous of their simplistic minds and reliability on prejudice. 'Their ideas of his existence aren't as fucked up as mine.'
When he brushes past shoulders through the hallways of Rakuzan High, people never spare a glance at him. They merely didn't know someone was there in the first place. When it's Akashi's shoulder he passes, the boy's head tilts to the side to acknowledge him. He murmurs something to him and in less than five seconds, he was on his merry way.
'Locker room.' He ordered quietly. Akashi's eyes had darted from the next target to the next so rapidly that Mayuzumi almost couldn't catch what he was saying or if Akashi had meant to say it to him in the first place.
It was a Wednesday today. The gym was off-limits to anyone but the first-string, and there was a mutual agreement that this day was for Akashi's private practice. It would only make sense to bring him there.
As he enters the gym in the afternoon, he could hear the faint squeak of expensive shoes on polished court. One would think that he might have been a disruption to the Emperor's practice. He himself thinks he is a disruption to Akashi's forte; it was the consensus that Akashi didn't waste his time on worthless things like playmates after all.
"Chihiro..." He doesn't even bother glance at him, his back turned as he bent his legs slightly, a basketball in his hands. "I didn't expect you to come so early." Swish. Thunk.
He delivers a flawless shoot with what seemed like no effort at all. Looking at things realistically, it was almost impossible how Akashi could handle himself with a smaller and skinnier physique than the average basketball prodigy's body. However, he knows a kid called Kuroko Tetsuya and his case was extreme compared to Akashi. He disliked Kuroko Tetsuya immensely. In fact should matters come into being, he would be the one to shove the weak boy's face in the dirt and spit on him.
From the information he had gathered so far, he knows that Akashi has a very strict father. And as always, people would blame the upbringing for raising the child. But what the incompetent average person wouldn't know was that babies are not blank slates. Some cry when first out, others do not. There was something deep and dark lurking and lacing through Akashi's veins. Mayuzumi thinks there is no antidote for the poison Akashi inherited.
"Hmm..." Akashi remarks, lips curling into a satisfied smirk. "You're silent today, aren't you? Is it because I told you off yesterday?"
Mayuzumi returns his usual blank stare, unable to project himself like he did on aforementioned day. It was only Akashi who could get him all riled up like that.
"That pleases me." Akashi walks forward until their faces are aligned.
Akashi was the one to launch the kiss – and he tastes like both bitter dental paste and sugar, like blood-flavoured icicles. He thinks it's unfortunate that the world would never get someone akin to this creature. This creature that was debatably his for the time being. Since it wasn't possibly to verbally describe the feelings Akashi ignites, he wanted the world to see his inner turmoil, and see if many will pity his situation.
Akashi leads them both into the changing rooms. Mayuzumi thought it was a good idea to slam the door shut by Akashi's body, picking him up and forcing his back against the surface. Instead of pronouncing his distaste, the other merely smirked at his actions and slowly brought his arms down around Mayuzumi's neck and shoulders.
"Are you craving my touch that badly? Answer me."
"You know I am." Mayuzumi said in deadpan.
"I crave touch too," Akashi whispers back. "But my desire is different from yours, you see, the physical contact I need doesn't necessarily have to come from you. Anyone will be just fine."
"Stop it." Mayuzumi pleaded, but it came out as a choke as his fingernails dug down on his back like a set of fine needles pricking his skin at once.
"Stop what?" Akashi laughs. It is a cruel and bitter sound. Mayuzumi felt vicious hands clawing up his shirt to dig on his naked flesh this time and hissed as he felt them trail down. "You are nothing to me. I can easily have Reo in this position. Kotaro, Eikichi. It doesn't matter. None of them matter."
"Stop it!" He growls. Mayuzumi gritted his teeth, blinded by a violent white light of fury as he forced Akashi off the wall and slammed him against it once again, because he knew. The degrading, despicable, cunning but poor excuse of a human knew.
Akashi coughed a bit but picked himself up, letting his palms lay flat on warm, pale skin. He levered lower, inclining closer so his face was hovering above Mayuzumi's shoulder, whispering behind his ear. "Right now you are no one."
Mayuzumi shut his eyes tight before surrendering into defeat, head lowered. "...I know," because this was the answer that pleased both Akashi and his conscience.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"I...want..."
"To be what?"
"To be someone."
Akashi's lips curled up into a genuine smile, his fingers curling on his head to pat him for his behaviour as if he was a dog. His tone of voice dropped an octave lower. "Correct answer," he murmured. "Now...
Take me, Tetsuya."
Mayuzumi hissed. He sets him down on the changing bench, a small stump evidently lodged into Akashi's lower back. He shifted himself to his comfort, his hands trailing down to the clip of his pants, watching Mayuzumi with half lidded eyes. He wasn't one to waste time or stall before getting what he wants. As soon as all clothes were shed, the younger was getting ruthlessly pounded on the door of a changing stall.
Akashi was severely bent, his upper back was forced against the hard surface, shoulder blades digging and head lower torso being reddened slightly by the friction caused between this. When Akashi first kept Mayuzumi just out of bounds in his communication circle, only standing there to be viewed and studied at from a distance, it was soon noticed how this boy – while plain, dull, invisible...these so-called factors seem to disappear when the other became riled up. It was only after Mayuzumi perfected his phantom style under Akashi's supervision did the younger move in and take the knowledge to his advantage.
With few words, a new type of relationship began to bloom. Perhaps relationship was an inappropriate word. Yes, 'mutual agreement' would better fit their predicament. Perhaps predicament wasn't a sufficient word. Akashi was scrabbling his teeth over sweaty skin and Mayuzumi was desperately scissoring his fingers inside the tight cavern when they decided that 'predicament' indeed does a poor job of describing their special type of pickle.
"Mmngh...Ah..."
The sounds coming from Akashi's mouth was almost as good as the lewd squelches coming from his wet digits forcibly rubbing against the younger's inner walls, rubbing and twisting and spreading.
"If – haaah..." Akashi was near panting now, the legs wrapped around Mayuzumi's waist tightened almost painfully. "-If you were really Tetsuya...you would have stepped things up by now."
"Not only are you insatiable, but you're impatient too." Regardless of his irritation, he's quick to withdraw his slickened fingers, wiping them on his own thigh and aligned himself with puckered entrance. He swallowed as the tight ring of muscles clenched, as if the emperor's cherry was winking at him.
The Emperor-Eye bearer groaned softly, extending a hand to drape across his own eyes, blackening his sight. "Tetsuya..."
"It's not Tetsuya; it's Chihiro." Mayuzumi replied half-heartedly, knowing that Akashi would either slap him or his comment would be ignored. Once the chaotic rendezvous reached this stage, there was no going back. The latter was the case; Akashi just dropped his head back, resting it against the counter and moaned scandalously.
Mayuzumi was pushing in slowly, letting the small Emperor feel the full effects of the burn of pain and longing. He could feel the younger squirm impatiently as he raised Akashi's lower body up with firm grips on the underside of his thighs, held up so pale calves hanged over his shoulders and back.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The popular assumption was that Akashi would lead the dominant role in the relationship. But if that was a correct one, then at what stage did he let himself go? And he...Akashi was fucked up. This kind of thing was his therapy or something. To complete a double-edged spear, this therapy was also Mayuzumi's main cause of his daily hysteria.
With this way, he could retaliate by setting up a brutal force. The poor captain could not even string a coherent sentence together in his head, let alone say it aloud. Mayuzumi preferred it that way, if that means he could listen to the song that was Akashi's vulnerable-sounding moans and cries. They weren't lusty, slutty or shameful at all. Instead it sounded like Akashi was in total pain, just like his weary soul.
Mayuzumi's face did not express much, but at this moment in time it was open for all else to see. The look in his eyes was so intense that Akashi could not look away. They fucked like hating lovers.
The elder bit his lip like it would somehow hold back a premature release. This definitely wasn't his first time in someone but he had waited a dear time until that familiar, overwhelming heat and tightness enveloped him. Too soon he was grabbing the base of Akashi's cock and was pumping him like a piston. Everything was messy – no movements were coordinated, Akashi was sent squirming violently while half-bitten pleas and whines escaped his person.
By the time Akashi was coming, Mayuzumi's last breath was spent. He felt the captain's essence spilling onto his hands and his bare flesh. He followed shortly after, planting his seed inside the tight cavern, marvelling at Akashi's near-inaudible call.
"Tetsuya..."
It was now evident when Akashi was speaking to him. Prolonged verbal interaction with team members and the captain was rare since it was Akashi who decided if the conversation continued or not. Recently, new decisions were shed in positive light, and the other team mates either acted oblivious to the instinctive name switch or spend a good minute staring at Akashi incredulously.
'Chihiro' became 'Tetsuya' at the same time subtly hostile became compassionate.
It may have been his imagination, but he could have sworn that Mibuchi Reo, one year his junior and about ten years his senior in basketball expertise, flashed him a look of pity.
"Ah, Tetsuya – God."
"Say it louder, Akashi."
Thick squelches echoed within a room that read off-limits to outsiders. Despite the fact that it was winter, the atmosphere was humid, a mass of transparent cotton blankets between their toes. There was no explanation for it.
"Tetsuya.."
"So good."
Porn was quite the filler for his innocent days, so he did know something before engaging in Akashi's play. Personally, he thought when in the throes of passionate love-making, the face that pornstar women made were ugly enough to deter his erection. And yet the face that Akashi delivers leaves Mayuzumi struggling to grip his own name.
Nevertheless, pain is not born without gain. Akashi doesn't leave without praise for his Tetsuya. Akashi doesn't leave without patting his blank grey hair.
However satisfying the sound of the impact his hand made on Akashi's face, Mayuzumi Chihiro, unlike the rest of the team and their current opponents, did not marvel throughout the real Akashi Seijuro's awakening.
When the mayhem reached completion and the Rakuzan players were sent home with their eyes sealed shut, the basketball court's only source of light was a dim, broken pad beneath the locker room ceiling.
Akashi didn't call him here – didn't whisper in his ear like previous times.
His eyes, as blank as a dead animal's reached pure, lively, now two matching crimson orbs. Orbs that looked so distressed and so unfitting for the man in possession. In the distance, he could hear someone shouting on top of a hill – something along the lines of: 'listen to me'. Something told him that the grief shown on his captain's face was not in retrospect to Rakuzan's defeat to Seirin.
Guilt-laden and with the burning sensation of wet moisture behind his eyes, Akashi staggered forward and rested a shaky hand on his teammate's shoulder. He breathed in deeply.
"I'm sorry, Mayuzumi.
"I'm so sorry."
And then Akashi is walking away and Mayuzumi is left with the tactless apology he witnessed escape soft pink lips and on his shoulder, the quick-lasting touch with heat reminiscent to a hard slap on tender, bruised flesh.
Mayuzumi replies to the darkness.
"It's Tetsuya."
Because for the first time, Akashi got his name wrong.