Ba Ra Kei

3

Seraphim Grace

CXR

May contain some scenes readers may find disturbing. Not suitable for anyone under eighteen.

"From tripping on a shoelace to falling in love
You keep things under control"

Ran looked all over the house and emptied his satchel several times looking for it, but it was fast becoming clear that he had lost his tie.

That meant it was the second one this year, his mother was going to throw a fit, and he didn't have enough money on him to buy a new one in secret until he got a chance to go to the bank which wouldn't happen until at least this afternoon unless he cut class.

He worked out which was the greater transgression, attending school for one day without his tie, although he had both his sweater and blazer, the first items most people lost. Ran was sure that somewhere that there was a great room in Tokyo filled with lost blazers, sweaters, ties and left socks, or cutting class.

His first lesson was economics, which he needed to pass to get into Todai rather than RikkaiDai, which was a choice he still wasn't ready to make yet. The tie would earn him a scolding at worst but cutting class might stop him getting into the university of his choice.

He'd have to go without his tie until tomorrow when he could get another one, or the heavens might fall and he might find the first one in the meantime. He laughed at that, he hadn't seen it since kendo practice two months ago.

Aya had gone ahead today, for cooking club, something Ran couldn't understand because the girl just couldn't cook at all. He climbed on his bike and began the long cycle to school.

Crawford's car pulled up around the corner from the school and opened the car door. Ran nearly fell off the bike when he saw the sedan pull up. "You left this with me," he said handing Ran a small paper bag, Ran gaped and then opened the bag, inside it was his tie, neatly folded and he smiled.

"Thank you," he said, blushing under his bangs.

"I don't suppose you need a ride the rest of the way." Crawford said, "I started at your house but you'd already left, it looks like I was lucky to catch you."

"I'm glad you did, I finish early today and it meant I would have had to go into town to get a new one." Ran blurted out quickly, "I mean, thank you, this would have been the second tie I lost and well, it's…"

"I wore a uniform too," Crawford replied with a warm smile under his glasses, "I was forever losing my sweater." Ran suspected it was a lie but he didn't care.

"Is this your friend, the mysterious C?" Riku asked sidling up to the car, "or are you being propositioned by horrible businessmen again?"

Crawford's expression closed off, his eyes becoming like amber instead of soft honey and the light glinted off his glasses, "and this must be Mafuyu," he deliberately mangled the name because Ran had explained to him and described them both quite well, so it had to be deliberate. Riku knew that, he knew Ran well enough to know that, but Ran ignored it.

"Nakatsu Riku," Riku drawled, "pleased to meet you."

"believe me," Crawford answered in the same dark tone, "the pleasure is all mine," then he turned back to Ran and his expression softened, "I can't make it to the concert on Friday, Takatori is throwing me a party I just have to attend." Ran frowned, clearly disappointed, "here," he handed him an envelope, "take your friends instead, I'll see you on Monday for our appointment, okay, be safe." Then leaving Ran looking at the envelope and a wicked grin he rolled up the window.

"I don't like him," Riku said as they walked into the school, "I don't think he's a nice person."

Ran ignored his friend and opened the envelope, "he's just given me six tickets to see WunderX at ZeppTokyo with backstage passes." He said a little surprised because it wasn't the concert he had been going to attend with Crawford, WunderX had been sold out for months. They had been going to attend a recital of chamber music but he hadn't realized Crawford could score tickets to WunderX at his home venue.

"Of course," Riku said looking at the tickets, "I could be completely wrong about him." He looked around, Ai was stood under the oak tree, her satchel thrown over her shoulder and her skirt billowing about her ankles. Her best friend, Nagayama Nana, was leaning against the tree looking about. Nana was a complete opposite of Ai in that she was small, with short scruffy black hair and a rather wall eyed expression that suggested that she might have been dropped on her head as a child. Ai wore a floor length skirt and full sleeves, she had a floor length coat embroidered on the back with her gang sigil, Nana on the other hand wore a summer uniform no matter how cold the weather, one sock pulled up the other balled around her ankle. Today, for whatever reason occurred to Nana, who was scholastically brilliant but completely unfazed by the world in general, she was wearing a white headband and a pretty brooch on her blazer.

Riku was looking past them when Mafuyu came up, he spotted, with the familiarity of someone who has been a friend since infancy, the tickets in his hand, "how the hell did you score WunderX tickets?" He asked, "I was there the day they went on sale and I didn't get any."

"Ran's sugar-daddy." Riku replied calmly. "I've seen him."

"He's not my sugar-daddy." Ran protested.

"The mysterious C. Is he handsome?" Mafuyu said, "because I could go a long way for WunderX tickets? If he could get ones for NittleGrasper as well I'm happy to suggest a threesome."

"Mafuyu!" Ran said scandalized.

"What, if he doesn't smell, doesn't have a hairy back and can get tickets that I'd happily sell my soul for, I'd trade in my camera to make him happy." From Mafuyu, who carried his camera, an antique Polaroid it cost him a small fortune for film for, everywhere.

"He's a bit," Riku said, "well you know, but look at these tickets."

"Hey, Hori-san." Mafuyu called out, "Ran wants to know if you want to go with him to see WunderX?"

Ai turned around with the usual reticence because if Mafuyu called out he was usually trying to catch you unawares in a photo. She was scowling with a look that suggested violence would follow a flash. Nana turned with her but more with a disinterest that suggested that if Ai had attacked him, which she had done before, that that might have been worth watching. Then her expression softened enough that she became stunning under her red streaked fringe. Ran expected to feel the odd stutter in his heart he always got when Ai's expression took on that wishful, wistful look, but it didn't come. "Did you say WunderX?" She asked. Then her expression became hard and guarded again, "I'm not going if it's just the two of us."

"I have," Ran squeaked, he cleared his throat, "I have six tickets, and well, there are only four of us, and Nagayama-san can come too."

Nana still managed to look bored, one foot pressed against the tree bough, "I don't like WunderX." She said, and cast her head back.

"They have a mango slushie to die for." Ai told her firmly, "the ZeppTokyo is a good venue, we're going."

And that, Ran thought, was that.

I want you to want me

I need you to need me

I'd love you to love me

I'm begging you to beg me

Crawford sat back on the plush armchair of the Americanized coffee shop and crossed his legs in a rustle of expensive silk and wool. He had his coffee held in his hands. He drank it strong and black, which to Ran seemed very sophisticated. Ran didn't know how he liked his coffee, so Crawford had ordered him a cappuccino with real cream and vanilla extract and grated chocolate on the top.

Ran simply wore jeans and a worn tee with a band logo that had been washed that often it followed the band into obscurity. He felt under dressed. Crawford was wearing a shirt with a splash design on it and a pale pinstripe. It had cloisonne buttons. This, Ran thought, was how real men dressed casually, looking for all the world like they had spent longer on how they looked than earning the money to arrange it.

There was a plate of soft looking muffins in front of them. Crawford had discovered quickly that Ran had a sweet tooth. They had been meant to go together to the cinema to see a Russian arthouse film but they had the date wrong and it meant that they were alone together with several hours to kill before either of them was expected.

Ran felt that traitorous stutter in his chest he had used to associate with Ai.

It was strange, Ran thought, how easy, and at the same time incredibly difficult, it was to talk to Crawford. When they had met, Crawford's assistant Schuldig had sniped about Ran to Crawford in German but seemed almost pleased when Ran answered him just as quickly. "Your accent is terrible." Schuldig said in Japanese and then walked away, as if forgetting that he had called him Crawford's kleine Japanischer puppe.

Ran didn't really care, because Crawford certainly hadn't.

Ran was telling him about the WunderX concert with the obvious dismay that Crawford couldn't be there, that he had had to work. "And Mafuyu said that if you wanted sexual favours he was more than willing for Nittle Grasper tickets. Or Iceman at push."

Crawford's laugh was like thunder rolling. "Is Mafuyu the blonde I met?" he asked with a smirk and a flashing glint off his horn rimmed glasses.

"No," Ran said taking the joke as it was intended with good humour, "That's Riku, his mother owns the convenience store, Mafuyu's mother is Hinasaki Miyuki, you know the photographer." Crawford nodded though it was clear he had never heard of her. "He has a part time job helping the novelist Takamine Junsei." He continued, Crawford remained blank. "You didn't meet Mafuyu, and he was only teasing, they're calling you my sugar daddy."

Crawford smiled to himself at that information and Ran blushed bright red and hid his eyes under his bangs. "And what do you call me?"

"Crawford." Ran stuttered out and Crawford didn't know if that was his answer or an entreaty to stop, but Ran was adorable when he was flustered, and simply edible when he was embarrassed.

Crawford just smiled and drank from his coffee.

They were walking along side each other through Shibuya at night, the streets lit by the reflected glare of the shops and the streetlamps. Teenagers in gakuran and attempts at high fashion bundled about in tight knit covens and the occasional gothic kiss. Girls chattered and boys chattered and mobile phones glowed like lanterns in their hands. Some of the girls had oversized fashion dolls in their arms, or small battered plush. The boys were clustered together over benches sharing cups of warm cola and pointing at the girls as they paraded back and forth along the thoroughfare.

Crawford had a take out coffee in his hands as they walked. "This seems, rather," he paused looking for the word as he looked around the gathered youth and their territorial behaviour and mating habits, Ran expected a word about wildlife, "Japanese." He said. "In America they hang out in cafes and over pin ball machines arm in arm with some bored girl that they managed to coerce into accompanying them. It's very different."

Ran didn't know that he was being led. He was young and naïve like that. "What did you do? I mean, in America."

Crawford looked distant for a moment, "I lived in Germany for a long time," he said and sounded sad, "but I used to go to the batting cage and play baseball." He shook off the reverie and took a mouthful of coffee, as if to wash the bad taste down. "But what about you?"

"I've never played baseball." Ran said simply. "I was always too busy with kendo or my music."

Crawford grinned, it was a shark's grin all teeth and menace and Ran felt the familiar flip flop of his stomach and flutter of his heart that he got when Crawford looked at him like that. "Japan has plenty of batting cages," he said, "it was one of the first things I looked up when I arrived here, I'll teach you."

And with all the passion Ran felt in that moment he thought he might be sick.

The batting cage was down a back alley, it was floodlit and there were kids and middle aged salary men in the cages striking the white balls with a solid thwock noise, causing some of them to rattle against the back of the cage, whilst most hit the net behind them. Most of the salary men had come from the office, with their jackets hung behind them and their shirt sleeves rolled up, their glasses wedged under their helmets as they swung and struck and swung and missed at the flying white balls.

Crawford paid for the cage with a gold card and smiled at Ran as he led him to the end cage, unlocking the door with the key the assistant had given him. "This is really simple," he said as Ran pulled the ugly blue plastic helmet over his hair, "see the pressure plate, when you're ready stand on it and it will fire the ball at you, hit it with this." Crawford hefted the bat in his hand, "hardly a Louisville slugger but it'll do the job, just swing and hit it, like it was a sword in kendo."

Ran looked sceptical but did his best anyway, he adjusted his stance to the formal pose of kendo and stepped on the plate. The ball whizzed past him and hit the net.

Crawford laughed and Ran couldn't help but feel embarrassed.

"Here," he said, "I'll show you."

He took a helmet and slipped it on his head, then took the bat from Ran. He was bent at the hip and with a single motion hit the ball hard against the cage.

"Now, take the bat," Ran lifted the bat, "stand at the plate and I'll help." Ran looked a little baffled until Crawford slotted himself in behind him, his body heat blazing and his breath agitating the small sensitive hairs at the back of his neck. Ran couldn't help the erection that was forming as Crawford's hands found his hips and pulled them back into his own crotch. "don't be so stiff, be fluid, now raise the bat high," Ran did, his breath panting and catching and it was hard to breathe. "Swing."

Ran hit the ball, it was not the same powerful strike that Crawford had used, which didn't surprise Ran because he was shaking like a leaf and Crawford had to know that he was but Crawford remained the way he was, tucked in around Ran, his hands on his hips, his fingers feeling like brands and Crawford blazing hot behind him.

Ran took a shaky step forward, "careful," Crawford chided reaching out to pull him back but it was too late, the ball came flying at him in an arc and with a dull thump in the stomach. He doubled over as it knocked the air out of his lungs and a second ball shot out of the machine and caught him square on the cheekbone.

Crawford drove carefully checking constantly that Ran's ice pack was on his face, the boy's head was cast back against the headrest. "I still think it might be an idea to take you to emergency."

"I'm fine." Ran said from under the ice pack.

"I have some witch hazel back at the apartment," Crawford said adjusting the gear stick as he drove, "it'll bring out the bruising."

Crawford's apartment was on the second floor of a modest building not really that far from Ran's school. He helped Ran in and sat him down on the leather couch, that was flush against the wall as he went into the bathroom and came out with a packet of painkillers and a bottle of clear spirit. "This will sting but it means the bruise will come out quicker."

Ran tried to smile but hissed as it pulled the muscles on his cheek. "I'm just glad I'm not at school tomorrow," he said, "otherwise this would be murder to explain. No, I wasn't fighting, I got struck by a pair of errant baseballs."

"Let me see your stomach," Crawford said, "you might have cracked a rib."

Ran tugged up his tee even as he bit into his lip, even though it caused his face to hurt even more. Crawford's fingers were hot and firm against his stomach and Ran forgot to breathe, Crawfrod was so close over him, close enough that Ran could reach up and kiss him. He wondered where the idea came from. He pushed it down again as Crawford's hot dry hands ran across his stomach, he was glad that the icepack covered his blush. Crawford decently ignored his erection as if it wasn't there.

He poured the witch hazel on a cloth and leaning across Ran's body and started to dab it on the welt. It was red and angry and Ran didn't need to see it to know that. "Crawford," Ran squeaked, "I can't do this."

"Do what?" Crawford asked, the very picture of innocence.

"I like you." Ran squeaked.

"I like you too." Crawford said, swiping the liquor across his cheek.

"No, I like you." Ran repeated.

"I told you," Crawford said, pinning him in place with his thighs. "I like you too."

"No," Ran tried again, "I really like you."

"I really like you too," Crawford said and then the gap between them vanished into nothing and Crawford was kissing him.

Crawford's mouth was strong and hot like the rest of him and his hands were against Ran's sides, where his tee was pulled up and Ran's own hands were in cRawford's hair, when Crawford swiped his tongue over Ran's mouth Ran pulled back.

"I have to get home." Ran stammered.

Crawford pulled back, his hair dishevelled and his lips slightly swollen though Ran wasn't sure that they had kissed that much.

"What are you going to tell your parents?" he asked, "about the baseball I mean."

"I don't know." Ran stammered trying to breathe which was hard the way Crawford was pressed against him. "I, I'm supposed to be with Riku gaming." Crawford looked almost disappointed that Ran had lied to his parents about being with him. "I, I don't know what to do."

Crawford sat back and ran his hand through his hair, "call them, tell them you're staying over at Riku's tonight, you can stay in the spare room." He cupped Ran's cheek. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you."

Ran looked sorry for himself. Crawford stood up and went to the fridge where he pulled out a pair of beer cans, he threw one of them at Ran who caught it, holding the chill metal against his face. "I really like you, Ran, you're so mature I keep forgetting you might not be ready. You can go home if you like, but I'd like it if you stayed."