***ALSO, not sure my bolding/italicizing is showing up via Google-Chrome browsers? idk why, it doesn't show on my Chrome, but DOES on Safari. And it's kiiiind of necessary formatting for this chapter. If all else fails. Look the fic up on Archive. User Name: H0LYxSHiP ***
Brief Annoying Bullshit.
┻━┻︵ \(°□°)/ ︵ ┻━┻
Eh, there's a lot of song lyrics in this chapter. I feel weird about how they're formatted still, I'm in a weird place in my life, re-starting college has been weird, this whole chapter feels kind of a weird. It's probably more repetitive as far as word choice, and I'm half certain I might have recycled particular phrases from chapter two by accident, but then again, there are also some PURPOSELY re-encorperated things. So, meh. It's definitely a better dialogue-to-drabbling ratio, but I've written and re-written so many minuscule lines of dialogue, slash added and subtracted that I'm getting sick of looking at it lol. No promises I won't end up making later alterations, but last time this happened, it took me THREE YEARS to finish a single chapter. So, WHOOF. No thanks. HOWEVER, I did make a CONSCIOUS effort to be less..well...all of MY convoluted writing. Still one of my own styles, but that I attempted to merge together.
OKAY. So, like I said, there are a few song lyrics implemented at the start, if you don't know the songs, it will prrrooobably just look/sound stupid. So I recommend (I know it's a hassle) but even just you-tubing them real quick, or spotify, or whatever. I personally just have them spotified on a playlist in a row, so I can click next, since it's only the beginning few versus. Half the 'grammar' formatting for them is like...part real grammar...part added to do to how I feel like it sounds? If that makes sense?
***If you wanna look them up in advance, rather than read along and then backtrack, they're as follows: Evolution by The Used, Armor by Landon Austin, Undone by FFH, Leave by Matchbox 20, Hurt No One by The Used, On My Own by Quietdrive, and Welcome to The Family by A Day to Remember.***
Haha I'm aware this is an odd clusterfxck, and noooo, this wasn't half me having driven back and forth to scoop my sister from college in OH (a 4 hour drive from me) listening to these songs that I kept, and we BOTH kept, attributing to shipping pairings...
***ANYWAYS. There's also ONE more song, somewhere in the middle-ish, I'm aware that they way I've isolated flashbacks in-between every other verse or so makes it A. impossible to listen to the song while reading it, and B. impossible to have EVER actually thought about said things in real time lol but meh, this is already fan-fiction. So I figured, what the hell?
When you get to that, lyrics are bolded, flashbacks are italicized, and larger chunks of 'intervening sentences' are separated by this little doohickey ⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜ however, if there's ever just regular, non-bolded, non-italicized text, just assume it's normal narration but at some point that would have looked increasingly stupid with too many ⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜'s between them all. Some flashbacks have been subdivided or spliced in two, the dot-dot-dots or similar contexts should be a pretty dead give away though. These flashbacks range from dialogue I took straight from episodes, both english and Japanese translations, as well as excerpts from the novelizations and manga. I only really altered one. But, disclaimer or what not, I don't technically own the phrasing to those others of course.***
That song is also half formatted lyrically like sentences and half like arbitrary commas I put in places where pauses sound like they occur. (I don't nec. want to say what it is right now, not that I guess it'll 'ruin' anything, but sort of an unnec. spoiler, so you can feel free to look it up if you want when you get to it. All I'll say is that, keep in mind, to find the extended remix. For purposes pertaining to following dialogue snippets.)
Overall, yeah, it's obviously sloppier in some places than others, but I did my best to incorporate a little bit of everything. So, you get something good at least? haha.
Comment Reviews. Sorry, SUPER SHORT this time guys.
Silver Thunder: yeah, totally gonna jip you on this review, but I figure, between our previous f.f messages, and the archive reiterations, a simple THANK YOU THE FUCK AGAIN for all your support and feed back and just everything should suffice. Lol. Soooo Yeah!
Guest: Lol, I'm glad you like it! Sorry I don't have too much more to go off of in terms in responding, but thank you so much for taking the time to leave me a comment/review regardless! Short'n'sweet-something I struggle ENDLESSLY with. Hope to see you back, hope you continue to like whatever I come up with next!
Anddddd then, there was FANFICTION:
ヽ(°◇° )ノ
⇱ҏℜ❥Ɱ¡ᵟⅇⓢ||✎||ѠяⅈʇŦ∊η||✑||ⱺη|ᵂα⏉ⒺԄ|❥ℙʇ∙ӡ⇲
❝There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on...❞ ―Aaron Copland
Fushimi was pulling a new sweatshirt over his head and Yata was busy fidgeting with his MP3 player.
"Call me a traitor, for changing my mind. Call me a criminal, if thinking's a crime. Call me an animal, it's hard to define. I don't care what you say, I came to defy. I've come so far. Everything changes, with the way that I feel, seems impossible I'll stay the same. Time rearranges. The more we refuse is the more time we stand in the way. And how am I to be myself? Everyone's trying to be everyone else. Everything changes, with the way that I feel, seems impossible I'll the same. Go back to the middle, try filling the void. Watch thoughts into action, it's hard to destroy. Call me an animal, and I won't deny..."
[Evolution by The Used]
click.
"I'm not bulletproof when it comes to you. Don't know what to say, when you make me the enemy. After the wars won, there's always the next one. I'm not bulletproof when it comes to you. Maybe I'll crash into you, maybe we'll open these wounds, we're only alive if we bruise, so I lay down this armor. I will surrender tonight before we both lose this fight. Take my defenses, all my defenses, I lay down this armor. I'll do what it takes, to make this right, but we got to stop before the regret…"
[Armor by Landon Austin]
click.
"Open up wide, swallow down deep, no spoon full of sugar could make it sweet. The cancer inside, stealing my sleep, night after night it keeps haunting me. The secrets I keep, are tearing me up inside, I try to hide them and I wonder why? I wonder why I'm still running when I know there's no escaping. Come undone, surrender is stronger, I don't need to be the hero tonight. We all want love, we all want honor, nobody wants to pay the asking price. Fall on my knees, fall on my pride, I'm tripping over all the times I've lied. I'm asking please, but I can see in your eyes, you don't need tears for alibis. It's true what they say, love must be blind, that's why you're still standing by the sinner's side. You're still by my side when all the things I've done have left you bleeding…"
[Undone by FFH]
click.
"It's amazing, how you make your face just like a wall. How you take your heart and turn it off. How I turn my head and lose it all. It's unnerving, how just one move puts me by myself, and there you go just trusting someone else. And now I know I put us both through hell. I'm not saying there wasn't nothing wrong, I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me. And I'm not saying we ever had the right to hold on, I just didn't wanna let it get away from me. But if that's how it's gonna leave, straight out from underneath, then we'll see who's sorry now. If that's how it's gonna stand when you know you've been depending on the one you're leaving now. The one you're leaving out…"
[Leave by Matchbox 20]
click.
"I never meant to hurt no one, nobodyever tore me down like you. I think you knew it all along, and now you'll never see my face again. I never meant to hurt nobody, and will I ever see the sun again? I wonder where the guilt had gone, I think of what I have become, and still, I never meant to hurt nobody. Now I'm taking what is mine, letting go of my mistakes, build a fire from what I've learned, and watch it fade away. Because I have no heart to break, I cannot fake it like before. I thought that I could stay the same, and now I know that I'm not sure, I even love me anymore…"
[Hurt No One by The Used]
click.
"I've been so many places, I've seen so many things, but nothing compares to the way you used to look at me. We both know this is over, we know that lines are blurred, sometimes I think that I could fix it if I just found the words. Put down your gods, so I can try to explain where I went wrong. Trust, that I'll stay right by your side, if you can't open up then I guess I never will…"
[On My Own by Quietdrive]
click.
"We're finally alone at last. Oh, how I've waited for this day to come. There's just something about you that rubs me wrong, you're not worth my attention. I built this with my own two hands, if you could severe the ties and stop using me as your next misconception. I don't believe that everything you've known about me is gone forever, and I won't forget the days that we spent forever, it haunts me. I don't believe that everything you've known about me is gone forever. And I won't forget the days we spent forever, it haunts me..."
[Welcome to the Family by A Day To Remember]
click.
"Are these supposed to be about me?"
The other boy stiffened.
"Becau—"
"Give me that!" Fushimi shouted over him, whipping around and startling Yata half to death. "I am so not joking, Misaki," he fumed, unavoidably flustered, "give it to me," lunging for the object with absolutely no concern for how stupid he looked. "Give it back right now," yanking the headphone straight from his ear.
"Holy shit, it was just a question," both hands rose nonthreateningly, "don't shoot."
Provoking impatient eyes and an aggravated exhale in response. "I swear, I can't even turn my back for five whole minutes and already you're up to no good," he reprimanded to Misaki's amusement, "try and learn some self-restraint, would you?" Head shaking in disapproval. "You're so undisciplined it's disgusting."
"Gee, sooowrry, mom," Yata cocked his head with a condescending inflection, "I promise not to wander around the store again, hooonest."
"God, you really are just a giant child, aren't you," Fushimi's face twisted with undercurrents of irritability, "applying the broadest definition of giant and the worst possible definition of child. Didn't your mother ever teach you to keep your hands to yourself?"
"Did yours?"
"Tsk." Saruhiko crossed his arms with a scowl, "cheapshot..."
"Hmm? Come again?"
"I said," he huffed, "that it was a cheap shot."
"What a coincidence!" The response was as perspicuous as it was smart-mouthed. "Your favorite kind!"
Another tsk, timed with the wayward turning of his body.
"A common interest it would seem," Fushimi's eyes rolled, unamusedly devoid of color, indirectly dismissing having been so easily outfoxed and growing immaturely cross in sight of the loss, "and no, for your information, they aren't," he slipped his friend an invalidating side glance, "not everything's about you, you know."
"MIStæKeɪ?" One eyebrow angled appreciably, "You're kidding, right?"
Flatlining with a deadpan stare, the words caught somewhere in his throat.
"That's the best you could come up with?"
No response. Fuck.
"Three points for creativity, zero for stealth," he openly criticized, "Honestly, for a hidden weapons user, you ought to be ashamed," Misaki parroted back with an even more patronizing tsk'ing. "If you call that subtle."
"I never ca—"
"I mean, seriously. What happened?" he elongated without reprieve, "I thought you were supposed to be some sort of genius?"
Fushimi's expression only slightly less impassive. "Did you want me to answer that?"
"Did you just ask me for permission? You really must be losing your touch," auburn locks shook pitifully. Eyes clouding with a judgemental imbalance of gold and no-fucks-given, "Here's a little pointer," he reinforced, taking on a snarky tone, "you might want to be a little less specific when naming your playlists next time," Yata gestured dramatically, "but I'm no expert."
"Misa—"
"MIStæKeɪ," he covered his mouth and coughed to the side.
Forcing the other to pause, speculatively eyeing the space between them. The air was heavy, thick, and hard to cut through. Like a dense, impenetrable fog. Reducing visibility and making it difficult to breathe—lost enough at is was—stubborn, disobliging, and losing the capacity for civil conversation. Wary of miscalculating the appropriate amount of time before trying again. Counting to ten and back, then once more just in case, frustratedly clearing his throat. Only to be interrupted by the prolonging of this passive-aggressive punishment as if on cue; opposing body deliberately craning back over the device with falsified curiosity, repeating the epithet with an even more bewildered, cagey sort of emphasis this time.
"...What even is that? Latin?"
The spelling—he knew already—the coy echo of accusation causing the heat to rise steadily in his face. Misaki in his more cunningly manipulative form accelerating the evolution of ghostly pale to the beginning stages of color with an obnoxious sense of ease. This offhanded and unfortunate talent, one might go as far to call it, for undermining his ability to maintain composure that he'd always had, a combination of silent fists and empty headed stares the taller boy by no means favored. Not now. Not in this context. And definitely not in the way that lazy smirk began to arch. Equally conscious eyes provoking and without sympathy.
"No, no, serious—"
Fushimi glared. "I didn't mean it like that, okay," he unintentionally backtracked. Addressing the indubitable text displayed across the screen in more divulging detail than he'd planned to. "So do me a favor and quit it with the angsty, oblivious, Baka-saki routine already," he crossed his arms out of habit, "it's getting old."
The not-quite-so-casual slip of the tongue that swept the subject matter back into consideration a reflexive measure towards the increasing awareness of spite across from him that it had clearly instigated. That was clearly not backing down or going away anytime soon at this rate. Zero for subtlety, that's for sure, he brought his bottom lip between his teeth, feeling embarrassed for being so carelessly open and unguarded. A perfect score between open-and-shut and no-shit-sherlock on a scale of stupid-fucking-shithead decisions, he cursed, the unavoidable play on words lacking any artifice: Mistake.
"Ah," Yata cocked his eyebrow, obviously pleased, "but you do admit that it is about me then?"
"Shut up," Fushimi threw the device, "Only you could make perseverance a short-coming."
Intercepting, the redhead made a sure-handed catch, "Stop, you're breaking my heart."
"That's not all I'm gonna break," he muttered under his breath.
Recognizing the disconcerting lapses in character—something he'd anticipated—Yata extended one leg outward to nudge Fushimi's shoulder, "Hey," he began, half awkward, half softened as the other pulled away, not quite as flexible when it came to resituating.
"Hey yourself," Fushimi said uncooperatively—nonsensically, and in the closest form of compromise.
The smallest fluctuations and tiniest adjustments that appeared insignificant to the naked eye their way of reaching out, immovable until it came to the other; until the self-governing rule met the self-integrated exception. A shared basis of understanding that stood firm against various errors in communication, intentional or accidental or any combination of the above; which, it just so happened, was a delicacy in the spread of their diction, and an inevitability in their usual dealings. Something that came as easily as breathing. These translations lost between them. Thus, these seemingly trivial inconsistencies and constant interruptions had become nothing short of pertinent reference points, self-instilled and micromanaged, but no less an irreplaceable vestige that even time had failed to fully vanquish. Like a faulty-wired sixth sense caught someplace in the forebrain. Creating their own out of body cerebral cortex, so contradictory and contralateral but comprising a complete system that required one another to function. One half processing what the other half received, always divided, but working symbiotically to make sense of what became otherwise incomprehensible. Useless on their own, but when put together, they stood a fighting chance.
Remaining in their respective hemispheres, the both of them frowning but not crossing any more unnecessary lines, save to say for the few in the metaphorical sand beneath their feet that they'd long since kicked out of place and left askew. But then again, anatomical allegories aside, they'd never been very skilled at walking a path they couldn't bend to their own specific gaits, that too, however, came back to the same principle, routing through isolated channels that conformed to their specific inclinations, artistic versus analytical, intuition versus logic, insight versus reasoning, creativity versus concrete. Estranged, but not so different once they began to intertwine. So, although to the average outsider, broken meant broken, to the two of them, broken only meant giving way to a bridge. Some indecipherable ground where they could meet in the middle, the invisible corpus callosum that connected them and poured concrete between the gaps, incapable of determining which grains had been redistributed by which assault, or how to measure the individual exertions of hot air that had covered up all the evidence.
Such things, on the contrary, had a tendency to evaporate. The type of awareness that was lacking when it came to the knowledge of their own inner workings, or why or even how they fit together. Almost fit to be a phenomenon, but make no mistake, it wasn't a miracle, and it wasn't quite a maneuver, so to speak. Nor was it a permanent solution. For all the wordiness it took up to try and explain, it presented itself far more complexly than it was due credit. They weren't quite scientific enough to provide any proof, nor uphold any degree of measurable accuracy; it wasn't like this intricate code, it was hardly even standardized enough to consider applicable at certain times, let alone something one could replicate and attribute instructions for, and was not to be confused with any type of failsafe. It wasn't a hundred percent, it was simply enough. The conscious awareness of an extended willingness to go above and beyond that went unspoken. Even if above was but a fraction, and beyond no more than breathing room. It was their system. The juncture of concurrent lines in a point of discontinuity. It worked.
Until it didn't.
"Just relax, okay?"
"Yeah? Just reverse time."
"C'mon, you can't be that mad."
"I can't?"
He sighed. "Okay-okay, you shouldn't, I stand corrected."
"Well I am."
"I've got one about you too, you know," Yata imparted shyly. "A playlist, I mean."
"And that's comforting, how?"
"I guess it's not," he grinned, "mine's way worse."
"Do your worst then," an even tone permitted, attempting to redirect the attention.
Misaki consented, "Per request," his voice dipped with theatrical compliance, a deep maroon device appearing within eyes range, illuminated with verbal accompaniment that was further accentuated by features that were far too amused, his entire upper body extending forward from the edge of the bed, "FUckThiShIt."
"Tsk. You didn't even use my whole name."
"That's the part that bothers you?"
Fushimi shrugged. "The letters aren't in the right order either since you asked. I mean, Fu-t-s-i?...Really," he demanded, casual tone curdling into an abhorrent grimace, "It sounds like footsy. I hate feet."
Sighing deeply, Yata rolled his eyes back into his skull. "I know, Saru, I just kept capitalizing every next letter that was in your name."
"There's definitely no T in either of my names."
"I KNOW," the smaller boy interrupted, all flustered, "stop talking down to me, I don't put so much emphasis on playlist titles," he made a face, "I'll be sure to brush up on my dead languages and ASCII-symbols next time, as not to insult your precious intelligence."
"Well, good," Fushimi grinned, one eye closed, peering out through his bangs from the other, "I might lack subtlety from time to time...but if you've already forgotten how to spell, then well...whoof," he outstretched his arms above his head, purposely entertaining the look of confusion as he brought them down to his sides, bending to crack his back. "...you forgot the H too, by the way," he clarified.
"Wow, y'know, I only told you to try and make you feel better, but way to be a total dick about it," Yata expressed with more annoyance than offense. "Congratulations on winning Nitpicky Bitch for twenty years running," he clapped sarcastically, "Unopposed too!"
"Well, as much pleasure as I take in your flattery, especially when it comes to outranking all competition, imaginary or not," the darker haired boy smirked, just a little bit too much leftover satisfaction still radiating, "don't get carried away thinking you're so clever that I can't see when I'm being clearly condescended to," he cautioned.
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say I was trying to pull a fast one over you," golden eyes engaged him flatly, "just trying to remind you what an insensitive prick you are."
"Such sweet words, you're making me blush," Fushimi swooned, outwardly reciprocating the mockery.
"Fuck off."
"I don't know what you're getting so worked up at me for, though." He feigned innocence. "You're the one with the shit-for-an-excuse-spelled playlist."
"Dear lord, let it go," Misaki groaned, "how can you really still be hung up on that?" offering him a queer look in the form of the inability to understand, "Is that, honest to god, what it's like to live in your brain? Does the inaccuracy really bother you that much? Like, seriously?" Ignoring the fact that his own cheaply crafted caption was also equidistant in having nothing nice to say.
The other boy just gave another shrug.
"Fine. Want me to change it? Here," he fidgeted with then represented the player, "FUckthiSsHIt. Happy?"
"Still horrendous," Fushimi shook his head, yawning as he wound the headphone cord around the player, growing disinterested in the subject altogether. "And I would've sooner just had you not looking through my things."
"Here," Yata shoved something abruptly into his lap, "go ahead."
Fushimi turned the mechanism around in his fingers thoughtfully at first, pushing it back after only a moment's consideration.
"No offense, but I don't really think I want to know what kind of songs remind you of me," he trailed away indiscernibly...they're probably all horrible...and I can't even blame you...But I definitely don't want to hear them either, he was trying his best to smile—not one of his strong points—only giving himself away.
"There's only one," Misaki held it out to him with less steady hands than the previous attempt. Head down and unimaginably red. "Don't laugh. It's lame. Like really lame."
Swallowing hard, with great difficulty not to become distracted indefinitely by the expression across from him, Fushimi consented. Taken aback when the second earbud he'd extended, partially out of habit, the other a product of nerves, was just as fretfully refused.
"No, both," Yata spoke in choppy fragments, "take both."
Gingerly cocking his head to one side, unexpectant oceanic eyes assessed the aurora borealis of amaranth birthing across the bridge of the redhead's nose, the retracted body language, the palpable distance. Such a curious sight. To see such an animated individual rendered so shy and stationary so suddenly. Not to this degree, and most certainly not in front of him, at least, at least not like this...this atmospheric shift he couldn't seem to accurately forecast...the sensation of water starting to rise...the sensory envelopment of something hypnotic and sedating that offset him. Scared him. Sent an eerie shiver down the vertebrae in his spine. Not quite the same as before, as earlier in the night. Thousands of years worth of instinct setting the hairs on the back of his neck on end. The soothing calmness never a force to be trifled with. The superstitions of old Sailor's tales. The Siren's song. The serenade of the sea and the sky preparing to speak. The stillness of the shoreline, the absence of sound...death and distant thunder...standing in the river...the start of a storm.
But he was quick to shirk his suspicions, he'd had enough of dangerous women whispering seductive sweet nothings in his ear. They lacked the proper build, they bored him. They were nothing compared to this, he thought, getting ahead of himself again. Nowhere near as bewitching as the gravitational pull of the body he felt he'd been born to orbit, lulling him into this never ending rotation, encircling the lack of confidence across from him with a hopeless sigh.
"That bad, huh?" Fushimi cracked another smile, trying to laugh this time, even if it was forced—forced to thrust himself headfirst back into the stages of extroversion, crawling forth from his shell—vulnerable and exposed with little and less left to hide behind. What choice did he have? Nothing about their time together had made much sense, no structure, no transition, but we're not a storybook, he rationalized, having obtained the implied moral long before he'd stepped foot from the comfort of his confinement. It was so cliche' it was nauseating, no regrets, the slender boy heaved a heavy, inward sigh, still not wholeheartedly convinced, "Sure you don't want to listen?"
"I've got the whole thing memorized," came an unexpectedly honest confession, Misaki's fingers hesitating forward, both compelling and cautious. Gently releasing the other earbud from Fushimi's and closing the distance with a voice that grew smaller and shyer by the second. "Now I want you to listen," he knelt in front of him, brushing back midnight locks with a lingering fondness, pausing momentarily, then pressing them into place, "...because I don't know how to say any of it either…"
Fushimi understood, offset by the contact, everything between them suddenly so much more magnetic, limbs growing restless with the desire to reciprocate the gestures. To feel the heat rise off the other boy's skin, the coloration that was practically producing steam.
"Just, just don't laugh okay?" amber eyes shifted insecurely, "it was between this or this one other song and I couldn't decide, but this is the most—"
"Just play it," the taller boy interjected, voice so uncharacteristically softened, almost sweet, steadier hand covering the hesitance hovering above the dial.
Clenching both eyes shut, much like a child bracing to receive a shot, Yata pressed play before his fingers could forfeit. Scurrying back on top of the bed where he promptly engaged the comforter in a one-sided staring contest, too afraid to watch for any possible facial fluctuations potentiating from his friend, any hints or clues of his initial reaction, blanket all bunched up like a bulletproof vest. Clutching it to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around the material, allowing his chin to sink safely into the duvet. Stomach swallowing his heart muscles and tangling through his intestines, this labyrinth of peaks and plummets, chest pounding, gut sinking. Anxiety and nervousness folding his whole body forward into itself, the involuntary contracting of muscle tissue stimulating such restless movements, aware the sequence had started. Mindful of the fact that it was too late to take it back, that he'd soon begin to take it in, that he himself had relinquished all control over what resulted. Whether or not Fushimi's face would remain flat, whether he would flinch with indifference or even offense—furrow with confusion, or perhaps a judgmental frown—what the chances were he'd actually smile without misconstruing?
The meanings behind melodies didn't always resonate on the same plane, the music may be universal, but the message itself, forever subjective. What if he didn't get it, what if intention and interpretation failed to align? Or worse, what if expectation and reality refused one another altogether? What if they collided in a crash-landing and the whole thing cracked open? What if he simply swallowed and then spit it all back in his face with a dismissive tsk'ing? A familiar sound that could be as specific and demeaning as it was innate and ineffective. And on the off chance it favored the former, as it so frequently preferred, was he prepared, not to mention capable of recovering given their current circumstances? What if he snapped should the reaction challenge the desired response too drastically? What if he shut down, lashed out, became too defensive, or unnecessarily neurotic?
What if I fuck the whole thing up? Yata continued to cycle unproductively, falling victim to the nerve-wracking self-awareness that came with submitting something so sensitive to this soundless interpretation not instantaneously shared with him. Being forced to wait, to wonder, to undergo mere moments melt around him like molasses, thick and viscous, pooling in overlapping right to left layers; bitter and sticky as it ran down into something reminding him of rubber cement, fluid but fastened, and yet not quite immobilized. Attached to the features he began to fear, a face Fushimi had never been known for saving, or perhaps saved so well that's what made it scary. Having already proven, irrefutably so, that there were still some he'd never seen before, physiognomies of a stranger, a compromising and compelling sort of secret. The restricted splintering of internal and external countenance comprising this configuration that skewed the certainty Yata felt towards how well he actually knew the boy he'd always considered his best friend without question.
Well-aware that half of this was no more than a textbook stalling tactic, an excuse for his mind to filter through these unresolved emotions; while, at the same time, pretending the centripetal force that spun them wasn't the systematically diffident, self-effacing anxiety that he cursed his zodiac sign for predisposing him toward. Y'know, I used to think that being the only sign ruled by the moon was kind of cool, Yata's expression fluctuated between a contemplative then disheartened frown, but that was before I forgot Cancerians also come with a lifetime guarantee of insecurity, hypersensitivity, and confrontation-for-shit skill-sets. He steadily exhaled, trying to limit eye contact with Fushimi's face, fidgety and restless when his ears caught the faintest reverberations emanate from the small pair of earphones. Oh god, it's starting, his stomach somersaulted, regret sinking more steeply with the reflexive recitation of lyrics that made him regret the whole thing immediately.
Adjacent to where Yata sat fretting, thumbnail between his teeth, the square frames adorning the bespectacled, atramentous haired boy's eyes lowered in sync with his face, slipping slightly from the bridge of his nose before pushing them back into place and readjusting. Unsettled. Dancing back and forth between whether to position himself contemplatively, casually, or comfortably, or why the hell I care so much. As if there were really an appropriate way to sit in such a situation. As if one could possibly be worse or better off than the other. Or that either would alter this song he'd been handed without further elaboration, but certainly not a level of uniquely frantic appeal that he'd found too attractive to ignore.
Heart beginning to beat faster than before. Fushimi's excitatory system anxious with anticipation. Startled by the slow instrumentals immediately interrupted by vocals, allotting him zero opportunity to speculate and scrutinize before the Conor Maynard cover started setting in skin deep. No way to falsify and set the stage, the blank expression on his face evidence enough that the selection had far exceeded any prior expectation. Not expecting something so soft, so haunting in the wake of perfect simplicity, that it began to overwhelm him.
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
Hello, it's me.
I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet…
The immediacy of such a sinking feeling intercepting with choice words and intervening visuals.
"But I definitely wanna talk more about this later!"
to go over, everything…
The inability to keep his promises.
…they say times supposed to heal you,
"…I waited…"
but I ain't done much healing…
"…right next to the phone for WEEKS."
Hello, can you hear me?
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
The anchor of guilt in his chest submerging into such an empty cavity—the irrecoverable condition—the fragmentary, disequilibrated shards fracturing to background music—the feeling of falling apart—chopping and screwing in perfect sync with upwards glances and the undeniable aching of the Homra insignia igniting underwater like liquid fire. Lyrics hitting him, hitting him way too hard.
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
I'm just at a house dreaming, about who we used to be...
This was the first time that somebody who reacts in an exaggerated way every time without fail, and says so, so straightforwardly, was always by his side...
...when we were younger and free.
"Saruhiko, you showed it to me...I don't understand half the things you think about, but only listening to what you say makes me more excited than ever!"
I've forgotten how it felt…
...Compared to other people, Fushimi might have various talents, but this was what felt like a real merit he had achieved.
…before the world fell at our feet.
"Why do you want me to be understood by everyone when you yourself don't? If YOU understand me, I would be content."
There's such a difference...
"In the end, I wasn't like you and the others."
...between us.
"The day when you'll finally understand me..."
And a million miles...
"...will never come..."
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
The sensation of sinking quickly beginning to compel Fushimi to swim, eyes singularly focused on the pair no longer facing him, not caring that he didn't know how, only the body too shy and far away from him to stomach. The delicate sound of piano keys pressing so softly and subduing as intimacy and innocence equipoised then unbalanced.
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
Hello from the other side,
"...you'll have no choice but to keep hating me."
I must've called a thousand times.
"...they're all gone. I can't think of anyone else to turn to...you're the only one that's left!"
To tell you, I'm sorry, for everything that I've done.
"...that's what you get when you rely on things like friends..."
But when I call, you never, seem to be home.
"You think I like having to ask you?"
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
Making his head hurt, the asymmetrically synchronistic arrangement of memories that isolated and entertained such specific instances with such an unforgiving emphasis. Things he hadn't thought about in years. And all of it coming at him so fast.
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
Hello from the outside...
It was hard to process.
"Don't you care anymore? Have you forgotten everything?"
...at least I can say that I tried.
"...I'm sure you still have it in you..."
To tell you, I'm sorry, for breaking your heart...
"Because it's stupid. Did I smash this thing you call pride, Misaki?"
...but it don't matter, it clearly, doesn't tear you apart...
To hold onto each fragment for longer than a second.
"This isn't it...what I wished for..."
...anymore.
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
The kind of chronology that rewound them backward to fourteen, their world; fast-forwarding to sixteen, the collapse; then losing the next four years in the lyrics, the miscommunication; to where they sat now, twenty years young. And by no means was Misaki a million miles away...Fushimi's entire body longing to close the last few feet that stood in his way, fingers flinching and folding against the empty space where the other boy's had been, the feeling that seemed so terribly fleeting and all too long ago. Heart thumping, heavily, steadily, and to three distinct syllables: Mi-sa-ki. Golden eyes chancing to glance, as if they could feel the deeper set shades falling over his body, averting—so futile—flushing, refocusing...
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
Hello, how are you?
"Is it because we're in the dark?"
It's so typical of me to talk about myself, I'm sorry.
"Is it because we're in a desperate situation?"
I hope, that you're well.
"Why can you smile while looking at me?"
He hated it.
Did you ever make it out of that town, where nothing ever happened?
It burned.
"You know, Saruhiko, I thought of you as one of my most important comrades."
It's no secret, that the both of us, are running out of time...
Exchanging a look with somebody next to him, who had matched the timing, but he was not there this time...
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
...make it stop...
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
...During this second ceremony, this installation in his life, he was alone.
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
...please...just make it stop...
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
Hello from the other side,
"I don't believe it...That idiot really came after me..."
I must've called a thousand times.
"Saruhiko! If you die without telling me anything, I'll never forgive you!"
To tell you, I'm sorry, for everything that I've done.
"Would you have understood even if I told you?"
But when I call, you never, seem to be home
"I would've thought you were a traitor forever..."
Hello from the outside,
"Misaki..."
at least I can say that I tried.
"...I'll think about how to say things so that even a fool can understand."
To tell you, I'm sorry,
" Why didn't you tell me?"
for breaking your heart.
"Couldn't you guess?"
But it don't matter,
"I am a traitor."
it clearly, doesn't tear you apart,
anymore.
⤛⟪⧝⟫⤜
You're wrong, he cringed. It kills me.
Yata's stomach contracting simultaneously, drawn indistinguishably back to the alternating arctic and aegon rings in the vast oceanic eyes swallowing him without any subtlety. Eliciting shivers throughout his entire frame. The kind that made him tremble, stringing the disks in his spine along as they detached with the intensity of the tremor then clicked back into place like he was made of plastic. One of those anatomical models used as medical aids. Constantly being pulled apart and put back together again without his consent. The concentration of such a prying gaze making him uncomfortable and anxious with ensuing surges of excitement that he was embarrassed beyond discernible regard over the obviousness of. The existence of. The extent of. Feeling it all the way in his thighs, like a baby giraffe still learning how to walk, the weakness and inability to control the sensation striking hesitation and disseverance under pressure. Balance compromised and completely thrown, just stumbling through the motions. But it was a fluttery sort of affinity and appetency transitioning between them, reciprocally transfixing the way the polar magnetism was transferring effortlessly from blue eyes to gold.
Fushimi inundated by the radiating intensity offsetting the chaos in his chest, stomach somersaulting, the ebb and flow of oppositional irises inquiring and inquisitive, innocently invasive on the equal grounds they hadn't shared in far too long. Some undeniable build up mutually breaking until the song began to extend too long as well, both sets of features altering synchronously, Fushimi's mouth pulling into his cheek. This unexpected smile he couldn't stifle as these unpredicted rap versus accosted his ears; Yata's eyes widening, having been so distracted, with the immediate realization that the song should have ended several minutes ago, unless…
"Oh, shit."
The taller boy reading his lips as the other lunged forward, frantic, face deepening and feet faltering just as Fushimi was removing a single ear bud.
WHAM.
Everything went dark.
Wha-the...
Head all fuzzy.
...hellwastha...?
Taking an extra second to recover from the initial shock of being overtaken by all five-foot-six-inches of fast forward friction. Back smacking against the hardwood floor and subsequently knocking all the wind from Yata's chest. Taking a bony knee straight to the ribs on the way down, curling inwardly in pain. Symmetries all smashed together and awkwardly entangled—far from a perfect moment.
"FOOSH!" Yata exclaimed, absolutely horrified by the distinct sound of bone colliding with the ground in a deep thud that continued to reverberate through the floorboards. Having collapsed with such an ungracious harshness that he'd literally been able to feel the impact, causing a panic. Thrown into a concerned frenzy as he hurriedly maneuvered his arms, angling them on either side of Fushimi's shoulders, palms flat and upper body lifting swiftly with record speed.
"FOO—"
There was an unappreciative grumble from somewhere beneath him, wincing and refocusing as the other's face began to scrunch confusedly, dizzy and discomposed. Lashes fluttering as he blinked at his surroundings a few times, squinting and still moving haphazardly until an unexpectedly heart-wrenching side smirk suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Stitched perfectly and mischievously across Fushimi's face.
"So," he asked, devilishly demure eyes pouring upward at a rather unfair and equally disorienting angle, "you're gonna make me your misses now, are you?"
The pressure of their bodies pressed up against one another finally actualizing, Yata left stammering and stuttering spasmodically, stunningly scarlet as every outline of the other boy compressed distinguishably beneath his weight. Such a distracting configuration...
"N-no, that's not the right version," he fought with uncooperative reflexes, trying to wrestle away the remaining earbud, "STOP LISTENING!"
Fushimi, on the other hand, quite purposely prolonging the struggle. "Whoa, don't breathe me like you breathe me," he echoed, swapping the pronouns, free hand pressed to Yata's face in a preventative measure, arms not long enough to overtake the distance or compensate for the other's reach. "Right here all alone…" he continued roguishly with mock confusion. Vocals drawing out the words in question as his counterpart grew feistier.
"I SAID—," the redhead struggled, "STOP LIS—"
"Making love until the morn?...my-my, is that so, Misaki?" Saruhiko rocked his hips sideways, face folding with an inquisitively risen brow, "how bold of you. You must really have a lot of faith in that stamina of yours, huh?" he entertained, trying extremely hard not to laugh when he went as far as to give him a little wink.
Merciless, but playful, yes; however, it very quickly became too intrusive for the other boy to tolerate.
"SHUT.UP!" Misaki yelled, "and STOP fucking listening to that," fingers outstretching desperately, snatching at the air, the opposing pair only tightening and becoming a set. Pushing from contesting directions like a mid-air game of tug-of-war that was no longer winnable. Fushimi's other hand anchoring his abdomen at a safe enough distance from which momentum couldn't easily be gained, feeling the figure beneath his fingertips begin tensing more noticeably.
"Don't," Yata's midsection shook, as if to knock a pesky cat from his lap, forced to resort to prying, body reacting more jauntily and fragmented than normal, a sort of disassembly to his usual choreographic-like-ability to outmaneuver that the raven haired boy could read instantly through his movements. Something off and not quite right. "LET GO FUSHIMI!" his voice was shrill, pressing against the blockade of the palm and the arm it was attached to with the better portion of his weight.
So he did.
Another loss of balance causing Yata's forehead to collide with his shoulder. "Ahh-h-owww, whhyy," he released limply, voice drawn out with a slight wavering and an inaudible wince, speaking directly into the fabric of the slender body he'd become forcibly slumped against all over again. Chest to chest now—lower halves not withstanding, but far more unspeakable and uncomfortably intimate as far as closeness was concerned, trying not to focus on either detail for too long—with one hand still struggling to support what little space was left between them from collapsing.
"I guess you really do love the way I turn you on," Fushimi grinned, still reciting the lyrics relentlessly, but in what appeared to be a joking manner, because it was. Because he was, just joking, of course, just messing around. And he knew, had their roles been reversed, that Misaki wouldn't have let him live something like this down for weeks.
But Misaki was no longer the least bit receptive—embarrassed, angry, and eyes in that terrible sort of welling. "Y-you're such a j-jerk," he spewed, in an incoherent series of emotionalistic bursts, all rushed with indignation and defiance, smacking the device so hard that both the earphone and the cord detached completely as the MP3 player flung sideways and collided with the wall.
Infuriation rising in sync with his body as Fushimi instinctually enervated. Forgoing any further comedic remarks or blatant insensitivities against the incapacitating overflow of freneticism that was instantaneously exhausting the both of them emotionally. Watching the watermarks disperse and dissolve with a rueful sort of writhing beneath his breast, cardiac culpability converging with the downward pull of his face until it creased into a frown line. Coaxing his voice as gently as he could manage.
"Hey," he reached up, fingertips conscientious and only just connecting, the residual heat spreading from the other's skin before roughly pulling away.
"Don't touch me," his head snapped back, intonation harsh and the look in his eyes even harsher. No longer solid but melting like magma, molten gold, lethal. Maneuvering to his feet as fast as his body would allow.
None of that halfway crap, like a fight or flight burst of energy that sure as hell wasn't going to render himself defenselessly to such bipolar sentimentality. Back turned and shirt riding up on the right side, the fraction of exposed skin so singularly distracting, crossing his arms and only making it worse. Blue eyes shamelessly getting lost in thoughts of perfect hips, the protrusion, the positioning, so well proportioned and just waiting to be pulled…
Fantasy reel looping into an unraveling distortion as something entirely emotionless interjected, "Just how long are you going to keep at it before finally realizing that you took it too far?"
"Whoa," Fushimi propped himself up, "why don't you back up a second there."
"Oh, don't play dumb."
"Play dumb!? You tackled me!"
"I tripped."
Releasing a deep sigh, Fushimi leaned back on his elbows, eyes engaging the ceiling. "Fine, you tripped," he submitted. Growing partially self-conscious in his own right. "But that doesn't exactly explain the whole you flipping out, you know," unable to keep his inflection from falling more calculative and demeaning, "last time I checked, equilibrium and irrationality weren't positively correlated. But hey, you certainly seem convinced enough by whatever it is I'm clearly not seeing, so why don't you just go ahead and spell it out."
Golden eyes gripped him prosaically, "Because I clearly didn't want you listening to the rest of that song when it wasn't the right one," he answered, "as if you didn't already realize that before I even thought to come after you." Even, unreceptive statements counteracting the comebacks and canceling them out while a measure of vociferousness rose more stridently in his throat, "Maybe, because I clearly wanted you to turn it off and you clearly went out of your way to do the exact opposite," his hands gesticulated with a vitriolic incontestability, "Shocker."
"Oh, yeah, real shocker," he tsk'd, rolling his eyes, "Misaki overreacting at every opportune moment."
"Ohh, oh, me?" Yata laughed condescendingly, "look who's talking Sa~ru~hi~ko, I'm only sorry I can't draw a few dozen knives to throw at your back while I'm at it."
"No," he glared, "just the inability to let anything go."
"Hypocrite."
"Backslider."
Both sets of eyes locked in an infuriated standstill.
"You really are the worst," Yata broke contact first, "like it would've honestly killed you to hit pause or at least pretend like you cared how uncomfortable it was making me."
Fushimi, however, still upholding, eyes unmoving and mouth sewn into a stationary line, as if not to let anything else slip past him. Much too aware how violent and explosive they were bound to fire. Rapid rounds of ruthless, unthinking falsities intended to rip through his friend's already fragile willpower to keep gunning him down in his current state. Trigger finger fluctuating, accuracy off par, such a weakened caliber collecting resistance like rust. How fast they fell back into their false frameworks. So difficult to tear down what you had built brick-for-brick out of a skeleton graveyard, an inexhaustible stockpile of bones that only continued to grow. These intricately interwoven walls comprised of condescension and corroding callousness, corpses atop corpses collecting and resurrecting like automatic reflexes the minute their safety was threatened. The very second their sanctity was sacrificed, how they began to go up on all four sides like lincoln logs in adjacent patterns. Higher and higher as ordinary parapets fell too short of protecting and the necessity for battlements increased.
And instinct had not put them past the point of putting one another in the position for future casualty, nor had nostalgia totally melted suspicion into security, a sensation they'd been conditioned to assume was false, nine times out of ten. A lifetime of constant disappointment had taught them that much. The unfailing history of loss, a track record without equal. It wasn't the sort of thing you just shook off, and second nature was far less forgiving than a second chance. Proceeding insouciantly with this total lack of caution—there was no such thing for them, they'd lost that luxury. They had two choices, and they'd chosen wrong.
The rest was history.
The present became the past.
And the future had been stolen.
The missing circuits for their faulty sixth senses. Bridges that kept breaking and giving way to burning rather than the room to build upon. The discontinuities that were left to drown. No point of intersection, no commonality when there was no longer ground. No reference or lack thereof capable of bending or birthing new lines, nor inconsistencies powerful enough to reverse the damage when all they truly had was the aftermath. The mess. The murder trail they'd left behind. There was no reaching out to the imaginary once your hands were covered in blood, through the divaricating meridian sacrificed to the boundless bifurcation.
The fifty-fifty chance of their system failing.
The exception for the exceptional, the submission to the subduction, they had once moved singularly. In sync. This staggering synchronistic that was truly something else entirely. A slow motion routine of incompatible style converging in the sudden flash of a throwing knife that gave everything to the fast forward, the baton-like-spinning of a baseball bat, an abstract adaptation to the dichotomy of a dance. One so uniquely complex, no one had ever been able to keep up, pining classical against makeshift, dexterity against dumb luck, even intimacy against isolation at one point as partners became a fated clashing of best friends and worst enemies fighting for representation.
And even then they collided with more or less brilliance, even then, there were far and few left between capable of rivaling their dynamic; yet, having fallen out of step themselves proved both difficult and dangerous, even if just for a moment. Causing immeasurable damage in either direction if, for even a split second, they'd missed a beat, skipped a step, and it was so terribly unclear whether or not they could stay in character long enough to pull this off. If breaking it would shatter the illusion, the unique balance, if this was dramaturgical or even real life anymore. Such a daunting prospect to put their faith in epilogs and sequels because both were conclusive, permanent, determinative, and the notion that they were already a little rusty insofar that it scared the hell out of them.
This change in direction, going off script, and the fact it had all happened so fucking fast, too infrequent and flippant for persons set so long to a single speed. Static characters stuck in shells, like cocoons they were too afraid to break through and let transform them. To live up to their responsibilities of landing leading roles, so much safer to play pretend as their own understudies than it was to do their part. To actually be dynamic versus having one. Freaking out when suddenly they'd been called on stage, and the stage wasn't there, and there weren't any lines because the scripts had been scrapped, and there were no stage cues, no knowledge of duration, or how many acts. When was the intermission? And who was in charge of lights? Was this a Tragedy, a Comedy, a Tragicomedy!? Or no, a tragicomedy was a satire, right? RIGHT!? Were they meant to conduct a farce, a work of fiction, or just stick to the facts? And when the fuck did it get this hard?
The two of them frozen with a sort of stage fright they'd never experienced, the irony of clinging to chains that were no longer there because reality had lost its restraints and no one had told them. Reacting to what was going on like they were waking up in a war zone whenever the world got too close. Personalities raised in captivity and refusing to integrate with what they could no longer identify with, impersonating soldiers to cling to their excuses of experience having made them incompatible with civilian life. Keeping that prison mentality, safer on the inside, stick to what you know, avoid the outside, fear the unknown, do anything possible just to get thrown back in.
Why would they ever want to leave? What was the benefit of breathing life into the pain? Of coming back to life when it was so much easier being dead? Dead men don't keep promises, dead men don't even speak. Dead men sure as hell don't sit around going crazy in their heads with stupid, never ending monologs because they're afraid to cross the River Styx, they just place their coin in the ferryman's hand and shut the fuck up, Fushimi sighed to himself. But here they were, and there was no River Styx like there was no stage, and they weren't in a war nor obligated to memorize roles to play...and now I'm rhyming in third-person narrator, not sure that really makes any sense, because I don't even know what the fuck I'm actually saying.
...And now I get a zero in simple rhyme schemes too, great...
Fushimi shook his head internally, wondering if perhaps this wasn't just him, his thoughts, his feelings, but still bordering on the certainty it had to be mutual. Why else would Misaki be acting to dissimilarly similar? Whether or not all his metaphors were repetitive and complete shit didn't matter and he didn't care. Because all he knew was the very real crossfire and the very real fear fighting the very, very real loss of control that they were very much caught between right now. The time that was passing them by while they pretended they had more important things to worry about, and that it wasn't running out. Himself included, even now, still tiptoeing along the precipice of this panic attack, still worrying, still trying to worm his way out and ensure his winnings while unable to stop checking the clock, the minute and hour hands still spinning so fucking fast, and no idea what to do with everything sitting right in front of him.
A large part of him subconsciously reaching behind his shoulder to find his strings, feeling vulnerable and knowing, in his own way, Yata just wanted to set the whole thing on fire and watch it burn to the ground too, because this fucking sucked, and they were both freaking out. Incapable of devising strategies or battle plans, of fortifying their defenses when, in actuality, there was no reason for either to consume them so readily. How did you fight off something that was occurring naturally? How did you even notice it? Wasn't that the point of the organic versus the inorganic? That one was free-flowing and the other a forced mimicry? Hadn't he already firmly asserted they weren't a story as clearly as he was loosely contradicting it with the idiosyncratic? He couldn't help it, he supposed, never honing in on how to be apart of anything without a proper role to play first. Placement was everything after all, and without it, the world between them was left in total free fall. Rendered senselessly to the inevitability of a gravitational pull that sucked time and space into slow motion that moved at the speed of light, simultaneously pulling and protracting, abridged and unedited, opposition without paradox, absolutely no sense to be had whatsoever.
It was driving him mad.
Saruhiko had always had a clear grasp of his limitations and what he was capable of, ambiguity didn't fit, there was no room for it. And right now, Misaki was being anything but clear, so a part of him finally abandoned this fear entirely, this sense of unknowing, he just didn't have enough forbearance left to keep holding onto the insanity that otherwise inhabited him. He needed answers, expansion, elaboration, anything. Despite the uncertainty, the omitted guarantee, there's no point in holding his hand now that we've come this far, he glanced at the other boy, his expression much the same, disapproving and contrived. You're not allowed to back out now just because you're a little embarrassed—the hypocrisy lost—and you can't keep blaming me for every time you don't understand. If you wanted me to open up so damn badly, then stop holding it against me for being myself. His own embarrassment and misunderstanding warping what was otherwise fair-game and forming logically, however when applied to this situational aberration, and their shared hatred for enduring the displeasure of defeat, level-headedness met defiance and merged into a pair of metaphorical hands that pushed back.
"Well, whose fault is that?" he asked pointedly. "You're the one who handed it to me," volume dropping more reluctantly, "if the idea of me touching you is really that awful, then you could have just said so. You didn't have to slap me," he sat up fully, eyes averting somewhere off to the side in a silent tsk'ing that sounded more like a cringe, "you didn't have to make it sound so...repulsive."
"Like you didn't do the exact same thing." Yata deflected, absorbing the statement and taking on an identical tone, "Repeating all those lyrics," engaging the floor with a sullen frown. "It was supposed to be serious, something special to me and instead you made it into a joke, like my feelings were something to laugh at," back fully turning again and arms still tightly crossed. "That's why I didn't want you listening to that stupid remix, I wanted you to hear the version I thought I was playing, because I wanted it to come out right, it was important."
"It just took me by surprise," Fushimi lost the majority of spite to that face he could hear in the way the words were all forming. "I wasn't expecting it, okay? Besides, I was about to stop anyways before you felt the sudden need to shove me down to the ground and straddle me. Talk about overki—."
"I'm a virgin, okay? I get it," Yata's inflection strained, shoulders tensing then drawing up to his ears as his neck shrank down into them; lips wriggling fixedly, trying to stomach the unspoken blow to his pride when he could hardly hold down the words. The kind that came out in a whisper, or may as well have, that unmistakable surrender that sounded a lot like defeat. "But how long does this joke have to go on running for, because it's not very funny…"
This sudden drop in demeanor and shift in subject matter catching Fushimi off guard.
"…it's not like I couldn't—it's not like there haven't been opportunities…"
So that's what this is all about, he thought, and had to fight off the sudden urge to sigh as his whole chest seemed to deflate with an understanding smile that went half way saddened, god, you're hopeless...
Overlapping appendages going limp as Yata's confidence withered, then shaking as they extended along the incline of his biceps and clenched, nervous hands constricting and squeezing tightly. So self-conscious, Fushimi's head fell on an angle, I can't believe I actually forgot how shy you really are, tracing the tensing symmetry too paralyzed and indecisive to move on its own. The sight of Misaki holding himself so heartbreaking and hard to look at that it made him angry, how the other boy could be so blinded by self-doubt that he really couldn't see it. The sort of sensitivity towards his person Saruhiko had never understood, always so quick to discredit himself, to see nothing more than an inexhaustible series of imperfection and vast array of innumerable flaws, the stupidest thing I've ever heard, he scowled, tsk'ing to himself, then sighing with the sort of honesty and admiration that made him shiver. You're perfect, he swallowed, you're the most perfect thing I've ever seen...
A svelte body appeared beside the other boy, and I'm going to prove it, Fushimi decided to himself, swallowing a lot harder this time. Nervous, quiet, and avoiding the peripheral contact as he stared straight at the ground, "...you know I haven't either, right?" he asked softly.
It was an attempt to be comforting, but Misaki immediately lowered, head snapping in the opposite direction again, "well you don't have to make fun of me."
"I'm not."
Flaxen irises reconnecting as his neck rolled back skeptically, "Ahuh, sure."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Fushimi became both impatient and defensive, "So you just, just assume that sort of thing about me, is that what you're saying?" Clearly flustered, or offended, or both, "based on what?"
"Based on what," the other scanned him up and down disbelievingly, "just look at you!"
"Wh-so—Look at you," Fushimi countered, stumbling a bit to reciprocate the indication.
He shook his head, "it's not the same thing…"
"Look," the other growled, growing frustrated, irritated, and unrightfully judged, already agitated to begin with and in no mood for playing games; inciting the rest in his most civil tone of voice as his hands came down on Misaki's shoulders, forcing them face to face, "you really wanna know how far I've gone, since it's apparently so important to you all of a sudden?"
Yata rolled his eyes, "Like you couldn't just easily lie, you're just trying to shut me up at this point, there's no reason to believe whatever you have to say."
"I disagree," Fushimi stood archly, taking advantage of his height.
"E-excuse me?"
But Fushimi was no longer listening, single hand sliding along the side of his face until the tips of his fingers collided with the lighter strands, "I'm not giving you a choice."
"Like hell you're not."
Ultramarine eyes delicate and unflinching.
"Seriously, Saru, what the actual hell?"
"Sorry in advance," he half-smiled guiltily.
"For wha—"
"I can't guarantee you're going to like the answer," pulling forward and leaning down in a simultaneous sweep of motion.
"Fushi—" melting into Misaki's mouth without another word—mi...
An indiscernible weight washing over the autumn-haired boy in an undertow of oceanic and incandescent sinuosity, like a meteoric collision against the sea—something soft and warm engaging him—the sudden inability to breathe—an unprecedented sensation rushing through him with a surge of pressure...but in the end it's too much...the currents too strong...even at the moment it engulfs us...Muscle memory failing like a full system overload. Knees getting weaker as he held onto the other's forearms for support, fingers clenching roughly, but not pulling away...in one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it...but unfortunately the clock is ticking...they've got to let go...drift apart...Frozen in place as Fushimi's free hand eased his body closer at the waist—proximity radiating with an upsurge of fission—the friction, the forcible tensing, unable to remember at what point he'd closed his eyes.
Inexperience and increased sensitivity overwhelming his ability to properly respond or refuse the paroxysms of indulgent, internal cues that had him automatically opening his mouth. The confusion, the heat, the sheer intemperance of something so innocent and so wrong fusing against him so ineffably he didn't know how to feel. The aftertaste of something—someone—so familiar, and yet, unthinkably exotic dissolving into sudden curiosity, lingering on the tip of his tongue. The someone, that something, Misaki suddenly found himself wanting to savor, gently pulling away and leaving him red in the face. Embarrassed, insecure, a little out of breath, and even more ashamed, heart racing and outpacing the ability to be physically confined to his chest.
"So, do you believe me now?" he asked, quieted and less cocky now, already prewiring to reroute the humiliation, the evidence he fought hard to ignore, leaving himself just enough space to shut down. More than half expecting Yata's ensuing rage to catch up and lash out at any given second, losing his shit and total self-restraint in response to something so unseemly—not exactly conventional—and a complete understatement of an invasion of personal space. But received none. Just this drunken stupor. Smaller hands still holding his wrists, such a disoriented, dangerously demure look in Misaki's eyes as they traveled upward and both the tightness and appetency grew in Saruhiko's chest when he struggled to speak. Opening and closing without a sound. "Good, cause I really don't care," Fushimi mumbled, mouth realigning more intimately this time.
Closed at first, just wanting to feel the opposing ridges conform and come together; driven by a desire so innocent he wasn't even embarrassed as he held it for a few seconds longer. Such delicate, gentle, pressure, but such a terrifying emotional complexity that even the sincerity was heavy. The grip around his wrists sliding up and burying into his arms—Yata desperately needing something steadier to anchor himself, knees going concave and bending into the opposing pair—his heart in his throat and his fingernails digging into Fushimi like claws. Intoxicatingly overwhelmed and asphyxiated all at once. Lips pressing softly in the beginning, seduced by the undeniable sensation of safety transferring from the contact, then harder at the invitation of Misaki's having parted so willingly for him, unable to conceive how they'd wound up like this. How their argument had played out and concluded with something as unimaginable as a kiss, but he honestly didn't care. He just wanted to kiss him, that's all, no words, no reasons, just the pressure of his best friend against him. What little time it had taken for the other to adjust, hands moving from his forearms to his waist to his hips, impatiently bringing their bodies closer.
Repositioning and furrowing into his chest when Fushimi entertained the request—the urge to indulge such uncensored eagerness sending the blood rushing everywhere but their heads—one hand elevated and entangled through fiery hair, the other skillfully savoring the shapely protrusion of his hipbone like a handlebar. Steering everything below the waist into a series of steady motion. Misaki's lower body drawn forward then upward against the opposing figure without a second thought, shorter arms extending overhead and wrapping around the length of his neck. Tiptoes pushing back against the hardwood floor and sinking a little more forcefully into the exchange, lengthier appendages traveling up the curves of his abdomen, slinking under his arms and intertwining behind his back, lifting Yata into the full support of his body. A neediness somewhere in the way those hands began to slide through his hair, pulling Fushimi's face in closer so he could muffle the pleased, visceral little noises escaping him every so often. And the taller boy had no complaints. He liked the hungry, modest sort of way Misaki kept moving in and against his mouth to stifle each shy, reactive sound, began to bend his body into the the hands along his torso until their limbs tangled into something so invasively formfitting. So cruel and unusual the way he couldn't deny him.
Kiss deepening, so slow and drawn out, wedging between logic and instinct, greedily pulling at the other, lips caressing and consuming him insatiably. Lost in the moment of something so forward it was unfamiliar, and so forced it was too disorienting to think through. An unwilling sort of compliance that took too long to realize had been entirely consensual. But as they lost themselves to the convergence of confusion and corresponding clashing of unresolved tensions and unclear degrees of feeling, the temporary rift in time caught up and didn't quite align. Fantasy and reality furiously refusing one another like two opposing magnets as Misaki struggled to catch his breath. The anxiety that overtook him, the frantic pressure that was beginning to resist the advances that only escalated against the application of increased force, Fushimi's actions devouring him in an almost primal manner.
His grip nothing short of gluttonous, losing sight of anyone but himself. Ravishing the resistance, refusing the distance. Hands on either side of Yata's face regardless of the fact the other boy had begun to struggle, all attempts thwarted like a computer program override. Recursion recurrently sifting through a series of functions to resolve the problem, pulling the smaller boy back into him, this uninhibited mixture of lust and pure emotion robbing him of his senses. Trying to hold on...the possibilities decreasing, the regrets mounting...being led on and on...into the sound of the Siren's song that had lured him so very far out to sea...the water moving really fast...lost in the total loss of control. Of the years spent waiting. Wanting. And not quite understanding why until now. The knowledge that he had crossed a line, the Rubicon, a point from which there was no return. Never his intention to be so brute, but more so that scared little boy he'd always been inside desperately clinging to the intimacy he'd internally craved for more than half his life.
"Stop," Yata breathed heavily, too akin to a sigh, too much pleasure in the way the words were escaping his lips, and only met with the murmur of no, then please.
"Please," Fushimi begged, not forceful, but fearful, desperate, "don't make me stop."
The smaller boy struggled, limbs rearranging in a defensive stance, both hands pressing back against the other's chest, "S-stop, Saruhiko stop."
"Misaki, please," he breathed deeply, sensually ghosting against the edges of his lips.
"I said, STOP," Yata shoved him away, right hand smacking Fushimi roughly across the face, practically seething. Exhaling laboredly as he covered his mouth with the other, digits pressed against his lips like they burned—as if the entirety of the action had become suddenly unspeakable. Features formatting with the semblance of revulsion, chest rising and falling angrily, eyes poised and narrowing in on the other sharply while a look of immense sadness overtook the taller boy's face. The instantaneous evaporation of the intimacy—the connection broken—more alone than he'd ever felt before. Such confusion and hurt leftover in his eyes that, for a second, Misaki hardly recognized him, and it left an immeasurable pang of guilt that resonated throughout his entire body.
"Misa-"
"I think you should go," he stammered.
"Mi-"
"Leave."
Fushimi began to reach forward, hesitant and confidence clearly shot. "—"
"JUST GET OUT, FUSHIMI," Yata snapped, or screamed, shouted, he couldn't tell, but his intonation was something awful, and it left the other in what he could only describe as a million pieces, continuously fracturing.
Raven colored hair disheveled and falling across clouded azure eyes, like he used to wear it, like staring at a ghost, pupils dilating and constricting as they refocused painedly against his own, furrowing sadly as his brows knitted and his lips pressed together with a slight waver. A face he never wore. A face that neither of them was aware he had until now. Something so lost and wounded and completely out of character, neither shallow, nor shorebound, nor shifting atop the surface. Not the same as earlier, when he'd shed tears, or shouted, or submitted that softer side of himself. No, this was the sight of shattered stained glass that had yet to fall from its tracery, something beautifully dismantled that wasn't your property to destroy in the first place, leaving a shame-stricken churning in the smaller boy's stomach because he was now staring down the face of a perfect stranger. No semblance of familiar features, no immediate inflection—just an eerie silence and empty eyes that had lost sight of what to search for.
"Just go," he whispered quietly, shuffling his feet.
Fushimi continued to stare blankly.
Yata glanced with upturned eyes, voice scarcely audible, "go."
It's my apartment, is what he'd wanted to say, so you leave—the doors right where you left it, so go on, Fushimi attempted to glare, GET OUT. Too disoriented to even implicate a hypothetical tsk, let alone vocalize it. Lost in the pitfalls of the most foreign emptiness he'd ever felt congealing in the center of his chest. The dew-like-liquescence pooling in the eyes no more than centimeters away from him as the temperature dropped and the atmosphere surrounding them began to condensate. His own included. GO. LEAVE. He felt his bottom lip quiver involuntarily, leave and don't ever come back, bringing it between his teeth. Just get as far away as you fucking can, Fushimi wanted to scream, wanted to feel the spite slide up and coat his throat as the words flew forth like shrapnel. Wanted to smash his fist straight through the misty, slow streaking watermarks escaping Misaki's eyelids like melted candle wax—uneven and overflowing as they stared back at him vacantly. I don't EVER want to see you again. But his tongue had gone limp, and the words never came.
The very spectrum of brilliance he prided himself on having betrayed him and gone completely blank. His body and brain no longer in sync. The sharp pulsations that refused to solidify forcing him to feel, to feel something he wasn't sure he'd ever felt. Something restricting, a sort of tightness that caused his stomach muscles to constrict, forcing his upper body to bend inward as if to stomach or suppress this intangible pain he'd never known. Had never known anything could hurt this bad and feel so empty at the same time. Growing furious without any ferocity, harboring the instinctual reflex to retaliate but realizing he hadn't the confidence to elicit the conviction. Just a face that felt heated and a chest ready to rip itself apart like an explosive cardiac chamber he'd never noticed the blue and red wires running through, his stomach heavy, his mouth dry, thoughts scattered, logic lost, just another day in the fucking life, he thought angrily. Staring at the other boy flatly, the look on his friend's face one that made him feel self-conscious, stupid, like such a fucking idiot, feeling this unfamiliar, thorn-like prickling in the corners of his eyes. That moment when you realize any set of words could supply the trigger, one of those situations where you know you could cry, and you're trying not to, but if that one song plays, or that one fucking relative reaches out to give you a hug then you're just gonna fucking lose it.
And he wouldn't give Misaki the goddamn satisfaction.
So he cleared his throat as his voice cracked and his stomach constringed with self-reproach. "Don't be here when I get back," Fushimi announced, "I mean it," he forced the declarative shift, abruptly turning his back and grabbing a set of keys and a fresh cigarette pack off his dresser before slamming the door. Shaking the whole apartment as Yata slowly crumpled, cascading to the floor on his knees and covering his face without the faintest idea what the fuck just happened.
That's all I've got for now. might have been messier, less well written, but they made out, right? bahah.
