The morning rose with the usual hustle of traffic, escalating fast into the chock-a-block of the rush hour and the scorching heat of another summer day.
Comfortable and snug in a well-worn tracksuit that belonged to Ken, Omi sauntered into the kitchen and sat down next to Yohji at the breakfast counter. "How d'you know?" he said by way of a good morning, and barehandedly scooped a palmful of rice out of Yohji's bowl.
Yohji smiled into his cup of miso soup. "Age?" he suggested.
Omi smiled back, blue eyes soft and hazed. "Or experience?" Well, his tongue had not been softened by a night of pounding by Ken. Or... well, he had not walked funny, had he? In spite of himself, Yohji felt his curiosity get the better of him, and he decided he would find out – later. Unlike Aya, he knew when patience was a virtue.
Omi stuffed rice into his mouth, a few grains sticking to his cheeks and chin. "Honest, Yo-kun," he spluttered, "is this why you keep slutting around? To give away some of this?" Of this feeling to be relaxed, pleasured, happy for some blissful moments in time. Of being free, able to bring joy instead of inflicting death.
"Dunno," Yohji said, setting down his soup, his gaze straying past the chibi who sensed him tense and turned to follow his eyes. "Perhaps it's..." more carnal, he had meant to say, but the words froze in his throat.
"Hey, Aya," Omi greeted the redhead who stalked right in without acknowledging either of them. All in black, Aya wore a sleeveless shirt and a pair of wide cotton drawstring trousers – his practice gear.
Goodness, Yohji thought chagrined, had he been up before everyone to wield that damn sword of his?
"Would you like some breakfast?" Omi went on, beginning to rise from his chair.
Yohji grabbed his wrist and forced him back down. "Don't talk at him," he advised kindly, with an edge to his tone, "or he might decide to gut you for lunch." He managed a quick grin and a wink at Omi, but his eyes followed Aya with a strange, wistful glance. Omi read anger, hurt and something almost feral, a fierce, all-consuming hunger. He ducked behind his fistful of rice, using his other hand to pick bitesized clumps with three fingers, eating and watching.
Aya made a show of ignoring Yohji. He rummaged through the fridge, then slammed the door shut and grabbed a bowl from the shelf to fill it with rice from the steamer. He then sat down by the table, opposite Omi, at an angle from Yohji, and began to eat. Delicately, with a pair of chopsticks, and focused only on the job at hand.
"Soy?" Omi offered. Aya graced him with a soft shake of his head, face shadowed by red bangs, eyes shuttered.
"Take some soup at least," the boy prodded, and Aya sighed, looking up at him.
"I don't want any," he said quietly.
He never yelled at the chibi, Yohji thought, but it was a different matter with Aya and himself. They would never talk, but while they were snarling or sniping at one another, Aya could not give him the silent routine.
"Has Ken had breakfast?" Mayday, mayday, Aya to Omi, mission control to agent, Earth to space... Omi's eyes grew impossibly large as his mouth stilled, half-open and filled with his last bite of rice, and Yohji could not suppress a smug little grin. Aya had just acknowledged what had happened, made it clear he knew and did not disapprove. Behind his stony facade, he could be sly and discreet if he wanted to. And after so many years, it still surprised Yohji and threw the other two off kilter in no time.
Without a word, Omi snapped his mouth shut, jumped up, yanked back the chair and grabbed a bowl. He spooned rice into it and rushed from the kitchen, stormed back in after a hearbeat to fetch some chopsticks and fairly ran from the room. The door to Ken's place down the corridor clapped, and then it was still.
Save for the soft, methodical clicking of Aya's chopsticks in his left hand as he lifted his bowl, cupping it with the splayed fingers of his right, to finish the last crumbs of his meal. Yohji watched, entralled as always when Aya let him partake of the spectacle called 'The Snow Prince does...' Insert as required. He loved it because Aya was not conscious of it, without a shred of vanity or mannerism in this show of elegance and fluid motion that could so easily translate into a swift, bloody death when he wielded his katana.
Or into a slow, agonising end if he was in a nasty mood. Yohji shuddered and tore himself away to finish his breakfast, but his appetite was gone and the silence grated over his nerves. "You could have the kindness of saying good morning when you breeze in," he said, his tone deliberately patronising. Admonishing a small child.
It always worked. Aya was predictable in certain things. Yohji suppressed a sigh of relief when a fierce glance pierced him from beneath the swathes of red hair. "Shut up, Kudo."
"Good morning to you too, Aya-kun," Yohji drawled pointedly.
"Don't call me that." A voice to freeze hell. Aya seething. Man, that was quick, Yohji thought with some satisfaction and considerable apprehension. Aya's body was still relaxed, easy, trained into obedience, reflexes preceding thought. Taut muscles could not react as well as soft ones. Watch out, Yohji, he's going to jump any moment.
A glance, a swift all-over, taking stock of Yohji's blackened cheekbone and the welts on his neck, the cracked lip and angry green eyes. Then the shutters slammed down again, Aya rose and took his bowl to the sink. Yohji watched him wash the dish, the chopsticks, dry them and stash it all away onto the shelf. Foulmooded redhead on tiptoes. Yohji suppressed the urge to tease. Aya arched, bent, muscles flexing unobtrusively beneath smooth white skin, long limbs moving in a sparse, measured way, wasting not an iota of time or energy. So damn deadly neat and efficient. Yohji was addicted to watching Aya, and one day it would be the death of him.
"Happy?" Yohji sniped, whether at his thoughts or Aya's scrutinising glance, he did not know.
Aya tensed at that. "It's your fault," he said, his deep voice flat.
"My fault my ass. You're fucked up in your head, Aya-kun, and you bloody hurt me. 'Cos I wanted to make you feel good?"
"Don't call me that!"
"I'll call you what I like, Ay-ack!"
Yohji was quick, Aya was lightning. The chair banged against the wall, Aya caught Yohji halfway between table and the saving door and slammed him against the counter, face down, a thigh between his legs, coming up hard and fast to jam a knee against soft parts even as he wrenched Yohji's arm back and up against his shoulderblades.
"No, you won't," Aya growled as Yohji writhed, wincing, trying to brace himself with his free hand flat against the tiled counterback.
"Yes I will," Yohji hissed back, relaxing to ease the pain, but Aya tugged his arm higher and dug his knee in more.
"No."
This time, Yohji remained still, panting and hoping blindly he would let off. Why could he not just fight back? Break Aya's wrist, kick in his ribs, show him who was taller and had the wider range when he was without his damn big knife... For some time now, he had noticed that their little power games had turned darker, slipping ever so gradually, becoming more violent, less forgiving. He could not figure out why, and now it ripped through him – fear. True, stark, unadulterated, making him shiver. For the second time in all those years, it blazed briefly behind his eyes until he managed to bring it under control... like that evening when Aya knocked him into surrender... what was going on?
The door flew open, Omi burst in and stopped short, eyes going wide, then narrow. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said quietly, looking from Yohji who went red with shame, to Aya, who suddenly let go and stepped back, face closed-up as always, a faint blush staining his cheeks.
One day, Yohji thought groggily as he straightened and brushed out his clothes, one day I'll make him fucking pay. Omi walked past them to take his and Ken's bowls to the sink to wash. Aya strode out, his shoulders set stiffly, and Yohji sagged back against the counter to shakily light a cigarette.
"Why?"
Yohji did not catch the soft question until Omi repeated it, never interrupting his clanking about with crockery.
Yohji had thought about it many a time. The answer still eluded him. He did not like being hurt. He did not like being ignored, or lied to, or put down.
But he did like Aya who had managed to rattle his smug, jaded soul enough to leave him reeling, who fascinated, baffled and infuriated him, and who knew perfectly well how to press all the right buttons to play Yohji to his whims. Yield, attack, evade, block. Give, take, elude, fuck. They usually ended up fucking, to make good again, to soothe, to settle an argument, to establish dominance, because Aya had assessed him and unfailingly picked out his greatest weakness. Had no qualms in using sex as his weapon of choice as far as Yohji was concerned.
Aya knew how to make him feel alive even if it hurt.
"You hope you'd find somethin' beneath the surface?" the chibi said over his shoulder, his light voice strangely tense, as though he was trying to hide something. What was he hiding? Disappointment, anger – they all had so much anger coiled up inside, enough to blow up the entire world and then some.
"I don't think there's anythin' but Aya," Omi went on, his tone becoming clearer, sharper, piercing Yohji's mind. "Just Aya. We're all just what we see, Yotan."
Cutouts of real folk. Reduced to shadows of what we could have been. Yohji tried a smile, just to make sure he still could. Finding to his utter relief that his mouth obeyed his mind and broadened into a stark, wide grin. "Yeah, hell, and why not."
Omi said nothing, and Yohji was suddenly overwhelmed by the need to go out. Away from the drab apartment, Aya's brooding, Ken's cautious silence, Omi's subdued sadness. So Yohji left them behind and launched himself into the broiling bustle of the summer-hot city. To chase life, hoping, still hoping, that this time, one time, he would catch hold of it, and then he would never let go again.
xxx
