Wow, is it chapter 10 already? Honestly, I didn't know how long I intended to make this fic (still don't) I'm proud of myself thus far, though.
Disclaimer: I still don't own Loveless or the game 'Twister.'
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Chapter 10
Yuiko walked up the stairs and sighed. What could be the cause of Ritsuka's absence from school? She shifted the papers in her hand.
Ritsuka-kun...
Lifting a finger, she rang the doorbell.
From inside the apartment, she could hear voices and leaned against the door to hear what the people were saying.
"Hey get off of me! Didn't you hear the-" It was Soubi's roommate, Kio, if she wasn't mistaken.
There was a giggle.
"You little...Hey! Don't touch those!" Another giggle. "You shouldn't have left them out in the first place." A younger voice said.
That was one of those weird boys.
"I'm an art student! That's what I-" "Shouldn't you be getting the door?" Another arrogant sounding younger voice asked, cutting him off.
Yuiko moved away from the door as she heard footsteps. Kio opened the door and looked down at her.
"Hey." He greeted, although it really wasn't much of a greeting. He twirled a lollipop in his mouth. "You're Ritsuka's little girlfriend, right?"
The teal-eyed girl blushed a little. "Umm...is Ritsuka-kun here?" She asked.
"Soubi says he's sick." The blond replied simply.
She nodded slowly, "Well then, could you please give this to him, it's his homework and some notes that I copied for him." She handed him the papers and quickly walked down the stairs, her pink pigtails flowing behind her.
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Why is everyone always so secretive? I hope Ritsuka-kun is alright. Cheer up, Yuiko, he's probably got a little cold and he'll be back to school in no time...
As much as she tried to cheer herself up, the truth was that she was worried about the boy. He was always sick or hurt. What had he done to deserve such things?
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Kio watched after her for a little bit and then shut the door. When he turned around, he nearly tripped over the Zero boys.
"Hey!" He shouted, stumbling.
"Was that Yuiko-chan?" Natsuo asked. The blond nodded.
Oh yeah, that's her name...
"I like her, she's cute." The young fighter commented.
Youji elbowed him. "You think everything's cute." He said with a pout. "Youji is the cutest of all though." Came the reply.
They smiled at each other.
Kio could throw up. "Get a room." He said, annoyed and walked past them to sit on the couch.
"Why would we need to when we have yours?" The boys giggled, their hands intertwining as they sat in on the floor in front of him.
The indigo-eyed man looked up, pointing his lollipop at the team. "Why do you two still have your ears?" He asked suddenly.
"We're children." Natsuo replied, stating the obvious.
"Yeah, but you two are always doing...I don't want to know what. How have you managed to keep them for so long?"
"We need to keep up appearances." Youji said. "Yes, we need to stay as cute as possible. How else would we always get what we want?" Natsuo asked with a smirk.
Kio was confused and a bit freaked out by this.
Youji took the lollipop from the older man's hand. "What if we wanted you, Kio?" He asked mischievously, licking it.
Natsuo giggled and ran a hand through his sacrifice's mint-green locks. "You're so silly." He said, playfully taking hold of the other boy's wrist
"Why are you two always getting hurt?" The Kio asked.
Zero looked at him inquisitively. He gestured to Youji's pale arm.
The burgundy-eyed boy regarded a rather shallow cut on his forearm with a sort of bored fascination. "Maybe I got it when we were chopping things up earlier."
Natsuo looked at him.
Chopping things?...
"Shouldn't you at least put a bandage on it?" Kio asked. "Why? It's not deep." The boy retorted.
The blond gave up and shook his head, those two were just so odd. "Whatever..."
"Let's go bandage that up." Natsuo said, rising and held out a hand to help the other boy stand.
Kio watched them leave the room. "Little perverts."
"We heard that!" Natsuo said from down the hall. "Kio, you're the most perverted person around." Youji said with a laugh.
Kio sighed and looked around, paints were everywhere and Soubi would kill him if he didn't get them cleaned up.
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Soubi placed a hand on his sacrifice's small back. "It's important that I know what he said to you."
The fighter had waited until now to ask about it, Ritsuka had been near hysterics the day before and he didn't want to risk making him feel so terrible again. He had even insisted that he stay home from school.
The younger of the two nodded. He could hear the man's words echo in his head.
"What's the matter? Did she not love you? Not accept you? Or...just plain hate you?"...
His mother had done many of the same things that Ritsu had the day before. He couldn't count the many times she'd attempted to strangle him, especially when he was cornered.In fact, the whole scenario was somewhat reminiscent of 'the incident' that began his stay with Soubi.
"Everyone lies to you, you know? Especially Soubi and your precious brother...he did too."...
"Soubi doesn't like you, he doesn't need you. Who would want a weak sacrifice like you? You don't even have the same name. He knows that Seimei was the only master he would ever truly care for. You are but a burden to him. He'll leave you eventually."...
"He knew about my mother..." Ritsuka said slowly. "...how she felt about me, the hospital, everything."
Soubi clenched his fist at his side. So, he had been watching him, but for how long? Suppressing his anger, he nodded, signaling for his young charge to continue.
The dark-haired boy hesitated for a moment, licking his pale lips. "He said that you and Seimei lied to me. And that we're not meant to be together as fighter and sacrifice or...anything...and that you'll eventually leave me..."
He bit his lip as it began to tremble, he had cried enough for now. The taller man squeezed his small shoulder.
"Ritsuka, you can't believe anything that he said to you. Are you listening to me?" Downcast eyes rose and met sapphire ones. "He plays mind games with people. It's all lies."
"But he knew about my mom..." "He must have been watching you. Believe me, he's a bad person. I'm so sorry that I got you dragged into this, it's all my fault."
The younger boy was puzzled, "He said he was your teacher, that he taught you everything you
know. Was he from the Septimal Moons?"
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Once the door to the bathroom was closed, Natsuo spun around to face his sacrifice. "I don't remember chopping anything earlier. What happened?"
Youji knew that he should have seen this coming.
Crap...
"Nothing, I was just fooling around and the knife slipped. It's no big deal."
"Don't lie to me." His fighter said, pain suddenly in his eyes. He sat on the edge of the porcelain-white bathtub.
"I'm sorry Natsuo...You're right, I lied. I was curious and you were playing with Kio so, I thought I'd try it. We've done it before."
"Then why did you keep it from me? What if you had cut too deep, or hit a vein?" The wavy-haired boy asked, his voice rising.
"You guys were close by, I would have noticed and gotten you...why are you so mad?"
"What if you hadn't noticed? What if something bad had happened? When we experimented before we always did it together and never at the same time. It was a safety precaution. You know that because of our inability to feel pain, we could easily neglect a fatal wound." He slowly stood. "We're supposed to do everything together, be as one, tell each other everything."
"Why are you making such a big deal about this!" The straight-haired sacrifice asked.
"Because it is!" Natsuo shouted, slamming Youji against the door.
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Kio looked up, briefly thinking about going to check on the two but, decided against it and went back to the book on Japanese fine art.
It made no sense to him at all.
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It didn't hurt...not physically at least. The sacrifice looked up at the other boy in shock. By the look on his face, he was equally as shocked by his own actions. Tears formed in Natsuo's mint-green eye. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I...how...?" He said, looking down at his bandaged hands.
Youji rushed into his arms. "It's alright, it's my own fault. I knew that I shouldn't have done it but..." He shook his head. "So stupid...I'll never do anything like that again, I swear."
His fighter leaned forward and pressed their lips together. Moving barely a centimeter away, he smiled against the other boy's lips. "Be sure that you don't, or else I'll have to punish you."
Youji returned the smile and kissed him back with fervor. The kiss left the two gasping for air when they finally pulled apart. The mint-green haired boy laughed, "I thought punishment was my job."
Moving apart but, refusing to separate completely, they linked their fingers together. "Now, let's
get those bandages on you." The burgundy-haired boy stated.
"It might be kind of hard without two hands." The sacrifice said, holding up their hands. "Well then, it's a good thing we have two between us." Natsuo replied with a laugh.
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Soubi nodded. "He was my teacher, he was the one who taught me to be a fighter."
Ritsuka looked up, obviously surprised by this. He had never put much thought into it but, someone must have taught Soubi, it was logical. Still...it was Soubi, he just sort of thought that he knew how to be a fighter from the start.
It was a childish notion, he knew but still...
"So...what, did you go to classes and he was the teacher?"
"Not exactly." The older man thought about how to explain it best without revealing too much about the school, or his past. "He taught me that I must always do as my master commands as well as how to endure pain."
The short-haired boy furrowed his brows. "What do you mean when you say that he taught you how to endure pain?"
The taller of the two suddenly stood. "You need your rest, I think it's about time for dinner." Without another word, he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Walking down the hall, he heard Zero in the bathroom.
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"Come here, let me help you with that."
"That feels good." Youji purred.
Natsuo giggled.
They were having quite the a time wrapping up the sacrifice's arm with one of each of their hands.
The fighter dropped the bundle of bandages. It resembled the game 'Twister' as he crawled
under his partner, their hands never losing grip.
If anyone else had come across the scene, it would have been quite the spectacle. "What are you doing?" Youji questioned laughing, his tail swished back and forth.
"I'm just trying to reach it, but it rolled next to the toilet." The wavy-haired boy answered from underneath him.
"Idiot." Commented his sacrifice.
"Oh really?" Natsuo grabbed the other boy's ankle and pulled. "Wh-" Youji fell over top of his sacrifice's legs and hit his head on the tiled floor.
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Laughter emanated from the room as Soubi walked down the hallway. Kio looked up as he entered the room. "Kio, what are they doing in there?"
The other man shrugged. "I saw a cut on Youji's arm and they went to bandage it up...supposedly. They've been in there for a while and I know better than to check on them." He glanced at the papers next to him.
"Oh yeah, that girl, umm...Yuiko-chan stopped by to give these to Ritsuka." The shorter-haired man said, sitting up and passing the papers to his roommate.
Soubi put them down on the coffee table.
"She cares about him a lot, you sure you're not jealous?" Kio asked, adjusting his glasses.
Soubi scoffed at him and replied cooly, "I've nothing to be jealous about, she just has a simple schoolgirl crush. Ritsuka is either oblivious or politely dodges her advances. She is, however, a good friend to him and I respect that."
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Ritsuka leaned back against some pillows.
There he goes again...avoiding my questions, hiding things...
He sighed.
What am I doing? One day he just showed up, walked into my life. I tried to push him out and he just kept coming back. No matter what I said, how many times I yelled and told him that I hated him, he stayed...Always watching over me, protecting me...
He looked around the room, Soubi's room.
He saved me from my own mother, watched over me while I was in the hospital and took me home with him. He takes care of me like Seimei used to. Sure, a lot of the time he makes advances but...
He laughed at himself.
Look at me, I was almost killed yesterday and I'm thinking about -what am I thinking about?...
He wasn't able to finish analyzing himself because Zero barged in. They had finished their...business in the bathroom and thought that they'd check up on their favorite 'roommate.'
"Watcha doing?" Youji asked playfully.
The boy addressed looked up at them and sighed. Soubi hadn't told them about his 'encounter' yesterday but, he thought that they should know since they had been mentioned.
"Yesterday -" He began. "Aha! I knew something happened." The green-eyed boy stated with a grin.
Natsuo elbowed him. "Let him finish." He said, with a look at his sacrifice. "Soubi seems real tense and you have bandages all over the place on your cheek covering injuries that I know didn't come from him. What happened? " He asked, Ritsuka was surprised that he was acting mature for once.
Youji got the hint and sat down next to the dark-haired boy. "Did you get attacked or something?"
You could say that...
Ritsuka wasn't sure what to say. "Someone came...from the school, your school. Ritsu, he said that he was Soubi's teacher and he tried to kill me. He also had a message for you two and the other Zero...that your teacher wants to see you."
He watched as the other two boys paled at this statement. Absently, Natsuo took hold of his sacrifice's hand. They looked at each other, fear in their eyes. "If he knows where we are, then Nagisa-sensei might too..."
"Natsuo, what if she sends someone after us?" Youji cried fearfully. The burgundy-haired boy sat down and wrapped his arms around the other. "We'll fight or run, whichever ensures that we'll be able to stay together. We can't go back there."
Ritsuka knew they were close, probably about as close as a team could get. It was odd though, seeing them like this, considering how they usually were.
"I don't think that you guys have anything to worry about. Soubi wouldn't let them take you." Ritsuka assured the other boys.
"That's right." Soubi said suddenly from the doorway. "I've grown quite fond of the two of you. Believe me, anyone from the school will have to go through me to even get close to any of you."
"Oh Soubi, we knew you cared." The younger fighter said, hugging him around the middle.
Kio, who had been going to his room stopped and 'tsked'. "And you say that you're not a pervert. You've recruited more children for your disturbed erotic fantasies."
Ritsuka blushed at the terms he used.
"Shut up Kio."
"Love you too, Sou-chan."
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Yay! I hope you liked it.
P.S.- I know that, in the manga, stuff happens that is contrary to what I wrote but, I read the mangas after I wrote this and I won't change it. I laughed at how similar a lot of things in my other chapters were to the manga.
Reviews are awesome and keep the authoress happy and writing.