Chapter I
Disclaimer: I don't own SD boys, Inoue does. The events that follow are not included in the original plot but enjoy, anyway.
The boy at the portal was silent and motionless. A sweat-soaked towel hung on his slender shoulders while a half empty mineral water was loosely clutched by his harried, left hand. Different-sized perspiration streamed down the fine angled planes of his temples to the surface of his smooth chin whence all droplets of sweat converged to fall down and hit the newly polished floor.
His back was resting against the edge of the door but his head wasn't in incumbency; his face was looking at his fatigued feet with the most expressionless gaze. He was awfully tired and no thought could've entered his mind then; how impossible it is to foster reason and rhyme when all your energy is transformed into another object's capacity.
And yet, the picture of that pitifully worn-out boy under broad daylight couldn't have been more perfect for it exuded all the potential ugliness of his physical form. All these couldn't sway desire or infatuation. Even in that state he was painstakingly gorgeous. His bluish black hair was tousled in a very virile manner though his facial features were very effeminate. His sapphire blue eyes could pierce a thousand hearts in a glance and the way his lips twisted into a smile wouldn't prove less enchanting or disturbing.
Not an iota of these details missed Kaede Rukawa's wary eyes, not a moment passed when he didn't praise Hisashi Mitsui's movements in the most concealed silence.
'Do I love him beyond my own understanding?' Rukawa thought as he heard the blow of a whistle.
'Break's over, guys. Get ready for the second half,' Ayako told the team.
'Can I miss this half? I could use up another minute,' Mitsui pleaded. He was almost panting in exhaustion.
'Not to worry, I'll back you up. Just rest for another quarter, it wouldn't hurt anyway," Kogure told him as he stood up and join the game. Mitsui gave him a smile and sat on the benches.
Nobody has been this friendly to his ex. Rukawa thought enviously. He knew of the heavenly intimacy between Mitsui and Kogure before the former had unwittingly left the club two years ago and turned to a whimsical self- absorbed gangster who immersed himself in the thought of sweet revenge.
Since Mitsui's return a few weeks earlier, Rukawa had managed to learn everything about his past. Mitsui was a former member of the team who left without warning and never came back until that fateful incident. But what troubled Rukawa ceaselessly was the ineffable warmth between Kogure and Mitsui after the latter's rehabilitation. It wasn't a mere friendship that passed between them; there was something inexplicably mutual about the way they treated each other. Whenever their sub captain showed up an ostensible joy could be traced on Mitsui's face like a child who had found a lost parent. That look is that of one whose heart is filled with love and longing. Rukawa concluded after a long meticulous study, feeling the pain in every artery of his nervous system.
At that moment, Kaede Rukawa had sworn to save his beloved from the madness that had clouded around him. But how? He wasn't the kind to reason out and express what he thought to anybody; he was a master one liner and there was no way he could put all he had to say to Mitsui in one short, trite phrase. Whatever. Kogure no longer loves him, I do. He thought.
TBC