"Ask him to dance," said Eiji.
Tezuka sat, still and ramrod straight, irritation clawing at the knots of anxiety in his spine. He reached for a cup of punch with shaking fingers.
Somebody might have spiked it, and somebody after that, and after that, and after that…all the better, then.
The collar of his suit was beginning to loosen; the lines of his suit softening like an old man's face. He is spotless, black as a crow. His mouth is bitter. He settles in his seat, nodding towards the dance floor.
Sitting. Waiting.
Eiji doesn't understand.
A boy reaches for Fuji, imploring, pleading, earnest, sweat damping beneath his palms, no doubt. He looks like, Eiji thinks, the perfect image of sincere young love.
Fuji is lazy. Pale. Radiant. He reaches out an idle hand, empty, and tugs the boy to the dance floor, a prim half-shoulder away. His hands manipulate the disappointed body like a puppet: he tosses his glass over his shoulder, shattering into jewel-bright fragments.
They dance over a field of stars, diamonds prickling at their shoes. They crunch shards beneath their feet. His teeth are small and white and sharp, like the teeth of little wounded animals.
Tezuka sips from his glass, carefully resigned. He never expected anything else, Eiji realizes, but he also sees the softening line around Fuji's mouth when he looks over his shoulder at them, distantly watching.
Envious. Possessive.
He will never be yours, because you will not allow it, but he will never be anyone else's, because you will not allow that either, though he cannot.
And because he cannot, you will never allow it.
And you- will never, ever, be without him.
He has nothing of you, and everything of anything.
You have everything of him, and anything of nothing.
It's fair, since you cannot keep, and he can do nothing but give.
Eiji sees.
Oishi grips his shoulder, lightly familiarly- worried, and he melts back against him into the shadows, mouthing, it's a habit. They-
He looks over his shoulder as he leaves.
Are enough, perhaps, to be unhappy, and satisfied.
I would rather be unhappy with you than consoled