Fandom: 囀る鳥は羽ばたかない/ Saezuru tori wa habatakanai / Twittering Birds Never Fly
Title: Borderline.
Pairing: Doumeki x Yashiro
Rating: PG-13
Description: Doumeki watches Yashiro sleep while guarding him…

Disclaimer: Yoneda Kou-sensei owns this title.

This is a game we play just like children always do.
Pull and push, push and pull. This is just a tug of war.

I coax you and then you'll slide further into the fray, but I've got to wonder why I'm waiting here when there's nothing in the future for me. Heading into the darkness, you are the only light I see, though you aren't aware of it.

"Doumeki."
"Yes, Boss?" He looks up from the text.

With his legs out and a book in his hands, he…
Why do I tease myself like this?

And for a small moment, Yashiro slips into mental panic, but his face doesn't reveal the razor slashes to his chest. Forgetting what he's going to ask Doumeki, he deftly takes the thin novel and skims through it. It seems to be small enough to fit into his bodyguard's jacket pocket.

The boss flips to the cover and sees a black and white illustration of a man in a double-breasted suit with white gauze wrapped around his eyes. He's sitting backwards on a wooden chair with his hands tied behind him with barbed wire. There's an arm reaching from the back, feeding a whole strawberry into the man's mouth and forcing it in with their index finger. Only the strawberry is colored in a deep, glistening red.

"What is this?"
"Something my sister gave to me."
"Oh."
"She said this is where she got inspired to paint…to get through that time."

Yashiro places the precious book aside and lays on the bed and into his lap. Looking up into the dry, unemotional face, he can only blink in curiosity.

Doumeki wants to know why he's staring at him today.

/That afternoon, the boss had suddenly ordered, "Get me the scissors."

I knew I wasn't worthy of getting a haircut from those beautiful hands, but I'm thankful anyway to be touched in any way.
I'll never protest to any of his whims.

I watched as snippets of small threads of hair fell to the hardwood kitchen floor./

What he didn't want was to be compared…

Borderline.
by Miyamoto Yui

Between the eclipse of awake and dreaming, he has to keep watch during the night. He mustn't move and embody the stone he pretends to be. Wandering eyes rove around the room aimlessly, wanting to avoid their target. He wonders if he can keep his temptations to himself.

But He shifts.

The smooth, naked legs cross as he lies to his side, hair in its composed disarray. Doesn't matter when, he's always perfect. In any state, at any time.
In Doumeki's eyes, the boss can do all wrong and it'll shine before him, glimmering like a treasure. Wasn't that what he thought when he first passed by him in the other office? Wasn't that why he was an idiot, an even more complete one at that?

I cannot move. I can't breathe.

He can be within the same air, surround a small part of the atmosphere, but never penetrate the ironclad smokescreen between them. He shouldn't be allowed to, but the boss moves again, hugging himself. And all the secrets he can't easily read during the day are translated partly by the night.
About to slide his index finger down his boss's cheek, the eyes crunch up with quivering lips.

"Kageyama," the pained voice utters quietly.

It breaks him all over again.
Without knowing, that seems to be their safe word in their violently subconscious game.

He retracts his hand and looks away to the waning moonlight by the window, wishing he could stop the incessant infliction and anger in his heart.
But he starts to feel the ridges of the boss's tongue licking through his slacks, saliva wetting the tip through the material…

His first impulse is to reach out for his hair, but he takes his hand back and looks down at him with a jealous gleam, childish and petty as it may seem.

Just why'd you mess with my hair anyway?

Enticed, the boss gives a dark glimpse up with a naughty smirk, taking more of him into his mouth.

I don't want to lose.

Either way I choose, I'll be taken alive.
But as long as it's him,

I don't care.

We never truly cared for our 'selves' anyway…
Where He starts and where I end, that's the mark of our true

Borderline.

When Doumeki goes to wash himself, the boss demands that he'll sleep in his lap again. He knows the boss needs someone to be next to him even though he never says so. After all, he used to nap while sitting against the wall, but now, he needs a living pillow.

On his way out of the bathroom, he's amused by his own profile in the mirror. For a moment, he thinks he's viewing someone else's face.

Only when the boss minutely held his breath earlier did he realize who.

/"After all I've told you, why do you think he's beautiful?"
"His body may be broken from the inside, but I think his mind has yet to be opened. If you say he's a child stuck in time, then…"

Kageyama-san turned from his work desk. "Seems you're more of a sadist than he is, though you act like an idiot."
I blinked my eyes at him.
"In that sense, you're both simple that way…"

When I stepped forward, he cleared his throat.
"Yes?"
"Nothing really."
"You don't have to worry about him anymore."

Then, I took leave to return to Him./

I wasn't sure if I was saying it to the doctor as the boss's friend or as a threat to assert my feelings, though he was blindly unaware. The shield of friendship was a thick, solid one that he too refused to topple over.

The only difference between us is that I can't turn it off.
I keep wanting to get closer even though I know I keep pulling the invisible sword closer against my gut and jaggedly slicing it very slowly...

As the boss's breathing begins to deepen, Doumeki clasps the book in his hand and puts it down onto the bed, the pages wrinkling against the sheets. He doesn't have to see the words because he read it a while ago. It was around the time when it was a best seller and he'd first met Him. Now, the words make some sense, penetrating the marrow of his bones instead of just touching his skin.

He mouths his favorite quote without a voice:

Insane with no expression.
Splattered genius,
I leave no traces of how I came
Nor of the love bleeding me away.

I want to embrace him, but I know even if I did,
I'd never capture all of him.

No, not all at once.

Doumeki's head droops forward and his thoughts split into a thousand fragments…

Trapped within my own demise,
I truly wonder if I'll ever want to leave.
To cleave my hands and bound my feet
won't stop me from
getting to you.
From wanting what
cannot be,
the single red thread
breaks the balance
of our glass pyramid.

I won't say "Forgive me",
I won't say "Stay".
There are some magic words
that don't work
even with the strongest power
behind them.

I've wondered for days on end,
shredding by night,
why I love you so
when you never cared about me.

I'm just a rag at your disposal.
used when convenient,
wiped clean from all the evidence
of a murder scene,
my heart tortured
with you satisfied.

You laugh when you cry.

That's why I let you do it.

But the instant I see your tears,
I know your illusion's disappeared.
And my world,
that only consists of You,

evaporates.

"When that happens, I don't want to be here anymore," he mumbles in his sleep.

A single tear falls down to the boss's face.

That's when Yashiro opens his eyes and watches avidly. It's the first time in a while since he felt the stirring of longing.

Yearning.

And not the defensive desire to shut it off.
He feels the compulsion to want to get to know someone.

When did I stop feeling lonely when you're next to me?

Owari. / The End.
-
Author's note: This title…ah, I wonder how I hadn't come across it though I'm familiar with the author. It's totally up my alley since angst is where I usually dwell. Light and dark sense of self and all that…I guess there's a part of me that wishes I could make the writing impressions stronger. One step behind, I hope I've at least brought my point across because while I write and write and write, my speaking skills aren't so great... You can understand why I gravitated to Doumeki.

I only came across this title a few days ago, but felt the immediate need to write for it. I hope you enjoyed it!

Love always,
Yui

8/20/2021 9:21:54 PM – Los Angeles
8/21/2021 1:21:54 PM – Tokyo