Pairing: YuuTari
Disclaimer: not mine, cool? cool.
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Oshitari hated grocery shopping with his sister. It wasn't that he hated shopping, or that he hated his sister - it was that shopping and his sister made a terrible combination. She was always on some diet, and looked at the calorie count for everything. He thought she should just buy the food their mom asked for, eat it, and exercise - that should be enough to keep anyone healthy. Besides, she was skinny as a stick already and didn't need to diet anymore - not that she ever listened to him.
She finally set one package of flour in the basket he was holding, putting the other back on the shelf. He had repeatedly assured her that flour was flour and neither package contained more calories per unit volume than the other, but clearly he didn't understand anything because he never had to worry about his weight, and she had to analyze both for herself. "What's next on the list?" she asked. He looked down at the notepad on which their mother had scribbled a list of things to buy.
"Celery," he replied. "And Keiko? Everyone knows you lose more calories from chewing raw celery than whatever you gain back eating it, so just pick a stalk and let's hurry." She gave him a scathing look, and he sighed, silently following her to the produce section.
As he stood next to her, basket in hand, waiting for her to find the perfect stalk of just the right color and crispness, he heard someone coming up behind him and felt a tapping on his shoulder. He turned, thinking someone wanted him to move, but stopped and blinked when he saw who it was.
"Hello," Niou said, tightly gripping the arm of the boy behind him right above his power wrist. Niou couldn't hide Yagyuu though, even if he wanted to, Oshitari thought. "We stopped by your house, but your mother said you were probably here." His sister had apparently found her ideal celery and bagged it, putting it in the basket. "Say, who's the pretty lady?" Oshitari wondered if Niou always had the rights words at the right time.
"I'm Oshitari Keiko, Yuushi's sister," she introduced, sweetly smiling at the two boys as she took the basket and grocery list from his hands. "Take him; he's not helping much anyway." Looking back at her confused brother, she said, "Go on. You're more annoying than helpful; I'll tell Mom where you are."
He shrugged and followed the two taller boys out of the store - though it was more appropriate to say he followed Yagyuu, who was dragged by Niou, out of the store.
"You keep coming to Tokyo; don't you guys have homework or something?" he muttered. "I thought Rikkai was a tough high school."
"It is," Yagyuu said. "Niou just likes skipping a lot, don't you?"
"Not like the teachers can do anything about it," Niou retorted, releasing Yagyyu's arm and glancing back at him. At Oshitari's raised eyebrow, he explained, "I study at home and always get good grades, so it doesn't matter if I show up to class or not."
"I see." They followed Niou in silence for awhile, before Oshitari's curiosity spoke. "Exactly where are we going?" Niou looked at him and grinned, the sharp white teeth showing between his lips. Following Niou when he smiled like that, Oshitari thought, was like skipping into hell and kissing the devil. Besides, he was the one that lived in Tokyo, so how did Niou seem to know where they were going better than he did? They passed a street that was quite unfamiliar to him, though not sketchy enough for him to turn around.
Niou turned at the next street and they could see a small playground two blocks down. Niou stopped and pointed at a blue house across the street. "I used to live there," he said. He moved his arm a little bit to the right, pointing at the white house right next to it. "She lived there." He continued walking. Oshitari looked at Yagyuu, who gave him a slight shrug, before following Niou onto the playground.
Niou took a seat on one of the four swings and gave himself a light push. He was too tall for the swings, Oshitari thought, leaning against one of the metal poles that held up the set. Yagyuu stood next to and slightly behind him. He moved an arm around Oshitari's back, hand resting lightly against his waist. Oshitari thought about protesting, but didn't. It felt strange, yet kind of good. Comfortable.
Bending his knees underneath the swing just enough so that his feet didn't brush the ground, Niou gave another kick at the trench dug by years of children's feet kicking at the woodchips, flying just a little bit higher, a little bit faster. "I've known her since I could remember," he said, voice low but clear. "She was my best friend. We played here together, and she would always watch my tennis matches. Our parents used to joke that we were bound by a red thread."
He looked up, staring straight ahead at the house next to the playground. "When we moved to Kanagawa, our families still kept in touch. She and I even had sleepovers sometimes, and we had joint family vacations in the summer." His swing was losing momentum, and he kicked at the ground before speaking again.
"She emailed me two weeks ago. They've moved to America, and don't plan on coming back. She has a boyfriend there, now."
Oshitari wasn't sure what to say, and a quick peek at Yagyuu told him that he was equally confused. Niou suddenly kicked twice, violently, at the ground, sending woodchips spraying as he and his swing flew into the air. He leaned backwards, pumping the air to get more lift as he laughed loudly. "Fooled ya, didn't I?" he called out to them.
Atobe's face forced its way into Oshitari's mind, and he wondered if Niou felt like he had when Atobe left him for Jirou. It hadn't been a good feeling - being dumped probably never was - but that hadn't been all. Atobe had been his best friend also, strangely enough, and the feeling that his best friend was being taken away had hurt more than being traded for Jirou. In fact, it felt kind of like his link to reality snapped, for awhile.
"With him, you never know if it's true," Yagyuu muttered. Oshitari wondered if Niou ever had been chained to reality - he certainly danced and laughed right around and beyond the nets of society Joyce tried to evade.
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Maybe a crack omake with this theme sometime. It's more amusing than theme 30.
This part itself... weak, interpretive link to the theme. It's there though, I swear. P I wonder if I'm focusing too much on other stories and not enough on YuuTari themselves.
Red thread. I vaguely remember a Chinese legend, where two lovers were bound by a red thread of destiny. Basically, reference to that.
Joyce's society. James Joyce quote in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - "When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets." One of my favorite quotes that I reference quite often. P