Archive: NO.

Reviews: Appreciated but not obligatory. :D I like to know what you like, don't like and what you think of the story in general. Thank you to the people who have been reviewing!

Also, to Aynon, because I can't reply to your review, I'll just babble here XD Your review of the last chapter really made me grin though actually I like all of your reviews :D I've always been drawn to weird pairings that are totally off the beaten path and which are probably odd or inconceivable to a lot of people. I like them because they're more fun to play with than popular pairings and because I seem to have a thing for side characters who don't always get enough love :D;; And I love Yuuta to bits XD I figure with a manager like Mizuki and a brother like Fuji, he needs some love and affection, though I'm not sure that Atobe is really the most loving sort of person, unless he's loving himself :P I like writing odd pairings, so I'm glad there are people who enjoy reading them.

Satisfaction

Chapter 15

By Miki

"Atobe-san…"

"Hm?" Atobe answered, his arms already full of books.

Yuuta blinked. "Are these all your books?"

Atobe snorted. "Of course not. The rest wouldn't fit in here, and of course I keep my textbooks in my study."

Yuuta blinked at Atobe's response for a moment, confused as to what the other boy was talking about. That wasn't quite what he'd meant…

He smiled a little, covering his eyes with his hand.

"It would be inconvenient to have to walk all the way down here every time I wanted something," Atobe continued, not noticing Yuuta's amusement. "I hardly have enough time as it is without having to trek around my own house…"

Yuuta moved his hand to his head and looked at Atobe, shaking his head a little. He watched as Atobe raised an eyebrow at him and then placed his pile of books on a table.

"Something bothering you?" he questioned.

Yuuta shook his head and walked over to the table, standing beside it a little awkwardly. Atobe reached over to the end of the curtains and fumbled for a moment before pulling the cord. The heavy curtains opened with effort and Atobe dropped down into a chair.

"Sit," he demanded, and Yuuta sat.

Atobe smirked. "Are you always so obedient?"

Yuuta rolled his eyes, a little annoyed because Atobe just happened to point it out at the right moment. "I'm not always, you know," he protested. "It's not like I'm a sheep," he added, thinking of certain members of St Rudolph's tennis team.

Atobe raised an eyebrow. "Indeed."

Yuuta gave him a look.

"Oh, there's a book over there on the table by the door," Atobe said, looking like he'd just remembered something. "Can you just fetch that for me?"

Yuuta stood up and looked across the room. Sure enough, there was a book on a small table near the door, and he walked over and picked it up, flicking to the title page as he walked back to the table where Atobe sat. "Here," he passed it to Atobe and sat down in his seat again, hands instinctively resting in his lap as he looked around, still a little nervous.

After a moment, he realised Atobe was staring at him and he looked at him quickly, embarrassed. "What?"

Atobe smirked. "Nothing."

Yuuta put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. "Say it," he demanded.

Atobe sighed, the corners of his lips quivering before breaking into a very un-ore-sama-ish grin.

"I was just thinking you make a much better dog than you'd ever make a sheep," he said, amused. "You already know how to sit and fetch. One would only have to teach you to roll over and you'd be perfect."

Yuuta opened his mouth, mind blank as he searched for a comback, or just anything to say in response. The look of annoyance on his face only made Atobe laugh, and he turned his face away, covering his mouth, eyes looking out the window.

Yuuta closed his mouth and crossed his arms. "Hmph."

Atobe turned his eyes to look at him, still hiding his smile with his hand. "You know you even have the open-mouth thing going for you as well. You've been doing it ever since you got here…"

Yuuta could feel his ears turning red.

"A-Atobe-san!" he stuttered out.

Atobe just continued smiling behind his hand. "Honestly, Yuuta, you don't need to look so scandalised. I'm sure you'd be a cute dog, like a short-haired Labrador or a-"

"You've got to be kidding me," Yuuta scowled out eventually, cutting Atobe off, cheeks a bright shade of pink.

Atobe rolled his eyes. "Well, one could hardly be serious about this sort of thing, you know."

There was a knock and then the click of the door sounded and they both looked across to see the butler coming in with a tray of drinks.

"Just in time," Atobe murmured, watching as the butler placed two bottles and two glasses on the table beside them.

Atobe waited until the waiter had left and then gestured. "The water's yours," he said, pulling his own bottle of peach juice toward him. "You didn't want a water bowl with that, did you?"

Yuuta tried to glare back.

It didn't work.

Atobe just smirked.

(S)

Yuuta wasn't sure why he wasn't allowed to carry his water bottle with him from one room to another, but Atobe insisted it was uncouth to do so, tramping around as though they couldn't afford to gave him another.

So Yuuta followed Atobe as he led the way up the stairs to his bedroom, running his hand along the smooth wood of the banister as he looked at the walls.

The butler had been sent off to get Yuuta a new bottle of water and a clean glass, even though Yuuta didn't think there was anything wrong with the one he'd just drunk from. It wasn't as though he was going to catch any funny diseases from himself. Still, Atobe had insisted – that was, he'd insisted by giving Yuuta a look and clapping his hands to call the butler over before Yuuta could protest.

Walking behind Atobe, watching his back as he led the way down the hallway, Yuuta realised he kept staring at the broadness of Atobe's shoulders and back and the straight crinkles in his white shirt where it was tucked into his pants.

He didn't know why… Couldn't understand why… Why he kept looking at Atobe like this.

"Yuuta?"

He looked up quckly, eyes meeting Atobe's.

"Were you listening to me?" Atobe asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Yuuta shook his head. "Were you talking?"

Atobe sighed and flicked his hair. "I was saying that there's a bathroom right there that you may use. I suppose the maids should have cleaned mine by now, but one can hardly expect them to be so reliable. They're supposed to, of course, but that doesn't mean they've actually done it," Atobe sighed. "You know what servants are like…"

Yuuta blinked.

Actually he didn't have a clue what servants were like, but Atobe didn't seem to expect him to say anything back, so he simply followed the boy into another room as he opened the door and led the way.

The room they'd walked into was huge. It wasn't quite as large as the library downstairs… but the massive bed Yuuta could see seemed to suggest this was a bedroom. It was big enough to be Yuuta's kitchen, lounge and dining room at home.

"This is my room," Atobe said, and Yuuta recalled the number of times he'd heard other people say the same phrase.

Somehow, seeing Atobe stand in the middle of such a space and saying the same thing that Saeki and Mizuki and Nee-san and Aniki had all said just seemed unreal.

The room seemed unreal.

"So… Do you actually sleep here?" Yuuta asked awkwardly, looking around.

Atobe gave him a funny look and walked over to one of the plush chairs at the side of the room, sitting down in it. "Of course. Where else would I sleep?"

Yuuta rubbed at the back of his head. "Um… Well," he began, looking at the bed again.

It was made up in the Western style, with sheets and multiple pillows of varying shapes and sizes and some blankets folded down at the end of the bed. It didn't look like there was a wrinkle anywhere on it.

Atobe tapped his fingers against his thigh for a moment, then placed his arms on the armrests of his chair. "Is there something funny about sleeping in a bed?" he questioned, not seeing what was so fascinating about his bed. "You wouldn't expect ore-sama to sleep on the floor, would you?"

Yuuta shook his head quickly, surprised. "No, it's not that…"

He left the rest of the sentence unsaid, wondering if Atobe could understand what he was thinking. They really came from different worlds, didn't they? For some reason, the thought sent a feeling of unhappiness through Yuuta, and he walked over to the windows, looking for something to distract himself.

"We could sit on the balcony, if you'd like," Atobe offered, abandoning his chair and walking over to unlock the double doors.

"Um… Okay," Yuuta said hesitantly, realising Atobe had already decided.

"By the way, you did get my last message this morning, didn't you?" Atobe asked, standing aside so Yuuta could walk through the doors before he closed them again.

He really hated to let the cool air from outside get into his room.

"Ah, yeah," Yuuta mumbled, quickly walking over to the edge of the balcony and looking out over the property.

Atobe frowned at Yuuta's vague answer. He wanted to know what Yuuta thought, actually, having written and rewritten the message multiple times before eventually sending it. Sometimes he really hated to have to do things in writing. One was never really sure how they'd be interpreted on the other end, after all.

"You have tennis courts?" Yuuta asked loudly, leaning over the balcony railings.

"Of course," Atobe responded quickly, his mouth moving automatically.

"Do you ever play on them?" Yuuta continued, sounding too excited to notice Atobe's sudden discomfort.

Atobe gave a shrug in response and stood next to Yuuta, frowning down at the picture the back garden of the property made. "I suppose," was the best answer he could come up with.

Tennis courts were tennis courts, as far as he was concerned, though he did appreciate the fact that his were always well-maintained and gave him privacy and the convenience to play whenever he liked.

Yuuta looked at him quickly, surprised Atobe was so close to him. "Do you practise here then?" he asked, tone more serious than before. "I mean, by yourself?"

Atobe ran a hand through his hair, staring down at the courts in question. "Not every day," he admitted. "Sometimes I practise with Kabaji, of course… It's rather boring to practise alone, you know."

Yuuta kept watching him, and Atobe shifted, a little awkward under his gaze.

Truthfully, he wasn't sure what to do right now.

The fact that he was happy at Yuuta's visit was almost overshadowed by the fact that he'd just realised they were on the balcony of his bedroom and he didn't have the slightest clue what Yuuta would want to do.

He didn't have many video games – reading being far more preferable to killing brain cells off with joysticks and controllers and games with girls with guns and oversized breasts – and he wondered what Yuuta would normally do at people's houses…

What did other people normally do? He wondered. Personally, he was used to sitting and having tea – usually the English sort in preference to the Japanese sort – but that was with his mother's friends and his father's business colleagues…

Having someone other than Kabaji in his own room was a little… strange…

"Atobe-san?"

"Hm?" Atobe snapped out of his thoughts.

Yuuta opened his mouth, about to speak when he heard a buzzing noise and realised Atobe was pulling his phone from his pocket.

"Atobe," he said, answering the call quickly, glancing at Yuuta as he turned around and opened the doors again.

Yuuta watched him shuffling papers around on a desk, and then turned back to look at the tennis courts again. He was spending so much time with Atobe lately… When he counted up the number of hours they seemed to spend together, it was easily more than the number of hours he spent with his brother in a whole month. He wondered what he'd do if Atobe suddenly decided…

Then he pushed that thought from his mind, refusing to let himself get sidetracked into circles again.

He glanced back into the bedroom, but it seemed like Atobe had disappeared somewhere, so he sat down in one of the chairs on the balcony, noticing the new bottle of water and the clean glass now sitting on the table. Weird, he hadn't noticed the butler at all.

He must have been more out of it than he'd thought.

(S)

Atobe hesitated for a moment before switching off his phone, shoving it into the drawer of his desk. If anyone asked, he'd just say the battery went flat. He flicked his watch, annoyed to realise the call had lasted nearly ten minutes, and walked back out to the balcony.

Yuuta was sitting in one of the deck chairs; eyes closed, his mouth slightly open.

Atobe blinked, reaching out to touch Yuuta's shoulder when he decided not to. He must have been exhausted, and Atobe wondered why he hadn't noticed it before. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd noticed Yuuta was a little quieter than usual, but he'd been too busy feeling nervous to notice. He sighed a little as he went back inside and pulled one of the blankets off the end of his bed.

It wouldn't do to have a guest catching a cold, at any rate.

(S)

Yuuta registered the sound next to him before he felt the touch on his arm. He opened his eyes a little groggily, only to realise that he was looking at a pitch dark sky.

"You're awake," Atobe noted.

Yuuta turned his head quickly, startled to see Atobe so close to him.

"I… What…" he mumbled out, his voice a little dry. "Was I asleep?"

"You ought to know better than me," Atobe replied, picking up a pile of papers from the table and heading toward the door.

"Now I can go inside, at least. It was getting a little cold out here," he grumbled.

Yuuta blinked and sat up a little fast. There was a dull thud of pain in his head and he tried to reach for the glass of water he hadn't finished drinking before.

There was something against his arms, he realised, looking down to realise there was a blanket over him. He pulled it off awkwardly, folding it. It looked like one of the ones off Atobe's bed, so he didn't want to get it dirty. Then he picked up the water bottle and followed Atobe inside, shutting the door behind him.

Atobe was sitting at his desk, fingers trailing down what looked like a list.

"Are you hungry?" he asked, not lifting his gaze as Yuuta stood next to the desk.

"I guess," Yuuta responded quietly. "Sorry about falling asleep."

Atobe looked up at him then, eyes looking intently at Yuuta's face.

Yuuta shifted his feet a little. "I don't normally fall asleep, you know," he explained hurriedly, thoughts straying again as embarrassment turned his ears pink.

Atobe was probably angry at him, he thought. Fidgeting a little with the blanket he was holding, he put his water bottle down on the desk and dropped the blanket on the end of the bed, cringing at the wrinkles it made.

"By the way, thanks… for the blanket."

Atobe was silent, and Yuuta frowned, wondering if he should go home soon. Then he felt a touch on his forehead and realised Atobe was standing right next to him, the back of his hand pressed against his skin lightly.

Yuuta swallowed quickly, nervously. "What are you doing?" he asked, conscious of the places Atobe's shirt was brushing against him.

"You seem a little hot," Atobe said slowly, concentration written on his face. He removed his hand and put the back of his other hand to his own forehead for a moment. Yuuta was too surprised to say anything in return, and Atobe suddenly stepped back and walked toward the door. "You should come and eat something. Really, it's late enough already and I'm guessing you haven't eaten since lunch."

"I did," Yuuta protested, following Atobe to the door of the bedroom. "I had some of Mizuki's cake."

Atobe turned around and raised an eyebrow. "Anything he's eating probably isn't good for you."

Then, seeing the look on Yuuta's face, he turned his head quickly. "Besides, I haven't had dinner either," he added.

"Oh," Yuuta hesitated.

Atobe sighed and awkwardly took hold of Yuuta's shoulder, steering him out the door and down the hallway.

Yuuta was sure his face was turning the colour of a tomato. If Atobe thought he was sick, that was fine, but it probably wasn't entirely the sort of sick he was thinking of…

(S)

"Are you forgetting something?" Atobe asked, raising an eyebrow as Yuuta stepped towards the limo.

Yuuta tilted his head slightly, rubbing at his hair tiredly. "Am I?"

"Only the books you actually came to borrow," Atobe replied, a smile at the edge of his lips.

He waved his hand toward the butler who had duly followed them out, gesturing for him to hand over the bag.

Yuuta took it from him clumsily, fingers only just grasping the edges of the bag, and Atobe cringed a little, wondering if he should point out that Yuuta was actually holding Atobe family heirlooms for goodness sakes.

Irreplacable family heirlooms.

Honestly, Yuuta looked as though he was half asleep. He'd looked awake while they were eating dinner – the mental challenge of using a knife and fork on peas being better attempted while conscious – but since then, he'd just looked sleepier and sleepier.

Atobe had asked Yuuta why he hadn't been sleeping; having eventually squeezed that much out of him, but Yuuta had just told him he'd been "thinking too much". Atobe wasn't entirely sure how one could think too much. He suspected that it had never occurred to Yuuta that heads were for thinking and that thinking was what most normal people did.

Still, at least watching Yuuta shooting peas across the room had provided Atobe with some amusement. He didn't get to see that every day. Dismissing the butler with a wave of his hand, Atobe stepped forward.

(S)

Yuuta watched Atobe moving toward him, feeling awkward ever since he'd woken up. His head felt odd; that dull thudding pain and the haziness that lack of sleep brings not helping him. Were his feet moving, or was that just his imagination?

He didn't know.

"Honestly, you should listen to what people tell you," Atobe frowned, and Yuuta blinked, his mouth failing to move to say what he wanted to say.

"I told you to sleep, did I not?"

The pulsing in Yuuta's head seemed to be getting worse and he squeezed his eyes closed against the pain for a moment, wishing it would just go away. Why did it have to be now?

"Yuuta?"

Yuuta opened his eyes.

(S)

Atobe watched as Yuuta squeezed his eyes shut, a grimace on his face.

"Yuuta?" he questioned, concern seeping into his voice though he wished it wouldn't. "Are you…"

He trailled off, realising the redundancy of his question. Of course Yuuta wasn't okay. "Should I come with you?" he asked instead, raising his hand to press the back against Yuuta's forehead again. "I think you're getting worse."

Yuuta shook his head quickly. "I'm fine," he insisted stubbornly, for a moment looking awake again. "I just need to catch up on sleep, that's all…" he argued, heart beating quickly and his head throbbing.

Atobe frowned, a little annoyed at Yuuta's insistence. Really, it was clear that he was anything but fine.

"And… I'm sorry for falling asleep on you…" Yuuta apologised again, a feeling of unhappiness in his chest. He really didn't want Atobe to be annoyed at him for it, and even though Atobe hadn't really said anything, Yuuta couldn't help but feel annoyed at himself too…

"I really didn't mean to…"

"Yuuta," Atobe snapped suddenly, "I really don't care that you fell asleep at all. One would think sleep would be exactly what you need right now, so you can stop apologising."

"I…"

There was silence for a moment.

The hum of the limousine's engine reminded Atobe that they'd been standing out here for more than just a few minutes, and Yuuta was probably getting cold in his short sleeves. He'd been hesitating, not wanting to go back inside. There was that feeling in his chest again; that nervous, fluttery, skip-beat feeling.

Standing so close to Yuuta like this, he felt like…

He knew what he wanted right now, right this moment.

Yuuta's forehead was warm where his hand touched it, and he moved his hand slowly, about to step back like he knew he should. But instead, he moved his hand back, tentatively brushing it over Yuuta's hair. It felt really soft; softer than he'd have thought…

And then before he'd realised it, he was already tilting his head. His hand gently pressed against the back of Yuuta's head – the hair there was soft too, kind of ticklish – forcing him to tilt his head down. His other hand moved to brush the edge of Yuuta's hair, right next to his scar and his lips tentatively pressed against the skin there; just enough that his lips too, felt the heat his hand had felt just moments before.

He closed his eyes for a moment, the slightest of kisses sending the sensations in his body into overdrive; hormones and nervousness and heat in his chest and tingling right down to the tips of his toes.

A moment later, he pulled back a little awkwardly, letting go of Yuuta and hurriedly looking away.

"Like I said, just go to sleep without thinking too much," he said, not waiting for Yuuta's reply before he turned and walked back to the house, hands trembling and slightly sweaty in his pockets.

He only hoped he could follow his own advice.

(S)

Akazawa saw Yuuta taking the stairs as he filled in a form in the office. He looked up to call out to the other boy, but he looked completely exhausted and Akazawa decided he'd see him in his room in a moment instead. Yuuta looked as though he'd fall over if he were kept on his feet any longer.

(S)

Five minutes later, when Akazawa opened the door to Yuuta's room, he sighed at the scene before him.

Yuuta was curled up on top of his bed; his socks and uniform still on.

Akazawa debated for a moment whether to let him sleep or not, but it was only half an hour before lights out, so he stepped into the room and looked around, pulling out a spare blanket from Yuuta's wardrobe and spreading it over the boy.

He supposed his talk with Yuuta would have to wait until tomorrow.

.tbc.