This chapter just took on a life of its own. 8| I hope the way it's written doesn't make it too confusing!
On the first floor of the apartment, Niou and Yagyuu had sucessfully barricaded themselves in. Reaching the first floor and finding the door locked, Yagyuu wanted to continue on up, but Niou had stopped him.
"Yagyuu, wait," Niou had stopped at the door and was crouching down.
"Wait for what, Niou-kun? If we stay here too long, someone else is going to come in," Yagyuu tried to reason with the other. He didn't want to run into someone else in the hallway while they were distracted with something like this. They'd already had a run in with someone else outside, and Yagyuu didn't care to repeat the experience already.
A small click. "Got it!" Niou looked up at Yagyuu, smiling. "First floor is all ours, Yagyuu."
"Did you just-"
"I always come prepared," Niou interjected before Yagyuu could finish. Pushing the door open, Niou stepped to the side and waved Yagyuu in with his arms, "after you, darling."
The two walked into the hallway of the first floor and shut the door behind them. Taking the broom handle they'd grabbed off of one of Shitenhouji's players (Koishikawa, Yagyuu had informed Niou after the latter had taken him out on their way into the building) Niou jammed it through the handle and crossed it over the door. Giving it a test push and finding it to be secure enough, the two continued on into the hall of the first floor, now entirely theirs for the time being.
Surveying the hall around them, they found most doors to be closed. The air was dusty, stale. There was a thick layer of dust on the ground, like this area hadn't been touched even before the whole building had been abandoned. Walking down the hall, Niou tested the doors on the apartments, finding that most were left unlocked.
"So, it seems like we're safe for now, huh?" Niou turned to look back at Yagyuu.
"I wouldn't call it safe, Niou-kun," Yagyuu said, glancing at his doubles partner, "just... not in immediate danger."
"Yagyuu, you make everything so dramatic," came the slightly whiny reply from Niou.
"I wasn't going for dramatic, just honest."
"Che, you're no fun."
"I wasn't going for fun, either."
"Well, I know it's not like any of Atobe's parties, but we should at least try to make the best of it, right?"
"And what would you consider 'making the best' of this situation?" Yagyuu was used to Niou's rather odd way of thinking, but the idea of having fun while their teammates were out killing each other was entirely new to him.
"Well, Yagyuu, we do have the whole first floor to ourselves, yeah?" the reply came with a smirk.
"...what are you suggesting?"
"I'll let you take a guess."
Before Yagyuu had time to make said guess, Niou had already grabbed his wrist and had him half way to one of the empty rooms. They'd just made it in before Niou discarded their backpacks on the ground and pushed Yagyuu up against a wall of what would have been the living room. Nudging Yagyuu's head to the side with his, Niou traced kisses down the other's neck and shoulder, biting lightly every so often.
"You are so inappropriate."
"You're not really protesting, now, are you?"
Kissing Yagyuu while pushing him down to the floor, Niou followed until he was seated comfortably in the other's lap, his hands against the wall.
A loud crack in the distance sent both heads turning in the direction of the hall. Niou barely had time to remove himself from Yagyuu's lap before someone burst into the room wielding a baseball bat.
Looking around them, Niou quickly grabbed the bags and tossed one to Yagyuu before running to the other side of the room. The other person was in the doorway to the main room, breathing heavily and looking back and forth between the two of them. Yagyuu recognized from the size of the other that it was Tanishi, one of Higa's singles players.
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Looking between the two Rikkai players, Tanishi wasn't sure if he'd be able to take them both out at once, but he knew if he didn't try something that the consequences wouldn't be in his favour. A quick glance at Yagyuu showed that he was holding a chain, while Niou was holding... nothing?
Weighing the options in his head, Tanishi figured it was best to get Yagyuu out of the way first since he posed more of a threat. Gripping the baseball bat tightly with both hands, Tanishi braced himself and quickly lunged forward, pushing back on one foot with all his strength. When he was finally few inches away from his target, he swung.
He waited for the impact, but it never came. Tanishi opened his eyes, unaware that he had even closed them in the first place. Fuck. Yagyuu had managed to dodge the first attack, but was now much closer to the back wall. Less of an escape path. Tanishi moved closer, ready to swing again, but for the few seconds he'd had his eyes closed he had missed something vital.
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Yagyuu had seen Tanishi get ready to attack, he'd noticed the other stiffen up right before he'd come running. Hoping he'd timed it right, Yagyuu had ducked when Tanishi swung and had missed being hit entirely. Looking at Niou from across the room was all the signal he needed to give to the other.
When Tanishi had opened his eyes and gone in for the next hit, Yagyuu had been prepared and moved to the side, chain in hand. Before Tanishi could get another swing in, Yagyuu gripped the chain with both hands and lashed out, hitting Tanishi directly in the shin.
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While Tanishi focused on his first swing, Niou had removed the cleaver from his bag. When he'd gotten the signal from Yagyuu seconds later, it was enough. Moving quickly and quietly, Niou ran up behind Tanishi, who was now distracted with clutching at his injured leg. As soon as Niou saw Tanishi remove his hands from his now-bruised leg, Niou took his chance. Leaning down as he ran in, arm outstretched, Niou swung the cleaver at Tanishi's ankle.
Hitting harder than he thought, the crack of metal hitting bone was audible throughout the empty apartment. Within seconds Tanishi was on the floor, writhing in pain while grabbing at his ankle, blood pouring from between his fingers.
Yagyuu walked over, one end of the chain in each hand. Avoiding the other's eyes, Yagyuu dropped the middle of the chain to the ground and slid it underneath Tanishi's neck. Looking up at Niou, Yagyuu switched the ends of the chain from hand to hand and pulled as tight as he could, while also lifting the chains from the floor.
Tanishi's fingers flew from his ankle to the chains that were now around his throat, trying desperately to pry them off, They were too tight. He couldn't breathe. Vision going blurry, he tried to look up, but was met with nothing but a dark gray blur.
Niou, taking some form of pity on the other as he watched him struggle on the floor, walked over, his eyes never leaving Yagyuu's. He lifted one leg, and just as quickly as he'd raised it, it came back down. Tanishi had no time to make out what the white object coming towards his face was before there was a crack. The hands that had been trying to pry the chains away fell limp, and Yagyuu let the chain drop to the floor.
Wiping the cleaver off on his pants before dropping it, Niou took a second to look at the lifeless body on the floor before glancing back up at his doubles partner.
"Now, Yagyuu, where were we?"
~64 remain~