Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2698772.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      ダイヤのA_|_Daiya_no_A_|_Ace_of_Diamond
  Relationship:
      Kominato_Haruichi/Kominato_Ryousuke
  Character:
      Kominato_Haruichi, Kominato_Ryousuke, Seidou_Baseball_Club
  Additional Tags:
      Canon_Divergence, Sibling_Incest, Summer_Vacation, Haruichi's_teenage
      midlife_crisis, Ryousuke's_shameless_horror_addiction, This_thing_is_an
      emotional_whiplash_&_I_am_sorry, First_Times, Hand_Jobs, Frot, Anal_Sex,
      Barebacking, Orgasm_Delay/Denial
  Series:
      Part 1 of The_Future_Less_Traveled
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-12-01 Completed: 2014-12-07 Chapters: 8/8 Words: 39389
****** Roads Not Taken ******
by robottrash
Summary
     Haruichi sends an email to Ryousuke, saying only, I quit the team.
     Moments later, he gets a reply. Come visit me.
***** Chapter 1 *****
Chapter Notes
     Hello tiny Kominatocest corner of AO3!
     This is what I did for Nanowrimo; didn't make the 50k word count goal
     but oh well. So it goes.
     The first part of this chapter jumps around quite a bit, but I
     promise it slows down to normal quickly. Oh & spoilers for the final
     battle with Inashiro. I try to keep everything vague after that.
Summer fades into autumn, like a slow-burning fire, everything lit up in gold,
and Haruichi thinks only of failure, of chances lost.
Sawamura kicking leaves off the mound, and all Haruichi can think is, one more
pitch, that's all we needed from you. Just one more pitch.
Sawamura slips, falls on his ass, and Kuramochi loses his shit, nearly slips on
the damp grass because he's laughing so hard, and Haruichi thinks, you knew he
was injured, you should have said something.
He blames them all, in one way or another. Blames himself for not being good
enough, for letting Narumiya's pitches get to him, for failing to hit every
fucking ball that sailed over the plate and not getting enough runs to make
their win secure, to take his brother to Koushien.
Time passes, and he keeps waiting for the moment when he forgives himself, but
it never comes.
+
The rest of the year is a blur of hitting and catching, and he keeps every
broken bat as proof that he's still working hard, and he likes the way
Kuramochi calls him by name now, like an acceptance, that he's not just some
kid filling in the space where Ryousuke used to be.
Haruichi still gets caught up in those empty spaces, feels them in himself,
too.
Crashing into first base, his blushing pose that makes Sawamura squeal, and
he's searching the dugout before he remembers Ryousuke is in the stands,
watching from too far away.
Sometimes he makes it back to home, sometimes he doesn't.
What matters is the moment he starts to realize he doesn't care anymore.
He's struck out swinging, tagged out on second with a smooth double-play, fouls
off the tip and gets caught in the air, and he's not as pissed off as he should
be, there's no ignition source to drive him through his next at-bat.
He plays his part, and feels more like a program than a human being.
+
It's spring when he's able to put a name to it, when he accepts it for what it
is.
The third years are graduating, placing their dreams in the hands of
universities, pro teams, excited and everyone is excited for them, or at least
Haruichi pretends he is. He helps Ryousuke pack, wishes him good luck, the
dutiful little brother, but he keeps his mouth shut when Ryousuke tells him to
do his best, doesn't say, my best doesn't matter anymore.
Then Ryousuke is going, going, gone, like a home run straight over the fence,
and Haruichi is left behind once again.
Those empty spaces become all he's made of, and as he slides Ryousuke's gloves
over his hands, now scuff-stained and creased to fit his fingers, the curve of
his bats, he's able to say it.
He doesn't care about baseball anymore. Maybe he never did.
+
Second year blooms like the cherry blossoms and he makes first string again,
makes starter, and Ryousuke calls him only once.
"What number did you get?"
"Four, like you, Aniki."
Ryousuke got into one of the Big6 universities, so now he's back at the bottom
of the roster, fighting his way to the top, and he jokes that it's just how he
likes it, but Haruichi knows he's playing tough, knows even his invincible big
brother gets nervous and unsure sometimes. So he tells him he'll do fine, asks
him instead about his courses.
He's in a scattering of film and literature classes, all horror related, urban
legends, death fixation in modern culture, everything right up Ryousuke's
creepy little alley, and Haruichi loves how excited he gets when he talks about
the newest EVP recording on YouTube, even though it's probably a fake. He jokes
that Ryousuke can't get his eyes open because of all his time squinting at
ghost photos and grainy security cam footage and he gets a real honest laugh
out of him, the kind that catches in his throat and makes his voice go a little
higher and makes Haruichi's stomach flip.
Haruichi asks if he remembers that supposed haunted house in their old
neighborhood, when they snuck in and checked for cold spots, left recorders in
empty rooms, and Ryousuke's voice tightens back a little more than normal when
he says he remembers.
Haruichi doesn't need to ask if he remembers what happened upstairs, he
wouldn't sound like that if he didn't, and Haruichi blushes hot enough to feel
fevered and sick as the memory replays itself without permission. That small
horrible moment when he'd pressed Ryousuke against the wall, hands fisted tight
in his shirt, begging him not to go to Seidou, I'm going to miss you so much,
Aniki, and he'd kissed him, desperate and brief like the flicker of a ghost,
the only time he'd ever let himself give in to what he really wanted, and it
hadn't been enough to keep him from leaving.
Ryousuke still pushed him away, smiled like a challenge, all sharp edges,
saying, I'm going to Seidou, make your own choices from now on.
Haruichi is still burning when Ryousuke ends the conversation with an excuse
that he needs to study, and Haruichi fumbles out some sort of goodbye.
They don't speak again until summer.
+
Haruichi's failing most of his classes, and Sawamura keeps squawking at him
that it's his job to make terrible grades, not Harucchi's, but he can't focus,
everything is a blur.
It's a week before summer vacation, heat sinking into the classroom and
everyone's anxious, ready for the break, and he really isn't sure what sets him
off, but he's only barely aware of rising out of his seat, his fist crashing
into someone's face. An entire lifetime of swinging heavy bats into heavy
pitches, and the boy's nose shatters, teeth fall onto the floor, the human body
is no match for this kind of determination, then Furuya is pulling him back,
and someone is screaming but all he can hear is Furuya's soft "Haru, Haru it's
okay, calm down."
He says back just as quietly, "I am calm", and Furuya holds him tighter.
He's in deep shit, his parents are called, the boy has to wear a wire frame
holding his face together, and Haruichi thinks if his head had been a ball,
that would have been a home run.
He tells Sawamura, and Sawamura laughs, but he says, "You're scaring me,
Harucchi. This isn't like you at all."
"But maybe it is."
His eyes widen, overreactive as always. "That's even scarier!"
Haruichi feels part of the cold inside him soften and warm, and he smiles at
this insane boy, his ridiculous friend. "Please don't ever change."
+
He's banned from club activities for a week, but he still sneaks out to the
batting cages at night, Ryousuke's gloves on his hands, slick against the wood.
He swings the bat the way he swung that punch, and the ball sails out into the
dark.
Kuramochi and Zono decide to corner him, switching off the pitching machine so
he has to pay attention to them, demanding to know what the fuck is going on,
and Haruichi's touched that they actually noticed, that they actually care
enough to ask.
He wants to say it's nothing, stress maybe, wanting to make it to Koushien but
that isn't it, he doesn't give a damn about Koushien. So he says that instead,
says it soft and heavy like a weight in the water, "I don't care if we get into
Koushien. I don't really care about baseball anymore."
There's a startled "You don't mean that!" from Kuramochi, but Zono's hand is on
his shoulder, and his face is solemn when he nods, admits, "I could tell. I've
been waiting for you to say something."
Somehow that's all he needed to hear, and he lets the bat drop from his hand,
falls to his knees in the dirt and finally breathes in deep enough that he's
not feeling so lightheaded anymore, so tightly-bound and suffocating. He lets
it out in a quiet sob, and then there's two thumps beside him, Kuramochi
pulling him into an awkward, clumsy hug, and Zono smoothing his hair back,
tucking it behind his ear, and Haruichi blushes at the exposure, blushes at all
this unexpected gentleness and comfort. It makes him ache, makes him cry
harder.
"I want to quit the team, but I don't want to let you down."
He's not used to this honesty, this softening of the rough edges that Ryousuke
taught him how to build, the distance between himself and everyone else allowed
to drop for that one moment as his friends hug him, squish him absurdly between
them. None of them are very good at this kind of thing. But it's precious, and
ridiculously sweet.
It's Kuramochi who finally says, "What is it you do care about?"
"I don't know. It's only ever been baseball." Baseball, and chasing Ryousuke,
pushing himself harder and harder to be just as good, maybe someday to be
considered an equal, and he wonders now exactly how much of that was about
baseball, and how much was about wanting to be accepted by his brother.
He remembers thinking, back when Ryousuke left, maybe it was never about
baseball at all.
He thanks Kuramochi and Zono for asking, for being his friends, and leaves them
there among the bats and scattered balls, back to his room where he lays awake
all night, pretending to sleep. In the morning, he wakes knowing the decision
has been made.
That afternoon, Haruichi sends an email to Ryousuke, saying only, I quit the
team.
Moments later, he gets a reply. Come visit me.
When he packs, he realizes how few regular clothes he actually has, how much of
his life is devoted to athletic activities.
Sawamura sticks his lucky hat into Haruichi's bag, says, "Please don't forget
to come back to us," and Haruichi feels the deepest stab of guilt, feels like
he's done something wrong when all he's trying to do is fix himself so he's not
punching random classmates anymore.
He touches Sawamura's hair, still wet from the shower, and curls a bit of it
around his finger, thinking of Kuramochi and Zono in the dirt beside him,
thinking, he never expected to care about anyone here, it wasn't part of his
plan. Seidou was just a vehicle he could use to catch up to his brother,
nothing else was supposed to matter.
Haruichi zips his bag shut, sticks his own Seidou hat on Sawamura's head,
sideways, like Miyuki. "I'll be back before you have a chance to miss me."
Sawamura's grin confirms he's making the right choice.
+
Haruichi feels out of place on the university campus, tiny among all the
reflected suns in glass skyscraper windows, among all the noisy cicadas buzzing
at the heat. He finds Ryousuke's room, but it's someone else who answers the
door, someone tall, severe-faced, and unexpectedly familiar.
Haruichi wonders if he's dreaming, if he fell asleep somewhere.
"Yuuki-senpai?"
The hard expression lightens, and Yuuki grins, holds the door aside so Haruichi
can enter. "Ryou didn't tell you? They let us be roommates."
"No, he didn't say. But that's good, you're not stuck with annoying strangers."
He shares a smile with Yuuki, and thinks briefly of Zono, wonders if he's
enjoying having the room to himself, or if Miyuki's taken to stealing it when
his own room gets crowded.
He thinks of mornings waking up to Miyuki curled under Zono's blanket, wishing
his brother would get tired of his roommates some day, and he'd wake to a tuft
of pink instead of brown, because he's forgot what it's like to have quiet
morning conversations with Ryousuke, idle talk before shuffling out the door.
He's sure it's nothing like Miyuki though, because Miyuki is almost nice when
he's away from everyone else, funny in a cute, clever sort of way, and he knows
that any time spent alone with Ryousuke isn't really with Ryousuke at all, but
the walls he puts up, the defensive challenges he always says before walking
away.
Anxiously, Haruichi wonders what he's doing here.
"So where is he?"
"Out on the field, c'mon, I'll show you."
Yuuki leads him through the maze of halls, covered walkways, past fields of
people playing soccer, tennis, until he hears the familiar crack of a hardball
hitting a bat, and he searches instantly for his brother. His height always
makes him easy to find.
Haruichi sits with Yuuki in the dugout, watching Ryousuke shoulder his bat, and
the differences in him are obvious, when Haruichi thinks there shouldn't really
be any. It hasn't been that long since he left.
But he's already too thin, like he's somehow lost most of the muscle he worked
so hard to put on at Seidou, and the way he holds the bat is different, like
he's compensating for the loss of strength. He's let his hair grow out, which
Haruichi thinks looks good on him, but it confirms that Ryousuke isn't taking
care of himself, and he wants to blame it on classes keeping him busy, but he's
never been good at believing his own lies.
He watches Ryousuke knock the ball into the back fence, the way he isn't
smiling, doesn't look satisfied at all with that grand slam hit. Watches him
shift his hands on the bat, knock a perfect grounder between first and second,
and Haruichi feels painfully cold, forces himself to breathe through the way
his heart contracts. "He's not happy."
Yuuki sighs beside him, leans back on the bench. "Things are different here.
It's not like Seidou."
He hears it in Yuuki's voice too. "You're not happy either."
Waiting, because it looks like Yuuki wants to lie, to pretend everything is
great, then his eyes shift away from Haruichi, watching Ryousuke's next hit.
"Not really. I feel like I should have taken that pro offer I got, but my
parents wanted me to have something to fall back on, so here I am."
"Maybe it would be worse in the pros. At least here you get to learn
something."
Yuuki laughs, brightens a little. "Yeah I guess. And I'm here to keep Ryou
company."
Haruichi nods, and he's blushing, and Yuuki thinks he's kind of missed that.
"I'm glad you're here with him, I'm glad he's not alone."
Ryousuke's packing up his bats then, and they watch him walk past a small
cluster of guys, teammates, who give him a snarled sort of look as he passes,
laughing while he's still in range to hear. Haruichi makes a quiet, choked
sound, and Yuuki sighs. "Like I said, it's different here. They don't see how
amazing he is, they only see that he's tiny, and think that's enough to judge
him. It's like we're not really a team, just a bunch of guys in the same place,
competing for attention from the pros."
Haruichi flusters, ready for anger, but he doesn't get a chance to say anything
because Ryousuke's there, giving him a soft smile and a hair ruffle. "Why are
you guys looking so sour? You constipated?"
Yuuki laughs and punches Ryousuke in the arm, making his bats rattle, and
Ryousuke aims a karate chop but doesn't deliver, leaves it hanging in the air
like a threat. "Thanks for your concern. Now I'm gonna go whack some balls
around, see if I can loosen things up. See you guys later."
Haruichi smirks at all the poop jokes, watches Yuuki pick up his bag and step
out of the dugout. "It was good to see you... Captain."
The smile Yuuki gives him for that is brilliant like the sun, and Ryousuke
snickers beside him, sitting down to change his shoes. "You've made his day."
Predictably, Haruichi blushes. "We all miss him. We miss all of you."
Ryousuke's quiet, packing things away, and Haruichi watches his hands, like
there might be answers in the precise motions of towel folding, then Ryousuke
is leaving the dugout, and Haruichi has to hurry so he doesn't get left behind,
and he hates that there are so many meanings in that.
Somewhere near the tennis court, Ryousuke finally says, "Is that why you quit?"
His voice is harsh, tight like an accusation, and Haruichi tenses for a fight,
fists in the pockets of his hoodie. "If you're going to spend all month trying
to change my mind, I'll fucking leave."
But Ryousuke smiles unexpectedly, disarmingly. "I don't want to change anything
about you, Harucchi."
He stops walking, and it's exactly like every other conversation with Ryousuke,
thrown back and forth like being adrift at sea, and he's suddenly very tired of
it. "We need to stop playing these games."
Ryousuke stops, a few paces away but the distance feels insurmountable. "What
games do you think we're playing?"
"The ones where we pretend we don't care. The ones where everything you say is
a challenge and a reminder that I still have so far to go before I catch up."
Haruichi draws a tight breath, meets Ryousuke's eyes from beneath the safety of
his hair. "The ones where we pretend that's all there is between us, this
endless chase."
Ryousuke lets him stare for a moment, then turns, continues walking. "Oh,
those."
Haruichi catches up with hurried, frustrated steps, grabs Ryousuke by the
sleeve to stop him again. "Ryou!"
"What, gonna punch me too? I heard about that kid, you ruined his face. I never
thought you'd go psycho." He pries Haruichi's hand from his arm, presses his
fingers into bruises, thick scabs from where he'd cut himself on the teeth he
knocked loose, a swollen joint that has to hurt but Haruichi makes no reaction.
Disappointed, Ryousuke drops it, and Haruichi curls it back into his pocket.
"What else did you expect, from someone like me? You thought I'd grow up
normal?" It's harsh, and this time Ryousuke sighs, slides his hand into
Haruichi's hair.
"You can't be normal, you're a Kominato, it's against our genetic design." He
smirks, gets a bare smile from Haruichi. "Really though, you're not the violent
type."
"That's what Eijun says too, but maybe you're both wrong. Maybe I got tired of
having my big brother beat up the bullies for me." His turn to walk away, to
make Ryousuke have to catch up, and he hears his bats clink, but he stays
behind.
Haruichi reaches the dorm room feeling like he still lost, like there was no
way he could ever win with such a simple move.
Ryousuke unlocks the door, smirks like a checkmate, and leaves Haruichi
standing in the hall.
+
They get lunch from the cafeteria downstairs. Ryousuke isn't speaking because
it's easier like that, to stay silent and let Haruichi find his own way,
without Ryousuke's words to guide him, and Haruichi isn't speaking because he's
tired of not getting any sort of logical response from Ryousuke, tired of the
games and endless competition.
He tried being honest, and it got him nowhere.
Between bites of rice, he picks at the scabs on his knuckles, thinks about
bleeding all over Ryousuke's bed so the stains would still be there when he
left. He wonders again why the fuck he thought this was a good idea.
Then he looks over, the other end of the bed where Ryousuke is poking at
something curryish, and he knows he simply needed to see him, that he needed
this distance from Seidou and all the things that were crushing in on him like
a landslide.
He wonders if Ryousuke is feeling crushed by this team that doesn't trust him,
if the presence of Yuuki is enough to keep him grounded, if maybe he could use
some distance too.
He ends the silence, first to give in, like always, and refuses to feel bitter
about it. "Do you have practice all day tomorrow, or do you have some free
time?"
Ryousuke chews without tasting it, watching the shiny beads of blood on cracked
scabs, thinking he'd rather have that in his mouth and that's a direction he
doesn't need to go. "I have time."
He can't say, that's all I have now, can't admit he's not even allowed on
second string, the coach saying, your batting skills are impressive for a high
school kid, but this isn't high school anymore, and we've got enough guys lined
up wanting to play second base to make a whole extra team. Remembering his
first year at Seidou, how they were all a mess of hopeless disasters, how hard
they fought to become who they are now, and after experiencing that kind of
success, it's devastating to be told you're not good enough.
Ryousuke thinks, it was all for nothing, really. A child's game.
He's aware of Haruichi watching him, tries to swallow without his throat
sticking. "What?"
Haruichi almost looks apologetic, like he doesn't want to say what he's going
to say, or wishes he could find another way to phrase it, and Ryousuke wants to
choke him, make him fucking say it. "How bad is it, here? Yuuki says it's
different, from Seidou, I mean."
Ryousuke considers the options for a moment, then smiles, and it feels sick on
his face. "If I told you I'm not even second string, would you take it as a
victory?"
"What? Aniki!" His voice cracks, and Ryousuke collects the sound like a
treasure. "I can't believe you think I'd...."
"You said it, all we have is this competition. Now you're first string and I'm
not. Isn't that the win you've been waiting for?"
Haruichi flushes, feels his fingers tighten on his chopsticks and has to put
them down, before he makes some terrible mistake. "You're wrong. That isn't a
win, and that isn't what I said. I said there's more to us than that, but you
don't want to acknowledge it."
"You're the one who keeps chasing."
"Because it's the only way to get you to notice I exist."
Ryousuke's lungs collapse in an exhalation he has no control over. He stands up
to put his empty plate in the trash, stays there for the sake of distance.
They're both on the edge of some terrible mistake.
Haruichi's right, he's not okay, and he can't find the strength to stop himself
from saying, "I always notice you exist."
It's a weakness to take advantage of, the smallest crack in Ryousuke's
impenetrable walls, and Haruichi knows he shouldn't, but he stands and crosses
that distance, slides his arms around Ryousuke's waist and leans into him.
Ryousuke hasn't hugged him since they were children, soothing away tears and
bruises in his strong arms, and it's a deep, solid pain, realizing he doesn't
recognize this adult body he's pressed against. His hands clench in the back of
Ryousuke's shirt, leaving bloodstains he can't see, thinking, what happened to
us, that I don't even know the feel of you anymore, and the words slip out,
"What happened to us, Ryou?"
He knows what Haruichi is thinking about, skinned knees and band aids and
kisses to make it all better, to make his little brother giggle instead of cry.
The way Ryousuke could touch him without hesitating, fingers in the sheepdog
fall of his hair, tickling at his sides, wrapped around Haruichi's tiny hand
and teaching him to write his name.
Ryousuke can't stop the betrayal, the shiver under his skin, when Haruichi
exhales against his neck, and he thinks, that's your answer. Instead he says,
"We grew up."
He feels Haruichi swallow hard, feels the heat of his blush, igniting some kind
of nostalgia, and Haruichi deals the final blow. "Pretend we didn't."
Ryousuke makes a defeated sound in his throat, fits his arms around Haruichi
and pulls him closer, relief hitting him wild and fast, didn't know how much he
needed this and now he doesn't think he'll ever let go.
He lets one hand drift into Haruichi's hair, feels the hitch in his breath,
tears soaking into his shirt, and he tells himself this is okay, this isn't
failure. This one moment isn't enough to ruin everything he's built between
them. Even as he presses the lightest possible kiss to Haruichi's cheek, and
Haruichi raises his head to return the soft gesture, lips forming the word
'aniki' against Ryousuke's cheekbone, tickling a lock of pink.
Ryousuke makes himself breathe, ribs notched against Haruichi's ribs, and he's
wrong, this is too much, this is not nearly enough.
He forces his arms to drop then, steps backward until Haruichi lets go of his
shirt, hits the biting edge of the desk and refuses to think, what if Haruichi
hadn't let go, what if there was no room left to run.
Ryousuke tries breathing again, and it's a little easier, watching Haruichi
wiping his face dry with his sleeves, all the space between them, back where it
belongs.
"What, um, what did you have in mind, when you asked if I had time off?" It
comes out like a peace offering, like an apology, and Ryousuke shifts in his
lean against the desk.
Haruichi can still feel Ryousuke, the ghost of him, little pressure points
where they fit together like they were made to. It's a few seconds before he
can trust his voice enough to speak. "Oh, I thought we could go somewhere, a
little trip maybe. Like it's a real vacation."
"Where would you want to go?"
That's closer to a yes than Haruichi expected, and he smiles, brightens. "I've
always wanted to climb Mount Fuji. Aokigahara is right there too."
Ryousuke laughs, his honest laugh, and neither of them expected that. "See, you
are clever, you know right how to get me where I can't say no."
Haruichi grins, slightly bratty. "That's because you're too easy, Aniki."
Laughter behind him as he goes back to sit on the bed, to finish the last few
bites of his lunch, aware that it tastes somehow better now, and he refuses to
question that.
Ryousuke moves to sit on the desk, retaining the comfort of added distance.
"Bet we could get some spectacular EVP out there."
"I don't know. Everyone says it's so peaceful, do you think it would be so
peaceful if it was full of upset ghosts?"
"But isn't that the way ghosts are made, dying under unhappy circumstances?
What's more unhappy than suicide? You can't be like, oh I'm only in a halfway
decent mood today, guess I'll off myself in the woods."
Haruichi laughs so quickly he snorts, and Ryousuke points at him with a
taunting cackle, and they're so juvenile, so young and childish in that moment,
that Haruichi almost feels like his wish came true.
Saying so recklessly, pretend we didn't.
Like he could almost forget that it's his fault that Ryousuke doesn't like to
touch him anymore.
Ryousuke shifts on the desk, opens Yuuki's laptop since it's closest. "We could
rent a car, I guess that would be the easy way."
"I don't think there's a Suicide Station out there, no." Haruichi smirks, and
Ryousuke gives him the stink-eye. "But it's a good idea, renting a car, then we
can do what we want."
"Exactly."
Haruichi gets up to throw away his plate, stays there watching Ryousuke click
through websites of car rental companies, and he doesn't want to be the villain
again, not when the air between them is light, but he needs to know, "Did you
mean what you said earlier, about not making second string?"
Ryousuke's hand stills, but he recovers quickly. "I did."
"You don't really think I would take that as a victory, right? You were teasing
me?"
"I know you wouldn't, Harucchi. You're not one for easy wins."
Haruichi sighs and sits back down. "It wouldn't even qualify as a win. So
why... what happened?"
Ryousuke laughs, but it's that nasty, vicious laugh. "You really can't imagine
it, can you. But I wouldn't expect you to. You haven't had to work for anything
at Seidou, you came into first year with the power and reliability of a third
year, you don't know what it's like to have to start at the bottom and stare up
at all the difference between yourself and those on the top."
Haruichi flushes, angry again. "That's not fucking fair! I have had to work at
Seidou, I do know what it's like, because I've spent my whole life staring at
your back, and last year you even said I still had far to go, so don't insult
me by comparing me to a third year! I know university level is intense, I know
your teammates have had three more years of experience, don't fucking act like
it's something impossible you can't overcome. Don't act like you're going to be
on the bottom forever!"
Ryousuke snarls, and the defensive expression has Haruichi on his feet again,
crossing the room to snatch Ryousuke's arm by the wrist. It's tiny, exactly
like his own, and he thinks how easily he could snap it, if he wanted. "You're
not even taking care of yourself, I can see how much muscle you've lost. How
are you going to make it to the top if you let yourself get so weak?"
Ryousuke glares for one fierce second, then he grins, fast as whiplash. "There
we go, now you're starting to sound like me. Good job, little bro."
Haruichi lets go of his arm, blushing and painfully nauseous. Only a few hours
with his brother and he's never been so exhausted in his life. He turns away,
shaky, and slips into his shoes. "I'm going to the restroom. Find us a car
already."
Ryousuke watches the door close, and pretends he can't still feel the weight of
Haruichi's fingers on his bones.
+
It's quiet in the room, Yuuki still hasn't returned, and Haruichi is curled on
the bed, used to the habit of napping after lunch, and Ryousuke can't focus on
the essay he's supposed to be writing. Watching Haruichi breathe, the soft
sleeping motion of him, and it's worse now that he knows the way it feels to
hold him, this grown-up version of his little brother, all sleek muscle and
cruel tongue.
Ryousuke thinks, that last part must be in their genes.
Except that it isn't, really, his cruelty is a choice, the least destructive
option, a short-term pain to prevent a long-term pain.
He doesn't want to hurt him, not with how desperately he loves him, every tiny
cell in his body strung-out and wrecked with it, but that's exactly why he has
to. It's his duty as a big brother to protect him, and what he needs to be
protected from most is Ryousuke.
He remembers that kiss in the haunted house, remembers being startled more than
anything, because that wasn't their usual form of affection. Kisses on cheeks,
foreheads, bruises, but never on the mouth, and he remembers how much he wanted
it to mean what he thought it meant, how much he hoped it actually didn't.
That terrible moment of thinking, what have I done to you?
Ryousuke spent years convincing himself it meant nothing, was just a harmless
gesture from a desperate child, but he sees it in the way Haruichi looks at him
sometimes, like it didn't mean nothing, it meant everything.
He thinks of the way Haruichi clung to him today, felt so perfect and right in
his arms, and he knows if he ever lets the walls down even the slightest bit,
they'll crash into each other so hard they'll never be able to separate, and
he'll have failed. Ryousuke knows, if he starts he won't be able to stop, he'll
ruin every part of his precious little brother until there is nothing left.
Until there is nothing left of himself, either.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Notes
     I know I fucked up the roommates. I couldn't remember who Haruichi
     roomed with, so I checked the guidebook & it said Zono, but recently
     I was rereading the manga & it showed him with Chris & Kanemaru.
     Alternate universe: roommate switch!
     And I really wanted to link the albums I was listening to while
     researching their drive & the Fuji climb on Google street view,
     because they went together really lovely, but I can only find one of
     them complete online. Moby's Innocents for the climb, & Everyone is
     Gone for the drive.
     Also, this_song for these boys.
     I have a soundtrack habit, I am sorry.
Ryousuke wakes to the soft click of typing, birds outside the window, and it
still amazes him the way sunlight looks filtered through curtains this time of
morning. He's not used to sleeping past sunrise, but he thinks he could get
used to it.
The thought kind of scares him.
He sits up, yawns, and the rustling sheets get Yuuki's attention, turn him from
the computer. "Morning, Ryou."
"Morning." Pointing upward to the bunk above him, "He's still asleep?"
Yuuki nods. "Unless he's faking."
Ryousuke snickers at that and forces himself out of bed, rises on his toes to
peek at Haruichi, half the sheets kicked off and fingers twitching in a rhythm
that looks suspiciously like Mortal Kombat fatality codes. It's really too
adorable.
Ryousuke moves to the dresser, tries to quietly slide out the squeakiest drawer
in the world, Yuuki muffling amused sounds behind him, and he stares at his
clothes, this whole concept of vacation completely new and foreign and weird.
Last night they decided to stay gone a few days, do the Fuji thing, Aokigahara,
maybe find an onsen nearby, or something touristy and casual. They told Yuuki,
and Yuuki wanted to say he thinks it's exactly what they need, but Ryousuke
would karate chop his face off, so he kept it to himself.
He still thinks it, watching Ryousuke pack. "Don't forget to take extra socks."
"What?"
"Socks. And underwear. Never know what's going to happen." Yuuki's smiling, and
Ryousuke gives him one of those bratty looks.
"Okay, Mom." He does reach back in the drawer though, for extras.
According to all the websites, there's a whole list of clothing and gear
they're going to need for the mountain, half of it they'll have to buy when
they get there, because he doubts cleats will serve as hiking boots and who the
fuck actually owns a headlamp? At least he has enough winter clothes to share
with Haruichi, and Yuuki loans him a second backpack, so he doesn't feel
entirely helpless as he goes through the checklist.
Ryousuke gets both backpacks filled, and stuffs his regular clothes into a
duffle bag, leaving half of it empty for whatever Haruichi wants to take, and
climbs up two steps on the bunk ladder.
Haruichi looks so young when he's asleep, and Ryousuke hears typing behind him,
means it's safe enough to reach across, brush one hand through Haruichi's hair.
That ache rises in him again, heavy and sick with regret, nostalgia, thinking
like a bad joke, Kominatos aren't meant to be normal, but he wishes they could
be. Wishes he could look at his brother's sleep-parted lips and not think of
kissing them, not wonder what they would feel like locked around the pulse in
his throat, not imagine them startled apart in a gasp from touches in ways that
good brothers aren't supposed to think about.
Ryousuke draws his hand back, and gives the railing a harsh shake. "Wake up,
Harucchiiii, you're late! Coach is gonna stick your bats in the wood chipper!"
Haruichi flails awake with an "Oh shit oh fuck," sits up fast, head-rushed and
dizzy, and Ryousuke is fucking grinning when Haruichi finally recognizes where
he is. "You are a piece of shit." He's still breathing too fast, so he shoves
hard at Ryousuke's head, until he has to step off the ladder.
Yuuki thinks of his own brother, thinks Haruichi should be glad there was no
water involved, or other questionable materials. "Good morning, Haruichi."
On some level, Haruichi's always been grateful his brother has never been one
of those 'hand in warm water' types of siblings. They had a sharpie moustache
phase though, that was bad enough.
"Good morning." He climbs down, feeling sleep-drugged and kind of fuzzy. "I
don't think I've ever slept so late."
Yuuki smirks. "Welcome to college life."
"Feels so weird."
"Don't get too used to it." Ryousuke turns away to stick some more protein bars
into the backpacks, and Haruichi feels strangely guilty, thinking of everyone
else at practice, moving on without him.
There's a hitch in his chest, so he excuses himself to the restroom, doesn't
come back until he's forced it away.
+
They drive out of Tokyo with soft, slow ambient on the stereo, and Haruichi
thinks it feels strangely like a movie scene, with the buildings passing
distant through the glass.
Or maybe it's just surreal to be in a car with Ryousuke, like two normal
brothers on vacation.
When the flat concrete grey of the city gives way to green, fog-strewn hills,
he lets himself relax, lets himself breathe, and when he looks over at
Ryousuke, he sees the same loss of tension, like they were both waiting for the
same moment to let it go.
Neither of them find anything useful to say for the two hours it takes to get
to Fujiyoshida.
Before they left, Ryousuke managed to pull some kind of underhanded chicanery
and get them a hotel reservation, found one with a last minute cancellation,
five nights and it's expensive but he feels like maybe Haruichi deserves some
indulgence. Refuses to think there's anything like guilt in the equation, the
way he can't stop reliving the sensations of Haruichi held tight in his arms.
They park, and Ryousuke checks them in while Haruichi babysits the bags, poking
through tourist pamphlets on a stand, all but purring "Onsen!" as Ryousuke
flicks the card key at his head. Haruichi catches it with his left hand,
automatic and smooth. "You just like to hurt people, don't you."
"Now you understand me." He grins, and Haruichi smacks him repeatedly on the
shoulder with the card, until Ryousuke snatches it back, and heads for the
elevator.
Haruichi barely hums along with the sound of the elevator rising, shifting his
backpack around as an excuse to squirm, something new and untested awakening in
him that makes him think, no one here knows we're brothers, no one knows who we
are. It's a dangerous, predatory sensation, and he's grateful when the elevator
stops, hurries out and down the hall even though he has no clue what the room
number is.
Ryousuke passes him as he slows down, gives him a raised eyebrow. "You okay?"
"Yeah, need to pee." It's believable, and he doesn't mind having an excuse to
disappear into the bathroom as soon as they get in.
He makes himself actually use the toilet, Ryousuke will comment if he doesn't,
it's too quiet in there to pretend otherwise, then turns on the faucet and
leans heavy against the sink, breathing in short, panicked gasps.
He's alone with Ryousuke, truly alone, nothing to stop him from fucking
everything up.
But maybe this is what he's been waiting for, this chance to make Ryousuke
understand, and if he's honest, there isn't much to fuck up anyway.
Haruichi washes his hands, avoiding his flushed reflection, and leaves the
bathroom without trying to pretend he's calm. "Why haven't you asked me yet why
I quit the team?"
Both of Ryousuke's eyebrows go up that time, but then he smiles, his standard
taunt. "Would you like me to?"
Haruichi shakes, he can't help it. "Aren't you angry, disappointed, anything?"
Ryousuke's smile only curls that much more. "Of course. I'm furious. I never
thought you were a quitter, Haru. Maybe you're the one who's gone weak."
Haruichi feels his jaw clench, and he watches Ryousuke fold his arms and lean
against the wall, knows he should be immune to that smile, that lilt in his
voice when he's being cruel, but he feels so raw, like an open wound that
hasn't been allowed to heal. "If I was actually weak, I...."
"You what, Harucchi?"
The mocking use of Eijun's nickname snaps the last of his restraint. "I would
have kissed you more than once."
He's blushing like wildfire, goosebumps rising in the air conditioned room, and
Ryousuke's smile fades as slow as a sunset, until there's nothing left but
dark.
Ryousuke exhales sharp, abruptly aware that his mind is empty, lacking any
biting commentary, any cruelty to spit out at Haruichi in defense. He wishes
there were something in his hands, so he could tear it apart. "This is the
conversation you want to have now?"
Haruichi crosses the room, close enough to see the rise and fall of Ryousuke's
quickened breaths, the way his fingers tighten in his shirt sleeves.
The realization unfolds like the movement of a glacier, unnoticed, until part
of it splinters, cracks off with a sound so loud it shakes the world, and
Ryousuke sees his absolute failure in the flash of Haruichi's eyes when the
light manages to catch them. He sees so clear, he never protected him at all,
he was never as safe as Ryousuke thought. Haruichi takes one more step, and
Ryousuke sees, his little brother has known all along.
Haruichi swallows, and it's a determined action, not a nervous one. "I can't
keep pretending I don't want this." He leans in fast, one hand landing against
the wall to hold him steady, head tilted to catch his lips against Ryousuke's,
tentative at first, then a bolder, forceful press against Ryousuke's closed
mouth.
He doesn't know how to be gentle, doesn't know how to do anything other than
fight for what he wants, so he bites at Ryousuke's bottom lip, pulls back
enough for a broken, "C'mon, Ryou...." He bites again, sucks his upper lip
between his teeth, licks over the plush curve of it and lets go.
Ryousuke presses his lips together to relieve the sting, and he's kind of
amused at the impatient way Haruichi licks at him again, the cute way he huffs,
frustrated, and he knows he should uphold the facade of sensible big brother
and push him away before this all goes too far, but maybe it already has. Maybe
it's already too late, because Ryousuke lets his jaw relax, lets his lips part
just enough for Haruichi to take advantage of, licking in to slide his tongue
against Ryousuke's, curl against the roof of his mouth.
But it's not enough, Ryousuke refusing to respond, and Haruichi punches his
shoulder, knocks him thudding into the wall. "Aniki!"
Ryousuke exhales in a hiss, fists into Haruichi's shirt and spins him sideways,
reversing their positions so it's Haruichi pressed into the wallpaper, and
everything he's held back blazes awake, burns through his doubts and
rationalities.
Haruichi gasps heat against him, and Ryousuke unfists one hand, reaching up to
move the hair from his face, staring up into eyes gone dark. Then Haruichi
sighs out a barely audible "Aniki..." and that's all he can take, he rushes
forward, slams a kiss into Haruichi's mouth, nothing held back as he licks into
him finally. Ryousuke feels himself shiver, presses in hard and kisses like
violence, Haruichi's hands coming up to grip his shoulders, pull him in
tighter.
It's the most intense thing he's ever felt, like electrocution, shaking through
him in delicious, aching shocks with each crushing motion of Ryousuke's mouth
against his own, the feel of Ryousuke shivering against him and he thinks, this
is it, this is exactly what I've waited so long for.
Haruichi kisses like he's biting, and Ryousuke can't take it, has to kiss him
harder, leave him bruised, the hand in his hair going tight and painful and
Haruichi responds with a whine deep in his throat, and Ryousuke thinks he hears
the fabric of his shirt rip as Haruichi's hand clenches into it.
He forces his mouth away then, sore from the contact, and when he lets go of
Haruichi's hair, a few strands of pink remain tangled in his fingers. "Is that
what you want?"
Haruichi can't catch his breath, his heart aches in his chest and he has to
drop his head onto Ryousuke's shoulder, the one he ripped, and he licks over
the exposed skin, and a second time, and Ryousuke is trembling in his hands and
the answer is yes, so very yes, but all he can do is whimper as he gasps for
air.
"Haruichi. You have to tell me." Ryousuke pulls him away from the wall, enough
to fit his arms around him, rubbing over his back like he's trying to remember
how to soothe, how to comfort.
Haruichi raises his head, kisses Ryousuke's jaw, soft on his lips, all the
violence lost for the moment. "It's what you want too."
Ryousuke steps away fast, before he's aware of doing it, leaving Haruichi to
slouch back against the wall. His legs are unsteady, but he makes it to the
side of the bed where they dropped their bags, unzipping one to find his bottle
of water, hands shaking as he twists off the cap. "If we do this, it changes
everything."
"I know that!"
Ryousuke raises an eyebrow at the snap in Haruichi's voice, watches his mouth
tighten in a frown. "I mean it, you have to be sure, because we can't come back
from this, we can't decide later that it doesn't work and go back to being
normal brothers because normal is never going to be an option for us. This will
always have to be a secret. We won't be able to erase it if we change our
minds."
Haruichi straightens, and Ryousuke's sure the action of sweeping the hair out
of his eyes is subconscious, because he looks exactly like he does when he's at
bat, when bases are loaded and he's ready to slaughter whatever pitcher has the
bad luck to be standing on the mound. It's a look of pure confidence, it's
Ryousuke's favorite. "I'm not going to change my mind. Are you?"
Ryousuke smirks, and it's bitter, the venom turned in on himself. "I've spent
years trying."
Haruichi loses his breath again, a quiet "Fuck, Aniki," and crosses the room,
close enough to lick the water from Ryousuke's lip, chase it down his chin, and
since he can't control himself anymore, licks on down the side of his neck.
He feels Ryousuke silently laughing, and bites. Ryousuke laughs with sound,
then.
"This is why you're cruel to me, isn't it. You've had yourself convinced this
is a bad idea."
Ryousuke huffs a laugh into Haruichi's hair. "It is a bad idea. And I'm not
cruel, I'm honest."
"You're vicious and terrible and everyone knows it." But he purrs it into
Ryousuke's skin like a compliment, and gets another laugh for it.
"I'm not going to change, Haru. I'm not going to treat you any differently
because we're kissing now."
"Good." He remembers Ryousuke saying, I don't want to change anything about
you. "I don't want either of us to change."
It's inevitable, Ryousuke knows, though he feels lighter somehow as he pushes
Haruichi to sit on the bed, picks out another water and hands it to him,
remembering something in the climbing tips about staying hydrated. He breathes
easily, takes another drink of his own and his hands don't shake so much this
time.
Haruichi watches him pull the curtain away from the window. It's not a Fuji
view, but it's nice, the jagged lines of the roller coasters and the softer,
more natural hills beyond. It's enough to remind Haruichi that they aren't at
home, and he recalls the way he felt in the car, the sudden lightness of
freedom, and it comes back to him then, that giddiness.
He wishes they could stay there forever, this world reduced to only the two of
them, no one around to make demands, no baseball, or classwork, or that
accusing word 'incest' that he supposes defines them now.
He's okay with that, he doesn't need anyone's permission.
Ryousuke doesn't either, no one else has ever mattered, only himself and
Haruichi.
He has a thought then, and he smirks, the only warning before saying, "Haru,
who have you been kissing?"
"What?" It squeaks out of him, and Ryousuke's smirk sharpens.
"What I mean is, you're good at it, that wasn't some clumsy first kiss. Who
have you been kissing?"
"Oh." He lights up with his usual blush, feels it crawl down his neck. "Eijun.
We... we practiced."
Ryousuke hums like a purr, and the deep vibration of it makes Haruichi squirm.
"That's kind of hot."
"Shut up!"
But Ryousuke just laughs, and Haruichi lets out a small laugh of his own, rubs
at his cheek like that ever does any good.
"What about you, you knew what you were doing too."
"Youichi. We had a sort of 'Iron Wall with benefits' thing going on."
Haruichi fully laughs then. "No wonder he misses you. I'm telling Eijun."
Ryousuke's hand comes up, ready for a chop. "Don't even think about it."
"Seriously, he needs to know. He thinks Kuramochi is a threat to the virtue of
his childhood friend. This will make him feel a lot better, and give him some
great revenge material."
"You're a conniving little shit."
"I learn from the best." Haruichi smirks, and Ryousuke matches it, letting his
arm drop, for now.
His smirk is still dangerous though, and he steps closer to Haruichi, bends
down to whisper, "Want to know a secret? Sometimes I pretended he was you."
Haruichi flusters, rushes out a breathless "Aniki," and Ryousuke purrs against
his ear, "I love it when you say it like that."
Haruichi turns and kisses him, because he can, whispering the endearment
against his mouth between rushing presses of his lips, flicks of his tongue.
Ryousuke makes that deep sound in his throat again, pushes fingers into
Haruichi's pulse, scratches sharp red lines over Haruichi's collarbone. The
whimpering moan he gets in response is perfect.
Ryousuke steps away, sits down with the luggage between them, watches Haruichi
pick at the label on the bottle. "How far have you gone with Sawamura?"
He shrugs, gives the label a good rip. "Just kissing. You and Kuramochi?"
"A little farther than that." Ryousuke smiles as Haruichi's expression goes
vicious. "Oh, jealousy looks good on you."
Haruichi huffs. "Shut up. How far?"
"Want me to show you?"
Haruichi whimpers louder than he must have expected, because he shoves a hand
over his mouth, whimpers more softly behind it, and Ryousuke lights up with a
sudden rush of heat. He'd been teasing to get a reaction, but now he really
wants to. Saying, half to himself, half to his brother, "Well, maybe not now.
Maybe later."
Haruichi exhales relief. He's not ready for that, wants it desperately, but
he's not ready, needs time to get used to the changes, that he can allow
himself to feel this way, instead of forcing the denial. He's turned on from
the thought of it, but there's still that guilt that makes him feel sick, that
defensive response he programmed into himself long ago.
Ryousuke breathes until he's steady enough, reaches over to flick at the top of
Haruichi's ear. "So are we gonna go climb this mountain or what?"
+
It's a lovely drive up to the Fifth Station, and Haruichi stares out the window
like he's never seen trees before, and Ryousuke thinks it's kind of wonderful,
seeing him like this. He reaches over occasionally, touches Haruichi's hand,
slides their fingers together briefly before returning back to the business of
driving.
Haruichi's reflection smiles at him every time.
The parking lots are crowded, as expected, but he finds them a space, steps out
and stretches, warm in the sun. Haruichi follows him out, and the altitude
change finally makes his ears pop, and he giggles quietly at the sensation,
enough to get Ryousuke's attention.
Then Ryousuke is whispering in his buzzing ear, "If anyone asks, your name is
Sawamura."
"What, why?"
"Because I'm going to kiss you now." And he does, sweet enough to have Haruichi
melting into him, one hand reaching up to find the rip in Ryousuke's shirt,
fingertips hot against bare skin.
It doesn't last nearly long enough, but they're both flushed and breathless in
the thinning air, and Ryousuke smiles gentle before laying one more tiny kiss
to Haruichi's bottom lip.
Then he chops him on the head. "Get your bag, slowpoke."
Haruichi rolls his eyes, shoulders his backpack, and closes the door. "Don't
forget to lock the car, old man."
"Oooh, old man, is it. See what that gets you later." But Ryousuke's still
smiling, and the car honks as it's locked and alarm set, and he bumps into
Haruichi as he passes, gets bumped in return, and if they weren't heading into
a crowd, it would be war. "Let's get the rest of our stuff, then find something
to eat."
It's not hard to find headlamps and batteries, though it takes a while with the
hiking boots, because Haruichi can't decide between camo and light brown, and
he's kind of absurdly fascinated with having something on his feet that isn't
made for running or baseball, and Ryousuke leaves him there to find help with
something called 'gaiters'. Haruichi decides on the brown, but the gaiters send
him into a whole new round of amusement.
He slips one on over his boot, and takes a picture to show Sawamura and Zono.
Then he takes a picture of Ryousuke kneeling down to adjust the laces on his
new black boots, and saves that one for himself.
It's an overwhelming feeling that he doesn't have to hide it, doesn't have to
flush bright with guilt, make up excuses for it in case Ryousuke asks. It makes
him dizzier than the altitude, makes his head spin, and he almost stumbles to
follow Ryousuke as he picks a restaurant at random, leading Haruichi through
the crowd again.
"Hey, Ryou."
"Hm?" He turns, and Haruichi snaps another picture, catching sunlight in the
slant of Ryousuke's eyes, sparking off his hair, and another as Ryousuke
laughs.
He's still laughing when he turns back around.
+
Haruichi takes pictures of everything along the way, each time the path twists,
a wide vista of green and clouds spilling out below them. Sometimes it's a
picture of Ryousuke, and sometimes Ryousuke's taking a picture of him right
back.
They find a place to sit by the Seventh Station, on some rocks, out of the way
of other climbers, and Haruichi rubs at his legs, already starting to burn. "My
calves think I'm taking them to slaughter."
Ryousuke laughs with his lighter, less-restrained laugh, leans onto Haruichi's
shoulder, and Haruichi gets a rush of something like happiness, something
unexpected like he wants to say, show me right now what you did with Kuramochi.
He bumps his nose into Ryousuke's cheek, kisses the edge of his ear, whispers
low and barely there, "Aniki...."
And he feels the tremor spread through Ryousuke before he turns, lips against
Haruichi's to whisper back, "I am going to kill you."
Haruichi smiles, licks him, then forces himself to sit back, reach for his
water and a power bar.
Ryousuke does the same, and they eat in silence for a moment, just the
conversations and footsteps of people passing, looking out at the spread of
green, and what might be Fujiyoshida, but Haruichi's not quite sure what
direction they're facing. He's been more focused on upward, and the occasional
shared smile with Ryousuke, and the way their hands sometimes catch against
each other.
He's still thinking of that freedom sensation, compared to the way he felt
before he left Seidou, aware of all the things he's let go, all the things he's
gained in their place. Part of him still aches with the loss of the team, but
if not for that decision he wouldn't be sitting there with Ryousuke, knees and
shoulders pressed together warm and comfortable, and he thinks it's a fair
trade.
"I still haven't told you why."
Haruichi waits while Ryousuke folds his wrapper into the designated trash
pocket of his backpack, waits for him to nod, and he takes the lack of a snarky
comment to mean that Ryousuke's finally ready to hear the answer.
"When I started playing baseball, I don't know if I really liked it, as much as
I liked the idea of being as good as you. And you always said I should make my
own choices, you never realized that I did. I mean, you understand now, that it
was never about following in your footsteps, but about beating you, like a
race, to make you see that I was someone worth noticing."
He pauses, breathes. "I guess, when you graduated, it was like the end of the
race. And it didn't matter who won, because you were gone, and I couldn't...
I...." His voice cracks, shatters on the sudden burning in his throat, and he
gets his face covered in time for the sob to shake through him.
Then Ryousuke's arms are around him, like he's finally remembering how to do
this, how to protect and comfort his little brother, and he says, "I'm not
really mad at you. I said I was, in the hotel, but I'm not." His own voice
catches then, he's still not used to this honesty, and he wants to pull away,
make his usual jokes, but he thinks, Haruichi needs to hear this. Seventeen
years and he needs to know, "All I ever wanted was for you to be happy."
Haruichi cries harder into his hands, maybe most of it is relief, everything
finally coming out, like when he cried on the field with Kuramochi and Zono but
so much better. And he's not really aware when he says it, one more confession,
"The only thing that's ever made me happy is you."
Ryousuke gasps a tight "Fuck, Haruichi," and pushes away, enough so he can
breathe, because his chest aches, like it's going to burn him down to ashes and
he is really, really not prepared for this. Haruichi reaches for him and he
shakes his head fast, please give me a moment, and his eyes burn and he is not
going to cry. Except that he is, and it tremors through him sudden and painful,
and he doesn't push Haruichi away the next time he tries to cling to him.
At least it doesn't last, he's able to rein it back quickly, clear his throat
and wipe his face and pretend it never happened. Haruichi's gone calm, curled
against him, wet soaking through his jacket and he thinks, that's the same
shoulder with the ripped seam.
Haruichi taking him apart, piece by piece, and this is only the beginning.
Ryousuke inhales slow, steady again. "Are you ready to get back on the trail?"
Haruichi nods, makes one more swipe at his face and stands up. "Yeah, let's
go."
Ryousuke stretches as he stands, watches Haruichi wiggle his leg to make his
knee pop. "Hey, if I tell you something else, promise not to cry again?"
There's the blush he was hoping for, and a little bit of a defensive scowl.
Ryousuke just smiles at him, wild and bratty. "You make me happy too."
Ryousuke's climbing on up the ragged stone steps, and Haruichi has to reach for
a branch to steady himself, because he thinks he might float away and never
come back down.
+
Haruichi is seriously tired of hauling himself over rocks by the time they make
it to the Eighth Station mountain hut they've made sleeping reservations in,
and it's such a glorious sight, like angel trumpets in the background kind of
glorious.
They're given dinner, curry and rice, and it's kind of peaceful, settled in
with all the other guests, talking and laughing in various languages, the
tingly scent of all the curry spices and green tea. He thinks, if he was at
Seidou, he'd still be on the field, but he wouldn't be nearly as tired.
Ryousuke looks tired too, and he feels guilty for dragging him out on this
craziness. Thinking, he's already low on the team roster, he should be using
this week for extra practice, for catching up, not escorting his ridiculous
brother up a mountainside.
"You're sulking. What's wrong?"
Ryousuke's voice makes him jump, which makes Ryousuke smirk, and Haruichi would
hit him but he wants to conserve his energy. "I'm wondering if maybe you're
regretting this, if you should have stayed to train instead."
Ryousuke barely snorts. "I wouldn't have come if I didn't want to. Don't start
feeling guilty now, we're halfway up."
It's true, the worries are pointless, nothing but unchecked thoughts drifting
past, or at least that's what he tells himself so he can push them away and
change the subject. "Okay, so, you want to do the thing where we leave around
midnight and get to the top for the sunrise?"
"That sounds good." Ryousuke nods, then his smile goes all threatening, warning
signal, before he leans in close and says, "Do you think this place is
haunted?"
"Oh Ryou." Haruichi sighs heavy, and Ryousuke snickers against his shoulder.
"Yes, probably. It's really old, maybe there's some angry dead monks from some
ancient sacrificial Fuji cult lurking around, maybe they come out at night and
take unsuspecting guests when everyone's asleep."
Ryousuke's eyes are sparkling, so he continues, "They say about ten people die
on Mount Fuji every year, but they don't say exactly what kills them. Maybe
it's what keeps the mountain spirits happy, maybe the creepy Fuji cult is still
active, hiding amongst all of us like regular people, like other innocent
guests. Maybe that couple over there in the white coats, that's them."
He's fully grinning, all lit up, and Haruichi feels stupid to feel so warm
about it. Ryousuke merrily nudges him. "Keep going."
"I don't know. Maybe the murdered souls like to follow people home, possess
them, or... they take their places. Eijun was reading this weird shit on the
internet about these creatures that imitate people in the woods, like they pick
out one person and lure them away from the group, and kill them, take their
clothes, and pretend to be that person so everyone will take them back into the
city with them. Could be something like that here."
"Oh." Ryousuke actually purrs, and Haruichi sighs again. "The goatman,
skinwalkers, although people get them mixed up with the Native American
skinwalkers which is totally different, but the name's stuck now, I guess. But
I like that idea, that there's something of a skinwalker on the mountain,
trying to lure away tourists. Not really many places to hide and kill people
though, it's all rocks. However, down in Aokigahara, that would be a good
place."
"We're not going looking for the goatman in Aokigahara."
"Yuki-Onna?"
"No."
"Wendigo?"
"No."
"Abominable snowman?"
"Ryousuke!"
It continues on like this for a while, as the sun drifts past the horizon.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Notes
     This_song.
     And thank you so much to everyone who has left kudos. It means a lot.
     <3
Ryousuke holds his breath, waiting while Haruichi takes pictures of the city
lights, the bright electric sprawl beneath them, not wanting to exhale and ruin
his photos with accidental ghosts, and Haruichi holds his breath because it's
beautiful, because he could stand there and look at it forever. He takes more
pictures of the stars, thinks he could print them out and tape them to the
bottom of the bunk above his, and look at them every night.
But Ryousuke wouldn't be beside him, and he wonders how much of that is
affecting his vision.
Finally he puts the camera away, and now they're at the back of the group, this
small cluster of headlamps and glowsticks leaving the hut and winding jaggedly
up the rest of the mountain.
Ryousuke touches Haruichi's cheek once before putting on his gloves, and they
share a smile, squinty in the bright light of their lamps, but it's enough to
carry them onward.
+
At the top, it's crowded, everyone gathering along the rim for the sunrise,
though there's only the barest hint of blue in the sky, that underwater shade
of light cast over everything.
Haruichi settles against Ryousuke's side, cold and kind of shivering, because
his body knows it's still summer, and this winter air is messing up his inner
thermostat. Ryousuke takes his hands to rub them warm, like they did when they
were kids, and Haruichi's light as air again, looking out at the blanket of
clouds beginning to silhouette against the brightening sky.
"Hey, Aniki. We made it."
Ryousuke laughs silent, holds Haruichi's hands for a moment, just to hold them.
"And we each only fell once, nobody twisted an ankle, nobody went rolling down
the mountainside. I think we can be proud of ourselves."
Haruichi laughs with sound, muffled into the high collar of his coat. Normally
it's Ryousuke's job to deliver the bad news, but Haruichi takes his turn to
say, "We still have to climb down."
He makes a little snickering noise. "At least if we fall, we're headed in the
right direction."
"That's very glass-half-full of you, Ryousuke." Haruichi grins, then gets a
chop to the head, and has to laugh into his knees to keep from disturbing
everyone.
His laughter feels like bubbles, and he blames the altitude entirely.
The sky begins to blaze, like everything's on fire, and Haruichi snaps a
picture, takes one at every phase, every shift of color, thinks he'll put them
in a slideshow for Sawamura to watch.
They don't normally get to see the sunrise unless there's a baseball sailing
through the air that they need to catch.
He hasn't ever thought to miss it, either, and he starts to wonder what else
he's missed, what else has passed him by while he was running bases, heading
for home.
There's a significance in that phrase, heading for home, that he's not yet able
to comprehend, so he takes another picture of the sky, the sun breaking in a
thin glow over the clouds.
Ryousuke's arms slide around him then, whispers barely loud enough for Haruichi
to hear, "This was a good idea."
Haruichi turns, Ryousuke is gilded by the sun, and he doesn't need to say
anything to agree, just presses his cold nose against Ryousuke's cheek.
His lingering guilt sneaks away unnoticed.
+
Ryousuke wants to wander around the crater for a while, charmed by the rippling
edges of stone, the jagged striations of color. He thinks, with the cold, and
the thin air, they could be on Mars.
There's a bulldozer parked by a pile of rocks, and he points to it,
"Terraforming."
"What?"
"Terraforming. You know, preparing another planet for colonization by
Earthlings."
Haruichi looks like he wants to say 'what' again, but his shoulders drop, and
he sighs. "This isn't another planet."
"Isn't it?"
Haruichi watches Ryousuke walk onward, then looks out at the haze of blue and
green below them and thinks, the Earth from space.
He thinks about Ryousuke's gentler smile, the way he touches him without
hesitation, and maybe he's right, maybe this is another planet, light years
from home.
Haruichi sighs and catches up to Ryousuke, gets one of those gentler smiles,
and they're alone for the moment, sheltered by rocks, and Ryousuke leans in,
kisses him soft and content. Haruichi wants to ask, are you still going to be
like this when we're back down on Earth, but he's sure he already knows the
answer, so instead he kisses Ryousuke again, lets his gloved hands linger on
his neck.
Ryousuke leads them down into the crater, where there's no sign of the edge,
nothing but wide blue sky and martian rock. He leaves the trail to sit on a
boulder, drops his bag to the ground and hunts through it for the pouch of
cinnamon almonds he's been saving, smirks triumph when he finds them and feels
the small shake of Haruichi's quiet laugh beside him. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing." He drops his own bag, and leans back on the rock, ankles
crossed, imagining he can absorb warmth from the sun like a lizard. The hills
around them remind him of the roller coaster, so he gets his camera, filling it
with more pictures.
Ryousuke has the package open, and he passes it back to Haruichi, who has to
stop clicking and get his glove off, and Ryousuke steals his camera, takes a
picture of Haruichi with a glint of cinnamon on his lip. It's tempting, so he
turns and kisses it away, and Haruichi holds him by his collar so he stays a
while.
They finish the almonds, passing back and forth between them, and Haruichi's
had enough of taking pictures, gets up to find a rock that fits just right in
his hand, throws it across the crater like a laser beam to home plate.
It feels good, his arm misses the aim and tension of throwing something every
day, so he picks up another one, sends it to the same place.
Ryousuke's boots crunch beside him, and when he looks over, he's wrapping his
scarf around his left hand, padding it like a mitt, and he smiles that
challenging smile, walking past Haruichi on down the path. "Hit me one."
Haruichi feels an unexpected rush of adrenaline rising in him to meet that
challenge, and he picks up one of the poles that have come loose from the
ground, gives it a testing swing. The metal makes a hissing, whipping sound as
it cuts the air, and Haruichi adjusts his grip, swings again, tired muscles
lighting up like they've been waiting for this, anticipating. He finds a rock
with a good weight, solid, and tosses it up, hits it with a crack and sends it
flying right out toward Ryousuke.
He catches it with a little wince, the sharp edges biting in through the scarf,
and Haruichi hears him laugh, calling out, "Another!"
When he hits the next one, it's like coming awake after a long sleep, this
sudden brightness and alert awareness that sharpens him, and he breathes easy,
exhales steady. Another, and Ryousuke has to run back a bit to catch it, and he
wonders why they've never done this before, hitting just to hit, catching just
to catch, playing for the fun and the beauty of it, without the pressure of a
distant goal.
A slow regret sinks into him, cold and hollow, that he is seventeen and his
brother is nineteen and this is the first time they've played like this
together, the first time he's held a bat without comparing himself to Ryousuke.
Haruichi swallows against the burn in his throat, hits a rock that makes
Ryousuke run forward, skidding in a puff of dust, and hits another before he
fully has a chance to recover and prepare.
They switch places, taking turns with the pole, the end always warm from the
other's grip, and sometimes they have to pause to let other hikers pass,
sometimes they're aware of cameras clicking, taking pictures of these crazy
boys playing baseball on the top of Mount Fuji. Sometimes they're alone, and
it's nothing but the sound of rocks cracking against metal, and when they
switch places, they take a moment for kisses that are real, and honest, and
flare in them a heat that leaves them breathing harder, each time more
difficult to split apart.
It's Haruichi's turn again, and he takes the pole, listens to Ryousuke
crunching down the path, and he calls out, startled because he wasn't planning
on saying anything, but there it is, "I don't know what I'm going to do now."
Ryousuke stops, walks back so Haruichi doesn't have to shout. "What do you want
to do?"
He thinks briefly of Kuramochi asking him the same thing. "I don't know. I've
only wanted baseball, and chasing you. I don't know what to do if I'm not
chasing you."
Ryousuke squints when he smiles, almost a challenge. "You're not still?"
Haruichi shakes his head, blushes hot. "It isn't... it doesn't matter anymore."
Ryousuke's smile curls a little more. "You still have another year to take us
to Summer Koushien. Maybe they're going without us, this year."
"I don't really care about Koushien, if you're not on the team too. In the
stands isn't the same at all. Anyway I already told you, it wasn't about any of
that, it was about getting your attention, becoming someone you could respect."
"You think I respect you now?" There's a bite in Ryousuke's voice that makes
Haruichi look up, his absurd first thought being, he sounds like he does on
Earth.
Haruichi's breath shakes, and it hurts. "You said you weren't angry."
Ryousuke barely shrugs. "I'm not. But you did quit. You haven't caught up with
me, yet here you are giving up and expecting me to respect you for it."
"Because I realized how pointless and stupid it was. All I want is you. I don't
care about baseball."
Ryousuke watches him for a moment, watches him fidget and blush, the wind
teasing wild and playful in his hair, and he still sees that awkward, shy
little boy in the sporting goods store, arms shaking from the weight of the
wooden bat, but the image is fading. Coming in more clearly now is this nearly
adult, wonderful, beautiful young man who speaks like he finally knows how to
make his own choices, someone that Ryousuke thinks he might be able to walk
beside, instead of lead.
What he says though, is simply, "We've spent over an hour batting rocks with a
pole, and you think you don't care about baseball."
Haruichi stutters on an inhale, then he laughs, the pole still in his hands,
and something about that makes it even more funny, makes it kind of sad because
Ryousuke's right, Ryousuke's always right. "It still feels really good. I can't
make any sense of it."
Ryousuke takes the pole away, puts it back in the ground. "You do realize, you
can play without having to compare what you're doing to what I'm doing, that
you can play and have fun and challenge yourself without it being a competition
between us."
"You think I should stay on the team."
"If you still enjoy the way it feels to play, then yes. Fuck Koushien, fuck all
the tournaments, play it if you're proud of yourself every time you hit and a
runner comes home, every time you tag someone out at second and Youichi gives
you that grin like you're king of the world. But if you don't feel any of that,
then I'll support your decision to quit."
Haruichi still looks kind of lost, so Ryousuke pulls off his dirty gloves,
catches Haruichi's chilled, flushed cheeks in his hands, knocks the tangles of
his hair aside. "I'm a horrible, shitty big brother, because I never tell you
I'm proud of you, but I am. If that's been your goal, you've reached it. Where
you go from here... it can be anywhere."
Haruichi makes a sound in his throat that might be Ryousuke's name, and
Ryousuke draws him down, kisses him again, one of those kisses that say
everything they're not able to, so they don't have to try.
"Let's sit, and see if we have anything left to eat. Eventually we have to go
down this damn mountain and I'm hungry." Ryousuke's smile is soft again, back
to the boulder and his bag, and two thick peanut butter protein bars. He passes
one to Haruichi when he sits, and pretends he doesn't notice that Haruichi's
eyes and cheeks are wet.
He eats slow, watching a crowd of tourists crunch down the path, laughing and
chattering in something that sounds like German. The children start kicking
rocks, and get scolded for it, and Haruichi wonders if he was ever, really that
young. "Do you think you'll take a pro offer, after you graduate?"
Ryousuke doesn't answer, he thinks about how long it's been his dream, his plan
for life all written out, that bright red string of fate he's been following
since he first picked up a baseball. He thinks of Haruichi saying, I don't know
what I'm going to do now, thinks going pro would be the easy way, keep
following that brightly defined path.
"I don't know, maybe not." Haruichi gasps, and Ryousuke smirks, a bit teasing.
"Maybe I need something different and new in my life, too. Maybe it's something
we can figure out together."
Haruichi makes that broken sound again, and leans into Ryousuke's shoulder,
reaches for his hand and links through his fingers. "I like that idea."
Ryousuke hums, and lets his hand tighten around Haruichi's, and it's a while
before he lets go.
+
Eventually they're back where they started, and they have to find the sign for
their descent route, sit down to slip on the funny gaiter things that still
make Haruichi giggle, and Ryousuke takes a picture of him with them on.
It's faster on the way down, but it still requires focus to keep from sliding
on the loose rocks, though Haruichi spends most of his time looking out at the
endless green below them, taking pictures, catching Ryousuke's hand when he's
not busy with the camera.
"This would be fun on a bike."
Ryousuke laughs quiet. "You wouldn't be able to get any speed, you'd have to
slow down at every switchback turn."
"Nah, you could just drift." Haruichi grins, slides his hand through the air as
much as his wrist will allow it to spin, makes a gruff skidding noise, and
Ryousuke fully laughs.
"I'm never teaching you to drive."
Haruichi drifts his bike-hand the other direction, then shoves it in his
pocket, shoves his elbow into Ryousuke's. "Maybe that's what I should do next,
learn to race like Takumi in Initial D."
Ryousuke shakes his head, but he's smiling, because he's imagining that focused
expression Haruichi gets when he bats, imagining him in a glossy slick racecar,
how undefeatable he would be. "Nope. Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"Too dangerous. You wouldn't be able to see over the steering wheel, you'd
crash all over the place."
"Aniki!" Haruichi shoves him, and Ryousuke shuffles ahead a little, laughing
like pure mischief.
+
It's mid afternoon when they reach the Fifth Station, and the real-worldness of
it makes Haruichi feel out of place, like they should still be up among the
rocks, and he looks back at the mountain, feels the loss of it already. That
harsh, breathtaking landscape, where he learned how to hold a conversation with
his brother, learned how to hold his hand without the fear of being pushed
away.
Ryousuke leans against him, bold among the crowd, and tangles fingers in his
sleeve. "Come on, Harucchi. Hot shower, clean clothes, food, free onsen...."
Haruichi wants to kiss him, but he can't here, so he pinches his nose instead,
and lets Ryousuke draw him away to the car.
The passenger seat is heavenly, but it makes him feel like he's forgetting
something, sitting there without his backpack, his warmer layers, and he
wonders what it will be like when he goes back to Seidou, when the something
he'll think he's forgetting is Ryousuke.
On the drive back down, Ryousuke notices Haruichi staring out the window again,
but that enchantment isn't there, like he isn't even seeing the trees this
time, and when he reaches over for his hand, Haruichi doesn't allow him to let
go.
+
Ryousuke drops onto the hotel bed with a long sigh, watching the floor as
Haruichi begins shedding clothes, little bits of rock tumbling out with every
layer, and he finally laughs by the time he's down to his underwear. "How much
Fuji did you bring back with you?"
Haruichi looks down at the mess he's made on the floor, laughs and blushes.
"About half. The other half is in your pants."
Ryousuke laughs at that, then starts picking trash out of his backpack,
listening as Haruichi collects his little bag of shower products. "Hey,
Haruichi. Don't jack off in there."
"What?!" It comes out as a squeak, and Ryousuke hears the thud of bottles
hitting the floor.
He smiles, though Haruichi can't see it. "You were going to, weren't you?"
"Uhmm... probably."
"Don't."
Haruichi exhales, fidgets, and tries not to spontaneously combust. "Why not?"
Tries not to say, I've been kissing you all day and I think I'm about to die.
Ryousuke's smile deepens, and that time Haruichi can hear it in his voice. "You
can wait a little longer."
Haruichi makes a shameful whimpering sound, might have tried to be words,
something like "oh fucking hell aniki", and he hurries into the bathroom,
before his knees give out.
It's the most frustrating shower of his life, and he rushes through it, trying
not to think about what Ryousuke could have meant by that, which means it's all
he thinks about, and he's a miserable, trembling mess by the time he's
finished.
Ryousuke's waiting patiently in a towel when he comes out, and Haruichi can't
look at him, looks at the floor as he passes by to get to the shared duffel bag
and says, "You can't either."
"Wasn't planning on it." Ryousuke smirks, and closes the bathroom door.
Haruichi gets dressed, and tries to sweep up both of their rock piles with the
towel, managing all but the tiny bits that sink into the carpet fibers, and
that's enough busy work to get his mind clear, get him to stop thinking about
his brother's hands on him, and instead think about what he wants to eat.
He realizes he doesn't really care what he eats, as long as there's a whole
fucking lot of it.
+
They decide to eat at the restaurant in the onsen, and end up ordering three
meals to share, family style, and their small table barely holds all the
sprawling dishes. Haruichi thinks he'll never take Seidou's three-bowl rule for
granted again.
He also thinks they might have to slowly roll to the baths, like pandas.
But somehow they manage to walk, like normal, and when he sinks into the water,
folding his towel neatly at the side, all his muscles finally begin to relax,
and he thinks about where he actually is, so many miles from home.
Ryousuke settles in next to him, enough distance to be decent, but close enough
that they can talk without being overheard.
There's a few other guests in the water, two old men talking quiet but
animated, and one of them suddenly giggles, gets shoved and shushed by the
other one, which makes him have to cover his face while he laughs and Ryousuke
nudges Haruichi, says, "That's us when we're old."
Haruichi snickers out a quiet laugh. "You're the noisy one."
"Nope, that's definitely you." Ryousuke is grinning, and Haruichi kicks him
under the water, gets kicked back, and they have to stop because the water is
sloshing. "Can't take you anywhere."
"Look who's talking, should've put you on a leash."
"Ooh, kinky."
Haruichi chokes and blushes, sinks down to his chin and refuses to look at the
smile on Ryousuke's face. He stays down in the water, warm and content,
thinking of how easy it is to talk to Ryousuke now, like they aren't strangers
anymore, like he doesn't have to weigh and measure his words before he says
them, afraid Ryousuke will judge them and deem him unworthy of a response.
"Ryousuke, remember when we were kids, and I used to draw those little mangas?"
"Mmm, yeah you liked robots. They were cute."
Haruichi blushes brighter, kind of embarrassed as he admits, "I still draw them
sometimes. I think maybe... that's something I could do after I graduate. Maybe
if you came up with some horror stories, I could draw them."
Ryousuke smiles, and it's that lit-up, sparkly kind of smile that makes
Haruichi feel airborne. "That would be really wonderful."
Haruichi exhales and makes the water ripple, wasn't expecting that supportive
reaction, and he wonders if he's being unfair, boxing Ryousuke up in the
singular definition of critical, cruel, all the harsh things he's said to him
since he followed him into baseball. He wonders how different it would have
been, if they could have grown up without that competition, and he realizes
that it was entirely his fault, his choice, he was the one who spent every
moment in the chase.
It's an uncomfortable observation, that maybe he's the one who pushed Ryousuke
into being cruel, chasing his back, kissing him in haunted houses, and now he
understands that part of Ryousuke's distance wasn't because he didn't want to
be kissed but because he desperately did, and Haruichi wonders how many
different choices could have been made along the way.
He wonders, if he could have tried to make friends with his brother, instead of
forcing him into competition, if he could have chosen a path that would have
let them walk side by side, instead of following his overwhelmingly untouchable
shadow.
"I'm sorry, Aniki."
He feels Ryousuke startle, a jolt in the water. "What for?"
"For everything, for... I don't know." He wants to touch him, to curl against
him, crawl into his lap like a child, and then Ryousuke's hand is finding his
under the water and that's enough to push back the panic he didn't realize was
there until it began to recede.
"I know what you're thinking, and there's no point in worrying about what's
already been done. What matters is what you do from this moment on."
Haruichi's hand squeezes tight, and Ryousuke lets his thumb drift over the
healing scabs on his knuckles, and while they're laying out all the
accusations, he knows he's to blame for that, for not wanting to see how his
brother was falling apart.
"I lied, again. When I said I didn't respect you. Because I do. I understand
now, why you quit, I understand it wasn't about giving up, and it doesn't make
you weak. It takes strength to step away from the familiar path, and I'm
beginning to see that in you finally."
Haruichi makes that hopeless sound again, covers his face as much as he can
with one hand, and Ryousuke feels him trembling, thinks, I should have been
telling you these things all your life. All the ways he thought he was
protecting him, pushing him away, believing that what he was doing was the
right thing, what's best for Haruichi, and maybe he was wrong.
Ryousuke thinks he's made the wrong choices for both of them, and all he can do
now is try to repair what he's broken.
Haruichi waits until he can breathe steady, swallow past the heaviness, when he
can finally say "Thank you, Aniki," without shattering.
Ryousuke's smile is soft, and he sighs, lets himself relax into the water like
every doubt and regret can float away, no longer needed. He thinks, maybe
things aren't too broken. Maybe they can still be okay.
+
Haruichi feels boneless as he collapses on the bed, still kind of steaming with
heat from the onsen, and he groans, quietly, hears a snicker before the bed
dips, and Ryousuke stretches out beside him, looking just as content. "Have I
said lately what a great idea this was?"
Haruichi laughs, and turns on his side so he can reach one hand into Ryousuke's
hair, still wet, and cooling in the air conditioned room. "I'm a genius
sometimes, you know."
"Hmm, must run in the family." His eyebrows wiggle, and Haruichi laughs again,
then he's moving, catching Ryousuke's mouth with his own, soft and slow.
Ryousuke makes a sound like a purr and shifts them, Haruichi onto his back,
Ryousuke sliding over him, one hand slipping beneath Haruichi's shirt to glide
over the flex and tension of sleek muscles, making Haruichi shiver. Ryousuke's
fingers graze the skin above the waistband of his track pants, and Haruichi
whines, presses into the touch, shaking with the flash of heat.
The hand in Ryousuke's hair releases, before he pulls too hard, and clenches in
the back of his shirt instead, drawing him closer. He squirms from that teasing
not-enough contact, and Ryousuke's fingers pause at his hip, barely under the
elastic, and Haruichi takes it as a question, asking permission, and he answers
with an impatient "Please."
Ryousuke fully shivers, Haruichi feels it in the way his back flexes and
shifts, in the way his exhaled breath is shaky against Haruichi's cheek, and he
says it again, a high whine against Ryousuke's mouth, "Aniki, please."
Then Ryousuke's kissing him again, hand sliding past both bands of elastic,
fingers wrapping around him easy and Haruichi gasps, arches into his hand,
burning all over because his brother is finally touching him, and it's better
than any long-imagined fantasy, perfect enough to be almost too much.
He can feel Ryousuke still kind of shaking as he strokes over him, slow and hot
and pushing Haruichi closer, and Ryousuke's mouth drifts down to his throat,
bites enough for sensation but not pain, and it hits him fast, the rushing
flood of heat and pleasure, almost painful as he comes into Ryousuke's hand.
He sighs out a quiet curse, feels Ryousuke smiling against his skin, and he
can't breathe but he's never felt so good. Haruichi turns to kiss him again,
kind of lazy, and he lets go of his tight hold on Ryousuke's shirt, moves down
to touch the edge of his jeans and feels Ryousuke draw in a sharp breath. "Can
I?"
Ryousuke nods, and somehow Haruichi doesn't fumble the zipper, gets his jeans
open and pushes past the band of his underwear, nervous because he doesn't want
to do this wrong, but he feels Ryousuke gasp against his neck when he touches
him, the quick twitch of his hips, and he makes himself stop worrying. He moves
on instinct, matches his speed to the way Ryousuke kisses him, almost as rough
as the first time, feeling every catch of Ryousuke's breath, every gasp and
shiver, then it's Haruichi's name pressed into the line of his jaw as he comes.
Haruichi kisses the bridge of Ryousuke's nose, the softness at the corner of
his eye, then Ryousuke raises his head enough to meet his mouth, and he shifts
them over so they're on their sides, able to tangle comfortably together.
Haruichi thinks he should say something, but his mind is whited out and empty,
and he feels the melty-soft pull of sleep, drifting away while Ryousuke pets
over his back.
Ryousuke feels him give in, feels the tension ease away, and he stays there a
moment in the warmth of him, the slow rhythm of breath against his shoulder.
There's a spare blanket at the end of the bed, and he pulls that over them as
carefully as possible, strokes through Haruichi's hair when he lays back down.
And it's only because his brother is asleep that he's able to whisper against
the soft pink, "I love you so much," before sleep takes him away too.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Notes
     I've realized I should probably warn for a scene in this chapter.
     When they're in the forest, there's a bit of a horror moment, nothing
     with gore or violence but still some creepy upsetting stuff. So in
     case you don't want to read that, you can skip over it.
Haruichi wakes to the dark and the silence of the room, Ryousuke breathing soft
against his chest, and his arm a little numb where it's folded under his head,
but it's peaceful, and still, and he realizes he's beginning to feel that way
too.
Realizing, that hopeless anger isn't in him now, and he feels almost normal
again, maybe he won't scare Sawamura anymore, and he thinks he should email him
later, apologize. Maybe he's feeling overly sentimental, but he wonders if he's
ever told Sawamura how much his friendship means, Kuramochi and Zono too. Maybe
there's something in the air that's turning him into a sap.
Or maybe it's because Ryousuke's hand is laying curled on his stomach, and he
doesn't feel guilty about that anymore.
He doesn't want to move, but the bathroom is calling, so he tries to shift as
carefully as he can, but Ryousuke still wakes up, sighs against him, and his
fingers tighten in Haruichi's shirt for a moment. "What time is it?"
Haruichi smiles at his sleep-rough voice. "I don't know, still dark o'clock.
I'm sorry, go back to sleep, I have to get up."
Ryousuke hums and stretches, and Haruichi slides out from under him, twists to
pop his neck. He fumbles his way to the bathroom, and Ryousuke gets his phone
out of his pocket. It's three in the morning, and he thinks, they're still on
Fuji time.
It hits him then, the sudden rush of worry, a cold frantic panic that makes his
heart race, what if Haruichi regrets what they did, what if he pushed things
too far too fast, and he's fucked things up like he always knew he would.
Ryousuke crawls out of bed, fastens his jeans, thinking oh fuck what have I
done, and finds one of the bottles of tea he got from the vending machine on
the way back from the onsen. When Haruichi comes out of the bathroom, he forces
a perfectly normal smile.
"Oh, are you up? I'm sorry."
"No it's okay, I had enough sleep." Ryousuke moves to the window, the bright
colors of the park rides. "Go back to bed if you want. I'll be quiet."
Haruichi yawns, pops his neck again, and settles into the chair beside the
window, close enough to touch Ryousuke but he doesn't, because he can see the
tension in him and he's not sure what that means. "I'm awake now, it's fine."
"Okay." Ryousuke's turn to yawn, and he drops the tea in Haruichi's lap,
switching on a lamp on his way to the bathroom. He's very careful not to look
in the mirror.
Haruichi drinks some of the tea, squinting at the light, and he wants to hold
on to that happy feeling but he's worried about Ryousuke, the crease between
his eyebrows that he noticed when he turned on the lamp. He touches his neck
where Ryousuke bit him, wishes it had left a mark. Thinking, he wants some kind
of proof that this is real, that this happened, in case it never happens again.
He hands back the tea when Ryousuke returns, and Ryousuke takes the other
chair, a tiny table between them but it feels like miles.
The television remote is on the table, so Ryousuke turns it on, mutes it, finds
a station with the news so he can watch the weather report. He knows it's going
to be hot, but he wants some kind of grounding to reality, something outside of
the thoughts in his head, this thing he's done to his brother.
"Ryousuke. Ryou, what are you worrying about?"
He inhales sharp, and he can feel the usual snarky reply rising up, back to his
old defenses, but he swallows it down, inhales again shaky and nervous. "Tell
me it was okay, tell me you're... okay... and that we're...."
Haruichi's eyes go wide behind his hair, the pure exposed emotion in Ryousuke's
voice knocking the breath out of him, and he's out of the chair, standing in
front of Ryousuke's because he can't take even that small distance anymore.
"You think I regret it, you think I didn't want that? What the fuck are you
telling yourself, that you took advantage of your innocent baby brother? I told
you already, this is what I want: you, everything."
The determined look on Haruichi's face is so familiar, so common, and it works
as the grounding point he'd been reaching for, lets him come down calm and
easy. He looks up at Haruichi's stubborn glare, the blush lighting him up, and
feels himself smile. "You look cute like that, all grouchy and stern."
"Aniki!" Haruichi kicks his shin, and Ryousuke laughs, stands so he's level
with Haruichi again, like there's meaning in that somehow. Haruichi huffs
through his nose like Miyauchi, and Ryousuke touches one overheated cheek.
He's still afraid he'll fuck things up, but he can let go of the worry that he
already has, because he trusts the honesty in Haruichi's voice, in his sudden
flash of anger. "You're right, I'm sorry, I just had a moment there. I've spent
so long telling myself this can't happen."
Haruichi sighs, fits his arms around Ryousuke's waist and leans in, remembering
that first night, when he realized how long it had been since he hugged his
brother, and this time Ryousuke hugs him back without hesitance, without his
self-imposed restraint. Ryousuke holds him tight, kisses the side of his throat
without the adrenaline rush of panic, only a floating content feeling like the
end of a game, coming out of the ninth inning with the one point needed to win.
Like the hard work is over, and it's time to rest.
Haruichi leans on his shoulder, eyes closed to the light of the room, and if he
knew what Ryousuke was thinking, he would agree, it feels exactly like that.
Like sliding head first into home plate, and knowing by the cheer of the crowd
that you're safe.
"I'm worried about the same thing, you know. That you might change your mind,
not want us like this."
Ryousuke exhales slow, hates that he's still kind of shaking. He doesn't know
how to do this, this emotional stuff. "I suppose it's something we're going to
have to get over."
Haruichi smooths down Ryousuke's back, and he's still not good at this either,
but he thinks they might be getting better at it. "And you can't freak out on
me every morning. I'm not changing my mind."
Ryousuke smiles against Haruichi's skin, so he can feel the dangerous stretch
of his lips. "You tease me about that, and you will learn the true meaning of
the word 'pain'."
The threat makes Haruichi silently laugh, and he kisses what he can reach of
Ryousuke's ear, blushing as he noses affectionate into his hair, which still
kind of smells like onsen and mountains and Haruichi likes it, this wild smell
on his brother. "Honestly, I will tell you if anything is wrong. I've been
wanting this for so long Aniki...."
"Okay, okay." Ryousuke pulls away enough to kiss him, comfort and reassurance,
feels it in the way Haruichi kisses him back.
They move apart then, back to their chairs, and Haruichi thinks the distance
isn't so much of an opponent anymore, as simply a table, some carpet, the
bottle of tea that he reaches for. "What do you want to do today?"
Ryousuke sits, and rubs at his legs to test their opinion of the situation.
"Aokigahara maybe? I don't think we have to climb anything."
Haruichi smiles fond, covers it with his hand. "Okay, ghost hunting day it is.
If you try to scare me in any way, I will punch you into next week."
Ryousuke laughs. "I know you would, that's why I'm not planning anything."
"Good."
Ryousuke smirks at him for a minute, then the weather is on, so he turns to
watch.
It's going to be clear, and hot, with no rain in sight for days.
+
It's Haruichi's idea to take the backpacks, and the headlamps in case he needs
to light something up to take a picture, and it's Ryousuke's idea to buy rolls
of tape at the gas station, one white, and one yellow because they didn't have
a second roll of white, saying, I'm not interested in getting lost out there.
Haruichi's not going to argue.
They get cheeseburgers to eat on the way, and Haruichi likes how fast Ryousuke
drives when the lanes are clear, has to squirm a little because he thinks of
Ryousuke with his hands on him, and maybe both at the same time would be a
pretty great idea.
"You're thinking about something embarrassing." There's a tease in Ryousuke's
voice, and he reaches over to poke Haruichi's cheek, feels the way he's
breathing a bit quicker than normal. "Oh, okay now you have to tell me."
Haruichi's blush gets predictably worse, and he considers it revenge when he
says, "I'm thinking about getting off while you drive really fast," and it's
total victory when Ryousuke inhales sharp and the car does a little wiggle
before he gets both hands back on the wheel.
"I always knew you were a filthy little shit." But his voice is tight, and he
shifts in the seat, and Haruichi smiles.
"Hey, you asked."
Ryousuke shakes his head, though he laughs, amused, and they're both somewhat
disappointed when they hit traffic and have to slow down.
After he gets the car parked and turned off, he's not really surprised when
Haruichi climbs into his lap, and blush-warmed lips land on his own. Haruichi
tastes like the strawberry pie he couldn't resist getting and Ryousuke likes
that, licks through his mouth until Haruichi is shivering against him, like
he's on the edge of pleading in the way that Ryousuke likes even more. "You
know there are kids in this parking lot, Harucchi."
Haruichi looks out the window kind of startled, like he forgot where they were,
and Ryousuke laughs silent, nothing more than vibration. Then Ryousuke's hands
are sliding up the inside of his thighs, and Haruichi whines, leans back
against the steering wheel.
Ryousuke follows, leaning forward, until his fingers meet at the front of
Haruichi's jeans, and the sound Haruichi makes goes straight down his spine.
"Hmm, it's going to be really uncomfortable hiking through the woods like
this."
"That is not fair." Haruichi's hips twitch, pressing into Ryousuke's hands, and
Ryousuke moves one to push up Haruichi's shirt so he can get his mouth on his
chest. He bites, and Haruichi arches into it.
"You have to tell me what you want then." Haruichi only whines, and Ryousuke
laughs. "That's not an answer." But if they're going to do this here, they
really don't have much time for teasing, so he pops the top button, speaks low
against the bitten place on Haruichi's chest. "It's okay, I know what you
want."
Haruichi shivers, blushing all the way past where Ryousuke's mouth rests, and
he doesn't need to speak because Ryousuke has the zipper down, has his palm on
the ache of Haruichi's cock, and that's good, that's what he wants. He pushes
Ryousuke back so he can kiss him, reaching down to open the fly of his jeans,
easing the layers of fabric out of the way when Ryousuke lifts his hips enough,
and now he can touch him, wrap his hand around him and make his breath stutter
into the kiss.
Ryousuke manages to get Haruichi's clothes down enough that he can match the
slow, casual stroke, and he pulls Haruichi closer, until their knuckles bump,
and Haruichi gasps.
He has to drop away from the kiss, mouth on Ryousuke's throat, as Ryousuke
moves their hands away, presses the heated line of their cocks together and
Haruichi feels like he's made of fireworks, makes an incoherent sound into
Ryousuke's shoulder and hears him laugh breathless and rushed. It's hard to get
much friction in the small space, but he feels every drag of Ryousuke's skin
against his own, every flex of Ryousuke's hips as he slides them together. His
hand presses tight into Haruichi's back, makes him whine and shift down to meet
him.
Their mouths crash into each other again, an uncoordinated kiss that's more
about contact than coherency, and Haruichi burns hotter with every press of
Ryousuke's tongue, every slick slide of heated skin, and he comes with a sharp
gasp, feels Ryousuke smile as he shakes against him.
Haruichi moves his hand from where he'd clenched it around the seat, and curls
it around Ryousuke, watches as his head tips back, the hard swallow before his
breathing goes ragged, and Haruichi thinks he'll never get enough of watching
Ryousuke fall apart like this, the way he's completely maskless and real as he
comes.
It's sentimental, and he'll never say it, but he blushes from it anyway.
Ryousuke's watching him with a slanted, almost taunting smile, and Haruichi
bends to kiss the corner of it, knows Ryousuke will feel the extra flood of
heat in his face, saying quietly, "That is exactly what I wanted."
As expected, Ryousuke laughs. "You're lucky we didn't get caught." But his
smile goes gentle, and he reaches into the McDonald's bag, finds a stack of
napkins, holds them up with a shrug. "If we had more room, I'd lick you clean."
"Aniki!" Haruichi covers his face fast, the tips of his ears blazing red, and
Ryousuke laughs harder.
"Now you're shy." It's cute though, so he lets Haruichi hide while he cleans
them up, gets their clothes back in order with minimal wiggling, then pulls
Haruichi down to rest against him for a moment, before they have to get out in
the heat.
Haruichi twists his fingers in the flipped-up ends of Ryousuke's hair,
exaggerating the curl, and he thinks of his brother waking up scared, that
panic in his voice when he asked if they were okay. "You're not going to worry
this time, are you?"
Ryousuke's expression tightens, and gives the barest shake of his head, and
that's all he's going to do to acknowledge the morning's incident, not wanting
to think about the way the guilt and failure rushing in had felt like drowning.
He still thinks, he's supposed to be protecting his brother, not getting him
off in motel rooms, car seats, still feels like it's a corruption of sorts,
like he's twisted him into wanting it, knowing all Haruichi has ever wanted is
his attention, any kind of affection, and Ryousuke's taking advantage of the
situation for his own sick desires.
He knows it's not really like that, but he thinks of Haruichi saying, it was
never about baseball, and accepts it's going to be a while before those fears
fully go away.
"Aniki...." Haruichi's voice is soft, and he kisses Ryousuke even softer,
drawing him out of his thoughts. "Okay now?"
Ryousuke smiles kind of dangerous, and that's all the warning Haruichi gets
before Ryousuke's hand chops into the back of his head. "Quit worrying about
me."
Haruichi pouts, rubs the sore spot. "Ow. That one actually hurt."
"Good." He's still smiling as he opens the car door, nudges at Haruichi until
he climbs out, looking completely flustered and cute and kind of debauched and
Ryousuke likes it, reminds himself it's okay now to like it.
Haruichi's grumbling as he gets the backpacks out of the car, waits until
Ryousuke has the doors locked and keys in his pocket before handing over his.
Ryousuke shrugs it onto his shoulder, heads for the path leading into the
trees. "Come on, let's go find the candy house."
Haruichi snickers at that, and catches up to bump shoulders.
The forest is beautiful and green, quickly folding in behind them to shut out
the sounds of the road, and Haruichi stops to take pictures of delicate ferns,
twisted heaps of tree roots covered in soft moss, dappled light on Ryousuke's
face. Every direction looks the same though, and he can see how people could
get lost in there, glad for Ryousuke's idea to buy the tape.
There's a slight unnerved sensation though, thinking, what if they find a body?
Are they even in the right part of the forest? What if they find someone in the
process of dying? It makes him feel painfully mortal and fragile, makes him
wonder what he would do if something happened to Ryousuke, all the things that
could go wrong in one day of ordinary life.
It isn't what he wants to be thinking right now, with Ryousuke so alive and
beautiful and perfect beside him.
After a few minutes, Ryousuke stops and leans over Haruichi where he's crouched
photographing some moss. "Catch any ghosts on there yet?"
Haruichi sighs, laughs in that fond way again. "No, Ryousuke, no ghosts."
"What about orbs?"
Haruichi lets him take the camera, watches him flick through the pictures,
zooming in and out. "You don't believe in the orb thing."
"Yeah I know, but I've yet to see a haunted place that didn't have orbs." But
there's nothing he can see in the pictures, so he gives back the camera, shoves
his hands in his pockets.
Haruichi runs a brief touch down his back and gets a smile for it. "I promise
if I see anything, I will tell you immediately."
"Thank you."
"I doubt there's anything out here in the daytime anyway."
"Can we come back tonight? We should have brought monitoring gear, we could
have set it up today, checked it tomorrow morning." He sounds legitimately
disappointed, and Haruichi hopes someday he can see a real ghost, or a UFO,
something on his paranormal bucket list.
"Maybe next summer we can do an actual investigative expedition out here, bring
some other people to help. I know Eijun would come. We can do some research and
find out the best places, maybe talk to people who work out here, do the
patrols."
Ryousuke looks over, gives him a faint smirk. "Stop humoring me, Haruichi."
He blushes at that. "I'm not, I honestly would like to get some real proof.
Something other than this everyday world we can all see. Eijun's always telling
me stories, the weird things he and his friends have seen, like Wakana, she
used to talk to a ghost when she was little."
Ryousuke kind of laughs. "You believe anything Sawamura says?"
"Well, yeah. Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Okay tell me."
Haruichi tries not to look smug, but he's sure he fails, so he hides it by
ducking down to take a picture. "There was this woman who lived next door to
her when she was a kid, and she'd see her outside watering the flowers every
day, so she went over to say hi, and it became a regular thing. She'd go out
every day, talk to the woman about flowers, help her with the pruning, things
like that. Eijun doesn't remember what made her mention it to her mother, but
her mother didn't believe her, because the house next door was empty, the woman
who lived there died before Wakana was born."
Ryousuke elbows Haruichi while he takes another picture. "Oooh, I saw that
coming."
"I didn't say it wasn't predictable. It's true though. Wakana kept talking to
the dead woman, but when her mother looked outside, it was only Wakana in the
garden, pulling weeds or watering or whatever."
"So what happened?"
Haruichi shrugs, takes a picture of Ryousuke looking skeptical yet hopeful,
like he wants to believe but doesn't want to let himself get tricked. "Someone
moved into the house, and Wakana's mother told them what was going on so they
did some kind of cleansing ritual, and the woman never came back. Eijun says
Wakana's convinced she was talking to someone else, like another neighbor who
tended the garden of the empty house, but Eijun says no one else in town fit
the description other than the dead woman."
Ryousuke finally smiles, then kidnaps Haruichi's camera. "I like that story. I
like the idea of a nice ghost, tending her garden and teaching little kids
about flowers. That's sweet."
"Me too. It seems silly that all ghosts would be crazy and violent." He lets
Ryousuke keep the camera for a while, watching him aim out into the distance,
then check the photo for orbs.
Maybe it's selfish in a weird way, but he likes that Ryousuke has a passion
other than baseball.
"Hey, let's take this one." Ryousuke's stopped in front of a tiny trail
branching off from the main path, and Haruichi can't see anything special about
it, nothing different from the ones they've already passed, but Ryousuke likes
it so he shrugs, steps over to get the roll of white tape out of Ryousuke's
backpack.
"Let's not mark it here, someone might walk by and pick it off."
Ryousuke leaves him with the tape, lets him put the first marker on a tree,
then they trade tape for camera, and sometimes Haruichi takes pictures of the
path behind them, all the markers he can fit into the frame. He feels kind of
jittery, even though they're still on a clear trail, narrow but worn, and he
blames it on being a city boy, afraid of a few trees.
He doesn't want to admit that something seems off, because Ryousuke will laugh,
and never stop teasing him about it.
The feeling increases as the trail thins out, sometimes blocked by a log, or
rocks, or a growth of ferns, blurring out its clarity. Ryousuke keeps going
though, so Haruichi keeps following, taking pictures, and the deep absence of
sound makes his ears buzz, like walking through fog. He feels it like it's
tangible in the air, this thickness, and he thinks, panic attack. I'm having a
fucking panic attack in the forest.
"Ryousuke, can we stop for a minute?" He turns around, expecting to see
Ryousuke waiting, but the path is empty. "Ryou?"
It jolts him, the sudden fear, because the trail ahead is clear, there's
nothing like a turn obstructed by trees, or root piles, it's a straight forward
line and he would be able to see him. Haruichi hears a pained sound, shocked
that it came from himself. "Ryousuke I told you not to fuck with me out here!"
He looks behind him, and he can see three markers back, Ryousuke couldn't have
gone farther than that in the short time it took him to snap a picture, it was
only seconds, less than a minute.
Haruichi's trembling, and the racing of his heart actually hurts, and he's sick
with it, and all he can do is turn in circles looking for a splash of pink, or
blue, maybe even the grey of his t-shirt would stand out. But all he can see is
forest. And this can't be real, can't be happening, because it was only a few
fucking seconds, and the trail is fucking visible.
"Ryousuke!" He gets the roll of yellow tape out of his bag, marks the tree
below Ryousuke's white marker, then continues on down the path, thinking, maybe
there's a turn he can't see, maybe Ryousuke's behind some trees, like an
optical illusion, and Haruichi's going to kill him for not answering when he
shouts.
He stops then, gets his phone out of his bag, he will call that motherfucker,
but he's not getting a signal and that makes him laugh, high and almost
hysterical because this is how horror movies start, this is every lost in the
woods story ever told. In a minute he's going to find a run-down house, and the
ghosts are going to eat him for supper, and someone will find his camera and
make a movie about it.
Haruichi marks a tree in yellow, and there's a fainter trail leading off to the
right, so he tries that one, because maybe Ryousuke is an idiot and forgot to
mark the tree, which is a bullshit line of thought and he knows it, Ryousuke
didn't come this way, Ryousuke has fucking disappeared.
He screams for him again, not caring how frantic he sounds, screams until his
throat burns and the taste of blood is in his mouth and he's used up so much
yellow tape, gone back and forth down every trail, and finally he sits down to
try and calm his brain, try to think.
The way it happens for Ryousuke is pretty much the same.
He's watching Haruichi take pictures, and he turns away to take a few more
steps down the trail, and when he looks back to get his attention, to point out
a nice mossy log, Haruichi's not there.
"Haru?" He walks back, expecting to see Haruichi crouched behind a tree, nearly
flat on the ground as he zooms in on a tiny mushroom, or furled fern leaf.
Thinking, he should have put him on a leash, all this wandering off like a
puppy, following the next shiny thing. But there's no Haruichi, and he's past
the point where he'd stopped already, and he knows he wouldn't backtrack
without saying something.
Ryousuke rubs over goosebumps on his arms, thinking, and trying not to think,
that the air doesn't feel right, it's thicker, heavier, and he doesn't like
that he can't see where his brother has gone. "Haruichi!"
Like Haruichi, he tries his phone, sighing at the lack of signal. And it's so
silent, he taps on a tree to make some kind of noise, knocks louder, the shave-
and-a-haircut knock, because he knows Haruichi will habitually knock back the
two-bits, but there's nothing, not even a crinkle of leaves.
"Okay Harucchi, fun's over, you got me. Come on out." He leaves the path,
looking for hiding places, a hollowed out log or something where Haruichi could
be huddled up and giggling, and Ryousuke is going to chop him so hard his
eyeballs will fall out.
The inevitable thoughts come in, the dizzy edge of panic, that Haruichi is
gone, the forest has taken him and this is how it happens, this is why people
walk around until they're lost and the only last option is to die among all
this endless green and shadow, the thing they love the most taken from them
like a sacrifice.
Ryousuke marks the tree where he's standing, the other marker still visible,
where Haruichi had been, thinking, give him back, give him fucking back. He
becomes aware that he's saying it, has been repeating it low and hard-edged
under his breath like a mantra, give him back, give him back.
His phone says five minutes have passed and he finally shouts his name, shouts
curses and insults, motherfucking answer me you stupid shit, but there is
nothing.
There is nothing.
Haruichi checks his phone and it's been eight minutes, eight endless minutes
without Ryousuke, and he feels the tight wetness of tears on his face, knows
this can't actually be happening, Ryousuke could not have gone far enough in
that small amount of time to be completely undetectable. Even if he'd tripped,
hit his head on a rock and was lying unconscious, Haruichi would have found
him, he couldn't have been that far from the trail.
It's these logical pacifications that keep him from losing his mind, these
rational calculations that say Ryousuke has to be there.
Except that it's been nine minutes now, and he could be anywhere.
He screams for him again, a tattered cry of his name, then holds his breath so
he can listen, and he's sure he's hallucinating when he hears a response, the
faintest return of a voice and maybe it's an echo but he yells again.
Then Ryousuke is there, he's rushing out from behind a cluster of trees and
when he says Haruichi's name it's quiet and breathless but clear. Haruichi
doesn't remember standing up, but he has Ryousuke solid and real and alive in
his arms, and he sobs relief into his shoulder, the strap of the backpack, and
Ryousuke is holding him tight enough that he thinks he'll leave permanent
impressions on his bones, but he doesn't want him to ever let go.
Ryousuke can barely speak, his voice is such a mess. "Where the fuck were you,
why didn't you answer me?"
"I was here, I was looking for you, you didn't answer me either. What the fuck
is going on?"
"It's this stupid forest, it...." He trails off then, because he looks up, and
he sees the trees, all the white and yellow markers clustered in around each
other, the yellow markers he couldn't see before. "Oh, Haru, look."
Haruichi has to wipe his eyes, take a minute to focus, and Ryousuke knows the
exact moment he sees because he gasps, shakes just a fragile bit more in
Ryousuke's arms. "This can't be real. The white ones weren't there." He fumbles
to get the camera out of his bag with one hand, not wanting to let go of
Ryousuke even for a second, and he scrolls through the photos, shows him.
"Look, only yellow."
Ryousuke holds the camera up, compares it to the trees in front of him, the
same trees, except without the white markers. He exhales shaky, and part of it
is excitement, part of it is pure fucking joy. "This is it, this is really it,
we're really seeing this." He takes a quick photograph, a little blurry from
the tremor in his hands, but the white and yellow tape is clear, all the
markers visible. "Look. But why did it put us back to normal, what was the
purpose of that?"
Haruichi sighs, takes back his camera, turns it off because the beauty and
fascination is gone, and all he wants is to get out of there. "You think this
was ghosts."
Ryousuke gets his phone out of his pocket, shows Haruichi the pictures he took,
all the white markers and not one yellow. "I don't know about ghosts, but it
was something. How else could we have been marking the same places, never
seeing each other, and I was calling for you the whole time. It's quiet in
here, we would have heard. And when I finally did hear you, it was like miles
away, and when I saw you, you were so close."
"My voice is kind of ruined, maybe I wasn't as loud as I thought." But that is
a pathetic excuse, and he knows he deserves the shameful look Ryousuke gives
him, so he sighs, takes his hand and doesn't care that it makes him look like a
scared child, and starts walking back through the sea of obvious tape markers.
"Honestly though, we just got separated for a minute, and we panicked, and we
didn't see the other markers because we were freaking out, and maybe we were
making so much noise stomping around that we didn't hear the yelling."
"Okay Scully, and the UFO is just a weather balloon, right." Ryousuke sighs,
still flicking through the pictures on his phone, not one yellow marker in
sight. "Wow."
Haruichi desperately wants to make another realistic protest, but he's never
seen Ryousuke look so giddy, so downright thrilled, and he relents, saying,
"Maybe you're right, Mulder. Maybe there isn't a logical explanation for this."
Ryousuke actually giggles, quiet but still there, and he looks back behind them
for a moment. "Haunted fucking forest."
He lets Haruichi pull him onward, a little faster, one more marker until
they're back to the main trail. "I can't figure out why though, why split us up
like that, then put us back ten minutes later. Was it some sort of spatial
anomaly, like a temporary wormhole that came and went, a quantum division of
timelines like the way a highway will split sometimes around a median, and
rejoin later? If it was really the purpose of the forest, wouldn't it have kept
us apart until it got what it wanted, until we wandered off and killed
ourselves or whatever?"
"I think I like the wormhole quantum thing better than the killer forest
thing."
Ryousuke laughs at that, spares one more brief look over his shoulder, and
sighs. "I wish we had the time to really, really investigate this. Maybe I can
find a professor that will let us do it as a class project."
Haruichi's hand tightens enough to feel Ryousuke's knuckles grind, and he
ignores the pained wince. "You are not coming back out here. I will hurt you if
you disappear on me again."
Ryousuke doesn't want to admit to the rush of warmth that gives him, so all he
does about it is smile. "Coach probably wouldn't let me go anyway."
"Probably not. You need to be making a good impression, get yourself on first
string already."
Ryousuke nods as an answer, and Haruichi's hand has released its death grip, so
he takes it that he's satisfied enough. "Could post this on the internet, but
nobody would believe me."
"Only the crazy, crackpot lunatics who believe everything."
"Do you think I'm a crackpot lunatic, Harucchi?"
Haruichi nods, firm and definite. "Absolutely."
Ryousuke just laughs.
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Haruichi's quiet on the drive back to the hotel, and Ryousuke thinks of the
drive back from Fuji, reminds him that he really has no idea what is ever going
on in his brother's mind, all the years spent pushed apart and he doesn't know
what to do when he's upset, how to fix it, but he wants to learn.
All he can do for the moment is reach over for Haruichi's hand, link their
fingers together when Haruichi turns them palm to palm, and hope it helps
somehow.
He's not sure what to think about what happened in the forest, caught up in the
excitement, the possible truth that they experienced something paranormal and
there's proof on their cameras, undeniable yellow and white tape, but he still
feels the cold in him, that moment he thought Haruichi was truly lost.
Ryousuke's hit with the realization that everything he thought he knew about
himself was a lie, because for all his dreams, his red string of fate, he knows
now he would give up all of it for this boy, and that's new, that's the
opposite from the way he'd always planned it.
Truthfully, he could never imagine a life without Haruichi there, but he always
saw them on different pro teams, defending their own individual second base,
cheering for each other's home runs, keeping that distance that Ryousuke knew
had to be there, to protect him. Now that distance is gone, now Haruichi is
here, beside him, and he wonders if this is what it's like to be in love, to
want that person always within reach, despite what it means for every other
aspect of his life.
He's not sure how he feels about these changes.
At the hotel, he parks the car, pockets the key, but he doesn't get out yet,
and Haruichi's hand is still laying on the seat where he left it to work the
gear shift, so he reaches for it again, glides over the tight firmness of
calluses. "I'm sorry. What happened in there... I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, don't even think that." Haruichi sighs, reaches over to
turn Ryousuke's face toward him, but his eyes still focus out the window, so
Haruichi leans and kisses him, leaves his hand on the warmth of his cheek. "We
wanted something to happen."
Ryousuke huffs out a laugh. "Yeah but not like that."
"Ghost-beggars can't be choosers."
Ryousuke fully laughs at that, bites Haruichi's lip before kissing him again,
sliding a hand up his neck, into his hair, still damp with sweat and humidity.
"Let's go in."
It's cold in the room, and Haruichi hurries to turn the air conditioner down,
while Ryousuke sits on the bed and flips on the television.
Haruichi watches him, thinking about how wrong the entire morning has felt,
with Ryousuke's guilt, and the forest, and he wishes for that lightness they
had on Fuji, the easy smiles and touches and he thinks, they're back on Earth
now, of course it's going to be different.
He gets an idea then, picks up his phone on the way to sit on the bed behind
Ryousuke, propping up his knees so he can hide what he's doing. When he finds
what he's looking for, he nudges his feet under Ryousuke's leg to get his
attention. "Aniki, I found us something to do next."
Ryousuke looks back, rubs a hand over the grass stains on Haruichi's socks. "If
it involves nature, the answer is no."
Haruichi snorts, and he's blushing, so Ryousuke pinches his ankle. "Ow, sadist.
No I... I found a place with batting cages, I thought your hands might be
itching, mine are, and...." He doesn't say, I thought we could use something
normal.
Ryousuke watches the blush spread, watches him look away and fidget, and he
gets what he's saying. He rubs the pinched bone to soothe it, and nods. "That
sounds perfect."
Haruichi relaxes, and scoots forward to lean on Ryousuke's shoulder, curling a
hand tight in his shirt, and Ryousuke's hand is still on his ankle, and he's
not cold anymore, he's so wonderfully warm.
+
It's not too busy in the baseball section of the sports park, but there's an
american-style football game going on that's drawn a crowd, and Haruichi likes
the sound of all the cheering, the way it shoots into a wild roar when someone
gets a touchdown.
Ryousuke finds the counter where they can rent bats, a big tub of balls for the
machines, helmets that don't quite fit perfectly but they'll do, and the man
asks if they need other protective gear and Haruichi kind of laughs, because
it's a machine, it's not like Sawamura's going to be out there flinging crazy
pitches at them.
He twirls his bat over his shoulder like a Final Fantasy victory pose, and
follows Ryousuke out to the field, the dog pound feel of all the fences and
nets, and they pick one to share. "Did I tell you about that guy who tried to
make me switch to a metal bat?"
Ryousuke laughs fast, almost stumbles. "What? Was he insane?"
"Probably. He thought he could change all of us, took us a while to figure out
what he was trying to do." Haruichi's expression tightens, and he sets down the
bats, goes out to help Ryousuke load the machine with balls. "I did try it
though, the metal bat, I mean. It felt all wrong."
Ryousuke gives him a smirk, and turns the machine to its fastest setting. "At
least you tried it."
"I felt like I had to, like I couldn't defend myself for preferring the wood if
I hadn't swung metal lately."
Ryousuke follows him back to home plate, watching Haruichi stretch out his
shoulders. "Exactly. It's good to try something different sometimes, to remind
yourself why you like the things you do."
"That's really deep, Ryou."
"Shut up."
Haruichi laughs, and Ryousuke tries to chop him in the head, but the helmet
makes him change his mind halfway through the air, and Haruichi can't help
laughing harder. The first pitch hits the net behind them and Haruichi snorts,
blushes bright red.
Ryousuke smirks again. "Strike one, Kominato Junior. Get your head in the
game." He moves to stand on the other side of the plate, batting left, while
Haruichi bats right, and they can take turns that way, stepping in and out of
the batter's boxes.
Haruichi hits the next one, straight through the air. "How about, the one with
the most home runs wins, and loser has to do whatever the winner wants."
Ryousuke's eyebrows go up, and he swings, perfect pull to the right. It's so
easy to aim when the pitcher is an accurate machine. "You'll regret that
later."
Haruichi has his hair pushed aside, held in place by the helmet, and his eyes
flash challenge when Ryousuke meets them. "Maybe not." Then he hits again, into
the back fence. "One for me."
Ryousuke wants to say, you're so wonderful when you're like this, how could you
want to give this up, when you're so perfect, but instead he hits to the same
place as Haruichi's, and smirks. "One for me too."
They're tied when the machine runs out of balls, and they walk together out to
fill it back up, and Haruichi can see the lack of tension in Ryousuke again,
not drawn-up and worried like he had been all day, and he lets himself relax
too, runs a discreet hand over Ryousuke's arm while they're tending to the
machine.
"I've been thinking about what you said, about playing for fun, and I think,
when I said I didn't really like baseball, maybe I did mean I didn't like
playing baseball without you, I don't know. I think I was... disappointed in
it, because it hadn't taken me where I wanted to go."
Ryousuke looks up, watches him squint in the sunlight, and reaches over to tuck
a sliding lock of hair back under the helmet. "Yes it did."
Haruichi startles, looks away from the sky to see Ryousuke smiling in that
crooked tilt, and he thinks he might be blushing, or it's a trick of the light,
all this bright sparkling sun.
Ryousuke tilts his smile a little more and says, "We're here now, aren't we?"
Haruichi exhales fast, and Ryousuke is right again, always right, and he gets
that loosening sensation again, knots untied and set free. "Yeah."
"So you can keep chasing me, it's not over, but it doesn't have to mean more
than it is, because you've already caught me. And you will always have me, no
matter what you decide to do, but I like seeing how fast you improve when I'm
not looking back." He steps closer, lays a hand on Haruichi's chest, as much as
he'll allow himself out here where they could be seen. "I see headlights in the
mirror, Harucchi. Are you going to drop out of the race when you're so close?"
He leans into Ryousuke's hand, lets him feel the way his heart speeds up,
because he does need the chase, he needs that eventual victory. "I think, now
that I have you this way, I can keep going. I can try."
Ryousuke nods, and presses into the thrumming heartbeat before dropping his
hand, turning the machine back on.
Haruichi walks after him, and it's so hard not to reach for more contact out
here, when that's all he wants to do. "It's kinda funny though, you telling me
to keep chasing, when you always told me to stop."
That troublesome smirk is back. "I contradict myself a lot, but it's for your
own good."
Haruichi sighs, the look how much I endure from you kind of sigh, and hits the
first pitch, a little too much to the left, the outfield could have caught
that. "Cruel, always so cruel."
"When it's necessary." Ryousuke hits the next one, almost perfect. "I will be
honest though, I never really knew why it was so important for you to do
everything I was doing, to compare yourself to it. I thought you wanted to be
like me, and all I wanted was for you to be yourself."
Haruichi hits another. "And all I wanted was for you to see me."
"I do, Haruichi. I always have."
It's easier for them to say it now, to admit the things they've kept hidden for
so long, and it lights up under Haruichi's skin, that Ryousuke was always
watching, that he could see how hard he worked, and Ryousuke's right, he's
exactly where he wants to be.
When they finish, Ryousuke's ahead by two, and Haruichi wants to go pay for
more balls so he can try again, I'll beat you this time, wait and see, but
there's a group of kids waiting outside the fence for their turn, so they leave
it to them.
The football game is still going on, and they stop to watch, leaning against
the chainlink. Haruichi traces the diamond shape with his fingers, and watches
a pile of guys roll across the ground. "So you won. What's your prize going to
be?"
Ryousuke smiles tiny, but enough for Haruichi to notice it. "I don't know yet.
I'll have to think."
"Don't hurt yourself."
Ryousuke raises a hand. "Your helmet won't save you now, boy."
Haruichi laughs, and grabs his arm out of the air, holds onto it a little
longer than he should, rubbing over the tendons of his wrist. "I could pay for
you to get one of those deep tissue massages at the onsen."
"Ooh, that's tempting. Or you could give me one yourself, for free."
"I'd do that anyway, so it's not much of a prize."
Ryousuke shrugs, and watches the blue team go for a touchdown, getting tackled
halfway down the field. "Jun still raves about your foot rubs."
Haruichi laughs, blushing again. "I have an acupressure book, you know like
acupuncture, without the needles."
"So that's your secret." He smirks, and Haruichi's still blushing, and he
thinks, there's so much we still need to learn about each other. "Onsen sounds
good though, let's get lunch, then go sit in there until we melt."
"Okay. But wait, let's see if they make it this time." The blue team is going
for touchdown again, and he thinks, if they make it, everything is going to be
okay.
The boy holding the football streaks into the end zone like lightning,
unstoppable, and Ryousuke sneaks his hand into Haruichi's, like he knows, like
he's saying, yes it will.
+
They don't make it to the onsen after lunch.
Ryousuke's distracted, uploading photos from his phone, Haruichi's camera,
laying out everything from the part of the forest that didn't make sense.
On one side of the screen, white markers. On the other side, yellow.
He puts them in order, the way they'd taken them, one new marker in each frame,
and finally he picks two, one of each color, and pulls up the exif data. "Look
at these, we took them at the same time, in almost the same place. We were
standing side by side."
Haruichi shifts on the bed so he can see the screen, and he can't avoid the
chill, the sick rush that makes him reach for Ryousuke. "That's... wow,
that's... something really happened out there, didn't it."
"Yeah." Ryousuke laughs mostly silent, touches the screen like he could get
answers that way somehow. "This is amazing."
Haruichi moves again, gets his camera and Ryousuke's phone, and takes a picture
of the time on the phone's screen, then checks the photo data to compare. He
shows Ryousuke, the time is an exact match. "Okay, we can't blame it on that."
Ryousuke uses his phone to take a picture of the proof photo on Haruichi's
camera, and he smirks from the novelty of it, the picture of a picture of a
picture sort of thing, but really it's one more piece of evidence, the times
match both ways.
He looks over it all again, a mental catalogue of everything that can be
proven, realizing it can still be claimed as fake, they could have altered the
times on the phone and camera, could have found a way to block out the markers
without it looking edited.
Haruichi watches his expression fall apart, from the bright amusement,
crumbling down to disappointment, to something like exhaustion, and it hurts
like the emotions are his own, because he knows how much Ryousuke wants this,
to be able to lay it all out and say, this happened, and be believed.
He leans in, head on the tense line of his shoulder. "Aniki. We know."
Ryousuke tilts his head over, rests it on Haruichi's, absorbing the warmth of
him. "Yeah, but it would be nice if there were no flaws in the proof. I have
someone I'll show it to though, he'll appreciate it, he'll believe it. He
teaches the literature class I'm in, and he got some poltergeist activity on
film once, it's really neat, I'll show you, it's on YouTube, but nobody
believes it because it's just a cabinet opening and closing and that can be
faked with a little engineering."
"That's how it usually is, the real stuff gets ignored, while the obvious fake
shit gets thrown around everywhere like definitive proof."
"It's because reality is so quiet, there's nothing really exciting about a
ghost that opens a cabinet door and closes it again. And that's all it ever
did, he says. Just that cabinet. Nobody's going to make a movie out of that."
Haruichi has to laugh a little, because it's kind of funny, and he's relieved
when Ryousuke laughs too, even though he pinches him for it, hard on the arm
and it'll probably leave a bruise. Haruichi pinches him on the side, and that
small bit of contact is enough to feel how tense Ryousuke actually is, and he
remembers.... "Hey, get your shirt off and lay down. I promised you a back
rub."
Ryousuke's eyebrows go up. "You're really going to deliver on that?"
Haruichi blushes fast, and he gets up to find where he stuck the bottles of
hotel lotion, and hopes they don't smell bad. "Well, yeah. Unless you don't
want."
"How could I not want?" He's got that purr in his voice again, so Haruichi
relaxes, and Ryousuke moves all the technology onto the other bed, slips his
shirt off and stretches out to wait.
Haruichi comes back and settles over Ryousuke's hips, and he can't resist
sliding one hand down his spine, just to watch him shiver, watch the way his
lips part on a quiet sigh, and he wants to ask, did Kuramochi ever tell you how
beautiful you are, but he's not sure he wants to know the answer. He doesn't
want to think about anyone else's hands on his brother, though he knows they've
done 'more than kissing', and that's enough to have him violently jealous.
But he supposes, he's kissed Eijun, so they're even in a way. And he's the one
with his hands on Ryousuke now, the one with permission to touch.
Haruichi pushes out of his daze and pours lotion into his palm, warming it up,
and he feels the rumble of Ryousuke laughing silently. "What?"
Ryousuke laughs a little harder then. "Roses?"
"Shut up. It could be so much worse." Haruichi matches his laughter, and
finally drops slick hands on his shoulders, pressing into tight knots of
muscle, and that shuts him up fast.
Ryousuke exhales a sigh and shifts his arms to get more comfortable, and he
thinks about it again, Haruichi with his acupressure book, the way he hits the
spot where Ryousuke's been tight for weeks, and it melts out like hot butter,
like it was never tense at all. "What made you learn the acupressure thing?"
Haruichi moves to another knot, like a fucking rock under his skin. "I get neck
pain sometimes, so it was something I decided to try. It's useful though, Eijun
gets a lot of cramps, and I used to help Masuko-senpai with his backaches, from
the awful way he hunches over while he's reading. Pretty much anyone, if they
asked."
Ryousuke hums, laughs quietly again. "I had no idea you were the team
masseuse."
"That's because you were always avoiding me." It comes out soft, a hurt piece
of honesty, and Ryousuke wants to touch him, apologize, explain, but they know
all the excuses by now.
All he can find to say is, "Tell me something else I don't know about you. Tell
me everything."
Haruichi feels it like an apology though, feels it like a warm blanket over all
the hurt spaces. "I don't like coconut. Mom used to make that cake, and I'd eat
it, but I really didn't like it, I just didn't want to tell her. But sometimes
Eijun eats these candies and I...." He stops then, blushes all over like he's
going to combust, and feels Ryousuke laugh.
"You like the way it tastes when he kisses you."
Haruichi makes an embarrassed sound, glad that Ryousuke's eyes are closed,
can't see the way he blushes even worse. "I don't really want to talk about
Eijun."
Ryousuke can peek though, sneaky through his lashes. "But you like him."
"Maybe, a little. It doesn't mean anything."
Ryousuke's quiet for a moment, relaxing into Haruichi's knuckles, pressing
knots out of his spine, but he has to know, has to ask, "Would it mean
something, if it wasn't for me?"
Haruichi sighs, and it takes him a moment to answer. "No, because I'm still not
the one Eijun wants."
"Miyuki."
"Yeah." Haruichi laughs. "They're really dumb, Ryou. They both want each other
so bad, but they won't admit it in actual words, they just keep doing things to
piss each other off. Kuramochi sees it too, sometimes we sit together and watch
them fight, because it's like a train wreck in slow motion, and we're waiting
for them to finally collide."
"That's actually kind of sad."
"It is." He shifts then, off Ryousuke's hips so he can pull his jeans down a
little, get lower on his spine. He fits his knuckles in and pushes down hard,
joints popping with a series of cracks like fireworks, and the groan he gets
from Ryousuke is pure victory. "Do you miss Kuramochi, your benefits
situation?"
Ryousuke laughs, but it's breathless and relaxed. "Sometimes. But we keep in
touch, we're still friends."
"Yeah, he said you did. I'm glad." He is, despite his jealousy, glad that
Ryousuke has friends, people he can talk to, laugh with, he's glad Ryousuke's
not alone and unhappy. "Tell me something about you, something I don't know."
Tell me something Kuramochi doesn't know.
"Hmm, I write, I guess you don't know that. Short stories, horror, but I never
show anyone."
Haruichi smiles, finds he likes the idea of his brother as a writer, thinks it
fits, the way he could always tell a story and make it good, make it scary.
"Really? Would you let me read them?"
Ryousuke shrugs, and Haruichi can see it when he blushes, and that's twice
today, Ryousuke shy but still open, not hiding the embarrassment away. "I
might. I kind of owe you, I suppose, for Aokigahara."
Haruichi laughs, and he's finished with the massage, runs his hands over
Ryousuke's back and finds only pliant muscles, none of the painful knots, so he
shifts to sit beside him, gives him room to wiggle his pants back in place. "So
that idea I had, about doing the manga together, that could actually be a
possibility."
"I really do like that idea." Ryousuke rolls onto his side, takes one of
Haruichi's hands, soft from the silly rose lotion. "Can I see your art
someday?"
Haruichi blushes, but he nods. "It's only fair, if you're letting me read your
stories. I'll warn you though, I like to draw dirty fanart."
Ryousuke makes a sound, it's sort of a cough, sort of too many things caught in
his throat at once, and finally it makes it out as a laugh. "Fuck, Haru, are
you serious?"
"I'm serious." He tries to pinch Ryousuke's side, but all the slick skin makes
it slide harmlessly away. "You need to stop thinking of me as a child."
"No you're right, I guess I do. I still see my little baby brother drawing
robots and explosions. It's hard sometimes to admit you've grown up." He
catches Haruichi's hand again, holds it in both of his, and he thinks of when
his hands were larger, when the two years between them were clearly visible,
when Ryousuke was tall enough for Haruichi to hide behind, tall enough to
protect him.
Haruichi leans over, kisses him soft. "So have you. You're a college student
now, it's really weird. Soon you'll have a job, then someday I'll have a job,
and we'll have to act like mature adults and take care of ourselves and pay
rent and buy groceries and can you even cook, Ryousuke?"
Ryousuke laughs. "I can cook. Can you?"
"Absolutely not. Zono tried to teach me to boil eggs, and the stove caught on
fire."
Ryousuke fully cackles, has to press his face into the pillow, and he deserves
it when Haruichi punches him in the arm, twice, and he can't speak yet so he
grabs Haruichi by the shirt, drags him down to lay beside him. When he opens
his eyes, Haruichi is pouting, and blushing, and he feels it harder than any
simple punch, how intensely he loves him. "I'm sorry, but that was a very cute
mental image. The two of you panicking in the kitchen, burning down Seidou."
"I will shave your head in your sleep if you tell anyone."
Ryousuke smirks. "I'll keep your secret, disaster boy. But you have to tell me
about this dirty fanart."
"Aniki!" Haruichi laughs though, covers his face with his hands and laughs
harder when Ryousuke tries to pry them away. "Fine, it's mostly Oofuri, and
Initial D. I like the Takahashi brothers, and Takumi with them both, and I like
Abe and Mihashi, and really it's just something to do when I don't know what to
draw, keeps my hands from getting lazy."
Ryousuke is fully grinning, and Haruichi suspects he's going to regret this
entire conversation. But Ryousuke unexpectedly gentles, leaves one hand against
Haruichi's cheek once he finally gets it exposed, and pets over the heated
skin. "I'm sorry, stop hiding. I'll tell you a secret."
That gets Haruichi to leave his hands down, and he scoots a tiny bit closer to
Ryousuke, close enough that he can fit their knees together. "Okay, tell me."
"I was always jealous of the Takahashi brothers, because they could compete
against each other, but they were still a team. They were how I always wished
we could be."
Haruichi feels his throat lock up, barely whispers out "aniki" without his
voice breaking on the word, and he ruins his promise, shifts over the rest of
the way to hide against Ryousuke's shoulder.
Ryousuke lets him hide, slides his hand through his hair and leaves it curled
around the back of his neck. "I didn't mean for us to end up like this, so
distant. I should have been the one teaching you to boil eggs, we should have
been sharing art and stories, we should have been a team."
Haruichi sniffs, swallows hard, and he doesn't want to cry again, but there are
so many years of regret, aching like old wounds. "I'm sorry, it's my fault. I
ruined everything."
"No it's not your fault. I could have done things so differently." Ryousuke
breathes and it's shaky, and he wants to push everything away again, doesn't
want to say the one thing that would have made all the difference, would have
erased that wide border space he built between them, but he has to. "I should
have kissed you back."
He feels Haruichi gasp against his shoulder, fingers curling against his chest
like he's trying to cling to a shirt that isn't there, and he says again, quiet
like a ghost into his ear, "I'm sorry, Haru."
Haruichi moves, leans up and kisses him, rough like he's young and desperate
again, but Ryousuke isn't pushing him away, he's kissing back with the same
desperation, the way he should have the first time.
Haruichi barely pulls away from the kiss, whispers almost silent against
Ryousuke's mouth, "Can I tell you another secret?" Ryousuke nods enough for him
to feel the motion, and Haruichi waits until he stops, keeps his eyes closed as
he says, "I love you."
Ryousuke makes a sound like a whimper, presses into Haruichi's mouth for a
brief, soft moment. "I love you too." And it's the last hidden thing, the last
piece locked away, and Haruichi crashes into him, kissing him like someone who
finally has what they want, like someone happy, and he thinks, I did this, I
made him feel like this, he's not broken or ruined by the fact that I love him.
It's an awareness that begins to set him free.
Haruichi kisses down his throat, then rests again on his shoulder, wet from
where he'd cried before, and smelling like roses and forests and something warm
and purely Ryousuke. There's nothing left to wish for, nothing left to want,
and he feels so clear, and maybe Ryousuke didn't kiss him back four years ago,
but he kisses him now, and Haruichi can let go of all the things that have held
him down like heavy stones. He thinks, he can be who he should have been all
along.
"I'll go back to Seidou, and I'll stay on the team. I'll finish what I've
started."
He feels Ryousuke smile against his temple. "Good. That's my Harucchi."
Haruichi blushes, and it's cheesy, and Ryousuke's going to laugh, but he has to
say it, "Yours."
Ryousuke does laugh, but he says back, "Always," and Haruichi feels like he's
made of sunlight.
He falls asleep there, to the sound of the air conditioner and Ryousuke's hand
petting through his hair, and he dreams of kissing him on home plate, thinks of
that phrase again, heading for home, and thinks he finally understands.
+
Haruichi wakes and it's dark outside, the clock on the table saying fifteen
after six, and he can't remember what time he fell asleep, but he feels like
it's been a while. That lazy, heavy feeling settled in his limbs, and he can
still smell the rose lotion on the pillow, and it makes him think of Ryousuke
pressed close, whispering secrets.
He thinks again, everything can be okay now.
Ryousuke's sitting at the desk across the room, busy on the computer and
Haruichi's sure it's related to what happened in Aokigahara, and the lamp is
on, but he can still clearly see the glow of colored lights through the window,
the park in motion. It weirds him out a little that they never close the
curtains, like they're not worried about anyone peeking in at them, or maybe
they need that constant reminder that they're not at home. Haruichi likes it,
the hills and rides, becoming something familiar.
He sits up, pops his back as he stretches, and the sound makes Ryousuke turn
around in the chair. "You let me sleep a long time."
"I thought you might need it." He watches Haruichi lean over to get his phone
from the other bed, a teasing flash of pale skin as his shirt raises with the
movement, and Ryousuke realizes how actually fucked he is, that only a few
hours of distance leave him desperate for contact. He wonders, how is he going
to survive when Haruichi goes back to Seidou.
Haruichi yawns and blushes from it, runs a hand through his hair to tame the
sleep mess. "I guess I did."
Ryousuke turns back to the computer, and Haruichi opens an email to Sawamura,
feeling guilty that it's been days and he hasn't returned anyone's messages,
but he needed to get his head in the right place, and he thinks they
understand. Remembering how worried they all were, even before he started
punching classmates.
He thinks of Sawamura's lucky hat in his bag, types as a quick afterthought
that it actually worked, and imagines Sawamura's bright grin when he reads it,
imagines him trying to hide it before Kuramochi notices, because Kuramochi
knows a lot but he doesn't know everything, and he doesn't need to.
Then as a second afterthought he adds, Tell everyone I'll stay on the team. He
knows it's what they're all waiting for.
When he's finished he reaches for the hotel notepad and pen, thinking it's time
to make some decisions, and he writes "Now - Next Summer" and underlines it,
writes beneath it, "Baseball (catch up to Aniki)". On the next line, "After
Next Summer", and rests his pen there, a little dot of ink forming. He thinks
of Ryousuke saying, maybe it's something we can figure out together, and he
feels infinite, unstoppable.
Eventually he writes down, "Pick a two year art school, so we can graduate at
the same time", and circles it.
After that, anything is possible.
Chapter End Notes
     Love confessions, I hate writing them, it always feels so awkward.
     But I think they needed to get that out.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Haruichi's achingly aware that they have only two days left, two days until
they have to return to reality, the dorm room shared with Yuuki, where Ryousuke
will have to go to classes, baseball practice, work on that essay he's been
putting off for too long.
He wonders if they'll have a chance to touch, or if they'll have to spend the
entire time pretending they're not wanting to.
Ryousuke wanted to go back to the batting cages, so they're waiting in line,
shoulders pressed together but it's casual enough to not look like anything,
and Haruichi forces himself to think of something else, thinks instead about
last night.
He'd put a few more things on his list, things he might enjoy doing, but he hid
it away before Ryousuke could see.
Instead they watched horror movies online with dinner, conversation inevitably
turning to who is the best horror villain, and Haruichi shifts in his lean
against Ryousuke, says out of nowhere, "I still can't believe you think
Freddy's better than Pinhead."
Ryousuke laughs, and it catches in his throat like he wasn't expecting to make
the noise. "Freddy has claws, those claws are awesome."
"Pinhead can command giant fucking hooks out of the air."
Ryousuke smirks over at him. "Pinhead is named after pins, in his head."
It's such a juvenile argument, and Haruichi snorts out a laugh, blushes at the
sound, and Ryousuke is smiling at him like he's won, and it hits him then, it
finally feels like they're actually brothers, that they can have these kinds of
meaningless conversations like everyone else does, like they don't have to care
if what they're saying is stupid. That heavy weight of judgment between them is
gone, and Haruichi leans in, smiling like trouble. "Freddy looks like he's made
of roast beef."
Ryousuke cracks up, and miraculously he's saved from whatever ridiculous thing
he was going to counter with, because there's a crowd of boys standing beside
the batting cage line, armed with bats, mitts, balls, scruffy-looking catcher's
gear. One of them is saying, "We're trying to put two teams together to have a
game, does anyone want in?"
Ryousuke and Haruichi barely glance at each other before raising their hands,
saying together, "We'll play."
The boy with the catcher's gear grins. "What do you guys play?"
Again they say together, "Second," and the group laughs because it's cute, a
quiet whisper from the back wondering if they're twins.
Then Haruichi speaks, and Ryousuke isn't expecting it, couldn't have predicted
it at all when he says, "I can play short to his second, if you need that
filled."
He looks over, and Haruichi is blushing but his expression is that firm,
determined one that Ryousuke likes so much, and he thinks, this is the new
Haruichi, this is where we see the things that have changed.
It's his turn at the counter, so he distracts himself by telling the staff what
he wants to rent, halfway listening as the guys introduce themselves, as
Haruichi gives their names. Then it's another shock, really Ryousuke can't take
all this, when one of the younger boys shouts out, "No shit, you're the Seidou
Kominatos?!"
He hears Haruichi kind of choke, so Ryousuke rescues him, turns around and
smiles to hide that he's freaking out a little, like maybe this kid has seen
something, and is going to say it in front of everyone. "Yeah, that's us."
But the kid only squeals, thrilled, and claps his hand into the mitt he's
holding. "You guys are so awesome! I'm going to Seidou next year, and my
brother went to Sensen, and Seidou always kicked their ass! Will you be on my
team please?"
Haruichi is blushing like he's about to die from it, he's never been good with
these kinds of gushing compliments, and Ryousuke hands him his rented mitt,
brushes over his wrist as a calming gesture. His own mitt fits a little loose,
but it will do. "Sure. We'll play on your team."
The kid squeals again, and the older boy who originally spoke to them looks
extremely, fidgetingly embarrassed, and Ryousuke gives him a look of sympathy.
"That means you're on my team too, and I guess we've got enough, Chichi and
Himura can fight over who gets center and who gets left."
They fall in line with the group, and Haruichi points out which is Chichi and
which is Himura, though it's kind of obvious with the way they start playing
rock-paper-scissors with serious expressions. Haruichi explains, the Seidou kid
is Ito, the first boy is Kudayama, and he names off a few others before
realizing he's already forgot the rest, and Ryousuke touches his arm as he
blushes and apologizes. Whispering quiet into his ear, "I still don't know who
half of my uni team are," and Haruichi laughs.
The open field is actually nice, well maintained, and everyone gets divided up
quickly, heading to their respective dugouts. Haruichi scuffs his shoe over the
grass, wishes for his cleats, wishes for Sawamura's lucky hat. He feels naked
without his Seidou jersey, or even his own gear, and he has to remind himself
this is for fun, there's no tournament riding on this game, it doesn't matter
if he fumbles the ball because his borrowed mitt is too stiff.
He looks back and sees everyone trying on and adjusting helmets, they're first
on offense, and relaxes somewhat, realizes they're all uncomfortable in
unfamiliar gear, and it puts everyone on the same equal level.
Haruichi still wants to play his best though, wants to live up to the standard
of being a Kominato, wants to make Ryousuke proud of him.
They all vote to send Ryousuke out first, and he winks at Haruichi as he walks
past, stretching his fingers. "Get ready, little brother. Gonna need you to
bring me home."
Haruichi's a little breathless, they've never been able to bat in the same
inning before, always one or the other, and he nods, smirks like a promise.
Turns out, Ryousuke doesn't need anyone to bring him home, because he hits the
ball out to the fence, and jogs calmly over the plate to the screams of his new
impromptu team.
Haruichi's never felt so fucking proud.
The other team's pitcher is pretty good, but he's predictable, and when
Haruichi steps up to the plate, there are runners waiting on first and third.
He doesn't hit a home run, but the third base runner scores, and Haruichi makes
it to second. Two batters later, he slides across the plate, barely making
their fourth point.
Then it's three outs in a row, and their turn on the field.
Ryousuke smacks him in the chest with his mitt and Haruichi smacks him with his
bare hand, gets a quick laugh for it, and they take their places, both a little
conservative in positioning since they don't know these batters, don't know
whether to move in or shift to the side or what, but they're confident anyway.
Ryousuke's never played with Haruichi behind him but somehow he knows he can
depend on him, doesn't have to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure he's
in a good spot, he can stay focused on the action in front of him.
And the action is an instant hit, a foul that first base catches, their first
out.
They get their first play together when someone hits a grounder straight to
Haruichi's waiting mitt, and he tosses it easy to Ryousuke, tagging out the
runner.
He thinks of Kuramochi complaining, don't hold back, Ryousuke never held back,
fucking throw it to me, and he worries for a moment, but Ryousuke is grinning
like that was the best play in the world, and Haruichi's warm all over, so he
stops worrying.
He catches another before the inning is over, throws it home just in time, and
they leave the field with the score at 4 - 0. Ito leaps at him from third base,
shouting excitement, then leaps onto Ryousuke, and Haruichi thinks, yeah, I can
live with this for another year.
Second inning closes at 6 - 0, and he hears someone on the other team shouting
at his teammate, "I told you, don't fucking hit towards those Kominato dudes!"
and it takes everything not to laugh, because he has that weightless feeling,
like he's made of bubbles again.
Top of the third, Ryousuke's on his third at-bat, the fielders moving out out
out like they're never going to stop, and Haruichi sees Ryousuke's hips shift,
knows he's going to fuck up their plans and bunt. There's a runner waiting on
second, and if he steals fast enough, he might make it home.
Haruichi thinks of Kuramochi, he could make it, or that Inajitsu boy, the one
made of lightning.
Ryousuke's bunt is a slow, drippy bounce down the center, and the runner is
barely fast enough to make it home, right as Ryousuke gets tagged out at first,
a worthwhile sacrifice. It's their only run, and they switch.
Their pitcher walks the first batter, and Ryousuke can see him starting to
sweat, calls out, "It's okay, let 'em hit. Don't forget you have all of us back
here."
The others pick up the call, shouting confidence as the pitcher's blush
deepens, and Haruichi thinks of Sawamura, how he sometimes forgets he's not
alone out there, that he can relax and depend on them and not have to carry it
all by himself. "It's no fun just standing here, Masatoshi, let me catch
something!"
That gets Ito squealing again, and it takes everyone a while to calm down,
before the poor flustered boy can pitch, and when he does, it's three strikes
in a row, one out. The runner made it to second, but not third, because
Masatoshi keeps sending stink-eyes over his shoulder and Ito's grinning like
the runner is a big slice of cake he can't wait to eat.
The next batter hits a really impressive home run though, and the inning ends
at 7 - 2.
Haruichi gets another turn to bat, hits way out into left field and makes it to
third, bringing two runners home, and when he does his habitual pose, everyone
in the dugout does it too, even Ryousuke.
It's a while before he gets a chance to run home, but he does, and Ryousuke
meets him halfway to the dugout, while he's peeling off his helmet. "You're
doing really well today."
Haruichi blushes, braves a light touch to Ryousuke's neck, pretends he's
knocking grass off his shirt. "You too, Aniki."
Ryousuke smiles in response, meets Haruichi's hand where it lingers on the
grass stain, and they get it then, how difficult this is going to be, how they
can't touch when they want to, have to constantly think about the way it looks
to everyone else. How Ryousuke looks so destructively kissable with that
adrenaline-rush smile, and Haruichi catches himself leaning in, has to turn the
motion into a step to the side, toward the dugout, like that was his plan all
along.
The other team gets one more run, almost gets another, but Ryousuke dives after
it, leaving Haruichi to guard second base, and he throws it fast enough for
Haruichi to tag the runner out. One tiny decimal point of a second slower, and
they wouldn't have made it.
Ryousuke's sure Haruichi wasn't even looking at him when he threw, that intense
gaze focused on the runner, mitt held out and confident that Ryousuke would put
the ball where he needed it.
He thinks, he could imagine this as their future, not competing for position
but working together, an unbreachable iron wall. But the only way that could
happen is if Haruichi followed him to the same university, if he made short
stop before Ryousuke graduated, and that's too many ifs, too many things that
could go wrong. Ryousuke refuses to think, they had those kinds of limitations
before, and they failed.
They failed, and his brother went a little bit crazy from it, and Ryousuke
definitely doesn't want to think about that, the bruised, scabbed knuckles
slowly healing.
Fifth inning begins at 10 - 3. They only get one run, too many fly balls that
get caught, but they're still ahead so nobody's complaining. And they keep the
other team down at one run, making them 11 - 4.
Next inning is better, two for them, zero for the others, and another
telepathic play from the Kominato brothers.
Seventh inning, 13 - 4, Haruichi brings in a runner and strands himself at
third yet again. He doesn't do the pose this time, but everyone else does.
He never makes it home.
Their turn in the field, and he tries to make up for it by chasing a ball
that's soaring a little over his head, running full speed behind him and diving
into the grass, a tangled, tumbled mess and he can barely hear Ryousuke calling
for him over the way his ears are ringing. But the ball is in his mitt, so he
holds it up like victory, and hears everyone laughing.
Chichi helps him up, and Ryousuke chops him in the head when he's close enough.
"Don't do stupid things."
"I caught it, didn't I?" Haruichi grins bratty, like one of Ryousuke's typical
grins, and gets back in position. Ryousuke sighs heavy and loud and Haruichi
doesn't even blush.
The inning ends at 14 - 5.
Eighth inning, Ryousuke sends two runners home and leaves himself at second,
and he's crouched beside third when Haruichi comes up to the plate. They share
a look, sharp and undiluted by distance, and Haruichi feels it down his spine,
a heat that shivers into his tingling fingertips, and he hits it so high and so
far that it's like he took part of Ryousuke's energy with him when he swung.
Running the bases, he wonders if he'll ever hit that good again, without
Ryousuke there to watch.
The other team takes three points to their five, ending at 19 - 8.
The pitchers are clearly tired, so they decide to call it, and Ryousuke and
Haruichi are jointly tackled by Ito, like a fucking octopus, and Masatoshi
piles on, shouting something about taking them all back to school with him so
they can conquer the world.
Ryousuke's squished close enough to Haruichi that he can speak into his ear,
get heard over all the loud conversation. "This is why I play, if you were
wondering."
Haruichi's amazed he can hear at all, he's sure Ito's louder than Sawamura and
that Todoroki kid combined. "What, so people will jump all over you?"
"Shut up." But he's laughing, and Haruichi grins. "I mean the way it feels to
win."
Haruichi nods, because he gets it. "It does feel pretty great."
Everyone parts with exchanged emails, phone numbers, and Haruichi tells Ito to
work hard, so he can make it to Seidou and they can play together again, and he
feels kind of like he's floating as Ryousuke leads him back to the car.
+
At the hotel, they rock-paper-scissors for the first shower, because they're
both covered in grass and dirt, and Ryousuke wins, leaving Haruichi to discover
that he somehow ripped a belt loop, probably from that dive and tumble for the
miracle catch.
Haruichi shows him when he comes out, but it's not so interesting anymore,
because little drops of water are sliding down from the curls of Ryousuke's
hair, and Haruichi has to lick them, slow and warm up Ryousuke's neck. He feels
bold there, hidden in the soft spot behind Ryousuke's ear, feeling him shiver,
his breath catching when Haruichi bites. "Hey Aniki, don't get dressed."
Ryousuke laughs silent. "As you wish." Then he moves away from Haruichi, drops
his towel when he reaches the bed, and laughs again at the tiny, restrained
sound Haruichi makes, like they haven't seen each other naked a million times.
It's different though, when he's allowed to look, and he showers fast, thinking
about the firm lines of Ryousuke's thighs, all that power underneath pale,
smooth skin.
He feels absurdly shy when he comes out, weirdly self-aware as he drops his
towel, even though Ryousuke's eyes are closed until he's under the sheets,
slitting one of them open and making Haruichi blush even worse. "Thought you'd
gone to sleep."
Ryousuke smiles kind of lazy. "Nope." He moves, catching one hand in Haruichi's
wet hair, pulling him the rest of the way to kiss him, the way he's wanted to
kiss him all afternoon. They're clean but he can still smell grass, sunshine,
oiled leather, and it's perfect.
Haruichi slips one leg between Ryousuke's, uses it as leverage to roll them
over, Ryousuke on top, and Ryousuke laughs because it reminds him of a
Kuramochi wrestling move but he doesn't want to say that, doesn't want Haruichi
thinking of jealousy again.
Instead he shifts the leg slung over Haruichi's, and catches the gasp from him
when their hips meet, again when Haruichi arches up and presses them tighter
together. Ryousuke sits up then, wasn't planning to but he kind of accidentally
startled himself, because he knows what he wants now, and he isn't sure how to
ask for it, isn't sure Haruichi is even ready to be asked for it.
Haruichi pets over the sleek thighs he'd been daydreaming about, feels the
ripple of muscle as Ryousuke shifts, and Ryousuke's blushing, looking somehow
nervous, unsure. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, I was thinking."
"About what?"
He looks down, trails a hand down Haruichi's side, and there is actually a
little bruise from where he fell, so he bends and kisses it, and at least that
way his blushing face is somewhat hidden, and he gets it now, why Haruichi
wears his hair like that. "I'd like...." Ryousuke laughs, this is so
embarrassing. "I want you to fuck me. Like this."
Haruichi feels lightning-struck, so suddenly hot and electric, and gasps out a
curse, feels Ryousuke laugh against his ribs. "You mean it?" Ryousuke nods, and
Haruichi whines, can't help the impatient jerk of his hips. "We don't have any
stuff though."
Ryousuke sits up again, reaches over to the side table where Haruichi put the
lotion, what was left after the massage, and it's not his number one choice for
a first time, but it's better than taking it dry. "Wait, how do you know about
needing stuff, what have you been doing with your sweet little Eijun?"
Haruichi flares bright red, and pinches right above Ryousuke's knee, making him
squeak. "You know we haven't done anything like this. I... I researched. That's
all."
Ryousuke hums, teasingly contemplative, and Haruichi pinches him twice, and
Ryousuke's hand raises into chopping position. "I am naked, and hard as fuck,
but I will still knock your brain out your ears."
Haruichi laughs and soothes over the pinched spot. "Sorry, but that is really,
really hot, Aniki." He wants to tell him he is really, really hot even without
the threat of violence, sitting on Haruichi like that, naked and hard as fuck,
the little impatient squirming he keeps doing.
"You're lucky you're cute, or I would destroy you for that." He smirks though,
gets another blushing laugh out of Haruichi, then catches his pinching hand,
holds it for a moment. "Are you really okay with this?"
Haruichi exhales, links their fingers tight. "Of course I am. Your ass is going
to smell like roses though."
Ryousuke chokes, that harsh, unexpected kind of laugh. "I changed my mind, you
are going to die."
Haruichi snickers, then sighs, rubs over Ryousuke's palm. "Seriously though, I
want this, if you do."
"Yeah?" He waits for Haruichi to nod, then bends down to kiss him, both a
little shaky with want, and Haruichi feels like he might actually die if he
doesn't get this, didn't know how desperately he wanted it until it was
offered.
Ryousuke sits back, and presses the lotion bottle into Haruichi's hand,
blushing so much it's starting to hurt, and Haruichi looks shocked, but
Ryousuke can see the way his cock twitches when the meaning sinks in. "Go on."
He rises up a little on his knees, angles himself back against Haruichi's legs,
and he doesn't mean it to look like an invitation, but it sort of does, like an
offering.
Haruichi props himself up on one elbow, slides the other hand over the tension
of Ryousuke's inner thigh, the extra soft skin where his leg joins his body,
and he feels Ryousuke shiver, and that's enough to get him moving finally,
popping the lotion bottle open. They both only slightly giggle at the rose
scent.
He slicks up his fingers, fumbles a little as he presses one inside Ryousuke,
and any humor in the situation fades out quickly as Ryousuke gasps, clenches
briefly around Haruichi's finger and that, that knocks the breath out of
Haruichi. "Does it hurt?"
Ryousuke shifts so he can support himself with one hand, so he can pet through
Haruichi's hair, like encouragement. "Nope. It's fine, keep going."
Haruichi nods, a bit more confident, and slides in a second finger alongside
the first, and he doesn't ask that time when Ryousuke gasps, when his muscles
twitch and Haruichi goes breathless again. He slides his fingers out, adds more
lotion, then pushes back in, farther, until Ryousuke jerks, makes a high, sharp
sound in his throat, and Haruichi smirks, hits the same spot again.
Ryousuke rocks down for another jolt of sensation, and Haruichi thinks, he'd be
content doing this, watching as all the teasing and self-conscious tension
eases out of Ryousuke until there's nothing left but pleasure, and the tiny
noises he makes when Haruichi's fingers press repeatedly into that spot.
"Fuck, Haru, come on." His voice sounds raw already, and Haruichi shivers,
pulls out of him slow, and Ryousuke raises fully up on his knees, waiting while
Haruichi squeezes out the last of the lotion and slicks over himself.
He manages to say, "So impatient," and he sounds just as ruined, rough in a way
he's never heard himself sound before, but he supposes that's fair, everything
at this point is new.
Ryousuke is smirking, but that fades out as Haruichi lines himself up, and
Ryousuke sinks down, careful, his head dropping back because this is exactly
what he wants, this overheated pressure of Haruichi sliding inside him, drawing
out a whine that he can't hold back, Haruichi cursing low as he seats himself
fully on his hips.
Haruichi's trying to breathe, trying not to come already, fingers curling in
Ryousuke's thighs as a grounding point, and Ryousuke's hand finds his again,
squeezing tight. He moves his other hand up to Ryousuke's cock, the contact
making him gasp, exhale shaky and uneven, and Haruichi feels the shiver, knocks
his head back into the pillow and whimpers.
Ryousuke moves then, raises up a little, shifts forward into Haruichi's hand,
and slides back down, Haruichi's hips rising to meet him, and they manage to
find a slow rhythm like that, in the awkward shifts, the oversensitive electric
jolts that hit them with each new movement.
Ryousuke wants it to last, but each slow draw of Haruichi's cock inside him
pushes him closer, until he's tense with trying to hold back, and he sees it in
Haruichi too, the way he bites his lip, gasps so hard he hears the air drag
through his throat. "It's okay, let go." And Haruichi whimpers, collapses
against the mattress as he comes.
Ryousuke follows fast, a moan caught high in his throat as he shakes, and he
never thought it would feel this good, Haruichi still hot inside him, faint
pressure still against his prostate making it almost too much, too good.
He moves off Haruichi to drop beside him, kisses him clumsy and satisfied, and
Haruichi can feel the smile curling on Ryousuke's lips before he opens his eyes
to see it, whispering a soft "Aniki" against the warmth of his mouth.
Haruichi thinks, this is it, this is the last possible line to cross, and the
world hasn't ended, nothing changed, and he says without planning to, "How am I
going to go home without you?"
Ryousuke laughs quiet, sighs and it's still shaky. "I've been wondering the
same thing."
Haruichi tries to laugh, but it comes out sounding too sad, so he gives up. "We
can visit though, right? We can find time."
"Yeah, we can." He presses a kiss to Haruichi's forehead, still-damp hair swept
aside, and he feels the tension creases relax somewhat.
Haruichi squirms until he can fit his head beneath Ryousuke's chin, the way he
used to when they were little. "This is all I ever wanted, you know. I mean
aside from the really good sex, I mean, us, spending time together."
Ryousuke can't help smirking about the 'really good sex' part, but he nods,
drops another kiss on the top of Haruichi's head. "Me too. I'm sorry for all
the horrible things I've said to you."
"It's okay, I guess I needed to hear them, it kept me moving forward." He sighs
again, and he doesn't want to think about the way things were. Only a handful
of days ago, but like another lifetime. "I liked it today, playing together. I
felt like... I was finally in the right place."
"I liked it too. We do make a good team."
Haruichi smiles warm, thinks of Ryousuke and his quiet secrets. "I've been
making a list, things I might want to do from this point on, and I thought
maybe I could do two years of art classes somewhere while you finish yours, but
maybe if I come to your school, we could try being a team for those two years."
Ryousuke nudges Haruichi away from his hiding spot, wants to look at him as he
speaks, to see if his eyes are serious and sure, and he palms his cheek, still
flushed and warm, seeing exactly what he hoped for. "You'll have to work really
fucking hard, no more running off to climb mountains when you get frustrated."
Haruichi laughs, blushes even more against Ryousuke's hand. "I know. You too,
get noticed, become a starter and save me a spot in the dugout."
Ryousuke nods. "I will, no more slacking off."
It hurts him to hear the admittance, but he doesn't comment, just leans in for
a quick kiss, a soft assurance. But now he has a goal, and he moves reluctantly
away to reach for the notepad and pen, Ryousuke watching amused as he writes,
scratching out "Pick a two year art school" and writing below it, "Two years of
art at Ryousuke's school, so we can play together until we graduate."
And that's it, he's finally got it right.
Haruichi exhales, and watches Ryousuke take the notepad, tracing over the
words, the bold kanji like a promise, like a vow they can't break. "I think
I've figured things out now, I think I can make sense of it."
"Oh?" That taunting lilt is back in Ryousuke's voice, and Haruichi smiles at
it, instead of resenting it.
"I wasn't sure if I still liked baseball, and you made me see that I do, and
it's not as complicated as I was trying to make it. I like it because it's what
I do, it's the way I can challenge myself, and it doesn't matter that it's
baseball, you could have picked anything and I would have followed you into it,
chasing, trying to catch up. But you did pick baseball. And if I quit, I
wouldn't have that challenge anymore, and now that I have your attention, I can
play for the purpose of that challenge, without the disappointment."
Ryousuke looks at him for a moment, sideways through his lashes, then he breaks
into a full grin. "Little Harucchi finally gets it. That's good, I was starting
to worry."
Haruichi swats his arm, and takes back his notepad. "You are such an ass."
"An ass that smells like roses."
They both cackle about that for a moment, childish and giddy, and Haruichi puts
his stuff back on the table so he can curl up against Ryousuke again.
Ryousuke rubs his shoulder, idle contact, thinking about Haruichi's list, the
fact that before this week he never would have put much thought into a future
without baseball, sleepwalking along that bright red line. "I can say, I really
like baseball, I love it, but I don't know if it's what I want to do every day
for the rest of my life. Like I said on Fuji, it's the easy way, keeps me from
having to make decisions, but it might not be the right way. I've spent what,
thirteen, fourteen years, doing nothing but baseball? Maybe it's time for
something else."
"You can still play for fun, it's not like you have to stop."
"Exactly. But maybe I can eat sleep breathe something else for a while." He
gives Haruichi's shoulder a brief shake. "After we have our last two years
together. I mean it about working hard."
Haruichi's enduring sigh rattles out of him from the shaking. "I will, Aniki, I
will."
"I know." He shifts Haruichi over and kisses him light and quick, then sits up,
wincing as his body reminds him what he was doing moments ago, and Ryousuke
lets out a quiet laugh. "I need another shower. Then onsen."
Haruichi smiles at nice warm onsen thoughts, and runs his hand over Ryousuke's
back, gets a soft hum when he knuckles into a tense spot. "We also need new
sheets, unless you want to switch and sleep on the other bed. And food. I'm
hungry."
"The other bed is covered in rocks." Ryousuke stands up, knows if he sits there
much longer, he'll end up begging for a full back rub, and he's hungry too.
"Wanna eat at the onsen again?"
"That's fine." Haruichi watches Ryousuke walk to the bathroom, a little wobbly,
the occasional flinch, and he can't help thinking, holy shit, I did that to
him. He also can't help laughing a tiny bit, and Ryousuke flips his middle
finger at him before closing the bathroom door.
Haruichi rolls over and laughs into the pillow. He feels so amazingly, stupidly
happy.
***** Chapter 7 *****
Haruichi watches the sky lighten as the sun rises, clouds shifting orange and
pink, and he thinks, we have to leave here tomorrow.
His eyes burn and his chest aches, not letting himself cry about it, but all he
can think is that he doesn't want to leave, this little private world of theirs
and everything they've built between them, everything they've done and said in
places they can't return to, can't see every day and think of each other.
Memories in places where other people will sit and walk and sleep, washing away
all their firsts.
That spot on the wall where he learned how to kiss him, the bed where he
learned the way it feels to touch him, to be inside him, this room where they
learned how to talk to each other without hiding.
Haruichi wipes quickly at his eyes, but Ryousuke is busy on the computer again,
not paying attention, and he thinks the sunrise isn't nearly as interesting as
watching him scroll through pages, making notes in a notebook he should be
using for essay plans, so he moves from the chair, goes to peek over his
shoulder instead.
Ryousuke gives him a soft smile and Haruichi returns it, not bothering to say
anything because he can hear the heavy bass throbbing from his headphones, and
Ryousuke points briefly at the screen and writes something down.
Haruichi squints at the text, sees something about quantum superposition and
parallel universes, sentences spaced between mathematical equations and he
realizes, Ryousuke is actually understanding this, dubstep pulsing in his ears
and he's writing theories in the margins of his notebook, around cramped
paragraphs and equations spilling in numbers and symbols down multiple sheets
of paper.
Haruichi remembers all the math and science books in his room back home, wedged
in between horror novels, the way he kept them hidden at Seidou, like he didn't
want anyone to know he was more than the average baseball idiot, and Haruichi
thinks, there really is so much about you I don't know yet.
Ryousuke pauses his music, pulls his headphones down around his neck. "I want
to go back."
Haruichi makes an unplanned desperate noise, fingers clenching in Ryousuke's
shirt, and he realizes he'll do anything to keep his brother out of that
forest. "You think there's some kind of wormhole out there, and that going back
will let you solve all the mysteries of the universe, and I don't give a fuck
about the universe, you're not going."
Ryousuke laughs, turns in his chair so he can get both of his hands tangled in
Haruichi's. "I don't know what I think it is, I don't know enough about it. But
something happened, and the photos prove we weren't hallucinating out of panic,
or a folie a deux, or whatever excuse we can think of. It happened. We were
there, occupying the exact same space at the exact same time and yet we
couldn't see each other, or the ways we had affected our own environment. It
was two different environments at the same time. And I still don't know if it's
ghosts or science, but it's fucking amazing."
"And what if it doesn't give you back. What if you get stuck in some alternate
dimension and I never see you again. Are you okay with that, for your precious
fucking answers?" He doesn't mean to snap, didn't know he was angry until he
heard his voice crack, and he has to pull away from Ryousuke, sitting quickly
on the bed because his legs have gone numb.
Everything is collapsing in on him without any defense against it, all the ways
he could lose Ryousuke, going back to Seidou without him, this sudden empty
space and heavy anguish that he doesn't know how to process.
Ryousuke unhooks himself from his headphones and moves to stand in front of
Haruichi, stealing the hands from his face so he can hold them again, and he
hates how they're trembling, hates that he ever wanted to go in the stupid
forest in the first place, hates that he still really wants to go back. "No.
I'm not okay with that. I want to go, but I won't."
Haruichi swallows down another pathetic sound he doesn't want to make, nods
because that's all he can really do. "I want answers too. But I want you more."
Ryousuke feels struck, and he has to close his eyes tight, trying not to think,
if this had not happened between them, he'd have nothing to keep him from going
back in the forest, no reason to want to stay in his current timeline. He's
never thought of his life that way before, as something disposable,
interchangeable. That he might have been grateful for an alternate universe
with a Haruichi who didn't kiss him in the haunted house.
Ryousuke sits down fast, eyes still squeezed shut and he feels the lightness of
Haruichi's fingertips against the lashes, and it takes him a moment to figure
out why they feel wet when Haruichi touches his cheek.
He wants to push him away, not used to these emotional outbursts he's been
having so many of, hates for anyone to see him like this, but maybe it's okay
this time, if it's Haruichi. Maybe it can be okay for him to see.
Ryousuke makes himself breathe and lets the tears fall, hears Haruichi's quiet
gasp, and finally says, "I don't know what to do with this. I don't know how to
deal with how immense everything feels, all this new... shit... in my head." He
laughs slightly. "How do people live like this, every day, and not go crazy?"
Haruichi laughs too, and leans on Ryousuke's shoulder, and it's the shirt with
the rip in it so he can't resist kissing the bare skin. "Most people are not
emotionally-stunted idiots like we are."
Ryousuke snickers at that. "True." He reaches up to touch the tear in his
shirt, lets his hand slide over to Haruichi's mouth, watches him blush as
Ryousuke traces over his upper lip. "We're okay though."
It's not a question, but Haruichi answers anyway. "We're very okay." He leans
in then and kisses him, and they might not know how to deal with all the new,
massive things they're making each other feel, but they'll figure it out.
They'll figure it out together and that's what counts.
+
They spend half the day watching Initial D episodes, enjoying the simplicity of
sitting together, sharing snacks from the vending machine. Ryousuke likes the
way Haruichi twitches during the race scenes, spends enough time watching him
to have a sudden revelation that the twitches aren't random, it's Haruichi
playing out the driving maneuvers, and he remembers Haruichi saying, maybe I
could learn to drift like Takumi.
He thinks, maybe he could, maybe there's nothing his brilliant little brother
can't do, but he's not going to say it, he'll keep it with the rest of his
secrets.
Haruichi's toes twitch, brake clutch gas, and Ryousuke smiles, slides his hand
lightly under the gear shift hand to feel the reflexive clench, and it's so
fucking adorable he doesn't know what to do about it.
Then the episode is over, and Haruichi has to sit up and stop it, so they don't
have to hear the ending credits. "You still haven't told me what you want for
your prize."
Ryousuke gives a short laugh. "That's really important?"
Haruichi shrugs, loading the next video, but he doesn't press play. "You won.
So yes."
Ryousuke hums, and it might be good that Haruichi can't see the slant of his
grin, or he might change his mind. "Okay, I know. You have to beat my third
year batting average."
Haruichi kind of squawks, turns around with his mouth open in shock. "What?!"
"You heard me. Next year, your third year, you have to beat me."
Haruichi's a glorious, predictable shade of red, but his shock turns to
determination, and he nods, actually blushing brighter as he says, "I planned
on doing that anyway."
Ryousuke laughs, but he's more interested in the thrill that runs through him,
the near-adrenaline excitement, and he purrs, goosebumps on his arms. "Good. I
know you can do it."
Haruichi nods again, still blushing, but Ryousuke sees him shiver before
reaching for the computer again, starting the next video.
He knows, this boy will never disappoint him, and he has to make sure he
doesn't disappoint Haruichi either.
+
One last trip to the onsen before they leave, and they're both sunk way down to
their noses in the water, trying not to fall asleep in it.
Haruichi raises up barely enough to speak, moving the towel from his head onto
the side of the bath because it's giving him a headache. "I'm really going to
miss this."
"So am I. You still have that big bath at Seidou, you can close your eyes and
pretend."
Haruichi laughs. "It smells like feet in there, it's not nearly the same."
Ryousuke snickers, splashes at the water a little bit, though there's a few
other people in there and they need to behave. "No I guess not. But we'll come
back someday, or find another one, they're all over the country you know."
"I know." And Ryousuke can hear the pout in his voice without having to look.
"But this one's ours."
Ryousuke exhales hard and makes the water ripple, he still doesn't know how to
deal with it, these sudden things that make his heart clench, and he searches
around until he finds Haruichi's hand, holding it hidden between them. "Then we
can come back to this one."
The assurance makes Haruichi relax, thinking again of how much of this place is
theirs, the hotel, the onsen, Fuji, Aokigahara, the white and yellow tape like
a persistent memory until weather washes it all away.
He'd been thinking earlier, during dinner, that maybe it wasn't meant to be a
negative experience, maybe it was trying to tell them something, a metaphor for
the way they'd been living. Both of them on the same path through life, but
hidden from each other, when they didn't need to be.
Haruichi laughs to himself, says quietly, "Two roads diverged in a haunted
wood."
Ryousuke laughs, sits up a little more. "What?"
"Just thinking, what if it wasn't dangerous, what if it was telling us not to
make the same mistakes again."
Ryousuke tilts his head, and it's cute and Haruichi has to hide his smile under
the water. "Okay, let's go with that. Now we have to ask, what mistakes are we
not supposed to make, and what was telling us? The forest, baseball gods,
ourselves from the future?"
Haruichi pinches his wrist. "You're stuck on that quantum time travel angle,
aren't you."
Ryousuke pinches him back. "Maybe for now. But even that poem of yours fits,
because if there are two roads, and you take one, there's still another version
of yourself somewhere taking the other road, and maybe another version of you
that turns around and goes back the way you came. Every time there's a division
of choice, new timelines of yourself are created."
Haruichi thinks about it, the concept kind of sad when he wonders if the other
Haruichis out there are happy, or if he's the only one who made all the right
choices along the way. "Somewhere there's a version of us who aren't here right
now. There's a Haruichi who didn't kiss his Ryousuke in the hotel room, a
Ryousuke who didn't kiss back. They probably tried to murder each other on
Fuji."
That makes Ryousuke laugh, even though it isn't very funny. "I never wanted to
murder you, Harucchi."
Haruichi laughs too. "Never? Never at all? Not even the time I spilled soup on
your Game Boy?"
"Okay maybe I did then, but nothing more recent."
Ryousuke is grinning, and Haruichi matches it, bumps him with his elbow and
Ryousuke bumps him back. "Okay so what if, somehow, one of these other
timelines is sending us this message, some miserable Haruichi out there saying,
don't fuck things up like I did."
Ryousuke nods, running through his list of theories, and this could fit in,
impossible to prove but no weirder than the killer forest theory. "Or some
miserable Ryousuke."
Haruichi looks at him a moment, but Ryousuke's looking at the water, still lost
in his theories, and Haruichi has to ask to get his answers. "Were you? I mean,
were you miserable? Are you still?"
It's something Ryousuke rarely thought about before, this kind of emotional
correlation, and he thinks of the baseball game, of saying to Haruichi, this is
why I play. He thinks of the moment he realized he would give it all up to keep
him, if he had to. "I was satisfied sometimes, and other times I wasn't. I
don't know if I was miserable, but I think I was incomplete, and I feel a
little more complete now."
Haruichi exhales, lets his head sink back against the stone. "Good. Me too."
They're alone now, so Ryousuke reaches up to touch the line of Haruichi's neck,
getting a shiver and a deepening blush. "What's our message then, to not lose
each other?"
"Yeah, and to see each other. Not just our accomplishments, the markers we
leave, but really see who we are, beneath all that. All these things we don't
know about each other, but we should."
Ryousuke smiles kind of soft. "I don't think we have to worry about that
anymore."
Because it's easier now, to talk about something that isn't baseball, or the
occasional complaint about classes and homework, or what the other guys on the
team are doing. That safe distance they kept, but no longer need.
Haruichi raises his hand to Ryousuke's face, flushed from the heat of the
water, and he wants to leave it there, right at the corner of Ryousuke's honest
smile, but anyone could walk in, so he lets it drop. "Why didn't you take this
stuff in uni, physics and math and all these things you're good at?"
Ryousuke shrugs, and it can't be blamed on the water when he blushes. "It's
just a hobby. If I took it as a class, it'd be too much work, and really I went
to uni for the baseball, not to spend my whole life studying."
Haruichi can't help laughing. "You lazy shit."
Ryousuke grins, like it's something to be proud of. "I'm honest."
"Honest and lazy." He's still laughing, and Ryousuke's hand comes up for a
chop, so Haruichi raises his arm to block it.
Ryousuke turns the motion into a gentle stroke over Haruichi's forearm, down
the point of his elbow. "That reminds me, you need to get your grades back up
before Mom bakes you into a pie. She's really worried."
Haruichi remembers them at the meeting with the principal, the way she'd looked
at him like she didn't know him anymore, her baby son grown into a common
delinquent. "Yeah, I know. I will. I might be able to get some extra credit
assignments in some classes, make up some points, it'll be okay."
"It better. We have a goal now, I'm not letting you slack off anymore."
Haruichi looks over, and Ryousuke's smile is so content, he has to kiss it, a
brief flicker of contact, and Ryousuke holds him there a bit longer, licks into
him until he's breathless.
They both sink back down in the water when they break apart, and it's a long
quiet moment before Ryousuke says, "I wish I could have seen you hit that guy."
Haruichi nearly inhales water, has to cough and laugh at the same time, rubbing
at his nose. "Aniki, you're terrible."
Ryousuke simply grins.
+
Haruichi's in the chair by the window again, having to lean close so his shadow
blocks out the reflection of the room, so he can see out into the dark, and
Ryousuke comes up behind him, a silhouette made of ferris wheel lights. "Did
you want to go to the park? We forgot about that."
Ryousuke shrugs, slides a hand into Haruichi's hair. "Not really. There's that
haunted hospital thing, but it doesn't sound as exciting anymore."
Haruichi reflects a knowing smirk. "Now that you have your haunted forest."
Ryousuke's reflection grins, and Haruichi laughs, turns away from the window to
grab for him, pull him closer. "So if this was a horror movie, and it really
was a killer forest, how would we stop it? Burn the whole forest down?"
Ryousuke hums and lets his knees bump Haruichi's. "Let's hope not. No it would
probably be something tied to the forest, like a totem hidden in a cave or
something, we'd have to find it and destroy it."
"That sounds very Indiana Jones."
Ryousuke snickers, and bends to kiss Haruichi's forehead, then his cheek,
unexpectedly chilled from being so close to the air conditioning vents. "I'm
tired of this forest. Come to bed with me."
Haruichi makes a soft noise and turns to catch Ryousuke's lips, letting
Ryousuke pull him up out of the chair, and neither of them have to say it,
because they both know, that this is their last time before returning to the
reality of distance.
He kisses Ryousuke like it has to last them forever, trying to memorize the way
he shivers with each press of Haruichi's mouth, the way his hands rest as
ignition sources on Haruichi's neck and hip.
He could stay like that he thinks, lost in the silken contact, the way they fit
together so perfectly, but Ryousuke breaks them apart, pulls roughly at
Haruichi's shirt to get it over his head. Then Haruichi does the same with
Ryousuke's shirt, and gets his hands on bare skin, presses his mouth to his
collarbone and bites, careful not to leave a mark but he wants to, wants to
mark him all over, wants to go home to Seidou with bruises in the shape of
Ryousuke's poisonous mouth and have everyone know.
Ryousuke quietly purrs at the biting, tugs on the drawstring of Haruichi's
pants to get him moving, and he wouldn't mind leaving a mark if it could be
hidden, a private thing, but he's still too caught up in worries, the
disastrous potential consequences. He knows he wouldn't be able to handle
losing Haruichi to closed-minded societal judgment.
And Haruichi would break a lot more than faces if anyone tried to take his
Ryousuke away.
They make it to the bed, get each other out of the rest of their clothes, and
Ryousuke pulls Haruichi down on top of him, kissing him again, slow and
unrushed because they have all night. It's late already but he knows they won't
sleep until they have to. So he lets his hand slide slow down Haruichi's back,
tracing each dip in his spine, each muscle that shifts as he shivers into
Ryousuke's touch.
Haruichi sits up after a while, lips sort of tingling, the anticipation of more
beginning to burn through him, and Ryousuke sees him blushing, responds to it
with a crooked kind of smile. "What do you want, Haruichi?"
The question makes him blush predictably brighter, and his only answer is a
soft whine, fingers curling against Ryousuke's knee where it presses into his
side.
"You have to tell me this time, I can't keep making all your decisions."
Haruichi whimpers, breathless for a moment, and Ryousuke watches the confidence
slowly set in, the way Haruichi swallows to calm down enough to speak. "You,
Aniki."
It's not the answer he thought he was expecting, so he can't restrain the
shiver, the way his body flushes hot in response to the tone that's almost
possessive, claiming, and he curls another dangerous smile. "You have me then.
Do whatever you want."
Haruichi gets that lightning-struck feeling again, makes himself breathe, and
he shifts between Ryousuke's legs, fingers sliding down the back of one to feel
the anxious twitch of muscles. "I want you like this."
Ryousuke hisses out a quiet curse, still not used to hearing Haruichi say these
kinds of things outside of guilt-laced, shameful dreams. He reaches for the
lotion on the table, passing it into Haruichi's hand, and it's trembling
slightly, so Ryousuke holds it, rubs over fresh pink scar tissue.
Haruichi blushes, raises his hand so he can kiss Ryousuke's wrist, then moves
out of reach so he can get the bottle open, the scent of it inevitably making
him laugh under his breath.
Ryousuke laughs with less restraint, raises one leg to kick lightly at
Haruichi's side. "If I get turned on every time I smell roses now, I'm kicking
your ass so hard."
Haruichi laughs, and nods with a resigned sigh. "I was thinking the same thing.
We're doomed."
Ryousuke snickers, and Haruichi moves his kicking leg out of the way, pours
lotion into his hand so he can warm it, and he knows what to expect this time,
but it still knocks him crazy when he slides into Ryousuke, the quiet sigh and
shift of his hips to meet Haruichi's fingers.
He watches Ryousuke's eyes close, relaxation spreading through him even as he
shivers from each press of Haruichi's fingertips, and Haruichi makes a mental
note that someday he's going to do this and nothing else, with Ryousuke so
languid and unresisting under his hands. But he knows Ryousuke, knows he'll
start to complain if he keeps on, so he pulls out, gets the very last of the
lotion out of the bottle and prepares himself.
Ryousuke holds his breath as Haruichi pushes in, slow and careful, and Ryousuke
can feel him shivering at every point of contact, and that's enough to drag a
low sound out of his throat.
He looks up to see Haruichi with knuckles pressed to his mouth, trying to calm
himself, his hand visibly shaking, and Ryousuke reaches for him, gets a grip on
his arm and pulls. "Quit that, come here."
Ryousuke pulls until Haruichi falls over, one hand catching himself on the
pillow beside Ryousuke's head, and the motion shoves them tighter together,
makes Haruichi gasp sharp, and Ryousuke takes advantage of his open mouth to
kiss him. Haruichi shifts until they're not bent up quite so awkwardly, where
he can lean his weight on one elbow and slide his other hand into Ryousuke's
hair, down over the quick fluttering pulse in the side of his throat.
"That's much better." Ryousuke purrs, and it's easy to arch up a little, enough
to press the heat of his cock against Haruichi's stomach. He feels Haruichi
smile against his mouth, like he's about to make some bratty comment, so he
kisses him again, giving another roll of his hips to get Haruichi moving.
He keeps it slow, aware of every drag over sensitive nerves, Ryousuke's tongue
curling against his in a matching rhythm, and he reaches down to fit his hand
between them, sliding over Ryousuke with an open palm, making him arch again,
hands clenching on Haruichi's arms where they'd been idly resting.
He can feel every aching twitch of Ryousuke's cock, slick and wet already, and
he's already so close himself, so he holds still for a moment, and Ryousuke
actually fucking growls.
Haruichi breaks the kiss, breathes hard and unsteady against Ryousuke's cheek.
"Not yet, please Aniki, not yet."
Ryousuke nods, and Haruichi moves again, still slow, but the heat flares back
up so fast it makes him shake, so it's Ryousuke who stops them again, a hand
tight on Haruichi's hip. "It's okay, just wait."
Haruichi whimpers, and Ryousuke pets through his hair, down his neck to rub at
the tension in his spine, and they're both aching to come but Haruichi wants
this to last, doesn't want their final time to be lost so soon to impatience.
The next time he moves, it's okay, he can enjoy the feeling of Ryousuke warm
and tight around him without having to fight it, and he lets his hand move on
Ryousuke again, feels his shuddery relieved exhale and the way his fingers flex
on his shoulder blade, the content little hum in his throat when Haruichi
angles in just right.
He keeps that angle, gets his mouth on Ryousuke's neck, little licks to
trembling skin, and it's not long before Ryousuke's holding tight to his hip
again, and Haruichi instantly stops.
Ryousuke curses, tense, and Haruichi feels a little guilty, not because this
was his idea to stop, but because he likes the way Ryousuke looks when he's
flushed and desperate to get off, held right there at the edge and shaking from
it. He kisses apologies onto his neck, up to his mouth as a sort of
distraction, while Ryousuke slowly relaxes, breathes again.
When his hand loosens, Haruichi gives a testing, harder shove, to see if he can
handle it, and he feels Ryousuke gasp, tense around him, and he thinks that
might be a bad idea, but then Ryousuke moves to plant his foot against the
mattress and shoves up to meet him, and he forgets how to think for a few
seconds.
Ryousuke breathlessly saying, "Do that again."
So he does, and again, and he can't focus on the kissing, has to drop his
forehead to Ryousuke's shoulder, both of them gasping with each rough slam
against each other, and then he has to stop, has to fully pull out of Ryousuke
because any amount of contact is too much.
Ryousuke's aware of the harsh sound of fabric ripping beside his ear,
Haruichi's fist curled so tight, and he laughs quiet and pets through
Haruichi's hair again, damp now with sweat, and Ryousuke has to admit he likes
Haruichi like this too. "You tore the pillowcase."
Haruichi laughs and lets go of it, and Ryousuke can't see his face but he feels
the increased blushing, so he turns and kisses his cheek. "Maybe I'll take it
with me, keep it as a souvenir."
"Fuck, Haru." That shouldn't be such an exciting thought, but it is, thinking
of Haruichi sleeping on it, fingers caught in the rip, like he's imagining what
it was like to do the same to Ryousuke, and he thinks, we are so fucked.
Haruichi's thinking the same thing, and he smiles against Ryousuke's ear. "Next
time we're together, you can have me like this, and rip something for your own
souvenir."
Ryousuke can't help the quiet groan, or the way it fractures into something
high and desperate when Haruichi shoves back into him, and every part of him
feels raw and strung-out and wrecked with the need to finally come. He feels
the way Haruichi's hips stutter, rough again but faster, and he tells himself
it's okay to be the one to relent, to give in, this once. "Don't stop this
time."
Haruichi whines, hand clenching in the ruined pillowcase again, and he speeds
up enough that Ryousuke knows they wouldn't be able to stop now if they wanted
to, and he doesn't want to, all he wants is this fast, crushing pressure
pushing him closer to where he needs to be.
Haruichi feels the tension in him, wraps his hand fully around him and strokes
to match their speed, and Ryousuke goes taut, inhales sharp and comes over
Haruichi's hand.
Haruichi barely has to move again before heat crashes through him, leaving his
nerves buzzing and hot like live wires, and he collapses halfway on Ryousuke,
hears him laughing.
He makes a noise that tries to be "what", and barely, numbly, feels Ryousuke
prying his hand away from cloth, feels loose threads and a scrap still caught
in his fingers. "You fucking obliterated this thing."
Haruichi shuts his eyes and laughs. "Take it as a compliment."
Ryousuke laughs, but there's a soft, satisfied element to it that makes
Haruichi short-circuit again. "Well, you did most of the work."
"That's true."
Ryousuke smacks him on the arm, but there's no strength behind it, more a
pathetic swiping pat, and Haruichi has to keep laughing, feels like he's
dissipating into ridiculous little pieces.
Ryousuke keeps his hand on Haruichi's arm, feels the tiny twitches as he starts
to fall asleep. "Harucchiiiii...." The only response he gets is a vague hum, so
he laughs silent and slides out from under him. "Nevermind, go to sleep."
Haruichi hums again, and Ryousuke smirks unseen, walks carefully to the
bathroom to clean up. He brings back a wet cloth to clean Haruichi while he
sleeps, thinking, you owe me for this you shithead, but it's a fond thought,
and he's still buzzing with enough warm pleasure to think, Haruichi doesn't
really owe him anything, it's the other way around.
Ryousuke turns out the light, crawls into bed and gets instantly covered by
Haruichi again, and he falls asleep to sentimental, ridiculous thoughts that
he'd rather die than ever say, but knows Haruichi will find some way to get out
of him at some point. It's not such a terrible thing to accept.
***** Chapter 8 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
They slept through the sunrise, so Haruichi only has pale blue sky to look at
as he packs, folding and stuffing things back into place, and he can smell
mountain, forest, green grass, and hopes he doesn't start crying like some kind
of idiot when he does laundry.
He's trying not to think too much, staying focused on whatever is in his hands,
sorting out trash, recycling, things to take and things to leave. Ryousuke
stuck the mangled pillowcase in their bag as a joke, but Haruichi saw him stick
the tiny torn-off scrap in his pocket, and the thought of it lights him up hot,
makes him blush and have to turn his attention back to the shirt he's folding.
Ryousuke's being silent as he packs, so Haruichi keeps quiet too, only the
occasional shared contact in a shoulder or hip bump as they pass each other in
the room, making sure they haven't forgot anything, all the charger cords
unplugged from the outlets, toothbrushes from the bathroom.
Everything zipped and tidy and ready to go, and Haruichi looks out the window
again, faint wisps of clouds in the sky, and Ryousuke catches him from behind,
arms around his waist.
Haruichi breaks a little then, turns to get his arms around Ryousuke, cheek
pressed to his shoulder, and Ryousuke feels like a dream, something ephemeral
that he's about to lose. "Say it one more time."
Ryousuke pets over his back, feels him shiver. "Say what?"
"Say you love me."
Ryousuke's breath catches fast, and Haruichi's burning hot through the fabric
of his shirt, and Ryousuke kisses into his hair, leans there like he's hiding.
"I love you so much."
Haruichi makes a soft, quiet noise, and moves to kiss him. "I love you too."
Nothing is left then, nothing to pack, or clean, nothing left as an excuse to
stay, so they break apart, pick up bags, put on shoes, and the door closing
behind them is such a final sound.
+
Haruichi gets to pick the music for the drive home, and Ryousuke turns it up
loud enough to be a third entity in the car, and Haruichi relaxes into the
familiar repetition of rhythm and his hand tangled in Ryousuke's.
They make breakfast out of the remnants of vending machine snacks, a protein
bar they found hidden in a pocket, and Haruichi takes one last picture of Fuji
through the back window.
"Thank you for this, Aniki. I know you wouldn't have done it if you didn't want
to, but I mean it, thank you."
Ryousuke looks over, smiles gentle. "You're welcome. And thank you."
Haruichi smiles back and feels warm, that made-of-sunlight feeling again.
"You're welcome."
He spends most of the drive watching Ryousuke instead of the mountains, both of
them humming sometimes along with a song, and he can't help feeling
disappointed when the green turns into grey city sprawl, and he has to turn his
attention back to the map because they can't remember which exits they're
supposed to take.
By some highway miracle, they make it to campus without getting lost.
In the parking lot, it's too crowded to risk anything other than a casual brush
of hands as they unload the bags, but Ryousuke stops him with a tug to his
broken belt loop, and Haruichi reaches out to touch his face, makes it look
like he could be wiping away crumbs or something, and Ryousuke slips the tips
of his fingers under Haruichi's shirt, a brush across bare skin. It's enough so
they're able to make it inside without feeling weird from separation, like it's
only temporary, like nothing has actually changed.
Yuuki meets them in the hall, hands busy with fast food bags. "Hey, you made
it! How was it?"
Ryousuke opens the door since Yuuki's occupied, and it's a funny little rush,
the relief of being back home, the sight of his own familiar bed. "It was
really awesome, actually. Haru took a shitload of pictures, he can show you the
view from Fuji, and at the top it was like being on Mars, like seriously you
could film a movie up there."
Yuuki laughs and closes the door after Haruichi comes in, and Haruichi sees the
way he smiles at Ryousuke, wonders if he missed him terribly. "No shit. Maybe I
should take Jun someday, he'd love that."
"He really would." Ryousuke drops his backpack, he'll deal with that later, and
naturally has to go peek into Yuuki's food bags, which gets him punched in the
arm, and he hears Haruichi snickering behind him. "Oh, I see, you two are going
to gang up on me now."
Haruichi and Yuuki both nod, and it's Haruichi that says, "Absolutely," and
Yuuki gives him a smile that seems kind of satisfied and victorious.
"Looks like things are better between you two." Like he knew all along, it was
what they needed, and he isn't going to say it, isn't going to gloat, because
he knows these boys will kill him for it, but he still grins when Ryousuke
shrugs light and casual.
"We're okay now." It's a simple set of words, but he feels it through him,
heavy and settling into his bones, and he thinks back to the first day when he
and Haruichi stood here alone, unable to even speak without the constriction of
walls and distance.
Yuuki's unloading tacos from the bag, and Ryousuke vaguely hears him saying he
got enough for all of them, thought they might be hungry when they got home,
but Ryousuke's still thinking about his arms around his brother for the first
time in years, how much time he wasted being afraid.
Haruichi bumps up beside him and draws him back to the present, gives Ryousuke
a little smile, and Ryousuke fades in on Haruichi telling Yuuki about the
onsen. "I really could live in there, it was so warm. And the restaurant was
really good."
Yuuki makes a humming, jealous sound. "I need an onsen vacation. So did you get
to see Aokigahara too?"
Ryousuke pauses in unwrapping tacos, gives Yuuki that dangerous smile. "We saw
something in Aokigahara."
"What?!" Yuuki's eyebrows go up. "What, did you see a ghost or something?"
Haruichi mumbles something about both of them being hopeless, and takes his
tacos on a plate to sit on the bed, and Ryousuke watches him for a moment, then
turns back to open a packet of hot sauce. "We don't know what happened, but we
got lost from each other, like we were in the same place but we couldn't see
each other, and I'll tell you about it later so I can show you all the
pictures. You'll think I'm lying if I tell you without the pictures."
Yuuki snorts a laugh, still looking kind of anticipatory and excited. "You're
right. I've known you long enough to know not to trust a thing that comes out
of that mouth."
Ryousuke grins like it's the best compliment in the world, and goes to sit next
to Haruichi, close enough to bump knees together. "You can call Haruichi after
I tell you, and get him to confirm it."
Yuuki laughs, sits on his own bed. "Hmm, can he be trusted?"
Haruichi smiles, and it feels like something out of Ryousuke's arsenal.
"Maybe." But then he blushes, and ruins all attempt at being sly. "No, don't
worry, I only make up things to scare Eijun. You're safe."
Yuuki laughs again. "That poor boy."
Conversation inevitably drifts to baseball, what the team's been doing while
Ryousuke was gone, and Haruichi thinks of the new training regimen they drafted
for themselves, to lead them to their goals. He's now determined to beat
Ryousuke's third year statistics before he gets to third year, but that's a
secret, something he's not going to tell Ryousuke until he's done it, until he
has victory tight in his hands.
It doesn't seem as impossible as it might have before. Nothing does.
+
Haruichi double-checks the pile of things poured out of the backpack, and the
shared duffle, making sure he has everything that's his, and the pillowcase,
which he snuck into his bag with a blush and stifled laugh.
There's nothing left to do before he leaves, and Yuuki's out of the room, some
flimsy excuse about using the bathroom, but they both know he wanted to give
them privacy to say goodbye, so Haruichi takes advantage of it, slides his arms
around Ryousuke's neck to get his attention. "Start training tonight. I'll
email you when I'm done."
Ryousuke nods, and he tugs on that broken loop again, making Haruichi smile,
and he leans in for one final kiss, aware of how instinctively easy it is now,
familiar and comforting. They break apart too soon though, lips left barely
touching, and Haruichi tilts his head, slick slide over Ryousuke's mouth like
he's going to kiss him again, but he pulls away, takes a step back and lets his
arms drop from Ryousuke's shoulders.
Ryousuke touches Haruichi's cheek, right below the tips of his hair. "Remember,
no more fights, and call Mom and Dad and let them know you're okay."
"Right, and you get that essay finished, don't sleep so late, and make sure
you're eating right." Haruichi holds a steady expression for a moment, then
laughs, and Ryousuke laughs with him. "I know, shut up."
"Yes." But he smiles, and leans for one more quick kiss, then turns Haruichi
around by the shoulders, gives him a push toward the door. "You better go, or I
might not let you leave."
Haruichi whimpers, and all his resolve drains right out. "If you asked me to
stay, I would."
Ryousuke has to swallow hard before he speaks, has to make sure he says the
right words. "I know. That's why I'm not asking. Remember our plan, Haruichi."
"Yeah, I remember." He picks up his bag, puts Sawamura's lucky hat on his head,
like such a little thing could give him strength. "Bye, Aniki."
Like it could protect him from the soft sound of Ryousuke's voice as he leaves.
"Bye, Haruichi."
+
The train is full of people, voices quietly talking, laughing, someone's video
game turned up a bit too loud, but Haruichi has never felt so alone, so oddly
hollow and distant from the world, without Ryousuke beside him. He remembers
feeling this way when he moved to Seidou, the unfamiliar separateness he felt
when leaving home, but it didn't hurt like this, didn't feel like he was only
half a person, floating in a bubble outside of reality.
It lingers with him as he walks from the station to the Seidou dorms, aware of
the sound of his shoes on the concrete, on the stairs, and he knows his room
will be empty but it still adds to the disoriented feeling.
Something important is missing, and he can't reach for it, can't fill the space
left behind.
Haruichi tosses his bag on his bed, drops the hat more carefully, and there's a
book laying on his pillow that he recognizes as Miyuki's, and that answers that
question, but it makes him smile, and some of that weirdness dissipates, lets
it sink in that he's home.
He goes out then to the fields where everyone is practicing, and he hears him
before he sees him, the bright vivid cry of "Harucchiiiiii!!!" before Sawamura
flies into view, nearly leaping on Haruichi as he hugs him. "Missed you,
Harucchi."
Haruichi knows he's blushing so much he's glowing, but it's absolute truth when
he hugs him back, says quietly into sun-warmed skin, "Missed you too, Eijun."
Sawamura laughs and holds him tighter, gets their legs tangled up so they
stumble a few steps back. "Wish you could have been here yesterday, for the
finals. But you'll play with us from now on, right?"
He wants to ask if they won, if 'from now on' includes Koushien, but he doesn't
need to, because Sawamura is electric, Haruichi can feel it lit-up under his
skin, and that's as good as an answer. "I will. I'm sorry I wasn't there
yesterday."
"You better be!" Kuramochi's unmistakeable rough voice, and Haruichi laughs,
turns his head on Sawamura's shoulder so he can see him standing there,
pointing his bat like a threat, and Haruichi feels so ridiculously warm.
"I'll be here for the rest of it." He nods, and hopes the expression on his
face looks determined, and not stupidly giddy. "Aniki says he misses you, can't
find a short stop worth a damn out there."
Kuramochi grins huge, and then he's ruffling Haruichi's hair, making Sawamura
laugh. "That's because I'm the fucking best!"
Haruichi feels Sawamura nod. "He did save us once or twice. I'm sure he'll tell
you about it, repeatedly."
"Oi! You're lucky Haruichi's here to protect you or you'd be on the ground!"
The warning sort of fails, because he laughs halfway through it, and Sawamura's
used to it anyway, and Haruichi laughs through their casual bickering as other
teammates trickle out through the gate.
He thinks again, he never meant for anyone here to mean so much to him, they
weren't supposed to become family, but somehow without his permission, they
did, and it's okay now to love them, he doesn't have to resent them anymore for
not being Ryousuke.
Haruichi sinks into laughter and conversation, exaggerated replays of the games
he missed, and Sawamura doesn't let go of him, not even for a moment.
+
It's late, and Haruichi's spent all day on the field with only a break for
dinner, and everyone else has given in to exhaustion by now, slouching away to
baths, nice soft beds, but he still needs to hit the pitching machine's crooked
slider five more perfect times before he'll let himself quit.
He keeps fouling, and there's no way Ryousuke will forgive him for that.
He shifts forward in the box, hits a satisfying grounder that time, and hears a
quiet "Oooh, nice" from behind him.
It's Sawamura, he should have known, and Haruichi sighs, hits another foul.
"Not nice enough."
The next foul goes almost straight up, and Sawamura catches it when it comes
down. "If you want to hit crazy pitches, I could pitch for you sometime."
Haruichi laughs because he's right, no machine could ever live up to Sawamura.
"Okay, maybe tomorrow, you can see if you can strike me out."
Sawamura cheers behind him, and Haruichi hits another at a decent low angle.
The next one he fouls, and he curses, snarls, and entirely misses two in a row.
Sawamura sounds worried when he says, "Maybe you should put it up for the
night, get some sleep. Coach wants us out here really early in the morning."
Haruichi draws in a heavy, tired breath, and shakes his head. "Three more good
ones, then I can quit."
Sawamura laughs, but it lacks enthusiasm. "You're keeping count?"
"I have to, Aniki and I, we have a plan. I can't fail." He hits, and it's not
too bad.
Sawamura sighs that time. "More competition? I thought... I mean I just
assumed, because of what you said about the hat being good luck...."
Haruichi blushes hot, but he smiles, and hits perfect. "It's not a competition,
it's a plan for us both together. If I can get good enough, I'll go to the same
university, and we'll have two years to play together before he graduates. So I
have to find all my weaknesses, and get rid of them. And one of them is this
fucking floppy slider." He hits another one, a clean home run, and that's it,
he can stop.
Sawamura jogs out to shut off the pitching machine, and when he comes back,
he's smiling kind of content, and he gets a hand in Haruichi's sweat-soaked
hair when he takes off the helmet, helps him fluff out the creases. "You'll be
more than good enough. You're already amazing."
"Thanks, Eijun." He blushes, of course, and starts picking things up, grabs the
bucket so he can go after all the balls in the outfield. Not enough, they
should all be out there, not this small percentage.
There is so much work to be done, but it doesn't feel overwhelming, it feels
shockingly good.
Sawamura follows with another bucket, and Haruichi decides he's tired of
talking about himself, smiles like a warning, though Sawamura can't see it in
the shadows. "So, have you confessed to our favorite snarky catcher yet?"
Sawamura startles and nearly drops his bucket, which makes Haruichi laugh, and
Sawamura throws a ball at his legs and that only makes him laugh more, so
Sawamura gives up. "No, we've been really busy, there hasn't been time, you
know how it goes."
"There's time now, I doubt he's asleep yet. Actually he's probably in my room
reading, so if you wanted, you and I could switch rooms tonight, and you'd have
Miyuki all to yourself."
Sawamura stops walking, exhales fast, and Haruichi sees a vivid heat rush over
his features and for a moment he's jealous, because that's the way Sawamura
usually looks when they're kissing, and he has to remind himself they don't get
to do that anymore. Haruichi feels awful then, greedy and terrible, because he
has what he wants and he shouldn't still want Sawamura but he does.
In some vague way, he thinks it still feels like a dream, having Ryousuke, that
all the defensive parts of his mind haven't caught up yet, still running on the
idea that Haruichi should want someone else, someone that isn't his brother,
and Sawamura's always been a great subject for that because Sawamura's not an
actual achievable goal.
He has the boy he wants, and he wants his best friend to get the boy he wants,
and that's the definitive truth of it.
Sawamura's still zoned out, so Haruichi nudges him, rattles his bucket.
"Eijun."
He startles, only a little. "Oh um, that's probably not a good idea, I mean
he'd probably see me in there and kick me out, or switch rooms, you know how he
is."
"Eijun." Haruichi says it more firmly that time, then leans in close, so he can
whisper quietly into his ear. "I kissed my brother, and you can't even tell
Miyuki you like him?"
Haruichi's close enough to feel the breath whoosh out of him, the way he barely
slumps when his knees go weak and useless. "Fucking shit, Harucchi, don't just
say it like that." Sawamura's eyes are almost nothing but black, and Haruichi
isn't expecting it when he says, "I wish I could have seen it."
Haruichi gasps through a barely-articulated curse, and he matches Sawamura's
shiver when he leans close to his ear again. "If you confess to Miyuki, I'll
tell you what else we did."
"Oh fuck." Sawamura nearly collapses then, and Haruichi has to hold him up,
can't help laughing quietly because Ryousuke's right, he's a manipulative
little shit. "Okay, okay I'll do it."
Haruichi grins, and shoves at Sawamura until he can stand on his own. "Then you
better go. If you wait too late, he'll be asleep when you get in there."
Sawamura takes a few steps back, then remembers the bucket in his hands, makes
a pathetic sort of noise, and Haruichi sighs and takes the bucket away. "I'll
get this, just go, Eijun."
"Right." He fidgets and turns around, then snaps right back, and grabs Haruichi
for a quick fumbling hug and a kiss to the temple. "Really did miss you,
Harucchi." Then he turns and runs, fast like he hadn't spent all day running
bases, laps with his precious tire, and Haruichi watches until he's out of
sight.
Alone in the dark, he laughs, and when he's finished cleaning up the errant
baseballs, he gets his phone out of his bag and sends an email to Ryousuke. I'm
finished. Then after a few seconds, And I convinced Eijun to confess to Miyuki
finally.
It's about a minute before Ryousuke responds. Congratulations. On both. What
did Miyuki say?
Thanks. I don't know yet, Eijun left a few minutes ago. I had to bribe him.
There's another pause, and Haruichi imagines Ryousuke laughing. You're
terrible. But at least you got the job done.
Exactly. And now I'm going to go sit in the bath and pretend it's that glorious
onsen and not a stinky jock puddle. Good night, Aniki.
Stinky jock puddle, feel my envy. Good night.
He turns off his phone and sits there a moment, and there's enough of a light
breeze to dry the sweat on his skin, the soft sound of crickets in the
distance, overlapping with cicadas. The bright stadium lights make the field
look like a stage, and Haruichi thinks of Koushien, days away, and he's not
nervous, but maybe he's beginning to feel excited, a quietly rising hum in his
bones, a welcome returning warmth where it had been absent for so long.
Haruichi breathes in the summer night air and walks out of the dugout, thinking
again of the future, opportunities he thought he'd lost, had given up on.
He thinks, he's not so much chasing his brother's back anymore, as running
alongside him, each pushing the other faster. It's like climbing a mountain,
they'll get there one step at a time, but they'll be there with each other the
entire way, and that summit is not as far away as they might have once thought.
Chapter End Notes
     THE END. Thanks to everyone who read this mess!
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!