Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4074832.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Tennis_no_Oujisama_|_Prince_of_Tennis
  Relationship:
      Kirihara_Akaya/Yanagi_Renji
  Character:
      Kirihara_Akaya, Yanagi_Renji
  Additional Tags:
      Fem!Yanagi, Alternate_Universe_-_Inception_Fusion
  Series:
      Part 3 of restless_sleep_(dream_a_little_longer)
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-06-04 Words: 6391
****** make the choice (the wrong one can kill us both) ******
by arysthaeniru
Summary
     After all this time, Akaya still can't reconcile the conflicting
     images of Yukimura and Sanada. The more he dwells on it, the more he
     hates them (but hate is closer to love than anything and they won't
     ever leave his mind).
Notes
     Set a couple of months after the omake in Turkey during submerged_in
     your_dreams. And a very happy birthday to Sumiya!
Clink. Clink. Clink. The train rumbled along and the tassles on Akaya's bag
jingled in time with the jolts of the wheels rolling across old tracks. Yanagi
gave the world outside their small, stuffy compartment, a cautious glance, her
eyes opening fully as she tilted her head to glance down the corridors. Still
nothing. They were almost an hour out of Taipei and still nothing. Maybe she
could stop looking over her shoulder now. The percentage of an attack decreased
exponentially with every minute that passed, but yet, Yanagi couldn't quite
swallow the lump in her throat, the lump of being watched.
Her eyes settled onto the sleeping young boy opposite her. Absolutely
exhausted, she wouldn't be able to wake him, even if she tried. His curls
sagged, and his mouth drooped open, revealing his pearly white teeth and his
lolling tongue. His eyelids were perfectly still, and he whuffled softly in the
midst of his deep sleep. Yanagi felt a fond smile tug onto her face, despite
herself. She couldn't really blame him, Taipei had been a wild ride, and they
would have died, had it not been for his reflexes and quick thinking. At any
other time, Yanagi would have been annoyed by the fact that he'd just nodded
off, but she supposed that he'd earned the rest.
She'd been entirely useless on this trip, but yet, she couldn't quite bring
herself to regret it. If anything, it quantitatively showed her just how much
she had yet to learn. How much Yukimura and Sanada had sheltered her from the
reality of dream-sharing and extraction. And how little they had spared from
Akaya. Or perhaps he had learned about it from before meeting those two; Sanada
wasn't the sort to apply preferential treatment to one apprentice over another.
For all of Akaya's childish tendencies when they were in private or planning,
there was something dark in his eyes when they were in the field.
Clink. Clink. Clink. Yanagi's eyes drifted from Akaya's peaceful face to the
countryside passing by them. Even now, the outline of the grass was being
imprinted into her memory and the shape of the trees were being catalogued for
implementation in the dreamscape. Even after the disaster that Taipei had been,
she couldn't stop calculating. How could she even think, even deserve, even
dream of that creativity again, when she had failed so badly?
...but it wasn't like she could leave the dreamscape, either. She had been
bound so tightly by Yukimura's deceptively calloused hands and the promise of
eternity, bound to the point of no return. And now she was trapped here, in
this cycle of violence and crime, just as much as Yukimura and Sanada were
stuck in the dream world.
Oh god. Her breath hitched slightly, as she remembered seeing their faces upon
walking in, the slack looks of death, and the almost flatlined heartbeat
monitor on the internal screen of the PASIV. She hadn't cried then, just called
Akaya to the room, and calmly asked him if he knew what was happening and
whether they needed a doctor. And his look upon seeing them had been devastated
and the wretched sob from his throat had been one of the most miserable sounds
she'd heard.
She had not cried when she'd called Jackal to take them away to a dream-den,
and she had not cried as they'd escaped Taipei without finishing the job they'd
been given. And even now, though she was free to do just that, she was empty of
tears.
It just felt that a part of her soul had been taken with them. With Sanada's
silent trust in her capabilities, and Yukimura's amused laughter, as he threw
another impossible challenge for her to solve in five minutes. The sort of
trust and companionship and complementary relationship that she had received
from nobody else. 5 minutes in the real world was 72 days in Limbo, if she
considered it akin to a fourth level. It had already been 76 hours since they
had left Taipei. That translated to 179.901 years of Limbo. Even if she was
able to try and get them out, they would be half-mad already. And that was
assuming they even wanted to leave. Jackal had told her the stories about Mal
and Cobb, the two first people to try Inception and how it had ruined them
forever. The only surviving person from the second Inception attempt was
Ariadne Bishop and she was old beyond her years and wanted in twenty-eight
different countries for crimes against humanity. Inception ruined and Limbo was
even more debilitating. There was little chance of getting Yukimura and Sanada
back, not the way they had been.
But the chance was not zero. She had seen their fortitude, their strength of
will. And they had each other. Yukimura and Sanada would keep each other
strong, for as long as was necessary. Perhaps they would wake up on their own.
But that chance was even lower. Yanagi's eyelids lowered and she exhaled,
unsteadily. The chance was still open. They could still return. She couldn't
give up hope now. Someone had to know about Limbo and that someone was Ariadne.
Now, it was a problem of gaining enough of a reputation to be able to see her.
That involved danger, and death and difficulties. The most difficult missions,
and the ones with the most complex ideas. She wasn't yet good enough for that,
that much was obvious. Not yet ready to attract Ariadne, not like Yukimura and
Sanada had been. But she would be. She had to reach that level, and fast,
regardless of the consequences to her health. Their lives and their minds were
at stake.
Yanagi's face sharpened slightly and her lips pursed together as her gaze fell
to the sleeping boy, who shifted in his sleep, exhaling softly, with wet, pink
lips almost puckered. Akaya wouldn't approve of this, of risking everything to
attract a woman who might not be able to help, not when they had each other and
a chance to become the best on their own terms. But he loved them, Yukimura and
Sanada. In the end, if she could bring them back, he would understand. That
would be enough.
(she ignored the 'if' for now)
(X)
It was with a start and a frantic gasp for breath that Akaya awoke, blinking
rapidly and erratically as he regained his kilter and awareness of his
surroundings. Right. The overnight train from St. Petersburg to Beijing. Not
the complex woody surroundings of the dream. His eyes quickly fell to their
target, a middle-aged man in his forties--thankfully, still asleep, his eyes
rapidly moving in his dream-state.
Akaya’s eyes slowly turned now to Yanagi-senpai, who disengaged herself from
the PASIV slowly, taking care to apply pressure to the IV exit wound. She
looked up to meet his gaze, her thin face unsmiling. She looked pinched and
worried, and she had reason. That had almost been a disaster. Akaya roused
himself from sleep quickly, and unplugged himself with haste. As soon as he’d
done that, she packed up and left the compartment, leaving the target in a deep
sleep and Akaya in his seat.
Akaya quickly put his disguise back together, adjusting the crooked, coloured
hair extension attached to his scalp and the spiked collar around his throat.
Uncomfortable, but necessary, he mused, as he adjusted his headphones to settle
comfortably across his neck. It was something Niou-senpai had always said: you
were never supposed to try too hard to be inconspicuous. That was the biggest
ticket to being spotted by a professional, they looked for suspicious stuff
like that. No, it was important to dress flashy and differently to your usual
appearance. That way, people remembered the disguise and not your face. It had
sounded counter-intuitive when Akaya had first heard about it, but it worked
for Niou-senpai and him, so he just stuck with it.
As the train chugged along and the target didn’t look like he was going to stir
for some time, Akaya settled back into his seat more comfortably, and shut his
eyes lightly. That mission had been far too close to death for his liking. They
had been in deep--you had to be to deal with people who knew about extraction--
and that projection with a gun in Yanagi-senpai’s face at the last minute had
almost ruined everything. Thank god for well-timed kicks.
Still, the look on Yanagi-senpai’s face as the hand with the gun had come
towards had been almost...well, resigned. As if she’d been expecting it. But
she shouldn’t have been expecting a loss, right? He hadn’t been able to see
very well in the darkness of the dream, but he tried to recall the attacker.
All he’d been able to see was a well-tanned, calloused hand--wearing a wedding
ring that currently rested on Akaya’s breastbone, on a twine necklace. Shit.
He hadn’t seen Yanagi-senpai’s projections of those two in three months now.
Foolishly, he’d believed that it meant out that she’d sorted out her internal
issues. Idiot. That sort of emotional scarring didn’t go away so easily, Akaya
knew that all too well.
Sanada-senpai had almost been able to drag himself and Yanagi-senpai to Limbo
and join the two of them already there. Except it wasn’t really Sanada-senpai,
was it? It was Yanagi-senpai’s imagination of them, which made it even scarier,
because it meant that a part of Yanagi-senpai wanted to reach Limbo, somewhere
deep down. Problem was, it was possible the worst outcome that could come out
of their involvement with the world of dream-sharing. Why the hell did she want
to willingly go down to oblivion to join a probably-crazy Yukimura-senpai and
Sanada-senpai?
Well, was it even the worst thing that could happen to them? Akaya’s throat
closed up slightly as he glared out to the darkened countryside that passed the
train. It must have been late at night, but he didn’t want to check his watch,
not yet. He was too deep in his musings now. He still wasn’t sure how to feel
about Yukimura-senpai and Sanada-senpai. It had been the biggest and scariest
revelation, when upon their absence, he’d realized just how much they’d wronged
him. How much he’d been brainwashed, how much he’d missed from a normal
childhood.
The problem with their treatment of him was that Akaya wasn’t entirely sure
that Yukimura-senpai remembered how to love anyone except Sanada-senpai. He
used people for his own purposes and his own ends, and maybe he grew fond of
those people along the way, but in the end, everything was secondary to his own
welfare and that of Sanada-senpai’s.
At ten years old when he’d been rescued, Akaya had been perfectly capable of
returning to a normal school. He might have been teased, might have been
bullied, might have had a tough time of it, might have hated it--but he should
have been given the choice to try it. Instead, it had been deemed convenient to
have a child accompany extraction ventures, and Akaya had been told that he
would join them, without school ever being extended as an option. As a
gullible, trusting ten year old, he hadn’t even questioned his rescuers about
that. He barely knew what school was, and he’d thought the height of education
had been what Sanada-senpai could spare him when they were travelling between
missions.
He’d believed anything was better than what the military facilities had given
him, and maybe that was true, but there were better lives than what he’d been
told to follow by Yukimura-senpai’s sly tongue.
It was too late for anything now. Even if he wanted to study in some university
now, he didn’t exist and he was wanted in ten different countries and he didn’t
know how to study like other people and you couldn’t just quit the extraction
industry, anyway. He was in too deep to leave and he couldn’t leave Yanagi-
senpai by herself anyway, and she couldn’t return to her studies either, not
without some major backlash.
Yanagi-senpai had always said that the world of creation found in the
dreamworld was ten times better than the boring world of school, and sure,
maybe she was right. But Akaya wasn’t an architect, and the grass was always
greener on the other side, anyway. He’d just wanted the option to choose.Choice
meant that you were a adult--respected by everybody! But he’d never gotten that
option because Yukimura-senpai and Sanada-senpai didn’t know how to love anyone
except each other.
...But was that even true? He thought of Sanada-senpai’s tender expression when
he’d stopped to mend Akaya’s knees after he’d ran after the crooks stealing
their model building materials, unusual for the stoic old man. And sometimes
there was this tone of voice, like pride, in Yukimura-senpai’s voice when Akaya
did something extraordinary. Was it truly that they didn’t love him? He didn’t
know. He didn’t know anymore and it confused him and he was so angry and hurt
and in pain, and he’d thought this would get easier as time passed, but his
feelings only got more potent. He only got more furious, where even the
thoughts of their faces made him explode internally. He hated them and loved
them. Hated what they did, but loved who they were. Was that even possible?
Could you pick pieces of a person to love instead of just their whole?
Akaya was shaking, he realized, with a start, and he kicked the side of the
compartment, to try and calm himself down. Now was not the time to freak out.
Not in front of the target, not while he was still in enemy territory. He had
another two hours before he could do anything resembling a breakdown. With that
in mind, Akaya turned up the volume on his headphones and focused on the punk
music, like any other teenager his age.
(X)
It wasn’t until they were finally inside the small hotel room near the highest
part of the cityscape, that Akaya finally gave into his nerves.
“So what was that all about?” he demanded, as Yanagi-senpai balanced on the
edge of the couch to pull out the elaborate earrings from her earlobe. She took
her time to remove them, before turning to face Akaya.
“You mean the ending of the dream?” she asked, coolly, her face almost as
resigned as it had been when she’d faced Sanada-senpai’s hand. Somehow, that
made Akaya more furious.
“You know what I mean.” Akaya snapped, his hands clenching into fists.
Yanagi-senpai looked at him, her face still caked in makeup, completely unfazed
by Akaya’s anger. “We succeeded, didn’t we?”
“Don’t give me that bullshit!” shouted Akaya, as his vision started to slowly
tinge red. “You almost killed us both and ruined the mission, don’t act like
this is nothing!” He strode forward to hoist his fists in the collar of her
dress, pulling her upwards slightly, despite her being taller than him, by
almost a foot. She didn’t move away, however, simply let herself get manhandled
by him. “What the fuck do I do if you get stuck in Limbo? Do I physically carry
your body to Turkey as a minor without a driving license and without access to
our main money accounts and wanted in several countries? Stop! Being! So!
Fucking! Selfish!” he screamed into her face.
She didn’t even react once, just stared him down with lidded eyes, not even
moving a muscle at his outburst, knowing that he couldn’t really hurt her. Not
ever. Akaya’s vision turned fully red for a heartbeat at her presumption and
her stupid face and her stupid data-- but it died down as quickly as it had
come, as the reality of what he was doing came back to him. He sobbed once,
pitifully, and it broke the dam for the flood. He pulled himself closer to the
taller woman, and sobbed into her collarbone, twisting the fabric further in
his grasp.
There was a small beat, where Akaya’s sobs caught in his throat, and awkwardly,
Yanagi-senpai wrapped her arms around him, holding him firmly, like her
namesake. “I told you.” sobbed Akaya, “I don’t ever want to go to Limbo, I
changed my mind, senpai. I don’t ever want to see their faces, not again! They
took so much from me! Don’t you understand, Yanagi-senpai?”
Yanagi-senpai held him close and shook her head, once. “You’ve mentioned
things. But you never told me the whole truth.” she murmured softly, and Akaya
sniffed, almost balefully. Did he have to spell it out for her? With all of
Yanagi-senpai’s knowledge, she couldn’t even infer that?
“They...I was ten, right? When they saved me from those military experiments.”
He didn’t care how curious she was, he wasn’t ever talking about those in
detail. They had marked him forever, and truthfully, he had forgotten most of
what had happened, until skills like shooting and fighting and shaping dreams
became important, when he remembered the pain of dream deaths in all too vivid
detail.
He took in a deep shaky breath and wiped away the tears, trying to figure out
the best way to shape his thoughts. They didn’t make sense, they never did, but
even less right now. “And I think it was really just supposed to be a rescue
job. They were 24, they probably didn’t want to deal with a kid that much. But
there was like trouble from their previous mission coming back to bite them,
and there was that one car chase across Ohio and I saved Yukimura-senpai’s life
by shooting a gun too accurately--because you know, the military are interested
in super children soldiers that will be perfect the moment they’re of age--and
then Yukimura-senpai and Sanada-senpai kept me forever.”
Yanagi-senpai’s mouth twitched upward without humour and Akaya’s lip curled up.
It was forever in this business. Either you died on the job, or you kept going,
chasing remnants of glory, staying low where possible between jobs. There was
no leaving the business for a peaceful life, nor was there a way to keep
dipping in and out of the business, even if Jackal-senpai tried to do that, he
was failing. And Yukimura-senpai and Sanada-senpai had condemned him to this
life because it was convenient to them.
“And I dunno.” Akaya said, with a resentful sigh. “Maybe they thought I was too
broken to adjust to the real world or maybe they just thought I’d be useful,
but I never got a choice to leave. I was just theirs and I didn’t even realize
there was an option to leave and go to school.” He shook with a bitter laugh.
“Maybe they fell in love with me so much they wanted to keep me. Or maybe they
didn’t, but that’s not the point, is it? Someone forgot to remind Yukimura-
senpai that kids aren’t pets, and that kids need other kids. I never met anyone
close to my age until you, yanno. And even you were closer to their age.”
Yanagi-senpai didn’t protest that, but her grip became just a little tighter
around his shoulders. “I might as well have been in the military still for all
the freedom I got.” he said, with a sudden realization. He snorted and
convulsed down into a fit of hysterical giggles. Yanagi-senpai let go of her
grip on him and let him sink down to his knees for a couple of moments, before
she leant down on one knee, to slap him.
He drew to a stop and glanced up at her face, which looked even paler than
usual, underneath the thick layer of rosy makeup. “And you know, you might do
the same shit sometimes, making decisions for me that I can really make myself,
but you know, at least I get that you give a shit about me.” he said, quietly,
pressing a hand to his stinging cheek. “It’s not a mindgame with you. And you
keep me sane, somehow. So you better not go to Limbo by yourself, or take me
down with you! I want to stay right here.” he said, with quiet conviction.
Yanagi-senpai’s face softened and she pulled up Akaya’s hands from his sides
and squeezed them, tightly. Akaya looked down at their linked hands. He didn’t
know whether to regret his open admission of his internal struggles or not. He
didn’t get it. He didn’t know whether he hated them or not and he was tired of
this shit, but this was the only life he was good for, but he hated this, and
he wanted to be normal, but would he even be able to be good at being normal?
She cleared her throat softly, and kept her own gaze down, towards their linked
hands. “I never meant for either of us to end up in Limbo, you know. That was
never my end goal and it still isn’t.” Her breath was warm against his hands, a
contrast to the serious tone she had. “Limbo is an overglorified dream. Dreams
are beautiful and a great inspiration, but life is about facing obstacles and
growing as a result of that. Limbo is a shallow, hollow imitation of that, and
I have no intention of taking either of us there.”
Akaya frowned as he pulled away from her hands, to grip her shoulders, tightly.
Her face was impassive, filled with a control he has never possessed. Was she
lying? No, she couldn’t be, not with that shaky, serious voice. “But the
missions we take...you can’t just enjoy adrenaline...”
Yanagi’s throat bobbed and she took a deep breath inwards. He wondered, not for
the first time, what was going through her mind? Was she calculating how much
to tell him? Or was it something else?
“There’s a woman whom everyone knows. Ariadne Bishop. The only woman left alive
from the Inception mission, and the only living person who experienced Limbo
without side-effects. But she only pays attention to the best. We have to be
the best.” said Yanagi, her lips pressing together tightly, and a small bead of
blood squeezing through her lips, flaking even with the thick layer of lipstick
over them.
He couldn’t read her, even after all this time. He could only trust her, and
trust in what he had revealed to her. Trust in her ability to reciprocate with
the whole truth. “And do what with her attention?” he asked, warily, as he
dropped his hands down to his sides.
“Bring them back to the world. 95% chance that they’ll be insane, but a 5%
chance that they may still have their mental capacities. And then if they are
sane, you can do whatever you want. I know what I want to do...but I’ll support
whatever choice you make and I’ll stand with you. Whether you want to rejoin
them or treat them like distant relatives. Maybe just like colleagues. Or maybe
you will really never want to see them again. I can’t guarantee that they’ll
want to follow what you want, but that’s the crux of it, right? Choice. They
have it, as well.” Her speech was nervous, and almost rushed, and it was with a
shaky voice that Akaya really had never heard from her before, as if she was
about to cry.
There was a long pause between them, before Akaya flung himself at her, and
pressed his lips against her in sheer relief. “Thank you, thank you, thank you-
-” Because he knew that in his heart of hearts that she loved them more than he
did, and she wanted to rejoin them, but she would stay with him, and she got
maybe for the first time, how important choice was to him.
She stared at him for a moment as he pulled away, her brown eyes opening fully
in surprise. Akaya got up quickly, almost tripping over himself in his haste to
move away that face and the look of surprise mixed with something he didn’t
quite recognize. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly as he stumbled
backwards towards the bedroom, clumsily. “I’m just gonna...go to bed
now...yeah...” he said, feeling his cheeks burn as he fished out the hair
extension from the ends of his straightened hair (which despite the efforts of
an entire can of hairspray, had managed to curl at the ends anyway after ten
hours). He didn’t meet her gaze as he stumbled away, preferably to drown
himself in blankets and the world of black sleep.
He paused instead, at the sight of a large double bed, instead of their usual
two singles. Goddamnit.
“Seeeennppaaaaai.” he whined, softly, turned back around to make his cutest
face at Yanagi-senpai. “You’ll take the first shift of not sleeping, right? I’m
suuuuuupeeer tired and the target was in my cabin and all.” Yanagi-senpai’s
face furrowed and she walked over to the room, sighed, then glanced at Akaya
for a moment, her gaze cool and unreadable.
“We can just share. There’s no need to keep watch here.” she said, easily, as
she padded off to the bathroom, presumably to get rid of the makeup, leaving
Akaya to stare at the bed with cautious annoyance, as if it had done him a
personal wrong. Still exhaustion won out over his apprehension and he quickly
stripped down to his boxers, ridding himself of his disguise happily. He fell
asleep within seconds of his head hitting the soft pillow.
(X)
He woke up blearily at the feeling of the bed shaking and thrashing. A kick?
Was it a kick, was he in a dream? A fire? An earthquake? Akaya rubbed at his
eyes and tried to bolt upright as quickly as he could, so he could be ready to
face the emergency. The thrashing figure in the bed quickly stabilized into
Yanagi-senpai, whose eyes were shut despite her frantic movements. Oh. He
reached over and whacked her three times with a pillow to wake her up, not
having the mental acuity to be worrying about her only being clad in a thin
nightie.
She stilled as she awoke from her dream, brown eyes wide open and her hair
matted from uneasy sweat. She sat completely upright as Akaya snuggled back
into his pillow and tried to head back to sleep. But when the feeling of her
body stretched out on the bed against him didn’t materialize for some time,
Akaya straightened upwards himself, rubbing blearily at the corners of his
eyes. Leaving the comforts of the soft duvet was difficult, but he could do
that much for Yanagi-senpai.
“Wassamatta?” he asked, inbetween a long, painfully wide yawn. She did not
answer him, from where her head was propped between her knees, in an almost
foetal position on the bed. Carefully, Akaya placed his arm over her back,
trying to not spook her too much with his action. When she didn’t react to his
movement, Akaya let his arm really rest on her back. “Bad dream?” he asked,
softly. Yukimura-senpai had experienced plenty, he remembered that from the
shifts they’d used to sleep during long journeys.
“Yes.” she murmured, pulling her head upwards, with an open sort of resignation
to her situation, and Akaya figured that this must have been a common thing.
Still, he’d never seen her have nightmares before. Her skin was paler than ever
and oily close to her hairline, and the dark bags under her eyes only increased
every day. The beautiful young teenager who’d made Niou-senpai wolfwhistle upon
entering the room no longer existed. They were all so much more broken than
they had been when they’d started this business, but it had hit Yanagi-senpai
more physically than anyone else. She was tired and the weight of dream-scaping
had taken its toll on her.
His hands brushed over a particularly matted part of her hair, and tried to
comb through it, as gently as he could. He could try to help at least one
aspect of her overall appearance, right? “It’s alright. You can talk about it,
if you want.” Akaya said, feeling the dry strands of her long, slightly damp
hair slide against his fingers.
“It’s nothing.” she said, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly as she
glanced down at her pale thighs.
“It’s not really nothing if you made me think I was in an earthquake, right?”
he asked, with a light shrug. He didn’t want to pressure her to talk to him,
but he didn’t really want her to suppress it either. Hypocritical perhaps, but
he didn’t want Yanagi-senpai to be as screwed up as he already was.
She smiled weakly at that, before wincing as Akaya caught a particularly strong
snag in her hair. “I just wonder what my parents would think about all of this.
They weren’t too happy with me even going to a foreign university at the age of
sixteen. Now I’m twenty-two, supposedly following my Master’s Degrees by
studying architecture all over the world, while actually systemically robbing
the world’s most influential people of their secrets and selling to the highest
bidder.” She chuckled darkly and Akaya couldn’t help but snort, slightly.
Still, as astute as her summary was, he didn’t fail to recognize how she was
entirely ignoring his actual question. “I’m wanted in three different
countries, with a bounty on my head that could pay off my student loans with
enough left over to buy a condo in Manhattan.”
Akaya frowned. “Didn’t you already pay off your student loan?” he asked
sleepily, unable to really empathize with her concerns. He’d never really had
parents. His mother was just an image in his head, a photo of a pretty lady
who’d abandoned him when he was young, and well, Yukimura-senpai and Sanada-
senpai were the reason he was in crime.
“It’s just a comparison number.” she said, softly. “It’s just...they wouldn’t
believe me if I told them. None of my old friends would, either. They’d think I
took drugs if I told them the truth. Even if that’s 45% more out of character
than this whole debacle.”
Akaya laughed a little, as he stroked past a knot on the nape of her neck. “You
are technically taking drugs, remember? Somnacin is more addictive than
heroin.” he pointed out, remembering a complex conversation with Yagyuu-senpai
at one point, when they’d been mixing up new concentrations of the somnacin for
the Casablanca mission.
Yanagai-senpai gave him a sharp look and Akaya grinned, unapologetically. “Just
adding to the whole thing to call home to tell your parents about.” he said,
innocently as he flopped a little more against her shoulders. She didn’t shake
him off, just stared down at her feet and Akaya pulled a face. “You shouldn’t
worry about that, Yanagi-senpai. They won’t find out, not if you or me have
anything to say, right? And we’re stuck in this mess, so we’ve just got to take
advantage of what we do have. Grasp that with our hands and go towards the
future. We’re gonna be the best, right?” he said, with a determination that
seemed to spring out of nowhere. It was easier to be positive when Yanagi-
senpai needed him to be positive.
She leant back against him, her eyes shut as she just breathed deeply in and
out. “Senpai?” asked Akaya, after a few minutes passed in silence and he
finished combing out her hair of knots. Had she fallen asleep like this?
But no, her eyes fluttered open partially, as she glanced at him, with slightly
drowsy brown eyes. She kept his gaze for a few long moments, and Akaya couldn’t
look away either, for some reason. His ears coloured a little as she smiled at
him, with a softness he rarely ever saw. “If I ask you to kiss me right now, it
doesn’t have to mean anything, right?” she asked, gently.
Akaya coloured entirely at that. Not that he was entirely against kissing
Yanagi-senpai, she was pretty even after all their travails, but he didn’t even
know what had brought that up. “N-no.” he muttered after a couple of moments.
“It doesn’t have to mean nothing.”
Her eyes crinkled softly, as she twisted around to face him, and that made up
his mind for him. He leant forward to press a kiss against her chapped lips. It
was chaste at first, but when she surprised him by placing her cool hand
against the underside of his jaw, it deepened. She smelled a little like sweat,
but also like clean, hotel soap and tea. It was nicer than Akaya had ever been
imagining, because he’d never really been able to imagine this. Kissing Yanagi-
senpai. One kiss turned into another, in a drowsy unhurried pace at first, but
one that quickly picked up as the kisses got deeper and it got more difficult
to breathe.
His hands wandered down her slender back, pressing against the vertebrae of her
back through the curtain of dry hair and the cool skin underneath. Her hands
rested against his jaw and neck, her thumb rubbing small patterns into the
tender skin there, which was pretty much all he could focus on. He’d done this
before, once, with this pretty girl he’d met in France one holiday, before
they’d been interrupted by her older brother. They hadn’t known each other’s
language, but the language of young, heady teenagers was universal. It was
different with Yanagi-senpai though, much more intimate and exciting. He
wondered if she’d ever done this before, she seemed to know exactly how he’d
react to this.
She shifted a little closer towards him, as she practically straddled him to
get a better angle of kissing, and his hand accidentally brushed against her
breasts. He felt his cheeks turn even redder than they felt, but she didn’t
seemed fazed, as she picked up his hand and placed it over her collarbone, in a
clear permission. It felt awkward to just touch her through the nightie,
between he was practically naked anyway, but her face seemed to lose lines he
hadn’t realized were there, so pressing kisses along her jaw, chin and lips,
Akaya eased the nightie off her shoulders, to pool around her thighs.
Skin against skin was no less awkward, in fact, he felt even hotter than
before, but it became a little easier to make that blissful expression on
Yanagi-senpai’s face. Her arms crept down from his face to the lithe muscles of
his arms and the softness of his chest and stomach. It was curious exploration
on both behalves, and was supposed to just help Yanagi-senpai relax a little
bit, and indulge her requests, but Akaya was hardening nevertheless. She would
be able to feel it, too, virtue of her position on top of him, and Akaya
attempted to shift to try and make it less obvious.
Still, after a couple more kisses, Yanagi-senpai’s breath hitched slightly as
she noticed Akaya’s situation and looked at him from under her short lashes.
“Do you want to?” she asked, as Akaya’s fingers slid down the curve of hips,
lingering at the edge of the bone.
“If you want to.” murmured Akaya, in return. Shit. He’d never done this before.
He knew how it was supposed to go, of course, but he was still nervous. Would
they regret this in the morning? Surely Yanagi-senpai wouldn’t suggest it if
she thought that they would? Just comfort between friends. It couldn’t be that
bad.
Yanagi pushed him back against the rumpled bed, pushing away her nightie,
leaving them both in just their underwear. Without much fanfare, she hooked off
her panties, and Akaya kicked off his boxers, leaving them both naked. Still,
there was a spot of colour in Yanagi-senpai’s cheeks and she hesitated slightly
about how to go about the next step.
He was the one who went with the flow, right? Unless he did something, they’d
never get anywhere. With a little bit of mischief, he gripped her shoulders and
rolled them over, until they were in the centre of the bed and he was on top of
Yanagi. She raised an eyebrow as Akaya leant down to press a kiss to her
collarbone, but didn’t protest too much, simply wrapping her legs around his,
to pull them a little closer.
He pressed a small trail of kisses down from her collarbone, lingering at her
ribs, to kiss wet kisses against the bones that were easily visible when she
was stretched out like this. Soon, he reached the edge of her hips and she
sighed softly. “Just do it.” she murmured, and he flushed a little.
“Is it--”
“It’s alright.” confirmed Yanagi-senpai again, her hands slipping into his
sweat-slicked curls to ruffle it softly, and rubs her thumbs against the nape
of his neck, sensually.
It took a little fumbling on both of their parts, but finally, Akaya managed to
slide into her, his hands curling tightly around her hips, pressing into the
sharp edge of her bones. She hissed, but with a sharp satisfaction, as she
pulled him into a slightly more toothy kiss than their previous ones. He slowly
started to rock in and out of her, her soft sighs and moans acting an easy
prompt of when to speed up and slow down.
It really did feel incomparable, feeling the slide of her body against his and
meeting her equally, ignoring the sweat pooling between their curved and nooks.
And he’d thought that kissing had felt nice. No wonder Yukimura-senpai and
Sanada-senpai had always been having private nights, if it always felt like
this.
He came first, but at Yanagi-senpai’s muffled complaint, he pressed and rubbed
against her clit, until she joined him in sated ecstasy. Akaya rolled back
against the bed, feeling gross and sort of sticky, but ultimately contented.
“Sleepy now, senpai?” he asked, reaching for her hand. She grasped it and
squeezed tightly. They breathed out for a bit, as they cooled down enough, and
at that, Yanagi turned towards him, and pulled him into a loose embrace, her
eyes shutting. Oh. Akaya let one arm slide over her hips and the other
awkwardly wedged under his pillow. But despite the warmth between them, it was
easy to fall asleep with Yanagi-senpai’s slowing breath close to his ear.
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