RP Log: Niou & Yagyuu (Part 1)
Nov. 22nd, 2005 09:26 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
89-164.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tenipuri_xpDate: Yes Sunday, 20 November 2005
Warnings: Overanalysis, D1, long.
Summary: Niou takes Yagyuu out for a long-overdue birthday celebration, complete with balloons, cake, and mixed signals :D
Really. It hadn’t been his most… practical idea ever conceived, but the visual effect alone was worth it. And it was far from impossible to manage, even if ensuring the nineteen helium balloons didn’t get caught in random street signs and wires and overhead things was far harder than it should’ve been.
Niou chuckled a little at his own stubbornness, tugging at the strings winding up his right arm to the elbow. He could’ve just asked Yagyuu to meet at the same mall the specialist party store had been at, but this one was closer to the Brotherhood and hey – even a month late, birthdays were all about slacking off and having fun. It wouldn’t do to make Yagyuu travel any further than necessary, and besides: this mall was targeted for the less functional and decidedly more recreational.
Coming-of-age was only twenty, after all, and if the gentleman hadn’t had so much as a cake for occasions past, it was always better late than never.
The cluster of balloons bobbed over the sea of pedestrians, brilliant colours standing out among the mostly dark heads that crowded the streets. Yagyuu's eyes followed their path as they came closer, and widened little-by-little as said path appeared increasingly to target him. That couldn't be Niou, with all of those balloons.
Except it could. It could, and it was. Yagyuu sighed, preparing himself for the onslaught of ... frivolousness. After all, they were balloons... What possible purpose would they serve? And what was the occasion?
Niou grinned as he approached, coming to a full stop in front of Yagyuu.
"Can I ask why?" Yagyuu asked instead of a proper greeting, eyeing the balloons. Close up, he could see that they floated well over Niou's head -- the topmost one wasn't even visible from here.
“You could,” the phaser chuckled. “But I’d only say happy nineteenth <3” And with that, he stretched his arm out in offering, before phasing the limb, letting the balloons glide slowly upward. Well, it was Yagyuu’s call if he wanted to keep them.
“Follow me.” Cue wink and crook of the finger. First stop: karaoke.
Yagyuu could only watch as the balloons drifted away, only considering that he might be able to save them after most of them had already floated out of reach. The thought of how much the bouquet must have cost was what bade him grab the tails of at least three that could still be salvaged.
He didn't like the idea of walking around with balloons like a ten-year-old, especially when he was nearly twice that age, but Niou had gone to some trouble to get them, and he couldn't let a gift -- even a frivolous one -- go to waste. At least, that was his logic. Feeling foolish, he wound the strings around his wrist, and sighed, following as instructed. "Thank you," he added belatedly. "Have you got a plan?" Niou's expression would indicate that he did, which meant it was altogether likely that he wouldn't share what it was.
“Of course, but of course~” Niou rarely did anything without at least some idea of what it was going to be (mostly thanks to an anal desire to predict things). The name of today’s game was: Activities Mister Yagyuu Hasn’t Done Before <3
Nearly there and Niou slipped back a little, looping a loose blindfold around Yagyuu’s eyes before he had time to protest (yeah, he could still see if he was that desperate to), guiding him forward by the shoulders as the few remaining balloons bounced merrily against the mall interior’s light fixtures and wall-flowers.
Yagyuu opened his mouth to complain, but thought better of it, and closed it. The blindfold put him in no danger, after all, and he really did trust Niou (whether he should have was still up for debate, but nonetheless, he did).
And if he said he had a plan, then he had one. Yagyuu's only complaint then was a resigned sigh, and that was powerless against the guide at his back. He knew better than to ask where they were going: the balloons signified a celebration of Yagyuu's birthday, even a month late, and Niou's comments from their picnic conversation signified that he chose to associate birthdays with surprises. The blindfold correlated. Yagyuu kept his mouth shut.
The phaser walked them through the storefront, waving to the guy behind the counter. He’d dropped by earlier that morning to book and, well… chatting people up was a useful exercise in not being forgotten <3
The small room was made for about five, despite there just being the two of them (because Niou was pretty certain he wouldn’t get Yagyuu singing up at the public bar, goddamned funny as that would be). As soon as he shut the door in their wake, there was dead silence and he dropped the blindfold with a half-hidden laugh.
Yagyuu could tell, when the door clicked closed, that the room was soundproof. It was strange, like a silence that filled his head. Thankfully, the blindfold came off, and he could see that they were in ... a karaoke room?
It had to be. There was a screen and two microphones and a thick book lying on a table, and enough seating for a small group. And, Yagyuu realised, they were quite alone. He swallowed. And blinked. "What...?" he began, confused.
Niou tossed him one of the mics from the table. “Karaoke is an integral element of Japanese pop culture,” he recited from an article in one of the American magazines,abusing carefully articulated English. “For corporate… soldiers living in a… stressful society, there is no other entertainment that can make them feel so refreshed.” Quite pleased with that little effort, the phaser plopped down into one of the overstuffed seats and absently patted the space beside him, rifling through the songbook’s plastic-coated pages.
Enter Problem, stage right. Cheesy ballads and hyper sugar-pop songs were… probably not Yagyuu’s field of familiarity. "What kinda music do you like anyway?"
"I ..." Yagyuu began, and took the proffered seat next to his friend. He supposed he liked well enough the music that had been played at home -- well, excepting his sister's fascination with Japanese boy bands. (He was not singing anything w-inds, and that was final.) "None of this," he said, peering over Niou's shoulder at the tracklists. Perhaps there would be a few standards near the back ...
"Ah ... why don't you go first?" he suggested. "I'll ... keep looking." He really doubted there would be anything he was interested in interpreting, but if Niou started, that might buy him some time.
“Sure,” Niou grinned. “But after this one, every track you make me sing before you start gets you two <3” V-fingers for emphasis. Picking the second microphone up off the table, he reached over to jab at the Random button on the panel just under the screen.
…Kimigayo? Shit, well… at least the machine had a sense of humour. If Wakato were here, he might’ve liked it.
Nevertheless, Niou stood tall, hand over his heart, and spared no expense for the national anthem as the pre-recorded string-and-percussion orchestra squealed out some minor chords for a painful minute-thirty.
Very painful.
“You so could’ve done that better,” he laughed, collapsing back down at the closing bars. Yagyuu’s voice was definitely more the stately, classical kind. “Got something yet?”
"Ah ... not yet." Yagyuu flipped through the book more quickly now that Niou had stopped singing -- he hadn't been able to focus on the words on the pages when a distraction quite like what Niou passed off as singing was occurring in the same room. Why again, he wondered, did someone who couldn't carry a tune choose an activity like karaoke?
Thankfully, he'd found a song he was fairly certain he knew, and entered the selection. At least Niou had the decency to order a private room and not insist that they perform publicly. He stood reluctantly as the song began, glad to hear that it was the same he'd been thinking of, and that helped him to relax a bit.
It was easier to sing as the song went on, easier to let go -- it was only Niou in here, after all, and he certainly wasn't going to think any less of him for doing something as silly as karaoke. And if Niou could do this, certainly so could Yagyuu.
Thunder only happens when it’s raining…
Dead amused, Niou kept his chuckles to himself. It was… cute. Even if usually sung by a female, the track really sounded no worse in the morpher’s smooth alto. (This, from the perspective of a tone deaf teen <3)
It wasn't until Yagyuu set the microphone down that he realized yes, he actually was still embarrassed by this concept. He knew the song didn't fit his range, but he liked it, and Niou seemed to ... approve. He'd have to pick something different for his next selection, of course; perhaps something made popular by a member of his own gender.
He handed the mic off to Niou. Never mind the fact that he wasn't exactly looking forward to listening to the other boy's version of singing again; he was less excited about taking the spotlight for another song himself. "Your turn."
“…hm~” Niou hm’ed, tapping his nose. It wasn’t that he couldn’t sing – he could well enough – but his voice really only suited rock, or the un-sugared end of pop and… yelling stuff. And it was Yagyuu’s birthday, so–!
He handed the mic back right back and picked up the second with an impish grin. “Pick us some~thing in~teres~ting <3”
Interesting? "No," Yagyuu refused. Especially if it was meant to be a duet. That was just silly. That was beyond silly, even, if karaoke itself was silly on its own.
All of the duets he could think of were sappy love songs, anyway, and that was not the kind of thing that he wanted to be singing with Niou. Or at all.
Unless that was what Niou wanted. But that was ridiculous; he didn't mean ... he couldn't think that they ...
No, no; Niou was perfectly fine with Echizen, still, and anything that might have happened could be blamed squarely on Mizuki, never mind what he'd been dreaming all on his own, and Yagyuu was not going to be singing any cheesy duet with Niou because that would be … awkward.
“No?” Niou laughed. “Relax, Mister Yagyuu~” Punching the options for a random ‘Classic’ – oh, that was funny <3
Watch out, here I come…
You spin me right round, baby, right round—
Since karaoke was all about performance (really), Niou hoped Yagyuu wouldn’t die… At… least it was sung by a male?
Yagyuu blinked at the screen and did not sing.
He thought Niou was acting like an idiot, hamming up the performance despite the fact they were quite alone in the small room. What point was there to acting like a fool for attention when there was no real audience?
Oh, he'd been able to let go himself, well enough, when he didn't have to think about singing with someone. It was easier to do anything by oneself, after all; there wasn't any need to rely on others to either carry one through or drag one down. But maybe, maybe, some small part of Yagyuu envied him.
Because Niou might look like an idiot, but he looked like an idiot who enjoyed himself. Of course. Yagyuu'd picked up on that before he'd ever morphed him.
All I know is that to me, you look like you're lots of fun—
Oh, to hell with it. Niou was the last person who would judge him, and it wasn't like there was anyone else in there. Yagyuu gave up and joined in.
– much to the phaser’s absolute delight. Come the final chorus, he gave Yagyuu a small round of applause even before the track started to fade out, falling back to the chair with a cackle and Cheshire grin. “See, now that wasn’t so terribly difficult, was it –” Mister Yagyuu?
Hm. Niou flumped over where he sat to lie, head beside the other’s lap now, looking up from upside down. “What~ should I call~ you~?”
"Call me?" Yagyuu echoed. "I ... ah, my name is fine." He hadn't known Niou to call him anything but, and besides, what would he call him? Certainly not 'Eidolon'. That was just ... silly.
He picked up the book again and turned a few more laminated pages; he thought maybe he wouldn't mind doing another song now that he'd loosened up, if he could find one that he liked. But ... "Was there some reason you were asking?" Was this an indication that he wanted to call him something else? Yagyuu stuck his finger in the book to mark his place and looked over at Niou more directly.
And Niou looked right back, still upside down. “Not really,” he laughed, reaching up to tap Yagyuu on the nose, “Just thought I’d get a preference vote before defaulting to Hirochu~<3”
He was serious, though. So far it was Ryoma, Bunta and Tai-kun that he was on first-name basis with – the latter two somehow having fallen to that by default – even if nobody really called him Masaharu. (Clumsy name, anyway.)
Blink. He couldn't be serious. "If -- " If you're going to use my given name -- "-- ah, I mean, Hiroshi is -- is fine."
To prove that he was really okay (and not at all internally flustered by this prospect; no, nobody outside of his family called him by his first name), he opened the book again. There were words on the page, and Yagyuu knew this, but he couldn't seem to see what exactly they were, nor could he be expected to actually read them. He gave up on trying to pick a specific song. "Should I ..." call you something else as well?
“…should you what, Hi~ro~shi..?” Heh, a name the same as every second boy in Japan, but still nice. It rolled off the tongue a lot easier than Yagyuu at any rate. Ignoring the repetitive song menu jingle, Niou chuckled lightly. His mind’d filled the blank just like almost every other time but, well. Yagyuu was hardly going to be able to come up with a name if he couldn’t even form a basic question…
And nobody in his family ever said his name like that. Yagyuu was fairly certain that the tone invited intimacy, but he wasn't about to go there. Not now. Or -- no, not again. Perhaps not ever. He shouldn't, anyway, no matter how much he might have wanted to.
Regardless of half-formed wants, though, if they were to continue to be on even footing, it was only right that he reciprocate at least their form of address. Yagyuu ignored the tone as best he could (trying to cool the heat rising in his face), and got the question out quickly. "Should I call you something else, then?"
“Would you like to?” Niou chuckled – but promptly facepalmed. Okay, hell… talking like that wasn’t playing fair (but damn Yagyuu had cute feathers to ruffle).
Really. He’d never really thought Lack of Composure could be an appealing trait – though by the same token, neither had he ever known someone as uptight in quite the same way. (Zukie didn’t count, because he was old, and not uptight, just boring.)
“Blbblblbl~” Rubbing said hand down his face, the phaser chanced a peek back up, though grinning still. “Sorry.”
"For what?" Yagyuu asked with mild surprise, turning his head a bit to look at him. He would not touch Niou, nevermind the fact that he was right there, with his head practically in his lap. He knew full well that the phaser rarely apologised (if ever); apology meant you'd done something you didn't intend to.
Third ‘Sorry’ to Yagyuu (though the first hadn’t really counted). To put that in perspective, he’d only half-apologised to Ryoma twice – to anyone else prior, never at all. Niou said nothing for a long while, lying there in the non-silence of the karaoke booth and watching Yagyuu watching him.
“My conduct of late has been unacceptable,” he said at last, face perfectly clear. It was so much simpler to get something like that across in Yagyuu’s words – a setting where the weight of connotation was nothing to consider, where the words themselves mattered more than their articulation and personality hid behind starch-collared formality. Yagyuu took things so goddamned deeply. Niou wondered if he could get an off-switch for brains. Flick one would go to Bunta, flick two to this Hiroshi.
His conduct was unacceptable? What did he mean by that? Did he not intend for any of this ... closeness ... to happen?
Yagyuu sighed, returning his gaze to the cover of the song book. Of course he didn't. Niou was ... flippant, and he was casual, and Yagyuu never should have taken him as seriously as he had, whether it was as simple an act as taking time out of his day to spend time with him or one that carried more weight, such as deciding he ought to be called by his first name instead. Niou must have had plenty of other friends, in addition to a boyfriend, and there was no reason Yagyuu should have ever thought himself ... special. "Ah, no," he said. "It's my fault."
“…how do you figure?” Niou asked, and flipped over onto his stomach, resting chin in hands on elbows (because lying back like that presently made him feel like a shrink’s victim), genuinely curious. Yagyuu could very well be just saying that because it was the Thing to Say when someone apologised to you, but knowing him…
Another sigh. "It's ..." I've been misinterpreting you. But he couldn't say that, no matter how true it was. He turned the thought over in his head a few more times, considering, weighing the potential consequence of giving voice to that concern. It's nothing came up as well, but that was an even more ridiculous statement. And he couldn't very well distract Niou with another song; he would see right through that. "You're hardly to blame for simply being yourself," he decided. That was safer. And true enough: Niou couldn't have possibly actually done anything wrong.
A stance possibly furthest from the truth things could be. Niou gave Yagyuu a long, level look, eyes half-lidded as his brain ticked over though smiling, as always. Almost always.
Toeing off a shoe, one foot very inelegantly blind-jabbed at random buttons until a song began to play (because, damn, that jingle got annoying), and the room was back in sound-numbed silence. “…are you underestimating me, Hiroshi?” He knew Yagyuu’s admission hadn’t been intended that way, but all the same: “I am what I want to be at any given time.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, his mind hit replay and it occurred to him that that was the most revealing statement he’d made in a long time. He was, essentially, a guy who played hard and wild on the outside, who wanted attention and got it – a detached analyst sat one layer down, predicting things and anticipating them. At the very core though… he was just another control freak, really (– like Yagyuu. But different). Because you had to know the rules backward to bend them.
Yagyuu swallowed, a bit stunned. Something about that statement seemed to ring too truly; it thickened the air around them that by all rights should be light. "So," he said slowly, carefully measuring each word as it came, "if I understand correctly, you ... intend ..." everything? to make me feel this way? He wasn't sure how to finish, so left the sentence dangling. He started over, because he didn't think he understood anything anymore. "What is it that you want to be, then?"
He was surprised to find his voice soft when he spoke. If Yagyuu was 'what he needed to be' and Niou was 'what he wanted to be', then inherently neither of them had any clear-cut definition of 'self', did they?
…there were a few options here: ‘What I want to be’, as opposed to ‘What I need to be’ – which was the same as ‘What you need me to be,’ (for image or serving useful purpose)…
Then there was also what Niou decided applied here: “What you want me to be.” As distinct from needs or expectations. And because he was Niou Masaharu – or more specifically wasn’t – he was smirking as he added, “You you, Hiroshi. If I like it.”
What if I want you to be mine instead? But Yagyuu shoved that thought out of his mind, along with any other indecent scenarios that flashed through his head. He would not touch Niou now; he certainly was not going to kiss him again.
Regardless, he could feel his pulse racing again, just as it had in the moment before he did taste the other's lips for the first time. "I doubt what I want and what you would be willing to give coincide," he said instead; stilted and forced, because he didn't want it to be true but knew that it had to be. Even that statement, he knew, was far too much of a confession (as though the kisses hadn't been?), much more than he would ordinarily let on.
But it wasn't as though he ordinarily found himself in such a situation; he didn't know what was proper or improper. He did, however, suspect that what he wanted bordered on the latter, and he really shouldn't say much more.
“Don’t make that expression,” Niou chuckled softly. Though with Yagyuu, it wasn’t so much an expression (‘deadpan’ excluded) as an atmosphere, coupled with an occasional dusting of blush. “It makes me think you’re reading me right.”
Sitting up, he slipped his shoes back on and moved to the door with a second come-hither beckon. Because it was one thing to be asking for trouble, but another entirely to go sleep in its lair. Or sing in it. The mood wasn't right anymore anyway.
But would that be a problem, if he was right after all? Yagyuu followed, picking up his pace to catch up with Niou, and kept his distance once he finally did fall into step beside him. Quietly, he studied the phaser's profile, intently as he could without (he hoped) being caught looking. And while Yagyuu did consider people carefully, it was always with the intention of study. Rarely did he look at anyone so ... subjectively.
Niou was not, he decided, the most physically beautiful person he'd morphed -- he thought perhaps Shishido held that honour -- but there was a marked difference between beautiful and attractive. Niou drew him in; he pulled at Yagyuu unintentionally and made him his.
And Yagyuu wasn't used to that. It was different when he assimilated someone else -- he had control over that. In this case, there was a distinct lack of control, and it actually disturbed him. He suspected that he wouldn't be so worried by it if he didn't know that Niou was already someone else's.
But the change in environment was enough to break the tension that had built in the karaoke room. And despite the feelings that lingered in the back of Yagyuu's mind, he was good enough at acting, especially when around someone whose personality he could morph. "So," he said, trying to ease into Niou's typically casual manner, "where are we headed next?"
“…” The phaser eyed Yagyuu sideways. “You suck.” That had been far from the best attempt at ‘relaxed’ he’d seen Yagyuu pull yet. It was sort of cute, he thought, that one could best tell Yagyuu’s state from his utterances. If he was truly flustered, it was backtracking, not-quite-stammering. If it was just the uncomfortable, he said something wrong – not grammatically or phonetically – just technically. Something somehow. “This is how it’s done:” He threw an arm over to hang off his companion’s shoulders, grinning in his face, noses two inches apart. “Where to now?”
And speaking of which – “There!” he pointed, abruptly changing course and pulling Yagyuu along.
This time, Yagyuu didn't even bother with trying to force a smile, just let himself be guided. The arm over his shoulder was heavy, and not quite as warm as one might expect an arm to be -- Niou didn't radiate heat in the same way that most other people did. The proximity was, at the same time, both comforting and strangely unnerving, and Yagyuu wished he didn't concern himself so much with what was meant by each of Niou's words and actions.
He was so caught up in analysis that he nearly didn't realise that they were closing in on a sticker photo booth. Surely Niou didn't expect both of them to go inside there at the same time? Surely this was a joke, a beeline before a sharp detour. He'd change direction any moment now and tug Yagyuu towards the food court or some shop, wouldn't he?
Absolutely not. But even so, the phaser detached himself from Yagyuu’s shoulders as they approached and disappeared into the booth alone, turning to grin out with all the hopefulness of a kid asking for candy. It was still the gentleman’s birthday though (evidenced by the balloon strings still wrapped around his wrist <3), and Niou wasn’t going to force him into anything. Not least because there was no fun in something so crude as that. These things weren’t really designed for the taller than average, let alone two, but there was enough space for fit (if not comfort). It would be the other’s call.
Yagyuu hesitated, but it wasn't as though he didn't want to be so close to Niou -- just that he thought he shouldn't. Even if the booth did offer a perfectly good excuse to achieve an intimate proximity without added guilt. Steeling himself for the consequences, he ducked under the curtain to join the silver-haired boy inside.
He didn't think it was possible for a public space to feel so private. Niou was right there; the only way that they could both easily fit inside was with their shoulders brushing and their hips both wedged between the narrow walls.
And in went the spare change. Niou selected the settings with a few curt jabs – a police line-up background for partners in crime, and an old-school gilded frame for the fore, because irony was always nice <3 “Your sister never dragged you along into something like this before?” he chuckled.
"Ah ... no," Yagyuu replied. She'd always been more interested in doing more social activities with her crowd of friends, not her uptight older brother. And it wasn't as though he'd ever been granted the opportunity to do something foolish like this before.
Niou, he thought absently, made him do a great deal of foolish things. But he smiled as the camera flashed, shifted slightly in an attempt to make himself more comfortable, hoping that he wouldn't accidentally initiate a morph.
Yagyuu’s sister was a silly girl, Niou decided. Whoever didn’t do something with this Hiroshi when he was so accessible either had something wrong with their brains, or was very self-centred – but she so wasn’t his business.
The second time around, Niou poked Yagyuu in the side. Given they were wearing shoes, and neck contact was out of the question, that was the surest bet for a ticklish spot (it was Ryoma’s, at any rate). Though he didn’t really expect Yagyuu to be the ticklish type, at the very least maybe they’d get a funny face for the camera <3
The friendly jab just beneath his ribs that came with the second flash was also unexpected. Did Niou want to mess up the shots? Yagyuu kept his face as steady as possible (which was only slightly less than under normal circumstances); he'd ask why only after they'd left the booth and there was no chance of them being stuck with stupid pictures for their stickers.
Correction: no more stupid pictures.
“Okay, okay~ I’ll behave,” Niou laughed, in a tone that suggested anything but. He was possibly more amused by Yagyuu’s half-bent-stiff-broomstick-face than he would’ve been by any old regular funny face. It was more typically Yagyuu, after all – who wanted normal?
He vaguely wondered if the morpher had ever seen his powers at work on himself – the transformation was no less than dead fascinating to watch…
As the numbers counted down from three on the screen, Niou squirmed a little; at two, turned to Yagyuu, grinning; at one, brought a hand up, slipping along under the other’s chin. He saw the start of a morph a moment before zero leapt up and he kissed his cheek – there went the flash.
Caught off-guard, Yagyuu felt the subdermal chill of a morph and his breath catching in his throat simultaneously. He almost thought, when he felt the touch below his chin, that Niou would kiss his mouth (would he have wanted a photo of that, though?) but the touch of cool lips on his cheek was enough to set his heart racing once more.
The short kiss was not, thankfully, a long enough touch to incite a full morph, but it was just enough to allow the camera to capture the way that Yagyuu looked when he was about to stop being himself. He recomposed himself as Niou collected the printouts, pushing the short half-morph out of his skin. "Was that really necessary?" he asked. It wasn't a complaint.
Niou didn’t answer directly – both of them knew it wasn’t after all, and also that he hardly cared for ‘necessary’. Instead, he pointed at the little strip of photos. “You–” at the first one, “Less you,” – the second, and: “More you <3” at the third – alternatively known as Cause and Effect 101.
It was not "more him" -- the facial structure was nearly Niou's, and what of his eyes could be seen behind the lenses were clearly more gold than brown. And Yagyuu ... rather liked it. He was sure the blush lingered in his cheeks, faint though it might be. It was ... not him, and not Niou, either, but a combination of the both of them, and it felt ... like it meant something. "Are we ... splitting these, then?"
There were six on the sheet, two columns side by side, and even perforated down the middle. Despite this, pulling a sharpie out of his pocket, the phaser scrawled Happy Birthday, Hirochu~<3 across the back in messy hiragana. “No,” he chuckled, popping the sheet into Yagyuu’s breast pocket. And then, knowing the other would probably think something of that, he added: “Don’t take it personally. I don’t have photos.”
"Isn't that all the more reason you should have -- have some, then?" Unless Niou was afraid of someone at his school finding the photos and thinking something that they shouldn't. Just as likely, of course, with the small kiss, and the fact Niou had a boyfriend, and even just that short display of affection might be interpreted somehow wrongly.
Such as the way that Yagyuu was trying very hard not to interpret it. "Ah, nevermind," he corrected himself, in lieu of apologising, then added as an afterthought, "Thank you."
He walked close enough beside Niou to take his hand, though he kept his to himself (he wasn't wearing gloves today), and followed him to their next destination, wherever that might be.
As they walked in companionable silence, Niou was faintly amused and grinned at nothing in particular, looking back at Yagyuu’s balloons every now and again. The morpher had very clearly thought something, and had almost certainly shot far from the mark. He’d clear it up next time, maybe. But not now <3
Entering the small café, Niou gestured for Yagyuu to find a table, stopping at the counter. “My treat,” he winked. “Grab a seat. I’ll be a moment~”
Yagyuu quietly took a seat at a table near the wall, trying to keep his eyes trained on Niou, but when the other boy disappeared behind a corner, he assumed he was simply looking for a restroom.
That was fine, of course. A moment passed, and Yagyuu sighed, glancing up at the silly balloons that were still tied to his wrist. He didn't like them, of course, but they seemed to ... mean something, somehow, like a representation of his emergence as an actual social human being. He pulled the photographs from his pocket, looking at them more intently now that he was alone for just some time. They ... might have looked good together, if Yagyuu had loosened up just a little, or if Niou had pulled himself together more. The two of them were in such stark contrast ... at least until the last panel.
What was Niou trying to do?
Well. On a Deep and Meaningful level it remained to be seen, but currently the phaser was engaged in small talk and attempting to get a favour out of the establishment’s manager.
Nothing so hard in the end, he thought, as he followed the man out to the front of the store, waiting patiently behind as he very kindly asked the dozen-or-so patrons therein for attention.
Once received, Niou cleared his throat and stepped up to the plate. “Ladies and gentlebeings,” he smiled, meeting each gaze in turn, voice clear and soft, but pitched to carry. “Please celebrate with me the first birthday of my dear friend, Mister Yagyuu Hiroshi, who is nineteen this year~” (Open-palmed indication of recipient and viewers’ scattered applause.) “He comes from something of a broomstick background and, as this shall be his last year before coming of age, I’d be most obliged if you could all please join me in singing happy birthday <3”
Niou dropped his hand, cueing the kicking off – and was delighted to hear the effect of the appeal.
As the off-key voices of the clientele raised in chorus, Yagyuu wasn't sure whether to be stunned or mortified, and settled for a complex combination of both. He was too aware of every eye in the café on him now, the unnecessary attention drawn in his direction and his alone. He wasn't sure that he liked it, even if it was another something from Niou.
He told himself that Niou wasn't intentionally being embarrassing, but any hopes of that statement being true were cruelly dashed as members of the waitstaff carried out an honest-to-goodness birthday cake and brought it directly to the table. The one thing that Yagyuu wanted to know was how, far more than he was curious about why, because he was pretty sure he already knew why, but even those reasons were getting jumbled in his head.
Niou rejoined Yagyuu’s table as the song ended, hands clapping in glee – the morpher’s aura was nothing short of pure doom, and he was absolutely thrilled. People were so wonderful <3 Bouncing the knife from the tray’s side, he spun it between his fingers, presenting the handle to Yagyuu with a flourish – “Blow out the candles~! And cut the cake~!” – before leaning in to whisper the age-old line: “If it comes out dirty you have to kiss the nearest gir~l <3”
Yagyuu hadn't heard that line before, but did as told: first the candles, which took two separate breaths to extinguish, and then the cake, which he cut as slowly as possible in the hopes that the knife would come out clean. He had little doubt that Niou would actually pull the nearest girl from the café patrons and volunteer her for a kiss (if only because Niou wasn't a girl himself -- had the adage said 'nearest person' Yagyuu might have been a little more reckless with his cake-cutting).
He still felt silly, but after cutting one perfect slice, looked up at Niou with a soft, genuine smile. It was silly because he wasn't used to it; because he hadn't had the sort of childhood that would allow him to grow accustomed to random displays of foolishness. Drawing attention to oneself was wrong, he'd been taught, in the proper Japanese fashion, and going with the flow was a virtue. Yagyuu was not special; he was not important, and Niou was the first person who actually made him feel as though he was -- and for no particular reason at all. And, he realised, handing the (mostly clean) knife back to Niou, the smile he offered was of gratitude.
Which had the phaser grinning right back, eyes dancing, at a job well done. For once, Niou felt genuinely pleased over his efforts – most things came way too easily for satisfaction. Feeling about as smug as Ryoma often looked, he slivered the rest of the cake, laying the slices out on white napkins. There was more than enough to go around and, asking one of the waitresses if the kitchen had some disposable gloves, perchance? (they did of course), he handed things over to Yagyuu.
“Hiroshi~<3” With his best benign smile and motherly tones, he placed two pieces of cake in Yagyuu’s hands. “I want you to go out and meet some nice people.”
Wait. That wasn't part of the plan. "But," he protested, and didn't really know exactly how to finish that sentence, so just looked up at Niou with what he hoped passed as a pleading look in his eyes. Never mind the fact that there was enough cake to feed the whole café, it wasn't Yagyuu's job to pass it out, birthday celebration or not.
Because he was pretty sure that this wasn't part of a typical birthday celebration.
“But nothing, Hirochu~” Niou laughed. “These people don’t even know you and still sang happy birthday. It’s not going to kill to give a personal smile and thank you back, y’know? Grins make people feel good.”
Lesson 202 – Smiles and Small Talk.
All the same, he picked up two slices of cake himself. “Follow my lead; you’ll be fine <3” Between the two of them it wouldn’t take long anyway. In truth, he was also distantly curious to see if Yagyuu’s ‘be what I need to’ policy would extend to larger-scale situations too, or if it was more just an issue of personal counterbalance.
That was a little better, Yagyuu thought. He could do this if he was just following Niou's lead. That didn't require as much of him, then; he wouldn't be held accountable for being too strange or going out of his own way or interfering with these kind people's lunches. If the attention and cake given was unwarranted, then he could blame Niou.
It was so much easier to do anything outside of his own character when he just ... wasn't himself. Even if Niou expected friendliness towards strangers from him, he didn't expect it from himself.
So it was simple enough to just be Niou -- to assimilate his personality, his casual speech, his broad grin -- while he left generous slices on the patrons' tables. He didn't know them, but it didn't matter. What he couldn't place, though, was whether Niou was able to approach people in the way he did because he put more distance between himself and them -- ie, their opinions didn't matter as much to him as they did to Yagyuu -- or because he considered every person a potential new friend. He'd have to ask him later.
After making the rounds of the small café, they took their seats and started on the cake -- and Yagyuu decided now was as good a later as any. "How do you do it?" he asked. "Treat people the way you do, I mean. Strangers."
Niou blinked twice, mildly surprised. Not so long ago, Ryoma’d asked after how he ‘dealt with people all the time’, and now – he knew it would be easier to answer Yagyuu, though by the same token, perhaps also harder for the morpher to accept said answers. Because they weren’t really there.
He vaguely supposed he could’ve felt proud for still coming across as a people person when there was really only one and a half he considered close these days. The phaser chuckled, absently twirling his fork as he gave the query due thought. ‘How’ was such a tricky little word after all. He could be driven by ulterior motives, or a deliberate carelessness for external perception. Maybe because of an obligation to be nice, or a lack of social etiquette.
But that was bordering on the ‘why’ rather than ‘how’, even if means were borne of motives when push came to shove. “Look around,” he settled on saying. “Their eyes are back in their own worlds. Maybe two out of twenty will remember your name as I told it. Perhaps five will be able to pick your face out of a line-up next week. Nineteen you’ll never see again…” If you make an impression, you’ll less likely be forgotten.
Besides, smiles were fun, and people were so much easier when they liked you. But Yagyuu didn’t really need to hear that.
"But if you hadn't done that, then none of them would be able to pick me out," Yagyuu pointed out. And wasn't it better that way? Niou couldn't help but be noticed, looking the way he did; the only feature that potentially set Yagyuu apart from the crowd was his height. It was easier to deal with people when they didn't notice you.
He sighed, sinking his fork into the slice of cake again. "Are you ... are you trying to make new friends?" he asked.
“You say that like I’m trying to contract AIDS,” Niou snickered (a slight exaggeration only). All the same, he again lapsed into thought. Okay, so it wasn’t like he was consciously actively seeking people these days as he’d done at Ryuhana initially, but hm… “I guess it depends on your definition of ‘friend’.”
And that was enough to give Yagyuu pause. How would he define 'friend'? He knew that he would place Niou in that category, but not likely many other people -- and probably nobody at the Brotherhood, which was strange, because he was meant to hold to their ideals, wasn't he? He ought to have more in common with his comrades than some upstart from a rival school, and yet ...
... and yet he found them infuriating. His neighbors were ego personified, his classmates lacked basic intelligence, and his squad members seemed hell-bent on genocide.
Yagyuu did agree with the Brotherhood's basic tenet that mutants were more advanced, clearly -- it was a matter of evolution. Eventually they would become the dominant species, but it wasn't necessary to accelerate the process through bloodshed. And it wasn't in his nature to rampage.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I can't say that I've made many, myself, especially not ... at school." It wasn't really the proper term for his current living arrangement, but it was the best he could come up with.
Niou chuckled, unsurprised. Yagyuu was Yagyuu, and Yagyuu was at the Brotherhood, after all. The students there, the phaser very readily classed as either slick or stupid – none of the things (so help him god) Yagyuu would be interested in. Which begged the question of why he was even there, really.
“Why stay?” Stabbity stab at the cake.
"It's where I am," Yagyuu replied with a shrug. But that didn't seem like quite enough of an answer, so he elaborated, riding out that train of thought. "Sakaki-san promised me both prestige and education. I'll ... freely admit that I haven't received much of the latter, as I might usually describe it, but the training does ... have its benefits, I suppose." He chewed his cake thoughtfully -- it was sweet, but not so much so, with a lighter icing than he had expected an ordinary cake to have.
That still didn't seem like a good answer, and Yagyuu knew it. His eyes fell to the table top, studying the patterns in the woodgrain, but they offered no insight. "I said I would stay," he told the table. "I ... I don't intend to go back on my word. Nor do I intend to return home," he added, as that was really his only other option. Wasn't it?
Niou snerked. The way Yagyuu wrote about his sister in the journals already made that last statement clear. Whatever. Family wasn’t his issue. “I seem to recall the existence of another school for the genetically challenged,” the phaser said, tracing the path of Yagyuu’s gaze and seeing eyeballs in the knots of wood.
In his frank opinion, there was even less prestige than education within the Brotherhood walls (however the hell that was apparently possible) – they themselves were the only ones who seemed to hold any high regard. And that was saying something. “Though a man is the collective sum of his promises; pity you made that one <3” Fun as it would or could be to drag Yagyuu over to ‘Hana, Niou wasn’t going to. Some things, one had to want enough.
It almost sounded like Niou was suggesting that Yagyuu apply at Ryuhana. Almost.
Even though he didn't, Yagyuu turned the thought over in his mind. It was a shame that Sakaki-san had approached him before he'd had a chance to hear about Ryuhana; the headmaster simply wasn't holding up his end of the bargain. Even the reputation that had been promised with membership at the Brotherhood was sorely absent. And Yagyuu had been ... waiting, holding out in the hopes that eventually, that honour would come.
That fool who called himself Blackguard had attributed said honour to the massacre on Halloween. Yagyuu knew that the rest of the students didn't all agree with him (nevermind the fact that one of his own squad members seemed to be one of the zealot's disciples); one had even left the premises after the incident.
What were any of them doing there? Moreover, what was anyone doing at Ryuhana?
"What about you?" Yagyuu asked slowly. "Why Ryuhana?" And what keeps you there, but he figured the answer to that question was simple enough. One didn't easily leave a place if one had an anchor, after all.
"It's where I am," Niou replied with a smirk. But that didn't seem like quite enough of an answer, so he elaborated. For the hell of it. “Chance. Fate. Because everything happens for a reason, and it’s just as well, really…” He wasn’t usually inclined to say these things, but since it was Yagyuu –
What was it about Yagyuu..? Discusions with the Brotherhood boy felt to Niou like musing aloud to his own subconscious or shadow. It was… not a chore, though neither something anticipated, and simultaneously redundant as it was affirming.
A train of thought that would need more attention later.
“Hana’s easy,” he went on, for now. “I do my job and sleep in class and love my neighbour and nothing else much matters. Their ideals make enough sense.” He didn’t necessarily care much about them, but they were logically sound.
And ‘easy’ all the time was no fun either, but to cover the basics, food and a roof, it was perfectly fine.
Enough sense to stay, on both of their accounts. It seemed neither of them was particularly tied to the institution that they attended. Yagyuu shoved down all thoughts of both of them leaving their respective schools and proverbially running away together (he was sure Niou wouldn't want that, and where did that thought come from, anyway?), though he knew that the time would come -- and soon -- that they'd both be leaving anyway. For university, in Yagyuu's case; possibly the same in Niou's, unless anything had changed since they'd had that conversation.
But Yagyuu wasn't stupid, either -- he knew what his training entailed, and it wasn't merely control. "You're not fighters," he said simply, and it could have been an observation, but it might have been a warning. You're not. We are. Possibly both.
Niou shrugged, taking the phrase itself as the former, but the voicing of it as the latter. It was true anyway – Ryuhana’s very existence was centred around peace, and they were hardly subtle about it. “’Course not,” he said, playful lilt shining through. “But passive and pushover are hardly synonymous.”
Despite his tone, Niou did believe that there were some hella determined-and-dangerous kids within Ryuhana’s walls that the Brotherhood underestimated. Just like he was pretty sure that for all their talk, if the two schools ever went head-to-head, many at the ‘Hood could not do so with clear conscience. He toyed with the crumbs in his plate. “Why?” Still half teasing. “Heard any plans for a pending extermination in the near future or something?”
"Nothing so simple as that." For perhaps the first time in his conversations with Niou, Yagyuu was glad that his eyes were hidden. Behind the lenses they must have looked worried, troubled, and that ... that wasn't okay to admit right now, even to Niou.
Troubled because he'd been wrong with his decision, he realised. And he knew he wasn't loyal enough to the Brotherhood's cause that he would be let in on any major plans anyway. But what he did know ... "They're training us as fighters," he went on. "For - for stealth operations, specifically, at least my - ah, my team. There are others ..." Yagyuu knew he was going to be in such trouble if anyone from the Brotherhood ever found out that he was relaying information to someone at Ryuhana, even if it was someone like Niou, who would probably do nothing with it.
But he also knew that he wasn't comfortable with what he was being made to do, because the scope of the Brotherhood's activities was not explained to him properly when he signed up, and he felt ... tricked, or something, and if he could, even subconsciously, foil those who had led him into something he didn't want, then all the better.
Was that it? Was that what he wanted? Or was it simply his crush at work? Either way he knew he was a liability to the Brotherhood.
About what Niou wasn’t already aware of (he’d – literally – poked his head in a few of the Brotherhood training spots during his week’s stay there), he couldn’t particularly say he cared. “You’d be good at stealth,” he grinned instead, and poked his fork into Yagyuu’s cake. “Though I do believe this would be reconnaissance for the wrong side? Wonder who’d win if we ever went head-to-head for something.” In truth, it wasn’t much of a question. Despite the annoyance of not having eyes to watch and know what he was thinking, Niou was pretty sure he hadn’t read Yagyuu a wrong step yet.
He tapped his fork against the other’s chin. “Don’t think so much. You’ll blow the stressbox in your brain.”
Yagyuu brushed the crumbs off his face with a napkin. It wasn't necessarily his own thinking in circles that caused him undue stress; it was simply a side-effect of the natural routes that his brain took when unguided.
And Niou's offhand comment only served to remind him of the possibility that they might actually have to face one another someday. Yagyuu knew he wouldn't be able to; he was ... far too close to the situation. Another liability for his side. Strangely, he thought he'd be far more likely to sink a knife into either of his own squad mates (provided he had the skills to do such a thing).
Perhaps he could acquire the skills and then ...
... then what? Leave? Become independent?
It was a possibility. Yagyuu retook possession of his own cake (though they were sharing it now and that shouldn't strike him as cute), and finished it off, then laid the fork face-down on the edge of the plate. "I shall leave the task of breaking myself to my esteemed colleagues," he stated dryly, "or anyone else who cares to accept the mission."
Yes, he did mean it that way.
“Sounds like a challenge,” Niou grinned, flipping Yagyuu’s fork over with his own. As far as he’d tried, things’d been to push Yagyuu or challenge him. He’d only ever succeeded in bending him some variation of sideways, though; never once had he gotten the sense Yagyuu was liable to crack – but then again, neither had he ever intended for that to happen.
In retrospect, he wasn’t sure he much liked the idea of Yagyuu as a dysfunctional unit. The morpher was about balance above all else after all, and that couldn’t work if he wasn’t… hm.
“Don’t make it too easy~” There was an edge of sharpness on a note of concern there, and presently, Niou wondered after it. At the very least, if anyone was going to do any breaking of ‘Yagyuu’, the phaser determined it would be him, because he’d know to do it right.
Whatever the hell that meant.
At the realisation that his challenge (that was what it was, however loosely interpreted) was accepted, Yagyuu was filled with not quite as much dread as he might have expected were it anyone else facing him.
Because, he thought, it wasn't breakage that he asked for, but change, some kind of impetus to push his own development forward, but a strong enough impetus that the change didn't move too slowly. And if anyone else were to change him -- Mizuki, for example, or anyone else at the Brotherhood -- it would be somehow wrong. That wasn't what he needed.
Besides -- and he looked up, meeting Niou's eyes, unsure of whether his own could be properly seen just then -- wasn't that what had already begun? "If you find it easy, ah ... consider it a testament to your own skill." And he pushed his glasses up on his nose before looking back at the empty plate, fork face-up. He didn't turn it back.
Niou eyed the other for a few long heartbeats. Easy? He did consider himself skilled – took pride in it, in fact… but was this really something he ought to pursue? Yagyuu was a challenge; Yagyuu was fascinating. Yagyuu was Yagyuu, and Niou liked that – would he still and still be later?
“…it’s time we headed off,” he said at last, eyes moving from fork to hand and back to Yagyuu’s hidden gaze.
Yagyuu pushed his chair away and stood, and might have said something about the bill as they walked out of the café if not for the assumption that Niou had already paid. He felt ... dismissed, somehow, or something akin to rejected, despite the balloons that still trailed him and the photos tucked inside his shirt pocket.
He knew he was a fool to think that any of this meant anything more than friendship; knew that he was a fool to even want to risk throwing that type of relationship away. Niou had spared no expense today, and Yagyuu had repaid him with ... silly attempts at flirting, each time leading to the decision that their current activity was done and it was time to move on. He didn't know whether Niou had anything else planned, or if he would simply send him home, so he decided not to ask, just follow. After a few moments, he broke the silence. "Ah ... thank you."
Niou paused, looked up and at Yagyuu again. The morpher was thinking (it was always so obvious) and he grinned a little at that, lopsidedly. Yagyuu’s brain worked too much. That could’ve been a hypocritical statement, but a difference existed between thinking through instinct and fundamental overanalysis…
He wondered if there was anything he could do about that latter.
Rather, he knew there was, but he wondered if it would work as intended.
…knowing Yagyuu? Probably not. But by the same token, his probabilities had a tendency to switch odds-on at the drop of a hat.
It could be an interesting gamble to play, especially since he effectively had permission from both sides involved…
Reaching over, Niou wound a hand through the balloons’ strings, bringing their bobbing height down to head level – an ineffectual screen as he stepped out in front of the other’s path. Free hand slipping around Yagyuu’s neck, the phaser pulled him in, mouths meeting before protest – on the off-chance there might’ve been one.
And this time there would be no holding back.
Time seemed to skip. This was the wrong track. There was a hiccup in the flow of things. But Yagyuu did not -- could not -- protest the lips on his, the hand at his nape, the kiss out of the blue. He'd lost his focus thanks to the surprise, but let his own lips part, prolonging the contact and pushing the morph back into Niou -- he had to do that; they were in public -- oh, god, they were in public --
Yagyuu hoped he wasn't kissing back too desperately, but it was hard to be rational, so he just followed Niou's lead and prayed he could keep his head clear enough not to change. But even if he was able to hold back a physical display of his power, the touch was enough to initiate the psionic aspect, granting him the awareness, the feeling sensation of everything that was inherently Niou, and it could not be as clear as speech, but seemed to speak to him all the same. You're being stupid. It means I like you.
Pulling away at last, Niou ran his tongue along damp lips, grinning. Yagyuu’s eyes were different – narrowed a little, lighter somewhat, sharper – but other than that, the morpher remained largely the same. Reaching over, Niou slid glasses up to rest atop still-brown hair, proud of him, and stepped back, head tilted slightly, regarding…
Yagyuu was on edge; mission accomplished. His grin eased into a smile. Tsk, who needed off switches with the power to switch brains themselves? “You’re welcome.”
Why, Yagyuu wanted to ask, but the word wouldn't come from his lips. He pulled his glasses off his head, folding them and sliding them into his shirt pocket with the photos -- his sight wasn't his own, and trying to see through the lenses only made the world look warped and blurry. He hoped he hadn't inadvertently absorbed much more of Niou than his eyes; he thought he'd done a fairly good job of preserving his own face ...
But that wasn't the point. Niou's eyes meant seeing things the way Niou did, on not just a physical level but on some metaphorical level as well -- it was simpler than Yagyuu thought. It wasn't, as he'd believed, a question of loyalty to one person or another, but rather a matter of cause-and-effect.
And in that case, Yagyuu needed to just quit worrying and follow the spirit of the moment. He'd been so needlessly upset over this, reading a thousand meanings into every single word, trying to place motive and blame, and he hadn't had to. It was as though he'd wasted most of the afternoon that he could have spent simply enjoying.
He allowed his expression to soften, lips curving in a gentle smile even as the colour stained his cheeks. He was welcome, and that was all that mattered. With a little more ease in his step, he walked closer beside Niou, but made sure to keep his hand to himself. "Where to now?" he asked, not quite minding the rising hope that they might be able to go somewhere a little less public and keep doing that for a while.
... to be continued
Warnings: Overanalysis, D1, long.
Summary: Niou takes Yagyuu out for a long-overdue birthday celebration, complete with balloons, cake, and mixed signals :D
Really. It hadn’t been his most… practical idea ever conceived, but the visual effect alone was worth it. And it was far from impossible to manage, even if ensuring the nineteen helium balloons didn’t get caught in random street signs and wires and overhead things was far harder than it should’ve been.
Niou chuckled a little at his own stubbornness, tugging at the strings winding up his right arm to the elbow. He could’ve just asked Yagyuu to meet at the same mall the specialist party store had been at, but this one was closer to the Brotherhood and hey – even a month late, birthdays were all about slacking off and having fun. It wouldn’t do to make Yagyuu travel any further than necessary, and besides: this mall was targeted for the less functional and decidedly more recreational.
Coming-of-age was only twenty, after all, and if the gentleman hadn’t had so much as a cake for occasions past, it was always better late than never.
The cluster of balloons bobbed over the sea of pedestrians, brilliant colours standing out among the mostly dark heads that crowded the streets. Yagyuu's eyes followed their path as they came closer, and widened little-by-little as said path appeared increasingly to target him. That couldn't be Niou, with all of those balloons.
Except it could. It could, and it was. Yagyuu sighed, preparing himself for the onslaught of ... frivolousness. After all, they were balloons... What possible purpose would they serve? And what was the occasion?
Niou grinned as he approached, coming to a full stop in front of Yagyuu.
"Can I ask why?" Yagyuu asked instead of a proper greeting, eyeing the balloons. Close up, he could see that they floated well over Niou's head -- the topmost one wasn't even visible from here.
“You could,” the phaser chuckled. “But I’d only say happy nineteenth <3” And with that, he stretched his arm out in offering, before phasing the limb, letting the balloons glide slowly upward. Well, it was Yagyuu’s call if he wanted to keep them.
“Follow me.” Cue wink and crook of the finger. First stop: karaoke.
Yagyuu could only watch as the balloons drifted away, only considering that he might be able to save them after most of them had already floated out of reach. The thought of how much the bouquet must have cost was what bade him grab the tails of at least three that could still be salvaged.
He didn't like the idea of walking around with balloons like a ten-year-old, especially when he was nearly twice that age, but Niou had gone to some trouble to get them, and he couldn't let a gift -- even a frivolous one -- go to waste. At least, that was his logic. Feeling foolish, he wound the strings around his wrist, and sighed, following as instructed. "Thank you," he added belatedly. "Have you got a plan?" Niou's expression would indicate that he did, which meant it was altogether likely that he wouldn't share what it was.
“Of course, but of course~” Niou rarely did anything without at least some idea of what it was going to be (mostly thanks to an anal desire to predict things). The name of today’s game was: Activities Mister Yagyuu Hasn’t Done Before <3
Nearly there and Niou slipped back a little, looping a loose blindfold around Yagyuu’s eyes before he had time to protest (yeah, he could still see if he was that desperate to), guiding him forward by the shoulders as the few remaining balloons bounced merrily against the mall interior’s light fixtures and wall-flowers.
Yagyuu opened his mouth to complain, but thought better of it, and closed it. The blindfold put him in no danger, after all, and he really did trust Niou (whether he should have was still up for debate, but nonetheless, he did).
And if he said he had a plan, then he had one. Yagyuu's only complaint then was a resigned sigh, and that was powerless against the guide at his back. He knew better than to ask where they were going: the balloons signified a celebration of Yagyuu's birthday, even a month late, and Niou's comments from their picnic conversation signified that he chose to associate birthdays with surprises. The blindfold correlated. Yagyuu kept his mouth shut.
The phaser walked them through the storefront, waving to the guy behind the counter. He’d dropped by earlier that morning to book and, well… chatting people up was a useful exercise in not being forgotten <3
The small room was made for about five, despite there just being the two of them (because Niou was pretty certain he wouldn’t get Yagyuu singing up at the public bar, goddamned funny as that would be). As soon as he shut the door in their wake, there was dead silence and he dropped the blindfold with a half-hidden laugh.
Yagyuu could tell, when the door clicked closed, that the room was soundproof. It was strange, like a silence that filled his head. Thankfully, the blindfold came off, and he could see that they were in ... a karaoke room?
It had to be. There was a screen and two microphones and a thick book lying on a table, and enough seating for a small group. And, Yagyuu realised, they were quite alone. He swallowed. And blinked. "What...?" he began, confused.
Niou tossed him one of the mics from the table. “Karaoke is an integral element of Japanese pop culture,” he recited from an article in one of the American magazines,
Enter Problem, stage right. Cheesy ballads and hyper sugar-pop songs were… probably not Yagyuu’s field of familiarity. "What kinda music do you like anyway?"
"I ..." Yagyuu began, and took the proffered seat next to his friend. He supposed he liked well enough the music that had been played at home -- well, excepting his sister's fascination with Japanese boy bands. (He was not singing anything w-inds, and that was final.) "None of this," he said, peering over Niou's shoulder at the tracklists. Perhaps there would be a few standards near the back ...
"Ah ... why don't you go first?" he suggested. "I'll ... keep looking." He really doubted there would be anything he was interested in interpreting, but if Niou started, that might buy him some time.
“Sure,” Niou grinned. “But after this one, every track you make me sing before you start gets you two <3” V-fingers for emphasis. Picking the second microphone up off the table, he reached over to jab at the Random button on the panel just under the screen.
…Kimigayo? Shit, well… at least the machine had a sense of humour. If Wakato were here, he might’ve liked it.
Nevertheless, Niou stood tall, hand over his heart, and spared no expense for the national anthem as the pre-recorded string-and-percussion orchestra squealed out some minor chords for a painful minute-thirty.
Very painful.
“You so could’ve done that better,” he laughed, collapsing back down at the closing bars. Yagyuu’s voice was definitely more the stately, classical kind. “Got something yet?”
"Ah ... not yet." Yagyuu flipped through the book more quickly now that Niou had stopped singing -- he hadn't been able to focus on the words on the pages when a distraction quite like what Niou passed off as singing was occurring in the same room. Why again, he wondered, did someone who couldn't carry a tune choose an activity like karaoke?
Thankfully, he'd found a song he was fairly certain he knew, and entered the selection. At least Niou had the decency to order a private room and not insist that they perform publicly. He stood reluctantly as the song began, glad to hear that it was the same he'd been thinking of, and that helped him to relax a bit.
It was easier to sing as the song went on, easier to let go -- it was only Niou in here, after all, and he certainly wasn't going to think any less of him for doing something as silly as karaoke. And if Niou could do this, certainly so could Yagyuu.
Thunder only happens when it’s raining…
Dead amused, Niou kept his chuckles to himself. It was… cute. Even if usually sung by a female, the track really sounded no worse in the morpher’s smooth alto. (This, from the perspective of a tone deaf teen <3)
It wasn't until Yagyuu set the microphone down that he realized yes, he actually was still embarrassed by this concept. He knew the song didn't fit his range, but he liked it, and Niou seemed to ... approve. He'd have to pick something different for his next selection, of course; perhaps something made popular by a member of his own gender.
He handed the mic off to Niou. Never mind the fact that he wasn't exactly looking forward to listening to the other boy's version of singing again; he was less excited about taking the spotlight for another song himself. "Your turn."
“…hm~” Niou hm’ed, tapping his nose. It wasn’t that he couldn’t sing – he could well enough – but his voice really only suited rock, or the un-sugared end of pop and… yelling stuff. And it was Yagyuu’s birthday, so–!
He handed the mic back right back and picked up the second with an impish grin. “Pick us some~thing in~teres~ting <3”
Interesting? "No," Yagyuu refused. Especially if it was meant to be a duet. That was just silly. That was beyond silly, even, if karaoke itself was silly on its own.
All of the duets he could think of were sappy love songs, anyway, and that was not the kind of thing that he wanted to be singing with Niou. Or at all.
Unless that was what Niou wanted. But that was ridiculous; he didn't mean ... he couldn't think that they ...
No, no; Niou was perfectly fine with Echizen, still, and anything that might have happened could be blamed squarely on Mizuki, never mind what he'd been dreaming all on his own, and Yagyuu was not going to be singing any cheesy duet with Niou because that would be … awkward.
“No?” Niou laughed. “Relax, Mister Yagyuu~” Punching the options for a random ‘Classic’ – oh, that was funny <3
Watch out, here I come…
You spin me right round, baby, right round—
Since karaoke was all about performance (really), Niou hoped Yagyuu wouldn’t die… At… least it was sung by a male?
Yagyuu blinked at the screen and did not sing.
He thought Niou was acting like an idiot, hamming up the performance despite the fact they were quite alone in the small room. What point was there to acting like a fool for attention when there was no real audience?
Oh, he'd been able to let go himself, well enough, when he didn't have to think about singing with someone. It was easier to do anything by oneself, after all; there wasn't any need to rely on others to either carry one through or drag one down. But maybe, maybe, some small part of Yagyuu envied him.
Because Niou might look like an idiot, but he looked like an idiot who enjoyed himself. Of course. Yagyuu'd picked up on that before he'd ever morphed him.
All I know is that to me, you look like you're lots of fun—
Oh, to hell with it. Niou was the last person who would judge him, and it wasn't like there was anyone else in there. Yagyuu gave up and joined in.
– much to the phaser’s absolute delight. Come the final chorus, he gave Yagyuu a small round of applause even before the track started to fade out, falling back to the chair with a cackle and Cheshire grin. “See, now that wasn’t so terribly difficult, was it –” Mister Yagyuu?
Hm. Niou flumped over where he sat to lie, head beside the other’s lap now, looking up from upside down. “What~ should I call~ you~?”
"Call me?" Yagyuu echoed. "I ... ah, my name is fine." He hadn't known Niou to call him anything but, and besides, what would he call him? Certainly not 'Eidolon'. That was just ... silly.
He picked up the book again and turned a few more laminated pages; he thought maybe he wouldn't mind doing another song now that he'd loosened up, if he could find one that he liked. But ... "Was there some reason you were asking?" Was this an indication that he wanted to call him something else? Yagyuu stuck his finger in the book to mark his place and looked over at Niou more directly.
And Niou looked right back, still upside down. “Not really,” he laughed, reaching up to tap Yagyuu on the nose, “Just thought I’d get a preference vote before defaulting to Hirochu~<3”
He was serious, though. So far it was Ryoma, Bunta and Tai-kun that he was on first-name basis with – the latter two somehow having fallen to that by default – even if nobody really called him Masaharu. (Clumsy name, anyway.)
Blink. He couldn't be serious. "If -- " If you're going to use my given name -- "-- ah, I mean, Hiroshi is -- is fine."
To prove that he was really okay (and not at all internally flustered by this prospect; no, nobody outside of his family called him by his first name), he opened the book again. There were words on the page, and Yagyuu knew this, but he couldn't seem to see what exactly they were, nor could he be expected to actually read them. He gave up on trying to pick a specific song. "Should I ..." call you something else as well?
“…should you what, Hi~ro~shi..?” Heh, a name the same as every second boy in Japan, but still nice. It rolled off the tongue a lot easier than Yagyuu at any rate. Ignoring the repetitive song menu jingle, Niou chuckled lightly. His mind’d filled the blank just like almost every other time but, well. Yagyuu was hardly going to be able to come up with a name if he couldn’t even form a basic question…
And nobody in his family ever said his name like that. Yagyuu was fairly certain that the tone invited intimacy, but he wasn't about to go there. Not now. Or -- no, not again. Perhaps not ever. He shouldn't, anyway, no matter how much he might have wanted to.
Regardless of half-formed wants, though, if they were to continue to be on even footing, it was only right that he reciprocate at least their form of address. Yagyuu ignored the tone as best he could (trying to cool the heat rising in his face), and got the question out quickly. "Should I call you something else, then?"
“Would you like to?” Niou chuckled – but promptly facepalmed. Okay, hell… talking like that wasn’t playing fair (but damn Yagyuu had cute feathers to ruffle).
Really. He’d never really thought Lack of Composure could be an appealing trait – though by the same token, neither had he ever known someone as uptight in quite the same way. (Zukie didn’t count, because he was old, and not uptight, just boring.)
“Blbblblbl~” Rubbing said hand down his face, the phaser chanced a peek back up, though grinning still. “Sorry.”
"For what?" Yagyuu asked with mild surprise, turning his head a bit to look at him. He would not touch Niou, nevermind the fact that he was right there, with his head practically in his lap. He knew full well that the phaser rarely apologised (if ever); apology meant you'd done something you didn't intend to.
Third ‘Sorry’ to Yagyuu (though the first hadn’t really counted). To put that in perspective, he’d only half-apologised to Ryoma twice – to anyone else prior, never at all. Niou said nothing for a long while, lying there in the non-silence of the karaoke booth and watching Yagyuu watching him.
“My conduct of late has been unacceptable,” he said at last, face perfectly clear. It was so much simpler to get something like that across in Yagyuu’s words – a setting where the weight of connotation was nothing to consider, where the words themselves mattered more than their articulation and personality hid behind starch-collared formality. Yagyuu took things so goddamned deeply. Niou wondered if he could get an off-switch for brains. Flick one would go to Bunta, flick two to this Hiroshi.
His conduct was unacceptable? What did he mean by that? Did he not intend for any of this ... closeness ... to happen?
Yagyuu sighed, returning his gaze to the cover of the song book. Of course he didn't. Niou was ... flippant, and he was casual, and Yagyuu never should have taken him as seriously as he had, whether it was as simple an act as taking time out of his day to spend time with him or one that carried more weight, such as deciding he ought to be called by his first name instead. Niou must have had plenty of other friends, in addition to a boyfriend, and there was no reason Yagyuu should have ever thought himself ... special. "Ah, no," he said. "It's my fault."
“…how do you figure?” Niou asked, and flipped over onto his stomach, resting chin in hands on elbows (because lying back like that presently made him feel like a shrink’s victim), genuinely curious. Yagyuu could very well be just saying that because it was the Thing to Say when someone apologised to you, but knowing him…
Another sigh. "It's ..." I've been misinterpreting you. But he couldn't say that, no matter how true it was. He turned the thought over in his head a few more times, considering, weighing the potential consequence of giving voice to that concern. It's nothing came up as well, but that was an even more ridiculous statement. And he couldn't very well distract Niou with another song; he would see right through that. "You're hardly to blame for simply being yourself," he decided. That was safer. And true enough: Niou couldn't have possibly actually done anything wrong.
A stance possibly furthest from the truth things could be. Niou gave Yagyuu a long, level look, eyes half-lidded as his brain ticked over though smiling, as always. Almost always.
Toeing off a shoe, one foot very inelegantly blind-jabbed at random buttons until a song began to play (because, damn, that jingle got annoying), and the room was back in sound-numbed silence. “…are you underestimating me, Hiroshi?” He knew Yagyuu’s admission hadn’t been intended that way, but all the same: “I am what I want to be at any given time.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, his mind hit replay and it occurred to him that that was the most revealing statement he’d made in a long time. He was, essentially, a guy who played hard and wild on the outside, who wanted attention and got it – a detached analyst sat one layer down, predicting things and anticipating them. At the very core though… he was just another control freak, really (– like Yagyuu. But different). Because you had to know the rules backward to bend them.
Yagyuu swallowed, a bit stunned. Something about that statement seemed to ring too truly; it thickened the air around them that by all rights should be light. "So," he said slowly, carefully measuring each word as it came, "if I understand correctly, you ... intend ..." everything? to make me feel this way? He wasn't sure how to finish, so left the sentence dangling. He started over, because he didn't think he understood anything anymore. "What is it that you want to be, then?"
He was surprised to find his voice soft when he spoke. If Yagyuu was 'what he needed to be' and Niou was 'what he wanted to be', then inherently neither of them had any clear-cut definition of 'self', did they?
…there were a few options here: ‘What I want to be’, as opposed to ‘What I need to be’ – which was the same as ‘What you need me to be,’ (for image or serving useful purpose)…
Then there was also what Niou decided applied here: “What you want me to be.” As distinct from needs or expectations. And because he was Niou Masaharu – or more specifically wasn’t – he was smirking as he added, “You you, Hiroshi. If I like it.”
What if I want you to be mine instead? But Yagyuu shoved that thought out of his mind, along with any other indecent scenarios that flashed through his head. He would not touch Niou now; he certainly was not going to kiss him again.
Regardless, he could feel his pulse racing again, just as it had in the moment before he did taste the other's lips for the first time. "I doubt what I want and what you would be willing to give coincide," he said instead; stilted and forced, because he didn't want it to be true but knew that it had to be. Even that statement, he knew, was far too much of a confession (as though the kisses hadn't been?), much more than he would ordinarily let on.
But it wasn't as though he ordinarily found himself in such a situation; he didn't know what was proper or improper. He did, however, suspect that what he wanted bordered on the latter, and he really shouldn't say much more.
“Don’t make that expression,” Niou chuckled softly. Though with Yagyuu, it wasn’t so much an expression (‘deadpan’ excluded) as an atmosphere, coupled with an occasional dusting of blush. “It makes me think you’re reading me right.”
Sitting up, he slipped his shoes back on and moved to the door with a second come-hither beckon. Because it was one thing to be asking for trouble, but another entirely to go sleep in its lair. Or sing in it. The mood wasn't right anymore anyway.
But would that be a problem, if he was right after all? Yagyuu followed, picking up his pace to catch up with Niou, and kept his distance once he finally did fall into step beside him. Quietly, he studied the phaser's profile, intently as he could without (he hoped) being caught looking. And while Yagyuu did consider people carefully, it was always with the intention of study. Rarely did he look at anyone so ... subjectively.
Niou was not, he decided, the most physically beautiful person he'd morphed -- he thought perhaps Shishido held that honour -- but there was a marked difference between beautiful and attractive. Niou drew him in; he pulled at Yagyuu unintentionally and made him his.
And Yagyuu wasn't used to that. It was different when he assimilated someone else -- he had control over that. In this case, there was a distinct lack of control, and it actually disturbed him. He suspected that he wouldn't be so worried by it if he didn't know that Niou was already someone else's.
But the change in environment was enough to break the tension that had built in the karaoke room. And despite the feelings that lingered in the back of Yagyuu's mind, he was good enough at acting, especially when around someone whose personality he could morph. "So," he said, trying to ease into Niou's typically casual manner, "where are we headed next?"
“…” The phaser eyed Yagyuu sideways. “You suck.” That had been far from the best attempt at ‘relaxed’ he’d seen Yagyuu pull yet. It was sort of cute, he thought, that one could best tell Yagyuu’s state from his utterances. If he was truly flustered, it was backtracking, not-quite-stammering. If it was just the uncomfortable, he said something wrong – not grammatically or phonetically – just technically. Something somehow. “This is how it’s done:” He threw an arm over to hang off his companion’s shoulders, grinning in his face, noses two inches apart. “Where to now?”
And speaking of which – “There!” he pointed, abruptly changing course and pulling Yagyuu along.
This time, Yagyuu didn't even bother with trying to force a smile, just let himself be guided. The arm over his shoulder was heavy, and not quite as warm as one might expect an arm to be -- Niou didn't radiate heat in the same way that most other people did. The proximity was, at the same time, both comforting and strangely unnerving, and Yagyuu wished he didn't concern himself so much with what was meant by each of Niou's words and actions.
He was so caught up in analysis that he nearly didn't realise that they were closing in on a sticker photo booth. Surely Niou didn't expect both of them to go inside there at the same time? Surely this was a joke, a beeline before a sharp detour. He'd change direction any moment now and tug Yagyuu towards the food court or some shop, wouldn't he?
Absolutely not. But even so, the phaser detached himself from Yagyuu’s shoulders as they approached and disappeared into the booth alone, turning to grin out with all the hopefulness of a kid asking for candy. It was still the gentleman’s birthday though (evidenced by the balloon strings still wrapped around his wrist <3), and Niou wasn’t going to force him into anything. Not least because there was no fun in something so crude as that. These things weren’t really designed for the taller than average, let alone two, but there was enough space for fit (if not comfort). It would be the other’s call.
Yagyuu hesitated, but it wasn't as though he didn't want to be so close to Niou -- just that he thought he shouldn't. Even if the booth did offer a perfectly good excuse to achieve an intimate proximity without added guilt. Steeling himself for the consequences, he ducked under the curtain to join the silver-haired boy inside.
He didn't think it was possible for a public space to feel so private. Niou was right there; the only way that they could both easily fit inside was with their shoulders brushing and their hips both wedged between the narrow walls.
And in went the spare change. Niou selected the settings with a few curt jabs – a police line-up background for partners in crime, and an old-school gilded frame for the fore, because irony was always nice <3 “Your sister never dragged you along into something like this before?” he chuckled.
"Ah ... no," Yagyuu replied. She'd always been more interested in doing more social activities with her crowd of friends, not her uptight older brother. And it wasn't as though he'd ever been granted the opportunity to do something foolish like this before.
Niou, he thought absently, made him do a great deal of foolish things. But he smiled as the camera flashed, shifted slightly in an attempt to make himself more comfortable, hoping that he wouldn't accidentally initiate a morph.
Yagyuu’s sister was a silly girl, Niou decided. Whoever didn’t do something with this Hiroshi when he was so accessible either had something wrong with their brains, or was very self-centred – but she so wasn’t his business.
The second time around, Niou poked Yagyuu in the side. Given they were wearing shoes, and neck contact was out of the question, that was the surest bet for a ticklish spot (it was Ryoma’s, at any rate). Though he didn’t really expect Yagyuu to be the ticklish type, at the very least maybe they’d get a funny face for the camera <3
The friendly jab just beneath his ribs that came with the second flash was also unexpected. Did Niou want to mess up the shots? Yagyuu kept his face as steady as possible (which was only slightly less than under normal circumstances); he'd ask why only after they'd left the booth and there was no chance of them being stuck with stupid pictures for their stickers.
Correction: no more stupid pictures.
“Okay, okay~ I’ll behave,” Niou laughed, in a tone that suggested anything but. He was possibly more amused by Yagyuu’s half-bent-stiff-broomstick-face than he would’ve been by any old regular funny face. It was more typically Yagyuu, after all – who wanted normal?
He vaguely wondered if the morpher had ever seen his powers at work on himself – the transformation was no less than dead fascinating to watch…
As the numbers counted down from three on the screen, Niou squirmed a little; at two, turned to Yagyuu, grinning; at one, brought a hand up, slipping along under the other’s chin. He saw the start of a morph a moment before zero leapt up and he kissed his cheek – there went the flash.
Caught off-guard, Yagyuu felt the subdermal chill of a morph and his breath catching in his throat simultaneously. He almost thought, when he felt the touch below his chin, that Niou would kiss his mouth (would he have wanted a photo of that, though?) but the touch of cool lips on his cheek was enough to set his heart racing once more.
The short kiss was not, thankfully, a long enough touch to incite a full morph, but it was just enough to allow the camera to capture the way that Yagyuu looked when he was about to stop being himself. He recomposed himself as Niou collected the printouts, pushing the short half-morph out of his skin. "Was that really necessary?" he asked. It wasn't a complaint.
Niou didn’t answer directly – both of them knew it wasn’t after all, and also that he hardly cared for ‘necessary’. Instead, he pointed at the little strip of photos. “You–” at the first one, “Less you,” – the second, and: “More you <3” at the third – alternatively known as Cause and Effect 101.
It was not "more him" -- the facial structure was nearly Niou's, and what of his eyes could be seen behind the lenses were clearly more gold than brown. And Yagyuu ... rather liked it. He was sure the blush lingered in his cheeks, faint though it might be. It was ... not him, and not Niou, either, but a combination of the both of them, and it felt ... like it meant something. "Are we ... splitting these, then?"
There were six on the sheet, two columns side by side, and even perforated down the middle. Despite this, pulling a sharpie out of his pocket, the phaser scrawled Happy Birthday, Hirochu~<3 across the back in messy hiragana. “No,” he chuckled, popping the sheet into Yagyuu’s breast pocket. And then, knowing the other would probably think something of that, he added: “Don’t take it personally. I don’t have photos.”
"Isn't that all the more reason you should have -- have some, then?" Unless Niou was afraid of someone at his school finding the photos and thinking something that they shouldn't. Just as likely, of course, with the small kiss, and the fact Niou had a boyfriend, and even just that short display of affection might be interpreted somehow wrongly.
Such as the way that Yagyuu was trying very hard not to interpret it. "Ah, nevermind," he corrected himself, in lieu of apologising, then added as an afterthought, "Thank you."
He walked close enough beside Niou to take his hand, though he kept his to himself (he wasn't wearing gloves today), and followed him to their next destination, wherever that might be.
As they walked in companionable silence, Niou was faintly amused and grinned at nothing in particular, looking back at Yagyuu’s balloons every now and again. The morpher had very clearly thought something, and had almost certainly shot far from the mark. He’d clear it up next time, maybe. But not now <3
Entering the small café, Niou gestured for Yagyuu to find a table, stopping at the counter. “My treat,” he winked. “Grab a seat. I’ll be a moment~”
Yagyuu quietly took a seat at a table near the wall, trying to keep his eyes trained on Niou, but when the other boy disappeared behind a corner, he assumed he was simply looking for a restroom.
That was fine, of course. A moment passed, and Yagyuu sighed, glancing up at the silly balloons that were still tied to his wrist. He didn't like them, of course, but they seemed to ... mean something, somehow, like a representation of his emergence as an actual social human being. He pulled the photographs from his pocket, looking at them more intently now that he was alone for just some time. They ... might have looked good together, if Yagyuu had loosened up just a little, or if Niou had pulled himself together more. The two of them were in such stark contrast ... at least until the last panel.
What was Niou trying to do?
Well. On a Deep and Meaningful level it remained to be seen, but currently the phaser was engaged in small talk and attempting to get a favour out of the establishment’s manager.
Nothing so hard in the end, he thought, as he followed the man out to the front of the store, waiting patiently behind as he very kindly asked the dozen-or-so patrons therein for attention.
Once received, Niou cleared his throat and stepped up to the plate. “Ladies and gentlebeings,” he smiled, meeting each gaze in turn, voice clear and soft, but pitched to carry. “Please celebrate with me the first birthday of my dear friend, Mister Yagyuu Hiroshi, who is nineteen this year~” (Open-palmed indication of recipient and viewers’ scattered applause.) “He comes from something of a broomstick background and, as this shall be his last year before coming of age, I’d be most obliged if you could all please join me in singing happy birthday <3”
Niou dropped his hand, cueing the kicking off – and was delighted to hear the effect of the appeal.
As the off-key voices of the clientele raised in chorus, Yagyuu wasn't sure whether to be stunned or mortified, and settled for a complex combination of both. He was too aware of every eye in the café on him now, the unnecessary attention drawn in his direction and his alone. He wasn't sure that he liked it, even if it was another something from Niou.
He told himself that Niou wasn't intentionally being embarrassing, but any hopes of that statement being true were cruelly dashed as members of the waitstaff carried out an honest-to-goodness birthday cake and brought it directly to the table. The one thing that Yagyuu wanted to know was how, far more than he was curious about why, because he was pretty sure he already knew why, but even those reasons were getting jumbled in his head.
Niou rejoined Yagyuu’s table as the song ended, hands clapping in glee – the morpher’s aura was nothing short of pure doom, and he was absolutely thrilled. People were so wonderful <3 Bouncing the knife from the tray’s side, he spun it between his fingers, presenting the handle to Yagyuu with a flourish – “Blow out the candles~! And cut the cake~!” – before leaning in to whisper the age-old line: “If it comes out dirty you have to kiss the nearest gir~l <3”
Yagyuu hadn't heard that line before, but did as told: first the candles, which took two separate breaths to extinguish, and then the cake, which he cut as slowly as possible in the hopes that the knife would come out clean. He had little doubt that Niou would actually pull the nearest girl from the café patrons and volunteer her for a kiss (if only because Niou wasn't a girl himself -- had the adage said 'nearest person' Yagyuu might have been a little more reckless with his cake-cutting).
He still felt silly, but after cutting one perfect slice, looked up at Niou with a soft, genuine smile. It was silly because he wasn't used to it; because he hadn't had the sort of childhood that would allow him to grow accustomed to random displays of foolishness. Drawing attention to oneself was wrong, he'd been taught, in the proper Japanese fashion, and going with the flow was a virtue. Yagyuu was not special; he was not important, and Niou was the first person who actually made him feel as though he was -- and for no particular reason at all. And, he realised, handing the (mostly clean) knife back to Niou, the smile he offered was of gratitude.
Which had the phaser grinning right back, eyes dancing, at a job well done. For once, Niou felt genuinely pleased over his efforts – most things came way too easily for satisfaction. Feeling about as smug as Ryoma often looked, he slivered the rest of the cake, laying the slices out on white napkins. There was more than enough to go around and, asking one of the waitresses if the kitchen had some disposable gloves, perchance? (they did of course), he handed things over to Yagyuu.
“Hiroshi~<3” With his best benign smile and motherly tones, he placed two pieces of cake in Yagyuu’s hands. “I want you to go out and meet some nice people.”
Wait. That wasn't part of the plan. "But," he protested, and didn't really know exactly how to finish that sentence, so just looked up at Niou with what he hoped passed as a pleading look in his eyes. Never mind the fact that there was enough cake to feed the whole café, it wasn't Yagyuu's job to pass it out, birthday celebration or not.
Because he was pretty sure that this wasn't part of a typical birthday celebration.
“But nothing, Hirochu~” Niou laughed. “These people don’t even know you and still sang happy birthday. It’s not going to kill to give a personal smile and thank you back, y’know? Grins make people feel good.”
Lesson 202 – Smiles and Small Talk.
All the same, he picked up two slices of cake himself. “Follow my lead; you’ll be fine <3” Between the two of them it wouldn’t take long anyway. In truth, he was also distantly curious to see if Yagyuu’s ‘be what I need to’ policy would extend to larger-scale situations too, or if it was more just an issue of personal counterbalance.
That was a little better, Yagyuu thought. He could do this if he was just following Niou's lead. That didn't require as much of him, then; he wouldn't be held accountable for being too strange or going out of his own way or interfering with these kind people's lunches. If the attention and cake given was unwarranted, then he could blame Niou.
It was so much easier to do anything outside of his own character when he just ... wasn't himself. Even if Niou expected friendliness towards strangers from him, he didn't expect it from himself.
So it was simple enough to just be Niou -- to assimilate his personality, his casual speech, his broad grin -- while he left generous slices on the patrons' tables. He didn't know them, but it didn't matter. What he couldn't place, though, was whether Niou was able to approach people in the way he did because he put more distance between himself and them -- ie, their opinions didn't matter as much to him as they did to Yagyuu -- or because he considered every person a potential new friend. He'd have to ask him later.
After making the rounds of the small café, they took their seats and started on the cake -- and Yagyuu decided now was as good a later as any. "How do you do it?" he asked. "Treat people the way you do, I mean. Strangers."
Niou blinked twice, mildly surprised. Not so long ago, Ryoma’d asked after how he ‘dealt with people all the time’, and now – he knew it would be easier to answer Yagyuu, though by the same token, perhaps also harder for the morpher to accept said answers. Because they weren’t really there.
He vaguely supposed he could’ve felt proud for still coming across as a people person when there was really only one and a half he considered close these days. The phaser chuckled, absently twirling his fork as he gave the query due thought. ‘How’ was such a tricky little word after all. He could be driven by ulterior motives, or a deliberate carelessness for external perception. Maybe because of an obligation to be nice, or a lack of social etiquette.
But that was bordering on the ‘why’ rather than ‘how’, even if means were borne of motives when push came to shove. “Look around,” he settled on saying. “Their eyes are back in their own worlds. Maybe two out of twenty will remember your name as I told it. Perhaps five will be able to pick your face out of a line-up next week. Nineteen you’ll never see again…” If you make an impression, you’ll less likely be forgotten.
Besides, smiles were fun, and people were so much easier when they liked you. But Yagyuu didn’t really need to hear that.
"But if you hadn't done that, then none of them would be able to pick me out," Yagyuu pointed out. And wasn't it better that way? Niou couldn't help but be noticed, looking the way he did; the only feature that potentially set Yagyuu apart from the crowd was his height. It was easier to deal with people when they didn't notice you.
He sighed, sinking his fork into the slice of cake again. "Are you ... are you trying to make new friends?" he asked.
“You say that like I’m trying to contract AIDS,” Niou snickered (a slight exaggeration only). All the same, he again lapsed into thought. Okay, so it wasn’t like he was consciously actively seeking people these days as he’d done at Ryuhana initially, but hm… “I guess it depends on your definition of ‘friend’.”
And that was enough to give Yagyuu pause. How would he define 'friend'? He knew that he would place Niou in that category, but not likely many other people -- and probably nobody at the Brotherhood, which was strange, because he was meant to hold to their ideals, wasn't he? He ought to have more in common with his comrades than some upstart from a rival school, and yet ...
... and yet he found them infuriating. His neighbors were ego personified, his classmates lacked basic intelligence, and his squad members seemed hell-bent on genocide.
Yagyuu did agree with the Brotherhood's basic tenet that mutants were more advanced, clearly -- it was a matter of evolution. Eventually they would become the dominant species, but it wasn't necessary to accelerate the process through bloodshed. And it wasn't in his nature to rampage.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I can't say that I've made many, myself, especially not ... at school." It wasn't really the proper term for his current living arrangement, but it was the best he could come up with.
Niou chuckled, unsurprised. Yagyuu was Yagyuu, and Yagyuu was at the Brotherhood, after all. The students there, the phaser very readily classed as either slick or stupid – none of the things (so help him god) Yagyuu would be interested in. Which begged the question of why he was even there, really.
“Why stay?” Stabbity stab at the cake.
"It's where I am," Yagyuu replied with a shrug. But that didn't seem like quite enough of an answer, so he elaborated, riding out that train of thought. "Sakaki-san promised me both prestige and education. I'll ... freely admit that I haven't received much of the latter, as I might usually describe it, but the training does ... have its benefits, I suppose." He chewed his cake thoughtfully -- it was sweet, but not so much so, with a lighter icing than he had expected an ordinary cake to have.
That still didn't seem like a good answer, and Yagyuu knew it. His eyes fell to the table top, studying the patterns in the woodgrain, but they offered no insight. "I said I would stay," he told the table. "I ... I don't intend to go back on my word. Nor do I intend to return home," he added, as that was really his only other option. Wasn't it?
Niou snerked. The way Yagyuu wrote about his sister in the journals already made that last statement clear. Whatever. Family wasn’t his issue. “I seem to recall the existence of another school for the genetically challenged,” the phaser said, tracing the path of Yagyuu’s gaze and seeing eyeballs in the knots of wood.
In his frank opinion, there was even less prestige than education within the Brotherhood walls (however the hell that was apparently possible) – they themselves were the only ones who seemed to hold any high regard. And that was saying something. “Though a man is the collective sum of his promises; pity you made that one <3” Fun as it would or could be to drag Yagyuu over to ‘Hana, Niou wasn’t going to. Some things, one had to want enough.
It almost sounded like Niou was suggesting that Yagyuu apply at Ryuhana. Almost.
Even though he didn't, Yagyuu turned the thought over in his mind. It was a shame that Sakaki-san had approached him before he'd had a chance to hear about Ryuhana; the headmaster simply wasn't holding up his end of the bargain. Even the reputation that had been promised with membership at the Brotherhood was sorely absent. And Yagyuu had been ... waiting, holding out in the hopes that eventually, that honour would come.
That fool who called himself Blackguard had attributed said honour to the massacre on Halloween. Yagyuu knew that the rest of the students didn't all agree with him (nevermind the fact that one of his own squad members seemed to be one of the zealot's disciples); one had even left the premises after the incident.
What were any of them doing there? Moreover, what was anyone doing at Ryuhana?
"What about you?" Yagyuu asked slowly. "Why Ryuhana?" And what keeps you there, but he figured the answer to that question was simple enough. One didn't easily leave a place if one had an anchor, after all.
"It's where I am," Niou replied with a smirk. But that didn't seem like quite enough of an answer, so he elaborated. For the hell of it. “Chance. Fate. Because everything happens for a reason, and it’s just as well, really…” He wasn’t usually inclined to say these things, but since it was Yagyuu –
What was it about Yagyuu..? Discusions with the Brotherhood boy felt to Niou like musing aloud to his own subconscious or shadow. It was… not a chore, though neither something anticipated, and simultaneously redundant as it was affirming.
A train of thought that would need more attention later.
“Hana’s easy,” he went on, for now. “I do my job and sleep in class and love my neighbour and nothing else much matters. Their ideals make enough sense.” He didn’t necessarily care much about them, but they were logically sound.
And ‘easy’ all the time was no fun either, but to cover the basics, food and a roof, it was perfectly fine.
Enough sense to stay, on both of their accounts. It seemed neither of them was particularly tied to the institution that they attended. Yagyuu shoved down all thoughts of both of them leaving their respective schools and proverbially running away together (he was sure Niou wouldn't want that, and where did that thought come from, anyway?), though he knew that the time would come -- and soon -- that they'd both be leaving anyway. For university, in Yagyuu's case; possibly the same in Niou's, unless anything had changed since they'd had that conversation.
But Yagyuu wasn't stupid, either -- he knew what his training entailed, and it wasn't merely control. "You're not fighters," he said simply, and it could have been an observation, but it might have been a warning. You're not. We are. Possibly both.
Niou shrugged, taking the phrase itself as the former, but the voicing of it as the latter. It was true anyway – Ryuhana’s very existence was centred around peace, and they were hardly subtle about it. “’Course not,” he said, playful lilt shining through. “But passive and pushover are hardly synonymous.”
Despite his tone, Niou did believe that there were some hella determined-and-dangerous kids within Ryuhana’s walls that the Brotherhood underestimated. Just like he was pretty sure that for all their talk, if the two schools ever went head-to-head, many at the ‘Hood could not do so with clear conscience. He toyed with the crumbs in his plate. “Why?” Still half teasing. “Heard any plans for a pending extermination in the near future or something?”
"Nothing so simple as that." For perhaps the first time in his conversations with Niou, Yagyuu was glad that his eyes were hidden. Behind the lenses they must have looked worried, troubled, and that ... that wasn't okay to admit right now, even to Niou.
Troubled because he'd been wrong with his decision, he realised. And he knew he wasn't loyal enough to the Brotherhood's cause that he would be let in on any major plans anyway. But what he did know ... "They're training us as fighters," he went on. "For - for stealth operations, specifically, at least my - ah, my team. There are others ..." Yagyuu knew he was going to be in such trouble if anyone from the Brotherhood ever found out that he was relaying information to someone at Ryuhana, even if it was someone like Niou, who would probably do nothing with it.
But he also knew that he wasn't comfortable with what he was being made to do, because the scope of the Brotherhood's activities was not explained to him properly when he signed up, and he felt ... tricked, or something, and if he could, even subconsciously, foil those who had led him into something he didn't want, then all the better.
Was that it? Was that what he wanted? Or was it simply his crush at work? Either way he knew he was a liability to the Brotherhood.
About what Niou wasn’t already aware of (he’d – literally – poked his head in a few of the Brotherhood training spots during his week’s stay there), he couldn’t particularly say he cared. “You’d be good at stealth,” he grinned instead, and poked his fork into Yagyuu’s cake. “Though I do believe this would be reconnaissance for the wrong side? Wonder who’d win if we ever went head-to-head for something.” In truth, it wasn’t much of a question. Despite the annoyance of not having eyes to watch and know what he was thinking, Niou was pretty sure he hadn’t read Yagyuu a wrong step yet.
He tapped his fork against the other’s chin. “Don’t think so much. You’ll blow the stressbox in your brain.”
Yagyuu brushed the crumbs off his face with a napkin. It wasn't necessarily his own thinking in circles that caused him undue stress; it was simply a side-effect of the natural routes that his brain took when unguided.
And Niou's offhand comment only served to remind him of the possibility that they might actually have to face one another someday. Yagyuu knew he wouldn't be able to; he was ... far too close to the situation. Another liability for his side. Strangely, he thought he'd be far more likely to sink a knife into either of his own squad mates (provided he had the skills to do such a thing).
Perhaps he could acquire the skills and then ...
... then what? Leave? Become independent?
It was a possibility. Yagyuu retook possession of his own cake (though they were sharing it now and that shouldn't strike him as cute), and finished it off, then laid the fork face-down on the edge of the plate. "I shall leave the task of breaking myself to my esteemed colleagues," he stated dryly, "or anyone else who cares to accept the mission."
Yes, he did mean it that way.
“Sounds like a challenge,” Niou grinned, flipping Yagyuu’s fork over with his own. As far as he’d tried, things’d been to push Yagyuu or challenge him. He’d only ever succeeded in bending him some variation of sideways, though; never once had he gotten the sense Yagyuu was liable to crack – but then again, neither had he ever intended for that to happen.
In retrospect, he wasn’t sure he much liked the idea of Yagyuu as a dysfunctional unit. The morpher was about balance above all else after all, and that couldn’t work if he wasn’t… hm.
“Don’t make it too easy~” There was an edge of sharpness on a note of concern there, and presently, Niou wondered after it. At the very least, if anyone was going to do any breaking of ‘Yagyuu’, the phaser determined it would be him, because he’d know to do it right.
Whatever the hell that meant.
At the realisation that his challenge (that was what it was, however loosely interpreted) was accepted, Yagyuu was filled with not quite as much dread as he might have expected were it anyone else facing him.
Because, he thought, it wasn't breakage that he asked for, but change, some kind of impetus to push his own development forward, but a strong enough impetus that the change didn't move too slowly. And if anyone else were to change him -- Mizuki, for example, or anyone else at the Brotherhood -- it would be somehow wrong. That wasn't what he needed.
Besides -- and he looked up, meeting Niou's eyes, unsure of whether his own could be properly seen just then -- wasn't that what had already begun? "If you find it easy, ah ... consider it a testament to your own skill." And he pushed his glasses up on his nose before looking back at the empty plate, fork face-up. He didn't turn it back.
Niou eyed the other for a few long heartbeats. Easy? He did consider himself skilled – took pride in it, in fact… but was this really something he ought to pursue? Yagyuu was a challenge; Yagyuu was fascinating. Yagyuu was Yagyuu, and Niou liked that – would he still and still be later?
“…it’s time we headed off,” he said at last, eyes moving from fork to hand and back to Yagyuu’s hidden gaze.
Yagyuu pushed his chair away and stood, and might have said something about the bill as they walked out of the café if not for the assumption that Niou had already paid. He felt ... dismissed, somehow, or something akin to rejected, despite the balloons that still trailed him and the photos tucked inside his shirt pocket.
He knew he was a fool to think that any of this meant anything more than friendship; knew that he was a fool to even want to risk throwing that type of relationship away. Niou had spared no expense today, and Yagyuu had repaid him with ... silly attempts at flirting, each time leading to the decision that their current activity was done and it was time to move on. He didn't know whether Niou had anything else planned, or if he would simply send him home, so he decided not to ask, just follow. After a few moments, he broke the silence. "Ah ... thank you."
Niou paused, looked up and at Yagyuu again. The morpher was thinking (it was always so obvious) and he grinned a little at that, lopsidedly. Yagyuu’s brain worked too much. That could’ve been a hypocritical statement, but a difference existed between thinking through instinct and fundamental overanalysis…
He wondered if there was anything he could do about that latter.
Rather, he knew there was, but he wondered if it would work as intended.
…knowing Yagyuu? Probably not. But by the same token, his probabilities had a tendency to switch odds-on at the drop of a hat.
It could be an interesting gamble to play, especially since he effectively had permission from both sides involved…
Reaching over, Niou wound a hand through the balloons’ strings, bringing their bobbing height down to head level – an ineffectual screen as he stepped out in front of the other’s path. Free hand slipping around Yagyuu’s neck, the phaser pulled him in, mouths meeting before protest – on the off-chance there might’ve been one.
And this time there would be no holding back.
Time seemed to skip. This was the wrong track. There was a hiccup in the flow of things. But Yagyuu did not -- could not -- protest the lips on his, the hand at his nape, the kiss out of the blue. He'd lost his focus thanks to the surprise, but let his own lips part, prolonging the contact and pushing the morph back into Niou -- he had to do that; they were in public -- oh, god, they were in public --
Yagyuu hoped he wasn't kissing back too desperately, but it was hard to be rational, so he just followed Niou's lead and prayed he could keep his head clear enough not to change. But even if he was able to hold back a physical display of his power, the touch was enough to initiate the psionic aspect, granting him the awareness, the feeling sensation of everything that was inherently Niou, and it could not be as clear as speech, but seemed to speak to him all the same. You're being stupid. It means I like you.
Pulling away at last, Niou ran his tongue along damp lips, grinning. Yagyuu’s eyes were different – narrowed a little, lighter somewhat, sharper – but other than that, the morpher remained largely the same. Reaching over, Niou slid glasses up to rest atop still-brown hair, proud of him, and stepped back, head tilted slightly, regarding…
Yagyuu was on edge; mission accomplished. His grin eased into a smile. Tsk, who needed off switches with the power to switch brains themselves? “You’re welcome.”
Why, Yagyuu wanted to ask, but the word wouldn't come from his lips. He pulled his glasses off his head, folding them and sliding them into his shirt pocket with the photos -- his sight wasn't his own, and trying to see through the lenses only made the world look warped and blurry. He hoped he hadn't inadvertently absorbed much more of Niou than his eyes; he thought he'd done a fairly good job of preserving his own face ...
But that wasn't the point. Niou's eyes meant seeing things the way Niou did, on not just a physical level but on some metaphorical level as well -- it was simpler than Yagyuu thought. It wasn't, as he'd believed, a question of loyalty to one person or another, but rather a matter of cause-and-effect.
And in that case, Yagyuu needed to just quit worrying and follow the spirit of the moment. He'd been so needlessly upset over this, reading a thousand meanings into every single word, trying to place motive and blame, and he hadn't had to. It was as though he'd wasted most of the afternoon that he could have spent simply enjoying.
He allowed his expression to soften, lips curving in a gentle smile even as the colour stained his cheeks. He was welcome, and that was all that mattered. With a little more ease in his step, he walked closer beside Niou, but made sure to keep his hand to himself. "Where to now?" he asked, not quite minding the rising hope that they might be able to go somewhere a little less public and keep doing that for a while.
... to be continued
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-24 12:58 pm (UTC)Mmm. Karaoke, purikura, and deep meaningful conversations~ I love D1.
D1 FOREVAR~~ <---not just Jiroh talking~ I swear! o.o