Midousuji Akira (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
discarding) wrote2021-05-13 08:55 am
discarding) wrote2021-05-13 08:55 am
Entry tags:
for gamanyeah
For months, Midousuji had pushed himself as hard as he could.
Physically, of course, but there were other limits to experiment with. Less comfortable, less familiar. Midousuji Akira has never been against doing whatever he has to to win, including fighting dirty—deploying sabotage, instigating physical harm, forcing himself beyond his own limits to the point of injury time and time again... but included, a stone unturned, was what Midousuji had considered to be unfathomable. The worst thing—the thing he scoffed at and mocked the most. Connections with other people. Deriving strength from them.
Funnily, the person who Midousuji would be, traditionally, most apt to ignore, had instead somehow became the one person he found he'd listen to—quietly, without acknowledgement, but it came to that none-the-less. Someone whose presence he could sense even when he was out cold, and sometimes, someone whose voice would leak around and into the crevices of his mind like sticky, honey-sweet and vile ichor in that same state.
Ishigaki told Midousuji what his weakness was, and initially, Midousuji could barely recall. And once it came around to him, turning in his brain, his blood boiled with anger—because Ishigaki—always there, persistent, whether Midousuji wanted it or liked it or not—not only because he trusted Ishigaki's word, but because his advice and criticism were from such a place of human standard that Midousuji couldn't relate to. Couldn't understand. Who could he rely on? For whom could he possibly find inspiration to pull? How was tying your strengths into the wills of other people, with emptier weight and less stake in the game, supposed to make you stronger?
But Midousuji, nonetheless, toiled towards this goal, and hated every second of it—it was like breaking his every bone by hand himself, and splinting, forcing them to regrow incorrectly. And through the entire process, his thoughts furiously turned, burning around Ishigaki. He hadn't even realized that Ishigaki, at that point, had been his most trusted resource; the source of what would be the deciding factor to his goal.
What he was relying on.
And, in turn, what gave him strength; Midousuji's eyes were wide, almost in disbelief when he'd not only passed the finish line in first on the third day of the 43rd, and, Midousuji's final, Interhigh. By his own merits, to no one's surprise, of course including Midousuji's, he'd taken a victory for Kyofushi in the first day, dominating the sprint course. Midousuji had always placed well. But with that missing piece finally in place, mind and body numb and buzzing, Midousuji had taken the final victory he'd so sought after. The victory that was his make or break—the piece to be taken and settled, to determine if he'd continue as pro, and to in turn, some day, work towards Tour de France.
It was true that Midousuji had struggled, with success, to put more trust in place of his team, still strictly trained and regimented as ever... but primarily, he'd been pulling because of Ishigaki. With his head stuffed to capacity with thoughts of him. Inadvertently, though it nauseated Midousuji to acknowledge it, Ishigaki had been the reason why he pulled, and had been the one who shaped Midousuji to his final form. The victor.
Kyoto Fushimi had talked amongst themselves about their surprise regarding Midousuji's reaction—the look of disbelief. And it did seem strange—Midousuji was confident, and self assured. But they misdiagnosed the nature of his surprise. It wasn't the victory itself, but more its reason.
And that reason was Ishigaki.
Once passed finish, Midousuji's arms fell heavily after his triumphant, ecstatic posing, his elbows bruising against the handlebars of his bike. In disbelief, his head hung, jaw slung slightly open, his lungs burning as he panted heavily through a dry, sore throat, watching as his sweat pelt his shaking arms. He was spent—empty, totally drained, as always, since he always pushed himself to or past his limits... but there was something else present that day.
Midousuji felt he could barely walk, though it was more than exhaustion—he managed to get over his stupified shock with a snap of his teeth (after some time of his team wondering in hushed, worried mumbling if he was okay, having expected he'd be more excited for their win), all grins after that. And to his surprise, though he didn't want to belabor the fact, he was proud of them, too. Also a bit of an unusual feeling—but Midousuji was able to assuage his nerves about it, because evolution was the only way to ensure victory. This just wasn't a form he was used to. They were just feelings he'd never felt, before.
And that numbing, preoccupying buzzing in his head about Ishigaki didn't cease that night. Midousuji barely slept, staring off into the darkness aimlessly for hours, despite his exhaustion. It carried on that way for weeks, actually.
Here and there, days and nights, Midousuji had found himself distantly fussing about it. Ishigaki was in Tokyo, and he'd soon be graduating. He might have returned to Kyoto, at that point, and Midousuji felt queasy at the way the thought made his heart stutter and his stomach lurch, unable to recognize it as a sort of excitement inspired by hope. He just quantified it as what he could understand: a gross distraction. His instinct to things like that, given that they're 1) uncomfortable, and most unforgivably, 2) distracting, had always been to amputate them at their inception. Keep his heart cold and comfortable, but he knew now that wasn't beneficial to his growth.
Yes, evolution had gotten more of his attention and care as a goal than growth, and in this time frame after the 43rd Interhigh, Midousuji realized this. Emptily, distracted, Midousuji went through the motions of his graduation, of exams, and realized without that amputation, to rid himself of the preoccupation... there had to be some kind of action. With Ishigaki. His unexpected trump card, and unexpected resource of strength. The person who'd earned his respect. Midousuji had initially been dismissive of him, since he seemed so standard on the surface—someone beautiful to the point of being unremarkable, someone charming, sensitive, and all the rest of Midousuji that he holds in contempt as the antithesis to his own design.
But gradually, Midousuji realized other things—that no matter what, whether he likes it or not, Ishigaki can, and will, see Midousuji. And since his late mother, no one else ever has. Not only did Ishigaki see Midousuji, but he persisted in pursuit of Midousuji's benefit. Not only all of that nonsense, but Ishigaki was actually sharp. He was analytical, and Midousuji finally realized, at the end of the day, he couldn't argue with Ishigaki's logic; they both wanted the same thing, and they both, disturbingly, had similar versions of the same perspective.
Strangely, it's come to the point where Ishigaki just makes sense. Which is why Midousuji is currently in his fourth week of hissing through his teeth, smacking his head against walls, rubbing his dry palms excessively in speed and force across his face, screaming—whenever his mind works itself up into enough of a frenzy about it. About him. This is compounded by the gradually dawning realization that after all that realization, the occupying of his head...
If Ishigaki doesn't go pro, or if Ishigaki doesn't decide to stay in Kyoto, what reason is Midousuji really going to have to see him again? The real answer is that you can hit people up you like for any reason and hang out with them and that's acceptable and normal, but Midousuji is in such unfamiliar territory around that concept, and also so disgusted by himself for it, that this plain, basic social knowledge is completely out of his reach for consideration.
He's thought about it, of course—but he doesn't know how to broach it, much less what his own feelings around it even are. Even looking at Ishigaki's name in his contact list just sends him into a fit, so there's just simply no progress to be had there.
So... instead, not that Midousuji thinks it's a better idea to just... lurk around Tokyo, like some skittish ghoul deadset on haunting what he doesn't comprehend to be his object of boyish infatuation. Midousuji is clumsy, and more than simply standout—he's aware he has no scope of stealth. He's tall enough to stand out in a crowd, distinctly broad-shouldered, and with a face and expression so uniquely vacant and haunting that there's probably only one other person with the same features, being his genetic contributor who he's never met.
So Midousuji keeps distance, peering from behind walls or things like poles, trying to keep his posture low in a hunch where his height may be too conspicuous...
His intention was to meet up with Ishigaki by chance, having some vague idea of his usual haunts and habits from social media (of which Midousuji has vague, blank accounts, and no activity)... but then, having seen Ishigaki, confirming his brilliant, strategic thinking, Midousuji was immediately so overwhelmed by nerves and disgust that he couldn't just approach Ishigaki. He hadn't thought about how to pull it off as incidental. And honestly, having no idea of how to pull that off, Midousuji had thought he could just assertively approach him without such pretense...
...but all at once, just immediately, so uncharacteristically, every ounce of his nerve had left him.
Midousuji doesn't recognize himself, and it's Ishigaki's fault. Midousuji squints resentfully at the back of Ishigaki's head, tucked behind a phone pole semi-conspicuously, partially obscured with the addition of other visual clutter that can be expected on the busy streets of Tokyo, near Ishigaki's apartment. To which he's never been. But he knows the area, based onstalking observation.
How gross... So gradually, reaching inside of Midousuji, so subtly manipulating his insides that Midousuji didn't even notice, changing him... He feels a little angry about it, but knows he can't be ungrateful; he got what he wanted, which was victory.
So what else is it, then? What is he doing?? What exactly does he want?
Stupid Ishigaki.
"Groossssssss," he exhales slowly in a low, almost inaudible rasp.
Physically, of course, but there were other limits to experiment with. Less comfortable, less familiar. Midousuji Akira has never been against doing whatever he has to to win, including fighting dirty—deploying sabotage, instigating physical harm, forcing himself beyond his own limits to the point of injury time and time again... but included, a stone unturned, was what Midousuji had considered to be unfathomable. The worst thing—the thing he scoffed at and mocked the most. Connections with other people. Deriving strength from them.
Funnily, the person who Midousuji would be, traditionally, most apt to ignore, had instead somehow became the one person he found he'd listen to—quietly, without acknowledgement, but it came to that none-the-less. Someone whose presence he could sense even when he was out cold, and sometimes, someone whose voice would leak around and into the crevices of his mind like sticky, honey-sweet and vile ichor in that same state.
Ishigaki told Midousuji what his weakness was, and initially, Midousuji could barely recall. And once it came around to him, turning in his brain, his blood boiled with anger—because Ishigaki—always there, persistent, whether Midousuji wanted it or liked it or not—not only because he trusted Ishigaki's word, but because his advice and criticism were from such a place of human standard that Midousuji couldn't relate to. Couldn't understand. Who could he rely on? For whom could he possibly find inspiration to pull? How was tying your strengths into the wills of other people, with emptier weight and less stake in the game, supposed to make you stronger?
But Midousuji, nonetheless, toiled towards this goal, and hated every second of it—it was like breaking his every bone by hand himself, and splinting, forcing them to regrow incorrectly. And through the entire process, his thoughts furiously turned, burning around Ishigaki. He hadn't even realized that Ishigaki, at that point, had been his most trusted resource; the source of what would be the deciding factor to his goal.
What he was relying on.
And, in turn, what gave him strength; Midousuji's eyes were wide, almost in disbelief when he'd not only passed the finish line in first on the third day of the 43rd, and, Midousuji's final, Interhigh. By his own merits, to no one's surprise, of course including Midousuji's, he'd taken a victory for Kyofushi in the first day, dominating the sprint course. Midousuji had always placed well. But with that missing piece finally in place, mind and body numb and buzzing, Midousuji had taken the final victory he'd so sought after. The victory that was his make or break—the piece to be taken and settled, to determine if he'd continue as pro, and to in turn, some day, work towards Tour de France.
It was true that Midousuji had struggled, with success, to put more trust in place of his team, still strictly trained and regimented as ever... but primarily, he'd been pulling because of Ishigaki. With his head stuffed to capacity with thoughts of him. Inadvertently, though it nauseated Midousuji to acknowledge it, Ishigaki had been the reason why he pulled, and had been the one who shaped Midousuji to his final form. The victor.
Kyoto Fushimi had talked amongst themselves about their surprise regarding Midousuji's reaction—the look of disbelief. And it did seem strange—Midousuji was confident, and self assured. But they misdiagnosed the nature of his surprise. It wasn't the victory itself, but more its reason.
And that reason was Ishigaki.
Once passed finish, Midousuji's arms fell heavily after his triumphant, ecstatic posing, his elbows bruising against the handlebars of his bike. In disbelief, his head hung, jaw slung slightly open, his lungs burning as he panted heavily through a dry, sore throat, watching as his sweat pelt his shaking arms. He was spent—empty, totally drained, as always, since he always pushed himself to or past his limits... but there was something else present that day.
Midousuji felt he could barely walk, though it was more than exhaustion—he managed to get over his stupified shock with a snap of his teeth (after some time of his team wondering in hushed, worried mumbling if he was okay, having expected he'd be more excited for their win), all grins after that. And to his surprise, though he didn't want to belabor the fact, he was proud of them, too. Also a bit of an unusual feeling—but Midousuji was able to assuage his nerves about it, because evolution was the only way to ensure victory. This just wasn't a form he was used to. They were just feelings he'd never felt, before.
And that numbing, preoccupying buzzing in his head about Ishigaki didn't cease that night. Midousuji barely slept, staring off into the darkness aimlessly for hours, despite his exhaustion. It carried on that way for weeks, actually.
Here and there, days and nights, Midousuji had found himself distantly fussing about it. Ishigaki was in Tokyo, and he'd soon be graduating. He might have returned to Kyoto, at that point, and Midousuji felt queasy at the way the thought made his heart stutter and his stomach lurch, unable to recognize it as a sort of excitement inspired by hope. He just quantified it as what he could understand: a gross distraction. His instinct to things like that, given that they're 1) uncomfortable, and most unforgivably, 2) distracting, had always been to amputate them at their inception. Keep his heart cold and comfortable, but he knew now that wasn't beneficial to his growth.
Yes, evolution had gotten more of his attention and care as a goal than growth, and in this time frame after the 43rd Interhigh, Midousuji realized this. Emptily, distracted, Midousuji went through the motions of his graduation, of exams, and realized without that amputation, to rid himself of the preoccupation... there had to be some kind of action. With Ishigaki. His unexpected trump card, and unexpected resource of strength. The person who'd earned his respect. Midousuji had initially been dismissive of him, since he seemed so standard on the surface—someone beautiful to the point of being unremarkable, someone charming, sensitive, and all the rest of Midousuji that he holds in contempt as the antithesis to his own design.
But gradually, Midousuji realized other things—that no matter what, whether he likes it or not, Ishigaki can, and will, see Midousuji. And since his late mother, no one else ever has. Not only did Ishigaki see Midousuji, but he persisted in pursuit of Midousuji's benefit. Not only all of that nonsense, but Ishigaki was actually sharp. He was analytical, and Midousuji finally realized, at the end of the day, he couldn't argue with Ishigaki's logic; they both wanted the same thing, and they both, disturbingly, had similar versions of the same perspective.
Strangely, it's come to the point where Ishigaki just makes sense. Which is why Midousuji is currently in his fourth week of hissing through his teeth, smacking his head against walls, rubbing his dry palms excessively in speed and force across his face, screaming—whenever his mind works itself up into enough of a frenzy about it. About him. This is compounded by the gradually dawning realization that after all that realization, the occupying of his head...
If Ishigaki doesn't go pro, or if Ishigaki doesn't decide to stay in Kyoto, what reason is Midousuji really going to have to see him again? The real answer is that you can hit people up you like for any reason and hang out with them and that's acceptable and normal, but Midousuji is in such unfamiliar territory around that concept, and also so disgusted by himself for it, that this plain, basic social knowledge is completely out of his reach for consideration.
He's thought about it, of course—but he doesn't know how to broach it, much less what his own feelings around it even are. Even looking at Ishigaki's name in his contact list just sends him into a fit, so there's just simply no progress to be had there.
So... instead, not that Midousuji thinks it's a better idea to just... lurk around Tokyo, like some skittish ghoul deadset on haunting what he doesn't comprehend to be his object of boyish infatuation. Midousuji is clumsy, and more than simply standout—he's aware he has no scope of stealth. He's tall enough to stand out in a crowd, distinctly broad-shouldered, and with a face and expression so uniquely vacant and haunting that there's probably only one other person with the same features, being his genetic contributor who he's never met.
So Midousuji keeps distance, peering from behind walls or things like poles, trying to keep his posture low in a hunch where his height may be too conspicuous...
His intention was to meet up with Ishigaki by chance, having some vague idea of his usual haunts and habits from social media (of which Midousuji has vague, blank accounts, and no activity)... but then, having seen Ishigaki, confirming his brilliant, strategic thinking, Midousuji was immediately so overwhelmed by nerves and disgust that he couldn't just approach Ishigaki. He hadn't thought about how to pull it off as incidental. And honestly, having no idea of how to pull that off, Midousuji had thought he could just assertively approach him without such pretense...
...but all at once, just immediately, so uncharacteristically, every ounce of his nerve had left him.
Midousuji doesn't recognize himself, and it's Ishigaki's fault. Midousuji squints resentfully at the back of Ishigaki's head, tucked behind a phone pole semi-conspicuously, partially obscured with the addition of other visual clutter that can be expected on the busy streets of Tokyo, near Ishigaki's apartment. To which he's never been. But he knows the area, based on
How gross... So gradually, reaching inside of Midousuji, so subtly manipulating his insides that Midousuji didn't even notice, changing him... He feels a little angry about it, but knows he can't be ungrateful; he got what he wanted, which was victory.
So what else is it, then? What is he doing?? What exactly does he want?
Stupid Ishigaki.
"Groossssssss," he exhales slowly in a low, almost inaudible rasp.
no subject
"But thats not what I'm getting at, you know. It's not about what I sell. It's just, cycling, to my dad is..."
He tilts his head from side to side, trying to find the words. He knows his father only has his future in mind. To run a shop, one he's blessed enough to fall back on and trained well in, even, is about being stable. It isn't an earnest dream to chase after, but it's safe.
He isn't a prodigy, and as much as he wants to make an excuse for his own mediocrity, neither is Midousuji. He's seen the relentless work the other has put in, but there's a certain type of twisted, ardent magic in his insistence to move forward. With him, Ishigaki had seen how a person can claw his way up until his body fell apart, and he catches himself wonding if even if he endured with everything he had, every day of his life, if he could ever come close to that type of drive.
He shifts in his chair, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.
"Well, let's just say for me, to go pro would be," he says cheerfully enough, but there’s something in his voice, "directionless."
It's when be hears himself say that, that Ishigaki catches how lost he really is- and how hypocritical it is to say so on top of that. To preach to Midousuji again and again about his future, yet seldom follow it for his own...
Breathing a soft sigh through his, he does begin to type away again- just a bit, with these thoughts still floating around in the back of his head.
"I'll always cycle, but I've just got too caught up in... everything else."
It sounds like an excuse, but he believes it to be true. He's gotten so entangled in his campus life that he's finding a hard time properly expressing himself, even. Maybe it was getting lost in trying to get through each day these past few years, that he was was too busy to think of his feelings at all. Or maybe he was choosing to bury them for convenience's sake.
"Hah, well, that's part of being an adult I guess."
Eyeing over the little he's wrote out, he holds down the backspace bar, unsatisfied.
Since when did he become so half-hearted...?
no subject
Midousuji’s brows furrow pensively and in mild irritation, and he tilts his head, feeling the muscles in his neck strain with the sudden movement. Midousuji shifts, lifting his hips with a lurch of his waist to tug his blankets lose from beneath him, and fidgets until he can pull them over his leg. He gives all that noise its due in pause before he speaks again, bony fingers slowly reeling the hem of his comforter against the edge of his hip where it’s then left to rest. Midousuji’s long fingers then settle their narrow ends in a subtle curl against his waist, eyes narrowing.
“I think you’re making excuses because the ‘everything else’ you’re describing is some kind of confusion. You sound like you don’t know what you want to do… but I wonder how much of that is you, and how much of that is you being too open and thus too easily influenced by the factors around you, and your environment. And your emotions.”
Midousuji’s head swims with a heavy coziness, and he finds his eyes don’t want to stay widely, unnaturally open as they tend to want to be. It’s the warm, tingling edge of sleepiness—yet even still, somehow, Midousuji doesn’t seem to want to concede and hang up.
Hanging up, this entire time, would have been the easiest thing. In fact, it’s still the most logical option!
But, not the most rewarding.
And that’s what Midousuji’s always after, after all.
“Ishigaki-kun,” Midousuji says after another pause, this time more brief. “What do you want out of your life? Without the ‘whys’ of things influencing it, what is it you even want, anyway?”
no subject
What I want...?
Ishigaki tilts his head, letting it hang off the back of his chair as he gives his ceiling a solem look.
He shuffles through memories, ones of school, familiar dreams of what could be floating in his head, and soon, with the help of Midousuji's influence, a thought he had forgotten hits him hard.
And that's of a boney, triangular silhouette suited up in a yellow jersey.
His mouth opens, but his words stick to his throat. Is that what he wants...?
No. He can't say that. Well, he already had said that in a borderline heatstroke of a haze, but... Would it be fair to put onto Midousuji now? Even if it was so, there's too many underlying feelings to sort out that even he, with everything he already has said tonight, can't bring himself to remind the other of words filled with so much... yearning. It's too much. Entirely so.
It's been years now, anyway. It's clear he's had an influence, but he's unsure if those words had even stuck... Right?
Another excuse, perhaps.
Ishigaki clears his throat- let's Midousuji know he's still there- and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Feeling tense around Midousuji isn't news, but this, to feel read as he is vulnerable- if it wasn't so troubling, he'd be honored that Midousuji is giving the chance.
"It's directionless for someone... like me, maybe," he finally says. "I'm different from you. Your drive to move forward... it... isn't like anyone else. You can see that, can't you?"
Arms still folded, he scrapes at his forefinger with his thumb. He's too lost to notice the way it sting this time.
"I gave everything I had in my high school years, and you've accomplished more than I ever had. In your first year, even." He catches how dispiriting his words come out, and he flips his head forward- sitting up straight.
"Ah. You're right. I am making excuses. I'm sorry." His voice raises from its hushed tone beforehand. "But even then, still, with all my mediocrity... I'm not frustrated. Seeing the team I worked so hard to build go as far as it did- seeing you go as far as you did- that feels like it's enough, maybe."
It's true, but even so, a person so unilike him is always there to question that.
"I know that I want to feel those things again. But I wonder if... that really is enough."
no subject
No one is like him in many ways—but his drive is certainly one of them. He has unique propellants, though Midousuji doesn’t see them for what they are—emptiness, tragedy, fear of drowning in the nothing feeling that leaves his body feeling cold and hollow enough to not notice how the sun scorches his skin in the hot Kyoto heat as he pushes himself with the subconscious hope he might break. Midousuji doesn’t let himself look that deeply. Not at himself.
Ishigaki is pulled by love, and not by despair and desperation—and that’s why he’s mediocre, in comparison.
That’s why it’s scary to be experimenting with it; to be warming his cold, steely edges from their inner corners with it.
“I guess… if it brings you satisfaction, maybe that’s enough.”
Not his usual take, certainly not—but Midousuji has been growing, his paradigm slowly shifting, though not totally unaligned from his previous thinking by a far shot.
“That’s all I’m chasing. Maybe you just find it in smaller places.”
—-
The two talk for a bit longer, and Midousuji finds it impossible to keep his eyes fully open. His speech is quiet—his voice is low, and despite its rumbling tonality, it’s soft and slow. Every vowel gets an exhale, like the ones people do when they’re asleep. His hand is curled and blurry, out of focus, in front of his face, blearily unfocused eyes somewhere near his phone.
The conversation does eventually become a bit less esoteric and exploratory, and Ishigaki’s sharing some memory. Something about his childhood, his father—connected to some previous point they were on, but Midousuji’s brain swims so heavily with the warm weight of coming sleep that he can’t even recall what. His eyes slide closed, Ishigaki’s voice filling his head. It is almost like he’s some kind of real-space proximate, in a way. It reminds Midousuji of when he’d fall asleep around his family as a child, hearing them chatter amongst themselves while he faded into a comfortable, wallflower warmth. Especially when he’d been non-verbal; it was easy to excuse himself to save himself the anxiety of feeling he had to participate, but to experience the people around him he felt connected to.
Back when his mom was alive, anyway.
Midousuji’s fingers twitch as he remembers his mother’s laugh, bright like a bell, before she’d become sick. The memory mixes with the feelings incurred by Ishigaki’s voice, curling something warm in his chest and belly, drawing some incoherent mumble from Midousuji. He’s unable to open his eyes any longer, and finds himself uncaring. Shamelessly, he just allows himself to doze off in the middle of Ishigaki’s memory—one similar to Midousuji’s, actually.
1 / 2
It's so unfamiliar to what he knows of Midousuji to even suggest, that he lets some silence lapse between them; the simplicity of it causing his string of nagging thoughts to come to a smooth stop.
Ishigaki smiles- chuckles at the way Midousuji's voice struggles to give into sleep.
Is Midousuji- unconsciously- with the way he's allowing his night to be spent up on something so useless as a phone call, learning to find victory in those smaller places, too? Ishigaki wonders- selfishly, he admits- if he's played a part in that very subtle shift, and maybe, if that's even so, that they balance each other out in that way.
The night continues on with useless drabbles from Ishigaki, keeping on the topic of family as he fills in the silence so Midousuji doesn’t have to. How he was an only child, but the company of his cousins kept him from feeling that way. And his parents, too- though much of it was him continuing on the bad habit of talking about his father, maybe to keep his good name, despite everything. How his father raised him single and never married again, and how he never showed any interest in other women, but it wasn’t an act of misguided nobility. He was so fully occupied by raising a son- the one he managed to raise to be so humble, unlike himself- that there simply wasn’t any space in his romantic life.
Midousuji didn’t talk about his family, or much at all, in response. But Ishigaki knows that if the other disliked the rambles of a lovelorn man, with the same distaste as he did with almost everything else there is, that he would have been met with a hang up tone. With his honesty, as always, there to reassure him time and time again, Ishigaki continues on and off between his studies. Less so to give the other his autobiography and more so, plainly, that Midousuji’s struggle to stay awake, with his weak mumbles that eventually turn into nothing but heavy breaths and faint snoring, were entirely too precious.
And so, what follows after is filled with hazy, internal questions between the sound of his typing growing more and more laggard. It’s late- or rather, early, with the coming of the sun peeking through his blinds- by the time his work is done. By now Ishigaki has hung up the phone to save the peace of Midousuji’s own phone battery, and not being met with the sound of dead air feels entirely too silent.
He submits his assignment- watching the loading symbol with eagerness until it turns into a checkmark, before he shuts his laptop carelessly and slumps his upper half entirely over his desk.
Focus drifting, there’s not much more energy he can spend seeing as the bed on just the opposite end of his room is too distant for the effort. But still, within his body desperate to give in, eyes fluttering shut and mouth agape with long, heavy breaths, he manages to regurgitate the night’s thoughts now that there’s not anything seemingly more important to focus on.
...Love, is that it? Well, yes, that much is obvious now- with how caught up he had gotten in something as plain as a phone call. But what can he do from here? Surely and slowly, like sea glass- with the way they've been able to smooth out the rough edges between themselves, all of this has been rewarding enough as it is, hasn’t it?
And it has- too much, even- but somehow entirely not enough all the same.
Ishigaki can't answer the questions that drift into his dozy head. But he likes what is happening, and he likes what they do have, and maybe that's all he can handle answering right now. Everything else is are all rhetorical questions, anyway. Ishigaki doesn’t need a response. He wouldn’t even know what to say back.
What he can say, is when he drifts off to sleep, cheek pressed against the cool wood of his desk, that the fear to halt the moment he harbored doubt felt a little less heavy.
--
Ishigaki sits at a stretched-out dinner table he doesn’t recognize, but somehow, with the way the summer night’s thick breeze brings in the sweet scent of cornfields through the open screen door besides them, the room reeks of nostalgia. The faces that fill the table, too, are relatives of those he can’t quite recall- perhaps the situation plainly much too jarring as it is overstimulating, with the endless sounds of roaring drunk uncles and utensils clicking and scratching against glass bowls, to think straightly.
His eyes dart face to face, hurriedly trying to find an opening to a conversation out of pressured politeness he put on himself- but it’s when he looks forward, at the very end of the vast table stretched in front of him, that his rapid thoughts coalesce into a single, smooth train.
On the opposite side, so far and so dimly lit compared to the side he himself sits at that the other might as well be in a different room entirely, seats a figure. Long and gaunt.
2 / 2
Although he’s quick to turn his attention back to where it once was, the boy at the end of the table isn’t to be seen.
( I just realized I forgot to shift into the new scene so here's a bullshit sentence ok? OK??? )
Unknowing when it was he dismissed himself from dinner, the scenery has shifted onward, as dreams often do.
He finds himself in a room of the same home- filled with cousins, he assumes, but they’re as small as he remembers them ever being, unlike the way he towers over them now. The site is familiar, seeming to recall the act of dismissing himself alongside the kids his age while the adults continue on with their boisterous family gossip. But now, like the table beforehand, there's a disconnect leaving him not knowing what to say.
He’s careful to tip toe over them, despite the senseless growing numbers, as to not have any toddling over and causing a scene. A few grab at his leg, pleading, but his thighs are stronger than they are heavy. Despite the bubbling stress and his willingness to knock them away, he pets reassuringly at the soft, fair hairs of their heads.
Ahead of him is a hallway, where he had hoped to escape for a moments peace, though he finds it just as crowded. But amongst them, with a triangular frame outstanding the height of those around him, he sees wisps of dusky hair.
He scrambles to gently kick off the kids that weigh at his legs, with the added challenge of squeezing past a new hoard of bodies. He doesn't trail off too far, as he appears resentfully stuck between the unwelcomed bosoms of aunts and the scruffy beards of uncles- so much so that his cheek is pressed up tight against them enough his eye is forced shut.
With the little he can see- he does get another faint glimpse of Midousuji- and he's- jeez- is he laughing?
Motivated with nothing but that silhouette and pure frustration, he does weasel his way further- arm stretched out far ahead of him, unsure what he’s trying to reach. The tip of his fingers touch at cold wood- and with a few panicked taps he finds himself tugging open a paper screen door, tumbling forward.
His nose slams painfully into the floor, but he’s quick to pull himself up at the sound of footsteps rushing foward. He slides the screen, having to swing it left and right with a humiliating amount of primal desperation- an inkling of realization that these people are no one in particilar- slamming against the limbs and fingers until they give up the hope of reaching out to him.
The screen slams for a final time, and he's abruptly met with the wonderfully hushed silence he craved so much for.
The room is relatively empty, but resembles the sheltered comfort of his own bedroom in his waking life. It's enough comfort for him to slack against the screen door with rested eyes.
He thinks of Midousuji, and shifts between questions. Where he is, if it's worth venturing to find out, and why on earth was he so hurriedly searching for him... and it's within those questions that he feels subtle vibrations underneath his feet.
He looks down, counting the tatami mats around him- but they're shifting. There were twelve when he came in, surely, but then that twelve turns into ten, then ten into eight...
The floor continues to shift underneath him, the ceiling lowers, and his feet scramble to find balance- but to no avail. There's a wall to catch him, and he slides down, uselessly kicking away at the other ones that close in on him.
He curls up into himself as tight as he can bear, breath held and eyelids clenched. And for a drawn out, dreadful moment, he waits for his sure to be impending death, but much to his surprise, it doesn't seem to come.
Tentatively, he peaks between his thumb and forefinger, before slowly removing his hands from his face altogether. What was once a room is now a pale cushion of abstract softness. He finds himself with enough room to uncurl his limbs; sprawling out to rest on top of it all. When he waves his hand across the surface, it has a tough elastic texture- rubbery, like skin- despite being able to sink kindly into it.
Ishigaki stares at the ceiling, blinking, and the ceiling, with a dark and deep stare, blinks back.
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“Ishigaki-kun,” rings Midousuji’s voice, distant but clear, slow and deliberate. A pair of eyes open beside Ishigaki, as if a figure beside him may be peering, leaning over just slightly, off-kiltered in such a way that may insinuate a head tilt. The white, bright pair of eyes blink again, and reopen near Ishigaki again, at his other side, and Midousuji’s voice returns—somewhere else, less distant. Everywhere, but nowhere particular.
“Are you trying to find me? Still?”
The floor shifts, growing around Ishigaki’s arms like warm, thick cords, firm, but somehow malleable. Around Ishigaki’s ankle as well, and perhaps startlingly, the floor (?) shifts again, this time up and high, enough to nearly dangle the coveted, escaped guest, certainly lifting his pelvis. The eyes appear near the floor now, still watching—and another pair of the same eyes open somewhere to give the impression someone is looking down at Ishigaki where his leg dangles.
That pair of eyes in particular squints, which makes the pair near the floor peer up curiously. Ishigaki, like the pair of eyes, is mystifyingly well lit, though the rest of the surroundings—the “people”—are pitch black.
“No one here cares about what you want,” his voice echoes again, more of a hushed, everywhere whisper, strangely overlayed on itself. “Nor do they know what you want.” The squinting pair of eyes tilts, and a wicked smile suddenly appears below them.
“But I~ do.”
There’s a winding pressure, now, across Ishigaki’s thigh, pressing around his groin—something shifting, searching, up his shirt, skirting up along his hip. Something else is pulling Ishigaki’s shirt from its shoulder, and a pair of too-long, black fingers roll from the black mass there, extending to carefully unbutton. A hand can be felt, not present before, though still unseen, flattening as it smooths up his torso.
“Me, right?”
And from somewhere else, or many somewhere else’s, Midousuji’s voice comes again in unison. “Ishigaki-kun… So hard working, so desperate, and for what? You’re so pathetic.”
The room rings with a merry, mean laugh, and a smile like the one that looks down on Ishigaki appears near his neck, eyeless.
“But it’s a little erotic, you know? So, because even I can be kind, sometimes—I’ll give it to you. How do you like that? You found me, but that’s not all you want.”
Behind Midousuji’s words, the room echoes with a rolling, quiet “grosssss,” hissing in descending volume until it’s back with silence.
A warm bend of the mass presses against Ishigaki’s crotch, and strangely, kind of melds to it; it’s almost like a warm, super pliant foam, but feels almost more like flesh, but like nothing at all. Nothing familiar.
“You’d never admit it, but you wish for a reward, don’t you? That’s only natural for a human. You’re the type of human who wishes be consumed, right?”
The mouth appearing beside him, still grinning, suddenly has a pair of eyes open up above it, looking unnervingly straight at Ishigaki. The hand up his shirt rolls what feels like a thumb across his nipple, and the eyes squint, still grinning deviously. Ishigaki’s shirt, what rest of it remains unbuttoned, is torn by the mass rolling under his shirt. A tongue, all black like the rest of everything, rolls across Ishigaki’s neck; the mass kneads at his dick, and another one pulls the elastic down after impatiently fussing Ishigaki’s jeans open. The room lets go of Ishigaki, seeming to be satisfied with dangling him like a toy for now, and the mass wraps tight on Ishigaki’s cock. Like the tongue, it isn’t quite wet, but it’s less dry than the parts of the masses that seem to be mostly concerned with simply moving Ishigaki about.
“Not by them,” the voice echoes, and all the eyes dart to where the closing of the door was, and then all back to Ishigaki, each black pupil framed by wide white. “By me.”
no subject
And it does call out, taunting but not unwelcome, with a playfulness he hasn't quite picked up on. It's familiar- a reminder that it's coming from someone dear to him- and that's enough to keep his racing heart from turning into a full blown panic attack.
Ishigaki's thoughts halt, unable to answer the question he’s asked. He only gives scattered, clueless blinks into the void in front of him. He's not entirely why he searched for him, and so desperately... He just felt maybe Midousuji had an answer to a question he wasn’t even asking. The thought distracts him, so much that he almost forgets the situation he's in.
But Midousuji doesn’t wait for a response. Instead, the floor shifts, higher this time, continuing to skew all of Ishigaki’s mental calculations. A pool of thick, warm mass soundlessly sneaks from below, twining him, and he doesn’t have the time to decide if the fluttering warmth coming off of it is more unsettling than not.
"Hey! W-wait-!!"
Panic switches off his higher brain function, his actions uselessly erratic- tugging away hard enough he's only straining himself, with his one free limb kicking in the air at nothingness.
The shifting, overstimulating visuals and an echoing question added to top it benefits him from straining his body any further- though the doubt in anything normal happening tonight is still there to keep him on guard, with tight breaths and skin starting to damp with sweat.
Another needlessly cruel grin sneaks below, and his fussing comes to a full stop to recoil the little he can away- a constant game of fear and charge, it seems.
"You... do?" Doe eyed, he stares like those words were a complex puzzle to solve.
Again, Midousuji isn't kind enough to be patient.
There's a slither that's too close for comfort, one so unexpected that his breath stays stuck in his throat- the only sound leaving him a strained hiccup. And just as abruptly as all the unwarranted occurrences given to him, he's tossed in a pattern of uncertain touches sting his skin.
Ishigaki does protest, though his squirming doesn’t get him very far. The only thing he can do is stare with wide eyed frisson, his brain nothing but a single line of static staring at his now exposing chest.
It happens too fast to pick up what Midousuji is patently putting down. So when Midousji is kind enough, this time, to suggest an answer to him like it's a statement of fact rather than a question, it sweeps aside any ignorance that had been Ishigaki's only defense from his own want. The air leaves his lungs entirely.
Him? That’s what he wants??
The room continues on to mock him, but Ishigaki’s thoughts are louder than what he’s hearing. He only shakes his head in protest, unable to form a coherent sentence.
“That’s- no- I…!” He turns his chin towards the smile that forms beside him. It’s not shocking perse, not at this point, but the sight is still enough to stop his babbling.
And then, those words…
E-rotic?
Ishigaki sucks in a quick breath through his nose.
Oh.
Oh…
That’s…
That’s what this is.
And at that, suddenly his situation made a little more sense.
The room erupts into an echo of noise, but being ridiculed- being exposed like this, as desperate as he is even now to break away- isn’t wholly unwelcomed underneath, with a trickle of wonder and wait tugging at him. Not that there’s much time for those underlying feelings to be noticed. If there ever was enough for someone as dense as him.
Something rolls underneath his shirt to slide over his nipple, and- oh- men like that too, apparently- a thought that's never occurred before now, and he lets out a noise he didn't know he was capable of making. He wants to cover his face, to clasp his hands over mouth, or bury his head into something, anything, but he's unable to stifle any noises spilling out of him. Not when his shirt is being torn, tattered and undone, much like himself.
The pace is too quick to sink into each touch that comes his way. It’s frustrating, and entirely too overstimulating. There's a stinging in his throat in time to the corner of his eyes swelling wet- from fear, or maybe his body's desperate attempt to release those excess emotions he's been so talented at bottling away- he's unsure, but it doesn’t feel entirely awful giving into whatever emotions come his way.
It… feels much needed, actually.
And the warm mass pressing against his crotch to meld around him is a reminder of that. Ishigaki’s head rolls back, finally, in defeat, singing out a cracked sigh. He lets the rest happen, his muscles finally relaxing and allowing the room to hold him in place.
Until it doesn’t, and he’s left dangling with the audacity to be offended that Midousuji would be anything but easy on him.
The way his dick throbs in his tight, relentless grip serves a well enough apology, though. He doesn't know when he had gotten hard exactly, but he feels a drip of precum fall down the side before the mass hides it all within itself. His head flops forward with a haggard and heavy weight- teeth clenched to muffle his whining.
There's a lapse of silence and immobility in his favor, allowing him the clarity to finally speak up.
"Hah..." His chest heaves as he slowly blinks his eyes open- face warped into a pitiful pout.
"It's... been that obvious, hasn't it?"
With his chin dipped into his chest, a lidded gaze focuses on one of many faces around him. There's an odd murmur in his chest, and his mouth opens, then closes, and again, in somewhat of a pattern- as careful with his words as ever.
"...Yes," he admits, his voice barely above a whisper. "I do."
His expression is pained, as that is what it is, painful, to admit. Painful that his want outweighs much else at this point.
He raises his hips, starting a little rhythm of rutting into the tight mass and nods, as if confirming his answer to himself- finalizing it.
Yes, always, he had everyone's best interest but himself in mind. It's true his family was the focal point, but Midousuji, too, (obviously) was an underlying problem within withholding even his own thoughts from himself. Because how awful, how filthy, to be using an already rewarding relationship for his own perverted gain. To want something entirely for himself. To be anything but unfaltering.
But it’s pointless to go back, and a sound of frustration bubbles in the back of his throat. He shakes his hips inside the other's grasp foolishly- harder, in slow strokes- as if the pace before had gone unnoticed.
"I've been good, haven't I? I always tried to take care of you. Never was my support not unconditional. I never stopped thinking about you. You know that, don't you?" His words come out quick and as shattered as he is.
He didn't need validation. That much was obvious, with the way the polarity between themselves balanced out. But now, with words pouring out faster than he can think to stop them, he sounds desperate enough for one to think otherwise.
"So- please-" his voice croaks within his hushed tone, unable to recall if he's ever had to beg for anything in his life.
"Take care of me too..."
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Then, all sets squint, a few thin, smug smiles cutting in the darkness between the little mischievous, peering crescents—and this is to how Ishigaki caves to his base, animal-most instincts, shamelessly letting himself fall to his desire to follow his blood by fucking into the taught mass. It twists, tightening further around Ishigaki’s cock, strange, soft and bulbous burrs emerging among the surface against Ishigaki’s erection as he brainlessly rocks his hips into the vice.
“Yesss,” many of Midousuji’s voices hiss, and half less all laugh over bitten, not-lips, muffled and naughty. The ‘face’ closest to Ishigaki’s comes close enough to bump against Ishigaki’s jaw and cheek, almost nuzzling—but there’s no warmth, there, and the texture is soft, but not quite like skin. Not quite like anything. A hand elegantly drums its long, thin fingers, lightless black stark on Ishigaki’s flesh as the web of the thumb and forefinger creeps over Ishigaki’s adam’s apple.
A wet, almost-right feeling tongue, all black and slick more like a membrane than like a saliva covered appendage, curls around the back of Ishigaki’s ear, against the shell. Another hand—or more accurately, a greedy pair of them, pull Ishigaki’s knee from its inner pit, lifting, and another set presses below and up Ishigaki’s ribs.
“Grossss. You are a good boy, Ishigaki-kun,” the voices echo with sadistic, faux-gentle glee. “Good, gooood, grrooosssss boy.”
The expressions fall flat, though, while the hands remain as they are; the eyes are open wide again, and the set of eyes nearest to Ishigaki tilt off center.
“—Take…care…” The eyes blink. “I don’t know how to take care of humans,” that set answers, and his eyes flit down to where he undulates and coils around Ishigaki’s thrusting hips. “But…”
The dark eyes flit back up to Ishigaki’s, and his hand, cold and stiff and unnatural, fingers bunched together, rest awkwardly against Ishigaki’s cheek. “…I know how to please them. Their design is simple enough.”
Dark tendrils, and an errant hand or two, make work of pulling Ishigaki’s pants, then boxers, down his sturdy thighs. Palms caress over his quads as the fabric departs, and one of the pairs of eyes reappear with a comical focus over Ishigaki’s freely sprung, glossy cock, desperately and pitifully hard. The eyes widen, sets of teeth parting in the center to give way to more pitch black void, a tongue descending to coil around Ishigaki’s cock—and the head descends, eyes rolling up to watch Ishigaki’s face as what feels like a set of lips hilt against his coarse pubic hair. The tongue winds around the base of Ishigaki’s balls, and the set of eyes by Ishigaki’s face remain watching him, before that hand gently comes to grasp Ishigaki’s face by either of his cheeks.
“Empty your head for once, Ishigaki-kun,” he instructs plainly; objectively. Another set of tongue and teeth rake Ishigaki’s ribs, stroking with soothing, false tongue thereafter, giving his nipple the same treatment. What feels like a wiry, long leg clings around Ishigaki’s side. “Close your eyes, if it helps. It’s not like you can see me, anyways.” Midousuji’s eyes narrow, and his lips brush Ishigaki’s jaw, voice hushed, venomously low but somehow intimate and private. “Even though it’s gross, and rude, and so arrogant… you always get very close, though… Did you know that?
“And that’s not all…” Midousuji strokes his hand from down Ishigaki’s neck to across his collars, caressing the upper swells of his pecks. “Would you believe me, if I told you that you’re my favorite? Did you know that? How’s that for a reward?”
During his distracting chattering, once Ishigaki’s eyes are closed, and it’s all well and truly black, the vice around Ishigaki changes—the texture is similar to the first, when Midousuji had altered the strange, indescribable grip for pleasure. But less interesting—unmoving on its own, though it strokes. Slowly, and the echoing sounds of Midousuji’s chuckles and overlapping chatter dissipates like a memory, or a vapor.
When Ishigaki opens his eyes again, Midousuji is looming over him—the very same he’d been looking for, bare-fleshed like Ishigaki, impaled in a straddle over Ishigaki’s lap, palms bracing on either side of Ishigaki’s neck. His pale skin is now alit bright, the pitchy void replaced with a glowy oblivion.
“Say…” Midousuji starts. The way he moves, riding Ishigaki’s cock slowly, stills, almost high enough for Ishigaki’s cock to slip out, and his gaze, intense, but not empty, bores downward into Ishigaki’s eyes.
“Is it true, Ishigaki-kun?” Midousuji tilts his head, and he grabs Ishigaki’s face-a familiar, hostile gesture, but his fingers carry a subtle tremble. So does his voice, just as barely, his exhales giving away that hint. There’s something tense in his eyes; something strange. Maybe some kind of concern.
Maybe fear.
“Do you love me?”
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With his limbs weighted and as useless as jelly, he's stuck in a hypnotic state of Midousuji's push and pull. When his pants move past his hip, he exhales, willingly spreading his legs- something as simple as two layers of fabric having been entirely too frustrating under the other's touch.
When owlish eyes goggle at his lush pink reveal, jut up with insistence, it does gives Ishigaki another wave of self awareness, mouth trembling with a tight-pressed line. But those thoughts of self doubt are hurriedly swallowed away when Midousuji's tongue rings around him.
"Y-you're tongue-" Ishigaki's voice comes out broken again. He sucks in a tight breath before choking on it. Oh. Of course anything tendril-like is inertly sexual. But Ishigaki never thought to categorize it that way, given how entirely impolite the thought of putting Midousuji is that light feels.
His jaw slacks low in tune to the further Midousuji takes him in with the heat of his mouth, and he leans into the hand to the side of his cheek with a wavering sigh. When Ishigaki feels the back of Midousuji's throat, the needy warmth in his belly spreads out and downwards. Of course it's wet, but even for the situation, there's a copious amount of drool inside, and when Midousuji's tongue slips out of his mouth to caress the balls that hang underneath, Ishigaki feels a pool of saliva, warm, drip down them- and he hisses.
Midousuji's hands, gentle this time, clasp at each side of his cheeks. Ishigaki blinks, his watery vision becoming clear as small tears pool over his fingers.
Ishigaki stares back into pair of eyes beside him for a long moment, his breath uneven as he calculates how he could be anything but a fumbling mess right now. He's trembling at this point.
Another tongue slips at his side, and he gasps in a way that's too delicate for his liking. But it's… soothing, oddly, when he focuses on the touch itself rather than the events unfolding around him- even when he does the same to chest, earning a moan.
Ishigaki nods, once, and uses the little mental strength he does have to even his breathing.
Though he can't make out the silhouette of his head against the darkness, he reaches, and his fingers find Midousuji's soft tuffs of hair for comfort while his other hand stays to squeeze tight at one of Midousuji's that clasp at his face. It helps, if only a little.
It's hard to shut his eyes. It's hard not to gander at the little of what he can make out of Midousuji's features. He wants to take it all in, but it's just as Midousuji had said; Ishigaki is a good boy, so his eyes flicker closed despite his emotional recoil.
At this point, with the room continuously shifting and slicking at his body, he doesn't have the compacity to feed his anxieties in his hazy honesty of pleasure, so Midousuji's direction is easier to follow than originally thought. Midousuji is saying something, his spider-like hand sliding in easement against his chest. It's difficult to make out what he's saying over his mind's haze, but his lower waste tingles abruptly when he does-
"D-don't, don't say that- Midousuji-"
His body begins to stutter and clench, and his voice breaks as the first wave of his orgasm comes. He doesn't pay mind to the way he sounds when he throws his head to the side with a noise somewhere between a moan and a hiss, or when his hips buck once upwards- shameless, though the decision isn't a conscious one, further down Midousuji's throat.
-
The mocking laughter and uncertain touches dissolve into a to a flat stop. His eyes lazily blink open. The room is now bright, with a hue that causes the fuzzy embrace of an early morning.
He's met with Midousuji, caging him against the floor with a face that reflects Ishigaki's uncertainty. He pulls in a breath and holds it.
It's erotic, but the mood holds a different type of undertone that causes his chest to swell and his eyebrows to slant in a soft, doting sort of way.
He doesn't interrupt as Midousuji pushes out his words, doesn't flinch when he's cheeks are pressed tight between fingers. His jaw just hangs open like an idiot, watching in bewitched awe like a moth to a flame.
Ishigaki doesn't have the compacity to put his thoughts into words. But there's an underlying feeling that this a version of Midousuji that's more in tune to himself. It's fragile and raw.
And then…
Midousuji asks a question, simply.
-
Ishigaki's eyes snap open. For a moment, his head swims- foggy, disoriented, with the bliss of his post-orgasm still ringing through his body. It takes him a moment to relay the images seconds before, and an even longer moment to digest it.
And when he does, he shoots up. There's an uncomfortable, sticky feeling between his thighs, and it's still warm. His eyes dip down.
Tentatively, though he knows the answer before he sees it, he sneaks his thumb between his boxers and pulls, peeking.
"Oh my god." Ishigaki's releases his grip with a hard snap.
He ruffles his hands chaotically through his disheveled hair before running one heavy down his face to cup at his mouth. Then he repeats the same phrase, voice muffled, this time more of a question.
He curls into himself, knees bent and face hiding behind the crook of his arm. His face is hot, and he hear his own pulse thumping in his ears.
When he relays the dream, connects the foggy scenes into the storyline that had played out, he doesn't characteristically fight against it. He sinks into it. There's a tingling that numbs him down to his toes.
And... He likes it.
What a jostling, addicting feeling. Is this what he's been denying?
Ishigaki groans.
So if not the ignored hormones built up by a man in denial then, this is... love, is it? The dream couldn't have been any more straight forward, after all.
Love…
Then, why does this feel so newly found?
He had been in love once before.
Ishigaki, in his pubescent state of teen hood, gave an immediate yes when her hands, petite and damped with sweat handed him a baby pink envelope. They continued dating until the middle of his second year in school, until she abruptly, with her eyelids puffy and cheeks stained wet, admitted that her parents were moving- and far, too.
She was as beautiful as she was kind. With a heart shaped face and wide almond shaped eyes, she was a person who knew all the right words to say. Her tidy demeanor and her layers of fruit scented lotions and body sprays were comforting in contrast to his teammates who could only remember deodorant half the time and whos uniforms smelled of swamp-ass.
But he found when left alone with her for too long, when they already traded the day's small talk and finished their studies, all they could really bond over was swapping spit. Which wasn't anything a teenage boy could complain about, of course. Even with hormones aside, when you're a male in a straight-laced society, you're starved for any deep connection to others you can get.
When she had left, he was mostly fine. He cried, he moped, and Mizuta and Ihara could hear there was something off in his voice when he tried to hide his heartbreak. But with his teammates to lean on and the drama unfolding in his life inside the club, he hadn't thought much of her at all by the time his third year rolled around.
It never crossed his heart that there was a disconnect. They would have gotten married and had kids, and Ishigaki would have been satisfied with just that. His family would have been happy with him, and he would have been likely too dense to give it much else thought. But Ishigaki, consistently it seems, can't choose the easiest path to anything.
Midousuji is a path that is winding with uncertainty. To get close to him is a constant game of push and pull.
With Midousuji, there wasn't an answer- not a direct one, anyway. And even if there was one, even if the answer isn't what he was hoping for, it wouldn’t keep Ishigaki away. He couldn’t deny that it was curiosity of Midousuji's inner mechanisms that made the tips of his fingers tingle.
It seems Midousuji is there to consistently remind Ishigaki he doesn't know anything at all.
And frankly, it's… Fun.
With his dream before his last, he had wondered if Tokyo had any underlying effect on his thoughts, given the spectrum of life styles and his newfound, lovestruck teammates to influence that. Ishigaki is dense, he knows this, but with another hard-on on its way and all the signs patiently leaving him a neat trail before him to follow up to where he is now...
Ishigaki plainly feels stupid to blame it on anything but himself.
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With Ishigaki being the usual conversation starter, their text messages were sparse now. Not that the two were texting on the daily beforehand, anyway. He's sure the distance had gone unnoticed, given Midousuji's preference to these things… But when he'd open their chat to say something almost mundane, something he wouldn't have given a second thought in this stage of their friendship, he froze up.
Where does he go from here?
His thumb presses the button on the side of his phone, turning the screen off before allowing his grip to loosen. It falls flat on his chest and he sighs.
Ishigaki got his answer. He's in love. And as inconvenient as that is, he isn't denying it now. Much similar to when the two first met, with Midousuji stripping him away of something so personal, even then he knew better than to waver away uncomfortable feelings. It's not so venomous now though. And that's the problem. It's a high- one that bubbles underneath his skin like its desperate to pop out. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but it's not unwelcomed. He's better off without it, as useless as he is holding onto it, but its as harrowing as it is exciting.
He just doesn't know what to do with it all- doesn't know where to put down all these feelings that are weighing so heavy at him.
Well... It's not a problem to put on Midousuji.
And that thought is enough to keep him some-what grounded for now.
There's an abrupt buzzing that vibrates his chest, and when he flips the screen up to see his dads icon flashing, he can't help but feel a wave of relief. A distraction.
When he answers, they have their usual back and forth talk. How's school, how's Tokyo, we miss you... His dad isn't much for socializing- he can tell he's running out of things to say. It's no surprise given the way he thought bonding worked was to take his son fishing and sit in a silence for hours on end.
He mentions his sister, Ishigaki's aunt Hanoko, and how her birthday is coming up this weekend. Ishigaki makes an impolite face at his ceiling.
His aunt is a woman who fills the room with her kitsch perfume, with always too much to say and too much unwarranted advice to give. A person who is, in her entirety, too much. Anyone in the family knows that she's best handled in small doses, even his father, who has the benefit of growing up beside her to normalize her boisterous personality.
Birthday... he missed Midousuji's, didn't he? Not that he was the celebratory of sorts, but Ishigaki still didn't feel comfortable only having the time to send him a text message.
Oh- and Midousuji had mentioned there was a race that day, didn't he?
…
Maybe this call was less of a distraction than he had hoped.
"...Can I come?" Ishigaki interrupts mid-sentence, not actively taking in anything else his father has to say.
There's a stutter on the other end of the line, and Ishigaki cringes at his own lack of self control.
"What-? This weekend? Are you sure?"
Ishigaki chuckles with his mouth closed, though the reaction doesn't come as a shock. He remembers when his parents would say his aunt coming into town in an irksome tone rather than a pleasant one. And how he'd cling to the back of his father's pants when they'd welcome her in, hoping to go unnoticed, but never succeeding- resulting in his cheeks pinched red and a lipstick stain on his forehead.
"She's family," he says, though his dishonesty pulls at him. "And I haven't seen anyone in awhile, so... It's fine."
The tone in his father's gruff voice lights up- and he bursts into a spiel of the Sunday plans of an old man he'd be dragged into afterwards. It really is fine, though, he's missed home. He's ready for the quietness Kyoto has to bring otherwise.
–
It's late by the time he pulls up, and a handful of teams shuffle around to take down their tents. It's obvious he's missed the race, and maybe the ceremony too.
It's disappointing, but not surprising. He's thankful he had made it all given the conversations he had gotten wrapped up into. Apparently word had gotten out that Ishigaki was finally giving time to visit town, so the small party of three turned into... a party of many.
Now that he's here, suddenly aware of his age and how out of place he must look among the crowds of teenagers, he's ashamed at how hurriedly he had snuck out through the door, and how silly he made being here so urgent.
In the distance there's the speckle of purple and pink to distract him from his own embarrassment, and Ishigaki's thoughts wash away. His pace picks up into a trot that lacks self awareness towards them.
There's only a few Kyofushi members around their tent, and seeing people he doesn't recognize in his team colors is still an odd sight. They give him a confused glance, but don't speak up when he lifts the flap of the tent to peek inside.
Sure enough, there Midousuji is, hunched on top of a portable bench and fixated with the bandages that ring around his thigh. It wasn't uncommon for Midousuji to stay secluded from the others- the lull of sound and the sight is familiar.
It brings him back to inside their club room, where he would stay as late as he could besides him to dribble one sided conversations until it was awkward. And when that wasn't enough for him, he would take a moment before leaving, too, to stare tenderly through the doorway much like he is now- though Midousuji is a little longer, a bit more lean than he once was then.
Back then it was a constant circle of being at a loss of what to say, and wondering if his words would even get through to him if he tried. Now, there's a strange, nervous twist in his stomach for entirely different reasons.
Ishigaki gives his back a warm smile. Well, he's glad things are different now.
He lifts the tent's door completely, letting it fall behind him as he steps forward. It takes a long moment to gather the grit to get much further than that, having to push down the wave of serotonin and hormones that pulse through him, but soon the only sound other than Midousuji's subtle shifting is the tap of Ishigaki's footsteps.
Wordlessly, he sits beside him, but he doesn't make eye contact. He doesn't know if he can, not without the images of his unwarranted wet dream flashing back to him. Or worse, to remind him of jacking it awkwardly inside his aunt's shared bathroom beforehand, with another little crisis to follow, before he could even think of bringing himself over here.
"Sorry it's so late. Don't get too excited." Ishigaki extends his arm, placing a colorful gift bag in Midousuji's lap before folding his hands back into his own. His eyes still stay fixate on the lockers in front of him. It felt silly when he had bought it, even before he had gone and made things so complicated. So now...
Well, it's a bit embarrassing, even for him.
Ishigaki turns his chin to the opposite side of the room Midousuji sits on, hand resting gently on his mouth to hide his smile- his gaze now rolled up at the ceiling.
"It's not much."
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Focused as he is, though, Midousuji still senses a presence. He pays it no mind, initially, thinking it’s likely one of his team—but something about it feels different. Familiar, but specifically in that way that his senses tingle for someone’s presence when he’s unconscious, but not utterly. It’s warm, or maybe it just brings a warm feeling to him—but it makes his hair stand on end at the base of his neck, goosebumps visible there from that, and he slows his movements—but doesn’t stop.
Predictably, he’d taken victory this race. Or rather, he and his team had. And there was notable contribution—teamwork, rather than just tyranny (but still, a lot of tyranny). Komari had been beside him, wide eyed with manic delight from the thrill of it—Midousuji has noticed Komari’s changing too, just a little bit. His lust is still his main motivator, but Midousuji’s also seen that Komari is finding a certain pleasure in dominance—one that Midousuji can relate to, and so found it easy to nurture that seed. After all, Komari is the one Midousuji is going to appoint to take his role, though he doesn’t know it. But sweaty, exhausted, and trembling from exertion, Komari vindicated Midousuji’s pending decision with a wild whip of his head to grin at Midousuji in the moment that Midousuji turned to look back. The grin was wild, and Komari was still teeming with energy—a talent powerhouse with endless opportunity, bright-eyed and while thrilled, not that surprised. Komari, in whatever he does, ends up being a top performer—something Midousuji normally resents, finding strange that people can be so good at so many things, but like Midousuji, Komari is, at least, a pariah. And despite this, he’s content—and that’s why Midousuji knows he’ll be a good leader, even if he’s confident that isn’t the role Komari’s going to want. He’s a genius, has the talent and endurance to back it up, and has no qualms whipping people into shape where needed with an aloof, unreachable smile. Seeing that expression upon their overwhelming win, Midousuji narrowed his eyes, flashing Komari a mischievous grin in his satisfaction—something Komari correctly parsed as praise, contenting Komari enough to where he’d basically ignored his teammates when they went in to collect their excited high-fives from the eccentric pair.
But it’s not Komari—Komari’s energy doesn’t feel like this.
He stops completely when he feels the weight of the bench sink. Even the weight, the scent—is familiar. Midousuji knows then, instantly, even before his peripheral vision takes it in. Mouth agape, Midousuji’s eyes turn in their corners to stare at Ishigaki. It’s then he notices that Ishigaki’s dropped something on his lap, likely because Midousuji had stopped with his bandages, which are now dangling limp against the bench. Midousuji blinks stupidly at his lap, the bands of bright pink framing the cheery packaging of the item.
After a delayed moment of bewildered pause, Midousuji then turns his head, boggling at Ishigaki. It’s then his expression suddenly catches up, his brain decided the situation has been parsed, and Midousuji tilts his head, scowling in confusion as he squints his eyes, raising an eyebrow.
“Haaaa?”
What is Ishigaki doing here? What is he giving him? What is this audacity? Strolling in here like he still owns the team. Sticky senpai habits dying hard? Likely. Midousuji pretends he doesn’t notice how his heart is suddenly hammering; how the subtle weakness and tremor of his limbs isn’t just from exhaustion; how he has to scowl so he doesn’t just dumbly ogle at Ishigaki, ever increasingly distracted by what has, disgustingly, become what Midousuji computes as elegant, structured beauty. What he really wants to do is just stare at Ishigaki—he doesn’t even want to talk, too tired and drained to be verbal by his natural design.
“What are you even talking about?”
Midousuji glances at the gift again, and raises his palms curiously, hovering near the gift. His expression still looks a little surly in confusion, but less overtly mad, or put off—then he’s turned at his narrow waist, peering at Ishigaki suspiciously again.
“The race??”
Did Ishigaki assume he’d win, and brought a gift pre-emptively? Midousuji hadn’t noticed Ishigaki, but then, he hadn’t the last time Ishigaki came to see him race. His heart clenches, swelling Midousuji with warmth at the idea of having someone he cares about and likes coming to see him without prompting serially—to see him race, just like he’d wanted his mother to do. And how when she died, he let that desire die along with it—if it wasn’t her, it couldn’t be anyone else.
Or maybe, Ishigaki had missed the race? And this was some paltry apology.
“Because I won? Were you here the entire time? Nasty. Stalker. Or is it because you missed it?”
Either way,
“Gross,” Midousuji says, expression vacant with awe. It’s almost involuntary, the way his hand launches forward, gripping Ishigaki by the jaw to force Ishigaki to look at him, though his expression is still empty. Mostly. Maybe a little curious, and certainly in wonder—but it’s subtle, hard to pick out. The harsh redirect causes Midousuji’s hand to brush Ishigaki’s, initially, since he’d been covering the lower half of his face with it—and Midousuji stares into Ishigaki’s face imploringly, trying to discern him.
“Really gross.”
Midousuji’s heart is elated, even if he’s uncertain of Ishigaki’s reasoning. It’s uncomfortable, but it feels good, too. Which is also uncomfortable.
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He winces, letting out a faint sound in protest.
The force pushes his muppet-like frown into an even funnier shape. It doesn't hurt much in actuality, but the pressure is familarly uncomfortable in the way it presses hard against his teeth. His own hand originally placed to hide himself now hovers to the side of his face, unsure of what to do with itself.
Ishigaki's forced to stare, thinking vaguely of many hands, bare skin and heat. An uncomfortable dampness prickles at his skin.
But then Ishigaki stares- really stares at Midousuji, pulls his head out of his own anxiety clogged ass for once, and takes in what he sees for what it is.
Ishigaki's face mirrors inside of Midousuji's blank gaze, and for a brisk, twinkle of a moment he wonders if Midousuji shares the same embracement of complete bewilderment and uncertainty as he does.
It makes his heart hiccups high in his chest, but he's quick to shove it back- a little bit easier to do in a public space than the safety of his bedroom. Any more lingering surely to ring his face hot with pink heat if it hasn't already.
It's just the one-sided attraction desperate to grasp at anything it can, he's sure.
It has to be...
"Birthday." The reply lingers awkwardly with its delay. Ishigaki blinks down to the bench below to save him a moment's peace from overloading his thoughts any further.
"I missed it." And still, in spite of Midousuji's verbal strikes, Ishigaki has the heaviness of guilt in his chest- returning to that doubtfulness he's picked up since he originally left home, never knowing if what he's doing is too much or not enough at all.
His gaze manage to meet his again, and he flashes an apologetic smile between squished cheeks.
"And I missed your race, too. I'm sorry. I tried to get here earlier." There's a tilt to his voice. He decides to put aside the trail of excuses.
He hates how busy he's been- consistently aware of how far away he is from the other.
But for both their sake, he thinks, their distance is for the best. He wouldn't be able to sooth his own impulses without the passage of its solitude.
Ishigaki taps his pointer finger rhythmically at Midousuji's grip.
"Why don't you open it," he suggests, eyebrows raised at what still sits at Midousuji's lap. "And then decide if you want to bruise my cheeks or not?"
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His eyes snap back to Ishigaki’s when he says it’s for his birthday, and Midousuji’s jaw subtly falls open, head tilting.
“Birthday?”
Late to say the least, but Midousuji wasn’t the type who ever cared about that kind of thing—in fact, for years, he’s been the type who walks away callously and with strong indifference when presented with a gift of any kind. This one, however, has already been dropped in his lap. And, of course, it’s from Ishigaki.
Come to think of it, Ishigaki’s given him gifts before. In high school. And indeed, Midousuji had just as plainly disregarded them—basically. Eventually, he’d accept them, but he hadn’t expressed anything either way—aside from irritation at being given a gift in the first place. But in typical Ishigaki fashion, he’d always persisted regardless. The thought makes Midousuji’s heartbeat flutter, and he narrows his eyes in irritation, tightening his grip.
“Whatever,” Midousuji says suddenly, flopping his head back with an eye roll as his tongue rolls out limply, fully extended. His hand just as suddenly flies off Ishigaki’s face, wrist as limp as his tongue, flopping backwards. “I don’t care. It’s not like you’re obligated to see my races.”
It’s weird that he keeps coming to see them, in fact. Midousuji’s getting too used to it—and he’s hesitant to let that develop any further. Still hesitant to accept that Ishigaki is not only reliable, but worth relying on. Hesitant to admit that there’s a comfort in accepting it; to have someone to lean his tired body on. Someone to break that mantra, “by myself.” How does one mitigate expecting someone’s support, and maintaining their own complete, self actualized independence?
Of course, Midousuji’s making a big deal out of nothing. It’s not like it’s uncommon for a high schooler or young college aged adult to have those concerns.
When Ishigaki suggests he opens it, Midousuji’s neck straightens, chin dipping towards his collarbone as he looks with bafflement at Ishigaki. He looks back at Ishigaki, then his back bows in its typical exaggerated slouch, shoulders shadowing the colorful wrapping of the waiting gift.
His hands hover, poised above it, and he glances at Ishigaki.
Then, wordlessly, he opens it. In a fashion that makes no sense—graceless as well, of course, making short order of destroying the careful wrapping only because it makes more sense for him to do it that way. And what he says gives him pause again, and he picks up the item by its corners, lifting it.
A pair of eyes, much like him, stares right back at Midousuji as he holds it in front of his face. There’s many more, too, staring blankly forward, centered below each pair with a mouth made of lines of teeth in varied expressions—smiling, mouth dropped, frowning, indifferent and straight…
“Towel,” Midousuji says stupidly, and his heart stutters again. He looks at Ishigaki, his gaze blank again.
A towel.
Towel.
Reliable.
Midousuji can’t very well deny Ishigaki, can he?
He’s doomed, isn’t he?
It’s odd—Midousuji has trouble with eye contact, even at this age, usually only offset if he’s terrorizing someone. But weirdly, he finds, again, he can’t take his eyes off Ishigaki’s.
He remembers their encounter in the Izakaya, after Fukutomi and Shinkai had gone home. The burning of the alcohol in his throat, the burning of his fancying in his cheeks. The giddiness, the strange sensation of feeling himself change—of feeling confirmation of his feelings, as their connection shifted like living sand beneath their feet.
That comparison, to something cute. Like Totoro, Ishigaki had joked.
Finally, Midousuji manages a response curt response, to the point.
“I like this.”
no subject
His stare is intense, nothing new, but Ishigaki can't read his face this time. There's a prickle of sweat at his collar again, but it's not from second guessing his decisions.
Midousuji breaks the stifling silence and gives a simple, blunt answer.
Ishigaki blinks stupidly in response.
"You do?" He leans in, voice and eyebrows raised.
He had given him gifts here and there in their brief year together, but he was only met with indifference at best- expectedly, of course. Eventually Ishigaki settled on treats that fit the holiday or the like. He'd eat them, and that was enough. It's not as if Ishigaki was wanting some reward given back for extending his kindness. All he wanted was for Midousuji, maybe unconsciously, to know there was someone who was thinking of him fondly.
Midousuji wasn't materialistic, but Ishigaki had a guess there was an underlying reasons as to why he had kept his bike, tiny and well worn with love, by his side all these years. Ishigaki knew that, though not the reason, Midousuji kept some things close to his heart. One of the little reminders that he's human.
Ishigaki's posture straightens. He looks elsewhere, the corners of his lips curling shyly. It's true he doesn't need any words of gratitude, but his face warms and his chest rings rewardingly, otherwise.
"It was kind of an impulse purchase," he admits. Though he was shopping for his birthday in mind, something so child-like wasn't what he was expecting to pick up with so much certainty. The truth is he had bought it some time ago, it had just been collecting dust on his nightstand- a mix of embarrassment and his workload leaving it untouched.
"But I figured something practical was good for you." He doesn't have to explain. Midousuji said he likes it. But still, he goes on. "You can use it during practice. And you're moving for school soon, right? So using it around the house would work too."
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Relying on someone isn’t bad. That can be contractual. Reciprocal. What he’s afraid of is being dependent. Needing. Wanting is okay. Relying is okay. Maybe it’s okay.
It’s like Midousuji can feel the epiphany he had back then, when Ishigaki had reciprocated the way Midousuji had caught his fall by catching Midousuji’s spent body. It’s like it’s shaken off the clinging hooks of the terry cloth fabric. It’s like he…can feel Ishigaki. It fills him with…a lot. New, scary, exciting, bad, good, weird.
He pauses, then turns towards Ishigaki, eyes wide.
What a stupid thought, actually.
Ishigaki is…right there. He glances back at the towel, then back at Ishigaki, mouth hung open moronically as his shitty, under-greased emotional gears turn. Eyes back on Ishigaki again, Midousuji realizes it—he looks at where the corners of his mouth are pink from the taught, vicious grip Midousuji had only just relented, and his eyes fall, nervously, to the pleasant, shapely swell of Ishigaki’s lips. Pretty. A little understated, but full. One of his many beautiful features—the amalgamation of which, ironically, being what used to make Ishigaki invisible to Midousuji.
Pupils contracting, Midousuji’s breath dries to a brittle inhale and pause, coming to a realization as his gaze distracts somewhere over Ishigaki’s shoulder, gobsmacked.
This is it, isn’t it?
What people feel—what they describe—portray—when someone wants to kiss another person, isn’t it?
Not that he can do that. One, he doesn’t know how. Two, he can’t be so audaciously honest. Especially not here.
However, the desire and impulse stirs his only just-cooled blood to a warm simmer, approaching hot.
“You’re gross,” Midousuji concludes. To him, that’s adequate praise. And he’s back to being focused on the towel, his knees childishly tented towards each other—partially childish nerves, and partially in fearful anticipation for what young blood does in young men. But, pleased, Midousuji gives the towel another little flip on it’s corners. In his juvenile, smitten revile, Midousuji bites his lip, eyes widening.
“Towel… Reliable. Towel??” Flap. “Grrrroosssss... Ickygaki-kuunnnn. Marrrrtyrrrr senpai perrverrrrt.” Flap flap. “Nasty hero ikemen. Dumb dam. Pile of thankless corny rocks.”
Midousuji doesn’t even realize what nonsense is spilling out of him, but he can’t pay it any mind. Sometimes, when he feels this way, words just…happen. Kind of relentlessly. He’s teeming with it, like the feeling he gets when he’s awarded a big win on a podium.
“Yucky.”
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Ishigaki wants to brush his own thoughts aside, sure that it's just his own unresolved tension tugging at him, but it's clear Midousuji is observing him. He absent mindlessly parts his lips.
...Is something on his face? Even then it's not in character for him to care, or not blurt out a blunt statement towards it at the very least.
It's just in that moment where there had been enough laps in time for the attention to build in the same rewarding way a stray cat comes to sniff at your hand, where Midousuji does just what he was wishing he wouldn't. His word abrubtly put his thoughts to a stop, and his mouth closes shut.
Midousuji is always difficult to distern, but without any bane to his tone, his insults do fall flat. It's clear, though the hidden undertones not so much, that Midousuji doesn't mind the positive attention.
Ishigaki does feel uncomfortablly see through now, but the rewarding feeling bubbling inside him grabs him harder than any of those anxieties.
The corner of Ishigaki's lip quivers. He can't hold it back, and he snorts out a quiet laugh- turning his head into his shoulder when he does.
"Hey now, your gift was late- You can't say I'm that obsessive."
He straightens himself, his smile still there.
"Towel... Reliable... Hah. That wasn't intentional, you know?"
His eyes meet back to Midousuji's before his face follows suit. There was a time where direct eye contact with the other took some amount of courage, but he's not thinking of that now.
"It's funny how things work out that way," he goes on. "I'm surprised... That you remember all that. The spheel I gave you, I mean."
Though there has been plenty of time for that truth to settle, with Midousuji's change of heart becoming more clear each day even with his victory aside, the fact that those words- though partially, desperatly hoping- weren't meant to be heard at all is still true.
"Back then, the only time I could say those type of things were when you were passed out."
It's then it come across his mind that there were always underlying feelings ready to burst out. Always something he wanted to say, but just can't, so be found other ways to show it. Much like today, right now, how the gift the other is toying with will do.
midousuji’s really agro and indirect way of going what did i do to deserve u (if u arent gay)
Midousuji doesn’t truly think Ishigaki is quite that bad—but part of him is more than tickled with humoring it. Vindicated, almost. Titillated. Where it used to repel him, now it…
Well, is certainly—actively—doing something else.
In fact, the idea of Ishigaki being that way with anyone else incites an…unpleasant feeling. Like missing a step, where you thought there would be one; that’s the trouble with relying on someone. Relying on anything. Especially feelings, moreso than people.
What a dangerous feeling to indulge. But since his previous strategies have proven recently unsafe to fail, risk has its own appeal—curious and invigorating, like gambling.
Midousuji ceases flapping the towel, holding it by its corner with a dainty, sinister pricking pinch of his index finger and thumb, his broad torso contorting in a sudden turn as his other hand curls its bony knuckles at his mischievous grin, its shape mirror to the giddy crescents of his villainously, gleefully squinting eyes.
“I know,” Midousuji says suddenly, eyes widening. He leans forward, well into Ishigaki’s space, expression blank—but minutely curious. “I’m pretty sure I’d sensed it before, too—I’d felt your presence, in the tent. In the first Inter-High. You were talking to me then, weren’t you?”
Like the way a mother talks to the child in the womb.
It makes Midousuji wonder, and in such a way that his eyes wander, curiously, and with some terrified trepidation, to Ishigaki’s chest—briefly.
“It’s like trying to recall a dream,” Midousuji explains.
Midousuji’s eyes snap back to Ishigaki’s, and his towel-free palm sinks the fabric of the bench they share.
“The details aren’t ever immediate, but I always remember that annoying feeling—the words fall into place around it, and so too, the person…”
His hand raises, clutched and awkward, all too tense all the way to his shoulder. Midousuji isn’t sure what he’s attempting, nor resisting, but feels both in active action.
Midousuji’s eyes fall on Ishigaki’s mouth, and he realizes the feeling. It’s obvious, but so sickeningly typical, it’s almost enough to jar Midousuji immediately out of the moment—to turn with a sudden, jilted stand, stumble away, change the subject—but Ishigaki’s feelings have suddenly fallen into question for Midousuji, too. His intentions. He may still be high from his win, especially when the good-luck charm he so wants to stick his dick in has trapezed into the glow of Midousuji’s vicinity…
But Midousuji is perceptive, even in murky waters. Sometimes. Still, that doubt keeps him lingering. Part of him wants to take, regardless—that’s the surest way to find out, isn’t it?
Midousuji’s eyes narrow, and he grins again, narrowing his eyes wickedly. Maybe he could tease something out of Ishigaki.
“What kind of man goes out of his way to do that for another man in such a disgraceful position? A dutiful commander? Even when he’s left his fleet…”
Midousuji’s hand snatches—hard—around Ishigaki’s jaw, suddenly, and Midousuji’s shoulders shake as his other hand lifts, still clutching his terry-cloth gift, pressing it to his boyish, hygienist-perfect smile, full of gray intent.
His thumb presses, stroking forward, to the corner of Ishigaki’s mouth. Midousuji’s sneaky grin is bit beneath his front teeth, hissing out another little laugh.
“You could really lead someone down the wrong path, you know… Even you aren’t so obnoxiously good-natured with everyone. Or am I just that fun of a project, you nasty martyr?
“Fess up, Ishigaki-kun.”
He’s teasing.
Absolutely.
Just that.
no subject
The more Midousuji goes on, and the closer his personal space overlaps his own, the more Ishigaki feels uncomfortably see through. He shifts in his seat, mouth open to say something- focused on that word, obsession- but nothing comes out.
Ishigaki had just completely tattled on himself.
Before he can give a timely response, Midousuji's hand is characteristically quicker than he is. His words ring loudly enough in his ears to stray focus from the pain in his cheek. He's gotten used to it, anyhow.
But then Midousuji's thumb, as if apologizing for his hand's crude behavior, intimately brushes the corner of his mouth.
The tent feels increasingly humid, but he knows it's not the weather. He can slowly feel how flushed he becomes in the moment, head to toe, scarlet all over.
In return, Ishigaki sputters a choked, incomprehensible noise.
????
Fess... up?
Fess up??
He knows???
There's no way. The same man who can't handle Ishigaki's words of encouragement without tantruming is suddenly poised at the idea? ...But what else could he have meant by that?
His pupils quiver. Surely Ishigaki is projecting.
Those if, ands and buts circle rapidly inside his head, but he remains as unconfident as he is stupid. Even with Midousuji taunting him, unbothered, with an expression like he can read every thought Ishigaki has. He doesn't know if the little gesture of his thumb is power-play or his own way of saying thank you. Either or, its broken his head.
It becomes increasingly difficult to form much of a thought at all, let alone a reply, but he does, eventually, come to the realization that he's been staring, empty headed, in silence with his mouth hanging open like a doofus.
His jaw snaps closed, and he sneaks out a slow exhale once he notices he hasn't taken a breath in some time. He shifts his focus to a dusty corner of the tent for the sake of his heart rate.
"Y-yeah... You’re right. I did that then, too." He manages to confess, forcing out an awkward, breathy chuckle afterwards. The way Midousuji poetically described it is enough to keep his anxietes... somewhat grounded. He's not upset, at least. "You're difficult. I didn't think you'd listen otherwise."
Saying just that is enough for him to consider heading back to Tokyo. That maybe the several hour train ride here to embarrass himself like this wasn't worth it. But he stays frozen where he sits.
"I.... Back then, well, if it was someone else I might have been able to say those sort of things under..."
He pauses.
It's hard to get his words out of his throat; they feel heavy and thick like jelly, much like each passing second. Midousuji has seen it, he's sure. Easily picking up the broken peices in what the team had came to be. Giving plenty of corny encouragement from the heart after what what they'd been put through. It was as natural for Ishigaki as it was truthful.
But like everything else Midousuji has done since he's entered his life, he challenged that.
"Normal... Circumstances," he continues. When they're not passed out. When they can't verbally screech back like a hawk and attack his face. When they don't eat up his thoughts every moment of the day.
The silence from a dehydrated, overworked corpse is much more kind.
He shakes his head.
No- it's not kindness he needed. That much is obvious. He could handle what Midousuji threw at him. It was acceptance he needed. That Ishigaki could be his authentic self in return. And...
Lately, Midousuji has shown Ishigaki can show that side of himself freely. Not without backlash, but acceptance nonetheless he's sure.
So what's stopping him?
Much like the misunderstanding of that very day, where he withdrew his hand from cupping his face, he is hesitant.
Here Midousuji is, finally able to form a connection with someone like he had always hoped for, and here Ishigaki is wanting to ask for more than that.
It didn't seem fair.
"But- well- with you, saying those things... You don't make anything normal." He sounds increasingly frustrated with each word, and it's not rightfully directed at Midousuji. It's at the way his own voice so-slightly wavers. It's at the ringing heat in his face.
And mostly how he doesn't know what he's trying to convey.
He lightly places his fingertips to the gloved hand that grips at his face. His eyes flicker back up at him.
"It's... different with you. You make things different."
His expression mirrors the pitiful, tight feeling in his chest. The way he dips his eyes back down to the bench below them is apologetic.
The words sit at his lips, the chance he's painfully unprepared for hanging right infront of him. His pulse beats loud in his ears and it says "say it, say it, say it."
Maybe this is it.
...
No, no.
Surely he's fucking with him.
It's true, there's a shift in his character, but it's still Midousuji. But whether or not Ishigaki projects his own feelings doesn't change the obvious outcome.
Ishigaki retracts his hand. His lips form a tight thin line.
Again, he's grown so indecisive in his age.
Maybe he just needs to hear him say it. Maybe he needs to hear Midousuji tell him no.
And so Ishigaki opens his mouth, the first syllables forming-
The sound isn't loud when he hears the tent door flap open, but with the tension breaking the way it does, Ishigaki goes rigid.
Inside the entry way he sees cresent, knowing eyes staring back into his.
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Ishigaki's face is hot beneath his hands, and Midousuji's eyes stray in idle observation to this, taking in the darkening flush. His gears turn fast, with some faltering, almost mirrored by the minor flitting of his dark, matte irises as he downloads and parses Ishigaki. This situation. His eyes are pulled by Ishigaki's retracting hand, and Midousuji's eyes are then back on Ishigaki's.
Stupidly, despite his prior feelings and thoughts, Midousuji isn't sure why his heart is racing.
Ishigaki's admitting to his psychically perverted loitering, though with obvious strain. He wonders about that—what it means. Ishigaki isn't saying anything at all, and it frustrates Midousuji, but intrigues his curiosity—he finds all this hesitation saying something much more, but it's too implicit for him to understand. Right now, anyway.
Then Ishigaki suddenly tenses, and Midousuji can see that Ishigaki's spotted something to put him further on guard. Curious, Midousuji, still gripping Ishigaki's face, turns his slack-jaw gaze to the origin of the shift.
"Ah."
His eyes widen, subtly.
"Komari-kuuuun," Midousuji states simply, eyebrows raising.
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It was Midousuji who'd actually prompted him to meet with him once the race was concluded, regardless of the conclusion, though, of course, Midousuji was confident in its anticipated result. And this time, as before, he'd been right. And this was typical. Briefing, data exchange, espionage dossier admittance...
And while Komari is the type of person who can (now) roll with punches seamlessly, he'd be lying if he said he hadn't been surprised—intrigued—by the sight he'd soundlessly come upon. Midousuji sitting with Ishigaki, of all people—a long retired, former captain—gripping his face as they share a bench. Too close, but not too suspicious, really. Midousuji, while loathing of uninvited contact, has never had any trouble assaulting other people with disturbed proximity at will.
How Komari envied his victims, that way.
So too, Komari notices Ishigaki's tension upon Komari's discovery, which is perhaps a bit revealing in and of itself. Maybe. Komari isn't psychic, nor uniquely experienced with people.
But he is experienced with certain things, on a personal level. The flustering, the flushing complexion under Midousuji's incredibly weighty, pressuring spirit and body...
Komari's eyes narrow when Ishigaki's gaze meets his, and his smile tightens mischievously, resting his body towards the pole of the tent where his palm lay against.
"Midousuji-san," Komari answers back, and tilts his head just so, pale cyan hair shattering in soft strands across his face. "I'm sorry. Am I interuppting?"
Midousuji gives pause, staring at Komari, and slowly turns his gaze back to Ishigaki. Another pause is held, and Komari's curiosity burns deeper for that. Midousuji lets go of Ishigaki's face, but not with the typical forceful push he tends to eject his subjects with; it's a soft drop, and with it comes Midousuji's tired, rickety standing. His body, glorious to Komari, is then turned to him, and Midousuji wipes his brow, tired, dry tongue flopping from the side of his mouth in the direction of where his head tilts.
"Noooo, no," Midousuji intonates. "This is different business. Unplanned."
"I see," Komari answers.
"We can do our brief later. I've decided it's better when I'm a bit more recovered. The same for you. You pushed hard."
"Certainly," Komari answers again. "Thank you."
"You have nothing to thank me for," Midousuji gripes, walking with a bit of a crunchy gait towards the exit of the tent. Komari steps back a little, giving Midousuji's large, clumsy body some clearance.
They lock eyes, and Komari's smile is something that puts Midousuji, even, a bit on edge. Midousuji answers with a scowling glare, and he snaps his jaw.
"That's Ishigaki-san, correct?"
"Irrelevant questions. Mind your business," Midousuji answers, and he parts the tent with his bony wrist, disappearing beneath the flap.
Komari then turns his eyes to Ishigaki, smiling cordially. He tilts his head, resting his smooth, poreless cheek against the back of his pretty, long hand.
"It's a pleasure to meet you."
Komari doesn't know it—that Ishigaki knows about him, from previously viewing the races. Or rather, Komari knows Ishigaki has been there. He recalls Yamaguchi talking to the other team members about Ishigaki picking up Midousuji's tired corpse, from when Komari had incidentally compromised his plans with Midousuji in the InterHigh of his own freshman year. But he doesn't know what Ishigaki knows, per se.
Or what his relationship with Midousuji was—is?—like. He has vague, almost baseless ideas. Yamaguchi griping about how he doesn't understand some implications about baseless loyalty from Ishigaki.
It makes Komari wonder if they're somewhere in the same neighborhood.
Probably not, right?
"I'm called Komari Kishigami."
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His heart does not still, and his palms stay sweaty.
He can't make sense of it now. But he knows, somewhere in his brain while it shudders to put the pieces together past every instinct that’s screaming at him that he's crossed his own invisible, made up line, that in the gleam of Midousuji's eyes… There was no hostility.
Still, the unanswered questions linger heavy in the air.
He shifts in his seat, facing the entrance fully in a disarrayed plan to follow after Midousuji for an answer, but the social obligation that is Komari arrests him to his seat.
And Ishigaki sits primly when he's spoken to- back straight and hands in his lap with a conscious smile. It's only now he realizes Midousuji had already left.
"Ishigaki Koutarou," he says as evenly as he can. "The same to you."
Komari doesn't settle his nerves any. This is the first time they're face to face, but it's always been apparent Komari has an unnerving assurance that he knows something everyone else doesn't.
Midousuji aside, Ishigaki doesn't have many social anxieties, but with an unearthly beauty and the pressure Komari gives in their compact tent, he wonders if he just might. Ishigaki can flatter himself and say he's level-headed, that he's easy to talk to, but he's not entirely a socialite.
He envies the difference in Komari for that. He's glad Midousuji has found someone in overlapping personalities, then.
There's a lull that wouldn't feel loud if Ishigaki wasn't so worked up. It leaves a made-up awkwardness while his smile hangs, forced to find a connection between the two.
"I've heard of you from Midousuji." Not good or bad, but being mentioned neutrally is a positive sign given his disinterest in everyone. "And I've seen you in the last few year's interhighs. And today, too. He's right, you pushed hard!"
There's a relief that a conversation is going. His pulse calms, if only a little. A distraction. Still, he looks away from Komari's all-knowing-ness to study the extra supply of coolers and spare bike parts hiding in the dusty nook of the tent, allowing the silence between them to settle this time. His nature of being captain wants to kick in- he wants to meet Komari with genuine praise on today's performance, for continuing to lift what still feels like his own team, the subtle shift in Midousuji since his arrival… All of it.
Instead, his posture slacks.
The new weighted worry has already seeded itself too far- skin still pin-pricked with angst. Ishigaki wished, suddenly, that he didn't have to second guess every emotion and urge that tugged at him.
A worried thumb brushes over his now neatly folded hands, and his eyes flicker back up to Komari.
"He's pretty intense, huh?"
Well, Midousuji is seemingly their only common ground. So it's not too misplaced, is it?
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The scenario, and moreso, Ishigaki’s demeanor, reveals itself plainly, like scrawled text of a written passage. It’s not a revelation, exactly, that Komari can read people very well—perhaps because of his diefic idol—but it’s because of that very same connection that his pupils momentarily contract, sharpening, honing, to a kill. His heart may also be racing not for exhilaration, but nebulous trepidation as well. But it enthralls him all the same, in equal parts. This feeling, the information passages, feel as though they tendril around and command his nobility—but his sharp, actualizing gaze is brief. His expression, while remaining calculating and aloof (as it always is), softens a little bit; a polite, high-class smile practiced—ingrained—since birth comfortably settle into place, and Komari holds this expression through the lul after Ishigaki’s similarly polite reciprocation to Komari’s own greeting.
With the unpredictable and whispy grace of a feather, Komari is suddenly by Ishigaki’s side. Ishigaki tells Komari that he’s heard of him from Midousuji, which peaks a spike of interest once again within him. It makes Komari wonder what Midousuji has said—Midousuji actually isn’t as cold as people seem to think, Komari believes, always finding himself confused in the face of those attitudes. In his opinion, Midousuji gives praise where praise is due; he’s principled that way. And Komari has received that praise. His prodigal capabilities are maybe outlined in this way; Midousuji calls him by his first name, trusts him as a tool in a way unlike the rest of the team, and compliments Komari’s skill and hard work. His competence. Midousuji gives no false positives, and doesn’t judge Komari’s carnal motivations. In fact, he encourages them—and so, here he is.
“Pushing hard is what this team does,” Komari answers breezily, still smiling as his eyes stick hard on Ishigaki. Despite his perfect party-host response, Komari understands Ishigaki’s praise isn’t without its own weight; Komari understands he’s the exception to Kyoto Fushimi in its own wright. It keeps his smile taught, as a rebellious debonair in a ball. Komari’s eyes remain sharp on Ishigaki, analyzing, hungry, and curious—but his poise remains nonchalant, despite his honed, apex honing. His exterior completely betrays the opposite inverse of his inner world and feelings in perfect tandem.
When Ishigaki doesn’t offer much of a follow up, Komari understands why immediately; Kyoto Fushimi meant so much to him, it can’t be a surprise that he’d be given some somber, reflective pause.
But Komari’s in luck—he doesn’t have to languish in that awkwardness for a second too long before Ishigaki’s feelings offer to Komari a gem. His eyebrows raise in excitement, but he’s otherwise just as composed as usual, in typical perfect tight-rope toeing of his actualized self.
“Yes,” Komari agrees, perhaps too eagerly, demonstrated by how he leans into Ishigaki’s space with wide eyes—but they narrow, feigning a mellow ripple. His knee bumps Ishigaki, and even Komari is unaware he’s scooted a little closer. His curiosity is hungry because of their common object, but not because Ishigaki himself is particularly appetizing to Komari’s hands—but somehow, more than slightly, he’s quite appetizing to his mind. If Midousuji gives uncharacteristic pause around Ishigaki’s name, why wouldn’t he have that curious hunger?
“He’s amazing like that, isn’t he?”
Komari looks away, taking deliberate measure to keep his expression from being too excited—in fact, he looks placid, stone-faced measured.
“I’d never been inspired once, in my life, before I met him…” Komari, ignoring, or perhaps, hiding, how his saliva becomes thick and plentiful in his mouth, turns back to Ishigaki, his smile remaining mild. “Was it something like that for you, too?”
Komari tilts his head, just a little bit, and brushes his hair behind his ear; he lowers his voice, increasing its rumbling deep in his sternum despite its hush.
“I think people are… prone,” he elaborates in soft, out-loud exploration, perhaps unconsciously desperate for a like-mind, “to misunderstanding Midousuji-san.
What do you think?”
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And then he leans in with what seems to be the first uncalculated expression of his- intense and hardly controlled- and Ishigaki moves back in response, tucking his legs closer to himself and raising his shoulders guardedly. There's not enough background for Ishigaki to go off to know what Komari is normally like, but it's clear enough he's triggered Komari's interest, and Ishigaki, in itself, finds himself drawn to it.
His posture relaxes when Komari returns to himself, but Ishigaki still stares wide eyed, captivated.
"…Yes," Ishigaki agrees, slowly, like he's processing what Komari says as it leaves his mouth. It clicked, then, so suddenly that Ishigaki feels something sharp spark inside him. A feeling of long awaited connection.
And then he leans an inch forward himself, nodding with certainty and a glimmer in his eyes. "Yes, exactly!"
He returns with an assured smile, his eyes floating back to his lap.
"Even myself, sometimes... I, well. I actually hated him at first." Ishigaki admits more easily than he would like. "I thought he took everything I had built away from me. It was like I was… growing backwards, at first. But that wasn't the case at all."
And frankly, Midousuji didn't care if it was or wasn't, and that, of course, all had played its part.
"And now, I…" Ishigaki closes his mouth, catching himself. He doesn't want to tattle on himself, but he doesn't want to deny his own feelings, either. Because that was the whole point, wasn't it? What other reason than to come down uninvited from another region, with a novelty that he put too much time into picking out even the wrapping it came in, than for that to not mean something?
Ishigaki's expression shifts then, sinking into something further out.
"Well, now I can't imagine life without him."
And just as quick as it had left him, self-awareness finds him again, and Ishigaki stiffens and faces Komari once more.
"Ah, sorry!" He waves his hand dismissively. "I shouldn't be airing out all my past to someone I just met..."
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Komari's eyes go from wide to narrow, and his fingers curl in a crescent, hiding half of his smiling mouth. In tandem, his legs cross.
"No, no, Ishigaki-san." He appears more chipper than severe, now, though the mania bubbles in toil beneath the surface. "There's nothing to apologize for."
Komari inches just a bit closer.
"I never hated him... I was fascinated by him. Entranced, even," Komari explains, and he glances out the corner of his eye to the entrance of the tent, as though to check for his presence—or anyone else's. "Since middleschool, I used to watch him and his team... I was amazed by him, even though I didn't care about cycling."
Komari leans even further in, and his limp fingers, by his mouth, then fan like a private changing screen as he glances out the corner of his narrow eyes, looking like some high-collared, gossipy house hen.
"In some ways, Midousuji-san does take things away from us. Even me, but I couldn't resent it."
Then, Komari's grinning again, still speaking behind the wall of his long, narrow hand.
His voice hushes, just a bit.
"It wasn't curiosity, and he knew it... it was hunger. He knew why I was watching him, and he told me so. With his words, his sharp eyes, and his body...he took away my dishonesty. My modesty, and my shame. My chains."
He leans back suddenly with an animated bounce, like he'd said nothing strange at all, his smile bordering polite again—bordering. "You know?"
Komari doesn't understand, but isn't afraid, either—but it's a little strange, that this is kind of turning him on a little bit.
"Being polite is well and good, Ishigaki-san... but it's hardly exciting."
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