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girlslikecarsandmonet · 10 years

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kagahimu, rule 63

my heart stops (when you look at me) 2087 words

“I don’t know why I keep missing,” Taiga says when the ball bounces off the rim for the nth time. Tatsuya touches her lip, as was her thinking habit, as she looks at Taiga carefully.

“Do it again.”

“Fine, but it won’t go in.”

Taiga attempts a jump shot, but her earlier prediction is proven correct. “See?” she glances at Tatsuya, who is nodding to herself decisively.

“I know what’s wrong.”

“You do?”

Tatsuya nods again, beckoning her closer; she complies, and Tatsuya reaches out to touch her hair when she’s near enough. It flusters her, though Tatsuya goes on to tuck her overgrown bangs behind her ear.

“Your hair is in the way. It’s blocking your vision.”

Taiga bats Tatsuya’s hand away with an awkward laugh, self-consciously twirling a few strands between her fingers. “Look who’s talking!”

“No!” Taiga says instantly, adamantly, though it may have been possible that she hadn’t been trying not to copy it, letting her hair fall into her face instead of brushing it back in subtle emulation. Tatsuya laughs and reaches for her again, turning her around.

“Hold still.” Before Taiga can ask what for, Tatsuya starts gathering her hair at her nape, combing her fingers through the thick red mass and scooping it up into a ponytail, high atop her head. It’s a little tight but Taiga can see things clearer now.

“I know you don’t want to get it cut,” Tatsuya says, a careful reminder of when Taiga angrily teared up over neighborhood kids teasing her for looking like a boy. I think your eyebrows are cool, Tatsuya had said at the time. It was an assurance, her way of telling Taiga that there’s nothing wrong with her, so unfairly wise for someone who is only ten. And it’s not that Taiga doesn’t believe her; it’s just that her confidence has a lot of catching up to do. It means the world that Tatsuya remembers.

“So keep it up like that, okay?”

“Where did you even get that hair tie?” Taiga says instead of answering, and Tatsuya laughs as she passes the ball. “Try again!”

So she does, and that is how Taiga lands her first basket. She kind of likes how the ponytail swishes with her every movement, and how it makes it easier to see Tatsuya’s proud smile in her peripheral.

Taiga is ninety-five percent certain that Alex knew it even before she had the courage to admit it to herself. It was in the knowing gaze she directed at Taiga whenever she was caught staring at Tatsuya, or the wistful sighs she responded with whenever Taiga began gushing about the best older sister in the world.

“Tatsuya’s so cool.”

“You think so, kid?”

“Yeah,” Taiga would nod vigorously, something soft fluttering in her chest. Why would anyone else think otherwise? “I want to be just like her.”

Then Alex would put an arm around her shoulder and squeeze. It’s only years later that Taiga will realize it was meant to be reassuring; she just thought Alex was cold and needed a warm-up. She was always so easily chilled even in those fluffy jackets of hers.

“Come on,” Alex would add, helping her stand up. “I’ll treat you guys to ice cream.”

(Like she was trying to nurse Taiga’s heart before she ever found it wounded.)

“I don’t think I’m playing next week,” Tatsuya says as she pushes the last bite into her mouth, wiping the oil off her fingers instead of licking them like Taiga does. It’s Saturday and they’re at an In-N-Out for their post-game burgers; Taiga’s in the middle of her third.

“Why not?”

“We have mid-terms the week after that, and my grades aren’t exactly great.” Tatsuya picks out the fattest fry on her plate and starts swirling it in her milkshake. “I think I’m failing physics.”

Taiga glances up at that, but she has to chew and swallow quickly before she can reply. “No way. You’re awesome at physics.”

“Nah, I’m just better at it than you are,” Tatsuya teases, popping the soggy fry into her mouth. “Speaking of which, you can’t slack off either. I better not hear from anyone that you’ve been on the court instead of indoors, studying.”

Taiga snorts and steals one of Tatsuya’s French fries to dip in her milkshake too. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“Technically, I am, being the big sister and all.”

“Big sister doesn’t mean babysitter. And man, how can you eat this stuff?” She sticks out her tongue exaggeratedly, wagging the half-eaten fry in Tatsuya’s face. “It’s nasty.”

“I didn’t tell you to try it.”

She can just feel her ears turning red, so she kicks Tatsuya under the table to distract herself from its heat. “Yeah, whatever,” she says, though she doesn’t change the way she finishes off the rest of her fries.

Monday and Tuesday roll by without incident, which is usually the case she has something to look forward to, but on Wednesday she remembers what Tatsuya told her and every clock seemed to be broken, ticking two or three times slower than normal. School was close to hellish, but she almost prefers it to what happens on Saturday.

Nothing happens on Saturday. She has most of her books strewn open on her bed but reading them is the last thing she wanted to do, not with the weather being so perfect outside, the asphalt seeming especially inviting. She’s a bit pissed at Tatsuya for the self-imposed revision, though she also knows that for all her talk Tatsuya wouldn’t lord that power over her. She’s free to play with whoever shows up from Tatsuya’s team; it’s just a matter of whether she wants to play more than she wants to make Tatsuya happy—

she thinks of the rare mischief that Tatsuya’s eye betrays when she grins, her pale pink lips lifting at the corners, set against the pearls of her teeth, and Taiga’s heart spins like a basketball expertly balanced on her fingertip and—

the answer’s obvious.

That doesn’t mean she enjoys poring over her notes instead of palming a ball before a pass, straining her eyes instead of her calves, or eating peanuts instead of burgers (“it’s brain food,” Kaasan said, probably glad that her only daughter is focusing attention on her studies rather than sports.) But it’s worth it, to meet with Tatsuya the weekend after that and to dissect the anatomy of her laughter when Taiga breaks the news about passing all of her exams.

Cynophobia is what they call an irrational fear of dogs. Taiga only knows this because of a documentary on Animal Planet, though she did crack open a dictionary to check the spelling. She’s thankful that people who do science actually think it’s a thing, because most others just think it silly to be terrified of puppies.

(Having to be vaccinated for rabies at four years old can do that to a person.)

She admits that she’s afraid that Tatsuya would react the same way when a lady’s poodle starts sniffing around her feet and she freezes in place, a cold sweat trickling down her spine. She’s gripping Tatsuya’s hand like a touchstone and Tatsuya understands almost immediately. She crouches down to redirect the dog’s attention from Taiga to herself, making small talk with its owner in the process so she wouldn’t take offense.

A scratch of the ear and a stroke of the nose later, she has the dog nuzzling into her palm, reluctant to leave even when the lady pulls at its leash. Tatsuya waves them goodbye with easy laughter, smile gentler when she turns to Taiga.

“Scared of dogs?”

“Kinda.”

“That’s okay,” she says, leaning in conspiratorially. “I hate spiders. So take a spider out of the room for me and we’re even.”

Taiga bites down on her bottom lip so she wouldn’t beam so widely; it must be impossible to adore another girl more than she did in that moment.

“Deal.”

Her memories of Japan are foggy at best, but she’s pretty sure that Valentines’ Day over there goes differently than it does in the States. It falls on a Friday, but come weekend there are still at least three boys shoving at each other in an attempt to get their respective presents to Tatsuya first. She accepts the teddy bear, the chocolates, and the flowers graciously, though she sets them down at the makeshift bleachers as soon as she could. Taiga would swear on a month’s worth of lunch money that Tatsuya even kicked the bear into place.

It didn’t stop there, though. A fight erupts during the game and Tatsuya has to break it up herself; her words are measured as tells them plainly that she isn’t interested in any of them, and would they please kindly get off the court if they’re gonna continue being big babies about it. Two of them grudgingly agree to behave, though the third stomps off while spitting that sounds acutely like “bitch,” in Tatsuya’s direction. It was the one who gave her the bear.

Tatsuya doesn’t even flinch.

“They’re not worth the time,” Tatsuya says later as they’re walking home, stretching her arms above her head. (If her pants sling a little lowly on her waist, Taiga pointedly doesn’t notice.) “I don’t like any of them anyway.”

But they like you, Taiga thinks, with bitterness at the back of her throat that, somehow, doesn’t taste like jealousy. At least not towards Tatsuya, who has the silkiest shiniest hair Taiga’s ever seen, who always smells nice and never has dirt filed under her nails, who makes a room seem smaller just by being inside it—it’s not a mystery or a stretch of the imagination that boys are always after her.

(So maybe Taiga is jealous, that boys can show Tatsuya how much they like her without attracting stares.)

She’s so lost in her own thoughts that the honk from a passing convertible startles her enough to knock her off balance, and she would’ve fallen if not for Tatsuya grabbing her arm. The car’s occupants seem to be college guys, though their age doesn’t stop them from laughing, licking their lips when they catch her eye.

“Nice ass, baby!”

“Hey, assholes!” Tatsuya yells back, ignoring Taiga’s flailing. “Wanna come back here and say that to my fist?” She’s rolled up her sleeves to her elbows and thrusting her knuckles in the air, ending the gesture with a middle finger. Taiga didn’t get to look at her face that well, but whatever expression was on it was scary enough to make the guys run the red light.

“You’re crazy,” Taiga says, with affection so transparent in her tone. “I thought you said they weren’t worth it.”

Tatsuya winks, tugging her sleeves back over her palms before throwing an arm around Taiga’s shoulders, her breath tickling her ear as their twin ponytails swing in tandem.

“No one messes with my little sister.”

Taiga has never felt so lucky, and hopeful, and disgusted with herself all at once.

“I don’t want to go,” is what she says to Kaasan and Tousan when they tell her that they’re moving to Japan. “Don’t make me go.”

It’s a useless effort, of course. She is fourteen and she is bound to the choices of those older than her, and neither her watery eyes nor the sudden tremulous quality of her voice can change their decision. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t cry when they send her to her room to start packing. She collapses face first into bed, not caring that it applies needless pressure to the bruise on her cheek. Her pillowcase soaks up her tears but only leaves her words to linger in the air, pitiful as they are.

I don’t want to lose Tatsuya again, she would say if she weren’t hiccupping from her sobs. I just got her back.

Eventually she packs up her bags, and on her last week of school she visits their court every day on the slim chance that Tatsuya might be there, even though they only had matches on the weekends.

She’s not, and Taiga boards the plane with nothing left of Tatsuya but a smarting bruise and a tarnished ring. It’s unlikely that they’ll ever see each other again.

I promised I wouldn’t run away.

#kagahimu #kagami taiga #himuro tatsuya #rule 63 #bentfic

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girlslikecarsandmonet · 10 years

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imahana/kiyohana, skyfall au, 2725 words.

written for j's birthday.

When Hanamiya is four his mother gets his IQ tested, and is presented with startling results; when he is five he stops talking to kids his age altogether. They have nothing to offer him, not that most adults can keep up with him either. He retreats to his books, to his bitter chocolate, to entire days spent at the library in isolation. He doesn’t mind knowing so many things, though it’s frustrating to have nowhere to apply them to in his everyday life.

So he waits for the opportunity, until one year passes. Two. Three.

When he is eight he is given his own computer, and the possibilities open up. He has no interest in social networking – he would need a social life to begin with – and assigns little importance to trivial things like videos or gaming. He’s heard of all the communities online and hopes to find others like him, prodigies his own age unlike the old men trying to recruit him into their pathetic clubs because they happen to share the top percentile (he’ll surpass them all).

He comes close. There aren’t nearly enough child geniuses to fill up an entire forum, but he does stumble upon those of his own ilk. People who have too much time on their hands and are therefore investing it in the future, in a few lines of code than can rewrite someone’s entire history in less than an hour.

When he is nine he thinks mostly in binary, and when he is ten he can feasibly live on his own by figuring out how to send supplies of food and clothing to his house, free of charge. As long as no one looked too close, and they never did, because he was just a child who didn’t speak. He’s learned to dumb himself down and prove their earlier theory wrong, so as not to attract too much attention. From morning to afternoon he goes to a regular school, in a regular uniform with regular children, and from the hours between dinnertime and bedtime he makes himself something like a god.

A young, haughty one, but none of his hacker acquaintances need to know anything about him beyond his screen name: Kumo.

(He’s always liked spiders, and how the webs they spin do most of the dirty work.)

By the time he’s eleven he’s infamous in the cyber world. And when he is twelve, well.

When he is twelve, Hanamiya makes his first real friend.

There is a message in his inbox when he gets home from school. Two things were amiss: 1) he has never given out his personal email, and 2) he doesn’t know anyone who would bother to send him one anyway. The address itself is gibberish, and his attempts to track the location of the sender are fruitless.

The worst that happen to his computer is not something he can’t reverse, so when all else fails, he clicks on it twice. There’s no subject line, and it only reads this:

I sense you’re getting bored.

He snorts, because this person is presumptuous, and he smiles too, because it’s painfully true. He’s tired of small fry, and he hates the notion that he’s outgrowing code when code is all that he knows.

What about it? He sends, no harm done. He fools around with a few stockholders, thinking that the end of it, but the response comes within a day, just before he’s sent to sleep.

I might have something to offer you.

There’s an attachment this time, though he opens it without fear, considering all the trappings he’s adorned his software with. It’s a plain text document, a list of instructions that doesn’t strike him as anything particularly special until he reads the entire thing. He types out an incensed reply.

What the hell is this? Are you serious?

As a cardiac arrest.

What do you want in return?

He has to wait until tomorrow for the next email, and it arrives just as he’s decided that whoever it was lost interest.

Nothing but your gratitude, Kumo-kun ^_^

The phrasing and the emotion was creepy as hell, which makes Hanamiya laugh. He’d like to break this guy’s nose sometime, but it would have to be in person, so he would have to say yes to him today.

The answer is obvious.

He completes the instructions in the email within two hours, and he spends the following day transfixed in front of the television, watching grown men in suits and ties cry like newborn infants. Their bank accounts have been emptied overnight, and the only lead they have is an animated pixel spider crawling across their screens.

Hanamiya smiles about the spider, and it widens further at the sight of those tears. He’s so elated he could barely contain himself during dinner, skipping on dessert to rush to his laptop.

Where did they all go?

A few thousand charities across the globe may have received an anonymous donation yesterday.

Hanamiya would be annoyed at the philanthropy if it wasn’t so brilliant all the same.

That’s amazing. How did you do that?

You did that, Kumo-kun. You’re a clever boy; I simply taught you how.

I want to learn more. Hanamiya’s fingers hover over the keys, and he types and sends his addendum before he can chicken out. And what’s your name?

He was expecting a codeword, an alias; not something as frighteningly poignant and frank as what he sees when he opens the message.

You may call me Shoichi, if you like.

His correspondence with Shoichi lasts until he is fifteen and half, and in all those years Hanamiya’s only heard his voice four times: one for each of his birthdays. It doesn’t matter if he changes his number, or doesn’t carry a phone at all; when he is fifteen the man beside him on the train answers a call and looks beyond terrified as he hands the phone over, saying it’s for him.

“Are you stalking me?” Hanamiya says amicably, crossing and uncrossing his legs repeatedly, until he knocks into some guy’s knees and makes him lose his balance.

“That’s impolite, Makoto. You shouldn’t bother the other passengers, even if it is your birthday.”

“Dumbass,” he laughs into the receiver, hanging up and slipping the phone back into the poor bastard’s pocket. It doesn’t bother him that Shoichi knows his name, because he’s known Shoichi’s for longer.

When he is sixteen he gets caught, like a common idiot, like those ordinary people he had been masquerading as—and it had to be by the fucking secret service. He thought spies were trapped in the past, or at least in the reels of action movies. They detain him without his parents knowing, which ought to be illegal, surely, since he’s a minor, though his crimes may deem him more detestable than most teenagers his age. He’s not afraid, because at least he’s not bored.

The head of the organization is a rosy-haired girl who doesn’t seem that much older than him, with eyes as pink as coral and just as hard.

“You have two choices, Hanamiya-kun,” she says kindly, and narrates the first so vividly that it makes him visibly wince, much to his chagrin.

“Or,” she continues, not even glancing at the clipboard pressed to her chest. “You can work for me.”

“I’ll take the job,” he says, because he’s not as stupid as his mistake makes him out to be.

The Service wipes out all traces of Kumo, giving him a clean slate as expected, though his father’s announcement of a promotion comes as a surprise. It requires them to move to a different city, with a different set of acquaintances, different routines, and Hanamiya has a good idea why. He takes it in stride as he always has.

He’s been barred from communicating with his former contacts, all those in his hacking circle and then some. He doesn’t mind.

He hasn’t spoken to Shoichi since he was recruited, though it’s not impossible.

He doesn’t really want to.

The job that set the Service on his tail had been given to him by Shoichi himself, lacking the usual parameters that ensured a spotless trail, and Shoichi had presented it as a challenge. It’s not his fault that Hanamiya had landed on their laps, but Hanamiya can’t help but resent him a little for not being there to bail him out of it. He refuses to believe Shoichi had been incapable of doing something so simple.

It feels like loss at first, until it feels like nothing at all.

He’s better off.

He doesn’t get a strange call on his birthday that year.

On the next one, he graduates high school, tells his parents that he’s not going to university because he’s acquired a well-paying job despite, and they leave him to his devices. He wouldn’t have time for it, not when he’s been renamed into a single English letter; the Service’s youngest Quartermaster at age eighteen.

“Admit it,” Q says to M after he gets the title. “You were just waiting until I could go full-time.”

She shakes her head neatly. “Not exactly. I was waiting until you were ready.”

“Ready for what?”

M’s smile is cryptic, and that’s definitely not a good sign.

“To meet one of our best agents, of course.”

It was the worst present anyone’s ever given him, bar none.

“You’re younger than the last one,” 007 says cheerily, and the glassy look in his eyes throws Q off for a moment. (The last one had been in his late fifties, but that wasn’t the point.) It was a perfect mirror of Q’s dumb act in middle school, and without the oil slick quality of his own efforts. It stumps him long enough for 007 to resort to clapping him on the shoulder with one big, friendly hand.

“I’m sure you’ll do a good job regardless.”

“Don’t patronize me.” Q scowls, and hates how easily 007 had managed to ruffle his feathers.

The bastard even had the gall to wink at him. “Wouldn’t dream of it. You have the power to blow my toes off, Q.”

He nearly preens at the compliment and the implied acknowledgment of his authority, and he catches himself just in time. 007’s a sly motherfucker, Q will give him that.

“Better not forget it.”

“I won’t.” 007 beams, giving him a thumbs-up. “Let’s have fun!”

There’s a reason M had introduced 007 as ‘one of our best agents’, and not the best. That honor might go to 001 or 002 in terms of skill, or 003 if they were talking strength. All the Double O’s were prepared to die if necessity dictated, but none of them were as dedicated to the cause as 007.

Q might even say he was too dedicated, and frankly he didn’t like having to rescue agents more than he had to. It wasn’t as if he gave a shit about any of them, though 007 tries his patience like no other.

He’s past frustration when he asks, after 007’s latest attempt at martyrdom, “do you have a death wish?”

The ensuing laughter in the earpiece tells him the question might have hit too close to home.

In between assignments, 007 invites him out for drinks. “It’s the least I can do,” he says brightly. “I owe you my life.”

They’re both aware of the anti-fraternization rule but he’s laying on the charm like a thick cologne, like he would on one of his marks, so Q accepts the flattery with minimum resistance just this once.

“Thank my salary."

Q regrets saying it later, when 007 clinks their shot glasses together and toasts ‘to Q’s salary.’ Q is thankful for the chance to splash his drink 007’s face, who merely laughs it off as he often does as he pats down his designer suit.

That’s when it occurs to Q that 007 might be the second accidental friend he’s ever made.

They’ve been exchanging banter for ten minutes now, while 007 was passing the time; the sheer fondness and familiarity in the conversation that would be apparent to anyone listening in makes Q want to hurl into his cup of one hundred percent hot cocoa (with a kick of rum.)

“Plan on letting me into the building in the next ten years?” Q doesn’t have a visual on 007 but the signal on the earpiece is impeccable, and it lets him hear the amusement in 007’s voice.

“Shut up, I’m doing it as fast as I can.”

“I’m going gray, Hanamiya.”

“Dumbass,” he says instantly. “You’re not supposed to know my name.”

“But you know mine,” 007 counters. Q is about to input the last line of code to guarantee his entry, but he’s this close to not doing so purely out of spite. Aida Riko is right behind him though, watching his every move, so he keys it in with an errant sigh and listens to the locked door sing his praises.

007 is quick to top it with a breathed, “you’re a miracle, Q,” as he enters the building undetected. Q’s fingers never leave the keyboard and seconds later he’s acquired a feed via the security cameras, giving them an image of 007 to keep track of.

He looks good, perish the thought. His suit is still intact and his hair isn’t doing anything wild; he doesn’t even have any scratches on him, the little shit. Q’s tempted to make a part of the ceiling fall on him just to ruin him a little bit.

He doesn’t get to, because someone beats him to it.

The cameras black out as rapidly as Q hacked into them, and the once-perfect signal fails him just seconds later.

“What’s going on?” Aida asks aloud. “007, report on your surroundings.”

Static.

“007, come in, 007.”

Static, unchanged.

It would be eerie if Q wasn’t used to it, Schrodinger’s box translated into sound, no signs of life or death or anything in between. A consistent whisper of pure unease is what it is, but nothing has ever stolen access from him as swiftly as that before. Now he’s just pissed. Who the fuck snuck up on him?

“Q,” Aida says, managing to pack an entire paragraph’s worth of urgency in that one word. It’s an unnecessary lecture, but he humors her just for today. She and 007 go a long way back (based on the files he acquired on them, once upon a time.)

He nods as his fingers fly faster than bullets over the board. “Working on it.”

After exactly two and a half minutes of tense static, it’s replaced by silence, and Q’s unsure about his success.

“007,” Aida tries again. “007.”

“Hey, dumbass, that’s your Chief of Staff calling you.” He’s gotten notices about language before, but the Service will take a foulmouthed Quartermaster over an incompetent one, so he doesn’t even try to hold back. “So stop being a pain in the ass and answer.”

There’s a crackle in the earpiece like a burst of laughter, and Q wants to strangle him, enough for his name to slip out for the first time in the four years they’ve known each other. “Kiyoshi, you…”

“Ah, 007 isn’t available at the moment,” says someone who is certainly not 007. It’s someone who seems eerily familiar, who might as well be a ghost with the way he lingers in Q’s mind and causes the hair on his nape to rise, cold and unceremoniously cruel.

“But if you’d like, I can take a message.”

Aida isn’t having any of it, though her knuckles are turning white on the desk (at any rate she’s doing better than Q; every ounce of spit had dried up in his throat.)

“Who are you? Where’s 007?”

“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that information,” the voice drawls for emphasis, as if Q could mistake him for anyone else. He’s not the superstitious sort, but he wouldn’t refuse one of 004’s lucky items if who he thinks it is has finally found him. He’s currently twenty-two, and it may be the oldest he’ll ever get.

“That’s for me to know, and for your clever, clever boy to find out.”

(Shoichi has always been the master of first impressions.)

#imahana #kiyohana #borgevino #bentfic

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girlslikecarsandmonet · 10 years

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long distance (murahimu, 755 words)

He’s going to have a word with Starbucks.

He explicitly remembers asking for an extra shot in his espresso, but it might as well have been decaf—he ends falling asleep anyway. It would’ve been disastrous if his phone hadn’t woken him, the phone that’s currently ringing in his ear since he nodded off while he was at his desk. He ignores it for a second or two before pressing the answer button with half-opened eyes.

“Hello?” he inquires, though no one else would be calling at this time.

Tatsuya yawns, sitting up and stretching out his back and his free arm while the other held the phone to his ear. His alarm clock tells him that it’s 1:30 AM. “Mm, yeah.”

“I knew it. You’re so irresponsible, Muro-chin. You’re supposed to be studying for your exams.”

“Sorry, sorry. You woke me up though, so thank you.”

His mouth twitches upwards when Atsushi grunts at the other end of the line. “What are you gonna do without me, huh? I was right, Muro-chin shouldn’t be living alone,” he adds, never mind that Tatsuya is doing just fine since he moved to the States for university, nearly a year and a half ago. It’s clear that he means something else, and Tatsuya reads the fine print in his voice.

“I’m coming home for winter break,” he reminds gently. “You can tell me off in person then.”

“Should’ve done that for Thanksgiving too,” Atsushi mutters under his breath, and Tatsuya finds himself shaking his head before realizing he isn’t even there to see it.

“It was one week, and I had a lot of assignments to finish.”

“You can’t do your assignments here?”

“No, I’d be too distracted,” he says, laced with innuendo, and he has to laugh when Atsushi only snorts in response. One of these days Tatsuya will find the right words to ruffle him while they’re on the phone.

“You��re a pervert, Muro-chin.” The admonishment might’ve been more effective if Atsushi didn’t follow it up with a recount of his day, which includes rattling off titles of the books he’s reading for his classes, describing the consistency of the mashed potatoes he’d eaten for lunch, and alerting Tatsuya to the realization that the new soap in the men’s bathrooms had the same scent as Tatsuya’s shampoo.

“It’s called, ah, I forgot…”

“Cocoa butter,” Tatsuya supplies, and Atsushi hums in agreement.

“Yeah, it’s really weird. When I smelled my hands, it was like having Muro-chin with me.” The last part is a whisper, like he’s embarrassed to say it with so many people around. Tatsuya checks his clock again and counts seventeen hours ahead, and as much as he loathes having to put the phone down, he has to ask him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at practice right now, Atsushi?”

“I am.” Atsushi hesitates, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. “I finished warming up early.”

“Then what are you doing on the phone? Besides, international calls are expensive. You should’ve just waited for me on Skype.”

“Eh, but I have to play basketball now.”

“What?” Tatsuya says, because nothing about that makes any sense. Atsushi’s resounding sigh, the one he releases when he thinks Tatsuya’s being annoying, comes out as static in the cell signal.

“It’s too troublesome to play if Muro-chin’s not here. But I thought if I heard your voice, you know…” he trails off, feigning disinterest, while Tatsuya has to bury his face in the crook of his arm to keep from screaming as the phrase squeezed at his heart, albeit tenderly in his chest. It’s no secret that Atsushi considers him as his motivation, but it’s another thing to hear it spoken aloud.

“Atsushi,” he says, while the numbers on the clock glow 1:43. “I miss you too.”

There’s silence on Atsushi’s end, and Tatsuya grins at having stupefied him at last.

“Ah, the coach is shouting at me,” Atsushi says, and he’s usually a better liar than that. “Bye-bye, Muro-chin.”

He hangs up before Tatsuya can reply, but it’s worth it for the mental image it provides; of the telltale flush that starts at his throat and paints his cheeks and ears, depending on how self-conscious he is. It’s enough to get Tatsuya through this dreaded all-nighter (and the next day, the rest of the week, and the week after that, until he’s on the plane headed to Japan, too.)

#murahimu #bentfic #paperhopes #I BLAME JAMIE'S HEADCANON #YOU ARE A BIOHAZARD

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girlslikecarsandmonet · 10 years

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(i don't have a choice) but i'd still choose you kagahimu, 570 words. [original/alternate ending to this] * "Oh, Taiga," Tatsuya says, as he bends to let his lips soak up the tears. It's Taiga holding onto his wrists now, teeth gritted against the emotions he can't stand, against the flames licking the insides of his mouth. Tatsuya is completely still, and it's all too simple to flip them over, so that his thighs are trapped by Taiga's knees. Tatsuya's eyes flicker up to his, dark hair fanned out over the cushions like spilled ink, and Taiga can't look at him anymore. The next few minutes are a blur. He presses his face to Tatsuya's throat and leaves kisses where he can; Tatsuya's hands are on his hips to guide him (like always), until their motions are almost the same. He's not sure which of them came first, but Tatsuya doesn't let him linger, easing out from under him to fasten up his pants. Taiga settles on the far side of the couch, sweaty and awkward and having none of the composure Tatsuya seemed to have a bottomless pool of. He's confused when Tatsuya produces a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket, but he nods when Tatsuya asks for permission to light up. It's a little surreal. "Since when did you...?" "Why?" Tatsuya smiles around a stream of smoke. "Planning to rat me out to Alex?" When Taiga frowns instead of responding, Tatsuya shakes his head. "It's not a big deal. I'm not an athlete anymore, I don't have to watch out for my health." "What do you mean you're not--?" It couldn't be; despite the path the conversation was heading towards, Taiga didn't want to believe it. Tatsuya sighs, tapping out the cigarette in an empty cup. "I won't be pursuing basketball in university. It's clear I'm not cut out for it, especially compared to the competition." Especially compared to you, Taiga hears, unspoken and still so unspeakably loud. He knows Tatsuya doesn't hold it against him anymore; he also knows without a doubt that he'd trade every drop of talent in his bones for Tatsuya's happiness. "What about this?" he asks, gesturing at their states of undress though he's referring to something much deeper, invisible, budding ever since they'd met when Tatsuya was ten and he was nine. He tastes ash in his mouth when Tatsuya says it, and there's soot in his eyes that makes them burn again. "I thought this should happen at least once, before I left. Didn't you?" Tatsuya's voice is kind because Taiga's face is so transparent. "Yeah, that's right. I'm glad it did." "Me too." "You can have my bed," he blurts out, for lack of anything else to say but not wanting Tatsuya to go. "I'll take the couch," even though it'll hurt his back. But Tatsuya's rising anyway, t-shirt in hand and cigarettes pocketed, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. "Good night, Taiga." He's just thankful Tatsuya didn't ruffle his hair. * Taiga spends the entire morning with Tatsuya, helping him pack and seeing him off at the airport. He's busy enough that that it doesn't even occur to him to check if Tatsuya's wearing it, not until he gets back to his apartment and finds the ring on the coffee table. (It wasn't just basketball that Tatsuya meant to leave behind.) He picks up the chain and closes his fist over it, imagining that the room still smelled of moonshine, and spilled ink, and smoke.

#kagahimu #himuro tatsuya #kagami taiga #bentfic #howesters

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