Repayment
by Onions Make Me Cry
Rating: PG-13? ish? hands on boners, bad language
Pairing:Ryuusuke/Koyuki
Summary: Shortly after episode 4: Strum the Guitar, in which Koyuki breaks a guitar Ryu has gifted him under special circumstances. For what reason does Ryuusuke end his friendship with the younger boy? Is it the guitar, or is it for another reason?
A/N: I write for lots of other ships, but this is my first BECK attempt. Give me a little bit of time, let me catch my wind, and shit'll get longer and better. Tell me what you think! Any constructive criticism is good criticism. :D
/sorry!/
/I'm s-sorry.... sorry/...
/I'm so sorry!/
Sorry.
It wasn't enough. It was such a paltry word. 'Sorry'. So small... nothing grand about it at all. The word hardly filled up any space, either in the mind or when spoken aloud. It was diminutive. It was sickly... lacking. It would never be enough for what had happened. No... for now, remorse was larger than a spoken apology. Words wouldn't serve, this time.
Yukio's sneakers whispered across dark gravel, as he ghosted up the footpath by the fishing pond. Soft summer had made the night velvety against the boy's skin, and the air slid across his face as he moved, t-shirt sleeves tickling at the peach fuzz on his upper arms. Night was calm. Soothing. The world around him laid quiet, warm and moist like a face buried in thick blankets. And yet for all the comfort of the dark, Yukio had eyes only for the shed by the water. Eyes for the door, always unlocked, that stood between him and the dilapidated building's only resident. City sounds faded into the distance as he moved up the path, lost instead in the gentle lapping of the pond. Warm weather already... night like a dream. It hardly seemed possible that earlier today, he'd fallen just here. Just here. This spot, exactly. Here... on the unforgiving gravel. So many times, he'd gotten up, then fallen again in an embarrassing attempt to flee the scene. Enough times to make him want to forget himself. Enough to be sick about it. He had the scrapes to remind him of that failure. Yukio's palms were a mess of throbbing scabs. His knees were worse. Though they weren't quite doctor's appointment worthy, they were a bad memory already, scratches gouging recollections of disappointment and shame into his pale skin.
The guitar... Eddy's special relic... Earlier that day, it had been... it was....
But it didn't matter anymore. It was all irreversible. Madly so. That precious gift had been a sign of faith. And now it was gone.
Tentative fingers came out to lay on the flat side of the entrance to Ryusuke's shack. A little ways away, Beck lay curled up beside a half-mangled, headless plastic doll. The dog slept, snoring slightly. For the moment, Yukio was glad of that. They had never gotten along, and if Beck had gotten wind of him, if the breeze had been just a little different, he might not have been able to summon up the courage to do what he was about to do now. The boy felt nervous enough as it was... the last thing he needed was that science project of a mongrel barking and making his hands shake harder than they already were now. The inhabitant of the house would probably have greeted him with a baseball bat, if that had been the case.
One last glance over his shoulder at the filthy lot, unusually beautiful in the summer night, and Yukio pushed his way inside.
Ryusuke's house was dark. Darker than outside. It was late, somewhere closer to three, and Yukio knew without having to look that the older boy would be asleep now. Squinting, it was possible to make him out, just on the other end of the single room, splayed on the futon. Even through the darkness, a little light slashed through the shadow, and laid in thin strips along the contours of his form.
Hooking a finger in the back of one shoe, Yukio pulled it off, followed by the other. The sneakers made dull thuds as they landed by the door, but by this point, the younger boy wasn't bothering to conceal his presence. His flight earlier in the day haunted him. Penance pushed him forward, even as the half-blurry figure across the room haunted him now.
Ryusuke had always had a disconcerting talent for one thing in particular, when it came to Yukio. He could make all of the little hairs on the back of Yukio's neck all stand up together at the same time. Embarrassing as that was aside, it seemed stupidly easy to do. It seemed... somehow... almost purposeful. And it took next to no effort to produce the reaction. Sometimes it would be a word. Or a look. Or a touch. It had even happened once when Yukio had been listening in on his conversation from another room. Frustrating wasn't a word appropriate enough for Yukio's feelings about it, but it was the only one he could pick that would have been anywhere near it's mark. Only cute girls and uncomfortable situations produced that same kind of humiliating effect, and much time and fervor had gone into sweating over that fact since that first night... the night Ryusuke had rescued him in the alley. But this was the first time Ryusuke had managed to pull it off without even being awake for it. Like always, it took almost nothing. In this case, it was a knee. A simple shifting limb beneath his white sheet, mostly hidden in the darkness. But there. Just the same. Yukio slapped a smothering hand over the back of his neck and grimaced, as he fought down a shiver of static electricity. Feet moved again then, quiet until stepping sideways on an empty Styrofoam cup. The crunch was indisputably loud, and the tempting knee slid sluggishly again, a little wilder his time, then slid straight from the sheets to reveal a stretch of ankle, and a set of long, pale toes.
A breath hitched, then slowly released.
"...Koyuki?"
Yukio stood now at the base of Ryusuke's futon, his shoulders plunged in moonlight from the window at his side. "...ah."
The older boy slid up on an elbow, and his sheet pooled in a loose crumple against his naked stomach. Even in the dark, it was easy to tell that he was staring. Sleep made his eyes blurry, though he didn't blink... only looked past a curtain of tangled black hair. Looked, and looked, and a curious, sedated expression came over him when words wouldn't come. Cool grey shadows laid across his skin, bare to the warm weather, and Yukio wondered, as he let his own eyes wander, what was beneath that paltry sheet.
"You should lock your door." Yukio's soft voice resonated through the silence.
"...What do you want?"
That merited a flinch. Yukio's eyes dropped to the floor. There was anger in that question, even now. Ryusuke's precious gift, smashed to pieces in the middle of the road... The thought of it still brought tears to Yukio's eyes, and in the dark, he felt them welling up again. This was too much... today had been full of too many tears as it was.
"...Your guitar." He mumbled, sounding crushed. "I'm... sorry..."
"And?"
"...ah.... and..." Yukio licked his lips once, tasting the salt of nervous sweat. Now or never. "I don't have... I don't have anything to give you in return."
Ryusuke sighed, a sound that was faintly sour with frustration, and wracked a hand through his long hair to get it out of his face. For a long moment, he stared into a black corner and saw nothing, reflecting instead on the day. But when he looked back again, Koyuki was working on peeling his shirt off.
"What the hell are you doing?" the older boy rose up a little higher on his elbows, replacing frustration with alarm.
From inside the bowels of Yukio's snarl of shirt, the boy offered his nervous, muffled reply. "Paying you back!"
"With what, a hospital bill for when you trip and give yourself a concussion?"
A struggling moment was spent doing battle with his suddenly unmanageable clothing, before Yukio's head appeared again, his face flushed, but looking resolute. "No..." he mumbled, eyes on the cloth in his hands as he wadded it into a ball. "just... with me."
"You?" Ryusuke sounded incredulous.
"ah. Me."
Had the tatami mat on the floor always seemed so interesting? It was damn near impossible to see in the dark, but it suddenly felt like a matter of life or death in deciphering what color it actually was. Some might have said brown, but Yukio was going to have to go with tan. Somebody just needed to give it a good scrubbing.
"Koyuki. You've got to be kidding me."
Tan. Yes... definitely tan. His eyes were beginning to get used to the dark now.
"...Come on. You're kidding. Right?"
"...it's the only thing I have." the younger boy replied, in a small, subdued voice.
Nothing. No reply. The silence burned now, for some reason. Outside, the silence had been a welcome treat. But here... now... it was like being subjected to screeching nails on a chalk board. The pain was indescribable. The color of the floor blurred as Yukio fought with humiliated tears again. Was that a stain? That darker spot? A stain. Definitely a stain. But what from? Wine? Too big to be blood... vomit? Or had somebody set the floor on fire? That felt like a Chiba sort of thing to do.
It was only when Ryusuke's long toes came into his peripheral vision did Yukio realize the other boy had gotten up. The toes edged closer, shuffling across the messy floor, and Koyuki subconsciously fell away from them, backing up as the taller boy came on. His eyes stayed plastered to the floor until the very last moment, when his back hit the cold wall and he could go no further.
"Look at me." Ryusuke's voice was cold and quiet. It booked for no refusals.
Slowly, slowly, Koyuki's eyes slid up his friend's ankles... past a pair of hairy, skinny knees, over an impressive bulge covered in white cotton briefs, past a smattering of chest hair, over the delicate collar bone, through a curtain of snarled black hair, and finally, to the guitarist's unwavering gaze. Ryusuke had put out a hand to the wall just on the other side of Yukio's shoulder, and his close proximity gave the smaller boy a sudden, and slightly painful pang of fear.
He was mad. Everything about his posture said it. He was still mad about the guitar, and this had made it worse. "Just you, huh?" Ryu questioned cooly, without smiling. "Ok. Take off your pants."
"A- ah.. uhm..."
"Didn't you say you were paying me back? Well come on, get to it. Take it off. Let's see if it's as good as what you wrecked today. I fucking doubt it, but you can give it a shot."
Again, all of the hairs on the back of Yukio's neck prickled unpleasantly, but this time it was with a distinct feeling of nausea. Ryusuke was staring at him suddenly like he was a piece of meat at the store. It was impartial, and decidedly, it was a little bit cruel. Yukio had expected Ryusuke to still be angry, but honestly, even when he'd set out earlier in the night, he hadn't expected anything like this.
"Ah..." the boy mumbled nervously.
"Is that all you can say? Do it."
What had Koyuki come here for tonight, if not for this? Steeling himself with this reminder, his shaking hands slowly lifted to the band of his jeans, though his eyes stayed on Ryu. They stared at each other in the dark as the younger boy fumbled to pop the top button loose, before he painstakingly began to unzip his fly.
A warm hand halted the movement, and Yukio remembered how to breathe again.
"Jesus Christ, Koyuki."
Though they continued to stare at each other, Ryuusuke's expression had made a radical change almost without the other noticing. Now somewhat flush himself, his ears looked hot even in the dark. His jaw had clenched up like a bear trap somewhere in the past few moments, and the hand still clutched over Yukio's was growing sweaty to the touch.
"You were really serious," He said after a minute, vaguely incredulous.
"m...mm." The shorter boy looked away at long last, but when Ryu's hand shifted over top his own, his breath hitched in his throat. Blinking, Ryu glanced down, then hastily released their hold over Yukio's half-formed hard-on.
The air was stiflingly thick for a moment as Ryusuke drew back a little and ran his fingers through his hair. The moment was accented by a flood of breathy american profanity... all lost on Yukio, except in tone. For a minute, they had both believed. And for a minute, it seemed as if they'd both wanted it to happen like that.
"I told you I was sorry," Koyuki mumbled in a childish voice, finally at a total loss for what else to do. "I just... wanted you to know that I really meant it."
When Ryusuke looked back again, it was with a much more human expression Yukio remembered ever having seen on his cool, collected friend before. It was ruddy, and worried, and a little irritated, but more than anything, it was enticed. Even from here, Yukio could smell it on him. A fine sheen of sweat had sprung up across his chest, and the warmth of it rolled off him in the wet air. The sweet musk of sweat and dirt and summer water. Yukio didn't have to look down to guess that Ryu was battling a problem of his own.
What was..? Was he.. Could he-? With a painful hesitancy, Koyuki took a little step towards him again.
"Don't-" Ryu replied to the motion, sudden and sharp. His eyes had left Koyuki's figure, and now he scanned the floor in much the same way his friend had done earlier. "Just... don't. You don't know what you're asking."
Yukio fell back then, the same step backwards, defeated.
"Get out of here."
The littler of the two craned closer in order to hear, it had been so faint. "What?"
"Go home. And don't tell Maho about this. Ever. I don't want to see you anymore."
"Wh-what-"
"GET OUT OF HERE!" The older boy abruptly yelled, wanting Yukio to go away. To go far, far away. As far away as he could go.
Jumping like a frightened rabbit, Koyuki stumblingly gathered up his shirt, ran half way across the room, tripped on an amplifier, fell down, got up again, and left.
Ryuusuke lingered behind, in the dark.
Beck had woken up to Ryu's shouting, and was barking madly after Koyuki's retreating back. The sound of feet on shifting gravel was strangely loud, and the guitarist listened to it until Yukio had run fully off the property. Funny... he could sprint exceptionally fast over rock for someone who wasn't wearing any shoes.
Eventually, the summer night returned itself to normal. No heavy breath, no barking dog, no stumbling feet. No soft, nervous voices, or the gentle rubbing sounds of fabric crumpling. Just hot, heavy silence, to go with the faintest hum of crickets, and the distant lapping of water.
It was like he'd forgotten what sitting was like. Ryuusuke grunted as he moved from his stiff pose for the first time since Yukio's departure. A smoothing hand went up to rub at his cramping neck, then to brush down his chest and over his stomach. A weariness that had nothing to do with sleep deprivation began to seep into the older boy, and he sighed, deep and hard, and bent over to squat back on the edge of his futon. What had just happened?
And would it ever happen again?
Next time... Next time, Ryuusuke knew how easily things could take a turn for the worse. Silently, he offered up a wave of guilt and apology to his sister, before summoning up the image of Eddy's smashed guitar. That gift had it's own emotions attached to it. Anger at it's destruction came easy. It was like a poultice on his guilt now, and he tried to wallow in the feeling. Anger was so much better than regret.
Glancing down at himself, Ryu let out a bark of mirthless laughter. Anger, it seemed, was good at suppressing a lot of things.
The illuminated numbers on the boy's alarm clock flipped to 4:46 am as he sat in quiet tracks of thought.
Running down the road a mile and a half away, heart pumping battery acid through his veins, Yukio let the ground cut up the soles of his feet as he thought. He already had a big coat he could wear... nobody would recognize him in it. Nobody would know him. Not with the hood pulled up and a hat on.
All he needed now, was a pair of sunglasses.
a/n: tbc? what do you guys think?