Five chapters. Five ages. How sometimes two people should be together despite everything. First request-fic! Please enjoy
Age 8The sun was sticky against his back, the pulsating rays of summer making the white cast on his right arm painfully itch. Yuu scowled from his spot on the grass, legs akimbo, and tried to dig the fingertips of his left hand into the water-tight crevices of that annoying contraption.
He found himself plopped down on the sidelines of the soccer field this random Tuesday afternoon. His mother was chatting amiably with his baseball coach on the other side of the field. Her dainty hands periodically gestured toward her pouting child, her voicing trilling her concern over when he would be able to play again.
Hopefully never, Yuu bitterly thought.
His eyes warily watched the children on the soccer field kick the ball aimlessly along the yellow-tinged grass.
Small cleats roughly dug into the ground, dirt exploding from each clumsy kick and unnecessary dive.
But the laughter was perfect.
It made Yuu draw his knees up to his chin and wrap his arms awkwardly around them, the cumbersome cast being the main interloper.
Dark, ebony eyes kept their gaze upon the young boys his age, let their smiles sink into his memory to return to later when he remembers his friends consist of imaginary ponderings.
Yuu was a serious child. His mother would proclaim his impressive maturity, his untimely wisdom. His classmates would avert their eyes and murmur of the boy’s cold exterior, his hurtful apathy. Yuu would merely say, with all the sagacity of an eight-year-old, he was making sure his heart didn’t hurt again.
His father had left him when he was six. He didn’t get a kiss goodbye. Rather, he got a bellowing holler that it was all his fault. His mother didn’t get a farewell embrace. Instead, she was bestowed a lovely bruise upon her left cheek. Yuu remembered the shape of the purple and blue mark. It looked just like a heart. He had clutched at his own chest, whispered to his mother who had sunken to her knees, that he would make the hurt stop, okay?
Yuu absently picked at the plaster of his cast, eyes following the ball, occasionally glancing up to peer at the boys’ faces. He made a game of it: would they be smiling, concentrated, laughing, unsure? He let his tongue run across his lips, the dry and chapped things so thirsty. He stole a glance across the field. His mother was still jabbering, still gesturing animatedly while his coach looked on with an air of indifference. A small sigh escaped him, returning his eyes to the soccer players. The juice box would have to wait.
He let his shoe scuff a bit at the lonely dirt patch that tainted the emerald grass he was seated upon. The white top of his Chucks quickly became streaked with brown. Yuu smiled at his sordid creation – it looked just like those soccer boys’ cleats. Rough, dirty, well-used. Laughter.
“Ah, heads up!”
Yuu tore his eyes away from his dirtied shoe to see a soccer ball lazily roll towards him. He blinked at it. The malformed cuts and scrapes against its soft surface seemed to catch the glint of the sun.
“Sorry about that, sir.” Yuu snapped his head up, catching the eyes of the young boy who sheepishly uttered the apology. He wore a shy smile, a splatter of dirt on one cheek and his black hair was tousled carelessly from zipping through the wind.
The boy bent down to pick up the wayward ball and before Yuu could stop himself, he blurted out, “Why’d you call me ‘sir’? I’m not old.”
The boy pouted his lips and Yuu found that he was entranced by their odd, yet pleasing shape, “S’polite.”
“Yeah, for an old guy.”
“Well – ”
“Kou~ Why is it taking you a bajillion years to get the ball?!”
‘Kou’ let out a small gasp from those bowed lips of his and quickly twisted around to face the annoyed voice. Yuu raised an eyebrow – the other boy was short and tan, unlike Kou’s lanky frame and creamy skin. His black hair was buzzed and he wore an odd bandage on his nose, hiding most of his scowling face from view.
Kou started to sputter, “I wasn’t taking a bajillion years, ‘Kira. Get some patience, jeez.”
‘Kira glared at the taller boy before his eyes found Yuu, who was watching the exchange with slight envy. He glowered at the way the two boys’ shoulders bumped together, how they entered each others' space-bubble so casually. He wanted to have a companion of his own. Someone to get grass stains with and share juice boxes and tell each other to ‘get some patience, jeez’.
‘Kira studied his figure for a second before he bluntly pointed with his finger, “What’s that on your arm?”
Yuu felt his hackles raise, “What’s that on your face?”
‘Kira paused, eyes wide and a blush creeping on the top edges of his nose-bandage. He self-consciously poked at it before he gained back a smidgen of confidence. The shorter boy roughly jabbed a finger into Kou’s side, making the other squeak out in protest and squirm away, “This moron pushed me off a cliff.”
Kou immediately balked before Yuu’s eyes even had the chance to grow to the size of watermelons, “What! It was not a cliff. And it was an accident!! I didn’t know that you stopped walking and I was too busy telling you about the newest Game-Boy and I fell on you and you cut your nose on that bush!”
‘Kira smirked at his flustered friend, waving a dismissive hand at him, “Yeah, yeah. The police didn’t buy it either.”
“The police?! Stop lying! He’s gonna think I’m – ”
“So,” Akira smiled over to Yuu who was trying to hide his amusement behind his casted arm, “What’s your story?”
Yuu paused in his muffled laughter to blink helplessly at the two eager faces that were suddenly looming close with something akin to glee shining in their eyes. He shifted uncomfortably. Was he supposed to spin a wild tale involving explosions and awesome dive-rolls and perhaps a dinosaur to ‘explain’ the molded plaster on his arm? Or was he supposed to tell a more boring truth?
Yuu glanced at Akira’s noseband and then to his own injury before his eyes were drawn to Kou’s warm gaze. He found that he couldn’t stop staring at the taller boy, watching as the stray wind ruffled his raven locks and how he absently bit his plump lip in anticipation. The sun seemed to gravitate toward the boy’s eager smile and Yuu had to force himself to blink and look away – back to Akira’s less patient stare.
“I fell.”
Akira’s expectant face dropped in a second less than instant, mouth agape and eyes incredulous, “What?! After that awesome story I told you, that’s all you’re giving us?”
Yuu stared blankly at Akira, inwardly smirking at how the shorter boy seemed to be turning an interesting shade of red. Kou quickly placed an exasperated hand to Akira’s shoulder, rolling his chocolate eyes. Yuu found himself immediately honing in on the casual placement of hand-to-shoulder. Something twisted in his stomach. His brow furrowed.
“Jeez, with something so cool on your arm, I thought you’d be interesting,” Akira swiped the ball from Kou, who had cradled it on his hip, before stomping away in a huff to the flock of boys in the distance who had already given up on the lost soccer ball and found another to kick haphazardly.
Kou had his head swiveled in the direction Akira disappeared to, a light frown gracing his round face, and Yuu turned away. The quiet boy tugged on a piece of grass, knowing the other would assuredly follow his friend and leave the ‘boring’ kid to himself. Whatever, it didn’t matter – Yuu didn’t need them (him) anyway. He twisted the blade harshly. He didn’t need anybody. He liked just-watching anyway, he liked being by himself with no one to bother him and no one to say ‘get some patience, jeez’ to him, ever. Yuu quickly let go of the green tendril to roughly wipe at his eye where a peculiar wetness had snuck into –
“Sorry, sir. Akira’s not used to dealing with normal people.”
Yuu jerked his head up to see Kou smiling that sheepish smile at him again, hand behind his head and eyes laughing. Something skipped in his chest. Maybe he was dehydrated, that thing his mother always warned him about every summer. He needed that juice box, stat.
“Don’t call me that. Call me Yuu, weirdo.”
Kou’s smile widened as he plopped on the ground in front of him, knees digging into the grass, and leaned in with childish enthusiasm, “Then call me Kouyou. Akira says that he’s the only one allowed to call me ‘Kou’, so I guess you can’t call me that…”
The elder's eyes blackened fiercely and somewhere inside of him, he wondered why such a silly thing made his blood spit fire.
Yuu grit his teeth and grumbled, “Why not?”
Kouyou looked taken aback, smile disappearing and a nervous gulp cutting the tense air around them. He gripped his knees tighter and slowly drawled, “Well, I don’t know. That’s just how it always is.”
Kouyou paused, looking down at the space between his grass-stained knees and Yuu’s milky legs, “I don’t really get it though,” He suddenly faced Yuu with a bright grin, “But you can call me anything else! Anything!”
The wind seemed to sigh hard in that moment, whipping Kouyou’s ebony mane to fall into his eyes. As the other boy giggled at his sudden blindness, Yuu’s vicious expression lost its might, a softer doe-like countenance appearing on the young boy’s face. With wide eyes, he watched how the other boy grinned at him like the world was theirs.
He didn’t know what to call him.
He didn’t know how to place any name on something so… perfect.
Kouyou eagerly awaited to hear this strange, quiet boy’s answer. But, as the seconds passed, and the boy remained silent as he helplessly bit his bottom lip in indecision, Kouyou felt his optimism start to slip again.
“…Yuu?”
Uruha.
“I like ‘Kouyou’. It’s good.”
Kouyou blinked before he smiled in pure delight. He stuck out a hand with zeal, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Yuu.” The boy leaned in further with a proud expression as he whispered, “I heard a grown-up say that in a movie once.”
Yuu found a smile start to sweep across his face and he let the other boy grab onto the fingers poking out of his cast, “Nice to meet you, too.”
&&
Yuu found himself sitting in the grass at the edge of the soccer field every Tuesday after that. His mother tsked when she saw the emerald stains on his shorts and his ruddy fingernails from planting his hand in the dirt all day, but Yuu didn’t care. His cast itched and his restless youth needed to get out. He was tired of splaying lazily across the couch, watching reruns of classic comedy routines, and he wanted to see Kouyou again. And again.
Tuesdays usually meant laundry-day and ham-sandwich-day. But now, as Yuu clambered down the sloping hill towards the field, they meant good-day – Kouyou-day. He told the taller boy this.
Kouyou leaned in like he always did, and touched his ankle, “You need a day too!”
He always touched him. Constant contact. Just in case one of them may suddenly disappear.
Yuu shook his head, his growing ebony locks catching the wind, and logically pointed out, “I didn’t do anything to earn myself a day.”
The blond-haired boy pouted for a minute, tilting his head to the side. Yuu tried to keep his gaze from wandering to those girlish lips, but he needed to watch them part and speak nevertheless.
“What did I do?”
Yuu blushed, an innocent red dusting his cheeks as he ducked his head away from Kouyou’s sight. He swallowed, his lungs stammering because he had these weird, wiggly things inside of him that made his stomach clench. And made his heart beat fast. And made Kouyou feel right. Somehow.
Yuu bit the corner of his lip before shrugging, reaching out towards a dandelion beside him to tug on meekly, “Nothing I guess. You were just there when I needed something good.”
Kouyou gave a lopsided smile, watching the elder boy fumble with the dead flower, spraying fluffy seeds everywhere.
The soccer player crawled over from his spot in front of Yuu to sit by his side. He craned his neck down to try and catch the quiet boy’s eye, but the other diligently observed the dandelion blow apart and scatter across the burnt grass. Kouyou felt his smile soften and something feel light in his small chest.
He bumped his shoulder against Yuu’s and watched as their knobby knees knocked together.
“You’re something good, too.”
&&&
A/N: Short chapter is short. I think I’m going to like writing this though. I’m in the mood for writing something happier after my last story. There will be some angst, but it won’t be nearly as heavy.
This is for
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jokerock who requested over at
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
jrockyaoi for an Aoi/Uruha chapter-fic with “childhood, romance, jealousy, angst and a happy ending”.
Each chapter will be focused on a different age as we follow this loveable couple from juice boxes to band-hood.
Hope you enjoy, dear!
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