I don't own these characters.  I wasn't paid to write this fic.  Many thanks to the 
Queen of Blueberry Toast for her help with the kitchen scene.  You are a gem!  
<3<3<3<3

November 2002


Yoarashi

by Murasaki Shuishou [Murasakishuishou@yahoo.com]




It had been raining in Tokyo for the past two days, the remnant of a typhoon, or 
so the radio had said.  And for the past two nights, Honjyou Yuuji had been 
awakened from his uneasy rest by the sound of the wind howling past his 
apartment windows, or by the metallic roar of thunder directly overhead.  He 
never had been able to sleep well before the onset of a storm; he was certainly 
starting to feel the effects of his privation.  

Like now, as he lay on his back, staring blearily at the watery patches of light that 
stained his ceiling.  

In the distance, lightning forked across the dark heavens, burning its fast-fading 
image into his retinas.  Blinking, Yuuji hastily sat up, arranged his pillows against 
the wall as a support for his back, then reached for the pack of cigarettes he kept 
on the top of the low bookshelf beside the futon.  He really wasn't much of a 
smoker, only on occasion did he partake.  Often, it was enough to just have one in 
his mouth, unlit.  The smell and the faint taste of the tobacco from the filter often 
proved comforting to him; gave him something to do while his brain worked 
furiously over this problem or that.  He certainly had one now, and it wore the 
form of one Fujimiya Ran; a boy more a nemesis than a partner.  A boy who had 
once more done his best to aggravate him.  

/He's such an ass!/

/All scowls and ill humor this afternoon just because I wanted to go out to eat for 
a change instead of staying in for his rice and sushi.  Like he wished I would stay 
with him./

/Huh.  That's just crazy./  

Yuuji looked over at the rain-splattered window. 

/He won't listen to me, does everything he can to irritate me, and then follows me 
around everywhere I go like a stray./  

Thunder rolled through the heavens, the sound growing louder and louder, and he 
felt it down in his very bones.  

/Warm to cold to freezing.  Hardly the sort to inspire fantasies./  

He slipped the cigarette from his lips and rolled it back and forth between his 
forefinger and thumb.  

/Yeah.../

/ So why can't I stop thinking about him?/  

Growling softly, Yuuji flung the cigarette onto the floor.  He knew why he 
couldn't stop.  All he had to do was look at Ran to be reminded of the reasons.  
Even Masato had favorably commented on his looks the one time Ran had 
accompanied Yuuji on one of his visits to the hospital--Masato who usually paid 
such compliments to women.  It was as remarkable an occurrence as having Ran 
accompanying him in the first place--especially since he stayed in Masato's room 
for a mere few minutes before wandering off on the pretext of getting a cup of 
coffee.  

All this time, and he still didn't know why the boy had come with him, and then 
leave soon after.  He never even came back to the room; Yuuji'd had to go looking 
for him when visiting hours were over.  Not that it really mattered.  It was all no 
questions, no answers, and everything was temporary.  

And damned if Masato wouldn't laugh at him if he knew how he felt.  

He sagged against the pillows.  The urge to sleep had completely abandoned him; 
the books in the nearby case held little appeal, and he felt too restless to sit there 
any longer.  With a huge, noisy yawn, Yuuji left his futon, and then the room, 
thinking a drink of some sort was in order.  Give him something to occupy his 
hands with while he waited for sleep to overcome him.  

The hallway was neither as quiet nor as dark as his room had been, as it usually 
was, and Yuuji soon learned why:  Ran's door was open, and the window beyond 
it as well, letting both sound and light from the storm-riddled street echo across 
the walls, the ceiling.  

/Yeah.  Noise and glare and RAIN./

He hesitated briefly before striding into the room to close the window.  As he had 
expected, the floor was damp from the storm; and now his feet were as well.

/Oh, damn it./  Yuuji hopped back from the wet patch, toes curling up in protest.  
Automatically, he turned to the single bed that stood along the wall, only one of 
two pieces of furniture within the room, ready to utter some scathing remark.  But 
the bed was empty, the covers smooth as if no one had touched them that day.  
Yuuji's brow creased in a frown.  It wasn't like him to slip out without him 
noticing.  Ran always tried to make sure he knew he was leaving.  So why...?  

/Oh, he's just out wandering,/ Yuuji concluded, gesturing dismissively at the bed.  
/Like usual.  And I'm wasting my time./  

/Not that I CARE./  

Turning away, he stalked out, pausing to wipe his clammy feet upon his pajama 
legs and muttering over his stupidity for failing to don his slippers before leaving 
his room, and Ran's in general.  

/Because all this is his fault, too./ 

/But...Still.../  

With a frown towards the empty bedroom, Yuuji loped off to the kitchen, 
pointedly driving Ran's image from the forefront of his mind.  

/I've gotta stop all this./  

/It's--/

As he crossed the kitchen's threshold, the sky beyond the window above the sink 
whitened under another electric assault; silhouetted long and thin against the 
smeared panes, hands braced on the counter...

"Ran?"  

He didn't turn around when Yuuji called him.  Didn't move at all.  Shrugging off 
his seeming rejection, Yuuji walked over to the refrigerator, and the surrounding 
gloom was abruptly forced back into the corners by the glow of a hidden bulb.  

"What are you doing awake?"  

It sounded like an accusation.  Everything Ran said sounded like an accusation.  
Yuuji curled his lip in distaste.  "Obviously, I couldn't sleep."  

Another pause, during which he fancied Ran's eyes boring into his back.  

"Did the storm scare you?"  

The door slammed shut with a rubbery slurp.  Yuuji clenched his hand around the 
beer can he'd dug out from behind last night's soba; it was his last one, and he 
intended to savor it--not throw it in a show of anger.  "Nothing really scares me 
anymore." 

"Hmpf.  Liar."  

He popped the top, and took a long pull from the can.  "I'm not in the mood for an 
argument."  

"For a change."  

Swiping the back of his hand across his beer-dampened mouth, Yuuji turned to 
face him finally, glaring at him in the gloom.  "I'm not the one who always starts 
the fights around here!"   

No further form of answer from the tenuous umbra that had settled in the corners 
of the kitchen farthest from the rain vibratos on the window, just a sound, skin 
over something soft as milk. It seemed familiar, and yet it didn't. He sensed no 
movement there and yet... no, he couldn't really see all that well, not at all.

When the lighting fizzled once more over the sky, he saw nothing but red 
shadows and violet eyes as if they were the only things there to catch with his 
sight.

/Yeah, I've gotta get some sleep!/

But then he remembered that certain rustle, drawing away thought he was. Ran's 
bedraggled black T-shirt that recently had really become more of a deep, faded 
raven grey, it sounded just about like that.

One of the chairs spun out form under the table and he flopped down on it, 
backwards, though poised like the king's man he thought himself to be might 
have, and looking out over the wavering outlines of the cupboards and whatever 
else lay there among the shadows.

/Sad I'd remember that. This won't do. Just fuckin' won't do.../

"So... I came down here to get a little drunk before bed. Still doesn't explain what 
YOU'RE doin' here."

He couldn't exactly call the faint response he got to this verbal, or anything close 
to it, but he knew the contemptuous little sniff of the boy's when he got one.

His lips still wet with beer, he laughed. "See, it is you! I try to say one word that's 
not about..."

Yuuji fell silent then, but not solely because the streetlight had trembled under the 
latest crash of thunder, but because he was sure now that shades before him 
moved. The redhead had slipped out of them by the time the lights sputtered back 
to life, indeed wearing his worn-out shirt, and a pair of filmy silk pajama pants.
Not exactly his taste as far as the Crasher recalled, but at least he could be certain 
he recalled a whole person, and not the strange vision of irises only. He watching 
him all the while as he padded over to the table, and knelt beside it then, turning 
the beer can resting there little by little.  

"What? You want some? Well, this is all that's left, so tough!"

"Yuck, Sapporo." And saying so, he retreated somewhat, standing now rather on 
the border of the halo that ran round and round the peeling linoleum.

"Like I would care what you think."

He thought Ran was going to make some sort of retort, sensed him open his 
mouth...but none came.  Smirking, he raised the can for another long pull, and as 
the dripping metal rim touched his mouth, the street lights flickered out with the 
next clap of thunder, plunging the kitchen into full darkness.  

"Oh, damn," muttered Yuuji, clunking the can down on the table again. "This--
Oi!"  

The darker shadow that was Ran was purposefully coming towards him, and 
Yuuji raised his hands in a defensive gesture, anticipating a punch; he wasn't 
disappointed.  But the blow Ran dealt him came not from his fists, but from his 
lips.  The kiss was soft, and clumsy, and all too brief; when Ran pulled back, 
Yuuji inhaled shakily, eyes wide, but said nothing.  The words were slow to form; 
his brain was too fogged from the unexpected contact.  

He sensed Ran tensing, felt his hands leave his shoulders, and the redhead strode 
quickly out of the room before he could say one syllable.  He blinked after him 
stupidly, struggling for the right thing to say, anything, but as soon as Ran's back 
vanished around the corner, Yuuji found himself dashing after him before he'd 
even regained his voice.

"W-wait!  Wait a minute!"  he cried.  "Why did you do that?"

Ran paused outside of his room, hand on the knob, and gave him what seemed to 
be a cool once over before swinging open the door.  Seizing his arm, Yuuji 
stopped Ran before he could get away.  

"Answer me.  For once, answer my question," he hissed, giving his arm a short, 
vigorous shake.  "Ran--"

Ran struggled to free his arm from Yuuji's grip, shoving him away once he had.  
But instead of fleeing to the safety of his room, and shutting him out, Ran 
remained where he stood.  Which was as good as Yuuji wanted.  In the next 
second, he had lunged forward again, and had dragged Ran out of the doorway, 
forcing him to the wall.  The redhead tensed under his hands, but didn't attempt to 
push him aside; Yuuji found that rather puzzling.  Same as the intent way the boy 
was regarding him--like he was waiting for him to do something.  Of course, 
Yuuji couldn't fathom what he was expecting, and so...  

"What are you up to, Ran?"  

He felt the redhead melt against the wall as if his hands were the only things 
holding him upright.  Ran let his head tip back to rest on the peeling wall, and 
fixed him with a heavy-lidded, shadowy look of expectation.  Lips parting, and 
meeting.  He spread his hand on the wall, a few long strands of red hair loosely 
tangling with his fingers.  The arms around his waist tightened their grip just 
enough to make him sway closer; Yuuji felt the hard, thin lines of his thighs press 
against his own, and his pulse began to race a bit faster.  His voice was little more 
than a whisper when he uttered the other man's name again.  

"Ran?" 

Another short pause followed, proceeded by a desperate, awkward kiss.  Ran 
clutched at his collar, holding him close, threatening damage it if he dared try to 
extricate himself from the embrace.  He knew what he desired, it seemed, but not 
quite how to get it with any satisfaction.  Well, Yuuji surmised, such knowledge 
could be easily taught, and he would do it.    

When Ran slumped against the wall again, Yuuji slid out of his arms, and stepped 
back; said nothing.  Neither did Ran.  He merely looked from Yuuji to the open 
door of his room, and then shoved away from the wall, and entered it, not looking 
back once.  Yuuji took his failure to shut the door behind him as being nothing 
more than an invitation, and he accepted it.  But he closed the door.  Even though 
they were alone, it just seemed the thing to do.  

Through the intermittent splashes of light from the stormy heavens, Yuuji saw 
that Ran had come to a halt beside the bed, back to the door, and that he was still 
quite dressed.  He also looked as stiff as he possibly could.  Yuuji didn't know if 
that was just a trick of the strobes, or if it were for real.  When he lay his hands 
upon Ran's tense, cotton-clad shoulders, he found it was the latter.  It didn't stop 
him from lightly caressing the taut lines of his upper back, nor did it stop him 
from smiling.  

"You know what I think?" Yuuji whispered.  "You're just as frightened as I am."  

Ran's breath sped from his lungs in an angry hiss, and he twisted as if he would 
whirl about to hit him.  

"Don't," Yuuji rasped.  "Punch me and I'll leave."  

The redhead froze halfway, hand curled in a fist at his side, and said nothing in 
reply.  Yuuji watched him for a moment, and then sidled up behind him again, 
once more laying his hands upon his back, and letting them fall to his hips in one 
fluid sweep.  Ran didn't even react--until, that is, when Yuuji wriggled his hands 
under his t-shirt's snug hem.  Then, he jumped, and Yuuji started stroking lines 
across his skin, as if he thought to soothe him.  

"Your fingers are cold," Ran protested.  

"Give me some time," Yuuji whispered, sliding his arms around Ran's waist, "and 
they won't be."  

He seemed to resist him at first, holding himself stiffly as those wandering fingers 
traced the planes of his stomach; teasing along the waistband of his pajama pants.  
They rode low on Ran's thin frame, and Yuuji easily found the shallow dip 
between his hipbones and stomach, imagining as he caressed him there how the 
lines of that part of Ran's form would flow.  His own body began to react to his 
meandering thoughts, and, surreptiously, he slid his hips against Ran's ass, 
stroking his sex through those twin layer of thin cloth.  He bit back a moan, 
sweeping his hands upward over Ran's ribcage to his chest, to palm the puckered 
nipples.  An audible gasp fell upon the air, and the younger man fell against him 
at last, hands clenching the slack folds of Yuuji's T-shirt as he sought balance.  

It was music to his ears to hear, heaven to feel him so very close.  He was eliciting 
the sort of responses he thought the boy was incapable of, and he delighted in his 
success.  It was something so rare, this capitulation, and Yuuji planned to savor 
every moment of his power over the other.  

Pinches made him whimper deep in his throat; tender little flexings of the nubs 
made him sigh.  Yuuji craved the taste of him, a sudden yearning.  He pushed the 
boy away, drawing off his own shirt and discarding it before he caught Ran's own.  

"Let me," he said, tugging at it purposefully.  

Ran hesitated for a second before obediently raising his arms and letting Yuuji 
strip him of the garment.  He then spun, reaching for him again, kissing him 
hungrily, fingers tangling in Yuuji's tumbled blond locks.  He held still for the 
other's assault on his mouth, moving as the other nudged him, until they couldn't 
move any further.  Ran's legs had met the mattress, and it was then that Yuuji 
broke the kiss, panting, lapping at his bruised lips as he gazed down into the 
other's eyes.  Which Yuuji could not just make out, as the lights had once more 
returned to the street outside.  His naked flesh was limned in blue from the 
sparkling wet glow, his purple eyes full of shadows and glimmering otherworldly.  
Mesmerized, Yuuji openly stared at him, even though it struck him as a mad thing 
to do.  Apparently, Ran held the same opinion.  

"What...?" he muttered, hinting impatience.  

"Nothing," Yuuji said quietly.  "Just get on the bed."  

Once they were prone, Yuuji didn't mean to be tender, but he was, drinking in and 
savoring all the little moans and gasps he could summon forth from Ran with his 
hands and mouth.  Yuuji became aware of the herbal soap smell of him, the way 
his skin felt against his cheek when he nuzzled him.  His mouth found one nipple, 
and Ran's fingers clenched wildly in his hair.  He bit him there and the boy hissed, 
arching; its pinkish, puckered twin shared the same fate before Yuuji moved 
down Ran's chest.  He traced the lines of his stomach, the shallow ridge that 
marked the end of his ribcage.  When he began to trail kisses along his lower 
belly, edging the silky skin just above his pajama pants, the fingers in his hair 
began to flex insistently.  With one last sweep of his tongue, Yuuji raised his head 
to look at Ran.  

"Don't tease me," the redhead rasped.  

"You don't like that?" Yuuji whispered against his bare skin.  One leg drew up to 
rub against his side.  

"I didn't say that..."  

"Then what?" Yuuji prompted.    

The look he received for his obtuseness was utterly smoldering, easy to see even 
in the dark.  "Quit being an ass, and touch me."  

Yuuji cocked a brow.  "My, but that's to the point," he said, maneuvering himself 
onto his knees between Ran's spread legs.  

"Yu--" Ran began, glaring, but Yuuji cut him off with a swoop of his finger down 
his silk-clad, rigid length.  The redhead sighed his appreciation.  

"All you had to do was ask, Ran."  

Twin lavender crescents beamed at him in the milky darkness.  "Shut up," came 
his hoarse reply.  

Yuuji kissed him again upon the ridge of his hipbone, and then the silky pajamas 
Ran wore were gone, gathered in his hands and drawn off, leaving him as a pale 
streak upon the bed.  Yuuji slid his hands upward over his legs, parting them and 
spreading kisses along the tender inner sides of his thighs.  Ran said nothing, just 
punctuated the silence with his quiet gasps and sighs; moaning once when Yuuji 
curled his lips around the tip of his sex.  He had the urge to hold him there with 
his mouth, toy with him until he was drained--but he was aching fiercely, and was 
no longer inclined to tease him.  

"No more play," he murmured, rocking forward to kiss Ran again, offering a taste 
of himself upon his tongue.  He felt his hands at his hips, tugging the waistband of 
his pajama pants down, and Yuuji didn't protest.  

"Do you..." Yuuji began, once they'd broken for air, "...ah...?"  

"What?"  

"You know...something we can use...?"  

He fell back onto his heels as the other sat up to rummage through his nightstand 
drawer.  A round, slick plastic bottle emerged from within, and Ran promptly 
passed it to Yuuji; he twisted it towards the window, but couldn't read the 
stickered label.  It did, however, smell like cherries, as he found when he'd 
squirted a large dollop of it in his hand.  

"This doesn't seem like something you'd fancy."  

He got a twitch of a self-satisfied smile for that, before Ran flopped down on the 
bed.  Yuuji nudged his pajamas further down his thighs, and coated himself with 
the thick lotion.  Dripping on the covers, he scooted forward to lie between Ran's 
spread legs.  Yuuji caught them in the crooks of his elbows, raising them, opening 
Ran even more to the initial thrust of his sex.  He hissed when Yuuji entered him, 
grabbing at the flattened pillows beneath his head, inner muscles tensing around 
him.  He halted, offering neither distracting kisses nor strokes nor nonsensical 
murmurs meant to comfort; plunging ahead at the first sign of the barrier's 
weakening.  When he had seated himself as fully as possible, Yuuji forced the 
breath he'd been holding from his burning lungs.  Beneath him, Ran groaned, 
bunches of pillow still trapped in his grip.  It enflamed him more to hear it, to feel 
the gently writhing body pressed against his own; the hard, hot length along his 
lower stomach.  Yuuji closed his eyes against him, allowing those lesser senses to 
carry him through.  

It was all mindless lust, both men focused solely on the culmination of their 
pleasure, the air full of grunts and moans and the incessant creaking of Ran's 
narrow bed.  And when it was over, and they'd thoroughly spent themselves, 
Yuuji found himself resting chest-to-chest with Ran, their hearts thrumming 
together through thin shields of bone and skin.  Rocking his weight onto his 
forearms, Yuuji opened his eyes to gaze down at the man he had embraced.  

But Ran had his eyes closed, head turned to the side on the pillow--shut away as 
he always was whenever he sought to hide his real feelings.  Yuuji felt first 
acutely disappointed by his reaction, and then terribly uncomfortable in the 
awkward silence that filled the room.  He pulled away, unmindful of the mess 
he'd made of Ran's bedding.  

He sat on the edge of the mattress for what seemed an eternity, trying to think of 
something suitable to say, and failing.  Yuuji hadn't expected to find himself in 
that situation, and now the urge to flee was too strong for his reason to overcome.  
He quickly rose, and gathered up his pajama pants, sliding one leg, and then the 
other into them.  

"Look...I..." he began, glancing over his shoulder at Ran.  The redhead had moved 
at last, now propped up on his elbows and watching him in the dark.  Yuuji hadn't 
been aware of him.  

"Um...Thanks," he finished weakly.  And cringed over how stupid that sounded.  
Not the sort of thing that might impress someone, no.  

And Ran clearly was not, for he simply stared at him for a few seconds longer, 
and then crawled under the blankets, rolling onto his side and pulling them over 
his head.  

"Get out."  

Yuuji stood there for a moment, staring at him in a mixture of embarrassment and 
anger, mouth opening and closing uselessly.  After all that, after his outright 
seduction, he was going to be cold to him?!  

Yuuji took a step backward, and touched something soft; Ran's overwashed T-
shirt lay under his right foot.  Yuuji blinked stupidly at it for a moment, then 
swept it from the floor and completely wiped away the sticky semen Ran had spilt 
across his stomach.  Then he bunched it up, and threw it on the bed; it landed 
upon the upthrust mound that was Ran's shoulder, and slowly unfurled like a 
flower at dawn.  

"My pleasure," Yuuji said sweetly.  "You bastard."  

Snatching his own shirt off the floor, Yuuji flashed a nasty grin in his direction, 
and then headed out of the room, not bothering to shut the door behind him.  

--Ende--