Chapter Text
Mizuki was rigid in his seat, gloved hands clasping and unclasping over and over again in his lap. His back pressed so hard into the leather backrest that it almost negated the kind of comfort delivered by such high-quality material and furnishings. Every now and again, he'd turn his neck in a stiff jolt -- Atobe could swear he heard it, like the key turning in a clockwork toy -- and the pallor of his face reflected dimly in the window. Mizuki pressed his nose as far as he dared to the glass, even lowering his designer sunglasses to peep over the top of them to get a better look, knowing that the privacy tinting on the outside kept him from being watched by those they passed. But only from those they passed. Atobe saw villagers on the roadside, shabby looking people, stop and follow the limo with their eyes, turning their heads as it drove by them. They pointed, dropped their mouths open, and then, in less than a second, they were gone. But Mizuki shifted at the window side, just as curious to get a glimpse of them as they were to get a glimpse of the car.
"We can stop the car if you like, get out and greet them," Atobe let his head sink into the headrest, staring at the widescreen TV up ahead. Mizuki jumped and turned his head back from the window, crossing his arms against his chest and harrumphing.
"Don't be absurd! I was… merely checking if they," he shuddered, "recognised me." He pushed his sunglasses up over the bridge of his nose.
"You do know what privacy glass is for?" Atobe said. He picked up the remote for the TV and started flicking through channels. He stopped on a gross-out comedy movie, and Mizuki gasped in horror and snatched the remote from him and put on a period drama.
"Yes, I know!! Still, they might have heard about my return from my father, or… well, even so! Perhaps someone let it slip, one can never be too careful!" He folded his arms again with a huff, leaving the remote close to his knee. Atobe leant over to take it, but Mizuki was too fast for him, and decided to keep it clenched tight in his hand, on the side furthest away from Atobe.
He tried, Atobe tried, to become absorbed in the horse carriages and crinolines, but the whirlwind romance of a plain, virtuous kitten and an even more plain, even more virtuous Mr Darcy-type was so frightfully beige that he may as well have been staring at the throw rug. "Why did you insist on taking the limo, anyway? If riding through your hometown bothers you so much?" He turned his face towards Mizuki, who was watching the screen. Well, he faced the screen, and one might think he did so passively, thanks to his large sunglasses obscuring the most of his face, but his lips mouthed along to the dialogue of the gasping damsels in the movie, clearly absorbed. "Mizuki?"
Mizuki put out one hand and flicked it at Atobe, "shhh! Shush! And it is not becoming of a gentleman like yourself, to pain a lady's heart so! Oh, she finally said it!"
"Mizuki."
That clockwork toy noise again. Atobe saw his own gleaming reflection in Mizuki's sunglasses. "What is it now, Atobe-kun? You know I hate your filthy chopper-- DON'T you laugh at me, you horrid little boy! You know what I mean!" But Atobe doubled over in his seat. Mizuki's gloved hand reached over and smacked Atobe's knee. "Heavens, I hope you're not planning to insult my mother and father with obscenities like that!" He crossed his arms neatly, and Atobe calmed his breathing and straightened his back, biting on the inner of his cheeks to stop the laughter. "Good," Mizuki said, and then he sighed, "I detest flying -- and you must know it is tempting fate for the two of us to ride in the same helicopter. What would the company - no, the world at large! - what would anyone do if both you and I were taken cruelly before our time, in the same, most unfortunate accident!" Mizuki's fingertips were on his cheek, and his voice was hushed.
"Mizuki… Maybe you're not aware, maybe you don't hear yourself, so I'll forgive you, but I think you should know you just really made it sound like you've tampered with my helicopter…" Atobe frowned at him, "You know what, to be safe, let me check your coat -- is my life insurance policy under there, or? Whatever have you done with it?" He reached over for the opening of Mizuki's coat, and Mizuki slapped at his arms and hands,
"Unhand me at once!!" He said, and the chauffer's eyes widened in the rear view mirror, and the privacy glass rolled upwards in a whir. But Atobe slipped back into his seat, and Mizuki gathered his coat about him, with the corners of his mouth downturned in most spectacular fashion. Wrinkles gathered about his lower lip, but Atobe thought better of mentioning it to him. "How could you suggest such a thing, in fact, how dare you! And how dare you manhandle me like that! You vile creature!" Mizuki huffed and turned his face back to the window. There was silence in the back of the car, but for the swooning of the period drama, until Mizuki muttered, "Perhaps I should have let you ride the helicopter after all!"
Atobe sighed, and then he turned to the window. The streets were an unfamiliar blur of people pointing and staring at seeing a limo, not even a for-hire limo!!, rolling by. Then Atobe fished out the controller to the music player from the neat little pocket where the controllers were stored, and opened up the display on the screen.
"What are you doing now?" Mizuki said, patience expended.
"Searching for… let's see… search for tracks… Takes the built-in wifi a minute to load -- ah, there we are!" Atobe poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he keyed in the letters one at a time, and Mizuki gave a disgusted gargle, and hid his bespectacled eyes in shame. "M-I-Z--"
"What! Don't tell me! Atobe-kun, you wouldn't!!" Mizuki sat forward in his chair, gaping at the screen.
"Why not? I thought your father was a talented -- and successful, you said -- singer? I wanted to give him a listen," and he clicked enter. The loading wheel spun on the screen, and Mizuki's voice was full of horror.
"No! Give me that!" He lunged at Atobe, trying to wrest the remote from Atobe's hand without falling out of his seatbelt, but Atobe simply leaned towards his window, out of Mizuki's reach. So Mizuki stamped his foot on the floor, "Stop! The! Car!" he said, in time to the beat of his shoes, "Stop! This! Car! Turn around! At! Once!" The privacy window didn't even twitch, and soon, wailing instruments broke out over the speakers. Mizuki gave a final, defiant, "UGH!" before letting his face fall into his hands.
"Enka?!" Atobe said, and Mizuki raised his face, letting his murderous stare escape over the bridge of his sunglasses, "N-no, I mean, Enka's kind of an art form, no matter how you think of it…"
"Kind of?" Mizuki said, his teeth snapping as he spoke.
"W-well it is, it's an art form!" Mizuki folded his arms, waiting and Atobe fumbled about in his mind for anything at all to comment with, "I mean… I liked… Farewell One Cedar…"
"You put on father's music so that you might make fun of him!" Mizuki said, and Atobe shook his head but he knew Mizuki was right, "You're trying to embarrass me by mocking my father-- the same father who you're hoping will welcome you into his home only minutes from now! You're despicable!"
Atobe opened his mouth… and closed it again. He raised the remote in the air with a lazy hand and silenced the music. Even the soundproofing of the interior was no match for the sound of the engine whirring, or at least not when the interior was so oppressively silent. "I was merely--" Atobe said, after some minutes, but Mizuki turned his face in a quick movement.
"Save it!! You insisted upon this trip! Insisted! Nothing I could mention would dissuade you. You told me you were interested in my life and in my family," Mizuki was reeling off his points with a murderous stab of his gloved finger in Atobe's direction, "I told you that they are just simple folk, they live very humble and ordinary lives! But you, YOU--!" He leaned over and prodded Atobe's arm most offensively, "Oh no, YOU had to insist on seeing them! And for what reason? Why, oh why, pray tell?" Mizuki's livid white face was motionless, turned fixedly towards Atobe. Glaring, in all likelihood, but only from behind his large sunglasses. To Atobe, Mizuki looked for all the world like an giant, but incredibly furious fly, with huge black pools for eyes -- Atobe supplied the ravenous mandibles with his imagination. "So you could make a mockery of my poor family, just to insult me!" Mizuki folded his arms and turned his face away.
"No, that's not--"
"SILENCE, Atobe-kun. We are almost there, and I would hate for my parents to see me in such a state!" Mizuki pulled off his sunglasses with one hand and massaged the pinch of his forehead, just between his eyes.
Atobe sank into the seats and was silent for the rest of the journey. When the city roads started to quieten, Atobe sat forward and looked keenly out of the window. The dusk was falling over a long, dirt road, lined with hedges, and up ahead, slightly raised on a hill was a grand-looking house. It looked inviting enough, with its large, yellow-glowing windows that broke up the blue gloom around, but it was a little on the small side. It looked like it was about to be swallowed by the expanse of green fields and rows of trees - black skeletons now, against the early sunset - that surrounded it on all sides. And the leaves in the hedges suddenly became illuminated as the chauffer switched on the headlights, the car moving along slowly as if savouring Atobe's anticipation of the house beyond.
"Huh!" Mizuki said, in quiet wonder to himself, as they drove up, through the gate, passing the building on the way to an appropriate parking space. The door opened, and the porch light flicked on beside the door. A man stood on the front step, an old, tanned looking man wearing a turtleneck jumper with a smart blazer over the top; he leant against his doorframe, squinting out at them as they got out of the car. Mizuki straightened his back, neatened his coat, and then walked, head held up, toward the man. "Father!" He said, in greeting, and the man smiled, wrinkling his face to the extent that his eyes seemed to disappear in the creases.
"Hajime! Your mother and I have missed you so much!" Mizuki's father opened his arms wide for a hug, but Mizuki cleared his throat, straightened his sunglasses, and extended his gloved hand for his father to shake. The which, his father did, but not without confusion, spelled out so clearly in the grey bushy caterpillar eyebrows that looked so stark against the tan of his skin. Atobe strode over, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other already extended toward Mizuki's father. "Oh, and you must be Keigo. May I call you that? Or would you prefer--?"
"Sir, you should call me whatever you feel is comfortable," Atobe said, with his best schmooze. They shook hands, and Mizuki's father said,
"Keigo, then. Delightful to meet you! My wife is waiting inside, she's just dying to greet you. Please, come inside," he held the door open for them, and was about to follow them inside when the chauffer staggered after them, weighed down by suitcases.
Atobe and Mizuki were shown into a large sitting room, where a small, glamorous woman with long raven-black hair that followed a gentle wave over her pale skin, was sat, wine glass in hand, perched on the edge of a sofa. She blinked slowly at them, her eyelashes fluttering, and then she let out a little shriek, "Hajime!? Oh, mummy's little darling, come here!" She put her wine glass onto a nearby table and waved her hands for Mizuki to come to her. He did, slowly, bending forward with as much grace as he could manage, only to have her wiry little arms circle around his back and push him powerfully into her chest.
"Hello, mother," Mizuki said, in a voice that sounded drained. She was running her long, artificial but perfectly manicured nails in a delicate movement over his hair, crushing his head in just the right way to force his sunglasses to tilt diagonally over his nose.
"Mummy missed you so much!" She said, through pursed lips, covered thickly in a deep purplish gloss, "how can you treat your mummy so badly, Hajime?" She released him just enough to catch his cheeks with the pads of her fingertips (and surely, in the thin tips of her nails, Atobe thought) and she frowned down at him, "You never call, you never write to me! Oh you wicked boy, always breaking mummy's heart!" She pinched Mizuki's nose, narrowly avoiding causing serious damage to his eyes thanks to his suddenly altogether practical sunglasses.
"Sorry mother," Mizuki said, his voice squished and nasal. Mizuki's mother pulled her hand away with a graceful flick of her wrist, jutting her chest out as she did and showing Atobe a coy smile.
"And you must be the devastatingly handsome Atobe-kun," she held out her hand in a dainty way, and Atobe felt compelled to take it up and kiss her fingertips. Well, anything for a fan. "I'm always seeing you in the newspaper! You do look smashing on my baby darling's arm! You make such a magnificent trophy!" Atobe froze. Then he moved his mouth away from her hand and stood up straight. "Oh my, Hajime darling, you should have told me your little Atobe-kun was a sensitive soul," she blinked at Mizuki and her eyelashes fluttered like huge dark butterflies, "just look at his poor little face! Why," and she got to her feet, surprisingly tall in stylish black stiletto heels, "I could just pinch it!" and she did. Atobe felt his flesh filling the trough in the underside of her perfect false nails, and the pressure of its edges throbbed.
"Lambkin, we call him Keigo," said Mizuki's father from the doorway. "I see you've met my beautiful wife," he said, with a warm smile. Mizuki's mother released Atobe's cheek… and then seeing the red blotches on his skin put her fingertips over her mouth and gasped, before reaching out to pat Atobe's face reassuringly. "Why don't you let me take your coats for you? I'll put them in the cloakroom." He stepped forward and reached out an arm, and Mizuki shrugged his fur-trimmed monstrosity off his shoulders, and was, by appearance, much smaller in an instant. Atobe removed his coat and laid it over the arm of Mizuki's father, who nodded and said, "I won't be a moment!" as he disappeared back into the hall.
"Keigo," Mizuki's mother said, putting her arms out towards him, but Atobe narrowed his eyes and stood his ground. Mizuki's father returned, rubbing his coarse, tanned hands together.
"So, Hajime, Keigo. It must have been a long journey, and I'm sure dinner will be ready soon," he held one arm out of the doorway, as if to guide them, "why don't you follow me to the dining room, and we can talk over dinner?" Atobe glanced towards Mizuki's mother warily, but Mizuki passed him, nose held stiff in the air.
"Thank you, father. Atobe-kun, if you would?" Mizuki said, looking out from under his eyelashes. Atobe gulped and followed him with heavy footsteps.
There was a rustic, homely charm to their dining room. It wasn't just for dining; on the far wall was a large, old-fashioned stove, clearly a Western design, made new with the impression of vintage in its black metal frontage. All the cabinets around them were a beautiful orange-varnished pine, and the surfaces glimmered under the modern glow of the spotlighting above. At the centre of the room was a large table, with placemats already set up and a woodland-inspired centrepiece at its heart. Atobe entered to the sound of bubbling pans and a delicious smelling steam hung in the air, and it all seemed so reminiscent of a good-old-days that Atobe had never known, a simpler time, a simpler way to live, when one had but a single member of housekeeping staff to prepare the food and dining table as one busied oneself entertaining guests.
"Mother, there are six places set at the dining table!" Mizuki said, as if this were a problem. His mother laid her talons on his shoulders, and her ever-pursed plump lips aimed to leave their mark on Mizuki's forehead.
"Yes, pumpkin, because your sisters are on their way home as we speak! Oh, they're so excited to see you! And to meet your little boy toy over there," she said, throwing a wink over her shoulder at Atobe.
"Mother, how could you! I think you'll find I was quite specific about the arrangements Atobe-kun and I would require if we were to visit, and one of the foremost stipulations was--"
"Hush, my darling, hush!" She placed her long, elegant finger upon his lips and silenced him, "it's simply too late to do anything about it. Your sisters are coming to see you, and that's that. But you won't upset mummy by causing a scene now would you? Not mummy's precious little Hajime?" She gave him a simpering look, and Mizuki grit his teeth and turned aside. She positioned herself behind him and guided him to a seat with a placemat in front of it. Once Mizuki was seated, she turned to Atobe, and gestured to the seat at Mizuki's left. "Keigo, if you would?" she said, with a giggle.
Mizuki's parents moved around the table, to the seats opposite Atobe and Mizuki; Mizuki's father pulled out a chair for his wife, and bowing his head in reverence. Mizuki's mother put her hand over her chest in affected surprise, and dropped into the chair with a dainty bending of her knees. Mizuki's father pushed the chair under the dining table without exerting any effort at all, and his wife gave a little whoop as she was pushed forward, clenching her hands into as much of a fist her nails would allow, and laughing. "You've got to, haven't you?" Mizuki's father said, looking straight into Atobe's eyes, "Can't help it when you're married to an absolute goddess like my wife!"
And she patted at him softly, "Oh, stop!" she said, encouraging him.
When they were all seated, a tired-looking woman -- obviously staff -- hobbled over with a choice of wines from which the hosts made their selection. The housekeeper put the bottle on the table, and shuffled away, leaving Mizuki's father to uncork it and pour the glasses. Atobe's eyes twitched, but nobody said anything about it. In fact, Mizuki's father was talking brightly about "the state of things," and being thoroughly obnoxious by ending with, "wouldn't you agree, Keigo?" and Atobe's brow creased under his irritated eyebrows as he tried to magic up an appropriate response. In the pause, Mizuki cleared his throat and elbowed Atobe right in the ribs.
"Yes, I know exactly what you mean," Atobe said, and Mizuki's father nodded thoughtfully, but was apparently satisfied. Atobe's glass was filled with a respectable amount of wine and Atobe drank it, perhaps not with a respectable speed.
"So, tell me again, how did you two meet?" Mizuki's mother said. She folded her hands together under her chin to give herself, what Atobe saw as the most horrendous behaviour a woman could ever enact, a false coquettish look. But she blinked brightly at the two of them. Atobe looked wistfully into his empty wine glass.
"Actually, it was in middle school, wasn't it, Atobe-kun?" Mizuki was now regarding him with a smug little smile.
"That's right?" Atobe said, not quite able to lose the questioning tone. Mizuki spluttered, or grunted, and then immediately did his best to pass it off as a soft giggle.
"Oh how you love to tease me, Atobe-kun! Of course it was, when your school, Hyoutei academy," he nodded to his parents as he said it, to make sure they were following, "played against my very own St. Rudolph in the Tokyo prefectural tennis tournament!" Atobe frowned and leaned back in his seat. "It was singles 2, of the consolation match… I fought a good game but you managed to pull out a win at the last second…?" Mizuki's eyes slid to the side as he said that last phrase.
"Hold up," Atobe said, "That was… that was you?" He pointed a finger at him and Mizuki swatted it down with disgust. Atobe laughed and turned to shrug at Mizuki's parents, but their faces were blank and unimpressed. Mizuki's mother coughed and swirled the wine around in her glass.
"I'll thank you not to play these insufferable mind games with me in front of my parents," Mizuki said, crossing his arms and sticking his nose in the air, "Why, you sound surprisingly like a certain Fuji Syuusuke-kun when you speak to me with such an insolent tone!" Mizuki's parents leaned forward, nodding, giving noises of agreement.
"Fuji Syuusuke? He played tennis in middle school didn't he?" Atobe frowned, and Mizuki reached out to slap the back of his hand.
"Atobe-kun!!" His voice was as short as it was shrill, and it felt like the verbal equivalent of the stinging against Atobe's offended knuckles. He pulled his hand away and shook it loose, trying to regain some of the lost feeling. Mizuki gasped, and cleared his throat, and flicked his fingers towards his face, fanning himself. He picked up his wine glass and swallowed the contents in one go, and Mizuki's mother stood up at once with the bottle in her hand.
"Shnookums, do you want mummy to pour you another glass?" She said, through those pursed lips, and Mizuki nodded with an angry energy. She fished up his glass and refilled it, pressing it into his shaking hands, "that's it, drink up!" she said, as if she were feeding milk to a malnourished hedgehog.
"So, now I'm curious, Keigo," Mizuki's father looked at him through his scrunched up eyes, squished under his heavy eyebrows, and yet somehow, a smouldering twinkle escaped from between his eyelashes, "when exactly do you think you first met Hajime?"
Atobe thought carefully about how to play his next move, "When I come to think of it, it WAS middle school," he said, cautiously turning his eyes to Mizuki, "I'm sorry, Mizuki," he said, doing nothing to alter the baby hedgehog's prickliness, but easing off the prickliness of its mother at the very least. "We were at a tennis training camp. We--" he cut himself off, and watched Mizuki, hoping for encouragement that didn't come, but Mizuki's mother said,
"Ahh, the bath," and nodded knowingly. Atobe tried to speak but she said, "Oh yes, we've heard that story many times! How a pure love soaked through you both in the cleansing waters of the rose bath, yes, a romantic story!" Atobe closed his eyes, his forehead aching from the strain of being drawn tight and crinkling at the nose. There wasn't much pure about that encounter, in his own memory, nor was there much about love, but Mizuki was still exhaling loudly for attention, and the true details were not really a dinner table topic.
Mizuki's father reached out to put his arm around his wife's shoulders. "You see, Keigo, this farm has belonged to the Mizuki family for generations -- my father, my father's father -- there's always been an orchard on this land, going back hundreds of years. I myself have been farming since I was a baby," he paused to laugh, and was oddly silent until Atobe laughed in response, "and Hajime there, has been farming since he was a baby."
"Oh but, my little pumpkin is too good for all that!" Mizuki's mother said, turning her fluttering eyelashes to her husband, "I love the farm, and I love you, honey muffin, but the family business just isn't FOR Hajime!" Mizuki's father reached out and patted the back of her hand.
"Of course, I understand that, pet -- and when you came into my life --" He turned to Atobe, "My father took this little orchard and really turned it into the business it is today, the only way you really can with a farm like this: hard work. It was thanks to that, I was able to develop my passion for song," he held his palm outwards in front of him, letting it glide through the air slightly as he spoke. "What I've found, Keigo, is that when you're a talented man, you don’t need to get by on good looks," he spoke now with a dismissive wiggle of his eyebrows that Atobe noted, and stored up to remain affronted by in the future, "even a wrinkled old raisin like me can capture the heart of a lovely young thing like my wife, here." She clicked her tongue and flicked her wrist at him, clearly thrilled.
"Oh, snuffle bunny!" She said, putting her hand on his cheek and leaning in for a delicate kiss, which they performed with exaggerated mwah, mwahs! Atobe winced, and how much older was Mizuki's father? Was she Mizuki's real mother? Was this one of those awful, tasteless marriages showcased all the time on those dreadful reality shows about the nouveau riche? They pulled apart, and Atobe stiffened his shoulders so they wouldn't notice his disgust. "When I first saw you on that stage, I just knew it was the same silly Mizuki-kun I knew in high school!" She bit her lower lip and turned to Atobe, "We used to pass notes to each other under the desk! And now look at us!" She clung to him and giggled.
"That's right," Mizuki's father said, gazing down at his wife, "I know you must look at us like a couple of old fogies, but we're not much different to you! We still look at each other like we're teenagers, don't we, sweetie?"
Atobe rested his chin on his hand and sank low to the surface of the table. Many nights, most in fact, Mizuki and he slept in entirely different rooms of the house -- entirely different wings, actually. The rare nights they shared a bed, Mizuki would slather his face in some kind of pest-repellent moisturizer and then shut out Atobe on all fronts with his blackout eye mask and ear plugs. Atobe had, and often did, spend more titillating nights together with a crossword puzzle than he ever did with Mizuki. "I somehow believe we are not as similar as you may be imagining," he said, voice as flat as a wall he was craving, to smash his head into. And Mizuki slapped Atobe's arm.
"Don't embarrass me in front of my parents by putting your elbow on the dining table!" He hissed. Atobe straightened his back, and picked up his wine glass, only to remember it was empty.
"May I have a refill please?" he said, holding his glass out, utterly defeated.