Work Text:
shallow waters
The pads of his fingers skate down Ritsu’s open palm, rough and pressing. Before Ritsu can entangle their fingers, Shou pulls his hand away under the guise of using it to point in the direction of an oncoming train.
Ritsu can’t tell if his friend is teasing him or if his hands periodically decide to act on their own subconscious desires. The train which Shou had pointed out roars past them, the rumbling groan scattering his thoughts like great falling rubble.
Shou buys their tickets and one sweet jelly-filled bun for both of them to share. Ritsu points out he could have paid for his own, but Shou ignores him.
Ritsu follows him to stand precariously over the edge of the platform. The tracks are darkened by shadow in the dim station lighting.
Shou passes over the bun before shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. The bun is unusually sweet on Ritsu’s tongue. He stuffs the leftovers into his right pocket, not minding the crumbs that gather between the fabric.
The late Deccember chill bites at the edges of his fingers and ears. He’s thankful for the wooly scarf wrapped chokingly tight around his neck. His shallow breaths condense into thin vapors over his nose.
He chances a sideways glance at Shou. The overhead lighting rings his head in gold, highlighting his cheekbones and making his lashes appear longer. The tip of his nose his pink and his eyes are dark and unreadable under the deepened shadow of his brow.
He averts his gaze to the tracks before their eyes can meet, but the small upturn in the corner of Shou’s mouth, so slight he might have imagined it, tells Ritsu he was a little too late.
He catches the telltale rumbling and peers into the end of the tunnel. Twin headlights start out as punctures of white in a shroud of darkness, soon enlarging to moons of light before his eyes.
He thinks he hears a shout, but can’t make anything out over the deafening roar. Just before the train approaches, his body is yanked backwards by the elbow.
“Watch out, dude! Nearly shaved your nose clean off.”
Ritsu blinks in the flickering light. Shou is staring at him, amused on the side of concerned. Shou laughs, short and melodious. Ritsu would jump in front of the tracks time and time again just to hear it.
Passengers stream in through the sliding doors. Shou shoulders his way through the crowd, Ritsu on his tail.
They sit right by the door. Shou sinks back into his seat and pulls out his ipod. Ritsu grips the edge of the plastic seat as the train jerks forward.
With nothing to occupy his attention, he looks towards the small television screen above the window. A news station announcing an emergency broadcast. The scene is one of a city leveled to rubble, blood spattered over overturned concrete, helicopters hovering overhead.
At the request of the public health administration, all individuals in the country in possession of any kind of psychic ability are to turn themselves in, or risk facing further disciplinary action. Government officials are reported to have begun apprehending individuals who they believe to be, as they refer to themselves, “espers”. Any individuals in possession of information pertaining the whereabouts of so called espers are to make a report immediately. Detainees under suspension are already being sent into custody…
Sweat gathers along the back of his neck. He picks at a loose thread in his sweatpants, mind spinning with doubt of what his future has in store; fear of repercussions, reactions, the unknown. What’s lost that he will never get back. The novelty of here, right now, and the sudden realization that this might be his new normal.
He starts a little when Shou presses an earbud into the shell of his ear. Ritsu looks from the TV to his friend. He’s staring vacantly at the bright square of light in his hand, seeming to fiddle with the device, the other end of his wired earbuds stuck into his right ear.
A song starts playing, slow and easy. Ritsu recognizes piano and grunge-like drumbeats, but can’t make out the lyrics, let alone the artist. He doesn’t know who or what Shou listens to anyway, isn’t much of a music person himself.
Ritsu shuts his eyes and tilts his head back onto the window. The music blends in with outside sounds filtering into his empty ear. The grinding of metal on metal, the rolling of wind against the train carts.
He is floating in space, dark but buzzing. This is probably why Shou listens to music, he thinks. To escape. The thin wire between them is like a silvery thread connecting their souls. An artery beating blood between them. His heart picks up pace with the thought.
The glass is stabbing cold against the dark swirls of his hair. Where their palms were once centimeters apart, Shou is now pressing the side of his to Ritsu’s, probably without realizing. The song fades into another.
—
deep end
He can see the striking cerulean light yards away. The public pool is vast in dimension, made even greater the closer they dare to approach it.
From up close, the gaping pit of fluorescence is daunting, almost unnerving in its yawning capacity. The perfect blue of it feels unreal, a saturated filter that does nothing but amplify every vibrant emotion roiling under his skin, fighting just to surface.
He immediately feels when the warmth of his friend leaves his side. He looks over to see Shou stepping a few feet away to shuck off his jacket, dragging off his shirt and jeans. Ritsu almost forgets to look away.
He stands stock-still as Shou passes under the surface, dipping his feet in slowly, then sliding into the water all at once, like a slick fish.
He wades into the very center of the pit before turning around to face Ritsu. Head and shoulders above the water, the rest of his body is distorted in a manner so misshapenly surreal it makes Ritsu’s skin crawl.
The look Shou gives him is expectant and challenging. He feels his palms start to sweat in the pockets of his jacket. The sheer contrast in their respective states of dress is enough to make Ritsu laugh, short and uneasy. Shou’s eyebrows raise.
“You can’t swim?”
“No. I’ve told you this already.”
“I know. I’m in disbelief.”
Cornflower blue eyes stare back at him. Seconds stretch, the only sound coming from Shou’s unseen limbs lapping against the water and the constant breeze rocking the dark trees in the background, tall shadows against the cloudy gray sky.
He barely takes time to mellow in his own defeat, pulling off layer by layer with a tickling urgency.
The tepid water is a whirlpool that siphons him into its depths. He has a feeling he was going to end up there anyway, like lamb to a slaughter.
Although room temperature, the water does nothing to warm his soul. It billows into his boxers, pushing against this thighs. There’s nothing but his own skin to keep the pressure from buffeting into his insides. He feels uncomfortably suspended in the unnatural glow.
Moments pass of Ritsu awkwardly hanging onto the edge of the pool before Shou finally swims over to his friend.
“Let go. Don’t struggle. Let the water carry your weight.”
He pulls Ritsu’s shoulders away from the wall. Ritsu kicks unceremoniously against the weight that encases him from all sides. Every lesson begrudgingly given to him in this exact space by this same person seems to escape his mind.
At the sound of his panicked breathing, Shou’s hands travel south to wrap securely around Ritsu’s waist.
“Relax, dude.”
Ritsu shuts his eyes and breathes in.
He arrests himself to him. He lets every thought, disconcerting, unsettling, alarming, anxious, dissipate one by one into the darkening sky.
He opens his eyes and steadily takes in his surroundings.
The turquoise of the lights from underneath the water create a bright and florescent nebula for Ritsu to float in now, to drown himself in later.
He stops trying not to look to Shou. It’s as if the water itself is glowing neon blue against his skin, casting from below a sight that is in every regard directly in contrast to the way he looked at the train station. The strange realization sweeps over his mind like waves crawling ashore.
Shou’s face is mere inches away from his, flushed and unusually focused. Ritsu’s breath is warm and skates across the plane of Shou’s cheeks, mingling with his freckles.
Ritsu wishes he was an artist, just to have a means of capturing the scene. Shou could probably do it justice. Of course he could.
Shou smiles at him, lips creasing with sincerity. His eyes are the color of the water, yet a thousand times brighter. Shou drags the both of them out into the deep end, hands pressing so tight, Ritsu feels the blood beat against his torso.
They inhale each other’s breath for a while before Ritsu needs to end the silence.
“Are you scared?” Though he already knows the answer.
“No. Why should I be?”
Ritsu is scared.
“Think about it,” Shou continues. “Why do they want to subjugate us? They’re the ones who’re scared”
Ritsu thinks about it.
“Plus, together, we kick major ass. That’s double the trouble. They don’t stand a chance, Ritsu”
“I guess so.”
He looks at Shou’s hair. It’s grown out a little, no longer cropped so close to his scalp. It’s a deeper crimson in the winter, with the ends still seared off and dark.
Ever the sentimentalist, he lets the memory wash over him: earlier that year, the day Ritsu turned sixteen and Shou brought him out of the city. He had taken Ritsu to the house he stayed at when he first moved to Japan as a child.
It was surrounded by woods, lush and bright in the summer light. The house was large and facing perfectly east, the backyard dappled in the fiery setting sun. There was a treehouse propped up on a towering oak tree. The wooden planks were decrepit and rotting with age. He thinks he remembers him saying he had built it with his father.
Shou had pulled out from his backpack a canister of Zippo lighter fluid. He tossed it to Ritsu and, upon seeing his friend’s confusion, graced him with the comment “It’s your birthday.”
Ritsu popped the cap and, climbing onto the highest branches, spilled some over the decaying structure.
Shou, not bothering with climbing, flew up to meet him, pouring the remaining half of the fluid over what was left of the roof.
They stood at the foot of the tree. Shou had held the unmistakable spark in his eyes long before he had ever experimented with pyrokinesis. Now, Ritsu watched his face light up with reckless abandon as he shot fire from his palms.
Ritsu backed up immediately. The heat made his thin shirt a second skin. He held his forearm before his eyes against the glare of the flames.
When Shou was finished spitting fire, Ritsu brought his arm down to the alarming realization that stray sparks had caught onto the ends of Shou’s hair and were crawling up the edge of his t-shirt.
He panicked and pulled at Shou’s clothing. Screaming together, the smile on his friend’s face only seemed to grow.
The catastrophe had ended in his white shirt burnt black and his orange hair nearly fully singed, the char laying leaden against his scalp. Ritsu remembers his laugh, like ringing bells, the memory imprinted in his brain like footprints in snow.
“We should run away together.”
The water pulls and sways them closer together
“I can’t. Shigeo….”
“If you didn’t have a brother, would you run away with me?”
“No.” Yes.
He doesn’t need anyone else, never did. The thought takes refuge in his conscious, warm and palatable.
He brings his own arms around Shou’s waist, laying elbows aside elbows. Shou tangles their legs, bringing them impossibly closer.
“I think I’m in love with you, Ritsu.”
“I know,” he stammers awkwardly. “I mean. I’m in love with you, too.”
“Nice.”
Ritsu sighs and kisses the tip of his nose before bringing their lips together. For the first time in his life, he wants to live through every day, wants to taste every moment, be it bitter or sweet, doesn’t want to miss a second. As long as he gets to spend all of it wrapped safe in Shou’s embrace.