“Loose ends had a habit of tripping you up
when you least expected it,
particularly when the loose ends were human."
--"Magic's Promise" (Mercedes Lackey)
Kogure was surprised, briefly, when Rukawa turned up at his doorstep late one evening with an armful of kitten.
“Sendoh’s going for the national team training.“
“Ah.” Kogure wondered how he was going to explain this to his parents. “How long will you be gone?”
“A week.”
The kitten is small, and black, and likes sleeping.
Kogure finds out much later, from Mitsui, that in national team training, players are gradually eliminated from day one. Only the best survive until the last day – day seven. But somehow it does not come as a surprise that Rukawa only collects his pet the evening of the seventh day, appearing on his doorstep with Sendoh in tow.
+ + +
He would have laughed at them, sniggered at the thought of that baka kitsune being so exhausted as to fall asleep; would have commandeered the other players’ attention, but for the fact that the seat next to him was empty.
He glanced over again, at the sight of drooping spikes and slack mouths as two bodies leaned against each other like they had always fit together.
The seat beside him suddenly felt larger and colder than it was.
Sakuragi frowned, then put on his headphones and closed his eyes. The world was empty around him, but for the throbbing beat in his head.
+ + +
The days of summer were fading.
+ + +
Sendoh was away, suffering through Coach Taoka’s annual end-of-summer training camp, and Rukawa was … awake.
The house seemed… emptier, somehow, without the sleeping presence of a certain loudmouth a few doors down. Rukawa stared at the blinking lights of his alarm clock.
03: 43: 56
He turned, buried his head under blankets as the ticking noise rushed into his ears, an oppressive stillness settling about him.
03: 44: 47
He had a history test on the Monday when school started again. And Sendoh had a math test.
03: 44: 59
He was going to stop staring at the clock, damnit.
…
Rukawa turned to face his wall.
His phone beeped, and he jumped. A text? At… 3.46am?
Hi—I survived the first day of training and was only late three times! I was even early once (for dinner)! Sleep well and I’ll see you in a couple of days! – A.
Baka. Go to sleep. – K.
+ + +
The late morning sunlight found him sleeping soundly, sheets pooled and tangled and hugging a pillow. The kitten was hungry, and made its hunger known to its owner. Jumping onto the bed after a precarious journey involving an overturned lamp and a shoe, mildly scratched, it made its way to Rukawa’s face and started licking.
Moving away from the ticklish sensation, Rukawa turned over, ignoring the persistent animal. It definitely did /not/ care for the idea of it and its empty stomach being ignored. Attempting to scratch the human’s back resulted in a claw stuck in a bed sheet and no response. Prowling upwards, it ended up on a shoulder, and its first sight of bare skin.
It struck! And Rukawa sat up very quickly at the sensation of two very sharp fangs in his nape of his neck.
At the sudden movement, Rukawa’s kitten lost its grip, and fell, claws extended, onto his back creating two perfectly parallel shallow stripes of red.
“K’so!” Rukawa’s shout echoed in the emptiness of the house. Hissing at the sudden pain, he promptly picked up the little offender and held it up to his eye level.
“That was…bad. Bad kitten. “
It mewed at him and attempted to swipe at his nose. Eyeing it, Rukawa decided it was probably a good time to get up and feed it before he suffered any further indignities.
+ + +
Spooning out a portion of the kitten’s usual fare whilst making sure not to step on the overly affectionate feline twining around his ankles, Rukawa contemplated the day ahead of him.
It was a day free of scheduled training, and free of any other obligations. He liked having days like this, with nothing to do but what whim struck him. Slouching back at the kitchen table, Rukawa tried to pretend that the house in its hollow emptiness did not press on him with its icy lack of something.
Too many kids out at all the outdoor courts.. Tennis team booked the school’s gym.. homework is mostly done.. the important parts anyway. It’s just so warm.. as though summer were just beginning.
Maybe swimming. It would build stamina.
He’d regret it, later.
+ + +
The pool was crowded, of course - filled with the teenagers trying to desperately cram a few more fleeting moments of fun into the last days of another summer in their lives; filled with the children who shrieked, children who stared in bemusement at the sunlight rippling through water.
Rukawa attempted to swim laps, at first. After the third time he was forced to stop to prevent head-on collisions with various people, he gave up. Choosing the part of the pool furthest from the swimming class that was going on, he decided to just relax for a while.
The water was warm, and the sun was shining brightly. Rukawa closed his eyes against its bright glare, and was left with a spotlight on the backs of his eyelids. He wished, briefly, that he had thought to bring goggles.
And earplugs. As the various oh-so-exciting water fights took places in all areas, the water around him would ebb and crest around him in a mild tickling sensation on his cheeks. In the intervals where he was not mostly submerged he could hear a group of girls chatting. It seemed to be moving closer by the minute, and he groaned mentally.
No-no-no. They will be shy and not approach me. They will stay far away. A shark will come and eat them. They will suffer debilitating cramps if they approach within two meters of me. They will see that I am not paying attention and be polite and stay the hell away.
I shall pretend not to hear them. Okay. What to think about. Anything but them. Basketball. Right. Next match is against Shoyo. Ohgod. Sakuragi’s voice. Why does that hurt my ears even in imagination? You may truly be a tensai on your good days, but on your bad days you could be beaten by a rookie.
Up-and-coming rookies. Kiyota isn’t doing so well lately, but still better than Fukuda. Poor Sendoh. It hurts to think of how he must struggle in a team like that. But still. The reasoning behind it is sound. There’s no point in living life in a tropical hothouse like Sawakita Eiji.
Sendoh was hinting he had a new move that he was going to perfect during the training camp. It’s probably a combination of his crossover and some other fake. Hmm… maybe I should cook something nice when he gets back. Nabe, perhaps. He likes that. So, mushrooms?
The sudden rise in the volume of voices he could hear outside his little water cocoon forced Rukawa to emerge, chrysalis-like, from the water.
The sudden appearance of his pale toned body from the water seemed to have momentarily silenced the group of girls. His height, and the sharp features so in vogue at the moment appeared amidst a sparkling shower of water, as if he had stepped straight from the pages of a fairytale.
Glancing coldly at them just long enough to ascertain they were not quite intruding on his bubble of personal space, he decided to try laps again. With the ending of the swim class that had taken up a substantial portion of space, he was able to find an empty lane.
Rukawa was not a particularly fast swimmer, nor a slow one. It was the regularity of his strokes, and the ease with which he cut through the water that set him apart from the rest. That, and his developing sunburn. But, back soothed by the cool touch of the water surrounding it, Rukawa did not notice his back reddening as he swam.
Only after he had left the pool, and washed the chlorine out of his hair, did he notice the slightly stretched feeling of the skin on his back. Flashing back to the brightness of the sun against the back of his eyelids, Rukawa swore mentally. Just what I needed, damnit. A sunburn to send off the summer. Brilliant of you, Kaede.
+ + +
“Tadaima.”
”Yo.” Sendoh waved lazily at Rukawa from his seat in front of the television.
“Hmm?”
“Ah, why I’m back?” Sendoh grinned. “One of the first-years’ mothers kicked up a fuss at the though that her dear baby boy had no trained first-aider on hand in case he twisted an ankle, or heaven forbid, scrape a knee.”
“Oh? So now what’s going to happen?”
“Ahh… I’m not all too sure, but it seems that I might be going back again tomorrow… someone’s supposed to text me if I am. Is there food for me? I cleared out my food before leaving… so much for a week-long camp.”
Rukawa ran through his mental list of food. “Well, with your appetite, the only thing I have is frozen pizza – ”
“Great! They tried to feed us this horrible green slop at lunch today. I think Coach said something about spinach.” Sendoh shuddered theatrically.
Rukawa snickered softly. “It is a perfectly healthy vegetable..”
“Give me something recognizable as former plant matter any day.” Sendoh sulked.
+ + +
Rukawa cursed softly under his breath as his sunburn made its presence felt in the tightness of the skin on his back as he reached for the pizza so inconveniently stored on the top shelf of the freezer.
Not softly enough, apparently. Sendoh, ever-attuned to the rarity of the younger boy’s speech, had padded over on slippered feet to investigate.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Just a mild sunburn.”
“Ehh? Where?” Sendoh eyed Rukawa’s face which was as pale as ever. “And how?”
“My back. I went swimming today.”
“Is it bad?”
“Not really. It feels warm, and the skin is too tight.”
“Well, I know just the thing for it then!” With that, Sendoh grabbed his keys and wallet, and slipping on his shoes, called out, “I’ll be back in a while, just going to the convenience store down the road!”
Rukawa shrugged as the door slammed and went back to making dinner. It did not really hurt, anyway.
+ + +
“I’m back!”
“Welcome back. Pizza’ll be done in another five minutes.”
“That’s good. Look at what I got for you.” Sendoh smiled sunnily from the doorway as he toed off his shoes and waved a green tube at Rukawa.
“Aloe vera gel! It works really well, I used it that time I fell asleep fishing with my cap on my head, and only my chin got burnt.”
“Oh… I was thinking of just leaving it alone. It’s in such an inconvenient area, after all.”
“You shouldn’t. Here, take off your shirt and I’ll put it on for you.”
Rukawa sighed. He knew how stubborn Sendoh could get about these things.
“…Fine. But only just before bed. I have no intention of leaning onto my chair and getting green gunk all over it by accident.”
+ + +
Dinner passed without incident, and they spent the evening relaxing in their own fashion, Rukawa sprawling out on the floor to read, and Sendoh watching a popular drama on television.
By the time Rukawa had showered and changed into sleepwear, he had gotten used to that slight stretch of pain that accompanied every flex of his shoulders and had nearly forgotten about Sendoh’s earlier purchase.
That is, until Sendoh had waved it in front of him. At the sight of the green tube with cheerful lettering proclaiming the wonders of aloe vera and this gel in particular, Rukawa rolled his eyes.
“Oh come on. Would you rather irritate your burn even more tomorrow? It’s going to be very uncomfortable when you play.”
In answer, Rukawa sighed, and turned to face away from Sendoh, muttering, “This had better not stink,” then started to take his shirt off. Tensing up as it scraped past newly-burnt skin, Rukawa slowed down.
Sendoh just stepped nearer, and with one hand, hooked Rukawa’s shirt towards him, leaving plenty of buffering air for his back.
“Aah, what would you do without me?” He teased, helping Rukawa out of his shirt and starting to lather the gel on.
“Saa.. Who knows? I’d probably have a lot more food in stock.” Rukawa snarked back.
“Ah! But you hurt me so.” Sendoh exclaimed theatrically, his hands ever so gently smoothing the gel over Rukawa’s back all the while.
“Ne, have you gotten thinner again?” He eyed Rukawa’s back critically.
Rukawa tensed. “Just a bit.”
“Just relax, will you? It’s not like I can actually do anything about that.. “ and in a faux whisper, “unless I forcefeed you until you burst everyday, and wouldn’t that be a pretty sight.” By now, Sendoh had started to slow the application of gel.
“Uh.. you might have to lie down on the bed actually, you’re burnt all the way until your waist, and it’s getting kind of hard reach.”
Rukawa shrugged, moving readily over and relaxing on the bed.
“Ha, some people I know would kill to have me doing this for them.”
“Hnn.”
“Yes of course you’re not them. For one thing you hardly appreciate me enough – “ he winked, “– and for another, they wouldn’t be falling asleep.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Heh.”
Finishing, Sendoh capped the tube, then left it by the bed. Pausing by the door to turn down the temperature and switch off the lights, he murmured softly “Sleep well.”
+ + +
As the door clicked close, Rukawa’s eyes opened. Reaching out for the tube of gel on the table, he read the labels under the moonlight. “Refreshing, cooling, soothing. Great for sunburns.”
So why did it feel like the skin where Sendoh had touched him tingled?
___________________________
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