illusioning | IC Contact

[He gives the racket a spin, fingers and wrist applying a touch too much force, so it spins harder than it ought to and lands with a clatter against the chilled turf of the court. There's a small part of him that teases in the back of his mind, in Niou's voice, about smooth and rough and all the overdone innuendo that could be drawn from it. It's the sort of thing he'd normally shake his head at, smile wryly, dismiss as childish. If he were in a different mood, maybe he would.

That Niou doesn't say it himself is a beacon of indication. Perhaps he's in a similar mood, too. Perhaps they all are.

It's always easier to read things through tennis.

The racket lands smooth, and he quietly shows it to Niou before heading back to his baseline, pocketing a few balls and selecting the one he'll use to start the game.]

Are you ready?

[On any other day, he might've. On any other day, he probably would have, even. But he knows where the line is that he could, but shouldn't, cross. He can act that nothing is wrong, he can pretend that Akaya didn't suddenly go missing and leave Yagyuu in more of a mess than he'd be willing to admit.

But he watches him too much and knows and sees the signs.

Then there's the other side of it. The side of him that sees this as partly what it would have been like when he went missing before. After being here for so long as well, leaving then coming back with no recollection. It doesn't make sense. They aren't calculated disappearances and re-appearances - if there are even any of those. There's no real pattern to it, just a lot of fuck ups that they have to deal with. Not just them, but all of the people here as well. He didn't really care so much before this either - only about how things were never this confusing at home.

Only tennis never changes - so maybe that's why now they're on the courts he'll let them be serious for a while. They fail at talking - at a lot of things really.

But tennis never changes.]

Whenever you are. [He lets his mouth curve, tightens then loosens his grip on the handle and prepares himself to play the game.]

[There was once a day, on a court a long time ago (they were going to win, they were going to win for Yukimura so he'd pull through too), when Niou spoke in his borrowed voice and told him to quit playing around, that it was time to play seriously, Niou-kun. It was a day when he felt similar to the way he's feeling now, when there was all this turmoil inside that he couldn't express, not as Yagyuu, not without tennis.

The ball arcs up from his fingers, and he serves, and there's no doubt from the force of the shot that he's playing seriously today, too.

Playing against Niou, in some ways, is just as familiar as playing at his side. They know each other. He already knows how Niou will return this serve, and knows that Niou knows he knows. On a normal day, that's where the tricks would come in, where the mind game would begin, where they'd start pushing each other higher and higher toward the limits of their own potential to see who could break through that transparent ceiling first. That's when it would start to get fun.

Today, the strings of his racket sing as they collide against the ball, telegraphing his message (I don't understand, why is it like this, how do I fix this, why can't I fix this, what do I do, tell me, tell me, tell me) across the net in the wake of his serve.]

[And on that day he played as Yagyuu - played as the one staying at the sidelines as he let Yagyuu play around in his place. He stepped back and let him use his identity as the Trickster of the Courts to his advantage. To use it and be it like he knows, has known for a long time, that he can be. To let go for once, to drop the persona of the Gentleman and be let loose so he can let go of what weighs him down.

As the game starts neither of them are really doing mind games yet - if they even will during this match. He doesn't really even need to think as he takes a step forward to return the ball, slamming his weight into it, being strong even if he doesn't know the answer other than that as his reply. He'll be there. He is there and even if Yagyuu doesn't know how to fix it, even if he doesn't know what to do, he will be there.

They may never understand how this place works.

For once he'll take the lead with this though, whatever it is, and make it fix to his rules. A different type of game making, maybe. It's tentative, but utterly accepting and understanding in a way that only Yagyuu would ever understand.]

[The ball comes careening back, and Yagyuu is already moving to receive it, knowing almost intuitively where it will arc and where he needs to be in response. How many times have they done this? It must be thousands. And that's reassuring, in its way, because Yagyuu likes things that are stable and predictable and certain, and there's control lurking in the angle of the racket, the trajectory of the ball. He needs that, when so many other things currently feel as though they're spiraling out of control.

Niou wasn't here the last time he felt like this, because that was the time when Niou was the one gone. And he thinks of it now, of his footprints in the snow, the stillness of the forest, how it'd taken Kujikawa Rise to finally ferret him out and push him to the brink of admitting how destroyed he was by it. He remembers tipping his head back to look at the slivers of gray sky above the canopy of the trees, and holding back the damp heat that stung at his eyes so he wouldn't wash his contact lenses out.

He doesn't use the Laser as his return, not yet, because what he really wants is a rally, furious and fast and so all-consuming that he doesn't have any opportunity to remember those things anymore.]

[It's more fitting with a rally, because when things are coming back and forth, back and forth, back and forth there is a return. It is the proof to see that he isn't staring at a blank wall like before he arrived at the courts after him.

It's rather amazing how a shift in the hold of a racket, the step of a foot, the angle of an elbow can tell him so much already anyway. Outside of the courts, Yagyuu is harder to understand than he'll ever want to admit. He can decipher everything and still come out perplexed because this is Yagyuu he's dealing with. But here. Here is different.

His breath hitches as he moves forward again - closer to the net - and returns the ball just as swiftly. The racket feels heavy in his hand, but firm and real. There's no question that this was happening, there never was really - maybe he took it for granted in a way, because he wasn't the one who knows and remembers an experience of being in a place where the other is not.

He might not have experienced it personally. He doesn't know if he ever will. Thinking about it makes his return harder and more furious - letting them go all out so Yagyuu can get that opportunity to just stop thinking and play.]

[It's easy to fall into the rhythm that their movements set, just as it's easy to identify that carefully, subtly, Niou is the one setting the pace. And this, too, is a reflection of how they work, Niou pressuring the opponent, Yagyuu waiting for the perfect attack. It's no different when they're on opposite sides of the court than when they're at each other's shoulders, facing down whatever pair was foolish enough to think they stood a chance against them at the time.

And this is good too, because he needs this as much as he needs the control that tennis provides; of all the people in the world, it's Niou that he trusts to hand this to, to let him control, to let him try to make it into something that makes sense when it's slipping through Yagyuu's fingers and he knows he can't do it himself. Akaya is gone, but Niou is here this time. And there is tennis. And it makes sense.

He soon loses count of the shots they take, how many times the ball passes back and forth between them, but it's visible, as the rally goes on, how the tension is beginning to seep from his shoulders, and the distraught emotions hiding behind his expressionless facade are beginning to recede. This is right. It's tennis. Sometimes it feels like he needs this like breathing.

And when the perfect ball comes, he reaches for it in that familiar way, arm going up and racket flashing out to send a Laser screaming toward Niou's baseline.]

[The steady thud of the ball on the clay is kind of similar to a heart beat. Niou times his breaths to the slams of the ball, lets it regulate his breathing as the rally goes on. He doesn't watch the ball - he doesn't need to. Yagyuu tells him everything about where to go, where to hit back, how soft or how hard, high or low.

He knows when it's coming. Yagyuu dips his shoulder, straightens up so much that Niou feels the twinges in his back from when he imitates it.

Then it's slamming past him faster than he can reach it - but when they're a team he doesn't need to reach it. And still. He doesn't look at that ball, he just looks at Yagyuu. If they were in a match playing doubles, he wouldn't get this view. He wouldn't get to see the way his glasses glint as he poses, racket pointed straight out and it does almost feel like a bullet.

At least with this, with tennis, this world - the world of Pokemon - dosn't exist and it's just them. Them and the net and that small green ball that is now behind him on his side of the court laying there.]

[It's a second before he realizes Niou is watching him, and it takes another second after that for the recognition to set in that his heart seems to have leapt into his throat while he wasn't paying attention.

It's the next second past, when he lets out the breath he didn't realize he was holding. It condenses in the air as it drifts past his lips, a damp and smoky cloud of white in the chill winter air.

He didn't move. He didn't move, he didn't look, he didn't even flinch—and every bit of that speaks louder than words could, translates across the court in the unmistakable message that he knew, and that revelation radiates warmth through his chest like a freshly-lit candle in a dark room.

He knew.

Someone understood.

Strange how it's a persistent knack of Niou's, supplying the things that Yagyuu didn't even realize he needed until after he's already taken advantage of them.]

Niou-kun.

[He can feel his resolve beginning to break, like spiderweb cracks on the surface of ice. I missed you is three syllables, ten letters, and the prospect of confessing it is seeming easier and easier all the time.]

[He doesn't break that contact either, just lets some of the tension drain away for a second, relaxes as he swallows down a lump in his own throat. His head tilts to the side a little, eyes still glued to him - never looking away.

When does he anyway- Though that is also the point. He doesn't miss things because he watches and takes everything in and slowly digests it until everything slowly slots into place. It's taken practice to get this good at it, which is why there's a small knowing smile on his lips now.

Yes, he knows. Just like he always will.

Even if he keeps stepping back from a lot of things in this world that don't make sense - there are simple things like this. Like the I missed you, like I need you here that are okay and will always be there. It's something that he needed as well, though no where near so much.]

He's really gone.

[And this is, perhaps, the first time since they discovered it that he's actually spoken those words aloud, because speaking them somehow makes them real, gives them power, and Yagyuu is always, always better at pretending things don't exist than he is at dealing with them. But he can say it now, because the frenzy of the rally has lifted some of the weight from his shoulders, and Niou is still looking at him. He's still here. He understands.

It's a shame, he thinks absently, almost without realizing it, that there's a net in the way. Part of him wants to reach, wants to see Niou reach back. Even if everything else changes, even if he was wrong on the afternoon when he was sick, even if he doesn't know what Niou is thinking about that or about him or about the possibility of them, this much won't change. They're partners. It's tennis, and deeper than tennis, and he can rely on that even when nothing else makes sense.]

The last time...when you left—

[The words catch in his throat, and it's hard to know what to say. Words are much more complicated than tennis.]

If it's my turn next...

[It feels as though he's winded for a short moment as those words settle in and around him. He hadn't even been there that long, hadn't gotten used to Akaya's presence to be hit quite as hard - but it's still like family leaving.

So yes, he understands.

He takes one step forward at first. It's hesitant, not entirely it's what Yagyuu wants or not.

And then he's speaking again. If it's my turn next... If it was, what would he do? He'd apparently been here before, lived without Yagyuu there and had been alright. But... then that was also different. Because he'd been there first then, hadn't he? But that isn't quite the point here, is it? He needs to give him the answer that he needs, because he isn't the one breaking down here.

Each step he takes closer to the net is slow - or at least it feels it. His feet kind of move on their own until he's right at the edge of it, fingers of his right hand curling over the net. He offers a faint smirk.]

Then I'll just have to wait until you get back.

[They both it'll not be that simple, but... it's also the truth as well. There's nothing more to it. He's already proof enough that they can come back.]

[There is only one thought that flickers through Yagyuu's head at that precise moment, the moment when Niou's fingers curl and those words are spoken, and that thought is that the net, frankly, needs to get the hell out of his way.

But of course it's not a thought he acts on, not in the demonstrative way that part of him wants to. If he were safe beneath a white wig and contact lenses, then maybe he would—maybe he'd jump the net, leap it like a gazelle, cross the last symbolic barrier between the two of them. But it's always easier to do things as Niou than as Yagyuu, and this is a moment when he needs to be Yagyuu, because he needs Niou to be Niou and there's a natural balance that must be maintained.

But the words take him back to that meeting long ago in the forest, when he'd ached to be Niou and had to be Yagyuu a previous time, when he'd said the same thing to quiet Niou's same fears. We'll find our way back together. We always do. That's how we are.

And Niou came back, like the stray cat he is, at his own pleasure and on his own time but he came back, and here they are.

He's at the net before he realizes it, too, having gravitated slowly and unconsciously nearer, the racket still held loosely at his side.]

There was something I told you. The last time.

[They're so close, and he wants to reach—but no, it's Niou who moves and Yagyuu who waits, and he's Yagyuu, he's Yagyuu.]

[It's kind of like a moth drawing closer to a flame, in a way. Because they are not perfect - not only does that state not exist, but there are far too many lies and deceit in everything in a way that makes this no where close to perfection. When his own hesitancy at stepping forward proves to be not needed, however, he lets his breaths slow out and forces himself to relax.

He's clear on who they have to be here, after all. It's just a shame that this is harder to see the steps ahead before they happen so he can calculate all of his moves.

So he doesn't calculate anything. He just reaches out, reaches up to grip onto Yagyuu's shoulder and squeeze gently. He can feel himself gravitate in closer, just a little, until the personal bubble is completely popped and he's wormed his way closer.]

What was it? [He's not pushing though, not as much as he could at least. Just enough, much more than he has done so far.]

[It's not as though he doesn't see the touch coming, because he does, but that recognition isn't enough to keep him from flinching in the moment it makes contact. It's such a small thing, so insignificant next to all the ways they've interacted before, and yet there's something else there, too, that's worth jumping at—the familiarity, the anticipation.

Ball's in your court, Yagyuu. What now?]

The same thing.

[Different words, the same sentiment. Deep down, they're so alike, aren't they?]

You went six months without me. Before I caught up. It's...a long time to wait.

[Maybe the actual game has stopped, but the rally hasn't really. They're still in a slight tug of war, only this time it's with actions and words.

He actually laughs under his breath at that response, because predictably enough, he thinks almost the same. It shouldn't be a surprise at all. Even if he hadn't quite expected him to flinch at the contact.

Only now he has to deal with this... again. Back to his turn. Back to see what he'll do with this. Take the easy route out, or to not.]

But I'd still wait.

[I always will. In fact, while he might've been a little more invasive had Yagyuu not flinched, he does still nudge Yagyuu's chin with the top of his head. It's a distancing sort of comfort that only lasts for a second but it's still there and asking whether the hand on his shoulder was going too far or what.

It would have been okay back home.]

[This would've been natural, once, between them.

It takes a moment to sink in, to really connect, but when it does it hits hard—not like a punch, but like a dousing of ice water, a sudden waking up to the truth. This was natural once, to move like this and move each other like this, and they never thought twice about it. Not until Yagyuu opened his eyes to a bedroom that wasn't his own and learned he was somehow six months late without ever realizing he'd even been a single step behind, and everything shifted, wobbled, like a top beginning to succumb to the gravity of its own weight. This was natural once, and now he flinches when Niou touches him, and he is the only one who knows why.

And suddenly he knows, knows, what it had been like to be Niou, six months of memories alone and faced with someone who didn't realize, hadn't lived an instant without him, hadn't changed from the separation and the factors acting on his psyche that forced him to react, to adapt, to survive.

He'd asked Niou once, that day. You used to be able to tell me anything. What changed? And now it's his turn to keep the secrets, and now he knows exactly how Niou must feel because he was once that same person, under those same circumstances, with that same confusion and lack of clarity and uncertainty about where to move next from there.

It's nothing new to Yagyuu, the discovery that he's a hypocrite. He finds it stings, just the same.]

If I had my way, you'd never have to.

[He still doesn't know where the line is, how much is too much. But he tips his chin down, nudging back with his nose, feeling the brush of white hair against his mouth.]

The things I haven't told you...it's not because I think I can't. Or because I don't trust you. I thought it...might make it easier, if I didn't. That's all.

[In a small way it's harder, because he usually is the one to make the first move as well. He's already treading so thinly on ice as it is, the flinching had proved that, and normally he's not this cautious either. He pushes until he breaks through, creates an opening but in this case it's harder because he can't see the results like he normally would. He's not stupid. He knows there are things that are important here that he doesn't know, things that leave him stuck with this confusion and lack of understanding about what is going on.

So he just takes what he can.

He breathes him in, maybe he shouldn't, but this is the closest they've been since he got back and it's nice that even though there is a barrier between them, it's not as big as it was. Not really.

He also knows that on some level, it might never be the same as it was back home either - time does curious things, after all. Niou can see the changes, even if he doesn't know the causes for those changes. And Yagyuu's words are enough for now. They're warm enough and while they don't really let him in on anything, it's a sign that he shouldn't really take it as personally as he could do. It's why, while Yagyuu isn't looking - can't see even if he might already know - he smiles.

He might not know much about what has happened, but he sees enough.]

I know.

[It's why he's waiting, isn't it? Waited and waiting and will wait.]

[There's a moment, as those two simple words drift away through the chill winter air, when Yagyuu almost lets himself wonder if maybe there's a chance.

At what, he's not precisely sure, but maybe it's whatever they were stumbling toward the last time they were together, or maybe it's at something similar but new, or maybe it's something different entirely. He doesn't know, isn't sure, but he thinks vaguely that it's something he wants, and the relationship between them has always been colored and defined with overtones of desires. Niou wanted to see his walls come down, wanted to watch him cut loose, wanted to see what lurked beneath the face he showed the world. Yagyuu wanted to taste the freedom that came with being someone else, wanted to be someone else, wanted to be himself as he really is in a way that no repercussions could attach. They want things, and they make them happen. That's who they are.

The words that set off that first reckless kiss were anything you want.

But he's learned, now, not to be reckless. Maybe it's making him overly cautious, swinging too far to the other extreme, but mistakes were made and flaws dug in like needles and it isn't often that people get second chances like this, to fix what went wrong by never choosing that option in the first place. He wants to push but he doesn't, because pushing is how inertia builds, and he doesn't know yet if it will cut a new path away from those past mistakes, or fall back into the groove that led right to them.

And yet his arm fits so well around Niou, gathering him in close—and come to think of it, when did that happen?

It's so instinctive to want him close, like they're two halves of the same whole fighting to get back together again.]

Do you want me to?

[He thinks he means, do you want me to tell you, but on second thought, maybe he's really asking something completely different.]

[He's not entirely sure when it happened either, but the hand that had been holding onto Yagyuu's shoulder ends up sliding up to rest at the back of his neck anyway - more for ease as he is pulled closer. It's natural though, in a way that's possibly unnatural. Everything does bleed together in ways, when it's like this. Even if they had been in the same house, the same rooms, it didn't exactly feel like they ever were up until this point either. The closest he'd sat had been when Yagyuu had been sick.

He thinks over the question now that he can. He knows he's relaxing more than he should, because he doesn't know what any of this means, he just does it. But that question almost throws him off, because he can hear the possible double meanings to it, but he doesn't know if he's just hearing it because he wants to hear that either.]

Whenever you're ready.

[It might seem like a simple answer to it, but it caters for the either/or there as well. What is it that you want? The question in the back of his own mind asks whether he ever will be though.]

He's really gone.

[He puts his head down, breathes, caught up in thoughts and memories that he can't beat back and suppress no matter how fervently he tries. He pins down one and another escapes, bouncing back to prick incessantly at the back of his mind, nagging and taunting. So many of them have gone. So few of them are left.

Akaya was the first familiar face he met in person after he was dragged in here, himself.

But it's not easier to think about the fresh wounds of Akaya's departure in lieu of the older, scarred ones of Niou's. It all stings the same. There's too much to think about and he can't clear his mind, and it's colored all over with the lingering, wrenching urge to steal a kiss from his partner's mouth just to make himself forget for a little while.

But he won't, because Niou has seen through him again; he's not ready, not yet, because that urge is a reckless one and he already succumbed to recklessness once, and sometimes it feels exquisite to let himself be swept away by the undertow but not here, not now, not with this.

He's been fortunate enough, beyond all expectation, to be given a second chance. He's not about to press his luck and hope he might still have the safety net of a third.]

You'll know, when I am.

[But this is all right, for right now. They're too close and too wrapped up in each other for the boundaries of friends or teammates, but that's never stopped them before. They're partners. It means something. It makes this all right, no matter what feelings lurk behind it.]

Mm. [It's hummed out more than anything, just an agreement.] It doesn't mean he won't be back either though.

[Maybe he shouldn't be offering that at this point. Maybe he shouldn't be commenting on it any further when there is so much that is rocky and hard to touch upon already. He hasn't been there long enough this time to notice what it really feels like to get used to this territory with someone else for it all to be washed away.

It's different, somehow.

Either way, at this point he knows and understands more than Yagyuu tries to let on. He knows that while he may not be clued in on things, that he isn't all that ready to discuss whatever it is he's struggling with. All he can do is be there whenever that time comes.]

I always do.

[There's another small hint of a smile on his face even as he says that - even if it's a little painful to hold on to this uncomfortable feeling for a little longer. To keep questioning everything. If he thinks about it though, he can assume it's like another mind game they have to play until the final result is released. That makes it a little easier, as does the hold they have right now - close, but not quite touching upon how close they are.]

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