*This story would take place before Ryo and Seiji had any kind of intimate relationship, maybe even during the series when they were slightly younger, and is an attempt on explaining how it might have been before their friendship grew into something other than friendship......*
As I watch you flickering slowly
in the shadows nothing to hold
it's like I can't recall our time before
and would that be so wrong?
There is something beautiful shining
in the world of night in your head
Funny for a while I thought it came from the sky
but it's in your head
as it fills your head
You and I
Don't always fly
Let me come I want to fall
deep into the dark
but I'll come back to you
And I'll always know how to find you
Cuz you shine like the midnight sun
d2
The sky was heavy and blue. Thunder heads rumbled deep and ominous on the not so far horizon, clouds building into massive dark gray towers in the afternoon's heat, promising rain soon. Rain to dispel the stagnant humid heat and rain to lighten the air. Ryo could live with that, dragging his arm across his forehead, sweaty and burning. Not the best day to be training, but they needed it.
Ryo nodded to himself when Kento slammed the twin katana down, finally locking Sai's spear into the dirt, then sharply swung his leg up, kicking Sai in the chest, and sending him flying backwards. Sai slid to a stop in the grass, clutching his side, looking up at his spear with regret. Everyone had lost their shirt by now, the breeze gone, the sun low and hot.
"Ouch." Was all Sai managed to get out.
But Ryo still kept his eyes on him, Sai was fast and deceptive when it came to strength. It would take a lot more than that to keep him down for good. Kento swung the swords back, backing away, a weary set look on his face, one hard kick and he struck the spear stuck in the ground, knocking it over so Sai could reach it.
"Easy with those swords Kento." Ryo murmured, then louder. "Sai, grab some swords yourself!"
Sai groaned as he stood, chucking his spear expertedly so that it stuck in the ground next to all of their equipment.
"The katana Ryo?" Sai's voice was bleak.
Ryo just smiled a little as he nodded. Sai was actually not bad with blades, he had the speed and grace to use the weapons well, while Kento tended use them like battering rams, bashing at his opponent until they buckled under him. It left him open to anything faster or thought out. It made Ryo wince every time Kento snapped another sword blade. But if it hurt to watch Kento use swords like baseball bats, Rowan with a sword was close to torture.
Ryo looked over at Seiji and Rowan far off by the lake, by a weeping willow that draped it's lazy branches into the calm rippling water of the blazing water, the sun glinting savagely off it's surface.
Seiji was demonstrating forms with his sword, Rowan behind him and following Seiji's slow graceful movements with a sword of his own. They were black silhouettes against the sparkling water. Seiji paused to walk around Rowan's fairly descent form, the heavy sword raised in an awkward position. Ryo couldn't hear Seiji, but Seiji's sword tip impatiently tapped Rowan's sword up into place, and then tapped Rowan's front leg forward.
Ryo felt himself laugh a little, Rowan was the only one patient enough for Seiji's lessons, his methods were very old school.
If truth be told, Ryo was secretly in awe of Seiji upbringing. It was like the movies.
It made Ryo always think of those old Bruce Lee movies he used to watch long ago, on his grandmother's tiny black and white television and then in the crowded center rec. rooms. When he saw Seiji snap a command or get disgusted with a performance, Ryo could see those Spartan dojos, full of straight faced cult members of the Dragon or Tiger, something like that. Ryo couldn't really remember the names of those weird movies, that was more Rowan's thing. Ryo never said that to Seiji though, he doubted Seiji had ever even seen anything like that to make sense to him anyway. Besides it was very disrespectful and Ryo felt very guilty whenever he thought it. It didn't seem fair to even tease someone, only if to your self, if they didn't understand it.
Seiji and Rowan were walking back.
Seiji paused near Ryo. " I saw that little stunt Kento pulled." They both watched with interest as Sai picked up a pair of katana and begin the slice the air around him with extraordinary speed, Sai mumbling something about them being too light.
Ryo sighed. "Kento gave Sai his spear." Ryo wondered if Seiji missed anything. "Yeah well him and Sai are used to training together in their own way."
"Damn it Ryo." Seiji growled, moving away. "This is training not charity."
v v v
Ryo leaned against the doorway, pulling the shirt over his head and tossing it over a chair. He pulled his black hair out of the pony tail it was in and shook it loose, letting it fall around his shoulders. His muscles ached from clashing metal all day, without the benefit of even his lessor armor to take some of the blows. The dim room flooding with bright light from the fridge when he pulled the door open, he stood there and stared for a while waiting for something he wanted to drink to appear, instead of what was there instead.
Cool aid and grapefruit juice. Ryo made a small face.
What is wrong with water?
His eyes fell a carton that was shoved in the back. Milk. Sighing, he reached for it, and not bothering to find a glass, just drank from the carton, letting the ice cold milk run down his throat. He realized how thirsty he was, the cold milk igniting his thirst, and tipping his head back , he let the milk run down his face when it poured out faster than he could drink it.
"Ryo, what are you doing?"
Ryo paused, lowering the carton and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Seiji stood unsteadily in the opposite doorway, drinking from a bottle of water. His shirt was off as well, the white cotton pants he wore to train in were dusty from the fight, and Seiji seemed to be favoring one leg. Ryo's eyes narrowed, ready to put the carton back but then realized it was empty. "What happened?" Ryo gestured to Seiji's thigh. It was shuddering slightly.
Seiji barely glanced at it. "It cramped up."
"Rowan?" Ryo asked.
"No," Seiji sighed,"...it's been giving me trouble lately."
Ryo felt his eyebrows raise. "Are you all right?" Seiji wasn't prone to admitting pain.
Seiji shrugged. "It doesn't really matter does it?" He turned to leave but Ryo could still hear him. "I don't have much of a choice." Limping slightly, Seiji disappeared into the dim hall.
Ryo breathed a small sigh, nudging the fridge door shut and grabbing his shirt. The rain had started to thud softly on the roof, hissing through the trees, and a cool wind blew sweetly through the open window. Ryo knew Seiji was right. Choices were few and far between these days.
v v v
Ryo was dressing after his shower in his room when he heard Seiji call him sharply from down the hall. Seiji always said his name in one syllable, like it was supposed to be pronounced, not in two like the Americans did.
"Ryo!" There was a note of pained urgency in his voice.
It was strange to hear that strained note in the normally calm voice.
Ryo kept himself from running down the hall to the closed door of Seiji's room and opened it uncertainly, knocking absently as he did.
Seiji was standing bent over strangely by his window ledge, one hand out, gripping the sill as if that was the only thing keeping him standing. He was nude, his damp clothes placed neatly on the back of his chair. His face was white and his teeth gritted, he was kneading his thigh desperately. Fine muscle tremors shook Seiji's leg.
Seiji gasped and almost folded in half, falling against the wall.
"Ryo," he panted, "help me."
Ryo frown, they almost always dealt with their own injuries but Seiji had been under playing his cramp. Muscle tremors like this could rip the muscle apart as they spoke, and it was almost impossible to do alleviate on your own. What had Seiji been out to prove today? They all had been pushing themselves too hard, but Seiji did so even more. Ryo had been meaning to say something.
Ryo kneeled on the floor in front of him, and massaged the white thigh frantically, Seiji bent over Ryo's shoulder, his hands clenching the back of Ryo's shirt. Finally the cramp begun to ease, and Ryo made him lay down on the window ledge and kept working at the hard muscles, from the calf to his hip. His right leg was in Ryo's hands, the other had fallen aside, against Ryo's chest, his bare foot bracing the floor.
Seiji lay breathing deeply, one arm over his face, fighting to concentrate, to sink into mediation to relax the muscle. Because Seiji wasn't looking at him, Ryo let his gaze run over Seiji. The lean white body was beautiful by most standards, and Ryo had to swallow the sudden lump in his throat, his face turning hot.
Not that Ryo hadn't been around other guys nude. He grew up playing every sport there was and was raised in half the all boy's Youth Center's in the country. He wasn't certain why looking made him feel guilty, it just did.
Seiji wasn't flaunting himself, but Ryo, around Nipponjin all his life, had to look at the soft gold between Seiji's legs. It made him suddenly and uncomfortably flushed. Ryo looked away feeling like he had disrespected Seiji somehow.
Finally Seiji's leg lay limp and supple in Ryo's dark hands, although Ryo could still feel a feeble muscle tremor in the thigh as he held it.
"How does it feel?" Ryo asked, still daring to hold the white thigh a moment.
"Better." Seiji breathed, his chest moving slowly up and down.
Ryo knew how painful it must be, he had been reduced to tears many times from the agony of tremors. The armor was heavy and the miles got long. But Seiji's face was dry.
"Help me to the shower."
Ryo numbly nodded, watching Seiji sit up, his back straight. It was fluid movement even when he was in pain. Ryo grasped Seiji's arm as he stood and suddenly faltered, Seiji's illusion of ease crumbling with a ragged moan. Ryo held him up, his arm locked into his, his other arm around his waist.
"The shower Ryo." Seiji said behind clenched teeth.
Thinking of the what hot water could do for him, Ryo wordlessly obeyed.
v v v
Seiji was suffering, Ryo knew, and seating him slowly in the white cold tub, Ryo reached immediately for the faucet, slamming the drain closed. The water roared hot and steaming from the faucet, flooding around Seiji's legs.
"What are we doing Seiji?" Ryo sat in a sigh, on the edge of the tub, his elbows on his knees. "We work so hard." He thought of Sai skidding backwards in the dirt, in pain and not angry, focused, wanting to fight. Kento swearing under his breath when his weapons shattered under his strength.
Rowan wiping away blood like it was sweat.
And now Seiji collapsing from exhaustion.
"We do things just to be stronger." Ryo felt, with a sickening cold lurch, the bottom drop out of him, and hot tears threaten and then blur his eyes. "I get so tired... sometimes." He glanced back at Seiji.
Seiji was gripping each side of the tub, his back rigid against the cool tile, his eyes shifted in Ryo's direction. His face was still very pale, and Ryo noticed his jaw was trembling like Seiji was cold, but Ryo knew it was from pain.
"I don't want to do this sometimes either Ryo."
Seiji breathed the words out, his eyes shutting, squeezing shut as he tried to shift his long legs in the steaming water that rushed around him.
Ryo hastily dried at his eyes with the back of his sleeve, blinking fiercely, to keep his rage back. His sorrow was so close to rage, he could barely tell the difference anymore when it flooded through his head, soaked into his body. Bewildered disbelief, and finally just rage. Pure uncontrollable rage. A red film began to slowly descend over his vision, blurring his thoughts, numbing his skin. Where had all their choices gone?
A hand was in his hair. Shaking slightly, brushing it off of his shoulder. "Ryo." His name spoken like it should be, yanked him back, Ryo leaned a little into the soft touch.
Blinking the red back, Ryo turned again, his hands making and re-making hopeless fists.
"I saw an entire hockey game yesterday."
"You couldn't have there were no games." Ryo felt completely jarred.
Seiji sighed. "Yes Ryo, there was that one in Florida."
Ryo blinked. "Lightening? Did they win?"
"I don't know."
"Seiji!" Ryo was exasperated.
Seiji softly and ever so slightly, frowned, rolling his head a little to look at him, Seiji's fingers still trembling in the long black hair. "Yes, they won. I didn't understand most of it." It was an effort to keep his arm raised.
Ryo turned all the way, putting his feet up over the other side of the tub. "Well hockey is kind of complicated." Ryo went on and on, not noticing Seiji's slight shrug or even smaller sigh. The steam rising and making the room warm and calm.
v v v
Seiji lay nude on his bed, the hot water evaporating slowly on his bare skin. His leg was a dull steady throb but he couldn't feel the muscles threatening to tear inside his skin, the agony was past and the pain that burned now was barely troubling compared to the memory. Ryo had sat and talked to him for almost two hours about the training that day, he told bad jokes and of course went on about hockey with a passion. It wasn't a steady stream of speech. It was full of Ryo's halting pauses and even questions that Seiji softly answered.
Ryo had asked. "Seiji, do you think Rowan hesitates to use his attack in battle?"
Ryo always said his name like the Nipponjin. When he stopped to think, they almost all did, but not like Ryo. Kento said it in that strange Chinese slur and Sai, who hadn't grown up in one country, made it light and high at the very end. Rowan's school had been full of Americans, he liked to speak English and sometimes said Sage.
Sage.
It felt like a nick name.
Ryo said it differently. For some reason the word "pure" came to Seiji's mind.
As pure as... Seiji mused. Fire.
"Rowan isn't impulsive like you," Seiji had murmured his answer over the running water. A ghost of his fathers words in an empty wooden dojo, the same stoic observation. "Considering isn't the same as failing. Rowan has never failed us."
"You're right Seiji." Ryo had answered, his dark eyes unfocused as he thought about it carefully.
It never ceased to amaze him, Ryo's willingness to listen and accept other people's thoughts without fighting his ego by insisting he was right.
Seiji had never heard Ryo talk that much in one stretch, used to the short answers, direct questions or the steady orders when they fought. Seiji wasn't sure if he liked it or not but it was a little better than sitting in the bathtub by himself with nothing but the ceiling and walls to look at.
Seiji opened his eyes in the dark room and stared hard at the ceiling above him.
Better?
Seiji always preferred to be by himself. Why would now be any different? Normally people spoke at him, because he found most conversation meaningless and a waste of time. But Ryo had never really struck him that way. Seiji blinked.
Sitting up slowly testing the pain in small increments, Seiji stood in the dark silent house. Everyone had gone to sleep by now, including Ryo. But he wanted to say something.
No. Not say anything. What does one say to a flame?
Not bothering to put his muscles through any stress of pulling on his cotton drawstring pants, Seiji walked slowly and quietly out into the hall. He wanted to look at Ryo for some reason, just to make sure he was there.
v v v
Ryo lay in bed, his eyes closed. It was late. He couldn't stop thinking about the way everyone had performed that day. He ran it over and over in his head what he wanted to tell them. Even though if truth be told, they really didn't need him to show them how to improve. They were all so powerful he was always quietly impressed by what they could accomplish, but he tried to keep his praise at a minimum. He had lead many teams in his young life and no team did well if they thought they had nothing to aspire to. It made Ryo tired to feel the pride he kept from them.
Stopping the roller coaster in his head, he breathed deeply in and out trying to think of nothing, to let himself rest. Ryo felt his heart slow finally, his bed was warm and soft and suddenly comfortable.
But he couldn't stop it all from flooding his head.
He couldn't stop Seiji.
Ryo focused on his heart beat, each thud bringing him a picture of poetry made motion.
The speed.
The grace.
The power.
Ryo stretched a little, shifting a leg caught in the covers and making the sheet slide down his bare thighs in a slow soft hiss. Seiji always worked with the precision of a fighter trained all his life. Ryo thought of the way Seiji never seemed winded, the hard exact strokes of his sword arm, and let out the breath he was holding. Seiji pushed himself to the limit and always ended up going even farther than he had before. Why did Seiji stay with him after the others were done in his thoughts? What was it that disturbed him. Or made him smile?
Seiji didn't smile much. If Seiji did smile and Ryo was even close to responsible it made him feel so-
Good.
Everything about him was clean and fluid, precise and planned. The dirt and noise of the Centers was so far from everything Seiji poised in a single glance, so clean.
Ryo's hand was on his own thigh, feeling the stiff sore pain he never seemed to not have anymore, seeped down into his bones to stay. He let his hand slide between his legs.
He ached there too.
v v v
Seiji heard his name whispered so softly he wasn't sure if he had even heard it. Ryo's door was standing a few inches ajar and he paused in front of it. Ryo's room was dim and featureless for a moment, the window a dark gray rectangle, the rain blowing the trees right outside. But then there he was. Ryo. Sprawled comfortably on his bed that he never made. Sprawled comfortably with one hand on his lower stomach and the other one between his legs.
From the blackness of the hall, Seiji watched, his breath caught in his throat.
Ryo said my name.
Ryo's hand moved slowly, his knees bent slightly, his boxer's tugged down around his upper thighs. His head was tilted to the side on his pillow, his black hair covering his shoulder, his lips parted slightly.
A muscle in Seiji's jaw twitched and he swallowed hard, his teeth clenched tightly together. He could hear Ryo breathing, and it got faster as his hand moved faster between his thighs, a small moan coming from Ryo and he quickly turned his face into his pillow, moaning even louder and trying to stifle himself.
Seiji's hand worked the door frame in a damp grip, his heart thudding in his chest. He glanced at Rowan's door across the hall and behind him, grateful it was closed shut.
Ryo rolled onto his side, towards his door and unknowingly to Seiji, his mouth open and his eyes shut, face half buried into his pillow, his dark thighs spread slightly apart. "Unnnn...." Ryo moaned, his breath starting to come in frantic gasps.
There was something there, the way Ryo moved, the low soft sounds he made, that made a knot form in Seiji's stomach. The night was blissfully cool, but Ryo's room seem to shimmer with heat that Seiji could feel and see, growing keener and more palatable with each low moan, the finely muscled dark body of a child athlete turned young warrior moving with ease, like he was born to be in motion.
Seiji watched as Ryo suddenly shuddered violently, throwing the fluid grace of his body, his thighs tensing around his hand, and Ryo pushed his face completely into his pillow, his hand going in even frantic strokes, his moaning getting louder and louder. Ryo went rigid and made a small sharp groan, like Seiji had heard him use when he was in sudden pain, desperate and swift. Then Seiji saw Ryo come over his hand and onto his flat sun dark stomach, his entire body shuddering, the hard lean muscles of his legs tensing and untensing.
Ryo's face was pain and anguish. But Seiji saw that this was Ryo's look in release as well and it pleased him to know that pain and pleasure looked the same on Ryo's beautiful face, making the dull sweet ache in him grow worse. Black hair clung in small wisps onto Ryo's cheek and his large dark eyes blinked open in bewildered relief, looking down at his hand that was still between his thighs. His breath was hard and slowing down. Rolling slowly onto his back, Ryo lay back into a lazy stretch like a cat.
For one moment Seiji was going to push the door open. He wanted to touch Ryo's dark skin, feel the warm sheen of sweat on his face and run his fingers through the black hair. He wanted to taste the hard muscles on Ryo's stomach and what Ryo had left there. What would it be to take that body? What could he make Ryo feel? What could he make Ryo do?
But the moment passed and left Seiji standing in the dark hall.
Seiji stood back away from the door, running the back of his trembling hand over his mouth. Ryo's breathing had become shallow and steady, he was falling asleep.
One day.
Seiji moved soundlessly down the hall, back to his room, shutting the door behind him. He limped silently to his bed and collapsed in a small sigh, the night air cool on his bare skin, the rain thudding on his window.
One day Seiji would ignite that fire himself.
And control it.
the end