Shadows

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is plottier and gets into Ritsuka's head. He's...different.







Thanks for reading and reviewing.



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SHADOWS



by lordoberon





Part Three



Still Soubi's POV, for a couple paragraphs...



He did a quick once-over of the bed, trying to make everything relatively close to where it had been, unless it was close enough to Ritsuka's body where the boy could've moved it in his sleep.



With a smile, Soubi whispered to himself, "The shadows are gone." He felt like the shadows in Ritsuka had been creeping onto him, making him feel helpless, like he didn't know how to help Ritsuka. But all he had needed was an outlet for his pent up feelings, a moment to be passionate. Around Ritsuka, he had been careful. He had been soft and vague, all smiles and gentle speech, lately. This moment of passion with Ritsuka in the night made him feel alive again, like he was ready to face the world.



* * *



Ritsuka's POV





When Ritsuka woke up a few hours later, he felt groggy and strange. He remembered briefly drinking with Yayoi at a party they had attended after school, and trying to tell Soubi about it right before going to the party, when he had had his doubts. But then he had gone anyway, and come back to sleep it off and try to get some homework done. He, unlike Yayoi, had gone to a drinking party once before, and knew that he didn't get hangovers much. He just had to sleep, and when he slept after alcohol, it would be a very deep sleep.



So he woke up, and felt groggy and strange. Why? It wasn't a hangover. He never had them.



Why do I feel like this? My body feels...heavy. But warm. Content. I feel like I had some sort of breakthrough. But how is that? I didn't even finish my homework, I was so tired and out of it. But I feel like something has happened, like something has changed for the better.



Then he sat up.



"Oh..."



His ears were still there. His tail was still there. But they were tingling, like mad. It was like an itch that he could not scratch. When he stood up, he groaned in pain, for his tail ached. And the ache seemed to spread, down to his butt, so that he rubbed it with his hands as he stood by his bed, groaning in pain. His ears felt lighter on his head, and he had to reach up and touch them and fondle them several times to make sure they were still there. In fact, he fondled them so much that it began to arouse him. Yes, arouse him. Ritsuka had unusually sensitive ears and had only recently discovered their connection to his own...stimulation.



The tingling sensations kept on, and kept on, as Ritsuka yawned and got ready to shower. As he walked into the bathroom he started to worry a little bit. Hadn't he read back in science that when your ears tingled, it meant they were going to leave soon? Like if you did something with someone a little bit, the ears and tail would start to feel funny, but would only disappear when your ears were absolutely and completely taken? He DID remember that, he remembered reading that in science. Self stimulation didn’t affect the ears and tail either, and he wasn’t one to do that so much, anyhow. He was fifteen, but he still hadn’t quite figured out what could really, really arouse him.



So now the tingling feeling was on him. The your-ears-weren't-quite-taken feeling. What does this mean? What happened?



He stepped in the shower to wash, and began to scrub all over. What...what is this? His neck hurt a little, right by his shoulder. He touched the spot, and there was a little ring there, risen up on his skin. What? Ritsuka stepped out of the shower and dripped on the tiles a minute, looking in the full length mirror. Hmm...There's a red mark there. What's that from? Oh... he remembered the mess on his bed. I must have moved a lot last night, and pressed up against something.



He got back in the shower, and everything seemed fine, until - "OH!" He dropped the soap in shock. "Wh-what..?"



His...his...between his legs...it feels like something...was poking me in the butt. It feels... he shuddered as he pressed two fingers deeper into that hole. It feels amazing... "Ohhh.." A soft moan fell from his lips.



With a blush, he realized what he was doing and stopped. So this is why I keep dreaming...that sort of thing... with Soubi in the dream. It...it DOES...feel good.



He hurriedly readied himself for school, and the day seemed normal.



After math class though, he sat at lunch, looking at his calculator. A couple of the numbers rubbed off. The thing is old, my dad gave it to me years ago, but...but...I used it yesterday. All the numbers were there, then. Now, two of the buttons are blank. I'm missing my 5, and my 2. What happened?



Ritsuka picked up the blue calculator, turning it over and over in his hands. What had happened to it? He pressed at the buttons, did a couple equations to make sure it was still working. It was. Then he held it up to his face.



The scent hit his nose and immediately Ritsuka's eyes widened. He knew that scent.



It smells like Soubi.



As Ritsuka walked to science class, he wondered, How is it possible that my calculator smells like Soubi? This is weird. What could have happened?



He slowed his walk, because he wanted to call Soubi and ask. But what would he say? What if Soubi had just touched his calculator some time recently, and the smell had lingered there? Ritsuka’s nose WAS unusually sensitive to Soubi’s scent. Maybe he was just over reacting, maybe it was nothing.



“HEY, Aoyagi! Who gave you the hickey on your neck? Your boyfriend?”



Ritsuka whipped around to the face the offender. Standing across the hall was Yamada Matsui, a snotty kid who hung out with the school bullies. Ritsuka reached up and gently touched the mark on his neck that Yamada was referring to. How had he gotten it?



Tail frizzling up in anger, Ritsuka spat back, “No, Yamada! I got it while I was at the house of your girlfriend, Saida.” It was a lie, of course. He had never been to Saida’s house. He watched as Yamada’s face burned in fury. Everyone knew that Yamada liked Wataru Saida, except for Saida, and if it wasn’t for his bullying clout he would be constantly teased about her; she never even gave him a glance.



“Oh wait, that’s right!” Ritsuka crowed as Yamada’s fists balled in anger and his face got even redder. “Saida’s not your girlfriend, I forgot. Well, I guess she’s fair game then, isn’t she?”



Ritsuka gave the boy a smug smile and then proceeded to class, late for another reason altogether, and without any time to call Soubi.



*



The buckets of water that Ritsuka had to hold as he stood outside of the classroom were heavy. This was his punishment for being late, and it was humiliating. He hated it. The science teacher hated him, because he was good at science, but he wasn’t the example of a model student otherwise. Ritsuka had been in a couple school fights; of course, he hadn’t told Soubi that his wounds came from that, he’d blamed it on his mother, instead.



That was how Ritsuka had been invited to the first drinking party, actually. Some kid had approached him after Ritsuka defeated an opponent (for once – usually he put up a good fight but didn’t win in the end. The other kids were mean to him about it, and the nurse and teacher pitied him. He hated it). The kid had invited him over, so Ritsuka had snuck out at night and attended the late party. At first when he saw the drinking he wanted to leave, and he almost got out safe.



But the kid – the very same who had invited Ritsuka, actually – snuck some alcohol in a drink he offered Ritsuka, and as the pain seeped away and was replaced by the sizzling burn of alcohol in his belly, Ritsuka thought, this isn’t so bad. So he drank, and drank, so much that he had trouble getting home, but had refused to call Soubi.



Shame had burned in him for weeks after that, and he had spoken less to Soubi. But then, a week before his birthday, Soubi had started to bring Ritsuka to his apartment after school, and that made Ritsuka happy.



The second drinking party had been Yayoi’s idea, and Ritsuka had simply come along. He wondered for a second, Maybe I should call Yayoi Maybe he has the weird ear and tail tingling feeling, too? Maybe it was something weird in the drink? Or maybe…Ritsuka’s eyes went wide. What if I did something with Yayoi and can’t remember?!



His panic rose a little higher as suddenly Shinonome-sensei came around the corner. What is she doing here? Leave. Leave. Leave.



His mantra did not work, and the smiling woman started walking towards him. It had been years since Ritsuka was taught under her, and since he was in higschool, it was easy to avoid the middlegrade teacher nowadays. He had changed, and every time she was near him he felt like he should be the happier, more innocent Ritsuka he had used to be. But how could he do that? He had tried, but he couldn’t. Too much sadness made it impossible. Nowadays the memories Ritsuka took pictures of were places, because he couldn’t stand to look at himself anymore. Speaking with Shinonome-sensei forced him to look at himself, deep inside himself, and he did not like what he saw there. He did not know how to make his own inner shadows go away.



“Ritsuka-kun! How are you doing? What are you doing here like this?” Shinonome-sensei smiled at him, eyes glinting from behind her spectacles. Her ears were gone now, recently, and it was a fact that had been whispered about for a while. Ritsuka had seen her once with her boyfriend. He was a tall, lean man with long dark hair and startling blue eyes. Those eyes reminded Ritsuka of Soubi’s.



Ritsuka blushed and shuffled his feet, looking at the floor. “Um, I was late to class, Sensei…”



“Oh!” She glanced around the hall in alarm, as if looking for the culprit that had made something so terrible occur. Or maybe she’s looking for the old Ritsuka…the one she remembers, the sweet and shy little boy. Hmph.



“Let me do something about that,” she said with a smile. As she said this she bent down and patted Ritsuka on the head, as if he were a little boy. He couldn’t help glancing at her breasts when she bent down like that, and as she walked into his classroom he pinched his nose.



She has a nice chest, I suppose, but Ritsuka couldn’t really care. He didn’t agree with all the boys who insisted that the Geometry teacher, Rugo Sensei, was attractive. Maybe I am into guys more…Ritsuka blushed. He did look at Soubi...that way, sometimes. He wasn’t into Yayoi at all though, ugh. He hoped that they hadn’t done anything. Please please let the tingly feeling be only on me, not him. Please.



To his surprise, Shinonome-sensei spoke to his science teacher and then left, waving a hand to Ritsuka with a little grin. Then Ritsuka was invited back into class and allowed to participate, even though he had been late. Shinonome worked her magic again...Not that she ever had any, really, but I think’s she got it now, that authority that she didn’t have before. I wonder what she was doing visiting the high school.



Ritsuka began to think about the tingly feeling again, and his thoughts were mixed with remembering what Shinonome-sensei’s boyfriend looked like. The man looks like Soubi, kind of…a brunette version…ah, but no mouth can match Soubi’s mouth. It’s so…so… He couldn’t find words for it, but the thought of it, and remembering how Soubi’s tongue had sidled into his mouth…so slippery and hot and wet…mmm...



“Aoyagi! Aoyagi!”



“OH! Ouch!” Ritsuka swore and looked down at his hands. He had just spilled some sort of liquid chemical on them, and a stinging sensation was flooding down his fingers through his palms.



He sat up and quickly said, “I’ll go by myself,” before the teacher suggested another student accompany him to the nurse. Ritsuka already knew that nobody would even offer to accompany him. They all thought him a freak, sitting alone and pondering over his Septimal Moon notes, meeting Soubi at the entrance after school, fighting battles with other boys and constantly losing. A loner, they called him, with too much fur on his cat ears because he didn’t trim properly, and a raging fire of a temper easily set off.



Halfway to the nurse’s office, Ritsuka decided, Forget this. I hate the nurse. She’s just going to pity me. I hate that.



Ritsuka didn’t like their pity, but especially the nurse's. He didn’t like the look on her face when she gave him bandages, or medicine or something. He didn’t like the way she said, “Lie down, dear” and crooned at him. Yuck. It was babying, and it made him feel stupid, like he should be accommodatingly nice to her. Ritsuka didn’t want to be forced to be nice. His mother was even crazier these days, making him sleep out in the cold yard some times, and his homework load was preposterous, and he had no one to talk to except Soubi. He had every reason to be angry. No one was going to take his anger away from him. It made him feel strong.



That was why Ritsuka fought the kids at lunch, even though he knew he wasn’t going to win. He did it for the moment of power and glory that he got when his fists made their mark, when he had the other boy underneath him and he was pounding his fists into him, pounding, pounding. It only brought hell on him later though, of course, because the school called his mother and told her, and she beat him for it.



But that rush of adrenaline and strength was something Ritsuka longed for, something he got only in those special moments. He was willing to be hurt, over and over, just for that moment of strength. He wasn’t strong in any other way, he had no will against his mother. He only had his will with Soubi because Soubi cared about him. Otherwise, he never had any strength.



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Author's Note: More coming soon! :D Reviews appreciated! (I'll probably update faster with reviews, actually, since they encourage me).