Theory of Attraction

A pair of skinny legs encased in black denim, skin hot and just a little bit dry, and it was only sex, only heat, the need for physical release and everything that came along with it. Habashira Rui wasn't sure how it had ever started between them, but the simple point was that it had, and at any rate he figured it didn't really matter. It was something from his physics lectures, seeping into his brain as he lay half asleep with his cheek pressed hard against his desk, something about two bodies attracting each other by some gravitational constant... it was gravity, then, that had pulled him and Hiruma together. Gravity, and maybe physical threats from Hiruma's side, but that was another point entirely.

The sex was always really good, always very physical, and always too fast. And then it was always over, nothing but a warm spot on his futon and a mounting, gnawing emptiness in his stomach (as Rui was the type to grow hungry after orgasm) to show that the events of the last several minutes had happened at all. And a few days later his cell phone would beat a percussion solo in his back pocket, and the familiar characters on the display would tell him Hiruma needed him for what was no doubt some menial task or chore.

The other guys on the team hated it, being at Hiruma's beck and call (though strangely, they were starting to develop some kind of warped sense of camaraderie with the Devil Bats, of which Rui wholly disapproved), but the flash of machine guns or, even worse, the image of a wrench nearing ever so closely to their beloved bikes, and it was all they could do not to fall in line in an instant. As for Rui himself, he found himself not minding so much. Providing transportation every now and then, helping the rival team practice... he wondered when he had stopped considering them interruptions and annoyances in his life.

One day Hiruma had him pick up a package from one of the shadier pats of town, and Rui found himself speeding along streets and alley ways to deliver it to Hiruma's apartment. He was less than interested in carrying around a package of such dubious origins, and of course Hiruma hadn't seen fit to tell him what was inside (though he knew it had to be pretty bad). Delinquent as he was, Rui was also a politician's son, and wasn't eager to get into anything too scandalous.

He parked his bike on the sidewalk, damned if it got in the way of anyone, and marched up the stairs. He hadn't even knocked when the door swung open, and he was offered his first glimpse of Hiruma's home, though it was blocked by a women who looked not entirely unlike Barbie.

"Oh!" And here the woman smiled, and Rui was momentarily blinded by the glowing whiteness of her perfectly straight teeth. "You must be Youichi's friend! Come in, come in."

He found himself gently shuffled inside, the sound of the puffy pink skirts of her dress swirling around them, the edges of her frilly white apron soft on his arm. He was deposited in a chair by the kitchen table, surprised to find that he may well have been inside the set of a old American sitcom. The woman was still chatting happily, that megawatt smile never changing, as she fussed about the kitchen.

"It's so rare that Youichi invites a friend over. I don't think we've met one of his friends since Gen, that lovely boy. I always tell him that he should invite friends over for play dates or slumber parties, but he doesn't listen to me." The woman chuckled a little, her upstyled blonde hair shaking slightly with the movement. Rui realized that she spoke Japanese with an American accent, which explained the décor in the apartment. "It must be because I'm his mother. Would you like some Tang and marshmellow squares?"

Rui was about to ask what Tang and marshmellow squares were, but then Hiruma came into the room, followed by a middle-aged Japanese man wearing a sweater vest and a tie.

"Oh, Youichi, your friend came to visit!" Hiruma's mother exclaimed, though Hiruma had probably noticed him by now. "Isn't that just delightful? I suppose I'll have to add some courses to our dinner, but it's so very nice to have company."

"It's about fucking time," was all Hiruma said as he sat down at the table, "did you bring it?"

"Umm... yeah..." Rui pushed the package across the table, mildly disconcerted when the man he assumed was Hiruma's father sat down next to him.

"Why, you seem like a fine boy," Hiruma's father said, producing a pipe from seemingly nowhere and placing it in his mouth, "you should come fishing with me and Hiruma some time. It's always nice to have a friend along."

"I fucking hate fishing," Hiruma said, and though he said it loud and clear it didn't seem to bother his father, who had opened a newspaper, or his mother, who was taking out a large pot from the cupboard.

"Oh, Youichi," his mother said, approaching her son with a 'rustle rustle' of her skirts, "I polished and reloaded all your guns for you today. Now what do you say?"

"Thanks, Mom," Hiruma mumbled, and he struck Rui in that moment as a very typical teenager, albeit one who was discussing firearms with his mother. Hiruma cringed slightly as his mother reached down to press a kiss upon his forehead, leaving traces of bubblegum pink on his skin.

"Why don't you go play with your friend in your room, so I can cook dinner?"

Hiruma turned to glare at Rui. "You heard her."

It was all very... surreal. Hiruma was acting like it was all very normal, which is was for him, but Rui felt like he was inside some kind of living anachronism. He turned to look back, once, as he followed Hiruma to his room, startled once again by that shiny, plastic smile and Hiruma's mother's pageant queen wave goodbye.

Hiruma's room was different than the rest of the apartment. Japanese and messy, it was like stepping back into reality, and as Hiruma threw the package into some random pile Rui's hand brushed against a football. Now that was something entirely familiar... he cradled it in his hand for a moment, and could swear he could smell the pigskin and grass of it. It was funny, how it didn't take much for him to long to be on the field, to be fighting for that every yard, every inch. He put the ball down, though the emotions that it had stirred in him remained. When he looked up Hiruma was sprawled stomach down on his bed, flipping through a magazine.

"So," Hiruma asked, not looking up, "do you want to fuck?"

"What about your parents?" The walls, after all, were paper thin.

"Please. They only hear what they want to hear."

Rui shifted, moved closer. "Yeah. Okay."

Afterwards was different, because afterwards Hiruma didn't leave, and Hiruma's mother made Rui stay for dinner. She had prepared a table overflowing with food, most of which she packed up afterwards in neat, color-coded Tupperware containers. Then, somehow, he found himself tossing a football around with Hiruma on the narrow street outside, a strange moment of casualness he didn't associate with the blond boy. There was an odd moment when Hiruma's father came out, pipe in tow, to nod approvingly at them before going back inside. But mostly it was just football, just everything that mattered, and Rui was just happy to be able to throw the ball around. And he knew, at least, that Hiruma felt the same way. Football was the only thing they had in common, and football was everything.

After that he didn't get a chance to go to Hiruma's apartment again, though he didn't mind. Hiruma's parents were a little too strange for him. Hiruma's calls, however, remained a constant, with Rui carrying out an order almost every week.

It was on a week that Hiruma hadn't called that found Rui out shopping, or rather, that found him forced to go out shopping. It was near Christmas, and his brother had gotten the idea to give his girlfriends little Christmas presents. It was also cold, so he sent Rui out instead. Really, in Rui's mind, his older brother was just as intimidating as Hiruma. Bundled up in a pea coat and mismatched gloves and scarf, the weather was still bone chilling, and he tried to make quick work of running through various department stores. Still, the wrapping paper took him a few hours to track down, and he finally found a green one with pandas printed all over it, each one wearing a silly red hat with a ball of fluff at the end. The sales clerk assured him it was very Christmas-y.

He was walking back to his bike from the store when he spotted Hiruma, leaning against the front of a coffee shop. That guy Musashi was there too, and Rui remembered him because he was some one who existed in Hiruma's orbit as neither slave nor subordinate, and Rui had wondered how he had managed to pull that off. But Musashi's hands were on the wall, just centimeters from Hiruma's narrow waist, and he was leaning forward, leaning down. As their lips met Rui could feel the kiss on his own lips, his body remembering the heat and moisture of Hiruma's mouth. They stayed pressed together for too long a time, and then Musashi was looking up, looking straight at him.

"Hey," Rui heard him mumble, "isn't that the guy you've been fooling around with?"

Hiruma spared Rui a passing glance before pulling Musashi back towards him. "So what? Forget about him."

Small clouds puffed from their open mouths, heat mixing, and they were kissing once again, the world a trivial detail around them. Rui felt his feet moving, half a pace faster than normal, and then he was past them and almost to his bike. He had an ugly taste in his mouth, only it was no taste at all, and Rui didn't know where it had come from.

He pushed it out of his head. Whatever Hiruma did, it was his business, and had nothing to do with Rui. He shouldn't be bothered by it. He shouldn't care. Still, the next time Hiruma called his cell phone, he couldn't bring himself to pick up.

Strangely, the reparations didn't come, and Rui didn't see Hiruma until Christmas day. That year they really did have a white Christmas, and the first snow of the season started falling in the afternoon. By evening everything was coated with a light layer of powder white, and walking through the soft, falling snow was like walking through a snow globe. His brother left the house with two giggling, tackily dressed college girls, and they disappeared into the street-lit winter.

His parents gone, off on a ski trip masquerading as a political function, Rui decided to get out of the house as well. He skipped taking his bike... in this weather, it wasn't worth the trouble, and besides, he could use the walk. Everywhere he looked there were lovers, eating or walking, and he imagined them at cocktail bars sipping colorful drinks while looking out on the night sky.

An hour of walking and he saw Hiruma through the snow, slim features almost ethereal through the flakes and yellowed street lights. A thin, slender piece of gum was poised between his lips, a plastic bag dangling from his elbow. And Rui, a million things conflicted with one another inside of him and unable to identify even one of them, walked towards him.

"Hey," he said, and Hiruma cast him a vaguely irritated glance, "not with that guy today?"

Hiruma shrugged, gum disappearing between his lips. "Probably with his girlfriend."

It seemed complicated, and it seemed personal, so Rui didn't ask. Even if he had, Hiruma wouldn't have told him anyway. But then Hiruma, features strangely soft in the light, didn't seem too much like Hiruma today. Rui looked up, into the snow that was falling down on them. The first snowfall of the season...

"Do you want to play some football?"

He didn't look at Hiruma when he said it, but he could hear, moments after he asked, Hiruma nodding at his side.

"Yeah."

Maybe, Rui thought, they had more than football in common, but football was something that he could understand. At the very least, it was a start.

.end.