A Pyrrhic Victory

It's not like he was gay. Not officially, any way. It's just that liking men wasn't an option, not in his family. There were certain expectations placed upon him, expectations he had to fulfill, because first and foremost he was a family man. So when his old man landed himself in the hospital, there wasn't any other option in Musashi's mind other than taking over the company, even if it meant dropping out of school. And when it came down to it, there was no way he wouldn't eventually marry some nice, modest girl, settle down, and have some kids of his own, kids who could maybe carry on the family business. Any other option would devastate his parents, and Musashi wouldn't be able to handle that.

So being with Hiruma, kissing Hiruma, fucking Hiruma… it wasn't something that could last. It wasn't something that should have started in the first place. But Hiruma was all lithe muscles and hormones and fucking American football, and Musashi had been hard pressed to resist. Even now he could remember the soft-hard feeling of Hiruma's lips on his lips, Hiruma's fangs trailing dangerously over his tongue, the taste of sweat and the tangling of bone and sinew.

And it wasn't just that. It wasn't just the physical, because Hiruma was something else, too, something Musashi would never admit to himself. But that wasn't a topic he let himself think about.

"Gen?"

A jolt, out of his thoughts and back into real time, and he was looking at a pair of wide brown eyes set in a slightly tilted head.

"Hmm?"

The face straightened, long tendrils of soft black hair falling to frame it. Pretty, in an overly made up kind of way.

"You weren't listening at all, were you, Gen?" A sigh, long suffering. "That's just like a man."

Musashi watched as Akari swirled a spoon inside her cup of tea, the perfect acrylic nails of an aspiring beautician resting lightly along the silver handle. He brought his own cup to his lips, taking in the scent of green tea leaves and jasmine that suddenly saturated the air in front of him. A sip, hot and bitter, and as he placed his cup down the check arrived.

They left the restaurant, into the crisp air outside, cold and smelling the way that air did right before a snowfall. As they left Akari shook a little bit, linked her arm around his like it was the most natural thing in the world, and they walked down the street together. And when his eyes lingered, up ahead, on a blond boy walking among the crowd, she pretended not to notice.

The next day he had Hiruma pressed up against the wall of the weapon silo, fingers digging hard into bony hips as he pushed inside of him. Afterwards they cleaned up with a pocket pack of tissues, the plastic that covered it advertising female escorts in sailor suits.

"Hey," he said, watching as Hiruma zipped up those too-skinny pants, "who's better? Me or Habashira?"

It was some kind of jealousy that gripped him, or maybe a kind of possessiveness, but he asked it before he thought, and then Hiruma was sizing him up with those sharp blue eyes.

"And what about you? Who do you like fucking more, me or fucking Akari?"

And the question made him queasy, just a little bit, to think of the two of them in the same context like that, but it was his own fault for bringing it up. The space between them was filled with so much tension now, and maybe a little bit of hurt, but most of all understanding. Because that had always been the thing between them, really, the fact that in some strange way they were able to understand each other. So he knew Hiruma understood why he was with Akari, and he understood why Hiruma was fooling around with that stupid freak Habashira.

And things after that… well… Musashi didn't know why he had thought things would always be the same. Of course he knew that they would change, but knowing was different from believing, and he had never thought that things would be any different. But maybe that was just him being in denial about things. Or maybe it was him wanting to have his cake and eat it too.

At any rate, he started seeing more of Akari, because that's the way things went… that was the way relationships went, he figured, they progressed. And Hiruma started seeing more of Habashira. And then… somewhere along the way, him and Hiruma, they stopped seeing each other.

He overheard Hiruma and Habashira once, at the end of some football game, Habashira screaming and in tears because his awful team had just lost.

Behind a concrete beam, in the midst of leaving the bleachers for home, and he overheard them, overhead Habashira, voice shaking with frustration and anger. And maybe Musashi would have been more sympathetic, if it had been any one else.

"What makes us so different," Habashira said, voice half scream and half sob, "why is your team so willing to follow you? What makes us so fucking different?"

And Musashi had to lean back against the wall when Hiruma didn't say anything, finding solace in the shadows there. Felt his stomach strangely hollow when Hiruma didn't ridicule Habashira or tell him to fuck off.

Just… finally…

"Get up. Let's go."

And footsteps. He could hear them even after they faded away, could hear Hiruma's voice, harsh but sympathetic. And he understood Hiruma, understood him enough to know that whatever Hiruma had with Habashira now, it wasn't just sex.

There had never been anything official when it came to the both of them, Musashi and Hiruma. Whatever it had been… amazing sex, that ridiculously deep emotional rapport… it had started without fanfare and had ended just as inconclusively. So now, now that it felt like it was over, it felt a little bit like it had never even started in the first place.

Later, when he rejoined the team, it was different. It wasn't just him, Hiruma, and Kurita… but that wasn't what seemed off. It wasn't him and Hiruma, not any more, and he figured, that must be it.

"You're going back to school?" Akari asked, fingers drumming against his pillow.

"Yeah. Seems like the thing to do."

"Good. One of us should graduate high school." Then, after a pause… "We should do something with your hair to commemorate."

"Like what?"

"Like… something crazy."

Third place at Tokyo, and then on to Kantou, on to the Nagas… Musashi rested his helmet by his knee on the bench, watched as swarms of people moved around the huge mass that covered the bleachers. The Nagas were coming out, and he tried to prepare, mentally, for the game, but his eyes shifted to the portion of the bleachers closest to them.

Akari waved with both hands at him from where she was standing on the seat, her expression semi-forced enthusiasm, dressed in one of his spare jerseys. A few rows behind her sat Habashira, slumped over in perfect nonchalance, but his eyes were glued to the field. Musashi's vision shifted, and there was Hiruma, two yards but so far away, watching him as he was watching those other two.

A touch of something, in Hiruma's eyes, something that was almost like indecisiveness, except Hiruma was never indecisive. The blond's eyes flickered back to Habashira, to Akari, then to rest on Musashi.

"This is what you wanted, right?" Hiruma asked, voice unreadable.

And maybe they didn't understand each other as well as Musashi thought. Because maybe, if they did, things wouldn't feel so screwed up between them. But he found himself turning away from the bleachers, found himself nodding.

"Yeah," he said, and the affirmation only left a bad taste in his mouth.

.end.