Challenge – Yama Pair Shorts: 056 Flicker
Sep. 5th, 2014 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neko_kirin3104056. Flicker
Pair/s: Ohno/Sho
Prompt: 67
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2284
Summary: Jun’s birthday, Masaki’s dice game, and a brief glimpse into the world inside Sho’s dreams.
Series: Prism (formerly, Waku Waku Orphans)
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
And they had just been celebrating Jun’s twelfth birthday, too! With passable food, music that’s really more noise than rhythm, and mindless merriment that had not spared any of them from the clutches of Masaki’s infamous dice game made especially sinister for the occasion.
“They’re all penalty boxes,” Ryo said, frowning at the taped up pieces of cardboard on the floor, its tatami-sized surface crammed with numerous panels drawn in black ink; each panel mocking them with a brief directive (scribbled out in red) to make fools of themselves at every turn.
“Yes, Sherlock.” Kazunari shrugged, being himself the main instigator of the new and improved version of the fun, though rather kooky game they would often play on special occasions. “It’s supposed to be fun that way.” Kazunari threw the cardboard dice he had also helped put together (and was roughly the size of his head) to check if it would roll over just fine without falling apart.
“Can’t we at least get a ‘No Chore’ for a day pass or something?” Hina crouched down to inspect one panel closely. “Playing to smell Abi’s unwashed socks does not really appeal to me all that much.”
“And I’ve seriously had enough of wearing Shibata-san’s stockings over my head!” At-chan whined from the other side of the board. “It just makes my face look flatter. And BIGGER!”
His roommate Megane Shingo quickly seconded this along with his own empathic complaint about the brain-frazzling and throat-ripping agony of chugging down Masaki’s toxic tea mixes.
“And how is my dodosuko dance a punishment?” Chunyuu Shingo pouted from another side, his strangled attempt at a cute, girly voice causing reflexive snickers to ripple across the room.
Several other kids, both from the Kitagawa and the Yoshimoto wings, kept hurling their whiny, grouchy, weepy two cents worth around (an accusation of the board being rigged was even raised by the usually zoned out Quirky Shingo), until Masaki jumped up on a chair and declared that whoever reached the final panel, glaringly labeled GOOL, would get a kiss from Miss Ayase.
“Now we’re talking!” Yama-chan exclaimed, igniting a smattering of cheers and hoots that spread across the art room (turned into a party place for the night), spilled all the way to the room across the hall (forever the adults’ lounge), and called the attention of Shibata-san who instantly rushed over to scream at them to keep it down.
But not even a minute passed before the adults in the other room were bursting out in their own chaotic noises over a game that Shibata-san herself had masterminded.
The boys all had their theories about what went on whenever the adults locked themselves away like that, but none of them really cared enough to confirm or think any more of it beyond the few nanoseconds it took to roll their eyes and shrugged the matter off.
How much fun could anyone possibly get from a game called ‘Mominication’ anyway? Perhaps it was something that only adults with half a brain could understand.
Besides, they did have their own ways of entertaining themselves, after all.
Sure enough and half an hour later, Masaki’s upgraded dice game of doom had just about ripped through every boyish pride in that room—
Stockinged heads. Gold faces. Inked faces. Panda eyes. Darkened nostrils. And a dozen other heinous crimes to the ego that ranged from the simple snipping of nipple holes on Sho’s shirt, to the totally mortifying panel that sent Satoshi and Kazunari snapping their hips in one corner of the room in a half-assed attempt at a hard gay choreo.
The funniest thing about all of it was that the celebrant himself ended up with the brunt of tonight’s entertainment.
Halfway into the game, Jun would find himself on Headmaster Hatori’s swivel chair (snagged from the Headmaster’s office with permission), dressed in a fancy oversized robe (loaned from Nakai’s wardrobe with a rather dubious consent), holding a fat cigar (snitched out of old man Joshima’s pockets this morning) in one hand, and a brandy glass (with one of Masaki’s seasonal tea mixes) in the other.
The stocking over his head only made the scowl he had been regarding everyone all night more menacing.
“I hate this day,” he grumbled.
Beside him, hands consciously cupped over his exposed nipples, Sho cackled. “You’re always so grumpy on your birthday! Cheer up!”
“But it’s the same old thing every year!”
Sho shook his head and clucked his tongue in mock contempt. “Wow, Jun-kun. That’s the same old comment every year, too.”
“Where’d you learn to be such a jerk?”
“I heard you used to be such a sweet kid yourself.” Sho smirked, then broke out in a giggle when Jun let out a loud growl. “Oh, Jun-kun! Loosen up, will you? Let’s just enjoy ourselves tonight, okay?” He caught sight of Satoshi looking over at them while trying to keep up with his and Kazunari’s hard gay routine. He smiled, knowing that he wouldn’t be saying these things to Jun if it weren’t for that boy.
Satoshi jutted his jaw out in return, then turned around slowly while rolling his hips in comically exaggerated waves for his sake.
Sho doubled over in laughter, knowing for sure that he had not had as much fun as this in all of his thirteen years—his nipple tee and darkened nostrils aside.
“Dumbass,” Jun snorted. “I’m surrounded by dumbasses.”
For his next turn though, and as if in answer to his grouchy friend’s bid for bad karma, Sho’s game piece (a plastic cup scrawled all over with his name) landed in one of the three tea mixes that Masaki had especially prepared for tonight, which ironically enough was the same one pretending to be liquor in Jun’s brandy glass.
“Ha! Who’s laughing now?!” The sniggering boy held the glass out to Sho.
Sho stuck his tongue out and grabbed the glass with an arrogant flourish. “This is nothing.”
He didn’t really know what was exactly in this stuff. He would never have a chance to find out.
Before he knew it, his knees had already hit the floor with a painful thud, the empty glass shattering beside him. He grabbed his neck with both hands and started coughing like he’s about to throw up a lung.
His throat was burning. There’s heat at the back of his eyes. And he could swear he had just heard his brain pop and burst inside his skull.
Then the light just went off, plunging the whole room into absolute silence.
Eerie.
Cold.
Empty.
He took one sharp breath in, the sound it made at the back of his throat echoing through the nothingness, fading away in the deafening buzz filling his ears.
He could no longer taste Masaki’s tea at this point, could no longer feel the grating itch the concoction had just been drawing down his throat.
He was just standing there, in a never-ending stretch of darkness, holding his breath.
Frozen.
Numb.
Lost.
Scared...
“Satoshi-kun!” he called out, the sound of his own tremulous voice squeezing his heart. “SATOSHI-KUN!”
Something hit his chest out of nowhere. A sudden blunt force that threw him off his feet. He began hearing faint voices, shouting; faint beeping sounds, flaring out. The chaotic noises in his mind were overlapping each other now, but he’s still seeing nothing, still feeling nothing.
Except that one forceful pounding on his chest that lifted his back off the ground every few seconds, following a firm directive that he’s only now starting to understand—
“Clear!”
He grunted as his back bounced off the floor.
“Clear!”
He closed his eyes as his body bounced off again.
“Clear!”
He could barely feel his heart beating now, but could also sense it going all out of control—
“Sho-san!”
“Clear!”
He bounced. He gasped. He tried to open his eyes, groaning at the sudden rush of blinding white light outlining the blurry image of a woman, crying, calling out his name.
“Sho-san! Please! Please don’t go!”
His breath hitched as his vision swirled. Darkness and light grappled for his consciousness. Disembodied voices were calling out to him from each side, like haunting echoes of a past long forgotten.
Then the darkness just melted away, and he suddenly found himself on that cliff again. The one in his dreams.
The recurring dreams that he thought Satoshi had already chased away...
He’s slowly walking to the edge. His steps measured, shaky. He knew only too well what he was about to do. He didn’t want to do it. But his feet seemed to have grown a mind of their own.
He could already hear the waves lapping up angrily against the rocks below. A chilly northern breeze blew pass to ruffle his hair, bring a flicker of dust to his eyes, try to change his mind.
He wasn’t changing his mind, though.
He still didn’t want to go.
And yet, he just kept walking—
“SHO!”
He gasped and flinched at the unfamiliar steely edge in Satoshi’s voice.
An angry grip swiped his wrist and pulled him back forcefully, his back hitting a surprisingly strong chest. Arms quickly snaked around him from behind, holding him in a tight embrace, almost literally cutting his breath—
“You’re not going anywhere, Sho-chan.” Satoshi’s voice, his scorching breath, the soft, wet press of his lips, prickled the skin on Sho’s nape. “I won’t ever let you.”
Everything around them seemed to freeze at that moment—the waves, the breeze, time itself—as Satoshi’s arms crushed Sho harder, closer to himself. Sho clutched the boy’s arms, clawed at them for a little space as he whined and sobbed in a panic. “S-Satoshi...!”
But Satoshi did not let up. The searing heat of his breath slithering across Sho’s skin as he slowly moved his face close to Sho’s ear. “YOU’RE MINE.”
And Sho was coughing again.
And the noises were surging back into his consciousness like a fierce rush of water from a broken dam. The familiar voices of the boys at Waku Waku, everyone he had come to know as friends, filled his head with a chaotic hum that just worsened the irritation in his throat, the erratic pounding in his chest.
The lights had yet to come back on. And the darkness—more than the huddle of bodies he could sense around him, the smattering of worried faces he somehow knew were looking down on him—was suffocating. Thick and mercilessly bent on engulfing him whole. Moving in closer and closer, faster and faster with each progressive cough—
“I’m sorry, Oh-chan! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry!”
A part of Sho’s quivering mind caught Jun’s sputtered apologies, so close to his ear as though Jun was kneeling beside him, begging for his life.
It’s so unlike that boy to sound this scared. Sho thought it’s almost funny. Except that everybody else had stopped talking all at once. And he’s suddenly aware of Satoshi’s arms around him again, this time cradling him, as he lay on the floor, as his breath gradually recovered, as his senses just as slowly began catching up—
He felt like he should say something. Anything. Because Satoshi’s breaths were already coming out in short, heavy gasps, like the boy was thinking of doing something stupid, something drastic, for his sake.
“It’s okay,” he managed to say in his own short bursts of breath. “Satoshi-kun, it’s okay.”
But his consciousness would betray him right there. And he would barely hear what Satoshi had to say as his eyes fluttered close, his mind falling away into limbo.
He’s sure he heard something, though.
And it’s the only thing he could think of to account for what he woke up to the following day—
“What blackout? There are no blackouts in Waku Waku!” Masaki scoffed, looking at Sho from across the table like he thought Sho had just lost his mind. He picked up a milk bun from his breakfast tray and shoveled it into his mouth. “You’re acting crazy again, Sho-chan.”
“Seriously, Masaki! We were even playing your dice game for Jun-kun’s birthday!” Sho insisted, his smile faltering. He didn’t know what Masaki was up to, or why his friend was trying to make a fool of him so early in the morning, but he thought it’s really rude. “I just want to know how Jun-kun is doing. Is he not coming down for breakfast?”
Masaki frowned, gulped down his food, then said slowly like he’s worried Sho might miss a word, “We did play the dice game, Sho-chan. But there was no party.”
Sho bit his lip hard so he didn’t end up cursing. He had never really liked it when he’s trying to be serious and everybody else was hell-bent on joking around—
“And who the hell is Jun-kun, anyway?”
The words threw a wedge into the gears inside Sho’s brain, making them halt and quiet down long enough for Satoshi’s voice from last night to crawl right back into the surface—
An involuntary gasp escaped Sho’s throat when Satoshi himself slumped down beside him, at once catching Sho’s eyes in his usual tender gaze, shackling Sho’s heart with his usual loving smile. “’Morning, Sho-chan.”
Sho looked away, his whole body numbing up. His head filled with the echoes of Satoshi’s horrifyingly calm voice, the quietly exacting words he heard the boy say before he lost his consciousness at Jun’s supposedly non-existent party—
“I don’t want you here anymore, Jun.”
Next >>>>>
***References taken from everywhere. Arashi varieties are a boxful of plot-bunnies. xp
This has actually become a rather twisted retelling of one of my favorite stories growing up.
Saying what it is right now, though, might be a little spoilery. xp
It’s a classic tale that starts with this line— “All children, except one, grow up.”
If you are still reading this, thank you very much.
Your time and your comments are always appreciated. =(^-^)=
Pair/s: Ohno/Sho
Prompt: 67
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2284
Summary: Jun’s birthday, Masaki’s dice game, and a brief glimpse into the world inside Sho’s dreams.
Series: Prism (formerly, Waku Waku Orphans)
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
They didn’t usually get blackouts in Waku Waku. Not that there really was much light to lose when the carbon filament lamps lining the halls and lighting up the rooms flickered out.
And they had just been celebrating Jun’s twelfth birthday, too! With passable food, music that’s really more noise than rhythm, and mindless merriment that had not spared any of them from the clutches of Masaki’s infamous dice game made especially sinister for the occasion.
“They’re all penalty boxes,” Ryo said, frowning at the taped up pieces of cardboard on the floor, its tatami-sized surface crammed with numerous panels drawn in black ink; each panel mocking them with a brief directive (scribbled out in red) to make fools of themselves at every turn.
“Yes, Sherlock.” Kazunari shrugged, being himself the main instigator of the new and improved version of the fun, though rather kooky game they would often play on special occasions. “It’s supposed to be fun that way.” Kazunari threw the cardboard dice he had also helped put together (and was roughly the size of his head) to check if it would roll over just fine without falling apart.
“Can’t we at least get a ‘No Chore’ for a day pass or something?” Hina crouched down to inspect one panel closely. “Playing to smell Abi’s unwashed socks does not really appeal to me all that much.”
“And I’ve seriously had enough of wearing Shibata-san’s stockings over my head!” At-chan whined from the other side of the board. “It just makes my face look flatter. And BIGGER!”
His roommate Megane Shingo quickly seconded this along with his own empathic complaint about the brain-frazzling and throat-ripping agony of chugging down Masaki’s toxic tea mixes.
“And how is my dodosuko dance a punishment?” Chunyuu Shingo pouted from another side, his strangled attempt at a cute, girly voice causing reflexive snickers to ripple across the room.
Several other kids, both from the Kitagawa and the Yoshimoto wings, kept hurling their whiny, grouchy, weepy two cents worth around (an accusation of the board being rigged was even raised by the usually zoned out Quirky Shingo), until Masaki jumped up on a chair and declared that whoever reached the final panel, glaringly labeled GOOL, would get a kiss from Miss Ayase.
“Now we’re talking!” Yama-chan exclaimed, igniting a smattering of cheers and hoots that spread across the art room (turned into a party place for the night), spilled all the way to the room across the hall (forever the adults’ lounge), and called the attention of Shibata-san who instantly rushed over to scream at them to keep it down.
But not even a minute passed before the adults in the other room were bursting out in their own chaotic noises over a game that Shibata-san herself had masterminded.
The boys all had their theories about what went on whenever the adults locked themselves away like that, but none of them really cared enough to confirm or think any more of it beyond the few nanoseconds it took to roll their eyes and shrugged the matter off.
How much fun could anyone possibly get from a game called ‘Mominication’ anyway? Perhaps it was something that only adults with half a brain could understand.
Besides, they did have their own ways of entertaining themselves, after all.
Sure enough and half an hour later, Masaki’s upgraded dice game of doom had just about ripped through every boyish pride in that room—
Stockinged heads. Gold faces. Inked faces. Panda eyes. Darkened nostrils. And a dozen other heinous crimes to the ego that ranged from the simple snipping of nipple holes on Sho’s shirt, to the totally mortifying panel that sent Satoshi and Kazunari snapping their hips in one corner of the room in a half-assed attempt at a hard gay choreo.
The funniest thing about all of it was that the celebrant himself ended up with the brunt of tonight’s entertainment.
Halfway into the game, Jun would find himself on Headmaster Hatori’s swivel chair (snagged from the Headmaster’s office with permission), dressed in a fancy oversized robe (loaned from Nakai’s wardrobe with a rather dubious consent), holding a fat cigar (snitched out of old man Joshima’s pockets this morning) in one hand, and a brandy glass (with one of Masaki’s seasonal tea mixes) in the other.
The stocking over his head only made the scowl he had been regarding everyone all night more menacing.
“I hate this day,” he grumbled.
Beside him, hands consciously cupped over his exposed nipples, Sho cackled. “You’re always so grumpy on your birthday! Cheer up!”
“But it’s the same old thing every year!”
Sho shook his head and clucked his tongue in mock contempt. “Wow, Jun-kun. That’s the same old comment every year, too.”
“Where’d you learn to be such a jerk?”
“I heard you used to be such a sweet kid yourself.” Sho smirked, then broke out in a giggle when Jun let out a loud growl. “Oh, Jun-kun! Loosen up, will you? Let’s just enjoy ourselves tonight, okay?” He caught sight of Satoshi looking over at them while trying to keep up with his and Kazunari’s hard gay routine. He smiled, knowing that he wouldn’t be saying these things to Jun if it weren’t for that boy.
Satoshi jutted his jaw out in return, then turned around slowly while rolling his hips in comically exaggerated waves for his sake.
Sho doubled over in laughter, knowing for sure that he had not had as much fun as this in all of his thirteen years—his nipple tee and darkened nostrils aside.
“Dumbass,” Jun snorted. “I’m surrounded by dumbasses.”
For his next turn though, and as if in answer to his grouchy friend’s bid for bad karma, Sho’s game piece (a plastic cup scrawled all over with his name) landed in one of the three tea mixes that Masaki had especially prepared for tonight, which ironically enough was the same one pretending to be liquor in Jun’s brandy glass.
“Ha! Who’s laughing now?!” The sniggering boy held the glass out to Sho.
Sho stuck his tongue out and grabbed the glass with an arrogant flourish. “This is nothing.”
He didn’t really know what was exactly in this stuff. He would never have a chance to find out.
Before he knew it, his knees had already hit the floor with a painful thud, the empty glass shattering beside him. He grabbed his neck with both hands and started coughing like he’s about to throw up a lung.
His throat was burning. There’s heat at the back of his eyes. And he could swear he had just heard his brain pop and burst inside his skull.
Then the light just went off, plunging the whole room into absolute silence.
Eerie.
Cold.
Empty.
He took one sharp breath in, the sound it made at the back of his throat echoing through the nothingness, fading away in the deafening buzz filling his ears.
He could no longer taste Masaki’s tea at this point, could no longer feel the grating itch the concoction had just been drawing down his throat.
He was just standing there, in a never-ending stretch of darkness, holding his breath.
Frozen.
Numb.
Lost.
Scared...
“Satoshi-kun!” he called out, the sound of his own tremulous voice squeezing his heart. “SATOSHI-KUN!”
Something hit his chest out of nowhere. A sudden blunt force that threw him off his feet. He began hearing faint voices, shouting; faint beeping sounds, flaring out. The chaotic noises in his mind were overlapping each other now, but he’s still seeing nothing, still feeling nothing.
Except that one forceful pounding on his chest that lifted his back off the ground every few seconds, following a firm directive that he’s only now starting to understand—
“Clear!”
He grunted as his back bounced off the floor.
“Clear!”
He closed his eyes as his body bounced off again.
“Clear!”
He could barely feel his heart beating now, but could also sense it going all out of control—
“Sho-san!”
“Clear!”
He bounced. He gasped. He tried to open his eyes, groaning at the sudden rush of blinding white light outlining the blurry image of a woman, crying, calling out his name.
“Sho-san! Please! Please don’t go!”
His breath hitched as his vision swirled. Darkness and light grappled for his consciousness. Disembodied voices were calling out to him from each side, like haunting echoes of a past long forgotten.
Then the darkness just melted away, and he suddenly found himself on that cliff again. The one in his dreams.
The recurring dreams that he thought Satoshi had already chased away...
He’s slowly walking to the edge. His steps measured, shaky. He knew only too well what he was about to do. He didn’t want to do it. But his feet seemed to have grown a mind of their own.
He could already hear the waves lapping up angrily against the rocks below. A chilly northern breeze blew pass to ruffle his hair, bring a flicker of dust to his eyes, try to change his mind.
He wasn’t changing his mind, though.
He still didn’t want to go.
And yet, he just kept walking—
“SHO!”
He gasped and flinched at the unfamiliar steely edge in Satoshi’s voice.
An angry grip swiped his wrist and pulled him back forcefully, his back hitting a surprisingly strong chest. Arms quickly snaked around him from behind, holding him in a tight embrace, almost literally cutting his breath—
“You’re not going anywhere, Sho-chan.” Satoshi’s voice, his scorching breath, the soft, wet press of his lips, prickled the skin on Sho’s nape. “I won’t ever let you.”
Everything around them seemed to freeze at that moment—the waves, the breeze, time itself—as Satoshi’s arms crushed Sho harder, closer to himself. Sho clutched the boy’s arms, clawed at them for a little space as he whined and sobbed in a panic. “S-Satoshi...!”
But Satoshi did not let up. The searing heat of his breath slithering across Sho’s skin as he slowly moved his face close to Sho’s ear. “YOU’RE MINE.”
And Sho was coughing again.
And the noises were surging back into his consciousness like a fierce rush of water from a broken dam. The familiar voices of the boys at Waku Waku, everyone he had come to know as friends, filled his head with a chaotic hum that just worsened the irritation in his throat, the erratic pounding in his chest.
The lights had yet to come back on. And the darkness—more than the huddle of bodies he could sense around him, the smattering of worried faces he somehow knew were looking down on him—was suffocating. Thick and mercilessly bent on engulfing him whole. Moving in closer and closer, faster and faster with each progressive cough—
“I’m sorry, Oh-chan! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorry!”
A part of Sho’s quivering mind caught Jun’s sputtered apologies, so close to his ear as though Jun was kneeling beside him, begging for his life.
It’s so unlike that boy to sound this scared. Sho thought it’s almost funny. Except that everybody else had stopped talking all at once. And he’s suddenly aware of Satoshi’s arms around him again, this time cradling him, as he lay on the floor, as his breath gradually recovered, as his senses just as slowly began catching up—
He felt like he should say something. Anything. Because Satoshi’s breaths were already coming out in short, heavy gasps, like the boy was thinking of doing something stupid, something drastic, for his sake.
“It’s okay,” he managed to say in his own short bursts of breath. “Satoshi-kun, it’s okay.”
But his consciousness would betray him right there. And he would barely hear what Satoshi had to say as his eyes fluttered close, his mind falling away into limbo.
He’s sure he heard something, though.
And it’s the only thing he could think of to account for what he woke up to the following day—
“What blackout? There are no blackouts in Waku Waku!” Masaki scoffed, looking at Sho from across the table like he thought Sho had just lost his mind. He picked up a milk bun from his breakfast tray and shoveled it into his mouth. “You’re acting crazy again, Sho-chan.”
“Seriously, Masaki! We were even playing your dice game for Jun-kun’s birthday!” Sho insisted, his smile faltering. He didn’t know what Masaki was up to, or why his friend was trying to make a fool of him so early in the morning, but he thought it’s really rude. “I just want to know how Jun-kun is doing. Is he not coming down for breakfast?”
Masaki frowned, gulped down his food, then said slowly like he’s worried Sho might miss a word, “We did play the dice game, Sho-chan. But there was no party.”
Sho bit his lip hard so he didn’t end up cursing. He had never really liked it when he’s trying to be serious and everybody else was hell-bent on joking around—
“And who the hell is Jun-kun, anyway?”
The words threw a wedge into the gears inside Sho’s brain, making them halt and quiet down long enough for Satoshi’s voice from last night to crawl right back into the surface—
An involuntary gasp escaped Sho’s throat when Satoshi himself slumped down beside him, at once catching Sho’s eyes in his usual tender gaze, shackling Sho’s heart with his usual loving smile. “’Morning, Sho-chan.”
Sho looked away, his whole body numbing up. His head filled with the echoes of Satoshi’s horrifyingly calm voice, the quietly exacting words he heard the boy say before he lost his consciousness at Jun’s supposedly non-existent party—
“I don’t want you here anymore, Jun.”
Next >>>>>
***References taken from everywhere. Arashi varieties are a boxful of plot-bunnies. xp
This has actually become a rather twisted retelling of one of my favorite stories growing up.
Saying what it is right now, though, might be a little spoilery. xp
If you are still reading this, thank you very much.
Your time and your comments are always appreciated. =(^-^)=
