Runaway

When they were 15 Niou kissed him for the first time.

It was in an empty classroom, after school. Yagyuu's first reaction was to shove Niou hesitantly away. The white haired boy laughed and treated him like some shy girl. His hands were all over Yagyuu's chest as if looking for his missing breasts.

Yagyuu was too surprised by then to move, all he could think of was that no one had ever dared to kiss him all of a sudden up till now. Every kiss he had was because he had started it. Everything that happened was more or less something that Yagyuu had expected.

Looking back, Yagyuu could say that Niou was something no one could expect. But for that time it was Niou's lips on his neck.

"Niou-kun", he slowly began. "I don't think this is what you want."

"Oh, I certainly know what I want – at least what I want for now", Niou replied with a sly grin but he understood Yagyuu's polite version of "Get the fuck off me". He let go of Yagyuu who immediately fixed his tie.

"We can be done for today", Niou had said before he left Yagyuu alone in his favourite classroom.

"But you know what you want, Yagyuu. And I know it, too."

Yagyuu had never forgotten that day. He had never forgotten Niou.

- - -

Of course Niou didn't wait for Yagyuu to suddenly change his mind. Niou never waited. He always got what he wanted, sooner or later. No girl – and Yagyuu was sure no boy Niou had chosen – could resist the tempting charm of the trickster.

Yagyuu observed Niou from the corner of his eye and Niou winked every now and then; sometimes with a girl in his arms, sometimes from the other end of the classroom.

The white-haired didn't make another serious move for the next months. He flirted with everyone he seemed to have taken a liking to, Yagyuu included. Occasionally he dropped one or another person, but Yagyuu remained his favourite.

Yagyuu always wondered why but never said a word.

- - -

Yagyuu gave in to Niou when they were 17. He still didn't know what the final reason for his decision was but he liked to believe that it was all Niou's fault, anyway, so that there would be no use in thinking about it too hard.

It was all Niou, after all.

Their kiss after the first one, two years ago, was sloppy and wet. Yagyuu felt that Niou already wanted more than he was giving. He wondered if he would probably always be one step behind the other boy.

Niou moved on easily – and he came back easily.

When Yagyuu refused to let Niou do him right away, he only grinned. After school Yagyuu saw him going home with a girl.

He tried to avoid talking to Niou for the next weeks because ignoring Niou was impossible. The presence of the white-haired was so strong that Yagyuu's eyes always liked to follow him when Niou entered or left the room.

When Niou asked him if he could spend the night at Yagyuu's house a few weeks later, his first impulse was to refuse. Somehow, though, he found himself saying 'Yes' as easily as he was pinned against his own bed later that day.

They were both hard from their kiss session they had before, but Niou still took the time to ask him if that was really what he wanted. Yagyuu felt as if he had signed a contract when he nodded and only Niou the rules. They did it three times that night.

The next day both of them went to school as if nothing had happened: Niou back to his girls and Yagyuu to his books. Nevertheless he couldn't concentrate on The Great Gatsby at all, the pain from sitting one of the reasons.

Niou came over every once in a while but he never stayed for too long, as if afraid to lose something. They rarely talked when they were alone and they never talked when they had sex.

- - -

In college – Yagyuu still wondered how they could possibly be happen to attend the same college – he never tried to talk to Niou properly nor to end Niou's (it was all his fault, after all) game. Only on his graduation night he tried to discuss things with the white-haired. Niou was obviously not serious and things were going to be serious for Yagyuu after college, he had planned.

Niou had silenced him with a kiss and Yagyuu, already tired from the first try to talk about the future with Niou, had given in. Time had passed by quickly but nothing had changed. It wouldn't hurt if some more time would fly by, Yagyuu decided, he could come back to that subject later.

After all, this was still something Yagyuu wanted and Niou knew it. However, he didn't know what Niou wanted. Yagyuu could never grasp Niou's feelings or thoughts, either.

- - -

Only once he saw a glimpse of someone Niou was under his playful attitude.

"You look pale", the white-haired had said when he opened the door to Yagyuu's apartment. Yagyuu looked up from his book, perfectly aware that it wasn't he who looked pale.

"And you look bored", he had replied which made Niou smile a bit. It was the first time Niou cried his name when he came. Later Yagyuu heard that Niou's father had died.

But this – nor the fact that he had said his name while having sex for the first time – didn't change that Niou's visits remained infrequently and unpredictably.

- - -

The first thing on Niou Yagyuu saw after the white-haired had disappeared for a month were red kiss marks on his neck. He had closed the door without saying a word and left Niou standing outside.

Niou came back the following week, without kiss marks, but Yagyuu could smell the other woman – or man – on Niou. He took him back in his life, nevertheless. Because moments with Niou seemed to be the only moments that were alive, he told himself. Home, work, a date once in a while when Niou hadn't reported for a long time, back to work, another date the next month were his routine, something Yagyuu called his life. It was everything Yagyuu had planned.

But still, even though Yagyuu was bored, he couldn't stop feeling that Niou was utterly wrong for him, nonetheless.

It hurt when he was away, and it hurt even more when Niou was there.

Niou was nothing one could expect nor plan, Niou just happened. One couldn't control Niou, but Yagyuu had to try, anyway.

- - -

After he had tried to throw Niou out of his life a couple of times – which were all very unsuccessful since he had never asked the key to his apartment back from Niou – he would try to get Niou involved with his life or to get in touch with Niou's.

Nothing worked, but it wasn't his fault, Yagyuu decided. It was still his problem, though.

Niou disappeared less now, but he still did sometimes. Slowly Yagyuu stopped calling Niou's cell phone that he never answered, anyway. Niou always came back as easily as he went away.

Maybe, Yagyuu thought, he would never be able to understand Niou because he could never go away like Niou. And maybe he could never change Niou because he couldn't leave with him, but Yagyuu tried, nevertheless.

Time flew by, again, still, and nothing had changed. Yagyuu still wanted Niou – and Niou probably still wanted whatever he wanted in the first place. Sometimes, Yagyuu knew, they were both denying something. Sometimes Yagyuu didn't want to change anything.

- - -

"Niou-kun", Yagyuu said one day. The white-haired, who had been reading a magazine, looked up. "Do you want to move in?"

Niou looked surprised. "Why, I like things how they are now", he grinned.

Yagyuu wanted to reply that he didn't, but Niou had already stood up and walked towards him. "I like the things how they are now very much", he repeated, his lips brushed against Yagyuu's earlobe.

"I like you – you are a good guy."

Although it was the first time that Niou had said that he liked him, Yagyuu felt empty. He knew that he wasn't the only one Niou was seeing but he had felt that he was special to Niou. They knew each other for more than ten years and yet they didn't know each other at all, Yagyuu thought.

- - -

It had always been a game – Niou's game. They played with Niou's rules, even though Yagyuu didn't know them all, he knew some of them.

The most important rule of them all was about emotions. They never revealed any emotions in their relationship, because expressing them would mean to lose themselves in something that was too complicated for them. It would mean to alter their relationship, perhaps completely and unchangeable.

Yagyuu saw that Niou hadn't changed in all these years. He was still the same boy that wanted to be loved more than anyone else Yagyuu had known and who couldn't bear this love.

Niou was always moving on and always coming back. Yagyuu couldn't explain his restlessness but he knew that he couldn't heal it.

From all of these things this hurt the most.

Still, they had been playing this game for a long time and Yagyuu finally admitted that he had lost it long ago. Losing the game was alright, but it didn't change anything. He wanted to change Niou and he couldn't. The only way to change something, Yagyuu thought, was to break the rules – and which rule would be perfect to break to lose the game completely?

It was funny, Yagyuu thought and didn't smile at all, how strange love was.

- - -

Every day the pain in his chest became more and more numb, but he couldn't say less. Seeing Niou was a slow poison that would kill him in the end.

Yagyuu had never cared too much about keeping Niou in his life – the white-haired was always free to leave – but when he finally wanted him he would drive him away. Yagyuu liked the thought and his heart felt heavier.

- - -

"You're more passionate than usually", Niou remarked panting, his hands holding on to Yagyuu's hair. "I like that."

Yagyuu could hear the sly grin in Niou's tone, but he couldn't reply with Niou's dick in his mouth and he wouldn't try. He sucked the other man harshly.

"Wait, I want to come inside of you", the white-haired gasped. "We want to have fun, don't we?"

Yagyuu nodded with closed eyes as Niou moved them into the right positions. He didn't make a noise when Niou prepared him with his fingers. The pain and pleasure were something that Niou represented.

"Masaharu", he moaned, feeling more close to Niou than ever when the white-haired thrust his erection into Yagyuu. He could feel that Niou was surprised that he had said his first name as he moved, but inside him Yagyuu felt it breaking.

Their bodies rubbed against each other, slowly and almost tender before Niou increased the pace and everything became a blur, white lights exploded behind Yagyuu's eyelids, his heart beat hard against his chest and everything was Niou, Niou, Niou, Niou…

"Masaharu", Yagyuu repeated, suppressing a groan. He clung to Niou's back, his fingernails digging into his skin. This was exactly what he had wanted, what he had been longing for since their first kiss. It was something he never dared to expect. Despite his urge to cry he felt like smiling. It had been all his, Yagyuu's, fault in the end.

"I love you", he panted as he reached his climax. Niou stiffened but came inside of him seconds later and Yagyuu felt like falling down.

- - -

He woke up and saw that Niou was sitting next to the bed, completely dressed.

"Niou-kun?", he asked sleepy.

"Yagyuu", the white-haired replied. Without his glasses Yagyuu couldn't see the expression of the other man. Niou paused and opened his mouth before he closed it again to shake his head.

"Never mind. Try to sleep again."

Yagyuu felt Niou's cold finger brushing against his cheek, softly and for the first time hesitantly.

When Yagyuu woke up again, Niou was gone. He never came back again.