oob log: kippei and akira

[shattermelt]

It felt good to be able to run regularly again. Akira's usual routine had gotten so disrupted by everything that had been happening lately that he'd been worried about getting too out of shape. Shinji would probably have laughed at him for such a thought, but he had them all the same. Not that it mattered. His muscles were humming pleasantly from the exertion, and all he wanted now was a shower and maybe a sandwhich.

And, of course, to relax and spend the rest of his day with his boyfriends. Maybe, if he was lucky, one of them had been bored enough to do the dishes for him. He smiled to himself, toeing off his sneakers as he walked through the front door. And maybe Jason the turtle would come back from the dead and do a little dance on Shinji's head.

Stretching his arms over his head as he walked through the house, he called, "Hey! I'm home!" No one answered, and he paused, peeking into the kitchen. There were dishes piled in soapy water in the sink, abandoned. Grimacing, he ran a hand through his sweaty hair and walked on. "Shinji? 'Pei?" The cat ran through his legs, causing him to stumble back and curse softly.

Scratching the back of his head, he started up the stairs. "Well, don't everyone greet me all at once", he groused to himself, heading for the bedroom.

Kippei raised his head when he heard Akira downstairs, blinking sleepily. It had taken him a long time, but he had finally drowsed off a bit, not really sleeping. Shinji was still asleep. Good. Kippei opened his mouth to call out to Akira, and then thought better of it. It sounded like he was on his way up, anyway.

Kippei rolled over and stretched a bit--he'd been laying in one position for too long, and his muscles were getting stiff. He sat up then, hugging his knees, and looked down at Shinji's sleeping face, just peeking out of the blankets he'd nearly smothered himself in. He didn't want to wake up. Kippei wasn't sure what hurt more, the fact that he and Akira weren't enough to make Shinji want to stay, or the knowledge that he was hurting Shinji by asking him to. But how was he supposed to let him go?

He looked up when Akira walked in, giving him a crooked smile and raising a finger to his lips to tell him to be quiet.

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[http://users.livejournal.com/_in_the_rhythm_/]

Closing his mouth reflexively at Kippei's gesture, one of Akira's eyebrows went up questioningly at the all too familiar scene before him. Shinji was sleeping...and he looked like hell.

Akira knew damn well the difference between a normal sleeping Shinji and an abnormally sleeping Shinji. Added to that, Kippei looked like hell too. The worried wrinkle was back on his forehead, and he looked tired and worried.

What the--he'd only been gone for a couple of hours! Walking quietly to the bed, he leaned down to gently brush a bit of hair off of Shinji's face, looking across at Kippei. If they had to be quiet, then he could get his questions answered in the other room. He jerked his head to the door, walking out and waiting for Kippei to follow.

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Kippei sighed, and brushed a kiss on Shinji's temple, and got up to follow Akira out of the room. He stopped beside him to wrap him in a silent hug and give him a proper welcome home kiss, sighing faintly as he pulled away. What was he supposed to tell Akira, anyway? This was all his fault. He took Akira's hand and tugged him along, pulling him into the sunroom.

"Come here," he said tiredly, sinking down onto the futon and pulling Akira after him, laying back and closing his eyes. Probably should have talked to Akira about this before he'd told Shinji, but he hadn't exactly been planning to tell Shinji today or like this or at all, maybe. It had just kind of happened.

"How was your run?" he asked, opening his eyes again and looking curiously at Akira. Maybe he could get away with some distraction before he had to talk about it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_in_the_rhythm_/]

"...Cut it out, 'Pei" Akira shot back softly, relaxing automatically after being draped against his boyfriend. He frowned. He had a very bad premonition he wasn't going to like whatever it was that was going on now. And while a part of him didn't want to know, wanted things to just keep being good between the three of them for awhile longer, he immediately set about prying it out of Kippei anyways.

"What happened? Is Shin okay? Did he...lapse or something?" Akira's brow furrowed worriedly, catching his bottom lip in his teeth.

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Kippei sighed, rubbing Akira's back in random absent circles. So, no distractions allowed then.

"He's sleeping. He's... I screwed up. I'm sorry. I should have known better. I wanted to talk to him about some stuff but... I don't know. I knew he wasn't going to like it but I wasn't expecting... I should have known better," he said again, sounding unhappy. Akira was probably going to be mad at him. He deserved it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_in_the_rhythm_/]

Now he was filled with absolute dread. If Kippei was apologizing before he even explained...Akira's hands reached up, smoothing back his lover's hair back, trying to sooth him in some way. "It can't be that bad", he tried reassuringly. "Just tell me what's going on, Kippei."

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Kippei took a deep breath. Akira being soothing and reassuring was not helping, because he didn't know and once he knew he was going to start yelling, or worse. This was all so fucked up.

"I don't know how much you remember... from back then. Did you know he has another sister?"

[http://users.livejournal.com/_in_the_rhythm_/]

The hands stroking Kippei froze, and Akira went pale with shock. "How--How do you know about Ashi?" he whispered, drawing back slowly. It was suddenly so clear what had happened, but he shook his head, denying it. Kippei wouldn't have done that, wouldn't have told Shinji about Ashi...not without him.

"Who told you about her?"

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

"Shinji's dad," Kippei told him grimly, a bit surprised to find that Akira did, in fact, remember her. There was no reason why he shouldn't, though. He'd only been eleven, either, but he hadn't had any reason to forget her.

"I asked him about Shinji's mother, and he told me the whole story. I was planning to ask you about it, but... " He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. "It's been bothering me and Shinji noticed and asked me about it... I don't know, it just happened."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_in_the_rhythm_/]

"Ibu-tousan?" Akira blinked, trying to shake off his dumbfoundedness. Of course he remembered Ashi, who'd always looked up to Shinji and to him, always eager to follow wherever they were going or what they were doing. Just like he knew the girl she was now, more serious-minded than her two siblings, but still clever and carefree...when you could get her to forget, just for a moment, about her older brother.

He shuffled off of Kippei to pace around the futon, distractingly running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. "What do you mean, 'it just happened'?" He asked, not harshly or too loudly...not yet. "When did Tousan even tell you? Do you know just how..." Stupid that was? But he couldn't say it out loud.

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Kippei shook his head, frowning and sitting up again. "He needs to know, Akira," he argued. "He can't just go the rest of his life and never remember what really happened. She needs to come home, and he's going to have to deal with it someday. He needs to. He has to get past it."

He sighed, resting his chin on his knee. "I think he needs to know, and he needs to know now. But I could have handled it better. I was trying to think of a way to tell him, I wanted to ask you about it, but... he doesn't like it when I think too much and he wanted me to tell him." Kippei shrugged, irritably. He was always bad at not doing anything Shinji wanted, but Akira knew that.

[daredtygrz.livejournal.com]

Oh, he knew it. But at that moment, Akira didn't really care. He stopped in his place, his back to Kippei, staring hard at the wall across from him.

"You don't make that decision on your own." He said it so flatly, he wondered absently just how angry he was really getting over this. Looking back over his shoulder at Kippei's guilt-ridden face, he felt a little fissure of impotent temper spike.

So he was angry. "You don't make decisions like that by yourself!", he growled, turning around now to fix his electric-blue glare at Kippei. "After everything that's happened this year, how could you possibly think that this was the time to tell him?"

Akira felt sick. He'd waited himself for the right time to tell Shinji about his sister; he'd sworn to his mother and Ibu-san both that he would never tell his best friend about the sister he'd forgotten. And it had hurt, not only Ashi and the rest of the Ibus, but Akira as well. They were his family too. It stabbed at him whenever he visited Ashi, watching her face light up and then fall whenever he would tell her about her brother; what stupid pranks he'd pulled that year, what matches he'd won, what new techniques he'd mastered on the street courts.

He should have been the one to tell Shinji. He should have at least been there for Shinji when he'd been told. Maybe circumstances had prevented it, but Akira was never one for looking at circumstances when he was spitting mad and drowning in his own guilt.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

"I didn't," Kippei snapped back at him, suddenly angry too. "I talked to Ibu-tousan about it, and I would have talked to you but I didn't even know if you knew, you never said anything either. You never told me." Neither Shinji or Akira ever talked much about their past, their childhood before he'd met them, and he hadn't asked, because he felt like it was theirs and he didn't belong. Now, he wished he had.

"After everything that's happened this year is exactly why he needs to know. He can't keep living terrified that everyone's going to leave him, that's it's always all his fault like he thinks that was. All of his issues start with that day. I figured that out six months ago but I didn't think he was stable enough then to bring it up. Now, I thought he was, and maybe I was wrong but regardless, Akira, he's never going to BE that stable until he deals with it!"

[daredtygrz.livejournal.com]

The redhead's eyes widened. "Wait...Wait...six months"

He had to sit down. But Kippei had the futon and there really wasn't any chairs in the sunroom, so Akira sank down to the floor. He had to think, but everything in his head was warring with his growing temper and making it difficult to do much more than be irrationally angry. He tried taking a deep breath, and then another. And counting to ten in his head.

What he really wanted to do was throw something against the wall and run back to Shinji's side and hold him. His head fell into his hands. Maybe Kippei was right but...he heard Shinji's laughter in his head, how much happier he'd been since the hot springs...he thought about the crestfallen look on Ashi's face when he'd visited her before Christmas.

Miserable and furiously blinking back any wetness in his eyes, hidden in his hands, he mumbled. "All right...all right...you should-you should have waited for me, though...He should have heard it from me too..."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei had no argument with that. He would much rather have had Akira there too. He'd been thinking if he ever did say anything that Akira should be there, and this hadn't been the plan at all, insofar as he'd had one.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I wish you would have been there, too."

[daredtygrz.livejournal.com]

"Damn it", Akira growled into his hands, a wave of bitter anger slapping at him. "Damn it. What was I supposed to do?" He asked no one, taking his frustrations and pains out on himself, his voice harsh.

"They told me...I promised never to say a word. Not a word. Like it was easy! Always letting Shin tell me memories from our childhood because I couldn't risk telling him anything...what if I slipped and mentioned her? Making sure our friends and other people didn't accidently talk about her, or his mom. Lying to him and to you, because no one knew if we should tell you or not..." Akira's hands fisted in his hair and pulled.

"It's not just about Shinji...this affects everyone. We all should have been with him..." He couldn't continue, choked up as he was.

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei sighed, and laid back again, covering his eyes. He was so incredibly tired. "I know," he said simply. Yes, he knew, he'd fucked it up and it was all his fault and he knew that. He didn't really belong here at all. It was their history, their family, and he hadn't been there. He never should have been the one to tell Shinji at all. But god, what was he supposed to do either? He couldn't help but want to fix things, he hated knowing that things were wrong when they could be fixed so easily. So easily, but it had turned out to be so hard.

"What do you want?" he asked in frustration, looking over at Akira. "I fucked up, and I know it. I'm sorry. You want to hit me, yell at me? You want me to leave? What?"

[daredtygrz.livejournal.com]

It took a moment for any of that to sink in. Akira wasn't even sure who he was pissed off at...maybe it was the old anger. All of the old frustration at having to tiptoe around things, and lie, and spend so much of his time worrying about everyone that it had just become second nature to him.

And Kippei was doing it again. Taking everything onto himself, trying to fix everything and everyone...blaming himself when it all blew up in their faces.

Akira scrubbed his face hard, staring at the floor between his feet for a few heartbeats. Oh, his arm was itching to throw something, and his temper was still formidable.

But oddly, it was like some sort of weight had been released from his shoulders, only to be replaced by an even heavier one. If Shinji knew about Ashi now, there wasn't any going back. They'd have to finish it. And if it ended badly...he shut his eyes at the thought of Shinji turning his back on him, feeling betrayed for all the lies Akira had told over the years. That all of them had told. He swallowed heavily and stood.

He felt Kippei's eyes on him as he moved, but with his hair over his eyes, and his eyes trained on the floor beneath his feet, he knew the other couldn't see his. He stopped at the bed, both hands slowly reaching out to curl fingers around Kippei's shirt.

"Dork", he said softly, a very real and painful pang slicing through his chest, "I want what I've always wanted. I want to go back. I want to go back and...fix everything myself." He pulled the older man closer. "I don't want to hit you, or yell at you. I don't want you to leave. Don't be stupid."

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei bit his lip, and he didn't know if he wanted to cry or scream or throw things, but he wasn't angry at Akira and Akira wasn't angry with him. It all just hurt. He latched onto Akira forearms, his big hands nearly closing completely around them, and pulled Akira down beside him on the bed. "I don't want to leave," he said quietly, because more than anything he didn't want to leave.

He tucked Akira in against him, curling up around him with arms and legs intertwined, pressing his face against Akira's hair. "I should have been there," he whispered, admitting something he hadn't even said to Shinji, the guilt of being so far behind everyone else's experience. "I should have been there all this time."

[daredtygrz.livejournal.com]

Well that was just...sweet, Akira thought. A little pointless since Kippei hadn't grown up with them, hadn't even met them until he'd joined the Fudomine tennis club...but sweet and beautiful and a bit heartbreaking all the same. He pressed closer, breathing in the scent of Kippei under his shirt, and tilted his head up to press a little kiss on his lover's neck.

"Dork. You were always with us...it just took us a long time to find you." It seemed like a practical enough statement to the redhead; he did believe in things like fate and destiny after all. Still, he was feeling decidedly sappy, wrapping his arms around Kippei, trying to console his elder lover. "You're my family too now, and our families are yours. There shouldn't be any secrets from families."

Not that he had intended to keep if from Kippei, but he'd wanted his mother and Ibu-tousan to tell him he could first...they'd always told him not to tell a soul. And the way things had been going the past year...he'd been afraid at times that it wouldn't matter, because Kippei could have left them. So he'd kept quiet, even forgetting at times that Kippei didn't know everything about their pasts yet. And they really didn't know all of his yet...still so much they all had to learn about each other.

But why did they always have to take such cataclysmic leaps to get ahead in this relationship, he wondered? Why couldn't things just be simple, just for once?

[shattermelt.livejournal.com]

Kippei was silent for a moment, letting the comfort of just holding Akira ease the tension in his soul. You were always with us--Shinji had said it, and he had agreed, and Ibu-tousan had said it, and now even Akira had said it, so why was he still finding it so difficult to believe? If he'd been there, he could have changed something, maybe, done something to make any of this, even a little, less of a mess.

He needed to believe that, that it wouldn't have had to be this bad, that he could have and should have been there to change it. Unrealistic and foolish of him, no doubt, but there it was. All he could do was let it go, to focus on here and now and try to change what was, instead of what had been. No one could do that.

Kippei sighed, loosening his grip a bit, and leaned down to kiss Akira firmly, thank you and I love you and I'm sorry. "There shouldn't be," he agreed softly. "There shouldn't be any secrets."

[daredtygrz.livejournal.com]

Tired now, when he should only be a bit worn out from his run, Akira rested his head on the bed next to Kippei and did what he did best. Worry.

"You gave him something, right? How long do you think he'll sleep?", he asked, aching to run back to his best friend, his lover, his Shinji, but not wanting to seperate from Kippei either. Gods...what if it was the last time he'd ever get to hold Shinji, though?

"He'll know. He'll know when he wakes up. He's going to hate me, I've been lying to him half his life...no..." He tried taking a deep breath but instead started to hyperventilate just a little, struck by the worst-case scenarios running in his head.

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Kippei rubbed his back, trying to soothe him. "Akira, relax," he ordered, not without sympathy. Shinji very probably would not like knowing that Akira had known all along, but panicking about it was not going to help the situation.

"He already knows," he murmured, kissing Akira's hair. "He'll be upset, but he's upset with everyone and everything right now. Me, you, tousan, the whole damn universe I think. He's got to deal with something he's put most of his life's energy into avoiding, and it's not going to be pretty. I think--I hope, that he can handle it, that we can make it through, the three of us together. We've survived so many things already, we can't give up now. I'm never giving up on us. We've come too far."

[daredtygrz.livejournal.com]

"Oh, this just sucks", Akira complained softly, trying to control himself and his fear, curling in closer to Kippei instinctively. He wanted to just run away from this...he wanted it so much he could already see himself in his old room, back with his mother. Far, far away from the shit before it had totally hit the fan.

Instead, he sighed heavily, taking a deep breath and letting it out slow. He'd have to see this through. And Kippei was with him. And he was right, they couldn't give up. Not on Shinji, not on each other.

Slowly he untangled himself, tugging Kippei's shirt with him as he scooted off of the daybed. "We need to be there when he wakes up, 'Pei", he murmured, hands clutching his boyfriend's shirt tightly.

[flamesword.livejournal.com]

Kippei stood up with him easily, following the tugging hands on his shirt, and wrapped his arms around Akira, giving him a tight hug. "It'll be okay," he promised, kissing the top of his head. It had to be. "Come on."

He hoisted Akira up in his arms, wrapping his legs around his waist, and carried him back toward the other room, toward Shinji. He wasn't that much heavier than Shinji, and Kippei felt the need to hold him that way just now. That was his job, to carry them both, as often as he could.