Hands Off! Fan Fiction ❯ Ordinary Life ❯ Chapter 1

“Ordinary Life”
By Viridian5
5/14/05

RATING: PG.
SPOILERS: General spoilers for the series.
SUMMARY: This was Tatsuki’s life.
ARCHIVAL/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.
FEEDBACK: can be sent to Viridian5@aol.com.
DISCLAIMERS: All things Hands Off! belong to Kasane Katsumoto, Tokyopop, and Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. No infringement intended.

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“Ordinary Life”
By Viridian5
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As Tatsuki sat at his desk, he thought on how quiet the week had been. Kotarou hadn’t been beaten or kidnapped even once, nor had he set out to solve someone else’s problems again. Tatsuki hadn’t been forced to beat anyone or push his ability to protect him. For the last week, he’d had no reason to be consumed with terror over Kotarou getting killed or hurt. He worked on his studies as he preferred to and hadn’t skipped class for some lethal emergency even once. Aside from Kotarou’s presence at home and Kotarou and Yuuto occasionally trying to drag him to hang out with them, life went on as it had before Kotarou had moved in with him and Grandpa: quiet and safe, as it used to be.

Why did he feel so restless? He’d lived like this for most of his life.

He’d long ago become accustomed to seeing visions of horrible things that had already happened to people, most of whom he didn’t know. They’d already occurred, so he couldn’t do anything. Getting upset about them changed nothing. He’d accepted that. Touching Kota long ago had started the visions, so he kept his distance from other people. It made life easier that way. It also made it more likely that any vision he had wouldn’t feature someone he cared about. Nothing touched him, and he didn’t get involved. That was his life, steady and fairly predictable. He was accustomed to it.

He was three seconds away from gnawing on the end of his pen, so he set it down.

He refused to believe that he could be restless like this or... bored. Given the way his life ran lately, he figured that he was just waiting for Kotarou’s next crisis to occur and worrying in advance.

How could one small boy be so danger-prone? At this rate his cousin would make Tatsuki go gray before he reached his 20s. If he didn’t go insane first.

This week only resembled his former quiet, safe, almost sane life. His ability might be to see the past, but before his future had seemed clear. Now he had no idea what would happen next. Kotarou had changed him, his life, and his power. He couldn’t go back.

Some part of him, having Kotarou back in his life for good and ill, didn’t want to. It would be so much easier if he didn’t love Kotarou and want to be near him. It didn’t help that even though his mixed signals confused and hurt Kotarou his cousin still obviously cared about him and wanted to be close. And all the crises gave Tatsuki excuses to be with him and protect him, be involved, reach out....

Tatsuki understood that he was a sick bastard.

The rest of the school day passed quietly, slowly, but as he walked to his motorcycle Yuuto rushed up to him and asked, “Have you seen Kotarou? He said he’d meet me but he’s nowhere around.”

“He was in class.”

“Yeah, but he was supposed to meet me after class 15 minutes ago and never showed. With most people I wouldn’t worry, but this is Kotarou....”

And life resumed in a flash of fear and adrenaline.

  ***********************THE END**********************