Ronin Warriors Fan Fiction ❯ Acceleration ❯ Chapter 1

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Acceleration
Chapter One


The living room was dark, lit dimly by a small yellowed lamp by the couch. A fan beat weakly high on the vaulted ceiling. Such heat this time of year was usual. The boys were certain that if there had been newscasters to say so, today would have been a record high.

Everything the boys touched seemed to instantly be coated with a fine layer of sticky sweat. Sighing softly a boy appeared from beneath a tumble of legs on the couch. His skin made a sound like Velcro as it pulled away from the leather of the sofa. The body he was under shifted sluggishly.

"Hey Shin," drawled the blue-haired boy, an arm thrown over his eyes. The words stumbled from his mouth, still sedated with the earlier celebration of his birthday. He practically spilled off the couch with the length of his awkward teenage limbs.

"Yes, Touma?" asked the auburn-haired boy. He primly attempted to shift the worst of his friend’s weight off of him, suffocated by the heat.

"Shiiin," whined the boy again, sitting up with what was certainly an unpleasant jerk. His hand flew to his forehead, his wide blue eyes following the shifting lines of the room.

"What, Touma? I heard you the first time," Shin murmured. Touma leaned forward, closer than the trapped boy would have liked, his blue hair falling into his eyes. The unfocused expression gave him a devilish look. Shin could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"I got somethin' to tell ya," he purred.

"I gathered that, Tou-chan." Shin jibed. "What is it?"

"I wish I was a DNA helicase," Touma slurred, slinging his arms around the shorter boy, holding himself upright.

"And why is that?" Shin sighed, keeping a level expression on Touma's drunken, beaming
face.

"Because if I was, I could unzip your genes," Touma whispered not so sexily into his ear. Shin sighed heavily. There wasn’t even a full second of silence before Touma snorted loudly and unpleasantly into Shin’s ear. His laughter ceased suddenly and Shin’s two firm hands shoved him off the couched and he fell into a pile of jean clad legs and bare arms.

“I think you might have had a little too much to drink,” Shin murmured, extracting himself the rest of the way from the couch while Touma lay whining on the floor.

“Shin, why you got to be such a bitch?” Touma protested as his friend stepped over him, picking up stray cans as he passed.

“You should be grateful, I’m the one that planned the damn thing,” Shin muttered, tolerance for Touma waning further.

“C’mon, man, all you had to do was steal a bunch of beer from the gas station. S’not like you even had to spend anything,” he said pouting. Shin felt Touma’s hands slide up his legs, hooking into his belt.

“Yeah, and then I had to stop Ryo and Shuu from drinking all of – Hey! Touma, you can’t do that!” Shin screeched as Touma attempted to pull himself up via Shin’s pants. Shin pulled vainly at them, until they finally slid off with a confused and then amused Touma giggling on the floor. Shin immediately descended into fit of cursing.

“I swear. I fight goddamn warlords on my summer vacation and then I get to put up with this whenever I get a moment of goddamn peace,” he hissed, pulling his belt unnecessarily tight. Touma stopped laughing as Shin went back to cleaning. It was silent again, except for the whining fan and the rustle and clink of bottles and cans sinking into a paper bag for Ryo to burn later.

With the Dynasty back, there was no one to collect the garbage, and with six people trash piled up quickly. Shuu had suggested just throwing it in the lake, which Shin had protested heartily. Ryo had volunteered to handle it. Shin suspected he enjoyed it too much.

He stopped cleaning, suddenly aware of the two plaintive blue eyes following his form around the living room. He looked back and shuddered slightly at the oddly glittering quality. He sometimes worried they’d never be able to integrate back into everyday life after this battle.

“Shin, are you mad at me?”

“You’re just drunk. It’s not a big deal,” he murmured, still unnerved. None of them were normal, at least not anymore. The longer they spent in the armor, the more like it they became. Ryo seemed to be running a constant fever, but unaffected by it. And his eyes, while blue, were terrifyingly hot to look at. Shin was ashamed to admit he could rarely look into anyone’s eyes anymore. Seiji’s glowed violet, even at night. Shuu, well, Shuu was just smothering.

“Liar, you’re mad,” Touma said quietly and in a tone that was final.

“Not at you, Touma,” Shin murmured softly, trying to reassure the younger boy. Touma, when sober at least, was the most observant of all of them. He wondered if he’d noticed the little changes. The way Seiji, who’d never before been frightened of the dark, spent every waking hour in the sun.

Shuu, previously the most likely to roughhouse, handled all of them, especially Jun, like something horrifyingly fragile. Shin was scared to think of how strong he must be becoming if had to hold Shin’s prized case iron pans between just two fingers.

“You’re worried about something,” Touma murmured, mind still analytical through the fuzz. Shin had seen Touma change too, become more withdrawn, less bombastic. He’d been the most childish of them, and in many ways still was. He saw the patterns in people, but rarely understood them. Shin saw the way he watched the group, his lips moving slightly as he took apart their personalities and put them back together.

Once, when Jun had been crying, suddenly homesick, he saw Touma get up and leave in a huff of frustration. If people didn’t act like he did, he thought they were being unreasonable. Just the same way he didn’t understand how uncomfortable he made Ryo and Shuu with his constant flirting and touching.

“I am,” he conceded, wiping up a spill from a table, frowning at the pale stain it left. “About what the armors are doing to us.” Touma just sat and watched Shin clean in silence and put overturned furniture upright again.

Shin found his glass on the other side of the room and drank deeply.

“Are you diabetic, Suiko?” Touma asked, perching himself on top of the couch.

“No, why?”

“You drink more water than anyone I know. Seiji and I have been wanting to ask you about it.” Shin put his glass back down, thinking back to how much water he’d drunk the day before.

“It’s the armor,” he said quietly.

“Does the armor make you a clean freak, too?” Shin sniffed indignantly at Touma’s teasing, going back to cleaning.

“You notice how you’ve started finding the high places, like a cat?” Shin teased back.

“You must take ten showers a day,” Touma retorted. Shin didn’t tell him how he always felt parched and dry, like those sea creatures for sale in the beach shops. Touma didn’t tell Shin how he felt suffocated on the ground, claustrophobic.

Silently, the auburn-haired boy picked up his bags and carried them out onto the back porch. The horizon glowed with the promise of sun and even more smothering heat.

“Seiji will be up soon,” came Touma’s voice behind him, draping his arm around Shin’s shoulders.

“Yeah, I expect he will be.”



~~~~~~~~



Seiji indeed rose promptly five minutes before dawn, showered, dressed, and combed his perfect blonde hair. Casually he prepared his tea, and moved to the porch to drink it, listening to the dawn chorus of the birds. He wasn’t sure which was more refreshing, the sunrise or the tea. Stretching, he rested his legs on the railing and tipped back. It would be several hours before anyone else was awake. Closing his eyes, he truly rested.

Ryo was the first to rise after Seiji, but he did not come downstairs. Instead Seiji could hear him emerge from the direction of Mia’s room, slipping down the hall to his own. Seiji wondered how much longer till the others knew what was going on. Shuu woke next, entering the room with the purpose of a hung over avalanche.

“No breakfast?” Shuu asked, blinking sleep out of his eyes, his hair still disheveled. Seiji wished he would groom himself more. The stray hairs bothered him almost more than Touma’s uneven bangs.

“You need to make it yourself this morning. Shin and Touma went to bed right before I woke up,” Seiji said primly, pressing his lips to the hot rim of his cup. Shuu grumbled before lumbering into the kitchen to make toast. Without asking, he made some for Seiji who accepted it with grace.

Shuu sat heavily in the chair next to him.

“Our blue boys really go to bed that late?” Shuu mumbled after swallowing the last of his crumbs. Immediately he started on the butter and jam on his fingers. Seiji nodded.

“Shin stayed up to keep an eye on the birthday boy,” Seiji said absently, watching the lake.

“Till goddamn dawn?” Shuu exclaimed. Seiji shrugged.

“Touma didn’t come in till I was getting ready to go downstairs,” explained. Shuu took it in silence.

“Well Shin better cook an amazing lunch,” Shuu pouted. Seiji smiled softly.

“You might have to wait till dinner.”

“If I have to wait that long I’m going to eat someone, and I’ll start with you.”

“How crude, Shuu. There isn’t even any meat on me,” Seiji said smiling.

“Better you than Touma’s chicken legs,” Shuu teased. He saw Seiji look down at this legs propped on the railing. The ash haired boy couldn’t help but laugh at the slight furrow of his brow and nearly imperceptible pout as Seiji wondered precisely how meaty Shuu thought he was.


~~~~~~~~


Though Seiji was used to his roommate rarely rising before noon, he was still surprised Touma was still deeply asleep when he went to catch the afternoon rays in his bed. Quietly he made his way to his bed, neatly stepping over Touma’s scattered clothes. Touma didn’t even flinch as Seiji sank noisily into the old mattress, hand reaching over and brushing the long bangs out of Touma’s face. Seiji really wished he’d cut them off, if only because he suspected they impaired his vision, which is not a desirable quality in an archer. Slowly he let his hand run over Touma’s impossibly cool cheek.

“Touma?” He whispered, concerned. There was still color in his lips, but no one should be this cool. Maybe it was his low blood pressure. Seiji still remembered the panic everyone went into when Touma stood up and passed out one morning at breakfast. His fingers felt at Touma’s throat, searching for his pulse, and to his relief he found it steady. “Touma, c’mon, it’s time to wake up.” He shook the archer’s shoulders. With a mighty and pathetic groan, his eyes opened.

“The fuck, Seiji?” He groaned, eyes barely focused on the blond.

“You were cold. I was worried,” he said simply. Touma whined again, rolling onto his stomach, pressing his face into the pillow.

“Motherfucker,” he mumbled into the pillow. Seiji sighed and stood, going back to his bed to lie in the sun. His fingers fumbled on his nightstand for his book. He listened as Touma pulled himself from his bed, stumbling into his pants. It was a rare blessing when Touma wore more than boxers around the house. The blonde appraised his friend’s legs. Shuu had a point; even he had more meat on him. Touma had grown taller and ganglier over the months. Now he had at least an inch on everyone in the house.

His eyes could barely focus on the page as he listened to Touma stumble around the room. Then it went silent with a thump. Looking up he saw that Touma had fallen back on the bed, pants not even buttoned. Attractive. Seiji wished for a camera.

“C’mon buddy, it’s past two,” he said, laughing a bit, reaching over to shake him awake again. Touma’s face momentarily took a confused expression, but his eyes refused to open. “I swear you’re becoming fucking nocturnal,” Seiji grumbled, grabbing the waist of Touma’s pants, using the leverage to hoist the warrior of air onto his shoulder. Touma groaned in protest. Ignoring them, Seiji carried him into the hallway and started down the stairs.

“Mn, Seiji, I never realized you had such a great ass,” Touma teased sleepily. Seiji rolled his eyes, sighed and readjusted his passenger who protested with a soft rush of air. “C’mon dude, it’s a compliment.”

“I understand your eccentricities, Touma, and I’m flattered. However, I’m afraid you’re going to scare Shuu or Ryo half to death,” Seiji teased. He gasped as something icy cold slithered under his shirt to the top of his hips.

“Oh, Seiji? You understand me?” Touma purred.

“Ok, that might have been an exaggeration,” Seiji conceded. The cool slipped further down to grab his ass. Seiji yelped. Touma cackled until he fell to the floor with a thud. Seiji stomped down the stairs in graceful huff.

“Seiji, come back! I thought we had something special!” Touma laughed, doubled over. Seiji answered by slamming a door.