Slam Dunk Fan Fiction ❯ Loving Koshino ❯ Old Patterns ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimers: I don't own Slam Dunk. I am not making money out of this, so please don't sue. No copyright infringement intended. Original part of the fiction is the property and is copyrighted to the author.

Author's Notes: To those who are wondering what I'm going to do with Maki...please don't kill me, especially those who really wanted me to change it to a MakiKosh. (dodges tomatoes thrown by pro MakiKosh) I'll try to write another fic with that pairing, okay, 'coz I like MakiKosh, too. But I already planned for this to be a SenKosh, and I'll go crazy if I change the outline. Thank you for reading, minna-san!

Loving Koshino
from Kokoro no Kigen (Temper of Heart) Arc
by AJ Maxwell

Chapter Six: Old Patterns

"But it's too late now. Shinichi and I...we're getting married."

It seemed to Sendoh as if he was falling into a warp, spiraling into some unknown oblivion. The words wouldn't quit echoing in his head.

"Shinichi and I...we're getting married."

He groaned aloud.

At that instant four pairs of eyes darted to where he sat.

"Oi, Spiky, you okay?" Sakuragi asked, a grudging worry in his tone.

He looked up, startled at the attention that his unexpected action gathered. Fujima was regarding him with worried blue eyes, while Mitsui looked at him, an eyebrow arched in question. He looked at Koshino, and behind those spectacles he saw worry, sorrow, and guilt. He tried to force a smile. "I'm okay. Just a slight headache. Nothing to worry about. I'll just go to the men's room. Excuse me."

He stood up and went out of the conference room.

±

The door of the men's room shut closed behind him.

"But it's too late now. Shinichi and I...we're getting married."

"...we're getting married."

"...we're getting married."

"Damn this," he muttered. It was all he could do not to hit his head onto a hard surface. They were overwhelming him, those words that Koshino said the past night. He had been stunned speechless, which was unusual. He wasn't even able to laugh one of his nervous laughs, to break the deafening silence. He just sat there, as if mindless.

He couldn't even remember when Koshino got up, or whatever Koshino did after saying those words. One minute he was sitting on the couch, the next he was gone. It was like all of it was just a dream--a nightmare--but he knew it to be true. He knew, and he couldn't stand it.

"...we're getting married."

±

Koshino paced. He was tense. His muscles were tense, as well as his bones, his mind, his stomach, his jaws. Any second now, he thought, I'd snap. I just know it. Maybe I'd pass out... He glanced at the closed door of the room beside his. Yeah, pass out like what Sendoh did.

The door opened, revealing Kogure, Mitsui's friend who's a physician, followed by Mitsui himself.

It was as if his heart leaped to choke his throat. He coughed, trying to dispel the sensation, before he spoke. "How is he, Doctor? Is he going to be alright?" he asked, his eyes tinged with worry.

Dr. Kogure Kiminobu adjusted his spectacles first, and smiled reassuringly at Koshino. "As far as I can tell, the patient is going to be fine. At first I feared that he is another case of the city's latest outbreak, but I can assure you that it was only stress and nothing more serious."

Koshino released the breath that he was unaware of holding. Thank goodness.

"However," Dr. Kogure continued, "he needs to relax, have time to recuperate. A day would be quite sufficient, but two days would be ideal. It would be best to free him from constant worries...and laughter, yes, that would help."

Behind the doctor, Mitsui snorted. "Laughter...is it advisable to let Sakuragi near him, Kogure? Or would his presence make matters worse?"

The doctor chuckled, his cheeks flushing a little as he looked over at his friend. "Sakuragi always means well, Mitsui."

"Yeah, well. Sometimes I wonder..."

"Anyway, Koshino-san," Dr. Kogure shifted his glasses again, then reached into his left breast pocket. "If any trouble like this arises again, please don't hesitate to contact me," he said, giving Koshino his business card.

Koshino nodded. "Thank you. I am very grateful for your attending to him, Doctor."

Kogure chuckled warmly. "Oh, please just call me Kogure, Koshino-san. Any friend of Mitsui is also my friend."

Koshino smiled at this and nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Kogure. And please drop the honorifics, as well. Mitsui is a good friend of mine, and I treat his friends as my friends, too."

Mitsui, who was unnoticed by the two men, looked a trifle uneasy at the exchange between his...friends.

"Well, I guess that's it, then," Kogure murmured, the remnants of his smile still emanating from his eyes. "I have to be going now. I have to do rounds in about an hour. It was a pleasure meeting you at last, Koshino."

"Likewise," Koshino replied sincerely, his voice tinged with a feeling of ease and lightness. I've always had to contend with highly strung businessmen whose good manners are there for the sake of their businesses. It's rare to meet someone whose goodness evidently springs from within the person himself. No lies, no masks, no walls, just what you see. He sighed inwardly, secretly regarding the bespectacled man before him a bit wistfully. I wish...

"Hiro."

He blinked, pulled back into the present by Mitsui's perpetually sardonic, I'm-a-bigger-better-man-than-you tone. Only, as before, his voice held a certain softness, belying his affection, whenever he spoke that nickname. He wondered if it should really disturb him this time, then brushed it aside. "Hai?"

Mitsui's chin slightly jutted towards him, his gaze almost a sideward glance. "I'll show Kogure to his car. Be back in just a while."

Koshino nodded to him in reply, then turned to Kogure. "Please take care on the road, Kogure."

"Thank you. Bye for now."

"Bye."

±

They both knew that the ride down in the elevator would be quite long, since Koshino and Sendoh's suite was the second to the topmost floor of the opulent hotel. If it was under normal circumstances, they would not have minded. They would have talked, or stayed in companionable silence. It wouldn't have had to feel like hanging in midair in extended eternity.

It wasn't a normal circumstance for them, though.

Kogure held onto the thick stillness as long as he could, but he had to say something. Anything.

"It's him," he said simply, not asking.

...

"Say something." Kogure's voice held a thread of strain.

"What do you want me to say, Kogure?" It didn't help that Mitsui's voice still sounded like that.

Mocking. Cutting. Scathing. It very rarely flayed Kogure's nerves, because he knew Mitsui, even better than Mitsui knew himself. Unfortunately, this was one of those very rare times. He tightened his fists, willing the turbulent feelings rising from his depths to stay down.

"I thought we were over this--"

"We are. I'm not speaking about this further."

...

The elevator stopped at the fourteenth floor, and the doors opened. A middle-aged woman in an emerald green dress stepped in.

...13

...12

...11

...10

"He's nice. I like him." The tightness in Kogure's voice was gone. In its place was a sigh of resignation, of defeat.

...

"I guess that's why you can't forget him, ne?"

...

The two were unaware of the woman sneaking looks in their direction.

"How long has it been, anyway?"

"I thought we're over this," Mitsui growled, the words wrenched from his clenched jaw.

...

The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. In stepped a young woman with shoulder-length blond hair underneath a gray silk bandana.

...9

...8

...7

"I think you should go back. It's a long ride up."

...6

...5

...4

"I don't know why I feel this way. Can you ever forgive me, Kogure?"

...3

...2

...1

The elevator doors opened. Kogure stepped out, and the other occupants brushed past him as he stopped.

"Mitsui?"

"Yeah?"

Kogure turned, his eyeglasses flashing under the lights for a second. "As long as you're happy, Mitsui. That's all I want."

"Kogure..."

With a sad smile, Kogure turned and left.

±

Sendoh, you are a pain in the ass, Koshino thought, without his usual annoyance when thinking that particular thought. He sighed, then abandoned his position leaning on the doorframe to sit beside said pain in the ass's prone form on the bed.

You had me worried back there, he thought, as he busied himself with gazing on the bluish black thickness of the other man's eyelashes laying flush on his pale cheeks. It'd be really obnoxious of me to think that my marriage announcement did that to you, but I really feel that I shouldn't have told you that. You've been acting strange since last night, when I said that Shinichi and I are getting married. I shouldn't have said that. I should have set things straight between us first. I should have been honest with how I feel about you, and about how there's just no way for those feelings to be expressed. I should have explained how it's too late. I should have explained, and tried to be just your friend, Sendoh. Instead, I blurted out that marriage thing, because I'm scared. I'm scared to be honest with you, to tell you how I feel, because I fear that once you ask me to be with you, I might not have the strength to resist. My plans, my promises... I might break them, Sendoh. It wouldn't have mattered much if it was just me, but I'll also be risking Shinichi's future if I break my promises, if I don't go with the plans. We have so many plans, so many dreams for our life together. I can't rob him of any of those things, Sendoh. I can't hurt him, because he won't be able to handle it if I'm the one who hurt him. And I won't hurt him, I won't...

"I'll take whatever you can give."

Koshino nearly jumped upright. He blinked in confusion, then caught imploring blue eyes looking up at him. "Wha-?"

"You said you're getting married. To him," Sendoh said, his voice scratchy. He tried to clear his throat, coughing a little, then continued, "But you're not married, not yet--"

His confusion was replaced by a mix of anxiety and anger that he couldn't pinpoint the origin. He glared at Sendoh, refusing to listen. "Shut up, Sendoh! You just fainted on me, now rest!"

"Listen, Hiro-kun..."

"I TOLD YOU TO REST!!!" Koshino roared, not because he was angry at Sendoh, but because there was this voice inside him that kept insisting for him to listen. And he wouldn't listen. He couldn't afford to listen to Sendoh...

"I'll take whatever you can give," Sendoh continued, unfazed by his Hiro-kun's feral shout. "Whatever you can give... whenever you want, whenever you can. I... so long I... oh shit..." He closed his eyes, trying to clear the wooziness in his head.

Koshino sat by the bed, heaving from his anger, when he saw Sendoh frown and close his eyes. His eyes widened, and in an instant he was sitting beside Sendoh on the bed, cradling him in his arms. "Baka," he mumbled at the man in his arms. He sighed, a combination of resignation and grudging affection. "I told you to rest, but you wouldn't listen. Why do you have to be so hard-headed all the time?"

"Hiro-kun...why am I so dizzy?" Sendoh whispered, eyes still closed.

"It's the meds, Sendoh. Sleep some more, then we'll talk after you're well-rested, okay?"

"You always call me that..." Sendoh murmured sleepily.

"What?"

Sendoh opened his eyes into slits, just a thread of blue peeking out of his eyelids. "Sendoh. You never call me Aki-chan, or Aki-kun, or Akira anymore..."

Koshino sighed again, exasperated at Sendoh's talkativeness, but his heart warmed that Sendoh still remembered when they were children. "But that was when we were kids, baka."

"Always my best friend, Hiro-kun..."

He blinked back the tears that he didn't know were there. At that moment, he couldn't remember what happened for him to hate his Aki-chan so much. He couldn't remember why he started hating him, why he shunned his company, and why he kept away from him. He couldn't remember, but maybe that was just as well. All he knew, at that point, was that he missed that short period of his childhood when he had a best friend, and that he missed his best friend.

"Missed you, too..."

Koshino smiled, and dropped a kiss on Sendoh's forehead.

"Ne, Hiro-kun?" Sendoh followed this with a yawn.

"Hmm?"

"Please stay...sleep beside me?"

He snorted, his smile never leaving his face. "Promise to keep your hentai hands to yourself?"

Sendoh closed his eyes, losing against sleep every passing second, but managed a weak grin that plainly said, "You'll just have to find out."

Koshino chuckled, while toeing off his shoes. "Pervert."

±

Mitsui stepped inside the hotel suite and quietly locked the door. He was carrying a grocery bag of various fruits such as apples, oranges, some lemons, and a big can of pineapple chunks.

When he found Sendoh sprawled on the men's room floor, he froze. Yes, he knew that he should help him out, that he should alert the others, alert Koshino, about what happened. He knew that the other man should be brought to a hospital, he should have administered first-aid, or whatever.

He knew that he should help him, but there was a long moment of hesitation before he did so.

The first time that he saw Sendoh with Koshino, he knew right then and there of the nature of their relationship. The one pining for the latter, the latter having similar feelings, but was already tied.

Oh, he knew the feeling exactly, dammit.

He wasn't always offensive; he could charm anyone when he saw the need to. He wasn't ill-mannered, either, and he always treated everyone with courtesy. But when he saw how Sendoh was looking at Koshino, how he stood beside him, their bodies subconsciously leaning towards each other, he felt the sting of jealousy--but not without a smidgen of pity--that he'd only felt whenever he saw Maki Shinichi. His blood boiled as the name came to his thoughts. He couldn't help it, even after all this time apart.

Apparently, it wasn't only him whose way was being blocked by that pompous bastard.

He walked to Sendoh's room first, meaning to check on him. He opened the door, and nearly dropped the grocery bag at what he saw.

His grip on the grocery bag tightened, and he gently closed the door with a near inaudible click.

±

"Maki."

"...Fujima? To what do I owe this call?"

"I heard that you and Hiroaki are getting married."

"Oh, so you called to congratulate me, then. Ariga--"

"Leave him alone, Maki."

"Ken-chan...are you jealous?"

"Maki, you're not well, and we both know it. Leave Hiro alone, please! You'll only hurt him!"

"...but I'm getting better. I'm better! Shut up, Kenji!"

"But--"

"I said shut up! SHUT UP, KENJI! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!"

Fujima winced as he heard a crash, and the line went dead.

While on the other side of the line...

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!" Maki hurled his mobile phone to the wall, shards of glass and bits of plastic exploding with a sharp cracking sound. He fell to his knees, his enraged fists banging on the tiled floor, still screaming at the top of his lungs.

The door of his room slammed open; the sound of shuffling feet was drowned out by his voice.

Suddenly, there were strong arms around him, vice-like hands pinning his arms and legs to the floor. He squirmed, thrashed around, still screaming.

Then there was the overly familiar sensation of a needle piercing his arm. He bit his lip, and banged his head against the tiles, trying to will away the fog overwhelming his senses. The last thing he saw, were Dr. Takato Riki's sad eyes.

Finished 30 January 2004