MP100 Ritshou / None / Post-Claw (Before Divine Tree Arc)
It’s been about two weeks since the rebellion against Claw, a lot were still being reconstructed as well as the targeted ones’ houses. On behalf of Toichiro, Shou gave apartment rooms for them to live in temporarily until their houses were reconstructed.
Everyone involved didn’t really talk about it much anymore as to avoid offending Shou even though he said he didn’t mind, but no one could really erase it from their minds either. They were surrounded by traces of it. Ritsu felt as if he was in the palm of it. Or of him.
Everywhere he looked reminded him of Shou, even though the ceiling he was looking up to wasn’t his, it all felt too familiar and reassuring that it bugged him. He wasn’t one to ease into a new environment, especially since the property they were resting in literally belonged to a criminal. But, he knew well that Toichiro wasn’t the one on his mind and he hated confusing himself just to deny himself. Ritsu drove his fingers through his hair and gripped a good amount of it, his eyes closed fiercely his brows knit and formed a line between them. He rolled to his right and stuffed his face into the pillow he hugged.
“Why are you being so cooperative?” He asked, a beautiful pair of sky blue eyes looked at him full of curiosity.
“You’re situation wasn’t entirely unrelatable.”
..And it went on.
His face slowly relaxed and so did his grip.
After getting Shou back when Shigeo came to face Toichiro, he saw the sadness in his eyes, but he’s never seen the brightest, most uplifting smile. Ritsu had more to tell Shou after that day, but he thought it was all too sudden. He pouted at the thought. They were companions for literally 2 days, it baffled him how strange feelings could form during such a short amount of time, he was unaware of it too. Maybe it was how drastic the events were. They fought for their lives, that was very different than just spending an average day together.
His eyes flared open, he sensed a warm body in motion outside their house. He quickly got to his feet and put on a shirt. His anxiety grew worse the longer he took to look outside, so in the middle of straightening his shirt down, he shuffled to the glass slides of his room and slowly slid them open as to not make a sound. The warm presence had been still for quite a while, as if it wasn’t moving.
Ritsu looked over the balcony and he was met with a beat up Shou collapsed on the sidewalk across the apartment, his face was away from him, allowing his red hair to bask in the street light’s luminosity, his body was in a position such as it was out of a crime scene, and stains dried up on his wrecked green jacket and his jeans. Ritsu initially scanned his area to make sure he wasn’t followed, if someone overpowered Shou and won the battle even, the last thing he wanted was his family to get involved if he was discovered.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so he tried calling out to him. “Suzuki-san. Hey, Suzuki-san. Are you alright?” He asked in loud whispers. No response. “What happened?” He asked again. Fortunately, he received a groan from the red-head who seemed to be on the edge of being conscious.
To his relief, he relaxed his shoulders and sighed. His brows were no longer furrowed together knowing it wasn’t anything serious, but he wasn’t happy either. His chest was warm and it paced faster than before it registered that he will have to treat him, and to do that, he’ll have to get closer to him. Ritsu pressed his lips together, “Can you move?” He was replied with silence. He should’ve thought of it sooner, his condition was getting worse.
Ritsu had no choice but to treat his wounds at least, it was late anyway so his family was sound asleep by then. He extended his arm and opened his hand before him, activating his abilities to get a hold of Shou and set him gently on the balcony’s floor. It was definitely more gruesome up close, but Ritsu had already seen worse. He placed two fingers under Shou’s jaw on his neck to check his pulse and luckily, he was still fighting. Ritsu closed his eyes and sighed to his relief, a smile tugging at the end of his lips as he flicked the the pale boy’s forehead. “You reckless bastard.” He whispered, He was unconscious or asleep. But, he’s still on the line unless he gets treated.
His brows knitted and his eyes were moist, though, he was calm and removed the boy’s jacket to see if there were more wounds present.
There were.
The forms of each bruise, scratch, and wound all told the different means of attacks Shou took, and his imagination betrayed his supposedly collected persona during those scenarios, static ran down his spine. Ritsu proceeded to scan every part of Shou he could without violating him and rolled his jeans up to his knees. Given that he wore ripped jeans, he had more scratches than one is supposed to wearing closed jeans.
When Ritsu couldn’t take having Shou wait any longer, he stood and rushed out of his room, landing his steps softly so as not to wake his family as he gathered two containers with water, soap, towels, cool gel, bandage cloth and tape. Then walked quickly along the corridor back to his room only to find Shou barely awake. His eyes squinted and his cement-dirtied hands rubbing 30 minutes worth of itch when he was asleep from his eyes.
Shou’s eyes were the first things he gazed on, it stood out as if it emitted its own light in the dark, his pair of cerulean eyes that complemented his freckled face and his spiky mess of a mane. Ritsu hesitated at the sight for a minute, but he stepped out anyway. “You’re awake.” He said as if it wasn’t already obvious in his usual tone while he closes the door with the back of his foot.
Shou perked his head towards Ritsu’s direction and closed his eyes tightly at the sudden ache of his shoulder. “Ritsu.” The use of his first name bothered him a bit but he let it slide. With the containers and sanitation materials in his arms, he walked over to a tired Shou watching him set them down beside him.
Ritsu took the cool gel pack handed it to Shou. “Put this wherever you have bruises and hold it there.”
“Thanks.” Shou wrapped it around his forearm, he winced at how it reacted. “How did I get here? Is anyone else awake?” Shou queried, resting his eyes and leaning back. Ritsu rolled his sleeves up and proceeded with making soap water to clean the latter of dirt and cement dust. “No.” He replied apathetically and dipped a towel in the soap-induced water. “Stay still.” He followed, before gently damping the towel around and on the scratches first.
Reacting more than usual to the pain, Shou looked away from his scratches and hissed. “Are you sure you’re trying to treat me?”
“You don’t need to point out that this isn’t what I do normally, I’d inflict more paint on you if someone didn’t already do it for me.”
“Yeah well, I have to leave. Mom is probably worried sick.” Shou uttered.
“Not when you’re bleeding everywhere, don’t give your mom a heart attack greeting her like this.” Ritsu replied, meeting Shou’s eyes who instantly met his.
Shou shifted into a smug expression, “You’re really worried for me, aren’t you?” He addressed. Ritsu pressed hard around one of Shou’s wounds making him jolt and wince before rinsing it off. “What went on anyway?”
The red-head blinked, his innocent-looking eyes sharpened into a half-lidded pair of serious ones, as if Ritsu wouldn’t continue if he didn’t say anything, he went. “I took on some guys ransacking a local convenience store.”
Ritsu was dissatisfied with what he got, knowing that Shou was smart and could easily overpower some criminals from the streets. He continued, moving to Shou’s left to clean his face up. He paused after a few damps. “Are you serious?” He reassured his eyes half-closed, and his tone sounding monotonous and disappointed. “They were the artificial espers that survived or ran away after seeing us beat their comrades up.”
Shou’s sight was unfocused, he recalled where he went wrong and just noticed the red tracksuits they were in. “I knew those red tracksuits from anywhere, and there were more than I expected.”
“Still, they’re dumbasses. We wiped a whole army of them out quicker than when you actually faced your dad.”
“They must have watched how we did from afar and trained. They grinned like two weeks’ worth of training paid off when they got me cornered. I managed to scare them away, but I wasn’t in good shape.”
“No shit.”
Water trickling from the twisted piece of cloth stained of all sorts of dirt tinted the soap water with a milky scarlet color, it was unusable then. But at least Shou was clean. Ritsu handed him a towel freshly squeezed of water requesting him to clean the spots he soaped up.
As soon as Shou received the cloth, Ritsu stood up and went for his wardrobe, picking out one of his white shirts. “Here.”
Ritsu tossed the shirt on to Shou’s face as he closed the gap between them and set himself across him, taking the wet towel from his hands. While Shou analyzed the shirt, Ritsu said “Your shirt’s dirty, our effort of cleaning your wounds up will be for nothing if you keep that on you.”
“This is unusually a lot of service.” Shou prompted happily, removing his current one.
Ritsu watched, despite the apathetic look on his face, his cheeks were glowing. “I just don’t want to treat you again after you’re patched up just because it got infected.”
“Whatever you say-” His eyes closed full of pride snapped open as he felt a cool towel on his cheek, Ritsu hadn’t moved to wipe his face like before, but it didn’t look as if he had any other intentions but to patch him up. Though having him knelt between Shou’s legs just to rinse his face told Shou different, chills ran through his whole body.
Before he knew it, his pupils were dilated. His eyes glistened in the moon light and so did the latter. Shou hadn’t seen his eyes in detail before until then and he couldn’t stop gazing. The gap between them lessened and lessened as Ritsu reached for places further from Shou’s cheeks.
Both their hearts paced. Worse than when Ritsu discovered Shou collapsed on the sidewalk, worse than when Shou was fighting those espers off. The fact that their heartbeats could practically speed out of their chest while they’re still made it worse than when their whole body moved with it.
He watched as Ritsu’s lips were only a few millimeters away from his, as if… as if he was trying to kiss him. He wanted to call for his name, as what he was doing, but it was as if Ritsu had him under and silenced. No, he didn’t feel any more motions from his hand with the towel, it was just there cupping his cheek. He was definitely moving in for the win.
His face flushed and a pretty scarlet hue faded on to his pale freckled cheeks. The boy surrendered and closed his eyes, his brows tense, only to be given a peck on the forehead. His eyes widened, meeting Ritsu’s dark narrow ones, a lopsided grin played on his lips as he watched Shou’s dignity shatter before him.
Ritsu the outmaneuvering asshole. Shou always thought he was that kind of dominant guy, he was right but, he didn’t expect to be. “You allowed me.” Ritsu, as he returned to where he was originally sat, said. At that moment, Shou had only noticed how close they were making him feel even more embarrassed. “Y-You’re into guys too, huh?” He stammered, running his fingers through his hair.
“Too? Don’t drag me into this.”
“Said the guy who kissed another guy on the forehead, you hypocritical jerk.”
“You were into it.”
“I wasn’t the only one, was I?”
Ritsu hushed Shou. “Quiet, you’re in a bad condition.”
Shou’s brows knitted, but he followed anyway while Ritsu proceeded disinfecting the cloth bandages and setting the tape. They were still, quiet once again. He observed the sky above them, a faint gradient to a lighter color indicated and the cold morning breeze indicated that they got through a restless night. A thin screen of fog started forming, condensing into the dew drops that rested elegantly on plants along their sidewalk. Though, Shou couldn’t surely secure that everything was finished.
Ritsu once again caught a glimpse of Shou’s beautiful peculiar eyes and studied them for as long as he could. As much as he was in denial, he felt that he should have really gone and kissed him too.
Shou’s eyes shined with determination but, he was still hesitant and cautious, he turned to Ritsu and locked his eyes on his. He blinked twice and exhaled. Startled of Shou’s sudden assertive behavior, he started regretting the trick he pulled on him.
That all changed when Shou lost eye contact and started groaning in anticipation and eagerness, displaying obvious signs of being at war with his own thoughts, calming Ritsu down enabling a smirk to tug at his lips. He had school that day, but Shou was almost done being treated. The giant scratch on his cheek was left. The red-head scratched the back of his neck and tried all means of looking less embarrassed than he’d already done.
“You dick.”
Ritsu chuckled, his smirk wider and his eyes sly. “Excuse me?”
“Can you actually kiss me this time?” Shou requested, looking Ritsu straight in the eyes.
