log ; the rose I kept in a glass cage

[reveiller]

Who: reimprovise and usedlaserbeam
Where: Goldenrod, in a park by the pokemon center
When: 07/30, directly after the text messages
Summary: a discussion about foxes, and the eyes that see them
Rating: PG-13
Log:


[it really is a nice day for the park, isn't it.

he knows that he's there early, for a given value of early, when he doesn't see Yagyuu there-- though really, it couldn't be called early. not since neither he nor the other set on a time. 'now' is so very subjective in the strangest of ways-- what constitutes as 'now' for a world where the land never stops spinning? surely it must've been the moment before that one, just slightly off-kilter...

he finds a nice park bench, and settles down on it, leaning back.

the sun really is so high.]

Comments

[usedlaserbeam.livejournal.com]

I've been called a gentleman, but that's not precisely the same thing.

[In ways, it's infuriating, that tendency of Fuji's to counter every question with one of his own, to deflect and reflect and go after every advance Yagyuu makes, always working to ensure that it never makes it past his defenses. And Yagyuu is well aware of exactly how excellent a defense it can be, because it's one he practices himself--guarding, parrying, sidestepping anything that comes too close for comfort. But sooner or later, a chink in the armor will appear, and that's the time to strike. That's a game Yagyuu knows all too well, too.

Fuji will never say what he really thinks. They've done this enough times, enough different ways, for that much to be clear. It's a different experience, then, from Niou, who is usually all too eager to say exactly what he thinks (or what he wants you to think he thinks, at least). What is it, then, that Fuji thinks he's accomplishing by it? It's not simply to take as much advantage as he can get while giving none in return. The questions he asks, the way he operates--no, it's not mercenary enough for that. Yagyuu would've overcome him long ago if it were.

Then what is it? At the moment, he doesn't know. And perhaps that's it, that the game will stretch on until he does--and when he does, that will be the chink in the armor that ends it once and for all.]

And you might say it's one of the perks of playing doubles, that loneliness is never something to be concerned about.

[reveiller]

[this, he thinks, is true under certain circumstances. if you're accustomed to playing doubles. if you're development hinges on playing doubles. if you find the right double's partner. if you can find it in yourself to work with someone that's not you. but what Yagyuu is saying might encompass all of those elements-- that he's accepted it all, and that is what brings him to that particular conclusion. it isn't fair, he thinks, for Yagyuu to flaunt their closeness like that. in a way, it's something to be envied, and judging by the way Yagyuu says it, it's something that Yagyuu guards closely. there lies his answer, he thinks-- maybe, Yagyuu has already tamed, and has already been tamed. he just hadn't been able to put it to words, until now, where he's sussed it out.

which should have, by all rights, exhausted the conversation-- the point has been reached, the matter has been dealt with, the metaphors have been said and re-said, and the story has been told. they should've already parted ways. but fox has yet to reach Yagyuu's hand, and the conversation flows on-- is there something else that still needs to be said? or does that, in itself, hinges on the position of the fox? he's whimsical enough to think that physical symbols translates smoothly to metaphorical symbols, and that the meaning behind anything lies in the little coincidences that riddle life and beyond.

what Yagyuu is saying is interesting. this is a language that he isn't entirely foreign to, the language of doubles. he's played doubles, on occasion, with others: Eiji, Taka-san. He's always understood that the sole purpose of him playing doubles is not because of his lack of worth as a singles player, but because he was one of the few on the team who was fluid enough to cover both positions, and the developments of their underclassmen often hinged on singles. but because of that, he's never quite developed what others often developed with their doubles partner-- that sense of closeness that seems to encompass all the space between them. that solidarity.

it's something he considers with whimsical fondness, 'longing' being too heavy of a word and 'regard' far too light. but from the way Yagyuu makes it out to be, it's not something that he envies. after all, Yagyuu hasn't actually said anything definitive in his two statements, and neither of them contradicted his implied claims.]

If life began and ended on the courts, perhaps. [he hums, resting his cheek on his knee.] Suppose the fox set you on fire?

[usedlaserbeam.livejournal.com]

[If life began and ended on the courts--it's strange how true that seems, sometimes, in certain shapes and ways. Tennis is more than just a game in Yagyuu's world, and Rikkai more than simply a team; things are just easier with tennis, when it comes down to the simplicity of ball against strings and the intricate complexities of strategy and trajectory. Tennis gave him friends, a captain to follow, an ideal to belong to. Tennis gave him a Switch that let him do and experience things he'd thought he'd never be able to before. So perhaps in some ways it's true that his life began and ended on the courts, because without tennis, where would he have found all the things that came with it?

But for Fuji to deflect a tennis metaphor is a signal in itself, and it comes as no surprise that the subject changes again as the flow of the conversation tilts a little more. He had to have known they would reach the topic of doubles eventually; it was the natural conclusion to the ongoing train of thought. Why, then, let it escape so easily? Was the very mention of it all the confirmation that Fuji needed, and he's somehow scored another point while Yagyuu wasn't on his fullest guard? Or is it something else entirely?

No, he's still on the defensive. And the little fox is a few inches closer.]

If it's the responsibility of the tamed to accept a loss of independence by it, perhaps it's that of the tamer to accept that he might get burned in return. Just as stray cats sometimes scratch the hand that feeds them.

[reveiller]

[he's fairly grateful for the change in subject, skipping from the topic of tennis to beyond. tennis, he thinks, is a language spoken by the few blessed enough to understand it. tennis isn't his language, which draws its inflections from the thin slice of silence between the time the ball is served and the moment it bounces along the court. silence is a heavy thing upon a conversation. and for this conversation, silence is telling. responsibility and stray cats, this he can work with-- he thinks on this for a moment, thinks back on words previously said, and admires the fact that conversation, here, is drawn out through irrelevant topics disguised as something meaningful.

he thinks on stray cats.

he likes cats. they don't necessarily like him. he thinks of scratches, and from Yagyuu's words, he thinks on where his education went wrong. cats are prideful, individual creatures. and when thinking on cats, it's only natural to draw out an analogy from their spiritual cousins, the dog. the dog, while it may have no need of you, and you have no need for it, will still wag its tail in familiarity. cats on the other hand-- if you have no use for them, he thinks, then they most certainly have no use for you.

he likes cats, but really, he doesn't like them at all. a glance, a hum.]

Is it satisfying, bearing that responsibility? I wonder if that's what they all ask.

[usedlaserbeam.livejournal.com]

Don't you already know?

[And now it's Yagyuu's turn to counter, turning the question back with one of his own, because Fuji isn't the only one who can play at that game and now, at last, Yagyuu thinks he's found the advantage he's been waiting for.]

The scratch isn't the most troublesome part of a stray cat. It's when they leave and you're forced to let them go.

[It's a guess, a vague shot in the dark. And he can think of a handful of people it might be--because Niou would fit this description, too, though Yagyuu knows he's far from the only one. It is, effectively, a Rorschach blot in words. He's set the image; now it just remains to see what Fuji will see in it.

Because that's what ultimately matters in this game, really.]

[reveiller]

[the gears in his head click to a standstill.

there really isn't any other way of describing it. the processes that kept him guarded and wary throughout this entire conversation slugs to a halt when the words sink in, like something cold and undesirable, ice prickling at the back of his neck. for a glorious three seconds, his mind is blank, just blank, as he kneels there and thinks of something that's really very much like nothing.

it takes him a second more to realize that even his breath has come to a standstill. it's that realization that breaks the solid whiteness, urges his mind gears to click onwards, onwards. he exhales slowly, controlled, and dearly wishes that he could lean back.

well played, and how unfair.

because as the gears in his mind pick up speed frantically, the first thing he thinks of is Yuuta-- but that isn't quite right. he's never owned Yuuta, has never tamed him, will never tame him because he will never understand him, and while he dearly wishes to cocoon him in the safety of domestication, knows that Yuuta wouldn't be Yuuta if he weren't free. Yuuta left, but the hurt couldn't have been from letting him go. he's never had him. there's nothing to let go. no, the hurt must have come from something else entirely-- and he thinks of Tezuka, the one who traversed an ocean. but Tezuka is like Yuuta. and he thinks, woefully, that the only people in his life that he cherishes more than anything else are those that he cannot, will not control. and Yagyuu-- he may not have seen this, but he must've realized something, and Fuji knows better than anyone that the subtle power struggle only needs but a drop in the bucket to tip the scales.

if he is at all honest with himself, maybe he'd admit that it hurts, just a little.

it's not the first time his mood wavers in Yagyuu's presence, but he hides his conflict well. the hint he willingly imparts, like a warning shot, is in his smile, all teeth, and the lifting of his head from his knee as he contemplates Yagyuu's gaze.

well played, indeed. a murmur, quiet enough to be unobtrusive, yet pitched to carry.]

Did you speculate because you'd thought you could draw something out from my personal experiences? [though the question is rhetorical in nature. while he's still fairly unsure as to what that 'something' may be, he's fairly certain that Yagyuu wouldn't have said such a thing if he didn't expect some sort of reaction, stirring.

a hum, contemplative. he brings a hand up to his cheek, and taps, twice.]

Or is it a confession, because you're drawing from your own?

[usedlaserbeam.livejournal.com]

[A straightforward answer from Fuji Shuusuke. That in itself is rare and unexpected enough to draw Yagyuu's full and immediate attention, because he's seen enough of how Fuji counters and parries to know that if the genius before him has finally been made to resort to plain truth, he must've truly touched a nerve--and quite possibly, a far deeper one than he'd even anticipated.

It's a shame, really, that they're like this, so guarded and so careful and so unwilling to let the light of day touch their true selves, or Yagyuu would tell Fuji that he understands perfectly, that feeling of loving most the ones he can control least. He understands because he has a captain, a partner, a team, and he is theirs as much as they are his. And perhaps that's how they differ, ultimately--that Yagyuu knows his place, his niche, even as he imposes his will on the world around him, and Fuji is still drifting, telling stories of lonely princes as he waits for someone to make him appreciate the color of wheat.

But he doesn't know it, and all he does know is that his guess has proved truer than he knows--that somehow he's struck a chord in the midst of his vague recognitions and intuitions, a figurative chance ball in the ongoing match between them.

So it's hard to say, really, what drives him to honesty in that moment. Perhaps it's Fuji's reward for finally dropping his obfuscations for once. Or perhaps it's simply that the blow has been struck, and if he doesn't soften it in the aftermath, he risks losing all the progress he's made when Fuji runs once and for all.]

Are we so different, that it couldn't be both? You've met my stray already.

[He reaches for the Vulpix now, a little more daring, and it's both gentle and familiar enough by now that she doesn't shy away.]

I can't say how your prince tamed his fox, Fuji-kun, but let me give you a word of advice about catching cats. As fickle as they may seem, if one is patient enough, they'll usually come back in the end--because even independence only goes so far, and sooner or later, even the most fickle of cats will come demanding the attention you're not giving it. You may not be able to hold them, but that doesn't mean you can't find ways to keep them.

[He pauses, regarding Fuji with a significant look.]

But as a word of advice for the cat himself--if he makes himself too hard to catch, he'll likely only find in the end that no one did.

[reveiller]

[... and he laughs.

for some reason or another, it simply feels like a very natural thing to do-- laughing, that is. he doesn't laugh often; chuckle, liberally- giggle, sometimes- but laughter is not something he often indulges in. maybe it's just because there's rarely anything that really piques his laughter anymore. but this conversation, of all things, he thinks, is absurd enough that laughing feels like the only natural response.

are we so different, he asks. and he wonders the same-- all the time, with people far less challenging than Yagyuu, far more open, sly glances glinting like unspoken bonds. but what's similar, he knows, is not the the same as being the same-- and in most cases, he's found that it only accentuates the differences. and the difference here, is that he feels sad, while Yagyuu feels triumphant.

is he the cat? he thinks he'd like to be. but is the cat? he isn't, not at all. because there's a fine line between being a cat and being a fox, where the former means warm milk cups by the fireside and the latter means being shot on sight. it isn't the fault of the cat for being hard to catch, he thinks, the same way that it isn't the fault of the fox for being impossible to catch. the little prince tamed his fox, but only because he didn't yet know what a fox could do and the fox never once showed his true colours.

never once, beneath that apple tree, did the fox kill a chicken. he thinks of conveying this to Yagyuu, but doesn't, because he fools himself into believing that he doesn't yet know the words.]

And there, I suppose, is where the difference between you and I lie.

You can say that with such certainty. But you've tamed, and have been tamed.[and here, he gestures to the fox. the murmur of a creek, creeping beneath the foothills of a mountain that scrapes the sky] I've never tamed-- and never will.

[the tamer, or the fox. in the end, though, he is neither. there is a reason, after all, why the fox chose to sit beneath an apple tree.]

[usedlaserbeam.livejournal.com]

[It's only natural to bristle at the laughter, at least in the first few moments, because Fuji is Fuji (no matter how much Yagyuu can draw parallels to Niou, no matter how much one one he can project onto the other) and he simply can't read the fine nuances of Seigaku's genius the way he instinctively does with his partner. It doesn't occur to him at first that there might be a difference there, a shift in intent and tone, that means he's elicited something new from Fuji Shuusuke once again. It's simply laughter, and Yagyuu doesn't like to be laughed at--and yet it sinks in a few moments later that he's not, that this is something else, and he catches himself wondering just how far Fuji's depths go beneath the surface he lets the world see.

I've never tamed--and never will. And for a moment, Yagyuu thinks of simply answering, and whose fault is that? He wasn't the one who made the topic of taming out to be something ideal over the course of this conversation. And in every way they've spoken about it, Fuji has always spoken of it as something desirable, something worth wanting. But the ambition for it was never there, replaced by the whimsicality of someone who already believes something is only a fantasy, unattainable from the start.

And that does separate them a minute, driving that mental wedge between Fuji and Niou, because Niou has never let the unattainable go unpursued, and when he wants something, he finds a way to get it. It's the drive that's missing from one to the other, the way that Niou's attentions can focus down to a razor's edge and cut with such deadly precision, while Fuji seems more content to surround himself in cushions of ambiguity. That's not Niou's habit, to sink back and hold back and deprive himself of the things he really wants.

...No, that habit is Yagyuu's.

Or it was, before Niou, before their game began and persisted up to the present day, before they were tamed through learning to cut loose and tie themselves up in each other. Yagyuu may not have been the one to create his own way out, but he'd at least had the wherewithal to take the opportunity when it came. Would Fuji even do that, he wonders, if the chance arose? Or is he so set in his own resignation that he won't act in exchange?

But perhaps he already knows the answer to that. There's only one fox at his feet at the moment, after all.]

Is responsibility that abhorrent to you?

[He picks his words deliberately, borrowing them from the very quote Fuji had given him earlier, turning them around and sending them back to see what he'll make of them next.]

Or is it the prospect of 'forever'?

[reveiller]

[Yagyuu is a dangerous person, he thinks.

it isn't the first time he's thought this. it probably won't be the last time. there's something intriguing about talking to him-- something, he supposes, that he shares with Niou. but while Niou is the cut mirror that distorts and mimics, Yagyuu is a polished surface that reflects the gaze of the beholder. and this, he thinks, is very frightening, because in both myth and horror, it's the unbroken mirrors that must be feared.

he's always thought that there was truth in whimsy, and that there is truth to age-old horrors of seeing unnamed, unmentionable creatures lurking on the other side of a polished surface. it makes for a clever metaphor for how much humanity dislikes seeing what's reflected of themselves-- and here, he supposes lies the problem to this conversation. there's a shiver down his spine as he considers Yagyuu's questions, direct and unopposed.

this person can see through him.

perhaps not all the way through, perhaps never with the same intensity that his captain can, certainly not with the stark honesty that reflects in the eyes of his brother. but while he knows what he sees in the mirror, he doesn't know what a mirror sees-- if a mirror sees the same thing it reflects, or if it sees far more clearly into the object at hand. such things never really occurred to him. it might be interested to think about them, now.

but the prospects of responsibility and forever-- this is a fair question, he thinks. fair for someone who has already seen so much, come so far. he knows the story, after all, it's only expected that he'd come to that conclusion. he thinks on what made him speak with honesty, and he thinks about his answer, now.

it's not honesty that guides his words, but the remembrance of things that he's never owned, that he never will own. but his words, stretched across the silence, feel needless, the gap between himself and the silent walls of understand wide, untouched, because he doesn't wish to touch them. so how should he respond, if he didn't care for understanding? how would he answer if this wasn't Yagyuu? how would he answer if the one who asked was the sky?]

Both prospects are very dear to me.

[and so I play with them as I please, but at the end of the day, as I pass them by, i leave them behind as though they were untouched.]

[usedlaserbeam.livejournal.com]

If that were true, you wouldn't have to ask if the responsibility is satisfying to bear.

[Both hands close around the Vulpix now, and while she does squirm and utter a soft squeak, she doesn't outright protest as he lifts her into his arms and rises to his feet, holding her carefully.]

Don't wait too long, Fuji-kun.