Title: Life Must Go On.... Part 2
Fandom: Prince of Tennis: Fudomine Chuugaku
Characters: Ibu Shinji, Tachibana Kippei, Kamio Akira
Prompt: 038 - Touch
Word Count: 1444
Date finished: 07/17/2008
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Akira doesn't show up for practice. Shinji gets worried.
Author's Notes: Warning: triggering content (involving cutting). I don't remember where I got the idea, but it fit into the storyline. Part one.
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Konomi Takeshi, and whoever did the anime. At any rate, it's not me.

Kippei said nothing for a moment. "Could yesterday have had something to do with it?" he asked as Shinji pulled out a key and opened the door.

"Yesterday?" he asked. He had to force the door open, and then kicked shoes out of the way as Kippei followed him in.

"Yesterday, Daiki would have been five," Kippei said.

"Maybe," Shinji allowed, but he sounded like he didn't believe it.

They found Akira on his bed. From the way Shinji acted, he hadn't changed his clothes from the day before. He lay bent at the waist, an L, his left arm under him, the right outflung.

"You promised. I can't believe you did this again, how many years is it now? Or have you been lying to all of us all this time, and you never stopped. You know how bad it is, how dangerous, and I can't bear to think…."

"Shinji," Kippei snapped, stunned. It had been years since his tensai (yes, still his, even after ten years) had rambled like that. "What's wrong?"

Shinji sighed. "I need you to sit him up and hold him. He's going to struggle when he wakes up, so you'll want to pin his right arm down. I'll take care of his left."

Akira had lost weight, Kippei discovered when he sat down behind Akira. It took barely any strength to lift the smaller man's upper body to rest against him, his right arm pinned to his chest.

Bandages swathed Akira's left forearm. Kippei watched as Shinji carefully began to unwrap them. "He'll start struggling soon," he warned Kippei, and almost as if his words triggered it, Akira tried to break free. Kippei merely tightened his grip.

"Sh-shinji," Akira said, and stopped struggling.

"Akira, you promised."

"I kn-know. And I h-haven't, n-not since s-seventh grade."

The tension in Shinji's face eased. "What happened?" The last of the bandages came free with gentle tugging, and Kippei could see small, barely-healed parallel cuts on the inside of Akira's arm, stretching from wrist to elbow.

"M-my p-parents c-caught me on m-my way back from v-visiting D-Daiki and An," the redhead related. "I invited th-them up. They asked w-why the apartment w-wasn't d-decorated. I said they knew why! And th-they agreed. S-said it was b-because I'd f-failed again."

"And this?" Shinji indicated the barely scabbed over wounds.

"W-when they l-left, I f-found a kn-knife in the kitchen."

"Found a knife?" Shinji asked.

"I d-don't keep kn-knives," Akira said. "B-because of this."

Shinji sat down, stunned. "You found a knife?" he repeated.

"I th-think they l-left it for m-me to f-find," Akira said. "I th-think they wanted me to j-just end it."

"So, An knew?" Kippei asked when Shinji stared at him, struck dumb.

Akira stiffened, then struggled to get free again - hopelessly, of course. Kippei did not relax his grip, and he finally gave up and sagged, exhausted. "Yes," he said. "I t-told her b-before we were m-married, so she c-could get out of it."

Shinji released Akira's arm. "Where is the knife now?"

"T-trash," Akira said.

Shinji nodded. "Good. I'll take that out now." He got up and left the room.

"You should sleep," Kippei murmured. "Did you sleep at all last night?

"N-no," Akira stammered. "Too many m-memories."

With more reluctance than he'd expected, Kippei let him go. "Try now," he suggested.

Akira rubbed his arms, then lay down. Once comfortable, he looked up at Kippei. "D-don't leave m-me alone?"

"I'll stay right here," Kippei said.

He watched Akira fall asleep, watched the tension ease out of the younger man's face, and let out his breath in a deep sigh.

"How long have you loved him?" Shinji asked from the doorway, and Kippei jerked his head up to meet the other man's knowing gaze.

"What gave me away?" he asked. He could tell denial would be completely useless.

"An looked at him with that exact expression."

Kippei smiled. "A long time," he admitted.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I would have. As soon as he broke up with An."

Shinji walked into the room. "What are you going to do?" he asked, sitting at the foot of the bed.

"Do?" Kippei repeated. "Hopefully, if he's improved enough, I'll hire him to help me warm up."

"And that's all?"

Kippei regarded the other man seriously. "That's all."

Shinji nodded. "Okay."

Kippei hesitated. "You sounded like he'd done this before."

Shinji sighed. "That's how he got through most of our first year at Fudomine," he admitted. "I think - well, now I know - his parents knew and didn't care. We all knew it was how he coped, and we tried to get him to stop…"

"Wait," Kippei interrupted. "You all knew?"

"You saw the locker room," Shinji said. "He couldn't hide it no matter how much he tried. We each caught sight of his arm at least once."

Kippei nodded. "You tried to get him to stop," he prompted.

"Nothing we did worked, until you came. You brought a measure of control, something he needed. He'd tried to do things, I tried - all of us did…." He trailed off, because Kippei knew the whole story. "Two weeks after you showed up, Masaya noticed fresh cuts, and we sat him down and talked to him. He promised he wouldn't do it again, promised all of us." He sighed. "Only his parents would drive him to break that promise."

"Shinji," Kippei said, after a moment, "have I ever met his parents?"

"I doubt it. Their invitation to the wedding came back unopened. They never went to any of our matches or anything so… probably not. By the end of High School he spent more time at my house than his. I think he went home for weekends."

Kippei stared at him. "I didn't know that."

"I don't think many people did," Shinji said, then the strangest look crossed his face. "He never said anything to you," he said, just as Kippei opened his mouth to ask that very question, "because he didn't want to lose your respect, didn't want your pity."

Kippei raised his eyebrows. "I see," he said.

"I told him it was stupid, but he insisted." Shinji curved his lips into the faintest of smiles. "Stubborn idiot."

"Quite."

His arm throbbed, and Akira groaned. "I forgot," he mumbled, and sat up. An arm around his shoulders kept him from slumping back onto his pillow when he wavered.

"Here."

He took the proffered glass and drank before he realized who had steadied him, and choked on the water.

When he'd caught his breath again, he looked at Kippei. "How long have you been here?"

"I came up with Shinji, yesterday, when you didn't meet him for practice."

Only then did Akira remember asking Kippei to stay, to not leave him alone, and he ducked his head as color flooded his face. "Oh."

"I wish you'd said something," Kippei said.

"There was nothing to say," Akira mumbled.

"Nothing to say?" Kippei repeated.

"I didn't tell An until I had to. And you… weren't going to live with me." He felt his face heat up; he hadn't had the nerve to say 'marry me'.

"Would you have said anything if I'd hired you?"

"No." He'd considered and discarded the idea, too afraid that his weakness would take away his only reason to get out of bed in the morning.

"Akira, that's not a factor…."

"It should be," he interrupted, without looking up. "I'll be sore for days, until it all heals. That means I'd be a bad choice of p - of warm up partner for you." He winced at his slip; he hadn't heard his name in that tone of voice since An died. And never from Kippei. And he wasn't going to think about that.

"It's not a factor," Kippei reiterated, "because you will not do it again, correct?"

Akira looked up at him, eyes wide, startled. "What?"

"Promise me," Kippei said, that familiar determined look in his eyes. "Promise me that you won't do it again."

Akira hesitated, remembering the despair he'd felt on his son's birthday - and then his parents' attack on him. "I don't know…."

"You kept that promise you made to Shinji and the others for ten years," Kippei said, "through one of the toughest things any man should have to face. You can do it again."

Akira still hesitated.

"Please, Akira. Trust me on this. You can do it."

Since he'd never stopped trusting Kippei, he agreed.

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