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pateuszq · 2 years

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Okay, so this started from something @little-ideas posted. It was funny in my head - ha ha, look at Yuki being ticklish - but it wound up having a mind of its own, as most of my fics do.

Measurements

Fandom: A3!

Characters: Sakuya, Yuki (not together, but you might ship them at the end of this!)

Warnings: Mentions of bullying

Genre: angst/fluff/character study

Words: 1.6K

“Pfffft - hahahaha!”

Yuki ducks just in time as Sakuya’s elbow almost connects with his nose.

“Hey - watch that energy level if you want me to get your costume done this CENTURY.”

“Sorry! I’m sorry, Yuki!” Sakuya sounds anything but sorry as his breath hitches and wobbles through his giggles. Yuki stares, dead-eyed, waiting for the older boy to calm down. Every time. Every time, they went through this. Yuki tries so hard to avoid having to measure Energy Concentrate, but every few shows something changes just enough to require adjustment.

“I wanna give you whole-body Novocain,” Yuki grumbles as he pulls out his tape measure again.

Sakuya holds his breath, hoping that might keep his body restrained as Yuki carefully approaches. He tries to pull on his love of theatre, his need for people to like him, his desperate desire for the show to go well - anything that might help him hold still long enough for measurements to be taken.

Forty-five minutes later - several times longer than it took for most of the other members of Mankai - Yuki starts packing up his supplies. His every movement is sharp and precise, his mouth set in a firm line. The sarcasm is right there, right on his tongue, but he’s determined to hold onto it for once. He can’t snark at Sakuya the way he can with Itaru or Kazunari or even Kumon. Most of the others had thicker skin or could snark back or (in cases like Homare) didn’t even realize they were being insulted. Sakuya is…..soft. He’s easily bruised.

He is inside what I am outside,** Yuki decides. Soft and cute and **delicate.

As Yuki finishes packing his case, a pudding cup appears in front of his face. Attached to the pudding cup is a hand, and attached to the hand is Sakuya. He looks miserable.

“I really am sorry, Yuki,” he says softly. “I’m sorry to be such a bother.”

“It’s not your fault,” Yuki responds without thinking. “At least you make up for it with pudding.”

The two boys sit on the floor together in the empty practice room, savoring their small treat, until Sakuya suddenly asks, “Who takes your measurements, Yuki?” At Yuki’s blank stare, Sakuya just fumbles on. “I mean, your costumes - and your regular clothes - all fit perfectly, but you’ve got to change measurements sometimes, too, right? I’ve never seen anyone take yours.”

“I take my own.”

Anyone else would recognize the tone of voice. The voice itself says “stop asking about this or I’ll kill you.” But Sakuya….is Sakuya.

“That doesn’t seem like it would be completely accurate, though. I remember reading about that,” he worries. “I don’t think you can tickle yourself, so I was gonna take my own measurements - so you didn’t have to. But the sewing book I got from the library said that taking your own measurements is a LOT harder than taking someone else’s. So if you take your own…they may not be right.”

The voice gets tighter. “If they’re not, I make adjustments.”

Sakuya is quiet for a minute, then speaks softly. “I can help, you know. I want to help. To make up for all this time you spend on mine. I know…I know you don’t like people touching you, or seeing you without your - your armor - “

Yuki sucks in a breath at having his image so accurately described by someone he usually considers more heart than brains. That his clothes, his appearance, is what protects him, what gives him strength to stand tall - it’s supposed to be something only he knows. That Sakuya can see it so easily - it’s a cut to the bone with a knife so sharp he can’t even bleed around the wound.

“ - but you’ve been really patient with me and I know I’m a - a -“

“A pain in my ass?” Yuki snarls, now deliberately trying to push the other boy away.

Surprisingly, Sakuya laughs instead of getting hurt. And that laugh, instead of pissing him off more, calms Yuki down instead. Sakuya isn’t trying to hurt him. He’d never laugh if he knew how much his comment had hurt. Yuki knows that, intellectually. It’s just that sometimes his soul - his soul that has been battered from years of bullying, name-calling, and snide laughter - often felt the hurt before it thought whether or not something should hurt.

“Yes, that. So let me help?”

Yuki stops speaking and looks down on the floor. Vulnerability not only didn’t come easy to him, it was like a foreign language. Even thinking about being vulnerable left him confused and fearful. Being vulnerable - being without his armor - always meant being hurt, and never meant anything else.

But this was Mankai. And it was Sakuya. Neither of those things had ever hurt him. And maybe…maybe he could practice being vulnerable. Like a role study. Sakuya would never hurt him deliberately, or take advantage of his vulnerability. So maybe he could be vulnerable without being hurt. And maybe something good might come out of it.

Like some accurate fucking measurements.

His mind made up, Yuki gets to his feet.

“Lock the damn door,” he says.

*.*.*.*.*.*

It turns out the practice rooms don’t lock from the inside. So, in what Yuki considers to be a brief surge of genius (he may seriously have to rethink that “more heart than brains” thing), Sakuya just grabs a door wedge and jams it on the inside, making the door practically unopenable. If nothing else, they’ll have a warning before someone comes barging in.

Of course, people will DEFINITELY get the wrong idea if they find the two of them together in a locked room with Yuki half-dressed, but whatever. Now that he’s decided to do this, he doesn’t care much about the consequences.

But standing in just an undershirt and the shorts he wears under his skirts in this almost-empty, kind of echoing practice room - the one with the huge mirror for a wall is painful. Normally he’s in two or three layers of clothes, sometimes more. He’s rarely even this stripped down in his own dorm room - he has a few sets of matching pajamas and more than one adorable nightgown, thank you very much.

The only times he’s ever this exposed is for a role like Scheherazade (a look he knows he rocked, by the way). But it was easier to do when he was playing a part, when it wasn’t him. When it was for theatre. As it is now, he reminds himself.

Maybe also for me, he thinks as he stares across the room at his own face in the mirror while Sakuya comically untangles himself from the measuring tape (for the second time). Yuki isn’t stupid. He knows he’s going to want a romantic partner someday. He also knows he’s sharp-tongued and occasionally mean - really mean. Whoever he ends up with is going to have to have a thick skin and hopefully either brush it off or match it. But…he’s going to have to balance that meanness out with something softer. There’s going to have to be tenderness there, equal to or greater than the sass. He’s going to want tenderness and understanding and a safe place to be vulnerable - so he’s going to have to give it, too. He’s going to have to show himself in ways he’s uncomfortable with right now - in ways that have nothing to do with skin.

All of that is years off, as far as he’s concerned. But that doesn’t mean he can’t start by trusting a friend.

So he fights the urge to cover himself with his arms, to wrap himself up in fabric, and faces Sakuya dead-on.

Sakuya starts by going around to Yuki’s back and measuring the breadth of his shoulders. Strategically, it’s smart. He’s not in an awkward place, not staring at Yuki’s face, and not really touching him at all. He reads off the number and Yuki records it in his little notebook. He’s annoyed to see that it’s almost three quarters of an inch off from what he previously had recorded. No wonder he was always fixing his shirts.

Slowly, taking direction well, Yuki walks Sakuya through the most basic measurements (except inseam - he’ll still take care of that one himself, thanks!). Finally Sakuya hesitantly wraps the tape around the Yuki’s waist. On a brief gasp, Yuki jerks himself away.

“Oh, sorry!” Sakuya cries. “What did I -“

“Nothing,” says Yuki, annoyed. “Try again.”

The second attempt produces a snort. The third a full-on giggle. Sakuya can’t help but giggle himself. “Yuki…..are you ticklish?!”

“NO. Try it again.”

Sakuya goes to wrap the tape around his waist again, but instead digs his fingers into Yuki’s sides instead. He knows he’s risking his life, but he just can’t resist.

Yuki bends over double, almost falling on the floor. He goes instantly breathless, skipping snorts and giggles and immediately slipping into wheezing hiccups.

Grinning, Sakuya backs up. He’s not going to keep tickling Yuki unless there's a solid indication that Yuki’s into a tickle fight of some kind. Consent, y’all.

With a speed Sakuya didn’t expect, Yuki whips around. He expects to see anger or annoyance on Yuki’s face. Maybe even betrayal. But instead the reddish eyes are shining. With laughter but also…challenge?

“Think you’re smart, huh?” Yuki snaps out. He wants to sound mad, but he’s grinning and he knows it. “Think fast, genius!”

The younger boy grabs a random floor-cushion and flings it at Sakuya. “Think faster!” He cries as the pillow lands, and in the moment where Sakuya is stunned (a soft cushion to the face will do that), he leaps.

There’s a crash on the floor, then the thrashing of limbs and fingers digging into strategic areas. Laughter echoes through the small room, along with cries of challenge and threat.

By the end of it, both boys are laying on the floor, desperately trying to remember how to breathe. Both are still wheezing, their faces shiny with tears of laughter.

“Is this,” Sakuya snorts, “why you take your own measurements?”

Yuki takes a few deep breaths, trying to talk normally. “Yeah, but I - “ he starts laughing again anyway “I forgot that was why!”

The big room echoes with their laughter and suddenly Yuki realizes his position - half-dressed, laying on the floor, breathless, weak. Vulnerable.

He glances over at Sakuya, who’s curled up in the fetal position, giggling helplessly into his hands. Equally vulnerable.

But that….was ok. The two of them were safe in this room, safe with each other. He looked over at his friend again and smiled. He’d been vulnerable and something good had happened. That was enough for now.

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