Chapter 4

The cold was insidious; like the creeping fingers of a pushy date who just wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, it stole inside his clothes and ran icy tendrils over his skin, chilling him to the bone. Not that Atobe had ever had to deal with dates who went too far; nobody would dare, and even if they tried he certainly had the presence of character to be able to quell any attempts simply by showing his disapproval.

There was also the fact that he didn't date, ever. For one thing, it wouldn't be fair to his hordes of admirers to single only one of them out for special treatment. And, frankly, while he accepted their worship as simply his due, none of them had ever stood out enough to deserve his focused attention.

Which might have had something to do with the fact that he wasn't particularly interested in girls, but then again, his straight teammates seemed to have the same general disdain for fangirls that he did, so it might not have.

Wait. Did he have any straight teammates?

Realizing his mind was drifting rather badly, Atobe shook himself back to some semblance of coherency. The sharp bite of pain from his leg at the movement helped to clear the ice from his brain. He'd been dangerously close to nodding off, and that was a very bad sign indeed.

He was cold, and yet there was a burning line of warmth pressed up against his back. Strong arms were wrapped around his shoulders, holding his own jacket over his body as far as it would go. It wasn't quite big enough to fit all the way around both of them, so there was a gap of several inches at Atobe's front where the chill air was able to get at him through the thinner down of Ohtori's jacket.

Ohtori's jacket. Ohtori! The warmth at his back was Ohtori, trying to keep his captain warm by sacrificing his own heat. Atobe had tried several times to get him to take the light jacket back to wear under the heavier one, or at least to give up on trying to shelter Atobe and zip the heavy jacket up again, but Ohtori had stubbornly continued to refuse. He'd insisted that he could get up and move around to help him keep warm, but Atobe couldn't, and therefore the senior was the one who needed the warmth most.

That logic was all well and good, but Ohtori hadn't actually gotten up and moved around, and therefore there was a very serious flaw in the reasoning.

"Ohtori." He winced at the sound of his own voice, a rough whisper over lips chapped to the point of bleeding by the wind and cold. Clearing his throat, he tried again, louder. "Ohtori. You're not asleep, are you?"

There was no answer, and only the soft warmth of slow breaths puffing against the side of his neck told him the other boy was even still alive. Ohtori was sitting sideways behind him, Atobe's ass against the taller boy's hip, and Ohtori's torso twisted to press flat to the senior's back. It had to be a horribly uncomfortable pose, but Ohtori hadn't complained. Indeed, he'd apparently leaned his head against Atobe's shoulder at some point - hence the gentle gusts of air tickling his neck - and fallen asleep.

Groaning, doing his best to ignore the frozen burn in his broken leg, Atobe shifted to jostle his kouhai. "Ohtori!" he called sharply, in the voice he used to assign laps on the tennis courts. "Wake up, damn it!"

"Hmmwha?" came the sleepy rumble. Ohtori couldn't seem to pry himself from the warm, dark embrace of sleep, though it seemed urgently important to answer whoever was calling him for some reason. Atobe, his half-frozen mind whispered to him. That's Atobe, your captain, and he's giving you an order. Wake up!

"I'm awake," he declared, a bit more coherently, though he wasn't really. Why was it so hard to wake up? At least he didn't feel cold anymore, though he couldn't quite remember why he should. Wait, why was Atobe so close to him? Was that Atobe he was leaning on?

It was indeed, he realized with a sense of shocked horror, and he jerked upright abruptly. "Oh gods, I'm sorry, please forgive me I didn't mean to be so familiar!"

Atobe's pained moan at the sudden jarring brought memory flooding back to him. They were on the mountain, sitting on the edge of a cliff, and Atobe had broken his leg saving Ohtori's life. It was dark now, truly dark, with only the last vestiges of light playing over the western horizon. The stars were out in the east, shining bright and cold down on the mountainside where two Japanese tennis players were slowly freezing solid.

"Are you okay?" Ohtori asked his captain, a little timidly. Then he winced. What a stupid question! Of course Atobe wasn't okay, he was freezing to death with a broken leg, all because his idiot kouhai had been stupid enough to let himself be tricked by the team prankster! "I'm sor..."

"If you apologize again, I am going to steal that jacket back and crawl down the mountain, and leave you up here to freeze," Atobe declared with some asperity. "You did more than enough apologizing earlier, and the answer I gave you then still stands - this isn't your fault. And yes," he cut off the already familiar objection before Ohtori could even open his mouth, "I know it's your fault you fell for Mukahi's juvenile attempt at entertaining himself. The rest of it is not your fault, and that single fact isn't worth these repeated abasements."

Ducking his head slightly, Ohtori couldn't help but chuckle. Really, nobody but Atobe ever talked that way. And yet somehow, it didn't even sound pretentious when Atobe did it. Well, not too much.

Glancing up at the rapidly fading traces of light in the west, Ohtori fought the fear welling up in his throat. "Why haven't they found us yet?" he wondered aloud. Atobe sighed against him, the motion causing him to settle a little more firmly against Ohtori's chest.

"I don't know. I'm sure they'll come soon. Perhaps it took the others some time to overcome the language barrier." In truth, Atobe couldn't imagine it would be that difficult to convey 'someone is missing and we think he's trapped on the mountain' to people who were surely accustomed to just such emergencies. Atobe's own absence should have been noted by now as well, making a rescue doubly urgent. "Perhaps they're working their way slowly up the mountain, so as not to miss anything."

"I wish they'd start at the top and work their way down, instead," Ohtori muttered, just loud enough for Atobe to hear. The senior barked a laugh.

"Indeed."

Turning his head a little, he could just see Ohtori's face, his expression melancholy and his eyes staring out into the distance. Atobe felt, as a good captain, he should have said something comforting to the younger boy, something to give him hope. Unfortunately, for once in his life he couldn't seem to find the appropriate words to say. If there was hope in this situation, Atobe couldn't find it.

Still, he had to try. "Ohtori," he said, the word emerging more softly than he'd meant it to. Whatever he'd been about to say was lost when the younger boy snapped his gaze to his captain's face, then abruptly started laughing. Annoyed, Atobe frowned. "What's so funny?"

Trying to stifle his snickers unsuccessfully, Ohtori smiled at him. "I'm sorry, it's just... your lips are so blue from cold, and I know that's not good, but it really looks like you're wearing lipstick." The smile grew into something more closely resembling a grin. "It looks good on you. Maybe you should try it some time."

"Aan?" Atobe made a questioning noise, blinking. Blue lipstick looked good on him? Ohtori thought blue lipstick would look good on him? Obviously Atobe wasn't the only one suffering from brain freeze. "Well, yours are too," he informed the junior. And, actually... "It suits you rather well, also," he had to admit. If Ohtori were a girl, he would never be able to wear the sorts of deep reds and pinks most girls seemed to favour. But blue and silver, to match his Hyoutei jersey and his platinum hair... yes, those colours would suit the younger boy very well indeed.

Why was he thinking about what colours would suit Ohtori? Clearly he was even more affected by the cold than he'd thought. He shook off the odd thought, and frowned. Their lips were blue, and neither of them was shivering any more, and they'd both just nearly fallen asleep. Had fallen asleep, in Ohtori's case. Going to sleep in this cold would be tantamount to committing suicide, and even the thought was anathema to Atobe.

"We have to stay awake," he proclaimed firmly. But how? Talking wasn't working; they'd been talking when they'd both drifted off before. Physical activity would help, but Atobe couldn't move without agonizing spikes of pain being driven up his body from his leg. At least he couldn't feel it unless he did move... the cold had done that much to numb him.

Which was another concern, actually; he flexed his fingers inside his gloves, feeling the stiffness and lack of sensation. If they weren't careful, they could end up losing fingers or ears or even their noses to frostbite. There were a couple of different ways they could warm their hands, at least, though Atobe wasn't certain they should. Hadn't he read something once that said it would cause more damage to repeatedly thaw and re-freeze frostbitten flesh?

Atobe hadn't turned back to face away from Ohtori again, and the taller boy studied him, sleepy brown gaze fixed on the expressions flitting across Atobe's face. He's not usually this easy to read, Ohtori reflected absently. He never lets his guard down this much when there are other people around. Or at least, he's never done it when I was around. I wonder if he ever does?

Shishido was much the same way, though he hid his emotions and vulnerabilities behind pride rather than arrogance. On rare occasions, when it was just to the two of them, Shishido would sometimes let his guard down and Ohtori would catch a glimpse of the real Shishido Ryou hiding inside. Those were the moments when he would wonder if maybe it wasn't so important that he wait until they met up again in high school before he did something to act on his confused feelings about his partner. But then something would happen and Shishido would close up again, before Ohtori could gather the courage to do or say anything, and that was the end of that.

He wondered now if Atobe had anyone he could be unguarded with, even for the briefest of moments like Shishido. Jirou, maybe... but Jirou would never see it if he did, would never be able to respond in kind and create a moment of openness between them, because chances were good Jirou would be asleep when and if it ever happened.

It struck Ohtori that it must be terribly lonely to have to live always behind the 'perfect' mask you had created for yourself, with never a moment's respite from the internal pressure that mask would create.

"What are you thinking?" he asked sleepily, struggling not to yawn. Really, he was being almost as bad as Jirou! Falling asleep draped over Atobe's back... wait, when had he gotten draped there again? He didn't remember leaning forward, let alone resting his cheek on the older boy's shoulder, yet here he undeniably was.

"Mm?" Atobe made a startled noise, jerked out of his own thoughts. He'd been drifting again, he realized. Dangerous, too dangerous by half. He needed to find a way to keep them both awake and alert. "Just that our lips turning blue probably means all our extremities are in danger of freezing. Sharing body heat like this," he shifted his shoulders against Ohtori's chest, "is all well and good, but it's not enough. It's not helping to keep the rest of our bodies warm."

"Too bad there isn't a way to share face heat," Ohtori chuckled softly. He still had the hood of the jacket pulled up, covering everything but his face, but Atobe had only the fur-lined band over his ears. He could share the jacket, but he hadn't yet figured out a way to share the hood.

That statement caught Atobe off guard, and he snorted in amusement. "Well, actually, there is one rather obvious method by which we could accomplish just that," he muttered, lips twitching. "Possibly not the most prudent course of action, however."

"Eh?" Ohtori was honestly confused. "How could we do that, Atobe-san?" It wasn't like they could press their faces together the way they were doing with their torsos; that would just end up with them...

Oh. Ohtori felt like a naive idiot, and he knew he would have been blushing furiously if his cheeks weren't already frozen. Atobe took one look at his embarrassed expression and started laughing for real, the force of it making him shake against Ohtori's chest until Ohtori had to start laughing, too.

"You mean kissing, right?" he asked just to be sure, once they'd started to wind down. Atobe nodded, amusement clear in his storm-grey eyes. "Well, I suppose that would accomplish the intended goal," Ohtori acknowledged awkwardly, making Atobe laugh again.

Truly, it's a pity it wasn't Shishido Ohtori was stuck with up here, Atobe thought to himself over his laughter. I'd like to have a picture of his face if his innocent little partner ever asked him a question like that.

Ohtori watched the senior's face light up with laughter, fascinated. He'd heard Atobe laugh before, of course, but it was usually mocking laughter, not a simple bright sound of amusement like this. He really is beautiful when he laughs like that, the junior reflected. If his admirers could see him like this, he'd never pry them off him. It's almost too much, like a sunset that's so perfect you have to look away or cry from the sheer beauty of it.

Maybe it was the cold, or maybe he'd been spending too much time around Shishido, or maybe it was just that Ohtori Choutarou wasn't quite as naive and innocent as most people thought he was. Whatever the reason, the next words slipped out of him without being run by his internal censors first. "I can't think of any other way to do it, so maybe we should try it?"

Atobe's chuckles came to a strangled halt, as the senior stared at his junior in disbelief. He did not just say that, Atobe unconsciously echoed Ohtori's own current thoughts. But despite the lack of a blush on his pale cheeks, the junior looked absolutely mortified, which meant he probably had just said what Atobe thought he'd said.

The senior's uncharacteristic wide-eyed stare might have been funny under different circumstances. It wasn't often that Atobe Keigo was that badly startled by something, especially not by one of the teammates he knew so well. Ohtori was finding it difficult to feel anything but embarrassed, however, as the weight of that surprised gaze bore down on him.

"I'm sorry," he apologized once the words stopped sticking in his throat. "Atobe, I have no idea what came over me, I didn't mean to say that..."

Surprise faded away into the more characteristic smirk, as Atobe lifted one gloved finger to place over his frozen lips, hushing him. "You really do apologize too much, Ohtori," the older boy informed him in amusement. He wondered briefly if his kouhai would proceed to apologize for apologizing too much, but Ohtori had been caught in that trap one too many times with Shishido.

Instead the silver-haired boy smiled ruefully, his chapped lips leaving spots of darker blood on the dark material of Atobe's glove. "I know I do," he admitted. "I just can't seem to stop." Atobe pulled his hand away and Ohtori licked his lips automatically, wincing at the sharp taste of copper and the bright sting of pain. "Ow. I'm really glad I'm not a flautist, though... my lips are so cold and damaged it'd be weeks before I was able to play properly again."

He didn't mention the way his hands seemed to be frozen inside his own gloves, unresponsive to his mental commands. He was trying very hard not to think about it, in fact. He'd be fine once he warmed up, he had to be.

Examining the dark flecks Ohtori's blood had left on his glove, Atobe frowned and licked his own lips, tasting blood there as well. "I'm not in any better shape than you are," he noted unhappily. Really, chapped lips just didn't fit the image he cultivated in any way. It was so... plebian. And of course licking his lips had not only made them sting, the liquid he left behind evaporated almost immediately into the frigid dry air, leaving him even colder than before.

He found himself echoing Ohtori's sentiment that it couldn't hurt to try. "Well, it would certainly keep us awake, if nothing else would."

The statement distracted Ohtori from his brooding. "What would?" he asked without thinking, having lost the thread of the conversation. Atobe snorted in amusement.

"Kissing," he reminded his kouhai. Ohtori blinked, and found himself grateful once again that he was too cold to blush. "But the last thing I need is our resident drama queen gunning for me for poaching on his territory," Atobe continued, much to Ohtori's further mortification. "I'd like to be able to sleep at night, frankly. And anyway, it's beneath me to make a move on someone who's already spoken for."

"Um..." Ohtori wasn't even sure where to start to address that. For one thing, while pretty much everyone in the club had their suspicions about Atobe's orientation, nobody knew for sure, and it was a little surprising to hear it just confirmed like that. "There's nothing like that going on between Shishido-san and I," he finally said hesitantly. "It's a bit more complicated than just friendship, I suppose, but... we're not dating, or together, or anything like that."

"Oh?" Atobe was honestly surprised. He'd thought Shishido had more guts than that. Anyone with eyes could see how the third year felt about his doubles partner, and Ohtori wasn't exactly warding him off at every turn. "He hasn't kissed you?" Ohtori shook his head, far too embarrassed to admit that he'd yet to be kissed by anybody, let alone his partner.

"More fool he," Atobe concluded with some asperity. Truly, it was a waste. Ohtori was beautiful, inside and out, and the person who snagged him would have the most loyal, affectionate partner they could possibly ask for. But he wouldn't wait forever; if Shishido didn't make a move sooner or later, he'd eventually lose Ohtori to someone else who had more initiative.

Well, never let it be said that Atobe would allow an opportunity to slip by him for lack of initiative. Lifting his hand again, he cupped Ohtori's cheek and twisted so he was at a better angle, leaning in. "Um, Atobe?" the junior all but squeaked, watching wide-eyed as his captain closed the distance between them. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"Warming up," Atobe informed him lightly, just before their lips met. It was by far and away the oddest kiss he'd ever had - their lips were so cold it was like kissing an ice cube, but once he'd coaxed Ohtori's mouth open the inner warmth hit him like a blast from a furnace. The contrasting sensations made the whole thing feel more intense, and a soft groan escaped him despite himself.

Ohtori was frozen as much with indecision as cold now, his body stiff against Atobe as he struggled to process the situation. They both still had their eyes open, and staring into his captain's storm-dark eyes from such a short distance was almost hypnotic. He had nothing to compare the kiss to, but despite the cold it was sending thrilling tendrils of warmth along his nerve endings, making him shiver.

When Atobe's tongue ventured into his mouth and touched his lightly, a burning heat started deep in Ohtori's body where he'd been starting to believe he would never feel warm again. Moaning, he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, responding hesitantly. Maybe this wasn't anything like the way he'd imagined his first kiss would be, and it certainly wasn't the person he'd thought he'd be doing this with, but it was good enough that at that moment he really didn't care.

Atobe couldn't help but smirk into the kiss when he felt Ohtori relax and begin to respond. He closed his eyes as well, tilting his head slightly for a better angle of attack, intent on coaxing more of those feathery moans from the boy pressed against him. He forgot about being cold, forgot about the dull ache in his leg, forgot about anything but the sensation pouring through him, setting his nerves on fire.

They pulled away for air at the same moment, though they remained close enough that their breath misted in each other's faces, soft ice crystals forming on chilled skin and frozen lashes, making them both blink to clear their vision. Atobe chuckled at the dazed look on his kouhai's face, which made Ohtori start to laugh as well, and soon they were both leaning on each other as their laughter echoed over the snowy mountain.

"That was your first kiss?" Atobe's inflection made it a question, but it really was more of a statement. Ohtori nodded.

"Was it that obvious?" he asked, chagrined. Had he done something wrong? It hadn't felt wrong, but maybe that was just because Atobe had enough experience to make up for Ohtori's lack.

"Not at all, simply a guess based on what I've observed of your interaction with others up to this point," Atobe assured him. His voice was softer than usual, gentler, and he felt half afraid to raise it for fear of breaking the odd moment of companionship that had descended upon them. Ohtori thought it made him sound like an entirely different person - someone more approachable, even likeable. He wondered if he were perhaps getting a glimpse of the real Atobe Keigo, the one who hid behind the arrogance and pride and cocky self-assurance.

Then the moment was shattered as Atobe added smugly, "I should probably apologize for stealing your first kiss. You'll have a hard time finding someone else who can measure up to my level."

For a moment Ohtori simply gaped at him, until he caught sight of the glint of amusement in his captain's eyes. "You..." he sputtered, laughing. "You don't take yourself half as seriously as the rest of us think you do, do you?"

Atobe tilted his head so he was looking down his nose at the younger boy - quite a feat, with someone who was half a head taller than you even sitting down, but he'd had years of practice at perfecting the expression on adults when he was a child. "What's not to take seriously?" he asked loftily. "Anyone would be stunned by the beauty of my skills."

Shaking his head, Ohtori leaned against him, still chuckling. He wondered now how much of Atobe's infamous ego was actually assumed, a calculated mask to keep the world from touching the real him, just as Shishido's pride was. And, perhaps more sadly, he wondered how long it had been since someone had realized it other than him.

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

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