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Colour Me Blood Red	By : DragonBlade Category: Prince of Tennis/Tennis no Ohjisama > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2324 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own prince of tennis, characters or ideas, and I am making no money from this

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
CHAPTER 17 Kirihara stretched out in the cast iron patio chair as he watched Ryoma shift uncomfortably from foot to foot in the line up. They were at a small tea shop in a strip mall a block from the Organization. Cars passed behind him, and a light breeze rustled the hair at the back of his neck. The caged in trees along the edge of the sidewalk rained leaves on the crowds below them, covering the small black tables and curled chairs in a carpet of green.

Oishi had managed to talk Tezuka into allowing the younger Hunters to go in teams, in case something went wrong. So the Hunters didn’t create an obvious pattern, the groups would be switched up every day.

Ryoma glanced back at Kirihara, the older Hunter smirked and pulled his hat lower over his face. He couldn’t risk the chance the kid recognized him, but he was the only one available that day. At the counter Ryoma ordered their drinks and then gave the cashier a general description about a ‘friend’ he was supposed to meet but hadn’t seen. The girl shrugged and shook her head.

Ryoma balanced the drinks as he made his way back to the table. He nearly collided with a boy about his height. Ryoma quickly sidestepped and lifted the drinks above his head without hitting the other boy.

“I’m so sorry, desu! I didn’t see you, desu!”

Kirihara fought the urge to jump out of his chair and yell at Ryoma. He pulled his hat lower and hoped Ryoma realized who it was. The boy glanced around quickly before apologizing again and running off.

Ryoma slid the drinks onto the small glass-top table and rolled up his sleeves. There were no marks on his hands or arms. “I don’t think he knew me.”

“What do you mean?” Kirihara popped his straw through the plastic lid and took a sip. He shook his drink to get the tapioca beads away from his straw.

“I almost bumped into him, not the other way around. He was looking at the display over there and just happened to turn around when I walked by him.”

“Maybe you’re not as infamous as you think?” Kirihara shrugged. He sent out a text to let the other teams know the kid had passed them by but had slipped into the crowd. After waiting around to see if he would circle back, they were going to head off in the direction he went.

Ryoma rolled his eyes, “funny. Maybe he saw you and got frightened off?”

Kirihara sent his text and shrugged, “I’m kind of hard to identify when wearing a hat. People usually don’t realize it’s me if they can’t see my hair.”

“It’s hard to believe a kid would be working with Vampires, I wonder if he’s being blackmailed?” Ryoma added absentmindedly.

“Hm~” Kirihara hummed in agreement. Vampires.

‘You smell like a Vampire’ – the memory nagged at the back of his mind. It felt like so long ago that Yanagi had told him he didn’t smell right. It had been what? Two days? Three days? How does a human smell like a Vampire? Did it have something to do with why Sanada kept asking about his childhood, but never answered his questions?

He had to know, he needed to know. There were records, lots of records, at the Organization. He’d start there. There were old newspaper articles and police records, and-

“Oi, Mr.Serious-face.”

Kirihara jumped, “what?!” He lurched back when he realized Ryoma’s face was merely inches from his own.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Ryoma poked his forehead before settling back into his chair.

“Why would you say that?”

“You get that line between your eyebrows and a vacant look in your eyes; like you might hurt something …”

Kirihara frowned, “cute, thanks. But yes, I was lost in thought.”

“Emphasis on lost,” Ryoma smirked.

“You know, I could still shoot you in the knee.”

Ryoma’s grin only grew wider.

The kid never came back, and after walking a few blocks without any luck they decided that the kid really didn’t know who Ryoma was. No use hanging around, and Kirihara wanted to get back to the Organization as soon as possible.

“Can you hitch a ride home with Momo?” Kirihara asked while they were on their way back.

“Why?” Ryoma frowned.

“There’s something I want to do at the Organization.”

Ryoma frowned deeper, “you’re not coming home with me?”

“I will, later,” he glanced sidelong at Ryoma, who was still frowning, “I promise. Really.”

“What do you need to do?” Ryoma had stopped frowning and had settled into looking seriously unimpressed.

He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to tell his partner, it wasn’t like it was a secret or anything. For some reason he just didn’t want anyone to know. “Just thought of something, and I want to do a little research.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth.

Ryoma studied him for a moment before nodding, “I’ll tell Dad you’ll be late.”

“Thanks.”

Momoshiro happily obliged. He closed the passenger door behind Ryoma and waved to Kirihara. The small car wound down the driveway out of the garage, leaving Kirihara alone. He quickly made his way to the log rooms and set to work.

First - the newspaper clippings.

He carried an armful of dusty albums bound in dark brown material to his desk. Balancing the books on his hip he brushed the stack of magazines and old fast-food bags into the waste bin beside his desk.

“Bit of extra work?” A Hunter jibbed as he passed by Kirihara’s desk.

“Something like that,” Kirihara murmured.

Every news article told him what he already knew; break and entry gone wrong, two dead, no suspects. Of course there were no suspects! It was a group of Vampires, they probably skipped town the next night! The next article, the article after that, and the article after that; all the same information, just worded differently. Poor abandoned child, no parents to watch him grow up. Upstanding young man with a beautiful young wife and a child. Family at home for the night, getting ready to retire, child asleep upstairs.

Kirihara glanced at his watch; two hours had passed without his knowledge. He re-stacked the books and brought them back. He slipped them into the large gap in the shelf they came from and went to the next log room. Scanning through the years he found the police reports from the year his parents died.

The few Hunters lagging around started to watch him curiously. Kirihara Akaya avoided paperwork like it was the plague, not went out of his way to do hours of it on his own.

The police records weren’t much better. There were more details about the killing and the fact that nothing was actually missing from the supposed robbery. It was a cold case. Only one survivor; a child too traumatized and too young to remember anything.

He vaguely remembered sitting in a large room decorated with colourful pictures and small primary coloured tables and chairs. A young woman with light brown hair had offered him a box of crayons and told him to draw while she asked him questions.

He scanned through the police report, but the last line caught him off guard. Child wandered away from the crime scene and was found by Echizen Nanjiroh? Coincidence? Yeah right! That explained the shock from the ex-Hunter when Ryoma introduced him.

Now he really wanted to know.

All the files available were human files, everything transcribed so the simple human mind could comprehend it. He needed a file that told the exact truth, the supernatural truth, if there was such a file.

Tezuka passed by the hallway on his way to his office with a fresh cup of coffee and Kirihara’s eyes widened in shock. A light bulb went off in his head.

There was a file! Tezuka had a filing cabinet with classified documents. Maybe the information no one was willing to tell him was in there?

He couldn’t exactly go in and get it. Only the Elite had access to the classified files. He very well couldn’t ask another Elite to get it for him either. The only Elite he had any contact with was Tachibana. Yeah, that would go over well. He couldn’t get anyone to ask Tachibana to get it for him. If he sent someone like Kamio it would only be too obvious who was behind it all. There was no one he could ask to get the file.

His only option was to steal it.

Kirihara sighed and laid his forehead on his desk, how the hell was he going to steal something from Tezuka’s office without getting caught? Locks he could deal with, Tezuka being in his office was where he got stuck.

He sighed again and rolled his head so his cheek pressed against the cool wood of the desk. The sun was almost down, which meant the Vampires would be awake soon.

Vampires.

The memory of Sanada’s hands on him was so vivid he had to grip his chair to stop from trembling. He pressed his forehead back against the desk and clenched his eyes shut, breath fogging along the desk. So much had happened to him recently that it felt like it should have spanned several months. He had been molested by the Master of the City and hadn’t even had the time to let that fact sink in. He waited for the panic and disgust to set in but it never did. Was he still in shock? It wasn’t only Sanada who had touched him that night, but Fuji as we-

FUJI!

Kirihara jumped to his feet, making the other Hunters in the room turn and stare at him.

Fuji could distract Tezuka! Fuji could keep Tezuka out of the office long enough for him to get the file! He resisted the urge to fist pump and yell in triumph as he gathered his things and put away the reports.

Tomorrow he would ask Fuji to distract Tezuka. Right now he was hungry and wanted to sleep. Shock only lasted so long and he didn’t want to be in public when it wore off.

He pulled into the Echizen residence, setting off the motion sensor lights. The large house was mostly dark, save for a single light on in an upstairs bedroom and a light from the living room.

Nanjiroh opened the door when Kirihara walked up the front step.

Kirihara stopped abruptly, ”I’m sorry for being late, I just had some-“

“Don’t worry about it,” Nanjiroh stepped aside and let him in, “you feeling okay?”

Kirihara nodded while toeing off his shoes, “yeah, why?”

Nanjiroh shrugged, folding his arms into the sleeves of his robes, “boy mentioned something about being worried about you.”

'Child found by Echizen Nanjiroh'.

“I’m fine, really,” he forced a smile.

Nanjiroh frowned but shrugged, “there’s a plate for you in the dining room. Ryoma wasn’t sure how late you’d be.” He took a magazine out of his robes along with a pack of cigarettes and excused himself.

After eating, Kirihara went back up to his borrowed room. He paused outside Ryoma’s door, listening to the faint electronic beeps of a video game. He smiled to himself and decided to leave the Rookie to his game. He opened his duffel bag and grabbed an armful of clothing before heading to the bathroom.

He cursed and stomped his feet as he washed, the soap burning his wounds. Slipping into the tub he cursed profusely. Hisses escaped his lips every time he tried to relax his tense muscles. He had to exhale and concentrate on his limbs to get them to relax. Eventually he was able to lie comfortably in the large tub, arms propped up on the edge. He noticed a few bags of bath salts stacked beside the tub. Stretching over the edge he grabbed the closest bag, then rethought it and set it back down. The water hurt enough without anything added to it. The door creaked open and Kirihara jumped. He reached for his gun and realized he had left it in his clothes, across the room.

“Kirihara-kun,” it was Ryoma’s mother, “I brought fresh towels.”

“Ah, thank you.” He eased back into the water, maybe it was a good thing he had left his gun out of reach.

She sat the towels just inside the door. She paused while closing the door, leaving only her shoulder and arm visible. “Kirihara-kun, I apologize if I offended you the other night.”

Kirihara slid down into the water until it brushed the bottom of his lips. He wondered vaguely if Echizen-san made her apologize, and for what exactly? The look she had given him, perhaps? “It’s okay, I know you and Echizen-san found me after my parents were murdered. I have no memories of it so I don’t know if something bad happened, but if it did I can’t really blame you for any ill-feelings you have towards me” He wasn’t sure if that covered it, but it sounded good.

The muscles in her arm bunched and twitched when her grip on the door tightened, “you don’t remember anything?”

Kirihara shook his head, splashing water in his hair and ears, “no.”

Rinko turned her head so he could vaguely see her profile, ”for your sake, I pray it stays that way.” She closed the door. Her footsteps were muffled by the door as she walked further into the house.

What?

After toweling his hair he slipped quietly up the stairs to his room. Whatever everyone else, but him, knew was very bad. Bad enough that Sanada refused to tell him and Ryoma’s mother was scared of and for him.

The bed was cold and stressed his already sore body. He finally found a comfortable position lying on his side facing the window. That unfortunately put his back to the door, but he was pretty sure he could handle whatever was likely to come through there.

His body felt light and his mind empty, the distant patter of feet registered somewhere deep in his subconscious. The door to his room opened and closed again, the padding continued to the bed. The blankets lifted and the bed dipped as Ryoma crawled in. Instead of trying to wake Kirihara he wiggled up close to his back. He tucked his face against the back of Kirhara’s neck and hooked his arm gently over Kirihara’s waist before falling asleep.

Kirihara smiled to himself; so Ryoma did cuddle after all.

He finally fell asleep to the soft breath of his partner against the back of his neck.
- 16
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Colour Me Blood Red