X-Game Part I: If You Can’t be With the One You Love…

Well. Time for me to start sharing. The following is the very first loli fanfic I created after my recent awakening to the awesomeness of writing these kinds of stories. It comes in two parts… I’ll post the 2nd half in a day or so. The fanfiction is based off of the anime/manga Cross Game and deals with the relationship between Kou, the main character, and Momiji, a young girl who reminds him very much of someone in his past (her older sister, actually). There are few and sparse hints in the anime that Momiji has a special place in Kou’s heart, but the author obviously isn’t going to explore it too much due to the moral aspects of such a relationship. I, however, fear not morality and thus will explore it to my heart’s content.

Mitsuru Adachi, author of Cross Game as well as several other awesome sports romances, is one of my all-time favorite manga-kas so I hope I did him at least a little justice in my writing. I tried to include the nonchalant conversations that Adachi pretty much patented for his stories, as well as the casual feel of everything. I probably failed miserably and I hope people are quick to point that out to me. Since I’m still starting I want to know what people do and don’t like about the way I treat the canon material. Am I close to character? Can you really picture them doing these things? Please comment and let me know.

Note: To enjoy this fanfiction fully it would be best for you to watch up to episode 5 of the anime Cross Game. It is possible to read without, but not quite as enjoyable.

If You Can’t be With the One You Love

There is something about seeing a naked girl that changes everything in a young man’s life. One could say that the entire sexual life of a guy begins the first time he peeps into a porno mag or watches his neighbor undress through the curtains.

Kou was actually doing rather well in that department, he thought. He had looked at porn, obviously, but it hadn’t effected him as much as it did the guys around him. Whenever he went to the bathroom with one of those magazines, the disappointed face of Tsukishima Wakaba would float into his mind. That would be that. No matter what… he couldn’t cheat on Wakaba. Five years since she had died, but he still couldn’t look at other girls. Actually it sort of made Kou happy. He could concentrate on other things, unlike the other guys. And the girls seemed to respect him more since he didn’t act as perverted as the others.

And then one day it all fell apart. Some mischievous fate found the one weak part in his defenses.

“Ah, Kou-chan!” Tsukishima Seiji had called out to him, at the beginning of summer. “I’m going to be out of town, and Aoba’s going to baseball camp. Since Ichiyou’s going to be running the store Momiji will need someone to take her to swimming practice and pick her up. Would you mind?”

Tsukishima Momiji. Youngest of the four… three now… Tsukishima sisters. A 5^th grader. Same age as Wakaba had been. Her and Kou would play catch often, and she would always come into the batting cages and chat with him if no one else was around. She had the odd habit of doling out advice to him as if she was the older of the pair… just like Wakaba. Oddly enough, if Kou counted every hour he spent with another person, Momiji would be at the top of the majority. He had never thought about it like that before, though.

“Um. Sure. I don’t really have anything going on,” Kou had answered.

“Great. Usually Ichiyou and Aoba are around to play with Momiji and keep her company, but with everyone gone and Ichiyou needing to run the store she’ll probably get lonely. If you’re there it should be easier,” old man Seiji had said, grinning.

“Um. If I’m there? I thought I was just picking her up for practice?” Kou had asked, tilting his head. He never got an answer to that one.

~ ~ ~

And so here he was, picking her up for practice. Ichiyou was manning the Clover cafe/batting cage, looking maturely beautiful as always. She gave a soft smile when Kou entered.

“Ah, Kou-chan. Here to pick up Momiji? She’s still upstairs. I hope she’s not sleeping in just because it’s summer break. You’d better go check,” Ichiyou said, gesturing toward the door that led to the Tsukishima house, which was attached to Clover.

“Thanks,” Kou said, letting himself in. The place was like a second home to him. He kicked off his shoes and then went up the stairs.

“Momiji~ Time for practice!” he called out, then waited for a response. Nothing. Shrugging, he went down the hall until he reached the door with a flower-shaped sign that said ‘Mo * Mi * Ji’. “You’d better not still be sleeping…” Kou grumbled, as he opened the door. He had been meaning to sleep in ’til after noon during the summer, but Momiji’s practices were early.

He opened the door, looked in, and paused. He paused for a very, very long time.

Momiji was in the act of undressing. Specifically she had just been sliding her pink, flower-print little girl panties off. She had been doing this from a standing position, so at the exact moment she was in a kind of half-crouch, about to step out of the panties. This presented Kou with a view of her bare back and one side of her shapely rear. She was an athletic child, so she was small but not round as other children might be. Kou would wonder later, thinking back on that scene, if her not-round skin was still soft like a child’s should be.

Momiji was looking at him, as he looked at her. Being a child, and surprised, she made the mistake of straightening and turning. Normally a good boy would have averted his gaze before that point, but Kou was snared. So, he got a full-blown frontal view of the 5^th grader. Twin-tails hanging down to her shoulders, surprised wide eyes, slightly open little mouth, slightly visible collar-bone, flat boyish chest with small bright nipples, equally flat stomach with tiny belly-button, boyish hips, the tiny slit between her legs, barely visible from this angle since it was so small, and then down the legs to the crumpled pink panties around her ankles.

Kou wasn’t seeing Momiji. He was seeing the body of a 5^th grader. Where Momiji’s face shoul have been, there was someone else’s. Even Momiji could tell. She saw his eyes. Sometimes when she would call out to him on the street he would turn and look at her first in surprise, then a happy look would flicker on his face, then suddenly he would look depressed. He had a depressed look right then. That may have been why she didn’t immediately tell him off. She knew he was thinking of Wakaba. That was the ‘Wakaba look’.

“Stop looking!” she finally yelled, snapping him back to attention. At the same as she shouted she put her hands in front of her, covering what little there was to see of her private parts. Kou reacted as well, turning his back.

“S- sorry Momiji!” he gasped, blushing bright red. Then, after though had returned to his pulsating brain: “Wait, why are you changing here? The swim place has changing rooms doesn’t it?”

“They’re doing some work on them during the summer, so I have to change at home and just wear my clothes over my swimsuit,” Momiji explained calmly. Kou could hear a kind of slithery rustle as she put on her school swimsuit. Then a few more as she slipped a shirt and some shorts on over it. Somehow Kou was disappointed. Isn’t there some kind of fetish with school swimsuits? He thought, blushing a little again. Come to think of it, he’d never seen Momiji in her swimsuit since she always changed back into her clothes whenever he met her coming home from swimming practice.

“Sorry,” Kou said, again, wondering if he could turn around yet.

“S’okay. Knock next time,” Momiji said, brushing it off. Kou couldn’t see, since he had his back to her, but she was also blushing. She was feeling something very complicated at the moment, so she decided to just put the whole incident behind her. Kou-chan wasn’t a bad person, so she could forgive him seeing her naked at least once. Besides, she had taken her share of baths with him when they were younger. Nothing much had changed except she had gotten taller and thinner. She wasn’t the kind of girl to be disappointed for not having breasts yet, so there was really nothing to be upset about. If anything, she was more put off by the fact that he had been thinking of Wakaba in a situation like that.

He better not have any naughty thoughts about Wakaba-nee Momiji thought, as she picked up her bag and exited the room.

“C’mon. I don’t wanna be late,” she said. She noticed Kou was blushing, and she tried to hide her own blush by hurrying ahead.

~ ~ ~

After he had dropped Momiji off at practice Kou went home and went right to the bathroom. When they were really little kids he and Wakaba had bathed together. But by the time they were in 5^th grade, obviously they didn’t anymore. He had never seen Wakaba’s naked body after they had stopped being little kids. Well, looking back they had still been little kids even in 5^th grade, but still. Suddenly he could attach the face that appeared in all his memories to a naked body. Momiji and Wakaba were very similar, down to the tone of their voices. A little shorter hair, and take out the twin tails, and Momiji would practically be Wakaba. So Momiji’s naked body and Wakaba’s smiling face fused perfectly in his mind.

It didn’t take him long, and it felt good.

~ ~ ~

He decided to pretend like nothing had happened, when he went to pick up Momiji. She had accepted his apology, and didn’t seem to care that much about it. He would just make sure to knock from now on. That was all.

“How was practice?” he asked, as she walked along beside him on the long path home.

“Hmm… it was fine…” she said, absently. She was walking a little oddly, and kept pausing now and then. “Haa~ it feels too weird…” she said, after a little while had passed.

“Eh?” Kou said, looking at her curiously. “What does? Wait, why are you back in your clothes? I thought you couldn’t change there?”

“Oh, on our way out we take showers and so we just change in the shower stalls. They told us we should change at home but none of us wanted to walk home in just our swimsuits, and we didn’t want to put our clothes on over our wet suits either. Only thing is…” Momiji sighed and stopped walking. “… I forgot to bring underwear. It feels weird walking around without it.”

“… oh,” Kou said. And then there was a long pause.

“Carry me,” Momiji said, holding up her arms like an infant.

“Huh?” Kou said, completely confused.

“As punishment for this morning. Give me a piggy-back ride home. That way I don’t have to put up with this weird feeling while I walk. It’s only fair,” Momiji explained, arms still reaching upward.

“…” Kou just stared at her.

“Now. Kou,” Momiji said, impatiently. Her mouth was a small frown, her brows were drawn downward. A serious face. Just like Wakaba would make. Wakaba… when he came to pick her up from swimming practice she would give him a kiss on the cheek. Kou shook the thought out of his head.

“… alright. Here,” Kou said. He didn’t pick her up, but rather turned around and crouched down so she could climb on. She did, wrapping her arms around his neck. She smelled like chlorine. He took the bag from her that held her wet swimsuit, and stood up. She was light, and warm. He let her hook her legs through his arms to support her better, and they started off. The thought that the tiny slit he had seen this morning was spread and pressing against his back. It was a very vivid image.

Suddenly Momiji leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. He stopped.

“Eh?” he said, turning his neck to look at her. She grinned widely.

“A reward, for coming to pick me up properly,” she said.

“A reward and a punishment at the same time?” he asked, trying to sound humorous. His voice caught a little and he hoped she wouldn’t notice. “Wouldn’t they have canceled each other out or something?”

“That’s too complicated, just accept it and keep going!” Momiji said, withdrawing her face. Again she was avoiding his seeing her blush. She had felt the hotness of his cheek when she had kissed him. His face had been bright red, even before she had done it. Just like this morning, both of them were blushing. Again. She wondered if every day was going to go like this.

~ ~ ~

Over the next few days things calmed down on the outside, even though they only got worse on the inside. Kou went to pick up Momiji every day. After the first day he always remember to knock, and she would always tell him to wait. He would listen carefully, almost holding his breath, to hear the rustle of her clothes, and then when she opened the door he would grin and joke with her like nothing was going on.

Every day after he picked her up she would give him a peck on the cheek and a cheesy grin, and pretend she was joking, and then she would wrangle another piggy-back ride out of him. He pretended he didn’t like doing it, even while feeling intently her lower body pressed against the middle of his back.

He started masturbating almost daily. Slowly Wakaba’s face started fading from his fantasies. It was replaced with the smiling face with twin-tails he was seeing every day. Momiji’s voice was slightly different, and it was the one that called out to him. Finally, after about a week of this, something different happened in his fantasies. Instead of cradled against his back in a piggy-back ride, Momiji was hugging him from the front with her legs spread in the same way. Naked and crying, face pressed against his chest as he plunged deep inside her spread vagina.

“Momiji…” he said, as his body jerked. He looked at the white semen that had Momiji’s name on it. It was then that he realized that he was a terrible person. Without his permission his brain had decided that, rather than always chasing after the dream of a dead 5^th grader, it would rather have sex with a living one. One that was near him. His heart sank as he realized that he couldn’t turn back anymore.

~ ~ ~

He went to the batting cages often. Ichiyou would usually give him a free token, but he’d always get a few more himself so he could practice a lot. Most baseball players were gone to camp or whatever, so it was usually empty. Which meant that Momiji would always come around and perch on a chair near the cage where he was and talk to him over the hum of the pitching machine.

That day he watched for her to come in, and watched as she pulled up a seat and sat on it. She watched him, too. Then he turned away and started batting.

“Do you want to talk to me about something?” Momiji prompted, still staring at him.

“Hm?” he asked, pretending not to understand as he slammed a ball into the outer net.

“You were watching for me, like you were waiting for me. You never do that,” Momiji pointed out.

“Ah. Man you’ve got me figured out…” Kou said, trying to sound natural.

“Yep,” Momiji agreed.

“…” Kou was silent, and concentrated on batting. He was still holding out hope that, even given the opportunity, he would still resist the temptation.

“So…?” Momiji again prompted.

“Do you want to… can you…” Kou tried to form the sentence. “Would you be my lover?”

“That’s illegal,” Momiji immediately pointed out.

“Yeah,” Kou agreed.

“And that would be unfair to Wakaba-nee,” she added.

“Yeah,” Kou agreed.

“Dad and Aoba would crucify you, if they found out,” she added.

“”Yeah,” Kou agreed.

“Even so?” Momiji asked, tilting her head.

“Yeah,” Kou said, and he set the bat down. He had run out of tokens.

“Why?” Momiji asked next, hoping he wouldn’t turn around and see how deeply she was blushing. She hoped her voice wasn’t shaking as much as she thought it was.

“God cursed me. Made it so I can only fall in love with a 5^th grader,” Kou explained.

“Lolicon!” Momiji accused, her voice serious but not full of the usual disgust and contempt such a statement is usually accompanied by.

“Yeah,” Kou agreed.

“Then… the day you saw me…” Momiji murmured, looking down. It was starting to make sense to her.

“Yeah, ever since then. At first I thought you were just a replacement for Wakaba in my mind, then I realized I was only thinking of you,” Kou said, honestly. Momiji was always so serious and open with him. It was only fair that he returned the favor. Besides, he wanted to give her every chance he could to tell him ‘no’ and say she hated him.

“Have you been masturbating?” she suddenly asked.

“Haaa~?” Kou turned and looked at her, incredulous.

“I’m in 5^th grade! I’ve already had sex-ed,” Momiji said, tilting her chin up stubbornly. “That’s what boys do, right? You go off and think about a girl you like and play with your private parts. Were you thinking about Wakaba, or me?”

“…” Kou had to roll that one over in his mind for a few seconds. He hadn’t thought he would need to be this honest with her. But. What the hell. Maybe this way she would never speak to him again. “Wakaba, at first. Recently, you.”

Momiji blushed and looked down. Kou braced himself. Sorry Momiji. It was good hanging out with you, but it’s safer if you hate me. If you reject my honest feelings right now, I think I can get over it…

“I’m glad…” Momiji suddenly said, and a small smile was on her tiny mouth. Kou was struck by how cute she looked, blushing and smiling like that. Enough so that he missed what she said.

“Huh?” he asked, doing a double-take.

“I thought Kou just thought of me as Wakaba’s replacement. You always got a depressed look when looking at me and I knew you were thinking about Wakaba-nee. But now you don’t get that look anymore. You’re really looking at me,” Momiji said, looking down and smiling wider while kicking her legs back and forth like a little kid. “I’m happy.”

“But… but… what?” Kou sputtered. She was saying the wrong words!

“Wakaba-nee always told me how cool and handsome Kou-chan was, and Kou-chan would always come over and play. I always… I always liked Kou-chan best. I always thought Kou-chan was the most handsome and coolest boy in the whole city, same as Wakaba-nee,” Momiji said. Her sweet, honest, happy voice was the last thing Kou wanted to hear.

“Momiji… don’t just randomly agree with me! You said yourself, all those things that are wrong with it! A guy like me… a guy that would betray Wakaba and have bad thoughts about a 5^th grader…” Kou said, exiting the batting cage and standing over her. He wanted to reach out and shake her gently, but he was afraid to touch her, just then.

“I don’t care. I like Kou. Just promise me that you’ll never stop loving Wakaba-nee as well, and other than that… I would be happy to be Kou’s lover. I know we can’t go on real dates or stuff since people would think you’re a bad person, but at least… when we’re alone… kissing and stuff…” she trailed off to an embarrassed whisper. Kou couldn’t believe his ears. Momiji’s happy, blushing whisper. ‘Kissing and stuff’…

He knelt down by the chair she was on and took her by the shoulders. He wanted to argue with her. To tell her how wrong it was. But the soft feeling of her shoulders gave him pause. And then she looked at him with her wide, innocent eyes and the bright blush on her cheeks. She was wearing a sports jersey top and shorts, looking like a boy, but her face and her smell were those of a girl.

And then he did exactly the opposite of what he wanted. Or maybe it was exactly what he wanted. He bent his face toward hers, tilting a little to the side to avoid her little nose. Her eyes slid closed and the blush deepened. And then instead of holding her shoulders he was wrapping his arms around her as their lips touched and he kissed her. Her lips were so small, and the tickling breath from her nose so soft. Her face was warm and soft, her body small in his embrace and softer than he would have thought. Athletic or not, she was still a little girl.

Their kiss lasted a while, and he was the one who broke it. He drew his face back, and just looked at her sadly. Well. That plan had failed. Or been a rousing success. He couldn’t decide.

She opened her eyes after waiting for a moment for the kissing to continue. When it didn’t, she merely gave Kou a wide, blushing grin and said: “Yep. I’m Kou’s lover now.”

Kou couldn’t help but smile.

~ by haganehare on July 13, 2009.