Name: Dancing in the Rain
Mod you're writing for: Sweet Obsidian Rain
Authors: HaveYouNoMercy
Beta: Linny Kim
Genre(s): Angst (sort of? =/), Romance, AU, strangenesswut
Pairing(s): Fuji/Ryoma (Thrill Pair)
School(s): Seigaku
Wordlength: oneshot.
Summary: /When was the first time they met? It feels like an eternity ago. It feels like yesterday./ Thrill Pair AU, oneshot, written for Sweet Obsidian Rain.
Author's Note: what is this.
(Incoherent ramblings shall be at the end.)
Disclaimer: Let's be reasonable now, shall we?
"So, when was the first time you met?"
Fuji looks up from where he is playing with a loose thread on his pants and smiles slightly. His eyes are still closed, but the inspector feels like they're boring into his head. It's been two hours already, and he's only got through three questions. He hastily checks his watch and mops some sweat off his brow with his shirt cuff.
Fuji absentmindedly winds the thread around his finger and looks back down into his lap, taking his time. When was the first time they met? It feels like an eternity ago. It feels like yesterday.
It had been raining, he remembers. It had been raining, but he had been warm. The pills he took earlier float around in his stomach and he smiles again. Oh, right.
"We were dancing in the rain."
The inspector looks at him quizzically.
"In Korea," he adds, nodding to himself.
"What were you two doing in Korea?" The inspector is sighing now, wondering how this is supposed to make any sense at all.
Fuji unwinds the thread from his finger and watches as the purplish tinge fades back to pink. He thinks for a moment, and then he shrugs, smiling.
"I think we were at a concert."
"I keep praying, don't forget, Baby we keep the faith eternally."
Ryoma looks up from his tennis magazine with a raised eyebrow as Fuji walks into his hospital room.
Fuji smiles down at his bedridden boyfriend and Ryoma fights the urge to muster a half-smile back. "What are you talking about now, Shuusuke?"
"Oh, nothing. Just singing to myself." Fuji makes his way over to the small cot and places a hand on the smaller man's forehead. "Are you okay?"
Ryoma puts his magazine away and pouts slightly. "You said you'd be back soon."
"I didn't take up that much time, did I?" Fuji smiles and sits down on the chair beside Ryoma's cot.
"You were gone for three hours," stresses Ryoma, crossing his arms over his chest. He might've looked like a grown man, but inside he was still a selfish little brat.
"I only answered eight questions," Fuji says, and Ryoma barely catches the slight undertone of amusement in his voice.
"It doesn't matter anyway," Ryoma mutters as he shifts in his bed, "it's not like you're the one who shot me."
"But I could have." Fuji brushes a stray hair behind his boyfriend's ear. "It was very dark."
"You're my boyfriend. The police are just wasting time, questioning you," scoffs Ryoma.
"Maybe I'm a cold-blooded killer who just barely missed your heart." Fuji giggles as he pours himself some water from the tray beside him. "You'd never know."
Ryoma rolls his eyes. "Bullshit."
Fuji just continues smiling. "I'm glad you're feeling like yourself again."
"Call the police!" someone far away had screamed. Or maybe it had been the woman next to him. He was pretty sure none of his senses were working anymore. He saw Ryoma, but he wasn't there. He smelled Ryoma, but there was also a weird smell of blood lingering in the air, mixing. He touched Ryoma but...
Holding the smaller man in his arms, Fuji's eyes zeroed in on the bullet hole in his chest. He wasn't even paying attention to the movie anymore. All he knew was that he had been coming down the aisle with popcorn during the middle of the movie (even though he knew that Ryoma hated that), and there was a loud noise and next thing he knew, his boyfriend was choking up blood.
"Ryoma..." He shook the man gently, eyes opening slightly. No, this wasn't really happening. Ryoma wasn't dying. Not on his watch.
"Someone get me a doctor!" Before he knew it, he was running. Running and screaming. But mostly running.
"Come on boys, let's carry him in."
Fuji blinked. Suddenly, he was in front of an ambulance. When had –
His thoughts stopped as a man tried to take Ryoma away from him. Frowning, he was forced to let go of the small man and watched silently as he was put onto a cart and inspected. This wasn't happening. This wasn't...
He had one foot on the ambulance's ladder-steps, and there was a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, but you can't go in." The man looked sincerely apologetic as he tried to push Fuji away.
"Don't touch me." Fuji opened his eyes. His voice was as cold as ice. "I'm going in."
The man backed away slowly as Fuji got into the back and sat next to his lover, holding his hand. No, this wasn't happening, he decided. Ryoma wasn't weak like this. He wouldn't look as helpless and pale like this.
His hold on the black-haired man's tightened. Had Ryoma always been this frail?
He was coughing up blood again. Fuji found himself forcefully pushed away as a swarm of huddled workers hovered over him in the ambulance, shouting out procedures and moving their hands at an alarming rate.
A single tear slipped down Fuji's cheek as Ryoma's heartbeat lowered.
This couldn't be happening.
"That song..."
Fuji looks up at Ryoma, who can't seem to focus on Fuji's head. "Yes?"
"Why were you singing it?" Ryoma asks, frowning. "I feel like I've... heard it before."
Fuji smiles. "It's from when we first met. At that concert in Korea."
Ryoma has his thinking face on, and it's so cute that Fuji has to resist the urge to grope him.
"Yeah, I remember. The band with all the... letters." Ryoma frowns. "What was it again?"
"DSKK?" Fuji guesses.
"BSKD?" Ryoma shrugs.
"It was during that song, that I met you," Fuji says softly, propping his elbows up on Ryoma's bed.
"Wasn't it raining?" Ryoma raises an eyebrow.
"Yes, it was that song where the entire stadium was full of crying girls. And suddenly it started raining fake rain from that weird, high-tech roof of theirs." Fuji nods slowly, looking at the cactus on the other side of Ryoma. He had given it to him the first time he had visited.
"And then the members all stood forward and said something strange in Korean and there was more crying," Ryoma recalls, shaking his head. "I don't think I'll ever understand girls."
"I think it was when the one with the hat was speaking when I convinced you to dance with me," Fuji murmurs, remembering more and more. "I was there for photography and you..."
"I was doing my tennis circuit." They both fell silent. Yesterday Ryoma had already thrown a tantrum when he was told that he wouldn't recover in time for the French Open. And Fuji had so wanted to go to France, too.
"I was a bit drunk." Fuji laughs and Ryoma glares at him.
"You molested me."
"You liked it."
"I did not." Ryoma faces the other way in a huff. "And then you made me dance with you. A complete stranger."
"It was supposed to be romantic. Dancing in the rain, right?" Fuji chuckles.
"It was mortifying." Ryoma slowly turns his head to look at the ceiling. "I'll never forget it."
"I still remember your blush." Fuji grins.
"I did not blush." Ryoma feels a tinge of pink on his cheeks and he turns away again.
"I have a picture." Fuji can almost see the hair pricking on the back of his boyfriend's neck.
"Che."
Fuji sits back in his chair and if his eyes were open, he would've closed them. "It was three years ago. I was twenty-five."
Ryoma's voice feels like it's coming from far away. "I was a pro."
"Don't brag," he chides lightly before sighing, "Was it a mistake?"
Ryoma looks at his lover from his comfortable place on the cot. "What?"
"I quit work today," Fuji says quietly.
Ryoma sits up sharply before crying out in pain and lying back down again. "You what?"
"I quit work," Fuji repeats, looking out the window. It's cloudy.
"Shuusuke, you love your work! Don't tell me..." Ryoma bites his lip, "it was because of me?"
"Sort of." Folding his hands over his lap, Fuji smiles. Ryoma frowns.
"Stop messing around. Don't joke with me."
"Ryoma, when you collapsed, I damn well had a heart attack." Fuji keeps on staring out the window. "When I was brought to the hospital, I had to fill out this form for you, and that's when I realized that I... I don't know much about you at all. I flipped open my cell phone, but then I realized that all of my friends are in a different time zone." His voice lowers. "I'm going to be thirty in two years, Ryoma. It's... it's frightening that I'm not even close to settling down yet."
Ryoma stares at Fuji's blank face, his stomach coiling. "So what are you going to do?"
"I'm going back to Japan." Fuji stands up now, and walks over to the window. He opens it, reaches his hand out. "I can't stay flittering around with you forever. As soon as you get out of the hospital, I'm leaving."
Ryoma can't believe the next words he says. "I'm not coming with you. I'm a pro now. I have to play tennis." Fuji wouldn't know. Fuji has never played tennis before. For Ryoma, tennis is life. He swallows, but there's a big lump in his throat.
Fuji closes the window. "I know you won't come with me." He turns around, and suddenly, he's smiling again. "That's why I'll wait for you. It'll be hard; not being with you, but you can visit me during the lulls of the season."
"Have you thought this through?" Ryoma asks, and he's still got that damn lump. Damn it.
"I'm going to live with Eiji and Oishi until I can find a place of my own." Fuji crosses the room to sit down again.
Ryoma feels sick. "How long have you been planning this?" he whispers.
"Long enough." Fuji is still smiling, but Ryoma's deduced that the smile wasn't real a long time ago.
Ryoma points at the door. "Leave."
Fuji purses his lips. "Excuse me?"
"I said: leave." Ryoma can't even look at him. That... that bastard! If he didn't care about him, then Ryoma could care less about Fuji. He points again to the door.
"You don't understand." Fuji gets up.
"No, I don't. So leave." Ryoma turns his head away and closes his eyes. He's tempted to say: don't come back, but he's scared of the small possibility that Fuji just might obey him.
There's a soft sigh, and then the door closes. He listens until the footsteps echo into silence before he punches his pillow.
Why was this happening? He balled his fists up, his fingers digging into his palms. What... what had he done?
Fuji finds a letter with no return address in the mail. Raising his eyebrows, he puts down the various other envelopes containing bills and insurance letters, and opens the blank one carefully.
It contains one small sticky note. A short message is scrawled on the front in messy calligraphy.
Meet me in the park.
Fuji has never run so fast in his life.
Ryoma is scowling at the sky when Fuji arrives. He looks the same, Fuji catches himself thinking. Well, of course he would. You just saw him at Wimbledon last Saturday, he snaps at himself.
But the real deal is so much more different than the one on the TV. So much more... real.
There are no words to describe how he feels. There are no actions to describe how much he's missed the shorter man. So, dumbly, Fuji waits until he's caught his breath and says, "Hey."
Ryoma hasn't stopped staring at him, taking everything in. "It's been a year, and all you have to say is 'Hey'?" his tone is the same, annoyed yet endearing.
Fuji smiles. "Well, it almost feels like I'm meeting a stranger."
Ryoma can't hide the pain from his face. The comment stings, but he knows it's true. If that stupid Momoshiro hadn't damn well shoved the plane tickets in his hand and sent him off then who knows how much longer the two would have stayed apart.
"Why are you here?" Fuji asks, the cool wind making him shiver slightly. The dark sky rumbles.
"Well, I was at my training centre the other day and then the manager came and took me out during my sit-ups exercises and –" he stops, looking to the ground. If he was going to ramble around the truth, they would stand there forever. "You. I'm here for you."
"Are you planning to take me back?" Fuji asks, this time with something edgier in his voice. He's probably mad, Ryoma thinks. And he has every right to be.
"No, but –"
"Good." Fuji interrupts, his smile disappearing. "Because you haven't even tried to contact me once since I left that hospital room for more than a year, and quite frankly, I was just about to make a cry-cake and eat the whole thing while watching a replay of one of your damn tennis matches." He opens his eyes, and Ryoma feels a chill run down his spine. "There is so much you owe me, Ryoma-kun, and if you expected me to run along after you than I would have shot you in the mouth and drowned your body in Tokyo Bay."
He used an honorific, Ryoma realizes with shock as all the other information washes past him. Fuji has never, not even since they started dating, ever called him with an honorific. It makes a small part of him want to cry. "You never attempted to contact me." he defends, taking a small step forwards.
"Don't you dare try and pile the blame on me," Fuji hisses.
"Yeah, well, it's only fair that you take some of the damn credit, too!" Ryoma explodes, and he doesn't care that he's caught some people's attention. "You're the one who left in the first place, telling me you wanted to go back to Japan!"
"Well what am I supposed to do, just follow you around like a little dog all around the world?" Fuji's eyes are burning, and Ryoma is surprised he hasn't literally shrunk under his gaze yet. "Enough, Ryoma-kun. If you only came here to pick a fight, then you shouldn't have come at all."
"That isn't what I came for!" Ryoma clenches his fists and glares defiantly right into Fuji's furious blue eyes.
"Then what, exactly did you come for?" Fuji's tone lowers, but it's still as biting as before. "To embarrass me? To see what kind of poor existence I've been living without you?" his voice is absolutely scathing now.
"I told you already!" Ryoma raises his voice, not caring who was staring, "I came here for YOU!"
Fuji's eyes close and he takes a step back. "Don't play with me, Ryoma-kun. I'm not going to run after you any longer."
There's something wet on his cheek and Ryoma's gratified that it's rain. When did it start raining? It doesn't matter. If he had started to cry in front of Fuji... he shakes his head. "I... I just want one thing, Fuji. Let me be selfish."
Fuji bites back the comment: isn't that what you've been all along? as he glares. "What?"
It's raining harder now, and damn it if one didn't just go in his eye. Ryoma extends his arm, holding out his hand in one last desperate attempt. "Dance with me."
Fuji stares at the hand for a long while. It feels like ages before he finally releases a breath he didn't know he was holding and sighs slowly, sadly.
"I'm sorry," he says as he turns to walk away.
"Shuusuke, I love you." The words leave his mouth before Ryoma can stop them. First his eyes, and then his mouth; he curses his body. "Please..." he bites his lip. "Don't leave me. Not again. I need you."
Fuji stops in his movements. In fact, it feels like time stops briefly, surrounding the two in a harsh, unforgiving silence.
He turns around. It's impossible to distinguish the tears from the rain. "Just one dance."
Ryoma nods. "Just one." His hand is still extended.
Fuji hesitantly takes his hand and puts his hand on Ryoma's shoulder. He can't call the man his boyfriend nor his lover anymore. He doesn't know what they are. Friends? Acquaintances?
"No," Ryoma gently takes Fuji's hand and sets it on his own hip. Everything is wet and cold, but there is a tiny spark of warmth in his words. "This time you lead."
Fuji doesn't move, staring down at the shorter man with wide eyes.
"I'll follow you this time." Ryoma stares up under his wet bangs, almost grinning. "Like that first time we danced."
They do not speak anymore. Fuji grips Ryoma's hand tightly and without another word, they are off, twirling and spinning around in the rain. They close their eyes, and it's almost like it's that time again.
If they listen very closely, they can hear the music blasting out of a girl's earphones as she sits in the rain, reading gay porn on her iPhone.
Yes, it's almost like that time again.
Except this time, everything is different.
"People change over the years," Ryoma mutters softly as Fuji holds him close, their wet clothing sticking to each other. "And so do emotions and feelings."
They twirl in a circle before Fuji brings the man closer and rests his chin on his head. "So what do you intend to do about it?" Inside, he knows too that they can't stay like this forever, flittering about like a high-school couple with no future plans. He needs to know, needs to know if he's going to waste any more of his life stuck in a whirlwind relationship that always seems to be taking one step forward and two steps back.
"My feelings haven't changed." Ryoma mutters, his head half buried into the brunet's shoulders. He's so small, Fuji thinks, closing his eyes. So small. So much more alive than me.
"Mine either." Fuji's surprised when the words leave his mouth. He didn't think... he thought that it was all over. He smiles slightly, still guiding them both in a strange dance of emotions in the rain. Maybe this could still work.
They fall silent once more, and by this time they've danced their way into the forest part of the park, a place where they're supposedly forbidden from entering. They're getting muddier and wetter with each step, but both of them don't seem to notice.
"Do you want..." starts Ryoma hesitantly, face still breathing in Fuji's scent.
Fuji pauses, taking in how natural Ryoma feels in his arms. So it wasn't perfect. So what?
He nods, and even smiles a genuine smile. It's been a while. "Yes."
"This time, it'll go better, won't it?" Ryoma asks, his eyes closed.
"Maybe. As long as we're going somewhere." Fuji shrugs gently, guiding them around a spiky tree.
Ryoma smiles.
They keep dancing, even when the rain stops, and the song has ended. Even if everything around them stops, they are far from being over. No, they're going to try again. Start over, if that made sense.
And like the rainbow that started to separate through the clouds, they'd break through.
Fuji smiled as he looked down at the scowling, wet Japanese boy that had just bumped into him. It was surprising that a fellow Japanese had gone to the concert and he was male, too.
"Sorry," the boy spoke in a heavily accented Korean before his eyes widened. "You're... Japanese too?" he asked again, but this time in his native tongue.
Fuji smiled and nodded, not offering anything in response. They both stared at the stage as the song ended, and the Korean men made their way onto the front of the massive stage covered in water, streamers and sparkles.
"Would you like to dance?"
Ryoma looked up suspiciously at the man who had just asked him the question. He was a complete stranger. Shaking his head, he raised an eyebrow.
"Just one dance." Fuji had smiled wider, taking a small step closer. Ryoma wondered how he lived with his eyes closed.
"I don't know you," Ryoma replied, taking a step back.
"That doesn't matter." Fuji kept on smiling, and there was just something about the man that made Ryoma sigh and give up. He was too tired to argue any further, anyways. Some fangirls had damn near permanently damaged his hearing when one of the singers had groped the other.
Grumbling, Ryoma shuffled in reluctantly. "Just one."
Fuji nodded. "Just one."
.fin
SO. Urp. Okay, so I have a few things I'd like to say. First of all, this fic is part of POT is for Pointless but Original Talking's modfic exchange. This one in particular is for the one and only, Sweet Obsidian Rain. This was written by HaveYouNoMercy, and beta'd by the wonderful Linny Kim.
A few notes from the authoress:
First of all: Hope you liked it, Rain! It was slightly aggravating, seeing as how I don't write Thrill like, ever, and I didn't know about any Korean bands whatsoever, so apologies. "XD I tried to input small little references, but they're so weird and obscure that they don't really make up for anything. =/ And yeeeeah, everything about DBSK and random Korean concerts with fake rain were totally made up or based on my small little obsession on Arashi. =D There's one real song lyric in there, though, which I looked up on Google!
Second: My apologies for giving Kura and Slacky the biggest headaches ever. I don't have access to FB in China, so I had to whip this up in not much time so that it could be shipped off to be beta'd. Sorry I didn't contact you guys sooner, I was kind of uh, swamped. "XD (Just so you know, we are part of Meru's team because of some ~happenings~, but the awesome her went and wrote it all by herself! Meru's so awesome, we should all love on her and shower her with chocolate sponges. ~Kura)
And third: This is a weird, weird fic. I blame it on the fact that I wrote it all alone. =/ And there's some random comment about a cry-cake in the fic, so I'll explain that here. A cry-cake is something you bake when you're extremely sad. You put all of the love in your heart left that hasn't been trampled into it and then eat it while crying (usually while watching a tragic movie or reading a really sad book). No, don't look at me like that. Stop it.
Yeah, that's it for me. -throws confetti- Happy Anniversary, forum! Thank you for everything, Rain, you're the best! And please don't kill me, Kura and Slacky! =D (...not killing, my dear. Lovin'. ~Kura)
-crawls into hellhole and sleeps-