Rating: M for profanity and sexual references.
Summary: Eiri thinks he's found a way to decrease the frequency of those irritating sounds Shuichi makes.
Word Count: 1,553 not including introduction or author's note.
This story is set after Shuichi moves in with Eiri in Volume 3 but before their breakup in Volume 8. In other words, early in their relationship but while they're living together.
Written for LiveJournal's 30_kisses writing challenge community. Theme: #17, kHz (kilohertz, a measure of the frequency of sound waves).
Noise Control
Shuichi upended Eiri's quiet and orderly life when he pushed his way into it. For months afterward Eiri still craved quiet and order, but instead Shuichi produced chaos and noise. Eiri wished he had a straightjacket or some other means of restraint to keep the brat from bouncing around his apartment like a demented wind-up toy, or at least that Shuichi had a volume control hidden on his body somewhere.
No such luck.
"HELLO, YUUUUUU-KI!" Shuichi would shriek when he arrived home. Eiri covered his ears. Why did he always forget to put in those freaking ear plugs he had purchased?
"In here," he'd say, hoping to forestall even more noise.
He'd hear footsteps pounding down the hallway and a pink-haired blur would leap from the doorway onto his lap, almost knocking him over. How did that idiot manage a picture-perfect landing every time when he was a klutz who knocked over everything in sight otherwise?
By dinnertime Shuichi's volume was usually lower but the speed with which sounds poured out of his mouth increased. He'd start out with "Didja know that…" and launch into some startling irrelevancy about another J-pop group or celebrity du jour. Eiri would zone out, uncomprehending, until recalled to Earth by "Are you listening to me?" and a light tap on his hand.
"Um," he'd say, and shake his head. "What did you say?"
The idiot would repeat whatever he had said, sometimes more slowly. Eiri would look at him with unfocused eyes and wonder why fate had seen fit to send Shuichi to disrupt his peaceful and well-ordered life.
After dinner he had to put up with the insufferable noise from the brat's tunes, the TV shows and tapes he watched, and his video games. Somehow Shuichi's video game console had gotten hooked up to Eiri's TV behind his back. In addition, Shuichi's gaming, music, and DVD shit littered the floor.
***
Jackhammers pounded on his brain. Great. Another migraine.
After giving Shuichi a kiss on his way out the door, he decided he had to do something about the noise and the effect it was having on him.
He searched for the solution to his problem. He finally found it in the entertainment center. Why it was there he'd never know. Shuichi must have moved it.
It would be ideal if he could use it when Shuichi arrived home but it wasn't practical to use it until after dinner, so he put it in a kitchen drawer where Shuichi was unlikely to find it in the meantime. At least contemplating relief from the barrage of noise would give him something to focus on while he was making dinner and distract him from whatever chaos Shuichi was causing at the time. This time he remembered to put the ear plugs in before the brat arrived home.
He heard the front door bang open and the sound of sneakers being removed. "HELLO, I'M HOME!" his lover shouted.
"I'm in here," Eiri replied.
The pink-haired gymnast made another perfect landing into his lap. The shock of a fifty kilogram body landing in his lap and knocking the air out of him was not at all sexy or suggestive, although the experience improved once he was able to breathe again.
Even though the lap sitting was usually pleasurable once he got over the abruptness of the landing, today Eiri didn't encourage the idiot to linger by kissing and holding him close the way he usually did. Shuichi took the hint and quickly scrambled off Eiri's lap while babbling something about today's recording session and a playback he wanted to listen to. Eiri's parting words were "Use the headphones, dimwit."
Eiri went into the kitchen to begin dinner after making corrections to printers' galleys for another half an hour. Shuichi was watching the Nittle Grasper farewell concert DVD for what, the thousandth time? Between Tatsuha and Shuichi playing the DVD nonstop, Eiri had the damn thing memorized now. At least Shuichi only had the volume turned up 90% of the way. Singing along with his idol made up for that last 10%, however.
At dinner Shuichi caught Eiri grinning in an unguarded moment. "What's so funny?" he asked.
"Nothing," Eiri said, wiping the grin off his face with difficulty but making no attempt to suppress his internal smirk. Shuichi looked at him suspiciously but said nothing more.
After they finished eating dinner Eiri quietly opened the drawer and slowly removed what he needed, using his body to block Shuichi's view of what he was doing should Shuichi happen to be paying attention for a change.
He turned back to the table, walked behind Shuichi, and slapped duct tape over his mouth.
Shuichi struggled, startled. He tried to tear his adhesive gag off but Eiri had pressed it down firmly enough that tearing it off would take the few whiskers he had with it and cause a fair amount of pain.
Pain, doubt, and indignation showed in those lavender eyes. Eiri felt a twinge of guilt. Had he thought this through sufficiently? He'd expected to feel triumphant at finally enjoying some blessed peace and quiet.
He held Shuichi's chin in his hand. "I just wanted to get you to be quiet for once."
"Mphmphm!" Shuichi said. The tape kept his lips too immobile and his voice too muffled for his attempt at speech to be understood.
He darted off to Eiri's study. Eiri followed, concerned that he was about to trash his inner sanctum, but instead Shuichi grabbed a blank notepad and a pen. He started writing furiously.
'Why couldn't you just ask me to be quiet?'
"I do, and you never are."
'But all you do is snap at me!' It took Shuichi a great deal of painstaking effort to write the characters clearly enough for Eiri to read, knowing that he would complain if he couldn't. 'How can I tell when you're just blowing off steam and when you really mean it?'
"I always mean it—" Eiri said, then stopped. He voiced his complaints and irritations as they occurred to him without filtering or prioritizing them. He did care more about some of them than others.
"Look," Eiri continued. "Maybe this wasn't the best way to make my point, but it'll hurt if I take the tape off now. Let's wait and see if the adhesive loosens up on its own." This wasn't an idle hope, as it was a humid evening and the air conditioner wasn't doing much to help.
"I'll watch some TV with you in the meantime. You choose the show." The galleys would have to wait until tomorrow or the middle of the night if he felt ambitious.
"Mmph," Shuichi said, which Eiri correctly interpreted as "okay". But Shuichi wrote that down as well.
Shuichi chose to watch six consecutive episodes of some ridiculous cartoon about a sponge who wore underpants, a pink starfish, an unrecognizable squid, and a squirrel wearing a diver's helmet. Eiri noticed that the sponge resembled a certain idiotic pink-haired singer and that the squid's response to the sponge resembled his response to the pink-haired idiot.
The duct tape still covered Shuichi's mouth when they went to bed. Unfortunately the humidity hadn't loosened it up as much as he'd assumed it would. Eiri didn't rip the duct tape off until they were in the middle of getting sweaty. There were some sounds Shuichi made that Eiri wanted – no, needed – to hear.
Instead of the moans he expected, what he heard was an indignant "Owwww" followed by "What do you think I am, a flesh and blood inflatable doll?"
He was impressed that his previously virginal lover knew about inflatable dolls. Eiri was only familiar with female inflatable dolls. Then again, there had to be companies that catered to every kink…
Wait a minute. Was he calling his own preferences kinky?
"Dolls don't talk back or think for themselves. Dolls can't sing. They're not even that cute. At least the ones I've seen aren't."
"I think for myself? And I'm cute?"
"I didn't say you thought well, dipshit, just that you think for yourself."
Shuichi pondered this. He was mad at Eiri. The whole thing had initially struck him as unnecessarily cruel, but Eiri had noticed his hurt and discomfort right away and had backed off. Besides, he could see where someone who hadn't had a sturdy piece of adhesive tape slapped over his mouth would think it was just an amusing prank.
He wanted to hold out against sex with Eiri, but as usual Eiri was doing things to him that he couldn't withstand. Like the man said, he crumbled like a cookie. [1] He probably always would.
Eiri wrapped his arms around him and brought their mouths closer together. Their tongues sought each other as they kissed deeply and passionately. Eiri had finally found a surefire method of noise control without the use of duct tape: keep the brat's tongue otherwise occupied.
Nevertheless, as they rolled around on the bed the two of them shared, entangled in the sheets and each other, Eiri continued exploring Shuichi's body to see if he could find his volume control while Shuichi pondered the consequences of carrying out his own attack with duct tape the next time Eiri hurt his feelings with hateful words.
/fin/
[1] Volume 3, Track 9.
A/N - Yes, Shuichi made Eiri watch a SpongeBob SquarePants marathon, which in itself might constitute mental cruelty. According to the July 2009 issue of Shojo Beat it's a favorite of Japanese high school students, but it made its way into the story before I read the magazine article.
My thanks and eternal gratitude to my beta HawkClowd and to those of you who have read my previous stories, especially those of you who have left reviews.