Toshiya always had a different side to him than what was considered normal to everyone he knew. This queer Toshiya was much more outgoing than Toshiya would actually dare to be. He usually only came out when Toshiya drank, and it always happened without Toshiya being aware. So when Dir En Grey hosted a party for their new album, Toshiya was somewhat nervous. All that he really new about drinking was that he always blacked out and woke up in bed next to a stranger, although he thought that it was the norm, he still thought it to be quite strange. Whenever Toshiya awoke from the slumber, with a throbbing headache, the males he was with, strangers to him, always said that he was acting strange compared to how he acted, mannerisms included, and tended to leave, not that Toshiya really wanted them to say. Toshiya didn't really have feelings for anyone. He only really talked to his band mates, and would be pretty much socially awkward without them, although he liked to believe that if there were some terrible twist of fate, and the band were to die, that his friends, band mates, would still be his friends. He supposed that he would be alright as long as he didn't ever drink.
Every time Dir En Grey would make a new album, they would have a celebration party, and it would be somewhat of a tradition ever since their first album came out. Toshiya often thought of what would happen if he missed one of them. When asked, Kaoru said that it would be a terrible tragedy that no one should be allowed to go through, Toshiya took it as a joke, although Kaoru had only been half joking.
The party had been set up for Kyo's apartment, because it's location was in the middle of the city, and it was the distance which all the band mates and the representatives could bare to go to, although Kaoru's would be next in line. Kaoru's apartment was located just a few blocks south of Kyo's and could be reached easily by a car.
Toshiya and Kaoru lived in the same direction from Kyo's apartment, so they usually met up. Die and Shinya did the same, since they lived off to the other direction. On the day of the party, Toshiya decided to go to Kaoru's house right before the party. He walked into the building with great care, for most of the apartment building was either asleep or hung-over . It was quite early in the morning, before eight. He treaded lightly across the hallways careful around the places in which the people would get super angry if they were to wake because of some careless visitor. Finally Toshiya reached the last apartment door of the top floor, which belonged to Kaoru Niikura, and had for a while.
Toshiya knocked softly on the door hoping not to bother or wake anyone but Kaoru. He waited patiently, leaning on the door slightly. Kaoru was not a man who should be woken up. He got so angry being woken up, that at one point, he actually strangled Daisuke, he laughed it off later, once when he went to wake Kaoru up for practice. Today however, "leader-sama" was awake. Kaoru was shaving, or getting to it. At the moment he was lathering his cheeks, chin, and upper lip with shaving cream. When he heard the soft knocks ,which barely made noise in such a large apartment, he thought of Toshiya. Toshiya had said, much more than once, that he was going to surprise him early on the day of the party, knowing well that it wasn't it wouldn't be a surprise once he told Kaoru about it.
Toshiya had a strong feeling that he would be made wait outside of the door, making him look like a 'lost kitten' Kaoru once said jokingly, and he was right. Kaoru was a man that wouldn't hurry for anyone, not even his family members or even lovers. That reason alone ended many friendships that could have blossomed into relationships that could have ended up lasting a lifetime. Toshiya unknowingly leaned back on the door rearranging his thoughts into something in which he could understand much better. First, he was pretty sure he was in love with Kaoru, Kaoru was not homosexual, and would never be. The second rearrangement was that Kaoru was a man who would take his time no matter what was going on, he was going to be waiting for a while, he knew it.
That was when the large piece of wood supporting he weight disappeared, leaving him to either pick himself up, or fall on the floor. Toshiya decided on the latter. He thought he was predestined to have a large bruise on his behind, and to be sore for a few days. Toshiya closed his eyes tightly and tucked his arms near his ribs for some protection and waited for the terrible fall to happen. The more he waited, the taller he felt. He kept falling until he was absolutely sure that he was still ,and being still while leaning in a 45 degree angle is nearly impossible.
While Toshiya was preoccupied with the thought of beating gravity, Kaoru Held him up, waiting for Toshiya to open his eyes. Kaoru felt Toshiba's biceps, and was silently pleased, at one point he had noticed that Toshiya was quite fit, but now that he was holding Toshiya in his arms, he knew that the taller man was quite toned. While the man whom was tilted at an acute angle got his train of thought going, Kaoru began thinking about Toshiya, and what he thought of him. Toshiya was a man, he was tall and played the bass guitar. Toshiya had a lot of likes and dislikes, similar to how any other person did. Daisuke had warned him about Kaoru, and how he often he lost his control and roughed up some people, although Kaoru was always kind to Toshiya.
Toshiya gingerly opened one frightened eye. He wasn't on the floor, nor was he hurt. He then noticed he was being held up by a pair of strong arms, which he guessed belonged to Kaoru Niikura.
" Kaou, I think I'm okay." Toshiya said, although Kaoru was too busy looking at the texture of Toshiya's hair, it was glossy, but not oily, and pretty.
" uh, yeah" Kaoru said, hating the feeling of being caught in the middle of his day dreaming. He looked quite flustered for his normal self. His thoughts of Toshiya weren't constant, although he enjoyed to dedicate a spare a moment or two to the bassist. Kaoru hard somewhat of a hard time letting the younger man go. He enjoyed the feeling on holding on to him, although Kaoru had to as long as he didn't want to seem suspicious. Kaoru never let himself look suspicious as to what he wanted to do, say, or even look at. He was a man of pride, and if anyone knew he wanted something, that pride would shrink down until it was the size of a pea, never a thing that he wanted. Toshiya enjoyed the fact that Kaoru held him for a few seconds before letting go, although Toshiya had a feeling that Kaoru was teasing him in some way, making him mildly and incomprehensively angry. Kaoru let him into the hallway of his home. After Toshiya took off his shoes and his coat, the two men looked around. The Apartment was quite large for one person. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, two linen closets, and library. Much too big and lonely for Kaoru, But he kept it. The living conditions were amazing for the guitarist. The rooms were messy, Thursday was cleaning day for Kaoru, it was Wednesday, therefore, the mess of the week was strewn about the place. Toshiya saw everything, and said nothing until Kaoru grumbled something about the place being messy, Toshiya smiled and nodded. Kaoru punched Toshiya playfully on the arm, they both laughed a hearty laugh.
" Kaoru, did I wake you?" Toshiya asked sitting down on the loveseat inside the living room, but ready to move once asked, this wasn't his first time there, but no matter how much he went to Kaoru's apartment, he never felt really at home. It was probably because he always went over on Wednesdays. Toshiya promised himself that he would go on a Friday instead one day, and see the clean home for the first time.
"No, you knocked about the time I started shaving. By the way, amazing timing." Kaoru stated sitting down next to Toshiya, and turning on the mindless chatter that provided sufficient background noise to calm the uncomfortable silence. The joke eased the tension between the two, and let Toshiya slide to the back of the seat and relax.
" Isn't it? You really did need a shave, although I loved the beard that you were starting to grow out, not a beard, more like chin hair." Toshiya said, starting the conversation, which would soon lead to talking about fabric softener, and which scents they enjoyed the most. Kaoru liked cinnamon, Toshiya liked vanilla. Kaoru noted, in his head, that vanilla was quite the aphrodisiac.
Somehow, the two talked and drunk, Kaoru drank whiskey and Toshiya apple juice, for more than four hours. At around eleven, and still much too early for the party at Kyo's house, and as the two talked about it, they made jokes like "Kyo is probably still asleep" or "Kyo is probably hung over or something", Toshiya suggested watching a movie, since the two had around seven more hours of doing nothing. Kaoru agreed with him, there was almost nothing to do, but talk, listen to the mindless chatter on the television, or watch a flick on the DVD player.
Kaoru knew just the movie to watch. Toshiya had always been easy to scare, therefore, Kaoru would put on a Horror movie, and watch Toshiya cling to him. Kaoru knew he wouldn't try anything, just enjoy the feeling. He walked to his bedroom, Leaving Toshiya alone. The main hallway was only a little dusty, his socks collecting dust and dirt from the floor, that deserved a scrub down. His room was the last door to the left, across the hall was the guest room, where Toshiya once slept over when his apartment was in danger of getting moldy. The man with the coffee colored hair sighed peacefully as he walked into his own bedroom, remembering looking into the guest room as Toshiya slept. The sheets were colored a deep burgundy color, which fit accordingly to Kaoru's personality. The furniture was also a deep color, he looked at the furniture, scanning for a certain rectangular prism. He found it as he bent down to look under his bed, it was on the nightstand, in plain view. at some points in time, Kaoru doubted that he was in fact "leader-sama". He walked out to a Toshiya who was sipping from his apple juice like a child. When Toshiya saw Kaoru smiling at him, he started to drink more violently, as if he thought that a man should drink like that. He chugged his drink like a real man should, if only he hadn't spilled some of it on his shirt. That caused Kaoru to laugh. Toshiya didn't find this funny though, He was quite angered by the fact that Kaoru didn't see him as the man he was. Toshiya reeked of manliness, and that was why he accidentally spilled his apple juice.
" do you need a new shirt Totchi?" Kaoru said eying Toshiya, " your shirt is soaked." it was pretty much like saying ' I can see your nipples' but somewhat nicer and less rude. Toshiya looked down, and indeed, his shirt was soaked, he hadn't realized that so much fell out of his cup, he pouted.
" uh, yes please." he was quite careful, because as it was the living room, and it was Kaoru's home, it was carpeted floor. He was sure that He would be sticky, and that the shirt would never fit the same way again, and sighed, it was his favorite shirt. One that was plain blue, the Nintendo blue, it was one of the last ones in stock at his favorite store. Nowadays, shirts had to have some sort of design on them to be sold, Toshiya never really cared for shirts that were full of meaningless stuff. " I am so sorry. Kaou, can you let me borrow a shirt?" he nodded, " can you wash this tomorrow?" he nodded once more, and left to his room to find a shirt suitable for Totchi. He had a few t-shirts, although they were too flashy for him. He owned a few dress shirts, and he picked a nice white one for Toshiya. White looked nice on Toshiya, and Kaoru was sure that Toshiya looked amazing in long sleeved dress shirts, so he picked it out of the closet, and closed the door gingerly, because the door tended to slam.
When Kaoru came out of his bedroom, he saw Toshiya on the hardwood floor trying not to drip any apple juice to the floor. Kaoru smiled and started talking "would you like to change in the bathroom, or in front of me?" he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Toshiya felt his face heat up somewhat and walked to the bathroom, located next to the guest room. Inside the bathroom, Toshiya looked at the mirror and saw that he was blushing, and that he was pretty sure that Kaoru had seen him blushing. There was a loud knock on the door, Totally confident, and the door was opened, just enough so that Kaoru's hand could fit through it, and he could slide in the shirt through the door. Toshiya grabbed it, and whispered a 'thank you' to Kaoru, and his hand left the room. Toshiya grabbed at his shirt, by now, his skin was sticky, and he was annoyed.
" Kaou!!!" he yelled frustrated by his own situation
" what?!" Kaoru yelled back, not sounding annoyed at all, which seemed extremely tolerant for Kaoru's usual antics.
" I sort of need a shower, I'm all sticky!" he had to yell that statement twice, apparently, Kaoru hadn't heard him. In reality, Kaoru recorded Toshiya's voice as he said that statement, which could be used, if in the right context, to be an extremely vulgar statement.
" I have some extra towels in the cupboard, the black one could be yours!" Kaoru yelled for one reason, he wanted to be heard, and not have to be repeating himself often. He yelled out some more instructions, where to find the soap, Shampoo, and so on. Toshiya put his boxer briefs on the top of the pile of clothes to put on after he was finished with the shower, next came pants, then the shirt. Toshiya stepped into the foreign shower, it looked quite different from what he was used to. Apart from the normal showers Toshiya took his. shower was quick, he lathered his body with the soap which smelled like Kaoru, he smiled happily and continued to lather his hair with the Kaoru scented soap. The shampoo smelled like cinnamon, and other spices. Toshiya enjoyed having Kaoru's scent on him. Happy too. The warm water did much to raise his body heat to the appropriate number in degrees. ' he should have his own perfume line, I mean, his name is fragrance' Toshiya thought vaguely.
Left alone with his thoughts, Kaoru sat down on the love seat that the two shared. He continued to make a mental countdown of what his chores would be the next day. First would be laundry, then dusting and sweeping, after that would be mopping, and finally, Kaoru's favorite, grocery shopping, 'wait', he thought, ' I forgot something'. ' Oh right! Dinner!' . His thoughts wandered to What would fill his stomach that day. He knew from experience that Kyo never served food at his parties. Those parties that began late and ended early always started with Kyo around. The two of them had more than four hours to spare, and they could always be late. The horrid thoughts of rejection tore at Kaoru's confidence, and he thought that perhaps he shouldn't suggest such an idea, so he buried his head in his cupped hands, and groaned loudly. He thought of Toshiya, and allowed himself some of what he called ' Totchi Thinking Time'. however his time was stopped short, he heard a door click open and shut. When he stretched his neck to see if he could catch a glimpse of a naked Totchi. As soon as he saw black hair, he heard a loud crack come forth from his neck, and too afraid of being caught, and being called a 'dirty homosexual Lech', he returned to normal sitting position. Acting quite suave as he took a quick sip from his cup, he was pretty much buzzed at that point, and didn't care, he was used to drinking quite a lot in the same day, plus, it lessoned his throbbing headache.
As Toshiya buttoned the last button of the shirt that Kaoru had lent him he grasped the shirt a little more tightly and yelled in the direction of the living room, hoping that the sound waves would reach so far. " uh, Kaou? Where do I put the dirty shirt?" Toshiya yelled, while Kaoru stiffened as he remembered about the voice recorder he had left laying about. He decided to be suave, as he always was, and told him to put it in the last room to the left, Toshiya had probably forgotten the layout of the home, because he hadn't been around for a long time, Kaoru was usually early and waiting for him outside before Toshiya came along to go to parties or a meeting with the record label. " oh, okay!" Toshiya called out again, lost as of to where to go. It had been quite a while since he had last seen the place, around a year; that was when he slept over for around a week. He remembered that the bathroom, which he had just left was next to the guest room, but he was lost as to which side. Next, there were three other doors which he had no clues as to what they could possibly be. He decided to proceed, blind as of to what was going to be behind the mystery door. It turned out to be a bedroom, Kaoru's bedroom. It had to be his, because the only other bedroom was somewhere across the hall, another reason, it smelled almost enticingly like Kaoru. The walls were painted a shade of purple which was made to resemble, as Toshiya thought, a plum, and all the furniture was a dark color, which didn't help cheer the room up. There were two windows on either side of the bed, a balcony in the guestroom, and the sheets were colored a deep burgundy. Toshiya was surprised to see that the room was considerably clean compared to the rest of the home. The only mess that could be found was the dirty clothes lying about in no apparent order. Toshiya decided to speak again " where exactly do I put this shirt?" he called out.
" anywhere you want, I'm cleaning tomorrow anyway!" Kaoru yelled back from the living room. Toshiya decided that on the unmade bed would be a nice place to put his favorite shirt. He imagined that if a person got the chance to look in, they would believe that Toshiya's shirt was a shirt that belonged to Kaoru's lover. Those thoughts made Toshiya warm and fuzzy inside. His eyes disobeyed orders he himself wanted to disobey, orders sent up to his brain from his pride. He saw Kaoru's boxers lying on one of the poles of Kaoru's four poster, they made Toshiya wonder who threw them up there, and why. He decided, or forced himself, to leave the room, knowing that Kaoru was probably wondering why he was taking so long. He stepped out of the room and shut the door lightly. He turned to his right and saw the entrance to the living room. Toshiya walked out to the living room and sat down next to Kaoru, Who's stomach growled quite loudly and made Toshiya smile and ask if he was hungry.
" yes, somewhat." Kaoru admitted, he looked away at the mindless chatter and tried to focus on something other than Toshiya's hair which was sticking to his neck, Kaoru wished he was Toshiya's hair.
" should we order take out or something?" Toshiya asked, he himself was quite hungry.
" I don't know, I'd rather go out or something." Kaoru said, now looking at the intricate details on his scented candles, who were sitting on the coffee table.
" What about the movie?" Toshiya asked pulling his legs up to his torso to better warm himself.
" Well, I'll get some western take out, are you okay with that?" Kaoru asked getting up and heading towards the kitchen, where the cordless phone lay stationary.
" yeah! Do I start the movie now?" Toshiya asked his hand moving towards the control. Even though the heater was on, Toshiya felt a little colder when Kaoru left the loveseat. Kaoru agreed, and Toshiya stood up somewhat shaky, his legs had fallen asleep, and inserted the disk into the DVD player, placed above the television itself so it could be seen quickly, not searched for under a forest of cables. Kaoru came back from the kitchen and sat down, Toshiya was still messing with the DVD player trying to fiddle with it so the subtitles would work. Kaoru was enjoying the view that Toshiya was leaving out for him. He smiled to himself knowing that Toshiya would never find out.
The two of them eventually got the food, to which Kaoru got quite angry, and ate it quickly, for they both hadn't eaten anything the entire day. They watched the movie, Christine, and Toshiya clung to Kaoru, grasping tightly on his arm whenever the demon car dared to attack another human. Eventually the two spent all day together until around six o'clock. Kaoru looked at his watch for the first time since two thirty, it was around six, and Toshiya was looking at the credits and the actors' weird western names.
"Totchi, It's time to leave. We're an hour late." Kaoru whispered into Toshiya's left ear. Toshiya jumped at the sudden disturbance of silence, and turned his face to look at what caused it, even though he knew it was Kaoru who spoke. When he turned his head, he saw a slightly ajar mouth. He also saw, once he moved his head, Kaoru's other features, like wonderful cheekbones.
" should we get going now?" Toshiya said, his face heating up considerably. Kaoru only nodded once he saw Toshiya's cheeks acquire a pinkish hue. The two of them got up from the sitting position they were in, Toshiya had curled his legs to under his torso, and Kaoru was sitting on the loveseat leaning back all the way. They both paused before the door to put on shoes and a jacket over flimsy shirts. Kaoru and Toshiya walked in complete silence, Toshiya was too busy thinking about the brief moment in which Kaoru's lips tickled his ear. When they reached the lobby, Kaoru asked him about the mode of transportation he would like to go to Kyo's house in. Toshiya decided on walking, it was rush hour after all. The two of them walked at a sluggish pace side by side, bumping shoulders every now and again. They made it to Kyo's house in twice the time they would have taken if they had walked at a normal pace. Kaoru never really did like doing anything quickly, he always took his time, and when he was asked to hurry up, he only slowed more, out of spite. Kyo's home was at one of the larger and more luxurious rooms, located on the upper half of the building, so the couple walked into the lobby, which was full of people, rushing to either get into or out of the building, and to the elevator. Luckily for the two band members, they ended up alone in the elevator. They had more than a minute to kill, Kyo's apartment was on the twenty third floor. Toshiya and Kaoru stood closer than necessary, and blamed it on the bitter winter, even though they both knew that it was quite warm in there.
" Toshi, What do you think Kyo will say about our blatent late-ness?" Kaoru asked Toshiya, who seemed to be doing nothing in particular, but Kaoru saw how his eyes were practically glued onto the door, a sign of anxiety. Toshiya shook his head and continued to look at the door, not really looking at it, just staring into space and thinking about everything in his life, and wondered about drinking alcohol. Was it really normal to black out, and never remember anything about, drinking? Toshiya decided to stay silent, he knew that he would be deemed weird if he asked anyone about it and it wasn't normal. Kaoru shook his head to himself. He was getting fed up with Toshiya, Friendly one moment and venomous the next, he decided to remain motionless though, he felt that he could, at one point, love Toshiya, and Kaoru genuinely felt that if he were to love Toshiya, Toshiya would definitely love him back.
" I think he would be happy to see us already drunk." Toshiya said sounding somewhat dazed. He didn't want to talk to Kaoru, He felt strange enough without Kaoru being there to make him get butterflies in his belly. He felt the anxiety of forgetting another night, and quite afraid of what he would do without his knowing. He had never confided to anyone about the fact that he had forgotten more than a month of his life, and no hint as of to what could have been the cause of it. Kaoru patted Toshiya's shoulder slightly, leaving his hand there slightly longer than Kyo or Shinya would have left it. Kaoru wanted to speak, so he opened his mouth to let a few words out, but the elevator beat him to it, and stopped abruptly, sounding off an obnoxious 'bing'. The two men got out of the elevator in a hurry, not wanting the tension to leave with them. They walked all the way to the end of the hall, like Kaoru, Kyo lived to the far end of the building. They could already hear the album's first song playing, the vibrations from the music were sure to annoy the neighbors, if they weren't already in Kyo's apartment partying. Kaoru grabbed Toshiya's wrist lightly and steered him towards the entrance to the party where the two of them would have to sign some autographs and take pictures, only a few compared to what they usually had to do. Their knocks on the door weren't something audible compared to the booming music. Luckily, Daisuke was near the door, and gladly opened the offending piece of wood for the missing band mates. The apartment was extraordinarily large for what one would expect from an apartment. There was a gratuitous amount of space which Kyo would never want to talk about, he had always thought that good things were taken away when talked too much about, so he never talked about a myriad of things. Kaoru let go of Toshiya's wrist when they were let inside, as if to not embarrass either of them. Kaoru walked straight to Kyo and announced to the slightly drunken man about his, and Toshiya's, attendance to the marvelous party, Kyo smiled and told Kaoru a dirty joke about sodomy and punched him playfully in the arm. Kaoru smiled at the joke. He walked to a table which held many refreshments, such as fruit punch , pretzels, crackers, chips, and other edible objects.
Kaoru got himself a cup of the fruit punch, and detected a strange taste, nothing like fruits. He knew that he would soon have to ask Kyo about it's contents. At the moment, Toshiya was talking to a girl, a fan most likely, and flicking his wrist, most likely in synch to something that he just said, the girl let out a shriek trill, and he knew that it was supposed to be a laugh, but it was just too weird. Kaoru tried to ignore the taste of bile rising to his throat, and looked away in disgust. Toshiya was just too much at times, quite annoying too. He looked around the place, people talking everywhere, quite a surprise to him because the music was so loud he couldn't hear himself think, and only a couple of people were dancing. He walked over to where Kyo was talking to men of the record company and asked to talk to Kyo in private.
" what's in the drinks Kyo?'
" What do you think?"
" fruits, punches, and a secret ingredient?"
" fruit punch and all the alcohol in my cabinets, isn't that the usual at my parties?" Kyo asked, and Kaoru nodded. He excused himself from the crowd of people now forming around him and Kyo, mostly girls, and took his place sitting down on a chair until something interesting happened. Eventually, something did. Kaoru barely noticed it, and neither would anyone else. Toshiya was sipping from a glass of red colored liquid, while smiling delicately.