Fandom: Viewfinder
Title: conviction.
Rating: pg-13
Pairing: Asami x Takaba
Description - Asami pays a morning visit to his favorite photographer. And Takaba is once again questioning his worth to Asami…
Disclaimer - Viewfinder/Finder no Hyouteki and Gravitation aren't mine. Respectively, they belong to Yamane Ayano-sensei and Murakami Maki-sama. The 'song' is mine though. ^_^
conviction.
by miyamoto yui
Knock, knock, knock.
"Shit. Who the hell?" I grumpily rolled off the bed with my rumpled hair and gave a scathing look towards the door which seemed to convulse as if a wild animal were at the other end of it.
Knock, knock.
The annoying knocking ensued.
"I said I'm coming damn it!" I mouthed loudly while walking towards the front door of the shaking apartment.
Scratching my head while opening the door, I raised an eyebrow with an instant grimace on my face while my heart skipped a beat.
There _was_ an animal at the other end.
Only, this one was a phone whore with a business suit encasing a body that could go on for miles.
I didn't know if I was pleased or disgusted at the predicament of this morning's events.
I yawned.
"Get changed, Takaba. You have to do something for me."
One part of me was relieved that he looked serious for a moment. The other part of me was disappointed. I pushed the latter out of my mind because it was too ridiculous, even for me.
Yeah, so I wanted to think as my heart was beating past the constraints of my chest as if it wanted to grab onto his skin...
"You knock like the world's coming to an end. You wake me up and now you're telling me what to do?" I eyed him severely. "I never did like your impulsive tendencies."
"Like this?" It was in that moment that he pushed me through the doorway and closed the door with me pressed upon it. Holding my wrists over my head with one hand, he ran his fingers under my white tank top with the other.
My first impulse was to turn my head away because I could feel my face burning more and more as the seconds passed with his fingertips touching my skin, which shamefully ached for him.
My body and my mind were always at war over this.
And now this...
But I squinted my eyes in defiance to spite him. Of course, he thought it was cute as he smirked. "You've always had a beautiful face, but..."
Without kissing me on the lips, he sucked on one of my nipples through the shirt.
Despite my inner protest, my body won this round. I gasped.
"...the face of you wanting me is even more gorgeous."
I took a deep breath and looked away from him while pouting a bit.
"And it should only remain that way."
He chuckled a little as he took his hand away from under my tank top. His fingers touched the tip of my chin and gently pulled me to face his direction.
It was rare for him to chuckle or show any emotion. These were the small moments I enjoyed with him.
I wondered when these times became so special...
He watched me so intimately and with such careful attention that I couldn't breathe in between the impact of those detail-oriented eyes which intimated me, but made me gravitate towards him even more. These were the eyes I watched all this time with hated curiosity...
...because I was so taken in.
"What are you thinking?" He quietly demanded as he ran his fingers through my hair, but there I still stood with my wrists crossed over my head.
But I don't want to be taken in so easily...
Not to him...
Because I cannot keep a person like him with someone like me.
Whenever I look at you, I question the one thing I valued more than my life: my freedom.
I'm always tempted to say, 'Yes, let me belong to you.'
You say so. With all your words, with all your expressions, with all of your body, you make it known that I belong to you.
It's been me that won't comply to such an order.
I wouldn't be me if I could give in like that.
"That's the question I always ask myself whenever you watch me like that." My lips tightened as I lifted up my chin to slightly protest that I didn't want to be touched by him.
And little by little, it has become even harder to do the simplest things.
Just like that...
Then, with that single gesture I had tortured him with, he slightly wavered. He wasn't angry. His usually expressionless face became extinguished somewhat of its intensity towards me.
Maybe I could see the sadness...
Or at least, I wanted him to feel more towards me than for my body to react towards his...
"You're never going to know."
Then, he let me go.
+++
Click, click. Click, click, click.
It was that slightly sad face that disturbed and annoyed me as I took pictures of the beach resort he wanted to sell. In the middle of such clear blue water, white sands, and other breathtaking scenery, I was so distracted by the clouds of his expression.
I sighed even though it looked like I was tired.
When did I start caring for such a face? I remember a time when I wanted to hurt him so much that he'd want to leave me alone.
And then, I'd feel almost a little guilty over such a trivial thing.
Click. Click, click.
After all, I was just a body he got off on. I couldn't have meant anything more because he could have picked anyone.
But I knew one thing. I was probably the only crazy human who voluntarily defied him in everything he ever lived his life as and that was why he wanted to understand that part of me. Or at least, that part of life that had eluded him.
As free as he seemed to be, I knew it wasn't very true. Not at all.
He was constrained by all the things that his business suit stood for.
I knew that more than anyone.
Click, click, click.
The way he kissed me until I couldn't breathe from every pore of my being...
The way he held me while pressing his body against mine until I thought I could die from the pain...
The way he looked at me with circumspect indications...
The way he chose his polysemic words so that I would never understand how his mind worked...
The way he sometimes stood so far from me, afraid of what he knew he was capable of doing to me...
As he was now.
Only, he was watching the hotel with a contemplative look that suggested more than business going through his head. But that lingering sorrow overcast itself on his handsome face.
The wind blew a bit and he took a deep breath.
Though he would never say or even hint how troubled he sometimes felt, I was probably the only person in the world that could tell such a thing.
Yes, it made me scared, angry, and sad at the same time to see him in such a state.
The most impenetrable business man in the world makes a face like that?
That was the face that I wanted only reserved in the space between us. It touched me in a way that I didn't know how to deal with them and all the conflicting emotions inside of me that were already there thanks to him.
Before I knew it, my camera wandered to watch your face.
Click.
It's now me looking at you, Asami.
I take pictures of a person whose handsome face and devilish attitude are recognized from the outside. Who is it that I truly love - the person who stands proudly in front of me or the image you imprint inside of my mind whenever you desperately touch me?
You make love to me as if it means something to you, but I don't know anything. Don't you see my innocent conviction is smeared with lust? The campaign to destroy you has ultimately been the preset for my undoing.
I can't think clearly as the shutters of the lens open and close at your whim. You take your clothes off and you put them all back on in between the viewfinder.
How much does it take to get to you? How much of my sanity and heart could ever equal a penny of you? It's because I'll never give myself to you.
You'll have to buy me, Asami, with something more than all your money and seductions can ever offer.
I keep on taking pictures and you don't seem to realize that I'm here anymore. I'm just like every other person whose eyes gaze at you in awe.
In the end, I'm nothing more than a camera.
Well, then...
I can't…
…take this…
I've always loved taking pictures and looking at them. They held their own realities and their own unparalleled feelings. Seriousness mixed with utter beauty.
But today, painfully, I don't care…
…because it hurts to not mean more and degrading to want to be more than a trinket of your affections…
I stop. I throw my camera.
Your sharp eyes are already staring into mine as you walk towards me.
You're shocked. Have I lost it?
I turn around. "What I'm looking for can't be so easily found in a photograph. You don't even know what you're projecting and I don't know what I'm looking for anymore."
You catch up to me.
As always, you are always behind me.
Waiting to make a move,
we are always playing chess with one another.
"The commission," you answer me with those firm, yet caring fingertips reaching for my chin.
Your thumb goes under my chin as your middle finger touches my lips.
I want to turn away and leave, but you are blocking my way. I can't move at all.
Normally, you would already push me to the ground and undo my clothing, but today, you are very different. While holding onto my chin, your other hand grabs my wrist.
Though your eyes hold no tears, I can imagine them being there. And the only thing you tell me is, "The commission…"
"Capture me,"
we say to one another without saying a word.
I hold all of myself back
even though I want to touch that face.
More badly than ever before…
He somehow convinces me for him to take me home. And being the phone whore that he is, he is talking to the plastic vessel with an even more abusive tone to the listener than I am normally accustomed to. I am leaning my hand on my palm with the sand padded camera, the friend I loved and cruelly abused, in my lap.
I watch the window as nothing registers inside of my head but his eyes. More and more, I'm forgetting everything else but him as if capturing a single moment in a photograph that has no chance of ever being developed.
Instead, the negatives were longed burned, weren't they?
And the singer of Bad Luck cuts through the silence between us and brings in even more tension than our professions have ever brought to our plate.
I gulp. Why this song among the millions of others?
"My feelings burst for this unknown place,
but I know
I've been here before.
We stand in front of one another.
Even when you're not here,
I imagine your eyes
Watching me with such intense devotion
and suddenly,
I can't breathe
all over again.
I regain the will to live
And you kill me
at the same time
you glance at me
with all those conflicting emotions
between us so clear, so honest,
so impure in thought.
So you can't lie to me
and walk away
as if you don't know.
You can't tell me that
you never felt yourself
with only me.
The wild being
that resides within you
is your true self, not the shell of a
conformist in
a business suit.
It was me who touched you,
a seduction that wasn't supposed
to mean anything at all,
became our undoing.
So you can't possibly leave me.
There's gotta be some sort of logic,
a reason,
a conviction
to these aching, wonderful, vein constricting emotions
flowing faster than
a mortal sword wound.
We are no longer individuals,
that was our mistake
when we succumbed
to natural, passionate instinct.
Don't think…
Shh…
I take your hand.
Let's runaway together
even if we know
we're headed to hell.
Let's go together,
You and me.
Running farther and farther,
You finally and firmly
grip my hand.
Since we can't fight one another,
let's pretend to condemn the world and say
they're all wrong.
We're going to make it.
Yes…
Shh…
Don't think about it.
We'll remember, but we won't
come back to this place
where we met,
this abyss called loneliness.
Not ever again.
I don't reside anywhere else but next to you.
And you're not just an illusion.
So feel me.
Feel all of me
until you can't remember
anything else that's ever happened to you."
I close my eyes for a brief moment when the song ends and open them again to notice that he's long finished his telephone conversation.
"Stop the car. I'm getting out."
He blinks his eyes and takes a long, deep breath in an annoyed tone. "We're nowhere near your home. It's cities away."
"I can get on something from here. It's a major city, right?"
He is still unmoved by my futile attempt to get away.
I've giving in…
I've got to get away from you before I lose all of myself
inside of those eyes…
because of those transparent eyes…
The camera falls to the floor as I reach over and grab his collar. "Let me go. NOW."
My hands are shaking in nervousness and anger.
The look I captured on film comes back and makes a flash appearance, fading again into seeming nothingness.
"Stop the car," he orders the driver and it pulls to the side.
I still haven't let him go.
"And how long do you intend to stay like that, Akihito? You've gotten what you wanted."
I'm taken aback. You _never_ call me by my name.
You…
You win all over again.
Roughly, I pull your collar and press my lips onto yours.
Embarrassed, I quickly take my camera and walk out the door. "Your face irritated me," I deny as I run away.
But when I poke through the crowds of pedestrians on the sidewalk, I stop to turn around. For some weird reason, I have to make sure that you're gone.
The window of your car is open. You are still there.
You never do that.
And I want to go back because I know you are shouting for me even though you're too prideful to do anything about it.
I have finally learned to feel guilty when I'm away from you.
I finally feel the full force of my guilt as I turn and run as far and as fast as I can.
Yes, I think this as I feel the warmth of your lips lingering on mine…
…even if it isn't true,
let me think I still have my freedom, Asami…
Owari.
-
Author's note: Now, don't ask me any wh-questions because I won't be able to answer. I was just writing separate pieces for my original manuscript when I thought that maybe I should combine them and make a story for Viewfinder. Don't know if I pulled it off well because I've only read so much of the series, but I tried my damnest. (Forgive my inexperience.)
A bout with insomnia captured me and forcibly made me do this. I readily complied since the urge to ignore such a venture simply wasn't conceivable. Thus, another fit of insanity overtook my better judgment. Yaoi does that to time-oriented me.
I named this 'conviction' because of the many ways of being convicted and committed in the relationship of Takaba and Asami.
I hope you enjoyed it! I had MUCH fun writing it! I think it came out better than I expected or wanted it to come out.
Love,
Yui
March 17, 2005, 5:36 AM