fandom - Gravitation
title - Knife of Venus
pairing - Tohma + Ryuichi, Ryuichi + Tatsuha
rating - pg-13
description - Nittle Grasper goes to one of the first tv stations they performed at when they were still an Indies band. Ryuichi swims through many memories as he walks through its halls.

Disclaimer – Gravitation does not belong to me, but to the genius Murakami Maki-sama. I just love it so much that I continue write for it, even if it's exactly five years later.

You look at mirror reflections everyday
and then you wonder why
are they everywhere?
Stalkers to make you see you
As you are,
in water, glass, or thin sheets of metal,
You are everywhere.

I want to turn away,
but the rain falls down
to wash me away
before my eyes,

before I have the right
to have the option
of having
not to.

Remember all you've learned
and then break all the rules.
You shouldn't always listen to yourself.

There are times when
you shouldn't trust yourself.
Believing is slightly different from trust.
It is holding
no doubts in your heart.

If that's not possible,
Hold one truth, at least,
to your heart.

Knife of Venus
By miyamoto yui

"I quit!"

The entire staff at the club stops what they're doing. 'The good boy' has spoken against the boss. The favorite who nods his head as if he has no self-respect is actually telling the boss off? Yes. If you make me work long hours and you treat me like shit, but I'm the most popular waiter, then I don't want to be here.
One person looks like they're going to clap for me. I fold my towel and put it on the counter. I rip off the tied string of my apron, but I fold it silently and place it next to my towel. Without another word, I simply leave.

Gracefully, like the gentlemen I've been raised to be, I leave with a stern jaw and eyes staring straight in front of me.

But when I am out of their sight, in an alleyway, I slip to the ground and cry. I wipe my tears with my palms.
I do not know where to go. I've just runaway from home. And even though I know it's only a matter of time until they find me, I want to be free to do as I want.

Yet, because I've lived in a house where I've had everything done for me, I am so useless. I have to learn to live in the real world before I know how to make my own.

With my own hands.

I look out onto the street. The cars crush the sakura petals that have fallen to the ground and smear them mercilessly into the crevices of the imperfect tar road.

++/++/++/++

I look up to the familiar television station's main building and click my tongue. I shake my head and laugh to myself. "Before, your execs wouldn't even give me the time of day."
Or rather, they wanted me to sleep with them in order for me to get anywhere 'in this business'.

I put my sunglasses over my eyes again and walk inside.
"Welcome, Sakuma-san," the guard tells me, the same one who kicked me out the first time I came here fifteen years ago.

++/++/++/++

I bow my head to touch the ground.

It is twelve midnight and I've been outside of this television station all day. The son of the owner comes out to greet me. He smirks. I've always hated the way he thinks he's above everyone.

Deep inside, I writhe in pain.
Although I think I'd rather die than bow towards him, I am doing it right now in order to save my life.

Throwing my pride away, I tell my former classmate, "Seguchi-san, please sponsor me."
Impatiently, he asks, "What do you want?"
"Please give me an opportunity to sing." I keep my eyes to the ground.
"And why should I do that for you? Weren't you the one who said that I used my connections to get to where I was? That I was pitiful because of it?"

I remember, but I say nothing. I clench my fists and dig them into the cracked, cement road.

He squats to the ground and lifts up my face with his index finger. Looking over my face, he gives me a smile with his teeth showing. His eyes penetrate into mine as his words cut through my throat when he says, "I've always found you very interesting, Michi. So, let's play a game."

"Excuse me?" I am bit baffled and appalled by his words.

"If you can revolutionize the music industry in one year, then your debt to me will be paid on all that I invest on you. But, if you do not, you will become my personal assistant until your debt is paid. That could easily be twenty to thirty years depending on how you play your cards and how much I spend."
He lets go of me and looks at me.

For the first time, I see the ruthless Seguchi Tohma with kind eyes. I almost hate him more because he looks like he pities me.

"What are you willing to give me as collateral? Are you that confident over your voice?"
Without hesitation or reservation, I answer firmly, "Anything."
"Anything is a heavy word when dealing with a devil."
"Yes, I know."

He chuckles. "You aren't as dumb as you project yourself to be."
When I open my mouth to answer him, he suddenly leans forward to kiss me and seal our deal.

"Aren't you going to test me?"
"Oh, I will."

He leaves before I can react. And I look into space with my knees on the ground wondering what just happened. I pick up one of the fallen sakura and push it into a charm my father gave to me when I was born.

I look up to the clear sky and the moon looks back at me wordlessly.

++/++/++/++

I walk the same white halls that I did years ago when we went to our first television appearance. It wasn't even for some music show, but one of the morning programs that no one really cared about.

Still, each tap brings back memories of all the times I've been here.

Many people bow to me and greet me as I walk by. Some squeal and some ask for my autograph. I humbly do so and then walk onward.

I remember the days where they used to go 'che' to me. Just a little, until now, it still hurts. These overt criticisms cannot ever be forgotten or erased.

Confidently, I find my way to the correct studio number.

++/++/++/++

Sheets of music paper fall like drops of water into the small koi pond.

My work isn't up to par with what I want! Maybe I am too harsh on myself, but it doesn't capture the feel of who Nittle Grasper is. Who the fuck am I?!

The clouds above me become a bit darker. It doesn't look like it will only be cloudy today. Now, it starts to sprinkle in very small, transparent dots.

My reflection is disrupted and becomes unrecognizable through the ripples. I kneel there with grazed palms and knees with the cement mixed with dirt stuck to each open wound. I doubt I can wash these stains off so easily.

I bite my lower lip to keep my tongue from lashing out with words that will whip the listener. But would that really do anything?
My chest rises and falls, and I am once again just an animal and not a human. I continue to kneel there and my head slowly turns towards the right with eyes barely reaching a peek at that intimidating shadow cloaked in a long, black coat.

The person asks in cool manner, "How far are you willing to go, Michi?"

As if it is timed, the pond becomes still again. I watch myself more carefully than before. I wonder why I am here and what I've done to deserve this.
Without realizing it, I finally feel the tears that are warmly rising, wanting to fall ungracefully.

I won't let them.
I always pretend I can hold back a dam, no matter what the circumstances or consequences are.

Those ever-analyzing eyes continue to stare into mine without missing an abnormal heartbeat. Tap, tap, tap. The dark hat falls to the ground. He pulls the magenta boa off his neck and slides off his right leather glove off his hand.

Crick. Grabbing my chin, he forces my stiff neck to move a little more than it wants to. It's been like that for a few days because I'd been unable to sleep well. His eyes close and he smiles widely in that heartless, polite grin. "You told me you would do anything to get what you want."

Then, he makes me look into the water again. The fish continue to swim without a care in the world, not knowing what's happening on the surface.

I focus on my tired face.

He whispers into my ear gently, "This isn't the real you."

"That's you. Inside the water," he says to me earnestly even though his tone is as monotonously cold as ever, an invisible ice pick crucifying the middle of one of my hands.

Finally, I answer his question, "Yes. Yes, I did say that."
I look into that face I hate so much.

Who is this pathetic person who can't change himself? I say I want to be a singer, but I can't even write lyrics. I say I love music, but I can't even think of a melody.

I say I want to renew the music world, but I am scared like any other human would be. "What is there to be scared of?" a small voice says inside of me, but I know better. Another part of me answers, "To want something, you'll eventually have to hurt someone to get there. This is the way of life."

"I don't want to bother anyone," I want to answer.
I also want to shout, "I have nothing, Tohma! I am just an ordinary person! I realize that now!"

The top two buttons of my white, black-striped blouse are torn. I grab my collar and start to cough as I get up dizzily.

"You lied to me, Michi." He comes closer and grabs my hair from the back, to force me to kneel. He is kneeling too. Tohma is right beside me, making me see the man inside that unleveled mirror.
His voice cracks in between the rippling fragments of myself, disrupted by another tear that leaks through. "Sing for someone."

I turn my head to look at him. I start to hum weakly into his ear.
"I can't hear you," he whispers quietly.

"La la la…" I begin to sing. Again, it is in a soft rhythm that makes him close his eyes.
I am on a role for a few minutes, but then he comments harshly, "That isn't good enough."

I immediately stop.
Once again, he's turned the clay structure hidden inside of me back to a rectangular block.

SLAP!
"Ryuichi!" he scolds me as he pushes me down onto the grass. He sits on my stomach and I grab my cheek. It throbs louder and warmer than my heartbeat, but he doesn't care about me. He leans forward with a disturbing, pitiless grin.
"Don't care about what other people say! Even if it's me."

Then, in a flicker of anger, I hear myself sing.

I am so empty.
I am ashamed for being weak like this.

He cups his hands on my face. Unusually, he is gentle as I bite my lower lip, which is bleeding right now. Tohma leans down to lick the small drop that wants to fall out the right side. Then, he sits right back up.
I am turning red. And my body is melting under him.

I look to one side.
He forces me to look at him. I feel like a baby that stares at him curiously, yet condescendingly. It's an innocence that can't be broken but has to be sooner or later. That cannot be avoided in life. It is the way it is.
However, you choose your own limits.

I eye him through slits for eyes and then, I gradually open them a little wider. I close them after his face regards mine in a second of horror. It is as if I slapped his face for the fun of it and he can't believe someone who was as fragile and kind as me could do something so cruel.
My lips move on their own as my eyes stay closed. I lift up my upper body off the ground even though my stomach feels like a stone block has been crushing it at the same time. Through all that, I lift up my right hand and perfectly run my fingers through his hair. I grab the tips of his short, clean-cut hair and push my nails into his scalp. Pulling him towards me a little, I bite his ear.

I breathe into his ear, scolding, "Who do you think I am?"
It is in a tone colder than he'll ever be able to conjure up in his whole lifetime.

I am too comfortable with this and it scares me. That part of me that holds the conservative boy who couldn't do anything…that crack in my broken heart has become a bit deeper.

I feel the shivers of his body tickling my fingertips.

My ruthless, conceited grin becomes wider.

++/++/++/++

It is weird for someone to take care of me. I am used to doing everything by myself. Don't misinterpret me. I may have been someone who was spoiled with money in this world, but when it came to emotional support, I had something next to nothing.
In a blurry memory, the only thing I remember my parents ever gave me was a pink bunny. It is only at this moment that when I hold Kumagorou in front of me do I remember that single memory of my mother sleeping next to me because I had a nightmare. The next day, she put a bunny for me to hold because she was not there all the time.

I play with Kumagorou and laugh, giggling like a five-year-old. The makeup artist makes smiling neko grins with her closed eyes because she's amused by my behavior. "Excuse me for being so informal, but you are quite different than when you perform. I thought you wouldn't be…well, like this."
I look up to the mirror to watch her expression when I say, "When focusing on only a few things in a scene, people only notice details when there's a great contrast inside them. What is the shock and fun in finding everything's exactly the same?"

Her eyes open widely at me in surprise. "You're a funny person, Sakuma-san."

++/++/++/++
The new member, Nuriko, suddenly offers to take me somewhere.
Actually, she didn't ask Tohma. She told him while we were recording that I was off, dragged me away, and said we'd be back in three hours.

As we're running down the street, she starts to grab my arm in a vice grip. I try my best not to slip between the newly-made rain puddles and the leaves falling off the trees. It is still boggles me how Tokyo is be so modern with all these tall, business buildings that have tvs on them. Yet, it can still hold patches of nature that bring you back to a place that only your ancestors would know of.

Even through the rush, I find it beautiful. I just have no time to think about all that, not even for a second.

"I am not working with you unless you shape up, Michi."
"Excuse me?"
"You want to change. And yet, you look exactly like you did when you were with your parents. You still act the same time even if you're changing a little. Since you can't make the choice of dilly-dallying between what you want to become, we're being dragged down by your indecisiveness."

I know you're right, but I can't seem to say anything because you're right.

Yanking my arm, I blink at her in the most shocked face I have ever given anyone. I try to open my mouth to protest, but I'm too surprised. At a loss for words, I do as she pleases when she shoves me into a hair stylist.
She smiles at the person at the counter and walks right through until the furthest part of the hair salon. Nuriko puts me in a chair and I give her a worried look.

I sigh and I watch myself in that mirror. The hair stylist comes and I somehow, confidently say, "I want you to please cut my hair short in the back like this. Do you have a piece of paper for me to draw it…"

Afterwards, they dye my hair a lighter shade than my normal color. I have turned auburn and I cannot believe that punk in front of me is really me.
Is this the person who wanted to come out all this time?

Next, she takes me to various places around Shibuya, Ikebukuro, and Shinjuku. She laughs when I tell her Harajuku.
"You will MAKE the fashion there, honey." She winks at me. "We just need clothes to modify for you."
"Where will we get the money for all this?"
"We're riding on you for the returns, Michi." She brings out her credit card to the register. "I will invest in you because I believe in you. Otherwise, I wouldn't have left my nine-to-five job. I was a damn good secretary too!"

She begins to laugh and I smile at her. In isn't in that nervous, uncomfortable way I usually feel when I am next to someone I've only met for two weeks.

I blurt out, "I feel like we've been childhood friends."
I begin to blush and clear my throat while avoiding her eyes. I am such a dork.

Nuriko kisses me on the cheek when she takes the bag of stuff we've just bought off the sales counter and adds it to the pile in front I'm carrying. "Me too."

When we get to the studio, my hair is dyed and cut. I am wearing dark blue jeans hanging on my hips with a shirt that is a turtleneck connected to two arm covers by two strings going down my forearms.
Tohma looks at me and nods his head.

Later that night, when everyone else leaves, he sneaks up from behind me as I hold onto the mic, trying to figure out how to bring out the feelings of the song as I sing for the recording. He grabs my waist and breathes into the right side of my neck, mumbling, "Venus."

I shake my head. "You flatter me too much, Tohma."

He holds me tighter, but his left hand goes under my shirt, lifting it up so my stomach feels cold. He tugs on the buckle of my belt.

I take a deep breath and turn my head to my left side, not wanting to see the windows in front of us.
My breathing becomes a bit heavy because my entire body's hot.

"Why do you always turn away from your reflection?" He softly kisses my neck once and sucks on it for a second.
"Because I don't want to see what I really want to do."
"But aren't you always doing as you please, Michi?"

He tugs on my zipper, but doesn't really do anything. I close my eyes. "Stop teasing me."
I start to put my left hand in back of me to push him away, but he tangles one his legs over mine.
I immediately lean on the window in front of us with my right hand.

"What are you ashamed about?"
I open my eyes and face myself. "That I am really this dirty. And that I like it this way."
"There is nothing wrong with that, but you're not dirty for being the way you want to be."

He knows what I'm talking about. I don't have to explain the pressures of being an heir where perfection isn't enough. Your name is everything, and yet, in the real world, you're worthless.
You have no talents whatsoever to survive in the everyday world.

I'm riding only my voice.

He then puts both of his hands onto my chest, grabs my shirt and rips it.
"What are you-" I start to shout.
"Stop being ashamed!" He pounds his fist on the window and leans his head on my shoulder. From the first time I met him and until now, he doesn't let me how he really feels.

It is then that I understand why I couldn't sing the song we made.

I look down at the shreds on the floor, at Tohma's open hand. I look up from my feet and all the way to my face.
"I'm sorry, Tohma."

I apologize for many things. Even things I cannot name right now and for the things that will happen in the future.

I reach back and run my fingers lightly through his hair, caressing the back of his head.

For the first time, I have learned to break open my own broken heart. Shedding a layer of its skin, I clearly see myself. I lean my head forward and press my forehead onto the window.
I start to sing for Tohma.

++/++/++/++
The song I sang for him then is the one I'm singing today.

"Thank you," I say to Maki the makeup artist. I nod and go towards the stage with Nuriko and Tohma. There is a hush and everyone knows that they can't reach me anymore.

I smile before the camera, but I hold onto the mic very tightly. Covering half of my face, they say it's time to go and Tohma starts playing the keys of his keyboard with Nuriko nodding her head to guide me.
I am trying to recapture that feeling when we first started fifteen years ago.

But of course, who I was then and who I am now are totally different. You'll change no matter how much you'll protest.

So, I perform this with the confidence of today…

I open my eyes and take my right hand away from face as if I were holding half a mask. I hold onto the microphone stand and the tempo goes from slow to fast. Then, my voice booms into the mic,

"You call me Aphrodite,
But I'm just a pauper.
I wonder what is it you want to pray to
When I'm nothing but a whore."

I hold out my hands and pull them back as if I've been hit by sunlight.

"I sell smiles like trinkets
I chant in lyrics that
are as playful as the ancient kitsune.
I can't pray to a goddess
if I am one.
I don't care about how you got there.
Whomever sits at the top,
I'll take your throne."

I look from side to side and tap my foot. Taking the mic stand into my hands, I sing loudly,
"Then, I found you there.
I offer you my tears,
but they're just water.
I offer you my life,
I give you my soul.
Even if I give you everything,
You will still find a way
for me to give you more."

Crossing my arms over my chest as if in a straitjacket, I shake my head from side to side.

"What is to come
when I grate my fingers on stone
and I shout with all my might?
What could possibly
be worse than hell?
Then, in a second,
I imagine that you're not there."

I take the mic off the mic stand and start to walk around the stage. I show my chained wrists.
"I've cut myself a million times to check
what's inside of me.
Greedy; I can only continue life
If I know what is cruelty and pain.
Infuse all my broken pieces
that I've lost in my darkness.
I'm aware of my ugliness,
And yet I still want you."

I put the mic back on the stand and sing softly,
"Enter through the gate
and then you'll find a garden,
Plant a special flower
that even you don't know the name.
The flames in hell will consume it
but the rain of your tears
will heal it
to make to rise again.

The magic word 'Anything'.
that plant will come reincarnate
one day into a human
to thank you
because it's loved nothing
but you."

I hold out my palm and start to cry,
"Then, I found you there.
I offer you my tears,
but they're just water.
I offer you my life,
I give you my soul.
Even if I give you everything,
You will still find a way
for me to give you more."

I've cut myself a million times to check
what's inside of me.
Greedy; I can only continue life
If I know what is cruelty and pain.
Infuse all my broken pieces
that I've lost in my darkness.
I'm aware of my ugliness,
And yet I still want you…

To love someone like me."

I look away from the camera, still holding onto my microphone with my two hands. I am shaking even though I've done this for years already.
It does not matter though because each performance is new.

Somewhere, I know the quiet, shy Michi still resides there.

++++++++++++++++
Holding my hands tightly onto my serious face with my hair flying everywhere, I close my mouth. Then, the lights go out before there's a roar on our first live performance in a concert hall.

When I go into our cramped changing area, Tohma is already outside negotiating with Nuriko. I am standing before the mirror.
And somehow a little, five-year-old boy runs past the guards and by my door. All out of breath, he hands me an autograph board. I laugh to myself at his sneakers and that adorable face that looked at me as if I were the only person in the world.

"I watched you today with my brother and my sister, but what's your name?"

I open my mouth, but I grab a marker from the small coffee table.
Skeech, skeech. I pop the cap back on and give him his board.

"Thank you!" He looks at it with wide eyes. "What does it say?"

With my back towards my reflection, I reply, "Sakuma Ryuichi."

I'm about to ask him for his name, but I hear people walking hurriedly. The boy turns to one side and runs away. The next person to come through the hall is Uesugi Mika.
"Looking for Tohma?"

My heart begins to ache right after it's been in heaven for a minute because of my first fan.

She shakes her head with an annoyed and distressed look. "Did you see a little boy come by?"
"Yes," I laugh and pointed at the direction that I knew he didn't go to.
"Thanks. That stupid little brother of mine. Oh, I forget, I have two."

She runs and the boy, expectedly, comes out from the corner and back to me. "Why'd you tell Nee-san that?"
"Do I have to tell her the truth? Besides, she's joked around with me too."

"You know her?!"
"Yes, I-"
"YOU!" It is then that the elder Uesugi boy, comes towards us. He picks up his little brother by the back of his collar. "I will be collecting this. Sorry to bother you, Michi."

The boy waves his hands and arms around futilely, but he manages to grab my face. He kisses me on the lips and says, "I love you, Ryuichi."

"TATSUHA."
Eiri bows his head embarrassed with an angered face. Then, they walk away. I watch the hall as the boy and I watch one another before he turns the corner.

I close the door and put my hand on the mirror. It is covering the place that should have reflected my heart. I analyze myself.
My exhausted eyes, my fucked up hair, my torn short-sleeve shirt with zippers…

"My real name is Ryuichi."

I think of all the people I've had to pass to get to this point. And then I think of all the mountains I've had to climb with that hope of finding an answer to that bright light that I seek, of which the question has not been formed yet.
I cannot erase my past. And I don't want to. I wouldn't know what to do if I erased him. But 'Ryuichi' is of my own creation.

And so, 'Michi' will be asleep when I am on stage.

Tohma once told me that in ancient times, Venus was the Roman goddess of love and beauty.

I scratched my fingers painfully over the mirror, as if crushing my own heart. "This is the Knife of Venus."
Depending on how Venus used it, her heart was her greatest ally, and it was also her deadliest weapon.

I let go of the glass surface and with a longing, yearning look at the door, I think of my first fan.
It is then that I truly know what I want to work towards in exchange for that 'anything'.

++/++/++/++

Nuriko is sleeping and Tohma is typing into his laptop.

I look out the window of the tour bus and watch the melted snow fall down in tiny streams before me. I get up to go sit in the back to talk to Tatsuha. I know he is studying for exams right now, so he won't answer the phone. I know that he's recording all my tv performances on his vcr at home. To keep him company, I let him borrow Kumagorou.
I know him too well. He's crazy. I make him even more so.

I grin like mad.

But still, I miss him so much. I know we think about each other every second we're not together, and yet there are those human times of wanting to give in to 'giving up' when you can't spend time together.

Yet, being apart, I am not worried. Tatsuha keeps me sane and from feeling lonely.

'Anything' has not ended yet because I know there is much more.
For the sweeter the reward, the more bitter and painful the obstacles are.

If it means to be with you, I will do endure everything over and over again.

I smile at the snow falling on the roads leading out of Tokyo and I comment, "Very pretty."
I write some lyrics into a notebook and dial his number again just to hear his greeting on his voice mail.

"Hello Honey~! I am here, but I can't talk to you right now. Whenever I have a free chance, I will. I love you."

Everyday, I thank Kamisama for you.

There are tears in my eyes because I am always so grateful for you. And yet, I am able to say in a perfectly calm and sincere voice, "I miss and love you. Be home soon."

Before I end the message, I kiss the phone.

Owari.

-
Author's note – Well, hello! It's been a long while and I've missed you too.
I know very well that this isn't my 'typical' fic. But having written so many Gravi fics, I need to branch out a little more and more now. Because of time constraints, I feel like I'm not up to par to what I was before, and therefore I'm working hard to regain that again.

My main goal was to give Ryuichi many, many layers and shading in a one-shot.
So, please excuse the flipping back and forth. I know I should have changed the tense to make it easier, but intention was that even if I was describing a 'past event', there are some instances in your life where these memories come back over and over. And in your head, they are happening simulateneously with the 'you of the present'. However, aren't there times you just stop for a second because the past has become the present, even if it's inside your head? This is the effect I was going for.

Why name him Michi? You probably think Kuroda Michihiro (the man Ryuichi is modeled after like Kotani Kinya for Shuichi within the anime), but no. I picked it by chance 'cause it's one of my favorite Japanese names. It just happened that I thought about the Michihiro coincidence after the fic was completed.

So, thank you for reading! I don't know how long it took to make this. It took me days to think about it and then it took me even more days to find time to write it. And when I finally did write it out, it took so many hours 'cause I kept on doing it over and over again. I wanted events, adjectives, and other details a certain way. That's hard when you're a little out of practice.

I humbly give this to you and hope you like it.

With much love,
Yui

6/16/2006 12:05:21 PM – LA
6/17/2006 4:05:21 AM - Tokyo