A/N: I must be the most unoriginal writer around. This is another based-on-a-song fic; the song, Wishing Me a Happy Birthday, is written by Jay Chou (whom I love with all my heart) and sung by Landy Wen. I love how heartbreakingly sad and depressing the song is, and the lyrics (not written by Jay) are amazing too.
Pairing: MitsuixRukawa; DUH. I think this is a MitRu? I'll always be confused.
Summary: Birthdays are not meant to be spent alone. MitRu (I think). One-shot
Wishing Me a Happy Birthday
It's my birthday today. I'm sitting alone in an empty room, with nothing but the sound of the ticking of the clock and the blank faces of the four encaging walls for company. Things could've been different today, if only…if only.
I don't know where I'm going with this, exactly; I just felt a strong urge to do this. What's that word they use to describe such urgent purging of feelings and emotions?
Catharsis. Yes, that's it. This is Mitsui Hisashi's confession then; stripped-bare, and you'll only get to hear it once. I've switched off the handphone; I decided to let it rest for the night, and to insulate myself from the outside world. I am more than enough for myself to deal with right now.
The truth is, hurt and sadness change nothing, and so I've decided to be a little bit more honest this time. Honestly, I've never been more appalled, humiliated, hurt and…that other thing before in my life. It's made me do this thing that I'm currently doing; this catharsis thing. Talking about your feelings and all that jazz. I don't know. I'm confused; my mind is in shambles and going around in circles. I feel like I could just…die.
Or something else. I'm talking about something quite specific here; or rather, to be more specific, someone. God, since when was Mitsui Hisashi such a huge fucking cliché? But desperate times call for desperate measures, and clichés are only so when you don't mean them. And there's no way in hell that I can humanly not mean the things I'm telling you now and still be human.
I'm telling you a story; my story. It's not going to be pretty; in fact, I personally think that it's rather fucking tragic. Or maybe I only think that way because it happened to me.
The protagonist of the story is me; and the antagonist, none other than Rukawa Kaede. Who else could it have possibly been? Rukawa is…I don't know what the hell he is. He's…Rukawa. You know how he's like.
But you don't really know how he's like. No one knows how he's like. I thought I did, but yesterday proved me wrong.
This happened yesterday:
The players – Rukawa Kaede and your narrator, Mitsui Hisashi.
The setting – This very same hotel room from which I am telling this story, our tried-and-tested-and-accepted rendezvous suite.
The mood – Me: Happy to be with him; Rukawa: Who the fuck knows?
I sat down on the edge of the bed; Rukawa closed the door behind him.
"How was school?" I asked, just for the hell of it, to see whether I could get a smile out of him.
Rukawa shrugged. He stood, leaning against the wall, watching me. "The same," he replied indifferently. He did not smile.
"Okay," I said. I patted the spot next to me and threw him an inviting smile. "Think you can join me on this nice and comfortable bed now?"
He did not move; he merely continued standing there, a space between us, watching me. My smile faltered; seconds passed, and still, nothing. Something was wrong.
"What's wrong?" I asked softly.
Rukawa exhaled. Another shrug, and then, his voice flat and monotonous: "It's over between us."
"Like fuck it is," I spat. "Since when were you the one calling the shots?"
"Doesn't matter, sempai." Still expressionless. "It's over."
A million violent retorts flooded my mind, but none of them made its way to my mouth; they couldn't, not in the face of such pricking nonchalance and coldness. Instead, all I could say was, "Why?"
"Got bored." Then, as a consolatory thought, he added, "It happens."
His indifference stung more than his indolence, but I pushed it aside. I sprung up from where I was sitting and menaced towards him.
"You got bored? What the fuck do you take me for?" I hissed. "Some rag doll you can toss aside when you've had your fun? You're fucked in the head, Rukawa, and if you think that this is the end of us, you're wrong. You're wrong!"
Instinctively, in a haze, I threw myself at him; grabbed his shoulders and pulled him towards me, and just as my lips were about to make contact with his, Rukawa forcefully pushed me away. I stumbled backwards; my elbow knocked into the protruding sharp edge of the dressing table, but I hardly noticed the pain – it was almost negligible as compared to what was devouring me inside.
"Give it up, sempai," Rukawa said, and I couldn't decipher the expression on his face. "Don't degrade yourself for me."
Don't degrade yourself for me. I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to punch him in the face, and I wanted to beg him to change his mind, and I wanted to shake him until he came to his senses and saw for himself the terrible mistake that he was committing. I wanted to do all of that, and so much more; but I didn't. I couldn't. The knife has been plunged deep enough into my heart.
"You're a cold, heartless bastard." I couldn't help being childish. What else was I supposed to do? And it was all that I could say and do, because I couldn't think of other come-backs beyond that, not when those few words kept bombarding my mind, relentlessly; not when other non-verbal alternatives mean getting hurt even more; not when I was facing Rukawa Kaede. The Ice Prince was at his very finest, and I was the only one lucky enough to win a day with him in a contest of which I was not remotely aware. Fuck him.
There we stood then, staring at each other, a space between us that grew steadily in magnitude, my words echoing loudly in the sudden silence of the room. I was breathing heavily; but he was expressionless, as usual, hardly batting an eyelid.
And it was at that precise moment that I finally realised that I would never, ever understand him, even if I dedicated my life to the study of How to Decipher and Melt Rukawa Kaede.
He broke the silence first. "Probably right," he said. A parting shot, and then he turned and walked away.
And I will always hate him for that.
Happy birthday to me. The loneliness has cooled; the tears are not allowed to flow past 12 midnight.
What about that first time, when it all began?
Yeah, it was something like this:
The Shohoku gym. A one-on-one with the super rookie. Predictably, I won, even though Rukawa pulled that shit about me stepping on the three-point line again. What a sore loser.
"You're just a sore loser," I told him when he repeated his accusation for the umpteenth time. "You only want to win at all costs, especially since it's against me. You can't stand that I'm better than you. But you know what? I won, so shut up about me stepping on the line, because an expert like me can never commit such a stupid mistake."
"You. Stepped. On. The. Line," Rukawa stubbornly insisted, his eyes shooting daggers at me. And to be honest, by then, I was getting very exasperated too.
"Look, Rukawa, stop being so fucking childish. I didn't step on the bloody line. Any idiot with eyes can tell. Have you got eyes on your arse or something? And for fuck's sake, I'm Mitsui Hisashi, not just any second-string wannabe player! If you're sore about losing to me, just admit it! After all, I can definitely understand, since – "
All of a sudden, Rukawa interrupted my tirade by covering my mouth with his hand. My eyes widened in surprise. His face grew bigger and bigger, and then, I was looking directly into his eyes, and there was a palpable, distinct warmth in them that I'd never seen before. He almost looked like he was smiling.
"You stepped on the line," Rukawa said again. And then, in a softer tone, he added, "Now cross over."
I struggled to pull his hand away from my mouth. "What?"
"Cross over."
"Cross over?"
He didn't bother with a reply; instead, he answered my question in a manner which only Rukawa Kaede is capable of pulling off, by personifying that mantra you hear all the time in English classes.
He showed me what he could've simply told me: wrapped his arms around me, his lips against mine, and it told me all that I thought I'd ever need to know.
But that was a long time ago. It was only three months ago. Rukawa made it difficult.
I shouldn't be thinking about him. Happy birthday to me, really. I'm a year older, and a year wiser. How useless clichés are in desperate times like these. The fire from the candles aren't providing any warmth either.
I watch the candles melt, the liquid wax dripping onto the white of the cream of the cake. Blue, red, yellow, green – they fuse together and form a new colour. Isn't that what love is supposed to do to people? And we're only talking about two colours here.
Why did he do it? That kiss; that first time after the fateful one-on-one, when things began to happen. If he never gave me a notion of an 'us', I would never have conceived one, and I would never be…like this, how I am now, appalled, humiliated, hurt, and…that other thing.
Rukawa and I. Me and Rukawa. I've never really got into the habit of calling him 'Kaede', since it was always 'sempai' with him. Suited me fine. I liked the feeling of control anyway, even if it's always been a mere illusion at best.
He took the lead and I followed. He came to me one night, to my house, and then it happened; another 'first time' between us. A trail of kisses, two naked bodies on a too-small bed casting elegant shadows against the wall, climax, him in my arms, and then I did it.
"I love you," I mumbled into his hair.
He stopped stroking my arm for about half a second; then, he lifted the corners of his lips into what he thought was a smile, and replied, "I know."
It wasn't the answer that I was expecting, but I brushed my disappointment aside and told myself, "Give him time."
And you know what the most preposterous thing was?
I really meant what I said, that thing about loving him.
Okay, that's it. The memories have to stop. Happy birthday to me, and I've blown out the candles. A new chapter in my life, right? One without Rukawa Kaede.
I should be glad. Or something. I don't know. I just…
I hate him and I love him. No, that's not right: I still love him but it's with a little bit of hatred and resentment now. Maybe I just need some time to get over this. Maybe I don't. But I think I do.
It's 12 midnight. The tears have melted. And they're not allowed to flow anymore.
I guess this is the part where I write the epilogue. Well, for the epilogue, let's dedicate it to Rukawa Kaede: thank you for all that you've given, and all that you've taken away. Love will never be as passionate as whatever we had going on between us again, and to be honest, I think my wounds will take some time to heal.
It's all about time, isn't it? We were just like the hands of a clock: seemingly moving at the same pace, but nearly always with a distance between us, our fates entirely dictated by time. Give him time, I thought. Give it time, I tell myself now, to forget…everything.
Rukawa in my arms, Rukawa next to me, Rukawa's rare smile, Rukawa's kisses, Rukawa himself. The ice prince whom I nearly melted, the basketball virtuoso whom I almost defeated, the boy who was momentarily mine, the Rukawa whom I still love.
I'm back to square one.
Happy birthday to me.
-end-