CHAPTER 4: …AND CONSEQUENCES While Ayaka examines the true meaning of "be careful what you wish for…" Shuichi tries to adapt to a life without Eiri…


"Eiri-san?" Ayaka stirred as she felt a movement beside her. Eiri didn't answer; he simply walked over the window and threw it open before reaching for his cigarettes.

Ayaka stared across at him, unable to look away as he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He had gone out after supper, following another huge row with his father. The two of them couldn't seem to leave one another alone – if Eiri didn't start the fight by saying something crass or disrespectful, Uesugi-san would provoke his eldest son by making some remark in praise of Tatsuha's superior conduct or start nagging him about the priesthood.

Tonight they hadn't even had Mika-san to shut them up – she had gone back to Tokyo with Seguchi-san and had looked relieved to do so, and for once Ayaka wasn't sorry. Though Mika never said anything, Ayaka was deeply conscious of failing to bring any peace or harmony to this troubled household. If Mika had thought Eiri's marriage would free her to spend more time with her own husband and concentrate on her life in Tokyo, she must now be bitterly disappointed.

Ayaka had waited up for her husband until her head ached and she could not keep her eyes open. She had been asleep for nearly an hour before he returned and lay down beside her without touching her. She made no attempt to touch him either – he seemed to hate being touched unexpectedly. She kept still, but once he was there it was so difficult to sleep.

Unsatisfied sexual desire was a factor, of course. The marriage had been consummated – whatever fears Ayaka might have entertained of Eiri intending a sexless marriage turned out to be groundless. Nor had Eiri proved an inconsiderate lover – his vast experience of women had evidently taught him how to deal with a shy virgin and he had had no trouble giving her great pleasure. Though Eiri's advances were usually wordless and always felt just a little impersonal, for a little while passion seemed to connect them as they shared, if nothing else, a huge relief of tension.

But already, whether because Eiri considered his conjugal duties adequately discharged, because Ayaka had simply failed to hold his interest or because of some reason she was simply too inexperienced to comprehend, their encounters were becoming increasingly rare. Though she sometimes wondered if Eiri would prefer her to be more assertive - his last lover had, after all, been a young man – Ayaka lacked the courage to make the first move towards sex, and so remained unsatisfied.

At any rate it was not the only cause of her restless nights. Eiri had been having the most awful nightmares of late, sometimes waking the entire house with his screams. Sometimes he seemed to be begging for help from someone called "Yuki" – odd, that it was his own nom de plume he called out – but last night the name he had screamed had been "Shuichi." Ayaka had hidden in the bathroom and wept bitter tears, that night. But then she had dried her eyes and lain down beside her husband. She had made her choice – now she had to live with it.

And of course it had been what she wanted – what she had dreamed of for two years. What did they say? Oh yes. Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

But that had been before Shindou Shuichi. Before Tokyo. Before the private smile she had seen on Eiri's face as he had heard his lover declare before a packed crowd, "Yuki is mine!"

Damn. Ayaka, who had been taught never to curse, cursed again and again as she watched Eiri smoking and staring out into the shadowy garden. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!

Why Shindou-san? Why didn't you come? Didn't you understand? Did you think I could just let go of Eiri-san without knowing if you cared enough to really make him happy? I loved him – I still love him – I thought you loved him just as much! Didn't you have the courage to fight for him after all?

If I had gone to Tokyo with Tatsuha, then would you have come?

It was an uncomfortable thought, but it had been popping into her head again and again of late. Would her appearance in Tokyo have made it real to Shuichi? Would it have provoked him into fighting back?

Exactly what had driven him and Eiri apart in the first place? She still did not even know that.

If I knew, Ayaka thought restlessly, would that make a difference? If it was something Shindou-san did – if the break-up was his fault, or if Eiri really didn't care for him after all… could I find a way to reach my husband at last?

My husband. She repeated the phrase over and over in her mind. My husband, Uesugi Eiri. Just a few months ago I think I would have given my life… perhaps my very soul… to call him that. To be sleeping beside him in this very room…

She gazed around her. It was a beautiful room in a beautiful, traditionally simple house, simpler, in many ways, than the one she had grown up in, but Ayaka found it suffocating. Though they both came from temple families, her mother had a love of non-Japanese things that Uesugi-san would not have appreciated – not disposable Westernised "junk" so much as fine European antiques. The house of her parents might seem cluttered with "things" to the traditional eye, but this house was cluttered with something far less tangible and far more difficult to clear out. It was filled wall to wall with tension – with unspoken words and bitter feelings and the ghosts of old arguments abandoned but never concluded.

Not for the first time, as Ayaka thought of her mother she found herself wishing Eiri's mother was here to add some warmth and femininity to this cold house. Uesugi-san had surprised her by talking quite openly and tenderly of his dead wife while Eiri was locked away with his laptop and Ayaka was preparing food in the kitchen, and even showing her a picture. A beautiful woman with a beautiful smile. Uesugi-san had said he hoped Ayaka could bring back the light that had gone out when his wife had died.

Ayaka had been touched by his words and had felt a sudden pity for this lonely man who could not seem to connect with the son he expected so much of. In this short time she felt she already understood him better than Eiri ever would – he was really not that different from her own father. But her father's strict and austere nature was tempered by her mother's quiet but equally forceful presence – she echoed her husband's conservatism yet was far worldlier in her outlook than he could ever be; she recognised what he could not.

Including, perhaps, the less promising aspects of the marriage alliance both fathers had wanted so much? She had never said so openly – how could she, when Mika had been so encouraging and Ayaka so determined?

What would have been different if Eiri's mother had been involved as well? What, Ayaka had wondered as she had listened sympathetically to her father in law, had the Uesugi house lost with the death of its matriarch?

Then Uesugi-san had shown her a picture of a cute, laughing boy with blonde hair and glasses sharing a book with his mother, and Ayaka had burst into tears.

She had cried a lot during the two months of her marriage. She had cried for many things, but most of all for the fading of her own strength. What had happened to the spirited girl who had gone alone to Tokyo; who had willingly trusted in the hospitality of that dear Nakano Hiro, who had forced her reticent fiancée to Bad Luck's concert and confronted him over his feelings for Shindou Shuichi? She had often searched for that lost Ayaka since her wedding, but had no idea where to find her.

"Eiri-san…" she called again, this time with more energy.

Finally Eiri spared her a glance, though only a brief one. "Go to sleep."

"But I wanted to say…" she hesitated, then pressed on, "that if you want to go back to Tokyo… I don't mind. If you're not happy here… Wherever you want to go… all I want is for you to be happy…"

Eiri gazed at the floor in silence, ash from his cigarette dropping to the wooden floor. When he finally raised his eyes to look at her, she smiled encouragingly at him, but he did not smile back.

He never smiled back.

"How about New York?" Eiri said suddenly, and the bitterness in his tone was chilling.

"If – if that's what you want, Eiri-san…" Ayaka murmured. New York, London, Paris, the arctic, the ninth circle of hell… I don't care! Please, just take me away from this house… take me somewhere you can be happy…

Eiri rolled his eyes and turned away again. "Just go back to sleep."


"Shu-kun…?" Hiro came softly into the studio. "You okay?"

Shuichi blinked and looked up. "Oh. Yeah. Thanks, Hiro…"

"If that bastard said something to you at lunchtime…"

Shuichi frowned. "Oh, you mean Maa-kun? No, he didn't say anything. Matter of fact, he's been quite… sort of… well… nice to me lately… when that fuck Aizawa's not looking…"

Hiro scowled. "Maybe he's afraid of getting put back in hospital."

"Not much chance of that, is there? I guess it was just the news about Ask getting an American tour that really pissed me off… I mean, hey, if the Americans think Ask represents the best in j-pop we're really screwed forever aren't we?"

Hiro refused to lighten up. "I still say you should have pressed charges against that arsehole!"

Shuichi shook his head. "Come on Hiro, it would have finished Bad Luck… and it would have finished Yuki. Even I've watched enough of those US courtroom dramas to know what the defence lawyers would have raked up to get Aizawa off…"

Hiro gazed helplessly at him for a moment before finally surrendering. Then he stepped closer, a small smile tugging at his lips. "What's that in your lap, man? A book? Are you feeling all right?"

Mutely Shuichi held it out for Hiro to read the cover. His friend gave a low whistle and shook his head. "Shuichi…"

"I know; I know…" Shuichi sighed wearily. "I thought maybe if I read one of his books I'd understand him better and maybe it'd all make sense, and then I'd finally get him out of my system…"

"Did it work?"

"Nah." Shuichi stroked his hand across the book and sighed again. "I mean, he writes in this really cool way, you know, it sort of feels like a dream… like you're there, in this world he's created… it's like a song, in a way… I thought I wouldn't understand it, but it's so clear… shit, it's no wonder he used to laugh at my lyrics! But… but it's so sad, Hiro!" He felt a lump gather in his throat. "It's as if he thinks love ruins people's lives! This man and woman… they try so hard and yet they just end up hurting each other again and again… and anyone they trust seems to betray them…"

He closed his eyes and put the book down on the table beside him. "It makes me feel like I really didn't know him! Mika-san was right to warn me! I was wasting my time!"

"Shuichi…" Hiro came to kneel beside him.

Shuichi shook his head. "What's wrong with me, Hiro? I still love him! How can I still love him?"

"Shu, it's only been three months! No-one expects you to get over him that fast!"

"But how can I love someone like that? After what he did? It hurt me so much – it hurt even more than – than the – " he swallowed hard. "I mean, they only hurt my body! He…"

"You don't know that's why he left," Hiro protested, "come on, Shu, it's like you said, you don't know anything about him!"

Shuichi hardly heard him. "Yuki was always nicest to me when we had sex," he murmured distantly, "he never said anything mean while we were in bed…" It was odd how he could now talk so frankly to Hiro about this, while when he and Yuki were still together he would have squirmed with embarrassment at the very thought. But after all, it was Hiro who had seen him first after the assault – Hiro who had comforted him and helped him… get clean… and what did it matter after all? What was left between himself and Yuki that was sacred? "Maybe the sex was no fun anymore, after I'd been… maybe that's why he dumped me again…"

"From what you told me," Hiro said slowly, "it sounded more like he blamed himself for what happened, not you…"

Shuichi shook his head. Hiro was only saying what he thought Shuichi wanted to hear, and that was no good. What he wanted, what he really wanted, was the truth. It didn't matter how harsh or how bitter that truth might be.

Turning his head away so that Hiro could not see his face, Shuichi drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Hiro…"

"Yeah?"

"If… if you had a girl who got… who got… if some man…"

"I get you," Hiro said quickly.

"Would you still want to… you know… I mean, would it put you off?"

"Shu-kun, I just said – "

"No, I mean, would you still want to?" Shuichi rolled his eyes, realising he had no choice but to just come straight out with it. "The last time we were together… after he took me home – I mean, back to his place, after he'd got the film back and everything… he didn't… oh shit… you know… he didn't. I mean we did some things, but he didn't… I mean, if a girl had… would it put you off? Come on, Hiro, who the hell else am I going to ask about this? My dad? My mum? K-san for God's sake?"

"No," Hiro answered finally, though not with enough certainty for Shuichi's taste. "No… or at least… no, I don't think so. But if someone had forced her… I might be… nervous, you know. Scared of hurting her. It wouldn't be easy. I'd be angry… and guilty… for not protecting her… oh come on," he continued with more energy, "it was the day after it happened! Yuki-san wouldn't have wanted to hurt you! Not unless he was a total and complete bastard, or some kind of super-weird pervert or something!"

Shuichi didn't answer. Scared… angry… guilty… he tried to imagine Yuki feeling any of those emotions in regard to the assault on his lover but he couldn't. The only person Yuki had seemed angry at was Shuichi, for dressing up in that stupid, stupid, stupid outfit. In light of what had happened next, even his clobbering of Maa-kun and his getting back the film seemed more selfish than heroic. If Aizawa had gone ahead and published those pictures – even if they had been published by accident – the scandal might have got around to Yuki eventually.

If Yuki was really angry about what had been done to me, Shuichi thought with a surge of rancour, he would have beaten Aizawa to death. It's what I would've done if anyone hurt Yuki. Maa-kun probably just got in the way.

He started slightly as Hiro took the book he was clutching so tightly and looked thoughtfully down at it. "You know I've read a couple of his books too… before you met him… you're right, he's got a great style, but his stories always have depressing endings – well, the chicks who love his stuff would call them "tragic", but I'd just call them plain depressing - or almost always…" Slowly he lifted his eyes to meet Shuichi's. "You remember Cool? The one he had published after you two started living together?"

"I remember him complaining about his deadlines," Shuichi couldn't help a faint smile. It was amazing how he could still conjure memories of Yuki that did not make him want to cry – or punch the wall in fury. "And about the editing. And the cover art. Oh, yeah, and the title…"

"I read that one too. I guess it was seeing those little fan-girls going all gooey over it that made me give his stuff another go… or maybe it was my best friend having a fling with the author…"

"What was it about?" Shuichi rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me – some family feud in Imperial Japan ending in misery and violent death?"

Hiro flashed him a quick grin, but then his gaze softened and he passed the book back to Shuichi. "Actually it was set in modern Tokyo. It was all about the lives of a couple of professionals who were completely committed to the modern single life – you know, sleeping around, no commitments, clubbing, drinking, that sort of crap – and how they screwed up their own lives just because they were completely bored and had no faith in anything. And guess what? It has a happy ending! He gives his main lovers the chance of a happy future! Think about it, man," Hiro pressed when Shuichi failed to react as he was evidently expected to, "he wrote that when he was with you! Don't you think that means something?"

"Like what?" Shuichi eyed his friend doubtfully.

"Like… that he'd changed his mind? That maybe… he was happy with you?"

Shuichi stared at Hiro without blinking. Then he looked away, shaking his head. He did not want to hear that. Not now. The memory of his conversation with Tatsuha still haunted him, infecting his dreams… the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, if he had gone to Kyoto he and Yuki might now be together after all…

"Hey!" Sensitive to his mood as always, Hiro nudged him playfully. "How about we go somewhere and forget all about this for a while? There's a new club opened not far from here… no old memories - guaranteed!"

"Yeah," Shuichi managed a weak smile. "Yeah! Why not?"


After several drinks, he was just getting into the spirit of things when he thought he heard someone shout his lover's name.

He spun round, half expecting to see Yuki Eiri standing there, gazing sardonically across at him, but instead he found himself staring at a tall, curvaceous girl in a skin-tight yellow dress who was smiling confidently at him.

Waving aside the person who had evidently been calling to her, she moved a little closer to Shuichi. "Hi," she said cheerfully, "my name's Buki! Listen… don't laugh at me or anything, but… you're Shindou Shuichi, aren't you? The lead singer out of Bad Luck?"

Shuichi hesitated. The last time he had answered yes to such a question from a girl far younger and less worldly than this Buki, he had been chased by a rampant mob – straight into the arms of Aizawa Taki. "I…"

"Hey, it's okay; I'm not going to start screaming and tearing off your clothes…" Buki reassured him with an engaging grin, "not that I wouldn't like to… I just wanted to say I think you're really cool and your music totally rocks!"

Shuichi couldn't help smiling at the compliment – or blushing at the earlier suggestion. "It's – uh – it's great to meet you, Buki-san, but I… uh…"

"I'm sorry," Buki sighed, "I guess I'm a bit full-on for some guys, but meant what I said – I really do like your music. I saw you when you débuted supporting Ask…"

Shuichi felt his heart sink. "I suppose you're a fan of them too?"

Buki made a face. "Nah they suck," she stated bluntly. "Well, I guess they're not that bad, but that Aizawa gives me the creeps…" When Shuichi stared at her, she actually blushed a little. "Look, I'm sorry, if he's a friend of yours…"

"Not exactly," Shuichi answered, and found himself warming to this girl. "Listen; can I – uh – buy you a drink or something? Or would you like to dance?"

Buki grinned. "Which one first?"

He liked Buki. He liked her sense of humour and her spirited, devil-may-care attitude. He liked it so much that when she kissed him and asked him if he wanted to come home with her, he actually found himself considering it. But when they got outside into the cold air and were alone and she wanted to kiss him again, he began to have doubts.

Once again, Buki seemed to know exactly what was on his mind, or got close enough to it for it not to matter. "Hey, look, I really like you and I just think we could have some fun, Shuichi… no strings, okay? If you've got a girlfriend or something, that's your business."

"I haven't… not exactly…" Shuichi answered truthfully. So why did he feel like he was cheating on Yuki? The very thought angered him. "Hell, I'm being an idiot!"

"No, you're not," Buki answered, a grave look suddenly settling on her pretty face as she slipped her arms around his neck, "you're being… very sweet."

She kissed him again, and then she took him home.

It didn't take Buki long to realise Shuichi was a virgin, at least where women were concerned. It astonished and delighted her, but she was kind and they had a good time together. Her body was soft and warm, both outside and in. He liked the feel of her full breasts, her yielding thighs and her silky skin. It was all far too different from anything he had experienced with Yuki that there were no sudden unpleasant flashes of memory to throw him off.

In the morning they went out to a café for breakfast and she gave him her number, telling him to phone when he felt like it. She had it all so easy – there was almost no effort required at all. He liked that most of all.

There were several other Bukis after that, as well as more nights out with the original one. He made sure they were Bukis – girls who wanted a night of fun and nothing else. He avoided fan-girls and girls who looked as though they might start to care for him. He couldn't stand the thought of breaking their hearts. As for men – he was approached once or twice, usually by fans, but he could not stand the thought of being touched by any man but Yuki so he politely – sometimes impolitely - declined.

Sex, without love or commitment. It had worked for Yuki. Maybe it could work for Shuichi too.

Yet even as he was locked in the throes of the most mindless, meaningless passion, somewhere deep inside he was still conscious of a void – of some vital missing part, torn out of him when Yuki had gone. And when the ecstasy was over, where once there would have been music, there was now nothing to be heard but the soft breathing of another and the pounding of his own heart.


TBC: During one lonely night, both Eiri and Shuichi find themselves haunted by memories of happier times…