Chapter 10

Saku woke up very cold on one side and very warm on the other. It wasn't an unusual state for him, seeing as he spent most his nights on the couch. What was unusual was the type of warmth. It wasn't couch-retaining-body-heat warmth; it was human-body-generating-own-body-heat warmth. Saku sat up with a start, taking in his surroundings as the source of heat rolled away. Saku hadn't kicked off his covers in the mid-November night, for there were no covers. He was occupying Taira's bed, or rather, his mattress. The sheets that were once on the bed were resting in a dishevelled mess in the corner of the room, as well as the pillows. Saku vaguely remembered how he had wound up here.

____

Footfalls and a looming presence made Saku stir and open his dark eyes. When he did, he took in the dark silhouette of Ryuusuke kneeling beside him.

"I can't sleep." Ryuusuke's breath still smelled strongly of vodka as it rolled over Saku's face. "It…it smells like Taira," his voice wavered; something it had been doing a lot lately. Saku got off the couch and walked into Taira's bedroom rather unsteadily. He grabbed the sheets and threw them on the floor. The pillows fell to the floor as well.

"Better?" Saku questioned. Ryuusuke looked at him as if he'd just walked on water and in the little light that shone into the room from the light into the hall.

"Can you…?" Ryuusuke started and suddenly grabbed Saku's wrist, effectively dragging the drummer onto the bed with him.

"What?"

"Just stay with me."

"Oh…yeah okay; all you had to do was ask." Saku's heart was hammering in his chest from the fear of Ryuusuke asking him for something he couldn't possibly give.

"I just did," Ryuusuke answered, lying down. Saku just shook his head and lay down beside the onyx-haired guitarist. He'd be lying if he'd said the arm Ryuusuke wrapped around him was totally unexpected, but it still surprised him. Ryuusuke's breathing evened out as he clutched Saku to him, holding on as if he was a crucifix. Saku didn't care, and as the night went on, it was surprisingly calming.

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Ryuusuke groaned and rolled back towards Saku, eyes still closed. He nuzzled into Saku's hip.

"Do you have a hangover?" Saku asked, trying to sound nonchalant. The question was really intended to drag Ryuusuke into reality.

It did the trick.

Ryuusuke's eyes snapped open. "N-no, I don't," he stammered, a furious blush rising in his pale cheeks, "I'm…I'm really sorry. I thought you were-" he cut himself off as he pressed the heel of his right palm into his eye. "My eyes really hurt though."

"I believe there are still eye-drops in the medicine cabinet from Taira's short-lived affair with contact lenses."

"What?" Ryuusuke grinned in spite of himself, "I thought he only needed them for reading."

"Oh he does, but he tried these red ones for Halloween. It didn't work too well. His eyes totally rejected them."

"Well then, I think I'll track these eye drops down," Ryuusuke told him, picking his jeans and t-shirt up off the floor before retreating into the washroom.

Saku rubbed his face tiredly as he tried not to make a deal of what had just happened. "It was just an accident. You didn't even know where you were at first…" became his whispered mantra as he walked into the living room in search of his own shirts and jeans.

The ensuing day was essentially one that produced itself in vain. Aside from phone calls from Taira's parents, dealing with funeral arrangements and Taira's belongings, Saku was going to keep the apartment if he could, because he already lived there and he could pay the full rent himself easily with his part-time carpentry job he had just acquired. The thing that made Saku want to keep it so badly was the fact that it reminded him of Taira; In fact, every room he stepped in screamed Taira. Although the very thought made an uncomfortable lump form in the base of his throat, Saku knew he'd regret it immensely if he sold the place. The apartment also made him feel safe, just as Taira had.

Tears welled in Saku's eyes as he realized his personification of stability and security had been ripped out of his life. Saku frustratedly wiped the stubborn tears on the back of his hand until his hand grew so wet that the attempt to continue was futile. Why did this only seem to get worse? He hated it. He absolutely hated it: the dull ache in his heart, his stomach. It seemed to haunt him constantly.

Ryuusuke looked over to the kitchen from his seat on the couch; he was trying to forget how to think by numbing his mind with television.

"Are you ok?" Ryuusuke asked concerned. Which was almost comical because Saku was not okay, and neither was Ryuusuke. Saku was supposed to be the one asking that question. Ryuusuke had lost the love of his life; Saku had only lost a brother... But wasn't that one in the same? Saku's head spun while his world became wet, hot and blurry. He felt Ryuusuke's arms encircle him, but didn't have room left for anymore emotion to feel whenever Ryuusuke got too close. All he felt was a sense of extreme loss, which was stupid because he should have felt this yesterday. Goddamn his retarded emotions. He buried his head into Ryuusuke's shoulder and the only words that he could drudge up to explain his actions or the storm inside of him were almost incomprehensible sobs.

"I miss him. I miss him so much…" Those words didn't lessen what he was experiencing and they felt so very small to what was going on inside of him. Saku clenched his fists on the fabric of Ryuusuke's shirt. Ryuusuke responded by running his fingers through Saku's coarse, long hair, along his scalp, murmuring words of comfort as a mother would to her chid distraught with a nightmare.

When Saku recollected himself and relinquished his death grip on Ryuusuke, he apologized.

"If you actually are sorry, I'm offended," Ryuusuke told him.

"Why?" Saku asked confusedly, almost angrily. He wasn't in the mood to be jerked around.

"I like to try and help people close to me, and if you're sorry that I comforted you than I think I have the obligation to be offended." A mischievous glint was buried under the hurt and seriousness in Ryuusuke's eyes.

"Wise-ass," Saku told him with no real heat. He could tell Ryuusuke was just sick of the sorrow he was experiencing as he was. Saku didn't want to equate Taira with unbearable sadness; He wanted to equate him with Beck, with music, with a sense of security.

"C'mon, let's go ice our brains with TV," Ryuusuke offered. Saku couldn't agree more.

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Taira's parents didn't want a visitation; their perspective was identical to Ryuusuke's in that matter. Taira wasn't with them anymore, so to keep looking at his body would only serve as more self-inflicted pain. They wanted to get his body in the ground as a show of respect, but really, everything was pointless to Ryuusuke. There were a lot of people he didn't know at the funeral service, which didn't surprise him. His own parents came to the service and it comforted Ryuusuke to see his mother. Eddie also made an appearance, showing his support for his childhood friend and Ryuusuke appreciated, but couldn't help but feel a little awkward around the lead guitarist of Dying Breed due to obvious circumstances.

Ryuusuke kept it together for the most part, even when Koyuki, Saku, Chiba Taira's step-father, Saitou and he were carrying Taira's casket to the grave. That was Chiba's breaking point, and Ryuusuke almost lost it when he heard the singer in front of him sob. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ryuusuke had to admit he found it interesting that different people were set off by different things. Of course, he'd always known that somehow, but the fact that something as small as an action or word could trigger such powerful emotions was still captivating at the moment. Ryuusuke was totally blind-sided by his emotions when at last came the moment when Taira was being lowered into the cold, dark ground.

Overwhelming despair captured him as he realized that this was it. That this was the moment they'd been leading up to; the last goodbye. And it wasn't even a good one, for how could it be when Taira – with the guarded sense of longing that was always within his dark brown eyes when they parted – wasn't even present? He was gone. Long gone already and he hadn't even gotten to say goodbye. Anguished tears were only too eager to come out once again. But Ryuusuke as far past the point of caring.

He surrendered and almost willingly accepted the fact that the uninvited yet not totally unwelcome tears would keep visiting, knocking impatiently on the doors of his soul. All at once everything became so utterly bleak that the only person in Ryuusuke's life who would be able to find true beauty in it was being lowered slowly into the semi-frozen November earth.

"Taira," he murmured, so beneath his breath that only the people directly at his sides, Koyuki and Saku, could possibly hear him. "Oh Taira, Taira, Taira…" he continued in one, forsaken tone, head bowed. One by one, people began to leave; the funeral was now officially over. It was already 5:30pm and Chiba was gently, but firmly, tugging on Ryuusuke's elbow.

"C'mon man. We have to go. We can come back first thing tomorrow if you want."

But Ryuusuke didn't want to. He didn't want anything, for the only thing that he'd ever wanted had been unexpectedly ripped from his grasp, while all he could do was cry. But the crying did nothing. He felt as if he were a balloon with a leak, unable to just deflate in just one quick go. He wondered vaguely, as he walked to the waiting car, if he would always feel this way. He was sure a part of him would and that almost made him feel complete somehow. Complete in his incompleteness.

As he gazed out the window at the dull, darkening sky, he heard Koyuki tentatively ask, "What's going to happen to Beck?" in a sad voice.

Ryuusuke didn't abandon his gaze on the bleak sky but shook his head all the same. "I don't know right now. I really don't know." Inwardly he sighed, for, if this was the first step, the funeral that is, then he could foresee many more before they reached a semblance of what could be Beck. He also knew that Chiba, Saku and Koyuki all had what it took to reach that point.

'With or without you Taira' he though grudgingly, accepting yet determined, 'With or without you'.