Disclaimer: Gravitation is Maki Murakami's marvelous brain-child, not mine. No profit here, unless pleasure counts.

Summary: The title says it all.

Reviews: My thanks to all who read and especially to those who take the time to review. Review responses for these last two chapters will be made in private or appear in the review section. Somehow...I just didn't want to break the mood.

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Yushu
Chapter 12:
Coming Home
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He'd never seen anything so beautiful.

All these months he'd had his precious slideshow, but the best photographers armed with top of the line cameras couldn't hope to capture the magic of that sweet face.

Shuuichi was asleep. Hardly a surprise, though the naturally curved, pillow-hugging attitude was, a bit, considering the chemical cocktail running in his veins. In the curve of his body, under the covers, was another lump, a lump that achieved, at the right angle, a furry black head pillowed on Shuuichi's arm.

It was, Eiri was almost sorry to note, one of his Shu's non-drooling nights. He rather liked the loopy, drooling, grinning-in-his-sleep Shuuichi. That was Shuuichi at his happiest. This was Shuuichi with a hint of sadness. There was a slight tension in the lower lip, evidence that the hidden, sparkling white teeth had captured a bit of that vulnerable flesh and were holding it hostage.

It was a Shuuichi neglected too long, the Shuuichi he'd find waiting for him following an overlong sprint to a deadline.

The vision blurred, fractured as Eiri blinked the dampness from his eyes. Time was he'd fall into that bed, kiss the sadness away and awake the neglected body for a violent but mutually satisfying union before falling into a near coma for forty-eight hours, a drooling, smiling Shuuichi held captive in his arms.

But not this time. He had neither the right, nor the inclination.

Oh, he wanted him. His body ached to feel that tempered torso pressed against him, the dancer's butt embracing his aching cock, the sweet mouth opening to his tongue...but Shuuichi had to be given the choice. Not just for Shuuichi's sake, but for his own. He had to know that Shuuichi still wanted him, not out of pity, not out of habit, not out of some stupid sense of loyalty, but out of love.

Foolish, some would say, to doubt. Shuuichi declared his love so openly, who could possibly doubt it? But it had been more than seven months. He'd been humiliated, then abruptly deserted. Oh, he'd be welcome in that bed, he had no doubt, he loved the sex as much Eiri did, but Shuuichi was all those things as well: tender-hearted, loyal...and yes, stupidly, blindly so. Eiri didn't want blind loyalty, he wanted facts on the table, warts and all love.

He knew that now.

He only hoped he'd be able to tell the difference.

Eiri lowered himself into a chair beside the window, exhausted, not just from the flight but from the million and one versions of his reunion with Shuuichi that had played out in his mind ever since he'd booked the flight back to Japan, none of which remotely matched his current reality.

And yet, somehow, at the moment, none of that mattered; not the doubts, not the whim of fate. Somehow, at the moment, he wanted nothing so much as to watch Shuuichi breathe.

His bones settled gratefully into the soft cushions. The chair was new...or at least purchased since he'd left. It was...very Shuuichi. Too large...at least for the diminutive singer, it fit him (he settled his butt another comfortable degree) quite well, thank you. He could easily imagine sitting here, book in hand, Shuuichi curled...just so in his lap.

He smiled at the gentle fantasy, wondering whether Shuuichi had had the same dream, there in the store, when he'd chosen this chair. He let his head fall back into the cushions, tilting his face toward Shuuichi, unable to stop looking at him, though his eyes burned, the lids falling to half-mast...

He awoke with a start. A hissing protest and sharp pain in his leg warned against further movement.

Yushu had joined him in the chair, a Yushu several times the size he'd been when last he'd occupied that position. And not an ounce of fat on him: obviously he and Shuuichi had continued to keep each other in tip-top condition.

"Remember me, do you?" he murmured, scratching the expectant chin, and received a purr and kneading claws in answer. The cat settled, and he turned his attention to the rest of the lump in his bed.

Shuuichi stirred and rolled over, a bare shoulder and back peaking out from the covers. That was different. Shuuichi always wore a shirt of some kind to bed, though it didn't always remain in place. His nipples were ridiculously sensitive to cold...

Eiri's groin tightened as his palms remembered those tiny puckered mounds, his ears the smothered squeal as his memory-self endeavored to calm the multitudinous nerve endings with warming breath and mouth.

Sometimes, he'd just smashed the mounds against the hard muscle beneath and the kid would scream—right before they both exploded.

It was a testament of just how tired he was that his reaction to that memory only marginally disturbed the cat sitting on his lap.

Yushu, never content with his bony knees for long anyway, stretched and wound a sinuous path across window sills and bedside table, back to Shuuichi...all without walking on the brat... appearing again in front of that precious little upturned nose that was half-drowned in overlong pink hair, worming his way back under the covers and into the arms of his beloved human familiar.

Shuuichi murmured something and curled a degree tighter, pulling the now-content cat close.

Then came the sound guaranteed to break through Eiri's best defenses.

Shuuichi was crying.

Not the wailing he expected all those around him to ignore, but the near-silent, private sobs that only came when he was truly suffering.

And Yuki Eiri's defenses were far from at their best.

"Shu-chan?" he murmured, and shifted position to perch gingerly on the side of the bed, reaching across to touch that bare shoulder. He hadn't meant for it to happen this way, but perhaps it was best: sleep as well as chemicals would buffer the shock of his unannounced reappearance.

"Yu...ki ..." That sleep-filled murmur...god, how well he knew it, how often in the past months he'd heard it in his dearest dreams. Shuuichi recognized his touch past all the barriers of sleep. He always had. From that first night spent on his couch.

Crying in his sleep. Crying because of dreams. Dreams of...him. He stroked the soft skin and the supple body twisted around, slender arms raised in dream-driven supplication.

Eiri resisted that unconscious plea, for all the denial twisted his heart. Hiro had insisted there was still room for him in Shuuichi's life. He wanted desperately to believe that. But damned if he'd compromise—

"So, what's a man gotta do to get a kiss around here?"

He jumped, and a giggle happened from that supposedly dreaming body.

"Shuuichi...I ..."

Like living liquid, Shuuichi flowed up and over him, wrapping bare arms around his neck, pulling him tight for a kiss that was anything but sleepy or drug-hazed. He responded with all the denied need of months filled with far too much self-evaluation.

"I never thought—" The hungry mouth latched onto his released him long enough to gasp. "—I'd forget—how good—you—"

The mouth broke away, Shuuichi's slender hands clenched in his shirt, holding him steady for a wide-eyed perusal.

Those eyes closed, and Shu leaned close, inhaling deeply. Eiri held steady, suspecting the reason. More of those deep breaths, sniffing him like the puppy Shu sometimes resembled. The slender body stretched around him to grab the coat he'd draped over the chair back and pull it into Shuuichi's lap. More sniffing, a search of the pockets that turned up the stickered lighter Yuki would never willingly part with, but nothing else...

Well, a half-finished pack of Wrigley's Spearmint, but that hardly counted.

Or maybe it did.

Shuuichi, holding that packet of gum in one hand like some kind of talisman, grabbed Eiri's shirt with the other and pulled him close to press their lips together again, his tongue brushing lightly, a request Eiri granted willingly enough.

A brief exploration, and his mouth was his own again.

Shuuichi released his shirt to drop back to the bed, crosslegged, still mostly hidden by blankets and Eiri's coat. Fortunately. Eiri wasn't certain he had the fortitude to resist the full view: the brat was totally bare, and those overly sensitive nipples weren't the only body parts standing at attention.

Although that more southerly excitement had evidently eased with this new fascination in a package of gum. One piece carefully removed and unwrapped, disappeared slowly...god, seductively...into that intoxicating mouth. Bright eyes closed as the jaw worked in slow motion. Six...seven...he found himself counting the number of contractions. Then, in one, smooth motion, Shuuichi slipped the gum out, into the wrapper, and pulled him close into a full-open kiss, sharing that initial burst of flavor, so refreshing, so quickly gone.

When one depended on the gum to retain it. As an appetizer for essential Shuuichi...that burst was more than sufficient.

Shuuichi broke free and buried his face in Yuki's neck.

"You quit. You truly, truly quit. I don't even taste the patch."

"I truly, truly quit."

Those small, surprisingly strong hands balled in his sleeves and Shuuichi pulled back to look at him seriously.

"And you're okay with it?"

He didn't answer too fast, knowing Shuuichi wanted an honest answer, but the truth came easily. Now.

"More than okay." He leaned forward to kiss Shuuichi lightly. "Especially now. I had no idea just how good you tasted."

He chuckled. "The gum—"

"Not the gum, baka. You."

That got him. More near mindless devouring as Shuuichi's bare body rose out of the rainbow patterned (not of his choosing!) sheets, rather like Venus rising from the waters...or perhaps cupid...or perhaps—

Fuck metaphores.

He gave himself up to that mouth, letting his hands find and warm the smooth, tight flesh of Shuuichi's butt and back, reveling in the revival of his most treasured sensual memories, yet all the time thinking something was wrong—

He shoved the brat down onto the bed, pulled the covers up over him to both hide the view and hold him captive.

"You're clean!"

"Well...yeah. I took a shower—"

"Not that kind of clean. There's a whole chemical cocktail out there that should have had you dumber than dirt. This—" he gave the blanketed erection a gentle nudge with his knee, "should be damnwell impossible."

"Uh...well ..." Shuuichi looked away, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

"You didn't take them."

"Uh...well...yeah, I did."

"Good...god. They're placebos."

"Huh?"

"Sugar pills. Fakes."

"Uh...well ..."

"Dammit, how dare they?"

"Uh...well ..."

"You knew?"

"Uh...well ..."

Suddenly, he realized. "You little snake!"

Frantic eyes met his. "I had to, Yuki! It...it was my last chance. I knew you'd hear, if you weren't watching. I knew you'd come back, if you could. If you wanted to." Small hands forced their way free of the sheets to grip his wrists. "I waited, Yuki, as long as I could. I gave you time to sort things out. I didn't ask K to find you. But I...it was getting harder and harder. I didn't know, was it truly over between us. I couldn't wait any longer. Hiro asked did I want to send for you, but I didn't. I didn't want to. I wanted you to come back on your own. You had to come back because you decided."

Yushu jumped up on the bed, and slipped between them to pat Shuuichi's face reassuringly. Shuuichi's right hand left his wrist to stroke the cat. The cat who had been there for him all these months, who'd joined him in the hospital.

The hospital.

"You wanted an answer," Eiri said flatly. "So you faked a collapse."

Shuuichi winced and Yushu glared up at Eiri accusingly. Eiri glared back.

"Not...not faked, Yuki, just...finally stopped fighting." The impish excitement that had filled Shuuichi's face faded, leaving behind the strain that had obviously prompted that offer from Hiro.

Shuuichi worked his way free of the restraining covers and hugged the cat close. The cat, with the ease of a much-practiced routine, began to purr and rubbed the top of his head against Shuuichi's chin, bringing a slow, tired smile to the gentle face. Brilliant purple eyes lowered, their telltale emotion hidden behind long-lashed lids.

"I asked the sensei to...pretend. Sort of. At least to make the reports worst case instead of best...then asked her to pretend with the drugs, too...just for a week. She didn't want to, but I'd seen, with you, how hard it is to balance all those things, and I didn't want to be that way, if... I wanted to give you time to get here. I...I had to have the fakes so they—all of them, Hiro, Seguchi-san...all of them...would believe ..." The strained recitation drifted off into a whispered apology—of sorts. "I—I guess I'm sorry, Yuki. It probably wasn't fair. I...No, dammit, I'm not." His head tipped back and his eyes were bright again, his lips pressed together in tight determination. "I love you, Yuki. You love me—I know you do even if you don't say it. If you've solved that smoking thing, and the hitting thing, then there's no reason for us to be apart. If I hadn't collapsed, would you have come back?"

Not a shallow question.

He answered slowly..."If you'd asked ..."

"If I'd come begging, you mean. Well, I'm not begging. Yeah, I want to be with you, but only if you want to be here. You came back because you chose to. Stay or leave, but do it because it's what you want."

"What I want? God, no one's ever asked me that."

"Because you've made a lifelong habit of taking things. You don't give anybody much of a chance to offer, now do you?"

"Point to the man with pink hair." He reached out to fingercomb the strands in question. The tousled mop glowed in a way only Shuuichi's haphazard dye jobs with over-the-counter products could achieve. NG's expensive stylists had found that out the hard way, when their carefully applied top of the line dyes went flat and dull. Haphazard glow. So quintessentially Shuuichi. "I want—I always wanted, I think, even from that first time I brought you home—to see your smile. To wallow in your laughter. Now...I still want you to be happy, but I want you safe, too. And I was the greatest danger. We dealt with a lot more than just smoking at the clinic, and I wish I could say I had the doctors' confidence that I'm ready to be here."

Yushu jumped suddenly free and Shuuichi sat back, crosslegged, tapping his index fingers together, the way he would when thinking. Finally: "How long have you been clean?"

He pressed his lips together, not wanting to confess that part, not wanting Shuuichi to know how long ago he might have been back.

"Let's put it this way." Shuuichi revised, evidently sensing that truth. "How long since they wanted to kick you out?"

He chuckled. "That I can answer. I was admitted...what, six months ago? I'd say they probably wanted to kick me out five months and some twenty-nine days ago. The tobacco, the alcohol, those were the easy part, Shu. The rest...well, I had to deal with a lot of stupid crap."

The tapping paused, and without looking up: "Was I...part of that stupid crap?"

"Only in that I was trying to fathom why I ever treated you the way I did." He reached for Shuuichi's hands and held them, running his thumb across the blue veins and soft skin, curiously relieved, now the time had come, that he'd come home to such a sane, aware Shuuichi. "Can we go out to the couch, Shu? I...I have some explaining to do, and I don't think I can do it here, with you...like that."

Shuuichi stared at him, then freed his hands to cup Eiri's face for a gentle kiss, lips brushing lips.

"Hand me a robe, will you?"

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Shuuichi settled on the couch, curled against Yuki's side, a cup of Yuki-prepared hot chocolate cradled between his palms, Yuki's arm around his shoulders and Yuki's low voice drifting through the air above his head.

"There was so much...so damned much I never understood from that time, Shu. I knew, in the strange way of the terminally naïve, that I was somehow the source of controversy between Touma and Yuki. Not at first, of course: Touma would never have hired someone he didn't trust. Nittle Grasper was rising fast at that time, and Touma was often on the road or in Japan recording. When he was away, Yuki lived in Touma's New York apartment, my companion 24/7. Touma gave me a...shall we say generous expense account, and Yuki took full advantage of the opportunity. We had a tremendous time together. Museums, the theater, ballet...and he taught me to appreciate everything...from the theater and history to fine wine, good scotch and cigars—"

"But, you were just sixteen." Shuuichi objected, relieved, if he were honest, to have something to object to, resenting the hint of longing in Yuki's voice as he recounted those long-ago days with Kitizawa.

"Yuki had...interesting friends, Shu. My age wasn't an issue, the places he took me."

"Oh ..." he said, feeling very lost, having nothing in his own background that could begin to help him understand what Yuki must have seen and felt, all those years ago. He drained his mug, avoiding Yuki's eyes, wishing he were smart, wishing he could have shared those things with Yuki, wishing—

He felt lips on his forehead and glanced up to find Yuki smiling down at him.

"I'd give anything," Yuki said softly, "to do it all again. Not the Scotch and cigar bars, but all the rest."

He drew away, hurt beyond all reason, and Yuki chuckled, drawing him close for a chaste kiss. "With you, baka. I'd love to show it all to you. Will you let me? Someday? Hopefully someday soon?"

Go to New York? To the museums and the plays? With Yuki?

Another of those warm chuckles and gentle fingers brushing the hair from his eyes that seemed frozen on Yuki's face.

"I'm warning you, it wouldn't be all fun and games. You'll have to learn English to appreciate the plays and musicals. You might have to wear a suit. Maybe even a tux."

He blinked at last and tears threatened. "I...I'll walk naked down Broadway, if it's..." His voice failed. He dropped the empty mug and twisted to wrap his arms around Yuki's neck, drawing Yuki down for another, not-so-chaste kiss. Yuki groaned and responded with interest. Soon, tears were the last thing on Shuuichi's mind.

"Shu..." Yuki's voice pierced the buzz in Shuuichi's ears. He whimpered, ignoring it, far too interested in the smooth chest currently occupying his two functioning neurons.

"Shu." Yuki's quiet, authoritative voice persisted, and Yuki's strong, big hands engulfed his, cutting him off from that skin he'd ached for for months. "This is important."

He pulled free and wrapped his arms around Yuki, squeezing as hard as he could, pressing his wet face into that beloved chest, gasping after breath, still not quite able to believe the man in his arms was real and not just one more empty dream.

Yuki said nothing more. Not with his voice. His hands traced a soothing path across the robe that still protected his back, and slowly, Shuuichi regained control, of his breathing and of his body. He sighed and curled up into Yuki's lap, unwilling to relinquish any more contact than absolutely necessary.

Yuki silently arranged the robe, an oversized Yuki-robe, back around him, and when he was hidden, Yuki's hand brushed his hair back and cupped his face, and Yuki kissed him gently, then whispered against his lips. "Where was I, baka?"

He shivered at the beloved insult that made so much right in the world, and whispered back: "Scotch and cigars."

"Right." Another brush of his lips, then Yuki's hand pressed his head to Yuki's chest, and Yuki's chin nestled lightly in his hair. "Yeah, I was underage, but I didn't think much of it. I still don't think, in principle, that it was a bad thing. At a time when most teenagers are faking ids and raiding their parents' liquor cabinet for kicks, Yuki was teaching me, among other things, how to drink responsibly. Single malt scotch and cigars were the in thing, at the time. I learned to drink slowly and savor the shifting flavors, and most importantly to stop when the flavors ceased to fascinate. It wasn't until...after...that the smoking and drinking began to rule my life."

"Why, Yuki?" He could barely manage a whisper, the question frightened him so much. Or rather, Yuki's probable reaction frightened. That reaction had prevented him asking for months, even before Yuki left—ever since Yuki told him about his dead tutor, but it had never made sense..."Why did he do such a thing? He was an employee. You were his charge. Surely he didn't think he could get away with it."

But his fears proved groundless. Yuki's arms held steady, his voice calm as he answered:

"Cut to the heart, don't you, my not-so-baka-brat? I don't know why I should be surprised...You've always seen me more clearly than anyone else. That's one of the things I believe I finally sorted out—at least to my own satisfaction. And the real reason I couldn't let it go, and the source of all the anger. The betrayal never made sense, so I could never just leave it behind in the past where it belonged."

A shiver rippled through Yuki and Shuuichi tightened his hold. A shaky breath rippled his hair and Yuki continued:

"In the hospital this time, I remembered details. Important details. Things that happened before...and after. Things I'd never linked before."

There was another pause and Shuuichi just waited. Talking about himself had never come easy to Yuki, and it appeared, despite all this time with the doctors, it was still difficult.

Fortunately, he thought, rubbing his face lightly against Yuki's throat, he had all the time in the world. Now.

Yuki continued, softly: "Touma came home a day early from a tour to find the two of us—Yuki and me—on the couch...rather like you and I are now, except...Yuki's head was in my lap. I was reading aloud...I believe it was a French novel, though I don't really remember...and Yuki...it's hard for me to recall because, much as I hate to admit it, I wasn't particularly aware of it, had his hand...well, where it didn't belong."

"Not...aware?"

He looked up, surprised, to meet Yuki's wry smile.

"I was...very naïve."

"More than I was when we met?"

"Impossible."

He stuck his tongue out and shivered with pleasure when Yuki chuckled and tried to grab it, but he knew then that Yuki was lying, that ignorant as he, Shuuichi, had been at nineteen, at sixteen, sheltered and privately tutored, young Uesugi Eiri must have been utterly unprepared for what his tutor had in store for him.

"What happened, Yuki? When Touma found you?"

"Nothing, really." Yuki's arm tightened around him. "I remember Touma thanking him for his services and asking him to leave, very quietly. I didn't think much of it, didn't realize at the time that the quieter Touma is, the more dangerous he is. It was rather late to be sending Yuki home, but he rarely spent the night when Touma was in town. No, it was the next day, when Yuki didn't show up for our regular class sessions, that I began to sense something was wrong. Touma began to talk about returning to Japan, that I was old enough now to handle the school system and that my family missed me. He began to talk about college and the future, and never once mentioned Yuki."

"He'd fired him?"

"Yeah. Should've been obvious, even to me, but I kept thinking Yuki was just taking a vacation, that everything would be back to normal in a week or two. Then, on the third day after Touma returned, a neighbor handed me a note, while I was out walking. It was from Yuki, asking me to meet him in the park."

"Your dream ..."

Yuki's chin nodded against his hair. "I was late. Touma had chosen that day to have lunch at home and to discuss the plans for returning to Japan. I ran to the park as soon as Touma went back to his office. Yuki was waiting for me, reading under the tree, same as always. I began to apologize, to explain I'd been with Touma. I knew, even though he kept that sweet, plastered-on smile, that he was upset. Probably because I'd never really seen it on his face before."

He felt Yuki's weight shift, leaned back to meet Yuki's warm...loving...gaze. "You know, my adorable, clueless baka, I think that's what I love most about you."

Shuuichi tipped his head in question.

"That Touma-smile. That perfect, polite smile that means...nothing. We're surrounded by it every day...and you couldn't wear one if you tried."

"Sure I could."

"Couldn't."

He turned his lips upward, squinted his eyes...and burst out laughing as he suddenly imagined himself in a mirror.

And wonder of wonder...Yuki was laughing with him.

He shut up, staring. Yuki kissed him quickly. Gently. And he remembered to blink.

"See what I mean?" Yuki whispered against his lips.

Shuuichi gulped, feeling his control waver, and ducked his head down against Yuki's chest to escape those softly glowing, loving eyes. "Is that...is that when he took you to that place?"

"Yeah." Yuki's chest heaved in a long sigh. "He'd already been drinking. Had a bottle with him that he drank from as we walked. By the time we got there...he was pretty well plastered. Tried to get me to share another bottle, but some belated instinct kept me from accepting. I think...If I had...hell, I don't know what I'd've done. I've always had to be careful...very careful...with red wines and that one...gods it was cheap." A wry laugh interrupted Yuki's quiet voice. "Maybe if it hadn't been such foul-smelling stuff, I'd've joined him. Who knows? Anyway, I honestly believe that at one time he held me in some affection, but by that time I was reduced to a means of getting revenge on Touma, who had refused to give him a letter of recommendation, and had reported him to the authorities, and blackballed him with the agency through which he'd been hired."

"You never said anything about that before."

"I didn't know. I just finally pieced it together—all this fiction writing hasn't been wasted, I guess. Took me the better part of a decade, but I finally learned to add two and two and get crap. The clinic checked the agency for me and he's still in their record books: blackballed/deceased. Anything more was beyond the clinic's legal staff, so I'm still not certain I have the details right...someday maybe I'll actually ask Touma...but it's the only answer that makes sense, and one my gut seems content to accept. Selling me to those lowlifes was, I suspect, Yuki's means of totally humiliating me, of returning the ultimate in soiled goods to Touma. If it'd been him alone...hell, by that time, it would only have been rape in the eyes of the law. I'd've been in his arms in a heartbeat. Even if I hadn't fancied myself in love, I'd probably have run off with him, just to avoid going back to Japan."

"You hated Japan that much?" he asked softly, secretly filing that 'fancied myself in love' away in a special place in his heart. Yuki hadn't loved Kitizawa. Not really.

"I don't really know how to answer that, Shu. It's hard, now, to pull up the feelings, but I equated returning to Japan with leaving Yuki and the museums and the theater. All I remembered about Japan was the cruelty and bigotry that lurked behind every one of those plastered-on smiles."

"And...now? What...what did you remember this time? When you were in the American clinic?"

"Now?" He heard the smile in Yuki's voice. "Let me see. I remembered an annoying whine. Wet, clammy shirts."

"Yuki!" He punched the hard chest, and the smile turned into a warm chuckle, and Yuki's cheek pressed the top of his head.

"And smooth skin, an impossibly beautiful voice, humming above my head as I'm kissing that smooth skin. Ridiculous pink hair. Amethyst eyes." Yuki's hand beneath his chin urged him to lift his face. "And the most kissable mouth ever to taste of strawberry Pocky."

He stuck his tongue out again and Yuki's mouth closed over his, taking his tongue-tip into safe keeping. When Yuki lifted his head, Shuuichi realized he was humming.

"Told you," Yuki murmured, and Shuuichi giggled, as he felt the heat rise in his face. He lifted his hand and stroked Yuki's stubbled cheek.

"I...can't say I'm sorry, Yuki."

"What? That your lover was raped and turned into a murderer, all in the course of one rainy afternoon?"

"You know I don't mean that. But I'm not sorry that Yuki betrayed your trust instead of running away with you. I'm...I'm not even sure I regret the rest, though I feel very sorry for the boy you were and the pain you've lived with ever since."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"If you hadn't...gone through all that... how do I know you'd be...you? The Yuki I fell in love with, the Yuki I love, is the one who went through all that. I...don't know if I'd love a naïve, New York Yuki who didn't recognize a grope when it happened. I...I need the Yuki who became a novelist and thinks all those deep, dark thoughts, who writes characters people love and care about, but only lets me truly care about him. I need the Yuki who can't keep his hands off me one minute and throws me out the door the next. —You do realize all my best songs come out of those moments? Where would I be if you were just...nice? And if you were...nice...you wouldn't've said those awful things in the park and I wouldn't have been forced to go looking for you, and you'd never have insulted me and made me mad and kissed me and...all those things never would've happened if you'd been nice. You told me things I needed to hear...that I knew deep down inside were true. You made me admit that there was something more inside me to come out. You helped me find that and a Nice Yuki wouldn't have."

Yuki stared at him. Shuuichi chewed his lip, afraid he'd just made the biggest mistake of a mistake-filled life. Then, miraculously, Yuki hugged him very, very tight.

"I didn't think it was possible, brat," Yuki's voice whispered in his ear.

"Wh–what?"

"That anyone, anyone could make me feel the way I do at the moment."

"H–how's that, Yuki?"

"Happy. Utterly, totally content with the person I am. That it truly all was for some wonderful reason."

"What reason?"

"You little brat. You really expect me to say it?"

"Huh?"

"You're impossible, you know that? You simply cannot possibly be real, more, you can't belong to me."

"Well, I am. And I do. So ..." He poked a finger into Yuki's sensitive ribs. "Explain! What reason?"

"You."

He stared at Yuki, realized his mouth was hanging open and shut it. Suddenly, it hit him. "I'm your ..." What was it he'd said? "...wonderful reason?"

"All of my wonderful reasons. Gods, you're such a marvelous idiot." Those warm lips descended on his again and for a long while, he didn't care about much of anything else.

Finally, Yuki broke away, chuckling. "You do realize by now that the only reason I insulted you that night was because I'd had a lousy week at the computer."

"Huh?"

"You're so articulate." Yuki chuckled again and tapped him under the chin and he realized his mouth was back to hanging open. "The damned book was hopelessly stalled, so I took out my frustrations on the nearest target...your poor lyrics. Later, after you tried to destroy my car and hit me with the full Shuuichi treatment, the whole direction of the book shifted, the ending became happy, for crying out loud. Your doing, that time, and damned if I was going to accept the change gracefully. So I insulted you again. But then, I began to like what the story was doing, where it was going...how it felt to write it. I went to that damned concert of yours and your voice contaminated my soul forever. The writing began going really well—"

He giggled. "And you made love to me."

"Bingo."

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Next Chapter: Epilogue: Just Shut-up and Kiss Me.