Fandom: Gravitation
Title: Kakurete Iru.
Pairing: Tatsuha & Yuki, Yuki + Shuichi
Rating: PG
Description: Tatsuha and his brother were the best of friends. But when his brother comes back from America, has Yuki changed forever?
Disclaimer: Gravitation's not mine. End of story.
"...Oh, you know Ni-chan will never leave you, Tat-chan. Never...I promise," his warm voice assured me.
I promise.
You promised me, Yuki Ni-chan...
Kakurete Iru. (Hiding.)
by Yui Miyamoto
Tugging on my Nii-chan's pajama top, I sleepily rubbed my eyes. "Nii-chan? Nii-chan?"
Sighing, he sat up in his bed and put the light on. "What happened, Tat-chan?"
He smiled and pulled me into his lap. Putting on his glasses, he asked again, "What happened?"
"I had a bad dream," I answered while hugging the teddy bear I'd always brought with me everywhere.
"What kind of bad dream?" He began running his fingers through my hair. Squinting a bit, he consoled, "Tell Nii-chan all about it."
"I had a nightmare and you were in it. You were running away from me as a joke. You kept on laughing and running further and further away. When I was going to catch your hand, you disappeared with a frown on your face." I buried my face in his chest. "Don't ever leave me like that Nii-chan. Never!"
He hugged me. "Is that all? Oh, you know Nii-chan will never leave you, Tat-chan. Never...I promise."
"Promise?" I held up my pinky to make it real.
He hooked his pinky onto my small one. "Sealed."
The next day...
"Okay, let's play hide-and-seek! Okay, Nii-chan?" I laughed while pulling on his sleeve.
I always seemed to pull on his clothing...
"Okay, Tat-chan. I'll be it!" He ran to the backyard with my hand firmly in his own. "I'll count on the huge sakura tree and you hide."
I nodded happily as he let go to run over towards the sakura tree.
Loudly, he counted, "1...2...3..."
Like any other small child, I looked for a well-hidden place to make it hard for the seeker to find them. And there was a small patch in the bushes in the garden that I barely fit into.
"...9...10! Okay, I'm coming!" Eiri Nii-chan looked about the garden until he was about to give up saying, "Oh, I don't know where he is!"
He began to cry crocodile tears, but I didn't know at the time.
"Nii-chan?" I slowly came out from the little niche.
"Gotcha!" He hugged me and swung me in the air.
"You cheated!" I shouted in protest. "I thought you were crying!"
He stopped to put me down and sat down to look at me. "You thought I was really crying?"
"Yes, Nii-chan." I pouted. "I don't want to make you cry."
Then, I hugged him. "Not my Nii-chan..."
Patting my hair and wrapping his arms around me, he replied back, "Yeah, me neither."
With uncertainty, he blurted, "Remember that."
At that second, a servant called for Nii-chan. "Your father is calling you!"
That night, Nii-chan came into my room and sat on my bed, patting my head sadly. "I have something to tell you, Tatsuha."
Oh no. Whenever he said my full name, it was always something bad or serious that I didn't want to hear...
"Yes, Nii-chan?" I replied with a gulp.
Looking away, he hugged me. "I'm going to America tomorrow."
Huh?
It didn't hit me until I realized that America wasn't just around Kyoto, but a whole different country and continent.
"No no no!" I began to burst into tears and gripped his pajamas. "You can't go. Tat-chan has to go too!"
He closed his eyes painfully and tried not to cry. "No, Tat-chan cannot come with me."
"But why?"
Sighing, he started to hold me closer to him while rubbing my back. In a low voice, he said, "I have to study there for a while because Papa said so. Only I can go."
I couldn't understand and I remember thinking, "But why? Why can't I stay with Nii-chan?"
I cried and fell asleep with tears while being hugged by my Nii-chan who was leaning against the wall.
+/+/+/+/+/
Soon, he was leaving our house.
"You know Nii-chan will always love you, Tat-chan." He smiled and kissed my cheek right before he was about to go. "Don't worry."
I waved goodbye. "Bye bye!"
I didn't want him to go...
It was like that dream...
I wish I knew then what I knew now...
+/+/+/+/+/
Months later...
"Tatsu-kun!" my older sister shouted happily. "Eiri's coming today!"
But she didn't have to tell me. I had waited all this time ever since he'd left. I had missed him SO MUCH!
Excited beyond belief, I ran out the car door and into the airport.
"Young master Tatsuha!" the servants called behind me.
I don't know how, but I found him. And when I turned the corner and saw him, I ran towards him, but he walked passed me without so much as a second glance.
No one has ever broken my heart like that...and never will...
I think that's I remembered this scene so clearly...
In the car, he held a scary look in his eyes, full of fear and coldness. He was the exact opposite of what he used to be.
Taking the chance, I tugged on his sleeve for old times sake. "Nii-chan? Nii-chan?"
Slowly turning his head, he hissed, "Be quiet."
So I never went near him ever again.
I watched my brother go about the house like an outsider. He walked inside and outside his room with nothing but books for companions.
Well, if he read a lot before, he swamped himself with them now. No one talked to him.
His change in attitude had shocked everyone except my parents.
I wish someone had told me at that time.
One day, unable to take it anymore, unable to stand my Nii-chan not being his 'normal self', this four-year-old shouted at the blond-haired boy that walked past him in the hall. "Where did you hide him? Where did you hide my Nii-chan?!"
He stopped and slowly turned his head to me. Lifting his chin, he gave me an evil smirk. "Heh."
Crying, I held my hands in fists. "Nii-chan? Where did you go?!"
Running all over the house, I tumbled and scraped myself looking in every room going mad. "Where did you go?!
"Where did you go?! Where did you go?!" Stopping in the garden to remember where he last held me, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "NII-CHAN, WHERE DID YOU GO?!"
Then, the one that had called himself Yuki Eiri instead of his real name as the heir to the Uesugi family line came up to me. Wrapping his arms carefully around me, He embraced me warmly.
Eiri Nii-chan fell to his knees, crying. "I'm sorry I made you cry, my Tat-chan."
Hugging me even tighter, he whispered through his tears, "I'm sorry, but he died in America."
I shook my head. "You're not making any sense. I don't understand. You're right in front of me!"
For a while, he cried and cried with his arms still around me and his knees digging into the grass until he made an imprint of himself there.
"What I meant..." he whispered softly, "...was that I can't be the way I used to be."
"Why, Eiri Nii-chan?"
"I can't tell you why." Crying harder and his sobs growing louder, he again repeated, "I...can't tell...you why...right now."
+/+/+/+/+/
When I was thirteen, on a stormy night, Eiri Nii-chan came into my room and sat down on the bed with his legs crossed.
"Now is the time."
He then explained why he'd acted the way he did all these years: He had killed a man that he had loved...
And then, everything became perfectly clear. It made sense to me know and I began to sob.
Becoming the small kid I was once, I hugged my Nii-chan and shook my head. "You came back, Ni-chan."
He cried a little. "..."
"You kept your promise, Nii-chan."
He swapped me on the head. "Now don't get all mushy on me."
I laughed even thought my chest was squeezed dry and raw from what he'd just told me.
Through all these years, it was the first time I saw him laugh through all his tears...
+/+/+/+/+/+/
"Hey you!" Nii-chan bonked my head as he put a cigarette into his mouth.
"What are you thinking about?" Shuichi-san asked me as he pounced on the couch right next to me.
I shook my head and smiled while looking at the rain. "Rainy days always bring back happy memories."
Shuichi nodded. "Ah."
Smugly, Nii-chan lifted up his head and took a puff of his cigarette while smirking.
As I looked at the both of them, I realized why I'd accepted their relationship. Nii-chan was smiling like the way he used to because of Shuichi...
My real Ni-chan had come back to me.
He wasn't dead at all...
...just hiding all these years.
Owari.
Author's note: It's different, ne?
I wanted to do something from a different angle other than love.
-Yui
2001