a song for Hiroshi

A/N: Okay! My first Gravi-fic. I remember when I first started reading Gravi-fics on ff.net. There were about 92 or something. It's great to see that there are people who love the series as much as I do! ^_^
Now, as to the kisses mentioned in the fic; in the manga (quite early on, I think even in the first volume... I have to go check again) Shuuichi asks if he can kiss Hiro, and Hiro says that for 10 000 yen he can stick his tongue in, to which Shuuichi says he'll pass because Hiro's prices have gone up. ^_^
Um, yeah. And I don't know how original this plot is. Ehm. I like Hiro angst, but I can't write it. This is written in first person (Shuuichi), which I usually don't write, so be kind. Please? I'm still not very sure why I wrote this at all. I suppose it was partly because a friend of mine has tried to kill himself four times so far this year without succeeding, but also since I was cruelly reminded by someone of hide-chan's (X Japan) suicide in 1998. I still remember how Yoshiki's voice was trembling when he read those last words by the shrine. Still makes me sad. -_-;;

Warnings: Well, a weird OOC Shuuichi POV. Yeah. I don't really know how likely it would be for Hiro to actually commit suicide, but I stand by my belief that he feels more than friendly love for Shuuichi! So there. ^_^;;


Acknowledgements: As always, my neechan Lenn for being who she is! Yeah, and Omi-kun; I'm glad you have yet to succeed in taking your own life.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters simply because my name isn't Murakami Maki. And even if it was, I don't think I'd own them, anyway. Eh. The song, though, belongs to me, since I've written both the words and the melody. It's on acoustic piano, if anyone's interested. ^_^;;



"a song for Hiroshi"


I still have trouble dealing with it. Or rather, believing that it's for real. At times, it feels as if everything is a dream. My feet seem to float just above the ground, and everything looks a bit fuzzy around the edges. It felt like that when I first found out. I still feel like that sometimes, more often than I would want to. At times, it is like those dreams where you try to scream but you can't produce more than a whisper, when you try to run but you get nowhere. When I first heard, it felt like that. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't make a sound. I wanted to run straight to where I knew he would be, but my feet wouldn't move. Sometimes when I am all alone, I listen to our records, fast forward to where he would play, and sob like a small child. I can't do that around others. They need me to be strong for them, so I will be. Or at least I try to be.
But still, late at night I lie awake and wonder what had gone wrong. Why he couldn't come to me; me, his best friend. It is hard to understand, if you can even understand it at all. It has cost me many hours of sleep, but I don't think I mind that much. Still thinking of him makes me feel oddly warm inside. He was the brother I always wanted but never had. But it is hard for us left behind. I wonder if he thought about that. Probably not. When someone is driven to such an act, I doubt you consider the consequences that will come of your action. And why would he be any different?
It feels like a dream again. I can hear my breath too loud in my ears. Everything else is almost completely drowned out.
But I like it this way, living in a dream. It is so much easier. Because if it is just a dream, I just have to wake up, eventually.
And I can't wait to wake up.

~ Two years earlier ~

The phone rings three times before I answer it. I'm still sleepy and I really don't feel like being awakened by the shrill ring of the phone, nor some person's voice saying it was the wrong number. The clock is only about eight AM anyway. Isn't it? When the accented voice of our manager reaches my ears, however, my suspicion is confirmed. My alarm clock has stopped. I am late. But then again, what else is new?
Slipping into the first set of clothes I lay my hands on, I hurry out of the house and hop onto my bicycle. My stomach rumbles to remind me that I am currently skipping breakfast, and probably lunch too if I am to believe my watch, but I ignore it and go faster. I can't be late. Well, I am already, but I can be even more late than I already am. It's late fall now, and winter is just around the corner. I should have put on more clothes, I notice as the wind makes my hair raise into goose-bumps on my arms and legs.
Leaving the bike outside the giant building, I hurry inside, grateful for the warmth. While waiting for the elevator-doors to slide open on the floor where I was supposed to be hours ago, I go over a song I heard on the radio last night before going asleep. It was in English, and even though I'm not very good at the language, it sounded very sad. I don't think I could ever sing such a sad song. It would be too depressing. And besides, my life has been going rather well lately, if I may say so myself.
Ping, and the doors open. I'm jogging down the hallway, looking for the right door to enter. Once I find it, I stop for a moment to catch my breath and compose myself a bit, then open it. Everyone's there. Almost.
"Where's Hiro?" I ask and K waves one of his guns in my face.
"You're late," he says, his eyes narrowed at me. I know I should be intimidated, and I probably would be, too. But I am all too preoccupied with trying to figure out where Hiro could have gone off to. He's never late.
Sakano, seemingly bouncing with nervousness, answers my question for K. "Nakano-san will join us tomorrow again. He was excused today."
Ayaka, maybe? Since I'm not getting any other answers out of them, I decide that Ayaka must have come down from Kyoto to visit him. It's nice when she does; he always smiles just a bit wider when she is around. Lately, there has been a lot of stress on all of us, considering our recording a new album, but for some reason, it seems as if it has hit him harder than the rest of us. Maybe he's just tired?
Oh, well. I'll think about it more later.

~ Two weeks later ~

Hiro told me today that Ayaka hadn't come down to visit. It seems that K had seen that Hiro had been stressed and had made him visit some sort of shrink to get tips on how to relax. I can't say I've noticed if it's worked anything. Oh, well. Maybe it will in a while? I hope so. He looked more tired today.
The recording of the album is going as planned thus far, but it wouldn't surprise me if something happened so that we'll have to postpone the release. They say it always happens at least once to every great artist, and once it has happened, it's more likely to happen again. I don't know if I agree with that statement, but then again, who am I to argue with the critics? They can say whatever they like; I just know this will be the best one yet! I've really put a lot of effort into these lyrics. I just hope people will like them. Oh, who am I kidding? I don't really care that much if they like it or not. I know I'm satisfied with it. And that's enough.

~ Two weeks before release of new album ~

I wake up when Yuki is shaking me. There's someone on the phone for me. I feel like throwing the phone out the window, straight into the newly fallen snow. Wait. Snow? Yay! Finally, Hiro and me can have our not-so-famous snowball-war to greet the new season! Or something poetic like that. I've been writing too many lyrics lately; I even think in lyrics. It's scary.
Anyway, back to that phone-call. I wrap a blanket about myself and shuffle out into the living room to take the call.
"Yes?"
"Shindou Shuuichi-san?" Wait a minute. I don't recognize this voice. Some woman's voice, yes, but I don't recognize it.
"That's me."
"A friend of yours, Nakano Hiroshi, has been caught in an… accident, Shindou-san. If you would please…" Her voice keeps on going but I don't really listen anymore. An accident? Hiro's been in an accident? Maybe he drove his bike too fast in the snow? But he's always careful. Maybe a car was speeding? But he always looks twice before crossing.
A million scenarios play out before my mind's eye, but I can dispel all of them with simple explanations. So what kind of accident could careful Hiro have been caught in?
I tell the woman, obviously a nurse, that I'm on my way, and dive into my clothes, begging Yuki to drive me to the hospital. He does, not really arguing for once. Maybe he realizes more than I do that something really bad has happened? I can only sense a sort of ill feeling about the whole thing, but I push it away. It can't be that serious. There are only a couple of weeks to our release!

Once at the hospital I forget to ask for the room, and Yuki has to drag me back to the reception desk. I'm just too anxious to see what has happened. Everything was fine just a few days ago! Hiro was looking a lot happier than he had in a long while and now there's snow, too, and the release is just a few weeks away. Nothing is supposed to go wrong now. Nothing. The room is tiny and sterile and a blinding white. Hiro's mother is there, as well as both K and Sakano. Fujisaki is sitting outside the room. He didn't say hi. And on the thin, white bed is a deathly pale Hiro. His face looks wrong. It's too… Relaxed, somehow. There's an IV by the bed, but he's not hooked up to it. His lower arms are bandaged and soaked with a sick, wine-reddish liquid I recognize as blood. What is going on? Everyone's so silent you could hear the footsteps of an ant. It's as if they are afraid to breathe, and suddenly, so am I. There's something very wrong, and nobody will tell me.

Hiro's mother begins to sob, and Sakano is soon behind. When I gather enough courage to take the few steps up to the bed, K leads them outside to have a seat beside Suguru out in the hallway. Hiro looks very cold, but I'm not sure I want to feel his forehead. He looks too pale, like when you are really ill and have had a terrible fever, except that he hasn't got a fever. Which is wrong. Why would you look so pale if you're not ill?
"Blood loss," K's accented voice tells me. Did I ask that out loud?
"Is he okay?" I want him to be. He has to be. We're going to play at Tokyo Dome next week, and it won't work without the guitarist. Even I know that.
When nobody answers, I let my gaze wander down to his lower arms. They should change the bandages. It won't heal well if they don't. "They said he'd had an accident," I say slowly, twisting a corner of the blanket around my fingers. Still, I get no answer. "What happened?" I ask and I have to admit that I'm really quite startled when K draws a deep breath to answer me, as if he is very nervous. Or maybe a bit scared?
"His mother had tried to call him but he wouldn't answer and nobody could find him," the blond American begins. I'm only listening halfheartedly, too preoccupied with how he looks where he's lying on the bed. "She had an extra key, so we could get into his apartment in case he was still there but hadn't heard the phone ring."
"Was he there?" I ask when K has been quiet for a couple of minutes.
"He was," he tells me. I get the feeling what I'm going to hear isn't very nice. I'm suddenly very aware of everything; the noise from the air-conditioner, the quiet chatter in the hallway, Yuki's hands on my shoulders. He's so much more perceptive than I am. He's probably already figured it out.
"What had happened?" I ask once more. "Why hadn't he answered the calls?"
An envelope with my name on it is thrust into my hands. I frown down at it. It's Hiro's writing; I should know. I open it and pull out a letter. "What is this?" I ask, looking up to find K leaning tiredly against the wall opposite the bed.
When I get no answer, and this routine is beginning to piss me off, I look down to the letter again, and read it. I never read it to the end. At the moment, I'm surprised if I ever will be able to read all of it at all. I look up at Hiro and then lean back against Yuki's solid body behind me.
It's a farewell note.

~ Two years later ~

I still haven't gotten over it. It's still hard. I'm just glad I wasn't the one to find him. When I asked, all I've been told is that there was too much blood and that he had been sitting by the bathtub for too long before they found him. I still can't believe that he would have done such a thing. He had been so happy, and had begun to feel better, and then… To find him with his entire lower arms cut open. But later on, I was told that it's a dangerous sign if someone suddenly seems to be very happy after a longer period of being just generally down. They told us that people who have decided on committing suicide often cheer up a few days before they act. I don't understand it though. How can you be happy about the decision to kill yourself?
The letter he had written was so… How I would imagine a letter like that to be. It was as if he had planned every word in his head a hundred times before writing them down, and then rewriting the letter over and over and over again. I suppose that's how he had written it. There's not much to wonder over in his letter, I have to give him that. If I had known he was so good with words, I would have let him write the lyrics, because compared to that, it's true what Yuki said. I'm no better than a preschooler.
I miss him. I really do. I am glad that Ayaka has been able to get on with her life. Even though his parents still grieve him, they rely on his brother to cheer them up now. He's doing a good job.
People don't treat me the way they used to anymore. Not since then. It's as if they have agreed that 'Shuuichi is so vulnerable now, so let's all be very nice to him, or he will break!' I hate being treated as if I'm a child.
Okay, so I admit that at first I handled it very badly. I bet they thought they would have to break into the bathroom every time I went, just in case I decided to do what Hiro did. But I won't. There might not be a lot of people who really need me to be strong for them, but I like to think so. I suppose that in reality, everybody feels they need to be strong for me, and I need to be strong for myself. It's hard to be what they call a survivor, someone who survives a loved one's suicide. It's a stupid thing to call it. When someone you love dies you die a little too. Survivors should be the name for those who attempts, fails and comes out stronger. Ah, that's a ramble for another day.
The album? It was released. I wrote a new song, though, and the album was renamed after the title to that song. I'm actually rather pleased with it. It's the first time I actually manage to write something that sounds just the way I want it to.
And the name of the album?
"a song for Hiroshi"

~~ The letter to Shuuichi ~~

Dear Shuuichi,
I hope that someone handed you this letter, and not that you found it on your own. At first I considered mailing this, but it wouldn't be the same. And it wouldn't be as personal. But if that is good or not, I'm not very sure…
Since I probably, and hopefully, will not get another chance to tell you what I am about to say, I might as well write it now. You're beautiful. Okay, okay, I know, I've told you that before, but you never take the comment seriously. You never take me seriously. I'm always just good old Hiro, aren't I?
I wish I wasn't.
I envy Yuki-san that. You believe every word he tells you, don't you? While, if I would tell you I love you, you would laugh, and thus I would have to laugh too, or things wouldn't work out between us. But it stings and makes my chest hurt when you laugh and shrug it off. It's a joke of sorts, I suppose. What else would it be? Hiro can't love you, can he? We're just old friends, and we can joke around with each other however much we like. Why wouldn't Hiro saying he loves you be another joke? I suppose that's how it is. I guess I just cannot adjust to that. Because I love you, and it hurts to be laughed at.
Yes. Yes, I do love you. You probably don't believe me, though, do you? I'd be surprised. But trust me, the kisses you paid for; I would have given you those for free if you had only asked.
I hope you're happy with Yuki-san. For a long time I convinced myself that if only you were happy I would be happy, too. But it doesn't work like that. Maybe if there is only the kind of affection that exists between old friends. But not like this. You never noticed? I loved your phone-calls in the middle of the night. I loved it when we would just lie on the carpet and listen to Nittle Grasper and dream up what our future would look like. Do you know how much I wished that instead of talking on the phone, you would have been right there beside me? That when we were dreaming on the floor, I wanted to pull you close and bury my nose in your hair? That when we had our tickle fights, and ended up on the floor, I wanted to lean over and kiss you? Not the Hiro you're used to, right? Well, I suppose one isn't always what one seem to be.
What about Ayaka, you're probably thinking. Loneliness can drive a person to do things he might not have planned on doing. I knew, and still know, that you refuse to acknowledge that someone else loves you except Yuki-san, and that you can never love someone else. And I am happy for you, that your life is slowly turning out to be what you wanted it would be when we were dreaming on the soft carpet. Do you remember? To be famous all over Japan, to make friends with your idol Sakuma-san, to live with someone you love with all your heart. You must remember. It's all come true for you. When the dream was turning real for you, I realized that my wish wouldn't do the same for me. I always just hoped that the one person you spoke of would be me, and it wasn't. Thus, Ayaka. Think what you may of me, but I have trouble being alone.
You're probably angry with me now. It's okay, though. I can't really say that I regret deciding on this. It is hard to have it slapped in your face every day that the person you love is right next to you, yet so far out of reach. I know you trust me to be there for you to lean on, but how good am I for leaning on when I cannot even support myself? Sometimes it's easier to run away from the pain than to face it. Cowardly as it may be, I am running from it. Believe me, I have tried and tried to deal with it, but in the end it slaps me in the face, harder than before, and I turn away from it instead. I'm not good at handling it. So perhaps it is better to just escape it.
If you're angry, forgive me. I hope you get the happy ever after you wanted together with Yuki-san. You definitely deserve it.
Love,
Hiro ^_^

~~ a song for Hiroshi ~~

goodbye, to the angel that was our light
that shone in our shadows
and stood alone in the night

goodbye, to the angel that comforted us
and bore all our pain
when we were too weak

oh, we should have known
should have seen your tears
that you hid so well

(chorus)
now that i see [la la la la]
the angel that drowned in our tears have faded away
now that i know [la la la la]
the angel we never saw, stumbles and falls

goodbye, will you know how much you meant
how much we needed you
to steady us when we would sway

oh, we should have listened
should have run to you
when you whispered for help

now that i see [la la la la]
the angel that drowned in our tears have faded away
now that i know [la la la la]
the angel we never saw, stumbles and falls

(bridge)
we know we should have seen the signs you gave us
we know we should have asked you how you felt
i wonder do you know how much i love you
i wonder do watch over us
do you forgive us
could we have held you when you needed us to know

now that i see [la la la la]
the angel that drowned in our tears have faded away
now that i know [la la la la]
the angel we never saw, stumbles and falls

oh, we should have seen the tears you drowned in
oh, we should have listened when you cried
oh, we should have seen the angel that shone
all alone

(to melody of chorus)
la la la la la la la la la



~finis~



There it is. Reviews are appreciated, but as I usually don't write Gravi fics, I don't expect too much. But, comments are always nice. *wink wink nudge nudge*