Note: Again, English isn't my mother tongue, so please, if you find any mistake (and there will be, probably), don't get mad at me ^_^

Disclaimer: well, nothing belongs to me, it's just writing, no profit from it.

Warning: if you like action ff. then don't read this one, this chapter (as the one before, actually '^_^) is just angst, depression and thoughts. I was listening to Massive Attack while writing it, if someone knows 'em, know what kind of music they play as well and why I come up with this stuff. Romanticism and angst will soon collide; this fic wasn't suppose to tell anything that was going on somewhere but in the characters' mind.

This one is, as well as the other, from Yuki POV

Will you take care of me?

-Chapter two-

Nothing is what it seems



At home, I sit on the sofa, waiting for Shuichi to pick up his things. I sip my beer and wait, nothing more. I hear his voice, but it is just in my head because he is saying nothing. That's strange, I would have thought he'd shouted, cried, protested as usual, there was just silence instead. I feel his eyes on me, for a long, too long time, before he goes out of the room, he goes to the door and leaves, Hiro probably came to pick him up.

I lie down on the bed and sink my thoughts in the pillows.

He went away with no words, he didn't ask why, he didn't make any noise. And I didn't say goodbye to him, I didn't look at him in the eyes, I just needed him to disappear.

Now I'm lying down on my bed, I don't know if it's night or day, the light doesn't come through the curtains of my room and I had spent too much time in this position to know what time it is.

I can almost feel the weight of the air, it's hard for me to inhale it in my lungs and exhale it, it feels as if it was liquid. It stagnates in this room and dims my eyes that don't blink anymore. I just look at the ceiling, I fall asleep for some minutes and then wake up, and then sleep again, catatonic, without moving. And the time goes by and I am being dipped even more in this liquid air that suffocates me.

Do I miss Shuichi?

I don't know it, I don't dare asking it to me, I'm trying to interrupt any contact between my conscience and my emotions.

Was I wrong?

I do not know it either, in the end I know our relation wasn't healthy, but on the other hand I know there's nothing healthy in this dense oxygen; I know I could not keep on going on like this, always blaming myself for my pink-haired imp wounds, but I also know he never asked for anything, he just wanted to be close to me.

What to do?

I cannot answer this question either, I do not have strength in my legs anymore, nor voice in my throat, I do not have will to get up, I can't even be depressed anymore. I'm no longer and I don't have anything at all now, the time stopped here, in this room, and I stopped with it. Maybe Shuichi, when he walked out of home, took everything with him.

I don't understand if my attitude is stupid or if I am right, and sometimes there's no difference between the two.

I was the one who told him to go away, I was the one who said I didn't want him close to me anymore. It was for him and me at the same time, and this seemed to be right. But right now, that night doesn't seem so unbearable compared to the state of mind I'm now in, because he was here, and this seems stupid.

Being alone is a simple thing to deal with, it means that you have nothing but yourself to think of... and yet why can't I stop thinking of him?

Somebody that takes care of me, that embraces and cures me every time I break, that waits for me if I stop for a while, somebody strong enough not to be oppressed by me.

Is he like that?

The more natural answer would be no: A person that always cries, that lives for a kind word of mine and whose mood depends on me and on what I do, an immature fool that knows nothing about life.

But I know this is only your surface because if I observe you closely, I see a person that is not scared of his feelings and declares them without being humiliated, that falls but that always gets up heedless of the shakes, that gets hurt, but that doesn't fear being in the storm because he will be never swept away.

When you tell me you love me, why can't I answer?

Because of my self-control?

Because I am afraid that telling you what I feel for you will expose my real self and that this will, therefore, break definitively, without any hope to rebuild it, because I am not like you, I am scared of what I feel and shut it down. If I fell I would not rise, my wounds still bleed and I am not able to make them stop.

Actually you are the strongest one, not me. Actually nothing is what it seems. Actually I love you and I pushed you away because of it this, but I would like you to take care of me now and everyday of my life.

***



The doorbell rings, I hear a key enter the lock and I wish it's not him

"Hey what the hell are you doing?"

That voice, my brother's voice gives me a big relief, strangely I am pleased to hear from him, unlike usual when I found him boring.

And yet, the fact that wasn't Shuichi the one who came through that door, gives me a sense of extreme melancholy: has he forgotten about me already?

"Shut up, my head hurts"

"You're not in conditions to give orders, look at you, you look like shit and nobody has heard from you in five days"

My brother's slang always bothers me a little, that children's way of his, of expressing himself, was irritating, when wasn't my imp to use it. How much my judgement capability is changed depending on who does some thing, is unbelievable ... I almost can't admit it myself.

Five days... I didn't think so much time had passed by, but in the end I don't care, days or months, is there a sense in living them as I am now?

"Tatsuha, leave me alone, trust me, it'd be better"



"Everyone is looking for you, your editor is desperate, you have a dead line in a couple of days. Mika is freaking out... I asked Shuichi, but he didn't answer"



"Don't ask him what he's not suppose to know, as you can evidently see, he's not living here anymore, so if you're done with your stupid ranting and questions, get lost now. Regarding my editor, speak to her, tell her I will not deliver the book when I have to, it's neither finished nor I intend to finish it. If she is not ok with that, she can just fire me and throw away my contract. she can do whatever she wants, I don't care"... I don't care about anything anymore.

"I knew it... it had to have happened something with Shui."

"Enough!" My voice was calm, but evidently Tatsuha understands to have reached the end of my tolerance. I move my finger pointing the door, the cigarette and beer that were in my hands are almost finished but I can't even recollect putting them in my mouth in the first place.



I lock myself in the bathroom, under the shower, Tatsuha understood and stated the obvious, Shuichi was the problem. yeah as simple as that. the only thing I wanted to do now, was to close my eyes and die, to choke under water, and simply vanish. Nothing could have ever cured me now and I was too tired.





To be continued.