Disclaimer: Yep, the usual. Obviously, I don't own Gravitation and these
stories are for fun, not for profit. I'm borrowing characters from Maki
Murakami. I appreciate all criticism, so please read, enjoy, and review. To
those who do review: THANK YOU!! I love feedback.
"+English being spoken+" "Japanese being spoken"
Commitment
Part 9: About Town
The offices of Harper Collins Books looked a lot like the offices at Zettai or Never Ending Dream. The only difference here seemed to be a profusion of metal detectors. Was America home to thousands of people like Shu's manager, K? Surely not.
Eiri and Shu approached the information desk. Ms. Albright was paged and the desk clerk was told to 'send them up'. They were given directions to the elevators and rode to the fourth floor where the Avon Books division and its people were located. Once there, a fellow leaning on the water cooler in the foyer guided them to the right office.
Ms. Jenna Albright was not what he had pictured. For one thing, she was ugly. She was about five-feet-eight inches tall with wavy, shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair, an unflatteringly squarish face and buck teeth. Her redeeming feature was a pair of lively dark brown eyes. She was frumpily dressed in a brown courderoy skirt, brown calf-high boots and an off-white sweater that clumped around her generous waistline. She had opened the door to a very unkempt office, when he knocked. The place was blanketed in high stacks of paper. "+Hello?+"
Eiri held his hand out to greet her. "Eiri Yuki," he introduced himself. She took his hand and shook it firmly, kicking the door open wider. "+This is Shuichi Shindou,+" he told her.
"+Hi,+" Shu said, smiling at her.
"+Gentlemen, please come in! It's a pleasure to meet you both.+" She gestured to a pair of plain black and steel chairs near her desk. "+Have a seat. May I get you some coffee?+"
"+No, thank you.+" Eiri said. "+I believe you have a letter for me?+"
She continued to smile, showing off bad teeth. "+Of course.+" She walked behind the desk and pulled open a drawer, extracting the letter and handing it to him. "+I must say, you aren't what I expected,+" she said to Eiri. "+You don't even look Japanese.+"
He took the letter and tucked it into his breast pocket. "+I hear that a lot,+" he replied drily. Shu watched them, frowning like he was watching a tennis match and his favorite player wasn't winning.
Ms. Albright kept her smile up. "+Are you ready to take advantage of a great opportunity?+" They were all still standing, but that didn't seem to slow her down.
He frowned slightly. "+I did agree to a radio piece and a brief photo shoot. Was there . . . something else?+" If there was, he was going to be pissed off.
"+Uh, actually, just a slight change of plans. KQED, the public radio station? They had a cancellation today. I know you agreed to do the radio bit on Saturday, but the station called to see if you would be willing to come in for the 10:00 show today. It's a live call-in program. They wanted to know if you could just switch slots with the other person, who couldn't make the show.+" She continued, sounding like a commercial, "+KQED is one of the top public radio stations in the nation and the most-listened-to public radio station in the country! It reaches over 745, 000 listeners each week. You'd be coming in for the second hour of Forum, a program with Michael Krasny. You wouldn't have to do the radio on Saturday, since it's really just a placement swap. More people listen during the weekday, anyway. This really is a terrific career opportunity!+" She paused for breath and Eiri realized she had the glittering eyes of a fanatic workaholic.
"She sounds just like K," Shu said to him, eyes wide with trepidation. The accurate comparision made him smile.
"+Shu, I think she's right. Do you want to come to the radio station, or do you want to go back to the hotel?+"
He frowned, taking a minute to puzzle through the English. "+I go, too.+"
"Idiot, +you mean, 'I will go, too.' Future tense.+" Turning, he told Ms. Albright, "+Okay, I'll do it.+" He had already agreed to do radio. It didn't matter too much whether he did it now or tomorrow. A 10 am show wouldn't interfere with 2:30 wedding. They didn't have any specific plans this morning. They had just been planning to walk around some more. Of course, it was raining a little now, so the change in plan was just as well.
Her eyes shined like a zealot's. "+Excellent!+" She declared, "+I'll arrange everything. A car can pick you up here. . . +" He could almost hear the gears grinding in her head. She picked up the phone near her computer and started dialing. She struck him as the type of person who rarely sat down. Maybe that's why it didn't bother her that they continued to stand. Moving the phone away from her mouth as she waited, she said to him, "+Incidentally, did you just call him 'shoe'?+"
***
The radio show was going surprisingly well, in Eiri's estimation. The host began with a brief biography; where he was born, where he lived now, the number of books he'd written and a partial listing of literary awards he'd won. For the first twenty or thirty minutes after that, they talked about his writing process and touched on some of the themes in his early books. Mr. Krasny asked intelligent, well-informed questions in a neutrally pleasant radio voice. When phones were opened, callers seemed genuinely interested in his writing. Many called in just to praise his style or to plead for more of his books to be translated. One astute caller made note of the fact that he spoke English so well that he should do his own book translations. To that, he could only say that he had never been asked to. It had never occurred to him to pursue it, either.
The American public was largely unaware of his personal life, until the host called attention to it. That's when the interview began to sour, as far as he was concerned. For the last fifteen minutes or so, callers seemed obsessed with the topic of Shuichi Shindou. It was annoying. No, it was more than annoying . . . It felt insulting to be overshadowed by him. Although, that wasn't really it, either. . . He had never been up-staged by Shuichi. It was galling. They wouldn't let him smoke here, either. Toward the end of the interview, he could tell he was getting tense. What was worse was that he could see his mood reflected back at him from Shu's concerned expression beyond the glass of the sound booth.
The host ended on a positive note, repeating the press release information for the latest English translations of his novels and thanking him for the interview. Eiri tried to be gracious. He shook hands with Mr. Krasny and the producer and left on good terms with the studio people. Shuichi bowed and thanked everyone for letting him watch and listen to the interview from the control room. He apologized for spilling some water, too, but the personel kindly dismissed the incident.
A car was waiting for them downstairs to take them where they wanted to go, courtesy of Avon Books. Shu ran to keep up with him as he left the station. "Eiri! Wait!" Thrusting the door open, he stood in the rain, waiting for the singer to catch up. It really wasn't the kid's fault. People were naturally curious. America hadn't had the same media barrage as Japan had about their status as a couple. He was learning that Americans also tended to treat pop stars better than romance novelists. He ground his teeth and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. Reaching for his lighter, he was surprised when the cigarette was snatched away from his lips.
Shu frowned at him. "Eiri, you can't smoke here!"
"Give me that!" Eiri ordered. His jaws ached from gum chewing and he only had one stick left. It was a pathetic state of affairs.
"No!" Shu looked at him beligerently, pout in place, hands on his hips. "You can't smoke in public places! They'll arrest you or something!" He pocketed the cigarette and Eiri blew up.
"I will smoke anywhere I damn well please! You cannot stop me," he said with finality. He pulled another cigarette from the pack and sheltered it from the rain to light it. "If you don't like it, you can go wherever you want for your afternoon."
The singer dropped to his knees on the wet sidewalk, puddles of rain instantly soaking into his jeans. "Damnit! You can be such a bastard, why are you being so mean?" Eiri knew he was crying, even though he bowed his head so that rain plastered his hair over his eyes. "They talked so fast that I couldn't tell what they were saying, but something upset you and now you're taking it out on me. I heard my name, but it's not really *my* fault, is it?" He whined and his voice sounded broken by tears, "What could those stupid people say to you to make you so mad at *me*? I love you. I- It's . . . we're supposed to get married today." Shuichi covered his face with both hands.
Their designated driver was watching them curiously from inside the sedan. Eiri grabbed Shuichi by the collar, forcing him to stand up. Shu always took things to extremes. Eiri sighed, expelling smoke. California laws be damned. Shu batted his hand away, writhing out of his grasp to face him with an angry frown. He had not counted on that kind of reaction from his lover. It was still tough for Eiri to figure the kid out sometimes. He could be so unpredictable. Tears continued to pour down the singer's face. Eiri was sorry, but long ago he had made it a policy never to apologize to the brat. "Shu-han, get in the car." He looked at Eiri suspiciously. Still pouting, he opened the door and climbed into the car. Eiri followed him in. "+Take us to the Mark Hopkins Hotel,+" he instructed the driver.
Shuichi tucked himself against the opposite window, chin on his knees, head tilted to touch the glass. It was a sure sign he was upset. It was always a bad sign when Shu physically withdrew from him. The driver coughed meaningfully from the front seat. Eiri looked at him in the rearview mirror and realized the man was hinting for him to put out the cigarette. The driver had probably been given instructions to go along with whatever the writer wanted and wouldn't directly request that Eiri stop, so he ignored the driver.
Reaching out, he touched Shuichi's arm. His lover immediately curled around him, as Eiri had guessed he would. Shu sobbed into his sleeve, but didn't try to say anything. The driver coughed a few more times, but settled for rolling his window down half-way. It was cold, and some rain came into the back, but it was a compromise Eiri could deal with because it let him smoke.
Once they reached the hotel, they got out and Eiri thanked the driver. The man told him negligently, "No problem," but seemed happy to get rid of his passengers.
On the way up to their room, Shuichi walked like a zombie and stood alone on the elevator, looking at the floor. Eiri unlocked the door to their room and Shu went straight to his suitcase to change into dry clothes. Eiri flopped into a chair and propped his feet on the footstool. "Come here," he said. Shu pulled on a pair of shorts and sullenly came over to the chair. He didn't take the invitation to sit on Eiri, which the writer found disappointing. Instead, Eiri pulled the idiot into his lap, holding his lover against his body. Shu's arms wrapped around him, and his body relaxed, snuggling into him— almost without concious control. Sometimes, he thought he was Shuichi's addiction.
"What was it, Eiri? What caused you to . . . brush me off like that?" He sniffled. "We're still getting married today, right? So why were you so mean all of sudden? Was it something those radio people said?" His voice toughened in petulant outrage, "Who cares what other people say? Isn't that what you're always telling me?"
"You're right."
Shu's head came up to look him in the eyes. "I'm right?" Eiri looked back at him, steadily. A smile quirked into place on Shu's tear-streaked face. "That's almost the same as an apology from you. I'm riiiiight!" He crowed, laughing. Eiri felt that he'd been forgiven. Then the laughter stopped abruptly and Shu frowned at him like he'd been tricked. "Hey! You still didn't tell me why!"
"I don't have to, either. You just said it doesn't matter." Eiri transfered his cigarette from his mouth to his fingers. Taking a hold of Shuichi's head in the other hand, he pulled him in for a kiss. Eiri let go of his ire. They would only be here for a few more days and then they could go home and everything would return to 'normal'. He was usually so good at ignoring others . . . It *shouldn't* matter.
***
"+English being spoken+" "Japanese being spoken"
Commitment
Part 9: About Town
The offices of Harper Collins Books looked a lot like the offices at Zettai or Never Ending Dream. The only difference here seemed to be a profusion of metal detectors. Was America home to thousands of people like Shu's manager, K? Surely not.
Eiri and Shu approached the information desk. Ms. Albright was paged and the desk clerk was told to 'send them up'. They were given directions to the elevators and rode to the fourth floor where the Avon Books division and its people were located. Once there, a fellow leaning on the water cooler in the foyer guided them to the right office.
Ms. Jenna Albright was not what he had pictured. For one thing, she was ugly. She was about five-feet-eight inches tall with wavy, shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair, an unflatteringly squarish face and buck teeth. Her redeeming feature was a pair of lively dark brown eyes. She was frumpily dressed in a brown courderoy skirt, brown calf-high boots and an off-white sweater that clumped around her generous waistline. She had opened the door to a very unkempt office, when he knocked. The place was blanketed in high stacks of paper. "+Hello?+"
Eiri held his hand out to greet her. "Eiri Yuki," he introduced himself. She took his hand and shook it firmly, kicking the door open wider. "+This is Shuichi Shindou,+" he told her.
"+Hi,+" Shu said, smiling at her.
"+Gentlemen, please come in! It's a pleasure to meet you both.+" She gestured to a pair of plain black and steel chairs near her desk. "+Have a seat. May I get you some coffee?+"
"+No, thank you.+" Eiri said. "+I believe you have a letter for me?+"
She continued to smile, showing off bad teeth. "+Of course.+" She walked behind the desk and pulled open a drawer, extracting the letter and handing it to him. "+I must say, you aren't what I expected,+" she said to Eiri. "+You don't even look Japanese.+"
He took the letter and tucked it into his breast pocket. "+I hear that a lot,+" he replied drily. Shu watched them, frowning like he was watching a tennis match and his favorite player wasn't winning.
Ms. Albright kept her smile up. "+Are you ready to take advantage of a great opportunity?+" They were all still standing, but that didn't seem to slow her down.
He frowned slightly. "+I did agree to a radio piece and a brief photo shoot. Was there . . . something else?+" If there was, he was going to be pissed off.
"+Uh, actually, just a slight change of plans. KQED, the public radio station? They had a cancellation today. I know you agreed to do the radio bit on Saturday, but the station called to see if you would be willing to come in for the 10:00 show today. It's a live call-in program. They wanted to know if you could just switch slots with the other person, who couldn't make the show.+" She continued, sounding like a commercial, "+KQED is one of the top public radio stations in the nation and the most-listened-to public radio station in the country! It reaches over 745, 000 listeners each week. You'd be coming in for the second hour of Forum, a program with Michael Krasny. You wouldn't have to do the radio on Saturday, since it's really just a placement swap. More people listen during the weekday, anyway. This really is a terrific career opportunity!+" She paused for breath and Eiri realized she had the glittering eyes of a fanatic workaholic.
"She sounds just like K," Shu said to him, eyes wide with trepidation. The accurate comparision made him smile.
"+Shu, I think she's right. Do you want to come to the radio station, or do you want to go back to the hotel?+"
He frowned, taking a minute to puzzle through the English. "+I go, too.+"
"Idiot, +you mean, 'I will go, too.' Future tense.+" Turning, he told Ms. Albright, "+Okay, I'll do it.+" He had already agreed to do radio. It didn't matter too much whether he did it now or tomorrow. A 10 am show wouldn't interfere with 2:30 wedding. They didn't have any specific plans this morning. They had just been planning to walk around some more. Of course, it was raining a little now, so the change in plan was just as well.
Her eyes shined like a zealot's. "+Excellent!+" She declared, "+I'll arrange everything. A car can pick you up here. . . +" He could almost hear the gears grinding in her head. She picked up the phone near her computer and started dialing. She struck him as the type of person who rarely sat down. Maybe that's why it didn't bother her that they continued to stand. Moving the phone away from her mouth as she waited, she said to him, "+Incidentally, did you just call him 'shoe'?+"
***
The radio show was going surprisingly well, in Eiri's estimation. The host began with a brief biography; where he was born, where he lived now, the number of books he'd written and a partial listing of literary awards he'd won. For the first twenty or thirty minutes after that, they talked about his writing process and touched on some of the themes in his early books. Mr. Krasny asked intelligent, well-informed questions in a neutrally pleasant radio voice. When phones were opened, callers seemed genuinely interested in his writing. Many called in just to praise his style or to plead for more of his books to be translated. One astute caller made note of the fact that he spoke English so well that he should do his own book translations. To that, he could only say that he had never been asked to. It had never occurred to him to pursue it, either.
The American public was largely unaware of his personal life, until the host called attention to it. That's when the interview began to sour, as far as he was concerned. For the last fifteen minutes or so, callers seemed obsessed with the topic of Shuichi Shindou. It was annoying. No, it was more than annoying . . . It felt insulting to be overshadowed by him. Although, that wasn't really it, either. . . He had never been up-staged by Shuichi. It was galling. They wouldn't let him smoke here, either. Toward the end of the interview, he could tell he was getting tense. What was worse was that he could see his mood reflected back at him from Shu's concerned expression beyond the glass of the sound booth.
The host ended on a positive note, repeating the press release information for the latest English translations of his novels and thanking him for the interview. Eiri tried to be gracious. He shook hands with Mr. Krasny and the producer and left on good terms with the studio people. Shuichi bowed and thanked everyone for letting him watch and listen to the interview from the control room. He apologized for spilling some water, too, but the personel kindly dismissed the incident.
A car was waiting for them downstairs to take them where they wanted to go, courtesy of Avon Books. Shu ran to keep up with him as he left the station. "Eiri! Wait!" Thrusting the door open, he stood in the rain, waiting for the singer to catch up. It really wasn't the kid's fault. People were naturally curious. America hadn't had the same media barrage as Japan had about their status as a couple. He was learning that Americans also tended to treat pop stars better than romance novelists. He ground his teeth and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. Reaching for his lighter, he was surprised when the cigarette was snatched away from his lips.
Shu frowned at him. "Eiri, you can't smoke here!"
"Give me that!" Eiri ordered. His jaws ached from gum chewing and he only had one stick left. It was a pathetic state of affairs.
"No!" Shu looked at him beligerently, pout in place, hands on his hips. "You can't smoke in public places! They'll arrest you or something!" He pocketed the cigarette and Eiri blew up.
"I will smoke anywhere I damn well please! You cannot stop me," he said with finality. He pulled another cigarette from the pack and sheltered it from the rain to light it. "If you don't like it, you can go wherever you want for your afternoon."
The singer dropped to his knees on the wet sidewalk, puddles of rain instantly soaking into his jeans. "Damnit! You can be such a bastard, why are you being so mean?" Eiri knew he was crying, even though he bowed his head so that rain plastered his hair over his eyes. "They talked so fast that I couldn't tell what they were saying, but something upset you and now you're taking it out on me. I heard my name, but it's not really *my* fault, is it?" He whined and his voice sounded broken by tears, "What could those stupid people say to you to make you so mad at *me*? I love you. I- It's . . . we're supposed to get married today." Shuichi covered his face with both hands.
Their designated driver was watching them curiously from inside the sedan. Eiri grabbed Shuichi by the collar, forcing him to stand up. Shu always took things to extremes. Eiri sighed, expelling smoke. California laws be damned. Shu batted his hand away, writhing out of his grasp to face him with an angry frown. He had not counted on that kind of reaction from his lover. It was still tough for Eiri to figure the kid out sometimes. He could be so unpredictable. Tears continued to pour down the singer's face. Eiri was sorry, but long ago he had made it a policy never to apologize to the brat. "Shu-han, get in the car." He looked at Eiri suspiciously. Still pouting, he opened the door and climbed into the car. Eiri followed him in. "+Take us to the Mark Hopkins Hotel,+" he instructed the driver.
Shuichi tucked himself against the opposite window, chin on his knees, head tilted to touch the glass. It was a sure sign he was upset. It was always a bad sign when Shu physically withdrew from him. The driver coughed meaningfully from the front seat. Eiri looked at him in the rearview mirror and realized the man was hinting for him to put out the cigarette. The driver had probably been given instructions to go along with whatever the writer wanted and wouldn't directly request that Eiri stop, so he ignored the driver.
Reaching out, he touched Shuichi's arm. His lover immediately curled around him, as Eiri had guessed he would. Shu sobbed into his sleeve, but didn't try to say anything. The driver coughed a few more times, but settled for rolling his window down half-way. It was cold, and some rain came into the back, but it was a compromise Eiri could deal with because it let him smoke.
Once they reached the hotel, they got out and Eiri thanked the driver. The man told him negligently, "No problem," but seemed happy to get rid of his passengers.
On the way up to their room, Shuichi walked like a zombie and stood alone on the elevator, looking at the floor. Eiri unlocked the door to their room and Shu went straight to his suitcase to change into dry clothes. Eiri flopped into a chair and propped his feet on the footstool. "Come here," he said. Shu pulled on a pair of shorts and sullenly came over to the chair. He didn't take the invitation to sit on Eiri, which the writer found disappointing. Instead, Eiri pulled the idiot into his lap, holding his lover against his body. Shu's arms wrapped around him, and his body relaxed, snuggling into him— almost without concious control. Sometimes, he thought he was Shuichi's addiction.
"What was it, Eiri? What caused you to . . . brush me off like that?" He sniffled. "We're still getting married today, right? So why were you so mean all of sudden? Was it something those radio people said?" His voice toughened in petulant outrage, "Who cares what other people say? Isn't that what you're always telling me?"
"You're right."
Shu's head came up to look him in the eyes. "I'm right?" Eiri looked back at him, steadily. A smile quirked into place on Shu's tear-streaked face. "That's almost the same as an apology from you. I'm riiiiight!" He crowed, laughing. Eiri felt that he'd been forgiven. Then the laughter stopped abruptly and Shu frowned at him like he'd been tricked. "Hey! You still didn't tell me why!"
"I don't have to, either. You just said it doesn't matter." Eiri transfered his cigarette from his mouth to his fingers. Taking a hold of Shuichi's head in the other hand, he pulled him in for a kiss. Eiri let go of his ire. They would only be here for a few more days and then they could go home and everything would return to 'normal'. He was usually so good at ignoring others . . . It *shouldn't* matter.
***