I suppose that's all that needs to be said for now, other than I don't own Gravitation, but I'm working on that. ^_~ Also, the song used is "In The Moonlight"; the translated lyrics were taken from Animelyrics.com.
And please, give generously to the Review Foundation. *solemn*
//...// denotes thought.
_..._ denotes emphasis.
Hitori
By Ryu-chan
Chapter One: White Noiz
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Yuki Eiri is a logical, calculating and sometimes cold person. He believes in what he can see, what he can touch, and he prides himself on being able to see through common illusions. He is an atheist, cynical and disbelieving (because, after all, what kind of compassionate, powerful being would allow a sixteen year old to be brutally beaten and raped thousands of miles from home?) and for most of his life, he believed in relying on only himself to survive.
And while he sold fairy tales, he didn't buy into them. Love was an illusion; lust and pain were reality.
Shuuichi ruined all of that. With three simple words, the young vocalist was able to deconstruct Eiri's beliefs before his very eyes, picking them apart with the same naïve finesse as a child tearing petals from a flower, leaving Eiri vulnerable and desperate, frightened of what he was now laid bare to, hiding his fear behind harsh words.
And with that childlike innocence, Shuuichi smiled and soothed away the distress. Told him over and over again how much he loved him, refused to leave when it all came to be too much for Eiri and the novelist panicked, snarling insults at his lover, commands, orders to get lost, telling him that he didn't need some annoying brat hanging around him constantly.
Yuki Eiri could see through common illusions, unless they were his own. And what he had failed to realize was that Shuuichi was not some specter he could try to disprove, that the boy wasn't a delusion that Eiri could be rid of simply by shaking his head and clearing his thoughts.
//Not until it was too late...//
The living room of his spacious apartment was silent as he leaned against the picture window that stretched across one wall. Winter was settling over the neighborhood below, drowning the landscape in dull gray as it gently muted the liveliness of nature. Bare trees stretched their bony, vulnerable arms towards the sky in a silent prayer as the grass withered and died. Every day was overcast, as if the sun were also going into hibernation, leaving everything in what felt like perpetual twilight, and an electric chill hung in the air. The seasons were struggling between fall and winter; too cold and dead to be autumn, but not nearly bitter enough to snow yet.
Eiri hated it. The indecision, as if nature was caught in limbo, and it annoyed him to no end that it wouldn't simply _snow_.
With a dissatisfied sigh, Eiri turned away from the glass and looked around the living room, unsure of what he was supposed to do next and lacking the drive to accomplish anything. Distantly, he felt the nicotine's pull. //Too quiet. Too much of a void...//
Eiri was still having trouble adjusting to life without sound. When sound was there, so was direction, so was guidance and drive.
When sound was there, so was life.
But sound hadn't been around for a while, and as Eiri went to the stereo to put in a CD, he couldn't help but feel as if his life was fading to a whisper. Without the //_my_// little baka around to make noise and cause a distraction, Eiri was left to himself.
Which wouldn't be such a terrible thing if Shuuichi hadn't also taken whatever had been left of Eiri's broken existence with him. There was nothing left to rely on, nor was there anything left to survive for.
In his most desperate moments, suicide did cross his mind, but each time he chased it away. Killing himself, he decided, simply was _not_ an option. He had attempted such a thing when he was 18 years old, and when he'd failed, he'd never felt so cowardly.
He smirked to himself as he selected a CD at random and went to the couch, snatching the flimsy pack of menthols from the coffee table as he sat down.
//You never know who your true friends are//, he thought as he lit a cigarette, //until they've got their fingers down your throat to help you vomit the bottle of painkillers that should've worked.//
Soon, a vaguely familiar beat began, and Eiri frowned, feeling a slight twinge of panic as the rhythm of synthesized drums gave way to synthesized piano and strings. But no... no, this couldn't be the song he thought it was. //Music sounds the same anyway. Pop musicians can't do anything but steal from each other...//
"When an orange-colored moonlit night comes
I think of you
As though the chic affectations in my words
Were someone else's words…"
Eiri choked, eyes widening as the familiar voice jarred the silence of the room and cut straight through him. For a moment, he was paralyzed with inexplicable fear, a strange, painful sensation accompanying every beat of his heart as the loving voice continued to sing to him.
"Even now, (I can remember) the pale light
That illuminated your silhouette
As you suddenly glanced up
At that night's sky…"
The lit cigarette fell to the floor as Eiri scrambled from the couch, tripping over the coffee table as he made a mad dash to the stereo, desperation gripping him tightly, fear driving his movements.
"What is it I'm waiting for, in this room without you --
It's just the clock's ticking,
But it resonates in my sleepless heart
Like the sound of footsteps…"
Pounding the "stop" button didn't work; the volume wouldn't respond. An anguished, panicked snarl escaped him as the music kept going, kept tearing at him with its bittersweet lyrics.
"Even now I'm waiting
I stop here alone.
From where do you now see the moon
We saw together on that d--"
Eiri ripped the power cord from the wall, abruptly cutting off Shuuichi's voice. Panting harshly, Eiri leaned against the wall, then slumped to the floor, the power cord still gripped tightly in one hand. He couldn't breathe, the beginnings of an anxiety attack creeping throughout him, and he struggled to calm himself, struggled to get a hold on the uncontrollable trembling that suddenly overtook him. His song, the one Shuuichi had written for him...
"I got rid of those CDs!" he yelled to the empty room, regretting it immediately as the sudden shortness of breath threatened to choke him.
//Stop it...stop it stop it// he told himself, closing his eyes and trying to relax. //You're overreacting and behaving like a _child_. It's probably one of those burned CDs and you didn't label it. It could've gotten mixed up with one of his.//
He sat there for a long while, catching his breath as he came up with one logical explanation after another. //The stereo's kinda old, the volume and controls could have screwed up because of a short circuit or something. It's nothing, it's a stupid thing to get worked up over.//
But... he couldn't help it. There was a good reason why all of Shuuichi's music was packed away. Eiri could barely remember what had happened the day of his lover's death (shock, according to Touma), and having to hear the songs that Shuuichi poured so much of his soul into, music that was almost always influenced by something Eiri either said or did, was just too much for him to handle.
Gradually, the panic ebbed away, leaving Eiri feeling hollow and detached, not to mention completely drained. Even as the silence settled over him, the lyrics were still whispering in his mind, the sound of his lover's voice fanning the desperation deep inside. The longing to know, truly _know_ what had happened was beginning to weigh heavily on his shoulders.
The words that he had seen on his computer the night before were just as confounding as the music, and while he knew it was impossible (as well as illogical) to believe that the vocalist was still around, he couldn't help but wonder…
Was it possible that Shuuichi wasn't _really_ gone?
//Or is it just because I want it so badly? Is it just... is it just because I feel so alone?//
"What the _fuck_ is going on?" he murmured to himself, banging his head softly against the wall. "Shuuichi... what's happened to you?"