A/N: This chapter's a bit longer than the previous two; enjoy!
Let me reaffirm that I love the YuShu pairing; love it, love it, love it. So why do I put them through so much and keep sticking them in fics where a happy ending seems impossible? -cough-BeneficentSpider-cough-
...honestly, no idea. I should be writing Gravi fluff, why am I doing angst?
Gahh. Please don't hate Yuki. (Or me.)
Ethereality
soumanyon
Chapter 3 - Killing Me
It was after Tatsuha left that Shuichi remembered that he had left the music to his latest song at the studio and had to go get it if he was going to get it finished. Unfortunately, a well-timed draft also reminded him that under Tatsuha's shirt that he had long ago taken for pajamas, he was naked. It had been one of those rough sex drills.
That left the poor vocalist stuck with nowhere to turn to. All of Tatsuha's boxers were, embarrassingly, too big.
That left Shuichi standing indecisively in front of Yuki's door, fist poised to knock and garbed still in Tatsuha's shirt and a pair of his pants which were incredibly uncomfortable to wear without underwear. Maybe he had been imagining the strange looks he'd gotten walking down the street. Or maybe not.
Or maybe it had just looked as if he were outside in his pajamas which was actually half true.
Regardless, he was outside Yuki's apartment for the first time in one month, two weeks, four days, seventeen hours, and forty-eight minutes and it was nerve-racking.
At forty-nine minutes, Shuichi was still debating with himself about whether or not to ask his ex-boyfriend the incredibly awkward question of whether he could get his clothes, particularly his boxers since Tatsuha had ripped his last pair the previous night in a hurry to get undressed. How to tiptoe around that?
At fifty minutes, his thoughts were broken by a strange noise from inside the apartment. It sounded like a dying cat. In alarm, Shuichi knocked on the door. No answer. He tried the handle then. Locked, of course.
Then the sound came again, louder this time and Shuichi winced. A tone-deaf dying cat. Oh god. What if Yuki had gone insane in his absence and had taken to slaughtering cats in his apartment? Who knew what lengths desperation could lead people to?
With a muttered oath under his breath, something about saving Yuki despite the blond not deserving it, Shuichi fished out the spare key that he'd left under the doormat and opened the door, stepping inside again for the first time in one month, two weeks, four days, seventeen hours, and fifty-two minutes.
"Yuki?" Shuichi's voice echoed in the minimalist apartment. It seemed as if his call was echoed by that dying cat again. He padded through the apartment warily on the lookout for half-starved, deranged cats. What he stumbled on was Yuki's bedroom, the door wide open.
Inside was a nightmare, worse than Yuki torturing helpless cats.
It was just like that afternoon, one month, two weeks, four days, seventeen hours, and fifty-four minutes ago. Everything, all over again.
-
Shuichi had gotten off work early and was rushing home to surprise Yuki. It wasn't any special day, just one of those when you're in a good mood and have that desire to brighten someone else's day. And all of Shuichi's brightness was directed towards his lover.
With a fancy box of strawberry shortcakes tucked under one arm and a bottle of the most expensive champagne the clerk had directed him to under the other, he somehow managed to fish out his keys from a coat pocket with one of his mitten hands. His tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth, his cheeks were red as the fresh strawberries from the cold and droplets of melted snow dotted pink hair. The picture was topped off with a cherubic, gleeful grin. Shuichi was the picture of cuteness.
When he finally got the door open, he struggled out of his heavy snow gear, balancing the cakes and champagne delicately on the back of the sofa.
"Yu-ki!" he whispered, checking the writer's study first. Nope. Not there. "Your lovable Shu-chan brought food and wine!" he tiptoed ahead, ducking his head into the kitchen. Nope.
Shuichi's grin widened as he reached the hall. Ah. Yuki was sleeping, of course. He'd had a deadline that he'd stayed up all night to meet. Well, they'd have a little snack in bed and Yuki wouldn't even have to get out of bed. Then they could conveniently move to other activities. His shiver then wasn't from the cold anymore.
But when he finally got to the end of the hall and pushed the door open, his fantasy was hopelessly destroyed, shattered into a million pieces like the expensive bottle of champagne that dropped from his suddenly frozen hands onto the hardwood floor. The fancy box of strawberry shortcakes followed with a crumple as Shuichi stared.
On the bed was his lover in all his naked glory having sex with the blond Shuichi had seen a few times, his editor. Apparently after getting the manuscript that morning, the woman hadn't left. There was the sheaf of papers that Yuki had been working on, scattered on the bed under their moving bodies.
He took a step backwards, as if to leave but the box of shortcakes crunched loudly under his foot and he froze. The pair on the bed seemed to notice him only then and the woman gasped, reaching for the scattered sheets to cover her panting chest.
When Yuki looked up, he froze. He met Shuichi's eyes and suddenly there was nothing.
Maybe it would have been better if Shuichi had suddenly teared up or went into a bawling, angry fit. Better for the both of them. But he was silent with shock or pain or anger or betrayal or any combination of those emotions.
Before either had a chance to do anything, Shuichi was out the door. He left everything and ran away from that apartment and never wanted to go back. It was his way of dealing with it—to deny it, as if it never happened.
-
It was hard, of course. Everything seemed to remind him of Yuki. But he ruthlessly pushed it all away and compressed it down somewhere inside of him and then stabbed it to death with the pieces of his shattered heart.
He was finally getting it under control, one month, two weeks, four days, seventeen hours, and fifty-two minutes later when he had to see it all over again.
Shuichi didn't know what he had hoped to see. Yuki crying in misery over their breakup, as he did almost every night in Tatsuha's arms after the monk fell asleep? Or Yuki in a state of drunken despair that Hiro had saved him from the week following the betrayal?
But instead, it was Yuki having sex, this time with a brunette.
Shuichi's emotions warred with him. His heart wanted to break all over again. His mind told him that it was nothing to get upset over. He'd done it himself, after all. He was still doing it. Neither won out.
This time when Yuki noticed him, he didn't turn around, he only froze. As Shuichi watched his bare back, he saw a shiver traveling up the writer's spine.
The brunette seemed confused until she saw Shuichi and shrieked, grabbing a pillow to cover herself. Shuichi smiled wryly, turning around to give her privacy.
He walked into the room, calmly as he could under the circumstances and headed over to the dresser. While he was picking through his clothes with shaking hands, he called over his shoulder,
"Tatsuha let you know I was coming, didn't he?"
A grunt. Shuichi supposed that it was an affirmative.
Finally coming up with a pair, Shuichi shut the dresser drawer, maybe a little harsher than he would have normally but the trembling in his hands was getting a little hard to hide. He tried to tuck them at his sides.
"See you, Yuki." He called over his shoulder as he closed the bedroom door behind him, fleeing the apartment as quickly as he could. Shuichi only had so much self-control.
When he got to the elevator, he leaned his forehead on the cool stainless steel. As the doors closed, maybe it was only his imagination, but he thought he heard an apartment door slam open.
tbc...