Pairings: Mmm... Cousin-cest! (Tohma x Suguru)
Warning: Shounen-ai/Yaoi, Incest, Shota... I can't even remember what the rest of them were.
Disclaimer: Yes, I don't own Gravitation... which means I don't get to hug Yuki whenever I want, or jam with Hiro and Shuichi, or go on a manhunt with K, or blow up K with Rage's bazooka, or jump on Tohma every time he walks around a corner, or color with Ryuichi, or get Tatsuha drunk, or drag Suguru into the shower with me or... Ok, point being, they're not mine. sob
Chapter Three -
The Five Stages of Grief
Part One: Denial
Tohma ushered his cousin into the elevator at the end of the hallway, and as the doors closed with a ding, pressed the disc marked in gold embossing for the ground floor. Suguru didn't move.
Actually, the teen wasn't showing any sign of life other than the constant intake and exhale of air, signified by the rise and fall of his chest; barely visible beneath his emerald green sweater. It was rather thin for a sweater, hardly meant to give Suguru any warmth or protection from the elements, rain being one of them...
But Suguru didn't stir, he didn't speak, nor did he even relocate his gaze from the metallic doors before him. His silence worried the blond; the lack of emotion on his young face was eerily familiar.
"Suguru are you... alright?" Tohma asked, unsure of what was happening in the mind of the petrified keyboardist.
"I'm fine." Short and sweet; the teen used the traditional youthful methods to try and force an adult to get the hint that they don't want to be social at the moment: use very short sentences, even smaller words, one syllable only; and a tone that does not make for an easy continuation of the conversation.
Fine never meant fine; the dictionary would do better to put in another definition stating how fine stood for absolutely not fine most of the time. Tohma realized that; it was his job, after all, to read people like cheap paper back novels bought at a dollar a piece.
"I'm positive K-san and Nakano-kun will replace your keyboard-"
"What keyboard?" Suguru's hand twitched slightly, pulled by an invisible thread a millimeter in the air before being dropped again, "I-I don't know what you're talking about Seguchi-san."
Before Tohma could ask his cousin what he meant with his seeming, self-imposed amnesia, the doors to the elevator opened, releasing the occupants to the world once again. Tohma walked briskly out, losing the one-sided grip he had on the teen's hand. He had hoped that Suguru would be following him when he glanced back in the direction he had left from. The president of NG turned just in time to see the ruthless doors begin to close, about to imprison his stony cousin in their cocoon.
Suguru was kilometers away from fine.
At a very un-business like pace Tohma rushed, or rather walked a tad faster, back to the elevator, arriving as the doors once again met and embraced.
Tohma sighed and pressed the circular button resting on a gold bed to the right of the lift, which promptly sprung to life with an orange light. Then he waited, three seconds passed, then five, six, seven, eight, nine... Tohma's foot began to tap slightly within his dark shoes; though the twitching was invisible to any eye lacking x-ray vision. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and one gloved hand brushed several strands of blond hair from one side of his forehead to the other. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-th- the doors opened. There stood Suguru, exactly as Tohma had left him: separate from the present time and place.
Tohma spoke with a soft voice, not soft with anger or rage as it tended to mean when lacking volume, but gentle with compassion and underlying worry, "Come along Suguru, let's take you home."
The older man lightly clasped the teen's hand and guided him from the elevator and through the lobby. Anyone who saw them pass could clearly understand the carefully chosen mask upon their employer's face: 'I don't want to talk to you, so don't bother talking to me'. Two hundred and thirteen strides and two hundred fifty-one faltering steps later the pair of relatives stood in the drizzling rain outside their workplace.
"And to think, the sky was a beautiful blue when I last left it," Tohma said lightly to his no longer listening companion.
...To be continued at a later date. (Meaning: Hopefully the next part will be up tomorrow!)
Parting A/N: Looks like this chapter will have five parts.
