Title: Dizzy

Author: Hawk Clowd

Disclaimer: So far as I know, I own nothing. Gravitation belongs to Maki Murakami and I wouldn't take it away from her for anything in the world. I just like to play.

Blood Type: Something flammable -- times two! -- simply because you could light a match and both Ryuichi and Tatsuha would be on fire.

Warnings: Very few.

Part: Two

Author's Note: Yes. So... I wrote a portion of this part (the bit with the fish) approximately one month after I finished writing "Spin". I originally intended to use it for something else, but I found it while writing this part of the story, realized I could adapt it to fit with the dialogue and the scene with which I was playing, and decided to throw it in. It's probably my favorite bit of this story. Sadly, I think it's also the only part with any dialogue whatsoever. (To be fair, I wrote most of the dialogue later on, while I was adapting the already-written bit to the scene.) Oh well. Please excuse my poor exposition and my lack of character interaction. I promise that things will improve in the third part of this story!

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Eiri had lied when he told Tatsuha the graduation party was just a small family affair; in truth, many of Tatsuha's friends attended, as did many of Mika's friends, Tatsuha's Aunt Kyoko, and the entire Bad Luck crew (who had apparently been 'hired' to provide the musical entertainment). Everything seemed to go smoothly, so far as Tatsuha could tell. Everyone got along with everyone else and even Eiri pretended to be sociable, although Tatsuha suspected (and Shuichi later confirmed) that the writer was very, very drunk.

As fun and impressive as the whole thing turned out to be, Tatsuha nonetheless felt glad to get a few moments to himself around midnight when he could smoke in peace, at least for a little while. Bad Luck was readily received by the majority of the partygoers and bits of music filtered outside. People stood around in small groups, chatting and carrying on. Tatsuha knew he should be pleased with everything, but he couldn't quite bring himself to that point. Despite his best efforts, Tatsuha was feeling down at his own party.

Probably the worst thing about it all, he decided, was that he didn't know why.

Tatsuha might have figured it all out if he thought about it for a few minutes more, but he didn't get that chance; Eiri came up and tapped Tatsuha's shoulder. As Tatsuha turned to look at his older brother, Eiri walked away, acting as though he had not done a thing. If there had not been so many people around, Tatsuha probably would have called his brother a bastard and pushed him into the koi pond. As it was, he just made a face behind Eiri's back and went back inside the house to mingle and smile at everyone who tried to congratulate him.

The party ended around five in the morning and Mika put both Tatsuha and Eiri to work cleaning up so that she could go to bed. It didn't seem fair to Tatsuha that he should have to clean up at all, since the party had been for him, but complaining only earned him one of those looks from a quickly sobering Eiri so Tatsuha sighed and agreed. His elder brother, in an unusual display of humanity, offered to take care of the mess outside, which was more extensive and involved fishing assorted trash out of the koi pond. Since the fish liked to bite -- perhaps because they sought vengeance for all of the Uesugi children who had tormented the koi with stones and lures --, Tatsuha felt Eiri was brave to tackle it.

Cleaning up inside the house took considerably less time but was a more challenging test of stealth, as the slightest noise would send either his father or Mika downstairs to lecture Tatsuha. Tatsuha had trained himself in the field of indoor stealth, however, and was up to the task. He finished cleaning shortly after five-thirty and then went outside to boast of his progress to Eiri.

Tatsuha wasn't too terribly surprised to find Eiri sitting outside on the steps, smoking idly and tossing spent cigarette butts into the koi pond. By the looks of things, Eiri wasn't even going to bother cleaning, leaving visitors and guests to gawk at the rather disgraceful state of the yard. Tatsuha considered his brother for a moment and then went to sit by him.

"My dick is bigger than yours," he said after a long moment.

Eiri went on ignoring him.

"Seriously, it is," Tatsuha continued. "I went up to Shuichi earlier and told him so, but he didn't believe me and I had to take off my pants and show him. I proved it. Shuichi said I was right, too."

Still nothing.

"He said it was like comparing an elephant to a koala," Tatsuha said. He nudged Eiri in the side. "Did you hear that? He called your dick a koala."

Eiri smiled, just slightly, around his cigarette.

"Yeah, I liked that, too," Tatsuha said. "He was surprised I could fit something so huge into my pants."

Eiri turned stoic once again. Tough crowd.

Tatsuha considered his brother for a moment and then grinned. "Then I told Shuichi that I was better at fucking than you, too, and he didn't believe that, either. So I shoved him against the wall and peeled off those super-tight shorts of his and I --"

"Those shorts zipper," Eiri interrupted. "They would rip if you tried peeling them off and then Shuichi would yell at you until you were deaf."

Well, at least Eiri was listening. Tatsuha frowned. "They zipper?"

"Mmhm."

"All right, so I unzipped those super-tight shorts of his and I pleasured him like he'd never been pleasured before. He came for me, too. Three times."

"Only three?" Eiri asked. He quirked an eyebrow. "Either he's gotten better or you're not as good as you seem to think you are." He exhaled a lungful of smoke. "I'm leaning toward the latter."

Tatsuha grinned. There was the Eiri he knew and loved. "Bastard."

"Mmhm." Eiri offered Tatsuha a cigarette, which the younger refused. Five-thirty was way too early for Eiri's crappy cigarettes. "So what was the brat's final verdict?"

Tatsuha considered that. Picking a winner would be a blow to their attempts at brotherly love, so he would either have to choose very carefully or cop out of it. "He doesn't know," Tatsuha said at last. "Apparently neither of us leave that much of a lasting impression on him, so we'll have to go at it at the same time just to make sure he'll remember properly."

Eiri snorted and chucked another cigarette butt into the koi pond. One koi -- one of the white ones with yellow-orange spots -- came to the surface and ate it. Both brothers stared at the spot where the butt had been and then looked at the collection of spent cigarette butts still floating on the surface of the water.

"What kind of stupid fish would actually...?"

Eiri examined his half-empty package of cigarettes. "Maybe I should switch back to menthol," he muttered. He shook his head and pocketed the package and with his lighter.

Tatsuha blinked and then laughed. Eiri chuckled a bit. A short while later, they lapsed into a comfortable silence. The sky was beginning to lighten and they watched the dark blues of the night turn into purples. It had been a long while since the two had sat around like this and watched the sky; Tatsuha couldn't remember having done it since before Eiri first went to New York, and they had only been kids then. Had it really been so long ago? He sighed and leaned back against the stoop.

"Where's your leech this morning?" Tatsuha asked at last, having finally noticed that Shuichi was mysteriously absent from Eiri's side and had been for much of the evening.

Eiri smirked. "Getting fucked against the wall must have really tired him out. He's probably still sleeping it off inside."

Tatsuha glanced at Eiri out of the corner of his eye. "You know I made that whole thing up, right?"

Eiri nodded but his smirk grew. Tatsuha stared at Eiri for a moment and then shook his head. Yup. Definitely time to change the subject.

"You never answered my question, you know," Tatsuha said at last. He punctuated the statement with a yawn and moved one hand up to cover his mouth.

"I don't answer a lot of your questions," Eiri pointed out. "Which one do you mean?"

"You know which one I mean," Tatsuha said with a slight frown. "The one I asked you this afternoon, about going back to Tokyo with you and Shuichi. It would only be for a little while -- a month or so, I swear -- and I wouldn't be too much trouble. And --"

"It's fine with me," Eiri interrupted. "I'll talk Shuichi into it. He was the one having issues with the idea before."

Tatsuha frowned. "He doesn't want me around?" he asked. "Doesn't he like me anymore?" Tatsuha scowled at the sky and shook a fist at it. "Little bastard. I'll really go slam him up against a wall now."

Eiri rolled his eyes. "Don't be an idiot. He likes you well enough. More than he probably should, all things considered."

"Then why doesn't he want me around?"

Eiri didn't answer. Tatsuha shifted uneasily in the terse silence and frowned at the sky. It was almost morning, and the yard certainly was not cleaning itself. Mika was going to be pissed if it wasn't picture-perfect when she woke up. As far as their father was concerned... He had apparently not wanted to hold a party on the temple grounds at all and had been furious when he discovered Mika and Eiri had gone over his head to arrange it. Mika was grumpy because Dad was pissed off and Dad was pissed off because Eiri didn't give a damn and Eiri didn't give a damn because... Well, because he was Eiri and he never gave a damn. It was a vicious cycle.

Tatsuha sighed. It had been a good party, at least. Lots of people had shown up. All of the people who mattered, anyway, with the exception of...

...with the exception of the one person who really did matter. Tatsuha frowned, remembering his earlier disappointment. He chewed his lower lip and thought a moment, then glanced at Eiri.

"Aniki?"

"Hm?"

Tatsuha licked his lips. "Why wasn't Sakuma Ryuichi here?" Sakuma Ryuichi was the one person -- the only person -- Tatsuha had desperately wanted to see, after all. After their failed (no, not failed: postponed) romance the previous summer, Tatsuha could not possibly want to do anything but rekindle it, to start where they had left off, to talk to Sakuma Ryuichi one more time...

Eiri kept staring straight ahead, silent and obviously troubled by something or another; he furrowed his brow and pursed his lips just slightly as he stared at the quickly lightening morning sky. He pulled his cigarettes and lighter back out of his pocket and lit a new cigarette with practiced fingers, but still he said nothing. Indeed, he only brought the cigarette to his lips twice, and then simply held it between his fingers and let the stick burn. He seemed content to stay silent.

Tatsuha almost gave up on waiting for an answer, but Eiri spoke just as the younger brother started to change the subject.

"When did you last talk to him?" Eiri asked slowly.

Tatsuha frowned. "It's been a little while, I guess. We emailed back and forth for a bit but you know how that goes. The time between messages gets longer and longer and then you forget whose turn it is to write or you have nothing new to say and it just gets forgotten," he answered.

Eiri was quiet again. Then, at last, he stood and brushed himself off. "I'm going to go to bed," he declared.

"You still have to clean up the yard!" Tatsuha protested.

Eiri shrugged and went inside anyway without saying another word. Tatsuha stared after him for a while, wondering what the hell was going on. Eiri still hadn't answered his question, and... Fuck. Tatsuha sighed and considered the yard. He played with the idea of cleaning it up and even moved a few things around with the toe of his shoe, but, in the end, decided it wasn't worth the trouble and went to bed as well.

Luckily for Eiri and Tatsuha, an unexpected early-morning rain washed most of the outside trash out of the yard, so the only major trash Eiri had to deal with was all in the koi pond. (Eiri later told Tatsuha that not a single cigarette butt was in the pond and that none of the fish bit him while he was cleaning it, a miracle he attributed to a large white koi with yellow-orange spots who had chased all the other fish away. Tatsuha was not sure if he should believe his brother or not; Eiri had always been prone to making up stories, and this wasn't the first time he had tried to convince Tatsuha that one of the fish was more intelligent than it should be.)

The day went by slowly and it was mostly occupied by bickering. Eiri and Shuichi, too tired to drive home, extended their stay in Kyoto and opened the day's festivities by bickering with one another. Then Mika started to bicker with her father who bickered with Eiri who bickered with Tatsuha who bickered with Shuichi who bickered with... Well, everyone bickered with everyone. Some arguments were more heated than others and all quarrels between Eiri and Shuichi ended behind the firmly closed doors of the guest bedroom. After a while, everyone else just tried to avoid the couple -- just in case.

Most issues, as always, were left unresolved. By the time night fell, however, at least the matter of where Tatsuha would spend his summer was finally settled. Tatsuha was packed and ready to go long before Eiri and Shuichi even woke up and, around ten that morning, the three of them finally left for Tokyo.

The trip was mostly uneventful. Eiri and Shuichi were both stopped for autographs and pictures nearly every time Eiri stopped the car. They graciously tolerated these attentions and requests; three people asked them to do something compromising on camera (a kiss, once, which they did, and full-on making out twice, which they did not). One young Bad Luck fan managed to mistake Tatsuha for Eiri, but a few whispered condolences from Shuichi healed Eiri's injured pride before the writer could drive more than a few meters away without his younger brother in the car.

All in all, the three of them arrived at Eiri and Shuichi's apartment in the late evening. Eiri made short work of locking himself in his office, so Shuichi set to the task of helping Tatsuha settle in and of showing Tatsuha around, since Eiri and Shuichi had owned this particular apartment for only two months and Tatsuha was not familiar with the layout. (They had moved for what Eiri called "security reasons". He had refused to say anymore about it.) The new apartment was larger than the old one, probably because Eiri and Shuichi had bought it together, as a couple, rather than Eiri buying it by himself. Given the extra space, the couple even granted Tatsuha his own room during this stay instead of the couch, so the apartment earned his instant approval.

With that chore done at last, Shuichi went to Eiri's office and badgered him until the writer agreed to come to bed. Tatsuha waited in his own room until he was absolutely sure the couple had retired for the night, then he snitched Eiri's cell phone from the writer's jacket pocket and flipped through his personal book of phone numbers. Tatsuha was looking for one number in particular, of course; he was a man on a mission. He was going to track down Sakuma Ryuichi before his month-long stay in Tokyo was over -- or he would die trying.

It couldn't possibly be that hard. Right?

--end of part two--