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: Four
Author's Note: I'm late with posting this chapter, and I'm sorry. In all fairness, this means that the fifth part will be posted all the sooner! My heartfelt thanks go out to Aja, as usual, for whipping this monster into semi-submission. She's such a dear.
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The door to Tatsuha's motel room opened once more that night, around midnight, but did not open again until almost noon the next day, by Tatsuha's watch -- which was the first thing Tatsuha strained to look at when the door slammed closed and woke him up from his uneasy doze. He shifted, just slightly, but stayed silent so that he could find out who, exactly, was out there. It couldn't be the cleaning service, he knew, unless someone had stolen the 'Do Not Disturb' sign he'd put on the outside door, and no one else would have a key. Right? Hell. Some asshole had broken into his motel room, and Tatsuha wasn't going to be able to do a thing to get him out. Peachy. Just peachy.
Tatsuha didn't make any sound at all until he heard the intruder speak.
"Tatsuha?"
It was Eiri. Okay, so the asshole part was still true, but at least this was an asshole Tatsuha knew wouldn't try to kill him too badly. He replied with a faint 'umm!' noise, which Eiri apparently did not hear. Tatsuha heard his brother make a 'tch' sound and kick some liquor bottles -- empty, by the sound of it -- out of his way. Eiri was looking through the bedroom.
"Tatsuha, you asswipe, I know you're in here," Eiri snapped. "You'd better give me a fucking answer unless some whore blew out your brains, and I don't mean that in a good and happy kind of way!"
Tatsuha rolled his eyes. Eiri always picked the weirdest times to be creative. "Mmm!" he tried again.
Eiri's footsteps paused and Tatsuha guessed the elder had heard him at last. "Tatsuha?" the writer asked.
"Mmm!"
A second or two passed before the bathroom door swung open to reveal Tatsuha in all his glory: completely naked but for his watch and the duct tape slapped over his mouth and the handcuffs on his wrist. He knelt on the ground with his hands cuffed around the main pipeline of the inset toilet. Eiri froze in the doorway and stared at Tatsuha for a long moment but, to his credit, didn't laugh. At first. Once the initial surprise wore off, Eiri started to chuckle. Tatsuha fumed but knew, in all fairness, that he would have done worse had their positions been reversed.
When Eiri got himself back under control, he knelt down by Tatsuha, not bothering to hide his smirk. "I don't even want to know who handcuffed you to the toilet or how they did it, but I would like to know what the fuck you were thinking." He paused. "Someone wrote on your ass in lipstick, you know." Eiri craned his neck as though to read what was written there. "Nothing flattering, either."
Tatsuha glared. After he and the two young women of questionable virtue had secured the motel room, they had all had a bit more to drink -- Tatsuha, perhaps, more than the other two. Well, maybe not perhaps. He had, after all, put up no argument when one of the girls had convinced Tatsuha to try out something kinky or when both girls had handcuffed him to the toilet. He had at last figured out that something was wrong when they had gagged him and stood around him, laughing, with the lipstick in hand. He didn't remember them writing on his rear, but he credited that to his drunken state. The girls had eventually left, along with the cash that remained in the jacket pocket, leaving Tatsuha to suffer the ultimate humiliation when, at last, someone went into the room and found him there. End of story. Tatsuha, of course, had no way of telling Eiri any of this, so instead he just made sound: "Mmm!"
Eiri shook his head and ripped the tape away from Tatsuha's mouth. Tatsuha wanted to yell out but didn't. His lips burned and stung; he licked them carefully and found that only made them sting more.
"What took you so long?" he asked in an attempt to joke his way out of the situation.
Eiri didn't buy it. The writer quirked an eyebrow and set to work wrestling with the handcuffs. Tatsuha accepted his defeat and sighed.
"I needed to do something," he explained at last. "You know, to prove..." His voice trailed away. Tatsuha wasn't exactly sure what he had been trying to do. He just wanted to know that he... He looked to Eiri for help.
"To prove you didn't care as much as you really did," Eiri supplied when he saw the look.
Tatsuha nodded. "Yeah, I guess."
"I see," Eiri answered. He frowned at his brother and then bowed his head as he patiently got to work on the handcuffs. "Shuichi was worried when we went home and you weren't there. He wanted me to go out and look for you."
That was Eiri-speak for 'I was worried, you idiot!', but Tatsuha knew better than to translate it aloud. Instead he just looked away and stared at the wall.
"Did you go look?"
Eiri paused. "No."
That was Eiri-speak for '...but I thought about it'. Tatsuha sighed. At least he knew his brother cared a little bit. That was something.
Tatsuha licked his lips again. They still stung. "How did you know I was here?"
"I have a very nosy credit card company," Eiri answered. "They thought it was strange that I paid for both a shit-load of liquor and a motel room in one night when I usually only use the card for travel expenses once or twice a year. I got a call at ten o'clock, realized you must have used the card, and asked for the motel phone number. When I called, the desk told me you hadn't checked out, so I figured it out from there."
"Oh."
"'Oh' is right," Eiri said. He scowled at the handcuffs, which did not seem to be cooperating. "I'm guessing there was a girl involved?"
"Two," Tatsuha answered. "Sorry."
Eiri brought his eyes up to meet Tatsuha's and then shook his head. "You're an absolute fucktard," he said. That was Eiri-speak for 'You had me worried. Don't do it again.'
It was a good thing, Tatsuha decided, that he spoke fluent Eiri.
"Bastard," Tatsuha said, and grinned. He felt his lip split and he stopped grinning in order to suck on his lower lip to ease the ache and stop the bleeding. Eiri stood and filled a glass with water. He helped Tatsuha drink a little, and that helped. Then he went back to the problem of the handcuffs, this time using a pocketknife to fiddle with the keyhole.
"Fuck." Eiri scowled at the handcuffs. "This is a pain in the ass."
"You aren't the one who has been stuck on the floor for a million hours," Tatsuha said. "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to move again."
Eiri frowned. "You're an idiot," he said, and this time he meant exactly that.
"I'm glad to know you care," Tatsuha countered, making a face.
Eiri was quiet for a very long time before he spoke again. "We should have told you about Sakuma-san," he said at last. It wasn't an apology by any means, but it was something. "After you came to visit last time, Sakuma apparently started moping around. Shuichi said he was missing you, but then, all of a sudden, he was normal again." Eiri paused. "As normal as that man can be, in any case."
Tatsuha stayed quiet. Eiri continued.
"Shuichi came home soon after and told me Sakuma was seeing an American model he had known... years ago, I suppose. It looked serious, but Seguchi made sure the news stayed out of the tabloids and the papers." Eiri glanced at Tatsuha quickly. "We thought you would find out that way or through some internet talk, but I suppose you never did."
"That's why Shuichi didn't want me to stay the summer with you," Tatsuha murmured. "Isn't it? He thought I'd upset Sakuma-san or..."
Eiri was no longer meeting Tatsuha's eyes and, suddenly, Tatsuha figured it out.
"You didn't want me to know?"
Eiri nodded. "I thought perhaps you would grow out of it. Fanboy crushes are only fanboy crushes, after all. They come and go."
If Tatsuha's hands had been loose, he would have had to resist the urge to hit his brother. "Fuck you," he hissed. "You asshole! I love him! You don't know anything about it! How could you understand? You fucking --"
A harsh, mean glare from Eiri stopped Tatsuha's diatribe in mid-sentence, before Tatsuha could fully unleash his tongue.
"I was wrong," Eiri admitted, his face and voice both stony. "I knew it for sure last night, but I realized it at your party. I apologize. You should be mad, perhaps, but don't you ever dare accuse me of not understanding."
Tatsuha returned the glare and then looked away to glower at his own hands. Okay. So maybe Eiri had a point. Maybe. He sighed and, after a moment, his face softened.
"You and Shuichi didn't tell me because you didn't want me to get hurt," Tatsuha murmured. "It was never about Sakuma Ryuichi's feelings, was it? It was about mine."
Eiri paused for a moment and then nodded. "Yes."
"You thought maybe if I didn't see him at all -- with or without the model -- I would forget about him and move on."
"That was the general idea," Eiri agreed.
"You were wrong."
Eiri refused to look at Tatsuha once again. "I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
The weight of Eiri's apology -- his honest, sincere apology -- made everything hit home at last. Tatsuha felt tears prick at his eyes and he blinked rapidly to keep them away, but that only made them fall. He had no free hands with which to swipe the tears away, so he had to let them course down his cheeks and turn him back into the six-year-old boy who had cried over skinned knees and cuts while his older siblings attended him.
Eiri graciously pretended not to notice and, when he finally got Tatsuha free of the handcuffs, he left to wait in the hall so that Tatsuha could take a minute to suffer by himself, in peace.
---end part four---
