Chapter Fifteen

Am I Angry, Hell Yes

Darkness completely blanketed the room and Shuichi was sure that not even the sun shined today. He rolled over, and grimaced as a spark of pain shot through him. he could hear Yuki's soft snore over his shoulder. He had insisted on Ryo staying and he hadn't tried to stop him. The morning had brought awkwardness, waking up beside two instead of his usual Yuki. He could hear Yuki's words clearly. "As much as I love Ryo...I will always love you." He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his shaking hands. Hours had passed and nothing would stop his trembling. He took six steps to the window, then closed the miniblinds, bring semi-darkness into the room. He returned to his bed, holding his head in his hands. His head ache, like the quivering of his hands, would not go away. The surrounding quiet disturbed him, but it was better than the screams that had taken over his mind. He couldn't get rid of the screams. Screams that told him to act, like last night. He wanted nothing more but to kill Yuki out of anger, yet his love for him had accepted the change. "Yuki..." Shuichi felt his eyes glisten and he left the room. Closing the door behind him he instantly pounded the wall with his fist. "You bastard." He repeated to boat the wall until the pain of his knuckles clued him to stop. In a nonviolent way release the pain and anger, Shuichi fell to his knees. Comforting the redness of his fist, "you bastard!" He held the screams that told him to hate Yuki and cried softly to himself. "I hate you...but I don't want to." Shuichi found the strength to hold his tears. Though the more his heart burned with hatred he wanted it to stop. Even if it was for just a little while. Nothing could come to mind but except taking a hot shower. He probably needed it to from last night, which was still on his mind in fragments.

Shuichi remained in the shower far longer than was necessary. Having had to live time away from home, he appreciated the opportunity to just linger under the hot mist, to lazily run the bar of soap across his body and let it wash away the dirt and grime of disappointment, despair, and hopelessness.

After about 45 minutes, he turned off the water, reminding himself of the fact that Yuki had no intention of waking enless he woke him. Still soaking wet, he stepped out of the shower and rummaged around a linen closet in search of a towel, when he heard a knock on the bathroom door.

He was puzzled as he stepped out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a beige towel wrapped around his waist, his hair still soaking wet.

But when he answered the door and saw the glare of the Ryo standing on the other side, his powers of speech suddenly became useless. Shuichi gave a glare which could have brought him to his knees.

"Where is Yuki?" He asked in a surprisingly soft-spoken tone of voice that was even icier than Yuki's.

"Isn't he asleep?" Shuichi said coldly finaully exiting and heading for Yuki's room for some clothes.

"Not anymore. I woke up and he was gone, I thought you would know where he went." Ryo follows Shuichi into the room, waiting for an answer.

He stopped in his tracks when he reached the wide open door to Yuki's bedroom and got an eyeful. Shuichi was standing at his closet, completely nude, with his back to him, thankfully. After last night it still felt awkward to be in Shuichi's presence as he's naked. Yuki isn't there anymore to make things better. From behind, Shuichi looks like a woman. Ryo reassured himself, trying to think up any excuse possible for the heat that rose to his face, for the quickened breath and racing heartbeat.

Hating himself for this feeling, Ryo quickly walked to the dresser, where he pulled out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, and threw them at Shuichi without looking at him, for fear that his body would betray him once again. Ryo sighed before his emotions got the best of him. Without thinking of it, Shuichi threw himself on Yuki's bed.

"There's no need for you to make a big" Shuichi said as he propped himself up onto his elbows and spread his legs slightly to reveal a small mark on his inner thigh of his right leg. Ryo gasped as he got more of an eyeful than he ever wanted of another man other than Yuki, wearing nothing below the waist, lying on his bed, legs spread apart. Suddenly there awkward moment was broken by a phone call. Shuichi answered and politly spoke as Ryo left the room. A few minutes later Shuichi got off.

"Who was that?"

"Yuki. He told us to meet him at a cafe' since he has work to do and won't be able to come home tonight." Ryo nodded in agreement.

Ryo felt surprisingly apathetic, and that thought annoyed him somewhat. He figured that he should have felt disgusted, angry, saddened, hell, he would even take flattered! But as he sat there, at the small café table, seated across from his gushing Yuki and Shuichi, he just couldn't muster the energy to feel anything at all.

He was pathetic. Not twenty minutes earlier, Yuki was kissing him. No more than that, he was sucking on his goddamn tongue! He declared his love for him! Not that Ryo was surprised, he had Yuki figured out for a while, and he was almost certain that Shuichi himself was aware of Yuki's feelings for him as well, but as the happy couple, sat there so close to one another, Yuki's hand placed possessively on Shuichi's, their fingers so tenderly intertwined… Ryo wasn't sure what to feel anymore. Should he be furious at Yuki for living a lie and dragging Shuichi into it? Should he feel relieved that with Shuichi back, Yuki would spend more time with him and less time hounding him? Should he share their happiness, or even feel a little saddened by the fact that he would no longer be the focus of their attention? He wanted to feel something. Common sense told him that he should have anything other that the disinterested indifference that he felt at the moment. He blocked the urge to glance down at his watch for fear that it would reveal his boredom to his well-meaning family. So instead, he took part in their conversation. He laughed with them, he joked, when all the while he wanted nothing more than to scream, to ram his fist into the side of a building, to be able to feel anything other than that quiet nothingness.

Shuichi finished the last bite of malted milk balls, and Yuki didn't resist when he leans toward him and says, "open", and so he does, and then he closed his lipe around his index finger and licks the thin film of chocolate away with his tongue. Only a hair less subtle than warm body chocolate and a paintbrush. And finally, Ryo just couldn't take anymore of their presence, of that fabricated affection and happiness that they displayed.

"It's been great, but I really need to be going. I have stuff that I need to get caught up on." Ryo said as he pushed away his barely touched plate of food and rose to his feet.

"You me to go with?" Shuichi asks saracasticly, picking on Ryo's awkward situation.

"No thank you. It's a nice day today. I think I'll take the bus back and walk a little." He declined right before the party said their goodbyes and Ryo turned to walk off.

Shuichi laughs shortly and smiles to Yuki like he had nothing to do with this new accurence. "So."

Yuki sighs, "Shuichi! Stop messing with him, he's just a kid." Yuki crosses his arms and his legs.

"Just a kid!" Shuichi stands up rather rudely and pushed the chair back. "Well just a kid had succesfully taken your heart during my absence!"

Yuki stands up and shushes Shuichi, "calm down Shuichi. Down make a scene. No need to be angry."

"Like hell I'm angry! You're a cheating bastard, and I have no need to be anry! You have been with him since the day I left! Only proves how excited you were to rid youreslf of me." Shuichi pushes the chair back in and leaves loudly. Yuki follows after him.

"Shuichi! Come back here. You're being such a kid." Yuki grabs Shuichi's arm and pulls him back.

In a sudden reaction to the touch Shuichi flips around and slaps Yuki on the face. His cheek burns as he is startled by Shuichi's tears. "I hate Ryo! And I hate you most of all!" Shuichi balls his hands into a fist. "You're a stupid, selfish, blind bastard. Not for one second was I satisfied with that threesome crap! It's all a pieace of bullshit...you and me...our relationship! I think you deserve Ryo actually. Anyone slick enough to steal someone elses love is prefect for a no good pieace of shit like you. For someone who writes all those love stories you have never felt an ounce of satisfaction with one person."

Yuki frowns, "may I am better off. How do you think I felt when you were with that bitch Chizuru! I don't appreciate losing to some little girl with an IQ of zero. I hope you didn't think I didn't know about your date."

"You jerk! I ditched her for you! I gave up everything for you...I would have even given up music, Yuki..." Shuichi started to run off, "I made sacrifises for you Yuki, why can't you do the same for me!"

How was it possible, for people to look so genuinely satisfied in an obviously flawed relationship? Ryo thought to himself as he put on his coat and made his way down the busy urban walkway, sneering to himself as he made his way past a blissfully ignorant couple who was strolling along that sidewalk arm in arm, so wrapped up in each other's presence that they most likely believed that the world existed only for them…Ryo couldn't help but wonder. Does he whisper in Shuichi's ear while he sleeps, professing his undying love to him, before leaving his bed and returning to his own? Does Shuichi lock himself in his bathroom, weeping, lamenting the fact that Yuki was only second best to him, that for as long as he had him, he would never be able to make a claim on his heart?

Yuki to was thinking, all that thinking became tiresome. He was certainly in no position to judge other people's happiness. The endless trail of failed relationships behind him was proof of that. Perhaps it was possible to be satisfied in a compromised relationship. Perhaps he was the foolish one, for senselessly holding all those women then Shuichi and Ryo to a standard that was just humanly impossible to meet outside of those silly love stories that he wrote. Damn, that boy was absolutely right. One who had never felt even an ounce of satisfaction with another had no right to write such things.