Shooting Stars
Chapter Eleven: The Benefits of Insomnia
Author's notes: Um... I think I must have unfulfilled desires or... something.
Or maybe it's like Kaikan Phrase. The virgin always has the best imagination? I don't know. But why am I always writing things like this, then? It's M to be safe, though I got a grip on myself and made it nice and vague. I don't need ff.n giving me problems...
And even though he's not on my list of favorite people... dear God. GO EIRI-KUN!
Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, I'd set up a webcam...
"I feel a little like I've just stolen the Mona Lisa. And it was incredibly easy."
"Giddy, you mean?" I laughed, letting the stewardess stash my bag in the compartment above our seats and settling into the comfortable chair. Eiri-kun had already settled into the seat next to the window, and was beaming at me as he unwrapped the scarf Mika-san had tied around his neck and stuffed it into his coat pocket. It was dreary outside the window, and I wasn't sure whether it was snow or freezing rain that was pouring from the sky, but either way, the weather was foul and unwelcoming. Inside the brightly lit first class cabin, it was as warm and bright as summer.
"Maybe a little," he said, with something bordering on a giggle.
The truth of it was, I understood the feeling of having just committed the crime of the century. After all, here we were, in the half-empty first class cabin of a US Airlines airplane, complete with smiling blonde stewardesses who spoke only elementary Japanese and glossy English-language magazines in the pockets of the seats in front of us. Even if we hadn't left Narita Airport yet, it really did feel, quite clearly, that we had gotten away with something spectacular.
I had actually felt much more nervous than I let on for the past two days, with the entire Uesugi family staying in my house and practically breathing down my neck. I had had to regress to being carefully, coolly polite to Eiri-kun, knowing that any shift in attitude would be noted and commented upon by my fiancée, who was watching her brother like a hawk whenever he was around me. After a few hours of such intense scrutiny, he had simply stopped talking to me altogether, pretending to be largely indifferent. I knew it was feigned; it still hurt. Seeing him smile now was like a breath of fresh air.
This trip, once it was agreed on, had been put together with dizzying haste. In a way, I was worried that someone would realize just what I was doing and put a stop to it. On top of that, I genuinely wanted to get Eiri-kun out of the stifling environment of his school; quite aside from my ulterior motives, I really did believe he would do better overseas where he wouldn't have to be quite so self-conscious and his father wasn't ominously hovering, watching over his shoulder to make sure he was doing the "good" and "proper" thing. Therefore, I had purchased tickets the very next day, and not a month later (barely enough time for Eiri-kun to acquire the proper visa) at the very start of his winter vacation, we boarded the plane that would take us away from Japan, to a place where it seemed anything was possible.
"Please pardon us for the delay, and welcome to US Airways flight 630, bound for New York City, with a layover in Los Angeles, California," a pleasant female voice said in English. "Please be advised that our staff does not speak Japanese. We hope you enjoy your flight." This greeting was repeated in accented Japanese over the speakers, at which point we were asked to direct our attention to the uniformed woman in the front of the cabin as she demonstrated safety procedures. I leaned back in my seat comfortably, too accustomed to flying to pay attention, though Eiri-kun seemed to be taking all of this in raptly. I recalled that he had never flown before: Uesugi-san did not believe in vacations overseas, and for a trip to Tokyo, the Shinkansen was more than fast enough.
He was practically bouncing out of his seat with excitement by the time the plane headed slowly for the runway, looking like nothing more than a child relishing a new experience. Times like these, when I remembered he was, after all, only fifteen, were rare. Most of the time, his precocity made him seem a great deal older than he really was.
Once the plane had taken off, the flight attendant came by and politely asked for our drink orders. In stilted, faltering English words, Eiri-kun managed to ask for a glass of juice. The young woman smiled as though he was the most adorable thing she had ever seen as she poured it, then the tea I had requested. When she left us alone, the only sound was the plane's humming softly around us. There were only two or three other people in the first class cabin; I had specifically chosen a night flight in hopes of an emptier airplane. There were fewer security worries this way, and it had been difficult enough to talk K-san out of flying over with us to "make sure you get there safely". I was sure he'd check up on me in New York eventually, but this was time alone with Eiri-kun, and I did not want to give it up to anyone. I expected that I would be working too hard to enjoy his company as much as I liked once we arrived.
The first hour of the flight passed in companionable silence. Only a few minutes into the flight, Eiri-kun's eyelids began drooping. It was nearly midnight our time, after all, so I wasn't terribly surprised that he was dozing off. Pretty soon, his head came to rest on my shoulder, and I only smiled softly and tried to move as little as possible so as not to wake him. After a while, I pulled out the headphones and looked for a radio station I could stomach among those offered by the airline. The music was in English, and most of it was not to my liking. I flipped a few channels, gave up, and defaulted to a classical station. I had a slight headache from all the pressure I had been under, anyway. Mozart was always good for headaches.
The seatbelt sign winked on, and the speaker announced that we would be hitting some turbulence. Eiri-kun stirred, then opened bleary eyes to look at me inquisitively. "We're there already?"
"Not for a few hours," I said softly, my hand coming up automatically to stroke his hair. "You might want to go back to sleep," I added. "It's going to get shaky for a while. You'll feel better if you sleep through it."
"Why haven't you been sleeping?" he asked. "It's the middle of the night." He yawned widely, clearly struggling to keep himself awake. "Aren't you tired?"
"I can never sleep on airplanes," I told him. Even in first class, in the wide, comfortable seats that leaned back almost parallel with the floor, I was unable to sleep. I had always been jealous of Ryuichi-san's ability to lose consciousness within moments of take-off; it seemed Eiri-kun would be the same. "I'll sleep when we land." I could probably manage to make it through the layover and all the way to New York before I was too tired to see straight. I was becoming a champion insomniac. I winced as the plane began to shake with the promised turbulence; I was going to have a monstrous headache by the time the flight was over. "Don't worry about me. Did you want to lean your seat back and get a pillow and blanket?" I asked. "It might be more comfortable that way."
He snuggled up to my side, closing his eyes again, clearly halfway asleep already. "I'm comfortable here, and you're warm. I don't need anything," he murmured, and was out just that quickly.
Moments later, a flight attendant came by and spread a blanket over him with a smile. "Your brother is very sweet," she whispered. "It's cool in here with the air conditioning. This should keep him from catching cold." She couldn't have been any older than Noriko-san, and she sent me a flirtatious glance.
As for me, I nearly blinked at her in blank-faced astonishment before remembering to tell her, "Thank you." My brother? Apparently, it was true that Westerners thought all Japanese people looked alike. After all, about the only common feature between myself and Eiri-kun was... well, maybe our hair color counted, though mine was considerably lighter. We looked about as related as Ryuichi-san and I did. I wondered if we would be taken for brothers all the time now.
Then again... that might be a benefit. I couldn't quite keep the self-satisfied smile from blooming on my face. The stewardess blushed a little, clearly thinking it was meant for her, then withdrew after I said nothing. Eiri-kun shifted slightly against my side, settling in a little more comfortably. The peaceful Mozart sonata in my ears was replaced with a rowdy mazurka, and the plane was shaking, but I still smiled as we traveled over the ocean. Though I couldn't sleep, the flight ahead didn't seem long at all.
By the time we had arrived in New York nearly thirty hours later, I was resorting to coffee every two hours like clockwork. The landing had been delayed due to the massive snowstorm that had hit the city and the consequent poor visibility. Eiri-kun had slept while the plane circled and I stared blankly at the screen at the front of the cabin that was showing some sort of movie silently (I had removed the headphones around the time my head started to pound) and wondering just how much longer I was supposed to withstand this torture. The winking off of the seatbelt light and the speakers informing us it was safe to disembark seemed like the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
I shook Eiri-kun lightly to wake him. He had curled into his seat at some point after dinner, complaining that sleeping sitting up was making his neck ache. "Eiri-kun, wake up, we're here," I told him.
He was up immediately, rubbing at his eyes, his hair flattened on the side he had slept on. "Already?"
I thought about the endless hours and tried not to wince. "Yes, already." I stood and stretched, wondering if I could find some coffee in the airport that tasted halfway decent and would get me to the hotel we were staying in tonight. Which would also take longer than expected, considering it was mid-afternoon but the snow swirling outside made it seem like late night. "You'll want your coat. It's below freezing outside."
I got our coats and bags silently. Eiri-kun was bright eyed and awake, and I actually briefly considered hating him for it before dredging up a smile instead. It wasn't his fault I couldn't sleep.
"You look like the living dead," he told me candidly. "Did you really not sleep once?"
"Not since Tokyo," I told him.
He only shook his head, but grabbed both his bag and mine and refused to let go when I tugged on it. "Walk," he told me. "Try to do it without swaying, and without collapsing since I'm pretty sure I couldn't catch you."
After a moment, I let him order me around and walked in front of him down the hallway, out into the noise and commotion of the airport, and towards passport control. I could have blessed first class at this point, as we got through without waiting in any of the monstrously long lines. Our baggage had already been picked up and sent ahead by a politely smiling man in an impeccable suit who spoke flawless Japanese despite his Western appearance and introduced himself as Mr. Tanner, a representative of Fusion Records. He was quick and efficient, and within fifteen minutes we were sitting in the back of a heated limousine while the driver headed out into the swirling storm. With another polite smile, he handed Eiri-kun hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and me a cup of steaming espresso. The look of naked gratitude of my face must have been very apparent, since Eiri-kun suppressed a laugh and didn't even try to take it away from me like Noriko-san would have.
"Have neither of you been to New York before?" he asked politely. I settled for shaking my head, waiting for the caffeine to kick in. "I think you'll enjoy our city very much," Mr. Tanner continued. "It's a shame it's snowing so hard; the Christmas lights downtown are quite lovely. Hopefully you'll get a chance to sightsee a little in the next few days. It's very festive this time of year." He leaned back in the seat across from us with his own cup of coffee. "Very little gets done around the holidays anyway, so you should have some time to explore, Seguchi-san."
This was unexpected; K-san would have put me right to work and not let me see so much as the hallway outside the studio more often than once every few weeks. "Thank you," I said with a grateful smile. "I have wanted to see what America has to offer for quite some time, but I never got the chance to come here until now."
"We will assign you an interpreter if you wish," Mr. Tanner offered.
"Thank you, I think we should be all right without one," I replied. I spoke nearly fluent English, and I expected Eiri-kun would pick it up after a while.
"As you say," the other man replied with a nod. "Claude took care of most of your arrangements already; there will be someone to take you to your apartment and help with whatever changes you wish to make tomorrow."
We discussed a few other things as well, mostly the tentative scheduling of the work I would be doing here. I barely kept up my end of the conversation, and Eiri-kun didn't seem to be in a very talkative mood, choosing instead to look at what he could see of the city through the tinted windows and heavy snow, which wasn't very much. It was about five in the evening local time when we arrived at the Plaza, but the second we had checked in, I practically collapsed on the enormous bed in one of the rooms of the suite after taking the shortest shower of my life and nearly falling asleep under the blissfully warm water. I felt my consciousness going as Eiri-kun headed for the vacated bathroom, but I managed a muffled apology.
"Sleep," he said in that same authoritative tone he had taken with me on the plane. "I'm not hungry, it's snowing too hard to go anywhere, anyway, and you might start bleeding coffee if you have any more. I'll just read for a while."
I wrapped myself in the weightlessly warm comforter and fell asleep to the comforting sound of the shower running in the next room.
I only woke once during the night, when I turned over to discover something warm and solid pressed to my side. I half-opened my eyes to behold Eiri-kun, who had clearly been reading in the room with me and fallen asleep in the middle of his book again. I pulled the novel out of his loosened grip. He murmured something unintelligible in his sleep as I settled the covers over him. I was about to move to the other bedroom when his hand curled around my shirt. After a moment, I sighed, settled back into bed, and pulled him close. His head settled almost automatically into the crook of my neck and his slow breathing tickled my neck. I was smiling as I fell back to sleep.
We settled into our new life amazingly quickly after that. A week after we had arrived, we were settled into our apartment, I was settled into my work, and Eiri-kun was making his torturously slow way through a couple of English textbooks I had brought home. I had much more free time here than I had ever had in Tokyo; without performances at night, I only had to work eight or ten hours a day. After the hellish pace K-san had set, it felt like a vacation.
By the time Christmas had passed, it was a little difficult to remember the way life had been without him. It just seemed natural for him to greet me when I came home in the evenings, and to see his face across the table at dinnertime. I had hired a housekeeper that came to cook and clean during the day, but she was only there for a few hours. Still, Eiri-kun didn't seem to mind his solitude too much. I kept encouraging him to go out, see museums or shop or find some way to entertain himself during the day, but he consistently said he was fine at home. He read and watched a great deal of television in an attempt to learn some English before school started for him the week after the New Year.
Our relationship was somewhat ambiguous, though I tried not to give myself a headache about it. On the one hand, he would hug me often when I came home, tilting his face up for a kiss as often as not. Sometimes the kisses were light and friendly, but sometimes they would become deep until I felt my head swimming and it took all my self control to pull away, but pull away I invariably did. The response was almost always a mixture of confusion and a slight touch of gratitude in Eiri-kun's eyes. Sometimes the confusion was tinged with fear, and I didn't really know whether he feared me getting closer or pulling away.
He took my hand when we did venture out in public. I had a feeling that at first it had been a defense mechanism against the new location; it was loud and hectic and very different from Japan here. But even as his discomfort with his surroundings started to fade, he always reached for my hand. In America, no one seemed to think much of it. At least, we were rarely stared at.
Discounting our very first night in New York, we kept meticulously to separate bedrooms. I was pathetically glad the apartment I had found was so large, because I understood that on some basic level, if he ever crawled into my bed again when I was not half dead with exhaustion, a migraine, jet lag, and severe caffeine overload, I would not be content to simply hold him while he slept as though he was a child. It was very obvious, from the way he pressed up against me sometimes, the way he looked at me with a half-smile and those golden eyes half-closed, that he did not think like a child. I knew it, and I had the feeling he knew it too, since the performance of the first night had not been repeated. I had to keep convincing myself that I was doing what was best for him.
That wasn't easy. Sometimes I wanted to scream.
Which was why I was surprised and a little panicked to hear a knock on my bedroom door at one in the morning two days before New Year's. I had turned my lights off more than an hour ago, but was working mentally through some melodies I had been given by management to "fix" and could not get my mind to shut down. Still, we had retreated to our bedrooms over two hours ago-
"Tohma-san?" came his hesitant voice from outside the door. "You're not sleeping, are you?" I contemplated not answering, sensing boggy ground. "I know you're not asleep," he said after a moment, and opened the door, thereby taking the decision out of my hands.
He appeared in the doorway, wearing oversized, warm pajamas, his eyes large and owlish, reflecting a bit of the moonlight coming in through the window. It was a clear night, though they promised snow in the morning.
Knowing there was nothing else for it, I sat up and met his eyes. The air in the room was cool on my bare skin; I couldn't comfortably sleep in much of anything. Eiri-kun's gaze skimmed down my bare chest, lingered there, then rose to meet mine again. My mind was in full alert mode, but I didn't know what to do about it. "Can't you sleep?" I asked instead, marveling how steady my voice came out.
He smiled slightly, one of those smiles that had something a little wicked to it, and closed the door behind him with an audible click. "I think your insomnia is contagious," he told me. "Let's be awake together." He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.
I felt the air sizzle from his proximity and leaned back against the headboard in automatic defense. "I don't think that's such a good idea," I finally said. "Why don't you make yourself some tea? It may help put you to sleep."
That little smile didn't leave his face. He seemed to sense my pulling away, because he deliberately leaned against me, putting his head on my shoulder. "I don't want to sleep."
I felt my pulse racing, tried to suppress it. He doesn't mean what he's saying. I need to get him out of my room and safely back into his own bed where he belongs.
"Do you not like me anymore, Tohma-san?" he suddenly asked, and laughed softly when he felt me jerk at the question.
"Eiri-kun, you're an intelligent boy, so I'm sure you know that's not the case," I said, trying to sound jovial and carefree. "But right now it's time to go to bed."
"We are in bed," he pointed out.
"That's not exactly how I meant," I said, feeling my face heat up.
"Tohma-san... are you still afraid of me?" he asked, turning to rest his chin on my bare shoulder, his eyes locking onto mine. On his face I read amusement tinged with a slight sheen of fear. It was the fear I had seen before, which made me wonder whether he wanted me to push him, or push away.
I chose not to answer this question. "Eiri-kun, the kind of control you're asking for from me right now is cruel," I told him, well aware by now that he knew the game we were playing every bit as well as I did.
In response, he only settled his arms around my neck, shifting and leaning forward so we were practically nose to nose. "I don't know what you think I'm asking for, when I left Japan and came here with you," he said quietly. "You've said before that you wanted me. If I didn't want that... would I be here?" He shifted again, leaning in to whisper into my ear, though there was no one to hear him. There was something about the moment that made it feel as though it would break at any noise louder than a whisper. His words were barely audible as he breathed them into my ear. "Go ahead. Lose control."
I felt something inside me snap.
My arms came around his waist, pulling him towards me, and he only managed one hitched breath before my mouth found his. His lips parted eagerly under mine as though this was what he had been hoping for, giving me freedom to taste the faint sweet remnants of the cocoa he had drunk before bed, and the taste underneath that was just him.
His hands were hot against the cool skin of my back, his fingers spread. He made a rumbling noise in his throat that almost sounded like a purr as my hands found my way under his shirt, stroked the feverishly hot silky skin. Then the shirt was gone, and the touch of skin to skin was almost more than I could take. I pulled his hips towards me, molding them to mine, feeling like I couldn't be quite close enough, and was rewarded with a surprised gasp before he seemed to melt into me until I wasn't quite sure where I ended and he began. His heart was pounding wildly and erratically against my chest, and the cool air of the room seemed to have heated to burning.
I think I whimpered a little, and then he was pulling me towards him, and we were falling in a flurry of blankets until I was pinning him to the bed, and he was saying something, nonsense words, demands, but I had stopped thinking and couldn't quite understand anymore as I rained kisses down his neck and chest. His back arched as the kisses reached his navel and his hands fisted painfully in my hair. "Please..." he choked out, his voice breaking. At about that point, I lost all ability at coherent thought.
My eyes only met his one more time after that, and he smiled at me even while his eyes were dark and glazed with passion. With hose eyes and that smile, he managed to answer the question I couldn't find enough breath to ask. He shivered a little as I looked down at him trying to catch my breath and regain my sanity, then reached out his hands and pulled me down. And it turned out I didn't need my breath or my sanity after all.
