Shooting Stars

Chapter Fourteen: Crash and Burn


Author's notes: Um, OK, so clearly insomnia is good for something. I have a cold, ergo sleep problems, ergo I made myself work on something useful instead of staring at the ceiling all night, and ended up with chapter fourteen spilling out all in one go. Wow.

Can I just say, I don't like shrinks? sigh I've had enough negative experiences with them for my lifetime and Tohma's, but here I go adding another one. God, this woman is a bitch, and reminds me of one of my former shrinks.

On the subject of genre, I'm torn. I could classify this story as romance/angst except that a healthy half of it is really funny, and I can't really classify it as romance/humor because this is about as far from a romantic comedy as we get. And I can't very well classify it humor/angst, can I? ARGH, I hate this "two genre" thing. Suggestions?

On a final note, this is the chapter where we actually get a lot of Mika. I've been itching to work with her, and she didn't disappoint. I really love the woman, actually. She's as appealing as any of the male characters in her own way…

Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation. I own one of the remixes, though. The fact that there are still little white censor thingies in the remixes when they're that graphic is just really funny to me.


"It seems to be temporary memory loss, from the shock. The doctors told me he should start piecing things together within the next few days."

"Right," I said listlessly. "I'm sure the doctors know best."

"You look like death walking. I don't suppose I could argue you into sleep?"

I looked up at Mika-san with blank eyes, my cold hands barely warmed by the cup of stale hospital coffee I held. "Sleep? Now?"

"You're not helping anyone like this. Eiri's going to be asleep for hours, they said."

"I'm not tired," I said, only halfway lying. I probably was tired, but too numb to feel the exhaustion.

She let out a loud sigh, clearly to show me just how difficult she found me. "Of course not."

Twenty-four hours after we had been brought here, I was finally starting to find some of that promised numbness and detachment. In any case, I wasn't painfully aware of each breath and beat of my heart anymore.

A few hours ago, K-san had appeared like magic at the police station where I was being held. It took only a few words from him to have me out on bail, something I knew I could have done myself if I had just cared enough to bother. He had taken me out to my car and reached out a hand wordlessly for my keys. After a moment, I had given them to him and settled back into the passenger side of the car.

He had started the car, but not pulled out of the parking lot for a few minutes. "So," he finally said. "This is a pretty story." For a wonder, he didn't seem to be in a murderous rage, though this was exactly the kind of thing that should have prompted it. I kept silent. "You three seem to have a gift for pretty stories. Did you really kill them?"

I looked at him expressionlessly, saying nothing. I didn't feel much like talking. My throat was sore and my head was aching from the tears that had been shed, but I was perfectly calm now, and knew it was easier to keep silent than try lying to him.

"Didn't think so," K-san sighed, and pulled out of the parking lot, directing the car towards the hospital. "Not that I don't think you're capable," he made this sound like he was apologizing for insulting me, "but it just doesn't fit. You have a good poker face, but if someone bothers to really look, they won't believe it either. It would probably be better if you just told the truth. You don't need a murder on your record; it's counterproductive."

I managed an icy glare. "I killed them," I finally said. "And I destroyed Eiri-kun. If you want me to say something else, I would have to lie."

He regarded me silently for a few minutes, his gaze penetrating, then nodded and returned his gaze to the road. "Whatever you say, Seguchi-san." I had an odd feeling of having passed from subordinate to equal in his eyes. "I'll deal with it. Just try to keep your story consistent."

I closed my eyes for a moment, reflecting on how tired I was. "Thank you."

We had driven in relative silence for a while, though after a few minutes he had switched the radio on softly. For a wonder, he picked a soft jazz station, obviously in thinking of my aching head. When he finally spoke again, his voice had some of its usual cheerful bravado. "Ukai wanted to come, you know, but her baby's sick, and Ryuichi's in Switzerland with his stepmother. That long-haired number of yours is really worth something to think of calling them before coming out here herself. She impressed me."

"Mika-san's here?" I asked dully, wincing internally. "I should have kept the gun. She could shoot me and be done with it."

"I'll pretend that's your particular sense of humor coming back," K-san said lightly. "She's almost as worried about you as her brother. She might have torn into the police department herself if she wasn't needed by the doctors. And the kid, too; he woke up again and recognized her."

I couldn't help shuddering, but my gaze never left the window. "That's a relief. At least he recognizes someone."

K-san gave me another measuring look. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what's really going on here? Off the record."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said mechanically.

"Of course you don't," K-san sighed. He swerved with a little more force than necessary into a parking spot in the emergency room lot. "What you really need is sleep, but I doubt you would go anywhere else but here. Get some damn coffee, you look like hell. I'm going to go take care of some pesky murder charges." Once I was out of the car, he had swerved back out of the lot, leaving me to blink after him until his taillights vanished before walking into the hospital.

I had been immediately accosted by Mika-san, who started interrogating me until she got a good look at my face, at which point she had cut off in the middle of a sentence and pulled me into a bone-breaking hug, an action that so shocked me that I actually let her. After a few moments, I had even been able to relax, wondering if she was holding on to me or I to her.

Eventually she let me go, pushed a cup of coffee into my hands, and bullied me into a waiting room chair. There we sat for two hours, our silence broken only occasionally by a doctor coming to speak to her. They wouldn't let us in to see Eiri-kun because he had finally fallen into some semblance of a healthy sleep.

There didn't seem to be much to say, at least not until her comment about temporary memory loss and the ensuing half-argument about me needing to sleep as well. She was quiet again for a while after, then spoke again, very quietly. "His mind's scrambled. He woke up a few times when I was there. Once he asked for you, another time someone named Yuki. He wasn't very coherent."

I closed my eyes, fighting back more tears. "I'm sorry, Mika-san," I repeated for the hundredth time, knowing the apology could never be enough but finding nothing else to say. "It's my fault."

"You keep saying that," she said, a tinge of irritation in her voice. "Maybe it is; I don't know what the hell's going on here—but if you don't stop acting like such a martyr I'm going to slap you."

I looked up in surprise to see tears at the corners of her eyes. "You say that as if saying it will fix this. It won't." I could find no response as her tears spilled over. After a few moments, she leaned against me, hiding her face in my shirt. "If you don't stop, I'm going to break down completely too, and someone has to be strong here right now."

Not sure of myself, I brought up a hand to rest lightly on her hair as she cried, the guilt almost smothering me because she was so kind to me after all of this, because she didn't blame me and should have. Whatever she says, whatever anyone says, it's all my fault. My fault, my fault, my fault, my-

"Mr. Seguchi?"

I looked up to see a woman with a kindly smile and her hair tucked back into a neat bun standing a respectful distance away. As soon as she saw I was aware of her, she resumed speaking. "I'm Doctor Hamilton. I wonder if I could speak with you a moment." She smiled at Mika-san, almost too brightly, when she also looked up. "Miss Uesugi, you can go in and sit with your brother now if you like. We shouldn't be too long."

After a moment, Mika-san released me, then stood and headed in the direction of the doors that led deeper into the hospital. Dr. Hamilton smiled again, for which I found myself starting to hate her, and gestured for me to follow her in the other direction. I followed her, wondering the entire time what she could possibly want with me when I was not a member of the immediate family and was indeed being treated a bit warily as someone who the police had taken away. "I'm sorry for taking you aside now, when all it really looks like you need is sleep," she said, never turning, "but unfortunately I'm a little pressed for time, and I would rather do this while the memory is still fresh."

She led me into an elevator, pushing the button for the fifth floor. I read the label by the button dully. Psychiatry and Mental Health.

I followed her down another hall when the elevator stopped, then into a comfortably furnished office. She urged me to sit down, then brought me another cup of coffee without asking. Only after I had thanked her and started drinking it did she speak again. "I'm being assigned to Eiri," she explained, "along with his primary care doctor, but we're all aware there isn't much to be done for him physically, so the problem must clearly be internal. And before I can do anything to help him, I need to understand exactly what is going on here, since he's in no state to tell me."

"He was raped," I said dully, uttering the ugly word for the first time, though I had been thinking it since the beginning. "I don't think it gets much clearer than that."

"We found no signs of forced sexual activity," she said coolly, then regarded me over the rims of her glasses. "I had supposed you would know that, having been there in time to stop his assailants. It is you who shot them, isn't it?"

"That's right. I shot them." That was so easy to say, so easy to almost believe. If only it had been me. "I can't clarify for you much, I'm afraid. As I told the police, I heard him screaming for help as I was coming to pick him up, ran in to see him struggling with his assailants, half dressed, picked the gun up off the table, and shot. It was rather automatic."

She looked at me sharply for a few moments, then nodded. "In that case, I suppose it is a relief to you to hear that he wasn't violated."

"Yes." That really was a relief, more than that. A little bit of the guilt seemed to lift off of me.

She pulled out a notebook and consulted something written there before turning her eyes on me again. "One of the men killed tonight was Yuki Kitazawa, Eiri's tutor. He called for him once when he woke up, then broke into a stream of what we're told by Miss Uesugi were desperate apologies in Japanese before falling unconscious." She bit on the end of her pen in a manner that seemed habitual before continuing. "Eiri was very fond of his tutor, wasn't he?"

"Yes," I said, letting cold fury and hatred wash away some of the painful guilt. "The bastard."

"I share your sentiments on some level, but we'll leave that alone for now," Dr. Hamilton said calmly. "Did you see indications of a relationship beyond student and pupil developing between the two of them? It's been known to happen fairly frequently with home tutors. Was Eiri perhaps more than simply fond of Kitazawa?"

"No," I cut her off. "There was nothing of the sort going on." Don't worry, he said, and I believed him. I felt myself growing angry, anger born of utter futility for ignoring the warning signs. I could have prevented this. It's my fault. "Don't blame the fact that Kitazawa was a sick fuck on Eiri. He's innocent. He would have told me if there was something going on."

"You were his confidant, then," she mused. "Well, I suppose that makes sense, seeing as you were his only familiar face in the country. It's a bit of an unusual arrangement to send a child overseas with his sister's fiancé. I can only assume your families are very close."

"We were always close." He was my closest person in the world. "The fact that he said nothing means there was nothing to tell."

She looked down at her notebook again before she spoke. "I hate to say this, Mr. Seguchi, but this doesn't quite fit together in my head." When she looked up, she was no longer smiling. "Autopsy reports show that Kitazawa had been consuming alcohol shortly before the time of his death, but he wasn't hideously drunk, certainly not enough to alter his behavior patterns this much. If Eiri confided in you, he must have said something. Either the child was stupid, which I am not led to believe, or you're lying to me, which is an idiotic thing to do when I am trying to help."

"He told me not to worry!" I finally shouted, completely undone, too tired to care I was losing my cool in front of a complete stranger. "Of course I noticed some worrying behavior on Kitazawa's part! I would have had to be blind and stupid not to, but Eiri told me I was overreacting and I believed him, because he never lied to me! He was naïve and I was too much of an idiot to insist, which makes all of this my fault! Is that want you want to hear? Is it?"

She was watching me through narrowed eyes. "It's closer to the truth, in any case."

I emptied what was left of my coffee in one shuddering gulp and glared at her. "That is the truth, miss, and I'm sorry if it isn't the pretty one you wanted. Eiri is an innocent victim who was cruelly taken advantage of by someone he loved and trusted, and I am the idiot who should have taken care of him and didn't. I can't do a thing to help him, not when he doesn't even remember who I am." I stood up. "I'm going now."

"Sit," she said shortly. There was such command in her voice, I couldn't leave, but I didn't sit either, only stood and glared down at her. "So," she finally said, tapping the pen against her lips. "I thought it might be something like this. Mr. Seguchi, what is your relationship with Eiri Uesugi?"

My anger winked out of existence as if it had never been, replaced by cold, and it took all I had in me to keep my voice and face from showing it. "He is my fiancée's brother and a family friend. You've heard this before."

"Yes, I've heard that before. Now I'd like to hear the truth." Her face, so kindly before, was cold and more than a little angry. "You were sleeping with that child," she said flatly.

"I'm afraid I can't possibly agree with that statement, as that would certainly be illegal," I said, cool and composed even when I was shaking inside.

"Yes, but more than that, unethical and damaging to the child's psyche." I said nothing, but she stood to look me in the eyes. "You're right to say you're guilty of this," she said softly. "I suppose I should tell you, it's clear there are many memories he's suppressing. The one time he was coherent and I tried to speak to him, he became very confused. The last thing that's very clear in his mind is almost a year ago, and after his memories become scrambled. It can't be only Kitazawa he's pushing out of his mind, since he's only known him a few months. It's a self-defense mechanism. I doubt his memories of that time will ever be completely clear, and I can only see you to blame for it."

Even when I met her gaze squarely, inside every shot she sent out met its target painfully. "I would dearly like to have you charged with statutory rape," she said coldly. "If I didn't know it was futile to try without a word of evidence, I would send you back to the police. Whatever happened with Kitazawa last night, whatever was the trigger, you are the one who violated that child, probably numerous times, over the expanse of a long time, enough to have him lock away his own memories to be free of you. I think it's a blessing in a way that he will probably never remember you." She advanced until we were practically eye to eye. "You destroyed him. I can only hope there is enough humanity in you not to try forcing his memory. It's kinder to let him live in a fog than force him to relive something he so obviously wanted to lock away. He's likely to try something desperate if forced to remember, and I can hope you care for him enough, in your own twisted way, to keep him from harming himself."

She broke the seemingly endless contact between our eyes and turned away. "As a doctor, I can only say I will counsel the Uesugi family to keep you well away from their child. As a woman, I can say I will counsel Mika Uesugi to run as fast as she can before she is chained to you. And as a human being, I can say only one thing, and that is that you are a monster, and you disgust me." She sat down in her chair, picked up her notebook, hid her gaze. "I have nothing more to say to you. You can see yourself out."

I made it out of the hospital in a daze and caught a taxi back to the apartment. I stumbled in just as the second dawn after the ruination of my life broke, wincing at the red smoggy sunlight coming into my windows.


I ended up collapsed on Eiri-kun's bed, because I couldn't bear the thought of going into my room, the room we had shared for months, not without risking being ill. It was ironic that I ended in his room, causing a half-laugh, half-sob to escape me as I pulled the blanket up around me, but I was fairly near hysterics at that point, so just about anything would have incited that reaction.

The pillowcase still smelled a little like his shampoo from the one night he had spent there after we had fought. I buried my face in it, breathing in the familiar fragrance and hating myself.

You destroyed him.

"Yes," I said out loud to the empty room. "I did." Only then did the tears start, hysterical, inhuman sobs that I had been holding back for what seemed like a lifetime. Eventually, exhausted past even my breaking point, I feel into a deep dreamless sleep.


I was awakened by the smell of Mrs. Smith's vegetable soup and a cool hand on my forehead. I sat up to see Mika-san sitting on the edge of the bed, looking mildly concerned. It was dark outside the windows. "You've managed to get yourself a fever, I think," she said, as if this situation was normal. "Well, I suppose you deserve it if you're not going to eat anything excluding endless cups of bad coffee for over twenty-four hours. Here, Your housekeeper was by earlier and made this."

"Mika-san…" I trailed off, too confused to find words.

"Eat or I feed you," she said, shoving the bowl at me, spilling a little on the bedspread. "It won't kill you to be weak for the first and last time in your life." Obediently, I started to eat. "There was a key with Eiri's things, and I had your manager bring me here when he came to the hospital looking for you. The charges against you are dropped."

I decided not to ask how K-san had managed that. "That's a relief," I said emotionlessly.

"Yes, especially considering you didn't kill them." I looked up at her, knowing the shock was clear on my face. "The first time he woke up, the time he seemed to know what was going on, he was apologizing to that Yuki bastard. It wasn't too hard to guess what really happened. Fortunately, none of the doctors or the policemen speak Japanese." She picked up a cup of tea from the bedside table and took a drink. "You protected him. Thank you."

I looked down, shocked to realize the bowl of soup was already empty. "I didn't protect him. I destroyed him."

"Yes, well, about that." She looked at me curiously. "That Hamilton woman had a few interesting things to say to me. How many of them are true?"

I decided I didn't care. "Enough." I didn't look at her, but rather down into the bowl.

"I see." Her voice was quite mild and I jerked my head up to look at her in surprise for the second time. Her face wore a mask or frustration, but there was no anger. "I always knew he was the reason you kept coming back," she said. "In a way, I'm grateful to him for that."

"Why are you so calm about this?"

"I don't want to know the details," she said suddenly instead of answering my question. "If I didn't know before just how much he meant to you, your spectacular reaction to this would have told me, anyway. I really, really don't want to know, all right, Tohma?" I realized there were tears in her voice, and that she had dropped the honorific from my name. "You know, he's my brother but I feel more like his mother sometimes, his and Tatsuha's too," she mused, voice still shaky. "I love them more than they are ever going to understand… it's so damn hard, Tohma, to be the mother of two at the age of twenty-one."

She really was crying now, I saw. "It feels like I'm broken inside because someone I love so much is hurting. I can't help but get angry, cause a scene because I don't like to let people see me cry, either, like you, I think." She offered me a half-smile. "You say I should be furious with you? Yes, maybe, probably I should, but I can't make myself be, because in a completely different way I love you just as much as I love him, and you're just as broken as he is." She sniffed, wiping her hand angrily across her eyes. She didn't cry prettily; her face was red and her eyes were starting to get puffy. I stared at her in disbelief. "What, didn't you know?" she asked, a little bitterly. "I thought you were so smart, Tohma. I've been holding on to you with teeth and nails, silently agreeing to wait for years that keep stretching longer and longer on the off chance that I may have you someday. I never wait for anything."

I finally found my voice, but only managed to say her name before she ploughed on. "I'm aware you don't love me. You don't need to spell it out for me. I always knew he meant more to you than I did. That's all right, that's fine, as long as you're mine, even in words, even on paper, I'm all right with that." She grabbed onto my hand, squeezing as hard as she could. "I know you're going to try to detach yourself from us. If you weren't going to before, the doctor certainly made her feelings on the subject crystal clear." She sniffed again. "Please don't go. Even if it's just to stay near him, please don't go."

I kept watching her cry, astounded. "In a way, I'm selfishly grateful he won't remember. I know that's cruel," she justified herself quickly. "I know it is, but I can't help it. I'm not letting you go," she said, her tone a little vicious. "I won't, do you understand me?"

I closed my eyes. I'm so tired. "I understand," I said softly.

You'll… stay with me, right? Even though everything's so complicated?

Even if it gets complicated, I'll stay. I'll be with you. Always.

I felt myself fighting back a new wave of tears. "I'll stay."