Chapter 2
Monstrous
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He really is so handsome, and no one can say he isn't.
Whether he wears his usual bored expression or allows that small fleeting smile to show, one cannot help but recognise how attractive he really is.
Interviewers and TV talk show hosts always try to get him to show his emotional side, he writes so much about affairs of the heart that they all expect him to be passionate in person. So many people are deceived by this ideal that there is a never ending stream of women and men who try to get close to him, to unwrap what they believe is merely a chilly façade.
Mostly, they leave disappointed. For some, Yuki will spare a kind word or a thoughtful gesture and part with a tragic air. He is much to cunning and far too intelligent to burn bridges with people. And so he remains the aloof and unattainable bachelor that no one can break.
I never thought to break him.
After all, I was drawn to him before I even knew who he was. He was never a challenge or a conquest of mine. I just loved him, plain and simple. He could look almost expressionless but I always could see the feelings in his eyes, the hints in his posture. It was how I had known, back when we'd first started seeing each other and I'd forcefully moved in, that he was still seeing other people.
Sure, I could smell the makeup on his skin and clothes, but even if I hadn't I would still have known. His eyes had mocked me, and when I found things conveniently forgotten around the house those eyes had challenged me.
I continued to do the cleaning and laundry as always, washed the glasses smudged with lipstick. They didn't have Yuki like I did, I told myself, and they didn't know the things I did. I insisted to myself it would be okay and I would really believe it.
I loved him.
I love him.
It was all that I could think about. I knew that I had dumped myself on him and that I was intruding on his life, but even if he just treated my like 'somebody there', that would have been just fine. I just wanted to be near him.
Every time I would just start to feel my heart begin to crack and fracture, when I would find that I didn't have my infamous zest to bounce and generally make a spectacle of myself, he would turn and look at me with those eyes flaring. They would say to me, i come here /i . His arms would take me and lips would scorch me. He would bring me to bed, claim my body fiercely and force out my cries of love and longing. He betrayed his feelings by longing to hear mine, his own lips and body telling me more than he could ever put into words, great writer that he is.
He would let me sleep in his bed, let me curl against him through the night, and let me see him rumpled and sexy in the morning. His eyes would wait, shuttered and expecting those first few mornings. But I would always smile and tell him I loved him before escaping to get dressed and get to work. It took some time before he would wake up relaxed and stay relaxed.
Eventually, the lipstick marks stopped appearing. The house stayed the way mostly how I left it, and his clothes ceased to smell of make up and perfume.
"I want to buy a new bed," I told him over breakfast one morning.
"Eh?"
"I want to buy us a bed, Yuki! Our own bed." I grinned, excited by the thought of sharing a bed with Yuki, of calling it our bed.
"Where are you going to put it?" He deliberately ignored the 'us' in my question, I noticed. "The other room is an office, if you will recall." His eyes flashed over the rim of his coffee cup.
"I want to put our bed in your room." I said quietly, happiness bursting having seen the intrigue and interest that had glimmered in his golden gaze. "It can become our room."
"I already have a bed, idiot, what do I need another one for?" He teased, quirking an eyebrow ever so slightly at me, looking faintly amused.
"You have a bed, Yuki," I corrected, jabbing a finger into the air. "And I think that we should have a bed."
"Hmm." He huffed, standing from the table and beginning to clear the dishes.
The day the new bed and sheet sets arrived, he was busy working. I giggled madly while the workmen assembled the bed, and laughed out my joy when they carted the old stuff away. I made up the bed, smoothed the sheets and bounded about the apartment with such excitement, so overflowing with song that Yuki gave up with his writing. He scooped me up, marched me back in, and we mussed up my handiwork together.
I've slept in it ever since.
I changed pretty quickly after that, I learned that he responded better to words than to tears. I developed my own kind of temper. We squabbled, bickered, and had temper tantrums but we always slept in the same bed.
Ours.
I rolled over in my new bed in this darkened room I shared with no one and stared at the posters up on my walls, unable to sleep. There was one that I had begged from a harassed bookshop keeper who didn't recognise me, a promotional poster for Yuki's latest book. There wasn't a photo of him on it, but it had his name and his work. Hiro hated it, of course.
Feeling the same old emptiness, and without any real conscious thought, I stood up and ripped that poster down. The paper complained loudly in the silent room. The silence bothered me all of a sudden so I turned my boom box on and pushed in a Nittle Grasper CD, turning the volume down low.
I lay back down, but not too long later the building restlessness overcame me. Thoughts were racing all of a sudden, but I knew where to burn them off.
The basement powered up as I shut the sound proof door. Lights came blinking on, the computer booted up and I made my way into our little home jam studio. This house was a great place, really, with all the things a rock group and its manager could ever need right down to a place to get music making. Nothing really sophisticated, just something there when we were in the mood.
I got a good beat on the keyboard and let the music pour from my soul, sang a few experimental lines I'd been mentally composing and got a thing going. It wasn't really a song, just a test. Throw a few lines out to hear them and see where they took me, accompanying myself with a touch of synthesisers here and there. I stopped to change the beat a few times, got a fast bass going at one point. I just let the beats take my emotions by the hand and lead them out of my heart.
When I'd poured most of it out, when I finally started to feel truly sleepy, I shut the place down and saved my work. There were a few files in my little folder now. I had been having these nightly urges almost daily since I saw Yuki some two weeks ago.
Yuki… It's like he had woken me up.
Time has suddenly gained substance since then, my days seemed more real, and my head and heart have begun to really pound in my body. Things are happening in my life again, things are feeling a bit more real. Everything was speeding up, my thoughts and emotions flooding me over and over, more and more everyday. Now, whenever I slept it was only because I was tired and my body needed rest. It was no longer comforting, not relaxing and not really restorative. And I was about to settle into another night of it.
I trudged up the steps and into the house. My heart was empty and spent, the words all sung out and the raging melodies exorcised. My mind was in blessed silence but I needed something else now and I needed it badly. He'd be up typing at his computer around this time, at two in the morning. I knew how he would look, what expression he'd be wearing. I slipped my feet into my sneakers, grabbed a jacket off the rack near the door and hailed a cab. The lights blurred by, I wasn't really focused.
The hallway looked alien and strange as I made my way toward my destination. It looked the same, everything did, but at the same time it all looked like I had never seen them before in my life. The sound the key made was the same, the door swung open in a familiar way, and someone I knew came down the hall to see who it was. It was the same apartment I remembered, the same furnishings –yet not. It was him, and yet it wasn't. I looked around, seeing everything with this bizarre perspective. I felt like I was dreaming; I had to check.
I walked toward him, that familiar form and face. I looked at the blond hair I didn't need to touch to know how it felt. I looked into the golden eyes that stared in wonder back at me –that expression was definitely something I never seen before. But when I leaned forward, it was there.
It was what suddenly made everything real again, that scent. It was him, this was Yuki. This was the building we lived in, the apartment we shared, and this was home. Everything swamped me at one, the recognition and appreciation, an avalanche of it. I stepped forward, closer to that scent, my hands lifting to him and to that aroma. His arms stole around me, they pulled me tight and I was enveloped.
His hair tickled my face the way it always did and his arms were strong around me like they always were. His expensive clothes smooth to my touch, I ran my hands over those hard shoulders beneath, the sweet familiar territory. I pulled back and looked up at his face, drugged by that wondrous scent, and reached for his soft mouth. He drew in a sharp breath as I leaned up on my toes.
Yes... I thought. It was the one clear thought I had had all night. But the word was chased away by the crash of sensations at the first touch of his lips.
I could taste the tobacco as we kissed. And I could taste the sadness, the pain and the desperation there too. Pulling him into me, leaning fully against his hard body, my fingertips dragged on his jaw. I pulled him open and let my tongue dive into his mouth. He gasped and gathered me to him, opening for me, letting me in. Amidst the lovemaking of our lips, I searched for something desperately. I reached for it madly until I could finally taste it fully.
Love.
It was still there. And if I leaned back in his arms now, it would be in his eyes, too. Clouded by the other emotions but it would be there. Something nagged at me, I shouldn't look to see it in his eyes or it would all be over. I needed to go now.
I was reassured. I had found what I was looking for. So I pulled back, kept my eyes closed and let him hold me. Cheek against the firm expanse of his chest, I listened to his heartbeat slow back down again. Listened to the rise and fall and savoured the shiver in his body.
Long minutes later, I stepped away and pulled out of his embrace immediately turning so our eyes would not meet. I walked out the way I had come.
I refused to look back.
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Hiro glanced up at Fujisaki and Kei, an enormous and heart-felt grin on his face. They returned it just as sincerely, all heads nodding to the beat as blasted with the melody pumping through the room.
They were listening to yet another file of Shuichi's midnight jams, this latest one popped up just the other day and they had been dying for a moment to get away from Shuichi to gather and hear it.
They had become aware of the secret folder only about a week ago, Fujisaki stumbling over it as he had gone searching for the back-up to a corrupted file. There had been quite a few files in there then, hours worth of haphazard lyrics, melodies and beats. The raw material was disjointed and incomplete, but Fujisaki had immediately recognised the incredible potential. The other two had been summoned post haste when Shuichi had disappeared to a therapist appointment – and their reaction had been identical to Fujisaki's: Utter delight.
This newest file entitled Breaking was even more on track than the others, more consistent and firmly themed. But what really got them excited were the lyrics and emotions they could sense behind the words and melody: Shuichi was back and he was pissed off.
You don't know what love is
Until you've learned the meaning of the Blues
Until you've loved the love you've had to lose
You don't know how lips hurt
Until you've kissed and had to pay the cost
Until you've flipped your heart and lost
You don't know what love is
Do you know how a lost heart feels?
Aching at the mere thought of reminiscing?
And how lips that taste of tears lose their taste for kissing?
You don't know how hearts burn
For love that cannot live, yet never dies
Until you've faced the dawn with sleepless eyes…
You don't know what love is.
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The words seemed sad and gentle, maybe even a little longing, but his voice and power radiated through the recording. It was obvious he had been lost in it, expressing himself in his own way... as obvious that he was frustrated and very annoyed. As the track ended they stood, smacking high fives and whooping, elated.
"That was amazing!" Hiro grinned, "It has the same quality of emotion behind it as The Rage Beat and it's twice as gripping!"
"That was definitely one of my favourites in the file," Fujisaki agreed, a wide smile on his face and looking quite impressed.
"The Shu man is back, people!" Kei cheered, adapting another American slang phrase into his horrible Japanese.
"No kidding, I'm back," A voice behind them quipped. "And see here what I found." The trio spun about to guiltily face the band's diminutive lead singer who looked… amused..!
Hiro's brows drew together. "Shuichi!" He registered his best friend's expression and uselessly observed, "You're not upset."
"No kidding, Sherlock!" Shuichi smiled. "Although the compliments I overheard did soften me up first…" He brushed the issue of privacy invasion away. "I really shouldn't have hidden it anyway, its work for the band and we are the band." He moved in to stand beside them at the board and computer.
"You really shouldn't scare us like that," Kei grinned. "I might've shot you, you know"
"I'm certain your sense of self preservation would've stopped you if you had drawn your firearm." Shuichi replied, deadpan, eyes running over the switches and slides.
"Eh?" Kei puzzled. "Self preservation?"
Shuichi nodded as he leaned over to slide a tab on the master board where his latest file had been uploaded. "Hiro and Fujisaki at this stage, not to mention Seguchi-sama, would murder you if you killed the band genius." He grinned mischievously.
They kept at processing the music well into the night, laughing uproariously and having a grand time. They ordered Chinese take out, and Hiro blew a breath of relief when Shuichi consumed two rice meal boxes, one box shy of his usual. They downed a few beers, and patched another song together before calling it a night.
Hiro lay back on his futon, both his hands tucked behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling, a happy half smile on his lips. He was feeling rather content, the weight on his chest had been lifting slowly through the afternoon and evening he had just spent with his best friend. The old joy of music making had filled his heart, and he had enjoyed seeing Shuichi's eyes glittering with more of his old passion. Shuichi was coming that much close to his old self and Hiro sure as anything wanted to ride the wave of this happy time.
The soft knock on his door stirred him, and he jumped up to answer it, somehow expecting that Shuichi would come to him tonight. Wordlessly, he led his friend back to his futon, scooting over to give some room, and opened his arms to the best friend he had ever had.
As Shuichi snuggled into Hiro's soft pillow and hard comforting warmth, he could feel what little tension remaining in his body just melt away. They slipped closer to slumber, the liquor and contentment running in their veins, Hiro breathed a soft sigh and drowsily rumpled Shuichi hair.
"Welcome back, Shu-chin."
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"EIGHT new songs and COUNTING! The hit group Bad Luck have REALLY picked up the pace recently, releasing chart-rocking single after single. They've BARELY allowed time between each new single to MAXIMISE each song's perch at the number ONE spot! It's all come down to this, their DOMINATION of the Top Ten and we're expecting--"
Yuki Eiri switched the television off in frustration, tossing the remote control onto the couch behind him as he jumped up on his feet and marched back to his office.
So much for taking a break…
The VJ's voice still grated at his nerves as he booted up his laptop. He lounged back in his chair, staring out the window on his left at the late morning sunshine.
He'd been drowning in this Bad Luck world for the past five or so months and it was driving him up the wall. At least the other news has died down, he thought. The vision of racks upon racks of tabloids featuring his bow to Shuichi had really pissed him the hell off. His heartfelt apology wasn't for the media to feed their business!
He sighed, ignoring his computer beep a prompt to enter his password. What was really bothering him was the apparition that had fleetingly come into his world those weeks before; the very firm and warm ghost that had smelled of strawberries and tasted of misery.
He absentmindedly sketched his thumb over his bottom lip, still remembering the feel of Shuichi gently biting down on them. He recalled the sensations that had flooded his befuddled mind, the painful yearning of his body and the utter shock in his heart. Had it not been for the taste and touch lingering upon his mouth and skin, he really would have doubted it had even happened. Just as real, the confusion that had plagued him since was showing no signs of abating.
He growled in renewed frustration, pushing away from his desk and stomping back out into the hallway, only to crash into his brother.
Tatsuha grinned at the stormy blonde who could pass for his twin. "I take it that the conspiracy continues?" He had heard the news on the TV from the kitchen, had noticed how the continued success of Bad Luck had his older brother almost constantly in tension. Eiri had become twice as taciturn in the passing months, and he was beginning to like how his brother ignored almost everything that had previously been intolerable.
As had become the norm, Eiri brushed past him, ignoring his brother completely. "You know, he's launching another album next month," Eiri paused, and Tatsuha pressed his opportunity. They were both aware from experience, this being the group's fourth album, that a tour always followed an album launch. "He's going to be gone soon, and for a long time,"
Eiri resumed movement, heading toward his bedroom. Tatsuha called after him, as he shut the door behind him. "I'm rather surprised you haven't realised what he's waiting from you, brother,"
Eiri listened to Tatsuha leave for the day, roaring off on his motorcycle, the words resounding in his ears –what he is waiting from you. What the hell did that mean? He had broken his lover's heart, his lover had left him and was now moving on with his life. What the hell could Shuichi need from him besides that sorry excuse of an apology?
Shuichi had even come back to say goodbye…
Eiri ran a restless hand through his hair, stomping a bit about the room has he went to sit by the window. He lit up a cigarette and lounged back on the sill, eyes closing. No matter how he chose to accept the brief encounter with his former lover as a goodbye kiss, he distinctly recalled the taste of it being a far cry from farewell. If anything, it had almost seemed…
No, he told himself firmly. That's impossible! You will only be setting yourself up for more hurt if you continue to think this way.
He opened his eyes and stared across at the bed, remembering how Shuichi would watch him from the bed after lovemaking while he sat smoking on the sill. Shuichi's eyes always glittered with that loving yet possessive expression. The boy had had a particular way of lounging across the bed on his belly, skin flushed and lips rosy from Eiri's kisses –that would make the dour faced novelist want to get back into bed and make love to him all over again.
Make love…
The words stung. But he had truly, hadn't he? Then why did you go and pull that stupid stunt? He growled at himself, leaning his head back on the sill and closing his eyes once more.
Since Eiri had returned from New York after Shuichi, he had vowed that he would try harder. This was, after all, the only person in his life who had ever stuck by him without knowing him from before the incident with Kitazawa. His friends had mostly abandoned him, his family could barely tolerate him, and Tohma was … Tohma.
He had supported Shuichi as best he could from the shadows, even pulling that stunt with Tohma at the Tokyo Bay Music Festival to get vocalist out of an artistic slump. But it hadn't quite registered on him until much later that Shuichi didn't really want or need Eiri involved in his musical career. He wanted Eiri in his love life, in his personal life, in the life he lived away from the stage. But Eiri didn't understand that very well, having never been in a relationship before. Understanding and taking action were two very different things.
It had started in small pieces.
Small enough not to notice until the accumulated effect dawned on him one day: Shu still called his trademark 'La-Li-Ho!' arriving at home, but stopped storming into the office while he was working; Shu backing off when he snarled about the noise level; Shu spending more and more hours at the studio. When Eiri finally noticed, Shuichi was hardly speaking to him anymore. When he turned to look, Shuichi merely paused to wait for whatever he had to say, simply sporting a tentative and rather sad smile.
Eiri had been as disagreeable as always, lashing out and being his usual impatient self. But Shuichi wasn't playing his part, the boy had gone and done almost everything he'd been told. He'd shut up, he'd picked up after himself, and he'd stopped making a ruckus. But none of that appeased Eiri, getting precisely what he wanted.
Eiri had grabbed him, feeling sour and neglected, and taken Shuichi to bed where he spent the night making continuous and fiery love to the pop star. The next day -bruised, marked and weary- Shuichi still managed to find the energy to get out to the studio at Eiri's mere mention of his new book's deadline.
No "please stay in bed with me", no "but its such a beautiful day, lets go out", and definitely no "you need a break". Without an argument, Shuichi just got out of the way.
It had annoyed Eiri intensely. The unusual silence irritated him more than the bickering and noise. He knew he was being unreasonable but he became even colder, and his tongue sharpened. Yet nothing provoked the singer, nothing at all. Shuichi acquiesced to everything, obeyed what Eiri ordered and offered almost no resistance. Finally, Shuichi was home only every other night. He would, after a shower and gathering a change of clothes, disappear to 'keep out from underfoot' for another two days.
"I suppose you're going to move out next," Eiri had snapped from the darkness of the living room when Shuichi came sneaking in after midnight, on his usual 48-hour cycle. "You're hardly here anyway, so what's the point of insisting on trekking across the city from here to the studio everyday?" His tone was particularly icy. He was smashed, having been drinking steadily since dinnertime as he waited for the brat to get home.
He had known Shuichi would be back tonight, having last left the day before yesterday. This was to be a night the vocalist would be sleeping in their bed. But to arrive after midnight…?!
Shuichi had frozen mid tip-toe at the sound of his voice, but at his words stood still and downcast, expression hidden from view by the long chunks of hair messily spilling over his forehead. "Is that what you want?" Shuichi asked on a whisper. "Do you want me to move out?"
The question made Eiri see red. To him, it seemed like Shuichi was purposely being such an ass so i he /i would be the one to become exasperated and kick the singer out. I'll never leave you, Yuki… The promise had resounded in his mind as he stood to confront the source of his annoyance. "You don't really live here anyway!" he bit out.
"What are you trying to say?" Shuichi had stiffened, hands clenching into fists at his sides. "Are you saying this isn't my home?" His shoulders clenched further. "Are you saying I don't belong here?" His voice was rising as his body began to shake. "Are you saying you don't want me here?!" Shuichi was close to yelling now.
Eiri grabbed him and pulled the struggling singer into his arms, lifting him up and striding toward the bedroom. Shuichi protested the entire way, growling and cursing. Eiri tossed the angry mop of pink onto the bed and pinned him down, with every intention of fucking the boy senseless.
Shuichi fought him, not to an extent of doing Eiri harm, but fight he did. It was the singer seriously resisting that made him even angrier, made him want to dominate. Eiri held the boy down and discarded their clothes, marking his lover's flesh and staking his territory. But Shuichi did not eventually submit like he usually would and the entire thing was far from progressing anywhere remotely satisfying, solving nothing. Mere sex was not what Eiri had wanted, admit it or not.
The boy curled into his nakedness in a corner of the bed when Eiri released him in frustration no less calm than when he had begun. He was enraged and annoyed; they had never disagreed on anything in bed before no matter what the state of their tempers.
Shuichi sobbed quietly, curled up into a little ball, hugging himself while Eiri watched. Feeling dirty and perverse for forcing himself on the obviously exhausted boy, he moved away to the window sill seat and lit up a cigarette. He had no words for the situation, puffing away on stick after stick until Shuichi finally cried himself to sleep.
When Eiri himself had calmed, he got into bed and attempted to draw his sleeping lover into his arms. But Shuichi, even in slumber, started at his touch and shied away. At that, there was no way he would spend the night beside Shuichi and he stormed off into his office to work.
Early in the morning, with almost no work done and his head throbbing from a hangover, he heard Shuichi run the shower. No singing, no noise and all movements very quiet. He went to stand in the bedroom doorway and watch the younger man prepare to leave. It incensed him, Shuichi was leaving again.
"Will you come back tonight?" Eiri queried, half asking it of Shuichi, putting a cigarette in his mouth. Shuichi, back to the bedroom door, jumped at his voice, irritating him further.
The boy didn't even turn to look at him when he replied. "I think after last night, I should stay out of your way for a while."
Eiri's temper snapped, unleashing his tongue once more. "If you're going to continue to be of no amusement to me, I may as well replace you." He lit the cigarette and blew the first puff directly at the stilled form before him. "Your performance last night was incredibly dull, considering the skill you've demonstrated in the past."
"Skill?!" Shuichi rounded on him in anger and humiliation, tears bright in his eyes. "You think it's skill when I touch you? You think my love is for your entertainment?!"
"You are in that line of business, are you not?" Eiri softly returned. His lover reared as if struck, and he could see that the insult had cut very deep.
Without a reply, Shuichi snatched up his back pack and made to move around Eiri but the angry novelist blocked the way, planting his hands on either side of the door frame. "Please move out of the way," The singer asked patiently through gritted teeth.
"Aren't you going to kiss me goodbye?" Eiri recklessly mocked, not quite understanding the state of his emotions himself.
Shuichi attempted to force his way past the belligerent writer but was met with staunch resistance. Struggling, the two forgot the cigarette between them and it wasn't until a hiss of burning and a cry of pain that they parted. Shuichi clasped a hand over his wrist where the stick had met his skin, breathing hard.
He looked up into Eiri's eyes with such anger that the blonde paused. "Take another lover, then!" He hissed. "Have some one else be your little bitch!"
Eiri had been shocked enough at the language to let the younger man past –who dashed for the door without pausing.
Eiri spent the day drinking, making no progress with his book, and becoming more and more irritated. He decided to go out, where he drank some more and ran into a slender blonde with a firm body he recalled bedding at some party in the past. If 'bedding' was even the appropriate word… He recalled there had been no bed involved and, using that as a line, he took her back to his place and into the bed he had thus far only shared with his pink-haired lover.
After a messy yet satisfying romp, while she was showering, he was sobering up. Eiri sat on the edge of the bed he had just sullied feeling, if possible, all the more disgusted with himself than he had the night before with Shuichi. He had vented his animosity, exorcised his temper and found nothing more than physical release. It was worth nothing to him and he was suddenly swamped with the horrid realisation of what he had just done.
Absently kicking at the woman's clothes scattered about the bedroom floor, he was so lost in thought and regret that he never heard the key turn in the front door. He never realised there was another person in the apartment until he heard the gasp from the doorway.
He had already known he had fucked up big time. But for Shuichi to see what he'd done… he knew he was a monster.
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