Chapter 3

In His Eyes

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His amethyst eyes were what caught my attention.

They flashed with the impossible clarity reserved only for the innocent gaze of a child. They could storm, glare or overflow with tears but they could never lose that transparent depth.

Those fascinating eyes would often watch me, would often pause to gaze at me with such admiration, respect and love that I honestly didn't know how to meet them. It was easier when they glared, when they flashed with temper. They looked all the more beautiful in that state than any other anyway. That was one of the reasons I liked to pick on him so much, actually. Just to see those flushed cheeks and angled brows, to see those amethyst eyes narrow and deepen in colour, his mouth thinned in a slight frown.

Those eyes were, in a way, what irrevocably bound me to him in the end. They could fathom me, you see. They could discern my thoughts, assess my emotions and calculate my mood. For all his silliness and eternal humour, Shuichi's eyes were the key to me.

He could really see.

He made a lot of noise around the apartment, made messes when he was trying to conjure more absurd lyrics, and ate too much junk food. But for the most part, he was an acceptable housemate… and a wonderful lover:

When I worked too hard, nearing a deadline or obsessed with a chapter, he found ways to fit into my life. He would make me take breaks, bring me coffee without being asked or buy me take away meals on his way home from the studio when he knew I'd been working all day and had had no time to cook.

He never intruded into my office, this sanctum, without good reason to. But sometimes he would camp right outside the door, the moving shadows providing adequate distraction on occasion that there would have been no difference had he been inside with me.

By example, he was showing me ways to be part of a relationship.

He and my sister Mika had grown close and she would tell him stories about our childhood that I would have preferred never pass her lips again. Actually, I didn't mind as much as I complained. What Shuichi learned, you see, he would make part of his life. From her, he discovered that I like lilies and have a fondness for crème caramel. So he put a vase of the flowers in my office and another on the dining table, and kept them fresh. Then he began the habit of purchasing the smooth flan for dessert every week or so.

He introduced himself to my eternally harassed editor, Mizuki, when she came by the apartment on what happened to be his day off, and charmed her completely. Sitting her down to tea and cookies, he asked endless questions about my work; they discussed the possibilities as to why my works were so popular. He even asked her about her opinions of me, personally. Then he proceeded to read all my published works. When that was done, he began to read my library, the works that I myself admired.

I wasn't certain how to take all this, though it wasn't as though he was blatantly researching my past. It was just that he hadn't bothered to cover his tracks. He hadn't hid how he was trying to learn as much about me as he could and I found this honesty rather disconcerting.

That wasn't all that shook my world, either. Everything about him was new to me. He had stayed by me through whatever shit I put him through and firmly stuck by his initial proclamation: That all he wanted was to be near me, to love me. It didn't make any sense.

In all honesty, it annoyed me that he couldn't be bought. He had turned down Mika's offer to spy on me in exchange for a music contract, which he earned on his own anyway. He'd be deliriously happy if I did anything for him, and those expressions of his pleasure were vastly amusing.

One particular delight of his is when I take him to my favourite coffee shop in Harajuku. We'd just sit by the window some weekends and watch the parade of Cosplay-clad people on the streets. After a time, I figured that this was his version of 'being bought', and the idea made me relax a bit. It put him back into a certain perspective I could deal with.

He didn't ask for much more than my time and attention, accepting and very excited to tag along with me when I would go out with the few friends I had. My crowd had balked a bit when they met him, not quite certain how to take it though they were all aware of the announcement I'd made on national TV. Naturally, Shuichi had perked up after the introductions and began assaulting them with questions: How long had we known each other, what did they do for a living, did they like strawberry Pocky?

They took to him, anyone would.

It was interesting, to say the least.

I got a bit more curious about him after a few friends began developing a friendship with him separate of me. It's likely not good to think of it in that light, but seeing how others liked and wanted him renewed my interest in him too. I watched him a little, observed and studied as though researching for one of my books.

I decided he had gotten exceptionally able at taking care of me, and had become more ignorant of ways to take care of himself. He still writes crappy lyrics but the public takes to it in much the same way they adore my ridiculous novels.

In all honesty, I think of myself as more of a Science Fiction writer than a Romance novelist, even if the Romance in my stories is technically fiction. The content of my writing is like experimenting with a new formula: the chemicals are all the same over and over again, there is only a limited amount of components -they just get added in a new order. There is a format to it, an almost scientific one that is methodical, precise and instantly effective at tugging at my readers' heartstrings.

Whatever. It's really just a shadow of what I had really wanted to do in Literature. Now, I doubt anyone would ever take me seriously not that I would want to really create something along the lines of what I had planned.

Shuichi hates it when I talk about my writing like that.

On writing, we can sometimes discuss styles and angles of perspective over coffee or meals that will get us going for hours, especially over poetry. We've found that a lot of people are interested in listening in to these conversations of ours, Lord knows why. And the fans who have noticed us will hang on us, awaiting an opportunity to pounce.

And that is another thing:

His rising popularity puts him in greater risk as the success continues, but he can't see it. He is always excited when people recognised him, impressed by the gathered throng of people outside NG or a concert, but for the most part he can't understand why. He still takes public transportation on days he wants to be in early, when Hiro refuses to wake at what Hiro calls 'ungodly hours'. He says he doesn't trust himself to drive, for fear that he will take on passengers and the idea of people's lives in his hands frightens him.

But he trusts me to drive him, among other things he relinquishes responsibility to me for that he has said he would rather not do himself. Makes me wonder how much of himself he is putting in my hands. I once half-heartedly threatened that he may not always find me by his side, expecting him to bubble with tears and wail. Instead he gave me a small smile and told me that he every faith in the world in me.

I shut up for a while after that.

"You have a deeper and warmer heart than anyone gives you credit for," Shuichi told me one night, after another bout of mad lovemaking. His head was resting on my chest, and he drew circles on my belly, a leg thrown over mine under the sheets.

My arm about his shoulders pulled him nearer so I could press a small kiss to the top of his head. "And how did you deduce that?"

"Because all your novels reveal so," He lifted his head, turning to rest on his chin and meet my gaze. "Your writing explores so much of human emotions and the depth of feeling, the essences of human relationships –it's impossible for them to be written by someone who doesn't just know what they are, but understands them."

I was disappointed thinking that he was falling into the same trap as most people do about me. I tried not to let my feelings show, and teased him instead. "So you suppose I think the way my heroes do? Maybe I will one day speak the same romantic nonsense?"

"No." He stated firmly, completely throwing me. "You are not imprudent enough in any way to think the way your characters do. They are far too simple, like children, in comparison to you." His eyes twinkled up at me, hair falling over his brow and framing his smiling mouth. "As for spouting romantic nonsense as you call it, in fact, I think you should never say them."

I was startled by the contentment and honesty that shone in his eyes as he spoke. Didn't he want me to say sweet things to him? To tell him I love him or would give things up for him? I think that my curiosity reflected on my face because his smile widened into a grin.

"You should never say them, Uesugi." He leaned up and over me slowly. "Or else you might stop showing me instead," He tilted toward my mouth. "Then the whole world will know the truth about you… and I would rather keep it all to myself."

His lips caressed mine, a hand skimming over my belly heading south. When the kissed deepened and his hands found their target, it was in that same moment that his words hit home. He'd also addressed me by my real name, rolled it off his tongue as though it were sacred. I knew in that instant, before his kisses and touch chased intelligible thought away, that he had truly accepted me for precisely who I was and nothing else.

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He wrote chart-shaking song after another. Love songs of the sweetest intensity, and others of the most painful suffering –all ridiculously worded.

In my true opinion, they reflected too much of the intensity in what we were going through in our daily lives. Soon after I supposed that, my editor commented on the repertoire of emotions in my newest manuscript. Then a friend complimented me on my most recent work –precisely mentioning how he appreciated the intensity of the characters. The opinions were coming from all directions –even my sister asked if I was adapting a new style.

Eh? Wasn't my style just all the same?

I mulled about it for a while, calculated things in my mind a bit. Thinking about it, the book I'd written during the first few months of our relationship holds my best-selling record of all time. It was what got my fan base building in numbers again. It is even my editor's self-professed favourite –all for reasons unknown to me. So I read the book again.

I was gob-smacked.

I hadn't realised how much of my life during that time was reflected in those pages, in the lives of my characters. The tempestuous heroine reminded me of Shuichi and the unbending hero… well, that was that. I was left to ponder how deeply Shuichi and I affected each other. His observation of me and my work came to mind.

I was forced to consider how I might have underestimated his perceptiveness… maybe even his emotional maturity.

Thrown, I took some time to reassess my life and the changes that had occurred since that pink typhoon had stormed into my life. And I was horrified.

Things were progressing in our relationship and I had not been aware of it in the slightest. It looked to me that Shuichi had taken control of things, had reset the pace, while I wasn't looking. Not that this was the first time.

I snapped at him one morning when he was singing in the shower, and told him the noise was giving me a headache. He stopped singing, finished his shower, and brought out some aspirin for me. I accepted the meds and the glass of water in silence. He kissed me as he did every morning before leaving for work, and called a goodbye from the front door.

This morning, I didn't reply.

I heard him wait by the door a bit, wait for me to answer. But I refused to be dictated, and gritted my teeth against the urge to respond. He left soon after, the door clicking softly behind him with a tone of finality that I rather disliked. Things felt incomplete that morning. It had become a habit to send him off, even with that small phrase, and I admittedly am a creature of habit.

Shuichi had developed his own habits, too. Just as on the kitchen counter, there stood my steaming mug of coffee, as it did every morning. I belligerently poured it down the drain and made my own. I knew I was being unreasonable, but I felt this urge to shake him out of my life and routine for a bit. It's not like I i depend /i on him.

Ugh. I had gone and said it.

But it felt too much like Shuichi was filling in my life in ways that I had not even considered. It was like he was cementing his place my life and I still wasn't certain that it was something I wanted. Sure we had been together for some two years now, he was undoubtedly a i part /i of my life…

So what are you afraid of?

Hmph.

I am not afraid. As I sipped my java, I turned to the wall calendar and noticed the passes hanging from a tack on this Saturday's box. A concert was coming up.

I decided not to go.

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"Really?"

She was cute, but her voice was beginning to irritate me. I pushed my hair off my forehead and tossed the water out of it with a shake of my head. Legs treading water with my arms folded over the edge of the pool, I looked up at the woman from beneath my lashes. "Yes, really," I replied, becoming a little bored.

"But you have a boyfriend!"

Even if the logic would be lost on her, I still supplied an honest answer. "Just because I have a boyfriend, doesn't mean I'm strictly classified gay." I sighed. This isn't going to go anywhere. "The category of being 'Gay' is just that –a category. It's a nothing but taking ourselves out of the category of being 'Straight' and into another constraint of society." I snorted with the disgust of it. "If people just regarded others simply as they are –man or woman- without thought of those boundaries, then discrimination would be halfway to being beaten."

As expected, the bimbo asked, "Then you're straight? Which is it?"

"Never mind." I kicked off and did another ten laps of the pool, fuming at society in general.

"So what categories do you really think society should be divided by?" I resonant baritone asked as I sat back on my lounge chair to rest for a bit, mulling about how my argument was with a bigger picture. I glanced at the occupant of the nearby lounge chair and glared. He chuckled, obviously unaffected.

"Now what do i you /i want, Aku?" I lay back and shut my eyes against the sunlight pouring through the glass ceiling of the club.

"A tennis match appointment with you, for one thing," Aku replied. "But mostly, I'm interested in your earlier conversation with that silly fangirl of yours."

I sighed.

Knowing Hanabishi Aku, someone I'd known since grade school before leaving for America, he wasn't going to quit until I put the matter to rest. I propped myself half over toward him, watching as he ran a hand through his short spiky brown hair, dark eyes flashing with amusement. "I am merely of the opinion that people labelling sexual preferences binds people to an image that is entirely too easily twisted."

"So you are gay but you dislike the label?"

I lay back down and shut my eyes in exasperation, muttering, "Don't make me hurt you."

"I'm kidding!" He laughed lowly. "But how does disregarding categories apply to falling in love?"

At the rising of this new sub vein, I was thankful I'd broken eye contact. "Regardless of gender, attraction to beauty, is still attraction. Appreciating the qualities of a person is still appreciating their qualities, it's about taking people as they come." I sighed. "In every relationship, romantic or otherwise, it depends on what you want and how seriously you consider the factors involved."

"Factors such as..?"

"Such as that accepting someone who is of the same gender as you for a lover, there exists the factor that you will never bear a child. It is part of accepting the person –whatever or whoever they are."

Aku mulled over that for a while. He asked a few moments later, "What part of the category did you mean is 'entirely too easily twisted'?"

"Public perception," I muttered, beginning to feel cross with the topic subject. "It's too easily twisted by the silly fools who cross dress in that vulgar manner some can be prone to doing. And society, aided by the media, promotes homosexuality as a perversion of nature." I reached out to the side table to snag my cigarette pack and lighter, and offered them to Aku. "Their narrow-minded attitude is the more disgraceful."

I cracked open an eye at him. He drew out a stick and slipped out the Zippo lighter from under my grasp. Aku turned the lighter over and paused when he spied the NeoPrint, a little sticker picture, stuck to its side. I knew what he was looking at, that little caption from my and Shuichi's first date at Odaiba Amusement Park, and I knew our conversation would be on his mind.

"I suppose the word 'gay' as I know it is not something that I could apply to you –I am guilty of stereotyping the word, in that sense." Aku lit his cigarette and leaned over to light mine. I tossed the pack on to the table, and Aku toyed with the lighter further. "I did always figure you for the eternal playboy." He smiled a bit at his own words. "An eternal international playboy."

I gave a small smile, recalling our antics when we'd last travelled to LA together: I always could snag a girl without trying, and even without boasting my celebrity. Most never found out about that side of me anyway, it would've provided them with a clue to finding me in the future if they tried.

Aku slipped the lighter back on to the table and turned to regard me once more before lying back. "He's good for you, though, that kid."

I wish people would stop saying that.

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I still couldn't resist turning the TV on that Saturday of Shuichi's concert, setting my laptop on the coffee table before me.

I watched Shu pounce on stage, vibrant and colourful, scantily dressed and introducing Bad Luck with his usual energy overload. They started with 'Welcome to my Romance' to set the mood for the night.

Watching him wrung a low groan from my throat.

His eyes flashed naughtily and his hands drew over his smooth flat belly, hips and body moving to the beat. The back-up dancers move behind him and he seamlessly joins in and out of the dance sequence as he sings. You have to admit he is nothing short of spectacular on stage. When he groaned into the microphone at the instrumental break and began the speaking part, I could feel myself becoming spell bound by his half-lidded eyes. 'Let's make love…' he said in English, and I shook myself from my daze.

At some concerts that I've attended, refusing to head out into the traffic of departing people I hang around after the performance. I stalk through the halls backstage to his dressing room, charmingly kick out his attendants who may also happen to be fans of mine as well, and corner Shuichi. He is always shaking with the adrenaline, as pumped from his performance as I will never admit I am. His clothes slide easily from his perspiring body, radiating heat and energy. I love to take him like that, perched on the edge of his dressing table or on the wide couch, forcing moans past his taxed throat.

Missing an opportunity tonight…

Hmph. I turn the TV off and bustle back to my office.

It annoys me that I am as weak as to be unable to resist watching the concert at home. I'd already unloaded the passes on my brother Tatsuha, it should have been the end of the matter. Instead I'm being an idiot and watching him on TV.

My mood darkens.

I channel the irritation and earlier lustful thoughts into a sketch for my latest manuscript.

Two hours later, I re-read my jotting and can view for myself how annoyed I am that this child of a man has lodged himself so far into my life. Frustrated, I stalk back into the living room and switch the TV on to catch the Bad Luck concert closing. The urge had won out over the annoyance that I'd even had the urge in the first place.

Shuichi is in a different outfit now: slim green trousers cropped at the knee and lace-up combat boots paired with a filmy camouflage print tank top. He's even wearing a dog tag. His skin is shining from perspiration, and you can hear the slight strain in his voice from his exhausted vocal chords. But he's lost only a fraction of the energy he'd had when they started.

"Everyone!" The band strikes up the opening notes of In the Moonlight. "This is our last song, and I want to dedicate this to the special someone in my life…" He grins widely at his audience, those hypnotic eyes snagging me even through the airwaves. "You all know who I'm talking about!" The audience cheers loudly, the view changes to a camera mounted to a boom on one side of the stage. A few people are audibly chanting my name.

I clench my jaw.

I should be pleased. At least he didn't say my name. But no, I'm pissed off and it's not making sense to me at all.

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