Epic one-shot is epic.
My apologies for the delay; I was caught up in David Bowie's eyes.
Title: Quite Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give a Damn
(See what I did there? See? See? Holy golden nuggets, I actually tied in the title with the story! It's like all of a sudden there's relevance.)
Pairing/s: Misaki Ayuzawa/Takumi Usui – Misaki Ayuzawa/Shintani Hinata
Summary: The ugly, it seemed, always had more compassion than the beautiful. Unjust, but true. Furthermore, he concluded his own internal monologue ominously; love is harder than anything else in the world.
Warnings: sexual situations, language, adult themes.
-x-x-x-
He had shown up to the party with little enthusiasm and even less expectancy. It wasn't too bad, though. There was a small (very small) part of his mind that was reminding him it could be a lot worse – people could be talking to him; guests could be forced to dance; ignorance could have been a requirement upon entry; they could be in attendance. He helped himself to the white Alba truffles – soft, if not a little dry. Caviar was smudged against his lips. The wine was terrible, but he had already drained a full glass.
His third glass seemed to vanish on its own accord, after which he could safely decide that the stuff wasn't as bad as he had originally thought.
It was another mingler. And by sense of defiance against the definition, he was avoiding mingling at all costs. His father had sent him. Or rather, his brother had sent him by order of their father. And by order of gold – or the promise of it – his father governed the orders that had brought him here.
He felt like a puppet.
It wasn't all bad, though – it was by his own choosing that he had stepped onto this carousel, after all. It helped a little. The parties, the business meetings, the faces he looked upon, the hands he grasped and shook – they twirl and go around and around and around till he forgets himself. He has learnt the art of triage now, and sees devastating beauty in it. Now, he looks about the party and gives each individual a coloured ticket in his mind. He is a puppet, but also a puppeteer in his own right.
There is the son of the CEO of Latin America's fastest growing retail chain. Red.
There is the chairman of Tsi Fun Corp., Ltd. Black.
There is the girl sharing his Internationalism major. She most probably loves him. Green.
However, said girl has distant family relations in oil. They own a fifth of the shares. Reassessed: Yellow.
He can't feel callous. Not now. No, no – he feels reborn. He has reasoned with himself many times, he has evaluated the circumference of his world over and over again – he finds that this is what life truly must be like. He feels like a wise man now. Money has given him sight and strength to observe the tossing and turning of the world beneath him. He is the cornerstone of his own innumerable days.
Takumi makes a bee-line for the chairman, donning a smile like a winter coat over his freezing person. He is charming. He only has to think it and the charm exudes from him like a mist. The chairman is all smiles – he knows of the Walkers. He is excited to meet the elusive prodigal son.
Takumi Walker.
He has sported the name for a little less than three years, and yet when it is spoken, he sees the eyes of the addressee looking past him, beyond him, calling out to someone who isn't really there. It feels distinctly like cheating.
They are all thinking it. He can feel the heat of their nonchalant glances thrown idly in his direction. The Last Walker. The Returned One. Fear is not something they know – not yet. But he will see to it. He has not given up everything he ever could have had, loved, merely to be glanced at. There will be no disgrace in return. No, instead he will march through the throngs of swarming business men and underworld lords, demanding they stare and gape, and be seated on a throne of gold in the centre of the universe.
This is what he wants now. He has made up his mind: Immortality. Even his father will come to see the light pervading his veins.
He wants it even more now that he can see her.
At first it's a glimpse. He isn't surprised. Every dark haired beauty he spies from a distance can have no other name than hers. It happened frequently after high school released them all from its pitiless grasp: down the street, from the window, in the line, by the lake, behind the phone booth – yet when she turns around they're green eyes. Blue eyes. Brown eyes. Black eyes. Hazel. Cobalt. Verdean.
He's looking for the odd mix on his palette – brown and yellow and gold and burnt umber and tan and lemon all mixed sloppily together. They are the leftover colours, the abandoned colours; the ones remaining after blue skies have been painted and green fields are created and red houses dot the canvas. So someone masterful took a brush to them and mixed them together to create a girl too grand for any frame.
Or so he once thought, in his hapless youth.
But it is her, he realises with a painful mix of trepidation and boredom. She turns fully and he'd recognise her anywhere. The hair has been chopped shorter, granted. She's grown only slightly taller. But the years haven't altered that face. He excuses himself from the smiling man (no, no, no; it's fine – go play, my boy. We'll meet again) to seek her out. His feet move on their own accord. His better judgement has been left by the bar lined with vodka.
"Misaki."
He probably should have called her Ayuzawa, but upon a glimpse left to right, he finds that Hinata is nowhere to be found, and quite frankly, he doesn't give a damn.
Because she's here alone, and her name is a sudden ecstasy in the crowded, sticky, overbearing party.
She is pushed toward him slightly by three girls whom he assumes are her friends. Any conversation between the four immediately ceases as he draws near. One has dyed her hair pink just as Sakura would, but it is not Sakura. He has to remind himself that things aren't the same as they once were.
"Usu-Takumi," she smiles, and if she is surprised (or embarrassed) she hides it well. Those yellowed eyes he remembers so well do not falter. She holds out her hand to him. It's slim and pale and just as he remembers it. "These are friends from school," she gestures to the three girls standing slightly behind her, each cradling a bottle in their hands protectively. They grin and one winks at him. Nothing is familiar.
"How's Hinata?" The question is spoken before he realises it, but he won't take it back. He's curious. She's there, standing in front of him, her forehead glistening with a thin sheen of sweat from the crowded hall and the hot August night. Miraculously, she's wearing a dress, not her usual boyish frump. The material is pale and doll-like and so Hinata he can barely watch it hug her torso. She's there, and he waits slightly impatiently for her to say something. Something that would suit her. Something profound, or biased, or lethal. Something he hasn't heard for the past three years. Misaki had always been entertaining; revolutionary, almost. Takumi decides the party needn't be so dull, after all.
Misaki shrugs slightly; two small mountain peaks rising above the earth. Secretively, a small smile creeps onto her face. "Good. Excellent," she pauses, and her slight hesitation triggers the realisation that she's changed; aged. "He asked me to marry him."
"And you said yes."
Of course she had said yes. Hinata himself left a voice message on the phone inside his lonely apartment (save for the cat he likes to think nothing of). The slightly garbled voice streaming through the machine had told him that they were friends. It told him that he – Hinata – was engaged and going to wed Misaki Ayuzawa. It had told him that they would send him an invitation to the wedding.
That night, Takumi drained three bottles of vodka and felt fine.
Misaki didn't acknowledge the comment. Or maybe she didn't hear him. She glanced around instead, as if having forgotten something. He noticed she was cradling a ridiculous-looking cocktail. Fruit segments clung resolutely to the insides of the glass.
"This is your university bash," she informed him, as if he hadn't already known. The statement was then reconstructed. "You go to the university holding this thing. I don't go here."
"I know." He knew.
"I'm here for Shintani. The chairman wants to take him on," she explained, frowning into her glass as if mad at the leftover fruit. She watched, slightly irritated, slightly resigned, as three zealous young (and slightly tipsy) men made overt advances on her new friends, who laughed gaily in response.
"We're going to dance," the pink-haired non-Sakura cried over her shoulder as they were lead away to where a group of enthusiastic grinders were moving to a steady beat Takumi hadn't realised was playing.
They were left alone. Takumi sighed.
"Where's he now?" Takumi probed, caught up in the idea of the couple married. He wondered if they often had sex in that cheap, run-down dormitory of theirs.
Chasing around a stray pineapple chunk in her glass with her pinkie, Misaki briefly glanced up, losing the fruit again. "Exams," she supplied, and then with a smile in her voice added, "He's thinking of taking a chef's apprenticeship."
Takumi managed to repress the snort that had threatened. However, that didn't stop the short, incredulous laugh that bubbled over.
A thought struck him suddenly and would not loosen its hold. "How's he in bed?" he blurted.
Misaki blinked up at him with wide eyes, not offended as much as surprised. If anything, she paled. "You're drunk," she surmised, not without some awe. "You're drunk," she repeated again, perhaps to herself for some fathomless reason. She seemed to grapple with the idea, face contorting into a grimace like an experienced gymnast.
"I feel fine," he countered, a little pissed.
She smirked slightly, then frowned, then stared into her empty glass for a full ten seconds.
"What about you?" the voice was quiet, but with no trace of timidity. She stared resolutely into her glass.
"What about me?" he questioned, watching the dancers dance a way off and the pink-haired friend run her hand down her newest friend's chest. How long had it been since he had been intimate with a woman now? Over a year? Over a year and a half? He wasn't sure. But something was making him feel giddy; the wine, the girl, that damned dress he absolutely hated. When he looked down, he could just make out a slight cleavage she hadn't had when he last saw her. It was probably the cut of the dress, he reasoned, or the slight glimmer of sweat that ran down her throat and disappeared beneath the fabric between her two breasts. Distantly, he wanted to hit her for wearing it in front of him.
Misaki saw her pink-haired non-Sakura friend's antics as well, though she didn't frown or march up to the girl and begin chastising as he thought she would. She just watched, detached. He wondered if she wasn't entirely sober, either. There was a slight glassiness to her eyes that had little to do with the fire demon he knew she had locked up inside of her. As for his back-handed question, she ignored it. Perhaps the words couldn't be said. He couldn't really find the will to blame her for it, either. It had been a cowardly, bitter, bitter, bitter response on his behalf, and it surprised even him.
"No," he relented, looking away. He felt a sudden need to sit down on the luxuriant couches provided. "Let's sit," he commanded, taking her elbow in his hand and guiding her through the heady crowd of tipsy university students and their multi-million dollar parents and friends.
"Should I get you some water?" Misaki offered. It reminded him of all the times she asked him that very same question, wearing a crisp, white, frilly apron. Yet she sounded marginally concerned now, as opposed to snappish as she would have all those years ago. He wondered just how drunk she thought he was. He couldn't see it, though – didn't he always act like this?
He answered her question with another question, hoping it might remind her of him – the old Takumi. Mysterious and enigmatic to the last, that is, until he wasn't anymore. In high school, he had been confident in championing her, leaving her confused and dreary and beguiled and hopelessly infatuated whenever he spoke. It never occurred to him that she was always smiling, rather indulgently, at his own self-constructed superficiality. Now, sitting so close to her, all he could think was how he liked her all the more for it.
"How many have you had?"
He considered poking her belly as an indication of what he meant, or maybe he just wanted to touch her again. Everything felt wonderful – he was charming, she was funny, the wine was flowing like the Nile and he felt good, good, good. He caught the dregs of his own sophisticated glass with his tongue suggestively, letting her watch.
She might have blushed, but then again, everyone seemed a little warm and heady.
He moved closer to her, only to have his arm squashed uncomfortably. Looking down, he discovered that he was still lightly grasping her arm.
If she had noticed, she made no comment.
He tossed it around her shoulders, instead. He felt invincible. Nothing could stop him. Hinata was a thousand miles away studiously studying and his fiancée, Misaki Ayuzawa, was blushing with one Takumi Usui, her engagement ring nowhere to be seen.
"He's fantastic," Misaki finally said. She made no move to remove his arm. "Uh. Perfect."
He realised she was finally answering the earlier question that had been dispensed into the air without his permission.
"Is he?" He muttered. He kissed her cheek, hard. She could feel his lips pushing against her teeth from the other side of all that damp skin. The emptied cocktail glass clutched in her hands became slippery. She could smell him from this close, she was sure he had moulded himself against her side; sweat, salt, flesh and expensive cologne. It was Hinata, only sharper; bitterer. Their differences merged and separated.
"I want to go home," she told him, meaning her temporary room in the west dormitory. He hadn't pulled back.
"You want to go home," he told her in return, meaning Hinata. His lips brushed against her skin as he mouthed the words.
Hinata – the foolish, idiotic, flamboyant, kind, irresponsible, childish, warm-hearted man who had sent his fiancée into the hands of the man who had once tried to make Misaki Ayuzawa his. She may not have believed him. Hinata may not have trusted him. But once, once, there had been a time when Takumi had known exactly what he wanted. Love, he reasoned bitterly, must be harder than anything else in the world. Its difficulty even surpassed the lack of love; lovelessness.
Takumi hated women; Misaki hated men. Which was probably why it worked so well in the end, as Hinata had never been a real man in either of their eyes. Takumi had once scoffed at him for it, but now. But now.
"I'll walk you back."
"It's only a few minutes," she reasoned, but made no real move to reject his company.
He steered her out, knowing the route by memory. One hand was firmly planted about her shoulder. "You'll get lost."
She snorted. "Don't be ridiculous."
He was ridiculous? She had come to his side, eyes wide and chopped hair brushing tentatively at her dainty shoulders while that ridiculous dress squeezed at her frame and whispered as she walked; and he was being ridiculous?
It was still warm. August made the nights seem like day, and crickets could be heard against the music growing fainter and fainter. Walking in between the buildings, couples – sometimes triplets or quadruplets – could be spied crammed up against shadowy walls and pressed into trees.
It was a good idea, really.
Eventually they made it to a blue flaking door. Takumi was almost afraid to see what laid beyond it.
"Are you going to come in?"
Misaki Ayuzawa – forever ignorant, forever looking for the best in him. But open glancing up, he found something he had never expected to see in those yellowed eyes; apprehension; expectancy; desire; fear.
He coaxed his usual smirk onto his face like a languid cat, curled sleepily above his chin. It was too sharp, though. His eyes were strained, yet apathetic. "Will you be prepared to cheat on your fiancée?"
She frowned, only slightly. "With you?"
He didn't answer. Time was of the essence, and he realised he either wanted to be inside her apartment right this instant, or back on his way home. It didn't matter either way to him; he was never one to procrastinate, though.
Unlocking the door, Misaki stepped in to the cramped hall, that same small frown settled on her face.
Takumi thought it might be guilt. But to be honest, he couldn't really give a damn about whatever internal wars she may or may not have been waging with herself. Indecision was weakness. He cornered her against the wall, caging her between two long, sturdy arms. He kicked the door shut behind him, encasing the room in darkness – everything tinted midnight blue and silver. Her eyes took on a green quality that could have rivalled his own.
"Have you decided, yet?" he whispered. He bent his elbows and descended. Her mouth wasn't the same as he last remembered it – it was warmer, saltier. He crushed himself against her, breathing so deeply he could feel the remnants of her perfume tickle the pits of his lungs. It was strange – the more he kissed her, pushed her, the odder it was. He was kissing Misaki Ayuzawa. He couldn't wrap his head around it. Not mine, not mine, not mine; the harder it echoed the harder he pushed. He almost pulled back at the frenzy.
But then she made that sound. That half-sighing, half-falling, low little nose that streamed over her tongue daintily and into the world, and his shoulders relaxed. His mind cleared. She kissed him back – fiercely, predatorily, angrily. Teeth knocked together and he was sure for a moment he tasted blood.
He wondered if she had truly meant for this to be her decision.
It didn't matter, though. He gripped her shoulders and pushed her back off him so hard her head hit the wall. She wheezed a little, clutching at her lungs. Or maybe she was hissing at him.
"Not here," he managed to explain between heavy breaths. "Move."
She dug her fingers into his forearm and dragged him unceremoniously into an open space, or what he realised to be upon closer inspection a make-shift lounge/kitchen/dining area. A worn sofa was pushed against the furthest wall, heavy books strewn across the coffee table beside it. He wondered if it was favourite place for Misaki and Hinata when they had sex.
And just like that, he couldn't get the irritating idea out of his head; Misaki and Hinata, fucking like rabbits.
Annoyed, he pushed her against the armrest of the damned couch, seeing her wince at the structure against her spine. She had barely grown, but she was no longer the tiny doll against his frame. He lined his body against her, feeling her muscles contract every breath in, every breath out. He was warm. She was warm. Combined with the weather, the heat was almost unbearably stuffy. Every breath in seared. Blood boiled. He pushed his tongue into her mouth, liking the idea of invasion, attack and amorality. She whimpered, any words that might have followed were muffled by the slick, wet symphony he seemed intent on orchestrating.
He guided her over the armrest and onto the cushions, crawling after her, over her, through her. He could feel the nubs of the flowers sewn to her dress pressing against his thigh as she hitched a leg over him.
It made him want to smile. Even wrapped around him, with his tongue down her throat and hands splayed across her legs, she refused to let go of that other kind, warm, cheated man.
"Take it off," he half-ordered, half-pleaded. After she had taken it off, he thought he would burn it.
But she shook her head hastily, sending hair tangling around his neck, encasing him. "You'll manage," she said hoarsely, digging her fingernail into his skin, leaving red half-moons spotted over the back of his neck. His skin had always been too perfect, too pristine, she reasoned.
His hands were everywhere – on skin, off skin, over the dress, under the dress. He had remarkably slim hands; they slithered in and out of crevices and joints and seams and curves with ease. She felt his lower half push again and again against the fabric, against the skin. He ground into her often, but continued to feel her skin steadily. Only the slight curl of the upper lip and fierceness of the eyes betrayed his emotion. Sweat gathered on his brow.
"Come on," he hissed, ridding himself of constraint. He pulled her closer.
She let him have her entirely.
The sun was only pale lilac when they woke, and it spun gossamer threads across them. Takumi felt better than he had in a long time. He cupped her naked thigh, thrilled at the obscenity of it all. Misaki shuddered, then sighed, then stretched. The headache was phenomenal, but she's had worse. She rolled over uncomfortably in the small space to meet green eyes. They were piercing.
"Do you love me?" He wanted to know. She was curled against him with her legs tangled with his. It didn't seem improbable.
She didn't hesitate. "No." There was no reservation, no bitterness, no emotion other than the simple statement of fact. A great wave of relief coursed through him. Giddiness returned at the promise of eternal freedom.
She stared at him, eyeing the familiar face that had filled so many of her former memories. He had told her that he loved her once. No, twice. She had lost count. But that was so long ago now. The past seemed like a hazy dream. "Do you love me?" The question was voiced as if she had been the first one to think of asking it.
His eyes lolled up to the patched ceiling, deliberating. "No," he decided. "I don't." The words were truth. They should have been truth. All he knew was that he smelt of her, and the idea clouded his thinking process.
She didn't say anything.
"Will you tell him?" Takumi asked, lightly humoured at the idea. Would she think of him the next time she led Hinata to her room? Would she remember his touch, his breath, his grunts when her fiancée next laid her down on the sheets? Would she cry his name in her moment of ecstasy instead of her future husband's?
The idea excited him as it repulsed him.
She had paused at his question. "Yes. I will."
Takumi laughed. It was oddly hollow. "I see. I'll have to be ready myself for the fistfight."
She didn't say anything, only stared up at the ceiling.
And it hit him.
It hit him.
Her sympathetic looks, Hinata's unwavering friendship, her blatant acceptance of him back into her life, her room, her body.
"No," he whispered, jumping up. He ran a hand through his hair, threatening to tear it out.
"NO," he snarled venomously, dressing himself, kicking all he could in the process. "Fuck," he swore.
The insolence. The kindness. The damned concern. The unforgiveable.
Cheapened. Pitied.
Misaki gazed at him from the couch, wide-eyed and concerned.
"I'm sorry," she said automatically, but her face bore no signs of remorse. "Hinata thought it might be-"
He didn't want to hear it. He buttoned his shirt, missing the majority and mismatching the remainder. He could still smell her on him. He spied a fallen strand of his own blonde hair on the armrest of the couch. He wanted to cry. He wanted to kill Hinata. He wanted to thank Hinata. He wanted to forget Hinata. He wanted to cleanse himself of Misaki. He wanted to be cleansed by Misaki.
In the end, he walked briskly out the door, ignoring the woman's knowing looks and pitying eyes. She had stopped apologizing. She didn't bother explaining. There was a gravity, an unconditional kindness to her face he couldn't stand. The tepid morning air slapped against his skin, smoothing his scowl and carrying her scent far from his person and into the earth beneath him.
To them, he knew, he was the ugliest, most pitiable creature.
It never occurred to him they may have been right.
-x-x-x-
Well.
I hope I wasn't too ambiguous. I have a good feeling I'll get a lot of complaints that it was, but to be honest, I'd like to think you'll either come away from this chewing it over, or trusting your gut instinct. Interpretation is key. Gut feeling is its cousin. The rest, friends, is the frenzy of life.
Just realised this one-shot could be taken as slightly Usui/Hinata (what?). Uh, it's not. Anything that might have given that indication, allow me to explain, was mainly curiosity of Usui's part, and an unwitting obsession with comparing himself to Hinata, ie. Why did she pick him over me?
Also, (really sorry for the long A/N, but this was a fairly risky one-shot) I've had in past chapters several reviews and PMs hinting that I have a few young-ish readers that at times don't understand all my allusions and references. With this in mind, I feel the need that the concept of Triage must be understood to grasp what was happening at a certain point in this piece: Triage originated in World War I by French doctors treating the battlefield wounded. It was a system that determined what treatment, and when, by coloured tickets. Until recently, triage results, whether performed by a paramedic or anyone else, were frequently a matter of the 'best guess', as opposed to any real or meaningful assessment. At its most primitive, those responsible for the removal of the wounded from a battlefield or their care afterwards have divided victims into three categories:
The injured who can be helped by immediate transportation – Red.
The injured whose transport can be delayed – Yellow.
Those with minor injuries, who need help less urgently – Green.
That's it, I think.
*** SaaLiiieK, Murphy Annen Thiamine, chocolatexlover – the three wittiest, kindest, awesome-st reviews I've ever had. I owe you guys the world. (In which case, we might need a rain check, as the world hasn't come into my possession….yet)
Send me love, babies.