In Spite Of It All
Hide and Seek
Where are we? What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to fall,
Crop circles in the carpet, sinking, feeling.
Spin me round again and rub my eyes.
This can't be happening.
-Hide and Seek, Imogen Heap
Ryuichi walked into his apartment. All the lights were off and it was very silent. He called out, "Honey I'm home! Oh, that's right I'm not married." Ryuichi giggled to himself as he remembered the line from Batman Returns.
Ryuichi wasn't expecting anyone to be home, so he was surprised when someone called out his name.
"What are you doing home?" he asked to his twin brother, Kazuya. "I thought you were at Shuichi's."
"I was," Kazuya said evasively.
"And then?"
"And then I left," Kazuya loved annoying his brother. Plus, he didn't particularly want to answer the awkward questions he knew were coming.
"Why?" Ryuichi asked as he walked into the kitchen to get some food.
"Because I needed some space."
"Oh, right, space," Ryuichi knew what kind of things entailed "space". He rolled his eyes.
"Don't look at me like that."
"Well, if you ever want to elaborate, I'm here," Ryuichi added while chewing noisily on a carrot. He then took a bit out of his mouth and tried to feed it to Kumogoro.
"You're disgusting."
Some time later, Ryuichi got bored and announced that they would both go to Shuichi's apartment. After many arguments form Kazuya he got talked into going.
Shuichi couldn't help the overwhelming feeling that he had made a big mistake. He knew kissing Kazuya was not a particularly smart move, but he had too. He needed to. Plus, Kazuya didn't pull out of the kiss right away. Actually, Shuichi was the one who ended the kiss, so maybe there was hope?
Shuichi spent two days moping around his empty apartment. After a very awkward dinner Kazuya left and Shuichi was alone. He decided it was a good idea to play Dead or Alive 4 for the next couple of days. Stopping only to get a shower and eat… occasionally. Shuichi couldn't help but be glad for all of those microwave dinners he bought before Kazuya left.
Shuichi woke up the next morning to a knock on his bedroom door.
"Shuichi! You better not be naked or anything because if you are I'm coming in anyways!" came Ryuichi's voice from the other side of the door.
Shuichi had a split second to fathom how on earth Ryuichi got his apartment key before he jumped on him.
"Wake up!" Ryuichi yelled.
"I'm awake," mumbled Shuichi, who did not sound awake at all.
"Good," said Ryuichi. "Because I brought breakfast." Behind Ryuichi, Kazuya just rolled his eyes. At that second, Shuichi's heart stopped.
Shuichi followed them to the kitchen when he got his composure back. Kazuya was unpacking the cinnamon buns and pouring extra icing on them.
Ryuichi bounded over to Kazuya and tried to steal a cinnamon bun. Kazuya stopped him and rescued the food from his grasp.
Shuichi couldn't help but notice that even though they were twins, they were not at all the same. It wasn't really physical appearance, besides the eyes, because they were identical twins. Their personalities were almost completely opposite. Kazuya was the "strong and silent" type. Shuichi always had his head in the clouds and lived a fairly hedonistic life.
Shuichi snapped out of his thoughts and joined in on breakfast.
"Itadakimasu," the three of them chorused and then dug in.
Shuichi gave a quick look over towards Kazuya. Their breakfast went relatively quietly with Shuichi stealing private glances at Kazuya. After a couple minutes though, all talking ceased because Ryuichi could sense the tension between his two companions.
Kazuya, Shuichi noticed, was currently licking icing off of his fingers. Shuichi wished against wish that he was alone with Kazuya and a lot of extra icing, alas he was not. And even if he was, Kazuya wasn't gay. Shuichi pouted at the thought of this.
Afterwards, Shuichi went to go get a shower leaving the twins to wreak havoc in his apartment. He also was stalling for time. He didn't want to have the Talk.
A couple minutes after cleaning up Kazuya and Ryuichi went into the living room. Kazuya was staring at the wall. Ryuichi turned to his brother and asked him what was wrong.
"Nothing," was his only response.
"Well, what are you thinking about?" Ryuichi continued his interrogation hoping to find an answer.
"Nothing, seriously."
"Yeah whatever. Just look out, buddy. I have some pretty crazy ninja skills," said Ryuichi in a cheeky voice springing into a ninja position.
"Oh, you mean the ones that get your ass kicked by me all the time?" replied Kazuya, getting into his own ninja stance as the started to spar.
After a while Kazuya yelled, "KAMEHAMEHA!"
As Ryuichi was falling down matrix-style, he cried out, "Hey, that's not fair!" That's when they turned around to find a giggling Shuichi in nothing but a towel. He had heard them fighting from the shower and went to check it out.
Kazuya just blushed and got out of the room as quickly as possible.
"What's with him?" asked Ryuichi hoping to finally get some answers. Shuichi just shrugged and went to get changed.
Ryuichi went to find hid brother and see what the matter was. When he found Kazuya, he sat down beside him. "Spill," Ryuichi all but demanded.
"When you were gone, you know, you left Shuichi and I alone," Kazuya started. Ryuichi liked where this was going. "And he uh… well, you know… kissed me."
"YUSS!" cried Ryuichi in celebration but immediately put on a sombre face because his brother needed him to be serious.
"But, you know, I'm not gay. I like Shuichi enough; he's a fun guy to hang out with, if you can handle his spaz attacks. But I just don't like him in that way," confessed Kazuya.
With that, Shuichi, who had been listening, burst into tears and stormed out of the house.
After they got over the initial shock and guilt, an unsettling awkwardness set in. You know the kind when you're in someone's house when you know you shouldn't be…
"Well, I guess it's back to our place," said Ryuichi.
"Yeah, I guess it is."
When Shuichi arrived at Hiro's house he was still a blubbering mess of tears and other such things. He told Hiro about his situation –or lack thereof- with Kazuya. All the while Shuichi was drinking a strawberry milkshake made by a slightly pregnant Ayaka. Shuichi was grateful to his friends for putting up with him, but was still a depressed heap of gay boy at the end of the day.
Ayaka invited Shuichi to stay the night, but decided morning sickness was not something he wanted to witness. He thanked the gods he was gay. So, Shuichi decided to go home. After dinner. And maybe some desert.
After the delicious meal, Shuichi was at home once again playing Dead or Alive 4. Alone. He did feel a bit better, but not much. After all he did get rejected –twice.
Shuichi paused his game and went to the kitchen to get his big tub of ice cream from the freezer. He decided that some serious face-stuffage was in order.
Just as he was about halfway through the tub and ready to explode, Kazuya walked in. Shuichi stopped with the spoon partway to his mouth, dripping with ice cream. Kazuya winced.
"Maybe you should put away the ice cream before you implode into your socks," suggested Kazuya, breaking the silence.
Shuichi had just put the ice cream away, wiped his face and was in the middle of pulling on a new, ice cream free, T-shirt when Kazuya said those dreaded four words, "We need to talk."
Shuichi fell over. "No, no I don't think we do. Everything is neato keen!"
"NO, I really think we do. You just ate half a tub of ice cream."
"So?"
"So. Nobody eats that much ice cream when everything is 'neato keen'," Kazuya retorted.
"Smartass."
"Anyways, I just came by to make sure you were alright. And to let you know that just because I'm not gay doesn't mean I don't care about you."
"Is that all?" Shuichi was surprised at how calm he sounded because inside he was screaming at Kazuya.
"No," Great, thought Shuichi. Kazuya continued: "You know, my brother is bisexual… and we look the same so… you know…" Kazuya trailed off.
You don't understand, Shuichi thought to himself. But what he said was, "I think it's time for you to leave." He whispered this because he didn't trust his voice enough to speak any louder.
Kazuya left without a word. Once he left Shuichi burst into another bout of tears.
Outside Kazuya's heart sank. He could almost hear the tears rolling down Shuichi's cheeks. It needed to be done, didn't it? But if so, then why did it hurt so much?
A/N: Hope you liked it! Please review, it means alot!