Disclaimer: Gravitation or it's charas are not mine, but that of Maki Murakami-Sensei
Pairings: Tatsuha/OC (Hitomi) (dun worry, no self-inserts or mary sue-ness)
Warnings: POV, teeange/adult issues, romance, angst - life in general is a warning, may contain SPOILERS if you have not read Gravi book 12
Author's Notes: YAY! Finally, after a long, long wait, I am back into the groove! I still have many plans for this fic and do not even dream of considering giving ig up! NODS Just been very busy with school, but never fear, here come's Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 is already in the works!
I would also like to note that I'm pretending the series really does end at Book 12, and ignoring the online continuation of the manga X3 Heh heh
Thankies for being so paitent with me!
This chapter is UNBETA'd, so please...be kind XD;; was trying to get it out soon!
Chapter 4
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If you know me, you know that I am not a morning person. It's not that I hate the sun, or the going to school or work part (though that was never enjoyable). It was the getting up part. My brain does not connect to the rest of my body until at least 9 o'clock in the morning. My new job didn't seem to understand that.
But then again, who was I to complain? I'd gotten the job I wanted and had a roof over my head.
Mornings never changed, though.
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"Tatsuha, you're going to be late!" That was the fifth wake-up call that morning. Tatsuha responded with stuffing his head further into the pillow. Perhaps if he played dead, maybe she would go away…
Instead, he got a sigh. "Dammit, I'm not your mother…" Then the protective blankets of warmth were torn from the teenager's body, who immediately curled up on himself, reaching out for them. Upon finding none, Tatsuha went back to feigning death. That was when the alarm went off at another nine-minute interval, some shout of the local weather beating his hears.
Dark eyes went open then, he groaned. "Is it really only Tuesday…?"
Hitomi hit the snooze button, stealing the boy's pillow too. He pouted, though he would never admit to it.
"Yes, and you're going to miss your morning debriefing if you don't hurry up."
Tatsuha just grumbled in response, wondering if he could slide under the mattress as well. When he had left home, Tatsuha had always thought he would have more independence, which he did really. But why did mornings never change?
Well, there had been one morning that was different. That morning in the hotel, Osaka…
"—and that's, are you listening?"
He blinked, coming back to reality. Hitomi sighed, shaking her head, causing her soft back hair to come loose from its clip. "Just hurry up. If they keep you longer, we won't make it to the restaurant in time tonight, okay?"
The teenager finally sighed, letting himself roll off the bed and onto the floor. When she saw that phase one was in process, Hitomi left the room to tend to breakfast. When he could not hear the pad of her socked feet on the hardwood floor anymore, Tatsuha pulled himself up to a kneeling position. Running a hand through his messy black hair, he sighed again, looking at the ends.
"I need a haircut." He turned slightly, catching a glimpse of the morning in the southern part of Japan. The sun was reaching its fingers over the horizon, trying to grasp through the little buildings, houses, and temples, as if to hold them all together in its palms.
Tatsuha looked away. Time to get dressed.
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The air was filled with a roar of laughter as Tatsuha came out of the dark room. A young man close to the door, Kazuhiro, patted him on the shoulder, bringing Tatsuha right into the conversation. Smoke hung close to the ceiling, a fan gently swirling it about the room. A bigger man, middle-aged and looking quite satisfied, continued,
"But it wasn't until after they realized that the beaker was plastic, and they were using it on a hot plate!" Everyone laughed again, and Tatsuha managed a chuckle, though he was still a little lost. The man wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. "So my son had it smoking, running the thing outside before the fire alarms went off! I was planning on being upset but when he told me I laughed too hard to make up for it!"
"Ahhh, the kids these days are so much different than when we grew up," someone else commented. There was a general nodding of heads about the room from the middle-aged men. Kazuhiro just shook his head and started to lead Tatsuha and himself away.
"It's always fun listening to them talk about their kids," he said in a low voice with a chuckle. "Kinda makes me want my own…but not really at the same time."
Tatsuha grinned. "Yeah, when I feel the need for minions is when I start considering it."
Kazuhiro laughed more loudly at that. He patted Tatsuha on the back, mouth open to say something else when the door opened just in front of them, a high school aged girl walked through, blinking and bowing to them in apology of rushing in.
"Excuse me!" she said, holding up a folder for everyone to see. The conversation in the room stopped, all fingers ceased typing their articles for the day. "Sasaki-san has just received a fax of a growing story up near Tokyo!"
Murmuring quickly flowed throughout the place. Kazuhiro nudged Tatsuha in the side, who just shrugged. Big news in Tokyo did not always make it down there, or was important. It was only when the girl took a moment to stare too long at Tatsuha was his interest suddenly piqued.
"Sasaki-san said she wants this to be in tomorrow morning's paper. She says it's important."
That stare. Tatsuha frowned. That was not the type of thing he needed to hear when he had a dinner-date that night.
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It really was a nice restaurant. More western-style design compared to the traditional qualities of that town. Tatsuha sat there, fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers on the table as Hitomi quickly checked her cell phone messages. He had been feeling pensive all day after that announcement at the newspaper.
A tap of fingernails just a few inches away from his hands broke Tatsuha out of his trance. He blinked, looking over to the woman across from him. The olive of her skin glowed just perfectly in the lighting at their table. Tatsuha could not help but smile at that. She smiled sweetly back.
"What's that look for?"
"Hmm? What look?" he returned the question in a teasing tone.
Hitomi shook her head with that same smile, hiding her cell phone back into the depths of her purse. "Oh, nothing. But you look really…distracted tonight, baby, is there anything wrong? Did you get your thumb on the lens of one of your shots?"
Tatsuha scoffed at that. "Hey, that was a shot from a shit-ass camera from a convenience store…and if I recall, you were the one to take it, Hitomi."
"Mmm, too skilled for that type of rookie mistake, I presume?" she teased, leaning forward a bit.
Tatsuha smirked back. "Damn right. I happen to be skilled in quite a few things"
"Don't I know it!" They smiled together.
Seconds later, their dinners were placed in front of them, each thanking the waitress with a bow before breaking apart their chopsticks. "Thank you for this food," they said in unison, digging in. Or Hitomi dug in, leaving Tatsuha to poke at his food.
"Oh sweetie," she said, nudging him under the table. Tatsuha jumped a bit at that, blinking innocently at the woman. "I know you're not a garbage disposal like most men, but you've got to eat." He nodded, and proceeded to put a bit of rice in his mouth. Hitomi sighed. "What's bothering you?"
"Nothing," he replied around chewing his most reliable dish.
"That's a load of bull," Hitomi said disapprovingly. Tatsuha had quickly discovered that in the company of others, Hitomi was the perfect, polite, modest, and submissive woman. But when she was with Tatsuha, it was a whole different story…
She really did remind him of Mika sometimes.
"You know you can tell me."
Tatsuha eyed her cautiously for a moment, before sighing in defeat. "Yeah, well…it's stupid." He scratched the back of his head out of nervous habit. "I dunno even what it really is, but there's this big article coming out tomorrow."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Well, yeah!" he burst out, before quieting himself down when other people turned to stare. "But like, the new intern kept staring at me all weird when she announced it."
Hitomi raised a delicate brow. "Maybe you're going to work on it?"
Tatsuha shook his head, causing his black hair to bounce lightly. "No, it's just a relay of a report from Tokyo, but…it just gives me this weird, creepy…forbidding feeling like in the horror movies when the slasher guy is about to pop out with his chain saw and cut your arm off or something."
To that, she laughed merrily. He did like her laugh. "You really need to stop watching those horrible American movies. They have no real plot but to see people blow up."
Tatsuha grinned. "Yeah, I know."
Giving him a soft pat on his hand, Hitomi went back to her meal. "I wouldn't worry about it, though. I can't think of many people with chainsaws in this little town."
As anxiety inducing as chainsaws and psychos sounded, it placated Tatsuha enough to down the rest of his rice, miso, and even a bit of the tempura that night.
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Hitomi really was like a younger, less evil Mika. Don't get me wrong, I love my sister. But it's kind of creepy when you're screwing the girl, you know? My sister's hot and everything, but she's still my sister.
…Maybe if we were the last people on earth. You know, holding the future of the human race in our hands and all that jazz.
Anyway! I didn't really think about the article until the next morning. But I did spend a lot of time just sitting and thinking. Sometimes it's good to sit and think, just stare out the window or something. It wasn't depressing, just…thinking time.
The more I thought about Mika, the more I kind of missed her telling me to get my lazy ass out of bed in the mornings she'd stay at the temple. Okay, maybe those weren't the fondest memories, but it shows I was missing my family, okay? Even Eiri's eye roll and annoyed, "Shut up so I can get some work done." If you knew the guy like I did, that was an endearing response.
Even a teeny, tiny…miniscule part of me missed the futon I used to sleep in.
I hated to admit it at the time, but I was ill with the sickness of the home variety.
If anything, the next morning just twisted the knife a little further…
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The sun was trickling into the room, though to sleepy eyes it was blinding. Tatsuha cuddled the cup of tea in his hands, letting the warmth seep into his hands comfortingly, and frequently taking a sip of the much needed caffeine boost. Hitomi started to serve the rice out of the cooker in the kitchen. It was all a very domestic scene indeed.
But as groggy as he was, Tatsuha could not ignore the sound of one of those nice bowls crashing to the ground. He shot up, making his way to the kitchen to find Hitomi standing there, spoon dripping rice onto the ground, ceramic bits shattered all over the tiled floor…in her other hand was a newspaper, the paper that Tatsuha's job put out every morning.
He had never experienced a sinking feeling in his stomach as great as then. The kitchen was deathly quiet, and neither moved.
The tension in the air with the unnerving stillness lasted for some time. Slowly, Hitomi was able to turn around, morning hair a mess, and hold out the paper to her current lover. Tatsuha met her eyes, locking with the confused hazel, before barely turning down to see a very familiar photo with the caption "Have you seen this person?"
Tatsuha felt his mouth go dry, forcing his eyes to wander over to the headline…
Boy Still Missing; N-G In-Laws and Novelist's Family Not Giving Up Search.
He wanted to throw up.