This story was requested by the glorious Orange-Maple.
Disclaimer: They lied. Dreams don't come true.The song lyrics are from the ImmigrantSong by Zeppelin.
Pairing: KxHiro
Warning: Language
And for those for you who have read "The Seven Sins of Hiroshi Nakano", I hope you'll forgive me for using that for the restaurant's name.
And thank you, everyone, for your kind reviews.
Sugar, Sugar?
By Cory
February Sixth: Thursday
Thursday was a recording day. Shuichi sang until he could barely manage to complain, Suguru only glared wearily at Shuichi when he scratchily bleated, and Hiro spun his fingers over the metallic wires until his fingers throbbed.
The fifth time Sakano took a brief leave of consciousness, K finally bonked him on the head with the butt of his gun and grudgingly allowed them to prepare to go home.
"Shuichi, we're going to WanderLust tonight, right?" Hiro remarked, stretching his cramping fingers.
Shuichi blanched, then half-hid his face behind the dangling microphone guiltily. His dyed hair glinted lightly in the overhanging lights of the studio. "Erm…sorry, but I made plans with Yuki."
Hiroshi frowned slightly, and his lower lip involuntarily puckered into a pout as a crese popped into existence between his eyebrows. Shuichi's voice was all too excited for him to believe that his friend was actually repentant. "Come on, Shu. This has been our tradition to go out on Thursdays since…well, ever."
Shuichi cringed, but it seemed staged, somehow, and Hiro felt a sinking, icy feeling inside, like his stomach acid had transformed into slush. Shuichi, what the hell are you planning? he wondered.
"You go with K instead."
Oh. That. Hiro stiffened, and K asked from the other side of the booth, "Eh?"
"You're going to take Hiro out instead of me." There was something into Shuichi's voice; triumph? Hiro sincerely tried to not appear as terrified as he felt.
K shrugged.
Shuichi grinned evilly.
Hiro moaned.
--
The car ride was stiff, but at least not silent. Hiro laid his head unenthusiastically against the plush headrest as Tokyo flashed by at speeds that were perhaps a bit more swift than necessary. But did I expect anything less? he wondered, glancing at the speedometer.
Being this close to his crush was quite a strain on his nerves. He spied at him out of the corner of his eye quickly, hoping to catch some emotion from his face, but his eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglass. Hiro did not realize that he had been staring for all of seven minutes until K silently reached over to prod a button on the surface of the dashboard. He spun a dial so the blasting music that made Hiro cringe from the volume down to a bearable level.
I come from the land of the ice and snow
Where the midnight sun and the hot springs blow…
Hiro blanched. "That's Led—"
"—Zeppelin, I know," K interjected, suddenly cheerful. "You know them?"
Hiro shrugged, but was suddenly unwilling to let his manager know about his anonymous sender. True, he knew that his manager did not like men, but maybe someday, something would make this man turn and relent to him with some small kindness to permit some reprieve from this pain from unrequited feelings. "I got some music as a gift," he replied rigidly.
"From your future valentine, yes?"
If Hiro had been the one clenching the wheel, they would have undoubtedly skittered across the road at that moment. "Excuse me?" he croaked.
K hesitated, then smiled. "Shuichi told me about it. A guy, right?"
Hiro closed his eyes temporarily before reopening them. Shuichi, you are a dead man. "Yes," he said quietly.
K laughed before clapping him on the shoulder, entirely disregarding both common sense and unwritten rules of the road. "It's fine, Hiro. It doesn't matter."
Hiro flinched when the hand slapped lightly against his shoulder. You…burn me. "Don't touch me," he muttered quietly, but firmly. His restraint was already pulled taut, like a rubber band on the verge of snapping explosively.
K blinked. "Oh. Sorry, Hiro."
Hiro could only manage to nod mutely. How was he going to survive this night? Great, now it's stressed again. And it was true; there was a layer of overwrought anxiousness seething beneath the silence, like relatives that only pretended to know each other.
How soft your fields so green
Can whisper tales of gore
Of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlords
The music seemed twice as loud as before now, weighing down upon Hiro's chest like a boulder.
The majority of the awkwardness had dissipated by the time the two reached the restaurant. Hiro briefly wondered how K knew his way there. By the time the musician and manager had reached the front, K had long since abandoned his sunglasses under the stars that were slowly beginning to glint whitely above in the rushing twilight. The car slammed to a halt under the concrete arch hanging over the drive, and amber light gleamed out to them from the panes of glass, through which Hiro could see a little less than half the restaurant. A valet in uniform khaki slack and a red vest strode forward and bowed slightly to K, who handed the keys over with a regretful grimace at his car. Hiro heard him quietly threatening the bow with disembowelment if he returned it in less than perfect state.
Hiro grinned at his pouting manager when he joined him before the spotless glass door. "Your baby will be fine," he crooned teasingly, to which K merely shot him a moody glare.
Inside, they were seated by a waiter with inky hay that was streaked with gray. K ordered wine while Hiro ordered tea.
"I'm trying to imagine Shuichi here," K mused, tapping a finger against his bottom lip as he glanced at the walls lined with red velvet with hand-painted designs of nightingales, the gleaming platinum-edged cups, and the immaculately dressed waiters. He seemed quite recovered from his "baby".
Hiro shrugged. "Shuichi likes to play 'dress up' every once in a while. Actually, until a few months ago it was a dump, which was why we were able to afford it when we were high school slackers."
"I have to doubt that you were ever a slacker, Hiro."
Hiro laughed with mock-mysteriousness. "Oh, that's just what you think," he retorted jokingly.
K rolled his eyes and lounged back in his seat, ignoring the disapproving fleeting looks from the other patrons.
It was after a long—but somehow, less uncomfortable—stretch of quiet when Hiro shifted and asked, "So…how're you doing?"
"With what?"
Hiro sighed and decided that speaking like a stranger would not help. "What I mean is…how are you coping?"
"With the divorce?"
"Well, um, yes." Hiro wondered whether or not he should have asked, but it was obvious that K needed to speak to someone honestly about it.
Hiro knew that K did not have many friends. What with being a stranger in a wholly different country and being the sole manager of one of Japan's most popular bands, not much time was left for a social life. Besides Ark and his family, Hiro was certain that he interacted with few other people closely that was not necessary for work. But his son was his world. Michael was one person that K would burn the world down for.
Is there room for me in that world?
K ran a hand through his hair, and Hiro had to make an effort to not drool as the fingers sifted through the cornsilk strands. "It's…pretty, well, not ok."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
K glanced at him. "The food hasn't even arrived yet. I think it's pretty early to be getting all deep on me."
"K."
"Alright. Judy and I…had some misunderstanding."
"Like what?"
"I realized something just a little too late, and we agreed that this was for the best. Of course, that doesn't make it any better, and we could have done it with more…dignity and grace."
"K, what happened?"
K suddenly frowned at him, and Hiro frantically backpedalled so not as to get hot lead between his eyebrows. K had been on good behavior so far. "I mean, if you want to talk about it."
"Not really," K mumbled finally.
I want to help you. But apparently you don't want me at all. "Oh. Right."
The food came and they babbled about meaningless, pointless things. However, K seemed to make the simplest topic into a vehement, engaging subject.
"Hiro, what do you think of love?"
Hiro choked, and K looked at him innocently until he recovered and Hiro croaked, "Wazzup?" He dragged the cloth napkin over his mouth.
"I mean, what's your opinion on it?"
"I…why?"
"Well, you're the only one I'd ask," K told him. He attempted to rearrange his face into one of childlike innocence, but his facial features could not quite achieve it.
"It sucks."
K looked like he had not expected that. "What?"
"I have to assume that you don't love Judy," Hiro stated simply. He had seen the two together; there was only a hollow echo of love; respect, some affection, friendship, and companionship. No love. Maybe she thinks she can get better than him. She really is stupid. "It really does suck, though. It feels like the world is ending but only you know, and it's all inside of you. But the really weird thing is that, by that point, you don't care anymore.
"It's like…sanity. Like it's munching away inside you, and it hurts so bad."
K was beginning to look incredulous, like he knew better.
"But it's not so bad as that," Hiro added quickly. "Like the dark chocolate Ryuichi gave us all one time that gave Sakano bad gas. All…bittersweet. And stuff." Hiro was feeling the sore need for K to shut him up, because all the poetry was gone now, and there was a faint pinkness seeping up his neck and cheeks.
"Oh. Then…I don't feel like you do. I mean, not the same love you do. We seem to think of it in different ways."
Hiro could feel the blush and embarrassment shrinking away only to have agony rear up through his lovesick, raw body and a pallid color like oatmeal come over his face. "You…had an affair?" he asked quietly.
K stared at him, and briefly looked like he wanted to strangle him before half-yelling, "No!"
Hiro jolted, and relief pounded back into him in time with his roaring heart. "Ok!" he mocked, noticing that more than half the restaurant was glaring at them.
"But I do love him."
Hiro flinched, then the full affect of his eating partners words hit him. "'Him'?" he asked bitterly, but still shocked.
"Apparently, I'm gay."
"But…you and Judy."
"It was only until I met him that I realized that there was only one person I could settle for, and that was him. A man. So…I'm gay."
Hiro was beginning to feel sick. No relief accompanied this revelation. Only dull, frosty jealousy that shredded his insides and made every nerve ending on him collapse to give in to that dull, frigid nothingness.
But…fairy tales say you're supposed to love me. But if K was the willing knight, then didn't that make Hiro the monstrous dragon? Only that could explain why K was slowly killing him. And perhaps that death would be some clemency, but there was apparently none coming from this oblivious, smiling, beautiful, heartbreaking murderer.
"Oh," he rasped.
"Yup."
There was nothing else to say.
--
Upon his return to his home, Hiro lifelessly glanced to the side of his door and blinked.
Lilies. Lots and lots of lilies. They brimmed over in the hallway until it seemed the whole inner hallways were plastered with the bright flowers. Lilies on top of lilies, all crowding to jam into his eyes. Red, yellow, purple, orange, and even blue. There must have been hundreds pried into that hallway. He stared in absolute shock and felt the faint stirrings of something beneath the dank gloom that had settled over him. The smell of them soared up his nose until he nearly choked on the collectively saccharine sweetness.
Hiro's neighbor could not even leave his home. He was just gawking at the number of flowers, and his coffee mug fell from lip fingers and smashed within the region of flowers.
As Hiro took a shaky, shocked step forward, something crackled under his shoe. He jumped back reflexively and saw a thick, expensive slip of paper with expert calligraphy. He knelt and lightly picked it up, and some hopeful warmth seeped through him.
Dearest Hiro,
A lily for every time I thought of you today.
Yours forever,
One who's curious as to your feelings toward these gifts
P.S. Surely you know that I am attracted to you, right?