Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Gravitation. This is purely for entertainment purposes.
I hope you enjoy.
Shuichi sighed as he could feel his stomach churning. He looked down at his breakfast in disgust, feeling like it would be nearly impossible to eat right now. It was only an hour until Shu and Eiri's agreed meeting time but Shuichi just wanted to go to Eiri's place now and get everything over and done with. He was absolutely dreading today and began to wish that he had never called Eiri in the first place. Slowly moving his bland oatmeal around with his spoon, Shuichi sat back against his couch and tried to stop thinking about all of his anxiety. Taking a much regretted bite of his food the young man groaned quietly and leaned forward to place his bowl down on the coffee table. He choked down the bite of food in his mouth while getting up off the couch and dragging his feet to the bathroom.
Walking up to the bathroom mirror Shuichi stared at the bags under his eyes for a few moments. He thought about how that drained look used to be a sign of working hard and loving life to its fullest. However, those bags were now just a hurtful reminder of the last few months and he couldn't stand seeing himself like that. Shu began to wonder if it was worth his time and effort to even try to look nice for Eiri. He looked at the wrinkled bright orange t-shirt he was wearing with a black long sleeve shirt underneath. His beige cargo shorts had been worn the last couple of days and had an unidentifiable stain on the right leg. Deciding it didn't really matter to him what he presented himself as physically, he realised that what he was really afraid of presenting was his thoughts. Shuichi fussed with his hair just a bit before deciding he needed to sit and calm down before he headed out to Eiri's.
Shuichi made his way back to his couch and flopped down onto hard. He let out a long groan of anticipation as he thought of how he wanted to word things to Eiri. He had the sneaking suspicion that no matter how many times he thought things out he would jumble all over his words and not say anything correctly. Shu was terrified he'd say something to upset Eiri, but he tried to ignore those feelings. It shouldn't matter how Eiri reacts to anything, what should matter is that Shuichi felt like he got some sort of closure after everything he'd been through. The word closure echoed in Shuichi's mind as he wondered if closure was really possible for him and what it really meant to him. Did closure mean he would have to find a way to be happy again? Or did it simply mean acceptance? Shuichi told himself that the idea of him finding happiness once more was an impossibility and he felt like he might be able to live like that.
Sometimes Shuichi found himself wishing he had given up on Eiri at the very start. Who knows where his life would have ended up if he simply focused on his career and let love find him instead of forcing it on somebody who didn't want it. Shuichi then wondered if Eiri's life would have been the same stagnant pool for all those years if it weren't for Shu. The novelist probably would have continued needing only one night stands to sate his sexual needs and never have given love a chance.
The thought crossed Shuichi's mind that he had never read one of Eiri's books from start to finish. Guilt overtook him a little as he could recall all the times Eiri sat through Shu's music. He wondered if the fact that he never read his husband's work bothered Eiri at all. It pained him somewhat that he would never know the answer to that question. Shuichi realised that no matter how much he wanted to be better for Eiri there was no longer anything to base what better would be. He couldn't ask Eiri the things he did wrong, or the things that hurt Eiri. He would never know what he did right, either. What did Eiri love about Shuichi? What made his heart race or his hands tremble? It all may have been shrouded before by Eiri's embarrassment but now it was forever a mystery and that's what really bothered Shu. He could always find a way to get certain things out of his husband but that was no longer an option.
Thoughts continued to consume Shuichi before he lazily glanced down at his watch. The digital numbers brought fear into Shuichi's heart as he decided it was time for him to leave and begin his day of hell. Getting up, Shu grabbed an olive green jacket that was on the arm of his couch and slowly put it on. As his hand slid through the arm hole the tips of his fingers grazed lightly against the fabric, reminding him that this was real; it was happening. Cautiously, he made his way to the front door and slid his shoes on before leaving the apartment and locking up behind him. He made his way out of the building and took a deep breath in as he took step out onto the sidewalk. Exhaling the large breath he took he gathered all his confidence and began to walk, making his way to what in a strange way felt like a memorial service for his husband.
As Shuichi walked down the sidewalk his eyes stayed focused on his own feet. Thoughts swirled in his mind like paint slowing mixing. He felt like he was getting ready to say goodbye to his life and never look back. He didn't want to do this, he wanted to crawl back into bed and let himself live in the safe world of dreaming where he could be with Eiri and none of this ever happened. Shuichi wanted to crawl inside a cocoon of denial and never leave. He could wrap himself up with lies and fantasy and find peace in that. It didn't bother him what his friends or family would think of him, because in his world everything would be bliss. The feelings or concerns of others started to mean less and less to Shu because they didn't do anything but remind him that he was getting pity for something he thought just wasn't fair.
The closer Shuichi got to Eiri's apartment the more he could feel his stomach sinking and his head rushing. He looked up to see the market that he and his husband walked to that horrible morning. He knew it was coming soon, and he knew he couldn't look away from it. A few more shaky steps and there he was. Shuichi stopped and looked down at the pavement. Blood. The blood of his beloved stained the ground and mocked the boy. There it was, the place where Shuichi lost everything he had ever wanted. He looked down to the curb where he sat, holding Eiri's body in his arms. He could almost feel as though he could see it, like two spirits locked in place trying to hold on to the last moment they'd spend together. Shuichi knew he would never be able to take this street without remembering.
Shaking his head, Shuichi continued down the sidewalk while fighting back tears that threatened to pour from his eyes. He didn't have time or energy to put into all of this right now, he had to get to Eiri. As he made his way to Eiri's building he stopped and took a few deep breaths before entering and making his way to Eiri's apartment. Shuichi stood at Eiri's door and hovered his fist inches away from it. He wasn't ready. He kept telling himself he wasn't ready over and over again. He knew this would be the end of everything between the two. He had to stop thinking of Eiri as his husband and get used to the idea of ex-husband. It was time, no matter how much more procrastinating he wished he could do. All his muscles clenched in anxiety before he finally brought himself to give five timid knocks on the door.
Slowly the door creaked open and revealed to Shuichi the face of his seraphim. He could see that Eiri had bags beneath his eyes as well and wondered what the man had been going through. He wondered if Eiri lost sleep because of him or if that was just wishful thinking. The two awkwardly gazed upon one another for a short time before Eiri opened the door further and motioned for Shu to come in. Bowing his head down as he walked through the door Shuichi slowly took his shoes off as he watched Eiri walk away to the living room. Shu closed the door behind him before shyly following after the blonde. Eiri took a seat on his couch and looked over to Shuichi, waiting for the young man to do the same.
Shuichi let out a little 'erp' sound as he clumsily made his way to the couch and sat down as far from Eiri as he could. He looked down at his hands which rested in his lap, unsure of when he should start talking, or even how to start talking. Each little sound around the apartment was amplified in Shu's mind. He focused so hard on each sound he was hearing to try and distract himself from the reality he had to face.
"So," Eiri spoke, finally breaking the silence. "How does this go?" He asked as he reached into the front pocket of his dark blue button up shirt and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The blonde pulled out one of his smokes and lit up before glancing over to Shu.
Shuichi looked over to Eiri's direction, keeping his gaze on the smoke that coiled up from the cherry of Eiri's cigarette. Completely forgetting everything he had been rehearsing, Shu turned some so he was facing Eiri. He looked his husband in the eye and gave him a small head bow. "My name is Shuichi Shindou. I was your husband," he declared while feeling an odd sense of confidence.
Eiri raised an eyebrow at the boy as he took a long drag from his cigarette. He exhaled in a sigh before replying with, "I know that."
Shuichi ignored the cold remark from Eiri and continued, "We met at night in a park."
Leaning forward to tap the ash off his cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table Eiri looked away from Shuichi and rested his elbows on his knees. "Okay, and how did that go?" Eiri asked in almost a sarcastic tone, though he was trying to humour Shuichi.
Shuichi let out a small chuckle. " I dropped a page of my lyrics and you picked them up. I thought you were foreign, so I assumed you might not be able to read them," he explained as he recalled the night vividly in his own mind.
"Based on what I've heard, I'll assume it was garbage," Eiri retorted before taking another drag from his cigarette.
Shuichi thought back to what Eiri had told him that night. "You said I had 'zero talent'." Shuichi stopped and tilted his head to one side. "Wait, based on what you've heard?" he inquired.
Eiri let out an irritated grunt and smashed his cigarette down into the ashtray. He leaned back up against the couch and looked straight ahead of him. "I may have watched an old DVD you left here," he mumbled.
A small smile graced Shuichi's lips. It was nice to know that Eiri was at least a little bit curious. "You drove me crazy, I was up all night thinking about what you said to me. I had to find you and ask you how you could be so cruel."
"So let me guess, you tracked me down?" Eiri asked in a bland tone.
Shuichi slowly twiddled his thumbs together, feeling a small amount of shame for what he was about to say. "I saw your car, and I jumped out in front of it."
Eiri looked over to Shuichi with a blank stare. "How stupid can you be?"
Shuichi returned Eiri's stare. "Very stupid. I felt like you hated me and I needed to know why. In a way I think I hated you, too. I guess I felt like I was in some pissing contest with you and I had to prove to you that I had what it takes." Shuichi looked away from Eiri and watched as the still slightly burning cigarette in the ashtray had a small trail of smoke flowing up.
"How did you make hate turn into love?" Eiri asked as the expression on his face grew a little sad.
Shuichi thought about the question for a moment. He didn't know how he could convince Eiri that he was worth loving. "I took what I could get. First a few stolen kisses that were meant to rile me up. Then the occasional tumble in bed before you'd leave or kick me out. Everything was on your terms, Eiri. And I was okay with that and I don't know why."
Eiri scoffed. "That doesn't really answer my question."
"I can't tell you how your feeling developed. I can only tell you how your attitude developed," Shu explained. "Once you let go of Kitazawa I think you opened up to me more. You started to become possessive of me. I think at one time your words were that I was your hole to fuck and nobody else's."
Eiri thought for a moment. "Part of that sounds like me," he mumbled. "How did I let go of Kitazawa? As far as I know I still carry that cross everywhere I go."
Shuichi sighed and gave a weak shrug. "Honestly it was his sister that had more to do with it than me. But once you did let go, you opened your heart up and stopped blaming yourself. Eiri what happened was never your fault. You were a victim not a tease."
"Shut up," Eiri snapped. The blonde shot a glare to Shuichi, in a way almost daring him to push his buttons.
Shuichi pulled back a little and looked back down to his lap in shame. "I'm sorry, I forget sometimes you're back in that metal place."
Eiri sighed and realised there was no reason to lash out despite him really wanting to. "Why did you even want to talk to me?"
"Eiri, all this time I've concerned myself with only what you're going through. But I'm going through shit, too. Romance might seem trivial to you but I lost the love of my life. I lost my partner in life and I lost my best friend." The vocalist paused for a moment as he tried to think about how to put this into proper words for Eiri. "Think about how horrifying it was to see the blood spilled from Kitazawa the night you shot him. I had to see your blood spilled. I was holding your seemingly lifeless body in my arms. I thought I was watching you die that day." Shuichi fought so hard to keep from any tears falling, but the battle between him and his tear ducts was a difficult one. Shuichi found himself losing the war as water welled up in his eyes and fell to his cheeks from a blink of his eyes.
Eiri let out a small sigh and put his elbow up on the arm of the couch, resting his chin in his palm. "Fair enough," he muttered.
A few moments of silence passed between the two as Shuichi was trying to regain composure. "Do you feel anything about what happened?" Shu finally asked, feeling afraid of the answer.
Silence filled the air once more as Eiri found himself seriously considering the question. "I feel angry," he expressed in the fewest words that he could.
"Angry about what, Eiri?" Shu pressed, needing more information.
Eiri grumbled a little as his right fist slightly clenched. "Angry that I feel like I lost so much time in my life," he answered as he looked over to Shuichi. "I'm angry that I apparently changed so much and I can't understand why."
A small laugh came from Shuichi as he looked Eiri in the eye. "Eiri, you didn't really change. You were always you, you just let somebody in. You let somebody put up with all your shit and accept you for who you are. I think you didn't want to be alone in the end and I was the lucky person you chose," he explained with a sincere smile.
"What do you want from me?" Eiri asked in an irritated tone. "Do you want me to just go back to how things were and live with a man I don't know?"
Shuichi shook his head and kept his kind smile. "No, Eiri. I don't want you to force yourself to go back to your life before the accident. I expect you to keep living and live the life that you want. I can't tell you how to do that, and neither can your family," Shuichi explained with a gentle voice. "What life do you want?"
A barrage of thoughts hit Eiri's mind after being asked that. He knew deep down in his heart what he honestly wanted, but he didn't know if he wanted that to be public information. He felt as though he had a persona to upkeep and he did have doubts about Shuichi. An exaggerated sigh passed Eiri's chapped lips. "I want the life I had. Where apparently I found a way to be happy. I don't know you, but there is a large part of me that wishes I did," Eiri paused as he thought more about if he really wanted to be saying all this. "I wish I didn't get hurt. And I wish you weren't hurting now."
Shuichi's eyes widened slightly to Eiri's words. He found himself feeling a little shocked that wishing this had never happened had occurred to Eiri, let alone the blonde taking Shu's pain into consideration. "Eiri there is nothing I want more than to be with you again, have you love me again," Shuichi shyly said. "But I know I can't have that and while it may hurt now, it has to stop eventually doesn't it?"
"What if the pain never stops?" Eiri asked as he averted his gaze from Shuichi. "What if I could fall in love with you again? What if you never saw me again?" More questions flowed from Eiri's mouth as he stared down at his feet.
Shuichi shook his head. "That's too many 'what ifs'. I need to think about your best interests. Like getting better, getting back to life and being simply who you remember being. Nobody can ask more from you or expect more. It's all your choices."
Keeping his gaze fixed on the ground, Eiri found himself having a hard time saying what he was about to. "So what you're saying is you're totally okay with leaving me alone and not trying to find what we had before?"
A puzzled look formed on Shuichi's face as he continued to look at Eiri. "No, I'm okay with leaving you alone if that's what you want. But if there was any chance I thought you'd want to try to get to know me I would take that offer in a heartbeat. Although I think the only person who's really rooting for anything to happen between us is your brother," Shu said meekishly.
Eiri thought about Shuichi words before letting out a small chuckle. "Seguchi does seem like he wants me away from you," he mentioned
"I'm not surprised," Shu responded with a sigh. "As far as I'm concerned the only person that has an opinion on it that matters is you."
An awkward haze filled the room as Eiri felt as though he was trying to hint things at Shuichi that the boy just wasn't understanding. Eiri knew that so far the only thing he showed interest in as far as Shuichi knew was sex. Granted, that was Eiri's own fault considering that at first that really was all he was intrigued by. The distant tease of happiness called out to Eiri and if this is where he found it he wondered if he could find it again. "I want to know," Eiri spoke up.
Shuichi raised an eyebrow towards the man and found himself feeling a little flushed. "You want to know what?" he asked cautiously.
"I want to know what I'm missing out on," Eiri answered as his gaze drifted over to the coffee table and the ashtray sitting on top of it. "I want to know the weird kid I decided to marry. I want to know what life with you was life. You know, see if it fits at all. I feel like parts of me are missing even though I should feel whole. I don't know what it is, but something is pulling me to you and I can't ignore it." Eiri looked back over to Shuichi with somewhat of a scowl on his face.
Shu took a moment to make sure he had heard what he did and that it wasn't some delusion brought on from anxiety. "Um, how do you want to go about doing that?" he asked timidly while trying to keep eye contact with Eiri no matter how uncomfortable it made him feel.
Eiri leaned back against the couch and leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling. "Maybe we can slowly start spending time together outside of just you remembering my accident? No pity, just let me get to know you. But for now, I'm tired. All this talking has made me exhausted," he grumbled as he ran a hand through his messy blonde hair. "How about I walk you home?"
"Are you sure you feel up to that?" Shuichi asked with concern for Eiri's health.
Eiri sat back up and looked at Shuichi with a blank expression. "It'll be fine. If anything I can just take a cab back if I need to," he commented as he slowly got up from the couch. "Let's get you home and I guess we'll see how things progress from today. Provided that you're interested in that."
Shuichi quickly shot up from the couch and gave Eiri a very nervous smile. "Yes," he answered as he bowed his head down a little. "I'd be interested in that."
"Fine then, let's go," Eiri grunted as he slowly led the way to the front door. He slipped his shoes on and exited the apartment, waiting for Shuichi to follow suit.
Quickly making his way over to Eiri, Shu hastily slammed his feet into his shoes and walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind him, "Which way should we take?" he asked the blonde as he started to follow him through the hallway of the building.
"I haven't seen the spot where it happened," Eiri mumbled. "Take me that way," he commanded as the two left the building.
Feeling a great deal of hesitance, Shuichi decided to keep his feelings to himself and simply do as Eiri had asked of him. The boy slowed down his pace some as to not make Eiri over exert himself but started to lead the way from which he had came. The two walked in complete silence as Shuichi was dreading the upcoming block. He didn't know how Eiri would react, or even if he would for that matter.
As the location grew closer and Shuichi began to see small splatters of stained blood he slowed down more before coming to a stop at the place of impact. He looked up to Eiri who stared blankly at the street.
Eiri traced the outline of blood slowly with his eyes as he tried to picture himself being hit. He tried to imagine his lover holding him and begging him to stay alive. Eiri kept this to himself, but all he could feel in this moment was that it just wasn't fair. He didn't think he deserved this and he wanted to curse any higher power that he could think of. "Let's go," Eiri scoffed before turning away from the scene and continuing towards Shuichi's home.
With slight confusion Shuichi followed after Eiri and kept his mouth shut. He didn't think it right to try and ask Eiri what sort of feelings seeing that must have incited considering it was his first time seeing it. Shu kept his head down and walked beside Eiri with a million questions running through his mind. It was the longest twenty minute walk of Shuichi's life and it was starting to drive him crazy.
As the two reached Shu's apartment building Eiri looked down to the boy. "Can I come in and sit down for a few moments?" he asked, having the slightest bit of a heavy breath.
"Of course," Shu answered as he led the way inside the building. The two made it to Shuichi's door, and the vocalist shakily unlocked the door. He opened it and offered for Eiri to go in first. The two removed their shoes and Eiri went straight for Shu's couch, gingerly taking a seat.
Shuichi walked past the couch to the kitchen. "Would you like some tea? Water?" he offered as he pulled down a glass for himself.
"Tea," came Eiri's response and his eyes began to scan the items strewn across Shu's table.
Shuichi grabbed his kettle from the stove and began to fill it with water. "You got it," he called out with a small smile.
As Eiri sat and looked around at Shuichi's things a business card caught his attention and he reached forward to pick it up. He read the card as an odd feeling of certainty hit him. "Who's Ken Amano?" he called out to Shuichi.
"Oh," Shu nervously said having been caught off guard. "He's, well, he's the one who hit you," he answered remorsefully as he set the kettle back on the stove and clicked the burner on. "I really don't know why I still have that," Shu thought outloud. "I guess it was just the last thing I really remember from that day. I thought when I reached out to touch it I'd wake up from some horrible nightmare. Guess I was really wrong," he explained.
No response came from Eiri which really didn't surprise Shuichi so he simply waited for the kettle to finish heating. He grabbed a mug from the cabinet and a tea bag from a small drawer. As the kettle's whistle blew, Shu dropped the tea bag in the mug before pouring the boiling water on top of it. He placed the kettle back down and turned the stove off before grabbing the hot mug and slowly coming out to the living room. "Eiri, tea," he announced before looking up.
Eiri was no longer there, the front door wide open and Ken's business card gone. "Eiri?"
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to leave any feedback, positive, negative, whatever.
Hope to see you next time.