Gravitate

GRAVITATE CHAPTER 2
A Love Like This




+++ 5 YEARS LATER +++





The rhythmic clack of the keys stilled from its steady cadence as the owner of the typing hands finished his last thought. Badly needing his unhealthy dose of beer and chain smoke of lung cancer sticks, the sitting figure in the dark stretched his tired body. Doing so, his sunken golden orbs shifted his daze and he realized how late, rather, early it already is. 12 midnight, the time in his laptop clock read. It’s a new day.


He knew the date too well… for it was the very same date, five years ago that the love and light of his life had left--- no, was taken from him by a freak accident.


-- Flashback --


He was disbelieving at first, calmly claiming that the ‘Brat’ was just out to worry everyone and that he was just somewhere lost in America and not in the plane which exploded and crash landed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Despite the fact that K told him and showed him the evidence that Shuichi did board the plane and died there, it refused to register in his mind. He would speak in a broken manner of how his last conversation with Shuichi was and repeat over and over again that the Brat was still alive.


But his unyielding resolve crashed into pieces as he saw the burnt body of Shuuichi. The small and unrecognizable badly burnt figure of his lover, according to investigators, was found strapped to his seat in the first class section of the plane. He was hugging his knees with his head bowed down, as if sobbing and protecting his body and face for what was to come. In his right hand dangled what seems to be left of an unknown jewelry. Seeing his best friend reduced to this end, Hiro shook visibly and sobbed, as K tried to soothe him, his face also saddened at the fate of the lively singer. When asked about any jewelry Shuichi brought with him to the tour, Eiri whispered that he gave Shu a necklace made of white gold, with his name written on it, before he left. After more questions, the four people left the morgue grieving. It was confirmed that the body was indeed Shuichi. With his mind spacing on its own, reality seemed to crash down on Eiri. His pallor turned paler and his now blank-looking eyes were near to tears. A sudden fit of anger suddenly surged inside of him as he tackled K to the ground, giving angry punches while blaming him for not watching over Shuichi. Tohma and Hiro was taken by surprise and tried to stop the berserk novelist. In the end, Hiro managed to knock consciousness out of a berserk Eiri when he gave him a well-placed back chop.



Ever since that day, the novelist named Yuki Eiri had changed. He took the untimely death of Shuichi hard. He wouldn’t see or talk to anyone. He refused to eat and drowned himself in beer and in the cloudy haze of smoke in their apartment… He lived as if he was waiting to die. Truth be told, he really wanted to die. Tears would randomly fall unnoticed from his sunken and blank golden eyes, as if remembering something, anything about his late lover. He even refused to attend Shuichi’s funeral, but Tohma was able to urge him to go.



When Eiri and Tohma arrived at the crematorium, he was glad that there was no press around. As he entered the room, he met the eyes of Shuichi’s mother who mouthed his name. All eyes then turned to him as Shuichi’s mother gently walked towards him, took his hand and looked at him with understanding, despite the tears also brimming in her eyes. She then ushered him towards the closed coffin of Shuichi, where his tears ran down his cheeks in full force. On the side was a huge picture of Shuichi when he was still alive, his face resting on his hands as he smiled, purple eyes wide. The picture spoke of life, happiness and innocence—something that was taken from Shuichi when he passed away at the young age of 20. As Yuki stared at the picture and met Shuichi’s eyes that seemed to be eerily smiling back at him, he made a promise. ‘I may have never let you feel this nor have I shown this love to you whole-heartedly, but I want you to know that love you so much, Shuichi… No one was able to fill the gap inside my heart but you; so with your death, you also took my heart … I would never be able to love anyone else but you because no one but you can fill me the way you did…For that, I promise that you will live in my heart, I will love and cherish you in every waking day that I have until the day we meet again’. With one last trace of Shuichi’s face in the picture and one last tear in his eyes, Yuki sealed his promise.



--END OF FLASHBACK—





Absent-mindedly minimizing the MS Word Document, Eiri’s sunken golden orbs once again gaze into lively amethyst ones. Unnoticed fresh tears steamed down the novelist’s cheeks as he reached out to touch his late lover’s face in the screen.



“ I miss you so much it hurts, Shuichi ….“




As silent sobs wracked from Eiri in his dark, solitary and laptop-illuminated library, little did he know of what fate had in store for him.



TBC...




So what so you guys think?? Hmm… click that lovely ‘Review’ link and let me know…