Illusions of Life
folder
Gravitation › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
12
Views:
6,862
Reviews:
35
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Gravitation › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
12
Views:
6,862
Reviews:
35
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Gravitation, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Shellshock
Disclaimer: Gravitation is not mine, I just like to borrow the characters. I make no money doing so.
EiriXShu
NC17 but not until chapter 10 (sorry.)
If you have time, please review.
Illusions of Life
Chapter 3
Shellshock
You call me on the phone; you left me all alone
All I get from you is shellshock
Another day goes by and all I do is cry
All I get from you is shellshock
I\'d tell the world and save my soul
But rain falls down and I feel cold
A cold that sleeps within my heart
It tears the earth and sun apart
But that\'s the way that I can win
A victim of your evil sin
You\'ve lost the hold you\'ve had on me
By causing the changes that you never see.
Hold on! It\'s never enough
It\'s never enough until your heart stops beating
The deeper you get, the sweeter the pain
Don\'t give up the game until your heart stops beating
I was at Mizuki’s office at 8:30 the Monday morning, still burning with fury. As I stalked down the hallway towards my editor’s office, a young, frantic secretary ran along side of me and explained that Mizuki was in a meeting and currently unavailable. I was in no mood to wait, so I ignored the young woman and threw open the office door anyway.
“Well, what a surprise. The brat was right,” I growled. K sat across the desk from my editor.
Mizuki looked up, momentarily startled and clearly embarrassed that she had been caught red-handed in the whole Eiri/Shuichi conspiracy. “Hello, Yuki-san.”
I glared at them both.
“Sit down, Yuki-san. You’re making Mizuki-san nervous,” K grinned at me.
I kept to my feet, I could feel the fury building, “At least now I know why Mizuki picked the apartment she did. Did you threaten the previous occupants of my apartment in order to get them to leave? Or did you offer them cash?”
“I can be rather persuasive, when I want to be,” K drawled, touching his pistol lovingly.
I looked from one to the other, “Why? Why would you do this to me? Why would you do this to Shuichi?”
K shrugged, “It seemed like the right course of action at the time.”
“Yuki-san,” Mizuki started, “you’ve been miserable without him.”
I finally lost my temper and shouted, “But it’s not for either of you to decide.”
K was laughing as he stood and patted me on the back, “You protest way, way too much for me to take you seriously. Face it, Yuki-san, you are right where you want to be.” He strolled out the door, still chuckling at my misfortune.
The fact that he was right made me madder then ever. I glared at Mizuki, “I really want to be more angry with you but I know that guy. More importantly, I know who that guy works for.”
She nodded, face still red but calming down. “Yes, Seguchi Tohma also paid me a visit, as did your sister and brother. They all assured me this was what you wanted.”
I rolled my eyes at her, “I’m sure they didn’t have to twist your arm too hard. You always did have a soft spot where Shuichi is concerned.”
“Well, I’ve never made it a secret that I think the two of you belong together. True love can overcome a lot of obstacles,” she smile sweetly at me.
“Can it overcome a concussion and a broken arm?” Ugh. It still made me nauseous to say that out loud.
“Yes, it can. As long as there is not a repeat.” Her eyes and voice softened, “Besides, Eiri-san, whether you wish to admit it or not, that incident with Shuichi was an accident.”
I scoffed at her.
She sighed, “Well, anyway, I’m glad you are here. I needed to talk to you about your upcoming book tour.” She stood up an waddled to her filing cabinet, pulling out an envelope she in turn handed to me.
“Fuck,” I said, “you’re huge. That happened fast.”
“Eiri-san, what is wrong with you? How long do you think this takes? I told you six months ago I was pregnant.” She sighed in exasperation, “Not to mention that you have zero sensitivity.”
“Six months ago?” I didn’t remember that conversation. “Sorry… congratulations. Right?”
She smiled, “Yes, Eiri-san. I’m very happy about it. My last day will be two weeks from today. My replacement will be coming to visit you shortly after that. I don’t know who it is yet, but please, Eiri-san, try to be nice to whoever it is, okay? You can be quite a handful, you know.”
Hmmm, fresh editor blood . This might be fun. My mind was processing this when I looked at Mizuki, she was staring very hard at me.
Oh, right. Zero sensitivity. Seems like I had heard something similar to that before.
“Please, Eiri, I’m asking this as a personal favor to me.”
I sighed heavily but nodded my agreement. What was I supposed to do? Argue with a pregnant woman? Not even I’m that insensitive.
After being mad for a day or two, I resigned myself to the fact that I would now be seeing some karma of the pink-haired variety headed my way. However, much to my surprise I did not see any signs of Shuichi. And after a few days of silence, I began to hope I had been worried over nothing.
I should have known better. Karmic debts are always on account. It may not be today or tomorrow, but the due date is always out there, lurking. Waiting for the perfect time to strike.
The following Saturday night came and Shuichi managed to throw a very loud, very wild party. With lots of loud music.
Because Shuichi and I occupied the penthouse level of the building, there were only the two of us living on the floor. That meant was that the only person Shuichi was really bothering with his 1,000 decibel party was me. While I noted the thumping of the music’s baseline drifting into my home, I reflected with mild humor that living with Shuichi for over two years had made me rather immune to noise. If he was trying to bug me, which I suspected he was, he was going to have to do better.
He did. At about 2:15 am I heard the crash of broken glass followed by some shouting and then most predictably, a fight ensued. As the altercation spilled out into the hallway the noise spilled into my apartment.
I threw open the door and shouted, “Just what the hell is going on out here? People might be trying to sleep!!”
Yes indeed, there was a full blown fight happening. I stepped into the hallway to get a clearer picture of what was going on. It was Shuichi fighting not one, but two men. It figured.
He was currently restraining one man by keeping the man’s very tattooed arm in what appeared to be an uncomfortable twist hold. Simultaneously, he was fighting another guy that was much bigger than him. He glanced at me and maneuvered tattooed-arm between him and the behemoth of a man, twisting the arm sharply and hissed “STOP STRUGGLING.” He glanced at me again “I doubt that you,” he ducked a flailing punch, “I SAID STOP IT!! I doubt YOU …were sleeping.” He turned all his attention to the two men he was fighting, “GOD DAMN IT, I SAID STOP IT!!” There were several other people watching on the sidelines, not sure what to do.
I lit a cigarette and said, “What about the people downstairs? They might be sleeping.”
Shuichi released his prisoner by pushing him into the behemoth that was swinging at him. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on who you might be, the timing was perfect and the newly released prisoner stumbled and took the full force of behemoth’s wild left hook on his jaw. Tattooed-arm went down like a sack of rice. I nodded my approval. Nice.
Ducking to avoid the poorly aimed right cross coming at him, Shuichi answered, “Well, this happens a lot, so I make it up to them.” He turned his attention back to the giant, “WILL YOU STOP!!!! I SAID I WAS SORRY!!!”
The behemouth shouted back, “Fuck you man!! You think…” he swung again as Shuichi blocked the punch with ease, “just because you’re in a hot shot band you can… HEY!! HOLD STILL!! you think you can get away with anything!! Well, not this time, gay boy!!”
“Ouch,” I taunted leaning against my doorframe, “you gonna let him talk to you like that?”
Apparently Shuichi’s attackers had friends in the crowd as one stepped closer to me, “Shut up!!” he shouted at me, “this doesn’t concern you!”
He continued glaring at me. I rolled my eyes and dismissed his presence. He stepped closer and balled up a fist.
“Kenji!” Shuichi shouted as he easily dodged another punch, “Dude, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave that guy alone.” The behemoth looked over at us and Shuichi took the opportunity to kick his attacker in the face, making the bigger guy stumble from the blow. Then Shuichi looked at me, “I’m not fucking around, Kenji. That guy is on a whole other level.”
“So,” Kenji crooned at me and raised his fist, “you must be the faggot’s lover.”
Before I even thought about what I was doing, my hand shot out and suddenly, the guy was falling to the floor in a heap. “Ex. I’m his ex-lover,” I snarled at the heap.
I could hear Shuichi’s melodic laughter behind me, “I told ya...” I turned to see him skipping around, literally playing with his opponent.
“Could you hurry this up? I have a deadline to meet and you’re very noisy.” I took a drag from my cigarette. “Shuichi, I’m warning you, The Almighty Yuki Eiri Has Spoken.”
Two people jumped on me from behind and I stumbled to the ground under their weight. I saw two or three guys jump on Shuichi at the same time. Then the whole ugly scene turned into a full fledged brawl. I could hear most of the women screaming and stampeding for the stairs. Of course, most of the idiot men stayed, although much to my surprise, a few of them joined Shuichi and I on the sorely outnumbered and probably losing side.
I heard sirens approaching our building after only a few minutes of brawling. Someone else heard the sirens, cried out a warning and the party broke up very quickly after that.
Shaking to clear my head, I proceeded to kick a few prone bodies to get them moving while I located Shuichi near his front door. He was bleeding from a couple of little cuts and one eye was almost swollen shut. He was grinning like a lunatic, “That was fun!”
“Yeah, yeah, a barrel of laughs,” I snarled at him, “come on.” I shut the door to his apartment and helped him to his feet and into my apartment. I found that my ribs were sore in a couple of spots, probably from having that one of those clumsy idiots fall on me, but I dragged him into my apartment anyway.
“What are you doing?” he asked me with a tinge of curiosity but followed me anyway.
“Hiding you, you idiot,” I shut the door, turned off the lights and then dragged him into the bathroom. I washed off my face but there wasn’t too much I could do about the condition of my ragged and bloody knuckles.
There was a knock at my door. I pushed the first aid kit into Shuichi’s hand and said softly, “Be quiet, I’ll handle this.”
I grabbed my robe, shucked off my pants in the hallway and threw them into my bedroom. I put my bloody right hand into the pocket of my robe and opened the door.
“Oh, officers, sorry it took so long, I was sound asleep. What can I do for you?”
About five minutes later I closed the door and made my way to the couch. I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves. A few minutes after that, Shuichi wandered out still grinning and flopped on the couch, “I’m not sure why you just did all that, but thanks.”
“Just don’t let it happen again, because next time I’m keeping my door shut and I’m calling the cops,” I growled at him.
He laughed then winced. His eye was swollen completely shut so I got up and went to the kitchen to get him some ice, “Want a beer?”
“Nah. Have any water?”
I came back with a beer for me and bottled water for him. I had a bag of ice wrapped in a kitchen towel, “Here. Ice. So were those people your friends?”
He smiled as he placed the ice near his eye. It was a genuine smile, not one of the creepy ones, “Nah, just acquaintances. Skater dudes. Racers. Fun to party with and very superficial. Don’t have to…” he waved his hand in the air searching for a word.
“Pretend?” I said for him.
“Yeah,” he nodded, still smiling. “And you don’t have to…”
“Explain?” I knew what he was looking for. I’d been there once, too. Shuichi just wanted to be alone in a crowd. It wasn’t all that complicated, really.
He nodded again.
I crushed out my smoke. “What about your real friends?”
He sighed and leaned back, “Not too sure that I have any right now.”
I didn’t answer. After what he’d been through with me, Nakano and that crazy singer, I could see how it would become easy for him to doubt.
He studied me for a time in silence and finally he said, “Still not much of a talker, are you?”
I shook my head, “I might actually be worse now.”
He cocked his head, “why?”
I lit another cigarette meeting his eyes, “No one to talk to in New York.”
“I thought that’s why you wanted to be there,” he said softly.
I smiled at him. It was a genuine smile, not one of the empty ones. I shook my head again, “I never really wanted to be there.”
Oops, somehow that made him mad. He stood and hurled the ice bag at me, “Thanks. I’ll be leaving now.”
“Wait, I don’t think you should go they…”
I heard the door open and then slam closed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I really wanted to stay with you…”
Fuck.
Tohma came to my house a few days later. I greeted him as usual, “What do you want?”
He smiled and handed me a bakery box that felt rather heavy, “I just wanted to see how you were settling in.”
I went into the kitchen and put the water on for tea, he followed me in. “Well, after getting over the shock of who my neighbor is, I guess I’m getting use to it.”
“Oh, really,” he said coyly, “who is your neighbor?”
“Very funny, you manipulative bastard,” I said affectionately. “You know very well who my neighbor is.”
“Speaking of which,” his hand darted out and caught mine as I was reaching for the tea. He examined my scabbed-over knuckles, “I ran into Shindou-san downstairs. He has the most amazing shades of black and blue under one eye. You didn’t… did you?”
I snatched my hand away and snarled, “Don’t be ridiculous!”
He nodded, “of course.” He wandered into the living room, “I had heard that the police were called to this exact location the other night due to a wild party that turned into some sort of altercation. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Not a thing,” I yelled so he could hear me. I followed him into the living room, “Although now that I think about it, I was woken up Saturday night by the cops. They said they’d had some complaints about a loud party, but I didn’t hear anything.”
Tohma’s eyebrows raised, “Peculiar, wouldn’t you say?”
I nodded, “Very.”
“Well, I’m sure everything will become as if you had never left Japan soon,” he smiled.
I lit a cigarette and glared, “Uh-huh.”
The next day I was working on my novel and there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find a disheveled, sweaty-looking Shuichi. He was wearing a dogi a with a brown belt. That explained how he could handle fighting both those clumsy fools at once.
I stared at him. He looked great, really great. With his hair wild and the sweat glistening on him.
He was staring back. Finally he focused and handed me a couple of envelopes, “Oh, uh, they put this mail in my mailbox by mistake.”
“Thanks,” I said taking the mail. He turned for his door, I found that I very much did not want him to go, “Hey!”
He turned, “Ah, you want some tea, or coffee or something?”
“No thanks,” he shook his head and looked down at what he was wearing, “I just got home and I really want a shower.”
“Maybe later, then?” I shuddered inwardly, gods I was so lame.
He nodded, “Maybe. See ya!”
I closed the door and closed my eyes. Could he see how needy I was? How horny, maybe? I hadn’t been with anyone since I’d left Shuichi. Sex just hadn’t seemed important after our break-up. Believe me when I tell you that no one had been more surprised to learn that than me. After I left, it was like my sex drive just went away. For the most part, anyway. I was still on an intimate basis with myself, but I just wasn’t interested in other people.
But now… I felt my libido burst back to life, and it seemed it was making up for lost time. Was it because of Shuichi? It had to be.
I must still love him.
Of course, I still loved him.
Fuck.
TBC
Lyrics by New Order
EiriXShu
NC17 but not until chapter 10 (sorry.)
If you have time, please review.
Illusions of Life
Chapter 3
Shellshock
You call me on the phone; you left me all alone
All I get from you is shellshock
Another day goes by and all I do is cry
All I get from you is shellshock
I\'d tell the world and save my soul
But rain falls down and I feel cold
A cold that sleeps within my heart
It tears the earth and sun apart
But that\'s the way that I can win
A victim of your evil sin
You\'ve lost the hold you\'ve had on me
By causing the changes that you never see.
Hold on! It\'s never enough
It\'s never enough until your heart stops beating
The deeper you get, the sweeter the pain
Don\'t give up the game until your heart stops beating
I was at Mizuki’s office at 8:30 the Monday morning, still burning with fury. As I stalked down the hallway towards my editor’s office, a young, frantic secretary ran along side of me and explained that Mizuki was in a meeting and currently unavailable. I was in no mood to wait, so I ignored the young woman and threw open the office door anyway.
“Well, what a surprise. The brat was right,” I growled. K sat across the desk from my editor.
Mizuki looked up, momentarily startled and clearly embarrassed that she had been caught red-handed in the whole Eiri/Shuichi conspiracy. “Hello, Yuki-san.”
I glared at them both.
“Sit down, Yuki-san. You’re making Mizuki-san nervous,” K grinned at me.
I kept to my feet, I could feel the fury building, “At least now I know why Mizuki picked the apartment she did. Did you threaten the previous occupants of my apartment in order to get them to leave? Or did you offer them cash?”
“I can be rather persuasive, when I want to be,” K drawled, touching his pistol lovingly.
I looked from one to the other, “Why? Why would you do this to me? Why would you do this to Shuichi?”
K shrugged, “It seemed like the right course of action at the time.”
“Yuki-san,” Mizuki started, “you’ve been miserable without him.”
I finally lost my temper and shouted, “But it’s not for either of you to decide.”
K was laughing as he stood and patted me on the back, “You protest way, way too much for me to take you seriously. Face it, Yuki-san, you are right where you want to be.” He strolled out the door, still chuckling at my misfortune.
The fact that he was right made me madder then ever. I glared at Mizuki, “I really want to be more angry with you but I know that guy. More importantly, I know who that guy works for.”
She nodded, face still red but calming down. “Yes, Seguchi Tohma also paid me a visit, as did your sister and brother. They all assured me this was what you wanted.”
I rolled my eyes at her, “I’m sure they didn’t have to twist your arm too hard. You always did have a soft spot where Shuichi is concerned.”
“Well, I’ve never made it a secret that I think the two of you belong together. True love can overcome a lot of obstacles,” she smile sweetly at me.
“Can it overcome a concussion and a broken arm?” Ugh. It still made me nauseous to say that out loud.
“Yes, it can. As long as there is not a repeat.” Her eyes and voice softened, “Besides, Eiri-san, whether you wish to admit it or not, that incident with Shuichi was an accident.”
I scoffed at her.
She sighed, “Well, anyway, I’m glad you are here. I needed to talk to you about your upcoming book tour.” She stood up an waddled to her filing cabinet, pulling out an envelope she in turn handed to me.
“Fuck,” I said, “you’re huge. That happened fast.”
“Eiri-san, what is wrong with you? How long do you think this takes? I told you six months ago I was pregnant.” She sighed in exasperation, “Not to mention that you have zero sensitivity.”
“Six months ago?” I didn’t remember that conversation. “Sorry… congratulations. Right?”
She smiled, “Yes, Eiri-san. I’m very happy about it. My last day will be two weeks from today. My replacement will be coming to visit you shortly after that. I don’t know who it is yet, but please, Eiri-san, try to be nice to whoever it is, okay? You can be quite a handful, you know.”
Hmmm, fresh editor blood . This might be fun. My mind was processing this when I looked at Mizuki, she was staring very hard at me.
Oh, right. Zero sensitivity. Seems like I had heard something similar to that before.
“Please, Eiri, I’m asking this as a personal favor to me.”
I sighed heavily but nodded my agreement. What was I supposed to do? Argue with a pregnant woman? Not even I’m that insensitive.
After being mad for a day or two, I resigned myself to the fact that I would now be seeing some karma of the pink-haired variety headed my way. However, much to my surprise I did not see any signs of Shuichi. And after a few days of silence, I began to hope I had been worried over nothing.
I should have known better. Karmic debts are always on account. It may not be today or tomorrow, but the due date is always out there, lurking. Waiting for the perfect time to strike.
The following Saturday night came and Shuichi managed to throw a very loud, very wild party. With lots of loud music.
Because Shuichi and I occupied the penthouse level of the building, there were only the two of us living on the floor. That meant was that the only person Shuichi was really bothering with his 1,000 decibel party was me. While I noted the thumping of the music’s baseline drifting into my home, I reflected with mild humor that living with Shuichi for over two years had made me rather immune to noise. If he was trying to bug me, which I suspected he was, he was going to have to do better.
He did. At about 2:15 am I heard the crash of broken glass followed by some shouting and then most predictably, a fight ensued. As the altercation spilled out into the hallway the noise spilled into my apartment.
I threw open the door and shouted, “Just what the hell is going on out here? People might be trying to sleep!!”
Yes indeed, there was a full blown fight happening. I stepped into the hallway to get a clearer picture of what was going on. It was Shuichi fighting not one, but two men. It figured.
He was currently restraining one man by keeping the man’s very tattooed arm in what appeared to be an uncomfortable twist hold. Simultaneously, he was fighting another guy that was much bigger than him. He glanced at me and maneuvered tattooed-arm between him and the behemoth of a man, twisting the arm sharply and hissed “STOP STRUGGLING.” He glanced at me again “I doubt that you,” he ducked a flailing punch, “I SAID STOP IT!! I doubt YOU …were sleeping.” He turned all his attention to the two men he was fighting, “GOD DAMN IT, I SAID STOP IT!!” There were several other people watching on the sidelines, not sure what to do.
I lit a cigarette and said, “What about the people downstairs? They might be sleeping.”
Shuichi released his prisoner by pushing him into the behemoth that was swinging at him. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on who you might be, the timing was perfect and the newly released prisoner stumbled and took the full force of behemoth’s wild left hook on his jaw. Tattooed-arm went down like a sack of rice. I nodded my approval. Nice.
Ducking to avoid the poorly aimed right cross coming at him, Shuichi answered, “Well, this happens a lot, so I make it up to them.” He turned his attention back to the giant, “WILL YOU STOP!!!! I SAID I WAS SORRY!!!”
The behemouth shouted back, “Fuck you man!! You think…” he swung again as Shuichi blocked the punch with ease, “just because you’re in a hot shot band you can… HEY!! HOLD STILL!! you think you can get away with anything!! Well, not this time, gay boy!!”
“Ouch,” I taunted leaning against my doorframe, “you gonna let him talk to you like that?”
Apparently Shuichi’s attackers had friends in the crowd as one stepped closer to me, “Shut up!!” he shouted at me, “this doesn’t concern you!”
He continued glaring at me. I rolled my eyes and dismissed his presence. He stepped closer and balled up a fist.
“Kenji!” Shuichi shouted as he easily dodged another punch, “Dude, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave that guy alone.” The behemoth looked over at us and Shuichi took the opportunity to kick his attacker in the face, making the bigger guy stumble from the blow. Then Shuichi looked at me, “I’m not fucking around, Kenji. That guy is on a whole other level.”
“So,” Kenji crooned at me and raised his fist, “you must be the faggot’s lover.”
Before I even thought about what I was doing, my hand shot out and suddenly, the guy was falling to the floor in a heap. “Ex. I’m his ex-lover,” I snarled at the heap.
I could hear Shuichi’s melodic laughter behind me, “I told ya...” I turned to see him skipping around, literally playing with his opponent.
“Could you hurry this up? I have a deadline to meet and you’re very noisy.” I took a drag from my cigarette. “Shuichi, I’m warning you, The Almighty Yuki Eiri Has Spoken.”
Two people jumped on me from behind and I stumbled to the ground under their weight. I saw two or three guys jump on Shuichi at the same time. Then the whole ugly scene turned into a full fledged brawl. I could hear most of the women screaming and stampeding for the stairs. Of course, most of the idiot men stayed, although much to my surprise, a few of them joined Shuichi and I on the sorely outnumbered and probably losing side.
I heard sirens approaching our building after only a few minutes of brawling. Someone else heard the sirens, cried out a warning and the party broke up very quickly after that.
Shaking to clear my head, I proceeded to kick a few prone bodies to get them moving while I located Shuichi near his front door. He was bleeding from a couple of little cuts and one eye was almost swollen shut. He was grinning like a lunatic, “That was fun!”
“Yeah, yeah, a barrel of laughs,” I snarled at him, “come on.” I shut the door to his apartment and helped him to his feet and into my apartment. I found that my ribs were sore in a couple of spots, probably from having that one of those clumsy idiots fall on me, but I dragged him into my apartment anyway.
“What are you doing?” he asked me with a tinge of curiosity but followed me anyway.
“Hiding you, you idiot,” I shut the door, turned off the lights and then dragged him into the bathroom. I washed off my face but there wasn’t too much I could do about the condition of my ragged and bloody knuckles.
There was a knock at my door. I pushed the first aid kit into Shuichi’s hand and said softly, “Be quiet, I’ll handle this.”
I grabbed my robe, shucked off my pants in the hallway and threw them into my bedroom. I put my bloody right hand into the pocket of my robe and opened the door.
“Oh, officers, sorry it took so long, I was sound asleep. What can I do for you?”
About five minutes later I closed the door and made my way to the couch. I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves. A few minutes after that, Shuichi wandered out still grinning and flopped on the couch, “I’m not sure why you just did all that, but thanks.”
“Just don’t let it happen again, because next time I’m keeping my door shut and I’m calling the cops,” I growled at him.
He laughed then winced. His eye was swollen completely shut so I got up and went to the kitchen to get him some ice, “Want a beer?”
“Nah. Have any water?”
I came back with a beer for me and bottled water for him. I had a bag of ice wrapped in a kitchen towel, “Here. Ice. So were those people your friends?”
He smiled as he placed the ice near his eye. It was a genuine smile, not one of the creepy ones, “Nah, just acquaintances. Skater dudes. Racers. Fun to party with and very superficial. Don’t have to…” he waved his hand in the air searching for a word.
“Pretend?” I said for him.
“Yeah,” he nodded, still smiling. “And you don’t have to…”
“Explain?” I knew what he was looking for. I’d been there once, too. Shuichi just wanted to be alone in a crowd. It wasn’t all that complicated, really.
He nodded again.
I crushed out my smoke. “What about your real friends?”
He sighed and leaned back, “Not too sure that I have any right now.”
I didn’t answer. After what he’d been through with me, Nakano and that crazy singer, I could see how it would become easy for him to doubt.
He studied me for a time in silence and finally he said, “Still not much of a talker, are you?”
I shook my head, “I might actually be worse now.”
He cocked his head, “why?”
I lit another cigarette meeting his eyes, “No one to talk to in New York.”
“I thought that’s why you wanted to be there,” he said softly.
I smiled at him. It was a genuine smile, not one of the empty ones. I shook my head again, “I never really wanted to be there.”
Oops, somehow that made him mad. He stood and hurled the ice bag at me, “Thanks. I’ll be leaving now.”
“Wait, I don’t think you should go they…”
I heard the door open and then slam closed.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, “I really wanted to stay with you…”
Fuck.
Tohma came to my house a few days later. I greeted him as usual, “What do you want?”
He smiled and handed me a bakery box that felt rather heavy, “I just wanted to see how you were settling in.”
I went into the kitchen and put the water on for tea, he followed me in. “Well, after getting over the shock of who my neighbor is, I guess I’m getting use to it.”
“Oh, really,” he said coyly, “who is your neighbor?”
“Very funny, you manipulative bastard,” I said affectionately. “You know very well who my neighbor is.”
“Speaking of which,” his hand darted out and caught mine as I was reaching for the tea. He examined my scabbed-over knuckles, “I ran into Shindou-san downstairs. He has the most amazing shades of black and blue under one eye. You didn’t… did you?”
I snatched my hand away and snarled, “Don’t be ridiculous!”
He nodded, “of course.” He wandered into the living room, “I had heard that the police were called to this exact location the other night due to a wild party that turned into some sort of altercation. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Not a thing,” I yelled so he could hear me. I followed him into the living room, “Although now that I think about it, I was woken up Saturday night by the cops. They said they’d had some complaints about a loud party, but I didn’t hear anything.”
Tohma’s eyebrows raised, “Peculiar, wouldn’t you say?”
I nodded, “Very.”
“Well, I’m sure everything will become as if you had never left Japan soon,” he smiled.
I lit a cigarette and glared, “Uh-huh.”
The next day I was working on my novel and there was a knock on my door. I opened it to find a disheveled, sweaty-looking Shuichi. He was wearing a dogi a with a brown belt. That explained how he could handle fighting both those clumsy fools at once.
I stared at him. He looked great, really great. With his hair wild and the sweat glistening on him.
He was staring back. Finally he focused and handed me a couple of envelopes, “Oh, uh, they put this mail in my mailbox by mistake.”
“Thanks,” I said taking the mail. He turned for his door, I found that I very much did not want him to go, “Hey!”
He turned, “Ah, you want some tea, or coffee or something?”
“No thanks,” he shook his head and looked down at what he was wearing, “I just got home and I really want a shower.”
“Maybe later, then?” I shuddered inwardly, gods I was so lame.
He nodded, “Maybe. See ya!”
I closed the door and closed my eyes. Could he see how needy I was? How horny, maybe? I hadn’t been with anyone since I’d left Shuichi. Sex just hadn’t seemed important after our break-up. Believe me when I tell you that no one had been more surprised to learn that than me. After I left, it was like my sex drive just went away. For the most part, anyway. I was still on an intimate basis with myself, but I just wasn’t interested in other people.
But now… I felt my libido burst back to life, and it seemed it was making up for lost time. Was it because of Shuichi? It had to be.
I must still love him.
Of course, I still loved him.
Fuck.
TBC
Lyrics by New Order