Kin no Shuichi

Kin no Shuichi
Written by: Chochowilliams
Disclaimer: I do not own Gravitation or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Summary: Shuichi and Eiri are working things out after a mistake on both of their parts nearly ended their five-year relationship. But what about Bad Luck? What does the future hold for them?
Chapter Summary: Shuichi meets his neighbors and finds that they have a lot in common.
Warning: M/M, romance, angst, drama, potential OOC-ness, language, Shuichi/Eiri, implied Eiri/oc, implied Shuichi/oc
Insert: chapter 19 flashback
A/N: Some of you complained about the last chapter being so short, so to make up for it, this chapter is a bit longer, but the next one is going to be short again. Sorry. That’s just the way they come out. Anyway, thank you to Kaoru Sayuri Kamiya, lilgurlanima, David boreanaz’s wife247, Mrs. Hatake Itachi, Charlie-becks, Acherona, fahaar, ferler for your reviews.

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Chapter 32.5: A Fated Meeting with Torture

Pushing open the glass enclosed front door to the building, Shuichi strode down the narrow, but brightly lit corridor towards the elevator. The doors slid open when he pushed the call button. Stepping into the car, he pushed the button for his floor. Leaning against the back of the car, he watched as the doors slid shut. The elevator jostled slightly as it began to rise. Tipping his head back, he stared with unseeing eyes at the ceiling.

His relationship with the guys was deteriorating at a rapid pace. It was something he has known for quite some time, but it became painfully obvious when they were in the studio last week completing Back to Zero. Recording the vocals for the final three songs was finished in record time and that fact had set Suguru off.

“If you were this professional all the time, we woulda finished Back to Zero years ago!”

In the end, he’d ended up walking out on them. He hasn’t talked to either of them since.

He and Suguru have never really been close. You could not even really call them friends. The two of them were more like acquaintances. He was a friend of a friend of a friend. Even after five years being in the same band together, the nature of their relationship has not changed. More often than not, it seemed as if they were at each other’s throats.

On the other hand, somewhere, somehow over the years, he and Hiro have grown apart. They’ve been friends since…well, he could not remember specifically when or how the two of them met, but it felt as if they have been friends forever. He knew that they had not gone to the same elementary school. Hiro had moved into the neighborhood sometime after Yoshio and his family were forced to relocate after his father was transferred. He was almost positive they met sometime in junior high, but for the life of him, he could not remember anything more than that. He wondered if that was normal.

They used to be “joined at hip”, as his mother always said. You would never see one without the other. In those rare moments when they were not together, he could remember people were always questioning if they’d had “a lover’s quarrel”. Nowadays, what was once a constant part of his day was now something of a rarity. Even when they were in the studio, they never really had the chance to sit down and talk about random things as they used to.

He could try telling himself all he wanted that this sort of thing was natural. It happens. He knew that, but it did not stop his heart from aching when he thought of how far apart the two of them had drifted. What made it worse was the knowledge that he could not be sure if the waning of their friendship was something that would have happened naturally anyway or if it was due to the choices that he had made over the years.

Now it seemed as if Hiro had more in common with Suguru than with him. He was not sure how he felt about that. Did it make him jealous to think about Suguru standing where he had been not too long ago? Yes. Yes it did.

But…

They were not those eighteen-year-old high school students without a care in the world anymore. Or at least, he wasn’t. He had a family now. He had husband who absolutely worshipped the ground he walked on (though he would never admit it) and a beautiful daughter. He and Eiri were even talking about possibly expanding their little family. Oo! What he would not give to hear the pitter patter of little feet running through the house again! Having children changed everything. You could no longer stay out clubbing or bar hopping until three o’clock in the morning and then sleep in until noon.

No, they could not be any different, but it was not just about their lifestyle changes that have undergone drastic changes over the years. The three members that made up the internationally renowned pop band Bad Luck could not have been more different when it came to their musical interests.

Hiroshi Nakano considered himself chiefly a blues-rock fan. He preferred artists such as The Allman Brothers Band, Eric Claption, and Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin, AC/DC, Bad Company, BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, ZZ Top and the like.

Suguru Fujisaki was a jazz fan. He was into artists such as Duke Ellington, Count Baise, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louise Armstrong and Cab Calloway and the like. Since jazz was said to have roots in blues, it was almost natural that the young keyboardist’s interests overlapped with that of Hiro.

On the other hand, Shuichi’s interest could not have been more different from that of his band mates. The type of music Hiro and Suguru had a growing interest in tended to put him to sleep. He was not sure why. Maybe it had to do with their mellow and laid-back sound. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that it was the same kind of music Eiri listened to during long car rides. Yes, he would admit that there might be one or two songs that he liked, but in the end, what it came down to was that he preferred new wave, nu metal, freestyle, Eurodance and hip-hop. All of which were entirely different from what his band mates liked and from what Bad Luck was known for.

Once, their individual preferences’ had been their biggest asset. They had been able to meld them together to create one hit song after another, but now it was at the core of their dispute. Hiro and Suguru wanted them to go in one direction, while he wanted to head in a completely different one. This was why he recorded those two songs for the movie soundtrack as a solo artist without the backing of Bad Luck. As if the press was not already having a field day about the divide within the band, once this fact come out it was just going to add more fuel to the fire and truthfully, he was sick and tired of all the fighting and all the lying. He just wanted it to end one way or another.

If his boss, Tohma Seguchi, was not Eiri’s brother-in-law…

Then what? Did it really make a difference? It did not seem to matter to Tohma either way. He wished more than anything that they could be friends, but as things stood, it did not seem as if that was going to happen any time soon. In the end, though, as much as he used to and still did admire and idolized the man, he could care less what Tohma thought of him. He just did not like placing Eiri in the middle of this constant tug of war.

With Bad Luck’s contract set to expire in a matter of weeks, Shuichi was not sure what to expect. It had not been that long ago when he would have said with absolute certainty that Bad Luck would renew their contract with NG Productions and everything would continue as they had, but now he was not sure that Tohma would offer them a new contract. He was not certain how he felt about that. If things between him and the guys did not change, then it did not matter whether or not they were offered a new contact with NG Productions.

As the elevator rose, Shuichi pulled at his hair as his frustration grew. He just did not know what to do! Even though he had talked things over with Eiri…

---

Eiri turned his gaze away from the sight of Tokyo at the whispered voice of his husband. “Do what you want.” Whatever stops those tears and brings out that contagious smile.

“But…”

Pushing out of the armchair, Eiri crossed the room to sit besides Shuichi on the sofa. He took Shuichi’s tear logged face gently in his hands. “I hate to see you like this. You know that.” He swept at a stray tear with his thumb. His heart ached whenever he saw his baka struggling like this. Because there was nothing he could do, it just made him feel twice as bad.

Shuichi sniffled.

“Do what you must.”

“Really?”

Eiri nodded. “Yes.” He brushed their lips together. “Sometimes you have to be a little selfish.”

Shuichi scrubbed at his wet face. “And you won’t hate me?”

Eiri shook his head in denial. “Never.” Reaching out, he gently ran the back of his hand up Shuichi’s cheek. “I could never hate you.”

---

…, he was still in the dark as to what he should do. Talking about something and acting on that something were two completely different things. This and that.

Eiri claimed that he would support him no matter what he decided, but with him and Tohma already at odds over Eiri‘s involvement with him, he did not want to do anything that would put anymore strain on what remained of Eiri and Tohma’s relationship.

When the elevator jolted to a stop, he pushed away from the back wall. As the doors slid open, a ding echoed down the silent, empty hallways. Shuichi sighed heavily as he stepped off the elevator. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys as he trooped down the long, deserted hall towards his studio.

After Eiri proposed, he finally let go of the closet sized studio apartment that he’d had ever since he graduated from high school. It had been an emotional decision that still sent him into tears when he thought about it. Of course, Eiri called him an idiot for being so emotionally attached to that “shit hole of an apartment” that he’d barely ever used.

He spent the better part of that summer scrubbing it down, sanitizing it, and trying to make it habitable again. If the health department had been called in, they would have had it condemned. That was how bad its state had become. A thick layer of dust had covered everything. Grime so thick that he had needed to steal Eiri’s scraper out of the car in order to get it off had coated the windows (he ended up buying a replacement for him). Mildew and mold had taken over the refrigerator and bathroom, where a pipe had burst sometime during the winter. How nobody had noticed, Shuichi was not sure. He had nobody to blame but himself unfortunately. And of course Eiri had absolutely refused to help. Shuichi could not blame the man for bailing. It would have been more productive to just let the apartment go up in flames. If he had not been afraid that they would go to the tabloids, he would have just paid the landlord generously to hire professional cleaners or he could have done so himself, but the last thing he needed was to see his abandoned, garbage heap of an apartment on the six o’clock news.

Shortly after the loss of his apartment, a new addition to their family arrived in the form of their daughter Sayo, which had left him a bind since his home office/studio had to be turned into Sayo’s bedroom. That was when Eiri suggested he just rent some studio space somewhere.

“And try not to turn this one into a squalor’s nest otherwise I’m calling the health minister myself,” Eiri had threatened.

The Avan Minami-Aoyama Studios in Minato-ku, which were not too far from where he resided in Chiyoda, catered to those individuals who were looking for some storage space, office space, or a studio in which to work from. Each studio was soundproof and had concrete flooring. Some had a toilet and bathroom. Others had a toilet, bathroom as well as a kitchen. Several even had bedrooms. His had a toilet, bathroom, and kitchen as well as a balcony with a small private Zen garden and air conditioning.

To date, he has met several other people who rented space in the building, from a defense attorney who was rumored to be on the payroll of some yakuza to a student in art school. While he has never met any of his neighbors as of yet, he had been told by the landlord that there was a group of kids across the hall who rented the space out as a practice studio for their band. He wondered what type of music they played and if they were any good.

A sound off to his left caught Shuichi’s attention just as he was about to slip his key into the lock. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed that the door to the studio across the hall was slightly ajar. A slow sound was drifting out into the hall. Curious, he fixed the strap of his messenger bag that was slipping off his shoulder and fisted his keys. The carpet muffled his footsteps as he crossed the hall.

He pushed open the door and stuck his head in. A man who appeared not much older than he with electric blue hair sitting barefoot on a stool in the center of the room caught his attention. Then he spotted the guitar he was strumming.

“Holy shit,” he cried, bursting unannounced into the studio.

Startled, the man jumped to his feet. The stool he had been sitting tipped over and clattered to the floor. “Wha-? Who are-?”

Instead of answering, Shuichi slipped easily out of his sneakers and continued his voyage across the studio towards the man. “Is that the limited edition HR Giger?” he asked, his eyes glued to the electric guitar.

“Uh, yeah, it is,” the befuddled man stuttered.

“Sweet!” Shuichi slipped the strap of his bag over his head and set it down. Grabbing the guitar from the all too willing man, he ran his hands over the sleek, flawless finish. “Ya know that HR Giger guy who designed this is responsible for the alien designs in the first Alien movie?” Eiri loved that movie and had forced him to watch it once. It was one of the scariest movies he had ever watched. He’d had nightmares for a month after watching the scene where the alien burst through the guy’s chest. Of course, Eiri called him a wimp.

“Uh…Yeah. You, uh, play?”

Shuichi snorted. “Me? Yeah, right. I’ll stick to the piano thank you very much, but Hiro does. He tried teaching me once, but it was a disaster.” He laughed at the memory. “Oh man! Is he going to flip! He really wanted one, but somehow someone screwed up his order and by the time he was able to straighten things out they’d been sold out. But wow! It truly is a beauty. Wizard II neck-thru. 5-piece maple and walnut neck. Mahogany body. Twenty-four jumbo frets. Rosewood fingerboard. Shark tooth inlays…”

The man was astonished. “For someone who doesn’t play, you sure know a lot.”

Blushing, Shuichi shrugged and handed the man back his guitar. “Yeah, well, Hiro was obsessed with getting his hands on one no matter what. He went on endlessly about it.”

He glanced quickly around the studio. It was about half the size as his own and did not seem to have any of the amenities. His roaming gaze caught sight of a textured black sunburst PHX high-end acoustic drum set with the word “Torture” etched into the face of the bass drum. The same PSR1500, PSR3000 and YPT-310 keyboard that he had were arranged perpendicular to one another. Two guitars rested in their stands up against the far wall. On the wall opposite was an empty stand besides a V shaped white guitar-like instrument that had a black tribal pattern across the face.

“What the hell is that?” he asked blinking in confusion at the strange contraption. He had never seen anything like it before in his life.

“Huh?” The man followed Shuichi’s finger. A wide grin crossed his face. “Oh, hey.” He crossed the studio and set his HR Giger guitar in it’s stand. “This, my friend, is the Gibson Limited Edition Tribal V guitar.”

“It’s a guitar?”

“Not just any guitar. It is one of the ultimate guitars. Solid body electric guitar with mahogany body and neck, ebony fingerboard, Kahler vibrato-”

“And there he goes,” announced an unexpected voice from behind him.

Startled, Shuichi spun around. Before him were who he assumed were the owners of the remaining instruments. The two girls appeared to be twins. One was slightly taller than the other and had black hair the color of raven’s feathers interwoven with white streaks that even though was done up in braids was down to her ass. Her sister’s chestnut brown hair had streaks of hi-octane orange, a color Shuichi knew glowed under black light. She was the one who stepped forward and offered her hand. Shuichi took it tentatively.

“Hi! I’m Taira,” she introduced. “This is my sister Yuki. The guy was the atomic pink hair in his eyes is Manabu.”

It was another color that glowed under black light. He wondered if that was for their stage show?

Not only did Manabu have almost the same color hair as him, but he was tall, maybe as tall as Eiri and thin as a chopstick.

“And the guy with the bright as fuck yellow hair is Kita.”

“Hey,” Kita greeted in a deep deadpanned voice.

Kita was shorter than Manabu, but taller than him. Shuichi put him at about Hiro’s height, maybe an inch or two shorter.

“Hi. Nice to meet you. Sorry to barge in like this, but I noticed your door was open and when I came to check to see if maybe something was wrong, maybe a burglar had gotten in or something, I saw this guy with the HR Giger guitar and I just sorta…Uhm.” He faltered and blushed when Taira giggled. He was rambling again. That was when he realized that he had yet to introduce himself. “Oh! I’m-”

“Shuichi Shindou,” Kita interrupted in that same dead voice.

Shuichi blinked. He cocked his head to the side cutely. “Oh! You know I am, huh?”

“Who doesn’t?” Yuki giggled.

Knowing all too well what she was implying, Shuichi blushed.

“Hey! What about me?” spoke up a hurt sounding voice from behind him.

Shuichi glanced over his shoulder. It was the man who he had burst in on.

“What about you?” Taira asked the man. She stuck her hip out and gave her fellow band mate a once over.

“You’re not going to introduce me?”

“Why would I?”

The man sighed sadly with a shake of his head. “Always the odd man out,” he pouted.

The others scoffed at the melodrama.

He straightened and grinned at Shuichi. “I’m Ishi Fuji,” he introduced, holding his hand out.

Shuichi took his hand. “Nice to met you, Fuji and I’m sorry about earlier. Eiri‘s always yelling at me about doing stuff like that.” He scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

Fuji brushed the apology aside. “Naw! Don’t worry bout it. I was surprised, but…” He shrugged. Turning towards his band mates, he asked, “You get the coffee or what?”

Taira rolled her eyes. “No, we went all the way to Spot just for the hell of it.”

As the five of them argued over who got what and whether there was cream and sugar, Shuichi watched them with a wistful nostalgic smile. This was nice. Even when they weren’t fighting, the members of Bad Luck had never acted like these guys. He had to admit that he was a little jealous.

“Hey, you got time?” Taira asked him suddenly. She lifted the lid of her coffee cup and after blowing on it gently in a futile effort to cool the steaming brown liquid off, took a tentative sip.

He turned towards her. “I guess. Why?”

“Do you think you can take a listen to some of our stuff? Tell us what you think?” Her dark eyes were sparkling in expectation.

This was a first. He had never had someone ask him something like this before. “Sure,” he shrugged. He did not see why not. Eiri had an interview for Book TV and then he had to go to Borders for a book singing that Shuichi was sure would last until early evening at the earliest. With Sayo was at his parents place, he had the whole day to himself.

“Awesome!” Taira and her twin sister squealed in delight.

“Sweet! Really? Thanks man!” Fuji exclaimed, slapping him on the back.

All of them started talking excitably at once. Shuichi could not help but giggle. The members of Torture scrambled to their instruments and soon the sounds of guitars being tuned and keyboards and drums being warmed up filled the air.

---TBC---

Preview: “In the Heat of the Moment”

A/N: The hair colors are real, including the parts about them glowing in the dark. Also, I know nothing about instruments. I found out the info on several websites: sweetwater (dot) com, yamaha (dot) com, and zzsounds (dot) com. Tell me honestly, this was not what you expected, right? But there is a point to Shuichi meeting them.