Twisting Fate

Twisting Fate

Oh no!!! It’s revenge of the plot bunnies. My muse was working overtime this chapter because he felt I was neglecting this story too much in favor of Golden Silence. What does Bob have in store for our lovers now? Dun, dun, dun…

Chapter Five

The night air was cool on his shoulders as he looked out over the city. He kept thinking about the conversation he had over the phone with Eiri.

“I love you, Shuichi. I love you so much.”

“I know. I love you too.”

The more he thought about it the more it seemed like a conditioned response. If someone told you that they loved you then you're supposed to say, 'I love you too.' That is all there was too it.

Not that he didn't love Eiri, he did. It was just that it felt so... shallow. The love he remembered having for the man had been so deep that it had caused him physical pain at times. He had felt such passion that he would shiver with the mere thought of the man's hands on his body.

Now it was different. The love he felt now was soft, kind of a sweet longing. There was no passion or intensity to it. It felt amazingly like when he had first been ejected from Eiri's life.

“I don't date men.”

“Were you confused by that one little kiss?”

“It was just one night.”

Each time he had felt something like what he felt now, but he could not explain it. He had no reason to be feeling like this. He was the one who had walked away this time. 'Why do I feel like this? Why do I feel like someone slapped me for no reason and walked away?'

He took a long drag from his cigarette and released the smoke along with a heavy sigh. 'Then there is this thing with the 'dream'. I'm missing something here. There has to be a reason that I remember these things that are somehow real.'

He had been thinking on this a lot as of late and the more he thought the more he realized that he couldn't remember the details of his everyday life during the 'dream'. Small things escaped him. He didn't remember where he lived other than it was an apartment. He didn't know what kind of car he had driven just that it was black. Hundreds of other things that he logically should have known escaped him. The only things that remained solid in his mind were things like his songs, his band, and those last days before he woke up. Everything that had happened since his 'return' to Japan was crystal clear.

“Smoking while deep in thought. That's not a pastime I ever thought I would witness from you.”

Shuichi didn't bother to turn around. He knew that voice almost as well as he knew his own. “Things change, Eiri. Life goes on... blah, blah, blah.” He took another drag from the cigarette and held it in his lungs. He relished the feel of it for long seconds before exhaling again.

“I thought I was supposed to be the cynical one. It doesn't suit you.” Eiri leaned on the railing next to Shuichi and the younger held out the open pack of cigarettes to the blond.

“Go ahead, they’re your brand.” He scoffed quietly, “Like I would end up smoking anything else.”

Shuichi felt Eiri take one and looked out of the corner of his eye at the man. The author seemed rather calm for the situation. They stood smoking in silence for some unknown number of minutes before Eiri broke the peace.

“I thought you were going to explain this to me.”

Shuichi snorted derisively. “Forgive me for savoring the moment. You’re so demanding. ‘Why, why, why?’”

Eiri sucked in a sharp breath. To hear his own words spat back at him in such a way was disturbing. What had he done to this man? He truly didn’t understand. “Shuichi…”

Something had clicked in Shuichi's head when the words escaped his mouth. He felt a cold rush of power in his veins then like a thick blanket was wrapping him up as a single word passed his lips, “Neo.”

Eiri gaped at the lightless purple eyes staring back at him. “What?”

Shuichi was suddenly a spectator in his own life. “My name in Neo. Shuichi doesn’t need you anymore. You let him wilt of neglect six years ago and I saved him.” What was he saying? Those were not the words he had meant to come from his mouth.

Eiri’s face went pale. “What the hell?”

Neo laughed. “What’s wrong lover boy? Miss the brat warming your bed?”

‘Neo?’ Oh, God, he really had gone insane.

‘Shut up brat, this is for your own good.’

‘No! What are you doing? I love Eiri. It’s awkward right now, but I still love him.’

Crewel laughter echoed in his head. ‘Don’t you get it? I have been trying to make you hear me since we woke up. You’re finally free of him, his lies, and his cheating. We don’t need him. Now, go to sleep and let me handle this.’

The muffled feeling overtook Shuichi's mind and all he knew was darkness.

The war raging in Shuichi’s eyes captivated Eiri. Light flickered in and out of them until they settled on dull and then focused back on him. “What no answer?”

Eiri shook himself. “It’s not about that. It hasn’t ever been about the sex, not really. I lied to myself for a long time. I was afraid of being hurt. I love you Shuichi!”

Neo’s expression grew harsh. “I told you, my name is Neo. Get it right, Fuck-wit, because I wont tell you again.” He dropped the cold cigarette butt to the ground and smashed it pointedly with his toe. “It hurts to be rejected, doesn’t it? Stay away from us. For some unknown reason the idiot cares about you, but you wont fare so well if I see you again.”

He brushed passed a nonplused Eiri and disappeared into the darkness before the author could regain his wits.

XXX

“Fucking hell, Hiro! Would you get this right already? This is the last fucking song and we have been doing it for three days! Just because I let all the rest of the songs pass out of here as crap doesn’t mean that this one will. Now get it right!”

For the past three days the band and staff had been walking on eggshells around Shuichi. “My name is Neo!” They had no idea what had happened to the man and he got mad, telling them to butt out, when they asked.

“Again!”

“I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's only me and I walk alone…”

Ryuichi stood inside the mixing booth and frowned. No matter what he may look like, no matter that the voice was the same, the man singing was no Shuichi. This was not his friend. Something had happened to him and Ryuichi was going to find out what.

XXX

The days stretched on like rubber bands. They seemed to have endless elasticity as you pulled them taunt trying to make it to the end of the day, but when the day was done you looped it in with all the others. When linked and returned to their original size they formed a chain so short that you had to wonder where the time had gone.

Looking back it seemed to Eiri that it had been both only seconds and an eternity since Shuichi had come into his life. It had been two years together, six years of coma, and another seven months of… questions.

He read again the words he had written. They had been burning his soul since his last encounter with Shuichi.

‘Love’s Requiem

I had a love once. I consumed me in a way that I had never dreamt of. It was a passionate seduction of the child I was. I was innocent and young with a lust for the world and a hope for bigger things. The man I loved took me in his stride and then all my hope was shattered. I was scorned of his love and told how I had been made into a fool. He used me and stole my dreams away.

He left me without my innocence of flesh and my heart raped of its purity, burned black by his memory. I ripped the useless flesh from myself that day and cast it into a grave to await the day its embittered owner would join it in rest.

I found solace only in my solitude. My family was estranged and my friends forgotten. I buried myself in work and a world built of impossible fantasies. I cried tearlessly into the night with longing for arms that would never hold me and mourned my lost ability to love.

I was a cold and empty shell. I did not look at others fearing that they would see the soulnessness of my eyes. I knew no comfort in the flesh of the countless strangers. I vanished into the silence that was now my only friend. There was no light and there was no comfort. I wrote long laments for my shattered dreams and then watched them shrivel into ash as I commended them to the heavens. I did not question, I did not seek, I did not long.

Looking back I wonder what happed in my mind when I chose to forget all that was good in this world. I was selfish in my anger and I let what should have made me stronger kill all that was good in me. I could only see it when he reclaimed my heart for me. Only then could I feel that which I neglected to myself for so long.

Now he too is gone.

Once again I weep for that love that I have lost, but now I know that it was I who stole it from myself. I destroyed it with my own two hands: Shuichi.’

“Moping again, Aniki?”

Eiri’s head hit the desk with a thump. “Fate is a crewel bitch,” he grumbled to himself, but Tatsuha heard him.

“That she is, Aniki.” After a moment Eiri heard him humph. “‘I destroyed it with my own two hands’? Man you’re worse than a gothic teenager.”

The voice was right behind him and Eiri sat up quickly and downsized the window on his laptop. “It’s none of your concern, Tatsu.”

He glared as his younger brother flopped down in the spare chair. “I still can’t believe you are just going to let him walk away like that.”

Eiri sighed. “You didn’t see his face, Tatsuha. He was… a different person.”

Tatsuha leaned forward in his chair. “And your point is what exactly? I thought you loved him.”

“I do.”

“You’re a fucking coward.” He stood up and cross the room. He leaned down and got right in Eiri’s face. “I know I was only ten, but I remember what you were like before New York. The two years you were with Shuichi was the most alive I have seen you since before all that happened. He made you happy. If you’re going to give up that easy then you don’t deserve him. Get a backbone, Aniki. Go after him before you do turn into one of your characters.”

Eiri stared at his baby brother. When had he grown up? It suddenly occurred to the author that Tatsuha was twenty-four now and no longer sixteen.

When linked and returned to their original size they formed a chain so short that you had to wonder where the time had gone.

XXX

… dun, dun, dunnnnnnnnnn.

The song in this chapter was Green Day, Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Other than that… No comment.

So? Too much? Not enough? There is still more to come. (It never ends!)