#33 Theme 08: Cherish - SuG; Tora/Hiroto
Title: Strangers
Author: beyondtheremix
Theme: 008 Cherish (SuG)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tora/Hiroto
Band[s]: Alice Nine
Disclaimer: AU, mentions of drugs
Comments: Everyone on the bus is regulated. This song.
Strangers
There was nothing tangible, no visible marks or flashing lights, that set him apart from the rest.
Even still, every time Tora climbed up the rubber-tread steps invisible strings tugged his vision sideways.
He didn't say hi, didn't take a closer seat, didn't do anything. It wasn't even a conscious decision to look, simply an automatic reaction to thinking someone had called his name, to acknowledge someone he thought he knew. But there was never anyone there, no saved seat or accidental coincidence, and he had to wonder if he was going insane; perhaps one too many sleepless nights tucked behind his ears.
But Tora liked his schedule. Early mornings. Late nights. Work and sleep, work and sleep.
It wasn't hectic. It was regulated.
Everything on the bus was regulated.
Two rows of seats faced each other against two metal sides and eight window panes. Evenly spaced bars and plastic grips decorated the ceiling overhead. Every surface was rigid square; emergency exit here, front entrance there.
On the bus everyone was regulated.
In the early mornings the same people jolted awake to shrilling alarms, got ready for the new day. They stumbled aboard their rectangular lines and linking transfers, filed quietly into their joined plastic seats. And, for every familiar face heavy with sleep, every bagged pair of lashes, Tora gave them a story.
Late into the night a new set of passengers would appear, eyes just as burdened but shoes eagerly tapping a going-home beat. They carried similar stories.
And then there was the odd one or two overlap.
Tora, a couple others, him. People who shouldn't be up this early or out this late. People who sat with each other on the same bus at the same time on the same days, day in, day out.
There were evenings when the sun set early and rainbow neon flickered through the big bus windows faster than the overhead lights could spark to full glow. It was that time right before it got too dark, before it got too stark bright inside to make out anything other than the silhouettes on paned glass. That time when Tora would look across the aisle and see blots of color on a smooth, bagless face, eyes fluttered shut against the bumpy ride.
In Tora's story he was a still a boy. One lone soul constantly, constantly running - away from home, away from life - though the sharp curve of his cheekbone and old glint in his eyes told otherwise. To Tora he still had a family waiting for him, unfinished chores and unstudied books, an untouched plate and an empty bowl. He didn't know why, but the story stuck.
Tora liked his schedule. Early morning stories. Late night mysteries.
There was no rush hour to deal with, no trousered legs and clumsy bags filling the entire length of the bus. No standing in the stuffy center clutching metal bars and plastic straps as they swayed with each bump.
From the corner of his eye Tora watched the stranger pull his knees to his chest, curl up and lean against the plastic divide separating him from the driver's seat. He always sat in the front. Always waited for the sunrise and sunset to sleep.
---
"You know, headaches aren't actually aches in your head."
"Really?"
Hiroto turned bright-eyes on the elderly bus driver, eager to hear more.
"Yep," she smiled knowingly. "It's usually some other part of your body telling you it's hurting."
Hiroto hurt.
Every day his head ached.
Every day the bathroom mirror blurred with shower steam and he didn't have to see the washed clean smudge of his face opening the medicine cabinet and pulling out a bottle of aspirin.
A plastic white bottle filled with powdery white pills.
One in the morning to ease the ache in his chest, a different one at night to make him forget.
Hiroto grabbed his things and wandered out to the bus stop, hours before anyone else could wake. He always stood and smoked. Three cigarettes gone. One, precious grams licked and rolled. Four puffs for the wait, five to stay awake.
He didn't know when he started needing the drugs to see. When the world had become so colorless in the day.
Sunrise he waited on baited breath, avid eyes and fingers pressed to the edge of glass; body twisted in his seat.
"Why the bus?"
He peered up at the yellowing clouds, tasted the citrusy-citrus sky.
"It makes me feel normal again."
And at the next stop the same four people would pile on. The next one two. The next one three.
And then later the same two people would get off. The next one four. The next one three.
And then more and more, rush hour crowd, empty seat lunch break. One o'clock, two o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock.
From the corner of his eye Hiroto saw the same stranger boarding the bus and glanced away.
---
Tora wasn't sure why his body was acting this way. Today his internal alarm, followed closely by the digital one, had simply stalled. He didn't wake up until close to noon, one arm aching and frozen above his muted buzzer, his blankets uncharacteristically strewn all over the floor.
Swearing at the sunshine glinting innocently through his curtains, Tora hurriedly dressed and called in late.
His feet were barely out the door before he was turning, locking, and running to make the next bus.
---
Hiroto could feel the cool metal in his pocket, wondered what it would feel like splitting his flesh in two. The imagined pain searing his skin. But imagining it was enough these days. He didn't have to remember to know. He didn't need to pull the blade out to leave a mark. Not when the glaring white, hardened brown scars already littered his washed out soul and weighed heavy on his shrunken purple heart.
The day was slow. Today was slow. And the night ached too heavy in his veins.
---
His bus pulled to a stop at the curb.
If Tora wanted to he could say he was half a day late. But as he climbed the steep steps in, sweat forming and collecting in the folds of his shirt, he caught one familiar face, forehead still pressed against the same plastic divide behind the driver's seat.
Sometimes the smaller man had a sticky glue notepad in the mornings, wire bound sheets at night, a pencil poised and pressing into blue-lined sheets and clean yellow paper, swirling nonsensed page after page. But this was the first time Tora noticed the open knapsack, the vacant seat.
Sitting down next to him, with his eyes trained solely on the ground, Tora set his briefcase beneath his feet.
---
Someone was sitting next him today. That stranger.
In his jacket he fingered round pieces and cut edges, like a pocketful of change. Plastic baggies filled with rainbow candies, more pills imprinted with different pictures and squiggled symbols. Capital 'E's to carry him through the weekends when the buses stopped early and started late; a myriad of color chemicals to make him feel like everyone cared.
"Everyone loves you on E," Shou grinned, handing him the bag just in case.
"Trust me."
And sometimes, for fun, Hiroto would slip-drop tiny squares of smiling faces and cartoonish delight. Place them flat on his tongue. Bittersweet, metal licks that made the monochrome world burn bright color bright, aching starshine and broken mirror universe, sink, brink, baby sink.
Those days he would curl up in his seat and listen to the bus breathe.
---
Traffic got worse and worse the closer to the office he got. The bus was completely crowded now, full of stragglers, shoppers, housewives and university students. Hard edges banged against his knees and Tora wished he was as small as his neighboring seatmate; he wanted to curl up and sleep.
It was surprising that he had recognized anyone on the bus at all. Even the driver had switched.
Shifting his knees to the left a bit, Tora snuck another curious glance at the stranger beside him. His back was bent, slowly curling in on itself with sleep, knapsack clutched to his belly. As he watched the bus rattle him with each shake, a corner began to peek out of a sweater pocket, the plastic top of a bag. Another sudden jolt and Tora was reaching out to catch it.
---
Hiroto blinked at the streaming noon sun, a bang to his forehead awakening him to sharp hazel eyes and a piercing gaze.
"You dropped this." A repeat.
It felt like the entire bus had gone silent, quiet strangers letting the motor engine numb their thoughts to next stop, next stop, next stop off. Licking dry lips, Hiroto nodded wordlessly, reaching out unsteady fingers for his Mindys, Mollys, Mandys and candies. He hadn't taken any today so it was okay, they weren't his, they belonged to someone else.
Tucking the bag safely into his knapsack this time, he pulled out a bottle of water, uncapped and guzzled. People were talking again, into their mobiles, the weather, the weekend.
He wished the stranger would stop staring.
---
In Tora's story he was still running. And every day it got worse.
"You dropped this."
He got an eyeful of his runaway, dull irises a brown grey-brown, edges wet and pink tinted. And it was like the voice was back again, calling and leaving something half-said on lips round and crooked.
He continued to watch long after the bag was taken.
---
At work all Tora could think about was home.
Late meant overtime. Overtime lost sleep. That wasn't part of his schedule. Hunching down, he was just glad his boss was letting him leave before the last bus.
---
"Now people get down, people get down, people get hurt."
He was singing again. Mumbling soft tunes under his breath like he didn't hurt.
"And when you did it to me I was already in the dirt."
---
When he boarded the bus Tora wasn't too surprised to find one familiar face again. Somehow it wasn't so strange to see.
He probably didn't leave.
To the midnight shuttle there was a radio playing. Sad tunes.
Tora sat opposite the young man this time, four seats closer to the door.
There were barely any souls this late at night. Only silent, flickering things that half-shined in the light.
He felt like a ghost on a train, letting metal tracks carry him away with the breeze. But the bus continued to push on and hail passengers silently through the night and, at his stop, Tora walked gratefully away.
---
"Who's that?"
Coffee trailed a curl of steam under his nose and Tora looked up to find a curious coworker hovering over his desk.
"He ran away," Tora replied, in lieu of a real answer. Who's that? He knew no more than the next person. He barely even understood why he'd pulled out his phone and stolen a shot.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Have you called the police?" Superficial concern.
Snapping his phone shut, Tora pocketed the device and smiled softly in his seat.
"He'll come back."
---
It was funny, but Hiroto never realized how close he was getting, this stranger that took the seat across from him every day.
Once in a while, in a good mood perhaps, the raven haired man would take the seat right next to him and instantly regret it the second the bus took off. It made Hiroto smile, secretly hiding the upturned lips in his knees. He made people uncomfortable and it was a comfort to see.
But even those clumsy awkward moments weren't enough, never enough, not on Wednesdays when the day never ceased to be. Rain dotted the sky and floundered leaves in the street. Grey and grey and pale and grey and he didn't touch his candies or drop the acid, instead he downed a fizzy drink and sucked in his shivery shakes. Because the more he took in between, the more it took to see.
Every day was one pill in the morning for the ache in his chest, one at night to make him forget. Sleep bringers and pain killers and he didn't know why. But it was better to forget. At home he was a mess, but thankfully no one was there to see it. And school was a timetable, straight lines, one pass and four transits. And emotions were bagfuls of colors and lies. And strangers were legions and armies of tiny ants and polite-quiet friends.
And the rain made him sad.
The sunsets cuts deeper.
Hiroto wrapped bony elbows to his sides and peered out the fading window.
Sunset cut like the fogs that could never made it clearer. Nothing made sense. Nothing made sense.
"Hey." There was a voice beside him. "Are you okay?" Furrowed eyebrows danced across his vision and he could see flicker-pattern outlines that lately he'd being fighting harder and harder to ignore.
---
"The sunset is sad," he whispered, eyes that looked far too lost glued to the floor.
In Tora's story he had no one at home to love, scrawny limbs and fading jeans and an empty space where his heart struggled its hardest to breathe. He would never know what possessed him, never understand the voice calling him. Reaching forward, Tora gathered a complete stranger into his arms and buried his nose against soapy, flat hair.
"When I put my fingers here, I can see it shining through me."
The words were muffled against his shoulder and Tora wanted nothing more than to make it better.
"So easy... Like I'm not here."
"But I can see you."
Soft, soft confessions.
"I'm not going through you."
Soft, soft tears.
It hurt to think, hurt to feel.
Stranger and stranger.
Strangers to strangers.
But somehow, right now, this stranger's touch meant more than the world to him.
A/N:
Ahhhh that may not have made sense but comments = ♥
E (Mindy, Mandy, Molly lol) = ecstasy, acid = LSD. D:
Archive
Author: beyondtheremix
Theme: 008 Cherish (SuG)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Tora/Hiroto
Band[s]: Alice Nine
Disclaimer: AU, mentions of drugs
Comments: Everyone on the bus is regulated. This song.
Strangers
There was nothing tangible, no visible marks or flashing lights, that set him apart from the rest.
Even still, every time Tora climbed up the rubber-tread steps invisible strings tugged his vision sideways.
He didn't say hi, didn't take a closer seat, didn't do anything. It wasn't even a conscious decision to look, simply an automatic reaction to thinking someone had called his name, to acknowledge someone he thought he knew. But there was never anyone there, no saved seat or accidental coincidence, and he had to wonder if he was going insane; perhaps one too many sleepless nights tucked behind his ears.
But Tora liked his schedule. Early mornings. Late nights. Work and sleep, work and sleep.
It wasn't hectic. It was regulated.
Everything on the bus was regulated.
Two rows of seats faced each other against two metal sides and eight window panes. Evenly spaced bars and plastic grips decorated the ceiling overhead. Every surface was rigid square; emergency exit here, front entrance there.
On the bus everyone was regulated.
In the early mornings the same people jolted awake to shrilling alarms, got ready for the new day. They stumbled aboard their rectangular lines and linking transfers, filed quietly into their joined plastic seats. And, for every familiar face heavy with sleep, every bagged pair of lashes, Tora gave them a story.
Late into the night a new set of passengers would appear, eyes just as burdened but shoes eagerly tapping a going-home beat. They carried similar stories.
And then there was the odd one or two overlap.
Tora, a couple others, him. People who shouldn't be up this early or out this late. People who sat with each other on the same bus at the same time on the same days, day in, day out.
There were evenings when the sun set early and rainbow neon flickered through the big bus windows faster than the overhead lights could spark to full glow. It was that time right before it got too dark, before it got too stark bright inside to make out anything other than the silhouettes on paned glass. That time when Tora would look across the aisle and see blots of color on a smooth, bagless face, eyes fluttered shut against the bumpy ride.
In Tora's story he was a still a boy. One lone soul constantly, constantly running - away from home, away from life - though the sharp curve of his cheekbone and old glint in his eyes told otherwise. To Tora he still had a family waiting for him, unfinished chores and unstudied books, an untouched plate and an empty bowl. He didn't know why, but the story stuck.
Tora liked his schedule. Early morning stories. Late night mysteries.
There was no rush hour to deal with, no trousered legs and clumsy bags filling the entire length of the bus. No standing in the stuffy center clutching metal bars and plastic straps as they swayed with each bump.
From the corner of his eye Tora watched the stranger pull his knees to his chest, curl up and lean against the plastic divide separating him from the driver's seat. He always sat in the front. Always waited for the sunrise and sunset to sleep.
---
"You know, headaches aren't actually aches in your head."
"Really?"
Hiroto turned bright-eyes on the elderly bus driver, eager to hear more.
"Yep," she smiled knowingly. "It's usually some other part of your body telling you it's hurting."
Hiroto hurt.
Every day his head ached.
Every day the bathroom mirror blurred with shower steam and he didn't have to see the washed clean smudge of his face opening the medicine cabinet and pulling out a bottle of aspirin.
A plastic white bottle filled with powdery white pills.
One in the morning to ease the ache in his chest, a different one at night to make him forget.
Hiroto grabbed his things and wandered out to the bus stop, hours before anyone else could wake. He always stood and smoked. Three cigarettes gone. One, precious grams licked and rolled. Four puffs for the wait, five to stay awake.
He didn't know when he started needing the drugs to see. When the world had become so colorless in the day.
Sunrise he waited on baited breath, avid eyes and fingers pressed to the edge of glass; body twisted in his seat.
"Why the bus?"
He peered up at the yellowing clouds, tasted the citrusy-citrus sky.
"It makes me feel normal again."
And at the next stop the same four people would pile on. The next one two. The next one three.
And then later the same two people would get off. The next one four. The next one three.
And then more and more, rush hour crowd, empty seat lunch break. One o'clock, two o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock.
From the corner of his eye Hiroto saw the same stranger boarding the bus and glanced away.
---
Tora wasn't sure why his body was acting this way. Today his internal alarm, followed closely by the digital one, had simply stalled. He didn't wake up until close to noon, one arm aching and frozen above his muted buzzer, his blankets uncharacteristically strewn all over the floor.
Swearing at the sunshine glinting innocently through his curtains, Tora hurriedly dressed and called in late.
His feet were barely out the door before he was turning, locking, and running to make the next bus.
---
Hiroto could feel the cool metal in his pocket, wondered what it would feel like splitting his flesh in two. The imagined pain searing his skin. But imagining it was enough these days. He didn't have to remember to know. He didn't need to pull the blade out to leave a mark. Not when the glaring white, hardened brown scars already littered his washed out soul and weighed heavy on his shrunken purple heart.
The day was slow. Today was slow. And the night ached too heavy in his veins.
---
His bus pulled to a stop at the curb.
If Tora wanted to he could say he was half a day late. But as he climbed the steep steps in, sweat forming and collecting in the folds of his shirt, he caught one familiar face, forehead still pressed against the same plastic divide behind the driver's seat.
Sometimes the smaller man had a sticky glue notepad in the mornings, wire bound sheets at night, a pencil poised and pressing into blue-lined sheets and clean yellow paper, swirling nonsensed page after page. But this was the first time Tora noticed the open knapsack, the vacant seat.
Sitting down next to him, with his eyes trained solely on the ground, Tora set his briefcase beneath his feet.
---
Someone was sitting next him today. That stranger.
In his jacket he fingered round pieces and cut edges, like a pocketful of change. Plastic baggies filled with rainbow candies, more pills imprinted with different pictures and squiggled symbols. Capital 'E's to carry him through the weekends when the buses stopped early and started late; a myriad of color chemicals to make him feel like everyone cared.
"Everyone loves you on E," Shou grinned, handing him the bag just in case.
"Trust me."
And sometimes, for fun, Hiroto would slip-drop tiny squares of smiling faces and cartoonish delight. Place them flat on his tongue. Bittersweet, metal licks that made the monochrome world burn bright color bright, aching starshine and broken mirror universe, sink, brink, baby sink.
Those days he would curl up in his seat and listen to the bus breathe.
---
Traffic got worse and worse the closer to the office he got. The bus was completely crowded now, full of stragglers, shoppers, housewives and university students. Hard edges banged against his knees and Tora wished he was as small as his neighboring seatmate; he wanted to curl up and sleep.
It was surprising that he had recognized anyone on the bus at all. Even the driver had switched.
Shifting his knees to the left a bit, Tora snuck another curious glance at the stranger beside him. His back was bent, slowly curling in on itself with sleep, knapsack clutched to his belly. As he watched the bus rattle him with each shake, a corner began to peek out of a sweater pocket, the plastic top of a bag. Another sudden jolt and Tora was reaching out to catch it.
---
Hiroto blinked at the streaming noon sun, a bang to his forehead awakening him to sharp hazel eyes and a piercing gaze.
"You dropped this." A repeat.
It felt like the entire bus had gone silent, quiet strangers letting the motor engine numb their thoughts to next stop, next stop, next stop off. Licking dry lips, Hiroto nodded wordlessly, reaching out unsteady fingers for his Mindys, Mollys, Mandys and candies. He hadn't taken any today so it was okay, they weren't his, they belonged to someone else.
Tucking the bag safely into his knapsack this time, he pulled out a bottle of water, uncapped and guzzled. People were talking again, into their mobiles, the weather, the weekend.
He wished the stranger would stop staring.
---
In Tora's story he was still running. And every day it got worse.
"You dropped this."
He got an eyeful of his runaway, dull irises a brown grey-brown, edges wet and pink tinted. And it was like the voice was back again, calling and leaving something half-said on lips round and crooked.
He continued to watch long after the bag was taken.
---
At work all Tora could think about was home.
Late meant overtime. Overtime lost sleep. That wasn't part of his schedule. Hunching down, he was just glad his boss was letting him leave before the last bus.
---
"Now people get down, people get down, people get hurt."
He was singing again. Mumbling soft tunes under his breath like he didn't hurt.
"And when you did it to me I was already in the dirt."
---
When he boarded the bus Tora wasn't too surprised to find one familiar face again. Somehow it wasn't so strange to see.
He probably didn't leave.
To the midnight shuttle there was a radio playing. Sad tunes.
Tora sat opposite the young man this time, four seats closer to the door.
There were barely any souls this late at night. Only silent, flickering things that half-shined in the light.
He felt like a ghost on a train, letting metal tracks carry him away with the breeze. But the bus continued to push on and hail passengers silently through the night and, at his stop, Tora walked gratefully away.
---
"Who's that?"
Coffee trailed a curl of steam under his nose and Tora looked up to find a curious coworker hovering over his desk.
"He ran away," Tora replied, in lieu of a real answer. Who's that? He knew no more than the next person. He barely even understood why he'd pulled out his phone and stolen a shot.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Have you called the police?" Superficial concern.
Snapping his phone shut, Tora pocketed the device and smiled softly in his seat.
"He'll come back."
---
It was funny, but Hiroto never realized how close he was getting, this stranger that took the seat across from him every day.
Once in a while, in a good mood perhaps, the raven haired man would take the seat right next to him and instantly regret it the second the bus took off. It made Hiroto smile, secretly hiding the upturned lips in his knees. He made people uncomfortable and it was a comfort to see.
But even those clumsy awkward moments weren't enough, never enough, not on Wednesdays when the day never ceased to be. Rain dotted the sky and floundered leaves in the street. Grey and grey and pale and grey and he didn't touch his candies or drop the acid, instead he downed a fizzy drink and sucked in his shivery shakes. Because the more he took in between, the more it took to see.
Every day was one pill in the morning for the ache in his chest, one at night to make him forget. Sleep bringers and pain killers and he didn't know why. But it was better to forget. At home he was a mess, but thankfully no one was there to see it. And school was a timetable, straight lines, one pass and four transits. And emotions were bagfuls of colors and lies. And strangers were legions and armies of tiny ants and polite-quiet friends.
And the rain made him sad.
The sunsets cuts deeper.
Hiroto wrapped bony elbows to his sides and peered out the fading window.
Sunset cut like the fogs that could never made it clearer. Nothing made sense. Nothing made sense.
"Hey." There was a voice beside him. "Are you okay?" Furrowed eyebrows danced across his vision and he could see flicker-pattern outlines that lately he'd being fighting harder and harder to ignore.
---
"The sunset is sad," he whispered, eyes that looked far too lost glued to the floor.
In Tora's story he had no one at home to love, scrawny limbs and fading jeans and an empty space where his heart struggled its hardest to breathe. He would never know what possessed him, never understand the voice calling him. Reaching forward, Tora gathered a complete stranger into his arms and buried his nose against soapy, flat hair.
"When I put my fingers here, I can see it shining through me."
The words were muffled against his shoulder and Tora wanted nothing more than to make it better.
"So easy... Like I'm not here."
"But I can see you."
Soft, soft confessions.
"I'm not going through you."
Soft, soft tears.
It hurt to think, hurt to feel.
Stranger and stranger.
Strangers to strangers.
But somehow, right now, this stranger's touch meant more than the world to him.
A/N:
Ahhhh that may not have made sense but comments = ♥
E (Mindy, Mandy, Molly lol) = ecstasy, acid = LSD. D:
Archive