Gravitation -- Your Eyes (Eiri + OC, Eiri/Shuichi)
Title: Your Eyes
Fandom: Gravitation
Pairing: Nao Seguchi (OC) + Eiri, Eiri/Shuichi
Rating: PG-13, to be safe
Word Count: 778
Disclaimer: Gravitation and its characters do not belong to me.
A/N: Sidestory to “Because You Never Get Second Chances” that takes place before the present action of the story.
“I love your eyes,” they both said.
Your lover said it when he was lying on his stomach and the rays of early morning sunshine were slanted across his naked back. He was looking at you with half-lidded eyes, limpid, like he could devour you even though you were both tired and sore. He was running his fingers over your face and you vaguely worried about him being clumsy and poking you in the eye.
Your niece said it when she was showing you that she could put on her pajamas by herself and the beams of the evening moonlight were glowing across her pale neck. She was staring at you with her lips parted in fascination, like you were something mystical. Her hair was dripping wet on the bedroom floor and you just wanted her to go to sleep like a good little kid.
-
“Your eyes have pain in them,” he said once, when he was drunk and clingy and poetic. You wanted to ignore him, but he draped his body over you and sniffled loudly, solely for effect, and told you, “It makes me sad to see it, ‘cause I can’t help you.”
“Shut up,” you said, and you tried to move him, but he held onto you with his fingers curling into your shirt.
“But I mean it,” he continued, voice rising. “I mean that I can’t help you, and I feel really sad-bad about it, I do. I want to, but I can’t, and I-”
“Shut up,” you said, and you got so sick of him and his words and how much they made sense and hurt you, so you pushed him hard and didn’t wait to see him cry before you stepped over him and left. You made it up to him the next morning by giving him your last aspirin for his hangover. But you didn’t tell him about your own pain, and so he couldn’t make it up to you.
-
“I think your eyes came from the sun,” she said once, when you were walking her to the park and she’d insisted on you holding her hand. She smiled up at you and you knew you didn’t need to look, because kids just like to smile anyway, but you did, and she told you, “I think only gods can have eyes that are made from the sun.”
“I am a god,” you said, because she would believe you and you wanted her to.
“Really?” She gasped and her fingers tightened around yours. “I knew it. I told Mommy, but she didn’t believe me. But I knew it was true.”
“You’ve very smart,” you said, and you felt that tug in your chest you always got when you complimented someone, so you let go of her hand and you were at the park anyway, so she didn’t notice and look at you like you’d ran over a puppy. You pretended not to watch while she climbed up the slide instead of going down and you told yourself you only pushed her on the swing because you were out of cigarettes.
-
He saw too much in your eyes. He saw everything you tried to hide and more. He saw your anger, and it scared him. He saw your sharp coldness, and it stabbed him. He saw your desire, and it fueled him. He saw the smiles you never let show on your face, saw the tears you could not stop, saw the laughter he caused in his silliness and lovable antics. He saw your love there, and he cherished it. And whether or not he saw the hurt in your eyes when he decided to leave, when he spent days packing his things into boxes and kissing you goodbye, you’ll never know.
-
She didn’t see enough in your eyes. She saw the sun, and it made her worship you. She saw weariness, and she let you be. She saw tolerance, and she used that as much as she could. She saw the eyes of her uncle, the eyes of the man who taught her about the Greeks and how to tie her shoelace, the eyes of the man who bought her bubblegum when she was good and ignored her when she was bad. She saw your devotion, and she cherished it. But she didn’t see the tears-because you’d learned that lesson. And she didn’t see the pain still leftover from him and his last kisses, and so she didn’t see it coming-not the gun, not the blood, and most of all, not the loss of life.
And the funny thing was, you almost wanted her to.