Because You Never Get Second Chances -- Part Four
Title: Because You Never Get Second Chances
Fandom: Gravitation
Pairings: mainly Eiri/Shuichi, Shuichi/OC, Hiro/Ayaka, Yuji/Suguru, Tatsuha/Maiko
Rating: R, for content and language
Warnings: CHARACTER DEATH
Part Four: Shut Up Now; or, nothing really makes sense anymore
Nao was already awake and eating breakfast in an oversized T-shirt of Tatsuha’s when Mika and Tohma walked blearily into the kitchen, swinging her bare legs underneath the table. She’d spilled some cereal on the floor, but promised to clean it up when she was done, so they didn’t reprimand her for it. She watched while her parents, unusually sluggish with the strain of stress and sorrow, brewed fresh coffee and poured it for each other into their respective mugs. She waited until they were both seated before she got their attention with the big dark blue eyes she’d inherited from her mother.
“I think I know what’s going on now.” Her voice lacked solemnity, but it was simple enough to make Tohma and Mika’s grips on their mugs tighten. “Uncle is gone, and he isn’t coming back, is he?”
They were silent for a moment until Tohma nodded his head.
“That’s right. He isn’t coming back.”
Nao made a soft sound of understanding in the back of her throat.
“That’s what I thought.”
“But, honey,” Mika said quickly, almost panicked, “you have to understand that death is something we can’t control, and that this was something your uncle was…prepared for, and…” Her voice trailed off, words escaping her and she looked down at her coffee.
Nao swallowed a spoonful of cereal and cocked her head to one side.
“So it’s a good thing?”
“Well,” Tohma mused aloud. “It isn’t a horrible thing, but neither is a very pleasant thing.”
“But, I mean, is he in a better place?”
“Yes,” Mika answered without missing a beat and Tohma glanced at her. “I’m sure he is.”
“That’s a good thing, then,” Nao declared, finishing off her cereal. She paused before she jumped down off her chair to say, “But I can still miss him, right?”
Mika and Tohma looked at her fondly, with gentle expressions, and nodded.
“Of course you can.”
Shuichi woke up sprawled halfway on the couch in Eiri’s apartment, his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He hadn’t changed after the funeral; he and Hiro and Ayaka had gone out for drinks afterwards and he’d collapsed, exhausted, as soon as Hiro dropped him off. He could only remember flashes of the night; he’d never been very good at holding his liquor, but he remembered clearly the longing look in Hiro’s eyes when Ayaka touched his hand. He’d felt like he’d gone back in time, and he was witnessing the first stages of their annoyingly tentative romance all over again. He might’ve even called out Eiri’s name when he stumbled into the dark living room, so caught up in the feeling of déjà vu.
He answered with a sleepy “hello” into his phone and it almost took him a moment to recognize Ahmed’s voice on the other end.
“Hey. You didn’t call when you got in or anything.”
Shuichi sat up and rubbed at his eyes.
“Yeah, I know. Sorry. I’ve been pretty-”
“You know when you’re getting back?”
Shuichi let that slide; the rest of his sentence wasn't going to be all that important anyway.
“Not yet. I-”
“‘Cause I think we’re gonna have a gig later this week, so-”
“I own the lease on his apartment.”
“Whose apartment?”
Shuichi gave the phone a “duh” look.
“Eiri’s apartment.”
“Oh.” He made a confused-sounding laugh. “That’s odd.”
“Yeah. But I’ve got to figure out what to do with it.”
“So, what are you-what are you saying?”
Shuichi frowned, stretching.
“I’m not saying anything, I just gotta figure out some things.”
“So when are you coming home?”
“I don’t know!” Shuichi sighed and heard how aggravated Ahmed’s heavy breathing sounded.
“I don’t like that.”
“Sorry.” Ahmed didn’t say anything. “Look, I just can’t leave, okay? The guy left me his apartment and all his stuff. I’ve gotta…do something with it.”
“You can’t leave?”
“Not yet.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“Say what?”
“Yet.”
“What?”
“Forget it. Just call me when you’ve figured it out.”
“Hey-”
“I love you, all right?”
“I-” Something cold seized his neck, and the words stopped in his throat. He couldn’t speak, could only stare, wide-eyed, at the empty air.
“Whatever.” Ahmed hung up and Shuichi managed to gasp, “Wait”, but too late. Slowly, Shuichi closed his cell phone and rubbed at his neck, curiously. The cold was still there, but it felt less threatening, now a firm but gentle caress on his skin. Shuichi allowed it, tilting his head slightly; it reminded him of the coaxing way Eiri would rub at his neck when he either wanted sex or wanted him to be quiet. It felt so much like it. Too much like it. Shuichi jerked away from it and it did not follow.
“That isn’t funny,” he spoke quietly to the apartment, knowing who we was talking to but unsure if they could hear him. “If you do that again, I’ll…scream. Or I’ll cry. I know you hate that.” He waited for a minute, and another, and almost relaxed before it returned again, lighter and less insistent, across his jaw. “That isn’t fair,” he said, blinking back the aforementioned tears he knew would soon threaten to spill. “You shouldn’t be able to do that, it isn’t fair.” The cold ignored him, moving up to touch his cheek, brush his lips-“Stop it!” And he didn’t mean to yell, but it really wasn’t fair and it was fairly scary. The cold left him alone. But after a while, he wanted it to come back.
-
The four of them were sitting in the park. Suguru sat on the left end of the bench, watching leaves idly flutter and fall from nearby trees. Ayaka sat on the right end, worrying her hands in her lap. Hiro sat in front of her on the ground, humming something indistinct-a familiar tune that calmed him when he took his medical tests. And Yuji sat beside him, observing a group of small children on the playground with a small smile on his face.
“They have no idea what they’re in for,” he said, finally, breaking the silence they’d shared since arriving at the peaceful park.
“I thought we were here to try and get away from that,” Hiro remarked, flicking a pebble away from his sneaker.
Suguru almost laughed, almost scoffed, simultaneously, and asked, “Is that even possible?”
“Maybe their lives will be a different time,” Ayaka referred back to the care-free children. “Maybe people will change.”
“People are the same and they have been for years.” Yuji sighed and leaned back against the edge of the bench.
Hiro nodded in agreement.
“There will always be suicide.”
“There will always be selfishness and greed,” Suguru said, earning a cough from Yuji.
“There will always be unhappiness,” Ayaka continued, resigning to the truthfulness of their words.
“There will always be break ups and messy make ups and people just trying to do what they think is right for themselves.” Yuji tilted his head to the right so it rested against Suguru’s knee. “People will always make mistakes.”
“And they’ll have to pay for them.” Hiro noticed how Ayaka’s legs stiffened, and he might’ve taken his comment back, but he’d already said it and he’d meant it.
“Life can be such a let down sometimes,” Suguru said, and everyone was quiet as the words processed in their heads and aching hearts.
“You’re right,” Ayaka agreed, her voice wavering slightly. “It’s terrible, but you’re…so right.”
Yuji forced himself to keep watching the kids at play, to keep listening to their laughter.
“I keep wanting life to be so beautiful.”
Hiro closed his eyes.
“But then something like this happens…”
Suguru’s eyes followed a leaf.
“And it makes you realize…”
Ayaka’s knuckles turned white as her hands gripped at each other tightly, and she couldn’t say anything. Yuji finally tore his gaze away and inspected the dirt beneath his palms before finishing, “…just how ugly it really is.”
A child fell from the monkey bars and skinned his knees. The other children paused in their play and all eyes were on him as he started to cry.
-
Tohma was struggling not to wish a long, painful, bloody death upon a certain pink-haired ex-lover of his dead brother-in-law’s. He was struggling not to linger on the image of his hands that now gripped the steering wheel in an equally suffocating vice around the singer’s slender neck. But it was so very, very difficult. It was so difficult because he’d just gotten around to opening Eiri’s laptop and typing in the secret password (if I told you, I’d have to kill you) and-and-Well, it wasn’t like he didn’t expect to see stories and notes and journaling entries about Shuichi, but did there have to be so many? And did they have to say everything Tohma knew, but had been hoping wasn’t true-how much Shuichi was missed, how much he plagued Eiri’s thoughts and dreams and nightmares, how badly Eiri was really suffering because Shuichi left. The novelist had been so good at playing stoic, always had been. And Tohma had known that Eiri missed him. Of course he had. Everyone had. Everyone had known except Shuichi himself, apparently. Because he was so blinded by American popularity and a man with dark skin and a drum set. And that was why Tohma was so pissed, because the singer had so stupidly allowed himself to not think about Eiri. And now look what had happened. That was why Tohma was pissed, and that was why he was pulling into the familiar parking lot and going up to that apartment that he hadn’t been in since that day, with his mind set on not killing Shuichi, but making him wish he was dead a hundred times over.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Shuichi gulped, inaudible, and backed away from Tohma’s icy green glare.
“Do you really know? And yet you’re still able to stand here?”
“Seguchi-san-”
“His blood was right there!” He pointed at the wall, so firm and urgent that Shuichi had to look, had to see the spot. “His blood splattered on that wall when he saw you kiss your American fiancé on that television screen!”
Shuichi clenched his eyes shut and something like a whimper escaped his lips. Tohma let his arm fall to his side slowly.
“You should see his laptop. You should see what he said about you. What was it he wrote? That you were ‘there in the background noise’ of his life, entering his thoughts ‘in the form of birdsong, car horns, and the sound of gently falling rain’-”
“Stop it,” Shuichi pleaded through a whisper.
“Oh, but there was so much more. He wrote about the orange jacket that clashed horribly with your hair, and wondered if you still wore it. He called you the ‘grains of paradise sand’ that he let slip through his fingers-”
“Stop it!” Shuichi snapped and lashed out blindly, not thinking, just wanting him to, “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it!”
Tohma grabbed Shuichi’s wrist before his fist could strike him, and the singer tried violently to wrench away, and they stumbled angrily until Shuichi was against the wall. He struggled, but Tohma bent his arm and held it hard against Shuichi’s collarbone, keeping him pinned in place.
“You had no idea what was going on here after you left! You didn’t even consider how upset he might’ve been, what he might’ve done! You had no idea and you didn’t even try to find out! You just left him here on his own! You are a miserable piece of shit!”
“I KNOW!” Shuichi wailed, anger and guilt spilling out of his eyes and down his cheeks. “I know, dammit, and do you have any idea how that feels?!” He shoved at the arm that held him still and reached out to grab at the lapels of Tohma’s coat. “I loved him! Okay?! I loved him just as much as you! And I killed him! I know I killed him and I hate myself for it! You can’t even imagine how that feels!” Shuichi choked on a heavy sob and Tohma felt each shudder that wracked through the singer’s body.
Slowly, haltingly, he took a step back and Shuichi’s fingers fell limply from his coat to cover his red and tear-streaked face. Without a word, his leftover anger mingling with something not unlike embarrassment, he left the apartment and went back to his car. As he drove out of the lot, Shuichi trembled against the wall, sliding down until he reached the floor. He ached in his head and fingers and stomach, but the tears would not stop coming. And finally something cold brushed over his hands, his face, and Shuichi cried harder.
“I wish you would hate me,” he managed through his tears, hoping with all his tattered heart that it would not go away. And it didn’t. It laced through his fingers and spread over his palms. He wanted to take that cold and wrap it around himself and stay that way forever.
On to Part Five
Back to Part Three
Fandom: Gravitation
Pairings: mainly Eiri/Shuichi, Shuichi/OC, Hiro/Ayaka, Yuji/Suguru, Tatsuha/Maiko
Rating: R, for content and language
Warnings: CHARACTER DEATH
Part Four: Shut Up Now; or, nothing really makes sense anymore
Nao was already awake and eating breakfast in an oversized T-shirt of Tatsuha’s when Mika and Tohma walked blearily into the kitchen, swinging her bare legs underneath the table. She’d spilled some cereal on the floor, but promised to clean it up when she was done, so they didn’t reprimand her for it. She watched while her parents, unusually sluggish with the strain of stress and sorrow, brewed fresh coffee and poured it for each other into their respective mugs. She waited until they were both seated before she got their attention with the big dark blue eyes she’d inherited from her mother.
“I think I know what’s going on now.” Her voice lacked solemnity, but it was simple enough to make Tohma and Mika’s grips on their mugs tighten. “Uncle is gone, and he isn’t coming back, is he?”
They were silent for a moment until Tohma nodded his head.
“That’s right. He isn’t coming back.”
Nao made a soft sound of understanding in the back of her throat.
“That’s what I thought.”
“But, honey,” Mika said quickly, almost panicked, “you have to understand that death is something we can’t control, and that this was something your uncle was…prepared for, and…” Her voice trailed off, words escaping her and she looked down at her coffee.
Nao swallowed a spoonful of cereal and cocked her head to one side.
“So it’s a good thing?”
“Well,” Tohma mused aloud. “It isn’t a horrible thing, but neither is a very pleasant thing.”
“But, I mean, is he in a better place?”
“Yes,” Mika answered without missing a beat and Tohma glanced at her. “I’m sure he is.”
“That’s a good thing, then,” Nao declared, finishing off her cereal. She paused before she jumped down off her chair to say, “But I can still miss him, right?”
Mika and Tohma looked at her fondly, with gentle expressions, and nodded.
“Of course you can.”
Shuichi woke up sprawled halfway on the couch in Eiri’s apartment, his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He hadn’t changed after the funeral; he and Hiro and Ayaka had gone out for drinks afterwards and he’d collapsed, exhausted, as soon as Hiro dropped him off. He could only remember flashes of the night; he’d never been very good at holding his liquor, but he remembered clearly the longing look in Hiro’s eyes when Ayaka touched his hand. He’d felt like he’d gone back in time, and he was witnessing the first stages of their annoyingly tentative romance all over again. He might’ve even called out Eiri’s name when he stumbled into the dark living room, so caught up in the feeling of déjà vu.
He answered with a sleepy “hello” into his phone and it almost took him a moment to recognize Ahmed’s voice on the other end.
“Hey. You didn’t call when you got in or anything.”
Shuichi sat up and rubbed at his eyes.
“Yeah, I know. Sorry. I’ve been pretty-”
“You know when you’re getting back?”
Shuichi let that slide; the rest of his sentence wasn't going to be all that important anyway.
“Not yet. I-”
“‘Cause I think we’re gonna have a gig later this week, so-”
“I own the lease on his apartment.”
“Whose apartment?”
Shuichi gave the phone a “duh” look.
“Eiri’s apartment.”
“Oh.” He made a confused-sounding laugh. “That’s odd.”
“Yeah. But I’ve got to figure out what to do with it.”
“So, what are you-what are you saying?”
Shuichi frowned, stretching.
“I’m not saying anything, I just gotta figure out some things.”
“So when are you coming home?”
“I don’t know!” Shuichi sighed and heard how aggravated Ahmed’s heavy breathing sounded.
“I don’t like that.”
“Sorry.” Ahmed didn’t say anything. “Look, I just can’t leave, okay? The guy left me his apartment and all his stuff. I’ve gotta…do something with it.”
“You can’t leave?”
“Not yet.”
“You didn’t say that.”
“Say what?”
“Yet.”
“What?”
“Forget it. Just call me when you’ve figured it out.”
“Hey-”
“I love you, all right?”
“I-” Something cold seized his neck, and the words stopped in his throat. He couldn’t speak, could only stare, wide-eyed, at the empty air.
“Whatever.” Ahmed hung up and Shuichi managed to gasp, “Wait”, but too late. Slowly, Shuichi closed his cell phone and rubbed at his neck, curiously. The cold was still there, but it felt less threatening, now a firm but gentle caress on his skin. Shuichi allowed it, tilting his head slightly; it reminded him of the coaxing way Eiri would rub at his neck when he either wanted sex or wanted him to be quiet. It felt so much like it. Too much like it. Shuichi jerked away from it and it did not follow.
“That isn’t funny,” he spoke quietly to the apartment, knowing who we was talking to but unsure if they could hear him. “If you do that again, I’ll…scream. Or I’ll cry. I know you hate that.” He waited for a minute, and another, and almost relaxed before it returned again, lighter and less insistent, across his jaw. “That isn’t fair,” he said, blinking back the aforementioned tears he knew would soon threaten to spill. “You shouldn’t be able to do that, it isn’t fair.” The cold ignored him, moving up to touch his cheek, brush his lips-“Stop it!” And he didn’t mean to yell, but it really wasn’t fair and it was fairly scary. The cold left him alone. But after a while, he wanted it to come back.
-
The four of them were sitting in the park. Suguru sat on the left end of the bench, watching leaves idly flutter and fall from nearby trees. Ayaka sat on the right end, worrying her hands in her lap. Hiro sat in front of her on the ground, humming something indistinct-a familiar tune that calmed him when he took his medical tests. And Yuji sat beside him, observing a group of small children on the playground with a small smile on his face.
“They have no idea what they’re in for,” he said, finally, breaking the silence they’d shared since arriving at the peaceful park.
“I thought we were here to try and get away from that,” Hiro remarked, flicking a pebble away from his sneaker.
Suguru almost laughed, almost scoffed, simultaneously, and asked, “Is that even possible?”
“Maybe their lives will be a different time,” Ayaka referred back to the care-free children. “Maybe people will change.”
“People are the same and they have been for years.” Yuji sighed and leaned back against the edge of the bench.
Hiro nodded in agreement.
“There will always be suicide.”
“There will always be selfishness and greed,” Suguru said, earning a cough from Yuji.
“There will always be unhappiness,” Ayaka continued, resigning to the truthfulness of their words.
“There will always be break ups and messy make ups and people just trying to do what they think is right for themselves.” Yuji tilted his head to the right so it rested against Suguru’s knee. “People will always make mistakes.”
“And they’ll have to pay for them.” Hiro noticed how Ayaka’s legs stiffened, and he might’ve taken his comment back, but he’d already said it and he’d meant it.
“Life can be such a let down sometimes,” Suguru said, and everyone was quiet as the words processed in their heads and aching hearts.
“You’re right,” Ayaka agreed, her voice wavering slightly. “It’s terrible, but you’re…so right.”
Yuji forced himself to keep watching the kids at play, to keep listening to their laughter.
“I keep wanting life to be so beautiful.”
Hiro closed his eyes.
“But then something like this happens…”
Suguru’s eyes followed a leaf.
“And it makes you realize…”
Ayaka’s knuckles turned white as her hands gripped at each other tightly, and she couldn’t say anything. Yuji finally tore his gaze away and inspected the dirt beneath his palms before finishing, “…just how ugly it really is.”
A child fell from the monkey bars and skinned his knees. The other children paused in their play and all eyes were on him as he started to cry.
-
Tohma was struggling not to wish a long, painful, bloody death upon a certain pink-haired ex-lover of his dead brother-in-law’s. He was struggling not to linger on the image of his hands that now gripped the steering wheel in an equally suffocating vice around the singer’s slender neck. But it was so very, very difficult. It was so difficult because he’d just gotten around to opening Eiri’s laptop and typing in the secret password (if I told you, I’d have to kill you) and-and-Well, it wasn’t like he didn’t expect to see stories and notes and journaling entries about Shuichi, but did there have to be so many? And did they have to say everything Tohma knew, but had been hoping wasn’t true-how much Shuichi was missed, how much he plagued Eiri’s thoughts and dreams and nightmares, how badly Eiri was really suffering because Shuichi left. The novelist had been so good at playing stoic, always had been. And Tohma had known that Eiri missed him. Of course he had. Everyone had. Everyone had known except Shuichi himself, apparently. Because he was so blinded by American popularity and a man with dark skin and a drum set. And that was why Tohma was so pissed, because the singer had so stupidly allowed himself to not think about Eiri. And now look what had happened. That was why Tohma was pissed, and that was why he was pulling into the familiar parking lot and going up to that apartment that he hadn’t been in since that day, with his mind set on not killing Shuichi, but making him wish he was dead a hundred times over.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Shuichi gulped, inaudible, and backed away from Tohma’s icy green glare.
“Do you really know? And yet you’re still able to stand here?”
“Seguchi-san-”
“His blood was right there!” He pointed at the wall, so firm and urgent that Shuichi had to look, had to see the spot. “His blood splattered on that wall when he saw you kiss your American fiancé on that television screen!”
Shuichi clenched his eyes shut and something like a whimper escaped his lips. Tohma let his arm fall to his side slowly.
“You should see his laptop. You should see what he said about you. What was it he wrote? That you were ‘there in the background noise’ of his life, entering his thoughts ‘in the form of birdsong, car horns, and the sound of gently falling rain’-”
“Stop it,” Shuichi pleaded through a whisper.
“Oh, but there was so much more. He wrote about the orange jacket that clashed horribly with your hair, and wondered if you still wore it. He called you the ‘grains of paradise sand’ that he let slip through his fingers-”
“Stop it!” Shuichi snapped and lashed out blindly, not thinking, just wanting him to, “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it!”
Tohma grabbed Shuichi’s wrist before his fist could strike him, and the singer tried violently to wrench away, and they stumbled angrily until Shuichi was against the wall. He struggled, but Tohma bent his arm and held it hard against Shuichi’s collarbone, keeping him pinned in place.
“You had no idea what was going on here after you left! You didn’t even consider how upset he might’ve been, what he might’ve done! You had no idea and you didn’t even try to find out! You just left him here on his own! You are a miserable piece of shit!”
“I KNOW!” Shuichi wailed, anger and guilt spilling out of his eyes and down his cheeks. “I know, dammit, and do you have any idea how that feels?!” He shoved at the arm that held him still and reached out to grab at the lapels of Tohma’s coat. “I loved him! Okay?! I loved him just as much as you! And I killed him! I know I killed him and I hate myself for it! You can’t even imagine how that feels!” Shuichi choked on a heavy sob and Tohma felt each shudder that wracked through the singer’s body.
Slowly, haltingly, he took a step back and Shuichi’s fingers fell limply from his coat to cover his red and tear-streaked face. Without a word, his leftover anger mingling with something not unlike embarrassment, he left the apartment and went back to his car. As he drove out of the lot, Shuichi trembled against the wall, sliding down until he reached the floor. He ached in his head and fingers and stomach, but the tears would not stop coming. And finally something cold brushed over his hands, his face, and Shuichi cried harder.
“I wish you would hate me,” he managed through his tears, hoping with all his tattered heart that it would not go away. And it didn’t. It laced through his fingers and spread over his palms. He wanted to take that cold and wrap it around himself and stay that way forever.
On to Part Five
Back to Part Three