Creases (One-shot)
Title: Creases
Chapters: N/A
Author: konicoffee
Genre: Drama, Mild Angst, Fluff
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story.
Warnings: Vague mention of sex, sadness
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Tora/Hiroto
Band/s: Alice Nine
Synopsis: Tora visits Hiroto, and amidst guitar notes and chords, he quietly mourns over their past.
Comments: Told in Tora's POV. Writer's block is demanding a rematch.
I had forgotten about the harsh cold outside as the gentle heat of your apartment engulfed me and slowly thawed my ears. Even during the coldest days, this place had always greeted me with such warmth. The frosted light that filtered through the window seemed to lose its cold while it outlined you in white. The blond hair on your head glowed, and it instantly made the room just a little brighter.
Maybe your smile did that too.
“Hey Tora,” you said as you got up from your seat. You looked at me wearing an expression not very much unlike that of a child waiting for cookies to finish baking. “Are you teaching me something new today?”
I nodded, cracking a smile while I gripped on the handle of my guitar case. Never in a million years did I imagine that I would ever have to give you guitar lessons.
You led me to your room, and I walked on the familiar hallway, and into the bedroom I knew all too well. The same smell of morning toast and cigarettes welcomed me back like the good friend it was to me. On a chair I sat while you plopped down on your bed, your own guitar in your arms and excitement on your face when I took my guitar out. Your eyes stayed fixed on my fingers as they moved along the fret board. Only when you tried playing on your own did you look away.
Every once in a while, I guided your fingers onto the right frets and the right strings. The familiar feeling of your fingertips stung, but the fact that you didn’t react to my touch hurt even more. It shouldn’t have, since I knew how hard it was to distract you whenever you had a guitar in your hands, but it did. Desperate not to let it break me down, I looked at the sheets that wrinkled underneath you. I watched sadly while I remembered how whispers of your name fell onto these sheets, how moans of my name spilled in between the folds of fabric.
Before that accident happened, before you lost most of your memories, we used to stay beside each other, in these creases. In these creases used to lay the man I was to you. Maybe it was all for the best, I kept telling myself. The fact that you survived was well worth losing that aspect of me, even though it was the only one that had any relevance.
A smile pulled on your lips as you continued practicing the riff you used to be able to play in your sleep. “I must have really loved playing guitar.”
My fingers scaled the neck of my guitar, and I played along with the melody we wrote together. “You played it day and night.”
Then you paused. “Was I in love with someone, Tora?”
Countless times I had prepared myself for this question, but it still felt like a bullet to my heart. There was no way I could tell you the truth. Not when I remembered with alarming clarity that particular argument of ours. I couldn’t possibly forget the sharp words that splintered the night and sent you drinking yourself into oblivion, then into your car, and halfway to your grave and past mine.
“Not that I know of.”
“I see,” you answered as you resumed your finger work on the fret board. “No, maybe you didn’t know about it. I think I was, very much so.”
I stayed quiet for a few seconds while I listened to you pluck a phrase you didn’t remember writing. The smile I wore on my face hurt my jaw and my chest; I didn’t deserve you, and I knew it. If losing our past really was payment for simple, sacred moments like these, then I had no right to bring Tora, your Tora, back from the dead. I couldn’t afford losing what little of you I had left.
“She’s lucky.”
You looked up from steel strings and grinned in appreciation, oblivious to how your smile and every bit of you assaulted my defenses. “Man, I’d give anything to remember her.”
My voice glossed over the widening crack in my chest. “You don’t have to follow her ghost,” I retorted, fighting with all my might to keep talking with a straight face. I then quietly swallowed what might have been a sob if I wasn’t careful. “Don’t be afraid to fall in love with someone else. Make new memories.”
I continued plucking random strings and pressing on random frets and gripped hard as breath by breath, I slowly accepted that I had to let you go. For as long as you were happy, that was fine. I didn’t need to be the reason. You deserved someone to make nice memories with - much better than the ones I gave you. Maybe, just maybe, as good as the ones you left me.
The more I accepted it, the harder it was to contain the silent scream in my head.
“I hope you don’t find this weird,” you said as you slowly placed your guitar on your bed. “It’s only been a short time since I got to know you again, but I thought I’d let you know that the new memories you gave me are the best ones I have so far.”
A million words came rushing through my head and pushing at my chest, but only one escaped me. “What?”
You moved closer, and you destroyed the walls I built around me with your fingertips as they gently brushed my cheek. As you tore at my soul, you looked at me. In your eyes I saw the same sincerity and the same tenderness you always had in my memories of sheets and creases - my memories of who I once was to you, and of who you will always be to me.
“If I didn’t love her so much,” you whispered. “I think I could have loved you.”
Chapters: N/A
Author: konicoffee
Genre: Drama, Mild Angst, Fluff
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story.
Warnings: Vague mention of sex, sadness
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Tora/Hiroto
Band/s: Alice Nine
Synopsis: Tora visits Hiroto, and amidst guitar notes and chords, he quietly mourns over their past.
Comments: Told in Tora's POV. Writer's block is demanding a rematch.
I had forgotten about the harsh cold outside as the gentle heat of your apartment engulfed me and slowly thawed my ears. Even during the coldest days, this place had always greeted me with such warmth. The frosted light that filtered through the window seemed to lose its cold while it outlined you in white. The blond hair on your head glowed, and it instantly made the room just a little brighter.
Maybe your smile did that too.
“Hey Tora,” you said as you got up from your seat. You looked at me wearing an expression not very much unlike that of a child waiting for cookies to finish baking. “Are you teaching me something new today?”
I nodded, cracking a smile while I gripped on the handle of my guitar case. Never in a million years did I imagine that I would ever have to give you guitar lessons.
You led me to your room, and I walked on the familiar hallway, and into the bedroom I knew all too well. The same smell of morning toast and cigarettes welcomed me back like the good friend it was to me. On a chair I sat while you plopped down on your bed, your own guitar in your arms and excitement on your face when I took my guitar out. Your eyes stayed fixed on my fingers as they moved along the fret board. Only when you tried playing on your own did you look away.
Every once in a while, I guided your fingers onto the right frets and the right strings. The familiar feeling of your fingertips stung, but the fact that you didn’t react to my touch hurt even more. It shouldn’t have, since I knew how hard it was to distract you whenever you had a guitar in your hands, but it did. Desperate not to let it break me down, I looked at the sheets that wrinkled underneath you. I watched sadly while I remembered how whispers of your name fell onto these sheets, how moans of my name spilled in between the folds of fabric.
Before that accident happened, before you lost most of your memories, we used to stay beside each other, in these creases. In these creases used to lay the man I was to you. Maybe it was all for the best, I kept telling myself. The fact that you survived was well worth losing that aspect of me, even though it was the only one that had any relevance.
A smile pulled on your lips as you continued practicing the riff you used to be able to play in your sleep. “I must have really loved playing guitar.”
My fingers scaled the neck of my guitar, and I played along with the melody we wrote together. “You played it day and night.”
Then you paused. “Was I in love with someone, Tora?”
Countless times I had prepared myself for this question, but it still felt like a bullet to my heart. There was no way I could tell you the truth. Not when I remembered with alarming clarity that particular argument of ours. I couldn’t possibly forget the sharp words that splintered the night and sent you drinking yourself into oblivion, then into your car, and halfway to your grave and past mine.
“Not that I know of.”
“I see,” you answered as you resumed your finger work on the fret board. “No, maybe you didn’t know about it. I think I was, very much so.”
I stayed quiet for a few seconds while I listened to you pluck a phrase you didn’t remember writing. The smile I wore on my face hurt my jaw and my chest; I didn’t deserve you, and I knew it. If losing our past really was payment for simple, sacred moments like these, then I had no right to bring Tora, your Tora, back from the dead. I couldn’t afford losing what little of you I had left.
“She’s lucky.”
You looked up from steel strings and grinned in appreciation, oblivious to how your smile and every bit of you assaulted my defenses. “Man, I’d give anything to remember her.”
My voice glossed over the widening crack in my chest. “You don’t have to follow her ghost,” I retorted, fighting with all my might to keep talking with a straight face. I then quietly swallowed what might have been a sob if I wasn’t careful. “Don’t be afraid to fall in love with someone else. Make new memories.”
I continued plucking random strings and pressing on random frets and gripped hard as breath by breath, I slowly accepted that I had to let you go. For as long as you were happy, that was fine. I didn’t need to be the reason. You deserved someone to make nice memories with - much better than the ones I gave you. Maybe, just maybe, as good as the ones you left me.
The more I accepted it, the harder it was to contain the silent scream in my head.
“I hope you don’t find this weird,” you said as you slowly placed your guitar on your bed. “It’s only been a short time since I got to know you again, but I thought I’d let you know that the new memories you gave me are the best ones I have so far.”
A million words came rushing through my head and pushing at my chest, but only one escaped me. “What?”
You moved closer, and you destroyed the walls I built around me with your fingertips as they gently brushed my cheek. As you tore at my soul, you looked at me. In your eyes I saw the same sincerity and the same tenderness you always had in my memories of sheets and creases - my memories of who I once was to you, and of who you will always be to me.
“If I didn’t love her so much,” you whispered. “I think I could have loved you.”