gravitation (general), prompt #27
It started the day they moved into their new apartment. There was nothing wrong with the new one, really, but Eiri had problems staying in one place and, besides, this one had an extra room. They’d decided to turn into the guest room they’d once had, the guest room Riku’s bedroom had replaced in the old apartment. It was empty, currently, and they were debating whether to paint or wallpaper it. Shuichi thought that painting a room together would be a bonding experience; Eiri thought that painting a room together would be a fucking nightmare.
A fucking nightmare. That’s what Eiri thought it was when it first happened. One moment he was sitting on the couch with a cigarette, exhausted from moving in all day, and the next he was walking into a hospital.
He was moving with a purpose, but he didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what he was doing there. He hated hospitals. The walls were too white, the lights were too blinding, the people were too sick. He was walking fast. He darted inside an elevator before its doors closed and tried not to look at the young woman was on her cell phone, breaking up with her boyfriend.
“I need some goddamn space,” she kept saying. “I need some goddamn space.”
He nearly ran into Sakano when he got off the elevator. Seguchi’s lapdog looked at him and Eiri saw his wet eyes refocusing behind the lenses of his glasses. Tears were streaming down his cheeks but his crying was silent, for perhaps the first time.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Eiri didn’t know why and wanted to punch him until he understood, but he was walking again.
He walked down a corridor, flinching under the bright lights, and he knew he was going to a waiting room. He didn’t want to go to a waiting room. Waiting rooms were the worst part of hospitals. Waiting was the worst part of waiting rooms. Waiting was the worst part of life.
Hiro was there when he reached it. He was waiting for him, Eiri somehow knew. The guitarist reached out and touched his arm, but he drew back. He didn’t want to be touched. He wanted to know, know what the hell was going on.
“They couldn’t do anything,” Hiro said. (Who, Eiri wanted to ask. What are you talking about, he wanted to ask.) “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance.” (Waiting, waiting, waiting-fuck waiting, he hated waiting.) “He said that you were right, and to go with green.” (What, he wanted to ask. What, what, what-)
“What?”
“I said, you’re about to-”
Pain swelled on Eiri’s fingers. “Fuck,” he hissed and dropped his cigarette, burnt down to the filter, onto the floor, where he put it out with his slipper-covered foot.
“-burn yourself,” Shuichi finished.
“Should’ve said something, damn brat,” Eiri muttered, repressing the need to shiver; the nightmare or whatever the hell it was had left a bad, cold feeling inside of him.
“I did.” Shuichi frowned. “You just sat there like a zombie.”
“I’m tired,” he snapped. So he must’ve fallen asleep. He must’ve just nodded off with his eyes open and had a fucking nightmare. That was the only reason that made sense, so he stuck to it because sense was good and anything else-not knowing, waiting-was very bad.
[-]
It happened again two days later, and this time it was worse.
He was standing on the beach, although mere seconds ago he’d been sitting at his desk, pretending to work. Now his feet were in sand and seagulls were squawking nearby and Shuichi was holding Riku as they let themselves get knocked over by the waves. The sky was growing dark, cloudy, and it was windy; Shuichi’s laughter sounded miles away.
“We should go!” he called. He frowned as he watched Shuichi pull Riku to his feet, realizing he’d spoken without meaning to. He hadn’t tried to. He just had. “It’s going to storm,” he warned, and felt a sudden rush of recognition.
He’d spoken these words before. This had all happened before. This was a memory. But why did it feel like it was real? Like he was reliving it? He opened his mouth to speak and he knew what he was going to say; he knew what was going to happen, and yet he didn’t duck when Shuichi and Riku splashed him.
“Goddamn-”
“-space. I need some goddamn space.”
The elevator dinged as it reached the next floor. Eiri groaned, and although the sound that actually escaped him was pretty pathetic, he was somewhat pleased he’d actually been able to voluntarily make a noise.
He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to do this again. He didn’t understand this. If he had to be anywhere other than his study, he wanted to be back on the beach. He wanted to be there, yelling at Shuichi and Riku for getting his clothes wet only to find out it didn’t matter because it started raining before they could get to the car.
The doors opened; he stepped out and almost bumped into the teary Sakano. He tried to snap at him, to tell him to stop your damn crying, but all that came out was a bit of a hiss.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Eiri walked around him, heading for the bright, white corridor that led to the dreaded waiting-waiting-waiting room.
He practiced speaking as he walked, growing increasingly alarmed with this entire process. What the hell was going on, and why was it going on, and how would it be going on for? Was he gradually going insane?
He got out a “what” by the time he reached Hiro, but that was all, and then the guitarist was reaching for his arm, and he was pulling away.
“They couldn’t do anything,” Hiro said. “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance. He said that you were right, and to go with green.”
There was gibberish on his computer screen when Eiri returned. His finger was shaking when he pressed the delete key. He swallowed, hard, and tried to go on as if nothing had happened.
[-]
It happened again. He’d been standing in the middle of the empty guest room, picturing the kind of furniture he wanted to buy for it, and then he was in his lawyer’s office, a pen in hand, hovering over a familiar document. Riku’s adoption papers.
He remembered this. He’d thought about this moment many times, sometimes with fondness, sometimes with annoyance, sometimes with disbelief.
“Wait.” Shuichi’s hands grabbed his before he could sign, and he looked at the singer, knowing, remembering, what he was going to ask. “You-really want this? You’re really, really sure? Like, positive?”
When this had happened the first time, he’d lied. He’d said, “No.” He’d said, “Let’s rip it up and get out of here while we still can.” It’d taken him close to an hour to convince Shuichi he’d been kidding, and he wasn’t sure if the singer had ever really believed him.
This time, he stopped himself. It was hard, but he did it. And, after fighting with his uncooperative throat muscles, he forced himself to speak, and speak truthfully.
“Yes.”
Shuichi looked at him, eyes searching his. He bit his lip and Eiri knew he was trying not to smile so soon. But he couldn’t hold it back; he never really could. He released Eiri’s hand and watched, grinning, on the verge of a giddy freak out, as Eiri signed his name and made Riku his. Again.
It felt just as good the second time around.
The corner of his mouth curved upward slightly as Shuichi squealed and hugged his arm. (Yeah, he thought, I should’ve done this right the first time.) The younger man’s lips pressed against his cheek and his lawyer’s phone started ringing.
No…it wasn’t his lawyer’s phone; it was-
His phone was ringing.
A part of him knew it was Shuichi. It had to be. But another part of him knew that wasn’t true, and that part of him was scared and nervous and cold. He stood over the phone, hands in his pockets, as it rang and rang and rang, and the answering machine beeped.
“Yuki-san-” (Hiro. Eiri felt his heart sink.) “-if you’re there, pick up, please. I’m at the hospital. It’s-”
“It’s cute on you.”
Eiri realized he was reaching for a phone that was no longer there. He was in a dressing room, looking at himself in the mirror. This was new. This hadn’t happened before. He could tell, because he’d never seen a shirt as hideous as the one he was wearing.
“You’re the most delusional man I’ve ever met,” he said, glaring at Shuichi in the mirror. “This shirt is disgusting.”
“It’s just different.”
“It has polka dots.”
Shuichi giggled, coming to stand in front of him. Slender singer fingers reached for the shirt buttons, popping them open slowly, purposefully, one by one by one. “I guess we’ll have to take it off, then.”
Eiri arched an eyebrow, but didn’t protest. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. This was infinitely preferable to the hospital, the phone call, everything else.
Shuichi slid the polka-dotted monstrosity off his shoulders and rose up to kiss him, whispering his name in a voice dripping with desire and affection, “Yuki…”
“Yuki!”
(Dammit.) Eiri frowned up at the two faces (one etched with concern and near-hysteria, the other with its usual bug-eyed robot look) hovering over him. When had he ended up on the guest room floor? He couldn’t be sure. He sat up, ineffectively attempting to wave them away.
“I’m fine.”
“But-”
“I’m fine.” He started to stand, but stopped, looking at them seriously. “But listen. I don’t wear polka dots.”
Shuichi’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”
Riku just nodded. “That’s wise.”
[-]
“They couldn’t do anything,” Hiro said. “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance. He said that you were right, and to go with green.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I thought you would.”
“Well, I don’t.” And he didn’t like it. And he was sick of it. And he wasn’t aware of Hiro reaching for him again until the guitarist’s hands were gripping his arms. “What-”
“Sorry.” His voice came out hoarse, cracked with emotion. “I just-I didn’t see it coming.”
Eiri heard a sob.
Eiri moved his head slightly, just so Shuichi wasn’t sobbing directly into his ear. He held the boy in his lap lightly, one hand rubbing his back in a soothing manner. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if this was past or future, but when he glanced at the singer he saw that his ear was hole-free. Past, then. Before he got that silly piercing so he could say that he and Eiri matched.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, even though he didn’t know what the problem was.
“How do you know?” came the muffled response somewhere between his jaw and his shoulder.
“I just do,” he said. His hand moved up to Shuichi’s head and his fingers sifted through pink hair. “Trust me.”
Shuichi sniffled, clung to him tightly. Eiri found that he liked the way that felt; he wondered if he’d really savored the feeling when this actually happened, but he figured he probably hadn’t.
Shuichi rubbed his nose against Eiri’s neck and murmured, “I-”
“-trust you,” Shuichi promised, eyes squeezed shut.
Eiri remembered this instantly. He was facing Shuichi, holding his hand. Hidden in his free, fisted hand was a ring.
It was the day before they would board a plane together, a day before they would go to New York and meet Riku. Eiri remembered thinking, in the days that followed everything that went down in New York, that he shouldn’t have done this so soon. He remembered regretting it, doubting (especially after a certain incident with that infuriating Sakuma) he and Shuichi would actually make it. He remembered looking down at the ring on his own finger and thinking, these mean absolutely nothing.
“Yuki?”
Eiri shushed him. His silence and stillness was obviously making the boy restless. He inhaled and exhaled slowly before opening his fist and looking at the ring. Those days of doubt, of regret had been hard. But…
“Yu-”
“I told you to be quiet.”
“You’re making me nervous!”
Eiri sighed and gripped his hand tighter, taking the ring and slipping it on the boy’s finger. The days had been hard, yes, but they’d gotten through them, hadn’t they? Shuichi’s eyes opened, widened incredulously.
“Y-”
“Before you ask,” he said, “the answer is yes. These mean exactly what you think they mean.”
Tears sprang to Shuichi’s eyes as he lunged, throwing his arms around Eiri’s neck. “Oh, Y-”
“-uki’s study.”
Eiri looked into the room Shuichi was pointing at. He nodded in approval. “Yu-” He growled slightly as he caught himself, and corrected, “My study.”
Shuichi snickered and received a light smack on the back of his head. He moved on down the hallway, holding Eiri’s hand and coaxing him to follow. This was past, as well, but extremely recent. They were figuring out the rooms of their new apartment.
“Bedroom.”
Eiri nodded. “Lair of Sex God.”
“Riku’s room.”
“Brat’s room.”
Shuichi stopped by the last door in the hallway and looked at Eiri as he asked, “Guest room?”
“Yeah,” Eiri said. “It’s the guest room.”
[-]
The phone was ringing, ringing, ringing. He stared at it, waiting, waiting, waiting. The answering machine beeped.
“Yuki-san, if you’re there, pick up, please. I’m at the hospital. It’s Shuichi. There was an accident. It-”
He picked up the receiver so fast he almost dropped it, and he asked-
“What?”
He felt Shuichi looking at him, a bit angrily, but he was driving and couldn’t look away from the road.
“You-you aren’t listening to me!”
Eiri gripped the steering wheel and scowled, muttering, more to himself than to his companion, “Dammit, I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”
Shuichi huffed. “Whatever, Yuki.”
Eiri pursed his lips in irritation and drove in silence for a moment or two. “…Sorry.”
He felt Shuichi looking at him again, this time a bit concernedly. “What’s wrong with you? Are you-”
“-okay?”
Eiri stared up at the bedroom ceiling as Shuichi traced patterns on his chest. This was present. Maybe. He could barely tell, really. If this went on much longer, he felt his head might explode.
“Yuki,” Shuichi repeated softly, “are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I think something is happening to me. Or to you. Or to us.”
“Yuki…do-do you need your medicine or something?”
“I’m out.”
“Should I call the-”
“-the hospital. It’s Shuichi. There was an accident. It-”
“-‘ll be okay,” he said.
“How do you know?” came the muffled response somewhere between his jaw and his shoulder.
“I just do.” His hand moved up to Shuichi’s head and his fingers sifted through pink hair. “Trust-”
“-you,” Shuichi promised, eyes squeezed shut.
Eiri was holding his hand-
-coaxing him to follow.
“Bedroom.”
“Lair of Sex God.”
“Riku’s bedroom.”
“Brat’s bedroom.”
“Guest room?”
“Yeah. It’s-”
“-going to storm,” he warned, and he didn’t duck when Shuichi and Riku splashed him. “Goddamn-”
“-space. I need some goddamn space.”
He nearly ran into Sakano when he got off the elevator. The man looked at him, wet eyes refocusing behind the lenses of his glasses. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Eiri walked around him and headed down the corridor (bright, white) to the waiting (fuck waiting) room where Hiro was waiting (fuck waiting) for him. The guitarist reached for his arm and Eiri let him grasp it.
“They couldn’t do anything,” he said. “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance. He said that you were right, and to go with-”
[-]
“Green,” Eiri said, without looking up from his freshly printed manuscript. The flashes of past and future had stopped two days ago; he didn’t dare question why. But he’d found that time travel had done wonderful things for his writing.
“I was thinking orange.”
Eiri didn’t even try to repress the shudder. “Hell no.”
“What’s wrong with orange?”
“I’m not painting my guest room orange.”
Shuichi drummed his fingers angrily on the tabletop. “I thought it was our guest room.”
Eiri lowered his manuscript to give Shuichi a pointed look. “Not if it’s going to be orange.”
Shuichi’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it.”
The singer slammed his palm down on the table. “Yuki, you can’t do that anymore!”
Eiri’s expression didn’t change much; the boy was such a drama queen. “Do what?”
“You can’t threaten to kick me out every time I disagree with you!”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Then you’re an idiot!”
Eiri raised and lowered one shoulder, looked back at the papers in his hand. “Takes one to know one.”
“Oh-screw you, Yuki!” Shuichi stood and stormed out.
Drama queen. “Where are you going?” he asked with well-practiced nonchalance.
“Lunch,” Shuichi bit out from the living room. “I’m meeting Hiro and Sakano. Like you care.”
“Hm,” he hummed lowly, a little teasingly. “Of course I-” He stopped. His eyes were still trained on the words of his manuscript, but he wasn’t seeing them. He was seeing the phone, ringing, and the bright, white corridor, and- “Wait.” He heard nothing and his heart started pounding. His manuscript fell to the floor as he stood, quickly, and went out to the living room where Shuichi was putting on his sneakers. “Wait. Let me take you.”
Shuichi frowned and didn’t look at him. “Why? So we can fight some more? No thanks.”
Eiri grabbed the singer’s wrist as he reached for the doorknob. “Let me take you.”
Shuichi stared at Eiri’s hand on his wrist, then at the door. “Okay.”
They drove in silence. Eiri couldn’t seem to decide if he was nervous, relieved, or absolutely insane. If his thinking was right-if this was the day of the accident-would it still happen no matter what he did? Was this the day of the accident? Was there really going to be an accident in the first place? Was everything he’d gone through really real? He didn’t know, he just didn’t know, but he had to try, he just had to-
“Yuki!”
Shuichi’s fingers digging into his arm snapped him out of his thoughts, and he stepped down on the brake just a car came barreling recklessly through a red light, just missing the front bumper of their car. (That’s the car that killed him, Eiri thought. Eiri knew. Somehow.)
Shuichi’s grip on his arm relaxed slightly as Eiri slowly resumed driving, pulling up in front of the restaurant that stood across the street. “Crazy driver.”
Eiri nodded silently. Shuichi released him and unbuckled his seatbelt, waiting a moment before opening the door and climbing out. He stilled, not looking back as he asked, “Picking me up?”
“Yes.” Not because he had to, he knew, but because he wanted to. “Hey.”
Shuichi did look back at him, then, eyebrow arched.
“You’re right. Let’s go with orange.”
A fucking nightmare. That’s what Eiri thought it was when it first happened. One moment he was sitting on the couch with a cigarette, exhausted from moving in all day, and the next he was walking into a hospital.
He was moving with a purpose, but he didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what he was doing there. He hated hospitals. The walls were too white, the lights were too blinding, the people were too sick. He was walking fast. He darted inside an elevator before its doors closed and tried not to look at the young woman was on her cell phone, breaking up with her boyfriend.
“I need some goddamn space,” she kept saying. “I need some goddamn space.”
He nearly ran into Sakano when he got off the elevator. Seguchi’s lapdog looked at him and Eiri saw his wet eyes refocusing behind the lenses of his glasses. Tears were streaming down his cheeks but his crying was silent, for perhaps the first time.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Eiri didn’t know why and wanted to punch him until he understood, but he was walking again.
He walked down a corridor, flinching under the bright lights, and he knew he was going to a waiting room. He didn’t want to go to a waiting room. Waiting rooms were the worst part of hospitals. Waiting was the worst part of waiting rooms. Waiting was the worst part of life.
Hiro was there when he reached it. He was waiting for him, Eiri somehow knew. The guitarist reached out and touched his arm, but he drew back. He didn’t want to be touched. He wanted to know, know what the hell was going on.
“They couldn’t do anything,” Hiro said. (Who, Eiri wanted to ask. What are you talking about, he wanted to ask.) “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance.” (Waiting, waiting, waiting-fuck waiting, he hated waiting.) “He said that you were right, and to go with green.” (What, he wanted to ask. What, what, what-)
“What?”
“I said, you’re about to-”
Pain swelled on Eiri’s fingers. “Fuck,” he hissed and dropped his cigarette, burnt down to the filter, onto the floor, where he put it out with his slipper-covered foot.
“-burn yourself,” Shuichi finished.
“Should’ve said something, damn brat,” Eiri muttered, repressing the need to shiver; the nightmare or whatever the hell it was had left a bad, cold feeling inside of him.
“I did.” Shuichi frowned. “You just sat there like a zombie.”
“I’m tired,” he snapped. So he must’ve fallen asleep. He must’ve just nodded off with his eyes open and had a fucking nightmare. That was the only reason that made sense, so he stuck to it because sense was good and anything else-not knowing, waiting-was very bad.
[-]
It happened again two days later, and this time it was worse.
He was standing on the beach, although mere seconds ago he’d been sitting at his desk, pretending to work. Now his feet were in sand and seagulls were squawking nearby and Shuichi was holding Riku as they let themselves get knocked over by the waves. The sky was growing dark, cloudy, and it was windy; Shuichi’s laughter sounded miles away.
“We should go!” he called. He frowned as he watched Shuichi pull Riku to his feet, realizing he’d spoken without meaning to. He hadn’t tried to. He just had. “It’s going to storm,” he warned, and felt a sudden rush of recognition.
He’d spoken these words before. This had all happened before. This was a memory. But why did it feel like it was real? Like he was reliving it? He opened his mouth to speak and he knew what he was going to say; he knew what was going to happen, and yet he didn’t duck when Shuichi and Riku splashed him.
“Goddamn-”
“-space. I need some goddamn space.”
The elevator dinged as it reached the next floor. Eiri groaned, and although the sound that actually escaped him was pretty pathetic, he was somewhat pleased he’d actually been able to voluntarily make a noise.
He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to do this again. He didn’t understand this. If he had to be anywhere other than his study, he wanted to be back on the beach. He wanted to be there, yelling at Shuichi and Riku for getting his clothes wet only to find out it didn’t matter because it started raining before they could get to the car.
The doors opened; he stepped out and almost bumped into the teary Sakano. He tried to snap at him, to tell him to stop your damn crying, but all that came out was a bit of a hiss.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Eiri walked around him, heading for the bright, white corridor that led to the dreaded waiting-waiting-waiting room.
He practiced speaking as he walked, growing increasingly alarmed with this entire process. What the hell was going on, and why was it going on, and how would it be going on for? Was he gradually going insane?
He got out a “what” by the time he reached Hiro, but that was all, and then the guitarist was reaching for his arm, and he was pulling away.
“They couldn’t do anything,” Hiro said. “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance. He said that you were right, and to go with green.”
There was gibberish on his computer screen when Eiri returned. His finger was shaking when he pressed the delete key. He swallowed, hard, and tried to go on as if nothing had happened.
[-]
It happened again. He’d been standing in the middle of the empty guest room, picturing the kind of furniture he wanted to buy for it, and then he was in his lawyer’s office, a pen in hand, hovering over a familiar document. Riku’s adoption papers.
He remembered this. He’d thought about this moment many times, sometimes with fondness, sometimes with annoyance, sometimes with disbelief.
“Wait.” Shuichi’s hands grabbed his before he could sign, and he looked at the singer, knowing, remembering, what he was going to ask. “You-really want this? You’re really, really sure? Like, positive?”
When this had happened the first time, he’d lied. He’d said, “No.” He’d said, “Let’s rip it up and get out of here while we still can.” It’d taken him close to an hour to convince Shuichi he’d been kidding, and he wasn’t sure if the singer had ever really believed him.
This time, he stopped himself. It was hard, but he did it. And, after fighting with his uncooperative throat muscles, he forced himself to speak, and speak truthfully.
“Yes.”
Shuichi looked at him, eyes searching his. He bit his lip and Eiri knew he was trying not to smile so soon. But he couldn’t hold it back; he never really could. He released Eiri’s hand and watched, grinning, on the verge of a giddy freak out, as Eiri signed his name and made Riku his. Again.
It felt just as good the second time around.
The corner of his mouth curved upward slightly as Shuichi squealed and hugged his arm. (Yeah, he thought, I should’ve done this right the first time.) The younger man’s lips pressed against his cheek and his lawyer’s phone started ringing.
No…it wasn’t his lawyer’s phone; it was-
His phone was ringing.
A part of him knew it was Shuichi. It had to be. But another part of him knew that wasn’t true, and that part of him was scared and nervous and cold. He stood over the phone, hands in his pockets, as it rang and rang and rang, and the answering machine beeped.
“Yuki-san-” (Hiro. Eiri felt his heart sink.) “-if you’re there, pick up, please. I’m at the hospital. It’s-”
“It’s cute on you.”
Eiri realized he was reaching for a phone that was no longer there. He was in a dressing room, looking at himself in the mirror. This was new. This hadn’t happened before. He could tell, because he’d never seen a shirt as hideous as the one he was wearing.
“You’re the most delusional man I’ve ever met,” he said, glaring at Shuichi in the mirror. “This shirt is disgusting.”
“It’s just different.”
“It has polka dots.”
Shuichi giggled, coming to stand in front of him. Slender singer fingers reached for the shirt buttons, popping them open slowly, purposefully, one by one by one. “I guess we’ll have to take it off, then.”
Eiri arched an eyebrow, but didn’t protest. Not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. This was infinitely preferable to the hospital, the phone call, everything else.
Shuichi slid the polka-dotted monstrosity off his shoulders and rose up to kiss him, whispering his name in a voice dripping with desire and affection, “Yuki…”
“Yuki!”
(Dammit.) Eiri frowned up at the two faces (one etched with concern and near-hysteria, the other with its usual bug-eyed robot look) hovering over him. When had he ended up on the guest room floor? He couldn’t be sure. He sat up, ineffectively attempting to wave them away.
“I’m fine.”
“But-”
“I’m fine.” He started to stand, but stopped, looking at them seriously. “But listen. I don’t wear polka dots.”
Shuichi’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”
Riku just nodded. “That’s wise.”
[-]
“They couldn’t do anything,” Hiro said. “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance. He said that you were right, and to go with green.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I thought you would.”
“Well, I don’t.” And he didn’t like it. And he was sick of it. And he wasn’t aware of Hiro reaching for him again until the guitarist’s hands were gripping his arms. “What-”
“Sorry.” His voice came out hoarse, cracked with emotion. “I just-I didn’t see it coming.”
Eiri heard a sob.
Eiri moved his head slightly, just so Shuichi wasn’t sobbing directly into his ear. He held the boy in his lap lightly, one hand rubbing his back in a soothing manner. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if this was past or future, but when he glanced at the singer he saw that his ear was hole-free. Past, then. Before he got that silly piercing so he could say that he and Eiri matched.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, even though he didn’t know what the problem was.
“How do you know?” came the muffled response somewhere between his jaw and his shoulder.
“I just do,” he said. His hand moved up to Shuichi’s head and his fingers sifted through pink hair. “Trust me.”
Shuichi sniffled, clung to him tightly. Eiri found that he liked the way that felt; he wondered if he’d really savored the feeling when this actually happened, but he figured he probably hadn’t.
Shuichi rubbed his nose against Eiri’s neck and murmured, “I-”
“-trust you,” Shuichi promised, eyes squeezed shut.
Eiri remembered this instantly. He was facing Shuichi, holding his hand. Hidden in his free, fisted hand was a ring.
It was the day before they would board a plane together, a day before they would go to New York and meet Riku. Eiri remembered thinking, in the days that followed everything that went down in New York, that he shouldn’t have done this so soon. He remembered regretting it, doubting (especially after a certain incident with that infuriating Sakuma) he and Shuichi would actually make it. He remembered looking down at the ring on his own finger and thinking, these mean absolutely nothing.
“Yuki?”
Eiri shushed him. His silence and stillness was obviously making the boy restless. He inhaled and exhaled slowly before opening his fist and looking at the ring. Those days of doubt, of regret had been hard. But…
“Yu-”
“I told you to be quiet.”
“You’re making me nervous!”
Eiri sighed and gripped his hand tighter, taking the ring and slipping it on the boy’s finger. The days had been hard, yes, but they’d gotten through them, hadn’t they? Shuichi’s eyes opened, widened incredulously.
“Y-”
“Before you ask,” he said, “the answer is yes. These mean exactly what you think they mean.”
Tears sprang to Shuichi’s eyes as he lunged, throwing his arms around Eiri’s neck. “Oh, Y-”
“-uki’s study.”
Eiri looked into the room Shuichi was pointing at. He nodded in approval. “Yu-” He growled slightly as he caught himself, and corrected, “My study.”
Shuichi snickered and received a light smack on the back of his head. He moved on down the hallway, holding Eiri’s hand and coaxing him to follow. This was past, as well, but extremely recent. They were figuring out the rooms of their new apartment.
“Bedroom.”
Eiri nodded. “Lair of Sex God.”
“Riku’s room.”
“Brat’s room.”
Shuichi stopped by the last door in the hallway and looked at Eiri as he asked, “Guest room?”
“Yeah,” Eiri said. “It’s the guest room.”
[-]
The phone was ringing, ringing, ringing. He stared at it, waiting, waiting, waiting. The answering machine beeped.
“Yuki-san, if you’re there, pick up, please. I’m at the hospital. It’s Shuichi. There was an accident. It-”
He picked up the receiver so fast he almost dropped it, and he asked-
“What?”
He felt Shuichi looking at him, a bit angrily, but he was driving and couldn’t look away from the road.
“You-you aren’t listening to me!”
Eiri gripped the steering wheel and scowled, muttering, more to himself than to his companion, “Dammit, I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”
Shuichi huffed. “Whatever, Yuki.”
Eiri pursed his lips in irritation and drove in silence for a moment or two. “…Sorry.”
He felt Shuichi looking at him again, this time a bit concernedly. “What’s wrong with you? Are you-”
“-okay?”
Eiri stared up at the bedroom ceiling as Shuichi traced patterns on his chest. This was present. Maybe. He could barely tell, really. If this went on much longer, he felt his head might explode.
“Yuki,” Shuichi repeated softly, “are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I think something is happening to me. Or to you. Or to us.”
“Yuki…do-do you need your medicine or something?”
“I’m out.”
“Should I call the-”
“-the hospital. It’s Shuichi. There was an accident. It-”
“-‘ll be okay,” he said.
“How do you know?” came the muffled response somewhere between his jaw and his shoulder.
“I just do.” His hand moved up to Shuichi’s head and his fingers sifted through pink hair. “Trust-”
“-you,” Shuichi promised, eyes squeezed shut.
Eiri was holding his hand-
-coaxing him to follow.
“Bedroom.”
“Lair of Sex God.”
“Riku’s bedroom.”
“Brat’s bedroom.”
“Guest room?”
“Yeah. It’s-”
“-going to storm,” he warned, and he didn’t duck when Shuichi and Riku splashed him. “Goddamn-”
“-space. I need some goddamn space.”
He nearly ran into Sakano when he got off the elevator. The man looked at him, wet eyes refocusing behind the lenses of his glasses. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Eiri walked around him and headed down the corridor (bright, white) to the waiting (fuck waiting) room where Hiro was waiting (fuck waiting) for him. The guitarist reached for his arm and Eiri let him grasp it.
“They couldn’t do anything,” he said. “I was with him while we waited for the ambulance. He said that you were right, and to go with-”
[-]
“Green,” Eiri said, without looking up from his freshly printed manuscript. The flashes of past and future had stopped two days ago; he didn’t dare question why. But he’d found that time travel had done wonderful things for his writing.
“I was thinking orange.”
Eiri didn’t even try to repress the shudder. “Hell no.”
“What’s wrong with orange?”
“I’m not painting my guest room orange.”
Shuichi drummed his fingers angrily on the tabletop. “I thought it was our guest room.”
Eiri lowered his manuscript to give Shuichi a pointed look. “Not if it’s going to be orange.”
Shuichi’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it.”
The singer slammed his palm down on the table. “Yuki, you can’t do that anymore!”
Eiri’s expression didn’t change much; the boy was such a drama queen. “Do what?”
“You can’t threaten to kick me out every time I disagree with you!”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Then you’re an idiot!”
Eiri raised and lowered one shoulder, looked back at the papers in his hand. “Takes one to know one.”
“Oh-screw you, Yuki!” Shuichi stood and stormed out.
Drama queen. “Where are you going?” he asked with well-practiced nonchalance.
“Lunch,” Shuichi bit out from the living room. “I’m meeting Hiro and Sakano. Like you care.”
“Hm,” he hummed lowly, a little teasingly. “Of course I-” He stopped. His eyes were still trained on the words of his manuscript, but he wasn’t seeing them. He was seeing the phone, ringing, and the bright, white corridor, and- “Wait.” He heard nothing and his heart started pounding. His manuscript fell to the floor as he stood, quickly, and went out to the living room where Shuichi was putting on his sneakers. “Wait. Let me take you.”
Shuichi frowned and didn’t look at him. “Why? So we can fight some more? No thanks.”
Eiri grabbed the singer’s wrist as he reached for the doorknob. “Let me take you.”
Shuichi stared at Eiri’s hand on his wrist, then at the door. “Okay.”
They drove in silence. Eiri couldn’t seem to decide if he was nervous, relieved, or absolutely insane. If his thinking was right-if this was the day of the accident-would it still happen no matter what he did? Was this the day of the accident? Was there really going to be an accident in the first place? Was everything he’d gone through really real? He didn’t know, he just didn’t know, but he had to try, he just had to-
“Yuki!”
Shuichi’s fingers digging into his arm snapped him out of his thoughts, and he stepped down on the brake just a car came barreling recklessly through a red light, just missing the front bumper of their car. (That’s the car that killed him, Eiri thought. Eiri knew. Somehow.)
Shuichi’s grip on his arm relaxed slightly as Eiri slowly resumed driving, pulling up in front of the restaurant that stood across the street. “Crazy driver.”
Eiri nodded silently. Shuichi released him and unbuckled his seatbelt, waiting a moment before opening the door and climbing out. He stilled, not looking back as he asked, “Picking me up?”
“Yes.” Not because he had to, he knew, but because he wanted to. “Hey.”
Shuichi did look back at him, then, eyebrow arched.
“You’re right. Let’s go with orange.”