Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Cats, Crutches and Babies? Oh My! ❯ Time to Think ( Chapter 22 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation, or the delicious Remixes that have been graciously translated by the wonderful perverts of the world and thrown our way…nor do I make any profit whatsoever from the writing of these stories…In fact the only thing I seem to be gaining (as of late anyway…) is increased levels of perverseness (My best friend Tenshi-chan can vouch for that one!) writers block, sore fingers, a worn out keyboard and tense shoulders. Also on the rise lately is as increasing appreciation for strong black coffee, ergonomic computer chairs, extra strength aspirins, warm slippers, late mornings and steaming hot showers. (TBR you know what I`m talking about here!^_~). Plus the occasional laugh or two when I decide to make our boys do something even I find hilarious…also I love making me squirm when I write. It means that, somewhere out there, in the dens, bedrooms and computer rooms of the world where you are all reading these stories, you are squirming and laughing right along with me, and that means I'm doing my job…I hope you all find these things as funny and or disturbing as I do!

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When Eiri awoke, he found that his pants were still bunched somewhere around the tops of his knees, but were covered up by a thin, yet warm fleece blanket which he assumed was Shuichi's doing.

It was just getting to the darker end of dusk, and there was really no light in the room, save for a few slotted shafts of dieing sunlight coming in from the blinds and spilling onto the adjacent wall in brilliant shades of orange and amber. For a few tense seconds he panicked because he thought he was still in that strange dream he had had earlier on in the day, with Shuichi and all that leather. He shuddered as he lay still, but couldn't decide if it was out of relief (because it had only been a dream), disgust (because he wished that he was still in it) or pleasure (because he knew he could coax Shuichi into making it a reality). The novelist decided it would be best if he just let it go unlabeled.

 

He sat up gingerly, being cautious of his cast and looked around his and the brats bedroom. Upon inspection Eiri noticed that one key thing about the space had changed since he had gone to sleep.

There was no brat to be seen.

Quickly scanning the room once more in the fading light, he perked his ears intently for any sounds the kid might be making else where in the apartment. He heard nothing. He saw no one.

The bathroom door was open, the space beyond black and ominously dark, meaning Shuichi was not in there. It wasn't like him to go into dark rooms, much less stay in them for any length of time. The writer was also finding it hard to imagine that the boy was hiding under the bed for any reason, whether he fit or not, because he had no reason to hide in the first place.

The novelist wasn't sure how long Shuichi had been gone for, why he had left nor when he was going to return. All Eiri knew was that he was all alone until said idiot decided to come back home.

 

The writer was now starting to feel a grudgingly familiar and much hated emotion tightening the inside of his chest. He was slightly annoyed that he was feeling it at all and fought to push it away, but with little success. Eiri Yuki, who relished his privacy and guarded it jealously, was beginning to feel the pangs… of loneliness.

He bitterly tried to shrug the feeling off by attempting to convince himself that he was just cold. The blond sat scowling at the closing darkness when it didn't work.

He certainly didn't want the brat to be home with him, he declared to himself and he certainly had not been hoping to wake up and hug the little idiot either.

No, No No! These emotions were all wrong! It was Shuichi that got lonely and missed the novelist! Not the other way around!

For Eiri, the feeling of missing somebody was still strange, despite how long he and the singer had been living together.

 

“Why do I feel lonely just because he's not here?” Eiri questioned the fading light, “I lived without anybody around for years and now all of a sudden I get upset because he's gone! Where did he go anyway? Why do I even care where he went? Why didn't he wake me up? …and why am I still talking to myself?!”

Eiri let out an exasperated huff and crossed his arms over his chest, suddenly regretting it as his bruised ribs protested the abuse. He refused to talk to himself like a blithering idiot for one second longer. Hyper twenty-something's like Shuichi talked to themselves. Eiri, who was close to being a thirty-something, did not.

Oh how it annoyed him when the pink haired brat jabbered on about absolutely nothing to himself while he played his video games or doodled on his notebook or tied his shoes, or... There it went again! A deep tight feeling in his chest gripped Eiri as he thought about his lover and all the annoying little nuances that came along with him.

“The way the idiot sings stupid little songs to himself when he picks out his clothes.” Eiri scoffed in a mocking tone of voice. “The way he always brushes his top teeth before he brushes his bottom teeth. The way the bathroom always smells so good after he gets ready each morning, like jasmine scented skin lotion and Tea Tree Oil hair products… The way he always hugs me with a smile on his face, no matter how bad of a mood I'm in…”

 

Eiri let out a sigh of defeat as his head hung low and rested on his chest. He knew he loved Shuichi more than almost anything in the entire world, so of course it was logical that he missed him when he was gone. What bothered him, and in turn created malice towards his feelings, was that he felt that he had to justify them to himself. It shouldn't bother him that he felt lonely, nobody knew it but himself, but for some reason it did. It bothered him that he wasn't able to let himself freely feel some of the more basic human emotions. There was something not quite right about it.

It made him feel barbaric and inhuman, as though he didn't deserve to feel at all.

 

Just sitting there, thinking about himself and his emotional detachment brought a memory up from the depths of his mind. It was something he never much cared to think about, nor could he explain exactly what had brought the thought forward, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. It was the memory of his mothers funeral.

 

 

All of a sudden, there he was. Eleven years old again, crying silently in the front row of the funeral tent, near his mothers casket, as his shoulders shook from restraining his river of anguish down to a small trickle. He remembered everything about that day in shocking detail, detail held by few other memories.

The scent of the sweet, damp, fresh flowers lining the coffin mingled with musky wood polish and thick choking incense. Bright lights screamed through his stinging eyes, irritated by the smoke and his own tears.

He remembered the shrill chirping of the Cicada's [1] that cut through the unbearable silence of the room as it threatened to crash down upon him. He remembered his fathers barren, harshly composed face as he himself conducted and acted as priest at his own wife's funeral.

 

His mothers flowing dark hair had contrasted so sharply against the stark white background of her funeral Kimono, and it seemed to be the only thing Eiri could look at as his father recited the formal sutras and gave his mother her kaimyo; her death name [2].

 

Another of his memories included the blank, disconsolate look that had washed over Mika's face as she sat primly in her chair, legs crossed neatly underneath as she held a squirming three year old Tatsuha in her lap. Despite offers of help with the small child, she would not let any of her other relatives to hold him for her. Eiri was certain now that that had been the day his sister passed from her carefree days as a thirteen year old girl, and into the cold, harsh reality of adulthood. The look of stoic propriety that she put on to hold back the tears that day had never really left her face, no matter how hard she tried to cover it up. A piece of her was still missing and she could never get it back again.

None of them could.

 

Tears had started to well up in the corners of Eiri's eyes as he rode out the wave of memories and flash backs that had come to him. It was not often that he thought about his life before he had gone to New York City, and for good reason. For a person who tended to avoid his emotions, memories like these were the hardest to ignore and push aside once they came back. One reason being that no matter how painful the memory was, the writer still missed his mother, who had been such a joyful, happy place in his life. He wanted to think about her, but only of the good memories. The familiar smell of her freesia perfume, her light gay laughter that seemed to surround the household whenever she was there, her sweet kisses and loving embrace as she fought to keep the monsters from hurting him at night.

Under hypnosis, when asked to recall his traumatic events in New York City, his therapist said that he kept mentioning freesia flowers quite often. When Eiri heard his retelling of the story, which he had been consciously un present for, he immediately knew the significance of the flowers. He had thought of his mother more than anything else that night, praying that her spirit would find him and protect him. He could swear on any high spirit, that when he had pulled the trigger on Kitazawa, he could smell her perfume.

 

His mother had been so lively and kind. Eiri could remember how happy he and his sister had once been, playing together with Tatsuha in the garden when he was still only a baby, while their mother watched tenderly from a blanket spread under the peach trees. She had made it bearable to go to school and put up with the teasing and the bullies because Eiri knew that when he came home, his mother would make all the hurting go away. She loved him, and cared for him and it never mattered to her what color his hair or his eyes were. She would hug him close to her when he was younger and kiss the top of his head as she sang sweet lullabies to lull him to sleep every night.

And then one day she got sick. Their father took her to the doctor and he had sent her home. It's only a cold, he had said. Only a cold.

She seemed to be fine, she put up an strong front whenever her family was around, but there was a sickness eating it's way around her body. Then one day she collapsed outside while she was picking herbs. From then on she spent all of her time in bed or in the hospital.

After what seemed like an eternity of tests, pills and doctor language, she said she was finally coming home for a short visit. Eiri had been so excited, he ran, jumped and played like he hadn't done so in what seemed to be forever. Then the next day, the phone rang. And his mother was just…gone. No long goodbyes or sweet loving embraces, she simply stopped existing.

That had been one of the hardest parts for Eiri to accept, for all of them to accept.

 

Thinking back on it now, Eiri remembered his mothers smile most of all. It was one of the last things that she was ever able to give him.

 

The normally aloof writer now just stared down, as though he were looking at his hands. But he wasn't looking at them, or at anything in particular. He was looking past them as if he could see through them if he stared hard enough. He stared at the nothingness of the back of his unseeing eyes, watching his memories like a private movie screening just for his sorrow. And as he stared a tear trembled at the corner of his eye and finally slid down his face.

That was all it took to shake Eiri out of his protective, trancelike state. He put his face in his hands and started sobbing.

The tears he had held back at his mothers funeral, and all the tears he had been holding inside since that horrible day finally broke loose. His body was wracked by wave upon wave of grief. He didn't even hear Shuichi as he came bursting back into the house through the front door.

 

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“Eiri I have a surprise for you!” Shuichi sing-songed as he turned on the lights in the living room and put down the pet carrier and three other heavy bags he was holding.

The small animal in the cage began to fuss, but Shuichi shushed it (as if it could suddenly understand Japanese) and headed for the bedroom door. As he got closer, the smile faded from his face when he heard Eiri crying on the other side.

It took every ounce of maturity he had in him not to burst through the door and crush his love in a death grip. It hurt Shu more than anything to hear his lover in pain.

With a stoicism that he reserved for the grimmest of situations, he calmly turned the handle and went in.

 

He had seen Eiri cry once before, just after Shuichi had been raped. It had shaken the foundations of the singers world.

Snow is cold, The earth turned and Eiri never cried.

It was almost that basic to the kids understanding, and seeing it happen had the equivalent effect on his mind as if he had just seen a person flap their arms and fly off into the sunset like a bird. He realized on that day that Eiri was only too human after all, no matter how unmoving and godlike he may have acted. Shuichi learned all to well how human his lover was later on in their relationship, when he finally heard what had happened to him during his teens.

 

“Eiri-han?” Shu whispered softly as he gently entered the room, “Are you alright?”

When he heard his name, the novelist quickly tried to cover up the fact that he was crying. He straightened his back and sniffed repeatedly as he wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.

 

“About time you got back brat,” Eiri quipped gruffly as he tried to act normal, “You see what happens when you leave me alone with all this medication pumped into me?”

 

Shuichi walked across the room and sat down next to his lover on the bed. He put a hand on Eiri's good right leg and leaned up to softly place kisses on his eye lids. The tall blond just sat still and allowed himself to be comforted. His eyes had begun to sting from the salt in his tears and the soft lips of his lover seemed to make all his pain dissipate out of him.

 

“Do you want to tell me why you're upset?” Shuichi asked as he crawled quickly and gently over Eiri's legs to his own side of the bed.

Hugging the novelist seemed the only appropriate thing to do, but because of their awkward positions on the bed and not wanting to aggravate Eiri's injuries, Shuichi just held his hand and cuddled his right arm instead.

 

Eiri wasn't sure if he really wanted to delve to deep into what he had been thinking about, because he was afraid that it would make him start crying again, but he could tell that his small lover really wanted to help him fix what was wrong so he obliged him.

“I was just thinking about my mother, if you really must know.”

 

Shuichi was slightly shocked to hear the cause of Eiri's sorrow, but it was not entirely unthinkable either.

He knew people who had lost close relatives, and how the memories of those people could be brought flooding back by the smallest thing. Bringing about renewed waves of anguish, as if the person had died only the day before.

 

Shu just continued to coddle his lover, not pressing him for any details, and for a few minutes the two of them just sat in silence. But finally, as Eiri reached around and gave the two warm arms on top of his own a one armed hug, started to speak.

 

 

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When Eiri was finished, Shuichi just sat quietly, absorbing everything he had just learned in such a short span of time. Carefully he logged each and every word into a special Yuki file in his brain, because he was fairly certain he wouldn't be hearing them again for a long time.

 

“I really had no idea that you were so close with her Eiri, It must have been tough to lose her. She sounds like she was a wonderful woman. I wish I could have met her.”

 

The novelist thought about his lovers comments for a second before he replied. Yes it had been painful losing his mother, especially at his age, but from a constructive and slightly more positive out look, he had gained a greater emotional depth to his thoughts.

Depth of thought was something that was essential to the successful career of any writer, and it was even his mothers and Kitazawa's deaths that Eiri believed were responsible for the deaths of so many characters in his novels. He kept his emotions behind closed doors for so long, and death in his books had helped him find an outlet for his pain. It let only a small bit of it out at a time. For the most part, he was under the assumption that he was just caught up in the characters, but in actuality he had been performing his own self therapy.

 

“It was hard at first, and it can still hurt even now, but over time you learn to love the person you lose in a different way then when they were alive. Partly to deal with the pain of their transition from “is” to “was”, but also to form an even closer bond with them, by keeping their memories alive.”

 

“Eiri that was beautiful,” Shuichi whispered, as the silence once again fell back around them.

 

“What can I say?” Eiri bragged with a smile, “I do have over twenty novels in print, and as far as I know, both your mother and your sister still want to jump my bones…”

 

“Glad to see the old you is back.” Shuichi declared with a smirk as he unwrapped himself from his lovers arms. He had completely forgot about Eiri's little surprise waiting out in the living room. The poor thing must be dying of thirst in that little plastic box they called a pet carrier.

 

“I never left brat.” The blond said with mild disdain, as he watched his lover walk towards the door, wishing he could see in the dark, as he was certain the view would have been lovely.

“Where are you going now?” He asked when the brat made no attempt to explain where he was wandering off to. “You want me to start crying again? Get back here!”

 

Shuichi turned on his heel and stuck his head back into the darkened room.

“Well…I bought you a sort of…get well present today Eiri,” He said sheepishly as he hopped nervously from foot to foot, “but If I don't go get it some water I`m afraid of what might happen.”

This last part of the explanation was said rather fast, as the kid wasn't sure what kind of reaction to expect from his lover. He wasn't sure how thrilled Eiri was going to be at the news of a live “present” being brought into his home.

 

The novelist just sighed and laid back down, one hand over his eyes and he pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

“Oh boy,” He droned sarcastically, “I wonder what it could be…”

 

 

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[1] There are approximately 2500 species of cicada around the globe. Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates where they are one of the most widely recognized of all insects, mainly due to their large size and remarkable (and often inescapable) acoustic talents. Cicadas are sometimes called "locusts", although they are unrelated to true locusts, which are a kind of grasshopper. Cicadas are related to leafhoppers and spittlebugs.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada

 

[2] Kaimyo- is a new name given to the deceased after death. This name supposedly prevents the return of the deceased if his or her name is called. The length and prestige of the name depend also on the size of the donation of the relatives to the temple, which may range from a cheap and free name to the most elaborate names for USD 10,000 or more. The high prices charged by the temples are a controversial issue in Japan, especially since some temples put pressure on families to buy a more expensive name. The kanji for these kaimyo are usually very old and rarely used ones, and few people nowadays can read them.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Funeral

 

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Okay so that was a pretty quick update huh? Fastest one yet I think. I know it is short, but I think the emotional content in this one should more then make up for it's lack of actual words. I have never had anybody die in my family or extended family so I am kind of oblivious to that kind of pain. I tried my hardest though so bear with me if I didn't quite convey the entire emotionality of the experience.

I appreciate everybody's support and I really hope that I can continue to put down my thoughts and feelings as fast and efficiently as I have been doing these last few days.

I don't know how much longer this is going to be, most likely it will end within the next five or six chapters, but don't hold me to that okay? Could be longer, could be shorter, it all depends on how I decide to wrap this up.

I don't want to leave you hanging, though there will be a cliffy ending or two coming up in later chapters.

Also I have not decided if I want to continue this in a sequel or not. I will leave that one up to you guys. Let me know what you think. Here would be best, as hotmail is all screwed up right now, but you can e-mail requests or thoughts to me as well. I just might not get back to you.

Happy trails, I hope this wasn't to sappy and OOC…

~Bakayasha