Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Cats, Crutches and Babies? Oh My! ❯ Family Values ( Chapter 27 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Tatsuha called from the bullet train a few days after Ryu’s break down to let Shuichi know that he was grateful for all his help. He also called to tell him that the brunette was pretty much back to normal, or at the very least, as “normal” as he was capable of getting. The young monk was confirming a list of people he wanted to have check in with Ryu, as he was being forced by his father to go back home to the temple in Kyoto. He would be coming back to Tokyo in one weeks time, in order to spend the holiday with his lover, permission or not, but he was still a bit uneasy about leaving so soon after Ryu’s emotional episode. Making a safe list was a way for him to be sure that the older singer was well looked after, should it turn out that he needed to be taken care of again.
Eiri and Shuichi’s plans for Christmas came up near the end of the conversation, Tatsuha asking because Ryu had said something about wanting to have a party.

As it turned out the newly engaged pair did have plans this year. Shuichi’s mother had called only two days before, professing her desire for him to come and spend Christmas back home with the rest of his family. She asked them to come every Christmas, but the last two years they had been unable to make it because Eiri had work commitments. He had a nasty habit of planning work related things on special occasions to weasel out of spending time with family and, at one point, spending time with Shuichi. Needless to say, Shu had put a stop to that and told his mother they would definitely be there. Both of them.
Mrs. Shindou always encouraged her son to bring his lover with him whenever he came back home, though Shu’s father had made it pretty clear that, while he still loved Shuichi very much, he was “uncomfortable with the idea of his only son being a homosexual”. The man disliked Eiri and didn’t like to be in the same room with him if he could help it.

On this, Eiri and the elder Mr. Shindou were pretty much on the same level of discontent. The author had argued that they should stay home, because of his leg, but Shuichi was unrelenting. Come hell or high water they were going to be there. He was determined not to let his mother down again.

Mrs. Shindou, trying to both placate her husband and keep on good terms with her eldest child, ended up settling for inviting Shuichi and telling him to “bring someone special along.” They all knew who she was talking about, but Mr. Shindou preferred that they all try to live a life of pleasant denial. His hope was that Eiri might disappear from his sons life and magically be replaced by some nice demure woman if, whenever he wasn’t in sight, they simply pretended he didn’t exist.
It got so bad at one point that, during Obon a few years back, the Shindou patriarch had actually ignored the young blond even while he was in sight. In fact, he didn’t say one single word to Eiri for the full two days that he and Shuichi were visiting. The singer had been so frustrated that he finally snapped on his father, yelling at him for being so rude to the one person that made him happy. The resulting argument split the family apart and the two of them didn’t speak for nearly a year.
Shuichi and his father were back on good terms now, but for a while Shu didn’t think he would ever be able to talk to his dad again. His mother finally put a stop to their fight when she couldn’t take it anymore and had threatened to leave her husband if he didn’t smarten up and just accept their son for who he was.
Now whenever they got together, things would be strange for an hour or two, but once the sake started flowing everyone loosened up and they got along well enough for the event to actually be enjoyable for all.

Eiri wasn’t happy that they were going to be spending an entire weekend with the Shindou family who, if Shuichi was any indicator, were just as crazy as the pink haired spawn they had brought forth into the world. The poor, unprepared, world.
Truthfully, they had a more…mature form of craziness about them, but just because a tiger gets old, that doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous.
The blond was only going because he knew it was important to Shuichi that he come along. On the plus side though, it got him out of spending Christmas with his own family, and he would much rather brave Shuichi’s relatives then try to get through an Uesugi Christmas in one piece. Was there such a thing as being glared to death? Even if there wasn’t, Eiri was sure that the very first case would occur at one of his family gatherings.
Over the years, he had grown very wise in the ways of “picking his poisons”, so to speak, and the Shindou house was definitely the lesser of two evils.
Oh, how he loved the holidays. [1]


~*~*~*~

Shuichi really liked the name Eiri picked for their kitten. As it turned out, Baby had been one of the names he had thought up for her as well. He never expected his lover to like it, much less pick it out himself.
The singer was tempted to tease the author about it, but decided to leave well enough alone. Besides, now that the blond was forced to lay on his back at night, Shuichi gained a whole new opportunity to snuggle with an Eiri that could no longer thwart his advances by rolling over. Shu didn’t want to miss one night of that, forced to sleep out on the couch because of a silly argument, so he just giggled happily to himself where he figured Eiri couldn’t hear him.

The blond was beginning to say something about the giggling, the sound of which his lover was poorly masking behind the open refrigerator door, when their land line rang. This caused the author to both jump and curse for two reasons.
One, because the telephone was hanging on the wall right behind his head and two, because very rarely did anyone call their home phone number anymore. The main reason for this being because Eiri quite frequently had the phone set to go straight to voice mail, especially when he had a deadline coming up. Besides, he preferred his distractions from work to be sweaty, seductive, and scantily clad, and not once had he gotten that from answering the phone. A phone may or may not be involved in enticing said sweaty, seductive and scantily clad distraction into coming home from work early, but that was an entirely different set of circumstances all together.

When he first started seeing Shuichi, and his main daily focus, (besides writing) was trying to find ways to un-see the brat, Yuki had his phone set to voicemail 100% of the time. How the kid had managed to get his phone number back then was still a complete mystery to him, since he hadn’t given it to him, and as far as he knew, he hadn’t even known his own number back then. He didn’t know their current number either, now that he thought about it.
When Shuichi, social butterfly that he was, moved in and found out about Eiri’s little habit, he made his own routine of checking the phone every night when he came home to make sure it was switched back to ring. He was always the one to answer it anyway, at least that was his argument when Eiri yelled at him for turning it on all the time.

That had been years ago, and now the phone got turned back on whenever he remembered to check. but he forgot often enough that nobody bothered to call their house anymore.
Besides having the phone set constantly to automatic voicemail, the land line was rather redundant on it’s own, seeing as how both Shuichi and himself had cell phones, and they almost never got calls that concerned both of them.
Eiri took care of nearly all of their bills online, so even in the extremely unlikely event that they got behind on something, he’d be e-mailed rather than phoned.
Shuichi was also pretty sure the reason they didn’t get pestered with telemarketing calls, was because Eiri wasn’t very nice to the callers who had managed to get through in the past. He was surprised that none of them had filed verbal assault charges to be perfectly honest…

As far as normal couples went, the two of them moved around quite a bit too, and it was rare that they were both in the house at the same time, both not busy, and had the phone set to ring, but somehow, whoever was calling them now, managed to conjure up just such a miracle.
It was because of this that Eiri actually picked up the phone, soon after which he sorely regretted doing so. Almost sooner than he could finish saying hello his ears were assaulted by the only infuriated male voice that could rival his own. His father’s.

The blond winced inwardly and debated holding the phone away from his ear. It would save his own ear drum, but lately the only thing his father ever wanted to yell at him about was being with Shuichi, and since his lover was only 5 feet away from the phone, he would most certainly be able to hear what the old monk had to say about him this time around. Nothing he said was ever pleasant.
The author glanced over at Shu, who by now was curious and sitting across from him at the kitchen table. Yuki rolled his eyes and they exchanged mutually frustrated glances with each other. Shuichi gave Eiri a soft, encouraging, ‘I’m-with-you-no-matter-what’, kind of smile and got up to make tea. Eiri kept the phone pressed tight to his ear a he braced himself for another wave.

“Eiri, I demand to know what you’ve done to your brother! It’s bad enough you’re living with that thing…that… that pathetic excuse for a man, but now you’ve put it into Tatsuha’s imbecilic brain to do the same thing! All of a sudden he wants to leave home and move in with some man, some performer! And I blame you! He’s following your example and treading down the same sinful path of self destruction. Do neither of you have any respect for our ancestors?”

“Father [2], you and I both know that this argument will never end. Although you may not believe this, I can’t change who I am, and neither can Tatsuha. Not for you, not for anyone. We were born this way so if you want to blame someone then blame yourself.
The way I live my life is a decision only I can make. It’s a choice that is mine to make and mine alone. Who I choose to share that life with is none of your concern.”

“How dare you speak to me this way! You sleep with that filthy man whore of yours because you strayed from the path to enlightenment and were seduced by pleasures of the flesh and sin. I have every right to be concerned, because like it our not I am your father!”
That was the last straw. He’d taken the constant belittling of his choices for twenty seven years, but he wasn’t going to listen to one more bigoted sermon about his constant sinning, and no way was he going to let that comment about his lover slip by. No more running away and avoiding catastrophe.
Over the past two weeks the novelist had altered his life irrevocably and running from his father and his past was no longer in him. This new Eiri, like a butterfly emerging from it’s cocoon, was going to fly free from a life of containment and take up the winds to soar. The gloves were coming off and he was going to stand up to the fight.

“Excuse me? My fiancé has a name; Shuichi Shindou, and right now there is no person on earth I’d rather be with. He’s stronger than both of us in ways you’d never understand, and if that doesn’t make him just as much, if not more, of a man than you and I are then I don’t know what would.
I’ve been listening to you ridicule my life and my decisions ever since I can remember, but no more! You’re done, because I’ve had it. If you don’t want to agree with my life that is your choice, but I won’t listen to you insult the man I love. In case you didn’t catch the beginning of my speech I’m marrying him. I’m going to live with him, and love him and fuck him and he’s going to fuck me. And we’re going to be happy until the day we die, because we know that we’ll always have each other.”


There was silence on the other end of the line, so Eiri took the opportunity to continue. Never before had he been able to work up courage enough to talk to his father this way and he’d be damned if he was going to quit now.
In the eyes of many religious groups, he was already damned for the things he did on an almost daily basis, so what was a little more going to hurt? He might never talk to his father again at this rate anyway so he might as well leave a lasting impression.

“As far as Tatsuha is concerned, I did nothing. If he wants to be with Sakuma-san, the gods only know why, then that is his choice. Apparently they’re happy together, and obviously they share something that brings out the best in each of them, and if that isn’t going to lead them both to enlightenment then I can’t think of anything else that will.
I’m sure a narrow minded, hollow existence with some woman he can barely stand to be in the same room with, all for the sake of pleasing you, would be a much quicker way to reach Nirvana, don’t you agree? Why don’t you just leave well enough alone, before you make him hate you as much as I already do.”
Sill nothing coming from the line. Either Eiri was finally getting through to his father, or the man had had a heart attack and died.

“If I know you as well as I think, the next thing on your agenda will be to bawl out Tatsuha for making choices in his life that make him happy, the way you do to me. I can tell you right now he’s not going to listen either, because the only things we got from you worth keeping are our good looks, our stubborn attitudes, and the conditioned fortitude to stand undaunted under pressure.
Perhaps you should stop being so concerned with our lives and take a closer look at your own, Father. Try picturing your icy cold death bed, sides devoid of loving family, and ponder if you will, about who’ll come forward to perform your funeral, because I can assure you it’s not going to be either one of your sons.”

With that last verbal blow, the blond slammed the handset back into the cradle and put a hand to his now very worried brow.
He didn’t know what he’d just done exactly, but he knew it was something he could never undo. There are some things in life that you just can’t take back, though you don’t realize them for what they are until it’s too late. This was definitely, one of those moments.

Eiri looked over to see Shuichi walking towards him, a cup of steaming herb tea in each hand. The singers eyes were brimming with tears that matched his own, whether or not they were happy or sad the author couldn’t tell.
Shu set the cups down on the wooden table and he took the rarely occurring opportunity presented by their displaced heights to pull Eiri’s head protectively against his body; shielding him.
“Thank you for sticking up for me. I’m really not that much of a writer, so I don’t know what my opinion is worth, but those were some of the most beautiful words I think I’ve ever heard you say.”

Eiri wrapped his arms around Shuichi’s waist and pulled him closer, inhaling slowly; Suffocating himself with his lover’s wonderful smell and burying himself in their embrace.
“Your opinion is the only one I care about, because you are my muse. There would be no more beautiful words if there was no more you in my life. So promise me you’ll never leave. Promise me I’ll never have to be alone again. Please…just promise me…”

Shuichi never thought he’d live to see the day when Eiri was asking him to stay at his side, because it was always the other way around. He ran a hand gently through his lovers locks of soft, golden hair, savoring the texture as he brushed bits of it back and forth between his sensitive fingers. He could tell from the growing warmth on his stomach that Eiri was crying. He’d been holding his own tears back, though he desperately longed to let them go, because he knew that his lover was going to need him to be strong for once in his life. His emotions finally overwhelmed him though, and they spilled from his eyes in long wet rivulets, trailing down his glowing cheeks.

He leaned down next to his lovers ear, kissed his cheek and whispered,
“You are the only thing that matters to me in the whole world and I will never let you be alone. I will always be with you. I will always love you, forever and ever. Even when your old and bald and all your teeth have fallen out, I’ll love you just the way you are. You are mine, I am yours, and no one can ever change that. I promise.”

Eiri smiled against his lovers stomach. He knew Shuichi would promise him anything he asked, and that in itself proved just how much they were meant to be together. A brilliant thought struck him at that moment and instead of letting his day go on completely mush filled, he decided to let the moment play out.

“And…just one more thing, Brat.”
“Anything honey,” Shuichi declared quickly, “Just name it.”
“Promise me… that we don’t have to go to your mother’s for Christmas.”
Shuichi rolled his eyes and sighed as he smiled. He knew that their little moment was too good to last, besides he had said anything hadn’t he?

Shu gave Yuki another quick squeeze before standing back to look him in the eyes.
“Fine,” He huffed sarcastically, “I’m sure my father will be thrilled to hear the great news. I’ll tell them we can’t come because of your stupid leg.” He trotted off with the phone to call his mother, leaving his tea on the table.

Eiri was rather insulted by that statement. If his lovers stupid sleep pants hadn’t been laying at the top of the stairs he wouldn’t have tripped, fallen and broken his leg in the first place. So, really, all this was Shuichi’s fault right?
The blond thought about telling his fiancé about his miraculous conclusion when he got back from calling his mother, but didn’t. It wasn’t every day that the two of them had such a close, heart to heart moment and, regardless of how cold he might act on the outside, he still didn’t want to spoil that moment with some petty argument. What had happened had happened and nothing was going to change that.

When Shuichi finally came bouncing back into the kitchen, he was positively brimming with excitement; grin stretching from ear to ear.
Eiri put his half finished tea down onto the table. “What’s so damned exciting? Your father finally commit suicide or something?”
Shuichi shot him a sarcastically angered look that clearly said, “Your terrible!”
“No! My mother was upset that we can’t make it, but she said she understands that it’s hard to travel with an injury like yours so…”

Eiri looked up from his tea once more. “So? Come on now, the suspense is killing me.” The author joked as he took another sip of his tea.
Shuichi beamed, but just couldn’t keep the secret to himself any longer.
“So everyone’s going to be coming here for Christmas!”
The novelist’s eyes sprang open in shock for the second time in an hour and he spit his mouthful of tea out all over the table, well, whatever he didn’t manage to partially inhale that is.
“They’re,” he gasped through his coughing fit, “What!?”

“Yeah they’re all coming! My mom said she really wanted to see us and that it really wasn’t fair of her to drag you out in your condition, so she suggested that we have Christmas here this year! And I said yes!”

Eiri looked at Shuichi with such confusion masking his features, confusion that would be more fitting if his lover suddenly sprouted an arm from the top of his head.
“Are you out of your mind Shuichi? We can’t have your family here! We have neighbors on four sides of us! And besides where would they all sleep?”

Shuichi had already thought about that.
“My family isn’t that noisy, contrary to what you might think, and as for sleeping space, we have my old room, the living room and your study.” Shuichi ticked the spaces off one at a time on his fingers as he mentioned them.
“My room has one double bed in it already, plus room for another futon, we’d have to straighten things out a bit, but it’s usable. We can unroll our spare futon in your study, as long as we push your desk and chair up against the wall, and someone could sleep on the couch…”

“No, absolutely not! No way in hell am I going to let anyone sleep in my study! That’s my personal space.”
What the writer wasn’t saying, but definitely thinking, was:
That’s my study, my space, and if your family is staying in there, then where the hell am I supposed to go when I want to avoid them?

“So they can come, they just can’t sleep in your study? That works for me, I’ll call my mom back and start discussing details.”
And after a quick “thank-you” kiss on Eiri’s cheek, he was off again, hopping into the living room full to the brim with excitement and energy, completely oblivious to his lover’s protesting.

“No you damn brat that’s not what I…”
He growled and yelled his frustration as Shuichi ignored him and disappeared around the corner. He threw his hands in the air and slumped in his chair, head hung loosely in his hands, defeated. This was going to happen and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it now.
Oh, how Eiri just loved the holidays.

~~~~~~


[1]Yes, before you comment on it in your review, I am aware that Christmas in Japan isn’t the same as Christmas in the west, because of a lack of Christian followers, however, in Japan it is a time for seeing loved ones and things like that, and over the years it has become a lot more commercialized and gift giving is quite common as well, so for the sake of this story, I am portraying the holiday similar to our own version of it, but with some Japanese twists.

[2] In this instance I would imagine that, being raised as a monk is his families temple, that Eiri would use the term Chi-Chue when speaking to him. Chi-Chue being a more traditional and formal way of saying what basically amounts to “Honorable Father”.
I’m sure you already know what it means, but since there isn’t an English equivalent to this (Father being the closest thing to a formal word for male parent), and because I don’t like to throw in Japanese words and make people who don’t know them scroll all the way down here to find out what they mean, I just wrote ‘Father’, instead of ‘dad’ or something informal like that. I’ll leave it up to you guys to add on the respectful connotation in your heads. -giggle- I said head…
Also, I tried for like an hour to find the correct spelling of the word Chi-chue, so if I haven’t spelt it right please for the love of kami tell me and I’ll change it! >.<


Hey guys! How are things? I haven’t written since like, what just after Christmas? How terrible am I huh? ^_^ Anyways, I just figured I’d let you know that my mom and dad are separating, permanently I don’t know yet, but it’s been the cause of a major upset in my life and the writing just wouldn’t come. I am having a good week, because so far in February I’ve managed to lose ten pounds, and it’s only half over, and just a lot of good has been happening to me so far I guess. So I finished this chapter up while I had the chance. Hopefully things will get smoother and smoother and I won’t have to take as long to update this thing anymore, but I’m not making any promises…you should all know that by now! ;D

Concerning Ryuichi and Eiri: I get a lot of comments about Ryuichi and Eiri’s thoughts and their characters in this story, almost all of them I believe have been good and approving, but to save space, I have decided to just write a longer pieced together response based on the reviews and stuff I have gotten thus far. A bit about where they come from in my mind and why I write them the way I do.

Ryuichi is a strange case, even by my standards. He’s a very complex character and honestly I don’t think people give that to him on very many occasions. I try to display him as a dynamic, multi faceted human being with real issues and thoughts (Though I try to do this for all my characters), instead of falling to one extreme or the other as I often see in other peoples works. Not to much insight is given into Ryu’s “inner workings” in the book or in the anime, so getting him to be a believable, functioning character in ever sense of the statement is not as easy as it may appear, but I think that is why he is one of my favorite characters to write about, other than Yuki. It is because we know so very little about the other sides of him, that make him a fun challenge, one that allows me to create all this back story, which still has to run parallel with any bits of info we are given by Murakami-sensei. That is one of the reasons I am not a big Ryuichi fan fic reader, unless they are exceptionally good.

Alternately, we know a lot about Eiri’s character, and we all know he has many sides. This is the reason that it makes me angry to read stories where all he is either an abusive drunken asshole, to sum them all up, or out of character, super fluffy. He likes his beer, he has a temper and he can be abrasive at times, and means to say things that hurt, but what a lot of people miss is that he has a softer side buried underneath all his fronting and his hardened exterior. One that, no matter how old he gets, I don’t think will ever completely take him over again, but is beginning to show through more and more (in my story that is). There are some things that you can’t un-see, or un-do that have happened to you and the things that happened to Eiri are just some of those things, which is why I don’t think he’ll ever completely “heal”, but just move on further and further from those bad experiences and change accordingly.

His old, softer, self pokes through every now and then, and it governs a lot of his brutish habits and actions. Remember, that he does almost everything for Shuichi’s sake, and while it hurts our poor Shu-chan sometimes, that is just one way of reaching a means to an end, without actually explaining why he is being so mean all the time. In the books, he doesn’t want to hurt Shuichi and can’t understand why the kid loves him so much, but if he hurts him badly enough then maybe he’ll leave and find someone with a heart capable of loving him back. *cough* Hiro *cough* :D lol I wish…*cough*

My Eiri’s thoughts are very personal to me, as I see a lot of myself in the character, more so than in any other fictional character on the planet. His thoughts written here, come from the heart most times, and I think the reason I am able to write him so well, is because of the connection I feel I have with him. So I really like to hear that you love the way I am evolving his thoughts and actions, because a lot of his feelings are my own, in a basic kind of way. So thanks. Having a person like Shuichi constantly digging into his problems and drawing things out isn’t a pleasant experience, trust me I have one, but I also know that it helps a lot to finally say things and get them out in the open. It’s one less thing you have to deal with on your own and once its out you can move onto something else, which feels amazingly good. So I’m glad you like how they interact and that you agree as much as I do that Shuichi is really necessary in my---I mean his life! J/k


For MM.org Reviewers:

To Belle ange:
I totally understand you being busy. I get very busy myself and don’t write and in the same respect I feel terrible not working on this for you all, however this is a hobby, not my job and it can only get done when I have time to do it, so no hard feelings! I appreciate that you took the time to apologize, though it really was unnecessary…
Eloquent? You think my writing is *cries* eloquent? I LOVE YOU! Thanks so so much for saying that. I love it when people use fancy words to describe me! ;_;*sniff*

Mwuahahaha! I knew people actually read these things! Ah yes, the ending…What an epic day it will be when I finally manage that eh? He he, rest assured it will be amazing!

To tinkle time kelly:
Thank you, very much. I encourage you to review even if you don’t’ like a chapter, those reviews are just as important.


For Gurabite Reviewers:

To EIRI-CHICK:
Thank you so much for your reviews first of all, I do believe you hold the record for most reviews contributed by a single person, to this story. On Gurabiteshiyon.net and Mediaminer.org combined and with over 200 reviews total for both sites, that’s no small feat! But you manage to still give me wonderful props with each one, make me feel like I’m creating something unique and special, as well as providing much wanted criticisms that I need to become a better writer. No words can really describe how much you (and everyone else who reviews intelligently) mean to me and to the work I produce.

As for the kitten, yes I thought it would be cute if it followed him around, my cat still does that to this day, and sometimes it annoys the piss out of me and sometimes it just makes me melt, especially when he comes over, wraps his little paws around my neck and “hugs” me to death. The bit about Baby “hugging” Eiri, came from my own cat, believe it or not, though it may seem a bit far fetched it’s true. I don’t know many cats who give hugs, but mine does! ;D

When my mother is upset about something, she rearranges the furniture so that is sort of where Ryu’s behaviors came from in this chapter, though obviously he had different reasons for moving said furniture around. And Eiri “blaming” Shuichi for their engagement was, I’ll have to admit, clever on my part!

To Dax:
Thank you very much for the comments! You review quite a bit too I’ve noticed.
The cats name comes from my own cats actions. He acts very much like a baby human almost all the time, and is very clingy, so since he is the inspiration behind Eiri and Shuichi’s cat in the story, I thought the name fit rather nicely. I’m glad you like it too.

To happy noon:
Don’t be embarrassed! I’m glad that you like it so much! Wow you read it through that much? I don’t think I could even do that…
I’ve tried, but I always get distracted with things I want to change so I can’t really read it like you guys might…but I do read it over from time to time. I prefer the more recent chapters to the older ones, personally, but that is just because I went through some changes in my writing style and I haven’t managed to go back and finish converting the older chapters yet. Most of them I have, just not all and I’m such a procrastinator…
He he…Ooh I’ve created another Tohma sympathizer. You know you aren’t the first person to say I’ve managed to do that with this particular story. He is an asshole, but I think everyone, (even the assholes) deserve to belong to someone, and be loved so I’m really torn about what’s going to happen to him near the end of the story. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do to him yet, and I don’t know if it’s going to be good or bad…You’ll just have to wait and see!

I do pride myself on my Lemon-writing ability. I’m glad you enjoy them! I’m such a horny girl you see so really I must vent myself somewhere! Lol I’m just kidding…or am I? No really I was a joke…Or was it? :D:D:D
And the spelling of maybe is one of those things I was talking about when I said I went through a writing change. I learned a lot in English 20-1 and I applied those new skills to old work. You must keep in mind that I started writing this when I was only about 14 or so…Wow…I’ve been stringing you guys along for that many years? >.<;