Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Piece of Love ❯ Reflection ( Chapter 2 )

By Anomay

Rating: PG-13 (for now, anyway)
Genre: Angst/Romance

Summary: Uesugi Tatsuha, sixteen years old monk-in-training, is a typical senior high school teenager boy. However, meeting the man of his dreams would lead him to discover heartaches and drama that are best left undisturbed.

Note: Big thanks go to Anahita for being my beta-reader! A special thank will also go to those reviewed my first chapter! The second chapter probably will not be posted without your encouragement, since there are some parts that I think I can definitely improve on.

Chapter Two: Reflection

*~*~*

Tatsuha groaned and hid his head underneath the pillows when his father came to his room and tore away his blanket on the following Monday morning.

"Look at how shameless you are, sleeping in on a bright morning! I do not have a disobedient son like you. I command you to wake up now, Tatsuha!" said the Buddhist monk and current head of the Uesugi temple.

"Leave me alone, old man! I don't feel well enough to go to school today!"

"Nonsense. If you want to continue living underneath my roof, you WILL wake up at this instant and go to school today," his father said, exercising his authority and promptly hit Tatsuha with a wooden stick on the head.

"What was that for? That hurts!" Tatsuha whined, ignoring the harsh shot that his father gave him.

"Serves you right, you lazy bum. Really, young men these days have no discipline at all! I still remember what a difficult life we led when your late mother and I were still young …"

"All right, I'll get up, sir, so could you please cut out your long lectures? Thank you!" said Tatsuha as he rushed towards the washroom, effectively blocking his father's boomingvoice by the thick wooden door.

Tatsuha wasn't lying when he said he didn't feel well that day. He was still recovering from the shock of being shunned by his favourite person in the world just two nights ago. He still didn't understand what had exactly happened; first he was invited to hear Ryuichi sing live in a Karaoke bar, then he almost formed a friendship with the superstar, only to have it all destroyed at the end when he said that his name was Uesugi Tatsuha.

What had he done wrong?

Why had Ryuichi changed his attitude completely when Tatsuha introduced himself?

Why would a super star like him be singing alone in a private Karaoke booth in Kyoto on a Saturday night when others would have paid millions to hear him perform?

Tatsuha spent the previous day pondering those questions, but he still hadn't managed to come up with a satisfactory answer.

He was depressed and had under-slept the night before. It wasn't like everyday that you got to meet your idol and had him smash the door in your face. Truth be told, Tatsuha would have loved to spend the next week or so moping inside his room, avoiding everyone and revelling in his own teenage angst.

But of course, he still had to go to school everyday and pretended nothing was wrong, because his father wouldn't allow him to skip his studies for any reasons, never mind the fact that Tatsuha didn't need the education, because it was already determined that he was going to inherit the temple one day, since his older brother Eiri had expressed a genuine dislike for associating himself with his father in any way.

Why did Buddhist monks need to study Chemistry and go to universities? From Tatsuha's perspective, all he needed for doing his priestly duty were acting skills and a low murmuring voice so that people couldn't tell what exactly he was reciting during ceremonies. He could be chanting "I want to have hot passionate sex with Sakuma Ryuichi" for all he cared; no one would be able to tell the difference anyway.

Splashing water on his face, Tatsuha wiped his eyes hard with a thick towel. He studied himself closely in the mirror; there were dark circles under his eyes and his skin was sallowbecause of lack of sleep.

"What are you doing upstairs, Tatsuha? Come down and have breakfast with me at once!" his father was at it again.

Sighing, Tatsuha pulled on his school uniform quickly and went downstairs.

*~*~*

On the way to his high school, Tatsuha met his buddy Dachi on the bus.

"Hey, Tatsuha, what's up? Why did you leave us suddenly on Saturday? We had a blast after you left!"

"Really? Good for you." Yawning, Tatsuha leaned his body against his friend and closed his eyes.

"You're heavy, get off me! Seriously, you look so sick. What, did you have too much fun screwing with some cute babes over the weekend?"

"Speak for yourself ! No, that isn't the reason why I'm tired," Tatsuha continued to lean on his friend despite his protests. "Listen, I had a bad weekend, and I don't want to discuss it. Leave me alone, okay?"

Dachi looked at Tatsuha with concern. "Are you sure you're fine, Tatsuha? I haven't seen you so dead before." he put his hand on his friend's forehead and felt for the temperature. "You don't seem to have a fever …"

The two of them almost lost their balances when the school bus pulled in front of the school gate.

Tatsuha nodded, "I'll be fine soon, don't you worry about me. It's time for us to get off the bus now, by the way."

With a worried expression on his face, Dachi dragged Tatsuha across the schoolyard and entered the main building.

*~*~*

Tatsuha still felt ill after the lunch break. He really should have taken the advice of his friend Arimi and left early, he thought.
It didn't help that the period immediately after the lunch break was Ogata-sensei's Japanese literature class. The teacher was fairly young, but he never gave his students any time to slack off.

Ogata-sensei glanced around the room, effectively silencing everyone, "Today we're going to talk about The Tale of Genji, open your textbook to page fifty-six."

"The Tale of Genji is a story about the interactions between Genji and the women that he encounters. The tale mostly explores the different themes of love, affection, friendship, filial loyalty, and family." Ogata-sensei said.

He saw Tatsuha's body slumped over his desk. Frowning, he stopped lecturing and slammed his book onto the teacher's desk as a warning. The classmates sitting around Tatsuha were trying to give him a warning signal, however, the black-haired boy was too dazed to realize what kind of trouble he was going to get into later.

"Genji wanders through the landscape of life, death, and love while maintaining a Teflon-like dignity," at this point Ogata-sensei gave up all pretence and yelled, "Uesugi-kun, may I have your attention please!?"

Startled, Tatsuha stood up abruptly, almost knocking his chair over. "Yes, Sensei?"

"What is the meaning of the poem that the empress wrote to Genji after his dance?"

"Page fifty-six," murmured Dachi. Shooting his friend a grateful look, Tatsuha turned the page and read:

In the movement of the dancing sleeves.
Could you perceive the storm of love within?
Far away from the man from China waved his sleeves.
Every wave touching the bottom of my heart.

Tatsuha shook his head and started explaining, "This poem portrays the emotion between Genji and his step-mother. Their love runs deep, however, their social status and differences in age stop them from getting it on with each other. The empress knows that loving Genji, otherwise known as the shining one, is a sin; however, their feelings are seriously killing them, and she'll gladly become a sinner for the sake of her inevitable love for her step-son."

Tatsuha stopped for a second and beamed, "I admire this Genji guy. He gets to sleep around with different women from age fifteen to forty-five, usually more than one during the same period! I wonder how can he keep up with the demand. He's so my role-model!"

The whole class erupted with laughers and it took some time for the teacher to calm it down.

If Ogata-sensei was annoyed or impressed with the explanation, he didn't show it. "Thank you for your insightful comment, Uesugi-kun, though if I were you, I would leave parts of it out of a classroom setting."

Tatsuha smirked; he didn't have an award-winning and smut-loving writer brother for nothing.

In reality, Tatsuha had read entire The Tale of Genji in traditional Japanese when he was still a junior high kid, partly out of interest for wanting to know how an ancient playboy woos his women, and partly because his brother said he might enjoy it. (Yes, he enjoyed the sex scenes very much) Having been forced to read rolls of Buddhist sutra since age five, Tatsuha found the book to be a piece of cake to understand.

*~*~*

After getting compliments from his friends about his splendid performance in the literature class, Tatsuha turned down all offers to hang out after school and left by himself.

He had cheered up a little, but he was still troubled by Ryuichi's complete change of attitude towards him after he introduced himself. Anyone would have ground their teeth and lost nights of sleep when they were so close in forming a decent friendship with their idol, only it all went down to the drain at the end!

It was so frustrating when Tatsuha just couldn't figure out why he was rejected. Always an all-around popular guy at school and everywhere else, Tatsuha wasn't used to being turned down by anyone. He could usually capture anyone's attention by his looks, charms, brains or attitude. Since their family was rich and he was the youngest son in the household, he often got what he asked for.

He definitely did not like being forsaken, especially by the one whom he desired to impress the most.

Feeling hungry all of a sudden, Tatsuha decided to make a detour and stopped by his favourite ramen shop before he headed home.

When he was slurping up the noodles, he heard a familiar voice talk loudly.

"Hey, Kumagoro, we got to visit that place again. Aren't you excited? I am! Ryu-chan is definitely filled. Yeah!"

Tatsuha assumed Ryuichi meant "thrilled" and not "filled", because otherwise it didn't make sense. He couldn't stop himself from giggling at the little mistake the man made.

Waving his pink bunny around like a puppet and having a "two-way conversation" with it, Ryuichi was drawing quite a crowd around him, but he didn't seem to notice the attention.

'Well, aren't we the lucky one?' Tatsuha thought to himself. He got to meet Ryuichi in person twice in the same week; maybe he should begin buying lottery tickets, Tatsuha thought. He stopped eating and followed Ryuichi in spite of himself. He wanted to demand an explanation from the N-G vocalist about the other night.

Praying that no one was paying attention to his stalker-like actions because he didn't want to be thrown in jail, Tatsuha followed Ryuichi from a safe distance. It was hard to lose Ryuichi on the street. He was so loud and bouncy - Tatsuha could hardly believe that was the same man whose eyes turned icy when he left with the cab after their first meeting.

After five minutes of walking, Ryuichi finally entered a building, singing loudly to himself about how bright the sky was. Tatsuha didn't hesitate in following the man. He took a quick peek at the name on the front gate.

The building was a rehabilitation centre.

Paling a little, Tatsuha took the school badge off his uniform. He swallowed audibly and pulled on his uniform tie as he went into the building.

Cultural note:

The tale of Genji: It is believed that an anonymous person wrote it during the 11th century; nowadays it is highly regarded by Japanese scholars and is widely studied. What Ogata and Tatsuha said about it inside the fanfiction is pretty accurate (I didn't make the story nor the poem up), although I deliberately take out parts and draw parallels with the relationship between Tatsuha and Ryuichi later on in the story. For more information, check out the Kodansha Bilingual Comics by Waki Yamato. That's your literature lecture for today. ^_~