Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Sorry ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

“Sorry”

Written by: Chocho

Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation.

Story summary: AU. Ryuichi? Or Eiri? That is the question. Who will Shuichi chose? (Shuichi/Ryuichi, Ryuichi/Tatsuha, Shuichi/Eiri)

Chapter summary: Tohma confronts Ryuichi about his affair with Tatsuha.

Warning: Language, OOC (Duh! Do I look like the creator?)

Sources: Based on the song “Sorry” by Madonna

 

***

 

Chapter 3

 

(Present time, Friday Night- Tokyo)

 

With his legs folded underneath him, Ryuichi sat back on the couch with his hands wrapped around a steaming mug of hot cocoa. He brought the cup to his face and inhaled the sweet, chocolaty aroma and smiled. He sighed. He took a sip, feeling the hot liquid trickle down his throat. As he leaned forward to set the cup on the coffee table, his eyes caught sight of the photograph of Shuichi and him that had fallen off the wall earlier and his heart gave a painful lurch. Tears stun his eyes. Unable to look at those large, innocent violet eyes smiling at him with love and complete faith, he grabbed the picture and flipped it over. Grabbing a pillow, he hugged it to his chest. Burying his face in the pillow, he sobbed quietly.

 

*

 

(Pittsburgh, PA)

 

Hugging his legs to his chest, his heels resting on the edge of the couch, Shuichi leaned his chin on the pillow he was hugging and stared blankly out the window of his suite. He knew he should go downstairs and join Hiro and Fujisaki for breakfast, but he was not in the mood for company or food at the moment. The thought of food made him queasy and the idea of being among people was suffocating. All he wanted was to be alone for a while.

 

With much difficulty, he tore his eyes away from the window and stared at his cellphone lying dormant on the coffee table. He wished it would ring. He willed it to ring, but it remained stubbornly silent. Shuichi felt his soul cry out as the silence stretched on around him. When a picture of Ryuichi flashed through his head, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, but was not sure why. Despair enveloped and washed over him. He gasped out a sudden sob as tears stun his eyes, blurring his vision. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tightened his hold on the pillow and scrunched into a tight ball in the corner of the couch. Burying his face in the pillow, he wept silently.

 

*

 

(Tokyo)

 

Sniffing, Ryuichi brushed his fingers across his wet cheeks as he crossed the living room towards the front door. Another loud pounding echoed through the silence of the apartment. It was almost eleven o'clock at night, who would be coming to visit him so late at night? Was it Tatsuha? Had he forgotten something? The thought of the young monk made his heart beat rapidly and his pulse race. Butterflies fluttered nervously in his stomach. He stopped before the apartment door and grabbing the hem of his pajama top, dried the last of his tears before sliding back the security chain and turning the dead bolt. His hand on the doorknob, he took a deep breath to calm himself.

 

As much as he would love it to be Tatsuha, he doubted it was. Tatsuha had a wedding ceremony in Kyoto to perform in the morning; otherwise, he would have stayed the night. So, if it was not his favorite monk then who could it be? Shuichi was not due back until next week sometime. Besides, he had his own key and he would have called to tell him that he was back. Or, the information that Bad Luck was back in Japan would have been leaked by someone and it would be all over the net. No, if Shuichi were back he would know. He felt a stab of pain in his chest when he thought of his boyfriend. He shook off the all too familiar feeling and wondered once again who could be paying him a visit in the middle of the night.

 

Opening the door, he blinked, startled by whom he saw standing on the other side. “Tohma!” he cried out in surprise.

 

“Ryu,” the keyboardist said. His voice and face were carefully blank. He studied his vocalist and noticed his damp cheeks. Had he been crying?

 

Ryuichi stepped aside and waved his friend inside. “What's up?” he asked, curiously. When Tohma stepped inside, Ryuichi shut and locked the door behind him. Turning around, he saw his old friend staring at him with a serious expression on his face. That look was never a good thing. “Tohma? What's wrong?”

 

“We need to talk.”

 

Ryuichi gulped. Why was he suddenly getting an uneasy feeling?

 

*

 

Eiri sat staring at his computer screen blankly. His hands lay idle on the keyboard. The words on the screen blurred into splotches of color. He could not remember what he just wrote. Something about a pair of lovers reuniting after being separated for more than a year. All he seemed to be able to think about was one pink haired singer with large amethyst eyes.

 

Sighing, he slumped back in the chair and combed his fingers through his hair. Leaning his head against the back of the chair, he stared vacantly at the ceiling.

 

He wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened had he actually taken the kid up on his challenge and gone to his concert that day a year ago. Would he even now be with him as Bad Luck toured North America with several other bands from Japan on an anime convention tour? Would he be the one Shuichi held hands with? The one whose arm he clung to? The one to hold him, kiss him and make love to him? The one the pink haired god sang to? The one he wrote songs about? The one the paparazzi caught him with? Would Eiri wake up each morning to find the lithe god with the voice of an angel sleeping peacefully next to him?

 

Not for the first time either he wondered what had possessed him to turn his offer down. Why had he chosen not to go? It was true that that so-called “song” had been the worst piece of drivel he ever read and he had had a date that night, but the concert could have been a good excuse to blow off his annoying sister. Being forced to listen to that crap of a song would have been better than sitting there listening to his sister playing the guilt trip card to get him to go and visit their father (which had not worked). It was also true that feelings and emotions he thought had been killed years ago in New York had reignited the moment he locked eyes with those incredible plum eyes at the park that night. Was that the reason why he blew off the kid? Because the reemergence of these feelings, the thought of getting close to someone, of being in a committed relationship terrified him?

 

If that was true, then was it not also true that he was partially at fault for Shuichi becoming involved with Sakuma, a man who could not tell the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground, a man who did not realize he was in heaven until he was dragged into hell? That was something Eiri did not want to think about because it made his heart hurt to think he was the reason Shuichi was hurting.

 

Growling, he sat up and shook his head of all thoughts of that lithe, pink haired god. Why the hell was he so fascinated, so fixated by that kid anyway? And why the hell did he care about his love life? He had not even talked to that damn baka in over a year and he was making his life a living hell.

 

“Damned brat,” he muttered angrily as his fingers flew over the keyboard. As much as it annoyed Eiri to think about Shindou Shuichi constantly, it did have one benefit. He suddenly had a surge of ideas for his current and future novels.

 

*

 

The night was cool. The streets were deserted. A chill breeze blew through the parking lot, blowing a clear plastic wrapper into the street. Tohma wrapped his black wool coat tighter around him and huddled within its warmth as he crossed the parking lot towards his car. Pulling out his keys from his coat pocket, he fumbled among the various keys and tags for the little black fob and unlocked his car doors. The chin echoed loudly in the silence of the parking lot. He rounded the car to the driver's side as he searched for his car key. He paused besides the car door clutching the key in his hand and reached for the door handle, but froze. He stared blankly at his hand on the door handle.

 

[“I want you to break it off with him,” he told his vocalist without any preamble.

 

Ryuichi froze mid-step. Fear flashed across his face before he was able to school his face. He swallowed his fright and forced himself to smile at his old friend. He sat down on the opposite L of the couch. “'Break it off with' whom?” he asked innocently. He looked at a point to the left of Tohma's face as his pulse started racing and his heart beat faster. His palms grew sweaty.

 

“You know whom, Ryu.” He was in no mood to play games.

 

His mouth was suddenly parched. “I have no idea what you're-”

 

“Then why can't you look me in the eye?” Tohma snapped.

 

Ryuichi sighed and hung his head. He should have known he would not be able to hide anything from his best friend. “How long have you known?” he finally asked.

 

He did not like to admit it but… “An hour,” Tohma admitted truthfully.

 

Ryuichi chuckled. To Tohma it sounded a little hysterical.

 

“I saw you in the lobby downstairs.”

 

Ryuichi groaned and buried his face in his hands.

 

Tohma had a brief urge to inform his friend that if he saw him then it was likely that he had not been the only one. He had been a bit preoccupied being stunned (to say the least) at the time to notice if there had been paparazzi hidden outside the condominium. Seeing Ryuichi was who he was, it would not surprise him if a huge photo of the two illicit lovers were splashed all over the papers and on TV when they woke up in the morning. But it died a quick death. It would serve his friend right if they had been present. “Why, Ryu?”

 

Ryuichi shook his head. He had been asking himself the same question ever since he allowed the boy to seduce him. “I don't know why.”

 

“Do you love him?”

 

Tears stun Ryuichi's eyes. His hand flew to his mouth as he sobbed. “Yes,” he whispered, his voice strained.

 

Anger flared through the keyboardist. “And Shuichi?”

 

Ryuichi shook his head. “This has nothing to do with him.”

 

Tohma narrowed his eye and glared at the singer. “'Nothing to do with him'?” he echoed. Had he truly heard him right? What the hell was he thinking? Or not thinking as the case may be. “'Nothing to do with him'? How can you say that? It has everything to do with him! Shuichi is your husband! And you are gonna just sit there and tell me that your affair with a sixteen year old has nothing to do with him?”

 

Tears flowed freely down Ryuichi's face. His heart hurt. His felt nauseous as his emotions warred with one another. “Don't Tohma,” he whispered through his tears.

 

“Don't what?” Tohma hissed. He was usually able to keep his cool no matter what, but for some reason this time he could not get a handle on his emotions. Just listening to Ryuichi spout this nonsense was beyond exasperating. He wanted to ring his vocalist's scrawny neck. “Tell you something you should already know?”]

 

Tohma sighed and lifted his head to stare at the apartment his two top vocalists shared at the top of the condominium.

 

[“Either you tell him about Tatsuha, or I will,” he threatened.

 

Ryuichi gasped. “But, but-! I, I can't! If I tell him…I don't want to hurt him!”

 

Tohma shook his head as he stood up. “You should've thought of that before-”

 

“Tohma, please!”

 

“I'm sorry, Ryu. As much as I hate to admit it, I consider Mr. Shindou a friend and I don't want to see him hurt.” He picked up his hat from the coffee table and placed it back on his head. The frame flipped upside down in the middle of the table did not escape his vision. “It's either Tatsuha or Shuichi, Ryuichi. Either way, you have to tell him.”]

 

Tohma sighed and dropped his head. Ryuichi was his best friend and he loved the guy, but he was not going to cut him any slack on this.

 

He opened the car door. Lifting his leg into the cab, he lifted his head to take one last look at the darkened apartment. He knew Ryuichi was suffering. He had seen it on his friends face, but Tohma did not feel bad for the guy in the least. Ryuichi made his bed and now he had to sleep in it.

 

He just hoped Ryuichi took his advice and talked to Shuichi, before Shuichi found out some other way. He knew from experience that if Shuichi found out about Ryuichi's affair from someone other than Ryuichi, it would make things much worse.

 

*

 

Sighing heavily, Ryuichi crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the sliding glass doors, staring out over the city. He did not see the city or the blanket of lights that was the city. He could not see Tokyo tower in the distance or the apartment building right across the street. He was oblivious to everything but the ache in his head and the pain in his heart.

 

The clouds disbursed in the night sky, revealing a large full moon. The moonlight reflected on Ryuichi's face, glistening off tears that trickled down his face.

 

***