Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ The Opposite of Gravity ❯ Grasping The Truth ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Sorry.

Warning: Very short chapter -_-

"Sakuma-san?" The tiny voice broke Ryuichi's thoughts, and he turned toward the sound, solemn and remorseful lavender-indigo eyes staring up at him. "Are you crying?" The singer instantly shook his head.

"Iie…Ryuichi is sleepy," he replied with an exhausted tone, trying to convince his younger companion to leave him alone; all he had wanted was to be unbothered by everything, but life was as unfair to him as it was to everyone else.

"Oh…alright," Shuichi answered, once again lying his head on his shoulder with an exasperated sigh, and Ryuichi whispered a silent prayer of relief. "Sakuma-san?"

"Hai?"

"Do you really believe that Hiro will be all right?" There was a soft sob. "He…he tried to save me, and I did something...something t-terrible!" The lithe youth moaned into Ryuichi's shoulder, hiding at the memory of Hiro's avid hands and liquefying mouth upon his own, and he began to cry once again, making the other singer wonder if he ever stopped expressing so many emotions at once. Not that he actually minded though. He did the exact same thing more often.

"What is it that you did?" he asked seriously, unable to add on the habitual `Na No Da.'

"I-"

"Is there a Shindou Shuichi anywhere in this room?" a young male doctor -or was it nurse?- asked them, interrupting Shuichi in his attempted explanation of his unfaithfulness to both his friendship and to Yuki.

"Hai! Hai! I'm Shindou Shuichi," he cried brazenly, instantly leaping up to run at the surprised man who held a clipboard in his still gloved hands. "Is Hiro okay? Is he?!"

"Nakano-san had successfully pulled through the surgery, and although we usually don't allow visitors in the recovery room, he insistently asked for a `Shindou Shuichi' despite the medications he is currently on," he explained in one smooth breath, confusing the boy even further. K, Suguru, and Sakano nodded understandingly, but Shuichi scratched his head.

"So…I…can see him?" The doctor gave him a brisk look.

"Only for as long as Nakano-san is conscious. He needs to rest-" The singer was off in a flash, unable to listen anymore, having no idea where he was going, and he passed several rooms -some even twice- before he caught a glimpse of brilliant red mingling with white, instantly recognizing his best friend's body tucked carefully in the hospital bed. Shuichi crept into the almost ethereal sanctuary, his teeth digging into the soft flesh of his bottom lip, and he slid to stand beside Hiro's peaceful form, eyes frantically searching his companion's face for any signs of life. He was pale, the usually tanned flesh vaguely resembling snow, and his crimson hair stood out among the plain coloring of the sheets and pillows. Tears began to gather at the corners of his already burning eyes, and as Shuichi stared at him, he realized that he almost looked…dead.

"Hiro-" Orbs of hazed cobalt flickered open weakly to glance at him before the guitarist closed them and turned his head, moaning at the brightness in the place and the throbbing in his temples.

"Urasai," he murmured almost silently, bringing even more emotion flooding down his partner's saddened face. "I already said that didn't I?" Shuichi let loose a terrible shriek of mixed pain and pleasure, leaping onto the bed to cling to the injured youth unable to defend himself. Hiro grimaced as he hit the bandaged part of his body with his elbow, sending an entire vibration of pain directly to his brain.

"HIRO! I'm so glad you're alive!" he shouted, oblivious to the increasing pressure in his companion's left side. "It was all my fault! All of it-"

"Don't be stupid," Hiro huffed out, almost unable to concentrate with the heavy -and skimpily clad- figure pressing against his wound and the drugs he'd been given to fight the agony. "You didn't…have the gun.." Shuichi lifted up his head to stare at his friend's face, which was somehow inches from his own, and he thought his lips had started to burn.

"Demo...I wasn't paying attention to anything else. I was singing that stupid song, and you…you got hurt because of it." He sniffed, nuzzling his nose against Hiro's neck in an attempt to hide the tears flowing freely down his cheeks, but the guitarist could feel them sliding onto his skin and the cushioning of the pillow. He instantly overlooked the discomfort he had to focus entirely on the self-affliction building within Shuichi, his best friend and the one he loved more than anything else. He gently lifted up a hand to stroke at the pink, strawberry-scented tendrils caressing his face and forgot what it was to be in pain.

"That stupid song means more to you than...everything," he began slowly, his breath harder to maintain. "And…I just couldn't let you get yourself hurt...Shu-chan…" Shuichi leaned back enough to meet his gaze, still sniffling. "You…are more important to me than...I am to myself." Hiro swallowed, knowing that when he faced himself without the shield of narcotics he was on that he would hate what he had become and what he had said. "Before the concert...it was an…accident...make it right with himbecause…because he can make you so much more…happy than I ever could-" A finger to his lips stopped him from continuing.

"I don't care," Shuichi confessed, almost nervously. "I don't care anymore, Hiro. You're my best friend...we started Bad Luck and in high school...you saved me from being more stupid than necessary. Can't you...can't you be happy, too? Whatever it takes-"

"Hasn't anyone ever told you that you talk too much?" he asked softly, slightly drowsy by the warmth of Shuichi's body and fuzzy feeling washing over him, and he could feel himself slipping into an abyss of invisible dreams.

"Hai, all the time, but...I don't care." He whimpered it repeatedly like a mantra. "I don't care." And, for the first time in his life, since he had known Shuichi, Hiro believed him.

* * *

Eiri stared menacingly at the small blinking cursor paused in the middle of a sentence, his thoughts running over what he had written. It was all nonsense really, just a jumbled bunch of words, but the first impulse the author had had when he'd woken up -Shuichi's warmth and almost sickeningly sweet strawberry smell faded into the sheets- was to type everything down into his laptop computer for future reference, as though he would create a story out of it. The twenty-two year old man had never, throughout his entire career, thought of using his life as the basis for a romance novel -nor would he think of advertising his lithe little lover to the people who already worshipped him in a more intimate manner- but the entire situation was contradicting and ultimately enticing. He could imagine very explicitly what the reaction would be -a gay portrayal of love and heartbreak by the presumably bisexual Yuki Eiri- and he liked it, albeit the consequences would be more than he could handle. It was already hard to face his past despite having remembered and conquered it, and revealing it specifically for public criticism was too much, too fast. Taking one final look at the odd masterpiece beginning to form, Eiri highlighted it with a single touch to the pad and deleted it.

The writer rubbed a hand over his worn face, grimacing when he noticed he was still wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day before and slept in, and he decadently decided that he needed more coffee. He realized that his impending lack of concentration had to deal with the fact that he no longer felt important to anyone; not that he had in the first place, but it was just a reprieve his mind tended to accept. His brother had become as much a stranger to him as the next person -as well as his sister and her husband, though Tohma made the effort to piece together a somewhat hopeful relationship between them, which Eiri didn't want to argue against- and Shuichi was becoming increasingly dependent, as much as he hated to admit it. The over-rambunctious singer had faded from persistently annoying and excessively happy to a somewhat moderately balanced person, or so he thought. Eiri wasn't sure if the change had even taken place overnight or if he'd just gotten so used to it that it didn't bother him like it had before.

Such was hard to tell when it came to Shindou Shuichi.

Eiri sauntered into the spacious living room, unable to suppress the urge to roll his eyes at the mess of clothes and miscellaneous objects scattered about in his lover's obvious attempt to clean up, and he walked into the kitchen, searching for a usable cup -preferably his usual white coffee mug- when the phone began to ring. His lemon-lime eyes narrowed in towards a clock suspended lopsidedly on the plain walls and shook his head in surprise, unwilling to accept the time. It was already past ten o'clock, and Shuichi hadn't returned from the pointless concert he'd had scheduled that night.

"Hold on a damn minute," he cursed to no one in particular, unable to allow the seeds of worry to grow within him; Shuichi was an adult and should have been mature enough to take care of himself. The key words that made him edgy were should have been. "What?!" His harsh voice spat into the receiver, completely agitated by the confusing emotions welling inside him, and he though he could hear a faint sound that was like someone falling over.

"You appear to be in a chipper mood, Aniki," Tatsuha's familiar low tenor answered, bringing another exasperated look to Eiri's usually stoic face. "Turn on the TV." Eiri's eyebrow twitched slightly; his youngersibling was giving him commands?

"Doushite?! What's so important about-" He hadn't realized that his hand had been reaching for the remote even as he spoke, and when the screen flickered on, he paused in brief shock, words unable to form themselves on his tongue. Sirens were wailing as their lights flashed bright red and white, and a news reporter -young and female- was rapidly talking while medics rushed part her...towards a stadium?

"I thought you might want to know. I just heard about it from Mika-chan when Tohma-san called her," Tatsuha rambled on, unaware that Eiri was standing so close to the television that he was almost a part of it. "He said there was a bit of an accident on stage at Bad Luck's concert, and...Aniki...are you listening?" The writer dropped the phone and grabbed the entertainment stand, almost ready to shake it. Was that why Shuichi hadn't come home yet? Something terrible had happened to him? For the longest second in his entire life, Eiri felt the cold knife of fear -as he had experienced long ago when he was sixteen and unaware of his sensei's true intentions- stab at his heart until he heard the anchor murmur in astonishment when she read a piece of paper that was handed to her.

"It is now verified that in a desperate attempt to protect the lead singer of Bad Luck, Nakano Hiroshi, talented guitarist for the band, was shot by an unrecognizable audience member from center row. It is unclear-" There was a sharp bustle as several people burst though the wide doors of the arena, and Eiri squinted, only able to make out enough to calm his racing pulse -pink hair fluttering in a self-made breeze as it raced after the gurney with a limp body on it. "Here they come! Perhaps we can get a better explanation of what happened! Shindou-san! Shindou-san, could I have a word with you?!" Over the noise, Eiri could hear the addicting voice of the vocalist accusing everything and cursing without a break to breathe.

"Damn all this...can't you see he's hurt?! Shimatta, shimatta, shimatta!!" Shuichi yelled, stomping his foot to the rhythm he spoke as he whirled around to furiously face the camera and the young woman following him. "You want a word? Here!" In the most explicit moment of his public career, the youth clenched his fist and flipped off every viewer watching. Eiri couldn't help the strangled laugh working its way into his throat at the sight of both Shuichi's unexpected behavior and the woman's embarrassed expression, and he eventually stood, knowing what he had to do. He picked up the small phone even as he heard his brother's ranting continue.

"Aniki?! Aniki?! Damn it all to...are you there?!" Eiri instantly realized that he needed a cigarette.

"Urasai! I'm leaving," he spoke, promptly shutting off the power to the TV and the phone in one motion. He knew Tatsuha would be angry at him -he almost always was- but there was something more important he had to contend with. He just hoped it didn't interfere with his newly improved relationship, the one he was desperate to keep...forever.

TBC-