Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Undying ❯ Painful Goodbyes ( Chapter 3 )

Undying

Chapter Three

Painful Goodbyes

Disclaimer: Gravitation isn't mine… but it doesn't stop me from fantasizing Yuki is! *Wicked grin*

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He sat in the dark, closed off room, staring blankly at the computer screen as he had countless times before. His fingers tried to flow over the keyboard as was the custom when a deadline loomed ominously on the horizon, but they simply didn't want to work. He'd been victim to this on innumerable times over the years, but no matter how hard he concentrated at the words on the screen, through slim framed glasses, Eiri couldn't add more. He'd read and re-read the same sentence so many times, cajoled it into so many different meanings that it now said something that only his heart could fathom.

"Infatuation? Is it the beat of a fervent heart or that of a corrupted soul?"

He scowled, knowing his own mind and confusion had been plunged into the conflicting words - his own uncertainty and unease being transferred into those of the fictional woman he was writing for. Without a second thought he pushed his finger to the delete button and kept if there until every offending letter had been erased. The growl that seeped into the back of his throat was given more intensity by the second until all hope of clawing together his thoughts had gone and he was left with one course of action.

Pushing off from the stagnant office desk, he let the chair slide apathetically back, spinning into its own path and taking him where it would. Pulling out a cigarette he lit it and looked up to the clock. It was past dinnertime and quickly descending into the time he'd been dreading from the moment he'd returned. Shuichi would be back any moment.

Running a hand over his face he tried to grasp together his emotions and order them into line. With Shuichi would come questions, questions he was unable to answer to himself, let alone to his lover.

"Fuck!" he swore, thinking over the previous nights events. "Why now?" he questioned, his inability to organize his own mind plaguing him with renewed hatred. "After all these years… why Tohma… why now?"

What did he say to Shuichi? What did he give him? There was nothing he could say or do to make things easy between them again. It would all be a lie. That was why he had left the apartment that morning, leaving no chance of having to face up to his confusion so openly. If it had been anyone else… oh god!

If only it had been someone else. No one other than Tohma-san could possible elicit a moment of doubt in his mind about the future he shared with Shuichi and yet… yet it was so wrong to even be thinking in that way. Mika! Had his old dear friend even thought about what it might do to her, had he even for a fraction of a second thought over the consequences of his actions?

But there his anger faded. He would be lying if he hadn't thought about it as well. Long before Shuichi had ever arrived on the scene his brother-in-law had inspired something within him. In his worst moments of despair, amongst all the confusion pain and demons of his long suppressed secret, Tohma had been his rock, his guide, his mentor in his old master's place.

Tohma had given him a release to his feelings, and an ear to listen to that wasn't fed by the emptiness that was left. He had been everything to him. All the old need and desperation to be accepted had violently been forced from him. He shut his eyes, trying to rid his mind from the disturbing dredges of his past. Shuichi had helped, they both had, but there was no way around supplanting the old memories, or the degradation and shame they had long since hauled onto his shoulders.

Knowing the truth for as long as he had, didn't even make it any easier. Without confession and the long held shackles of anonymity he had never given the situation serious consideration. It had therefore been left squashed into a side of his mind that he chose to keep shut off with everything else unfathomable that had happened in his life. When the hell would that place fall into infinity and leave him plagued and broken no more?

He looked disparagingly up to the ceiling and conveyed an abundance of silent curses in that direction. Did someone up there have the audacity to think he hadn't been tortured enough? He was stuck, somewhere in between his lover and his best friend. Trust fate to shit on him when he was down!

As if to emphasise the point it was at that moment he heard the lock of the front door slide gently across, giving access to the only other person privileged enough to own a key. The door clicked carefully open and then slammed noisily shut.

Turning back to the computer, Eiri tried to block out the intrusion. If he ignored him, maybe Shuichi would go away and leave him in peace until he had all this figured out, after all, there was no reason to fear the worst when it hadn't even been touched on the previous night. He had eluded questions once - he could do it again. He needed to.

He expected confrontation. Any moment Shuichi would come bursting through that door and demand an explanation, devotion from him that he was unable to live up to. Even he knew that their relationship, such as it was, would need it if they stood any chance of continuing, that was why he felt it was vital to avoid getting close to it at all costs. There were no answers, and there was no justification.

His fists were unconsciously clenching against the desk, but the interruption never came. He could hear movement, he could hear Shuichi's voice, muttering indecipherable words under his breath, but there was no appearance from him. The door next to the study was violently slammed shut, and Eiri cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. He strained a little harder through his confusion and tried to glean more information.

The wardrobe was being sifted through, he could hear the hangers sliding along the rack and clattering noisily into each other. What the hell was he doing? Was he leaving? Had he finally had enough, after all the months he had suffered under this insane game of love, had Shuichi finally broken, just when… just when he had finally managed to worm his way into his affections?

No! That couldn't be it, could it? No! But then nothing was normal or easy when thrown at the whirlwind of Shuichi's feelings.

Eiri felt his stomach summersault under the thought, making his stressed and tired body hurt even more. It made him feel nonsensically close to vomiting. This wasn't how he wanted it! His head rang with the same uncertainty as before. He didn't want confrontation, but to simply let Shuichi pack his bags and leave! He couldn't sit by and let it happen could he? Who would it hurt, moving out of the office and asking him to stay?

No!

There was need in that gesture, a need for Shuichi's closeness, a need for his love, and his dependency. He had sworn a long time ago that he was never going to show that need ever again! He had given in once and look where it had got him! Here… to the twisted and fucked up mind of a man that had so much money - and yet owned nothing!

He couldn't do it.

So he continued to look at the screen, stifling all the emotion he was victim of and shoving it down into the pit of his stomach, for release later when he was on his own and more capable of transient thought. Anger was it's replacement, morphing his usually calm and unnervingly sedate features into the torment that he had ever kept control of. He would win. He would snuff down this situation and he would dominate it! It was better for all concerned in the long run.

Then somewhere in the spell of the anger, Eiri noticed the noise had gone, there was just silence. Then it came, the moment he had been dreading. There was the tiniest of knocks at his study door, followed by the similarly small and insecure voice of his lover.

"Yuki?"

He put his hands over his mouth, forcing it not to respond.

"Yuki."

There it was again, so innocent, so full of emotion, emotion for him?

"Yuki… please."

All defiance was lost.

"It's open," he replied, instantly cursing his lack of judgement under Shuichi's influence.

The door opened a fraction and Shuichi squeezed his way through to lean against the wall. It looked to Eiri as though he were trying to hide from the true situation he was pushed so far back against the plaster. The shadows pooled around his body only letting the brilliance and light of his eyes scream out of the gloom as though to silently upbraid him. The state of affairs, he agreed, would warrant such an action, but it was so completely foreign to his lovers features that it was like the portend of the devil himself.

There they stayed for several minutes, each silently staring at the other, lost in the fire as the clock ticked noisily in the background.

Eiri, especially not liking the silence from someone as inhibited as Shuichi was the first to break it. His eyes left his lovers with all the slow intimidation that they always held and transferred themselves to the monitor. Concentrating on the passage he had been unsuccessfully working on all day.

"Say what you have to and then leave," he said, with more authority than he felt, "I'm busy."

"I… I…" Shuichi responded nervously. Then after a moment of silence, "I came to say goodbye."

Eiri closed his eyes, thumping the inexplicable emotion down with the action. So he had been right after all. Finding the movement hard he simply let his head fall into a nod. He wanted to say something, to ask questions, but he wouldn't speak with so much emotion clogging up his throat. It would give too much of himself away.

He traced the movement of his lover through the corner of his eyes as he pushed away from the wall with new energy, "Aren't you going to say something? Yuki! Don't be so cold, there has to be something you want to say to me. Didn't you hear me? I'm leaving!"

"There is nothing to be said is there?" Eiri snapped, "Stop having a hissy-fit over something that clearly doesn't matter anymore. Your annoying voice is giving me a headache."

Shuichi stopped as soon as the volatile words left his mouth, stepping back as though he had been hit.

"Yuki?"

His name had sounded so fragile and coveted when it left Shuichi's lips, especially as it was now, accompanied by tears. Eiri swallowed the lump in his throat, sneering at his own weakness. If he didn't know any better he could have sworn his lover was playing his emotions into a cruel trick. He was leaving, he'd said as much himself, why should he be so distraught over cold words when he had made his mind up to hear them no more?

"Don't you even want to know where I'm going?" Shuichi persisted.

"Does it matter Shindou Shuichi? You'll be gone and I'll be here, just as it should have always been."

The frown on Eiri's lips was the exact replication of the emotions he was feeling, and only increased in depth when fresh tears started to trickle down Shuichi's cheeks.

"So it's true then? I didn't want to think… that is… I knew but… knowing and dealing with it… the pain and hurt. It consumes me Yuki."

"Feh!" he spat, "It sounds like some drivel you'd sing about on stage, don't say such pathetic things to me. Now leave… you obviously don't know what you're talking about or what you want, and I don't want to hear it until you do."

Wordlessly Shuichi turned to the door. His hand had all but opened it, when he stopped and looked hauntingly over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry…" he stated, his emotions and features hidden under the line of his hair, "I'm sorry my love wasn't strong enough to feed both of us."

The next moment he was gone, like the vision of a spirit he had disappeared through the door, his words left hanging in the smoke filled room, with no other elaboration.

Once again Eiri was left in the dark office, with only the light of the computer screen to seep into his tainted soul. Was Shuichi really going to leave it at that? He waited, expecting the door to be flung open a moment later, revealing Shuichi full of passion and desire, begging for him not to let him go. He continued waiting. There was nothing.

Shit! What had he just done? He'd wanted to stifle the conversation, he'd wanted it to be short and end without retaliation, because it would mean that the importance would be lost and that Shuichi would not have to know the truth. It had worked, nothing had been said aloud on the subject of himself and Tohma, but the result had been exactly the same as if it had. Shuichi was gone. Shuichi had left him, as he had feared he would.

No longer having the desire to lock himself away, he found new strength in his legs and turning the computer off, stepped away from the chair and out of the room. He was just in time. Shuichi had packed up the absolute necessities of his possessions, a few clothes and inanimate objects that held a place in his young heart, and the keyboard he could never be torn away from, no matter that Fujisaki had made it practically redundant.

Feeling something more needed to be said, Eiri spoke, making Shuichi jump in surprise.

"You're going to your parents then," he stated, seeing the chain of beads Maiko had given to him for his birthday, wrapped around his wrist.

Gathering his faculties Shuichi noticed where his eyes had rested, and quickly put on his coat as though hiding it from more inspection. "You said it didn't matter where I was going?" he shot back.

"As it doesn't."

"Then why?" he pleaded, "Why are you here, just let me leave. It's what you want isn't it?"

Was it what he wanted? Perhaps he was right. It was foolish. Nothing could be gained by being with Shuichi until he had spoken to Tohma, of that much he could be certain. He had to ride this out! No ground could be made up between them until that time. It was best to let him leave.

"You see you can't answer me can you? I knew as much, I knew the moment you looked at him, it was the same," Shuichi whispered, as he picked up his belongings and opened the door. "He doesn't love you, not as much as I do, no one does."

Eiri stood in shock for a moment. There the true subject was, forced violently into the fray just as he was about to turn tail and run. No! It couldn't end there. It wasn't enough, just as Shuichi was about to walk out he spoke again.

"Shuichi?" he called, stopping the other mans progress for a second.

He turned slightly to look up at him through wide, innocent eyes.

"I won't deny he's important to me, but…" he couldn't go on. What else was there to say?

The words, however, didn't need to be said. Shuichi understood, somehow he always did. Throwing his bags down he ran at Eiri, holding him close and almost knocking him over, his arms clinging to him as though he never wanted to let go. Under the unspoken gesture Eiri's hand laid gently in his hair, twisting it through his fingers still amazed at how soft it felt. When had it happened that such a creature could…?

He shook his head. "This is a lie Shuichi," he mumbled into the young mans embrace. "I don't want to lie to you."

"I know," he mumbled in reply, "but if this is the last touch I get from Yuki then I'm going to take it and enjoy it."

They stood that way for several minutes, just holding each other and saying a silent farewell. How long? wondered Eiri, how long will it be before I figure this out? Before I find peace.

Instantly he moved away, "Go Shuichi," he snarled, suddenly feeling the lie as it stood, bitter and full of unfulfilled promise. "There is no need to delude each other any longer. Go home, go wherever, I don't care anymore, for you or Tohma. You can both go to hell for making me this way!"

With the flick of his wrist the door was open once again.

Nodding mutely Shuichi picked up his bags once again and bolted through the doors once again, this time not looking back as the tears were back and streaming down his face.

"I love you Yuki!" he screamed, both passionately and bitterly as though it was torn from his lips. "Why… why can't you love me back!"

That was it. He was gone, his hurried footsteps filtering into thin air and then nothing… nothing else remained.

As though the life in Shuichi had been a part of his strength, as soon as the door was closed behind him, Eiri found he had to lean against it for the extra support it offered. "Go to hell!" he sighed, "and take my mind with you."

Then everything started to swim, his legs lost all stability and he slumped to the floor, his cheeks inexplicably wet as he felt his tears as though from a dream.

Then - thankfully - it all went blank.

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A/N - Wow! That chapter was so easy to write. There's something so intense and powerful about Yuki's character that I knew writing for him was going to be a delight. I've never had the privilege of delving into his mind before, I just hope I got it right. Let me know what you think.