Sugar Cane

Disclaimer: I do not own Gravitation.


Sugar Cane
By 11


Chapter 15

It was very rude to be awakened on a weekend morning, especially this early! Hiro did not appreciate the loud phone that started to blare in his ears somewhere around 6:45 am, but nonetheless answered.

“Hello…” he asked trying not to groan in exasperation. Hiro stayed silent after that listening to the man on the other end of the connection. Maybe it wasn’t such a ‘rude’ phone call as he had thought.

“Okay. Absolutely, if you give me the number I’ll check with my partner and get back to you on that,” Hiro answered taking down the phone number from the caller. “Thank you. We’ll call you back soon. We are very interested in getting representation. Okay bye.”

The auburn-haired youth set the phone back on the receiver. He took a moment to breathe before he picked up the phone again and dialed a familiar number he often called anyway, but this time he had a really good reason.

`

Slowly, violet eyes opened; Shuichi felt so warm and very rarely woke up feeling this warm. The rare days he did was either because of a mountain of blankets or because he had been snuggling with his parents, a habit he had since he was old enough to walk to their room and was currently unwilling to break.

As his eyes focused, blinking the sleepy sand that had clouded them momentarily, he found his view on the pale features of one Yuki Eiri. His golden blond was hair falling around the edges of his face. With a hand, Shuichi reached over and smoothed the short strands back away. Yuki’s body next to him had been what was so warm. He really was very cute, in that he looked so relaxed and peaceful while in sleep, where other times when awake glaring seemed to take up any and all of his time.

Snuggling in a little closer, the pink-haired boy put his hand back under the covers to lay draped at the blond’s side. Golden eyes met Shuichi’s as they opened, gazing sleepily at his bed partner. “Good morning,” Shuichi offered.

“Morning…” the other boy returned to closing his eyes again briefly.

“Love you, Yuki.” The violet-eyed youth said, snuggling in so that he could rest the side of his head in the nook between Yuki’s neck and shoulder. The blond’s arms at his own sides pulled him closer. A whisper of words against the pink-haired boy’s hair, barely audible, but nonetheless heard in the welcome silence of the morning.

“I love you too.”

Yuki felt the other boy sigh happily against him, and lifting his head a bit, Yuki let his partner look up at him with a soft smile on his face. There was a radiation of joy and love, something warm that seeped from Shuichi into Yuki himself, filling him with the same warm feeling.

Leaning down a little towards his partner Yuki let his lips just lightly touch the other’s. Violet eyes slid shut as the younger male added a little more pressure into their kiss, opening his lips slightly to lightly tease at the blond’s.

Yuki’s hand at Shuichi’s side, where it had previously rested, came up to stroke at the back of the boy’s neck, tilting him back just a little further to allow the golden-eyed youth the right angle to take control of the kiss. Tongue’s met and slapped playfully at each other, a slight moan escaping the violet-eyed youth. There was hunger to this kiss, but there was also such a feeling of warmth that declared that this was okay and that this interest was more than a one-time fling that would soon end.

One of Shuichi’s hands rested at Yuki’s back rubbing in circles against the warm pliant flesh there. The other was stroking into the neck and hairline at the blond’s nape. It felt so warm and tingly that he would probably be aroused in just a minute or so if this continued with the same, steady increase in boldness. Then, just right then…

The phone rang.

Both paused their activities, pulling away and staring at each other for a moment. The phone rang again and they both looked over at it. Hmm… this was odd… where else had this almost exact situation happened? Shuichi was sure it rang a bell, from somewhere, something like this happened. Total déjà vu… but from when? Hmm…

“Hello?” Yuki asked after getting off of Shuichi and picking up the phone. He looked annoyed at the caller; Shuichi was too, who would be calling Yuki here this early in the morning? Yuki’s _expression suddenly changed to one of slight surprise when he started listening to the other end. Had something happened? Then he looked at Shuichi… puzzled.

“Who is it?” Shuichi asked, just as uninformed as Yuki looked. The blond handed him the phone, his _expression more than just slightly sour.

“Uh… hello?” Shuichi asked into the phone, watching Yuki walk around him to the other side of the bed and take out a book to read. “Oh, Hiro, hey! …Yeah… sorry…”

Yuki kept in a growl. It didn’t bother him that Hiro had called Shuichi up here, no not at all. They broke up and anyway, they were just friends now. Shuichi was officially his now… right? Shuichi had even said he loved him. No, it wasn’t jealously really that was bothering him. He had nothing to fear from Hiro, not anymore at least. But it still bugged him. Why? Oh yeah, maybe it was because he and Shuichi had been getting busy just a minute ago.

“What!?” Shuichi burst out while on the phone, drawing Yuki’s attention from the book. The boy had been silently listening the moment before. “We got a call from that production company? The same production company that represented Nittle Grasper? And they want to represent us?! Bad Luck?!”

Yuki arched a brow slightly, so someone had been there at the few club gigs they’d been doing? Had Ryuichi had a hand in any of this? Or Tohma?

“But we’d have to start recording by next month?” Shuichi asked back into the phone, listening for a moment. “Yeah, that’d work. Absolutely! This is phenomenal Hiro! Thank you so much for calling to tell me! This is just so cool!”

The boy was getting hyper and looked about ready to laugh and cry at the same time while Yuki was officially watching Shuichi and not even interested in the book anymore, but whatever. “Uh-huh,” he nodded then straightened up a little, “Uh… I’ll take the fifth on that… Well, whatever. This is really awesome. I’ll call you later Hiro. Okay?”

A momentary pause. “Okay. Bye.” Shuichi said, grinning as he put the phone down. “Yuki!” he said suddenly, bounding over to the other side of the bed, “You know Seguchi Productions? It’s the same one that produces NG’s stuff, they want to represent Bad Luck’s stuff too! Me and Hiro’ll start recording by next month!”

“That’s really great for you Shuichi,” Yuki agreed. Those two really did have some talent and if they were going to have representation Seguchi Productions would be the very best for them. However, it did bother him a little that it was the same as Nittle Grasper’s, because it was clear that either Ryuichi or Tohma may have had a hand in it. That worried him… but not enough that he forgot all about what they had been getting to before the phone rang.

Closing up the book and setting it aside, he looked over at Shuichi, who by the looks of it had the same thing on his mind. “Now where were we…?”

`

I just won’t pick up, he thought.

After a while the high pitch squealing of the phone ceased and he breathed in relief.

See. If I ignore it, it goes away.

However, no sooner had that thought entered his mind that the phone started ringing all over again. The blond groaned, burying his head in the pillow. Just ignore it, it’ll go away eventually. Everything does if you just ignore it long enough.

It wasn’t stopping…

He had been looking forward to sleeping in today and everyday after this one for that matter. Just being awake now was a pain in and of itself. But the horrible ringing of the phone wasn’t going away. Maybe he should just take it off the hook or unplug it from the wall.

With an irritated moan he pushed himself away from the relative warmth of the bed and sat up taking the phone of its hook and holding it near his ear. “What?” was the rude greeting he gave the person on the other end.

“K! Guess what, Hiro and Shuichi, Bad Luck just agreed to be represented by a company! And guess what? It’s the same as ours, mine and Tohma’s, in Nittle Grasper!” Figure’s Ryuichi would call him with this kind of news so freaking early in the morning.

“Oh, that’s great.” He answered. Why would I care again?

“Yeah it is! I just thought I’d tell you, okay? Bye!” Ryuichi’s cheerful voice said, hanging up. The blond let the phone fall back onto the receiver and himself fall back onto his bed. Why did that guy have to call him so early just to tell him that? Crawling up to where he had been he found that only a small portion of the warmth left from the night remained. Darn it.

Despite the unconcern, he told himself, he felt frustrated over the information. It was true enough, but the whole reason for his wanting more sleep than usual had been mentioned during that phone call and now he felt even worse than before. Ryuichi probably didn’t even know… silly.

But ever since a couple days ago …

The slam of his apartment door woke him up briefly, but it took him a moment to realize he had just been remembering the door slamming. It hadn’t really been a slam anyway… but in his memory the sound had been unusually loud when right after it was followed both silence in and outside of him, as well as a sense of emptiness. Hiro wouldn’t be coming over here anytime this summer anyway. He had no reason to, K hadn’t given him one.

K didn’t bother crawling under the covers and sat up again instead. Getting back to sleep now would be next to impossible. But why did that guy have to keep appearing in his thoughts?

`

Reading a book at what was now probably seven, or a few minutes till, was a rare pleasure since almost everyone else was asleep and he was assured not to be disturbed. As the youth curled up against his comfy chair in the large library among the books he had to sigh, just to savor the time.

But after the first paragraph was read the large oaken door tore open and the least likely person burst in. Of course, the boy’s guest never had much liking for subtlety… except when it came to certain matters of course.

“Tohma!”

A blur of light brown hair highlighted with brown streaks jumped up onto the short platinum blond-haired boy. “Hello, Ryuichi. What is it?”

“Guess what! Guess what!” Ryuichi said happily. Tohma didn’t speak, Ryuichi resumed in seconds anyway, there had been no need. “You know Shuichi and Hiro’s band Bad Luck? Our production company will be representing them too! They saw them that time they went with us to the club! Isn’t it awesome!”

“Wow, really?” Tohma asked politely.

“Yeah! But I haven’t seen Shuichi around at all since summer started, do you know where he’s gone? He’s not with Hiro much either.” Ryuichi asked, knowing full well that Tohma would have answers to all. He also knew that in any other case Tohma might be useless and have no idea, but this time he did.

“Well actually, I dropped by the Eiri beach house residence a day or so ago,” Tohma told him, “It seems that Yuki and Shuichi are spending time together there.”

“No way! Yuki Eiri and my Shuichi? Shindou Shuichi? Spending time together with Yuki Eiri?” Ryuichi gaped, “But didn’t they have a vendetta against each other going recently?”

“Apparently that’s all blown over now. My eyes do not lie I believe.” Tohma answered as simply as he could without snickering at his friend’s shock.

“Hmm…” the youth pondered, leaning back into the seat across from the platinum blond. “maybe… we should go over there and do something about that?” he offered, a slightly mischievous grin on his face as he sat up again.

“Ryuichi…” Tohma tisked playfully.

“But those two? They must be so bored with each other and nothing to do…” Ryuichi shrugged.

“You know when I went over that Yuki threatened me with a restraining order.” Tohma mentioned. That got his friend’s attention, his grin turning quickly to a frown as he pondered further.

“Really?” He asked. Tohma nodded. Ryuichi sighed… “well… dang.”

`

It was now midday but that wouldn’t help the blond stay occupied. K glanced around his apartment, which was now spotless, courtesy of the cleaning he’d been doing since he couldn’t go back to sleep. But now he had nothing else to do to keep his brain occupied. He could always go back and polish the pistols and knives he’d collected so far but he’d already done that five times and was quickly running out of polish… there was something to do. Go shop for more blade polish.

But even K wasn’t so dense. He knew he was just trying to think of something else to occupy his thoughts instead of that which had been plaguing his waking hours for the last day or so. Great, he was losing sense of time too. Glancing at the clock it was getting to be almost lunchtime, but almost wasn’t close enough. Of course he wasn’t hungry either, but so what.

Sitting down on his couch, after setting the vacuum back in it’s closet along with the broom, mop, and other cleaning utensils, his thoughts were again fast trailing back to the subject of his utter depression. He heard the door slam, the words and questions that he could never answer all around his head, questioning over and over. The hurt in the youth’s green eyes still clearly etched into memory.

With a groan he leaned back into the cushions. But what else could he have done? What would he have said if he had spoken to Hiro then? Now? He couldn’t have a relationship right now. He never was any good at them anyway, guys or girls. He was always called insensitive, given a punch or slap to the face and then they left again. If it wasn’t insensitive it was self-centered, preoccupied, heck once he’d been accused of cheating. With whom was what he’d really wanted to know in that case since he had actually been very sure he was innocent.

But then there was Hiro… his eyes weren’t the same as any of the others and they hadn’t even met like he had the others. It was probably his own fault to an extent. He had recognized that the boy had already been pretty provoked and had gone ahead, pressing him further and further. But it had been so simple, and what happened after had been so worth it.

Laying down on the couch and tucking his feet under him, he remembered that this was where it had happened. Hiro’s body smell had long faded, his warmth washed from the sheets along with the evidence of their activities. But everything else remained, somewhere carved into memory on a slate where only important stuff was recorded. Normally K could forget about people within days but somehow, this had been different. He didn’t want to be awake now and remember. There was a hollow space in his chest now and he couldn’t suppress it, he just couldn’t…

‘I told you… I loved you. I never got an answer from you then. I’m sorry if now isn’t a good time, but I have to ask. Otherwise… I meant that then K. I love you. I need an answer. Please.’

Their eyes met and he hadn’t said a word, not one word. And after a while he couldn’t even look the guitarist in the eyes.

‘K. I need an answer.’

Even when he’d said that he had stayed completely silent. But what could he have said? What that wouldn’t have made Hiro so hurt and still just made things go back to how they were? It was his fault, he knew that… but if Hiro had really wanted to he could have said no. But he had probably thought that K felt the same.

Then he’d left, and he hadn’t gone after him. Not even said ‘I’m sorry’. But what good would even that have done? What good? None. But those eyes…

K sucked in a breath, not realizing he had stopped breathing briefly, his lungs suddenly burning. There was no way thinking about that guy was good for his health, sitting up again he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, flipping past the morning cartoon specials to the news. News was always boring and sometimes would put him to sleep.

“The woman was murdered in her house by her alleged boyfriend who says he only did it because he loved her, he will be put on trial this weekend in a federal court.” The reporter’s voice said in a monotonous tone as the camera panned over the small suburb household held back from public by the yellow tape line. Flipping one up to another news channel there wasn’t much luck.

“The boy committed suicide after his girlfriend had dumped him, the letter read that he loved her and could not live without her, in the form of a poem, right before he slit his wrists and then his throat.” The media voice informed in the same slightly droned voice that all of them seemed to use. This one actually had a fuzzy footage picture of the body before it was taken down by the police for autopsy. On the sidelines of the yellow tape a girl, maybe the girlfriend, maybe not, looked on a hand over her mouth her face contorted by tears of anguish as she sobbed into her hands. She was trying not to look and at the same time unable to look away from the body. She was finally taken away by her family.

But both stories led back to emotional ties and relationships, sick ones at that, but still… like a punch to the lung itself it reminded K painfully for a moment of what he was trying to forget just a moment before. He switched down to a cartoon channel that involved slapstick comedy, but the colored movement of animated pictures on a screen filled little in the feeling of the gaping black hole in the blond’s chest.

He didn’t turn off the TV, but he did curl himself up into a small ball sitting on the couch. Again he asked the questions; Hiro’s own questions flew through his head, acting as self inflicted blades turned on his inner self causing bleeding red welts to appear everywhere. Yet K had no weapon against that which he turned on himself by remembering. It wasn’t his choice, not really anyway. He was no good at it? What would he have said? Just answered it, told the truth, whatever it was. But what could he do now? Even if he did tell the truth…

But Hiro…

K let a long sigh out, the running electronic appliance barely still in memory. Why were things so complicated? Glancing at the screen he had to smile just a little at the current characters and the final episode where everything was finally working out.

Why can’t things be so simple?

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