To Love and Be Loved - for Valentine's Day!
Title: To Love and Be Loved
Fandom: Gravitation
Characters: Multiple pairings: (in order of appearance) K/Judy, Tatsuha/Maiko, Tetsuya/Noriko and Tetsuya + Saki, Yuji/Fujisaki, Hiro/Ayaka, Eiri/Shuichi
Rating: PG-13
Dedication: Happy Valentine’s Day to all sweethearts out there!
~Love is like war, easy to begin but hard to end~
“I can’t believe you’ve forgotten where we first met! What kind of man are you?!”
The following bullet punctuated the outburst, narrowly missing the American’s elbow as he ducked out of the way. K scowled at his wife, over the barrel of her revolver.
“I told you I haven’t forgotten! We met at the gym!” His own hand jerked naturally as he fired his own carbine.
“No, you’re wrong!” She hissed, dodging expertly. “We met at the shooting range!”
“No, that’s where we had our first date! I remember because you hit the target 1.7 seconds before I did-” He paused as he shot again, her next bullet grazing the end of his ponytail. “-and I said your bullet had gone straight to my heart!”
After jumping to the side to avoid getting a hole in her new coat, Judy stood still, her face blanching with recognition.
“Wait…you did say that, didn’t you? I remember now… Oh, snuggle-muffin, I’m so sorry! Can you forgive me?”
In an instant, K’s strong arms were around her slender waist; she pressed up close to his broad chest, letting her hair tickle his jaw.
“Of course I forgive you, pussycat,” he practically cooed into her head before moving to kiss her soundly.
The divorce lawyer stared blankly at his destroyed office and slumped into his chair as the two Americans continued their overzealous embrace. How would he explain this one to the firm?
~Seduce my mind and you can have my body; find my soul and I'm yours forever~
As a rule, Tatsuha didn’t let his girlfriends stay the night. Generally, no matter how late-or rather, how early-it was, he and his date would slink along the tatami mats in their socks and he’d take them home on his bike. In the morning, there’d be no evidence that he’d had any else in his room. So it was no surprise that his father almost burnt his tongue on his morning coffee when his haggard but happy looking son walked into the kitchen with a young, yawning girl behind him, who he introduced as Maiko.
“Good morning, Uesugi-san,” she greeted him cheerfully, kneeling seiza style across from him at the low table as Tatsuha started on making them some steamed rice and miso soup.
“Good morning,” he echoed gruffly. “Tatsuha, you didn’t tell me we were to have a guest this morning.”
“That’s because I didn’t know we would until last night,” he replied without missing a beat. He turned from the rice cooker to grin. “She pierced my ear. Isn’t it cool?” He tilted his head so the light could shine on the stud in his ear. His father can’t stop his eye from twitching.
“An earring? How distasteful.”
“Aniki has his ears pierced.”
His father made a disgusted face.
“Well, ‘Aniki’ is a demon.”
Maiko giggled at that, light and lilting; his father found he almost liked the sound of it, and that gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“No one’s ever been willing to do it for me.” Or been drunk enough, Tatsuha added mentally. “You’re awesome, Maiko,” he said, locking eyes with her to throw her a smile and catch one in return. His father watched, found himself pleasantly shocked by how sincere his son seemed and how eager Maiko’s pleased expression was. The look the two young lovers shared made him believe that she was not just another one night stand to add to his son’s list, but rather a girl that had finally managed to attract not only his eyes and groin, but his heart.
“Oh yeah, you know what?” Tatsuha addressed his father, peeling his eyes away from the girl. “Maiko is Shuichi’s sister. Talk about coincidences, huh?”
Panic-filled eyes rose to meet a son’s contented smirk. His father was almost certain that cold feeling rushing in on him was the sign of a heart attack. His children would be the death of him, after all.
~Age does not protect us from love, but love to some extent protects us from age~
The old man reclined on his back against the warm and sandy beach. The sun beat down upon his legs, exposed underneath his shorts. He closed his eyes and let the breeze brush through his graying hair, his silver mustache. When he stayed very still like this, he could feel all the knots and the tension in his back, his hips, his muscles. When he stayed very still like this, he actually felt his age.
The young woman made her way across the beach, sauntering sultrily and catching the eye of many young men. She ignored the whistles and catcalls, without so much as a pause as she slips on her sunglasses in attempt to conceal her famous visage. The little girl running at her heels stopped here and there to pick up shells and giggle at the sand between her toes.
The old man cracked open an eye as they drew nearer, and a hint of a smile tugged at his face. In a swift movement, his arm reached out; he grabbed the little girl by the ankle and pulled her into his lap. She screamed in delight, body convulsing merrily with peals of laughter; the low rumbling of his deep and hearty guffaw in time with hers. The young woman sat in the sand beside him, leaning down to plant a kiss on the side of his grinning mouth.
He relished the beauty of this moment with wife and daughter, with sand and sun, with laughter and lips. He relished the beauty of this moment of feeling young.
~When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out~
A quick flick of the fingers and a whistle, and then the coin splashed into the fountain, leaving a faint bubbly trail behind as it sunk to the bottom. It was the fifth coin Yuji had tossed within a period of two minutes.
“Y’know,” Suguru started, glancing up from his music score to watch the other man out of the corner of his eye, “I bet there’s a limit on wishes.”
“Blasphemy,” Yuji answered quickly. “Utter blasphemy. How could there be a limit on wishes?”
“You should, at least, have a longer time interval between them. Someone’s going to think you’re selfish.”
“Surely not you.” He returned the jibe with a nudge to Suguru’s arm. “You’re probably right. I just have a lot to wish for.” He tried to catch the keyboardist’s eyes, curious, but Suguru was too good at feigning interest in his work. “What about you?”
“I don’t wish for things. I don’t believe in it.” He could feel Yuji’s incredulous stare. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You don’t wish for things? Ever? Have you never seen Pinocchio?”
“…What?”
“How do you live?”
“I set my goals and I work towards them on my own. I can’t rely on something like fate.” He finally raised his gaze to meet Yuji’s wide eyes. “It’s unreliable.”
“Well, maybe,” Yuji consented after a short period of silence and locked stares. He smiled sheepishly. “But I’ve spent so much of my life making wishes that I can’t convince myself that they won’t come true eventually. At least one of them.” He leaned back precariously, looking down into the coin-infested water. “Besides, if fate’s so unreliable anyway, then what’s the harm in wishing?”
“I never said there was any harm, I just don’t see the point.”
“Dude, it’s just to wish.”
“That seems so silly.” Suguru let himself follow Yuji’s eyes.
“Yeah, maybe. But aren’t we’re all a little silly?”
“No.”
“Ah.” He paused, closed his eyes in thought. “I don’t like to step on cracks.”
“Really.”
“Yep.”
Another, longer pause, and Suguru sighed.
“I don’t like to have food on my plate touch.”
“That’s very silly.”
“Shut up and make another wish.”
Yuji took Suguru’s hand and pressed a coin into his palm.
“Why don’t you make it for me?”
“What for?”
Yuji moved a little closer and smiled a little wider.
“Wish that you’ll fall in love with me.”
Despite the flush the remark brought to Suguru’s cheeks, he still said, “Now that’s silly.” But he closed his eyes and tossed the coin in, anyway.
~A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears~
Hiro hated how he sometimes found himself torn between hating and loving the same thing. Like riding his motorcycle: he loved how liberating it felt with the wind in his hair, and the way it got his adrenaline going; but he hated knowing that if he got in an accident, he’d be much more fucked up than he would if he were in a car.
He loved being in Bad Luck; it’s been his and Shuichi’s dream for years, and he wouldn’t want any other job. And he loved having a girlfriend, especially one as cute and as sweet as she is strong-willed. But at the same time, he hated both, because both required so much time. And with Ayaka in Kyoto and his job in Tokyo (not to mention all the other cities and continents that they toured in) this was not an easy task. More often than not, he found himself having to blow her off for a video shoot or a last-minute gig. She always forgave him, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
“I know how you feel,” Shuichi sympathized. “That’s why I my songs have so much to do with Yuki, and why I have him critique the lyrics beforehand. It’s like I’m merging both of those worlds.” He laughed. “And he doesn’t say it, but I know he appreciates the involvement.”
When Ayaka returned home from a family outing-from dodging her parent’s questions about why her boyfriend was “so elusive” and circulating tabloid rumors-she had a message on the phone. She was puzzled at the first notes of the guitar strings, but a slow and soft smile spread across her face in realization. She closed her eyes and pressed the receiver closer to her ear, focusing on nothing but the gentle sound of Hiro’s guitar, his quiet humming in the background. The reassurance warmed her heart and made it pound faster. By the time he stopped playing, her cheeks hurt from smiling so much. And the smile only widened when she heard his voice saying, “Call me back when you get this and tell me what you think.”
Gingerly, she dialed Hiro’s number and when he answered she said sweetly, “I think, Nakano-san, that I adore you.”
~To be in love is merely to be in a state of perpetual anesthesia: to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god [or an ordinary young woman for a goddess]~
Shuichi cuddled into the warmth of his lover’s body, dotting the nearest skin with light kisses. He all but purred when skilled typist fingers sifted through his hair and massaged his scalp. He’d never known anyone else’s touch to electrify him so intensely. And he could never get tired of looking at him. The golden eyes that pierced his with severity, coldness, or lust. The blonde hair that felt so soft against his skin and whipped around so sexily in the wind. A body that can excite him at anytime and anyplace. And he loved to listen to that deep and silky voice of his, whether it was used in reprimand or compliment. God, how he loved that man.
“You’re amazing.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Well, the insults were a small price to pay to be with such a love god. So he kissed him and came away breathless.
~Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale~
Fandom: Gravitation
Characters: Multiple pairings: (in order of appearance) K/Judy, Tatsuha/Maiko, Tetsuya/Noriko and Tetsuya + Saki, Yuji/Fujisaki, Hiro/Ayaka, Eiri/Shuichi
Rating: PG-13
Dedication: Happy Valentine’s Day to all sweethearts out there!
~Love is like war, easy to begin but hard to end~
“I can’t believe you’ve forgotten where we first met! What kind of man are you?!”
The following bullet punctuated the outburst, narrowly missing the American’s elbow as he ducked out of the way. K scowled at his wife, over the barrel of her revolver.
“I told you I haven’t forgotten! We met at the gym!” His own hand jerked naturally as he fired his own carbine.
“No, you’re wrong!” She hissed, dodging expertly. “We met at the shooting range!”
“No, that’s where we had our first date! I remember because you hit the target 1.7 seconds before I did-” He paused as he shot again, her next bullet grazing the end of his ponytail. “-and I said your bullet had gone straight to my heart!”
After jumping to the side to avoid getting a hole in her new coat, Judy stood still, her face blanching with recognition.
“Wait…you did say that, didn’t you? I remember now… Oh, snuggle-muffin, I’m so sorry! Can you forgive me?”
In an instant, K’s strong arms were around her slender waist; she pressed up close to his broad chest, letting her hair tickle his jaw.
“Of course I forgive you, pussycat,” he practically cooed into her head before moving to kiss her soundly.
The divorce lawyer stared blankly at his destroyed office and slumped into his chair as the two Americans continued their overzealous embrace. How would he explain this one to the firm?
~Seduce my mind and you can have my body; find my soul and I'm yours forever~
As a rule, Tatsuha didn’t let his girlfriends stay the night. Generally, no matter how late-or rather, how early-it was, he and his date would slink along the tatami mats in their socks and he’d take them home on his bike. In the morning, there’d be no evidence that he’d had any else in his room. So it was no surprise that his father almost burnt his tongue on his morning coffee when his haggard but happy looking son walked into the kitchen with a young, yawning girl behind him, who he introduced as Maiko.
“Good morning, Uesugi-san,” she greeted him cheerfully, kneeling seiza style across from him at the low table as Tatsuha started on making them some steamed rice and miso soup.
“Good morning,” he echoed gruffly. “Tatsuha, you didn’t tell me we were to have a guest this morning.”
“That’s because I didn’t know we would until last night,” he replied without missing a beat. He turned from the rice cooker to grin. “She pierced my ear. Isn’t it cool?” He tilted his head so the light could shine on the stud in his ear. His father can’t stop his eye from twitching.
“An earring? How distasteful.”
“Aniki has his ears pierced.”
His father made a disgusted face.
“Well, ‘Aniki’ is a demon.”
Maiko giggled at that, light and lilting; his father found he almost liked the sound of it, and that gave him a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“No one’s ever been willing to do it for me.” Or been drunk enough, Tatsuha added mentally. “You’re awesome, Maiko,” he said, locking eyes with her to throw her a smile and catch one in return. His father watched, found himself pleasantly shocked by how sincere his son seemed and how eager Maiko’s pleased expression was. The look the two young lovers shared made him believe that she was not just another one night stand to add to his son’s list, but rather a girl that had finally managed to attract not only his eyes and groin, but his heart.
“Oh yeah, you know what?” Tatsuha addressed his father, peeling his eyes away from the girl. “Maiko is Shuichi’s sister. Talk about coincidences, huh?”
Panic-filled eyes rose to meet a son’s contented smirk. His father was almost certain that cold feeling rushing in on him was the sign of a heart attack. His children would be the death of him, after all.
~Age does not protect us from love, but love to some extent protects us from age~
The old man reclined on his back against the warm and sandy beach. The sun beat down upon his legs, exposed underneath his shorts. He closed his eyes and let the breeze brush through his graying hair, his silver mustache. When he stayed very still like this, he could feel all the knots and the tension in his back, his hips, his muscles. When he stayed very still like this, he actually felt his age.
The young woman made her way across the beach, sauntering sultrily and catching the eye of many young men. She ignored the whistles and catcalls, without so much as a pause as she slips on her sunglasses in attempt to conceal her famous visage. The little girl running at her heels stopped here and there to pick up shells and giggle at the sand between her toes.
The old man cracked open an eye as they drew nearer, and a hint of a smile tugged at his face. In a swift movement, his arm reached out; he grabbed the little girl by the ankle and pulled her into his lap. She screamed in delight, body convulsing merrily with peals of laughter; the low rumbling of his deep and hearty guffaw in time with hers. The young woman sat in the sand beside him, leaning down to plant a kiss on the side of his grinning mouth.
He relished the beauty of this moment with wife and daughter, with sand and sun, with laughter and lips. He relished the beauty of this moment of feeling young.
~When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out~
A quick flick of the fingers and a whistle, and then the coin splashed into the fountain, leaving a faint bubbly trail behind as it sunk to the bottom. It was the fifth coin Yuji had tossed within a period of two minutes.
“Y’know,” Suguru started, glancing up from his music score to watch the other man out of the corner of his eye, “I bet there’s a limit on wishes.”
“Blasphemy,” Yuji answered quickly. “Utter blasphemy. How could there be a limit on wishes?”
“You should, at least, have a longer time interval between them. Someone’s going to think you’re selfish.”
“Surely not you.” He returned the jibe with a nudge to Suguru’s arm. “You’re probably right. I just have a lot to wish for.” He tried to catch the keyboardist’s eyes, curious, but Suguru was too good at feigning interest in his work. “What about you?”
“I don’t wish for things. I don’t believe in it.” He could feel Yuji’s incredulous stare. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You don’t wish for things? Ever? Have you never seen Pinocchio?”
“…What?”
“How do you live?”
“I set my goals and I work towards them on my own. I can’t rely on something like fate.” He finally raised his gaze to meet Yuji’s wide eyes. “It’s unreliable.”
“Well, maybe,” Yuji consented after a short period of silence and locked stares. He smiled sheepishly. “But I’ve spent so much of my life making wishes that I can’t convince myself that they won’t come true eventually. At least one of them.” He leaned back precariously, looking down into the coin-infested water. “Besides, if fate’s so unreliable anyway, then what’s the harm in wishing?”
“I never said there was any harm, I just don’t see the point.”
“Dude, it’s just to wish.”
“That seems so silly.” Suguru let himself follow Yuji’s eyes.
“Yeah, maybe. But aren’t we’re all a little silly?”
“No.”
“Ah.” He paused, closed his eyes in thought. “I don’t like to step on cracks.”
“Really.”
“Yep.”
Another, longer pause, and Suguru sighed.
“I don’t like to have food on my plate touch.”
“That’s very silly.”
“Shut up and make another wish.”
Yuji took Suguru’s hand and pressed a coin into his palm.
“Why don’t you make it for me?”
“What for?”
Yuji moved a little closer and smiled a little wider.
“Wish that you’ll fall in love with me.”
Despite the flush the remark brought to Suguru’s cheeks, he still said, “Now that’s silly.” But he closed his eyes and tossed the coin in, anyway.
~A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears~
Hiro hated how he sometimes found himself torn between hating and loving the same thing. Like riding his motorcycle: he loved how liberating it felt with the wind in his hair, and the way it got his adrenaline going; but he hated knowing that if he got in an accident, he’d be much more fucked up than he would if he were in a car.
He loved being in Bad Luck; it’s been his and Shuichi’s dream for years, and he wouldn’t want any other job. And he loved having a girlfriend, especially one as cute and as sweet as she is strong-willed. But at the same time, he hated both, because both required so much time. And with Ayaka in Kyoto and his job in Tokyo (not to mention all the other cities and continents that they toured in) this was not an easy task. More often than not, he found himself having to blow her off for a video shoot or a last-minute gig. She always forgave him, but that didn’t make him feel any better.
“I know how you feel,” Shuichi sympathized. “That’s why I my songs have so much to do with Yuki, and why I have him critique the lyrics beforehand. It’s like I’m merging both of those worlds.” He laughed. “And he doesn’t say it, but I know he appreciates the involvement.”
When Ayaka returned home from a family outing-from dodging her parent’s questions about why her boyfriend was “so elusive” and circulating tabloid rumors-she had a message on the phone. She was puzzled at the first notes of the guitar strings, but a slow and soft smile spread across her face in realization. She closed her eyes and pressed the receiver closer to her ear, focusing on nothing but the gentle sound of Hiro’s guitar, his quiet humming in the background. The reassurance warmed her heart and made it pound faster. By the time he stopped playing, her cheeks hurt from smiling so much. And the smile only widened when she heard his voice saying, “Call me back when you get this and tell me what you think.”
Gingerly, she dialed Hiro’s number and when he answered she said sweetly, “I think, Nakano-san, that I adore you.”
~To be in love is merely to be in a state of perpetual anesthesia: to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god [or an ordinary young woman for a goddess]~
Shuichi cuddled into the warmth of his lover’s body, dotting the nearest skin with light kisses. He all but purred when skilled typist fingers sifted through his hair and massaged his scalp. He’d never known anyone else’s touch to electrify him so intensely. And he could never get tired of looking at him. The golden eyes that pierced his with severity, coldness, or lust. The blonde hair that felt so soft against his skin and whipped around so sexily in the wind. A body that can excite him at anytime and anyplace. And he loved to listen to that deep and silky voice of his, whether it was used in reprimand or compliment. God, how he loved that man.
“You’re amazing.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Well, the insults were a small price to pay to be with such a love god. So he kissed him and came away breathless.
~Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale~