When the Christmas Lights Aren't Bright Enough - Part Four
Title: When the Christmas Lights Aren’t Bright Enough
Fandom: Gravitation
Pairings: Eiri x Shuichi, Hiro x Ayaka, Riku x OC, Yuji x Suguru
Rating: Ranging between PG-13 and R
Disclaimer: Gravitation and its characters do not belong to me.
One of the things Riku missed most when he was away at college was the salty sea air of home. Inhaling deeply, he stretched his arms out over his head and smiled at the breezes that blew through him. Yes, this was what he needed. This peaceful perfection was the ideal escape from the tense, suffocating atmosphere inside the house with his fathers biting each other’s heads off every five seconds and the threat of separation hanging dismally in the air. The thought of them divorcing made his heart ache. Not that he wanted them to be angry for the rest of their lives. But at least they were angry together.
A particularly loud wave crashing onto the shore, accompanied with Hanako’s gleeful laugh, broke Riku’s train of thought. He smiled as he watched her skirt get soaked, clinging shamelessly to her long, slender legs.
“I love this!” She exclaimed, running up to him, her feet making dark, wet imprints in the sand. She flung her arms around his neck and he held her loosely, reveling in her happiness. She turned her head toward his, whispered surely but shyly against the skin of his cheek, “I love you.”
He tightened his hold on her in response, before releasing her; he kept his hands on her shoulders as an afterthought.
“Riku?”
“I want to ask you something.”
Eiri found it easier to chain smoke when he was occupied with hating something. And so, sitting on the steps of his porch with a full pack of cigarettes at his side, Eiri decided that he hated Christmas. He hated Christmas carols, tinsel, and annoying advertisements that showed happy Christmas people wearing fuzzy scarves and mittens. He hated Christmas trees, especially the stupid artificial white ones, and he absolutely loathed mistletoe. And he hated Christmas visitors.
“Eiri-san, I don’t think that’s particularly healthy.”
He glared up at Ayaka over the smoke of the three cigarettes he had in his mouth, though he imagined the effect was more ridiculous than intimidating. He was apparently correct in his assumption, because instead of shrinking away, she came to sit beside him, daintily smoothing the folds of her skirt around her knees. Eiri wished she hadn’t gotten prettier over the years; it would make it easier for him to dislike her if she was still the underdeveloped mouse of a girl he used to know.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m just dandy.”
She smiled faintly, reached over and rubbed his back consolingly. He shrugged her hand off on instinct, not wanting her pity. She didn’t know anything about his pain, with her perfect lipstick and perfect children with perfect teeth and a perfect house in Perfect Land-
“Eiri-san?”
He made a point of waiting until he turned to look at her before exhaling a copious amount of smoke. She grimaced slightly and gave a quiet cough, but didn’t move away. Well, he figured, it’d been worth a shot.
“Eiri-san, I’m sure things will work out for you in the end.”
“Oh, sure,” Eiri scoffed, and added through a mutter, “Not if Shuichi gets his way…”
“What was that?”
“…” He debated telling her for a moment. She was the closest thing to a confidante at hand. But he hadn’t even told Dr. Curtis at their session that morning; in fact, the very word “divorce” seemed to get stuck somewhere inside his throat whenever he even thought about saying it. “Nothing.”
“You can talk to me, Eiri-san.” She spoke kindly, sincerely, as if he’d never said one cruel word to her. “Hiro and I are your friends, too, you know.”
Eiri looked at her, took in her gentle smile and let her take his hand and give it an affectionate squeeze, offering him comfort. He didn’t understand. Why should she care about him, about his problems, when he’d never cared about her and had done nothing but reject her every chance he got? She was too much like Shuichi.
He couldn’t stand it.
Wrenching his hand away, he snatched up his pack of cigarettes and hastily went back inside the house. Ayaka watched him go and let out a breath she hadn’t completely realized she’d been holding. Even after the engagement and all formal ties between them had been broken, she still felt bound to Eiri in some bizarre way that she couldn’t describe and couldn’t escape, even after her marriage to Hiro. Still, talking to him always made her unbelievably nervous.
Turning her head when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching, she couldn’t stop the upward quirk of her mouth when she saw Riku and Hanako coming up from the beach, hands clasped. She stood as they drew nearer, and they froze, caught, paling with apprehension as their eyes widened.
“Well, come on,” she coaxed gently. “If you hurry on upstairs now, I don’t think anyone else will see you.”
Surprised, yet relieved, that they weren’t going to be reprimanded, Riku and Hanako didn’t need to be told twice. They quickly allowed themselves to be ushered inside, taking two steps at a time as they rushed to their separate rooms. Ayaka shook her head bemusedly and chuckled, following them into the house.
Even at such a young age, little Souta had a deep appreciation for the finer things in life. Standing in the deserted den, Souta gazed admiringly at the baby grand piano that occupied the darkest corner of the room. He ran a hand over the surface and smiled at the smoothness. It was a beautiful piano. Why couldn’t he remember it being there, being played?
“Hey, there you are,” Taichi said as he came to stand behind his little brother. He nodded to the piano. “That’s nice, isn’t it? You know Father used to be a musician.”
“He did not!”
“Yep. Back home in Japan, and here, too.” Clicking his tongue thoughtfully, he looked around until he found a rack of CDs. He pulled one out and showed it to his brother; the cover sported a picture of their father, Shuichi, and Suguru-younger, glam, and fierce. He knew that Shuichi was a singing sensation in America, and figured he had been for quite a while. And he knew that Suguru was playing piano in locations all over the world. But he had no idea that his father hadn’t always been a doctor, that he’d been part of a rock group, that he’d been famous.
“‘Bad Luck’,” he read, awestruck. “Wow…” He looked back at the piano, though his eyes were glossed over and that wasn’t even what he was seeing. Instead, he saw a stage, bathed in light, with hundreds of people watching…
-
Masterful hands moved over ivory keys with the grace and fluidity of water and wine, producing flawless music that drifted and soothed, soared and resounded, calming and seducing the audience. The simplest Christmas carol sounded like the most beautiful and extravagant piece of classical music with such skillful fingers playing them. Suguru’s eyes glinted in concentration; he radiated an air of professionalism and pleasure. Obvious enjoyment poured from his expression and the tips of his fingers and it permeated the sound that resulted, spread through the air and entered the ears and hearts of the people watching and listening.
Yuji stood backstage, his heart palpitating. Something happened to him, came over him, every time Suguru played. He felt a rush of some sort, an overpowering feeling of adoration and amazement. It was the kind of power that he’d always wanted for himself, when he acted, and he’d found it in his lover the first time he’d heard him play alone-without Shuichi’s voice or Hiro’s guitar. And even now, as good as he knew Suguru was, hearing him play still managed to blow his mind.
He felt so in love, though he knew it was probably just the magic of the music.
But that didn’t keep him from acting like a love-struck admirer, watching Suguru with his palm placed over his fluttering heart.
-
Dinner at the Shuichi-Uesugi residence, even with the Nakano family, was tense and mostly silent. Eiri and Shuichi would not meet each other’s eyes, and neither Hiro nor Ayaka wanted to say anything or bring up anything that could possibly cause an argument. Even Riku and Hanako seemed unusually withdrawn for some reason. All in all, it was a rather awkward meal, until Riku cleared his throat and made as if to stand from his chair, though he changed his mind at the last minute and sat back down. Still, he had everyone’s attention.
“I have an announcement.”
And if he hadn’t had their attention, he certainly had it now. For someone who didn’t talk very much at all to say that he had “an announcement” was enough to make everyone forget their problems and focus entirely on him.
“Hanako and I,” he paused and cleared his throat again, “we really like each other.” He saw Ayaka smile; Dad-Shuichi and Hiro looked surprised, but not unhappy. He noticed Dad-Eiri arch an eyebrow, but he decided to ignore that and get straight to the point. “And we want to get married.”
A silence even thicker than before fell over the dinner table. His fathers were staring at him like he was crazy, Hiro’s silverware fell from his fingers and tumbled to the floor, even Ayaka’s smile had disappeared, Taichi and Souta gaped at him, and Hanako’s eyes were fixed on her plate.
Finally, haltingly, Shuichi said, “M-Married, wow. Well, that’s-that’s great.”
Eiri turned to look at him, meeting his eyes for the first time that night and looking practically murderous.
“You must be joking.”
“What?”
“‘That’s great.’ ‘That’s great?’ What the hell is so great about it?”
“Eiri,” Shuichi hissed, dropping his voice to a bit of a whisper, “I’m just trying to be happy for him.”
“Why should you pretend to be happy for him? Why don’t you just tell him he can’t do it?”
“Eiri!”
“I might have to agree with him on that…”
“Hiro!”
“I’m sorry, Shuichi, but don’t you think this is a bit sudden?”
“Exactly. And they’re far too young.”
“Eiri, age has nothing to do with-”
“With what? With love? You’re a fucking expert in that area, aren’t you?”
“Hey, hey, hey! There are kids at the table!”
“Look, we can’t control what they want to do!”
“The hell we can’t!”
Riku shot Hanako a withering look, which she returned with a faint sigh. She ran her palm over her face and looked across the table at Ayaka.
“Mother, what do you think?”
Ayaka said nothing for a moment. All that could be heard was the increasingly loud buzzing noise of voices overlapping, swears and accusations flying. Taichi had a protective hand on Souta’s hand, fingers threaded in his brother’s hair and methodically massaging his scalp to comfort him. Riku and Hanako waited patiently until Ayaka began to speak, soft but firm and slowly growing in volume.
“I think that you two are the only ones who can make choices for yourselves. I think that, once children reach a certain age, parents become less like leaders and guides, and take a more advisory role, giving suggestions rather than setting rules. But I will say-and please, don’t take this wrong way-I hope you both really think this through. Marriage can be a wonderful thing, but I worry that, at your age, the notion of it is somewhat glorified. I don’t want you to go into it thinking you’re about to enter a fairytale and have it turn out a horror story. You’re both young. Very young. Hanako, I married your father when I was only a few months older than you. And sometimes I wonder if I should have waited, if I should’ve grown, gotten out more. Not to say I don’t love your father, or the life we have, or you and your brothers-because I do. But I got married too young. I got married too soon.”
By the time she finished talking, Eiri and Shuichi had stopped arguing and Hiro was staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face.
No one ate any dessert that night.
-
Suguru knew what Yuji had planned from the moment he’d been off stage. He’d ignored it on the ride home in the limo, more out of playfulness than disinterest, but he couldn’t ignore it now that they were alone in the hotel room. He removed his suit jacket and draped it across a chair, waiting, expectant. He didn’t flinch when Yuji’s hands slid around his waist and up his chest; he worked at the shirt buttons, bending slightly to press his lips to the proffered skin of Suguru’s neck. He closed his eyes, a quiet noise of contentment escaping his throat, and he turned in Yuji’s arms to return the favor. Their mouths met. Their kiss was slow; they were concentrating on getting each other’s clothes off.
They fell onto the bed, limbs entangling, kisses coming harder and faster. Yuji rolled them around until he was on bottom; he pulled out of their kiss and pleaded through a pant, “Play me.”
“What?”
“Play me,” he repeated, closing his eyes as he face burned; at the same time, he leaned upwards, brushed their lips together, as if he couldn’t bear to lose the contact even for a moment. “Play me like you played those keys.”
Suguru, face reddening at the request, laced their fingers together and sucked in a steadying breath. Yuji was incredibly generous in these matters, and handed over the reigns whenever asked; but this willingness to submit, unprompted, sparked something primal, something hidden in the depths of Suguru’s being. Had he wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to refuse.
Luckily, he was far from wanting to do so.
-
Ayaka watched her husband prepare for bed out of the corner of her eye while she slipped a nightgown over her head, smoothing it down along her body. Though he gave off no signs of aggravation, he hadn’t spoken to her since the disastrous dinner, and that worried her more than any scowl or glare would have. She sat on the bed and waited for some sort of acknowledgement, but he gave her none, instead turning off the light and settling onto his side.
“Hiro, are you angry with me?”
He didn’t answer at first, and she regretted asking.
“No. Of course not.”
She was not comforted. The reply was not unusual, but his tone was hollow and unconvincing.
“You know I don’t regret marrying you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She asked, doubtful and needing to be sure.
“Yes.”
She felt her heart clench at such a biting, almost snarling, response, but she knew better than to push him any further. She hesitated, but couldn’t keep from whispering, “Goodnight,” and leaning across the bed to offer a kiss. He was unmoved and when she kissed his cheek his skin was cold and resisting. She turned from him, blinking back tears, and for the first time, she hoped that Eiri and Shuichi were having an uneasy night, if only so she wouldn’t be alone.