Fic: B-Sides & Singles, Part Three
There is a stuck point in the section after this. *eyeroll* Not sure whether to ignore it and keep going, or do something about it. Meh. We'll see.
--
Hikaru's room at the clinic/spa place is roughly the size of the room he'd taken in Ootori's mansion, being about twice as big as the crappy flat he'd lately vacated. But this new place feels warmer than the mansion somehow, and there's none of that weird sterile silence which seems to have its own shape and personality (Ootori's personality, Hikaru suspects), hanging around the empty rooms and corridors.
Actually, it's hardly different from a traditional inn, with the sliding paper screens and tatami in all the guest rooms. Outside his suite there's a wooden porch, with steps down to a garden. He goes down to check it out the first afternoon, wearing the cotton kimono and sandals they gave all the guests here.
He follows the stone path across the gravel, past hedges and statuary. It smells nothing like the city out here, and except for a fountain burbling somewhere past the shrubbery, it's so quiet he can hear his footsteps on the path and the grass.
Takashi is waiting on the porch, when he comes back up. He is also dressed in sandals and kimono: dark brown cloth with a rust-colored crane pattern. It looks better on him than the black suit, Hikaru thinks. More like something he'd choose for himself.
"Tamaki has invited you to lunch in his suite," he says.
"Is that your own kimono?" Hikaru asks and Takashi nods. He'd done a better job with his obi than Hikaru had. "Oh. I like it."
--
Waking up from surgery is like coming to with the worst, most poisonous hangover of his life. Like waking up in the gutter after a two-day bender of creme de menthe, sake bombs, and bad ecstasy (he's had each of those hangovers separately; he'd never have guessed he could have all three at once and actually live.) His stomach is bitter and greasy. His throat is scraped raw. Someone has been punching him in the face with a spiny desert cactus.
This may or may not be the same person who sits him up, gets him to sip water from a straw as he's trying automatically to place what catastrophic party did this to him. He has no recollection of it, so it must've been massive. He hopes that if he fucked anybody, at least one of them was careful. He really hopes it wasn't anybody from the bar. Especially not his boss.
"You're recovering very well, Hitachiin-san," says a white-blurred woman's voice.
Oh. Wait a sec.
"Can you tell me how you're feeling?"
The water wasn't near enough, but his stomach wants to reject it anyway. He breathes cautiously, hoping that all his practice not throwing up creme de menthe and sake bombs will be worth something, here.
--
By the time Tamaki comes waltzing in, Hikaru's put his head back in order. He remembers where he is, and why he's here. He realizes he hates Tamaki, down to the rotten bottom of his soul, for ever even looking at him. But Never Trust Strangers is a lesson he's learned years and years too late. He's stuck now, and pressing at the thought like a new bruise inside him.
Tamaki is hushed and solicitous. He brings Hikaru purple flowers, and a melon he bought at a farmer's stall, setting them carefully next to Hikaru's bed like a temple offering. Hikaru wants him to come closer, so he can get his hands around his throat.
"You'll feel fine, in a few days," Tamaki promises, in his breathy foreign inflection. "In two weeks, you'll be all healed, and ready to go out." He talks about the talent coaching, this Kaoru person Hikaru still hasn't met. He talks like they're best pals in high school, making plans for summer break. Trips and parties, hooking into the social scene.
Hikaru knots his fingers in the sheet, tells himself if he strangles the idiot now, there will still be Ootori to deal with. He'll have to wait until he can get them both together.
--
He swims up out of a slow-sweating Vicodin nightmare, where it's late afternoon and the sheets are clinging damp around his shins. His mouth is full of sour fur, and under the bandages, his whole face is one vicious, bone-deep itch. The urge to scratch is so bad he can feel it snagging fishbone edges against the inside of his throat.
"You were dreaming."
Takashi. Kneeling next to his bed, cutting the melon Tamaki brought. For all he knows, Hikaru is still dreaming; one of those dreams where you wake up in surreal scenes, over and over. Takashi's hands are deft and sure with the knife. The melon falls into squares of orange flesh on the plate.
"You shouldn't get used to the pills."
Takashi---Hikaru knows this somehow---is the sort who goes their whole life without so much as a sniffle. Nothing gets through to him, and he's probably never taken a pill for anything.
That dream is still flickering through his head in hazy shreds. Red carpet, flash of paparazzi. His face swollen and deformed; surgically deconstructed into a cubist portrait.
Maybe Takashi has a point, there.
He takes the melon on a little toothpick as Takashi sets it out, just to give his hands something to do besides claw at the bandages. After two days of bland purees, the taste is blinding sweet, melting on his tongue and buzzing all his pleasure centers like doorbells. He forgets Takashi is sitting there watching him, closes his eyes and licks the juice off his fingers.
*****
--
Hikaru's room at the clinic/spa place is roughly the size of the room he'd taken in Ootori's mansion, being about twice as big as the crappy flat he'd lately vacated. But this new place feels warmer than the mansion somehow, and there's none of that weird sterile silence which seems to have its own shape and personality (Ootori's personality, Hikaru suspects), hanging around the empty rooms and corridors.
Actually, it's hardly different from a traditional inn, with the sliding paper screens and tatami in all the guest rooms. Outside his suite there's a wooden porch, with steps down to a garden. He goes down to check it out the first afternoon, wearing the cotton kimono and sandals they gave all the guests here.
He follows the stone path across the gravel, past hedges and statuary. It smells nothing like the city out here, and except for a fountain burbling somewhere past the shrubbery, it's so quiet he can hear his footsteps on the path and the grass.
Takashi is waiting on the porch, when he comes back up. He is also dressed in sandals and kimono: dark brown cloth with a rust-colored crane pattern. It looks better on him than the black suit, Hikaru thinks. More like something he'd choose for himself.
"Tamaki has invited you to lunch in his suite," he says.
"Is that your own kimono?" Hikaru asks and Takashi nods. He'd done a better job with his obi than Hikaru had. "Oh. I like it."
--
Waking up from surgery is like coming to with the worst, most poisonous hangover of his life. Like waking up in the gutter after a two-day bender of creme de menthe, sake bombs, and bad ecstasy (he's had each of those hangovers separately; he'd never have guessed he could have all three at once and actually live.) His stomach is bitter and greasy. His throat is scraped raw. Someone has been punching him in the face with a spiny desert cactus.
This may or may not be the same person who sits him up, gets him to sip water from a straw as he's trying automatically to place what catastrophic party did this to him. He has no recollection of it, so it must've been massive. He hopes that if he fucked anybody, at least one of them was careful. He really hopes it wasn't anybody from the bar. Especially not his boss.
"You're recovering very well, Hitachiin-san," says a white-blurred woman's voice.
Oh. Wait a sec.
"Can you tell me how you're feeling?"
The water wasn't near enough, but his stomach wants to reject it anyway. He breathes cautiously, hoping that all his practice not throwing up creme de menthe and sake bombs will be worth something, here.
--
By the time Tamaki comes waltzing in, Hikaru's put his head back in order. He remembers where he is, and why he's here. He realizes he hates Tamaki, down to the rotten bottom of his soul, for ever even looking at him. But Never Trust Strangers is a lesson he's learned years and years too late. He's stuck now, and pressing at the thought like a new bruise inside him.
Tamaki is hushed and solicitous. He brings Hikaru purple flowers, and a melon he bought at a farmer's stall, setting them carefully next to Hikaru's bed like a temple offering. Hikaru wants him to come closer, so he can get his hands around his throat.
"You'll feel fine, in a few days," Tamaki promises, in his breathy foreign inflection. "In two weeks, you'll be all healed, and ready to go out." He talks about the talent coaching, this Kaoru person Hikaru still hasn't met. He talks like they're best pals in high school, making plans for summer break. Trips and parties, hooking into the social scene.
Hikaru knots his fingers in the sheet, tells himself if he strangles the idiot now, there will still be Ootori to deal with. He'll have to wait until he can get them both together.
--
He swims up out of a slow-sweating Vicodin nightmare, where it's late afternoon and the sheets are clinging damp around his shins. His mouth is full of sour fur, and under the bandages, his whole face is one vicious, bone-deep itch. The urge to scratch is so bad he can feel it snagging fishbone edges against the inside of his throat.
"You were dreaming."
Takashi. Kneeling next to his bed, cutting the melon Tamaki brought. For all he knows, Hikaru is still dreaming; one of those dreams where you wake up in surreal scenes, over and over. Takashi's hands are deft and sure with the knife. The melon falls into squares of orange flesh on the plate.
"You shouldn't get used to the pills."
Takashi---Hikaru knows this somehow---is the sort who goes their whole life without so much as a sniffle. Nothing gets through to him, and he's probably never taken a pill for anything.
That dream is still flickering through his head in hazy shreds. Red carpet, flash of paparazzi. His face swollen and deformed; surgically deconstructed into a cubist portrait.
Maybe Takashi has a point, there.
He takes the melon on a little toothpick as Takashi sets it out, just to give his hands something to do besides claw at the bandages. After two days of bland purees, the taste is blinding sweet, melting on his tongue and buzzing all his pleasure centers like doorbells. He forgets Takashi is sitting there watching him, closes his eyes and licks the juice off his fingers.
*****