Let The Stars Play
Title: Let The Stars Play
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Genre(s): Oneshot, drama, romance, angst, thoughtful
Pairing(s): Reita/OFC, Aoi/Reita
Summary: I’ve spent the entirety of my life, just as any other man, in search of what makes me this particular man.
______________________
It was as if the clouds above me had opened up to share my misery with the world; it was not just mine to shoulder, but the entirety of mankind in that moment. Raindrops assaulted the pavement with such intensity that they bounced back up, soaking my pant legs a second time in their vindictive assault. Not that it mattered at this point as I was already soaked through to the bone; if there was a measure of warmth left in my heart, it would have been frozen by the cold air around me. I had no desire, however, to find my way in that moment--wallowing in my own self-pity was a more sufficient way to spend my time. Particularly because, at this point, what else is there to hope for? I’ve spent the entirety of my life, just as any other man, in search of what makes me this particular man. Why do I do the things I do, why do I love the things that I claim passion for? It’s been a tireless journey and I’ve discovered new parts of myself each day, with every person I meet and every moment I spend perfecting my skills. Yet just as I thought I was at a point in my life where I might finally understand my purpose, where I might have actually found love, it falls through the cracks of my fingers like grains of dry sand. That is, of course, if I ever had a handful of it in the first place. I don’t know--I don’t know anything, to be honest.
I don’t even know my own name anymore.
There was a steady ringing in my ears, cutting out all other sounds but a high pitched echo as if it were the soundtrack of my decent into nothingness. I don’t know if it’s a comfortable sound or if the only reason I feel relaxed is because my body is numb from feeling anything. I don’t know how I got there, it was a matter of mechanics that I ended up before the familiar door--I certainly hadn’t commanded my feet to move. Every slam of my fist to the wooden surface was absent of sound; all I saw were the bounces of water droplets leaping for their lives as I invaded their rest. Though I could barely feel it all, my face was stark white, hidden by the water laden fabric half falling down my cheeks and spears of wet hair hung around my face, clinging to my temples. I looked as I felt; like death was descending upon me. Not in the way it took the elderly and sick, but in a way that took their body and soul, but instead as if death was there to take the entirety of who I was so I would be left as nothing more than a machine of interwoven cells. I had never felt that way before in my life, never questioned who I really was. What I was finding now is nothing I want to hold onto anymore.
I remember the first time I saw her. Her hand was warm when it entered mine. Most people weren‘t like that; the girl’s before her was icy and shaking, the girl after was the sort of hot that makes my hand sweat in return. I don't normally mind as it's always fun to meet those that admire us, enjoy us, and certainly appreciate what we do. It's the sort of existence that can't really be put to words. For a sliver of my time, a fraction of my life, it's like dreaming while I'm awake. I get to be anything I want to be and they love me for it. It's not always as fantastic as it seems but it would be a lie to say I don't love it. It's an addiction of the worst kind, the sort that fuels everything else I do - which is why I'm so easily lost between my two separate lives. Sometimes they slide so close to one another that I forget that Reita is only a name and a mask. Most of the time I'm not him, but I was when I met her. She smiled and said 'Konnichiwa' in the most dreadful accent I'd ever heard. It made me smile for her effort and I held on to her hand for a second too long. It was such a fraction of time that neither of us noticed, but the one with the hand of fire seemed to because she pushed the line forward with a nudge of her girth to the shapely dark skinned foreigner before me.
My smile turned to the thick, yet tiny, girl behind her. Her eyes disappeared into her face when her round cheeks lifted with her toothy grin and her shrill voice greeted me with something I couldn't understand, but I smiled back all the same and nodded some. Apparently it was the right gesture because it made her smile brighten and her eyes become nothing more than dark slits in her face. "Hai." I said to her but my eyes strayed down the line where the curvy girl had moved on to my band mate Ruki. She was taller than him, it was obvious when she leaned over the table and whispered something to him. I watched his eyes flick over to me and, though my gaze shot back to the fat girl in front of me, I caught a look on Ruki's face that wasn't achieved by many. Sometimes, on a good day, Uruha could bring up something that seemed like it was from a lifetime ago, an ancient past, that would make Ruki's cheeks turn that shade of dusty rose but no one else could...until that day.
My first mission was to discover what she'd said to Ruki that could draw a reaction such as the one she'd received. Beyond that I had no plan--perhaps to shake her hand again and see if it was practiced or if she truly was always that compassionate in her greeting. That sort of warmth was unlike anything I'd experienced before and there was a part of me, if not my entire being, that was drawn like a moth to a flame. It was as she continued down the short line that it occurred to me, in any second, the window of opportunity to utter my own kind words would disappear. The flame was fizzling out and I need to keep it from dying or else I'd find myself very cold and very, very disappointed.
"Oi, Aoi-san--" I hissed to the raven-haired man next to me, indicating that he take over my spot as I had more pressing matters to deal with. At least to me, in the pit of my chest where my heart was housed, it felt much more pressing in that moment. Like an answer to something I'd been asking for a life time. I jogged behind the others, stopping her before she could be directed away from the small platform we stood on. "Wait--I um, please? I'm sorry to stop you--I was wondering though, what's your name?" I asked her softly, speaking slowly in my own language hoping she would understand as my stomach did all sorts of acrobatic maneuvers in the hollow space. She looked at me with a puzzled expression, not of surprise but perplexity and I wondered if we would have to stumble through trying to understand one another with a language barrier. She then asked the question that never meant more to me than any other in my life. "What's yours?"
I stared for a moment, confused because if she was there to see our band, surely she knew who we all were. But I bowed lightly to her, offering her a humble smile. "Reita--I am Reita." I saw understanding cross her face, like her eyes lit with the realization and she smiled softly, hiding it with a small tip of her head downward. "Well then, Reita-san...my name is Anya. It was nice to meet you." It was the touch to my forearm, the briefest invasion of my space, that made my toes curl against the bottom of my shoe--it didn't offend me in that moment. If anything, the electricity I felt sent fireworks exploding across the surface of my skin. It didn't take long for me to realize that I'd made a mistake in having broken the line as Ruki was staring at me, Uruha leaning a little around him in curious shock and Aoi with his head bowed down and his mouth covered by his hand. I couldn't tell if he was laughing or disgusted. Kai was invisible, wedged somewhere between the others. My eyes flicked back to her and she seemed as confused as my band mates. "It was nice meeting you Reita." She said again as if to encourage me to move, but I couldn't. Amid her bad accent and equally warm fingertips on my arm, I was paralyzed.
"Can I--" I started but she leaned over, like she had to Ruki, and I felt her breath cross my ear. It didn't matter how bad her accent was, her words hit the folds and curves of the conch part of my ear and dove into the crevices below. She could have been trying to formulate a new language for all I cared at that moment and I wondered if this was the same thing she'd said to Ruki. "I'll find you." Were her words. It wasn't sultry or seductive and the fact that it was simple and polite was more alluring than if she'd said something filthy into the breeze of her breath that would have clung to my hair if she hadn't already directed all that energy into the twisting depths of my ear.
She made good on her promise. Uruha had wanted a drink after the event which was meant for the fans. They were all celebrating our victory, congratulating one another, for the day and wishing us many more days like it in the future while I nursed a glass of water. I felt her before I saw her. Her fingers hand trailed the neckline of my shirt, tickling the hairs that laid there. My eyes fluttered and she sat down next to me. Somehow one drink turned into six or seven and I learned that she was studying here, in my home country. She was originally from Australia where she had spent her time as a novice artist, as she claimed she lived out of canned food and bad imported wine for at least three years leading up to this one. She was a student of all sorts of life but we discovered that we both had a love for nature photography. She said she'd show me hers someday if I wanted to see, which I did - very badly.
I don't remember how we ended up in the room we were in but my hand crossed her naked hip, which was plump and full, seductive in the way it bent back up into her waist at a small sexy slope. It was something that most of my race didn't share to the extreme that some others did naturally. It was when she reached for the band that crossed my face that I jerked out like a startled animal and stopped her. My fingers looped loosely around her narrow wrist. It was safe behind there and if it was the only thing I wore, it would be as if I were fully dressed because without it, I wasn't Reita. She seemed to understand, just like when her eyes had flicked away as I offered my name to her earlier that day. "It's okay." She said catching my cheek and capturing my lips in the most exciting and arousing kiss I'd shared to that point. It was because there was mystery in what I was to her and how easily she embraced that. Beyond that, there was a measure of charm to our interlude.
I enjoyed her. I enjoyed every inch of her body and the way we seemed to connect physically and emotionally. There wasn’t one single part of her that drew me; it wasn’t just her beauty or her mystery, it wasn’t just the way I felt connected to her very person or the fact that I felt complete when talking to her. It was a combination of all these things that made me wake up that next morning in a warm bed with an equally as comfortable body beside me and a smile across my lips. Falling so quickly for another person was something I’d never realized was possible; I always wanted to believe in it and to some extent I did. I trusted love’s power enough to know it could be found in the most obscure of places. There was nothing stopping me as I pulled her closer in a hug and relished in that which my heart and head were certain was the buds of love.
“Will you spend the day with me?” I had asked her and she agreed readily; no other day existed like it. We walked no where and everywhere together, exploring a stretch of the city that became ours for a little while. We didn’t say much, there wasn’t much to say and when we did, it only solidified what touches and soft kisses conveyed the night before. She gave me everything in those that short day, lust and passion and a connection to another person I’d never imagined possible. “I’ve never met someone like you--a day like this is a sort that they make dreams of. The only difference is I’ve harnessed it somehow, there are muses smiling down on me for the chance to feel this way. I feel like a man of luck.” I told her as I nuzzled my face against the bend of her neck; our day had ended again beneath the sheets and nothing was more soothing than the blanket of darkness that covered us. She sighed and settled against me as sleep made both of us drowsy. “Quite the poet, ne?” She laughed in a playful manner as she snuggled closer to me and I could feel the vibrations of her toying chuckle against my chest. It made me smile, and she went on. “Sometimes we make our own luck and your own dreams, Reita. No one controls them but us, we make them what we want them to be.” It warmed my heart to hear as this was exactly everything I’d wanted.
Hours passed as we dozed in sleep before I felt the bed shift underneath me and she slipped from my grasp. There was sunlight pouring in through the window, covering the ground in yellow light that made the room warm and comfortable. I watched her as she stood up, the silhouette of her body reflected on the surface of the bed. I inched my palm across the top, grasping at the darkness of her shadow, as I intended to urge her to come back. When I actually uttered those words, with a soft and happy smile on my lips, she turned to me and returned the smile with a different air to it. An air of finality to her voice as she sat back on the bed to face me. It was as if she somehow found a note of sadness and harnessed that in the gentle curve of her lips upward, though they clearly meant to be just as softly downcast. I was left wondering if it was a reflection I was staring at on her face from the way her lips bounced back up--it was like the way the moon was flipped upside down in the canvas of a smooth pond, deceiving in its shape. She meant to be frowning sympathetically, I knew it. “I can’t lay here for any longer… my flight leaves in a little while, I have to go home. It’s time for me to go.”
My world shattered in that moment--I didn’t know what to say or think as I stared at her, my lips parted in my surprise but no sound came. “Home…but I thought you were home here, you were living here now. Where is home…? I’ll see you again, ne? Anya…“ She didn’t miss a beat as she touched my cheek and tipped her head to the side. That same upside down pity frown was on her lips.
“No, Reita--I don’t think so. There’s nothing left to see. Is there? Do you have more to show me? Because I think you’ve shown me everything you’re willing to and that’s enough for us both. It was nice, I enjoyed every moment we spent together, it was a dream just as you said. A dream that should stay that way. Because neither of us wanted more than that and we shouldn’t force something we didn’t want in the first place.” It didn’t make sense to me; nothing made sense in that moment and I sputtered and squirmed to sit fully up, to scoot closer to her as I felt like she was miles away. I couldn’t keep up and I was scrambling to catch her before she vanished, as if she truly was part of my subconscious.
“I don’t understand, help me--why are you doing this? What does that mean? I wanted this…I want this, I feel it and I don’t understand, I thought you felt it too. What else explains what’s happened to us?” I could hear myself begging her as I tugged on her hands to plead her to stay there for a moment longer. She shook her head and pulled her hands free of mine before reaching up and hooking her finger lightly over the edge of my face band. The tug she gave it, not enough to pull it free but enough to show it attention, made me jump some. She bowed her head and kissed the hollow part of my cheek softly, in a way I knew wasn’t affectionate as much as it was a goodbye. “You told me your name was Reita…so I told you mine was Anya. You got be the man you’ve dreamed you are, you got to be the man behind the mask. This mask, right here--you couldn’t be with me without being Reita. Together, we got to dream. We got to be everything we’ve ever wanted to be, but it was just that. A dream - fantasy for both of us. It’s time to wake up now, it’s time to go back to our real lives.”
I wanted to understand what she was talking about, how she could feel and be a part of the things we were in those days before and be so ready to just let it go away. I reached up, in a moment of desperation, and started to undo the tie of the strip of fabric across my face but she stopped me quickly. “No…no, don’t do that. Don’t ruin it, let it be as it was. Everything it was, let it stay that way.” She urged me. “It’s like trying to fall back asleep just to revisit your dreams--its not the same. It’s never the same. I’m going to go--I need to go and so do you.” She kissed my cheek again before getting off the bed entirely. “Thank you, Reita.”
I watched her in silence as I sat up in the bed and she gathered her things together to leave. The entirety of our connection felt tainted in that moment--I had introduced myself in the only way I was comfortable, as the man I created and not necessarily the man I was. But he was who she met. And I was realizing now that everything she said, from her name down to the very minute details of her school to her love for nature, was a fabrication. Everything she’d said was like a stream of subconsciousness and I couldn’t figure out which parts were true and which were fabrications of my mind--or hers. Or both of ours. The last day had passed like a breath of fresh air because I had wanted it to--I wanted to connect to this beautiful woman and she wanted to be with me and together we created a world where we could be with one another without the fear and doubt that came with love and affection. It was somehow safe, yet guarded, for both of us. I tipped my head down as these thoughts flooded my skull; my hands were shaking as I couldn’t help but think if this could happen to me, if I could hide behind a mask just to feel a sliver of lust, what else was hiding behind a strip of cloth and a stage name? “What’s your name then?” I asked quietly, peeking up at her just as she had moved towards the door to leave all together.
She turned back to me and was quiet for a moment before she spoke. Those words echoed in my brain with every slap of my foot against the pavement through the rainy day. “Does it matter?” They were the last words she said to me before she left all together and I sat numb from the dart that had quite literally speared through the thick muscles of my heart. The answer was no--it didn’t matter. I didn’t know who Anya was, I never knew who she was because I had never given her the chance to know who I was either. She’d told me things that I’m pretty sure weren’t true, things that she wanted to be just as I told her of parts of myself that Reita, part of an image, and not who I really was. I didn’t want her to know, I wanted her to know who I had created for the world to see--I wanted her to know Reita--because who I am underneath is nothing of interest. Reita, however, can be mysterious and charming -- an enigma to those interested. And what she had done was offer back to me what she wanted to create--a woman named Anya that she always dreamed of being and finally could be. What a pair we made, fooling each other and ourselves in the process. Only, I think I believed her a little more as she knew the game from the second she introduced herself and I...well I’ve been Reita off and on for years.
I don’t know what brought me to this particular door, but it made me feel safe; even just banging on it in the pouring rain.
“Akira-san! Look at you, you’re shaking--come on, come inside. Are you insane?!” It was like all the memories of what happened flooded me in an instant and I blinked hard to try and hear him. I could see his lips moving as he spoke and I could even feel his hands as they touched my shoulders, guiding me inside. It was like he poured hot lava over my body for the way the simple warmth of human touch was sucked in by the black vortex that had become the bitter coldness of my body. He didn’t deserve it, I deserved it for being this person I had somehow, at some point, blindly become. Whoever that was in the first place. He drew me further inside and in seconds, he had a towel wrapped around my shoulders as he used it to try to warm me.
“I don’t know what happened--she left. One minute she was here and the next…” I don’t know how I managed to get words to escape my lips, but I was mumbling to him as he guided me to the kitchen and immediately set to making hot tea that would warm me too. “I never even knew her, she…she never knew me. I made everything I expected she wanted me to be…she was there to see Reita so I gave him to her. She...did the same. She gave me what I wanted to see. Only…I forgot I was playing a game. It’s a game, isn’t it? A mask, I’m not this person but I feel like I am most days…I can’t tell anymore.” I felt him sink down beside me, just like I could feel his gaze on my still shivering body, but it wasn’t until he took my hand lightly in his that I looked up to see his face. He looked as sad as I felt. “I don’t know where I start and Reita ends.” I told him, bowing my head instinctively, in humility and humble modesty. He was quiet for a moment, nothing but the sound of the burning flame on the stove filled the air, and I watched his hand as he flipped mine over against his palm. It was the only part of my body I could feel right then, that felt at peace, for the warmth he was giving to me as he traced the lines of my palm with the tip of his index finger.
“I know who you are.” He said softly, the simple sentiment of his statement making my breath catch against my throat. I felt the urge to blink but with no ability to do so. “You didn’t tell her who you are because you didn’t want her to know; she doesn’t need to. You made her something she wasn’t.” He paused and felt my shoulders sink down in my despair at what he was saying. “But I do, I know exactly where you begin and he ends and vice versa. You can be both men with me, you can be exactly who you are and not something the rest of the world expects.” He told me gently before he locked his gaze on me. “Are you done?” I felt a shiver crawl down my spine when our eyes met and the sound of softly pleading voice filled my ears.
I watched him closely as he reached up and hooked finger over the edge of my band, not unlike she had. But I didn’t recoil from him as he tugged it over my nose and it fell in a loop around my neck, exposing the entirety of my face in that moment. It wasn’t the first time he’d done the same thing. It wasn’t the first time I heard the tone of voice he used. I knew him, like he knew me. “Are you done running away? I never wanted Reita, I’ve always wanted you--this you. No hiding.” He brushed the pad of his thumb against the soft part of my cheek, usually hidden and therefore extra sensitive to touch. What he spoke of was the truth; I had spent so much time trying to create a world where I could be free of the fear of just living as who I was born. To the world, to Anya, I was beautiful as that man. To him, however, I was beautiful as just Akira. He understood who I was behind the mask. More than that, I wanted him to understand.
“Yuu-san…” I whispered softly, bowing my head gently in respect to him. When I looked up again, I saw a brilliant smile across his face and his raven hair had fallen a little in front of his eyes. “Thank you for seeing me. If I could be anywhere, it would be here…by your side.”
__________________
Note: Are you guys well?! We hope so!! We've come to realize, overall, that we're better off doing one shots as we had the time for them. They take a few days to write and we're back on our feet. Stories, as much as we love them, are just so very time consuming. We apologize greatly for it and, as you can see, this realization inspired us to write just that--a one shot.
That being said, we hope you got the message we were trying to convey here. Though Aoi, or Yuu, doesn't have a large appearance in this story, the story is really about him and Reita. It's not so much about the girl and Reita, though it is to some degree, but its about what they represent to one another and what Aoi and Reita are to one another. We do hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed writing it. ^_^
Thank you very, very much for taking the time to read this!!