Perfection Is Hard, Imperfection Is Harder - Part 1
Title: Perfection Is Hard, Imperfection Is Harder
Author: grapefruit_jely
Pairing: ReitaxKai
Part: 1/?
Rating: okay for everyone
Genre: angst?, slight romance?
Summary: “He couldn’t stand his own reflection. He had done a good job fooling everyone else though. Sometimes, he could even fool himself.”
Perfection had never been good enough. Maybe that had been his biggest flaw.
Kai, in Reita’s eyes, was perfect. When Reita looked at the drummer he saw a flawless man.
If only Kai could have looked in the mirror and thought so too.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t stand his own reflection.
He hadn’t always been this way. There was a time when he loved himself for who he was. But the pressure to be the person that people wanted, to be “that guy,” had crushed him. He had given in and now he had just crumbled under the pressure. And now, he was broken. Maybe broken beyond repair.
He had done a good job of fooling everyone else though. Sometimes, he could even fool himself.
There was a soft knock on the door, and when Kai opened it, Reita was standing there. With a smile, he invited the expected guess inside.
“Ready to go?” Kai asked, as he opened the closet, flipping through jackets looking for the right one.
“Yeah, I need to take a piss real quick though,” Reita answered as he made his way over to bathroom.
“Okay, okay. Hurry though, I don’t want to be late for the movie.”
“I know.”
When the blonde returned from the bathroom, a smiling Kai awaited him. “Hey are you ever getting that mirror in there fixed?” Reita asked.
“Oh.” The smile fell from Kai’s lips. “Yeah, I don’t know. I mean I didn’t really need it, so.”
Reita shrugged, and the two left the apartment. Left the apartment with the bathroom with the mirror covered in duct tape, or the “broken mirror,” as Kai had told Reita. ‘It broke so I taped it, so that it wouldn’t be a safety hazard,’ he had lied. He had just gotten so tired of seeing his reflection to the point that he couldn’t even look at himself without feeling sick. He looked in the mirror, and he looked so…imperfect.
“Have you eaten dinner yet?” Reita asked Kai as they left the theater, to be met by the air that was becoming cold as the night approached.
“Yeah, I’m not hungry,” he replied.
“Do you think I could get something to eat at your place? I haven’t eaten yet.”
“Ummm, maybe we should grab something at a grocery store; there’s nothing to really eat at home.”
And after stopping by the grocery store, the two returned to the apartment, hand in hand. And when the door closed shut with a soft slam, Reita caught the other’s lips with his. Wrapping his arms around Kai’s waist, Reita noticed how thin he was. And when he snuck a hand underneath the thin sheet of a shirt he was wearing, he could feel his ribs, and they seemed to just jut out and there wasn’t a single trace of fat anywhere on his flat tummy. He always was, they always were; but it would always surprise Reita, it always worried him a little.
“Jesus Kai, you’re so thin!” Reita told, as soon as their lips separated. Kai smiled to himself.
Reita had spent the night, and when the light flooded the room that Sunday morning, the brunette woke up to an empty bed. There was a note left on the lamp table; it read, “Sorry! I had to go; I didn’t want to wake you though, you looked so peaceful.”
Kai sat up in his bed, stretching his arms out above his head. His eyes blinked away his tiredness as he got out of bed and made his way over to the bathroom. When his bare feet met the cold tiled floor, his eyes met a sticky note left on the now-untaped mirror and his reflection. He gasped as he saw himself. His eyes moved across the words left on the small piece of yellow paper. “What are you talking about? It’s not broken.”
With another gasp, Kai quickly moved his gaze down into the sink. But from the corner of his eyes, he could still see the sheen of the mirror, and he couldn’t stand it. He swiftly left the bathroom, teeth biting down on his bottom lip.
He got dressed without looking at what he was putting on, the only thought occupying his head was how he was going to cover up that mirror without looking at his reflection, without making Reita suspicious.
Reita left too many notes in his apartment, Kai decided.
Author’s note:
So I actually have an idea of how this story is going to play out in my head. I know this chapter is kind of awkwardly lengthed; it’s kind of short. But I didn’t want to add anything else to this one. I think I’ll have the next part up preeeetty soon. :)