Title: If my heart must break it will break in music [1/2?]
Pairing: Atsushi x Issay
Raiting: R
Genre: slice of life, angst, romance
Word Count: 2308
Summary: they say the opposites attract.
He’s the first one to wake up. It’s still the night but he can’t sleep anymore.
He carefully removes an arm possessivily flung around his waist and sits up.
Lighting the cigarette he feels the cold air caressing his bare arms.
These night he was too used to feel warmth.
He glances at the sleeping man beside him, at his relaxed, delicately marked by wrinkles face, lips slightly parted as he breaths calmly, his hair sticking out in every direction.
His chest moving up and down along with his steady heartbeat.
Atsushi takes the cigarette into his mouth and closes his eyes, letting the smoke invade his senses.
/
They’re posing to a picture. His father behind him, hands placed on his son’s skinny arms, the boy's eyes looking directly into the camera.
They’re not smiling, though it shouldn’t seem anything strange- it’s a photo after all, many persons tend to look so seriously while posing.
They’re not smiling because the boy is still sore from the punch in stomach he got that morning from his father who now only wants to go back home and drink senseless.
He does and his wife is hopeless and broken.
/
He tastes alcohol for the first time when his father tells him to bring him a bottle of vodka from the kitchen. It smells in the house, it’s sickening and disgusting but they can’t do anything about it.
Atsushi grabs the bottle and stops in a midway.
If I drink it will I be as strong as dad when he hits?
He takes a deep sip into his mouth as his father always does and drops the bottle in shock. It shatters on the floor while he’s caughing and trying to catch his breath and get rid of this suffocating heat.
All he gets is another punch from his furious dad.
A few years later, when he finds his father in the living room, pale, motionless, dead- he approaches him and takes a bottle he hasn’t finished yet.
He goes to the kitchen, wanting to spill it all into sink- but as he lifts the bottle it strangely finds its way to Atsushi’s mouth. He’s sure he still can feel his dead father’s lips on it.
It’s the first time when he gets drunk.
/
The first time he smokes is when he’s barely ten. He skipped school. It was his birthday.
He didn’t get any presents from his parents. He never did.
Only his mother gave him some money to spend on sweets.
He, feeling as an adult, spent it for his first pack of cigarettes.
After drawing a deep breath and sucking the smoke to his mouth he coughs hard. But it doesn’t stop him from trying more.
He’s smoked the whole pack and comes back home.
His father has never beaten him like that before.
/
Atsushi is sitting at his desk, feeling exhausted and angry. He has no idea where does this anger come from, but he can feel it with his whole body and mind, it overtakes him.
That’s why he takes his own copy of ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ by Charles Baudelaire and opens it on a random page. He knows all those poems pretty well, he’s read them countless times, he’s been always very fond of the poet.
It seems to me at times my blood flows out in waves
Like a fountain that gushes in rhythmical sobs.
I hear it clearly, escaping with long murmurs,
But I feel my body in vain to find the wound.
He continues reading, knowing all the following lines by heart. He’s so focused on it that he doesn’t hear the footsteps at on the corridor. Only when Issay approaches him and stands right beside him Atsushi notices his presence.
He glances at him and goes back to reading.
It’s just a short glance but it was enough to see that always bright face towards which he felt so weak.
He still hasn’t said a word; Issay draws closer, placing his hand right next to Atsushi’s and leaning on the desk with it. He reads out loud: I have sought in love a forgetful sleep;
But love is to me only a bed of needles
Made to slake the thirst of those cruel prostitutes... hmm, no wonder why you’re so upset if you read such things- he smiles brightly and Atsushi swallows. He’s angry, he’s mad, he’s so hopeless towards the other man, it’s as if he was changing into a different person when he was with him.
Only of the inside though- he hated showing his weakness.
So he just shakes his head and turns the page. Issay chuckles.
Atsushi shivers.
-You should read something more like ‘could we live it over again, were it all worth the pain, could the passionate past that is fled call back its dead’- he recited, looking playfully at the younger man.
He only frowns.
-And why?
Issay sighed.
-Well, I know that this ‘optimistic and light-hearted’ poetry inspired you to write ‘Aku no Hana’ and it’s a pretty good album, but… I think that sometimes you need some other things to inspire you. Like, something less dark and more cheerful and motivating. What have you read before writing ‘Kimi no banira’?
Atsushi smirks.
-I was just drunk. And you could just tell already that you enjoyed ‘Six/Nine’ more because you were a guest on it.
Issay rolls his eyes and grins.
-If I enjoyed it more it was because of the tour.
His look is so intense and sincere that Atsushi wants to kiss him right here right now and make love to him like there’s no tomorrow. But since since there’s no such thing for him as ‘making love’ and he’s not some love-struck teenage girl he only shrugs and goes back to the book.
-Sure you had.
Issay stands there for a minute longer and when Atsushi makes no move to somehow cherish the other’s presence he just places his hand on the younger’s arm and brushed his lips against his temple.
-Just don’t stay up for too long.
And just like that he goes away, before Atsushi has even a chance to respond.
It was just a soft touch of lips, not even a kiss, a fleeting touch, and yet it felt as if it was something way bigger and more important.
Atsushi somehow doesn’t feel like reading about blood anymore.
/
Atsushi is mesmerized by the show he happens to witness right now. He stares in awe at the quintet, as they play the music he’s heard just a few days ago on a tape borrowed from his friend.
He stares at the vocalist, with black ruffled hair, holding a venetian mask in his right hand and a cigarette in the other one. He’s charismatic and Atsushi is sincerely impressed by the way the vocalist’s voice fills the whole hall and goes with the music.
What impresses him even more is that sincere and bright look he has on his face; even when he screams, when he furrows, when he sings about death- it’s still there, that unfailing joy, as if the man was happy with each passing second and never got sad or discouraged.
He sings and sways and lifts the mask and Atsushi can feel that aside from passion for music there’s a insuperable distance between him and the vocalist.
He rarely brings himself to smile. Only when he’s with his, let’s say ‘friends’- when he can play with them (though drums are not his biggest dream in reality) and release himself into music. Or when he just sits and drinks with them, listening to their talks, laughter, histories. He sits and listens wondering if he can be like this one day too.
But he’s always been better at listening, and they say that the opposites attract so when he ends up in bed with Issay four years later he’s not surprised. Only unsure of how to take this whole situation.
/
It’s 1988 when BUCK TICK record their fourth album, ‘TABOO’, in London, England. It’s also when Der Zibet records there their ‘GARDEN’.
It’s the first time when Issay sees the younger band’s performance.
And he’s amazed; their music is just as rebellious and crazy as theirs; Issay loves the way they move along with their instruments, the way they perform; he loves the way that the vocalist, Sakurai Atsushi expresses himself through singing.
He’s smiling playfully, jumping and running on the scene, completely lost in music and his own voice. As if he was born to do this, as if it was the thing that gives him the energy and will to keep living.
The crowd is chanting ‘BAKU-CHIKU!’ and ‘ACCHAN! ACCHAN!’ and Issay raises his brows with amusement and respect.
It seems like this band has a bright future ahead of them.
They have met before the show, at the backstage. The Higuchi brothers, drummer and bass player were amazingly friendly and talkative, Issay started to like them right at the moment they went to the room. He hasn’t met Hide then, he was hanging around somewhere near. But he has met with the main vocalist and the former of the group. They were both silent and mysterious and didn’t show many signs of interest.
However, after seeing the performance and noticing the huge gap that was between Atsushi performing and Atsushi not performing, Issay decided that he wanted to meet him closer.
And he succeeded.
/
The first time they become intimate with each other they don’t even kiss (and haven’t kissed ever before); they just lose themselves into the moment, they don’t care about the awkwardness that might appear between them afterwards. All that matters is that tight embrace and grinding against each other, so fast, so eagerly.
They don’t even take their clothes off, they just create that pleasurable friction between them and soon they both come, groaning and panting hard.
They don’t talk about this for the closest two months. They just meet every day as they’re used to do.
/
The second time they’re together they don’t kiss either; Atsushi doesn’t want to kiss his friend. As long as it’s all purely physical, it’s safe; kissing is submissive and tender and shows the totally different kind of affection. And since he doesn’t want to show any weakness, doesn’t want to do something he’d feel uncomfortable with, he just goes with the flow using his lips in different ways.
And Issay doesn’t seem to complain though the other can see something in his eyes, something that is not exactly a disappointment but want and longing.
He decides to ignore this look as he thrusts into him.
/
The first time they kiss it’s so unexpected that it leaves Atsushi absolutely speechless and mind-fucked.
They just sit and drink sake and none of them is drunk yet; Issay tells him about a girl he has met two days ago and Atsushi just sits and listens.
Issay laughs and when he laughs all his face brightens up. Atsushi won’t admit it but he secretly loves those smiles and the sound that Issay makes with his chuckling. He loves it more than anything.
And so Issay speaks, chuckles, rolls his eyes, and Atsushi catches himself on not-listening at all- but hearing only.
And that’s when Issay notices his distraction, notices the way his friend looks at him, confused and unsure, completely lost in his own thoughts.
That’s when he leans in and tilts his head to place a chaste kiss on the other man’s lips.
They’ve been together so many times he’s lost count, has seen each other naked more than he has seen any woman, they are so comfortable around each other, as if they knew each other for decades and not ‘only’ five years and yet he feels how Atsushi tenses beside him, how hesitant he is to kiss back; he feels his doubts and fear and he brings his hand up to caress his friend’s face so tenderly, as if they were lovers head over heels for each other.
Only Atsushi is not his lover. And he’s not in love.
At least that’s what Issay thinks when the younger one pulls away and walks out of the room.
/
They’re on the tour when he receives that memorable phone call.
His mother is dying in a hospital and she wants to talk to him for the very last time.
Words are caught in his throat, he can’t bring himself to speak. He’s listening to his mother’s heavy, hoarse breath and fights with the tears.
A few minutes later it’s all finished. His happiness is finished, gone, forgotten.
/
They’re performing ‘Itooshi no rock star’, having fun on their current tour, ‘Somewhere/Nowhere’.
Issay is dressed similar to him- a white, elegant shirt, black trousers and braces.
They feel like fishes in the water, they’re so full of energy and passion when they’re together onstage, they get totally lost in the ecstasy.
When the song comes to the end, it’s Atsushi who approaches Issay, and, after singing the concluding lines- ‘kimi wa warau’ he leans closer and kisses him.
The fans’ screams are so loud they can barely even hear the music but they don’t care; Atsushi smiles and Issay’s eyes sparkles.
And then they part, going to different sides of the stage and shouting some incoherencies to their microphones, as if nothing happened.
Though they knows something has changed.
It’s not only fanservice that they used to do when they were performing ‘Masquerade’- it wasn’t just Atsushi pressing to him from behind, placing his hands on Issay’s hips and swaying with them. He did it with many other musicians onstage.
What they’ve just done was utterly different and they both know it.
Only they’re not sure of where will it lead them.
/
A/N: Rushed and not quite satisfying... but I had to make it on time so I'm glad anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY DEAR AGATEK-CHAN♥ ♥ ♥!!! <333
acchanx3I wish you great fun at Versaille’s concert *well, I’m pretty sure I don’t even Reed to wish you that;)*, that Kaya and Kamijo will live happily ever after together, that we can one day witness you-know-what in a phone box in London, that BUCK TICK comes to Poland, and all that you desire! x33 I hope you’ll like the fic because it’s written for you! ^o^
And now some other things about this fic… I’ve missed BUCK TICK so much these days and had the urge to write something about them and since I’ve always wanted to write a fic about Atsu & Issay for
acchanx3 and I got this opportunity AND decided to give it a try ^^ And as I already said, it’s rushed and definitely not perfect but I’m still glad I did it at time. The other part(s) should be posted really soon.
I wanted to give my own thoughts about Atsushi’s behaviour, character and feelings- though the most of it are my assumptions only, of course. But I tried to make it as realistic as I could, also with their relationship *not that I believe they’re/they were in such kind of relationship but there are some things I’m rather sure of, at least as far as I ‘know’ them*.
I hope you’ll bear with my terrible English, my brain refuses to cooperate these days, too much school .____.
And, well… I feel like writing more Atsu/Issay since they were my favorite pairing *they still are if we talk about jrock*. Only writing kpop is way easier, writing about B-T is utterly different. Especially when it comes to my feelings towards them. That’s why I often hesitate to write fics about them.
Anyways *I’m almost sleeping already and haven’t done my homework yet* I hope you’ll enjoy it and once again HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AGATEK-CHAN♥♥♥!!!!