Chocolate Fic for kyjr
To: kyjr
From: wintersdancer
Title: State of Grace
Pairing: Nishikido Ryo/Mizukawa Asami
Rating: pg
Summary: Ryo and Asami are room mates, and friends. Each Wednesday night is their night, so why does Asami have a date with someone else?
A/N: Dear kyjr, it was a pleasure writing for you, and I really hope you’ll enjoy the fic!
When the alarm goes off, Ryo groans out loud, turning and squirming under the duvet as he blindly looks for the alarm with his hand. He knocks down a book and his cell phone before he can successfully push the snooze button on the evil, oh so evil, device, but the “thuds” of the objects falling on the floor barely register in his brain.
Ryo has never been a morning person, but he realizes now, with his mind still foggy, that marathoning his favorite TV show the night before hasn’t been the smartest decision. It hasn’t really helped his always-so-traumatic waking up, not at all.
He’s already drifting back to sleep once again when the alarm goes off again, and he instinctively puts his head under the pillow, trying to shut the sound out of his mind, but to no avail.
After only a couple of moments, some bangs against the wall of his room make Ryo move the pillow from over his head.
“Are you ever gonna switch it off?”
Ryo only groans in response, dragging his legs out from under the duvet and putting his feet on the floor; the tiles are cold, and the only thing Ryo wants right now is to just go back under the duvet and sleep a couple of more hours, maybe more.
“You’ll be late for work.”
The voice is closer to his door now, and Ryo knows that if he’s not out of his room in less than five minutes, Asami will just walk in and open the curtains. Ryo hates her when she does that.
“Coming!” he groans again, and this time he gets up for real.
When he steps into the kitchen, Asami looks at him, takes a cup from the cabinet and pours him some coffee as he sits down, scratching his head; his hair is a mess, and Ryo can barely keep his eyes open, but the smell of coffee works its magic, and he’s at least able to greet his roommate in what’s resembling a human language.
Sort of.
“I thought you didn’t have lessons today,” he mumbles as he takes a sip of his coffee, and then sighs in delight. Ryo’s pretty sure that Asami’s coffee could wake up even the dead.
Asami has been living with Ryo for the past two years now, and they get along really well. Ryo’s glad Junno introduced them.
Junno had been Ryo’s roommate for a while, and they have been friends since before they can remember; then, suddenly, Junno had decided to go study abroad, living Ryo alone with a small, tiny little problem regarding the rent. When Junno had told him that a friend of his was looking for a place closer to the campus, Ryo hadn’t thought twice before saying that it was cool with him. After all, it would have been pretty much impossible to find a weirder roommate than Junno, so Ryo had been sure there wouldn’t be any problems at all.
What Ryo wasn’t expecting though was for the new roommate to be a girl. It’s not like it had ever been a problem for him, he just had never taken the idea into consideration. It was strange enough to think that Junno might have had other friends except for him, let alone a girl.
It had been awkward at first, but Ryo had soon discovered that Asami was different from the other girls, so he had just started to relax around her and, one step at time, everything had seemed natural, as if they had been living together since the beginning of time.
“I don’t.” Asami sits at the opposite side of the table, pouring some coffee for herself and adjusting her glasses on her nose.
“Then why are you awake already?”
Ryo yawns, gulping down the last sip of his coffee and refilling the cup. He’ll never be able to understand how Asami can wake up early even when she doesn’t have to go to University. If it was him, he’d spend the day sleeping, he’s sure of it.
“At least one of us has to use their brain, don’t you think?” She sticks her tongue out, smiling and pointing at the biology books on the table, and Ryo looks at the small wrinkles that appear at the corner of her eyes.
He finds them charming, and it’s quite unbelievable that he hasn’t noticed them before. He wonders why.
“Are you implying that I don’t?”
She doesn’t answer, but Ryo can hear her faint chuckle even if he’s not facing her, and he shakes his head.
“You’re really going to be late for work,” she tells him after a moment, and Ryo glances at the clock, cursing. She’s right; now he only has twelve minutes to get ready and leave the apartment if he wants to be at the music store on time, so he runs back into his room, closing the door.
“Are you going to be at home for dinner?” she asks, yelling from the kitchen.
Ryo opens his wardrobe door and picks the first pair of jeans and sweater he can find, trying to be as fast as he can.
“I’ll be back after dinner!” he yells back, only wearing the first sock. “I’ve got rehearsals with the guys!”
Once he has finally managed to get completely dressed, after he has almost stumbled over the duvet while trying to rush, Ryo gets out of his room, picks up his wallet and places his hand on the doorknob, ready to go.
“Hey, Asami?” he calls, and she sticks her head out of the kitchen, looks at him and waits. “Do you want to come to the rehearsals tonight? It’s been so long since the last time.”
She smiles widely at him, nodding. “I’ll text you later then!”
As he closes the door and runs to the closest subway station, Ryo feels like he is bursting with joy for no particular reason. It’ll be a good day, he knows it.
-*-
Ryo likes working in the music store; he’s been working there since he graduated from high school, and he loves it every day a bit more than the previous one. It’s everything he could dream of, the perfect job for him.
Ryo loves music more than anything else in the world, and being able to work in a shop like this one is the perfect thing for him. The shop is not too big, but it’s nice and cozy, and Ryo considers it as if it was his second home. He knows most of their clients by name now, and he and Hina are always able to help their customers out when they’re looking for something really particular, something different from their usual.
Yes, Ryo loves it.
“Happy, aren’t we?” Hina asks him as he arranges the last things before opening time. “Your face’s splitting in two.”
Ryo and Hina had been friends for years, just like Junno and Asami, and working with him is great. They get along really well, even if sometimes Hina can be so anal about things that Ryo can barely stand him. Those moments are rare though, and Ryo is really glad he can work with a friend.
At first he had been worried that seeing him every day for ten hours straight would have made their friendship cringe, and now Ryo is so glad that he was wrong to worry.
“Something happened?” Hina asks again, and Ryo shakes his head, laughing. Hina can be so persistent.
“Nothing special.” He briefly replies. “The usual. I have rehearsals tonight and Asami is coming as well.”
Ryo is not facing Hina, but he can distinctly hear his cackle behind him, and he turns to look at him, his brows raised. “What?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s it? What?”
The bell hanging above the door rings, and the first customer comes in, so Hina hurries to greet the young man who has just stepped in and says nothing more, leaving Ryo wondering about what he meant.
During the day, Ryo tries to go back to that talk a couple of times, but Hina always smirks and says nothing, and Ryo is left hanging. By the end of the working day, he has forgotten about it.
-*-
The rehearsal room is small and messy, but Ryo loves it anyway. It’s a small garage that he and the others have carefully soundproofed, and it has seen the most important times in Ryo’s life, including the birth of “The scarecrows” almost ten years before, when they were only kids.
Subaru is already there, sitting on the old and ruined, faded red couch strumming his guitar with a cigarette between his lips. Ryo likes how Subaru looks as if he was far, far away every time he’s playing. Maruyama is reading a book in the corner of the room, and it’s obvious they’re only waiting for Ohkura, who comes running in after only a couple of minutes. He’s still wearing his working attire -a white shirt with black trousers and a black vest- and Ryo chuckles when he sees him.
“Sorry!”
“Ohkura, breathe,” Subaru tells him as he keeps on playing, and Ohkura nods, trying to catch his breath while he starts warming up.
“Asami’s coming over later.”
Ryo knows they all like Asami, but for some reason he can’t understand why he’s nervous while he announces it. The nervousness goes away as soon as Ohkura’s face splits in two, via a beaming smile. Ryo suspects Ohkura’s excitement is because Asami usually brings some food with her when she comes to rehearsals, and he chuckles to himself as he tunes his guitar.
Playing with his friends is always fun, and Ryo wishes he could to it to earn his living. Unfortunately it’s not like that, but they are still together after ten years, and this probably means more than anything else. Each and every one of them has his job and his life, but they always manage to find the time to play together, no matter how busy they are.
Ryo considers them his family.
“We’re having a show in three weeks,” Subaru announces, standing up from the couch and taking his place in front of the microphone. He doesn’t leave his guitar behind, not even for a second, and Ryo sometimes wonder how Subaru’s life would be without music.
“Yes!” Ohkura shouts from behind the toms, grinning widely, and this time Ryo knows exactly what he’s feeling. It’s been a long time since the last time they got the chance to play live, and he can’t wait for it. Somehow it feels like going back in time, when they used to play almost every weekend in shady clubs around the city. The places were mostly horrible, just as the audiences were, but it had been so much fun that Ryo can’t wait for these next three weeks to go by fast.
Once they are all ready, they start to play; Ryo loves the feeling of the guitar strings under his fingertips, how his hands caress them during the slower songs and how just standing there with his friends, playing, makes him feel. Sometimes, Ryo thinks he might have been born only for that.
-*-
Asami steps in just as they are playing the last chords of their latest song, so when they notice her, they take the chance for a pause. Ohkura is fast to notice the plastic box in Asami’s hands, and his smile is almost menacing in its attempt to split his face in half.
“Did you bring food?” he asks, and Maruyama smacks him on the head while Subaru shakes his head, lighting a cigarette and exhaling smoke.
“Where did your manners go?” Maruyama asks Ohkura, pushing him slightly on the shoulder as he tries to make his way to Asami, and Asami laughs.
Ryo finds himself looking at her, at how her face lights up when she laughs, and he feels as if someone had punched him in the stomach. With the corner of his eye, Ryo catches Subaru looking at him for a moment before he turns to look at Ohkura, who’s already taking Asami’s box in his hands, and shakes his head.
“When did he ever have manners?”
“Hey!” Ohkura tries to protest, but then again, he doesn’t really care. Asami has known them for two years now, given they have always been part of Ryo’s life, and she knows how they are, just as she knows Ohkura likes her for more than the food.
That helps a lot though.
Theire pause goes by quickly as they all gather around Asami and eat, chatting and laughing. Ryo looks around, and suddenly feels like his life’s perfect. His friends are all gathered there, and there’s Asami as well, laughing at Maruyama’s stupid jokes.
Ryo wouldn’t change a single thing right now, not even the knowing glances Subaru throws him from time to time, even if he doesn’t understand why.
-*-
“I won’t be home for dinner today,” Asami announces as she pours another cup of coffee for Ryo. His synapses are still slow, just like every morning, and he nods. “I’ve got a date.”
Ryo slowly raises his head, and looks at her; she’s shining with happiness, and Ryo really likes how she looks right now, even if she’s still wearing her tracksuit and her hair is all over the place. At the same time, though, there’s a nagging feeling in his chest that makes it difficult to breathe. He should be completely happy that she has a date, but for some reason he can’t be. He just can’t, and when Asami goes to her room to get ready for University, Ryo blinks, realizing that the girl he’s considered one of his best friends for the past two years is now the girl he’s in love with.
-*-
It comes as a surprise, because Ryo would have never ever taken into consideration the fact that he might fall in love with his friend.
Asami is not his type of girl; Ryo has always been attracted by showy girls, and Asami is the opposite. She’s glowing even when she wears a plain pair of jeans and a pullover, and it still doesn’t make sense, not at all.
Ryo doesn’t know what to do.
It’s the first time he’s in love with someone he has known for years, and he doesn’t really know where to bang his head, even if his room’s wall looks appealing enough.
He sighs, sliding his fingers randomly on the strings of his acoustic guitar, and that’s when Asami knocks at his door.
“Come in,” he says, without moving from where he is sitting on his bed.
Asami stops near the door, looking at him with a smile on her lips; she’s wearing a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck pullover, and Ryo thinks he has never seen anyone be that elegant with clothes simple like that. He stops staring for a moment, then looks away as he doesn’t want to get caught.
“I’m going out then,” Asami announces, and Ryo nods, trying not to look at her. It’s almost impossible though, because he feels like a strong force catalyzing his gaze and dragging it upon her. “Have a nice evening.”
Ryo nods, wishing her a pleasant evening as well, but the truth is that he’s jealous.
Everything’s happening so fast that Ryo doesn’t know what to do; he still has to accustom himself to the idea that he’s in love with Asami and he’s already jealous. This can’t end well.
Ryo sighs, and strums his guitar.
Right now he’d like to be the good friend that wishes his friend all the best, but even if he tries, there’s always this tiny and nagging voice at the back of his mind, reminding him that Asami doesn’t feel the same.
The fact that it is Wednesday doesn’t help. It had started by chance, but then each Wednesday evening at home with a movie or some music had become a silent agreement between them, and since then they have never skipped a week. The fact that Asami didn’t even notice what day it was probably means she’s actually well into this mysterious guy, and Ryo clenches his fists.
It doesn’t matter, he says to himself, as long as she’s happy. They can have Thursday evenings and Friday evenings. Really, it doesn’t matter as long as she’s happy.
As he steps onto the balcony for a smoke, Ryo knows he’s lying to himself.
-*-
“Ryo! How very rare to see you on a Wednesday night!” Hina’s tone is mocking, but Ryo doesn’t care. He barely notices. The cigarette is burning in the ashtray, untouched.
“Are you up for a drink?” Ryo asks, and he’s glad to know Hina’s free. He needs to talk to someone or he’ll seriously bang his head against the nearest wall, and he’d really like to avoid that.
-*-
They meet up in a pub not very far from Ryo’s apartment, and as soon as their beers are placed in front of them, Hina asks him what’s wrong. Ryo tries to deny it at the beginning, but it looks like Hina doesn’t believe him.
“It’s written all over your face that there’s something wrong,” Hina tells him, sipping his beer. “Spill the beans.”
Ryo sighs, gulping down half of his beer before he looks straight into Hina’s eyes.
“I’m in love.”
“That’s great!” Hina beams, but when he sees the expression on Ryo’s face, his smile fades. “…isn’t it?”
Ryo stays silent, drinking his beer and looking everywhere but at Hina’s face.
“Who is she?”
Hina’s eyes are narrowed, and his gaze is pinning Ryo down to his seat, even if all Ryo wants to do is flee far, far away. Maybe talking to Hina hasn’t been that great of an idea.
Hina slaps him on the head, and Ryo groans in pain, massaging the hurt spot. “Who is she?”
“Asami.”
Ryo mumbles the name and Hina can barely understand; when he does, a big smile appears on his lips once again.
“Good, I’m glad for you Ryo!” Hina looks sincerely happy for him, and Ryo wishes there was at least a reason for his friend to feel like that, because that’s exactly the opposite of what he’s feeling. “What happened to your Wednesday evening by the way?”
“She’s out on a date.”
“Oh…”
It doesn’t take that long for Hina to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and he soon orders another drink for Ryo.
“What are you planning to do?” Hina asks after a while, and Ryo shrugs.
“Nothing.”
“You’re not going to tell her?”
Ryo shakes his head, gulping down the rest of his beer before he looks at Hina again. “There’s no way I’m going to tell her.”
After that, Hina tries to talk about something more lighthearted, and Ryo’s really grateful for that. His friend goes back to the matter only once they’re out of the pub, and parting ways.
“Don’t give up hope,” he only says, but his smile is encouraging and Ryo walks home with a smile on his lips.
-*-
It’s not late when Asami comes back home, and Ryo’s in the kitchen eating some leftovers, a music sheet next to him with a pencil, just in case he needs to scribble something on it.
“Welcome back,” he hurries to say, and she smiles at him, sits in front of him. “How was your evening?”
Her smile becomes wider, and Ryo can’t help staring at her lips, wondering how would they feel against his. He shakes his head lightly, trying to suppress that thought, and when he comes back to his senses he realizes Asami has taken the chopsticks from Ryo’s hand and his now eating some of his ramen.
Ryo looks at her as she brings the food in her mouth, he looks at the way she licks her lips and at the way she closes her eyes, humming in delight, and he can’t find in his mind anything that looks more beautiful and peaceful at the same time.
Ryo had always been sure that beauty and restlessness go hand in hand, but he knows now that he had always been mistaken. Beauty goes hand in hand with peacefulness, with elegance, with the relaxed vibe that Asami gives out as she sits there, eating with her eyes closed.
Ryo stretches his hand forward, but stops as soon as he realizes what he was going to do, and takes the pencil in his hand, playing with it for a moment before he puts it back next to the sheet.
“And how was your evening?” Asami asks after a while, taking another bite of ramen.
“I went out for a couple of drinks with Hina.” Ryo replies, scribbling something meaningless on the corner of the sheet. Then, suddenly, Asami gasps and stares at him.
“It’s Wednesday!” she gapes, and Ryo nods, eyes fixed on the sheet. “I’m really sorry Ryo, I completely forgot.”
It hurts a bit to hear her say it out loud, but Ryo fakes a smile and shrugs, telling her that it doesn’t matter, that it is not important, while the truth is that their Wednesdays evenings are becoming more and more important to him with each week passing by.
“What about tomorrow?” she asks, looking at him and waiting for a reply. “We could do it as if it was Wednesday.”
“I have rehearsals with the guys.” He tells her evenly, lighting up a cigarette and walking to the balcony. “For the show, you know.”
Asami follows him and stops behind him. “You have a show?”
“In a couple of weeks.”
“You didn’t tell me!” she almost yells, excited. Since they met and started to share the apartment, Asami has always been very supportive regarding the band, and Ryo only now realizes that he didn’t tell her about the show, caught up as he was in his thoughts. “I can’t wait!”
The fact that she’s that excited for the show makes Ryo smile, and he takes a drag from his cigarette, looking at the sky.
Asami slightly bumps against his shoulder, and when Ryo turns, she’s smiling widely at him. “It’ll be great!”
-*-
The more days go by, the more Ryo feels the urge to touch Asami’s hand, to caress her hair or just to hug her and stay like that for a long time. He knows he can’t though, so he tries to spend most of his time out of their apartment. He’s not sure he’d be able to deal with the consequences if he suddenly decided to kiss her, and he’s even less sure he wants to know if he actually did it.
Ryo uses the excuse of work and rehearsals to leave early in the morning and come back late in the evening; it’s partially true, since the show is approaching and they really are meeting every night, but the truth is that rehearsals are over way earlier than the time Ryo goes back home.
Once he leaves the rehearsal room, he just wanders through the streets for a while, thinking about what he’s supposed to do. Sometimes, Ryo sits in a café and drinks a cup of hot tea, looking outside the window and trying to imagine how life goes on for the people who walk by on the sidewalks.
What will he do once the show is over and he won’t have the ecuse of having to meet with the guys every evening?
Ryo doesn’t know.
-*-
If Asami suspects there’s something wrong with him, she never tells. Ryo feels like she’s more distant than before, but he doesn’t dare ask, he’s afraid their talk would go deeper and take the wrong road. It pains him, but the more he thinks about it, the more the only solution he can find would be telling her everything. Telling her everything would also mean one of the two of them moving out and looking for another place to live, and Ryo’s not ready to renounce the cozy and homey feeling Asami gives him when they’re both at home, not yet.
He wonders if he’ll ever be ready.
-*-
“I have a date tonight, don’t wait for me for dinner,” Asami announces that morning, as they are drinking their coffee. It’s almost rare nowadays that they manage to have coffee together in the mornings, and Ryo knows it is mostly his fault. Part of him regrets that he doesn’t see Asami as often as before, but he knows it’s better like this, at least until after their show. He needs to focus on that right now, and it’s already difficult to do, so Ryo doesn’t want any other distractions.
He looks up at her, trying to mask the hurt expression in his eyes, but Asami notices anyway and pauses, looking at the calendar hanging on the wall.
“I’ll push back the date,” she says, but Ryo shakes his head.
It’s the evening of the show, and he really wishes Asami will come, but she has a date and who’s Ryo to ask her to push it back just to come see him playing?
“You’ve seen us tons of times, there’s no need.”
Ryo walks to the sink and washes his cup, leaving it there to dry before he disappears into his room.
“I’ll come see you tonight, I’ll bring him!” Asami yells, and while Ryo closes his door he realizes he prefers it if she doesn’t come if she has to come with him.
The last thing Ryo needs during the show is to see her with another guy.
-*-
As soon as Ryo finishes his shift at the shop he hurries to the club, leaving Hina alone for the closing procedures.
When Ryo gets into the club, the others are already there; Subaru is smoking a cigarette as usual, while Maruyama is nervously walking around the small dressing room. Ohkura is just sitting on a chair, warming his wrists up as he waits, staring at the floor.
They’re all nervous, and Ryo knows them all too well for them to hide it from him, even if they are trying to look calm (except for Maruyama, who still can’t stop walking around the room restlessly).
“Asami is coming, right?” Ohkura asks, and Maruyama stops walking around, and turns to look at Ryo. Subaru raises his head as well, waiting for an answer. In the past two years, Asami hasn’t missed a single show, and it’s like she’s their talisman, the only person who can make them all calm down when they have to play. Ryo suddenly realizes how much strength she gives them all just by watching them play and cheering for them.
He gulps.
“She’s not coming.”
Maruyama’s face shows pure terror, as if things are destined to go badly now that they have discovered Asami won’t be there. Subaru looks at Ryo, studying his face and slightly raises his brow, but without asking a question directly.
“She has a date.”
Subaru looks at Maruyama then, and then at Ohkura, and no one says anything at all, they just drop the subject. It’s only a matter of minutes before they go on stage anyway.
-*-
Every time Ryo steps on a stage he feels like it is the most terrifying thing he has ever done in his whole life, and every time he relaxes after a couple of songs. This time it’s slightly different; the terror is still there, but they’re four songs in now and he’s still nervous as hell, and that has never happened before.
Ryo’s doing his best up on the stage, but his eyes are automatically looking into the small crowd, searching for Asami. She’s not there, Ryo knows it; this time they’ll have to do without her support, and he knows, hopes, they’ll manage somehow.
As Ryo plays, he wonders when it was that thoughts of Asami swarmed their way into his heart. How did she become this important for him, and his band mates as well? No matter how hard he tries, he can’t find an answer, so he tries to focus on what he’s doing, tries to stop thinking about her.
The small crowd looks more interested than usual, and that’s an achievement if they were to think back to the shady clubs they have played in before, and how the crowd usually was more focused on their drinks than what was going on up here on the stage. Ryo spots some of Subaru’s friends in the crowd and he smiles.
They take a very short break; Subaru disappears for a quick smoke outside, and Ryo keeps on looking around as they wait for him to return. The evening is going better than expected, and Ryo really wishes that Asami was there.
In the second part of the show, Ryo tries to focus on having fun, and it works. He walks to Subaru as his friend sings, and lays his back against his shoulder while they play. He can see Maruyama on the other side of the stage, giving his best as usual, while Ohkura is more energetic than usual.
Ryo loves the feeling, the way they all come together to make something whole.
Then, he feels Subaru’s shoulder bumping into his back slightly, and when he turns to look at him, Subaru points at the crowd with his head. Ryo turns to face the crowd, and it doesn’t take him long to see her.
Asami is at the back of the room, alone, looking at them with a big smile on her lips; it makes Ryo feel like he’s going to burst with joy and energy, and he walks to Maruyama, laughing.
Ryo’s new found energy drags his band mates up to the next level, and the show slips away in a blaze, as if they had played only a couple of songs.
When they leave the stage, people clap and cheer, and it makes Ryo feel like a rock star.
-*-
They spend some time at the club before going home, and Asami and Ryo go home together. Ryo would like to ask why Asami changed her mind, why she came to the concert in the end, but he doesn’t. Even if curiosity is strong, he’s not sure it would be a good idea. The evening has been nice, and Asami looks happy, so he prefers to avoid meddling with touchy subjects.
As soon as they step inside their apartment, Ryo walks to the bathroom to take a shower; once he steps out, Asami is sitting on the couch in the living room, two bottles of beer on the small coffee table in front of her. She hears the door of the bathroom, and when she turns to look, Ryo’s standing there, toweling his hair, so she pats the space next to her, signaling him to sit, and when Ryo does, she gives him a bottle of beer.
“What are we celebrating?” Ryo asks, taking a sip, and Asami places her back more comfortably on the backseat of the couch, and shrugs.
“Your concert, I guess.” She smiles at him, stretching her hand towards him and waiting for Ryo to clink his bottle against hers.
They sit like that, in silence, for a while, just sipping on their beers and enjoying the comfort of their apartment before Asami speaks again.
“Aren’t you going to ask?” she says, and Ryo stiffens. He really would like to know, but there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to hear her talk about another guy; it pains him, because he realizes he won’t be able to be the friend he was before, he can’t pretend to support her feelings for another man. Not now that he has realized he’s in love with her.
“What happened?”
Ryo’s words are a rough whisper out of him, but Asami replies soon after, as if she wasn’t waiting for anything else.
“He was a self-centered prick.” She states it firmly, and somehow it makes Ryo chuckle. “Kept talking about himself all the time. I suggested we come see you guys at the club and he said concerts are for losers.”
Ryo clenches his fists for a moment before asking Asami what she did then, and she laughs.
“I stood up, told him he was the loser and walked away, leaving him there.” She chuckles again, stretching on the couch and resting her head against Ryo’s shoulder, and Ryo stiffens again. It’s not the first time she leans against him like that, but since things have changed in his heart, Ryo hasn’t had the chance to stay with her like that, especially because that’s exactly what he had been trying to avoid for weeks. It feels good, and the only thing Ryo wants to do is to caress her hair and stay like that all night long.
Instead, he takes a sip from his beer and lets her talk again.
“I’m not going out with someone who considers my friends to be losers.” She smiles and gazes at him, and Ryo inhales deeply. He could use a smoke right now, but he doesn’t want to stand up, he wants to stay like this some more.
“Thanks.” He smiles down at her. Asami’s words are really important for him, and Ryo feels happy knowing that she cares about him, about them all, that she considers the other guys from the band as her own friends.
“You know…” she speaks again after a while, yawning. “I should find someone like you. Nice and caring, even if sometimes you can be a hassle.”
She chuckles lightly as she drifts off asleep, and Ryo doesn’t move an inch. He wants to take her hands and scream that he’s right there, that if that’s what she’s looking for he’s the most appropriate one, but he doesn’t.
Once he hears her breathing slowing down, Ryo carefully slips away and goes out for a smoke, his heart still racing in his chest.
-*-
Now that the concert has passed, Ryo needs to make up every excuse he can to spend less time at the apartment; inventory at work, rehearsals, meeting old friends he hasn’t seen for a long time. He’s not sure how long he can go on like this, but it’s better than telling Asami the truth, even if lying to her is painful.
“Are you home tonight?” Asami asks, coming out from her room early in the morning and intercepting him, and Ryo curses under his breath for not being able to be less noisy when he wakes up.
“Can’t.” he briefly says, gulping down a cup of cold coffee and walking to the door. “We have the inventory at the shop tonight. I’ll see you later.”
Asami doesn’t say anything, she just waves weakly at him as she watches him running down the stairs.
-*-
Ryo spends the evening at the rehearsals room, where he finds Subaru waiting.
“Need asylum?” Subaru asks as soon as he hears the door opening, without even raising his gaze from his lap.
“Something like that, yes.”
Ryo plops his duffel bag on the old couch, sitting down with a loud sigh, and Subaru places his guitar down soon after, going to sit next to his friend.
“Asami?”
“What about her?”
Subaru looks at him, raising his brows, and lights up a cigarette for himself, then offering one to Ryo as well. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
Ryo grumbles, exhaling a drag from his cigarette, and tells Subaru exactly what’s wrong. Not like Subaru hasn’t figured that out already, but talking about it to someone makes Ryo feel better, and Subaru is not someone who’s going to judge him or interrupt him.
“Why don’t you tell her?” Subaru only asks, and Ryo wants to laugh.
“Because we’re friends?”
“She left her date in the middle of their evening to come listen to your concert, you idiot.”
Subaru punches him lightly on the shoulder, and Ryo groans. “So what, we’re friends!”
Subaru looks at him once again, narrowing his eyes and sighing. “You’re the stupid one here, really.”
Ryo thinks about it for a while, but the idea doesn’t sound that appealing. Sure, he knows he’d feel better if he could tell her, but he also knows things would probably get awkward soon after, and that’s something he’d like to avoid.
“She’s too nice, that’s why she came at the concert.” Ryo says after a while, putting the cigarette butt in the ashtray.
“She’s also too nice to leave her date in the middle of the evening,” Subaru replies, and Ryo nods pensively.
“She said she should find someone like me.”
“Then just talk to her, can’t you read the signals?!” Subaru shakes his head, and a lock of black hair falls over his eyes. He hurries to move it from his face, looking straight into Ryo’s eyes, as if that way he could instill some courage into his friend.
Ryo is still not sure about what he’s supposed to do.
-*-
It’s late at night when Ryo comes back home, and it’s not by mistake. He knows Asami has lessons the next morning, so he hopes for her to be asleep already, but once he steps in the apartment, trying to be as silent as he can, the light in the living room switches on and Asami walks to him.
“How was the inventory?” she asks, barely looking at him, and Ryo soon realizes there’s something off about the way she is acting.
“It was okay, I guess.”
“It was the third inventory in the past week.” she tells him, and this time she looks straight into his eyes.
Ryo is silently biting his lower lip, not knowing what to say. He’s obviously been found out lying, and even if he knew it would have happened sooner or later and he had prepared a list of a thousand of things to say, now his brain is not working at all.
“If you have a girlfriend you only need to say it, you know?” Asami tells him, and for a moment her voice seems sadder than usual. Ryo doesn’t know if it’s only a hopeful feeling though, but he hurries to deny it.
“No!” He almost yells, walking to the living room without looking at Asami. It feels like the day of reckoning has come, and he can’t bear to look at her. “There’s no one.”
It’s not true, but right now Ryo can’t think about anything better to say. ‘There’s no one else but you,’ he thinks, but he stays silent. He has lost count of all the lies he has told her in the past weeks, and now he’s confused.
Asami is obviously angry and hurt, and Ryo thinks it’s his fault, he wants to bang his head against the wall.
“Why are you avoiding me?” she suddenly asks, and Ryo feels cornered.
“I am not.”
Asami snorts, chuckling bitterly, and Ryo really looks at her for the first time since he has come back home. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
It’s the second person to ask him that in a matter of hours, and Ryo starts questioning if maybe he hasn’t crossed the border into stupidity himself.
“You’re not.” He whispers it, but his reply doesn’t seem to satisfy Asami, who’s still looking at him with her hands on her hips, waiting.
“Then tell me why you’re avoiding me!”
Her tone is something Ryo has never heard before, and this can only mean trouble; it’s glacial and it’s the first time she has spoken to him like that. Ryo feels guilty towards her, but at the same time he’s angry. He doesn’t know why; he’s angry with himself for falling for her, for lying to her and to himself, for not being able to step out of this mess he’s put himself in.
“Because I can’t bear to stay in the same room with you!” he yells back, and the pain is instantaneous, enough to split her heart in two. Asami’s masks cracks beneath the burden of Ryo’s words, and her eyes are filled with tears, but she doesn’t cry. She clenches her fists, looking straight into Ryo’s eyes as he bites his lower lip, wishing he could take those words back.
He’s an idiot. A complete idiot. It’s true that he can’t bear to stay in the same room with her, but the way he said it, spiteful and angry, is wrong, letting her understand exactly the opposite of what he meant.
Asami doesn’t reply, her fists shaking. She bids him goodnight, walks to her room and leaves him alone in the living room, rooted to his spot.
When Ryo finally realizes what has happened, he rushes to her room, but Asami has closed her door and locked it with the key for the first time in years, and no matter how much Ryo knocks on the door, she won’t open it.
There aren’t any sounds coming from inside, and Ryo lets himself slide to the floor, resting his back against the door and closes his eyes.
He has ruined everything, that much is clear, and he wishes he could turn back time. There’s no use in calling her name now, and after a while Ryo stops.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, and he doesn’t know anymore if he’s talking to her or to himself, “but it’s true that I was avoiding you.”
Things are already ruined, so even if he’s going to confess now, at least things can’t get worse than this, can they?
“I can’t bear to be in the same room with you because every time you’re near I am confused.” He keeps on talking. The corridor is dark, and there’s only a bit of light filtering in from the living room. “Having you around makes me feel comfortable and at ease.”
Ryo bites his lips, unsure if he has to go on or not. He decides to keep on talking, trying to get things off his chest, trying to explain what he really meant earlier in the living room.
“I can’t bear to stay in the same room with you because being friends is not enough anymore.”
From inside the room there are no sounds coming out, but after a while, Ryo hears a faint thud, and realizes Asami is sitting on the floor like he is, just on the opposite side of the door.
She’s listening, he knows that, and the thought alone makes his knees go weak.
“I can’t bear to be in the same room with you because you stopped being only my friend when I fell in love with you.”
It’s there, out in plain sight now, and Ryo shuts up. He has said more than enough, so he just waits for a while longer, sitting there on the floor, but there are no signs coming from inside Asami’s room, and he sighs.
Just when he’s about to stand up, to go back in his room, the door suddenly opens, and Ryo falls flat on his back, groaning. When he opens his eyes again, Asami is kneeling next to him, her long hair almost falling onto his face as she stares at him, and Ryo is both mesmerized and terrified at the same time.
He can’t take back the things he has said now, and it’s obvious she has been listening to everything. He tries to move, but Asami’s gaze is pinning him down, so he just tries to avoid her gaze for as long as he can.
“Are you serious?” she asks, and Ryo gulps. The only thing he can do now is face her; there’s no other solution, especially after hurting her for weeks without barely noticing her pain. It’s the least he can do.
So Ryo turns his head while he’s still lying on the floor, and looks at her, deep into her eyes, and nods.
“Yes.” He just breathes, and as soon as the word leaves his lips, she smiles down at him, and suddenly Ryo feels like breathing becomes easy again. He’s not sure what this means, but it looks like she’s not angry at him anymore, and that’s enough.
Then, suddenly, he feels a light peck on his lips, and when he looks up once again, Asami’s smiling widely at him, her eyes still a bit teary from before. Ryo feels his head spinning, and he’s glad he’s lying on the floor, because his knees are like jelly right now, and he’s not sure he’d be able to stand otherwise.
He blinks a couple of times, trying to understand what exactly happened, because he can barely believe it, but Asami makes it clear for him by kissing him again, stopping him before he can stand up.
The kiss is longer this time, deeper, and Ryo finds himself smiling into it; he can’t even count how many times he has imagined how her lips would have tasted, but now he knows that everything’s better than every fantasy he might have created in his mind in the past months.
Ryo feels giddy, and when she detaches her lips from his and sits on the floor, Ryo starts to laugh uncontrollably.
“Do you…?” He doesn’t dare to ask the whole question, but he thinks it’s clear enough for Asami to understand. After all, between the two of them, she’s the one using her brain, according to all the times she has mocked him about that. Ryo laughs again.
“Do you think I’d leave a date in the middle of the evening otherwise?” she asks, and Ryo shakes his head, smiling at her.
She smiles at him again, and Ryo hugs her, letting himself fall back on the floor while clutching his arm against her shoulders even more tightly.
“Sorry for lying.”
He feels her shrug against his body and then feels her moving closer, their feet touching.
“You’re forgiven,” she whispers in his ear, “but don’t you dare lie to me again.”
“I have no reasons to.”
Ryo holds her closer, and he knows the next morning his back will ache from sleeping on the floor, but right now he doesn’t care.
Right now, all he has ever wanted is right there, in his arms, and that’s all that counts.
From: wintersdancer
Title: State of Grace
Pairing: Nishikido Ryo/Mizukawa Asami
Rating: pg
Summary: Ryo and Asami are room mates, and friends. Each Wednesday night is their night, so why does Asami have a date with someone else?
A/N: Dear kyjr, it was a pleasure writing for you, and I really hope you’ll enjoy the fic!
When the alarm goes off, Ryo groans out loud, turning and squirming under the duvet as he blindly looks for the alarm with his hand. He knocks down a book and his cell phone before he can successfully push the snooze button on the evil, oh so evil, device, but the “thuds” of the objects falling on the floor barely register in his brain.
Ryo has never been a morning person, but he realizes now, with his mind still foggy, that marathoning his favorite TV show the night before hasn’t been the smartest decision. It hasn’t really helped his always-so-traumatic waking up, not at all.
He’s already drifting back to sleep once again when the alarm goes off again, and he instinctively puts his head under the pillow, trying to shut the sound out of his mind, but to no avail.
After only a couple of moments, some bangs against the wall of his room make Ryo move the pillow from over his head.
“Are you ever gonna switch it off?”
Ryo only groans in response, dragging his legs out from under the duvet and putting his feet on the floor; the tiles are cold, and the only thing Ryo wants right now is to just go back under the duvet and sleep a couple of more hours, maybe more.
“You’ll be late for work.”
The voice is closer to his door now, and Ryo knows that if he’s not out of his room in less than five minutes, Asami will just walk in and open the curtains. Ryo hates her when she does that.
“Coming!” he groans again, and this time he gets up for real.
When he steps into the kitchen, Asami looks at him, takes a cup from the cabinet and pours him some coffee as he sits down, scratching his head; his hair is a mess, and Ryo can barely keep his eyes open, but the smell of coffee works its magic, and he’s at least able to greet his roommate in what’s resembling a human language.
Sort of.
“I thought you didn’t have lessons today,” he mumbles as he takes a sip of his coffee, and then sighs in delight. Ryo’s pretty sure that Asami’s coffee could wake up even the dead.
Asami has been living with Ryo for the past two years now, and they get along really well. Ryo’s glad Junno introduced them.
Junno had been Ryo’s roommate for a while, and they have been friends since before they can remember; then, suddenly, Junno had decided to go study abroad, living Ryo alone with a small, tiny little problem regarding the rent. When Junno had told him that a friend of his was looking for a place closer to the campus, Ryo hadn’t thought twice before saying that it was cool with him. After all, it would have been pretty much impossible to find a weirder roommate than Junno, so Ryo had been sure there wouldn’t be any problems at all.
What Ryo wasn’t expecting though was for the new roommate to be a girl. It’s not like it had ever been a problem for him, he just had never taken the idea into consideration. It was strange enough to think that Junno might have had other friends except for him, let alone a girl.
It had been awkward at first, but Ryo had soon discovered that Asami was different from the other girls, so he had just started to relax around her and, one step at time, everything had seemed natural, as if they had been living together since the beginning of time.
“I don’t.” Asami sits at the opposite side of the table, pouring some coffee for herself and adjusting her glasses on her nose.
“Then why are you awake already?”
Ryo yawns, gulping down the last sip of his coffee and refilling the cup. He’ll never be able to understand how Asami can wake up early even when she doesn’t have to go to University. If it was him, he’d spend the day sleeping, he’s sure of it.
“At least one of us has to use their brain, don’t you think?” She sticks her tongue out, smiling and pointing at the biology books on the table, and Ryo looks at the small wrinkles that appear at the corner of her eyes.
He finds them charming, and it’s quite unbelievable that he hasn’t noticed them before. He wonders why.
“Are you implying that I don’t?”
She doesn’t answer, but Ryo can hear her faint chuckle even if he’s not facing her, and he shakes his head.
“You’re really going to be late for work,” she tells him after a moment, and Ryo glances at the clock, cursing. She’s right; now he only has twelve minutes to get ready and leave the apartment if he wants to be at the music store on time, so he runs back into his room, closing the door.
“Are you going to be at home for dinner?” she asks, yelling from the kitchen.
Ryo opens his wardrobe door and picks the first pair of jeans and sweater he can find, trying to be as fast as he can.
“I’ll be back after dinner!” he yells back, only wearing the first sock. “I’ve got rehearsals with the guys!”
Once he has finally managed to get completely dressed, after he has almost stumbled over the duvet while trying to rush, Ryo gets out of his room, picks up his wallet and places his hand on the doorknob, ready to go.
“Hey, Asami?” he calls, and she sticks her head out of the kitchen, looks at him and waits. “Do you want to come to the rehearsals tonight? It’s been so long since the last time.”
She smiles widely at him, nodding. “I’ll text you later then!”
As he closes the door and runs to the closest subway station, Ryo feels like he is bursting with joy for no particular reason. It’ll be a good day, he knows it.
-*-
Ryo likes working in the music store; he’s been working there since he graduated from high school, and he loves it every day a bit more than the previous one. It’s everything he could dream of, the perfect job for him.
Ryo loves music more than anything else in the world, and being able to work in a shop like this one is the perfect thing for him. The shop is not too big, but it’s nice and cozy, and Ryo considers it as if it was his second home. He knows most of their clients by name now, and he and Hina are always able to help their customers out when they’re looking for something really particular, something different from their usual.
Yes, Ryo loves it.
“Happy, aren’t we?” Hina asks him as he arranges the last things before opening time. “Your face’s splitting in two.”
Ryo and Hina had been friends for years, just like Junno and Asami, and working with him is great. They get along really well, even if sometimes Hina can be so anal about things that Ryo can barely stand him. Those moments are rare though, and Ryo is really glad he can work with a friend.
At first he had been worried that seeing him every day for ten hours straight would have made their friendship cringe, and now Ryo is so glad that he was wrong to worry.
“Something happened?” Hina asks again, and Ryo shakes his head, laughing. Hina can be so persistent.
“Nothing special.” He briefly replies. “The usual. I have rehearsals tonight and Asami is coming as well.”
Ryo is not facing Hina, but he can distinctly hear his cackle behind him, and he turns to look at him, his brows raised. “What?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s it? What?”
The bell hanging above the door rings, and the first customer comes in, so Hina hurries to greet the young man who has just stepped in and says nothing more, leaving Ryo wondering about what he meant.
During the day, Ryo tries to go back to that talk a couple of times, but Hina always smirks and says nothing, and Ryo is left hanging. By the end of the working day, he has forgotten about it.
-*-
The rehearsal room is small and messy, but Ryo loves it anyway. It’s a small garage that he and the others have carefully soundproofed, and it has seen the most important times in Ryo’s life, including the birth of “The scarecrows” almost ten years before, when they were only kids.
Subaru is already there, sitting on the old and ruined, faded red couch strumming his guitar with a cigarette between his lips. Ryo likes how Subaru looks as if he was far, far away every time he’s playing. Maruyama is reading a book in the corner of the room, and it’s obvious they’re only waiting for Ohkura, who comes running in after only a couple of minutes. He’s still wearing his working attire -a white shirt with black trousers and a black vest- and Ryo chuckles when he sees him.
“Sorry!”
“Ohkura, breathe,” Subaru tells him as he keeps on playing, and Ohkura nods, trying to catch his breath while he starts warming up.
“Asami’s coming over later.”
Ryo knows they all like Asami, but for some reason he can’t understand why he’s nervous while he announces it. The nervousness goes away as soon as Ohkura’s face splits in two, via a beaming smile. Ryo suspects Ohkura’s excitement is because Asami usually brings some food with her when she comes to rehearsals, and he chuckles to himself as he tunes his guitar.
Playing with his friends is always fun, and Ryo wishes he could to it to earn his living. Unfortunately it’s not like that, but they are still together after ten years, and this probably means more than anything else. Each and every one of them has his job and his life, but they always manage to find the time to play together, no matter how busy they are.
Ryo considers them his family.
“We’re having a show in three weeks,” Subaru announces, standing up from the couch and taking his place in front of the microphone. He doesn’t leave his guitar behind, not even for a second, and Ryo sometimes wonder how Subaru’s life would be without music.
“Yes!” Ohkura shouts from behind the toms, grinning widely, and this time Ryo knows exactly what he’s feeling. It’s been a long time since the last time they got the chance to play live, and he can’t wait for it. Somehow it feels like going back in time, when they used to play almost every weekend in shady clubs around the city. The places were mostly horrible, just as the audiences were, but it had been so much fun that Ryo can’t wait for these next three weeks to go by fast.
Once they are all ready, they start to play; Ryo loves the feeling of the guitar strings under his fingertips, how his hands caress them during the slower songs and how just standing there with his friends, playing, makes him feel. Sometimes, Ryo thinks he might have been born only for that.
-*-
Asami steps in just as they are playing the last chords of their latest song, so when they notice her, they take the chance for a pause. Ohkura is fast to notice the plastic box in Asami’s hands, and his smile is almost menacing in its attempt to split his face in half.
“Did you bring food?” he asks, and Maruyama smacks him on the head while Subaru shakes his head, lighting a cigarette and exhaling smoke.
“Where did your manners go?” Maruyama asks Ohkura, pushing him slightly on the shoulder as he tries to make his way to Asami, and Asami laughs.
Ryo finds himself looking at her, at how her face lights up when she laughs, and he feels as if someone had punched him in the stomach. With the corner of his eye, Ryo catches Subaru looking at him for a moment before he turns to look at Ohkura, who’s already taking Asami’s box in his hands, and shakes his head.
“When did he ever have manners?”
“Hey!” Ohkura tries to protest, but then again, he doesn’t really care. Asami has known them for two years now, given they have always been part of Ryo’s life, and she knows how they are, just as she knows Ohkura likes her for more than the food.
That helps a lot though.
Theire pause goes by quickly as they all gather around Asami and eat, chatting and laughing. Ryo looks around, and suddenly feels like his life’s perfect. His friends are all gathered there, and there’s Asami as well, laughing at Maruyama’s stupid jokes.
Ryo wouldn’t change a single thing right now, not even the knowing glances Subaru throws him from time to time, even if he doesn’t understand why.
-*-
“I won’t be home for dinner today,” Asami announces as she pours another cup of coffee for Ryo. His synapses are still slow, just like every morning, and he nods. “I’ve got a date.”
Ryo slowly raises his head, and looks at her; she’s shining with happiness, and Ryo really likes how she looks right now, even if she’s still wearing her tracksuit and her hair is all over the place. At the same time, though, there’s a nagging feeling in his chest that makes it difficult to breathe. He should be completely happy that she has a date, but for some reason he can’t be. He just can’t, and when Asami goes to her room to get ready for University, Ryo blinks, realizing that the girl he’s considered one of his best friends for the past two years is now the girl he’s in love with.
-*-
It comes as a surprise, because Ryo would have never ever taken into consideration the fact that he might fall in love with his friend.
Asami is not his type of girl; Ryo has always been attracted by showy girls, and Asami is the opposite. She’s glowing even when she wears a plain pair of jeans and a pullover, and it still doesn’t make sense, not at all.
Ryo doesn’t know what to do.
It’s the first time he’s in love with someone he has known for years, and he doesn’t really know where to bang his head, even if his room’s wall looks appealing enough.
He sighs, sliding his fingers randomly on the strings of his acoustic guitar, and that’s when Asami knocks at his door.
“Come in,” he says, without moving from where he is sitting on his bed.
Asami stops near the door, looking at him with a smile on her lips; she’s wearing a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck pullover, and Ryo thinks he has never seen anyone be that elegant with clothes simple like that. He stops staring for a moment, then looks away as he doesn’t want to get caught.
“I’m going out then,” Asami announces, and Ryo nods, trying not to look at her. It’s almost impossible though, because he feels like a strong force catalyzing his gaze and dragging it upon her. “Have a nice evening.”
Ryo nods, wishing her a pleasant evening as well, but the truth is that he’s jealous.
Everything’s happening so fast that Ryo doesn’t know what to do; he still has to accustom himself to the idea that he’s in love with Asami and he’s already jealous. This can’t end well.
Ryo sighs, and strums his guitar.
Right now he’d like to be the good friend that wishes his friend all the best, but even if he tries, there’s always this tiny and nagging voice at the back of his mind, reminding him that Asami doesn’t feel the same.
The fact that it is Wednesday doesn’t help. It had started by chance, but then each Wednesday evening at home with a movie or some music had become a silent agreement between them, and since then they have never skipped a week. The fact that Asami didn’t even notice what day it was probably means she’s actually well into this mysterious guy, and Ryo clenches his fists.
It doesn’t matter, he says to himself, as long as she’s happy. They can have Thursday evenings and Friday evenings. Really, it doesn’t matter as long as she’s happy.
As he steps onto the balcony for a smoke, Ryo knows he’s lying to himself.
-*-
“Ryo! How very rare to see you on a Wednesday night!” Hina’s tone is mocking, but Ryo doesn’t care. He barely notices. The cigarette is burning in the ashtray, untouched.
“Are you up for a drink?” Ryo asks, and he’s glad to know Hina’s free. He needs to talk to someone or he’ll seriously bang his head against the nearest wall, and he’d really like to avoid that.
-*-
They meet up in a pub not very far from Ryo’s apartment, and as soon as their beers are placed in front of them, Hina asks him what’s wrong. Ryo tries to deny it at the beginning, but it looks like Hina doesn’t believe him.
“It’s written all over your face that there’s something wrong,” Hina tells him, sipping his beer. “Spill the beans.”
Ryo sighs, gulping down half of his beer before he looks straight into Hina’s eyes.
“I’m in love.”
“That’s great!” Hina beams, but when he sees the expression on Ryo’s face, his smile fades. “…isn’t it?”
Ryo stays silent, drinking his beer and looking everywhere but at Hina’s face.
“Who is she?”
Hina’s eyes are narrowed, and his gaze is pinning Ryo down to his seat, even if all Ryo wants to do is flee far, far away. Maybe talking to Hina hasn’t been that great of an idea.
Hina slaps him on the head, and Ryo groans in pain, massaging the hurt spot. “Who is she?”
“Asami.”
Ryo mumbles the name and Hina can barely understand; when he does, a big smile appears on his lips once again.
“Good, I’m glad for you Ryo!” Hina looks sincerely happy for him, and Ryo wishes there was at least a reason for his friend to feel like that, because that’s exactly the opposite of what he’s feeling. “What happened to your Wednesday evening by the way?”
“She’s out on a date.”
“Oh…”
It doesn’t take that long for Hina to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and he soon orders another drink for Ryo.
“What are you planning to do?” Hina asks after a while, and Ryo shrugs.
“Nothing.”
“You’re not going to tell her?”
Ryo shakes his head, gulping down the rest of his beer before he looks at Hina again. “There’s no way I’m going to tell her.”
After that, Hina tries to talk about something more lighthearted, and Ryo’s really grateful for that. His friend goes back to the matter only once they’re out of the pub, and parting ways.
“Don’t give up hope,” he only says, but his smile is encouraging and Ryo walks home with a smile on his lips.
-*-
It’s not late when Asami comes back home, and Ryo’s in the kitchen eating some leftovers, a music sheet next to him with a pencil, just in case he needs to scribble something on it.
“Welcome back,” he hurries to say, and she smiles at him, sits in front of him. “How was your evening?”
Her smile becomes wider, and Ryo can’t help staring at her lips, wondering how would they feel against his. He shakes his head lightly, trying to suppress that thought, and when he comes back to his senses he realizes Asami has taken the chopsticks from Ryo’s hand and his now eating some of his ramen.
Ryo looks at her as she brings the food in her mouth, he looks at the way she licks her lips and at the way she closes her eyes, humming in delight, and he can’t find in his mind anything that looks more beautiful and peaceful at the same time.
Ryo had always been sure that beauty and restlessness go hand in hand, but he knows now that he had always been mistaken. Beauty goes hand in hand with peacefulness, with elegance, with the relaxed vibe that Asami gives out as she sits there, eating with her eyes closed.
Ryo stretches his hand forward, but stops as soon as he realizes what he was going to do, and takes the pencil in his hand, playing with it for a moment before he puts it back next to the sheet.
“And how was your evening?” Asami asks after a while, taking another bite of ramen.
“I went out for a couple of drinks with Hina.” Ryo replies, scribbling something meaningless on the corner of the sheet. Then, suddenly, Asami gasps and stares at him.
“It’s Wednesday!” she gapes, and Ryo nods, eyes fixed on the sheet. “I’m really sorry Ryo, I completely forgot.”
It hurts a bit to hear her say it out loud, but Ryo fakes a smile and shrugs, telling her that it doesn’t matter, that it is not important, while the truth is that their Wednesdays evenings are becoming more and more important to him with each week passing by.
“What about tomorrow?” she asks, looking at him and waiting for a reply. “We could do it as if it was Wednesday.”
“I have rehearsals with the guys.” He tells her evenly, lighting up a cigarette and walking to the balcony. “For the show, you know.”
Asami follows him and stops behind him. “You have a show?”
“In a couple of weeks.”
“You didn’t tell me!” she almost yells, excited. Since they met and started to share the apartment, Asami has always been very supportive regarding the band, and Ryo only now realizes that he didn’t tell her about the show, caught up as he was in his thoughts. “I can’t wait!”
The fact that she’s that excited for the show makes Ryo smile, and he takes a drag from his cigarette, looking at the sky.
Asami slightly bumps against his shoulder, and when Ryo turns, she’s smiling widely at him. “It’ll be great!”
-*-
The more days go by, the more Ryo feels the urge to touch Asami’s hand, to caress her hair or just to hug her and stay like that for a long time. He knows he can’t though, so he tries to spend most of his time out of their apartment. He’s not sure he’d be able to deal with the consequences if he suddenly decided to kiss her, and he’s even less sure he wants to know if he actually did it.
Ryo uses the excuse of work and rehearsals to leave early in the morning and come back late in the evening; it’s partially true, since the show is approaching and they really are meeting every night, but the truth is that rehearsals are over way earlier than the time Ryo goes back home.
Once he leaves the rehearsal room, he just wanders through the streets for a while, thinking about what he’s supposed to do. Sometimes, Ryo sits in a café and drinks a cup of hot tea, looking outside the window and trying to imagine how life goes on for the people who walk by on the sidewalks.
What will he do once the show is over and he won’t have the ecuse of having to meet with the guys every evening?
Ryo doesn’t know.
-*-
If Asami suspects there’s something wrong with him, she never tells. Ryo feels like she’s more distant than before, but he doesn’t dare ask, he’s afraid their talk would go deeper and take the wrong road. It pains him, but the more he thinks about it, the more the only solution he can find would be telling her everything. Telling her everything would also mean one of the two of them moving out and looking for another place to live, and Ryo’s not ready to renounce the cozy and homey feeling Asami gives him when they’re both at home, not yet.
He wonders if he’ll ever be ready.
-*-
“I have a date tonight, don’t wait for me for dinner,” Asami announces that morning, as they are drinking their coffee. It’s almost rare nowadays that they manage to have coffee together in the mornings, and Ryo knows it is mostly his fault. Part of him regrets that he doesn’t see Asami as often as before, but he knows it’s better like this, at least until after their show. He needs to focus on that right now, and it’s already difficult to do, so Ryo doesn’t want any other distractions.
He looks up at her, trying to mask the hurt expression in his eyes, but Asami notices anyway and pauses, looking at the calendar hanging on the wall.
“I’ll push back the date,” she says, but Ryo shakes his head.
It’s the evening of the show, and he really wishes Asami will come, but she has a date and who’s Ryo to ask her to push it back just to come see him playing?
“You’ve seen us tons of times, there’s no need.”
Ryo walks to the sink and washes his cup, leaving it there to dry before he disappears into his room.
“I’ll come see you tonight, I’ll bring him!” Asami yells, and while Ryo closes his door he realizes he prefers it if she doesn’t come if she has to come with him.
The last thing Ryo needs during the show is to see her with another guy.
-*-
As soon as Ryo finishes his shift at the shop he hurries to the club, leaving Hina alone for the closing procedures.
When Ryo gets into the club, the others are already there; Subaru is smoking a cigarette as usual, while Maruyama is nervously walking around the small dressing room. Ohkura is just sitting on a chair, warming his wrists up as he waits, staring at the floor.
They’re all nervous, and Ryo knows them all too well for them to hide it from him, even if they are trying to look calm (except for Maruyama, who still can’t stop walking around the room restlessly).
“Asami is coming, right?” Ohkura asks, and Maruyama stops walking around, and turns to look at Ryo. Subaru raises his head as well, waiting for an answer. In the past two years, Asami hasn’t missed a single show, and it’s like she’s their talisman, the only person who can make them all calm down when they have to play. Ryo suddenly realizes how much strength she gives them all just by watching them play and cheering for them.
He gulps.
“She’s not coming.”
Maruyama’s face shows pure terror, as if things are destined to go badly now that they have discovered Asami won’t be there. Subaru looks at Ryo, studying his face and slightly raises his brow, but without asking a question directly.
“She has a date.”
Subaru looks at Maruyama then, and then at Ohkura, and no one says anything at all, they just drop the subject. It’s only a matter of minutes before they go on stage anyway.
-*-
Every time Ryo steps on a stage he feels like it is the most terrifying thing he has ever done in his whole life, and every time he relaxes after a couple of songs. This time it’s slightly different; the terror is still there, but they’re four songs in now and he’s still nervous as hell, and that has never happened before.
Ryo’s doing his best up on the stage, but his eyes are automatically looking into the small crowd, searching for Asami. She’s not there, Ryo knows it; this time they’ll have to do without her support, and he knows, hopes, they’ll manage somehow.
As Ryo plays, he wonders when it was that thoughts of Asami swarmed their way into his heart. How did she become this important for him, and his band mates as well? No matter how hard he tries, he can’t find an answer, so he tries to focus on what he’s doing, tries to stop thinking about her.
The small crowd looks more interested than usual, and that’s an achievement if they were to think back to the shady clubs they have played in before, and how the crowd usually was more focused on their drinks than what was going on up here on the stage. Ryo spots some of Subaru’s friends in the crowd and he smiles.
They take a very short break; Subaru disappears for a quick smoke outside, and Ryo keeps on looking around as they wait for him to return. The evening is going better than expected, and Ryo really wishes that Asami was there.
In the second part of the show, Ryo tries to focus on having fun, and it works. He walks to Subaru as his friend sings, and lays his back against his shoulder while they play. He can see Maruyama on the other side of the stage, giving his best as usual, while Ohkura is more energetic than usual.
Ryo loves the feeling, the way they all come together to make something whole.
Then, he feels Subaru’s shoulder bumping into his back slightly, and when he turns to look at him, Subaru points at the crowd with his head. Ryo turns to face the crowd, and it doesn’t take him long to see her.
Asami is at the back of the room, alone, looking at them with a big smile on her lips; it makes Ryo feel like he’s going to burst with joy and energy, and he walks to Maruyama, laughing.
Ryo’s new found energy drags his band mates up to the next level, and the show slips away in a blaze, as if they had played only a couple of songs.
When they leave the stage, people clap and cheer, and it makes Ryo feel like a rock star.
-*-
They spend some time at the club before going home, and Asami and Ryo go home together. Ryo would like to ask why Asami changed her mind, why she came to the concert in the end, but he doesn’t. Even if curiosity is strong, he’s not sure it would be a good idea. The evening has been nice, and Asami looks happy, so he prefers to avoid meddling with touchy subjects.
As soon as they step inside their apartment, Ryo walks to the bathroom to take a shower; once he steps out, Asami is sitting on the couch in the living room, two bottles of beer on the small coffee table in front of her. She hears the door of the bathroom, and when she turns to look, Ryo’s standing there, toweling his hair, so she pats the space next to her, signaling him to sit, and when Ryo does, she gives him a bottle of beer.
“What are we celebrating?” Ryo asks, taking a sip, and Asami places her back more comfortably on the backseat of the couch, and shrugs.
“Your concert, I guess.” She smiles at him, stretching her hand towards him and waiting for Ryo to clink his bottle against hers.
They sit like that, in silence, for a while, just sipping on their beers and enjoying the comfort of their apartment before Asami speaks again.
“Aren’t you going to ask?” she says, and Ryo stiffens. He really would like to know, but there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to hear her talk about another guy; it pains him, because he realizes he won’t be able to be the friend he was before, he can’t pretend to support her feelings for another man. Not now that he has realized he’s in love with her.
“What happened?”
Ryo’s words are a rough whisper out of him, but Asami replies soon after, as if she wasn’t waiting for anything else.
“He was a self-centered prick.” She states it firmly, and somehow it makes Ryo chuckle. “Kept talking about himself all the time. I suggested we come see you guys at the club and he said concerts are for losers.”
Ryo clenches his fists for a moment before asking Asami what she did then, and she laughs.
“I stood up, told him he was the loser and walked away, leaving him there.” She chuckles again, stretching on the couch and resting her head against Ryo’s shoulder, and Ryo stiffens again. It’s not the first time she leans against him like that, but since things have changed in his heart, Ryo hasn’t had the chance to stay with her like that, especially because that’s exactly what he had been trying to avoid for weeks. It feels good, and the only thing Ryo wants to do is to caress her hair and stay like that all night long.
Instead, he takes a sip from his beer and lets her talk again.
“I’m not going out with someone who considers my friends to be losers.” She smiles and gazes at him, and Ryo inhales deeply. He could use a smoke right now, but he doesn’t want to stand up, he wants to stay like this some more.
“Thanks.” He smiles down at her. Asami’s words are really important for him, and Ryo feels happy knowing that she cares about him, about them all, that she considers the other guys from the band as her own friends.
“You know…” she speaks again after a while, yawning. “I should find someone like you. Nice and caring, even if sometimes you can be a hassle.”
She chuckles lightly as she drifts off asleep, and Ryo doesn’t move an inch. He wants to take her hands and scream that he’s right there, that if that’s what she’s looking for he’s the most appropriate one, but he doesn’t.
Once he hears her breathing slowing down, Ryo carefully slips away and goes out for a smoke, his heart still racing in his chest.
-*-
Now that the concert has passed, Ryo needs to make up every excuse he can to spend less time at the apartment; inventory at work, rehearsals, meeting old friends he hasn’t seen for a long time. He’s not sure how long he can go on like this, but it’s better than telling Asami the truth, even if lying to her is painful.
“Are you home tonight?” Asami asks, coming out from her room early in the morning and intercepting him, and Ryo curses under his breath for not being able to be less noisy when he wakes up.
“Can’t.” he briefly says, gulping down a cup of cold coffee and walking to the door. “We have the inventory at the shop tonight. I’ll see you later.”
Asami doesn’t say anything, she just waves weakly at him as she watches him running down the stairs.
-*-
Ryo spends the evening at the rehearsals room, where he finds Subaru waiting.
“Need asylum?” Subaru asks as soon as he hears the door opening, without even raising his gaze from his lap.
“Something like that, yes.”
Ryo plops his duffel bag on the old couch, sitting down with a loud sigh, and Subaru places his guitar down soon after, going to sit next to his friend.
“Asami?”
“What about her?”
Subaru looks at him, raising his brows, and lights up a cigarette for himself, then offering one to Ryo as well. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
Ryo grumbles, exhaling a drag from his cigarette, and tells Subaru exactly what’s wrong. Not like Subaru hasn’t figured that out already, but talking about it to someone makes Ryo feel better, and Subaru is not someone who’s going to judge him or interrupt him.
“Why don’t you tell her?” Subaru only asks, and Ryo wants to laugh.
“Because we’re friends?”
“She left her date in the middle of their evening to come listen to your concert, you idiot.”
Subaru punches him lightly on the shoulder, and Ryo groans. “So what, we’re friends!”
Subaru looks at him once again, narrowing his eyes and sighing. “You’re the stupid one here, really.”
Ryo thinks about it for a while, but the idea doesn’t sound that appealing. Sure, he knows he’d feel better if he could tell her, but he also knows things would probably get awkward soon after, and that’s something he’d like to avoid.
“She’s too nice, that’s why she came at the concert.” Ryo says after a while, putting the cigarette butt in the ashtray.
“She’s also too nice to leave her date in the middle of the evening,” Subaru replies, and Ryo nods pensively.
“She said she should find someone like me.”
“Then just talk to her, can’t you read the signals?!” Subaru shakes his head, and a lock of black hair falls over his eyes. He hurries to move it from his face, looking straight into Ryo’s eyes, as if that way he could instill some courage into his friend.
Ryo is still not sure about what he’s supposed to do.
-*-
It’s late at night when Ryo comes back home, and it’s not by mistake. He knows Asami has lessons the next morning, so he hopes for her to be asleep already, but once he steps in the apartment, trying to be as silent as he can, the light in the living room switches on and Asami walks to him.
“How was the inventory?” she asks, barely looking at him, and Ryo soon realizes there’s something off about the way she is acting.
“It was okay, I guess.”
“It was the third inventory in the past week.” she tells him, and this time she looks straight into his eyes.
Ryo is silently biting his lower lip, not knowing what to say. He’s obviously been found out lying, and even if he knew it would have happened sooner or later and he had prepared a list of a thousand of things to say, now his brain is not working at all.
“If you have a girlfriend you only need to say it, you know?” Asami tells him, and for a moment her voice seems sadder than usual. Ryo doesn’t know if it’s only a hopeful feeling though, but he hurries to deny it.
“No!” He almost yells, walking to the living room without looking at Asami. It feels like the day of reckoning has come, and he can’t bear to look at her. “There’s no one.”
It’s not true, but right now Ryo can’t think about anything better to say. ‘There’s no one else but you,’ he thinks, but he stays silent. He has lost count of all the lies he has told her in the past weeks, and now he’s confused.
Asami is obviously angry and hurt, and Ryo thinks it’s his fault, he wants to bang his head against the wall.
“Why are you avoiding me?” she suddenly asks, and Ryo feels cornered.
“I am not.”
Asami snorts, chuckling bitterly, and Ryo really looks at her for the first time since he has come back home. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
It’s the second person to ask him that in a matter of hours, and Ryo starts questioning if maybe he hasn’t crossed the border into stupidity himself.
“You’re not.” He whispers it, but his reply doesn’t seem to satisfy Asami, who’s still looking at him with her hands on her hips, waiting.
“Then tell me why you’re avoiding me!”
Her tone is something Ryo has never heard before, and this can only mean trouble; it’s glacial and it’s the first time she has spoken to him like that. Ryo feels guilty towards her, but at the same time he’s angry. He doesn’t know why; he’s angry with himself for falling for her, for lying to her and to himself, for not being able to step out of this mess he’s put himself in.
“Because I can’t bear to stay in the same room with you!” he yells back, and the pain is instantaneous, enough to split her heart in two. Asami’s masks cracks beneath the burden of Ryo’s words, and her eyes are filled with tears, but she doesn’t cry. She clenches her fists, looking straight into Ryo’s eyes as he bites his lower lip, wishing he could take those words back.
He’s an idiot. A complete idiot. It’s true that he can’t bear to stay in the same room with her, but the way he said it, spiteful and angry, is wrong, letting her understand exactly the opposite of what he meant.
Asami doesn’t reply, her fists shaking. She bids him goodnight, walks to her room and leaves him alone in the living room, rooted to his spot.
When Ryo finally realizes what has happened, he rushes to her room, but Asami has closed her door and locked it with the key for the first time in years, and no matter how much Ryo knocks on the door, she won’t open it.
There aren’t any sounds coming from inside, and Ryo lets himself slide to the floor, resting his back against the door and closes his eyes.
He has ruined everything, that much is clear, and he wishes he could turn back time. There’s no use in calling her name now, and after a while Ryo stops.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says, and he doesn’t know anymore if he’s talking to her or to himself, “but it’s true that I was avoiding you.”
Things are already ruined, so even if he’s going to confess now, at least things can’t get worse than this, can they?
“I can’t bear to be in the same room with you because every time you’re near I am confused.” He keeps on talking. The corridor is dark, and there’s only a bit of light filtering in from the living room. “Having you around makes me feel comfortable and at ease.”
Ryo bites his lips, unsure if he has to go on or not. He decides to keep on talking, trying to get things off his chest, trying to explain what he really meant earlier in the living room.
“I can’t bear to stay in the same room with you because being friends is not enough anymore.”
From inside the room there are no sounds coming out, but after a while, Ryo hears a faint thud, and realizes Asami is sitting on the floor like he is, just on the opposite side of the door.
She’s listening, he knows that, and the thought alone makes his knees go weak.
“I can’t bear to be in the same room with you because you stopped being only my friend when I fell in love with you.”
It’s there, out in plain sight now, and Ryo shuts up. He has said more than enough, so he just waits for a while longer, sitting there on the floor, but there are no signs coming from inside Asami’s room, and he sighs.
Just when he’s about to stand up, to go back in his room, the door suddenly opens, and Ryo falls flat on his back, groaning. When he opens his eyes again, Asami is kneeling next to him, her long hair almost falling onto his face as she stares at him, and Ryo is both mesmerized and terrified at the same time.
He can’t take back the things he has said now, and it’s obvious she has been listening to everything. He tries to move, but Asami’s gaze is pinning him down, so he just tries to avoid her gaze for as long as he can.
“Are you serious?” she asks, and Ryo gulps. The only thing he can do now is face her; there’s no other solution, especially after hurting her for weeks without barely noticing her pain. It’s the least he can do.
So Ryo turns his head while he’s still lying on the floor, and looks at her, deep into her eyes, and nods.
“Yes.” He just breathes, and as soon as the word leaves his lips, she smiles down at him, and suddenly Ryo feels like breathing becomes easy again. He’s not sure what this means, but it looks like she’s not angry at him anymore, and that’s enough.
Then, suddenly, he feels a light peck on his lips, and when he looks up once again, Asami’s smiling widely at him, her eyes still a bit teary from before. Ryo feels his head spinning, and he’s glad he’s lying on the floor, because his knees are like jelly right now, and he’s not sure he’d be able to stand otherwise.
He blinks a couple of times, trying to understand what exactly happened, because he can barely believe it, but Asami makes it clear for him by kissing him again, stopping him before he can stand up.
The kiss is longer this time, deeper, and Ryo finds himself smiling into it; he can’t even count how many times he has imagined how her lips would have tasted, but now he knows that everything’s better than every fantasy he might have created in his mind in the past months.
Ryo feels giddy, and when she detaches her lips from his and sits on the floor, Ryo starts to laugh uncontrollably.
“Do you…?” He doesn’t dare to ask the whole question, but he thinks it’s clear enough for Asami to understand. After all, between the two of them, she’s the one using her brain, according to all the times she has mocked him about that. Ryo laughs again.
“Do you think I’d leave a date in the middle of the evening otherwise?” she asks, and Ryo shakes his head, smiling at her.
She smiles at him again, and Ryo hugs her, letting himself fall back on the floor while clutching his arm against her shoulders even more tightly.
“Sorry for lying.”
He feels her shrug against his body and then feels her moving closer, their feet touching.
“You’re forgiven,” she whispers in his ear, “but don’t you dare lie to me again.”
“I have no reasons to.”
Ryo holds her closer, and he knows the next morning his back will ache from sleeping on the floor, but right now he doesn’t care.
Right now, all he has ever wanted is right there, in his arms, and that’s all that counts.