[Fic] Never Alone (Takki x Tsubasa)
Title: Never Alone
Author: kohee
Pairing: Takizawa Hideaki x Imai Tsubasa
Summary: One-shot: In the end, there is always Takki. Tsubasa just needs to remember, and believe that.
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: I don't know had/has what gotten into me. Warnings for self-harm, attempted suicide, depression, cutting, pretenses, all the unshiny stuff. And this is TxT. I think I should go and die in a hole somewhere.
It is one of those nights when Tsubasa doesn't quite feel alive.
The mobile display lits up with a name and a number - Takki's - and his finger hovers over the green dial button, hesitant and unsure. He doesn't quite know what he will say to him, but he does know that he needs to hear his voice, he needs the comfort and assurance, and he just needs to feel something. Tsubasa pushes the button, and lifts the phone to his ear, biting his lip as he waits, and after three rings, the phone clicks and he answers the phone.
“Tsubasa?”
The familiar cadences of his partner's voice washes over him, and he leans against the wall, feeling the relief rushing over him - Tsubasa - that is all it takes, just Tsubasa and -
“I...hi.”
“Is everything okay? I'm in the middle of shooting a scene right now.”
The relief goes away as swiftly as it arrives. There is nothing in Takki's words that suggests anything, but knowing Takki as well as he does, only Tsubasa can pick up on the slightly stressful note in his voice - I'm working, it's not going right - and he knows that his partner is again being a workaholic, again obsessed with work, being a perfectionist and there is no place for Tsubasa, not at that point, just no, not right then.
He attempts a smile, even though he knows Takki cannot see it, but he forces the smile onto his face in hopes that it will somehow transpire into his tone, it might be possible. “Nothing important. I'll talk to you later.”
“Tsu...”
He does not give Takki a chance to finish whatever he is about to say, he presses the red button, disconnects the call, and picks up a blade. Closing his eyes, he rests the sharp edge against his wrist, and slashes.
He doesn't feel the pain, but he feels the warm, sticky blood, and somehow, that makes him feel alive.
-
He arrives at the studio the next day with neatly combed hair, fashionable clothes, a cheerful smile on his face and a tightly bandaged wrist hidden under a colorful armband. Nothing to suggest that he is anything less than what he is expected to be, that he is anything less than Imai Tsubasa.
“Tsubasa?” He hears a voice behind him as he is putting his backpack away. He swivels around to see Takki glancing at him, brows knitted together in a worried expression.
“Hide-kun!” He says brightly, flashing a smile at his partner as he closes his locker door, giving it a slight bang to shut it (the locker door is always just a little stuck) and successfully hiding a wince as a spasm of pain radiates throughout his arm from his hurt wrist. “Sorry for disturbing you yesterday, I hope filming went well.”
“It did.” Takki hesitates, and plunges ahead. “Is everything okay?”
Isn't it too a little too late to ask now? Tsubasa wants to say, but that isn't fair. He is the one that hung up on Takki, it isn't fair at all to say that. He gives a careless shrug instead, running a hand through his hair. “Of course. What could be wrong?”
Takki tips his head to one side, studying his partner with a searching air. “I don't know. You sounded a little...off. Yesterday night.”
“I'm okay.” Tsubasa says. “We better go, we're late for recording.”
He brushes past Takki, and Takki, almost as an afterthought, reaches out and grabs Tsubasa's wrist - the one with the armband. Involuntarily, he lets out a yelp of pain and yanks his hand away. Takki, with his hand still outstretched, raises his eyes to Tsubasa in confusion, and the latter smiles weakly.
“I sprained my wrist. Yesterday.”
“Tsubasa...” A fleeting expression of anxiety crosses Takki's face and he takes a step towards Tsubasa. Instinctively, without quite knowing why, he takes a step backward.
“We're late for recording.” He repeats, in a whisper, looking down at his shoes, not wanting, not daring to look at Takki..
Don't ask me to take off the armband. Don't ask me anything. Don't ask me. Don't ask don't ask don't ask...
He spins around and hurries into studio, leaving Takki behind, not even wanting to turn back to look, not wanting to see Takki's face, and for the entire day, he avoids looking Takki directly, he does not know what he will see and he does not want to find out.
-
Dancing isn't quite enough to make him feel anymore. Nothing is quite enough to make him feel anymore - not dancing, not singing, not alcohol, nothing.
He thinks of Takki and he thinks of how Takki deserves someone else. Not someone like him. Takizawa Hideaki deserves someone as bright and shining and vibrant as he is, not someone small and weak and useless. Not someone like Tsubasa.
It is thoughts like these that makes it hard for him to breathe, makes it hard for him to feel, makes it hard for him to want to be alive.
He traces the angry red (still bleeding) scar on his wrist and thinks about how alone that one scar looks, and perhaps he needs another one, he needs for the scars to be a pair and he just needs to feel, and -
His mobile phone rings as he rests the blade above the first scar, ringing incessantly and even as he shuts his eyes to ignore it, it keeps ringing and vibrating and finally, he picks it up and stares at the name on the screen.
Hideaki.
It is probably the twentieth time that Takki is calling, since Tsubasa ran out of the studio, that evening, to avoid him.
He does not want to answer it, he does not want to hear that familiar voice, he does not want to feel comforted and alive for two seconds and have it all go away again when Takki hangs up.
The phone stops ringing, and two seconds later, it rings again, Takki's name and number flashing on the lit screen.
He presses the red button, and the light on the screen dims.
Almost immediately, the screen is alight and the phone rings again.
He decides to push the green button, and lifts the phone to his ear.
“Tsubasa!” Takki's voice emits through the phone's speakers, his voice tinging with slight panic. “Tsubasa, where are you?”
He doesn't answer, pressing the phone harder against his ear and he just cannot form the words, form any words.
“Tsubasa!”
“Home.” He finally manages one word.
“I've been calling and calling and looking for you, and I could not get you, and I was going out of my fucking mind and...” Takki's voice breaks off, as he takes a deep breath. “Are you okay?”
Glancing at his wrist, at the blood-soaked bandages, at the crumpled armband, at the discarded blade on the floor and the ludicrousness of the question just hits him - hard - and Tsubasa begins to laugh. He laughs, and laughs, a slight hysterical tinge to his laughter, and he continues laughing as tears pour down his cheeks -
He does not know whether are they tears from the laughter, or are they tears from something else. He isn't sure whether is he laughing any longer, or has he begun to cry.
“Tsubasa, I'm coming over. I'm coming over to get you, do you hear me? Don't do anything. Don't do anything.”
He stops laughing (or is he crying?), gasping, drawing in breaths of air as he cradles the phone, only holding onto the sound of Takki's voice.
“Hide-kun...I'm tired. I'm tired of not being able to feel.”
“Don't...just don't...don't say that, I'm on my way, I'm...”
He hears traffic in the background and car horns and even a tyre screeching. He wonders whether should he caution Takki to drive carefully, and then he thinks he is being ridiculous and stupid, and he thinks Takki should just let him be.
“I'm hanging up.” He whispers, the hand holding the phone slowly dropping, losing its strength, losing the will to hold on, he cannot do it anymore, it seems, not anymore.
“Don't you dare hang up, Tsubasa!” Takki's voice reverberates out of the phone, loud and commanding, at the same time, panicky and scared, and it is the panic and the fear that stops Tsubasa from ending the call. “Don't you fucking dare.”
“Hurry.” He says tiredly. Hurry, Hide-kun, hurry. He does not know how long he can hold on, he simply does not know, he cannot feel anything, it is empty, floating, void - and he needs to feel something, to know that he still exists.
Takki rambles on but Tsubasa is hardly listening to the words - the words are not relevant, he thinks, it is only the sound of Takki's voice, tight with worry and anxiety and desperation - that reassures him of his life, that his life is still something concrete.
That Imai Tsubasa, that being Imai Tsubasa, still matters.
“Tsubasa, I'm coming in!”
He hears the words over the phone, he hears the key in the lock and vaguely he wonders why and how does Takki have a key - he is envisioning Takki ramming down the door for some reason - but Takki does not knock down the door, and at the back of his mind, he remembers giving the key to Takki sometime ago although at that point of time, he didn't exactly know why, and -
Takki bursts through the front door and Tsubasa looks up to see Takki standing there, breathless, trembling, his hair disheveled and his shirt untucked, looking disorientated, messy and so unlike Takizawa Hideaki, the perfect, wonderful, smiling, beautiful idol - and Tsubasa thinks it is funny that Takki somehow looks more human this way.
Takki sees Tsubasa slumping at the foot of his couch, tissues with traces of blood scattering haphazardly around him, a razor blade among the crumpled tissues and he sees Tsubasa looking up at him, his face despondent and hopeless, looking so lost, so forlorn and so helpless, so small -
Takki feels something in him break - shattering, splintering - and he thinks it might be his heart.
He takes giant steps towards his partner, and kneeling down in front of Tsubasa, he grasps the older man's shoulders and pulls him into a hug.
“I'll make it better. I swear, Tsubasa, I'll make it better. You're not alone, you're never alone.” He whispers, over and over, holding Tsubasa tightly, resting his chin against Tsubasa's shoulder as he cradles his partner closer.
Tsubasa's arms, hanging limp by his sides, comes up to encircle Takki, resting on his back as Tsubasa presses his face into Takki's shoulder, shuddering slightly as a sob escapes him and he finally, finally -
Feels alive.
“I'm sorry.” He mumbles, fingers clutching at Takki's shirt. “I'm sorry.”
Takki inhales sharply and he shakes his head, no, “Don't say that. Don't ever say that, I'm the one...I'm...” He breaks off, he does not want to say he is sorry, Tsubasa does not want to hear that.
And he is right, Tsubasa does not want Takki to feel sorry, for Takki to be sorry.
“This is us.” Takki says fervently, hoping to reassure Tsubasa. “I'll suffer with you. Together. We...I...” he chokes, overwhelmed with emotion when he thinks about how close he is to losing Tsubasa, and he feels like he could never, never ever bear it if he does. “...I'm never going to leave you. Never.”
There is a strange sort of warm feeling enveloping him that feels familiar, yet foreign at the same time; he has forgotten how it feels like to be warm, he has been cold for too long, and sometimes, even unable to feel the cold - and to have this comfort, to have Takki's arms around him - so this is how being alive feels like.
They remain locked in each other's arms, neither is willing to let go.
“I love you.” Takki tells him. I love you, I love you I love you i love you iloveyouiloveyou...
Takki never lies.
Tsubasa is beginning to believe in life again.
- end -
Time frame: 2002-2003, when Tsubasa allegedly suffered from depression.
...my brain = wrapped and I should really really be, like, stabbed to death. For the record though, it kinda hurts me to write this because omg Tsubasa but I am just not in fluff!mood. Although I firmly believe TxT should ONLY be fluff!happy!joy!shiny!...
I suck.
Shall not angst Tsubasa/Takki/TxT again for the next 10 years - quota's filled.
Comments, though, are still ♥ - thank you.
Author: kohee
Pairing: Takizawa Hideaki x Imai Tsubasa
Summary: One-shot: In the end, there is always Takki. Tsubasa just needs to remember, and believe that.
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: I don't know had/has what gotten into me. Warnings for self-harm, attempted suicide, depression, cutting, pretenses, all the unshiny stuff. And this is TxT. I think I should go and die in a hole somewhere.
It is one of those nights when Tsubasa doesn't quite feel alive.
The mobile display lits up with a name and a number - Takki's - and his finger hovers over the green dial button, hesitant and unsure. He doesn't quite know what he will say to him, but he does know that he needs to hear his voice, he needs the comfort and assurance, and he just needs to feel something. Tsubasa pushes the button, and lifts the phone to his ear, biting his lip as he waits, and after three rings, the phone clicks and he answers the phone.
“Tsubasa?”
The familiar cadences of his partner's voice washes over him, and he leans against the wall, feeling the relief rushing over him - Tsubasa - that is all it takes, just Tsubasa and -
“I...hi.”
“Is everything okay? I'm in the middle of shooting a scene right now.”
The relief goes away as swiftly as it arrives. There is nothing in Takki's words that suggests anything, but knowing Takki as well as he does, only Tsubasa can pick up on the slightly stressful note in his voice - I'm working, it's not going right - and he knows that his partner is again being a workaholic, again obsessed with work, being a perfectionist and there is no place for Tsubasa, not at that point, just no, not right then.
He attempts a smile, even though he knows Takki cannot see it, but he forces the smile onto his face in hopes that it will somehow transpire into his tone, it might be possible. “Nothing important. I'll talk to you later.”
“Tsu...”
He does not give Takki a chance to finish whatever he is about to say, he presses the red button, disconnects the call, and picks up a blade. Closing his eyes, he rests the sharp edge against his wrist, and slashes.
He doesn't feel the pain, but he feels the warm, sticky blood, and somehow, that makes him feel alive.
-
He arrives at the studio the next day with neatly combed hair, fashionable clothes, a cheerful smile on his face and a tightly bandaged wrist hidden under a colorful armband. Nothing to suggest that he is anything less than what he is expected to be, that he is anything less than Imai Tsubasa.
“Tsubasa?” He hears a voice behind him as he is putting his backpack away. He swivels around to see Takki glancing at him, brows knitted together in a worried expression.
“Hide-kun!” He says brightly, flashing a smile at his partner as he closes his locker door, giving it a slight bang to shut it (the locker door is always just a little stuck) and successfully hiding a wince as a spasm of pain radiates throughout his arm from his hurt wrist. “Sorry for disturbing you yesterday, I hope filming went well.”
“It did.” Takki hesitates, and plunges ahead. “Is everything okay?”
Isn't it too a little too late to ask now? Tsubasa wants to say, but that isn't fair. He is the one that hung up on Takki, it isn't fair at all to say that. He gives a careless shrug instead, running a hand through his hair. “Of course. What could be wrong?”
Takki tips his head to one side, studying his partner with a searching air. “I don't know. You sounded a little...off. Yesterday night.”
“I'm okay.” Tsubasa says. “We better go, we're late for recording.”
He brushes past Takki, and Takki, almost as an afterthought, reaches out and grabs Tsubasa's wrist - the one with the armband. Involuntarily, he lets out a yelp of pain and yanks his hand away. Takki, with his hand still outstretched, raises his eyes to Tsubasa in confusion, and the latter smiles weakly.
“I sprained my wrist. Yesterday.”
“Tsubasa...” A fleeting expression of anxiety crosses Takki's face and he takes a step towards Tsubasa. Instinctively, without quite knowing why, he takes a step backward.
“We're late for recording.” He repeats, in a whisper, looking down at his shoes, not wanting, not daring to look at Takki..
Don't ask me to take off the armband. Don't ask me anything. Don't ask me. Don't ask don't ask don't ask...
He spins around and hurries into studio, leaving Takki behind, not even wanting to turn back to look, not wanting to see Takki's face, and for the entire day, he avoids looking Takki directly, he does not know what he will see and he does not want to find out.
-
Dancing isn't quite enough to make him feel anymore. Nothing is quite enough to make him feel anymore - not dancing, not singing, not alcohol, nothing.
He thinks of Takki and he thinks of how Takki deserves someone else. Not someone like him. Takizawa Hideaki deserves someone as bright and shining and vibrant as he is, not someone small and weak and useless. Not someone like Tsubasa.
It is thoughts like these that makes it hard for him to breathe, makes it hard for him to feel, makes it hard for him to want to be alive.
He traces the angry red (still bleeding) scar on his wrist and thinks about how alone that one scar looks, and perhaps he needs another one, he needs for the scars to be a pair and he just needs to feel, and -
His mobile phone rings as he rests the blade above the first scar, ringing incessantly and even as he shuts his eyes to ignore it, it keeps ringing and vibrating and finally, he picks it up and stares at the name on the screen.
Hideaki.
It is probably the twentieth time that Takki is calling, since Tsubasa ran out of the studio, that evening, to avoid him.
He does not want to answer it, he does not want to hear that familiar voice, he does not want to feel comforted and alive for two seconds and have it all go away again when Takki hangs up.
The phone stops ringing, and two seconds later, it rings again, Takki's name and number flashing on the lit screen.
He presses the red button, and the light on the screen dims.
Almost immediately, the screen is alight and the phone rings again.
He decides to push the green button, and lifts the phone to his ear.
“Tsubasa!” Takki's voice emits through the phone's speakers, his voice tinging with slight panic. “Tsubasa, where are you?”
He doesn't answer, pressing the phone harder against his ear and he just cannot form the words, form any words.
“Tsubasa!”
“Home.” He finally manages one word.
“I've been calling and calling and looking for you, and I could not get you, and I was going out of my fucking mind and...” Takki's voice breaks off, as he takes a deep breath. “Are you okay?”
Glancing at his wrist, at the blood-soaked bandages, at the crumpled armband, at the discarded blade on the floor and the ludicrousness of the question just hits him - hard - and Tsubasa begins to laugh. He laughs, and laughs, a slight hysterical tinge to his laughter, and he continues laughing as tears pour down his cheeks -
He does not know whether are they tears from the laughter, or are they tears from something else. He isn't sure whether is he laughing any longer, or has he begun to cry.
“Tsubasa, I'm coming over. I'm coming over to get you, do you hear me? Don't do anything. Don't do anything.”
He stops laughing (or is he crying?), gasping, drawing in breaths of air as he cradles the phone, only holding onto the sound of Takki's voice.
“Hide-kun...I'm tired. I'm tired of not being able to feel.”
“Don't...just don't...don't say that, I'm on my way, I'm...”
He hears traffic in the background and car horns and even a tyre screeching. He wonders whether should he caution Takki to drive carefully, and then he thinks he is being ridiculous and stupid, and he thinks Takki should just let him be.
“I'm hanging up.” He whispers, the hand holding the phone slowly dropping, losing its strength, losing the will to hold on, he cannot do it anymore, it seems, not anymore.
“Don't you dare hang up, Tsubasa!” Takki's voice reverberates out of the phone, loud and commanding, at the same time, panicky and scared, and it is the panic and the fear that stops Tsubasa from ending the call. “Don't you fucking dare.”
“Hurry.” He says tiredly. Hurry, Hide-kun, hurry. He does not know how long he can hold on, he simply does not know, he cannot feel anything, it is empty, floating, void - and he needs to feel something, to know that he still exists.
Takki rambles on but Tsubasa is hardly listening to the words - the words are not relevant, he thinks, it is only the sound of Takki's voice, tight with worry and anxiety and desperation - that reassures him of his life, that his life is still something concrete.
That Imai Tsubasa, that being Imai Tsubasa, still matters.
“Tsubasa, I'm coming in!”
He hears the words over the phone, he hears the key in the lock and vaguely he wonders why and how does Takki have a key - he is envisioning Takki ramming down the door for some reason - but Takki does not knock down the door, and at the back of his mind, he remembers giving the key to Takki sometime ago although at that point of time, he didn't exactly know why, and -
Takki bursts through the front door and Tsubasa looks up to see Takki standing there, breathless, trembling, his hair disheveled and his shirt untucked, looking disorientated, messy and so unlike Takizawa Hideaki, the perfect, wonderful, smiling, beautiful idol - and Tsubasa thinks it is funny that Takki somehow looks more human this way.
Takki sees Tsubasa slumping at the foot of his couch, tissues with traces of blood scattering haphazardly around him, a razor blade among the crumpled tissues and he sees Tsubasa looking up at him, his face despondent and hopeless, looking so lost, so forlorn and so helpless, so small -
Takki feels something in him break - shattering, splintering - and he thinks it might be his heart.
He takes giant steps towards his partner, and kneeling down in front of Tsubasa, he grasps the older man's shoulders and pulls him into a hug.
“I'll make it better. I swear, Tsubasa, I'll make it better. You're not alone, you're never alone.” He whispers, over and over, holding Tsubasa tightly, resting his chin against Tsubasa's shoulder as he cradles his partner closer.
Tsubasa's arms, hanging limp by his sides, comes up to encircle Takki, resting on his back as Tsubasa presses his face into Takki's shoulder, shuddering slightly as a sob escapes him and he finally, finally -
Feels alive.
“I'm sorry.” He mumbles, fingers clutching at Takki's shirt. “I'm sorry.”
Takki inhales sharply and he shakes his head, no, “Don't say that. Don't ever say that, I'm the one...I'm...” He breaks off, he does not want to say he is sorry, Tsubasa does not want to hear that.
And he is right, Tsubasa does not want Takki to feel sorry, for Takki to be sorry.
“This is us.” Takki says fervently, hoping to reassure Tsubasa. “I'll suffer with you. Together. We...I...” he chokes, overwhelmed with emotion when he thinks about how close he is to losing Tsubasa, and he feels like he could never, never ever bear it if he does. “...I'm never going to leave you. Never.”
There is a strange sort of warm feeling enveloping him that feels familiar, yet foreign at the same time; he has forgotten how it feels like to be warm, he has been cold for too long, and sometimes, even unable to feel the cold - and to have this comfort, to have Takki's arms around him - so this is how being alive feels like.
They remain locked in each other's arms, neither is willing to let go.
“I love you.” Takki tells him. I love you, I love you I love you i love you iloveyouiloveyou...
Takki never lies.
Tsubasa is beginning to believe in life again.
- end -
Time frame: 2002-2003, when Tsubasa allegedly suffered from depression.
...my brain = wrapped and I should really really be, like, stabbed to death. For the record though, it kinda hurts me to write this because omg Tsubasa but I am just not in fluff!mood. Although I firmly believe TxT should ONLY be fluff!happy!joy!shiny!...
I suck.
Shall not angst Tsubasa/Takki/TxT again for the next 10 years - quota's filled.
Comments, though, are still ♥ - thank you.