fic: drabbles (happy birthday, my horrible 22-year-old youkai ♥)
These drabbles have a little trick. Feel free to guess what it is, but I must give you a little hint first: you need to read elanielyn's drabbles (since this was our collab) too to get it!
1. Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.
Monsters are like onions. Bem doesn’t remember where he heard it - he thinks it is a quote from some childish movie Bero and Yui were watching together one day - but he thinks it applies to them, with all their layers: of clothes, of masks, of lies. Their lives are composed of many layers; excuse after excuse, lie after lie until Bem feels like they’re a protective shield that they wrap tightly around themselves, even when its weight threatens to asphyxiate them.
It hurts when Natsume starts peeling them off one by one, stripping Bem bare of all he has made himself believe he is. It hurts and Bem can’t stop the tears that roll down his cheeks, but when he’s finally standing naked and simple before Natsume, he finally feels free.
2. Dreaming men are haunted men.
Hiroto doesn’t remember the last time he allowed himself to dream. Maybe it was when he was still in middle school and he thought he could play baseball and go to college to study something big like Medicine, when he thought he could do something important with his life. Maybe it was the day when all his life shattered before his eyes, and the fragments cut deep wounds into him with edges sharper than the metal planks that were now his future.
Hiroto lets his dreams drown beneath the noise of the factory and the exhaustion that makes him fall into a deep sleep every night. He won’t be able to play baseball anymore because he has to work, he won’t be able to study Medicine or do anything important because he has no money, and he has no use for dreams that will haunt his minds with images of the impossible, he has no time to hurt for what can’t be.
Or at least he didn’t, before Nao.
3. Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
It’s easy to be angry at Ryu. Hayato’s never been good at anger management, and it’s easy to let the hot red fury wash over him until he’s blind and deaf and wild, and his fist finds Ryu’s jaw before his brain processes what’s going on. Hayato’s good at not thinking and just letting go.
He’s not so good at admitting his own faults, though, much less at admitting them in front of others. That takes a kind of courage Hayato has never bothered to consider as such - at least not until Yankumi came along. Luckily Ryu’s much smarter and - now he understands - braver than him and it only takes a clumsy and awkward bump of a shoulder for Ryu to forgive.
4. The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
Kame is none all too pleased to have to record a drama with Yamashita, and on top of that, one that requires them to become best friends. Most of Shuuji’s initial disdain is all but feigned, and only as they finally get closer and Kame starts to like Yamashita better does he wonder why this didn’t happen sooner, when they prank Jin together and laugh as Jin realizes his life will now be a little bit more miserable.
5. The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
Jin’s tired of swearing in every interview that gives him the chance to that whatever the general public seems to think about him, he is quite a thoughtful person, perfectly able to stop and think about the consequences of his actions before he does anything stupid. He thinks about his life, his family, his friends and his career and about how the things he wants to do could affect them all, he weights pros and contras and tries to imagine possible outcomes. It’s only when after months of dwelling on it without finding an answer that Jin decides to fuck it all and go with the image of himself everyone seems to have anyway, and kisses Kame hard against the toilets’ wall.
6. Conscience whispers, but interest screams aloud.
There’s a tiny voice in Yuuichi’s head that tells him this can’t be right, can’t go well because Jin’s too unique and special for him; it tells him to look away and give up. But then Jin starts singing, loud and perfect, and his body seems to shine with a light of its own that dims even the stage’s spotlights. And Yuuichi… Well, Yuuichi can only drown in the feelings and go with the flow.
7. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
“Not homo.”
Yamapi snorted. “Totally homo.”
“Not homo!” Jin glared, cheeks red in a mix of embarrassment and increasing frustration. It only made Yamapi laugh.
“So totally homo.”
Jin huffed and crossed his arms. “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but I’m definitely not homo.”
Yamapi sat on Jin’s lap, who squirmed uncomfortably to try to hide the erection Yamapi had long since spotted. “Of course I am. So are you.” He leaned in to breathe hotly over Jin’s lips, and Jin gulped. “It’s only that your opinion is stupid.”
Jin didn’t have time to answer before Yamapi kissed him, hard.
8. All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
Ten years later they’re still moving in circles, chasing after each other without ever reaching an end. Sometimes Kame thinks they must make a small planetary system of their own, he and Jin; two stars circling around each other, attracted like magnets but on different orbits. They’re two stars made of gas and metal, fame and pride that grow and go and leave them changing forever, moving to keep their balance, without ever truly moving forward.
9. The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
For most people, monsters are but creatures of fiction made up to scare children at night - behave, lest the big bad monster comes to take you away!. For most people, Bem, Bera and Bero are not real but characters out of a tale when one day some kind deity would realize their true desire to be humans, and grant them their wish in reward for their good actions, because for most people tales end in happily ever afters. When the sharp stone cuts a wound across his cheek Bem wonders why it’s then that they’re being chased out of another town, why the blood that drips to the ground is still green, and where his promised happy ending is.
10. They've promised that dreams can come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.
Deep inside Hayato knows it’s not her fault and that she did what was right when she encouraged them to find dreams to live for and fight to make them come true. Hayato had been supportive of Ryu’s dreams too, from the start and all the way to end, even when he had started to suspect what the redhead wouldn’t say.
Hayato had fought too for Ryu’s dreams to come true, but he had never imagined Ryu’s dreams would involve leaving him behind.
11. We are each our own devils and we make this world our hell.
Kyohei doesn’t understand what this thing they have going on is, because it can’t even be called a relationship. He tries to reason that it’d be better to end it already, because it’s not healthy for either of them, this push and pull or constant fights, of hurtful words and comforting hugs that do nothing but rub salt on wounds that are always raw. Kyohei doesn’t understand why he keeps waiting for Natsu to come back, only to drive him away again when the man finally does; he doesn’t understand when Natsu keeps bothering to try again when he doesn’t seem to mind when he hurts those around him. Kyohei doesn’t understand why Natsu is the only one able to put his pieces back together, any more than he understands why he can’t live without the same man that tears him apart.
1. Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.
Monsters are like onions. Bem doesn’t remember where he heard it - he thinks it is a quote from some childish movie Bero and Yui were watching together one day - but he thinks it applies to them, with all their layers: of clothes, of masks, of lies. Their lives are composed of many layers; excuse after excuse, lie after lie until Bem feels like they’re a protective shield that they wrap tightly around themselves, even when its weight threatens to asphyxiate them.
It hurts when Natsume starts peeling them off one by one, stripping Bem bare of all he has made himself believe he is. It hurts and Bem can’t stop the tears that roll down his cheeks, but when he’s finally standing naked and simple before Natsume, he finally feels free.
2. Dreaming men are haunted men.
Hiroto doesn’t remember the last time he allowed himself to dream. Maybe it was when he was still in middle school and he thought he could play baseball and go to college to study something big like Medicine, when he thought he could do something important with his life. Maybe it was the day when all his life shattered before his eyes, and the fragments cut deep wounds into him with edges sharper than the metal planks that were now his future.
Hiroto lets his dreams drown beneath the noise of the factory and the exhaustion that makes him fall into a deep sleep every night. He won’t be able to play baseball anymore because he has to work, he won’t be able to study Medicine or do anything important because he has no money, and he has no use for dreams that will haunt his minds with images of the impossible, he has no time to hurt for what can’t be.
Or at least he didn’t, before Nao.
3. Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
It’s easy to be angry at Ryu. Hayato’s never been good at anger management, and it’s easy to let the hot red fury wash over him until he’s blind and deaf and wild, and his fist finds Ryu’s jaw before his brain processes what’s going on. Hayato’s good at not thinking and just letting go.
He’s not so good at admitting his own faults, though, much less at admitting them in front of others. That takes a kind of courage Hayato has never bothered to consider as such - at least not until Yankumi came along. Luckily Ryu’s much smarter and - now he understands - braver than him and it only takes a clumsy and awkward bump of a shoulder for Ryu to forgive.
4. The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
Kame is none all too pleased to have to record a drama with Yamashita, and on top of that, one that requires them to become best friends. Most of Shuuji’s initial disdain is all but feigned, and only as they finally get closer and Kame starts to like Yamashita better does he wonder why this didn’t happen sooner, when they prank Jin together and laugh as Jin realizes his life will now be a little bit more miserable.
5. The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
Jin’s tired of swearing in every interview that gives him the chance to that whatever the general public seems to think about him, he is quite a thoughtful person, perfectly able to stop and think about the consequences of his actions before he does anything stupid. He thinks about his life, his family, his friends and his career and about how the things he wants to do could affect them all, he weights pros and contras and tries to imagine possible outcomes. It’s only when after months of dwelling on it without finding an answer that Jin decides to fuck it all and go with the image of himself everyone seems to have anyway, and kisses Kame hard against the toilets’ wall.
6. Conscience whispers, but interest screams aloud.
There’s a tiny voice in Yuuichi’s head that tells him this can’t be right, can’t go well because Jin’s too unique and special for him; it tells him to look away and give up. But then Jin starts singing, loud and perfect, and his body seems to shine with a light of its own that dims even the stage’s spotlights. And Yuuichi… Well, Yuuichi can only drown in the feelings and go with the flow.
7. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
“Not homo.”
Yamapi snorted. “Totally homo.”
“Not homo!” Jin glared, cheeks red in a mix of embarrassment and increasing frustration. It only made Yamapi laugh.
“So totally homo.”
Jin huffed and crossed his arms. “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but I’m definitely not homo.”
Yamapi sat on Jin’s lap, who squirmed uncomfortably to try to hide the erection Yamapi had long since spotted. “Of course I am. So are you.” He leaned in to breathe hotly over Jin’s lips, and Jin gulped. “It’s only that your opinion is stupid.”
Jin didn’t have time to answer before Yamapi kissed him, hard.
8. All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
Ten years later they’re still moving in circles, chasing after each other without ever reaching an end. Sometimes Kame thinks they must make a small planetary system of their own, he and Jin; two stars circling around each other, attracted like magnets but on different orbits. They’re two stars made of gas and metal, fame and pride that grow and go and leave them changing forever, moving to keep their balance, without ever truly moving forward.
9. The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
For most people, monsters are but creatures of fiction made up to scare children at night - behave, lest the big bad monster comes to take you away!. For most people, Bem, Bera and Bero are not real but characters out of a tale when one day some kind deity would realize their true desire to be humans, and grant them their wish in reward for their good actions, because for most people tales end in happily ever afters. When the sharp stone cuts a wound across his cheek Bem wonders why it’s then that they’re being chased out of another town, why the blood that drips to the ground is still green, and where his promised happy ending is.
10. They've promised that dreams can come true - but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.
Deep inside Hayato knows it’s not her fault and that she did what was right when she encouraged them to find dreams to live for and fight to make them come true. Hayato had been supportive of Ryu’s dreams too, from the start and all the way to end, even when he had started to suspect what the redhead wouldn’t say.
Hayato had fought too for Ryu’s dreams to come true, but he had never imagined Ryu’s dreams would involve leaving him behind.
11. We are each our own devils and we make this world our hell.
Kyohei doesn’t understand what this thing they have going on is, because it can’t even be called a relationship. He tries to reason that it’d be better to end it already, because it’s not healthy for either of them, this push and pull or constant fights, of hurtful words and comforting hugs that do nothing but rub salt on wounds that are always raw. Kyohei doesn’t understand why he keeps waiting for Natsu to come back, only to drive him away again when the man finally does; he doesn’t understand when Natsu keeps bothering to try again when he doesn’t seem to mind when he hurts those around him. Kyohei doesn’t understand why Natsu is the only one able to put his pieces back together, any more than he understands why he can’t live without the same man that tears him apart.