Hidden
Title: Hidden
Chapter: Oneshot
Author: socialriotbitch
Pairing: ReitaxRuki
Genre: fluff
Rating: Pg-13
Warnings: Swearing, minor violence
Summary: You played them all with expertise, a game you had played a million times before, that you knew all the rules and cheats to.
Disclaimer: Still don't own.
Comment: I'm sorry I've been quiet, I've been to a memorial/funeral this week and well, just complicated stuff. I am busy for a while now and don't know when I will be able to update, but cross your fingers. Well anygay, enjoy.
You played them all with expertise, a game you had played a million times before, that you knew all the rules and cheats to.
I watched from my safe position on the sidelines while you played. A new guy in your apartment when I came over, his hair still ruffled and his t-shirt on the floor. I often came to your place to find strangers there, at least, they were strangers to me. I counted the days before a new one showed up. Sometimes it was a couple of weeks, other times they stayed for a month or two before they were gone, and I would find you in your living room, calmly smoking, greeting me with a carefree “hey”.
Once, I had been standing outside your door, about to knock when I heard the shouting. Curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I stood there silently, trying to hear what was being shouted. Or rather, what he shouted. Your voice was so calm and low that I couldn't hear it through the door, and I had only been able to pick up about half of the fight.
“Do you even love me at all?” Several seconds of silence, during which I stood breathless, straining my ears to hear your reply. “Why do you keep doing this? I found your e-mails. You're fucking sick, keeping them around like that. How many guys before me? A hundred? A thousand? With what, a couple of months in between?”
I had snickered to myself, almost wanting to shout 'weeks', through the door, but I held my tongue. No reason to blow my cover. “You fuck them, you lie to them, telling them you love them, and then when you get tired you discard them, looking for another victim. Well, I'm not going to be one of them!”
I had barely stepped away from the door in time to avoid it as it crashed into the wall and a man I vaguely recalled having seen before stormed out in tears. You had stepped out, arms crossed over your chest, cigarette perched between your lips, and inspected the wall for any permanent damage, grinning to yourself when you found none. You had turned to me with one of your soft smiles, the genuine kind, not the fake ones you so often showed to your 'boyfriends'.
“Oh hi, Reita, want to come in and have a cup of coffee? I just bought a new film, wanna watch it together?”
You played your game well, and calmly. A breakup to you wasn't game over. It was the next level, and you'd sit back, coffee in your hand while you waited for the stage to load, and I'd watch with mild curiosity.
Over the years I had known you, you had been through more relationships than I had been through bass guitars. A lot more. While my 'lovers' grew worn and tired with time, you barely even got used to the feeling of yours before it was switched out with a new one. I guess bass guitars and people are very different, or maybe I was just more used to hard wood than soft flesh. I didn't like the feeling of a new bass when I wasn't quite used to it yet, it didn't sit right in my hand, the strings sounded wrong. Then after a while, my grip adjusted and it felt like it was the perfect bass for me. I could tell all my instruments apart by their sound, one slightly more sharp, another more soft.
Whereas you preferred keeping your lovers for a few weeks. Any more than that and you became restless, uninterested, ready to move on. In the few relationships that lasted a while, I'd find you more often at my apartment than yours towards the end of the month, and if it stretched out any longer than that, you were hardly even home. It was as if you liked the mysteries, not knowing, not being used to. Maybe you were afraid that if you got used to someone, they would stop being interesting. Obviously that didn't apply to me, since you visited on a regular basis and never seemed to get bored of my dry jokes no matter how many times you'd heard them, your raspy laughter a comforting sound to my ears.
You never seemed to care about your lovers, or at least, you wouldn't let yourself. They could run away screaming and crying, or be at your feet begging you to let them stay, that even if you didn't love them it didn't matter because then at least they would have you. Pathetic, you told me, how they deluded themselves with sweet whispers of love, an illusion of what they could never have.
One day I had stayed the night at your place, I was woken up by yelling. Your boyfriend, or by the sound of it, your ex-boyfriend, was screaming at you, the same old things I'd heard over and over again. I got up from the bed and went to the bathroom, hearing his voice clearly even over the sound of the toilet flushing, and I humoured myself by trying to guess his next words based on the last sentence he said. First the accusations, then, when you didn't deny them, the questioning, why, why, why, and then the hurt ramblings about love. Soon he'll leave, I thought, washing my hands and listening for the slamming of the door and your cruel laughter echoing in the hallway.
In stead, I heard a crash and a dull thud, and I stormed out of the bedroom to see the table flipped, the coffee pot smashed, glass shards all over the floor and you atop them, blood trickling from your lip and your eye screwed shut as you held your face where he had punched you and groaned in pain. He was standing over you with a kitchen knife, his eyes menacing as he turned his head abruptly to look at me.
If anyone had counted, they would have discovered that it took me an astonishing two seconds to reach the kitchen, something that would have been impossible for my tired legs if there hadn't been a mix of anger and adrenaline coursing through my veins at that moment.
I wasn't counting. I was too busy breaking the fucker's jaw with my reckless punches.
He fell down on the ground and I kept hitting him, straddling his waist and tossing the knife away as I bruised his pretty face.“The fuck!?” he screamed, and I shut him up with my fist, only stopping when I felt your hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. Getting off him and sitting down next to your feet like a dog being asked by its master to cease its assault on the unfortunate burglar that had not read the “beware of the watchdog”-sign, I caught my breath and stared at him harshly. He held his jaw and looked at me furiously, but his eyes twitched in reflex and he cowered back when I clenched my fists.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment, you bastard,” your voice came above me, and he scrambled to his legs, limping slightly to the door.
“Fuck you, Ruki!” he bellowed, but he was quick to duck out when I got up and posed to move towards him. I turned to inspect your face for any cuts, lifting your hands and wincing as I discovered that the glass from the coffee pot had cut into your skin and left open wounds there. You gently withdrew your hands and smiled up at me, and I watched your nose scrunch up as you pulled a shard out of your palm.
“You didn't have to do that, you know.”
“Fucker was aiming a knife at you,” I spat, my eyebrows knitting together as rage welled up inside me.
Your hand brushed against my cheek and you tilted your head, watching my eyes intently. “What would you have done if he had killed me?”
“Castrated him with my own bloody hands.”
Your low chuckle soothed me, and I gave a tired smile before you pulled me into a hug, and I wrapped my arms around you carefully, gently feeling for any cuts along your back.
“Thank you for being here,” you whispered in my ear, resting your chin on my shoulder. I pictured your face now, serene despite the blood staining it, your eyes closed and your plump lips curved into a smile that was rarely seen on your face.
No matter how many boyfriends you had, a satisfying feeling of pride always washed up in me when I realised I never saw you actually smile at them. You'd give naughty smirks and half-assed grins, but I always saw right through them. I couldn't remember you ever giving one of your lovers a genuine smile, only fake ones that were washed away like writing in sand when the tide comes in. A real smile is one you can't hold back no matter how much you try, and even if you sometimes attempted to keep your composure, to seem calm and uninterested, there were times when the corners of your mouth pulled up involuntarily, and you would try to hide it behind your hand, or someone's back. Those smiles tugged at your lips when you were around the band, Kai's cheery nature especially contagious, Uruha's crude jokes getting to you, or Aoi's goofiness making you laugh out.
But you didn't even try to hide them when it was just the two of us. Maybe because we had been friends since high school, because I knew you so well and you felt comfortable around me. Or maybe because I was the only one who saw you with your lovers, who knew what was going and how you played out your game. It was soothing to see your smiles, because that meant that you were confident enough to bare yourself to me. It's one thing to be naked in the flesh, to show your body to someone else, because god knows you have done that to numerous men without meaning anything by it, but it's another thing completely to bare your emotions to someone and let people see how you feel.
All the men that have walked through your life have heard the same sentence fall from your lips. “I don't believe in love.” Simple as that, you tell them, you don't care about feelings and emotions and 'Hi honey, I'm home, how was your day?' But I know you are lying as much as you were when you first told them you loved them. Because you do care about feelings, or why else would you try to hide them so much? You keep your heart locked away, as if you were saving it for something, for someone, and you never express your emotions save for those few moments with us, the GazettE. I know you love the other members, after all, we have become like a family over the last decade, and I know you care about us as much as we care about you.
And despite the signs, despite the suspicion that had been growing the past year in my mind, I wasn't prepared for your next words. I don't think anyone could be, because it was such a blunt confession that at first I didn't even believe it when it fell from lips that had been spouting lies and deceits all their life. Or rather, when it came from a heart that had been hidden away from prying eyes and searching fingers for so long people were afraid it had stopped beating entirely.
“I love you, Reita.”
Confusion must have been written all over my face, because you laughed when you drew back and looked at my face, leaning forward to kiss my neck and bury your face in it, no doubt inhaling the scent of my skin that I knew calmed you down like drugs to a shaking addict.
I shocked even myself when I wrapped my arms around you and kissed the top of your head, nuzzling your hair that smelled of shampoo and dye. I guess I had known all along. For some people, sex was a personal thing that they did only with the person they would devote their entire life to, while they would openly show their love and affection for family and close friends. But people are different, and you were the opposite. You had sex just for the sake of having sex, for carnal pleasures and nothing more, but it took you a hell of a lot of guts to admit even to your best friends that you cared about them.
And maybe that's why I knew that this time, your words were genuine. Because you could sleep with a thousand men and not mean anything by it, but so far, I was the only one you had let close enough to your heart to know how you felt and what you thought, and undressing mentally was your equivalent to another man being naked in front of his wife at night. Others had seen your body, the curve of your ass and the veins on your dick. They had worshipped it, used it, stained it, and it had become worn out over the years, your skin rough and your voice raspy though you blamed that on the cigarettes.
But your heart was like a new vase, untouched and fragile, kept safely in cotton and bubble wrap so as to not get scraped, and you must have known that I would never do anything to break it because now you were offering it to me with trembling, frightened hands, and I was accepting with a reassuring smile.
“I love you too, Ruki.”
A/N:
Chapter: Oneshot
Author: socialriotbitch
Pairing: ReitaxRuki
Genre: fluff
Rating: Pg-13
Warnings: Swearing, minor violence
Summary: You played them all with expertise, a game you had played a million times before, that you knew all the rules and cheats to.
Disclaimer: Still don't own.
Comment: I'm sorry I've been quiet, I've been to a memorial/funeral this week and well, just complicated stuff. I am busy for a while now and don't know when I will be able to update, but cross your fingers. Well anygay, enjoy.
You played them all with expertise, a game you had played a million times before, that you knew all the rules and cheats to.
I watched from my safe position on the sidelines while you played. A new guy in your apartment when I came over, his hair still ruffled and his t-shirt on the floor. I often came to your place to find strangers there, at least, they were strangers to me. I counted the days before a new one showed up. Sometimes it was a couple of weeks, other times they stayed for a month or two before they were gone, and I would find you in your living room, calmly smoking, greeting me with a carefree “hey”.
Once, I had been standing outside your door, about to knock when I heard the shouting. Curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I stood there silently, trying to hear what was being shouted. Or rather, what he shouted. Your voice was so calm and low that I couldn't hear it through the door, and I had only been able to pick up about half of the fight.
“Do you even love me at all?” Several seconds of silence, during which I stood breathless, straining my ears to hear your reply. “Why do you keep doing this? I found your e-mails. You're fucking sick, keeping them around like that. How many guys before me? A hundred? A thousand? With what, a couple of months in between?”
I had snickered to myself, almost wanting to shout 'weeks', through the door, but I held my tongue. No reason to blow my cover. “You fuck them, you lie to them, telling them you love them, and then when you get tired you discard them, looking for another victim. Well, I'm not going to be one of them!”
I had barely stepped away from the door in time to avoid it as it crashed into the wall and a man I vaguely recalled having seen before stormed out in tears. You had stepped out, arms crossed over your chest, cigarette perched between your lips, and inspected the wall for any permanent damage, grinning to yourself when you found none. You had turned to me with one of your soft smiles, the genuine kind, not the fake ones you so often showed to your 'boyfriends'.
“Oh hi, Reita, want to come in and have a cup of coffee? I just bought a new film, wanna watch it together?”
You played your game well, and calmly. A breakup to you wasn't game over. It was the next level, and you'd sit back, coffee in your hand while you waited for the stage to load, and I'd watch with mild curiosity.
Over the years I had known you, you had been through more relationships than I had been through bass guitars. A lot more. While my 'lovers' grew worn and tired with time, you barely even got used to the feeling of yours before it was switched out with a new one. I guess bass guitars and people are very different, or maybe I was just more used to hard wood than soft flesh. I didn't like the feeling of a new bass when I wasn't quite used to it yet, it didn't sit right in my hand, the strings sounded wrong. Then after a while, my grip adjusted and it felt like it was the perfect bass for me. I could tell all my instruments apart by their sound, one slightly more sharp, another more soft.
Whereas you preferred keeping your lovers for a few weeks. Any more than that and you became restless, uninterested, ready to move on. In the few relationships that lasted a while, I'd find you more often at my apartment than yours towards the end of the month, and if it stretched out any longer than that, you were hardly even home. It was as if you liked the mysteries, not knowing, not being used to. Maybe you were afraid that if you got used to someone, they would stop being interesting. Obviously that didn't apply to me, since you visited on a regular basis and never seemed to get bored of my dry jokes no matter how many times you'd heard them, your raspy laughter a comforting sound to my ears.
You never seemed to care about your lovers, or at least, you wouldn't let yourself. They could run away screaming and crying, or be at your feet begging you to let them stay, that even if you didn't love them it didn't matter because then at least they would have you. Pathetic, you told me, how they deluded themselves with sweet whispers of love, an illusion of what they could never have.
One day I had stayed the night at your place, I was woken up by yelling. Your boyfriend, or by the sound of it, your ex-boyfriend, was screaming at you, the same old things I'd heard over and over again. I got up from the bed and went to the bathroom, hearing his voice clearly even over the sound of the toilet flushing, and I humoured myself by trying to guess his next words based on the last sentence he said. First the accusations, then, when you didn't deny them, the questioning, why, why, why, and then the hurt ramblings about love. Soon he'll leave, I thought, washing my hands and listening for the slamming of the door and your cruel laughter echoing in the hallway.
In stead, I heard a crash and a dull thud, and I stormed out of the bedroom to see the table flipped, the coffee pot smashed, glass shards all over the floor and you atop them, blood trickling from your lip and your eye screwed shut as you held your face where he had punched you and groaned in pain. He was standing over you with a kitchen knife, his eyes menacing as he turned his head abruptly to look at me.
If anyone had counted, they would have discovered that it took me an astonishing two seconds to reach the kitchen, something that would have been impossible for my tired legs if there hadn't been a mix of anger and adrenaline coursing through my veins at that moment.
I wasn't counting. I was too busy breaking the fucker's jaw with my reckless punches.
He fell down on the ground and I kept hitting him, straddling his waist and tossing the knife away as I bruised his pretty face.“The fuck!?” he screamed, and I shut him up with my fist, only stopping when I felt your hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. Getting off him and sitting down next to your feet like a dog being asked by its master to cease its assault on the unfortunate burglar that had not read the “beware of the watchdog”-sign, I caught my breath and stared at him harshly. He held his jaw and looked at me furiously, but his eyes twitched in reflex and he cowered back when I clenched my fists.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment, you bastard,” your voice came above me, and he scrambled to his legs, limping slightly to the door.
“Fuck you, Ruki!” he bellowed, but he was quick to duck out when I got up and posed to move towards him. I turned to inspect your face for any cuts, lifting your hands and wincing as I discovered that the glass from the coffee pot had cut into your skin and left open wounds there. You gently withdrew your hands and smiled up at me, and I watched your nose scrunch up as you pulled a shard out of your palm.
“You didn't have to do that, you know.”
“Fucker was aiming a knife at you,” I spat, my eyebrows knitting together as rage welled up inside me.
Your hand brushed against my cheek and you tilted your head, watching my eyes intently. “What would you have done if he had killed me?”
“Castrated him with my own bloody hands.”
Your low chuckle soothed me, and I gave a tired smile before you pulled me into a hug, and I wrapped my arms around you carefully, gently feeling for any cuts along your back.
“Thank you for being here,” you whispered in my ear, resting your chin on my shoulder. I pictured your face now, serene despite the blood staining it, your eyes closed and your plump lips curved into a smile that was rarely seen on your face.
No matter how many boyfriends you had, a satisfying feeling of pride always washed up in me when I realised I never saw you actually smile at them. You'd give naughty smirks and half-assed grins, but I always saw right through them. I couldn't remember you ever giving one of your lovers a genuine smile, only fake ones that were washed away like writing in sand when the tide comes in. A real smile is one you can't hold back no matter how much you try, and even if you sometimes attempted to keep your composure, to seem calm and uninterested, there were times when the corners of your mouth pulled up involuntarily, and you would try to hide it behind your hand, or someone's back. Those smiles tugged at your lips when you were around the band, Kai's cheery nature especially contagious, Uruha's crude jokes getting to you, or Aoi's goofiness making you laugh out.
But you didn't even try to hide them when it was just the two of us. Maybe because we had been friends since high school, because I knew you so well and you felt comfortable around me. Or maybe because I was the only one who saw you with your lovers, who knew what was going and how you played out your game. It was soothing to see your smiles, because that meant that you were confident enough to bare yourself to me. It's one thing to be naked in the flesh, to show your body to someone else, because god knows you have done that to numerous men without meaning anything by it, but it's another thing completely to bare your emotions to someone and let people see how you feel.
All the men that have walked through your life have heard the same sentence fall from your lips. “I don't believe in love.” Simple as that, you tell them, you don't care about feelings and emotions and 'Hi honey, I'm home, how was your day?' But I know you are lying as much as you were when you first told them you loved them. Because you do care about feelings, or why else would you try to hide them so much? You keep your heart locked away, as if you were saving it for something, for someone, and you never express your emotions save for those few moments with us, the GazettE. I know you love the other members, after all, we have become like a family over the last decade, and I know you care about us as much as we care about you.
And despite the signs, despite the suspicion that had been growing the past year in my mind, I wasn't prepared for your next words. I don't think anyone could be, because it was such a blunt confession that at first I didn't even believe it when it fell from lips that had been spouting lies and deceits all their life. Or rather, when it came from a heart that had been hidden away from prying eyes and searching fingers for so long people were afraid it had stopped beating entirely.
“I love you, Reita.”
Confusion must have been written all over my face, because you laughed when you drew back and looked at my face, leaning forward to kiss my neck and bury your face in it, no doubt inhaling the scent of my skin that I knew calmed you down like drugs to a shaking addict.
I shocked even myself when I wrapped my arms around you and kissed the top of your head, nuzzling your hair that smelled of shampoo and dye. I guess I had known all along. For some people, sex was a personal thing that they did only with the person they would devote their entire life to, while they would openly show their love and affection for family and close friends. But people are different, and you were the opposite. You had sex just for the sake of having sex, for carnal pleasures and nothing more, but it took you a hell of a lot of guts to admit even to your best friends that you cared about them.
And maybe that's why I knew that this time, your words were genuine. Because you could sleep with a thousand men and not mean anything by it, but so far, I was the only one you had let close enough to your heart to know how you felt and what you thought, and undressing mentally was your equivalent to another man being naked in front of his wife at night. Others had seen your body, the curve of your ass and the veins on your dick. They had worshipped it, used it, stained it, and it had become worn out over the years, your skin rough and your voice raspy though you blamed that on the cigarettes.
But your heart was like a new vase, untouched and fragile, kept safely in cotton and bubble wrap so as to not get scraped, and you must have known that I would never do anything to break it because now you were offering it to me with trembling, frightened hands, and I was accepting with a reassuring smile.
“I love you too, Ruki.”
A/N: