Gravitation (General), Prompt #17
Title: Four Times Shuichi and Eiri Realized Being Just Friends Wasn’t Going to Work (and one time they realized it didn’t too much matter)
Fandom: Gravitation
Pairing/Characters: Eiri/Shuichi, Shuichi/OMC, Eiri/OFC, Hiro
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 17-Wish I didn’t love you
Word Count: 1,982
Summary: Eiri and Shuichi try the “just friends” thing.
Disclaimer: Gravitation and its characters do not belong to me.
[1]
Shuichi had seen him working at the coffee shop several times after the break up before he felt semi-comfortable speaking to him. He drummed his fingers nervously along his cup of some chocolaty kind of latte as he approached the writer’s table, nodding to the empty seat across from him.
“This seat taken?”
Eiri glanced up from his laptop, briefly. “No. Unless you see someone there that I don’t.”
“Smartass.” Shuichi smiled a little as he sat down. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he said, sounding vaguely amused by the question. “You’re holding up?”
Shuichi barely resisted sticking his tongue out; he opted instead for a serious answer, eyeing his latte, even though Eiri’s eyes were firmly settled on his laptop. “Sort of. If you listen to the next Bad Luck album when it comes out, please don’t take any offense to ‘Chainsaw My Heart’.”
Eiri’s fingers stilled for a moment and Shuichi looked at him, relaxing when the writer snickered and resumed typing.
“So, um, we’re okay?”
Eiri raised, lowered one shoulder. “I guess.”
Shuichi grinned at him. “We’ll be such good friends you’ll never know the difference!” His grin faltered when Eiri arched an eyebrow sharply. He blushed a little as he thought about his words. “I-I mean, except for-all the-obviously, we won’t-you know what I mean!”
“I know what you mean,” Eiri said, and he didn’t say much of anything else for a while.
Shuichi didn’t say much either, just took off the top of his latte and sipped at it. He’d never had a real ex before, so he wasn’t sure exactly how awkward was too awkward for a first reunion. He was pretty sure, though, that this was going fairly well.
“Hey.”
Shuichi looked up, a quizzical response on his tongue, but the ability to speak left him when Eiri reached over the table and gently wiped the foam off his upper lip.
“Moron.”
Aw, crap.
Shuichi swallowed, looked down at his cup again as he felt his eyes welling up. He felt such a strong desire to kiss the other man and he couldn’t and it sucked and he hated it.
“You’re the moron,” he mumbled, and the tapping of keys was his only (familiar) response.
[2]
“I have a date.”
Eiri was extremely proud of the barely noticeable pause in his stride. He kept his face expressionless as he removed the cigarette from between his lips and exhaled smoke. “With that American singer, I presume.”
Shuichi looked at him, eyes wide with surprise. “You know about Adam?”
Eiri rolled his eyes. “You’ve been all over the tabloids, dummy.”
“Oh, yeah.” He pouted a little. “I wanted to be the first to tell you.”
Eiri frowned, arched an eyebrow. What a sick, twisted individual. He returned his cigarette to its rightful place and slipped his hands in his pockets. Yes, he knew about Adam. The indie rock star from Iowa. He had shaggy hair, freckles, and a dimpled smile. His favorite person in the world was his mother and he loved celery sticks and he collected stamps. Eiri hated every little thing about him and wished he would go die in a cornfield somewhere.
“We’re talking about recording a song together,” Shuichi said, and Eiri wondered if he was being intentionally cruel or if he really was that clueless, “for his album. But instead of saying ‘featuring Shuichi Shindou’ or something like that, we’re thinking of replacing my name with ‘Eve’.” He laughed and smiled at Eiri, as if he expected him to take great delight in the news.
“…How cute.”
“I know, right?” They walked through the park in silence for a bit before Shuichi cleared his throat and asked, “You don’t mind, do you?”
Inside his pockets, Eiri’s fingers curled into fists. “You can’t ask me that if we’re going to be friends.”
“Okay.” Another silence followed, but it was short-lived. “But you don’t mind, do you?”
“That’s it,” he deadpanned. “No longer friends.”
“Don’t say that,” Shuichi laughed and Eiri wondered when Shuichi stopped taking him seriously. The singer reached over to latch onto his arm in a playful manner, and stopped just as his fingertips brushed Eiri’s sleeve, seeming to think better of it. He leaned in and brushed a quick, friendly kiss against Eiri’s cheek instead.
Eiri wasn’t sure if he was grateful or disappointed.
[3]
The day Shuichi and Adam had their first joint concert, Eiri was in France. He hadn’t planned on being in France until Shuichi had called to invite him to said joint concert.
“I can’t,” he’d said. “I have a book-signing tour. In France.”
He’d called Mizuki a minute later, told her to get him a book-signing tour. In France. Immediately.
He sat in the bar, listening to Serge Gainsbourg’s “Bonnie and Clyde”, and she came to him. Long black hair, shiny blue dress that hung off her bone-thin body, red lips that moved oh-so-enticingly when she greeted him with a seductive “Bonsoir.”
Eiri knew he was going to fuck her, so he didn’t waste time with meaningless chatter (although he would admit, he was glad she spoke English; he wasn’t very good at French) before taking her to his hotel. (Of course, once they were in bed, it didn’t really matter what language she spoke.)
She was his first in a long time; he didn’t want to think about why that was. He still knew what to do. How to touch her. How to move inside her. How to make her squeal and writhe and convulse and tighten and all those good things.
It wasn’t the fucking same.
He glared up at the ceiling as he smoked his post-coital cigarette. She dug around in her purse and pulled out an iPod before lying down beside him, her lithe naked body stretched out on top of the covers. She looked over at him from under her long dark lashes and asked in her heavily accented English, “Have you heard this? ‘Velvet Lover’?”
“No.” And he didn’t particularly want to, but he didn’t move away when she stuck one of the earplugs in his ear. It was only thanks to years of practice that he managed to keep the cringe off his face when the all-to-familiar voice began to serenade him.
“Adam, featuring Eve,” she read off her iPod screen. “How cute. Do you agree?”
“Hn.” He let the song play until he couldn’t stand it anymore; he took the earplug out, stubbed his cigarette out, and fucked her again.
[4]
Everyone in the neighborhood grocery store knew the exact moment that Shuichi Shindou found out about Claire.
5:24. Shuichi tossed the last item on his list (a frozen pizza; neither he nor Adam were much use in the kitchen) into the shopping cart.
5:25. Shuichi double-checked his list before heading for the checkout lane. He joined the line, whistled a Nittle Grasper tune as the cashier scanned the items of the elderly lady in front of him.
5:26. Shuichi idly glanced at the magazines on display, recognized one of the faces on a tabloid cover, and took a harder look.
5:27. Shuichi filled the entire store with his Rather Pissed Off cry of, “WHO THE FUCK IS THAT BONY SLUT?!”
Shuichi called Hiro once he got outside, not caring to hide the Rather Pissed Off-ness in his voice. “What do you know about this skinny bitch Yuki’s supposedly seeing?”
Hiro was silent for a moment, as if debating whether he should say anything or just hang up without getting involved. He sighed, resigned to a decision that probably hadn’t been much of a decision anyway. “Her name’s Claire. She came back with him, from France. She’s a Scorpio. Blood type is A positive. Measurements are-”
“Fuck.” He ran his free hand through his hair, scowling. “Fuuuck. She came back with him? So she’s-she’s living with him?”
“Presumably.”
“Fuck.”
“Mmhm,” he hummed, sounding far too…knowing. “You can’t have them both, you know.”
“What?” Shuichi’s brow furrowed, heart hammering and not in a good way because he knew Hiro was right, Hiro was always fucking right. “No, it’s not that, I just-I don’t want him with some random French whore! I mean, come on! He must’ve only known her for, like, two days! And she just leaves her home and goes off with him? She must be using him for his money or-or-”
“Maybe it was love at first sight.”
“God, Hiro, don’t make me sick.”
“Right.” He sighed, again. “Shu, sometimes you have to let your friends make bad romantic decisions.”
Shuichi’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing. Just-go easy on him. He’s probably…”
His heart started hammering again, but for a slightly different reason. “Probably what?”
“…Nothing. Just let it go, okay?”
Shuichi hung up, pocketed his cell phone. He ran both hands through his hair as he sank down to his knees on the sidewalk beside his grocery bags.
“Fuck.”
[5]
They met at an N-G party a few weeks later. Shuichi’s arm was draped across Adam’s shoulders; he dropped it the second he saw them. Eiri’s hand was placed lightly on the small of Claire’s back; he moved it down to a grip on her ass the second he saw them.
“Yu-Eiri, this is Adam.”
“Shuichi, this is Claire.”
“Adam, Claire.”
“Claire, Adam.”
“Oh, oui?” Claire grinned, reaching out to shake his hand. “Your music,” she gushed. “Je l’adore.”
Adam smiled tentatively, looking a little flustered; Claire had that effect on men. “Merci.”
“Parlez-vous Francais?”
“Uh, no.”
She laughed, he laughed, and Eiri and Shuichi exchanged glances.
Five minutes later, they were out on the balcony, alone. Eiri lit a cigarette and brought it to his lips, eyes trained on the view of the city at night. “He’s very American.”
Eyebrow arched, Shuichi came to stand beside him, propping his crossed arms on the railing. “Is that a compliment?” He rolled his eyes as Eiri raised, lowered one shoulder. “She’s very…” He trailed off, not wanting to say anything mean but not really wanting to say anything nice, either. “Are you in love with her?”
Eiri snorted. “No. What kind of question is that?”
“It pisses me off.” He pouted out at the city lights. “You and her.”
Eiri said nothing for a bit before turning slightly to look at the singer, frowning around his cigarette. “What do you want from me?”
Shuichi uncrossed his arms and met his stare, eyes already beginning to water with desperation. “I just-I just want to be a part of your life!”
Eiri glared, faintly. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew an aggravated stream of smoke to the side. “There’s only one part of my life,” he muttered, “that you belong in.”
“Then…let me back in that part?” Eiri glanced briefly at the party inside. Shuichi followed his eyes and shook his head. “Adam means about as much to me as Claire means to you.”
“I don’t know, I kinda like her.”
“You do not,” Shuichi scoffed. “You like her anorexic body and French accent.”
“Sounds about right.” Eiri smirked and ran his eyes over the younger man. “You don’t have either of those things.”
Shuichi’s eyes widened and his voice took on a rather frantic pitch. “I can start throwing up after meals and I-I can learn French! Lederhosen! No, wait, that’s not-Escargot! French fries! French toa-” He stopped, cut off by Eiri’s finger pressed to his lips.
“Hey,” the writer murmured. “You had me at hello.”
“But I didn’t say-”
“Nevermind.”
Eiri tossed the cigarette over the balcony railing and leaned in to kiss him. Shuichi kissed him back, eagerly, throwing his arms around his neck in a very romantic fashion. It wasn’t a friendly kiss at all, and Eiri was very grateful.
Fandom: Gravitation
Pairing/Characters: Eiri/Shuichi, Shuichi/OMC, Eiri/OFC, Hiro
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 17-Wish I didn’t love you
Word Count: 1,982
Summary: Eiri and Shuichi try the “just friends” thing.
Disclaimer: Gravitation and its characters do not belong to me.
[1]
Shuichi had seen him working at the coffee shop several times after the break up before he felt semi-comfortable speaking to him. He drummed his fingers nervously along his cup of some chocolaty kind of latte as he approached the writer’s table, nodding to the empty seat across from him.
“This seat taken?”
Eiri glanced up from his laptop, briefly. “No. Unless you see someone there that I don’t.”
“Smartass.” Shuichi smiled a little as he sat down. “How are you?”
“Fine,” he said, sounding vaguely amused by the question. “You’re holding up?”
Shuichi barely resisted sticking his tongue out; he opted instead for a serious answer, eyeing his latte, even though Eiri’s eyes were firmly settled on his laptop. “Sort of. If you listen to the next Bad Luck album when it comes out, please don’t take any offense to ‘Chainsaw My Heart’.”
Eiri’s fingers stilled for a moment and Shuichi looked at him, relaxing when the writer snickered and resumed typing.
“So, um, we’re okay?”
Eiri raised, lowered one shoulder. “I guess.”
Shuichi grinned at him. “We’ll be such good friends you’ll never know the difference!” His grin faltered when Eiri arched an eyebrow sharply. He blushed a little as he thought about his words. “I-I mean, except for-all the-obviously, we won’t-you know what I mean!”
“I know what you mean,” Eiri said, and he didn’t say much of anything else for a while.
Shuichi didn’t say much either, just took off the top of his latte and sipped at it. He’d never had a real ex before, so he wasn’t sure exactly how awkward was too awkward for a first reunion. He was pretty sure, though, that this was going fairly well.
“Hey.”
Shuichi looked up, a quizzical response on his tongue, but the ability to speak left him when Eiri reached over the table and gently wiped the foam off his upper lip.
“Moron.”
Aw, crap.
Shuichi swallowed, looked down at his cup again as he felt his eyes welling up. He felt such a strong desire to kiss the other man and he couldn’t and it sucked and he hated it.
“You’re the moron,” he mumbled, and the tapping of keys was his only (familiar) response.
[2]
“I have a date.”
Eiri was extremely proud of the barely noticeable pause in his stride. He kept his face expressionless as he removed the cigarette from between his lips and exhaled smoke. “With that American singer, I presume.”
Shuichi looked at him, eyes wide with surprise. “You know about Adam?”
Eiri rolled his eyes. “You’ve been all over the tabloids, dummy.”
“Oh, yeah.” He pouted a little. “I wanted to be the first to tell you.”
Eiri frowned, arched an eyebrow. What a sick, twisted individual. He returned his cigarette to its rightful place and slipped his hands in his pockets. Yes, he knew about Adam. The indie rock star from Iowa. He had shaggy hair, freckles, and a dimpled smile. His favorite person in the world was his mother and he loved celery sticks and he collected stamps. Eiri hated every little thing about him and wished he would go die in a cornfield somewhere.
“We’re talking about recording a song together,” Shuichi said, and Eiri wondered if he was being intentionally cruel or if he really was that clueless, “for his album. But instead of saying ‘featuring Shuichi Shindou’ or something like that, we’re thinking of replacing my name with ‘Eve’.” He laughed and smiled at Eiri, as if he expected him to take great delight in the news.
“…How cute.”
“I know, right?” They walked through the park in silence for a bit before Shuichi cleared his throat and asked, “You don’t mind, do you?”
Inside his pockets, Eiri’s fingers curled into fists. “You can’t ask me that if we’re going to be friends.”
“Okay.” Another silence followed, but it was short-lived. “But you don’t mind, do you?”
“That’s it,” he deadpanned. “No longer friends.”
“Don’t say that,” Shuichi laughed and Eiri wondered when Shuichi stopped taking him seriously. The singer reached over to latch onto his arm in a playful manner, and stopped just as his fingertips brushed Eiri’s sleeve, seeming to think better of it. He leaned in and brushed a quick, friendly kiss against Eiri’s cheek instead.
Eiri wasn’t sure if he was grateful or disappointed.
[3]
The day Shuichi and Adam had their first joint concert, Eiri was in France. He hadn’t planned on being in France until Shuichi had called to invite him to said joint concert.
“I can’t,” he’d said. “I have a book-signing tour. In France.”
He’d called Mizuki a minute later, told her to get him a book-signing tour. In France. Immediately.
He sat in the bar, listening to Serge Gainsbourg’s “Bonnie and Clyde”, and she came to him. Long black hair, shiny blue dress that hung off her bone-thin body, red lips that moved oh-so-enticingly when she greeted him with a seductive “Bonsoir.”
Eiri knew he was going to fuck her, so he didn’t waste time with meaningless chatter (although he would admit, he was glad she spoke English; he wasn’t very good at French) before taking her to his hotel. (Of course, once they were in bed, it didn’t really matter what language she spoke.)
She was his first in a long time; he didn’t want to think about why that was. He still knew what to do. How to touch her. How to move inside her. How to make her squeal and writhe and convulse and tighten and all those good things.
It wasn’t the fucking same.
He glared up at the ceiling as he smoked his post-coital cigarette. She dug around in her purse and pulled out an iPod before lying down beside him, her lithe naked body stretched out on top of the covers. She looked over at him from under her long dark lashes and asked in her heavily accented English, “Have you heard this? ‘Velvet Lover’?”
“No.” And he didn’t particularly want to, but he didn’t move away when she stuck one of the earplugs in his ear. It was only thanks to years of practice that he managed to keep the cringe off his face when the all-to-familiar voice began to serenade him.
“Adam, featuring Eve,” she read off her iPod screen. “How cute. Do you agree?”
“Hn.” He let the song play until he couldn’t stand it anymore; he took the earplug out, stubbed his cigarette out, and fucked her again.
[4]
Everyone in the neighborhood grocery store knew the exact moment that Shuichi Shindou found out about Claire.
5:24. Shuichi tossed the last item on his list (a frozen pizza; neither he nor Adam were much use in the kitchen) into the shopping cart.
5:25. Shuichi double-checked his list before heading for the checkout lane. He joined the line, whistled a Nittle Grasper tune as the cashier scanned the items of the elderly lady in front of him.
5:26. Shuichi idly glanced at the magazines on display, recognized one of the faces on a tabloid cover, and took a harder look.
5:27. Shuichi filled the entire store with his Rather Pissed Off cry of, “WHO THE FUCK IS THAT BONY SLUT?!”
Shuichi called Hiro once he got outside, not caring to hide the Rather Pissed Off-ness in his voice. “What do you know about this skinny bitch Yuki’s supposedly seeing?”
Hiro was silent for a moment, as if debating whether he should say anything or just hang up without getting involved. He sighed, resigned to a decision that probably hadn’t been much of a decision anyway. “Her name’s Claire. She came back with him, from France. She’s a Scorpio. Blood type is A positive. Measurements are-”
“Fuck.” He ran his free hand through his hair, scowling. “Fuuuck. She came back with him? So she’s-she’s living with him?”
“Presumably.”
“Fuck.”
“Mmhm,” he hummed, sounding far too…knowing. “You can’t have them both, you know.”
“What?” Shuichi’s brow furrowed, heart hammering and not in a good way because he knew Hiro was right, Hiro was always fucking right. “No, it’s not that, I just-I don’t want him with some random French whore! I mean, come on! He must’ve only known her for, like, two days! And she just leaves her home and goes off with him? She must be using him for his money or-or-”
“Maybe it was love at first sight.”
“God, Hiro, don’t make me sick.”
“Right.” He sighed, again. “Shu, sometimes you have to let your friends make bad romantic decisions.”
Shuichi’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing. Just-go easy on him. He’s probably…”
His heart started hammering again, but for a slightly different reason. “Probably what?”
“…Nothing. Just let it go, okay?”
Shuichi hung up, pocketed his cell phone. He ran both hands through his hair as he sank down to his knees on the sidewalk beside his grocery bags.
“Fuck.”
[5]
They met at an N-G party a few weeks later. Shuichi’s arm was draped across Adam’s shoulders; he dropped it the second he saw them. Eiri’s hand was placed lightly on the small of Claire’s back; he moved it down to a grip on her ass the second he saw them.
“Yu-Eiri, this is Adam.”
“Shuichi, this is Claire.”
“Adam, Claire.”
“Claire, Adam.”
“Oh, oui?” Claire grinned, reaching out to shake his hand. “Your music,” she gushed. “Je l’adore.”
Adam smiled tentatively, looking a little flustered; Claire had that effect on men. “Merci.”
“Parlez-vous Francais?”
“Uh, no.”
She laughed, he laughed, and Eiri and Shuichi exchanged glances.
Five minutes later, they were out on the balcony, alone. Eiri lit a cigarette and brought it to his lips, eyes trained on the view of the city at night. “He’s very American.”
Eyebrow arched, Shuichi came to stand beside him, propping his crossed arms on the railing. “Is that a compliment?” He rolled his eyes as Eiri raised, lowered one shoulder. “She’s very…” He trailed off, not wanting to say anything mean but not really wanting to say anything nice, either. “Are you in love with her?”
Eiri snorted. “No. What kind of question is that?”
“It pisses me off.” He pouted out at the city lights. “You and her.”
Eiri said nothing for a bit before turning slightly to look at the singer, frowning around his cigarette. “What do you want from me?”
Shuichi uncrossed his arms and met his stare, eyes already beginning to water with desperation. “I just-I just want to be a part of your life!”
Eiri glared, faintly. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew an aggravated stream of smoke to the side. “There’s only one part of my life,” he muttered, “that you belong in.”
“Then…let me back in that part?” Eiri glanced briefly at the party inside. Shuichi followed his eyes and shook his head. “Adam means about as much to me as Claire means to you.”
“I don’t know, I kinda like her.”
“You do not,” Shuichi scoffed. “You like her anorexic body and French accent.”
“Sounds about right.” Eiri smirked and ran his eyes over the younger man. “You don’t have either of those things.”
Shuichi’s eyes widened and his voice took on a rather frantic pitch. “I can start throwing up after meals and I-I can learn French! Lederhosen! No, wait, that’s not-Escargot! French fries! French toa-” He stopped, cut off by Eiri’s finger pressed to his lips.
“Hey,” the writer murmured. “You had me at hello.”
“But I didn’t say-”
“Nevermind.”
Eiri tossed the cigarette over the balcony railing and leaned in to kiss him. Shuichi kissed him back, eagerly, throwing his arms around his neck in a very romantic fashion. It wasn’t a friendly kiss at all, and Eiri was very grateful.