Gift (File #01)
Title: Gift (File #01: The Haunting)
Chapter: 01/??
Author: sweetXsweet
Fandom: JRock, Gazette
Pairings: In progress...
Overall Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Summary: Something disturbing decided to make contacts with Aoi in his own apartment...
+ + + + +
File # 01: The Haunting
First it was only clattering sounds he heard coming from his bedroom, just vaguely through his bathroom door. The sound of water prickling around him made it so faint that he thought it was just his imagination, or maybe he didn’t put something in its right position that it tilted and fell. He shook his head to get that off his mind, and was just about to get himself up from the tub as he heard a slight noise like someone pulled the bathroom door handle down. The sound wasn’t too vague this time, and he abruptly turned his head to his side, eyes widened but he found nothing. The bathroom door was still safely closed.
Aoi sighed, not in relief, because he felt his own breath trembling. He stood up, almost rushed himself to pull on a towel and wrap it around his waist, and pulled the plug off the bottom of the tub, letting water flow away. He paused for a second; hand on the door handle, as if hesitating to find what might jump at him from behind the door right after he opened it. But then he opened it, peeked between the slit, and then glided himself to his own bedroom.
He looked around, letting out another sigh when he found that everything was in their places. He grabbed his boxer and put it on haste, then his trousers and his shirt afterwards. But right when he was about to slide down his shirt down his arms, he felt something touching his still bare back that was a little damp after the bath. He froze at that incident; hands declining forward with his shirt still tangled between them, his back was left bare. His heart started pounding like crazy when he glanced over his shoulder, to find that there was absolutely nothing but empty air behind him. The eerie sensation on his back was gone as quickly as it came. Hesitantly, he started lifting his hands again to finish dressing, but this time, before the shirt fell down over his torso, that something made another contact with his uncovered back in an even worse detectable touch. It was cold, like a finger touching him after dipped into iced water, made Aoi’s every nerve shivered. The touch didn’t just go away this time, but it had traced halfway across Aoi’s back until he turned around and his heart jumped to his throat when he, again, found nothing there. His eyes franticly shot on every direction, but he found nothing. And then he felt air moving right before him, he could feel some cold sensation brushing his facial skin, but he glared at absolutely nothing.
That’s it, he thought, panicked. He grabbed his cell phone, car keys and apartment keys and dashed his way down to his car. He had no idea where he was driving himself to, just as long it took him away from his own room.
“Fuck,” he uttered; he hated scary places so much, but never had occurred to him that his apartment could be a place he would be running away from. He was driving like mad; and somehow that brought him to Uruha’s place.
He didn’t know why he drove himself here, hardly recalled the turns he made that brought him where he was now, knocking on his friend’s door. He looked down and found he was wearing his sandals wrong. Slightly embarrassed, he switched his sandals to their correct sides and looked up exactly as a highlighted brown head peaked from the slit made between the door and the wall.
“Aoi-kun?” Uruha’s forehead folded when he caught sight of his friend outside the door. He opened it wide to let Aoi slip in. “What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to take a rest after the practice?” The taller man closed the door behind them both and allowed Aoi to walk in and practically threw himself tiredly on the couch. The brighter lights in his living room made Uruha flinched as he realized how pale Aoi’s face was, sitting limply on his couch. His eyes ran down to Aoi’s hands, they were trembling.
“Oh my God, Aoi, what happened? You looked as if you have just seen ghost,” said Uruha, quickly jumped to sit right next to the other guitarist. He brought his hands to Aoi’s, rubbing them gently, trying to sooth them from the trembling.
Aoi sighed a huge relief this time, feeling slightly enlightened by Uruha’s hands. They were warm and caring. But he couldn’t with hold to blush when he turned to face Uruha and said, “Actually I was having a ghost company in my own apartment.” That was something he’d never let himself expose in front of anyone else, but Uruha’s eyes, though they widened in surprise for a second, now seemed comforting enough that he continued to tell what happened just now in his apartment.
Uruha did let his friend explain the whole story, the reason why he suddenly came knocking on his door. It wasn’t so late at night at all, Uruha didn’t mind. Well, even if it were late, Uruha would not complain to let this freaked out man in. He laid one of his hands to Aoi’s shoulder, chafing it so gently to calm him.
In the end of his story, Aoi was leaning back on the couch; head back against the soft plump cushions, tired and bothered but stopped trembling. Uruha’s hand still caressing his shoulder, he felt his heart beat slowing down, his blood stopped rushing inside him but now flowing almost normally.
“Any idea on who the ghost was?” asked Uruha softly. His eyes were peering at Aoi’s face, comforted by the view that it started to show color again. He shifted his hand that was on Aoi’s shoulder and moved it down to hold Aoi’s hands comfortably inside his palms.
Aoi shook his head. “Well, I wasn’t thinking to wave hello and ask his name,” he let out a faint smile, turning his head to meet his friend’s face.
Uruha still put on a serious expression. Aoi never really realized his friend could be this serious, but it made him happy that Uruha didn’t even put a single grin at his story, recalling at how ridiculous it must had sounded. “Maybe you bugged someone before he was dead. Or maybe you did something bad to someone’s grave. That’s not allowed, Aoi-kun,” Uruha said.
Aoi almost giggled at the brown haired man’s comment, if he didn’t remember the problem was about him. “What-I never bugged anyone. No one else but my band mates, actually. And no, I haven’t been to any cemetery to ravage anyone’s tomb, because honestly I’m not keen on doing that…”
Uruha tilted his head to his side, seemed to be thinking, leaving some silence to Aoi to ease himself on the couch, closing his eyelids. “Well then, why were you bothered? It was your apartment, and nothing weird had ever happened before…” he mumbled, almost talking to himself. And then for another minute he let the silence came between them, seemed busy with his own thoughts.
Most of the times Aoi didn’t come to this man for comfort over his problems, because Uruha had always been so careless in his eyes. He had often found Uruha solving problems in the oddest ways, almost weird and unthinkable, but the whole thing always prevailed to make Uruha looked as if he never had serious problems. But now, sitting at Uruha’s couch, he started to think that maybe his fellow here wasn’t so careless at all. He rested his hands, trusting them inside Uruha’s secure grasp.
Suddenly Uruha jumped off the couch, startled Aoi as he did so, losing the warmth he gained from Uruha’s grip. A wide grin stretched over the other guitarist’s face, the kind of grin that actually scared Aoi that he might had come to the perfectly wrong place for help. And Uruha’s words afterwards weren’t helping to appease his mind. “I think I know how to make you forget about that damn ghost tonight!” he said with the most childish grin Aoi had ever seen from his friend, and with that Uruha grabbed Aoi’s hand and half dragged him out of his apartment.
+ + + + +
Extra notes: This was written based on an interview where Aoi stated about the place he was most afraid to go to. I couldn’t really image Aoi freaking out in a haunted house like some scene in Ju-On, so he didn’t freak out in this part of the story (no, seriously, it would be deteriorating to see Aoi screaming and running frantically-that’s so not Aoi…). I’m into horror movies too much, I know that… Oh, I’m sorry, Aoi-kun… Didn’t mean to scare you…
go back to fanfic menu