Spectrum
Title: Spectrum
Rating: G to PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Arashi/Arashi
Word count: 2380
Summary: What if an Arashi member loves a fellow member and they don’t return the favor? Because they love another member? And it turns out to be a circle of unrequited love?
Warnings/Notes: Just a little experiment and a masochistic writing exercise of sorts; thus, the set of drabbles. Keep your distance if you’re not too fond of angst (because this piece is dripping in it) and first person POV. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Blue
I wanted (want?) to hold on to you tight, even if your presence felt something like…hmm, I don’t know. A shirt fluttering violently on a clothesline, or something? You see, I’m not so good with words.
Hi! Hi. Hi?
“How does this make you feel,” you always whispered, in that strange, guttural voice that I still look for in every lonely crest of crashing waves. Even if you were waiting for me, even if you were something tangible, just a few hours away, it hurt to think about the round of your eyes and the laughter you fail so hard at containing.
Why should we stay quiet? I thought.
Even if explaining doesn’t come naturally to me, even though I say that I couldn’t care less, even though “let me be” escapes my mouth far often than it should, in front of you-
Never.
I didn’t want to keep you inside the corner of a drawer, like something precious I can only look at when I have the time, when no one’s looking. I don’t-I don’t like that.
Impossible.
-the first time you brought it up, it seemed like a lie. Perhaps it was a childish reaction, telling you not to lie. But that was all I could think.
Don’t lie! Stop lying!
I’m not perfect.
You left in the morning. You’re always rushing to places where I can never reach you.
I still think about pressing my lips on the map on your shoulder. Even now, I can still hear the sharp intake of your breath. The light in your eyes hurt, when you smile at me, the crinkles beside your eyes arranged like asymmetrical odes to everything that strike a chord in me in this world. I don’t know how else to describe your effect on me. Sometimes it’s just overwhelming. You’re…a special kind of pretty. Soft, piercing…just right. I wonder if you know that?
Yet you. You hide and hide. I lack words. I don’t know what to say, anymore, you see. And I don’t want to push myself any harder when you keep on turning away like that.
Where are you? Where do you keep disappearing to? Why are you not here, even if I can feel your skin against mine?
Maybe I can want you, but not have you.
I have painted you a thousand times in my head and this time around, you, looking at the neon-lighted sea of faces, bright, in awe, is the last. You are fast disappearing into the canvas.
How lucky for me that I can relearn quiet. The ink has yet to dry up.
*
Green
We’re still inseparable, right? Sometimes I’m not too sure.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.
Remember when we were young and rode the train together all the time? I know we’ll never trade off the ease of being chauffeured around the city or having our own cars for the hassle of taking trains again and squeezing in with all that humanity. But I kind of miss it. It’s interesting to see all those people and being part of something, for a few minutes a day. I don’t know how to explain it. It just made me feel like I’m part of this city. There are some days when I feel so disconnected with everything, and it’s weird. Like I’m an outsider.
Or maybe I just miss spending all that time with you, without any cameras rolling. Yes, that’s a definite possibility.
I think about you. I always think about you, in ways that you’ll probably tease and antagonize me for, if I admit to it.
Bad idea.
Scratch that. It’s ridiculous even thinking about having that conversation. Because one, I don’t know what to say, exactly. And two, it’s you. I don’t know what I can’t take less: you laughing, or you going completely quiet. Your eyes, all over me. I imagine it to feel a little bit like dying.
This is not normal, is it?
I thought I knew what I wanted, but I guess I don’t. My hurting him will disappoint you, but what’s there left to do? I don’t like lying, and I can always just shut up. That’s an option. I don’t deserve him. I don’t even want to think about what you would say about all that. Maybe I don’t even deserve you.
I can always just watch you from the sidelines thinking how annoying and beautiful you are. Beautiful…ugh. To be honest, thinking of you in that light will never stop grossing me out on some level, yet despite that, it feels like gospel truth to me. Your slouch, your sniggers, your observant eyes-I don’t know why, but I just see you clearly.
I’d know your hunched shape from across the tracks. From miles away.
But oh god.
You would hate me. Hate, hate, hate.
But I can’t stop daydreaming about us riding on a train. Again. Together. Maybe with your hand sneakily in my pocket, intertwined in my fingers. Yes, that would be nice.
*
Yellow
I can’t count on my hands the number of times I’ve said “I’m okay” even though a salty tear is traitorously cascading down my face. I’m stupid like that. I don’t know when to stop, because you keep on calling and calling, asking, asking all the time, and what am I supposed to tell you? The very thing that will drive you to my door, demanding to see why I’m crying as you hesitate to touch my face, the thought of wiping these tears only reflected in your eyes, because it’s far too hard for you to actually do it?
I know, I know. I’m unfair. I always have been, you know that. We may both have loose tongues but I know you’re far more sensitive than I am, and I’ve always kept that in mind. You pretend to be angry, so angry-but I know it hurts you so much to hurt me, that it’s kind of pathetic.
“I just want to know, for sure.”
Yeah, yeah.
How can you not see it, though? I’ve never stopped. But I still gave way to everything you thought you needed, the one you craved, because how could I not? How could I be against someone who makes you grin and blush like that? How could I not say that I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay!
I’m okay-even my mobile phone knows what I’m trying to say and automatically fills up my mail for me.
I’m okay-see, I can roll with the punches for the cameras and even give you a fond nickname, without the least bitterness.
J. I’m okay-until you believe it.
How could I not give you those things?
Yet with the way you look at me, it’s as if you think I’m the most despicable person on the planet, and at the same time, the most fragile. You can’t control your damn expressions: your thick knitted brows, the way you bite your lips and the hand on your hip-I keep on telling you, I know. I know your heart, without you saying a word. But there’s simply no reconciliation with your disgust and concern when it comes to me. You keep on asking if I’m fine-I feel what I feel, and I can probably say everything I’ve ever felt and still feel about you to your face, if you man up and stop giving me those looks of deep, disgusting concern, and if I so choose. But, you see, “I’m okay”-that’s all I will ever say, because you know what?
This is actually me,
loving you.
Like you did back then. So I want you to believe it when I say that I don’t care.
I’ll be honest; I never want to stop talking to you, even like this. But just don’t call me out on it if you’re not willing to give me what I had before, because I promise you, I’m a terrible person. Wait until I get over you. I’ll even say please. I’m actually doing you a fucking favor.
I’m okay, so can I please put the phone down now?
*
Violet
You’re nervous that I’m right, but you’ll never let your guard down enough to level with me.
And I’m fine with that. I don’t know how else to keep you except for keeping my mouth shut. Sometimes I still wonder what you’re thinking, even in those quiet moments when I think that I can’t know anything more about you-because we’re close, so close. Maybe it’s the touch of your skin that shuts me up. It’s the way you inch in to every crevice that needs filling and the way you worm into my system when no one’s looking.
The truth of the matter is I’ve always wanted you. I’ve hurt someone while trying to bury my desperation for you, and it’s not me, it’s really not, but when it comes to you, nothing and everything make sense.
Do you get me?
What am I even saying. Of course you don’t. No matter how close I get, it will never be close enough; no matter how much you give, I will always ask for more. Even though it kills me. Because you see, I want to get down to the bottom of you. The more you say that there’s nothing else I don’t know about you, the more I will search.
Come on. Say it.
Level with me.
You’re needy. I’m sick of you.
To me it’s just like a ticking time bomb, and I'm not armed with tools to diffuse the impending explosion. So here I am. Waiting. It’s just that I can’t believe that you could ever want me back the way I want you. You always brush me away when I tell you just how much, kindly enough for me not to have the guts to throw it back to your face. You’re so good at this.
Or maybe it’s just all in my head.
You fucking tear me apart and piece me back together in one go, and sometimes, I don’t think you even realize it. When I try to think rationally about why I feel so much for you, my mind just goes haywire in the effort of remembering, and all I’m left with in the end are snatches-your deep laughter, hot touch like missiles on target, the curt politeness I despise more than your temper. Everything about you is infuriating. And I will always just want to contain all of you, by my side and within me. There is no beginning or end when it comes to you. I don’t know if you’re a trap or my salvation. If I could discard you just like a piece of clothing then I would have, a long time ago, if it was that easy. Yet you cling on to folds of my skin, your expressions etched in my subconscious, you…everything about you.
I want you. I will always want you.
I have you.
But not really.
Just nod your head, just the slightest gesture, just a deep swallow-it has to be you. Don’t drive me to shoot my own foot. If nothing else, if not your love, just give me that.
Nod.
I will catch you in my arms and be gone in the morning.
*
Red
You will always be someone I deeply admire and look up to. You can do everything I can’t, see everything that my eyes can’t seem to catch, feel things then have no need for explaining afterwards.
You just are.
This might be silly, but I think you and I are polar opposites. Words are my ally, I’ve learned and found out that if something is explained in a logical way, things will turn out alright. But you, you never say anything much-yet somehow, you manage to communicate whatever it is that’s inside your head. We always joke around about how kids from elementary can talk better than you, but I guess the joke is really on us. The way you see the world, the way you express yourself manifest themselves in what you choose to say and if not say, then what you choose to show instead-it astounds me. I’m only tongue-tied when it comes to you, because I can’t quite explain my fascination with you, aside from your otherness and the fact that I’ve never met anyone else like you.
If I get the guts to even tell you all this, you’ll probably just laugh. And I’ll feel embarrassed for one second but forget about it afterwards because you would’ve already changed the topic or closed your eyes yet again, back to your own world.
I don’t know exactly how to say it, but I like you.
There.
Out in the open. Or at least, out in the open with regard to my feelings. I don’t know how to articulate that phrase though. I don’t know how I like you. It’s not that I’m saying that it’s a completely unthinkable thing for me to like you, but it’s just that I don’t know the nature of my liking you.
I’ve thought about you naked.
Yes. And the idea appealed to me, who wouldn’t it appeal to? But you see, it’s not entirely a question of physicality, it’s something else as well.
It’s like, you’re the first person I think of when I encounter something new. Something like, how would he react to this? Oh, he’d find this completely hilarious. Or, god, he’d find this so delicious.
Little, stupid things like that.
You’re an ideal to me, and it’s silly but something tells me that it’s better that way. I’m not someone prone to daydreams, but you’re the perfect dream to start with. I wonder how it would be like to kiss and fuck you, but I can’t even begin to imagine.
I’m just barely past the wrinkles your nose makes unconsciously.
This feels so, so wrong and maybe that’s the charm of it all.
I can't,
but maybe.
If.
But no. I'm just tired, I'm just tired, I'm just tired. It's just that, you make me smile.
Rating: G to PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Arashi/Arashi
Word count: 2380
Summary: What if an Arashi member loves a fellow member and they don’t return the favor? Because they love another member? And it turns out to be a circle of unrequited love?
Warnings/Notes: Just a little experiment and a masochistic writing exercise of sorts; thus, the set of drabbles. Keep your distance if you’re not too fond of angst (because this piece is dripping in it) and first person POV. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Blue
I wanted (want?) to hold on to you tight, even if your presence felt something like…hmm, I don’t know. A shirt fluttering violently on a clothesline, or something? You see, I’m not so good with words.
Hi! Hi. Hi?
“How does this make you feel,” you always whispered, in that strange, guttural voice that I still look for in every lonely crest of crashing waves. Even if you were waiting for me, even if you were something tangible, just a few hours away, it hurt to think about the round of your eyes and the laughter you fail so hard at containing.
Why should we stay quiet? I thought.
Even if explaining doesn’t come naturally to me, even though I say that I couldn’t care less, even though “let me be” escapes my mouth far often than it should, in front of you-
Never.
I didn’t want to keep you inside the corner of a drawer, like something precious I can only look at when I have the time, when no one’s looking. I don’t-I don’t like that.
Impossible.
-the first time you brought it up, it seemed like a lie. Perhaps it was a childish reaction, telling you not to lie. But that was all I could think.
Don’t lie! Stop lying!
I’m not perfect.
You left in the morning. You’re always rushing to places where I can never reach you.
I still think about pressing my lips on the map on your shoulder. Even now, I can still hear the sharp intake of your breath. The light in your eyes hurt, when you smile at me, the crinkles beside your eyes arranged like asymmetrical odes to everything that strike a chord in me in this world. I don’t know how else to describe your effect on me. Sometimes it’s just overwhelming. You’re…a special kind of pretty. Soft, piercing…just right. I wonder if you know that?
Yet you. You hide and hide. I lack words. I don’t know what to say, anymore, you see. And I don’t want to push myself any harder when you keep on turning away like that.
Where are you? Where do you keep disappearing to? Why are you not here, even if I can feel your skin against mine?
Maybe I can want you, but not have you.
I have painted you a thousand times in my head and this time around, you, looking at the neon-lighted sea of faces, bright, in awe, is the last. You are fast disappearing into the canvas.
How lucky for me that I can relearn quiet. The ink has yet to dry up.
*
Green
We’re still inseparable, right? Sometimes I’m not too sure.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.
Remember when we were young and rode the train together all the time? I know we’ll never trade off the ease of being chauffeured around the city or having our own cars for the hassle of taking trains again and squeezing in with all that humanity. But I kind of miss it. It’s interesting to see all those people and being part of something, for a few minutes a day. I don’t know how to explain it. It just made me feel like I’m part of this city. There are some days when I feel so disconnected with everything, and it’s weird. Like I’m an outsider.
Or maybe I just miss spending all that time with you, without any cameras rolling. Yes, that’s a definite possibility.
I think about you. I always think about you, in ways that you’ll probably tease and antagonize me for, if I admit to it.
Bad idea.
Scratch that. It’s ridiculous even thinking about having that conversation. Because one, I don’t know what to say, exactly. And two, it’s you. I don’t know what I can’t take less: you laughing, or you going completely quiet. Your eyes, all over me. I imagine it to feel a little bit like dying.
This is not normal, is it?
I thought I knew what I wanted, but I guess I don’t. My hurting him will disappoint you, but what’s there left to do? I don’t like lying, and I can always just shut up. That’s an option. I don’t deserve him. I don’t even want to think about what you would say about all that. Maybe I don’t even deserve you.
I can always just watch you from the sidelines thinking how annoying and beautiful you are. Beautiful…ugh. To be honest, thinking of you in that light will never stop grossing me out on some level, yet despite that, it feels like gospel truth to me. Your slouch, your sniggers, your observant eyes-I don’t know why, but I just see you clearly.
I’d know your hunched shape from across the tracks. From miles away.
But oh god.
You would hate me. Hate, hate, hate.
But I can’t stop daydreaming about us riding on a train. Again. Together. Maybe with your hand sneakily in my pocket, intertwined in my fingers. Yes, that would be nice.
*
Yellow
I can’t count on my hands the number of times I’ve said “I’m okay” even though a salty tear is traitorously cascading down my face. I’m stupid like that. I don’t know when to stop, because you keep on calling and calling, asking, asking all the time, and what am I supposed to tell you? The very thing that will drive you to my door, demanding to see why I’m crying as you hesitate to touch my face, the thought of wiping these tears only reflected in your eyes, because it’s far too hard for you to actually do it?
I know, I know. I’m unfair. I always have been, you know that. We may both have loose tongues but I know you’re far more sensitive than I am, and I’ve always kept that in mind. You pretend to be angry, so angry-but I know it hurts you so much to hurt me, that it’s kind of pathetic.
“I just want to know, for sure.”
Yeah, yeah.
How can you not see it, though? I’ve never stopped. But I still gave way to everything you thought you needed, the one you craved, because how could I not? How could I be against someone who makes you grin and blush like that? How could I not say that I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay!
I’m okay-even my mobile phone knows what I’m trying to say and automatically fills up my mail for me.
I’m okay-see, I can roll with the punches for the cameras and even give you a fond nickname, without the least bitterness.
J. I’m okay-until you believe it.
How could I not give you those things?
Yet with the way you look at me, it’s as if you think I’m the most despicable person on the planet, and at the same time, the most fragile. You can’t control your damn expressions: your thick knitted brows, the way you bite your lips and the hand on your hip-I keep on telling you, I know. I know your heart, without you saying a word. But there’s simply no reconciliation with your disgust and concern when it comes to me. You keep on asking if I’m fine-I feel what I feel, and I can probably say everything I’ve ever felt and still feel about you to your face, if you man up and stop giving me those looks of deep, disgusting concern, and if I so choose. But, you see, “I’m okay”-that’s all I will ever say, because you know what?
This is actually me,
loving you.
Like you did back then. So I want you to believe it when I say that I don’t care.
I’ll be honest; I never want to stop talking to you, even like this. But just don’t call me out on it if you’re not willing to give me what I had before, because I promise you, I’m a terrible person. Wait until I get over you. I’ll even say please. I’m actually doing you a fucking favor.
I’m okay, so can I please put the phone down now?
*
Violet
You’re nervous that I’m right, but you’ll never let your guard down enough to level with me.
And I’m fine with that. I don’t know how else to keep you except for keeping my mouth shut. Sometimes I still wonder what you’re thinking, even in those quiet moments when I think that I can’t know anything more about you-because we’re close, so close. Maybe it’s the touch of your skin that shuts me up. It’s the way you inch in to every crevice that needs filling and the way you worm into my system when no one’s looking.
The truth of the matter is I’ve always wanted you. I’ve hurt someone while trying to bury my desperation for you, and it’s not me, it’s really not, but when it comes to you, nothing and everything make sense.
Do you get me?
What am I even saying. Of course you don’t. No matter how close I get, it will never be close enough; no matter how much you give, I will always ask for more. Even though it kills me. Because you see, I want to get down to the bottom of you. The more you say that there’s nothing else I don’t know about you, the more I will search.
Come on. Say it.
Level with me.
You’re needy. I’m sick of you.
To me it’s just like a ticking time bomb, and I'm not armed with tools to diffuse the impending explosion. So here I am. Waiting. It’s just that I can’t believe that you could ever want me back the way I want you. You always brush me away when I tell you just how much, kindly enough for me not to have the guts to throw it back to your face. You’re so good at this.
Or maybe it’s just all in my head.
You fucking tear me apart and piece me back together in one go, and sometimes, I don’t think you even realize it. When I try to think rationally about why I feel so much for you, my mind just goes haywire in the effort of remembering, and all I’m left with in the end are snatches-your deep laughter, hot touch like missiles on target, the curt politeness I despise more than your temper. Everything about you is infuriating. And I will always just want to contain all of you, by my side and within me. There is no beginning or end when it comes to you. I don’t know if you’re a trap or my salvation. If I could discard you just like a piece of clothing then I would have, a long time ago, if it was that easy. Yet you cling on to folds of my skin, your expressions etched in my subconscious, you…everything about you.
I want you. I will always want you.
I have you.
But not really.
Just nod your head, just the slightest gesture, just a deep swallow-it has to be you. Don’t drive me to shoot my own foot. If nothing else, if not your love, just give me that.
Nod.
I will catch you in my arms and be gone in the morning.
*
Red
You will always be someone I deeply admire and look up to. You can do everything I can’t, see everything that my eyes can’t seem to catch, feel things then have no need for explaining afterwards.
You just are.
This might be silly, but I think you and I are polar opposites. Words are my ally, I’ve learned and found out that if something is explained in a logical way, things will turn out alright. But you, you never say anything much-yet somehow, you manage to communicate whatever it is that’s inside your head. We always joke around about how kids from elementary can talk better than you, but I guess the joke is really on us. The way you see the world, the way you express yourself manifest themselves in what you choose to say and if not say, then what you choose to show instead-it astounds me. I’m only tongue-tied when it comes to you, because I can’t quite explain my fascination with you, aside from your otherness and the fact that I’ve never met anyone else like you.
If I get the guts to even tell you all this, you’ll probably just laugh. And I’ll feel embarrassed for one second but forget about it afterwards because you would’ve already changed the topic or closed your eyes yet again, back to your own world.
I don’t know exactly how to say it, but I like you.
There.
Out in the open. Or at least, out in the open with regard to my feelings. I don’t know how to articulate that phrase though. I don’t know how I like you. It’s not that I’m saying that it’s a completely unthinkable thing for me to like you, but it’s just that I don’t know the nature of my liking you.
I’ve thought about you naked.
Yes. And the idea appealed to me, who wouldn’t it appeal to? But you see, it’s not entirely a question of physicality, it’s something else as well.
It’s like, you’re the first person I think of when I encounter something new. Something like, how would he react to this? Oh, he’d find this completely hilarious. Or, god, he’d find this so delicious.
Little, stupid things like that.
You’re an ideal to me, and it’s silly but something tells me that it’s better that way. I’m not someone prone to daydreams, but you’re the perfect dream to start with. I wonder how it would be like to kiss and fuck you, but I can’t even begin to imagine.
I’m just barely past the wrinkles your nose makes unconsciously.
This feels so, so wrong and maybe that’s the charm of it all.
I can't,
but maybe.
If.
But no. I'm just tired, I'm just tired, I'm just tired. It's just that, you make me smile.