Forever & Ever 41
Title: Forever & Ever (Miseinen Sequel)
Author: Zion Shadowlet
Beta: butterflysaga(the bitch)
Characters: Aoi, Uruha, Ruki, Reita, Kai and many OCs (Fuwa etc.)
Pairing: Aoi/Uruha and more~
Genre: Drama, Romance, Friendship, Comedy
Rating: NC17
Summary: Six years have passed since the summer at the Dazai Bright Future Retreat for Troubled Children. The boys meet in an unexpected way perhaps bound by fate in the underground world of Visual Kei. With broken hearts and promises; the boys-now young men look to regain some of what they lost by the wild and reckless pursuit of the same dream.
Previous Parts: Part 1.1 | Part 1.2 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.1| Part 4.2| Part 5| Part 6| Part 7.1| Part 7.2| Part 8.1| Part 8.2| Part 9| Part 10| Part 11| Part 12| Part 13| Part 14| Part 15| Part 16| Part 17| Part 18| Part 19| Part 20| Part 21| Part 22| Part 23| Part 24| Part 25| Part 26| Part 27| Part 28| Part 29| Part 30.1| Part 30.2| Part 31| Part 32.1| Part 32.2| Part 33| Part 34| Part 35| Part 36| Part 37| Part 38| Part 39| Part 40
“It was like something out of a movie,” Ruki wrote in a cheap spiral ring notebook. Blocks of scratched out sentences preceded it like a physical testament to the thoughts that swarmed inside of him. Why he was writing he could have given a million different reasons. Confusion. Pain. The desire to create something concrete out of the cloud of all that had happened. But none of the reasons really mattered. He needed to write because he needed to. He needed to put the tip of his pen on the surface of paper and feel the characters pour out of him. As he scratched out a sentence, he was like a man groping in the dark, finding the walls as he tried to make his way out, searching for a crack of a door or a knob.
“Have you ever loved someone so much…” “Life is such a fragile thing.” “If I could I would wipe it away with a touch…” “Out of my love, I wanted to become stronger...” All of these he wrote and then scratched them out as quickly as he had put them down. It all seemed too sudden, too quick to talk about it like that as if it would somehow betray the intensity of his feelings.
“It was like something out of a movie,” he wrote. Did he really want to start like this? But it was like something out a movie, wasn’t it? That was his first thought when he climbed out of the backseat of the car with Fuwa and a futile bouquet of irises in his hand and his heart terribly heavy inside of his chest. “Funerals are always like that-with the rain, the grey sky, the people all dressed in black, women with dark gloves and handkerchiefs crying, men with blank expressions, damp flowers. When you are watching, it feels hollow like a monochrome void where your insides have disappeared and you are left just feeling the weight of a profound moment not knowing at all what it’s really about. You just feel the immensity of it but it’s all too big to really understand.
It felt wrong to think that by linking it to the movies I was in some way stealing away from the significance of death as if walking out of that car with a bouquet of white lilies and Fuwa’s hand in mine, I was supposed to greet the thing that is Death itself at that moment. I don’t know if it was vain of me or not or even thinking that the eternal magnitude of Death could not be worth the passing of one man is vain in itself-I don’t understand any of it. When I followed Fuwa toward the crowd that had gathered outside, I felt like a child again. Lost and Confused. And I wanted to turn around and run away and not stop. I wanted to run away from it all. I didn’t want to see the casket. I didn’t want to hear the women crying. I didn’t want to smell the incense or the flowers or hear the prayers.
But where was I going to go? Everything I have was here.
I guess that’s what it means to be a man, isn’t it Isao?
Even on your death bed, you were such a vibrant man. And it’s almost madness that a dying man could be filled with so much life. For so many days, I envied you for your energy, for your hold on Fuwa’s heart, for your charisma, for your almost irritating, inextinguishable smile-but when I saw you alive for the last time in that pure white hospital bed, when you told me you wanted to speak to me alone and you reached across and grabbed my wrist and said in a voice so tired and so serious that you were almost like another man “Take care of him”-I learned for the first time what it means to truly love someone.
All I could do was nod. All the smiles, all the jokes, you had found the remaining bits of energy inside of you to create this last fantasy for him, didn’t you? On your death bed, you wanted to ease his pain. For that, I will always respect you.
I never cared for you, Isao. I hated the way you talked, the jokes you made, the parties you threw, the way you saw things. I hated living in your world and I hated that Fuwa loved you. I never thought in my wildest dreams that you would teach me what it meant to be a real man-a queen like you of all things.
And I didn’t run away on the day of the funeral not because I made that promise to you but because I had no choice. I couldn’t leave him. Out of my love for him, I needed to be stronger.” He paused and lifted up his pen from the paper. Outside of his window, the wind was blowing through the trees deep in the auburn glow of autumn and like a soft dry rain, the leaves falling from the branches danced in the air as they fell towards the ground where they would eventually wither away. He needed to write that. He needed to write about being stronger.
How did this become a letter to Isao? He didn’t think that he needed to say anything to him.
It has been a month since his death. It has been a month since Fuwa came home from the hospital and finding Ruki in the kitchen strumming away on his guitar, told him that Isao had finally passed. His head was hanging and his shoulders were slouching forward as if there was something in his chest that was pulling him downward. Before Ruki could get to his feet, the man who was always so strong, so in control, fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut; his weary and thin body was propped up against the refrigerator door as he shut his eyes tight.
That night, he let Ruki hold him as he fell asleep in his arms, worn out from the stress and the weight the world had put upon his shoulders, worn out from the tears, worn out from the pain. As he held him, he felt limp and aged and the weakness that he showed Ruki filled the young man with a strange fear he didn’t think existed inside of him, a fear that had stayed with him until the morning of the funeral when he realized that for all of Fuwa’s greatness, he was merely a man and that inside of Ruki there was love that was greater and stronger than either of them.
As they sat down amongst the crowd, Ruki reached over and grabbed Fuwa’s hand once more and squeezed it tightly. “I’ll be your rock,” he promised him inside of his heart and like a dutiful son, he conducted the funeral doing all the things Fuwa didn’t have the will to do: greeting the guests, receiving and giving the proper gifts, thanking the priest. When the apartment became unbearable to live in, haunted as it was by Isao’s presence, he found them a new place to live and hired movers. He learned to drive and he went to the store and bought the things they needed, he cooked and cleaned, he handled all the messy details of life, the bills, the rent. When things needed to be fixed, he dealt with it. When people who had been acquaintances of Isao called looking for him, he spoke with them and told them that Fuwa was still in mourning and couldn’t take their calls.
It had become hard for him to live a dual life at such a young age, living the life of a responsible and dutiful family man and the life of a young rock and roll musician. Often times, he would come home late after a day of working in the studio with the band only to sit at the kitchen table and shift through the bills and wash the dishes.
Fuwa for all his strength had become after Isao’s death a broken ghost of his former self. Most days, he merely laid in bed until Ruki would coax him to eat some breakfast or to step into a warm bath that he had prepared, making sure that it was a comfortable temperature and everything he needed was in reach. The dog Akira being a member of the most sensitive and caring species, grew very attached to him and would lay in bed next to him and would wag his tail sweetly and lick his face when he would silently cry, limply and lifelessly-not even having the strength to truly mourn anymore. He had lost weight and would barely speak. Most of the time, he would smile wanly at Ruki for his endless kindness and vigilance. Even now as Ruki sat in the study writing, Fuwa was lying there with his arm draped over the dog snuggled up next to him, his eyes staring blankly at the wall and his mind empty of thoughts.
“Out of my love for him, I needed to be stronger” he had written. He stared at the words on the page as he thought about the last couple of months, the time weighing down on him heavily and he felt as if then that his love was barely enough of Fuwa now. Time heals all wounds they say and yet, it is also known that lovers often die together, the other following their love into the great unknown only days later, or months, unable to bear the separation and the loneliness. As those thoughts entered his mind, Ruki felt a spark of urgency flair up in his chest and a pang of panic come over him. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let that happen. He refused. He slid off his chair and made his way to the bedroom where Fuwa was lying there with the dog just as he was when Ruki had last seen him several hours ago.
“Are you awake?” he asked as he stood in the doorway. They both had shared that room and at night, Ruki would hold him as they slept. He didn’t want Fuwa to sleep alone in fear that the night would become unbearable to a man that hasn’t slept by himself for 40 years.
Hearing his voice, Fuwa slowly turned his head and smiled his usual thin and weak smile but didn’t say a word.
“How are you?” He made his way over to the bed and sat down on the edge. The bedroom was impeccably clean and the blankets freshly laundered and the curtains drawn back and the windows slightly open letting in the fresh air. Ruki would even light sandalwood incense and buy fresh flowers to lighten up the room.
“I’m okay,” Fuwa replied, trying his best to seem so.
“I know you miss him,” Ruki looked down at his fingers. “He wouldn’t want you to take it so hard, you know that right?” Fuwa didn’t reply. And almost as if he couldn’t take it anymore, Ruki looked up and admitted in a fragile voice “I’m afraid, Toru.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized and his shame was evident in the broken tone of his voice. Gathering all of his physical strength, he sat up. Ruki hearing him move, turned and looked at him and seeing that the collar of his sweater was off, fixed it.
“Please don’t say that.” He completely turned around now and crawling over to him, sat down with his back against the wall. Shoulder to shoulder, the two of them stared at the ruffled bed sheets. “I don’t want you to die from a broken heart, Fuwa. Isao made me promise him that I would take care of you and to make sure you were happy-”
“Ruki-” He tried to interrupt him but Ruki continued in a louder voice.
“And I’m not going to stop trying. I just need to let you know that. And don’t tell me there is nothing I can do. Because even if it’s madness, I’m going to keep trying.”
Fuwa lifted up a frail hand and placed it over the young man’s who in return, hungrily and urgently wrapped his hand around his. “I am fortunate to be loved so dearly,” he smiled sweetly and placed his other hand over Ruki’s.
“Fuwa, what would you tell someone in your situation? Right now, I wish I had your wisdom. I feel lost. I don’t know what to do or what to say. Hm? What would you say?” He faced and moving even closer, pressed his body against his and rested his cheek on his shoulder.
“I would tell them to make a decision.”
“To live or die?”
“Yes.”
Ruki looked up and propped his chin on his shoulder, whispering into his ear “I know I can’t replace him, Toru. I’m not trying to but you can’t do this to me, you know that right?”
“I know,” he let his eyes fall.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” he turned and smiled at him.
Seeing the look in his eyes, Ruki quickly replied “No, you don’t understand.”
“What is there to understand, my dear little Ruki?” he squeezed his hand.
“Dear little Ruki,” he repeated. “You want to think of me as your son, don’t you?”
“I never said that,” Fuwa looked away again. In his mind, he searched for a way to avoid this conversation that incited so much frustration and anger out of the young man and shame out of Fuwa who avoided the topic as often as he could.
“I’m not your son.”
“I know. You have a father, a tough, stubborn father,” he responded trying to be humorous to some degree but failing miserably.
Ruki though, exhausted and afraid, was relentless. “You told me once that love was love, you remember?”
“I remember.”
“And that the distinction didn’t matter.”
“It really doesn’t. Whether I was your lover or your father or your friend, you would still look after me as you have done,” he smiled his thin smile and nodded. Akira sensing the mounting tension jumped off the bed and crawled underneath it.
“Fuwa,” he said in a strained voice almost like a desperate whine and moved even closer to him wrapping both his arms around his shoulders.
“You are right, Ruki. I need to want to live. You’re right,” he placed a consoling hand on the young man’s thigh and patted him almost awkwardly, doing his best to create a sense of physical distance.
“You know you are full of shit, Fuwa. You know that, don’t you?”
“Full of shit?” He didn’t think Ruki would ever say something like that to him and he was left somewhat stunned.
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, Ruki. I really don’t.”
“About us. You act like our relationship is friendly or familial and you know that isn’t true. Even when Isao was alive, you didn’t act like that with me and don’t deny it, normal people don’t cuddle their sons like you would to me, or talk to me the way you would. You know if you saw a man do that to his son, you would be disgusted by it so don’t give me that bullshit. Isao even knew it.”
“Ruki, I’m not prepared to have this conversation.” He could feel inside of his chest, his heart sink as if it were filled with water. Ruki was right but he was too afraid to confront its significance.
“Fuwa, you need to really start to live again, you know that right? You can’t make everything be about Isao, okay?”
“I know Ruki, I know,” he patted his leg again and took a deep breath.
“Look at me,” Ruki ordered and as soon as he did, he went in to kiss him but despite his physical weakness, Fuwa broke from his hold and moved away before his lips met his.
“No,” he lifted up his hands and shook his head. “That isn’t going to happen, Ruki. It isn’t.” He avoided the young man’s anxious eyes. His heart was racing so fast that it went straight to his head. His mouth went dry and he was at a loss for words.
“Why not Fuwa? Tell me. You aren’t cheating on Isao. Hell, I fucking waited for you and you know it. I didn’t say or do anything because of him. And we both know that he wouldn’t expect you to be alone forever. He wouldn’t want that,” Ruki pleaded.
“Ruki, it has nothing to do with Isao.” He still didn’t look at him. Scooting back away from him as much as he could, he finally got out of the bed and made his way toward the window.
“I’m not a child anymore…”
“Ruki, I’m way too old for you.”
“It baffles me that a man like you would say something like that. If you were talking about someone else, you wouldn’t think that.”
“It isn’t right for a man my age to be with boy like you.”
“I’m not a fucking boy anymore!” Ruki smacked the surface of the bed in agitation.
“Do you even know how much older I am?”
“I don’t give a fuck, Fuwa. I honestly don’t give a fuck. What does age have to do with it? When it’s just me and you, it’s just me and you. It doesn’t matter that I’m 20 and you’re 50-whatever age you are…”
“57, Ruki. I’m probably older than your father by 10 years.”
He was startled then by the numbers. He was much older than Ruki’s father and the fact that Fuwa was somehow right on this point, that the distance in age was almost astounding, that Ruki laughed. “That is a bit ridiculous,” he smiled cutely.
“So, you will stop this nonsense now?” Fuwa asked him pleadingly.
“No. I won’t.”
“You’re stubborn and selfish, you know that? And even if I allowed it, aren’t you afraid it will ruin our relationship? You think you want it but I’m not so sure you really do, Ruki. I can’t see how a young man like yourself could even want someone like me sexually. I’m old, Ruki and I wasn’t even that attractive when I was younger,” he rubbed his face with his hands irritably.
“Fuwa, you can’t be serious,” he narrowed his eyes at him.
“I can’t be? It’s absurd.”
“Absurd? How can you even say that? It’s absurd that that is coming out of Fuwa’s mouth.”
“I’m too old for you,” he enunciated each word slowly as if Ruki wouldn’t be able to understand them otherwise.
“According to who?”
“To…to…” He caught him. Fuwa searched his brain desperately as he tried to come up with an answer.
“You only think that because that’s what society tells you to think and even though you say such unconventional things, you really are straightlaced and proper, aren’t you?”
“Ruki…” he closed his eyes as if he were in pain. “To be honest, it has nothing to do with what people will think. I don’t know what is the right thing or the wrong thing and I’m afraid that if we were to have something like that, that it will harm you. Listen to me, it isn’t because I am brainwashed by society or any of that nonsense. It is because I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what one is supposed to do and I just don’t want to gamble and hurt you in the end.”
“How can it possibly hurt me? Tell me.”
“Fine,” he opened his eyes. “Maybe too…I’m afraid that I will get hurt. What if…what if…you regret it? What if you become disgusted by me? Or…or…And even if that didn’t happen, I don’t want you to waste your young years on me. You should find someone you can spend the rest of your life with. Ruki, if I’m lucky, I’ll have 20 more years at most. You shouldn’t throw your life away on me.”
“Fuwa, listen to yourself. How can you possibly believe the shit you are spewing?” Waste? Waste? You can’t be serious. I don’t want to waste what time we do have on being with anyone but you,” he crawled to the edge of the bed and like a cat sitting there, he looked up at him with large eyes. “Fuwa, why don’t you value yourself when everyone who has ever known you thinks the world of you? You’re the greatest man I’ve ever known and everyone, Kuramoto-who was even older than you said the same thing all the time. People live their whole lives not even amounting to what you are on your worst days. A moment is never ever wasted on you.”
“Ruki, please…” he took a deep sigh and sat down next to him in an attempt to console him. “I’m sorry I said that…”
“You’re just trying to shut me up because you are embarrassed by what I’m saying.”
“It is embarrassing,” he folded his arms and stared at the floor.
“Fuwa, I may be young but if there is anything I do know, it’s that I love you. I may be wrong sometimes…hell, I may be wrong about a lot of things. And I’ve fucked it up with everyone before because I loved myself more than them. I fucked it up with Reita and I’ve fucked it up with my parents but with you…I don’t know…I just…” he pouted like a child as he spoke. “You make me want to be a better person.”
Fuwa looked up and stared at the side of Ruki’s face. His cheeks were still full and his body was that of a 20year old whose frame resembled a teenager’s more than a grown man. Ruki wasn’t aware of how painfully young he was. His glowing youth radiated off him in his soft skin and his large doll-like eyes. Fuwa moved towards him and placing his hand on his round face, gently gathered his cheek’s fatness in his fingers. Ruki raised his eyes to his, knowing that he was thinking about just how young he was, touching him the way one might touch the face of a baby. “You are the only person who always beats me in an argument, you know that?”he smiled down at him tenderly. What was he hiding from, he wondered. He loved him and this young man returned his love almost furiously.
“Am I?” He returned his smile with a sweet one of his own. His cheeks bubbled up and his eyes narrowed into two charming half-moons.
Fuwa ran his thumbs down the surface of his face and coming to his chin, lifted it up. Leaning forward, he kissed him softly on his round expectant lips feeling inside of him, his heart pounding furiously against his ribcage.
“You’re trembling,” Ruki smiled playfully as he threw his weight backwards, pulling Fuwa on top of him and wrapping his arms around his neck.
The young man’s hair which he had dyed a bright blond color felt soft in-between his fingers are he ran his hand. “I remember when you were 14 years old. You probably don’t recall but the first thing I heard you say was a string of curse words,” he laughed as the memory came back to him of that summer 6 years ago at the retreat when Ruki with a group of other young boys like himself came in and sat around in a circle like they did every year, distant and angry.
“Don’t try to think of me as a kid,” he poked at his sides.
“I’m just saying. I never would have imagined in a million years that our relationship would come to this…that’s all...”
Before Fuwa became morose and pensive, Ruki quickly replied “I remember…some kid was calling you a fag or something like that,” he laughed as he thought about his younger, more aggressive self.
“You said something too like ‘Who cares if they suck dick?’” Fuwa found the whole thing extremely amusing. He laughed as if it were truly hysterical.
“Is it really that funny?”
“When a 14 year old boy who you just met by the way-randomly refers to you doing fellatio as if it were like taking out the garbage, the situation is a bit funny, especially when he is saying it my defense as if I needed him to defend to me,” he shook his head as chuckled.
“Fuwa, can I ask you something?” he asked suddenly. The look in his eyes was mischievous and the smirk that arched across his face was almost disconcerting.
“What?”
“Back then…did you…ever….” He bit his bottom lip as he worked himself up to the question. “Did you ever fantasize about having sex with me?”
“You aren’t seriously asking me this?”
“Well? What does it matter now? It’s not like you did anything…So?”
“Honestly? Once or twice maybe…And I felt horrible…really really horrible,” he diverted his eyes and tearing himself away from Ruki’s grip, laid down on his back.
Ruki turning on his side to face him, lifted up his hand and began to dance the tips of his fingers across Fuwa’s chest playfully. “You don’t have to feel bad about it. I wasn’t just some kid…”
“You were still 14.”
“And you’re a human being with human needs and human desires…”
“I must be some kind of pervert,” he said almost as if he weren’t listening to Ruki at all.
“You? A Pervert? Yeah right,” he laughed and scooted closer to him, nestling his face in the crook of his neck. “Was I the only boy you thought about?”
“Yes.”
“See…Doesn’t mean anything.” He lifted up his leg and wrapped it around him like a baby koala would hold onto its mother. “Fuwa~” he sang deeply into his ear naughtily.
Fuwa laughed tiredly. “There’s a problem when your boyfriend calls you by your surname…”
“Toru,” he quickly corrected himself.
“I know you feel weird calling me that because I’m so much older than you. It’s probably like walking on the bed with your shoes on, right?” Even though he was talking about it humorously now, he still couldn’t let it go. It felt strange to even refer to Ruki as “boyfriend.”
“No! It’s not like that. It’s just that everyone calls you Fuwa, Toru.” He quickly added the last part as if he were making a joke of it. “Should I call you something else?”
“I don’t care what you call me-well, actually I prefer Fuwa from you. The only people who called me Toru were my parents and Isao. It makes me feel like I’m being scolded in some way.” He chuckled and then sighed as if he were terribly exhausted.
Ruki lifted himself up on his elbows and crawling over him, peered down at his face as if he were inspecting it for something. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” he forced another smile.
“Hold still,” he said as he lowered himself down and pressed his lips against his. Underneath him, he could feel Fuwa stiffening up, still not used to this level of intimacy. The older man’s apprehension only convinced Ruki further that his physical affection should be even more forward as if he needed to break him in. Tilting his head, he kissed him again, this time softly threading his tongue into his mouth. With his lips still against his, wet and puckered, Ruki scolded “Why aren’t you kissing me back?”
Fuwa nodded quickly as if he would heed his orders and as soon as he resumed his kissing, he began to kiss him back somewhat awkwardly as if he were still confused. And he was. He hardly believed that this moment would come. What surprised him the most was not the fact he was experiencing intimacy with a man that wasn’t Isao but that it was with Ruki of all people, someone that in his heart since the moment that he met him, began to carve himself a special place inside of him like a force of nature, the way one sees snow for the first time and its existence like all things of the elements, becomes inevitably welded into one’s existence.
“For what it’s worth,” Ruki whispered as he pressed his forehead against his and rested it there. “I feel happy.”
“You’ve grown into a good man, Ruki,” he smiled warmly.
“I don’t know about that,” he giggled. “I’m just trying to not disappoint you.”
With another soft peck on the lips, Fuwa replied “You can never disappoint me.”
***
His name was Kouya and his definition of making love was to hold a man’s legs above his head and plunge his massive erect penis inside of his exposed asshole in a fast and aggressive motion. To his credit however, he cooed and baby talked, never letting his lover for the night forget that they were the most desirable man in the world-at least, that’s what Uruha thought at that moment when he looked up at his face contorted in pleasure, mumbling like a fool through his grunts and moans various over the top compliments. Periodically, he would let go of Uruha’s ankle and grab at his chin to hold his face in place as he rambled off a string of sayings like “God, you’re so beautiful” or “You look like an Angel.”
Despite Kouya’s enthusiasm, Uruha felt then and there as he was quite literally being drilled into the wooden floor of his own apartment, more pensive than usual. Neither of them had bothered to turn off the lights so he merely watched him in the lamps’ orange glow, considering what was happening as if he were observing it from afar. Did he always tell the man he happened to be fucking that night that he was beautiful or was those words intended for Uruha? He hardly realized it until now in the midst of Kouya’s furious pounding that this was a matter of great importance. It was the words that had given this particular man an advantage over all the other prowling homosexuals inside of that smoky bar who with hungry eyes, hawked from afar the new striking young man. It was usually the same crowd that gathered there, all looking to make a connection for the night, all looking to find a transient moment of love and heavenly bliss culminating finally and briefly on the creaking bed of some cheap love hotel or against a plastic bathroom stall or if they were fools enough, inside of their apartments only to forget their lover’s name the next day or even an hour after they had cummed for the last time, feeling stars explode inside of them like fireworks only to fall back to earth and back into their boring mundane lives where in the middle of the night, they felt so unbearably lonely they would find themselves back here to do it all over again.
Uruha however didn’t know this. He never been to gay bar or club before but even still like the others, he came looking for the same thing: Love. Even if that meant tightly shutting your eyes and shoving out your thoughts, concentrating only on the dick that you were either sucking, stroking, or feeling pulsing inside of you. No, Uruha had never been to a place like this before. And he hadn’t been with a man since he had last had Aoi.
He didn’t think he would want any other but for nights, he would toss and turn in his bed, touching himself as he was unwillingly arrested by some dark fantasy. At first, he only thought about Aoi. He would relive in detail the ideas that popped up suggestively in his head when he watched him from afar in the studio, sitting there with his guitar in his hands, playing carefully his part of the song into the microphone or when they had finished performing and Aoi would stumble into the back, sweaty and elated, riding high on the energy of the crowd. At those moments, Uruha couldn’t help but fantasize. He would see the door to some closet not too far from where Aoi was wiping his face with a towel and he would consider grabbing his arm and forcing him inside of there where he could run his hands across his body and kiss him passionately without anyone seeing or without Aoi resisting him, taken aback as he would be if Uruha had decided to suddenly do it. He would be standing close to him as they were about to go on stage in the dark and Uruha would have to fight the urge to press himself against him and feel his penis against his.
But these fantasies over time changed from being solely about Aoi and he would consider for a second what it would be like to be with a certain man that he met or even another friend of his, wondering what it would be like to have sex with Kai’s boyfriend with his massive penis, or what it would be like to be with Ruki, holding him down as he tried to uselessly squirm away from him. But these thoughts started to fade from being about certain people into being about random, made up faceless entities that would do whatever he wanted them to do. And he would toss in his bed, touching himself, shoving his hands inside of his mouth and into his hole, whimpering when he couldn’t replicate the sensations that he imagined inside of his head. When at last, he couldn’t take it anymore, he decided that he would just go out and find someone, anyone that could in the least bit satisfy him.
And the man that he finally picked was a good-natured construction worker, somewhere in his late 20’s with a buzzcut like a soldier and thick muscles. Kouya however, was hardly handsome. He didn’t have Aoi’s shapely lips or his high cheekbones or his lithe body but he did have an almost attractive arrogance about him. And he took chances. Sitting down on the stool next to Uruha, Kouya called out to the bartender “Get this Angel another one of whatever he’s drinking” as he turned and gave him a flirtatious smirk. “Never seen you before,” he said in a gruff voice. Uruha didn’t respond. “Name’s Kouya.”
“Kouyou.”
“Kouyou?” He laughed obnoxiously in a deep huff. “Well, I’ll be damned. I think we make a fine pair, Kouya and Kouyou, don’t you think?”
“Because we share the Kou?” Uruha asked him. His face was blank as he sipped his beer, examining the man’s features-not that that really mattered to him. He didn’t care if he was ugly or not.
“Yup, Kouya, Kouyou,” he smiled again, ignoring the almost insulting aspect of Uruha’s distant and direct personality. “Say, do you mind pushing all your hair out of your face.” Uruha did as he asked, tucking the long strands of dyed blonde hair behind his ears and the smile on Kouya’s face widened. “Wow,” he said as his eyes lit up as he examined his full pouty lips. “You are so beautiful, do you know that?”
“Depends on who you ask,” he replied as if the conversation was boring to him but as soon as Kouya had said those words, he felt something inside of him become light.
“You’re so beautiful! You’re like an Angel-or maybe even a Demon, you know…tempting and all.” He laughed again as if he had said something funny and scooted closer to him. “So tell me Beautiful, what do you do?”
“Play guitar.”
“I’m in construction. So, you in a band?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of band? Personally I like Jazz.”
“I hate Jazz,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I’m in a Visual Kei band.”
“What’s that?” Ever since Uruha’s rude retort, an amused smirk hovered over Kouya’s lips.
“It’s like X Japan or Luna Sea.”
“Ohhhhhhhh. Interesting. Beautiful and Talented then. So tell me Kouyou, what brings an ethereal being like yourself to a dump like this?”
Uruha was reluctant to answer at first but since he had nothing really to hide, he replied honestly “I want to find someone to spend the night with.”
“Well, if you would let me worship at your altar I would be more than willing.”
As Uruha relived the conversation at the bar, lying naked on his apartment floor, he realized suddenly what he had found so attractive about Kouya; the way that he had gushed over him with an almost comical adoration reminded him of Aoi’s cute and playful proclamations of love. Aoi would always say that to him, would always tell him how beautiful he was and pretend that he was some otherworldly being.
But it wasn’t the same as him in the end. Aoi never fucked like this. Even though Kouya had said “Let me make love to you, beautiful,” there was hardly anything sensual about him. He didn’t rock inside of him like a wave crashing to the shore the way Aoi would nor did kiss his ear breathing and talking to him in a low voice or put his callus-tipped fingers inside of his mouth so that he could run his tongue across them. But what he perhaps disliked the most about Kouya was not the fact that he was lacking in eroticism but that he had no sense of humor, he didn’t tickle or joke around or polar bear kiss. His voice too was gruff and manly and Uruha almost desperately needed it to have some annoying quality to it, the same way Aoi’s voice was nasally and scratchy.
Uruha almost randomly asked “Can you speak in the Kansai dialect?”
Kouya stopped his motions and with a tilt of his head asked “What?” Not hiding the fact that this was the most random thing that Uruha had said thus far. “No and why?”
“No reason,” he lied and closed his eyes tightly.
“Turn around,” Kouya ordered, void now of his former mirth. He wasn’t a fool. He knew that Uruha’s question had something to do with a former lover of his, and the idea of it pissed him off. After he had did as he was asked, the muscled construction worker with even more speed, relentlessly pushed himself inside of him revealing in his even more violent actions, an obvious anger towards him. Uruha in pain and in unexpected pleasure, screamed.
“I like this more,” he moaned, letting his wrists go out from underneath him. His face smacked against the floor but he didn’t care, all he could think about was the sensation of Kouya’s penis inside of him.
As soon as he came in a final thrust, Kouya pushed him away and threw himself on the floor as he panted and sweated like an animal in the heat. “You’re a fucking freak,” he said in between breaths.
Uruha didn’t care what he thought or what he said anymore. He laid on the cool wooden floor on his stomach, his eyes half closed and his mouth gaping open. His body was throbbing as he laid in his own semen but he didn’t care. Like he always did when he finished masturbating alone in his bed, he wanted nothing more than to follow up his high by holding Aoi, by pretending to bury his face into the crook of his arm and smell the scent of his skin and feel the softness of his underarm hair against his forehead. He closed his eyes and forced his mind to try to conjure up a vivid memory of him but it only made him more desperate. It was those moments that his hunger and need was so intense that he thought he was going to go mad.
“You know what, pretty boy,” Kouya got to his feet and snatched up his clothes. “Just go running back to that Kansai guy you want so badly.”
“It’s not so easy…” Uruha mumbled.
“Well, you know where to find me if you want to fuck again.” He got dressed and without even looking at him once more, headed towards the door. “Bye,” he said disinterestedly as he swung it open only to find another young man standing there with a guitar case in one hand and case of beer in the other. “You have a visitor,” Kouya announced to Uruha without removing his eyes from the stranger standing before him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Aoi said, narrowing his eyes at him. He could tell immediately by the man’s disheveled clothes and the flush in his face that he had just had sex and the realization that it could be with no one else but Uruha, wiped Aoi’s mind clean with anger.
Hearing his voice, Uruha snapping out of his daze, quickly got up off the floor. “Hold on,” he called out and crawling towards his clothes, got dressed as fast as he could.
“Name’s Kouya. I’m assuming you are in Kouyou’s band with him? But if you will excuse me, I’m going to be on my way.” He tried to slide past him but Aoi not sure of what he wanted to do, stood in front of him blocking his way. “Will you please move?”
“Did you just sleep with him?”
“Um…” He wasn’t sure if he should say anything. He didn’t know who this person was or what they knew about his sexuality.
“Let him pass, Aoi,” Uruha said finally appearing in the line of view. “Yes, I slept with him. He’s just some guy I met. He’s not important.”
“Yup, not important,” Kouya repeated irritably as he finally slid pass leaving Aoi standing there somewhat shocked.
Staring at the floor, Uruha asked awkwardly “What are you doing here?”
“I thought we agreed we were going to work on songs tonight…” Aoi stood there as a rush of emotions came over him. Even though he had told Uruha that it was okay to be with other people, he didn’t expect it to affect him like this. He didn’t know what to think or what to do but inside of him, a feeling of nervousness rose up to mingle in his heart with the gradually increasing need to maintain dominance-a feeling he didn’t think he had. Uruha was his and he felt as if he had to protect him, from what he didn’t know. And as the thought sat with him longer, that another man had put himself inside of Uruha, had stroked him, had eventually given him orgasm, a feeling not unlike an infuriated form of heartbreak came over him like a bout of madness. He was jealous. Possessive. Yet, at the same time he knew he was a fool to feel this way. He had given his permission and this is what he got in return. Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he hoped that Uruha if he were to move on-which he secretly did not want to happen, would find his happiness with a sweet girl that would look after him or if it were to be a man, someone sweet and caring like Reita, not some random gruff strange man who he barely knew.
“We said Wednesday. Today is Tuesday,” Uruha corrected as he stared at the floor unable to meet Aoi’s eyes.
“Oh…I thought…Well, it’s past midnight so…it’s Wednesday,” he replied almost stupidly.
The tension in the air was thick as the silence mounted between the two men who stood there awkwardly, each of them thinking about the man that he just left. The world around them never felt so lonely and Uruha, who had a strange feeling that he had done something wrong could not but help wonder if he had pushed Aoi even farther away from him. And the idea of it made him feel a moment of delirium. He had only wanted to get closer to him, didn’t he? In the end, that’s what it was about. Even when he thought that he was trying to wipe him out by closing his eyes and delving into a dark realm of lust and sex, it was all just a ploy and he realized it almost immediately. He couldn’t deny himself. Unlike others, he couldn’t maintain a delusional perspective of himself. He knew that he was still madly in love with him and that the longer that he was away from him, the world became two-dimensional and hollow.
“So, let’s get to work,” Aoi said walking into the apartment. He slammed the case of beer down on the counter revealing unwillingly just how upset he actually was. With his back facing Uruha, he bit his lip trying to prevent a string of cuss words directed at himself. Uruha hearing the loud thud, looked up at Aoi’s tense shoulders and the white knuckled fist around the cardboard handle of the case. He knew immediately that he was angry.
“Aoi…” he mumbled. “Um…I uh…I need to clean first….” It suddenly occurred to him that on the floor of the living room, he and Kouya had left a mess of their sexual fluids and if Aoi saw that he would become even more distressed if not disgusted. Without waiting for a reply, he quickly went farther into the cutaway kitchen and grabbed a paper towel.
“Seriously, Uruha?! Seriously?” he sighed as if he were winded.
He stopped in his tracks and looked up at him confused. “Excuse me?”
“THAT guy.” He pointed to the door. “You have sex with guys you don’t even know?”
“I don’t see….why…” He muttered in reply confused.
He spat out a “Nevermind” and nearly ripped the cardboard case in his pursuit to grab a can of beer. He needed something to direct his attention to.
Speedily, Uruha went into the living room and started to clean leaving Aoi standing there guzzling the beer as if he were a thirsty man freshly returned from being stranded in the desert. “I just don’t get it,” he said wandering into the living room. “You are the most beautiful man-no, most fucking beautiful person I’ve ever laid on eyes on,” he spoke as if he were arguing a point, gesticulating in the air with the can of beer in his hand. “And that has nothing to do with my feelings for you. But, you could have anyone you wanted. Anyone. You are so beautiful, it’s almost ridiculous. And you pick up THAT guy. He looks like he smells bad for godsake.”
Uruha, kneeling on the floor in the midst of cleaning just stared blankly up at him. “I can’t have you,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Aoi almost as if he had been slapped returned his stare. “I don’t count…” He felt like a fool, like a hypocrite, like an asshole. Who was he to say these things to Uruha when he was the one who had pushed him to such lengths? And now, he was showing him that he still loved him and he knew that to Uruha, it must seem like a cruel mockery. How much longer can things go on like this, Aoi wondered.
Uruha got to his feet and walked back to the kitchen where he disposed of the towel. Returning to the living room, he retrieved one of his guitars and sat down on the couch. “Let’s work,” he said telling Aoi indirectly that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“I’m sorry, Uruha…I’m sorry…”
“Sit down and play,” he ordered.
“Right…right…” he mumbled as he looked around like a idiot for the guitar he brought with him only to remember that it was still hanging over his shoulder. He sat down next to Uruha and took a long sigh. “Let’s do this…”
Grabbing a tuner that was on the coffee table in front of them Uruha began to tune his guitar. Almost as if he were stating something common place, he said “Aoi, all you have to say is the word and I’ll be yours again.”
[A/N Alas, I have posted. How are you doing readers? Did you miss me ^_- *dances her best Aoi dance impression and fails horribly* Well, I'm sure this chapter shocked the hell out of you or maybe not. I didn't think the first part would be so long but you know, since there was the time jump.....well, I don't know when the next time I will post will be. It may be tomorrow, or the day after...I'm not sure...
But on another note, the OLYMPICSSSS STARTTEDDDDD I love the Olympics. I cheer like mad for USA (which I am from if you didn't know) but sometimes, I cheer for others depending on the life story. You know how it is.]
Author: Zion Shadowlet
Beta: butterflysaga(the bitch)
Characters: Aoi, Uruha, Ruki, Reita, Kai and many OCs (Fuwa etc.)
Pairing: Aoi/Uruha and more~
Genre: Drama, Romance, Friendship, Comedy
Rating: NC17
Summary: Six years have passed since the summer at the Dazai Bright Future Retreat for Troubled Children. The boys meet in an unexpected way perhaps bound by fate in the underground world of Visual Kei. With broken hearts and promises; the boys-now young men look to regain some of what they lost by the wild and reckless pursuit of the same dream.
Previous Parts: Part 1.1 | Part 1.2 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.1| Part 4.2| Part 5| Part 6| Part 7.1| Part 7.2| Part 8.1| Part 8.2| Part 9| Part 10| Part 11| Part 12| Part 13| Part 14| Part 15| Part 16| Part 17| Part 18| Part 19| Part 20| Part 21| Part 22| Part 23| Part 24| Part 25| Part 26| Part 27| Part 28| Part 29| Part 30.1| Part 30.2| Part 31| Part 32.1| Part 32.2| Part 33| Part 34| Part 35| Part 36| Part 37| Part 38| Part 39| Part 40
“It was like something out of a movie,” Ruki wrote in a cheap spiral ring notebook. Blocks of scratched out sentences preceded it like a physical testament to the thoughts that swarmed inside of him. Why he was writing he could have given a million different reasons. Confusion. Pain. The desire to create something concrete out of the cloud of all that had happened. But none of the reasons really mattered. He needed to write because he needed to. He needed to put the tip of his pen on the surface of paper and feel the characters pour out of him. As he scratched out a sentence, he was like a man groping in the dark, finding the walls as he tried to make his way out, searching for a crack of a door or a knob.
“Have you ever loved someone so much…” “Life is such a fragile thing.” “If I could I would wipe it away with a touch…” “Out of my love, I wanted to become stronger...” All of these he wrote and then scratched them out as quickly as he had put them down. It all seemed too sudden, too quick to talk about it like that as if it would somehow betray the intensity of his feelings.
“It was like something out of a movie,” he wrote. Did he really want to start like this? But it was like something out a movie, wasn’t it? That was his first thought when he climbed out of the backseat of the car with Fuwa and a futile bouquet of irises in his hand and his heart terribly heavy inside of his chest. “Funerals are always like that-with the rain, the grey sky, the people all dressed in black, women with dark gloves and handkerchiefs crying, men with blank expressions, damp flowers. When you are watching, it feels hollow like a monochrome void where your insides have disappeared and you are left just feeling the weight of a profound moment not knowing at all what it’s really about. You just feel the immensity of it but it’s all too big to really understand.
It felt wrong to think that by linking it to the movies I was in some way stealing away from the significance of death as if walking out of that car with a bouquet of white lilies and Fuwa’s hand in mine, I was supposed to greet the thing that is Death itself at that moment. I don’t know if it was vain of me or not or even thinking that the eternal magnitude of Death could not be worth the passing of one man is vain in itself-I don’t understand any of it. When I followed Fuwa toward the crowd that had gathered outside, I felt like a child again. Lost and Confused. And I wanted to turn around and run away and not stop. I wanted to run away from it all. I didn’t want to see the casket. I didn’t want to hear the women crying. I didn’t want to smell the incense or the flowers or hear the prayers.
But where was I going to go? Everything I have was here.
I guess that’s what it means to be a man, isn’t it Isao?
Even on your death bed, you were such a vibrant man. And it’s almost madness that a dying man could be filled with so much life. For so many days, I envied you for your energy, for your hold on Fuwa’s heart, for your charisma, for your almost irritating, inextinguishable smile-but when I saw you alive for the last time in that pure white hospital bed, when you told me you wanted to speak to me alone and you reached across and grabbed my wrist and said in a voice so tired and so serious that you were almost like another man “Take care of him”-I learned for the first time what it means to truly love someone.
All I could do was nod. All the smiles, all the jokes, you had found the remaining bits of energy inside of you to create this last fantasy for him, didn’t you? On your death bed, you wanted to ease his pain. For that, I will always respect you.
I never cared for you, Isao. I hated the way you talked, the jokes you made, the parties you threw, the way you saw things. I hated living in your world and I hated that Fuwa loved you. I never thought in my wildest dreams that you would teach me what it meant to be a real man-a queen like you of all things.
And I didn’t run away on the day of the funeral not because I made that promise to you but because I had no choice. I couldn’t leave him. Out of my love for him, I needed to be stronger.” He paused and lifted up his pen from the paper. Outside of his window, the wind was blowing through the trees deep in the auburn glow of autumn and like a soft dry rain, the leaves falling from the branches danced in the air as they fell towards the ground where they would eventually wither away. He needed to write that. He needed to write about being stronger.
How did this become a letter to Isao? He didn’t think that he needed to say anything to him.
It has been a month since his death. It has been a month since Fuwa came home from the hospital and finding Ruki in the kitchen strumming away on his guitar, told him that Isao had finally passed. His head was hanging and his shoulders were slouching forward as if there was something in his chest that was pulling him downward. Before Ruki could get to his feet, the man who was always so strong, so in control, fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut; his weary and thin body was propped up against the refrigerator door as he shut his eyes tight.
That night, he let Ruki hold him as he fell asleep in his arms, worn out from the stress and the weight the world had put upon his shoulders, worn out from the tears, worn out from the pain. As he held him, he felt limp and aged and the weakness that he showed Ruki filled the young man with a strange fear he didn’t think existed inside of him, a fear that had stayed with him until the morning of the funeral when he realized that for all of Fuwa’s greatness, he was merely a man and that inside of Ruki there was love that was greater and stronger than either of them.
As they sat down amongst the crowd, Ruki reached over and grabbed Fuwa’s hand once more and squeezed it tightly. “I’ll be your rock,” he promised him inside of his heart and like a dutiful son, he conducted the funeral doing all the things Fuwa didn’t have the will to do: greeting the guests, receiving and giving the proper gifts, thanking the priest. When the apartment became unbearable to live in, haunted as it was by Isao’s presence, he found them a new place to live and hired movers. He learned to drive and he went to the store and bought the things they needed, he cooked and cleaned, he handled all the messy details of life, the bills, the rent. When things needed to be fixed, he dealt with it. When people who had been acquaintances of Isao called looking for him, he spoke with them and told them that Fuwa was still in mourning and couldn’t take their calls.
It had become hard for him to live a dual life at such a young age, living the life of a responsible and dutiful family man and the life of a young rock and roll musician. Often times, he would come home late after a day of working in the studio with the band only to sit at the kitchen table and shift through the bills and wash the dishes.
Fuwa for all his strength had become after Isao’s death a broken ghost of his former self. Most days, he merely laid in bed until Ruki would coax him to eat some breakfast or to step into a warm bath that he had prepared, making sure that it was a comfortable temperature and everything he needed was in reach. The dog Akira being a member of the most sensitive and caring species, grew very attached to him and would lay in bed next to him and would wag his tail sweetly and lick his face when he would silently cry, limply and lifelessly-not even having the strength to truly mourn anymore. He had lost weight and would barely speak. Most of the time, he would smile wanly at Ruki for his endless kindness and vigilance. Even now as Ruki sat in the study writing, Fuwa was lying there with his arm draped over the dog snuggled up next to him, his eyes staring blankly at the wall and his mind empty of thoughts.
“Out of my love for him, I needed to be stronger” he had written. He stared at the words on the page as he thought about the last couple of months, the time weighing down on him heavily and he felt as if then that his love was barely enough of Fuwa now. Time heals all wounds they say and yet, it is also known that lovers often die together, the other following their love into the great unknown only days later, or months, unable to bear the separation and the loneliness. As those thoughts entered his mind, Ruki felt a spark of urgency flair up in his chest and a pang of panic come over him. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let that happen. He refused. He slid off his chair and made his way to the bedroom where Fuwa was lying there with the dog just as he was when Ruki had last seen him several hours ago.
“Are you awake?” he asked as he stood in the doorway. They both had shared that room and at night, Ruki would hold him as they slept. He didn’t want Fuwa to sleep alone in fear that the night would become unbearable to a man that hasn’t slept by himself for 40 years.
Hearing his voice, Fuwa slowly turned his head and smiled his usual thin and weak smile but didn’t say a word.
“How are you?” He made his way over to the bed and sat down on the edge. The bedroom was impeccably clean and the blankets freshly laundered and the curtains drawn back and the windows slightly open letting in the fresh air. Ruki would even light sandalwood incense and buy fresh flowers to lighten up the room.
“I’m okay,” Fuwa replied, trying his best to seem so.
“I know you miss him,” Ruki looked down at his fingers. “He wouldn’t want you to take it so hard, you know that right?” Fuwa didn’t reply. And almost as if he couldn’t take it anymore, Ruki looked up and admitted in a fragile voice “I’m afraid, Toru.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized and his shame was evident in the broken tone of his voice. Gathering all of his physical strength, he sat up. Ruki hearing him move, turned and looked at him and seeing that the collar of his sweater was off, fixed it.
“Please don’t say that.” He completely turned around now and crawling over to him, sat down with his back against the wall. Shoulder to shoulder, the two of them stared at the ruffled bed sheets. “I don’t want you to die from a broken heart, Fuwa. Isao made me promise him that I would take care of you and to make sure you were happy-”
“Ruki-” He tried to interrupt him but Ruki continued in a louder voice.
“And I’m not going to stop trying. I just need to let you know that. And don’t tell me there is nothing I can do. Because even if it’s madness, I’m going to keep trying.”
Fuwa lifted up a frail hand and placed it over the young man’s who in return, hungrily and urgently wrapped his hand around his. “I am fortunate to be loved so dearly,” he smiled sweetly and placed his other hand over Ruki’s.
“Fuwa, what would you tell someone in your situation? Right now, I wish I had your wisdom. I feel lost. I don’t know what to do or what to say. Hm? What would you say?” He faced and moving even closer, pressed his body against his and rested his cheek on his shoulder.
“I would tell them to make a decision.”
“To live or die?”
“Yes.”
Ruki looked up and propped his chin on his shoulder, whispering into his ear “I know I can’t replace him, Toru. I’m not trying to but you can’t do this to me, you know that right?”
“I know,” he let his eyes fall.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” he turned and smiled at him.
Seeing the look in his eyes, Ruki quickly replied “No, you don’t understand.”
“What is there to understand, my dear little Ruki?” he squeezed his hand.
“Dear little Ruki,” he repeated. “You want to think of me as your son, don’t you?”
“I never said that,” Fuwa looked away again. In his mind, he searched for a way to avoid this conversation that incited so much frustration and anger out of the young man and shame out of Fuwa who avoided the topic as often as he could.
“I’m not your son.”
“I know. You have a father, a tough, stubborn father,” he responded trying to be humorous to some degree but failing miserably.
Ruki though, exhausted and afraid, was relentless. “You told me once that love was love, you remember?”
“I remember.”
“And that the distinction didn’t matter.”
“It really doesn’t. Whether I was your lover or your father or your friend, you would still look after me as you have done,” he smiled his thin smile and nodded. Akira sensing the mounting tension jumped off the bed and crawled underneath it.
“Fuwa,” he said in a strained voice almost like a desperate whine and moved even closer to him wrapping both his arms around his shoulders.
“You are right, Ruki. I need to want to live. You’re right,” he placed a consoling hand on the young man’s thigh and patted him almost awkwardly, doing his best to create a sense of physical distance.
“You know you are full of shit, Fuwa. You know that, don’t you?”
“Full of shit?” He didn’t think Ruki would ever say something like that to him and he was left somewhat stunned.
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, Ruki. I really don’t.”
“About us. You act like our relationship is friendly or familial and you know that isn’t true. Even when Isao was alive, you didn’t act like that with me and don’t deny it, normal people don’t cuddle their sons like you would to me, or talk to me the way you would. You know if you saw a man do that to his son, you would be disgusted by it so don’t give me that bullshit. Isao even knew it.”
“Ruki, I’m not prepared to have this conversation.” He could feel inside of his chest, his heart sink as if it were filled with water. Ruki was right but he was too afraid to confront its significance.
“Fuwa, you need to really start to live again, you know that right? You can’t make everything be about Isao, okay?”
“I know Ruki, I know,” he patted his leg again and took a deep breath.
“Look at me,” Ruki ordered and as soon as he did, he went in to kiss him but despite his physical weakness, Fuwa broke from his hold and moved away before his lips met his.
“No,” he lifted up his hands and shook his head. “That isn’t going to happen, Ruki. It isn’t.” He avoided the young man’s anxious eyes. His heart was racing so fast that it went straight to his head. His mouth went dry and he was at a loss for words.
“Why not Fuwa? Tell me. You aren’t cheating on Isao. Hell, I fucking waited for you and you know it. I didn’t say or do anything because of him. And we both know that he wouldn’t expect you to be alone forever. He wouldn’t want that,” Ruki pleaded.
“Ruki, it has nothing to do with Isao.” He still didn’t look at him. Scooting back away from him as much as he could, he finally got out of the bed and made his way toward the window.
“I’m not a child anymore…”
“Ruki, I’m way too old for you.”
“It baffles me that a man like you would say something like that. If you were talking about someone else, you wouldn’t think that.”
“It isn’t right for a man my age to be with boy like you.”
“I’m not a fucking boy anymore!” Ruki smacked the surface of the bed in agitation.
“Do you even know how much older I am?”
“I don’t give a fuck, Fuwa. I honestly don’t give a fuck. What does age have to do with it? When it’s just me and you, it’s just me and you. It doesn’t matter that I’m 20 and you’re 50-whatever age you are…”
“57, Ruki. I’m probably older than your father by 10 years.”
He was startled then by the numbers. He was much older than Ruki’s father and the fact that Fuwa was somehow right on this point, that the distance in age was almost astounding, that Ruki laughed. “That is a bit ridiculous,” he smiled cutely.
“So, you will stop this nonsense now?” Fuwa asked him pleadingly.
“No. I won’t.”
“You’re stubborn and selfish, you know that? And even if I allowed it, aren’t you afraid it will ruin our relationship? You think you want it but I’m not so sure you really do, Ruki. I can’t see how a young man like yourself could even want someone like me sexually. I’m old, Ruki and I wasn’t even that attractive when I was younger,” he rubbed his face with his hands irritably.
“Fuwa, you can’t be serious,” he narrowed his eyes at him.
“I can’t be? It’s absurd.”
“Absurd? How can you even say that? It’s absurd that that is coming out of Fuwa’s mouth.”
“I’m too old for you,” he enunciated each word slowly as if Ruki wouldn’t be able to understand them otherwise.
“According to who?”
“To…to…” He caught him. Fuwa searched his brain desperately as he tried to come up with an answer.
“You only think that because that’s what society tells you to think and even though you say such unconventional things, you really are straightlaced and proper, aren’t you?”
“Ruki…” he closed his eyes as if he were in pain. “To be honest, it has nothing to do with what people will think. I don’t know what is the right thing or the wrong thing and I’m afraid that if we were to have something like that, that it will harm you. Listen to me, it isn’t because I am brainwashed by society or any of that nonsense. It is because I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what one is supposed to do and I just don’t want to gamble and hurt you in the end.”
“How can it possibly hurt me? Tell me.”
“Fine,” he opened his eyes. “Maybe too…I’m afraid that I will get hurt. What if…what if…you regret it? What if you become disgusted by me? Or…or…And even if that didn’t happen, I don’t want you to waste your young years on me. You should find someone you can spend the rest of your life with. Ruki, if I’m lucky, I’ll have 20 more years at most. You shouldn’t throw your life away on me.”
“Fuwa, listen to yourself. How can you possibly believe the shit you are spewing?” Waste? Waste? You can’t be serious. I don’t want to waste what time we do have on being with anyone but you,” he crawled to the edge of the bed and like a cat sitting there, he looked up at him with large eyes. “Fuwa, why don’t you value yourself when everyone who has ever known you thinks the world of you? You’re the greatest man I’ve ever known and everyone, Kuramoto-who was even older than you said the same thing all the time. People live their whole lives not even amounting to what you are on your worst days. A moment is never ever wasted on you.”
“Ruki, please…” he took a deep sigh and sat down next to him in an attempt to console him. “I’m sorry I said that…”
“You’re just trying to shut me up because you are embarrassed by what I’m saying.”
“It is embarrassing,” he folded his arms and stared at the floor.
“Fuwa, I may be young but if there is anything I do know, it’s that I love you. I may be wrong sometimes…hell, I may be wrong about a lot of things. And I’ve fucked it up with everyone before because I loved myself more than them. I fucked it up with Reita and I’ve fucked it up with my parents but with you…I don’t know…I just…” he pouted like a child as he spoke. “You make me want to be a better person.”
Fuwa looked up and stared at the side of Ruki’s face. His cheeks were still full and his body was that of a 20year old whose frame resembled a teenager’s more than a grown man. Ruki wasn’t aware of how painfully young he was. His glowing youth radiated off him in his soft skin and his large doll-like eyes. Fuwa moved towards him and placing his hand on his round face, gently gathered his cheek’s fatness in his fingers. Ruki raised his eyes to his, knowing that he was thinking about just how young he was, touching him the way one might touch the face of a baby. “You are the only person who always beats me in an argument, you know that?”he smiled down at him tenderly. What was he hiding from, he wondered. He loved him and this young man returned his love almost furiously.
“Am I?” He returned his smile with a sweet one of his own. His cheeks bubbled up and his eyes narrowed into two charming half-moons.
Fuwa ran his thumbs down the surface of his face and coming to his chin, lifted it up. Leaning forward, he kissed him softly on his round expectant lips feeling inside of him, his heart pounding furiously against his ribcage.
“You’re trembling,” Ruki smiled playfully as he threw his weight backwards, pulling Fuwa on top of him and wrapping his arms around his neck.
The young man’s hair which he had dyed a bright blond color felt soft in-between his fingers are he ran his hand. “I remember when you were 14 years old. You probably don’t recall but the first thing I heard you say was a string of curse words,” he laughed as the memory came back to him of that summer 6 years ago at the retreat when Ruki with a group of other young boys like himself came in and sat around in a circle like they did every year, distant and angry.
“Don’t try to think of me as a kid,” he poked at his sides.
“I’m just saying. I never would have imagined in a million years that our relationship would come to this…that’s all...”
Before Fuwa became morose and pensive, Ruki quickly replied “I remember…some kid was calling you a fag or something like that,” he laughed as he thought about his younger, more aggressive self.
“You said something too like ‘Who cares if they suck dick?’” Fuwa found the whole thing extremely amusing. He laughed as if it were truly hysterical.
“Is it really that funny?”
“When a 14 year old boy who you just met by the way-randomly refers to you doing fellatio as if it were like taking out the garbage, the situation is a bit funny, especially when he is saying it my defense as if I needed him to defend to me,” he shook his head as chuckled.
“Fuwa, can I ask you something?” he asked suddenly. The look in his eyes was mischievous and the smirk that arched across his face was almost disconcerting.
“What?”
“Back then…did you…ever….” He bit his bottom lip as he worked himself up to the question. “Did you ever fantasize about having sex with me?”
“You aren’t seriously asking me this?”
“Well? What does it matter now? It’s not like you did anything…So?”
“Honestly? Once or twice maybe…And I felt horrible…really really horrible,” he diverted his eyes and tearing himself away from Ruki’s grip, laid down on his back.
Ruki turning on his side to face him, lifted up his hand and began to dance the tips of his fingers across Fuwa’s chest playfully. “You don’t have to feel bad about it. I wasn’t just some kid…”
“You were still 14.”
“And you’re a human being with human needs and human desires…”
“I must be some kind of pervert,” he said almost as if he weren’t listening to Ruki at all.
“You? A Pervert? Yeah right,” he laughed and scooted closer to him, nestling his face in the crook of his neck. “Was I the only boy you thought about?”
“Yes.”
“See…Doesn’t mean anything.” He lifted up his leg and wrapped it around him like a baby koala would hold onto its mother. “Fuwa~” he sang deeply into his ear naughtily.
Fuwa laughed tiredly. “There’s a problem when your boyfriend calls you by your surname…”
“Toru,” he quickly corrected himself.
“I know you feel weird calling me that because I’m so much older than you. It’s probably like walking on the bed with your shoes on, right?” Even though he was talking about it humorously now, he still couldn’t let it go. It felt strange to even refer to Ruki as “boyfriend.”
“No! It’s not like that. It’s just that everyone calls you Fuwa, Toru.” He quickly added the last part as if he were making a joke of it. “Should I call you something else?”
“I don’t care what you call me-well, actually I prefer Fuwa from you. The only people who called me Toru were my parents and Isao. It makes me feel like I’m being scolded in some way.” He chuckled and then sighed as if he were terribly exhausted.
Ruki lifted himself up on his elbows and crawling over him, peered down at his face as if he were inspecting it for something. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” he forced another smile.
“Hold still,” he said as he lowered himself down and pressed his lips against his. Underneath him, he could feel Fuwa stiffening up, still not used to this level of intimacy. The older man’s apprehension only convinced Ruki further that his physical affection should be even more forward as if he needed to break him in. Tilting his head, he kissed him again, this time softly threading his tongue into his mouth. With his lips still against his, wet and puckered, Ruki scolded “Why aren’t you kissing me back?”
Fuwa nodded quickly as if he would heed his orders and as soon as he resumed his kissing, he began to kiss him back somewhat awkwardly as if he were still confused. And he was. He hardly believed that this moment would come. What surprised him the most was not the fact he was experiencing intimacy with a man that wasn’t Isao but that it was with Ruki of all people, someone that in his heart since the moment that he met him, began to carve himself a special place inside of him like a force of nature, the way one sees snow for the first time and its existence like all things of the elements, becomes inevitably welded into one’s existence.
“For what it’s worth,” Ruki whispered as he pressed his forehead against his and rested it there. “I feel happy.”
“You’ve grown into a good man, Ruki,” he smiled warmly.
“I don’t know about that,” he giggled. “I’m just trying to not disappoint you.”
With another soft peck on the lips, Fuwa replied “You can never disappoint me.”
***
His name was Kouya and his definition of making love was to hold a man’s legs above his head and plunge his massive erect penis inside of his exposed asshole in a fast and aggressive motion. To his credit however, he cooed and baby talked, never letting his lover for the night forget that they were the most desirable man in the world-at least, that’s what Uruha thought at that moment when he looked up at his face contorted in pleasure, mumbling like a fool through his grunts and moans various over the top compliments. Periodically, he would let go of Uruha’s ankle and grab at his chin to hold his face in place as he rambled off a string of sayings like “God, you’re so beautiful” or “You look like an Angel.”
Despite Kouya’s enthusiasm, Uruha felt then and there as he was quite literally being drilled into the wooden floor of his own apartment, more pensive than usual. Neither of them had bothered to turn off the lights so he merely watched him in the lamps’ orange glow, considering what was happening as if he were observing it from afar. Did he always tell the man he happened to be fucking that night that he was beautiful or was those words intended for Uruha? He hardly realized it until now in the midst of Kouya’s furious pounding that this was a matter of great importance. It was the words that had given this particular man an advantage over all the other prowling homosexuals inside of that smoky bar who with hungry eyes, hawked from afar the new striking young man. It was usually the same crowd that gathered there, all looking to make a connection for the night, all looking to find a transient moment of love and heavenly bliss culminating finally and briefly on the creaking bed of some cheap love hotel or against a plastic bathroom stall or if they were fools enough, inside of their apartments only to forget their lover’s name the next day or even an hour after they had cummed for the last time, feeling stars explode inside of them like fireworks only to fall back to earth and back into their boring mundane lives where in the middle of the night, they felt so unbearably lonely they would find themselves back here to do it all over again.
Uruha however didn’t know this. He never been to gay bar or club before but even still like the others, he came looking for the same thing: Love. Even if that meant tightly shutting your eyes and shoving out your thoughts, concentrating only on the dick that you were either sucking, stroking, or feeling pulsing inside of you. No, Uruha had never been to a place like this before. And he hadn’t been with a man since he had last had Aoi.
He didn’t think he would want any other but for nights, he would toss and turn in his bed, touching himself as he was unwillingly arrested by some dark fantasy. At first, he only thought about Aoi. He would relive in detail the ideas that popped up suggestively in his head when he watched him from afar in the studio, sitting there with his guitar in his hands, playing carefully his part of the song into the microphone or when they had finished performing and Aoi would stumble into the back, sweaty and elated, riding high on the energy of the crowd. At those moments, Uruha couldn’t help but fantasize. He would see the door to some closet not too far from where Aoi was wiping his face with a towel and he would consider grabbing his arm and forcing him inside of there where he could run his hands across his body and kiss him passionately without anyone seeing or without Aoi resisting him, taken aback as he would be if Uruha had decided to suddenly do it. He would be standing close to him as they were about to go on stage in the dark and Uruha would have to fight the urge to press himself against him and feel his penis against his.
But these fantasies over time changed from being solely about Aoi and he would consider for a second what it would be like to be with a certain man that he met or even another friend of his, wondering what it would be like to have sex with Kai’s boyfriend with his massive penis, or what it would be like to be with Ruki, holding him down as he tried to uselessly squirm away from him. But these thoughts started to fade from being about certain people into being about random, made up faceless entities that would do whatever he wanted them to do. And he would toss in his bed, touching himself, shoving his hands inside of his mouth and into his hole, whimpering when he couldn’t replicate the sensations that he imagined inside of his head. When at last, he couldn’t take it anymore, he decided that he would just go out and find someone, anyone that could in the least bit satisfy him.
And the man that he finally picked was a good-natured construction worker, somewhere in his late 20’s with a buzzcut like a soldier and thick muscles. Kouya however, was hardly handsome. He didn’t have Aoi’s shapely lips or his high cheekbones or his lithe body but he did have an almost attractive arrogance about him. And he took chances. Sitting down on the stool next to Uruha, Kouya called out to the bartender “Get this Angel another one of whatever he’s drinking” as he turned and gave him a flirtatious smirk. “Never seen you before,” he said in a gruff voice. Uruha didn’t respond. “Name’s Kouya.”
“Kouyou.”
“Kouyou?” He laughed obnoxiously in a deep huff. “Well, I’ll be damned. I think we make a fine pair, Kouya and Kouyou, don’t you think?”
“Because we share the Kou?” Uruha asked him. His face was blank as he sipped his beer, examining the man’s features-not that that really mattered to him. He didn’t care if he was ugly or not.
“Yup, Kouya, Kouyou,” he smiled again, ignoring the almost insulting aspect of Uruha’s distant and direct personality. “Say, do you mind pushing all your hair out of your face.” Uruha did as he asked, tucking the long strands of dyed blonde hair behind his ears and the smile on Kouya’s face widened. “Wow,” he said as his eyes lit up as he examined his full pouty lips. “You are so beautiful, do you know that?”
“Depends on who you ask,” he replied as if the conversation was boring to him but as soon as Kouya had said those words, he felt something inside of him become light.
“You’re so beautiful! You’re like an Angel-or maybe even a Demon, you know…tempting and all.” He laughed again as if he had said something funny and scooted closer to him. “So tell me Beautiful, what do you do?”
“Play guitar.”
“I’m in construction. So, you in a band?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of band? Personally I like Jazz.”
“I hate Jazz,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I’m in a Visual Kei band.”
“What’s that?” Ever since Uruha’s rude retort, an amused smirk hovered over Kouya’s lips.
“It’s like X Japan or Luna Sea.”
“Ohhhhhhhh. Interesting. Beautiful and Talented then. So tell me Kouyou, what brings an ethereal being like yourself to a dump like this?”
Uruha was reluctant to answer at first but since he had nothing really to hide, he replied honestly “I want to find someone to spend the night with.”
“Well, if you would let me worship at your altar I would be more than willing.”
As Uruha relived the conversation at the bar, lying naked on his apartment floor, he realized suddenly what he had found so attractive about Kouya; the way that he had gushed over him with an almost comical adoration reminded him of Aoi’s cute and playful proclamations of love. Aoi would always say that to him, would always tell him how beautiful he was and pretend that he was some otherworldly being.
But it wasn’t the same as him in the end. Aoi never fucked like this. Even though Kouya had said “Let me make love to you, beautiful,” there was hardly anything sensual about him. He didn’t rock inside of him like a wave crashing to the shore the way Aoi would nor did kiss his ear breathing and talking to him in a low voice or put his callus-tipped fingers inside of his mouth so that he could run his tongue across them. But what he perhaps disliked the most about Kouya was not the fact that he was lacking in eroticism but that he had no sense of humor, he didn’t tickle or joke around or polar bear kiss. His voice too was gruff and manly and Uruha almost desperately needed it to have some annoying quality to it, the same way Aoi’s voice was nasally and scratchy.
Uruha almost randomly asked “Can you speak in the Kansai dialect?”
Kouya stopped his motions and with a tilt of his head asked “What?” Not hiding the fact that this was the most random thing that Uruha had said thus far. “No and why?”
“No reason,” he lied and closed his eyes tightly.
“Turn around,” Kouya ordered, void now of his former mirth. He wasn’t a fool. He knew that Uruha’s question had something to do with a former lover of his, and the idea of it pissed him off. After he had did as he was asked, the muscled construction worker with even more speed, relentlessly pushed himself inside of him revealing in his even more violent actions, an obvious anger towards him. Uruha in pain and in unexpected pleasure, screamed.
“I like this more,” he moaned, letting his wrists go out from underneath him. His face smacked against the floor but he didn’t care, all he could think about was the sensation of Kouya’s penis inside of him.
As soon as he came in a final thrust, Kouya pushed him away and threw himself on the floor as he panted and sweated like an animal in the heat. “You’re a fucking freak,” he said in between breaths.
Uruha didn’t care what he thought or what he said anymore. He laid on the cool wooden floor on his stomach, his eyes half closed and his mouth gaping open. His body was throbbing as he laid in his own semen but he didn’t care. Like he always did when he finished masturbating alone in his bed, he wanted nothing more than to follow up his high by holding Aoi, by pretending to bury his face into the crook of his arm and smell the scent of his skin and feel the softness of his underarm hair against his forehead. He closed his eyes and forced his mind to try to conjure up a vivid memory of him but it only made him more desperate. It was those moments that his hunger and need was so intense that he thought he was going to go mad.
“You know what, pretty boy,” Kouya got to his feet and snatched up his clothes. “Just go running back to that Kansai guy you want so badly.”
“It’s not so easy…” Uruha mumbled.
“Well, you know where to find me if you want to fuck again.” He got dressed and without even looking at him once more, headed towards the door. “Bye,” he said disinterestedly as he swung it open only to find another young man standing there with a guitar case in one hand and case of beer in the other. “You have a visitor,” Kouya announced to Uruha without removing his eyes from the stranger standing before him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Aoi said, narrowing his eyes at him. He could tell immediately by the man’s disheveled clothes and the flush in his face that he had just had sex and the realization that it could be with no one else but Uruha, wiped Aoi’s mind clean with anger.
Hearing his voice, Uruha snapping out of his daze, quickly got up off the floor. “Hold on,” he called out and crawling towards his clothes, got dressed as fast as he could.
“Name’s Kouya. I’m assuming you are in Kouyou’s band with him? But if you will excuse me, I’m going to be on my way.” He tried to slide past him but Aoi not sure of what he wanted to do, stood in front of him blocking his way. “Will you please move?”
“Did you just sleep with him?”
“Um…” He wasn’t sure if he should say anything. He didn’t know who this person was or what they knew about his sexuality.
“Let him pass, Aoi,” Uruha said finally appearing in the line of view. “Yes, I slept with him. He’s just some guy I met. He’s not important.”
“Yup, not important,” Kouya repeated irritably as he finally slid pass leaving Aoi standing there somewhat shocked.
Staring at the floor, Uruha asked awkwardly “What are you doing here?”
“I thought we agreed we were going to work on songs tonight…” Aoi stood there as a rush of emotions came over him. Even though he had told Uruha that it was okay to be with other people, he didn’t expect it to affect him like this. He didn’t know what to think or what to do but inside of him, a feeling of nervousness rose up to mingle in his heart with the gradually increasing need to maintain dominance-a feeling he didn’t think he had. Uruha was his and he felt as if he had to protect him, from what he didn’t know. And as the thought sat with him longer, that another man had put himself inside of Uruha, had stroked him, had eventually given him orgasm, a feeling not unlike an infuriated form of heartbreak came over him like a bout of madness. He was jealous. Possessive. Yet, at the same time he knew he was a fool to feel this way. He had given his permission and this is what he got in return. Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he hoped that Uruha if he were to move on-which he secretly did not want to happen, would find his happiness with a sweet girl that would look after him or if it were to be a man, someone sweet and caring like Reita, not some random gruff strange man who he barely knew.
“We said Wednesday. Today is Tuesday,” Uruha corrected as he stared at the floor unable to meet Aoi’s eyes.
“Oh…I thought…Well, it’s past midnight so…it’s Wednesday,” he replied almost stupidly.
The tension in the air was thick as the silence mounted between the two men who stood there awkwardly, each of them thinking about the man that he just left. The world around them never felt so lonely and Uruha, who had a strange feeling that he had done something wrong could not but help wonder if he had pushed Aoi even farther away from him. And the idea of it made him feel a moment of delirium. He had only wanted to get closer to him, didn’t he? In the end, that’s what it was about. Even when he thought that he was trying to wipe him out by closing his eyes and delving into a dark realm of lust and sex, it was all just a ploy and he realized it almost immediately. He couldn’t deny himself. Unlike others, he couldn’t maintain a delusional perspective of himself. He knew that he was still madly in love with him and that the longer that he was away from him, the world became two-dimensional and hollow.
“So, let’s get to work,” Aoi said walking into the apartment. He slammed the case of beer down on the counter revealing unwillingly just how upset he actually was. With his back facing Uruha, he bit his lip trying to prevent a string of cuss words directed at himself. Uruha hearing the loud thud, looked up at Aoi’s tense shoulders and the white knuckled fist around the cardboard handle of the case. He knew immediately that he was angry.
“Aoi…” he mumbled. “Um…I uh…I need to clean first….” It suddenly occurred to him that on the floor of the living room, he and Kouya had left a mess of their sexual fluids and if Aoi saw that he would become even more distressed if not disgusted. Without waiting for a reply, he quickly went farther into the cutaway kitchen and grabbed a paper towel.
“Seriously, Uruha?! Seriously?” he sighed as if he were winded.
He stopped in his tracks and looked up at him confused. “Excuse me?”
“THAT guy.” He pointed to the door. “You have sex with guys you don’t even know?”
“I don’t see….why…” He muttered in reply confused.
He spat out a “Nevermind” and nearly ripped the cardboard case in his pursuit to grab a can of beer. He needed something to direct his attention to.
Speedily, Uruha went into the living room and started to clean leaving Aoi standing there guzzling the beer as if he were a thirsty man freshly returned from being stranded in the desert. “I just don’t get it,” he said wandering into the living room. “You are the most beautiful man-no, most fucking beautiful person I’ve ever laid on eyes on,” he spoke as if he were arguing a point, gesticulating in the air with the can of beer in his hand. “And that has nothing to do with my feelings for you. But, you could have anyone you wanted. Anyone. You are so beautiful, it’s almost ridiculous. And you pick up THAT guy. He looks like he smells bad for godsake.”
Uruha, kneeling on the floor in the midst of cleaning just stared blankly up at him. “I can’t have you,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Aoi almost as if he had been slapped returned his stare. “I don’t count…” He felt like a fool, like a hypocrite, like an asshole. Who was he to say these things to Uruha when he was the one who had pushed him to such lengths? And now, he was showing him that he still loved him and he knew that to Uruha, it must seem like a cruel mockery. How much longer can things go on like this, Aoi wondered.
Uruha got to his feet and walked back to the kitchen where he disposed of the towel. Returning to the living room, he retrieved one of his guitars and sat down on the couch. “Let’s work,” he said telling Aoi indirectly that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“I’m sorry, Uruha…I’m sorry…”
“Sit down and play,” he ordered.
“Right…right…” he mumbled as he looked around like a idiot for the guitar he brought with him only to remember that it was still hanging over his shoulder. He sat down next to Uruha and took a long sigh. “Let’s do this…”
Grabbing a tuner that was on the coffee table in front of them Uruha began to tune his guitar. Almost as if he were stating something common place, he said “Aoi, all you have to say is the word and I’ll be yours again.”
[A/N Alas, I have posted. How are you doing readers? Did you miss me ^_- *dances her best Aoi dance impression and fails horribly* Well, I'm sure this chapter shocked the hell out of you or maybe not. I didn't think the first part would be so long but you know, since there was the time jump.....well, I don't know when the next time I will post will be. It may be tomorrow, or the day after...I'm not sure...
But on another note, the OLYMPICSSSS STARTTEDDDDD I love the Olympics. I cheer like mad for USA (which I am from if you didn't know) but sometimes, I cheer for others depending on the life story. You know how it is.]