[Multi-Chap] From Me To You (Chapter 7)
Title: From Me To You
Pairings: MaruDa, TaNaka friendship, NaKame friendship, JinDa friendship, RyoDa friendship, Junno/Jin/Ueda/Ryo/Kame friendship
Rating: G-PG
Genre: Fluff, it’s my specialty.
Warnings: Un-beta’d, and slow developing plot
Disclaimer: Most of the characters are real life idols of JE, and I only write fictional stuff about them. But the others are mine to claim.
Summary: True love - nothing needs to be said, nothing needs to be heard. Just by being together, I hope my overflowing feelings will reach you.
Previous chapters: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Chapter 7
“Nice day today, right son?” his father said in a friendly manner, his lips stretched into a thin line, smiling.
Tatsuya just kept on his expression of pure hatred, ignoring his father’s amiability. It didn’t matter if his father pretended to be friendly or loving, it was all still an act and he would still have the same feelings he’s had for years towards his parent.
Ueda Yashiro who received no response quickly hid his look of sadness and remorse with an even wider smile. “So I heard that you’re doing fine, with all the concerts and interviews and photo-shoots. If you get too busy, I can arrange a personal assistant for you, or maybe a proper manager, and-” he stopped when his son raised a hand to his face, shaking his head in disdain. “Okay, I understand.”
There was a moment of silence where Tatsuya just hung his head, eyes set downcast, not wanting to make contact with the person in front of him, while his father just worked his brain to say something, anything; that will shatter the frosty silence between the two of them.
“I-,” and his phone rang, so he decided to drop off the conversation.
Work, work, work, that’s all he ever thinks about. Tatsuya didn’t want to linger on that spot any moment longer, so he flitted, his footsteps quick and light.
Matsushita, the driver, saw this, and tried to call out his name but Tatsuya literally leapt up the stairs and ran inside the entrance of the concert hall, ignoring the two people of his past. His past was in the past, all put behind him, it didn’t belong here, in the present, nor was he planning to drag it on to his future.
The corridor was long, empty, and quiet. The only sound heard was his footsteps, his legs moving him to the auditorium stage. He had calmed down a little, but the unexpected meeting with his father had certainly ruined his mood, and his face was still stolid, tensioned and hard, his eyebrows dramatically curved down onto the bridge of his pert-button nose, his hands curling and uncurling, trying to suppress the discomfort within.
He slammed the door open, making it bump hard against the wall, and the sound of a stick dropping was heard. He looked up to see a very surprised Taguchi Junnosuke, his cello case on a chair beside him, and as Tatsuya drew closer, he picked up his fallen bow.
“That certainly gave me a shock. Morning, Uepi,” he grinned brightly, but not bright enough to lift up his friend’s mood. The latter just nodded in acknowledgement and swifted by him to where the piano was, sitting briskly on the piano stool.
“Ah, I almost forgot to tell you, the chair will arrive from the repair shop tomorrow maybe, so I hope you’ll be able to withstand the stool,” he joked, and laughed to himself, not even realizing Tatsuya’s sour look and hollow demanour.
The pianist started jamming some notes on the keys, randomly playing a classical piece, sounding exceptionally horrible and well, just terrible. The ‘repercussions’ of his playing filled the space, and bounced off the walls of the huge place, and Taguchi winced a little “I see you’ve been practicing, and I thought you liked this piece from Schumann.”
Suddenly Tatsuya slammed his palms on the keyboard, causing Taguchi to widen his eyes in utter shock, but that look melted into concern when he saw that his friend was puffing a little as if letting his frustration and anger out. “Hey, are you okay?”
The other ran his lithe fingers through his copper mane, releasing heavy puffs of breath now, and slowly, he calmed down, finally releasing all the past emotions that were bottled up.
It’s all in the past, it’s all in the past, he kept repeating to himself, trying to block the dark and depressing images of his childhood.
Taguchi walked up to him, “Uepi, what’s wrong? Is there something that’s stressing you?”
Tatsuya relaxed, slumping his shoulders down, and a reassuring smile crossed his face.
“Let’s just practice for a while, before the others get here,” he hand-signed with an expression that invited no argument.
*~*~*~*
Nakamaru Yuichi gazed through the wall of glass at the cascading waterfall in the rock pool, fringed by a miniature forest. Colourful birds dived from the branches of trees and swooped down on the tropical shrubbery, never flying out of the glass wall that imprisoned them in the office room.
He found it hard to believe that a mini replica of a rain forest was there, in that room of an office building, in the heart of a metropolitan city.
His assistant manager was sort of the guy that anyone would ponder on how odd he was for having such an interesting inclination and he even managed to build that jungle in his office room; a miniature rainforest with three colourful birds and a waterfall was in his office room for god’s sake, anybody could’ve find it extremely weird and almost disturbing in fact.
He frowned as one of the bird jumped inside the small pool while the other two started pecking at each other, trying to create a brawl perhaps.
The door opened and Koyama strode in with a pile of papers in his hand, while the other hand flipped through the white sheets of paper.
“Yo, Nakamaru,” he greeted as he sat down on his chair that was across the table from Yuichi and dumped the files to his desk.
“Hi, seems like you’re hands are full.”
“Are they ever not? I think the new young boss is out to get me, there’s always this smirk that’s a shade too dark on his sweet and innocent facial expression which makes me concede that he’s just being a benevolent tyrannical ruler with a concrete mask of innocence to cover up all his crimes,” he shuddered and Yuichi would’ve blown out laughing if that sympathy metre of his didn’t rise too fast and steady for his own good.
Instead, he just grinned. “Well, at least you’re still hanging on, good luck by the way.”
“Haha, I appreciate the well wishes.” He moved a little forward and folded his arms on the table, almost leaning in closer, looking intrigued yet at the same time, polite.
“So, what do you want from me? Anything that I could help you with? Love advice perhaps?” he prodded jokingly.
“No thanks,” one person is already enough, he thought to himself. “I heard that during the previous winter break you went volunteering for the disabled,” he started.
“Yeah, I did. Why do you ask?”
Yuichi bit his lips and looked a little reluctant. “Well, you see, the favour that I’m asking from you is actually kinda sudden but…”
*~*~*~*
It had been a few days since they properly met, excluding the night which involved Koki and Juri.
And it felt as if there’s this big black hole inside him, or to be exact, inside his heart. A dark void that wasn’t craving for food, nor coffee in that matter, it wasn’t screaming for home and his family, it wasn’t even fulfilled with a good night’s rest, but in reality, he hadn’t been able to get a nice and dreamy sleep for a few nights already, but that didn’t really bother him.
With a heavy sigh, he prepared dinner; roasted meat. Roasting was his battle weapon, one of his few limited specialties in the culinary world of cooking at home.
He indulged into his thoughts, his hands working to finish dinner, while Juri sat in the living room playing with Choco. He seemed really jubilant to have a young and naïve little boy as company to awe and laugh at his playful antics and tricks, but what he didn’t know was that it was going to be the last night where Yuichi baby-sit Juri.
These days, his master was really busy with work, and probably even with personal life issues that were quite a little too complicated for a dog like him, who preferred to stay at home all day, jumping and running around albeit not making such big of a mess in his master’s house.
“Nakamaru-Jiichan, Choco is eating your bunny slippers,” Juri prattled and chewed on his lips, quite enchanted by the sight of a small sized dog biting and forcing to stuff a pair of fluffy animal slippers into his even smaller mouth.
“Let him be, Juri. He’ll realize that it’s impossible to do so sooner or later,” the older drawled without even looking at the person he was talking to.
A lengthy silence ensued, except for the sound of a dog growling, the clanks of cooking utensils, and the forgotten television which was switched on earlier, now airing an idol show titled ‘Shoujo Club’.
Juri quietly made his way to the kitchen, and sat himself up on one of the chairs. “Do you have any chocolates?”
Yuichi walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a bar of Snickers. “Knock yourself out,” and he proceeded back to his work.
Juri stared at the bar of chocolate, finely wrapped and sealed, looking very tempting and sumptuous, and his eyes glittered with greed, he could already taste the sweetness that’ll melt in his mouth as he takes the first bite off the chocolatey goodness of the candy. Then his mind replayed to a certain scene which he could still remember very clearly, with every word that was spoken seared in his mind.
“Jiichan, you told me to never eat candy before meals, it’ll be bad for my stomach.”
Yuichi froze from cutting the vegetables. He swung and shuffled towards the kitchen table and picked up the Snickers bar, throwing it back into the fridge. “I knew that, I was just testing you that’s all,” with a nod of his head he placed his hands on his waist.
“Jiichan, you’re acting weird tonight. Have you gotten a fever? Are you sick?”
He frowned a little, as if calculating his words, and he then flashed a wide smile, “Dinner’ll be ready soon. So why don’t you clean up first while I cook, alright?”
With a last long stare, Juri jumped off the chair and went to the bathroom. The young man sighed and sagged his feet to the sink, looking out through the window, into the empty night sky that was like a black piece of paper, without any little dots of sparkling white stars. What is wrong with me?
After washing the dishes, he sat beside Juri on the couch, watching some random TV show that did not manage to catch his attention, he was just staring at the television screen and supposedly ‘watching’ what was aired. The door rang, and Juri leapt to his feet, running towards the front door as he chanted, “Onii-chan’s here!”
“Okay, okay, I’ll be there in a minute,” Yuichi got up lazily from the sofa and unlocked the door, letting Koki in.
“Hey there Juri,” he swooped him off the ground and carried him to the couch “How was your day? Did Uncle Yucchi here treat you well?”
“Mm-hm. But he was acting weird today. And Choco tried to eat his bunny slippers!” he jabbered childishly. Koki grinned “Did he now? And how did that turn out?”
“No good, he spit it back out and the bunny turned all gooey and distorted, they became bull-dogs instead.”
The older brother burst out laughing and finally he turned to his friend who was gazing almost emptily at the brotherly-love moment. “Hey, what’s the matter? You look lost.”
“Nothing really, just a little distracted perhaps,” he shrugged and tried a little smile.
They walked towards the front door after picking up Juri’s belongings, ready to depart. “Let me send you down,” Yuichi offered.
At the empty lobby, Yuichi kneeled down beside Juri and said gently, his kind deep-set eyes locked onto the boy’s, “So I guess I won’t be seeing you in a while huh? Take care, little guy.”
The little boy held back stinging tears in his eyes and threw his arms around Yuichi’s neck.
After a while Koki voiced out “Come on now, we could always come here to intrude him if you suddenly feel like seeing him. Let’s go home.”
Yuichi smiled faintly “Then I’ll be waiting for the intrusion.”
He watched as they waved him goodbye, waving back until the two brothers became little figures that disappeared into the night. His hand dropped, and he turned to go back inside the building. And then he saw him.
*~*~*~*
When he thought that the meeting with his father was going to be the last one for at least a couple of years, he was downright wrong.
Ueda Yashiro’s thin but formidable figure draped in a sophisticated black suit looked like a crow, perched up on a chair in the waiting room where the reporters usually stand to wait outside the dressing room in the back part of the concert hall building. He stood up, looking relieved to see his son striding into the room, but the look disappeared at once when he received a threatening scowl.
He recouped his composure and said in an even voice “I know you’re busy, but there’s something I need to give you.”
Tatsuya crossed his arms, waiting as his patience grew thinner by each second.
“Here,” his father handed out a brown envelope. When his son frowned and glared, he retorted back in a mellow tone “It’s something that’ll benefit you…” a long pause. “I…I hope it will make up for- for the things I’ve done,” he continued quietly, his voice quivering with a little uncertainty, his words barely above a whisper.
Tatsuya’s chest was burning with rage and also anxiety; how dare his father say that? What could possibly ever be done to compensate for the harsh and unforgivable things that he had done to his own son? And why now? When he was at the peak of his career, building a life which he was sure to be free from any hurt, like the pain that harmed him in the past; why now, so suddenly?
He just stabbed a poisonous glare towards his father, who eventually said, “I’ll leave it here,” he put the envelope on a table behind him and walked towards the door.
Before he left, he said in a profoundly hurt tone of voice, which failed to give birth to any hint of commiseration in Tatsuya, “Please, just, take a look at it,” and the young man was left alone in the room.
It didn’t take much from Taguchi and the other members of the orchestra to know that their main star for the show wasn’t feeling up for practice, so they ended it early, calling it a day before dinner time.
Before Taguchi left he dared himself to check on his friend who was sitting idly near the piano, his fingers trailing the black and white keyboard, his expression lost, his mind somewhere far-etched.
He tapped his shoulder lightly, “Hey, we’re already leaving. Do you want to have dinner together? I’m planning to meet up with the others tonight, maybe you’d like to come?” But his invitations were declined with a simple gesture, Tatsuya simply shook, but he smiled warmly to Taguchi, regarding him with well wishes as he said goodbye and left him in the wide space of the auditorium.
He’d like to just forget about the whole charade created by his father, bury it somewhere deep where he’ll never find it, discard it without any second thoughts, just throwing it away into the deep ocean of his mind where it’ll be lost forever.
Rather than kindling warm feelings towards his parent, it made him feel even more infuriated and angry.
He had tried so hard to forget the dreadful things that had fallen upon him as a child, the agonizing and excruciating experience that he went through was left behind, he had coerced it to disappear, erasing it from his memory.
But that man just had to appear in front of him again, talking about compensating for what he had done, it was rubbish, he didn’t need to contemplate about it; he would never ever forgive him, or the others.
Yet, when he went home that night, the brown envelope that was left earlier was stowed deep inside his bag, cramped between his other belongings.
*~*~*~*
His hands were jammed inside his pockets as he scurried home from the concert hall.
Rather than thinking about what had happened between him and his father, he thought about what he should have for the late-dinner that night since his stomach was grumbling to be fed.
Though between the intervals of deciding what to eat, his mind flew to the mysterious brown envelope that was buried inside his bag, what could possibly ever be audaciously given to him to replace what he had lost? He frowned and the issue about dinner was easily forgotten.
As he reached closer to his building apartment he released a heavy and shaky breath that was meant to be a sigh, and looked up.
His gaze was reciprocated by another’s, and during that short moment, their eyes locked onto each other, and finally broke off with a smile from the other.
He could feel himself smiling too as he walked up the stairs and stood beside him.
“Hi.”
He nodded, and waited while the other seemed to be flicking his tongue along his lips to say something coherent.
Nakamaru Yuichi. He noted that this person was someone he could easily get along with; that was his early impression. He needn’t feel uncomfortable being around him, and much to his own surprise, communicating with the other was somewhat easy; fluid and smooth, almost like second nature, eventhough he had no voice and the other did not understand sign language.
So it came as a very big astonishment to him when the other suddenly moved his hands, movements that were conveyed as “How was your day?”
He blinked back in surprise, and had to jump-start his brain to force himself to nod, reluctantly moving his hands; “It was okay.”
Then a grin was plastered on the other’s face, replacing the nervous look he wore, “You don’t need to be so surprised, all it took was some practice and learning.”
Tatsuya’s lips pulled into a smile, “Would you like to accompany me for dinner?”
*~*~*~*
Stuffing his stomach to a point where he swore to never have chicken breast meat and beef stew for dinner ever again wasn’t a real problem nor was it such a big issue that he couldn’t actually understand every single thing hand-signed by Tatsuya, it was probably the fact that he really didn’t understand every single thing conveyed by the other party and he actually found it enthralling to stuff himself with the food prepared by the other.
Plus, he was just sorting out his feelings which by the way he hadn’t done in a very long period of time, or frankly speaking; never, so sitting together, happily having a late night dinner at Tatsuya’s apartment, having him cook for them, really did tighten his guts and he imagined that his intestines were probably tied into a ribbon.
But luckily for him, the younger didn’t ‘say’ much, so he was sort of safe. But something was definitely off about him though Yuichi hadn’t gathered enough courage to ask why.
He sat languidly on the couch while Tatsuya brought over some soda and motioned for him to come over to the balcony, where they could see the night sky, just like how their first dinner went.
As they lounged on the steel holding taking short sips from their cans of carbonated drinks, they watched emptily as the cars below roved on the road along the lifeless pedestrian walk one by one, slowly decreasing as the clock ticked by.
Yuichi stole a glance of Tatsuya’s side profile out of the corner of his eye, overwhelmed by the beauty of the person beside him, even from that angle.
That was how he really felt during the first time they met; he was extremely overwhelmed by his enchanting, almost bewitching in fact, good looks that he occupied his mind for the rest of the day and coincidence brought them to their second meeting the next evening. And not to forget he found out that Tatsuya was his neighbour when he saw him before leaving for work on the same day, and humiliated himself by almost tripping over a crack, yet still feel absurdly elated when a stranger treated him warmly by just a simple hand wave.
Nobody really had ever made him feel that way before.
And as the soft breeze flew by, a familiar but faint fragrance wafted to him, and a scene where cherry blossom trees surrounded him, raining him with their pink petals, came to his mind even though it was summer, and he remembered the moment when he first heard Tatsuya playing the piano. At that time, serenity dampened him inside out; his mind, his body, even his soul, felt euphoric and calm.
Before long, the side profile was replaced by a front view of his face, and Yuichi stepped back a little, his heart rate a bit faster, hoping that the ogling hadn’t been too obvious.
“Er, nice night tonight isn’t it?” Stupid, what kind of question was that? ‘Nice night tonight isn’t it’ my ass, that wasn’t even a proper question!
Tatsuya giggled a little, and soon nodded exuberantly, letting his smile go all out and uninhibited. Yuichi stiffened a bit, letting the blush creep up his cheeks, and allowing his heart to thump at a rate faster than usual; and it was confirmed, his questions had been answered. And Kamenashi’s voice which spoke softly but full of conviction rang through his head;
If that person's presence brings happiness
If seeing their smile makes your day
If their scent calms you down and makes you feel peaceful
If just standing side by side, without even saying or doing anything, feels like the best thing in the world…
Then there you have it.
He was in love.
Chapter 8
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A.N : I think the next chapter will be more firey than this one. A lot of problems will be questioned but not many will be answered.
Have you noticed that the update this time was quite fast? LOL. I hope I'll be able to update again in the near future :)
HSJ's new single is great, I'm listening to it non-stop. And Pandora Hearts was okay too, I quite liked it.