7 Prices of Greed Chapter 13b
Title: 7 Prices of Greed (Chapter 13b/16)
Author: Yuki
Group: NEWS
Pairing: Kato Shigeaki x Nishikido Ryo, with bits of KoyaPi
Genre: AU, Supernatural, Action, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After an experimentation gone wrong, Tegoshi, Yamapi, Koyama and Massu were given different abilities - manipulation of electricity, freezing time, healing, and the generation of fire. Three years later, Shige was caught saved by the four, including another named Ryo. Shige takes an interest in Ryo, but what happens when he is told that because of a curse, Ryo is forbidden to feel human touch, and if he does, that person must pay the seven prices of greed? How do you love someone who you can’t touch…
A/N: Kind of a mix between X-Men, Heroes, and a love story~ :)
Previous:
( Chapter 1 )
( Chapter 2 )
( Chapter 3 )
( Chapter 4 )
( Chapter 5: Part 1 )
( Chapter 5: Part 2 )
( Chapter 6: Part 1 )
( Chapter 6: Part 2 )
( Chapter 7 )
( Chapter 8 )
( Chapter 9 )
( Chapter 10 )
( Chapter 11)
( Chapter 12 )
( Chapter 13a)
Chapter 13b: Crashing into the End
“I have pictures from today.” Ryo said as they reached the gate to the house. “They’re still in my camera but if you want to see them, you can.”
Shige smiled, “Of course.”
Ryo pushed open the swinging door with a slight creaking noise and when the two entered the backyard, the memories came in waves.
“It feels so strange being out here again,” Shige noted as he ran his fingers over the pole of the basketball net.
“It seems like everything happened out here.”
“Exactly. We came out here a lot, didn’t we?”
Ryo nodded and looked at the watch on his wrist.
9:23
Ryo had a strong desire to alone with Shige - away from the eyes of the skies and the people in the neighboring houses.
It could be called escaping. But even so, he was escaping to grab hold of a chance that was slipping away with every tick of his watch.
Time is always chasing you.
“Should we go in?” Ryo asked gently.
---
“I don’t remember anything good ever happening in here,” Shige said as they walked into Ryo’s bedroom.
It was far from an exaggeration. In this room he had been close to death, had met the mind controlling mutant twice, discovered his power and waited anxiously for Ryo to wake up after the incident at XMA.
“Maybe this room is cursed as well, then.” Ryo said as he walked over to a pile of things at the far end of the room.
Shige looked around the room only to notice that it had changed quite a bit over the past year. It seemed livelier. For example, there was a photograph on the wall of Ryo and the others at what seemed to be birthday celebration.
“I bet you don’t miss sleeping on the couch.”
Shige smiled and sat on Ryo’s bed. “No, I don’t. You could have given up your bed to me, you know,” he joked as he lied down on his side. “It’s so comfortable.”
He heard footsteps and once he felt the bed dip he went to sit up but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to get up.”
Shige didn’t exactly grasp what Ryo meant by such a thing until he felt a few more movements followed by a warmth on his back.
“You asked,” Ryo began, his breath hot on the other’s neck as he settled in, “what I wanted to do today.” Ryo paused hesitantly. “I just want to be like this with you for a little while.”
They had never been so close before but even though it was a bit awkward at first, it felt good once they relaxed.
“Mm,” Shige mumbled and lifted his arm slightly to allow Ryo’s arm to encircle his waist and pull him closer to his chest.
When is the point? Does a certain point in time exist that you become so attached to someone? After being pulled apart, faced with death and rescue as well as finding relief and comfort in the other person, when does it all fall into place?
Shige turned on the digital camera and pressed a button to review the pictures. The first one that displayed was a picture of Ryo and a slightly older girl who was holding a baby. “Is this your sister?”
“And her daughter, yeah. Her husband is in the back too if you can see.”
Shige nodded and pressed the button to see the next picture. Ryo was smiling and wiping a spot of cream off of his cheek and a smaller child was grinning mischievously with his fingers covered in icing. “What is this?” Shige laughed.
“My cousin likes to play pranks on people. I don’t know who decided to put a cake in front of that little guy.” Ryo said as if he was angry about it but the happiness was evident in his voice.
Ryo pointed out the other people in the picture and Shige noted how happy they all appeared to be.
They laughed through a few more pictures with crazy poses and more happy faces along with some candid shots.
There was one, however, that Shige knew he’d never forget. His mother’s arms were around Ryo’s neck as if she couldn’t have asked for anything more in the world than to be holding him. Ryo had his niece in his arms and was looking at her with a gentle smile.
Shige stared at it for a few moments and unintentionally a tear ran down his cheek. He wanted Ryo to always be that happy and always have the tone in his voice that he had in that moment. He deserved happiness; he deserved to be able to fulfill his dreams and aspirations.
Time aside, curse aside and other obstacles that blocked them aside, he was finally able to put it into words. It wasn’t a simple crush that you have on the friend you play with on the playground. It wasn’t puppy love you experience when it’s Valentine’s Day and the one you like just presented you with a box of chocolate wrapped in a festive red ribbon. It wasn’t a relationship that spawned out of a certain physical attraction and it wasn’t one that was conventional in any sense of the word.
All of the things that plague their relationship aside, he was in love with Ryo.
He wanted to put the camera down and hold Ryo closer, wanted to exchange the touch that would carry the message that neither seemed to be able to put into words because of fear of what would happen down the road.
You don’t get to choose who you love. Sometimes it may seem foolish in the eyes of spectators, or painful in the hearts of those who have fallen deeply for each other. Either way, just like time, it isn’t something that can be stopped with a wave of the hand.
Ryo’s breath was gentle as it brushed against his skin.
“Thank you,” Shige put down the camera on the table next to them, “for showing me those.”
Shige leaned back closer into Ryo’s chest and Ryo’s other arm slipped under him and rested on his stomach.
They laid there for a while and simply listened to the sounds of the other’s breathing. Being with each other without holding back was something that was long overdue.
After a few minutes, Shige felt Ryo’s lips on his skin as he lightly kissed the back of his neck.
“Why did you cry?” he asked softly.
“I wasn’t crying; I just wish you could be that happy all the time,” Shige answered.
Ryo stopped and buried his head into Shige’s shoulder. “But I’m happy now with you.”
Ryo ran his hand over Shige’s stomach and Shige smiled as he turned towards Ryo and laid on his back.
Ryo wished he could take away the insecurities he saw in Shige’s eyes but he knew that they would always be there.
As he looked at the one below him, he realized that living through everything that happened in the past year - regret, pain, confusion and desperate attempts to move on - were worth it. For this moment, it was all worth it.
Throwing away his own reservations, he leaned down and kissed the boy gently.
The feeling rushed through Shige’s body and he ran his fingers through Ryo’s hair as the kiss deepened.
After a time, they parted for air and Ryo ran his hand down Shige’s stomach and slipped his hand under his shirt.
“Ryo,” Shige said breathlessly.
It took all of his strength but he pushed Ryo away and sat up with his head in his hands.
Ryo didn’t look at him but instead a pain split through his heart. “I’m sorry.”
“What is this?”
Ryo turned Shige around to face him. “We liked each other in the past. And we still do.”
Shige didn’t respond.
“Right?” Ryo urged.
“You told me to leave but now we’re doing this. I want to know what you want, what you’re thinking. It seems to me like we’ll do this but you’ll just push me away again afterwards.”
Ryo cupped his face in his hands. “I want to be like this with you. I have wanted this for such a long time, but I pushed you away from me so you wouldn’t be hurt.”
“So now…”
Ryo sighed and brought his hands down to his side. “Just for today I want us to be like we would without this curse. I want to act like a normal couple would.”
“Are we even a couple though?”
Ryo got off of the bed and took a few steps away. “No, we’re not.” He was obviously getting upset. “You have that little friend of yours and the entire world full of people to choose from. Why would you be with me?”
Shige stood up and walked over to him. “I didn’t mean it like that. We’ve never talked about it, that’s all.”
Ryo was silent and unreadable and Shige wished he hadn’t said anything and just continued with what they had been doing.
“I’m frustrated,” Ryo said finally.
“With?”
“Everything. I have to be strong and take myself out of situations I want to be in to protect people. I will never look different, I can’t get a job, and I can’t even look at someone without seeming like some evil freak.”
Shige walked over and held Ryo tightly. Even though Ryo always had the characteristic nonchalance about him, he was still human and had reached the point where he couldn’t handle it by himself anymore.
Shige was silent and let him finish.
“This curse is torture and that’s why I don’t want anyone, especially you to get it. I pushed you away and told myself to let go. But I was never able to do that. I like holding you like this, I like kissing you and I like sitting down at the same table to eat with you. I like being able to show you how much you mean to me with more than just words. Enjoying all of these things just strengthens the feeling that I don’t want you to have even a piece of this curse.”
“I won’t. We can be careful; it’s not like I’ll get it by merely being around you.”
Ryo pushed Shige away gently and his voice was shaky. “It’s not that easy.”
“Why not? You always seem to have this idea that everything isn’t going to work out.”
“Because I know it won’t.”
“How? How do you know that?” Shige almost yelled.
“I pushed you away that night, didn’t I?”
“You did, but you wouldn’t even tell me why. That’s what I’m saying, Ryo. I don’t want you to keep everything inside - I’m involved in this too.”
“You didn’t have to be involved. I was fine by myself, and now everything’s so hard.”
“You’re always pushing me away.”
“Is this the life you want?!” Ryo yelled as he turned around. “Don’t even answer that, because I know the truth. No one wants this.”
He was close to his breaking point.
Shige took a step forward but Ryo stepped back. “You want to know so badly? You want to know how I know things won’t work out?”
Shige didn’t respond.
“You’re the one who saw the future that night.”
Shige’s blood turned cold.
“A thousand fears,” Ryo continued. “When the curse is passed, you experience all of the fears of the previously cursed plus your own in the form of a dream. One of my fears was being stabbed to death.”
“Eh?” Shige muttered, still in shock.
Ryo’s face softened. “You didn’t see what would happen in the future, you saw a dream you would have.” A pause. “You would have that dream as a consequence of being cursed. By me.”
“Why did you have to say it like that?” Shige said angrily. “I thought you meant that it would actually happen.”
“N-No…”
Shige didn’t know what to say. How do you respond to something like that?
“That voice you heard belongs to the originator of the curse. I knew right away when you described it that that was what you saw. I can’t let it happen. That’s why I keep insisting that we stay away from each other.”
“I…really will be cursed?” Shige said as though he hadn’t heard anything Ryo had said.
“Unless we do something about it, yes.”
“I need to think…for a second,” Shige said as he left the room and Ryo could hear him go down the stairs.
Ryo slunk to the floor with his face buried in his hands.
This is what I was afraid of.
---
You never truly consider the consequences and risks of doing something until they fall upon you.
He knew that there was a chance of being cursed when being around Ryo, but in his mind he always wanted to believe that it was something that would never happen.
Until now.
He could leave right now and forget everything that happened. But that would mean that consequently, he would have to lose Ryo - something that would cause several nights lying in bed with a thousand ‘what ifs’ on nights like the one recently where he yearned for him once more.
Or, he could stay with Ryo and take the curse himself. Nights like these would become the norm, however he would be the one in the picture relishing the beauty of being around family only once in a long year.
How can one choose?
Or, the third option was to stay in touch with Ryo over the phone and from a distance. On the occasion that would come only once a year, they could be together normally, like today.
It would be painful.
Shige looked over his shoulder at the court and smiled. What happened to times like those? Things were all sugarcoated with ‘I’ll protect you’ and ‘No matter what, we’ll save you!’. But now, who was there to save him from making a decision that could change his life forever?
Shige heard something and saw Ryo walking towards him. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I can understand you holding things in that pertain to yourself only but when this directly involves me, I can’t wrap my mind around why you would keep that inside.”
Ryo sighed as the pain ripped through him once again. Shige was right. “I’m selfish sometimes when it comes to you.”
Shige turned around completely. “Eh?”
“I didn’t want you to think of me as the one who tricked me into getting the curse or even the one who I must stay away from. I didn’t want that. I knew in my heart that I would do everything to prevent you from getting this curse, so in return I wanted you to think of me as simply the one who I used to like but isn’t around anymore. I know you might not understand it and I guess it’s not even what I should have done but that is why I did it that way.”
“The thing is, Ryo, I never thought of you as any of those things. I never thought of the first, I never believed in the second, and as for the third, there was never a ‘used to’.”
“How can you still be saying these things after what I just told you?”
“They don’t just go away.”
A choice.
“Even if we can only talk on the phone and be in the same area only if separated by distance, I can do that.”
Ryo walked over to him and wrapped his arms around him. “It’s not going to be easy…I don’t want you to be hurting because of me.”
Shige sighed and closed his eyes so that he could concentrate solely on that moment. “Even if it hurts, I can’t let go of you. Just…don’t keep everything inside. No matter what it is, just talk to me.”
Shige thought he’d never forget the warmth of his embrace nor the gentle squeezes that were always followed by a smile.
When the choice is difficult to make, sometimes sugarcoated denial is a way to temporarily escape.
One hour remained in the day. One single hour out of 8760 that existed in a year.
“Remember when we said we were ‘just two people’?” Shige said quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Can’t we just be those two people for the time we have left? We will work things out but I don’t want to waste this time.”
---
“You think it’s okay to go in?” Massu peeked in the living room window.
Koyama looked around and smiled. “I think so.”
The others looked at him curiously and he pointed to the far end of the backyard. One of Shige’s hands was on Ryo’s hip and the other arms were encircled around each other as they kissed slowly and affectionately.
Tegoshi tried to hold in a giggle and Yamapi brought them all back to reality. “There’s only an hour left.”
Such a heartwarming sight quickly became one that brought pain. This was it.
“They’ll be okay,” Koyama insisted but the others didn’t seem to believe the words.
---
They parted for air and Shige laid his head on Ryo’s shoulder. “Why can’t time stop,” he breathed.
Ryo pulled him closer and smiled against his neck. “I think Massu is home,” he joked.
“Very funny.”
They pulled away and Ryo took his hand. “I’ll walk you home. Unless you want to go in the car.”
Shige shook his head. “Walking sounds good.”
They crossed the same sidewalks, the same crosswalk, except this time there was not so much time ahead of them like there was earlier that night. It was drawing to a close, and they clung to every minute.
---
Tako shut the door behind him with a click and he sighed against it. Shige was with that guy, whom he didn’t even know the name of. Of course he was jealous, but at the same time he didn’t feel that Shige could be happy with someone like ‘the guy from the library’.
He turned and walked down the hallway and when he reached the corner, he heard the ‘ding’ from the elevator.
“Who forgets their own floor?” Ryo laughed as they walked out of the elevator.
“I pressed the wrong button. Maybe I would have had more time if you didn’t have a thing about kissing in an elevator.”
Tako watched from where he was. He was hidden for the most part but he could see perfectly the way their fingers were intertwined.
“You don’t?” Ryo asked defensively and leaned against the wall near Shige’s door.
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“How about a hallway then?”
Shige smiled and leaned forward to kiss Ryo. It might have seemed like it was something so natural, but on the inside they knew they had to put everything into that one kiss. And so they did, as if it was their last. It mirrored the time on the bridge when the words ‘Last Time’ rushed over them. However, they had faith that this wouldn’t be the last time.
In that moment, when he saw his friend in the arms of ‘that guy’, Tako knew Shige was far gone. He never kissed me like that, not with such passion. He never liked it when I did something like that.
They pulled apart and leaned their foreheads against one another’s, breathing together and sharing a moment neither would ever forget.
11:55.
Ryo reached down and took his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Shige. While Shige was pressing the buttons to make a new contact, Ryo took Shige’s phone out of his pocket.
“I will call you soon,” Ryo promised.
Once the numbers had been exchanged, they looked at each other and smiled.
The same look that he had that night - the one that is filled with glimmers of love.
11:58
Ryo let go of Shige’s hand, and even though they had agreed that it would not end there, it was still heartbreaking.
“Bye-bye,” Ryo said as he turned around and walked towards the elevator.
Shige nodded and saw Ryo in slight pain while he waited for the doors to open. The curse had returned, and with that the day was over.
---
Shige inserted the keys into the door and turned the knob with a faint smile.
“Shige,” he heard someone call from the end of the hallway. He recognized his friend’s voice immediately.
“What are you doing here?” Shige asked and watched as his friend approached him.
“It doesn’t even seem like you get along, so…why?”
Shige eyed him suspiciously. “Were you spying on us?”
“No,” he responded quickly. “I had just left when you arrived. I came to apologize but I didn’t want to interrupt so I waited.”
Shige nodded. “Thanks, but it’s not me you should apologize to.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” Shige said without hesitation. “I’m sorry I couldn’t answer your feelings but this is how things happened.”
Tako sighed. “If that is how you feel, I will try to accept it and move on.”
Shige smiled. “We are still friends though, right?”
Tako nodded and bid him farewell before going towards the elevator.
---
Ryo walked along the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, remembering the occurrences of that night. As the cool wind blew against his face, he could still remember the touch of Shige’s lips against his.
“Oi, you.”
Ryo stopped and figured the voice might have been calling for him. He couldn’t turn around, however, as he didn’t have the glasses he usually took out with him to shade his eyes.
He looked back for the slightest moment and realized it was Ta-something. “Yes?”
“I just hope you know how lucky you are to have someone like him love you back.”
Ryo knew all too well. “I do. Meeting him is one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
Tako held in all that he had inside and tried to control his frustration. “At least you know that. Don’t fucking screw it up. He deserves to be happy.”
“Believe me; I’m putting his happiness before mine.”
Tako got into his car. “You’d better.”
Ryo leaned against the brick wall of a building and pulled out his cell phone.
You don’t even know what I gave up for him.
He pressed the speed dial “1” and brought the phone up to his ear.
“I didn’t think you’d call this quickly,” Shige said on the other end.
“What are you doing?” Ryo asked casually.
He heard movement on the other end. “I was getting ready to go to bed. Is your head okay?”
“There’s a dull pain and I still can’t move things as easily yet.”
Shige flipped off the lights and locked up as he listened to Ryo’s voice. “Are you almost home? The others must be wondering about you.”
Ryo looked up at the apartment building. “Almost.”
Shige laid in his bed and Ryo could hear the ruffling of the sheets. “You really are tired, aren’t you?”
“It’s been a long day,” he said before yawning.
“I’ll let you go then, but I forgot to tell you something today.”
“What is it?”
“I love you, Shige.”
Shige smiled against the pillow and with those words it started the beginning of a different relationship. One not characterized by pushing away and pulling back together, but with dealing with the reality.
However, accepting reality isn’t the easiest of things to do.
“I love you too.”
*click*
End of Chapter 13
A/N: This chapter was a bit all over the place (as was the situation) but I hope you still enjoyed it ^^;