Maps: 22/??

[solongsun]

Title: Maps

Author: solongsun  

Rating: mature

Bands: The GazettE, Dir en grey

Pairings: Kyo/Ruki, Aoi/Die, Aoi/Uruha

April 8, 1970: the day of the Ten-Roku gas explosion, and the day that 22-year-old Ruki attempts to end his life. Less than two weeks later, he finds himself committed to the Yamauchi Hostel, a psychiatric hospital in the Kyoto hills. Kept on a ward with a number of other ill young men, Ruki is sometimes frightened and sometimes enthralled by his new friends – and none more other than the 'untreatable' Kyo, whose hospitalisation hides a legacy of dark secrets...
 

A vivid blue midday sky with a conjoined sun and moon, a positive and a negative rolled into one.

The itch of grass on his bare back, and the smell of it rising around him, and the still summer air shimmering.

High up again. Perched on a summit the size of a bed with nothing above Ruki but Kyo and nothing above Kyo but sky.

Was it really him? He lifted his head and the hills were reflected in his eyes. The hands were his; large and angular, with long fingers. He looked, just looked, but it made Ruki aware of how naked he was; his skin prickled. Cool: the hands on him were cool. They held him lightly. A palm closed over the skin of his inner thigh; long fingers wrapped around his cock, and he rolled his hips up against them.

It was the strangest feeling, as though some long-dormant sense was beginning to awaken; some sleepy creature opening an amber-coloured eye. His body was keen, his knees spreading and his lips parting; he kept his eyes open; his arms wound themselves around Kyo's back.

'I want you,' he said in a voice that seemed to float, and Kyo's lips pressed against the hollow of his throat.

There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to the thief

There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief...

Ruki sat up, looking around for where the music could possibly be coming from; he held tight to Kyo's body, which squashed easily beneath his grip, and his bleary eyes registered an empty bed opposite his own and a white wall covered with colourful posters. Ruki blinked, pulling himself more upright. The head of his cock brushed against his bed sheets, achingly hard, and he rubbed a sleepy hand over his eyes.

The music must have been coming from down the hall. He was completely alone. He bit his lip.

Falling back against his pillow, he shoved his hand down inside his underwear and clutched his cock needily, trying to replicate the feeling of those long, strong fingers wrapped around him; biting his lip, he started to stroke himself. His thumb swept over the head of his dick, smearing the tiny bead of moisture that had collected there, and he made a low noise in the back of his throat.

It would feel so good if he was inside me.

He smothered a groan at the thought, his hips bucking up into his hand. He wasn't even sure if he believed it; the times he'd had another man inside him before had been distinctly average, running towards painful, but the thought of Kyo fucking him was somehow thrilling; it made him grasp his cock tighter and bite down hard on his lip, trying to stifle the noises in his throat. After so long it felt so good to touch himself that his hand was shaking around his dick and his breath was coming in harsh little pants, and it was so easy to imagine it – imagine Kyo's eyes flicking over his body at that exact moment, dark and close and full of desire, full of some nameless urge to grab Ruki hard and kiss his mouth and push their bodies together—

He gasped as he came, his fingers squeezing around the head of his dick desperately. His cum felt hot and and wet against his palm, and he closed his eyes, breathing shallowly for a moment against his pillow. There was a rushing sound in his ears that made it hard to hear, and he tried to calm his breathing; trick his body into slowing the frenzied thrashing of his heart.

So now he'd done it. He was surprised that he didn't feel panicked. He felt sort of light, actually, like he'd taken off a layer of clothing that he hadn't really needed.

The music from the corridor grew louder, but underneath it there was shouting. Ruki sighed.

Time to get up.

 

He didn't shower that morning, just brushed his teeth and gave his face a quick wash; it was stupid, but he didn't feel ready to wash Kyo's touch off his body quite so soon.

No matter how imaginary that touch might have been.

He saw Uruha in the bathroom, hanging around the sinks and tying and retying his hair; he gave Ruki an unfocussed nod. His fingernails were bitten too short again.

'They're fighting,' he said in a distracted sort of way.

'Who?'

'Aoi and Die.'

'They've been fighting a lot recently.'

Uruha shook his head. 'Properly this time.' He looked into his own eyes in the mirror and said, apparently to himself: 'Aoi doesn't respect anybody's parents.' He blinked, and his gaze found Ruki's again, 'Did I tell you my father wants me to come home? He says he doesn't want me to be left here and that I should be out in three weeks.'

'Really?'

'Yes, really,' Uruha said acidly, glaring.

'Oh. Well...that's great.'

'I know.' He tugged on his hair.

'D'you think you're...you know...' Ruki foundered, 'Better?'

'Of course I'm better,' Uruha said delicately.

'Right.' Ruki paused, unsure of what to say. 'What time is it?' he asked lamely and Uruha gave him a vague sort of shrug; as far as he was concerned, that seemed to be the end of the conversation he'd started. He went back to staring grimly at his own reflection in the mirror, seeking out his own eyes between the splattered flecks of toothpaste and soap. He touched his chin twelve times to his right shoulder and twelve times to his left shoulder. His poor bitten fingers were gripping the sink hard.

Ruki wanted to touch his back or say something, but he he didn't know what; in the face of Uruha's horrible focus, he felt helpless. From down the corridor, the shouting grew louder, and Ruki went off to find them.

 

'So are you leaving, then?' Aoi asked hotly.

'No, I'm not leaving! I told my parents it was better here than anywhere else, but I do want to go home, you know.'

'Did you tell your parents I wasn't a bad influence?' Aoi demanded, and Die raked an aggravated hand through his hair.

'No.'

'But they asked,' Aoi said accusingly, and Die gritted his teeth.

'Did you ever stop to think that maybe you are a bad influence?' he said, his voice rising, 'I never did shit like this in my life before I met you.'

'What the fuck, Die!'

They were standing almost on opposite sides of the TV room, the television flickering blandly between them, and Ruki had never seen either of them so angry; Aoi seemed to actually be shaking, his whole posture tense as a cat's, whilst Die's normally deathly pale face was flushed deep red, his trademark easy grin completely gone.

'You know what I mean.'

'No, I'm afraid I don't. Shit like what, exactly?'

'Like...' Die's face was getting redder, but Ruki thought this time it might have been from embarrassment; it was almost matching his hair. 'Like – kissing boys.'

Aoi shot him a look of pure disgust. 'Grow up,' he said acidly.

'No...' Die paused, flustered, 'You grow up! Year after year you just hide away in here, making everybody you meet just like you.'

'Like me?'

'Bitter!' Die yelled. 'Bitter, and...twisted, and...you know, just because your family fucked you over, it doesn't mean everybody's parents are shit. Just because you've been let down, it doesn't mean everybody in the outside world is an asshole.'

'Right,' Aoi said sarcastically, 'You're right, I'm completely the one with no grip on reality here.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'It means that you – are – dying,' Aoi said, his words very loud and clear and dripping with venom, 'You are killing yourself and you can't even face up to it. Don't you fucking dare roll your eyes at that! Don't you dare!'

'Spare me the dramatics,' Die said angrily, and as Ruki watched Aoi lurched across the room to grasp him by his wrists.

'Look at yourself!' he shouted, shaking his friend roughly, 'Look at yourself! You're wasting away and you think you're being so smart, you think nobody knows as long as you keep smiling and dancing around and being nice to the doctors, but I know. You think I can't tell when you've just puked up what you've eaten? You think I can share a room with you and somehow be oblivious to that?'

'Fuck you,' Die spat.

'Fuck you. You think you're throwing up food but you know what it actually is? It's just a little bit more of your life going through the pipes. Down to the fucking sea.' He shook him again, his knuckles white around Die's thin arms, 'Having trouble staying upright, are you? Finding it a bit difficult to breathe sometimes? Seeing spots when you stand up? Couldn't get an erection if your life fucking depended on it?'

'Shut – shut up—'

'Hair falling out, is it?' Aoi continued viciously, 'Shivering all the time, are you? Don't really have enough energy to shiver, though, do you? Fuck you!'

'Shut up,' Die said, firmer, his bony fists clenched, 'You don't know what you're talking about.'

'Oh, don't I?'

'No, you don't!' Die wrenched his arms away, glowering, 'You're just like everybody else, you realise that? You think you and I have some deep connection because you tell me not to die every now and again, like that's all there is to it. Fuck off, Ruki,' he interrupted himself suddenly, turning his burning gaze towards him, 'Don't just stand there. Fuck off and do something. Fuck off and go fuck Kyo, okay? You're a fucking little queer.'

'Die!' Aoi hissed, and sent Ruki an apologetic sort of look. 'He doesn't mean that—'

'I meant it, and I'm not sorry,' Die said wildly, his eyes flashing; he pressed the heels of his hands hard against his temples, 'I'm not sorry, I'm not, I'm not. I'm...' he bit down hard on his lower lip, and Ruki made a small noise in the back of his throat; Die's eyes had filled with tears and his knees seemed to be threatening to buckle; he took a few cautious steps backwards and let his body fall into an armchair. He leant forwards, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and as Ruki and Aoi silently watched, his whole body convulsed in a violent sob.

 

'Die...'

'I'm so fucked,' came the redhead's choked voice.

'Die...Die, fuck. You're not.' Aoi sent Ruki a scared look and the two of them edged forward, Ruki placing a cautious hand on Die's shoulders and Aoi squatting down on his haunches in front of him, placing both his palms gently on Die's knees, 'Die, it's okay. It's going to be all right.'

Sniffing loudly, Die gave his face a harsh wipe and looked at them: Ruki and Aoi, nervously by his side. With another restrained sob, he shook his head and grabbed both their hands, hanging on tightly.

'Sorry Ruki,' he said in a small voice. He tried for a smile, but the outcome was pathetic. 'I didn't mean that.'

'It's okay,' Ruki said carefully. 'I think – maybe I am a queer, so...'

'Obviously you are,' Die said, his voice distorted.

Ruki felt Aoi bump his knee against his leg companionably. 'Die...'

'And I'm sorry, Aoi,' Die said, his voice nearly a whisper.

'I'm sorry too,' Aoi said. 'I'm just...I'm scared. You're really scaring me, Die. You look frightening these days.'

'But you love me,' Die said humourlessly.

'Oh sure. True love. Bony-o and Juliet.'

'A Thinderella story,' Die added, his lips twitching, and Aoi threw him a grudging smile. A thin tear ran down Die's cheek, and he sighed heavily, leaning forward to rest his face in his hands again.

'I'm so fucked,' he repeated softly. This time, Aoi didn't argue. Where Ruki patted his back, Die's shoulder blades jutted like wings.

 

It was a peculiar sort of day. So much had happened before breakfast that Ruki felt like he'd lived through it all already: through all the other things – group therapy, calling his parents, putting on a record in the music room – he seemed to be creeping through some kind of fog. Their meal was painful; Ruki couldn't meet Kyo's eyes and Die was so worked up that he seemed to be very genuinely unable to eat, for once: he stared his plate down in a distressed silence and finally lurched up from the table, one hand clapped over his mouth, and ran into the bathroom.

Aoi stared sadly at his friend's full tray, banged his fist on the table, and yelled 'fuck!' so loudly Shinya clapped his hands over his ears, shaking his head from side to side. It seemed like once he started shaking it he couldn't stop, and Kyo quietly got to his feet and led him out, his touch on his friend's elbow so stiffly, awkwardly tender that Ruki felt sad.

He spent the afternoon lying on his stomach on the music room floor.

Outside the sky was a flat grey colour, and it was drizzling; over the course of the afternoon, the windows gradually became misted over, and Kai took up a residence in front of the window Kyo usually sat under, his radio clasped loosely by his side. Slowly, he raised his index finger and used it to draw a pattern in the condensation, a cryptic series of dots and dashes that he rubbed away when he noticed Ruki looking.

'Sorry,' Ruki said falteringly, and then, 'Are you okay?'

'Oh, yeah.' Kai rested his forehead against the windowpane, 'I just hate the rain.'

'Yeah?'

'Yeah. It's gloomy. And it's dangerous.'

'Don't worry about him,' Aoi muttered in Ruki's ear, coming up behind him and making him jump, 'He's just been taking his medicine, that's all.'

'This is – his medicine makes him like this?'

'Yeah. Fucked up, isn't it? Half the people here are on anti-depressants and he's on drugs that bring him down.'

'So why does he take them?' Ruki asked lowly, and Aoi rolled his eyes.

'Therapists guilt him into it, what'd you think? He's not exactly hard to manipulate. Bastards,' he added in a cutting tone.

'I can hear you, you know,' Kai said listlessly, and Aoi sighed.

'Tongue your meds tonight, Kai; that's a good boy.'

Ruki didn't know why, but looking at his friends, he began to feel strangely distant from the two of them. There was a weird rushing noise in his ears; a kind of pounding in his veins and throat that made him feel desperate.

There was no reason for it at all, but he just felt so sick of the two of them in that moment.

Getting to his feet, he slipped quietly out of the room and left them to it.

 

The corridor squeaked under his feet. He drifted through it like he was being pulled, as if a great chain had sprung forth from his chest and was now reeling him in inch by inch; it was painful, but it felt right. It was the good kind of pain, like tonguing an ulcer in your mouth or clenching your jaw when you have a toothache; it felt strong and sharp and finely honed as a blade.

He walked past the phones, and he walked past the nurses' station, and his own bedroom door, and the door to the isolation room. He stopped in front of the very last door on the row, and then he knocked, just once, his wrist returning steadily to his side.

'Yes?'

Ruki pushed the door open and closed it behind him. Kyo was sitting on his bed with his knees up and his back to the wall, a cigarette burning slowly between his fingers and a notebook in his lap; the look he gave Ruki was one of mild surprise. Because of the way the ceiling sloped above his bed, he was having to rest more on his lower back than on his ass, and it gave him a lean sort of appearance that Ruki liked to look at.

'I thought you'd be drawing.'

'Can I sit down?'

Kyo gestured towards the bed woodenly and Ruki settled himself next to him. He fumbled for a cigarette and lit it off the smouldering end of Kyo's. 'What are you doing?' he asked. Kyo shrugged.

'Writing some things down.'

'“Things”?'

Kyo closed his eyes, tipping his head back slightly as if he was exhausted, 'Sometimes my mind feels too full. It helps to write thoughts down.'

'Like a diary?'

'I suppose,' Kyo said guardedly.

'What were you writing about just now?'

'That's a personal question.'

'Yep,' Ruki agreed simply and Kyo sighed, tapping his fingers lightly on the cover of his notebook.

'Die,' he said finally, 'I'm worried about him.'

'You are?'

Kyo shot Ruki a wary look. 'Of course.'

'But you never...you don't ever talk to him. Or anyone, except...'

'I don't have to talk to somebody to worry about them.' He tossed his notebook down the bed so it lay on his pillow. 'I worried about you before we spoke.'

'You did?'

'Shouldn't I have? You were a complete mess.'

Ruki bit his lip, looking down at his hands. 'So why just Shinya, then? Why is he the only one you ever spend time with?'

Kyo gave him an amused sort of look. 'Don't you think you count?'

'Other than me. Is it just because you're roommates?'

'No. He and I have things in common.'

'Like what? What's something you have in common with Shinya?'

Kyo took a deep drag on his cigarette. 'I know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind,' he said simply.

 

It was weird, the way Ruki felt when he said that. The look on Kyo's face had changed in some strange way, as if he'd come back from the world of the dead with his hair turned white; there was something like a shadow on his face, or in his eyes. It sent a shiver up Ruki's spine, and it made him want to take hold of the hand that Kyo had curled loosely in his lap, but he didn't. Kyo simply seemed too far away to be touched.

'And me?' Ruki said eventually, trying to make his voice sound normal, and the shadow cleared itself.

'You.'

'Why do you hang around with me?'

Kyo paused. 'There are things about you that I like.'

'Written anything about me in your book?' Ruki asked, a smile tugging at his lips, and Kyo rolled his eyes.

'Yes.'

'Will you tell me what it was?'

'Not on your life.'

'Will you tell me what you like about me?'

'No.'

'Will you tell me – three things that you like about me?'

Kyo gave Ruki a look so withering that the younger man grinned. 'Two things?'

'Absolutely not.'

'One thing?'

'Is that what you came here for? Compliments?'

'No.' Ruki shrugged loosely, 'I don't know why I came. Am I disturbing you?'

'Yes, but not in a bad way.' He cast a slightly bitter smile at his closed notebook, 'I've had twelve years of my own thoughts. I'm probably due a break.'

Ruki wriggled, settling himself further into the bed. It was strange, but now that he was here, his body seemed suddenly free of the terrible itch that had seemed to lurk underneath his skin whilst he'd been lying in the music room. He wondered when talking to Kyo had become something that felt easy, instead of strange.

Carefully, he rested his head on the other man's shoulder. 'Carry on writing,' he mumbled, 'I won't read it, I promise.'

Kyo tensed, of course. But it was better than nothing. 

Comments

[thehamhamheaven]

You and Die-chan are going to make me cry, aren't you! T_T The optimist in me wants to think that now he's actually acknowledging there's a problem, he'll be able to begin healing. But the practical part of me worries it's too late. I love Aoi for his tough love, though. There's a time to be soft and supportive, and I think Die's officially past that. IRL anorexia is a life-long struggle, but I really want Die to get well.

I'm of mixed opinions regarding Aoi's advising Kai to tongue his meds. Seeing sweet sunshine-y Kai so droopy is horrible, but the break he had not too long ago proves he does need his meds at least to some extent. And it's not as though the Superstar has a medical degree.

Kyo is officially under Ruki's skin; I wonder if Kyo feels the same. Still curious to figure out what's up with his tension at physical contact, but I'm glad Ruki doesn't let it stop him from treating Kyo normally.

[reilaflowers]

Looks like tensions are going high in this chapter. Die's plot line is breaking my heart! Like Uruha, he could survive out of the hospital, but Die is just dying.

I wonder though, are you planning to bring in other Gazette and Diru members? Is this why there's going to be these changes? Actually don't answer, I want a surprise.

[solongsun]

Haha! I won't say a word.

[solongsun]

No tears, now! I love writing Aoi and Die together. I just want to settle them down on a farm so they can snark away their old age together.

Your icon is a hecking inspiration. Wish I could rock a red lip so nicely.

[thehamhamheaven]

OMG, please make them snarking together on a farm happen!!! *gets on her knees to beg*

If I wore lips that red, I'd end up with it smeared all over my face like some deranged clown! But Ruki is nothing if not Flawless™.