Maps: 3/??

[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...

3
 

There were no baths, only showers. And the beds were slippery. The mattresses were the kind that were encased in clear plastic, and every time Ruki shifted during the night, he felt that strange slipping motion, like he wasn't on solid ground.

They gave him two bitter, dry little sleeping pills. Even so, he lay awake a long time.

He looked up at the smooth white ceiling and wondered how his life had become such a mess. Narrow shafts of moonlight shifted over the walls and the blanket of Kai's bed, edging his roommate's outline in pure silver, and Ruki felt himself sinking into the shadows, like the negative of a photograph. The bars on the windows cast long and delicate shadows over the walls, spindly as spiders' legs, reaching from the floor to the ceiling.

The silence throbbed and hummed in Ruki's ears. It was his own silence. When he stopped trying to hear past it, the sound of his own heartbeat became deafening; footsteps, muffled in his chest, pacing back and forth, back and forth – trapped. The birdcage of his ribs.

 

Oh god, how am I supposed to get home from here?

 

When he couldn't stand it any longer, he threw back the sheet and blanket covering him and padded carefully over to the door. He had the distinct feeling that this wasn't alive, but the drugs they'd given him had made him feel loose and dreamy, and not entirely real; not entirely in control. He might have been pushed along by a current – washed along on that silver tide that spilled and rushed through the windowpanes.

Carefully, he slipped out into the hallway, and closed the door behind him. The air was cooler out here – that thick, bone-deep chill of the night – and the overhead lights were dimly lit, making the night outside the windows look even blacker. For the first time, even through the drive yesterday, he was aware of being away from the city and truly out in the country; no traffic sounds, no toxic orange sky. The quiet was uncomfortable. He rubbed harshly at his ears until they were buzzing.

 

He wasn't sure how long he stood there, shivering in his thin pyjamas. The few thin shadows cast by the trees did not move across the floor. No clocks ticked, or birds sang. Occasionally, where the corridor bent in its L-shape, Ruki would catch the sound of a nurse's rubber-soled shoes squeaking across the polished floor, or see her light-footed shadow turn, but nobody ever came around the corner.

It was an important lesson to learn: with the head nurse and the attendant doctors gone home, the staff slacked off on their checks at night. He found himself hoarding that information, tucking it away like a squirrel storing a nut. For later. For just in case.

 

'You're gonna freeze.'

Ruki must have jumped about a foot in the air, and stood gasping whilst the man in front of him laughed. He must have been used to wandering around at night: his laugh was clear and low but almost silent, pitched almost inaudible, mostly air. Scowling, Ruki massaged his own chest, trying to calm the nervous lurch his heart had done.

'Pretty funny,' he said sourly.

'I'm told I am.'

'It's Aoi, right?'

'At your service.' He lit up a cigarette and puffed on it with evident pleasure. 'Come on, we're going to the art room; they never look in there.'

'Won't they check our beds?'

'You see anybody around? Come on, before they smell this.'

He blew a bluish cloud of smoke into Ruki's face and turned on his heel, marching away without checking that the other man was following him. He did though, of course, dogging along at Aoi's heels and casting the occasional anxious glance behind him; Aoi might have been nonchalant about it, but for all Ruki knew, he was some kind of psychopath with no chance of ever being released.

That thought entertained him later, when his mind was less foggy: if he truly considered that a possibility, it was strange that he had no qualms following a total psycho into a dark, secluded room. Maybe he was just as crazy as they thought.

The art room was small, and mostly empty-looking when its clutter of chairs and easels had been pushed away into corners for the night. Aoi seemed comfortable enough, though; he closed the door behind them and shoved one of the sash windows up as high as it would go, taking in a deep lungful of night air. His hands curled briefly around the bars, and then he turned and shot Ruki a wolfish grin.

'You were a voluntary,' he said.

'Voluntary?'

'You signed yourself in. No section. No police. Nobody dragged you here kicking and screaming. You got me?'

'Oh. Yeah, I was. Am.'

Aoi took a drag of his cigarette and tipped his head back, revealing the long, pale line of his neck as he let the smoke flair slowly from his lips and veil his eyes. 'So what's the deal?' he demanded. 'You do something bad?'

He caught Ruki hesitating, and rolled his eyes impatiently, 'You may as well 'fess up, newbie; it'll all come out in group, whether you want it to or not.'

Ruki sighed and shivered, pulling the sleeves of his pyjamas down over his hands, 'I took pills.'

Aoi's eyes lit up with interest. 'Yeah? Like downers, you mean?'

'No, like normal pills.'

'Oh. But in slight excess of the stated dose, I'm guessing.'

'Something like that.'

'So you're a suicidal. They get half their patients that way, I swear. They can't leave you in peace and let you get on with it; they have to drag you back from the edge and stick you in a place like this. Makes you wonder why they fucking bother.'

'Is that how you came here?'

'Me?' A flash of that wolfish grin again, 'No chance. Cigarette?'

Ruki took one from the offered packet, and leant into the small flame of Aoi's lighter.

'How, then?' he asked.

The grin widened. '“Unnatural desires, promiscuity and lascivious behaviour”. At least, that's what it said on my intake form.'

He leant back against the window frame, the cool night breeze catching at strands of his dark hair where it hung around his jaw and neck. 'It means I'm a homo who wasn't smart enough to hide it. And you don't need to act awkward, either; I know you are too.'

Ruki shrugged uncomfortably. 'I'm not really sure what I am.'

'Yeah?' Aoi raised an eyebrow. 'Well, you know where I am if you ever want to find out.'

'I'll bear that in mind,' Ruki said dryly, but a smile was tugging at his lips, and when he let it win he found that Aoi returned it.

'You voluntaries drive me crazy,' he said. 'This is no place to spend your time, so if I were you I'd hurry up and get better.'

'So if you weren't voluntary,' Ruki asked curiously, 'That means someone put you here?'

Aoi laughed humourlessly. 'My parents. Found me in my sister's old school uniform down at the docks; it's pretty hard to talk your way out of something with a mouthful of dick. Worked out just in time for them – they got me when I was nineteen. Two more months and I would have been of age, and they wouldn't have been able to do it. Same thing happened to Uruha, but he was a bit younger – seventeen, eighteen, I think. Now there's a fucked up family. Don't believe all his Saint Daddy bullshit; I've seen that guy's TV show, and it's ass, like it fucking sucks. Wait till you see him, too – you never saw such a creep; big white TV smile, crisp white collar, the works. His parents visit all the time; they feel guilty, I guess. Anyway, we were both on a different ward then, and when I got committed, Uruha used to be a part-timer – he'd live at home most of the year and come here for treatment during the holidays. People still do that. Things were a bit better on the under-age ward; they gave you more freedom, you know; wanted you to have a 'normal childhood'. I used to help him relieve his tension.'

He made a crude hand gesture and laughed again, although there was more warmth in it this time. The smile lingered on his face, and though the look he gave Ruki was searching, it was friendly too.

'Anyway,' he said at last, 'I'm going to bed. But listen – you room with Kai. He's the sweetest kid, but sometimes, he gets kinda...' Aoi made screwing motions around his temples, 'Kinda muddled up; kinda scared, you know? And it's best for him to be alone; he needs it that way. I know it's a drag, but if that ever happens, come down to our room.'

'Okay, I will.' Ruki smiled, pitching the butt of his cigarette out of the window, 'Thanks.'

Aoi shrugged. 'It's not for your benefit. But I like Kai, and you seem reasonably normal, and if the two of us sit on Die then we can probably stop him from compulsively doing sit-ups.'

'Is that allowed? Being in your room, I mean?'

'It's okay as long as you don't try to murder yourself – or us. Can't stress that enough. But listen: if you want to stay sane here – yeah, yeah, I know how it sounds – you're gonna have to break some rules. That's just the way it is, kiddo.' He winked. 'Sweet dreams.'

Maybe it was the pills, but the funny thing was that Ruki was able to get to sleep after that.

 

Dear E. O.—

I don't think anybody here is crazy.

I know that sounds stupid, but I don't mean it in the way you think. I mean it's like staring at a painting that's wrong in some way, or looking at a patch of earth that seems still at first – the more you stare, the more you see it's alive with tiny insects and worms, moving so slowly you can hardly register them. The minute you do, though, they're all you can see. And you have to wonder how you ever thought the ground was still and stable before. But that's not just the people here: that's everyone.

And I miss you. After everything that happened I guess I shouldn't, and I'm not really sure why I do.

Are you missing me?

I have your painting next to me every day, The Student at Work. I remember when you first started to mentor me, and I thought you had no idea I was in love with you, and I said that the student in the painting looked quite like me, like he could actually be me. And you said 'it is you', and you put your hand on my knee. I liked you so much, I got scared. I was so stupid; I remember I stood up – I knocked the chair over – and blurted out 'you're almost old enough to be my father', and you said, 'quite nearly, yes', and you pulled me back down right onto your lap and kissed me.

Your beard scratched me. I remember I felt like all the blood had come back into my veins. But I was sort of sad, too, and when I thought about it later, I realised it was because I didn't think I'd ever be that happy again.

Maybe that's what's wrong with me. I spend a lot of time waiting for things to go wrong.

I hope you miss me too, and I think you might, even after everything you said. I hope you're thinking about me in Osaka like I'm thinking about you in Kyoto. The stars are bigger here, and when I feel so scared or lost or lonely that I could scream, I imagine that you're somewhere just behind me, right over my shoulder, looking up at them with me and telling me the names of all the constellations, and what they mean, and the stories that all those ancient people told about them.

I don't want to go home, exactly, but I do want to go back to you. I want to go back to you a year ago, before all the shit happened.

It's not like I really wanted to kill myself, either. I just wanted to make it all stop.

 

The next day dawned dull, and the threat of rain lingered all through the morning. Breakfast was at eight, and it was as raucous an affair as dinner had been the night before. Ruki noticed, though, that the boy who had started crying the night before was not there, and when he asked about him, he got mostly shrugs.

'Shinya's normally at breakfast,' Kai explained cheerily, 'But if somebody gets sedated, you pretty much can't count on seeing them the next day. It's a pity he got like that on your first day, but it's not anything personal; I think new people just set him off a bit. You'll like him once you get to know him.'

'What did they give him?'

'Oh. Hm. I'd guess pentobarbital. See how it acted so quick? It really goes to town on you.'

'Pento's a drag,' Die said conversationally, and Uruha shot him a dirty look.

'You've never had it.'

'Yeah, that's how I know,' Die said, his good spirits evidently undampened, 'You guys can't remember shit when you take it. That's why you need me to tell you that it's a fucking drag.'

Aoi grinned, pointing his spoon at the disgruntled-looking Uruha, 'He's got you there.'

Uruha made a face at him.

'Asshole.'

'Anyway, you haven't had it in ages.'

'Because I don't act out. I'm getting out soon.' With a lofty turn of his head, Uruha offered Ruki a small smile. 'I'm going to make maps,' he said. 'I'm going to study, and be a cartographer.'

'You'd better hurry up and leave then,' Aoi said waspishly, 'Or they'll have mapped everything good already.'

'When are you getting out?' Ruki asked with interest, and Uruha's smile slipped a notch or two. He picked up his cup and took a sip of tea, traded hands and took another sip, traded hands and took another sip, twelve times in a row, not saying a word. Then, he set it down and slammed his fist against the table harshly, making all the cups and plates dance with a light ringing sound.

'Uruha,' the nurse watching said warningly.

'I fucking slipped, all right?'

'Uruha.'

Cowed, he ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair crossly. His throat worked, and he ran his other hand through his hair; swapped hands and did it again; swapped hands and did it again. Twelve times in a row. He was twitching; one of his fists was twitching. It took less than a minute: he shot the supervising nurse a panicked, despairing look and slammed his other fist against the table, making everything rattle just like before; Kai had just been setting his his very full cup down, and tea sloshed from it as if somebody had shoved him from behind.

'Oh, Uruha—'

'I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It had to be even!'

'No, that's it,' the nurse said briskly, 'I think you had better eat in your room today.'

The tea was steaming where it had hit the table; it had just been poured. Ruki watched Kai with hollow, troubled eyes; the scalding liquid had splashed all over the other man's wrist. The skin there had turned a livid red, but he hadn't reacted at all. He didn't even appear to have noticed.

Ruki stared at that burnt skin until his eyes glazed and he stopped seeing it. He felt a kind of deep shake, as if his foundations had been damaged and were swaying unsteadily, and he was concerned that if he did anything – twitched or moved his eyes or blinked – he would start crying and not be able to stop.

He forced himself to take deep, regular breaths, though they sounded shallow and quick in his ears. When his eyes really began to sting and tear, he gave in and rubbed at them, blotting the tears away with clumsy, shaking hands.

He became aware of that feeling – the chill prickliness that ran over the back of his neck; the feeling of being watched. Hesitantly, he raised his head, and met Kyo's dark, solid stare head-on. It was frank and unapologetic; he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was looking, and so Ruki felt reasonably comfortable to stare back at him.

It was a peculiar feeling, watching somebody in that way. It made Kyo appear more vividly coloured than everything else in the room; Ruki's eyes followed the messy, tangled tendrils of dark hair around his neck; the hollow in his throat; the smooth, sharp line of his jaw. His lips were full and looked unused to smiling; his nose straight; his eyes long and inscrutably black, with shadows underneath them the colour of bruises.

It was an interesting face. Looking at it gave Ruki the same feeling he got when he looked at certain types of artwork; cubism, expressionism, the kinds of paintings he didn't understand right away. When E. O. was in one of his more depressive moods, going through one of his heavy-drinking phases and disparaging his own work, he would have said it was the only kind of artwork worth looking at. Ruki's lips twitched in a small smile: hard and turbulent as those times had been, they seemed fond and even naïve now; E. O., playing at being the tortured artist. The smile slipped from Ruki's face, and he pressed his lips together carefully. He noticed that Kyo was no longer looking at him; he was concentrating on his tea. It seemed to Ruki, though, that the other man was smiling slightly, as if somebody had just whispered a joke in his ear.

He sometimes got the strangest feeling, like he could just jump completely out of his own skin.

Comments

[thehamhamheaven]

Ah, so it was Shin-chan. And now we know Aoi's deal. Seems unthinkable that someone could be committed to a mental institute for being homosexual, but I suppose back in the 70s it was considered a form of insanity. I'm definitely a fan of him... of everyone, in fact. I can't wait until Ru-chibi gets to meet Kyo properly.

[solongsun]

Hey, thanks so much for your kind comments! It's so awkward to comment sometimes. This is really kind of you. Thanks for the support!

[thehamhamheaven]

Personally, I get so disheartened when something I've written gets just a few kudos and some hits with no comments at all. So I try to at least say SOMETHING on things I've read. So glad you've decided to post this! ^_^

[solongsun]

You just seem super, super nice. I'm your fan. Thank you!

[thehamhamheaven]

I try to be. (//∇//)

[reilaflowers]

Being sectioned just for being gay. Of Aoi is telling the truth I feel so sorry for him. I'm loving the way you write this. It feels like you have really researched what you're writing.

[gutterchurl]

Awesome chapter :D I do love Aoi. I feel so sorry for him, but he seems so cool about everything. A bit brash, maybe, but so... cool. That's the best word I could use to describe him.

Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how Uruha gets on with his cartography, as well as his obsession with the number twelve.