Fandom: Gravitation
Title: screaming from the inside
Pairings: Ryuichi + Tatsuha, Yuki + Shuichi, Hiro + Suguru, Sakano + Tohma, K + Judy, Tohma + Eiri, Tohma + Mika
Rating: PG
Description: A glimpse into the lives of Gravitation's characters on a rainy, rainy day.

Disclaimer: Murakami Maki owns Gravitation and I just borrow them temporarily 'cause I'm in love with them.

screaming from the inside
by miyamoto yui

The pink bunny named Kumagorou is being soaked in the rain as the handsome genius idol of Japan runs through the streets of Tokyo like a lunatic who doesn't know what it means to stop and look at the sidelines.

Waking up from a dream that seems nightmarishly true, his water droplets run alongside the tears of the sky that pour down on his jean jacket, his body, and his beautiful face that never seems to want to change into an expression of pain, though he feels it all over his body.
The dream repeats through his head like a warning. He always has dreams of being with people, touching them with the coldness that ran through his body, making love with his lifeless body. He's always looking for someone to help him to end his loneliness and to help him deal with life, especially his passionate emotions that enrapture him and make him innocently child-like.

Today, Nittle Grasper's lead singer is running for his life, trying not to believe what his nightmares tell him. He doesn't want to believe the logic behind his insanity. Why is it that in his dreams, when he finds someone to love, that person dies or goes away? He loses them in some way, and because of that, he commits suicide in the dream without a second thought to living life.

With all his tears, he shakes his head and he continues to run to the residence of the heir to his high, high throne in the realm of music.

With hopeful eyes and dripping water onto the wooden floors of the hallway, a person he wants to know opens the door. Into these arms does he jump into and snuggles himself against even though the seventeen-year-old monk doesn't know what to do with his thirty-two-year-old hero and secret love. He wraps his idol in his arms, wanting to take advantage of him, but by the desperate embrace, holds himself back.
He doubts that this warm hug is meant for him and he's deeply saddened by this predicament. He cannot move forward and he cannot step backwards. There he stands at the threshold of the apartment that belongs to his older brother and his pink-haired lover. He only holds onto the god that he's privileged to take under his wings temporarily. This god who hardly knows who he is, but he has wished for him all this time.
The boy hopes that this isn't a dream, even though he's becoming wet by the rain permeating into his pajamas as the adult and child-like idol holds him tighter, not wanting to believe that his nightmare holds true on this side of reality. And so, the boy only embraces him as best as he can, wanting to be of service to the person who has saved him with the music he's listened to all these years and unable to take everything hauled into his life with all its responsibilities, hardships, and pleasures.
In his head and through the idol's voice, he's shared them all with him, melting himself with this person who doesn't really know he exists.

The pink-haired singer of Bad Luck quietly comes out of the bedroom and is silently finding his sleepy eyes watching the scene before him. He doesn't know what to say or what to do. He knows he should leave them alone, but he can't help but feel a bit jealous at such a sweet display. Even though he's very lucky to have the person he loves most in the world in the bedroom where he just stepped out of, he sometimes wishes the blond novel writer wouldn't always try to decipher him because he doesn't know how to explain himself to anyone.
That's why his lyrics never really go anywhere, and yet, they are as deep as they can possibly reach within him. He's just no good when it comes to explaining himself because he's used to feeling everything to the extreme without ever needing to clarify himself.

For can these types of things really be put into words?
That would be such a futile attempt.

He cannot explain that his dreams always spin out of control and he wants his lover to hold him, to be the constant that wouldn't change with the roller coaster he puts himself through, inside and outside of his head. He knows that there are many things he cannot change about his life, but he believes in himself because that's the thing he learned most while his heart broke apart when the blond went away without him. Things came into focus and he realized that if we were to be the one that his love loved, then he'd have to be even stronger than him in order to protect him.
They were protecting each other from the devils that crept into their minds.

With a glance at Kumagorou looking at him while making a puddle on the floor, he turns around to go back to the room with his white rabbit slippers on. He climbs back into bed and snuggles closely to the blond with the unrelenting eyes that make him lose his breath and create a new understanding of himself and the world he lives in through his love and words, even in the novels that he's started to read.

The blond blinks his eyes as his pink-haired boy wraps his arms around him tightly, as if wanting to get a reply to an unspoken question. He stares into the darkness and wonders if he ever gave enough. Even though he's always trying his best to understand, there are times where he can't. It's driving him mad.
He wonders if he ever deserved such a wonderful person with all his intensity to fall in love with someone such as himself.
Does he deserve the kind of happiness that more than ninety percent of the world couldn't even imagine, even in their wildest dreams? He wants to hold onto the one person who persistently doesn't seem to be scared by his masks or seemingly uncaring words.
He still can't believe that it's this person who brings out his old self: The kind, caring, and honest person he used to be. He didn't know he was hidden there all along. With a slight clamp over the boy's hand, he closes his eyes and falls back asleep. Inwardly, he thanks him with the silence, too proud to admit it and too soft to not show him at all.
Even when you are at the depths of hell, there is someone to save you from the devil you've made yourself to be.

But he couldn't deceive himself any longer.

With the lights on, the long-haired guitarist of Bad Luck steps out to the balcony and lights up a cigarette. Why is he cursed with such feelings? Even though he tries everything to push them away and like certain people to divert himself, his best friend is always on his mind.

He still couldn't let him go.

His best friend is such a brat to always come to him for advice but is deaf to all the songs he's played on his guitar with the intension of reaching his heart. Why is it that even though he's always so mature in his sound mind, he's very childish in his clumsy, straightforward emotions regarding this one person? The anomaly that continues to (and lets him) complicate his life.

It's a hopeless cause and yet he can't find himself stopping his love. It just grows stronger, unfortunately. It isn't wrong and there's nothing to justify that it's right. It's just there and it's growing because he's trying to live in the memories that the pink-haired one once gave him. He tries to live on those memories of days long past.
Even though he is with him most of the week and for hours on end, it still means nothing. It all leads to nothing because it isn't enough and yet he has to make do with that. Why are the years unkind to him? Why is this feeling inside growing and becoming deeper in its roots when he already knows that it should've died out?
It was destined to merge into nothing and becoming nothing. And yet, the flowers are blooming.
A new smile, a new embrace…they are things that he captures in his memories and tries to keep himself alive even if the person he loves is always beside him, ignoring and unaware of his feelings towards him and how much he needs him, not wanting to be cast aside. But sometimes, it was hard to see among the person of his dreams, the person before him, and the person who's growing without him.
Despite all this, even if it's like this, he'll take it as long as he sees him.

Flowers won't live without water, after all.
The rose that the green-haired synthesizer brought a while ago begins to wilt. He touches its petals with his finger and is amazed that the guitarist even kept it for this long. His loving eyes look at the artistic, picturesque scene before him with a curious fascination for aestheticism imbedded in his genes and bloodline. The rain is pouring and there is the object of his affections, smoking with thoughts that he wishes he cannot read at all. Sometimes, he wishes he wasn't as smart as he is because he doesn't want to think about everything all at once. How his struggle to make someone look at him always results into something that he remembers will hurt him.
It is an irreversible process that he must endure. He cannot stop himself from looking at the person before him because this is the person who has gone beyond his sphere of influence.
Is it so wrong to want what you can't have? Doesn't it make it more alluring because you can't touch it with all of your heart? To say the least, it's what you think has remained through the years of emotionless eyes and professional attitude that's gotten in the way of personal feelings. You complicate things once you mix business and your emotions together into a pool that appears so murky in content.

And yet, he is staring at the bare back of someone who shouldn't have gone out in the rain. This person should have been in bed like every normal person who has a cold. But he cannot protest if that's what the long-haired one prefers, almost tempting the rain to flood into the apartment and wanting to be swept away.
Still he sits in his chair, waiting for an opportunity. But he knows that these things are never timed right.
It's an unknown science that has been well out of his realm. No matter how good he is at twisting things towards his advantage, the guitarist that he longs for is the number one piece of evidence that proves his calculated thoughts wrong.
He finds himself actually getting up to walk towards the balcony. With his hand on the other's shoulder, he turns him around and next, puts his hand on the sweaty forehead. He sees the pieces of rain that have attached themselves on the eyelids of the person he cares for most in the world. It kills him that there's nothing he can do, and yet, his blank face, trying to keep calm, stares back.
With a firm scolding, he tells him to go back into the apartment and to get ready for bed. He says this with his steady form of automatic authority, as his blood has dictated of its own accord. The other person doesn't listen and so his he takes his hand to lead him inside their apartment once again. As he tucks him into bed, he kisses him on the lips and then turns off the light into the room, unable to sleep. He goes out to the balcony wanting to catch the rain, even if it seems unreasonable and illogical.

Looking at the sky, he knows dawn should come but the darkness and its rain won't let it shine.

He keeps on gazing up at the sky and down at the rained path before him and wants the sun to shine soon. The man in the blue suit is running towards the record studio with a newspaper dripping over him. He finally gets to his empty office and puts all his stuff away.
He looks out the window and out to the world that's dripping in an overflow of tears. He grips onto the curtain, thinking that the president has come too early this morning. But he is mistaken. It is just someone who is dressed similarly to him with a hat and dark coat covering him.

Why is it that he can't shake this forbidding habit he has? That whenever the president needs him, he can't say "no"?
Whenever the president is within his sight, he can't act normally as his heart races and he is ever saddened by the fact that his feelings parallel that of the sky. Flowing in raging rivers, but never really going anymore. But it continues to build even though he has tried to kill it.

He can't help it though.

When he started admiring him, he wanted to be just like him, until the day came when he didn't want to be him. He just wanted him and thought that he was a sick guy to want a man and a married one no less.
But you can't control the people you fall in love with, only what you do with it. Isn't that right? He always freaks out when lyrics aren't done, but wipes his forehead whenever the president smiles to tell him he's done a good job.
There's nothing wrong with him. It's just the way he is. The president just happens to be the person he fell in love with and there's nothing wrong with that. He holds onto this thought, but the grip on the curtain becomes fiercer. Then, he finally lets go.
The only thing he can do is to try to get further in his job in order to distract himself. It's because everything else in his life is all right. After all, he's good at planning and things like that. He's made a bit of money; his family's all right with him being so successful.

Everything is all right except his heart, but he will not do anything about it. He doesn't want to look for anyone else because that person is perfect to him, as hopeless as his love is towards that single person. He wants to believe that his wife loves him as much as he does, but his heart cringes.
As he places his hands on the glass before him to look at the sky, he knows that this isn't true. For him, no one like that exists. No one can even catch a glimpse of the depth of his love towards the president of NG records. Nothing has been ever clearer to him than this fact that he will take to the grave.

His eyes look to the distant sky, wondering, randomly, if flights have been cancelled.
That isn't the case, though. The blond man with the long ponytail is yet again in an airplane heading towards Tokyo. He's used to watching the window for entertainment because he cannot go to sleep. Even though there are a lot of people with their sleeping masks on, he doesn't feel inclined towards slumber at all. He leans his chin on his palm as his eyes intently watch the rain and his body feels the turbulence along with the rest of the airplane.
No matter how many times he's done this, he's always briefly praying in his mind that he'll get to Japan and back home in one piece. It doesn't matter that he doesn't usually pray at all, because he's used to taking things into his own hands, whether it's right or wrong.
As long as they give results, that's what his job has always dictated and been centered around.

He knows he's done this a million times, but it doesn't get any less harder to do. He just becomes immune to the experience of missing the two most important people in his world. They are wonderful and they say they understand what he does. But will their patience last a long time? Will there ever come a time, as his thoughts have run off into quite often, when his son will tell him that he wasn't there? That all the times he was at work and going back and forth between two countries that he's been missing large chunks of time that will never be replaced? Will his wife, as busy as she is, come to a point that she'll get tired of waiting?

It kills him inside, as strong as he appears to be on the outside. He pushes people around with his intelligence and confident arrogance, but he's trying to hide that there are many things going through his head which bring up his insecurities. He can take everything, but not if his family begins to doubt his reliability.
That's why he inwardly gets mad at his friends, co-workers, and such when they waste his time. They take it for granted while he regards it as very precious. They, after all, are with the people they love almost all the time. This is the only thing he can't control and therefore, he has to remind some people to take time very seriously and he has to deal with them patiently. Whether it's making lyrics, setting up for a concert, or in personal matters.
So, he takes up a pen and starts to write a letter on a blank piece of paper. It is addressed towards his wife and child. He will hand-deliver it to them when he gets back, as he always does. This is the only way to pass the time and get his message through to them.

The purple-haired one puts her pencil down and leans back in her chair for a few more seconds before her husband comes in to give her a kiss goodbye as he heads off for work. She then looks down at the music she has made for a children's book she's publishing with Yuki Eiri. She smiles down at it as she tiredly gets up and pushes her seat into her desk to head towards her child's room. Lying down down beside her, she hugs her closely before she has to wake her up.

Each day is filled with an exciting adventure because her curious six-year-old always wants to hear a chapter from Yuki-sama's book or she tries to discover things out in the park before they come home together from school hand-in-hand. But different from the independent keyboardist of Nittle Grasper, the former wild woman has become more focused. Ever since she has had her family, she has become someone whose instinct has heightened and her sympathy towards other people has broadened with patience and understanding that no other occupation can provide no matter how many lifetimes one may pass through.
At this very moment, she's thankful that things have finally turned out right for her. But she's sorry to see her little girl grow up so fast. The blond fireball is her pride and joy and she knows that this is only a series of events that will make them all older and wiser. And yet, she still wants to hold onto these moments when it's completely peaceful and quiet, despite the rain pouring in buckets outside their home. There is still a little time before she softly wakes her child up to welcome her into the world she has conquered and wants her child to overcome also.

Even with the thunder and lightning, the child in its crib is fast asleep, as if lulled by the violent sounds outside. Its mother is falling asleep as she drags her nightgown towards her bedroom. She yawns as she exhaustedly gets into bed next to her husband. But even though she's physically tired, her mind is wide-awake. She turns around to face her husband, whose bangs she pushes over his ear so that she can look at him. Yet again, this is the only time they truly have for one another and that's fine with them.
She just can't shake off her fears that when he's sleeping, she cannot keep him. It's worse than when he's awake. Even though she knows him very well, there's still that certain doubt invading her mind and it won't let her go.
The baby has blond hair and he keeps on saying that it looks like Eiri in a way, innocent and wide-eyed, as when he was a little kid. This bothers her because she wants to believe she's the one he cherishes most in the world.
In the world of dreams, however, she's haunted by the dirty thoughts that have not stopped all these years. Everything pointing towards Eiri's happiness. And being his sister, she wants everything for him to work out. Of course, she loves him. That's why she tried to help him in whatever way she could think of, even if it meant that he'd hate her. She'd rather that he dislike her than hate himself even more and live with the pain that she can't handle seeing him in.

But she's caught in the middle.

There are times when Tohma hasn't realized that he talks in his sleep, saying things about Eiri as if he's everything to him. That there is no other person in his life.
She pushes it all away because she trusts him. He hasn't ever let her down. She takes his hands and presses her lips on them.

Falling asleep that way, her husband's eyes open to watch her sleep so tranquilly. He doesn't pull his hands away. He has woken up because she has pulled on him again, a straight tug on his heart that can never be overlooked. It bothers him that she acts this way when she thinks he's sleeping, when he's not paying attention to her.
He knows that deep inside, he can sense the answer. A response that's not so clean and precise as all his other life transactions have been. He likes things in their place, but how can you tell that towards the people you love with all of your heart? Equally, Mika and Eiri have held a place in his heart that he cannot live without. (He does not even want to think of Ryuichi because that can no longer be put into words.)
To be without either one of them is murder to him. Yet, he can't tell one or the other this because it will destroy the fragility of their bond among one another.

And the baby shouts.
He pulls his hands away in order to run towards the little one who's screaming its heart out to be heard. He holds it gently in his arms and smiles quietly, reminded that this is not Eiri, but is as beautiful as him. He enjoys this time with his child because it has softened him a bit.
He's learning that not everything can be predictable and calculated. There are things you can never think of, no matter how much you plan. And he's learning to hang on and depend on other people because this little one trusts him unquestionably with his life.
But the baby continues to cry and then is silenced. It has to shout in order to be heard because it cannot voice out what it feels about itself and its environment yet.

So why are we, the ones that are "grown-up" and the ones that are supposed to know how to articulate our words to express ourselves clearly, the ones who are unable to say all the smiles and sadness that we feel inside? We are all shattering from the pain. Inside all of us, we are screaming to be saved from something we don't understand. A loneliness or something with no name, but is as deep as the soul and penetrates coldly to the bone.

Why, oh why, are we the ones who know words…
…are the ones who are unable to tell what we think and want to express from deep inside our hearts?

We can't say anything…ending up not even saying one word. Not one word.

It is all too much to take, and yet, we try to survive each and every day.
Quietly, but persistently…

We are all screaming from the inside.

Owari. / The End.

Author's note: This strange idea ran through my head. Maybe it's because I want to experiment, my writer's block is bad, and I've been feeling quite unlike myself that I see things in some distorted fashion.
But I wanted to talk about everyone, even if it was just a glimpse into their lives because I like all of them.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004