Kaoru muttered something about needing a new set of strings. He should have said it low enough so only he and Toshiya could hear -- but Die happened to have been close by. And _he_ wasn't inclined to let the remark slip unmolested.
Then Die said something about the problem getting solved if Kaoru would only spend the night on a certain unlit avenue. Kaoru quickly smirked and answered something about having to spend TWO nights since he was also planning to get new overdrives. Shinya chuckled. Kyo, snug in his little corner, lifted a corner of his lips lazily.
Toshiya did nothing at all.
Noticing, Die snapped "Dammit, Totchi, at least laugh along."
Toshiya imagined real annoyance on Die's voice, and on impulse he doused it with a playful "Gomen na!" and turned away in time with Kaoru saying something about taking care that his virgin ears did not get soiled.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the room, Toshiya considered his reaction for the day a real problem. Why _wasn't_ he laughing along? He wasn't sure. It could be that the jokes were getting old…but it could also be that he was just starting to find them downright disturbing.
They were the same jokes, about the same person, day after day.
"If you want to save yourself trouble, Kaoru-chan, I could arrange for you to meet this guy I know…family man, high government position, balding, a Ferrari…"
"Sure thing, Die-kun. You know I trust anything that you've tasted first…"
~ 0 ~
Later in the day, over lunch with Shinya at the nearest fast food store, it was still in his mind.
A french fry twisted free of his awkward fingers. He pursued it half- heartedly, only to set it aside. "Doesn't he ever…get tired?"
"Of what?" Shinya was eagerly wolfing down a serving of spaghetti like it actually tasted good. Judging from his lack of expression, whatever Toshiya wanted to talk about didn't seem to be much more important than junk food.
"The jokes!" Toshiya replied acidly. He was, after all, trying to start a decent conversation. "I mean if I were him I would've -- punched Die's lights out a long time ago. I mean -- doesn't he care…?"
Shinya looked up at him, his large eyes blank, and said around a messy mouthful of pasta, "You don't know?"
Toshiya's brows furrowed. "Know what?"
"Why Kaoru doesn't care."
Toshiya's eyes widened and his lips parted for a question that never escaped, and seeing that that was all he was going to get for his trouble, Shinya nonchalantly turned his attention back to his meal.
"You know what, Totchi, I don't think I'm the one to tell you." A pause, during which a considerable slowing down of the spaghetti- chewing process ensued. "Ask Kyo. He and Kaoru hang out together a lot." Another pause, during which the mouthful of meal made its way down the drummer's slender throat. "Yeah, Kyo should be good."
"Kyo," Toshiya echoed blandly, as he could think of nothing better to say. He was still digesting being turned over to someone a bit less reachable. And why the _fuck_ didn't Shinya seem to think this was going to be such a big surprise? "All right, then, say I talk to Kyo - - how do I go about asking?"
Shinya shrugged. "Just ask!" he said with an unattached cheerfulness, which apparently ended their discussion regarding the matter, and left Toshiya feeling more naïve, more left out than ever.
~ 0 ~
I don't get it, Toshiya said to himself for what he promised would be the last time that day. He had decided to take the long route home to get some time alone to try and clear his head. He didn't get it that he cared this much, and only after months and months.
It seemed that Die and Kaoru had been exchanging that disturbing banter as part of a daily ritual (in which Kyo and Shinya occasionally participated) even before Toshiya came into the picture. It didn't bother Toshiya at first, and there was actually a moment when it began to feel natural, but before he could grow into the habit, it started feeling strange.
It was too natural for everybody to be calling Kaoru a whore.
And if there was anyone getting hurt, it was Toshiya. (Something here was being unfair.)
The official reason he would give anyone who asked (if anyone would ask) was that anything that bothered him about the band would affect his performance. But the unofficial (hence real) reason was that he was just concerned. Alright goddammit yes, he liked Kaoru. And he thought he knew _exactly_ how much. Of all the people he had ever met, he wished it was to Kaoru that he could be a better friend. Kaoru was a spectacular guitarist, a master showman, in all directions a figure of confidence and command.
He was everything…_except_ a whore.
Why the _hell_ was everybody else throwing that word around anyway? Didn't their freaking _mothers_ tell them it was a bad word? That it was probably the worst thing one person can call another?
"Whore" meant -- well, it meant what it did.
And he guessed he was just going to have to sit on his own stupidity until he could see how anyone could apply that word to --
It was unmistakable. Dyed blue hair softly framing a narrow, fine- boned face, and an air so proud, untouchable. He was even wearing the fit t-shirt and jeans that he had worn to that morning's practice.
Kaoru appeared to be asleep, sitting up on the bus stop bench. But his reclining figure seemed taut somewhat, alert, as if he was only feigning sleep. That must have been it, Toshiya decided: he was waiting for someone.
Toshiya didn't know how long he had been standing there, uncertain if he should approach, before a shadow came to sit beside Kaoru. Kaoru stirred, opened his eyes, met the shadow's gaze without alarm or enmity. Toshiya couldn't distinguish the other man's features (this was, after all, what made him a shadow) and so, to his distress, he couldn't see what about the other man made Kaoru smile.
It was that wicked smile that was far from submissive, that smile that had said to Toshiya on the first day they met: "You have what I want."
And something inside Toshiya cried out, No, please. Not that smile.
And before he could shout it out for real or make a move, Kaoru had stood and allowed the shadow to whisk him away. With long, mistakably eager strides he and the shadow left Toshiya's sight.
Toshiya remained rooted to where he stood, as the hold a certain smile had on his heart loosened: slowly, painfully.
~ 0 ~
Perhaps on the next few nights after that, Toshiya sought him out. Perhaps in truth, he just wandered into the dark side of H City by accident. He honestly did not know how he got where he was and usually barely remembered how to get home. God, if his mother knew where he went on the nights when he said he was out late "doing research"…
Well, in a sense he _was_…doing research. He was trying to find out what was happening to his world. Why it had suddenly stopped turning.
Toshiya plodded through the streets in a daze, barely aware that he needed to blend in, to not invite attention. He wasn't sure he wanted to believe where he was, what he was doing.
He would always find Kaoru, as if drawn. As if wherever Kaoru was in that void, he was in the center: radiant, glorious: as if glory was possible in absolute darkness. Always so casually dressed, always so cool, standing out among the strangers of his age by looking like he enjoyed what he was doing and had nothing to lose…
This was the routine: someone would approach the elegantly sharp- featured, blue-haired boy leaning against a well-lit somewhere, and ask for the time. Kaoru would then glance at his extravagantly shiny Rolex, and answer the potential patron with a smile -- the Smile. The one that could only break Toshiya's heart.
And then…and then the patron would try to reciprocate that Smile…but he (always a he) would be too dazzled to come up with something that even comes close.
They would talk a bit more, Kaoru and his newest shadow. Sometimes (not often), the shadow would go away, trying hard not to look disappointed. When that happened, Kaoru would stay within sight, and Toshiya would find himself breathing again.
_Just stand there…_
Many times, just wishing Kaoru would not leave, and then watching him disappear into the darker parts of the city, Toshiya felt something very like sadness well up inside him, and shy from overflowing. It seemed then that all his peace for the night relied on whether or not Kaoru was going to stride out of sight.
And he thought it would break him, his inability to shield himself from visions of Kaoru burning under someone else's touch. Kaoru…the Smile…fading in and out of sight. Paid struggles, paid screams, paid lies…
_Doesn't it hurt him?_ Sadness pulsing cold through his closed fists. _Then why do _I_ hurt?_ Anger pushing for escape behind his eyes. _It isn't _fair_..._
Toshiya had sworn to himself that on the night Kaoru would leave his post alone, no matter if he would look angry or disappointed, Toshiya would announce his presence and walk with him. Wherever he would be going.
But it never happened. Kaoru always left with a shadow.
Still, night after night, Toshiya went to search, to find, to wait.
On one night, someone actually approached him to ask for the time. He perceived the cold that spread suddenly inside him to be fear, and was barely able to shake his head in defense before the potential patron (short, fat, with flat, greasy hair) could show his teeth again. The salaryman walked away looking more than a bit disgruntled, perhaps incredulous that a kid like Toshiya had gone to a place like that without anything to buy or to sell.
That was the only night Toshiya didn't find Kaoru.
That was the only night he actually shed tears on the train ride back home.
~ 0 ~
"I need a new set of strings," Kaoru had said softly once, his gaze unfocused as if in prayer, looking down at himself.
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