BREAK THE LIMITS: 32b/33

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: Break the Limits
Author: andrew_in_drag 
Pairing: Yoshiki x hide
Rating: mature
Warnings: foul language, yaoi, rock 'n roll excess
Genre: AU to bandfic
Note: I first wrote this fic about three (?) years ago, when I was still hallelujah_hide. Oddly enough, I still like it, so I thought I would move it here to my new journal. 
Synopsis: May 1998: Yoshiki Hayashi breaks down in a temple as he tries to take in the news that has changed his life forever - Hideto Matsumoto, the man he has been in love with for seventeen years, is dead. As the other mourners try to comfort him, Yoshiki finds himself falling back through history - to the day when it all began; the day when he met a boy who would, truly, break the limits...

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO [B]:

“I know all the things around your head, and what they do to you

What are we coming to? What are we gonna do?”

– ‘Black Star’, Radiohead

We were separated for the first time when he left for Los Angeles and I stayed at home. I drove him to the airport, both of us oddly silent on the drive, and when I parked up he just sat there for a moment, looking strange.

“Still don’t like flying?” I asked, squeezing his hand, and he smiled at me.

“Not so much. I don’t like to fly without you, especially.”

Something warm lodged itself in my gut, a little nugget I could take home with me.

“Is that because my scintillating company helps you forget you’re thousands of feet in the air?”

He laughed softly. He wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt; over it, a bright yellow T-shirt that bore the legend speed freaks in orange. He looked young and fresh – seventeen again, with that youthful hairstyle and those bright clothes.

“Hey,” I said at last, “I got you something.”

He looked up at me in surprise: we were too rich to treat each other. There was so little we didn’t have; gift ideas were precious and hoarded up for birthdays. He did love jewellery, though, and suddenly what I wanted to give him couldn’t wait. He’d be so far away in Los Angeles, and this was a little way of reminding him of me – and signalling to others that he was taken, too: mine.

“Yoshi,” he said nervously, “But I didn’t—”

“I want you to have it,” I said unsteadily, taking the box from my pocket, and told him the truth, “So everyone in LA can know you have somebody who loves you, back home. And so you’ll remember, too.”

A pleased flush heated his pale cheeks as I slid the thick ring on his fourth finger. It was bold, and large enough to almost cover the top section of his finger; a wrapped design, as if somebody had taken molten metal and draped it over him. The platinum highlighted the white of his skin the way I’d hoped it would; that large ring made his fingers look fragile, even though he had strong guitarist hands by now. In every picture taken from now up until pictures stopped being taken, that ring could be seen on his finger.

“Platinum,” I told him, to break his shocked silence, “Sort of a…you know. Precious metal for a precious person.” I swallowed. “And especially, only the best for you.”

“I love it,” he stated emphatically, “Yoshi, it’s beautiful. Like you.” His dark eyes sparked with my laughter.

“Beautiful? Shouldn’t you remark on my manly handsomeness?” I teased, but he turned serious.

“No,” he told me. “Lots of men are handsome. True beauty shines out, like yours. Like radiance.”

He leaned forward and kissed me softly on the mouth.

“Thank you.” He smiled, my lover. “You know I’ll have to bring you something back from Los Angeles, now.”

“Just bring back yourself,” I said whole-heartedly, “All in one piece, if you can manage. And when you walk in the door, look at me as if you haven’t seen me in years.”

“I love you,” he said unexpectedly, seeming to surprise even himself. He gathered himself. “I’ll see you in two months.” He hesitated, on the brink of saying something else, but then just smiled. “I’ll call you when I get there,” he promised.

“No matter what the time is,” I added.

And then, he was gone.

I was alone.

The house mocked me, that huge house. The clocks took on that obnoxiously loud quality that’s only noticeable when there’s no other human noise; the television or radio can never mask it. It’s the sound of emptiness. Most clocks said tick-tock; my clocks said, Hi-de, Hi-de.

The place was uncomfortably clean without him. When the leather cushions on the sofas weren’t dented in the shape of his body; when there weren’t any of his special orchids swooning and layering the tables they stood on in orange-yellow dust; when his messy array of hair products were absent of the bathroom sink…only then did I realize how sterilely tidy my house generally was, so unlike his apartment. Mine was grand; his was cosy. I’d never considered that I might prefer his. I remembered when I’d been an adolescent, falling in love with him, and I’d promised myself I’d have a house all the colours of the rainbow when I was older.

I sighed, looking around. Black on white; white on black. Silver accents. It was cold, ordered, a designer’s dream. Like a beautifully embalmed corpse.

What I did to alleviate this horrible feeling was something that seems a bit pathetic, even to me, even now. I climbed the glass staircase until I reached the master suite – this room cosier, bearing evidence of his presence – and opened up his walk-in wardrobe: then, I just sat inside and inhaled, surrounded by the whispering fabrics and his smell. For months after what happened, I continuously propped burning cigarettes in ashtrays in that bedroom, trying to keep his smell alive. But it wasn’t just smoke, it was everything; soap and skin, and that, I couldn’t recreate.

The months he was away, I put a lot of thought into how to spend my free time. Work was long as ever; something I relished, now. Dir en grey, the band I’d picked up in 1997, were making progress in leaps and bounds – and they had the added charm of being real, likeable people, even if the drummer did continuously send me glowing glances from beneath his eyelashes, and the younger guitarist liked to hang from me and babble his ideas so they came out just as unclear as Taiji’s had. When I caught him tapping a pencil to demonstrate a rhythm, I thought for a moment that time had turned backwards.

They were a wonderful band to work with; disconcerting in appearance – each with their own particular kind of good looks and those laughably different heights. The redhead and the bassist, I called the gentle giants; they towered almost a foot above their vocalist, but couldn’t have hurt a fly.

One of them especially, Die, had a peculiar kind of beauty that I couldn’t put my finger on – not until I saw him saunter into the studio and, quite openly, kiss the elder guitarist, Kaoru, in a special tender way that only lovers did.

That was it: that particular kind of light and buoyancy that lovers had. I wondered if anyone had ever looked at Hide and I had seen the same thing – or if we’d snuffed the flame way back in the early days of X; bypassed our own feelings the way this enviable couple never would.

Crippled with jealousy, I could hardly stand to spend time around Kaoru and Die. They were young and had their whole lives together ahead of them; the heady passion of youth and the complacent comfort of a long-established relationship, all to be had.

Whereas Hide and I had made mistakes and kept apart; given into our feelings only when we truly couldn’t help it. We’d made a love that was broken and gnarled, like the branches of a dead tree: so as Kaoru and Die’s love blossomed, ours crumbled gently, rotting like deadwood.

We had money, time and love. It wasn’t long before I was to discover that all of that was useless, without fate on our side; that perhaps, I loved him too much to save him. I walked with my head in the clouds, an eternal optimist, whilst Hide sat numb in LA; the news of X’s prospective regrouping having reached him via long-distance phone call.

The terrible gears I’d set in motion began to turn.

And once more, I shouldn’t have been so short-sighted; ignorance isn’t an excuse for what happened, neither on my part nor his.

Because just like before, when we started this whole thing, we should have known.

We should have been careful.

I missed him so much while he was away. I wouldn’t see him again until just after April, one day before I was to go to America; the day of the very last spring shower.