A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON: 24b/25

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Author: andrew_in_drag
Pairing: Kaoru x Toshiya
Rating: mature
Warnings: sex, swears
Chapter: 24b/25
Previously: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24b 
Synopsis: When it comes to healing broken hearts, Toshiya is a professional. Good-looking and charming, he makes his living by gently helping the jilted to go on with their lives, whilst steadfastly refusing to settle down himself. Boasting a one hundred percent success rate, Toshiya is sure his method is flawless - until he meets Kaoru, a lonely academic who, despite Toshiya's better judgement, starts to get under his skin...

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (B):

After he met Shinya at the library, Toshiya decided to return to the relative safety of his flat. He unplugged his home phone for good measure; sometimes, when he felt he could concentrate well enough, he read. Embarrassed at how he must have come across, he weaned himself off the sleeping pills and went back to suffering through his fitful, nightmarish sleep. Most nights he tossed and turned, but he found he preferred it to the more general, dreamy feeling of being absolutely out of it. He shuddered, realising how the drugs had affected him, and flushed the rest of the tablets down the toilet before he could possibly be tempted again. 
It was the only change he saw fit to make, though. Even when he started to run out of money, he found it hard to make himself care. It must have been the weather; the stifling, muggy weather. Every day he hoped for rain. When it fell, though, he only twisted his head where he lay and stared at it, watching it slide down his windows; veins and arteries of water on glass.

It did not surprise him when, a few days after his encounter with Shinya, there came a hard and definite knock at the front door of his flat. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but he was still lying on top of his bed in the position he’d fallen asleep in last night. His general appearance was not quite as terrible as it could have been, he considered – he had taken a bath and washed his hair the night before and, though his flat was untidy, his scattered possessions had an impersonal look that stopped his surroundings from looking truly messy.
He thought briefly of Kaoru’s house: the clutter of beautiful artworks; the swooning green leaves of the houseplants; the bed sheets crisp and clean but rumpled around Kaoru’s waist as he smiled, completely nude, extending a welcome hand and sitting up a little so the sheets fell lower—
Fuck.
Toshiya turned his face towards the window, exhaling slowly. The knocking on his door had not stopped; it was louder, if anything. Unlike a normal, civilised knock, this one went on rhythmically, with no pauses. He could tell Die was settling down for the long haul.
He felt suddenly sick.
“Go away,” he called, not even bothering to lift his head off the pillow. “Not today, Die. I don’t want to see anyone.”
The knocking ceased.
“If you’re in,” the answer came, “You’re opening this goddamn door. I want to talk to you, and I want to talk to you now.”
Toshiya frowned, pulling himself up reluctantly. It was not Die’s voice. He thought he recognised the speaker, but that was absurd, because it sounded almost like—
“Kyo?” he muttered softly. The pounding on his door resumed.
“Open up, Toshiya. I ain’t fucking around. If you think I’ll draw the line at breaking it down, you are deeply mistaken.”
Slowly, Toshiya threaded his legs into a pair of jeans that came fresh from his dresser drawer. He didn’t want Kyo to see what a mess he had become. He tugged at the waist of his jeans anxiously; he had used to have to lie down to get into them, but now they slid on with ease. Over his head, he pulled a white tank top. He considered running a brush through his hair, but found he lacked the energy. He pulled it back into a sloppy ponytail and combed through it once, half-heartedly, with his fingers.
The pounding at the door had grown slower and more deliberate. Toshiya imagined he could almost hear the wood crunching, as if it was about to give. 
For that reason, and that reason alone, he opened the door and let Kyo back into his life.

Toshiya sat uncomfortably at the table in front of his unexpected guest, feeling big and dirty and ungainly. The poet was perfectly composed, his short legs crossed and his hands folded on the table top. He had the demeanour of a father about to give a lecture and yet, when Toshiya looked closely at him, there was almost something contrite about his expression. As usual, he was all jagged edges, but his eyes did not seem as hard as they were usually.
“You look like shit,” he stated matter-of-factly. Toshiya shrugged.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he explained. Kyo shook his head.
“No, I don’t mean you look tired, although you do. I mean, generally, you look terrible.”
Toshiya rolled his eyes.
“Thanks.”
Silence. They should have been able to hear the clock ticking, but it had stopped some time ago. The fridge hummed instead; a bland, staticky second best.
“I didn’t come round here just to tell you that you that though,” Kyo said at last. He sniffed. “Shinya told me that you ran into him, you see. He was worried. Really worried. He said you looked like you were falling apart, and told me he’d withhold sex if I didn’t come around to check on you. He even found your address for me. Don’t ask me how.” Kyo paused awkwardly. “He doesn’t usually threaten me with that. It’s sort of a punishment for him too, isn’t it? But he can go longer without, I think. He meditates, or something.”
Toshiya stared at Kyo blankly, trying to absorb the surreality of the situation. How had it come to pass that Kaoru’s ex-boyfriend was sitting at his kitchen table talking about sex? Dazed, he nodded slowly. He couldn’t say he had listened to every word the poet had said. There was an uncharacteristic shake in Kyo’s voice that had thrown him off.
“Ah,” he added lamely. “Well. I’m okay.”
“Bullshit,” Kyo pronounced instantly, his voice so clear it seemed to make the empty beer bottles by Toshiya’s sink tinkle and ring. “Shinya’s very good at a lot of things, including being a judge of other people’s emotional states.” Kyo frowned defiantly. “It’s one of the reasons why we fit so well. He knows when I’m just being a grumpy bastard, and he knows when there’s actually something wrong.”
Toshiya was getting a headache. He didn’t want to have this conversation.

“So Shinya’s a good judge of…of emotional…whatever,” Toshiya sighed wearily, “What does that have to do with me?”
Kyo gave him a hard stare.
“I thought that was obvious,” he stated flatly. “You scared him. He’s worried for you.”
“Did it occur to him that it’s even less his business than it is yours?” Toshiya muttered.
“When he has to haul your ass off to a bathroom so he can get a word of reassurance out of you, it becomes his business. He said you were so out of it you could hardly focus on him.”
“I had a fever.”
“Uh huh,” Kyo said sarcastically. “Sick, were you?”
“Yes,” Toshiya lied.
“Right.” The poet snorted. “Heartsick, maybe. And drugged up to your fuckin’ eyeballs.” He leant forward, speaking again before Toshiya had time to respond: “Hey, Toshiya. Just how long do you plan on living like this, anyway?”
Toshiya shrugged. Despite himself, he drew back, his shoulders and spine curving inwards protectively. He was very, very tired. He wanted Kyo to get out of his flat and leave him to rest and sleep and think.
“Can you leave?” he asked quietly. He knew he was being rude, but the situation was just too bizarre. Kyo, for his part, looked very unconcerned, and though he got up from his seat, he wandered no further than the kettle. Toshiya watched silently as he filled it with water and began to hunt around for cups.
“If you want me to leave,” Kyo said in a voice that suggested he was talking to a very young child, “Then you can cut the shit and tell me why you freaked my partner out so badly.” He shrugged. “I’m not leaving until you tell me, so that’s a very non-negotiable offer.”
Toshiya rubbed a tense hand over his face.
“Believe it or not, I don’t want to talk to you,” he said tiredly. “You got what you wanted anyway. You hated me from the start and now I’m gone.”
Much as he tried to maintain a fierce façade, the corners of his mouth tugged downwards of their own accord, and his eyes pricked gently with tears.
I’m gone.

Kyo didn’t say a word to him until he had boiled the kettle and poured his tea. He sat down, waiting patiently for it to steep. He didn’t take his eyes off Toshiya.
“I didn’t do it because I hated you, you know,” he said at last. He swirled the leaves in his cup. “I did it because I thought it was wrong that you were stringing him along and lying to him. I couldn’t stand that. I hated the fact that he was in love with you, because I knew it wasn’t real.” Kyo hesitated. “I didn’t want to watch you make a fool of him anymore.”
Kyo took a measured sip of his tea. He was prone to being overblown, but now his movements were almost dainty.
“I’m beginning to think, though,” he said at last, “That maybe I made a mistake.” He pressed his lips together. “I thought that he would be more inclined to be angry than upset. That was an error. And I thought…”
Toshiya stared.
“I thought,” Kyo continued finally, “That it was all about a job to you. I pride myself on being very perceptive, but I didn’t see what had happened. I was – I didn’t want to see that, because I was jealous. Not because I wanted Kaoru back, but because he’d met this beautiful guy that seemed to make him so happy.” He raised his eyebrows. “That’s probably a bit hard to understand. It’s my problem, though. It just made it hit home. When I saw you together that first time, I realised that he hadn’t loved me for a long time. Not the way he loved you.”
Kyo said all this rather plainly. He sipped his drink.
“He didn’t love me then,” Toshiya said a little petulantly. “We only just met.”
Kyo rolled his eyes.
“So? He was still smitten.” The poet paused. “What I mean is that he never looked at me that way. Not even at first. Don’t you know what that means? Toshiya, stop feeling sorry for yourself and start listening to me properly. I’m telling you that you made him happy. And if that wasn’t just your job – if that was something you wanted to do, then…”
Toshiya’s mind felt suddenly a lot sharper.
“Why did you come here?” he asked softly.
Kyo drained his tea.
“You fix broken hearts, don’t you?” he asked pointedly. “You’re a jerk, Toshiya. You made a selfish choice and you’re a liar, and honestly, you’re kind of dumb. But, Kaoru still loves you. He’s not letting you go in the same way that he let me go.”
The poet cleared his throat.
“Don’t make me say it again,” he said gruffly. “Try and do the right thing, though. People don’t often get second chances.”  
He raised his eyebrows very briefly, staring at Toshiya hard. The next minute was spent in a peculiar silence, and Kyo put on his shoes and left.

“You fix broken hearts, don’t you?”
In the few moments after Kyo left, Toshiya sat silently at the kitchen table. There was a look upon his face that suggested a bomb might have gone off right in front of him.
He did fix broken hearts. That was what made it so ironic that he was unable to mend his own.
But Kyo was right: he was selfish. He hadn’t considered that he might be capable of helping Kaoru. He’d been so wrapped up in missing the other man that he had hardly given any thought to trying to see him again; to fighting for him.
Was it even selfishness? Toshiya bit his lip. Honestly, he was scared. He feared that if he laid his soul bare and Kaoru rejected him again, that might well be the end of him.
He’d never had such a deep investment in another person. His heart had been his business, before; it had been his love that he’d traded. Now, it seemed that Kaoru owned the majority share.
Toshiya was so deep in thought that he jumped when the first of the fat, heavy raindrops started to patter against his window. They made a ticking noise. They made him think of the time he’d spent in Kaoru’s car.
It hit him, then. What they’d had was good – just too good to let go of without a fight. He realised that even if Kaoru turned him down, it would still be worth asking: that if he didn’t, he’d always wonder.
Toshiya slammed out of his apartment without even pausing to put on his shoes. The library wasn’t that far away. Kaoru would be there, too. He knew.
He had a feeling. 

to chapter twenty-five →

Comments

[lady-sb.livejournal.com]

I wonder if anyone in the office heard my little "yay" I uttered when Toshiya finally got off his ass and just went to fix things with Kaoru.

And yes Kyo is very much the star of this part. His musings on Shinya witholding sex was hilarious though...maybe he meditates? ROFL

But I am glad the truth came out for him too. In the end Kyo and Kaoru did love each other, or what they thought was love in its various shapes or forms. And that Kyo even realises that as cavalier as he tries, his feelings for Kaoru did run deep.

I am genuinely sad this ends tomorrow, but its been a great journey. It has been a long time coming, but I always held this hope that you would finish it, so I am glad that you did.

Thanks

[kanzashi-fetish.livejournal.com]

WORTH STAYING UP TILL 430 AM FOR.
mwa ha haaa!
But God...I hope Kaoru helps Toshiya fix his own heart.

[pigurou.livejournal.com]

run toshiya run
run for your live i mean kaoru
wosh chapter 25 tomorrow or maybe it will be 25a? wink wink

[marasado.livejournal.com]

RUN TOSHI RUN!!!! GO FIGHT FOR KAO!!!!!!! -cheers him on-

[n3uromanc3r.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! Kyo admitted he was wrong!

I can't wait for the next chapter, I'm so curious what Toshiya will do now!