Fifteen Years: 2/15

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: Fifteen Years
Author: andrew_in_drag
Pairing: Die x Toshiya
Rating: mature
Warnings: sex, rock 'n roll, boyish attitudes
Previous Chapters: 0 | 1
Synopsis: What does it mean when the story of your life is all about somebody else? Die unearths his old journal to find that every single entry is dedicated to his bandmate, occasional lover and enduring obsession: fifteen years of friendship and sex; love and fear; beginnings and endings - fifteen years of Toshiya. When he reaches the final page, however, he finds something he never expected; and it seems the story might not be over for Die just yet...

CHAPTER TWO: 13/2/1997

For these last few days, Kaoru’s been driving everybody nuts. Well actually, he’s been driving everybody nuts since Kisaki left. And Kisaki only left because, well, Kaoru drove him nuts.
It’s not that he’s intentionally difficult; it’s just that he’s driven. I don’t think Kisaki could really see that. The rest of us can, and that’s why we’re spending all our time biting our tongues and counting to ten.
He’s been especially bad since he met this new bassist. Supposedly he’s some kind of wonderboy, so Kaoru’s paranoid that another band is going to steal him away unless we snap him up quickly.
The worst thing is, every time he yells at me for not concentrating, I know he’s right. My mind is somewhere else entirely. It’s been months, but I just can’t stop thinking about Toshiya.
It’s like he possessed me. Is it even possible to get addicted to a single person?
I think about him all the time. Sometimes it’s not even about the fucking – I think about how he held his cigarette, or the way he managed to smile with his eyes without ever even moving his mouth.  I wish I knew if he was thinking about me.

“Excuse me, Mister Rhythm Guitar. Far be it from me to tear you away from your thoughts, riveting as I’m sure they are, but are you actually planning on playing anything today?”
“Oh!” Die jumped, flinching as his fingers jerked out a jarring discord on the strings of his guitar. “Sorry, Kaoru, I just—”
He shrank a little as the band leader neared him. He knew that inside, Kaoru was just as sweet as any of his friends, but when he got into managerial mode, he could be vicious.
“This is important, Die. Hara is going to be our new bassist. If you fuck that up by playing poorly when he arrives, I am going to rip those extensions out of your head and choke you to death with them.”
Kaoru said all this quite matter-of-factly, trying to keep a hint of jocularity in his voice; behind that, though, Die could pick out the lines of tension around his eyes, and more than a hint of darkness in his tone. He nodded meekly.
“Sorry, Kaoru.”
There were times when Kaoru reminded Die of a little dog: a terrier, maybe. Though he was shorter than Die and built rather delicately, he could still show incredible determination. At least his bark was generally worse than his bite, though that didn’t make either pleasant to experience.
Still, Kaoru might have been mean, but at least he was fair. And he was right: Die hadn’t been paying attention. He hadn’t been paying attention all day.
Toshiya, Toshiya.
Absently, Die’s fingers formed familiar chords as he daydreamed. The thin, hard strings of his guitar turned to Toshiya’s silken hair beneath his fingers; in his mind, he strummed the other man’s skin; played him from scale to scale. He shivered. Once upon a time he had thought that perhaps, if he could only sleep with a man once, he could cure himself of the whole impossible longing for once and for all.
But it hadn’t happened that way.

Die had never been aware of wanting anything more acutely in his life. Rather than taming the need within him, the night he’d spent with Toshiya had only fuelled them: who would ever think that it would be so addictive – the sight of those pretty, pouty lips wrapped around his cock; the feeling of being inside that body, the heat and the pressure? In no way had Die managed to let go of his desires; if anything, he’d let them loose.
He’d left the other man’s house shortly before dawn, and the entirety of his walk home had been spent buzzing in the early-morning drizzle. His skin still prickled delightfully with the feeling of Toshiya’s touch, and he was sure he was able to pick out the various scents of him on his clothes; skin, cigarettes and sex. He had held off washing those clothes as long as possible, until the intoxicating fragrance faded along with the marks Toshiya had left on his neck and collarbones. Then, he began to wonder if maybe he’d dreamt the whole thing.
But in his heart, he knew that wasn’t true. It was too real, all of it; too vivid. Marks faded and scents faded, but memories didn’t – Die had only to think of Toshiya’s name and his mind would fill with images that could have been snatched straight from his deepest, most X-rated fantasies; he’d be spirited away to a time when those nimble musician’s hands had explored every inch of him; he’d hear his own low moans and Toshiya’s hard, fast breathing; he’d feel the other man’s cum decorate his belly like a string of pearls— 
“Die.”
“I am concentrating!” the redhead snapped, his face flushing bright red as the interrupting voice pulled him back to the harsh lighting and clutter of their tiny, boxy studio. He was surprised to see Shinya standing in front of him instead of Kaoru, the quiet drummer looking mildly embarrassed.
“Sorry to startle you, Die, but you’ve been playing with your amp off for ages.”  He paused. Die realised that they were alone in the room; humiliated, he kicked at a clump of coiled wires on the floor. He made to set his guitar down, but instantly found that it was impossible: between his thighs, his jeans were creased upwards in an obvious tent. Hastily, he adjusted the strap, biting his lip a little as the instrument shifted against his erection.
“Oh,” he responded awkwardly. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Hara is here,” Shinya said. “Downstairs. Maybe you should—” he eyed Die warily, “Splash your face with some water or something, okay?”
He smiled briefly but sincerely. “Don’t keep Kaoru waiting,” he warned, and turned his back almost apologetically. His light footsteps echoed all the way down the stairs, and Die was left quite alone with his guitar, his blush and his tented jeans.
In the silence of the studio, he gave a sudden growl of frustration, and when he took off his guitar, he slung it to the floor with such force that the sound of the strings clashing reverberated around the room.

In the end, Die took Shinya’s advice and went to the bathroom to splash a little cool water on his face. It was good advice and it had certainly made him feel better; in fact, the water had done so much to revive him that he found himself back in front of the sink once more in five minutes flat.
Although this time, the water wasn’t working so well, and so at least Die gave up and simply stared at himself in the cracked, soap-spotted mirror. Drops of water ran down his pale, pale face, and his eyes were so wide with panic that he could see the whites all the way around the irises.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Fucking…fuck.”
“Are you talking to your dick in here, Daisuke? Do I get to talk to him too?”
Die whipped around, his fingers clutching at the porcelain rim of the sink to steady himself. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his neck, because this wasn’t fucking happening to him. There was just no way. God wasn’t that cruel.
“What are you doing here?” Die asked shakily, his knuckles white.
Toshiya shrugged, perfectly calm as he made his way towards Die.
“After you wigged out, I said I’d come and talk to you.” He grinned wolfishly at his reflection in the mirror next to Die’s, “Wasn’t that friendly of me?”
Die blanched. Inside his head, he was struggling mightily to comprehend the situation at hand: Toshiya, the living, breathing embodiment of his desires, fantasy made flesh – Toshiya, standing in front of him in a state of perfect, beatific innocence.
“You know what I mean,” Die bit. “What the fuck are you doing here – here, Osaka, in this studio? I mean, what the fuck?”
He was aware that he wasn’t making a whole lot of sense, but it didn’t really matter. What mattered was Toshiya talking to his friends, joking with his friends; Toshiya recognising him instantly and grinning at him, sending him a look that was more of a twinkle of the eyes than anything else, and saying with the utmost suggestiveness in his voice, “Why, Die. Last time we met you ran off so quickly; I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
Die broke away from the sink and slammed his fist against the tiled wall, fear and fury burning hot in his veins. “They don’t know,” he hissed, “Kaoru, Kyo, Shinya; they don’t know. Not about me. About...about what we did.” 
Toshiya’s smile faltered. Die’s words seemed to echo in the tiled bathroom, a thousand snapped statements, until all that was left was silence. 

Toshiya bit his lip, looking uncharacteristically awkward.
“Listen, Die, I…” Toshiya reached out to touch Die’s arm, but the redhead flinched away from him so violently that the tips of his fingers grazed his cheek: it wasn’t a strong gesture, but it was too much, and Toshiya stepped back a little warily.
“This is all a joke to you,” Die said quietly. “Following me here – coming after me.” He swallowed. “But to me, this is serious. I believe in Dir en grey, Toshiya. I think…” he ducked his head a little embarrassedly, “I think this could be my life. I mean, this is my life. This is it.”
He flicked his eyes upwards, peering through his fringe. He had thought he’d felt the other man’s eyes on him, assessing him, but by the time he looked upwards Toshiya was busily straightening his hair in the mirror. His cheeks were a little red and his hair just slightly awry where Die had brushed it, and there were three short, shallow scratches fading on his jawline. Die realised that the younger man was fixing his hair to cover them, and felt a twist of guilt that soon turned to a vague, dreamy excitement as he looked at him: now that the initial panic was over, he could take a moment to study Toshiya, unhurried, under the bathroom lights. He looked for flaws and was surprised to find them: his fantasy of the other man had been of absolute perfection, but Die realised that it had been just that – a fantasy. Standing before him now, Toshiya looked a little too intense; his teeth were crooked; his posture had a strange backwards sway that made him look unsteady; his nails were cut very, very short and Die realised: he bites them.
Tiny things as they were, they made Die feel a little better. He even breathed a small sigh of relief: so he needn’t love Toshiya after all.
But then he noticed just how lovely he was in his casual clothes, and the natural grace with which he ran his fingers through his hair; the discretion he showed, hiding those grazes. Stage makeup made him pale but, fresh faced, he could have been poured gold.
Die felt a kind of lurch in his lower stomach, and realised that Toshiya had fixed those intense eyes on him again.

“You were staring,” he said bluntly. His face was, for a moment, strangely serene, and then it lapsed into an easy smile. “You need to work on that,” he said, not unkindly.
Die felt the tops of his ears reddening. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Sorry about the…” he gestured towards Toshiya’s cheek again, gentler this time, and carefully cupped the other man’s face in his palm. That, too, felt like too much. Die dropped his hand uneasily. Toshiya’s skin had been far too soft – almost too soft to register on Die’s callused fingers. He resented that: he had wanted to touch him. Properly touch him. He wanted, in an undefinable way, to make some kind of impression. The delicate bones of Toshiya’s jaw had seemed to nestle so perfectly into the cup of his palm.
“I…” Die started to speak, but then bit his lip. Toshiya grinned, and the two of them laughed a little uncomfortably, their voices echoing around them.

“I’m not going to tell them, you know.” Toshiya shrugged. “I was never going to. I figure it’s between us.” He leant back against the sink. “And it wasn’t my reason for coming here. I mean, I wasn’t trying to stalk you or anything; your guitarist invited me.” He smiled and broke their eye contact momentarily, glancing down at the floor, “A right charmer, he is.”
“Yeah.” Die gave a tense smile in return.  For the first time since he had seen Toshiya standing there, the tight fist of panic within him was beginning to unfurl, so why was his heart speeding up?
“You know Die, this doesn’t have to ruin anything.” Toshiya looked up into his eyes again. “We had an amazing night together.  I even thought we could kind of do it again.” He laughed at Die’s scandalised expression. “I know it’s risky and all, but we are still relatively young.”
“No.” Die was shocked at the firmness of his own voice; inside, he was nowhere near as decisive. How was it possible for Toshiya to be so casual about something he craved so desperately?
 But, “No,” he repeated, softer this time. He scratched at the back of his head awkwardly, “Sorry. If you’re going to be in this band, then it’s – it’s got to be just business.” He shrugged. “The band’s more important to me. It should be to you, too.”
Don’t you see what you’re doing? His mind supplied in lieu of his passionless statements, I might fall in love with you.
Toshiya had a peculiar little smile on his face, and though he wasn’t looking at Die, the redhead had the most curious feeling that he was the butt of some joke.  
But – “Fine.” Toshiya nodded a little, “I hear you.” The corner of his mouth quirked up into a smirk, and he shook Die’s hand as if they were business partners.
Die’s mouth was still slightly agape as the younger man turned and almost bounced out of the bathroom. He was sure he was blushing again. As soon as the door swung closed behind him, Die let out a great gasp of air, clutching at the edge of the sink to steady himself.
“By the way…”
He almost leapt out of his skin.
“Y-yeah?”
From the doorway, Toshiya grinned. “When I blew your mind that night,” he confided conversationally, “I was giving it about fifty percent.”
The door closed again behind him, and Die sank to the floor on shaking legs.

A/N: Trying to find possible physical flaws on Toshiya was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I did come across this picture though. Um, hi there.


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