The Glasshouse: 19/20

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: The Glasshouse
Author: andrew_in_drag
Pairings: Kyo x Toshiya, Die x Toshiya
Rating: mature
Warnings: sex, rock 'n roll, mental illness theme
Previously: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18
Notes: the companion piece to 'Fifteen Years', covering Kyo's side of the story. Though they go together, they follow the same timeline, so you won't have to have read 'Fifteen Years' for this to make sense.
Synopsis: While I breathe, I hope.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:

I never did return to the hospital.
At least, I didn’t go back to stay. One crisp day in early February, I returned briefly to sign the papers officially terminating my treatment, and even though it was her day off my therapist had taken special pains to be there.
“You can always telephone me,” she said kindly, and I felt a sudden rush of love for this dumpy, absurd little woman, wearing a knee-length dress with sneakers and a woollen cardigan; her clunky handmade jewellery; her corkscrew grey hairs. She stood at exactly the same height as me and gazed levelly into my eyes, sizing me up. I don’t know what she could have found in me that said I wasn’t insane, because ever since I had let Toshiya go, I felt everything within me had begun to slowly unravel. Contrarily, I even felt a little bolt of panic that she was about to let me walk out of her life so easily: this was the woman who had coaxed me back to my earliest childhood and encouraged me to look around for that sort of snag in the fabric where the sickness had its ugly roots. Of course we’d found nothing, but I appreciated her precision and thoroughness. I had thought that even if I was never happy again, I would be content to stay shut up in the asylum with her because then at least I would be one methodical little machine amongst all the others, and if there was no joy then at least there wouldn’t be any worry, either.
But she prescribed me medicines and sent me out on my way so casually that I felt rebuffed. I felt like I’d arrived at a party thinking that I was the guest of honour, but as I walked the attendants had been rolling up the red carpet behind me, and I’d entered into a room full of cigarette butts and cocktail napkins and the strongest, saddest sense of my own crushing loneliness.

I told Die that I had a dream in which he was forgiving me.
Of course he gave me a look which immediately told me that he thought I was being foolish to lie, but I wasn’t lying, really. His forgiveness had taken on the same talismanic importance as Toshiya’s love had, and if I couldn’t have one then I was desperate to have the other. It was a dream, of sorts. When I thought about it, it seemed just as hopeless as all the other dreams I’d had.
Then again, some things that had once seemed unattainable had turned out to be scarily easy to reach. Progression was good but frightening: when I looked back, much of what I’d always wanted – from the sold out Budokan to Toshiya’s naked compliance – seemed to have come to me at the result of some kind of black magic. There was no logical explanation for why so many people would decide to flock to one particular place and justify our importance in such a way; I couldn’t think of a single reason why Toshiya would end up so vulnerable in bed, gasping my name and wearing sweat and cum for clothes.
But of course I couldn’t have told Die any of that, so I just carried on clumsily.
“Just making conversation,” I said stupidly, “It’s not like I expect you to forgive me in real life, or anything.”
Some horrid crackly laughter came out of my mouth, and I found myself rattling my little bottle of pills at him. “Since they turned me all normal on these things I don’t really understand other people’s emotions anymore,” I said.
That was another lie, because I understood Die all too well. He looked at me for so long that I saw past his toughness and saw where sorrow had eroded away any envy he might have felt. The stupid smile dropped off my face and I stared down at the concrete between my shoes. I dropped a cigarette butt there and watched it smoke.

“I am sorry, though,” I mumbled, and I could tell that my actions had changed Die because the look he gave me was very nearly sharp.
“I thought you didn’t do apologies. Or regrets.”
I thought of throwing myself at his feet, but I knew I would only embarrass him. I had a sense of handling him as I would handle a cat; everything dignified, everything at a diagonal, so to speak. It was frustrating because all I wanted to do was shake him roughly by the shoulders and force him to accept my sorrow, but I was aware that there was a certain order that had to be followed.
Unaccountably, my face pricked into irritation.
“Don’t be a dick about it,” I said.
“I’m not being a dick.”
“Yes you are. I’m trying to apologise.”
“Well—” He cut himself off, and inside I celebrated the small smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth. Die: my friend, one of my oldest friends. Of course he would forgive me: I had been crazy to think anything else. What did Die know about holding a grudge? Perhaps this was the first time he had ever been wronged.
“Well,” he said at last, “You don’t really have to apologise. All’s fair in love and war, I guess. It just…you know. If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else.”
I thought of Toshiya with his long, flexible limbs and his idiotic smile, laughing stupidly and dressing in his crazy clothes, stupid mixtures, combinations of wool socks and skirts or thick tights and knee-length shorts; jerseys, turn-ups, and his hair always changing, always cut, being cut or in need of a cut; his face always smiling, always laughing: yes, I thought if it hadn’t been me, maybe it would have been somebody else. Perhaps it would have been somebody less vigorous or less desperate, but I didn’t doubt that somebody else would have made a play for him. How could they not? I nodded dumbly. Die was playing with his cigarette embarrassedly, and a distinct flush was creeping up around his ears. I supposed it was humiliating, for him, talking about love lost in the middle of the day and on the concrete lip of the fire escape, no less, and shivering in the winterish turn the September weather had taken.
“But still—” I tried.
“Kyo, seriously, it’s fine.”
I frowned at the floor, feeling unsatisfied.
“I had a dream about you, too,” Die said suddenly.

I looked at him carefully. He continued pointedly, “You and Toshiya stopped fucking around behind everyone’s backs and just admitted to it already.” He shrugged. “Probably doesn’t mean anything.”
I couldn’t help but snort: poor Die. Trust him to get it so wrong.
“I don’t think it’s much to you,” I responded, “but we’re not. Fucking, I mean. Actually.”
If I hadn’t already been so certain for his love for Toshiya, the speed with which he turned to face me then would have clinched it.
“No?” he asked, so eagerly it irritated me.
“No.” I made up some unsatisfying explanation whilst he drank me in thirstily. His eyes were shining. I felt a lump growing massively at the back of my throat. “He said I didn’t need him anymore.”
“Right. Well, that’s good, I guess.”
“Don’t be fucking stupid,” I said, tense around the lump, “It’s because of you.”
His dark eyes narrowed.
“I hope you’re not expecting me to apologise.”
I gritted my teeth. “Open your eyes, Die,” I said agitatedly, “Are you really jealous? Or are you just afraid that he’s weak?”
To my immense surprise, he smiled at me.

“I’m not scared of anything,” he said, “Anymore. I’ve just had enough. You know, I used to worry all the time. I used to worry that I just couldn’t be the man he wanted me to be. I tried hard, but…” he shook his head, “It didn’t matter. That’s why I don’t blame you. I mean, you did a shitty, fucked up thing, but it’s not actually your fault that Toshiya and I turned into such a mess.”
“Is this you forgiving me? Because you’re fucking terrible at it.” I had meant to sound friendly, but my voice had come out harsh. He shrugged it off, though. I supposed he must have known that my heart wasn’t in it. I swallowed drily. “I never meant to come between you, you know. I was just…” I took Die’s cigarette from him and took a deep drag from it, “I wasn’t very…connected. Toshiya helped connect me.”
“You don’t need to justify it.”
That irritated me. “Justify my ass, Die. Even if you don’t care anymore, I know a part of you will always wonder why he kept turning you down. I’ve got the answer, so d’you want to hear this or not?”
Die looked sulky, but his voice betrayed him. “Fine. Yes, tell me.” He hesitated. “Please.”
“Since you asked so nicely,” I said sourly. “I started going through a really bad time. My emotions were all over the place and I was having flashbacks, and I just felt so distant from everything. I tried to explain it to you, but even talking to you, I could feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“That glass dome over me, blocking you off.” My voice was simple, but I felt panic coiling like steel rope in my stomach. “Being was Toshiya was the only way I felt normal for a little while. Talking to him, he was just like anyone else, behind the glass, but fucking him – it was like the glass lifted, just a few inches, just for a little while. And all this cool air came circulating in, mixing with the stuff I’d turned bad. It was like I could breathe again, just for a few minutes. Like I was a human, with human lungs. I was trying to put him and me back together, so I could stay attached. But we didn’t exactly match up. He tried so hard, for my sake, but he wasn’t mine, see; he was yours.”
Nauseated, I wondered why I wasn’t capable of any baser honesty. When I dedicated myself to singing about all the horrors of life, why was it so impossible to say that I loved him?
I suspected it was the mark of some sort of fundamental weakness within myself. I felt in danger of growing teary, so I looked away and touched Die’s wrist blindly.
“Are you understanding me?” I asked clearly. “I always knew I was only borrowing him.”
“He—”
“He let me. He cared about me. Cared about you, too.” I smiled. Toshiya stumbled through my head, following me around. I thought of his tough boots, how silly they were. They seemed to be the only things holding him up.
“I was weak, see,” I said softly, “He’s got a soft heart. I wrecked him, though. Do you see him now? He’s a zombie.”
I felt my smile contort into something hard and bitter. “I’m infectious.”
I thought Die might cry or fall over or something, so I offered him the only support I felt sure of: I kept my eyes on him so firmly that such a lapse would have been impossible.
“You’re not bad,” he said finally, heavily. “And you’re – better.”
“Am I?” I asked. His face flew apart with panic and I immediately felt terrible. “Sure.” I smiled reassuringly. “Sure.”
“So it all meant something,” Die commented wonderingly.
I felt like my heart was breaking, but I shrugged off the weakness and turned my voice tough; turned it into the persona, Kyo himself, acid-tongued and mean: “Well it was always going to mean something, Die, why on earth should someone fuck me by accident?”

It would have been a luxury to take off that afternoon and let myself go home and cry the way I wanted, but unfortunately there was very little time for that. What I did instead was ask whatever power there is for forgiveness, and then quickly and methodically tracked down Die’s bag and rifled through it for his old, red, leather-bound journal.
I didn’t want to read it, myself, so instead I grabbed Toshiya by the wrist and pulled him wordlessly into the bathrooms. He didn’t protest, and I felt a little stab in my stomach at the thought that he probably assumed I was demanding sex from him. We didn’t sleep together anymore, of course, but I knew that if I was to say I needed him, he would start undressing. He would accept it as he accepted most things, those days, as just another strange event in his increasingly strange life.
I locked him into a cubicle with me and let him rest his hands on my waist for a little while. I took in his bizarre outfit; it made me smile. I liked how he dressed in whatever he wanted. He had that don’t-care attitude that only the very beautiful seemed to be able to pull off.
Before I could do something stupid, like kiss him, I looked away and pressed Die’s journal into his hands.
“Kyo, what’s this?” He tucked the book under his arm and stroked my hair soothingly, affectionately, “I’m supposed to be rehearsing. I got a new plectrum for my biwa, and—”
“This is Die’s journal.” Toshiya’s hands had been caressing a sensual path down my back, but they halted, and gently I pushed them away. “I think you should read it.”
For a moment he was frozen, and I waited patiently.
“What does it say?” he asked at last.
“How should I know?” I pulled the journal out from under his arm and pushed it into his hands again, forcing him to hold it properly. I felt like one of those dogs who drop their ball at their master’s feet and then, receiving no attention, pick it up again and drop it just as before.
“Well, I can’t read this.”
“Of course you can,” I said kindly, “Normally I wouldn’t support this kind of thing, but this is a special case, because I’m sure it’s all about you anyway.”
He looked at me doubtfully.
“Stay with me?” he asked shyly. My heart squeezed like somebody had gripped it in a fist.
“I don’t want to read it,” I mumbled, “I’ll stand outside the door if you want.”
He nodded brightly, and sat down on the closed toilet lid without any further ado. He was too lovely to look at. I left the cubicle and closed the door gently behind me, and I leant against it with my eyes closed and imagined that I was anywhere else.

I don’t know how long I was there for, but it felt like hours. At one point Kaoru ventured into the toilets, and paused uncertainly when he saw me lounging against the door.
“I thought you’d gone home,” he said, shuffling awkwardly.
“Toshiya’s having a nosebleed.”
I thought that was an appropriate excuse for the amount of desperate sniffling coming from the other side of the door.
“A very bad nosebleed,” I edited. Kaoru nodded slowly.
“Is he alright?”
“He’ll be fine. I’m going to stand here in case he passes out.”
“I see.” Kaoru paused. “Why doesn’t he…er, come out?”
I frowned, irritated.
“Don’t be silly, Kaoru; you’ll make him very self-conscious.”
He continued to stand still and look at me, so I widened my eyes at him theatrically. “Weren’t you going to piss?”
“Oh, right.” He stumbled awkwardly over to a urinal, and I heard him unzip and then pause.
“Kyo—”
“I’m not watching,” I said, sounding bored even though laughter was tickling at the inside of my lips. I felt a sudden rush of love for him. From inside the cubicle, I heard a sound that sounded like a tearful little giggle, and I coughed loudly to cover it. Kaoru visibly jumped at the sudden noise, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut and bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing.
The moment passed quickly; he washed his hands and left. I leant back against the door and felt better, wondering how such a simple thing could make me feel happier in the face of such a mess.
“Kyo?”
Toshiya’s voice was thick with tears.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a pen?”
I passed one under the door and savoured the feeling of his long, slim fingers for what I imagined might be the very last time.
“Don’t forget to give the journal back,” I said. I paused. “Keep the pen.”
I walked out of the bathroom in time to catch up with Kaoru, and clapped him on the back like a friend. Despite the chill of the day, a golden shaft of afternoon sunlight was lighting up the studio, and I took in the sights of the room contentedly: Shinya grappling with conga drums; Kaoru tuning an electric sitar; Die dreamily plucking at his mandolin. Toshiya’s biwa lay abandoned on the floor, and I put it carefully back in its case.
The whole room filled me with a deep sense of wellbeing. I realised that the most unlikely thing in the world had happened – far more unlikely than sex with a beautiful bassist, or a sold out Budokan – I was surrounded by people that loved me.
I crossed to the small, low table where I sat to write my lyrics, returned Shinya’s friendly smile, and selected a fresh piece of paper. For some reason, the smile I had given Shinya was still stretching my cheeks out in a way I wasn’t accustomed to, and there was a light breeze blowing through the room, ruffling my hair like the hand of a parent. Had the studio always been such a wonderful, peaceful environment? Or was it simply that I had never noticed before?
I grabbed a new pen and tapped it against the paper thoughtfully. I noticed that the sheet I had selected was not entirely clean; in the top corner, there was a small sketch of what looked like Die, and some vague scribbles that suggested, at least to me, lines and lines of bamboo.
In big letters I wrote, while I breathe, I hope.
I realised that it was true. That afternoon, I threw my medication away for good.

A/N: The longest chapter yet! Sorry.



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