[Two Friendships, Four Loves] I Fell For You Like a Child - Part 1

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Title: Two Friendships, Four Loves
Chapter: (7) I Fell For You Like a Child – Part 1
Pairings: Ryo/Shige, Koyama/Yamapi
Author: misticloud
Rating: R
Words: 3,866
Summary: Snapshots of Ryo's childhood and the night he met Shige.

Previously: Landing in Fire | When Hearts Like Ours Meet [1] [2] [3] [4] | It Burns, Burns, Burns



I Fell For You Like a Child

Part 1

Over the course of their two year relationship and the subsequent stretched out, meaningless time after their breakup, Ryo often came back to the night that he met Shige. There were details about it that he couldn't quite remember; he had been drunk at that time – stinking drunk, Shige usually said when he told that story to people – and mostly he recalled how sick he'd felt in his stomach as he sat by the Ikebukuro station. He'd been too sick to stand and not too drunk to know that he was in danger of becoming tomorrow's tabloid headlines if he didn't do something about his situation soon. Paparazzi liked crawling around at night in search of wasted celebrities just like him.

Shige said it had been a dank night, heavy with clouds, and Ryo could remember the humidity in the air with its dampness oppressive on his skin. On a night like this, years ago, his stepmother had said "if it gets any wetter, we'll be able to swim in it." He and his stepbrothers had laughed at it; they'd still been able to laugh together then. The accident that ostracised him hadn't happened too long after that.

Ryo had wanted to cry that night, half-lying on a scratchy bench wrapped in humidity. There was nobody around and he wanted to find his handphone to give Yamapi or some other friend a call but he couldn't move, much less scroll through an address book looking for the name he wanted. He'd felt despairingly alone, almost as though the populace had faded away and he was the only person left in this lifeless city. But as much as he wanted to cry, tears wouldn’t come out. He'd forgotten how to cry.

He often came back to those moments of wanting to cry as the last moments of a life without Shige. He wondered what kind of a person he'd been. Somehow he felt that the Nishikido Ryo he'd been was a farce; he'd only started living when Shige came into his life unexpectedly that night, walking past him and cursing under his breath at the silent train station just as Ryo was under the illusion that there was nobody left around him.

"It happened then," he told Shige one afternoon as they lay in bed together, hands entwined. "I wasn't aware of it, but my heart had recognised you."

"Don't be so sappy!" Shige protested. "I don't believe in love at first sight."

"Maybe I loved you before that," Ryo said. "Maybe I've spent my whole life, now and up to now, loving you, only I didn't know it."

He still believed it, even after Shige tried to convince him that they'd only been meant to pass each other by.

… …

Ryo remembered his childhood in sporadic flashes that were mostly dulled by a perseverance to forget. But there were still certain moments that sprang out at him in vivid colour and sound; the green blanket that he'd inherited from his older brother when he was two years old, the yellowness of his mattress, the white mug with the red circles that was assigned to him, the perpetual squeaky voices from the television set that was on 24 hours in his home, and most of all the cicadas…even now when his heart lightened when he heard them.

He'd loved the sound of cicadas. It meant summer and summer meant freedom, able to leave his silent home with its resentful father and bullying brothers for a full day out in the sun. He didn't do anything in particular; his favourite pastime was lying on the grass observing the activities of the ants, or occasionally striking up odd one-afternoon friendships with other kids around the neighbourhood whose accompanying parents often wondered where the guardian of the short little boy with the scuffed out shoes was. Ryo didn't like to tell them anything about his family.

In the beginning he liked to hang out at the playground near the supermarket. He liked the swings best. He would sometimes go so high that the adults sitting around watching their own kids would shout at him to be careful. But Ryo never felt himself in danger; he loved kicking up into the air, watching his feet meet the sky. He wasn't silly enough to want to turn a 360 degree circle, but he liked going as fast and as high as he could. He wanted the world to keep moving at breakneck speed around him.

Moving, always moving, keep it moving.

In those moments that he saw flashes of brilliant blue and white right before his eyes, so close it seemed that he would be able to touch the sky if only he reached out…in those moments, Ryo remembered the happiness.

… …

But try as he had to keep the world moving, there were still times when the world stood still, and those memories stayed at the back of his mind always, like permanent scars. Hot nights with his face in the pillow as his father wreaked years of hatred and rage on him. The clock on his bedside table ticking away, sixty ticks per minute, three thousand and sixty ticks per hour, as he muffled sobs into the green blanket.

Why don't you want me, he'd thought during times when the world stood still. Didn't I come from you, too? Why don't you want me?

"You're useless," his father muttered darkly once after Ryo's teacher called him in for a meeting about his son's worrying grades. "You were useless from the start and you'll always be useless. The only thing you ever did was to take your mother's life."

His stepmother put a weary hand on the father's shoulder. "Don't say such things to him."

"You took her life from her," his father spat out, completely ignoring his wife. "And what do you do with it? You end up being a useless piece of shit!"

Ryo shuddered a little, holding his report card in his hands as his father pushed the chair back violently and left the house. He was still sitting there when his stepmother returned ten minutes later, her face mute with hard work and frustration. She looked at Ryo and Ryo looked back at her.

"Go to your room," she said at last. "You'd better do some studying to pull up your results."

He passed by a picture of his mother on the way to the room he shared with his third older brother. He paused for a moment, staring at the pretty, smiling face of a young woman who hadn't imagined that she would die for her child before she was thirty. Ryo stared at the stranger in the photograph and all he could feel was hatred…an unreasonable resentment against this woman who somehow managed to cause him suffering even after she was gone.

… …

His father had loved his mother, that much he knew. Many years ago, they had met and fallen in love and his father had been young and happy in the hope of a new life ahead, buying as many gifts as he could on his measly office clerk salary for the wife whom he'd called "the most beautiful flower of all". Ryo heard the stories as one hearing about strangers; he did not recognise his father in them and his mother might have been a storybook character for all he knew about her. But he did listen a little more closely when the tales became darker, sadder, as the years wore on and the beautiful flower began wilting after the births of three boys and the burdens of keeping a household on 120,000 yen a month.

"Then you came," said his oldest brother dispassionately, "and she died."

His father had stayed at home for two weeks after her death, crying in his room. It was the oldest brother who got up early in the mornings, made breakfast for everyone, fed the baby with formula milk, woke up his siblings, dressed them and sent them to school. He was told off by the teachers for his own lateness and kept back after school for not handing up his homework. He had only been eight years old then. Ryo's first memories of his oldest brother was a sullen fifteen-year-old who was hardly ever at home and when he was, his anger seemed to bleed into all the corners of the house, staining it with the bitterness of a boy who'd been made to grow up too soon.

Six months of rains washing away at his mother's tombstone passed and then his father remarried, more for his sons' sake than out of any particular affection for his new wife. The first three sons didn't care overly much for their 'new mother', a thin, anxious-looking woman who was long past the age of attracting any worthy men, but Ryo immediately loved and accepted her. There was a saying somewhere that you would always share an affinity with the person who had fed you from a milk bottle and changed your diapers. His stepmother had done that and many other things besides, and for a long time, she was the only person in the world whom he loved.

When he'd been with Shige for a year, he insisted on going back to visit his stepmother with money and gifts despite Shige's bewilderment. "It's a good thing to do," Shige conceded, "but somehow…I don't know, why are you doing it? Why now, after so many years?"

Ryo shrugged; they were sitting facing each other on the couch and he was playing with Shige's toes, trying to discover if there was any ticklish part in Shige's feet that he could exploit in future. "I guess something in me has changed. Last time I really wanted to block her out, but now…I can see that she was sad, too. And if nothing else, she was a mother to me for fourteen years. I shouldn’t forget it."

Shige didn't reply and with a smile, Ryo dropped his foot and kissed his way up to Shige's mouth. They tasted each other for a long, lingering moment before Shige pulled back and said, "Do you want me to go with you?"

"No," said Ryo, "I don't know how they'll take it."

"We're always confined to being in this apartment," said Shige with a little sigh. "Everything that's between us only comes out when we're here. Our entire world seems to be contained in this space."

"And in you and me," Ryo said softly, pulling Shige back for another kiss.

They took their time in the deliciously lazy afternoon, Shige wrapping his legs around Ryo's waist as Ryo entered him, stroking in and out of him languorously. They ran fingers through each other's hair and murmured random, playfully silly words against each other's mouths, words that didn't make any sense but made them laugh as they exchanged kisses. Ryo's hardness slid against Shige's prostate and they moaned together, holding their bodies close, and Shige knew that this was Ryo's love, this was how he loved, as his father had probably once loved the wife of his youth, with all of his heart.

… …

Shortly after Ryo entered Johnny's Jimusho, his senpais infected him with the desire to take up guitar playing. A new friend of his, one slightly sheepish, thoughtful individual nicknamed Yamapi, suggested that they should both get guitars and learn how to play together.

"I don't have the money," Ryo said.

"Ask your parents?" Yamapi suggested. "You can pay them back!"

Ryo shrugged, thinking of the beating he would most likely get if he went up to his father and asked for money to buy a guitar. Impossible. But he really wanted one, so he started saving money, taking buses instead of trains and skipping as many meals as he could. A month later Yamapi turned up with his new guitar; his mum had agreed to buy it for him as long as he kept his grades up at school.

"We can share it till you get your own," Yamapi suggested, probably feeling bad that he'd gotten one so easily when after a month of scrimping and saving, Ryo hadn't even gathered enough to buy himself one third of a guitar.

So they took turns at Yamapi's guitar, learning chords from a "Master the Guitar in 10 days" book and complaining of sore fingers and bruised egos when ten days passed and they weren't anywhere near mastering the instrument. But they did get the hang of it eventually and Ryo grew to love the music that he could create simply by strumming a few strings. He borrowed the guitar home for a night and stayed in his room, trying out improvised melodies and chord progressions until his father yelled at him to stop the noise. But for once Ryo barely heard his father; he was too busy thinking of the time when he would be able to compose his own songs and perform them in front of a crowd. Perhaps he might even ride the train one day and hear schoolgirls humming his tunes to each other. Maybe, through music, he would be able to connect with people he'd never met; strangers who would listen to his songs and see something in his heart that could touch theirs.

Ryo, at thirteen, found his passion.

… …

Seven months later one of the senpais looked to sell his old acoustic guitar at a bargain price and Ryo immediately grabbed at the opportunity. He felt a moment's regret when he emptied out nearly all that he'd saved over the past few months into his senpai's wallet but once the guitar was in his hands, he completely forgot the money he'd spent on it. It was still in good shape and Ryo spiffed it up a little more, spending the remainder of his money on new strings and a tuner.

After that he gave up hanging out at slightly disreputable places with his schoolmates and stayed in his room instead, learning to play his favourite songs and occasionally composing a couple of simple tunes here and there that he tried to fit words to. It wasn't easy but then again he'd never thought it would be. Ryo was of the belief that everything worth working for had an element of difficulty involved. It only made it all the more worthwhile.

… …

He could never find words adequate enough to describe the day his father bashed up his guitar.

Try as he might, he just couldn't, even when he sincerely wanted to tell Shige what had happened. It wasn't that he'd forgotten it; he doubted he would ever forget any part of it, down to the smallest detail. It was simply that there were some things so obscured by emotion that they couldn't be formed with words.

Sometimes, if he thought hard about it, he could see himself back in that breezy, sunny day when his stepmother had asked him to take his youngest stepbrother out to the playground to "run off his energy". He'd been very naughty lately and everyone in the house was tired of him, Ryo included. But he rarely disobeyed his stepmother so he took the little boy out, carrying a couple of schoolbooks along so that he could get some studying done.

The boy made a beeline for the slide the moment they arrived. Ryo stood by for the first couple of rounds, making sure that he didn't slide down too fast, then wandered off to a nearby bench where he could study and watch him at the same time. The black characters telling him about the Meiji Restoration stood out too vibrantly against the white paper; the sun was on the books. Ryo tried in vain to concentrate, reading each sentence twice in order to absorb the information, but his heart wasn't really in it and he looked up idly to locate his stepbrother.

The boy had run off to the swings and was kicking himself up into the air. Ryo remembered those flashes of brilliant blue and white and the sight of his feet meeting the sky, the rush of wind in his hair. He'd spent so many hours alone by himself in those days, kicking up into the air just like that, watching the earth sliding beneath and rushing up to meet him when he came back down. He'd always loved the swings best.

Then there was a scream and he woke up, blinking rapidly to find his stepbrother lying horribly still and silent on the ground.

Ryo always stopped there to erect a mental block, skimming as fast as he could over the next couple of hours. He knew he'd picked up his brother and ran home, but he didn't want to remember just how fast he'd run, how terrified he'd been. He didn't want to remember the look on his stepmother's face when he arrived home.

His brother was rushed to the hospital and he sat alone in his room, waiting. He'd wanted to go along, but his stepmother had screamed, "Haven't you done enough already?! I told you to watch over him!"

Even now, Ryo flinched when he recalled those words.

The damage done to his brother hadn't been too bad; a broken arm and a few bumps on the head that would heal in time; but the damage done to Ryo was irreparable. That very night, after his stepmother had shunned him and his second brother had told him plainly that "you're done for, they're never going to notice you now", he'd sat on the floor against his bed, strumming the guitar and thinking, no way, Dad doesn't want me but Mum does, she'll forgive me, she definitely will, I just have to wait. It was an accident. He'd hoped so hard that he was right that he could practically taste it.

Then his father came into the room and he avoided his glare, strumming the guitar to block out the anger he could feel crowding around him.

"Where the fuck were you?" his father said.

Ryo continued strumming.

"You were supposed to look after your brother, you useless shit."

Chase the melody, don't listen, block it out.

"You're useless and you always will be. Because of you, your brother has a broken arm and I had to waste money on hospital bills. Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

But I was only fourteen, Ryo thought when he remembered…

I was only fourteen.

His father crossed the room in three big steps and snatched the guitar from him. Ryo couldn't suppress the involuntary cry that broke out and he saw a flicker of smile on his father's face, such cruelty that it took away his breath, and then the guitar was being slammed onto the floor, again and again, and he was screaming, crying, saying no no no please, nonono stop please no no stop STOP! But it was too late, the guitar was in two pieces on the floor and his father's chest was heaving with deep breaths. "Now you can fucking strum all you want."

Ryo gathered the pieces together and put them on his bed. His vision was blurred, but he could see his stepmother standing outside the room, looking at him blankly. Then she turned and walked away and Ryo looked at the broken pieces of his guitar. In that moment he knew, with a stark clarity that would remain with him until he met Shige, just how alone he was.

He cried many times that night, running his fingers over the guitar neck, the strings, the frets, the instrument that was as broken as he would eventually come to be.

… …

"Damn it," Shige had said, glaring at the train station. "You're kidding me."

Ryo looked at the young man standing a mere few feet away from him, hands in pockets as he kicked at tiny stones on the ground. He couldn't see his face too clearly, but he felt an odd familiarity, a sort of knowingness sneaking up on him as though he'd known this guy intimately in some previous life. Surely they knew each other from somewhere.

The non-stranger turned towards the road, presumably to catch a cab, and finally Ryo spoke up, "Hey."

The guy paused, evidently startled. Ryo thought that he'd already given his cue; this non-stranger would now know where to go on from here, would realise immediately that Ryo needed help. But he just remained where he was, staring at Ryo with a clearly puzzled look that said, do I know you and what do you want from me?

Ryo sighed; obviously previous life familiarity wasn't all that fantastic after all and he would still have to spell it out. "Can't let the reporters spot me like that or I'll be in trouble. Help me."

There was a long pause during which the guy continued staring at him, baffled, and Ryo thought that they were never going to get anywhere at this rate. He was fast losing faith in the effectiveness of previous lives.

Then the guy came up and pulled Ryo up, draped his arm over his shoulders, and Ryo felt the slight scratchiness of his shirt against his underarm as he tightened his hold on him.

"Where are you going?" he managed to say as they started hobbling towards the road.

"Somewhere where you'll be safe from reporters," the guy answered, flagging down a cab that had appeared conveniently around the corner. Ryo thought that was admirable. Maybe this pretty boy…now that he could see him up close, he was very good-looking in a sort of studious, classically handsome way…could conjure up cabs at the mere wave of a hand. That was pretty fucking admirable and then he was being shoved into the cab and come to think of it, he didn't even know where the heck he was being taken to and this was probably a very bad idea…

"Where are we going?" he asked again, slumping his head against the car window.

The guy turned to him and just then the light from a streetlamp flashed onto his face and Ryo saw the kindness in his eyes. It felt as though it had been ages of stretched, painful time since someone had looked at him with acceptance, ages and ages, and for some reason he had to close his eyes briefly to hold the tears back. Exchanging glances, wondering in the night. What were the chances we'd be sharing love before the night was through? I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.

"It doesn't matter," he said, his words slurring a little. "I trust you."

"You probably wouldn't, under normal circumstances," said the non-stranger, "but yeah, don't worry. We're going home."

"Home?"

"Yeah, my home, at any rate."

The hum of the car radio provided a music bed to Ryo's scattered thoughts as he let himself relax, watching the lonely lights of the city receding away from them.

What were the chances we'd fall in love?

Love was just a glance away and…

I fell for you like a child.





A/N: I'm so sorry for the late update! I have barely been able to write anything worth reading for the past two weeks or so. In any case I hope this chapter was alright and…happy new year for the second time! :D (by the way, what is with the RyoShige drought?)

Comments

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But Ryo pulled through! :D
Thanks as always for reading <3