[Broken Halves]
Dec. 29th, 2008 11:06 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
binmusic.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
jewelledhoursTitle : Broken Halves
Chapter : One - Before it Begins
Pairings : Ryo/Shige
Author :![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
binmusic
Rating : G
Words : 2,163
Summary : The story of a could be love between two men.
A/N : My first multi-chapter story and it's also my first set in an AU environment. I'd like to dedicate this fic to the other two wonderful writers I share this fic comm with :] Also, thanks to all those who have had to bear with my nervous whining throughout the writing of this first chapter!
Before it Begins
He had been a traveling salesman. The kind that went door to door peddling knickknacks out of his trusty battered suitcase and trekked cross country in an old car that required more pushing and shoving than steering.
The first time I came across him he was trying to sell me an oval pocket watch that most certainly had a loose dial and was running two minutes too slow. But I bought it anyway, along with three other items he had brought along to show. Those that have met him before will understand why, but for those who haven't they'll find it difficult to see, for Kato-kun is a seller. He's always selling and it's rather easy to be deceived.
I've lived next door to Ryo-chan for most of my twenty-two years but we're not friends, just neighbors who exchange typical pleasantries and pass along the occasional mis-delivered mail. And while there's barely more than fifty words exchanged between us in a good year, there are things I know about him that people in our tiny town don't bother learning. I had been sitting on the steps of my front porch when he had his first kiss with the fisherman's daughter, was mending the fence when he got his teeth knocked out by the sole gang in town and I was there that night when his mother had left, suitcases and money in tow.
I was also there when Ryo-chan met Kato-kun for the first time and when they had met for the last time. And both times there had been distrust, angry words and hate. It's to be expected when personalities that contrast as much as theirs do come in sudden contact with one another. Ryo-chan with his unharnessed rage that had been accumulating and concealed since his troublesome youth and Kato-kun with his stubborn patience and sheer will to succeed.
That's not to say their personalities were so conflicted that they couldn't get along. They were like two ends of the same color spectrum, both strong and vivid in their own rights. But like all halves, there was always the expectation that they could be something more if combined together. I suppose that's what captivated me in the first place. Sometimes I thought if I was around long enough, I'd be able to pinpoint the exact moment it occurred and be able to see something like that at the time of creation.
It's been a few years since I've last seen Ryo-chan or Kato-kun but they're always on my mind. I think about Ryo-chan and the way he used to clench his jaw tightly and bite on his bottom lip when annoyed. I wonder if his left foot still drags when he tries to speed up and if the scar still pulses red when he exerts too much force. Sometimes I think about Kato-kun in his smartly pressed black suit knocking politely on the doors and I wish I could tell him that the cologne he wears seems to attract dogs.
But mostly I wonder if Ryo-chan had managed to tell Kato-kun the truth. That's the problem with Ryo-chan, he's always expecting others to understand him even when he doesn't say much of anything at all.
Ryo-chan is four years older than me. And from since I can remember, he's always been living in the pale grey house next to my rather colorful blue one. The first time I had seen him he was walking his dog, George, a small Yorkshire Terrier that his mom had bought for his older sister as a graduation present. George was barking something awful and my mother, curious and mostly nosy, had poked her head out the porch screen and asked in her annoyingly simulated voice what was going on.
Ryo-chan, then nine, had bowed respectfully and apologized with some random and obviously fabricated excuse. I don't remember much, the words he said didn't register then and now they're just a faint blur. It was what my mother had said after he was safely out of hearing distance and had turned the corner that stayed in my mind after such a long time. "Poor boy, sister's dead and he's stuck with a lame father and a crazy pup."
He's had to live with that epithet everyday of his life, always seen by his neighbors as the pitiful boy who had lost his sister and been burdened with a crippled father in the same night. Then a few years later, the neighbors would add deserted by his mother to that list and a few short months after that, disabled father was altered to deceased father.
It was a morbid sort of fascination but I used to like putting myself in his shoes and wonder how it would have been to grow up like that, thrust into situations that called for maturity I did not yet possess. And each time I would envision myself leaving this town and going away, anywhere as long as no one knew who I was. Ryo-chan exceeded my expectations, he stayed here longer than I would have, than I think anyone would have.
Everyone, including my mother, marvels at Ryo-chan and how it is that he didn't grow up to be feeble-mnded like his father or flighty like his mother. He's responsible and sturdy, always on top of the list for any town council activities. He's volunteered for the fire brigade and is a part of the local neighborhood watch program. Ryo-chan managed to become the epitome of a respectable young man, which I never doubted he'd be, but it bothers me for him to have to be that way. Always striving for perfection and straying from even the possibility of failure.
It would be impossible for me to say that I know Kato-kun nearly as well as I do Ryo-chan because admittedly I've only had a few handful of meetings with Kato-kun. But Kato-kun's character is somehow easier to grasp and develop a sense for. Because unlike Ryo-chan, Kato-kun likes chatter and he's open, always willing to talk and share. Sometimes though, it's hard to tell when he's being Kato-kun the tradesman and when he's being just Kato-kun.
He's been coming around our town now for the past six years, this year being the exception. He'll be turning twenty-five this month on the sixteenth and I hope he's found what he's been searching all along for.
Kato-kun, besides being an excellent salesman, is also adept at fixing things. He told me he likes to think of himself as an amateur carpenter, but I'm sure he's more than that. Kato-kun is like a general handy-man but even better, someone who has the ability to take something slightly broken and mostly unwanted and somehow make it covetable.
It's a part of his charm. Because if there's one word I'd use to describe him, it would be charming. I'm not sure if it's right to say that anyone is destined to be a salesman, much less a traveling one, but Kato-kun was made to be who he is. He has a way with words, eloquent and smooth but familiar all the same. And whereas Ryo-chan is seemingly perfect, Kato-kun possesses an uncanny knack for failing rather spectacularly and in the most untimely fashion. I used to suspect it was done on purpose, a nifty trick to make us feel at ease with him, so a sense of camaraderie could develop easily but I soon recognized that that was not the case.
Kato-kun is smart, knows his math and sciences but in regard to his common sense, he's not quite as capable. Kato-kun has a habit of not properly lacing his leather shoes and when he leaves them in the genkan before entering a home, he'll inevitably return to find them laced together or hidden behind another pair of sneakers. I get the feeling that Kato-kun is aware that the boys and mothers find humor in him and his little snafus but he doesn't mind. Because that's the kind of person that he is, mostly amazing but just a little bit silly.
He's got this really fantastic voice that my father likes to describe as "made for radio". It's on the lower side of the vocal scale and been likened to melting butter on warm hot toast, an opinion courtesy of my ex-girlfriend. I personally don't understand how someone's voice can be compared to food, especially something like melting butter, and why it would be considered a compliment. To me, Kato-kun has the kind of voice that one could listen to for hours on end, regardless of what he's saying, and never get tired of. When he talks it's pleasing, always falling just shy of sounding like he's singing a song. Not the kind of blasting that goes with power ballads but the soft humming of a familiar song that one sings day in and out.
Kato-kun's someone that I pity and Ryo-chan is someone I hold a lot of respect for. It surprised my mother the first time I voiced that opinion out loud. She loves Ryo-chan, and like all the mothers in town, thinks fondly of him as everyone's resident son. And while he's become a great sort of person, there's always that fear that lingers in everyone's mind that he'd change overnight and finally become who they figured him to be. It's frustrating to know that they had been waiting for it to happen, and that's precisely why I admire Ryo-chan. Not because of all the messy trials he's had to fight through but because he's constantly defying expectations.
Kato-kun is widely loved by the community as well. He's sort of like the flavor of the month, except he's never around long enough to be substituted for. I think that's why he is the traveling type of salesman and not the kind that holds a regular nine to five job at an office complex. He enjoys the attention he attracts and in a way he lives for it. It's why I say he's a great salesman. People are intrigued by him and his products and when people are interested in something, it's not hard to convince them they want it. I had thought Kato-kun chose this profession because it paid well enough and provided him with liberties not offered to those with a desk job. It's what he told me anyway, but I'm sure now that it's not the entire truth.
He is, like Ryo-chan, lacking of a family. Kato-kun used to carry around a picture in his wallet, and sometimes when he was accepting payment for an item sold, I'd be able to catch glimpses of it. They were only a few seconds worth each time but over the course of his visits they added up. I counted six people in the picture, Kato-kun included, with two adult figures that seemed to be his grandfather and mother and three younger faces that I assumed to be his siblings.
Curiosity got the better of me once and against all proper etiquette and rules, I had asked Kato-kun for permission to see the photo and he had been sufficiently surprised by the request that for the first time I had heard him stutter to get a sentence out. I promptly apologized at that point, realizing that I had caught him off guard and somehow managed to put someone as comfortable as him, at unease. The next time my mother purchased her usual fare of vases, the picture had been replaced by one of the beach. The standard kind available for buying at convenience stores everywhere.
And that's why I pity him. Every facet of Kato-kun's personality seems to be approachable, friendly as if he lived right next door but also different enough to captivate us. Though I get the sense that most of what he tells us is fabricated, mostly lies mixed in with the tiniest shred of truth. Childhood anecdotes about growing up by the sea and spending his summer with his father, barbecuing outdoors and flying kites. I pity Kato-kun and his need to feed us lies because I'm sure it's not simply because he has to sell himself along with his products but because he finds his real self lacking and incomplete.
This is why Ryo-chan and Kato-kun, two well regarded and basically good men didn't get along with one another. Ryo-chan, with all the details of his life laid out for public view and speculation, was used to faking the smiles and pretending he couldn't hear the whispers. Kato-kun had come into town that day, like any of his many visits before and had changed his own decidedly set future by once again presenting himself, fiction and all to Ryo-chan. And Ryo-chan is good at spotting lies and I can tell you now that he probably noticed what we all missed at first, that Kato-kun was selling and like his goods, was more than a little defective and broken himself.
Chapter : One - Before it Begins
Pairings : Ryo/Shige
Author :
binmusic Rating : G
Words : 2,163
Summary : The story of a could be love between two men.
A/N : My first multi-chapter story and it's also my first set in an AU environment. I'd like to dedicate this fic to the other two wonderful writers I share this fic comm with :] Also, thanks to all those who have had to bear with my nervous whining throughout the writing of this first chapter!
Before it Begins
He had been a traveling salesman. The kind that went door to door peddling knickknacks out of his trusty battered suitcase and trekked cross country in an old car that required more pushing and shoving than steering.
The first time I came across him he was trying to sell me an oval pocket watch that most certainly had a loose dial and was running two minutes too slow. But I bought it anyway, along with three other items he had brought along to show. Those that have met him before will understand why, but for those who haven't they'll find it difficult to see, for Kato-kun is a seller. He's always selling and it's rather easy to be deceived.
I've lived next door to Ryo-chan for most of my twenty-two years but we're not friends, just neighbors who exchange typical pleasantries and pass along the occasional mis-delivered mail. And while there's barely more than fifty words exchanged between us in a good year, there are things I know about him that people in our tiny town don't bother learning. I had been sitting on the steps of my front porch when he had his first kiss with the fisherman's daughter, was mending the fence when he got his teeth knocked out by the sole gang in town and I was there that night when his mother had left, suitcases and money in tow.
I was also there when Ryo-chan met Kato-kun for the first time and when they had met for the last time. And both times there had been distrust, angry words and hate. It's to be expected when personalities that contrast as much as theirs do come in sudden contact with one another. Ryo-chan with his unharnessed rage that had been accumulating and concealed since his troublesome youth and Kato-kun with his stubborn patience and sheer will to succeed.
That's not to say their personalities were so conflicted that they couldn't get along. They were like two ends of the same color spectrum, both strong and vivid in their own rights. But like all halves, there was always the expectation that they could be something more if combined together. I suppose that's what captivated me in the first place. Sometimes I thought if I was around long enough, I'd be able to pinpoint the exact moment it occurred and be able to see something like that at the time of creation.
It's been a few years since I've last seen Ryo-chan or Kato-kun but they're always on my mind. I think about Ryo-chan and the way he used to clench his jaw tightly and bite on his bottom lip when annoyed. I wonder if his left foot still drags when he tries to speed up and if the scar still pulses red when he exerts too much force. Sometimes I think about Kato-kun in his smartly pressed black suit knocking politely on the doors and I wish I could tell him that the cologne he wears seems to attract dogs.
But mostly I wonder if Ryo-chan had managed to tell Kato-kun the truth. That's the problem with Ryo-chan, he's always expecting others to understand him even when he doesn't say much of anything at all.
Ryo-chan is four years older than me. And from since I can remember, he's always been living in the pale grey house next to my rather colorful blue one. The first time I had seen him he was walking his dog, George, a small Yorkshire Terrier that his mom had bought for his older sister as a graduation present. George was barking something awful and my mother, curious and mostly nosy, had poked her head out the porch screen and asked in her annoyingly simulated voice what was going on.
Ryo-chan, then nine, had bowed respectfully and apologized with some random and obviously fabricated excuse. I don't remember much, the words he said didn't register then and now they're just a faint blur. It was what my mother had said after he was safely out of hearing distance and had turned the corner that stayed in my mind after such a long time. "Poor boy, sister's dead and he's stuck with a lame father and a crazy pup."
He's had to live with that epithet everyday of his life, always seen by his neighbors as the pitiful boy who had lost his sister and been burdened with a crippled father in the same night. Then a few years later, the neighbors would add deserted by his mother to that list and a few short months after that, disabled father was altered to deceased father.
It was a morbid sort of fascination but I used to like putting myself in his shoes and wonder how it would have been to grow up like that, thrust into situations that called for maturity I did not yet possess. And each time I would envision myself leaving this town and going away, anywhere as long as no one knew who I was. Ryo-chan exceeded my expectations, he stayed here longer than I would have, than I think anyone would have.
Everyone, including my mother, marvels at Ryo-chan and how it is that he didn't grow up to be feeble-mnded like his father or flighty like his mother. He's responsible and sturdy, always on top of the list for any town council activities. He's volunteered for the fire brigade and is a part of the local neighborhood watch program. Ryo-chan managed to become the epitome of a respectable young man, which I never doubted he'd be, but it bothers me for him to have to be that way. Always striving for perfection and straying from even the possibility of failure.
It would be impossible for me to say that I know Kato-kun nearly as well as I do Ryo-chan because admittedly I've only had a few handful of meetings with Kato-kun. But Kato-kun's character is somehow easier to grasp and develop a sense for. Because unlike Ryo-chan, Kato-kun likes chatter and he's open, always willing to talk and share. Sometimes though, it's hard to tell when he's being Kato-kun the tradesman and when he's being just Kato-kun.
He's been coming around our town now for the past six years, this year being the exception. He'll be turning twenty-five this month on the sixteenth and I hope he's found what he's been searching all along for.
Kato-kun, besides being an excellent salesman, is also adept at fixing things. He told me he likes to think of himself as an amateur carpenter, but I'm sure he's more than that. Kato-kun is like a general handy-man but even better, someone who has the ability to take something slightly broken and mostly unwanted and somehow make it covetable.
It's a part of his charm. Because if there's one word I'd use to describe him, it would be charming. I'm not sure if it's right to say that anyone is destined to be a salesman, much less a traveling one, but Kato-kun was made to be who he is. He has a way with words, eloquent and smooth but familiar all the same. And whereas Ryo-chan is seemingly perfect, Kato-kun possesses an uncanny knack for failing rather spectacularly and in the most untimely fashion. I used to suspect it was done on purpose, a nifty trick to make us feel at ease with him, so a sense of camaraderie could develop easily but I soon recognized that that was not the case.
Kato-kun is smart, knows his math and sciences but in regard to his common sense, he's not quite as capable. Kato-kun has a habit of not properly lacing his leather shoes and when he leaves them in the genkan before entering a home, he'll inevitably return to find them laced together or hidden behind another pair of sneakers. I get the feeling that Kato-kun is aware that the boys and mothers find humor in him and his little snafus but he doesn't mind. Because that's the kind of person that he is, mostly amazing but just a little bit silly.
He's got this really fantastic voice that my father likes to describe as "made for radio". It's on the lower side of the vocal scale and been likened to melting butter on warm hot toast, an opinion courtesy of my ex-girlfriend. I personally don't understand how someone's voice can be compared to food, especially something like melting butter, and why it would be considered a compliment. To me, Kato-kun has the kind of voice that one could listen to for hours on end, regardless of what he's saying, and never get tired of. When he talks it's pleasing, always falling just shy of sounding like he's singing a song. Not the kind of blasting that goes with power ballads but the soft humming of a familiar song that one sings day in and out.
Kato-kun's someone that I pity and Ryo-chan is someone I hold a lot of respect for. It surprised my mother the first time I voiced that opinion out loud. She loves Ryo-chan, and like all the mothers in town, thinks fondly of him as everyone's resident son. And while he's become a great sort of person, there's always that fear that lingers in everyone's mind that he'd change overnight and finally become who they figured him to be. It's frustrating to know that they had been waiting for it to happen, and that's precisely why I admire Ryo-chan. Not because of all the messy trials he's had to fight through but because he's constantly defying expectations.
Kato-kun is widely loved by the community as well. He's sort of like the flavor of the month, except he's never around long enough to be substituted for. I think that's why he is the traveling type of salesman and not the kind that holds a regular nine to five job at an office complex. He enjoys the attention he attracts and in a way he lives for it. It's why I say he's a great salesman. People are intrigued by him and his products and when people are interested in something, it's not hard to convince them they want it. I had thought Kato-kun chose this profession because it paid well enough and provided him with liberties not offered to those with a desk job. It's what he told me anyway, but I'm sure now that it's not the entire truth.
He is, like Ryo-chan, lacking of a family. Kato-kun used to carry around a picture in his wallet, and sometimes when he was accepting payment for an item sold, I'd be able to catch glimpses of it. They were only a few seconds worth each time but over the course of his visits they added up. I counted six people in the picture, Kato-kun included, with two adult figures that seemed to be his grandfather and mother and three younger faces that I assumed to be his siblings.
Curiosity got the better of me once and against all proper etiquette and rules, I had asked Kato-kun for permission to see the photo and he had been sufficiently surprised by the request that for the first time I had heard him stutter to get a sentence out. I promptly apologized at that point, realizing that I had caught him off guard and somehow managed to put someone as comfortable as him, at unease. The next time my mother purchased her usual fare of vases, the picture had been replaced by one of the beach. The standard kind available for buying at convenience stores everywhere.
And that's why I pity him. Every facet of Kato-kun's personality seems to be approachable, friendly as if he lived right next door but also different enough to captivate us. Though I get the sense that most of what he tells us is fabricated, mostly lies mixed in with the tiniest shred of truth. Childhood anecdotes about growing up by the sea and spending his summer with his father, barbecuing outdoors and flying kites. I pity Kato-kun and his need to feed us lies because I'm sure it's not simply because he has to sell himself along with his products but because he finds his real self lacking and incomplete.
This is why Ryo-chan and Kato-kun, two well regarded and basically good men didn't get along with one another. Ryo-chan, with all the details of his life laid out for public view and speculation, was used to faking the smiles and pretending he couldn't hear the whispers. Kato-kun had come into town that day, like any of his many visits before and had changed his own decidedly set future by once again presenting himself, fiction and all to Ryo-chan. And Ryo-chan is good at spotting lies and I can tell you now that he probably noticed what we all missed at first, that Kato-kun was selling and like his goods, was more than a little defective and broken himself.
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