Fall Apart Chapter One: Our Song
It wasn't the first time I had found him like this and I'm sure it won't be the last. My lover, surrounded by empty bottles, some cast away, overflown to make dark circles in the pristine carpet, the stench of half smoked cigarettes and sex choking the room.
And his hair, it was so pretty once, shining in the stadium lights, not a single strand out of place. But now it hangs in lank strings over his face, disguising nothing from us both.
His eyes are screwed shut, a sleep most unpeaceful that will haunt him when he wakes....if he wakes..
So there lies my lover, in a pool of his own vomit and I can stand by, to watch him drown or I can save him again.
And again and again....
It just goes on, but what can you do?
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"Kaoru?" Die repeated wearily, as he lifted his violet head from the table and took a damp tissue from Toshiya's trembling hands to wipe the acrid fluid from their leader's mouth.
A tiny whimper escaped from between cracked lips and two chocolate brown eyes, rheumy and flecked with thready red veins stared back at him.
"....Daisuke?....mhh...daisuke...wha?" He mumbled, trying to turn his head away, already rife with shame despite his confusion.
"You'll be alright. Just sit up okay?" Strong hands slid around the guitarist's waist and pulled him gently from the seat, supporting his unsubstantial weight. Toshiya trailed behind, a small plastic basin filled with warm water in one hand, and a fannel in the other. Two fluffy cream towels were draped over his thin forearm.
Die fumbled for the light switch, flooding the modest room with dim glow and shifted Kaoru in his arms, carefully guiding him toward his bed. The sheets were kicked back, it had not been made for weeks and the room itself was a mess. Books, lyric sheets and magazines hung off every surface, along with crumpled clothes, empty food packaging, that was beginning to attract flies. The many posters covering Kaoru's plain walls were crooked and a dense haze of mingled smells carpeted it all.
"Toshi?" Die laid Kaoru down on the stained bedclothes and motioned the reluctant brunette forward. He offered the bowl and towels, watching with frightened eyes as Die dipped the flannel into the lukewarm water and placed his fingers under Kaoru's chin, angling his face to clean the sick from his pallid skin.
"Die-kun.....where's K-kyo...." Kaoru asked weakly, raising his hand from the sheets for a moment, before Toshiya saw it fall limply back down.
Die sighed, and continued to wash Kaoru, his eyes downcast, "He went out. He'll be back this afternoon."
Toshiya's brow creased, that was patently a lie....a white one, but a lie all the same. They had not seen Kyo since yesterday. He wondered with a faint frown why Die would conceal that from Kaoru. Even in the state he'd thrown himself into he deserved to know where his boyfriend was.
".....oh...." Kaoru's eyes dulled, and he swallowed roughly, a bitter taste coating his raw throat.
Die finished cleaning him and picked up one of the towels, slipping his hand under Kaoru's and patting it dry, before rubbing the water from his cheeks.
"Try to get some sleep. I'll wake you when Kyo returns."
The red-head stood and ushered Toshiya from the room quickly, barely granting him enough time to glance over at Kaoru, see him roll over and pull the covers back over his curled up body.
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"What did you say that for?" Toshiya demanded the second they were out of earshot. Die looked around the room, walked to the kitchen and opened a low cupboard within which he found a roll of binbags and brought them along with some tissues and cleaning spray back into the lounge.
"What am I supposed to say? I'm sorry but we haven't a clue where he is. We haven't seen Kyo since last night."
Toshi's shoulders heaved and he flopped defeatedly onto the sofa, taking in the chaos surrounding them. "I guess not."
Die tugged his sleeves up, snapping a bag from the roll, he picked apart the edges and held it at the side of the table, sweeping the drained bottles of wine and sake down into it's black confines with a tinkle of breaking glass.
"Do you think he'll be back?" Toshiya asked, leaning forward to rake a hand through his dark hair.
"If not then there will be no more Dir En Grey and Kyo would never give up on that, no matter how bad it gets for him."
The sweet, revolting odor of vomit reached Die's nose and he flinched, grabbing the tissues and spray to dispose of it hastily, his hand worked in rapid waves to wipe the wood clean. The rest of the room had not fared much better. Furniture lay, broken and pathetic on the floor and cigarette burns dotted the arms of each couch. Even as Toshiya wrenched open the glass doors leading to the small balcony outside he knew that the smells would linger as long as their memories.
"What can we do?" He said softly, leaning against the cool window pane, to let the sun warm his face. The view outside was a little comfort as he studied the streets below.
A morning market was in full swing, with the cries of vendors reaching him even from five storeys up. Children weaved in and out of the stalls and frustrated mothers made their grocery purchases, hauling round prams loaded with squalling toddlers. He could even see a few couples, beyond the market's sprawl, wandering down a main shopping road, hand in hand with benign smiles on their faces.
"Hey..." A light whisper of breath flickered against the back of his neck.
"Don't worry. Kyo will sort him out, I'm sure." Die's arms wrapped themselves round his waist, a hand resting on the curve of his hip. A whisp of red hair unfurled onto Toshiya's shoulder and Die pressed his lips to the bared skin just below his silver strung ear.
"I know, I'm just scared for them both...." He muttered, closing his own hands around Die's. "Kao-kun's so messed up at the moment."
Die nodded, his voice muffled slightly under the silken length of black tresses, "Koi, trust me. Kyo will come back later and I'll talk to him, straighten this all out."
Toshi smiled, his lips curved up vaguely as he tried to believe that Die's words could come true.
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Before I even got through the door I knew those noises. They were my noises, my sounds reserved for my ears only.
But I wasn't in that room, I could only stand in hall and wonder who it was that had stolen my tune.
Plagiarism.
I've always hated thieves, but to be stolen, kidnapped you have to not want to go. To resist. It's weak logic I know and in that corridor it had never seemed so true.
I turned the key in the lock and found the door open. So sure of what I would see that my chest hurt. The lights were on, flooding the room with trails of smoke and lazy bodies on our sofas, hanging across our chairs. Our space that had been invaded by strangers who cared not a fraction.
I wandered, picking my way through the debris of people, my clumsy feet ripping cries through their torrid sleep.
Toward our room, our sanctuary, our space.
My hand found the doorknob and I let it rotate beneath my fingers, I don't think I even felt the metal.
It swung outward, a portal to a scene that could not be.
You, my love...
Topped by another, moving between sinful sheets, your body that I alone possessed as you did mine was now a stranger's toy.
I watched, denying that this could be real. As you screamed and moaned my tune, giving it to someone else. I knew you were mine no longer.
I caught your face, lips parted to sing the song we'd made together and then you stared at me, with those familiar eyes.
Kyo.
Kyo! You said, but I was already out of the door. Gone and beyond your reach. You let yourself be stolen.
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~Driven me to sadness, my little one, Clothing me in madness, what have you done?
We are gone and not the same, Stolen sweet and pretty game, Desert me, desert me koibito, I went and came ~
Kyo scribbled furiously on the napkin, looking up briefly to warn the waitress away with crimson slits of his unkind eyes. The biro in his shaking hand made a sharp noise of protest and shattered, dissolving onto the trendy chrome table.
"Ah!..." He exclaimed in disgust, drawing stares from several of the surrounding customers. Within the streetside cafe a cluster of staff around the counter huddled and muttered among themselves, pointing over to him from time to time.
He threw the corpse of the pen into the gutter and produced another from with in the depths of his combat pants pocket. It was only a matter of time when he went out, wheter alone or with the other members of Dir En Grey before a fangirl or thirty would approach them, shyly hold out a copy of arena 37 and ask meekly for an autograph. Heaven help them if it happened today.
Kyo snatched another napkin from a pile at his elbow and resumed his writing, a scowl etched on his round features.
~Sakuranbo kisu, We once shared, Sakuranbo kisu, when you cared ~
"....baka....bakayaro......Baka.....BAka....BAKa.....BAKA"
Kyo's hand snaked out, found his empty glass and flung it as hard as he could across the sky. The fragile glass tumbler slammed into a passing truck and rained glittering slivers onto the tarmac below. The scrape of chairs rang out in a chorus as one by one the tables emptied and inside the cafe the manager looked on in horror. A few customers practically ran in, paid their bills and fled onto the safety of the open streets.
".......b-baka...." Kyo let the pen fall from between his fingers and buried his face in his slick palms. He was far beyond caring. If a journalist and full camera crew appeared from thin air in the next six seconds and dreamt up some wonderful rumour that he had finally snapped, it mattered not one bit.
And from behind his hands he wondered if it was even worth carrying on....
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"It's eleven o'clock Die. Where is he?" Toshi turned back over to face his lover, the strong cast of concern marring his attractive face. "I said he'll be back, but when...I don't know." Die's scarlet hair pooled around him on the lily white sheets, a stark contrast in the wan moonlight. His hands rubbed comforting rings along the line of Toshiya's smooth thigh. The lithe guitarist pursed his lips, leaning further into Daisuke's touch.
"But....."
Die placed a slender finger against his mouth, a smile lit up between them. "Shh....We'll all be fine." He tried again, lulling Toshiya back into the warm haven of time spent together. Eyes that appeared darker than a raven's wing in the night air blinked away their moisture and slowly closed. Leaving Die to stare at the pale orb outside their window and pray that he was right.
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