'Violet Pulse' - [Aoi/Uruha] 5/5

[colberry]

Title:  Violet Pulse
Chapter:  5/5
Description:  Eight-years-old, Yuu blushed -- an innocent red dusting his cheeks as he ducked his head away from Kouyou's sight.  He swallowed, his lungs stammering because he had these weird, wiggly things inside of him that made his stomach clench.  And made his heart beat fast.  And made Kouyou feel right.  Somehow.
Pairing:  Aoi/Uruha
Notes:  Five chapters.  Five ages.  How sometimes two people should be together despite everything.  First request-fic!  Please enjoy jokerock <3

In this chapter:  Twenty-seven-years-old, he slid a hand from his face to Aoi’s chest, fingers resting lightly upon the fabric of his shirt.  It was silent for a moment, just the throb of his fingertips and the pounding of the elder’s heart pressing their beats to one another.  Aoi felt Uruha spread his fingers wide, trying to cover every inch of his metronome. 

 

Age 27


"So, what made you come here?"

Twenty-four-years-old, Aoi looked up from his beer, sunglasses casting Ruki's pliable figure across the booth in sepia undertones.  He was lazily stirring his apple juice with a stray straw, lips in a pout and black-nailed fingers of his other hand tapping little beats along the table's wooden grain.  Aoi stiffened, immediately furrowing his brow, "Weren't we here to talk about you and -- "

Ruki scoffed and rolled his eyes impatiently, "Just answer me, Aoi.  What made you come to Tokyo?"

Aoi averted his gaze -- relieved that his eyes were hidden by his thick frames -- and fiddled with the wrapper from Ruki's straw.  "I guess what makes anyone come out here..."

"You know that's a bullshit answer."

Aoi jerked his head up and glared, "Why does this even matter."

Ruki leaned forward, twirling his straw and spoke lowly, "This shouldn't be so hard to say, you know."

The elder snorted and crossed his arms.  Ruki only shrugged and leaned back into his seat, "Fine.  I'll go first."  The vocalist abandoned the straw and never let his stare leave Aoi''s noir eyes, "I came here because I had nothing else.  A little boy who loved the dark and horror movies, who saw notes in his head -- that's all I was back there.  I knew I didn't belong anywhere else but here, where hearing phantom melodies doesn't mean you're crazy.  Where I wouldn't feel so fucking alone all the goddamn time because Tokyo is so crowded."

Aoi watched Ruki put his chin in his hand, elbow digging into the table, "So tell me, Aoi.  Was it the same for you?  What anyone comes here for?"

He looked away, "No."

"And why not?"

"Because I left everything.  I had everything before this."

"So, why did you leave it?"

Aoi let a breath escape through his lips, let Ruki see him break just a little.

"To see if it would follow."


&&


"I think we might be stardust, Aoi."

Uruha rested his head against the elder's chest, hand up in the air -- lackadaisically spreading his fingers to watch the light run through the flesh.  His blond tresses were spread across each inch of Aoi's gray shirt.  They were somehow older -- the slight traces of rounded youth having left Uruha's face, laugh lines starting to engrave themselves beside Aoi's dark brown irises. 

His hand traced up the other's side.  He closed his eyes to the feel of soft flutters of breath that pulsed against his fingertips.  Aoi tried to imagine what forever felt like.  

He couldn't exactly remember when he remembered.  

And he couldn't exactly describe the feeling in his heart when Uruha started to become Kouyou.

"And why are we stardust?"

Somewhere between the light freckle on Uruha's lower jaw he'd never noticed, and the way Reita slung a casual arm around those broad shoulders...  Somewhere past the purple shadow slathered upon his eyes and towards the way his smile warmed his chest...

Sometime when Uruha began to press his nose into his shoulder, grinned against his skin and sighed -- he knew.

The way their legs tangled together so perfectly, knees knocking; how the younger looked at him --

Uruha rolled over and stared down at him, long locks tickling the other's neck and a soft smile on his bowed lips.

"Because we're the scraps of wishes."

Aoi cocked a brow at the taller man, his fingers splaying across the man's narrow waist, "That doesn't sound so good."

Uruha's eyes began to shine -- just like they always did in those late nights when the moon seemed to blush, in those times when they traced each freckle across their skin; just like when they were young -- and he leaned in close enough to bump his nose against Aoi's. 

"No, no -- don't you see?"

His hand cupped Aoi's cheek and guided his face towards the window of the night sky beside them -- showing Aoi the stars, the moon, the whole damn universe, for just a moment's breath -- before turning him back to his warm grin and resting a thumb against the corner of his lip.  He sounded breathless:

"We're the second chance."


&&


Twenty-five-years-old, Aoi almost told Uruha his name.

It was a bitter-cold, winter day and they had been sitting upon the grass in some abandoned lot.  Both had snuck away from practice, cigarettes dangling from laughing lips as they raced down the halls in a desperate hurry not to get caught.  Somehow, the guitarists ended up here, smiles wide and eyes lazily regarding the overcast sky.

The frozen tips of each emerald tendril were pricking Aoi's palms.  Uruha was talking, chuckling about something or other that was most likely to do with ducks and Reita's recent assessment that the tall man shared a resemblance with the aquatic creatures.

His hand had been bumping against his own in the hard grass, flesh against flesh -- bone to bone.  Aoi stared at their hands, the cheerful prattling of that sweet baritone somewhere to his right, and edged his pinky closer.  Without missing a beat, the blond overlapped the elder's pinky with his own, jovially curling around the cold skin with his warmth.

And Aoi almost said it.

Yuu almost said it.


&&


He had spilled everything to Ruki of course.  A random Thursday when Uruha was out on interviews, when Reita was with him, and when Kai was running around with management.

Ruki sat there, cigarette between his teeth and his thumb poised over the corner of a magazine page, ready to disregard and flip.  Silver adorning each finger and lips pursed, the younger man was furrowing his brow at something particularly interesting on page seventy-three when Aoi, as always, blurted without preamble:

"His name is Kouyou."

Ruki stilled, eyebrows knitting together even deeper as he lifted his brown-haired head to stare quizzically towards Aoi's deflated figure.  His hand was still hovered over the page, fingertips curled under and ready, but he lowered it.  He took the cigarette out of his mouth and let the smoke sigh through the air.

And Ruki waited like Aoi knew he would.

Aoi licked his dry lips, fumbled with his hands on the table, "I met him when I was eight.  And then I met him again when I was nineteen."

He averted his eyes from Ruki's patient stare and watched his fingers tangle together.  His lungs were gasping.  "I left him.  Made him start shooting up.  Made him become so broken and twisted and hurt."

Aoi clenched his hands tight and closed his eyes, "His name is Kouyou and I don't know what to do."

Ruki crushed his cigarette into an ashtray nearby before he leaned in and tried to look Aoi in the eye as he said gently, "You love him."

He reached out and patted the space between them, Aoi's eyes opening to the sound.  Ruki's brown orbs, devoid of synthetic blue, stared straight through everything in him, "You love him like you did before."  A roll of his eyes and a huff of breath, "Fuck, Aoi."

Aoi lifted a hand to fist his raven locks, eyes drooping and so tired.  Ruki shook his head, almost disbelieving, "What have you been doing up until now?"

"Think that Kouyou was still back at home.  Thinking Uruha was Uruha and not him," Aoi grit his teeth harshly and bit out, "Thinking that everything was so fucking simple."

Ruki laughed, a dark chuckle that made Aoi slide his fingers out of his hair to regard him with shock.  The shorter brunet only smiled bitterly, "But isn't it?"

He opened his magazine up again, still grinning sardonically as Aoi gaped at him. 

"Love isn't hard.  That's why falling is so easy."

A flip of a page.  A flicker of those brown irises meeting Aoi's ebony.

"Just fall and be happy and fuck the rest."


&&


"Fuck!"

Uruha was laughing, smile betaking the whole sky as it crashed down upon them.  Puddles were splashing across his knees, new jeans efficiently ruined as he cursed and sputtered in the sudden wetness of an abrupt fall storm. 

Aoi scowled and Uruha just grinned wider, taking his hands in his lithe, cold ones.  His lips were smudged with purple, auburn hair dark and sticking to his glowing cheeks.  There was a smear of eyeliner on his cheekbone.  His jacket was drenched the whole way through, stuck to his sides like molasses.

The sky grumbled and Uruha threw his head back.

Clear droplets were sliding down his throat as he held Aoi there with him in the rain.  The MIA bus scheduled to pick them up after the interview was caught somewhere in traffic.

They only had the red lights of neon signs and the last few wisps of the sun to see, but Uruha had closed his eyes to the world.  Fingers were tightening their grip, the wind was biting the tip of his red nose --

-- and Uruha-Kouyou-Uruha sighed.

He lifted his head back up, smile now subdued and something more beautiful.  It sat there peacefully on his bowed lips, healed from all their scars, and Aoi found himself stepping closer to catch its warmth. 

He breathed out, not wanting to speak louder in case this dream collapsed around his knuckles -- in case he woke up and this man was no longer him.

Because he was.  Every fucking part, every motion and every word.

"You're something good."

Uruha tilted his head, caramel eyes blinking back the rain, "And what makes you say that?"  He smirked playfully  and tugged on their laced hands, "You've seen me be anything but good."

But Aoi wasn't rising to the bait this time; he didn't want to laugh and poke and prod.  He didn't want to giggle in the rain and forget.

He wondered, for the briefest of moments, if Uruha had forgotten -- whether he had been smeared out of the younger man's past as nothing but a bone-deep bruise.  Whether Yuu had been thrown away along with the stained hypodermic needles.  The blond was only smirking at him, eyes radiating through the splatter of rain, and he found himself so close to screaming, begging, for forgiveness -- to let him in just one more time.

Instead, he leaned in close, settled his head underneath Uruha's chin and put his ear against his collarbone. 

Wet, raven locks sticking to his skin, Uruha let out a breath.  His lips trembled, mischievous eyes now fading to an undefined softness as he felt the elder sink into him.

Aoi closed his eyes, felt Uruha break away a hand to touch at his back.  Feather-soft.  There.

"You'll always be good."


&&


Aoi put a shaking hand to his mouth and shut his eyes tight.

"Are you ever going to tell me what's wrong?"

--

The soccer ball was heavy in his hands.  His eyes were wide, a shocking honey hue that was laced with poignant fear.  His cleats were dug into the earth, keeping him still when all he wanted to do was run.  And catch him.

Call him back.

--

Aoi was huddled against the closed door of his room, Uruha's mellow drawl echoing somewhere above him on the other side.  He only lowered his head, eyes now snapped open and disbelieving of how he never fucking noticed.  He was too busy with guitar, with dreams, with running away, with falling so fucking hard for someone he already --

--

But when the elder told him, "I'm leaving now," Kouyou couldn't move.  He was nailed to the spot in the clearing, bright sun shining on his raven locks that now touched the slope of his neck.  Time was suspended, slowing down around the retreating figure of the other boy and making the air seem so heavy.  His hands gripped the ball tighter because that's all he had left to hold onto.

--

The elder heard a slight thump, signaling Uruha had taken a seat against the door himself, and continued to press his lips against the palm of his trembling hand.

"Aoi..."

--

He watched him walk away, silhouette becoming blurrier with each breath he took. 

--

He almost corrected him.  Almost screamed his name and begged to never have Uruha-Kouyou-Uruha say the word 'hollyhock' ever again.

He whimpered instead.

"You're being a little ridiculous.  I tell Reita that I'll play soccer with him later and next thing I know, you're barricading yourself in your room."

Aoi shakes his head silently, mulling over what he had heard, something so much deeper than just menial words --

"Alright, alright -- we'll play soccer later.  Jeez, learn to shut up for a second, 'kira."

Aoi reached up to tangle his fingers into his midnight hair.  Fuck.

He had suspected for awhile, but to have it so clearly shown, so suddenly careen towards him  and shake every doubt  from his soul -- Aoi bit the inside of his cheek hard.

--

When he had told the young:  "You can't stop me" -- Kouyou had wanted to.  He yearned to be able to uproot himself and drop the stupid soccer ball and run after him.  Tackle him into the grass and bury his fingers into those long black locks and make him stay.

--

"Are you jealous?  If you really want to, you can play with us.  It's really not something to shut the door in my face about..."

Fuck, fuck.

"Aoi -- "

"Stop calling me that."

A heavy silence hovered against him.  He could hear Uruha breathing softly, trying not to shatter whatever cusp they just entered -- careful not to step on any shards of whatever was just broken.

He bit his lip, tasted metallic crimson and whispered hoarsely, "You told me...  Back then, you told me not to tell you, but..."

Uruha stayed quiet, and the other man could imagine him tilting his head against the wood, caramel irises glazed against the oak paneling.

"I think I..."

He stopped.  His tongue felt dry and his words were drowning inside his chest.  Something wet was falling against his cheeks.  But all he could think of was how Uruha didn't remember.

"Come with us -- "

Aoi covered his face with his hands and bent over his knees, a raw sob ripping through his throat.

"You don't even know my name!"

He heard the door handle jiggle back and forth, "Aoi, open the door."

Stars exploded in front of his eyes as he whipped his head back to slam against the wood behind him, "Fuck, just stop!"

He didn't know how Uruha got the door open.  All he knew in the following five seconds was the callused hands upon his face, something like the sun flush against him, and the pulse of another's heartbeat on his aching chest.  He had his eyes closed even as Uruha traced his thumb across his cheeks, rubbing the salt of his tears from his alabaster skin.  Chest heaving, breath ragged, Aoi let his head sag into Uruha's hands, body so tired of keeping the glass-shards of the past in his ribs.

Uruha's breath was heavy above him, fingertips soft and touching every part of his face because he knew it felt like he was slipping away and -- Uruha would never let him.

A broken murmur, "I'm not good for you."

Uruha stilled for a moment before trying to lift up his head and look him in the eye, but Aoi kept them closed, brow knitted together and the ache that filled each blood vessel and pore.

--

He had left.  The field was empty.  It had been empty for five minutes before the tears finally came and then the gut-wrenching feeling of being torn apart.  He lifted a hand from the ball to his chest, mouth open in muted horror that this hurt so much.

--

"You're wrong."  Uruha kissed the tear that was sliding to his jaw.

Aoi grit his teeth in a tortured grimace and tried to jerk his face out of Uruha's tender hands, "You don't know what I am."

But Uruha didn't let him, merely pulled him close and slid his hands up his face to softly touch his temples, "Yes, I do."

--

Because he didn't understand.  What had he done to make those dark brown eyes become noir, to make that shy smile disappear?

--

"You don't."

He didn't realized he had bit out the words until he heard their echo.  And then the younger put his lips against his cheekbone and whispered, "I do."

He kissed the spot  and then moved to his mouth to breathe the words against his skin, "I know that you hate celery.  I know that you love Tony Chopper and floral shirts.  I know that gray is your favorite color.  And I know that your broken, rude, selfish, gentle, beautiful, insane and that your heart is fucking gorgeous."

He slid a hand from the man's face to Aoi's chest, fingers resting lightly upon the fabric of his shirt.  It was silent for a moment, just the throb of his fingertips and the pounding of the elder's heart pressing their beats to one another.  Aoi felt Uruha spread his fingers wide, trying to cover every inch of his metronome.

"What would I do without this heart?"

--

Kouyou gasped, lungs stuttering at the feeling of loss and he let a sob escape his bowed lips.

--

The elder took a shaky breath, finally meeting Uruha's warm eyes as he whispered, "I'm not Aoi."

Uruha only smiled sadly at him, something so beautifully tragic upon those lips that made the sun shudder.  He wiped away another stray tear before whispering back gently, "Tell me who you are tonight."

And Aoi could have told him, could have spilled his broken heart upon the floorboards and watch the scarlet seep into the knotholes -- watch Uruha's face fall and crumble and everything slip from his grasp because wasn't irony a frigid whore?

He could have said it.  The words were on his tongue, ready to tear apart the chains that barred the past from trickling into the present.

--

With the sun still shining and the sky echoing the clearest blue in days, Kouyou broke.

--

But he said, "Whoever you need me to be."

Silence lolled before Uruha's lips met his own, a soft and sweet touch that lingered in the aftermath of tears, "Fucking sap.  I just need you."


&&


The annual GazettE Barbeque had been a tradition for as long as the boys had been hungry for something other than reheated ramen and bottles of juice they had to ration out during the week.  Even when money started to become steady and their fridges began to fill up, the once-a-year stakeout at the park was the pinnacle event on the band's schedule.

Of course, Kai was tending to the grill -- having usurped it after their manager mistook vinegar for cooking oil -- and Aoi found himself perching his chin atop the younger man's shoulder.

"Done yet?"

An easy smile was sent his way, though the drummer's eyes glistened dangerously, "No, they haven't cooked in the time it took you to ask me before, walk over to Uruha and then walk back here and ask me again."

"So when will they be done?"

The spatula shook in Kai's hand, "When I say:  Hey guys, the steaks are done!"

Aoi pouted, "And that will be in how long...?"

"...I bet you were such a brat as a kid."

Aoi felt a tug on his sleeve, "Aoi-shi~  Stop pissing off Kai before he serves us meat drenched in salmonella."

The older man turned around and found Uruha smirking at him, a playful tilt to his head making a few blond strands of his hair fall into his glinted eyes.  He didn't have makeup on, the blush on his cheeks only from the sun's heat and his eyes a warm caramel without the help of bronzer. 

Aoi smirked back and let himself be pulled away from an exasperated Kai into Uruha's tall frame.  Large hands that had created screaming riffs and crooning melodies intertwined with his own along his stomach.  He leaned back, head securely placed beneath the blond's chin.  He could hear the slight chuckle in Uruha's breath, the steady beat in his chest.

"You're a handful."

"You know you like it."

Uruha raised an amused brow at him, "Oh?"

Aoi nodded his head firmly, a mischievous light catching in his dark brown eyes, "That's how it works.  I get out of hand -- I mess everything up and scream and get angry and spiteful.  And then you come and everything's okay again."

Uruha bumped his nose against Aoi's cheek, "So, I'm the lion-tamer then?"

Aoi turned his head to catch Uruha's lips in a chaste kiss, smile stealing across his face, "Something like that."

"So, are we really going to have to eat with you two doing that here?"

The two guitarists turned to see a disgruntled Reita fold his arms across his chest, face humorlessly devoid of any joy at seeing the two intertwined so closely.  Ruki came up behind him and clapped the bassist's back, sending Aoi a knowing glance before breaking out into a conniving grin.

He nudged Reita's shoulder, "How about this?  We have a bet.  And if those two lose, they have to sit on opposite ends of the table from each other."

Reita perked up and slyly swiveled his gaze to the shorter man, "And if we lose?"

Ruki scoffed playfully, "We won't."

Uruha leaned onto Aoi's back in interest, "So, what's the bet?"

Ruki hummed for a second, eyes cast to the ground as if search for the answer in the emerald tendrils.  After a minute, his chocolate irises were lit with confidence, "A race."

Aoi rolled his eyes, "That's not a bet."

"Whatever with the technicalities.  It's a challenge."

Uruha didn't seem swayed by Ruki's aplomb or the fact that Reita was nodding gleefully, "Where to?"

Ruki was already facing away to the clearing up ahead and looked over his shoulder at the two, "You'll know when it's the end."

Aoi didn't remember anyone saying go or the agreement to the starting point at all.  All he knew was that he was running, that Uruha was right beside him and the sun felt wonderful upon his skin.  The light shirt he was wearing was fluttering in the breeze and his mind immediately flashed imaged of dirty cleats and checker-patterned balls.  He chanced a glance at Uruha, watching how his long legs seemed to leap and bound rather than chug along.  It was hypnotizing in the way that his muscles contracted  and extended, as if he were an extension of the wind itself -- a fleeting, intangible entity.

And then Uruha dashed forward, a sudden streak of blue plaid and blond that Aoi almost missed in his blind race to an uncertain end.  Suddenly, he couldn't see Ruki and Reita anymore.  All he could spot in this expanse of green and blue and warmth was Uruha.  How his shoulder blades moved languidly, how his hair was like gilded ribbons streaking in the wind. 

Uruha looked over his shoulder at that exact moment -- the one where everything looked so damn clear and bright and right.  Seeing the jovial yet panting countenance of Aoi behind him, he laughed.  Aoi felt his chest tighten at the sound and pushed himself forward, suddenly compelled to catch, catch, keep.

I'll catch you one day.

It was a chase as Uruha veered off into a different field, the park trees suddenly gone as it was just them and the grass.  The taller man was still laughing, absolute glee reflecting from his features.  Those bowed lips spread wide in the smile that Uruha only reserved for those truly happy moments -- the ones that took over his whole face and made him shine.

Aoi's chest felt like it was about to burst when he finally reached him, springing forward to tackle the younger in the grass.  They were twenty-three again.  They were nineteen again; thirteen, eight.

Rolling in the grass, their older knees knocked together -- grass staining their uninhibited laughter.  Because they were free here.

Uruha finally found himself atop Aoi, straddling his waist and happily placing his palms over his chest.  He could feel the other's heart beat fast, a racing pulse like his.  The blond gave the dark-haired guitarist a cheeky grin.  It soon changed to a portrait of shock and then to unrestrained amusement as Aoi propelled himself forward until he was atop the squirming Uruha.

The other laughed because there was nothing else to say; he let himself be pinned to the sweet-smelling grass, let Aoi's nimble fingers spread across his chest like a million promises.

And Aoi believes, for a just a second in time, that he's looking at the sun.

He kisses him slowly then, silencing the laughter and making his bones melt from frost.

"Caught you."

And then the man beneath him looks at him, caramel to ebony.

"You've always had me, Yuu."



&&&

A/N:  Yes.  Yes.

I think my heart almost burst when I was writing this.  I didn't realize how close I had gotten to this story until it ended, haha.  Some things that I had planned for it never really came to fruition, some things that I never thought would happen, did.  It's really been wonderful writing this.  Something light and sweet, tragic and agonizing, real and fanciful.
It was really written in Yuu's point of view the whole way through.  We never really knew what Uruha/Kouyou was thinking.  Until now.  If you go back to chapter three (age 19) and read each line Uruha says from there until now, you will notice that he has, in fact, always known it was Yuu.  He did follow him.

On a side note, cut-scenes and whatnot will be posted later on, including the 'jealous-Aoi' scene.  It will be titled PULSATION.  And if anyone's interested, the song that inspired most of this chapter was "Succar Ya Banat" from the beautiful movie, Caramel. 

I just want to thank everyone who has reviewed, commented, and read this story.  Your kind words were always an inspiration and I'm so happy that you all enjoyed it.  I hope this last chapter served its purpose as well.  And thank you jokerock for your lovely prompt that began it all <3

Thank you so, so much.

-- colberry