Title: Six Billion Love Letters
Author: Ranier
Rating: R
Characters: Atobe, Fuji
Summary: Foolish men, many letters, and a hotel room. Atobe x Fuji.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed, except plot.
Credits: Revision February 7, 2005. Many thanks to anticipationnation, Lady Shinigami, Irised, and Araniell from GAFF for their many suggestions on how to improve this work. Any mistakes that remain are all my own. I would also like to thank all readers and reviewers for their support. I have taken your concrits into heart and I hope this revision is satisfactory.
If there are thousand words to describe perfection,
I will need another one to describe you completely.
If there are thousand ways to show love,
I will need another one to show you mine.
Six billion and counting, I will find you still.
Friday, January 28
7:25 pm
Fuji-
Four hours and thirty five minutes before the clock strikes midnight and his seventh year of loving the same person starts. The first six years have been full of empty periods and unrequited longings, and he doesn't hold any illusion about the seventh one.
He knows that he is forgotten, very much gone from the other's life. Fuji carries a doubt-filled heart these days, questioning himself and his feelings. Maybe 'love' is too strong a word. What does he want, anyway? Why does he keep the memories alive, reliving them now and then only to feel a lingering disappointment afterwards?
Perhaps because it is his first love. Perhaps because it is the only shameless passion he has ever felt.
Perhaps, perhaps.
There are too many perhapses, he doesn't understand himself.
And he laughs.
-Atobe-
… is having a splendid dinner with his latest conquest, a gorgeous fair-haired German-with a heavy accent he has come to like—when his private number rings. Only two persons in the whole world know this number and Atobe himself is one. He has been waiting for this call for two days. Quickly he excuses himself, smiles charmingly at the blushing blond, and walks to the balcony.
A gentle night breeze greets him and he breathes in deeply. He waits, counting to three, before picking up the phone. A pause follows.
"Keigo," the caller says breathlessly. "Keigo."
The instant he hears the soft voice, Atobe feels warmth creeping from the base of his stomach upward, unlike a jolt of electricity, steadily warming his chest, throat, and settling on his cheeks. It's the wine, it must be. Good wine.
"Shuusuke," he replies. There's nothing else he can say to this person. He ran out of words for him a long time ago, yet the slithering, newly awakened feelings deep inside command him to pour out many, many untold thoughts.
"Again," the voice demands.
"Shuusuke," Atobe obeys. "Shuusuke, Shuusuke. Oh, god."
"Stop calling another guy's name." A chuckle.
Atobe pauses. "I didn't know you could get jealous." He smirks.
"I'm bitter and charred," Fuji laughs freely.
… and the name that he cried in the middle of ecstasy broke Fuji's heart to pieces. He didn't say a thing, he never did. He just called, again and again. No apology, it wasn't needed, they knew what was coming. Again, and again, and again.
The name he cried wasn't Fuji's…
Atobe smiles instantly. "It's been a long time."
"Too long," Fuji agrees.
"Three years, is it?"
Fuji sighs, "Less four hours twenty minutes, but who's counting?"
"Right." A pause. "I got your letter."
"Of course you did. You picked up the phone."
… they wrote letters, numerous letters, many unsent, many burnt, more kept inside locked drawers, and they waited for the other to know. Foolish men with their letters, they kept their pride and silence.
And they wrote to each other.
'Today is my first time away from your side, and I ache.'
'He called me from German today and all I could think about was how he doesn't have your voice.'
'I hate you, I hate you.'
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'
Six billion letters they wrote. Three they sent.
"I'll pick you up at your hotel tomorrow at nine," Atobe offers.
"Sure, thanks. I'll be ready."
Friday, January 28
11:15 pm
Fuji-
… gets out of the comfortable hotel bed without any clothes on. It's a habit he picked up during the time he shared Atobe's bed. He walks to the glass door that separates the night from him, carefully draws back the curtain, and sees his naked reflection in the pane. The silver full moon glows above and Fuji steps outside into the balcony. It beckons, he thinks.
He shivers lightly as the cool air caresses his thighs and arms. Once someone had covered them with his own, their bodies had collided, and they had been warm. They had moved rhythmically, following two hearts that beat together, sometimes slowly, sometimes passionately and they had not stop until all of the energy had dissipated, heating up the room. Sweat glistened and they had relaxed.
Now his thighs and arms are cold.
He knows Atobe's are cold too.
-Atobe-
… clutches the stark white sheet of the empty side on his bed and trembles.
Claiming to be tired and in need of rest, Atobe sent pretty Dieter home an hour ago after a satisfying dinner turned sour. In the privacy of his own bedroom, he crawled out his suit, climbed to the tub, and turned on the jet on high and cold. He buried himself in the chilling water, hoping to punish his body which doesn't—cannot—forget.
When he was sufficiently soaked, he dried himself and headed directly to bed. He slept naked. Tried.
Now he is awake again, shaking with both cold and fear. The letters he has written and locked inside a mahogany drawer come back to him and they cry loudly, demanding to be let out.
Don't you remember what you wrote! they scream, banging against the confines of—
—the prison they built around each other, the chains they put around each other's neck, and the iron cuffs they gladly inflicted upon themselves—
—you wrote us!
'I cannot go back to you, and I cannot talk to you.'
Locked.
'I love him, and him only. Not you, never you.'
Locked.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'
Half-burnt then locked.
'Forget and let go, Shuusuke. I have.'
Sent
—you wrote lies.
11:37 pm
Fuji calls a number he remembers by heart.
11:38 pm.
Atobe picks up the ringing cell.
"I can't sleep," he hears Fuji's voice at the end of the receiver.
Atobe says nothing.
"I went out to the balcony, saw the moon, and was reminded of you."
"Shuu—"
"I changed my mind, Keigo. I cannot meet you tomorrow."
"Why?"
Fuji takes a deep breath and confesses, "I never gave him your letter."
"You did—"
"No, I didn't. Tezuka had never received it. Are you mad, extremely mad, with me?" Fuji taunts.
A painful silence.
"Yes, yes, yes. I am mad," Atobe gushes, clenching the small phone with all his might. His whole body shudders involuntarily with rage and some unknown emotions. "I despise you—" he spits.
"Don't stop," Fuji pleads.
"—I detest you, words cannot express how I loathe you, I am disgus—"
Fuji feels a tear teetering on his lashes, ready to fall. He blinks and it rolls down his cheek. He lowers the receiver down and Atobe's shouts grow weaker.
"It's over," he says to himself and hangs up.
Saturday, January 29
12:17 am
Atobe-
… waits impatiently inside the elevator that will bring him to the twenty-second floor of the hotel where Fuji's staying. When the elevator doors open with a pleasant 'ding' he jumps out and dashes into the hallways lit only by a dim glow. He spares no time looking for Fuji's room. It is right in front of him.
Atobe raps on the door, ignoring all politeness and consideration for other guests. He raps harder until his knuckles turn red.
"Fuji!" he screams. "Open this goddamn door, now!"
click-
The door opens, and a voice escapes through the small crack. "Come in with your knife or gun, or whatever."
Atobe forces himself in and finds the object of his anger sitting on the bed, topless. "I don't need any fucking weapon when I can snap your pretty neck into two with just these." He raises both hands and approaches the shorter man.
Fuji tilts his head to bare his throat. He takes both Atobe's hands and places them on each side of his own shoulders. Gently he brings them together around his throat, savoring the feel of the big, calloused hands on his skin. One last time, Fuji thinks. His own hands cover Atobe's.
"Squeeze hard, I don't die easily," he tells his former lover.
"I will," Atobe says through gritted teeth. He begins putting more pressure on the bones.
"Don't hesitate. I ruined your chance with Tezuka. Remember?" Fuji smiles, despite the eerie feeling of emptiness in his heart.
"You bastard," Atobe hisses and wrings harder. "You purposely didn't send that letter because you knew, you knew he was going to leave Japan forever. If only you had—"
"Yes," Fuji gasps, "if only I had given it to him before he left. And what? You'd have had your happy ending?" He cannot stop the look of scorn that forms after he says that.
"Yes, dammit! I'd be by his side and I wouldn't have to put up with anybody else! I wouldn't have to spend time trying to like a blond when I wished he were a brunet, I wouldn't have to fuck him senseless just because I couldn't stand him not being Tezuka!" With each words uttered and spat, Atobe grows limp. Yet, he still cries, "If you had sent it, he might—"
"—abandon his dreams and rot here?" Fuji finished for him, taking small breaths of air.
Atobe stiffens. "Yes," he answers weakly.
"I loved him once," Fuji says. "No, I may still do, but it's not the same anymore."
"What are you—"
"I couldn't let you have Tezuka because you would put chains around him and clip his wings. You're that kind of person."
"That's why you didn't send the letter?" Atobe growls.
"Maybe. That's what I tell myself all the time. But I don't believe it anymore."
The hands around his throat tighten again and Fuji chokes. "Then why, Shuusuke?" he hears.
"I—"
"Of all the vicious things you've done, this is the worst." The thumbs now press against Fuji's jaw. Atobe inches closer to the man who once touched him intimately and lovingly. He sees the cold sapphire eyes, the aristocratic nose, and the kissable lips. The thought of Fuji's features crumbling and lifeless suddenly nauseates him.
"I couldn't let Tezuka have you either," Fuji whispers.
Atobe brings their heads together until their foreheads touch. He has been dreading that answer for years, and now when he hears it, he doesn't really know how to react.
"You hate and love us both, Shuusuke."
"I do."
"You slept with me while I called Tezuka's name. At the same time you called his name in your heart and it hurt you."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because I am a bitter fool. I lost in the end, Keigo. I lost Tezuka to you, but I lost myself to you as well."
Their breaths mingle and for the first time in three years Atobe realizes how much he misses their proximity. "I yearned," he begins, "for him. I imagined that your skin was his, that your kisses were his, and that the way you moved was the same as his. I've never found out whether I was right or wrong…."
"I know…" Fuji says just above whisper. Another tear is ready to fall.
"Then your face started replacing his," Atobe continues.
Fuji flinches. "Don't—"
"I became aware that it was you I touched. I started comparing you to him, and I hated the results."
"Don't say it."
"He lost." Atobe lower his head and places light butterfly kisses on Fuji's lips. The shorter man struggles but Fuji soon finds himself lying beneath Atobe Keigo. "Tezuka lost. I didn't know when it happened, but you became more important than him."
"Can you still hate me? It's not too late," Fuji asks.
Atobe buries his head on Fuji's left shoulder. "No, it's three years too late. The day I sent you the letter—"
"You told me it was over between us."
"I was afraid."
"Of not being able to go back?"
"Yes," Atobe says while working his tongue down Fuji's torso. "It was hard to let Tezuka go."
"Ah…."
"But when I received your letter two days ago, I knew the time had come. No more Tezuka, Shuusuke. Just you and I."
Fuji sighs. "It's easier to hate, Keigo. You don't lose a thing." His senses are heightened as Atobe's strokes delve deeper into his stomach. Fuji lets out a small squeak. "Oh."
"I'm no longer afraid, Shuusuke, and you shouldn't be either."
"Liar. You are trembling with fear," Fuji grins. He covers his eyes with both hands to hold the tears that flow unreservedly.
Atobe brings himself up, facing Fuji's wet face once again. Softly he brushes a thumb across the cheek, lifts Fuji's hand and starts kissing the fingers. "Loving someone is a very frightening thing to do," he says.
"Yes, it is." Fuji sniffs.
"But I don't want to be afraid alone, Shuusuke."
Silence.
"Then let us be afraid together," Fuji answers and smiles. Slowly he touches Atobe's face and traces its contour. It is a face he can live with for a long time, Fuji decides.
Maybe it is time to open the drawers and read the letters.
Six billion letters. Two sent.
One forgotten.
It's all right.
Fin
Saturday, January 29, 2005
3:02 am
For you, J. This might really be the end after all.
Ramblings:
I will continue on Between Walls, but this one begs to be written. I hope I've done a decent job capturing the complicated relationship of Atobe and Fuji in this fic. Feel free to comment and criticize.
Thank you for reading,
Ranier.