Notes and Disclaimers: Bow down to Maki Murakami, the wonderful creator of Gravitation. I own nothing in this fanfic but the words and the plot. I think I won't have much problems with the issue about yaoi. If you know Gravitation, you know what you're getting yourself into ^.~

LESSONS IN LIFE
(Chapter 1 - Shuichi Shindou)

I love Yuki.

Only an idiot would still try to deny that by now. No, actually, worse than an idiot. After all, Yuki calls me an idiot, but I still know that I love him. Yuki says I'm dumb, stupid, clumsy, childish, and he constantly says that I obviously do not possess a rational human brain. Yuki has a wide vocabulary - his being a writer saw to that - so cough up any negative word from the dictionary, I'm pretty sure I've been called that at least once.

But it doesn't matter, I don't mind it whenever Yuki says those things to me. I still love him anyway. Besides, I know that I'm really stupid sometimes, even Hiro knows that. And his words mean a lot, being that I've practically spent half my life with him when you think about it. But no, all that matters to me is that even if I'm every mistake this world has to offer all rolled up in a ball, someone as perfect as Eiri Yuki still found me valuable enough to keep.

That is, at least that was all that mattered to me before.

Yuki's been very quiet lately. Not the kind of quiet he is most of the time, everyone knows Yuki's the silent type. No, I'm talking about a different kind of quiet. He hasn't insulted me for more than five days now - that's saying a lot - and he's been drinking far too much for me to count the beer cans. Usually we fight, and he'd tell me how much time he's wasting speaking to an annoying brat like me. But these days, he'll just sit with a blank face in front of his laptop, typing his novels as if he were possessed.

I've been with Yuki for at least two years now, and that amount of time is enough for me to notice that there are specific days of the year when Yuki goes into such trances. It's the dates, the exact days of a certain month when his memories flood around his mind, reliving a past that both he and I fought hard to erase. Yuki doesn't know it, and I tried to keep it from him lest I add to his worries, but his past has also become a part of the burden that I carry each time I see him like this.

I have come to the conclusion that I've been selfish.

All these times, I've dreamt that I could help Yuki out from the grasp of his past, to pull him through the nightmare of trusting someone so much only to end up being betrayed. One cannot deny my loyalty for him, but I realized that maybe loyalty isn't enough. I don't know if love, my love to be precise, would be enough to pull Yuki through.

Yuki isn't talking to me. We went through another fight a week ago, for what reason I now forgot. This isn't news at all, everyone around us knows that Yuki and I have this tendency to fight at least once a week. Whenever we fight, I always have this feeling of insecurity that maybe Yuki doesn't like me as much as I think he does after all. During such times, I'd tell myself that I may be better than Yuki's past lovers, and it may be true that I lasted the longest, but are these things really enough to prove that I'm the one Yuki needs?

Usually, these feelings would subside once Yuki and I make up. He'd hold me in ways that would make me forget everything else, inside and outside. All I'll think about is how gentle Yuki is with me, and how I love him so much. But like I said, our current fight is going longer than the usual. And the feelings of insecurity are bothering me far more than it usually is supposed to.

I was talking to Hiro a few nights ago. He was comforting me in Yuki's behalf, or so he said. He made a joke about me lasting long enough against Yuki's temper because my persistence is stronger than Yuki's wrath. That was when I realized that maybe the real reason why I still have Yuki is because he can't let me go, because I won't allow him to. Yuki's relationships never lasted because his past lovers all got fed up with him. In the end, Yuki forgot all of them and he went on. That was why he's with me now, isn't it? But it's different with me. There were so many times when everything should've ended, but I've always been too stubborn.

I don't blame Yuki for anything really, the reason why he does things has been cleared to me long before. If there's anybody to blame, I suppose that that has to be me. After all, I never gave Yuki much time, because each moment that he tries to be alone to think, I'll cut off and claim him back. He never made it look like he minded, and it's possible that he really never minded at all, but the whole point is that I'm too impatient to wait a while to let him settle down.

Maybe Yuki really does hate me for depending on him too much, and making him depend on somebody again when he was just doing well on his own. Maybe he wants to bring back the time when he felt that he was strong. Maybe I'm making him feel weak. I keep remembering that single time when Yuki cried. He looked so scared and lost that I almost panicked.

Is that the way emotions are for you, Yuki?

I can hear his typing from here, still an endless tapping on the keyboard that the speed of it almost creates a symphony. I feel that writing brings him comfort in a way I can never do. Yuki shows more of his feelings to his laptop than he does to me. I know it's weird to feel jealous of a computer, but I've always been strange anyway.

My eyes finally moved, shifting my gaze from the shiny floors of Yuki's home to a certain bag and sack that lay side by side on one corner of the room. I've packed them both a little while ago, and I was only lying face down on Yuki's couch to ease the pain on my shoulder. Or maybe, I also expected something inside me to stop me from moving any further. But I listen to Yuki's typing now, and I can vaguely see the blankness in his eyes as he stares past the words that he created and into a realm where I can never chase after him.

I sit up, hearing the couch shift beneath me, before standing up to pace through the wooden floors towards my things. I take them in my hands, carrying them silently towards the door. I don't want to disturb Yuki. If he finds out about what I'm doing and asks me for a reason why, I might change my mind and just simply fall into his arms again. I can't let that happen, I've been selfish for far too long.

I slip quietly out of the door, my things behind me. I allow myself a final peek around Yuki's home, the place that I've considered as home as well for more than two years. Yuki's still typing away in his room.

It's during these times that I feel that Yuki doesn't need me.

It's during these times that I feel that he never did.

End of Chapter 1

Shuichi always struck me as the insecure type. This is my first attempt in writing a Gravitation fanfic. Please review so I can see if I'm doing things right ^.^