Fandom - Gravitation
Title - nobody reason.
Pairing - Tohma + Suguru
Rating - PG
Description – Suguru asks Tohma a question that even the cruel blond doesn't know how to approach…

Disclaimer – Gravitation isn't mine.

nobody reason.
By miyamoto yui

"Cousin?"

"Hmm?" I didn't even bother to look up away from my computer. I just continued to write as if this damn report meant everything to my so-called 'future'. The ends of my sleeves of my white starch shirt felt like they were cuffs closing onto my wrists.
I sighed with feigned impatience.

The poor boy stiffened. He stopped pressing his fingers affectionately into my shoulders, but they were penetrating deep into my hollow bones.

Click, click, click…
I typed on as I heard him open and close his mouth to say something to me. It seemed almost impossible that we were from the same family. How could someone as smart as my cousin float through life without knowing the internal politics of our outstanding, tight-lipped family?
The air was always refreshing whenever he was around though.

I always loved to tease him.

At that moment, I saved the file and just turned off the computer. I looked at him directly through the reflection of the computer. "What do you want, Suguru?"
I wondered how I said this because he was so startled. However, his fingers never left my shoulders. I almost wanted to peck at them to see how he'd react. Would he jump if I wanted him to?
I'm sure he would have. Heh.

Then, his eyes focused into the screen, shooting straight into me.

I felt uneasy as his hold on me softened. He enclosed his arms over my shoulders very slowly and gently. Then, he put his chin over his right forearm while pressing his warm left cheek onto mine. Unable to look at me any longer, he closed his eyes and asked me, almost in a whisper. "I've always wondered what you dream about, Tohma-san. What is your dream?"

My lips became a straight line for one whole second. Then, I laughed until I was chuckling so hard, he opened his eyes to look into the computer screen.
"What kind of question is that, Suguru?"

"The teachers at school keep on asking me what I want. Mom and Dad too. I don't know what I want…So, I thought if anyone knew the answer, it'd be you, Cousin."
I shook my head and laughed from the bottom of my bitter heart. I turned my chair around, but lifted his hands off my shoulders. I still held onto his hands and kept them in mid-air between us. Tightly, I gripped onto both of his little hands even more and caressed them with my two thumbs.

Giving him a thoughtful look to stop the upset expression encroaching his face, I simply answered, "You won't understand me right now, but even though I am only twenty-two years old, there are many things no one should ever do."

"Tohma-san…?"

At that moment, I found myself letting go of his hands and holding his upper arms. Looking at him more deeply, my hands went up to his cheeks to rub away the tears that were about to fall. He didn't understand anything logically, but his heart already knew something it shouldn't have.

Was that what compassion used to feel like? I'd forgotten that a long time ago…
…or so I thought…

…when I leaned forward to lick the tears off his eyelids.

Tasting the salt from his eyes, I looked at him clearly again. I was about to say something but then he interrupted me to say, "There are days that I just feel sad but I don't know why, Cousin. But…"
He put his left palm over my heart. "…does it hurt here? Is this why you're always smiling even though you're always so sad?"

My eyes blinked at Suguru in shock.

Then, I looked away. I never looked away from someone in any verbal exchange, argument, or other, but this was the first time I knew I'd lost. With a blank face because I didn't know what to feel at the moment, I said, "I don't have the right to dream, Suguru. That's what I am telling you."

He shook his head and began to sob, not understanding anything at all but wanting to do something about it with his small body. He had a heart that wasn't enough for what he wanted to carry. Pouting and throwing a tantrum, I held him close to me with both my arms to stop him from shaking and crying.

Then, clearly and loudly, he shouted, "Then, I will dream something for you!"

My seven-year-old cousin knew more than I thought about life and all I could do was hold him because he was too little to know how to hold me yet.

But deep inside, I was still laughing.
A dream? How ridiculous.

When someone's hands are dirty, no amount of purity or penance is enough to make up for their sins. They live each day submerging into nothingness with no chance of being saved from the abyss they created by themselves.
A dream is a luxury I tell you. Not everyone can have one even if we believe we can, for not everyone can handle the responsibility or the consequences of that impossible decision in which a person tries to curb fate and destiny into their own whims.
But when someone has this kind of power in their hands, these whims either become selfish or self-sacrificing, depending on your logic and reasoning. Father, as I recalled accidentally reading from his journal even though I wasn't supposed to, wrote 'Nobody reason'. Why did that go through my head right now?

I let go of him and turned around to turn on the computer again. With a monotonous and apathetic tone of rock-hard snow, "I need to finish my report, Suguru-kun. You can stop crying now. You're a Seguchi so you should just suck it up, especially since you're a boy."

He stammered, "You…you're always nice to me and then you're so mean too…"

"Go home, Suguru-kun. I'm done playing with you. Don't ask me stupid questions the next time you visit me."

I could feel the hatred he felt for me and that was all right if I could burn the connection that wanted to pull us together.

Instead of running away as he usually did, he took a deep breath to stop sobbing. Then, he went to the door and closed it slowly after him.

My eyes wandered to the closed door. The silence hurt more than the screaming. To think that my numbness could still have a reaction to something like that…
…or was it the person who did it rather than the action itself that disturbed me?

I got up and stood at the spot where he was standing only a few minutes earlier. My wooden floor was covered in innocent tears.
I smirked at myself in mockery.

It was official that I'd always be swallowed into hell no matter how much I tried to scrape my fingertips to climb out of it.

3/2/2006 7:03:45 AM – LA/SF
3/3/06 12:03 AM - Tokyo