turn ten: the key to yuki's coldness

Are you all right?
I feel like there must be something wrong.
Are you all right?
Cause it seems like you disappeared.
Are you all right?
Cause I've been feeling a little scared.

- "Are You All Right" by Lucinda Williams

At five months, Shuichi was still skinny, save for his growing womb.

"I'm going for a walk."

Yuki walked by him, dressed casually.

"Can I join you?" Shuichi asked eagerly.

"No."

Yuki shut the door, leaving Shuichi to deal with his hurt feelings on his own. Frowning, Shuichi got up and headed down the hallway, pausing only to grab something tasty from the fridge. He bit into his food, then spat it out in the trash almost immediately. He flipped the package over.

Best until 2/3/03.

This damn thing was two months old.

Shuichi stuffed it in the trash, then decided he may as well do something useful. He grabbed the trash bag out of the bin, and went to the bathroom and the bedroom, collecting the garbage. He made his way to Yuki's office, and used his hips to shove the door open. He emptied the garbage can and then made his way to Yuki's desk, where several crumpled-up papers balls and tissues and other random objects lay scattered.

Eww.

He reached for the papers and tossed them in the trash. He was about to toss in a soda can when he noticed a note tucked underneath Yuki's keyboard.

Meet Hiragana at the café on Hibuya Avenue at 4.

Shuichi checked the clock. It was 4:05.

"Who's Hiragana?" Shuichi wondered aloud.

Maybe I should go there and see what's going on.

Yeah, and maybe after that you can go wrestle with hungry lions at the zoo, his conscience snapped. Don't get involved; you'll only make this messy.

Shuichi ignored this. He donned a coat and a pair of sunglasses, along with a hat. He walked out of the apartment and down the stairs, wondering who the hell Hiragana was.

"What would you like, sir?"

"A garden salad and a Sprite," Shuichi said quickly, not looking at the waiter, who took his menu and waltzed away. Shuichi sipped at his complimentary water, looking around until he saw Yuki, sitting at a table across the room. Across from him sat a short young lady with shoulder-length hair and a pretty face. She looked very professional, except for her earrings. They were little plastic pieces of toast, dangling from shiny silver chains. Shuichi stopped staring, not really wanting to look at this woman's toast earrings. The waiter finally came back with his salad and Shuichi dug in, eating the whole thing in five minutes.

He was halfway through with his sprite when the waiter came back with the check.

"Put it on his tab, would you?" Shuichi said, nodding towards Yuki. The waiter looked confused for a moment, then he shrugged and went off to take care of the bill in the back.

"Thank you."

Later, the waiter came back out and presented the check to Yuki, who looked very angry and confused.

"I didn't order a damn salad. Where the hell did this come from?"

The waiter pointed towards Shuichi, who waved nervously from his table. Yuki looked ready to flip a shit.

"...Thank you," the novelist said evenly, his temper rising. The woman across from him looked slightly amused, but she knew better than to laugh. Standing up, Shuichi made his way over to Yuki's table, his manner very casual.

"...What are you doing here?" Yuki asked through gritted teeth.

"Who is this?" the woman asked.

"Who are you?" Shuichi asked.

The woman looked at Shuichi. "I'm Samansa Hiragana. I'm here to see if Yuki would like to work for my company, since his previous publisher has...ah...let him go."

"What? Since when?"

"You. Leave. Now," Yuki snapped, his anger rising. Hiragana looked at him quizzically.

"This is your boyfriend, isn't it?"

"His pregnant boyfriend," Shuichi rubbed in. "Pregnant with his child."

"Wow. That's pretty - "

"Yeah, rare, we know," Yuki hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Hiragana smiled and stood up.

"Well, I'll get back to you, Yuki-san. Soon you'll be back on the good side of Japan, you'll see. They're gonna feel the wooo that is your writing," Hiragana said playfully, grinning. Shuichi already liked her and hoped that Yuki would be hired by whatever publishing company Hiragana worked with. She shook Shuichi's hand and said goodbye, her toast earrings bouncing a little as she left the café.

"What the hell?" Yuki asked abruptly, looking up.

"That's my line," Shuichi contradicted, frowning. He motioned for Yuki to follow him as he walked outside, and Yuki threw down some cash on his table before following suit.

Everything was completely silent on the way home. Shuichi rested comfortably in the passenger side, his head cushioned in the headrest, his eyes closed. Yuki, on the other hand, looked extremely ticked off and was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in a spastic pattern. Shuichi tried to prompt him again and again, to get him to say what was the matter, but he gave up after many failed attempts. He merely threw Yuki offended glances, and he was truly hurt that his lover wouldn't share what was going on.

Hours later, Yuki had fallen asleep and Shuichi came out of the shower, wiping his face and hair with a towel. He sat down on the bed, his mind on nothing but trying to get Yuki to tell him what was up. It was maddening, so maddening that Yuki wouldn't say anything. Didn't he trust Shuichi? Or maybe he didn't know what to say to him without feeling some kind of shame or sadness.

Shuichi shook his head, seeing that Yuki had left his laptop open again. He was about to turn it off after he saved whatever his lover had been writing when he saw a minimised window on the taskbar that read "Tokyo Today: Eiri Yu..."

Curious, Shuichi opened up the window and began to read what was obviously an article.

Losing touch much?
Has Japan's hottest romance novelist finally run out of steam?
by Jonouchi Sakanoue

I think it's safe to say that Eiri Yuki's career is mere months away from completely flatlining.
His last novel, Lover's Tears, not only presented with a bad case of clichés, but also made a lot of readers wonder what the (insert expletive of choice here) happened to their favourite novelist's talent? Before, Eiri Yuki had the power to capture and maintain the readers' attention. Now, it seems like he's slipping lower and lower in the ratings everyday. According to his previous publisher, Yuki-san had been dealing with several problems at home and because of it, his work suffered.
(That wasn't the only thing that suffered, buddy.)
Could someone else be to blame, though? We all know about his partner and famous lead singer of bad luck, Shuichi Shindou, is pregnant with his child. Is Shindou-san becoming a burden on Yuki-sama's life? Is he the reason why the novelist's page turners are now on the back burners? Or is Yuki just being a misanthropic jerk who doesn't care what other people want, as per usual? We can't deny that, while he's being eternally sweet in his novels, in real life he's just a cold-hearted bastard. Has Yuki-sama decided to stop caring about the public's needs, as well as his own reputation?

Shuichi stopped reading, enraged.

"This is shit! Yuki's novels haven't been that horrible! I read the last one, it was different, true, but it was good! And I have not been burdening him; at least not that terribly! What the hell is this guy on about?" Shuichi muttered to himself, his tone angry and feverishly fast.

"...Well, now you know."

Shuichi turned around and saw his lover sitting up slightly, his hair extremely tousled.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Shuichi asked, shutting the laptop off and crawling up next to Yuki. "I could have helped you. I could have asked around, have other people help me out with this pregnancy instead of just you all the time."

Yuki smiled, then kissed Shuichi deeply, sliding his tongue into the young man's mouth. Shuichi moaned and held his lover close, gripping his shoulders. They fell asleep in each other's arms, forgetting all about Yuki's problems. It wouldn't matter soon, anyway - no matter what happened, Yuki always managed to bounce back.

A month went by, and Shuichi was lounging in the living room, massaging his stomach while grinning stupidly to himself. But then, he had every reason to be happy. Yuki had stopped eating like a starving man and Samansa Hiragana had hired him a week ago to join Miyuki Publishing. He was back on the good side of readers, and he was also outside tending to Shuichi's garden, the one that the young popstar had wanted to start but never got around to. Yuki didn't want to do it, but he figured that he owed Shuichi something for all the trouble he'd caused him.

So Shuichi stayed inside, watching a game show and eating pudding. After a couple of hours, Shuichi got a little worried. Pruning a garden didn't take that long, did it?
He decided to check on him.

"Yuki, I like your dedication, but I don't want too many tulips in there -"

Shuichi stopped as soon as he'd opened the door to the back of the apartment. Yuki

lay in the dirt, his hand twitching slightly.

"Oh my God!"

Shuichi ran over and knelt down, shaking Yuki's shoulders.

"Yuki! Yuki, wake up! Please, come on - "

"Where the hell am I?"

Yuki coughed, sitting up. Shuichi sighed in relief.

"Yuki, you probably passed out because of the heat," Shuichi groaned, getting up and pulling Yuki up by the arm. "Come on. Let's get you inside."

Yuki wrenched himself out of Shuichi's grip.

"I'm fine," he said, walking inside. "I'm going to lay down."

Shuichi stared after him. Yuki walked inside, slow and easy.

The younger man sighed. Some things just couldn't be helped.

(Yuki, stop collapsing. I'm starting to think your legs are made of Jell-O.)