Disclaimer: Yep, the usual. Obviously, I don’t own Gravitation and these stories are for fun, not for profit. I’m borrowing characters from Maki Murakami. Shonen-ai, swearing, sex; it all adds up to an xXx rating.
This is part 3 of the ABC series, following ‘Authors Have Parties, Too?’ and ‘Bad Luck for Bad Luck?’ but I promise that it will stand on its own. These are set after the series (manga and anime) so there are bound to be spoilers. . . I can’t seem to help it.
Commitment
Part 1: News
Eiri was typing away, working his characters into a frenzy of angst and betrayal. The female lead, Hana, had fallen in love with another man. So far, she had remained true to her husband. She was in a precarious situation now, though, with her new found love wooing her and her husband away on business. She was caving in— when Eiri’s front door slammed open.
“Aniki!”
Eiri cringed and saved his work. Then, he turned, swiveling his chair toward the study door Tatsuha was sure to come through at any moment.
“Aniki,” Tatsuha said, predictably pushing the door back and moving to confront his brother. “Have you seen the American news today?”
Eiri blew smoke and raised one eyebrow. “No.” He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette. What was Tatsuha doing in Tokyo, Eiri wondered.
“You should have a look!” His younger brother was grinning hugely and his dark eyes were bright with excitement. “In California, the city of San Francisco legalized gay marriage. The news showed thousands of people lining up to get married.”
That was interesting news. He would have to look into that. So far, Eiri’s computer-based research told him that the Netherlands was the best place for legal marriage between two people of the same gender, however; it was only available to citizens and long-time residents of that country. Canada seemed the next most promising, until he read that many people had been hassled during the paperwork process or the actual marriage license had been strangely delayed or even ‘lost’. There were about a dozen countries and two US states that had some kind of provision for such marriages, but many were limited in scope or unequal to a true marriage, or were not transferable when crossing borders. In Japan, while there were no laws officially banning gay marriage, homosexuality had only recently been confirmed as ‘not a mental disorder’. How flattering.
“Is that what has you so excited?” Eiri asked dubiously. He didn’t know if his brother and Sakuma Ryuichi ever intended to get married. Eiri had been with Shuichi for almost four years and it had only been since his father’s death a couple of weeks ago that he had started looking for ways to solidify a formal commitment with his lover.
“Well,” Tatsuha hedged, “Ryu-chan comes back to Tokyo tonight.” He checked his watch. “In about two hours,” he qualified. He leaned toward the hall with a listening pose. “Is Shuichi home?”
“No.” Eiri crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “He’s with Bad Luck, doing a three-day charity concert event in Europe. He left yesterday.”
Tatsuha smirked. “It’s a good thing I dropped by, then, isn’t it? You get weird when he’s away.”
Eiri knew his brother was trying to rile him up and he walked right into the verbal trap, anyway. “Shut up! I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself! I am not dependant upon— “
“Hey!” Tatsuha held up his hands, palms out. “Calm down. You have to admit that you— “
“I have been *just fine* the last few times Shuichi’s been away.” He would not bring up other times when he had not been fine— as Tatsuha and Mika always seemed determined to do. He took off his glasses and laid them on the desk.
Tatsuha nodded once. “Okay. I’ll lay off. Mika’s at home, in Kyoto. Since she’s watching over things there while I’m here, you won’t have to worry about her bugging you, too.” The young monk seated himself at the small table in the study and helped himself to some strawberry pocky that Shu had left out. “Have you seen Tohma lately?”
“Yeah, across a table of lawyers,” Eiri answered. “He’s being quite generous about the settlement. He’s accepted all Mika’s requests. She didn’t make many.”
“Did you talk?” Tatsuha queried, crunching the pocky stick.
“Not really,” Eiri admitted. Tohma had been his friend for a long time, but the recent divorce between him and Eiri’s sister, Mika, had placed a new tension between them. “I think he might be holding a grudge, since I told him he couldn’t sit with family at the funeral.”
Tatsuha rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he agreed. “Hey, is your modem on?”
“If you want to use Shu’s computer, feel free.” Eiri didn’t want his brother getting into the information on his precious laptop, snooping through his documents or looking at the internet history. Besides, he knew Shuichi wouldn’t mind if Tatsuha used his computer.
“Okay.” Tatsuha got up, grabbed some more pocky and went out of the study. Presumably, the monk was going to the living room where Shu’s computer sat on a small desk at the end of the couch.
Getting rid of his brother was almost too easy, Eiri thought. Tatsuha had left the study door open, so Eiri figured he would get some fresh coffee or tea before he shut the door and went back to his computer. When he walked through the living room, he saw Tatsuha had slung his leather jacket over the arm of the couch and he sat at the computer, waiting for it to boot up.
“Would you like something to drink?” Eiri offered.
“Sure.” Tatsuha stood and followed his elder brother into the kitchen.
“Coffee?” There was just about enough coffee for two cups.
“Oh, sure.”
Eiri refilled his own mug and poured a second for his brother. “How are things at the temple,” he asked, handing over the mug.
“Alright,” Tatsuha said with a hint of surprise. “It’s not much different, really. I guess I hadn’t realized how much responsibility the old man had been turning over to me.” He shrugged. “There have been a lot of visitors.”
Eiri nodded. Their father had been a well-respected man with many friends. He sipped his coffee. It had been sitting on the warmer for a while, so it wasn’t truly hot, but it was still drinkable. Ryuichi’s voice sounded from the other room, “Hi, Shuichi!” Tatsuha spun around to look. Eiri grimaced, explaining, “I suspect he recorded that on Ryuichi’s last visit here. It’s his computer start-up sound.” The last one had been a loud cartoon voice saying, ‘I’m going to change the world!’ followed by maniacal laughter. In that frame of reference, Sakuma Ryuichi’s chipper, childlike voice was marginally better.
“I’ll have to get Shuichi-kun and Ryu-chan to record something for me!” Tatsuha said with a leer.
“Whatever. Are you staying long?”
“Just until Ryu-chan calls. I offered to meet him at the airport, but he expects a media welcome, so he said he’d call when he got home.”
“Where was he?”
“Oh, L.A..”
“Concert?”
Tatsuha shrugged. “He didn’t say. It probably had to do with his American song production releases, though.”
Tatsuha didn’t seem very interested in discussing it, so Eiri dropped it, saying, “Okay, then I’ll get back to work.”
“Sure. I won’t bug ya,” Tatsuha said, off-handedly. The young monk headed back to the living room and to Shu’s computer.
Eiri decided that he might want more coffee later and set the ‘maker to brew it. When he walked through the living room again, Tatsuha was surfing the web. Eiri walked to his study and looked into San Francisco’s latest news.
***
Eiri pursued the information about the new changes in marriage licensing until he reached the clause about how one partner must be a resident of the city, or one partner must work in the city. Another dead end.
Hmmm. Maybe not. Eiri did a quick web search for publishers based in San Francisco and smirked happily. Harper Collins’ Avon Romance division had translated some of his books. He could honestly claim a work-relation to the city. A second search turned up some marriage license forms in Acrobat document format.
After a few moments’ thought, Eiri printed them off and filled them out in English. It couldn’t hurt to try. . . He gathered the San Francisco address for Avon Romance books from the ‘web and gave that as his return address. He would mail the documents and license fee tomorrow.
He sent an e-mail to Mizuki, his editor, asking her who he would contact about his fan mail at Avon books in San Francisco. He would want to know when this piece of mail came in and he didn’t want it going astray or lost among who knew how much fan mail. He didn’t explain to her why he wanted the information; just noted that he had needed a US address and chosen that. He did get fan mail from other countries. It was generally forwarded to him through Eiko Publishing— well, to Never Ending Dream, now. If he recalled correctly, there were two people at the main office handling his fan mail now. Shuichi had added a new dimension to his popularity and to the volume of fan mail. Anyway, as well as Mizuki knew him, if she had seen the recent news, she may figure out his reasons on her own, but he wasn’t going to tell her.
*** |