Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Fleeting Inspiration ❯ Taking Care of My Baby ( Chapter 26 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Anna Sartin 
Anime/Manga: Gravitation Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Drama / Comedy | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 04.20.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.2K | Visits: 740 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gravitation Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Drama / Comedy | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 04.20.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.2K | Visits: 740 | Status: Work In Progress
Fleeting Inspiration
by Anna Sartin
. . .
Chapter Twenty-Six: Taking Care of My Baby
.
The apartment sparkled by the time Eiri and Tohma were finished cleaning it. The floors had been scrubbed, the furniture had been dusted and all the sheets, blankets and other linens had been washed. If Shuichi's doctor said he needed a sanitary living environment then Eiri was determined that he would have nothing less. Several things that no amount of cleaning would get the smell of smoke out of had been thrown away, for Eiri's sake as well as his lover's. If he couldn't smoke in here then he didn't want the smell of it driving him insane, particularly when he was trying to work.
At first the task of removing the smell of tobacco from his study had seemed daunting, even impossible, and he'd briefly considered simply banning his boyfriend from the room so he could have a "refuge" of sorts to smoke in while he worked. The idea was quickly dismissed, however, when he realized that he was now used to having the brat run in at random intervals and ramble endlessly when he was excited, or sit in the stool beside him and tell him how his day went when he got home from work in the afternoon. Perhaps he even liked it in his own way. It was a part of their daily routine that he would sorely miss if Shuichi could no longer enter his study. With mixed feelings he emptied the ashtray on his desk and cleaned it, before absentmindedly returning it to its original spot next to his laptop.
The study had received a complete overhaul. With Tohma's help the furniture had been rearranged and the yellowish walls repainted white again. From an outsider's point of view it would have been a comic sight to watch the two extremely wealthy men attempt this form of manual labor, as neither of them had ever painted a room in their lives and made several blunders before getting the process down pat. They had learned the hard way that they needed to move the furniture before painting, not after; the white paint all over the sides of Eiri's bookcases were a testament to this fact. Eiri had learned that a silk shirt was not something to wear while painting and Tohma had learned that paint remover was not meant to be used to get paint off clothing. By the end of the day Eiri's $200 shirt (a gift from Tohma, ironically) was $200 trash.
"If anything ever needs painted again I suggest we do the sane thing and hire a professional to do it," Tohma commented when the room was done. His pink apron was now mostly white.
"Agreed."
"Where should I plug this in?" Tohma asked, referring to the air purifier he was holding.
"Over in the corner," Eiri told him. Shuichi would have to stay out of the room until the air purifier got the paint fumes under control.
During the process of turning his living spacing upside down, he and Tohma had had one of the most insightful conversations they'd had in years. They'd discussed Shuichi's medical issues, Mika's pregnancy (apparently not being able to smoke wasn't sitting too well with her either), Eiri's lack of inspiration and the various problems that he and his lover had been having with Mamoru Eto and his family. Tohma was immediately apologetic for his part in the disaster.
"I'm sorry, Eiri-san," he apologized. "I sold the rights to "Shining Collection" to Eto's granddaughter because I thought it would make you happy to see your talent being recognized by a man you've admired for years. It appears that I've been a large part of the problem without knowing."
"I just want them out of our lives," Eiri said, dropping Four Gay Elves on his desk disdainfully. "Even if I can't escape from this piece of shit, there's no reason for the brat to be involved. I want that girl to leave him alone."
"I'll take care of it tomorrow," Tohma promised as they exited the room and headed for the kitchen. "I had no idea any of this was going on. You should have come to me earlier."
"Maybe," Eiri responded. "But I don't want you and Mika feeling like you have to look out for me all the time. I get tired of you both constantly trying to fix my life."
He knew he was going to have to accept that there would be no escaping his brother-in-law for a while, not until the older blond was satisfied that he was alright. He needed to come up with a plan to speed the process up a bit, but at the moment he didn't have time to come up with one. Shuichi's health came first, curing his writer's block second, getting rid of the wretched book in his study third and sometime after these things had been taken care of he would deal with his nosy (but well meaning) sister and brother-in-law.
"We're your family, Eiri-san," Tohma returned. "We worry about you because we love you. Neither of us wants you to get hurt again."
"When I need your help I ask for it," Eiri answered, entering the kitchen. "But I'm tired of you interfering without my consent or threatening Shuichi every time something goes wrong."
"I'm... sorry, Eiri-san," Tohma sighed. "I know I have a tenancy to blame Shindo-san when you have problems but-"
"If you're sorry then quit doing it," Eiri cut him off. "He doesn't need the stress and neither do I."
"What do you want for dinner?" Tohma asked, plastering his usual smile back on his face as he attempted to change the subject.
"Shit!"
"My cooking isn't that bad, is it?
"No, I forgot I told Shuichi I'd have a surprise for him when I picked him up."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Nothing, I just said that to get him out of the car."
"Well, let me take care of it for you," the other man offered, opening the refrigerator. "You go get him and I'll whip up something while you're gone."
Seeing as he had promised to pick Shuichi at six and it was almost six-thirty, Eiri figured he didn't have time to look a gift horse in mouth.
"Thanks, Seguchi," he said quickly as he went to get his coat, leaving Tohma standing over the stove in his kitchen in his pink (and white) apron preparing to make dinner.
"Couldn't you call me "big brother" occasionally?" Tohma called, as Eiri slammed the front door.
. . .
Eiri found Shuichi's mother to be rather odd for a woman in her early forties. Like Shuichi she had the tendency to spaz out at random times and conversations with her quickly reminded Eiri that his boyfriend's idiosyncrasies were most likely genetic. Like many women she was a "devoted fan" of his writing, and whenever he knocked on her door she always had a copy of his latest book on hand for him to sign. He'd been spared this the first time they'd met due to the fact that the woman never dreamed that Eiri Yuki would be on her doorstep and took him for a look-a-like, but on the rare occasions he'd shown up at her residence since then he'd been treated like a celebrity. Which made sense, he supposed, because he was one, but somehow the concept didn't sit well with him. Shuichi claimed that his sister was even worse, making Eiri glad the girl was never home when he happened to go there. He didn't want to be a celebrity to Shuichi's family members, he wanted to be... what? Family? A son-in-law?
A son-in-law? I did NOT just think that!
He shook his head and rang the door bell.
"Yuki-san!" Mrs. Shindo quickly ushered him in the door, already holding the book she wanted him to sign. "You don't have to ring the bell! You're family!"
Eiri blinked and entered, wondering if Buddha had heard his prayers and answered them. Maybe this was a sign his luck was starting to change. Shuichi's mother quickly shoved the book and a pen in his hands, and his hopes were quickly dashed.
"Your latest book was amazing!" she gushed, rambling on about his "brilliance" and "masterful storytelling" as he signed the book, returned it to her and went in search of Shuichi. This was usually the point where the brat rescued him but today the boy was nowhere in sight.
"Where's Shuichi?" he asked, when the woman stopped talking long enough to take a breath.
"Asleep on the couch. I guess Maiko tuckered him out." She laughed and led him to the living room where both her children were asleep, one on the sofa and the other on a nearby chair.
Eiri looked at the girl, who had flour all over the apron she was wearing. So this was the infamous Maiko Shindo he'd heard so much about. According to Shuichi she was an obsessed Eiri Yuki fangirl, and between Maiko and her mother the two had amassed a huge collection of newspaper clippings, magazine articles and television interviews they'd taped whenever he made a TV appearance. It reminded him of his brother's "Ryuichi collection" and he found the comparison somewhat disturbing. Tatsuha still kept his precious collection hidden under his bed, rather Sakuma would be flattered or disturbed by it was anybody's guess. At any rate, he'd been able to avoid meeting Shuichi's sister so far and he'd prefer to postpone the meeting until a later date. He wasn't in the mood to deal with both the girl and her mother at once. He wondered if he could get Shuichi out of the place without waking her up.
Shuichi looked pale and exhausted. In a way Eiri was sorry for dumping his little lover at his family's house for the day, but if he hadn't gotten rid of Shuichi for a while he wouldn't have been able to get as much done as he had. Besides, who better to trust to look after his brat then the boy's own family? He smirked at the flour covering the singer's clothes. Hopefully he'd had a good time.
"Could you get his things?" Eiri asked his boyfriend's mother. "I don't want to wake him."
"Then how are- oh!" Her half-finished question was answered as Eiri gently picked up the sleeping boy and headed for the car. Grabbing her son's crutches and the bag of cookies Maiko had tied up for her brother to take home, Mrs. Shindo followed suite.
Eiri settled his sleeping bundle into the backseat and loaded the crutches after him. Shuichi's mother handed him the cookies.
"Make sure my baby gets enough rest, even if you have to tie him to the bed!" she told the author as he got in the car. "He looks like he's working too hard. And don't let him bounce around too much on that ankle!"
Eiri smiled at her. Even at (almost) twenty, her oldest child was still "her baby". He wondered why the needless parental concern seemed cute to him, especially when he couldn't stand it coming from his own family. It a strange way it warmed him, making him think of his own deceased mother. Would she still fuss and fret over her adult children the way Mrs. Shindo did? He wondered if her presence would have made him want to go home to Kyoto instead of avoiding the place like the plague.
"Take care of my baby," Mrs. Shindo told him as he started the engine.
Eiri glanced at his sleeping lover in the rear-view mirror, wondering how his mother would have reacted to his choice to love a man instead of keeping with tradition and taking a wife to produce heirs. Would she have welcomed Shuichi into the family and asked him to "take care of her baby", or would she have sided with his father and told him that homosexuality was an outrage? He would never know.
"I will," he promised Shuichi's mother, and he meant it. "After all," he said in a low voice, after checking again to make Shuichi was still asleep and wouldn't overhear him. "He's my baby, too."
With that he pulled out of the drive way and was out of sight in seconds, leaving his delighted "mother-in-law" staring after him.
.
~End chapter twenty-six~
by Anna Sartin
. . .
Chapter Twenty-Six: Taking Care of My Baby
.
The apartment sparkled by the time Eiri and Tohma were finished cleaning it. The floors had been scrubbed, the furniture had been dusted and all the sheets, blankets and other linens had been washed. If Shuichi's doctor said he needed a sanitary living environment then Eiri was determined that he would have nothing less. Several things that no amount of cleaning would get the smell of smoke out of had been thrown away, for Eiri's sake as well as his lover's. If he couldn't smoke in here then he didn't want the smell of it driving him insane, particularly when he was trying to work.
At first the task of removing the smell of tobacco from his study had seemed daunting, even impossible, and he'd briefly considered simply banning his boyfriend from the room so he could have a "refuge" of sorts to smoke in while he worked. The idea was quickly dismissed, however, when he realized that he was now used to having the brat run in at random intervals and ramble endlessly when he was excited, or sit in the stool beside him and tell him how his day went when he got home from work in the afternoon. Perhaps he even liked it in his own way. It was a part of their daily routine that he would sorely miss if Shuichi could no longer enter his study. With mixed feelings he emptied the ashtray on his desk and cleaned it, before absentmindedly returning it to its original spot next to his laptop.
The study had received a complete overhaul. With Tohma's help the furniture had been rearranged and the yellowish walls repainted white again. From an outsider's point of view it would have been a comic sight to watch the two extremely wealthy men attempt this form of manual labor, as neither of them had ever painted a room in their lives and made several blunders before getting the process down pat. They had learned the hard way that they needed to move the furniture before painting, not after; the white paint all over the sides of Eiri's bookcases were a testament to this fact. Eiri had learned that a silk shirt was not something to wear while painting and Tohma had learned that paint remover was not meant to be used to get paint off clothing. By the end of the day Eiri's $200 shirt (a gift from Tohma, ironically) was $200 trash.
"If anything ever needs painted again I suggest we do the sane thing and hire a professional to do it," Tohma commented when the room was done. His pink apron was now mostly white.
"Agreed."
"Where should I plug this in?" Tohma asked, referring to the air purifier he was holding.
"Over in the corner," Eiri told him. Shuichi would have to stay out of the room until the air purifier got the paint fumes under control.
During the process of turning his living spacing upside down, he and Tohma had had one of the most insightful conversations they'd had in years. They'd discussed Shuichi's medical issues, Mika's pregnancy (apparently not being able to smoke wasn't sitting too well with her either), Eiri's lack of inspiration and the various problems that he and his lover had been having with Mamoru Eto and his family. Tohma was immediately apologetic for his part in the disaster.
"I'm sorry, Eiri-san," he apologized. "I sold the rights to "Shining Collection" to Eto's granddaughter because I thought it would make you happy to see your talent being recognized by a man you've admired for years. It appears that I've been a large part of the problem without knowing."
"I just want them out of our lives," Eiri said, dropping Four Gay Elves on his desk disdainfully. "Even if I can't escape from this piece of shit, there's no reason for the brat to be involved. I want that girl to leave him alone."
"I'll take care of it tomorrow," Tohma promised as they exited the room and headed for the kitchen. "I had no idea any of this was going on. You should have come to me earlier."
"Maybe," Eiri responded. "But I don't want you and Mika feeling like you have to look out for me all the time. I get tired of you both constantly trying to fix my life."
He knew he was going to have to accept that there would be no escaping his brother-in-law for a while, not until the older blond was satisfied that he was alright. He needed to come up with a plan to speed the process up a bit, but at the moment he didn't have time to come up with one. Shuichi's health came first, curing his writer's block second, getting rid of the wretched book in his study third and sometime after these things had been taken care of he would deal with his nosy (but well meaning) sister and brother-in-law.
"We're your family, Eiri-san," Tohma returned. "We worry about you because we love you. Neither of us wants you to get hurt again."
"When I need your help I ask for it," Eiri answered, entering the kitchen. "But I'm tired of you interfering without my consent or threatening Shuichi every time something goes wrong."
"I'm... sorry, Eiri-san," Tohma sighed. "I know I have a tenancy to blame Shindo-san when you have problems but-"
"If you're sorry then quit doing it," Eiri cut him off. "He doesn't need the stress and neither do I."
"What do you want for dinner?" Tohma asked, plastering his usual smile back on his face as he attempted to change the subject.
"Shit!"
"My cooking isn't that bad, is it?
"No, I forgot I told Shuichi I'd have a surprise for him when I picked him up."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Nothing, I just said that to get him out of the car."
"Well, let me take care of it for you," the other man offered, opening the refrigerator. "You go get him and I'll whip up something while you're gone."
Seeing as he had promised to pick Shuichi at six and it was almost six-thirty, Eiri figured he didn't have time to look a gift horse in mouth.
"Thanks, Seguchi," he said quickly as he went to get his coat, leaving Tohma standing over the stove in his kitchen in his pink (and white) apron preparing to make dinner.
"Couldn't you call me "big brother" occasionally?" Tohma called, as Eiri slammed the front door.
. . .
Eiri found Shuichi's mother to be rather odd for a woman in her early forties. Like Shuichi she had the tendency to spaz out at random times and conversations with her quickly reminded Eiri that his boyfriend's idiosyncrasies were most likely genetic. Like many women she was a "devoted fan" of his writing, and whenever he knocked on her door she always had a copy of his latest book on hand for him to sign. He'd been spared this the first time they'd met due to the fact that the woman never dreamed that Eiri Yuki would be on her doorstep and took him for a look-a-like, but on the rare occasions he'd shown up at her residence since then he'd been treated like a celebrity. Which made sense, he supposed, because he was one, but somehow the concept didn't sit well with him. Shuichi claimed that his sister was even worse, making Eiri glad the girl was never home when he happened to go there. He didn't want to be a celebrity to Shuichi's family members, he wanted to be... what? Family? A son-in-law?
A son-in-law? I did NOT just think that!
He shook his head and rang the door bell.
"Yuki-san!" Mrs. Shindo quickly ushered him in the door, already holding the book she wanted him to sign. "You don't have to ring the bell! You're family!"
Eiri blinked and entered, wondering if Buddha had heard his prayers and answered them. Maybe this was a sign his luck was starting to change. Shuichi's mother quickly shoved the book and a pen in his hands, and his hopes were quickly dashed.
"Your latest book was amazing!" she gushed, rambling on about his "brilliance" and "masterful storytelling" as he signed the book, returned it to her and went in search of Shuichi. This was usually the point where the brat rescued him but today the boy was nowhere in sight.
"Where's Shuichi?" he asked, when the woman stopped talking long enough to take a breath.
"Asleep on the couch. I guess Maiko tuckered him out." She laughed and led him to the living room where both her children were asleep, one on the sofa and the other on a nearby chair.
Eiri looked at the girl, who had flour all over the apron she was wearing. So this was the infamous Maiko Shindo he'd heard so much about. According to Shuichi she was an obsessed Eiri Yuki fangirl, and between Maiko and her mother the two had amassed a huge collection of newspaper clippings, magazine articles and television interviews they'd taped whenever he made a TV appearance. It reminded him of his brother's "Ryuichi collection" and he found the comparison somewhat disturbing. Tatsuha still kept his precious collection hidden under his bed, rather Sakuma would be flattered or disturbed by it was anybody's guess. At any rate, he'd been able to avoid meeting Shuichi's sister so far and he'd prefer to postpone the meeting until a later date. He wasn't in the mood to deal with both the girl and her mother at once. He wondered if he could get Shuichi out of the place without waking her up.
Shuichi looked pale and exhausted. In a way Eiri was sorry for dumping his little lover at his family's house for the day, but if he hadn't gotten rid of Shuichi for a while he wouldn't have been able to get as much done as he had. Besides, who better to trust to look after his brat then the boy's own family? He smirked at the flour covering the singer's clothes. Hopefully he'd had a good time.
"Could you get his things?" Eiri asked his boyfriend's mother. "I don't want to wake him."
"Then how are- oh!" Her half-finished question was answered as Eiri gently picked up the sleeping boy and headed for the car. Grabbing her son's crutches and the bag of cookies Maiko had tied up for her brother to take home, Mrs. Shindo followed suite.
Eiri settled his sleeping bundle into the backseat and loaded the crutches after him. Shuichi's mother handed him the cookies.
"Make sure my baby gets enough rest, even if you have to tie him to the bed!" she told the author as he got in the car. "He looks like he's working too hard. And don't let him bounce around too much on that ankle!"
Eiri smiled at her. Even at (almost) twenty, her oldest child was still "her baby". He wondered why the needless parental concern seemed cute to him, especially when he couldn't stand it coming from his own family. It a strange way it warmed him, making him think of his own deceased mother. Would she still fuss and fret over her adult children the way Mrs. Shindo did? He wondered if her presence would have made him want to go home to Kyoto instead of avoiding the place like the plague.
"Take care of my baby," Mrs. Shindo told him as he started the engine.
Eiri glanced at his sleeping lover in the rear-view mirror, wondering how his mother would have reacted to his choice to love a man instead of keeping with tradition and taking a wife to produce heirs. Would she have welcomed Shuichi into the family and asked him to "take care of her baby", or would she have sided with his father and told him that homosexuality was an outrage? He would never know.
"I will," he promised Shuichi's mother, and he meant it. "After all," he said in a low voice, after checking again to make Shuichi was still asleep and wouldn't overhear him. "He's my baby, too."
With that he pulled out of the drive way and was out of sight in seconds, leaving his delighted "mother-in-law" staring after him.
.
~End chapter twenty-six~