Fleeting Inspiration, my Gravitation fic.

[Questina]

The park was free of the usual weirdos Shuichi and Eiri frequently saw on their evening walks. Instead, a whole different group of nut jobs seemed occupy the place in the afternoon. An old man was washing himself, nude, in the public fountain while people stood and gaped at him or passed by quickly pretending not to look. A younger man was standing on his hands while talking to a tree, and nearby two teenagers were having sex in the bushes. Eiri ignored them all, including his chattering lover who was babbling on about rather or not cheese would explode in space.

"See Hiro says that you can make an eraser explode if you put it in the freezer so I'm wondering if you take a bunch of cheese and..."

"At least he fits in with the other idiots here," Eiri thought wryly. He wondered why the police weren't here arresting the nutcase bathing in the fountain. They'd been Johnny-on-the-spot to nail him for littering and double parking last year. Apparently fining him $150 for throwing a cigarette butt on the ground was more important than arresting people for public indecently. Go figure. Maybe they were out arresting Mamoru Eto for writing that piece of trash he disguised as literature. God, it was still haunting him.

"Yuki, maybe we should go on vacation. You know, get away for a few days."

"You've got to work, brat, and so do I."

"Having staring matches with your laptop isn't working, Yuki, and I can work on my other two songs anywhere. It might be good for your inspiration..."

Yuki sat down on a bench. "Maybe..."

Shuichi plopped down next to him. "Really?!"

"I'll think about it."

Shuichi latched onto his arm. "Oh Yuki it'll be SO much fun! We'll relax and go swimming and..."

Eiri blocked out his boyfriend's rambling and took a long drag on what was left of his cigarette. Why was he letting one piece of s**t novel bother him so much? He couldn't help but wonder what had caused Mamoru Eto to write it. Drugs? Stress? Maybe he'd simply succumbed to old age and gone cracked in the head. Either way Eiri wanted to hit the man upside the head with his hardbound copy of "Four Gay Elves". His only regret was that the book was too damn thin to do any real damage. "Still, I might be on to something..."

He flicked his cigarette butt away, noting that the cops were no where on hand to fine him and/or give him a lecture for littering.

"Yuki, don't litter!" Shuichi scolded, getting up to retrieve the butt and putting it in the nearby trash receptacle.

Damn.

The teenagers in the bushes were getting louder.

"Uh, Yuki?.." Shuichi whispered, as he sat back down. "They're getting kind of loud..."

"I noticed."

The singer squirmed in his seat. "It's making me kind of... you know..."

Eiri turned to face him. "You're kidding..."

Shuichi blushed, looking at his lap. Eiri followed his line of sight. He wasn't kidding.

The novelist grinned evilly. He would have so much fun tormenting Shuichi while he was in this state. He pulled the singer to him and kissed him slowly, agonizingly slowly, as one of his hands crept underneath his shirt. Shuichi wasted no time crawling into Eiri's lap, straddling him. Eiri felt his manhood spring to life as his lover began rubbing their clothed groins together. s**t, he really was eager. Their kisses became more demanding as Eiri slid his hands down Shuichi's chest, unbuttoning his pants and grabbing...

"Y-yuki...!"

"Hey, you!"

Both men froze (as did the couple in the bushes) as a park ranger came running up to them.

s**t!

Eiri bolted up, causing Shuichi to fall to the ground. Grabbing his mortified boyfriend's hand Eiri took off running, hoping the ranger wouldn't give chase. Fortunately for both them and the teenagers in the bushes he had just noticed the man bathing in the fountain, giving both couples the chance to make a quick getaway.

For the rest of the day Eiri had to listen to Shuichi bemoan the fact that he had run all the way home with his fly open.  

[Questina]

Chapter Two: The Daily Box

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A sudden idea hit Eiri the next day. Maybe that accursed book had been written by a different Mamoru Eto. Mamoru wasn't an uncommon Japanese name, and there were hundreds of Etos listed in the public directory. Maybe some idiot with Mamoru Eto's name was trying to use the original's fame to sell his own putrid drivel. He needed to get on his computer and do a search...

"Yuki!!!" Shuichi burst through the front door, grinning like an idiot. In his hands he held a cardboard box, on which he had used a marker to write "The Daily Box" on the sides.

"What the hell is that?" Eiri asked his pink-haired fool of a lover.

"It's a box."

"I can see that, moron. What's it for?"

"It's for Yuki!" he smiled proudly. "To help with your writer's block!"

"And just how is a box going to solve my problem?" the writer inquired.

"Well, creative people are supposed to "think outside the box", right? So I borrowed one from the Mesopotamian lady for you to use."

"The Meso-what?"

"You know, the religion. Where they worship that guy who got nailed to a cross."

"You mean Christian."

"That's right. She let me have one of the boxes from her restaurant, The Daily Bread."

Shuichi turned the box to a different side, where "The Daily Bread" had originally been handwritten in English. Shuichi had crossed out the word "Bread" and written "Box" underneath it.

Eiri twitched. "Did you get this from the homeless woman on 4th street?"

Shuichi blinked. "Homeless woman?"

"Long light-colored hair, foreign, wearing several layers of clothes?"

"Hey, that's her! But she's not homeless, Yuki. She owns her own restaurant!"

"Sitting boxes in an alley and pretending they're tables does not constitute "owning a restaurant". She's a nutcase. She tried to give me a cookbook with half the pages missing last week claiming it was a bible."

Shuichi was crestfallen.

"And," Eiri continued, "if I'm supposed to be thinking outside the box then what the hell do I need a damn box for?"

"Um... To put your inspiration in after you find it?"

Eiri took the box out of Shuichi's hands and put it over the singer's head, before heading off to his study muttering "Idiots to the left of me, morons to the right..."  

[Questina]

Mamoru Eto was born in 1944 in Hokkaido, Japan. He moved to Tokyo after graduating high school, where he attended Tokyo University and married his long-time fiance Keiko Otohime. Eto-sensei published his first two novels "The Age of Lost Innocence" and "Chiba's Throne" shortly thereafter. The couple had two sons before Keiko Eto died from complications in childbirth. Eto-sensei is described as a devoted father and grandfather. To this day his novels continue to intrigue us with...

Eiri didn't need to know this s**t. He needed to find a complete list of the author's published works. If "Four Gay Elves" wasn't listed on Mamoru Eto's official website, then it would prove that it was the work of some other demented psycho who shared his name. There was nothing about it on the main page and the "About the Author" section had just proven useless as well, so he tried clicking on "What's New".

And wished he hasn't.

There, in all its glory, was the cover of the book he loathed, staring him in the face. Eiri growled and banged his fist on the desk.

"Yuki, what's the matter?" Shuichi asked from the doorway. "Trying to write again?"

"No. Go away."

Shuichi ignored the order and walked in, going over to see what was causing his lover to abuse the furniture. He looked at the screen. "Why are you..."

"Don't ask." Eiri scrolled down, passing a series of glowing reviews about Eto's new novel. Had the whole world gone insane?! At the very end of the page was a link that said "Email the Author!" Eiri curled his lips up in a demented-looking smile. Somebody needed to tell this man the truth, and it might as well be him. He clicked on the link.  

[Questina]

"Yuki, please don't do this!" Shuichi begged the next day, pulling on Eiri's arm as the author tried to get out the front door. "You'll get yourself arrested!"

It had taken Eiri a lot of work to locate Mamoru Eto's address, and now that he had it he was determined to put it to good use. He would confront the author and demand an explanation for why the world had been infected with the disease otherwise known as "Four Gay Elves". As a fellow author and avid reader of the man's work Eiri felt he had every right to tell the man off. Shuichi didn't agree, and had been pleading with him for the last half hour not to do anything rash.

Yesterday he'd sent a long email criticizing the author's work, and the webmaster of the Eto's site had sent a short but equally rude email back. He should have figured that Mamoru Eto didn't manage his own website. The Eiri Yuki Official Homepage had been created by his publisher and he'd only visited it once or twice.

After a bit of a struggle he made it out the door, and from there on the Great Author Eiri Yuki could not be stopped. He had something to say and he was damn well going to say it. It had turned out that his fellow author didn't live far at all; his apartment was on 4th street. As Eiri stepped out of his car he noticed a familiar figure standing in front of an alley trying to invite the passing crowd into "The Daily Bread". Eiri groaned. He was so not in the mood for this s**t today. He tried to blend in with a small group of pedestrians, not looking in her direction as he passed by. However...

"You!"

...she knew him on sight.

"You're the one who threw my bible in the trash! Satanist!"

Eiri took off running, hoping to outrun the lunatic. But as all people know religious fanatics are nothing if not persistent, and the blonde author found himself running faster than he had in years as the "owner of The Daily Bread" chased him up and down the street, waving a "restaurant table" over her head.

"You sully the word of God Himself! Antichrist! The wrath of God is upon you!!!"  

[Questina]

Chapter Three: Brotherly Love

.

"There's no way in hell."

"Oh come on, Aniki!" Eiri's younger brother Tatsuha pleaded.

"You are not staying here!"

"I need to stay here while I take my college entrance exams!"

Eiri scoffed. "Like you'll ever get into Tokyo University."

"My grades are fine!"

"Because you cheat. You only passed math last year because you were sleeping with the teacher. There's no way in hell you'll pass the entrance exam to Tokyo University."

"Oh yeah? I passed the practice exam last month!"

"You probably cheated then, too. You are not staying here!" Eiri repeated, imagining the damage his brother would do to the place while he was gone. "And since when the hell do you want to go to Tokyo University anyway?"

"Ryuichi-sama lives here, and the only way Dad will let me move to Tokyo is if I go to the university here!"

Eiri wondered what their father thought of his seventeen year-old son dating a man in his thirties. He probably didn't know. Either way it was not his problem. There was no way in hell his brother was staying here...

"Shindo-san!!!" Tatsuha wailed, clinging to the singer's arm as he entered the apartment. He processed to tell Shuichi his woes and naturally, with the run of luck Eiri had been having lately, his lover was instantly sympathetic to his brother's cause.

"Of COURSE you can stay here, Tatsuha! Yuki and I are going on vacation anyway, so you'll have the whole place to yourself to study while we're gone!"

Eiri dropped his cigarette and seriously contemplated stuffing both Shuichi and his brother into "The Daily Box" and shipping it out of the country. "I am NOT going on vacation and leaving him here to..."

"We are GOING ON VACATION," Shuichi interrupted him, glaring at him warningly. "You NEED it. I don't want you getting into anymore fights with old men!"

"Old men?" Tatsuha asked.

"What business is it of yours what I do?!" Eiri yelled at his lover.

"It's my business because I was the one who had to bail you out of jail!" Shuichi yelled right back.

Tatsuha stared at his brother. "Jail???"

"Well, it's about time you did something around here besides make messes and eat me out of house and home!" Eiri shouted.

"That's not fair!"

"Geeze Aniki, you really DO need a vacation," Tatsuha remarked, causing his brother to stop glaring at Shuichi and turn on him instead. The younger sibling decided it might be wise to shut up while he was still ahead. "Uh... I'll just go get my bags..."  

[Questina]

A few hours later Eiri was double-checking his favorite suitcase in the bedroom to make sure all the essentials had been packed before he and Shuichi headed out tomorrow. Medication, check. Cigarettes, check. Underwear, check... He had to admit that getting away for a few days was not such a bad idea. He needed to get as far away from That Book as possible. If he eliminated the source of his tension he might be able to get rid of his writer's block. Sitting in the sun while Shuichi's cute little a** served him hard lemonade wearing nothing but his swim trucks might in fact be very very good for his inspiration. He just had to forget about "Four Gay Elves", the literary not-so genius Mamoru Eto, and the fact that Tatsuha (and most likely Ryuichi) would be occupying his apartment while he was gone. Not easy obstacles to overcome, but he was going to do it! He refused to be beaten down by other people's stupidity!

"Aniki!"

Speaking of stupidity... "What do you want?" he asked his brother, hearing Shuichi and Ryuichi laughing maniacally from the living room. They were probably doing something moronic, as usual.

"You could be nicer to your little brother, you know..."

"You got the damn apartment, what more do you want?"

Tatsuha smiled mischievously.

Eiri glared. "Well whatever it is, you're NOT getting it!"

"But I know something, Aniki..."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"...Something I bet you don't want people to know. Like Dad... or Mika..."

Eiri just stared at him.

"What WOULD they say if I told them my Aniki had to be bailed out of jail for brawling with a senior citizen?"

"You little..." Eiri knew exactly what would happen if word got out about the "incident" yesterday. In addition to receiving several lectures from his family members he would end up seeing a lot more of his sister and brother-in-law, who would constantly feel the need to pry into his life and "check up on him". He'd been enjoying the fact that lately the frequency of their visits had decreased drastically. Rather they had finally figured out he could take care of himself or simply put their trust in Shuichi to look after him, it didn't matter. Either way they were leaving him alone, which was a good thing.

"Your choice, Aniki."

He was stuck, and he knew it. "How much is this going to cost me?"

"Your Visa card."

"Hell no!"

"Just until you and Shindo-san get back from vacation."

Eiri considered it for moment before pulling his wallet out of his pocket and taking out his preferred credit card. He threw it at his brother. "Fine. Just stay the ******** out of my room while I'm gone."  

[Questina]

Chapter 4 - The Hardcover Stalker

.

This whole vacation thing really had been a good idea, Eiri decided. Now that he was far away from the apartment and The Book That Shall Remain Nameless, Eiri's stress level had decreased significantly. He was currently laying on his stomach, on the floor, propped up by a pillow and his arms as Shuichi massaged various parts of his body. On his left side lay a several large pads of paper, on his right was an empty can of beer. Inspiration was flowing freely from his mind to his fingertips and he was working like mad to get as many ideas written down on paper (due to the fact that Shuichi had made him leave his laptop at home) as he could before they were lost.

"Yuki, my hands are getting sore," Shuichi's voice complained from behind and above him. An hour and a half ago this had seemed like a perfect way to get his lover to relax, but his plan had worked too well and now the writer wouldn't let him stop.

Eiri ignored him. Whenever Shuichi's hands left him the tension in his body returned and the writer's mind went blank again. He'd learned this forty-five minutes ago when he'd sent Shuichi to get him a beer. He'd never regretted his love of alcohol more than the moment he realized he'd lost his train of thought and couldn't get it back. Then a smiling Shuichi returned, beer in hand, and a whole new set of ideas bombarded his mind as his lover resumed working his skilled hands on his back. Fifteen minutes later Shuichi left again to use the bathroom and Eiri had briefly considered handcuffing himself to the singer to keep him from leaving again. But doing so would restrict the movement of Shuichi's hands on his body; and rather he liked it or not, those hands were currently the source of his inspiration. Besides, he had no handcuffs.

"Yuki, I'm hungry."

"It hasn't even been an hour yet, brat," he replied. As much as he disliked being dependant on his idiot boyfriend for creative energy, he was determined to put this spurt of inspiration to use for as long as possible. There was no way in hell he was letting Shuichi stop now. "You move and I'll make sure you die a slow and unpleasant death."

"It's been almost two hours, Yuki. Aren't you hungry?"

"No."

Shuichi sighed and resigned himself to his fate. "I still can't believe you let Tatsuha have one of your credit cards to use while we're gone."

"Don't remind me." He could just kill the little s**t for blackmailing him. He knew plenty of Tatsuha's dirty little secrets and he'd never held anything over his head. Yet. He'd get back at the ungrateful little b*****d one day for this... He cringed at the thought of his brother lounging around his apartment using Shuichi's computer to max out his Visa online on limited edition Nittle Grasper crap. Still, forking over his favorite credit card for a few days was better than the alternative. He did NOT need his father, Mika, or especially Tohma to hear about the jail incident.

"I hope he and Sakuma-san are having fun at the apartment."

Eiri's pen stilled. Even worse than the loss of his Visa was the thought of Nittle Grasper's vocalist drawing on his walls and... sleeping in his bed. He'd told Tatsuha to stay the hell out of his room during his stay, but they both knew there was a snowball's chance in hell of him listening. Damn Shuichi, it was all HIS fault!

Eiri knew he needed to stop thinking about it, it wasn't good for his newfound creative flow, but the image of his brother sharing HIS bed with that idiot singer just wouldn't go away. It was obvious Tatsuha was close to bedding his idol and was pulling all the stops to get as much "quality time" with the singer as possible. Eiri expected his credit card statement next month to include dinner at the most expensive restaurants in town, a date or two to the amusement park and/or the zoo, and maybe even a few kinky sex toys thrown in for good measure. Hell, he'd probably even go out and buy outfits for the damned rabbit.

"Yuki?"

"What?" Eiri snapped, looking over his shoulder to glare at his lover.

"Are you okay?" Shuichi asked. "You stopped writing..."

Eiri turned back to his paper. Oh s**t... The ideas, the inspiration... they were all gone! In place of his muse was the image of his brother pounding Ryuichi Sakuma into his mattress. He began beating his head into the floor.

"Damn it, Tatsuha!!!"

"Yuki, what's that matter?" Shuichi asked, getting off his lover to sit in front of him. He pulled the pillow supporting Eiri's chest up a bit so that Eiri could bang his head into that instead of the floor.

The writer looked up.

"Before we go home, we're buying a new mattress!"

Shuichi cheered. "I get to go mattress shopping with Yuki!"

Eiri watched his childlike lover dance in circles around the room. "Get me some aspirin, would you?" he asked tiredly. For some unknown reason his head hurt. The fact that it might be because he had just been bashing it into the floor did not occur to him.

Shuichi danced over to where the suitcases were sitting. "Sure thing!" He searched though the suitcases one by one, looking for the bag that had Eiri's various medicines in it. "Hey, look!" he said suddenly, holding up Eiri's copy of "Four Gay Elves" for him to see. "How did THIS get in here?"

Eiri resumed banging his head into the pillow.  

[Questina]

It was stalking him.

The book was ******** stalking him. Perhaps this was no ordinary inanimate object, but in fact an unholy tome possessed by demonic forces. Demonic forces that were stalking him and trying to drive him completely insane. Maybe he could perform an exorcism... God, I'm starting to sound as stupid as Shuichi. He opened the book and read the dedication again...

"To my granddaughter Lola."

Eiri was beginning to hold Eto's granddaughter equally to blame for the creation of this hardbound abomination against humanity. Maybe she had brainwashed the old coot, or sucked the inspiration out of him so that he could write nothing but trash. Lola Eto. He wondered if he could track HER down and... Eiri paused in mid-thought. He had to stop thinking about this, it was making him crazy. He hadn't come all this way on vacation to let Eto, his granddaughter, or "Four Gay Elves" ruin it. He needed to get rid of the book once and for all.

"Where are you going?" Shuichi asked as Eiri opened the door to their hotel room.

"Out," he replied. "I'll be back later."

He walked briskly through the streets of the resort town searching for an appropriate place to discard Eto's latest publication. An incinerator might be the best place, he would get great satisfaction out of watching it burn, but unfortunately there were no incinerators or bonfires on hand just when he could use one. He passed several shops, including a coffee shop, a souvenir store and... a bookstore. Eiri stopped in front of the latter, where a large poster advertising "Mamoru Eto's latest masterpiece - Four Gay Elves!" was displayed in the front window.

"Damn it!!!" Furious, Eiri threw the book as hard as he could and it went sailing upward in an arc before crashing back down to earth. Satisfied, he turned to leave.

"Hold it! Stop right there!" A police officer, who had just come out of the coffee shop, came running up to him.

Twenty minutes later Eiri headed back to the hotel with the book he had thrown away (which the displeased cop had returned to him) in one hand and a $150 fine for littering in the other.  

[Questina]

Laying in bed with his face buried in a pillow Eiri tried desperately tried to calm his nerves. He wasn't succeeding. The book was out to get him, he just knew it! Shuichi, tired of waiting to eat and disappointed that Eiri hadn't brought any food home, called room service. "He could have at least ordered something for me," Eiri thought, realizing that he was also hungry. Neither of them had eaten breakfast and it was past noon. His pink haired lover was laughing at something, but Eiri doubted it was worth the trouble of removing the pillow from his face to see what it was.

Shuichi laughed at everything.

He laughed at the way his socked feet slid across their floors at home. He laughed at the imaginary figures he saw in clouds and in the patterns of restaurant and hotel carpets. He laughed at the way Eiri's stomach growled when he was hungry. He snickered at his own private jokes, leaving the people around him clueless as to what was so funny. The introverted blonde secretly loved the sound of his young lover's laughter; hearing it somehow made him feel like the ebb and flow of the world was in balance. If was Shuichi was happy then all was right in the writer's dreary, secluded little world. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes the singer cackled insanely because he had an idea so crazy that it made those around him want to run away and hide. At such times, Eiri was very, very afraid.

Shuichi's laughter continued off and on for a while, until Eiri couldn't resist the urge to take a peek and see what the singer found so hilarious. He was appalled by the sight that met his eyes.

"What are you doing?!"

Shuichi sat at the table eating his lunch while holding a familiar book in his hands. He looked at his horrified lover. "How can you hate this book so much? It's so FUNNY!"

"I put that in the trash! Where it belongs!"

"Oh come on, Yuki! This isn't that bad."

Eiri groaned and buried his face in the pillow again. So much for the world being in balance. He should have known that dumping it in the little wastepaper basket of their hotel room wouldn't be enough to rid his life of The Thing That Would Not Die. Now it had corrupted Shuichi too.

It was definitely stalking him.