Title: missing the forest for the trees
Category: fan fiction, one-shot
Genre: angst; bittersweet
Rating: PG-13
Date: January 4-5, 2006

Written for 50stories
Theme: #21 - Forest
Pairing: tetsu/hyde of L’Arc~en~Ciel
Disclaimer: I do not own/am not affiliated with L’Arc~en~Ciel, Sony Ki/oon, Danger Crue, etc. This is a work of complete fiction. It’s for fun; I’m not going to make any money off of this. However, this particular story is my own writing, so please do not claim it as yours or repost it without permission.
Comments: Plot outline by request of subwaygrafitti/xstreetofalice (partially fulfilled, partially ignored). Very much an example of interpreting a theme liberally.
Word Count: 1,612
POV: First person (hyde)


I didn’t see it so much as a failure as more of an inevitability.
Who had we been kidding? Seriously.
She thought we had chemistry? Spark? Passion?
Well, for as silly as the words she chose were, she wasn’t wrong.
But when she convinced herself, and maybe even me, that this was really love—well, that was where we had a problem.
Because we were mistaken in that department. This pretty notion of “love” was clearly firmly dug into her mind, but it wasn’t catching in mine.
It took us a good six years to figure that out, but, it was better late than never. Better before we got to driving each other mad. Better before we couldn’t stand each other to the point of making our son pay the price.

I thought the worst part of the divorce would be the bad press. Damn, was I wrong.
It was, in fact, the utterly stupid comments made by people who really should have known better.
Like my parents. Especially my father. Yes, I’d figured out a while ago that he didn’t particularly like Oishi-san, but he could have looked a bit less pleased.
And Gackt could have done a much better job of hiding that he was waiting for this chance. Not that he really was going to get one. Ever.

But it was tetsu who threw me the worst. I didn’t actually tell him personally until he had to have already known. And I’d already heard some seriously screwed up responses from people who’d gotten it out of me faster.
So I guess I was looking for a little comfort when I told tetsu.
It wasn’t that I was really upset that the act was over with Megumi; the divorce was my idea in the first place. I mean, I wasn’t happy about it—I didn’t look forward to the juggling act it would take to get time to see my son, I didn’t look forward to trying to explain to him some day that just because I wasn’t around much didn’t mean I didn’t care, etc. But we couldn’t have kept it going and we both knew that.
Alright, fine. Maybe I was a little upset by that. But my point here was that I was tired of getting smacked in the head by the media, the record label and especially L’Arc~en~Ciel’s manager, and then half the people I knew personally. That was really starting to get old.
So as the one person who I really counted on to be nice about all this, tetsu failed me miserably.
A ‘that really sucks’ would have been sufficient, even. But I really didn’t appreciate the whole ‘Well, now everyone knows you’re free and single again’ comment. Especially when he sounded so serious.
That really didn’t help.

And then all the times he invited me over for dinner, trying to sound nonchalant as he said that maybe I’d like the company because, after all, I must have gotten used to not being alone so much? Yeah, that didn’t sit well.

The hints that I should think about dating again? The nudging that I was silly for not doing so? Did he ever consider that maybe I felt a little awkward that I hadn’t met anyone yet? Huh?

And when he tried to bring up whether or not I liked men? Dammit, did he really think that was the most comfortable topic? I mean, I did, and I wasn’t really ashamed of it, but to have to face him and try to decide whether or not to lie to him? I only told him the truth because he looked so hurt when I snapped at him for asking.
And turning absolutely scarlet when I answered? Also not really good. He shouldn’t have asked if he couldn’t take the answer.

And when he called me one afternoon with that same stupid question of did I have plans, did I want to go out somewhere, oh I should get out more, and try to meet a ‘special someone’--that was just enough. And I yelled at him that he was so insensitive and that dammit I couldn’t get that ‘special someone’ so just lay off, he just stuttered a little and hung up. And I deserved that.

I shouldn’t have said that, to him of all people. Because really, I didn’t want to go out and find someone to get him and the rest off my case about my being single. I didn’t have to go out and look. He was right in front of me, and I just wouldn’t make any good use of that. I didn’t want to take that risk. Because tetsu was… he was the workaholic leader, the one cracking the whip and holding the band together. The last thing anyone needed was my misguided attempts to win him over.
And besides. He was pissing me off so royally that sometimes I wondered why I even liked him. And if he was such a jerk to me, well, he couldn’t be interested in hearing a word of it.

So I felt bad. And I called him back. I guess I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t answer… after what I’d said to him, I couldn’t blame him. But I couldn’t just leave it like that, either.
And, rude or otherwise, I grabbed my keys and drove to his apartment.

His car was there, so if he’d stormed off, he obviously hadn’t taken it. Though that didn’t really mean that much. He didn’t answer the door when I knocked. Didn’t even ask who it was. Which would have made sense if he was out, but I really could have sworn I heard sound from inside.
And if I was going to be rude, I was going to be rude all the way. That’s what he got for giving me a key to his apartment. He’d talked me into watering his plants once when he went away and he never took it back. His own fault.

I didn’t even have to take a step in to realize I was right. He was sitting at the kitchen table sobbing like the world was ending with a glass of water and a bottle of…
I crossed his kitchen in half the time it should have taken me and grabbed the bottle. Aspirin. He grabbed for it and I pushed his hand away, demanding that he tell me how many he’d taken. Sobbing so hard he had to repeat the answer for me twice, he told me four.
But I couldn’t very well just take his word for it. And I counted out the rest of the bottle, dropping them into the trash until I’d counted that there really were 56 left out of the 60 there should have been.
He just kept crying as he watched me, sniffling as he shot at me ‘see?’.
I wasn’t having that. Or at least, I didn’t mean to. And I probably looked pretty angry as I walked back over to him, looking down at him and demanding to know why.
But I was crying before he could even think to answer, on my knees next to his chair and hugging him like he might not be here the next instant. Because that’s what he had been going for, wasn’t it. To not be here.
And he got going again, sobbing against my shoulder as I cried on his.
But it wasn’t surprising that I regained my composure before he found his, and I knelt there gently stroking his hair as he shook with his outpouring of obvious sorrow even when his tears faded to quiet sniffles.

I waited for him to fall silent before I asked, simply, why. And he started crying again. But he did answer me, mumbling softly against my shoulder as he made it obvious that he didn’t want me to let go.

Because he couldn’t take any more rejections. Because it kept happening over and over and this one was too many.

I didn’t get it. I asked the stupid question. I wanted to know who he was talking about.
And he pulled away from me as though he’d suddenly realized I was a stranger. And his tears only strengthened at the look of confusion on my face.

But he let me pull him close again after he told me it was me.

It should have been obvious. All the stupid things he did that drove me nuts—even on their own they should have been enough to make it clear. And then all of it together—it wasn’t just right in front of me; it’d been all around me and beating me over the head besides.

And there I went crying again, trying to apologize, trying to explain, trying to tell him I hadn’t realized.
And even at the risk of him not believing me, I told him I’d never have said no if he’d just been straightforward.
At that, he only cried all the harder.

It took me a while to realize that that last bit wasn’t a bad thing, that he’d crossed the line of sobs to laughter somewhere along the way, and that he’d either completely snapped or he was rather explosively expressing his relief.

He started to cry again when I kissed him, and that’s when I decided he’d gone off the deep end. But at least he wasn’t drowning in it—he kissed back gently and touched my face with fingertips that weren’t as calloused as I’d have guessed them to be.

And I realized that even though I’d missed what was all around me, I hadn’t missed the chance.

The request

subwaygrafitti/xstreetofalice:
So anyways. Forest.

It should be told solely from one point of view and without dialogue (I know, hard, but challenges are fun & that's what this is supposed to be) & you'll have to kill off Megumi or something to make this work. Make it merely the inner thoughts of hyde and how he see things, what he mistakes things for, and how misconstrued he gets everything that's happening around him. Now, for tetsu. tetsu is trying to be totally unobvious that he likes hyde and it's actually rather obvious, hyde just can't see it. And then tetsu goes and does something dumb (what it is is up to you, be it drugs or death or getting with someone else) and hyde finally realizes that he likes tetsu and tetsu liked him back, but he was so busy that he couldn't see the forest full of trees.

I think it makes good use of a played out cliché.

comments appreciated