No handler. No bassist. No band.
Soaring to the heights of happiness, their dreams had been dashed onto the rocky shores of misery in the span of moments.
Kita’s death was a leaden weight in his chest so heavy that breathing hurt.
“God, I miss her so...so much,” he gasped out. Hurting. Still hearing the echo of a scream. Kita. Dying. Her song ended forever.
He shivered. Cold and aching, his grief so profound he didn’t think his heart would ever know joy, the breakup that had let to him writing No More Sun paling by comparison.
“Shhh...” Akira murmured, stroking Takeshi’s hair. He felt the loss too, felt the pain, a deep ache that hurt worse than anything he’d ever known.
He’d liked Kita a lot. Loved her, really. She’d been the older sister he’d never had. The friend he could go shopping with, trade secrets, laugh with. Share his love of men with and not feel shame that he was more gay than bisexual as he pretended. Okama. In love with Kei who she willingly shared with him on those infrequent occasions the older man would agree to make love with both ‘girls’ at once. She’d been the only woman who’d ever had sex with him, and who he’d ever considered it with.
And she was gone.
No, not just gone. She was dead.
He bit back the sob, but it was no use, Takeshi, his beautiful, strong, Takeshi— their Kei— had heard it.
The man sat up, reached back and took Akira’s hand, guiding him around until he could pull Akira into his lap. He held their Hana tight, face pressed into his hair. Hair that still carried the blue streaks of dye from their performance last night. The tears came then. Hot, full of misery, and not even the comforting embrace of Takeshi could stop them.
Both men cried their loss, sharing a hurt so deep that it forged a bond between them stronger than that of almost love they had shared before this awful tragedy. Stronger than the bonds of friendship, adversity and their passion for music had already formed.
Lips found Akira’s, the kiss needy, desperate and he responded, clinging to his lover, pressing close, seeking what comfort they could offer one another in a world turned upside down. In a world without Kita who’d meant so much to all of them.
Hungry and hurting, they kissed, their tongues sliding in a dance of brittle-need lust, tasting salt tears and fear, honeyed passion and bitter sorrow.
Breathing hard, hardly breathing, Takeshi broke the kiss to look into wide chocolate brown eyes. Eyes full of tears, need. Desire. And... Takeshi didn’t want to see more, didn’t want to accept what had always been there, his love for Kita blinding him, her death giving him the ability to finally see what he should have seen before. Something that had been there always,
Love. Pure. Freed of restraint and desperate. Wanting.
He pulled Akira closer, held him and rocked him gently, kissing his soft hair, giving instead of just taking for once. Showing the younger man that, even though he’d never said it, he did love him.
He didn’t know when it had happened, and it hardly mattered. What mattered was the truth.
He’d loved them both, but he’d never said those words to her. Never spoken them. Kita knew though. She’d always known how it was between all of them.
And now she was gone.
All he had was Akira. Sweet beautiful Akira.
And Juro...if he lived.
Takeshi shuddered, clung tighter to the only scrap of sanity left in his world. Akira.
It had been there all along, bound up and chained to his feelings for Kita, muddled and blinding him to the truth, how he felt, really felt for both men until it was almost too late.
The truth had always been there between them, unspoken because he hadn’t had the courage to admit it. To say it. Not even to her.
But life was too short for lies. Especially to one’s self.
And he wasn’t going to lie anymore. Not to Akira. Not to Juro if he lived.
God, he has to live. He has to survive!
He’d lied to everyone, even to himself.
But he wasn’t going to lie to them anymore.
“I love you,” he whispered.
New tears, soft sobs, too much emotion, both of them crying for love lost and love found and suddenly just holding Akira wasn’t enough. Just having his arms around him wasn’t enough.
Takeshi pushed his hands under Akira’s shirt, wanting to feel the younger man’s warmth. Feel his soft skin, kiss every inch of his body, touch and be touched.
Akira gasped as a nipple was tweaked, the sound cut off by a greedy mouth. His cock had gone hard, throbbing with desire.
They’d lost Kita, precious Kita, and maybe Juro too, but they still had one another, they weren’t alone. He held Takeshi tighter, an arm around the man’s neck, the other around his shoulder.
The kiss went on until the drummer was dizzy with need for air. Head spinning with love and lust, the sadness that lay just below the surface.
Clothes fell to the floor, bare skin was touched, kissed, tasted, caressed. Loved and loving, soft gasps, quiet moans, sleek bodies seeking warmth, finding, giving and taking.
With a soft cry of loss, Akira felt Takeshi pull away.
Need heated the man’s eyes as he looked at the drummer, held the smaller man.
“I love you, Akira,” he said.
Akira touched Takeshi’s face, tears welling in his molten chocolate gaze. “Takeshi...”
He was lifted onto the kitchen table, the guitarist’s head bowing between his parted thighs, his mouth closing hot and wet around Akira’s cock.
Akira groaned, lost in the feeling. This was the first time Kei had ever taken his cock into his mouth. Always he’d been the one going down on Kei, the other man hardly seeming to admit that Akira wasn’t another woman until now.
He didn’t really mind. He liked the illusion of being a woman or he would never have started dressing as Hana in the first place. It was the same with Juro to some degree, both of them enjoying the ability to cross-dress in their guises as Hana and Maki which left Kei to be the guy in the group.
It drove their fans wild. The women because they loved seeing beautiful men portraying beautiful women. The men because they either wanted to be those beautiful women on stage, or because they liked the thought of being in a band, being able to create the beautiful illusion.
For someone that hadn’t sucked cock very much, Kei was doing a wonderful job, his lips wrapped firmly around Akira’s hardness, the suction just right, tongue sweeping along sensitive skin drawing appreciative whimpers of delight from him.
Akira fell back onto his elbows, head back, lips parted in a soft moan as Kei’s strong hands gripped his thighs and held him still. The tips of his fingers were rough, hardened from hours of guitar playing, the hold on him possessive.
He felt his balls pull closer to his body, orgasm threatening, sweeping him upward in a soaring taste of golden light.
With a final savoring sweep of his tongue Kei stopped what he was doing to Akira, the flavor of the younger man’s precum like honey in his mouth. He kissed Akira, a hand moving from the drummer’s firm thigh to the equally firm cock. Kei stroked his lover's erection slowly, silken skin wrapped in the grip of his fist.
Needing lips, hungry mouths, the slither and slide of tongues penetrating their mouths being penetrated.
The kiss ended, their gazes locked, pain, passion, sorrow, desire. Raw emotion bleeding from their hearts, their souls laid bare in their eyes.
Still gasping for breath, Akira was picked up and carried into the cramped bedroom the four of them had shared.
Four.
Now there were only two.
Broken and lost in the pain, desperate to be whole once again, Kei lay Akira down on the bed.
Soft, sweet, Kita’s perfume filled their senses, brought memories to the surface.
Her laugh. Soft and gentle.
Her smile. Sunshine on a rainy day.
Her touch. Salvation in a kiss.
Warm, lovin
g, she’d wrapped them in her beauty, made them whole, given them purpose, believed in their dreams and turned them into reality.
Akira sobbed, Kei silencing the sound with his mouth.
Love lost. Love adrift.
Found in the glitter of a tear.
The memory of a woman taken from them by brutal fate.
Or more accurately by a man’s hatred, a single bullet shattering their dreams, the life of the woman they loved forever. A second bullet ruining what little hope might have remained when it shattered Juro’s right arm.
“Kita...oh...K...Kita....” Akira gasped.
Kei’s fingers touched his lips, urging him to silence.
“K...Kita...”
“Shh....shhh..” Takeshi murmured, kissed the trembling mouth, pulling the slender drummer close, holding the shivering body, letting Akira voice the pain they both felt.
“She’s gone...she....”
“Yeah.” Kei’s voice broke on the sound. “But she isn’t gone, Akira. She was taken from us, and I intend to make that bastard pay for what he did, even if I have to hunt him down and kill him myself.”
“Kei, w...what can you do? The...the police will find him. They will...”
“I hope so, Aki,” he murmured, lips touching the tear chilled face. He kept silent, didn’t mention that there were few leads in the case, few people who’d seen the tall man who’d taken their Kita from them, who’d hurt Juro. Who’d probably ended their career before it really got started.
He hurt inside and he needed something to wash away the sadness even if it was just for a few brief moments.
“I want you, Aki,” he murmured, using one of the pet names the drummer went by among them. Aki, koi, Hana-chan. Endearments. Love expressed in gentle ways between them.
Akira’s arms tightened around him, the drummer kissing him, seeking the solace he too wanted in the arms of a lover, a friend.
Takeshi kissed him one hand reaching for the bedside table, the bottle of lubricant they kept in the drawer. But one of Akira’s hands had gotten there ahead of him and he felt the cool surface of the bottle pressed into his palm as Akira wrapped a long leg around his hip. The tip of the younger man’s cock brushing against his own erection was like a jolt of electrical discharge through him.
Why he started to shake Takeshi didn’t know, but he didn’t want to analyze the emotions burning through him too closely anymore either. Maybe it was just the act of making love with Akira minus Kita—her death so new and raw that he couldn’t breathe when he thought about it—or maybe there was something more to it than her loss. He didn’t know. Didn’t care.
All he knew and cared about was that he wanted Akira, and that Akira wanted him. It was enough. It had to be because that was all they had now. One another, and Juro when he could come back home again. And he had to be all right. The two of them unable to consider losing Juro to death as they’d already lost Kita.
Akira’s hands on his, helping to get the bottle open, a small hand held out for the slick stuff. He squeezed some into the waiting palm and groaned when Akira slicked it over his erection.
“Fuck me, Kei.”
The cap of the bottle clicked shut, Kei gripping Aki’s hips and lifting the smaller man to get access. This was something they’d done before, and Takeshi slipped a finger into Akira, the slender body thrashing against him.
“Oh, God, please Kei, just fuck me, I can’t stand it.”
Kei slipped the finger in deeper, Akira’s hands fisting the sheets, body shuddering. Ready and wanting, midnight blue hair spread across the pillow, face pale, with a faint trace of color blooming across his cheeks.
Takeshi’s breath caught, Akira’s beauty slamming into his heart, blazing hot through him. He gripped his own cock and pressed against Akira’s tight heat, slipped in and groaned, Akira whimpering out his own pleasure at the contact. Flesh merging with flesh, need meeting need, they started to move together.
Akira watched his lover's face, the pleasure suffusing it, the love burning in his eyes and he felt tears filling his own gaze, blurring his vision. He loved Takeshi, his Kei so very much that words could never express what he felt.
He touched his lover’s cheek, straining to reach until Kei leaned forward a little more, pressing Akira’s legs tighter to his body, making the smaller man’s breathing more labored, rushing him toward climax.
Akira’s face flushed, his eyes closed. Kei touched his lover’s cheek, moved just enough that he could kiss the parted lips, feel Aki’s moans of pleasure singing in his own vocal chords. So close. Already he was so close to the edge. Both of them ready to fall over the brink and go tumbling down into pleasure’s harmony.
Love dance to the music of their drumming hearts, shuddering breaths, whispered words, hands gripping, fingernails biting lightly across skin, taste of pain, pure lust. A passion driven inferno roaring in their ears as it consumed the sorrow, burned away grief in a burst of music played on the stage of love.
They came back to themselves gasping for breath, arms and legs entwined, leaden sadness returning to settle in their hearts.
But a bright spot remained.
They still had one another and that was worth something in a world composed of sadness and broken dreams.
Michael Barnette
Once a resident of Coconut Grove, Florida, Michael relocated to an undisclosed location where there are fewer gunshots and yard to yard searches for suspects to disturb the writing muses. At least that's his story. Some people think he moved to hide from a few of his characters who are really aggravated with the way he torments them.
All Hellos Page 11
