Mercurial Dreams – Chapter Seven

Author: tashiichaan
Rating: T
Genre: Romance, angst, humour
Featuring: Sakurai Sho
Banner designed by: tashiichaan
Story Summary: Hiroki never holds expectations for anything. She never expected to be promoted just 6 months into her job; she never expected her housemate to be a little more sane; but of all those damned unexpectations, she didn’t expect to find herself drawn into the life of Sakurai Sho. She didn’t expect to fall in love with him. And it all starts with a can of Coke.
Warning: More blood, more drama, more insults, more tears, and heartaches. Prepare tissues T_T

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Mercurial Dreams
Chapter Seven

No one moved a muscle. No one pretended to sip their tea idly. No one gossiped in hushed, forbidden tones about Sakamoto and ‘that violent Hiroki Sorae’. No one could even bring their chopsticks up to eat their cold food. There was only a stretching eternity of stunned silence in the cafeteria, as everyone watched the scene unravel in astonishment. Everyone thought it was Hiroki’s predicament to break and be broken. However, it was beyond anyone’s expectations that someone would run to an outcast’s aid. Not even Sakurai Sho.

“You can’t call yourselves humans when you treat another like an animal,” Sho barked through gritted teeth.

The girls cowered and shrunk in fright at Sho’s enormous fury. They started crying noisily and in a hurry, they got off the stools and bowed to Sho in apology. “Gomenasai, Sakurai-sama! We didn’t mean it, it was an accident! Please believe us!”

“To hell it was,” Sho growled, stepping a dangerous distance closer to the girls, “You’re just pathetic.”

Both the girls were now bawling as they hugged each other in comfort, their ego and self-respect destroyed by their beloved idol’s insult. Sho threw them a mocking glare and cast a blind eye to the drama he’d caused as he went in long strides to the opening between the bar table that led to the kitchens. He approached Hiroki with a taut face and unreadable eyes looking only at her, and for a terrifying moment Hiroki thought he was going to hurt her. But instead, he caught her hand and without a warning dragged her away, away from the staring crowd, away from the shocked whispers now buzzing the dining area as Sho and Hiroki exited the cafeteria without a backward glance.

Mayu stared at their retreating backs with cold, unreadable eyes.

“W… where…?” Hiroki croaked as they marched across the lobby to the rows of elevators.

“Don’t… say a word,” Sho told her shortly.

They stepped into an empty elevator and he pushed the ‘9^th floor’ button. The double doors slid close and started to ascend, and Sho turned to Hiroki and gently touched the angry scar on her cheek.

“Did they do this to you?” he asked, softly now that his anger subsided a little.

“Sakurai-san…” Hiroki began in a hoarse voice, but her voice got stuck in her throat as his hand pressed deeper and cupped her injured cheek.

“I’m sorry…” Sho said in remorse, “I’m sorry, Sorae…”

The elevator clinked to a halt and the double doors slid open. With his hand still holding Hiroki’s, he led her down the hallway, and Hiroki silently followed him. There were a few people along the way who could only drop their jaws at the passing duo. Again, Sho ignored them and pulled Hiroki further down and towards a door that with a handwritten sign that read, ‘Arashi – locker room’. Hiroki assumed that this locker room was temporary. Sho opened the door and ushered her inside.

The room Hiroki entered didn’t appear like a common locker room, nor one that was just a temporary allocation for the boys. A door on her right (which she assumed led to the showers) itself was impeccably decorated with carved designs. There were healthy potted plants at far corners of the vast room; countless framed posters of Arashi hung proud on the left side of the decorated wall, opposite of a row of cupboards which served as lockers. Adjacent to her were a row of studio mirrors and dressing tables. In the middle of the room were suede leather sofas circling a coffee table laden with magazines. On the sofas sat the rest of Arashi.

“Hiroki!” they cried out and sprung onto their feet towards the two figures by the door.

Sho hurriedly closed the door behind him and turned to Jun, who was closest to the cupboards. “Get the medical kit.”

Jun was puzzled by the order, but nevertheless went to fetch the kit. Ohno snapped out of his usual spacing-out reverie by this reception and offered, “I’ll get a wet towel,” and he ran to the showers.

Nino studied a solemn Sho and a disquieted Hiroki, digesting the odd atmosphere surrounding them with apprehension. “What happened?” Nino asked with concern.

“People were taunting her,” Sho replied, deep fury etched in his bitter tone, “No one did anything to help her at all.”

“How could it have gotten this way?” Aiba whined, clearly distressed by Hiroki’s unusual self, “Manager-san should’ve let us do something. Something! We’re being selfish for leaving Hiroki like this!”

“He just wants us to avoid involving Arashi in a scandal,” Nino explained, though he was just as frustrated as Aiba, “did they… hurt her?”

Everyone looked on in horror when they noticed the healing red cut on her cheek, and the blood-soaked paper towels painfully wrapped around her hand. At this, Hiroki struggled to hide the evidence of her wounds by pulling her sleeve lower and cupping her cut cheek with her unhurt hand.

Sho shielded his hand on Hiroki’s cheek like before, dwarfing her small hand, to which Hiroki stared up at him in confusion. “How could I have ever let this happen to you?” he murmured sadly, and delicately pulled her hand away, touching the cut with his own cold fingers.

Hiroki shuddered violently at the touch. Her eyes started to glisten with welling tears, which she fiercely held back as Sho guided her to the sofa and pushed her down. He kneeled down on the floor in front of her, taking the bloodied hand in his and gently and slowly, unwrapped the makeshift bandage.

“How could anyone hurt her?” Jun whispered in disbelief, putting the medical kit on the coffee table.

“I… I did this to myself,” Hiroki whimpered, biting her lips in an attempt to stop her body from trembling as her wound slowly became exposed to the air and the stupefied eyes of the rest.

“Hiroki… there’re pieces of glass stuck in your skin!” Ohno pointed in horror.

“You need to get to a hospital!” Nino yelped, holding onto Ohno’s arm to support himself at the horrible sight of Hiroki’s badly-wounded, distorted hand. Small, cracked pieces of mirror glass protruded out of her blood-splattered skin, which prevented any blood loss but at the same time hurting her.

“NO!” Hiroki cried out, casting her pleading eyes at everyone, and at Sho, “I don’t need a hospital, I can take care of myself!”

Shakily, she fingered the mirror pieces with her other hand. She bit her lips hard that she was unknowingly sinking her teeth into them, and in a quick yank she pulled the piece out of her skin. She tasted her own blood from her lips, and tears were now spilling a deep river out of her eyes as she pulled each of the pieces out, placing the blood-covered glass on the table.

“Sorae…” Sho whispered, staring at her with his own set of tear-flooded eyes. He took the wet piece of cloth from Ohno and pressed to her hand to stop the bleeding. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Don’t do this to me,” she retorted, her dry lips trembling. She looked around to the rest and continued in her pleading voice, “Don’t help me… you don’t… no… no… just… I don’t want you to have anything to do with this!”

She stood up abruptly, throwing Sho back to the floor in surprise and she ran towards the door leading to the shower room. She flung herself into the dark room and slammed the door behind her, and in blinking darkness she covered her face with her hands.

For all the time this Sakamoto scandal had happened, Hiroki had never shed a tear. She wasn’t the sort to cry her eyes out and whine at her pitiful state, no; in fact, she hardly ever cried in her whole life. A stoic expression was all she would manage at worst situations, because she just couldn’t cry. There was no point in it. But when Sho came to rescue her; when he dragged her away from the humiliation, when he looked into her eyes with such regret and sadness, she lost every single control on her calmness. She didn’t know why, but Sho’s care and concern for her broke all invulnerable walls of her stone-hard soul and unleashed the emotions she couldn’t contain.

His compassion broke her.

“Sorae…”

Hiroki went completely rigid at that soft voice on the other side of the door. Pearly tears continued to stain her cheeks uncontrollably as she clutched her eyes tight. No, go away… I don’t want you to look at me like this…

“Please, come out.”

Hiroki shook her head furiously at that request. She was shaking so badly that she didn’t even feel the pain in her hand. Sho continued to call her out, and her legs trembled and went numb at his voice, and she slid down the door in defeat.

Why do you care so much for me?

She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs, burying her face in them and sobbed into her dirty apron, alone in the shower room as drops of water leaking from the taps rang her ears in deafening echoes.

On the other side of the door, Sho was on his knees and pressing his balled fists on the door. He kept calling her name, hoping that hearing her given name which she wouldn’t allow anyone to call her would show some form of comfort for her. His heart tightened in fear and dismay at Hiroki’s state. In his heartache, he couldn’t bear to have a solid barrier between them.

“Don’t do this to yourself. Please…” he practically begged. His voice cracked hoarsely as tears slid down his cheeks.

“Sho-san…” Jun started feebly, himself unable to bear Hiroki and Sho’s situation. He tried the doorknob, which turned willingly and the door unlocked.

Sho immediately pushed the door open, not forcefully but wide enough to slide inside. He closed the door on his bandmates and blindly stretched his hand out along the tiled wall. He finally found the switches, and turned on the lights. In the light, he found Hiroki pressed against the wall behind the door, hiding her face and cowering from him.

The cloth around her hand was now red and blood-soaked, but that wasn’t Sho’s concern just yet. He approached her slowly and cautiously, but he couldn’t help himself and called her name again and again.

“Sorae… Sorae…”

Hiroki shivered and cried louder at the sound of her name on his lips. Sho didn’t acknowledge it and fell on his knees beside her, circling his arms around Hiroki’s huddled body and hugged her tightly to his chest.

“I shouldn’t have left you there… I shouldn’t have let you face this alone… I’m so sorry.” Silent tears continued in a flow down as he clasped his wet cheek against her head, consoling her with his gentle voice and his hand on her small back. He hardly knew her, he kept repeating to himself inwardly, and yet against his volition he felt like he needed to protect her. All he knew, in his heart, was that he wanted those tears to go away.

“I won’t leave you alone. I’m not going to.”

Hiroki sobbed louder at Sho’s confession that touched her to the heart. He promised they were going to help her. He promised he wasn’t going to leave her alone. She felt a vigorous, nauseous fluttering in her stomach; she didn’t feel so abandoned anymore. She had him.

In a wordless reply, she wrapped her hands around Sho’s shoulders and buried her face in his shirt. They cried in each other’s arms, comforting each other in the quiet shower room, in their own suffering world where all the fates tore them apart.

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