Prompt: 086 ~ Book                                                                                                                                                                May 2011©
Fandom: The GazettE
Focus: Reita (Suzuki Akira) x Kitty (OC)
Word Count: 2,440

            Reita was lounging on the stairs, sprawled out backstage with his bass on his lap.

            He was going over the fingering for Vortex yet again. He didn’t need to have an amp to know that he was doing it perfectly; in fact he didn’t have to look at this point. All he was doing now was letting the muscle memory carve the patterns into his bones.

            The first concert the GazettE would be performing Vortex at was slated for tomorrow night. It was just far enough off to make practice seem reasonable, and too close for it to actually impact performance in any noticeable degree. Honestly, his little practice session had only been initiated at all due to overwhelming boredom. With less than 24 hours to go, it was too late for anything important to happen and too early for any final prep work to be done. At the moment, there was simply nothing to be done whatsoever.

            The GazettE’s members were all scattered about the venue, caught up in doing their own thing to stave off both boredom and nerves without accidentally causing tempers to flare. On days like this, the members were always a bit testy with each other. The arguments over the preparation hadn’t been forgotten, and though they’d been forgiven, it was always best not to press any buttons. The looming stress of the concert ahead and there was the compounding factor that was the absence of the cheerful smiles of the GazettE’s now utterly undisputed closest affiliates, the young women that had won the hearts and minds of the members to the extent that they could hardly tolerate their absences.

            Meisa was sleeping off her own concert from the night before. Maki was attending a press conference for her latest movie. Leslie and Nana had school. They would all be able to make it to the venue with the band in the morning, to calm their nerves and restore the chipperness that the staff and fans alike were used to seeing backstage. But for now, the band had to cope.

            Including Reita.

            It wasn’t fair really; Kitty was actually at the venue. She was an attachment to the band itself after all, she had no business being elsewhere. Truly, it was horrifically unfair that Reita’s girlfriend was right here and for all he was able to do about that fact, she may as well have been a hundred miles away. In fact, not having her here probably would have been better for Reita, because if she wasn’t here, he wouldn’t have to be exerting massively excessive amounts of self control.

            He was under strict orders from Kai, which basically amounted to death threats from the others that the leader condoned, and there was no getting past them. Reita was not allowed to spend more than five minutes at a time with Kitty, and he was not allowed to let her notice it. They were measures taken to prevent one of the many fights Kitty and Reita found themselves tied up in on a regular basis from sparking so close to the concert. The fights were unpredictable, triggered from the most innocent of things and inflamed to become rows that were downright vicious, and they were not something that the GazettE needed to deal with so close to a concert when they were already huffy with each other.

            Besides, it would not do at all to have them distracted on stage, in any way. That meant that even if Reita could keep from fighting with Kitty for 24 hours, he was also not allowed to sleep with her. With such an important event in the works for the next day, any sort of distraction was frowned upon, particularly distractions that wasted energy.

            Kitty however, was making things difficult, as always. If she had been told about the GazettE’s orders not to have Reita hang around her for more than five minutes she would have been pissed at the lot of them and not one would ever hear the end of it. As it was, she was taking no pains to make herself easy to ignore. Typically, she could be found listening to music in a quiet corner, perfectly content to let Reita wander as he pleased, and most importantly, contentingly quiet enough for Reita to wander away from.

            Today though, Kitty was curled up in the dressing room with a red bound book that Reita knew had just been given to her that morning. It was a pre-concert present from Leslie, something to get Kitty through the boredom of the day. It was working too well for Reita’s tastes. Kitty was in the midst of giggling like a school girl and kicking her feet against the make-up counter in sporadic fits of fangirling glee.

            In addition to the teasing of the giggles themselves, Reita was hard pressed to resist storming in because of his distaste for the fact that Kitty’s giddiness was being provoked by some fictitious heart-throb that was impossible to compete with. It was only after he’d worked through Vortex two dozen times, and Kitty let loose a particularly gleeful squeal, that Reita finally gave in. He set his bass aside and stormed heavily over to her shouting, “What on earth is going on in here? I can hardly hear Kai’s beat and he’s only down the hall!”

            Kitty swiveled around to face him, pulling off her bright purple headphones sheepishly. “Sorry,” she mewled, looking up at him with her big, sweet eyes. Reita was scowling back at her, his hands propped loosely on his hips, as she continued, “This is just so good, I can’t help it!”

            Reita eyed the book in her hands suspiciously, trying to size up his fictitious competition. He couldn’t get anything from the plain red cover, and promptly snatched it from her hands. Kitty yelped and tried to keep it away from him, but Reita was easily able to lift both her and the book off of the chair in front of him as a single package and finagle the book away from her.

            Dumping his precious Kitty back down into her fluffy chair, Reita smirked triumphantly into her pout. Lording his height over her as she scrabbled to get the dense paper package back, Reita flipped through the pages until he got to the passage she had been reading when he’d barged in. His eyes skimmed over the words quickly.


           --- After all this time, the door clicked closed and they were finally alone. After so long of pretending it didn’t matter, they could finally stop holding back and release the tension that built up over the past months of willful ignorance. Ruki’s hands were roaming over the skin of Reita’s chiseled chest as he worked to strip the beastly bassist of his clothing. As we worked, Reita was kissing along the vocalist’s collarbone, his hands sliding down Ruki’s slim body to feel the pulsing heat ---

            “What the hell is this?”

            Kitty’s grin was still giddy, even as her cheeks were beat red. “It’s Nana’s latest compilation. Leslie had it bound like a real book for me,” she explained.

            In disbelief, Reita flipped the page, skimming though rather graphic passages of an apparently steamy tryst that he was deeply involved in with Ruki, feeling his own cheeks heating up. The red of embarrassment was fortunately hidden by his noseband, but the only way to hide it in his voice was to return to shouting at Kitty. “It is the kind of thing that ridiculous friend of yours always writes?”

            Kitty shook her head, still trying to get her book back. “She writes a ton; fanfiction is only a part of it. And even then she usually sticks to fluff. This is a special compilation, which is why Leslie had it bound for me,” she explained, practically climbing up her boyfriend as she tried to snatch her book back.

            “And you actually like reading this?” Reita was beyond disbelieving, and he was still skimming though the pages, unconcerned as Kitty tried to pull herself up Reita like a ladder to get the book within her reach.

            “She’s a fabulous writer!”

            “She called me a ‘beastly bassist’,” he accused.

            “You are a beastly bassist.”

            “Eh?”

            “Seriously,” Kitty said, explaining, “You’ve got a gruff exterior, piercings, a ton of hair gel and chains, and even fangs on the odd occasion, and you’ve got more muscle mass than brain cells—“

            “Hey!”

            “Two words: Headache Man,” Kitty responded, unapologetic, “And I could name at least a dozen more. Besides, you’ve got some sort of insane pain tolerance.”

            “Eh?”

            “Reita, I’m standing on your knee. In heels. And you haven’t noticed it yet,” Kitty said flatly.

            Looking down, Reita discovered that she was right; she was propped up precariously on his knee, her heels digging into the fabric of his pants and her arm looped around his neck as a counter balance. His momentary distraction at this revelation made him drop his guard enough for Kitty to seize the opportunity and leap from her perch to grab hold of the book in Reita’s hand.

            That, Reita did feel. “Yah! That hurts, you crazy woman,” he shouted, catching Kitty around the waist with strong arms as she tried to escape with her prize. “And where exactly do you think you’re going? You can’t just run off after—“

            “Nee, Neko-chii, are you done with – eh, what’s going on in here?”

            Ruki’s voice at the door cut off Reita’s growl and managed to spook Kitty into quitting her squirming. The vocalist’s interruption made Reita flinch, things didn’t look good for him at the moment with how he was holding Kitty. However, having Ruki barge in was better than having it be Kai; Ruki knew that Reita wasn’t supposed to be here, especially wasn’t supposed to be physically interacting with Kitty, but at least he wouldn’t bitch about it much. The only other thing was the overwhelming wave of awkwardness that hit Reita as Nana’s writing floated back through his head.

            What made Reita’s sense of it all the more acute was that it didn’t seem to affect Kitty at all. She gave Ruki a bright smile as her toes dangled above the dressing room floor and asked, “Do you need something?”

            “Not really, I was just wondering if you were done with that yet,” Ruki said, pointing at the little red book in Kitty’s tight grasp.

            She huffed at him. “Get your own.”

            “But Nana-chan gave you extra stories! She won’t let me have them all,” Ruki complained.

            Kitty countered, “She only gave me four or five extras, and only because I’m the main character in them.”

            In the midst of his little tantrum, Ruki whined, “I’m in at least one of them with you! I heard you and Meisa talking about it the other day!”

            “Wait, wait, wait,” Reita broke in, he had to say something before his head exploded. “You’re a character in these stories?”

            “Well, obviously. Nana’s primarily a het writer. Yaoi isn’t really her thing; she can do it, obviously, but it’s not her strong suit,” Kitty responded.

            Ruki agreed. “Though, I have to say I liked that one Yuri fic she wrote, with you, Meisa, and Maki while we were all at the hot springs.”

            Kitty nodded. “But my favorite will always be the one where Aoi kidnapped me.”

            “Is that the one with Dom Uruha as the side pairing?”

            “Yup, Aoi was tired of playing Uke,” Kitty chirped happily.

            Reita had heard more than enough. He dropped Kitty from his grasp and threw his hands up in surrender as he tried to block out the images floating through his head as Kitty and Ruki giggled together about the proposition of one of Reita’s bandmates having his way with Reita’s girlfriend. “I am not hearing this, I cannot be hearing this,” he murmured like a mantra as he fled the scene.

            Running off, it was only after he’d gotten around several corners that it occurred to Reita that apparently Nana had written some RuKitty fics, and steamy ones at that if they’d made it into Kitty’s special compilation book. Reita was of half a mind to head back and kick Ruki to pieces for wanting to read a smut fic about his girlfriend.

            This plan was only aborted when Reita caught sight of Aoi running out to buy take out for the group. Reita feet turned him immediately to give the guitarist a piece of his mind. Kai stopped him mid-route, appearing at his shoulder and asking,” Reita? Is everything alright?”

            Clearly it was entirely Aoi’s fault that Nana had been inspired to write a story about his kidnapping of Kitty. Reita’s Kitty. He had to have done something to spark the idea.

            “Fine,” Reita growled, watching as Aoi slipped away.

            Kai didn’t believe the bassist for a second. Normally he would have let it slide, but with the concert so close, he felt a little intervention couldn’t hurt. “Is this about Kitty?”

            Reita didn’t answer, but his silent stiffening sufficed to inform Kai that he was correct. The drummer sighed heavily, “Reita, we said—“

            “Five minutes, you said I could have five minutes,” Reita interrupted.

            Kai nodded, then he asked gently, “What happened?”

            “Nothing,” Reita growled. “She’s just reading.”

            “Jealous? Those characters are entirely fictional, you know,” Kai said reassuringly. He clapped Reita on the shoulder and gave him his best leaderly smile.

            Reita eyed him, suddenly suspicious. Kai was Nana’s boyfriend. He would certainly have served as a large part of her inspiration, and he would have to know about what it was that she was writing.

            “Don’t worry,” Kai was continuing, “You’re the only one Kitty-chii would ever really love.”

           His promise only served to snap Reita’s attention to the fact that smut stories, even inside the stories themselves, rarely contained any genuine affection. There was no genuine love in them anyway.

            The notion almost gave the plotlines a semblance of plausibility. Reita thought he might be getting sick with the way his stomach suddenly churned and the ground beneath his feet wobbled. It showed on his face.

            Concerned, Kai asked, “Reita? Are you okay?”

            “Yeah, I’m just gonna go lie down for a bit,” he responded.

            Kitty had always said that books had power over people. Reita had never given her preaching much thought, but now he was changing his mind. Of all the tough times he’d scrapped through and all the bad decisions he’d made, the only thing that had really scarred him for life had been, of all things, a little red book.



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