Prompt: 016 ~ Tattoo                                                                                                                                                        May 2011©
Fandom: The GazettE
Focus: Reita x Kitty
Word Count: 1,654

            The first time Reita saw any swath worth noting of Kitty’s bare skin, it hadn’t been reserved for him to see alone. In fact, it was a sight to be digitally broadcast worldwide. Repeatedly.

            The first time that Reita saw any more of Kitty’s skin than the few inches at her thighs between her stockings and the frills of her Lolita skirt or the lacey gaps on her shoulders, she had been getting a tattoo painted onto her back to be a centerpiece of a GazettE music video. The bassist was torn between eating up the delicious sight in front of him, and pounding in the faces of everyone else gathered around to see. With Kitty lying out topless on a table for the artist to do his work, completely nonchalant, Reita was leaning decidedly towards a show of violent possessiveness.

            Between the on-looking bandmates, the BTS camera crew, and the flurry of make-up artists scattered about to admire the specialist’s skill, Reita had no real means of isolating her from view. He ended up trying to block the cameras, because the images they captured would be put on the internet and spammed worldwide immediately. And if he noticed one of his bandmates looking at Kitty with even half of the intensity he was, Reita could always hunt them down for a beating later.

            Like Aoi.

            Aoi was goofing off like a five year old, getting himself yelled at for enacting crazy imitations of anime characters that made Kitty laugh and carrying on with his antics anyhow because they made Kitty laugh. The guitarist even went so far as to give Kitty’s cold shoulders a quick massage to keep the blood flowing and warm them up.

            Yeah. Aoi was going to get hurt later.

            Kitty meanwhile didn’t seem to notice the fact that she was being ogled at by nearly a dozen people as the tattoo artist finished up his work and helped her sit up with nothing on but a white sheet clutched to her chest for decency. She flipped easily between teasing Aoi over his impersonations and chiding Uruha for trying to hit him into being quiet, and an artistically serious conversation with Kai and Ruki.

            Reita found himself too caught up in watching the way the intricate designs of the stylized wings stretched and moved with Kitty’s pale skin to do more than glower in his bandmates’ general direction. Even when Kitty called him over with a smile and an enthusiastic gesture, Reita’s malcontent made his reaction lethargic.

            “Reita?”

            “hng.”

            “Can you help me out?”

            “By doing what?”

            Kitty huffed. “By first shooing all of these people away, I need to get dressed!”

            Now that was a request the bassist would jump to comply with and he sent everyone within forty feet of Kitty’s little alcove running with a growling display that sent Kitty into fits of giggles. She tried to stifle them with the sheet she was wearing, but her make-up prevented her from covering her face enough to quiet the sounds and Reita glowered at her, offended, as she slipped off of the table.

            “Come here,” she cooed, barely trying to suppress a giddy smile. Her bassist would be loath to admit it, but he was awfully adorable at times. “I need you to hold this up for me.”

            She tucked herself into a corner and held the sheet up for Reita to hold, spread out a bit to give her some privacy. Huffing uncomfortably as he complied, Reita eyed the thin sheet of shielding angrily as he watched the vague shadow of Kitty’s figure moving behind it.

            “Don’t look,” she instructed.

            Of course, her order made looking the thing that Reita most wanted to do in all of existence, not that he hadn’t wanted to already. But it was like telling someone not to smile, or not to think about cats, only far more cruel.

            Reita tried diligently to obey her, and to keep himself from peeking over the lip of the makeshift curtain, he really did. But there were some feats of will power that are simply not possible; holding out for as long as he did should have won Reita some sort of medal, honestly speaking.

            When he did cave in and glance over quickly, he intended it to be a short and subtle snatch.

            “You have a tattoo.”

            Oh. So. Subtle.

            “A real one.”

            “Eh? Oh, yeah,” Kitty said, blushing a bit and hurriedly pulling up the fabric of her dress to cover the line of swirly black text that wrapped languidly around the bottom edge of her exposed hip to disappear with the skin of her back. “I got it a while ago.”

            Reita watched her back as she stretched up to secure the straps of the dress’s halter top in place as an elegant bow before smoothing out the folds of the long black skirt with sure movements firm movements that settled the dress on her figure.

            “What’s it say?”

            “hm?”

            “The tattoo, what’s it say?”

            “Keep Dreaming.”

            “Eh?”

            “It’s a line from the song Meisa wrote for me when we were kids. ‘If life ever tries to bite your ass, just tell it to keep dreaming’,” Kitty explained.

            “Is it ever visible?” Reita asked, his mind on a more tantalizing meaning it could have.

            Thinking over her wardrobe, Kitty replied slowly. “Not really. Only if I go swimming or something. And I think I might have an old pair of jeans it would show in, but I haven’t worn them in years. Oh, and sometimes pajamas let some of it show.”

            Reita wondered when the next Gaze-beach-trip would be, and if he had any feasible means of preventing it. The jeans weren’t a concern, she never wore jeans. And the pajamas were for home-use only, so they weren’t worrying over either. But the swimsuits . . . Reita considered for a moment that it might be satisfying to see the envy in other men’s eyes as they were forced to keep dreaming about the girl he had in his arms.

            But seeing those men lust over her would distinctly sour that satisfaction. Regardless of his presence around her, Kitty would be the object of intense desire from any vaguely male figure that saw her.

            “Reita! You’re not listening,” Kitty complained with a singsong note of laughter in her voice.

            “Eh?”

            “I asked you how I looked,” Kitty repeated, pulling the edges of her skirt out in a dramatic swish.

            “Beautiful,” he replied, knowing that it was the only answer Kitty would accept. And it was true. As she twirled around, she looked hot and sexy, undeniably and sensuously stunning, and absolutely beautiful.

            As Kitty smiled, Reita realized that he was still, now needlessly, holding up the sheet. He tossed it aside and pulled Kitty close in one sharply fluid movement. He had to be careful as his fingers trailed along her sides and back to avoid smudging the artwork of the fake tattoo as they slid over the dark ink of the real one. With her make up fully done, and her hair fastened neatly in place, he couldn’t kiss her, not like he wanted to, at least. He had to settle for ghosting over her jawline and playing with the dangles of her earrings as he whispered to her about how she looked perfect in every way.

            Then he heard the artificial shutter-click of a cellphone and Ruki’s snicker. “You’re needed on set, Neko-chii,” the singer said with a smirk directed at Reita.

            As she skipped off, she paused to turn back and give Ruki a V-sign over her shoulder for one last picture before she got to work. This one caught the whole of her back, and the elegant design on it, in frame without the interruption of Reita’s arms to block it.

            “I’m keeping these forever,” Ruki announced with a sadistic grin. “Kitty’s tattoos are fantastic.”

            “Tattoos?” How did Ruki know about the other one?

            “Hm? Hasn’t she shown you her real one yet?” Ruki wondered. “I’m sure I have a few pictures of it somewhere. Ah! Here, look.”

            Ruki held his cell out for Reita to see, scrolling through a series of pictures of Maki and Meisa dragging a pajama-clad Kitty out for breakfast or something. The pictures were from more than one occasion as some were taken in the light of day and others were blurry with the longer exposure of night-shots. Most of the images had Kitty’s tattoo showing plainly and clearly, peeking out from the low hem of her loose flannel pants and not covered by the figure hugging tank top she paired with them.

            There was an entire folder of the shots on Ruki’s phone, circling back around to the ones he’d only just taken.

            “Ca-can you send me these?” Reita asked with his words in a tumble.

          Ruki grinned up at him, taunting, “Because you want them purely for the aesthetic value of Kitty’s tattoo, right?”

            Reita coughed.

            “I have to admit,” Ruki said in his most patronizing voice, “She had a fantastic piece of art there.”

            “Shut up.”

            “Hey, she’s your girlfriend,” Ruki replied unabashed. “You should be able to appreciate her artwork without going all possessive when someone else points out its charm.”

            “You weren’t talking about her tattoo,” Reita growled.

            Ruki just laughed. He shoved his hands into his pockets and began to make his way to the MV set he would be needed on shortly as he called over his shoulder to the bassist, “You weren’t either.”

            A moment passed before Reita went to follow the singer. He came to stand beside his friend as Kitty was filming a luxurious stream of stock footage for the video. “You have to admit though,” Ruki said, having noted the bassist’s appearance without needing to look over at him. “Her tattoos rock.”

            Reita growled.

            Internally though, he agreed wholeheartedly.

            Kitty’s tattoos were really something else.


                                                                        ♡♥Finite♥♡