Experience Pearls

Give me all your tears

Let me turn them into pearls

Let me turn all the tears

that you have cried into pearls

Hand them over to me - I'm gonna keep,

keep them for you.

I want to hold you,

I want to kiss you.

I want to mend what is broken.

Love me the way that you loved her - please

Cause now I'm giving it all -

And so I've made up my mind - I'm gonna be

yours this time - I'm gonna give what I've got,

and get your love in return.

And so I've made up my mind - I'm gonna be

yours this time - I'm gonna teach you to trust

and learn how to burn -

Experience pearls

Pearls of experience

When sand strikes up in your eyes

I will cover your face.

I'll plant your desert with roses,

and I'm gonna keep, keep them for you.

And so I've made up my mind...

I'll wear your pearls more precious than silver

I'll wear your pearls so close to my skin.

I'd tear myself apart just to get you -

And so I've made up my mind...

And so I've made up my mind...

*

Jiro sat with his head leaning against the window. It was a small alcove, and he was seated on the sill of the window, one knee pulled up to his chest, the other hanging off, brushing the floor. One arm was wrapped around his knee, and he let his head tilt listlessly against the cool pane. He could feel the coldness of the night seeping inside.

The sky was black, royal velvet, the stars were embedded in it's softness, safe in a shell that kept them oblivious to the world. Jiro gazed at them blankly, feeling the separateness of the window pane between them, but at the same time
feeling an affinity for their distant loneliness.

It was late, it was almost ten o'clock. Maybe he would've been awake anyway, even if it was an idle night. Maybe the stars would've kept him awake, kept him company, even if he had no reason to be up.

But he did.

He was waiting.

He felt - strange. He felt defeated and giddy, weary but unable to find peace. Anticipatory. Scared. He felt too many things at once.

"Why... do you have to see me?" he whispered to the empty room.

He wanted to say no. When Hisashi asked if he could see him, Jiro just wanted to tell him no, tell him to leave him alone because he couldn't take anymore pain. But - he had been unable to. In spite of everything, he couldn't say no.

Why? Because he was weak. Because he still loved Hisashi.

In Hisashi's voice there had been something different. It was not something Jiro had never heard before; no, he had heard it. But that had been in what had become the past. There was a certain quality to Hisashi's voice when he called
Jiro about breakfast two weeks ago, then when he left that message on Jiro'sanswering machine a few days ago. And now Jiro had heard it again.

Jiro didn't know what it meant. It was emotional, but he did not know what kind of emotion. Had he been in control of his own emotions, if he had everything within himself sorted out and was a rational observer, he still might be unable
to know what Hisashi's tone meant.

All he knew was that when Hisashi spoke to him like that he couldn't say no. So now he was waiting.

< Something... is going to happen tonight. I feel it in the air, in the electricity lancing from the stars. What are you going to say to me, Hisashi? Something is going to end tonight... >

< Will it be the end of hope, of dreaming? Shall I find myself abandoned by the time the night is over, abandoned with only the stars as my guide...? >

As he sat there on the windowsill he had no expectations. He could imagine the things Hisashi might say, but he set none of them upon a pedestal. He wanted to go into this with nothing so that in the end if he was left with nothing it might just hurt that much less.

The stars looked like pearls scattered across the sky. He couldn't pull his eyes away from them. They reminded him of tears, and in his mind he coveted them, precious tears, precious pearls. Two facets, sorrow and strength, sadness
and fragile beauty. Two facets he shared with them.

This window was at the back of his house, almost directly across from the door with the expanse of tile kitchen and carpeted entryway in-between. Because of this he didn't see the shape that passed his front windows and approached his
door. He only heard the knock.

Jiro turned his head from the stars slowly, letting his eyes drag around the room to fix on the threshold. There had been two knocks, measured and indifferent.

Taking a deep breath, he slipped onto his feet and approached the door. "It's open," he called quietly once he reached the entryway. His voice was cut the night.

Slowly, the door opened and Hisashi stepped inside.

Jiro stopped where he was, a few steps past the edge of the pristine white carpet. Without a word Hisashi slipped inside and closed the door gently behind him. Jiro watched as he turned around, as time seemed to fly ever so slowly by.

The lithe form was as perfect as ever, more perfect and unattainable than what a dream might create. His actions were soft and graceful, very little noise whispered across the room. He was wearing casual clothes, jeans and a deep blue
shirt, and his hair looked as if it had been fixed earlier, but had now fallen just noticeable awry. His eyes were deeply hued, emotions played out as colors within them; there was no mask upon them, but they were still unable to be deciphered.

But Jiro saw none of this. His eyes, instead, fell upon Hisashi's hand.

Wrapped delicately in white tissue paper, clutched by slender, pale fingers, were three roses.

"Oh... God..." The worsd stumbled out before he raised a hand to his mouth, fingers pressed against his lips in shock.

"After I called you... I called Izumi," Hisashi told him quietly. His voice was almost faltering, hesitant, but he kept his gaze trained on Jiro's wide eyes. "She and I... We're - still getting the divorce."

His knees felt weak.

"And I told her... it's final."

Jiro stared at him, but he didn't know what he saw. With a few mere sentences his world had been turned upside down. Again.

"Is this... real...?" he whispered.

Hisashi looked away. "If you want it to be," he replied softly.

< This... this isn't what was supposed to happen, > he thought, waves of shock still claiming him. < I... Oh God, I can't believe... >

He collapsed to his knees, and Hisashi was immediately at his side despite the hesitation in his eyes and voice.

"Jiro..."

"Don't tease me, Hisashi," Jiro whispered. It was still incomprehensive. Surely - surely it was a mirthless joke... Surely it was a cruel nightmare...

"Shh," Hisashi soothed, dampening Jiro's disbelieving words that were wreathed in anguish. One hand wrapped around Jiro's arm, forcing his eyes to meet Hisashi's. The latter's dark eyes were glittering, open, open like they had been two weeks ago.

"In the studio today... I wanted to apologize. But at the time... I was still torn. It wouldn't have been enough. Maybe it can't be. But... But this is real, I swear. This is real..."

He began to stroke Jiro's face. Dimly Jiro wondered what happened to the roses, and from a surreal perspective he could see them. Crimson blooms created great drops of blood upon the carpet. White tissue paper faded into the pureness.

"I'm sorry, Jiro," Hisashi was murmuring. "I'm sorry. God... I'm so sorry..."

Jiro felt every touch, but he couldn't respond. Too many thoughts overwhelmed him. Everything overwhelmed him. He could only kneel there mechanically gazing at Hisashi as the other man whispered to him, as Hisashi's fingers - gentle, so achingly gentle - brushed against his cheek, his forehead, his lips.

He could only gaze helplessly as Hisashi's eyes - forever beautiful, dark, and depthless - tried to draw him in like they always had, like they always would. Eyes he had tried to crawl out of in the past days, eyes he had shed tears over
to forget...

Hisashi kissed him, then. Hisashi pressed his lips to Jiro's, one hand cupped his face, the other tightened almost imperceptibly on his arm. The kiss was searching, penitent, pleading, glorious.

Slowly a warmth began to spread through Jiro, branching from each point of contact, filtering into the shocked chill of his heart, soul. The warmth brought more weakness and he sagged against Hisashi, lifting his hands to clutch Hisashi's arms for support.

Then as he became more responsive, submissive, it became more fervent. Passionate. Warmth threatened to become heat, threatened to chase the cold hell from his dreams which had become nightmares, threatened to chase the memory of pain away.

And with heat came a sudden shock of realization. Jiro's moan turned from pleasure to something else, something darker, and he suddenly, forcefully, jerked away.

"No," he gasped, stumbling to a stand. The heel of one bare foot landed on a rose, he felt half of the petals compress, crush together.

"Jiro-" Hisashi sat back on his heels, lifting his head to raise his eyes to Jiro. Jiro didn't want to see him like that. Down on his knees. He turned his face away.

"Do you think - do you think it can be better... so quickly?" the bassist demanded, voice both breaking and harsh. He took a step back, clenching his fists. A red stain glimmered where the petals were now crushed and broken into the carpet.

From the corner of his eye he say Hisashi bit his lip. "I.... No," he replied. "But... I thought..." He trailed off.

"You thought this was what I wanted?" He forced his eyes back to Hisashi. "For you to - to come back to me? To apologize...?" Jiro's soft, sudden laughter was bitter. "Maybe - maybe this is what I wanted, I can't lie, but... You can't
believe - you can't believe this can be the same...?"

Hisashi rose to a stand, taking a step forward to reach for Jiro's hand, gaze intense.

Jiro took another step back. "No," he whispered again. "Do you think a kiss can make this all better...?" He felt two tears slip from his eyes, and he turned his back, clutching his arms around himself.

It was happening too fast. He didn't have time to think, to feel. He wanted time to stop. But he wanted to see the future, too, he wanted to see how this would end. Because he still didn't know.

There was a long moment of silence between them. It floated on the air like the stars floated on the sky. It was suffocating like the clouds were suffocating.

When the silence was broken it was by Hisashi's quiet voice. "Jiro." The bassist tensed, he waited to hear Hisashi approach him, waiting to hear the whisper of a footstep on the carpet. He heard none, but couldn't make himself relax.

"Do you... still love me?"

Jiro closed his eyes. He saw the colors of the sky and the fire and ice of hell. He saw the past two weeks flash before his eyes, become the past years. The answer left his lips half sigh, half moan.

"Yes. Yes, Tono... I still love you."

< You know that will never change... >

Behind him he heard the slightest stirring of sound. Hisashi whispered something and Jiro's heart skipped a beat.

"Nani....?" Jiro whispered, turning around hesitantly, slowly.

Hisashi wasn't looking at him. He was staring out the window. "I've always hated thinking... Thinking about relationships, emotions. I've always hated having to deal with that... So I've learned how to avoid it. I've learned to hide things from myself.

"I've spent the last two weeks doing that. Running. Convincing myself of things I wanted to believe. But I spent this evening... thinking. Actually *thinking*."

He tore his eyes from the window. They fixed on Jiro.

"Ai shitteru."

Jiro's breath caught. Did an apparition walk before him...? He had spent endless nights dreaming that he would hear those words. He had spent countless tears because they were never spoken.

And now... could it be - true?

His mind tried to latch onto logic, automatically seeking an explanation. An explanation other than love. He was too used to being rejected to accept this.

"You - you made this decision in desperation," he murmured slowly. "In one night, how can you-"

Hisashi cut him off with the fire in his eyes, although when he spoke his voice was not raised. "I did not make this decision tonight. I only realized it tonight."

Jiro began to tremble. Joy and pain collided. Hisashi loved him. He wanted to accept that, desperately, fervently. But he did not know what he would be accepting.

"Oh... Hisa," he said, trying to keep his voice steady and failing. "How - can I believe you?" Hisashi's eyes widened slightly, were struck with a flash of pain.

"I want to," Jiro continued, "I want to believe you with every part of myself, my soul, but - but how do I know this is real? What if a better offer comes along?"

"You believe I'm lying...?" Hisashi whispered.

Jiro winced at the pain in his voice. "Don't you understand...? I thought - I thought you might feel something just days ago, but then your wife called and suddenly you changed, you weren't sure. You pushed me away. So how - how am I
suppose to know.... if this is true...?"

The light glinted softly, wetly, from Hisashi's eyes.

"Because I'm here," he said, voice low and ardent. "Because I'm here before you and without you I will have nothing left." There was a strain of emotion in his voice. As if there was too much to convey, as if words were not enough. Hisashi
took a step forward and Jiro was frozen to the spot, overwhelmed by the emotion in Hisashi's every movement.

"I told my wife, Jiro. I told her what happened between us, I told her that I love you. She would never come back to me now, I do not want her..."

Slowly, caught by the moonlight, gathering and reflecting the starlight with a crystal shimmer, a tear slid down Hisashi's cheek.

"And without you there will be nothing left for me," he continued in a whisper that seemed hoarse and haunted. "Even Glay could never be the same because you would not be mine..."

Another tear fell.

A sob cut Jiro's throat.

< Oh God... This is all I ever wanted to hear... >

"When this all began, Jiro.... Two weeks ago, every day since then... I promised myself I would not cry for you. I would not cry because I did not want to fall for you, I would not admit that I had already fallen..."

A silver stream, salty and moonlit.

< No, Tono, no... No tears. They do not belong with your perfect beauty... >

Hisashi's voice hung on the air, breathless. And it brought with it another silence, stark and tense. Both were unable to say any more, for fear they would say the wrong thing, for fear they might not say enough, or too much. With the
starlight at his back Jiro walked slowly back into the entryway and it's perfect white carpet, slipping past Hisashi who's eyes he could feel the entire time.

He knelt back on the ground, next to the rose. Two whole and cast upon the floor, one with petals ground into blood. Very gently, as if afraid it might break, as if it were as fragile as a human, Jiro reached out and picked one up. He guided his trembling hands carefully around the thorns, brushed his fingertips against the velvet petals.

His voice drifted into the silence.

"What happens next?" he asked softly.

He heard Hisashi move. He listened as Hisashi padded softly across the carpet, footsteps a mere flicker of sound. And then he was kneeling in front of Jiro, falling to his knees to face him. But he was careful not to touch him.

"Can you ever... forgive me...?"

Jiro slowly lifted his eyes. The tears were still a soft stream down Hisashi's face. Jiro's eyes mirrored his.

"I don't know," he whispered. "I don't know - if I can forgive you. But I cannot stop loving you... And I cannot let you go..."

"An apology can never be enough," Hisashi murmured, half-musing, half-echoing.

"Do you understand that?" Jiro whispered, searching Hisashi's eyes. "Do you understand... why I feel this way?"

"I don't know." Hisashi reached out to touch Jiro's hand. The latter stiffened, but Hisashi gazed back at him, eyes pleading and dark, desperate, and slowly Jiro relaxed. He let the warmth of Hisashi's hand begin to spread through him.

"It still hurts, you know," Jiro told Hisashi softly. "Even the memory... is painful." He let his eyes slide closed as Hisashi traced soft patterns on his palm with his fingertip.

"I'll do everything I can to change that," Hisashi told him softly. "To make that go away..."

"It will never go away."

"I know," Hisashi murmured. And it sounded like he did know, it sounded like it hurt him. "But..." He trailed off, seemed uncertain.

Jiro took a deep breath, and then he took Hisashi's hand, twined their fingers together.

"But we are human," he whispered, "and we all will make mistakes."

< We are far more fragile than those roses, but only with that realization and acceptance shall we be able to sustain ourselves... >

Jiro let Hisashi pull him into an embrace, let the guitarist pull him up onto his knees, pull them against each other. Hisashi disengaged their hands and wrapped his arms around Jiro.

A weight never lifted from Jiro's shoulders. A pain never left his memory. But he was drowning in warmth and suddenly there was a future. There was no longer only darkness before him.

"Do you know why I brought you three roses?" Hisashi whispered. Jiro's head was buried in his collar, his eyes were closed. A shiver passed through him as he felt the brush of Hisashi's breath on his neck.

"Why?" Jiro whispered.

"One was to say thank you... because you helped me survive what I thought was hell."

He placed a kiss on Jiro's neck.

"One was the say I'm sorry... to ask for forgiveness even if it cannot be attained."

Another kiss.

"And the last was to say I love you..."

Another kiss. Then he shifted, his breath and voice gusted over Jiro's ear. "I love you..."

Jiro bit his lip as he began to cry again, silent and uncaring. He pulled away, reached up, and put his hands on each side of Hisashi's face. He kissed him, desperately, softly, lovingly, and when they broke he rested his forehead against Hisashi's.

As their eyes opened they found each other.

"This will never be the same," Jiro whispered, his thumb shifting to brush against the still-wet line of Hisashi's tears. "It cannot be...

"But I love you, Tono. And we will get through this. Together."

He could see the stars in Hisashi's eyes. Their dark loneliness turned into a glittering light, a vow, a dim but white future. Pains and memories became hopes and promises. Tears became pearls.

***

El fin

***

Author's Final Comments: Thank you for getting this far. There are just a few things I'd like to end with. ^.^

I have to say I am quite proud of the series. One of the reasons is that I did not plan it. I remember getting the idea one day, hearing this song and thinking it would make a nice fic, but I do not remember along the way how it turned from a song-fic into a series. This has become one of my favorite pieces of work, and that is largely due to the sheer amount of support I received from some faithful, avid commenters. They kept me going and helped me get new ideas.

Also, as I was writing this I noticed a pattern emerging, and I decided to go with it. The reversal of roles did not begin intentional, but it ended the way. Hisashi began as the lost and the hurt, Jiro was the aggressor. As the story
progressed their roles changed, and by the end Hisashi was forced into the position of the aggressor, and Jiro was the lost and confused.

At the same time there were some recurring motifs to try and bring it together, such as some color imagery, focus on the eyes, and the stars.

There were quite a few directions I could have taken with this, I could easily have branched off, but I believe this was the best course of action. Hopefully you, as the reader, will agree.

And I will restrain myself from rambling further. I'd just like to send a sincere thank you out to the readers. To the people who commented - I couldn't have done it without you. And to the people who just read and didn't comment - thank you to. ^^ As long as you enjoyed this I can be satisfied.

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