One Thousand Words

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

In a single snapshot, there are a thousand different ways to describe something, right?

There are thousands of pictures of him out there. So there must be a million different ways to describe him. A hundred thousand words for his dark eyes, more for his full and sensual mouth, more for the sly smile he wears when he’s truly amused by something, more for the tilt of his hips as he poses for a photo shoot, more for the way he molests the camera with his icy and sexual stare.

And as for the man’s voice? There must be a million words out there for his voice alone. Words for how deep it is, how low it is, how it breaks when he sings something painful, how it’s gentle at the end of a live when he knows he has to leave the stage, how it’s quiet when he’s alone or with me or with the band or even in an interview or a comment, when he’s speaking to and for the fans. His voice breaks hearts and mends them and gives hope and dammit, whenever he speaks, there must be a million words for the way he has everyone clinging to every single thought that leaves his mouth.

In one picture, that man shows everything. His eyes, his mouth, sometimes a small smile, his arms, his waist, his hands. There must be a hundred thousand words for his eyes. When he looks at a camera and puts on a smirk, his gaze is sin personified, and the aura about him keeps everyone else’s eyes fixed on him. And if he drags his tongue over his bottom lip, even for a second, he’s taunting everyone around him and he knows it, and there are a multitude of words to describe something like that.

When he brushes his hand over his hair, he’s tugging at the invisible leash in his fingers, and he’s teasing every single person that ever glances at a snapshot of him with every inch of him that they can’t have. He does this on the set of a photo shoot, and hell, how many words can there be to describe the way he is on stage? He is beautiful, and he is stunning, and he flaunts absolutely all of that so that he can take the most amazing photos imaginable, and he does the same in front of the crowds so that they can store an amazing live in their memories and he can notch up another crowd of thousands of fans that want him more than they did when they first arrived.

When he performs, he shows such an intimate side of himself that for a second, he almost seems human, and there must be another hundred thousand words for that. He pours his heart right into the lyrics, funnels every emotion possible into the words, makes the crowd feel what he’s feeling, brings himself to tears when the words become personal, makes the fans fucking cry because he’s so charismatic that they feel what he feels. A million and a half words for that.

And then there must be a fucking dictionary full of words for the entirely different person he becomes once he’s off the set, away from the stage, out of the limelight.

He completely sheds the Ruki persona, for one thing. Ruki is cool and casual and strolls and struts like he owns the place. But Takanori is quiet, and he walks with more of a purpose that is more than to catch attention. I could write a novel on the way he walks when he wants out of the spotlight and backstage to take off the makeup and change into his normal clothes and go back home and be himself again.

When Ruki becomes Takanori, Takanori becomes the epitome of absolute love. He’s tired from the long day’s work, and he crashes on the couch when he finally gets to go home, and more often than not, he pulls me down with him, and then it’s Takanori and Akira instead of Ruki and Reita, and he can kiss me and hold me instead of hold my hand and kiss my cheek.

And when he’s Takanori, there are an endless number of words to describe his eyes and his smile. His eyes are softer than when he’s in the public eye, and instead of the burning, dripping honey, they are warm and amber and they hold all the love in the world. There are more words than encyclopedias can hold on the way he looks when he smiles and he touches my face and when he’s pulling me down to lay against him on his couch. He knows relaxation and he knows tenderness, and one glance at his face in moments like those is enough for an entire album of pictures, an entire novel of words.

An entire epic poem could be written about the softness of his hands, the measured touch of his fingers, the light caress of his palm, the love attached to the gentle press of his hand to my cheek. He takes perfect photographs with his hands, and in each snapshot of touch, he writes a thousand more words about himself, about me, about us. His fingertips brushing along my side are the caption to the tenderness of him. His kisses to my hair, my cheeks, my lips, are the snapshots of the pure way that he loves, the way that he’s too tired to really notice much more than one person at a time.

There aren’t many pictures of Takanori, not pictures that show him like this. His private life is private, and our cameras keep it that way. The pictures are for him, for me, for us, each one a thousand words that only the two of us are meant to know.

But there are thousands of pictures of Ruki.

Millions of words that are yet to be written.