(A/N: I am not sure where this came from... Memories of K mixed into memories of a city under mist that I've missed... Or perhaps an inevitable outcome of all the tragedies I've been reading these days... It is small and surely flawed but I am so fond of it, for some reason, I wanted to share. I hope you also become fond of this ugly and sad little child of mine.)
Mist embraced the city like a mother cradling her child, even the tallest skyscrapers shrouded and the masses crowding the streets completely unseen, a benevolent smothering now ruling the scene...
All he could see from the high rise apartment's large window was a blur. All a blur, nothing but a blur; a nothingness that did not show any sign of existence yet he knew very well what laid beyond the grey.
Unlike the city now fallen to the sheer power and horrifying beauty of innumerable droplets, clarity and aridity ruled within the confines of the small apartment. He could almost feel the heat in waves spreading through the enclosed space, gobbling up any and all possibility of humidity and declaring its own superiority.
He liked it.
He liked this heat. This particular kind of heat. He liked how it felt, surely scorching at times yet gentle in more instances, relentless and courageous, passionate and compassionate, ever-changing and never-changing... strong yet frail.
He liked this heat.
And his heart felt heavy.
The most overpowering feeling the realisation of that affection brought was always this unbearable despair. Ennui conquered his whole being, body and soul, starting from his very core, his very heart... His fingers touched the cold glass of the window and realisation sank deeper, both of the fondness and of the despair; how fragile was the glass and just like his very own heart would be shattered into pieces one day when it would be no more acceptable to accept the very existence of this particular heat... where there would be no place on earth that could confine it in any form.
The words spilt perhaps unconsciously, or perhaps he willed them to be so but silently yet his lips had not followed the orders properly... Regardless, the words spilt from his lips like the way they had spilt so many times from the lips of Cassandra, surely useless and surely out of a great need to be pronounced;
"I will end up killing you one day..."
Did he mind? Would he mind? It seemed not so as all he heard from the only other man he shared the room with was a grunt. Was it of reluctant approval or raw disapproval? He was not sure. Perhaps the other did not want to discuss the matter right now, not that he ever particularly liked discussing such matters... Carpe diem was something he followed strictly, not because he was enthusiastically carefree or ever thought he could conquer the fate but rather because he was indifferent to the fate, even of himself, so dearly... And if he was to show fury or joy, he would not wait for it or work for it or ponder about it at length, he would simply grasp it in all its perfection and enormity in the moment he desired it. He always lived in the now and also in never and Munakata thought that he himself always lived in the past and the future. They never met, metaphysically.
He had already become hopeless on receiving a response when he heard the small sounds the shifting sheets made... The next moment he smelled the tobacco, sharp and looming in the dry air of the small space. He turned, leaning the back of his head to the cold glass, feeling the chilling difference in temperature on his scalp through his hair slightly dampened of sweat. Eyes wandered on the figure of the man, the same age as he was but with distinct wrinkles on his face, engravings of his mercurial soul defying the rigidity of his indifferent gaze and face... He was naked, each curve and corner of his nude flesh exposed and he did not mind it at all... If another saw this man, perhaps they would think this was a frail man and perhaps they would be correct but they would also be very wrong; his figure almost thin, his figure with stronger bones than muscles, his figure ragged and sharp... His figure, Munakata was always so desirous of.
Holding between them a cigarette perhaps thicker then both the pieces of flesh combined, his parched lips almost mocked the parade of Poseidon outside, charred as though they had just been wed to the scorching glares of sun... even though Munakata knew very well they had not. It was his own lips he had wed them just moments ago, for long long hours too, he had licked them, every millimetre of them, meticulously and with passion... covered them in his own saliva, again and again, as though marking the man with his own fluid, perhaps raw and crude like animals but surely out of a great need. Oh, out of so deep a need...
Yet they were parched. As though Munakata had not touched them at all. As though he had not sucked onto them for so long in his own warm and wet cavern of a mouth. The smoke rising from the cigarette held between those very parched very lips seemed like a gloomy declaration of defeat to Munakata. A sign of utter loss. Smoke rising from the ruins of a city captured and gone. His despair deepened.
A sigh. Not that unusual though, for the most common mode of communication of Suoh was a sigh. He sighed more than he spoke. This time, he spoke too though:
"I know."
Do you?
Munakata wanted to ask and yell and cause a commotion, punch the man on the face and spit on his grave. Did he know? Did he really know? What did it mean, if he did know? A mocking of his initial statement, he could take that; teasing? He could definitely endure, he could wrap his arms around that slender neck again and kiss those lips, rejecting defeat and charging on... But what could he do with "I know"? Nothing. He closed his eyes and let the chill of the glass rush up and down his spine.
When Suoh spoke again there was a particular melancholy that was not common for him,
"I am sure, actually. You will be the one to kill me at the end. I am sure of it."
Why?
Why did it have to be him? Why did he have to confirm that it would be Munakata? The despair tightened around his neck and he thought that he would be strangled in its hold and for a second he thought that it would not be so bad to die of despair right now and there... for it was a lovely place, a lovely moment sans the last few words of doom exchanged. He willed his already draped eyelids to tighten and perhaps in the darkness that had filled his vision and heart, he could find the peace... of death; wouldn't it be better anyway, to die than to kill?
"It is not that bad actually... It is nice."
His eyes opened then and a tiny smile crept up his lips. Suoh seemed to be smiling too, inhaling and exhaling the carcinogenic fume slowly now and then, his eyes still on the emptiness of the ceiling. He was not sure why the words comforted him a little and surprised him too, it was very much like Suoh after all.
"All that is created is doomed to perish and if it is so, why not by your hands? Inevitable is the end and surely mine will come, like it came to those before me and will come to those after me..."
An eyebrow rose in suspicion and he inquired the possibility of Suoh being drunk of pleasure in the aftermath of so many hours they had spent, almost a whole day, embracing each other. The amused snicker and teasing gaze that turned to target him scattered away his line of inquiry, Suoh's voice now much entertained and warmer and higher almost sang:
"Or something like that you would say perhaps... All that fate and life and death and wise sounding shit. But really, if I am going to be killed and I will probably be killed considering the way I live, it would be not so bad to be killed by a beauty."
Munakata chuckled to himself, this was more like it. This was more like Suoh.
"A beauty? Is that all? Totsuka is quite beautiful too. And Kusanagi has always been charming."
The two could surely play the game.
"As if they could ever be strong enough to kill me..."
"But if they were?"
"Nah, they are... my friends."
Suoh exhaled the poison slowly, his lips danced with the fume like a playful god of wind,
"It would be too sad for them..."
Even if he had not added that last comment, Munakata had already felt stabbed. It was not that he expected anything else, the Red King looked perhaps aloof outside but more than anyone else Munakata knew how deep ran the idea of brotherhood in the man's heart. His whole clan was formed on that, out of that... It was not that he was jealous, it was that he was saddened to face the ambiguity of his own position against this man. The lack of worth he had or the great yet bitter worth he had in his life. He was suitable to be an executioner for him but not a friend and a friend was surely not fit to be the executioner. Lost in his own thoughts, he did not realise the redhead turn around in the bed to lie on his side, face calmly resting on one hand supported by his elbow as his fingers held the cigarette already half gone. Suoh almost whispered:
"Don't make that face."
He lifted his eyes and saw a troubled look and a troubled look never looked right on Suoh's face. He was not a man meant to be so concerned in things, to be so thoughtful about a thing or to be so interested. It swelled his chest, this look, to be the recipient of it, even if it looked alien every time he witnessed it. When Suoh spoke again, his amber eyes stared intently and thoughtfully with a glint,
"It is intimate. Dying. Killing. I could never let anybody do it... or even see it. But you..."
For a moment Suoh's lips tightened and silence consumed them both in glory. Then Munakata wondered, did Suoh ever find it hard to breath or hard to speak too? Were the moments of unease born of endless despair something peculiar to the Blue King or the Red King ever felt them too? A silent moment, Munakata did not say anything in return, Suoh did not say anything then, did not even sigh, yet it felt almost that they had talked a lot. As if too much had been said. Too much had been said that nothing to be said was left.
The next moment, the Red King must had decided to burn the heaviness that had sucked the air of the room so fast in so few words, because he smirked again and a sarcastic humour overtook his glance,
"I would be embarrassed you know. If anybody else saw it."
His smirk though playful was almost innocent. Like a child's.
Munakata chuckled then and the great melancholy in him was aroused and required sacrifice of flesh and devotion of rapture to be appeased, at least for the moment. The desire ran through his body and he could feel the want in his own fingertips dripping down to the floor, rushing in his veins to every corner of his own body... He moved gracefully towards the redhead and in recognition the cigarette in Suoh's hand was blazed into pure ash and scattered away in a split second. Standing near the bed he leaned forward and traced the thin lips of the Red King with his delicate fingertips, they truly were parched.
So he leaned in... to drown them in his own humid breath.