Notes: I got tired of waiting for Yun Kouga to write Loveless and decided to imagine an ending myself. This is beginning of a series called Dark Matters (part 1 of 5 separate stories) that takes place after Beloved's battle with Moonless. The foil of Nisei and Soubi is too interesting to not explore: they are just opposite incarnations of the same thing.
MIRROR 20/20
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Many years ago, when he was barely able to form memories, Nisei's mother used recite a rhyme to him. She would speak in that child-like, sweet voice of hers and softly clap her hands to the trochaic meter. It was before he could really understand, but the rhyme was forever trapped in his memory like an accidental recording that refused to be deleted.
"Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe…"
"That's you, Nisei. You are wednesday's child."
As he was on his knees trying to shake the pain radiating from his shoulder, the rhyme came back into his head. Wednesday's child, his fortune to be caught in a fate that provided nothing but misery. Always on his own, he noted with bitterness. He could have won, if only...
The sparkling energy from Tokino's withdrawal spell was still residual in the room, translucent and chilly like mist on a quiet evening. He swept his dark eyes toward Seimei but instead saw Soubi's colorless form blocking the way. Tension twisted inside Nisei, and he quickly looked away.
"I wonder why it feels like we're the ones who lost," Seimei mused while staring at the floor.
His Sentoki both remained quiet.
Seimei walked over to where Tokino had just held Mikado moments ago and bent down to inspect the ground. Running a hand through the fog of the spent spell, he studied the way it parted in the air around his fingers with great interest. Just when it seemed he would stay glued to the spot, he abruptly straightened and called, "Soubi, Nisei, let's go."
Nisei winced when he tried to get to his feet. Everything ached all at once, his shoulder, his head, his pride. Seeing Soubi walk away barely scratched only served to amplify his rage. But he couldn't let them see him this way. Weakness was unacceptable. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to his feet and staggered in an uneven pace after them.
The evening air outside the warehouse was warm, fresh from the entrance of a pleasant spring. Clouds had all parted for the night and the moon hung high and bright, lighting the street for them. A breeze was drifted in and out, gently enveloping them. It stung when wind cut through the wound on the back of Nisei's neck. He involuntarily clutched at his side to steady himself against the painful call of gravity.
"Soubi," Seimei turned to give an order, "You will take Nisei back to his apartment and fix him. Stay there. I will see you both there in the morning."
"But—"
"What—"
They both protested at the same time.
Seimei tilted his head with interest. A smirk played on his lips as he drank in their competing displeasure. It was so very interesting to be the owner of warring creatures. He dared them to defy him, "Don't make me say it again."
"Where will you go?" Soubi asked softly.
Eyes hard and unreadable, Seimei replied, "I don't like this habit of talking back you've picked up, Soubi." Satisfied when he saw Soubi lower his gaze to the ground in deference, he began to walk west toward the moon.
"Don't kill each other tonight," he threw over his shoulder with a humorless laugh.
The two of them lingered in the dark, eyes following the shrinking shadow of their master into the night. Once Seimei was gone, Soubi lit a cigarette and casually leaned against a young sakura sapling planted on the sidewalk. Nisei stared intensely at the red glow of ember as it dimmed and flared with each long breath.
"Where do you live?" Soubi inquired, voice cold and uncaring.
Nisei paused a bit before replying, "Nakano. Near Heiwanomori park."
"We'll take the Shinjuku line then."
Outraged, he shouted back, "You're going to make me take the train in this state?" His could feel his wound starting to bleed again and just being able to stand was taking quite a bit of focus.
Brushing the hair out of his eyes, Soubi gave him a long look and said simply, "You look fine to me." He buttoned his coat closed and began to walk toward the train station.
"Fucking sadist," Nisei muttered hatefully as he followed with shaky steps.
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For once, Nisei was thankful to live on the ground floor. Sure it had a moisture problem during the cold months and the bamboo hedge barely provided enough privacy from his neighbor, but it was moments like this that he could forgive those issues. He wasn't sure he could have made it up any stairs. Just getting off the escalator at the train station without falling down had been a trial.
"You live in a weird place," Soubi declared when he entered the tiny 1DK apartment. Everything was a shade of gray except the tiny blinking LEDs of electronics in various states of dismantling strewn on the kitchen counter. That wasn't the oddest thing about the house though— that title belonged to the raw concrete floors. Nisei hadn't bothered with tatami mats or anything.
"Fuck you," Nisei shot back as he watched Soubi take his shoes off but deliberately fail to turn them to point toward the door.
Aside from a desk with three massive computer monitors across from the couch and a bed by the window, there wasn't much in the apartment. No television, no food, no books, no dishes in the sink. The only sign of human life was a large case of mountain dew under the desk. If Soubi hadn't been in the presence of its owner, he would have guessed that a machine occupied the space. Without invitation, he pulled out the desk chair and sat down.
"I need some pain meds," Nisei complained after sinking into his couch.
Soubi shrugged, "Only the weak need medicine."
Nisei glared at him while cradling his injured shoulder. "Whatever. There's a bottle in the kitchen drawer to the left of the sink."
No movement.
"Can you get it, please?" Nisei asked through his teeth, the request sounding forced and entirely insincere.
Soubi scowled, but nonetheless got up to retrieve the bottle. It was an order from Seimei after all. He rummaged around the drawer, pushing around screwdrivers and packets of resistors and various other components. What a weird place to put pills. When he found the bottle, he threw it toward Nisei unexpectedly. The bottle hit the dark-haired figure in the arm and he yelped in pain.
"What kind of person just has a bottle of Oxycodone lying around?"
Nisei returned spitefully as he downed two large, white pills, "It's from when you broke my finger, asshole. Can you get the first aid kit too? It's in the cupboard under the stove."
Soubi smiled slightly at the memory and opened the cabinet to fish out the requested box. He mechanically walked over back to the living area and dumped everything on the coffee table thoughtlessly. Brow furrowing in irritation, Nisei glared at him. It was only by the grace of his injury that he not lunge across the table and stab his unwanted house guest.
Putting the thought on his list of to-dos for later, he gingerly shrugged off his peacoat and threw it on the ground. Something was still digging into his shoulder painfully. He reached to touch the area and hissed when his fingertips felt something sharp. There was a rather large piece of glass lodged by his shoulder blade. He glanced at Soubi and thought for a second about asking him to pull it out. No chances he was going to be that stupid.
"You're getting blood everywhere," Soubi announced as he watched the other pull the glass shard out.
Nisei tossed the lemon-sized piece of bloody glass on the coffee table and tried to ignore the provocations. When he was certain there was nothing else to remove, he started to remove the ruined shirt. The pullover proved more difficult to take off than he'd anticipated. It was simply too painful to raise his arms up high enough. He opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out some scissors to cut the shirt apart. Cotton parted like water against the sharp surgical scissors. Once the shirt was gone in several pieces, he began to clean the cut but realized he could not reach it well enough.
"Are you just going to sit and watch? Seimei told you to help," Nisei demanded.
Something crossed Soubi's eyes when his master's name came up. He grabbed the cotton squares and alcohol from the coffee table and sat down next to Nisei without a word. The wound glistened with bloody sludge under the yellow light and he was reminded to the numerous times he'd done this in the past. To fight was to bargain for pain.
"Hold still." He put a hand on the back of Nisei's head and roughly shoved him into the couch face down without warning. "This is going to hurt. He didn't say to make it pleasant." Holding him under, Soubi roughly dragged alcohol soaked cotton over the cut and cleaned away the blood. When Nisei struggled under his grip, he pressed harder. The muffled noises of agony that came from the dark haired boy ignited a sick glee inside him. Each cry was like a bite of delicious cake. Sad violet eyes flashed in his mind, and Soubi suddenly withdrew his hand and shrunk back, alarmed at his own morbid enjoyment. Ritsuka would not have wanted him to be so cruel.
"I swear to God, I'm going to kill you one day," Nisei spat out between shaky breaths as he pushed himself upright.
"No, this isn't— " Soubi whispered to himself, unsure of what he was supposed to be feeling. Whatever he was feeling certainly was not what he wanted. With an uncharacteristic soft touch, he pulled Nisei's dark hair away from his right shoulder and the gash on the back of his neck. The other Sentoki flinched at his touch, preparing for another assault.
"It'll only be worse if you move."
Nisei turned his head and regarded him with suspicion but remained still. Exercising restraint, Soubi started to dress the back wound. When he had taped up the cut, he moved to bandage up the gash on Nisei's neck. Taking the roll the gauze, Soubi started to wrap it around. His hand hesitated when it crossed his mind how easy it would be to just strangle Beloved.
As if sensing this thought, Nisei grabbed his wrist as it passed in front of his face and warned, "Don't even think about it."
He snatched the bandage from Soubi's hand and proceeded to wrap it himself. With a limited range of motion and only one good arm, the bandage was loose and sloppy around his neck, even as he attempted to make it more neat by tucking in the excess. Giving up on doing more, he strode the the wardrobe beside his bed and pulled out a fresh white button down. Not the most comfortable to sleep in, but it was the only type of shirt he had that wouldn't be a monumental task to put on. Even so, he still struggled to get his arms into the sleeves.
As Nisei sat down on the bed and tugged at the fabric awkwardly, an amusing thought came to Soubi's mind. It was like watching a newborn animal trying to walk on its wobbly new legs. Finally getting the shirt on, Nisei started to button it from the bottom. He caught the observant stare of grey eyes and stopped, only halfway done. "What are you looking at? Don't tell me you see something you like."
"You're pathetic."
"Am I now?"
Soubi regarded him with disdain, "You're disgusting, like a dog."
"Better a dog than a toy. At least I was able to choose," Nisei shot back, "You don't even know why you're here." Feeling rising tension emanating from his rival, he got up and began to advance toward the couch.
The light-haired Sentoki stiffened as the distance between them closed. A hand reached out under his chin and beckoned his face upward. Nisei tilted his head in mock sympathy, "You have no idea what is happening around you, do you? You don't even really know why you fought Moonless tonight. You're like a cheap puppet who mistakenly thinks he's a real boy."
Such an insult sparked an anger inside Soubi that he'd not felt in some time. He slapped Nisei's hand away, eyes unreadable behind his glasses. "If you continue, I will break every bone in both your hands."
"Is that so?" He dared with a wicked smile.
Needing no further prompting, Soubi lunged forward and placed pressure on where he knew the other's weakness, the injured shoulder. Nisei raised his good arm in defense but was no match and folded to the ground. His head hit the hard concrete with a stinging thunk. Soubi closed his hands around his fallen opponent's neck, causing the sick sound of drowning on land as Nisei struggled to gasp for air.
But as he pinned Nisei against the floor, he caught their reflection in the wardrobe glass door from the corner of his eye. He turned to look at the image and stopped, hands pulling back. Their long hair spilling together, bandages covering both their necks, like an imitation hovering under water. Nisei turned to follow his gaze and let out a hoarse laugh when he saw the reflection. How fitting it was to see it in the clarity of a mirror, artist and analyst, eyes of air against stone, light and darkness, nothing and everything in reflection, the duality of opposites together.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.
How divine that they both caught the sad destiny of being Wednesday's children. The medication had begun to kick in and Nisei felt the audacity to try something devious. He reached up and slipped a hand in Soubi's hair to grasp the space behind his ear. Soubi cast his gaze down to the pale sliver of Nisei's chest through the unbuttoned top of his oxford; eyes fixated on the way his black hair pooled in the hollow of his collarbone. He felt himself being pulled downward. His hands trembled.
Unlike Soubi, the incredibly intimate and vulnerable hold of being close to someone was entirely transactional for Nisei. To him, it was a game of no consequence. No matter how hard he tried to feel something, he resembled a wet matchstick, unable to ever be lit. There was only one person in the world that could break the laws of physics and he was not in the room.
"We are the same, you know," Nisei whispered, face inches away from Soubi, "There is a reason he chose you and not someone else. It's crass, but you can even say he has a type. I know you better than you know yourself. You want to do everything he says; you'd take a million painful losses for him even when it's clear he'd never do the same for you. You secretly abhor the idea, but you can't help yourself."
"That's not true," Soubi protested weakly.
"No matter how sick the command, you want to do it just so he'll look at you. You'd willingly hurt people you care for. Just so he'll— " His lips brushed against Soubi's with the ghost of a smile. Grey eyes closed at the touch and he sighed against the warmth of a kiss that he imagined from someone else.
"Stop—"
"Am I such a poor approximation?" Nisei smirked as he feigned concern with a gentle trace of his fingers along Soubi's jaw, past his bandaged neck, slipping into collar of his black shirt. A slight hitch in his counterpart's breathing made it clear that he weld the power in the room despite being the one on the floor. "You sad, beautiful creature."
His wide-set almond eyes pressed into crescents as he smiled with cutting condescension. "Even so, you're still just an inferior copy. Your spells are better than mine, I'll admit it. But you'll always be cast aside in the end because you don't have the power of our name. To be Beloved is to never feel heartbreak. It is a pleasure we do not suffer. You enjoy that pain acutely all the time, with every breath, right? Just like your precious Risuka— he does tend to cry, doesn't he? Should I play a recording for you right now?"
Haunted by the thought of Ritsuka's tearful voice, Soubi froze. Upon seeing this, Nisei's smile twisted cruelly and he raised his free hand. A knife from the kitchen flew across the room into his outstretched grasp. The distraction gave him the upper hand he needed to reverse their positions. He placed his entire weight on Soubi with a knee on his chest and held the knife's sharp edge against his pale face, enjoying the conflict in those stormy gray eyes. "Shall I ruin that beautiful face? After all, you deserve nothing. You will always be nothing. You never were and will never be beloved. Sadness and suffering will follow you wherever you go, Soubi. You are doomed to be — "
Loveless.
Eyes flying wide open, Soubi grabbed the hand holding the knife with an iron grip and roughly shoved Nisei off him. Using the power of the light, he clenched his hand and bid them to hold his opponent to the floor. The knife clattered to the concrete with a shattering cry.
"You don't get to say my name like that," he said, low and dangerous.
Shadows swam toward Nisei's outstretched hands as he reached for the darkness from the room's corners to help break the ties. He thought of his Sacrifice and reached for the power of their bond, but there was too much light flooding the room and the shadows could only weakly tug at his restraints. There was only so much he could do without engaging in a true battle. He sneered, "I wonder what name you mean?"
Soubi stood and held a hand over the struggling figure on the floor. The knife snapped up into his hand in a violent flash of blinding light. The restraints tightened with growing brightness. Holding it posed over Nisei's chest, he threatened, "Don't talk about Ritsuka. If you ever touch him—"
Bending down to hold the knife down to exposed skin, Soubi pressed the sharp edge against his rival's sternum, strong enough to draw blood. Sharp pain made Nisei draw in a breath involuntarily through clenched teeth. The contrast of red against white looked beautiful. Soubi contemplated plunging it into the beating heart under his touch.
"What will you do? You going to kill me, you lunatic?" Nisei laughed with manic delight as he realized he had no competition after all. Soubi's true desire did not lie with Beloved. Sentoki drew power from their devotion to one they fought for and the power flaring now was exponentially stronger than what he displayed for Seimei. All he had to do to break Seimei's passing interest in his toy was prove that he, Nisei, had the physical strength to finally weather a fight for the both of them.
"Yes," Soubi insisted, "And when I do, you'll beg for me to put you out of your misery."
An interesting turn of phrase. "What makes you think I won't win that fight?"
"You think too much and feel too little."
The dark-haired Sentoki felt his glee turn to bitterness as something inside of him fluttered, unsettled by the earnestness of the answer. Like staring at the sun, it was an unpleasant sensation he'd do anything to hide from. He strained his head to look at something by the door and suddenly the lights in the room went out. Darkness flooded his binds and broke them with ease. Before Soubi could react, Nisei focused on the knife and forced it to fly backward. It missed its target and sliced into the wall with a thunk. Nisei quickly scrambled to his feet.
Light and shadow played on their fingertips as they faced one another with murderous intent. Just as they started, they suddenly stopped, simultaneously sensing the order. They were both bound against the thing they wanted. Don't kill each other tonight. Nisei waved a hand toward the door and flipped the light back on but kept his gaze on the man across from him.
Slowly, Soubi lowered his hand. "I guess we understand each other then."
Nisei made a dismissive sound and shot him an acidic look. As he inspected the fresh blood stain blooming into the white fabric, he said matter-of-fact, "You ruined my shirt."
"I can make it all red for you, if you prefer."
Dark eyes rolled at the reply. "Can't you learn some new catchphrases? I'm getting bored of these threats."
Soubi said nothing and merely fished a cigarette from his pocket. Just as he lit it and blew out the first cloud of tobacco, he felt cold fingers take the cigarette from his hand. Nisei brought the filter to his own mouth and inhaled while walking to the window. He pushed open the right pane of glass and tapped the ash outside.
"At least have the decency to not ruin my house too," he said as he held out the cigarette to offer it back.
Expressionless, Soubi joined him at the window and took back his cigarette. Opening the adjacent left window pane, he carefully blew out the smoke into the night outside. He looked up at the sky and leaned against the window sill to get a better look. Nisei followed his line of sight and looked up at the moon hanging high at the sky's zenith. They both stood still for a long wordless pause, marveling at its brilliant light in contrast to the dark around it.
Nisei broke the silence with an irreverent comment. "And they said it'd be moonless today. Idiots."
Without replying, Soubi kept his eyes on the loveliness that was a calm midnight. He played with the small roll of paper and tobacco between his fingers, flipping it between his fingers before reaching over and holding it out to the dark figure beside him. Nisei narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
"Don't read into it."
Nisei took the offered cigarette with a smirk.
"I'll try not to."
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-FIN-