By: Mad Mary Kidd
Pairings: Implied Soubi/Ritsu, implied Seimei/Soubi
Rating/Warnings: T for safety. This story contains, in no particular order: cutting, implied shota (sex with a minor), boys kissing
Disclaimer: I don't own Loveless because it's Yun Kouga's.
A/N: Okay, this one wouldn't leave me alone! It started life as a fluffy little thing about Ritsuka asking Soubi about his ears and how he lost them, and getting very embarrassed and flustered in the process, and then became a wee ficlet about Soubi's memories of Ritsu-sensei, and from there turned into a story about Seimei's disgust at finding his Fighter is impure. In the other fanfics I've read, Seimei always seems to treat Soubi with something that borders on contempt, and I got to thinking about why that might be. The concept is one of ownership, and how it is defined. I have tried to use the honorifics faithfully, and in a way that I think the characters as I have portrayed them would use them. Any mistakes are entirely my own. I have no idea how much of it is canon and how much I made up because I've only read as far as book 3, so please forgive the liberties I have taken with the characters and the Loveless universe in general!
Mine
I was excited. To finally meet my fighter unit! I had been starting to wonder if I was the only Sacrifice ever to be born without one. They told me to have patience, that he or she would be found. And then, one day, they told me.
Agatsuma Soubi. Beloved, like me.
I sat in Ritsu-sensei's office. It was my first day in this school, my parents having just moved here with me and my little brother. I'd only been sitting here a few minutes, but it felt like an age. I was twelve.
Ritsu-sensei was speaking to me, but I only gave him half an ear. I was wondering what Soubi would look like. They said he was fourteen - a little older than me, but that was okay. Was he tall or short? Good looking? Would I like him? I certainly hoped so. We would be together until we died. I hoped I wouldn't hate him. Would we - the thought made me blush, but it wasn't unheard of - would we lose our ears together? Our name was Beloved, after all.
They told me he was an excellent fighter; indeed, the best in the school. And there were two school years above him, all full of jealous Sacrifices and Fighter Units, no doubt. I swelled with pride at the thought of being the envy of the whole school.
Finally the door opened, and my heart leapt - Soubi! I could feel how much I loved him already, and I hadn't yet seen his face.
He came around the edge of the door, and I froze in shock.
Into the silence as we stared at each other came Ritsu-sensei's voice, each word dropping like a stone.
"Aoyagi Seimei-san, this is Agatsuma Soubi-san, your Fighter Unit."
No. This couldn't be. This was some kind of sick joke. I stared at Agatsuma until he dropped his gaze to the floor. Finally I found my voice.
Where are his ears?"
I sounded childish and petulant, but what did that matter? My Fighter Unit had no ears! How could I ever fight with him, take damage for him? I couldn't bear the shame of it!
I thought Agatsuma had started to cry, but when he looked up as Ritsu-sensei spoke his name, I saw his eyes were dry.
"That will be all for now, Soubi-kun."
Agatsuma bowed and left. I slumped back into my chair.
"Agatsuma-kun is still the best Fighter in the school," said Ritsu-sensei. "Indeed, the best Fighter I have ever seen. You should not allow this to prevent the two of you from becoming the best fighting team in Japan."
"He can't fight for me," I said. I was dimly aware that I was breathing very hard, but it didn't matter. "I won't allow it."
"You share a name," said Ritsu-sensei patiently. "He is your Fighter Unit and you are his Sacrifice. Fate has bound you, and his ears or lack thereof cannot change that."
"I won't fight with him! He's dirty!" I shouted.
"Aoyagi-san, please sit down," said Ritsu-sensei. I did not remember standing up, but apparently I had. "That Agatsuma-san has no ears is not his fault."
"Whose fault is it then? He must have given them away! If he's as good a Fighter as you say he is, he would crush anyone who tried to take them by force!"
"Please, Aoyagi-san, calm down."
My mind was racing. I had never been so angry!
"Unless... Unless he was ordered to..." My head snapped up and I glared accusingly at Ritsu-sensei. "You," I breathed.
"Aoyagi-san, you are not making sense. Calm down, please, or I will be forced to punish you."
He could say what he liked, I knew the truth now. If he said it wasn't Agatsuma's fault he had no ears, he must have been the one to take them.
Agatsuma would never belong to me.
The thought made me so angry I couldn't help but start to cry. I sat back down in the chair, defeated.
"I won't fight with him," I said.
"Yes you will. You will fight with him and you will love him. You are two halves of the same soul. It is your destiny."
HIs words followed me for the rest of the day. It was lunch time when I finally left his office, so I made my way to the cafeteria. Agatsuma saw me, but wisely stayed out of my way.
Well, I decided. If he would allow himself to be touched like that, then I had no time for him outside of fighting. I found the group of kids I had befriended earlier in class, and ignored Agatsuma.
"Hey, Aoyagi-kun," said one of them. I think he was the Sacrifice of the Fearless unit. "Who's your Fighter? Do you know yet?"
They would find out sooner or later.
"Agatsuma," I said. The whole table stopped eating and stared at me.
"Soubi-kun?" asked one of the girls. She sounded in awe.
"They tell me he's Beloved, but certainly not by me," I said, raising my voice so I was sure Agatsuma would hear me. "I don't know who loved him first, but I never will. I hate him."
Several of them exchanged looks.
"But... Aoyagi-kun..." one of them began, nervously.
"Can we talk about something else?" I asked, smiling.
It wasn't until the next day that Ritsu-sensei called me into his office. I opened the door, and when I saw Agatsuma sitting there I nearly turned around and went right back out again. It was only the thought that Ritsu-sensei might punish me for being rude that made me stay where I was. I settled for shooting Agatsuma a filthy look, and then ignoring him.
"You wanted to see me, Sensei?"
"I wanted to see you both, Aoyagi-kun. Please sit down."
There was only one other chair, next to Agatsuma. I restrained myself from pulling it further away from him, but I did sit as far from him as the armrest would allow. I saw Ritsu-sensei's jaw tighten, but he said nothing about it.
"You are to begin fighting practice together this afternoon," he said. "I would like for the two of you to get to know each other a little before you fight, so I'm going to leave you to talk for a while. You will begin by bowing to each other. Stand up, please."
Agatsuma got to his feet slowly. I thought about protesting, but Ritsu-sensei's expression warned against it. I rose reluctantly, and turned to face Agatsuma. We bowed at the same time, stiffly.
"Good. Now I'm going to leave you both. Try to get on, will you?"
I glared at Agatsuma. His blue eyes looked sad. I realised I'd never heard him speak.
Ritsu-sensei closed the door quietly behind him.
"I don't want you for my Fighter, I don't care how good you are," I said spitefully.
"I'm sorry if I displease you, Master," said Agatsuma.
I blinked. Master? And his voice -
"What do you mean, Master?" I asked, a little less sharply than I'd intended.
"You are my Sacrifice. I must fight to protect you, and I must obey you."
As he spoke, I could feel my animosity ebbing slowly away.
"Are you casting a spell?" I asked, suspiciously. He shook his earless head. Reminded anew of his betrayal, my anger rose again.
"You have to obey me? Anything I tell you, you have to do?"
"Yes," said Agatsuma.
"So I could order you to kill yourself?"
He flinched, but his gaze never wavered. "Yes. But if I did that, you'd die too."
How disappointing. Still, it bore remembering.
"Oh," I said, not troubling to keep the disappointment out of my voice. Agatsuma hung his head.
"I know you don't like me," he began.
"That's not true," I said. He looked up at me hopefully. "I hate you."
Now he looked like a kicked puppy. At the sight of his expression, I felt a stab of something - what? Surely not remorse? I shoved it down. I was determined to hate him. He betrayed me, before we'd even met. He deserved my hatred. And yet...
"You can hate me if you want," he said. He was looking past me, staring at the creepy dead butterflies on the wall in their glass cases. Suddenly I was curious.
"What's with the insects?"
Agatsuma transferred his clear blue gaze once more to me. "Hmm? Oh, Ritsu-sensei collects them," he said. His voice sounded closed, somehow. As if he didn't like the butterflies, or want to talk about them. Perhaps he found them creepy too. I was on the verge of asking him this when I remembered I was supposed to hate him.
"We have to... mark each other, don't we?" I asked at last. Agatsuma nodded.
"Some put marks on each other's hands," he explained. "But you can put them anywhere."
"That means I have to touch you, doesn't it."
He nodded again. "I can't name myself. And neither can you."
"I want to do it as soon as possible," I said suddenly. "I want to get it over with."
"It'll make us a stronger team," agreed Agatsuma.
An idea occurred to me. "Can we do it now?"
He looked at me, surprised. "I... guess so," he said, standing up. "I'll go and ask Ritsu-sensei."
"You do that," I said. "And tell him I want him here to witness it." Agatsuma looked at me strangely then, but nodded.
"Yes Master," he said, and I felt a tiny thrill pass through me.
He wasn't gone long. When he returned he was holding two small oblong packets and two smaller square ones.
"Ritsu-sensei says he'll be here in a moment," he said. His eyes were bright.
"What are those?" I asked, gesturing to the packets in his hands.
"Blades and sterilising wipes," he said.
I was going to say something about Agatsuma being dirty in a way that couldn't be cleaned by sterilising wipes or anything else, but Ritsu-sensei chose that moment to walk in. He smiled at me.
"I'm glad you've decided to accept each other," he said. I decided not to point out that the decision was not ours - or more correctly, mine - to make.
"Where do you want to put the mark?" asked Agatsuma. I'd been thinking about that while he was out of the room.
"On your throat," I said, a vicious twinge of pleasure coursing through me as he, and even better, Sensei, visibly reacted to that. "I want everyone to know you belong to me." I flicked my gaze at Ritsu-sensei, whose mouth was a thin line as he looked back at me. Agatsuma only nodded. He handed me a wrapped blade, and one of the little wipes.
I wasted no time, but stepped closer to him, tearing open the smaller of the two packets. I could feel him watching me as I ran the wipe over the skin at his throat; he was close enough that I could feel his breath on my cheek.
Something different, something gentler ran through me as my fingers touched his skin. I put my other hand to the back of his neck to steady him, and felt a strange pull in my solar plexus as he gasped softly and closed his eyes.
Keeping my left hand on the back of his neck I brought the larger packet to my mouth and tore it open. Catching the protective plastic cap between my teeth, I drew out the blade.
"Remember to make it deep enough to scar," murmured Ritsu-sensei, but I barely heard him. My world had narrowed right down until all it contained was Soubi, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and the blade as it made it's way toward his perfect skin.
My hands were steady, but my chest heaved, mirroring Soubi's, as I worked. His breath stirred my hair; for some reason this seemed to make the pulling sensation in my stomach stronger. He never made a sound as I cut our name into his flesh, ignoring the blood that trickled down his throat and chest, staining his t-shirt.
I tried to make it last, but all too soon I was done.
"You belong to me, Soubi," I whispered into his parted lips. "Me and no-one else." He opened his eyes.
"Thank you, Master," he whispered back.
"Now you, Soubi-kun," said Ritsu-sensei, his voice loud and jarring, breaking the spell that had woven itself around the two of us. I was annoyed at that, but it didn't really matter. Soon Soubi would weave another spell, and Ritsu-sensei would have no part in that, either.
"Where would you like your mark, Seimei-kun?" asked Soubi. I let the informal honorific slide for now.
"On my arm," I said, glad I was able to choose.
It irked me that even as Ritsu had left his mark on Soubi he had remained unmarked himself. At least if Soubi had to mark me in kind, I could make him do it where no-one could see if I didn't wish it. Most Fighter Units and Sacrifices treated each other as equals. It would not be so with Soubi and I, and I intended to make that clear to Soubi, and Ritsu, and everyone else right from the beginning.
I could have simply rolled up my sleeve, but then the mark would have been too low, and therefore more difficult to conceal. I unbuttoned my shirt and slid out of it. I heard Soubi's breath catch in his throat, but Ritsu-sensei concealed his reaction rather better.
Soubi's fingers were warm and gentle on my skin, and I allowed my eyes to slide closed, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could trust him.
Really, I mused as the wipe slid, cold and wet across my skin, it was nicer to touch Soubi and be touched by him than I would have thought. He held my arm lightly with one hand while he traced our name in steel and blood on my skin. It hurt, but I was glad of it. Glad it would be deep enough to stay with me forever. Besides, the pain of fighting with him was sure to be worse.
I relished the feel of my blood running down my arm, reaching Soubi's fingers and staining them. But all too soon, he stopped.
I opened my eyes to find him inches away, his throat and chest and hands stained scarlet with his blood and mine. I knew he wanted to kiss me, so I allowed it; if only to spite Ritsu-sensei.
But to my utter surprise, I found that kissing Soubi was the single most pleasurable thing I had ever felt. My solar plexus twinged again, but much stronger this time. All conscious thought fled, and I just stood there and let him kiss me.
It wasn't until we finally broke apart that I realised my hand had snaked up into his hair, and that he had one hand at my bare waist. In the other he still held the blade, pointing it deliberately away from me.
I glanced at Ritsu-sensei, and was delighted to see the look of barely concealed rage on his handsome features. I couldn't help but smile, as I allowed my other hand to slide around Soubi's waist and pull him closer to me, unmindful of the blood still wet on the front of his shirt.
"There, Sensei. I will fight with Soubi after all. Isn't that nice?"
His jaw tightened and he looked away. Soubi looked uncomfortable.
"We should go and clean up," he said quietly.
I nodded. I had thought about making him go back to class covered in the blood that I had drawn from him, but having him bandaged would be enough to let everyone know that he was marked as mine.
"Let's go," I said, catching his hand. He looked at Ritsu-sensei.
"Soubi," I said sharply. "You obey me now, remember?"
He nodded, dropping his gaze, and allowed himself to be pulled from the room.