Words: 3,698

Characters: Shigure, Hatori (mentioned Akito and Ayame)

Time: Pre-manga through post-manga

Genre: Angst, Drama... skew it to be romance if you so desire, for that was how I wrote it...

Disclaimer: Takaya Natsuki owns everything.

A/N: I guess I have (some will say) broken my promise not to write yaoi. This isn't strictly one, but that's how I wrote it, if you squint just a teeny bit.

I really have no clue where this beast of a one-shot came from. I still blame the transcendentalism.

Shigure didn't know when it started.

They'd been best friends for so long, rivals in some senses, partners in crime when he could drag Hatori with him. He was the quiet, angsty teen – he didn't have Ayame's grace or Shigure's devil-may-care attitude – and the girls couldn't get enough of him. When the three were together, they were an unstoppable ball of sheer attractiveness, but alone, they were all heartthrobs in their own right. Ayame treated every girl like a princess, but never committed to any of them. Hatori and Shigure developed a system to rate his interest: when a girl said hello, and he replied with a kiss to her hand and a dramatic departure, he hated her. A hiss to the hand and a conversation meant he had no feelings for her, a kiss the forehead friendship, and a kiss to the cheek the mildest of crushes. He never kissed any girl on the lips, and he never felt anything more, so that was where his two friends' classification ended. Shigure, true to form, was the roughest of the group. He would dismissively turn down anyone he wasn't interested in, date those he had even the slightest crush for, and – if he wasn't caught cheating or his girlfriend simply grew bored – he inevitably broke up with them, brusquely and insensitively, after a few weeks.

It probably didn't help that most of them only dated him thinking he would be a 'bad boy', and the rest were only trying to get closer to Hatori or Ayame.

Shigure prided himself on being a teen with no pride at all. He found everything amusing, true to his cynical nature, and would tell absolutely everyone that he didn't care at all. So when he found his girlfriend crying in front of Hatori, who was politely, sadly, regretfully telling her how wrong it would be of him to date her, he walked up laughing, slapped the shocked girl's ass, and told them both they had his blessing – usually with an expletive or two mixed in.

And when the guilt-ridden girl would stutter out an excuse and leave, Hatori would fix him with a pointed look, and he could only sigh when Shigure grinned back and pulled out a cigarette.

"Want one?" he would ask, offering the pack to him and shaking out one small white cylinder invitingly.

Hatori would pull or flip his hair out of his eyes and reply, "Those things will kill you."

Shigure would shrug, light up, and tell himself he could care less.

That was the way Hatori operated, so differently from his two friends; he was heartbreakingly sincere to all, his quiet, soft voice always calming, lulling them into a sense that everything would somehow be okay. Whenever Ayame would show up even more dramatic than usual, arguing over everything, Hatori and Shigure would know his parents were up to something. They would ditch for the rest of the day and do anything distracting. Once they egged the Principal's house, once they went to a casino with fake IDs, and once they even went to the Red Light District. No one could say they didn't live wild, or rather, that Ayame and Shigure didn't – more often than not the trips would end late at night with Shigure and Ayame stoned, drunk, or both, and Hatori calmly, resignedly driving them back to the mansion to stay for the night. When Shigure's parents kicked him out of the house for getting his girlfriend's sister pregnant, calling it the last straw in a long string of offences, Hatori let him stay with his family until he could get enough money to rent an apartment. Hatori's parents hated him – called him out on being the horrible influence he was, dubbed him a worthless, good-for-nothing dropout (despite the fact that he was the third best in his class, right behind his two cohorts). Hatori cared more than he did about the accusations, coldly threatening to leave if Shigure was turned away.

Shigure could count on one hand the number of times Hatori had asked a favor of him, and knew his own list of debt was innumerable. The first time had been when he wanted to ask out a girl, and asked Shigure for advice. The dog zodiac had been quietly observing Hatori's reaction to her for some time – the blush that spread across his cheeks every time she walked by, the stuttering when he said hello to her, the quick escapes he made whenever he could have had a conversation with her. So, when Hatori came by Shigure's apartment one rainy day, Shigure invited him in with unusual severity and put on a pot of tea.

"You like this girl, don't you?" he had asked, a hint of a sigh on his voice. Hatori had said nothing, but blushed and turned away. Laughing shamelessly at his friend – he had a reputation to uphold, after all – he'd launched into a detailed interrogation on everything Hatori knew about her, and then an even more intricate description of how to woo her. Hatori left several hours and three pots of tea later with an uncharacteristic grin, commenting offhandedly that Shigure should consider being a romance author.

Needless to say, Hatori got the girl.

Which, in the long run, led to the second and third favors the dragon asked of the dog. When Hatori and Kana had been dating for a year, he asked Shigure to help him with a surprise anniversary party for her. Shigure told him to take her to dinner and a movie, and offered him his apartment for the night with a wink. To his surprise, Hatori had thanked him and accepted, though his face was bright red and he didn't meet Shigure's eyes. So when five seconds later, Hatori had hesitantly asked, "What do I do?" Shigure gave him a notebook filled from cover to cover with his own small, neat print.

"What is this?" Hatori had asked, absently flipping through it.

Shigure had shrugged, pulled out a cigarette, and mumbled around it, "Some shit I jotted down. I guess it's sort of a story." He held out the pack. "Want one?"

Silently, Hatori shook his head, absorbed in the first page. Shigure watched him for a moment, shook his head, and walked away. He didn't care about the enthusiastic response to his work, nor the lack of rebuttal for his drug addiction.

He definitely didn't care that Hatori was sleeping with Kana.

Time passed. Hatori graduated as Valedictorian and was accepted to medical school on full-ride scholarship. Ayame, Salutatorian, could have gone to any school he wanted, but happily refused and started his fashion store. (Shigure figured he only did it to piss off his parents, because that was certainly the effect.) Shigure considered his options and decided on doing nothing. Occasionally, if he was in a productive mood, he would write something. Otherwise he mooched money off the family and spent his time smoking and thinking. He sold the book he had given Hatori, much to the other boy's joy, and it was surprisingly successful.

"I knew you'd be an amazing author," Hatori had smuggly declared.

"And I knew you'd be a goddamn doctor, you rich bastard," Shigure had replied, puffing on a cigarette. "Always going on about my health…"

Hatori considered the haze surrounding Shigure sadly, but after so long had learned to accept it. Life went on, and Hatori and Shigure were both generally happy. Eventually, the dragon came to Shigure for more romantic advice.

"I want to marry her," he admitted, somewhat sheepishly.

Shigure had stayed silent for a long second, then blew a cloud of smoke over his shoulder. "Are you sure?" he had drawled.

Hatori's eyebrow had twitched in the quirky expression of annoyance only he could manage. "Am I sure? Am I fucking sure? Don't ask me that, Shigure." He took a deep, calming breath and tried a smile, a warm hand descending on his friend's shoulder. "I need a touch of your magic for this."

Shigure had grudgingly helped, glaring at the boy and inviting him in at once, though it occurred to him then that Hatori had always come to him, and it might have crossed his mind for the briefest moment that Hatori wouldn't even have the girl if not for him. If it did, it was quickly dashed away, because Shigure knew he could have turned away those hopeful, loving, trusting eyes if he wanted to – he really didn't care.

And he might, possibly, accidentally have slipped about his engagement just loud enough for Akito to hear. How was he supposed to know she was just around the corner when he gave the news to the house servants? He couldn't hear her quiet footsteps or tiny breaths.

So, if he felt stabs of guilt the next day when Hatori's world crashed around his ears, it was totally inexplicable. If he hovered outside of Hatori's room in the hospital as the nurses bustled around his unconscious form, hands shaking unnoticed in his pocket, it was only because he couldn't smoke in the waiting area.

And damn, he needed to.

Eventually, he was let in, with many a condescending stare from the doctors. Hatori's chest rose and fell evenly, high-pitched, incessant, yet somehow comforting beeps accompanying the electric green spikes of his heart monitor. The author had glanced around him, found a chair in the corner of the room, and did what he did best.

Sat, smoke, and wrote.

A nurse came in once after a few hours and sternly informed him that he had to put out his cigarette and that smoking in the hospital was strictly forbidden. He had flashed her a devlishly charming smile, the offending white cylinder dangling nonchalantly from two fingers, and purred, "Does it look like I care?"

The nurse had left with a glare and a half-indignant, half-piteous huff, because it was obvious, really, that he didn't.

He couldn't say how much time passed, as he lost himself in the miasma of smoke around him and swirling through the clean air of the sealed room, the blank pages of his notebook clear before his focused eyes. Just as the sky was starting to darken, Hatori's deep, quiet voice spoke up, "What are you writing?" jolting him out of his work with a start as he realized his friend was awake.

Shigure breathed in and let out a huff of smoke as he exhaled. Cigarette clamped in his teeth, he had growled back, "What does it matter?"

"I'm curious."

"I don't fucking care."

"Are you going to answer me?"

Shigure had pulled his cigarette out of his mouth and clamped his notebook shut, lifting his eyes to peer at Hatori. His friend was laying on his back, his face hidden from Shigure. "How did you know I was writing?"

"I'll take that as a no," Hatori commented dryly.

"A stupid story about a stupid boy and his stupid girlfriend being stupidly in love. Happy?"

Silence had descended on the room for a long, uncomfortable moment. Hatori shifted on the bed, the whisper of the crisp sheets and the creaking of the cold silver metal the only other sound besides the beeps that Shigure didn't even notice anymore. His voice was almost a whisper when he finally responded.

"I lost her… and it was my own fault. I was too greedy, I wanted too much. I believed and hoped and loved too much. And now, not only am I suffering, but to know that she is too, to know what she's been put through…." He cut off in a choked sob. A moment later, he coughed out, "I'm not happy."

Something had twisted in Shigure's stomach, tightening and churning and stabbing. He had looked away towards a bland and colorless wall and took a long drag on his cigarette until the smoke burned his throat. He stood up and moved to the door, put his hand on the knob, twisted his wrist.

Hatori coughed on the bed behind him. "But… the smell of your cigarettes and the sound of your pencil scratching on paper… I guess it makes this tolerable."

Shigure's hand lifted an inch off the cold metal and hovered there. He swallowed hard and coughed a little at the thick tar coating his throat from his marathon of (no, it was not nervous) chain-smoking. He looked at the cigarette in his hand, little more than a butt clasped between two shaking fingers. "Do you want one?" he had suddenly asked.

"Are you going somewhere?" Hatori had inquired plaintively, almost delicately.

"Why do you always do this? Can't you answer a question?"

"Can't you?"

"Damn it, Hatori, you did it again, you fucking asshole. I have better things to do," Shigure spat, and his hand closed around the knob again.

"Then yes."

"Yes what?"

"If you're leaving… give me a cigarette."

Shigure had turned around once more, easily masking his surprise behind a smirking, smug face. "I don't have to ask if you're serious," he said, though it sounded more like a question. Hatori didn't reply. Shigure crossed the room in a few quick steps and took his pack out of a hidden pocket, holding it out. Hatori made no move to take it, and belatedly Shigure realized that his eyes were completely covered in bandages, blood slowly seeping through and staining the white fabric with bright red. Meaning, something in the back of his mind nudged him, Hatori had known him without having to see him, could tell it was him by his cigarettes and his paper and pen.

Something else, equally dark, equally mean and quiet and whispering, shoved back that he would be able to see Shigure were it not for Shigure himself.

Pushing both thoughts away – because he didn't care – he took Hatori's hand from its resting place atop the clean white sheets and folded the pack into it, his friend's fingers automatically curling around it with crushing, desperate force.

"I only wanted one," Hatori had croaked, somewhat shakily, as if in denial to the force with which he held the death sticks he had always despised.

Shigure's lips had curled at the corners. "Trust me, you'll need them all."

"I don't trust you."

The four words were like an icy knife through Shigure's heart, piercing with suspicious and terror and guilt, but it didn't show. "After all this time…." He sighed and shook his head with exaggerated disappointment. "Why ever not?"

"Your fingers are cold," Hatori commented with offhand nonchalance.

Shigure looked down, noting with some surprise that his hand was still resting lightly on Hatori's, and automatically his sharp mind processed the implications. He drew them away slowly with a tiny, dark smile, hidden from Hatori's eyes by soft white cloth and blood.

"You should put on some gloves," Hatori continued. "Your circulation has always been terrible."

Shigure walked out of the room, tossing his lighter over his shoulder so it landed squarely on his friend's chest. "It's because my heart doesn't work, Hatori," he called lightly. "Haven't all my girlfriends told you this?"

And from his place, unmoving, Hatori had half-smiled, half-grimaced. "Your heart works fine. So Akito tells me, that is."

The two friends didn't talk for some time after the incident. They both knew, and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't convince themselves that they didn't care. They cared too much about too many things in far too many ways for anything they said not to turn into a twisted web of riddles. The first time they heard from each other afterwards was over a year later, when Shigure finally called Hatori with news of the girl that had come to live in his house. Expectably, the first question the doctor had asked was an exasperated, "How old is she, Shigure?"

"You think I'm doing her?"

"When have you not done any cute girl you could?"

"Well, that's just it, Hatori. I can't do her… unfortunately."

"I suppose there's a good reason for this strangely honorable behavior."

"I don't really want to spoil our one chance at breaking the curse."

Hatori had been quiet for so long Shigure considered that he had hung up. Finally somewhere in the background, he heard a familiar click-shhhh-click, and smirked. Hatori's low, quiet voice growled a moment later, "What the hell are you plotting?"

"How many have you had today, Hatori?" Shigure had asked, plainly, quietly. He leaned against the counter.

There was only a moment's pause, and Hatori's voice was tight when he responded, "I hate this fucking game. You never answer anything."

"What would be the fun in that? You've never answered me."

"How many have you had today?"

"I quit."

"Really?" Hatori had drawled sarcastically.

"Really. A year ago."

"Why? I thought you just didn't care if they were bad for you?"

Shigure chewed his lip for a moment before answering. "I guess I cared enough." He paused for half a second. "Besides, I don't need them anymore. They accomplished their goal."

Hatori puffed quietly on the other side of the line, and Shigure knew his meaning grew clearer and clearer with each drag.

"Do what you want with her, Shigure," he sighed eventually. "I don't care."

"No?"

"Not anymore."

"…Interesting."

"I read your new book the other day."

Shigure closed his eyes, mouth twitching, tempting him to smile. "Did you? And what is your verdict, Oh Smart One?"

"I thought it was brilliant."

"That's good to hear. I suppose some things will never change."

"Shigure…"

Shigure's heart had clenched, and his nails tried to dig in the cell phone. "Mm?"

"…damn you."

Shigure clicked the phone shut, leaned his head on the wall, and sucked in a deep breath.

He didn't know when it had started, since for the longest time he didn't care. But somewhere along the line, things had shifted. Hatori was as cold and calculating as Shigure, smoking the brand the dog zodiac used to stock in every pocket he had, screwing the twisted little girl Shigure had given up on long ago. He couldn't say whose sake it was for anymore, hers or Hatori's; couldn't say where he or Kana or anyone else fit into the equation; couldn't say if Hatori wanted to burn the ropes that tied them to the family and the curse as much as he did or if the spider's strands were the only thing holding him together. He couldn't say if he didn't care anymore. Because when he finally saw Hatori again, a haze of the oh-so-familiar smelling smoke curling around him, and his hair in his eyes like always, and his voice quiet and soft and sweet, and his lips warm as Shigure's fingertips brushed them to snatch the cigarette out of his mouth and suck on it, tasting Hatori's mouth and his sadness and his resignation and hatred and apathy – when Hatori's eyebrow had twitched in annoyance at the theft, but a blush had crept across his cheeks uncalled-for at the contact, Shigure wasn't sure the leap in his chest was coincidental.

"These things will kill you," he had stated simply, and even he, the renowned author he was, wasn't sure that he precisely knew the exact subject of that sentence.

Hatori had looked away with a glower and a shrug, silent.

"After all this time, it's hard to believe the curse is finally broken," Shigure continued, and for once in his life his shaky voice wasn't hidden behind a façade of confidence. "I… don't know what I'm going to do anymore. Who knew freedom felt so… hollow? I never wrote it that way…" He trailed off, his sentence ending in an uncertain chuckle.

Hatori snatched his smoldering cigarette out of Shigure's hand, took one long drag, and tossed it on the ground, crushing it under the toe of his immaculate black boot and leaving a black smudge on the wood floors of the mansion uncaringly. Shigure watched the sparks flutter to the ground slowly and wink out, oddly memorized, and when Hatori's quiet, deep voice sounded – he was barely a foot away, so close and so far and so untouchable even after everything – it was the words that caught him more than the lulling, calming tone that had been untouched by the long months of smoking: "So maybe it's time to write something new."

Shigure slipped a hand under his robes to rest on his chest, rubbing over his heart absently at the throbbing ache that had persisted since Akito had let them go from her desperate grip. "New," he purred, rolling the word in his mouth and tasting it on his tongue. He nodded slowly, appreciating the feel of the word. "I suppose I could do that."

Hatori watched him with the smallest of smiles, then scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hands tiredly as comfortable silence stretched between the two old friends. "I've been thinking about quitting," he inserted after a few moments.

Shigure couldn't stop himself from frowning, even if he knew they would kill his friend, even if he had quit himself so long ago. Hatori caught the motion with his devilishly sharp eye and smirked knowingly, tauntingly, smugly. He walked past Shigure, pausing for a moment with their shoulders abreast to ask, "Afraid even that bond is going to break? It was only ever smoke, Shigure. There's a reason you're such a good romance author… it's all in your head."

And as the sound of his crisp footsteps on the wood floor receded behind him, Shigure pulled his hair out of his eyes and leaned against the wall, pulling out a notebook and a pen. "New," he called, and he heard the bootfalls pause at the end of the hall and instinctively knew that Hatori had turned to look at him, would have known if his eyes had been gauged out or bloody bandages keeping him in the dark. "I like that idea. A good author could make an interesting story with such a simple word…."

A quiet chuckle, a sigh, and a moment later, Hatori was gone, and Shigure's pen scratched against the paper with a quiet, hopeful sound.

A/N: This took me forever, and NaNoWriMo starts in a week, so think of it as a long goodbye present before a long break! What did you guys think? Feel free to review the full version too, it's on my page!

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