Breath

by Zamiel

“You fought like a girl.” Oneshot Yoshitsune & Benkei. Revised.

Breath—Zamiel

A/N: Yoshitsune & Benkei oneshot. Alternates between present and past—watch the tenses. Revised version. I tried.

I.

In the nights just before sleep claims him, he can see their shapes fall—crosses with one arm amputated, sleek vertical lines, L-shaped crowbars, boxes upon boxes—lines eradicated and built anew like some crazed metropolis continually excavated and razed to the ground. This flux of motion is seen and imagined in the outer periphery of his mind, every shape anticipated , discerned before it actually appears onscreen. Benkei had scoffed at this and called him a Tetris nerd—god forbid, not aloud—he had seen the suggestion of her taunt emblazed in her eyes when he explained the phenomenon to her. And she was right, dammit, despite all the idealistic tags he tried to place on his Tetris obsession—that it was like battle, strategy, planning—ok, all those amounted to some shit but on the whole, Benkei had been right. He knew she knew and she knew he knew and they left it at that. No reason to spread the word.

The name 'Yoshitsune' was never really quite synonymous with the word 'loser' anyway.

Fate, the poetic little bastard, brought him and Benkei together. They met in a gay bar, an inexplicable setting as neither of them were. Yoshitsune had gone on a pure whim, spurred by boredom ("Sociology experiment" was how he later explained it to the dubious Benkei) and as for what Benkei was doing there, his imagination-at the time-had no fucking clue. Fate.

On that one particular Friday, Benkei and Yoshitsune started off as strangers, periodically eyeing each other surreptitiously over the rims of their drinks as a horde of undulating couples bobbed to an old Jackson 5 song, their bodies one long shadowy blur in the dim light. Both of them had the same semi-melancholy look plastered to their faces, their expressions slightly shit-faced from drinking. Benkei sat at the bar, hunched and majestic, periodically tilting her head back with a regal arrogance to down each drink, a move that sharply displayed her long angular limbs. Other than that, she remained completely motionless, staring intently at the television flickering in front of her as a slew of commercials danced onscreen. They remained frozen in those few hours, not quite strangers, not quite accomplices, content to remain in that state of in-betweenness until a shout broke the spell.

"Alright." It was the sound of a voice that had swallowed a fair share of drinks in the last few minutes, a voice curiously androgynous with just enough tint to reveal masculinity meandering underneath the surface. "Who's up?"

Spectators huddled around the speaker so it took Yoshitsune several seconds to catch a glimpse of his face which, when revealed, turned out to be nothing spectacular-the face of an average 30-year-old male denizen with a crooked nose that saved his features from becoming too bland. With glazed eyes he surveyed the throng around him with mild interest as if secretly relishing some joke only he could hear. It was below that ordinary face where his features took a more individualized twist-a thick rope of a neck supported his jaw and swelled into a broad, expansive chest. Two bulging arms branched from the main body. The size of the man's torso was so obviously disproportionate to his face that Yoshitsune was left under the impression that the head and body were two different entities altogether, as if they had originally existed separately and were later displaced from their respective owners and squished on top of each other.

Yoshitsune motioned over the bartender. "Who's that?"

"Kid." Seeing Yoshitsune's blank stare which seemed to debate if he had just been fed an insult, the bartender backtracked a bit. "That's what he's called. Don't got a name. That's Kid-a regular here, seems to think I'm his guardian sometimes. Moves through life making earnings as best he can. Used to work at the boxing ring downtown and stopped boxers from bleeding between rounds. 'Cuz of that they loved him more than their daddies. They loved him even more when he started slipping some substance to them, get my drift? Got kicked out bad because of that, creds went down and everything. So he makes money calling shots and arm-wrestling contests, not that it matters. He ends up with all the wrong guys and they end up drinking it out of him."

"Who're you talking to over there, Katsu?" Kid called, his voice cutting over the noise.

"Someone who wants to know you."

"Can he wrestle?" Kid held up one arm on the table like an offering, carefully scrutinizing the contour of his muscles as if he were being acquainted with them for the first time. It was an impressive sight, a display augmented by the light gleaming across each notch of skin. From the corner of his eye, Yoshitsune saw Benkei tense the tiniest bit, her attention much too riveted on the television as if nothing mattered other than the mayonnaise medley jangling onscreen. A laugh hacked through Yoshitsune's throat, regurgitating the faint taste of drink.

"That a challenge?" Those were the days before Yoshitsune's name became known clear through the area, the months before all punks had to do was look down at his feet and the regalia would tell them exactly who he was. But he had already mastered some of the tools that would elevate him to that level—among them the Don't Fuck With Me look that ricocheted off his skin, and a mean right hook that more than made up for his modest left. He studied Kip almost studiously, silently taking into account the size of his muscles while unleashing periodic clouds of smoke from his pipe.

"That's right, Shorty." Kid was getting pumped up. His voice was starting to slur around the edges. "Tell you what, Shorty. For you. 'Cuz I'm a nice cat. I ain't a fat cat, but I'm a nice cat. For you, Shorty, I'll bet my life savings right here in the suitcase under my foot. See this here?" Yoshitsune couldn't, not with the crowd but took it into word. "'Cuz I'm a good guy. Right, Katsu? I'm a good guy?"

He was punch-drunk now, his voice imploring. Katsu continued wiping the contour with the same absent-minded intensity that coated over Benkei's face. "You're drunk, Kid," he finally replied. "You're drunk, be a good guy and go on home before you get gypped out of your life savings."

"You think I'm gonna lose? Come here, Shorty, let's show him I ain't gonna lose ahaha.."

Benkei's eyes flashed cryptically as Yoshitsune walked past her, parting through the crowd—so many limbs and stares dissolving around him like that of an amorphous creature—stationing himself on the stool in front of Kid. He gave one last stare at Kip's arm muscles before sighing wearily and pocketing his glasses, letting the world melt into an impressionistic blur—if he couldn't see those things, he could pretend that they didn't exist. Gritting his teeth with anticipation, Yoshitsune stationed his right foot as close to Kip as possible and tucked his thumb under his knuckles—tricks he had once scavenged. Around them, the throng was placing their bets—almost no one had confidence in Yoshitsune's victory and although a few placed their bets on him, it was with an air of pity and/or amusement ("Yeah, why not, put me down for the Shorty. Someone should root for the Shorty").

"Hold up, hold up." Kid waved his left hand as a gesture for silence. "Shorty. You know, if you lose, you gotta pay up. It's only fair. You pay the amount of money I have in the suitcase, you hear?"

Yoshitsune had to struggle not to laugh at that one. "Yeah. Right." He took in the dilapidated state of Kid's wifebeater and jeans so faded they were starting to wear around the crotch. Nothing in there but a few stacks, he surmised. That is, if he didn't drink it all away by now.

It was only after he emerged, back muscles screaming and scorching under the sheer pressure of Kid's weight, tendons snap-pulled one by one like buckles popping open, breath mingling with Kid's booze-infested rants (motherfucker motherfucker motherfucker—who had said it? Him or Kid? Or both?), eyes clouded with a film of water doused with salt that made him scream inside his head every time he blinked—that he realized what he got himself into. "Your winnings," said one of Kid's attendants ceremoniously, opening the suitcase in front of him. Yoshitsune's jaw dropped open before he quickly closed it again.

"Damn…" and it was one of those moments that topped the delirium of everything else that had happened—the sight of Kid's life savings in beautiful, crumpled sheets, piles juxtaposed atop, aside, between piles—he realized he didn't have to worry about the fact his rent was several days overdue and his bills sitting unopened on top of his counter as if by not opening them, they would vanish and be forgiven…but the dream didn't end there, it twisted and turned under his fingers like a living thing squirming for blood, tangling and writhing as he stared with his foamed-up eyes at the new challenger that coolly greeted him across the table.

"I can challenge you, right?" she asked him haphazardly but still with an air of utmost seriousness.

"For the money?" he croaked, attempting to shake the numbness out of his system. Maybe he needed a drink for that.

"For the money," she repeated solemnly, like an oath. Still in a daze, he unwittingly placed his hands in hers. The electricity of her grip jolted him awake. His knuckles started screaming and gasping for air, his back muscle popping loose once more as he eyed with trepidation the rolling muscles down her arms. She fought like her life depended on it (as it did, he would find out later), their grip hanging steadfast in the middle, unwavering neither to the right or the left as if it had suspended in a vacuum of its own. It hung like that for several minutes—a beautiful, tenacious symbol of power until at last Yoshitsune brought it crashing down. Her arm made a crack like a granite boulder splintering in half. The sound of finality.

II.

She had gone for the money but had lost, she explained while the man nodded (Okay Okay), his conciliatory motions calming her down. Perhaps things would go smoothly for her. Sorry, said Benkei, I'll pay you back as soon as I can, I swear. Yeah, said the man, you do that before he clubbed her on the legs with a metal bar and broke both her knees, causing her to fall on her face. She didn't get back up.

The sight of her trashed body, reduced and trampled from its once-resplendent pride, moved him to interfere. Yo, fuckface. Yoshitsune moved into view, brandishing the heavy suitcase over his head and bringing the man down, his cranium splitting open on the concrete like a watermelon drooling out seeds. He peeled the unconscious Benkei off the pavement, her mane and blood pooling down his arms, her body heavier than he expected. Girl's all muscle he said aloud even though there was no one around to hear him, save for the man at his feet with one lolling eye staring glossily at the world—staring, not seeing. There was nothing left for the man to see anymore.

Later, when she awoke in his apartment and asked him why the hell he interfered, he just shrugged.

"The hell should I know," was his answer.

III.

He is busy eradicating and constructing line after line when Benkei intrudes, leaning over behind him so that all he can see of her is her silhouette fall over the screen.

"You lead the good life," she remarks at last. He can smell the pungent whiff of her pipe's contents float on her breath. "Right now millions of Stormriders are all in a panic and here you sit, playing your goddamn Tetris."

"I'm not only playing," he explains. "I'm reminiscing."

She chortles a little at that, moving to the empty chair beside him and stacking her feet up on the controls of the next machine. "How unlike you."

He swivels his head away from the screen long enough to register her: the handsome, clever Benkei lackadaisically chewing the end of her pipe. She looks bemused. Despite the dry summer heat, the kind that withered bodies into nothing more than dried leaves, she remained completely cool and fresh as if she'd just stepped out of a shower. Meanwhile Yoshitsune was left with the perpetual salty taste of perspiration beading his lip.

"Well?" she snaps fervently. "Isn't there anything we can do 'cept park here all day? Like…get ice cream or kick a few asses, that kind of thing? Anyone you want to sic me on?" One wheel of her AT spins vehemently like a rabid angry eye leering around the room.

Kicking ass was all good but when purposeless, became a drag—there was virtual reality for that, arcade machines casting tired, ethereal lights like halos curling around their heads, the mechanical sounds of violence and repetitive melodies prickling through the air…Yoshitsune stares at the screen, dazed, as the words GAME OVER flash like an ugly reprimand. Fuck. How did that happen? Must be the heat, he reflects, at once realizing he feels drained.

"Boss? You look a little dehydrated."

He turns to look her over again, suddenly entranced by the way she wears her bikini on the outside of her clothes—a tributary gesture to Superman/Batman perhaps? All those macho types seemed to like airing their underwear on the outside. It suddenly occurs to him that Benkei's top is see-through, the dark imprint of her navel winking at him. A cavernous taunt. How the hell did he manage to miss such an obvious fact? It takes Benkei a full-blown minute to realize he is staring avidly at her left boob.

"Take it off," he says, staring as if stoned. His balls can already feel the full impact of Benkei's merciless punch and he steels himself for the impact; to his surprise, instead of marking him black and blue, she smiles and ruffles his hair with her long tenuous fingers with just the right touch of insolence that purrs, 'No, I don't fuckin' think so.'

"Keep your hard-on to yourself, boss," she says, all friendly-like and condescending. "Let's not go there."

"Shit," is all he can seem to dredge up, knowing she is absolutely right.

IV.

"Because I'm in debt," she explained succinctly and left it at that. Something in her tone told him not to dive in any further and he took the warning—people should keep their secrets the same way they should keep their venereal diseases.

"Everyone's in debt," he said, not unsympathetically, but as if to the words of an old song: everyone's in debt baby/'specially if they're in love. Who had sung that?

"Thanks for stepping in," she conceded gingerly as if it were a struggle to pull the words out of her throat. "You shouldn't have killed him though, that might make things harder." Yoshitsune, still struggling to match the lyrics with the artist, heard her as if from a distance, shunted back to the present only when he heard her sharp intake of breath as she tried to stand.

"Time out," he called. "Where do you think you're going with your knees all busted?"

"Haha," she laughed acerbically, trying to conceal the look of pain on her face. "Guess I have a new BFF now."

He frowned, all puzzled. "Who?"

"You," she answered, exasperated. "It's a joke. And look…" She began the next portion of her speech with the same earnest seriousness she had displayed before their match, "His lackeys are gonna come after me. Can't get you tied up in this shit."

"They won't know where you are if you stay here."

"Ah hell, it don't work that way. And to be fair, I owed him for a long time. I just want to pay it back and let it be over with." She eyed him curiously. "Who the hell are you anyway, some good ol' Samaritan or some crazy old perv?"

He ignored her. "Look, if you need the dough that much, let's split it." Her eyes immediately narrowed. "It ain't a scam. It's just money." It's just goddamn money, and it sure knew how to fuck you over. "It's yours, no paybacks, right? 'Cuz to tell the truth, you had me in a big stalemate back there. How the hell did you get so strong anyway?"

She smiled almost demurely. "You think I'd have lasted this long if I didn't take care of myself?"

Yeah, she had a point there.

V.

I don't eat that stuff, she told him plaintively when he bought beef for the first time in such a long, long, bloody long time.

Too good for you, huh, he muttered sardonically while scarfing around his freezer—what the hell was that, that, and that? everything was all decay in there, food that lay there dormant and forgotten, silently molting in the ice. Limp, dying things.

I'm vegetarian.

You're stupid, was his heartless answer and she immediately threw a cushion at his head. Ow, he said with mock contemplation, rubbing the wound almost sadly and turning around to face her—Benkei, all angry and impressive in her anger.

You're stupid, stupid, she retaliated.

Stupid, he said.

Stupid, she said.

Stupid, he said again before she laughed for the first time, laughing so hard that the tears came and didn't stop for a long time.

VI.

Benkei looks around the room listlessly, swatting from time to time at an imaginary fly. "Did I ever tell you how boring you can get, boss?" she begins conversationally. She watches him play his Tetris almost disbelievingly, as if wondering how he can keep his interest piqued by it for so long. "Hey, hey," she crows, suddenly animated. "Hey, die already and listen to me." (He doesn't). "Remember when we got evicted?"

The bastards at the rental office had evicted them, stating that on Yoshitsune's contract it clearly stated that the unit was to be rented out to ONE person, not two. ("Why didn't you tell them I was your girlfriend?" asked Benkei as he wheeled her out on a wheelchair he had filched from the nearby hospital after her knee surgery. Fact: medical procedures were hellishly expensive without health insurance).

("You would've killed me," was his reply).

("True," she conceded with a sheepish grin after a moment's pause).

"What about it?"

"Well, I was all joking around, saying we should live in a Kansai temple, only you took me seriously. And you were jawing off about how you loved in those wuxia movies the characters would just touch the corner of a temple building and take off flying like they weighed nothing more than a feather. Remember?"

"And?"

She is excited. He hasn't seen her this excited for a while. "Well, we've got ATs now, right? Let's go re-enact a scene right now!"

The suggestion jars him and makes him lose control of the keys. Benkei laughs as one Tetris block gets slapped down in the ugliest spot possible, causing Yoshitsune to curse aloud. Before he can reprimand her, she skirts away off to the side and practices diving off a makeshift ledge Yoshitsune had set up not too long ago. He dimly sees the arc of her dives in the background—one long parabola falling through space, transcendent—quietly marveling in the corner of his mind at how strong she's become.

Before, her one weakness was maintaining long stretches of stamina. Benkei could make hordes of guys cringe and wish for dick cups carved from diamonds but struggled to maintain enough energy to see through several consecutive fights. While she was a baby panther-in-training, Yoshitsune had shook his head with half-feigned disgust as she labored further and further behind during their run, stopping under the shade of a tree to catch her breath. Evidently even panthers had humble origins.

"I hope this doesn't become a habit," he had said with comical disappointment.

"Don't worry, boss," she had growled in reply, wiping a thin strand of saliva on the back of her fist. "It fuckin' won't." She was as good as her word. Just a few weeks later, she was already out-running him.

VII.

The lackeys eventually found them, of course, after Yoshitsune and Benkei's names were starting to create ripples in the AT universe. They came seeking an official battle—Yoshitsune and Benkei's first so-called serious battle as the ones previously had been instigated with little at stake—just minor horsing around, the loss of a part here and there, nothing to cry about. There were two lackeys—one tall and thin, the other short and fat—Yoshitsune was reminded of Horace and Jaspar from an old cartoon. There were two things the lackeys wanted: (1) complete and utter decimation of Benkei and Yoshitsune, and (2) the money—about three fourths of it spent and still stashed in that same metal suitcase. Hard to believe all this happened from a game of arm-wrestling, thought Yoshitsune to himself. But that's fate, I guess.

"You're spacing out again, boss," interrupts Benkei good-naturedly. "What are you getting all fogey about?"

"Your first battle," he announces, "and how fuckin' terrible you were. You fought like a girl."

"Haha." She bestows upon him an interesting expression—a hybrid between a smile and a grimace. "You weren't so tough yourself."

Come to think of it, he had crowed for her on the sidelines like some pansy-assed mother cheering her darlings on in a thirty meter dash. Benkei had jumped up and down like some kind of deranged cheerleader when she'd won, a victory move long abandoned ever since her winnings became habituary, the dazzling newness of it rubbed dry and stale.

Embarrassing. Kansai cats shouldn't act like such know-nothing hicks.

He considers playing another round of Tetris and decides against it—his eyesight is starting to blur, static forming around the edges. Shit, he groans inwardly, if I keep this up, I'm gonna go blind.

The most beautiful part in that battle, he remembers, was when Yoshitsune had gotten the suitcase itself involved as Horace was trying to pull a whole distraction maneuver while Jaspar skirted about, trying to steal the money. He remembers getting pissed at lugging the weight around, unable to use his hands—almost completely useless while he tried to tackle Jaspar by himself. He remembers positioning the suitcase so the unsuspecting Benkei would bash the side of her AT onto the lock and ram the case open. Immediately the bills inside took flight, the wind crept up to flurry them around Yoshitsune before they flew higher and higher, so airborn and free like green snow struggling to reach the clouds again. He had actually stood there, transfixed by how they swirled and danced so easily in the air, the wind one surging current of movement forever invisible and only revealed by the things that became caught up inside of it. "It's just money," he reminded Benkei in undertone as Horace and Jaspar threw themselves off of the ramparts in a desperately jagged rage to grab all that they could, their bodies hurtling too fast off the precipice, their faces puckered into murky smiles when Yoshitsune later observes their bodies on the ground, blood staining the floor of the temple entrance. Maybe the look on his face had been too serious because Benkei crept up behind him and very gently placed a hand on his elbow. He could tell she wanted to say something but wasn't exactly sure how to put it and before the moment could turn too serious, he snatched up one blood-stained bill and made a great show of dusting it off. "Sushi?" he asked, waving it over his head like a small flag of celebration while she rolled her eyes and smiled.

"One thing I can't figure out," muses Benkei aloud, smoke prowling around from the end of her pipe, "is whether this team wants to live in infamy or anonymity. I mean, we're strong, boss, right? But we don't go out intentionally clobbering teams up."

Yoshitsune ignores her. "Fuck, I'm tired." He yawns theatrically, stretches his arms, all his cheapass tricks performed for her amusement. Fuck I'm Tired, the pantomime, starring Yoshitsune. "Well, Lieutenant Benkei," he says when he is done.

"General Benkei," she corrects him, winking with one eye.

"Whatever the fuck you are. Sun's gonna go down in a few hours. Wanna take a night run? Someone's gotta watch over this dump." He catches the mischievous twinkle in her eye which acts as her answer.

"Ah, boss," she croons before she waltzes away. "You know you love this city to the dogs. 'Cuz it used to fling shit at us, you know, and then we came and conquered it."

Glad she's got a sense of humor is his final thought before he curls up on the side of his chair to recharge. All those memories that raced into his head left his brain running on a kinetic energy that refused to leave him just yet…he hopes Benkei is wrong and that he isn't entering fogeyville…so uncool, man, way uncool…he quietly drifts off amid his reverie to a space somewhere far away from dreams and awakening. Behind the darkness of his closed eyelids, Tetris pieces—their shapes vague, hazy—keep piling up higher and higher, striving to reach the insurmountable sky.