Fragility

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Hakuouki series and have no relation to Okita Souji as well as Saitou Hajime of the Shinsengumi in real life. Please don't mistake!

Genre: BL

Pairing: Okita Souji x Saitou Hajime

Chapter(s): 1

Warning: Adult Content

(Thank Tiểu Bạch Cừu so much for beta-reading this ;^; I will never thank you enough for spending your precious time reading through all my meaningless words T^T)

Summary: "They're light enough not to let the human know they've been falling upon them, but strong enough to agitate the whole water surface."

It was in the middle of March when sakura have all withered and disappeared. No more flower-viewing, no more sake drinking, there left only smoke and dust from the battle.

It was in the afternoon when Okita sat silently at the genkan, watching the sunset, waiting for another day to come to an end.

It was on the verge of his life that he felt so tired and hopeless for his Tuberculosis. Each time he coughed, his lifespan seemed to be shortened, much more evident than the effect of using Rasetsu power.

He knew he would soon reach his limit, and death was just a matter of time. But all he wanted was being able to sacrifice in the battlefield, to fight with the Shinsengumi, with Kondou-san, not dying here all alone, not being here all alone.

He held his chest to stop the cough, sweat covered all his forehead. There were just him and his pain at this place, nobody else, he thought.

"At that bad condition, you should stay in and take a nap." Okita heard someone talking to him, someone in a blue haori with long purple hair.

It was Saitou.

"Hajime-kun?" He surprised "It's kinda odd to see you coming here at this late."

"Yukimura-kun asked me to deliver some porridge." Saitou explained. "I've also bought some dango for you."

"Dango again?" Okita was frozen and made a face "Geez, I do wish it wasn't."

"I'm not saying it's bad by all means." Okita started complaining. "But can someone please bring along anything but dango when they came here for a visit? I'm sort of fed up with eating all these dango day by day. Konpeito is much better." he hissed.

He'd done his dinner in his futon and was about to get some dessert. Saitou made some tea for them. But the brown-haired man didn't have much interest in it.

"I didn't come here to let you command me." Saitou sat next to his futon, still enjoyed the tea. He didn't seem to care about his friend's problem with dango at all.

"Boring." Okita pouted, but he soon grew to enjoy the dango right away.

They kept chatting about what had happened in the Shinsengumi head quarter while Okita hadn't been there. The tea, the dango and the talk combined, drew a peaceful picture in this chaotic scene.

"By the way, how is Kondou-san?" Okita finally asked the question answers of which he hadn't got from anyone before. Would Saitou tell him anything?

"Don't worry, he was recovering very well." said the Third Squad captain. Because the answer came from Saitou, Okita thought it was trustworthy.

"If only I got well sooner." Okita sighed. "Instead of being stuck at a place like this, I would be near Kondou-san, protecting and supporting him."

Saitou remained silent as he listened to Okita. He was used to listening to him talking continually about Kondou-san. Other executives always wondered how and why the Third Division captain could stand the First Division captain keep rambling about his respect to the Commander all the time, but they never got the correct answer.

Okita's words suddenly get interrupted as he started coughing hard. He collapsed on the futon, almost unable to breathe. Saitou quickly came to support him with the medicines, but it was too late. Okita did cough up blood already.

Staring at his blood, Okita felt something strange was guiding his body. He was almost..

"Souji, are you okay?" Saitou grabbed his shoulders, looked extremely worried with what just happened.

"Get away from me, Hajime-kun." Okita trembled, not looking at Saitou. "It's all for your own sake."

Not waiting for Saitou's reaction. Okita's hair turned white. He immediately shoved Saitou to the corner of the room.

"I told you to get away from me already." The red eyes glared straight at Saitou, as they were about to burn him to dust. Okita now wasn't the man Saitou knew anymore.

He was now an unleashed white-haired beast, a Rasetsu that needed blood to live.

Saitou tried to run away, but his speed was too slow comparing to a Rasetsu. What's more, this Rasetsu was Okita, the one who could defeat a beast even in his human form.

Okita easily caught Saitou, lifted the man up to the air and threw him to the futon with all his power. "Give me your blood. Now." his voice got sharp.

'What's with him? He can't lose all his mind like that.' Saitou thought as Okita came closer and pressed his body against Saitou's. It was too bad that Saitou swords were too far from his reach. He was too neglect.

"Don't try to escape. You know you can't." Okita said in a playful voice, grabbed Saitou's wrists tightly then tied them with the scarf he had removed from Saitou's neck.

"Souji, stop! It's me, it's Hajime! Wake up! Souji, wake up!" Saitou shouted desperately. But then, Okita quickly tugged a piece of the scarf to his mouth, not letting any word be spoken out.

Being tied up and silenced, all the long-haired man could do was watching Okita removing every single layer of his yukata. Thousands questions running in his head. 'What on earth is he doing?' Saitou's eyes widened when he saw Okita taking off his own clothes.

"Nice view." Okita licked his lips as he gazed at the perfect spot on Saitou's neck. He didn't know why, but what he desired now was not only Saitou's blood, but Saitou as well. And now that he was totally losing control of the demon inside him, it was no use talking about dignity at the moment.

With no kindness, Okita let his jaws sink into Saitou's neck at the same time as he got deep inside the long-haired man's body and started moving. His nails scratched Saitou's skin hastily, made it ooze blood.

Saitou felt the pains were tearing him into pieces. The pain on his neck was no comparison to what he was suffering down there at his lower part. Every hard thrust from Okita made him feel like the white-haired Rasetsu was stabbing deep through his flesh. It was painful indeed, but this pain was so much different from being slashed by swords. It drove him crazy and made him lose his mind. As the scarf was stuck in his mouth, he hardly breathed as his lungs were like being broken under pressure. He moaned as loud as he could through the cloth, hoping Okita would hear and take it out, but it was no use.

Okita satisfied his needs of blood and the desire to the fullest. It tasted so good, he thought, keeping on sucking more blood from Saitou. As the long-haired man didn't have any repulse, he decided to play with him a little bit more, regardless of how painful Saitou was suffering. All the poor man was able to do was moaning a weak sound in his throat while Okita was harassing his body sadistically.

Lying under Okita, Saitou wondered how they could turn out this way. Tons of flashbacks come rapidly in his mind, when they had met for the very first time and had their first match, the fights they'd involved in during their patrols,... everything seemed to be so unreal and so far away now. A little sparkle drop ran down through the corner of his eye, blended with the sweat on his temple and disappeared, as if it'd never existed.

When his thirst was finally fulfilled, Okita gradually turned back to his normal self and didn't believe in his eyes at what he had done.

Underneath him lying Saitou, badly injured. His sapphire-like eyes looked at him, half blaming, half begging. The man looked totally miserable with the scarf in his mouth and tied his wrists. His body was covered in scratches, bruises and blood – all because of Okita's doing.

"Hajime-kun! I'm sorry! Are you okay? It's all my fault, Hajime-kun! Hajime-kun!" He quickly removed the cloth from Saitou, embracing him, letting the indigo-haired man's head lean against his arm. Saitou was so exhausted that he couldn't bring himself to breathe a sound.

Okita didn't expect his blood-thirst to turn him into such madness. He knew he could kill anyone he wanted, but hurting his friend, his companion was unforgivable; especially it was one of the closest to him, the one who had been with him this whole time.

And now, holding Saitou extremely vulnerable after being fully attacked in his arms, Okita felt so guilty of what he had done to him. He wanted to do something to compensate. He surprised himself when he in fact wanted to protect Saitou more than anyone else, even Kondou-san. He did wish he had satisfied Saitou a little bit. But what he saw was not something that showed any satisfaction at all.

It was nothing but an obvious sign of getting hurt - blood.

Looking at the place where blood kept dripping down between Saitou's thighs, Okita blushed hard.

Saitou looked fully panicked, yet he tried to act calm to calm down the brown-haired man that he was fine. He shivered, huffed and rattled a chain, clasping Okita's hand tightly, gazing at the man who was being completely freaking out. He wanted to tell Okita something, but he was so weak that he couldn't even breathe, much less speak. His lips moved lightly, but no words were spoken. He tried to speak to Okita, but all he was able to do now was keeping gazing at the other man until his vision became blurry, by which he knew he was about to fall into darkness.

As Saitou was awake, he found himself lying in Okita's embrace, and when their eyes met, they both felt awkward.

Okita thought he would have gone insane when holding an unconscious Saitou in his arms. His heart had been about to shatter into thousands pieces at that moment. Never in his life had he ever thought that he would dare to hurt this man that much, even in his most sinful imagination. He had blamed himself countless times for all filthy things he had done to Saitou, begging Saitou to resuscitate. He didn't need any tolerance from Saitou, since he couldn't even forgive himself.

Yet now, he felt like an idiot not knowing what to do when looking at that pair of blue eyes. Okita realized that his nasty self didn't deserve to touch Saitou, or to speak to him.

They both stayed quiet until he finally spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Hajime-kun. I didn't mean to —", he spoke with a halt. But before he finished his apology, Saitou shut him up by holding him tightly, burying his face into the large chest of the brown-haired captain.

"Say nothing." The man said with a very little tone in his voice.

Okita's eyes widened for a moment, a very strange sensation poured strongly in him. The atmosphere became still suddenly. Feeling Saitou blushing hard against his chest, he couldn't help but smiling. They had been together through tons of stuff, both embarrassing and memorizing, and Saitou's reaction now seemed so acquainted, so true and so him. In this moment, no words were needed, because relieved silence and soft touches were enough to speak everything.

Gently combing the long purple hair with his fingers, Okita enjoyed the scent of Saitou's hair as well as his body, the fragrance which he hadn't had a chance to hear for ages, ever since he had been sent here with the worsening Tuberculosis.

And the cruel sickness didn't have any mercy to let him rest even just for a little while. Right now, right here, he started coughing. The sound sounded madder and madder, as if it had risen from his lungs, waiting to knock him down whenever its chance appeared. The harder he coughed, the tighter Saitou held him with all his strength, still refused to look at Okita's face. The coughing sound was breaking not only Okita's lungs but Saitou's heart as well. Medicines didn't work, the Water of Life didn't work, either. Saitou felt so helpless and hopeless. This embrace meant nothing, this warmth meant nothing. There had to be a possibility to impair the cough, right?

Saitou felt something sticky in his hand while holding Okita and took a closer look at it. He soon realized what it was by the particular smell.

It was the smell of Okita's blood.

Okita had yet to cough up blood, but his wound from the silver bullet was bleeding. The injury spread gradually, just like a blooming flower of death. That was enough for Saitou, he couldn't stand watching Okita struggling to breathe or to fight with the pain on his own anymore, he had to do something.

"Take my blood, Souji." He said, his eyes stared at Okita, firmly yet warmly.

Okita was surprised at what he'd just heard. For a second he stopped coughing and looked at Saitou with his widely-opened eyes.

"Are you serious? How could I keep doing this? C'mon Hajime-kun, this is not a good time for a joke!" He said with his tone raised angrily.

"I'm not saying this is a joke." The Third Squad captain replied, with a lower tone.

"And I'm not hurting you again!." Okita insisted, still coughing hard.

"Then I won't let you do it." Just after saying, Saitou bit his own lip in Okita's astonishment. "Take it, Souji. Don't worry, I won't get hurt.", he smiled with his bleeding lips.

"You...", Okita drew a long sigh, his hair turned into silvery white and his green eyes reddened, "Pardon me, Hajime-kun." The Rasetsu eyes of Okita quickly focused on the bleeding spot while he brought his face closer to Saitou's. When their lips finally touched, Okita hungrily sucked on Saitou's bottom lip as the blood was running into his mouth. It was supposed to be so good as it had been, but why did it taste so painful now?

The sound of coughing slowly faded away and the moment passed by so quietly, peacefully, and painfully. Saitou had been hugging Okita as their lips connected, and the embrace got tighter even when they had stopped.

Okita changed into his human form and gazed at Saitou carefully. Losing too much blood made Saitou looked so pale that it stitched Okita's heart.

Glancing at Okita, Saitou saw a broken smile on his face and his green eyes looked like two emeralds sparkling in the dark.

Still with his smile, Okita rubbed his forehead against Saitou's, threading his fingers through those of the indigo-haired man. "Thank you very much, Hajime-kun", he said with cracked voice. "Sorry, I'm such a coward."

Saitou looked straight in his eyes. "No, you're not." the man said as he gave him a warm smile. Their hands held still. The blue eyes and the green ones met for a very long moment before the two started a passionate kiss.

The kiss lasted so long and intense that they almost lost themselves in it. Saitou wrapped his arms around Okita's head, not letting any little closeness escape from them. When their tongues collided, he could tell he might still taste his own blood in Okita's mouth.

Okita halted the kiss and watched Saitou closely. The man underneath him was totally dizzy after their kiss. Not going to give his companion a single break, Okita started using his tongue to taste all over Saitou. Saitou tasted so sweet, much sweeter than the dango he'd brought. Even his neck, his collarbone, his arm,... every single part of him drew a perfect picture in Okita's eyes, made them unable to look at anywhere else but Saitou.

Saitou let out a faint moan when the brown-haired man kept teasing his body. His back arched as Okita's mouth focused on the stiffening pink points on his chest.

"Souji, sto—" he gasped, feeling like he was losing control of his voice.

"Neh, Hajime-kun? You didn't bring konpeito along, and now you're not even allowing me to have some?" Okita grinned mischievously under Saitou's skin, biting the little sensitive spots with his lips.

Stunned at what he'd heard, Saitou couldn't hide his embarrassment anymore. He hid his face in his hands, feeling sure it still blushed so hard that it was getting hot. Even when Okita tried to remove those hands, he was still too shy to look at him directly.

Only when Okita turned to his side and smiled at him, Saitou realized it was Okita's smile that did ease his feelings.

Okita stooped to look at Saitou. Under the dim moonlight, his body seemed to be glowing. It suited him so perfectly that even Okita had to blush himself this time. He didn't know how much sweeter he could be to Saitou, since the man was so sweet already. He couldn't think any further, either. He felt totally puzzled as he got closer to Saitou.

Saitou moaned a little when Okita reached his entrance. Okita was much more tender to him, made him feel no more pain or misery. Instead, he was overwhelmed with sweetness and warmness. The two moved together in every thrust, the more they interacted, the more they melted into each other. Saitou's blood was running through Okita's veins while Okita was now completely being inside him, which made both of them feel so strange, strange and pleasant.

With most of his caress, Okita treated Saitou as gently as he could, as if the man was as fragile as light snow. No, his Saitou wasn't that weak. The Hajime-kun he always knew was, in fact, so strong. His strength was just hidden under the fragility look of something, something which is just like, just like...

"Sakura petals" was all Saitou heard Okita mumbled next to his ear. He wasn't sure of what he'd just heard, since talking about sakura in this situation made no sense at all.

Both gasped rapidly at the same time when they reached their spots. Okita pressed his head against Saitou's, his lips moved forward to find Saitou's eyelashes then kissed them softly while Saitou was tightly wrapping the brown-haired man's waist with his legs. Their hands joined as their bodies clenched together, both were covered with sweat. The connecting damp skin brought back so many memories, reminding them of the Shieikan days, the matches, the night patrols,... And now, even the blending gasps were being so familiar, so clear and so dear to them, led them towards their climax that the two of them nearly exploded.

Exhausted as he was, Okita tried not to collapse on Saitou. They breathed heavily while their eyes weren't even leaving each other. Saitou curled his fingers into Okita's hair, bringing their faces closer. Then, with a smile on his face after silently calling Okita's name, the long-haired man let their lips join softly and deeply.

"Leaving too soon?" Okita yawned, watching Saitou put on his clothes from the back. From this view, Saitou's untied long indigo hair looked like a piece of silk that matched so well together with the dim blue light of the moon.

Adjusting his haori, Saitou hid a little smile when remembering how he had woken up surrounded by Okita's warmth. He remembered how calm and pure Okita had looked like while he had been sleeping. He remembered how he had observed Okita at that close and let his fingers softly rub Okita's sleeping face. He remembered how he had blushed when finding Okita holding his hand and bringing it to the brown-haired man's cheek, pulling him closer and tenderly kissing on his forehead. He remembered how badly he'd wanted this transient moment to pass a little bit slower.

But again, he was absent from the quarters without permission. To him, this was unacceptable.

"Tonight wasn't my shift." He said.

"I see." Okita smiled and came closer to Saitou. "Hajime-kun is always that dutiful." he leaned his chin against Saitou's shoulder while wrapping around the thin waist of Shinsengumi's Third Quarter captain.

"Sorry I couldn't stay any longer." Saitou turned around, letting Okita help him tie his long hair.

"It's alright," replied the brown-haired captain, "At least you are not letting go of me all of a sudden like you once did." Saitou knew what he was talking about.

Saitou supported Okita's back as he laid back in the sheet. He adjusted the blanket carefully so that Okita wouldn't get cold while sleeping. He blushed slightly when Okita held his hand and kissed his fingers kindly.

"Be back soon, Hajime-kun." the emerald-eyed man said in a hushed tone, gazing at the sapphire-eyed one.

Saitou stooped to kiss Okita on his lips. "I will." he quietly promised. They shared the very last smile before Saitou closed the slide paper door.

Okita waited till he made sure Saitou was leaving far enough, then released all the pain he'd restrained. He held his chest tightly, drowning in his coughs. As long as Saitou wasn't here, he didn't care if he could get any worse. He coughed harder as the sound began to tear up the silence.

On his way back to the head quarter, Saitou couldn't stop thinking about the captain who had used to walk together with him on their night shift. He knew he shouldn't have gone that soon. Leaving Okita at that statement was the worst thing he'd done to him, but he had no choice. He turned his head to his right side, where there supposed to be the First Division captain, and smiled as if Okita was still there. He muttered something which only he could hear. It had to be hard to say, since it made his face redden a little.

But the whisper seemed to reach Okita somehow. He felt like he'd heard the man telling him something so important that he wasn't allowed to forget, something that gracefully wiped his pain away, exactly like how Saitou had done to him.

Saitou's scent was still somewhere close to him, Okita thought and smiled. He murmured Saitou's name, not knowing the long-haired man outside was calling him silently at the same time.

Their whispers rose softly and lasted in a very ephemeral moment before fleeting into the air. Like the light snow that would dissolve right at the moment it reached a human's palm, what they were doing is no different from holding a desperate hope.

They both knew this would end up in pain and sorrow. The moments they shared together were just paving the way for the last woeful separation. But they regretted nothing, so long as they were walking on the same path. At some point Okita would stop his journey and let Saitou continue it by himself - that was the fate they couldn't resist.

If only his life had been a little bit longer for his devotion.

If only the light snow would have lasted for a while in the palm.

If only the color of sakura wouldn't have faded away that soon.

If only...

~ End ~

Notes:

*genkan: entrance in every traditional Japanese house, where people often sit or place their shoes.

*light snow (awayuki): a type of snow which is often described as extremely fragile and lasts in very short period of time.

*konpeito: Japanese traditional sweets.