Title: Hanamichi
Genre: Romance/Tragedy
Warnings: OC cast, slash (M/M), mentions of sex, violence, character death, prejudice and discrimination against the burakumin, also a reincarnation fic
Summary: Yasuharu is reincarnated as a ghoul. He didn't mean to fall in love with his best friend from one hundred years ago, Kagetsu, who is now a ghoul investigator.
Theirs is a relationship that spans over a century and they know it cannot last. But, until the curtains fall, they will gladly dance upon this stage called destiny.
Notes: So I wrote a sequel to an obscenely complicated multi-chapter story that I haven't even written yet *sob*.
All you need to know is that a whole bunch of these characters were around during the Bakumatsu/Edo era and were reincarnated in the modern day TG timeline. And ghouls were just considered a type of yokai back then and there are reasons why they didn't just kill off all the humans when they didn't have quinques, ok. If I wasn't so backwards this would have been revealed in the multi-chapter story first but this is what you get first so.
Also, the last chapter contains the footnotes for this story, as there are a lot of them. This entire thing is complete.
This is the first time Yasuharu has listened to a human's heartbeat without wanting to take a bite.
The warm, vaguely sweet scent of the man next to him floods his senses until he feels light-headed and a permanently silly smile is plastered across his face. Fingers tipped with thick callouses crawl down his back, but Yasuharu merely shivers in pleasure like a contented cat.
When he opens his eyes and sees that this happy dream is not a dream after all, he can only sigh in contentment. Years of raw desperation, terror, anger, and longing escape through every breath he takes.
It has been one hundred years since he last saw this man. It has been even longer since he last saw him this young, hair still dark and his face without wrinkles so deep as to make him look like the crags of a mountainside.
His skin is darker, his eyes are dimmer, but Yasuharu is sure that much has changed about himself as well, this nearly impenetrable body besides.
Yasuharu presses a hand against his own arm and grips it until the skin turns red, until he is certain a bruise will be left there in the morning. It takes an inordinate amount of force, enough to crush a block of concrete between his fingers, but before he can reach the pinnacle of pain he wants to inflict upon himself, a hand stops him.
"What are you trying to do, Yasuharu?" He likes how his name rolls off the other's tongue, shivers at the number of memories embedded in his head of this man saying it.
He hasn't stopped squeezing his own arm, but the naked human man beside him can do nothing to make him ease up, and Yasuharu finds this to be the only benefit to having the body of an oni[1].
The man instead grasps his head between calloused fingers and directs Yasuharu's half-lidded eyes hazy with the last vestiges of lust towards himself. He says nothing, but Yasuharu's lips move on their own.
"How can you stand to touch me, Kagetsu?" He whispers the words so softly it is almost as if he doesn't want anyone to hear him. He barely moves his lips yet disgust still crawls up his throat. Once, he would have hated to speak such pitiful words. Once. "My body, and even my very existence, is filled with nothing but defilement. Do you understand? No purification ritual[2] can save me."
Kagetsu is not silent, but he says nothing for a long time. Instead he hums an old, forgotten tune. A song from the old capital to the south, lost to the tides of history.
Kagetsu runs rough thumbs beneath Yasuharu's eyes and over his lips. Not in a perverted manner, just to feel his skin. A shine of something - curiosity perhaps - makes him trace every contour of his body.
As if he doesn't care about the kegare that will leech from Yasuharu's skin to his own. He watches Kagetsu's every move, notes every twitch in his expression, but finds nothing incriminating.
"You once told me that to live is to do so at the expense of others."
"Kagetsu."
"To me, you are still the same Shozo[3] who took the blame for breaking that expensive tea set when it was my fault that it broke in the first place. You're the same Shozo I chose to follow into this era, the man I would gladly give my own life for."
"But I'm not even human anymore," Yasuharu whispers weakly. His breath brushes against Kagetsu's neck and collarbone and he can hear the man's blood pump through his veins. Sinking further into the arms wrapped loosely around his torso, Yasuharu closes his eyes as if he can pretend it is still the time period they were originally born into.
"Before...before I saw you again..." Kagetsu says hesitantly, the first words of uncertainty Yasuharu has heard from him since they have been reunited in the modern era. "I, you know, really hated ghouls. I thought it would be better if they all died, even after I remembered you and Shintaro and everyone else."
Yasuharu cannot help but stiffen at the confession because Shintaro, no matter what he is now, was a ghoul back then. Everyone knew the truth to some degree because it was hard to hide a demon amongst men, just as Yasuharu finds it exceedingly hard to walk the streets of Tokyo now.
"But when I saw you again, I realized, 'Ah, this is the same Sho-chan I grew up with after all.' Well I say that, but you've changed a bit," Kagetsu says with a small laugh that barely counts as one.
At some point, Yasuharu has stopped squeezing his own arm. As they speak, Kagetsu gently removes his hand and presses it against his bare chest, right over his human heart.
Yasuharu flinches and reclaims his limb, frowning at the small smile on Kagetsu's lips. The thrum of blood beneath his fingers, even if only for a second, probably made his eyes flash red. He closes them tightly, thinking that even if Kagetsu kills him here and now, he won't have any regrets.
But Kagetsu merely continues talking, ignoring how close he has placed himself next to death.
"The Yasuharu I used to know had a lot of pride. More than he knew what to do with, in fact. But now, you're...now you're more fragile. It surprised me."
Fragile is the last word anyone would apply to ghouls. Yasuharu stares at his old friend dubiously. He cannot deny the first part - he was once proud of what he had accomplished, but that was before one hundred years had passed.
"What about me is fragile?" he wonders. He phrases it lightly, trying to sound as if he could live without hearing the answer, but of course he wants to know so badly he almost sits up so that Kagetsu can know he wants to talk properly.
But Yasuharu does not sit up. He will not be the first to ruin the illusion of peace they have in this dingy hotel room.
Kagetsu hums in consideration, running a finger along Yasuharu's jawline, smiling faintly when he leans into the touch. He selects his words as carefully as he did in their past life, but that familiar accent of his is gone. Just another thing that has been lost to time, Yasuharu supposes.
"You look like you're about to cry, all the time," Kagetsu remarks.
Yasuharu reaches out and shoves his friend's shoulder, careful not to use all of his strength, just enough to push the other man flat on his back.
For almost no reason at all, the two break into quiet laughter. This position they find themselves in is so unreal they cannot help but do so.
Then Yasuharu does something he would never have done one hundred years ago. He gets up and crawls over to Kagetsu until he is straddling the other man's waist.
His back is wide open, but it isn't the exposure that sends shivers down his spine. He has a kagune in this life, after all.
"Your face is red," Kagetsu remarks, which makes him wish he had something to hide his face in, but he doesn't and so he just perches on his old friend's stomach, fingertips brushing against his chest.
When Yasuharu leans down to to kiss him, he silently thinks to himself that he wants this dream to last forever.
The term "defilement" or "kegare" will reoccur throughout this fic, so I'll explain it here. Kegare literally means uncleanliness or defilement and is a Shinto term referring to taint acquired from anything having to do with death, disease, or even childbirth. It has a broader scope than the concept of sin, and it can "taint" you even if you didn't actually commit a crime. The burakumin are a group of outcasts in Japanese society, discriminated against because historically they dealt with jobs having to do with kegare such as butchers, morticians, etc.