Disclaimers: The characters belong to clamp, not me.
Warnings: mild shonen-ai, angst, spoilers for the whole mangas x and Tokyo Babylon and everything including Seishirou and Subaru.
Pairings: S/S, S/F-implications.
Hope you like it, flames will be used to roast author (poor me) so please have mercy, 'kay? ^^°°°°°°°
So, on to the main part.
1 Glass cellars, glass walls
Smoke rose from a single cigarette between two slender yet strong fingers, filling the room slowly with its soft, familiar scent. The owner of it was for once not caring, or, more likely, so deeply sunken in his own thoughts that he was oblivious to it.
It really wasn't an old habit of his, this 'left-your-mind-drift'. Sure, he did it sometimes, when he was bored or miserable and feeling like being melancholic. But really, in his youth he had always been too occupied to have time for it, not that it had made any sense to him anyway, to waste one's time like that. Only lately did it happen more and more often, that he, like now, sat on his black-leather, soft couch, left elbow on left knee, supporting the hand he rested his head on, in the other hand a half- forgotten cigarette he would occasionally put to his lips, and then only mechanically.
He could stay like that for hours, if not disturbed, not really listening to the radio he turned on for no apparent reason, but thinking, thinking about his life, his past life, so like an old man would do.
Oh, but was he, with his 35 years, he, the current Sakurazukamori, already old? He chuckled softly in his throat – it should have been a ridiculous thought, really, but then, why did he feel so tired? So cold and so empty inside? Even more than usual? Unconsciously, he again and for the countless time envisioned that one face, the face that was in his dreams, haunted his thoughts every time of the day, never lost its clarity and never became less lovely no matter how long it was since he last saw it, never.
Not that, but of course, always changing with the years: soft, almost girlish contours became older, colder and, if possible, even more skinny; raven, long hair that threw back the light seemingly even when there wasn't any, now much shorter and often ruffled by the wind, the owner of it never caring; and the eyes, oh the eyes! How could words like diamond, emerald, deep or beautiful ever even touch the beauty of them, ever give back even the tiniest fragment of the wonderful picture the two priceless jewels make, jewels that were so deep and clear of color and willingly taking in everything from outside, every pain and every loss so to fill it with endless, conditonless love, healing and protecting... How could words describe pure love, how could words describe pure light, and how could they describe those eyes?!
But now, even those eyes, no, the eye – never had he been more infuriated by a crime like this – to rip an eye such as this out of its socket and let it lay in the dust, dead and useless! Alone the thought of it made him want to howl in rage. – even that had lost its former glance and color and was now no more than a broken mirror, always reflecting, always twisting, but never showing anything that laid behind it and only seldom failed to prevent a bit of deepest sadness and despair to leak out from the cracks. 'Oh, but this is your own fault, Seishirou.' The man whispered to himself, the lack of every motivation, let alone emotion of amusement lingering in the air, heavily, just like the smoke...
About his own life his thoughts now turned, not the least surprised to find little before his 19th year. Really little and nothing special – only a remarkable amount of faked smiles, faked feelings, coldness, emptiness – oh, had that already then been in his heart? So much emptiness? – and something else: blood, mingled with Sakura petals, decorating the artful fresh crimson of camellia blossoms under a smiling face – the woman he called mother.
He never got to know if she really was his mother, but she cared about him like normal people care about things, so much he could tell, even though she was supposed to be like him – perfect, like a doll or a machine, and feelingless like one. He even guessed that that was the reason why she had to die so early, die by his hands. She had looked so happy it was almost strange: strange, because it must have been very painful; almost, because back then, he hadn't really cared; and even if he had wanted to, he wouldn't have known how.
When he thought about it, it was as if ever since his birth, he had been held in a prison of glass, always seeing the world outside and pushing against the walls – just too seldom had he really been noticed by someone outside, and never had he managed to push through.
Setzuka managed. She had pushed out of her own cellar to reach him because she loved him; but she had been cut by the glass shards, and killed. And in the end, she never really reached Seishirou what so ever.
For young Seishirou, life was but one big void that swallowed him whole, and life was always alone. He lived and did things he was taught without wanting it himself, without even thinking much about his actions. – The blood of his victims stained the glass, but never melted it. – Sometimes he thought about dying himself, too, since the boredom – that's what he called it – of the other option was just another thing killing him slowly. But then, even that had seemed too big an effort to him.
All that had been before the day an angel came into his so-called life.
So beautiful it was in its appearance and so innocent in its youth. Immediately, he was draught into the light of those luminous orbs, and drowned in it. He didn't realize how hard he had been pushing against the wall until the stinging pain of deep cuts flowed down the glass with the blood of his palms.
Ah, but he wanted the beauty, he wanted it!
And he wanted more than that, wanted to touch it, to embrace it, to feel it! To hold the heart so pure white like a dove, to bath in the love so limitless like the ocean, to be warmed with the innocence and the beauty that shone more brightly than the sun, the stars, and the moon!
So, he made the bet, made the last desperate attempt to lighten up his life. Indeed, the memory of Subaru Sumeragi was everything that seemed to bond him to it still.
And so, he waited, waited almost impatiently for the promised year to come – and come it did, it came like heaven. Never before had he ever been allowed the luxury to live and to laugh, to feel and, to love. By the end of the year he was deeply in love with the Sumeragi-boy without even knowing the meaning of the word
and mentally bleeding all over the breaking wall of his imaginary prison. However, he was fully aware that, though imaginary, the picture was absolutely true – the moment he fully gave in to that love, death would be beckoning him with a big grin in reachable distance.
The idea of death had never scared him before, but now, to think that he would never be able to see Subaru again, to never touch him, had Seishirou panicked in a matter of seconds: Time, he needed time. It was all he needed, but he needed it so badly!!
Yet mercilessly, the end came, and everything he could do was to try and fill the old stupid brain of Subaru's grandmothers' with worries and suspicions, frantically hoping that she would comprehend and come to his – or their both – rescue. But really, it had only been a try, a hope he bargained all his being on, another bet with highest risks and one he couldn't afford to lose. He knew that, would the plan fail, he would either let the matter drop and get killed by an unknown successor who was somewhere out there surely, or kill the boy and also, himself, virtually and literally.
Oh, but this was self punishment having near masochistic tendencies, he decided, because every tear that flew down the ivory cheeks, every bloody wound he inflicted on that fragile body with cold smirks succeeded in freezing Subaru's soft heart to ice just as well as his own that had additionally been tortured by fear of failure which kept nagging at his nerves and his sanity all the time rather stubbornly. Again and again, he told himself that there was no other way and that it was a decision made and not to be changed, but how glad he was when the old lady finally came to help him out of it! He was sure that, a few seconds more, and he would have broken down, started screaming at himself and the world, and never stopped, - until he was gotten rid of.
But gods! He didn't expect nor planned for Subaru to go catatonic! What irony it would have been if his own 'cleverness' and selfishness turned on himself and killed the boy! It certainly would have served him right, but Subaru, what did HE do to deserve such a fate?! For weeks he could do nothing but linger in his misery, feeling as if he already was in hell, and be horrified.
Then, everything had happened so fast! – Two weeks later already had he cold-blooded killed Hokuto, Subaru's darling twin sister in hope to literally shock him out of his mind.
Well, it was not all that cold-blooded, he reckoned afterwards – he hadn't wanted to kill her, but back then, he would have given anything and everything to make Subaru 'return'. Hokuto had said that it was him who had taken Subaru's heart away, but that was so not true! Subaru had been gone, and for a while it even seemed he had gone for good, for ever! Maybe her blood as the first, had somehow leaked through his glass, because for the first time since the disaster he had brought up himself, he stood stunned, the still warm, crimson liquid of his one and only friend in life staining his hands and for one moment they had seemed burningly red, seemed so intense a color he could never get rid of it. It was this way he silently watched as another person who had cared about him – what was there about him to make them do that?! – up to the end of her life die by his hands.
He suddenly felt the strange urge to cry, to cry like a normal man could and would do, but he couldn't even remember how.
Never before had he really missed human feelings, though as an exception in his clan, he had always been interested and curious about them. Feelings, so he had been told again and again, were the very root of weakness of humanity; that meant that he, born to be a perfect assassin, wouldn't ever have use of those, or be allowed to. That day he had thought a longest time about his ability of feeling sadness, and his ability to cry, in the end coming to the conclusion that they, useless as they seem, had been lost to him now for a long, long time, not planning to ever return.
But how his words were ridiculed only a mere month after! It was when the Sumeragi-boy had finally woken up, however woken up as someone or something he could barely recognize anymore.
Of course he knew Subaru would hate him, him who betrayed him and killed his dear sister so shortly after, and he had thought he didn't care, that he must endure that much – or little – for being able to watch and to love him a little while – because nothing else are years to him when he could see Subaru round – longer, that he mustn't demand love of the boy under circumstances such as these because it was absolutely laughable, but had to be content with remembrance, even if it was mixed with hatred and a lesson so painful he'll never forget.
'I'll kill him.' The new Subaru had said, eyes hollow and empty, empty so like the void that had waited in Seishirou's back all his life to suck him in, and heart shattered to pieces.
/But of course he wants that./Seishirou had thought, he had shrugged then and gone for some shopping.
'I'll kill him.'
In the huge supermarket he thought about his current 'mental' state, as he called his glass cellar, and decided he really didn't like the picture. It seemed as if he was trapped within the half broken glass wall, frozen in the last step out , but not because he had wanted to wait, but because he felt all of a sudden weak and hopeless, as if he had from one moment to another completely forgotten why the hell he was doing this: Why hurt himself? Why hurt others? In the end it wouldn't do any good anyway. /Oh yes/, the darkness behind him was beckoning, /how right you are! Come back, Seishirou, as long as you still can. Come back to me, here is where you truly belong to, my child, come back...!/ Too tempting was the thought how easily he could just let himself sink into the embrace of the tree and be void of everything – because to be void of feelings meant to be in peace, didn't it? - too much so that he could think about if any longer. He snarled angrily at himself, went to the cashier, paid, and headed home.
'I'll kill him.'
There, he did a little cleaning – yes, for who should do it for him if he didn't? -, humming to himself lest he would think of giving up again, no matter now senseless holding on was.
'I'll kill him.'
He ate a little of simply made food – how he missed Hokuto's cooking among all things! – but of that he wouldn't think, either: after all, to be miserable and guilty didn't help her or change the fact that he had killed her with his own hands, just like he had killed Setzuka at the age of 15. They wouldn't know or need it anymore anyway.
'I'll kill him.'
He went early to bed that evening, however, could only stare at the ceiling because sleep wouldn't come. And if he was honest, it hadn't done that very often in the last few weeks or so. So he kept studying the linens of his ceiling and envisioned once again and for the millionth time his precious little Sumeragi. Only this time the boy wasn't laughing and innocent, but trembling with hatred, beautiful face twisted to a grimace of sadness and despair. 'I hate you Seishirou Sakurazuka, I hate you! I'll kill you with my own hands one day, and I shall enjoy it to see you die, enjoy it as the last thing left to be enjoyed by me on this world after what you've done to me!!' How utterly ridiculous the image was, how strange the picture of a hating Subaru, Seishirou thought and involuntarily started to laugh, oh-oh, this was a real laughing-fit coming on, but he didn't stop it. He laughed and laughed and laughed until he couldn't laugh anymore because he was choking on his tears and sobs. But this was funny, too, that he should be crying, so he tried to laugh again.
It was more like the wail of an animal starving to death than anything he ever heard of the throat of a man, the sound that escaped him then. And the mental Subaru was still talking. 'Why didn't you just kill me?!' he cried, tears pouring down his sad face like the rain that had started outside without him noticing. 'Why torture me like this by acting as if you were in love with me and then break me? Why all this when my death is the only thing you've wanted? Or is it the misery? Is that what you have wanted?' 'Oh, but that is not true...', he whispered hoarsely 'but that is not true...' – his voice broke.
He didn't know when he fell asleep, and the sound of crying, accusations and rain followed him into the dreams like a curse he could never get rid of.
In the dream eventually, he made his decision – the wall was to be broken, even if it meant his own death. And when he really had completely ruined the boy, burned his soul to ashes inside, it would be him to gather the ashes and put them to a rest, and no one else. And if not... then he would like to see love and/or happiness for a last time on Subaru's face again, or even to hold him. [^^°] And, how curious, although he had never been able to understand Setzuka or 'her like' before, it had suddenly become the most important thing in the world to him that the face of his love would be the last thing he saw in his life, and surely even fate couldn't be that cruel to deny him hat one wish...
Silently, he watched his beloved grow up, slowly but steadily. But while years came and went, the hurt never went with them – Subaru Sumeragi, like he once had been, was no more and would never be again. This new, broken creature, this shell of his former soul was nothing to be compared with him anymore. And if anything had ever been taken from it with time, it had been its life and its essence, leaking out and flowing away like a thin stream, to somewhere far, far away and unknown. And just like the water in a river, Subaru Sumeragi was flowing away, slowly, and never returning. Nevertheless Seishirou loved him, loved him heartbreakingly intense, loved him with the fact it had been him who caused the angel's fall, him who forever broke its beautiful wings. He knew now that Subaru had loved him, just like he knew how much he hated him and despaired at the same time.
Subaru never knew when he was near, but he was always near him, watching, and planning for the day he'll pay for this.
The thing with the end of the world was another that had him laugh. Really, he hadn't cried since that day long ago, but sometimes when he tried to laugh, it sounded hollow and dead and even more miserable than crying to him, he who could smile to everyone and at every time with a faked love that could sweep anyone of his feet. - What did the end of the world interest him? Subaru and only Subaru was his world; should he perish, Seishirou would go down with him, and as long as he lived, the rest of the world could as well be totally nonexistent for all he cared. But why, damn it, was Subaru, as a dragon of heaven (of course he was a dragon of heaven) once again his, a dragon of earth's, dead-enemy?! Ah, it must have been fate who personally turned against them both the day they were born to be different as they should have been destined to.
Under such conditions it was that they finally faced each other again – it was not as if Seishirou had ever left him for long without feeling incredibly uneasy, but all of a sudden it was something completely different to have Subaru seeing him as well, to see the recognition, the feelings that where directed at him. At first, it really was coincidence, but then, as Seishirou's body disobeyed his commands to leave and hide, it became clear to him that sooner or later he would have done something that sort on propose. Even now he couldn't exactly analyze why he had stood there like rooted, as if waiting for a miracle, waiting for an angel to decent to earth for him.
So near, it seemed he had never been so near to the boy – no, by then long a man – before. He watched him lit the cigarette for him – isn't that a proof that somewhere inside him, somewhere, he still possessed his old compassionate, loving nature??! – and before he knew he was moving, he was holding the soft, slender hands of his beloved in his own, bringing it almost fearfully to his yearning lips for the ghost of a kiss. 'Subaru-kun, you... smoke? It is bad for your health, you know...' It was real concern when the words had left his mouth, real fear for his Subaru's health; and though he could only took it as mocking, it had been enough for him, Seishirou, to just be able to once call him 'his' Subaru-kun again.
It hurt for him to know that Subaru didn't saw him, even when he looked in his direction, but that the only thing reflected in his eyes was his long-gone past, gone and lost in a sea of blood and sakura petals, the flower he had so loved but couldn't love anymore. And if anything happy of his past was still treasured in his memory, it had been showed even more clearly from inside his eyes, in thousands of pieces, and as darkness. Darkness, darkness all around was everything Seishirou saw, darkness that will suffocate them both, will make them both pay for their secret and forbidden sin, for their love.
Three month later, Subaru had let Fuuma plunge out his wonderful eye – one of the first things he would had to pay in that year, and they both knew there was more, much more to come, probably everything including their sanity, and their lives.
He hadn't been very far away then, watching in stead of helping and silently cursing him self again and again until the words seemed to be ringing in his ears though he had never said them aloud.
What was the feeling that had squeezed his heart, closed his throat and taken breath away when he had watched Kamui hold unconscious Subaru, crying and apologizing words rolling forth from his mouth like a chant? Certainly not jealousy, for he wished the boy no harm – for the boy did not matter for him, because for him, Subaru was the only thing, the only one that mattered. It was when his thoughts reached there when he knew it, knew that it was longing he felt, a longing so strong he had never felt before in his life: How badly he had wished that he had been the one holding Subaru right then, that he could be the one to cry for him, telling him just what his feelings were!! But all he could say to himself was /Soon, Subaru-kun, soon.../, the mask of a false smile frozen on his face.
He heard glass crack.
That night, he had found it especially hard to sleep – he simply couldn't stop thinking about it, the beauty of that shimmering diamond, for the lack of a better word, wasted and destroyed, couldn't stop thinking about how he could have prevented that dreadful thing from happening, could have prevented Subaru from suffering. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Subaru's limp body in front of him, blood smeared and still running all over his pale alabaster face and he thought he could hear someone crying somewhere inside his own dark dreams. 'Oh, Seishirou san! I am so sorry you lost your eye! It was alone my fault...' Subaru would then say, young face a-washed in tears, 'I am so sorry!' Then the picture would change, the face becoming older now, and on the right side, where Subaru's eye had been, there would be nothing but a mass of blood and a gap of wounded flesh. 'Ah, but I am so sorry...!' He cried. Then he woke up, finding cold sweat running down his face – but only because he would never admit that he had been the one crying in his dream, and that these were his tears...
His train of thoughts were rudely interrupted by a piercing noise that he identified shortly after as his telephone ring. It was Fuuma, he had heard of Seishirou having a job today at rainbow bridge and asked him whether he would be so nice to take it down right after it, since it was also a kekkai. Still struggling to get out of the past into now, he could only nod stupefied until it hit him that the boy couldn't possibly see him and he uttered a 'yes' before hanging on without even having said goodbye, surprisingly not feeling like being charming once or just too gone in his thoughts to notice his actions.
The killing had been surprisingly easy – it had been someone who accidentally crossed the way of someone important he shouldn't see while doing something he wasn't supposed to know and hence a normal man. For one moment Seishirou wondered how it would be to be like him, to be normal. To have feelings, one's own little faults and weaknesses or even, a family with people he loved. Immediately he cut out that pernicious thought: /Would you be like him, you would be the one lying dead on your own apartment futon now, stupid!/
But it was not only this, some other about the victim that had normally not even be noticed kept bothering him: it was the look in the his eyes. So uncomprehending, so innocent, and so scared, as turned in his last moments against the sky as if asking the God he believed in what he had done to deserve this fate – a look not at all new to him, and before he knew, the image of Subaru flashed brightly it nearly hurt in front of his inner eyes – the look in those eyes, it is so similar to that one! It took him all self- control to not back away from the corpse once the thoughts past him, but even if he had done so, the victim would have stayed dead anyhow. But why was it then that he felt so... guilty? Again, the image of Subaru flashed before him and for one moment it seemed as if it was him lying there on the floor, dead and lifeless, cold and white, his dead eyes even so still staring at him accusingly...
With a strangled gasp Seishirou turned on his heals and ran out of the house like hunted by demons. Having finally calmed down a little while walking on the bridge, he kept strolling slowly along its fence, hesitating and not wanting to destroy it just yet. Turning from the forth-flowing water, he suddenly stopped dead in mid-step at the sight of a single white-clad young man standing in front of him, momentarily frozen from head to toe.
/Oh Subaru-kun.../he called out almost timidly in his mind as he silently observed the slim body of the young man, frowning involuntarily at the sight of the cigarette in his hand. The wind was blowing so strong now it seemed it would succeed any moment in its attempt of tearing the incredibly light figure from the bridge and with it – without him ever complaining. /Oh Subaru-kun, you never really can take care of yourself, can you?/ With a sigh, Seishirou gave in his inner force and neared his beloved enemy from behind, startling him by taking his cigarette between his own fingers and half embracing him with one swift movement, wanting nothing more than just to hold him, to be near him, even if it was only for a second. That moment, thousands of emotions they both knew and shared had seemed to be too much for the single eye Subaru left to be held as he whirled around like the wind itself, surprised, but knowing the person behind him even before he saw. In that one moment, it seemed a part of the old Subaru was coming back, so impossible it was, filling this broken body once again with uncountable bitter-sweet feelings: love, yielding, soft compassion and also, endless, aching longing, for one moment, something inside him snapped and they could both hear his bruised and torn heart cry out in unbearable agony: 'Please come back! Come back to me and tell me it was only a dream, and I'll love you, and I'll believe you, again, and forgive you everything. Forgive and forget, and give myself willingly in your hands, just please, say it, say it!!' But, just like they both knew the message, they both knew that it was impossible. All Seishirou could do was to try his best to hold his steady mask of casualness and frozen shell of a smile upright like a shield to shield his tears as he saw how Subaru hurt, how he hurt and again retreated into his shell.
It was then when he had said to himself that enough was enough. That the look in his eye, probably the last glimpse from behind Subaru's black nothingness he'll ever get, had finally been enough to make him regret nothing anymore in life. What did he want more that could be accomplished? He had his wish fulfilled – to once again see him, his Subaru-kun again – and now he'll take that last priceless memory with him into his grave. He simply decided for that useless and small existence of his to end here, no longer able to see any meaning in its lasting. And maybe, just maybe, it was also finally about time to let him rest, rest like he had never done before, maybe even rest in Subaru's arms while giving the last thing he held to his beloved one: his life, if that was what he wanted. Vaguely, he remembered having at sometime heard Fuuma say something about Subaru's wish not being his death, however, he really didn't want to dwell on that now, because to think meant to hurt and he, so he decided, had already hurt enough for one lifetime, it was also that he needed to know, to believe that his 'leaving' would help his Subaru in one or another way, and not hurt him. Because he, had already hurt more than enough for one lifetime.
At first Seishirou was relieved that, it seemed, he had for once been right and Fuuma been wrong, because he couldn't ever remember to have seen Subaru fight like this, like he wouldn't allow both or any of them to ever get out of this battle alive, let alone unharmed. Seishirou knew better: he knew that they wouldn't.
'Is your wish... to kill me?' Pulling away the bandage over Subaru's right eye only to see what he already knew he would – a milky glass one, he quietly voiced the last question torturing his heart. But the answer was not really something he had expected. 'No...' What ever the case, now was definitely too late to retreat, now that he had already come to the end. Closing his eyes with his thoughts, he plunged forth with all force he could bring up, aiming directly at Subaru's heart. /Hokuto... you 'promised'...!/ Almost in the same second, he felt his heart froze with pain, he heard the sound of ribs – his ribs – cracking, the sickening sound of hand tearing into flesh – a sound he had long become accustomed to – and saw crimson splattered everywhere
Crimson, crimson, for a moment it seemed there was nothing but crimson before his eyes and his knees gave away as the ground beneath him sacked in. It was just then that he head anther sound – the sound of glass, of cracking glass...
/Free...!/
All of a sudden he could see again, and it seemed like as soon as he did he flung himself at Subaru. /Subaru-kun.../ and with the other one's tears pouring down his ivory cheeks – so like that time when he woke up to find he had lost the last person he had loved – some thing else Seishirou had - oh how could he?! – not yet thought about surprisingly quickly started to build it self around Subaru, protecting, but also shielding, isolating, something like..
glass.
/Oh no, no, no, no!!! Subaru!!/ With his last desperate strength he forced himself, dream and reality starting to blur to chaos inside his mind, through them and for the first time in his life, actually touched him. 'Subaru-kun... I... you...' his body's state wouldn't allow him further words, yet he was sure that everything words could never express were written on his face and in his eye: /I loved you, I love you... I know I could never repair what I've done to you... And still.../ For the first and last time in his life, he let his own unconditional love flow and flow freely out of him to Subaru, trying to heal, trying to show...
To show how great actually his love was, to show it had never been unimportant to him, that it in fact had been everything, everything that mattered to him...
And the walls closed, separating them a last time and, forever, from each other.
He suddenly felt so cold...
Slowly, Sakura branches he had served his whole life long stretched out from nowhere, wrapped themselves around his limps indifferently, hungrily, pulling him back into the ever waiting and swallowing darkness he was born and bond to...
/But his eye! Oh, Fuuma, Subaru's eye! I... don't need mine anymore.../ And blessed obliviousness came down around his tired mind, while a new, nameless soul was fed to the eternal prison of the Sakura tree.
With a start Fuuma jerked out of his own thoughts and almost without himself noticing quickly switched on the television – just in time to witness the collapse of Rainbow Bridge. And even if it was completely impossible, it was as if he could make out two tiny figures, black and white, intertwined with each other in a death embrace, glide into the dark, indifferent water with it. One lost, and one broken...
'Seishirou... fool!' he whispered to himself, a dark shadow passing over his young face before he closed his eyes and turned to leave without looking back, ever.
~owari~
Author's notes: Huh! Such a short fic doesn't usually take two weeks, does it? -_-;
So? Feedback, pleeeeeaaaaaase? I'm desperate to get C&C so I can improve, and better writers are also better for readers, ne?
Aa, and of course, arigatou for reading and don't send too much flames, onegai? ^^
Mail to: hioebis@aol.com
Warnings: mild shonen-ai, angst, spoilers for the whole mangas x and Tokyo Babylon and everything including Seishirou and Subaru.
Pairings: S/S, S/F-implications.
Hope you like it, flames will be used to roast author (poor me) so please have mercy, 'kay? ^^°°°°°°°
So, on to the main part.
1 Glass cellars, glass walls
Smoke rose from a single cigarette between two slender yet strong fingers, filling the room slowly with its soft, familiar scent. The owner of it was for once not caring, or, more likely, so deeply sunken in his own thoughts that he was oblivious to it.
It really wasn't an old habit of his, this 'left-your-mind-drift'. Sure, he did it sometimes, when he was bored or miserable and feeling like being melancholic. But really, in his youth he had always been too occupied to have time for it, not that it had made any sense to him anyway, to waste one's time like that. Only lately did it happen more and more often, that he, like now, sat on his black-leather, soft couch, left elbow on left knee, supporting the hand he rested his head on, in the other hand a half- forgotten cigarette he would occasionally put to his lips, and then only mechanically.
He could stay like that for hours, if not disturbed, not really listening to the radio he turned on for no apparent reason, but thinking, thinking about his life, his past life, so like an old man would do.
Oh, but was he, with his 35 years, he, the current Sakurazukamori, already old? He chuckled softly in his throat – it should have been a ridiculous thought, really, but then, why did he feel so tired? So cold and so empty inside? Even more than usual? Unconsciously, he again and for the countless time envisioned that one face, the face that was in his dreams, haunted his thoughts every time of the day, never lost its clarity and never became less lovely no matter how long it was since he last saw it, never.
Not that, but of course, always changing with the years: soft, almost girlish contours became older, colder and, if possible, even more skinny; raven, long hair that threw back the light seemingly even when there wasn't any, now much shorter and often ruffled by the wind, the owner of it never caring; and the eyes, oh the eyes! How could words like diamond, emerald, deep or beautiful ever even touch the beauty of them, ever give back even the tiniest fragment of the wonderful picture the two priceless jewels make, jewels that were so deep and clear of color and willingly taking in everything from outside, every pain and every loss so to fill it with endless, conditonless love, healing and protecting... How could words describe pure love, how could words describe pure light, and how could they describe those eyes?!
But now, even those eyes, no, the eye – never had he been more infuriated by a crime like this – to rip an eye such as this out of its socket and let it lay in the dust, dead and useless! Alone the thought of it made him want to howl in rage. – even that had lost its former glance and color and was now no more than a broken mirror, always reflecting, always twisting, but never showing anything that laid behind it and only seldom failed to prevent a bit of deepest sadness and despair to leak out from the cracks. 'Oh, but this is your own fault, Seishirou.' The man whispered to himself, the lack of every motivation, let alone emotion of amusement lingering in the air, heavily, just like the smoke...
About his own life his thoughts now turned, not the least surprised to find little before his 19th year. Really little and nothing special – only a remarkable amount of faked smiles, faked feelings, coldness, emptiness – oh, had that already then been in his heart? So much emptiness? – and something else: blood, mingled with Sakura petals, decorating the artful fresh crimson of camellia blossoms under a smiling face – the woman he called mother.
He never got to know if she really was his mother, but she cared about him like normal people care about things, so much he could tell, even though she was supposed to be like him – perfect, like a doll or a machine, and feelingless like one. He even guessed that that was the reason why she had to die so early, die by his hands. She had looked so happy it was almost strange: strange, because it must have been very painful; almost, because back then, he hadn't really cared; and even if he had wanted to, he wouldn't have known how.
When he thought about it, it was as if ever since his birth, he had been held in a prison of glass, always seeing the world outside and pushing against the walls – just too seldom had he really been noticed by someone outside, and never had he managed to push through.
Setzuka managed. She had pushed out of her own cellar to reach him because she loved him; but she had been cut by the glass shards, and killed. And in the end, she never really reached Seishirou what so ever.
For young Seishirou, life was but one big void that swallowed him whole, and life was always alone. He lived and did things he was taught without wanting it himself, without even thinking much about his actions. – The blood of his victims stained the glass, but never melted it. – Sometimes he thought about dying himself, too, since the boredom – that's what he called it – of the other option was just another thing killing him slowly. But then, even that had seemed too big an effort to him.
All that had been before the day an angel came into his so-called life.
So beautiful it was in its appearance and so innocent in its youth. Immediately, he was draught into the light of those luminous orbs, and drowned in it. He didn't realize how hard he had been pushing against the wall until the stinging pain of deep cuts flowed down the glass with the blood of his palms.
Ah, but he wanted the beauty, he wanted it!
And he wanted more than that, wanted to touch it, to embrace it, to feel it! To hold the heart so pure white like a dove, to bath in the love so limitless like the ocean, to be warmed with the innocence and the beauty that shone more brightly than the sun, the stars, and the moon!
So, he made the bet, made the last desperate attempt to lighten up his life. Indeed, the memory of Subaru Sumeragi was everything that seemed to bond him to it still.
And so, he waited, waited almost impatiently for the promised year to come – and come it did, it came like heaven. Never before had he ever been allowed the luxury to live and to laugh, to feel and, to love. By the end of the year he was deeply in love with the Sumeragi-boy without even knowing the meaning of the word
and mentally bleeding all over the breaking wall of his imaginary prison. However, he was fully aware that, though imaginary, the picture was absolutely true – the moment he fully gave in to that love, death would be beckoning him with a big grin in reachable distance.
The idea of death had never scared him before, but now, to think that he would never be able to see Subaru again, to never touch him, had Seishirou panicked in a matter of seconds: Time, he needed time. It was all he needed, but he needed it so badly!!
Yet mercilessly, the end came, and everything he could do was to try and fill the old stupid brain of Subaru's grandmothers' with worries and suspicions, frantically hoping that she would comprehend and come to his – or their both – rescue. But really, it had only been a try, a hope he bargained all his being on, another bet with highest risks and one he couldn't afford to lose. He knew that, would the plan fail, he would either let the matter drop and get killed by an unknown successor who was somewhere out there surely, or kill the boy and also, himself, virtually and literally.
Oh, but this was self punishment having near masochistic tendencies, he decided, because every tear that flew down the ivory cheeks, every bloody wound he inflicted on that fragile body with cold smirks succeeded in freezing Subaru's soft heart to ice just as well as his own that had additionally been tortured by fear of failure which kept nagging at his nerves and his sanity all the time rather stubbornly. Again and again, he told himself that there was no other way and that it was a decision made and not to be changed, but how glad he was when the old lady finally came to help him out of it! He was sure that, a few seconds more, and he would have broken down, started screaming at himself and the world, and never stopped, - until he was gotten rid of.
But gods! He didn't expect nor planned for Subaru to go catatonic! What irony it would have been if his own 'cleverness' and selfishness turned on himself and killed the boy! It certainly would have served him right, but Subaru, what did HE do to deserve such a fate?! For weeks he could do nothing but linger in his misery, feeling as if he already was in hell, and be horrified.
Then, everything had happened so fast! – Two weeks later already had he cold-blooded killed Hokuto, Subaru's darling twin sister in hope to literally shock him out of his mind.
Well, it was not all that cold-blooded, he reckoned afterwards – he hadn't wanted to kill her, but back then, he would have given anything and everything to make Subaru 'return'. Hokuto had said that it was him who had taken Subaru's heart away, but that was so not true! Subaru had been gone, and for a while it even seemed he had gone for good, for ever! Maybe her blood as the first, had somehow leaked through his glass, because for the first time since the disaster he had brought up himself, he stood stunned, the still warm, crimson liquid of his one and only friend in life staining his hands and for one moment they had seemed burningly red, seemed so intense a color he could never get rid of it. It was this way he silently watched as another person who had cared about him – what was there about him to make them do that?! – up to the end of her life die by his hands.
He suddenly felt the strange urge to cry, to cry like a normal man could and would do, but he couldn't even remember how.
Never before had he really missed human feelings, though as an exception in his clan, he had always been interested and curious about them. Feelings, so he had been told again and again, were the very root of weakness of humanity; that meant that he, born to be a perfect assassin, wouldn't ever have use of those, or be allowed to. That day he had thought a longest time about his ability of feeling sadness, and his ability to cry, in the end coming to the conclusion that they, useless as they seem, had been lost to him now for a long, long time, not planning to ever return.
But how his words were ridiculed only a mere month after! It was when the Sumeragi-boy had finally woken up, however woken up as someone or something he could barely recognize anymore.
Of course he knew Subaru would hate him, him who betrayed him and killed his dear sister so shortly after, and he had thought he didn't care, that he must endure that much – or little – for being able to watch and to love him a little while – because nothing else are years to him when he could see Subaru round – longer, that he mustn't demand love of the boy under circumstances such as these because it was absolutely laughable, but had to be content with remembrance, even if it was mixed with hatred and a lesson so painful he'll never forget.
'I'll kill him.' The new Subaru had said, eyes hollow and empty, empty so like the void that had waited in Seishirou's back all his life to suck him in, and heart shattered to pieces.
/But of course he wants that./Seishirou had thought, he had shrugged then and gone for some shopping.
'I'll kill him.'
In the huge supermarket he thought about his current 'mental' state, as he called his glass cellar, and decided he really didn't like the picture. It seemed as if he was trapped within the half broken glass wall, frozen in the last step out , but not because he had wanted to wait, but because he felt all of a sudden weak and hopeless, as if he had from one moment to another completely forgotten why the hell he was doing this: Why hurt himself? Why hurt others? In the end it wouldn't do any good anyway. /Oh yes/, the darkness behind him was beckoning, /how right you are! Come back, Seishirou, as long as you still can. Come back to me, here is where you truly belong to, my child, come back...!/ Too tempting was the thought how easily he could just let himself sink into the embrace of the tree and be void of everything – because to be void of feelings meant to be in peace, didn't it? - too much so that he could think about if any longer. He snarled angrily at himself, went to the cashier, paid, and headed home.
'I'll kill him.'
There, he did a little cleaning – yes, for who should do it for him if he didn't? -, humming to himself lest he would think of giving up again, no matter now senseless holding on was.
'I'll kill him.'
He ate a little of simply made food – how he missed Hokuto's cooking among all things! – but of that he wouldn't think, either: after all, to be miserable and guilty didn't help her or change the fact that he had killed her with his own hands, just like he had killed Setzuka at the age of 15. They wouldn't know or need it anymore anyway.
'I'll kill him.'
He went early to bed that evening, however, could only stare at the ceiling because sleep wouldn't come. And if he was honest, it hadn't done that very often in the last few weeks or so. So he kept studying the linens of his ceiling and envisioned once again and for the millionth time his precious little Sumeragi. Only this time the boy wasn't laughing and innocent, but trembling with hatred, beautiful face twisted to a grimace of sadness and despair. 'I hate you Seishirou Sakurazuka, I hate you! I'll kill you with my own hands one day, and I shall enjoy it to see you die, enjoy it as the last thing left to be enjoyed by me on this world after what you've done to me!!' How utterly ridiculous the image was, how strange the picture of a hating Subaru, Seishirou thought and involuntarily started to laugh, oh-oh, this was a real laughing-fit coming on, but he didn't stop it. He laughed and laughed and laughed until he couldn't laugh anymore because he was choking on his tears and sobs. But this was funny, too, that he should be crying, so he tried to laugh again.
It was more like the wail of an animal starving to death than anything he ever heard of the throat of a man, the sound that escaped him then. And the mental Subaru was still talking. 'Why didn't you just kill me?!' he cried, tears pouring down his sad face like the rain that had started outside without him noticing. 'Why torture me like this by acting as if you were in love with me and then break me? Why all this when my death is the only thing you've wanted? Or is it the misery? Is that what you have wanted?' 'Oh, but that is not true...', he whispered hoarsely 'but that is not true...' – his voice broke.
He didn't know when he fell asleep, and the sound of crying, accusations and rain followed him into the dreams like a curse he could never get rid of.
In the dream eventually, he made his decision – the wall was to be broken, even if it meant his own death. And when he really had completely ruined the boy, burned his soul to ashes inside, it would be him to gather the ashes and put them to a rest, and no one else. And if not... then he would like to see love and/or happiness for a last time on Subaru's face again, or even to hold him. [^^°] And, how curious, although he had never been able to understand Setzuka or 'her like' before, it had suddenly become the most important thing in the world to him that the face of his love would be the last thing he saw in his life, and surely even fate couldn't be that cruel to deny him hat one wish...
Silently, he watched his beloved grow up, slowly but steadily. But while years came and went, the hurt never went with them – Subaru Sumeragi, like he once had been, was no more and would never be again. This new, broken creature, this shell of his former soul was nothing to be compared with him anymore. And if anything had ever been taken from it with time, it had been its life and its essence, leaking out and flowing away like a thin stream, to somewhere far, far away and unknown. And just like the water in a river, Subaru Sumeragi was flowing away, slowly, and never returning. Nevertheless Seishirou loved him, loved him heartbreakingly intense, loved him with the fact it had been him who caused the angel's fall, him who forever broke its beautiful wings. He knew now that Subaru had loved him, just like he knew how much he hated him and despaired at the same time.
Subaru never knew when he was near, but he was always near him, watching, and planning for the day he'll pay for this.
The thing with the end of the world was another that had him laugh. Really, he hadn't cried since that day long ago, but sometimes when he tried to laugh, it sounded hollow and dead and even more miserable than crying to him, he who could smile to everyone and at every time with a faked love that could sweep anyone of his feet. - What did the end of the world interest him? Subaru and only Subaru was his world; should he perish, Seishirou would go down with him, and as long as he lived, the rest of the world could as well be totally nonexistent for all he cared. But why, damn it, was Subaru, as a dragon of heaven (of course he was a dragon of heaven) once again his, a dragon of earth's, dead-enemy?! Ah, it must have been fate who personally turned against them both the day they were born to be different as they should have been destined to.
Under such conditions it was that they finally faced each other again – it was not as if Seishirou had ever left him for long without feeling incredibly uneasy, but all of a sudden it was something completely different to have Subaru seeing him as well, to see the recognition, the feelings that where directed at him. At first, it really was coincidence, but then, as Seishirou's body disobeyed his commands to leave and hide, it became clear to him that sooner or later he would have done something that sort on propose. Even now he couldn't exactly analyze why he had stood there like rooted, as if waiting for a miracle, waiting for an angel to decent to earth for him.
So near, it seemed he had never been so near to the boy – no, by then long a man – before. He watched him lit the cigarette for him – isn't that a proof that somewhere inside him, somewhere, he still possessed his old compassionate, loving nature??! – and before he knew he was moving, he was holding the soft, slender hands of his beloved in his own, bringing it almost fearfully to his yearning lips for the ghost of a kiss. 'Subaru-kun, you... smoke? It is bad for your health, you know...' It was real concern when the words had left his mouth, real fear for his Subaru's health; and though he could only took it as mocking, it had been enough for him, Seishirou, to just be able to once call him 'his' Subaru-kun again.
It hurt for him to know that Subaru didn't saw him, even when he looked in his direction, but that the only thing reflected in his eyes was his long-gone past, gone and lost in a sea of blood and sakura petals, the flower he had so loved but couldn't love anymore. And if anything happy of his past was still treasured in his memory, it had been showed even more clearly from inside his eyes, in thousands of pieces, and as darkness. Darkness, darkness all around was everything Seishirou saw, darkness that will suffocate them both, will make them both pay for their secret and forbidden sin, for their love.
Three month later, Subaru had let Fuuma plunge out his wonderful eye – one of the first things he would had to pay in that year, and they both knew there was more, much more to come, probably everything including their sanity, and their lives.
He hadn't been very far away then, watching in stead of helping and silently cursing him self again and again until the words seemed to be ringing in his ears though he had never said them aloud.
What was the feeling that had squeezed his heart, closed his throat and taken breath away when he had watched Kamui hold unconscious Subaru, crying and apologizing words rolling forth from his mouth like a chant? Certainly not jealousy, for he wished the boy no harm – for the boy did not matter for him, because for him, Subaru was the only thing, the only one that mattered. It was when his thoughts reached there when he knew it, knew that it was longing he felt, a longing so strong he had never felt before in his life: How badly he had wished that he had been the one holding Subaru right then, that he could be the one to cry for him, telling him just what his feelings were!! But all he could say to himself was /Soon, Subaru-kun, soon.../, the mask of a false smile frozen on his face.
He heard glass crack.
That night, he had found it especially hard to sleep – he simply couldn't stop thinking about it, the beauty of that shimmering diamond, for the lack of a better word, wasted and destroyed, couldn't stop thinking about how he could have prevented that dreadful thing from happening, could have prevented Subaru from suffering. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Subaru's limp body in front of him, blood smeared and still running all over his pale alabaster face and he thought he could hear someone crying somewhere inside his own dark dreams. 'Oh, Seishirou san! I am so sorry you lost your eye! It was alone my fault...' Subaru would then say, young face a-washed in tears, 'I am so sorry!' Then the picture would change, the face becoming older now, and on the right side, where Subaru's eye had been, there would be nothing but a mass of blood and a gap of wounded flesh. 'Ah, but I am so sorry...!' He cried. Then he woke up, finding cold sweat running down his face – but only because he would never admit that he had been the one crying in his dream, and that these were his tears...
His train of thoughts were rudely interrupted by a piercing noise that he identified shortly after as his telephone ring. It was Fuuma, he had heard of Seishirou having a job today at rainbow bridge and asked him whether he would be so nice to take it down right after it, since it was also a kekkai. Still struggling to get out of the past into now, he could only nod stupefied until it hit him that the boy couldn't possibly see him and he uttered a 'yes' before hanging on without even having said goodbye, surprisingly not feeling like being charming once or just too gone in his thoughts to notice his actions.
The killing had been surprisingly easy – it had been someone who accidentally crossed the way of someone important he shouldn't see while doing something he wasn't supposed to know and hence a normal man. For one moment Seishirou wondered how it would be to be like him, to be normal. To have feelings, one's own little faults and weaknesses or even, a family with people he loved. Immediately he cut out that pernicious thought: /Would you be like him, you would be the one lying dead on your own apartment futon now, stupid!/
But it was not only this, some other about the victim that had normally not even be noticed kept bothering him: it was the look in the his eyes. So uncomprehending, so innocent, and so scared, as turned in his last moments against the sky as if asking the God he believed in what he had done to deserve this fate – a look not at all new to him, and before he knew, the image of Subaru flashed brightly it nearly hurt in front of his inner eyes – the look in those eyes, it is so similar to that one! It took him all self- control to not back away from the corpse once the thoughts past him, but even if he had done so, the victim would have stayed dead anyhow. But why was it then that he felt so... guilty? Again, the image of Subaru flashed before him and for one moment it seemed as if it was him lying there on the floor, dead and lifeless, cold and white, his dead eyes even so still staring at him accusingly...
With a strangled gasp Seishirou turned on his heals and ran out of the house like hunted by demons. Having finally calmed down a little while walking on the bridge, he kept strolling slowly along its fence, hesitating and not wanting to destroy it just yet. Turning from the forth-flowing water, he suddenly stopped dead in mid-step at the sight of a single white-clad young man standing in front of him, momentarily frozen from head to toe.
/Oh Subaru-kun.../he called out almost timidly in his mind as he silently observed the slim body of the young man, frowning involuntarily at the sight of the cigarette in his hand. The wind was blowing so strong now it seemed it would succeed any moment in its attempt of tearing the incredibly light figure from the bridge and with it – without him ever complaining. /Oh Subaru-kun, you never really can take care of yourself, can you?/ With a sigh, Seishirou gave in his inner force and neared his beloved enemy from behind, startling him by taking his cigarette between his own fingers and half embracing him with one swift movement, wanting nothing more than just to hold him, to be near him, even if it was only for a second. That moment, thousands of emotions they both knew and shared had seemed to be too much for the single eye Subaru left to be held as he whirled around like the wind itself, surprised, but knowing the person behind him even before he saw. In that one moment, it seemed a part of the old Subaru was coming back, so impossible it was, filling this broken body once again with uncountable bitter-sweet feelings: love, yielding, soft compassion and also, endless, aching longing, for one moment, something inside him snapped and they could both hear his bruised and torn heart cry out in unbearable agony: 'Please come back! Come back to me and tell me it was only a dream, and I'll love you, and I'll believe you, again, and forgive you everything. Forgive and forget, and give myself willingly in your hands, just please, say it, say it!!' But, just like they both knew the message, they both knew that it was impossible. All Seishirou could do was to try his best to hold his steady mask of casualness and frozen shell of a smile upright like a shield to shield his tears as he saw how Subaru hurt, how he hurt and again retreated into his shell.
It was then when he had said to himself that enough was enough. That the look in his eye, probably the last glimpse from behind Subaru's black nothingness he'll ever get, had finally been enough to make him regret nothing anymore in life. What did he want more that could be accomplished? He had his wish fulfilled – to once again see him, his Subaru-kun again – and now he'll take that last priceless memory with him into his grave. He simply decided for that useless and small existence of his to end here, no longer able to see any meaning in its lasting. And maybe, just maybe, it was also finally about time to let him rest, rest like he had never done before, maybe even rest in Subaru's arms while giving the last thing he held to his beloved one: his life, if that was what he wanted. Vaguely, he remembered having at sometime heard Fuuma say something about Subaru's wish not being his death, however, he really didn't want to dwell on that now, because to think meant to hurt and he, so he decided, had already hurt enough for one lifetime, it was also that he needed to know, to believe that his 'leaving' would help his Subaru in one or another way, and not hurt him. Because he, had already hurt more than enough for one lifetime.
At first Seishirou was relieved that, it seemed, he had for once been right and Fuuma been wrong, because he couldn't ever remember to have seen Subaru fight like this, like he wouldn't allow both or any of them to ever get out of this battle alive, let alone unharmed. Seishirou knew better: he knew that they wouldn't.
'Is your wish... to kill me?' Pulling away the bandage over Subaru's right eye only to see what he already knew he would – a milky glass one, he quietly voiced the last question torturing his heart. But the answer was not really something he had expected. 'No...' What ever the case, now was definitely too late to retreat, now that he had already come to the end. Closing his eyes with his thoughts, he plunged forth with all force he could bring up, aiming directly at Subaru's heart. /Hokuto... you 'promised'...!/ Almost in the same second, he felt his heart froze with pain, he heard the sound of ribs – his ribs – cracking, the sickening sound of hand tearing into flesh – a sound he had long become accustomed to – and saw crimson splattered everywhere
Crimson, crimson, for a moment it seemed there was nothing but crimson before his eyes and his knees gave away as the ground beneath him sacked in. It was just then that he head anther sound – the sound of glass, of cracking glass...
/Free...!/
All of a sudden he could see again, and it seemed like as soon as he did he flung himself at Subaru. /Subaru-kun.../ and with the other one's tears pouring down his ivory cheeks – so like that time when he woke up to find he had lost the last person he had loved – some thing else Seishirou had - oh how could he?! – not yet thought about surprisingly quickly started to build it self around Subaru, protecting, but also shielding, isolating, something like..
glass.
/Oh no, no, no, no!!! Subaru!!/ With his last desperate strength he forced himself, dream and reality starting to blur to chaos inside his mind, through them and for the first time in his life, actually touched him. 'Subaru-kun... I... you...' his body's state wouldn't allow him further words, yet he was sure that everything words could never express were written on his face and in his eye: /I loved you, I love you... I know I could never repair what I've done to you... And still.../ For the first and last time in his life, he let his own unconditional love flow and flow freely out of him to Subaru, trying to heal, trying to show...
To show how great actually his love was, to show it had never been unimportant to him, that it in fact had been everything, everything that mattered to him...
And the walls closed, separating them a last time and, forever, from each other.
He suddenly felt so cold...
Slowly, Sakura branches he had served his whole life long stretched out from nowhere, wrapped themselves around his limps indifferently, hungrily, pulling him back into the ever waiting and swallowing darkness he was born and bond to...
/But his eye! Oh, Fuuma, Subaru's eye! I... don't need mine anymore.../ And blessed obliviousness came down around his tired mind, while a new, nameless soul was fed to the eternal prison of the Sakura tree.
With a start Fuuma jerked out of his own thoughts and almost without himself noticing quickly switched on the television – just in time to witness the collapse of Rainbow Bridge. And even if it was completely impossible, it was as if he could make out two tiny figures, black and white, intertwined with each other in a death embrace, glide into the dark, indifferent water with it. One lost, and one broken...
'Seishirou... fool!' he whispered to himself, a dark shadow passing over his young face before he closed his eyes and turned to leave without looking back, ever.
~owari~
Author's notes: Huh! Such a short fic doesn't usually take two weeks, does it? -_-;
So? Feedback, pleeeeeaaaaaase? I'm desperate to get C&C so I can improve, and better writers are also better for readers, ne?
Aa, and of course, arigatou for reading and don't send too much flames, onegai? ^^
Mail to: hioebis@aol.com