fandom - Loveless
title - tell me your desire.
rating - pg
pairing - soubi + ritsuka, sensei + soubi, seimei + soubi
description – "How will you cultivate your heart: To give everything to your job or to your feelings? What will you pick, Soubi?" Sensei questioned.
Disclaimer – Loveless isn't mine. Tell me your desire.
By miyamoto yui
"No more…Iya da."
The boy whispered tiredly to himself as his fingers scratched against the tall library window. As the moon shone down on him, his shaking knees fell to the ground as the wounds on his back stung with the contact of his skin against his beige cotton shirt. He was holding onto the wooden windowsill with his fingers and voicing his torture was already a violation of the forbidden code.
The brownish, gold ears twitched as he bit his lower lip until it bled.
/"Showing weakness to your own eyes is a disgrace to your whole being," his sensei said to him as he whipped him over and over. "You said you wanted a challenge, correct? That life was too easy in choosing too many paths, right? But isn't that the beauty of life? To choose as you go along?" Sensei stopped and wrapped the whip along his hand with the blood stains matting onto his skin. "And what is that desire, Soubi-kun?"
"Not for me, Sensei." His heart beat faster and faster as he pressed his hands more and more onto the wall, which started to make an imprint onto his palms. "The challenge wasn't ever in choosing among many paths. It was sticking to one. To fulfill only one desire."
"That is what I don't understand yet. That's why I'm here, aren't I?"/
He winced, but he wouldn't allow his sensei to hear his cry of despair. His pride was in the way as he had panted against the wall with his sweat falling down his forehead. He counted every single one to focus on something other than the pain. And now, his fingers dug onto the wood, almost wanting to tear it away. He was almost tempted to break the window before him, but his sensei would have been pleased.
"To put your entire being into one emotion is strange, scary, and addicting. You'll want more once you've felt the extremities, Soubi-kun," he thought to himself. Yes, that was what Sensei would have said. After all, he'd worked so hard to become number one. But it wasn't rank that he wanted at all, it was for Sensei to spout out distasteful, sarcastic remarks with a menacing smirk.
This was the ultimate compliment.
Anything less meant Sensei was patronizing you. You were even lucky to catch his attention for more than three seconds, for Sensei always grew intensely bored if you weren't interesting. He was childish that way and so he was deeply immersed into creating the perfect masterpiece from mind to foot to soul. Gradually, he made Soubi understand his every whim with just a certain word or a particular expression.
All Soubi had to do was question and protest against his Sensei, which they both found intellectually stimulating.
But as Soubi, who was looking up to the full moon again, was asking for some kind of comfort with his tired eyes. At night, he was human and during the day, he was the object of everyone's envy, the work of art that Sensei couldn't ever refuse with his own fingers. And Sensei wasn't one to want his hands to ever get dirty if it wasn't worth the price.
As the young Soubi got up, he was dissatisfied. If pain was the reason that proved his existence, then he had to seek more of it.
He was used to everyone's insults and he made sure to spite them by remaining the best there was at school. He was used to being shunned because he always found counterfactuals to common logic, adopting 'abnormalities' to later become his 'principles'.
He lacked the answer he was looking for: "What is it you desire?"
Soubi asked himself again and again in his head and he walked down the lonely corridor to head back to his room.
"I don't need a reason to exist," he told Sensei as he stood there looking at the framed butterflies. "There are some things that should be left unexplained. I think it's stupid to look for something that puts you into circles."
"Purpose is what we make of it." Sensei kept on typing on his computer. "Life, after all, is all meaningless until we put emphasis on what we deem as important."
Soubi went up to one of the frames and gently poked on it with his index finger. Sensei glimpsed at him, stopped typing and stood up. He stopped behind Soubi and put his entire hand over Soubi's finger, blocking the view of the pinned butterfly entirely.
"What does it mean to completely give yourself to someone?" Sensei asked him while his reflection appeared on the display above him.
Soubi's eyes were watching his sensei's from the mirror image.
And it hit Soubi. This was the question that wanted to bubble to the surface but could never conceptualize into coherent, rational words.
"That is the reason why I'm watching you. How will you cultivate your heart: To give everything to your job or to your feelings? What will you pick, Soubi?"
Slowly, Soubi moved his head towards his right side to watch the window. It was bright and clear outside, but there was the moon out in broad daylight to confuse him.
+++++++
"You should go home, Soubi," the black-haired little boy said as his fighter's hand held onto the curtain in front of him.
Soubi was looking up to the moon and the cold wind was blowing into the room.
Why was he thinking of all that now?
He turned away from the scene behind him and walked towards the bed where the one named Loveless was lying down with his stomach over the blanket. He blinked at Soubi's face and was failing at keeping awake.
"I will go home if you tell me to, Ritsuka."
But Ritsuka's fingers held onto Soubi's shirt sleeve. Always so confused, his actions always betrayed his words.
Soubi leaned down to kiss Ritsuka on the forehead, but his hair fell onto the boy's face.
"I couldn't go to sleep before, but you're here and I can completely fall asleep. Maybe there's something good about having you here, Soubi," Ritsuka teased as he turned his back towards him, but he had a smile on his face.
Once more, Soubi leaned up and caressed Ritsuka's back over and over.
You never tell me what to think.
You never want to hurt me, but if my existence is proven through feeling infliction, what do I live on, Ritsuka?
He lifted his eyes and saw one picture left on the boy's desk. It was Seimei's face pressed against a small Ritsuka's as if he were going to kiss him on the cheek.
The photograph bothered him.
It was a warm smile.
He'd never seen that before.
+++++++
Live for my sake.
These were not the words that Seimei said to him. On that day, he had told him, "Play this game with me."
"And why should I have to do that?" Soubi questioned as Seimei eyed him while holding his chin so that they'd look at one another in the eye.
"Because it should be fun." Seimei let go while chuckling with one hand inside his pant pocket and the other adjusting the scarf around his neck. "I don't want anything but your ability. And you can use my feelings to substitute what you lack."
"Your feelings?" Soubi shook his head and raised an eyebrow.
Why should I listen to a kid like him?
The deserted park was becoming a bit chillier as the wind passed through. They looked at one another carefully, waiting for the other's move.
"Your sacrifice absorbs everything, even your life. They project what you cannot."
Still not convinced, Soubi darkly answered, "Then show me what you can do."
At their first fight, they were an awkward combination, but it worked. Soon, they built their reputation to be the best all around.
But Seimei's touches on his lips with his thumb or the caresses on his cheeks were all cold. He gave everything to Seimei, to the jobs he had to fulfill. As long as someone was telling him what to do, then that was enough, right? There was a focus, wasn't there?
"It's becoming boring," Seimei said one day while kneeling on the bed while dangling his arms over Soubi's shoulders. He whispered into his ear, "Is there no one that can beat us?"
"But why are we the best pair?" Soubi asked as his eyes touched the floor.
Seimei's arms tightly went around Soubi's shoulders while pressing his nose onto his neck. Soubi's hair was mixing with his and touched Seimei's ears lightly.
They worked well together. Yes, that was the obvious truth.
They were truly in sync because they anticipated what the other would do.
"We are the best because…hmm." Seimei let go of him and got off the bed. He got cream to rub against Soubi's scarred back.
He didn't say anything as he patted the lotion all over his back, tracing the marks with his fingers.
"Ritsuka…" he mumbled to himself and then shook his head while Soubi didn't question what was the connection between his back and the name he'd just mentioned.
"We distance ourselves. We don't get emotionally involved in what we need to fulfill," the dark-eared boy finally answered. "The fight is everything and we are failures if we can't recognize that."
He stopped rubbing the lotion on Soubi's lower back and looked at the wounds again.
Then, he got off the bed to stand in front of Soubi. He leaned down to kiss the bleeding wound spelled out in letters 'Beloved' on his neck. "But someday, we will reach perfection, only we two. And then, we'll have to hurt each other because there'll be no one left."
It had already begun.
+++++++
Soubi looked down at the sleeping Ritsuka and took him into his arms. He hugged him tightly and rocked him back and forth on the bed, but Ritsuka didn't awaken. He was in a deep sleep.
All the things I've learned don't apply to you.
"Which will you like best, I wonder," Seimei laughed while telling him, "To fulfill your missions with me or to put effort into your feelings? And so, your order is to be with my little brother, Ritsuka." These words were running through his head.
What was that sparkle in his eye?
His heart ached even more than the stinging of his back when Sensei whipped him or at the frigidness of Seimei's tears when he kissed the blood flowing down his neck.
You don't ask for anything.
My feelings chose to give myself entirely to you.
The resounding pain was becoming sharper and he clenched his teeth to bear it, as he'd always been told to do.
Finally, he'd found it. This was what he had sought for all this time. It was an agony that cut a new, fresh wound every time he doubted the future of their connection. It was playful, exciting, and unpredictable.
My expectations of you, what you are, what you want to be, and the way I want you to be…
They don't match.
Quietly, he whispered 'Ritsuka' softly into the boy's ear.
I want to be everything for you because my love for you blinds me. But you treat me as if I've always had a heart.
But the more I am with you,
I realize that it becomes more and more impossible to say 'I can do anything for you'.
I now know that I was not invincible because I could bear all kinds of inflictions,
it was because I didn't see myself like a human being.
"Tell me your desire," he asked desperately. "Tell me, Ritsuka."
My desire has yet to be determined. For in doing everything, there will be nothing left to do. And what will I have to offer to keep you from abandoning me if I can't fulfill what you want of me? Ritsuka, what will I do once you figure out your deepest, darkest desire? Can I save you so that you'll still be human to experience it?
For in giving everything, there will be nothing left to give.
He held him until the dawn came and tucked Ritsuka into bed. He leaned down to give him a deep kiss.
/"You'll want to surpass the extremities someday, Soubi," Sensei told him as he picked up the ends of his long hair and bit on them, smirking maniacally. "You'll first give away your body. All that will be left is your empty soul trying to fill itself back with what you're missing. But by then, it'll be too late..."/
Then, it will be your heart.
Your mind will finally leave you.
After taking one last glance of his beloved's innocent face, he quietly left.
"...to be human, you have to want something, but in trying to attain it, you become more and more inhuman.
And so, what remains is your desire, which ultimately decides what you truly are."
Owari.
-
Author's note – This fic is totally for my Nikoniko. ^^;;; You and your bright ideas…
I don't know, but Seimei kind of scares me and so this was the depiction that I wanted to represent. You don't have to say I'm mental. I already know, but this was an interesting subject that was bugging me ever since I saw ep 9.
I know it's weird, but it just came out that way. ^^;;;
Love,
Yui
Friday, June 17, 2005
3:49:25 AM