Touch
by Saki (danpen-blue)
Shito is left handed. But when it comes to Chika... [And so Shito realized that subconsciously wishful actions took up fifty percent of his movements.
---
Shito is left handed.
He knows he's lucky, because he doesn't have to fear reaching out to someone and having his hand fall right down at his feet. All that is more trouble than it's worth going through. So Shito doesn't share in Chika's inconvenience, and instead leaves him at the daily jeopardy of his work.
It's too troublesome to help Chika anyway, if his pride will even let Shito past his own personal boundary.
For even though their lives are connected, they've always managed to distance themselves from each other as much as possible, stretching the limits of their circle. From MOVA, to that place.
Even if doing so is inconvenient.
Which is why he feels as if he is turning favor to Fate as he walks toward the store, closer to Chika and farther, as far as possible, from Toho, relaxing the distance between their hands.
He doesn't wish for Destiny's pity. He'd only felt his own heartstrings strained with that far distance, and sought to alleviate that discomfort.
He knows he will have to pay for his emotions in all due time.
---
As he walks, Shito traces the invisible seam between Chika's hand and his arm that has since smoothed over after he left. The two parts nearly precisely match. But Shito feels alienated from that hand, the hand that belongs to a boy who is nowhere as close to him as his hand is.
The store bell jingles as Shito enters, the fluorescent lights lighting up his vision in comparison to the outside dusk. Shito imagines seeing the brightness reflected Chika's golden eyes as he looks up in greeting, and isn't sure if it is real or not.
"We're going out again tonight, Shito?"
"Of course. Idiot."
"I was just asking." Chika looks back down at the magazine he is reading. "Pachiri, did you hear that?"
Michiru looks over from where she is stacking a pile of old issues. She exchanges a smile with Shito when she sees him.
"Sure thing. But be careful, okay? I know that Yuuta was wondering why you guys didn't go to him to get healed last night. Nao told me."
What a kind girl. Shito lets himself smile out of more than common courtesy. He almost volunteersto help her finish her work, but only takes the magazines from her hands silently, refusing to let Chika know he is helping with his work. Michiru nods in thanks, and in understanding, though Shito doesn't realize it.
Michiru is sensitive. She knows his feelings.
Minutes later, the books are reorganized. The lavender-haired girl stands up, stretching her arms.
"Hey, Chika, can I go now?"
Chika is dozing, the magazine he was reading slack in his hands and his eyes closed. Shito stands up too, after being momentarily stunned by the sight of the sleeping boy. He tries to put on an affronted face, and fails.
He coughs, clearing his throat. "Oi, Akatsuki. Kita-san needs to go home."
The boy starts, blushing in embarrassment. Shito almost, almost, does the same thing, only for another reason.
"Aa, Pachiri. The bentos are by the door."
"You'd leave a girl to walk home alone at night?"
Michiru gives Shito a look. "I'll be fine." She walks out of the store, hefting the lunches in her thin arms. "See you later, Shito-kun, Chika-kun."
"You know, it's only just past six, Shito. But I'm done here anyway," Chika gets up, placing his reading back on its shelf. "Why'd you make a special trip out here?"
"It was on the way from... personal business," Shito answers vaguely. "Business that finished early."
"Oh?" Chika doesn't say anything more, and the former doesn't wait for him to. Chika doesn't need to know. Not this, not many things about Shito.
"I'm going to the bathroom. Then we can get some food, and start." The black-haired boy crosses the length of the store into the bathroom at the far end, turning the doorknob and locking himself in.
---
Shito is left handed.
But if he has reason to touch his hair, his shirt collar, if he needs to lean his cheek or his chin on his hand, he'll use his right hand, whether he notices it or not. He was surprised, the first time he realized it, when Yuuta asked if he was ambidextrous. So Shito realized that subconsciously wishful actions took up fifty percent of his movements.
And if he has reason, God forbid, while he's in the MOVA store bathroom (which has been looking quite cleaner since Michiru started working) and he can hardly stand on his feet because Chika recently reapplied his cologne in that room and had colored the air sweet and gently sharp and smells of an unnamed flower that matched his pale lilac hair and yellow eyes and the delicate shapes of the designs on the cold walls...
Shito will be overcome by wistfulness and desire and something of warm nostalgia for Chika, so close and so far.
He'll only hesitate a moment before forsaking his pride and uprighteousness of an unforgiving reality and use Chika's hand to touch himself, in solitude as quiet he can maintain.
For even though their lives are connected, Shito has always managed to distance himself from Chika as much as possible, never finding the courage, no, recklessness, to change the boundary and keep as close to Chika as he can.
So Shito finds the consequence of his sin staining Chika's hand in a sticky white splash on his palm.
And he regrets many things in the minutes afterward, most of them ridiculous lines of distances, literal and figurative, that weave a web that stifles his desperate feelings.
Because Shito is tainted, the black dragon on his chest ever at the ready to turn against his heart. And Chika is innocent, no matter how rude or smart-mouthed, and any misbalance will have their world collapse from under their feet.
Shito lives in a world of boundaries. He walks the edge, always, unable to step outside of them, somehow unable to step inside.
He knows that, one day, he will fall from that razor's edge.
He wishes that Chika will catch him when he does, and not Toho, not Laoye, not a shinigami, none of those monsters, because Chika is the only one at the center of his spinning world. His world, circular like a CD on one of the store shelves, singing a suppressed melody.
Chika tries to listen, and does not understand. He steals a glance at Shito's profile as they walk down the street together, and isn't all too surprised to see Shito glancing back at him.
---
end.
Tadaa Z-Loan love. 3 I like how it turned out, but, erm... Just for the record, Shito doesn't use his right hand except to hold books, and he doesn't use it for imaginary wishful Chika's hand complex-related actions like touching his face. That's all left handed. I'm sorry, I lied. :x -shot- Forgive me. Review appreciated.