The Artist's Hand

By: SanguineFox

Disclaimer: I have no ownership over any of the characters in this story, and that makes me very sad...

Warning: I'm not really sure where this story is going at the moment... so let's just start off with T, no reason really. There will be strong references to BL, though.

Author's Note: Okay, I thought I'd take a stab at this, I've read Loveless, and seen the anime so I thought I'd try with a story for the characters. It's an alternate universe story, but the rule of cat ears still apply. I'm a little worried about Soubi's character, he's a lot funnier in the book, but we'll all just see where this story goes... Wee!


The house had remained silent at first, as it always started, sometimes it remained silent, but for the most part…

The crash of the plates being thrown off the table before the table itself was flipped over, the clattering of silverware was not as loud, but the people outside of the house imagined they could hear every single fork and spoon as they landed, scattered across the floor.

"You're not my son! What did you do with my sweet Ritsuka! Where is he? What have you done with him? Who are you? How dare you pretend to be my lovely little boy?"

The twelve year old boy could only stand from the chair that he had been sitting in so it wasn't flipped over like the rest of the chairs. His expression was blank, rather bored from this usual display of affection that his mother had for him. This was all too common for him. He had lost today's game he realized as he watched his mother take 'Ritsuka's lunch' and throw it in the garbage. He wasn't sure why she thought that starving whoever it was that he is, if he wasn't Ritsuka, would bring the real Ritsuka back, but that's how the game went. If he picked the right foods for breakfast he was allowed to leave the house with no new wounds and his lunch, but it looked like his father would be leaving a few dollars on the table by the front door so that he could at least buy lunch.

After wrapping the bandage around where one of the forks had cut into his arm when the table had been flipped, the young boy put on his shoes, grabbed his bag and the money on the table before heading to school. He could still hear his mother's cry for her son to come back.

He was about halfway to school when he passed by a stand set up with newspapers and magazines, even magazines that were kept wrapped in brown paper. He had to wonder about the brave souls who were willing to go out in daylight to purchase a magazine to get them through the lonely nights. The stories of how some sad soul was killed wasn't what caught his attention, nor was the slightly torn brown paper revealing the skin on the inside of the cover what had him stopping before the stand. The cat ears perched atop his head twitched slightly as he leaned in closer to the magazine, depicting a large painting with an amazing swirl of colors... it was odd... he thought that he painting felt so sad, but the larg bold letters proclaimed the genius of the new up and coming artist who held nothing but gold in his paint brushes.

Ritsuka rattled the change about in his pocket, calculating how much his father had randomly left him that morning along with the money he had leftover from before... he could afford it, but he wouldn't get that much for lunch...

"Ritsuka!"

"..." the dark haired boy turned to see a very energetic girl with pink hair tied up in pigtails bouncing her way up to him. Her shirt seemed too small on her as if her parents had not bought her anything new since her over sized breast had suddenly sprung up on the twelve year old girl.

"What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," Ritsuka mumbled, he wasn't sure what had possessed this girl to try to become friends with him, but there was nothing he could really do to make the girl leave him alone. He had even made her cry twice now, and she still insisted that they be friends.

"Really? It looks like Ritsuka was very interested in that magazine," she giggled, pointing at the torn paper, a nipple was clearly visible through it, "Ritsuka has a dirty mind."

"Idiot," he huffed.

"Yuiko!" a short boy, about Ritsuka's height with long black hair tipped with white and matching ears ran up to the pink haired girl, fixing his glasses, "What are you doing here with him again?"

"Yayoi," she whined, "How many times does Yuiko have to tell you, Yuiko doesn't like Yayoi."

"Well, I don't understand, what do you see in him," he pointed at where Ritsuka was standing, only to see that he wasn't there anymore, "Hey... where'd he go?"


Ritsuka slipped from class during lunch and found a place where he could sit alone and read the magazine he had bought while his classmates were bickering over whatever it was that they were always bickering about. He opened the magazine to read about the painting, he was rather impressed about how young the artist was, he stood, rather unhappily in a hall full of paintings, similar to the one on the front cover, but very original. He continued reading about how the artist was holding an opening in the city in the middle of the down town area. He was so enthralled with reading about the artist that he had completely lost track of time and the teacher had apparently come out to look for him.

"Aoyagi?" the soft spoken teacher kneeled before him, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"You know, outside reading material is not allowed in school. It's said that it will distract the student in too many ways," she warned. Her blondish cat ears flattened against her long hair, she didn't like having to scold her students in any way shape or form.

"It's just about a painter who's having a showing a mile or so from here."

"Oh, really?" her ears perked, "Is this something that you're interested in, Aoyagi?"

Ritsuka just shrugged, "I guess. I just saw it on my way to school, and bought it."

"You should really be stopping anywhere when you're on your way to school... but if you're really interested in this... we can plan an outing to see the painting if you like."

"..." Ritsuka looked over the paintings in the hall of the picture and shrugged, "I guess that would be cool."

"Okay," she smiled brilliantly, nearly jumping in joy that she had found something that Ritsuka was actually interested in, "Great, we'll see if your friends want to go, too, okay?"

He gave an awkward smile, "Yeah... sure..."


The weekend morning was warm, and Ritsuka had managed to win the morning game, he was able to leave the house having eaten breakfast, with no new bandages and his mother had even given him a kiss on the forehead before leaving. He could hear her muttering to herself that maybe this time her true son had come back and with that maybe Seimei would be willing to come back...

He met up with Shinonome Sensei, and Yuiko who wanted to go with Ritsuka, and Yayoi who only came because Yuiko was going. The four of them made their way to the museum where the man, Agatsuma's paintings would be on display. The place was rather empty, but it was early, not even lunch time when the students and teacher arrived to the art gallery. The place was even larger than the students had expected, Ritsuka was surprised that the man, Agatsuma had painted all of them.

At some point Ritsuka broke away from their little group detouring into another room, on all of the walls there were large paintings, swirls of colors, one of them was the painting that he had seen on the cover of the magazine. It was very different seeing them live, he wasn't sure how to describe it, but the smell of the paint almost made the colors more vibrant, and on closer inspection he could see the textures that had not come across in the photographs.

The painting as a whole had nothing behind it though, he thought that it looked nice, but it seemed more like a cover... something to grasp everyone's attention and nothing more. It had worked on him, Ritsuka thought, but there seemed to be something missing from the painting. He continued down the smaller room coming across another painting... it was very different from the others though.

Taking a step closer, Ritsuka had almost thought that it was more of a photograph than one of Agatsuma's paintings. It was realistic, and well taken care, but was almost hidden in the back of the room. It was very small with a life size butterfly with beautiful blue wings that was sitting on a red flower, dripping with morning dew. It was a wonderful painting, but something about it made it hard for Ritsuka to look at. He felt silly scrutinizing over a simple painting of a butterfly, there was nothing deeper than for it to be pretty, right?

"Why are you looking at that one? There are much better paintings that consist of much better colors."

"...It seems... lonely..." Ritsuka cocked his head to the side as he looked over the painting again.

"You think so?"

"Yes..."

"Why's that?"

"I'm not sure... it just seems so different than the others... the frame and the glass... it's like a trap, keeping the butterfly from escaping."

The voice behind the young student suddenly asked out of sheer curiosity, "How old are you?"

Ritsuka's ear perked as he realized that he had been discussing the painting with a complete stranger, he turned to see that it was the same man from the magazine, "M-Mr. Agatusma..."

"Soubi," he smiled sweetly, "Please call me Soubi."


TBC

Well, guess I don't have to worry about Soubi's character until the next chapter... Let me know what you guys think, thanks for reading.