The boy who sits on the rooftop watching the sun scroll down into the sea of clouds this sunset hour goes by many names. To those who fear him he is Ito no Kadsuki; he is the Prince of Battle Terror, the Threadspinner weaving his intricate webs. To those who hate him he is the Fuuchouin brat, the damned girl-child... once, I even heard someone call him Fuuga's whore, though they did not live long enough to take another breath and prove such a disgraceful slur. I made sure of that. To those who respect him he is Fuuchouin Kadsuki, last of his line, Flower of Mugenjou, Fuuga's angel.
To me, in my heart of hearts, he is Kadsuki, Kadsuki, Kadsuki.
Never taking his eyes from the light sinking towards the horizon, Kadsuki brushes his hair away from his cheeks with the palm of his hand, a totally natural, unconcerned gesture. And that is what makes it so indescribably beautiful. If he knew the effect it had on those who see him, if he tried to purposely capture such careless perfection it would seem false, something about it would ring hollow and destroy the magic utterly.
I shift my weight and the gravel scrapes under my shoe. I freeze, but he hears and glances over his shoulder, though the lines of his body are perfectly relaxed and both bells remain in his hair, so he must have known someone was there watching him all along. Perhaps he sensed the protectiveness Kakei and I both exude in waves whenever we are near him. He claims not to sense ki in the way that I can, but I am sure he must know, must see something more than most people can. He's too damn perceptive for it to be otherwise.
On some things, anyway.
He wiggles slim fingers in my direction and pats the flat section of concrete beside him. I pause, thinking that the stone will be warm from the sun... but not as warm as he is, and he tilts his head and gives me That Smile.
That's it, just like that. No resistance left.
I lower myself down beside him, but he is quick to thwart me, scooting over to close the distance I left between us. After a moment he goes even further, leaning companionably against me, all his slight weight resting on my body. He even lets his head droop to touch upon my shoulder, and to anyone else watching it might look like a form of surrender.
"You're quiet recently." His eyes slowly drift shut, and when he speaks the sleepiness drawn in each line of his body threads itself through his words. "Don't think I haven't noticed."
He's always so quick to give affection, as easy in receiving it as he is reaching out to lay a hand on a wound - to see, to touch, to heal. It is something I cannot do, even when he is hurting. When he came back from the Belt Line, Kakei ran forward like the devoted guardian he is, ran his hands over Kadsuki's body as much for the sake of comforting him through touch as for locating his wounds. I... I couldn't do it. I stood in the background watching the two of them, fists clenched by my sides. To make the first move, to stretch out across that gap and touch Kadsuki so intimately... that is something I simply cannot do.
I close my eyes, but it doesn't help. Might as well turn your back on the sea and deny its existence as the water rises around your ankles and sucks you under.
The sound of Kadsuki, the soft inhale, exhale he makes with wonderful regularity. He sounds like he's performing some breathing exercise, so controlled is he, so calm, but that's the way he is. I flicker, flare up, rage out of control and lose myself in my emotions, and he stretches out a hand and pulls me back, perpetually cool, ethereally calm. He is like the surface of a still pool, or perhaps the pool is beneath him as he glides across it, so smooth as to barely leave a ripple of his passing. The whisper of nails on cloth as he reaches to scratch an itch feels like being cut open with a feather, having honey dripped into the wounds, being bandaged by gentle hands covered in brambles. I don't know what to think, let alone how to feel.
The smell of Kadsuki, no artificial chemicals to scent his skin, but rather that unique smell that is all of him. I have an old memory of Before, when I lived Outside; some half-forgotten sequence in which I follow a beautiful woman through a department store, images of women trying on perfumes, wafting great clouds of sickly-smelling mist about them. They pay thousands of yen for something so false and unnatural, yet if you could bottle the essence that is Kadsuki you could not put a price on it, the wealthiest billionaire could not afford it, not if they were to scrape together all that they owned. The filth of Mugenjou cannot touch him, no dirt sticks to him; he is white and inviolable amongst the buildings that tower like tombstones around him... or maybe they are altars, altars reaching toward Babylon, overlooking in their worship of their false gods the blessed child standing quiet at their feet.
The feel of Kadsuki: three distinct textures and a warmth that pervades them all. There's the silky material of his dress against my arm, trusting and heavy on my chest, pushing further into me each time he takes a breath, and the material slides against my own clothing with a soft hiss that's torture on my ears that strain for every bit of him they can catch. Softer still, the velvety feel of his cheek resting on my bare shoulder, flawless moon-toned skin without the hint of beard growth. I have to take care of mine, and even Kakei will look rough and stubbly if he goes a few days without bothering with his appearance, but Kadsuki is the eternal child, lunar prince fallen from the sky one night with no shadow to imprint itself upon him. When he shifts, I can feel the hardness of his cheekbone through that delicate skin, and the fact that such a little thing can send a thrill through me is proof of how drowned in this emotion, in this weakness, I have become. Softest of all is the wave of thick brown hair that falls down his back, brushes against my neck, whispers across my face each time the wind sighs its lonely message across the rooftops. I have no words to describe his hair. How do you put liquid light into words, how do you capture that colour that shifts in each moment of illumination, that mirrors so much in its variable glints of amber and gold, in its infinitely changing highlights and shadows? It's not something I can do. Useless to say 'I would kill for Kadsuki'. I have killed for him; I will doubtless do it again. So many creatures his beauty calls out to, his fearlessness, his determination a beacon in the darkness for so many unspeakable things itching to get their hands on him. Don't I know it? I am just luckier than most, different from them only in that I do not take from him against his will, as they would; I make do with what he gives me from that boundless heart of his, though it can never be enough. Only Kakei can know that, what it feels like to have everything of him, and yet there's always so much left over when Kakei has taken his fill and gone, so much love and kindness to spare. It takes my breath away.
Even... the taste of Kadsuki. Now wait... now that has to be my imagination. The wind is teasing me again, tossing his hair against the side of my face when it gusts up from the depths stretching out below us. There's no way I could taste him from the few strands clinging to my lips... is there?
He lets out a soft sigh, his head still lolling on my shoulder and pressing close against my neck. His fingers encircle my wrist and he strokes my arm gently, his skin feeling so right against my own, and the emotion that floods out from his core, that wraps around me and threatens to drown what sanity I still have left... is the pure, innocent love of a friend. A vision of paradise and hell meet, blend together and tumble around me in my own private ordeal. Which is which, and where am I? Where am I, and where do I go from here?
"Where's Kakei?" I ask, prompted by some damnable instinct of self-preservation to destroy what remains of this brief moment of contentment, push the happiness away so it can't take hold and spread inside me. When Kakei weeds it out, it will only hurt more if the roots have grow long and twined more firmly around my heart than they already do.
Kadsuki doesn't open his eyes. "Out patrolling the borders, in one of his 'must protect Kadsuki' moods." He giggles. "You know how he gets."
"I know." All the damnation I cannot allow myself to feel in those words, but he doesn't react to it. Maybe I hide it a little too well.
But in this, what choice do I have? To live is to hide, to push those emotions into a dark corner where his light will not uncover them, where they cannot turn around and attack him in a flash of jealousy and rage. To attack him... or to attack those he loves.
If I raise a hand against Kakei, he will turn me away. I know he will: he holds Kakei closer than I could ever hope to hold him in reality, to be held by him in his heart. Hide that darkness, Toshiki, lock away what you feel and sink it deep inside yourself where no-one will find it.
To hide is to live.
In the end, I do the only thing I can do. I hold him. I hold him, eyes closed, desperately trying to breathe in as much of him as I can into myself. I hold him and I hold him, and I don't let go. Not until Kakei's footfalls sound on the stairs behind us, and he is come to take him away from me.