Author: Elf Asato
Written: Jun 9, 2005
Summary: (Tokyo Babylon, shortly before Volume Five) Violence. Seishirou implants suggestions of Subaru's inner desires.
Disclaimer: Like hell!
Notes: I took an idea presented in Trench Kamen's A Perfect Circle and toyed around with it, this being the result. Virgin State of Mind is a song by K's Choice.
Virgin State of Mind
By Elf Asato
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"You know, Subaru-kun, we don't actually need Hokuto-chan, do we?" Seishirou asked as he wrapped his arms around Subaru's shoulders from behind. "We're doing so well that she just gets in the way." He gave a slight squeeze. "So what would happen if she was gone?"
"S-Seishirou-san!" Subaru flustered and panicked at the very thought of his sister being gone. He looked up at Seishirou with a pleading expression. "Why would you say something like that?"
"I mean, look at her, Subaru-kun," Seishirou said, his voice silky smooth against Subaru's ear, and the younger onmyouji saw the image of his sister before him. "She just sits there with all her girlish frivolities and whims..." Here Hokuto gave Subaru a bright smile and told him that he'd better fatten up if he wanted to be a good bride for Seishirou. "...And annoys you, doesn't she?"
Subaru shook his head in disagreement and reached out for her; she did the same so that they looked like a mirrored reflection. He looked back at Seishirou with a weak smile. "Hokuto-chan may be a little over-the-top at times, but she's still my sister and I love her, Seishirou-san. I'd never want anything bad to happen to her."
"Ah, but Subaru-kun," Seishirou said with a definite and pleased smile in his voice as he turned the boy to face him, tipping his chin up so that their eyes met, "I never said anything bad had to happen to her. I just asked what would happen if she was gone, so that was entirely your own suggestion, now wasn't it?"
"Seishirou-san, I--" Subaru said in a nervous rush, but nothing else came out. Instead he composed himself and announced with some sort of finality, "Hokuto has been with me all my life taking care of me and I would never wish any harm to her or her absence, Seishirou-san. I love her."
Another devilish smile made its way to Seishirou's lips and eyes. "That might be what the Subaru-kun I know thinks, but I'm not so sure the inner workings of his mind would agree."
Subaru opened his mouth to protest this, but any words that might have been died at the tip of his tongue.
His smile grew, and he turned the boy around once more to face his cheerful twin who waved upon seeing her brother again and said that Seishirou would never marry him if he didn't show some initiative. "Subaru-kun might say that he doesn't mind Hokuto-chan's words, but what about his poor, neglected subconscious?" He moved his hand upward from Subaru's shoulder to rest on his neck. Almost in a murmur he asked, "Now...what would the Subaru-kun that no one, not even Subaru-kun himself, sees say?"
It took a second, but Subaru answered in a lowish voice, "...He might tell her that he has no intentions of becoming anyone's bride and would she please stop trying to arrange his love life?"
Seishirou gave a throaty chuckle. "Is that so," he said, more a statement than a question, and Hokuto immediately brightened, telling her brother to let Seishirou and her take care of him since he hadn't shown the sense or ability to do this on his own.
"Stop meddling in my life," Subaru said, more forcefully this time, as his fists clenched at his sides. "Let me do things my own way without your interference. You may not think so, but I am capable, and I don't need you. Without you I could actually stand a chance with Seishirou-san. ...You just get in the way."
"Is that what would happen if Hokuto-chan was gone?" Seishirou prompted.
"...No," Subaru answered with his eyes on his sister, and his voice dripped with bitterness," but that's what could have happened if she'd never existed. I could have become a better, stronger person."
With his free hand, Seishirou pulled out what Subaru recognized as a ceremonial knife. "Sounds like you wish to rectify the situation...and your sister's existence." He held it out for Subaru to take. "You despise your sister's invasiveness and want it to stop, don't you? She's always been hovering over you too close, never allowing you to reach your full potential. I wonder what the real Subaru-kun would have been like. But you don't want this to continue any more, do you?"
"No..." Subaru answered in barely a whisper and took the knife into his own hands.
Seishirou rest his hand back on Subaru's shoulder, still keeping the other on his throat, and leaned in close so that his lips brushed his ear. "Now...what are you going to do about it?"
It took a few seconds, but Subaru finally answered as he stared at his sister's image, "...Nothing."
If only mildly and very muted, Seishirou seemed vaguely surprised. "Oh? And why is that?"
"The fact that I despise her existence still doesn't change the fact that she's my twin and I love her."
Seishirou released his hold and took a step back, chuckling lowly all the while. "The bond between twins is very strong, isn't it? I wonder what would happen to Subaru-kun if that bond were to be violently severed."
A sakura petal pressed itself to the side of Subaru's face as Seishirou disappeared from notice. He took no heed of this, however, and kept his eyes fixed on his sister who continuously smiled. "It's a good thing," he said to himself, "that Subaru isn't even aware of his own inner desires. If he truly acted out, he'd be quite the liar, if only to save himself..."
He brought the knife up to examine and saw the light reflecting on its blade. Quickly and suddenly he brought it down in a rush, cutting his twin from her forehead to the bridge of her nose.
"S-Subaru!" she exclaimed in surprise and stood there in confusion as he brought the knife down upon her continuously -- cut upon cut, deep but barely drawing any blood.
He cut across her eyes, drawing the most blood there, and finally stabbed forward into her left eye, impaling the knife wholly, all the while completing these actions calmly in cold anger. Then, almost tenderly, he kissed her, staining his lips with her blood, and let go of the knife. She slumped to the ground like a discarded plaything.
Tears involuntarily streaming down his face, Subaru woke up with a start, his knuckles white from clutching the sheets tightly and his pupils dilated. He was having a hard time breathing.
An awful nightmare, he decided once he was calmer, and nothing more. ...Nothing more.
He refused to believe otherwise.
The night tinged with magic had been largely sleepless for Seishirou, and he settled in bed with a glass of wine.
"Love" was no match for resentment, he concluded after much thought. Resentment could, after all, take hold and fester more quickly. Love wasn't worth much in that case, anyway.
He wondered, however, why Subaru had gone for the eyes.