Giving Face

"All I want is some time to myself around the damn palace and visit my beloved niece instead of some besotted superior breathing down your- and by extension, my neck, but that, apparently, is something too much to ask even from the gods! Kami, even the scribes are brutal; if I ever meet that scribe in the Secretarial department again I'll- "

Kou Reishin stopped in mid-speech, dismay forming on his dark brow.

"Trouble, six pillars down. I swear, Houjyu, fate's taken a mild dislike to me…"

Ko Houjyu raised an eyebrow behind his mask and offered meaningful silence in response. Reishin hissed a death-curse, closed his dark-lashed eyes, and prepared to do battle.

"It's Official Sei, the court scribe! I've heard only the greatest things about him; I wouldn't know where to start. Spirits, I stole out from under Head Official Kan just to watch him present his Scribe findings report in the Secretarial session! We'd be punished, Houjyu, of course-"

Here Reishin smiled, white teeth bared and gleaming; Houjyu felt the faintest stirrings of panic at the pronoun we being used.

"-but it's an honour, for Official Sei!"

Reishin's recital was impeccably timed, voice faltering just as the aforementioned official stopped behind them, turning, eyes precisely widened, and blushed prettily on cue.

"O-official Sei! I was just-"

The official turned a smile which screamed perverse old fool onto Reishin, who was shaking ever so slightly. Laughing, that bastard, Houjyu thought in disgusted amusement, and stopped politely alongside, inclining his head.

"Now", the official began, all pomp and oily smiles. "Young lad Kou; while I understand the practices of the Secretarial session fascinating, and the speakers even more so-"

Houjyu sighed.

"-Skipping out on your duty is a serious breach of regulations; why don't you follow me back to the chambers and I'll see what I have to do about this…"

Reishin gulped, not having expected the invitation. Solutions flooded his mind, each wilder, more brilliant, and less coherent than the previous. Reishin grasped upon the most tactical of retreats; he grinned significantly at the youth beside him, then sprinted in the opposing direction.

Houjyu was equally pragmatic, sliding the mask off, sending a languid curl of his lips and a half-lidded, dark-eyed glance in the official's general direction.

The sounds of the unsuspecting man convulsing and frothing at the mouth echoed loudly down the corridors long after Houjyu smoothly replaced his mask, ravensilk hair whipping out of sight.

By the time the other boy had caught up, Reishin had fixed the trademark, nonchalant expression firmly back in place, lips compressed in mock disapproval and bit-back laughter.

Houjyu shot a vaguely threatening glance sideways.

"What is it you need to say this time, Reishin-sama?"

"Well now, the usual-"

The idiot was still grinning in a way that made Houjyu feel both claustrophobic and roused at the same time.

"That is, besides thinking of sneak-attacking your niece?"

"It's covertly visiting, imbecile. Oh, Shuurei- the way your tiny fists curl back when you laugh-"

Reishin was heading full-tilt into insanity mode, and Houjyu entertained fleeting notions of striding up to the Shouka-sama's manor and loudly introducing Reishin to Shuurei, exact family relation titles and all. He settled instead for increasing his pace. Reishin grinned wider and matched his furious footsteps, offering a sly glance.

"There were other things on my mind, really. Other usual things like-"

"Reishin."

The warning note was turning into a snarl, and it frustrated Houjyu to no end that he would lose his composure before the idiot.

"-keep up the practicing, and you'll be making unsuspecting officials come in their-"

"Reishin"

Houjyu's ears were slowly turning crimson, and the damned wind chose that very moment to reveal it to a relentless Reishin.

"- pants," he finished blithely. "I still don't get the attraction myself, but to each h-mphhh!"

For Houjyu had decided to snare a fistful of Reishin's robes, slam him indelicately against a conveniently-placed pillar, and kiss him till the ground tilted.

The two emerged for air after an unholy amount of time. With shaky limbs and a wild blush on his cheeks, Reishin fixed the other, flushed boy a slow, wholly unbecoming gaze.

"R-right. I'm starting to get the attraction, myself."

Houjyu cleared his throat and replaced his mask, then found, to his extreme chagrin around the vicinity four chambermaids, two pageboys and one court scribe in a dead faint.