[dedication: to Jirru – Happy Birthday, dearest lady!
[notes: this is likeliest to read as both overly confusing and rather pointless – the initial intent was wrap up a parallel of two birthdays, stirred a bit, and seasoned with the consequences of Fighter-abilities. Let's just say some people belong out of the Word kitchen. Again, my bad if it makes no sense, and all apologies.
-
I.
singularly signed on at 11:59:59 PM.
II.
"Please," said with a kiss on each nail, a kiss on each finger, "Please."
Years later, when told, Seimei's laughter is autumn dying in his cheek, steadfast and strong, can't breathe for the light of it, can't think, because Nisei, killing is wrong.
"Is it?" The word is mould in his mouth, the Beloved stare self-sufficient in its absolute betrayal, and his Not-Sacrifice's warmth pressed too closely for touch, not enough for being - knotting his cravat thoughtlessly. "Well… isn't it…?"
He knows it for order sooner than rape.
III.
Intermittently, the word's in the back of his mind, like a burnt thing, like waiting.
"Keeping the school open like this, like a power beacon…" and the first frost bridges his nose to the vintage scarf, catching the curve of a stitch's misgiving, "It's not so much help, hmmm… more like you're challenging every Fighter within the area… isn't it, Ritsu-sensei…?"
"Is it?" Ritsu's hands are cold and red and his arms bare and the bench underneath, starving for touch. There's white all over him, white, and he'll freeze utterly. It doesn't seem to matter, Nisei's fingers strangling his, biding a moment. Nisei likes hands more than he'll ever hate Ritsu – who's smiling horribly. "The temptest knows its warfare."
Genghis Khan, four generals, De Bello Gallico and Mein Kampf - "I've read the literature." And Nisei has.
"And?"
"Dull." It was a lie, they both knew it, still it held nothing: prolonged silence among Fighters is an educated estrangement from a scorned world, and, eyes simmering impatience, Ritsu inclines his glass in the simplest nuance of invitation. "To you. For today."
It catches his eyes. "What's this?"
"Claret."
He's pathetic, really, swallowing and licking that sticky thick paste, and pulling close an emaciated chemise; and heartbroken. Nisei almost likes him. And, "May I have some?"
Still so young. "No."
"…Mmmmm." They must be a sight, a boy and a man and his glass and straddling a lost bench, with winter to come, winter between them; if there's to be a concern, it's no one's but theirs. Nisei's sleight of hands are taut and bright and if in an end he takes the wine through personal merit and not Ritsu's courtesy, it is a kindness gifted by nature to the wrongly beautiful. "It's very good."
Ritsu has children, or has placated many. He's a smile to be relieved of his glass – thing, possession, yours, yours, don't belittle it, yours- and a tight, fast grip to dark hair. Nisei wipes his lips negligently, the glass left amiss, and for all the wait of it, there's still blood and bone and splinters and noise when it tumbles over. 'There are things in this world that bear no change: it can't be helped that there's no snow yet, that gravity's such a feisty little bitch, that Nisei breeds disaster.
It can't be helped.
"Mind your feet."
"I've shoes on."
"But not a coat…" There's an insult there. Nisei can feel it, under the claw of his sweater. Ritsu's far too warm for the therapy prognostic of a corpse. "You weren't expecting to stay long, then."
The Master, Christ laughing. "On the contrary."
"Oh - oh." He likes the butterfly of his mouth's print on another's collar, cute and near. Likes it, like the tip of Ritsu's nose, all ruddy under his finger. "What…" Tap. "…what's this?"
"You already know. You wouldn't be asking, otherwise."
"Waaah… Ritsu-sensei is so smart."
And it's Ritsu's forehead that brushes his, and his eyes are blue-black-gold, and Nisei can't see beyond them. Can't look. It's magical, for just a moment, because the elderly begrudge their stillness – enough time in a coffin, enough - and he "You had a message?"
"Hmmmm." If you tilt just the right way, it's nicotine and sparklies. Nisei wants his cigarettes. "Did I?"
"You did."
The back of his hand snaps in a cold brush over Ritsu's face – letter, want the letter now, A – B – C – D - E -…
"…what are you – " - L … O … V … burn. It burns, spread over. Red. That waiting.He lets it rest casually, the Beloved scryed cleanly and the cleanliness dried in Ritsu's hoarse cough, to see it. The first time is hardest. The first time, watch the inklings of scar, the first time he bled. Laughter. "My message."
Seimei lives, he's alive, and I'm here, and it's all over, whatever happened before, this is the end. And Ritsu knows. Suddenly, inexplicably, with the poverty of motivation that makes better men blanch and weaker fools rage. Ritsu knows.
A Professor knows castigation and whip and he does not - doesn't - flinch from the touch. Instead, "Will that be all?"
Nisei leans, kiss on the cheek. Smack. Smack. Chuu.
"For today."
"I know who you are, and I know what happened. No one dies like that. Poor training will be poor training. Don't –"
"For today."
Today's special.
IV.
"Strange people fancy giving me presents."
Days earlier, the girl was an imperfect stitch in the craft of months gone awry, cutting line, showing cheek, biting him when he didn't look and he hated her, loved her, his first crush, and he'd be a man soon. A man.
He never celebrated with a party again.
V.
misplaced: Let's play Hangman !
singularly: Hangman?
misplaced: You just need to guess the word.
singularly: …just a word?
misplaced: Just one! Happy…?
VI.
"Please."
Time prior, he lay sick in white sand, a lowly, wet thing and a carnival of hair, hot silence in his ear and biting the breath of empire down
I think I said I think I said I think I think I think
but he was still human then and corpses taunted him into screaming.
VII.
f a s t f o r w a r d – Mimuro's staring: laugh, Nisei, mould and cake, "People fancy giving me presents."
Disbelievingly, over thin wrapping (Mimuro, please stop wasting your money), "Oh?"
"Strange people fancy giving me presents."
- snow on the paperback of his hand, ripping the canvas bare, wiping the alphabet, that word isn't there, it isn't, and the rate of accidental killings claimed by uneducated Fighters is most deliberately an unintended 13.9 in every planned act gone terribly, terribly wrong.
You have to remember if you wanted - didn't want it - said it.
Nisei's mind keeps breaking.
Mimuro gives him a My Little Pony.
VIII.
And he shoved his fingers in her dead mouth, she'd asked for it, begged, the silence breathing itself, he hadn't meant to, he hadn't meant to, it had just been words and go claw your eyes out, because she shouldn't have rejected him, nor had the first taste of his cake, it was chocolate and he liked it and, Happy Birthday, Nisei, and she was dead now, dead dead, conjunctions be damned, nothing followed.
Dead.
IX.
"Ah, I'm sorry, the tray was too full, I- "
The coffee cup breaks in five slips of nothing, the waitress all an apology, and the black of it on Nisei's pants, the lapels of his coat.
Seimei says little and nods her away, and for just a moment the ugly red burn on his arm is an idle compromise between destiny and Nisei's right hand. Disgustedly, he stares at it, then rolls the sleeve back on the wrist. It must hurt. Surely, that thing burned a fright. It must hurt, and that was his pain on his Sacrifice, and Nisei would savour the gift of it. "Oh. Oops. Is Seimei all right?"
"No."
"Shall I wring her neck for you?"
"No." Instead, there will be coin to spare, Nisei knows. There will be a tip, and a parting smile, and soft spoken reassurance. Aoyagi Seimei is a paragon of contrasting dimensions, none of which virtue: frail, liquid, and nothing unlike the china Nisei could break in the blink of an eye. Long lashes, short moments, fast bites, and now a frown his way. "Mind that hand."
The café is much too bright, and Seimei's eyes nearly bleed their astigmatism. And because the glass that is Nisei is never rose tinted, he wants himself opaque. "Ah…?"
"Your casting hand."
It's still snowing, and it's eve, and even, and Nisei is not used to being regarded like a rusty, complicated tool. And he's tired. "Seimei… don't be so-"
"No matter how good your vocabulary, you still focalize your energy in kinetics. That hand is everything that matters." Intent. Focus. Focus. Mean it. Focus.
That hand and that mouth and that tongue, and the ears for Seimei's orders, and that's all. His tea is bitter, ice trickles and sharp veins. "More than yours?"
Simply, "Yes."
"Is this your present, Seimei? How rude."
Silence.
"I'm leaving."
Minutely, the red of it bites the flesh and the bone and still there, still woven, Nisei calls that scar his.
In Seimei's world, every little cruelty's a desperate intricacy of kindness.
Nisei wants his anniversary wish now.
X.
Hope stared him in the eye, vain boy of newborn-eight, and the gums of his teeth were metal wire and heat.
No police, only his parents, and haughty little sobs, "This is wonderful, he is wonderful. This will mean training."
They told him, belatedly, that he had a gift.
XI.
misplaced: Seimei, you never finished the game. Don't you want to?
singularly went away.
misplaced: …how cute ♥
XII.
His mother, timelessly and effortlessly desperate for attention, removed the pen from thin, wavering hands long before the ink dried, well after he'd gone stiff and weary.
Dear Self,
You have been writing this letter for years now. Please mind your punctuation.
No love,
Not-Nisei-not-me-whatever-passes-for-your-narcotic-adled-intellect-which-is-devoid-of-light-pain-harness-I--
Can't finish this. Can't.
Next year, he would answer the anniversary card and her will wishes and it shall be wicked and flowery and perhaps a decade late, but it it'll be ornate silk against her tombstone.
Keep waiting.
XIII.
"Girls fancy giving me presents."
He keeps her picture in a glitter-gold album, too pale in Mimuro's hands, too abstract by that Pony.
The end line of the description tag is a wavering flourish most sentimentally amputated: betwixt these best regards, you split open their skulls -
"Mimuro-senpai, open it for me."
"No."
"Please, senpai."
- and this, lover, is how you kill someone.
XIV.
misplaced went idle.
singularly returned.
singularly: Happy Birthday, Nisei.
singularly signed off at 00:00:01 AM.