:: Velvet and Pearls ::
The night was clear, and still.
It was a world of velvet shadows, a blanket of deepest blue studded with distant fragments of dreams; it was quiet, and peaceful, and pure.
And Dark.
The moon emerged from behind her vaporous veil, watched the shadows in the world silently and proceeded to drown the night in her milky white light. It flowed from the sleeping heavens and painted the world in pearls and smooth rich creams.
And then it was Krad.
A gentle rustle of feathers, of soft cloth; the tiniest chime from the cross around his neck, and wine-coloured oculars blinked serenely.
Kaitou Dark looked up to acknowledge the light landing beside him.
"Krad," he murmured, "okairi."
The cold angel did not answer. His gaze was directed at the stardusted skies overhead, then across the shifting nightscape of velvety shadows and creamy white light merging in and out of each other. Smooth pale lips parted and Krad sighed lightly, but with absolute feeling, before taking his place beside his other half on the roof of the Niwa household.
"The night is clear," he commented. He sat upright, with one knee crooked skyward to lean his arm on. His other hand, the one closest to Dark, lay casually across his outstretched thigh, "There is a brilliant last quarter in the sky."
Dark made a non-committal noise of agreement.
Another imperceptible notion of impatience was emitted from the cold hunter, and he murmured tiredly, "Last quarter. Why did you summon me ahead of time, Dark Mousy?"
"Daisuke's going away for the holidays," the kaitou replied tonelessly. "If we were to meet as we usually do, you'd have to fly the creepy one all the way to Osaka."
"Satoshi-sama would not mind," Krad said, a little irritated. "Besides, he has no choice. And you know I haven't a problem with long flights."
((Not for you.))
Dark closed his eyes and the corner of his mouth kicked up wryly. He was sprawled easily across the roof, his lithe upper body slumped onto his arms, elbows on the roof behind him for support.
"Funny how your Satoshi "sama" seems to have no say in anything you two do," he said. "Some tamer."
((You know nothing of our relationship.)) Aloud, Krad spoke sullenly, "Do not speak of it."
Dark shot a curious look in the hunter's direction to find him more... what? Withdrawn? Guarded? ...vulnerable?
The kaitou propped himself up higher on his hands. "Hoi, Krad?"
"Hm?"
"What's up?"
The cold angel blinked. "'What's up'?"
Dark nodded. "Mm. Like, what's wrong, what's the matter? Why are you looking so..."
"So...?"
Dark sat up even further, scratched the back of his head absently. "You know, I dunno, so..." He hesitated; the hesitation of someone who'd come to a conclusion they didn't like. "...lonely."
Krad's gaze widened fractionally, then shifted back to the marbling world of velvet and pearls.
"'Lonely'?" he repeated quietly. "Lonely..."
Something sang in the darkness; something waited patiently for a reply that would never come.
"Lonely..." Krad rolled the word around in his mouth, testing it, testing its meaning, its relevance to the complexity rampaging within his heart and mind and soul and being. "Lone... sole... solitary... alone... and..."
((Incomplete.))
Dark, the uncomfortable nagging in his chest getting the better of him, spoke.
"Ne, Krad..."
The cold - lonely, solitary, incomplete - hunter paused in his musings, and waited.
"...Why?"
"Lonely?"
"Hai."
"Mm. Maybe because... I am."
Dark half-choked on an indeterminable emotion. "S-Sou desu ne..."
Krad watched him avoid his gaze for a time, then returned to watching the changing landscape of night. The sky was at its darkest blue, so deep the colour that it was barely colour anymore, and more the incomprehensible depths of emotion, a rich velvet blanket that reached out into infinity and eternity and the ends of time and space.
The moon shone on.
And in the uncomfortable silence that followed, something inside the house stirred.
Stirred, awoke, and pounced.
"Konban wa, With-kun," Krad murmured to the white fuzz burying itself furiously into his neck. A pale slender hand raised itself from his lap and stroked the top of its head gently.
Beside him, Dark gave a light sigh of exasperation and relief.
But mostly relief.
"With, I thought you were still asleep." He raised his own hand and ruffled the hair on top of the ancient rabbit's head roughly.
With gave a small 'kyu' of indignation, and wriggled his way under Krad's ponytail to the hunter's other shoulder.
Dark pouted.
"Hmph! Traitor."
From the other side of Krad, said traitor popped its head out from the cold angel's golden locks and 'kyu'd him happily.
"Don't worry, Dark," Krad murmured, "this little one is with you for life."
He gently extracted the rabbit and, eying his ruined ponytail, took out the ties and shook out his long golden locks, letting it tumble down his back and fall freely about him.
With was placed into Dark's lap.
The ancient rabbit kyu'd mournfully in protest, and immediately employed the puppy-eyes technique on the cold hunter.
But Krad was already distracted by the empty world of night again.
He was the only one who saw the emptiness to the light of the moon, how not merely cold but hollow it was, how the beauty held a cruel and savage nature to it, the emptiness of the feelings of the moon.
He was the only one who saw the emptiness of the shadows, ever shifting, slipping from tree to house to fence line, terrified of the intense light of the cold, cold moon.
And he was the only one who knew of the true emptiness in his heart.
He frowned, and placed an experimental hand to his chest.
Yes, there was a heartbeat, steadily pumping the blood throughout his body. But was it really his heartbeat, or just Satoshi-sama's life pulsing beneath this chest? Was this body truly his now, was this little heartbeat pumping his life, or his tamer's?
Was he truly hollow inside? Or just...
"...Krad? Krad?"
The hunter broke from his reverie, almost surprised that the thief had interrupted him thinking.
"Yes, Dark?"
With was gone; Dark had sent him inside long ago. The night was becoming early morning, though darkness and shadows still reined over the world.
Dark had decided to confront this edgy, vulnerable Krad; after all, what else were these meetings for, but to remind each other that there was another existence in this world that might be able to comprehend their feelings, and give comfort? So now the kaitou was looking at Krad with serious violet eyes full of a concern the hunter couldn't deny.
The moon, feeling her time was now coming to a decline, felt herself beginning to wane, and tried to withdraw her pearly light back into herself feebly. She could feel the Sun's rays threatening to diminish her power, even though the brilliant star lay hours away, and feared the coming of day.
Krad tried to avert his gaze; he was too late.
"Tell me," Dark ordered. "Now. Why the loneliness? You've never spoken of it before."
"You have never noticed," Krad replied sullenly, "so there was no need to speak of it."
"Right, so we're talking about it now," Dark said impatiently. "Why the loneliness?"
"Because I am alone?" Sarcasm touched the cold hunter's words.
"But you have me."
Krad was taken aback. He hadn't expected the kaitou to ever say that to him, let alone in such a bewildered tone...
He recovered quickly. "No, I don't."
He could feel the dam walls breaking inside; soon, he knew, the flood would take over, the things he'd been bottling up for centuries would be free, and he'd know.
Dark would know.
The idea both enthralled and terrified him.
Meanwhile the kaitou was trying to comprehend Krad's simple statement. His brow was creased, and sensuous lips puckered slightly as he protested, "But I'm here, aren't I? I'm with you now; you're not alone."
'You're not alone.' How long had Krad been waiting to hear those words? Yet now they seemed hollow. He needed more than just the words; he needed the truth to go with them, and make the meaning sincere.
Oh how greedy he was.
"Not really," was all he said aloud.
((Not with me; not together, still alone. Always... incomplete.))
Dark gave a frustrated sigh and rubbed his hair furiously. He too looked out at the nightscape sadly.
"I dunno what more I can do, Krad. I mean, we're supposed to be enemies, right? You've been chasing me for ages; what else am I supposed to do?"
Krad didn't answer straight away. When he did, the words were hesitant, probing.
"Dark... have you ever wondered why?"
"Why what?"
Krad scowled. "Why I've been chasing you all these years. Chasing you, hunting you; have you ever wondered why?"
The kaitou scratched his head.
"Because you don't like me?" he hazarded.
Krad stared at him, quite openly.
"You absolute moron," he whispered. "MORON!"
"Owie," Dark whined, a small bump emerging from where the hunter's fist had connected with the back of his head.
Krad glowered darkly, barely containing his frustration and urging his patience to hold out.
"Think, Dark," he managed to get out lowly. "Who said we were 'supposed to be enemies'?"
Dark paused.
"No one," he admitted finally.
"So why do you think I have been hunting you for so long? And for the record, I don't hate you."
Dark blinked. "Really? But you're always trying to kill me!"
Krad averted his gaze, the slightest blush crossing his pale cheeks shamefully as he muttered, "Well, I suppose over the years the reason became lost, somewhat..."
Dark, realizing the blush and deciding to be a gentleman and ignore it, queried, "So... what's the reason?"
Thick creamy moonlight fell onto the hunter's pale face, illuminated his deep golden eyes, his long free-flying tresses flicking and swaying in a slight breeze, all gold and silver and pearls in the unearthly light.
Watching him, Dark was overcome by an immense sense of wonder. That was Krad's power; unearthly beauty and a sense of unrivalled perfection that could not be denied nor opposed.
And then:
"Do you remember... when we were one? When we were Kokuyoku?"
Dark's gaze hardened, the spell undone by the cold angel's words.
Obviously he did.
"Do you remember... what it felt like?"
"Nothing," the kaitou said stonily. "It felt like nothing."
The cold angel's gaze dipped, fell, darkened, died.
The moon's light wavered as she passed behind a fine sheet of cloud, and the opaque light became misty and ethereal, ghostlike, intangible.
"Not to me."
Krad's voice was quiet, so quiet, and like nothing Dark had ever heard from the hunter. Almost wavering, and so fragile, as if it would break if he spoke too loudly.
"To me, that was the most I have ever been." Krad was forcing himself on, despite the confirmation that his other half felt nothing of what he felt.
Nothing.
"To me, that was the epitome of satisfaction, being with you, part of you, one with you. Since then... I have only ever felt empty."
"Lonely," Dark heard himself murmur.
"Incomplete," the hunter continued. "And always, always, craving to be whole again."
Something sang agitatedly into the darkness again, waited hopelessly for an answer.
Deep golden eyes swimming like thick amber locked onto Dark's own wine-coloured oculars.
"That is why I hunt you, Kaitou Dark. I don't give a damn about the Hikari artworks; as far as I'm concerned, they can all be burned. Maybe that is what they deserve. But when I say the only thing that matters is catching you, I mean it. And... and when I say killing you is my life's ambition, that is the desperate hope born of centuries of fruitless labour trying to be whole again. The desperate hope that the destruction of my other half will grant me the peace of completeness that I crave."
Dark was staring at him, almost unable to believe that this was Krad, the cold hunter, the one who had been trying to kill him for centuries, revealing these secrets to him. They came in a flood of emotion that he'd never encountered before in the cold angel, and for some reason it humbled him, realizing that for hundreds of years he'd been with this remarkable creature and never even known the real Krad.
His gaze turned guiltily to the shadows, deep plum-coloured depths reflecting the emptiness of them and he murmured, "But, why don't I--?"
"Because you have humans, Dark!"
Krad relented immediately, always ashamed of emotional outbursts, "you have humans. You can bond with your tamer; you are not their curse, but their responsibility. You can have a partnership, and through it gain a temporary illusion of completeness.
"Or maybe it is no illusion, and you... you can carry on without me. Like the night, you need no moon to be what you are. But I, I need you to be worth anything. Without the night, the moon is a pale, insignificant thing that may as well not exist!"
"No," Dark murmured, "no, that's not true..."
"And why not?"
Krad looked away, golden eyes clenched as he tried to avoid the kaitou's somber wine-coloured gaze, and crystalline tears slipped down his pale cashmere cheeks.
"Why the hell not?" he whispered.
"Because..." Dark took the hunter's hand, gently brushed some stray locks behind Krad's ear. "Because..."
He bowed his head.
"Those generations in which the Hikari produced no male heir were few and far apart," the kaitou murmured lowly. "But they affected me like nothing else. Everything felt... hollow, like a little part of me was missing and I couldn't for the life of me remember what I had done with it. Without you... without the moon, the night holds no luster, keeps no secrets, has no meaning beyond a petty blackness studded with broken glass. Krad," Dark implored him, "you said it yourself: we're still two halves of a whole. Maybe, being opposites, I don't feel the incompleteness as acutely as you do, but it's still there. And nothing else could truly complete me but you."
Looking into the kaitou's eyes, Krad saw truth, and sincerity.
Looking into his eyes, Krad saw light, and in the reflection of himself, darkness.
"Krad," Dark murmured tenderly, "you're not alone."
Unable to contain himself any longer, the cold angel fell into the kaitou's arms, clung to his warm body, and gave himself up to the night.
Their love was passionate, and painful.
For so long being apart, the connection was difficult to receive, and Krad clenched his beautiful golden eyes in pain many times throughout the course of the bonding.
They continued into the early hours of morning, losing themselves in the ecstasy and pushing each other further and further until there was nothing left to hide, until there was no further frontier to be reached and no more barriers to be overcome.
And then satisfaction took over their senses.
And then there was the Sun, a brilliant burning ball of irrepressible light overtaking all, blasting away the delicate shadows of night and dimming the moon's borrowed light to a mere paleness in the rapidly lightening sky. The night and the moon - two opposing forces balancing light and dark, velvet and pearls - though standing together and working as one, could not oppose the supreme light of the Sun, and were overwhelmed, overshadowed, and cast aside.
Daisuke woke up.
He'd had a dreamless sleep, but somehow felt as if his waking up had interrupted something important. Oh well; no doubt it was just a niggling remnant from a half-formed dream he'd never got started.
"Mm; you're awake."
Daisuke shot up and looked around frantically.
Sure enough his ruby gaze found Satoshi sitting with legs crossed on the couch, leaning back easily with a notebook in hand. The blue-haired boy snapped it shut and put his pen away before smiling at a flustered Daisuke. "Ohayou, Niwa-kun."
"O-Ohayou gozaimasu, Hiwatari-kun. Ano... what are you doing in my room?"
Satoshi shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Or maybe not; I actually have a reasonable idea of what might have happened last night. But no matter." He rose and stretched. "You don't mind if I grab a cup of coffee before I go, do you?"
Daisuke shook his head, dazed. "No, it's fine, take your time, you know where the kitchen is..."
Satoshi sent the red-headed boy another small smile. "Arigatou, Niwa-kun. I'll leave you to get dressed, then."
It was then, staring at Satoshi's retreating back leaving through the door, that Daisuke realized he was quite naked beneath the sheets, and proceeded to glow a bright red.
Outside, the sun shone down, soft sunflakes dusting the world in light, creating dappled shadows as a pale three-quarter moon hovered serenely in the clear blue sky.
:: sonryz ::
Right, well... I think it turned out pretty well, actually. : D The pace of it seems a bit off, but I dunno. Tell me what you think? . : P
As usual, any comments, criticisms and/or compliments are welcome and appreciated.
-love to reviewers, Dark and Krad-
-: glossary :-
okairi - welcome home
kaitou - phantom thief
sou desu ne - of course
konban wa - good evening
ohayou (gozaimasu) - good morning
And anything else you ought to be able to work out yourself. : P We love online translators.