Love's Occasions
Arrhythmic Song: Welcome to another of my multi-chapter SK fictions. This is pretty much going to be five chapters, celebrating special events in the one year after the Promised Day, which very obviously Subaru and Kamui have survived. Meet the first chapter.
Chapter One: New Millennium, 2000
Christmas was in the air: Kamui could tell. The streets were decked out in trappings of green and red and bright gold lights, happy faces filled the space around him. It was the anticipation of a Christmas spent with family and friends. Most of these people would never know how close the human race had come to total eradication- rather, they went about happily, commuters on the train looking forward to going home to their families as the sheer spirit of the festivities filled the air with the promise of log cake and family closeness.
The Promised Day had come and gone, and a few of the Dragons- from both sides- had survived to see 2004's New Year. Karen. Yuuto. Yuzuriha. Kusanagi. Arashi. Himself. And of course... Subaru.
It had been difficult for all of them, difficult to heal and live on. Karen had let Aoki go; though she would always feel the guilt of him having left a wife and a child to save her in the end. It wasn't a calculated decision to put Karen before his wife and child, but it was merely the sheer impulse to protect her- an impulse that had catapulted him into a wall of wire while throwing Karen out of harm's way.
There was no way he had really thought he would die destroying Beast and Satsuki inside it.
That was something about the human spirit, the human condition, Kamui mused, especially for the young and those in the prime of life. It was unthinkable for them to believe that they would die, as much as they got their rational, thinking, conscious mind to accept it, it was an impossibility and somewhere in the depths of their subconscious, they would always be surprised at death's inevitability.
Karen had fought Yuuto to a standstill and both had dropped, exhausted and unconscious, only to be found like that after Fuuma lay dead at Kamui's hands. Yuzuriha and Kusanagi had at the end refused to fight each other despite the first few half-hearted blows, and Sorata died a happy death in the arms of his nee-chan.
According to Subaru, Arashi had picked up his battered body and cried tears of blood and sorrow over it before he told her to live on or he would never forgive her. That the Arashi he had fallen in love with, the Arashi he still loved and would love, would never let this get her down. That she had to rebuild a life, a life without him, with someone else if necessary. So far, Arashi had managed the 'without Sorata' part. Whether she would fulfil the 'someone else' part... Kamui personally doubted it.
Subaru had merely watched and waited for one of the two 'Kamui's to end it all. What was there for him, after all? His opponent was to have been Seishirou Sakurazuka- the Sakurazukamori. Seishirou had died and he was the Sakurazukamori. It was an irony that did not escape any of them on the Promised Day itself.
In the end, though, it had not been Kamui who had ended it: it had been Fuuma. Fuuma had been the one to end it, been the one to take Kamui's hand and drive the Shinken through his own body. And in that moment the fighting ceased. For all that the Ten no Ryuu and the Chi no Ryuu had their own differences, at the heart of everything, it was between one Kamui and the other.
So it happened that Kamui had collapsed in shock at the body of Fuuma lying there peacefully, and Subaru had come forward, picked him up- Kamui had not resisted even as sightless eyes leaked reflex tears- hugged him loosely and said, "It's over."
The thread of events had been so slender, so fragile. Had Subaru not come for him back then when he had trapped himself in the dreamscape, so much would never, ever have come to pass. So much that might not have happened. So much that would have happened had that alternate reality been followed.
It seemed to be the cruelest of ironies that the Promised Day had been the last day of 1999, held amidst the bustle of oblivious people preparing for the New Year. Somehow Kamui had found the strength to go to one of the Buddhist temples in the vicinity and listen to the sounding of the bells there, a hundred and eight tolls for the hundred and eight sins of the human condition.
The bells tolled for the dead.
Subaru had brought him back to his own home, a small, Spartan apartment with not much. One would have thought that the Seals would have stuck together after their victory, but it was, after all, a hollow one. Kamui had succumbed to nightmares the first few nights, reduced to crying Fuuma's name over and over and over as he scrunched up in bed, recuperating from the not-so-insubstantial wounds- both physical and mental- with Subaru continually beside him. Subaru had been there, had held him despite his own demons in the dark. For the New Year, the day after the Promised Day, Kamui had been nothing but an emotional wreck. For the moments he wasn't crying, he was just shivering and clutching at the frail protection of Subaru's hold.
It just seemed too surreal, laid up in bed and trembling in the darkness while all around them fireworks bloomed like scarlet poppies in the celebration of New Year, ushering in a new millennium- and Kamui felt a sudden stab of doubt. Another thousand years of progress, another thousand years of death for the Earth. The seven remaining Dragons would try to fight whatever mankind did to poison the land- but how long? How long till 2999, when another version of the Promised Day would take place?
That New Year had been the start of his relationship with Subaru, a tenuous tie with the other man that had grown into a mutual reliance. After the first few days, it had been Subaru's turn to fall apart. And then it had been much easier for Kamui to put the events of the past away: simply because this was the here and now and Subaru needed him. Subaru needed him as much as he needed Subaru.
He knew that at the start of everything their reliance on each other had been almost unhealthy, practically obsessive. Like addictive drugs. Falling into him, falling into him so badly that nothing else would have sufficed, falling into him and needing his presence, feeling his absence like a physical ache, even. The world in Subaru's apartment complex had been silent, people out visiting the shrines, praying to the gods.
Kamui could barely believe there was still a god.
Kamui had never dared contemplate what would have happened to him if Subaru had died. He knew that Subaru had never dared contemplate what would have happened to himself if Kamui had died.
That New Year had been the death of a relationship and the beginning of another.
Arrhythmic: Alright, this makes more of a prologue than a chapter, but I hope you liked it. Anyone wants to guess the other four occasions? The last chapter will come up on 24th or 25th December... Hope you'll enjoy! If you did, review! If you didn't, review too!