Title: it begins with a memory
Rating: T for implied violence
Characters: Byakuran, implied Shouichi
Summary: Some would call it an unhealthy obsession. Byakuran prefers the word 'destiny'.
It begins with a memory.
It's not even his own memory that starts this all, to be honest; it's someone else's. Someone's, who just happens to bear significant resemblance to him but doesn't exist in this timeline.
That memory triggers everything; it's the reason for the subsequent actions of one Byakuran Gesso in a certain world that is very different from the one a certain Sawada Tsunayoshi tries to save with his Guardians.
This is how innocence is tainted, slowly but surely.
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The memory is fuzzy and hazy around the edges, and it would be easy enough to pass it off as an illusion or a useless wish projected by one's subconsciousness.
It tugs and pulls at the corners of his mind, and the sheer familiarity of it makes him stop and ponder over it before shrugging and moving on.
Byakuran doesn't like to dwell on useless things, after all.
But it does not do well to ignore it, either.
The memory is fuzzy and hazy, but he feels that it's real. That it has happened.
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There's red – burning, burning red that threatens to consume all of his sight, all five of his senses, and he can hear, he can taste the fiery red in front of him – a musky taste? A little like fresh chestnuts? - and something, somewhere, flutters.
Inside him?
Something in him wants to catch that fiery red, and something makes the fuzzy memory of himself run after the bright, all-consuming colour - and then he sees green, complimenting the red, and his heart races – his own heart, his own body's heart.
It's a strange feeling, if only because Byakuran's never felt so alive than when that memory, imagined or not, takes over him and throws him into the vivid mess of mixed emotions.
It's odd and absolutely unneeded, this mess of emotions that Byakuran can taste in the memory.
But Byakuran is intrigued, nonetheless, by the strange memory that is full of red and green and something warm.
It's such a curious thing, and Byakuran has never backed down once he has his eyes set on something.
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It's not too long after the intruding memories started to appear that he starts to hear words from the patches of red swaying in his memory.
Something about people and the world...
Something about universe.
And Byakuran catches his own name, spoken by a voice he has never heard in his life, and that is enough to startle him away from the memory that feels more like a dream than anything else.
That voice, calling Byakuran, sounding so meek and yet it has this firmness that Byakuran has not heard before...
It's like hearing an old friend's voice for the first time in a long time.
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Byakuran-san.
That is the name the voice calls him, and Byakuran amuses himself by identifying all the different emotions the voice holds while calling his name so casually.
Sometimes, there's annoyance; another time there's subtle anger; yet another time there's unmistakable fondness; then there's fear, the one emotion he can understand a person having in regards to the white-haired teen.
And this makes him all the more curious.
Who is that person who calls him with such gentleness? Who is that person that he's apparently so close to?
He thinks about this even while beating some first-year student, his knuckles cracking and bruising but Byakuran doesn't notice such things.
His mind is captured by the strange memory that is slowly getting clearer as time passes by.
Red hair and green, smiling eyes occupy his mind, and he finds the dull grayness of his normal daily life melting away just like that, the vibrancy of those two colours brightening his days and opening his eyes to new possibilities.
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The memory changes into another one, much to Byakuran's utmost displeasure – although, this memory too is very captivating.
But he wants that burst of red and green in his mentality's vision; it's something he seeks out actively and do you know how rare it is for Byakuran to go about searching for something else than something he can sink his metaphorical fangs on and chew until the victim has nothing left?
This new memory lacks all the brightness of redness; instead, there's a gentle gaze and even gentler smile that seems to hold all the sadness in the world.
It annoys Byakuran to no end: that gaze, that smile. That pity.
Those eyes that hold the deepest blue he has ever seen mock him in the faintest of ways, promising things that are unreachable for him.
Byakuran's violet eyes flash when he opens them, the memory of the gentle-eyed child vanishing momentarily.
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It's not too long afterwards that he connects a name to that girls' face.
Yuni.
And even though her child-like, kindness-inducing face sickens him, he has a feeling that the girls is important in more than just providing entertainment for his bored soul.
His annoyance turns into a wicked, intense curiosity once the memory shifts, and Yuni's face becomes tainted with utter fear.
Byakuran always appreciates the beauty of fear, in all of its distorted glory.
And his smile widens as he finds another piece of himself and suddenly it all makes sense-!
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He learns about the theory behind alternate universes on his first year in university, a bored look glued onto his face even though his thoughts work on the subject, prodding at the possibility and calculating-
Byakuran's mind is buzzing with theories, with plans, and for everyone that knows him, it's a scary thing – Byakuran thinking, planning something would always wind up ending someone's life. Socially or literally.
And his mind stretches like the space does, infinitely... reaching new skies, new memories, and new people.
But what he's really searching for is that bright and knotted red hair and those green eyes that shine with guarded wariness and hidden happiness that baffles Byakuran because he does not know such an emotion.
But the memories don't show him this redhead again, and it frustrates him to no end; and everything is hidden behind his angelic smile that is as genuine as Mukuro-kun being a fragile, loving being with no genocidal tendencies whatsoever.
Lies are best hidden by a bright smile, don't you think so...
...Shou-chan?
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He remembers that nickname now, and he can't believe he could have ever forgotten it. Or... to be more specific, he can't believe he hasn't know the name 'Shou-chan' for the entirety of his life.
It has a nice, familiar ring to it, and it makes Byakuran's lips curl into a smile, twisted and dark around the edges.
His fingers grasp a powdery marshmallow, bringing it to his lips as he leers down from the back of the lecture room, impatience almost palpable in the pools of violet.
He knows he has met Shou-chan in countless alternate universes in a classroom of this type; so, why hasn't the redhead come yet?
Byakuran wants to find his Shou-chan, and it's not only because of his plans.
From the beginning, Irie Shouichi has intrigued him, in more ways than one, and Byakuran's skin tingles as anticipation, mixed within impatience, wells up inside him; no matter how many times he watches people squirm underneath his well-thought torture methods, he can't rid himself of that feeling.
Oh well, Byakuran thinks to himself as his eyes catch a particularly meek-looking girl's gaze, lips curling up amicably and causing the girl to turn away with a fresh flush painted on her cheeks.
I have all the time in the world, don't I?
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He has found Bluebell, Kikyo, Zakuro and Daisy with relative ease in this particular world, as his scattered memories from the other universes have started to come to him with amazing precision.
Even their original names and the little facts: for example, Kikyo was – is – rather decent at cooking, and French and Italian are just a few of the cuisines he has mastered either out of boredom or due to his situation.
To Kikyo's credit, he even manages to get Byakuran eat something other than sweets on a regular basis without the white-haired mobster (because that is what he is, in reality) whining about the lack of sugar.
But while his Funeral Wreaths are all so very amusing, Byakuran is not satisfied, and his underlying impatience sometimes threatens to burst out during the times when he has to... take care of business.
...And his impatience always ends in a ruined attire, mind you, due to the flood of blood that attaches to him like leeches would.
Literal leeches or those lackeys that keep on gathering around him that are so ignorant of how their lives are meaningless to him at this point of his obsession.
Deceiving people is not even his second nature.
It is in him, in his nature, to trick and deceive, and he's so talented at it, too.
Hence why no one notices the time when Byakuran's eyes lose the last sparkle of genuine happiness that is then replaced by the false, cold gleam that wordlessly threatens to devour a person alive.
It is not too after this that he meets one Irie Shouichi, and for a moment, the sparkle returns; tainted with possessive want and greed that knows no bounds.
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Surprisingly, he does not meet him at university.
Even more surprisingly, Irie Shouichi doesn't go to university even despite his undeniable, raw talent and intelligence that makes the games in alternate universes so enjoyable for Byakuran.
In this particular universe, Irie Shouichi is one of the unlucky immigrants with no way to climb up the social ladder, and he's stuck with what he gets.
Which is, basically, nothing.
But... it's as if fate itself is determined to have them meet, Byakuran would muse afterwards with a cynical smile on his lips.
He meets this Shou-chan – real, real, he's real and not just a mental image anymore – at one park, under a large oak that he saves into his memories because it's important, because this is how they meet in this world.
Byakuran stares down at the sleeping Japanese; inspecting the curled up male, whose reddish-brown hair covers his tightly shut eyes and the almost invisible scar a little above his nose.
He looks so deliciously vulnerable, and Byakuran's grin widens at the sight.
Finally, finally Shou-chan is within touching distance.
Byakuran bends down to get a better look at the Japanese teen, taking in the round-ish face that has not completely lost all the baby fat and the slim arms and legs that are bent awkwardly as Shou-chan sleeps.
From his other selves' memories, he knows that Shou-chan's ability to sleep in any position isn't limited to this, but he allows himself to marvel the way the redhead's limbs tangle with one another in almost painful way.
It's the sight he has been waiting for since a long time ago...
Shou-chan's eyelids flutter.
Oh, he's going to wake up~?
Excellent.
"Found you~!" are the first words this world's Byakuran Gesso says to this world's Irie Shouichi, and from there, their stories would continue to entwine with each other until a single entity would form.
Because no matter the world, the situation, the crisis; they were meant to meet each other at one point or another.
One could call it an endless obsession.
Byakuran Gesso would call it 'destiny'.