I actually watch Tactics ages ago, so if the characterisation is a bit off… - -"
This piece actually was meant to be fluff. Kan-chan was suppose to just have a cold and Haruka worries for no reason and everyone is happy in the end. Well, somewhere along the way of writing it that idea just go lost, and out come this instead. I'm pretty happy with this one. Enjoy!
Nameless Again
A man sits alone at a table for two. The owner of the coffee shop has seen this man come for half a century. The first time she saw him, she was no older than most of the young girls currently working. She still remembers offering him some extra cake because he remarked that they tasted nice. In fifty years he hasn't changed at all, still handsome as ever. In the last three decades he always comes alone, once a year on this day, without fail. He always sits at exactly the same spot. A table by the window. There use to be someone that always came with him; the friend had strange silver hair and a childish face.
"Kikyo-chan, who's that sitting by the window?" one of the new girls whispered to another waitress.
"I don't know, I heard from the owner that he comes every year"
"Only once a year? Why?"
"Who knows, if you're so interested why don't you ask him yourself?" Kikyo suggested.
"Okay, give me one of those cakes."
"Excuse me, would you like some extra cake, it's the best one!" She seemed to have startled the man lost in his thoughts.
"I'm Riku by the way, it's nice to meet you" Riku rushed, "and you are?"
There was a long pause, almost like he hadn't heard her. But then he replied, "I'm Haruka"
----------
Somehow Haruka always pictured Kantarou would die in the cause of his profession, at the hands of a demon or a curse. But it was illness that crippled the man. A slow death, a painful one. The doctors called it consumption, his literally drowned in his own blood. Kantarou hid it so well, the chest pains, the blood. He was always a good liar. One day he had just seemingly collapsed.
Haruka had never been so worried. He may not have been around humans long, but enough to know that consumption was a disease that humans died from. Stupid weak humans. Kantarou was supposed to be stronger. Kantarou was the one who broke his seal, how could he succumb to something so trivial, so human.
Haruka paced incessantly outside Kantarou's door. Youko had suggested that Haruka go and sit by Kan-chan since the doctor was gone. But he couldn't stand seeing Kantarou like that, sickly pale lying on the futon, like he had given up and he had resigned himself to the inevitable. So Haruka sought escape, and ended up sitting on the rooftop. His wings had refused to take him any further from his master.
His thought drifted to the beginning. "I just want to be Haruka's friend." Kantarou always said thing like that.
He stole a glimpse of Kantarou before that morning, because the doctors arrived. Kantarou always had pale skin, but now it wasn't that kind of translucent pinkish colour, but grey and dull. Like the dead, his brain had unhelpfully supplied.
How could he be Haruka's friend if he just went and died.
Later that night after Youko had gone to bed. He slipped into Kantarou's room. The drugs the doctor administered kept Kantarou from feeling the pain but also kept him from consciousness. A light film of sweat covered Kantarou's body. It seems that even in a comatose state he couldn't fully escape the pain. Haruk almost couldn't tell Kantarou was breathing. His breath was so shallow that it was inaudible even in the silence of the night. The doctor had said he probably had a little over a week. They were supposed to have more time. They could have had so much more.
Haruka knelt besides the silver haired man. His hands traced the sides of Kantarou's face. Haruka knew words were useless at this point. How could he express everything he was feeling in mere words. Instead he placed a soft kiss on Kantarou's lips. It was their first kiss. When their lips touched, Kantarou's red orbs briefly fluttered open. It was the last time their eyes met, their last goodbye.
Three days later Kantarou died. The doctor lied.
The day they buried Kantarou, Sugion's mocking words rang clear in Haruka's ears. "A human and a youkai are different, they can never live together"
Haruka was first angry and bitter then broken and lost. He had lost his master and friend. He had become nameless again.
----------
After saying his name the man seemed to slip away again, lost in his own world. Riku sighed; perhaps she would try again later.
An hour later Haruka stood from his seat, the young waitress who had attempted to start a conversation before handed him some more sweets. As he walked away, a gentle laughter floats across the wind. "Mou, Haruka is always using his charms to get free things!"
Kantarou named him Haruka, and Haruka he will always be.
"please review" Haruka smiles (aka uses charm, now you must obey him cause his soooooooo pwetty)