Title: Blank Canvas
Timeline: Pre-series
Characters: Agatsuma Soubi, Aoyagi Seimei, and Kaido Kio. Brief mentions of Minami Ritsu and Aoyagi Ritsuka.
Spoilers: You should know Soubi's back-story by now.
I really hate pain. I'd pull my own soul out if it meant I could stop the pain.
—Soubi, Loveless: Volume 6
... … …
Afterward, the spell system collapses, and their enemies lie unmoving.
Distantly, Soubi notes that he is losing blood quickly, too quickly, and he still feels the reverberations of the crack! of his shoulder dislocating.
("Soubi, I'm bathing with Ritsuka tonight. You will not let them mark me. No bruises."
"Understood.")
Unable to dispel a restraint in time, he'd redirected it from Seimei to himself, damaging his shoulder at the odd angle. He doesn't care. He was protecting his Sacrifice.
("What kind of Sacrifice are you?" Faultless had cried, disgusted. "You're supposed to take the damage!"
The words hadn't made sense in Soubi's head, but Seimei had laughed.)
He's not sure if he can walk the four blocks back to his apartment, or if he'll just pass out on the street after Seimei leaves.
But that is of no concern. Seimei is pleased, and that is all that matters.
A long time ago, he sought to please Seimei because of contingencies. So that Seimei wouldn't rebuke him, or would allow Soubi to remain in his company after a battle, or would improve him with discipline. So that he could feel sure that Seimei wouldn't throw him away.
(One betrayal had hurt far more than Sensei's whips or thrusting flesh, and left a lingering fear souring in his stomach.)
But now, he knows better. There is only Seimei's pleasure. Soubi himself isn't part of the equation.
"Go home, Soubi," Seimei orders, so he makes it back to his apartment, teeth clenched and head spinning. His consciousness lasts all of a few steps past the threshold.
Hours later, he wakes to a raging fever and familiar fussing. "Aoyagi hurt you again, didn't he? Don't let him do that, Sou-chan!" Kio howls. "Fight!"
That makes no sense at all, he thinks hazily. He does fight. In Spell Battles, where he paints with Words on the canvas of his master's enemies' skin. Who else is he supposed to fight? There is no more need for resentment over Sensei's cruelties. There is only Seimei's Law, and Soubi is judged as he deserves.
And he obeys.
… … …
"Hey, Sou-chan," Kio calls, poking his head out of Soubi's closet. "You're out of fresh canvas. Let's go shopping soon."
Soubi doesn't look up. "No."
Kio flails for a moment. "What do you mean, 'no'? You can't paint without something to paint on, idiot."
"I buy one just before I start each project."
"Sou-chan, you're so weird! Why?"
Soubi thinks of the framed blank spaces, lined up and awaiting the moment they will be given away by a dull-eyed, uninterested salesman. Of passing through so many forging hands before being claimed.
"Hey, I asked you a question—ah, Sou-chan? Are you okay?"
… … …
Kio's discovery of Soubi's BELOVED scar is an accident.
Soubi comes home from a spell battle in the rain, stiff and bruised from the restraints but otherwise unharmed, and had found Kio waiting for him. He's a welcome sight, with an umbrella in one hand and a bag of take-out and a case of beer clutched awkwardly in the other.
"Sou-chan! You're soaked!" Kio darts forward to share the umbrella, and Soubi grabs the beer to lighten his friend's load. He fumbles with the key, half-listening to Kio's continued prattle as they make their way to the kitchen.
Kio is tugging at the scarf around Soubi's neck, huffing about idiots who don't take proper care of themselves, and the danger still doesn't register.
It isn't that he's forgotten about the brand of ownership. It never leaves his mind, but somehow Kio has wormed his way into Soubi's life, all smiles and flirtatious innuendoes, and hands that Soubi doesn't understand because they brush and stroke and soothe, they don't grab and slap and strike, and somehow the careful compartmentalization of his existence is falling apart. He simply forgets that Kio doesn't know.
Kio's harsh intake of breath, however, is enough to bring the walls snapping back in place. His fluttering hands had unwound the scarf—and with it, the bandages, and Soubi's misconceptions.
"Why do you have a—oh, Sou-chan…" Kio looks sick. "That's not a tattoo, is it."
Then his face hardens. The "Aoyagi" that slips past clenched teeth is almost a snarl. "That's a sick mockery! That's not love, Sou-chan! Nobody would do that to somebody they love!"
"I never said it was." Soubi is tired. He doesn't want to have to explain this. "And I never said it referred to me."
People are strange, he thinks. No one seems to understand that the fragile butterflies he depicts are despicable, or that the disfiguring scars on his throat are the most precious thing in his world. That he wants nothing more than to share that name, to buy it with the only coin he has to offer—himself, his blood, his pain, his obedience, his Words—in order to have a right to it. But he knows that however much he pays, the name is still only a loan. It's Seimei's, not his own.
If anything, Kio looks greener. "Not you," he mouths, no sound coming out. He finds his voice in a burst of understanding and anger. "It's Aoyagi. Like a goddamned tag on a dog collar. That freak is unbelievable! Sou-chan, that's so wrong. You have to know that's wrong. Nobody can want that!"
Blandly, Soubi turns back to the bag on the countertop. "Dinner?"
… … …
"Isn't it convenient I have a blank? I'm not sure I could give you to Ritsuka if you were a Named Fighter."
Soubi nods, reflexively agreeing with what Seimei says—anything Seimei says—but he can't speak. His throat feels like it has been coated in ice. One part of his brain, always dutiful, files away the image away for a future Spell.
His master needs him, and he is useful to his master. He has no right to feel pain. But still, he can't deny that it hurts, it hurts, it hurts it hurts—
And at that moment, it wasn't the helpless, desirable butterfly he hates most of all. It was the blank canvas.
He wants to be the butterfly. He wants strong, ruthless fingers to close around his wings, snapping his legs and rending his insides. He wants to see, in the movement that brought about his final moments, the knowledge that he is worth this small effort of muscle, this death.
He unwinds the bandages from about his neck. "Do you think that this needs to be retraced?" He heals fast, after all, and scars fade.
"Don't presume you know, Soubi," says Seimei, but his eyes have brightened, and he's already reaching for the knife he carries on his person. Those eyes sparkle, Soubi thinks crazily, as his master makes the first incision into his flesh. They're filled with a wide galaxy of stars, so far apart he could drift for days, months, years without encountering another piece of earth.
Here, in the vast universe of Seimei's eyes, with the familiar pulse of agony thrumming through his veins, he can believe that pain—the real, frightening pain—cannot hurt him.