The house was quiet for a long long time, and Ikkaku spent most of the long expanse fidgeting just slightly and making random humming and mumbling sounds, puffing his cheeks out and feeling around his body, occasionally playing with his lips and biting himself and trying to touch these tickly things attached to his eyes. He particularly liked spreading his toes apart and wiggling them. Sleeping was nice. It was very quiet and peaceful – well maybe a little too quiet. Perhaps that's why he kept making noises to himself so he wouldn't think he was alone.
Finally, finally, he heard a creak and lie still immediately. Light footsteps, almost entirely inaudible, tread around him, and he lie absolutely still. There were small clinking sounds and rustles, just little noises that came with Yumichika moving about inside the house. Ikkaku knew it must be Yumichika. That Shuuhei's footfalls were much heavier, and if it had been Shuuhei, he probably would've come and kicked Ikkaku on the head. That Shuuhei didn't like him. Yumichika didn't like him either, but he'd been kind at least. Ahh, Ikkaku wanted to be allowed to stay. Maybe if he was extra good and helpful Yumichika would change his mind and let him stay a little longer.
Ikkaku eagerly awaited Yumichika's attention, ready to see him and heed his commands for the day, but he remembered what had been said last night and dutifully kept his eyes shut. Oh, but it was so hard! He wanted to see him! What was he doing over there so quietly?! Didn't he need Ikkaku yet? Didn't Yumichika see how good and obedient he was being?
There was a scraping sound against the floor and a quiet sigh, small sips, a long period of silence. Ikkaku could hardly contain himself. He should not just be laying here! He had to… to do something, he had to get up and be at attention! He had to show Yumichika that he could be useful to him!
He heard a few more footsteps and felt a presence above him, a gaze on his face. Then there was a soft touch on his shoulder. "Wake up," came a very quiet voice. Ikkaku opened his eyes immediately, looking up at Yumichika's face.
He was holding a cup that had smoke rising from it and was watching him; he seemed troubled in some way, probably because Ikkaku hadn't yet gotten up to attend on him. Ikkaku still just lay there, not having moved at all other than letting his eyes open. Did Yumichika need him now? Why was he unhappy? Ikkaku had obeyed his request perfectly, hadn't he?
"Did you sleep at all?" Yumichika asked, sounding disappointed.
Ikkaku, eager that Yumichika should know that he was not a disappointment and that he had obeyed him to the fullest, said, "Yes, I kept my eyes shut as you asked, Yumichika-denka."
Yumichika leaned back, and Ikkaku sat up and pulled himself clumsily onto his knees. He was being looked at skeptically and with a hint of surprised embarrassment. Yumichika seemed mortified. What had he done? He cocked his head confusedly. "What is that?" Yumichika asked slowly.
He meant to say that he didn't understand, but what came out was a bewildered mumbling noise.
"You cannot mean to call me 'Denka' like that," Yumichika said flatly, unable to look him in the eye, fingers flitting about nervously. Ikkaku put his fists on top of his thighs, leaning forward with zeal, eager that Yumichika should know he respected him and loved him. Yumichika was kind, very kind and nice and Ikkaku wanted to please him. He wanted Yumichika to accept him as his ward and keep him. Ikkaku didn't know what else to do but to stay here and make Yumichika happy. He yearned for guidance.
"Should I call you as Yumichika-dono instead? Or Yumichika-sama, or Yumichika-master, or kind-Yumichika who has helped me so?" Yumichika waved a hand to stop him, and Ikkaku just watched his face for a sign, head tilted to the side, eyes wide and observant.
Yumichika gave a long sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Who told you it was alright to decide that you're in my charge?"
Ikkaku bobbed his head, rocking back and forth slightly, practically bursting with energy. "If I can please stay here, I will serve! I will serve and be your ward! Take good care of me please out of the goodness of your heart!" He then put his forehead to the floor, causing a dull clunking sound.
"Don't you 'o-sewa ni narimashite' me or put your head to the floor. That sort of pitiful humbleness doesn't move me."
Ikkaku's head popped up a bit, mouth ajar. Yumichika's expression was firm. "Ikkaku, I am not your master."
Ikkaku, unable to accept that one way or another – that Yumichika was replacing her or the fact that Yumichika would not accept him – begged, "Please, tell me what I can please call you!"
Yumichika gave him a long thoughtful look, blinking several times, face unreadable. Finally he said, ". . . Yumichika-shi is fine."
Ikkaku's expression fell as he looked at Yumichika in wonder. Such a cold impersonal name to call him, but still respectful enough that Ikkaku could make himself use it. Anything Yumichika wanted, he would do, just as long as he would be allowed to stay here.
Yumichika stood up then, walking over to his cabinet and getting some plates out. Ikkaku tried to follow him with his eyes, but at a certain point, Yumichika went out of view and his eyes ached from trying to look farther. "Get up. Get ready for the day."
Ikkaku unfroze in a jolt and scrambled onto his front, kicking his legs free from the blankets and staggering to a standing position. Then he bolstered his fists and said, "I'm ready!"
Yumichika sighed with a smile that he looked like he was trying to get rid of. "I mean wash your face and eat something. Take off your clothes and put on the ones I've laid out for you."
"I will, Yumichika-shi." Yumichika groaned at him and ignored him after that. Ikkaku went about his business, stomping his feet heavily and making repeated grunting noises. He took about ten minutes to change into what Yumichika had provided him. The pants were easy enough, but he'd gotten his shirt stuck over his head and, not quite knowing what to do without being able to see what he was doing, had just remained in there for a few minutes thinking until he'd finally freed himself and put his arms through the right holes. Then he splashed his face with water when he was given a bowl of the stuff.
Then he sat at the table and quietly ate a piece of bread, dripping everywhere. Yumichika didn't comment on how ready he looked. He must've been pleased and had no field notes on Ikkaku's performance.
At that point, Hisagi came out of the back room, bare-chested and sleepy-eyed. His pants hung low on his hips, unbelted. As he made a pass around the table, he noogied Ikkaku's head with his knuckles, greeting him somewhat congenially with a yawn. "Hey, ugly."
Ikkaku was knocked forward into his eggs and sat there in his plate for a moment, then picked his head up. Hisagi slung his arm around Yumichika's slim shoulders with another yawn, standing behind him and resting his head against his as he stood at the counter and wiped some plates clean.
Ikkaku used his arms to wipe his eggy-face and kept eating his bread, then a handful of eggs. Yumichika put a fork in his fist and guided his hand once to show him how to use it, before he turned away again. Hisagi didn't let him go and just drifted around with him, still holding him with his droopy eyes almost shut. Yumichika completely ignored him.
Finally Yumichika raised a hand up and patted the side of Shuuhei's face, whispering something and kissing him without his lips actually touching his cheek. Ikkaku kept chewing, blinking his eyes and watching them with his head tilted sideways.
Shuuhei then grinned, snickering, whispering back and squeezing Yumichika one more time before letting go and grabbing a shirt of his own, stripping his pants off and changing those too. He scrubbed his face, packed up a meal, and swatted Ikkaku's head again as he passed by with another comment about keeping his eyes to himself, although this sounded much more light-hearted than last night's threat of castration.
Once Shuuhei had gotten his boots and cloak on, he bid Yumichika goodbye with a kiss and was off, opening the door, letting in a fierce flash of brightness that caused Ikkaku to cry out and fall out of his chair. Yumichika went and latched the door once it closed, blocking the light out.
Ikkaku rubbed his eyesockets fiercely, whining and sulking on the floor. All the blinds must have been drawn and keeping that horrible light outside. That had been awful! Brighter than fire! Ahh, his eyes hurt…
"You're all wet and dusty now," Yumichika's scolding voice said, distracting him. He let out another whine and tried to get up, whacking his head on the table. "Oh!" Yumichika gasped, but Ikkaku just sat down hard and then tried to get up again, standing and swaying once, before steadying himself.
"Are- Are you alright?" Yumichika asked somewhat apprehensively, and Ikkaku nodded a lot of times, smiling, wiping his eyes one more time. Yumichika was quiet for a few moments, his brow creased, and Ikkaku stared back at him, smiling pleasantly. "Change your shirt," Yumichika said then, simply peeling it off Ikkaku before he could get stuck in it again.
Yumichika nudged him away then to go put on his dry shirt, and Ikkaku stomped over to the middle of the floor, sat down and put his head inside it, then getting his arms through backwards. "Turn it around. Pull your arms in and then turn it around."
Ikkaku did, then sat forward on the balls of his feet and rocked back and forth, looking at himself in the mirror again. He didn't know if he liked these clothes. With these on, he couldn't see most of the beautiful body that Master had created. Ah, but Yumichika wanted he should wear them, and he couldn't bear to disobey. Hmm, look at this mirror-man, he was so perfect in every way – master was so smart and skillful, look at what a good body she'd made for him. He tilted his head to the side and then the other side to watch the mirror-man copy it. Then he smiled for a moment, showing his teeth.
'Ugly.'
His smile changed to a frown as he was suddenly made very self-aware and conscious of his appearance. He reached up and touched his cheeks, frowning more and more as he looked at himself. When he'd been born, he'd appreciated the strong body Master had given him, the lean musculature, the toes and fingers and the weirdo belly-button that shouldn't be there. He'd been beautiful and perfect for all that time.
But. . . Hisagi had said he was ugly.
Ikkaku frowned and frowned, something feeling bad in his stomach. He was… unhappy about that. Was this the truth? Was he horrible and awful and rotten? Yumichika… Yumichika had called him bad names last night too. Was this what he was? Was this the truth? This couldn't be how he was. She had made him for… for…
Never mind what she'd made him for, she'd made him, and she was his Master. She never made mistakes. The only mistake he'd made was allowing that beautiful red to go.
He would change the mirror-man, make him look how he truly should be, how he knew he was. He'd be perfect again. Red and perfect as the moment he'd been born.
Ikkaku kept looking in the mirror, reaching out his fingers hesitantly, surprised when they hit something solid. His fingertips were being blocked by the matching ones of the mirror-person. He looked at his fingers for a moment and then tried again, banging his hand up against it, pressing on it, but each time, he'd be kept out by identical hands. This skin didn't feel like Yumichika's though. This felt like stone; it chilled him.
Dismayed, he frowned harshly. If he could not change, he must at least know what Yumichika's thoughts were. Yumichika knew. Yumichika must know. Yumichika knew how to do everything and had the answers.
"Yumichika-shi," he called thoughtfully, picking at the splintery floor somewhat sulkily, "Am I. . . ugly?"
"Yes. Horribly ugly," Yumichika replied immediately.
"Mm," Ikkaku acknowledged, blinking at his reflection, tilting his head once more with a blank look. He still didn't see it. He still looked beautiful and perfect, but he was starting to have doubts. Hisagi and Yumichika both thought he was ugly and wrong, they'd both struck him and cursed him. Maybe they were right. Maybe looking at him was bad and made them hate him.
"I will cover my face for you," Ikkaku said solemnly, causing Yumichika to look up sharply, seeming troubled.
"It's not your face," he said shortly, "Your face is quite handsome."
"Oh." He blinked. "Then why?" He had to know.
"Perhaps it's because you look different… or perhaps it's the knowledge of what you are that's ugly."
". . ." Ikkaku contemplated that for a moment, sitting there staring. 'What I am?'
"Come eat, I know you must still be hungry," Yumichika said then, drawing him out of his simple boorish thoughts. "Shuuhei is out chopping wood. He'll be back soon." Ikkaku came to the table, back to his plate of eggs, only to see Yumichika lay a large strip of pork belly on top of it.
Ikkaku eagerly took a bite, scarfing it down as Yumichika sat down across from him with a plate. Yumichika raised an eyebrow at him and Ikkaku closed his mouth, cheeks bulging, and made an effort to pick up his fork again, merely stabbing the meat a few times, shaking the table with each repetition.
Yumichika looked at the ceiling, sighing through his nose. "Akarat, grant me patience," he mumbled under his breath. Then he reached across the table and slid the plate out from under Ikkaku's fist, causing him to stab his fork directly into the wood and get it stuck there.
Ikkaku poked the fork handle once and stared at it, then twanging it again. Then he became preoccupied with watching Yumichika cut his meat for him with the side of his own fork. He felt so unnatural and out of place in this strange, strange world, and Yumichika seemed to know everything so seamlessly. If only he knew how to live here and survive as Yumichika did. If Yumichika would let him stay, maybe he could teach him how to be. Maybe then he'd learn and know.
There were a few silent moments only broken by caws of birds outside and Yumichika's fork clacking against the plate.
"Denka?" Ikkaku asked softly in a thoughtful tone.
Yumichika sighed again, stalling in his motions, seeming horribly embarrassed. "I wish you wouldn't call me that."
"Yumichika-shi is cold, like you want that I shouldn't know you, " Ikkaku said wistfully. It was still awkward and hard to talk, but he did his best. "I want to please know you very well. You've been so kind to me."
"I've been no such thing," Yumichika replied bitterly, continuing with cutting his meat into small, small pieces. Ikkaku wouldn't even have to bite those – he'd probably be able to gulp them down whole! He frowned a little as the plate was pushed back in front of him. "Just call my name as it is," Yumichika insisted then as he leaned forward and yanked the fork out of the wood, placing it back in Ikkaku's hand.
"Mm." Ikkaku stabbed a piece of meat and held it in front of his face, scrutinizing it balefully, then sticking it in his mouth and biting down on the fork. He withdrew it, scraping his teeth, then chewing on the meat square and swallowing it. This fork was bad. Forks should have three prongs, not four.
Why… did he know that?
Ikkaku stared at his food.
"What were you going to ask?" Yumichika prompted when Ikkaku made no move to speak. It seemed like Yumichika didn't like the quiet very much.
Ikkaku set his fork down, dismayed. "What am I to do now, Yumichika-shi? What should I do?" he asked, crestfallen and hopeless, "I feel so lost."
Yumichika's eyebrows slowly, slowly pushed together in bemusement. "Hm," he acknowledged, as if this was something worth noting. He crossed his arms and put a hand to his chin, drumming his fingers against his lips. "Strange."
"Strange why?" Not strange how. He knew why he didn't feel at home in this world. He knew how it had come about. Master was dead and he knew nothing. The person who'd been meant to teach him everything and take away any responsibility for him to think for himself was gone.
Yumichika gave him an appraising look, then went on to say delicately with furrowed brow, "You were created with intent." He tapped his fingers against his mouth again, shaking his head minutely, "Dark purpose. You should know what that purpose is from the moment of your… birth." Then he stood up and turned in one motion, waving a hand flippantly. "I assume something went wrong. Cultists these days are such amateurs. 'Feh."
Ikkaku, not understanding what Yumichika was getting at, cut to the heart of the problem. "I don't know how to live. I don't know what to do with myself. I need you, I need you so you can show me."
Yumichika sighed, sitting down with more meat on his own plate, eating for a moment and then dropping his fork and shoving the entire plate aside. He set his arms on the table, staring at Ikkaku dead-on, obviously thinking.
". . ."
". . ."
Yumichika took a breath then, nodding to himself. "You must harvest," he said, not elaborating. "I've decided I'll procure what you need in exchange for work."
Yumichika was letting him stay! He was letting him be useful! "Yes, as you command," Ikkaku said immediately, eyes wide, smile wide and manic.
"No," Yumichika cut him off, "No, no, you just say 'I will' or 'I won't.' You already answer to someone, and that someone's not me." He spread his hands apart. "You choose. Would you like to accept this deal or not?"
"I. . ." Ikkaku struggled, stomach clenching and pupils shrinking as he tried hard to do what Yumichika was asking, which was to not do what he was asking- "Yes," he said in a small voice, letting his mouth close with a clack to cut off the rest.
"'I would' or 'I won't,'" Yumichika insisted, brow pinching.
"I would," Ikkaku choked out, digging his nails into the table.
Yumichika looked at him for a long, long time, finally giving a hum. "No pain, no fear, and no doubt, but you're different…" He blinked a few times, seeming horribly confused. "Where is your master? Why are you wandering alone? Where has your master gone?"
Ikkaku breathed through his teeth several times, rocking back and forth in his seat, making a forced grunting sound.
"Your father, I mean," Yumichika amended. Ikkaku looked up then.
"… My… my father?" he repeated, feeling and sounding more lost than ever. Where was he, what was he, who had left him behind to feel this way? Who had left and created this gaping black hole inside of him? How could he fill it? How could he cope?
"Your mother then," Yumichika pressed.
Ikkaku lowered his eyes to the tabletop, breathing slowly. That word seemed to resonate within him and tell him that he should remember something. "Mother… is gone," he said, his words dull and sad.
"How can that be?" Yumichika asked, confused, "No, that doesn't make any sense. You're only separated from her, surely."
"Dead," he croaked.
"No," Yumichika insisted, "No, Ikkaku, you're confused. Don't lose hope, you'll find her again." Ikkaku shook his head, gasping.
"Master has died and left me," he moaned, beginning to become distressed, breathing changing, his voice becoming a tight sound that was an inch from breaking. "I saw, I've seen it."
"Died? You seem to be fine though, how is this? . . ."
"Please," Ikkaku then begged. "I have no one. Take me as your charge. I need guidance," Ikkaku said, and he did. Humans needed nothing but air and water and food, and even that, they could choose to stop partaking of. They could choose to stop breathing, to stop eating or drinking; they didn't have to need anything if they didn't want to. But Ikkaku, Ikkaku was made to need, and he did need.
"I need, I need your guidance," Ikkaku said again humbly.
Yumichika looked at him for a long time, arms crossed. "…" Ikkaku looked back, staring into his eyes and then lowering his head onto the table in a show of respect. "… Very well," Yumichika said, "You've already made a deal anyways." Ikkaku sat up, ready to thank him, but Yumichika cut him off by pointing a finger in his face, "But I'll have none of this 'denka' business. You're going to call me by my name."
"But that would be disrespectful."
"It would be," Yumichika said pointedly, "if I were someone worth respecting."
"You are!" Ikkaku insisted earnestly, "I cannot call you in a familiar way."
"To blazes with that!" Yumichika snapped, silencing him. Ikkaku's jaw shut heavily. ". . . Do we have a deal?" he grumbled, shifting around. "Would you like to shake on it? . . . Friend?" he asked, his voice becoming softer as he held a hand out.
"I would, I . . . " Ikkaku held out a shaking hand, unable to bring his fingers to touch Yumichika's, suddenly finding that his nose was dripping and his eyes were runny. He sniffed, swallowing and gasping, shaking all over.
"Don't cry."
Those words meant nothing to him. He didn't know how to stop doing something he wasn't aware of. As far as he knew, he was silent and not crying out at all. He was just… leaking… feelings.
Ikkaku grasped Yumichika's hand, holding it for a moment, then seizing it with his other hand too and putting his forehead onto it as he gasped and shuddered. Yumichika shook him off in disgust.
"Please accept my undying gratitude!" Ikkaku leapt to the floor and put his head down, thankful to the bottom of his . . . heart, soul? He didn't have either of those things. He was grateful to the bottom of his subservient subsentient existence, that was it. He would do everything to make Yumichika happy and to let him stay.
"If you continue to grovel, I shall change my mind and send you away. I've had enough of your melodrama," Yumichika grumbled, and Ikkaku promptly got up, standing at his elbow while he finished eating, smiling merrily and occasionally wiping his wet face.
When he was done, Yumichika walked towards a window and peeked out through a small opening in the drapes. Dim light came inside, and Ikkaku merely knelt in a seiza by his feet, hands balled up on top of his thighs.
"Shuuhei usually takes care of chores for me in the day, but he has gone for now. You will take his place until he returns, yes?"
"Yes," Ikkaku chirped attentively.
"You will do work for me just as I tell you, as if I were doing it myself."
"Yes, yes! I will!"
Yumichika was quiet for a moment, still not looking down at him, just peeking through the crack in the thick curtain. There was a quiet sigh and Ikkaku just kept his eyes glued to him, squirming like mad. He wanted to start, he wanted to work and show Yumichika how useful he'd be, how hard he'd try! He'd show Yumichika that this wasn't a mistake! He'd definitely please him!
"Open the door and look out, Ikkaku. Look outside." Ikkaku scrambled onto his hands and knees in his hurry to stand up and do what he'd been told.
It not even crossing his mind about how he'd been previously blinded, he struggled to understand how to open the simple latch and then hurled the door open, flinching back slightly at the light. It wasn't as bright and harsh as he remembered, however. He still squinted against it, having become accustomed to the pitch black of the house at night. Yes, he was one with the darkness.
'I am?'
"What do you see?"
"I . . . I see," Ikkaku repeated as he thought, looking around. He saw short grass and dirt near the house, and in the distance, taller grass and craggy twisted trees that stretched in what seemed to be all directions. ". . . woodland," he settled on.
"What does the sky look like?"
"Sky," Ikkaku echoed, turning to Yumichika for some sort of clue. Yumichika pointed upwards and Ikkaku looked at the ceiling.
"No, outside."
He looked outside and then upwards. There . . . there was nothing there. "I don't know, Yumichika-shi," he said woefully. "Big . . . big nothing," he then said. "Grey nothing."
"And the plants?"
"Grey and brown and green." Ikkaku hummed then, wobbling his head from one side and then the other. This place was very drab. There was no red anywhere at all! What an awful place to live!
Yumichika seemed to turn sharply then, hands behind his back. "And the sun? Have you ever seen the sun, Ikkaku? Can you see it? Surely it's beautiful."
"Sun . . ." Ikkaku just kept staring outside in wonder. A small animal fell through the sky and landed on the grass, hopped a few times, and then floated away. Visions of white doves with bloody feathers and curled legs wandered through his mind.
'Bird!' Ikkaku smiled as another one dropped onto the ground and then flew off.
"Where do you think we are?"
Ikkaku was silent. He had no idea where they were. It seemed they were in a forest surrounded by marsh. He had not seen another house other than the place where he'd woken.
"You are in Eastren," Yumichika said when he made no reply or guess.
"Eastern," Ikkaku repeated. "Eastern what?"
"No, no," Yumichika corrected. "Eastren."
"East-ren," Ikkaku parroted, nodding his head.
"Yes . . . We are far from the main town, however, as you can tell. I prefer to live alone, with no… visitors," he said darkly. "However, the cultists have taken up in the borderlands and moved through the blood marsh, ever closer. For this reason, you must try to stay close to my home as you work, because I will not protect you should they come to… collect you."
"No, never! I will protect you!" Ikkaku promised, bouncing slightly as he shut the door with a heavy slam that caused dust to fall from the rafters. Yumichika was silent for a moment, brooding eyes staring at him, but Ikkaku just smiled brightly.
"Well, that is . . ." Yumichika shook himself, and Ikkaku watched him with a tilt of the head. "I'll have you start simple, and I'll watch you go. I want you to bring flowers and put them in a vase."
"Yes."
"Hisagi won't be bothered with picking flowers, so I'm asking you to do it. Bring some flowers and put them in a vase for me."
From there, Ikkaku went outside on his own in the yard, looking back several times uncertainly to the open door where Yumichika was standing and watching him.
After a few moments of squatting in the tall grass and fooling around, batting it out of his eyes and mouth, it started to dawn on Ikkaku that he didn't know what flowers looked like. He was sure they had a potent smell, and that they were delicate and… and dry and withered…
Ikkaku swayed slightly, blinking blankly, hands just clenching in the air mechanically like he had with the grass that had been in his fist a moment before. He could just barely remember some spicy fragrant scent, and maybe the feeling of dry crumblings of dead plants in a bowl.
Ikkaku clutched the sides of his head, moaning lowly. Then, distracted, he blinked as a fluttering of white caught his eye. Petals flew by him and landed closer to his foot, then crawled.
'Flower.'
This was what Yumichika wanted. Small, beautiful, and soft, that was a flower. Ikkaku clapped his hands over it, a cloud of dust rising from the ground. Holding it tightly in his fists, he brought it up to his eye and peeked inside slowly, afraid that it would get away. Then he closed his hand quickly again, standing up.
He stomped back towards Yumichika, who raised an eyebrow and snorted. "Walk naturally," he called. "You look ridiculous. Like a troll or something." Ikkaku halted, mouth opening and then closing, and then he looked down at his feet.
"Mm," he grunted, straightening up all the way, and then overthinking it, raised his foot and couldn't make himself take another step, looking to Yumichika and then down and then up again.
"Just come!" Yumichika snapped, and Ikkaku jolted into motion, completely effortless agility.
Ikkaku offered his hands out. "What do you have? Show me." He nudged his hands out again, wordlessly making some noise, not knowing how to say that Yumichika had to treat this like it was precious, that it would escape on the wind if he didn't hold it close.
That it would crumble into ashes and die.
"Open your hand and show me."
Ikkaku frowned and opened his hands, and the flower didn't move. Yumichika was silent and Ikkaku tried to give it to him. "Ikkaku," Yumichika said softly, brow scrunching, his face looking unhappy and slightly disturbed.
Ikkaku looked at the flower more closely, and saw that it was a small animal. Noting this with mild surprise, he just held still, wiggling his hands slightly to try to make it move, but it didn't. It was gone.
He looked up to Yumichika in dismay, corners of his mouth tugging down as he made a sad noise. He'd wanted Yumichika to see it move, but it was gone. "You were too rough," Yumichika said scoldingly. "You killed it. You must be gentle to living things or they will die. You were too rough to it, Ikkaku."
"Oh," he said softly, petting it very carefully, getting white powder all over his hands.
"I don't want this anyways, why did you bring this to me?"
"Pretty flower," Ikkaku said even more softly, but now sounding uncertain, talking becoming extremely hard. "You like. I catch it and… and bring it. You like."
"This is not a flower, it's a bush-moth. Go get rid of it somewhere and bring me flowers."
"Flower," Ikkaku repeated to try to get that stuck in his head.
"You are so dull and useless," Yumichika said on sigh, "Truly, I keep thinking your stupidity knows no bounds and then you lower my expectations yet again."
Ikkaku blinked at him. 'Stupid.'
He had not thought that not knowing anything meant he was stupid. He just thought that meant he needed to be taught and that he needed to learn. He cocked his head sideways.
"Akarat, you have no personality whatsoever, do you." Ikkaku tilted his head even further and Yumichika groaned. "Truly, your face doesn't match your demeanor at all." Ikkaku put a hand to his face curiously, feeling it. "Just go," Yumichika prodded with a sigh and a begrudging smile. "Get."
After Ikkaku successfully completed the task and found some wildflowers, Yumichika worked him up through several other jobs, watching him carefully from the doorway. The nothing above them seemed to grow lighter as time went on, and Ikkaku eventually saw that it looked like smoke, as if some great pyre somewhere had gone up and coated the world with floating ash.
"I'm done," Ikkaku called, a bit dirty from fixing a fence that had fallen into the mud. Nice Yumichika who was teaching him so much was still staying in the house and watching him, now sitting in a chair and tending to other things and only speaking to him to correct his mistakes or to give him further directions.
"Come here." Ikkaku came, pausing in the threshold as Yumichika told him what to do next. "There is an animal in the barn," he explained.
"Barn," he echoed quietly.
"Yes, a building nearby to this house in the west." Ikkaku bobbed his head. "The animal is there for you to feed and clean. You will feed it hay. There's some of it lying around for you to pitch into its pen." Ikkaku nodded again. "It may make noise and stomp about – do not be afraid of it and do not hurt it."
"What is it?" slipped out of him, and he didn't know why, because that was rather irrelevant to his mission. For some reason he felt… perhaps… curious? Or… or maybe he wished he knew more. If he were smarter, maybe Yumichika would like him better. He wanted to know more things. Maybe… maybe if he knew a bit more, he'd realize why he was here, what he was supposed to be doing. Maybe he'd just forgotten and it would all come rushing back.
"A cow."
Ikkaku perked up a bit. He knew that! That was the lowing animal that bled so dark and so much. "I know what a cow is."
Yumichika nodded his head sharply, seeming satisfied. "Then you can even bring back milk."
"Yes." Yumichika nodded to him again and then turned away. Seeing that he'd been dismissed, Ikkaku rocked on the balls of his feet for a moment or two, smiling, and then went off in search of wherever the cow was kept.
It only took him ten or so minutes to come across a building that looked incredibly old and gloomy, not at all like Yumichika's nice cabin. This building's wood was grey and not brownish at all. Worse was that the doors seemed to be boarded shut. Had he come to the right place? He circled the building, bumping himself against it in distress before settling in front of the doors again rather stupidly and looking closer. A slow frustrated noise escaped him. Ahh, Yumichika would be so disappointed if he failed.
Knocking his body against the doors again in the fruitless hope that they might open for him and let him do what he came to do, his shoulder touched something cold. Looking at it closer, he blinked and cocked his head, pleased that he recognized this object. Metal links, used to hang and drain meat, were wrapped around the door handles, and they hung broken and useless.
He played with one broken piece with his finger and it fell to the ground, where he noticed the imprints that matched his own feet in the dirt. Then he placed his hands on the boards that were wrapped in the broken chains and lifted them easily.
When he turned to drop them, then made a really loud noise against the ground, a flurry of those little flower-moths flying out of the surrounding grass. Ikkaku stared for a moment before pulling one door open and going inside into the dark.
After confusedly searching all areas of the one-room building, Ikkaku squatted, troubled, and scratched his head. The hay was here, but everywhere he looked, no cow, no cow anywhere. What was he to do? Had it wandered away? And locked the door behind it? Somehow? Hm. Maybe it was hiding and he was just too stupid to see it. He checked in the hay, but nothing. There wasn't anywhere in here that it could be, really. It seemed it was gone.
Seeing no other alternative, he returned to Yumichika, feeling extremely foolish, and cried in distress, "There is no cow! I'm sorry I've failed!"
"What do you mean?" Yumichika asked in confusion and perhaps a bit of irritation. Ikkaku hung his head, not looking Yumichika in the eye. He couldn't seem to do anything right. He was stupid.
"It isn't there, Yumichika-shi," Ikkaku mumbled.
"Look at me." Ikkaku lifted his head and met his eyes, frowning. Yumichika didn't look angry, that was something. "When you arrived, was the door opened?" he said slowly and very clearly. Ikkaku shook his head, huffing. "Blast," Yumichika hissed, rising hurriedly and walking over to the door, throwing a heavy sheet over his shoulders. For a moment Ikkaku stared at him in wonder. He looked just like master had, in that lovely long cloak, draping against him. Yumichika's was dark as night however, not pretty blue, and along with covering his back, he put the hood up and wrapped his face with a piece of dark cloth so that when Ikkaku looked at him, he looked like a shade of the night, a shadow man.
"Go try to find it," Yumichika sighed, "If you can't, it's all right. Come back before dark." It registered then that Yumichika was leaving, Yumichika was leaving and he was not taking him with him.
"Where are you going?" Ikkaku asked, feeling as though he should be readying himself to follow, to accompany him on his trip.
"I must take care of something. I'll be back soon. You find the cow and bring it back. Do you have that? Find the cow and bring it back here, then wait for my return."
Ikkaku frowned, jolting forward an unsteady step when Yumichika pulled on some leather gloves and wrapped a belt around his waist, arming himself with a familiar knife. Ikkaku looked at its glitter and thought of dead birds, bleeding forearms, carved bowls filled and surrounded by candles, howls and sacrifice.
"Where?" He shook himself from his stupor. Yumichika had a job for him and it sounded very serious and important. "Where has it gone?"
"I don't know," Yumichika said, causing Ikkaku to recoil slightly. "You'll have to search." Yumichika stepped outside, looking up to the sun overhead and shielding his eyes, and then back to Ikkaku. "Don't go too far north, you'll get stuck in the blood marsh. South is the highlands. East is the Briarthorn Cemetery. West is Westmarch. If you get lost… Well," Yumichika sighed. "Don't get lost."
With that, Yumichika gave a parting nod and disappeared into the fog. Ikkaku stared after him for some time before shutting the door to the house and closing the fence gate to keep their birds in. He then stomped off into the gloom, wandering for quite some time, so long in fact that his slow brain checked off and he walked on reflex rather than thought.
He came back to himself when he began to smell something very familiar. It was far away still, but it reminded him of home, of- of himself. He tried to follow it, stopping to sniff the air several times to see if it was stronger or weaker than when he'd last moved.
Eventually he felt as though he could barely hear something. Following the howling pained noise in curiosity, he got closer and closer until he could see through the trees and grass, the large animal lying on the ground at the foot of a tree stump. Yes, cow, cow, cow. This was just what he remembered cows looking like: big rolling eyes, wagging tongue, snot-covered nose, lots and lots of guts in its belly. There it was laying peacefully and writhing in joy that he'd found it. Ahh, it was trying to go to sleep, huh?
He stomped over to it, and as he got closer, it kicked and rolled its eyes, getting even louder. He squatted by its face, avoiding its thrashing legs, talking to it. "Yumichika wants you back. Come on and follow me." Maybe it couldn't get up? Ikkaku came behind it and held it around its big neck, trying to heft it up. When he did though, its body strained and it let out a fearsome bellow. He settled for petting its neck and its heaving belly. Hmm, so warm and wet.
"Have you not the sense of mind to end its misery? Wasteful fool. Away."
Ikkaku hummed and placed his cheek down on its neck, feeling its thundering pulse. Mmm, listen to that blood pumping around in there, escaping and flowing onto the ground. The animal finally seemed to grow tired and quieted, lying its head down to rest, belly rising and falling rapidly under his hand. Its tongue lay in the dirt.
Ikkaku picked his head up in curiosity, tilting one ear down and watching as a man came out of nowhere and approached him. He seemed to have horns peeking out from beneath a red hood, a red matching red mask covering his nose and mouth. His shoulders and forehead were bare, a frightening white. His robe's front was covered by plated armor, and he held a knife with three points, the outside two curving inward.
"Away before you mire the offering."
Ikkaku stood, warm and sticky, still staring rather mildly at this person. When he did so, they backed away slightly, their eyes dark holes.
In a voice that seemed awed, low and gravely, and not quite directed at him, he asked, "Who thought to conjure you? Who had the strength?" Ikkaku blinked at him, his words going straight through him. He just observed curiously. Why did this man seem so familiar? Well, not him in particular, but his appearance? The clothing and the curved blade. Ikkaku felt like he'd never known anything else and yet he couldn't remember ever having seen it before.
'No! Please, Akarat, no!'
Ikkaku twitched, a hand rising to the side of his head. His eyelids had suddenly itched.
'Please, take me instead! Please! Mercy!'
He breathed through his open mouth, brow crinkling as his eyes crawled over the stranger's red head-covering.
"… I must sample," came a gurgling rasp, and without any warning, the man's dark abyssal eyes sparked with a pinprick of gold and he jolted forward with a cry, wielding the blade. Ikkaku acted immediately without any thought, halting its progress just as it touched the skin of his neck, which was still foolishly borne, his head tilted to the side in mild wonder.
This was of no consequence. He had to go home to Yumichika and show him he'd found his animal. He could feel flicker of a pulse in the man's wrist where he was holding it in his fist; it was fast and terrified, but Ikkaku felt nothing past anxiousness to return and obey Yumichika.
A snarl sounded before the blade pressed forward the millimeter it needed to prick Ikkaku's neck, a bead of blood gathering and running down in a warm trail. Ikkaku acted before thinking, grabbing him with a frightening strength and strangling him on the ground. He held him down there and watched his contorting face unblinkingly, letting weak hands scrabble at his own.
When he finally didn't feel any warmth, Ikkaku let go and just squatted there next to him and looked at him for many long, long minutes, maybe an hour. He didn't know why he'd done it really, why his arms had done that. He felt as though that should bother him, but blinked through the thought and rubbed his small cut. It had already scabbed in the time he'd sat here.
It vaguely occurred to him that everyone in the world seemed to know what he was except for him. He blinked again at the gone-man.
He finally sniffed and stood up, wandering back to Yumichika's cow and patting its neck, telling it they were going back now. It didn't get up, so he took it back to the farm himself, dragging it by its head. It took him quite some time to figure out how to get it into the barn, and when he finally did, he put it in its pen and gave it some hay, leaving it by its face. It began making noise again, lowing and lowing. It was happy he'd brought it home. He smiled and then left and waited in the yard for Yumichika to return.
While he waited, he stood by the fence and watched the birds wander around. Eventually he let them out and watched them tentatively head into the yard while he squatted some distance away. He wondered what Yumichika was doing and pulled on some grass nervously.
Eventually he decided he should give some more grain to their birds. Yumichika had been gone a long, long time. Maybe their tummies were hungry again - Yumichika had taught him how to feed them. He'd taught him so so much already.
Ikkaku made a little seed pile and backed far away, watching as the fat birds bustled over and pecked at it with a smile. If he got too close to them, they always ran away from him and didn't let him touch them, so he had decided to leave them alone, settling for just watching them and their colorful feathers and their red, red eyes. Ahh, just like him.
Ikkaku felt at his eyelids, this time carefully closing them before poking. He could feel his eyeball rolling under there. Hm, the skin where he'd seen that red spot didn't feel any different than his other skin, but earlier they'd itched and burned. He opened his eyes and watched a bird that had strayed a little close to him, leaning forward sneakily with his hand outstretched. It squawked and hurried away from him, flapping its wings. Ikkaku sat back on his haunches again. When would Yumichika come back? He missed him.
It was them that a man came up to the house. Ikkaku looked up and saw Yumichika's Shuuhei coming towards him, interrupting his pheasant-watching. He stopped some distance away and just looked at Ikkaku somewhat angrily. Ikkaku blinked at him. He did not bow to him like he would Yumichika, but still stood at attention, since this was his new master's partner.
"Where's Yumichika?"
"…" An abortive noise escaped Ikkaku's throat. Talking seemed near impossible suddenly. With Yumichika, responses seemed to come out so automatically, but right now his brain had seemed to just shut off. "Yumichika…"
Hisagi seemed unwilling to get closer or close the distance, but made do with an embittered expression and a rather sour tone of voice. "What, are you deaf? Where's he gone?"
"Yumichika-shi's gone."
"I know that, you dullard, where?"
"I don't know," Ikkaku slurred sluggishly, trying his hardest, but mostly thinking about that he wanted Yumichika to come back.
"Of course you don't, idiot-bastard," Hisagi groaned. Ikkaku watched as his hand touched the hilt of the sword at his side over and over. "Did he say when he's coming back? You let him go alone?"
"He sent me… away."
"What, and you didn't leave?"
"I came back to- to wait," Ikkaku struggled, overstimulated. Hisagi rubbed at his eyes with a sigh.
"Why don't you just go, you-" Hisagi stopped talking and just glared at him for a moment or two, then hissing, "Did you at least see which way he went?" Ikkaku nodded mutely, then pointing when prompted.
Finally Hisagi went silent after several more questions, and Ikkaku was content to watch the pheasants crowd around Hisagi's feet, poking at him curiously with their little beaks, their beady eyes blinking, heads cocking as they clucked. Ikkaku wished they would come to his legs too, but they avoided him suspiciously.
Hisagi seemed to exude tense energy, and although it didn't permeate Ikkaku's calm or particularly bother him, he felt that Yumichika would be happier if his Hisagi was happy too. Piping up, Ikkaku suggested that Yumichika might come back soon. Hisagi dipped his chin.
"Don't be scared that he'll leave, he'll definitely come back. Yumichika will definitely come back," Ikkaku repeated, smiling, the words coming somewhat more easily from some thoughtless confident place. "Yumichika told me to wait here until he came back."
Hisagi grunted, crossing his arms, seeming to have resolved to wait for Yumichika out here with him, his foot tapping in the dust, scaring off the birds. "You're naïve. Stupid. You don't belong here. You should just go back to where you came from and leave Yumichika and me alone. He's only allowed you to stay out of spite for me, as I know well enough."
Ikkaku tilted his head. "I can't leave when Yumichika-denka has told me to stay." Hisagi wrinkled his nose and looked at him.
"What was that?" He scowled. "What, you just decided he's your- your-"
"He'll definitely come back," Ikkaku repeated confidently. "He'll come back to me, and to you too, Hisagi-hidenka." Hisagi's eyes widened, and the next thing Ikkaku knew, he'd been struck directly in the face, and although he didn't quite feel anything other than the pressure, he found he was on his butt in the dirt, holding his cheek. His teeth were wiggling.
"Shuuhei!" came a sudden snapping voice, and as if summoned, a black-clad figure strode through the grey-green curtains of grass and hanging branches and towards them. Ikkaku flopped over in his struggle to rise, one forearm braced on the ground, his other hand still seeming to be glued to his cheek. It felt a bit warm and tingly.
Ikkaku's head hit the dirt in a failed attempt to get up, but he kept trying to lift his face. Yumichika was back!
"You think to harm him?" he hissed, "Are you mad?" He was getting right in Shuuhei's face. He flinched back momentarily from Yumichika's venomous scolding, and it vaguely registered to Ikkaku that Yumichika was angry with Shuuhei again. It was strange. They were either very loving or very mean to one another. He couldn't decide if that meant this Shuuhei was his Yumichika's lover or his slave.
With a bitter frown, Shuuhei crossed his arms over his chest and glared petulantly back at Yumichika but still with an air of shame to it. "I know well what will happen if I gave it so much as the smallest nick, but maybe they should come back and get it." Yumichika seemed to shake his head and an exasperated sigh escaped him. Shuuhei grabbed his shoulder as if to get across that he was serious. "It's got a mouth on it, it oughta' go."
Yumichika glanced up at the dimmed sky and then tugged the cloth covering his face down. Ikkaku had made it onto his hands and knees and was looking at Yumichika with his mouth open. He could see Yumichika's chin and mouth, just the tip of his nose under the shade of his hood.
"He has nobody," Yumichika whispered harshly.
"Well it can't live here, get it out of here, Yumichika," Hisagi insisted. "You know what it is, and yet you let it stay, I don't understand you!"
Yumichika put his gloved hands on his hips, replying rather sardonically, "You're the one who said not to be kind with no intention to keep. Well I'm keeping." Hisagi gave a long exasperated groan and then shook his head. "I'm keeping, Shuuhei," Yumichika repeated, and Hisagi shook his head more insistently.
"No. Not this. This isn't a stray cat." Hisagi waved a hand at Ikkaku furiously, "Turn it away!"
"This is not a conversation for the here and now, I'm going inside," Yumichika said calmly, moving past Shuuhei, who seized his arm and yanked him back, resulting in a threatening hiss. Ikkaku settled on his knees and reached his arms out to Yumichika's legs, fingertips just out of brushing distance.
"No, you're not," Hisagi spat. "Turn it out." Yumichika pulled himself free and bared his teeth right back at him.
"You'd have me turn him out on his own after I've told him he may stay? What would that make him feel?"
"Yumichika, it can't feel anything!" Hisagi shouted in exasperated incredulity, hands fisting in his hair. "It's made to do the bidding of-"
"He's different, I tell you." Hisagi growled and hurled himself away, pacing and grumbling. Yumichika continued talking, raising his voice over Hisagi's tantrum. "Whatever or whoever he came from, they're gone, yet he still lives… He has care for living things."
Hisagi stopped then and looked at Yumichika rather sharply. Ikkaku looked between them, blinking, not understanding the change in atmosphere. ". . . I know what you're doing and I don't like it," Hisagi said lowly, coming closer. "Just accept things as they are and stop chasing after something you don't need." His voice became wretched and pleading then, "I'm here."
Yumichika jolted for a short moment in what seemed like surprise, and then sneered and stalked away towards the house then, hissing, "I don't have to listen to this." Hisagi called after him, disheartened, both he and Ikkaku crawling after him in different ways.
"You think I have no wisdom to impart just because- because I'm not-"
"That's exactly what I think," Yumichika replied icily as he opened the door. "Leave me be." With that, he shut Hisagi outside, and Hisagi let his head fall against the wood with a clunk and a long sigh. Ikkaku butt his own forehead on the door woefully, whining.
After watching his pathetic struggle, Hisagi turned the door handle to let him inside and then walked off towards the shed in a gloomy state. Ikkaku lit up when he saw Yumichika inside resting at the table, polishing his dagger with a grimy cloth.
Yumichika raised an eyebrow at him and smiled rather fondly. Ikkaku looked down at himself only to find brownish red stains on his clothes and perfect beautiful red arms and hands. "What have you done and been?" It seemed a rhetorical question with such an amused tone as that, so Ikkaku just approached him and sat near his feet, humming and bumping himself on the table leg while Yumichika quietly cleaned his equipment.
He watched out the window as Hisagi split wood against a log rather angrily. Ikkaku thoughtfully set his chin on his knee and felt his warm tender cheek again. "Why does Hisagi-shi treat me so?" he asked curiously, causing Yumichika to not so much as look up, but to sigh through his nose.
"Shuuhei has become a zealot of an ancient and dying religion, and he both reveres and fears you. Out of care for me, he has not yet told the coven of your location or attempted to vanquish you, but his patience is wearing." He pointedly looked up and out the window, sending a resentful and bitter gaze towards his partner. "As is mine for him."
"Why does he strike my face?"
"He's anxious that I should want no company other than his and now that I've let you stay, he's in a pet. His anger consumes him." Ikkaku hummed, rubbing his cheek. Yumichika looked down at him then, using one finger under his chin to turn his face up to his. He sucked his teeth rather scoldingly and seemed to find Ikkaku's features dissatisfactory.
"What happened to make him angry? When I approached, you both seemed to be getting along and then he suddenly struck you."
Ikkaku tried to think, bobbing his head from side to side. "I said you would definitely come back to Hisagi-hidenka, Yumichika-shi," he remembered, "and he was angry."
Yumichika was silent, and as Ikkaku blinked at him curiously, he saw Yumichika mouth was open and his eyes were wide. Then, this strange bubbling escaped Yumichika and he began shaking all over. Oh, he was crying!
Ikkaku began to moan and pet Yumichika's leg, shaking his head. No, no, don't cry. Yumichika grew louder, clutching his stomach and wiping his eyes, his face split in a smile. "Ikkaku, oh Ikkaku," he cried, "You've insulted him."
It finally registered that Yumichika was laughing and Ikkaku cocked his head confusedly. "What?"
"You called him my consort," Yumichika pointed out, causing Ikkaku to wrinkle his nose at why that was of much notice, "as if he were a princess by marriage to royalty."
Ikkaku frowned. Why had that made him angry then? He was obviously Yumichika's love-slave partner. "But isn't he your…?" He didn't know if he should say that out loud.
Yumichika was still laughing hysterically, a hand over his eyes as he leaned his elbow on the table. "He is not my consort. He's my partner."
"Oh."
"Hidenka, ohhhh my…" Yumichika wiped his eye and then looked at Ikkaku with a bit of amused frustration. "This means you're still thinking of me as 'denka' even though I told you not to call me so."
Ah- It did…
Ikkaku didn't know what else to do but clasp his hands in panic and apologize. "Don't grovel," Yumichika sniffed, and Ikkaku nodded. "I wish you'd think more for yourself. Your lack of reason is tiresome."
"I'm trying!" Ikkaku blurted somewhat angrily, and Yumichika laughed that that was a bit more like it.
They spent a short time together talking and working together, Ikkaku sitting just outside in the dirt while Yumichika was inside, cooking. Ikkaku peeled peas into a bowl and threw the pods out into the grass, occasionally looking up towards the raspy lowing that was still going on in the far distance. Hisagi had gone off that way when he'd come outside. Both he and Yumichika seemed to know what he was, didn't they, and Hisagi wanted him to leave due to it, and Yumichika seemed to want him to stay despite some risk. That man in the woods had known too.
"Yumichika-shi, you know what I am," he said thoughtfully, it having taken some time for him to put that together all the way.
"I do," Yumichika replied, cutting meat from the bone.
"What am I?"
Carefully silent for a short time, Yumichika went on with preparing a rack of ribs. Ikkaku looked up in wait and back down to his once again washed-clean hands to watch what he was peeling, until Yumichika finally answered. "You," he said, tearing a strip of fat off and flinging it down into a scrap pile, "are a promise."
That rolled around in his mine. A promise. He was a promise. To who? And why? Who made the promise, and what of? "A promise of what?" he settled on.
"I do not know," Yumichika replied. "Only the one who called you here does."
Ikkaku frowned. No one had called him here. He'd come here and found wonderful Yumichika and Shuuhei on accident, on luck. Or did he mean to this world? The only one who'd called him here to live was forever dead and sleeping, encased in stone. She couldn't tell him what she'd promised or even if it had been her promising.
"Then I'll never know?" Ikkaku said dully, rather despairing at the thought. Yumichika shrugged a shoulder, seeming not to find this as cause for distress, which calmed Ikkaku slightly. He didn't like doubting what he was doing. He liked to focus on Yumichika and pleasing him instead. Then he didn't have to wonder.
"Perhaps not, if you didn't when you awoke."
Ikkaku stared forward numbly. He'd never know who he was. He'd never know.
Hisagi went into the barn and the lowing stopped.
Love is just a bloodsport, love is just a bloodsport.