The Legend
"Shit! As expected from a whore like you! Remember this day Shouta!"
And like a dog with its tail in between its legs, the ferocious beast scrambled to his feet away from Kisa's flat.
It was dark, it was cold and it seemed like the cold already seeped inside Kisa's body that he was rendered motionless as he stared into the naked man before him. His breath and voice got stuck in his throat, and when he tried to utter a word, only an embarrassing squeak escaped his dry mouth.
Slowly, Kisa stood. His hands feeling the walls for support.
"The switch...the switch..." Kisa chanted while slowly inching towards the light switch near the door.
When finally his sweaty hands felt the thing he was looking for, he pressed on it, and he had to close his eyes when the sudden light stung his eyes. But when he opened his eyes, he closed them hard once more.
"My god...this...this is a dream right? What the hell is going on..." he prayed that once he open his eyes, the stunning apparition in front of him will be gone.
"Ah!" Kisa gasped, pushing himself against the wall since the guy in the painting was now standing, leaning in on him. He had never felt so nervous in his entire life, looking back at that princely face, and no matter how much he averted his eyes, he could still make out how perfectly scuplted the body in front of him was.
"I can't believe this. This is ridiculous. How can a man be pinned down by another man without putting up a fight?" The mysterious voice scolded. "And you, for how long will you put up this surprised act, huh? I am not a dream, nor an apparation. Check for yourself."
Kisa felt a warm hand touch his hand. Without him knowing, the guy had already placed Kisa's trembling hand against his chest.
"Wha-what's this..." Kisa stared hard at the chest. He thought he would only feel coldness against the skin. But to his surprise, he felt warmth and a steady rythm of a heartbeat.
Pulling back his hand, Kisa threw a confused look at the guy. "Who are you? Wh~what are you?"
Silence filled the room as the two men stared into each others eyes. However, Kisa was all shaking. A complete opposite of the cool and collected stranger with a smug look on his face.
"Yukina..." the voice mumbled as if he himself wasn't sure if telling the guy in front of him was okay. "My name is Yukina...Kou..."
"Yukina...?" Kisa repeated, not knowing that he already was biting down on his own lower lip. He was sure he have heard that name from somewhere. But he just couldn't remember when and where. "S-stay there! Don't go anywhere!" Kisa staggeringly directed.
As if he would get electricuted just from Yukina's presence, Kisa slowly move away from the wall and almost jumped and ran his way back into his room. He swiftly grabbed the old fabric off the shirt hanger and glared at it for the longest time he could remember.
"None...none...there's no one in here..."
Although his shaking already subsided, his brain could still not process how a character from a painting leapt out of it. But thinking if this mystical thing didn't arrive, god knows what would have happened to him, considering that his previous injuries have not yet healed.
"Kisa...calm down...just...think things through..." Kisa moved his head around his messy room. "First, that thing can't be naked the whole time..."
He rummaged into his closet, but being born with a small built, he knew he wouldn't find anything that would fit Yukina. Sighing in defeat, Kisa pulled a thick blanket and slowly returned to the place where he left the princely apparition.
Yukina was standing mightily, with not a hint of shame being naked in front of somebody else. He just waited like a real prince waiting to be served.
Looking at his side, Kisa extended the blanket to Yukina.
Raising an eyebrow, Yukina took the blanket and stared at it questioningly before looking at the flushed man in front of him.
"What the hell do I do with this?"
"I don't have anything for you to wear...so...just settle with that for the time being..."
"What? I'm going to spend the night wrapped in this filthy thing?"
At the mocking, Kisa raised his head and frowned at the tactless guy before him. "Excuse me but that isn't 'filthy'. And if you don't want to freeze, then use that. As if you have a choice."
Yukina stepped closer at the short guy with eyes intense enough to burn a hole. "How dare you talk back to me?"
Deep inside, Kisa was trembling. He didn't know this guy. And he looked way stronger than he was. If suddenly the guy decided to strangle him, he wouldn't be able to fight back. He threw Rio away with just a single sweep. He'd be in great danger. But he was sleepy, tired and sad and confused that he didn't care anymore if his knees were trembling.
"I am grateful to you for helping me out earlier, but I am not your servant," he hissed, ignoring the butterflies in his stomach.
For a moment, Yukina looked surprised but he gathered his composure once again and slowly draped the blanket around his broad shoulders.
Relieved, Kisa moved back to his room with Yukina following him. When he sat on his small bed to sleep, he was surprised to see the unwanted visitor do the same.
"Excuse me? What are you doing?"
"I am going to take my rest now."
Kisa laughed forcedfully. He tapped his bed to make his point. "This is MY bed. So please kindly use the sofa outside."
"Huh? ME? Sleep outside? That's absurd."
Losing his patience, Kisa raised his voice a little. "You know, I don't know what the hell you are but can you stop acting like a spoiled prince for crying outloud? You are spending the night in here...so you abide by my rules."
"Rules don't apply to me though." Yukina plopped down the bed, almost occupying the entire space before smirking at Kisa. "I already put up with this rag being wrapped on my body, now the bed is a completely different matter."
Speechless, Kisa stared at the now sleeping face before him. "Oi!"
Kisa shook Yukina, trying to push the guy off the bed. In the process, he couldn't help himself noticing how long those eyelashes were. At the lips which were a little parted as he started snoozing off. Pissed at how he was appreciating the perfectness of the guy in the painting he bought that for some reason came to life, Kisa slowly left the bed and made his way to the sofa.
The feeling of having someone other than himself was nerve racking. All his relationships went out pretty well in the beginning. But always ended in the worst possible ways. And he grew somehow afraid of it. He always made sure he have sex with them in a hotel, motel, their place, wherever, as long as it was not in his flat. But Yukina, the guy acting like a spoiled prince barged in in his circle, and he was totally thrown out of his pace.
Sitting on the sofa with his knees pulled to his chest, Kisa noticed the only picture of him and Rio on the table top. It was taken when they went to a certain festival. He wasn't intending on putting it on display, but somehow forgot that he placed the photo on that table. With trembling fingers, he took it and looked at it with a blank expression.
A soft chuckle surprised Kisa. He had to put his cold hand on his mouth. "Wh-at is wrong with me..." he asked hismelf. Surprised at the eerie laugh that escaped his mouth. "A shit-sleepiness come to me..."
Staring blankly at the ceiling, he then decided to just do some work rather than waiting for sleepiness that won't come anymore for sure. He grabbed the bag he threw on his kitchen table and poured himself a cup of coffee. Frowning at the manuscript, he then remembered trying to persuade his author to change the setting of her new shoujo manga story.
"Sensei-teenage girls nowadays are into school type love stories since they can relate more..."
The petite woman with brown hair bit her bottom lip, looking at her sketches. "But Kisa-san, school life romance is already way too common. A little rewind to our history added with a sprinkle of fantasy would be refreshing."
Sighing at the stubborness of his talented author, Kisa rested his head against his hand while flipping through the blank papers on the table.
"Okay, look Kisa-san...you know in the Edo period or the Tokugawa Era where the Shoguns and the Emperor ruled the entire Japan right? The most popular is the Tokugawa Clan..."
"Yes...yes...I know that...it was taught ever since gradeschool history..."
'Exactly! But don't you know that there is another clan reigning that time? The two clan clashed, claiming the power all over Japan. And according to legends, the prince of the rival clan was so handsome and perfect, and everyone fell in love with him right away...except the heir of the Tokugawa-clan.
Kisa looked at his excited author, a bit interested. "Where did you get that? I never heard of such a thing."
The woman stood and walked around the cramped working area, her artistic instincs running like crazy. "That is because they came from a very very old legend, my grandmother told me years ago."
"You know, Kisa-san, if you're thinking I would write something like Romeo and Juliet...you're wrong..." she grinned knowingly. "The Yukina-clan, I wanted to make them alive in my next project. So just please agree with this one! Ne...? Ne...?"
Kisa raised an eyebrow. "Yukina-clan? You already came up with the rival clan's name huh?"
"I didn't make that up! It was my grandmother who told me that despite not being recorded in historical records, Tokugawa-clan, fought against the Yukina-clan. And the Yukina prince...he was a great painter..."
The author slammed her fists on the table and leaned closer to Kisa from the other side of her cluttered work desk. "What's more intriguing is that one of the Tokugawa-clan's heirs became close with the prince. But it was that same person who killed the Yukina-prince..." the author's eyes turned into slits. "And my grandmother said that the Yukina clan's prince is still burning with rage even in after life towards that heir. He swore he'd kill every descendant of that traitor, those with striking physical resemblance with the traitor, he would curse them and deliver them to their deaths. That would be perfect for my story! My grandmother didn't mention the heir to be a girl or a guy so I'd make that one to be a girl. The prince will kill the princess due to rage, burrying his love for her...I want to make it tragic this time Kisa-san...please?"
"Eh..." Kisa commented, imagining a quiet interesting story coming from his author. "A prince from an unheard clan huh?"
Almost choking with his own coffee, Kisa coughed, with his eyes starting to get teary at the itchy sensation in his throat. He threw his gaze to his room's direction with a stunned look on his face. He was remembering the certain guy who jumped out of the painting alive.
"Yukina-clan...Yukina Kou, a prince, painter...is it possible that the legend...is true?"
Looking at the manuscript, he then closed his eyes. "Kill every descendant, huh? Is that why that thing came out alive from the painting?" He suddenly felt chills ran down his body. "Ah-well...I didn't come from the Tokugawa bloodline anyways...why would I be afraid...that freak even helped me out earlier..."
Finally feeling sleepy, Kisa rested his forehead against the table. "There's nothing to be afraid of..."
Or so he thought.
-メリー クリスマス
Hello everyone! Okay...just to make things clear, Tokugawa Era or the Edo Period is a very important part of the Japanese History that shaped the beloved country to what is today. And, although there was a lot that happened with Tokugawa Ieyasu and not accepting the real successor Hideyori, Yukina-clan and such is something that I just made up. Hehehe..so please if you wanna learn the real Japanese History, just search for it. This is actually one of my favorite period. And if you happen to watch Brave Ten and Samurai X and other history animes, you'll hear these names quiet often. In Inuyasha...Nobunaga was mentioned^^
and belated Merry Christmas everyone!