Time passed with slow certainty in the House of Open Roses. Yumichika resigned himself to dealing with things as they stood for now, mostly because he spent his nights sharing a futon with Ikkaku, and his free time being trained by the scrappy fighter at the grounds provided for the Mistress's guards. They never spoke of the arrangement that Ikkaku had with her, but Yumichika felt in his heart that it was not one that he would approve of.
Due to his natural beauty, grace, and the nobility of his manners, he was moved from the bathhouse to the main House entrance. He was given the duty of greeting patrons at the House entrance and seeing to their comfort while they waited for their favorites. He saw all manner of men and women come to the House, and there were all manner of men and women working there. As Ikkaku once told him, no one chose to work at this House because they wanted to - all of them had some measure of spiritual power and required food to survive, and food meant work.
Unfortunately, working at places like the Open Rose was one of the only truly lucrative jobs in Rukongai, and the Mistress paid well in food and housing.
And it had its fair share of patronage from unexpected places - Death Gods, for example. No notables, not even Seated officers, but plenty of the rank and file moved through the doors under Yumichika's care, and he found them to be an interesting, if odd, group.
"Yumichika!" Maiko called, waving her hands from the landing to get his attention. She'd come from the rooms where the true prostitutes lived and took patrons. Unlike Yumichika and others in the Attendant and General Service rolls, those who made the money for the House got to live within its cradling walls instead of being stacked like cordwood in the barracks. "Yumichika! Ikkaku is here for you!"
"Ah! Thank you!" Yumichika said, and bowed prettily to a patron as he left. "Thank you, and please remember us!"
His relief arrived, a young lady equally as vain as he was, but without (in Yumichika's opinion) his good looks. With only a haughty nod at her, he hurried down the servants' passage to the side-court that adjoined the guards' grounds.
Ikkaku was standing in the shade of the overgrown lattice, staring out at the gardens in the distance, his back to Yumichika. He'd grown rapidly, his shoulders widening out, his limbs thickening with muscle that was more defined now, more powerful. He'd hit that time in his life when it seemed he grew everyday, and Yumichika could only watch it happen with mute envy, wishing his own willowy form would catch up just a little.
"Ikkaku? Maiko said you were here," he called, thinking that Ikkaku looked quite fine in his House garments. The dark colors suited him, as did the colorful sash at his waist, which faithfully held both his own sword as well as Yumichika's.
"Ah, Yumichika, finally," he said, turning around with a grin and sporting a black eye. It was commonplace by now - part of the Mistress's expectations of her guardsmen was entertainment, and her entertainment took the form of brutal, no-holds-barred fights that even nobility came to bet on. Yumichika silently deplored it, but Ikkaku got to keep his winnings, and refused to stop participating. Yumichika had stopped counting how many people he'd seriously injured, and refused to count how many he'd managed to actually kill, because it simply wasn't beautiful... "Here."
Ikkaku thrust his fist out, a stiff, yellowed parchment paper dangling from it. His expression was closed, guarded, and the tiniest bit uncertain.
"Oh? What's this?" Yumichika asked, taking it gently, always gratified by the little gifts Ikkaku brought him, especially when he didn't bring gifts to any of the others, not even the girls whose services he utilized.
Yumichika opened the envelope and found a bundle of colorful feathers inside, iridescently shimmering in the late afternoon light. "Ah! How beautiful! Ikkaku, what is this for?"
"It's been a year," Ikkaku gruffly said, and crossed his arms over his chest, looking arrogantly away. "I figured you'd have had a birthday sometime..."
"A year," Yumichika breathed, trying to remember, but the days since he'd run away flowed one into the other without distinction. He smiled a little, then laughed, which made Ikkaku look uncertainly at him. "A year! Ikkaku! Surely, after all of this time, he's stopped looking! We can leave!"
"Eh? Leave? And go where?" Ikkaku asked, bewildered. "We don't have to go anywhere! You like what you do; you seem happy, brat. Besides, I get to fight all of the time - "
"What? No, Ikkaku! This wasn't supposed to be forever," Yumichika desperately said, moving to grasp Ikkaku's arm, searching his face for anything other than defensive discomfort. "I didn't agree to come here to stay! It was only for a little while! He won't be looking for me anymore!"
"Yumichika," Ikkaku said, relenting a little. He clasped Yumichika's upper arms in his strong hands and looked down at his upturned face with a mixture of reluctance and sadness. "You're safe here. You don't go hungry, you don't go thirsty...Why would you want to leave?"
"Because she's taking something from you that you can't get back!" Yumichika harshly whispered, his fingers clenching on the envelope. "Ikkaku...Let's just leave. You and I together, tonight, now!"
"Ikkaku!"
Yumichika started when he heard the Mistress's voice ring out from the training grounds. Ikkaku's hands tightened on his arms in a brief, reassuring squeeze, and then he dropped them altogether, leaving Yumichika adrift.
"I won't take you where he can find you," Ikkaku told him. "I won't do it, I said. We'll stay here, Yumichika, where you can be happy."
"But I'm not," Yumichika whispered, making him flinch.
"Ikkaku?"
"Go," Yumichika harshly told him, shoving him away because he didn't like the way she was watching them, didn't like the angry heat in her eyes. "Go away, Madarame Ikkaku!"
Ikkaku tipped his head back, giving himself even more height that in no way matched the sheer force of his presence. He seemed unhappy, but whether it was with Yumichika or the Mistress, the smaller boy didn't know.
"Don't be sad, Yumichika," Ikkaku told him, grinning suddenly. His raspy voice had deepened even more since they'd first met, taking on the tones of the man he would too soon become. "Don't be sad, I said! I told you I would take care of you, and I am."
"Not this way," Yumichika softly said, turning his back on him. "Your duty is filled, Madarame Ikkaku. I'm old enough to take care of myself. Maybe I'll just start taking coin for my beauty since - "
He was caught and flung around so quickly he wasn't quite sure what had happened, only that one second he'd been looking at the door, and the next he was looking up at Ikkaku's infuriated scowl.
"Don't you dare!" Ikkaku snarled, shaking him. "Don't you dare, I said! If I find out you've been whoring, I'll pound you, understand?"
Yumichika gaped at him, speechless, but his heart singing vibrantly all the same.
"You're better than that, stupid!" Ikkaku told him, giving him another shake for good measure.
"Am I interrupting something?" the Mistress asked, sauntering to a stop just behind Ikkaku, her critical blue eyes sweeping over the scene before her.
"Nothing that can't wait," Ikkaku said, shoving Yumichika away from him with a steady look that was all the warning he needed.
"I couldn't agree more," Yumichika said, rubbing his wrist where Ikkaku had grabbed him. He bowed to the Mistress and murmured, "It is my pleasure to see you, Mother."
She laughed her sultry, soft laugh but didn't reply to him. Instead, she threaded her arm through Ikkaku's and tugged him away, speaking quietly about some errand she needed to send him on.
Yumichika watched them balefully, his heart aching and tears stinging his violet eyes.
But he couldn't for the life of him understand why.
Ikkaku didn't come to his bed that night, and Yumichika agonized over it, knowing he'd been with the Mistress yesterday. Ikkaku sometimes came to bed quite late, and sometimes even slipped out after Yumichika was asleep, but he'd never simply not shown up at all.
But while morning brought no Ikkaku, it did bring the Mistress's subtle retribution.
"Uhm, Yumichika," Katsuo said, his small features pinched now. He'd lost the last of his baby fat to a coltish awkwardness that made him dangerous around anything fragile.
"What is it, Katsuo?" Yumichika asked, rolling his futon up, tired to the bone. He worried about Ikkaku and wondered if he'd lost a fight last night, or even if he'd been killed.
"The duty roster," Katsuo said, fidgeting anxiously. "Mother changed it this morning. Y...you've been moved back to the bathhouse, Yumichika."
"What? That can't be right," Maiko said, and hurried outside to check. When she came back a few moments later, it was obvious that it was right. Grimly, the pretty young girl said, "It has changed, Yumichika. She's put you back in the bathhouse, in the rinse room."
"The rinse room?" Yumichika blankly echoed, shocked. Of all of the positions in the bathhouse, that of Scrubbing Attendant and Rinse Room Attendant tended to be the most dangerous, mostly because there was an expectation that the attendant was available for use at the price of a tip.
"Does Ikkaku know about this?" Maiko quietly asked, their conversation unheard over the roomful of rising ladies and children. "He surely won't approve - "
"It doesn't matter," Yumichika said, somberly thinking of what he'd said yesterday and wondering how much of it the Mistress had overheard. "I haven't seen him since yesterday."
It seemed to dismay Maiko as much as it did him, but the girl merely said, "Come on, you'd better get a good breakfast. You're going to need it."
Yumichika ate more from the fact that he required it than from any hunger he felt. Sometime in the past year he'd turned thirteen, a turning point that would've found him sent to his wife's family in order to consummate their marriage. He'd jumped from the cooking pot into the proverbial fire, though, and here he was existing in a whorehouse without anything to show for it. Well, he couldn't exactly say that. He'd gotten considerably stronger thanks to Ikkaku's rough training, and he'd continued his Stealth Force exercises to refine his skills. But what use was a sword he didn't carry? What use was a skill that he didn't use?
What use was a Prince in a whorehouse?
"I'll tell him as soon as I see him," Maiko promised, sending him off to the bathhouse with his supplies. "Don't worry, it's going to be okay. You're too young for anyone to pester you much."
"Thank you, Maiko," Yumichika said to her. "You don't have to tell him. But please, if you do see him, ask him for my sword." If he was going to be attending in the bathhouse, the least he could do was hide his sword somewhere in the rinse room, just in case things got out of hand before the guard could arrive.
She hesitated, clearly wanting to ask what he meant to do, but Yumichika took advantage of her hesitation to head off for the bathhouse.
It was more strenuous work than any he'd had before in the House, as it was meant to be. Patron after patron filtered through, fresh and rosy from their scrubbings, ready to be thoroughly rinsed and sent to the masseur awaiting them. He made politely suggestive conversation, grateful that his age explained the lack of more obvious feminine endowments. Luckily, he hadn't hit the first blush of becoming a young man yet, and so the deception was able to continue unchanged.
"You know, you're very lovely," he was told, a soft, almost shy comment that made Yumichika smile softly.
"Ah, it's true," he agreed, sluicing water down the man's chest. It was a nice chest, as far as chests went, wide and well-formed, but not anywhere near as nice as Ikkaku's...
"You know, fate is a funny thing, isn't it?" the man asked, closing his eyes beneath the slow spill of water. "I was sent here to find something that someone had lost, and instead I find a beautiful little girl. How old are you?"
"Hm, let me see," Yumichika said, still smiling, but a slow alarm taking hold in him. He filled his jug with more hot water and began to pour it as the man stretched to offer his side. "I will be sixteen this turn," he lied, taking Ikkaku's age as his own, hoping to allay whatever suspicions the man might have. He tried to scrutinize his face, tried to see if he recognized him, but he'd never been more than passingly familiar with any of his father's men. All he saw was the face of a man he'd seen many times before coming into the House. "I won't be allowed to do paid work until the year after, unfortunately for you."
The man laughed, grinning to show his strong white teeth. "So many years as that? I'd have thought you closer to thirteen, maybe? Fourteen at the oldest."
"Alas, no," Yumichika sighed, smiling at his own feigned regret. "Give me your back, please."
"I'd rather give you my heart," the man offered, a twinkle in his eye.
Yumichika urged him to lie over, saying with careless ease, "You can't give me something I already own. Now hold still..."
The man obligingly offered the length of his strong, tanned back, and Yumichika began to pour. He nearly dropped the jug in shock, however, when he saw the small, delicate tattoo that graced the man's upper left shoulder.
He might not know the man's face, but he certainly knew that mark.
This man was a member of the Stealth Force, the same division that Yumichika had been training to take a position in when he'd been Prince Ichigawa Kanesuke. The same division that already claimed all of his elder brothers except the eldest - and if anyone had an accurate description of the missing Prince Kanesuke, it was the Stealth Force his father so often utilized...
"This thing which was lost," he softly said, carefully pouring water down the tight planes of the man's back. "Did you find it?"
He laughed, the deep sound echoing in the close, warm room.
"Yes, I did," he said, stretching luxuriously beneath Yumichika's ministrations. "Ah, pretty little violet eyes, how many times have you seen me come through those doors?"
"Many times," Yumichika whispered, filling the jug again. He hadn't thought anything of it, because the House made its money in regular patrons, and this man had never once given him any indication that he was anything other than a rather rich, handsome, benign, and perfectly ordinary man. "Was it here?"
"As it turns out," the man said, straightening and turning to Yumichika, his smile every bit as warm as it had been at the start. "Yumichika, do you ever wish you were someone else?"
"No," he denied, settling the jug down and kneeling beside it in a puddle of warm water, his eyes upraised to the man gazing down at him. "Why would I?"
"Because then you wouldn't have to be a servant here," the man said, absently tugging his towel back over one lean hip. "Because then all of the mistakes you've ever made, they wouldn't matter anymore. You could live in luxury, happily content all the rest of your days, pampered beyond belief in the bosom of your family."
The man leaned forward and tweaked a lock of his hair, letting it run through his fingers like silk.
"You do not know very much about my family," Yumichika whispered, his heart starting to pound. "Forgiveness, happiness, those are things I never had there. I am Ayasegawa Yumichika, and I am quite content to stay so."
"Tell me, Yumichika," the man said, leaning too close, close enough to kiss, had Yumichika any mind to. "Does anyone here know that you're not a girl?"
He forced himself to smile, forced his eyelids to lower in a way that he'd seen to be quite effective. With an impulse born of pure survival instinct, he pressed his lips to that man's in a soft, chaste kiss and asked in a breathy whisper, "Why would you think I'm not?"
The man sat back, assessing him with amusement, a wry smile curling his lips.
"What lengths are you willing to go to in order to escape your father, Ichigawa Kanesuke," he asked, stroking his hair again.
"If I was any such person, sir," Yumichika managed, sheer strength of will keeping his voice steady. "Then perhaps I could answer you. But since I am only myself, all I can do is say that the masseur will see you now. Thank you for your patronage, and please remember us."
He bowed his head to the wet floor, hiding his fear, surprised when the man reached down to pat his head.
"I will remember you, Ayasegawa Yumichika," he said. "But, perhaps, my memory will not serve me as well as I had hoped. He will find you, pretty little violet eyes, and don't you doubt it."
He waited until the man had gone before he gained his feet, shaking so hard that he could barely walk straight. He was so visibly upset that Satoshi - on duty as the First Bathhouse Attendant - replaced him on the spot and ordered him to the barracks, promising to send someone for Ikkaku.
"No," Yumichika said, sounding so desperate that Satoshi reached out in case Yumichika was to collapse. "No, don't tell Ikkaku. If he thinks someone bothered me, there's no telling what he would do. I'm fine, I'm just shaken. Please, don't get him riled, you know how he is..."
"Unfortunately, yes," Satoshi admitted. Like everyone in the House of Open Roses, he was well acquainted with Madarame Ikkaku's quick temper and angry fists. The reputation that Ikkaku had built out in those rough districts had grown in this one, and with good reason. "Just...please, Yumichika, if there is something that upset you, allow the guards to take care of it."
"It was nothing, just...just a kiss," he lied, but it must've sounded convincing because Satoshi frowned. "It was just a silly kiss. There was no harm intended, I'm just not used to such things."
Satoshi gave him a confused look, as if he thought to question it, but only shrugged and, oddly, said, "Ah, well, if Senior Ikkaku isn't willing to risk it, far be it from anyone else. Go lie down, Yumichika. Tomorrow will be a better day."
He went in trembling haste, nearly stumbling all over himself in his fear. He hated fear. Fear was ugly. Fear was hideous. Fear was unacceptable.
Fear would make Ikkaku so ashamed of him.
'Get ahold of yourself, Yumichika!' he sternly ordered, hastening into the common room, his despairing eyes focusing on his mostly-empty cubicle. The little gifts that Ikkaku always brought him were usually in the way of sweets or small trinkets that Yumichika was able to carry in a pouch inside his clothing. All that was left in the cubicle were the feathers that Ikkaku had given him yesterday and his file, which Ikkaku still put to good use with a regularity that made Maiko vaguely jealous. 'He won't move that quickly. He'll want to take me with the least amount of fanfare possible, for appearances sake. If I leave, no one will get hurt. If I leave, Ikkaku won't be killed for helping me...'
He wasn't trembling anymore, not now. With steady hands he plucked the feathers from their envelope and tied them into his hair, looping the damp length of it at his nape before he hurriedly changed into his pinwheel kimono. The file was tied securely in a fold of his juban with Ikkaku's other gifts, and the clothing of the House he put neatly away.
"Ah! Yumichika! There you are! Maiko asked me to find you. Are you off duty already? I was heading to the bathhouse," Katsuo said, bounding into the room with Yumichika's sword clattering behind him. "Here you go. She said you wanted this."
"She got it," he breathed, relieved, but at the same time, vastly and deeply unhappy. Ikkaku had kept it for him all of this time, handing it over only during their training sessions. That he would hand it off - even to Maiko, whom they both trusted - was just devastating proof that he was far too busy these days to have a care for Yumichika.
'Or perhaps he took me at my word,' he thought, taking the sword with fingers that felt graceless and inept. 'Perhaps he decided it was for the best when I said that his duty was discharged...Maybe Ikkaku doesn't want to leave her. He has a good life here, after all, far better than we would have on the streets...'
"Are you leaving, Yumichika?" Katsuo asked, watching Yumichika with anxious eyes. "Should I go and get Ikkaku?"
"No, absolutely not," Yumichika said, then considered the little boy for a moment. "Katsuo, can you tell Ikkaku something, if he comes asking for me?"
"Of course!" the child said, rightly offended by the inferred doubt in his messenger skills. "What is it?"
"Tell him that the Stealth Force is going to come, probably not in a way that anyone would recognize," Yumichika said, finding it easier to numb his feelings now that he'd been given his sword back. Everything had an ending, after all, even friendships..."Tell him not to fight if they ask him about me, okay? Tell him...tell him I can take care of myself from now on. Will you do that for me?"
The little boy's lower lip trembled with repressed tears, but he bravely nodded, and said, "Yumichika...Please, when it's safe, come back?"
"Take care of Maiko, Katsuo," Yumichika said, ruffling his hair. "And if she marries Ikkaku, be sure to say a prayer for her now and then, because she's going to need it..."
He left then without anything more than a few kan in tips he'd made over the months. The money from the sale of his kimono had vanished into Ikkaku's money pouch, and Yumichika had never asked after it. Anytime he'd wanted anything, he'd simply asked Ikkaku for it, and the youth had gotten it for him, no questions asked. At any rate, he didn't dwell on it, because he'd rather swallow his tongue than ask Ikkaku for anything now.
He hurried out of the gate, unable to resist a last look over his shoulder at the House that had shielded him for the past year, even if the price had been horrifyingly high for Ikkaku. It wasn't relief he felt leaving the safety of its high walls, but heartbroken despair that he hadn't even been able to say goodbye to the young man who'd done so much for him.
Yumichika had no idea where to go, no idea where was safe. The Stealth Force were justly named - no one knew they were there until the damage was done, until the mess was made and the blood already spilled. He couldn't evade them forever, not now that his father had played his final hand and brought them into it. He knew it wasn't concern for his welfare or familial duty that drove Ichigawa Daichi, not to this point. If he'd asked his sons to send the Stealth Force out to collect him, then he was after retribution.
No one defied the Ichigawa Clan Head without regretting it. And all Yumichika could do was put as much distance between himself and anyone he cared for as possible, because his father doubtlessly had issued orders to make everyone pay for sheltering him so long.
The sun was rapidly sinking towards the horizon, making him even more anxious to escape. He had no intentions of even staying in this district, but the chances of him slipping past grew more slim by the second. The man he'd met in the rinse room had most likely returned to the Stealth Force headquarters by now and made his report. Even if he lied and said that Ayasegawa Yumichika only bore a striking resemblance to Ichigawa Kanesuke, his brothers would probably send someone else to confirm, or even come themselves.
"Running, are we?"
Yumichika skittered to a stop, eyes wide. A quick glance around the street showed him the evening crowds rapidly making an exit, sensing danger with instincts honed to avoid it. A man emerged on his left, another on his right, blocking the street, while a third drifted out of the shadow of an alley.
"I was told you were trained to join the Stealth Force, but you didn't even notice the spirit pressure of three people following you?" the man scoffed, grinning at him. Yumichika was vaguely relieved to see that it wasn't the man from the bathhouse. Despite the probability that he had informed on Yumichika, he'd been kind when he hadn't had to be, and he hadn't taken Yumichika in hand on sight. "Your father has been looking for you."
"My father is dead, sir," Yumichika gamely said, tipping his head back in unconscious imitation of Ikkaku, his back stiffening with fear and pride. "And what need have I to sense spirit pressure when I have none?"
"None?" the man asked, smirking now. "You know, most whores work because they need coin for food, kid. We've been following you since you left the House of Open Roses, and we know you've been working there. Your father will probably skin you for it, you know. I wouldn't want to go back, either."
"I'm on an errand," Yumichika told him, trembling now as the three men advanced. "The only place I'm going back to is the Open Rose. Please, gentlemen, stop interfering."
"We can sense it, you know, and you should be able to as well," another told him, coming close enough that Yumichika could see the resigned melancholy in his eyes. It was the man from the bathhouse, the man who'd let him go. Whatever he'd seen in Yumichika that had stayed his hand at the Open Rose, however, didn't come to bear in this encounter; all of them came closer with hands on their sword hilts. "Prince Ichigawa Kanesuke, you will come with us, now."
"No," he said, overwhelmed with terror at even the idea of it. The stripes of his last encounter with his father had healed to ugly, pink scars down his back. What manner of horror would befall him upon his return? "If my father wants me back so badly, he wants to do the damage as he watches. If you want to take me, I have the advantage."
"Do you think so?" the man asked, laughing.
"Yes, I do," Yumichika said, unsheathing his sword. "I am armed and can defend myself, but you cannot say the same. You tell me, gentlemen - are you willing to die for me?"
They lunged and he spun with his sword in hand, striking against defending sheaths. While they didn't bare their blades, they used them expertly to defend against his slashes, and if it hadn't been for Ikkaku teaching him how to strike with his sword and block with his sheath, they might've quickly managed to unarm him. As it stood, they moved so rapidly that the boy knew he couldn't win, not by himself. He could hold his own, certainly, but all they had to do was wear him down, because he couldn't land any serious hits on them.
"Hey, hey! What's this, Yumichika? You fighting without me, eh?"
His panicked violet eyes lifted to see Ikkaku crouched on the roof of the building across from him, watching the fight with assessing grey eyes.
Yumichika's first flush of relief drained to stark fear for him in seconds, but his distraction provided an opportunity for his attackers, and he winced as a painful, blunt hit caught his right forearm, nearly making him drop his sword.
Ikkaku leapt down lightly, landing on his feet like a cat. Though young, he was already of a similar height and build of two of the men, and would no doubt gain the other man's size before the year was up.
"Are you the one who's been helping him?" They paused to assess the newcomer, Yumichika panting within the circle of their weapons.
Ikkaku tipped his head back in that arrogant way of his, lifting his sword to his shoulder, and asked, "Who wants to know?"
"We were given orders to extract retribution from whomever offered to harbor this boy," Ikkaku was told. "We were informed that he was being aided by a bald kid; I guess you're him."
Ikkaku's serious frown turned into an angry scowl and he pointed his sheathed sword at them, shouting, "Listen here! I'm not bald, got it? And if you don't move away right now, I'll pound you. I take care of this kid, understand? He's no one you need to mess with."
"Ikkaku! Get out of here, you fool!" Yumichika hissed, taking the opportunity to break away from the three men, holding his sword and sheath out before him in a ready posture. "I didn't ask you to come after me!"
"Eh? You didn't?" Ikkaku asked, then grinned his sharp, white grin. "But I'm here, and I don't like these guys, I think. Three against one, that's no good odds with this one. How about you try it against me?"
"Ikkaku!" Yumichika shouted, terrified because they wouldn't hesitate to draw their blades on him.
"Stay out of this, Yumichika!" Ikkaku shouted, gleeful and in his element, baring the shining length of his carefully tended sword. "This is no kind of fight for you!"
Yumichika ignored him, dashing to his side in the hopes of deterring the men from deadly violence.
The man from the bathhouse sadly drew his sword and said, "Do not strike the Prince. His father will forgive minor injury, but nothing serious."
"Stay out of this, I said!" Ikkaku repeated, his grin positively ferocious, a strange and threatening power crackling around him. Yumichika felt it prickle along his skin like a touch, and realized that it must be the spirit pressure that those men had mentioned. Whatever it was, it felt dangerous and unstoppable, like flames on a dry, open plain, and for just an instant hope flared in Yumichika's heart that Ikkaku might actually walk away alive. "You three, listen up. If you don't want to die, get out of here! I am Madarame Ikkaku, and if you don't kill me quickly, then you'll die at my feet in this road, understand?"
"That is an impressive amount of spirit pressure you've managed to build, Madarame Ikkaku," he was told. "But you're no match for trained Stealth Force. Give us the Prince, or you will die."
Ikkaku laughed his throaty, raspy laugh that Yumichika silently adored. It was followed by the youth lowly saying, "Ah, but I don't care if I die, and that's the difference between us."
He lunged, then, fighting with a skill that even Yumichika was shocked by. Ikkaku's time in the Mistress's service hadn't been spent idly - those brutal matches had honed his ability in a way that mere training and missions never could. Every fight he'd engaged in had been one to the death, and very few of them were one-on-one. In that, Ikkaku actually had an advantage over these trained men, and rapidly gained ground.
Yumichika engaged one of the men, deflecting his sword from Ikkaku's side and wrenching it away. In a soft snarl, he said, "Face me as a man! Striking your opponent in his back reeks of cowardice, and cowards are not beautiful."
The man laughed, taking him lightly despite the fact that Yumichika had been able to defend against three of them at once. After a few exchanges, however, he stopped smiling and began to fight in earnest.
"Is it so hard to believe now?" Yumichika asked, regaining his breath, his fear dying down as his training took over. "Does it show, now, that I was trained for the Stealth Force?"
The man grit his teeth and growled, "Don't get cocky, kid! Even if you win today, he knows where you are."
"Not for long," Yumichika countered, turning smoothly into a slash that opened a telling wound on the man's forearm. "That was for hitting me."
He switched his sword to his other hand, just as adept, and circled with Yumichika in the dusty, darkened street.
Yumichika could hear Ikkaku's gleeful shouts as he fought, punctuated by the ring of metal meeting metal. He tried to block it out, to devote his concentration to his own fight, but was forcibly drawn into it when Ikkaku jumped nimbly over one fallen opponent, caught Yumichika's aggressor by his collar, and dragged him back with the remaining man.
"Now stay out of this!" the youth ordered once more, dealing a powerful blow that sent both men staggering back away from Yumichika and past their fallen comrade, who lay unconscious in the street.
Yumichika shook with a mixture of frustration, outrage, and delayed exhaustion as he glared at Ikkaku, but despite the odds, the youth was managing perfectly well on his own. Yumichika's proximity kept the Stealth Force men from using more dangerous kido incantations, and Ikkaku's swift movements interrupted the rest.
"Stupid fool!" Yumichika fiercely whispered, still glaring. "Why did you come after me, idiot?! Why don't I just run away right now and leave you behind me forever? At least then you wouldn't be in this kind of danger!"
It was a question that startled and scared him, because he hadn't considered it before. His gaze turned thoughtful as he watched Ikkaku fight, watched his wiry, muscular limbs move gracefully, yet with brutal force. What was it about that insufferable man that kept him from truly just walking away? What caused these strange feelings to well inside of him when he even considered leaving Ikkaku in truth, even if it would probably save the youth's life?
"It's that," Yumichika whispered, shocked and dismayed by the strength of what filled him, struck by a thunderbolt of understanding where his feelings were concerned. "Of all the stupid things, it's that!"
He'd been so careful all of this time not to look too closely at what he felt for Ikkaku, but in one moment of careful reflection he'd unearthed the true reason behind his constant companionship with Madarame Ikkaku. Of course he couldn't walk away! How could he when so much of his heart was no longer his? When so much of himself belonged to that brash, loud, cocky, utterly bafflingly wonderful boy?
"Hey, Yumichika!" Ikkaku hollered, and suddenly his angry frustration was gone as if it had never been, because when it came down to it, the only thing that he couldn't endure from Madarame Ikkaku was the death he courted so ardently. "Is this the one that stole a kiss from you, eh?"
"H...how did you know about that?!" he squeaked, horrified.
Ikkaku was holding the man from the bathhouse by the throat and looked fierce enough to bite.
"Do you want me to kill this one? Eh? I'll teach him to put his hands on you, heh!"
"N...no, Ikkaku!" he said, alarmed. "No, don't kill him!"
"What's this? Why not? Why not, I said!" Ikkaku demanded, one foot on the second man's slumped back. He gave the bathhouse man's throat a nasty shake. "I'll teach him to take what isn't his!"
"He didn't steal it!" Yumichika protested, driving his clenched fist into Ikkaku's shoulder, which only served to hurt his hand. "Stop this, Ikkaku! It won't do any good to kill him, they already know where I am!"
"Didn't steal it, eh?" Ikkaku lowly growled, and dealt the man a hard blow to the skull with the hilt of his sword. "Didn't I tell you what I'd do if you were whoring? Eh? And what were you doing in the bathhouse again, anyway?"
"I was put on the roster," Yumichika weakly told him, watching the man crumple to the road. It was foolish and childish to spare him, and the merciful act would backfire without fail, but he simply couldn't allow it. "Damn it, Ikkaku! Why did you come after me?!"
He swung away, stepping over the three bodies, his thoughts and emotions in turmoil.
It was absurd to think that this was the moment, the moment when he realized what his affection for Ikkaku really was. Not as a brother - he had seven of those and the feelings were nothing even close. Not just as a friend, because friendship, surely, didn't leave such a gap for yearning, did it? It didn't leave a hollow to be filled by something unnamed, did it? Friendship didn't make his hands itch until they rested on Ikkaku. Friendship didn't make his stomach flip when Ikkaku gave him a sly, sideways look and a wide grin. Friendship didn't make him upset to the point of tearful rage every time that one of the girls boasted of Ikkaku's exertions in her bed. There was something intangible, unknown that he wanted from Ikkaku, all he understood was that he wanted more of Ikkaku, as if he'd become a glutton for something bitter-sweet and sharp.
"Hey, Yumichika," Ikkaku called to him. The slender boy looked back to see him standing there over the three bodies with dirt and blood on his face and his sword balanced over one shoulder. Ikkaku's mouth was pulled into a questioning frown, his brows drawn down, the vein in his temple pulsing in an expression that said he had no idea what had just happened or why, but either way he wasn't pleased in the least that Yumichika had walked away from him. "Are you hungry?"
Of all the stupid, stupid things, he'd gone and fallen in love with Madarame Ikkaku...
"Hey, hey! Are you hungry, I said!" Ikkaku complained, stepping over them to get to Yumichika, scowling when he shied away. "Eh? What's this?! Don't be like that! I didn't kill them! Don't be so soft!"
"It wasn't that," Yumichika whispered, and had a single, utterly panicked understanding pierce his sudden realization - Ikkaku would never accept it. To cover his strange reaction, he lied, "You smell like blood. It isn't beautiful."
Ikkaku grinned, making Yumichika's heart swell with the hunger to be a part of him, to be his somehow, touched and held and useful like his sword.
"Then I'll have a bath," Ikkaku said, wiping at his face to get a rivulet of blood off. "You look so sad, Yumichika. Will you be happy if I'm clean?"
"Yes, Ikkaku," Yumichika said, rapidly coming to terms with what he had to do. "I'll be happy."
"Then sound happy, brat!" Ikkaku warned, tapping him on the shoulder with his sheathed sword. "Come on, it's late already. I got tired fighting those guys."
"You should have let me fight them," Yumichika protested, stifling the leap in his heart whenever Ikkaku propped one arm over his shoulders. How on earth was he going to hide this? How on earth would he be able to stay with him? 'But I can't leave him and today proves it...I can't even imagine being without him. He's the only reason I try, the only reason I keep going.'
"If it makes you so sad, Yumichika, I'll let you fight the next one," Ikkaku generously offered. He seemed so different now in the wake of Yumichika's realization. Suddenly, he could easily see why the Mistress had made the arrangement she had. Ikkaku might not have reached the full height and power that he surely would, but he wasn't lacking much of it, and Yumichika felt a world removed from the youth he'd always felt so close to. "Hey, don't be so sad, I said! When you're unhappy, it makes me grouchy."
"I can't believe you came after me," Yumichika softly said, his fear returning, worming its way through his realization. "Ikkaku, those men were from the Stealth Force. My father is still looking for me, and he won't stop until he has me back. You'll die if you stay near me."
"Ah, well, I don't mind it," Ikkaku boasted, grinning. He was bleeding from a dozen different places, some of which would need stitching, Yumichika knew. "Am I a man? How could I not come after you when Katsuo told me you'd left, eh? And then Satoshi tells me someone kissed you in the bathhouse - heh! How stupid!"
Yumichika pulled away with a disdainful sniff, hurt and offended by that summary. "I said that you smell! Get away from me, you idiot!"
It got Ikkaku to laugh his throaty, ornery laugh, pleased. He always laughed when Yumichika was sassy, and the smaller boy had quickly grasped that Ikkaku both appreciated and delighted in his prim and proper attitude. They were such polar opposites that entertaining one another was simply a matter of talking, yet Yumichika never found that they clashed seriously or truly disagreed on anything. Ikkaku wasn't just his friend, he was his best friend.
"Don't worry, Yumichika," Ikkaku told him. "I'll straighten out this bathhouse thing with the Old Lady. I won't let your father have you back, I promise."
'If he won't let me leave him, then I won't risk losing his friendship,' Yumichika thought, trying to smother the feeling in his heart that revolved around Ikkaku, the place that whispered it would be utterly filled, utterly whole if only he admitted it. 'I can't let him know how I feel; he wouldn't understand. Besides, it isn't beautiful to be made a fool of, and he would laugh to hear it, I know he would...'
"He'll come for me," Yumichika numbly said, dismayed by the future he'd crafted for himself with his stubbornness.
"Let him," Ikkaku said, swiping his sleeve over his forehead to staunch the blood.
"He'll kill you," Yumichika breathed, turning to shake him by the arms, wishing there was some way to get through the impenetrable fortress of Ikkaku's confidence with the ugly, bitter truth.
Ikkaku just grinned at him and said, "He can try. Now come on, Yumichika. I'm sorry I was gone last night, but I was in another district on an errand. I'll make it up to you, eh? Let's have a bath and then I'll treat you to dinner. You need to eat more, you scrawny brat."
"You're an idiot," Yumichika said, unable to keep the fondness from his voice.
But in his heart, what he really said was, "I love you."