Kamui-rella, or, Candy-coated Fluff: Ch.7
Disclaimer: Nothing of X and its related stuff is mine; CLAMP-sama owns them all...the twisting of the characters is mine, however.
Warning! If you don't like Kamui and Subaru together please don't read this fic! For this chapter is the last ball, and therefore the climax of the story. Exclamation points aside, hope you like. Review any way you want; constructive criticism would be nice.
Kamui woke slowly, letting white light filter slowly into his eyes. He lay, as usual, before the fireplace, but in his heart there was a most unusual pain, a brassy ache. Propping himself up on an elbow, he wondered if it was a bruise. But then Hinoto flashed before his eyes, a silly grin on her face, and he remembered the green-eyed Prince.
Quite awake now, he found his feet and stumbled to the stove, where he heated some porridge to the point of carciogenic blackness (because he was too busy staring off into the middle distance and thinking of the feel of the Prince's hands on his waist) and then consumed it with equal indifference. Fuuma stamped in around midday and grumbled when presented with another blackened bowl of food. "What is this?"
"Oh..lunch.." Kamui drifted about his stepbrother/tormentor and sat, listless.
"You look awfully happy," snarled Fuuma. "Did you have fun with the laundry last night?"
Kamui almost told him who the real source of his pleasure was before remembering and nodded, close to giggles.
Fuuma picked at what was edible in his bowl and then left, presumably to prepare for the last ball. Satsuki and Kanoe peered in at the boy whose face was luminous with joy and anticipation, somewhat startled. When they left that dusk they did not assign him chores; instead they simply rushed out, almost afraid of the beautiful creature stirring some soup in the kitchen, brightness making his rags appear as grand as silk.
Hinoto came earlier than before, and she looked more gleeful than ever, her blue-white robe hitched up past her elbows, probably because of the huge tub she carried, filled with many ribbons and baubles, not to mention bundles upon bundles of anoynmous brown paper.
She watched him goggle at her packages as she unloaded them; once or twice he flushed at some of the things she extracted and stuck in a purse of white velvet and pearl. "Do you really think I'll..we'll need that?..." Hinoto nodded, adamant. "Oh...fine then..." Kamui was too lost in reverie to care anyway. But that ache still pushed at his breastbone unrelentingly, and when Hinoto scrubbed him free of ash and dirt he did not protest. Wondering at his docility, she asked, gentle, "What's holding your mind?"
"The Prince," Kamui blurted before he thought, and flushed to the lobes of his ears.
"Oh..." Hinoto smiled. "So you do love him?"
Kamui got even redder. "Uhh...uhhh..."
"Never mind that." She handed him a strange bottle and told him to gargle its contents, and when he did this she continued. "So you're worried about what your nasty demon of a stepmother will do to you if you tell this to your Prince?"
The boy nodded, still crimson.
Hinoto seized one shoulder and sighed as her fingers rubbed against the rise of an easily felt bone. He was so thin. "You go to the ball, Kamui-kun. Forget Kanoe and her oni children and only watch the eyes of your lovely Prince. All right? Are we agreed?" He nodded, mute with almost maidenly chagrin, and said, sheepishly, "He looks familiar."
"Oh?" Hinoto was smiling again. "How so?"
"After...after okaa-san died..." this was apparently difficult for Kamui to tell, "I sort of...fell asleep for a while. And then...then...someone came to wake me up. He looked like the Prince."
Hinoto made a sage noise. "He was."
Kamui gave a small start and then said nothing as she finished dressing him, tonight in a psuedo-bridal white complete with lace at his throat. Velvet and pearl draped him in a smoothly tailored coat with silver chains for fasteners and a fillet chain with a diamond at its center around his gently tousled hair. But the grandest part of this costume had to be the crystal shoes. More accurately, as Hinoto detailed, they were Austrian crystal, worth a king's fortune, and not magical. "So when you and that green-eyed Prince of yours get married...you'll have my gift." Kamui had blushed and tried them on, and of course they'd fit perfectly to his feet, which were whiter than the lace and silver. And, to his great befuddlement, they did not break. Hinoto merely winked when he queried at this and sent him off in a crystal coach with grey stallions and servants in grey silk and fleece. As they cantered away, Yuzuriha joined Hinoto in waving.
The castle was draped in gold and silver, for this was the last of the balls. And the Queen paced on her royal dais, unsettled. Her son had not imparted that he'd found a suitable partner, though he had danced with more than a few of the attending young people, out of courtesy or actual interest she could not tell. That amethyst-eyed boy from the first two nights had been the only who'd truly captured Subaru's attention, she thought, but couldn't bring herself to ask. And so she paced, waiting for the boy in question to arrive at this final dance. Nataku swayed by in a stately waltz, in the arms of a tall boy with tufted black hair falling over his eyes. At least Nataku-chan...kun...has found someone. She smiled at them graciously.
A series of footsteps down the stairs--she turned, and saw with relief that the seeming focus of Subaru's attentions had arrived. He was white as the falling snow outside in his finery, and she nearly had to turn away for the brightness. Subaru, she noted with some motherly pride, was already at the boy's side, and was bowing.
"...please." The Prince straightened, and took Kamui's gloved hand. Kamui murmured "yes", blushing a tad, and the Prince grinned, slid off the glove (most sensually, thought the owner of said glove) and kissed the hand below the cloth. Both pink in the cheeks, they spun onto the dance floor.
Seishirou Sakurazuka watched them gracefully follow the steps of a torrette du tokyo, a current favorite. Beside him was one of Subaru's servants, some cheerful blond boy with a forgettable name. "Kei....rou?..." He started lazily, lifting the customary cigarette to his thin lips.
"No, it's Keichii, sir." Keichii bowed. Seishirou sneered. The boy liked to bow. "Keichii then. Go fetch that man down there..with Prince..ss...Nataku."
Keichii promptly did so, and Fuuma laughed at the asassin. "Sei-san!" The two men exchanged looks that were a blend of calculation and distrust, which for them was nothing short of sheer friendliness. "Did you buy the ice cream cone?" Fuuma asked, smiling his lying sweet smile.
"Oh yes...but I see you've got better treats." Seishirou motioned vaguely in the direction of Nataku, who was playing with a ribbon. "Yes...indeed," Fuuma answered gravely, and they both laughed. After a bit Seishirou asked, "D'you know that kid with the Prince?"
Fuuma glanced. "Oh...I played with him at the first ball. He's very delicate...firm...like a sort of crispy sour-sweet apple. Quite nice." He grinned. "Nice indeed. Looks like his Highness will be next to taste the apple." Seishirou smiled thinly. "Yes."
Subaru, in fact, was not quite so elevated in the speech of his thoughts at that point. Kamui's soft hair smelled quite like strawberries...and some tropical fruit. Tangy. Kamui himself wanted to compliment the Prince's launderers, for the golden-yellow silk and velvet smelled of delicious flowers, ripe and budding. Both were totally lost to the outside world; only the sense of each other mattered. At the end of the dreamy nocturne they'd been twirling to, Subaru grabbed the smaller boy's hand and led him outside a door. Kamui, dazed, let him.
The night was stinging, insistent, but mild for that country's winter. A hazy moon lay in the embrace of night, watching the couples who shuffled through the gardens below. For that was where the Prince had led his partner; Subaru walked silently, elated, until they reached a labryinth of hedges. He turned, still unspeaking, until they reached a bench of ebony and marble in the shapes of cupids and small round cherubs. And then he reached out a tentative arm and pulled Kamui to him.
They sat (or half-sat, in Kamui's case) for a while, again lost in the world of two. But a question was nagging at Subaru and so he returned. "What is your name..?"
Kamui started, stopped, started when he remembered Hinoto's promise. But caution kept him from telling the truth.. "Ryuu."
Subaru seemed to taste the name. "And...have I seen you before?"
A small breath of fear. And then a smaller sigh of relief and frustration (at his need for lies). "At the ball last night, or course, Highness." A false smile that tore at him for its falseness.
Subaru smiled, also a false smile, but only becauase of his urgency. "No..." his eyes turned inward as he tried to recollect the past meeting. "Ah!...You're the son of that kind businessman who sold Piffle Princess things!"
The son of the kind businessman drew in a sudden breath. "No..no.." he touched Subaru's face. Then, with his fingertips still on skin, he remembered Hinoto, again promising him fervently, and took another breath. "I mean...yes." He nodded slowly. "That was Father."
"Was?..."Subaru started, but he was interrupted by the chime of the midnight bells. Kamui got to his feet, drawing away with difficulty from the Prince's presence, and ran. At the entrance of the labryinth he stumbled but kept running, aware that his rich clothing was rapidly disintegrating into rags. Only until he reached the spot whre the coach had been did he realize that he had lost his right shoe, the one of Austrian crystal. He got to the manor very cold and wet and had to take deep breaths to keep himself from sobbing aloud. The prince...no, Subaru's face was taut with astonishment, as it had been when Kamui had run away. When Hinoto came, cheerily, he was beyond her consolation.
Meanwhile, in the castle....
Nataku smiled in his childlike way, head cushioned on Fuuma's knee. Seishirou was quiet, with Subaru pacing between them all. "How could he leave?"
The Sakurazukamori leered. "Perhaps his mother was waiting. Perhaps he had an urgent errand."
"But he didn't even say goodbye..."Subaru cradled his head in his arms, leaning against a pillar. "Now I'll never find him..."
Keichii suddenly appeared from behind a tangled of ferns in a porcelain pot. "You Highness, I found this in the Labryinth. "In his outstreched hand was a glass shoe, tiny and exquisite. Subaru's eyes went wide. "It must be..his." He wove through the crowded dance floor, holding the shoe to his heart, and conferred with the Queen. Fuuma watched as they seemed to reach some sort of decision. "Well Nataku-chan...this just gets so interesting, eh?"
Nataku nodded.
A/N: Well well! The action reaches a peak! Review and I might hurry with the next chapter! Also, I'm considering a sequel to this story...tell me if I should write one!