Leaves by the Candle Light

Chapter V

By Hachi Mitsu

April 29, 2002

Hiddencache.com

            How does the mind of a killer work? Can we ever really know? When a killer color his hands with the blood of another, we assume him to be evil, but when those same stained hands are holding the one he loves, is he still evil?

            But then, what defines evil in the first place? Can evil ever be dispelled from the soul? Can lies ever been forgotten, and broken dreams pieced back together?

            Seishirou buried his face in the soft hair of the angel held in his arms, waiting for Subaru's quiet sobs to subdue. There was something soothing in holding the younger onmyouji, listening to his barely coherent whispers as he struggled to string together multiple words in a consecutive order that made any sense. "Why did you leave, Seishirou-san? I really did love you, so why did you leave?"

            The older man was silent as he slowly turned the question in his mind before answering it with an inquiry of his own, one so quiet that it could have easily been a thought whispered to himself. "Do you really love me? Or the person you thought of me to be."

/ Just how far apart is love and hate. What delicate line separates these two uncontainable emotions? /

            Subaru's reaction was one that he had not expected. With a sudden burst of rage, burning like a quiet fire, the Sumeragi use the hand still clutching at the front of Seishirou's to push himself away. "Of course I love you! I- I always did... " Subaru raised his hand, touching two long slim fingers to his lips in slight wonder, as if pondering whether warm kisses only minutes before had been real. It seemed hard to equate the tenderness with the dark figure who's cold amusement seemed to drain away every last bit of will left in him.

"Subaru-kun, I think that you're confusing what you believe with reality again." If those carefully chosen words that were meant to convey a feeling of nonchalance and apathy reached the ears of Subaru, he didn't show it.

"When you first left, I tried to stop loving you, I really did. Did you think I didn't try? You killed the person most dear to me and broke my heart, and still I cannot hate you because I am too busy loving you..." Subaru glared through the tears that gathered unshed in his eyes.

The expression on assassin's face, had it been any other person's face, might have been interpreted to be confusion. After all, nothing being said here made any sense. "How can you love me if we're on the opposite poles of the same battle? We might very well end up killing each other."

There was something about the way Seishirou said it that struck a note deep in the heart of Subaru. Something painful, but sweet, like spring rain. "No... no! I don't believe in fate," he stated firmly. "The reason why the future is important is because we can change that, we can't change the past. The future can be changed, if we try hard enough... right? And... and I want to try to change things, I want to make things right again, like before."

"Subaru-kun." Seishirou sighed soundlessly, trying to pull the slim young man his prey had become into his arms again. But to his surprise, Subaru resisted, albeit to no real consequence.

"No. No, stop it. You never listened to me, even when you were about to kill me, you still didn't listen to me. All I ever wanted was to touch your heart in the way you've touched mine. I... I know now that you'll never love me, but still." Subaru paused; a sharp intake of shaky breath broke the brief silence. "I k-know that y-you'll kill me someday. B-but I don't even mind anymore, a-after all, it's y-your right. " Subaru took another deep breath, trying to quell the unreasonable urge to hug himself and quiver like a feather caught in the unexpected rain. "But, I can't forget you. Even now, even when I know that to die by your hands would be the most I can ever hope for, I still lov-"

Without warning, Seishirou calmly leaned over and silenced him with a kiss. Pulling away, he turned and looked down the empty street, or maybe he was looking off into the horizon trying to spot the invisible set of stars that the cutely distressed boy in his arms was named after. Somewhere among the black velvet was another set of ageless lights, his own namesake.

He turned back, caught in the gaze of wide green eyes, set in confusion. "I left because I didn't want to keep you from you destiny... we all have to choose our own path. That day... it was your decision, just like it was your decision seventeen years ago to approach the Sakura tree. But... in the end, there is only one future, no matter how you look at it, there is only one chance to make things right. Don't you see? No matter who wins, no matter who dies, it will be the future. Subaru-kun, you with your two thousand years of lineage, tell me... which matters more, the past or the future? Or does neither really matter in the end, when we lie cold with death." He paused, wondering to himself where this was coming from, or maybe where it was going. "Subaru-kun... you know, it'd be a lot easier if you did hate me..."

"What? The way you hate me?" The words were soft like the down of a hatchling. It held neither surprise nor resentment; just the quiet breath of resignation a person feels because he loves someone so much that nothing can change it.

There was a moment of silence that dragged on for a brief eternity. Then, a gloved hand reached over and firmly tilted Subaru's downcast face up to meet a pair of obsidian mirrors that seemed to at the same time be an endless puzzle that reflected nothing at all.

/ "You're mine." /

For that one everlasting moment nothing else mattered. The world faded around them like a maboroshi, as if all along the real world was the illusion and neither of them had noticed until they've stepped into their own layer of reality and found out that... that...

But then again, Subaru reflected as he melted under a new assault of feather light kisses that danced across his face and down his neck like sweet droplets of spring rain: that didn't really matter either.

Streetlights flickered cheerfully above and somewhere close by, cars shouted impatiently at either other through their strange one syllable language. But here, under a barely visible moon, two long lost souls met as all the lost, pain and sadness of their respective pasts intertwined in their own sheltered world, oblivious (or maybe just indifferent) to the passage of time around them.

***

            Time never pass the way we think it does. Hours shift into minutes as seconds melt to years. Sometimes a single night can become as hard to measure as eternity.

Really, it all depends on the significance of it all.

Subaru woke up alone and disorientated until he recognized the white amorphous plane before him to be the ceiling of his apartment. Sighing softly into the sheets entwined around his limbs, he pushed himself up to a sitting position and listened. The sound of dishes being set on a table drifted from the kitchen he had only recently discovered he had.

Ok, he reflected, so maybe he wasn't alone after all.

            Rubbing the sleepiness out of his eyes, Subaru fished around and came up with a pair of loose fitting jeans and pulled them on. Swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed, he stood and shuffled to his closet and pulled out a charcoal colored shirt and slipped it on while walking out of the bedroom. After running a brush through his hair and washing up (somehow, it made the world seem a lot clearer), he started towards the kitchen to check on his guest.

            As he stepped out of his room, he paused to scrutinize his reflection in the mirror that hung in the hallway. His coal black hair brushed against his eyes, making his fair skin seem even more pale in comparison. The unbuttoned front of the shirt allowed a peek of soft skin that caved a bit too much against his too prominent collarbones.

            Suddenly, he realized that no more sounds were floating from the direction of the kitchen as another figure appeared behind him. "You should take better care of yourself Subaru-kun. What would Hokuto-chan say if she saw you now?"

            Subaru bit back a retort about the insensitive mentioning of the sister that somebody killed as strong arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind. "Why are you still here?"

            "Oh? I thought you wanted me to, Subaru-kun." Subaru watched a slim dark eyebrow rose mockingly at him in the mirror. "Besides, I wanted to cook -" Seishirou paused to look at the clock "lunch for you while you slept the morning away."

            Seishirou smirked as Subaru glared at him through the mirror. Sighing, Subaru shifted so that he was facing the object of his mild irritation and pressed his the side of his face against the taller man's chest. "It's not that late," he complained quietly.

            "Of course not Subaru-kun."

            A twig of irritation rose again at the sound of the ever so condescending voice. Really, he never could tell when Seishirou was joking or not, even during the year of the Bet when he had only been an "innocuous" veterinarian, Subaru frequently mistaken the teasing for seriously, and was always at loss.

            Standing on tiptoe, Subaru peeked over Seishirou's shoulder at the fore-mentioned clock and winced at the sight of the little hand pointing innocently at a number too large for him to complain about the jib.

            "Well, it was your fault I was up so late," Subaru pouted slightly as Seishirou let him go and started pulling him into the kitchen where small delicate plates of various dishes were laid out along with a bowl of rice.

            "I don't recall hearing any complaints last night." Sitting down on one of the chairs, Seishirou pulled a startled Subaru onto his lap and pointed to the food, "Now eat, we can't have you falling apart, I'm willing to bet that you can't even remember when the last time you had a full meal was."

            Subaru blushed prettily and stared at the food. Come to think of it, when was the last time he ate. He thought, then he thought some more, and then he gave up and murmured a quick thanks and began to sip the warm soup.

            "Aren't you going to eat too?" Subaru leaned back against warm presence around him, nibbling on a slice of apple.

            Seishirou smirked. "I already did, while somebody was sleeping." Subaru blushed again before finishing the apple and snuggling up against Seishirou's neck.

            For a while a content silence filled the air, before Subaru spoke up again in a quiet voice that dissolved into the stillness like honey into warm water. "Why now? After searching futilely for you for so many years, why did you show up now, acting as if you actually cared about me?"

            If Subaru had looked up, he might have noticed a slight, almost dismissible flicker in his love's eyes. It was a thinnest of wariness that peeked out briefly from the impenetrable depth of the assassin's guarded eyes; like the glimmer that passes through a wolf's eyes as it picks up the scent of an unfamiliar presence, unsure yet whether it was danger or dinner.

            "Of course I care about my Subaru-kun, why would I not?" It was a lie, Seishirou knew it, but the strange thing was: he wasn't sure whether the lie dwelled in the false-caring words, or the fact that he believed those words to be only a lie.

            He felt the warm breath of a sigh touch his neck before Subaru answered. "...You're lying. You can't feel anything, remember? You said  I was nothing more to you than a glass cup. A toy that you can break when I no longer interest you. Why do you play with me so? Do you enjoy seeing me get upset? Do you really? Or is this just another game?"

            Subaru didn't get it, he really didn't. How can one person love another so much, yet have none of that love returned?

            Seishirou opened his mouth to answer, but before he could say anything, Subaru pressed a finger against the slightly parted lips. "No, don't say anything, not yet. Will you just hold me? For now. So that even if you kill me tomorrow, I'd at least have this." Subaru closed his eyes letting the moment soak into him. "Please Seishirou-san, at least let me pretend..."

---

End of Chapter V

Notes: eheh *sweatdrop* seems like the plot will have to be pushed back another chapter. I already know what will happen, but I need to think it over a bit about how to put it into action. Many of the dialogue from this chapter are based on the Self Destruction rpg blog where Maduin created a very interesting Subaru ^_^ *huggles* thanky imouto-chan for all your help, inspiration and encouragements!