Loyalty
by Jennifer A. Wand
A Gravitation fan fiction
IV. In The Moonlight
"Narutami Hyogo said, 'What is called winning is defeating one's allies. Defeating one's allies is defeating oneself, and defeating oneself is vigorously overcoming one's own body.'"
- from the pages of the HAGAKURE, the handbook of the samurai
Nakano Hiroshi was used to playing the straight man. He had known Shuichi since childhood - they'd been neighbors, then friends - and he knew the routine: Shuichi got excited about something, flew all over the place, while Hiroshi tried his best to keep Shuichi anchored somewhere in reality. It was Hiro that had become interested in the theatre first, and he was the one who suggested that Shuichi join when the time came. But Shuichi took to the stage like a fish to water, his presence radiating like light in each role he took, and Hiro found himself playing the supporting roles again to Shuichi's extravagant diva.
Not that Hiro minded. Shuichi was flighty, half-crazy, but he was undoubtedly fun, and Hiro was the most charmed of any audience that had ever come under Shuichi's spell. There was something pleasantly vicarious about letting someone else live a life of constant excitement right before your eyes, while indulging yourself in the comforts of the familiar. And Hiro considered himself, in a small way, indispensible. Without his grounding, Shuichi would surely fly too high and destroy himself through sheer fancy. Hiro was Shuichi's anchor, and he prided himself on that.
So even Hiro was surprised at what he'd said that afternoon. Encouraging Shuichi's flights of fancy was not his style, but this time there seemed something true about it that Hiro couldn't openly deny. It had all started when Shuichi and Hiro were practicing a scene, half-costumed, in the open air just outside the castle walls.
Hiro had been affixing Shuichi's wig as Shuichi scribbled scraps of poetry on bits of parchment he'd found here and there. A wind had set one of the scraps aloft, and, panicked, Shuichi started running after it. In the tight folds of the kimono he couldn't move freely, and the paper stayed just out of reach as Shuichi dashed off after it. Before Hiro knew it, both Shuichi and his elusive prey were out of sight.
It was several minutes before Shuichi returned, and when he did, it was obvious something had changed about him. His cheeks were flushed, not wholly from the exertion, and there were little twitches of determination darting about his features. Even the hair of his wig was dishevelled and windswept, and the effect was quite convincing -- it looked more like his real hair than ever. Shuichi was the picture of a maiden in love, Hiro thought suddenly with an internal giggle.
"Can you believe the nerve of some people!?" he burst out when he got his breath back.
This coming from you? Hiro wanted to say, but he didn't. "What's wrong?"
Shuichi flushed a deeper red. "My poem was seen... by this incredibly... obnoxious man." He looked as though he was fumbling for the perfect word to describe this stranger, and Hiro wondered what other adjectives had crossed his mind. "He was so cruel to me, telling me it was worse than a six-year-old's and stuff..."
Hiro rolled his eyes. "So? Forget about it. You'll never see him again anyway."
"I can't!" Shuichi retorted. "I can't just forget about it. Why'd he have to be so mean?"
"Did you have some reason you expected him to be nice?" Hiro shrugged, and smiled warmly at his friend. "There are nasty people out there, Shuichi. They're not worth thinking about. You just do what yo do and let it go."
But Shuichi wouldn't let it go. The rehearsal went badly, and Shuichi had a sour expression on his face that made him look comical in his finely tailored costume. A kimono, a wig, and a pout. Whenever Hiro attempted to address the problem, Shuichi would shut down, crawling into a little mental box and glaring at Hiro for daring to intrude. He wouldn't hear a word of Hiro's attempts to either console him or discredit his offender. Later, as they returned to the court, amidst Shuichi's continued complaints and little self-pitying moans, it finally struck Hiro just what Shuichi's problem was.
"You like him," he suddenly said with a grin.
Shuichi stumbled backwards a few steps. "Wh-- what was that!?"
"You like him. You're attracted to him." Hiro poked Shuichi in the chest accusingly. "He's all you can talk about, but you won't hear a bad word about him. You fell for him. Didn't you?"
Shuichi turned purple. "I.. I beg your pardon!?" he said, stamping a foot at Hiro. "He's a man, you know!"
"You like who you like," Hiro shrugged. "No helping it."
"But I just met him!" Shuichi snapped. "I don't even know who he is!"
"You said he was carrying a helmet and walking with a horse," Hiro mused. "It's safe to assume he was a samurai, right? And he wasn't far from the castle. I bet if you look, you can find him."
"B... but why would I?!" demanded an increasingly violet-faced Shuichi.
Hiro smirked. "To confess your love, of course."
Whether Shuichi had, in fact, confessed his love or not Hiro didn't know. But he knew something had happened with the samurai they both now knew to be Yuki Eiri, the famous and favored Uesugi-clan samurai whom Seguchi Tohma treated like a beloved child. There was something shining about Shuichi as he readied for this night's performance, and there was also something sad. Hiro felt a pang as he watched his friend do his makeup, patting on the white powder that would give him the appearance of a woman's complexion. That bird that Hiro had tethered all this time to keep from flying aimlessly -- might have finally found a place to fly to. And where would Hiro be, once Shuichi had soared off into the sky?
Seguchi Tohma was a fool. Eiri chewed on the thought comfortably as he took his seat, knowing it, at least, was the unqualified truth. What noble, much less a daimyo who was once a triumphing warrior himself, still openly enjoyed the kabuki theatre? The fashion had turned away from kabuki, and the choice of the well-educated samurai of the day was the ever-so-much-more-graceful Noh play. The former was loud, brash, and undisguised; the latter subtle and restrained. Tohma was inviting scorn and ruining his own reputation, and he showed no recognition of that fact, nor remorse for it. Eiri found some perverted satisfaction in this knowledge.
His mind had been churning all day. Dilemma after dilemma, all burning brightly over the coals of desire that lay smoldering at the base of his heart. Eiri took comfort in the inanity of the play to come, knowing that it would surely be completely lacking in subtlety. There would be no major moral dilemma here. Everything would be clear-cut and headed for a predictable conclusion. Eiri had never been a huge fan of the theatre, but perhaps tonight he could simply enjoy the play for what it was - a chance to forget his own internal battles in the orchestrated pandemonium onstage. He sat back in his seat, willing his body to relax, willing the uncertainties in his mind to recede.
The story was a simple one. Adapted from a Noh play, it was, like so many others, the story of a love gone wrong -- a woman betrayed by a lover who becomes a vengeful spirit and is only returned to herself when she has exacted her revenge. Her remorse and sadness at his death overwhelm her so completely that she becomes an ever-crying weeping willow tree. The subtlety of Noh drama that would have tempered the emotional extremes of the story were lost here: it was melodramatic madness onstage, and Seguchi seemed moved to tears from the very beginning. Whether those tears were sincere or not was anybody's guess.
The woman who was the main character in the play did not come onstage until about halfway through. First, the leading man, a handsome young actor with muted features, had a long sequence in which he returned to the place he'd dallied as a boy, speaking at length about his follies, including his youthful affairs. An old woman, wrapped in a cloak, approached him and warned him of evil signs that seemed to be dogging his every step. The man laughed off her warnings, but as he walked by the old woman pulled down her cloak and revealed that she was actually the spirit of his jilted lover.
At the first sight of her face, Eiri sat forward in his seat. A thousand hammers started a lively chorus in his heart. It was Shuichi.
He glowed on the dimly lit stage, speaking of love and life gone, the whisper of his movements like poetry even in their choreographed regularity. His voice moved through the spectrum of pitch and intensity, sometimes the high, wailing quiver of a bowstring, sometimes the low rumble of a drum. When he danced, his body was music. Energy and passion collided like waves in a seastorm in the rhythms of his expressions, his actions. Eiri found himself watching one of his exposed arms as it flowed beneath the torches like water in the moonlight, smooth white marble falling in and out of shadow like a secret that has not yet been told. Light, dark, solid, liquid. This boy danced among the elements like he was one of them.
Eiri's blood pounded hot in his ears. This child was perfect, a perfect creation. His fingers ached, imagining the touch of that white skin. At the memory of that stolen, all-too-short kiss, his lips pursed reflexively. One hand clasped the other convulsively, trying to keep control of the desires that flooded him. He couldn't let himself be tempted...
And then it all came rushing back to him, his suspicions, his fears, his dilemmas. He turned to Seguchi, afraid he had seen even the slightest sign of his sudden weakness. Half of him expected Seguchi to be staring at him with a sly smile on his face, but his fears were not answered. Tohma was watching the play with intent eyes, his head angled forward, his whole body absorbed in the action on stage. If he knew about Eiri's distress, he certainly didn't care.
Eiri's mind reeled. So Seguchi hadn't planned his little encounter with Shuichi after all. He wanted to laugh -- was he that anxious to deny himself that he created a conspiracy where there was none? Ashamed, Eiri looked at his hands. He was a miserable man, really. The only glimmer of real life and real feeling he'd known in so many years had come falling into his hands, and what did Eiri do? He tried to make it into a trap, into a battle. Eiri himself was attacking the last shreds of humanity he had left.
So it was possible to be uncomfortable in one's own skin, Eiri mused. So he couldn't even trust himself to tell him the truth. He felt itchy and anxious. He could be tricked, duped, deceived by anyone else on earth without concern - he'd stopped trusting them years ago when he'd learned the taste of betrayal. But to lose even faith in himself... it was like being lost in limbo. Eiri didn't know which way was up. He fumbled for a handhold in the darkness.
Then his eyes caught sight of Shuichi again, still radiant on stage, and it was like dawning light. Something deeper than just his mind was drawing him to this boy, something too desperate and almost primal to lie. It was his mind that had complicated things, that threatened to throw into disarray this simple, strong, true attraction. Eiri suddenly found himself clinging to the feelings that had scared him not so long ago. This urge to be close to him - that was truth of the deepest kind. He couldn't let the enemy overpower him, even if the enemy was himself.
::I've never lost a battle to another man.::
::I'll be damned if I lose to myself.::
With those words, Eiri decided.
He waited for Shuichi outside the theatre, although he had the feeling the actor would seek him out even if he'd returned to his room. But he wanted to be outside with him, to feel the breezes and see the stars that were all false and fabricated inside the palace. This was to be a major battle, and he needed room to roam.
Shuichi, still wiping off his makeup with a small rag, finally emerged. His body was glistening with a fine layer of sweat, proof of the exertion his trade required. Eiri wanted immediately to taste that shining skin, but he held back and waited for Shuichi to see him standing there.
When he did, his whole face came alive with a mixture of pleasure and shock. "Y...Yuki!" he burst out. "What are you doing here? I mean, I know what you're doing here, I saw you in the audience, but what are you doing out _here_?"
Eiri gave him a sly smile. "Waiting for you," he said simply.
Shuichi turned about three colors at once. Like a wave of heat, a jumble of emotions hit Eiri head-on: confusion, happiness, apprehension. Shuichi didn't know whether to apologize, get angry, run away, or melt. He froze, trying to make up his mind. In the moment of confusion, Eiri grabbed his wrist and started to pull him along the path toward a remote courtyard just inside the gates.
His heart pounding, Shuichi followed along in silence. Hiro's words echoed in his head, and with the huge warm hand enclosing his wrist, he couldn't deny their truth. This man had seduced him the minute he'd laid eyes on him. His cold eyes and sharp comments had hooked him, and the warmth of his kiss had drawn him in like a fish on a line. Now they were entering a small secluded courtyard, and he was slowing down and turning to face him, and Shuichi knew only that he was completely in love. Washes of warm emotion flew through him and left red splashes at the base of his neck as he flushed.
"I was... happy to see you there tonight," he finally offered, daring for a moment to look into the intense rings of Eiri's eyes before averting his own.
"It was just a whim. Don't take it the wrong way," Eiri said before regretting it. That wasn't what he was here to do, he reminded himself. He did his best to fight the impulse to drive Shuichi away. That was his fear, his enemy, talking.
"Well, I..." Shuichi started and then stopped short, fumbling for the words. His foot traced an errant path in the dust as he stood, back and forth like a pendulum. Eiri actually found himself nervous, frightened to elicit the wrong response from this young man if he were to approach him. He'd done so much wrong already, if he were rejected now, he feared it might kill him. He studied Shuichi's face, hoping for a clue.
For a brief moment, the boy's profile angled up toward the stars, and he looked like an apparition. Bathed in the moonlight, eyes speaking of something faraway and dreamy. Eiri felt his fear grow into panic. Was this child a ghost sent to haunt him? A ghost of himself, of his own past? His nerves prickled and he felt his body aching to run away.
::But I won't lose to myself.::
Fighting his urge to flee, Eiri instead reached forward and drew the young man into his arms. The pale apparition turned startlingly real as Shuichi's cheeks flushed madly. The beginning of a question formed on his lips and faded into the air. "Yu..."
"Enough," muttered Eiri as he drank in Shuichi's scent - makeup, perspiration, and innocence. Shuichi fell silent, his arms hesitantly coming upward to clutch at Eiri's chest, hot little fists clinging to him. Eiri let his face fall into Shuichi's hair, kissing the top of his head, moving down to the tussles of bangs that fell over his forehead. The muscles beneath his hands tightened. He thought he heard Shuichi utter a little desperate prayer.
Eiri's lips claimed his with fervor, with a sense of victory. After a moment of hesitation, Shuichi leaned into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Eiri and falling against him. Completely trusting, completely vulnerable, completely his. Eiri knew at that moment that he had won. Won the heart of this beautiful boy, won the battle he'd been fighting with himself. Won his life and his feelings back.
And having won, he proceeded to lose himself completely.
to be continued...
~
Author's notes:
I recently read a bit of a novel that suggested that there actually was no mouth-to-mouth kissing between lovers until around the Tokugawa era, when foreigners introduced it (and were immediately banished). Heck, I may have read that kabuki didn't exist until then, either. Guess what? This is my universe and I dun care. ^_^ Besides, I have a feeling it's not entirely true (for reasons I shan't go into). The kissing that is, not the kabuki....
by Jennifer A. Wand
A Gravitation fan fiction
IV. In The Moonlight
"Narutami Hyogo said, 'What is called winning is defeating one's allies. Defeating one's allies is defeating oneself, and defeating oneself is vigorously overcoming one's own body.'"
- from the pages of the HAGAKURE, the handbook of the samurai
Nakano Hiroshi was used to playing the straight man. He had known Shuichi since childhood - they'd been neighbors, then friends - and he knew the routine: Shuichi got excited about something, flew all over the place, while Hiroshi tried his best to keep Shuichi anchored somewhere in reality. It was Hiro that had become interested in the theatre first, and he was the one who suggested that Shuichi join when the time came. But Shuichi took to the stage like a fish to water, his presence radiating like light in each role he took, and Hiro found himself playing the supporting roles again to Shuichi's extravagant diva.
Not that Hiro minded. Shuichi was flighty, half-crazy, but he was undoubtedly fun, and Hiro was the most charmed of any audience that had ever come under Shuichi's spell. There was something pleasantly vicarious about letting someone else live a life of constant excitement right before your eyes, while indulging yourself in the comforts of the familiar. And Hiro considered himself, in a small way, indispensible. Without his grounding, Shuichi would surely fly too high and destroy himself through sheer fancy. Hiro was Shuichi's anchor, and he prided himself on that.
So even Hiro was surprised at what he'd said that afternoon. Encouraging Shuichi's flights of fancy was not his style, but this time there seemed something true about it that Hiro couldn't openly deny. It had all started when Shuichi and Hiro were practicing a scene, half-costumed, in the open air just outside the castle walls.
Hiro had been affixing Shuichi's wig as Shuichi scribbled scraps of poetry on bits of parchment he'd found here and there. A wind had set one of the scraps aloft, and, panicked, Shuichi started running after it. In the tight folds of the kimono he couldn't move freely, and the paper stayed just out of reach as Shuichi dashed off after it. Before Hiro knew it, both Shuichi and his elusive prey were out of sight.
It was several minutes before Shuichi returned, and when he did, it was obvious something had changed about him. His cheeks were flushed, not wholly from the exertion, and there were little twitches of determination darting about his features. Even the hair of his wig was dishevelled and windswept, and the effect was quite convincing -- it looked more like his real hair than ever. Shuichi was the picture of a maiden in love, Hiro thought suddenly with an internal giggle.
"Can you believe the nerve of some people!?" he burst out when he got his breath back.
This coming from you? Hiro wanted to say, but he didn't. "What's wrong?"
Shuichi flushed a deeper red. "My poem was seen... by this incredibly... obnoxious man." He looked as though he was fumbling for the perfect word to describe this stranger, and Hiro wondered what other adjectives had crossed his mind. "He was so cruel to me, telling me it was worse than a six-year-old's and stuff..."
Hiro rolled his eyes. "So? Forget about it. You'll never see him again anyway."
"I can't!" Shuichi retorted. "I can't just forget about it. Why'd he have to be so mean?"
"Did you have some reason you expected him to be nice?" Hiro shrugged, and smiled warmly at his friend. "There are nasty people out there, Shuichi. They're not worth thinking about. You just do what yo do and let it go."
But Shuichi wouldn't let it go. The rehearsal went badly, and Shuichi had a sour expression on his face that made him look comical in his finely tailored costume. A kimono, a wig, and a pout. Whenever Hiro attempted to address the problem, Shuichi would shut down, crawling into a little mental box and glaring at Hiro for daring to intrude. He wouldn't hear a word of Hiro's attempts to either console him or discredit his offender. Later, as they returned to the court, amidst Shuichi's continued complaints and little self-pitying moans, it finally struck Hiro just what Shuichi's problem was.
"You like him," he suddenly said with a grin.
Shuichi stumbled backwards a few steps. "Wh-- what was that!?"
"You like him. You're attracted to him." Hiro poked Shuichi in the chest accusingly. "He's all you can talk about, but you won't hear a bad word about him. You fell for him. Didn't you?"
Shuichi turned purple. "I.. I beg your pardon!?" he said, stamping a foot at Hiro. "He's a man, you know!"
"You like who you like," Hiro shrugged. "No helping it."
"But I just met him!" Shuichi snapped. "I don't even know who he is!"
"You said he was carrying a helmet and walking with a horse," Hiro mused. "It's safe to assume he was a samurai, right? And he wasn't far from the castle. I bet if you look, you can find him."
"B... but why would I?!" demanded an increasingly violet-faced Shuichi.
Hiro smirked. "To confess your love, of course."
Whether Shuichi had, in fact, confessed his love or not Hiro didn't know. But he knew something had happened with the samurai they both now knew to be Yuki Eiri, the famous and favored Uesugi-clan samurai whom Seguchi Tohma treated like a beloved child. There was something shining about Shuichi as he readied for this night's performance, and there was also something sad. Hiro felt a pang as he watched his friend do his makeup, patting on the white powder that would give him the appearance of a woman's complexion. That bird that Hiro had tethered all this time to keep from flying aimlessly -- might have finally found a place to fly to. And where would Hiro be, once Shuichi had soared off into the sky?
Seguchi Tohma was a fool. Eiri chewed on the thought comfortably as he took his seat, knowing it, at least, was the unqualified truth. What noble, much less a daimyo who was once a triumphing warrior himself, still openly enjoyed the kabuki theatre? The fashion had turned away from kabuki, and the choice of the well-educated samurai of the day was the ever-so-much-more-graceful Noh play. The former was loud, brash, and undisguised; the latter subtle and restrained. Tohma was inviting scorn and ruining his own reputation, and he showed no recognition of that fact, nor remorse for it. Eiri found some perverted satisfaction in this knowledge.
His mind had been churning all day. Dilemma after dilemma, all burning brightly over the coals of desire that lay smoldering at the base of his heart. Eiri took comfort in the inanity of the play to come, knowing that it would surely be completely lacking in subtlety. There would be no major moral dilemma here. Everything would be clear-cut and headed for a predictable conclusion. Eiri had never been a huge fan of the theatre, but perhaps tonight he could simply enjoy the play for what it was - a chance to forget his own internal battles in the orchestrated pandemonium onstage. He sat back in his seat, willing his body to relax, willing the uncertainties in his mind to recede.
The story was a simple one. Adapted from a Noh play, it was, like so many others, the story of a love gone wrong -- a woman betrayed by a lover who becomes a vengeful spirit and is only returned to herself when she has exacted her revenge. Her remorse and sadness at his death overwhelm her so completely that she becomes an ever-crying weeping willow tree. The subtlety of Noh drama that would have tempered the emotional extremes of the story were lost here: it was melodramatic madness onstage, and Seguchi seemed moved to tears from the very beginning. Whether those tears were sincere or not was anybody's guess.
The woman who was the main character in the play did not come onstage until about halfway through. First, the leading man, a handsome young actor with muted features, had a long sequence in which he returned to the place he'd dallied as a boy, speaking at length about his follies, including his youthful affairs. An old woman, wrapped in a cloak, approached him and warned him of evil signs that seemed to be dogging his every step. The man laughed off her warnings, but as he walked by the old woman pulled down her cloak and revealed that she was actually the spirit of his jilted lover.
At the first sight of her face, Eiri sat forward in his seat. A thousand hammers started a lively chorus in his heart. It was Shuichi.
He glowed on the dimly lit stage, speaking of love and life gone, the whisper of his movements like poetry even in their choreographed regularity. His voice moved through the spectrum of pitch and intensity, sometimes the high, wailing quiver of a bowstring, sometimes the low rumble of a drum. When he danced, his body was music. Energy and passion collided like waves in a seastorm in the rhythms of his expressions, his actions. Eiri found himself watching one of his exposed arms as it flowed beneath the torches like water in the moonlight, smooth white marble falling in and out of shadow like a secret that has not yet been told. Light, dark, solid, liquid. This boy danced among the elements like he was one of them.
Eiri's blood pounded hot in his ears. This child was perfect, a perfect creation. His fingers ached, imagining the touch of that white skin. At the memory of that stolen, all-too-short kiss, his lips pursed reflexively. One hand clasped the other convulsively, trying to keep control of the desires that flooded him. He couldn't let himself be tempted...
And then it all came rushing back to him, his suspicions, his fears, his dilemmas. He turned to Seguchi, afraid he had seen even the slightest sign of his sudden weakness. Half of him expected Seguchi to be staring at him with a sly smile on his face, but his fears were not answered. Tohma was watching the play with intent eyes, his head angled forward, his whole body absorbed in the action on stage. If he knew about Eiri's distress, he certainly didn't care.
Eiri's mind reeled. So Seguchi hadn't planned his little encounter with Shuichi after all. He wanted to laugh -- was he that anxious to deny himself that he created a conspiracy where there was none? Ashamed, Eiri looked at his hands. He was a miserable man, really. The only glimmer of real life and real feeling he'd known in so many years had come falling into his hands, and what did Eiri do? He tried to make it into a trap, into a battle. Eiri himself was attacking the last shreds of humanity he had left.
So it was possible to be uncomfortable in one's own skin, Eiri mused. So he couldn't even trust himself to tell him the truth. He felt itchy and anxious. He could be tricked, duped, deceived by anyone else on earth without concern - he'd stopped trusting them years ago when he'd learned the taste of betrayal. But to lose even faith in himself... it was like being lost in limbo. Eiri didn't know which way was up. He fumbled for a handhold in the darkness.
Then his eyes caught sight of Shuichi again, still radiant on stage, and it was like dawning light. Something deeper than just his mind was drawing him to this boy, something too desperate and almost primal to lie. It was his mind that had complicated things, that threatened to throw into disarray this simple, strong, true attraction. Eiri suddenly found himself clinging to the feelings that had scared him not so long ago. This urge to be close to him - that was truth of the deepest kind. He couldn't let the enemy overpower him, even if the enemy was himself.
::I've never lost a battle to another man.::
::I'll be damned if I lose to myself.::
With those words, Eiri decided.
He waited for Shuichi outside the theatre, although he had the feeling the actor would seek him out even if he'd returned to his room. But he wanted to be outside with him, to feel the breezes and see the stars that were all false and fabricated inside the palace. This was to be a major battle, and he needed room to roam.
Shuichi, still wiping off his makeup with a small rag, finally emerged. His body was glistening with a fine layer of sweat, proof of the exertion his trade required. Eiri wanted immediately to taste that shining skin, but he held back and waited for Shuichi to see him standing there.
When he did, his whole face came alive with a mixture of pleasure and shock. "Y...Yuki!" he burst out. "What are you doing here? I mean, I know what you're doing here, I saw you in the audience, but what are you doing out _here_?"
Eiri gave him a sly smile. "Waiting for you," he said simply.
Shuichi turned about three colors at once. Like a wave of heat, a jumble of emotions hit Eiri head-on: confusion, happiness, apprehension. Shuichi didn't know whether to apologize, get angry, run away, or melt. He froze, trying to make up his mind. In the moment of confusion, Eiri grabbed his wrist and started to pull him along the path toward a remote courtyard just inside the gates.
His heart pounding, Shuichi followed along in silence. Hiro's words echoed in his head, and with the huge warm hand enclosing his wrist, he couldn't deny their truth. This man had seduced him the minute he'd laid eyes on him. His cold eyes and sharp comments had hooked him, and the warmth of his kiss had drawn him in like a fish on a line. Now they were entering a small secluded courtyard, and he was slowing down and turning to face him, and Shuichi knew only that he was completely in love. Washes of warm emotion flew through him and left red splashes at the base of his neck as he flushed.
"I was... happy to see you there tonight," he finally offered, daring for a moment to look into the intense rings of Eiri's eyes before averting his own.
"It was just a whim. Don't take it the wrong way," Eiri said before regretting it. That wasn't what he was here to do, he reminded himself. He did his best to fight the impulse to drive Shuichi away. That was his fear, his enemy, talking.
"Well, I..." Shuichi started and then stopped short, fumbling for the words. His foot traced an errant path in the dust as he stood, back and forth like a pendulum. Eiri actually found himself nervous, frightened to elicit the wrong response from this young man if he were to approach him. He'd done so much wrong already, if he were rejected now, he feared it might kill him. He studied Shuichi's face, hoping for a clue.
For a brief moment, the boy's profile angled up toward the stars, and he looked like an apparition. Bathed in the moonlight, eyes speaking of something faraway and dreamy. Eiri felt his fear grow into panic. Was this child a ghost sent to haunt him? A ghost of himself, of his own past? His nerves prickled and he felt his body aching to run away.
::But I won't lose to myself.::
Fighting his urge to flee, Eiri instead reached forward and drew the young man into his arms. The pale apparition turned startlingly real as Shuichi's cheeks flushed madly. The beginning of a question formed on his lips and faded into the air. "Yu..."
"Enough," muttered Eiri as he drank in Shuichi's scent - makeup, perspiration, and innocence. Shuichi fell silent, his arms hesitantly coming upward to clutch at Eiri's chest, hot little fists clinging to him. Eiri let his face fall into Shuichi's hair, kissing the top of his head, moving down to the tussles of bangs that fell over his forehead. The muscles beneath his hands tightened. He thought he heard Shuichi utter a little desperate prayer.
Eiri's lips claimed his with fervor, with a sense of victory. After a moment of hesitation, Shuichi leaned into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Eiri and falling against him. Completely trusting, completely vulnerable, completely his. Eiri knew at that moment that he had won. Won the heart of this beautiful boy, won the battle he'd been fighting with himself. Won his life and his feelings back.
And having won, he proceeded to lose himself completely.
to be continued...
~
Author's notes:
I recently read a bit of a novel that suggested that there actually was no mouth-to-mouth kissing between lovers until around the Tokugawa era, when foreigners introduced it (and were immediately banished). Heck, I may have read that kabuki didn't exist until then, either. Guess what? This is my universe and I dun care. ^_^ Besides, I have a feeling it's not entirely true (for reasons I shan't go into). The kissing that is, not the kabuki....