Loyalty
a Gravitation fan fiction
by Jennifer Wand
There's more sex in this one. Don't like it.. get out. Oh, but that's right... you do like it..! :P
VII. Sleepless Beauty
"In carefully scrutinizing the affairs of the past, we find that there are many different opinions about them, and that there are some things that are quite unclear. It is better to regard such things as unknowable."
- from the pages of the HAGAKURE, the handbook of the samurai
There was something different about Shuichi's performance that night. Some said it was the influence of being told he'd do better in a Noh play -- amazing how fast private conversations became public in the enclosed society of the court. Some said it was the influence of the war fast approaching -- that was no secret, for dozens of soldiers would be leaving the following morning. But even within the bounds of the choreographed wildness of kabuki, Shuichi's vengeful spirits and forsaken maidens trod more carefully upon the stage. They were more subdued, sadder. Never had an audience felt more sympathy for his characters. There was something hopelessly tragic about their every move, the hollow tone of every word. Shuichi was magic.
And after the show, all pretenses dropped. As Shuichi exited the stage door and saw Eiri waiting for him, he broke into a run and flung himself against him. Eiri's arms came up to hold him immediately, and they stood there for a good minute, not saying anything, just standing together. No one dared say a thing. The circle of their embrace was too sacred to be broken.
They walked, solemnly, hand in hand back to Eiri's room, still in silence. And when the door closed behind them, Eiri sat on the mat and drew the boy down onto his lap, kissing him thoroughly. The first sounds to pass between the two were not words.
It felt somehow religious, to be making love on the night before a parting, like nothing should be said lest the severity of it be tempered by light words. Even the passion of it was muted. This was not about physical release or even romance. Eiri was making love to the boy as a final ritual, as a way of letting go. His body was saying goodbye. He was not surprised to look down and see tears in Shuichi's eyes; and it was only mildly surprising for him to feel the wetness in his own eyes as well. Crying, quietly, they shuddered together and fell still.
Who knows how long they lay in the dark, pretending to sleep? Eiri couldn't hazard a guess what time it was. Dimly he knew he really should be sleeping, that his day tomorrow would be long and labored. But he could think about nothing but the measured, even strokes of Shuichi's breath, proof that he was awake. Shuichi's sleeping moments were never so peaceful as when he was faking it.
Finally he gave voice to it. "You're not sleeping," he said.
"Neither were you," came the voice, without a pause.
"How did you know that?"
"You just talked to me," Shuichi said, and Eiri rolled his eyes. "And you talk in your sleep."
"I do not." Eiri was suprised at the petulance in his own voice. Perhaps he had picked up that tone from Shuichi.
"You do," Shuichi said, and Eiri could hear his smile.. a sweetness colored Shuichi's words when he smiled, and it made everything sound a little better. "You say odd things like 'Pi-ka-chu'."
"What's that!?" Eiri scowled at the boy's back. Even in the dark, he could feel his face go hot.
Shuichi rolled over to face him, and through the faintest breath of moonlight, Eiri could see the reflective globes of his eyes and the outline of his face. "Yuki," the boy said in a hushed tone, "I can't sleep."
"I figured as much," Eiri said, trying to scowl, but failing. Unable to resist, he cupped Shuichi's face in his hands and kissed his nose lightly. "Sleepless beauty," he whispered, a smile lighting his lips for a moment.
In his hands, he felt Shuichi's cheeks warm at the compliment. "Yuki," he said again. "Tell me a story."
A strange silence hung in the air then, the innocent question burning into Eiri's mind. He sat up and lit a candle, watching Shuichi's round face illuminate in the dim light. With gentle hands, he drew the boy's head onto his lap and stroked his hair gently. "There's only one story I can think of to tell you," he said.
"Which one is that?" He could feel Shuichi growing drowsy, the effect of a gentle hand and candlelight.
"The one you want to hear," he said. "The one about my past."
Shuichi stiffened. "Are you sure?" he said after a pause.
"When else will I..." Eiri stopped, and started again. "It's past time you should know anyway."
As Eiri told his story, time seemed to waver in the flickering candlelight. Words became sensations, sensations experiences, and Eiri no longer knew if he was telling the story or part of it. On a strange moonlit night, in the enchanted time that lovers share, the past became the present again, like ordinary things come to life as magical beasts when their shadow is cast.
-
Uesugi Eiri was young and strong and full of possibilities. He had been born to a fine family, a famous one at that, and trained in the art of war as every male child born to his house was. But Eiri took to it uncommonly well, even for a boy born to a family of warriors. By the time he was thirteen, he was on the battlefield, the proud bringer of enemy heads to the castles of the daimyo he served.
At the head of the army had been Seguchi Tohma. As young as Eiri, laden with ambition and drive, and ruthless in battle, this samurai had risen through the ranks with alarming speed and had secured the allegiance of a great number of locals, from fellow soldiers to farmers. Talk was abundant of a coup, and it seemed only a matter of time before Tohma ousted the current daimyo and took his seat as lord of the southeastern lands.
And then, there was Kitazawa Yuki. Yuki was older; his mettle as a warrior had been proven again and again; and it was he who took Eiri under his wing when he joined the front lines. Early mornings, he would train Eiri in the sword; at the end of the day he would have kind words for him, no matter how his performance in battle had been. "You're alive," Yuki would say as he dressed Eiri's wounds and dried his tears. "That alone puts you ahead of the others. Don't let them tell you there is no honor without death. You can always die with honor some other day."
Was it any wonder that young Eiri fell completely in love with him?
He didn't even know what the feeling was until one day, when a sword had grazed the edge of Eiri's face and threatened to leave a scar. Yuki was treating the tender flesh with caring hands, examining the wound up close with critical eyes. His bangs were brushing Eiri's forehead, his hot breath on Eiri's face. And Eiri felt hot, agitated, like his heart might burst from his chest and dash off through the hills if it raced any harder. "S... sensei..." he managed to breathe.
Yuki gave him a crooked smile, and Eiri's stomach flip-flopped at the sight of it so close. "Hey, you don't need to call me Sensei any more," he said. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Just Yuki is fine."
He was barely a breath away. "Yuki......" Eiri managed, and swallowed. "I..."
Interrupting him, Yuki touched the boy's parted lips with his own briefly. When he drew back, Eiri clapped a hand over his mouth, shocked, bright red. Yuki looked at him seriously. "I know," he said, his eyes seeming to plunge into Eiri's. "You're in love with me, aren't you?" Eiri could do nothing but stare and then, slowly, nod.
"Then let me love you," Yuki whispered hotly. And Eiri did.
News spread quickly throughout the camp -- where gossip was concerned, a military encampment was as bad as a court for flying rumors. Soon everyone knew that Kitazawa Yuki had taken a lover, that it was that young prodigy, Uesugi Eiri. The talk reached every corner of the camp, from the lowest foot soldier's huddled circle to the very tent where leaders assembled to decide the army's fate -- leaders like Seguchi Tohma.
Tohma had taken a liking to Eiri very early on. He was bright and deadly but somehow naive -- perfect modeling clay with which to form the legions that would back his rising ambition. With the start of Yuki and Eiri's affair, Eiri's effectiveness in battle had skyrocketed -- he was ten times more lethal than he'd been, even at such a tender age. Perhaps Yuki had shown him a rougher side to life, and the boy was becoming a man. Such transformations were not unusual... the bonds formed on the battlefield often held an army together. When that bond matured, so did the people sharing it. Tohma could feel the stirrings of a new age begin with the shifting of the tides beneath him. With this army, at this time, he could take the next step.
Gradually, secretively, plans began to take shape. Higher-ranked soldiers held late night meetings with Tohma, and the number of attacks on neighboring armies dwindled, as though the leaders were trying to save their manpower for a later day. The army was on the move, but instead of expanding outward, they were going back toward their homeland and the central town where the daimyo's castle sat. Soon they were camped just outside, and it was on that day that Tohma sent for Eiri.
Hardy-looking, with ruddy cheeks and straggling hairs not-quite-growing along the sides of his face, Eiri stood before Tohma, unsure of why he had suddenly been singled out and called aside. His only real experience with the higher-ranked samurai had been with Yuki, and that, of course, couldn't be further from anything Tohma could possibly expect from him. He fidgeted nervously as he waited for his superior to speak.
Tohma surveyed Eiri's figure and nodded approvingly. This boy was perfect. "You know what is happening tomorrow night," he said, a jarring opening free of the foolish discourse that began most every conversation a polite man had. "You have sworn your allegiance to me, have you not?" Eiri nodded stiffly. "Swear it again now," Tohma commanded.
"I swear my allegiance to you as a vassal and pledge to give my life to protecting you," Eiri answered, bowing his head. His family had long been allied with the Seguchi clan: a sister of his was even to become Tohma's bride, an arrangement made not long after her birth. The oath was one he'd repeated many a time, ever since his childhood.
At the repetition of the pledge, Tohma relaxed slightly. "Tomorrow night we take the daimyo's castle," he said in a low voice. "You are not a fool, Eiri-san, you know of this already." He was right -- Eiri did. "The people have long been demanding this. It is their will, not my own, that drives me to act. And yet, there are some who would see me fail." He scowled darkly and crossed toward Eiri. "Those whose greed outweighs their sense of justice, and who will take a single bushel of rice now over an abundant field later. Even now, Eiri-san, they plot against me."
Eiri trembled briefly. Was he being accused? But Tohma, seeming to survey his expression and approve of it, relaxed his tone. "An all-out siege of the castle, complete with blazing fires and trampling horses, does no good to anyone. It costs innocent lives and the very faith the people are placing in me is forfeit. For that reason, tomorrow night I plan to take a small number of men with me and enter the castle undetected." The unspoken word, assassination, loomed behind each phrase, and Eiri knew it well. "I need a man to watch my back, to make certain any attempts to get to me fail. A warrior cannot strike out in front of him if he is looking behind him, after all. Eiri-san, I have seen your prowess. You shall be that man."
Young Eiri had protested, but Tohma fixed him in place with a glance. "I intend to send a message to these greedy traitors," he said, in a voice that gave Eiri a long, stinging shiver. "They will know that the samurai of this area have pledged their loyalty to me, and loyalty will be rewarded. But disloyalty...." Tohma moved in closer to Eiri as he spoke, and the sounds hissed from his mouth like the speech of a snake. "Disloyalty will come back to you a thousand times... and it will wreak a very dire revenge."
How they had managed it Eiri never knew, but somehow when they crept through the shadows to a small door behind the main tower of the castle, there was no guard waiting and no lock. Tohma just slid the portal open and slipped through the entryway, his men following him, and Eiri bringing up the rear, tailing the group with unsteady steps. The darkness seemed to whisper to him of secrets he didn't want to hear, and he felt his pulse pounding in his wrists. The beat throbbed through his hand when he clutched his sword for comfort.
Like liquid, the group swam through corridors noiselessly, with no sleepless courtesans or suspicious samurai to cross their path. The easiness of it all bothered Eiri. He found himself waiting for the other shoe to drop. The longer they traveled the castle's halls without being discovered, the more tension built up inside his veins. He felt like he was being pulled taut, a string quivering dangerously on the verge of snapping.
Once they reached an ornate door, Tohma turned back and signaled for Eiri to wait. He and his men disappeared through the door after looking around and nodding to each other briefly, and Eiri was left alone.
With the minute sound of the door's closing, the air seemed to chill around Eiri. He exhaled, half-expecting to see his breath as he did. Shivering, he looked around furtively, and then decided it would be more prudent to step into the shadows himself. His eyes darted back and forth, looking for the most convenient place to hide. Finally, he decided on an impressive-looking wooden column, and stepped behind it.
He stepped straight into someone.
The beginning of a curse, stifled and completed in a whisper, sprang from a nearby mouth, and nearby shadows stirred. Eiri sprang backward on reflex, his nerves on fire. It was another minute before he realized why his face was hot as well. He knew the scent of this man.
"Yuki?" he whispered tentatively. In response, the figure hesitated, then slowly eased out of the shadows.
"Oh, it's you," Yuki said, relaxing visibly once he came into sight. From behind him, another two men came into the light. Eiri knew them as longtime companions of Yuki's, and he nodded politely. "You surprised me!" Eiri exclaimed, letting his own shoulders relax. "So Seguchi-sama asked for your help too? He didn't mention anything about it to me when he asked me to..."
Eiri's voice trailed off. Yuki's eyes had gone wide, and he had begun to glance at his companions furtively. A scowl darkened the expression of one, and the other bit his lip nervously. Eiri watched the wordless exchange with trepidation, a sickening prickle of realization biting at the bottom of his stomach. "Yuki..." he finally whispered, his limbs feeling like lead. "You're not..."
"So Seguchi's got you playing watchdog?" Yuki interrupted. "Better yet. Step aside, boy."
The beginnings of tears stung behind Eiri's eyes. "Why did you do this, Yuki?" he said, unable to keep the mournful moan out of his voice. "Aren't you loyal to Seguchi-sama too?"
"Step aside!" Yuki insisted.
"Why?" Eiri repeated.
"Move!"
The barking order gave Eiri the charge he needed to refuse outright. "I won't," he declared, bracing his feet firmly against the floor as though expecting Yuki to rush him.
Yuki's face turned impossibly dark for a moment. Then a soft smile flickered across his face. Gently, he began to move toward Eiri. Suddenly immobilized, the boy could do nothing but swallow as Yuki lifted a battle-calloused hand to touch his face. "I'm sorry," he said to Eiri. "I scared you, didn't I?"
"Yuki..." Eiri's voice was choked with tears. The soldier pressed his lips to his forehead, his hand reaching down to caress his shoulder and side. Eiri shut his eyes as the man's other arm came around him in a tight embrace. The warmth of Yuki's fingers was everywhere, searing as they wandered, and Eiri's eyes opened again when he realized how intimate their situation had become. Stinging with heat, he looked up at Yuki's face, trying to muster up enough strength for a protest.
But his lover wasn't even looking at him. Yuki made a jerking motion with his head, urging on his allies. They started to move around to the side, slipping past the pair. Even as his fingertips pressed against Eiri's hips dangerously, Yuki's mind was nowhere near the boy.
Eiri's excitement collided with a fresh wave of ice through his veins, and he thought he'd turn to steam right there. Pressure built up and released all through him - sexuality, anger, frustration, betrayal, confusion. A mad jumble. "Yuki....!!" he finally whispered in a cracking voice, pushing himself away. But it was too late, and with one nod of Yuki's head the two men beside them had pushed Eiri up against a wall, holding him fast.
"So this is the one you told us about, then?" one of them said.
Throwing back his shoulders, Yuki surveyed the hapless Eiri with a leering grin. "That's right," he says. "Takes it like a woman, screams like crazy but always wants more. He's loads of fun."
Horror cascaded through Eiri's body in waves. It didn't seem possible that it was really Yuki talking this way. The Yuki he'd given his heart, his body, his everything to, the Yuki he'd loved, with this sadistic smile... He tried to say something, anything, but the words wouldn't come out.
"I want a turn with him later," said the other, running a hand over Eiri's face. Eiri tried to bite at him, but his neck wouldn't turn. "He's such a cute one." Slipping a hand inside his kimono, the man scratched at Eiri's chest briefly. "What do you say? We know you love it."
"You want to have some fun now?" the first man said. "We can go after Seguchi."
In response, Yuki made a sweeping bow and grinned the most terrifying grin Eiri had ever seen.
"After you," he said.
"After you."
The words echoed surreally in Eiri's head. Time and space stopped; the air ceased to move. All at once the world was strange and muddled. Lights seemed to flicker. Bits of reality came floating in and out of darkness, all painful, none tangible. Eiri had the feeling he was leaving his own body, his own mind, and replaying the entire moment as an odd, disjointed dream.
Yuki's face, his smile... Yuki, whom Eiri had loved, with such a smile...
One of the men opening his kimono, forcing Eiri's head down, telling him "That's right, boy, you know what to do..."
Yuki, whom Eiri still loved, saying such words...
"After you."
Eiri choking, grasping the wall looking for a handhold, sputtering, trying to cry out and failing, trying to say anything and failing, his hand feeling flat wall, the warmth of his own body, then cold metal, a familiar grip, no, a handle, the handle of his sword...
Yuki...
...and then from somewhere a scream rose up into the air, starting low and soft but rising in pitch and intensity as the whole world went white and then exploded into crimson and memory disconnected from mind just after Eiri realized the scream was his own...
then, nothing.
Tohma came bursting through the door with Eiri's name on his lips. With eyes wide as the moon, he took in the situation, his followers spilling into the room behind him. Blood stained not just the floors, but the walls as well, and the three corpses lay like lumps of black coal spattered with red, faces frozen in shocked agony, one of them obscenely exposed. The scent of death hung over the room like a thick black smoke, and it made Tohma's eyes water.
And at the far point of the ungodly triangle of cadavers, kneeling with the head of one corpse lifted onto his lap, a trembling figure. Silent, blood-soaked, tears mingling with the traces of dried liquid on his face, hands clutching the shaft of his sword so tight they bled...
Eiri was whispering something, that much Tohma could see as he stumbled toward him, waves of fear and relief shooting through him. When he came close enough to see whose body was cradled in the young sentry's lap, Tohma's blood chilled in realization. His men watched, speechless, behind him, as Tohma sprang forward to embrace the shaking Eiri.
"...dead... dead... Yuki... I... I... dead..."
Eiri's eyes lifted at the sudden embrace. The present returned, though jaggedly... he saw the arms around him, he felt his own quivering, felt the stickiness of blood on his hands, heard his own disjointed words. He saw the open door, saw the path of blood that had trailed from Tohma's sword as he had come toward him.
Blood on Tohma, blood on him...
Tohma broke the embrace to gaze at Eiri. He tried in vain to catch his eyes, but Eiri couldn't stop looking around erratically, like a spastic child. He smoothed Eiri's hair and tried to soothe him with words. "Thank you, Eiri-san," said Tohma in as gentle a tone as he could muster. "You protected me. You saved my life. Eiri-san..."
Blood on Yuki... dead Yuki...
"Dead... I..."
"Look at me, Eiri-san," Tohma pressed. "You proved your loyalty to me. You are an excellent samurai. I told you loyalty would be rewarded. You will be rewarded, Eiri-san. You must let me take care of you from now on. I will see that you want for nothing. You are precious to me, Eiri-san..." Gingerly, he lifted Eiri's sword out of his grasp, and the bleeding palms were left shaking in midair.
Yuki's blood on me... my blood on me...
Eiri lowered his hands to the dead man's face and caressed it, leaving streaks of blood along the corpse's cheeks. Tohma took them and pressed them to his own, feeling the blood run stickily onto his own hands. "We have to go, Eiri-san. We need to leave this place. Do you understand?"
With the touch of his hands to warm, living flesh, Eiri seemed to focus for the first time since Tohma had discovered the scene. "S...Seguchi-sama..." he whispered weakly.
Tohma smiled, feeling tears of relief spill over. "Yes. Yes, Eiri-san, it's me. Can you hear me?" The boy nodded weakly, and Tohma finally succeeded in ushering him out of the castle. It was not long after they'd cleared the final door, free on the plains, before the first shriek echoed from within the castle walls.
At the sound of it, Eiri stopped. His soul seemed to resonate with that first horrified scream, as though he was stuck in an unending moment of realization. He fell to his knees. "Yuki...!" he repeated. As though answering his cry, the wind on the plain began to pick up, and a howling sound filled the sky. Dust rose from the ground and swirled in ever-changing patterns across the landscape.
Safe in the hollow of a hill, shadowed from any pursuing guards, Tohma felt safe enough to kneel down before the boy again. "Eiri-san," he shouted, his voice straining to rise above the mournful moan of the wind. "Look at me. Listen to me. You did well. Eiri-san!" he repeated urgently when the young warrior wavered dangerously as though on the verge of collapse. "It's me!"
"Seguchi-sama..." The strange, amber-tinted eyes wavered. "Seguchi-sama... I killed Yuki..."
"You killed a traitor," Tohma insisted. "Justice comes to those who are disloyal. Yours is the sword of justice... my dear Eiri-san. Be proud."
"Yuki's dead..." And then, all at once, Eiri's half-mad rambling became a wail of pure sorrow.
"I should be dead... I'm the one who should die!"
Tohma glanced nervously at his companions. Aware of the importance of the moment, they were busy watching the horizon for signs of pursuing armies. Relaxing, Tohma again took Eiri by the shoulders, holding him firmly upright. "Eiri-san, I want you to swear to me you won't die without my knowledge. I won't let you go. You're too important to me."
Black spots seemed to hover before Eiri's eyes. He clutched out blindly, finding warmth he only vaguely knew to be Tohma's. "S... Seguchi-s..."
"Swear to me, Eiri-san! I order it!" Dust was filling Tohma's mouth. The irritation on his tongue was more than he could bear.
Eiri's eyes closed involuntarily against the assault of wind and sand. He choked on the current, strength ebbing from him. "I... swear..."
Tohma embraced him furiously. "I won't let you go, Eiri-san," he demanded, no longer caring that the storm's fury caked his words with air and dirt. "I can't. I need you..." But Eiri barely heard. He had the vision of something precious, a tiny star of gold, dropping away from him into an abyss. He reached out for it, trying so hard to catch it again, but it was just out of reach, just a fingertip's length away and yet completely lost to him. He lunged forward again, but the bonds that held him back were the bonds of Tohma's arms... they held him fast, strangled him, as the world went black.
-
"I took his name after that day," Eiri said. "And I've remained in Seguchi's service until this day, and will for the rest of my life. That night he saved me. So he will always be a special existence to me." Opening his eyes (somehow he had closed them as he told, no, relived that story), he looked down at Shuichi, saying, "Now that you know, can you still say you love me?"
He was greeted with a snore.
Groaning with the sort of frustration that is so familiar it becomes a kind of comfort, Eiri gently lifted Shuichi's head off his lap and eased him down onto the futon again. He blew out the candle with a silent puff of breath and settled in behind the boy, breathing in the scent of his hair. Shuichi made a funny sleeping noise in return.
A pang of sadness flew through Eiri, and he brought one hand up to gingerly touch the very ends of the straggling strands of dark hair. In the quietest of whispers, he confessed, "But you saved me too... and for that I thank you. Shuichi."
And in the darkness, just before sleep finally took him under its wing, Yuki Eiri whispered the words that he could never say aloud. The words that he could only trust to the night. Words that would return to him whenever the darkness fell... the truth that can be felt, but not seen. The truth that only the darkness would ever hear.
And in the darkness, Shindou Shuichi heard, and smiled.
-to be concluded-
a Gravitation fan fiction
by Jennifer Wand
There's more sex in this one. Don't like it.. get out. Oh, but that's right... you do like it..! :P
VII. Sleepless Beauty
"In carefully scrutinizing the affairs of the past, we find that there are many different opinions about them, and that there are some things that are quite unclear. It is better to regard such things as unknowable."
- from the pages of the HAGAKURE, the handbook of the samurai
There was something different about Shuichi's performance that night. Some said it was the influence of being told he'd do better in a Noh play -- amazing how fast private conversations became public in the enclosed society of the court. Some said it was the influence of the war fast approaching -- that was no secret, for dozens of soldiers would be leaving the following morning. But even within the bounds of the choreographed wildness of kabuki, Shuichi's vengeful spirits and forsaken maidens trod more carefully upon the stage. They were more subdued, sadder. Never had an audience felt more sympathy for his characters. There was something hopelessly tragic about their every move, the hollow tone of every word. Shuichi was magic.
And after the show, all pretenses dropped. As Shuichi exited the stage door and saw Eiri waiting for him, he broke into a run and flung himself against him. Eiri's arms came up to hold him immediately, and they stood there for a good minute, not saying anything, just standing together. No one dared say a thing. The circle of their embrace was too sacred to be broken.
They walked, solemnly, hand in hand back to Eiri's room, still in silence. And when the door closed behind them, Eiri sat on the mat and drew the boy down onto his lap, kissing him thoroughly. The first sounds to pass between the two were not words.
It felt somehow religious, to be making love on the night before a parting, like nothing should be said lest the severity of it be tempered by light words. Even the passion of it was muted. This was not about physical release or even romance. Eiri was making love to the boy as a final ritual, as a way of letting go. His body was saying goodbye. He was not surprised to look down and see tears in Shuichi's eyes; and it was only mildly surprising for him to feel the wetness in his own eyes as well. Crying, quietly, they shuddered together and fell still.
Who knows how long they lay in the dark, pretending to sleep? Eiri couldn't hazard a guess what time it was. Dimly he knew he really should be sleeping, that his day tomorrow would be long and labored. But he could think about nothing but the measured, even strokes of Shuichi's breath, proof that he was awake. Shuichi's sleeping moments were never so peaceful as when he was faking it.
Finally he gave voice to it. "You're not sleeping," he said.
"Neither were you," came the voice, without a pause.
"How did you know that?"
"You just talked to me," Shuichi said, and Eiri rolled his eyes. "And you talk in your sleep."
"I do not." Eiri was suprised at the petulance in his own voice. Perhaps he had picked up that tone from Shuichi.
"You do," Shuichi said, and Eiri could hear his smile.. a sweetness colored Shuichi's words when he smiled, and it made everything sound a little better. "You say odd things like 'Pi-ka-chu'."
"What's that!?" Eiri scowled at the boy's back. Even in the dark, he could feel his face go hot.
Shuichi rolled over to face him, and through the faintest breath of moonlight, Eiri could see the reflective globes of his eyes and the outline of his face. "Yuki," the boy said in a hushed tone, "I can't sleep."
"I figured as much," Eiri said, trying to scowl, but failing. Unable to resist, he cupped Shuichi's face in his hands and kissed his nose lightly. "Sleepless beauty," he whispered, a smile lighting his lips for a moment.
In his hands, he felt Shuichi's cheeks warm at the compliment. "Yuki," he said again. "Tell me a story."
A strange silence hung in the air then, the innocent question burning into Eiri's mind. He sat up and lit a candle, watching Shuichi's round face illuminate in the dim light. With gentle hands, he drew the boy's head onto his lap and stroked his hair gently. "There's only one story I can think of to tell you," he said.
"Which one is that?" He could feel Shuichi growing drowsy, the effect of a gentle hand and candlelight.
"The one you want to hear," he said. "The one about my past."
Shuichi stiffened. "Are you sure?" he said after a pause.
"When else will I..." Eiri stopped, and started again. "It's past time you should know anyway."
As Eiri told his story, time seemed to waver in the flickering candlelight. Words became sensations, sensations experiences, and Eiri no longer knew if he was telling the story or part of it. On a strange moonlit night, in the enchanted time that lovers share, the past became the present again, like ordinary things come to life as magical beasts when their shadow is cast.
-
Uesugi Eiri was young and strong and full of possibilities. He had been born to a fine family, a famous one at that, and trained in the art of war as every male child born to his house was. But Eiri took to it uncommonly well, even for a boy born to a family of warriors. By the time he was thirteen, he was on the battlefield, the proud bringer of enemy heads to the castles of the daimyo he served.
At the head of the army had been Seguchi Tohma. As young as Eiri, laden with ambition and drive, and ruthless in battle, this samurai had risen through the ranks with alarming speed and had secured the allegiance of a great number of locals, from fellow soldiers to farmers. Talk was abundant of a coup, and it seemed only a matter of time before Tohma ousted the current daimyo and took his seat as lord of the southeastern lands.
And then, there was Kitazawa Yuki. Yuki was older; his mettle as a warrior had been proven again and again; and it was he who took Eiri under his wing when he joined the front lines. Early mornings, he would train Eiri in the sword; at the end of the day he would have kind words for him, no matter how his performance in battle had been. "You're alive," Yuki would say as he dressed Eiri's wounds and dried his tears. "That alone puts you ahead of the others. Don't let them tell you there is no honor without death. You can always die with honor some other day."
Was it any wonder that young Eiri fell completely in love with him?
He didn't even know what the feeling was until one day, when a sword had grazed the edge of Eiri's face and threatened to leave a scar. Yuki was treating the tender flesh with caring hands, examining the wound up close with critical eyes. His bangs were brushing Eiri's forehead, his hot breath on Eiri's face. And Eiri felt hot, agitated, like his heart might burst from his chest and dash off through the hills if it raced any harder. "S... sensei..." he managed to breathe.
Yuki gave him a crooked smile, and Eiri's stomach flip-flopped at the sight of it so close. "Hey, you don't need to call me Sensei any more," he said. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Just Yuki is fine."
He was barely a breath away. "Yuki......" Eiri managed, and swallowed. "I..."
Interrupting him, Yuki touched the boy's parted lips with his own briefly. When he drew back, Eiri clapped a hand over his mouth, shocked, bright red. Yuki looked at him seriously. "I know," he said, his eyes seeming to plunge into Eiri's. "You're in love with me, aren't you?" Eiri could do nothing but stare and then, slowly, nod.
"Then let me love you," Yuki whispered hotly. And Eiri did.
News spread quickly throughout the camp -- where gossip was concerned, a military encampment was as bad as a court for flying rumors. Soon everyone knew that Kitazawa Yuki had taken a lover, that it was that young prodigy, Uesugi Eiri. The talk reached every corner of the camp, from the lowest foot soldier's huddled circle to the very tent where leaders assembled to decide the army's fate -- leaders like Seguchi Tohma.
Tohma had taken a liking to Eiri very early on. He was bright and deadly but somehow naive -- perfect modeling clay with which to form the legions that would back his rising ambition. With the start of Yuki and Eiri's affair, Eiri's effectiveness in battle had skyrocketed -- he was ten times more lethal than he'd been, even at such a tender age. Perhaps Yuki had shown him a rougher side to life, and the boy was becoming a man. Such transformations were not unusual... the bonds formed on the battlefield often held an army together. When that bond matured, so did the people sharing it. Tohma could feel the stirrings of a new age begin with the shifting of the tides beneath him. With this army, at this time, he could take the next step.
Gradually, secretively, plans began to take shape. Higher-ranked soldiers held late night meetings with Tohma, and the number of attacks on neighboring armies dwindled, as though the leaders were trying to save their manpower for a later day. The army was on the move, but instead of expanding outward, they were going back toward their homeland and the central town where the daimyo's castle sat. Soon they were camped just outside, and it was on that day that Tohma sent for Eiri.
Hardy-looking, with ruddy cheeks and straggling hairs not-quite-growing along the sides of his face, Eiri stood before Tohma, unsure of why he had suddenly been singled out and called aside. His only real experience with the higher-ranked samurai had been with Yuki, and that, of course, couldn't be further from anything Tohma could possibly expect from him. He fidgeted nervously as he waited for his superior to speak.
Tohma surveyed Eiri's figure and nodded approvingly. This boy was perfect. "You know what is happening tomorrow night," he said, a jarring opening free of the foolish discourse that began most every conversation a polite man had. "You have sworn your allegiance to me, have you not?" Eiri nodded stiffly. "Swear it again now," Tohma commanded.
"I swear my allegiance to you as a vassal and pledge to give my life to protecting you," Eiri answered, bowing his head. His family had long been allied with the Seguchi clan: a sister of his was even to become Tohma's bride, an arrangement made not long after her birth. The oath was one he'd repeated many a time, ever since his childhood.
At the repetition of the pledge, Tohma relaxed slightly. "Tomorrow night we take the daimyo's castle," he said in a low voice. "You are not a fool, Eiri-san, you know of this already." He was right -- Eiri did. "The people have long been demanding this. It is their will, not my own, that drives me to act. And yet, there are some who would see me fail." He scowled darkly and crossed toward Eiri. "Those whose greed outweighs their sense of justice, and who will take a single bushel of rice now over an abundant field later. Even now, Eiri-san, they plot against me."
Eiri trembled briefly. Was he being accused? But Tohma, seeming to survey his expression and approve of it, relaxed his tone. "An all-out siege of the castle, complete with blazing fires and trampling horses, does no good to anyone. It costs innocent lives and the very faith the people are placing in me is forfeit. For that reason, tomorrow night I plan to take a small number of men with me and enter the castle undetected." The unspoken word, assassination, loomed behind each phrase, and Eiri knew it well. "I need a man to watch my back, to make certain any attempts to get to me fail. A warrior cannot strike out in front of him if he is looking behind him, after all. Eiri-san, I have seen your prowess. You shall be that man."
Young Eiri had protested, but Tohma fixed him in place with a glance. "I intend to send a message to these greedy traitors," he said, in a voice that gave Eiri a long, stinging shiver. "They will know that the samurai of this area have pledged their loyalty to me, and loyalty will be rewarded. But disloyalty...." Tohma moved in closer to Eiri as he spoke, and the sounds hissed from his mouth like the speech of a snake. "Disloyalty will come back to you a thousand times... and it will wreak a very dire revenge."
How they had managed it Eiri never knew, but somehow when they crept through the shadows to a small door behind the main tower of the castle, there was no guard waiting and no lock. Tohma just slid the portal open and slipped through the entryway, his men following him, and Eiri bringing up the rear, tailing the group with unsteady steps. The darkness seemed to whisper to him of secrets he didn't want to hear, and he felt his pulse pounding in his wrists. The beat throbbed through his hand when he clutched his sword for comfort.
Like liquid, the group swam through corridors noiselessly, with no sleepless courtesans or suspicious samurai to cross their path. The easiness of it all bothered Eiri. He found himself waiting for the other shoe to drop. The longer they traveled the castle's halls without being discovered, the more tension built up inside his veins. He felt like he was being pulled taut, a string quivering dangerously on the verge of snapping.
Once they reached an ornate door, Tohma turned back and signaled for Eiri to wait. He and his men disappeared through the door after looking around and nodding to each other briefly, and Eiri was left alone.
With the minute sound of the door's closing, the air seemed to chill around Eiri. He exhaled, half-expecting to see his breath as he did. Shivering, he looked around furtively, and then decided it would be more prudent to step into the shadows himself. His eyes darted back and forth, looking for the most convenient place to hide. Finally, he decided on an impressive-looking wooden column, and stepped behind it.
He stepped straight into someone.
The beginning of a curse, stifled and completed in a whisper, sprang from a nearby mouth, and nearby shadows stirred. Eiri sprang backward on reflex, his nerves on fire. It was another minute before he realized why his face was hot as well. He knew the scent of this man.
"Yuki?" he whispered tentatively. In response, the figure hesitated, then slowly eased out of the shadows.
"Oh, it's you," Yuki said, relaxing visibly once he came into sight. From behind him, another two men came into the light. Eiri knew them as longtime companions of Yuki's, and he nodded politely. "You surprised me!" Eiri exclaimed, letting his own shoulders relax. "So Seguchi-sama asked for your help too? He didn't mention anything about it to me when he asked me to..."
Eiri's voice trailed off. Yuki's eyes had gone wide, and he had begun to glance at his companions furtively. A scowl darkened the expression of one, and the other bit his lip nervously. Eiri watched the wordless exchange with trepidation, a sickening prickle of realization biting at the bottom of his stomach. "Yuki..." he finally whispered, his limbs feeling like lead. "You're not..."
"So Seguchi's got you playing watchdog?" Yuki interrupted. "Better yet. Step aside, boy."
The beginnings of tears stung behind Eiri's eyes. "Why did you do this, Yuki?" he said, unable to keep the mournful moan out of his voice. "Aren't you loyal to Seguchi-sama too?"
"Step aside!" Yuki insisted.
"Why?" Eiri repeated.
"Move!"
The barking order gave Eiri the charge he needed to refuse outright. "I won't," he declared, bracing his feet firmly against the floor as though expecting Yuki to rush him.
Yuki's face turned impossibly dark for a moment. Then a soft smile flickered across his face. Gently, he began to move toward Eiri. Suddenly immobilized, the boy could do nothing but swallow as Yuki lifted a battle-calloused hand to touch his face. "I'm sorry," he said to Eiri. "I scared you, didn't I?"
"Yuki..." Eiri's voice was choked with tears. The soldier pressed his lips to his forehead, his hand reaching down to caress his shoulder and side. Eiri shut his eyes as the man's other arm came around him in a tight embrace. The warmth of Yuki's fingers was everywhere, searing as they wandered, and Eiri's eyes opened again when he realized how intimate their situation had become. Stinging with heat, he looked up at Yuki's face, trying to muster up enough strength for a protest.
But his lover wasn't even looking at him. Yuki made a jerking motion with his head, urging on his allies. They started to move around to the side, slipping past the pair. Even as his fingertips pressed against Eiri's hips dangerously, Yuki's mind was nowhere near the boy.
Eiri's excitement collided with a fresh wave of ice through his veins, and he thought he'd turn to steam right there. Pressure built up and released all through him - sexuality, anger, frustration, betrayal, confusion. A mad jumble. "Yuki....!!" he finally whispered in a cracking voice, pushing himself away. But it was too late, and with one nod of Yuki's head the two men beside them had pushed Eiri up against a wall, holding him fast.
"So this is the one you told us about, then?" one of them said.
Throwing back his shoulders, Yuki surveyed the hapless Eiri with a leering grin. "That's right," he says. "Takes it like a woman, screams like crazy but always wants more. He's loads of fun."
Horror cascaded through Eiri's body in waves. It didn't seem possible that it was really Yuki talking this way. The Yuki he'd given his heart, his body, his everything to, the Yuki he'd loved, with this sadistic smile... He tried to say something, anything, but the words wouldn't come out.
"I want a turn with him later," said the other, running a hand over Eiri's face. Eiri tried to bite at him, but his neck wouldn't turn. "He's such a cute one." Slipping a hand inside his kimono, the man scratched at Eiri's chest briefly. "What do you say? We know you love it."
"You want to have some fun now?" the first man said. "We can go after Seguchi."
In response, Yuki made a sweeping bow and grinned the most terrifying grin Eiri had ever seen.
"After you," he said.
"After you."
The words echoed surreally in Eiri's head. Time and space stopped; the air ceased to move. All at once the world was strange and muddled. Lights seemed to flicker. Bits of reality came floating in and out of darkness, all painful, none tangible. Eiri had the feeling he was leaving his own body, his own mind, and replaying the entire moment as an odd, disjointed dream.
Yuki's face, his smile... Yuki, whom Eiri had loved, with such a smile...
One of the men opening his kimono, forcing Eiri's head down, telling him "That's right, boy, you know what to do..."
Yuki, whom Eiri still loved, saying such words...
"After you."
Eiri choking, grasping the wall looking for a handhold, sputtering, trying to cry out and failing, trying to say anything and failing, his hand feeling flat wall, the warmth of his own body, then cold metal, a familiar grip, no, a handle, the handle of his sword...
Yuki...
...and then from somewhere a scream rose up into the air, starting low and soft but rising in pitch and intensity as the whole world went white and then exploded into crimson and memory disconnected from mind just after Eiri realized the scream was his own...
then, nothing.
Tohma came bursting through the door with Eiri's name on his lips. With eyes wide as the moon, he took in the situation, his followers spilling into the room behind him. Blood stained not just the floors, but the walls as well, and the three corpses lay like lumps of black coal spattered with red, faces frozen in shocked agony, one of them obscenely exposed. The scent of death hung over the room like a thick black smoke, and it made Tohma's eyes water.
And at the far point of the ungodly triangle of cadavers, kneeling with the head of one corpse lifted onto his lap, a trembling figure. Silent, blood-soaked, tears mingling with the traces of dried liquid on his face, hands clutching the shaft of his sword so tight they bled...
Eiri was whispering something, that much Tohma could see as he stumbled toward him, waves of fear and relief shooting through him. When he came close enough to see whose body was cradled in the young sentry's lap, Tohma's blood chilled in realization. His men watched, speechless, behind him, as Tohma sprang forward to embrace the shaking Eiri.
"...dead... dead... Yuki... I... I... dead..."
Eiri's eyes lifted at the sudden embrace. The present returned, though jaggedly... he saw the arms around him, he felt his own quivering, felt the stickiness of blood on his hands, heard his own disjointed words. He saw the open door, saw the path of blood that had trailed from Tohma's sword as he had come toward him.
Blood on Tohma, blood on him...
Tohma broke the embrace to gaze at Eiri. He tried in vain to catch his eyes, but Eiri couldn't stop looking around erratically, like a spastic child. He smoothed Eiri's hair and tried to soothe him with words. "Thank you, Eiri-san," said Tohma in as gentle a tone as he could muster. "You protected me. You saved my life. Eiri-san..."
Blood on Yuki... dead Yuki...
"Dead... I..."
"Look at me, Eiri-san," Tohma pressed. "You proved your loyalty to me. You are an excellent samurai. I told you loyalty would be rewarded. You will be rewarded, Eiri-san. You must let me take care of you from now on. I will see that you want for nothing. You are precious to me, Eiri-san..." Gingerly, he lifted Eiri's sword out of his grasp, and the bleeding palms were left shaking in midair.
Yuki's blood on me... my blood on me...
Eiri lowered his hands to the dead man's face and caressed it, leaving streaks of blood along the corpse's cheeks. Tohma took them and pressed them to his own, feeling the blood run stickily onto his own hands. "We have to go, Eiri-san. We need to leave this place. Do you understand?"
With the touch of his hands to warm, living flesh, Eiri seemed to focus for the first time since Tohma had discovered the scene. "S...Seguchi-sama..." he whispered weakly.
Tohma smiled, feeling tears of relief spill over. "Yes. Yes, Eiri-san, it's me. Can you hear me?" The boy nodded weakly, and Tohma finally succeeded in ushering him out of the castle. It was not long after they'd cleared the final door, free on the plains, before the first shriek echoed from within the castle walls.
At the sound of it, Eiri stopped. His soul seemed to resonate with that first horrified scream, as though he was stuck in an unending moment of realization. He fell to his knees. "Yuki...!" he repeated. As though answering his cry, the wind on the plain began to pick up, and a howling sound filled the sky. Dust rose from the ground and swirled in ever-changing patterns across the landscape.
Safe in the hollow of a hill, shadowed from any pursuing guards, Tohma felt safe enough to kneel down before the boy again. "Eiri-san," he shouted, his voice straining to rise above the mournful moan of the wind. "Look at me. Listen to me. You did well. Eiri-san!" he repeated urgently when the young warrior wavered dangerously as though on the verge of collapse. "It's me!"
"Seguchi-sama..." The strange, amber-tinted eyes wavered. "Seguchi-sama... I killed Yuki..."
"You killed a traitor," Tohma insisted. "Justice comes to those who are disloyal. Yours is the sword of justice... my dear Eiri-san. Be proud."
"Yuki's dead..." And then, all at once, Eiri's half-mad rambling became a wail of pure sorrow.
"I should be dead... I'm the one who should die!"
Tohma glanced nervously at his companions. Aware of the importance of the moment, they were busy watching the horizon for signs of pursuing armies. Relaxing, Tohma again took Eiri by the shoulders, holding him firmly upright. "Eiri-san, I want you to swear to me you won't die without my knowledge. I won't let you go. You're too important to me."
Black spots seemed to hover before Eiri's eyes. He clutched out blindly, finding warmth he only vaguely knew to be Tohma's. "S... Seguchi-s..."
"Swear to me, Eiri-san! I order it!" Dust was filling Tohma's mouth. The irritation on his tongue was more than he could bear.
Eiri's eyes closed involuntarily against the assault of wind and sand. He choked on the current, strength ebbing from him. "I... swear..."
Tohma embraced him furiously. "I won't let you go, Eiri-san," he demanded, no longer caring that the storm's fury caked his words with air and dirt. "I can't. I need you..." But Eiri barely heard. He had the vision of something precious, a tiny star of gold, dropping away from him into an abyss. He reached out for it, trying so hard to catch it again, but it was just out of reach, just a fingertip's length away and yet completely lost to him. He lunged forward again, but the bonds that held him back were the bonds of Tohma's arms... they held him fast, strangled him, as the world went black.
-
"I took his name after that day," Eiri said. "And I've remained in Seguchi's service until this day, and will for the rest of my life. That night he saved me. So he will always be a special existence to me." Opening his eyes (somehow he had closed them as he told, no, relived that story), he looked down at Shuichi, saying, "Now that you know, can you still say you love me?"
He was greeted with a snore.
Groaning with the sort of frustration that is so familiar it becomes a kind of comfort, Eiri gently lifted Shuichi's head off his lap and eased him down onto the futon again. He blew out the candle with a silent puff of breath and settled in behind the boy, breathing in the scent of his hair. Shuichi made a funny sleeping noise in return.
A pang of sadness flew through Eiri, and he brought one hand up to gingerly touch the very ends of the straggling strands of dark hair. In the quietest of whispers, he confessed, "But you saved me too... and for that I thank you. Shuichi."
And in the darkness, just before sleep finally took him under its wing, Yuki Eiri whispered the words that he could never say aloud. The words that he could only trust to the night. Words that would return to him whenever the darkness fell... the truth that can be felt, but not seen. The truth that only the darkness would ever hear.
And in the darkness, Shindou Shuichi heard, and smiled.
-to be concluded-