These Fine Things of Heaven and Earth
By: Vain 10/16/2001-
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I only own Tanuki-kun, Hanamura-sensei, and the plot—everything else belongs to Toei, Bandai, and / or *shudder* Fox Kids.
This story has yoai, shounen-ai, and mature themes including self-mutilation, psychological and emotional abuse, and general angst.
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"But she did marry me!
Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she married me!
For she had no one to turn to!
Do you understand, young man, what it means to have nowhere left to turn to?"
~Feodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment
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Chapter Twelve:
The Captives at Philippi
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It was still raining when Ken left Taichi's apartment. He didn't scream or cry out and no tears tracked their way down his cheeks. He hadn't said anything to Taichi at all. He could feel the other teen's eyes moving over his body as he stiffly put on his boots, but he couldn't do anything. He couldn't feel anything. So he merely pulled his now-clean clothes back on and walked out the door and into the deluge again.
And he walked. He walked for hours without direction or purpose, barely aware of the cold and the wind and the rain. The streets were almost empty and those who passed him quickly averted their eyes from his damaged face and slight limp. It was a shameful thing to see him staggering listlessly down the street, an indignity to the city and its inhabitants that was acutely felt by the others around him. They were too embarrassed to look at his face. Not that it would have mattered; Ken stared at the ground as he walked.
His entire body hurt. His skin was stretched too tightly over his bones and the old bruises left by his father's rage and the new ones left by Taichi's passion each felt like a brand, marking him as property. Property. An object. He shook, tiny tremors traveling up his hands and forcing his shoulders to jerk ever so slightly as his body tried to shake itself warm. It felt like his mind was going to shake apart.
The rain beat down from the sky, washing the streets and grinding him down into himself until his head was pounding in time with the rain attacking his body. Eventually he stumbled into an alleyway and crouched to the ground, hidden from view by a tall dumpster. He huddled into a ball and wrapped his arms around himself.
"Mama." His teeth chattered. "Mama," he murmured plaintively.
Ken leaned against the trash bin for a moment before suddenly slamming his head into the metal with numbing force. He shuddered and repeated the action twice more. A cough wracked his slender body, making him gasp and choke for a moment. He shivered and closed his eyes and fell asleep listening to the rain splashing off his head.
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It had only been a day since Ken had walked out and Rika had already taken to ripping out her hair again. When she had first gotten pregnant with Ken her personality had changed drastically and she became moody and morose and begun to pluck the hair out of her forearms and legs. When Osamu had died the behavior started once more, but vanished once she turned her attentions to Ken. With Ken's first disappearance, she had actually started ripping out chunks of her hair and compulsively plucking her pubic hair and eyebrows. Now it was all happening again. Within the space of twenty-four hours.
Tsuyoshi was frightened.
The woman tugged at her hair, a dead light gleaming in the back of her eyes as she paced the length of the hall and living room. "Where is my son, Tsuyoshi?! Where is he!?"
Her husband swallowed hard. He knew better than to try to approach her; she could be violent when she was like this and while she was significantly smaller than he was, the very idea of touching his wife in anger horrified him.
"Rika-chan—"
She stopped suddenly and whirled around to face him and began to wring her hands. "This is your fault," she whimpered, blinking rapidly as tears slid down her cheeks. "You didn't love him enough. Nothing was ever enough for you. You hate him. You hate him!"
Tsuyoshi stiffened and felt his face pale. He wanted to snap at her, shout out an accusation. He turned and walked into the kitchen instead. Rika and Osamu had both been prone to outbursts of incredible passion that belied their normally composed exteriors. That was something that he had forgotten and had never dealt with well.
As his wife continued to mumble and rant in the other room, he set about making tea, pausing only to go to the bathroom and retrieve something from the medical cabinet. Meprobamate. It was an anti-anxiety drug that Hanamura had given Rika after Osamu died, but it also acted as a heavy sedative. Some nights it had been the only thing that could get her to sleep. The way she had wandered around the apartment looking for their dead son had broken his heart. Ken used to trail behind her and tug at the hem of her skirt.
His childish voice had been piercing and eerie in the sudden silence of their grief. "Mama? Mama? Where is Oniichan? Why are you looking for him? We left him behind, bemember? Is Oniichan coming home soon, Mama?"
It had been a disturbing sight.
He dropped two pills in the steaming water and returned to the living room, stirring the tea until they dissolved.
Rika was still pacing and wringing her hands. Her knuckles were bright red and tears made the smooth skin of her face look worn and aged. He handed her the cup gingerly.
"It will make you feel better," he coaxed when she frown at the brown liquid.
Her hands trembled as she clutched the cup, making the tea slosh dangerously near the lip of the teacup. "You didn't love him enough," she repeated piteously. "Never enough. And he knew it."
Tsuyoshi looked away.
The woman stared blankly into the mug for a moment before taking a tentative sip. It was hot and burned her tongue, but it was also soothing. She turned, holding the tea close to her chest, and wandered into the kitchen. "Your fault."
He wondered vaguely who she was talking to.
After several minutes of listening to his wife putter around
in the kitchen and mutter beneath her breath, Tsu stood and head back into the
hall towards his son's bedroom. He
hesitated in front of it for a long moment, remembering a time when this had
been Osamu's room and he had stood once before in front of this door, drowning
in the silence of the room beyond.
"You didn't love him enough."
The man leaned forward suddenly, resting his weight completely against the door and pressing his forehead against the unyielding wood. He loved his son.
"I love my son."
And it was true. He had never said those words in regard to Ken. They had never left his lips before this moment—not in any real meaningful way. Not without some impetus or expectation of reward. But it was true. And he wanted his boy back so badly that he ached with the need of it.
He snorted derisively, but it came out as a choked sob-like sound that startled him. What a terrible parent he had been—to have loved his child so much and never told him. He stood and pushed open the door. Ken had never had the chance to lock it behind him when he'd burst in on him and that other boy.
And now that he considered it, perhaps that other boy hadn't been so bad. He had made Ken happy, hadn't he? Ken was not the type of person to give of himself freely. Tsuyoshi may not have known much about his child, but he knew that much at least. When was the last time he had seen Ken happy? When was the last time anyone in this house had been happy?
The sterility of the room seemed to answer the question. No posters, no pictures, nothing concrete to indicate that anyone had ever lived there for any real period of time. Simply . . . nothing. Was this really how his son had lived for so long? Was this why he'd run away? Tsuyoshi looked around without really seeing anything. Empty. It was all empty. He couldn't even remember what Ken's room had looked like before he'd moved into this one after Osamu's death. His old room—almost a closet, really—was now Rika's sewing room. Had there been pictures? Color? Life . . .?
What had happened? And why couldn't he remember? Was he truly so far from his only child?
He heard Rika shuffling down the hall. The door to their bedroom creaked open and then closed once more with a dull click.
Where was his son?
Where is my son?
The silence was painful and the man averted his eyes suddenly, unable to bear the lack of . . . of . . . everything.
Where is my son?
He didn't remember slamming Ken's door. Perhaps the room, much like its occupant, knew of his intrusion into that private place and was repelling his efforts as too little far, far, far too late.
Where has he gone?
For a moment he remained in front of the closed door, staring at it in helpless bewilderment.
My son. Is he safe?
How had this happened?
Is he hurt?
Things like this weren't supposed to happen. Tsuyoshi had done everything right. He'd married a pretty girl. He'd gotten a good job. He made a decent wage. He was good at his work, respected by his peers, an asset to his bosses, loved by his wife and sons. And sons. And son.
Loved by his wife and . . . and whom?
Osamu? Osamu was dead.
Ken?
The man jerked away from the door suddenly, looking as though he'd been burnt.
"Where is my son?" The words were loud in the deepening silence and he jumped. The wind was howling out there, beating down on Tokyo, screaming across Japan. And he didn't know where his child was.
He hadn't done anything right at all.
Mechanical steps took him away from Ken's door and back to the kitchen. Rika' empty mug sat on the table. She was probably asleep by now. The man stared at the faux-porcelain for a long moment, as though it held some greater meaning or some hint of absolution.
He loved his son.
He truly did. And what did he have to show for it now?
Tired brown eyes flickered to the phone and for just an he thought he saw Ken standing there, leaning against the wall and winding the phone cord between his delicate fingers in boredom. He'd be talking to Tanuki-kun, of course; he didn't have the patience for anyone else. Tsuyoshi blinked rapidly, willing the mocking phantom to vanish. When he focused on the phone again, all he saw was plastic shining dully in the florescent light. Tsuyoshi reached out to touch it and was startled by the cool reality of the receiver in his hand. His large fingers pressed the buttons with an odd, uncommon clumsiness, as though the appliance had somehow gotten smaller, or he had grown larger. He brought the receiver up to his ear and listened to the other line ring.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
"Moshi moshi."
For an instant, Tsuyoshi's voice seemed to be stuck in his throat, then the words lurched out of his mouth artlessly. "Anou . . . Moshi moshi. This is Ichijouji. Is Tanuki-kun home?"
"No, Ichijouji-san, he left some time this morning. Is something wrong?"
Tsuyoshi closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself. Tanuki had been his only chance. "No. No. I don't suppose you've seen Ken?"
"No, Ichijouji-san."
"Well, thank you. If he shows up can you tell him . . . Can you tell him that I'm sorry and we want him to come home as soon as he can?"
There was a pause on the other side and Tsu shifted uncomfortably. He could still hear the rain howling outside. "And tell him that we miss him and we love him very much?"
"I . . . Yes, Ichijouji-san."
"Thank you."
He hung up the phone and returned to the bedroom. Rika's breathing was deep and even and for a moment the tall man stood in the doorway and listened to the sound. He pretended that it was Ken's breathing and that nothing was wrong. He pretended for so long that the fantasy was painful. When he opened his eyes and found himself in the doorway of his darkened bedroom, Tsuyoshi hesitated for a brief instant before closing the door and walking over to the bed. He lay down on top of the covers and pulled his wife close to him. She snuggled into his warm embrace and he relaxed, allowing his body to melt into hers.
The bed creaked as Rika shifted slightly and she pressed face into the crook of his neck, murmuring a slurred, half-asleep "I love you," into his skin. It was only then that Tsuyoshi let the tears slide down his cheeks and he kissed her forehead tenderly, an act of intense love that few in his world would ever witness.
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He didn't know how long he slept. It could have been a year, it could have been an hour; time seemed to merge with the gray of the sky and the buildings and his clothing and his skin. As he crept out of his alleyway, Ken was barely aware of the shrieking protests in his stiff muscles. The ache in his body had become a bearable thing that he noted with bland disinterest, but dismissed as unimportant. Everything was unimportant.
His feet began to ache and the bones of his hands strained against the ivory leather of his skin, turning the appendages into skeletal, bird-like claws. He suppressed an urge to claw at his eyes.
Blind, blind, blind. He couldn't see anything at all.
At some point in time he crossed a bridge, but he didn't know which one. Perhaps he'd crossed it more than once. It was difficult to focus on such matters. Besides, the world was monochrome and disinteresting and all the bridges looked the same: swaying, dark, narrow, and gray as the air. He paused halfway across and leaned dangerously far over the railing, staring down into the moving metal of the water below. For a wild moment he wondered if he'd fall, had fallen, and perhaps he was still dreaming. It didn't matter, though; things, he felt on a vague abstract level, were more honest in dreams. And the rain was heavy, thick, and cold and cut him to the core. He wished he could see the blood. He had to be bleeding all over the place.
People seemed to have vanished as Ken entered a residential area he was vaguely familiar with. The name of the place and its importance was a liquid thing to him and his mind was tender and scrambled. His rest had not been peaceful and he been plagued by faceless gray dwarves who threw pebbles at him that turned into roaches and tried to burrow beneath his skin with grasping skeletal hands that were so cold they burned him like fire.
The rain continued without pause as he staggered down the street with wooden, marionette-like motions, and he had dropped his head so low that he was almost bent double giving the impression that he was on the verge of falling. The position made his back ache.
"Ken-kun . . .?"
The sound of a familiar voice made the pallid teenager lift his head slowly and blink past the rainwater that slid down his face and collected on the delicate tips of his eyelashes. He blinked several more times until his vision cleared enough to see and even then there was still a fuzziness around the edges of his sight. It was surreal, like an old movie flashback.
Violet eyes blinked slowly and he tilted his head to the side. "Tanuki."
The white-haired boy was standing a good twelve feet in front of him, the bottoms of his gray Tamachi pants wet up to the knees. He held a large black umbrella over his head, the dark circle of it standing out sharply between the pale gray of his skin and hair and the iron gray background of the sky and buildings. His large, round blue eyes were astonishingly wide and his lips were slightly parted, a strange look of horror on his handsome face.
Ken smiled slightly and spread his arms out, neither a plea nor a presentation, but a simple gesture of despair. His clothes clung to him and sucked all the warmth from his body. He chuckled faintly and raised his arms a bit higher, slowly lifting them until his fingers were long dark shadows against the clouds and his hands were stretching desperately towards the sky. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, allowing the rainwater to hit his face and run down the smooth contours of his skin.
"It's raining," he murmured softly and raindrops fell into his mouth and slid down his throat.
Tanuki stared at him in horror and Ken began to slowly sway back and forth and hum. Then he started laughing. It was a soft, forced, unnatural sound that made the Coon's hair stand on end.
A violet shiver moved through that indigo-haired boy and his laughter choked him so that he bent doubled and coughed with a wet, hacking noise. When he stood there was blood on his lips. He giggled and his head lolled to the side. "It's raining," he repeated.
A sharp gust of wind blew, ripping Tanuki's umbrella from his hand, and he still didn't move. "Ken . . ."
Ken wrapped his arms around his waist and bent over as though he were in pain. After a moment, a soft sob emerged from his wrecked body and Tanuki flinched. The two stayed like that for a several long awkward moments until Ken's knees gave way and he fell to the ground. He lay down on the sidewalk and curled into a fetal position, dry painful sobs continuing to tear themselves from somewhere deep inside him.
The rain drowned out Tanuki's soft footfalls as he approached his fallen friend. The white-haired boy knelt down at Ken's side and carefully gathered the other teen to his chest in a gentle embrace, allowing him to soak up his warmth and cry himself out. He rocked him back and forth, shifting to shield him from the worst of the rain and wind. Ken's hands gripped at the wet fabric of his jacket until the knuckles turned white.
"Let's go home, Ken-kun."
The boy shook his head and shuddered.
"Let's go home. I'll take you to my house. It'll be okay there."
"I want to go to sleep, Tanuki."
"Then let's go home, Ken."
Lightening crashed and the thunder moved so loudly that they could feel it. After a moment Ken nodded.
"I want to go to sleep, Tanuki," he murmured in a slurred, unsteady voice.
The Coon nodded and helped his friend to his feet and they headed towards his home.
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Chapter Thirteen:
Talking of Michelangelo
The hunter gets hunted, the Rat gets everything he can have (which is probably less than he's entitled to), and Little Red Riding Hood takes back what's hers. Sort of. Twenty points from Gryffindor.
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