Disclaimer: Nope, X isn't mine. Still belongs to CLAMP and their sakura blossoms. ^^;
Twin Star
Part 6
Kamui stared at the cup of melting ice cream before him, sitting in a small pool of condensation on his desk. Outside the window cicadas buzzed happily away, greeting the fall of dusk with enthusiasm even as he wished their noise might drown out the static in his head.
He leaned forward, picking up the spoon absently and lifting it, studying the plastic utensil in the dying twilight leaking in through his window. A bit of chocolate ice cream fell from it, plopping into the cup below as he brought the spoon to his mouth and tried what was left.
He hadn't had chocolate in… he didn't know how long.
That damned Nibai, he thought, banging down his door with her damned ice cream, depositing it purposefully into his hands and grinning like an idiot.
"It'll make you feel better!" she'd said cheerfully – he couldn't tell if it was forced or not, he was no good at such guessing games – and patted him quickly on the head, something flashing through her eyes for an instant before it was gone. "Now eat."
And she'd swept out of the room, her long black hair the last thing to disappear out his door before she closed it behind her.
The last thing he needed was this girl insisting on what was good for him, he though sourly, dipping the spoon back into the cup and coming up with another mouthful of chocolate. She didn't know what was good for him – no one here did, because what would be good for him would entail leaving him the hell alone and shutting up about all of this destiny crap. All these fanatics following him around day after day were most certainly not good for him.
He chewed thoughtfully on the plastic spoon, gazing out the window as the sky went from rose to blue to black.
He sighed and dug the spoon back through the cup of soggy ice cream.
The last thing he need was this girl hitting on him the way Sorata hit on Arashii. That was exactly what he didn't need.
He just needed to find a way to tell her that.
The spoon scraped the bottom of the cup and he looked down, absently noticing that he had no more ice cream left.
* * *
"So just concentrate on something you want to protect," Sorata finished, leaning against the back door and gazing at Nibai sitting on the low brick wall running around the house in the back.
"Hm," she hummed, turning over what he had just told her in her mind, trying to figure out a few ideas and feelings and…
"When you get it right, it should look like this," he said, pushing away from the door and walking out until he was in the center of the yard. He brought his hands up before him, fists and eyes closed, as a look of concentration washed onto his features. She watched, trying to watch him, feel him and discern what he was doing…
The air felt different. It was a small effect at first, and centered around Sorata, but it grew – the feeling of being boxed in, of being captured and compressed as the breeze that had been ruffling the tree leaves died out.
There was a light now – a visible glow encompassing his hands, and as he opened them slowly it grew, encompassing first him and then the space around him, a "box" of trapped air and space and time that expanded until it contained not only the house but the entire block, as far as she could see, and probably more than that. The color had gone flat and dim, the air stale and the breeze gone – he had effectively encompassed them in a space that was and yet wasn't, a kekkai in which a battle would not affect the outside world.
Unless the creator died.
She blinked and shook her head slightly, as he grinned at her from his spot a few yards away.
"There ya go. Any questions?"
She laughed. "Nope… other than how many tries did it take you to get that?"
He returned her laugh even as the box around them began to shrink, slowly folding in on itself until it sat in the palm of his hand… and was gone. The breeze jumped up around them again, feeling almost annoyed at having been disturbed, and the velvety blue-black of the post-dusk sky shone overhead with a new clarity.
"Only a couple hundred," he replied with a wink. "Go ahead, give it a shot."
She sighed and hopped down, stepping out onto the lawn and stopped a few feet away from him. She closed her eyes, feeling a bit silly, and tried to clear her mind.
It was hard, with the stars singing down at her. But eventually all else began to fall away; the breeze, the ground, the air, the sky. All that remained was the quiet song of the stars, a sort of background noise in her mind now, and a single image, locked in the forefront of her thoughts.
Kamui.
"Just concentrate on something you want to protect," he'd said. He had explained to her how the kekkais were created, how they were fed by the creator's desire to protect someone or something that they loved, prized more than anything. Fueled by an almost-desperation. A need.
Kamui.
She could see him standing there, alone and lost and she wanted nothing more in the world than to protect him from all of that –
She felt strange. Her hands felt hot – she unclenched fists she'd forgotten she had made, and the heat spread out until it had covered her whole body, and the air around her, and –
"Ne, that's pretty good there, Nibai-san!" She heard Sorata – his voice cut into her silent world like a knife and she dropped it – all the heat rushed back into her in an instant and she gasped, her eyes flying open as she lost her balance.
She fell, but didn't hit the ground – Sorata caught her before she could hit and steadied her, looking sheepish.
"Sorry about that," he said, helping her over to the wall again so she could lean on it. She still felt odd, but her balance was coming back quickly and she was able to stand not long after.
"Nice first try though, I think you got it down," he said, as she took a few deep breaths. "I'd say you'd get the whole thing next time… if I'd quit yappin' at ya." He rubbed the back of his neck, still looking sheepish.
She waved her hand at him, dismissing it. "Nah, don't worry about it. I'm going to have to be able to do this in the middle of battle anyway, right?"
"That is the idea," Sorata admitted. "But that is odd…" He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully and gazed at her a moment.
"Ne? What's odd?"
"Oh, nothing," he said, hand dropping back to his side. "Just that… well, the way these things usually work, each person's kekkai usually manifests in a shape unique to them."
"Oh?"
"Mm-hm." He
nodded. "But yours… well, yours and mine are the same shape. Fuuny, ne?"
She thought a moment,
wondering what it meant. But they were
twin stars, were they not? Maybe it was just another strand running from him to
her. Or from her to him – this was often a chicken-and-egg situation, leaving
her to wonder if she was like him, or
if he was like her.
Or maybe that wasn't the case at all, and maybe they were two parts of the same thing, and neither any more or less like the original than the other.
It made her head spin, just thinking about it.
"Hai," she replied, shaking off her thoughts and turning her attention back to Sorata before her. "But what are we, if not funny?"
He grinned at her.
"Not much, I'll tell you that!"
She looked up at him as they both broke out into laughter – and froze as she caught sight of the curtain falling back into place in Kamui's window.
* * *
"I hate this," Nibai groaned, leaning over and resting her forehead on the kitchen table where she couldn't see the accursed homework. Geometry was not her subject. She hadn't taken it yet back in her old high school, and so she'd been thrown into the class here upon enrollment and was slowly falling behind, much to her dismay. She knew she was no genius, but this really was not her thing.
She sighed and sat up again, eyeing the worksheet with some distaste. She picked up her pencil and began writing again, only to give up moments later. This was not going well. She resorted to tapping out rhythms on the table as she thought; perhaps it would help, probably not, but at least it kept her from being bored –
"What are you doing?"
She started and looked up, dropping her pencil as she realized Kamui had come into the kitchen and was eyeing her as if she were crazy. She felt a blush begin to rise, but willed her cheeks to cool as she bent over to retrieve the fallen pencil.
"Geometry homework," she replied as she came up from beneath the table, peeking beneath a curtain of hair to see Kamui filling a glass with water.
He eyed her skeptically. "Like that?"
She did blush at that. "Er… well I'm no good at this stuff." She shook her hair back over her shoulders and made a disgusted face at the papers.
Oddly enough, he came over and glanced halfheartedly at the worksheets. "You can't do proofs?" He sounded as doubtful as he looked.
"Oh, give me a break! Look, I don't know what they teach in your fancy schools, sir, but in my backwater little school we hadn't gotten to this yet!" She stuck out her tongue and resorted to lounging back in her chair, pulling her hair away from her face for a moment before letting it fall around her shoulders again and sighing. She cast a glance up at him, expecting him to be leaving, but instead he was looking at her, some of the skepticism draining from his face for a second.
"Ne, what is it?"
The skepticism was back, but again instead of leaving as she expected, he set the glass of water down on the table.
"You're doing them wrong," he said flatly, sitting down and taking her pencil. "You can't start with this, you don't know this statement is true."
She blinked, as disbelieving as he'd sounded a moment ago, staring at him as he began erasing her messy handwriting. His hands looked so delicate, his motions were so deliberate… Something caught the light – a rut of lighter skin running the length of his hand. What was that…? She studied his hand, looking at the back of it, trying to see the mark more clearly –
"You should start this – look, do you want help or not?"
She blinked again, jerking out of her stupor and the blush that felt like it had just drained from her cheeks began again with a fervor.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm listening. Thanks," she said, attempting to turn her attention to the paper and not stare at him as he began her math problem anew.
He said nothing in response, only continued explaining things until they began to fall into place, like pieces to a puzzle that she only hadn't known how to look at correctly.
* * *
"Ne, Kamui, can I talk to you?" Sorata rapped softly on the wooden door, only half-expecting to get a reply. It was late, he realized, but he sincerely doubted that Kamui was sleeping. With the way the boy looked most of the time, Sorata was beginning to doubt if the boy ever slept.
Well, that wasn't true – he knew that Kamui slept, but it was at odd intervals, and it was never true sleep. It was a fitful, dream-wrought sleep that brought no respite. Sorata knew something of that, although he was glad he could say that it was not a habit for him. It seemed to be one for Kamui, however, and that was a bit worrying…
He was unexpectedly rewarded as the door opened and Kamui stood there, fixing him with a dulled golden gaze and a flat expression.
"I'll take that as a yes," Sorata said, leaning on the doorway and sticking his foot into the frame, lest Kamui decide to slam the door in his face. Kamui glanced down at Sorata's foot, then back up into his face.
"Hey, hey, I promise it won't hurt," Sorata grinned. "Much."
Kamui didn't seem to find this amusing; Sorata sighed. The boy didn't seem to find much amusing at all, these days. He doubted if Kamui had ever found anything amusing, really…
But that wasn't the point right now. The point right now, was to fix that.
"So," the monk began, crossing his arms over his chest so he could fit his shoulder into the doorframe more comfortably, "I just wanted to see how you were liking school. Made any new friends?"
Kamui blinked, as if not comprehending the question. Finally, after a moment, he spoke.
"Keiichi-kun," he offered, but said nothing more.
Well, it was a start. Sorata knew, in fact, from watching Kamui at school occasionally, that there was indeed a Keiichi that had seemed to attach himself to Kamui, attempting to establish a friendship even as Kamui attempted to go through school as a loner.
"Good then. Glad to know you're making friends."
"That's not what this is about," Kamui said flatly, looking up at Sorata with a gaze that was both piercing and dull at the same time.
"Hey, don't bite my head off about it," Sorata said, holding up his hands in mock-defense. "But you're right," he continued, folding his arms again and gazing intently down at the younger boy. "It's not. I actually wanted to ask you… what you thought of Nibai-chan." He grinned down at Kamui and watched him carefully for a reaction.
He got something – something passed through those golden eyes, but it was fast and fleeting. But it was there. And that only made Sorata grin wider.
"Ne, ne, she's a babe, isn't she?"
Kamui looked up at him and said nothing.
"And she's awfully nice, isn't she?"
Nothing.
"And I know you're looking at her."
That got him something – Kamui started, the slightest bit, his entire body tensing as he opened his mouth to protest.
All he got, however, was a flatly-stated, "I am not looking at her."
Sorata laughed, shifting so he was no longer leaning in the doorway.
"Aww, you like her, come on, admit it. You can tell me, Kamui – I won't tell anyone, honest." Sorata continued egging the boy on, wondering just how much he could get out of him.
But Kamui apparently had himself under control again, for he was met with silence once more.
Time for another tactic. "I saw you helping her with her homework," Sorata said, voice low and suggestive. Kamui couldn't deny that –
"She'll throw off the class curve if she does badly."
Sorata veritably stared at the boy – he had never seen someone so adept at wrapping themselves up in denial. Kamui certainly took first place in that category. It was so sad it was almost funny, he thought to himself.
"Ne, come on, you can't tell me there's nothing you like about her. Nothing that catches your eye? Nothing?" Sorata grinned.
Silence.
Then…
"Her… hair," Kamui whispered, so softly that Sorata wasn't even sure he'd heard him right, almost wasn't sure he'd even said anything at all. He looked at Kamui, searching his face for any signs that might indicate whether or not he'd actually spoken, but he could find nothing but the same look of dull detachment.
And then the door slammed in his face.
He looked down; damn it, he'd taken his foot out of the way when he'd shifted positions. Oh well. He gave a slight shrug, meant for nothing in particular, and waltzed back down the hall, grinning to himself.
