Chichiri POV
Chapter 5
by Xellas M.
Whoever heard of a mountain bandit not getting drunk on free sake? And for all the times the monk had wished his friend would stop complaining and be quiet, why did he have to pick now to actually do so? The monk's inner monologue was a series of minor gripes and grumbles as he cooked their dinner. Had he stopped to think about it, he would have realized that his mental voice had taken on the tone of a certain young redhead, the very one he was surreptitiously watching as he cooked.
Tasuki sat sullenly near their fire, apparently thinking unpleasant thoughts and only occasionally stopping to take a drink. It wasn't until shortly before the meal was done that the bandit's face finally relaxed somewhat. He was still uncharacteristically quiet, but the mage was relieved to note that the rest of the sake was consumed much more quickly.
Smirking, Chichiri grabbed another bottle and approached the distracted bandit silently. As soon as he was close enough, he reached out and poked the space between Tasuki's eyebrows, laughing when the bandit jumped in surprise.
"Still thinking, Tasuki-kun no da? You know that can cause wrinkles, na no da."
"That must be why ya look so young then, ne?" Tasuki retorted, his face slightly flushed, probably due to the alcohol. "Don't suppose ya brought back any more a' that sake?"
Smiling broadly, Chichiri handed over the bottle.
Dinner was relaxed. There wasn't a great deal of conversation, but it was the comfortable silence of old friends without the underlying strain that had been present through most of the day. They ate and drank their full with great enjoyment, the rabbit a welcome change to their diet. Surprisingly, the bandit showed unprecedented restraint and drank his beloved sake slowly enough that he did not become intoxicated.
The sun set quietly, as if to not intrude upon their silence. In the dusk, the magical lights of fireflies appeared unpredictably, briefly illuminating their chosen path only to disappear once more into the thick sweetness of the summer night. All around them the night creatures celebrated. Each sang with its own unique voice yet the sum of the wild chorus was no louder than a strong whisper.
The moon made its appearance, hanging low and full, whispering sweet dreams to the darker, primitive side of the human psyche. Mocking thousands of years of civilization, stripping the soul of its feeble attempts to deny the primal rhythms of winter and summer, birth and death, killing and mating.
It was a pull the monk resisted without understanding. A fear of his own need to possess, at first consciously cultivated and later deeply ingrained through habit, had caused him to suppress all of his animal desires, to treat them at best as necessary evils. But the insistent tug of the moon and his own newly acknowledged feelings weakened him, wrenched his gaze from the fire to once more rest upon his companion.
Just one glance, allowing the whispers of his body to guide his thoughts and his eye across their fire to his friend, and the need he had felt his entire adult life to run away from physical contact dissipated, nothing more than a complicated screen of smoke and mirrors hiding what had never been truly banished. Chichiri was human and always had been. It was only natural for him to be captivated when the one he loved was so utterly entrancing.
He must have been blind in both eyes not to have seen it before: the raw, overwhelming sensuality radiating from the younger man. The redhead's body, carelessly at rest with his back against the stump of a tree, was still so charged with kinetic energy that the mage would have sworn he could feel the excess spilling out into the night and into his own slender form, crackling up and down his spine.
Chichiri's eye traveled slowly along the length of his companion's body. It stopped to linger on the most obvious places, where pleasure could be given and received. No sooner would one fantasy begin to take shape within his mind than it would be replaced by yet another, delicious images crowding each other within his thoughts. Like a buffet set before a starving man, no single vision was more enticing than the others; all served to fuel his hunger equally.
He felt his face flush darkly, breath coming shallowly. Everything that he was screamed at him to get closer to Tasuki but he did not know how. It was one thing to sit in the enormous, impersonal library at Taiitskun's palace and study Suzaku's teachings on the art of lovemaking; it was another to overcome almost ten years of carefully maintained distance.
At the very edge of his hearing, a lone wolf howled at the moon. Chichiri felt a surge of empathy for the wild creature. To want something that seemed so close, so badly, and not have any idea how to reach it was the loneliest fate imaginable. The wolf was doomed; it did not have a choice, but Chichiri did. And maybe, just maybe, if his advances were accepted and he held Tasuki in his arms, he would finally find the redemption he'd been seeking for so long. He had failed Kouran. It made sense now, that his spirit would not be completely healed until he found the courage to let go of his past and give himself fully to another, as he had not done before.
It took every bit of the strength he had earned through so much pain and suffering, every last shred of his control, but he managed to stand upright on limbs that were trembling.
Tasuki glanced upward with obvious curiosity when the mage stood, but he still said nothing. His golden eyes dropped back down almost immediately. It wasn't until Chichiri had moved close enough to touch him that the redhead looked up again and reacted, stiffening and pulling back slightly, taking a noticeably defensive posture. So quickly did he move that he kicked over a mostly-full bottle of sake, leaving it to spill its remaining contents on the ground unnoticed.
The anxiety in the bandit's golden eyes was enough to put an immediate stop to the mage's advances. Frustrating though it was, apparently Chichiri had already made some sort of mistake in his approach. Better to back off for now and wait for the right moment; assuming he would recognize it when it came.
The monk raised his hands slightly in a pacifying gesture, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for his behavior as he took a step away from the fire seishi.
He never did have to make his excuse; his foot landed squarely on the overturned sake bottle. It rolled beneath him and although it seemed for a few moments as though the graceful man would regain his balance, in the end he went crashing down. Hard. The back of his head struck one of the large stones surrounding their campfire and briefly he found himself seeing the world through a hazy shade of gray.
It was kind of pretty, he decided, like fog, but without the wet and the cold. Swirly, no da.
"Dammit, are you OK? Chichiri!!" Faster than the wind, the wing seishi flew to his friend's side. Gently, he lifted the mage's head and checked for injuries, fingers continuing to stroke the soft sky blue hair long after it became apparent that there was no serious damage.
"Itai…no da…." Chichiri muttered, his vision cleared. His pride had suffered a greater blow than his head.
"You scared the shit outta me!" Tasuki snapped.
The gentle caresses ceased abruptly. Chichiri gasped as the fire seishi gripped his face firmly, brought it to his own and kissed him, hard and quickly. The kiss was more a reprimand than a comfort and the bandit gave him no time to respond.
The next sensation the monk became aware of was still more pain delivered to the back of his abused head when Tasuki dropped it abruptly and backed away as though he couldn't do so quickly enough.
"Tasuki, I – " The monk began, but stopped himself from finishing the statement when he saw the way his friend was staring at him.
The bandit's eyes were filled with disgust.
~End Chapter 5
To Be Continued…