You said
- You raced from Langley –
pulling me underneath a Cherry Blossom canopy
-Do I have-
Of course I have,
Beneath my raincoat,
I have your photographs.
Gold Dust, Tori Amos
Gold Dust.
- Would you kill me if I asked you to?
Ritsuka's sudden question stops Soubi's sketching. The room is filled with golden reddish light: autumn knowingly stares from the canopies of the falling leaves, turning half of Ritsuka's eyes into an auburn crimson wonder.
- Excuse me?
He is not that good at drawing human bodies; that's Kio's speciality, but watching Ritsuka like that, holding his knees, chin against them and gazing at the world behind the window he had not been able to stop himself so he's just trying to capture the moment. Make a memory, if you'd like. At least that is what he is going to say to Ritsuka if he asks.
- If I asked you to kill me, would you do it? If I ordered you to do it?
There's a new band aid over the kid's nose, another 'animal's scratch' at his hand and he's wearing his scarf even inside. Soubi's used to Ritsuka calling him suddenly and not saying nothing over the phone, just his quiet breathing until he asks if it's okay to go and Ritsuka says please. He's still not used to orders and certainly not used of having someone or needing someone and Soubi can't quite blame him. He has needed two persons in his life and he still isn't used to that.
- Why are you asking that?
Ritsuka gets quiet when he arrives in those occasions. It's different when he goes at night. In the nights the young teenager is sometimes angry, sometimes curious, sometimes both. When he goes in the evenings just after six o clock he just seems kind of empty. Soubi can't quite erase the image of Seimei laying down on the grass, book in one hand, also quiet while he was there at his side but he tries to do so anyway because it's different. Seimei didn't like being ignored so he instead ignored Soubi. Ritsuka doesn't like to be alone but he also doesn't like the fact that he calls him and he needs him so he's ashamed. It doesn't matter how many times he has told the young teenager that he doesn't mind and that he is happy to be called.
- Because I want to know.
He doesn't let himself forget that difference. Sometimes it's hard, with Ritsuka growing and sometimes looking so much like Seimei that he has to blink twice to erase that shadow over his eyes, because sights and sounds sometimes pulls him back another year with a different person and it's not fair for Ritsuka. It's like Seimei's way of telling him 'I was here before you. Never forget. I was here'. Soubi thinks that maybe, sometimes, he would like to be able to hate Seimei.
- If it was an order… I'd have to do it. I'd do it and then I'd also die.
Ritsuka's voice is still hollow and he hasn't turned towards him even if his question had kind of freezed Soubi inside, just like the painter was trying to do with the frame of Ritsuka against a gold reddish autumn light. He is not badly hurt, Soubi had checked but he can't do the same on the inside. He wonders if he could hug the young boy or if he would get an order to let him go. He gazes at the half done Ritsuka on paper before leaving it and going towards his master; sits by his side almost but not quite touching; looks outside trying to wonder what tree or leave has caught the teenager's attention.
- And if I ordered you not to die? If I ordered you to keep living?
He feels the boy leaning towards him. Carefully, as to not scare him, he moves his arm and half wraps it over his master's thin shoulders. He thinks that they have a photo like this one just that in the photo they are smiling at Yuiko-chan who's holding the camera and instead of red-gold leaves there were pink-white cherry blossoms petals around. He had pulled Ritsuka under the pink canopy and asked for a memory and later, that night, he had said to the boy that of course ha had his photographs beneath his coat.
- … I would have to obey you, Ritsuka.
He doesn't like to picture that but he can't stop it. Can't help to feel and remember how it was after Seimei died… the emptiness and the nothingness. Soubi isn't sure for how long he was incapable of sleeping or feeling or breathing. It's all a big nothing of gaslights flashing and glowing and fading until there was Ritsuka and then his heart resumed to beat. He caresses carefully the boy's hair, still not looking at him. The sunset's painting everything and soon there'll be shadows over everything else.
- And if I didn't ask you to kill me? If I was in so much pain and I was obviously dying but it was long and hard and suffering… would you do it?
"Enjoy his every smile." Seimei had never really talked much about his little brother. From the beginning, Soubi learned that Ritsuka was of Seimei and even his name was something he couldn't say unless otherwise told. He wasn't sure what Seimei had meant with that until after he met the boy and learned that his smiles were more than a treasure and that somehow when he earned one smile he ached inside better than anything he had ever felt. It was different from when Seimei would compliment him and although he should hate that he didn't. Ritsuka snuggled against him and he tightened his arm.
- Would you like me to do it?
Soubi feels like he's holding gold dust in his hand at the very moment. How did time go so fast? Just a year ago he didn't know Ritsuka. The idea of that scares him a little and not many things do. Sunset time is ending and he has the afterthought that now Ritsuka's eyes are just normal, not auburn-crimson but he doesn't mind. Soubi thinks that maybe Kio's right and he has been spending too much time with the teenager when he has the thought that it's a shame that no one is capable of taking a picture of them right now but for him it isn't a bad thing. And it's better like this… something that only the two of them can have and held. He's the only one that will know how the autumn's sun on Ritsuk's face shines.
- …I think so, yes…
Right now, twilight is holding them in her palm, his fingers against a smooth cheek and soft hair and his own mingling with the dark traces. He wonders if sometime he should let Ritsuka know that he always carries a photograph of him in his wallet but for now, they're just making everything up as they go along. Maybe he will, in another day when he can enjoy Ritsuka's ashamed cries and shouts at him.
- Then yes. I probably would.
Ritsuka turns his head towards him and, just for a moment, smiles.