Chapter Twelve
- - - -
Yuki could have sworn in that moment, that he had never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life.
He felt, suddenly, that he'd spent his entire life living in an unfavorable lie of fantasies. They held no comparison on reality, which held dimensions and sharpness and light hitting skin in places that struck Yuki as impossible. Because any of his intricate fantasies - all he'd ever hoped for and expected to see - suddenly held no comparison to the sight of Kyou, Kyou, standing before him, with his hair ruffled and his cheeks flushed in the chalky light of the moon. His eyes were a swirling mixture of crimson and plum, staring out at Yuki with a firey depth that the prince knew he'd never seen in the boy's eyes before. Yuki found himself swallowing under the heat from Kyou's striking gaze. The cat stood there as a perfect contrast of the frosty moonlight and the deep shadows. He was awestriking, just standing there with his hopeful eyes and... his lips were slightly parted. They held the color of the sunrise.
But the rest of it, those were the things that overwhelmed Yuki. It was something that he could never have imagined, and knew that he would imagine for the rest of his life. Kyou's feet were clad in fine, white socks with laced ends that folded halfway up his trim calves. And then, skin; miles and miles of skin until a field of white frill-layered cotton petticoat, shivering at the midpoint of Kyou's thighs. A deep forest green composed the outer skirt, with a trim of roses that had no stems. It rested at the lowest valley of Kyou's hips. Past his toned abs and bare, inviting flesh, a black, eyelit trimmed corset was laced over an off-the-shoulders peasant top, held together by little bows at the sleeves.
This, thought Yuki breathlessly, must be what Shigure bought at Ayame's shop.
- - - -
"Well, say something, won't you, Yuki?" Kyou blushed, his eyes fixed on his feet. Yuki opened his mouth and wished he could find words, something more coherent than a blustering mumble, even though the entire situation felt incomprehensible and strange.
But, somehow...
"Fine, damnit, I'll leave. Tell Ayame that he can rot in hell," growled Kyou, and Yuki suddenly took in the tenseness at his shoulders and the clenching of his muscles, and his words that spun inside of his head. And the fact that he had just turned around and it looked like the cat was trying to run away, again.
"W-wait!"
Kyou flinched and folded his arms protectively. "What?"
Yuki paused for a moment, before fumbling around for words to say the only thing that mattered. "You - You said my name, you stupid cat."
Yuki observed Kyou's face closely. His eyebrows were knit together in his practiced scowl, his eyes narrowed and his arms at his chest. But maybe - maybe - something had just changed in his expression. Maybe his eyes had truly softened, and not just in Yuki's mind. And perhaps Yuki wasn't tricked by shadows when he saw the boy's foot pause midair before stepping backwards. Maybe Yuki wasn't able to see everything, but what he saw helped him to catch his breath and begin to breathe again - shallow breaths, maybe - but that didn't matter. Kyou had stopped. Kyou had decided to listen to Yuki.
Yuki froze as well, as his own words suddenly became clear. For the first time in years, he'd said something... that held meaning. He'd spoken from his heart.
And suddenly the strength of Kyou's heart radiated warmth throughout Yuki's frost-visited room.
"Yeah..." replied Kyou, softly. Yuki hardly remembered what they were talking about, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was Kyou telling him that... "I did."
When he said that, Yuki felt himself melt. No one had ever been able to say that before. No one had been able to say... that they understood.
That wasn't enough, though, and Kyou knew it. Because suddenly he had stepped forward and reached out and curled his fingers into the cloth of Yuki's sleeves. And suddenly the rat found himself pulled up onto his knees, and Kyou came crashing down on him with a thousand apologies in a single kiss.
Kyou's lips were demanding against his. They were dominating, brash, and fierce, but this was not the kiss of a monster, nor the caress of a kitten, but overwhelming the taste and passion of a boy in love. A swirling headrush of questions screamed through Yuki's head at this sudden thought - love? love? what do you know of love, rat? he's not in love, not with you - yet the overpowering taste of cinnamon tea broke Yuki's resistance.
He felt his eyes flutter close as Kyou drew back for a moment, catching his breath and waiting. Yuki found himself falling forward into the sudden caress, his mind reeling. Because somehow Kyou had proven, without a doubt, that he had chosen this, and had chosen him. The moment passed, and Yuki's world swirled around the boy in front of him with the beauitful, hot, lips that had tentatively moved forward to taste Yuki again. The shock sent invisible ice fingertips racing down Yuki's spine. He shifted forward, awkwardly, moving towards Kyou and the heat, and timidly brought a hand into his blazing red hair.
The strands slid through his fingers like silken yarn. Just as Yuki had always imagined.
Except that this time, he didn't have to imagine a thing.
Abruptly, reality came crashing down and Yuki crushed his cousin-rival-lover in a desperate embrace. His arms snaked out to pull their chests tightly together, their hearst pounding ferociously, and Yuki raised his chin and bent into the kiss. He'd never kissed before, not with another boy, not with Kyou, not outside of a dream.
This? This time, it was undescribably real.
That horrible truth revealed itself - on the basest level of his semi-conscious mind - was that he'd never felt this type of an uncontrollable passion before. And the only other time he'd felt passion at all, had been with Kyou. It was Kyou who always pushed him to be emotional, and hell, no one else had ever been able to come close.
Yuki leaned forward and pressed his lips against Kyou - already soft and swollen large - and he easily parted his mouth with a sudden thrust of his tongue. And then he was tasting Kyou, all that cinnamon, and being overwhelmed by the tastes and heat and incomprehensible closeness that felt increasingly distant. It was never enough.
He moaned into Yuki's mouth, and the rat nibbled on the edge of Kyou's bottom lip for a moment before drawing briefly back.
No, thought Yuki. He shifted upwards and ground his hips firmly against Kyou's.
The next thing that either of them knew, Yuki lay sprawled across Kyou and the floor. Moonlit struck the space between Kyou's spread and stockinged feet, and Yuki moved over him, and they moved together and against each other with panting kisses and quiet moans.
Kyou settled down on the ground across from Yuki, his skirts pooled about him in a tight circle. A corner of his petticoat just barely grazed Yuki's leg. And the zodiac rat found himself embarassed by his rapidly beating heart. Kyou was so very, very close to him...
They had never been this close before when they weren't fighting.
"What's - why are you wearing that thing," said Yuki. His face was still flush, and his shirt had disappeared at some point and landed in a dusty corner of the room. He smelled of sweat and musk. He was revealed. The rat did not like to be open, because it meant that he could be touched by someone else. And the only times in his life when he'd been opened so completely... Akito had destroyed it.
And Yuki was afraid. So afraid that Kyou would come to Yuki so completely open; that he was reading Kyou completelywrong; Afraid because he was so used to hating himself and scared to think it was possible that someone, someone who understood him, didn't hate him at all.
Yuki looked up to Kyou with lidded eyes.
"Nezumi," Kyou murmured, slowly reaching out his trembling hand to touch Yuki's arm. The prince looked up into Kyou's eyes and wondered, vaguely, if Kyou was scared too. Or if, maybe, this was some sort of test between them.
"These - these muddy feelings," the gray-haired boy sat with crossed legs and placed his elbow on his knee, and his head in his hand, "...Why is it that, the things I always have to hide, are about you? I don't know why... But... Since sometimes recently... There have been too many time that they've come up in my mind. They've broken from their lid, I think, depressing all my thoughts.
"I thought it over, maybe, like you did..." Yuki felt himself leaning slightly towards the cat, with lidded eyes, "I thought... when you said you knew the answer... I thought you would hate me. You... you should, hate me. I don't understand why you came back."
Kyou barely had to reach out his arm before he connected with solid flesh. He trailed his fingers down Yuki's forearm until they came to rest lightly on top of his hand.
"You know, Yuki," Kyou whispered, staring once again into the smaller boy's eyes, "It took me four hours to come here, after we fought. You were right. About me being scared. I mean... not like too scared to fight or something. But I'm still weak and.. those feelings are still there. They're uncomfortable for me, too."
Kyou smiled and bowed his head to Yuki's palm. "Last time... This felt so good," he sighed.
"You were drugged," said Yuki.
"Shutup," he hummed through a low growl, "It feels better... when I'm not."
"Yes," agreed Yuki, moving closer to Kyou. Before he even realized what he was doing, Yuki had burrowed his right shoulder into the cat's chest, and had let Kyou draw his hand up to his lips. "You're very warm..." Yuki murmured.
A strong arm pulled the rat in closer against him, and Yuki moved Kyou's head to rest on his shoulder. He then wrapped his arms tightly around the cat and felt a shock of sensation flood his nerves. Their ribs were aligned perfectly, their arms sinking into the folds of fabric and skin that seemed to connect them like jigsaw pieces.
"You're so warm," Kyou nuzzled Yuki's shoulder, and breathed in deeply. "...You smell like the earth."
"I haven't worked in the garden since... since I destroyed it," Yuki mumbled. Kyou kissed Yuki lightly on the palm, and Yuki felt like his world had exploded and beome something entirely new.
Kyou spoke against his palm, "We can plant a new one."
"I don't need to, anymore..." Yuki replied, and leaned back to look Kyou in the eyes. "You're my garden, you stupid cat."
Kyou's laughter rang softly with his sudden purrs. He growled, gently, the words like a caress: "You damn rat."
Yuki's palm drew back and moved to rest on the flat of Kyou's chest.
"Kyou," he began, his eyes falling to rest on a distant shadow in the corner of the room. "You know...I..."
The cat raised his eyes and fixed them firmly into Yuki's. "I love you."
Yuki swallowed. "I think that... Wait. Wait, what did you say?"
"I said 'I love you,'" Kyou repeated, bluntly. "I've loved you so much, for a long time. I don't even know how long, because I can't even remember it all. Everyone always talked about how perfect you were... Because they were right. You're beautiful. And you hated me, and because of what I am, I had to hate you back.It's just... The past two weeks, when I went to Sensei's to train, I couldn't even make it inside without throwing up. It just reminded me that I had to fight you. To try to hurt you... When all it did was prove to me that I'd never be good enough for you... It hurt so much... That it made me sick." Kyou paused and brought the back of his hand up to his eyes.
A tear leaked through his pressed fingers. Yuki averted his eyes in discomfort, made even worse from the fact that tears had long ago come to rest at the edges of his eyes.
Silence settled over the pair like a blanket, and Yuki sighed inaudibly. He shuffled his knees forward and rested his head in the crook of Kyou's neck. For some reason he could barely understand, a feeling of strength and protection emanated from the boy's skin.
"Just... Don't do something stupid like that again," the violet-haired boy said at last, "I can't feed you anything to make you get better, now that my garden is gone." His eyes fluttered to a close. "So just don't do anything stupid."
Kyou looked down at Yuki and in spite of himself, he felt his crimson eyes crinkle at the edges. He ruffled the boy's violet hair and trailed his fingers down his alabaster skin. The rat snuggled closer against him in reply.
"Alright," Kyou said, and smiled, for what felt like the first time in his life.
"... I promise."
A/N: Lanie would like to ask the kindly audience to refrain from excessive anger at the wait for the forementioned chapter. Lanie also hopes for kind response, but in any case, requests that the flamer keeps in mind that there is one chapter left after this one. She would also like to apologize for the ridiculous wait...