It stormed the entire night. When I woke up, I was hoping I would be in his arms. He held me so tightly after he came his first round inside me, and rested his head on mine for so long, that I thought I had never seen him more vulnerable at any point in his life. For a while I think he was holding me in his sleep, as though he never wanted to let me go. As if he wanted to possess me the rest of his life. And I had never felt so fulfilled and safe in my life as I had at that time.
Or maybe that was the Sandman wrecking his justice for my crimes. And if it wasn't, only the Sandman knows what he was thinking.
Subaru awoke alone in Seishirou's bed, shifting between the sheets and burying his face in Seishirou's vacated pillow to inhale the other man's scent, which, compared to his scent during waking hours, was far more tinged with blood, sakura, and soap. Seishirou's pillow was still damp and smelled strongly of the shampoo with which Subaru had washed his hair the previous night. Like Subaru's sheets, Seishirou's breathed secondhand smoke and musty cologne; this morning, they also hinted sweat and semen.
The Sandman sees everything. And the Sandman never sleeps.
Subaru stroked Seishirou's pillow and inhaled, resting his cheek against the cool, damp fabric and hugging it above his head, gingerly avoiding placing weight on his injured arm. He was sore as all hell in more places than one and, though he was sure he had flushed all of the semen and lubricant out of his system in the shower last night, he still felt uncommonly sticky between his legs. He was leaden and lethargic, wanting to burrow into their now-communal nest of cool, heavy blankets and nestle into both Seishirou's individual scent and the scent of their sex. His bandaged arm brushed his cheek; he remembered Seishirou meticulously cleaning and sewing his injured arm, his eyeglasses and gentle, knowledgeable demeanor reminding Subaru far too much of the veterinarian with whom he had fallen in love nine years ago. He reminded Subaru of a man who did not exist.
Subaru never wanted to forget any of this. The exact balance of scents, the dry, clean texture of linen, the exact weight of Seishirou's comforter, the temperature and low light-level in the room, the view of the room from every angle he turned his head, from nightstand to opposite wall—everything. He spent what seemed like hours memorizing and immersing himself in every facet of his position, cataloging Seishirou's personal world, a world which had sheltered him and their actions the previous night, all corners and objects in the room watching accusingly, pointedly, extensions on their masters' behalf.
Right now, it was theirs.
Subaru was finally goaded out of bed to use the restroom, aware that if he did not take this opportunity to stay awake he would languish in the bed until Seishirou came in to see if he was still alive. He washed his hands and face and stared at his haggard, forlorn reflection, still very much his own, still with the off-center, half-blind gaze he associated with Seishirou, but very much aware of the previous night. The door to Seishirou's shower-room was reflected over Subaru's right shoulder; Subaru stared at it, wondering if the shower curtain was still in its same position, the bottle of shampoo still knocked over, the tiles still damp. He sighed heavily and, after borrowing Seishirou's suction cup and wash solution to clean his prosthetic eye, forced himself out of the bathroom lest he get caught up and waste more time, found his boxers under the bed and pulled them on, and walked out to the kitchen.
It was apparently not as late as Subaru thought it was. The sun was still well before its midday zenith, and Seishirou was seated at the kitchen table clad only in his pants, smoking and looking out the window; his movements and posture vague. As Subaru moved through the doorway Seishirou looked up with a faint, nearly-invisible flicker of…something, though what exactly Subaru did not know… before the flicker dissipated in place of his usual countenance and he slid his cigarette package across the table toward Subaru, nodding toward his kitchen. Subaru caught the package and pulled out a cigarette.
"There's food in there, if you want. I made a full breakfast for us, but since you were so long in coming out I set most of the dishes back there. Plates are in the second cabinet from the fridge."
"I'm not hungry. Do you have a light?"
"I can't see how that possibly is, Subaru-kun." Seishirou flicked his lighter and held it up to the end of Subaru's cigarette as the latter leaned over the table. Subaru sat down and sighed, exhaling smoke, relieved that his nicotine reserves were finally being replenished. "You should have worked up quite an appetite last night."
"Hm."
"Besides, I went to all of this effort to cook for you; the least you can do is humor me, Subaru-kun." Seishirou leaned on his hand and smiled. "Do you want to hurt my feelings?"
Subaru glared at Seishirou groggily. "…it would be a nice change of pace."
"Oh, Subaru-kun, you can't hold grudges like this for so long. The past is behind us. Don't you think it's about time you let all of this business about your sister go? It's been over eight years."
"It's been over eight by ten months, and Nee-san is not the only issue I have with you."
"You keep obsessively meticulous records." Seishirou arched his eyebrows. "Are these the kind of things you bring up with the man you just lost your virginity to? Not very polite, given the circumstances." Seishirou laughed quietly. Subaru narrowed his eyes. "You know, for a virgin, Subaru-kun, you must be a natural or something."
"You said that several times last night."
"Did I?"
"And who did you lose your virginity to, Seishirou-san?"
"My mother."
Subaru rolled his eyes and tapped his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray. Seishirou was leaning on his hand and watching with a smoldering grin. "Oh, I must have forgotten about that."
"She taught me well, wouldn't you say?"
Whoever taught this man taught him pretty damn well. Subaru took a long drag of his cigarette and stared out the window pointedly, remembering clearly the previous night. Molten lead surged through his core. He closed his eyes and took a quiet breath, warding off an impending arousal. You blew my mind, Seishirou-san. You know it; I don't need to give you the satisfaction of hearing me say it.
Somebody had once told Subaru that after having sex with somebody, it was far more comfortable to sit in the same room together in silence; now he understand exactly what she had meant. Seishirou walked into the kitchen and started fixing Subaru a plate of cold breakfast food while Subaru walked to the closet and rummaged in his coat pockets for his cell phone, finding Erik's necklace in the process. The blood on the left sleeve along the rips had long since dried.
Subaru stared at the necklace for a long time.
"…Seishirou-san…"
Seishirou set Subaru's plate on the table and looked up, waiting. Subaru watched him quietly, terrified of asking the question, terrified of getting an answer. Terrified of breaking the silence.
He knew the answer before Seishirou said it.
"You lose again, Subaru-kun."
There's this little secret I really haven't told anybody about, Nee-san. I don't think you would be so proud of me if you knew about it. When I was seventeen, I overdosed on sleeping pills. The doctors said I was lucky not to have dropped into a permanent coma. That was the goal, though. I wasn't trying to kill myself; that would be giving up on my true wish before it had any chance to occur. At least I care about myself enough to want my wish, right?
Right, Nee-san?
Somebody once told me: "A dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep." I wanted my dreams, those wishes that only came true when I was asleep, to be my new reality. I never wanted to wake up. You see, the Sandman knows what you most desire, and he can only break your heart if he can take away your fantasies when morning comes. Even if I had as many nightmares as I had good dreams, they were nightmares because they involved Seishirou-san, and at least part of the time, he was there. And that was all that mattered. The nightmares I feared most were the ones where Seishirou-san was gone forever. But the chance that I might spend an eternity with 'him' in my dreams was worth it.
When I did wake up in the hospital, and I remembered that you had scarified your life to pull me out of a 'sleep' like the one I had tried to drown myself in with the pills, I felt worse than I had ever felt in my life. Worse than when Seishirou-san lost his eye, because this time, it had been my actions that had been at fault for what happened.
It was then that I finally decided to let the Sandman rule the night, and I would live during the day, no matter how hard it was. This division is my relief and my torture. The Kamui of the Dragons of Earth can only grant my last-ditch wishes, those wishes I made given this 'reality' as it is. He can never grant the deepest, most impossible wish in my heart.
I just want to go home.
I guess this is where I keep that promise to you, Monsieur Erik. I wasn't able to change him after all.
Subaru leaned over a bridge railing at the Sakurazuka family shrine, staring into the icy water, slush broken by rocks and flows within the current. The orange-and-black koi that once populated the brook had fled, leaving a desolate flow dappled by eternally-blooming sakura blossoms. He had caught a drifting blossom and was pressing it against his lips, hugging himself tightly against the cold in his thin coat.
This is where I begin and end. Me, Sumeragi Subaru; I'm tied to this place, this lineage. This is where the man I love was born a raised; this is where he was made who he is today. This, and the government training facilities, is where his identity was shaped. This is where his mother aided in creating the psychopath. This hallowed ground is where his mother taught him to make love as he did to me, taught him to be cold and indifferent, taught him that he has no identity of his own. No emotions, no feeling. Nothing. This is where the course of my life, and my identity, was shaped, along with his. And perhaps this is the only place he has ever, in his entire life, been influenced. I would like to think the Sumeragi shrine holds the same cradle of identity for him as his shrine does to me, but I imagine he would just admire our fish and flowers, and walk on.
Never looking back.
But this is the cradle of my identity, and I have done a lot of thinking these past few weeks, Monsieur. The things which influence us have as much bearing on our identity as the nature with which we were born, and that influence spreads like a ripple through everybody we meet in this life. And we're all interconnected through lines and lines of history, occurrences time cannot number and quantify. The day a man decided to make the Sakurazuka line the heartless killers they are, that man decided the identity of Sumeragi Subaru thirteen generations later.
I have slowly come to believe in a pre-ordained fate, for how else could this have been determined? It is too maddening to think anything else is possible. Or, maybe, I've always been predisposed to this, sort of. Nee-san always said I loved everybody outside of myself, but had no sense of what was in my own heart. Maybe as long as I've been alive I haven't had much of an idea of who I really am.
But I have also come to see who I am beyond all of this, maybe just a little bit. And maybe that's my small salvation. Because the more I know about myself and the hold Seishirou-san has over me, the more I can see where he ends and I begin. I, Sumeragi Subaru, who stands alone. The Subaru Hokuto and Kamui and everybody else sees in me, those who have no idea who Sakurazuka Seishirou is. And the way I shaped myself after Seishirou-san… is my reaction. Is the reaction of that 'Subaru' that was always there. In that way, the two are inseparable. That 'Subaru' is a product of Seishirou, but I think there are three people on this earth who have seen past that 'Subaru' to one that lies deeper, one that was there since my birth, before my fate had shaped me into what I am today.
And I would very much like to talk to all of them and get to know myself better.
Despite all of this thinking and all of the things I've straightened out with myself, I am still the captive of the sakura, and the Sandman has passed no merciful judgment over me. I guess, if anything, what I did shot myself in the foot; the dreams have gotten worse. And I'm even more captive than I once was.
I wonder how deep my obsession can get. My 'wish' is for him to kill me; I wonder what exactly that says about my sense of identity. I would love nothing more than to die in his arms, thinking only of him, forever one of his collection of souls. Even if he forgot me the very next day. Even if I was nothing but another soul in millions whose names he cannot remember. I'm afraid if this keeps up, I'll drop out of this world altogether someday. I don't think I would be able to live if he ever walked out of my life. God, that thought scares me. I'm so obsessed with Seishirou-san that if he ever left, I would cease to exist. I'd stop caring.
I want to figure things out before that happens. Because, I think, for the first time in almost eight years, I care enough to do that. And I think you had a hand in waking me up to get to that state. It's… kind of a scary road to walk down, and I feel so alone when I do it, like I've lost everything that makes my life anything worthwhile, everything that makes Sumeragi Subaru, but I think I'm ready to start taking some small steps in that direction. And, in a sense, it makes me feel so alive in a way I haven't been in a long time. Maybe I'm scared of that feeling of living anymore. Or something. Kind of like when you burn yourself and you're afraid to touch metal for a long time.
Thank you.
I want you to have this, now.
Subaru pulled Christine's necklace out of his pocket and held it over the brook by its chain. It swung slightly with its drop-momentum.
I hope you found salvation in heaven, Monsieur Erik. I believe your soul rests with Madame Christine's and my sister's, now. Maybe, someday, if I am able to join you, I will see you again. And I hope somebody will join me to stand by my side in heaven. Maybe then, finally, I can leave a mark on his soul.
"That poor boy is sorely mistaken about how he stands with you."
"They say nothing is as painful as unrequited love."
"I think that's pretty relative when you get right down to it."
"Why? You, of all people, should be agreeing with me, Monsieur."
Erik knelt in the slushy brook and retrieved Christine's necklace from a reed-bed, cradling the precious jewelry in his translucent hands. His face was still fully-healed. Seishirou smiled and flicked a dead cigarette from between his fingers, clumsily due to friction from his leather gloves.
"Foolish boy. I gave this to him so I'd never pick it back up. Now I'll never work up the willpower to get rid of it again." Erik turned the ring over in his hands for a moment, thinking, before he looked up sharply and stared at Seishirou.
"You shield-spelled this. That's why… but when did you do this?"
Seishirou smiled quietly. Erik shook his head and looped the necklace around his neck.
"I have a question for you, Sakurazuka-san."
"What is it?"
"Do you think all people who do bad things are just lonely?"
Seishirou shrugged. "I honestly wouldn't know."
"I see."
Erik straightened and stared at Seishirou for a long time, then smiled to himself. Seishirou stared back at him.
"What?"
"The Sandman will be your judge too, Sakurazuka-san."
Seishirou stared at Erik. The ghost touched the brim of his Fedora and bowed, returning to the afterlife.
"God grant you peace, Sakurazuka-san. God knows you need it."