A feces quote:
"Groundation bringeth the dawn of a new day's inspiration and perspiration."
And reading the shakespearean english of the tradgedy othello, hath brought about ye olde english accent for yea even the warnings. Tis' madness indeed.
Read on good countrymen...The angst demon hath spoken. (cough cough)
...Where doth thine eyes wander? Would the kind and most goodly noble readers of mine own humble drivel thus carry on their eyes to wander upon the most prettily printed words beneath?
T'would make me most grateful.
Perhaps I shall find one such way to fix this such mangled up matter of speech...Fie upon this tongue of mine! That it were more like thine own!
(mutters in renniscence style english)
warnings: ye typical harmless shounan-ai smack of the lips betw'eenst two such youthly men, ye angsty flashback, ye psycological head crap, yonder self inflicted pain, and yea even diary-style writing in the most goodly noble italics. Yonder angst should'st be exceedingly fine, though't may be mingled with the most unsettling fluff. Beware thine eyes might see'st yonder frightening script near't the end.
(translation: shounan-ai kissing-obviously between two guys, angsty flashback to what Tsukasa was doing when he was unconscious--basically a dream scenario...or is it?--, psycological crap about emotions, machoistic tendancies, and Tsukasa-kun writing rampant bemoanings in a diary (shown in italics)...lots of angst with what I think classifies as a touch of fluff. Loooooong note at the end, including reveiw responses. The whole ball of entrails.)
Ah to give forth one final note!
though seemingly out of character, thine humble servant meant no harm! Tis but a dream. And if thine own dreams are not out of character for nary an instant, then fie upon thee!
(translation: the 'dream scene' may seem out of character and confusing, but dreams ARE confusing by nature...if nobody here's had a dream they don't quite understand at least once in their life then they can tell me to kiss their ass, and I'll humbly apologize. The dream is important...so payest thine attention knave! (throws chalk at Itsuki for no apparent reason)
Itsuki?
Nf: (rants and rails in shakespearean english) )
disclaimer: The poem technically is allowed...to my knowledge...unless someone made it into a song (cackles at the loophole) It comes from my mini poe collection book 'the raven and other poems' It is an excerpt from Poe's poem 'Dreams' from the 'scholastic classics' collection, copyright 2000. Like I said. Not mine. Nyeh. If I put in my own poetry, you would know.
"Oh! That my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awak'ning till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow;
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
Twere better than the dull reality
Of waking life to him whose heart shall be,
And hath been ever, on the chilly earth,
A chaos of deep passion from his birth!"
-Edgar Allen Poe: Dreams
the past:
So sleepy...
Sleepy...
He could sleep here forever. Here he would be safe...but why was it so cold all of a sudden? It was so dark...it hadn't been that way when he had passed out...
It was so dark here...so dark...and cold...
Wait a second! Where was he! Tsukasa opened his eyes, and raised himself from the icy ground...if it was ground at all...it felt icy and real beneath his feet but he couldn't see anything, not where it began, not where it ended, Nothing. All black, and dark, cold and empty. He stretched out his arms, searching for something like a wall or a peice of furniture. There was nothing. He was shivering. He rubbed his arms, alarmed. Where was the house? Where were his clothes! Where was Tomonori? "Tomonori-san! Tomonori-san! Where are you!" There was no reply. No reply at all except his own plantive voice calling back to him. Of course there was no reply! He had left him! He would never see him again! Tsukasa shivered again, feeling a lump growing in his throat as he remembered the events before he found himself here, wrapping his arms around his slender, shaking form. He trembled like a leaf as he sank down to the icy ground. Naked, cold, and alone. "Tomonori-san..." he whispered. A tear slipped down his face. Unexpectedly hot in this cold place. Scalding tears were dripping down his face as his huddled in a little trembling ball. He wept silently, rocking back and forth. Why did he even try to call for him! After what he had just done, Tomonori would never come for him! He choked down a sob. "no..." He whispered. But it was true. He had betrayed his trust! He wasn't supposed to fall in love with Tomonori--None of this was supposed to happen! Tsukasa mumbled through his tears. "It's not my fault...I can't help it."
'Yes you can!' Shouted his mind back at him.'You didn't HAVE to kiss him! If you had just sat there and waited for it all to pass, he wouldn't have left you! This is all your fault!'
"I know..." he whispered back, tears still streaming down his face. "I know...this is all my fault." He tried to wipe his eyes, but the tears kept coming. "Why did I even think Tomonori-san would... I'm sick. I'm a sick, twisted, horrible person. I'm a murderer. A stupid, selfish, deformed murderer! I'm NOTHING!" He screamed. The horrible cold blackness gave no reply, not even an echo this time, just more coldness. Tsukasa felt the tears cooling as they dripped from his chin and slid down his throat, leaving trails of icy wetness where they had been. He could feel them turning to lacy frost against his skin, freezing with a cold that sliced deeper than blades made of the sharpest steel. "Oh Tomonori-san...I'm so sorry..." he whispered. He felt fresh tears slipping down his face.
'He hates me. I don't care what he said! He MUST hate me after all of this! I hurt him! And...I liked it too! I'm so disgusting! I'm EVIL!' He choked on another horrible sob.
Tsukasa
He jerked suddenly. "Tomonori-san?" Hope made his heart beat fast...that voice...was he coming? Was he coming for him? He searched through that suffocating cold blackness, hoping to find him, groping with his hands, searching with his eyes--he could see himself, see hisown body, could he see if Tomonori was coming? He strained, listening for footsteps, fingers straining to touch what came close... Nothing. There was no other sound than him hiccuping from crying so much. Nothing to feel other than the cold air in his fingertips. He wanted to kick himself. "Idiot!" He visciously directed at himself. 'Tomonori-san's not coming for you. You're a stupid deformed hideous ALIEN. He hates you. He never wants to see you again. You make him VOMIT!'
"STUPID!" He shouted at himself. He drove his fingernails into the outline of a scar that he could feel on his back. He whimpered in pain at what he was preparing to do. But it only made him loathe his own weakness more for making the pathetic noise 'You're so WEAK! You deserve this! You hurt so many people, you deserve to feel what you did to them!' He ripped the skin with his nails, peircing the smooth scarred skin, and flaying it back. He could feel the heat of blood, the stickiness beneath the skin he pulled away. He gave a cry of pain, but cut himself short with a growl. "You're so weak. Take your punishment! You deserve it! Don't pretend that you don't! You could never be good enough anyway, and you dared to HURT Tomonori-san! You're a monster! You're a murderer!" His nails tore flesh again. He cried out in pain, cutting off the viscious words he shot into his thoughts. He screamed himself down in his mind all the more for his inability to voice what he felt. Blood dripped from the wound. Slivers of red-drenched ruined skin clung to his blood drenched hand. He gave exhausted sobs. The scarred remnents of his wings dripping crimson pearls down his back, hot with pain. The pain cut a deep knife into him, deeper than the cold with it's hot lash of agony. Fire throbbed in his shoulder, a pain at once excruciating and releiving. A machoistic sense of payment. Blood atonement. He gritted his teeth. He deserved to feel that pain AGAIN! Those extra limbs torn away...he deserved that! He deserved it all for what he had done! He moved his fingertips in a twisted caress of nails on his back. He could feel the blood drying beneath his fingernails, caking on his hands. He twisted his expression away from one of pain, into a pure form of self hate unlike anything his face had ever shown before. The tears spilling from his eyes froze his skin while pain throbbed an excruciating heat from his back.
He growled at himself through his exhausted sobs. The growl was a low, keening wail, a wail of pain, of sadness, of anger, and the deep directed anger of betrayal. He had betrayed his master when he murdered her father, and now he had betrayed Tomonori by losing control of his feelings. He would destroy himself from the inside out before he ever let himself get away with what he had done. He would kill himself before he ever hurt either of them again! He dug those once perfect, now stained ovals of keratin into the other scar. Tears coursed down his face as he heard his voice cry out in a pathetic whimper. How could he? How could he have ever hurt someone that kind, that gentle to him? Tears burned under his eyelids. "TOMONORI-SAN!" The scream became agony as the fingernails raked away the rest of the ruined skin. He collapsed, fingers stained with deep, dark crimson. He sobbed into his arms. He was so alone. IT was his own fault that he was alone. He had caused this agony for himself. He deserved this!
Blood trickled between his shoulderblades, over them, down to his waist. Painting his back in red. Tsukasa sobbed wretchedly.
"...how could I?...How could I?" He whimpered to himself. Nobody would-
Tsukasa...
save him now...he wept with soft little pathetic whimpers. Why did he keep on thinking that Tomonori would ever come and save him? It was his own fault that he had left. He was never coming back for him! "I'm so sorry." He whispered. He would always be alone for this, and when his back healed, he intended to reopen them again. He would never forgive himself for-
"shhh..." Warmth surrounded him. Familiar arms encircled him, picking him up from the ground, embracing him. "Don't cry." came a breathed whisper into his hair, close to his ear. Tsukasa gasped, his vision blurry with tears, wide eyed, gaping at the vision before him. This wasn't possible...it couldn't be! "T-Tomonori-san!" It COULDN'T be! But there he was. Tomonori held him softly, as though he would break if he held him tightly. "Yes...I'm here." He embraced him gently, then his fingers came away sticky with blood. He gave a soft noise, then backed away in surprise. Tsukasa cast away his eyes. Yes, that would be fitting. Tomonori had come, and now he would leave forever..it would make his punishment more full if he- He was abruptly interrupted in his thoughts. Tomonori held up a moist rag, his hand warm against Tsukasa's cheek, tilting his face up to him. " Let's clean you off." He said quietly. Tsukasa gasped, suddenly so afraid that his knees gave way. He twisted out of Tomonori's grasp, scrambling backwards on all fours. "N-No! You can't touch me! Why are you here? You left me...NO! I-I'm too dirty! Y-You can't!" Tomonori's eyes widened slightly, then were hidden again, unease didn't leave his expression though. His voice was cautious."Tsukasa, You have to let me clean you...if you don't stop bleeding soon-" Tsukasa gave a cry of terror, cutting him off.
"N-no! I can't let you...it'll make you dirty! D-Don't touch me! You'll get dirty! I-" Tomonori took his chin in his hand, forcing him to look in his eyes. "Tsukasa. I have to clean your wounds." Tsukasa stared into his eyes with nothing short of animal fear in his eyes. His heart beat harder at the gentleness and tenderness the human was showing him. He couldn't make himself speak for a moment, but he regained his voice when Tomonori made to wipe away the blood on his shoulders. He jerked away, stammering, "B-But...I'm so...I'm so deformed! How can you even stand to...!" Tomonori cut him off, rendering him speechless as he broke the distance, and held him close, holding him tightly as though to keep him from escaping. So warm after all that horrible coldness. Tsukasa felt so safe in that embrace. So much like he belonged there. He wanted to let Tomonori clean his wounds, he really did! He wanted to stay in that embrace forever...But he was so dirty! He was so disgusting! How could Tomonori stand to let such filth soil him?
"Tsukasa..." Tsukasa looked up at him. His eyes were as black as the darkness that surrounded him. But instead of a gaping cold there, he could feel the warmth in Tomonori. It was far more comforting than the hot painful throbbing in his shoulders. "You have to let me help you...you have to come back."
Tsukasa felt fear jolt through his spine. Come back to what? ...this wasn't real then...but...NO! He NEVER wanted to go back! Despite the cold blackness here, it was safe! He couldn't leave! This was only a dream! Tomonori wasn't really back! He couldn't possibly...
"Tsukasa?" Tsukasa was frightened, but if he said no, Tomonori might leave forever here as well as in the real world! He didn't want to lose him again! "I'll be with you the whole time." Tomonori said softly, cradling his form against him. Tsukasa felt a blush creep over his face. "... Tomonori-san." he managed to whimper. Tears trickled from his eyes. Tomonori shifted until he was behind him, and knelt down. "I have to clean you...it isn't healthy for you to let such guilt stain you...let me help you. Please Tsukasa." Tsukasa couldn't look away from him when he asked with the rare 'please' so uncommon in his speech. The gentlness in those eyes couldn't possibly mean him any harm. "Will you let me clean you off?" Tsukasa could feel a lump in his throat. Fresh tears trickled from his eyes. He buried his head in Tomonori's shoulder, holding on to him so he wouldn't slip away and leave. He choked back a sob, then caught his voice. "O-Okay...Tomonori-san..." Tomonori gave him a slight smile and a nod. He allowed Tsukasa to cry into him until his sobs were further aparent and he was giving teary hiccups, then he disentangled Tsukasa's arms from him, and moved around so he could kneel behind him. Tsukasa felt suddenly frightened, craning his neck to make sure that Tomonori didn't dissapear when he wasn't watching. "Tsukasa..." Tomonori paused, then touched his arm breifly, reassuring him. "I'm not going to vanish...you have to trust me." Tsukasa hesitated, then forced himself not to look. It took all of his willpower not to whirl around and make sure Tomonori was still there. There was an awful moment where nothing seemed to happen... then Tsukasa could feel something moist dabbing away the drying blood. He gave a sigh of releif. Oddly enough, unlike his tears, the dabbles of the rag didn't leave liquid ice trails on his back, but rather the damp cloth was warm. It glowed with heat on his body, comforting him with the faint heat lingering in his skin. He felt so ashamed suddenly. For what he had done to Tomonori, for what he had done to himself, for his nakedness...for everything! "How can you still bear to touch me Tomonori-san?" He asked quietly, tears of humiliation coursing down his cheeks. He could feel that heat radiating form draw closer to him. A blush glimmered amidst the tears on his face. Tomonori's breath stirred the hairs by his ear. His hand touched Tsukasa's face, smoothing his bangsfrom behind, making his insides give a sudden squirm. "Do you think I don't care about you Tsukasa?" Tomonori whispered to him, he sounded rather surprised, even mildly hurt. Tsukasa blushed deeper, stammering that he never meant something like that! He felt something ache inside him. 'Stop it you freak! He doesn't mean it that way...but at least it means that I'll have a friend amidst all of this...' Tsukasa faintly smiled at Tomonori, using a hand to wipe away his tears. "That's my angel." Tomonori said when he caught Tsukasa's teary smile. He touched a tear on his face, ignoring the sudden redness of Tsukasa's face. "No more of these." He said, a teardrop balenced on one of his slim fingertips. Tsukasa could feel him binding his shoulders. Wrapping his whole upper torso in warm, dry bandages He pulled out a blanket from some unknown place and wrapped it around Tsukasa's naked body, covering him. He scooped him up in his arms. "Lets get you back to reality." Tomonori said, looking down at Tsukasa's wide surprised eyes. "B-But Tomonori-san-!" He suddenly gasped as Tomonori shifted his grip to tousle his hair and cup a hand around Tsukasa's tearstained cheek with his fingertips. He kissed his forehead suddenly "I've been worried." He said with a soft smile. Tsukasa was unable to speak. Blushing a brilliant crimson. His voice had left him when his voicebox had been replaced by his heart. The poor overworked organ was likely pumping all of that extra blood into his blushing face. "...Y-You don't hate me? You aren't mad? You really don't mind that I...?" Tomonori smiled down at him. "I told you," He embraced the shivering figure, pulling him closer to him. "I could never hate you. I never will either...Am I mad? Do I look mad?" Tsukasa shook his head, eyes large. "but..." Tomonori let go of him. Tsukasa shivered into his blanket, pulling it tighter around him. Tomonori tilted up Tsukasa's suddenly blushing face to look at him. "If I say I could never hate you, it is an unconditional statement Tsukasa...I am by your side here, and I am by your side in reality." Tsukasa looked into his eyes. They were just as guarded here as they were in the real world, but his hand was warm against his cheek. He felt so real...he couldn't possibly be lying to him...but...with him in real life? He couldn't be...could he? "I need you to come back to me Tsukasa. Please don't hide from me. I need you to wake up." Tsukasa shook his head, tears suddenly in his eyes. "But...what if you hate me in the real world, what if I wake up and you're not there?" Tomonori suddenly grabbed his hand. "Tsukasa...I PROMISE I will be there." Tsukasa looked away. Tomonori pulled him back to look him in the eye. "Tsukasa...You have to trust me, I NEED you to come back."Tsukasa shook his head free. No matter what this Tomonori said, he couldn't beleive him. "You're just one of my dreams...my wishes...let go of me!" He pulled his hand free, tears streamed down his face. "I'm never going back!" He felt more tears coming down his face. "Never...If you're here I can just stay here with you...I don't want you to hate me in the real world...not after you're so nice to me here..." He whispered. Tomonori's arms were around him in an instant. He felt so warm, so real, Tsukasa wanted him to be, so badly, but he wasn't. He couldn't be...could he? "But I'm waiting for you...I'm right beside you now...waiting for you to open your eyes..." Tomonori murmured in his ear. Tsukasa's heart beat faster, his breath catching in his throat at those soft words "Tsukasa...I know I can't convince you that I am real...here I may not be, but I am calling to you. And that is why I am here now like this...I want you to come back to me...you don't belong in this darkness. You don't deserve to be cold and alone...anything is better than imprisoning yourself here...please. Come back to me." Tsukasa felt more tears slipping past his eyelashes. His heart was breaking just listening to him, he sounded so real. He sounded so beleivable. "Why? ...Tomonori-san...maybe you can be strong in this world, but I can't be...I don't belong there."
"Yes you do." Tomonori insisted patiently. Tsukasa made a noise of frustration, pushing away Tomonori's arms. The chill bit into him as soon as they were gone. "NO! No I DON'T! I'm a murderer! I'm deformed! I'm not even human! Why can't you just leave me here!" He cried out, feeling so confused, and frustrated and scared. He felt himself crying again. Since when had he been so emotional! Would he ever stop crying? Tomonori stepped close to him, lowering his head to Tsukasa's level. His eyes filled with such tender sadness that Tsukasa felt suddenly bad for what he had done, for what he had said, guilty. "When did I ever call you any of those things?" Tsukasa's frustration evaporated, staring at Tomonori. "You are an angel. You belong here, on earth, with me. And I don't think you are deformed. Murderer? Before you were mindbreaked perhaps, but to me..." He smoothed Tsukasa's blond hair. "You have been nothing but an innocent, and beautiful young creature." Tsukasa could feel his heart aching, moved to tears by the wonderful things that Tomonori had called him. Tomonori held out a hand. "Won't you come back to me Tsukasa? I'll be so lonely without you..." Tsukasa gave a sob. "Oh Tomonori-san!" He flung his arms around Tomonori and buried his head in his shoulder sobbing. HIs blanket fell around his ankles. But he didn't care. This Tomonori was being so kind to him, giving him his touch...continuing to embrace him...this had to be a dream. Tomonori wouldn't have given him so much physical contact in the real world...this had to be a fantasy born of nightmare... "I wish you were really like this...I wish you were the real Tomonori-san..." Tomonori held him in return, looking at him. "But I am...the original's always better than a copy, but..." He hesitated momentarily as thoguh thinking--much as Tomonori would have done in reality. "I am like this with you now, because this is how you see me..." He smiled at Tsukasa "You are the reason I seem so wonderful...I'll be just the same to you when you return...but it is you who have allowed me to treat you well..." Tsukasa trembled, clutching him. "Ohhhh..." He breathed. Just the same...he would be just the same in reality?...would he hold him so tenderly in reality? "Will you come back?" Tomonori asked quietly. Tsukasa held him tightly. He didn't want to be stuck in this coldness forever, even if he had Tomonori by his side. Even if they were together here, he wanted to be with the real one more...this one was controlled by his mind...He would never do something unpredictable like Tomonori did in the real world...
The original WAS better that the copy...even if the copy was wonderful. Even if Tomonori would never love him in reality...or even here...at least it would be him.
"of course...Of course I will...Oh my dear Tomonori-san, you're always so good to me..." Tsukasa took his hand, wiping his tears with the other. "I am ready to go back now." Tomonori nodded, squeezing his hand. He bent down pulling the blanket to cover him. Head turned discreetly. Tsukasa took it gratefully, blushing as he covered himself. "Then follow me." Tomonori seemed somewhat sadder though...different somehow... Tsukasa followed behind him, holding the blanket around his hips, covering himself with his right hand while his left was in Tomonori's. Tomonori led him by the hand. He couldn't seem to get over that-Tomonori was holding his hand! But something had changed...Tomonori seemed to become sadder and sadder as they came closer to light, and to reality. The air didn't seem so dark anymore. The surroundings less stuffy, but the closer they came, the more Tomonori seemd to change...The more he seemed out of character. Tsukasa was filled with thoughts along the way. What he would say, what he would do once he got into the real world again, but all too soon, they were on the very threshold of that beautiful glowing light. "Oh...it's so pretty..." Tomonori smiled at his wonder, but said nothing, looking away. Tsukasa suddenly tugged his hand like a child. "...Tomonori-san, will you really be there when I wake up?" Tomonori looked at him, then his face seemed to droop downward in sadness. He nodded. "Tomonori-san?" Tomonori looked at him. Tsukasa swallowed, trying to choose his words. "Is something wrong?" Tomonori sighed. "In a way...you may never see me again...I'm there...but not me." Tsukasa blinked, shocked. "What? But you said you were..."
"I am right beside you. But...THIS me," He pointed to himself. "If the version of me in reality never speaks...never admits that I exist...that I am part of him...I will be lost to you forever." Tsukasa's eyes widened. "but I don't want to lose you, any of you, Tomonori-san!" Tomonori looked away. "But I want to lose YOU even less...all of your Tomonori-san...not just me...he doesn't want to lose you, just like I don't...so..." He sighed. " Tsukasa. You must go. Even if it means that this is the last time you'll see this part of me..." Tsukasa looked at him. Tomonori held him close "I love you." Tsukasa's eyes widened "T-Tomonori-san?" Tomonori's face controrted into an expression of greif. "You may never see this part of me-of him I mean-ever again...but I want you to know...there is some part of him out there, that feels the same way to you, that you do for him. This is the first time he has ever shown me to you...and beleive me..." He squeezed Tsukasa tightly, nearly crushing the breath from him. Very unlike Tomonori in real life. "I wish it could last forever...but you need to return." Tsukasa felt tears burning in his eyes "But if we...you...him...me...if we never..." Tomonori's lips trembled. His eyes were far too open, there was nothing there to hold back his emotions. The person speaking to him had no emotional guard, it felt almost like an imposter, but his soul seemed the same. The light in his eyes was the same. It was Tomonori...some part of him...a part of him that he had never seen before. "Oh...my dear Tsukasa...please know this, I love you...And the complete one you go to feels the same...somewhere...that somewhere is me-by my very existance it proves it...There will always be part that loves you deeply. Bless you, dear angel." He kissed him softly, gently touching their lips together for a breif instant. Tsukasa's heart stopped, then kick started again in triple beats.. His wide eyes stared back at Tomonori.
His heart was suddenly breaking. This was the part of Tomonori that he had always wondered about, and he didn't want to just discover it to lose it. Tomonori's face was deeply distraught with loss. He looked into his eyes. His own, suddenly unguarded. FIlled with the emotion that Tsukasa had imagined in every one of his daydreams and wishful scenarios. The echo of those lips upon his, still played heavily on his soul. "Even if we never meet again. at least you'll know that I do love you...that some part of myself feels for you...it is up to you, dear sweet angel, to bring me out from behind the veil. My real self...I am a part of him. A part of him that loves you deeply, but he holds me back...he is afraid." He swallowed " Well...actually...I'm still afraid too...but, you have to show him, there is nothing to fear...You can make this part, ah... me, grow...I know you can." Tsukasa gave a low wail, grabbing his shoulders. "But...But...I have so much I want to know!" Tomonori kissed his cheek. "I'm only here for a short while, my time is running out...Before me, his caring side was here...he bandaged you, cared for you...then I was called here...like that other side of him, I'll be pulled back soon, and He'll put back on the mask...you know what I mean, he hides what he feels... but in this moment, what I am, is what he's feeling for you. He loves you Tsukasa..." Those black eyes looked oddly large. Tsukasa was unable to speak "I love you Tsukasa, and I may never be able to say that again...but..." He smiled sadly "at least you know...at least he can't hold me back this time..." He bowed his head, looking away sadly. Tsukasa clutched at the part of Tomonori that had led him back to reality. "I don't want to lose you though! If I could stay here with you..." Tomonori shook his head. "No...I told you. I'm leaving soon. This is the first time I've broken through yet..." He sighed "...you need to bring me out in him...I am part of him, remember?...If you can bring this emotion...if you can make him turn into me for just an instant like this...I know you could do it again." Tsukasa clung to his neck. "But..." Tomonori shook his head, placing a finger to Tsukasa's lips. "I'm no substitute for the one you love...a part is never as good as the whole..." He touched his cheek. Tsukasa's eyes filled with tears and he looked away. "But...what if you don't like me when I come back? What if you hate me!" The emotion in the shape of Tomonori, lifted his head and spoke gently. "No part of hate in my mind could ever be directed at you...All of him, including me, feel that way about you...you're special Tsukasa. You really are..." He sighed. Tsukasa felt a lump in his throat. "I can't go back..." Tomonori lowered his head "But you can't stay here...you know that..."
Tsukasa closed his eyes, turning his head away. "But...I don't want to..." Tomonori shook his head. "I know what you want...and I'm not sure whether in the real world it will ever happen..." Tsukasa felt hot tears prickling his eyes. "But here..." Tomonori began. HIs eyes were suddenly questioning, he tenatively touched Tsukasa's cheek, wiping away a tear with a forefinger. Tsukasa looked up through his tears, longing. Then Tomonori bent down, pressing thier lips together, carefully placing his arms around the boy. Tsukasa held him close, completely absorbed in what Tomonori was giving to him. Not because it was nessecarily a good kiss, but because it was his dream. He held on to the mimic as though he could never be separated from him in the imagined moment he had longed for for so long. He didn't even realize that the emotion taking the form of his beloved human was moving him backwards until he pulled away and pushed him through the light, pulling himself away. "No!" Tsukasa cried, reaching out to him as he faded. Trying to hold on. His face was scared as he faded away. Tomonori's doppleganger turned his head from the act of trechery, hiding his own greif as Tsukasa's spirit returned to his body. The human's emotion lifted his head in the direction of the whole that had sent him. "One day, You scared little dog." He dashed away a tear threatening to fall down a cheek that had never wept for over ten years, bitterly glaring in the direction of the whole that had kept him captive, that hated prison behind his own sheilded eyes. "One day, I'll get the better of your stupid fear, and you'll finally realize how much that sweet angel wants to be loved..." He turned his head to the shimmering light. "Forgive me Tsukasa...please...forgive me...just remember how I am part of what the whole feels, and that you can find me again...someday...someday we'll find eachother again." He sighed, lifting up his eyes with a single tear escaping as he was absorbed back into his prison.
...there was silence.
A moment where Tsukasa felt something pushing him along, sweeping him along in a great hot blast of air...Pushing him back into his own body...
And Tsukasa awoke with a rather realistic impression of lips on his, and a memory of a rapidly dissolving dream. Darkness and blood and...what was the end?...Tomonori was there and...oh no! Why couldn't he remember? Who was he snuggled into now? He was holding onto someone...all was still dark with his eyelids. He tried to keep them closed, tried to remember, but within a few seconds it had completely left him, and he opened his eyes on a face with sheilded black eyes, and an expression of vague discomfort. He coughed. And Tsukasa's eyes suddenly widened, as he pushed himself away. What was he doing? Why was he there? He turned his eyes to Tomonori. Maybe the answer was there. He cursed those sheilded eyes in his mind-no matter how he loved them, those eyes never offered him the answers he needed. One day he would find what lay behind those sheilds. One day...
the present:
Tsukasa watched the human he adored turn on his heel and walk out the door. He seemed to hesitate...no he couldn't be, Tomonori never hesitated, he was always sure and confident--even if he didn't advertise it. He paused however. His head turned slightly, as though casting a final look at Tsukasa. What was he looking for? What was he thinking of? What made him stop? Why did he have to look back at him? But the hesitation passed, and Tomonori exited the room. Tsukasa bewilderedly wondered what he had done this time. He hadn't attacked him or anything. He hadn't tried to kiss him. So what had he done now! He tried to remember what Tomonori might have been upset about. He had been glaring at him with his teeth bared as though something distasteful was running through his head. The very sight of that sort of anger on Tomonori's face made him feel frightened like nothing ever had before. Those exposed canines had looked sharp enough to tear out his throat in that breif instant of his terror, before reverting back to the dull teeth of a human. Tsukasa had felt in that moment, the sensation of Tomonori grabbing him by the neck and crushing his windpipe with his jaws, killing him, tearing out his throat, like some feral, wounded carnivourous animal. The frustration...or was it anger in his eyes in that instant had made Tsukasa want to run, his heart hammering. And what was worse was how Tomonori's eyes had never left his. How that anger seemed to be directed at HIM. He was dreadfully afraid, and crushed, so upset with himself for being the cause of so much anger. He had barely been able to whisper out the human's name, hoping to beg for some shred of forgiveness for whatever he had done. Then his face had abruptly smoothed over, his expression becoming mildly confused. Tsukasa had barely been able to stammer the question of what he had done...certainly he had done something horrible to merit such anger. But Tomonori had quickly become concerned, even worried at his question. "No...No...I'm not upset with you at all." Those words had brought such an overwhelming sense of releif that Tsukasa's knees had nearly given way. That gentle face would never lie to him, not with such worry so obvious in his cloaked emotions...so what could have possibly caused such fury? Tsukasa shivered. If only he could see Tomonori's motives, his thoughts...He was beginning to wonder if on the occasion that Tomonori's mask fell away, if he would ever be able-even then-to read into his complex emotions...he doubted it. Even what glimpses he could catch, he was often unsure of...would the removal of that protective coat over his emotions clear things up, or simply confuse him more? He no longer knew the answer.
He moved gingerly, wincing at the pain in his shoulders as the movement and stretching of skin made the freshly formed scabs pucker painfully tight. His hand reached for the doorknob. He momentarily considered following Tomonori. He wanted to go and ask what he had done, but his shyness and anticipatory shame at whatever offense he had commited, and the pain this would bring to Tomonori quickly removed this thought from his head. He shut the door gloomily, feeling guilt settle over him. He walked back over to his half made bed, not bothering to begin fixing it, but simply lying down on his stomach.
His reflective eyes gazed at his familiar setting.
The room was perhaps blank to others, white walls devoid of any marking, furniture simple and unadorned...but to him, it was a comforting blankness. It could be changed at the slightest moment's inclination...but he never chose to. If he did, it would lose some of it's opportunity. And with this blankness, the room was full to bursting with opportunity. Earth had opened up a hope for him where there had been none. His room was his hope. And thus far he had only dared to change one thing, because it had so changed him and given a new fountain of that hope.
His room reflected his life. It's blankness wasn't void...it was an actual way of speaking his personality. Only one aspect had been altered. The single picture. That picture altered his whole opportunity. Mana Kirihara, his mindbreaker had changed his life. That was what changed him--as far as what was visible to others at least...if one were to open that frame, if one were to flip the picture over, there was another on the back. The person who had truly changed him. Though his mindbreaker had changed him, this person had changed him more...for all he knew he had brought him from murderer to a simple, curious youth with a single act of kindness. Tomonori's picture. The one who had brought him such opportunity...also the one who had given him the room to call his own. The preist, unaware that he was being captured by a simple invention. Unaware that he would become Tsukasa's darkest secret. Just as he was unaware that he had brought this change into his life in the first place...without that one person, he would have died on the side of the road...He would have never even MET Kirihara without Tomonori...Though that changed opportunity was always unspoken between them. He was grateful to Tomonori, but somehow his gratefulness wasn't spoken of...it didn't need to be spoken of...though he honestly sometimes wished he could. Tomonori had told him not to thank him. The human thought no more of his actions to befriend and care for a person bleeding on the side of the road than he would think of giving change to the homeless on the corner. He didn't like attention drawn towards his unconscious acts of kindness, so Tsukasa remained silent, not from ingratitude, but from a longing to respect Tomonori's comfort zone, and do all he could to keep the priest happy...almost a sort of payment.
But nonetheless, he was grateful.
Beyond grateful...FAR beyond grateful!
The erasers would have thought of it as a moment of stockholm syndrome where he had bonded to his 'captor'. But to Tsukasa, it was when his gratefulness had turned to admiration, and his admiration had become a bit more...tiny steps that had driven him over the edge and head over heels, wings flailing, into the deepest crush he had ever had. A crush that teetered dangerously over the bounds of obsession.
Love.
He rested his chin in his hands for a moment. Waiting a moment, drifting down a dark path in his thoughts, and sighing when he came back out of it. Absentmindedly moving his hand to dig underneath the matress for a small, blue, wire bound, ordinary looking notebook.
It was as impersonal at first glance as the rest of his room--almost a last ditch effort to thwart any desire to open its cardboard cover...One would never suspect it's contents with a mere glance to it's outside harmless appearence. It looked as docile and non-surprising as a collection of english notes, a school book, even just a simple cute little diary from a creature always discovering new things about earth. But the instant the cover fell open, one could see Tsukasa almost more clearly in the lined pages, than the curious reader could by taking a glance at his body or face. Every shred of personality seemed to have been leeched out of the room--save the picture on his desk--and been placed in those pages. And it echoed not only his learning of a new world, but a desperation, a hunger for something...or worse, for someone. Something deeper than what would be expected. His soul was in the book, he was sure of it. He confessed things there that Tomonori would have fainted to see. Unexpected rawness, even darkness was present in those pages. Darkness in the feelings of a creature of light. Something forbidden, something abomitable, but still leeching on his thoughts, whispering in the corners of his mind, Whispering things that were far from the purity imagined by looking upon his form. The book was his thoughts, his dreams at night, poetry...even a few letters he had tried to start on, hoping one day to send in a confession to the human...He always stopped halfway through. Too embarrassed, too shy, too afraid to lose him. In some places he had tried to draw Tomonori, but he had always thought they came out wrong. His head wasn't like that. His hair was much shinier looking (oh he had longed to touch that hair for so long...). His eyes seemed just too flat, even soul-less on paper, never capturing the guarded barrier behind them, never capturing the complexity visible there. The eyes were dead. Dead as Tomonori's never could be in real life. Everything he was, was in that book. His deepest longings were charted. His darkest desires were lovingly inscribed. His hungers lay there, chewing on his soul whenever he saw them.
Everything.
Everything he wanted. Everything he hoped never to be or become...
Everything.
He sighed as he turned the page away from a sketch of Tomonori over a stack of papers, to a poem he had copied down from somewhere--he collected poems in his book. A simple two lines by Sappho: Although they are only breath, words which I hold are immortal.
If these words could be immortal, than could what he felt for Tomonori last forever? He held to that desperately in his mind. If he could only write down what he felt for an instant, it would last forever. The words had hit him square in the heart the first time he heard them. Perhaps it was some ancient greek spell, perhaps there was some magic in saying that? His words would live forever, this passion in him would survive past the grip of war for centuries... What he wrote here would survive forever...a monument to the imprint of a single one-sided longing on the history of the world. The quiet little drama in the backset of a war that had raged since the dawn of the bloody Aquarian Age. The thought of immortality made him shiver in fear, in delight, in wishfulness...
Forever...
He opened the book to the first fresh page he came to. The opposite spent page, filled with his faint lacy script. HIs heart began to thud in his ears. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. That, was the page filled with his thoughts when he had decided to...try to take action on his feelings. He closed his eyes, fighting sudden nausea, and opened them, their lenses feeling suddenly moist. He didn't want to see it. He couldn't see his desperate hope, his desperate desire. He only felt a sad numbness. The sting of rejection. If he looked at that blind hope he had posessed not so long ago, he was sure he would cry. He closed his eyes, and flipped another page so he would have at least that page to keep him from looking upon his longings, immortalized in his own traitorous script. Those words, that hope, would live forever. They would make him feel horrible for at least as long. A pencil was tucked in the wire coil. He pulled it out, closing his eyes again, willing away the stinging tears.
How could he start?
What to write down?
What did he have left to hope for?
Would he finally have to use this diary as a calender, a simple way to pass the time? Writing cheerful nonsense about his day, and completely ignoring the existance of his feelings? Would he immortalize his desolation and feel it forever if he wrote about it? Was he still allowed to hope, and pine for the one who he knew couldn't possibly have any feelings for him in the way he hoped for? He bit his lip, tring to stop himself from crying. He couldn't cry! He was supposed to act like a human! And although Kirihara seemed constantly close to tears...Human males didn't cry...At least Tomonori never did. Tsukasa had seen Tomonori arrive too late to save a friend's life, and he never so much as shed a single tear, or even allowed the simplest expression of anguish to slip past his collective mask. Tsukasa knew it wasn't from desensitivity. The person so eager and kind to help a nameless bleeding boy as he lay dying on the unforgiving pavement, couldn't possibly not care about a friend...could he?
What sense does it make for a swan to want to become a crow?...
Tsukasa opened his eyes, looking down at what his hand had scribbled. His breath caught in his throat. His breathing seemed rapid, shallow. He could hear the rush of blood in his ears. Tomonori's words echoing in his head. A swan. He wished he could derive some hope from that word choice--that Tomonori thought of him as being beautiful!--but he somehow couldn't. An emptiness and gloom seeping through him.He cradled his head in his left hand while the right skimmed, seemingly with a mind of it's own over the blank pages, filling them with his feather light script.
Those are the words he told me today. A swan. I'm not a swan. A swan doesn't kill other birds. I killed...Swans don't murder. I can't be a swan...I could never be a swan... A crow... Does he think a crow is ugly? Does he think a crow is worse than a swan? I don't think so...Crows are very smart...I always thought they were pretty too. But I can tell by how he said that, that he didn't mean something else beautiful... Tomonori-san meant himself to be less than me when he said that! I don't know why he would do something like that... I don't know why he would ever think that he's worth less than I am, but he said it. He's so wonderful to me, why would he ever think that? He could never be less than me...I'm a deformed murderer, cast away from my own kind forever...He's wonderful. He's perfect. He's whole...He's so...pretty too...oh God, not just pretty, he's beautiful! He could never be less than me! Why does he keep saying stuff like this? He's got to know it's not true! He scares me when he does things like that, and talks about how much better than him I am...doesn't he know who I am? What I am? He's not ugly to me...He's not less than me. Why does he think he is!
Tsukasa sighed, becoming depressed, irritated and confused by his thoughts. Again, he wished he could see what Tomonori was thinking, at least understand how he thought, what he really meant when he said things like that...but he couldn't. He carefully probed his bandaged right shoulder, feeling pain flare at his touch. He fought back his tears again, as he stopped a thought wondering what it must have felt like to have Tomonori's hands touching him as he bandaged his wounds...he nearly wept as he banished the imagined caresses of soft hands on his skin.
He was trying so hard to stop these feelings...Tomonori was uncomfortable with him feeling this way! He should at least try to stop himself! He should at least hope that this would pass...But...it was just so HARD to do that! He wanted more than anything to slip into a dream world where he could be held, kissed and soothed by the one he loved so desperately. But, it wasn't right for him to do that...Tomonori didn't think that way about him...why couldn't he at least try to stop himself? Why couldn't he try to be a son for Tomonori? Why couldn't he just try his hardest to make Tomonori happy?
It's so wrong for me to think of stuff like this... I shouldn't have gone and done that to him. Why did I have to make him so upset? After all I've done to him, I should have known better than to make him so angry! Do I always have to screw up things for Tomonori-san! ...What's wrong with me? I don't know why he still lets me stay here with him, with all the trouble I cause...and now...falling in love with him...What's wrong with me? Why did I have to kiss him? Why couldn't I just control myself just like Tomonori-san does? I'm so weak...How could I possibly think that someone like him, would ever even think about being with someone like me? I shouldn't have ever hoped. That was stupid...I don't think Tomonori-san feels that way about ANYONE least of all, me. If he liked someone else...well...I don't know what I would do! It makes me want to cry just thinking about it...He's always telling me that there will be someone else for me other than him, that scares me. I don't want to love anyone other than Tomonori-san! I can't imagine feeling this way about anyone else! But he...he could really like someone else and be trying to tell me nicely. Oh! What can I do! He won't ever feel the same for me now...am I going to die without ever really being in love with someone...with someone else feeling the same way about me I mean. I don't know how to be...appealing to him. I don't even know what he likes in people. Even if I had courage...like Itsuki-kun, to just talk to people, and say what I think without being afraid, I would never be able to...approach him like that...
Tsukasa's face screwed up into an expression af anguish. There was nothing he could do here to make Tomonori love him. His dreams, though filled with scalding moments where their lips were melded together, were not all he longed for...his longings weren't merely physical lust...which made it harder.
He had heard Tomonori laugh before. Simple small moments of laughter, always cut short with embarrassment. But he had seen the way his face lit up when he laughed. It was so rare that it happened, so unexpected when he accidentally let it out. Tsukasa's heart hammered faster just hearing it echo in his dreams. Just once he wanted to make Tomonori laugh...be responsible for that grin to break over his normally unemotional face...Oh God! Every time he did that he seemed...younger, somehow more attainable, and infinitely more beautiful to Tsukasa's adoring eyes...It was probably a good thing that he didn't laugh, or even smile very much or Tsukasa probably would have tried to kiss him far earlier than he had before... Tsukasa felt an overwhelming sense of shame slip over his body, shoving those thoughts of laughter from his mind. His feelings weren't right!...they just couldn't be! Not with Tomonori so uncomfortable about them! What he was feeling was immoral and indecent! And poor Tomonori! He didn't feel the same, and now Tsukasa had given him the problem of his feelings on top of everything else he had to deal with. Unlike Tsukasa, Tomonori had to keep secret the fact that he served under Mana Kirihara rather than under the authorities of the WIZ-DOM faction. It was getting harder and harder for him. Tsukasa was an eraser, with no ties to his faction left save for Gabriel, and Gabriel was already mindbroken under a different master, so he was hardly about to go and inform on him, even if he had the desire to...but Tomonori...He had duties. He had to keep hushed the fact that Tsukasa was an eraser--if his faction had known, he would have likely been ordered to kill him! He had his job to worry about...his life was complicated enough without Tsukasa adding to it by proclaiming that he loved him in a romantic way--completely disrupting the almost father/son relationship they had nurtured for over two years since Tomonori had rescued him from death on the street.
He wanted to cry again, but he forced himself not to. Oh! This was so hard! How could Tomonori control himself so well? Had he struggled this hard not to cry before? Was he just too weak to ever try to control himself the way Tomonori did? Tsukasa choked down a sob, and forced himself to write, hoping to distract himself away from his desire to cry.
That must be it...I'm just too weak. I'm just too small. I'm not good enough for him...He doesn't deserve to have some deformed little alien trying to kiss him and acting like an idiot around him. He deserves so much better than me...I should be happy when he finds someone else--I'm sure he will...he's so kind, and nice, and he looks so...well he looks quite wonderful too!-- and I WON'T cry when it happens! I'll be happy for him! I'll act like a good little son for him, I'll be what he wants me to be...I have to make up SOMEHOW for what I did to him...oh I hurt him! I could see him bleeding! It must still hurt him...Oh I'm such a bad person! I wish I could just die sometimes!...but then Tomonori-san would be sad if I died...that's not fair to him... I don't think I can ever live up to being good enough for all the kind things he does to me. I wish I could be good to him, and make him happy just once... But I can't...I'm so useless! ...I have to stop myself. I can't do this to him, his life is hard enough without me trying to get more. He's being so kind by letting me stay here. He really is good to me...he's my first friend...before everyone else, even before Kirihara-san! He treats me like a son! It's so selfish of me to demand feelings in return from him...or even to burden him with mine. I'm so selfish...I have to change this...somehow. But I can't think of a single way I can take back what I have done...but I can try to be better for Tomonori-san later. It's not fair of me to do this to him, so I won't let my bad feelings hurt him ever again...I won't ever touch him like that ever again.
Tsukasa told himself not to cry. Tsukasa told himself that humans didn't cry. But he felt the tears slipping down his cheeks anyway. The harder he tried to hold them back, the more they escaped his eyelids. He knew that he wanted more that anything for Tomonori to return his feelings, and that he needed to cast away that longing forever. He knew that it would be hard, that it would be a constant struggle with himself...but that wasn't why he was crying...
He had awoken to Tomonori's arms holding him close--or at least he thought he had felt him holding him...likely it was just part of the dream of Tomonori kissing him...just a damned dream!--he had felt heat running through him, as though his whole blood system had been replaced with elecricity. And of course what he remembered most was a mouth on his, unmoving, just a simple tenative pressure and warmth, and moment where he had thought perhaps he would awaken to a happy ending, to a dream come true. That he would open eyes on Tomonori, and hear him say that he loved Tsukasa too...that somehow when he had kissed him, it had allowed him to say that he too had the same feelings...
But it was just that. A dream. And dreams melted away when you turned on the light of day. Your room--even your soul--could seem perfect and peaceful and optimistic in the shadows of night, in the velvet embrace of shadows all hard edges could soften and melt away into a night of happiness courtesy of your own subconscious...but when you turned on the cursed electric light, or threw aside the curtains and flooded the room with sunlight and the harsh truth of what your room looked like. Light revealed that your life was one of war, that you were a soldier with no time for rest, a soldier awakening to a day where they might be called to kill, that your dreams of peace-no matter how lovely they were--could never end the war through hope. The world was cruel to dreams. Unless they were spurred to action in teh right moment, they would shrivel and die. Ande even when put to flight through action, they could be shot down.
His previous actions only served to destroy his dream. With his own eagerness, he had ruined his one chance...'I'm such an idiot!' he yelled at himself internally.
He threw the notebook shut, tearing out a sheet and the pencil, sticking them in his pocket so he could work on a letter of apology to Tomonori later. He swung his body around, shoving the notebook under his matress. His shoulder gave a twang of pain, he gasped and clutched it. Oh NO! He hadn't reopened the wound had he?...no... It wasn't bleeding again luckily enough, but he really had to be more careful! He couldn't ask Tomonori to come in and rebandage him or anything, and he couldn't see the wounds to bandage them himself. He had to be cautious...he had to control his frustration! ...Still, without the frustration an all-consuming guilt and gloom loomed over his feelings--Here he was... injured, emotional, and an utter and complete burden on Tomonori. He really was useless! All he ever did was run around and cause trouble, and need to get rescued by the compassionate human!
He held his shoulder, tears still dripping down his face. he scrambled off his bed, pacing for a moment before the veiled window caught his eye. He carefully pushed himself off his half made bed, fresh tears coming with the sudden strain on his shoulders. Reopening the wounds of an amputee wasn;t just dangerous, but was excruciatingly painful...if he had been in his eraser form, there would have been empty sockets, and torn muscles bared against the bandages. He peered at the window. Was something there? He crossed the room, bare feet padding accross the plain white carpeting almost noiselessly. He threw aside the blank curtains in the room. The night stretched flawlessly from his second story window...the moon full and swollen against a night sky turned gray with the lights of the city, the stars only faintly dimmed. He stared for a few moments before his fingers moved seemingly of their own accord, unhooking the latches, and pushing open the window. Freezing night air spilled into his room. He shivered with the chill. A clear, cold autumn night. It couldn't possibly be warmer than fifty degrees outside, at least twenty degrees difference from his room. It's comparably stuffy warmth spilled from the window like blood from a wound. Soon the entire room was as crisp as the outside air. Tsukasa felt his breath catch in his throat. His tears cooled on his cheeks as he stared outward at the beautiful night.
The moon sulked, like a slab of circular ice in the sky, slashing it's icicles of light, peircing through the clouds. It's chilly blades lighting upon Tsukasa's outline in his window, like a jagged black cutout of him, thrown to the ground as a shadow. Tsukasa opened his eyes, breath becoming a frosty cloud with every ragged exhale. The moon was so beautiful. The wind so icy, the air frozen and clear. He ached to fly in the depths of his eraser soul. In the depths of his angel heart...in the depth of his human spirit, He ached to fly. His wings spread out behind him, feathers flattening to keep the fragile limbs they covered, warm. His shoulders were suddenly more painful as his wounds deepened from shallow gashes into gaping sockets where limbs once were, but he ignored it, as stronger calling than pain flooding his body. He opened the window wide. The wind calling to him with a sweet voice of mind numbing flight. Tonight he would join it. He would spend his night on the wing, He would leave Tomonori alone and give him an evening without him doing stupid things and causing trouble for the man. His stomach quivered with anticipation. Flight was as close as he would ever get to heaven. He had been so caught up in the new opportunities of his life that he had nearly forgotten that he could fly...he hadn't needed to use his eraser form since the previous spring when the five of them, soldiers of Kirihara, had rescued her. All summer it had lain docile close to his soul. When the leaves had turned orange it had slept on, and now as they were beginning to fall it awoke, hungry. Demanding it's place as his nature back. His heart was the last thing on his mind in the wake of his instinct.
He closed his eyes, heart already soaring, and gave a test flap of his wings, preparing to join that wind, to get as close to the moon as he could, to feel the wind whistling in his ears...but something was wrong...
He suddenly felt his heart drop into his stomach. Oh...they were so weak...how long had it been since he used his wings? Far longer than the last time he had used this form...years! He flapped them, trying to get himself off the ground, convincing himself that everything had to be alright. He was just rusty...he could still fly...right? He remained on the ground. His wings beat harder, still nothing. He didn't even lift the slightest inch. He felt fear growing into a lump in his throat. He flapped his wings as hard as he could, feeling desperation hammering in his veins. He swallowed hard with a sickening jolt. Nothing happened. He was out of breath, and he still hadn't moved.
Oh God. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening! He tried again flapping his wings in great sweeps that made his hair blow about wildly...but he didn't rise even the fainteest milimeter off the carpet, not even when he tried jumping. He fell flat to the floor again. Horror seeped into his chest. He felt his belly twist and go cold.
He was doomed.
Oh God, He was stuck on the ground. His remaining wings were useless. His muscles were too frail and weak to carry him. "No..." He whimpered, feeling hot tears gush from beneath his eyelids. The wind calling him, but now it's voice was sad, it's voice would be lonely, he would never be in it ever again. He was trapped on the ground. He was trapped. Like a bird with it's feathers clipped, he would never soar on those winds again. He had lost his freedom. He was doomed to remain on the bitter ground until he died.
You like humans so much, you can stay and watch them destroy themselves...all by yourself.
Was this his penance for liking Tomonori when he wasn't supposed to! Lafayel was right, he was doomed to stay...and if they destroyed themselves, he would watch and weep... Tears trickled down his cheeks. Was his forbidden love enough to merit this horrendous punishment? A bullet to his heart would have caused him less pain! Not his flight...he would have gladly given up anything else for the mere chance to gain Tomonori's affection...but the only thing that he could remember enjoying in his past! "No...No...Nooooo!" He wailed the monosyllabic word over and over, sobs breaking from him freely. He wept bitterly. He was unable to keep his voice down, crying out without hesitation or holding back. Trapped, he was trapped!
He sobbed wretchedly, loud in his anguish, still crying the word "No" over and over again like a mantra, as though by refusing to beleive it, it would somehow not be true. He barely even felt the prescence come into his room. He couldn't make himself stop crying even when he felt him there. Weeping and disgracing himself right in front of the person he wanted to impress. Tears dripping down his face. What did that ever-calm human think of him now! If only he had at least an expression on his face...then Tsukasa would at least know the rejection, the contempt, the dissapointment...but that blankness made him fear. What would he possibly think of this? He looked away from Tomonori, from that expression he couldn't read, weeping, sinking to his knees, eyes stinging. He closed them, feeling ice on his eyelashes. As he was about to fall, blinded by tears, He felt warm hands grab him by the elbows, stopping him just before he hit the ground, and helping him back to his feet. Tsukasa clutched him tightly, and sobbed into Tomonori's shoulder. The human felt so warm as he put his arms around him, careful not to harm his shoulders or pull the feathers on his wings. Tomonori felt so solid...so comforting in that moment that Tsukasa found himself babbling things uncontrollably. "Oh Tomonori-san!...Oh Tomonori-san! I'm done for...Tomonori-san I don't think I can ever...I can't ever...Oh Tomonori-san!" He gradually sobbed into incoherence, whimpering the human's name not caring that his expression was still unreadable. What Tomonori was thinking didn't even matter to Tsukasa any more. It was the last thing on his mind. He was only grateful to have something to hold onto, something to cry into...even to be able to cry! Stinging tears another almost joyful mark of his freedom here on this world. The mix of utter agony and releif from his new life, mingling into confusion, and seeping out of his eyes...
He heard a gentle sigh from next to his head. Tomonori's hand touched his head, guiding it into his shoulder. His voice was soft, gentle when he spoke. "Tsukasa...you wanted...to fly?" Tsukasa sobbed quietly, nodding his head against Tomonori's shoulder. He opened his eyes, looking up at Tomonori through his tears. Tomonori looked back at him for a moment, then seemed to understand...though how he did was anyone's guess... He wasn't quite sure how to deal with this, judging by his expression, but he tried to soothe Tsukasa nonetheless. "Tsukasa...don't cry...it'll be okay..." he murmured. He rocked him quietly, cradling Tsukasa's head against his shoulder. His body molded around Tsukasa's shuddering body as it went gratefully limp against him, quivering in horror, sadness, and excruciating emotional agony. Tsukasa was still whimpering and hiccuping with increasingly more feeble sobs. "NO! It won't! I'm trapped here!...you don't understand!" He wailed clutching Tomonori desperately. "I-I-I can't ever...I won't be able to...I've lost it forever...I'm trapped and...and..." He broke down into fresh sobs, burying his head deeper into Tomonori's shoulder. Tomonori's hand smoothed his hair."...If you want to leave me...I wouldn't force you to stay here..." Tomonori said quietly, tonelessly. Tsukasa trembled more violently, his shaky breaths turning to smoke in the cold from the open window. To...leave? The lamp on his desk shed light in the room, but somehow the moon cast a double shadow on the ground around them. "D-Do you want me to leave, Tomonori-san?" He asked in a near whisper, fear in his eyes. His heart was beating fast. He didn't want to leave! He would lose what mattered the most to him, but if Tomonori didn't want him near him...Fresh tears blossomed in his eyes. Tomonori gave a soft sigh, shifting, holding him tighter against his shoulder. His eyes were hidden as he stared past Tsukasa, sheilded by his hair. "No...I don't want you to leave...but if you do, I won't keep you here..." His voice sounded sad. Tsukasa's teary eyes widened. "Y-You want me to stay here? Really?" Tomonori's head jerked to look at him, staring at him breifly, surprise just registering past his mask. He lowered his black lashes, not looking Tsukasa in the eye, and exhaled, a cloud of smoke drifting from his mouth. His grasp on Tsukasa's shaking body shifiting. "Yes...Yes I do." He still sounded grave. Tsukasa could feel his body trembling. His lips curved up into a grateful, quivering smile, more joyful than his face could contain with it's tears. Tomonori had chosen to keep him! Fresh tears leaked from his eyes, but they weren't tears of greif. He dropped his hands from clutching Tomonori's shoulders and wrapped them tightly around his chest, burying his head near the man's collarbone, he closed his eyes. "Then...I want to stay...I really do...oh Thank you! Thank you Tomonori-san!" fresh grateful tears leaked from his eyes. Tomonori stiffened, surprised, then relaxed, breathing what sounded like a sigh of releif and placed a reassuring arm carefully around Tsukasa's shoulders. Tsukasa felt safe in those warm arms. But something was stirring within him...
It at once saddened him, and made him feel somehow more wishful and longing. He wanted to kiss the older male so badly... but he couldn't. He wanted to touch Tomonori's dark hair but he couldn't. The tresses hanging in contrast against his pale skin like a sleek, short ebony waterfall. They seemed to almost sparkle in the moonlight...He looked so beautiful, his liquid black eyes so tender...Tsukasa nearly broke out in tears again at just how breathtaking he looked--and this wonderful person wanted him to stay there! He was brought back to his memory of awakening.
He hadn't thought his heart could have gone faster than when he came to and felt lips upon his, gently kissing him, filling him with some inexplicable sensation of heat flowing through his body, through his veins-but only for an instant before the lips were suddenly absent before he had had the chance to reply to that delicate touch. The breif instant he was mostly sure was a dream, but for a moment...
He sighed to himself. It would be so much like him, to taste the perfect moment in his dreams, complete down to the taste of Tomonori's lips against his. So warm...
His face felt suddenly warm as he realized how close he was to Tomonori. He was suddenly altogether too aware of how close they were. Too aware of the moon reflecting back off the wireless lenses of Tomonori's glasses, refracting the round moon into a hundred little fragments across the liquid inky-black surface. His eyes seemingly guarded even against penetration by light. His angular ivory-skinned face was white in the icy moonlight. He certainly had something in this light that Tsukasa had never noticed in the daylight. Tomonori seemed far more accustomed to this sort of light. Not like a fabled creature of the night--not some creepy seductive vampire from the myths that teen-aged human girls enjoyed swooning over...but more of a connection to the earth's cycles of day and night, a connection that marked him as utterly and fully human, despite its intimate subtleties to the senses of an eraser... A sense that he was at home in this light, that he had no reason to feel uneasy here. That this light was the common and familiar light of home.
There were no day and night in the depths of space. And there was no air for sound in it's cold vacuum. But, while the earth's night was sometimes as black, it was never so silent as the depths of space. Earth was a constant flurry of sound and movement...just somehow inexplicably alive. Even when it's sentient inhabitants were silenced in sleep, the planet's life did not silence. Owls swooping down on silent deadly, padded wings, all manners of insects, and even bats, gliding across the stabs of moonlight with slender wings like blades cutting the air like a knife, the planet was utterly alive. Tsukasa felt dead in the midst of so much life... but Tomonori didn't seem dead, he seemed just as alive, despite his quietness...he was accustomed to such abundance--marking him as human in a way that was impossibly complex and difficult for Tsukasa to even try to explain to himself.
Tomonori was every bit as powerfully alive as the rest of his world. The sparks of thought in his sheilded eyes were ever-present marking not only life but sentience and intelligence. He was so full of life that his wiz-dom aura tingled almost electrically against Tsukasa's more subdued eraser aura. He could feel it, humming along with the almost shockingly loud beats of the human's heart and the quiet rush of his breathing. Tsukasa's skin prickled, at once uncomfortably and pleasantly as Tomonori's aura washed over it in steady pulses. Sensitivity in every single one of his five senses, and sensitivity in the mind brought him a sense of life so rich and powerful that he was growing dizzy, almost drunk off it with it's mere contact against his own aura, against his skin. His breath caught in his throat as Tomonori embraced him a bit more tightly against him. That gentle rocking motion adding a kinetic dimension to the life that was enfolding his in it's shadow.
Alive.
That silver light of the moon, although it made Tomonori seem pale as death, only brightened the twin sparks of life in that amazing human's black eyes. It only drew more sharp contrast between what was walled away and what wasn't, within his eyes. One half of his face was illuminated only by the moon, the other illuminated by the dim lamp in the corner of Tsukasa's room, caring but distant in the artificial light of humanity. Compared to his race, that was exactly what he was, he was distant and aloof by their standards. But the moon brought out the deep concern hidden there. He was concerned for Tsukasa. He wasn't distant in the reflected cold truth shed by that satellite in the sky, in fact he cared deeply. To an eraser, a creature born in the lonliness of space, in the silent vacum there, he was deeply concerned, a touch subdued emotionally, but still, quite compassionate, quite kind, a very good person. On earth, even to humans, Tomonori was marked by unusual kindness. But he could be kind and still not like someone, still be strict to them...He was kind even to Itsuki, allowing him to pass his class was more than generous, though to Tsukasa it was quite obvious that he didn't really like Itsuki all that much (which Itsuki never lost a moment pointing out to anyone who would listen). Still, Tomonori treated Tsukasa with genuine liking. He genuinely enjoyed his company...and it wasn't kindness that asked him to stay, that much Tsukasa was sure of by the way he held him, by his sigh of releif. They were friends. Close friends. Even if Tsukasa wished to be more than a friend to Tomonori, the fact was, they were close...
And Tomonori wanted him to stay...
Tomonori cared for him.
It couldn't possibly be the variety of care he wanted! He was careful to remind himself of that, but that he was cared for...it brought a peace to him. Stilling his tears. They fell no longer.
The scabs on his shoulders were tingling with a more intense, almost itching sensation of that electric, living aura over him. Tsukasa frowned inwardly. How strange...that had never happened before, had it? Why was that happening? Weird...
It was so warm, so peaceful there. Hearing the dull heartbeat, feeling the cold in his nose and cheeks, while the rest of him stayed so comfortable and snug in the body heat and embrace of the human he so adored...it was strangely peaceful. The electric human aura washed over him in a dull wave, like a slowed heartbeat, emanating from him and fizzling over Tsukasa's aura. His wings trembled, feathers raising in an instinctive reaction to the aura tingling on his. An alarm mechanism that was long since obsolete in his body. He furled his wings against his head...they were too small for flight, yet felt oddly too large in this room...in this embrace especially. He would have felt a bit more comfortable (as though he could ever be comfortable in this sort of position with Tomonori!) if he were being held like this as a human...blind perhaps in comparison, especially to these electric waves washing over his skin, but if he were human he at least would be of the same species as Tomonori...perhaps his dreams would have been a bit more attainable seeming in that light. Tsukasa's face pinched into an expression of pain. 'That's another reason why I shouldn't be with Tomonori-san...I'm not good enough, first off. And even if I was, we're...we're both guys! That's not something common for humans--especially catholic preists--to feel. And even then...I'm not human! ...so why can't I make myself stop feeling this way about him? I should have more than been able to make myself not do something like this! ...I must be so weak...' He closed his eyes, hiding his face in the black fabric of Tomonori's robe...suddenly frowning as he noticed something.
Why was the cloth so scratched up? Had he been hurt? Had he run into some demons or something when he had left the house? Was he alright? Tsukasa moved his head, and noticed a scratch clear through the fabric of his sleeve, scoring a faint gash on Tomonori's upper arm. A dribble of blood visible in bright red. Tsukasa gave a soft gasp, stiffening. "Tomonori-san! You're bleeding!" Tomonori shifted abruptly "What?" He asked with a soft questioning tone...could that tone be hiding pain? Tsukasa's heart lept into his mouth. What injuries was Tomonori hiding? Were there any serious ones he couldn't see? He scrambled, babbling almost incoherently, "Are you okay Tomonori-san! What happened to you? You aren't badly hurt are you! Who did this to you! What happened?" Tomonori blinked, eyes widening, waited for a moment before something seemed to click just beyond reading in his sheilded eyes, and he gave a short, sudden laugh. Tsukasa's voice abruptly left him with that small lack of control from Tomonori. his cheeks were suddenly hot with the breif second of laughter. His heart was pounding rapidly somewhere near his small intestine as Tomonori gave a faintly amused sounding comment "Hold on now... I'm not hurt. I have a few scratches, but they're nothing serious Tsukasa. Nobody attacked me...I had an interesting run in with a rather badly placed rosebush, but nothing more. You should not be so worried, nothing's going to happen to me." These words and a smile echoed from Tomonori's lips. Tsukasa was dimly aware of those words floating to his ears, but he was still feeling dazed. The split second of laughter and Tomonori's expression were etched in his mind in a continuous loop. His face may have been cooling, but his heart was still hammering fast, down somewhere in his abdomen. He felt his fingertips moving forward, the hot sensation of his healing energy thrumming in his fingertips. He placed his fingers against the scratch in Tomonori's arm. The wound faded within seconds. Tomonori's smile faded into a graver expression he couldn't quite read. Tsukasa's hands each rested on other gashes on the arms that had been holding him, healing them. There was another glimpse of red blood in the human's side, he barely even placed his fingertips to that one, feeling dangerous thoughts at the edge of his conscious mind with the thought of touching Tomonori's body. His face flushed without his knowledge. He looked up at Tomonori. "Tsukasa..." Tsukasa removed his fingertips from the newly healed scratch. He noticed an old wound--one that he had caused, but felt sudden shyness try to beat him down from doing anything about it. Embarrassment. He hesitated, 'It must be painful...I can't just ignore it!' he mustered his courage up then touched his fingertip to the darker spot on Tomonori's lip. Tomonori's eyes visibly widened. His body suddenly tensed. Tsukasa sent a bead of power to him, his wings rising slightly. Tomonori was staring at him with an unreadable expression, confusion, questioning...was that fear?... Tsukasa gulped. He didn't expect that strong of a reaction from Tomonori. He quickly put down his hand, backing away from the preist, cautiously looking at him through a shock of blond bangs. Tomonori raised his fingers to his mouth, surprise evident in his face. There was a sudden pause, a silence. "...I wasn't badly hurt..." He said finally, looking almost quizzically at Tsukasa. Tsukasa bowed his head, distancing himself now that Tomonori was not hugging him. "I know..." He sighed. His wings hunched closer to his head. "Tomonori-san...if something happened to you..." Tomonori looked at him, suddenly serious. "Nothing's going to happen to me Tsukasa."Nonetheless, some sort of worry was in his eye. "then what are you afraid of?" Tsukasa asked quietly. Tomonori suddenly stiffened "What?" He said with an edge to his tone that Tsukasa had never heard before. Tsukasa's speech faltered, he stammered. "I-I...You're worried about something...I can see it, Tomonori-san...if you're worried about something happening to you, I want to help you-" Tomonori's body had relaxed, he suddenly interrupted him. "Tsukasa, I'm not worried for myself. I'm far more worried about something happening to you." He frowned. Tsukasa felt his heart hammering. He wasn't even sure why it was doing that now either. He wasn't sure what was running through his confused emotions at all for the moment. Tomonori's expression fell into a sort of sad thoughtfulness...still oddly blank without deep thouhts visible behind it "Actually...I suppose that isn't quite a valid thing to do...you are far more powerful than I...you're probably right...If I should be worrying about anybody it should be the weaker of us...that is obviously me...I'm sorry for my trouble Tsuka-" Tsukasa stopped him abruptly "N-No!" He swallowed as Tomonori shut his mouth, looking at him."I mean...that's not what I was trying to say at all Tomonori-san. I just...I just...don't want you to get hurt..." Tsukasa swallowed hard, trying to figure out if he was overstepping his bounds and letting what he felt embarrass Tomonori, but Tomonori was listening to him, and made no move to stop him from speaking. Tsukasa swallowed again before he felt able to speak, he couldn't look Tomonori in the eye as he went on. "When you leave the house...sometimes I don't think you'll ever come back...it scares me to death...I know I'm probably just-I'm just worried, and I know there's probably no reason...but still..." He bit his lip nervously. Tomonori looked at him for a long moment, then reached over a hand, ruffling Tsukasa's hair. Tsukasa tried hard to breathe. "You sound like Kirihara." Tomonori said with a faint wry smile on his face. Tsukasa paled, his wings jerking in horrible shock, eyes widening in horror. Oh God. He was referring to the ever so obvious talks between Kirihara and Kusakabe...she was always so worried that he would die... ANYONE could see that they were boyfirend and girlfriend NOW. WHich meant that Tomonori was probably implying... Tsukasa quickly tried to amend his speech. "I-I-I didn't mean to-" Tomonori waved away his comment with a smile. "Oh, don't worry. I'll fulfill my part. I'm not going to die Tsukasa. And neither are you." He added the last sentance with a pointed glance at him, giving the words in an almost stern tone. Tsukasa swallowed. "Uhmm-I-I-I...O-Okay Tomonori-san." Tsukasa inwardly cringed at his inarticulate speech. Tomonori smiled at him more gently, expression softening, he gently lifted Tsukasa's chin to look at him. Tsukasa's face went a faint shade of pink. He didn't even breathe. Tomonori lowered his hand, voice soft. "I have some hot chocolate downstairs...It probably needs warming by now, but your room is very cold..." He trailed off, an edge of concern in his voice and expression.
"Thank you Tomonori-san." Tsukasa said quietly, letting out the breath he had been holding. His heart sank inwardly as Tomonori gave him a final tousle of hair. He didn't quite know why he wanted to follow...on second thought, he was sure it was mostly the fault of his emotions which were fantasizing about warm kisses flavored with chocolate... He gave himself a mental kick. That wasn't right! But nonetheless, the fantasies filled his head as he dreamily walked down the stairs--after closing the window in his room of course. He paused against the railing of the winding staircase, sighing, wishing away the endless daydreams to dissolve into vapor like his breath in the cold. His imagination was going to get him into trouble someday. He touched his face. It was cold, but he was sure it was flushed anyway. He was possessed of an urge to curse himself, but the thought of what Tomonori would think if he heard him cursing in his house was enough to dissuade him from the halfhearted desire to do something of that sort.
His wings felt strange from being dormant for so long. Despite their birdlike appearence, they didn't feel light. He stumbled. His eyes widened as he caught himself before he fell. 'oh my...I must be tired...I should be more careful. If I don't watch out I could hurt myself.'
He shivered, goosebumps raising on his arms and his unseen stomach. The rest of him aside from his head was protected by a layer of bandages. He covered his arms with white feathers, wrapping his wings like a cloak around him. He still shivered. His bare feet felt numb against the cold tiles of the floor.
Tomonori looked up as he lingered shyly in the doorway of the kitchen. He smiled at him, sending butterflies dancing in Tsukasa's stomach, he had a steaming mug in his hands. His dark hair had fallen across one of his eyes, the hinge of his glasses poking out from the black curtain. Tsukasa felt his face warm. He didn't really belong here in this room with Tomonori did he? But Tomonori gestured him inside, holding out the mug to him."...here...oh dear, you look cold Tsukasa...you really should be wearing something warmer, you could catch a chill."
"um...I will. Thank you Tomonori-san." He said meekly. Tomonori smiled at him, then sat down at the opposite end of the table with a mug of his own. Judging by the smell however, his held coffee rather than hot chocolate.
Tsukasa took a sip. The warm drink tasted wonderful and it's heat was quite comforting. Likely it was a homemade recipie as much of what Tomonori cooked was. And Tomonori's cooking never dissapointed Tsukasa, his food was always delicious. The smells of his sweet drink and Tomonori's coffee filled the air. Somehow it was relaxing. Tsukasa thought back on Tomonori's comment as he held the mug with both hands, taking another tiny sip. He shivered, pulling his wings more closely around him. Tomonori was right, he was cold. And he certainly wasn't supposed to be. He was in the form of Israfel who had survived the depths of space and the flames of atmosphere--a fire that was far worse than his own--and yet he was cold. In this bit of autumn chill, he was cold. Cold enough to gratefully accept the steaming mug from Tomonori, and perch on his chair at the table, sipping it quite contentedly. He soon was lost in his thoughts, staring into the mug. Was he losing something of himself? This feeling of coldness was strange to him. Space was cold. His form was one adapted to space...so why was he cold? He shouldn't be cold! He had no choice but to try to think of some explanation.
Lafayel had told him that he could stay here and watch the humans destroy themselves...but what if he somehow became one? He had longed to be a human before...His form was that of an eraser, but his soul was human. Did he really want to become one?
Angels do have hearts. Try to remember...the power of your heart.
'but human's have hearts too...don't they Tomonori-san?' he thought the question at Tomonori as he closed his eyes, then opened them again on the one who had told him those words. Tomonori was grading a stack of papers, head balanced on the palm of his right hand as his left skimmed over the paper with a red pen, completely absorbed in the task, not noticing Tsukasa's reflective eyes on him. Tsukasa shivered. Those could have easily have been among Tomonori's last words to Tsukasa. He could have died there for him, just so he wouldn't have to fight...but instead... Tsukasa's hands trembled around the warm mug in his hands.
Someone had needed to die there. Instead of Tomonori, it had been Lafayel. He had given his life, almost in a sacrafice. In the end he had done a good--though if he had been alive he would have shown nothing but contempt towards the one who dared say such impudent things to him,if he hadn't flat-out attacked them on the spot. In the end, though he had cursed Tsukasa bitterly, his death had freed Him and Tomonori to go and rescue their master. To this day, so many monthes later, Tsukasa still couldn't hate Lafayel for what he had done...in fact, he hated far more what he had done to the other eraser...
Still...Lafayel was an eraser like him. Gabriel was an eraser like him-no, even more powerful than him! Erasers were often proud of their mighty forms, their potent auras, their reputation for efficient ruthlessness...yet staring at Tomonori--a human, far unlike any eraser Tsukasa had ever met--Tsukasa felt that if he were to become a human, and become like Tomonori, he would be quite content. He quietly sucked in a breath, vapors drifting from his drink and warming his face.
To be a human...to be a part of the immense and overwhelming richness of the life of humanity and it's earth...
Tsukasa stared off into the distance, lost in thought, wondering over the possibility.
To finally have a place where he belonged...
...To be somehow closer to what Tomonori...to hope that he could be that much closer to being worthy of him...
Tsukasa let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He stared across the table at Tomonori. The human set down his pen for a moment, lifting his mug of coffee to his lips, the steam fogging his glasses. Tomonori lifted his head and removed them, looking tired. Tsukasa looked down before Tomonori could catch him staring. He waited, pulling up his wings to hide himself. Waiting until he heard the dull clink of the mug being put back down and Tomonori returned to his work. Tsukasa stared at Tomonori feeling a blush tinge his cheeks. The man seemed more healthily colored in the soothing yellowish electric lighting of the kitchen, compared to the deathly pale spectre that had so tenderly held him in the light of the moon.
The entire room only seemed to add to the warming of his complexion into something more human looking. The walls were faintly peach, the cabinets made of dull, scuffed wood, though they were clean-if not new. The kitchen table a simple and unadorned surface of plastic the color of coffee with too much milk in it, square with two chairs and a stool tucked to the side where Tomonori liked to put papers as he graded them there. The floor was done in hexogonal dull golden tiles and triangles in a darker reddish color that Tsukasa couldn't quite name. It was clean as ever. The pan that was supposed to be their dinner still lay unattended on the stove, but all else was nearly spotless.
The kitchen was somehow soothing. Comfortable. It lacked the blank slate opportunity of Tsukasa's room--it had a purpose, and a clear one at that, but its purpose could bend. It didn't feel like a rigid, single-function room, in that it served many purposes. Tomonori favored it for his work, indeed he spent much of his time here, but it wasn't quite inviting. It was comfortable, but not relaxing. Tsukasa felt less tense here, but he was far from relaxed. He parted his wings to shyly peek and see if Tomonori was still looking at him.
The older human was unaware of Tsukasa's eyes on him, his eyebrows tensed into a frown of concentration. Tsukasa felt something dancing in his stomach. He looked away as Tomonori shifted. Tsukasa's cheeks felt warm. 'I've got to stop doing stuff like this...it isn't fair to Tomonori-san...' But nonetheless he put down his mug quietly, and watched Tomonori grade. It was quiet except for the insects and other night creatures chirping in the cold outdoors, the scratching of Tomonori's pen, and the faint sound of their breathing that Tsukasa's sensitive eraser ears could hear. Tsukasa put his chin down on the table, careful not to harm the wings sprouting from just behind his ears. Tomonori's hair had fallen accross his face in a curtain again. He put up a hand to pull away the hair, but his eyes glanced up at Tsukasa. Tsukasa blushed, unable to hide the fact that he'd been staring at Tomonori. Tomonori gave him a smile. "Are you feeling better?" He asked. Tsukasa sighed. He still wanted to fly, he was still cold, he still ached inside, longing for some way to have his feelings for Tomonori returned, but he answered "A bit." Turning his head away so Tomonori wouldn't see his gloominess behind the fake smile. Tomonori frowned, removing his glasses again, cleaning them with the hem of his robe. "Tsukasa..." he trailed off, suddenly serious. "are you going to be alright?" he asked quetly.
Tsukasa looked down into his hot chocolate. The lack of a layer of plastic between him and Tomonori's eyes made a frustrating lack of impact on his inability to read Tomonori's emotions in those dark eyes. Would he be okay? He sighed. "...maybe." He answered softly, folding his arms across the tabletop and setting his head down on it. Tomonori said nothing...confused? Tsukasa watched him through his bangs. Tomonori looked at him with concern. "If there's anything I can do..." Tsukasa nearly laughed out loud. Anything he could do? He had enough daydreams about Tomonori without him lavishing Tsukasa with attention...Tsukasa looked at him for a long moment. What did he fear the most?
"Tomonori-san...don't change...that's how you could help me...don't become a different person." Tomonori blinked in surprise. There was a long moment of silence. Tsukasa cringed inwardly. 'oh no...what does he think I'm implying that he's changing!' Tomonori smiled. "I'll always be here for you. That won't change." He pulled out his glasses, inspected them, and found them adequate, slipping them over his eyes again. Tsukasa felt his face warming, he had to look away. "No matter what happpens...we are still family." Tsukasa felt his heart sink at the words that had once brought him such comfort. He had dared to want more than just a father...he wanted more... But nonetheless, Tomonori meant to stand by him. That was comfort--though a small one. But it proved to be comfort enough to lift his gloom. He felt his face brightening, giving a trembly smile to Tomonori. Tomonori's smile went just slightly wider, "That's my Tsukasa." He said fondly. Tsukasa nearly gasped. 'HIS Tsukasa...He called me HIS!' Tomonori however was seemingly oblivious or unphased by what was running accross Tsukasa's expression. "Are you tired? You've had a rough day..." Tsukasa shook his head in his arms. His large eyes peeked shyly out from his wings. "...can I stay here for a while? Can I watch you work?" Tomonori blinked. "Of course...Tsukasa." Tsukasa blushed behind his wings, laying his head to rest comfortably in the cradle made by his own arms. Tomonori hesitated at first, thinking it mildly odd, but soome enough he was back to working without a second thought. Tsukasa smiled, the gesture hidden behind his arms and his wings. Somehow in this place, just the comfort of knowing that Tomonori had stood by him, despite his despicable actions was enough to bring him some peace. He watched the human intently scribble some note pointing out an error in an equation's solution. Tsukasa felt strangely relaxed all of a sudden. 'hm...when did I get so sleepy?' He could feel his eyelids drooping shut. He would worry about his problems tomorrow. As long as he had Tomonori with him, he just somehow felt everything would be alright. He slipped into sleep, putting faith in the hope that Tomonori's prescence would be more than intimidating enough to frighten away any nightmares that might have hoped to torment him. Drifting away into the velvet embrace of the land of dreams.
(((end of part five)))
Don't freak out...this isn't the end. It's the completion of another PART. Simple. I'll have a temporary standstill for updates over the summer, but upon school's resumption, I intend to update rapidly. How many parts are there? Dunno, I'm clueless...originally it was supposed to be around seven-ish, but that has been blown to Ammit and back, so it's probably bound to ramble onward forever...How unfortunate for the people becoming sick of me already...
(sigh) okay, finally! I update!
Pardon my language, but:
I swear to Ptah, Bastet, Setesh, Ra, and Anubis weighing souls on the scales... am an F-ing fic machine!
(there I said it!)
I am a FIC DEMON!
...um...think Raenef V... (cough cough--a big box of tomatoes to the person who can identify the manga he comes from!) Oy. One pathetic demon, but hey...anyway-
THE CHAPTERS HAUNT ME IN MY SLEEP! YE GADS I'M A FREAK!
(screams and runs off into the distance)
(cough) hey whaddaya know? It's gone! I'm not speaking in shakespearean english anymore! (mutters about her A.D.D.-ness)
I know. I'm still grounded so this is probably the last update before summer vacation (in which everyone will get a break from my pointless drivel) so I hope it lasts--which it should, as it's over twenty pages long. (heheh...oops) I promise, the instant I get back, I shall update once more. But I suppose I should cross that bridge of promises when I'm within spitting distance...mmhm.
A momentary question. Is it simply my insanity catching the better of me, or are my beloved characters going down the dreaded path of the OOC?(wince)
Really. I think they are. I looked back over my chapters, and they just don't seem quite right anymore...So naturally I went over this one with a weed whacker. (translation: I looked over it with a hawk's eye) Seriously, if the characters still seem OOC, will someone tell me and maybe give me a point where they noticed some seriously out of character behavior. I promise I won't get mad or anything about someone telling me my writing sucks if it really does. I'm reading over the mangas for the upteenth time trying to get back to the natural. Someone be critical for me please! My human nature denotes that there will be problems I fail to notice, so please tell me the ones you see...aside from bad punctuation--I know that's bound to come up somewhere. And also aside from any typos I may have missed...hey, gimmie a break, I look over this thing at least twice before posting, but I always change so much each time that it's nearly impossible to keep it prescise and perfect every single time. (MistyStarlight? The beta reader thing would be great.)
(sigh) as for the OOC-ness...well...
parody on my own writing:
NF: (pops in on Tsukasa&Tomonori sitting close to each other and talking innocently about the weather) HEY, YOU TWO! STOP GOING OOC ON ME! (screams at a pigeon)
Tsukasa&Tomonori: (jump at the loud shout and accidentally bump heads)
Tsukasa: (hand on his head) ouch! Oh dear! I'm so sorry Tomonori-san!
Tomonori: (rubs forehead) No really, it's nothing...are you alright Tsukasa?
Tsukasa: Oh no...you're bleeding... (heals his forehead)
Tomonori: (blushes) No really it's... (trails off)
Tsukasa: (big eyed and red in the face) Tomonori-san...
Tomonori: Tsukasa...
(random rampant snogging ensues after a long moment of awkward silence in which they just stare at eachother without cause)
NF: (sweatdrops once she catches sight of the two main characters for her story making out for no apparent reason) Hey! Where'd all this come from?
Tomonori&Tsukasa: (really not paying attention...lots of random descriptiveness of absolutely nothing scrolls down the side of the screen)
NF: (doesn't like being ignored)...um...is it really nessecary for you two to make out right in front of me! Oh never mind...come on, confess your stupid undying love for one another already why don't you... (mutters to self)
Tomonori&Tsukasa: (finally stop trying to pull the skin off eachother's faces) (collective gulp)
Tomonori:...uh...let's pretend that didn't happen!
Tsukasa: (gulp) um...yeah! um...oh gee! I think my amnesia's kicking in again!
Tomonori: and I think I should be making some dinner now...
(both walk off whistling nervously)
NF:(blink)...what's wrong with you two morons! DO SOMETHING! You're so CLOSE! Isn't it obvious! SAY SOMETHING!
(is ignored steadfastly as both guys start thinking depressing things, and gain massive guilt trips for no apparent reason.)
NF: (sigh)...what's the matter with those two?
Tsukasa: (outright drooling at Tomonori)
Tomonori: (pretending to cook dinner while really daydreaming about Tsukasa)
NF: (sweatdrop) oh I give up! You two are hopeless, NOW STAY IN CHARACTER! (storms out)
Tsukasa: Um...Tomonori-san? Who was that?(stares at him in an almost stalkerish way)
Tomonori: (no expression)...I don't know...Tsukasa...what are you doing?
Tsukasa: (stops drooling and glomps him)
Tomonori: ...Ts-Tsukasa! (red in the face)
(stare at eachother for an inhumanely long time as more descriptive stuff scrolls down the screen)
NF: (seething) Don't do THAT! OH GAD! THAT'S IT! FROM NOW ON I'LL GIVE THAT EFFEMINATE ANGEL TO HIS OWN KIND! NEVER AGAIN I SAY! NEVER AGAIN!-OW!
Tomonori: (knocks her out with a peice of chalk at long distance) (looks unexpectedly angry)
Tsukasa: (clutches him clingily) Noooo! I don't want to love anyone else other than you Tomonori-san! eep! (clamps hands over mouth) uh-er...I didn't say that!
Tomonori: (seething) Give him to his own kind indeed! What she would do to my Tsukasa...(overly protectively petting his head) If that crazy girl puts another thing with wings near him I swear, I'll send her down to the ninth circle of damnation! And the idiot featherduster she sends can go with her!
Tsukasa: um...Tomonori-san? (blushing while really thinking about how great Tomonori looks when he's angry about something and other such pervy thoughts)
Gabriel: (weirded out...backs away into a corner)
Lafayel: FOOL! ISRAFEL SHALL BE MINE! (nice long maniacal cackle)
NF: (grins in the distance) and there goes my favorite bad guy off to get his ass kicked again...
Shiba: (gasps) such language!
NF: oops...
(sounds of NF getting beat to shreds with a basketball echo in the distance)
Gabriel: (sweatdrop) Lafayel...all that tight clothing's cut off the circulation to your head. I thought you hated Tsukasa...
Lafayel: How dare you mock me vermin! I LOATHE him...I WILL KILL HIM! (more cackling)
Tsukasa: (freaked out) eep!
Tomonori: (hiding him in one of those pathetically touching scenes)
Gabriel: ah... (blinks)You're an idiot. You know that right?
Lafayel: FOOL I WILL DESTROY YOU! (crackly lighting hands)
Gabriel: (sweatdrop) uh huh...sure...um... what's with the scarf?
Lafayel: DON'T MOCK MY SCARF! (jumps on Gabriel)
Tsukasa: oh! Poor Gabriel!
Tomonori: ...oh...you like him...well...I suppose I should have known...(suddenly gloomy)
Tsukasa: huh? NO! (shocked)
Tomonori: oh...really? You mean...you and he...
Tsukasa: n-no, it's nothing like that!
Tomonori: Oh Tsukasa...
Tsukasa: Tomonori-san...
(moment of awkward silence)
(Gabriel and Lafayel bicker while Tomonori and Tsukasa smooch it up for no apparent reason and Nerofeces lies dead on the edge of the screen, and Shiba skips happily off into the distance with his basketball plotting ways to confess his feelings to Kirihara--hooray happy ending. Love has conquered the bounds of rampant stupidity! Oh freakin joy! Like you didn't see that coming!)
No erasers were harmed in the making of this parody!
parody stops rolling
(sigh)
It all just seems a touch flat now that I look at it, not at all the way I intended it originally...the original ending might need some adjustments, or I can tread the citrus-y line (you know what that means-the sexual stuff) and really...I think Tsukasa's a touch to naive to realize-if he wanted Tomonori that way-that he actually meant it that way...I mean he's just so dang innocent...He could probably get a hard-on, and not know what was going on...(pardon my bluntness)
Secondly, Tomonori's so protective of Tsukasa that I actually beleive he would rather die than allow himself to do anything like that to/with Tsukasa...but...my idea might still keep them at once IC and (heheh) a touch less on the pure side. (smirk) we'll see how this turns out. Tsukasa thus far seems to be the stronger drawn of the two. Tomonori's wavering. It's all in all going to get a touch psycological as they both struggle with denial.(grin) oh goodie. Gotta love that denial.
...hmm...well. I'm working on this story's plot. I have a beginning, a bit of middle and the end, but in between there are a lot of possible places it could go. Hopefully there will be a lot less of stuff like that parody above where it all just seems like an excuse for them to begin snogging each other. (though the parody is an obvious exaggeration) Personally, though it may be fun to read stuff like that for some people, it's not exactly the type of empty plotless thing I want to be known for writing...heheh, I typically reserve that for my mindless humor stories.
But still, thanks guys for all the support! I feel loved! I'll work on J.O. writings over the summer...I have a few ideas floating in my head, so expect an explosion upon my return.
Hey! one question! Has anyone else thought of Lafayel/Tsukasa? Weird pairing I know, but hey...that's me (hooray for love/hate relationships! It's great angst fuel.) I'm all for Yi-xin/Itsuki and other such odd things so this really doesn't come as much of a surprise to me, but am I the only one with such a twsted mind filled with feces? I mean...aside from the obvious, it being my name and all. Gabriel/Tsukasa I hadn't thought about, and I basically ignored Itsuki/Kaname, but everything else has been freely juicing up in the crap of my mind.
heheh...one way to find out if anyone else thinks the same... (evil snickering) I'll give a tomato to the person who can think up the weirdest pairing! (wink) Who knows, maybe I could even write a ficlet for it...depends, inspiration may strike if poked hard enough in the eye!
...woah...maybe I need to think of a humor fic (cross eyed) I'm going loopy and cabin-fevered over here when I really shouldn't be...
Still. Thanks to everyone! Kindly keep reading, it makes me so happy...I have to tell all my plants! (plants wave in the breeze)
See? You make their lives exciting too!
Reveiw responses:
alex's little duckling: this was actually really good while sucking?...(blink) hmm. That probably only sounded perverted in my mind. I rock your socks...well...okay! What kind of socks? STRIPES! bwahahaaaaa! (cough cough) okay, I'm done trying to be an idiot.Thanks! Oh...if you still wish to express admiration to this depthless loser, then...okay, my soul-powered cd player seems to have run out. If you wish to give me your soul, or perhaps run around stealing other people's souls and give those to me to usue to power my stupid cd player, that would be quite adequate. (an ego problem? me? you must be mistaken.) Thanks for the two reveiws! that made my day today! Have a blood flavored lolipop for reveiwing twice! (jams lollipop in 'the little duckling's mouth) cheerio. (cackles and cartwheels away)
SatoXDai/KazaXRikuou: Ach nooo! Dangit, if only I didn't write my reveiw responses just as I'm about to update! Oh cruel fate! Unfortunately it's a tad too late to adjust this chapter...beleive me, I would try, I know it's going to be horribly distracting for you, but I really don't think there's all that much I can do about it...I write with descriptiveness. I ramble. I couldn't be more sorry for it either. Constructive critisism is BEAUTIFUL! (grin) Do I detect a legal drug pairing in your name? KazahayaXRikuou is awesome stuff! (wink) Maybe I'll have to work on that sort of thing too... Forgive me for not complying with your request, I shall try to do better in the next chapter. My apologies, and ooooo! Are you from the dark side? I heard they had cookies...never quite beleived that the force could do much for one's baking skills though...hmm. What kind of cookies are we talking about? (wicked smirk)
Stargabe: Glad you liked it! I updated as soon as possible...the summer will likely kill you if you're a speedy update desirer though...hopefully the next chapter's quality will suffice more than adequately for a replacement. Thank you!
keitokyokun: Tortured yes, but for a worthy cause! (grin) Glad you liked it...Doth mine eyes deceive me, or did you actually waste time giving me TWO reveiws? ...oooo...I'm tempted to give into my forbidden desires to glomp you to suffocation for wasting that much time on TWO occasions rather than one...I feel giddy like a SCHOOL GIRL! Oh wow! Between you and Lumchang I'm going to have to rent an airplane to catch my swelling ego! (big grin) Here. Since you two seem to waste more time on my stupidity than others do, have a blood flavored lollipop! (it doubles as a way to reel in darklore demons to sic on rival fangirls!) A tip of the hat to you...and I'm not wearing a hat...ooookay...uhhh...right. Thank you very much!
Ryzuki: thank you! Updates are only natural. (smile) you don't expect me to make this suddenly end on a cliffhanger of doom do you? I'm typically good at updating... (I hope) Please keep reading if you like it!
Botan:You think so? I'm glad. I didn't really expect for people to like this so much...(blushes) Really, Thank you very much. Updates are a given typically on Fridays. The schedule may change over the summer because my internet access is limited to school. (wince)
Nevercry: Descriptive eh? Well, it takes some imagination to bring said descriptions to life, you must have pretty good visualization if it's vivid enough for you to 'be there'. It's one of the greatest complimants a writer can receive to learn that someone can see what they envison through their words. You have my respect! Tell me if you can see the kitchen eh? (giggles) my name? With my 'descriptiveness' shouldn't it be obvious? I imagine that particular name gave you an interesting mental picture as well. (grin) The excrement of my mind...well what does my mind give off but overly descriptive stories? One could say that this story is one such case of mental excrement...(cackle) ...yep, some pretty good cranial poo huh? Thank you for such a fun, even humorous reveiw. It made me laugh...but I've always had a bit of a sick sense of humor, so that could just be me. ...such a cheerful person writes angst...uh huh, I confuse myself. (swirly eyes) updates are on fridays when schedule permits...ye gads, I said that didn't I? I'm becoming worried by all the people begging updates...I DID promise them didn't I? Heh. Is this where I ask about your name? Poor Tsukasa would do well to learn from you...(rolls eyes) He seems to be weeping all over the place this chapter... Hmm...better go check and see if you have angst fics like I do with everyone else with cool names... (drools at the thought of angst)
pell-mell: glad you liked it! Yeah, Amou-kun's eyes seem to change colors all over the place in the story, which confused me to no end at first, so I took a bit of creative liberties. ie: making his eyes a mostly gray sort of hazel...honestly, can you TELL what color his eyes are supposed to be? I couldn't find two pictures the same... But if you look at certain pictures (particularly the cover of book five) his eyes look sorta reflective...mirror-ish even...(smirk) more creative liberties at work there. Looking over the work, I've got to say, the description of his eyes is one of my best thus far. Thank you! Updates are every friday for the next two weeks at least...until the summer, then I dont know what I'll do...but I'll probably figure out something...
Wish me a bit of luck, and drop a reveiw if you have a suggestion, a complaint, a general statement of my insanity, or perhaps an anvil...
(blink)
Okay...Yeah, you heard me! Drop an anvil in your reveiw!
Really...anvils are cool! Can't have enough anvils! Right? Oh, captive bishounan angst slaves?
(Captive juvenile orion boys entangled in a web of angst all nod tiredly)
(Neurofeces, the anti-fan, cackles maniacally, as the fangirls writhe in agony, screaming)
Free the bishies! Drop anvils on me! Waste some time typing and looking anxiously behind your shoulder! REVEIW! (hits the 'fanfare' button to make it sound more appealing)
mmmm...it gives me the warm fuzzies when people reveiw...
um...which in turn give me the creeps...(shudders) ugh...FUZZIES!
(big grin)
enjoy your next chapter! With all the time I have on my hands it should be a good one! (someone flings an anvil)
woah! (ducks)
Hmm...
Time to go water my plants...actually, strawberries are good conversationalists compared to many of the people I know. I may not speak as well as I think, but that seems to be true in the case of most people. So...
Reveiw! it makes my plants dance with happiness! and don't forget to give me the weirdest pairing you can think of--simply curiosity to see if I'm the perviest of the lot of you or not. (wink)
Dancing plantshappy neurofecesgood chapter!
Ah math. Tomonori-san would be so proud. (smirk)
bye until august! (it'll be worth it, don't worry!)