Cardboard hearts.
T: Yep it's a Valentines fic, something that every authoress needs in her repertoire and something I've wanted to do for a while now! There is no real logic to this one and it's probably full of giant plot holes but it's (I hope) rather sweet so I'm sure you'll forgive me! Slash and a vague dusting of angst.
Nothing here is mine apart from the rather moth eaten plot!
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Yuzihara had been most insistent on him sharing breakfast with the other seals, the reason for such forceful behaviour becoming clear as the genki girl had accosted him with chocolate.
"Happy valentines day, Sumeragi-san." She had proclaimed as she had passed over a pink hued parcel.
Within it had been a simple circle of dark chocolate and he had thanked her with enough sincerity that she had graced him with a smile.
Later Kamui had also given him chocolate, this a piece of white shaped into a little star. He knows he cannot accept this gift without giving the boy false hope and he is about to refuse it when his eyes catch conspicuous milk chocolate stains at the corners of the boy's mouth.
He had accepted the gift then and proceeded to glean from his auspicious leader the identity of the individual who had bestowed him with the chocolate that had been the cause for the stain.
A few of his fellow classmates had also given him chocolate and, by the time he returned to his apartment, he was carrying a rather large bounty.
The boxes were placed into his fridge, each carefully labelled so that, on white day, he might return the favour and, once he had eaten a little food, he retired to his living room.
As was often the case he fell asleep in his chair and when he finally stirred himself from his doze, the light had gone from the sky.
He is about to drag himself to bed when there is a knock on the door and aware that, at this hour, it is most likely important, he goes to see who his 'visitor' might be.
Seishiro stands a little from the door, his hands clasped about a simple brown box and a smile clear on his lips.
Subaru regards him for only a moment before he slams the door closed and drags the bolt across.
"I could force myself in, you know." Seishiro voice informs him from the other side of the doorway.
"Then why don't you?" He enquires, his arms folding, defensively, across his torso.
There is a moment of silence, then the parcel is slid beneath his door and Seishiro informs him, "Because it is not the same as you letting me in freely," before Subaru hears the sound of him walking down the hall.
He regards the parcel a great while, tempted simply to throw it away and yet his traitorous heart will not allow him to.
Eventually he unwraps the thing and is presented with two heart shaped boxes.
The first he opens is empty apart from a note and deeply curious he begins to read the words written upon it.
'Subaru-kun.
This box is as the heart of the Sakurazukamori and I believe you think it still as my own heart.
'If this is so…if you think me nothing but this emptiness…then I ask you to destroy the other box.'
He thinks to do just that, to destroy both boxes and end this particular game before it has begun and yet, as before, he finds he cannot…
Finds that he holds still to a little hope.
The other box is full of brightly coloured pieces of paper and another note.
'I hope that you have opened this box because you hold still a little faith in me and not because you were curious as to its contents.
'This is not a game, Subaru-kun, that much I wish you to believe without doubt.
'This is, rather, a desperate attempt to win back that which I once, so casually, gave away.
'This box is my heart, Subaru-kun and for the greatest of time I have tried to deny this…have put on a mask of emptiness…
'Yet seeing you again…seeing the changes my false emptiness had wrought upon you…I could no longer hold to this lie.
'If you believe this tale, even a little, then come to Shinjuku station.'
…………………………………………………………………………………..
The air in the station is frigid and the absolute silence of the place is unsettling to even one such as him.
He is considering returning home when a figure walks out onto the platform.
For an instant he believes himself dreaming, then pair of warm arms are about him and he knows this can be nothing but reality.
"Neesan…" She covers his mouth with her fingers and stepping a little free from him she says,
"Forgive that I have had to stay away from you, Subaru…forgive that I made you believe me dead by his hand.
"Yet, for the sake of your happiness, I had to do as I did, for you would not have come back to me voluntarily and Sei-chan needed to learn to let go the emotionless void of the Sakurazukamori."
He raises his hand to cover her chest and he remarked,
"I saw it; neesan…saw his hand buried deep into the heart of you."
"You saw his hand buried into my shoulder, Subaru, for my heart is here." She moves his fingers across to the left and after a moment he leases his grip upon her.
"I understand what you did, neesan and I am glad that you are alive…"
"But?"
"But why did you not return to me sooner?"
"You needed to learn to live without me, Subaru, needed to realise the strength of your care for Sei-chan.
"If I had come back to you sooner then you would have continued to want him out of your heart…would have become numb at the heart of you."
Her fingers tangle into his hair a moment and then her warmth is gone from his side.
The reason for this sudden change is he that stands now but a little before them.
He can feel his mouth shaping the form of his name and then his arms are about him, so strong and so sure that he feels again but 16.
"Seishiro-san, you have given me back something precious that I thought lost forever and you have uncovered the faith I hold still in you.
"Yet I do not understand why. We are pitched against one another in this great battle…have been, for so long, as strangers. Why, when this is the case, do you give me this treasure and covet still my faith?"
"I wish your faith, Subaru-kun, because it is a precious thing to me…as to everything else…
"Our animosity is our matter and it should not have brought into this 'great war'.
"Nor do I believe you a stranger to me, Subaru-kun, for though you have changed there is much about you that remains still as it was all those years ago."
He smiles then, without mask or falsity, and Subaru believes it the most beautiful thing he has seen in the longest of times.
"Most importantly, Subaru, I love you and I am willing to do whatever it takes to prove that to you."
With Hokuto again at his side he can not but help feel as though he is back in The Year and that this is another empty confession…
However, there is something in the cadence of Seishiro's voice that tells him this is not another of those occasions, but instead a true admittance from the heart of him.
Thus he allows himself to let go the negative emotions he had been holding to and responds,
"I love you also, Seishiro."
Seishiro pulls him into a gentle kiss and once they have separated he remarks,
"Happy valentines day, Subaru-kun."
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T: Most likely I have white day and Valentines the wrong way around…my excuse being that my brain keeps forgetting that the Japanese have two days to exchange presents rather than one as we do in England.
For those wondering how Hokuto could deceive Kakyo like that…who say's he's being deceived? In this particular version of things the Dreamseer is only pretending to mourn his love's death…when the time comes he'll shut Fuuma in a dream and run away with Hokuto, giggling insanely all the way!
Think that's it…if not will excuse it as valentines logic…R+R as I crave the love!