Chapter 7
Confessions
When Yuki awoke the next morning, Touya could tell that something had changed. He was not better, not the way that Touya had hoped. He supposed it had been naive to hope that one night could solve everything. Yuki had been through a trauma that he couldn't even imagine. There was no way that they could just have sex and magically make everything all better.
But... something had changed. Today, Yuki looked more like a person with a serious problem, rather than a dead person in a body that happened to still be breathing. That morning, Yuki brokenly sobbed the entire ordeal into Touya's chest, as Touya listened with arms wrapped gently around him. A few times in the horrible tale he wanted to burst out through the door and beat someone senseless. But Yuki was most important, so he stayed and held on and felt Yuki's pain as though it were his own.
Afterwards Yuki clung to him, although he still wouldn't meet Touya's eyes. His sobs gradually died down to sniffles, and then simply to shudders. Touya rubbed his back comfortingly. "Your skin is really cold," he said, feeling the chill beneath his fingertips.
"It's the magic loss," said Yuki dully. "Actually, I'm warmer than I have been in weeks."
Touya hugged him a little closer as a thought occurred to him. "Is Yue feeling it too?"
Yukito's entire body tensed. "I don't know what that bastard feels, and I don't care. He can rot in hell for all I care."
Touya was surprised at the violence of Yukito's reaction. Although given what Yue had done to him, he couldn't really blame him. "Hey, Yuki..." he started.
"Hm?"
"Can I..." Touya wasn't sure he should ask this; he didn't want to upset Yukito. But he suddenly felt like he needed to know, needed to find out. "Can I talk to Yue? I want to ask him why. You don't have to listen if you don't want, but you can. I just feel like... well, he ought to answer for what he did. And you shouldn't have to talk to him if you don't want to, but I for one want to know why."
He finished and waited while Yuki thought it over. "I really don't know why you want to talk to that bastard." His voice held a note of betrayal and Touya winced. He had been worried Yuki might react like this.
"He owes you an explanation, Yuki," Touya repeated. "He's supposed to protect Sakura, and what's dear to her. He had no right to do what he did. I feel like someone should call him on it."
Finally, Touya felt Yuki nod and pull out of his embrace. His expression, when he faced Touya, still looked a bit wary, but not angry. "I'll change now," he muttered, and did so without further warning.
Touya sat back as white light filled the room, then came face to face with Yuki's alter ego. Yue looked tired, and worn. He also had in his eyes the saddest expression Touya had ever seen on his face, more emotion than Yue had ever displayed before in his presence. "I'm sorry," were the first words he said.
Touya felt some of Yuki's anger well up in him. "You should be telling him that," he snapped.
Yue hung his head. "I know. But he doesn't want to talk to me."
"I don't blame him." Touya stared at Yue's bowed head for a long moment in silence. "Why did you do it, Yue? Why did you let Yuki take that attack? You had no right to put him in danger."
"No," said Yue. "As I told Yukito, it was a selfish reason."
"Tell me," said Touya.
Yue crossed his arms, holding his elbows, and still refused to look at Touya. "At least Yukito has felt the touch of someone he loves, someone who loves him," he said. "He has you, and I knew you would forgive him anything. I knew you could help him to heal. But I... I have no one. Not like that." He tilted his head up and gazed at Touya through a curtain of his hair. "This body has never been touched. By anyone. Not that way."
Touya was surprised. "I thought... you and Clow?"
Yue shook his head. "I loved Clow. But he thought of me like a son. We were never lovers. I just... I could not stand the thought that the first person ever to be with me would be with me in anger and hate and violence. I may only be Sakura's guardian to all of you, but I am not without emotions. I have no lover, and I perhaps never will. Would you really wish on me that the only memories I would have of that experience for all of my long life would be of pain? No one would wash his touch from me, the way you did for Yukito. I have... no one."
Touya stared at him, unable to think of anything to say. He hadn't even thought of that. It never even occurred to him that Yue might be a virgin. Of course, looking at it now, it seemed painfully obvious. Why wouldn't he be? He had just seemed so... worldly. So full of wisdom and, well, the exact opposite of naive, whatever that was. And yet why should he have had a lover, even in his long life? It was difficult enough to become friends with someone that cold, let alone anything more.
Suddenly he couldn't hate Yue for what he had done, selfish or not. Even wanting to protect Yuki, he couldn't hate Yue for not wanting his memories to be filled with exclusively pain. Sometimes, he realized, it was hard to think of Yue as a person too, one with his own emotions and worries. Which was really doing him a disservice.
The silence continued to stretch on, until Yue made a the smallest noise of pain, as though he had pricked himself with a needle, and abruptly changed back into Yukito.
When Yukito returned, his eyes were wide, with the beginnings of tears in them, and Touya knew he had been listening. Without a word, Yukito leaned forward until his forehead rested against Touya's chest. "I didn't know," he whispered. "I didn't know."
Touya stroked his hair. "These things are never black and white, I guess."
"It was easier just to be angry with him," Yukito mumbled.
Touya sighed. "I guess nothing about this is really going to be easy."
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