4. Compulsion.
T: Having had my first review for this fic I feel happier about my choice to continue posting and more confident about how this fic is progressing…so thank you Umbra for the confidence boost!
Slight skipping ahead of the timeline in this part…hopefully it won't be too disconcerting! Warnings remain the same and I still own nothing apart from plot!
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It has been a month since the kiss and though he has spoken every night to Seishiro he can not quite find the courage to see the other again.
He had had the excuse of being busy preparing for the launch of his novels, yet now that this preparation is at an end that particular reason for his unavailability has been lost.
Thus when Seishiro rings later that afternoon he is left with little choice but to accept the other's invitation to his apartment.
He is given directions to a stylish apartment complex that is located but a little from where Subaru had lived during this time.
Indeed he can almost see his apartment from Seishiro's window and the underlying connotations of this unnerve him slightly.
The older man tells him a little of his history, the lies within this story so intricate that, had he not known the truth, Subaru would have been completely taken in.
The topic turns, eventually, to his novels and Seishiro thanks him for the loan of his manuscripts before enquiring,
"Have you suffered some form of heart break Yuji-kun?"
"What makes you ask that?"
"Some of the things Kiro says to Chiro in 'The Cage' were full of such pain that it had to come from experience."
He too had felt that 'The Cage' had been written by one suffering from a broken heart and he wonders, not for the first time, who had actually written the books.
There was, after all, a great deal of his own hurt contained in the words and the odd notion had come to him that perhaps the books had been crafter by an alternative version of himself.
Yet whether this was the truth or no mattered little at the moment and allowing a little of his hurt free from his mask he replied,
"Yes, I have felt that pain…"
"As have I."
"Really?"
" Really." His eyes drift to the window and, his voice distant, he says, "We met when we were both still very young and we began a friendship that developed, eventually, into something deeper.
"He was everything to me…I even lost my eye while protecting him…then his sister died and suddenly he changed.
"For a while I believed it would be fine, but then he vanished without a trace."
He knows that Seishiro is talking of himself…knows that he is using his pain and suffering to coin some sympathy and for the first time since he had found the man again, he despises him.
He has a part still to play, however and pushing his anger away he enquires,
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You allowed me to see your hurt, Yuji-kun and so I believed it only fair that I allowed you to see mine."
"Air all our scars before he begin, you mean?"
"Indeed."
His lips are again upon his own then, their gentle warmth a welcomed comfort that will quickly become a sought after familiarity should he allow it.
Yet, for the moment at least, he has no want for such attention and when Seishiro breaks for aid he moves a little from the other.
"'Though you believe your kiss a venomous thing it has shattered the loneliness in my heart.'"
"You think to use my own words against me, Sakurazuka-san?"
"No, I think to use them to help you, Yuji-kun and I have asked you before to call me Seishiro."
A part of him wishes to accept the request for intimacy and yet he has lost, for the moment, the want to give into this weakness.
"I'd best be going." Seishiro catches his wrist, the pressure of his fingers enough that his skin is whitening slightly.
"You are hurting me, Sakurazuka-san."
There is an instant of almost genuine shock upon his face and then he is leasing his grip,
"Will you meet me tomorrow?"
He is aware that tomorrow is the day that the Sunshine 60 will crumble and that, even if he had want to make plans, Seishiro would be otherwise occupied.
"I think, perhaps, that we should not see one another for a while, Sakurazuka-san.
"It is clear to me that you have not yet completely let go he that you loved and I have no want to be second best again."
"Then I will allow both of us a little time, Yuji-kun."
"Thank you."
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There is something…unusual…about Yuji Kimoru and it had been this unique edge that had first pulled him to the other.
He had watched him a great while before making his presence known and the way that the other had interacted with the sakura had seemed all too familiar.
Curious as to why a complete stranger has inspired such a feeling he had made himself known to the other and, upon meeting those odd eyes, he had become ensnared.
He had believed this level of intoxication possible only for one person and yet his affection for Yuji did not diminish.
Indeed as he had read the books that were as a looking glass upon the boy's psyche a desperate urge to protect the author had swamped him.
This strength of emotion had finally become enough to fracture his control and he had come all too close to allowing the other to see his true self.
Perhaps, therefore, the distance Yuji had requested would prove to be a useful thing for himself also. For it would allow him to consider the situation and perhaps comprehend why it was that a relative stranger had managed to get so close.
He has just settled down in his favourite restaurant when he feels his connection to Subaru flair and curious he heads for the Onmyoji's location.
The Kekkai is crumbling already when he comes in sight of the Sunshine 60, the reason for its decomposition clear as his eyes find Subaru's form.
His right eye is closed and, judging by the blood that coats the lid, it shall not be opening again.
The Dark Kamui stands a little from the younger Onmyoji, the blood upon his fingers as a clear indication that he is the once who has harmed Subaru so.
He will not allow this indiscretion to go unpunished, yet, for the moment, he can do nothing without risking the 'Kamui's' wrath.
Thus he lingers only until Subaru has been taken from the area and then he leaves in pursuit of the boy.
Kamui remains with Subaru until the next morning and then he is taken away from the other's side by a young man Seishiro does not recognise. His one obstacle thus removed he takes a moment to compose himself before he crosses into Subaru's hospital room.
He is lying upon his back, his arms folded across his chest and his un-bandaged eye, for the moment, closed.
"I did not expect you to come here."
"I was worried for your health…a concern that was justified judging by the look of you.
"Have you not been eating again Subaru-kun?"
He is graced, momentarily, with the startling green of Subaru's remaining eye and then it is lost again behind the boy's eyelid.
"Why should you care, Seishiro? I am, after all, little more to you than an attractive ornament."
He comes to the boy's side then, his hands lifting to brush at the gauze a moment before he replies,
"No one likes to see beauty so recklessly marred, Subaru-kun."
The boy flinches from his touch, his hands lifting to catch his wrists; both these movements slurred by the effects of the drugs in the boy's system.
"Why can you not simply let me be?"
Smiling he breaks the boy's hold and brushing the skin upon his hand he replies,
"We are linked until death, Subaru-kun."
The pentagram upon Subaru's skin flairs momentarily at the words and the younger man looks at the thing with unbridled disgust before he enquires,
"If it is as simply as that then why not just kill me, Seishiro?"
He little likes the connotation of the question, nor the barely concealed hope in Subaru's voice, yet still he replies,
"The time has not yet come for me to sever out connection, Subaru-kun."
"Yet why, Seishiro? For what purpose do you spare me?"
Recalling something he had read in 'The Cage' he replies,
"'You are being held in this cage not by my hand but by your own, for it was your own naivety that ensnared you and your miscomprehension that holds you still.'"
He leases his grip on the Onmyoji then and stepping from him he informs him,
"I am not what you believe me to be." Before he leaves the room at last.
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T: As you can most likely tell things are going to get…interesting…from this point on.
'The Cage' and 'Vampire Heart' are not only the titles for Yuji's novels but of two songs by the wonderful HIM…those that caught that reference may also have seen that the first quote Sei-chan gives is, in fact, a slight variation on lyrics from 'Killing loneliness' a song that is all but written for my beloved Sakurazukamori
Next chapter Sunday at the latest until then R+R, the more love you give me the move I'll return!
