A quick bout of review replies:
Feather-chan: Eh heh heh… would spoil a tiny bit here, but I don't plan on changing the past too direly. (dodges people who wanted her to beat the tar out of Sei-chan with ye auld Power of God's Will) Aiiii! (runs) Anyway, I hope this one's a tiny bit unique. Not certain if it will be. But damn it all, it's fun to write! (whines on and on and on until distracted by her television) Xenosaga! Ooo! (and the muses collectively slap their foreheads, aghast at her gnat-like attention span)
Tankyasu: Ah, thanks for the criticism. His flamboyant innocence is something I at times have a hard time grasping, and at other times am completely against – after all, as TB takes place over the span of a year, who's to say that he remained perfectly innocent that entire time? Who's to say it isn't, to some small effect, an act? (demonic giggle) I know plenty of people like that – precious and sweet and oh so pure to the general populous, and actually anything but underneath it all. Not that I intend to go that far with Subby. Will try to reflect more on his 'I stammer like a parrot screams when molested' self, though. (nodnod) Thanks for continuing to read, in spite of my character flaws – what can I say? I'm not CLAMP. I didn't create the spastic angst-monkey. (smirk) It's hard to get in the head of a two-dimensional construct of ink and paper, after all. Just no room in his wee flat skull!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own X or Tokyo Babylon, nor do I hold rights to any of the characters held within those works. They all belong to the four goddesses of Clamp. I'm just borrowing them for my own sick pleasure.
WARNINGS: Alternate timeline, Kamui-chan thrown into Tokyo Babylon. Terrible representation of Japan (well, I've never been there. Excuse the hell out of me) with no proper placement of important areas/buildings/etc. Kamui-chan angsting as usual, random Sumeragi household lunacy, and Seishiro cuddling and pillow-talking (lemon removed, will be posted on ye auld webpage when I get around to updating that decrepit thing).
Read at your own risk.
-BEGIN FIC-
'Kamui.'
The Power of God's Will. The 'Kamui' of the Dragons of Heaven, directly opposed to the twin star 'Kamui' of Earth, He Who Hunts God's Will.
The Power of God's Will was sitting on my couch…?
As unbelievable as it seemed, I couldn't bring myself to refute the boy's claim. Not when that dream I'd had pointed towards the same conclusion as that he'd just given me. Not when I'd seen him and his true spiritual makeup, when I'd heard the roar that echoed across my dreamscape, when I could reach with my own aura and without extending my senses feel the raw power dripping from him.
Trying to calm the racing of my heart, I folded my legs underneath myself and sat a bit more properly on the cushion. "'Kamui.' But…."
"But?" he murmured, looking at me with those penetrating amethyst eyes of his.
"You're clearly a Dragon of Heaven," I softly clarified. "Meaning that you've made your choice."
"Aa."
"And that happens in the year Nineteen Ninety-Nine."
"Aa," he said again with a nod.
"And where are you supposedly during this time?"
He didn't bother reading the suspicion in my voice, and instead answered me quickly and with a tone of honesty that I couldn't begin to question, "If this is really Nineteen Ninety, I'm… God, I'm only six years old. That means that Mother has yet to take me to Okinawa. So we're by the shrine where Aunt… Aunt Saya and…"
I arched a brow, silently urging him to continue.
"Mr. Monou. And Kotori. And Fuuma…."
As he crumbled, my drive to push him with questions followed his resolve to answer. While he sat on my couch staring at his hands and harboring tears in his lackluster eyes, I rose from my seat and went instead to get us some tea.
It was the least I could do.
He was grateful when I returned and silently offered him a mug. Lifting it from its saucer, he sipped delicately from it and sighed. "Arigato," he whispered.
"Don't mention it," I replied before taking a long draught from my own cup.
A few minutes passed while he calmed himself and drank tea before he continued, "Tokagoshi Shrine. I should be in the neighborhood. We lived a couple houses down from the Shrine itself. That was where the Monou family lived."
I nodded. Certainly I'd have to check the area in the next few days to verify Shiro-kun's statement. "And where are you supposed to be in Nineteen Ninety-Nine?"
He blinked a few times before answering, "I'm living at Clamp Academy. Imonoyama-san's Manor."
"You're living with the campus director?"
Shiro-kun nodded. "Nokuro invited us to stay there because it's warded against the threat of the Dragons of Earth and it's kind of a safe haven until the Promised Day."
My eyes widened. Nokuro? The only Imonoyama Nokuro I knew was…
Oh God. What's the world coming to when that little blonde kid that smacks people on the bus every day with his fan is the future director of Clamp Academy?
Given the school mascot, though, I do suppose it's fitting. Hmph.
"I… see. You said 'us.'"
"Most of the others live there too. Sorata, Arashi, Yuzuriha and…."
"And?" I pressed on.
"You."
A frown caught my lips. Me? Living at Clamp Academy? When I should be, what, twenty-five?
If I was at Clamp Academy….
Where was….
"How much do you know about each of us?" I asked, my eyes narrowing slightly.
"What do you mean?" he innocently chirped.
"You know anything about me?"
Bowing his head, he looked away. "A bit. I know what you were willing to share about yourself when you saved me from the bottom of my soul."
God, my head was swimming. The boy was talking about supposedly future events in past tense. Events that either had to be falsified or truly occurrences that had yet to happen, as I had absolutely no recollection of them. Geez.
"You told me about your sister. About how she wasn't an onmyouji like you. And a little bit about your ties with the Sakur-"
"Stop," I bit.
He instantly silenced. Staring at me with wide eyes, he blinked.
I didn't want to hear what he'd just said. I didn't want to believe what he'd just said.
'Your ties with the Sakurazukamori.'
I knew whom he meant. I knew instinctively that this wasn't some person I'd be meeting in the future that had yet to become a known to me.
My mind spun wildly about everything he'd already said and everything he'd unintentionally revealed.
I was staying at Clamp Academy with him and three other Dragons of Heaven, hiding from those who fought for the preservation of Earth over humanity. I, who would have no reason to fear them, who has the ability to ward myself through onmyoujitsu, was remaining within the wards of another person. Something I wouldn't do normally – I know other people can craft decent wards and I don't usually doubt their validity, but I've encountered too many poorly crafted barriers and flawed safety nets to trust any other than my own. If I was going to stay in a warded area, it would be my own home here in Shinjuku or at the Sumeragi household in Kyoto.
But instead I was staying at Clamp Academy. Meaning my time in Shinjuku was done.
And he hadn't mentioned Hokuto-chan when he'd gone through his list of names of people he was staying with. Just me.
That coupled with his proclamation that he knew about my sister made my heart sink into my stomach. I told him something about my sister at the bottom of his soul.
When people go to the bottom of their hearts, experience has proven that such is because they're escaping the tragedies of life, running from reality. One of the proven ways to free them from the prisons they unintentionally weave about themselves is to show them that they're not alone and that there are people waiting for them back in the world of the living who would be sad if they were to leave us behind.
"How long had I know you… before I dove…?"
Shiro-kun's voice stammered slightly in fright. Fright? Was I truly frightening him with the sincerity of my tone? Or did he know what I was thinking, and he was afraid of telling me the conclusion of my questioning? "It… It was actually the first time we met," he whimpered quietly.
The first time we'd met.
At the bottom of his soul.
I'd met him in the wake of tragedy and for some reason had told him about Hokuto-chan.
Tragedy….
Hokuto-chan….
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He had been silent ever since we'd ended our conversation. I'd already washed the mugs we'd used for tea and turned on the television to watch the evening news as I finished my math homework and began to read my Literature assignment.
Glancing back at him for the first time since the conclusion of his interrogation, I exhaled softly.
Shiro-kun was still sitting on the couch, staring miserably at his folded hands.
He hadn't wanted to upset me and was regretting doing so quite terribly. I could gather that much from his morose position.
With an audible sigh, I rose from my seat before the television and walked over to him. Setting my hands on either side of him, I smiled gently. "Hey."
He sniffed once and lifted his head.
Why did my heart clench so to see tears marring his cheeks?
Reaching up with a finger, I brushed the wet droplets from his cheeks. "Don't be so upset. I'm sorry I snapped earlier, Shiro-kun," I offered. "I simply overreacted to what you were implying with your words."
He sniffed miserably. "Gomen."
"Neh, how about… we simply don't bring it up from now on?"
"What do you mean, 'from now on?'" he questioned softly as he wiped his nose, keeping those sad eyes staring deeply into my own. "I thought you'd be sending me on my way."
"Well, you have no place to go, do you?"
"No," he sighed as he shook his head, lowering his gaze once more.
"So you can stay here," I told him, putting my hands on his shoulders. "That is, if you wish to."
His gaze instantly snapped up to stare into my eyes once more. "You… you're letting me stay here?"
"Why not? You've yet to show me a reason to distrust you."
He arched a brow. "Even though I'm… well, in retrospect, I guess I wouldn't blame you for not believing me at all and thinking I'm some sort of a loon…."
"Whether I believe you or not has yet to really be determined. I'm going to be following up on that claim of yours as to where you're living," I clarified, seriousness filling my voice before I smiled and brightly continued, "but until I find any falsehood in what you've said, you're welcome to stay. After all, Hokuto-chan doesn't live here, so there's plenty of room."
"She doesn't?"
"No, she has her own apartment. Granted she's next door…."
His face brightened considerably.
"So cheer up, alright?" I encouraged, gathering him into my arms and granting him a lighthearted, comforting hug.
He nodded, pressing his nose into the crook of my shoulder and neck as he clenched his arms tightly around me. "Arigato, Subaru."
It was at that moment that the doorbell rang wildly just moments before the door burst open.
"HOKUTO-CHAN HAS ARRIVED!"
Turning and releasing Shiro-kun as his hands flew away from me and he nearly jumped out of his own skin at the sudden shout, I smiled brightly. Leave it to my sister to make an entrance that's impossible to ignore.
Standing in my doorway in her supremely bright pink regal gown who's skirt seemed to be made entirely of individual hoola-hoops bound together by cloth, she tugged once at the huge fur ruffle that circled her neck before tossing a handful of confetti into the air. As it sparkled around her, she strutted in and flopped the grocery bag she'd been hiding behind her back into my entryway before kicking off her fur-lined pink heels and slipping on like-colored soft slippers with white fuzzy puffballs centered in bows decorating the front of them.
"Ah, let me get that for you," I responded automatically, hurrying to take the bag she had left for me. "How did your shopping trip go?"
"Absolutely fabulously!" she giggled brightly as she lifted the furry hem of her dress and stepped lightly towards the kitchen. "I found three new outfits for me, four for you, a new pair of sexy black gloves you've GOT to try on tonight, a pair of ties for Sei-chan…"
As she continued, I couldn't help but grin despite the desperate sigh that tried to battle its way up my throat. She's blown her monthly allowance again, I was more than willing to bet. Food would be on my tab until the next month rolled around.
"And we're going to be having… neh, who's that?"
I blinked as the sudden shift in her tone and her conversing hit me. "Ah, Hokuto-chan, allow me to introduce you." Carrying the bag of groceries with me, I led her by the elbow to the couch. "Hokuto-chan, this is Shiro Kamui. Shiro-kun, Sumeragi Hokuto, my twin sister."
He was staring with unabashed astonishment. "So you're Hokuto…?"
"Hm. A friend of yours that I've yet to meet? Just how many of these surprising little relationships are you keeping from me, Subaru?"
I retreated to the kitchen, looking at Hokuto-chan intently, willing her to follow.
She and I have always shared such an understanding. She knew my wishes immediately and followed without question.
Once in the kitchen, we hovered towards the wall farthest from the living room and quietly whispered to one another. "I just met him today, actually."
"You just met him today?" she asked, a bit of worried hysteria in her voice. "So why is he in your house? In your sweats?"
"He doesn't have anywhere else to go-"
"Subaru," Hokuto-chan snorted, her voice dropping, "he's not a stray dog. You can't keep him."
"I didn't intend for it to be that way!" I shot back. "It's…"
"It's what, Subaru?"
"I dreamed about him."
She was silent for a few moments, her eyes widening slightly. She, like Seishiro-san, understood the importance of dreams.
"Neh, you left the rest of your groceries out in the van! I was wondering if you were ever going to return for them."
We both jumped and shrieked, completely startled out of our wits.
"Seishiro-san!" I gasped.
"Sei-chan!" Hokuto-chan screeched, "Don't do that! God, do you want your future sister-in-law to drop dead of a heart attack?"
An innocent laugh left his lips as he walked over and put the remaining two grocery bags Hokuto-chan had abandoned to the van onto the counter before pulling up a chair and smiling. "Sorry about that. So, what's this interesting little secret conversation about? Can I join in?"
"It's about that boy," Hokuto-chan offered.
I stared as Seishiro-san's eyes instantly narrowed slightly. He knew, also. So I wasn't completely off my rocker when I thought I'd sensed what I'd sensed. "Oh, yes. Interesting boy. Wherever did you find him, Subaru-kun?"
I held my head. What was it about me that made those two refer to everyone I held relations with as if they were stray puppies I'd found?
Not that it was too far from the truth in Shiro-kun's case, but still!
"He was wandering the streets."
"And you took him in?" Seishiro-san pushed.
"He did!" Hokuto-chan offered before I could even open my mouth. "And just how much do you know about him, Subaru?" she questioned, turning her attention lightning-quick back to me.
"I…."
"You should really answer the question, Subaru-kun," Seishiro-san said, his voice serious and soft. "It's a rather dangerous thing to take in strangers such as that without knowing anything about them."
God, he really had sensed what the boy was. What he claimed.
The power of the Dragon of Heaven. The power of the 'Kamui.'
Clearing my throat, I leaned towards Hokuto-chan and Seishiro-san and sighed. "Look. I know this sounds really strange and stupid, but… he claims to be from the Tokyo of Nineteen Ninety-Nine."
"He's from the future?" Hokuto-chan asked, her expression dropping from concerned to disgusted disbelief, eyes flat and bored as if she'd heard that excusable story a million times before.
"Aa. That's what he says, at least."
"And you believe him?" my sister pushed.
"I've found no reason not to."
She slapped her forehead soundly.
Obviously Hokuto-chan didn't follow in my trust. Was I being blithe and obtuse to believe him? A sigh escaped my lips as I turned my attention to Seishiro-san, fearing I'd see the same expression on his face and the same accusatory look in his eyes berating me for being so silly.
I didn't see what I'd expected. Instead, he was staring intently at the living room and scratching his chin, his eyes narrowed and pondering the possibilities. "Don't be so quick to write off the boy's claims, Hokuto-chan," Seishiro-san quietly stated.
"Nani nani?" she questioned, leaning over the table and laying her hand on my shoulder. She stared into the room as Seishiro-san did, her eyes narrowed. "Why do you say that?"
"Because there's something about that boy that's entirely out of the ordinary."
"So you believe he's from the future?" she blandly snorted.
"I don't entirely abolish the possibility. Subaru-kun's right to keep an open mind, especially so far as that boy is concerned."
"So you approve of him taking in that kid?" she pushed.
"Perhaps it's best to keep him where we can carefully watch him," Seishiro-san said, his eyes narrowing with something close to menace in their depths. "A person such as him shouldn't be left to wander unobserved."
We all sat silently for a few moments before Hokuto-chan took a bag and began unpacking its contents. As assorted vegetables were placed on the counter, she sighed. "Alright. So I'll have to cook for four tonight." A chipper smile sprang to her lips. "Hokuto-chan will rise to the challenge! We'll see if I can win HIM over as well!"
As her laughter rang through the kitchen, I allowed a relieved smile to come across my lips. One down.
Seishiro-san visibly relaxed as Hokuto-chan's silvery laugh continued and the clanking of pots and pans being shuffled rang along with it. Smiling, he turned to me. "So what's his name? Or should I continue to call him 'that boy' for all the time he remains here?"
"Mm. Shiro Kamui," I replied.
He blinked. "'Kamui,' eh?"
I nodded.
As one, we turned back towards the living room.
"Very interesting name. Very, very interesting indeed," Seishiro-san quietly said.
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Dinner was quite an event that evening. It had started off with a considerable jolt of warning after I'd introduced Shiro-kun to Seishiro-san. The pure violence in those amethyst eyes and the hiss of his voice as he whispered my name and asked me to follow him into the living room was enough to put me entirely on guard.
Yes, the boy resonated the aura of a Dragon of Heaven. But that in of itself doesn't make him automatically deserving of my trust.
He'd questioned me about Seishiro-san. He'd asked about our relationship. When he started pressing me about whether or not I knew who he really was, I told him to keep his knowledge of the future to himself and not reveal any of it as doing so may have detrimental effects on his time.
After all, alter the past and the knowledge held by those in the past and you'd alter the future. Alter the future and you destroy the set path you followed to get there. It was a theory I was well familiar with and fascinated with. Indeed, one of my papers last year for my Analytical Thinking class had been about the concept of time travel and why it couldn't logically function without complete dissolution of the space-time continuum itself.
Shiro-kun frightened me when he chirped that perhaps that's why he was in 'our' time as he persisted in calling it. The thought of changing the future seemed to brighten him considerably. And when I told him that indeed it might not only alter the future but might even go so far as to alter the people of the future, he'd looked directly at me and said one word – "Good."
What was it about me in the future that made him so desperate to change the past?
Or was what I had begun to ponder during our initial interrogation….
God, I pray not.
He reluctantly agreed to put the future behind him, so to speak, at my continued request. His knowledge would be kept to himself, where it belonged.
After agreeing to such, I also informed him that while Seishiro-san might be who he accused him of being, he was first and foremost welcome in my home and he was a dear friend to me.
I'd caught myself before I had told Shiro-kun that I wouldn't let him drive the one who was slowly becoming irreplaceably and irrefutably special to me from my home.
However, I believe Shiro-kun knew what I had truly intended to say. He'd looked at me, hope fleeing his eyes, and whimpered, "You already… I'm already too late, aren't I?"
Too late to change the future as he wished? I was already what?
He was going to drive me absolutely insane before the week had ended.
Laying my hand on his shoulder, I sighed and told him to come back into the dining room and leave his misgivings behind. Leave the future where it belongs – in the future. Take the present for what it is.
He'd reluctantly followed me back, and had very solemnly apologized to Seishiro-san.
Thankfully Seishiro-san quickly accepted his apology and gave my guest nothing less than his warmest of smiles even as he pulled a chair up for the young man to place him on my other side.
Then Hokuto-chan had served dinner.
Have I mentioned how fabulous her cooking is?
Shiro-kun had stared at us with amazement as Seishiro-san and I tore into our meal with vigorous appetites and Hokuto-chan giggled brightly and proclaimed that it was yet another fabulous original creation that had gone off quite well. Then he carefully sampled his own plate.
It didn't take him more than a mouthful to mimic us in trying to beat everyone else for seconds.
Thirty minutes and two emptied pots later, we were leaning back in our chairs as Hokuto-chan spooned the last of her soup into her mouth. "A spectacular success, Hokuto-chan!" Seishiro-san congratulated.
"Ah, arigato Sei-chan!" she returned, her smile brilliant.
I gave her a passing pat on her head as I gathered the dishes into the sink. "Thank you for the delicious dinner, Hokuto-chan."
She grinned right before she screeched. "ACK! You – OUT! You know you're not allowed in the kitchen! Sei-chan, YOU get in here to do the dishes!"
We both automatically bowed our heads and simultaneously replied, "Haaaaaai."
Shiro-kun was invited to stay and help Seishiro-san dry, which he reluctantly did. His eyes did follow me until I vanished from the dining room, though.
Sitting down on the couch, I gathered my homework in my hands and flipped through it, spot-checking my math and rereading my paper for Literature to gather my thoughts once more. I'd already copied my Anatomical Sciences homework from the pages Seishiro-san had written out for me.
My thoughts refused to remain on my schoolwork. All I could think of was that this was certainly going to be interesting, having Shiro-kun staying in my home. At least staying until we could verify whether or not his claim of being from the future was true.
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"God, I thought he'd never fall asleep," I softly whispered against my warm pillow.
Tanned arms encircled me and squeezed me gently. "Mm. Thankfully he beat you into slumber. Now tell me, Subaru-kun. Why did you insist I stay tonight when you should be resting yourself?"
A soft laugh escaped my lungs as I crawled along his chest through the tunnel his arms created to reach his lips with my own. Capturing his mouth in a tender kiss, I pressed my arms along either side of his head, flattening the pillow he was using. "Because I want to thank you for doing my homework for me," I replied, laying down fully on him.
"Subaru-kun…" he whispered, a smile crossing his lips as he broke his embrace to lift one hand and nimbly brush it over my hair. Lightly tracing his fingertips along the bandages I still wore, he closed his eyes. "Silly. You should be trying to recover."
Pressing down onto him, attempting to absorb his warmth in the chill of the night air, I chuckled. "I am recovering. I certainly didn't get hurt where it matters."
"Everything that's you matters."
My heart raced in my chest. He truly said the most precious things when we were alone. Not the silly or perverted proclamations he made when Hokuto-chan was around or the laughable romancing he attempted when we were in public, but truly beautiful confirmations that what he so vocally stated amongst others was indeed true.
"Seishiro-san," was all that came to my mind and my lips as I laid my head beside his, my eyes closing as I fought off the dizziness that threatened to overcome me as blood rushed to my beaten skull.
Turning on his side, Seishiro-san lightly ran his hand along my side, his fingers making my flesh tingle as they came to rest on my hip. "Subaru-kun," he replied in turn, his lips turned in a delectable smile as he pressed his body closer to mine.
A deep breath raced through my lungs, coupling with the rapid stammer of my heart. I wanted him so terribly….
I've read stories and watched movies where the before-bedding preamble lasted page upon page, minute upon minute. It's never been that way between Seishiro-san and myself. Perhaps because I took so long (nearly an entire year – I know of people who give themselves to one another after their first date (not that we've had many of those, no matter how much Seishiro-san would object to that statement! He proclaims that every time we're together it's a date. The humanity of it all.) and would consider the length of time it took for me to crack open my shell and Seishiro-san to leap at the opportunity I granted him an abnormality) to come to terms with my own longings and desires, and his had existed since… well, I don't know when they'd initially formed, but they were already well developed when I'd abandoned my reservations about the possibilities of same-gender relationships and my resolve to deny this person I was beginning to truly care for what he wanted and what I was exceedingly curious about. But perhaps it was because I'd taken so long getting past my inhibitions that we hurried to the actual sex involved in our sparse, rare encounters.
They say sex doesn't have to be an expression of love, after all. I believe that. I believe that one can have sex for sex's sake, can utilize it as a tool, or can use it as a weapon if necessary. I believe that it can be a confirmation of emotion and the deepest giving of friendship that can occur between two people.
It wasn't friendship so far as Seishiro-san was concerned. It was something deeper. Something more.
Something that was just shy of love. I still wasn't certain my feelings for him were that.
But my pure curiosity and the depth of my caring for him had opened me to the possibilities, and for that I am forever grateful. It has been one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life, those few times when we've actually indulged.
Opening my eyes, I found my trailing recollection of how we'd come to arrive at the point we were at disrupted completely.
I could only stare into those beautiful golden orbs that gazed so serenely into my own eyes.
A chuckle rumbled through his chest, lightly jostling my bangs. "I should be going."
"So soon?" I whimpered, looping my arms around him. I really didn't want him to leave….
"What will Shiro-kun say if I'm tromping out of your room when he wakes up tomorrow morning?"
But he did have such a viable point.
"I'm coming to the clinic tomorrow evening."
"What about your young guest?"
"He can come with me."
Seishiro pressed his lips once more to the top of my head. "Then I'll see you tomorrow, Subaru-kun."
"Aa."
As he held me into the night, the stresses and worries of the day melted into the purest and most peaceful of sleeps I could have.
I'd initially been worried that the haunting thoughts Shiro-kun's words had imparted to my overwrought imagination would be destined to stay with me into the night and prevent me from sleeping soundly. That I'd be going over his sentences over and over and over again, trying to discern all of the hidden meanings and innuendoes in them. That I'd be trying to put together the puzzle of what exactly had happened to Hokuto-chan and what had occurred between Seishiro-san and myself in the sad future he claimed to have hailed from. However, the troubling thoughts Shiro-kun had brought to me, the horrible stack of homework that had yet to be completed, all faded into the darkness of slumber.
As I fell away from the waking world, there wasn't one thought in my mind of the boy on the couch.
tbc...
A/N: Just a small clarification. Some people may have flailed at how open and trusting and touchy Subaru was being with Kamui (and perhaps vice versa), and how that's directly inverse of how Subaru was during Tokyo Babylon (and how Kamui's portrayed in the anime). I'd like to take a moment to point out the X manga. Subaru hasn't much changed so far as his introversion is concerned nine years in the future. He doesn't touch anyone, offer comfort to anyone, and is very difficult to yank conversation out of (let's see, he talks to Sorata when he's high on morphine in the hospital (and that conversation whirls about Kamui and how the poor boy is blaming himself and hasn't slept and angst angst angst). He offers Fuuma a few curt sentences when he's 'Seishiro-sanning' at the Sakurazuka house. He offers the most terribly brief explanation of what he's doing when he's preparing to prance about in Kamui's comatose skull to the DoH crew, leaving the mass of the explanation to Exposition!Sorata. Other than that… a couple shouts at Fuuma and Nataku to leave Kamui alone when fighting them, silent and moody glowers, etc. And a sentence and a glance when Fuuma talks to him after he watches Nataku become pasty-bits while defending Karen.).
Now look at the rest of Subaru's appearances. When he speaks, it's almost exclusively to Kamui. And despite the fact that Kamui 'do(es)n't know (him) at all' when they first meet, they're grabby-hands and huggy all over one another. Fangirls every scream as the yaoi-ness of it oozes out of the pages.
Despite them having no real clue about one another beside the fact that Kamui is the ever-so-vital 'Kamui' of the DoH and Subaru is one of the Seals that will help him, they're all over one another like PB&J on bread. A five-minute conversation in the depths of Kamui's skull ends in hugs and gushiness with many CLAMP sparkles. A battle that ends in the loss of an eye ends up in more hand-grabbing and 'let-me-be-your-uke' symbolism than anything ever drawn in Tokyo Babylon, along with delicate smiles and face-petting. Moments alone in bedrooms end in close-up 'let-me-bury-my-nose-in-your-bangs' tie tying (and they're alone in Kamui's bedroom? WTF goes my little brain, along with loud laughter at what can be construed by the sick and demented like myself). Other moments alone in bedrooms feature 'your-knee-is-soft' attentions and more grabby-hands and face-petting.
There's so much 'innocent' (VIOLENT COUGH) touching between Subaru and Kamui, even with the Sumeragi-brat supposedly being as (if not more) introverted in X than he is in Tokyo Babylon, that I felt completely justified in having some of that contact reflected here.
Problems? Give me a critical, well-thought-out review. Please remember that I base everything off the manga, not the twitchy-eye anime that deviated so severely halfway through volume six that I screamed in horror and tried to beat myself to death with my beer bottle. No Sakurazukamori!Subaru? I cry in pain. In pain, I tell you! But as I was saying, flame and I ignore you and remove you from those people who're allowed to slather my fics with your hate. Critically and thoughtfully review, and I'll try my damnedest to accommodate you within my abilities and my vision for my fics.
And as always, thank you for reading! Sorry this note was so long, but I love to ramble. :)