Well, it's high time I slapped a 'Completed' tag on this one. It's not that it's taken me this long to write, it's just that it's taken me this long to actually upload it. ~X( That said, I put in a smidge of BanxKazuki to make up for the JuubeixKazuki ending. A small part of me wanted to allude to the lodestones thing that happened to Juubei, but I wasn't sure how that ended up, so nothing about lodestones and untouchable Juubei. That said, here's the ending! Hope it was worth the wait and is enjoyable. - paris

Chapter Eleven: Untangle

When Kazuki was a child, he once brought a ball of knotted up strings to his mother. He couldn't untangle the mass and was becoming desperate. He was already in tears by the time he relayed to his mother what had happened. It wasn't right, after all, that the String Master—no matter how young he was—could not untangle the strings.

His mother had taken a few short minutes to undo the mess he had created during practice. She spoke in a soothing voice as she explained to him the philosophy behind her method. "More often than not, there are two or three pieces truly knotted together. All the rest are just caught in between," she said as she pulled a long piece of string free from the mess. "It may seem that they are all stuck together in a complicated mess, but many of these can be removed without a problem." When the deft fingers of Kazuki's mother stopped moving, there were only two strings left in the bind. They were knotted pretty tightly. "It looks like I can't remove this knot. You'll have to cut parts of the strings off if you want them separated."

"Should I cut them apart, mother?" Kazuki had asked.

"Kazuki, that's for you to decide," she replied. "Sometimes, to completely untangle them, you have to remove parts of your string. Do you understand?"

"I understand, mother."

At that time, Kazuki hadn't truly understood. He understood the logic of his mother's words. They couldn't function properly all knotted up like that. But, at the same time, Kazuki didn't feel right about cutting the beautiful silken cords. Why did the strings have to get hurt when it was his fault?

But it wasn't always his fault. He had been inexperienced. His inexperience had caused the mess. And everyone had to be inexperienced at one point or another.

Kazuki stared at his strings, lying on his hands. The white koto strings which had been his trusted allies all his life like...

"...Juubei."

"Now you call to him even when you're awake," Ban teased from where he was standing by the door of the room he had asked Kazuki and Juubei to share. He looked around. This was the room where the whole mess had started, hopefully, things would end cleanly here, as well. "Where's Needle Boy?"

Kazuki shook his head, and, as always, his impossibly silky hair danced enticingly with each movement. Ban ached to reach out and touch those soft locks. Not one to deprive himself of small pleasures, he did exactly that. The String Master did not pull away, only looked at his lover with large questioning, albeit beguiling eyes. "Ban..." that one word was pregnant with so many unspoken emotions, with love, and with a longing that was being anticipated.

"Now," Ban said with no small amount of fondness. "Now, you call my name. With that tone, no less..." he sighed, dropping on the tatami, beside Kazuki's futon. "You're not making this any easier for me, you know."

Kazuki lowered his gaze towards his strings again. "I'm sorry."

"I'd always known," Ban confirmed with a grin. "But Needle Boy had yet to move, I figured I still had a chance." He chuckled fondly. "Serves me right for trying to fight fate and true love, huh?"

Quizzical brown eyes studied the Jagan Master for a moment before saying, "We're all born to fight fate. What's the point of living life otherwise?" he said wisely, making the other man look at him in surprise for taking a joke so seriously. Kazuki then reached out and cupped Ban's face as was his habit before initiating a kiss. "And my love for you is very real, I can tell you that."

Ban leaned in towards Kazuki's face a bit, an unconscious longing shown in his actions. "You're really not making this easy for me," he said closing the distance between their lips.

The doomed lovers kissed each other softly, gently, but with an underlying passion that was both their nature and the nature of their relationship. They parted on their own volition, feeling that it was just the proper time to part. They separated consensually moving on to gazing into each other's eyes and searching there for answers.

"That was a good one, Itomaki," Ban whispered, banishing all emotions of sadness from his voice. He was determined to save face after all this, at the very least. Also, he didn't want to burden his brown-haired angel with guilt.

"Yes," Kazuki smiled a small sad smile that almost made the violet-eyed man hope.

"I should go," Ban began to rise, getting ready to leave and get used to not lying beside the Fuuchoin heir's soft body at night. "I guess it'll be a bit cold tonight."

Kazuki caught his hand. "Thank you..." he said with heartbreaking sincerity. "I love you, too, Ban."

At this, Ban nodded and left the room with a softly smiling Kazuki watching his retreating back.

- END -