Title: "Careful With What You Wish - Chap 20: The Loneliness"
Author: J.J.
Warning: It's an AU BASED ON THE MANGA. It requires knowledge of the 'X' manga. It contains some Japanese words (the Dictionary is at the bottom), some OOC, a bit of sappiness, twisted relationships, suicide attempts, mentions of abuse, violence, general insanity and other stuffs I might have forgot... Deal with this fic with caution...
Notes: This is dark and twisted, dark and twisted, dark and twisted... have I mentioned it's dark and twisted? It's born to show a less nice Seishiro, how bad is Fuma's idea that Wishes must be fulfilled and how stubborn can be Subaru no matter what happened to him.
Warning over notes: This fic has notes. You will find them at the bottom. Each time you see a number between brackets it means there's a note connected to the word/sentence that preceded it. However I suggest you to read the notes AFTER you finished the fic unless the word/sentence connected to the note is really troublesome for you to understand. Anyway the fic should be still understandable without the notes. Notes are merely extra explanations for who wants to know more.
Disclaimer:
"Tokyo Babylon" and "X" belong to Clamp. I'm merely using their characters because I love them... especially Seishiro and Subaru...
Ehy, Do I own something here? Oh yes, I own the plot and a sensible heart which would surely break if you give me harsh reviews... so please be honest but nice ok?
Summary: After meeting Subaru in his Maboroshi 16 years ago Seishiro chose to keep him and placed him under a spell so that he would obey to him. Now, in the year of the destiny he has to face Sumeragi Hokuto who wants her brother back and Monou Fuma's obsession for fulfilling wishes...

'We should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for.' Andy Rooney

"La solitudine fra noi
Questo silenzio dentro me
È l'inquietudine di vivere
La vita senza te.
Ti prego aspettami perché
Non posso stare senza te
Non è possibile dividere la storia di noi due."
("The loneliness between us
This silence inside me
Is the uneasiness of living
My life without you.
Please, wait for me because
I can't stay without you
It's not possible to part the story of the two of us.")
(Laura Pausini - "La solitudine")

Kigai Yuto frowned and put down his cup of tea as he watched Sakurazuka-san walk back and forth through the room like a caged wild animal. There was something wounded and angry in the man, something that hadn't been there before, when Subaru-san had been around, something that made him even more dangerous that he normally was, and Sakurazuka-san was a very dangerous person.

And he looked horrible.

The man, who before had always been the picture of self-confidence, charm and elegance, now definitely needed some sleep, a bath, a change of clothes and to quit smoking so obsessively. Apparently he couldn't finish a cigarette without immediately lighting another...

None of the Chi no Ryu seemed fond of him, really, with the possible exception of Kamui, whose dealings with the lot of them didn't really seem driven by feelings of 'liking' or 'disliking', but for himself Sakurakuza-san seemed the type of person who could act as your best friend and then effortlessly and without regret stab you in the back or even in the front for no other reason than that you had bored him, as if you were nothing more than trash to him. Only Subaru-san seemed to escape this relegation.(1)

To be honest, Yuto believed he didn't know the man well enough to judge him, but he was good at forming an understanding of people at first glance and his instinct was telling him that it was a smart idea to keep away from Sakurazuka-san. As much as he could. Especially just then. And Yuto normally trusted his instinct and did what it suggested.

However...

However, Sakurazuka-san was a fellow Chi no Ryu and Yuto believed firmly it was his duty to help his mates.(2) Plus Yuto liked Subaru-san, liked him enough to consider him a fellow mate, even when he knew the boy was born to be a Ten no Ryu. Subaru-san, despite his affiliation with Sakurazuka-san, was a good person totally unlike the Sakurazukamori. Subaru-san cared, cared for everyone despite who they were or what they did, and honestly wanted to help them despite his delicate situation as, in Satsuki-chan's none too gentle words, 'Sakurazukamori's plaything'. Subaru-san cared. Especially for Sakurazuka-san. He cared for Sakurazuka-san the most, in Yuto's opinion. Yuto was sure the young man hadn't left Sakurazuka-san of his own free will; he must have been pushed or forced to do so by something external. That conviction had made him ask that red haired Ten no Ryu if she knew where Subaru-san was.(3)

She'd been evasive.

He was ready to bet it meant she knew.

However, Satsuki-chan's Beast, despite many attempts (the girl was taking it as a personal challenge), couldn't infiltrate CLAMP Gakuen's system, and to point Sakurakuza-san in the dirrection of the Ten no Ryu's headquarters then let him loose seemed a bad idea. He knew Kanoe-san couldn't care less about Subaru-san as long as Sakurazuka-san kept performing his duties as a Chi no Ryu, so he had tried talking with Kuzuki-san. The man was a YumeMi far more powerful than Kanoe-san and he should have ways to track Subaru-san down or to contact him. Plus Kuzuki-san had some sort of fondness for Subaru-san.

Kuzuki-san had been evasive, too.

All he had said was that he had tried to contact Subaru-san but... couldn't. Yuto was ready to bet that Kuzuki-san knew where Subaru-san was, but that he wouldn't lift a finger to help Sakurazuka-san. Kuzuki-san hadn't approved of how Sakurazuka-san treated Subaru-san and had never made a secret of it, even if Sakurazuka-san didn't pay it any attention, irritating Kuzuki-san even more. Actually, Yuto didn't approve either, but that was beside the point. No matter how twisted the relationship between Sakurazuka-san and Subaru-san was, Yuto was sure there was more to it than just a spell and a strong sense of ownership. It was something deep, complicated, and that couldn't be broken or ignored, and now that they were apart it was... destroying Sakurazuka-san from the inside, and Yuto feared it was doing the same to Subaru-san as well.

Yuto hadn't missed how Kuzuki-san, too, was worried for Subaru-san, a sign that wherever Subaru-san was, something was wrong.

Yuto sighed. He was the kind of person who believed one shouldn't oppose destiny but merely follow the flow, but he also believed mates should be helped, and Sakurazuka-san and Subaru-san were his mates.

Yuto saw Sakurazuka-san finally start to walk toward the exit, a haunted look in his eyes as if he simply could no longer stand being cooped up in the room, and without paying even a small glance to the assortment of pastries placed on the table in front of Yuto. A bad sign, really, and Yuto surely didn't look forward talking to the man while he was in this state, but... He sighed. He had too soft a heart. With a soft smile he stood and quietly followed Sakurazuka-san, hoping Satsuki-chan and Kanoe-san wouldn't miss his presence too much when they chose they wanted a break from their work and that they needed a friendly ear to listen to them and clever conversation to entertain them. Soon he was sharing the elevator with Sakurazuka-san as it rose toward the first floor. Sakurazuka-san smoked and constantly tapped against one of the walls with his fingers as if he couldn't keep still, and he smelled of blood so much it was impossible to miss it. Yuto could also see the reddish stains on his dark clothes. Yes, a bath and a change of clothes were definitely in order, but he doubted Sakurazuka-san would appreciate his suggestion.

"Sakurazuka-san, Subaru-san wouldn't appreciate seeing you like this," Yuto decided to say in a casual tone, as if he spoke of an unimportant topic. It was probably the most foolish and risky thing he had ever done in his life, since, at the moment, whatever regarded Subaru-san was probably the most important topic in Sakurazuka-san's mind and he was pretty touchy over that matter, but Yuto had to start somewhere. Sakurazuka-san's eyes narrowed into slits and the man literally radiated a murderous aura. Since Subaru-san's disappearance he had stopped smiling cheerfully and now always frowned, glared and even snarled. He was tense, tremendously tense, Yuto could clearly see it, as if he was always searching a way to vent his emotions, emotions too raw for him to keep bottled inside himself, and failing. Yuto remembered that the Sakurazukamori was supposed to be emotionless, or so Sakurazuka-san had said once, when Subaru-san had still been around. It couldn't be easy for Sakurazuka-san to discover that he had emotions, and that he had to deal with them on his own, without Subaru-san's support, especially when they looked so raw. Yuto weathered the glare, looking at him with a serious, yet calm, expression.

"Sakurazuka-san, I really hope you don't believe even for a second that Subaru-san left you on his own will," he stated.

"Subaru-kun is no longer under my spell and he's a Ten no Ryu," Sakurazuka-san hissed, fists clenching so tightly he destroyed the cigarette he held between his fingers. Yuto shook his head.

"Subaru-san vanished from the face of the Earth. No one seems to be able to find him, not Beast, not Kuzuki-san, not even you. It's not normal," Yuto said in a reasonable tone. "You'd do better to worry about what happened to him that took him away, not that he could have joined the Ten no Ryu," he suggested, putting into words the man's worst fears.

Seishiro blinked as he processed Yuto's words through his tired brain, his eyes bothered by the elevator's too bright artificial light. Recently he couldn't sleep. He had no idea why. Could what Kigai said be true? Could someone have forced Subaru-kun to leave? Could Subaru-kun be in trouble right then, trapped somewhere, maybe needing his help and with no way to contact him? But if that was so, why had the boy broken the damn spell in the first place? Why?

Sumeragi-chan couldn't have forced him to leave; her power couldn't remotely compete with Subaru-kun's, and she surely didn't know where they lived. Unless she had been helped by the other Ten no Ryu and their YumeMi...

It made a certain amount of sense, even if it sounded a bit ridiculous to imagine the Ten no Ryu kidnapping Subaru-kun. Maybe they aimed to force him to join their side... Maybe he should capture one of them and slam him or her against a wall until he or she told him if they were the ones behind Subaru-kun's disappearance...

'You may say you want him back but you don't Wish for it, and as long as that Want doesn't turn into a Wish I can't help you.'

He wanted Subaru-kun back. He wanted him back, no matter what. At this point he didn't care if Subaru-kun didn't want to be back. He wanted him back. He needed him back. He would make up for Subaru-kun's possible displeasure at being with him later. He would spoil and coddle him more if that helped, or buy him whatever he wanted, and maybe, if that didn't work, he could even risk putting him under a spell again. But he had to have Subaru-kun back or he would go insane, even if he had no idea why Subaru-kun's presence was indispensable to his sanity, and the though that Subaru-kun, too, might be in need of him right then made everything even more urgent.

To be continued...

JJ's Notes:

1. I know that the Chi no Ryu's Kamui acts affectionate with Nataku/Kazuki and Yuto witnessed it. I'm just saying he didn't take that behaviour for an actual favouritism from Kamui for one of the other Chi no Ryu. What really matters for Kamui are Wishes. He acts according to them not according to his own personal liking. He might have had feeling of affection for Kazuki but his behaviour was dictated by the fact that Kazuki wished him to act that way and Yuto, who's normally perceptive, guessed it.

2. Yuto protected Nataku in the 'X' manga when he got in troubles during the fight with Karen, taking his place against her when he normally doesn't seem interested in fighting. It gave me the impression he cared for his mates.

3. Some summary 'X' manga here. After Yuzuriha went missing Karen decided she would be the next to fight because she has no one who cares for her. So when Nataku attacks Yamanote line she drugs Seiichiro's tea (he was visiting her) so he falls asleep and then goes to face Nataku. She manages to send him on the ground but Yuto shows up to protect him. The two fight when Seiichiro (who had stabbed himself in a leg to stay awake) joins them. Yuto suggests they quit because both their partners are injured and it would be troublesome to protect them. Karen agrees and Yuto takes Nataku away as she runs to help Seiichiro.

JJ's Extra Notes:
Yes, I don't think Seishiro is emotionless, at least not in this fic. I merely believe he doesn't care for the rest of the humanity. Subaru excluded even if Seishiro hadn't realized it yet...
As for Yuto... he's one of my favourite characters. I like how he's so calm and yet he understand more than he lets out and how he cares for the other Chi no Ryu. I know the Anime gave him a mean side during his second fight with Karen but that was entirely made for the Anime and didn't happen at all in the manga so I flatly ignore it.

Dictionary:
-chan: Name ending used to express affection and familiarity or to talk with a child
-kun: Young
-san: "Mr." or "Mrs."
Chi no Ryu: Dragon of Earth
Gakuen: Campus
Maboroshi: Illusion
Onmyoudo: "Way of Yin and Yang". Yin and Yang are the male and female forces underlying the movement and changes of nature. Onmyoudo is based upon the Chinese arts of astrology, divination and Taoist magic and also represents a mystical way of living in harmony with the forces of nature
Onmyoujutsu: "Art of Yin and Yang". The ability to use Onmyoudo spells
Sakurazukamori: "Guardian of the Cherry Blossom Burial Mound". The assassin who uses Onmyoujutsu to kill who threatens Japan
Ten no Ryu: Dragon of Heaven
YumeMi: "Dreamgazer". Who can see the future in dreams

Replies to reviews:

To Everyone who reviewed: Thank you! You're a great encouragement for me!

To Gray Wings: You'll have to wait next chapter for a meeting... I'm glad to hear you still like this fic! BTW will you update 'The Good Sides of Insanity'? I really love that fic!

To Ori: Well, things can't go always well for them... but I'm happy to hear the past update made you happy. I hope you will enjoy this update as well!

To Dark Angel Of Fire Ice: (sighs) I'm so sorry part of your review went lost... but I'm happy you liked the past chap!

To ryuu: well, 'X' has so many chara we're bound to not like them all... Here there's some more S&S and a lot of it will be in the future chap, I promise!

To Hatori Soma & brinachan: Sorry if I made you wait but work keeps me quite busy... here there's the next chap!

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