The Artist's Hand

By: SanguinFox

Disclaimer: I do not own Loveless or any of the characters... it's sad, I know, but true...

Warning: It's light yaoi right now, but it is shonen-ai, meaning Soubi is a major pedophile, which I don't normally endorse, even in cartoon form, but Ritsuka's more mature than any 12 year old should be, so I say it's okay for them.

Author's Note: Yay! For reviewing that last chapter I want to say thanks to:

Deshera

emptyword

AegisQueen

Dipilidopa

XIXDeadGirlXIX

blueblazewolf

Emerald Gaze

Silve-White-Tiger

Setsuna-X

Manga Girls

Chapter 2

He wasn't sure what had made him truly go into art, all that he knew was that he was in it now, and there was apparently no way out. He was already trapped...

The tall blonde tried hard to keep from flinching when the lights were flashing all wound him as he stood perfectly still.

"Come on, Soubi," a familiar voice called out from the darkness that lay beyond the brightness that was threatening to blind the poor artist.

He kept the comments of needing to see to be able to keep painting to himself. He supposed that this is what all artists truly wanted, to become famous so all the world could see what he saw, but the paintings he was standing before were nothing but eye-candies, meant to decorate hotel rooms and lobbies only on a much larger scale. He wasn't planning on being known for smears of pinks and yellows with some orange thrown in. It was sad when the ones that took the least amount of time on get the great recognition from the world.

"You need to smile a little bit at least. For goodness sake, you're being featured in a magazine as one of the greatest young artist today."

Not sure if he was more annoyed with having his picture taken for a few works of art that he wasn't very proud of to begin with or if having his best friend suddenly become his manager and driving him absolutely psychotic was worse.

"Come on, Soubi, you've got a great smile, now share it with the world."

Looking slightly less annoyed, he almost smirked when he could hear Kio sigh in defeat. It was fun to mess with his best friend. He wasn't sure why Kio had decided to become his manager when he too had pieces of art that were beginning to get their name out there.

"Perfect!" the camera man suddenly shouted, and the photo shoot was concluded.

It was early in the day on the first Sunday showing for his gallery, it was his favorite time, the place was crowded with people who were pretending to like and understand art to seem more sophisticated and rich to the people around them, in fact there were very few people at all, which led to Kio's worrying about not having gotten enough word out about the gallery dates. Soubi was growing rather bored of the reporters who were pretty much all asking the same questions of the up and coming artist.

'How does it feel?'

'Where do you go from here?'

'Is your art meant to-?'

Soubi tried to hold back his yawn as he walked away from the third magazine representative. Wandering through the rooms, mostly to get Kio off his tail, Soubi was curious about a couple of young children that he came across in one of the rooms, the girl was tall with pink pigtails, and the boy that was obviously infatuated with her, but she continued to pull away from him slightly. A young woman was with them, obviously the one whose care the children were in, she didn't seem like all that much, her cat ear were still standing atop her head, a blondish brown like her hair. He simply walked by them though, when he noticed bright blond hair that was passing through another doorway, obviously looking for him. Finding his way into the room that he had puposely housed some of his most popular works with the only work that he was remotely proud of, he was quite surprised to see an innocent boy about the same age as the other children staring at the artwork.

"Why are you looking at that one? There are much better paintings that consist of much better colors."

"...It seems... lonely..."

Soubi tried not to laugh at the adorable way the boy let his head fall to one side as if seeing it at another angle would provide all of the answers just to the questions he was asking if not to the meaning of life, "You think so?"

"Yes..."

"Why's that?"

"I'm not sure... it just seems so different than the others..."

The cat ears atop the youth's head was nearly his undoing as they began to twitch in consternation.

"...the frame and the glass... it's like a trap, keeping the butterfly from escaping."

There was an amazing depth to the boy's views on the painting, it wasn't like that of a boy who was too young to even consider losing his ears just yet, "How old are you?"

In an almost comical fashion, the youth realized that he had been talking to a complete stranger, and slowly turned around, his large eyes growing wider with recognition of the artist, "M-Mr. Agatsuma..."

The blond man tried to play it calmly when he felt that he had seen that face before, but it was a long time ago. It was as if time itself had rewound to allow that boy to regain his innocence, but this one was slightly different, his eyes, though similar, were a shade similar to fine red wine, and seemed to be fathomless depths. His sharp blue eyes moored over the bandage that covered the boy's right cheek and the wrap about his thin arm, and briefly wondered what could possibly have happened.

"Soubi," he gave a smile that seemed to almost twist at the edges of his lips into a smirk. He watched as the boy obviously took in everything about him even though he had known enough to know who he was. His long light blond hair was pulled into a loose ponytail that trailed over one shoulder. "Please, call me Soubi."

He could see the blush that was coming on the young boy's cheeks. It was a bit sick, but he wanted to tease this boy as much as his older doppelganger had tried to tease him, torture him... just a little. The kid was absolutely adorable with the light flush touch his face, and it made it a bit hard for Soubi to truly want to bring any harm to the innocent boy, in fact, quite the contrary was also going on in his mind. He wanted to take the boy into his arms and help keep whatever had befallen him to need so many bandages as far from the youth as possible.

"Aoyagi," the young woman from the other room was exacerbated from looking all over the gallery to try and find her lost student. She wasn't sure how to feel when she discovered the student talking with a very tall and very attractive man.

...Aoyagi...

"Ritsuka!" the pigtailed girl suddenly exclaimed, happy to find the shorter boy, she grabbed on to his arm, and asked him to look over a painting with her. It was one of the larger paintings in the room. A painting meant for nothing but to be looked at as a quick glance, a shallow beauty that once stripped would be nothing more than canvas.

Soubi carried on a short conversation with the woman who turned out to be a teacher, he was about to ask for information regarding the intelligent boy when his 'manager' suddenly found him.

"Soubi! Here you are! I've been looking all over the place for you."

"Why do you think I'm trying to be in a different room than you?"

Unfazed, Kio simply grabbed Soubi's arm and dragged him back to where all of the questionings were going on, "Another reporter wants to ask you something and get a few shots of you."

Soubi was pulled out so fast that he didn't even have time to tease the young boy once more, but he had the information he needed from the teacher. He would definitely see the young boy again.

TBC

Yay! Another chapter done, a bit shorter than I really wanted it, sorry, but I'm taking this one little by little since I have no real plans about where this story is going... so... Whee!!!