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Finally...Takazura YAOI
DECAY HEAT CHAPTER 5 : CROSSING THE LINE
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Instead of saying yes or no, Takasugi placed his palm on my waist and sighed. "Zura..." I felt a comfortable heat seep into my hips and my breath hitched. He was obviously after a one-night stand. I must have been blind not to have seen it coming. Screw him, I'm not that type of guy. I roused myself, although I would have preferred to escape into my alcohol-induced oblivion. It's not easy to be reminded of how much I've missed Takasugi since the war ended. Or about the walls we've put up since then. I propped myself up on my arms and stared at him reproachfully.
"Leave me alone, Takasugi. I just want to die."
"Die…?"
"You know why."
"Actually, I don't."
You don't…? Although I was too drunk to recall what I just said, I don't believe he didn't understand me. He has to. He has to know why opening myself to him only makes me feel this…sadness. "What is it about fucking a dead man that you don't understand?" I snarled. Takasugi responded by leaning forward. I tried to avoid him by leaning back onto my elbows, which was a wrong move. Takasugi crossed his right hand over my body and buried his face between my neck and collarbone. His warm breath began to tickle my neck. "Your words turn me on," he whispered. My left hand pushed against his shoulder, but it wasn't to reject him. I didn't have the heart to do it. A sudden bone-weariness drained me of all strength. We've had enough of rejection, I thought. Since the day Japan lost the war and we were branded as an inferior nation. Overnight, our most treasured values were rejected. Samurai, once princes of the land, now walked on the wrong side of the law. I was so tired of living underground. So must Shinsuke. We weren't brought up to be this way. I couldn't hold back my tears any longer. My left hand tightened around his neck, and I hid my face into the fabric of his shoulder so he couldn't see the big, grape-sized tears that silently dropped down my cheeks.
"It's such a small thing…and you say no." Takasugi said with bitter tenderness, tracing his right hand up the crisp fold of my kimono sleeve until they rested around my wrist. "Yet you were willing to risk your life to save me." He pushed my wrist next to my head while leaning over, placing me in a supine position. I blinked away the tears from my wet lashes. It wasn't a small thing for me, and he knew that. How many more red strings can I bear tying from him to me –
Takasugi's pool-like eye, half-hidden under his dark lashes and thick, falling bangs, gazed at me with a more subdued look than I had ever seen before. "Don't be nervous", he whispered softly. And I wondered if he was nervous, because he closed his eye when he slid his palm over my hand. I felt its mild weight, although his fingers were icy-cold. His aura was feverish and I felt warm air tickle my forehead.
"Just give your body to me," I heard him sigh. "…Kotaro."
I stared up at the ceiling at the cloud of rich brown dust falling upon our fragile dome of candlelight. The shoji screens seemed to glow, as if drenched from within, and beat an erratic pulse with every passage of the night breeze. The rocking of the boat had virtually stalled, like the calm before a storm. Takasugi's translucent skin was flushed with a reddish glow on his lips and cheeks. He raised a finger and slowly traced the vein along my neck until he reached the front of my kimono, then nonchalantly stroked the creases across the double layer of robes. He seemed content to wait like that, waiting for our primal attraction to build by the moment. "That's ok…I'm a dead man too. When I have killed every single Bakufu dog who has contributed to Shouyou-sensei's death, I will disappear." His silent chuckle was more felt than heard. "Then you'll have nobody to fight against." I thought of life without Shinsuke. It was impossible. I had opposed him for so long and from such an early age that he had grown to become a part of me.
"But I've never felt separated from you."
"No…?" Takasugi seemed pleased. But his expression darkened when I pushed him away. He let go of me and folded his arms and legs, looking up at the ceiling before glaring at me, pupils glittering. I stood up. I didn't want to reject him. Yet I couldn't accept him. "We've both been chasing after the ghost of Shouyou-sensei. I always wondered if you had found him. Because I did." "Where did you find him?" I hoped one day Takasugi would manage to find the peace he was looking for. There was just no way I could simply transfer that feeling to him even if I held him in my arms.
"We've been opponents for years now. Anything that happens to me also happens to you sooner or later. So if I changed…would you also be affected? What do you think, Shinsuke…On the day that I changed, do you think you could have also changed, so that we can meet up halfway?"
"…so that's what happened to me?" His voice had an edge, like a mean-spirited child.
"What happened?" I asked, convinced now that something unusual had motivated him to set up this meeting.
His voice was bemused and velvety. "When an angel has fallen closer to earth…then I wonder what happens to the demon…. Does he get a little closer to heaven…?"
The candlelight sputtered out with a smell of ash and wax, plunging the room into a darkness alive with a soft cloud of skeletal-white dust. The specks of decaying moonlight, which had always lain unnoticed in the background, emerged as a rhythmic, watery pattern. But I still couldn't see my own hands stretched out in from of me. I could only tell by the heat that I was touching Shinsuke's slim, compact form. My hands found their way into his yukata, where I could feel his skin heating up, ever so slightly, degree by degree. My mood was changing at a faster pace, to match my heartbeats. I could smell sake evaporating and cooling. But on his tongue it tasted infinitely more intense than if I had drank from my own saucer.
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The frequency of the music changed, bringing us to a new level of reality. I thought of something I would never have thought. Shinsuke is hot.
We were on the futon. He mockingly whispered...
Like a cooling flow
Soothing my soul
I replied…
Heat penetrates and invades
Edo will burn…
The words were deliriously meaningless. The whole world was nothing but music. It was the battle between black and white, and we destroyed each other. We started laughing.
I don't believe it, but we were happy.
On the day that the Joi war ended, all the samurai had to kneel to listen to the Emperor's announcement on the radio. I can't remember what else came out of the mechanical droning of the gramophone, only two words pierced me: Japan lost. My face burned – I refused to surrender. Blinded by fury, I gripped the hilt of my katana and stared at the numbed faces of my comrades. The majority of them turned to face me, waiting to see my reaction. But what could I say? It was too late now. The war was over!
Without knowing why, my eyes sought out Takasugi. There he was, leaning against the concrete wall with one knee upraised, one hand against his cheek and the other draped over his katana. He was sitting, not kneeling, arguably because of his serious injuries, but his disrespect of authority had always been thinly veiled. On the surface, he looked unfazed by the announcement, merely curved his mouth in a sardonic smile, much of his expression hidden by a bandage soaked in fresh blood…But when he looked up his eye was dangerously brilliant and as we stared at each other across the horde of silent comrades, I felt he was the only man in Edo left –
When Takasugi noticed the look on my face, something else emerged… a steadfast, protective light. He always gave me that look in a time of crisis. As if to say that his power could be depended upon, and he would never change. I was electrified. Why? I don't know why, but I started to smile, an unbidden sunrise glowed all the way through to the tips of my hair and feet. A sigh was building up among us. Everyone shouted. Against the principles of Bushido, we felt no shame. We all started to shout and shout because we were so relieved the war was over. The sound was like the roar of the ocean.
Like the pounding of heartbeats when I came.
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I felt very, very tired. I tried to stay awake, saying I should leave…but when I turned to Shinsuke, I found Shinsuke's face looking quiet, sweet and pure. I couldn't help it, I traced the line of his bandage from his eye, down his neck, arms and to his hands. And held them tightly.
"Why do you even look at me like that?" he asked.
"I've never seen you like this before…"
"Can we stay together? There is only one person left in the whole of Edo."
"Can we?" I asked.
"Will you?"
"Meet me halfway."
He stared fixedly at me then lowered his head as if struggling with himself. "I told you, I won't stop halfway…" he almost growled. Then he squeezed my hands possessively. My eyes widened, pierced by its cruelty. But in a moment as if in apology, his eye softened into a dark pool-like gaze that could be so honest. "However far I go-" He began, but one look and we closed the distance, letting our burning kiss say the words both of us can't say. Nobody can change Shinsuke except himself. But that was ok. Tonight, the moon merged all differences together from the tops of the mountains to the depths of the sea with its pure, cooling shadows. Leaving only our mutual attraction, mysterious, deep and lasting….
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I didn't plan to do that, but I fell asleep holding Shinsuke. I dreamt we were children and we heard an old folksong, "the brushwood we gather – stack it together, it makes a hut; pull it apart, a field once more." We ran thorough the tall dry grass behind our temple school –
"Shinsuke…Hey Shinsuke it's 4 am…"
A faint candlelight. Bansai's polite voice from behind the shoji screen. I felt an arm and a leg release my body and the floorboards squeak as Takasugi got up and walked over to the door. "Bansai," he greeted softly, pushing aside a crack. I sat up on the futon, pulled my underrobe together and rubbed my face. Bansai's posture stiffened when he saw me. I must look a mess. I scanned the cabin for the rest of my clothes. How the – The obi was torn in two. Good luck putting that back on…
"It's for Katsura-san. From Mademoiselle Saigo. It's time for his curfew." Bansai replied a little thinly. "I can drop him off." Then he bowed and shut the door, leaving the candlestand. Takasugi tossed me the cell which, amazingly enough, I managed to catch with one hand.
"Zurako. It's closing time…how did your audition go?" said Saigo's deep voice.
"Fine."
"Fine? Why do you sound like that? Are you drunk?"
"No, I'm fine. I'm… fine." Although I have a hangover and my body hurts…
"Zurako? Do you want me to send Pako and Pachi to fetch you?"
Good question. I had to go back before Saigo and my Joi comrades started wondering where I had spent the night. I looked straight into Takasugi's probing eyes…Was what we did any more than a sake-induced hallucination? Were we still willing to change for one another like we wanted to last night? "Yes. Yeah. I mean no. I'll get back now. Don't close the club yet. I'll be right back." I snapped the cell shut and grinned ruefully at Takasugi.
"Hey. Got a spare shirt?"
To be continued…
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Thanks for the reviews :) Next chp, Takasugi gets Naughty! He's not gonna let Zura leave just cuz he wants to! Besides, the boat has already arrived in Kyoto...
