Warnings: Um... introspection. Lots of it. An entire chapter full of it. Nothing happens in this chapter except thinking. Well, okay, one thing happens.
Chapter Twenty: Regrets
Subaru killed.
He didn’t do it heartlessly or needlessly, but he was a murderer. It bothered him. He had wondered, on more than one occasion, if he could give the position back to Seishirou. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to be possible.
So he killed. He didn’t hate doing it, not anymore. It was something that gave his empty days meaning, and any meaning was better than none.
After Fuuma left him, curled up on the messy sheets, Subaru went out and he killed. He didn’t do it because he was angry, or upset. He did it because if he didn’t find something to occupy himself with, his brain was going to run around in circles until it collapsed from the strain.
Sumeragi Subaru was now twenty-six years old. He had survived things that most people never dreamed about happening, up to and including the end of the world.
He hated himself.
It wasn’t low self-esteem or the mild self-degradation that many depressed people suffer. It was pure self-loathing, and unless distracted, Subaru spent every minute of his waking life dwelling on it.
He was a murderer, his cowardice had resulted in the death of his sister, the man he loved viewed him only as a pretty plaything, he had betrayed the only other person on earth who loved him by accepting Seishirou’s dying Wish, and every decision he ever made was the wrong one.
Many years before, watching her grandson’s life, Lady Sumeragi had remarked that it seemed somewhat like a runaway train. Exactly when Subaru had lost control of everything that happened to him was unclear, but it seemed to be fated from the moment he met Seishirou.
Destined to have his innocence crushed, broken, and reformed into a perfect coldness.
Subaru hated himself for what he’d done to Kamui, but even though he hated himself for it, he couldn’t make himself stop. He knew that somewhere inside him, there must be the capability to treat Kamui well; if not to love him, than at least not to hurt him. But no matter how hard he tried, he could never seem to do it.
He hated himself because he couldn’t make Seishirou come back to him, despite how much he loved the older man. He didn’t know if Fuuma was right; he didn’t know if it was cowardice or stubbornness or masochism.
He blamed it on nobody but himself.
Subaru didn’t know why he had slept with Fuuma.
But he hated himself for doing it.
It wasn’t a matter of infidelity that bothered him, or the fact that Fuuma was sleeping with Seishirou, or had once been his enemy. What mattered was that for the briefest of moments, he had stopped hurting.
And that only made the real world far more painful to return to.
Subaru slammed his fist into the Sakura and swore vehemently. It had been a mistake to let Fuuma in; he’d known it at the time, but he’d been so wrapped up in what it could entail that he hadn’t bothered to examine the consequences.
Fuuma was something else, that was for sure.
It was odd, though. Fuuma had almost made him feel alive again. Not needed or wanted; he hadn’t felt that since Seishirou had ‘died’ at Rainbow Bridge. But Subaru had realized that morning that he had been walking dead for months now. He had forgotten how to not feel pain.
He lit up a cigarette.
Damn Fuuma anyway. Subaru wasn’t stupid enough to blame it all on him, but he certainly hadn’t helped matters with what he’d done.
Subaru killed, and killed again, and wondered what had happened to his life.
~~~~
“So you see if we divide here by the sum of squares . . .”
Kamui didn’t really see what the sum of squares had to do with anything, but statistics had always gone so far over his head that it hadn’t even ruffled his hair. He was finding himself, at the moment, rather hard pressed to care. It was about time he just went to Nokoru and asked if he could drop this and switch to a lower level math anyway. Kamui wasn’t stupid, but part of being not stupid was knowing when to quit. He was simply never going to understand statistics, and that was that.
Sort of like the way he was apparently never going to understand his own life.
He realized with a sudden flush that he’d been staring dreamily at Keiichi for at least the last ten minutes. If Keiichi had noticed, he hadn’t reacted at all. Kamui wouldn’t be surprised; he found himself staring at Keiichi rather often these days.
He really, really, really wished that his brain would make up its mind.
On this particular day, the majority of his brain was droning, in a rather hypnotizing tone, ‘You want to be with Keiichi. Go be with Keiichi. Leave Subaru by the side of the road. Keiichi is wonderful.’ This was the part of his brain that Kamui usually kicked into a closet, but unfortunately for him, the part of him that kicked it was reluctantly agreeing with it.
Meanwhile, the rest of his brain was flapping its arms and yelling frantically, ‘No! You still love Subaru! You shouldn’t promise Keiichi more than you can give him!’
Kamui groaned under his breath and told the two voices to sod off. He was having enough trouble with statistics without them interfering.
He had to admit that he wasn’t making a lot of sense lately. When he’d threatened Subaru that morning, he had meant it whole-heartedly. He didn’t want to leave Subaru, but he would, if Subaru didn’t shape up soon.
However, Kamui was starting to question his definition of ‘shape up.’ Subaru had hurt him so much that anyone with half a brain would have left him. Especially if they had someone like Keiichi, waiting patiently to take them in.
Kamui knew that he was an idiot. He felt bad for leading Keiichi on, giving him hope that he didn’t honestly believe was there. Yet Keiichi kept hoping. He seemed to think there was reason to. Kamui began to wonder if he had simply forgotten what it was like to have hope in the first place.
He decided to go about it logically.
Question: Why am I with Subaru?
Pause. He doodled for a minute, giving the teacher an ‘I’m-paying-attention- honestly’ look as he glanced over.
Answer: Because I love him and want to make sure he’s okay.
All right, that made enough sense as far as it went.
Question: Why do I let him treat me badly?
The answer to that did not come easily. Kamui chewed on the end of his pencil and stared down at the incomprehensible numbers on the worksheet the teacher had just handed out.
Answer: Because I can’t stop him, but I can’t leave him.
That was as good as he could come up with, despite the fact that it was a terribly lame excuse. Kamui sighed in frustration and started to go through the motions of completing the assignment.
Question: What do I want to do about Keiichi?
A blush rose to his cheeks as several suitable answers leapt into his mind. He beat his hormones into submission, tapping his pencil against the side of his desk. He couldn’t deny that he wanted Keiichi, and so hadn’t really been trying. He wasn’t particularly ashamed of it, either. Keiichi was handsome and sweet and head over heels in love with him. It made sense that Kamui wanted to respond at least on some level.
Revised question: How do I feel about Keiichi?
No, that didn’t really help either. He cared very deeply for his friend, and hated seeing him hurt, but he honestly didn’t know how to help the situation. Crawling into bed with him, which was his first impulse, would do more harm than good. Keiichi was not going for a one-night stand. Keiichi was in love.
He didn’t know how he felt about Keiichi. He knew that he desired him, but it was on a far deeper level than sexual. Keiichi healed him. Keiichi was tuned to the part of him that wanted and needed comfort, gentleness, acceptance. Being with Keiichi made him feel like nothing else could, almost like he deserved the love Keiichi had for him.
Kamui wasn’t stupid enough to think that it was about worth. It had been proven to him long ago that worth had nothing to do with love. It wasn’t about whether or not he deserved Keiichi. If Keiichi loved him, then deserving didn’t matter.
But still, the part of him that was still just a frightened child insisted that it did matter. Kamui had grown up fatherless, and he would always carry the scorn of the other children with him. When he’d come to CLAMP Campus, where such things didn’t matter, he’d gotten over the stigma, but he would never get over the shame he felt because of it.
And one had to take into account that his relationship with Keiichi, while far more than physical, had a very pleasing physical aspect to it. Though they hadn’t done much, the few kisses they had shared had stuck with Kamui on a very deep level. He still dreamed about them, and often dreamed that they did far more than kissing.
In his dreams, Keiichi never hurt him, and everything they did was perfect.
Fact one: Keiichi loved him, and was in love with him, far more deeply than Kamui could or wanted to understand.
Fact two: Subaru apparently cared very little for him. As far as Subaru was concerned, it seemed he liked having Kamui around simply because he was a warm body that he could sleep with and occasionally talk to.
Fact three: There was nothing Kamui could do about either fact one or fact two.
Fact four: Kamui loved Subaru more than Keiichi, but that didn’t mean he didn’t also love Keiichi.
Conclusions drawn from the above facts: He, Shirou Kamui, should bitchslap Subaru, walk out, and move in with Keiichi.
Kamui let his head thud against the table. Logic was really no help at all.
~~~~
Fuuma crawled into bed as soon as he got home, wondering how on earth he had ever survived high school. Getting up early in the mornings, even for sex, just wasn’t his idea of fun. Seishirou wasn’t there when he got in; he didn’t know where the former assassin had gone and quite frankly, he didn’t care.
Seishirou was really pissing him off lately.
Fuuma didn’t like him any less than he had when they first met. He was willing to tolerate Seishirou’s moping and his lethargy. What was bothering the hell out of Fuuma was Seishirou’s utter refusal to take steps to fix the things that made him miserable.
Fuuma considered that Seishirou’s problems could be fixed in one, very simple step. He should go to Subaru, say ‘I was a jerk. I’m in love with you. Let’s bang.’ and everything would be just peachy.
All right, maybe not in those exact words. But the idea was there. Fuuma didn’t think Seishirou even needed to apologize. The simple words ‘I love you’ would probably be enough. Three little words! One syllable apiece!
Sure, Fuuma knew it was easier said than done, especially for Seishirou. The man had spent years repressing his emotions and not believing he was capable of love, or, for that matter, deserving of love. And so on and so forth. As Fuuma was fond of saying to Seishirou on his bad days: “Poor me, poor me, pour me another.”
Really, it was infuriating. Fuuma liked to think of himself as a reasonably intelligent young man, and as he’d told Subaru, the idiocy at work here was really annoying him. Everything was so easy to fix, in theory. If Seishirou could just get off his ass and take Subaru back, then Kamui would be displaced and swing to Keiichi like a compass needle. All Fuuma had to do was look at them to know they’d be happy together, if Kamui would just stop being a dork and get over the fact that Subaru didn’t love him.
People, really. Why must they be so stupid?
Fuuma groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. He was trying to sleep, not trying to think. In fact, he was trying not to think. He’d really be fine if everyone else could just stop being such total morons.
When it came down to it, really, Fuuma was bored. Mind-numbingly so. He didn’t want to try starting school in the middle of the year, even though Kamui had assured him that he could talk to the CLAMP Campus Chairman about it. He refused to get a job on the principle that he had enough money to get by, for now, and felt like a vacation.
That left his days relatively empty, and without anything else to occupy him, he had taken it upon himself to knock sense into everyone around him.
Unfortunately, no one seemed inclined to listen to him. Kamui knew damn well that he was being an idiot, but lacked either the motivation or the willpower to change his situation. Seishirou refused to listen to reason whatsoever, even going so far as to threaten to kill Fuuma whenever he brought it up.
That left Subaru as his last option. Of course, the Sumeragi was no more inclined to listen to reason than either of the other two, so a far more subtle plan was needed.
Fuuma was really rather proud of what he’d eventually come up with.
So far it was working, in any case, but he’d have to proceed very carefully. There were several things, all equally likely to happen, that would totally mess him up. So he’d be careful. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the patience that was needed, especially given that his plan involved sleeping with Subaru. That was always a plus.
But really, he wasn’t heartless. He cared about Seishirou in his own odd way, and watching the older man’s misery made him feel a little annoyed. Seishirou was capable of being happy, if he’d just pull his head out of his ass. He and Subaru were madly in love and just too stupid or too cowardly to do anything about it. Fuuma was getting sick and tired of sitting back and letting the two of them keep hurting each other.
Fuuma wasn’t a hero by any means, but he felt oddly obligated (as the only one around with a grain of common sense) to help fix the mess that was festering in front of him. Seishirou was his friend, and besides, Fuuma felt he owed it to Kamui. Kamui could have, and by all rights, should have killed him. But he had Wished that Fuuma could live. Fuuma knew that he owed the younger boy a lot, and he also knew that Kamui would be far happier with Keiichi than he would be with Subaru.
Besides, the whole group was giving him headaches. Subaru was the worst; just looking at him made Fuuma’s senses burn. His Wishes were so out of synch with reality that he flared and fizzled when Fuuma looked at him. Kamui wasn’t quite as bad; he seemed more to have an everpresent halo around him, which was bright enough to be annoying but not to hurt Fuuma’s eyes. As for Seishirou, he just appeared to be one huge blur; Fuuma accounted this to the fact that Seishirou had no idea what he really wanted.
Really. Being friends with these people was giving him migraines.
And he, Monou Fuuma, was going to do something about it.
~~~~~
When Seishirou had woken to find Fuuma gone, he had tried to occupy himself around the house, but it had been impossible. As much as he was loath to admit it, he relied a lot on Fuuma’s insults, jibes, and running commentary in order to get him out of bed. (Okay, and the morning sex didn’t hurt either.)
When Fuuma still hadn’t been back by ten o’clock, Seishirou had dressed and decided to go for a walk. Not surprisingly, he’d found himself drawn to the Sakura, and sat underneath it in the shade.
The Tree seemed glad to see him. Seishirou had the vague idea that it thought his being here meant that he might be planning on going back to Subaru. He was rather sorry to disillusion it. The Tree had a nasty temper when it was irritated.
He had spent so much time underneath this Tree in his life. It had always been comforting for him to just spend time there. Lately it hadn’t been anywhere near as comforting. He couldn’t see Subaru, so he had to carefully measure his time there. The Tree would warn him if Subaru were coming, but that always made his time there less than relaxed.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of the sakura petals. It made him think of Subaru. Then again, these days anything did.
The Tree rustled its branches quietly. Seishirou got the feeling it was totally disgusted with him.
“But I can’t go back to Subaru-kun,” he said quietly to the petals above him. “No matter what I do, I hurt him. Even if I think it’s the right thing at the time.”
He practically heard the Tree sigh.
But that was his decision and he was sticking to it. Despite what Fuuma said about him being a coward, about needing control, Seishirou’s main reason was because he didn’t want to hurt Subaru any more than he’d already been hurt. Even if Subaru wasn’t happy now, Seishirou knew that Subaru was better off without him.
There was simply no way to make amends for what he had done.
Therefore, he didn’t try.
If there was any sort of penance he could serve, he thought a life without Subaru was surprisingly apt. A life alone while Subaru was happy would be even more appropriate.
It left his days very empty, though.
He stood up and began to walk again. His life was getting very monotonous, and consisted mostly of sitting around in front of the television, reading, and having sex with Fuuma. Seishirou had never been particularly addicted to sex before Rainbow Bridge, but sheer boredom was driving him to it now.
He needed a hobby or a job, and his footsteps had just taken him to one without realizing it.
He looked at the building for a long minute. It also brought back rather painful memories. Seishirou lit up a cigarette, leaning against the wall, thinking about Hokuto shrieking about the bad habit.
He had been . . . happy. Then.
A rather odd thought.
Seishirou wasn’t fond of dwelling on the past. He’d always tried to avoid it. But when he thought back to what his life had been like ten years before, he felt a strange ache in his chest. He missed those days. He missed shy, innocent Subaru and shrill, bouncy Hokuto. He even missed the kind and intelligent veterinarian, Sakurazuka Seishirou.
How, from where he started, had he ended up here?
He pushed open the door to the veterinary office and walked inside. It wasn’t the same secretary anymore, but he gave her a warm smile in any case. “Ohayo, ojousan. My name’s Sakurazuka Seishirou; I used to work here. I’m interested in returning to my position.”
~~~~
Keiichi really wasn’t having much luck in keeping his mind on statistics either. Especially not while he was giving Kamui a tutoring session in it. He had fallen so far behind that the teacher simply didn’t have enough time to help him anymore, so Keiichi had volunteered when Subaru hadn’t been able to help. (Though, to give the Sumeragi credit, he had tried. Statistics apparently weren’t his idea of a party either.)
So Keiichi droned on about the varying columns on the graph and what they meant, and what formulas to use, and he really had no idea of what he was saying. His brain was off in a happy little place in which Kamui was sitting on his lap and what they were doing had absolutely nothing to do with statistics.
He shook himself slightly while Kamui looked down and tried to puzzle out an equation. He really had to stop thinking like this.
Kamui didn’t appear to be in a very good mood. Not that Keiichi blamed him, after what had happened that morning. But still, it was obvious that Kamui’s mind wasn’t on the math any more than Keiichi’s was.
“Let’s give up for the day,” Keiichi finally said. “We’re only frustrating ourselves.”
He realized after that escaped his lips that it probably hadn’t really been the best way of phrasing it, but didn’t bother to change what he’d said. Kamui could take it however he wanted, and from the slight blush on his cheeks, he was definitely taking it the wrong way.
He shut his books and looked away. He really wished that he could do what Kamui had requested: forget about him, find someone else. But he couldn’t. And he had tried over these long months, knowing that Kamui was not meant to be his. No one else caught his interest.
Keiichi was a very loving person, and with both his parents gone, all that energy had to focus somewhere. For some reason beyond his comprehension, it had chosen to settle on Kamui. Keiichi loved him more than he thought was possible, and no matter how hard he tried, he could neither stop nor lessen it.
But Keiichi was also an optimist, and while other people would have become hopeless or depressed, watching Kamui and Subaru, he did not. Either Subaru would shape up, and Kamui would be happy, or he wouldn’t, and Kamui would eventually get sick of it and leave, and then Keiichi would have him and he would be happy. Either way was fine.
Or so he tried to tell himself.
But even Keiichi wasn’t always that selfless.
Sometimes at night, while he sat by himself with his mug of tea and his homework, he hated Subaru so much that he could hardly breathe. Despite how happy it might make Kamui, Keiichi didn’t want Subaru to have him.
Those moments were rare, but they did happen.
He wanted Kamui to be happy.
And God damn it, he was going to sit back and let Kamui make his own decisions. It wasn’t his place to interfere.
Even if he had to sit and watch Kamui make all the wrong ones.
Keiichi closed his eyes to hold back the sting of tears.
~~~~~
“You want me to come up with you?” Keiichi asked, looking at the highrise apartments they had left that morning.
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Kamui laughed nervously.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Keiichi said. He took Kamui’s hand and walked into the building. “How mad do you think he’s going to be?”
“I don’t know,” Kamui said with a sigh. “It’ll depend on whether or not he sat around brooding all day long.”
The two of them rode the elevator up in silence, then Kamui took out his keys and let them in. “Subaru? Tadaima . . .” He glanced over and saw that both Subaru’s shoes and coat were there. “Subaru?”
“In here.” Subaru’s voice drifted out faintly from the living room.
Keiichi gave Kamui’s hand a reassuring squeeze before letting it go. Kamui padded softly into the other room. “Subaru?” he asked, seeing the Sumeragi sitting on the couch with a slightly blank look on his face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m . . . all right,” Subaru said vaguely, then gestured for Kamui to sit down next to him.
Somewhat nervously, Kamui did so. He let out a little gasp of surprise as he was folded into a tight embrace.
“I’m sorry,” Subaru said, beginning to cry. “I’m so sorry. I want to stop hurting you but I can’t. I’m so sorry . . .”
“Shhhh,” Kamui said, hugging him and running his fingers through Subaru’s hair. “It’s all right. I forgive you.”
For some reason these words only made Subaru cry harder; clinging to Kamui as his entire body shook.
Quietly, Keiichi turned around and left the apartment.
~~~~
So now you know what they’re all thinking. And if you want to smack them all around, please, be my guest.
Chapter Twenty-One
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