Warnings: Slutty!Fuuma, Frustrated!Seishirou, Catty!Kamui, and Prick!Subaru.
Chapter Three: Repression
Seishirou had finally mastered the art of sitting upright, and could now do it without any support. This pleased him. He was rather less pleased when his physical therapist finally got him into a standing position. His legs felt weak and watery. He was barely able to support himself with his arms as he leaned heavily on the railing provided.
“That’s very good,” the physical therapist assured him.
Seishirou thought no such thing. He was rather annoyed to find that his own legs were refusing to obey him after thirty-five years of faithful service. He lifted one, then the other, as he was instructed. Five minutes of this left him exhausted, but he kept at it anyway. The therapist gave him a worried look. “You’re going to wear yourself out, Sakurazuka-san. You mustn’t push yourself. You’ll only take longer to recover that way.”
Seishirou allowed himself to sag back into his wheelchair, muttering imprecations under his breath.
“You’re really doing quite well,” the therapist said, trying to sound soothing. “Normally it would take at least a week for a patient to do what you did today, and you’ve done it in four days.”
Seishirou was somewhat pleased to hear that. It meant that he still had the extra strength and healing capabilities that had been part and parcel of his position. Always good to know. Now, however, he was so exhausted that all he wanted to do was take a nap, or maybe bask in the sunshine and have a cigarette. As the therapist wheeled him back to his room, he wondered if he could talk Minako into taking him out to the gardens again.
Minako was outside his room, at the nurse’s station, having a lively conversation with someone that Seishirou could recognize from far down the hallway. He raised an eyebrow, then looked questioningly at Fuuma as he approached.
“Ah, Sakurazuka-san,” Minako said cheerfully. “How was your therapy session?”
“Excruciating,” Seishirou said pleasantly. He gave Fuuma a sideways glance. “Konnichi wa, Fuuma-kun.” He had always called him ‘Kamui’ before, but that didn’t seem appropriate anymore, and it was as natural as breathing to stick the -kun onto the end. Fuuma was, after all, a good deal younger than he was.
Fuuma offered Seishirou a charming smile. “Konnichi wa, Seishirou.”
Minako grinned at both of them. “Sakurazuka-san, this is the young man who brought you in. I told you I’d know him if I saw him again, didn’t I?” She gazed up at Fuuma with wide eyes.
Seishirou, seeing that the poor young woman was more than a bit smitten, decided to keep Fuuma as far away from her as possible. “Aa,” he said. “I figured this was who it had been.”
Fortunately, Fuuma didn’t seem to have any interest in torturing Minako. “Want to go for a walk, Seishirou?” he asked.
Seishirou had a vague suspicion that Fuuma was hoping to bum another cigarette off him, but agreed readily enough after stopping in his room to retrieve the pack and his lighter. Fuuma pushed him down to the courtyard and settled in the same place they’d been the other day, flopping onto the stone bench. Seishirou closed his eyes and drank in the sunlight. There was really nothing like a brush with death to make one appreciate the simpler points of living.
“So,” he said, after a long minute, “to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, then offered the pack and lighter to Fuuma, careful to hold them a good distance away from his body so Fuuma didn’t get too close. There was really no need to torment his poor, unsatisfied body.
“Oh, I just figured you were probably bored,” Fuuma said, making a slight grimace which indicated the feeling was mutual. He took the cigarette and lighter from Seishirou’s hands, lit up, and handed the lighter back. “Besides, they’re letting me go home today, and I thought I would ask if you wanted me to pick up anything for you.”
“That’s awfully nice of you,” Seishirou said, “but no. Except cigarettes, maybe. Minako-san has already gotten me some books; I’ll get through my stay well enough.”
“If you say so,” Fuuma said with a shrug. “Can’t say I’m particularly looking forward to going home, though.”
“Oh?” Seishirou asked, in the detached air of one who wants to sound interested but isn’t. “I’d think anything would be better than the hospital.”
Fuuma grinned widely. “Nah, hospital’s great. A ton of cute young women wandering around fussing over me and giving me anything I want. I’d stay here all year if I could. But no, I have to go. My address is on my ID, but I guess my family is dead.” He frowned for a minute, smoking pensively. “Apparently my mom died years ago and my father and sister both died within the last year.”
“Hm,” Seishirou said, totally unable to think of anything else to say and wondering when his so-called eloquence had deserted him.
“The nurse who told me that thought I was going to be really upset,” Fuuma said, with a slight frown still creasing his face. “And I guess I probably should be, but I’m not. I don’t remember anything about them. They may as well not exist to me.”
They sat in silence for a long minute.
“Do you have any family, Seishirou?” Fuuma asked curiously, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette.
“Not anymore,” Seishirou said. “I was an only child. I never knew my father, and my mother died when I was fifteen.”
It was Fuuma’s turn to say “Hm” and smoke his cigarette for lack of anything to say. Then he smirked. “No wife or kids?”
Seishirou cleared his throat. “No.” He didn’t volunteer any more information than that; he’d never been particularly fond of volunteering information. Fuuma could draw whatever conclusions he wished.
Whatever conclusion Fuuma drew apparently pleased him quite a bit, because his smirk grew wider. “And you don’t get . . . lonely?”
Seishirou nearly choked on his cigarette. Apparently he’d forgotten exactly how forward Fuuma usually was. When he finally recovered, he decided he was sick of being hit on with a sledgehammer and he was going to hit right back. “Not at all,” he said smoothly. “Living alone doesn’t mean not having any . . . friends, after all.” He was beginning to think it was a shame he hadn’t spent more time with Fuuma before. Perhaps he would leave Subaru alone. Fuuma might be an equally interesting toy.
At that point, his conscience made a valiant attempt to speak up. Seishirou squashed it, telling it firmly that it was only allowed to speak when he was thinking about Subaru. He didn’t need it clouding his judgment on other issues. If Fuuma was going to be a total slut, Fuuma was going to get what he was asking for.
And if it was a bit more than what he’d been bargaining for . . . well, that wasn’t Seishirou’s problem, now was it.
“So do you have a lot friends?” Fuuma asked, trying to sound innocent, but slightly stressing the last word of the sentence so Seishirou could be sure of his meaning.
“Oh, I have a quite a few friends, but none that are that close to me,” Seishirou replied, motioning with his cigarette. “Most of them I just see on occasion.”
“So what kind of friend was I?” Fuuma practically purred.
“You were . . .” Seishirou considered. “The kind of friend that I got ice cream with.”
Fuuma looked slightly disappointed. “Ice cream?”
“Oh, yes,” Seishirou said, smiling. “You’re quite fond of ice cream, in case you don’t remember.”
“I didn’t. Maybe we can go out for ice cream when you get out of the hospital,” Fuuma said, his voice dripping with suggestion.
Yeah, if I survive that long with my frustration, Seishirou thought. He was going to be hard pressed not to jump Fuuma until then. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been celibate this long in his entire life (not counting the years before he’d had sex at all), and he didn’t care that he’d been unconscious for it. He was conscious now, and his body was feeling the strain. Add to that the body’s natural urge to have sex after a near-death experience, which he’d read was fairly common, and Seishirou was in fairly sorry shape. He probably would have jumped Minako if he’d thought it would’ve gotten him anywhere.
“And what flavor of ice cream do you prefer?” he asked, his tone matching Fuuma’s and carrying loads of meaning.
Fuuma leered in his direction. “Anything but vanilla,” he said. Seishirou, not being an idiot, didn’t miss the connotations of that little statement, but Fuuma helped back it up by adding, “and I really like chocolate topping . . . on my ice cream, of course.”
“Of course,” Seishirou said. He really had to put a stop to this conversation. It was starting to take conscious effort to not squirm. Or to attempt to jump Fuuma right in the courtyard, watery legs and audience be damned. I’m really not going to make it another week and a half, he thought.
Fuuma pitched the end of his cigarette. “Want to go back inside?”
“Sure,” Seishirou said. He always got tired quite easily these days, and all the frustration that had a tendency to get worse when Fuuma was nearby didn’t help. Fuuma wheeled him inside and back to his room. Maybe he’d just read some and try to go to sleep.
“I’ll come visit you later this week,” Fuuma said cheerfully. “You want me to bring you anything?”
“Yeah, more cigarettes,” Seishirou said, checking his pack and wondering where half of it had gone. “And if you could pick me up some ice cream . . .” He smirked up at Fuuma.
“Yeah? What kind?” Fuuma asked, leaning against the wall.
“Whatever kind you want,” Seishirou said, a hint of a smirk on his face. Fuuma wasn’t the only one who could deal in innuendo, and he could take that however he wanted.
Fuuma grinned back. “Sure thing, Seishirou,” he said, and turned and walked out the door.
~~~~
Subaru woke to find the fax machine devoid of messages. As he had nothing left over, this gave him nothing to do. He was currently occupying himself with sitting in the red leather chair and watching Kamui sleep. He had nothing better to do; he didn’t like being in the bedroom if he wasn’t sleeping, but didn’t want to turn on the television since Kamui was asleep. None of the books in the apartment really interested him, so he had nothing better to do.
A tiny frown was marring Kamui’s face as he tossed restlessly. Subaru was beginning to draw the conclusion that Kamui simply wasn’t a good sleeper. Not that he was one to talk; he’d dozed for about an hour and a half himself before giving up. He sipped his tea pensively and glanced over as Kamui mumbled something in his sleep.
Subaru didn’t know what being the Sakurazukamori entailed. He had believed, given certain things Seishirou had said, that it meant one was emotionless. But he wasn’t, not precisely. Rather than that, he felt empty. And he didn’t think that was because of his new position. He believed that was just his own personal quirk. He had loved Seishirou far too much, and his heart was now gone forever, gone to wherever Seishirou now was.
Before Seishirou’s death, he’d been beginning to feel that he might be able to return Kamui’s feelings. There was no real reason not to, after all -- the boy was pretty much everything Subaru could have hoped for, wrapped up in a neat package with huge lavender eyes. Yet he didn’t love Kamui. He didn’t know if he was capable of it. He knew, however, that he could never love Kamui anywhere near as well as he deserved.
The amusing thing about it, however, was that Seishirou most definitely felt threatened by Kamui’s presence in Subaru’s life. Before that, Seishirou had shown up in Subaru’s life about once every three months. Most of these meetings culminated in a fight of some sort; about half the fights culminated in sex; about three quarters of the sex was with Subaru’s express permission. And even when he hadn’t given permission, he hadn’t been able to deny that he’d wanted it.
Kamui’s arrival in Subaru’s life changed that. Subaru saw Seishirou at least once a week, and he was far more insistent about dragging Subaru to bed with him when he showed up. Subaru definitely found this intriguing; it spoke to the fact that Seishirou had felt something for him, despite the fact that Subaru could never fathom what.
Still, at the moment, he felt he was far closer to understanding Seishirou than he was to understanding Kamui. Seishirou, it seemed, had loved him, and for some twisted reason never been able to admit it or recognize it. Kamui? Subaru had no idea what was up with him. It seemed to Subaru that anyone with half a brain in Kamui’s position would have been staying as far away from Subaru as possible. This relationship -- or non-relationship, really -- only spelled disaster for both of them.
Had Kamui honestly lost that much hope?
Or, Subaru considered, maybe Kamui was just that intent on ‘saving’ him. Perhaps Kamui just loved him that much. Perhaps even more than Subaru loved Seishirou, because he was never willing to accept that love, but Kamui was. He had accepted who and what Subaru was, accepted that he would never love him in return. Yet Kamui continued to love him, and unlike Subaru’s love for Seishirou, he wasn’t ashamed of it.
Subaru didn’t understand.
Kamui would sleep for at least a few more hours, and it was pointless for Subaru to sit there and watch him. But he did. He had nothing else to be doing at the moment; he never really had anything to be doing. Somehow he thought Kamui didn’t realize how beautiful he really was. Beautiful and fragile and innocent.
So much like Subaru had been.
But Kamui couldn’t be compared to Subaru, not really. He had lost more than Subaru did. His mother and aunt, his childhood crush, so many friends, Fuuma. Subaru had realized Kamui’s feelings for Fuuma long before Kamui seemed to have realized them, though the exact specifics of their relationship were still unknown to him. But it didn’t matter, because Fuuma was gone. And Subaru thought perhaps that the Fuuma Kamui had loved . . . had never truly existed.
Just like the Seishirou-san he had loved.
Then again, how much of what truly existed was shaped by other people’s perceptions? Kamui loved him, but Kamui barely even knew him when one got right down to it. He knew only the outside, only the image that Subaru had purposely presented him with. The child that Subaru had once been, the man that Kamui had met, and the man Subaru was now, were only tangentially connected. He was not who he used to be. The innocence had been burned out of him.
Seishirou had seen to that.
But perhaps, Subaru thought briefly, I should thank him. I’m not fragile anymore, either.
He reached out and took a few strands of Kamui’s hair between his fingers. It was soft. Comforting, though he didn’t feel the need for comfort. You are truly beautiful, Shirou Kamui. Seishirou would have enjoyed playing with you, if you had been me. And now it’s my turn to play with you as he would have.
He hadn’t wanted to let Seishirou die.
So he had become him.
Or at least . . . become what he knew of him.
Kamui’s eyes fluttered open and eventually came to focus on Subaru, sitting in the chair next to the sofa. His forehead creased in puzzlement as he took in the scene around him, then memory set in and his eyes cleared. “Subaru . . .?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse from sleep.
“Aa,” Subaru said simply. He had no intention of ever pretending to be warm and caring as Seishirou had. He’d spent too many years presenting a false self. Besides, Seishirou may have been a good actor, but Subaru was not.
“Why are you watching me sleep?” Kamui asked, sitting up. The blanket slid off him, to reveal that he was wearing only a pair of flannel pajama pants. Subaru was not fazed by the sight of Kamui’s chest; it really wasn’t much to look at it. He was too skinny to be of much aesthetic pleasure.
Subaru just shrugged, now turning away. He couldn’t answer the question anyway, since he didn’t know what the answer was. There was no point in pretending he could.
“Subaru?” Kamui prompted, obviously hoping for some response. There was a faint hint of hope in his huge liquid eyes. Apparently finding Subaru watching him sleep made him think Subaru felt something for him. Subaru decided to squash that before it got any worse.
“I had nothing better to do.” He stood up and headed for the kitchen.
Kamui’s hand snagged the bottom of Subaru’s shirt as he began to walk away. Subaru, having been expecting this, pulled away easily. Kamui was nothing if not predictable most of the time. He turned away and walked into the kitchen, Kamui trailing like a little lost puppy. Subaru ignored him and poured another mug of tea from the pot, which was now stone cold.
“Why do you let me stay here if you hate it that much?” Kamui asked curiously.
Subaru didn’t reply, opening the cabinet and looking for rice.
Kamui stood in the doorway, waiting for an answer.
Subaru straightened up and set the ricemaker to go, then turned to Kamui and, for the first time, spoke to him voluntarily. “Did you need something, Kamui?”
“Yeah,” Kamui said. “I need to know the truth.”
Subaru gave him a long, measuring look. The not-speaking thing was getting old, anyway. “You’re trembling, Kamui. Maybe you should sit down. Do you want some tea?”
Kamui slammed his hand down on the kitchen table, causing Subaru’s mug to rattle and a small bit of tea to overflow and spill onto the table. “You’re not listening to me, Subaru!”
Subaru took a long drink of his tea while he pondered that statement. “Perhaps it’s you that isn’t listening to me.”
“Subaru, I don’t understand, I need to understand.” Tears were now welling up in Kamui’s eyes. “Why am I here? Why do you let me stay?”
“Because this is where you asked to be.” The tears spilled over. Subaru reached out and brushed them away with his thumb. A small act of kindness that only made his words more harsh.
“As if you care,” Kamui said bitterly.
“I care about anything that amuses me, Kamui.”
Kamui gave him a disgusted look, then his eyes narrowed. “Oh, bravo,” he said, clapping slowly and sarcastically. “You really have gone and turned into Seishirou, haven’t you. I’m just so impressed with you right about now that I could throw up.”
Subaru gave him a fierce glare. “I told you once not to talk about that. If I have to mention it again -- ”
“You’ll what, Subaru?” Kamui taunted. “Throw me out? Like you’re acknowledging my presence here anyway. Go ahead, toss me out on the street. You won’t, and you know you won’t. Because if you’re going to be Seishirou, you need your little playtoy, don’t you? And that would be me. You’re as transparent as fucking cellophane, Subaru.”
“Shut. Up.” Subaru had clenched his hands into fists to keep them from trembling.
“Stop pretending to be him!” Kamui advanced on Subaru, now yelling. “Seishirou is dead, Subaru! Do you understand that? He’s dead, and you becoming him won’t make him any more alive than he is right now!”
“You . . . don’t . . . understand.” Fury welled up inside Subaru, making it difficult to speak. He wasn’t sure he had ever been so angry in his entire life.
“What do I not understand, Subaru? That you won’t accept that Seishirou is dead? I know you had a choice, I know you didn’t have to be the Sakurazukamori. Don’t think Fuuma didn’t relish torturing me with that little piece of information. I know damn well what you’re doing. And I also know that it won’t work.”
“And why won’t it?”
“Because I’m not going to be your little playtoy, Subaru,” Kamui snapped back. “I’m not going to be who you were. I’ll stay with you, and I love you, and I don’t deny it. But I’m not going to let you become this.”
“What the hell do you know?” Subaru yelled. “You think you’re so much better than I was? I couldn’t stop loving Seishirou, I know damn well I couldn’t, and that made me weak and I hated myself for it. Don’t think I didn’t lie awake at night despising what I’d become. But you’re no better than I am, Kamui, don’t even think I didn’t see what you let Fuuma do to you!”
Kamui went white, and swallowed hard. “You . . . saw?”
“Everyone else thought he was just being cruel, but I knew better,” Subaru snarled. “I knew love when I saw it. I knew that look on your face, it was the same look I had on mine every time I gave in and let Seishirou pin me between his sheets. Everyone thought he was just torturing you; I was the only one who ever realized that you let him do that to you. I was the only one that realized that you liked it.”
Kamui just stared at him, unable to dredge up any sort of reply.
Subaru grabbed him by the wrist and pinned him to the wall, pressing their bodies together. “If I wanted you as a playtoy,” he hissed, “I would have had you already. You wouldn’t have done a thing to stop me, and you damn well know it. So stop acting so fucking superior before I do throw you out. You’re no better than I am, Shirou Kamui. Love makes equals out of everyone.” He let him go and turned to walk away. “If I want to do this, it’s none of your business.”
Kamui straightened up and pulled away from the wall, looking sullen. “Because you’re too much of a God damned coward to let him go.”
Subaru slapped him hard enough that he went reeling, and ended up sitting on the floor, looking up at Subaru impassively. It didn’t seem to surprise or bother him that Subaru had hit him; Subaru got the vague impression that he’d been trying to provoke him to it intentionally. Because he’d wanted the reaction, to prove Subaru was still all there? Subaru wondered. Maybe he just liked the pain. God only knew that Subaru would understand that.
They looked at each other for a long minute.
“Get out,” Subaru said.
Kamui blinked at him.
“Get out,” Subaru repeated. “Now.”
Kamui stood up wordlessly and walked over to the couch. Subaru watched as he changed into his school uniform and walked back to the door, sitting down to put on his shoes. He said nothing.
He stood up to go.
“The key,” Subaru said sharply, holding out his hand.
“Bite me,” Kamui said, and walked out the door without looking back.
~~~~
Chapter Four
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