Wahaha! The first cliffhanger of the story!
Chapter Three
Irishido collapsed onto his bed. He was absolutely exhausted, and he didn’t know why. He had spent most of the day working, true, but he had been on his feet for longer than this before and hadn’t been this tired. But still, it seemed a constant struggle lately to remain upright. Whenever he let his mind drift, he felt like it might drift away entirely.
It didn’t take long for him to tumble into sleep, but he immediately slid into a strange dream.
He was again looking in the mirror, but his reflection was not precisely his. The face was slightly thinner, the eyes a deeper and colder green. As he watched, the reflection moved without him and spoke. “Ohayo, Irishido.”
Irishido blinked stupidly at his own reflection, his mouth working slightly but no real words coming out. “What . . .?” he finally asked.
“I’m sorry to have startled you,” the reflection said.
Irishido let his head nod a bit. “Subaru . . .”
“Did I frighten you?” Subaru asked softly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Irishido. But I’ve been waiting for this chance . . .”
“When I . . . called for help,” Irishido realized slowly. “I summoned you. I wasn’t trying to,” he said quickly, afraid that Subaru was angry, that he had misunderstood Irishido’s intentions. Getting Subaru angry was the last thing Irishido wanted.
“I know you weren’t,” Subaru replied. “But I took the chance all the same.”
“Why . . .?”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Subaru said, and his voice was suddenly dark with barely suppressed anger. “To be trapped, not living, not dead. I didn’t have the peace that death should have brought. I couldn’t rest. But at the same time, I wasn’t here -- I couldn’t watch, couldn’t see what was happened.”
Irishido recoiled from the mirror, from the emotions he felt coursing through his own body, even though they were not his own.
Subaru sighed. “Gomen . . . I didn’t mean to get upset.”
“Why are you here?” Irishido asked again.
“To take my revenge.” Subaru’s words sounded hollow.
The words were a lie. Irishido knew it, knew it without knowing how. Subaru was so much a part of him now that their minds were not, and in fact could not be, entirely separated. “You still love him,” Irishido whispered.
“SHUT UP!”
A wave of anger sent Irishido reeling, clutching at his head.
“He killed me,” Subaru said. “He killed me! You don’t know how much it hurts to die!”
“Leave me alone!” Irishido managed to gasp out.
“I won’t. I can’t.” Subaru’s voice calmed, and so did the waves of emotion. “I need to finish this, Irishido . . . and you’re the only way I can.”
“I won’t let you use me like this,” Irishido said. “This is not your life!”
“I’m stronger than you,” Subaru said complacently. “I could possess you entirely, relegate you back to the corner of your own mind, helpless as anything but a spectator. But I haven’t. I’m willing to share . . . but I have to have at least that much.”
“Get . . . out,” Irishido snarled.
“No.”
“GET OUT!” Irishido shoved both his fists through the mirror. It shattered around him, cutting his hands on the glass. He grabbed his cousin by the shirt and gave him a firm push.
Agony ripped through him as Subaru clung to him. He could not separate what had already been joined, and wound up curled up on the floor of the dreamscape, sobbing for breath.
“I will not leave,” Subaru said softly, standing over his cousin. “So I suggest you get used to me being here.”
Irishido stared up at him. “I’m not going to let you control me,” he said weakly.
“You may not have any choice.” Subaru turned around and walked away. Irishido watched him go, dazed and disoriented. Less than a minute later, the dream faded entirely and he sat up in bed. His head was throbbing and he felt even more tired than when he had gone to bed.
He might have thought of it as just a dream, were it not for the dozens of cuts on his hands.
~~~
After a few days, Seishirou thought he knew what had happened. He’d been doing some reading and research. No, it was perfectly clear to him how all this had come to light.
He was not amused in the slightest.
It had been five days since he had last seen Irishido, so he was not surprised when his doorbell rang. On second thought, however, he didn’t think Irishido knew where he lived. Frowning, he picked up his mug of tea and went for the door.
It was not Irishido on his doorstep. It was Hokuto.
“I need to speak to you,” she said shortly.
He smiled charmingly. “Hokuto-chan, it’s been so long. No hellos?”
“No. Either walk with me or let me in. I’m not having this conversation in the hallway.”
He stood back and let her walk in, then closed the door behind her. He even took her coat, and hung it on one of the pegs. “But aren’t you worried that I might kill you?” he asked, terribly amused.
“No,” she said shortly. “If you wanted me dead, you would have killed me already. It’s not like I pose any sort of challenge for you.”
He smiled. “Would you like some tea?”
“Oh, sure,” she said sarcastically, settling in one of the kitchen chairs. “I assumed you know why I’m here?”
“Well, I imagined you wouldn’t be pleased about the deal I’d made with your cousin,” Seishirou said. He turned to the pot of tea on the counter and poured Hokuto a mug. It was still warm; he had only made it an hour previous, with his dinner. “But I wasn’t sure if he was going to tell you about it or not.”
“That wasn’t what I was referring to,” she said coldly.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, you’re here about Subaru-kun . . . I didn’t know that you were aware of that charming little development.”
“I knew the minute he arrived,” Hokuto lied. “He’s my brother. And I want to know how this happened.”
“You think I know?” Seishirou asked. He took the seat across from her and sipped his tea. Really, he didn’t have time for this; he was overdue to feed the Tree. However, this was far more interesting than his normal schedule. He wasn’t about to pass it up.
“Yes,” Hokuto said simply. “I think you do.”
“I don’t think I’ll tell you,” Seishirou said.
Hokuto gave him a look over the rim of her teacup. “Sei-chan,” she said sweetly, “I know you can outfight and outmagic me any day of the week, but if you don’t explain to me what you did to my brother, I’m going to kick you so hard that the Tree is going to have to look real hard for an heir.”
Seishirou laughed. “Hokuto-chan, you may not believe me, but I have missed you these five years.”
“I thought I missed you too,” Hokuto said in a low voice. “But the man I missed wasn’t you.”
“Oh, he was,” Seishirou said, his voice neutral. “I rather enjoyed the role, too.”
“You were saying about my brother?” she asked, her voice thin with the effort of controlling her emotions.
“Ah, yes,” Seishirou said. “You see the problem here was that Subaru-kun did not seem to have a problem with dying, but he did have a problem being fed to the Tree.”
“You tried to feed him to your stupid Tree?!” Hokuto shrieked.
Seishirou continued to sip his tea, unperturbed. “Of course. That was sort of the point in killing him, you know. In any case, my theory is that because of that, he was trapped in a sort of limbo . . . the fact that he had to fight against the Tree kept him from moving on properly, but after that, he didn’t have the strength to return.”
“That was my theory, too,” Hokuto admitted, looking like it pained her to agree with Seishirou on something.
“If you already knew, then why are you here?” Seishirou asked. “Did you miss my company?”
She rolled her eyes. “I thought I knew what had happened. But I didn’t know what you thought -- or if you even knew that Subaru was back. I figured these were things I should know, don’t you think?”
“And what is your beloved brother planning?” Seishirou asked, smiling.
“Most likely your death after prolonged torture,” Hokuto said with a sweet smile.
“It ought to be an interesting show, then,” Seishirou replied.
“Oh, believe me,” Hokuto said, “I’m looking forward to it.”
~~~~
Subaru strolled casually through Irishido’s mind. He was beginning to get a feel for it, beginning to know what went where and why. He had not ‘spoken’ to Irishido in three days, giving him time to recover both mentally and physically from having to share his body with someone else.
He looked through Irishido’s memories. It kept him occupied, kept him from getting impatient and demanding control from Irishido. His cousin had had a good life. Even after Subaru’s death and his sudden, unexpected position as the Clan Head, it had been good.
Subaru watched dispassionately. Birthdays, girlfriends, Clan meetings. He took stock of Irishido’s entire life. He watched him move to Tokyo, watched him meet Seishirou. Watched it all through his cousin’s eyes.
Watched it knowing it could have been himself.
“It could have been mine,” Subaru said softly to himself, watching Irishido’s twentieth birthday for the third time, watching his cousin cheerfully get drunk and wind up in a corner making out with his girlfriend. “It should have been mine. Should have been mine.”
The girlfriend was gone from later memories. Subaru sifted through and found when Irishido had broken up with her. She thought he was too involved with his work.
“It’s a Sumeragi curse, my dear,” Subaru said to the still image in front of him. “There’s no halfway with onmyoujitsu.”
He shoved the memory aside, angrily. He knew his words were true. To be a Sumeragi was a curse. He was not the first Clan Head to have been killed by the Sakurazukamori. But he was, he knew, the first who could have lived and had not.
He might not have minded dying. Every Sumeragi child who was trained in the ‘jitsu knew it was a very real possibility. He might not have even minded dying at the hands of the Sakurazukamori. Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have minded dying though he should have lived.
But . . . to die at Seishirou’s hands . . .
No. It was unacceptable.
He had been too shocked to fight back then. But he wasn’t now, and all the fury at having been lied to, having been deceived, had only intensified over five years with nothing else to contemplate.
Stop. Pull up a memory. Seishirou’s smiling face. Only a few days old.
//“How can you talk about him like that? Like he was just another meal for your Tree? He loved you.”
“So?”//
Subaru screamed in incoherent rage, and the image was washed away.
//“So?”//
But he would never forget it. Never forget that cold look on Seishirou’s face. It meant nothing to him. Nothing at all.
Subaru had been able to lie to himself to a point. Five years was a long time to think about all the reasons, all the motivation that Seishirou could have had. He had, for a long time, entertained the possibility that Seishirou had loved him, and had been so confused about how to react that he had sought to destroy the source of his confusion.
He had entertained the possibility that Seishirou might have realized afterwards, might have felt regret, sorrow, remorse.
He had entertained Irishido’s theory about how perhaps he had suppressed all his emotions to avoid emotional pain.
But that was all destroyed now. All with one stupid two-letter word.
//“So?”
“So?! So, that demands a certain amount of your respect!”//
Subaru laughed harshly. Irishido was not naive, but apparently even he had trouble grasping the way Seishirou’s mind worked. Subaru didn’t blame him. It was not a particularly easy tangle to figure out.
//“He would have given up anything for you, he loved you so much, and you tossed it back in his face like it didn’t mean a damned thing!”
“It didn’t. Not to me.”//
He laughed again. Suddenly, it all seemed quite amusing. No, it didn’t mean a damned thing. But that didn’t mean it never would. He would make it mean something. He would make Seishirou understand what it felt like.
And if it was necessary to kill Seishirou in order to do so, well, Subaru didn’t exactly think he’d find anyone crying.
He shoved away the memories of Seishirou. He had more than enough of his own to contemplate for five years. He didn’t need to add Irishido’s to the mix. He wanted to think about something else for a while. He flipped through the memories at random, glancing for anything that might keep him interested.
What he stumbled upon was the night Irishido had lost his virginity.
Subaru, having only been sixteen when he died, had never had sex. The only person he had ever been interested in having sex with was Seishirou, and he had been far too innocent at his young age to even totally know what he had desired. All he had known was that he wanted to be special to Seishirou, that he didn’t want Seishirou to leave him.
It was only as he watched this that he realized how good life could really be. Not that the woman in particular interested him; women never had. But still, being able to feel it as Irishido had . . . he had no idea anything could feel like that.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” Irishido stormed into Subaru’s field of vision, nearly tripping over where he was lying on the floor.
“Just poking around,” Subaru said mildly. “It’s boring in here with nothing to do.”
“Well, it’s a bit fucking hard to concentrate with you thinking about that,” Irishido said, annoyed. “Have a little sympathy for the guy at the wheel, okay?”
“Sorry,” Subaru said, not remorseful in the slightest.
“Which sort of makes me wonder,” Irishido said. He was apparently in better spirits after three days without any fainting spells, without Subaru having seized control of his body once, and in more of the mood for idle conversation with his new ‘roommate.’ “I didn’t know . . . I mean, you were only sixteen when you died. I didn’t know you had much experience with . . . er . . . that sort of thing.”
Subaru shrugged. “I didn’t, but you did. I wanted to know what it was like.”
There was a pause.
“You’ve been looking at my memories,” Irishido said quietly. It was not a question.
“Yeah.”
Another pause, this one longer.
“How dare you?” Irishido asked, starting to get angry. “Those weren’t yours to just stick your nose into! That was my life!”
“It could have been mine!” Subaru was quicker to anger than Irishido was, getting to his feet. “It should have been mine!”
“Oh, get off it,” Irishido snapped. “I understand that you’re pissed off that you got killed, but you don’t have any right to come in here, demand use of my body, and then poke around at my own private memories! The Subaru I remember wouldn’t do this!”
“The Subaru you remember got messily killed by the man he loved and then spent five years trapped between life and death!” Subaru yelled. “So pardon me if that Subaru has changed a bit!”
“You think everything’s been peaches and cream for me?” Irishido asked incredulously. “I’m not cut out for this stupid life. I’m not good enough to be Clan Head, damn it! There hasn’t been a single day since you died that I haven’t gone to bed exhausted and woken up exhausted. It’s too much!”
“Like it was better for me?”
“You were more powerful! You had the strength to do this; I don’t. But no one cares. No one gives a shit if I burn out or not. Because when they look at me, they see you. Everyone does it. Even I do it. All I am -- all I have EVER BEEN -- was second best to you.”
“Oh, now you want me to feel sorry for you?” Subaru snarled. “I’m the one who died, and I’m supposed to be sorry for you because of it?”
“You know that girl you just watched me have sex with?” Irishido asked furiously. “We were engaged. We were going to get MARRIED. And I had to give her up because she couldn’t cope with me being Clan Head. She couldn’t deal with the fact that I might die, and that I was gone from dawn ‘til midnight every day. Yeah, you died. It sucked for you. But don’t say that like you’re the only God damned person on earth who’s ever suffered.”
Subaru opened his mouth to say something, but Irishido cut him off.
“And you know what else was so great for me when you died?” he asked. “Remember how you were supposed to be a Dragon of Heaven in 1999? Well, since you aren’t, now I am! Isn’t that great? So if Seishirou doesn’t kill me now, I’m bound to die then anyway! Isn’t that just fucking grand?!”
“Shut up!”
“And just to put the icing on the cake, I don’t even get to live my fucking life because you’ve shown up and are demanding control of it!”
“SHUT UP!”
“Just because your life was ruined doesn’t mean that mine has to be!”
Subaru grabbed Irishido by the front of the shirt and yanked him close. “You can’t get rid of me,” he snarled. “I’ve tried to be nice about this, and if you could have just let me in I wouldn’t have had to do this. But no, you can’t give me what I need. It would have been over within months, but now God only knows how long it’ll take.”
Irishido cried out, sinking to his knees. He could feel Subaru’s consciousness pressing against his own, trying to push him out of his body completely. “I . . . I won’t . . . leave . . .” he tried, gasping for breath. “This is my body and I won’t leave!”
Subaru released him. He was also breathing hard. “You can’t fight me forever.”
Irishido stumbled and fell to his knees. He wanted to reply, but the throbbing in his head was so strong that he couldn’t seem to pull himself together enough to come up with any sort of coherent answer.
“I’ll get what I want,” Subaru snarled, and walked away.
~~~~
“Irishido-chan?” Hokuto shook him gently, a general sense of foreboding making her feel queasy. She had come home from work to find Irishido crumpled in a heap on the kitchen floor. There was a broken mug of tea next to him. From the way he was lying, she thought that he had been leaning against the counter, drinking it, when he’d fallen.
But why would Subaru have tried to take control? There was no one else around, no one for him to speak to. Scowling, she shook her cousin harder.
“Wha . . .?” Irishido’s eyes opened.
“Are you all right?” Hokuto asked, leaning close.
“My head . . .” Irishido gingerly lifted one hand and pressed it against his temples. “He tried . . . and I couldn’t get him out . . .”
“What?” Hokuto asked, confused.
“Make him go away,” Irishido moaned. “Make him leave me alone, I can’t do this . . . I can’t . . .”
Hokuto closed her eyes. “Irishido-chan . . . I can’t . . .”
Irishido sat up suddenly and grabbed her by the shoulders. “He’s your brother! Do something, talk to him, make him go away! He’s KILLING ME!”
Hokuto could only stare at him.
“You . . .” Irishido slumped against her. “You don’t want him to go . . . I should have known . . . you care more for him than you do for me, I suppose that makes sense . . . you’re going to let him do this to me . . .”
“That’s not true,” Hokuto said gently, taking Irishido’s chin between two of her fingers. “Irishido-chan, nothing I say to him will change his mind. Subaru wasn’t often stubborn, but when he set his mind on something, nobody could stop him. He will do this, no matter what anybody says.”
“You want to see Sakurazuka-san suffer,” Irishido said.
“I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind,” Hokuto said. “But that’s not my point. Irishido-chan, this will be easier if -- ”
“Don’t tell me to give in!” Irishido pushed her away angrily. “Don’t tell me that because I won’t. It’s my life, God damn it! I won’t give it up just so he can have his revenge!”
“You don’t understand,” Hokuto said, close to tears. “No one would be able to exorcise Subaru except an extremely powerful onmyouji. His spirit is too strong. I can’t do it. No one in the Clan can. Just let him have what he wants and -- ”
“What he wants is the Sakurazukamori,” Irishido snarled. “I can’t give him what he wants. No one can.” He stopped, and his body went tense suddenly.
“What is it?” Hokuto asked.
“An extremely powerful onmyouji?” Irishido asked softly. “Would be able to exorcise Subaru?”
“Irishido-chan, don’t,” Hokuto said warningly.
“What other choice do I have?” Irishido stood up.
“You don’t want to give him access to your mind,” Hokuto said.
Irishido laughed bitterly. “It’s not like I’ll be giving anything he couldn’t take from me by force if he really wanted.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Seishirou was a light sleeper, something that had been ground into him since he was a baby. He woke to pounding on the door of his apartment and was instantly fully alert. He got out of bed and padded to the front door after grabbing his bathrobe. He slept naked; there was no point in pajamas when one lived alone.
He opened the door to see a very agitated Irishido standing outside. His fist was lifted to pound again.
“Konban wa, ‘Shido-kun,” he said calmly. “Would you like to come in?”
Irishido’s sense of propriety seemed to kick in. “Ah . . . were you sleeping?”
“Yes,” Seishirou said, still holding the door open and standing back for him to come in. “But as my sleep schedule is somewhat irregular, I can’t really hold you accountable for waking me up. Are you coming in or aren’t you?”
Irishido stepped just inside, and Seishirou closed the door. He did not make a move to come further into the apartment. “You know about Subaru?” he asked, not bothering with preamble.
“Of course I do. May I take your coat, ‘Shido-kun?”
Irishido gave up on making it quick. Seishirou obviously intended to draw this out as long as possible. He allowed Seishirou to take his coat, and toed his shoes off, then came the rest of the way into the apartment.
“Would you like some tea?” Seishirou asked.
“No.” Irishido’s manners got the best of him. He was, after all, a born and bred Sumeragi. “Thank you. I just want to ask you something.”
“Ask away,” Seishirou said, amused.
“You know what Subaru is here to do?”
“According to his sister, torture and kill me,” Seishirou said with a smile.
“Yes,” Irishido said, with a nod. “That’s it precisely. I’m not powerful enough to push him out.” He didn’t like admitting that, particularly not to the Sakurazukamori, but it needed to be said. “You are. You could exorcise him . . . send him on properly.”
Seishirou took a step forward, trapping Irishido against the wall. The Sumeragi scowled at him. “You want me to exorcise Subaru-kun?” he asked.
“Yes,” Irishido said. “It’ll save you just as much as it saves me.”
“And what does Subaru-kun think of this plan?” Seishirou asked.
“I haven’t exactly discussed it with him,” Irishido said coldly. “But I can probably assure you that he wouldn’t like it.”
Seishirou laughed softly, and reached up, one hand gently caressing the side of Irishido’s face. “Of course not. My Subaru-kun would hate that . . .”
“Are you going to exorcise him or not?” Irishido snarled.
“No,” Seishirou said with a smile. “I don’t believe I will.”
And before Irishido could reply, Seishirou leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
~~~~
Chapter Four
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