Private you're almost you again. (am i almost me?)

[Akane Kiseki]

Do we have to?

. . .

Do we really really have to? We've been having so much fun, Kiseki-kun! He caused so many problems between us, and he's the reas -- Yuki-onna. His voice had never been so hardlined, even in the confines of their shared space of thought. He wasn't meaning to snap at her - he was tense, but not wound - but he couldn't control the way his teeth snipped together while he wrestled them both under control. A facsimile of control, at least. He was ... it wouldn't be unfair to say terrified, in himself and toward the conversation that was coming, but for every shadow of horror there was a star of determination. It had been long enough. He missed him so much. ... And, uhm, well, they still had classes together, so he couldn't really keep avoiding him. He felt awful about that, truly, but what tools did he have to behave differently? His eyes hurt. His chest hurt. His heart hurt.

His head hurt.

I ... need to talk to him, Yuki-onna. She was annoyed, but not cross with him. He could work with that. He's probably lonely, too. How many ways could you appeal to a centuries old malefic spirit? Enough, it seemed, when you had eyes as blue and a voice as soft as Kiseki Akane's. He hugged his little arms around his slight frame until his tee-shirt stretched thin across bird-like bones, closing his eyes for a moment longer of reprieve. We've been having fun together. He'll want to have fun, too. Okay? It won't be like before. ... Things are different now. It was so very true, in such an expanse. He lingered in it seconds longer. He moved shortly after, bringing himself to a homely bricked building where his hand could reach towards a door. Stall. Blegh. We can still just go home, Kiseki-kun! We could take another one of those missions if you wanna run around today~ That was really funny last time! That one man went, like, 'bwaaaagh' and practically exploded when you -

The laughter ringing through his spirit was a haze around a tired slope of his spine, pressing that tiny, pale hand into hard wood and knocking until it opened. "I... Ichika-kun? Is Ichika Kazanari here?"

 

[Kazanari Ichika]

Memories of light and waves in the eternity without him.

That's what it felt like. An eternity apart. He would catch glimpses of his beloved in classes and around the village, never able to really hold a proper conversation with him. His heart ached. No, it was positively scorched with a single-minded desire. He wanted his boyfriend back - to make better than they were now. He couldn't carry on like this. The heavy burden that he might have driven away Kiseki through sheer ineptitude and weakness. The crippling fear that one day he might slip away to some place that he cannot reach, spirited away by a malicious ice witch. The smoldering anger that there wasn't a single thing he could do to help. Today would be the day. Ichika would confront his boyfriend and they would talk. Really talk this out! They made a promise! He stares into the mirror, dark void shrouded in darker flames - the image of a boy that burns everything he touches.

He's polishing up a few things, getting ready for the day ahead and the inevitable confrontation when he hears a knock. A knock? "Who could that be?" He wonders, cautiously skulking to the door. His heart sinks and then flutters out of his chest as divine tenor pierces through fragile frame. It was like everything bad in the world instantly evaporated from his presence alone. Ichika scampers to the door, tripping over the coffee table in his cramped dormitory. "OW! One second!" A small obstacle for the dog wagging his tail as he scrambles back to his feet to reach the threshold. He freezes for a moment. Just a moment. He's too hot/He's too cold. A fusion of the two would meld perfectly together.

A marriage in violet.

The door cracks open and everything melts away. Harmony and comfort in beautiful ocean blue. "H-Hey, tiger. I was just about to come see you. Wa-wanna come in?"

 

[Akane Kiseki]

He couldn't feel his face. He couldn't feel his eyes. The instant that Ichika appeared in frame - no, the instant he heard his voice in disastrous motion moments before the door opened, everything had become a blur. His breath had caught so deeply in his throat he felt it constrict, choked. He felt his fingers twitch and pull into his pale to squeeze it, whitening the edge of every finger until taut knuckles had competition. He thought he'd start to cry the moment violet-tinted red took over the misshapen colors he could still make out. He felt a dry, needling film to reel at the edges of startled blue - red - violet?

This all took place in the span of a thought. His arm lifted, rubbing its fore back and forth across his eyes until he could discern the image of reality before him and sniffle back his instinct. A little sword, the length of his arm, hung off the back of his waist, clapping against him in a holster too big and too loose for a body - and size - so completely unaccustomed, but the memory of it on every step and bump brought him reassurance. He was growing. He was growing! He was ... he was trying to grow. He stood there, sheltered in the boughs of snow and stubborn petals, and his mouth opened with a shiver that argue he run instead.

No. "Y-yes. Hi, Icchan. How ... how are you? Since, uhm --," and he tried so hard to fill air as he accepted the invite, stepping inside at Ichika's motion. He still couldn't quite seem to look at him. He found anything and everything else so fascinating, captured in the clearest blue. "I know class went ... went really bad. I wanted to check on you ..." His voice had gotten smaller even as his shoulders tried desperately to hold it up.

 

[Kazanari Ichika]

Here kitty, kitty~

A snap of his fingers and clicking of tongue to coax the little cat from his shelf would be what a normal boy would choose for his next course of action, but Kazanari Ichika was not that type of boy. Loud and boisterous with little regard for restraint when it comes to his desires. The burning maelstrom of pure passion and tempestuous yearning that was left to smolder beneath the surface while he patiently awaited his boyfriend's return. A flashback to a memory of their first meeting where he, not too unlike now, stormed against his small frame, lost in the waves of ocean blue. "Please, look at me." Warm hands caress the soothing chill of his cheeks before pulling him in for an even warmer embrace. "I've missed you so much." Ichika sniffles, nosing into the tender hug while squeezing him tight. He takes his beloved's hand, rubbing at the back of his hand with quiet reassurance that lingered down to his fingertips, to entwine them together, leading him inside to settle into the living room sofa.

Ichika retreats to the kitchen for but a moment, choking down the anxious feeling of the mirror splitting through skin, letting the burning revenant through to scorch the one he loves - the pressure of crumbling under the stress of the impending conversation and the many possibilities that could come of it. A deep breath and a hip bump against an open refrigerator door. Ichika sets down a glass of tea for Kiseki and takes his seat beside him, facing him with a slightly tarnished, but bright nonetheless, smile. "I'm really happy you came by... I'm... fine..." Oh, how he wished that were true. Little raindrops well up in the corner of cloudy eyes. "Mm. I guess.. I'm not fine. It's hard to deal with this stuff alone and I know you're struggling too! We made a promise to be partners. To never be alone so this stuff wouldn't suck so much... So.. No more avoiding me, okay? Rely on me so I can rely on you, too." He blubbers on the last declaration, pouting like a child collapsing under a long repressed burden. It wasn't out of anger and the tone would be clear in that. It was a sad plea from a boy that simply wanted his boyfriend.

What was worse? The fear of loss, or the fear of abandonment?

Still, recent events only compounded on the ever-present grief and melancholy permanently etched into his soul from the moment of his father's death and it was bleeding over, The graveyard still haunted him, as did the words and sacrifice of Tobias-sensei. "It sucks, Kise-chan! None of it is fair! I hate feeling so powerless all the time! AAAAAAAAA!" Ichika falls over, resting his head on Kise's lap, huffing out a breath. A lull to bask in his radiance before wiping away any weeping drizzle, It was such a relief to just let it all out. To whine and moan and vent aloud in firm recognition. A weight was lifted and the dog wags his tail, peeking up at the kitty with rosy pink cheeks with an enamored giggle. "So what do you say, beautiful? Your turn?"

 

[Akane Kiseki]

Stop.

Warmth on his face and in guidance to the vulnerability of Ichika Kazanari. He felt the hands on him, but he didn't remember how it felt when arms met his small frame in a hug. He found himself in a new room, but he didn't remember walking with Ichika to get there. He didn't remember sitting down. He didn't remember his hands closing around the glass of tea that now shook between his hands.

Stop.

He could hear the words his hound - earnest, loving, needful - babbled to him in what must be a dam breaking. He could hear the edge in his voice, not so subtle, as he declared his loss without Kiseki around. He could hear it, but he couldn't remember the words almost as soon as they hit like a dull thud in his chest. He felt his heart - he remembered that sound - beat slowly between every breath, and the way it rose in speed and intensity over the seconds as Ichika pawed, doted, fell over him; that was a feeling he couldn't forget.

Stop.

A giggling boy with red cheeks and hopeful eyes. He stared up at him, questioning. Adoring. It was his turn? To, what? Be sad? Be stricken? Free himself? No. No. No. Non. nono.n non.on nononnnononono on onoono . ,

"Stop!" His glass, prepared in kindness, cracked at his voice, but it was not from volume or pressure - it was frost that spilled from his fingers, reverberating with his hurt tone until it spiderwebbed across the length of the tea and split in refractions. He was shaking. His heart was beating in panic. That's what this was. Even the specter in white, haunting the edges of his little dark room, receded from dim light in surprise at his outburst. "Stop! Ichika! Just ... stop! You don't understand!" Did he sound petulant? His inflections would be so difficult to read. He was lashing out, but he wasn't dismissing Ichika's feelings or pain or the weight he must have been under - he wasn't mad at the other boy. He was furious, still.

Cold crackled off of him in waves, every further word permeating their nearby windows and furniture in a cold layer that only grew. "Just stop! What do you mean!? What do you mean YOU missed ME?"

He whipped away from his boyfriend - every point of contact had only made him feel worse. The easy, thoughtless way Ichika threw himself at him - the complete disregard for gravity or concern. No. Kiseki couldn't handle that. He had been agonizing. "I've been so - so upset! I've been so scared! You can't just act like everything's fine and normal and we can just - we can just talk about it and make it somehow better, right away!" He was officially making a scene, standing in the middle of the room as tiles and floorboard froze beneath him.

This wasn't her fault: and he felt that in many ways, but specifically the way the environment reacted to him now - that was all his own power, drawn from her. For her part, she was equal parts elated and confused -- this was exactly what the Yuki-onna had wanted from Kiseki Akane, a spiral into this dark part of innocence, but she hadn't actually expected it yet; and not like this. Not so suddenly! She contented to watch. Her hand wasn't needed where his fist left mark.

"I hurt you! I hurt you." He wasn't going to let Ichika absolve him of guilt for what had happened at the graveyard. He had long decided to take responsibility for the spirit he had, for all intents and purposes, invited along. "We both almost died, and I made that happen! I could barely help you, I could barely help Tobias, I could barely even - I barely helped against the vampire on our mission!" He would take responsibility for Yuki-onna's crimes, but not her boons. He hadn't been any help to either of them. "I don't care about the circumstances. I hurt you! You shouldn't want to see me anymore! You shouldn't ... you shouldn't just be - be letting me into your house, and making me tea, and hugging and laughing and complaining about everything around you except for ... ME!"

This was a tantrum of the deepest blue, every agitated thrust and wave of his arms cooling the temperature of a situation that felt already cold enough. "You're supposed to be mad at me! I'M mad at me! What do you mean YOU feel powerless!? Have you seen me! The only time I have any strength is when it CAN HURT SOMEONE." This was punctuated by the way his fist hit the wall beside him, releasing a freezing blast that then flurried to surround them both. It wasn't just tangible ice; his voice, risen in this indelicate fashion, added weight to each word and their presence; they were cold in a literal fashion, and they brought anything that heard them down with him.

The sound of his voice was sad. The power of his voice transmitted that for a very real effect of sadness itself. He hadn't even noticed when he started crying; but his eyes, when he looked up, were inequal colors; red and blue and violet in patchwork that glitched and vibrated in the hues they held as if they, too, couldn't decide what they were anymore.

 

[Kazanari Ichika]

He was right.

Kazanari Ichika didn't understand a goddamn thing. Why was his boyfriend lashing out? The shattering of glass that allowed the blizzard to invade their warm sanctuary once again., leaving the boy stranded in freezing solitude, with the cracking of ice against timid frame. Hypothermic and in need of any heat. Frostbite nipping at his fingers and toes as his ears sink down and his tail retreats between his legs. It's not like what his lover was saying didn't have a semblance of truth, but wasn't it the same for Ichika? Shouldn't he be blamed? Hated. Despised. Abandoned. Why did he show up at the doorstep if not for the common understanding that they should face things together? Why did anybody have to take the blame for things not in their control? He didn't have a the faintest idea how to soothe the lamentations of the boy he loved, suffering so profoundly to the point of sapping the heat from his surroundings. The truth was Ichika was in so much pain and not once would he lay that at Kiseki's feet. At least, until now.

IT HURT. But, he won't STOP.

Frozen blood can still boil over in the throes of passion. And so he would burn through it all. The subzero pyrexia that he languishes in, or the weeping wails crying out just as cold, if only to quell his biting words in the only way Kazanari Ichika understood. He resolves himself, fists clutched tight to give him enough courage to bloom, cinders turning to ash in the frozen typhoon. Still, he would make his trek through shearing winds and serrated hail until he made it to the heart of the storm, never once faltering. Ash awakening embers that spark into an unyielding fire, blazing a path until he stands face to face with the boy he loves, shrouded in nightmarish flames, crimson red and umbral night, confronting his feelings in an all-consuming kiss, kindled with bursting flames. Scorching heat entangles with blistering cold in perfect harmony.

"You're right it does hurt! Why the hell do YOU get to tell me how to feel? You're not responsible for any of the shit that's happened and it's something YOU need to get over. YOU didn't attack Tobias-sensei. YOU didn't hurt me and you need to stop acting like you're some pathetic little boy, because you're not! Stop looking for forgiveness from someone that's never once blamed or hated you. I'm not going to pity you. I'll never ever pity you because I think you're strong and beautiful!" He huffs and pants, trembling from pure adrenaline as his body coalesces in intense extremes, emotionally and physically. "The only time I've ever felt hurt by you is right now! Get your head on straight and figure out that when I say I love you, it means something!" His voice shakes with every shout, unleashing the floodgates and expressing how he feels with genuine conviction - genuine fear, that this was going to lead to his inevitable, self-fulfilled abandonment.

 

[Akane Kiseki]

Again, and so it goes around.

Again, and so the world revolves beneath his feet: without him.

He can't feel his face / he can't feel his eyes. He can't remember what it was supposed to be like to be a person - a shinobi - a boyfriend, and not a -- what was he, again? A small, shaking, desperate boy, bleeding heat death from the heart on his sleeve. Every breath exhaled frost that shivered as powerfully as he did, every color registered in retina a discordant mix of shades that blinked in and out and in and out; and the world, revolving, with only him and Ichika Kazanari left in its forgetting ages. Was this what it felt like to be above mortality? Was this what it felt like to taste divinity?

When lips met his, through flurry and fury and the panicked step back he took as Ichika braved his melodrama with the lantern of his love for him -- Kiseki realized, no. This wasn't a higher power. This was just him, his heart shattering as sure as the pictures on a wall his sadness fractured across, slipping from gravity in a sure descent. He wasn't reaching for the sky. He was falling to an abyss, and he was -- he was, what? he thought, as Ichika yelled back at him. He was dragging him down with him? And for ... what? Absolution? He didn't even want forgiveness, he just wanted to be --

And he sobbed, tears flowing uncontrollably from multi-chromatic eyes, until they stained both his face and Ichika's.

-- punished.

The blizzard died down, but it wasn't instant. It was a process of regret; of grief. Even the spirit he nurtured that very rage and discontent from couldn't help but pull a sleeve over her pale lips, only her mouth caught by his pendulous light. Then she was gone, remaining only in an ache Kiseki felt through every limb and choke of his lungs. He cried. He just ... he just cried, his arms thin and weak and clinging at Ichika with breath shaky across the other's collarbone. He cried into his shoulder, ugly sobs, wracking a form that looked as if it might all but disappear from the intensity. One hand lifted to brush Ichika's front in what could be a thump with any force behind it, tapping a slow rhythm as Kiseki tried to form words. "I'm s- I'm s- sss- sor, sorry, I'm so -- nnnn, I'm so - so -- s-so sorry, why am I- why am I-" Why am I yelling at you? I just want to love you. I just want you to love me.

There was no earth to catch them in this stratosphere. Just two lonely stars, finding warmth in the light that could reach them. They had to share theirs. You could freeze out here without it. "I-Icchan... Icchan... Icchaaan ... Nnnn ... A, aa. Aaaa..." Thump, thump, thump. "I'm so sorry. I kn- I know- I kn-know, I'm so sorry. You're rr-right. I just. I wanted to - I just needed t-to --"

When his face lifted, there was a difference in eyes that spilt untamable rivers. He met jade with untenable lotus, a soft red in each eye corrupted by tinges of pale blue that sparked in and out until it all bled a shy pink. A single black tomoe ringed each pupil, squinting through the way his eyes were forced shut by their flow. He could see clearer. He could see sharper. And he still couldn't see anything but Ichika Kazanari, taking only the span of a gasp to throw his arms around him and bring him in among the last dispersing clouds of frost. "I love you. I love you! I'll be - I can - I can be - we can be -- we can be better! We can ... we c-can, we can do this. We can do this. We can ... d-do this ... nnnn ..." It was the only reasonable show of strength Kiseki had ever managed of his own accord: the firmness of his arms as they squeezed Ichika for every doubt, huffing them away between his decisive - but heartbroken - words. "I love you. I'm sorry. I love you."

I'm sorry.

 

[Kazanari Ichika]

A meshing of blazing red and frozen white - two celestial bodies orbiting one another. No longer drifting through the barren void of space. They had found each other again, like they always would, The red string of fate that was wrapped around their hearts would always pull them back together in this endless sea of stars.

Ichika didn't know what to say. His roaring flurry of scalding scolding was released out of pure desperation to avoid despondence, but they crashed into his beloved with the impact of a meteor shower. The ice cracks and all that remains is the ever constant downpour of glimmering tears. The fire in his heart sputters and extinguishes under the deluge and he's left with crying in turn. He didn't mean to make his boyfriend cry, but what else was there to do? Weather the blizzard until they both freeze out in the desolate emptiness. Maybe their hearts had shattered a little from the perpetual guilt and fear, self-flagellation in phantom pain- haunted by remnants that can easily be exorcised in the fusion of us. They can mend each other with pieces from the other. The joining of cinnabar with lapis/ lapis with cinnabar in the way that gold is used to restore a crack in pottery. Both fragile on their own, but together they could become as unbreakable as diamond.

So, he just holds him, blubbering just the same with his own apologies. "I'm so.. so sorry, hon. I didn't... mean.. to yell. I love you so much! I just.. want you... to be happy. I want to be happy... with you. Kise-chan, look at me. I love you. So, whatever you want - whatever... you need. We can do it together, okay?" He knows he's squeezing too tight, but this can be his punishment. Endure your sentence and feel my aching heart so we can begin again, as something new - something even more beautiful than before. "You can stay as long as you like. Talk about anything you want. I will always be with you, forever and always. The next time we meet... I'm taking you for that date, okay?"