X: A Love Ballad
by K.Huntsman

 

X: A Love Ballad
by Kristin Huntsman
Part 1

Subaru lay on the bed, the loose, rumpled sheets draped over him as he watched Seishirou getting dressed. Black hair drifted over his shoulders, eight years' worth of growth spilling it down his back and onto the white cloth. His chin rested on his crossed arms at the foot of the bed; his eyes dreamed.

Seishirou paused as he looked at his lover, smiling in appreciation of the picture he made on the bed. "You're tempting me, Subaru-kun."

The far-away half-smile of Subaru's eyes didn't change, merely extended to curve his lips in an gentle, enigmatic smile. "Oh?" The softness of his voice, the very distance of how far away he seemed, made the knot of want in Seishirou feel tighter. He knew there were parts of Subaru that had slipped out of his reach on the Last Day, and he could never stop trying to find them again, to touch them.

/Oh, Subaru-kun, you've lost so much of yourself... it feels to me like half your heart's gone..../

"Well, I could call in sick," Seishirou offered, casually sitting down on the bed beside Subaru. "I could spend the day with you."

"You could," Subaru agreed, his voice holding the too-familiar note of distraction that he seemed never quite aware of. "Do you want to?"

Seishirou brushed the silky black hair over Subaru's shoulder and kissed the back of the Sumeragi's neck. "How long will you let yourself die?" he questioned, resting his cheek against the smooth white skin. "Will it ever be summer again for your heart?"

There was a moment of soft winter silence before Subaru replied, his voice distant and quiet, "There is a price for everything."

The part of Subaru that hated wanted to kill. Subaru ignored that, gently pushed it away, keeping himself at arm's length. That was the price he had to pay for peace, for Seishirou-san. It had hurt a good deal the first couple years, dividing his self and always blocking it off. He didn't believe Seishirou knew. He had only cried his burning tears long after Seishirou had fallen asleep. He'd gotten quite used to crying in utterly still silence. Lately, though, that pain had begun to fade.

So had he.

The warm weight of Seishirou against him was a comfort, but an emptying one. Subaru wondered if Seishirou could see that he was dying. Probably not. And a small part of Subaru wondered at times if there was anything he could do, but found nothing to prevent his death. So he accepted the limit on his time and lived as he had been living.

He read a little more these days, though. Poetry. Philosophy. The stories and articles he wrote focused a little more on finding lasting truths. He knew he was getting ready to die, pushed that gently aside too. He just let himself experience the faintness that all of living had come to be for his inner self. And he listened, waiting to hear his sister telling him to come to her.

There was a soft tap on the door just then, breaking his quiet thoughts, and Seishirou-san sat up, leaving a warm hand on Subaru's bare back as he called, "Come in, Nataku."

The door opened soundlessly under Nataku's hand and it came into their room fully. "I hope I'm not interrupting..." it began.

"Not at all," Seishirou replied. "Did you want something?"

"Umm..." their apartmentmate stammered, "I was wondering...." It turned red and studied the floor. "I was wondering about sex."

"Why?" Subaru asked, feeling like oceans of distance were separating him from the room, from the two others in it. That was strange, but not too bad. Was this dying, then? He hadn't expected it quite so soon. But not just yet. Dying without before Seishirou and Nataku would be rude, and it wouldn't do the fragile blond biseinen any good. Later, when Seishirou-san had gone to work and Nataku was listening to music in its room... then, perhaps. He focused and centered on what they were saying.

"Umm... the ladies at the club were talking about it..." Nataku replied to his question.

Subaru heard Seishirou's frown in his voice. "What did they say, Nataku?" They had had one of their rare arguments, he and Seishirou-san, over Nataku's place of employment. Nataku "Imonoyama" worked waiting tables at a club. It was a menial job, but Nataku had so wanted to try to be more human that it insisted it was okay. Subaru had agreed; Seishirou had tried to urge Nataku to attend school instead.

The Imonoyama Foundation paid for Nataku, as they always had. Nokoru, though, when he visited them, never seemed to regard Nataku as the "thing" or "experiment" that the scientists who had raised Nataku, if it could be called raising, had. The job resulted in little more than pocket money for the bioroid, as did Subaru's and Seishirou's for them. The apartment and their monthly bills were paid before they even received the notification for them. All courtesy of the Imonoyamas.

"They were just talking about it, and I was... curious." Nataku was now a shade of crimson that Seishirou found quite charming.

"Ah. I see." He looked down at his lover, at the hazy green eyes. "Shall we satisfy Nataku's curiosity, Subaru-kun?"

"... Hai." The answer was too soft, too weak, too giving. It worried Seishirou. More than he wanted to admit. But he knew that Subaru-kun had understood what he meant. When they had nothing else to talk about, they talked about Nataku, and they had both known the day would come when their friend would ask about sex.

He held out his hand. "Nataku, would you come here?"

"Hai, Seishirou-san." Nataku crossed the room.

"Subaru-kun and I have discussed this before now, Nataku, and we would like to introduce you to sex not by telling you about it--that you can get out of a book--but by including you in it."

Nataku felt a shock go through it. Seishirou-san and Subaru-san would...?! But they were partners, and such a thing was not usually shared among humans, was it? Monogamy seemed to be the average during a human relationship, by its observations. Certainly Seishirou-san and Subaru-san had been monogamous since they had all moved into this apartment eight years before.

"Won't it damage your relationship?" it asked worridly.

Seishirou-san just smiled. And Subaru-san asked softly, teasing, "What relationship?"

Nataku looked at Subaru-san and worried more than a bit. Something was wrong with the former onmyouji, it could tell. It was like Subaru-san's inner life force was becoming translucent, when it looked with the Power. Subaru-san was just fading away. And it didn't understand why that should be so, only that it was just a very thin thread that held Subaru-san's soul to his body.

Nataku had become sensitive to souls since Kazuki's had departed its body. There was no hope, no fight left in Subaru-san's. It would give almost anything to prevent Subaru-san from losing his soul too....

"All right," it agreed, and let Seishirou-san draw it to the bed.

Some time later, Subaru listened to heartbeats and watched Nataku. The frail blond was curled next to Seishirou, its head resting on his shoulder as they both dreamed in sweet sleep. The pairing somehow looked good to Subaru, the white hair matching well with the black, one's innocence complimenting the other's lack. That was something he'd comprehended over the years, the facts that Nataku was utterly naive and Seishirou had never known innocence, at least not until he'd met Subaru.

/I was such a child,/ he thought, letting his heart still, his thoughts drifting. /And now I'm somewhere between the two of them. White and black, and I'm gray. Oh, Hokuto-chan..../

/I've forgotten nothing. The next head of the Sumeragis is chosen, orders stand not to pursue Seishirou-san, and I have nothing left unfinished. I think that Nataku will grow to fill whatever void I leave behind, now. It's done, and I'm so empty. Time to go home./

He stood, sliding out of the bed, and looked down upon the two for a moment. His lips formed the words to say that he loved them, but the words came out silent. He shrugged on a robe, then left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

The living room was still, early-afternoon sunlight spilling in the window, catching on motes of dust floating in the air, turning the room gold. He sat down on the sofa, then tilted over until he was laying down on his side. He could hear his twin's voice now, calling his name.

/Subaru..../

Thirteen years without his sister. All he wanted was to be held in her arms.

He closed his eyes and waited for her to touch him.

He'd given up onmyoujutsu on the Last Day, as he had given up the parts of himself that anchored him. Seishirou-san had also given up the Art. That was his price to pay for peace; they had both understood that.

/Subaru..../

Closer. He could almost feel his twin's energy, her liveliness.

He had still been head of the Sumeragis, but he had delegated his responsibilities to another; his task had turned to keeping Sakurazukamori contained, and they all knew that. It hurt, but everything hurt at one point or another.

"Subaru-san?"

Nataku.

He hadn't wanted the biseinen to witness him dying. It was too private of an act to be viewed. But now that it was happening, something occurred to him.

He'd never given Nataku a truly worthwhile gift, and now he was expecting Nataku to take care of Seishirou-san for him.

Nataku wanted a soul, an immortality.

Subaru was dying, and no longer had a use for his.

Nataku's fingers touched his forehead. "Subaru-san?" it asked again, worry in its voice.

Nataku /was/ worried. There was something terribly wrong with Subaru-san, it knew, and it didn't know how to fix it. The link was so weak between his soul and his body that a breath would break it. And the heart had almost stopped beating.

... It couldn't let Subaru-san die.

"Subaru-san!" it cried, shaking his body a little, trying to get him to open his eyes, to wake up a little, to not die.

It snapped him back into his body, the shake, and Subaru opened his eyes into the dream. Nataku was looking down on him, expression frantic. He managed a small smile for Nataku. "Don't tell Seishirou-san," he whispered.

//...The words are sweet, and you like to hear them once in a while, but that doesn't mean they're true....//

Nataku listened to the lyrics of the song, somehow unhappy and confused. It didn't, couldn't, understand why Subaru-san was coming so close to dying. There was nothing wrong with his body... so why had he nearly died? It hadn't taken him long to recover after Nataku had woken him, and he had gone on like normal since then, but....

Nataku buried its head in its hands, not understanding. It couldn't understand why Subaru-san was dying. It couldn't understand why he had asked it not to tell Seishirou-san. It didn't understand why its heart hurt and it wanted to cry when it thought about Subaru-san being gone forever. Nataku just didn't understand any of it!

//...I listen to your tears and feel your pain, but being empathic and being in love aren't the same....//

Nataku hurt, as it hadn't hurt since the one who had so resembled Kazuki's beloved father had died. As it had not hurt since Kazuki's soul had left it. It hurt.

Willing itself not to give in to the pain and cry, Nataku moved to the telephone in its room and dialed one of the numbers it knew by heart. It slumped down against the wall and waited until the other end was picked up. It could hear, over the quiet music, Subaru-san in the kitchen, where he was taking his turn making dinner. "Nokoru-san?" it asked the person on the other end. "Please, if you're not too busy... could you help me understand something?"

//...I reach out my hand, fearing the pain, and my love and my hate mingle and dance....//

Nokoru listened to Nataku's quiet voice and closed his eyes. So it had come to this, finally. He'd known long ago that it would....

"Nataku, I'll come over and see what I can do, okay?" he asked, trying to reassure the gentle, fragile bioroid. "Don't worry, it will be okay...."

He made appropriate soothing noises until Nataku calmed down enough--it not being nearly as good at concealing its panicked state as either of its housemates might be--and then waited for Nataku to hang up before doing likewise. /It's finally come to Subaru's suicide attempt..../

"Nokoru-san?"

He looked up at Akira's soft inquiry. "That was Nataku," he explained to Akira and Suoh. "It was worried about Subaru... more like panicking, actually. And Nataku doesn't even understand what Subaru was doing...."

He got a certain amount of pleasure out of seeing the color drain from their faces at that. Not much; the situation was too serious. But some. They'd understood what he'd meant perfectly well.

"Tell me he didn't succeed," Akira said.

Nokoru sighed. "He didn't... this time. But from what I understand, it was a very near thing. Too near."

"And you're going to go over there to talk to him?" Suoh said as Nokoru stood from his desk and pushed the chair in.

Nokoru met his gaze evenly. "He's a good friend, Suoh. You know that." What was unspoken was that at one point, Nokoru had been in love with the ex-onmyouji. It didn't need to be spoken. "And you would do the same thing."

"Yes, I would. So would Ijyuin. Nokoru-san...." Suoh hesitated, seeming uncomfortable with being this worried.

Nokoru smiled. "I'll be out for the rest of the day, Suoh. You'll just have to get me to finish the paperwork tomorrow!"

PART 2

X: A Love Ballad
by Kristin Huntsman
Part 2

Nokoru sighed as he watched Subaru moving around the kitchen. He saw the frailness of the form, the translucence of the skin. The graceful moves that might have been a dancer's were too otherworldly. Even if he hadn't known beforehand, Nokoru would have seen by watching that Subaru was dying, fading away.

"You really are an idiot, you know," Nokoru criticized in a soft voice.

Subaru paused, back to him. "I made my choice," he murmured. "I could have chosen other paths, but I didn't."

Nokoru sighed and leaned back against the doorframe, looking at the closed door to Nataku's room; he had asked that Nataku let him talk to Subaru alone. "You scared Nataku," he said. "You've got it confused and upset because you want it to lie to Seishirou-san. Are you so determined to make everyone else unhappy with your death?"

Subaru turned to face him, as he had not since Nokoru arrived. Nokoru nearly winced, seeing only a shadow of the self in those leaf-green eyes. "I'm just tired, Nokoru. Is it so wrong for me to want sleep?"

"No," he replied, "No, that isn't wrong. But it is wrong for you to force your death and dying onto the rest of us; don't you think we care, Subaru? Don't you think... don't you think that we love you, that we'd miss you? Doesn't it matter?"

Subaru turned away from him. "I've done things for others all my life," he replied in a quiet monotone. "Can't my death be for myself?"

Nokoru crossed the space between them and held his arms around Subaru's shoulders, resting his cheek on the slightly-taller man's shoulder. "No," he whispered. "No, you can't die. What would Seishirou-san do without you? And what about Nataku? And what would I do without you?" He laughed a little, truly afraid of losing Subaru now that he bothered to let himself contemplate the idea. "I have someone for myself now, but that doesn't mean I ever stopped loving you. It just mostly changed to a different kind of love. I do love you, Subaru. I wouldn't know what to do if you died. Please stop trying to kill yourself...."

So far distant... even when he was held like this, by someone who cared about him, and who he should care about in return, Subaru couldn't touch. It was quiet here, being like this, and peaceful. And he ached so much, was so tired....

"I'm sorry, Nokoru," he whispered, feeling the words echo through him. "I can't."

Nokoru's grasp tightened around him, and Subaru had the vague, passing thought that he should probably hold Nokoru in return. That was what a friend would do, and he and Nokoru were friends, weren't they? But it was too far away, too far in the fog....

His vision slowly grayed out into that fog, releasing him, letting him go to where he belonged, and he thought he heard a distant call of his name by a voice that he had nearly forgotten, it had been so long since she'd been alive....

A sudden jerk of motion yanked him out of that peaceful fog and back into the mortal prison of soul's pain and slow dying. "Don't go," Nokoru said, that look in his blue eyes that Subaru had only seen once before, the other time Nokoru had stopped him from dying. The words were the same too. Strange, that....

"Don't go, Subaru," Nokoru said again, command in his voice. He really was a spoiled little rich brat, Subaru thought, but his will overrode Subaru's lack, and Subaru didn't fall back into that soft fog of dying. "Stay here, with us."

Subaru had no choice but to bow his head in acquiescence to Nokoru's dominance.

Nataku suffered by waiting.

It found the time to be endless during Nokoru-san's conversation with Subaru-san. It wanted that to be over already, it wanted Nokoru-san to have stopped Subaru-san from dying altogether....

And somehow Nataku knew it was its fault. By having sex with Subaru-san and Seishirou-san, it had caused this. It had acted as the trigger. If it hadn't, the situation might have defused, it might never have happened--

--And Nataku would be a lot less confused and "hurt."

It couldn't help the tears that burned at its eyes, just let them blur at its vision and trace down its face. For everything that it had learned, everything it had thought and done on its own, it still couldn't do things right. Perhaps it should never have left the laboratory where it had been created.

As if sensing its misery, its cat came and rubbed up against its leg, perhaps trying to comfort it. And the tabby it had named "Kakyou" in honor of its first friend, a deceased Angel now, looked so forlorn himself that Nataku couldn't help but pick him up and stroke his fur. Kakyou responded almost immediately by purring and, eyes half-lidded, kneading Nataku's trousers. Nataku laughed a little, tears wavering its voice; cats, unlike humans, were so easy to please. It was almost impossible to make a cat mad enough at you that it ignored you or tried to die. And cats couldn't die until the ninth time anyway, Seishirou-san had told Nataku. Nataku had regarded all felines with a bit of awe since then; they had to possess very potent magic to be able to have eight spare lives.

Nataku curled into a ball and rubbed its damp cheek against Kakyou's fur. Maybe it would leave the apartment and find someplace else to live, someplace where its actions wouldn't hurt anyone and especially not people as wonderful as Seishirou-san and Subaru-san. Maybe Kakyou would like to go with it.

"Nataku?"

It sat upright as Nokoru-san entered its room and walked over to it. The Chairman smiled, a soft smile, and sat down next to Nataku. "Why have you been crying?" he asked, taking a soft white handkerchief out of his breast pocket and gently beginning to wipe Nataku's cheek with it.

"Because I don't want Subaru-san to die," Nataku replied. "And because I'm afraid it's my fault...."

Nokoru paused, his eyes meeting Nataku's. "Why would it be your fault?" he asked, surprised.

"Because I... he and Seishirou-san...." Nataku stuttered quite charmingly.

That and the blush fit in all the pieces Nokoru needed. "Nataku, did you... 'sleep' with the two of them?"

Nataku mutely nodded, tears still brimming in its pretty golden eyes.

Kinky... Nokoru thought to himself with half a smile. Out loud, he said, "Nataku, that has nothing to do with what's happening to Subaru. I promise you."

"Really?" Nataku looked and sounded so hopeful at that.

"Mm-hmm."

Kakyou jumped off of Nataku's lap and looked inquiringly at Nokoru; he usually brought it a treat or a small toy. Not today, though; he'd left in a bit too much of a hurry to procure any such thing. Nokoru and the cat regarded one another.

"Go watch over Subaru," Nokoru instructed the feline, pointing towards the door.

Kakyou did not deign to respond in any way other than daintily licking the back of a paw and brushing it over its forehead.

Nokoru considered.

"Cat food," he tried, pointing towards the door again.

Kakyou scampered over to the door and nosed it open, undoubtably going to the kitchen, where it usually got fed. Nokoru giggled.

"Your cat," he informed Nataku, pulling the bioroid that he considered to be more or less his younger sibling into a hug, "is as self-serving as any human I've ever met."

"Nokoru-san," Nataku said, its voice quiet, "What /is/ wrong with Subaru-san, then?"

Nokoru sighed and bowed his head a little. "Nataku, have you ever seen Subaru get angry?"

"No...."

"Do you get angry?"

"Ummm... a little sometimes. I think." Nataku was cutely indecisive.

Nokoru ruffled its hair. "It's normal for people to get angry. Subaru has been suppressing a part of himself for a very very long time, the part that would react in anger and pain. Because he's been suppressing it, the feelings have been bottled up; they've festered and fizzled. He's like a bottle of shaken-up soda right now, and he's been suppressing things so long that he doesn't know /how/ to release the pressure. So he's going to die rather than let it out, because he can't do anything else." Nokoru's voice quieted. "I don't want Subaru to die either, Nataku, and I'm going to do everything I can to prevent it, I promise you. He may be a different person at the end of it, but at least he'll be alive, and maybe a little more whole."

Nataku's voice was very soft as it whispered, "Thank you, Nokoru-san."

Nokoru gently nuzzled the fine platinum silk of Nataku's hair and considered exactly how he was going to fulfill that promise.

The book fell open to the page out of habit. Subaru's finger brushed down the words read and considered many times. "Turning and turning in the widening gyre," he murmured, eyes not even half-fixed on the printing, "the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart, the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation--"

The book was snatched from his hands and loudly closed. Subaru looked up to see Nokoru glaring at him.

"You do not," Nokoru stated, "need to be reading Yeats."

The Chairman turned and walked over to the bookcase, returning the book of poetry to its place.

"I've memorized it," Subaru said quietly into the silent air.

That made the Chairman pause. "You think far too much about the darkness, Subaru," he criticized, turning around. "Maybe I shouldn't have given you that choice eight years ago."

"The future is one's own choice," Subaru said, echoing the words of the child who was the second birth of both the "kamui." He felt so tired. But Nokoru wouldn't let him die....

Nokoru came and knelt by his side, placing a hand on top of Subaru's, his very blue blue eyes looking up to meet Subaru's green ones.

"If you must read Yeats, start with 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree'," the soft voice asked. Asked, not told.

Subaru smiled a little. "'I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; while I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core'," he murmured to Nokoru, feeling so tired of the world around him. And that place of peace and silence and aloneness floated somewhere almost tangible to him. But Nokoru couldn't know that.

"'I hear it in the deep heart's core'," he murmured again.

Nokoru couldn't know how much....

PART 3

X: A Love Ballad
by Kristin Huntsman
Part 3

Subaru's long dark hair was done up in a bun to keep it out of the steaming hot water of the onsen. Small feathery strokes of that same soft darkness swept down the back of his neck and flowed along his spine, fading, fading, until... -there-... they disappeared altogether.

Seishirou's gaze moved slowly down his Subaru-kun's body, missing nothing, taking in every sign, every grace, every curve that the form held. It enchanted him, watching his Subaru, just as it always had.

Subaru turned then, met his eyes, waiting for him.

And Seishirou /knew/, meeting that soft emerald gaze, that Nokoru-kun had been right.

Subaru was dying from within.

--before--

Subaru walked with Nataku into the bioroid's room, the door quietly closing behind the two of them, leaving Seishirou alone with Nokoru as the younger man had requested.

Nokoru's first action surprised Seishirou: grabbing at the lapels of his coat and slamming him back against a wall. "Damn you, Sakurazukamori," the Imonoyama hissed, anger filling his eyes, "I let you have him, and you let him die!"

Seishirou raised an eyebrow at that, comprehending the individual words but not seeing a thread of meaning in their connection. "What, may I ask, are you talking about?" he asked, tone just slightly demeaning.

"Su.ba.ru.Su.me.ra.gi," Nokoru hissed out, each syllable separate and distinct from the anothers. "You were supposed to take care of him, you /bastard/...."

"What about Subaru-kun?" Seishirou asked, not quite yet bothering to loosen Nokoru-kun's grasp upon his clothing and person. "And for that matter, what do you happen to be doing here, Imonoyama-kun?"

The tense grip suddenly vanished and Nokoru backed away a few steps, the hatred in his eyes no less potent for all that it was no longer so near. "Don't you have any idea?" he asked. "You were here when Subaru nearly died that first time today; Nataku said so. Did you have /no/ idea, /no/ sense at all that he was dying?! Surely you, the great onmyouji and killer, wouldn't be able to miss sensing something like the death of your lover!"

"You," Seishirou stated, "are hysterical."

Nokoru laughed at that. "I suppose I am," he admitted, "but I'll be damned if I let Subaru die, Sakurazuka-san. If I have to take him away from you to ensure that he lives, I will."

Seishirou's calm mood ruffled a little bit at that. "Try taking him away from me and you might end up meeting your own mortality in passing, Nokoru-kun," he warned, straightening his clothing with calm motions. "If you will quiet down a bit and try to explain what you are so miserably failing to communicate in this agitated state, however, we may yet come to an amicable agreement."

--now--

Seishirou followed Subaru out into the hot springs, taking care with his good eye not to lose sight of his lover, his toy, his possession and precious opposite, in the fogs of steam between them. And as always, even here in this public place, he felt that vague attraction to the slender, elegant form before him. Even now, when he knew Subaru-kun to be dying.

That was one thing he would not allow to happen. When Seishirou Sakurazuka, Sakurazukamori, marked a thing, it remained his. Even death had no right over what was his.

Subaru-kun was, and would stay, alive.

Like an angel in the fog, Subaru moved swiftly, steps cautious but sure for all that, leading until they arrived at a secluded spring distant enough from the other pools that conversing voices could be heard only as low murmurs.

Seishirou followed Subaru into the hot water, sliding in cautiously and letting the heat burn away the tensions in his form so far as it could. The body... but not the mind. He sat watching for a long time.

To his sight, pale stars glimmered on Subaru's hands below the water as the former onmyouji lay relaxed, eyes closed. From there, the arms went upward, and Seishirou's gaze followed them, gauging now as never before the form that housed the Sumeragi's soul. Muscle over bone, moving, still, slack and loose, no tensions. The spareness of the form, beyond simple grace and leanness. How fair, pale like silver moonlight spilled upon a plain of empty snow. The hair, soft as a night breeze, strands like finest silk thread or a spider's web dyed ink. And then back down, eyes never ceasing, quietly studying.

After a time, perhaps half an hour, perhaps half a day, Subaru's green eyes opened and met Seishirou's.

"What's wrong?" he asked, gentle voice soft, loving, familiar.

"You know," Seishirou replied.

A pause. Then, a small, dream-like nod.

"Because I don't love you, I suppose." Seishirou sighed, feeling the irritating familiarity of it. "That's a bit too predictable, Subaru-kun, even for you."

Subaru just smiled, a soft, distant smile, and answered, "You have been very good to me, Seishirou-san. I have no regrets about being yours. And I have no regrets about leaving you with Nataku. In time, a few months perhaps, you will forget any sense of emptiness I might leave in your life. Nataku will grow to fill the void I leave behind, now."

"You sound like a character out of a daytime television program," Seishirou criticized, feeling a sense of annoyance. Subaru-kun was /not/ going to die no matter what he thought.

Those green eyes, gentle like the ocean's lapping waves, surrounded Seishirou in their gaze. "Is it so difficult to believe that your reality and mine have always been so far different?" Subaru questioned.

Seishirou did not answer that inquiry, instead moving across the space between them and catching Subaru in his arms, kissing him with a force just enough to leave an appealing puffiness to Subaru-kun's lips for later. To this, here as always, Subaru acquiesced, giving, gently allowing the invasion, the force, the mastery and leading.

Of all the partners Seishirou had ever had, Subaru's pleasure was the most beautiful to view; it always had been. And perhaps that beauty had been a very small part of the reason he hadn't killed Subaru at the end of their one year together. As he had used to do with every emotion, Subaru submitted to every sensation, experienced it fully, wove it into himself, and yet it was like new every time he felt it. His innocence, even now, was boundless when it came to the body. Shy and fragile; gentle; accepting... these were the things that made Subaru Subaru, the things that could not, would not, be lost.

Seishirou breathed Subaru's soft cries of pleasure into himself with the kiss, unfolding the ecstasy for Subaru like a flower might unfold its petals to bloom. And then, in one moment where Subaru was everything and nothing but the pleasure Seishirou brought to him, the shadow was forgotten, Death gone. It was perfect.

But only for a moment.

After, when Subaru's head rested over Seishirou's heart, his breathing soft and not quite yet controlled, that shadow stole its way back into the younger onmyouji's open heart.

"Why do this?" Subaru whispered, his tone still caught halfway in breathless pleasure. "Why do this to me now, Seishirou-san?"

"I won't let you go, Subaru-kun," Seishirou replied, tracing light fingers down the ridge of Subaru's spine. "You realize that, don't you? I am not going to let you die. You belong to me - your life belongs to me. Your death also belongs to me, and I do not to permit it to be until when I choose, if I choose."

The pen dangled loosely in Subaru's fingers as he looked blankly at the paper, his thoughts in another place entirely. Seishirou-san had asked him a rhetorical question earlier, and Subaru's thoughts were refusing to let go of the inquiry.

/When had he stopped taking pleasure in anything?/

For nine years, between his sister's death and giving up what he was - then he'd found nothing in the world. But after? He had felt for a while, hadn't he? He'd felt affection for Seishirou-san, and Nataku, and certainly gratitude to Nokoru....

When /had/ he stopped caring?

He looked back at his journal, at the few words of the poem he had inscribed already.

The poem was unfinished. He didn't know the next line.

PART 4

I keep forgetting to give my thanks in this story... honestly, I didn't *mean* to forget! Total credit is due to Natalie Baan (aka "N" or N-chan) and Monica Shin (aka Akira Ijyuin, or KnoMiko) for this entire thing. Natalie told me a dream that she'd had that became (visually) most of part one, which started it all, and Monica let me use her story _Sweets and Liquor_ as background for Love Ballad. To them I offer humblest thanks.... *********

X: A Love Ballad
by Kristin Huntsman
Part 4

Nokoru collapsed onto the bed, eyes closed and body curled into as small a space as he could manage. He wanted to cry. This couldn't be happening, not to one of his best friends in the world. He should have been able to prevent it somehow, should have forced Sakurazukamori to see Subaru's condition sooner, should have acted months ago....

A gentle hand brushed hair out of his eyes, intruding on his misery before he was even aware he was not alone. Melting lips pressed a soft kiss onto his cheek as a warm, comforting form curled behind him in spoon position, arms held around Nokoru's stomach, just being there and holding him, radiating much-needed strength and affection.

"One of those days?" Ryou questioned.

Nokoru nodded, forcing himself not to give in to the despair he felt.

"Subaru-san?" Ryou questioned.

Nokoru nodded again.

Ryou sighed, his breath hot against the back of Nokoru's neck. "Nataku's staying in the guest room, and he's already introduced Kakyou to Byakuen."

"I sent Subaru and Sakurazuka-san off to some hot springs," Nokoru replied, aware that his voice was tight and a little unsteady. "I thought that maybe they could work things out if they weren't here. Maybe if they were away, I thought, if they were alone, and didn't have any distractions--"

"Nokoru." Ryou's voice cut off Nokoru's rambling chain of thought. "You can't be everything, you can't do everything, even if you /are/ an Imonoyama. You can't blame yourself for this happening."

"But if I hadn't given Subaru that choice, nine years ago, if I hadn't let him go to Sakurazukamori--"

"Then I would never have met you," Ryou answered. "Now knock it off or I'll invite us over to Touma's place and let him /cook/!"

The tease made Nokoru laugh a little and relax in Ryou's arms. Of all the Troopers, Touma alone was a bad cook. It was strange, but genius didn't guarantee the ability to follow the directions in a cookbook. Nokoru couldn't cook either, and it made Ryou laugh to see him perched on a stool in the kitchen sometimes, giving that wistful, helpless look of confusion while Ryou made dinner.

"Now, will you relax a little and enjoy having one of /your/ friends over as houseguest for a change?" Ryou questioned, hugging his lover close, trying to let his own calm become Nokoru's as well. "What happens to Subaru-san and Sakurazuka-san is now out of your control, so stop worrying about it."

"I can't," was Nokoru's reply.

"Well, then, just worry about it /less/!" Ryou demanded with a smile, knowing that Nokoru, once in a bad mood, had to be teased out of it. The things you learned about the people you loved.... "I'm going to get awfully jealous otherwise."

"I'm sorry," Nokoru apologized, suddenly turning over, sapphire eyes meeting Ryou's own. "I didn't mean...."

Ryou laughed a little, seeing the pure honesty in his Chairman's eyes. "I know what you didn't mean," he informed Nokoru. "Now, since we have a guest, will you cheer up and be hospitable instead of miserable?"

Nokoru wrinkled his nose and stuck his tongue out at Ryou.

Ryou, of course, used the opportunity to kiss him.

Byakuen eyed the small feline that stalked his tail with such cunning, transparent patience. Slowly he moved his tail just a little to the left, then twitched it sharply to the right. The cat pounced and started chewing on it, mumbling through mouthfuls of fur about killing the tail.

The white-haired person the cat had introduced as /his/ owner laughed, watching the play of the smaller feline. She smiled at Byakuen, and scratched behind an ear. Byakuen leaned into the scratch, ignoring the minor pinpricks of buzzing, tickling pain from his tail, and pondered again how the human species (silly creatures that they were) had managed to make a person that was neither male nor female - Nataku didn't smell like either. Going on that lack of telling clues Byakuen had decided to simply follow the advice of the cat named Kakyou (another silly creature), who said that his owner /had/ to be female because she didn't have male equipment.

The scratching was nice.

The trail was steep.

Subaru paused for a moment and looked back down, seeing the buildings of the resort, the hot spring pools too, nestled below them in the forest. While the hike was exhausting, it certainly afforded a wonderful view.

"Subaru-kun," Seishirou called from ahead of him, "shall we stop for lunch?"

That call somehow reminded Subaru of a night spent in Tokyo Tower, and he smiled a bit at the soft memory. "Hai," he replied with a slight nod. "In the shade?"

Seishirou smiled and nodded, energetically leading to a flat outcropping of rock perfectly shaded by pine trees. It was almost as if, Subaru thought, Seishirou-san was trying to make up for his lack of will to live with an overabundance of his own.

We over-balance one another because it is in neither of our natures to be as perfectly flat and balanced as "normal" people are.

I wonder why that is, why we were created so....

I wonder what Neesan would think.

And that sad little tugging at his heart hurt, as always, but he ignored it. Ignored it and slipped away a little more inside.

The bentos the resort had prepared for them were very good, of course, and the accompaning thermos of ocha was quite delicious too. They stayed there for a couple hours afterwards, just sitting quietly and feeling the world slowly spin around in space.

The star-shaped crystal that hung around Subaru's neck hummed slightly, drinking in the peace.

The crystal that served as his "heart" and his guide told Seishirou too much, perhaps. More than he wished to know. Told him about Subaru.

He had refused the healing "Kamui" had offered him nearly four years back, had not wished to have his sight fully restored. He had justified his reasons to himself, telling himself that the problem of getting certain things legally changed was more trouble than it was worth, too much an effort of magical extension. But there had been an underlying reason, too.

His loss of sight in his right eye had coincided with things in his life that he did not wish changed, that he did not wish a certain other to ever lose sight of.

When he had been blinded, Subaru had begun to see.

Subaru had learned deepest love and purest, starkest truth within days of Seishirou losing his eye.

Those changes and their effects Seishirou did not wish to give up.

Now, however, he wondered if he had been wise to refuse the healing. The relationship between Subaru-kun and himself had perhaps stagnated after a period of nine years; it could be that it was due for a change. Every so many years, it seemed, something happened between them; it could be that it was neccessary to take an action now and make something different.

That change, Seishirou knew, would not be Nataku's entrance into the situation between the two of them; their relationship was so closely bonded that it simply was not possible for a third party to come within it. No, Nataku might be interesting to experiment with, to teach the ways of sex to, but the cute bioroid could never fully be a part of what he and Subaru-kun had established nearly... good heavens, had it truly been *that* many years since the boy with the green eyes had looked up into Seishirou's tree?

A lot of years.

Seishirou smiled to himself in momentary remembrance, then returned to his original chain of thought.

Any change, then, would have to come from within.

A breaking of some sort, perhaps.

Perhaps... he might take up his old hobby.

Onmyoujutsu had always forced Subaru to move, to be active at the least. And if Seishirou dared not lose him through returning fully to the ways of Sakurazukamori, well, then, there were certain games that could be played between two onmyouji, to keep them on their toes and to keep their skills sharp.

Seishirou smiled, and looked at his Subaru-kun.

Yes, perhaps that would do nicely for a beginning....

PART 5

X: A Love Ballad
by Kristin Huntsman
Part 5
posted 29th July 2000

The words in the journal were arranged almost like a mantra.
A spell.
A prayer.

How much pain can one body take?
How much unhappiness can one person hold?
How many tears can one soul shed
Before it drowns?
How long before the final grasp slips
And the descent is begun, unstoppable?

Subaru-kun never had been very interested in writing in traditional forms, Seishirou mused, replacing the journal in the duffel bag so precisely that Subaru would not know it had ever been touched. The Western forms of poetry had always been more appealing to his young counterpart in their greater freedom of form, the wider expanse of expression they allowed.

It had been a long time, many years, since he had last looked into any of Subaru's private journals. Perhaps if he hadn't been so careless in that regard, he might not have let this matter of the dying proceed so far. Seishirou would be quite sure not to let that mistake occur again. Though the poem he had read was quite recent, less than three months old, it would have alerted him. He had to wonder how many other passages of text that might have triggered his alarms he had missed.

Ah well. Time enough to answer that later. Right now Subaru was returning to a little surprise. Seishirou had set up quite a nice little trap spell for his lover, if he did think so himself. Subaru-kun wouldn't be ready for it, of course, and would be knocked out for a few hours, but it was far away from the levels that could kill the onmyouji.

Though Seishirou could use one of those too, and simply end Subaru's misery right now.

He pushed that thought away; it belonged to the Hunter, to Sakurazukamori, and he had given up being that person in order to keep his Subaru-kun.

Subaru opened the door to their room and was flung backwards into the wall behind him, hitting it with a crash. His head slammed against the wood hard, and darkness closed in so rapidly as he fell to the floor that he barely had time to identify the spell as onmyoujutsu--

The sun was long downed before Subaru-kun began approaching anything near wakefulness. Seishirou had taken the still form and lain it on the futon they shared, probing with light touches to be sure that Subaru hadn't suffered a concussion or any other internal damage upon contact with the wall. Since then he had been watching and waiting, and the conclusions he had been coming to made him frown.

The spell should not have attacked Subaru as hard as it did.

It was not a lack of practice that had thrown it off - Seishirou had gone quite thoroughly over his calculations, and they were impeccable.

It was Subaru.

"You really did give it up completely," he whispered, looking at the sleeping form. "Every last bit of it. You buried it so deeply that you might as well have wiped it from your mind. All that talent and power...." He shook his head, stunned at the weight and utterness of what Subaru had given up. He had thought that Subaru had done as he had, kept the abilities and simply stopped using them. But no... the other had completely erradicated his talents. It was an irrevocable act, and it explained why Subaru was dying.

"Such as we need an outlet for the magic, and you destroyed yours to keep a promise. Did you know it would lead to this?" He brushed the soft black bangs back from the pale face. "You must have known. And yet you thought that promise... 'to give up onmyoujutsu forever'... meant enough." His fist tightened and he drew it back. "/Stupid/," he said with more harshness than he'd meant to. "That was so /stupid/ of you, Subaru-kun. What if that promise hadn't been enough to hold me back from what I was? What would you have done then? Who could have stopped me?"

Subaru shifted then, and Seishirou could feel the other's mind slowly rising to wakefulness.

He absolutely would not apologize for something that resulted from Subaru's own stupidity.

Subaru's eyes opened, regarding Seishirou with as much soft clarity as if he had merely closed his eyes for a second in thought. "Ouch," he whispered, nothing in the word or tone condemning, blaming. It was just... a statement of fact.

"Why?" Seishirou demanded.

Subaru's eyes drifted away to study the air above him. "Oh. You found out." He sounded like he didn't care, almost.

"Did you really think I wouldn't, eventually?"

Subaru made a small shrug with his shoulders. "There's nothing you could do about it, Seishirou-san. It was the only way."

Seishirou glared at him with such frustration in his expression, thwarted anger, blunted fury, that Subaru was tempted to smile a little bit. No one else would be able to see it but him. He knew Seishirou so well, knew the expressing and repressing of his emotions....

"The only way to /what,/ Subaru-kun?" The question was silken, which meant deadly.

"Contain the anger," Subaru replied. It was funny in a way, amusing that only now did Seishirou understand what Subaru had done to himself, been doing to himself. But that would be the limit of Seishirou-san's understanding. He couldn't understand the killing anger and hurt that had made Subaru's actions quite simple and neccessary - Seishirou had never known such things. "I would have killed you, or forced you to kill me, otherwise. And I couldn't allow that of myself."

"So you performed psychic surgery on yourself and signed your own death warrant another way." There was bitterness behind Seishirou's words now, quiet but still there.

"I know you wanted to be the one to kill me... even during these last nine years, you have continued to consider my death your right... but I chose for myself. You should be proud of me; you were always testing me to see if I had the ability to consciously choose the future the way you did, weren't you? This way let me have some time with the people I loved." His head hurt and he became aware of the throbbing waves of heat and pain emanating from the tender back of his skull. He turned his head to one side to relieve the area of the pressure on it, but it just hurt more sharply that way. "May I have some asprin, please?"

Seishirou got it for him, and some water, and helped Subaru to sit upright to take the both. He lay back down, and there was silence for a time. "So what now?" Seishirou asked abruptly. "How much longer do you have left in you, Subaru-kun?"

Subaru shrugged a little again. "I don't know. However long there is. I could go away tonight, or it might be a few months."

"And there's nothing to do about it?"

He answered slowly, not wanting his words to be too condemning, not when this was obviously upsetting Seishirou, losing his toy and lover and victim. He was sorry for that.... "There was once, but you weren't looking then. And I think it's too late now... not that I think you would have been inclined or able to do it anyway."

"What?"

"Loved me." There was silence, and he didn't disturb it by looking at Seishirou-san. When he felt that the silence had proved its own point, though, he broke it with the question-word, "See?" and then left it undisturbed until Seishirou should see fit to break it again. Subaru drifted off into sleep slowly in the silence, and even when Seishirou started to stroke his hair, the soft, short gestures did not wake him.

Subaru's slumber remained undisturbed as Seishirou sought answers for himself, within himself and within the thoughts and feelings contained in Subaru's journal.

"Love"... it would be so simple for some people. However, Seishirou wasn't "some people." He wasn't even remotely near being anything like other people. Subaru knew that. For him to have said that Seishirou's love was the only thing that would ever have been able to heal the severing and scarring of his nature... it was an example of how much he knew what he had done, how irrevocable it was.

The journal reflected that, months of beautiful sentiments and thoughts like fragile crystalline flowers that bloomed with sun and moon alike... all of them sad.

"I made that melancholy disappear before, Subaru-kun," Seishirou murmured. "That moment in the onsen... you were mine, and death had no purchase on your soul, no foothold in you that I did not allow. If I can forestall death from you once, perchance I can do it again...."

/A sound, a voice..../

/A bright figure, dancing to her own music..../

/She was so beautiful, and even now his soul had never quite let go of the ache of her loss./

/But she was blurred, and he couldn't quite hear her words, see her face..../

/She turned from him./

/And he was alone with only himself in the darkness./

/Alone./

/As he had been alone since that day and would be forever because she was gone and nothing could light the darkness... nothing./

/And he would die this way./