#7 autumn - nisaki - part 3
Title: Beneath the Golden Sky
Author: jibunnohana
Theme: 7. Autumn/fall
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ni~ya x Sakito (Nightmare)
Disclaimer: Mine? Oh, how I wish....
Comments: Happy Halloween! :3
Part 1
Part 2
“Are you sure there isn’t a…smaller graveyard we could try first?” Niya eyed the wide expanse of headstones without much enthusiasm, wishing he had never brought up returning to the haunted house in the first place. While he had been eager to spend more time alone with Sakito after the previous night’s discussion, trudging through hundreds upon hundreds of dead people was not high on his list of good dates. A trip to the mall or even another walk would have been much preferable.
Sighing, Sakito grabbed the bassist by the elbow and pulled him toward the gate. “The website said that this was the only one in the neighborhood that had names from World War II. It has to be here.”
Niya considered continuing his protest against the day’s activity, but as he was dragged through the gate and into the first group of plots, he didn’t see that it would do more than irritate his companion. With any luck they’d find the blasted grave sooner rather than later, evidenced by the fact that Sakito appeared to know what he was doing. The bassist watched his slender figure pick through the headstones, glancing briefly at the numbers listed. Despite the strange setting, the guitarist still looked one in a million with the dark auburn tint to his hair in lovely contrast with the yellow leaf caught in the wavy strands. Jogging to catch up since he had fallen behind in the search, Niya reached out and plucked the leaf off the back of Sakito’s head, tossing it out in front of him. “You had a hitchhiker,” he explained, grinning, when the other gave him a quizzical look as to why the bassist would be touching his hair.
“Oh,” the guitarist replied absently, patting the back of his head before returning to the task at hand. All these graves were much too late to be the one they were looking for and he gestured toward a farther, slightly overgrown corner. “Let’s try over there.”
Shrugging nonchalantly, but groaning inwardly that they would be at this all day, Niya followed Sakito’s lead. They searched and searched, and though the dates on these stones were in the right time period, none of them offered the information they were looking for. Niya stopped against to lean against a tree and find his cigarette pack, watching the golden leaves fall in torrents to the ground around. His ears were beginning to frost over, and he rubbed at them with his free hand, thinking to persuade the other that they should give up and go somewhere to warm up. Sakito must have been thinking the same, winding a path through the graves to where the bassist was waiting, a look of acute disappointment in his features. “What do you say to finding something hot to drink?” Niya asked, taking a few steps toward the guitarist.
“Sure. I guess it’s just not he--” Sakito was cut off in mid sentence when his toe caught on something hidden in a patch of moss, flinging his whole body forward with a surprised yelp. Instinctively, Niya lunged forward to grab him before he landed flat on his face, catching Sakito around his skinny waist while the guitarist’s head collided with his collarbone. Recovering his balance, Sakito raised his head to look up at his rescuer, a nervous laugh escaping his lips as they pushed each other away, all awkward limbs and eyes averted in embarrassment. Niya moved a few steps away and puffed on his cigarette while his companion poked the dislocated moss where he tripped with one foot.
“…?” Discomfort forgotten, Sakito knelt down and peeled away the thick layer of moss, uncovering a hidden gravesite, marked only with a small headstone, barely large enough for the meager amount of text it held. Quietly reading the stone aloud, he realized with excitement that he had fallen of the exact thing they had spent all this time looking for, “ ‘Isumu Kobayashi, 1921-1942. Fell beneath the golden sky.’ Ni, look! Here it is.”
Startled out of his private thoughts, Niya turned and leaned over, reading for himself what the stone declared. “No wonder we couldn’t find it. I bet this guy doesn’t have any family left to take care of his grave anymore.”
Both men stared at the spot silently, at a loss for what to do now that their quest was fulfilled, but an idea was forming in Sakito’s mind. He seemed to remember having heard in his childhood that ghosts were souls that stayed behind after death because of a failed accomplishment or lost purpose. Mayuko Sakamoto certainly fit the description perfectly. Hesitating, Sakito fished through his jacket pocket for his cell phone, brushing the remainder of the soil away from the simple lettering. Aiming carefully, he snapped a picture with the built-in camera and slipped the phone back into his pocket in favor of a scrap of paper. “Do you have a pen?”
Confused as to what Sakito was doing, the bassist promptly handed him the desired tool, watching as he traced a route to the cemetery from what appeared to be the ghost house. “What’s that for?”
Sakito didn’t answer immediately, but finished his careful sketch with an ‘x’ at the Kobayashi grave. “I thought maybe if Mayuko knew where he was she would be able to move on. Does that make sense?” He looked up at Niya inquiringly from his place on the grass, wanting approval that he wasn’t completely out of his gourd.
Scratching his head, Niya shrugged and smiled reassuringly. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”
* * *
Biding their time until darkness claimed the city, Niya and Sakito finalized their plan with a larger version of the photo and a better map for their ghost, and afterward the bassist insisted on going out for dinner. Even through the idle chit-chat and relaxed appearance, neither could be completely at ease in the other’s company, remembering the closeness of their lips last night under the spell of the house. At last, they stood again before the gates of the old Sakamoto house, uneasy though they knew the ghost inside was harmless and Niya had the foresight to bring a flashlight. Tiptoeing along the leaf-covered path, they reached the door, entering into the pitch black room before the bassist banished the dark veil with a sharp beam from the flashlight.
At the base of the stairs sat a small, dingy table near the end of the banister, illuminated through the dust moats. Sakito stepped ahead to examine it, brushing off the grime with his sleeve and testing its weight. “We can set this up at the top of the stairs where she was standing before.”
Agreeing, Niya helped the guitarist lift the piece of furniture to carry up the stairs, shining the light directly at the stairs. To his surprise, the top step, which he expected to be broken from his accident the night before, had been replaced with a fresh board and new silver nails. “Looks like the old man is a little quicker than he looks,” the bassist commented, inclining his head toward the fixed step. Sakito looked up from the table and followed his gaze, raising his eyebrows at the handy work sitting proudly at the top.
“I wonder if he knew we were here.”
Glancing around the room as if he expected the groundskeeper to jump out from behind a door, Niya hauled the table up the first couple of steps. “It wouldn’t surprise me, now that you mention it.”
Grunting, Sakito heaved his end level with the bassist’s, repeating the process until they reached the top, dropping the table in place. Niya immediately sat down on the edge of the landing to rest, watching Sakito take the flashlight and arrange it with the picture and map for Mayuko to see before the guitarist joined him. All that was left to do was wait, hoping the ghost would appear tonight and that all their work had not been in vain. Silence fell over the house, pervading every nook and cranny until it threatened to shush even the beating of their hearts. When he could stand it no longer, Niya opened his mouth to say something, anything for the unfounded fear of being crushed by the soundless void.
“As weird as these last couple of days have been, I’ve had a pretty good time,” the bassist began slowly, not wanting to startle Sakito, who was looking in the other direction for the ghost.
Turning back toward his companion, Sakito nodded, drawing his knees up to his chest before agreeing. “I think you’re right about spending more time together.”
“Mmhm.” Niya paused, trying to work up the courage to bring up what he was sure must be bothering the other as much as it was bothering him. “…And I was wondering how you felt about last night…”
“Last night?” Brow furrowing in thought, Sakito didn’t get a chance to answer when a familiar chill crept through his body, only this time he didn’t try to jump away in fear, but rather turned slowly when Mayuko drifted into being behind him. He waited with baited breath as she stopped in front of the table, appearing to see straight through it with her hollow eyes. She stood there crying, pathetically half inside the table and more transparent than ever with the flashlight dimly lighting the room. With a sinking heart, Sakito remembered that the ghost hadn’t responded to neither his nor Niya’s provocation, and was beginning to believe she wasn’t aware of the current reality in the least, caught in the war torn world of the day she died.
For one infinitesimal second, the sobs stilled and Sakito thought he could see recognition pass fleetingly through her eyes before the specter faded, dissolving into the surrounding darkness until there wasn’t a trace of her left. Sitting back, Sakito waited to see if she would reappear, but it seemed that Mayuko was gone completely, the entire atmosphere of the house lifting until there was no difference between it and the rest of the world outside.
“I think it worked…” the guitarist ventured uncertainly, staring the spot for a few seconds more, then turning back to Niya, who quickly looked away to pretend that he hadn’t been watching Sakito instead of the ghost.
“Seems that way.”
Sighing softly, Sakito leaned on his knees. “I’m almost sorry to see her go. It’s amazing how long their love lasted, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Niya’s reply was short and disinterested, punctuated by the bassist shifting upright, away from the wall and an inch closer to the man next to him, near enough for their shoulders to be almost touching.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to find love like that one day?” Sakito turned his head toward the bassist as the words left his mouth, but before he had the chance to say more, Niya had closed the gap between them, smothering further discussion when his lips met the guitarist’s. His original observation had been correct - they fit together perfectly like two puzzle pieces, Sakito returning the kiss with a shy nip to Niya’s lower lip, while the bassist reached up to hold the back of his head, burying his fingers in silky hair. They lingered, unwilling to give up such tender affection until their lungs felt like bursting, and the two parted reluctantly. Still close enough for their breaths to mingle in the air between them, they watched each other through half closed eyelids, the gravity of what had just occurred between them mirrored in two sets of adoring eyes. Sakito was the first to look away with flushed cheeks, keeping his line of sight fixated on the step below while Niya stretched and examined the ceiling he couldn’t really see through the shadows.
“Well, that was awkward.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Niya realized he wasn’t helping the situation at all by pointing out the obvious.
“A little,” came Sakito’s muted answer as the guitarist folded up again to hug his knees. “But I think I like it a lot.”
A grin spread over Niya’s features, a little bit triumphant, a little bit love-struck schoolboy. It might have taken a ghost with romance lost over sixty years ago to bring them together, but he finally understood his mysterious connection with Sakito. “Yeah, me too.”
The end!
Author: jibunnohana
Theme: 7. Autumn/fall
Rating: PG
Pairing: Ni~ya x Sakito (Nightmare)
Disclaimer: Mine? Oh, how I wish....
Comments: Happy Halloween! :3
Part 1
Part 2
“Are you sure there isn’t a…smaller graveyard we could try first?” Niya eyed the wide expanse of headstones without much enthusiasm, wishing he had never brought up returning to the haunted house in the first place. While he had been eager to spend more time alone with Sakito after the previous night’s discussion, trudging through hundreds upon hundreds of dead people was not high on his list of good dates. A trip to the mall or even another walk would have been much preferable.
Sighing, Sakito grabbed the bassist by the elbow and pulled him toward the gate. “The website said that this was the only one in the neighborhood that had names from World War II. It has to be here.”
Niya considered continuing his protest against the day’s activity, but as he was dragged through the gate and into the first group of plots, he didn’t see that it would do more than irritate his companion. With any luck they’d find the blasted grave sooner rather than later, evidenced by the fact that Sakito appeared to know what he was doing. The bassist watched his slender figure pick through the headstones, glancing briefly at the numbers listed. Despite the strange setting, the guitarist still looked one in a million with the dark auburn tint to his hair in lovely contrast with the yellow leaf caught in the wavy strands. Jogging to catch up since he had fallen behind in the search, Niya reached out and plucked the leaf off the back of Sakito’s head, tossing it out in front of him. “You had a hitchhiker,” he explained, grinning, when the other gave him a quizzical look as to why the bassist would be touching his hair.
“Oh,” the guitarist replied absently, patting the back of his head before returning to the task at hand. All these graves were much too late to be the one they were looking for and he gestured toward a farther, slightly overgrown corner. “Let’s try over there.”
Shrugging nonchalantly, but groaning inwardly that they would be at this all day, Niya followed Sakito’s lead. They searched and searched, and though the dates on these stones were in the right time period, none of them offered the information they were looking for. Niya stopped against to lean against a tree and find his cigarette pack, watching the golden leaves fall in torrents to the ground around. His ears were beginning to frost over, and he rubbed at them with his free hand, thinking to persuade the other that they should give up and go somewhere to warm up. Sakito must have been thinking the same, winding a path through the graves to where the bassist was waiting, a look of acute disappointment in his features. “What do you say to finding something hot to drink?” Niya asked, taking a few steps toward the guitarist.
“Sure. I guess it’s just not he--” Sakito was cut off in mid sentence when his toe caught on something hidden in a patch of moss, flinging his whole body forward with a surprised yelp. Instinctively, Niya lunged forward to grab him before he landed flat on his face, catching Sakito around his skinny waist while the guitarist’s head collided with his collarbone. Recovering his balance, Sakito raised his head to look up at his rescuer, a nervous laugh escaping his lips as they pushed each other away, all awkward limbs and eyes averted in embarrassment. Niya moved a few steps away and puffed on his cigarette while his companion poked the dislocated moss where he tripped with one foot.
“…?” Discomfort forgotten, Sakito knelt down and peeled away the thick layer of moss, uncovering a hidden gravesite, marked only with a small headstone, barely large enough for the meager amount of text it held. Quietly reading the stone aloud, he realized with excitement that he had fallen of the exact thing they had spent all this time looking for, “ ‘Isumu Kobayashi, 1921-1942. Fell beneath the golden sky.’ Ni, look! Here it is.”
Startled out of his private thoughts, Niya turned and leaned over, reading for himself what the stone declared. “No wonder we couldn’t find it. I bet this guy doesn’t have any family left to take care of his grave anymore.”
Both men stared at the spot silently, at a loss for what to do now that their quest was fulfilled, but an idea was forming in Sakito’s mind. He seemed to remember having heard in his childhood that ghosts were souls that stayed behind after death because of a failed accomplishment or lost purpose. Mayuko Sakamoto certainly fit the description perfectly. Hesitating, Sakito fished through his jacket pocket for his cell phone, brushing the remainder of the soil away from the simple lettering. Aiming carefully, he snapped a picture with the built-in camera and slipped the phone back into his pocket in favor of a scrap of paper. “Do you have a pen?”
Confused as to what Sakito was doing, the bassist promptly handed him the desired tool, watching as he traced a route to the cemetery from what appeared to be the ghost house. “What’s that for?”
Sakito didn’t answer immediately, but finished his careful sketch with an ‘x’ at the Kobayashi grave. “I thought maybe if Mayuko knew where he was she would be able to move on. Does that make sense?” He looked up at Niya inquiringly from his place on the grass, wanting approval that he wasn’t completely out of his gourd.
Scratching his head, Niya shrugged and smiled reassuringly. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”
* * *
Biding their time until darkness claimed the city, Niya and Sakito finalized their plan with a larger version of the photo and a better map for their ghost, and afterward the bassist insisted on going out for dinner. Even through the idle chit-chat and relaxed appearance, neither could be completely at ease in the other’s company, remembering the closeness of their lips last night under the spell of the house. At last, they stood again before the gates of the old Sakamoto house, uneasy though they knew the ghost inside was harmless and Niya had the foresight to bring a flashlight. Tiptoeing along the leaf-covered path, they reached the door, entering into the pitch black room before the bassist banished the dark veil with a sharp beam from the flashlight.
At the base of the stairs sat a small, dingy table near the end of the banister, illuminated through the dust moats. Sakito stepped ahead to examine it, brushing off the grime with his sleeve and testing its weight. “We can set this up at the top of the stairs where she was standing before.”
Agreeing, Niya helped the guitarist lift the piece of furniture to carry up the stairs, shining the light directly at the stairs. To his surprise, the top step, which he expected to be broken from his accident the night before, had been replaced with a fresh board and new silver nails. “Looks like the old man is a little quicker than he looks,” the bassist commented, inclining his head toward the fixed step. Sakito looked up from the table and followed his gaze, raising his eyebrows at the handy work sitting proudly at the top.
“I wonder if he knew we were here.”
Glancing around the room as if he expected the groundskeeper to jump out from behind a door, Niya hauled the table up the first couple of steps. “It wouldn’t surprise me, now that you mention it.”
Grunting, Sakito heaved his end level with the bassist’s, repeating the process until they reached the top, dropping the table in place. Niya immediately sat down on the edge of the landing to rest, watching Sakito take the flashlight and arrange it with the picture and map for Mayuko to see before the guitarist joined him. All that was left to do was wait, hoping the ghost would appear tonight and that all their work had not been in vain. Silence fell over the house, pervading every nook and cranny until it threatened to shush even the beating of their hearts. When he could stand it no longer, Niya opened his mouth to say something, anything for the unfounded fear of being crushed by the soundless void.
“As weird as these last couple of days have been, I’ve had a pretty good time,” the bassist began slowly, not wanting to startle Sakito, who was looking in the other direction for the ghost.
Turning back toward his companion, Sakito nodded, drawing his knees up to his chest before agreeing. “I think you’re right about spending more time together.”
“Mmhm.” Niya paused, trying to work up the courage to bring up what he was sure must be bothering the other as much as it was bothering him. “…And I was wondering how you felt about last night…”
“Last night?” Brow furrowing in thought, Sakito didn’t get a chance to answer when a familiar chill crept through his body, only this time he didn’t try to jump away in fear, but rather turned slowly when Mayuko drifted into being behind him. He waited with baited breath as she stopped in front of the table, appearing to see straight through it with her hollow eyes. She stood there crying, pathetically half inside the table and more transparent than ever with the flashlight dimly lighting the room. With a sinking heart, Sakito remembered that the ghost hadn’t responded to neither his nor Niya’s provocation, and was beginning to believe she wasn’t aware of the current reality in the least, caught in the war torn world of the day she died.
For one infinitesimal second, the sobs stilled and Sakito thought he could see recognition pass fleetingly through her eyes before the specter faded, dissolving into the surrounding darkness until there wasn’t a trace of her left. Sitting back, Sakito waited to see if she would reappear, but it seemed that Mayuko was gone completely, the entire atmosphere of the house lifting until there was no difference between it and the rest of the world outside.
“I think it worked…” the guitarist ventured uncertainly, staring the spot for a few seconds more, then turning back to Niya, who quickly looked away to pretend that he hadn’t been watching Sakito instead of the ghost.
“Seems that way.”
Sighing softly, Sakito leaned on his knees. “I’m almost sorry to see her go. It’s amazing how long their love lasted, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Niya’s reply was short and disinterested, punctuated by the bassist shifting upright, away from the wall and an inch closer to the man next to him, near enough for their shoulders to be almost touching.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to find love like that one day?” Sakito turned his head toward the bassist as the words left his mouth, but before he had the chance to say more, Niya had closed the gap between them, smothering further discussion when his lips met the guitarist’s. His original observation had been correct - they fit together perfectly like two puzzle pieces, Sakito returning the kiss with a shy nip to Niya’s lower lip, while the bassist reached up to hold the back of his head, burying his fingers in silky hair. They lingered, unwilling to give up such tender affection until their lungs felt like bursting, and the two parted reluctantly. Still close enough for their breaths to mingle in the air between them, they watched each other through half closed eyelids, the gravity of what had just occurred between them mirrored in two sets of adoring eyes. Sakito was the first to look away with flushed cheeks, keeping his line of sight fixated on the step below while Niya stretched and examined the ceiling he couldn’t really see through the shadows.
“Well, that was awkward.” Rubbing the back of his neck, Niya realized he wasn’t helping the situation at all by pointing out the obvious.
“A little,” came Sakito’s muted answer as the guitarist folded up again to hug his knees. “But I think I like it a lot.”
A grin spread over Niya’s features, a little bit triumphant, a little bit love-struck schoolboy. It might have taken a ghost with romance lost over sixty years ago to bring them together, but he finally understood his mysterious connection with Sakito. “Yeah, me too.”
The end!