Submission #23 -- Pegasi, "Disintegration of a Man"
Title: Disintegration of a man
User ID: Pegasi
Rating: PG-13 (soft)
Characters/Pairing: Seishirou/Subaru, one-sided Kamui/Subaru, Hokuto
Warnings: one sentence of violence, vague allusions to sexual acts
Summary: Some things never change. Aspects of it do, however.
1990
It’s complicated, he writes on the piece of paper. It’s… he trails off. He reads it, blushes, then immediately tears it out of the notebook and throws it into the trash.
“Subaru?” Hokuto peeks through the door. “What are you - are you writing a diary?” She laughs and snatches it from Subaru. “Ohohoho, Subaru’s writing a diary!” she says. “But what’s that? You haven’t written anything yet? That’s so predictable of you, Subaru - you’re so indecisive.”
Subaru can only nod, and blushes crimson.
Hokuto is about to get up, but then sees the crumpled piece of paper in the trash. “So that’s the sound I heard. You are indecisive, Subaru.” Ignoring Subaru’s protestations, she snatches it out of the basket. “It’s complicated,” she reads in a melodramatic voice, “It’s… that’s all you wrote? I can’t read anything into it!” She pauses, her eyes widening with realization. “Unless it’s for…”
“Give it back!” Subaru says. He’s sure a tomato would pale in comparison to his face at this point. He tries, futilely, to snatch at Hokuto’s hand. She giggled as she held it, just out of reach.
“So it is Sei-chan!” Hokuto says triumphantly. She giggles. “Are you in love with him? Are you?”
Subaru thinks of all the times Hokuto teamed up with Seishirou to tease him, and he promptly buries his head further in his arms. He can’t say anything.
“Well, I think you’re a perfect match for him,” she says.
“Not like that,” Subaru groans.
Hokuto sits by him, paper in hand and arm around his shoulder. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I am perfectly honest about it.” Her expression softens. “Yeah, I tease you about it, but you know, you really should make a move sooner or later, instead of making poor Sei-chan wait.” She laughs. “You have to decide for yourself though, if he really makes you happy.”
Subaru looks up at her. “You really mean it?”
“I really do.” Hokuto tosses the piece of paper back into the wastebasket, and she stands up. “Just be careful. If he hurts you - well, don’t let him hurt you. Or I will seriously kill him.”
“Seishirou would never hurt me!” Subaru says to Hokuto’s back.
Hokuto stops, turns around, and smiles in the strained way Subaru rarely sees.
“…I don’t think he would do anything if I told him not to,” she says.
Half an hour later, Subaru still hasn’t written a word.
2000
He pretends he’s inscrutable when he explains calmly, without emotion, why Kamui can’t come with him. Kamui listens with a restrain that Subaru finds almost impossible to imagine, maybe because he’s tired, and maybe because he was almost anticipating the moment. But then again, maybe his eyes take out the repressed anger on him, accusing him without having to say anything. Subaru can understand, but he can’t feel, and the monologue proceeds woodenly without any pause.
“You should forget about me,” he ends lamely after a three second pause, “It’s better that way.”
Kamui remains silent, because he can’t add anything. He manages an incoherent answer. Subaru looks at him. He swears he understands and though he can’t empathize anymore, he still has sympathy.
“Maybe if it was a different life, maybe I could have….” He suddenly trails off, his eyes widening as he realizes what’s he’s saying.
Kamui looks up. “What were you saying?” he asks.
“… Never mind. It was unimportant.” Subaru feels himself getting up, away from the table.
When he leaves, Kamui’s eyes follow him.
2010
He hasn’t killed in the past week.
He stares at his brown encrusted nails. They’re cleaner than they were last week, the darkest parts fading back into a dull coffee color. Subtly, they remind him that he’s waited far too long. There’s a passive urgency to the situation: they need to be stained.
Despite the utter hypocrisy of the situation, Subaru still visits the shrine in a kneejerk reaction every week. He enters like he always does, passes Fuuma who always gives him strange glances despite his frequentation. Subaru smiles at him. Fuuma smiles back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Like Subaru’s.
He still looks like Seishirou, no matter how much Subaru tries to think the other way.
When Subaru sits, he ends up staring at the brown complexion of his nails, thinking instead of meditating. About the last man he has killed (he swears the last five, or ten, or fifty have been politicians but he isn’t sure and he doesn’t keep track like Seishirou did). He still closes his eyes because it’s easier to pretend that the people aren’t there, reminding him of everything he doesn’t want to be reminded of. Maybe it’s to stem guilt. Subaru doubts it. He’s forgotten what it feels like.
Kamui soon comes, just as he has expected.
1990-1991
He feels almost shameful for admitting it, not just because the man is seventeen years older than him, but because it’s like admitting he has a terrible sinful weakness (he knows he already has too many, but he can freely admit all of them save this one). He doesn’t know how to go about it, because no one had ever taught him and he is largely disconnected from the hordes of hormonal students who fantasize about girls and boys in ways his grandmother wouldn’t imagine. Hokuto is more prone to hyperbole than truth. In the end, all he's left with are his prodigal feelings, unwanted by those who he would give them to, undeniable under his own hopeless expectation that it may someday come of use.
He feels like he owes at least something to the man who has done so much for him, lost an eye for his sake. He feels that he should at least apologize for his uselessness, except that by itself it doesn’t work. Then the feeling sinks back down, only to resurface when that man does something so embarrassing and Subaru has to back down.
Subaru feels like he’s being used, but at the same time, he likes (does he dare admit it) the attention he gets.
He doesn’t dare utter the obvious.
It’s useless anyhow, because it’s undeniable.
“Subaru!”
His head jerks up, tilts backwards at the sound of Hokuto’s voice. Disturbed (maybe rightfully) out of his thoughts, he nevertheless manages a smile.
He’s made a decision.
He swears he’s going to do it.
2000
“I can see him in you,” Subaru tells Kamui.
Kamui looks restlessly outside. Subaru knows it’s not from boredom. He awkwardly shrugs when Kamui looks back at him, his eyes disturbed and slightly wary.
“There’s nothing else I can tell you,” he says. “Nothing else you wouldn’t already know.”
“Such a hollow shell.” Kamui takes hold of Subaru’s face, and Subaru doesn’t flinch, despite the way he thinks it’s Seishirou from the way Kamui’s fingers grasp it. “I feel sorry for you.”
Subaru doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets up and leaves.
Kamui sighs, and goes outside, finally.
2010
“I loved you,” Kamui says, “a lot.”
Subaru stares at Kamui, his expression unreadable.
“I really did.” Kamui slouches on the bench, his posture almost belying the adult he is supposed to be.
Subaru kneels in front of Kamui, makes sure he had to look up to meet Kamui’s reluctant gaze. It’s almost obligatory, and he feels like he’s addressing a sixteen year old once more.
“It wasn’t love,” he says. “Not the type you thought it was. And even if that were true, you knew I couldn’t have returned it.” When he feels he has sufficiently paused enough for Kamui to register it mentally, he continues. “If I did love you anyhow, it would have been selfish of me - to put you in a fate worse than death.”
The irony isn’t lost on Kamui, and he smirks slightly before his fingers briefly touch Subaru’s face. Subaru is still reminded of Seishirou, of the way Seishirou would grab it, wrench it with enough force to bruise it. If he closes his eyes, he could still pretend, but he doesn’t because this is satisfactory in its own way.
There is a realization of pretending to proxy for someone he isn’t quite anymore, someone Kamui can still trust. Subaru rises up with Kamui when Kamui wants to. He stands perfectly still when Kamui buries his face into his trenchcoat and cries. Subaru absent-mindedly runs his fingers through Kamui’s hair. He’d forgotten how to comfort long ago, but Kamui seems happy with his half-hearted attempts.
1991
He forgets to breathe.
This is the Final Judgment.
“I don’t hate you, but I don’t love you either.”
His mind goes, his body numbs, convulses with the realization.
If only…
All he can do is submit.
2000
Subaru is alone again.
He forgets to move. A person shoves him, gently, and he’s propelled into the heat and press of bodies that filter through the streets of the new Tokyo. Everyone drifts around him. He’s glad he can pretend he can’t see their faces. They’re probably glad he can’t, either.
He wonders under what probability he’ll kill one sooner or later. Then he wonders if Seishirou ever mused on that.
It’s always about Seishirou. Not even Kamui’s conversation lingers anymore, unless it relates to him.
He stares at his fingers. He can already feel the killing, blood and muscle and organs fraying under his touch. He’s perfected the technique like he’s perfected everything else. He suppose Seishirou would be proud.
But there’s a last thought running in his mind.
Would Seishirou still love him?
(Would he still be able to love Seishirou?)
2010
In retrospect, Kamui has indeed grown. Pulling himself to full height under the sakura trees, he is slightly annoyed by the petals that fall into his hair. He brushes them away with the comfortable poise of a man who has long become accustomed to the shift and swing of his body. Subaru remembers it like he remembers everything else, stows it mentally besides the list of dry and impersonal notes that the paper gave him, for what purpose he doesn’t know. It’s something to do while he waits, he guesses.
Kamui talks, and Subaru listens. Kamui’s work is uninspiring, his romantic life more so. He’s not sure about the others who just left, drifted away like an old painting flaking slowly away It’s not a video game ending, Kamui says with a rueful smile, but he guesses it’s okay.
Kamui smiles like he means it, needs someone to believe it, and Subaru knows he’s pretending again. He stands within closer proximity, estimating where he used to stand with Kamui when he still knew how to empathize. He doesn’t say anything while Kamui chatters on about life, loses track of time while Kamui walks and walks until he’s tired and they just stand together, Subaru humoring Kamui and Kamui playing perfectly along.
“Kamui?” he suddenly asks.
Kamui stops, looks at him and for a moment Subaru has a fleeting moment, however absurd, of Seishirou humoring him one last time.
“I’m sorry,” Subaru says.
“For what?” Kamui asks.
“I’m sorry,” Subaru says again.
His hand plunges into Kamui’s chest.
User ID: Pegasi
Rating: PG-13 (soft)
Characters/Pairing: Seishirou/Subaru, one-sided Kamui/Subaru, Hokuto
Warnings: one sentence of violence, vague allusions to sexual acts
Summary: Some things never change. Aspects of it do, however.
1990
It’s complicated, he writes on the piece of paper. It’s… he trails off. He reads it, blushes, then immediately tears it out of the notebook and throws it into the trash.
“Subaru?” Hokuto peeks through the door. “What are you - are you writing a diary?” She laughs and snatches it from Subaru. “Ohohoho, Subaru’s writing a diary!” she says. “But what’s that? You haven’t written anything yet? That’s so predictable of you, Subaru - you’re so indecisive.”
Subaru can only nod, and blushes crimson.
Hokuto is about to get up, but then sees the crumpled piece of paper in the trash. “So that’s the sound I heard. You are indecisive, Subaru.” Ignoring Subaru’s protestations, she snatches it out of the basket. “It’s complicated,” she reads in a melodramatic voice, “It’s… that’s all you wrote? I can’t read anything into it!” She pauses, her eyes widening with realization. “Unless it’s for…”
“Give it back!” Subaru says. He’s sure a tomato would pale in comparison to his face at this point. He tries, futilely, to snatch at Hokuto’s hand. She giggled as she held it, just out of reach.
“So it is Sei-chan!” Hokuto says triumphantly. She giggles. “Are you in love with him? Are you?”
Subaru thinks of all the times Hokuto teamed up with Seishirou to tease him, and he promptly buries his head further in his arms. He can’t say anything.
“Well, I think you’re a perfect match for him,” she says.
“Not like that,” Subaru groans.
Hokuto sits by him, paper in hand and arm around his shoulder. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I am perfectly honest about it.” Her expression softens. “Yeah, I tease you about it, but you know, you really should make a move sooner or later, instead of making poor Sei-chan wait.” She laughs. “You have to decide for yourself though, if he really makes you happy.”
Subaru looks up at her. “You really mean it?”
“I really do.” Hokuto tosses the piece of paper back into the wastebasket, and she stands up. “Just be careful. If he hurts you - well, don’t let him hurt you. Or I will seriously kill him.”
“Seishirou would never hurt me!” Subaru says to Hokuto’s back.
Hokuto stops, turns around, and smiles in the strained way Subaru rarely sees.
“…I don’t think he would do anything if I told him not to,” she says.
Half an hour later, Subaru still hasn’t written a word.
2000
He pretends he’s inscrutable when he explains calmly, without emotion, why Kamui can’t come with him. Kamui listens with a restrain that Subaru finds almost impossible to imagine, maybe because he’s tired, and maybe because he was almost anticipating the moment. But then again, maybe his eyes take out the repressed anger on him, accusing him without having to say anything. Subaru can understand, but he can’t feel, and the monologue proceeds woodenly without any pause.
“You should forget about me,” he ends lamely after a three second pause, “It’s better that way.”
Kamui remains silent, because he can’t add anything. He manages an incoherent answer. Subaru looks at him. He swears he understands and though he can’t empathize anymore, he still has sympathy.
“Maybe if it was a different life, maybe I could have….” He suddenly trails off, his eyes widening as he realizes what’s he’s saying.
Kamui looks up. “What were you saying?” he asks.
“… Never mind. It was unimportant.” Subaru feels himself getting up, away from the table.
When he leaves, Kamui’s eyes follow him.
2010
He hasn’t killed in the past week.
He stares at his brown encrusted nails. They’re cleaner than they were last week, the darkest parts fading back into a dull coffee color. Subtly, they remind him that he’s waited far too long. There’s a passive urgency to the situation: they need to be stained.
Despite the utter hypocrisy of the situation, Subaru still visits the shrine in a kneejerk reaction every week. He enters like he always does, passes Fuuma who always gives him strange glances despite his frequentation. Subaru smiles at him. Fuuma smiles back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Like Subaru’s.
He still looks like Seishirou, no matter how much Subaru tries to think the other way.
When Subaru sits, he ends up staring at the brown complexion of his nails, thinking instead of meditating. About the last man he has killed (he swears the last five, or ten, or fifty have been politicians but he isn’t sure and he doesn’t keep track like Seishirou did). He still closes his eyes because it’s easier to pretend that the people aren’t there, reminding him of everything he doesn’t want to be reminded of. Maybe it’s to stem guilt. Subaru doubts it. He’s forgotten what it feels like.
Kamui soon comes, just as he has expected.
1990-1991
He feels almost shameful for admitting it, not just because the man is seventeen years older than him, but because it’s like admitting he has a terrible sinful weakness (he knows he already has too many, but he can freely admit all of them save this one). He doesn’t know how to go about it, because no one had ever taught him and he is largely disconnected from the hordes of hormonal students who fantasize about girls and boys in ways his grandmother wouldn’t imagine. Hokuto is more prone to hyperbole than truth. In the end, all he's left with are his prodigal feelings, unwanted by those who he would give them to, undeniable under his own hopeless expectation that it may someday come of use.
He feels like he owes at least something to the man who has done so much for him, lost an eye for his sake. He feels that he should at least apologize for his uselessness, except that by itself it doesn’t work. Then the feeling sinks back down, only to resurface when that man does something so embarrassing and Subaru has to back down.
Subaru feels like he’s being used, but at the same time, he likes (does he dare admit it) the attention he gets.
He doesn’t dare utter the obvious.
It’s useless anyhow, because it’s undeniable.
“Subaru!”
His head jerks up, tilts backwards at the sound of Hokuto’s voice. Disturbed (maybe rightfully) out of his thoughts, he nevertheless manages a smile.
He’s made a decision.
He swears he’s going to do it.
2000
“I can see him in you,” Subaru tells Kamui.
Kamui looks restlessly outside. Subaru knows it’s not from boredom. He awkwardly shrugs when Kamui looks back at him, his eyes disturbed and slightly wary.
“There’s nothing else I can tell you,” he says. “Nothing else you wouldn’t already know.”
“Such a hollow shell.” Kamui takes hold of Subaru’s face, and Subaru doesn’t flinch, despite the way he thinks it’s Seishirou from the way Kamui’s fingers grasp it. “I feel sorry for you.”
Subaru doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets up and leaves.
Kamui sighs, and goes outside, finally.
2010
“I loved you,” Kamui says, “a lot.”
Subaru stares at Kamui, his expression unreadable.
“I really did.” Kamui slouches on the bench, his posture almost belying the adult he is supposed to be.
Subaru kneels in front of Kamui, makes sure he had to look up to meet Kamui’s reluctant gaze. It’s almost obligatory, and he feels like he’s addressing a sixteen year old once more.
“It wasn’t love,” he says. “Not the type you thought it was. And even if that were true, you knew I couldn’t have returned it.” When he feels he has sufficiently paused enough for Kamui to register it mentally, he continues. “If I did love you anyhow, it would have been selfish of me - to put you in a fate worse than death.”
The irony isn’t lost on Kamui, and he smirks slightly before his fingers briefly touch Subaru’s face. Subaru is still reminded of Seishirou, of the way Seishirou would grab it, wrench it with enough force to bruise it. If he closes his eyes, he could still pretend, but he doesn’t because this is satisfactory in its own way.
There is a realization of pretending to proxy for someone he isn’t quite anymore, someone Kamui can still trust. Subaru rises up with Kamui when Kamui wants to. He stands perfectly still when Kamui buries his face into his trenchcoat and cries. Subaru absent-mindedly runs his fingers through Kamui’s hair. He’d forgotten how to comfort long ago, but Kamui seems happy with his half-hearted attempts.
1991
He forgets to breathe.
This is the Final Judgment.
“I don’t hate you, but I don’t love you either.”
His mind goes, his body numbs, convulses with the realization.
If only…
All he can do is submit.
2000
Subaru is alone again.
He forgets to move. A person shoves him, gently, and he’s propelled into the heat and press of bodies that filter through the streets of the new Tokyo. Everyone drifts around him. He’s glad he can pretend he can’t see their faces. They’re probably glad he can’t, either.
He wonders under what probability he’ll kill one sooner or later. Then he wonders if Seishirou ever mused on that.
It’s always about Seishirou. Not even Kamui’s conversation lingers anymore, unless it relates to him.
He stares at his fingers. He can already feel the killing, blood and muscle and organs fraying under his touch. He’s perfected the technique like he’s perfected everything else. He suppose Seishirou would be proud.
But there’s a last thought running in his mind.
Would Seishirou still love him?
(Would he still be able to love Seishirou?)
2010
In retrospect, Kamui has indeed grown. Pulling himself to full height under the sakura trees, he is slightly annoyed by the petals that fall into his hair. He brushes them away with the comfortable poise of a man who has long become accustomed to the shift and swing of his body. Subaru remembers it like he remembers everything else, stows it mentally besides the list of dry and impersonal notes that the paper gave him, for what purpose he doesn’t know. It’s something to do while he waits, he guesses.
Kamui talks, and Subaru listens. Kamui’s work is uninspiring, his romantic life more so. He’s not sure about the others who just left, drifted away like an old painting flaking slowly away It’s not a video game ending, Kamui says with a rueful smile, but he guesses it’s okay.
Kamui smiles like he means it, needs someone to believe it, and Subaru knows he’s pretending again. He stands within closer proximity, estimating where he used to stand with Kamui when he still knew how to empathize. He doesn’t say anything while Kamui chatters on about life, loses track of time while Kamui walks and walks until he’s tired and they just stand together, Subaru humoring Kamui and Kamui playing perfectly along.
“Kamui?” he suddenly asks.
Kamui stops, looks at him and for a moment Subaru has a fleeting moment, however absurd, of Seishirou humoring him one last time.
“I’m sorry,” Subaru says.
“For what?” Kamui asks.
“I’m sorry,” Subaru says again.
His hand plunges into Kamui’s chest.