Espirit de Corps [1.5]
Fragment: Espirit de Corps (Part 1.5)
Fandom: Nabari no Ou (Pre-canon)
Genre: Possibly drama/friendship pre-shounan-ai stuff if your mileage varies that way, maybe. A bit of angst. (of course.)
Rating: Pseudo-T
Why: No real warnings except for subtleties on Gau's assumptions of Raikou's salvatory intents. Gau's "cheapshot", and implied blood, murder, and Yukimi being a voice in Raikou's head.
More subtle T-rating, I think, just to be safe.
Note: completely speculative fic events, since this didn't happen anywhere in the manga or anime. If it did, it would be awesome, but I'm neither that lucky or that skilled.
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Expressions chased each other over the other's patchwork-bruised face. Old and new--interesting to watch.
Raikou hadn't realized how long he'd gone without really looking at another person's expressions until Meguro was in the house. Most of the reason he disliked the volume was that it was distracting when Raikou was busy watching him. He spoke volumes with his nervous little hands and his mutable face. It was hardly graceful. Most of the time his demeanor was jerky and clumsy, even. But that just made it more real.
Some of the expressions were grotesque and exaggerated, others almost...something, but they were all refreshing in a way.
Now, he seemed to be thinking for once, with hostility in his eyes, guardedness. If he watched, Raikou felt he could almost see the thoughts moving and flipping around like salmon in a river.
"...I bet you wouldn't understand." the boy spat with surprising venom, expression fixing from thought into sharp, sudden anger, the voice lofty.
Raikou winced inside. Had he ever sounded like that when he was younger? He wondered inside what he'd ever done to his own poor dead mother that had made karma give him that look on the other's face.
"You might be right. I don't understand a lot of what's happened to you. I wouldn't ask if I did."
Something of his own face must have shown his disinterest, because color suddenly rushed into Meguro's face, along with a look of mute shock, almost horror. Raikou blinked, confused, but the moment passed, and Meguro was looking away making a straining, awkward noise.
"You've probably never...I mean...you're...stronger than me. I noticed that when you..."
Raikou stared as he saw the boy bite his lip, and seem to shrink in on himself.
Regret...? Where had that come from?
"If it's not a relative who's doing that to you, why don't you stay with them?" He said, ignoring the sputter.
"I don't have any." The boy retorted, baring his teeth. "I'm a child without a single relative! And don't look at me like that! It's not like I care! I'm tough enough to fend for myself! There are loads of people who're worse off."
"I'm not looking. I'm thinking. I know girls stronger than you." Raikou remarked absently, thinking that yes, Meguro looked like a girl all hunched up like that, with his voice defiant and demanding. He wasn't focused enough for there to be malice in the statement--it had been especially true in his own family as he'd been mortified to realize, watching meek modern mothers stand side by side with his own, while he trembled behind a novel in embarrassment at his mother's loud laugh and direct, brash manner. Raikou was still thinking about his family when the boy's eyes lit up in rage and he gave a yell, throwing himself forward.
That, he hadn't expected. Bony knuckles caught him across the side of the face, though they were more surprising than hurtful. Even with all his strength, Meguro probably couldn't even bruise him. Another caught him in the shoulder, but by thn he realized he was being attacked, and controlled himself. It was only a moment before, Raikou managed to disentangle himself from the most ineffective punches he'd ever been given, trying to move so he wouldn't spill coffee on the suddenly feral houseguest. (Somehow that seemed rude--to spill coffee on him--rudeness was somehow quite important in his confused mind at the time…)
A hand went to his head, holding him back like he'd done with his sister long before, but it didn't seem to stop Meguro from trying to punch out his elbow with ineffective little jabs--unable to reach anything else.
Some part of Raikou acknowledged this as a good, if clumsy, use of the enemy's weaknesses, while another part noted the surprising softness, and almost…lightness of the texture of Gau’s hair in his fingers.
He could feel it against the underside of his wrist, the uncallused bits of the webs of his fingers, the soft bits just behind his nails, tickling his knuckles. The warm curve of the boy’s skull flushed under his hand, as volume shrieked by. It occurred to Raikou vaguely that he could have broken something that delicate. The boy’s head felt fragile as an egg, covered in elastic as a brow twisted under his palm. But he had no desire to break him. No…rather… It would have been nice, he found himself thinking, to be able to touch someone’s hair like this, and feel the curls spring and re-form in soft tufts and waves under his hands…
Meguro was howling by then, still swinging his fragile arms. Raikou in his confused haze made out snatches of the tirade: about how unfair and sickening Raikou was, and how ungrateful, and how he worked so hard to repay him, and then he just insulted him and went around not respecting him after-
Wait, he'd made the cake?
Raikou grabbed a bird-boned wrist in either hand, almost ready to explain about his sister, about his skull, and his strange wonderful hair in fumbling vagueness. "Now hold on-"
A knot of excruciating pain bloomed as he realized dimly, with a sort of distant shock, that Gau had kicked him below the belt, or would have if he'd been wearing a belt and the pain weren't telling him his stomach was getting pulled into his testicles. The room went red for a moment, and when he replayed it in his mind, he realized he must have grabbed and forced Meguro's wrist up behind his back, slamming his head down against the countertop.
It seemed the only way to explain how Meguro's face was pressed into the formed plastic of the surface, and his arm stuck at a breakable angle in Raikou's hands. It was the only reasonable explanation to how it had gotten there.
There was no fight. There was no struggle, and...there was no noise but faint, pained breathing. Raikou could feel the boy trembling, catching sight of a wide, frightened black eye that calmed and shut itself. Waiting.
The color of the bruised, swollen cheek against the counter seemed almost aesthetic. His wrist was hard as a twig in his fingers, soft hair between his fingers, the skin-padded skull beneath. Yukimi's voice screamed in his ear, Don't be nice to me you damn idiot! Do it already!
Raikou caught himself, and let him go immediately, appalled, still riding out the echoes of pain flashing through his insides. He frowned a little, moving back gingerly. His hands had closed easily around that wrist, around that helpless kid's arm. (Just a boy, just a boy…)
"...I'm sorry." He said quietly. "Did I hurt you?" The tone seemed too-pleasant, too normal coming from his own lips. It gave no indication of how horrified he really was.
I don’t remember doing that…
Meguro twitched, and stumbled back from him, holding his arm, and blinking hard, angry and hurt. But he paused. What Raikou knew of Meguro so far was that he struck back when interest turned away, but...he didn't this time, watching him with that too-readable expression: would-be-toughness, but it was a veneer...
Aah. He'd gone and scared him, now, he realized. After everything he’d noticed about this weak, frail boy from the outside, he'd treated him like a credible threat.
He didn't know, Raikou thought with sudden pain unrelated to his jarred nerves. Meguro hadn't done anything wrong. He was angry, and obnoxious, but he was so...small, so...helpless, too... He didn't fight, or struggle, just went limp and let people do what they would, and then struck back and made them angry again, wore them down, never let go: a yapping wire-haired terrier...
Don't leave. The words stopped just as he was shaping his lips. He paused, blinked, looked inward, surprised by the thought, and its urgency.
Ah.
He was scared, too.
Mystified, Raikou measured space between them, focused his senses while his thoughts whizzed around.
"I should have asked you not to touch me in violence no matter how strongly you feel. I tend to...react on reflex."
Yes, he could see it now, when he looked at him. The bruised face with it's narrow jaw...and the eyes...not Raimei, but...
...am I still thinking about her...? After all this...?
The gentle face, and her smile in the afternoon sun... They're really not anything alike... He thought to himself with an inward blink. Well. Except that they were both doomed but for the sword, and he'd only used it for one of them.
In all honesty, he wished he'd just had the strength to do so for the more worthy one-Aah, but...was that really it? Worthiness? They were both defenseless.
He studied the shirogamon. Do I still think I can save someone with this...? Someone who lets himself be beaten to the brink of death, then angers it until death comes back to finish the job?
"...I don't really want to hurt you, you know." Raikou murmured absently.
Meguro gave a scoffing, affectation of jadedness with his laugh. "You can't hurt me."
"Why not?"
Apparently the simplicity of the question was something Meguro hadn't expected because the would-be-toughness faded quickly from his face, and he paled, looking away. In all honesty, Raikou hadn't expected his own response, either. He hadn't thought about the words when they passed his lips.
Now...he wondered.
Is there anything really keeping me from hurting him?
Meguro's body folded inwards just a little. His voice was very small and faint when the boy spoke again, "...Why did you take me with you? What did you...?" Raikou's eyes flicked back up to his face, to the hunched little shoulders as Meguro swallowed, and squeezed his eyes shut. His voice cracked, quavered, broke. "What did you want from me? I don't know what you want-"
Raikou blinked. "Nothing." He lied immediately. The fear in the boy's voice was growing rapidly, and that was disturbing on some level. Something was behind it. But it wasn't his business. He knew the past wasn't something to be entered recklessly. Was the question really so disturbing to him...? The question of why Raikou wouldn't hurt him? Was it just the fact he wouldn't want to, but he was more than capable of doing so?
He tensed. Was it shirogamon?
Don't think a sword is something that can save people...
No. No you're wrong. I saved this boy with this sword. I did it. With shirogamon, your symbol of murder. I won't give in just to make you right, mother. Shirogamon saved him.
"You're lying..." Meguro whispered, squeezing his eyes shut more tightly. He was shaking, Raikou noticed, appalled, drawing back out of internalized arguments and their juxtoposition. He tried with difficultly to put himself in the other's shoes and figure out what would make him so upset, but he couldn't find anything. Meguro shuddered, blurting seemingly out of nowhere, "Just-! Just tell me what you're going to do to me! If you just told me, then it wouldn't be so bad! Just tell me-"
"I'm not going to do anything to you." He murmured, barely moving his lips as he studied him, trying to keep his face unreadable. He blinked, turning his head slightly, so the boy's form blurred in a sheen of blue...
Meguro's hand curled around his own wrist so hard the bruised flesh flared green-yellow. "You're lying!" The boy whispered again in a choked voice. Shock and dismay flooded into Raikou. He was going to cry? Why? When he was standing there telling him the truth? When he'd reached out a hand to save him? And here the boy thought he was meant to be some sort of perverse victim?
Raikou's eyes narrowed.
Was it really so obvious what a monster he was...? Even if it wasn't the right type?
He raised the sword and unsheathed it. A little choke escaped Meguro, before his eyes widened as Raikou pointed to blade at himself.
"I swear it to you. On my life." The samurai replied, staring at the other's little fingers biting into his own skin, knuckles going white. He turned words over slowly in his mind as he watched the first delicate tear spill over the boy's eyes, watched his mouth tremble, trying to be brave, sick with fear... It...touched him. He was surprised he wasn't more moved, but he was still moved.
"Whatever you think of me for carrying a sword. Whatever you think of me for the manner of our first meeting, I will swear to you that my only thought was that you might need a place to stay and tend to your injuries." He said.
Meguro was silent and still shaking. His eyes squeezed shut, two more tears leaking out.
Irritation curled low in Raikou's gut. What did he need to do? Was the sword that terrifying to the boy? He put it away with a scowl. Raikou turned, tossing it at the counter. What did he care what it ran into? Meguro jumped at the clatter it made, with a little whimper like he'd been hit. The sound disgusted Raikou.
It took him three large steps to exit the room, and snatch up the blanket from the back of the sofa. (Folded, he noted. It had been folded.) And then he turned back around and dropped the draped blanket over the other's head, wrapping him in it haphazardly, gratified when the child-large black eyes opened in surprise.
What did he have to do to get this person to believe him?
"I can't offer you anything but my word, but unless you raise your hand against me with intent to harm me, it's not my intent to harm you." He muttered.
Meguro still just stared at him, looking lost in the snow again, and even more astonished when Raikou put his warm cup of coffee in his hands, the self-imposed finger marks in the boy's wrist going white then red. They were much smaller than the ones he’d left before, Raikou noticed. Smaller…and deeper. There were little bloody crescents from the boy’s nails, tiny scabs from earlier nail clenches. Raikou’s thoughts wandered for a moment as his eyes took in the patterns of crescent scabs--a field of identical waning moons…
They stood there a long while, not saying anything, Raikou discontent, and Meguro likely still disgustingly scared and helpless, the buzz of the digital clock, and the hum of traffic the only sounds mingling with the the faint chatter of indistinct television through a wall. When Raikou’s eyes turned back up, the boy looked like he couldn’t take any more. This disgust broke easily and again, he took pity on him.
"...Everything's very clean. It looks nice." Raikou said quietly, trying hard. He paused, letting the electric lighting stretch in white noise. "You made the cake yourself, didn't you?"
Incredulity flickered a moment, before Meguro’s head drooped and he whispered a nearly unheard, "...Yes."
“It tastes...good," Raikou said finally, "You're quite talented for someone so young." When he turned, Meguro was looking at him again, sad, and haunted, and certainly too-small inside that blanket, lifting the coffee to his lips without looking, acting almost numbly, not taking his eyes off Raikou.
Raikou paused, curling his hands against the counter quietly, frustrated, and without a course of action. He was making up his mind. It took effort.
"...I didn't ask you before. Would you stay here?" the samurai asked, finally.
Reaction. The boy blinked, startled, choking, "WH-?"
No, no, no. He'd done that all wrong. he could see it from the shock on the other's face. Abrupt, probably. He'd probably been too abrupt with him again. Raikou fiddled with his hair, blue strands spilling in his fingers, over the flat black of his clothes.
"Is there any other place for you to stay?" he could see the answer on the other's face before he even said anything. He knew, suddenly and wholly.
Fear.
That sudden and absolute fear would never have come around if the boy had anyone to look after him. You didn’t have fear like that unless you were alone. Unless you were as desperate as that ragged knife in the snow.
"...Stay here." he repeated, trying to smile, sure it looked like a tense and rigid death-grimace. "You need a home at least for long enough to secure funds to live on your own. So stay here, Meguro."
Meguro's bruised face shifted, black eyes wide. He blinked hard, and turned his face slightly. "...I...I don't understand you!" He shouted, gripping his mug. "One minute you're threatening to kill me, and the next you want me to stay?!"
"I never threatened to kill you." Raikou replied.
"You did!" Meguro screamed, face twisting and upset, and scared--deeply, and profoundly scared. "You said you could do anything you liked!"
What makes you think I like to kill people? Raikou's brain retorted in a flash of anger. But...he couldn't say that. It wasn't like he hadn't killed people.
"...I wouldn't kill you. You've done nothing wrong." Raikou said simply, frowning a little. He picked up his katana off the counter, holding it up. He noticed the way the boy flinched away again, and was irritated again, but controlled it. "This isn't something I use on people without reason, and I gave you my reason."
"And what reason could that be?" the boy wailed, close to tears. "If I make you angry, or don't do whatever sickening thing you ask-?"
"If you harm the helpless." Raikou replied quietly. "If you destroy the order of the world by preying on the weak. If you raise your hand with killing intent towards me and I have need to defend myself." Under the wash of blue, Raikou studied the boy carefully, trying to smile, trying to stay calm. "These...aren't things that are in your nature. I'm sure of that."
Meguro didn't say anything, his breathing loud, almost sobbing, just on the brink, but too proud to let the tears spill just yet, too stubborn. His mouth trembled again like a child’s.
Raikou lowered the sword back onto the counter. Maybe that was what was frightening him? "I wouldn't kill you. I wouldn't harm you except in self-defense. Even though you saw me murder a man, you should know this by now." He let his eyes narrow as the few scant swallows of coffee lurched and coiled around his brain, quickening it a little. "If you thought otherwise, why didn't you call the police? Have me arrested? You've had several days to do it." He studied the boy through his hair and his peripheral vision, saw him squirm and look away.
"...Because...you saved me." Meguro muttered finally. He stared into the coffee in his hands. They were still trembling, and scabbed over the knuckles of one hand. "You...could have killed me there when I saw you, so what difference did it make if I...took your hand and followed you?" As Raikou turned, he saw the boy blink hard, frowning. (Either he was confused, or that coffee was worse than Raikou thought.) "But I still don't understand... Why you would-"
The samurai turned back again, watching the coffeemaker for a long while--so long that he heard Meguro almost silently begin to cry, drinking that bittersweet, lukewarm, tear-spotted sludge in his hands between sobs with little, childish slurps.
Why did you save me at all?
"...I did it because I wanted to redeem someone with this sword." Raikou said finally. "Really, there isn't any reason for you to be araid of me, though."
Meguro's nearly noiseless weeping went on. Raikou pretended not to hear. Some things people didn't want you to see. He knew that well. and he knew out of instinct that he wasn't supposed to see the boy crying behind him. He watched the coffee drip instead, drop by drop, the smell filling the room. In the distance a very early bird was singing. He listened to it, and the boy crying behind him--little sniffles, and juicy ones, a variety of embarrassing, stifled, deeply personal noises. The coffee drops individually were honeyed brown. The growing pool in the bottom of the pot, though, was the color of Meguro’s hair.
It was strange how close Raikou felt to him in that moment, without even looking at him. He really did hope the boy stayed, at least for a little while.
"You're free to leave at any time. Ask me for money, for transportation away, and I will give it. But until you have a place to stay, please consider staying here." Raikou murmured, not looking at him, studying again the beautiful shape and precision of shirogamon...cold steel. Hot coffee, fresh, and thickly wafting on the air...
"How am I supposed to pay for that?" Meguro whispered, terror in every line of his body. "By paying with my life for my sins?" Tears leaked out of his eyes, lips trembling.
"I wanted to save someone's life. That's all. I used the wrong word, maybe." Raikou mused. "I suppose I have to settle for this ingratitude, though. Finish your coffee."
You don't know anything about sin.
He waited until Meguro finished the dregs of the drink, sniffling, staring at the mostly-honeyed sludge in the bottom, before he let him turn to look at him. The boy’s freckled nose and the rims of his eyes were both red.
"...I didn't thank you." Meguro whispered finally, sounding thick with phlegm as he scraped the spoon along the bottom for the honey. "Even though you did save me, Shimizu-san." He heard the thump of the boy's back against the counter, the sigh, mumbling almost to himself as he tried to hide his face against the cup. "I should have thanked you. It was...rude not to."
Raikou smiled despite himself. "Aah. So you were cleaning just to annoy me. I see. I did wonder. That clears things up." He commented lightly.
"N-No!" Exclaimed the boy, dropping his spoon, eyes bulging impossibly wide. "It wasn't like-!" he fell into abrupt, embarrassed silence, broken with words after a while, as though trying to fill the space. "I...always feel better...when things are organized...I thought...it might be the same for Shimizu-san." Transparent red leaked over his mottled, swollen features. Raikou had almost forgotten Meguro was injured at all until he saw the boy's blush and realized he'd turned his whole face to him without thinking.
"...Raikou." He corrected quietly. He heard Meguro freeze, his breathing stopping, and the progress of the scraping spoon, too. "My name is Shimizu Raikou." He added. "Please call me Raikou."
He turned just in time to see the tiny, growing adam's apple in the younger boy's throat bob just a little. His voice cracked "I-" He blushed transparently and turned his head, blanket still draped over him. "I'm...Gau." He whispered. "Meguro Gau."
Raikou smiled, bowing his head just a little. "Pleased to meet you, Gau-kun."
...Getting somewhere. Finally getting somewhere.
Gau went a transparent red, but nodded, bowing stiffly. He didn't argue. "P-Pleased to...meet you, Shimizu-san."
Raikou's mouth quirked. "That's not what I asked you to call me." He murmured, amused.
Gau's mouth just tightened, determination fighting the fear in his eyes. "I admire your desire for order and your proper spirit, but I have little in common with my family except that name." He saw Gau's face shift, saw him blink and try to read him and smiled, refreshed, ironic, feeling strangely warm and genial, like he was hiding in his own skin.
"Please, call me Raikou." He insisted.
I don't want to be called by the name that chokes me with duties I don't want to fulfill, then damns me for them.
Gau's brow knitted, his swollen eye peering. His face twisted in dislike, and he looked like his normal, prickly, suspicious self again. "Well...if you insist, Raikou-san, but- I know it might not be my place as a guest, and all, but..." He swallowed. "You still didn't say...what you wanted me here for."
Raikou sighed, and eyed the coffeepot. He was stubborn, and refused to give up the idea, and accept the housing was absolutely free. He'd have to think of- Ah.
"To greet me when I return." Raikou said simply.
Gau's face shifted, something flickering too fast, there, a funny suspicion growing, "To...greet you...?"
"Yes." Raikou replied. Was that really so hard to understand? "I want you to be here, and say 'welcome home'. Nothing more. As long as you do so, you may stay here as long as you need. As long as you say 'welcome home' when I return, and declare that you're home when you return from any expeditions you undertake." Someone to be there. To care if he lived or died at this point--enough to keep living at least. Even some skinny streak of ill-tempered piss...
No...actually...he'd shown something, hadn't he? Meguro Gau had shown a different side...
There was still hesitation in Gau's eyes, uncertainty. Raikou shook his head, sighing. "We can practice if you like?" he added blithely.
"No! I mean-! I understand how to say welcome home, but why would...?" The frown deepened in the boy’s brow, then smoothed. He understood. Or thought he did--though Raikou couldn't follow. Sadness crept into his face--it was an expression Raikou had never seen before.
...Another side to him. Not an evil one, certainly...
"You can stay here as long as you say 'welcome home' to me when I come back, Gau-kun." He repeated. "Anything else I ask of you, you may refuse, or argue against as you would with any other person. Some clash is understandable between roommates I understand..."
Gau swallowed, looking back up to him. He didn't agree. He didn't disagree. Not directly. Not in words. He seemed to be struggling with the concept of roommates. "Back from...what, Sh-Raikou-san?" He asked quietly, brow still puckered uneasily-
-that will come in time, though...
In time, Gau would learn not to be afraid for certain. He would learn he was a man of his word, and meant it when he said he wouldn't kill him. As long as he stayed. Somehow, Raikou needed him to stay. Somehow he knew Gau would be reason enough for him to hold together, whether he knew it or not. He placed a burden on him, but...Gau would never have to know that, anyway. He would fill his role just by being there.
"Where are you...coming back from?" Gau asked again. And then he scowled. "Just tell me you're not doing something illegal. That's all I want to know."
Raikou paused, shrugged. He ignored the allegations of illegality. "I want you to greet me when I return from the secret world I work in as a vigilante agent of justice protecting the world from imbalance." He answered, perfectly nonchalant.
There was a moment of quiet as the boy's eyes bugged. And his look was so thunderstruck that Raikou had to turn so Gau wouldn't see his growing smile, suddenly struck with humor, but not daring to laugh. His bit his cheek to hold it in, silent, and stifled.
Gau apparently noticed, and snapped back to his angry self in an instant. "You're making fun of me again!" He screamed, mug landing in the sink, and the blanket falling off as he launched himself ineffectively at the samurai.
Raikou couldn't help but laugh, blocking and pushing his arms away while Gau screamed at him unintelligibly, and the bird singing in the tree off in the distance took off with an alarmed squawk as one of the neighbors banged on the ceiling of their apartment and the clock quietly clicked to four a.m..
-o-O-o-O-o-
Fandom: Nabari no Ou (Pre-canon)
Genre: Possibly drama/friendship pre-shounan-ai stuff if your mileage varies that way, maybe. A bit of angst. (of course.)
Rating: Pseudo-T
Why: No real warnings except for subtleties on Gau's assumptions of Raikou's salvatory intents. Gau's "cheapshot", and implied blood, murder, and Yukimi being a voice in Raikou's head.
More subtle T-rating, I think, just to be safe.
Note: completely speculative fic events, since this didn't happen anywhere in the manga or anime. If it did, it would be awesome, but I'm neither that lucky or that skilled.
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Expressions chased each other over the other's patchwork-bruised face. Old and new--interesting to watch.
Raikou hadn't realized how long he'd gone without really looking at another person's expressions until Meguro was in the house. Most of the reason he disliked the volume was that it was distracting when Raikou was busy watching him. He spoke volumes with his nervous little hands and his mutable face. It was hardly graceful. Most of the time his demeanor was jerky and clumsy, even. But that just made it more real.
Some of the expressions were grotesque and exaggerated, others almost...something, but they were all refreshing in a way.
Now, he seemed to be thinking for once, with hostility in his eyes, guardedness. If he watched, Raikou felt he could almost see the thoughts moving and flipping around like salmon in a river.
"...I bet you wouldn't understand." the boy spat with surprising venom, expression fixing from thought into sharp, sudden anger, the voice lofty.
Raikou winced inside. Had he ever sounded like that when he was younger? He wondered inside what he'd ever done to his own poor dead mother that had made karma give him that look on the other's face.
"You might be right. I don't understand a lot of what's happened to you. I wouldn't ask if I did."
Something of his own face must have shown his disinterest, because color suddenly rushed into Meguro's face, along with a look of mute shock, almost horror. Raikou blinked, confused, but the moment passed, and Meguro was looking away making a straining, awkward noise.
"You've probably never...I mean...you're...stronger than me. I noticed that when you..."
Raikou stared as he saw the boy bite his lip, and seem to shrink in on himself.
Regret...? Where had that come from?
"If it's not a relative who's doing that to you, why don't you stay with them?" He said, ignoring the sputter.
"I don't have any." The boy retorted, baring his teeth. "I'm a child without a single relative! And don't look at me like that! It's not like I care! I'm tough enough to fend for myself! There are loads of people who're worse off."
"I'm not looking. I'm thinking. I know girls stronger than you." Raikou remarked absently, thinking that yes, Meguro looked like a girl all hunched up like that, with his voice defiant and demanding. He wasn't focused enough for there to be malice in the statement--it had been especially true in his own family as he'd been mortified to realize, watching meek modern mothers stand side by side with his own, while he trembled behind a novel in embarrassment at his mother's loud laugh and direct, brash manner. Raikou was still thinking about his family when the boy's eyes lit up in rage and he gave a yell, throwing himself forward.
That, he hadn't expected. Bony knuckles caught him across the side of the face, though they were more surprising than hurtful. Even with all his strength, Meguro probably couldn't even bruise him. Another caught him in the shoulder, but by thn he realized he was being attacked, and controlled himself. It was only a moment before, Raikou managed to disentangle himself from the most ineffective punches he'd ever been given, trying to move so he wouldn't spill coffee on the suddenly feral houseguest. (Somehow that seemed rude--to spill coffee on him--rudeness was somehow quite important in his confused mind at the time…)
A hand went to his head, holding him back like he'd done with his sister long before, but it didn't seem to stop Meguro from trying to punch out his elbow with ineffective little jabs--unable to reach anything else.
Some part of Raikou acknowledged this as a good, if clumsy, use of the enemy's weaknesses, while another part noted the surprising softness, and almost…lightness of the texture of Gau’s hair in his fingers.
He could feel it against the underside of his wrist, the uncallused bits of the webs of his fingers, the soft bits just behind his nails, tickling his knuckles. The warm curve of the boy’s skull flushed under his hand, as volume shrieked by. It occurred to Raikou vaguely that he could have broken something that delicate. The boy’s head felt fragile as an egg, covered in elastic as a brow twisted under his palm. But he had no desire to break him. No…rather… It would have been nice, he found himself thinking, to be able to touch someone’s hair like this, and feel the curls spring and re-form in soft tufts and waves under his hands…
Meguro was howling by then, still swinging his fragile arms. Raikou in his confused haze made out snatches of the tirade: about how unfair and sickening Raikou was, and how ungrateful, and how he worked so hard to repay him, and then he just insulted him and went around not respecting him after-
Wait, he'd made the cake?
Raikou grabbed a bird-boned wrist in either hand, almost ready to explain about his sister, about his skull, and his strange wonderful hair in fumbling vagueness. "Now hold on-"
A knot of excruciating pain bloomed as he realized dimly, with a sort of distant shock, that Gau had kicked him below the belt, or would have if he'd been wearing a belt and the pain weren't telling him his stomach was getting pulled into his testicles. The room went red for a moment, and when he replayed it in his mind, he realized he must have grabbed and forced Meguro's wrist up behind his back, slamming his head down against the countertop.
It seemed the only way to explain how Meguro's face was pressed into the formed plastic of the surface, and his arm stuck at a breakable angle in Raikou's hands. It was the only reasonable explanation to how it had gotten there.
There was no fight. There was no struggle, and...there was no noise but faint, pained breathing. Raikou could feel the boy trembling, catching sight of a wide, frightened black eye that calmed and shut itself. Waiting.
The color of the bruised, swollen cheek against the counter seemed almost aesthetic. His wrist was hard as a twig in his fingers, soft hair between his fingers, the skin-padded skull beneath. Yukimi's voice screamed in his ear, Don't be nice to me you damn idiot! Do it already!
Raikou caught himself, and let him go immediately, appalled, still riding out the echoes of pain flashing through his insides. He frowned a little, moving back gingerly. His hands had closed easily around that wrist, around that helpless kid's arm. (Just a boy, just a boy…)
"...I'm sorry." He said quietly. "Did I hurt you?" The tone seemed too-pleasant, too normal coming from his own lips. It gave no indication of how horrified he really was.
I don’t remember doing that…
Meguro twitched, and stumbled back from him, holding his arm, and blinking hard, angry and hurt. But he paused. What Raikou knew of Meguro so far was that he struck back when interest turned away, but...he didn't this time, watching him with that too-readable expression: would-be-toughness, but it was a veneer...
Aah. He'd gone and scared him, now, he realized. After everything he’d noticed about this weak, frail boy from the outside, he'd treated him like a credible threat.
He didn't know, Raikou thought with sudden pain unrelated to his jarred nerves. Meguro hadn't done anything wrong. He was angry, and obnoxious, but he was so...small, so...helpless, too... He didn't fight, or struggle, just went limp and let people do what they would, and then struck back and made them angry again, wore them down, never let go: a yapping wire-haired terrier...
Don't leave. The words stopped just as he was shaping his lips. He paused, blinked, looked inward, surprised by the thought, and its urgency.
Ah.
He was scared, too.
Mystified, Raikou measured space between them, focused his senses while his thoughts whizzed around.
"I should have asked you not to touch me in violence no matter how strongly you feel. I tend to...react on reflex."
Yes, he could see it now, when he looked at him. The bruised face with it's narrow jaw...and the eyes...not Raimei, but...
...am I still thinking about her...? After all this...?
The gentle face, and her smile in the afternoon sun... They're really not anything alike... He thought to himself with an inward blink. Well. Except that they were both doomed but for the sword, and he'd only used it for one of them.
In all honesty, he wished he'd just had the strength to do so for the more worthy one-Aah, but...was that really it? Worthiness? They were both defenseless.
He studied the shirogamon. Do I still think I can save someone with this...? Someone who lets himself be beaten to the brink of death, then angers it until death comes back to finish the job?
"...I don't really want to hurt you, you know." Raikou murmured absently.
Meguro gave a scoffing, affectation of jadedness with his laugh. "You can't hurt me."
"Why not?"
Apparently the simplicity of the question was something Meguro hadn't expected because the would-be-toughness faded quickly from his face, and he paled, looking away. In all honesty, Raikou hadn't expected his own response, either. He hadn't thought about the words when they passed his lips.
Now...he wondered.
Is there anything really keeping me from hurting him?
Meguro's body folded inwards just a little. His voice was very small and faint when the boy spoke again, "...Why did you take me with you? What did you...?" Raikou's eyes flicked back up to his face, to the hunched little shoulders as Meguro swallowed, and squeezed his eyes shut. His voice cracked, quavered, broke. "What did you want from me? I don't know what you want-"
Raikou blinked. "Nothing." He lied immediately. The fear in the boy's voice was growing rapidly, and that was disturbing on some level. Something was behind it. But it wasn't his business. He knew the past wasn't something to be entered recklessly. Was the question really so disturbing to him...? The question of why Raikou wouldn't hurt him? Was it just the fact he wouldn't want to, but he was more than capable of doing so?
He tensed. Was it shirogamon?
Don't think a sword is something that can save people...
No. No you're wrong. I saved this boy with this sword. I did it. With shirogamon, your symbol of murder. I won't give in just to make you right, mother. Shirogamon saved him.
"You're lying..." Meguro whispered, squeezing his eyes shut more tightly. He was shaking, Raikou noticed, appalled, drawing back out of internalized arguments and their juxtoposition. He tried with difficultly to put himself in the other's shoes and figure out what would make him so upset, but he couldn't find anything. Meguro shuddered, blurting seemingly out of nowhere, "Just-! Just tell me what you're going to do to me! If you just told me, then it wouldn't be so bad! Just tell me-"
"I'm not going to do anything to you." He murmured, barely moving his lips as he studied him, trying to keep his face unreadable. He blinked, turning his head slightly, so the boy's form blurred in a sheen of blue...
Meguro's hand curled around his own wrist so hard the bruised flesh flared green-yellow. "You're lying!" The boy whispered again in a choked voice. Shock and dismay flooded into Raikou. He was going to cry? Why? When he was standing there telling him the truth? When he'd reached out a hand to save him? And here the boy thought he was meant to be some sort of perverse victim?
Raikou's eyes narrowed.
Was it really so obvious what a monster he was...? Even if it wasn't the right type?
He raised the sword and unsheathed it. A little choke escaped Meguro, before his eyes widened as Raikou pointed to blade at himself.
"I swear it to you. On my life." The samurai replied, staring at the other's little fingers biting into his own skin, knuckles going white. He turned words over slowly in his mind as he watched the first delicate tear spill over the boy's eyes, watched his mouth tremble, trying to be brave, sick with fear... It...touched him. He was surprised he wasn't more moved, but he was still moved.
"Whatever you think of me for carrying a sword. Whatever you think of me for the manner of our first meeting, I will swear to you that my only thought was that you might need a place to stay and tend to your injuries." He said.
Meguro was silent and still shaking. His eyes squeezed shut, two more tears leaking out.
Irritation curled low in Raikou's gut. What did he need to do? Was the sword that terrifying to the boy? He put it away with a scowl. Raikou turned, tossing it at the counter. What did he care what it ran into? Meguro jumped at the clatter it made, with a little whimper like he'd been hit. The sound disgusted Raikou.
It took him three large steps to exit the room, and snatch up the blanket from the back of the sofa. (Folded, he noted. It had been folded.) And then he turned back around and dropped the draped blanket over the other's head, wrapping him in it haphazardly, gratified when the child-large black eyes opened in surprise.
What did he have to do to get this person to believe him?
"I can't offer you anything but my word, but unless you raise your hand against me with intent to harm me, it's not my intent to harm you." He muttered.
Meguro still just stared at him, looking lost in the snow again, and even more astonished when Raikou put his warm cup of coffee in his hands, the self-imposed finger marks in the boy's wrist going white then red. They were much smaller than the ones he’d left before, Raikou noticed. Smaller…and deeper. There were little bloody crescents from the boy’s nails, tiny scabs from earlier nail clenches. Raikou’s thoughts wandered for a moment as his eyes took in the patterns of crescent scabs--a field of identical waning moons…
They stood there a long while, not saying anything, Raikou discontent, and Meguro likely still disgustingly scared and helpless, the buzz of the digital clock, and the hum of traffic the only sounds mingling with the the faint chatter of indistinct television through a wall. When Raikou’s eyes turned back up, the boy looked like he couldn’t take any more. This disgust broke easily and again, he took pity on him.
"...Everything's very clean. It looks nice." Raikou said quietly, trying hard. He paused, letting the electric lighting stretch in white noise. "You made the cake yourself, didn't you?"
Incredulity flickered a moment, before Meguro’s head drooped and he whispered a nearly unheard, "...Yes."
“It tastes...good," Raikou said finally, "You're quite talented for someone so young." When he turned, Meguro was looking at him again, sad, and haunted, and certainly too-small inside that blanket, lifting the coffee to his lips without looking, acting almost numbly, not taking his eyes off Raikou.
Raikou paused, curling his hands against the counter quietly, frustrated, and without a course of action. He was making up his mind. It took effort.
"...I didn't ask you before. Would you stay here?" the samurai asked, finally.
Reaction. The boy blinked, startled, choking, "WH-?"
No, no, no. He'd done that all wrong. he could see it from the shock on the other's face. Abrupt, probably. He'd probably been too abrupt with him again. Raikou fiddled with his hair, blue strands spilling in his fingers, over the flat black of his clothes.
"Is there any other place for you to stay?" he could see the answer on the other's face before he even said anything. He knew, suddenly and wholly.
Fear.
That sudden and absolute fear would never have come around if the boy had anyone to look after him. You didn’t have fear like that unless you were alone. Unless you were as desperate as that ragged knife in the snow.
"...Stay here." he repeated, trying to smile, sure it looked like a tense and rigid death-grimace. "You need a home at least for long enough to secure funds to live on your own. So stay here, Meguro."
Meguro's bruised face shifted, black eyes wide. He blinked hard, and turned his face slightly. "...I...I don't understand you!" He shouted, gripping his mug. "One minute you're threatening to kill me, and the next you want me to stay?!"
"I never threatened to kill you." Raikou replied.
"You did!" Meguro screamed, face twisting and upset, and scared--deeply, and profoundly scared. "You said you could do anything you liked!"
What makes you think I like to kill people? Raikou's brain retorted in a flash of anger. But...he couldn't say that. It wasn't like he hadn't killed people.
"...I wouldn't kill you. You've done nothing wrong." Raikou said simply, frowning a little. He picked up his katana off the counter, holding it up. He noticed the way the boy flinched away again, and was irritated again, but controlled it. "This isn't something I use on people without reason, and I gave you my reason."
"And what reason could that be?" the boy wailed, close to tears. "If I make you angry, or don't do whatever sickening thing you ask-?"
"If you harm the helpless." Raikou replied quietly. "If you destroy the order of the world by preying on the weak. If you raise your hand with killing intent towards me and I have need to defend myself." Under the wash of blue, Raikou studied the boy carefully, trying to smile, trying to stay calm. "These...aren't things that are in your nature. I'm sure of that."
Meguro didn't say anything, his breathing loud, almost sobbing, just on the brink, but too proud to let the tears spill just yet, too stubborn. His mouth trembled again like a child’s.
Raikou lowered the sword back onto the counter. Maybe that was what was frightening him? "I wouldn't kill you. I wouldn't harm you except in self-defense. Even though you saw me murder a man, you should know this by now." He let his eyes narrow as the few scant swallows of coffee lurched and coiled around his brain, quickening it a little. "If you thought otherwise, why didn't you call the police? Have me arrested? You've had several days to do it." He studied the boy through his hair and his peripheral vision, saw him squirm and look away.
"...Because...you saved me." Meguro muttered finally. He stared into the coffee in his hands. They were still trembling, and scabbed over the knuckles of one hand. "You...could have killed me there when I saw you, so what difference did it make if I...took your hand and followed you?" As Raikou turned, he saw the boy blink hard, frowning. (Either he was confused, or that coffee was worse than Raikou thought.) "But I still don't understand... Why you would-"
The samurai turned back again, watching the coffeemaker for a long while--so long that he heard Meguro almost silently begin to cry, drinking that bittersweet, lukewarm, tear-spotted sludge in his hands between sobs with little, childish slurps.
Why did you save me at all?
"...I did it because I wanted to redeem someone with this sword." Raikou said finally. "Really, there isn't any reason for you to be araid of me, though."
Meguro's nearly noiseless weeping went on. Raikou pretended not to hear. Some things people didn't want you to see. He knew that well. and he knew out of instinct that he wasn't supposed to see the boy crying behind him. He watched the coffee drip instead, drop by drop, the smell filling the room. In the distance a very early bird was singing. He listened to it, and the boy crying behind him--little sniffles, and juicy ones, a variety of embarrassing, stifled, deeply personal noises. The coffee drops individually were honeyed brown. The growing pool in the bottom of the pot, though, was the color of Meguro’s hair.
It was strange how close Raikou felt to him in that moment, without even looking at him. He really did hope the boy stayed, at least for a little while.
"You're free to leave at any time. Ask me for money, for transportation away, and I will give it. But until you have a place to stay, please consider staying here." Raikou murmured, not looking at him, studying again the beautiful shape and precision of shirogamon...cold steel. Hot coffee, fresh, and thickly wafting on the air...
"How am I supposed to pay for that?" Meguro whispered, terror in every line of his body. "By paying with my life for my sins?" Tears leaked out of his eyes, lips trembling.
"I wanted to save someone's life. That's all. I used the wrong word, maybe." Raikou mused. "I suppose I have to settle for this ingratitude, though. Finish your coffee."
You don't know anything about sin.
He waited until Meguro finished the dregs of the drink, sniffling, staring at the mostly-honeyed sludge in the bottom, before he let him turn to look at him. The boy’s freckled nose and the rims of his eyes were both red.
"...I didn't thank you." Meguro whispered finally, sounding thick with phlegm as he scraped the spoon along the bottom for the honey. "Even though you did save me, Shimizu-san." He heard the thump of the boy's back against the counter, the sigh, mumbling almost to himself as he tried to hide his face against the cup. "I should have thanked you. It was...rude not to."
Raikou smiled despite himself. "Aah. So you were cleaning just to annoy me. I see. I did wonder. That clears things up." He commented lightly.
"N-No!" Exclaimed the boy, dropping his spoon, eyes bulging impossibly wide. "It wasn't like-!" he fell into abrupt, embarrassed silence, broken with words after a while, as though trying to fill the space. "I...always feel better...when things are organized...I thought...it might be the same for Shimizu-san." Transparent red leaked over his mottled, swollen features. Raikou had almost forgotten Meguro was injured at all until he saw the boy's blush and realized he'd turned his whole face to him without thinking.
"...Raikou." He corrected quietly. He heard Meguro freeze, his breathing stopping, and the progress of the scraping spoon, too. "My name is Shimizu Raikou." He added. "Please call me Raikou."
He turned just in time to see the tiny, growing adam's apple in the younger boy's throat bob just a little. His voice cracked "I-" He blushed transparently and turned his head, blanket still draped over him. "I'm...Gau." He whispered. "Meguro Gau."
Raikou smiled, bowing his head just a little. "Pleased to meet you, Gau-kun."
...Getting somewhere. Finally getting somewhere.
Gau went a transparent red, but nodded, bowing stiffly. He didn't argue. "P-Pleased to...meet you, Shimizu-san."
Raikou's mouth quirked. "That's not what I asked you to call me." He murmured, amused.
Gau's mouth just tightened, determination fighting the fear in his eyes. "I admire your desire for order and your proper spirit, but I have little in common with my family except that name." He saw Gau's face shift, saw him blink and try to read him and smiled, refreshed, ironic, feeling strangely warm and genial, like he was hiding in his own skin.
"Please, call me Raikou." He insisted.
I don't want to be called by the name that chokes me with duties I don't want to fulfill, then damns me for them.
Gau's brow knitted, his swollen eye peering. His face twisted in dislike, and he looked like his normal, prickly, suspicious self again. "Well...if you insist, Raikou-san, but- I know it might not be my place as a guest, and all, but..." He swallowed. "You still didn't say...what you wanted me here for."
Raikou sighed, and eyed the coffeepot. He was stubborn, and refused to give up the idea, and accept the housing was absolutely free. He'd have to think of- Ah.
"To greet me when I return." Raikou said simply.
Gau's face shifted, something flickering too fast, there, a funny suspicion growing, "To...greet you...?"
"Yes." Raikou replied. Was that really so hard to understand? "I want you to be here, and say 'welcome home'. Nothing more. As long as you do so, you may stay here as long as you need. As long as you say 'welcome home' when I return, and declare that you're home when you return from any expeditions you undertake." Someone to be there. To care if he lived or died at this point--enough to keep living at least. Even some skinny streak of ill-tempered piss...
No...actually...he'd shown something, hadn't he? Meguro Gau had shown a different side...
There was still hesitation in Gau's eyes, uncertainty. Raikou shook his head, sighing. "We can practice if you like?" he added blithely.
"No! I mean-! I understand how to say welcome home, but why would...?" The frown deepened in the boy’s brow, then smoothed. He understood. Or thought he did--though Raikou couldn't follow. Sadness crept into his face--it was an expression Raikou had never seen before.
...Another side to him. Not an evil one, certainly...
"You can stay here as long as you say 'welcome home' to me when I come back, Gau-kun." He repeated. "Anything else I ask of you, you may refuse, or argue against as you would with any other person. Some clash is understandable between roommates I understand..."
Gau swallowed, looking back up to him. He didn't agree. He didn't disagree. Not directly. Not in words. He seemed to be struggling with the concept of roommates. "Back from...what, Sh-Raikou-san?" He asked quietly, brow still puckered uneasily-
-that will come in time, though...
In time, Gau would learn not to be afraid for certain. He would learn he was a man of his word, and meant it when he said he wouldn't kill him. As long as he stayed. Somehow, Raikou needed him to stay. Somehow he knew Gau would be reason enough for him to hold together, whether he knew it or not. He placed a burden on him, but...Gau would never have to know that, anyway. He would fill his role just by being there.
"Where are you...coming back from?" Gau asked again. And then he scowled. "Just tell me you're not doing something illegal. That's all I want to know."
Raikou paused, shrugged. He ignored the allegations of illegality. "I want you to greet me when I return from the secret world I work in as a vigilante agent of justice protecting the world from imbalance." He answered, perfectly nonchalant.
There was a moment of quiet as the boy's eyes bugged. And his look was so thunderstruck that Raikou had to turn so Gau wouldn't see his growing smile, suddenly struck with humor, but not daring to laugh. His bit his cheek to hold it in, silent, and stifled.
Gau apparently noticed, and snapped back to his angry self in an instant. "You're making fun of me again!" He screamed, mug landing in the sink, and the blanket falling off as he launched himself ineffectively at the samurai.
Raikou couldn't help but laugh, blocking and pushing his arms away while Gau screamed at him unintelligibly, and the bird singing in the tree off in the distance took off with an alarmed squawk as one of the neighbors banged on the ceiling of their apartment and the clock quietly clicked to four a.m..
-o-O-o-O-o-