Amor Fati. (Loveless/Kingdom Hearts 2, Ritsuka/Soubi)
So I'm going to be attempting to repost some of my fic to the community so I can have it in one place - more or less -. Since there's, well. Kind of a lot, I'll be posting it slowly, two or three a day tops. Sorry about the spam, folks!
Title: Amor Fati.
Fandom: Loveless/Kingdom Hearts 2
Warnings: Minor spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 2, and some vague nods to the later part of Loveless volume 6.
Characters/couples: Ritsuka/Soubi, Seimei. Mentions of some members of the OrgXIII
Summary: “Where is my heart?” Ritsuka asks, and he wonders about his memories, too, wonders where everything that used to be his left and why he stayed, and he wonders and wonders and wonders, and there’s only silence and unanswered worries.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: Reposted from my personal journal.
Amor Fati.
“‘Heartless.’” Ritsu enunciates, carefully and slowly, even as he’s pinning a Papilio Ulysses1 to a board, watching the struggles of its weak body die; the blue of its wings catch upon the light of his desk, just a little, almost shimmering. There’s a smile hovering over his lips once the butterfly dies, and he pushes his glasses up with a finger as he looks towards his guests.
The blond one gives a smile, a coin dancing between his fingers. “We prefer the term ‘Nobodies’, professor.”
“Yes, yes… it’s just… such a coincidence, don’t you think, Nagisa?”
She, of course, just huffs, looking at them with crossed arms. The loss of her sister is too recent for her to be her usual self so she’s just cross and ruder than usual. “So… you’re saying that you’ve no hearts? And you expect us to believe it just like that?”
The one with the eyepatch snorts and rolls his one golden eye. “Told you we shouldn’t have bothered.”
But the blond one just smiles again; the coin has stilled between his fingers but he doesn’t say anything else. Ritsu smiles, shaking his head, because he knows that gambler’s smile.
And, as if he had read his thoughts, Seimei-kun speaks.
“It’s really quite… fascinating. You’re saying that your will keeps you together, and you’ve to get back your heart,” the fifteen years old smiles, looking straight at who introduced himself as Luxord, who holds his stare; the coin moves again, almost on it’s own it seems. “Sounds almost… romantic. And useful for the research, don’t you think, Ritsu-sensei? It certainly sounds like the link between Sacrifices and Fighters.”
“Or, more correctly, based upon the information our guests have provided us,” and he bows his head towards Xigbar and Luxord, where the first one just raises an eyebrow while the second one answers to the gesture, “Sacrifices and Fighters share similarities between Others and Nobodies.”
“If that’s true,” Nagisa says finally, the scientific in her opening up to the challenge, to the craving of knowledge; Ritsu knows that Seven is hearing and looking at this conversation too, “We should try it out. Test this… ‘heartless’ theory. But we need someone with a strong will. We cannot go around losing Sacrifices just because. Besides, any competent Fighter would feel their Sacrifice if it was in danger.”
Ritsu hums in agreement. Luxord has started to fiddle with the coin again, and Xigbar seems almost amused. Laughing at them, most likely. He ignores it for the time being. “In that case, we need a Sacrifice whose Fighter hasn’t been awakened… if the Sacrifice hasn’t started training yet, much better.”
Seimei-kun smiles and finally moves his eyes from Luxord. His eyes are as blue as the wings of the Papilio Ulysses. “Don’t worry, Ritsu-sensei. I know the perfect Sacrifice for the experiment.”
- I -
It’s the complete and utter stillness inside him what makes him wake up. His eyes open wide and he strains his ear, trying to hear the soft beat of his heart, listen to the way his blood moves…
And there’s nothing.
Soon enough, the panic settles when he tries to remember. There’s nothing there for him to claim, no name, no age, no family, no nothing which might help him understand why his heart is not beating, how come he’s alive without - it can’t be, it just can’t - having a heart.
He screams to try and see if that causes some kind of noise inside him but there’s still the deep aching nothing, scrambling away from the soft covers of the bed unto a corner, screaming loud and hard and just taking another deep breath to keep screaming, and that’s weird, that he has to take deep breaths if his heart is not beating, if his heart is not there, and he wonders if it’s some sort of instinct or if he’s just gone insane.
The door opens and a young man with sky-light blue eyes comes inside and picks him up and holds him; he doesn’t care when he pushes him away, when he keeps screaming, when his nails scratch his face, just holds him tighter.
“It’s okay,” the young man is saying, worry and concern and something deep inside his tone that he doesn’t understand, but somehow his voice does manage to get inside him, and if it doesn’t fill the void where he doesn’t have a heart, at least it soothes it a little.
- II -
The young man is called Seimei, and he says he knew him from when he used to have a heart, that they’re brothers, kind of. He’s not sure he believes it, but he likes to press his ears against Seimei’s chest and feel his warmth, hear the constant beating of his heart and picture that it’s his, picture that he could just crawl inside Seimei’s chest and wrap around his heart until it was his, too, and then it’d - he’d - be okay.
“Where is my heart?” he asks, and he wonders about his memories, too, wonders where everything that used to be has left and why he stayed, and he wonders and wonders and wonders, and there’s only silence and unanswered worries.
Seimei kisses his hair, hands petting his cat ears and it warms him for less than a heartbeat.
“I don’t know,” Seimei answers, and his hand feels too warm, almost uncomfortably so against his back, even with the shirt and covers he has drawn to him. He’s always cold, hypothermia, probably. Or, rather cardiothermia. “With my Ritsuka, perhaps.”
He turns his head to the bedside, so that he can still hear Seimei’s heart and looks towards the picture there, the one of Seimei and the boy that has his face and his ears and his hair, but suddenly he understands that he has it backwards.
The boy’s eyes are skylight blue, his smile carefree and innocent and so, so happy that he both hates him and craves for him. His own eyes are bruise-colored, cluttered-blood-colored and the irony is so strong that he feels like crying and laughing, both at the same time.
Instead he just closes his eyes and holds tighter unto Seimei, playing pretend for some more.
- III -
His wounds don’t bleed. They disappear after a while, barely leaving a mark, but when Ritsuka’s mother hurts him, cuts him with glass and hands, his blood stays quiet and dark, and the disappointment fills in the hole inside his chest.
“He’s NOT my Ritsuka! Give him back!” The woman shrills; desperate and scared and Seimei just covers his wounds and smiles at him, soft and deep and the ache grows unbearable, makes him wrap arms tight around Seimei’s waist and take deep breaths and hold his breath, wishing for that to fill the void.
- IV -
He reads, as much as he can, as frequent as he possible can when he still has to live Ritsuka’s life and go to school and to the therapist and try to be a normal kid when he’s not, when he’s nothing but a walking-talking corpse, when somewhere out there his heart is waiting for him.
He feels angry most of the time, and hopes that the books might give him an idea on the when, the how, the why; he knows he has to search but the world is so big and so cold and only Seimei calms the missing parts of him.
Philosophy, he discovers, also soothes him, even if it’s only a moment. He can’t say he feels passion about it; most of the times he feels apathetic about everything, but it’s almost enough, the way it makes him think. After all, thoughts are the shadows of our feelings-always darker, emptier, simpler2.
- V -
He doesn’t cry when Seimei dies. He doesn’t cry during the wake. He doesn’t cry when Seimei’s mother slaps him for that, her husband holding her and telling him to go away, even as the woman’s cries keep saying that it’s his fault, that Seimei had been burnt away because of him.
He goes to Ritsuka’s room and takes off the black suit, puts it carefully back in it’s place and puts on Ritsuka’s clothes and walks out of there and to Seimei’s room. He sits over Seimei’s bed and then lies down, face up, and then rolls on his stomach, taking deep breaths of Seimei’s smell.
He waits for the tears to come, knows that he should be crying, but he just falls asleep like that, waiting and feeling even emptier than usual.
- VI -
Ritsu is the one to keep Ritsuka’s heart safe, wanting to test the strength of bond between Sacrifice and Fighter. He smiles at the ‘investors’ when they visit, as he has come to call the Nobodies, and shares the most recent discoveries, and doesn’t say a thing when they speak about taking the Nobody away.
Nanatsu no Tsuki isn’t, after all, the only Organization that cares about the results.
In her room in Castle Oblivion, Naminè draws pictures of the boy with eyes the color of sunsets and paints a butterfly with black and blue wings over his shirt, where his heart should be, and then she looks through the windows and closes her eyes.
If you look at the picture the right way, it seems the wings are fluttering. Up, down, up, down, up down.
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
- VII -
Loveless. It sounds like a bad joke, more ironies that he’d laugh about if he could, but laughter and smiles and even tears all feel too fake.
It’s not fair that he’s Loveless. That just because he doesn’t have a heart he has to be, and he finds himself almost hating Soubi, hating him almost with the same intensity that he hateslovescraves for the real Ritsuka.
He makes him angry him, with his easy way of saying ‘I Love You’, angers him that he could mean it because the idiot has a heart and he doesn’t even realize how precious that is, how much he’d give to be able to have that, doesn’t seem to realize how much his words rattle him and make it almost impossible to keep on pretending that he’s normal, that he’s Ritsuka.
After all, it seems he’s ‘Loveless’ and that almost makes sense. He’s already heartless after all.
- VIII -
It hurts when Soubi kisses him. Deep inside his chest, where the empty space waits and fills with craving and need and want, when Soubi kisses him and holds him and says ‘I’d do anything for you’ it hurts, hurts so badly that he can’t stop from crying.
The beat of Soubi’s heart doesn’t soothe him like Seimei’s did, his warmth burns him rather than take away the cold. It makes him crave for that to be inside him, and Soubi’s eyes seem to say ‘I’ll share’ without even knowing what he’s offering, without realizing what he’s saying without words.
He hates it when Soubi says ‘Ritsuka’, and hates it even more when Soubi calls him ‘Loveless’.
- IX -
He almost wonders if it’s a dream, except that he doesn’t dream, ever. He’s face down over Soubi’s bed, a blanket covering him, and there’s a wound over his face that stings a little if he tries to move so he doesn’t.
Soubi is painting nearby, the light of a lamp making his hair paler, softer, almost translucent, and his eyes are so very, very blue without his glasses.
It’s weird, he thinks, how Soubi always seems so young without his glasses. Much more innocent. Much more hurt.
‘BELOVED’ doesn’t bleed now over his neck, and he looks softly as Soubi paints a blue-black butterfly over the wisteria that grows around a window. Looking from it there’s a young girl with the saddest eyes he has ever seen.
If he looks long enough, it seems that the girl’s eyelids move softly, as if she was looking at the butterfly.
- X -
“Make it stop,” he asks Soubi, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, the raw of his voice and the empty inside his chest almost consume him.
Soubi’s hands are wounded. They leave a streak of red over his face and he thinks it’s almost as if he was bleeding, with the way that seems to hurt him.
Everything seems to hurt and that’s so strange, because without blood running over him he shouldn’t be able to feel that much.
Perhaps it’s because they’re saying Seimei is alive and he doesn’t want to believe it, because then all the blame he has been putting over Nanatsu no Tsuki is worthless. All the should-feel-anger he’s been telling himself that it’s there, it’s all for nothing.
Soubi holds him tightly and he closes his eyes to hear the staccato of Soubi’s heart, how it seems to flow inside him and wrap tendrils around him, and it doesn’t suit the hole inside him, but it seems to take away everything that has been pooling around his empty chest and he’s surprised when he notices he’s crying.
“I am yours,” Soubi says, his hands so warm over his back and shoulders that they should be burning his skin, not make him feel… just feel. “Everything I own, everything in me is yours. I love you.”
And he kisses Soubi to shut him up, pushes Soubi’s shoulder on the bold and holds on tightly as he kisses him again, and then once more and again and again, because his words and his steady eyes keep on tearing inside him and he’s so afraid of breaking up completely, so afraid of disappearing and never being complete that he can’t even explain it.
- XI -
When they get to the School, he takes a deep breath. He’s shivering, but it’s not the usual coldness he feels. He’s shivering because he has started to feel warm, a low tingling buzz that crawls over his skin and leaves imprints over his skin, as if saying ‘it’s here’.
Soubi takes his hand, squeezes and he almost tells him not to; hope is too painful, to unbearable. It’s a personal betrayal, but even that small thing makes him think that maybe, maybe.
“We’ll find your heart,” Soubi says and they walk hand in hand and he thinks that yes, they will, but he’s a little afraid of the rest that’s going to come too even if it’s ridiculous.
He wonders if being this greedy is bad. He wants his heart, he wants the truth, he wants to know if Seimei is dead or alive, he wants and he wants.
Soubi’s hand is so very warm on his, and he twines their fingers together, following a path he doesn’t know but that kind of feels right.
- XII -
“Not my fight,” the redhead says. His eyes are so focused over him and Soubi that he holds tighter to Soubi’s hands, feels the Fighter squeeze back. He doesn’t know what that look means, but then the redhead grins and just like that, the other set of Fighter and Sacrifice pull over the system and they’re fighting again.
He’s not sure of the name of the other pair. They’re wearing black cloaks and it feels so dramatic, to hear their words, their spells. He holds tightly to Soubi’s waist, even when the chains come; Soubi’s hand touches his hair, soothing, nervous, there.
“Your bond shatters, like a thousand glasses cutting through.” He screams, the nearness of his heart makes his blood sing; a few precious drops roll over his cheek. Inside him it’s throbbing. The Fighter’s smile is all edges.
He still holds unto Soubi despite the pain. “I’m okay… go, Soubi.”
“Your words scatter like birds in the breeze,” Soubi holds him, his hand moving to his shoulder and he thinks he can almost feel Soubi’s heart, tries to make his breathing match his, and the chain around their necks disappeared. “You can’t break this bond.”
Another chain breaks and he holds tightly to Soubi. He wonders if it hurts him, knows that Soubi wouldn’t mind that, would probably even like it.
The Sacrifice speaks then, and he’s almost certain he hears Soubi’s heart stop beating for a few seconds inside his chest.
“Oh, can’t I? I’ll have to see about that.”
It can’t be, he thinks. There’s no way. He looks up at Soubi, waiting for betrayal, but Soubi’s shock mirrors his own. The other Sacrifice steps forward, the Fighter taking off the cloak and giving a smirk.
“Seimei!” He called, unbelieving, not wanting to believe it.
The Sacrifice smiles, takes off his cloak. His eyes are skylight blue and seem so soft and sweet. He has a key around his neck.
“I was wondering when you were going to recognize me, Ritsuka.”
He doesn’t scream this time; the hurt that shows in Soubi’s eyes does it on it’s own. Seimei sighs.
“Nisei?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the Fighter steps up again, and over his hand the name ‘BELOVED’ seems to glow. “A wall of fire breaks you apart. Your bond smolders.”
“Now, this is more my thing.” The redhaired guy says with a grin.
- XIII -
Seimei has it. His heart. He tries to resist its call, holding tightly to Soubi’s hand but his heart is there, inside the chest Seimei is carrying and it’s hard to concentrate on anything else but that.
“You survived,” Seimei is saying. He doesn’t seem to care that his Fighter is injured, and he has all but ignored Soubi, as if he hadn’t been his Fighter. “And you found your heart. You’re superior, Ritsuka. We both are. Come here, with me. We can do so much more,”
His eyes don’t leave him and he smiles, summer soft and autumn warmth as he moves an arm from the chest, offers it to him with the same sweet smile in which he used to kiss his wounds better.
Soubi’s hand seems so cold in his. So afraid. He swallows, eyes focused over the chest, but doesn’t move from Soubi’s side. He’s trembling.
“No,” he says, voice trembling, so he swallows his craving and holds tighter unto Soubi’s hand, voice firmer. “No. I’m staying here. With Soubi. I… I won’t. Go. No.”
Seimei’s eyes darken at that. “Don’t forget, I have your heart.”
He remembers Soubi’s word and Soubi’s kisses, and he moves his hand to Soubi’s pulse and finds it accelerated but there, always there; he thinks that’s almost enough, that he might be fine even if he only has that; he and Soubi can make do, he thinks, with a heart between them both.
Soubi seems to think the same because he straightens and he looks at him, at the young-old eyes without his glasses and at the drop of blood rolling down his face. Seimei seems angry, and he’s finally looking at Soubi.
Soubi mutters some words he doesn’t understand, ‘lumière’, and his hand seems to glow.
“”I am yours,” he says, eyes on him with that same smile before he looks towards Seimei again. “I’ll give Ritsuka my heart if it’s needed.”
When Soubi moves his hand, he understands.
“Soubi, no!”
There’s a light then, a sudden flash of something, and the chest that Seimei’s holding seems to combust. Ritsuka’s heart floats for a moment, drifting, before it’s rushing towards the boy at the same time he’s wrapping his arms around Soubi and closing his eyes.
Last thing he’s really aware off is warmth, and Soubi’s arms wrapping tightly around him.
-♥-
Carefully, Naminè puts the last touches of blue over the butterfly’s wings, a last shading of light over their face.
She looks at the picture of a young boy who’s holding a long haired man who’s holding a young boy, and she sighs a little when she thinks she can almost see a chain that holds them together, just where the butterfly is resting.
1. Papilio Ulysses.
2. Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings-always darker, emptier, simpler. - Friedrich Nietzche.
3. The whole ‘Namine-paints-Soubi-paints-Namine’ was sort of inspired by this: “A man dreamt he was a butterfly flying happily among trees. It was such a vivid dream that when he awoke and found himself a man, he did not know for certain that he was not really a butterfly dreaming he was a man.” By Chuang-Tsu.
Title: Amor Fati.
Fandom: Loveless/Kingdom Hearts 2
Warnings: Minor spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 2, and some vague nods to the later part of Loveless volume 6.
Characters/couples: Ritsuka/Soubi, Seimei. Mentions of some members of the OrgXIII
Summary: “Where is my heart?” Ritsuka asks, and he wonders about his memories, too, wonders where everything that used to be his left and why he stayed, and he wonders and wonders and wonders, and there’s only silence and unanswered worries.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: Reposted from my personal journal.
Amor Fati.
“‘Heartless.’” Ritsu enunciates, carefully and slowly, even as he’s pinning a Papilio Ulysses1 to a board, watching the struggles of its weak body die; the blue of its wings catch upon the light of his desk, just a little, almost shimmering. There’s a smile hovering over his lips once the butterfly dies, and he pushes his glasses up with a finger as he looks towards his guests.
The blond one gives a smile, a coin dancing between his fingers. “We prefer the term ‘Nobodies’, professor.”
“Yes, yes… it’s just… such a coincidence, don’t you think, Nagisa?”
She, of course, just huffs, looking at them with crossed arms. The loss of her sister is too recent for her to be her usual self so she’s just cross and ruder than usual. “So… you’re saying that you’ve no hearts? And you expect us to believe it just like that?”
The one with the eyepatch snorts and rolls his one golden eye. “Told you we shouldn’t have bothered.”
But the blond one just smiles again; the coin has stilled between his fingers but he doesn’t say anything else. Ritsu smiles, shaking his head, because he knows that gambler’s smile.
And, as if he had read his thoughts, Seimei-kun speaks.
“It’s really quite… fascinating. You’re saying that your will keeps you together, and you’ve to get back your heart,” the fifteen years old smiles, looking straight at who introduced himself as Luxord, who holds his stare; the coin moves again, almost on it’s own it seems. “Sounds almost… romantic. And useful for the research, don’t you think, Ritsu-sensei? It certainly sounds like the link between Sacrifices and Fighters.”
“Or, more correctly, based upon the information our guests have provided us,” and he bows his head towards Xigbar and Luxord, where the first one just raises an eyebrow while the second one answers to the gesture, “Sacrifices and Fighters share similarities between Others and Nobodies.”
“If that’s true,” Nagisa says finally, the scientific in her opening up to the challenge, to the craving of knowledge; Ritsu knows that Seven is hearing and looking at this conversation too, “We should try it out. Test this… ‘heartless’ theory. But we need someone with a strong will. We cannot go around losing Sacrifices just because. Besides, any competent Fighter would feel their Sacrifice if it was in danger.”
Ritsu hums in agreement. Luxord has started to fiddle with the coin again, and Xigbar seems almost amused. Laughing at them, most likely. He ignores it for the time being. “In that case, we need a Sacrifice whose Fighter hasn’t been awakened… if the Sacrifice hasn’t started training yet, much better.”
Seimei-kun smiles and finally moves his eyes from Luxord. His eyes are as blue as the wings of the Papilio Ulysses. “Don’t worry, Ritsu-sensei. I know the perfect Sacrifice for the experiment.”
- I -
It’s the complete and utter stillness inside him what makes him wake up. His eyes open wide and he strains his ear, trying to hear the soft beat of his heart, listen to the way his blood moves…
And there’s nothing.
Soon enough, the panic settles when he tries to remember. There’s nothing there for him to claim, no name, no age, no family, no nothing which might help him understand why his heart is not beating, how come he’s alive without - it can’t be, it just can’t - having a heart.
He screams to try and see if that causes some kind of noise inside him but there’s still the deep aching nothing, scrambling away from the soft covers of the bed unto a corner, screaming loud and hard and just taking another deep breath to keep screaming, and that’s weird, that he has to take deep breaths if his heart is not beating, if his heart is not there, and he wonders if it’s some sort of instinct or if he’s just gone insane.
The door opens and a young man with sky-light blue eyes comes inside and picks him up and holds him; he doesn’t care when he pushes him away, when he keeps screaming, when his nails scratch his face, just holds him tighter.
“It’s okay,” the young man is saying, worry and concern and something deep inside his tone that he doesn’t understand, but somehow his voice does manage to get inside him, and if it doesn’t fill the void where he doesn’t have a heart, at least it soothes it a little.
- II -
The young man is called Seimei, and he says he knew him from when he used to have a heart, that they’re brothers, kind of. He’s not sure he believes it, but he likes to press his ears against Seimei’s chest and feel his warmth, hear the constant beating of his heart and picture that it’s his, picture that he could just crawl inside Seimei’s chest and wrap around his heart until it was his, too, and then it’d - he’d - be okay.
“Where is my heart?” he asks, and he wonders about his memories, too, wonders where everything that used to be has left and why he stayed, and he wonders and wonders and wonders, and there’s only silence and unanswered worries.
Seimei kisses his hair, hands petting his cat ears and it warms him for less than a heartbeat.
“I don’t know,” Seimei answers, and his hand feels too warm, almost uncomfortably so against his back, even with the shirt and covers he has drawn to him. He’s always cold, hypothermia, probably. Or, rather cardiothermia. “With my Ritsuka, perhaps.”
He turns his head to the bedside, so that he can still hear Seimei’s heart and looks towards the picture there, the one of Seimei and the boy that has his face and his ears and his hair, but suddenly he understands that he has it backwards.
The boy’s eyes are skylight blue, his smile carefree and innocent and so, so happy that he both hates him and craves for him. His own eyes are bruise-colored, cluttered-blood-colored and the irony is so strong that he feels like crying and laughing, both at the same time.
Instead he just closes his eyes and holds tighter unto Seimei, playing pretend for some more.
- III -
His wounds don’t bleed. They disappear after a while, barely leaving a mark, but when Ritsuka’s mother hurts him, cuts him with glass and hands, his blood stays quiet and dark, and the disappointment fills in the hole inside his chest.
“He’s NOT my Ritsuka! Give him back!” The woman shrills; desperate and scared and Seimei just covers his wounds and smiles at him, soft and deep and the ache grows unbearable, makes him wrap arms tight around Seimei’s waist and take deep breaths and hold his breath, wishing for that to fill the void.
- IV -
He reads, as much as he can, as frequent as he possible can when he still has to live Ritsuka’s life and go to school and to the therapist and try to be a normal kid when he’s not, when he’s nothing but a walking-talking corpse, when somewhere out there his heart is waiting for him.
He feels angry most of the time, and hopes that the books might give him an idea on the when, the how, the why; he knows he has to search but the world is so big and so cold and only Seimei calms the missing parts of him.
Philosophy, he discovers, also soothes him, even if it’s only a moment. He can’t say he feels passion about it; most of the times he feels apathetic about everything, but it’s almost enough, the way it makes him think. After all, thoughts are the shadows of our feelings-always darker, emptier, simpler2.
- V -
He doesn’t cry when Seimei dies. He doesn’t cry during the wake. He doesn’t cry when Seimei’s mother slaps him for that, her husband holding her and telling him to go away, even as the woman’s cries keep saying that it’s his fault, that Seimei had been burnt away because of him.
He goes to Ritsuka’s room and takes off the black suit, puts it carefully back in it’s place and puts on Ritsuka’s clothes and walks out of there and to Seimei’s room. He sits over Seimei’s bed and then lies down, face up, and then rolls on his stomach, taking deep breaths of Seimei’s smell.
He waits for the tears to come, knows that he should be crying, but he just falls asleep like that, waiting and feeling even emptier than usual.
- VI -
Ritsu is the one to keep Ritsuka’s heart safe, wanting to test the strength of bond between Sacrifice and Fighter. He smiles at the ‘investors’ when they visit, as he has come to call the Nobodies, and shares the most recent discoveries, and doesn’t say a thing when they speak about taking the Nobody away.
Nanatsu no Tsuki isn’t, after all, the only Organization that cares about the results.
In her room in Castle Oblivion, Naminè draws pictures of the boy with eyes the color of sunsets and paints a butterfly with black and blue wings over his shirt, where his heart should be, and then she looks through the windows and closes her eyes.
If you look at the picture the right way, it seems the wings are fluttering. Up, down, up, down, up down.
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
- VII -
Loveless. It sounds like a bad joke, more ironies that he’d laugh about if he could, but laughter and smiles and even tears all feel too fake.
It’s not fair that he’s Loveless. That just because he doesn’t have a heart he has to be, and he finds himself almost hating Soubi, hating him almost with the same intensity that he hateslovescraves for the real Ritsuka.
He makes him angry him, with his easy way of saying ‘I Love You’, angers him that he could mean it because the idiot has a heart and he doesn’t even realize how precious that is, how much he’d give to be able to have that, doesn’t seem to realize how much his words rattle him and make it almost impossible to keep on pretending that he’s normal, that he’s Ritsuka.
After all, it seems he’s ‘Loveless’ and that almost makes sense. He’s already heartless after all.
- VIII -
It hurts when Soubi kisses him. Deep inside his chest, where the empty space waits and fills with craving and need and want, when Soubi kisses him and holds him and says ‘I’d do anything for you’ it hurts, hurts so badly that he can’t stop from crying.
The beat of Soubi’s heart doesn’t soothe him like Seimei’s did, his warmth burns him rather than take away the cold. It makes him crave for that to be inside him, and Soubi’s eyes seem to say ‘I’ll share’ without even knowing what he’s offering, without realizing what he’s saying without words.
He hates it when Soubi says ‘Ritsuka’, and hates it even more when Soubi calls him ‘Loveless’.
- IX -
He almost wonders if it’s a dream, except that he doesn’t dream, ever. He’s face down over Soubi’s bed, a blanket covering him, and there’s a wound over his face that stings a little if he tries to move so he doesn’t.
Soubi is painting nearby, the light of a lamp making his hair paler, softer, almost translucent, and his eyes are so very, very blue without his glasses.
It’s weird, he thinks, how Soubi always seems so young without his glasses. Much more innocent. Much more hurt.
‘BELOVED’ doesn’t bleed now over his neck, and he looks softly as Soubi paints a blue-black butterfly over the wisteria that grows around a window. Looking from it there’s a young girl with the saddest eyes he has ever seen.
If he looks long enough, it seems that the girl’s eyelids move softly, as if she was looking at the butterfly.
- X -
“Make it stop,” he asks Soubi, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, the raw of his voice and the empty inside his chest almost consume him.
Soubi’s hands are wounded. They leave a streak of red over his face and he thinks it’s almost as if he was bleeding, with the way that seems to hurt him.
Everything seems to hurt and that’s so strange, because without blood running over him he shouldn’t be able to feel that much.
Perhaps it’s because they’re saying Seimei is alive and he doesn’t want to believe it, because then all the blame he has been putting over Nanatsu no Tsuki is worthless. All the should-feel-anger he’s been telling himself that it’s there, it’s all for nothing.
Soubi holds him tightly and he closes his eyes to hear the staccato of Soubi’s heart, how it seems to flow inside him and wrap tendrils around him, and it doesn’t suit the hole inside him, but it seems to take away everything that has been pooling around his empty chest and he’s surprised when he notices he’s crying.
“I am yours,” Soubi says, his hands so warm over his back and shoulders that they should be burning his skin, not make him feel… just feel. “Everything I own, everything in me is yours. I love you.”
And he kisses Soubi to shut him up, pushes Soubi’s shoulder on the bold and holds on tightly as he kisses him again, and then once more and again and again, because his words and his steady eyes keep on tearing inside him and he’s so afraid of breaking up completely, so afraid of disappearing and never being complete that he can’t even explain it.
- XI -
When they get to the School, he takes a deep breath. He’s shivering, but it’s not the usual coldness he feels. He’s shivering because he has started to feel warm, a low tingling buzz that crawls over his skin and leaves imprints over his skin, as if saying ‘it’s here’.
Soubi takes his hand, squeezes and he almost tells him not to; hope is too painful, to unbearable. It’s a personal betrayal, but even that small thing makes him think that maybe, maybe.
“We’ll find your heart,” Soubi says and they walk hand in hand and he thinks that yes, they will, but he’s a little afraid of the rest that’s going to come too even if it’s ridiculous.
He wonders if being this greedy is bad. He wants his heart, he wants the truth, he wants to know if Seimei is dead or alive, he wants and he wants.
Soubi’s hand is so very warm on his, and he twines their fingers together, following a path he doesn’t know but that kind of feels right.
- XII -
“Not my fight,” the redhead says. His eyes are so focused over him and Soubi that he holds tighter to Soubi’s hands, feels the Fighter squeeze back. He doesn’t know what that look means, but then the redhead grins and just like that, the other set of Fighter and Sacrifice pull over the system and they’re fighting again.
He’s not sure of the name of the other pair. They’re wearing black cloaks and it feels so dramatic, to hear their words, their spells. He holds tightly to Soubi’s waist, even when the chains come; Soubi’s hand touches his hair, soothing, nervous, there.
“Your bond shatters, like a thousand glasses cutting through.” He screams, the nearness of his heart makes his blood sing; a few precious drops roll over his cheek. Inside him it’s throbbing. The Fighter’s smile is all edges.
He still holds unto Soubi despite the pain. “I’m okay… go, Soubi.”
“Your words scatter like birds in the breeze,” Soubi holds him, his hand moving to his shoulder and he thinks he can almost feel Soubi’s heart, tries to make his breathing match his, and the chain around their necks disappeared. “You can’t break this bond.”
Another chain breaks and he holds tightly to Soubi. He wonders if it hurts him, knows that Soubi wouldn’t mind that, would probably even like it.
The Sacrifice speaks then, and he’s almost certain he hears Soubi’s heart stop beating for a few seconds inside his chest.
“Oh, can’t I? I’ll have to see about that.”
It can’t be, he thinks. There’s no way. He looks up at Soubi, waiting for betrayal, but Soubi’s shock mirrors his own. The other Sacrifice steps forward, the Fighter taking off the cloak and giving a smirk.
“Seimei!” He called, unbelieving, not wanting to believe it.
The Sacrifice smiles, takes off his cloak. His eyes are skylight blue and seem so soft and sweet. He has a key around his neck.
“I was wondering when you were going to recognize me, Ritsuka.”
He doesn’t scream this time; the hurt that shows in Soubi’s eyes does it on it’s own. Seimei sighs.
“Nisei?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the Fighter steps up again, and over his hand the name ‘BELOVED’ seems to glow. “A wall of fire breaks you apart. Your bond smolders.”
“Now, this is more my thing.” The redhaired guy says with a grin.
- XIII -
Seimei has it. His heart. He tries to resist its call, holding tightly to Soubi’s hand but his heart is there, inside the chest Seimei is carrying and it’s hard to concentrate on anything else but that.
“You survived,” Seimei is saying. He doesn’t seem to care that his Fighter is injured, and he has all but ignored Soubi, as if he hadn’t been his Fighter. “And you found your heart. You’re superior, Ritsuka. We both are. Come here, with me. We can do so much more,”
His eyes don’t leave him and he smiles, summer soft and autumn warmth as he moves an arm from the chest, offers it to him with the same sweet smile in which he used to kiss his wounds better.
Soubi’s hand seems so cold in his. So afraid. He swallows, eyes focused over the chest, but doesn’t move from Soubi’s side. He’s trembling.
“No,” he says, voice trembling, so he swallows his craving and holds tighter unto Soubi’s hand, voice firmer. “No. I’m staying here. With Soubi. I… I won’t. Go. No.”
Seimei’s eyes darken at that. “Don’t forget, I have your heart.”
He remembers Soubi’s word and Soubi’s kisses, and he moves his hand to Soubi’s pulse and finds it accelerated but there, always there; he thinks that’s almost enough, that he might be fine even if he only has that; he and Soubi can make do, he thinks, with a heart between them both.
Soubi seems to think the same because he straightens and he looks at him, at the young-old eyes without his glasses and at the drop of blood rolling down his face. Seimei seems angry, and he’s finally looking at Soubi.
Soubi mutters some words he doesn’t understand, ‘lumière’, and his hand seems to glow.
“”I am yours,” he says, eyes on him with that same smile before he looks towards Seimei again. “I’ll give Ritsuka my heart if it’s needed.”
When Soubi moves his hand, he understands.
“Soubi, no!”
There’s a light then, a sudden flash of something, and the chest that Seimei’s holding seems to combust. Ritsuka’s heart floats for a moment, drifting, before it’s rushing towards the boy at the same time he’s wrapping his arms around Soubi and closing his eyes.
Last thing he’s really aware off is warmth, and Soubi’s arms wrapping tightly around him.
-♥-
Carefully, Naminè puts the last touches of blue over the butterfly’s wings, a last shading of light over their face.
She looks at the picture of a young boy who’s holding a long haired man who’s holding a young boy, and she sighs a little when she thinks she can almost see a chain that holds them together, just where the butterfly is resting.
1. Papilio Ulysses.
2. Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings-always darker, emptier, simpler. - Friedrich Nietzche.
3. The whole ‘Namine-paints-Soubi-paints-Namine’ was sort of inspired by this: “A man dreamt he was a butterfly flying happily among trees. It was such a vivid dream that when he awoke and found himself a man, he did not know for certain that he was not really a butterfly dreaming he was a man.” By Chuang-Tsu.