6Note: The idea of this story belongs to Anne-Li. I read her wonderful story, Alpha Set, which uses this set of words to describe the relationship between Klaus and Dorian from "From Erioica, with Love" (a wonderful, extremely funny/slashy manga). Thank you, Anne-Li!
Disclaimer: Do not own Subaru, Seishirou, Kamui, or Fuuma. All belongs to CLAMP.
1. Comfort – The room is so tiny the bed is crammed in the door and the mirror reflects his pillows, no matter where he hangs it. The Fung Shui is all wrong, and he will probably die a horrible, untimely death – but for now, Seishirou's arms around him are quite nice.
2. Kiss – His ofuda kissed him first. One of those arrogant hawks he likes so much: it paused mid-attack, cocked its head, and pecked Subaru on the lips. It hurt – beaks are not meant for smooching – but Subaru was not given time to protest.
He bloodied Seishirou's lips right back. Jealous git.
3. Soft – Kamui is soft in ways no one should be. Subaru tells himself he is helping him mature but spends his time trying to protect that softness. Mostly, he fails at both.
4. Pain – A stray bullet, the doctor explained later. Subaru does not remember feeling pain, does remember seeing it in a pair of mismatched eyes.
The next morning, there are flowers by his bed.
5. Mochi – Subaru hates mochi. It is sticky and gummy and rather difficult to swallow with another man's tongue in his mouth.
6. Rain – Subaru wants to die on a sunny, spring afternoon. Rain is not for people like him.
7. Chocolate – Seishirou – the proper one, not the mild-eyed vet – detests chocolate. Subaru has taken to looking forward to February the 14th with malicious glee. It is even worth the box of expensive white truffles a sour-eyed hawk would deliver several days later.
8. Happiness – After everything is over, Subaru walks sakura-littered grounds and thinks he might be happy. There is no one left to lose, after all.
9. Telephone – "For the last time, I do not need life insurance. If you do not stop phoning me, two weeks from now you won't need any, either."
10. Eyes – They almost match. Subaru considers buying colored lenses until Seishirou praises him for looking less and less like Hokuto-chan. That night, Subaru breaks every mirror in his apartment; the shame remains.
11. Name – A name holds power over a person's self, until the day he or she dies.
Subaru's name has been nothing but ink on paper for nine years.
12. Sensual – When Seishirou kisses his hands, he slides his lips over the spaces between his knuckles – soft warmth, the tiniest of pressure. At night, Subaru pushes his palms beneath the pillow until they are numb.
13. Death – He stole that from him, too.
14. Sex – Never. He has remained untouched, although they had come close – but the bastard had a notion of who Subaru was to be, and what he was to have. Subaru thinks of fucking a stranger just to spite him, but finds the energy required missing.
What a good doll he has become.
15. Touch – Her tombstone is always cold.
Seishirou has no grave, but the very thought of him burns his lips.
16. Weakness –Fuuma's fingers in his skull, fire spreading liquid-thin down his neck and chest. He hopes to Kami the bastard digs deeper and does not leave the job half-done.
17. Tears – He does not want to cry; the fucker does not deserve it. Yet there is very little else one can do when a loved one, although a stranger, dies in their arms.
18. Speed – Sixteen years had passed too fast. Sometimes, Subaru imagines his memories a film and tries to enjoy them that way.
19. Wind – "The London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down—"
Kamui drags him to earth by force. Cold does not bite his face, trap his limbs in flapping clothes any longer. Still, it echoes in his body, behind his ribcage – finally empty.
20. Freedom – When Hokuto-chan dies, Subaru finally has a choice.
21. Life – Subaru thinks it was a tad bit much, even without a battle to decide the fate of the world. He hypothesizes the Heavens must be unimaginably boring.
22. Jealousy – Every now and then, Subaru takes to feeding one of the stray animals wandering around his apartment. Its sudden death proves Seishirou still cares.
23. Hands – He rather likes the inverted pentagrams. After Seishirou dies, he carves them into his hands so they can never fade. Suiting: their owner had done the same to Subaru's heart.
24. Taste – Cigarette smoke sickens him. He smokes to remember the man who diseased his life.
25. Devotion – He is not the only one to visit Fuuma, but he is the only one to talk with him. The doctors and nurses are nice enough, but cannot understand the poor, fractured man like Subaru.
He still calls himself Kamui; Subaru looks at his own scarred hands and forgives him.
26. Forever – The souls bound to the Sakura remain within the Tree until the end. Subaru had not been aware that the same applied to him.
Seishirou's spirit smiles at him smugly from across the kitchen counter. Subaru sighs and pours himself a third cup of coffee.
27. Blood – is thicker than water, but spills just as easily. Subaru had learned that many times over.
28. Sickness – when Grandmother dies, he is prepared. This kind of sickness he can understand.
29. Melody – The cry of a hawk still makes him tremble, ache inside.
30. Star – Subaru finds it hard to imagine that they had been destined to this, to ruin, by planets long dead. When he asks Hinoto, she glares at him from behind a curtain of silver hair.
Sorata incompetently hides his laughter behind a sudden bout of coughs.
31. Home – These days, sakura petals are always stuck to some part of Subaru's body.
32. Confusion – Subaru had been a rather fortunate teenager; his sexual-identity crisis had lasted exactly thirty-three seconds – the time it took for Seishirou to speak to him for the first time.
33. Fear – Subaru sometimes misses the days when he feared causing others pain. Those times become rarer and rarer; he thinks he is finally getting somewhere.
34. Lightning/Thunder – Once during That Year, it had stormed so hard the window in their apartment had shattered under the onslaught. Seishirou had shielded him that time, too; he had detested his sister for helping him take out the glass from the older man's soft flesh.
35. Bonds – He ties them tighter, draws them bolder, until all he has all he is all he wants is—
Well. Dead.
36. Market – Buying groceries with Seishirou-san is more excruciating than exorcising a particularly stubborn spirit. At least ghosts do not squeeze his butt when he isn't paying attention.
37. Technology – He will never understand computers. How was he to know the camera was on? Now Kamui has blackmail, and Seishirou refuses to be embarrassed about any of it.
38. Gift – During the Bet, Seishirou bought him things all the time. He kept them, down to the last candy-wrapper.
They made a nice bonfire at his sister's funeral.
39. Smile – When he finally found him, nine years later, the grin that stretched his lips burned all the way down.
40. Innocence – In many ways, unimportant ways, Subaru remains an innocent. Seishirou wants it so; it soothes his twisted sense of responsibility.
41. Completion – They have danced along each other for so long, the final steps seemed rather banal now. Subaru does not mind; he knows the music will resume soon enough.
42. Clouds – Tokyo has them in abundance come summer. Always gray, always heavy with rain – once upon a time, he had cared enough to shield against their sullen attacks with an umbrella. Now, he rather enjoys the feeling of drowning on earth.
43. Sky – It is ugly, dirty-black out today. It rather reminds him of someone's eyes.
Subaru reschedules all of his appointments and spends the day by the window-ledge.
44. Heaven – He is of Heaven, but it is Earth that bounds him so.
45. Hell – Subaru thinks he is rather well prepared for it, all things considered. That feeling lasts until his next meetings with important government officials, in the midst of which he generally reconsiders; it could be a lot worse.
46. Sun – There is a place for all of them, but some need to stand closer to the sun than healthy.
47. Moon – He detests nights of light; thankfully, Tokyo's artificial brand of bright distills the clear glow. Darkness is not meant to be mellowed.
48. Waves – As a child, Subaru had been afraid of the water, ran screaming from the lapping of playful tides. He had not learned how to swim, not until Seishirou was there to guide his body through the waves with sure, strong hands.
He had drowned him, too, but that had come much later.
49. Hair – Subaru decides to grow his hair out. She is no longer his model; he has a different guide to follow now.
50. Supernova – Their first kiss: an explosion of color and sound behind his tightly-clenched eyelids. He had thought it love; now he rather believes it had been an especially masterful illusion breaking.
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