andrew_in_drag | House of Cards: 34/?? (Reply)

Title: House of Cards
Author:

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: THE TIGER'S BRIDE

Shinya woke up to a bright shaft of morning sunlight on his face. For a moment he resisted, screwing up his nose irritably, but finally he blinked himself awake and sat up groggily, one hand running through his white-blond hair.

His back ached because of the way he'd slept. Die's bed was a single, but it wouldn't have mattered if it had been some emperor-sized triple quadruple whatever; Shinya had never shared a bed before. He hadn't known how to behave. He had been desperately tired but he'd sat awake until just before dawn, trying to postpone the inevitable bedtime until finally Die had slipped a hand around his waist – just let it rest there, warming his skin through the fabric of his T-shirt – and said to him, “Lie down with me.”

Normally when people whispered in his ears like that, he hated it. Their voices seemed to swell into oppressive, burdensome objects that he longed to physically bat away.

Die's voice had been very low and light, though, and his breath had tickled the side of Shinya's neck in a way that made him feel shivery. He had done it, too. He'd nodded and sunk a little further into his slouch, and he had flushed hotly and looked away when Die pulled his T-shirt off. The thought of getting into bed next to that bare skin was simultaneously frightening and exciting, like the scariest ride at the amusement park; he had kept his own clothes on, however. When he got between the sheets he was still fully dressed, and he had curled up as tight as possible and kept his back to Die all night long. He didn't know how he had ever managed to fall asleep that way; he'd been tense as a spring on his side of the mattress, every muscle tightening whenever Die so much as brushed him.

Now, in the morning light, he studied Die closely. The older man's red hair was tangled over the pillow and Shinya smoothed it away from his face carefully.

He hardly knew him at all, really.

So how did it happen?

“I don't even know you,” he whispered, “But I want you too.”

He bit his lip, gently stroking more of Die's hair into place. “I might only ever be able to tell you this way,” he confessed quietly, “But it's not because I doubt it, or anything like that. I – I want it more than anything.”

He realised suddenly that there were tears in his eyes. They were quite unlike the hot, fevered tears of frustration that he was used to: instead, he felt an ache of melancholy so strong that it was almost pleasurable, like a white hot pain that seemed to burn the poison out. He smiled, although a tear trickled down his cheek.

“Hey,” he whispered futilely, knowing his voice was far too choked and soft, “Wake up.”

He hesitated, and then quickly kissed his cheek. Still Die slept on, his face blank and calm and totally oblivious to the soft lips pressed against it. It felt good though, Shinya thought. Very, very slowly, careful not to let a single bedspring creak, he lowered himself back until he was lying down next to Die again, facing him this time, curled up to him like a twin. He pressed their foreheads together lightly and smiled even though he still felt tearful. It felt funny being so close to him and looking at him when he wasn't wearing a shirt, and it made Shinya wonder what it would be like if his life was really like this. If he really woke up this way every day, with Die's peaceful face next to his and Miyu a warm, softly-snoring lump over his feet. It could be good, couldn't it, it could really be—

The door slammed open, and Shinya jumped so hard and so suddenly that he headbutted Die straight in the face. There was a terrible confusion of tangled bed sheets, barking dog and Die yelping himself awake, clutching his nose; it was only when the din and chaos cleared slightly that Shinya realised the shateigashira was standing in the doorway and eyeing both of them – their clothes in disarray and their hair mussed – with a singularly displeased expression on his face.

“Boss!” Die said. His voice came out shocked but oddly thick; he was still clutching his face, “It's no – it isn't—”

There was a look that Shinya couldn't recognise on Die's face. He could tell when people were sad and happy, but everything between that tended to blur together. He blinked hard, trying to clear his head, and noticed that he felt strangely – trapped. Like he'd been caught doing something, but what exactly?

Die was pulling himself out of bed, still cupping his nose gingerly. “Boss,” he said hurriedly, “It's nothing like – we were just talking late last night and we fell asleep, that's it.”

Which was true, sort of, but it made Shinya feel all bruised inside. Kyo's eyes leapt from him to Die, from him to Die.

“It's no concern of mine who you spend your leisure time with,” he said at last, coolly, “But it's nine o'clock and there is a lot of work to do today.”

“Right, boss!” Die said, struggling to pull his shirt over his head without letting go of his nose. Shinya's heart thumped anxiously. Everything seemed wrong somehow; he just couldn't say why.

But he fixed a smile on his face and pulled Miyu onto his lap, and as Die shot out of the door after the shateigashira he had a rushed, slightly helpless look on his face, as if he had been about to say something but thought better of it, and so he looked back only for a moment before he was gone.

Kyo took Die back to his bedroom, where he nodded him curtly inside and locked the door behind them both. Die noticed that Toshiya was still fast asleep in Kyo's bed, but he made a diligent effort to appear as if he hadn't seen a thing. He stared straight at the shateigashira's feet, feeling flushed and rumpled from his rude awakening.

Kyo crossed agitatedly to the window and drummed his fingers against the sill. He jerked his chin in Toshiya's direction, prompting a new blush from Die: he had been trying very hard to ignore the prostitute's existence.

“Clothes,” he said shortly. “I need clothes for him. Where do I go to get that?”

“I...” Whatever Die had been expecting, it wasn't that. “Boss?”

“Clothes,” Kyo repeated stiffly, as if he was talking to an idiot. “Real ones, not the rags he came in here with.”

“You...did you want me to take him shopping, boss?”

Another curt little nod.

“I understand it's not your job, but I don't trust anybody else.” He stared impassively out of the window, but Die saw the corners of his mouth seem to soften slightly, “You understand how sensitive this situation is.”

“I...of course, boss. Absolutely.”

“He must not look like a whore, do you understand? It's very important that he looks entirely different from when he first arrived here.”

A vision of that first, fragile Toshiya floated up in front of Kyo like a soap bubble: the ripped clothes hanging off his skinny, undernourished frame; the fresh blue bruises layering over the older ones and the blood in his long, tangled hair. He had looked so young, and Kyo felt a twinge of sorrow, as if that first scared, baby-birdlike Toshiya had somehow passed out of existence.

“He liked boys like you. Actually, everybody in the world likes boys like you.”

“What do you have? Beauty. Beauty, which will fade.”

“Once a whore, always a whore.”

Kyo winced now, if he hadn't winced then.

Somehow it already seemed so long ago; a lifetime ago. Back in that dead summer, they had been different people entirely.

Had he always felt Toshiya was somehow – special? Different? That couldn't be the case.

“I – I understand, boss. What does he...” Die cleared his throat awkwardly, “What does he need?”

Kyo shot Die a quick look of something that might have been gratitude. Then, his face reverted to its usual stoniness, and when he spoke his voice was as cold and efficient as ever.

“He needs formal wear,” Kyo said decisively. “Western and traditional. We had one suit made for him; he needs more. More shirts, more ties. Proper kimono. For social events and sombre occasions, too, like funerals.”

“Funerals?” Die said nervously, “Nobody's dead, are they?”

Kyo shot him a glacial look.

“Not yet,” he said pointedly. “He needs casual clothes, too. You're responsible for making him look presentable; is that clear?”

“I get it, boss. But...”

But why? had been on the tip of his tongue, but one look at Kyo's face cautioned him to swallow it. He nodded dumbly and a tense silence stretched between them.

“But nothing,” Kyo said at last. “I'll want to see him before six this evening. Our Esteemed Father wants a small gathering of us at his house tonight, and Toshiya is going to accompany me.”

“I see,” Die said quickly, not seeing at all.

“There's more than that, Die. I want you to go down to our establishment in the pleasure district and inform the proprietor of his mistake, on my behalf.”

“Of course, boss.” Die hesitated. “What mistake is that?”

Kyo stared fixedly out of the window.

“He's under the impression that Toshiya used to work there,” the shateigashira stated. “I want you to impress upon him what a terrible misunderstanding that is. I want him to be aware that if he ever sees Toshiya again, he should bow and show him the same respect he would to you or any of my men. I want you to – make him understand, Die. Make him.”

“You want me to rough him up, boss?”

“If it's necessary. If it helps to jog his memory.”

Kyo sighed gently, resting his fingers against the windowpane as if he was trying to feel the chill of the day through the glass.

“Do whatever it takes,” he added finally. “I want you to have your pistol with you at all times today. If the proprietor won't see sense—” he hesitated, “Shoot him. If Toshiya tries to get away...”

A longer pause, this time. Kyo's hands made hard, white-knuckled fists. “Shoot him.”

Kaoru awoke from a terrible dream.

He sat bolt upright on his futon and gasped, a cold sweat beading across his skin and dampening his hair. It was a Saturday, his only day off, but he felt too perturbed to go back to sleep: already the concrete happenings of his dream had faded, but the feeling of it remained with him.

All he really knew was that it had been about the man, the man from the café. Reita.

Reita had disappeared.

Ever since had had first lost the strange man in the city crowds, Kaoru had been keeping an eye out for him: he had visited Kai's café every day and stayed as long as he possibly could, bringing his notes and his reports and completing his work diligently at one or another of the cracked formica tables, whilst Kai clucked over him and fed him black coffee. Without seeing the man again, he had absolutely nothing to go on apart from the little hole-in-the-wall eatery and a name that sounded awfully made up, and so he had no other choice. He drank coffee until his nerves were jangling and his blood felt like it was tap-dancing its way through its ears, but Reita stubbornly refused to appear and it showed on Kai's face.

“I just don't understand,” he had said fretfully, tearing a paper napkin into little shreds, “He comes in every day. I mean, every day. Even when he's sick!”

It made Kaoru feel guilty, as though he had scared Reita away, but it also made him feel like he might have been right. Innocent people didn't fade away, after all; it was only the guilty who made a business of disappearing.

Which meant that he did have something to hide.

But then, Kaoru thought agitatedly, it seemed almost everybody had something to hide, these days. Absolutely everybody. All you had to do was find the key to the closet, and from there you could sit back and watch the skeletons fall.

A/N: Shinya headbutting Die in the face – okay, so true confession time, I once did this to my boyfriend. We were in his room in his student house and one of his roomies came barging in unexpectedly, and I jumped so hard that I smacked my eye into his nose. He was in agony, I got a black eye. Luckily, we agreed not to talk about it again, following an incident wherein he sleep-punched me in the boob. Because romance.

Also, Kyo feeling like he first met Toshiya forever ago? You and me both, buddy.

House of Cards: 34/??

Post a comment in response: