2002 Jessica A. Edstrom
The tails of a pale trench coat followed the weary trudge of one Sumeragi Subaru as he made his way through the hauntingly familiar streets of Shinjuku. It was a little chilly, even for this late in the spring, so his hands were thrust into the depths of his pockets. He guessed it was probably because of the breeze, but didn’t really care one way or the other. It was all just another random thought running through his mind. He briefly noticed that he never dwelled on anything these days—
Except Seishirou.
Day and night, constantly for five years, the man had been on his mind. His secretive charm, darkly handsome appearance… darkly handsome? Subaru laughed a little under his breath. Well, he supposed that’s what the Sakurazukamori would be described as. He, himself, couldn’t quite put a name to it right now. It had always escaped him. But whatever it was about the onmyoujii assassin that had fascinated him as a boy, it had begun to quietly consume him.
Now he wandered Tokyo, seemingly without purpose. His grandmother knew the reason, though, as did he. He was here for the end. The Year of Destiny had arrived, and he decided that if it was going to be the end of the city he once loved, he should be there for it. And the all-encompassing, driving motive behind his reasoning was that Seishirou would be there for it, too. That had settled it for him, and he’d boarded the first train from Kyoto.
When he’d arrived, he’d half expected to see Seishirou right off the bat, at the spot they’d met in the first place. Ah, but it wasn’t the first place, was it? No. So, he’d made his way towards the skyscrapers of Shinjuku, where the dreamy nightmare had begun.
That was a week ago. And still he was here, lurking around, ever closer to Ueno Park by the day, even as the Sakurazukamori lurked in his memory. And still he could not bring himself to go in, to stand beneath that sakura tree again, for fear of what he might find there. More correctly, for the fear of what he might not find.
He knew that if he walked in, and if Seishirou did not come, was not there, then he would be truly destroyed. His life would have no meaning any more, and would not be a life at all. If Seishirou did not even want to kill him anymore, to toy with him casually—
If he was truly nothing to the man, forgotten and lost to him… he didn’t want to come to terms with what would become of him then. He shuddered, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the short gust of wind sneaking into his coat or his train of thought. He hugged the coat a little closer and stopped, gazing vacantly across the street.
And there it was, as if the mental image of the place had brought his feet here unconsciously. In fact, it might have. Either way, Ueno Park was not more than twenty yards away, separated from him only by four lanes of traffic and a crosswalk. He made up his mind, set his jaw, and waited for the light.
So here he was again. Standing silent beneath the sakura, trying to look like he should be there when he really didn’t know why he was. That wasn’t entirely true, of course. He knew why he’d come back. Yet as he glanced up solemnly at the tree after a while, with its ever-pink blossoms, he couldn’t help cursing his stupidity. He should have known better after all, shouldn’t he…
Cursing himself, though, only made matters worse. That admitted that he was feeling sorry for himself, and that was something he’d told himself countless times not to do. So, he turned the gaze on the tree to one of passing to one of contempt, and cursed the sakura instead.
“This is all your fault, you damnable tree,” he muttered quietly to it, trying to sound as hateful of the thing as he could. He knew of course that it couldn’t possibly hear him or care, but he thought it might help. It didn’t. Instead, it only came out sounding as miserable as he was deep inside, and only ended up looking like he was talking to a tree. He was, but that was beside the point.
He mentally cursed himself again, and fell forward a few inches, resting his forehead against the sakura’s trunk. “No, it isn’t your fault. It’d be nice if it was, but it’s mine. Always mine.” He shut his eyes as a single petal fell on his head in reply, sighing heavily into the perfumed air.
Still, Seishirou did not come. And still, Subaru could not tear himself away from that spot. So still he waited.
Oh, why had he come back here? He’d wanted an answer, and now he was going to get it. He wanted to die right there on the spot.
“That can be arranged, you know, Subaru-kun.” A smooth tenor voice was just behind him, whispering in his ear calmly. For the barest of instants, Subaru thought it might have been his imagination. He whirled, and came face to face with the real version of the ghost that constantly haunted him—
Sakurazuka Seishirou, Sakurazukamori.
Now everything Subaru had considered telling him sank from the top of his mind to the very bottom again, leaving nothing for him to grasp at but emptiness. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a tight, strangled sounding, “Sei—.”
The dark man laughed softly, a little smile playing about his features as it always did. “Nice to see you again, too.”
Subaru shook his head, trying in vain to clear it, loosing the sakura petal that had graced it earlier. Seishirou snatched the little slip of pink from the air in a swift, fluid motion, and held it in the palm of his hand. He held it out to the young Sumeragi. “Here, you dropped this.”
All Subaru could do was stare into Seishirou’s sunglasses and wonder what he was up to. He tried to mask his confusion with sarcasm. “So are you actually going to kill me this time?”
“Why? That wouldn’t be any fun, would it?”
Subaru made a small sound of contempt. “No, I didn’t think so. It’s so much more entertaining for you to hurt me every now and then, let me go, and laugh while you watch me suffer, isn’t it.” It was more of a statement than a question. He turned his head away slightly, before a new consideration struck him. “Still, I’ve always wondered why you don’t just get it over with by now. It must get boring after a while, and who wants to play with a broken toy, anyway?” he asked, raising one sardonic eyebrow and returning his eyes to Seishirou’s shades.
He found his back slamming painfully into the trunk of the sakura a moment later, effectively pinned there by Seishirou’s left shoulder. He gasped as the breath was snatched from his lungs, and felt a hand close around the turtleneck at his throat.
“Subaru-kun, it would be incredibly easy to kill you right now. But if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to win our little bet. Besides, it’s what you want me to do, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes.” Seishirou moved his hand from Subaru’s neck to his cheek, and the boy beneath it shuddered. That’s what he’d always be to Seishirou, the helpless boy.
Subaru shut his eyes hard in answer to that, and gave in to the conflicting emotions he’d been subduing for so long. He flung himself at Seishirou, burying his head against the Sakurazukamori’s chest. Subaru clung to the soft leather of the mirroring black trench coat, felt the cotton and silk of the shirt and tie combination. “Damn you and your stupid bet!” he cried, pounding one fist feebly against the other’s chest. His voice then became barely more than a whisper on the breeze, mumbling into Seishirou’s tie, a broken, “Damn you.”
The taller man gripped Subaru’s shoulders, pushing him away almost gently. He looked down at the despairing Sumeragi. “That won’t do you any good, either. You know I’ll never feel anything for you. Why won’t you just give it up and accept that?”
“Why won’t you just kill me?” Subaru countered with a question of his own, albeit a repeated one.
Seishirou sighed. “I told you why.”
Subaru wanted to beat his head against something, but refrained from it. How this man frustrated him! “You won’t kill me, you can’t love me—damn it, what is it you want from me?”
“I want to settle our bet.”
Subaru threw his hands up in defeat. “Again with the bet!” he exclaimed, exasperated.
“Well, what is it you want from me, then, Subaru? I’ve given you all the answers I can.” Seishirou’s dark, wing like eyebrows came together, the smile fading at last.
To that, Subaru was silent again. His anger flooded away, and only the tired, empty shell remained again. “I don’t know. I thought I did, but I’m not sure anymore. I’m not sure of anything anymore.” He shook his head.
The silence between them was nearly tangible, and the seconds hung heavy in the air before Subaru spoke again. “I want one answer from you. It’ll just be another lie, but I want to hear it anyway. Although, after all the hell you’ve put me through, I think I deserve at least one honest answer out of you, even if it’s the only one I ever get. Is that too much to ask of the Sakurazukamori?”
Seishirou didn’t reply with a yes or no, and left Subaru to his own on that. “What’s your question?”
Subaru reached up, touching a marked hand to Seishirou’s right cheek tentatively, slipping his fingers behind the sunglasses to rest his thumb just below the false eye. “If you never cared about me, why did you give this to save me back then?”
Seishirou pulled back, an uncharacteristic jumpiness in his action. He readjusted the shades, pushing them back up on his nose, and looked off in a vagrant direction. “So many ‘why’s’, Subaru-kun,” he sighed. “That mad woman would have killed you. I couldn’t have let that happen. I’m the only one who gets to do that. I found you first, after all.” Seishirou turned to leave, putting his hands in his pockets. “Besides, I didn’t say that I never cared about you.”
“So. So so so…” Subaru had his answer. But it wasn’t the one he was expecting.
“You never say the words I’m expecting to hear, do you?” he asked quietly, smiling weakly.
“No, I suppose not.” Seishirou began walking out of the park, but turned just before the gate and looked back at Subaru through those dark sunglasses. “Oh, and Subaru-kun?” Subaru’s attention snapped to him. “I just wanted to let you know… I tried.” A good-bye wave of black leather on the breeze, and the Sakurazukamori was gone again.
And the thirteenth head of the Sumeragi clan, Sumeragi Subaru, was left standing alone beneath the sakura, once more the helpless boy.
