orendalogs | Destined to meet...

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Destined to meet...

Who: Seimei and Kaoru
What: An Onmyoji seeking closure to a dream...
When: Modern era
Where: Earth
Warnings: TBA

He wasn't sure it was a dream or a nightmare. Hiromasa and Mitsumushi tried to console him, but as the weeks dragged on, Abe no Seimei grew ever more frustrated. He went through every scroll, every book, every painting. He spoke to spirits of the forest and mountain, traded favors with yokai, read the stars...Nothing answered the man's questions about red hair, loving smiles, a dream home, a river. There were demons and vampires and dragons.

Nothing made sense anymore.

The only person who had any advice was someone Seimei rarely listened to: Hiromasa.

"If there's something pulling your heart in a particular direction, you should follow it. You've always been so distant, Seimei. I think it's good that you've found a real passion of your own. Being divine protectors shouldn't be all our lives are about. I'm engaged now, too, so you should--"

Seimei tuned out after that, barely able to keep from rolling his eyes. He had no particular problem with Hiromasa's bride-to-be, he just didn't like hearing about it in relation to his own life. Hiromasa still didn't understand his particular inclinations. However his advice was sound. Seimei had never ignored his instincts before, so why start then? He just had to be patient.

He didn't realize he'd have to be centuries patient, but such was life.

He had to dye his hair black by that point, change his name dozens of times, give up his ancestral home. He wandered and waited. He would live forever, so what did it matter if the path to truly being complete was one he had to walk very slowly?

He just hoped the "prince" in his vague memories was as drawn to him as he was to them. So he took a position at the very home he used to occupy, sweeping his own floors and chanting his own chants, none of the other priests aware that in their very midst was the owner of the building they maintained. He was simply a very quiet and refined man, sleepy-eyed, fox-faced. Always watching the front gates, always a bit distracted but very diligent in his labors. Well-educated but miserable with popular culture, never one to join them in forays to the city. No, he was much too dedicated, some thought. even so, it was obvious he was waiting for something.

Abe no Seimei was waiting for the sunset.

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They had all disappeared from the Bastion over time. Hikaru, then Seimei, and then one day Kaoru himself had woken at home - his family's home - in his own bed, without the reassuring bulk of the anklegator at his side.

Hikaru didn't remember - hadn't recalled, and Kaoru had laughed it off like it had been a dream. From then it had been into a dizzying rush of normal. Breakfast and car and school and club and home and he had fallen into bed so quickly once they had got home that Hikaru had felt his forehead and asked if he was ill.

He had lied and said yes. Chivvied Hikaru off to school and taken the Shinkansen to Kyoto by himself - he could explain it all later. If he were to go all that way and find nothing, he would...

Kaoru didn't know what he would. Bury it down and never address it again.

Travelling so far had been so strange, having the earth be solid and stable underfoot had been stranger. Off the train, he had gone underground, alighted the subway at Imadegawa and headed southwest and down the bustling main road. The five-pointed star was everywhere - Seimei's star on signs, flags, even on manhole covers, all telling him he was heading in the right direction.

The shrine entrance was quaint, the little mascots nearby quainter still, though the little charaicatures tugged on his heart a little. Kaoru almost considered going past several times. What realistically would he find there but statues touched by a thousand tourists?

What indeed. Even Seimei didn't expect to find anything after so long. His faith was shaken after so many centuries. Other foxes had come and gone through his life, granting him one gift or another, congratulating him for nothing greater than existing. It was almost patronizing when all he wanted was so far out of reach. He had made promises and broken them without ever knowing he'd made them in the first place.

It had taken all those centuries for Seimei's dreams to return to being memories. He remembered warmth and friendship, laughter. he remembered something else he could hardly believe: love. That was the only thing that kept him waiting every day as Kyoto fell and rose and changed around him. He wanted so much to leave, to go looking, but he wasn't of the modern age and knew if they were indeed fated to meet again it would have to be the modern boy that sought him in the end; found him in a timeless place.

He had expected to see the hair first, for it to be a glorious revelation like scouting a heavenly body as it drifted in the sky, once in a century, but instead it was something much more subtle. He had forgotten the spells on his home long ago, never bothering to reach out and sense anything once the city grew so tightly around the shrine. What was the point in waiting for something to come near the house when everything was near the house anymore? It was too loud and crowded - absolutely miserable to someone like him, who needed quietude - but he stayed. He waited. And at last a thrill ran up his spine. His skin crawled in the best of ways, forcing him to stop sweeping the steps of the shrine and look up.

It was too busy, like so many days, for him to pick an individual out immediately, but he knew. Someone was looking for him, personally. Even if it wasn't that red-haired dream, it was someone that knew him somehow, and that had stopped happening long ago.

Dark eyes drifted slowly, ears shutting out all sound. He didn't even hear the priest down the path call him, his gaze the only thing he could focus on. That one? No. That one? That one?

...That one.

His breath escaped his lips in a rush, disbelief warring with elation and relief, pale fingers tightening on the broom handle as he tried to steady himself. A fine tremble had taken him, quite uncharacteristic in a man of his composure. He didn't dare move, didn't dare give himself away. He simply stared and willed himself to be seen, to be recognized. He wasn't sure if, after all that time, he could bear being looked at and looked past without so much as a glimmer of recognition. It was simply unthinkable.

Please, he prayed, Please let it be true. Let it be real. Let me have this one thing.

The ground crunched under his feet - grit and gravel and sand, it must truly get everywhere - as he moved. His hair was short again - as short as it had been the day he had arrived in the Bastion. As short as it had been on the day they had met one another for the first time. Forgetting the length - or lack thereof - he moved to tuck it behind his ears before pushing his hands into his pockets, keeping them out of the way as he surveyed the south wall.

The illustrations there. Fictions to the general public, fairy tales, though Kaoru knew better which were which. Which ones were truly parts of Seimei's life, and which were embellishments.

No mention of the Bastion, but why would there be?

He was almost toward the shrine itself now, flanked by bronze statues worn to a shine by touch, in some places. Tended with care by a figure with a broom, with long, heavy robes. Well that was to be expected in a place like this. Though he was sure that most priests these days wore regular shoes, or split-toed shoes with rubber soles... in fact everything about this person's outfit seemed just slightly off. Maybe it was just that his eyes were better trained. Or maybe it was that he had had more contact with the real thing, because these ones really seemed--

Real. Like... like something Seimei might have worn. Even down to the scent that was carried over to him on a breeze.

God, but now he could barely dare lift his eyes. His voice escaping a choked whisper, one that didn't have to be heard in all of the hubbub at all.

"...Seimei?"

Fingers twitched, clenching the broom again more tightly before relaxing, the cool expression so familiar filtering into the still-young face. Lips curved into a fox-smiled as the "priest" inclined his head gently. Oh, he heard.

"You have in fact arrived at the Shrine of Abe no Seimei," he replied evenly, opening one eye and watching the boy as he rose. "They call me Seiichi," the man added with no inflection indicating if that meant it was his name or what he went by. He was, naturally, cautious to believe he'd gotten what he wanted. Seimei had lost a great deal over the ages and the only thing that had kept him on the straight and narrow was the possibility of reward at the end of the long road. Still, he couldn't help himself and without even knowing he'd moved, his feet fell upon the gravel, crunching softly as he stepped closer.

"Are you looking for something?" 'Seiichi' asked gently, the voice that of the kind priest offering assistance just as much as the patient onmyoji offering wisdom. "Perhaps someone?" he suggested, resisting the urge to press his teeth to his lip, expression carefully neutral.

"Perhaps someone, yes."

Seeing that smile made it so hard to keep the shake out of his voice, and his hand returned to his hair, to fidget there. Oh, but what if for all that his heart is telling him he's right he is wrong? This might have been a terrible mistake. Maybe he is just seeing Seimei's hair and face and smile out of desperation? Maybe...

"They call you Seiichi?"

He had to step aside, allow people up the steps to make their offerings and prayers, to ring the bell. Make their wishes. He could do the same himself, but for that his wish may well be standing right in front of him. And if his heart was wrong, what was the worst that could happen. He wasn't known here - so far as anyone else knew here he was just a kid with dyed hair and tasteful clothes skipping school. He could turn around and walk away.

"...are we really going to play this game, my Seimei?"

He didn't move and inch, making the world part around him, feet firmly planted, fingers flexing against the wood of the broom, knuckles pink then white, then pink again.

My Seimei.

"I suppose not," he sighed softly as though it were such a great trial put upon him to stop. Black eyes fluttered in a small roll before he smiled again, relief nearly stealing his strength to stand. He wasn't the sort of person to completely lose his composure, but he couldn't just...stand there. He had waited for this for longer than anyone had ever waited for anything, he imagined. At least anyone remotely mortal, at any rate. What was the proper protocol, under the circumstances? How should he react?

"Would it be permissible to embrace you?" he asked, voice straining more than he'd though. His eyes were tense at the corners, his restraint pressed to it's limits.

"Seiichi-sama! Seiichi-sama?"

He heard nothing, saw nothing but the boy before him. He really was a boy, too. They were ages apart before, but now? His nostrils flared, feet crunching in the gravel as he took another tentative step forward, clearly wanting to simply crash into the teen, crush him in a hug and generally behave very inappropriately. He was, as ever, holding himself back out of politeness as much as fear.

The words came out tense and strained, and in a rush so that Seimei wouldn't mistake him-

"No, not if I do it first."

For it was Kaoru who moved first, as he so often had in their courtship, closing the gap between them in a few short steps and throwing his arms around him. Burying his face in his onmyoji's chest, in the lines of his robes, and breathing him in before he can try and speak anymore, his voice already strained and high as if he might weep, but he clutches near and holds on as if for dear life. As if nothing else around them matters.

Could it be like that again? Could he still be the still and quiet in Seimei's world, even if that world has broadened so much from the one that they had known together?

Absolutely. In centuries, Seimei had never found an island to stand upon. He had never recovered his place in the world and wasn't even sure it existed. He stayed there based on little more than a dream and faith, where before there had never been any.

When the boy crushed against him the onmyoji closed arms around him, the thick robes of his station not unlike those of his past life. He did not like modern materials, but his position didn't exactly acquired him any measure of wealth, and he needed to avoid suspicions. He was rich beyond imagining, forced to live like a peasant for the sake of staying close to his home. The fabric scratched, but he didn't care. He weathered the smallest and greatest of trials just to have this moment.

His breath came out in a rush, held for how long he couldn't say and his nose buried in the beautiful hair next to the beautiful ear where he spoke, heedless of their impropriety.

"I wasn't sure you were real," he admitted, half-ashamed. "I wasn't sure anything was real anymore. I thought I was alone before but nothing compares to how alone you become once you've truly experienced having someone so important in your life. I couldn't even be happy to see Hiromasa again...Kaoru-sa--Kaoru...Kaoru I've waited for you for so long. Oh...how I've missed you."

Edited 2016-01-26 23:24 (UTC)

"Seimei. Seimei."

Heedless of the people around them he pushed closer, not caring, tipping his head up to press his nose against the man's pale neck. He'd waited - he'd waited - Kaoru hadn't believed entirely, even though he trusted the man. The Bastion had only been days ago for him and yet it seemed as though it were an illusion.

"It's not a dream. This isn't a dream, you... you waited..." Years. Centuries. There was a whole millennium between them that had not seemed so long at all in the Bastion, because they had been there together. How that distance must have seemed to Seimei once he had returned home; how it must have yawned ahead of him.

"This is real, Seimei. We're real. The waiting is over, now, I'm here."

He hadn't expected the relief to be crippling, but there he was, slumping forward helplessly until he'd gone to his knees in the gravel and taken the boy with him. He promised himself he wouldn't be overwrought with emotion - it happened anyways. Perfectly cared-for nails gripped the fabric of Kaoru's clothing, clinging as pale palms trembled and the onmyoji shook. The other priests nearby cried out in alarm, afraid their young companion was genuinely ill, but rushing forward only proved the usually calm and collected man was overcome with uncharacteristic joy. He managed to keep himself from weeping openly, but there was no way to keep silent tears from falling. so few times in his long years had he felt such pain - at least now it was a good pain.

"Seiichi-sama! Seichii-sama, are you alright?" the other priests asked, wondering if Kaoru were some long lost relative. A brother? A son, perhaps? They could only assume and assist accordingly. Someone hurried over with a bottle of water, only to step back, startled, when the man laughed aloud and shook his head, giving Kaoru another crushing squeeze.

"I'm alright! I'm perfect!" he laughed helplessly, squeezing the boy again and again, unable to be sure he was real otherwise, afraid of letting go, though he was loathe to admit it. Eventually he had to, peeling himself away and smoothing his robes hurriedly, allowing himself to be helped up while he scrubbed at his face.

It was over far too quickly, Seimei pulling away before Kaoru was quite prepared to let him go. He held onto a handful of Seimei's robes like a child - the effect only compounded by the way he too was rubbing at his face, trying to chase the tears away. Delighted tears to be sure, and Seimei's exclamation, his laugh, just hearing his voice made the tears flow all the more, made him want to fling himself at Seimei all over again. Keeping himself in check is difficult when he wants to kiss all the breath out of this man - and right in front of the priests surrounding them, too.

It would certainly put any assumptions of their relationship quite swiftly to rest, and he was sure Seimei would forgive him for it if he did. But Kaoru's control was stronger.

"Can we go somewhere?"

He didn't mind sounding a little impetuous through his tears, though, nor using that hold on Seimei's robes to give him a little tug.

"Of course, of course," Seimei replied breathlessly, raising both hands and carefully gesturing the other priests back. he apologized profusely for his behavior, feeling no less embarrassed than he looked before he explained that he was going to require a few moments away from his tasks. Confusion warred with professionalism and the other priests eventually backed down and let Seimei go, much to his relief. without changing, Seimei was soon out of the grounds of the shrine, walking side by side with Kaoru in silence until the boy decided they were far enough away.

"I must confess," the onmyoji murmured after a time, glancing around with a small frown, "I haven't the slightest idea of where to go. I can hardly think."

A few moments? Kaoru was going to need a little longer than that, but he was sure the other priests would understand. He stayed near as they walk, practically humming with a tension he was sure would have let up once he had set eyes on Seimei. But it hadn't, of course. Simply stuck in him, demanding more than the embrace they had shared.

There was nowhere to escape, really, in this part of the city. If they were lucky perhaps they could find a coffee shop somewhere with paritioned spaces, but the chances of that...?

There was another idea floating in his mind, however.

"...the Imperial Palace and Gardens are east of here."

...which Seimei was well aware of, of course, and Kaoru aware enough of that that he winced a little bit.

"I don't need to tell you that..."

Nor did he need to fumble like an idiot, and yet there he was.

"I fear I cannot wait that long," he rasped, turning on the boy the moment the area around them was quiet enough to herd the teen into the nearest alley. Long fingers carded through red hair and up against Kaoru's scalp as trembling lips slanted across his own. Seimei kissed the young Hitachiin heir with nearly a thousand years of crushing loneliness behind the act. He kissed the boy like he saw in the commercials when the other priests insisted he spend time with them, eating and letting the television roll. He hated the times, the noise, the technology, hated the swell of electricity around him, but he always watched with wonder the vulgar displays in the moving pictures.

He wanted to be vulgar for a moment, and he held the boy with marked tenacity, pulling back just enough to kiss him again and again, shielding them from casual sight with the bulk of his robes.

"Seimei..." Softly, softly, again and again between soft, teary kisses. Hand gripping clothes enough to crease, seeking out and caressing any skin he can find - his cheek, his temple, the nape of his neck. "You waited, you waited, you waited..."

Would he ever prove himself worthy of that wait? There wouldn't be kisses enough, touches enough, to repay it, to compensate a thousand years, some four hundred thousand lonely days and nights. Being without him that short while in the Bastion, this last nervous day was nothing , nothing at all in comparison to the pain Seimei had put himself through for him. For him.

"My Seimei... My Seimei..."

The trouble with creatures like Seimei and his kind was that if they loved once, they loved forever. they could love more than once, certainly, but the feelings never faded, they never changed. It was at the root of so many spurned lover tales when it came to angry fox spirits. Abe no Seimei was no less a victim to his heritage than any of those poor souls. the difference was that there was a light at the end of his tunnel, and no matter how far away everything seemed, it was closer with every minute.

"I waited. So what, I waited. So what. I don't want to think about it. A thousand years, a thousand seconds. It doesn't matter. It's over. My imprisonment has ended. I'm free," he whispered, laughing weakly against Kaoru's mouth before pulling back a fraction and shaking his head.

"I'm sorry. I'm being so terribly rude but I...It is...it's all so much. So much," the man gasped, clutching at his own chest and marveling at the pain there, so sharp that it crept into his throat. He felt like weeping again and couldn't quite understand why. Never had he felt such relief, even when Hiromasa survived so many battles. Nothing had ever afflicted him with so much conflict.

"It's over, yes..." His hands moved to cup Seimei's cheeks; lift that beautiful face and hold it so that he could look at him. Deep eyes soft pale skin and all, trying to believe, still. This was real. For all his assurances it hadn't sunk in and likely wouldn't for a while. But he was back with him - with his Seimei...

"I'm sorry it wasn't sooner." One hand reached out to stroke away any stray tears Seimei hadn't already got rid of; sweeping his thumb, like he used to do when he held Seimei's hand. Never mind that his own smile was just as wobbly and watery as his love's. "I'm here now. I will make it up to you, I promise, I promise..."

Seimei might think "so what" but to Kaoru a thousand years was lifetimes. He had a lot to make up for.

The onmyoji was just as baffled by the reality of everything as Kaoru. Maybe moreso, since for the boy it had been a short time ago that everything happened, but for Seimei it was another era entirely.

He let his face be held in place, content to feel the soft palms against his skin where he had abstained from human contact as much as possible for all those years. It felt so good, being touched by the person he had quite literally been saving himself for. He wanted no one else to sully him.

"It couldn't have been sooner. It had to be precisely the right time. That so happened to be today, those few moments ago. You have nothing to apologize for and nothing to feel guilt over. If you insist upon taking some imagine blame, you can make it up to me by letting me hold you a bit more." That was all he needed, just time to make himself realize it was all true and he had indeed been loved and in love.

"I'm sorry I left you," he added after a time, dark eyes steady, calm, expression gathering a sense of peace.

Edited 2016-01-27 10:06 (UTC)

"Mmm."

A fond laugh, though he was forced to withdraw a hand, dabbing at his cheeks with a drawn-down sleeve. He had hardly changed, really, even with the years, even travelling from era to era, he was still the Seimei Kaoru had remembered.

"Yeah, I can allow that, I think..."

And he leaned in to claim another kiss. Soft lips on his own. The whisper of fabric under his hand as he drew back again.

"I'm just glad that you made it back safely..."

It had been crippling, the fear before. Not knowing where people went when they disappeared, or why they did. His own heart-clenching worry that people simply vanished from the Bastion when their numbers grew too many - not returned home, or even turned into statues on the Skyway, just... erased like bad data. Not-knowing was the greatest torment of all.

"I was so worried," A low sigh, but he threw Seimei's own words back at him before the man could dwell on it - "But if you could let me hold you a bit more...?"

Still the same indeed. All those years evaporated the moment Kaoru came back into the man's life. He may have waited longer than anyone had any reason to wait for anything, but it was like it never happened. Certainly there were the memories, the friends long past, the daily drudgery; everything paled in comparison to the breaking dawn banishing the dark after centuries of simply existing.

If Kaoru thought his fear was crippling, he should imagine what it was like trying to survive for a thousand years on a hope that everything was real. The idea that it was a dream was unthinkable. What was the point in waking up every morning if not for the promise at the end of that long wait?

He wasn't certain he'd ever stop trembling.

"A bit more? You never have to let me go again. You can dig your fingers into the fabric of my very being and never release me. To part again is unthinkable," the onmyoji sighed, reaching up with his free hand to cover his face, unable to stifle the occasional sob that shook him. Would that he could control his emotions better than that, he thought, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe more slowly.

"So many times I thought that I was following a mad dream. How could any of it have been possible? And then for it all to return to the way it was before? I asked so many creatures, sought the advice of the wisest of us all. No one had answers that weren't impossible to solve riddles or cryptic to the point that I said some things I will never be proud of to people I should have had more respect for. I will have to issue some very sincere apologies. Now? Now I don't know what to do with myself. Part of me insists on careful distance and politeness. Part of me...well, part of me is being very unrealistic. And not at all mindful of good behavior."

"I don't want you to be mindful of good behaviour." Of course he was aware of what went in public, especially now they were in a world with so many more people in it. That didn't mean that Kaoru hadn't wanted to do some inappropriate things in front of the priests.

He reached up, gently prying the man's hand from his face to kiss him again.

"I will never let you go again."

There were little worries in the back of his mind about how they might manage - he knew that Tokyo was not a good place for Seimei, the noise, the bustle, the static . But Kaoru would have to go back there for his family, his education...

For now he pushed that worry back. And it wasn't difficult, to let those worries be overtaken and swept away by the present moment. Being back in Seimei's arms again.

"But can we find somewhere quieter? Somewhere I can take down your hair...?"

"I am always mindful of my behavior," Seimei huffed softly, pursing his lips briefly only to have them kissed again, forcing him to soften his expression, helpless to the boy's silent demands. Oh, how he had missed it, his actions and expressions truly mattering. Hundreds of years, all the waiting and pain erased in a moment of reunion.

"Quieter? Of course, I'm sure the--" he paused, blinking slowly before clucking his tongue softly and turning away, dark eyes glittering with complicated emotion. It was real - all of it. He had a home he was proud of, a makeshift family, a love. A life. The simple intimacy of letting his hair down.

"The only place I can think of is the establishment the others like to go to. They have private rooms where they like to drink and sing and be absurd. A club...it's open this early, and tends to be very empty before certain times closer to the evening. We could go there...it shouldn't be that noisy right now. I...have an apartment," he barely grated out, humiliated by the circumstances he'd had to endure to pretend at mortality. He despised the tiny flat almost as much as he despised the years that passed by.

"I seem to recall one or two exceptions..." Fondly, as he coaxed Seimei's eyes back to him with a graze of his fingertips to his cheek, and a kiss to reward him when he did. Like just now - the crushing together of their bodies at the shrine, their mouths, too, though that had been out of sight of the priests, shielded by the walls and shadows, drapes and banners of this narrow street they were in from the glances of passing strangers.

Granted, this wasn't the Bastion. Kaoru was all too aware of how many people there were now, how difficult it was to find a space they really could be alone. Which was a big reason why he latched onto Seimei's last words, taking them as a suggestion, even though he was sure Seimei hadn't meant them to be.

"An apartment...?"

...that didn't seem like it suited Seimei, but it sounded to him like it might be a better option than the other... that sounded something along the lines of a karaoke box. The patrons could still be just as noisy, even in the middle of the day.

Gently, so that Seimei would know it wasn't an order, or even that strong of a request-

"I'd kind of like to see your apartment..."

It didn't have to be now. But he would like to.

((I ended up looking at houses in Tokyo that he might buy look at the second one down with all the greenery it's on the coast in the middle of nowhere. It would also take me 150 years to pay off, if I did nothing with my pay but put it into my house.))

It wasn't suited to Seimei at all, but owning an estate was out of the question for someone of such a presumably low income. He was lucky enough to stand on the grounds of his traditional home every morning, but beyond that, the mighty had indeed fallen. His apartment was rarely occupied, Seimei too often fleeing the city to escape the noise and life that had explode over the centuries.

He almost longed for the Sengoku era.

"You really wouldn't," he mumbled, looking down at the hems of his sleeves before sighing and - as always - giving in. "Come along. It isn't far."

He slipped away, putting a polite distance between them as he guided Kaoru through the streets and alleys to a modest building with only a few floors. It was, at least, not a cement and steel highrise with hundreds of people stacked atop one another, but it was still nothing comfortable for a kitsune man living out of his age. Up the stairs they went, Seimei greeted regularly by the numerous elderly people inhabiting the home. He was loathe to say anything, but he preferred to live there because it was nearly always older occupants who passed away long before they realized that he didn't age or change in any way. It was already getting uncomfortable at the shrine.

Unlocking the apartment door - he hated locks and keys - and stepping inside, it was a very different look that one may have expected. Not Kaoru, of course, who knew full well how Seimei clung to his era and culture. The floors were wood because he wasn't allowed to have mats installed, but it wasn't a terrible thing. The walls were hung with old paintings and scrolls, the furniture was extremely sparse and the majority of the lights were removed. Candles and lanterns "decorated" the flat, but were for practical use. The kitchen had very little in it, no appliances other than the oven and fridge. The bedroom and bathroom were small, sparsely decorated and obviously barely used. The whole place had the sense of a space avoided. Even so, Seimei took his shoes off and turned bowing and greeting Kaoru before inviting him in formally. Afterwards he turned away for the kitchen, seeking to start tea, as he kept very little on hand to drink or eat.

"I'm sorry I couldn't bring you somewhere more befitting your presence. This is all society allows me if I stay here, and I needed to be close to make it to today."

Just following at Seimei's shoulder was difficult. He wanted to reach out and snag whatever part of him he could - his sleeve, or the back of his robes, just something so they could stay in contact. Even if Seimei hadn't vanished yet, he might.

The apartment was small - he'd visted Haruhi, though, so he knew how to behave. Any criticisms he had to level, though, he was sure were ones that Seimei had shared. This space was too small for Seimei. A cage for him.

He made short work of his shoes once he'd returned Seimei's bow, letting the door close and following the man into the kitchen with an outstretched arm - one quick to slip itself around Seimei's waist.

"We can find you somewhere better fitting yours."

It would be difficult, but not impossible - Tokyo was a humming, crackling maze he wouldn't dream of dragging Seimei into, but it had its areas of quiet. The coast. Or the wooded areas of Hakone, in sight of Mount Fuji.

They would figure it out. They would figure all of it out.

Plastered against him like Tama-chan used to them both; Kaoru was making a nuisance of himself, not so much underfoot as a weight on Seimei's back and shoulders. Good luck making that tea with any grace, Seimei...

He didn't care about grace at that moment, which was shockign on it's own. There was a constant humming, a vibration bertween them, a plucking bowstring wound too tightly, threatening to snap as the two of them strained to maintain their composure. What good would it do to wail and sob and clutch and plead? They had already suffered their separation - Seimei far longer, but they made it, didn't they?

Besides, the only thing Seimei could think of that would truly do away with the tension he didn't think either of them were really prepared for. They hadn't even really managed when they did have each other, privacy and a home to share. Besides that, the onmyoji observed somewhat bitterly, he was ill equipped to provide for a modern youth's passion. He had observed and read a great deal over the centuries, but garnering any experience of his own would have been an unforgivable act, dishonoring his loyalty and devotion to a love he refused to sully.

That didn't mean his mind wasn't a tangle of what-ifs when he lowered one hand, resting it over the arm clutching against him.

Oh how glorious it was for his imagination to become reality, for every dreamed-of touch to be solid.

"Perhaps we can, who can say? I would gladly suffer this blister of a city for the rest of forever if it meant this would go on," he murmured, fingertips brushing back and forth across Kaoru's wrist as he closed his eyes with a sigh.

Ah, love. How he had missed feeling anything, let alone the purest emotion of all.

Kaoru couldn't resist a little sigh, feeling Seimei speak, feeling the vibration of his voice as though it had come from his own chest.

"You shouldn't have to, though." A murmur of his own, his head leaned against Seimei's shoulder. "You belong out in the country, in the open air. Not in cage like this, or a maze like Tokyo..."

But he was getting ahead of them, just voicing everything that came into his head, as was often his habit with Seimei. Even at the beginning of Them - he could remember chicks in Seimei's sleeves, Tama-chan cradled in his own arms and his own frantic protestations at being the potential father to some kind of Godzilla-monster.

He had matured since then. It might not be long until it went noticed by Hikaru and his friends.

Getting ahead. Tea - Seimei was making tea - and Kaoru couldn't help but reach his arms around the onmyoji to "help", gentle impatience in his every move. Picking up the pot to see if there were leaves in it already, leaning to the other side to check on the stove. Was the water boiling yet? How long until they could go through and sit together?

"I don't mind it so much," Seimei murmured. Not entirely honest, but the pros outweighed the cons. One particular pro, specifically, that had wrapped itself around him, inside and out.

Both of them stood in silence for some time, caught up in memories, thoughts, uncertainties. Seimei remembered their slowly built family as well and missed it. He wanted it all back. he wanted the home they had built, the animals that had been their companions. He dared not bring up Tama-chan, fearing knowledge of what happened in his absence. Perhaps...perhaps with the right rituals...

The house was far more easily rectified.

"I have accrued a great deal of wealth over the centuries, as you can imagine. I simply haven't been able to use it while maintaining this...charade," the onmyoji sighed, smiling faintly as he turned and shifted, slowly dancing around Kaoru's impatient motions and doing what tasks he could manage around the teen.

Teen. Mercy but he'd forgotten all about that. People were going to think the absolute worst, and they wouldn't even be wrong.

"With money, one can achieve most anything. I can live in the city with the right home. A few spells in the right places can block out all the noise. It's really all a matter of buying a plot where I can build a suitable home to replace the ones I've lost." Because that was the truth. Seimei had lost every home he'd ever known. Circumstance had stolen his home in Bastion and time itself had robbed him of his ancestral estate. As much as he would have loved to buy the shrine and rebuild his home, it was a national monument, unable to be touched. Perhaps someday, but not in that lifetime. A new home would be suitable, and he could finally think and plan, since he no longer had to worry about missing the chance to find Kaoru.

"Where would you want me to go?"

"Somewhere else. Somewhere quieter, somewhere more..." More fitting for Seimei. Somewhere he wouldn't have to worry about being judged for who, what, he was. Somewhere that he didn't have worry about maintaining a charade, somewhere...

...but Kaoru didn't want to have to worry about that now, even though the worry surfaced again, of having to build again the precarious bridge between Seimei and Hikaru.

"...nowhere." Changing his answer. Not because he was fickle, but because he simply didn't want to be outside of this moment, right now. Watching - enjoying watching - Seimei like this, even doing something so domestic as making tea. "I would want you here. In this moment with me, until we're forced into thinking outside it."

"My prince's word is of course my command," Seimei chuckled, cheering visibly as he turned enough to wrap his arms around Kaoru's shoulders for a warm, equally emotionally charged embrace. He knew they couldn't just sit there holding each other forever, but it was nice just to be touching something more tangible than a dream.

"How is Hikaru?" he asked, figuring that was a safer route than asking about any of the others.

"Does he recall anything? What point in your times did the two of you even manage to find each other?" he mused, wondering if the differences in time meant one went to Bastion and another reality version of the twin went as well, meaning the tw wouldn't cross paths insofar as knowledge went. Had he and Kaoru escaped missing one another by some narrow margin? A miracle, even?

"How is everything, really? I could very likely drone on for decades about how my life went, but I imagine I did very little in a very long span of time compared to how much you young humans seem to cram into a single year, let alone life."

"He's... well." If Kaoru's tone was a touch perplexed, it was because he still was, slightly. He couldn't help it, though Seimei's hug definitely helped. "Perfect, even. He didn't show any sign of remembering. Even when I hinted..."

And his hints had hardly been light, his talk of "Weird Dreams" yet with rather specific memories. When Hikaru had laughed and shrugged him off, Kaoru knew he hadn't meant to be dismissive - if he didn't know the "dreams" were real, he could only make light as though they were the dreams Kaoru said they were.

"I wanted to be angry. I still do, a little. But it isn't his fault."

Burying his head, nuzzling into Seimei's shoulder. The robes weren't the rich fabrics the man usually wore, but they might as well have been the finest of silks, so happy Kaoru was to settle against him. Breathe in the gently clinging scent of incense.

"I woke up at home yesterday morning and I was too shell-shocked to do much more than follow along. I couldn't tell you what it was I was meant to have studied at school but I was there so I saw... everything. Everyone. Everyone safe and happy, like nothing had ever happened.

Does that mean that it worked...?"

"Times lines, alternative realities. Maybe I wasn't even supposed to exist in yours," Seimei observed, looking off distantly with a thoughtful expression. It had occurred to him many times over the centuries that he wouldn't find his Kaoru. It frightened him, but not as much as what he had planned to do if he didn't. If Kaoru hadn't come to him, Seimei intended to go in search of the teen himself. He would meet that world's version of the boy and commit himself to protecting and enriching Kaoru's life from a distance. To live near him, but apart from him.

It would have killed him, in time. No Kitsune soul could bear the weight of that sorrow forever, but it would have been worth it just for a little while near the boy he loved more than anything. More than his magic, more than his heritage.

"It worked, at least in part. I can honestly say in nearly one thousand years I've never seen any evidence to the contrary."

"But I'm so glad you do."

Softly as he tilted Seimei's head back to face him properly, placing a kiss there that was surprisingly chaste, simply happy to be near. The alternative - each searching for the other and never meeting or worse, finding the other only not to be recognised - was simply too sad. Had he known what Seimei would have intended, Kaoru's heart would break for him.

But he nuzzled closer for another moment, before pulling away with a gentle laugh.

"...all your talents, my love, and you still can't make water boil faster?"

"Good grief, of course I can," Seimei grumbled, casting a withering look Kaoru's way with a huff. "But some things are worth the wait," he added, looking away slowly and smiling to himself as he moved one hand over the stove and pressed the other to his lips. Ah yes, that feeling...

The water bubbled instantly and he gave the boy another look as though weary of parlor tricks before he set everything aside and completed the tea, carrying the set into the open space of the apartment and settled slowly on the floor. A short table served to hold the tray and it's contents and as Seimei settled, he looked up at his sunset prince at last, genuine awe in his dark eyes. How he had survived he couldn't say, but the reward was well worth it, indeed.

"Would you like to join me?" he asked, gently formal as he situated his robes and sleeves, almost the man Kaoru knew. They would never be able to dress him in his preferred clothing in public without extraordinary circumstances, but it was close enough in the moment. He could definitely do with higher quality fabrics at least.

He couldn't help but laugh warmly with the way that Seimei looked at him, even though the look was less than impressed. Because it wasn't a parlour trick, not when there was good reason for it.

Following him through, watching Seimei settle on the mats and suddenly it felt like they were back, only they weren't back, really, yet he could only grin stupidly at the man from the doorway, like some lovestruck idiot until he was called and he could gather himself, moving closer to settle beside Seimei.

"You do understand..." one hand, lightly shaking, reaching out to settle over his love's, who he was sure understood, probably more intimately than Kaoru did, "...that this is the start of everything."

Edited 2016-03-07 09:06 (UTC)

"Kaoru...I have waited centuries for the barest possibility of the whisper of a dream that I could not prove to anyone was real," the onmyoji sighed, turning his hand over to cup Kaoru's, thumb caressing gently.

"I never claimed to be a good man. I was never precisely a hero, and I am the sum of my nature. This is absolutely the beginning, but I have no intention of there being any end to this story. I intend to have every single one of those long and dismal years paid for in full. There will be no mortal cramming of centuries into a handful of decades. You will never be gone from my life again. Not for more than the span of time it takes to travel or the days I am forced to endure while you entertain friends and family from which I may be kept secret or you pursue your education as humans do. That is my oath," the kitsune stated with a gravitas born of a life far too long in the living.

He meant every word. He had watched countless friends grow old and die over the centuries while he waited, realizing with far too much clarity that for all his waiting, he would have Kaoru for too short a time. It simply wouldn't do. Something would have to change, but they had time. Time for Kaoru to understand, to grow, to age finely like the magnificent creature he was and time for Seimei to figure out what to do.

Time made villains of all men. Seimei was always a bit selfish and the centuries alone hadn't improved that quality, but at least it was a bitterness tempered by love. Overwhelming, possibly, but honest.

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Destined to meet...

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Nearly all of my Kaoru icons are comedy/derpface icons.

All my Icons of Seimei are linefaces and smug faces. >_>

Kaoru loves Seimei's smugface.

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