hand-me-down heart

It isn't true that Aoyagi Ritsuka loves the man seven years his senior best when he's broken down. He loves him—yes, with the lump in his throat at that thought—he supposes that what he feels when he sees Agatsuma Soubi on the hardwood floor of his empty apartment this night. Love, and so much pity. Sympathy, too, but pity, that his heart has seemed never to be his. Before it was Seimei's, and now that hand-me-down heart is his, but never Soubi's own.

That day, Ritsuka had attended his first day of the eighth grade, and Yuiko had hugged him so hard he thought he might have bruises from her bracelet and necklace pressing against him. Yayoi had tugged her off him, looking secretly possessive, and given him a hug, too. It'd been a good day, and they'd stayed out late, celebrating Yayoi's birthday. All the while, watching Yayoi's face span out into a chuckling grin past the candles, Ritsuka had been so happy, and yet so anxious.

All summer, he'd been with Soubi. This was going to be their first day completely separated in what seemed like immeasurable time. And secretly, too, like Yayoi's desiring glances at Yuiko's candy-pink hair gleaming in the sun as she danced, he'd worried. He knew that when he left the apartment that morning, he did not walk alone. Soubi shadowed him to the school. Ritsuka didn't blame him. He'd probably stashed his heart in Ritsuka's backpack when he'd been filling it with school supplies the night before, while Ritsuka could barely keep his eyes open in his little bed, just to have the excuse to follow him, to get his heart back.

He remembered the thin enthusiasm on Soubi's face as he'd packed, something he dredged up just to reassure him. He'd really been so unhappy he didn't even touch Ritsuka before going to his own bed. In the morning, he'd followed, and said nothing, not even letting on that he knew Ritsuka was aware of him. That worries Ritsuka even now.

The windows are drawn shut. Typical of him, to want such darkness to surround him. He's such a fool. Doesn't he know he's only going to feel worse in the dark? It won't help a thing to mope, and it's going to burn the floor if he leaves all those cigarettes lit and half-burning there. He shouldn't mope, anyway. He told Soubi he was going to be gone until the night fell, and he'd wake him to say goodnight when he came home.

Ritsuka watches the orange glow of the current cigarette catch on the thin, blonde strands of his hair. It makes Soubi glow at the edges, like one of his paintings. Ritsuka puts his backpack on the chair by the door and stands still, listening.

He could say hello. What a jerk he can be.

"Hey, why are you sitting here in the dark?" Ritsuka asked. "Do you want me to turn on the light?"

Soubi doesn't answer him, but his body tightens to the sound of his voice, and his shoulders hunch some more. Ritsuka almost makes a comment about ruining his posture, almost commands him to turn around and answer him, since that's usually what he likes the most, but he seems to curl away from him. It's so fickle, when he was stalking him this morning, as if they hadn't lived together for a year since they'd committed his mother.

That had been the night he knew that Soubi was all he had, and let him carry him to his home even while Ritsuka cried and begged Soubi to take it back, let his mother go, to bring him back to her.

He'd done a lot for Soubi. So he feels he should deserve an answer when he asks such a simple question. It is the lack of lighting, and the fact that Soubi has no shirt that lets Ritsuka know that something is wrong. Perhaps he really did put his heart in Ritsuka's backpack. And had he lost in the journey, or squished it with his new textbooks?

"Soubi," he says, "what's wrong? Is it because I was out late?" When he approaches Soubi, the unforgettable red of his scars seem to grin on his back. The darkness does nothing to hide them, and they seem to be enjoying themselves as Soubi hunches, stretching them further into wicked little smiles. Something did happen. Because it's a cool night and Soubi only sits shirtless and smokes on especially bad days.

A couple of times, Soubi would even put the cigarettes out on his back, for some terrible reason he could not produce when Ritsuka held his wrists and stared into his face, questioning and pitying all at once. He still doesn't answer.

"Soubi." Ritsuka does not put hesitation in his voice, but neither is it forceful. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Not really," comes the answer. Even though it is not what he wanted to hear, at least it's the truth—or hopefully, it is. Ritsuka has long been trying to rid him of his unnecessary lying, but it's worse than quitting smoking. "It's okay."

"Stupid idiot," Ritsuka murmurs, and stands behind him. "You don't have to lie to me, Soubi."

It must be the first time in so long that truth comes first, before a smokescreen of vague words or conversations rerouted by skin, and, without much fight over it, he relinquishes his hold over himself. He drops his hand after shakily putting a cigarette to his mouth and touches the floorboards in nervous circle, and the scar grin on his back seems pleased, flushed red. "I… had a bad dream," he murmurs, and Ritsuka puts his fingers in his bowed hair.

"About my brother?" he asks in a quiet voice, and is genuinely surprised to feel it shift from side to side.

Soubi continues to stare distractedly at the floor. The unwarming glow of the cigarette glows in his dark eyes and paints his straw-colored hair a half-there orange red. Ritsuka asks for just a little more by running his fingers through what hair he can reach, and petting his lowered head. He wonders more and more these days just how his brother had treated him. All these traps and locked doors and holes in the floor he'd left in Soubi are painful for them both, but still… Ritsuka owns his own heart, but Soubi can't seem to put it back where it belongs.

He stops petting Soubi, though he seems to lean into the gesture, and instead crouches next to him, sharing with him this silent consult with the little bonfire of cigarette butts.

"It was about… my sensei…"

"At the school for sentouki?" Ritsuka has to lean closer to his mouth, hidden by his sheets of hair, to hear him properly. Soubi's voice crawls back into his throat in terror all of a sudden, and he sobs, trying to push more words out. Ritsuka moves instantly to catch him in a hug, his arms now long enough to embrace him completely. He's surprised by the force of tears that come from his fighter now, and especially by the sensitivity of the scars of his back. They burn like he's just received them, and Ritsuka wonders if he's about to learn where they come from.

"I…" Soubi chokes and Ritsuka hushes him, kissing his shoulder and just laying his head there.

"You don't have to say yet, either, Soubi," he eases him. "It's okay."

The fighter drops the cigarette from his mouth and watches it lose its spark and the smoke leave him. He breaths heavy from his mouth, little tears making his nose clog and his vision burn. "Aa," he mutters.

Ritsuka smiles, and he feels it on his skin. "You should go to sleep, Soubi. Do you want me to go with you?" The fighter turns his head to rest it on Rituka's shoulder as well, his body twisting uncomfortably to snatch this little bit of comfort, and his heartbeat throbbing in his throat. He nods.

"Okay, now," Ritsuka nudges him gently to his feet. He's grown in the past year, and it's not as heavy when Soubi leans on him.

Though his heart is still heavy, it's not quite the heaviest part of his body anymore. He can feel the poison of the nightmare already fading, and he wouldn't be surprised, with a barely-contained smile, if Soubi tries his old, slightly lecherous tactics by the time they get him dressed and under the covers. That part of him, at least, is still his own, the way he teases Ritsuka with kissing between his ears.

But when he earns all of Soubi's heart, he's going to put it back into him and make him what he should have been all along.