Chapter Four: Blame

Kamui stared up at the ceiling of Fai's room, sprawled out over the bed. He balanced a cinnamon stick on edge of his protruding rib bone—his form was white and naked against the sheets. The prostitute watched as the cinnamon stick rose up and fell down with every breath he took. He sighed, and the spice began to roll to one side, falling toward his collarbone. Catching it, he steadied it back onto his stomach.

Everyone who saw Fai always insisted that he was too thin for his own good, when in reality, Kamui was far thinner—and whereas Fai simply had a thin frame was in health so excellent he went out to hunt every month—Kamui was literally not in the best shape an eighteen-year-old boy should be. He was the youngest, and yet, he was the most delicate. But perhaps, living with men less than four years your senior at this age didn't necessarily prove strength with youth.

And having lived the rough life in the city proved nothing either. Doumeki had lived most of his life in the sleeping suburbs, and he seemed to love nothing more than to constantly prove to Kamui—and everyone else—that he was just as capable of shooting someone in the eye as Fai and Ashura were. As if Doumeki didn't already have something to shove down people's belts, what with his ridiculous winning streak.

Now, Kamui not only had to put up with that, but he had to endure Fuuma's constant presence either in his room or at his door—or just, near him, usually in his personal space. Prostitute or not, he still had a right to a foot radius of no human contact when he needed. And Fuuma was slowly permeating all of that. Thus was the reason why Kamui was more than often seeking refuge in Fai's chambers—which no one besides Ashura and he himself were allowed in without first asking.

Kamui picked up the cinnamon stick with his thumb and forefinger and held it over his eyes. He'd never been able to handle sucking on the spice for more than a few seconds, just like it'd been with Fai. Only unlike Fai, Kamui had never gotten used to it and overcame that. But he always had a stash of the sticks in his nightstand drawer—saved for whenever Fai came to his room, or whenever he came to Fai's.

It felt like he was putting the cinnamon sticks on his grave. Like by giving them to Fai, Kamui was honoring him. That person. That person that Kamui killed all because of a single, stupid mistake. A mistake he'd never make again. He owed it to Fai and even more to Ashura to never make that stupid, stupid, stupid, damned mistake ever again. Of course Ashura and Fai didn't blame him—they never had. They always told Kamui it was their fault—well, more correctly, Ashura told Kamui it was Ashura's, and Fai told Kamui it was Fai's.

Kamui told himself that both were just too grief-ridden that they were unable to think properly and deduce that it was neither of their faults, and it was all Kamui's.

He whispered, "Il mio bambino," and frowned to himself. It never sounded right when he said it—no matter how many times. The voice wasn't right—neither the tone nor the accent. Only one person alive could say it now, and that was Fai. The other person was dead. The person who had first loved him—far before anyone else. Far before the boy with hair of spun dark gold and alluring eyes ever supposedly did.

"Il mio bambino."

Kamui propped himself up on an elbow, catching the cinnamon stick in his hand, and looked up at the sound of the flawless accent and a voice identical to the one that'd spoken the endearment to him more times than he could count. Fai stood smiling in the doorway, still in the flower shopkeeper's clothes. "I always wondered why you never became irritated when my brother called you that. A young boy of eight hardly wants to cling to his mother."

"I never had one. No one had ever treated me like a child." Kamui sat up, and held up the cinnamon stick as Fai tossed the apron to the floor and loosened the collar of his shirt. He took a seat at the vanity, facing Kamui, and accepted the spice—placing it between his lips. "But Fai did."

Fai raised an eyebrow. "He thought you were lovely—just like an infant. Of course, like everything else he loved, he always looked for a lovelier name—rather than some biologic sounding name, he loved our language better. He always spoke it."

"What was it that he called you?" Kamui smiled.

"Mio fratello." Fai switched ends of the cinnamon. "Always, he thought our language was lovelier. I suppose he was right. But he told me once that Ashura's language was lovelier still. It is the language of love."

"Ashura's is too…smooth. Too much love, even. Yours still has some edge to it. Something to root it back to reality." Kamui, after all, wasn't very fond of fantasies and romance—it was the very reason he was a prostitute after all these years. He knew that Fai knew this, too.

Fai laughed—once, and short. "It certainly enchanted Fai. Ashura had to have some advantage, even if only speaking the language of love, as my brother did more romancing than I think Ashura ever realized." He held the cinnamon between his fingers—close to the web of his hand—and sighed, inhaling the breath that reached his nose. "But how about you?"

Kamui pulled his knees to his bare chest, curling in his naked body. "What about me?"

"You have yourself quite the potential romance, presently."

"No. I have the potential romance, which you forced upon me, presently. He continues to inhabit my room. You gave him a room of his own down the hall beside Doumeki. And when I lock my room, he continues to inhabit the space beside the door. I can hear him."

"Do you put your ear to the door and listen for his breathing?"

"That is beside the point." Kamui shrunk slightly.

Fai smiled and dropped to his knees, swooping up toward the bed, and catching Kamui on the lips. "Bambino, bambino," he cooed, precisely how anyone else would to a real infant. His hands held Kamui's cheeks while they kissed—when their lips drew apart, the hands slid down the shoulders and arms, gliding over the satiny skin to rest on bony hips. "He might like you."

"Well, if he weren't so annoying, I'd like him."

"What if he loves you?"

"I won't love him. I won't love anyone—I can't. It's pointless," Kamui said firmly. Determinedly. As though trying to convince himself of it.

Fai kissed him again. Both of them knew that the kisses weren't the same as when that person kissed them. They were both still trying to fill the void—all after five years. They'd always kissed each other, but that person's kisses were always so much livelier—soothing like a lullaby and full like life.

And yet that person—once life incarnate—was dead.

Fai was dead, and it was all Kamui's fault. Kamui had killed him by making the mistake he'd never make again:

He'd killed Fai because he'd fallen in love.

Fai watched Kamui close the door behind him, as he finally left—still naked, and clutching a borrowed sheet around his body, as he always did. His eyes followed the pale line of the prostitute's naked shoulders—how the shoulder blades sharply curved—until Kamui rounded the corner, only to soon be replaced by another visitor to Fai's chambers.

Ashura stood in the doorway.

Fai smiled to himself as Kamui paused slightly, figuratively bumping into Ashura, while the older young man simply waved it off cheerily and saw the boy off. Ashura's dark eyes swept into the room and his hand closed the door behind him.

"Hm. I didn't call," Fai said, hoisting himself onto the bed, leaning back and slipping off the shopkeeper's apron, and unbuttoning the collar. "But you have good timing." He smiled. "I was just about to."

Ashura shrugged with a matching smile. "It has been about a week. That is usually, more or less, the amount of time before you call me again. It used to be less, didn't it?" The corners of his eyes softened.

Fai just continued to smile—a smile that belied nothing but deceitful content. Maybe just deceit. "Well, then won't you get on with it?" His words were at odds with the tone he used to deliver them. Completely at odds. The edges of his smile sharpened into razors.

Ashura didn't speak after that. He simply let his own smile settle dully, and leaned forward to kiss Fai. To start the arrangement that they'd made that day five years ago. A vow to never love anyone but that person. A vow that neither of them had any trouble honoring, because neither of them could love anyone else. So instead, they loved each other. Every night—whenever either of them wanted to—they loved each other.

It would always happen in Fai's bed.

And it was a strict agreement that Ashura would always be cleaned and gone by sunrise. Out of bed, neither one was to bring it up. Even though it was a mutual pact of silence with both of them, it was also obvious to their subordinates. But no one dared mention it. Neither Fai nor Ashura nor anyone else.

In bed, anything went. In bed, it didn't matter to Fai that it mangled his heart every time that Ashura gasped, "Ma lumière," because even though Fai tried to pretend it was for him, he knew it wasn't. In bed, it didn't matter that when Fai gripped onto Ashura—his arms around his neck—for dear life, he was also wishing with tears hot in his eyes, that that person would come back, because it was all his fault that Ashura was in pain. All his fault that Ashura only had five years with that person.

In bed, it didn't matter that Fai wished so hard that Ashura wasn't gentle—that Ashura would really pound into him, would hurt him, make him bleed—because Fai knew that that gentleness wasn't for him. Even if it was, he didn't deserve it.

And in bed, it didn't matter that with every thrust, every kiss, every time fingertips ghosted, every time tongues touched—it didn't matter that Fai knew how even though that person had sacrificed his life for Fai, he knew that Ashura wished more than anything that it'd been Fai who'd died.

Or, more accurately, Yuui. Yuui should've died.

Fai should've lived.

A/N: I know it's short, but I needed the ending to, well, end there. For impact. Y'know? Anyhow, tsubasafanatic13 PM-ed me that she had made a Secrets Series playlist for me, so since it'll be who knows when to update Compelled or Impulse, I'll just give her the shout out now. And if any of you want to make a playlist (since I'm in great need of musical inspiration, because without that my muse is nil) go ahead and PM/email/send-to-me-via-carrier-pigeon.

Also, I don't know if any of you went and read my update (probably not, so here goes), but I'm going to Canada this Friday. So if any of you are Canadian...erm...I don't really know...I'll...be in your country, I guess...? If that doesn't sound stalkerish then, *gives dorky thumbs up*. All right, then. But I'm actually excited about going there (since I haven't been to Niagra Falls and all, and we'll also be going to Montreal and Quebec) and visiting all the French peoplez. French-Canadian, I s'pose.

The only sad part is that I can't bring my laptop, therefore, no updates. But I'll only be gone ten days.

(P.S., I got my high school schedule, and the language I'm taking is now officially French. Ironic, no?)

(P.P.S., the chapter after next, there will imminently be some Kamui-harrassing-on-Fuuma's-part, and some Kurogane-harrassing-on-Fai's-part. Next chapter in Compelled, there will be Yuui and Kamui catfighting...AND Yuui and Kamui sex. Well, more like Yuui and Kamui sex leading up to catfighting.....I told you Compelled was going to be TEH ANGST.)