|
-:[ Past Crimes ]:- ({Ch.6 - 11}) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==
6
That night on the roof had been a long time ago, thought Hiei. In that time, lots of things had changed. Gradually at first, then suddenly.
For one thing, Kazutaka’s eerie dissecting stare seemed to lose its edge. It wasn’t really noticeable unless Hiei was aware of it, unless he was watching for it. But more and more, he could swear he saw something downright gentle in Kazutaka’s face. Which was almost more unnerving than his cutting stare ever was.
Neither Hiei or Kazutaka had exactly volunteered to open up to one another, so neither man actually knew anything at all about his roommate. But the act of living together does force some familiarity upon both individuals, in the sense that small things such as habits and personal tastes become noticeable. The fact that both men were seasoned observers also may have had something to do with it.
Kazutaka had many opportunities to notice that whenever Hiei entered a room, even a room he was familiar with, he scanned it with his piercing gaze from top to bottom, as if checking for boobytraps and mapping out possible escape routes. It was also painfully obvious to anyone who knew Hiei for more than a week, that he hardly ever wore anything but black and denim. Likewise, Hiei had noticed that Kazutaka never dressed casually; to Kazutaka, the difference between ‘dressed-up’ and ‘dressed-down’ was a tie. If he felt the need to be relaxed, his blue-gray tie (which set his eyes off rather nicely) hung loose around his neck. Even when Kazutaka lingered around the apartment on his off days, he wore a spotless white business shirt. In the absence of a tie, the top two buttons of Kazutaka’s shirt usually hung open between the neat lapels, exposing ivory-pale skin and a surprisingly chiseled collarbone for a man who seemed to do nothing but cook for a living. On occasion, Hiei had also noticed that Kazutaka had a taste for oddly elegant, gothic-renaissance things, objects that looked like they belonged in a Christian church or perched atop a marble headstone in a European cemetery. Which was unusual, considering that Kazutaka had never given the slightest hint that he’d ever been to a church or a temple in his life. Hiei, who was marked by an utter lack of taste in anything but the sparsest necessities, just couldn’t seem to understand Kazutaka’s fascination with decorative objects. There was hardly a moment in Hiei’s constant quest for solitude that allowed him to actually develop any kind of decorative preference, and he sometimes watched Kazutaka unwrap a new trinket from its shell of newspaper with a genuinely puzzled expression. Once, Kazutaka had seen Hiei wearing this look and actually chuckled as Hiei immediately snapped his head around and glowered in the other direction.
Occasionally, Hiei would notice a dark brooding come over Kazutaka, and he could recognize a certain sharpness in the movements of Kazutaka’s hands when he seemed annoyed, but it would have been too strange to ask about it. Hiei never could seem to understand quite what was going on in Kazutaka’s fathomless head, while he appeared to read Hiei’s thoughts with a glance.
Whether it was that Kazutaka began unconsciously lowering his guard, or that Hiei began noticing things he would normally have dismissed, it gradually became apparent that something was wrong. More and more often, Hiei would return from a race to find Kazutaka scrubbing tables and countertops and polishing his trinkets like a man possessed, so much so that Kazutaka did not even glance up as Hiei passed by. There was an expression that he couldn’t quite place, half-hidden behind Kazutaka’s glasses; it was almost a tinge of loathing that he cast down at the polishing rag in his pale hand. Hiei had wondered about it that night, in his usual place up on the roof of the apartment, and it hadn’t made any sense to him why Kazutaka should looked so incensed while he was cleaning; Kazutaka had taken it upon himself to do all the cooking, and there was hardly ever a moment where he was not cleaning or straightening something.
Once, when Ma-Lyn hadn’t been by in more than a week, Hiei had come home to Kazutaka looking around sharply for something to clean, and continued to his room to drop his bulky helmet on top of his futon and change out of his sweaty black shirt. When he came back out, on his way up to the roof to think, Kazutaka had still been searching the spotless apartment for something to do, and with, Hiei noticed, a bit more urgency than was normal. However, he shrugged it off with a mere blink and closed the door firmly behind him; it was probably something Kazutaka needed to work through alone, the way the both of them always did. It was most likely one more thing about Kazutaka that would never make sense to him.
It was hours later when Hiei finally deemed himself tired enough to come down from the rooftop, and he could hear nothing but the quiet click as he turned the key in the lock outside their apartment door. However, he turned the handle, and the door swung open to the dark apartment with the tinkle of broken glass being pushed aside, and Hiei stood in the doorway tense with shock.
Dishes and plates lay smashed into a thousand pieces across the livingroom floor, gleaming like slivers of pearls under the rectangles of light from the moon through the windows. There was not a single inch of hardwood that was not littered with tiny white shards—shards that were too small to have been smashed only once. Every dish they owned must have been reduced to white rubble on the floor.
And in the middle of all of the senseless destruction, just outside the reach of the moonlight, was Kazutaka, sprawled across the length of the tan leather sofa as if he had collapsed onto it; his arms thrown up around his head, and one long leg had slid down so that his foot rested on the glass-strewn floor.
It was several moments before Hiei could release the fist he had clenched around the doorhandle, and several more before he put his feet back into his boots, stepped inside the room, and shut the door behind him, glass crunching under the thick soles.
Cautiously, Hiei walked across the sea of glinting white slivers, glancing from the man on the sofa around at the millions of little pieces everywhere and then back. Oddly, it was not the damage that held his attention. Hiei had never caught the slightest glimpse of Kazutaka when he was asleep before, nor had Kazutaka ever left any evidence that he slept at all. His clothes were never less than neat and tidy, and he never gave the impression of being drowsy. All of it was completely unheard of, and the decimated flatware only served to make Hiei worry that something had happened. Had Kazutaka really smashed all of this? Hiei had seen him carefully wash these dishes a hundred times over, and now they lay everywhere in shards. He had only ever seen Kazutaka cook and clean—as a matter of fact, it had started to make Hiei wonder if his roommate was half woman—but there he was, thrown across the tan leather cushions; with his silver hair tousled, and his glasses missing, and his shirt half undone and hopelessly full of wrinkles.
Kazutaka lay absolutely still, every angle of his body conveying total exhaustion. He had never looked so unguarded. The rise and fall of his half-bare chest was so slight that Hiei almost missed it, and there was an alarming number of expertly bandaged cuts all over his large ivory hands. One arm lay beside his head, so that his cut fingers just brushed his soft splayed hair, and the other was folded limply across his torso, over the hem of his loose white shirt that had pulled free of his creased gray business pants. Hiei’s frown of alarm jolted: There were faint crimson smudges across the colorless gray fabric. And the bottoms of Kazutaka’s snowy white socks were stained vivid red, from shards of glass that must have cut right through their thin cotton fabric. A single red smudge tainted the leather arm of the couch and the floorboards near each of Kazutaka’s feet, nothing else.
Hiei glanced at Kazutaka’s face for a long time. There was neither rest nor contentment there, no matter how hard Hiei looked; the stillness of his silver lashes and closed lips portrayed nothing except deep, dreamless sleep. Kazutaka’s pale features were set in the eternal mask a dead man wears while he sleeps on the silk of his coffin.
Hiei stood beside the sofa, a rectangle of moonlight cast on the floor between himself and Kazutaka’s still form laid across the tan leather cushions. The gleam on the wooden floor dimmed as a cloud crossed the moon.
What had happened? What was all this for?
A worried frown creased Hiei’s brow beneath his headband; he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He glanced around at all the glass shards, then at Kazutaka’s expressionless face, remembering the crazed desperate way he had been searching for something to do.
Remembering it clearer and clearer as the seconds ticked by.
Finally, Hiei turned away, crunching loudly across the hardwood floor, and left his boots at the door. He crossed the sea of shattered white glass in one swift, inhuman flash, and paused at the door of his room. He glanced back across the apartment at Kazutaka, lying on the sofa in the oppressive darkness. Then he opened his door, stepped inside and closed it, as if he had never left before and seen the desperation on Kazutaka’s face, or come back to the sea of glass dishes and his calm and collected roommate, lying in a million pieces all across the livingroom they shared.
When Hiei woke the next morning, all the glass was gone, and Kazutaka’s soles were white and hidden inside a pair of pale yellow house slippers. His shirt was neat and buttoned, and his one light gray eye lingered behind his glasses as he served up breakfast onto a pair of new, bright red plates with unmarred hands. The strange little curve of Kazutaka’s lips was the same as he placed the dishes on their miniscule kitchen table and then turned to reach for coffee mugs.
‘Good morning.’
‘Hn,’ Hiei had said, acting as if nothing had ever happened.
He rubbed his face and fell into his chair as tiredly as always, as if he had never seen Kazutaka the night before. As if he had never seen him bleed or break. As if he had never seen him asleep on the sofa, looking so dead.
‘Aren’t you curious about the dishes?’ Kazutaka’s voice floated over his tall broad shoulders, as Hiei stabbed a sausage from his red plate. Was there a hint of something in Kazutaka’s calm tone? Was Hiei just imagining that hesitance, that undertone of worry in his voice?
‘No,’ Hiei replied, so callously that he almost regretted it, ‘I don’t care how you decorate this place.’ Had he sounded convincing enough?
Kazutaka’s broad back revealed nothing, and when he turned back to their cramped table with two full mugs of coffee, his face was calm and unchanged.
When Kazutaka had finally sat down and started eating his pancakes, Hiei put down his cup of coffee, and, as if nothing had ever happened, said:
‘Ever bet on an underground race before...?’
==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==
7
That was the first and last time Hiei had ever invited anyone to one of his races, and nothing more was said. Since then, Kazutaka always seemed to appear on his own. Sometimes he asked to come, and sometimes he never said a word to Hiei, and just showed up completely unannounced among the dark-clad crowd like a bright spot of bleached white.
As naturally as insane speed came to him, it was practically fate that Hiei became well known in the racing underworld. Never mind that the average winnings off most races were never less than one grand, and races took place at least once every two weeks. For Hiei, it was a perfect way to make ends meet. Nothing about driving fast bothered him in the least. As long as he was screaming along at impossible speed, Hiei was completely fearless.
He didn’t even bother wearing a helmet in the beginning. It didn’t matter in the least to Hiei, but it was just that kind of recklessness that earned him a powerful title on the asphalt strip. The possibility of seeing a gory and exciting crash grabbed the crowd’s attention, drew them in perfectly. It appealed to the dark tastes and tainted ways of the gamblers, businessmen, gang leaders, and general young hooligans and thugs that came to enjoy themselves, bathed in the corruption of broken rules. The law didn’t reach there, and as much distaste as Hiei had for all “those honorless slugs”, as he so callously put it, it was his own lawlessness that captivated them. He found it more than a little ironic that his people-skills were so poor, and yet he was a crowd favorite. His brooding glare and strange charisma were apparent enough to spectators that the owner of the circuit himself favored him. But as many fans as there were, there would always be jealous competition.
There were plenty of racers who would’ve dearly loved to take Hiei’s title. Either through victory, or by less honorable means.
The stretch of road behind the old parking garage was an hour’s drive from Kazutaka’s apartment, on the very edge of the city limits. The purpose of such an inconvenient location was to make it harder for the authorities to break up a race. All those present could scatter quickly, because of the racing strip itself, which used to be an old stretch of highway that lead directly to a major junction. Crossing into different prefectures outside the jurisdiction of the local police was a simple matter of making it to the end of the strip and taking either fork of the junction to merge with another, much newer and more frequently used, highway that would easily swallow up even the hundreds that attended the motorcycle races on the underground circuit.
Hiei was early by at least a quarter of an hour, and the fans were already congregating in the dozens along either side of the road. Over the rumble of his motor, their loud whoops and curses could be heard in snatches as he drove by. Silently, he was grateful for the anonymity his helmet provided; it would have been a pointless hassle to be recognized. The last thing he needed or wanted was to be swamped by these stinking leather-clad vermin milling all over the strip with their plastic beer cups.
At the end of the strip, closest to the ‘public’ highway, were the dirty white tents where the racers and the higher-ups waited for their races. The tents were reserved, and big men in black suits and jackets stood beside each white tent-pole, glaring around at the half-drunk spectators. The widest of the tents was nearest the strip, where all of the more ‘privileged’ racers loitered near their parked vehicles, tuning up this and that, or polishing parts with a stained rag. There were few competitors present this early, and none of them veteran racers, which was just how Hiei liked it.
He pulled his growling black bike to a stop at the end of the strip beside the racers’ tent, watching about ten of the security “officers” straighten up and casually crack their knuckles. He pulled off his helmet to glare at the one that started pacing towards his bike, and the big man stopped short and quickly stepped back to his pole under Hiei’s look of smoldering irritation. They knew who he was, as soon as the helmet came off, everyone did. And it was goddamn annoying. That was exactly why he liked to get here early; just to avoid all the idiots he possibly could.
The farthest corner of the racers’ tent was unanimously Hiei’s. It was the farthest point from the ruckus of the crowd, with all the slopping beer and shouting and catcalling to the skanky ningen whores adorning the bumpers of other men’s cars. Hiei despised his fans, and stayed as far from them as possible without going out of his way. He always parked his bike in the quietest emptiest corner—his corner—and then set to work on his vehicle before even the rookie-races started.
The spectators had nicknamed his bike ‘Black Beauty’, due to the fact that it was the one and only motorcycle on the circuit that wasn’t decaled or pinstriped or splashed with flashy orange flames. It was entirely appropriate for an elegantly plain and sleek jet-black machine like his, eventhough he’d never admit to it. Hiei regarded everything about the jeering human fans with his customary distain, and what they called his bike was no exception. Privately though, he thought the name was just about the best thing to ever come out of a crowd of stupid half-drunk ningen.
By the time the end of the no-name races had finally gotten the spectators warmed up, Hiei was finished wiping the last of the grime from the mufflers of his bike, ignoring the roars of the crowd and other engines in the background. An undetectable smile lightened Hiei’s glower of concentration as he leaned back on his heels and stood up, looking over his work with satisfaction. His reflection was so sharp on the surface of the fender that he could have read a magazine over his shoulder.
It was always a shame to let his bike get dirty, but he didn’t want it to shine like this for just anyone. Races were what both he and his motorcycle existed for; they were special occasions. Hiei liked to think that the dirt and road dust from between races was like the bike’s mild-mannered alter ego; just like he had his own secrets. She looked like any other sleek motorcycle when she was speckled with grit, but now that she’d been polished down, she was transformed into the gleaming ‘Black Beauty’ once again. Hiei threw the dirty rag onto the asphalt toward the edge of the tent. Now both of them were good and ready to race.
He cast a long glance over the shiny dome of his black helmet, as he did before every race, for what must have been the hundredth race since he first received it—and left it sitting on the ground beside the rag.
Stop looking at it like that; it’s just a goddamn helmet... He swore at himself as he turned his back on its smoky grey visor, and threw his leg over the studded leather seat of ‘Black Beauty’.
He turned the key and twisted the throttle, letting her roar of rattling horsepower drive everything else out of his mind. He felt nothing but the vibrating engine beneath him. Clenching his fists around the stiff handlebars, he felt the growl of Beauty’s speed in his whole body as he wheeled her around and blasted out from his quiet corner of the racers’ tent. A deep crackling voice on a megaphone pointed toward the tents was struggling to be heard over the deafening uproar of the drunken spectators, calling needlessly for Jaganshi Hiei to report to the starting line.
All of Ningenkai could have been screaming and he wouldn’t have heard it beyond the engine’s shattering roar.
He was untouchable.
It was time to set this strip on fire.
==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==
8
Hiei relished the sight of the long stretch of the asphalt strip laid out in front of him every time he saw it, and this time was no different.
He waited impatiently, one boot bracing his bike on the blacktop, without so much as glancing at his opponent. It didn’t matter. He was undefeated; simply one more win to add to his stack. He itched to open the throttle and streak down the middle of the empty lane like an arrow; the adrenaline-high was already ringing in his ears.
A skinny, stacked human girl in tiny shorts took her place between the two riders; a sultry smile caked on her face as she waved a little red flag in each hand, holding them high above her fluffed head.
The other rider revved his engine; a clunky acid-green thing with laughing nightmarish skulls and skeleton wings painted across the sides. Hiei scowled and looked back down along the strip, already annoyed that he’d wasted his time glancing over at the other racer. The human snarled under his skull-decaled helmet at Hiei’s callous attitude, clenching his meaty fists around the wide handlebars of his loud flashy rig.
Fool... Hiei smirked ever so slightly, and the skanky human girl threw down the flags in either hand.
The engine roared as Hiei shot screaming down the strip, hunched low over the handlebars, legs clasped against either side of Beauty’s sleek black frame. His eyes were zeroed in on the end of the strip, watching it rush towards him as if he would slice right on through and never stop. It felt like electricity was running under his skin in time with the vibrations of the engine.
This was what it meant for Jaganshi Hiei to be alive.
He sensed the human’s green bike pulling up even with his, heard the man’s triumphant whoop being dashed away by the wind. Did the stupid ningen think it meant victory just to pull even? Then he truly was a fool.
A glowering smile cracked Hiei’s face.
Then he opened Beauty’s throttle wide.
The engine whined as the gleaming black bike shot forward, and Hiei shifted his weight, pulling on the handlebars and balancing until Beauty reared up in the air, blasting across the finish line in a wheelie.
The roar from the crowd was deafening as Hiei pulled Beauty around and braked, leaving two skidmarks trailing on the asphalt. His glower was back in place as he waited, slouching on the leather seat of his rumbling bike, giving the spectators a chance to scream themselves hoarse, as he was required to do. The owner of the circuit had once asked, in an incredibly detached tone that Hiei came to despise in about ten seconds flat: why didn’t he stay and bask in the limelight a little; why not enjoy it, he had won it afterall, hadn’t he? The man in his neat gray suit had seemed very amused by Hiei’s silent scathing glare, and said that for the fans’ sake, only a brief moment was necessary to cheer. It was a small price to pay for the flawless maintenance of his bike and one grand in his pocket every few weeks.
Nevertheless, when Hiei idled his bike back into the riders’ tent to pick up his helmet and his check from whatever stooge the circuit-owner had sent, he was bristling with annoyance. If the owner had sent another woman to deliver his winnings, she would find herself snubbed even faster and more brusquely than usual. The last one had winked and giggled so much it made him sick. He could only hope that the next had at least half as much work done on her brain as on her rack and her face.
Hiei clenched his teeth in a quick display of annoyance as the noise from the crowd outside the tent rose, and he propped Black Beauty in her spot in the “quiet” back corner. His helmet was where he’d left it, gleaming black beside the dirty gray rag. He bent to pick it up, staring at the way the world behind him reeled in its reflection, while the bulging illusion of his face stayed still, watching him stare back.
Another warped faced slid into the dark surface of his helmet.
“Um... you’re Mr. Jaganshi, right?” a woman’s voice asked.
Damn it, he thought, a harassed sound escaping him.
“...Yes?” he growled, determined to snatch the check and leave at the first sign of a giggle. Hiei let the arm holding the helmet carelessly fall against his side as he turned to exasperatedly face the one who had been sent with his winnings... and the scowl fell instantly from his face.
Never in a thousand years had he expected it.
The shiny black helmet clattered as it fell to the pavement from his loose hand.
It rolled a few feet away, and no one bent to pick it up.
“....Ma-Lyn.”
==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==
8
Any minute now he’d wake up and find out it was just another dream.
He knew it; that was how it always happened.
...Any minute now.
Hiei waited, as Ma-Lyn stared at him with a confused frown. When he blinked, she was still standing there. And again when he blinked; she was still there. Her painfully familiar face wrinkled with deep wariness, more confused than ever.
“Mr. Jaganshi... what’s wrong?” the voice was exactly the same, only a little more suspicious and alarmed as she regarded him with her brown eyes narrowed, watching him carefully. “How did you know my name?”
It was her, exactly as he remembered: With her fine dark lashes and demure mouth, black waves pulled up into childish pigtails on either side of her head. Even the way she clasped her hands together in front of her when she was unsure was the same. The only thing was the way she was dressed.
Ma-Lyn didn’t like to wear revealing things; they made her too anxious, too conscious of herself. But here she was, in a short jean skirt that exposed her bare legs all the way up to her mid-thigh, and bold high-heeled shoes with buckles all over them. She wore a flashy black vinyl jacket that sounded like a plastic raincoat when she moved, and one shoulderstrap of her small white tank-top was visible inside the collar of the plastic lapels. A band of tender skin was exposed below the hem of the skimpy tank-top, and big white earrings dangled down on either side of her leery face. She carried herself slightly different; more confidently, with both high-heels planted firmly on the asphalt, and she turned a little away from him, guardedly, as if he might do something to her if she didn’t watch him.
“Well? How did you know my name?” Ma-Lyn pressed her lips together in a pouty little glare of caution, waiting coldly for an answer.
“Don’t you remember?” Hiei said, “A year ago?”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life. Only in races around here.” Ma-Lyn’s face did not change as she held out a folded white slip of paper at arm’s-length; his check.
“It’s you. Nusumu Ma-Lyn.” Hiei said firmly, waiting for her to remember as she stood with one delicate hand holding out the check. He made no move to take it from her. “You disappeared, almost a year ago. Don’t you remember anything?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but my name is ºSagashimasu Ma-Lyn.” Her voice was just as he remembered, but she looked at him as if he might bite her. “I don’t know any Nusumu Ma-Lyn.” She shook the piece of paper in her hand once as she held it out, “Just take your money; I’ve had enough of this.”
Hiei looked at her hard, picking out every detail of her face that he remembered. The exact way her mouth moved, the way she gripped the paper with all her fingertips together against her thumb, the quick hesitating blink of her eyelashes—the way she looked out from under them like a child hiding behind her parent’s leg, and the little crease in her forehead that only appeared when she was about to cry.
“No; it’s you.” Hiei took a step forward without thinking, his boots crunching grit on the blacktop, echoing inside the tent. Immediately, she took one step back, her heels scuffing in her haste. She held the check up as if it were a ward against him, still well within his reach to take, her other hand clenched into a shaky fist at her side. “You were a waitress at the Daidokoro no Mado,” Hiei insisted, ignoring the check fluttering in her hand, “You disappeared, Ma-Lyn.... why?”
“I’m telling you; you’ve got the wrong person. Whoever she is—I’m not her!” said this girl who looked exactly like Ma-Lyn, and talked exactly like Ma-Lyn, and did everything but dress and know that she was exactly like Nusumu Ma-Lyn, down to the tiny tremble in her lip.
In that same way that Ma-Lyn had used to hand Hiei a grocery list, with a sweet sheepish grin and ask if he could go out and pick up a few things—in that exact same way, this girl who was not Ma-Lyn held up the slip of paper imploringly: “Just take your money and leave me alone.”
Any minute now, he would wake up... he had to...
Any minute now....
“Ma-Lyn...”
And Hiei made the mistake of taking another step forward and reaching past the piece of white paper, towards her small shaking hand.
The effect was explosive.
“Don’t touch me!” Ma-Lyn cried, as she recoiled and threw Hiei’s winnings in his face. She whirled around and bolted for the opposite side of the tent before the fluttering paper had even touched the ground.
Any minute now, he would wake up....
“Ma-Lyn!” Hiei ran after her as she plunged into the screaming bellowing crowd and disappeared without a trace.
Any minute now....
“Hey! What’s goin’ on here?” One of the guards outside the tent grabbed Hiei roughly by the shoulder, and was instantly met with a lethal glare. The security man was at least two feet taller, a good bit wider, and a few hundred pounds heavier than him, and Hiei dropped him to the floor with a single vicious slug to the torso. The huge man hit the pavement and sprawled like a corpse.
There would be no waking up. This time, it was real.
Hiei’s scarlet eyes scanned the crowd. Where the hell was she? Why the hell had she run away? Again and again he swept his piercing gaze over the hundreds of drunken humans, whooping and swearing and laughing like savages with their beer bottles.
Goddammit, where did she go!
He stopped his right hand, halfway to his forehead, about to rip away the white blindfold that covered his Jagan.
He stared furiously at the hand that had almost betrayed him, clenched it into a fist, and wished he could smash something, just to utterly destroy it. It was infuriating to be as weak and useless as a human. He loathed this banishment and all its damn rules. He hated it so much he could’ve raged for days without stopping.
He turned on his heel and stormed across the riders’ tent, stopping only to retrieve the winnings-check and his helmet from the ground. He smoothed the slight wrinkle from the folded paper, put it in his pocket, and picked up the helmet from where it had fallen on the asphalt.
There was an ugly scrape in its shiny surface that marred half of his face from its reflection as he looked into it.
==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==
10
Kazutaka had been little more than a hundred feet away when he saw Hiei returning to the riders’ tent, noting his curt strides as he walked beside his motorcycle that exposed his acute annoyance to anyone with eyes. Kazutaka’s passive face lightened in the subtlest of smirks at Hiei’s familiar smoldering glower.
He had watched Hiei race, and though Kazutaka had seen dozens of them, he was still struck by the thrill of watching Hiei ride, every time. It was uncanny. There was just something in the way that Hiei tore down the road without the slightest trace of apprehension that excited him, something in the way he hunched over the handlebars that made him seem to meld with the sleek bike, and the blazing elation in Hiei’s expression that drew Kazutaka in as if he were right beside Hiei as the bike shot down the strip. The amount of passion Hiei had for such raw speed was overwhelming.
Kazutaka had watched the unconscious grin crack Hiei’s face as the other motorist had pulled even. He’d seen the scornful arrogance that flashed across Hiei’s smile just as he popped a wheelie and blasted across the finish line on one tire. He’d felt his own mouth stretch into a smile as he watched Hiei dismount, and glower around at the ecstatic screaming roar of the crowd. Why was it so endearing that he was constantly agitated by something, every moment of every day, Kazutaka had wondered, watching him from the seething human masses as Hiei waited irritably for the raucous cheering to dull.
Why did one stab of that scarlet glare make Kazutaka’s nerve-endings tingle, he mused to himself as he waded through the deplorable crowd, following Hiei’s path to the riders’ tent from a distance for perhaps the hundredth time. All these things that fascinated him were so distinct, so strikingly unique compared to this dull life as Mitsukeru Kazutaka. Why was he so drawn to the extraordinary; was it really so difficult to leave his past behind him?
Kazutaka’s glinting gray eye snatched a glimpse of feathered black hair and a white strip of cloth through a strained gap in the moving bodies, before the maw of the crowd closed up again, blocking his view.
Wasn’t this enough for him? Why couldn’t he be satisfied with the careful balance he’d designed? It was dangerous to get any closer. He’d always been determined that Muraki’s mistakes would not be repeated, that he would never suffer another death like Tsuzuki’s. So why then, did he always have to fight so hard not to overstep his self-laid boundaries? What was it about Jaganshi Hiei that seemed to be picking apart his carefully fabricated plan, until all was ready to fall to ruin and flames around him again?
Kazutaka reached an overlooking point in the flow of the crowd, and could see Hiei clearly over the bobbing heads of the spectators. Kazutaka watched him penetratingly over the distance, as if the harder he stared the closer Hiei would become. There was a feeling of deep dread whenever Kazutaka thought of what might happen if Hiei knew everything, that somehow he would end up losing another as precious to him as Tsuzuki had been in the same horrible way, but there was also a sense of wanting it to happen. It was almost as if he were daring it to all fall apart, his entire precariously-woven net of puppet-strings.
Kazutaka’s face darkened ever so slightly.
His hand had already been forced once, to keep everything as he had so gingerly constructed it. If he hadn’t brought matters back underneath his control, everything he had would’ve come apart. But as vital as it had been, Kazutaka was still weighted with the regret of having caused Hiei to suffer so much.
Inside the riders’ tent Kazutaka had seen Hiei bend down for the shiny black helmet on the asphalt. He had seen Hiei become very still as he looked into its glassy dark surface, still in the way that he always did when he fell to remembering.
And from across the riders’ tent, a girl had approached Hiei’s back. Briefly, the shifting crowd between Kazutaka and the edge of the huge tent obscured the girl from his penetrating gray stare. Kazutaka saw Hiei turn around, saw the absolute shock register on his glaring face, and heard the echoing crack of the helmet’s black dome on the pavement. The crowd parted again, and Kazutaka’s jaw clenched at the sight of black wavy pigtails on either side of the girl’s head. The clothes didn’t match, but he knew those pigtails anywhere.
Kazutaka was riveted to the girl’s back as it flickered in and out of view between the crowd. Good god, where had she come from? How long had it been since she disappeared? A year. Almost exactly a year ago. He of all people should remember.
And now she was back, just like this, appearing out of thin air. Kazutaka’s gaze flicked over her audacious clothes as she spoke to Hiei and held out a slip of white paper. She never would have worn these clothes before. Was she in hiding as someone else? And why was she here, of all places to turn up?
Kazutaka’s thoughts were sharp and anxious as he watched the girl shake her head and hold up the piece of paper in Hiei’s face. Her shoulders were shaking slightly under her shiny black jacket. Was it really her? Was it really Nusumu Ma-Lyn?
The expression of Hiei’s face was tight and Kazutaka could see how his piercing crimson eyes were taking in every detail of her face, watching her hands as they moved, returning again and again to search for something in her eyes. Hiei’s fist was clenched at his side as he seemed to ignore the piece of paper she held in his face completely. It was barely there, but Kazutaka could see the pain in Hiei’s features. There was something vulnerable there in the knit of his brows and the way he held his shoulders squared.
What was she saying? What was she telling him?
My god. Did she know that he had done it? Was that what she was telling Hiei?
Kazutaka felt his insides clench as he imagined his web of carefully fabricated truths and meticulously covered lies being torn down around him in falling white shreds. Something seemed to have paralyzed him where he stood, a giant weight pinning his body in place as he watched the ghost of Ma-Lyn holding up the slip of paper at arms-length. What would he do if Hiei knew? A moment ago, he had only been musing to himself, wondering absently, as if it could never really happen. But now the very thing he’d lived in fear of was right in front of him, happening, so starkly real that it felt like he was hallucinating every second of it.
“Don’t touch me!” The sound of her voice stuck to the air, tin and acidic as she bolted into the crowd; and the realization settled like lead in the pit of his stomach: He had heard that scream only once before. It was unmistakable.
“Ma-Lyn!” Everything else was seamlessly eclipsed from his vision, as Kazutaka’s mind zeroed-in with cruel accuracy on the anxiety in Hiei’s voice as he called after her. A small bolt of pain went through Kazutaka; the tiny desperate strain he had heard there-- it was his fault. Not Hiei’s.
Kazutaka felt the reckless bone-jarring blow that Hiei landed on the idiot security guard as if it were a vicious slap to his own face. Something in his chest was twisting horribly as he watched Hiei scanning the crowd, his vivid red eyes darting feverishly in all directions. It was agonizing, and it began to burn as Hiei finally raised his arm, as if to rip the bandana from his forehead and throw it to the ground, and stopped there, fist in front of his contorted face. It was all his fault. It was written into every line of Hiei’s grimace.
Kazutaka clenched his jaw tightly.
What have I done to you....
==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==
11
It was almost sundown before the rumble of Hiei’s motorcycle echoed from the apartment parking lot up through the opened window, where Kazutaka had sat at the table like a statue for hours after getting home. Hours that Hiei had spent out driving Black Beauty like a screaming comet on the highways, and flying thunderously down the distant rural lanes in long straight lines where he didn’t feel the press of Ningen eyes like he did in the cities.
The hot glow of the sun was gleaming through Beauty’s fresh coat of fine road-dust as Hiei parked her, and absently ran his hand over her handlebars and seat one last time before he went inside. He tried not to look at his reflection in the surface of the helmet as he took it from where it was secured behind his seat, but his red gaze lingered on the ugly scuffmark for a fraction of a second as he tucked it under his arm to go inside.
After the shock of seeing Ma-Lyn in the riders’ tent, Hiei had done nothing but think and remember and dwell in the roaring silence of his motorcycle. Hours he had spent; long mindnumbing hours of replaying everything those few moments had contained over and over again. So many times that it felt like it could hardly have happened at all. It felt like a bad dream now when he thought about it, and he tried not to.
It was making him sick, and he knew it. Or maybe it was the nauseating slowness that he was forced to walk at after hours of riding at nearly 100mph.
Now there was a thought: Jetlag from walking.
Hiei could’ve almost managed a tiny bitter laugh, if only he weren’t so exhausted. He was tired of everything; tired of walking, tired of thinking, tired of remembering, tired of trying and feeling and failing. He was even tired of breathing.
When he pulled his riding boots off at the door, Hiei felt it like he was removing a pair of lead weights; and it did nothing to lessen his exhaustion. The helmet under his arm was like a boulder, and his leather riding-jacket made it hard to move his arms.
Everything was a haze of fatigue and sick whirling thoughts, until the door closed behind him and Hiei heard Kazutaka’s deep clear voice cut across the room from their kitchen table:
“Welcome home.”
For a moment, everything was sharper and easier to focus on, and the scuff of Kazutaka’s chair across the little section of kitchen tiles sounded clearly in the big apartment. It was after Hiei collapsed onto the tan squashy sofa that the tiredness began to seep back into him.
Kazutaka’s feet padded silently on the wood floor as he came over, “I was worried. You’ve been gone a long time. Did something happen after the race?”
Hiei was aware of the hard fiberglass dome still sitting under his arm, and his scowl deepened. b*****d. He was trying not to think about it anymore; he was so tired of thinking about it that he could fall asleep sitting up, right on the spot. Dammit, he didn’t want to think anymore, it was sucking the life out of him.
“Hnph,” was all he said.
Kazutaka could see the sagging defeat in every muscle of Hiei’s frame, and it stung him deep in the chest with guilt to keep pressing Hiei into the very subject he must be desperately trying to avoid. The scowling black-haired man had never seemed so small as he did now, sitting on the couch and staring into space with one arm draped limply over his helmet and the jacket hanging off his shoulders. They looked almost fragile all of a sudden, those shoulders, Kazutaka noticed with well-hidden alarm; what could have happened that would allow Hiei to expose such weakness in himself? What had that ghost of a girl told him?
“I saw you won today. Was it something that happened afterwards? Tell me.” Kazutaka insisted, fighting painfully to keep his own face blank and unconcerned.
Hiei’s aggravated glare cut deep, “Nothing happened,” he snarled, wishing Kazutaka would suddenly burst into flame beside the couch. Hiei stood up and furiously yanked his jacket off, his limbs tangling inside the thick leather sleeves in his irritation. What the hell was his problem, goddammit?
There was silence as Hiei struggled with his jacket. Then...
Kazutaka’s tone of subdued calm sounded suddenly firm and harsh, and far too close:
“Liar.”
Hiei’s smoldering glare snapped up from the jacket behind his back; and found Kazutaka standing directly in front of him, less than a foot away, his silver hair and one steely grey eye lancing down over Hiei from his pale challenging face, as if icily immune to the glowing orange sunlight pouring through the window across the room.
Hiei’s arms were held by the jacket, and the backs of his knees were already flush against the edge of the sofa; if he moved back he would lose his balance and fall onto the couch like a fool. He was as good as pinned.
Hiei glared up at Kazutaka’s white silently daring features, refusing to back down. He watched Kazutaka’s cool eye travel lightly over his defiant scowl and catch a glint of the red sunlight in it.
Curses and swears boiled up and died in Hiei’s throat as he searched Kazutaka’s alien expression. His skin was prickling all over. The scorching glare was slipping from his face under Kazutaka’s scrutiny, and Hiei was immediately uncomfortably aware of the sleeping third eye hidden under the cloth on his forehead. The tiniest squirm of uncertainty touched Hiei’s gut; it immediately drowned in a surge of recklessness that sent subdued thrills through his insides. Kazutaka’s gaze had settled, and his single grey eye was softly penetrating as he finally spoke.
“It’s Ma-Lyn, isn’t it...”
Hiei was instantly taken aback, and it must have shown on his face.
“What is it? Tell me.” Kazutaka urged quietly as he stepped back, away from Hiei and the sofa.
Hiei observed the distance silently; a pace, two steps. Still not comfortable by his standards, but he said nothing and grudgingly removed the jacket from his arms before he spoke.
“I saw her. In the rider’s tent, where the racers park their bikes.” Hiei was looking down at the wood floor, glowing in the wide square of sunset cast by the window, and missed seeing Kazutaka’s tense impatience.
“And?”
“And what?” Hiei snapped, looking up at Kazutaka’s white face cast in the warm underglow of the red sunlight at his feet. His stare was more intense than Hiei had ever seen, like a single dimmed laser from under the slight shadow of Kazutaka’s furrowed brows. His arms were frozen at his sides, and he looked like he was on the verge of trapping Hiei against the couch again.
“Please Hiei, what did she say?”
What was this expression that Kazutaka wore? Why did Kazutaka look at him like this, as if he had all the answers? He had none of them, nothing. What look would he give Hiei if he knew that? What look would he give Hiei if he knew about the ‘scar’ under his bandana; if he knew about the Jagan?
The surge of recklessness rose up in Hiei’s gut as he watched Kazutaka’s fathomless face, and the silence of the big apartment ate at their ears.
Kazutaka couldn’t ask again; his chest and throat were knotted painfully tight. Hiei’s sharp crimson eyes seemed to be boring into his face; his own eye could feel their pressure, as if Hiei were gouging it out with just a look. What was he thinking? Dear god, what if Hiei thought he was some kind of monster? What would he do then? Kazutaka’s gut twisted; was Hiei staring right through him, seeing some cruel rendition of what he had done to Nusumu Ma-Lyn over and over again? Was that why his scarlet eyes cut so deep and still Hiei refused to answer him?
Kazutaka’s nerves were raw. He could feel a touch of delirious madness scraping across the surface of his thoughts like fingernails; Muraki’s touch, ready to destroy everything. It felt like a scream welling up in the core of his being as Hiei’s silent daggerlike frown grated away at the will holding it back.
Kazutaka’s jaw was clenched so tightly his ears rang, and the red sun was glaring off the floor into his face. He was afraid he was going to snap.
The red glow in the room dimmed as the sun began sinking behind the broken horizon of buildings and flat rooftops littered with ugly antennae and vents.
“Kazutaka.”
The maddening tension seemed to dissolve at the sudden sound of Hiei’s voice.
Kazutaka’s mouth opened to reply, and nothing came out. Was that the first time Hiei had called him by name? He couldn’t recall.
“Before I tell you...” Hiei’s expression was remarkably flat and impossible to read, and the elusive angle he held his body at was clearly a guard, “...I want to show you something.” There was nothing hinting in Hiei’s voice, and his lancing red gaze was as steady as ever. Hiei stood still as the weak orange darkness in the apartment deepened, without a word, giving away absolutely nothing.
Kazutaka had never seen Hiei so blatantly reserved and unevasive before. It gave him a sort of thin shock, and sharpened his attention on Hiei’s small muscled frame all the more. His white socks and shirt seemed to stand out against the darkness of sundown that was gradually swallowing the room, creeping almost tangibly out of the far corners.
Overcome by puzzled curiosity, Kazutaka blinked, and finally shifted. There was no sound, but the motion seemed loud and obvious after having been still for so long. Hiei followed him through the murky darkness with his eyes as Kazutaka went to turn on a light.
“No lights,” Hiei’s guarded tone froze Kazutaka’s pale hand before it could reach the switch, “You’re not allowed to see it.”
Kazutaka was now genuinely confused, and his single light eye frowned in the partial darkness. He didn’t understand at all.
The room darkened in silence.
Kazutaka’s pale hand reached into the pocket of his faint white shirt for his glasses, a red glint flashing along the frames. As he raised them to his face to settle them on the bridge of his fine white nose, Hiei’s irritated voice came out of the darkness again, this time beside him.
“No glasses. Breaks the rules.”
Kazutaka obediently tucked them back into his shirt pocket, “Why can’t I see it?”
It was a long moment in the dark before Hiei spoke again; so long that Kazutaka had almost forgotten what he had asked. But when Hiei answered, there was something in his voice that made Kazutaka acutely aware that Hiei had been thinking about his answer the entire time, choosing his sparse words carefully.
“Can’t say. You’ll see...”
Another long moment passed before Hiei seemed sure it was dark enough.
“Hiei...” Kazutaka listened for the tiny sounds of Hiei moving across the room, and suddenly felt a firm hand grasp his forearm. By the faint pinkish light from the window, he could just make out Hiei’s passive face floating in the darkness in front of him.
“Walk,” he commanded tersely, and tugged on Kazutaka’s forearm. Kazutaka was led by the pull of Hiei’s strong calloused fingers to the darkest corner of the apartment, then his grip released.
“Hiei...”
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Came Hiei’s voice out of the dark.
Kazutaka reached into the sea of black, groping with both arms; “Where the hell is your hand...?”
“Good.”
There was a rustle of cloth nearby, and a single floorboard creaked.
“Hiei, is this really necessary...?” Kazutaka asked, beginning to severely dislike standing around in the pitch blackness of his own apartment, waiting to be shown something he wasn’t allowed to see.
“Yes. Now shut up.” Hiei’s clipped reply was very close, and he felt Hiei’s hand take hold of his right wrist.
Kazutaka thought he would never get over the surprise of how small Hiei’s hand felt around his arm. Until his hand was lifted for him, and his fingertips brushed soft spiky unruly hair, as Hiei guided Kazutaka’s long fingers to touch his bare forehead.
It took a moment for the shock to register, but Kazutaka’s brain began to function again, and he realized that Hiei had taken off the white strip of cloth he always wore on his forehead. Kazutaka was actually touching him, and Hiei was allowing it.
He wasn't sure he believed it, and it took the longest time to seem real in Kazutaka’s mind. Even as it was happening, and Kazutaka’s sight seemed to concentrate into his right hand, as if he had always been blind and could see only through the brush of his fingers; even then it all seemed sharply hazy, and punctuated by the sound of his own pulse.
The head under Kazutaka’s fingers was hot and small and smooth, hotter than any person’s skin should be. It was alarming at first, as if Hiei had a lethally high fever, and Kazutaka couldn’t keep a small unimportant frown of concern from creasing his brow in the dark. Soft feathers of Hiei’s bangs brushed through his fingers and tickled across the back of Kazutaka’s hand as he moved it, committing the feel of Hiei’s hair to memory. He slid his pale fingers over the contour of Hiei’s forehead until his palm lay flat across the smooth surface of burning-warm skin.
A small soft dome of flesh pressed into Kazutaka’s palm. Slowly, he ran his fingertips along the curve of the bump, feeling the soft delicate shape of it. The warm skin stretched gently under the pads of Kazutaka’s fingers as they moved, ever so slowly, ever so carefully, down to touch the fine hair of Hiei’s perpetually frowning brows. His fingertips gingerly traced around the tender bulge on Hiei’s forehead, directly above the gap of smooth skin between his eyebrows, and felt a seam of flesh lined with tiny bristled lashes.
Kazutaka felt the velvety soft skin move beneath his light touch, and the tiny short lashes flickered across the undersides of his fingers as the soft lid of an eye slid open.
An eye in the middle of Jaganshi Hiei’s forehead.
There was a sudden sharp pull at Kazutaka’s consciousness, like something instantly seizing a portion of his thoughts and snapping them off, and faintly felt his hand gently touching the side of Hiei’s face before he blacked out.
Kazutaka’s knees buckled and his placid hand slipped from Hiei’s face as he slumped over onto the smaller man’s shoulder, completely unconscious. Hiei shifted the tall silver-haired man’s weight so that his knees rested on the ground and he could more easily hold him up, and paused unhurriedly in the silence of the dark apartment. He had seen every gesture and change of expression that Kazutaka had made in the dark. He had watched his smooth pale face carefully, and scrutinized that single grey eye. And now he was silent, standing in the corner of the apartment with the tiniest shades of gray light catching on the wooden floors, and the upper half of Kazutaka’s body leaned heavily against his chest. Kazutaka’s head sagged against the warm white cotton of Hiei’s shirt, silver mop of hair splayed gracelessly over Hiei’s shoulder.
Hiei glanced down at Kazutaka’s unconscious face, remembering the cool fingers tracing the shape of his Jagan, and wondered why he hadn’t let Kazutaka fall.
==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==#==
(Oops. Out of room again. sweatdrop )
Continued in " -:[Past Crimes]:- ({Ch. 12 - }) ".
Japanese Translation notes:
¹ Kazutaka’s new name means “to find”
² Ma-Lyn's surname means “to have something stolen”
³ the restaurant’s name means “the Kitchen Window”
ºMa-Lyn’s new surname means “to look for”
 Mitsukeru Furidomu · Fri Oct 19, 2007 @ 06:15am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
