Satellite Mind -- Climb the Sky (3/6)
Title: Satellite Mind -- Climb the Sky (3/6)
Series: Tsubasa
Characters: Fuuma, Seishirou, Setsuka, Subaru, Kamui
Pairing: Eventual Fuuma/Kamui, and mentions of Seishirou/Subaru and Seishirou/Setsuka, other pairings mentioned or hinted at
Rating: PG-13
Warning: It's a fanfic about CLAMP characters. That's warning enough.
Summary: A Fuuma-centric fic, starting from his early childhood and up to current canon.
Summary for this chapter: Seishirou gets a new mission.
Notes: More bizarro England, idk.
Other installments:
Previous chapter - Covet the Sky
Next chapter - Reach the Sky




The world came back into fuzzy unfocus, and a moment later his eyes flew open in shock. He gasped before he could stop himself, blinking up at the ceiling. He shifted, felt the heavy weight of blankets lying over his stationary form and then the world rushed back to him in startling clarity. He was in new clothes, and pressing his fingers against his face, he knew that the blood covering his face before had been carefully cleaned away. His brother sat at the foot of the bed, reading a book. When Fuuma shifted with a start, he looked up, marked his page, and closed the book. His fingers removed the glasses from the bridge of his nose and pocketed them.

“You’re awake.”

Fuuma stared at him, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to hide his expression even if he tried.

Seishirou’s smile was light and he acted as if he were unaware of his brother’s revulsion. “You’ve been asleep for almost a whole day. I was beginning to wonder if you would wake up at all.”

“Brother…” Fuuma started, but his voice cracked from emotion and from lack of use and he had to look away, cringing in shame and in disgust.

“Are you angry with me, Fuuma?”

Tears collected in Fuuma’s eyes. “W-why did he have to die? He couldn’t…”

He couldn’t finish his word and he choked back the feeling of tears hammering against the back of his eyes. He clenched his eyes shut, felt his body shaking and the constriction on his throat making it even harder to breathe. His nostrils flared as he attempted to hide the pain beating against his chest, feeling as if someone was ripping his heart out of his chest one drop of blood at a time.

“You act as if I killed him simply for sport,” Seishirou said calmly, peering over at his brother who curled away from the look, wrapping his arms around himself and burrowing beneath the blankets until his breath came thick and he bit back his cries of agony by chewing on the wool.

“Right, you did it to protect the Brotherhood,” Fuuma muttered, tears slipping down his cheeks.

Seishirou watched the shaking bundle of blankets without much expression. “I wonder.”

Fuuma peeked out from beneath the blankets, eyeing his brother in sheltered disbelief.

“Do you realize what would have happened, if someone had learned what you’d done?” Seishirou asked evenly.

“No one was going to find out!” Fuuma protested, and just managed to bite back his rage enough to make it look as if he were merely throwing a fit, and not actually yelling at his brother. “H-he promised! H-he wouldn’t have lied, he wouldn’t have—”

Seishirou laughed. “Do you hate me now, Fuuma?”

Fuuma shook again, gripping his hands around the fabric of the wool blanket as he nearly flung himself forward in his earnestness. He cried out, “Why did he have to die?”

“You’re avoiding my question,” Seishirou said calmly.

Fuuma couldn’t summon up the courage to tell his brother that he could never hate him. He couldn’t figure out what the right answer to his brother’s question was, whether he should say that he felt hatred for him, or nothingness. To love his brother would be the cardinal sin against everything his brother had taught him.

And yet he couldn’t hate him, the only one who had ever paid attention to him.

“W-why…?” Fuuma mumbled into his hands.

Seishirou shifted, and Fuuma heard the scraping of the chair as he pulled it closer to Fuuma’s bedside. It was an empty gesture when his brother placed a heavy hand on the top of his head, ruffling his bed-mushed hair, but Fuuma appreciated it anyway, lifting up shaking hands to wrap around his brother’s wrist and keep him close, to keep that one semblance of affection close—

He remembered the priest’s kind eyes, as he patted his head. He remembered the nun’s kind smile, as she took his hand in hers.

“If the Brotherhood had found out of the secrets you’d given away, you would be dead now.”

The words were so soft, almost affectionate, but it made Fuuma’s entire body freeze up. Eyes wide, he stared at his brother. He couldn’t make out a clear image, as the world around him blurred and fuzzed with his tears as they overflowed and spilled down. “B-but…”

“They wouldn’t care about him promising to protect your secrets. They weren’t your secrets to give away,” Seishirou explained calmly. He stood and moved closer to Fuuma, sitting on the side of his bed and refusing to remove the hand pushing down on the top of his head.

“You were protecting the Brotherhood’s secrets,” Fuuma wept, and tried to dismiss the all too familiar strings of pain gripping his chest.

When he managed to blink enough times to collect a more focused picture of the world around him, he looked up at his brother. Seishirou didn’t say anything for a long moment, merely smiled down at him, thoughtful and almost tender. The hand on his head shifted, smoothing over his brother’s hair and patting gently against Fuuma’s tear-stained cheek.

“I don’t care about the Brotherhood,” Seishirou told him after a lengthy pause.

Fuuma jolted. “But, you’ve always been part of the—”

“Being part of something doesn’t necessarily mean you feel an affinity for it, right? You hate this family, don’t you?” Seishirou asked and closed his eyes as he laughed at Fuuma’s stricken expression.

“I… I’m…”

“What did I tell you before, about finishing your sentences?”

“I-it’s you… who doesn’t like me,” Fuuma whispered.

“Be careful, little brother,” Seishirou warned. “You’re in danger of rejecting those you feel have rejected you.”

Fuuma froze up.

Seishirou laughed again, and the moment passed.

“This is the life you were born into, Fuuma. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can move on and grow stronger because of it.”

“Brother…?” Fuuma began, his voice still wavering from emotion.

“You wanted that priest to be precious to you, did you?” Seishirou asked, more rhetorically than anything else. They both knew the answer. “You told him more things than I’ve ever heard from you before.”

“I’m…”

“And what did he tell you?”

“H-he…”

“Told you that it wasn’t bad to be compassionate or sympathetic? He has empathy,” Seishirou continued, not minding Fuuma’s stumbling attempts at answering. He thought for a moment, then added, “Well. He had it.”

Fuuma cringed. And when he cried again this time it was a loud, empty sound. He cried without covering his face or ducking his head. It was a heavy, hollow sound, sounding far too broken to belong to a mere child. The sound echoed rhythmically but without accent. There was no progress in the sound, as it echoed off the walls, every hollow sob was exactly like the one before it.

“You should stop crying,” Seishirou suggested. “It’s unbecoming.”

This only made Fuuma cry harder.

“He could have taught you many things,” Seishirou continued after a lengthy pause, once Fuuma’s sobs began to die away again.

Puffy-faced, and red in the cheeks, Fuuma stared up at him. Anyone other than Seishirou would have had to look away from such a heartbreaking look.

“But there’s something that I’ve been trying to teach you, little brother. I’ve been trying to teach it to you so that I wouldn’t have to show you,” he said, leaning forward and cupping his brother’s face in a way that would have been gentle had it been anyone else. As it was, it was a painful reminder of how Karen would stroke back his hair away from his eyes, reminding him to be grateful for the life he had.

“Teach me?” he sniffled.

“Yes,” his brother said and didn’t answer what, exactly.

Fuuma frowned at him, the tears in his eyes drying for the most part as curiosity seized his heart. He bent away from his brother’s hands, but his brother held firm, keeping him tethered to the spot, and staring up at him. His brother smiled at him, but the eyes were closely guarded and betrayed nothing.

“It’s for your own good, you know.”

Fuuma said nothing.

Seishirou continued, “The sooner you accept that, the better. Compassion and sympathy are wasted on people like us. It’s important to guard your heart, to keep yourself detached. That way, these things don’t happen.”

“… But isn’t it lonely?”

“Isn’t it lonely to be without the people you love?” Seishirou shot back, calmly explaining, and all the while smiling that same, empty smile. “If there’s no one there, you’ll never know what it feels like, or notice. It’s for the better, Fuuma. Don’t let anyone close.”

Fuuma looked down. “Is that how you feel, Brother?”

There was a long silence and then his brother said, “The sooner we all learn these things, the better.”

“Is that…”

Seishirou touched the top of Fuuma’s head again, patting down his unruly hair. “It’s better if you don’t dwell on it, Fuuma.”

“But…”

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Seishirou said with a sagely nod. “Now, shouldn’t you be thanking me for protecting you?”

Fuuma froze, stiffened up. He memories from before rushed back to him, and he saw the petrified look on the priest’s face just before he died, wide, vacant eyes staring down at Fuuma. Fuuma remembered the feel of the blood as it splattered. He remembered the way his throat constricted just before he screamed. Was that truly protection?

He was tied to this brotherhood. He knew this, in reality. In reality, he would have been killed for betraying the secrets of his family—his brother had protected him. But he’d killed someone, because of Fuuma’s own foolishness.

Compassion.

Fuuma paused for a moment, before he smiled. And it was the mirror image of his brother’s smile. “Thank you, Brother.”


---


The news spread through the city, the massacre at the cathedral. The priest, slaughtered. The young boy who visited, missing. The nun, suspected to be the culprit.

Fuuma was reported as missing, though without a family name known and with the features that looked just like anyone else in this city, he was quickly forgotten. To be safe, his mother kept him in the house. He spent his days in the library, reading books and reading the newspapers that his brother would bring for him.

And he would always be smiling, just like his mother and just like his brother. He would glance at himself in the mirror sometimes, and see the way the smile cracked across his face, seemed to not fit properly. He always looked too sad. Too jaded.

He learned to stop looking in the mirror as he learned to smooth the blemishes of his mask.


---


The first night he couldn’t fall asleep, because every time he closed his eyes, he was haunted by the images of those eyes as the priest died.


---


The second night, he bit into his blanket to keep from sobbing. When that failed to work, he covered the sounds of crying with the sounds of laughter.

Once he started, he couldn’t stop. He sat up for hours, huddling into his blankets and laughing until his gut hurt, his eyes wide and tearless, his hands shaking as he laughed hysterically waiting for sleep to finally claim him.

His mother and his brother didn’t come to check on him, but it was impossible that they didn’t hear him through the walls, laughing into the darkness and not stopping until he finally fell to sleep.

And it was only a matter of time before he began to believe that laughter was not a means to cover his tears, and more of a genuine feeling bubbling in the pit of his stomach.


---


He stared at the ceiling and laughed. “This only happened because he was too kind. Too kind.”

Fuuma stared in silence a moment before the laughter resurfaced, maniac and hysterical.

He rolled over onto his side, closing his eyes and very pointedly ignoring the regret lodged in his heart. “He was stupid to think that it’d be okay.”


---


Soon, he asked his brother what became of the nun.

“Why, do you want to see her?” Seishirou asked with a smile.

Fuuma smiled up at his brother, wide and seemingly amused. “No.”

Seishirou hummed softly in the back of his throat and chuckled. “They let her go. They wrote it off as a serial killer, since there have been a number of murders lately.”

Fuuma recalled the late nights of laughter, following his brother’s footsteps and cleaning up the blood from the floorboards.

“Oh. Okay.”

Seishirou laughed.

Fuuma kept smiling, even after his brother had left him alone again.


---


“Have you found anything on the catacombs?” his brother asked as he moved into the library.

Fuuma looked up. It’d been a few months since Seishirou had brought him to the cathedral, and it seemed that the target that had brought him to the cathedral in the first place had been acquired and dealt with. Now, a new assassination mission was underway—his brother, most days, had Fuuma leaf through their vast library in search of information. Fuuma was silently glad that he could prove to be at least a bit useful to his brother. And it meant he wouldn’t have to go out into the world, where everything was cruel and alien.

“It’s how those modern times are,” his brother had told him one night, patting back his brother’s hair as Fuuma grinned up at him. “People have ‘choice’ now. And it’s theirs to have. Undoubtedly they’ll make bad choices and good choices. And with this choice, there comes reflection upon those choices.”

It’s the reflection that’ll drive someone insane, his brother had told him at that time.

Fuuma never looked in mirrors anymore.

“A modern world,” his brother had told him, as if reciting an ancient prayer. “People are ‘independent’ now. They are liberated. But they are also alienated.”

Fuuma’s fingers shook as he traced the lines in the book. His brother rounded the table where his younger brother sat and placed a hand on his shoulder, bending over to examine the notes the boy was writing down.

Fuuma looked up from where he was copying notes and handed the scroll to his brother, setting down the fountain pen, thoughtfully. He smiled up at him.

“That’s what I could find,” he told his brother as Seishirou scanned over his brother’s neat handwriting.

He nodded as he read. “This is good.”

There was a small jolt in his chest at the compliment, but he didn’t betray it on his face. He just kept smiling.

“Alright,” Seishirou said as he rolled the piece of parchment up and slipped it into his pocket. “I’ll be off, then.”

Fuuma nodded and watched him go.


---


Months passed.

If anyone had asked him what he found so amusing about the nighttime, Fuuma would not have been able to answer them. If anyone had asked him why he spoke more to his books than he did to people, Fuuma would have been able to think up an answer he would not have said. If anyone had asked him what made him smile in that way, Fuuma would have lied.

But no one asked.

So Fuuma told no one.


---


After a late night in the library, Fuuma exited to return to his room. He found his mother in the bay window, looking over the desolate wasteland of their city. Her hair spilled over her shoulder, shining in the evening moonlight. Her dress cascaded over the cushion and coiled at the ground, soaked with blood. Fuuma traced the puddle of blood with his eyes, and knew that she would find it beautiful. He would clean it up later.

She spied him from the window, eyed him for a long moment without saying anything. His birthday had come and gone. He’d known his mother for six years, and knew nothing about her. His memories of her consisted of watching her with Seishirou, watching her bathed in blood, and watching her from a distance.

She beckoned him forward.

Fuuma obediently moved towards her.

She cupped his face once he was close enough, and the sudden contact startled him. He recoiled slightly at the touch but she did not bat an eye. She held onto him and refused to let go. Her hands were warm, not from comfort but from the blood still streaking over her paled skin. She left red handprints on his face as she smiled down at him.

“Fuuma,” she said, as if testing the name out for the first time.

Fuuma looked up at her, and smiled. “Hello, Mother.”

“You’re growing up so nicely, Fuuma,” his mother said softly as she stroked her son’s cheeks, smoothing her fingers over his hair. “Every day that passes you look more and more like your brother.”

“A-ah…” Fuuma said and didn’t manage to hide the stutter fast enough. He closed his eyes as his mother smoothed her hands through his hair. He’d been longing for this kind of affection, this touch, for so long and now that he had it, it somehow felt empty. But he let her touch the face of a young Seishirou and felt nothing in his heart.

That was what his brother had wanted, right? To feel nothing means to never be hurt…

“So handsome,” his mother cooed and he opened his eyes again to look up at her. “You’ll be so handsome once you grow up.”

He closed his eyes again, smiling. “Thank you, Mother.”

When he looked up at her face lately, she seemed a bit sadder than usual. Sad, probably, wasn’t the right word. Her expression was always very thoughtful. She would spend many hours simply staring out the window, brushing her fingers through her hair and humming. It was in moments like this that Fuuma knew that he would never truly understand or know his mother.

She pulled her hands away from his face and collected his hands, drawing him to the window bench. He let himself be dragged, sitting on the soft cushions and watching his mother watching the world beyond the window. She hummed quietly to herself, smiling serenely, one hand still firmly grasping one of Fuuma’s.

“… Mother?” Fuuma asked after a prolonged silence, when her sweet music became too much for him to bear.

“Yes?” she asked, quiet.

He hesitated for half a second, unsure whether he should proceed.

“Am I of any use to Brother? Even though I’m not in the Brotherhood?”

Setsuka pulled her gaze away from the window and focused on her youngest son. She studied his face before, in the dying moonlight, it almost seemed as if her smile softened. “Well,” she said, “Why don’t you ask him?”

“Brother never really answers my questions. He’ll answer with another question,” Fuuma said.

“You do that, too,” she replied, “sometimes.”

Fuuma nodded and didn’t say that it was because he wanted to be more like his brother. Instead, he studied the windowpane, chipped white paint. “Oh…” he said, then paused as he weighed his words. “Mother?”

“Yes?”

“Do you not love anyone, either?” Fuuma asked.

Setsuka eyed him a moment before laughing.

Fuuma stared at her, unsure what to make of that reaction.

“Goodness, you really do listen to every word your brother says,” she said, almost affectionately. Affection, only because he knew that she was thinking of Seishirou. She laughed softly, and it sounded almost distant. “You’ll grow up to be just like him, won’t you?”

Fuuma almost cringed. Instead, he smiled, and tried the words on his tongue: “Who knows?”

“Hmmm,” she hummed sweetly. She closed her eyes a moment. The words must have brought her pleasure, to hear her eldest son’s words in the same inflection.

He sat in silence, wondering if she would not answer his question, if she would avoid it just like his brother does questions.

After a long moment, she said, “There’s a story among our family.”

“Huh?”

“No matter what, we are all destined for one thing… To be killed by the one you love,” Setsuka said calmly.

Fuuma blinked up at her in shock. “Huh?”

“For generations, our family has died by the hand of the ones we love most,” Setsuka said again, looking back out the window again.

“But Brother says that—”

“There’s a soul mate for every being,” Setsuka cut him off sweetly, smiling without feeling. “Whether you realize it or not.”

Fuuma bit back the words he was about to say, startled by her admission.

“The person for whom you were born to love,” his mother said, and this time she sounded more fond than distant. He stared up at her face, tracing her features as if seeing them for the first time. She smoothed a hand over his hair and he knew that she was not thinking or seeing him. Her eyes were glazed over as if recalling a distant memory. “Your grandfather died by his mistress’ hand. Your father was killed by my hand. And I…”

He looked up at her in alarm, but she did not see.

She chuckled. “Well. You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Mother?”

“I am not long for this world, Fuuma,” she continued, finally addressing him.

“But…”

She smoothed her fingers through his hair, curling and twisting, pulling almost painfully on the nape of neck. He cringed but didn’t pull away from his mother’s touch.

“The only person I love will kill me, just like my father and mother before me.”

Fuuma stared up at her, eyes wide.

“But Brother says that… our family isn’t supposed to feel anything. We’re supposed to detach our hearts,” Fuuma protested. “If so, how can—”

“No matter how much you protect yourself, there is one person who was born for the purpose of destroying those walls, Fuuma.”

“I-I…” Fuuma stumbled, frowning.

“We all have one,” she said with a tone of finality and Fuuma bit his bottom lip, watching his mother’s profile as she traced her finger along the windowpane, staring out into the fading moon as it set towards the sky, its usual white face stained a blood red on the horizon.

If this is the world were I’m to meet my soul mate, Fuuma can’t help but think, looking out the window towards the fading sky. Then there is no one for me.

He closed his eyes.

And there is nothing behind the walls I’ve built. There’s nothing left…

He thought it before he could stop it, and then there the thought was. He was no one. There was no one for him, because he did not belong in this world. It was a feeling he’d had for years and years, since he could cognitively remember thinking. This was not the world he was meant to belong in. The people, the faces, the clothing, the places, everything. This wasn’t his and it never would be.

The only things he had in this world were his dreams and his wishes. Things that would never be granted or be his to realize.

He closed his eyes and wondered if maybe it would be his brother who would kill him.


---


He wasn’t sure why, but a few days later he awoke in the dead of night with a start. He stared up at the ceiling, trying to understand why he had such a foreboding feeling in the pit of his stomach. Shaking, he left his bed and padded down the hallways of his apartment, wandering for the vain hope of growing weary again and returning to his slumber.

Instead, he heard voices.

“So that’s why it must be done tonight,” he heard his mother said.

“If that’s what you think is best,” his brother returned. “Are you certain?”

“It’s the only way the Fraternity can ensure the safety of its secrets. It is the fate of all of us, isn’t it?”

Fuuma peered around the corner, and watched his mother curl her arms around Seishirou’s neck, one hand stroking his cheek in the way she had to Fuuma days earlier. Seishirou held her but didn’t show anything beyond a smiling face. He captured their mother’s free hand and placed a kiss upon her bloody knuckles. They were both covered in blood, and Fuuma realized that they both must have completed jobs tonight.

“Alright…”

“I want the person I love the most to kill me,” Setsuka whispered and Fuuma’s eyes widened as he realized just what he was witnessing.

He couldn’t move. He watched, eyes wide, as the room hummed with magic. Setsuka curved her back, arching, as she held on tight to her eldest son, lips parted into a small smile as she leaned up and kissed her son. Seishirou allowed this and the magic was almost deafening in the room—

And as quickly as it had started, it was over, with his hand through her chest. She slumped against him and her blood spilled silently on the floor. There was a long silence.

Seishirou retracted his hand and collected his mother in his arms, holding her close and carrying her with a gentle care Fuuma hadn’t really expected.

He began moving and paused at the doorway opposite Fuuma. He tilted his head, glancing back over his shoulder and their eyes locked.

Seishirou smiled and spoke in a voice that he’d never heard before, “Come here.”

Fuuma obeyed, running to his brother’s side, staring up at his mother’s dead form.

Seishirou said nothing, simply began walking until he reached their mother’s room. Fuuma moved behind his brother, hovered, and watched as Seishirou set her down onto the bed, peaceful, as if she were only sleeping. The blood stained the sheets red, blooming from her like a flower.

His brother turned and knelt, touching his brother’s shoulders.

“Why are you crying?”

Fuuma blinked and watched as blood stained hands reached up to wipe at his cheeks. Fuuma clenched his eyes shut and felt the warmth of his mother’s blood spread across his face, as if a final goodbye—a kiss from his mother he’d never receive.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. He hadn’t realized he’d been crying.

“It was what she wanted.”

“I know. But why?”

“To protect the Brotherhood,” Seishirou said, indifferent and shrugging, despite being bathed in their mother’s blood. “It is the fate of all of us, Fuuma.”

“She said that… before… she said that we are all going to die by the person we love. That we’re all destined for that.”

Seishirou smiled and stood, glancing back at their mother and walking towards the exit of the room.

“Then we should work hard not to love anything—maybe then we can live forever.”


---


Fuuma couldn’t sleep that night. He stayed in his mother’s room, watching her form, studying her expression. She looked peaceful. Happy.

“Why…” he whispered. He should have seen it coming. He should have known this would have happened. Sitting there, he watched the small destruction befalling his family. He and his brother were alone now.

His frown deepened as the hours progressed. And in the wan hours, murmured to himself, filled with regret, “I won’t let anyone do this to me. I won’t let anyone disarm my heart again.”


---


Their mother was buried in a place that Fuuma didn’t know. They weren’t allowed to see what became of her body.

Their days were spent mostly in silence. Seishirou was the head of the household after their mother’s death, but he spent his days fulfilling assignments from the Brotherhood, and Fuuma spent his time in the library, looking up information for his brother.

With their mother gone, Seishirou was coveted by the Brotherhood for the larger assassination plans—and he did them willfully, killing all that was required of him. No one suspected the young teenaged boy to be a top assassin, so he was able to slip through the city with no difficulty—and used the catacombs Fuuma mapped for him when he did.

Fuuma grew up alone in that house, and it was okay. He told himself it was okay. He had time to read the newspapers and to read the books in the library (twice).

The months passed and the blood on Seishirou’s clothes slowly seemed to disappear. When Fuuma questioned him about it, his brother merely shrugged and said he was working on a very important project, one that would require much groundwork before he could execute the plot.

“This person has had his life targeted before,” Seishirou said as he poured over governmental documents he’d stolen earlier that day. He glanced at Fuuma over the rim of his glasses. “But somehow he hasn’t died. My mission is to figure out why, and figure out how to make sure he doesn’t survive this time.”

“Sounds complicated,” Fuuma admitted.

Seishirou smiled. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Fuuma smiled back. “I guess that’s true.”

“It’s rather a bother,” Seishirou continued, still smiling.

“Is that so?”

“It can’t be helped, though.”

“I see.”

Their conversations were nothing but empty words now.


---


One night, Seishirou came home late.

Fuuma stayed up late waiting for him, sitting on the window bench and staring at the front door. In his lap sat a copy of the notes he’d recorded for his brother on the head family his target was a member of. It was an ancient clan, one that had been around for as long as Fuuma’s family had been. (Almost like shadow clans, he’d thought as he bent over the scrolls and books he’d found at the back of the library.) He hoped the information would be helpful for his brother.

Thoughts of helping him gather information flew out the window when the door suddenly opened and his brother slumped into the room, covered in blood.

But it was different from before. All the nights his brother had returned covered in blood, it’d been the blood of his victim.

This time, it was his brother’s own blood.

“Brother!” Fuuma shouted in shock, launching off the bench and hurrying over to him, nearly tripping in the process.

Seishirou chuckled as he closed the door behind him and slumped against it, slowly sinking down to sit on the floor, leaning against the door.

“First aid kit, Fuuma,” his brother instructed.

Fuuma skidded to a halt before reaching his brother before nearly tripping over himself in his haste to spin around and run to the bathroom down the hall, where he flung open the hidden cabinet and collected the necessary supplies to help his brother’s wounds—he thought he’d never have to use the antiseptic in this house.

“Brother, what happened?” Fuuma cried in surprise as he returned to his brother’s side, the bandages and cotton swabs spilling from his arms as he sank down to his knees beside his older brother.

Seishirou chuckled. “Why so surprised?”

“I-I’ve never seen you get injured before,” Fuuma admitted, looking distressed. “No one can touch you.”

“That may be true,” Seishirou laughed and started peeling off his clothing. Fuuma was there with cotton swabs with alcohol to clean the thick, clean cuts scraping across his brother’s skin. They looked like he’d been attacked by an animal. Claws.

“Who could have hurt you so badly?” Fuuma cried. “No human is strong en—”

“That’s just it,” Seishirou laughed, staring up at the ceiling and smiling. “They aren’t human.”

“H-huh?”

“My target,” Seishirou told his brother, voice hushed. “He isn’t a human.”

“He’s a…?” Fuuma trailed off, brow furrowing. “But how can he not be a human? I did research, Brother, this person is part of an ancient family. They’ve been around for centuries, almost as long as the Brotherhood and—”

“They’re vampires,” his brother calmly cut him off.

Fuuma nearly dropped the bandage he was trying to wrap around his brother’s arm. “W-what?”

“They’re an ancient clan of vampires. That’s why the family’s been around for centuries—because every member’s been alive for that long.” Seishirou chuckled, dryly. “They’re purebloods. They have to be.”

“But vampires are myths…”

“Are they?” Seishirou asked, and slanted his gaze down to his chest, ripped open by savage claws and bleeding sluggishly. “You said so yourself. No human can touch me.”

Fuuma stared in shock. He felt the horror grip his chest and—somewhere beneath it all—he knew that he was impressed. Impressed that someone could hurt his brother, who was perfect at everything he did, and not be dead because of it. That person would have to have been incredibly strong.

“So your target did this to you?”

“No,” Seishirou smirked. “Not my target. His brother.”

“He has a brother?” Fuuma asked.

“Twins,” Seishirou told him.

Fuuma thought this over. “Brothers…”

“See if you can look anything up on vampires, and if you come across anyone named Subaru or Kamui,” Seishirou told him. “I’ll look, too. It seems I’ve underestimated these two, but I won’t do it again.”

He smiled, and it was cold as ice.

Fuuma swallowed. “Which one is your target?”

“Subaru. He’s the head of the clan,” Seishirou said softly. “But I was clumsy. I’ll have to kill Kamui as well.”

“Kamui is the one who… did this to you?”

“That’s right.”

Fuuma studied the wounds as he wrapped the bandages around his brother’s torso. His eyes widened in thought. “Kamui must be very strong… to be able to hurt you and yet to live after it.”

Seishirou laughed. “You act as if I’m the strongest.”

Fuuma stared up at him. “Aren’t you?”

“I’m no match for vampires,” Seishirou laughed. “I don’t know what all their abilities are, but it’s definitely stronger than a human’s. Subaru, though… he’s too kind.” He laughed again. “He’s the reason I’m still alive. If it hadn’t been for me, Kamui wouldn’t have stopped until I was dead.”

Kamui… Fuuma thought, weighing the name. He frowned thoughtfully.

“Such a serious expression.”

Fuuma whipped his head up and then automatically smiled, a perfect mask.

Seishirou chuckled. “You’re impressed, aren’t you?”

“I’m not used to someone being able to fight against you,” Fuuma admitted.

“Heh.”

Fuuma and Seishirou sat in silence after that, as Fuuma cared for his brother’s wounds until his brother found enough strength to care for it himself. Fuuma scurried to the kitchen to fetch some water for him and when he returned, his brother was slipping his clothing back on, smiling benignly.

Fuuma peered up at him. “So what happened?”

“My, are you going to drill me for answers now?”

Fuuma frowned. “I-if I’m going to look information up for you, I’ll need to know as much as possible, right?”

Seishirou patted the top of his head. “Clever.”

“Brother…” Fuuma began.

Seishirou waved his hand dismissively. “In order to become close to that family, I had to ‘befriend’ Subaru. He was kind enough. Who expects a priest to do anything bad, after all?”

Fuuma nodded and followed after his brother as the elder trailed away from the door, towards the library. He grabbed one of the candles burning in the holders lining the hallway and moved swiftly towards the library. Once there, Seishirou wasted no time searching every aisle of the expansive library for anything that might provide even the most trivial of information on the vampire twins and their family.

“But I slipped up,” Seishirou admitted and Fuuma was surprised by the confession, and how open his brother was being—he must really want the information, and Fuuma’s help.

Despite the situation, Fuuma was happy he could help his brother.

His brother recounted he story. Despite the debriefing, Fuuma could tell his brother was purposefully leaving things off and keeping information to himself. He’d befriended Subaru, but had messed up—he’d discovered their true identity. To protect his brother, Kamui had sprung.

At that point in the story, Fuuma hung on every word. He wanted to know everything he possibly could about this “Kamui”, whoever he was. He sounded too strong, too amazing—and a pureblooded vampire, too.

Deadly, and able to bring even his brother to his knees.

Fuuma realized it was not fear he was harboring in his heart as he listened to his brother talk about Kamui, but, rather, admiration.


---


Fuuma spent weeks trying to find information for his brother, while his brother left to continue befriending the vampire twins. Kamui had meant to silence Seishirou, to prevent their secrets from being revealed. According to Seishirou, it was Subaru’s kindness that had spared him, claiming that so long as Seishirou kept silent, there would be no reason to hurt him.

“That will be his downfall,” Seishirou mused, more to himself than to Fuuma, as he recounted information.

Fuuma continually drilled his brother for information on Kamui—what he was like, what he’d said that day, if he’d fought against Seishirou again.

Seishirou rarely answered more than a few questions before banishing Fuuma back to the library to continue his research.

Fuuma pored over the books, trying to find even the tiniest nugget of information about vampires, and even possibly a mention of these mysterious twins.

His brother would leave for days, and never come home. Fuuma would wait for him, because it was all he could do.


---


“Alright,” Seishirou said as he tightened the cravat around Fuuma’s neck. Fuuma nearly choked. “Those two don’t know my true intentions, so it’ll be fine to do something like this.”

“They don’t know that you’re…”

“For all they know, I’m just a humble priest that found out their true nature,” Seishirou confirmed as he buttoned up Fuuma’s jacket for him. “It’s still a secret they need to protect, but so long as they think I’m not dangerous, it’ll be fine.”

“Is that why we’re going to this party?” Fuuma blinked up at him.

Seishirou chuckled. “Remember to smile, Fuuma.”

Fuuma smiled.

Seishirou continued, “It’s for social purposes. They’re a very important family, after all.”

Fuuma nodded, still smiling. He’d spent the last couple of weeks collecting as much information on vampires and the family as he could—with little success. The family was practically anonymous, with no information and no mentions of anyone named Subaru or Kamui.

Kamui… Fuuma thought, then looked up at his brother.

“Are you certain they’ll come to the party?”

“They may not,” Seishirou said with a shrug. “But someone from that clan will be. It’ll be good for collecting leads and information.”

“Then why am I coming?”

“Second pair of ears,” Seishirou dismissed. “And image purposes.”

“Oh.”


---


The party was boring. Fuuma hated parities, and no one was talking about anything important for his brother’s mission. Seishirou was mingling with the crowd and slipping into shadows when necessary, and Fuuma was left to his own devices, the only child at the party filled with ladies and gentlemen.

Fuuma wanted to leave.

He sat underneath the linen, counting the polished feet and twirling skirts of the party-goers, feeling increasingly out of place and lonely. He listened idly to the chit-chat above, while sneaking out only occasionally to grab a devilled egg or a slice of apple, munching and licking his fingers free of remnants of food.

He sighed, looking glumly down at his feet. He’d rather be back at the library, trying to find more information for his brother, then sitting here and being useless.

His brother had said that the twins weren’t at the party—or at least, he hadn’t seen them. Fuuma wasn’t sure why he felt as depressed over this fact as he was. Disappointment was not something he was used to feeling.

Over the din of people, he listened silently to the piano notes floating in the air. Someone was playing a song, and though usually Fuuma did not enjoy music, this one caused him to pause. It sounded old and ancient, nothing like the classical pieces he was used to hearing. It filtered through the room, like a long lost memory. He closed his eyes, listening to it. Is this what they used to play in ancient times, before people had a “choice”?

He sat in silence, letting the music wash over him until the song abruptly ended and Fuuma was brought back to reality. There was scattered clapping throughout the room for a moment before it filled again with impossible noise and pompousness.

Fuuma ate more food. He watched the feet trot by the food table for a long few minutes.

“This is utterly ridiculous,” he heard one party patron balk, standing directly in front of where Fuuma was currently sitting. “You know how much I despise parties! This place is nothing but maddening.”

“I know,” a second, far gentler voice soothed, standing beside the first pair of feet. “But it’s necessary, for appearances.”

“I know,” scoffed the first. “But still.”

“Well,” reasoned the first, diplomatically. “I think we’ve made enough of an appearance tonight to justify going home now.”

“Good,” the first, angry voice growled, turning away with the second pair of feet following. His voice grew less aggressive, now that he’d been granted what he wanted. He said, “I hate being out in the open like this.”

Fuuma chomped into a quail egg, only half-listening now when the second figure said softly enough that Fuuma almost didn’t hear: “I know, Kamui.”

The reaction was instantaneous. Fuuma’s eyes flew open and he doubled over, hacking up the half-eaten quail egg. He rested one hand on the polished ground, coughing, while his second hand pounded roughly against his chest. Once he made it onto his feet, he dashed out from under the snack table, bustling around coat tails and gowns.

“Kamui!” he shouted into the crowd, stumbling over his brother’s oversized pants (lacking a proper dress suit of his own), trying to shove through the crowd but wielding no real strength of his own. “Kamui! Kamui!”

He looked around, trying to see if Kamui was there, despite not knowing what the man would look like. All he had were his childhood visions, of a fearful vampire beating his brother and making his brother bleed—something that the boy had always believed to be impossible. He kept shouting the name, searching for the shoes he’d seen before, pointed and polished, and searching the faces around him for someone to turn around and claim the name.

“Kamui!” he shouted, searching for the one person who had ever made his brother bleed and lived to tell the tale. He searched for someone he’d never met, but respected so deeply. His search was desperate, and he ran until his lungs protested for air. Outside, on the balcony, he crashed into the railing, scanning the exit for someone—anyone. “Kamui!”

No one answered. No one was there. He sank to his knees, failed in his mission to find the only person he’d ever truly wanted to meet.