"Nanjo
Hirose…"
All
week, I've been turning that name over in my mind like a clever anagram. It's
practically to be expected that it come to the surface like this eventually.
And
Oriya glances up at me, his pipe slanting from the corner or his mouth. "Him again?" He looks out over Kokakurou's
gardens, dark now on this moonless night. "It's not like you to maintain
an interest for so long."
"Mm,
no, it's nothing like that, I assure you."
"I'll
bet." The way he said that would have been tense, were it anyone but him. Anywhere but this. "And tell me then, Muraki," he
sighs. "Has he scattered his secrets like cherry blossoms at your feet
yet?"
I laugh softly. The last time I laughed, Nanjo Hirose's arms were looped around my waist and my lips still tasted of him. I shouldn't remember it now, but my laughter then sounded nothing like it does now. "His DNA test speaks to me like a volume of poetry."
Incidentally,
there is something deliciously ironic to me about the way I took the sample for
the test from the inside of my own mouth. Perhaps it
would have been less theatrical to simply draw some blood… but by the time it
occurred to me Nanjo-san had lost more than enough of that. Spilling family
blood is always more troublesome than you would expect. Orestes would say the same.
And
who, I must wonder, will be the first to summon the Furies down upon the Nanjo
house?
"Indeed?"
Oriya is trying terribly hard to sound uninterested, and, to his credit, he's
very nearly succeeding. "Is it everything you hoped for?"
"All
three of the Nanjos are very remarkable men, Oriya. However…"
He
raises an eyebrow. "However?"
"However,
they are not what I have been seeking. Anything inhuman is buried too deeply
beneath the generations for me to trace."
"Such a shame." Oriya shakes his head so long hair falls in front
of his eyes. "And where does that leave you?"
"Where I began."
"Mm. Not quite."
"Oh?"
"No.
If you want things to go back to the way they were, then you'll have to forget
about Nanjo Hirose."
That
is one of the stranger things I can remember him saying to me. It's a little
worrisome. "It's very sweet of you to be concerned, Oriya, but…"
"He
has troubles of his own, Muraki. And he will draw you in."
"Then
he shall find me the Scylla to his Charybdis."
Oriya
raises an eyebrow. "Pardon me?"
"They
were monsters." The word comes out as a sigh. "That's all."
He
looks away, out over the courtyard, and as he's turned from me the floodlights
hidden in the trees and tucked away in the grass wink out. All at once, so the
color is washed away, leaving the gardens as monochrome as a dream.
It's
midnight. The lights always go out sharply at midnight.
"It
doesn't really matter, though."
"Doesn't
it?" There's a little skepticism in his voice. "You always say that
when you don't want to take my advice. When it isn't…
convenient for you."
I
had not framed it in those terms before, but I know that he's right. "Duly
noted," I mutter. I stand. Circle closer, like a predator, to kneel beside
him. Against the darkness of the gardens, the indigo of his robes is very
vibrant.
I
never dream in colors that bright.
"Did
you need something?" He brushes black hair from his face with one hand,
presenting the side of his throat to me. None too subtle tonight, is he? And I
find myself thinking that his rough palms would be close enough to what I
really want, but nothing else about him would even come close.
I
run my hand up his arm, crushing the silk of his haori beneath my fingers as
though I can wring the smell of familiar tobacco from it.
"Nanjo-san…"
He
smiles. The expression doesn't touch his eyes. "No. I'm Oriya."
He's
rarely been so… cute with me, and so it comes as a bit of a surprise now. I
kiss him on the corner of the mouth, a little reward for his troubles, and I
say, "He was never afraid of me. I think that was what I noticed
first."
Oriya
sighs, hair slipping again in front of his face, like a portcullis crashing
down between us. "You don't have to explain yourself to me. Especially not with poor excuses like that."
"Excuse?" I find myself pulling away from him a little.
"It's not an excuse. He… fascinates me."
"I
know he does." Oriya turns to face me, shaking his hair back again. He
sets his hand on my jaw, holding my eyes with his, like he used to do when we
were much younger and he would explain a geometry problem or a grammatical rule
to me. "And so it's an excuse."
He
shakes his head. "Honestly, Muraki, if all you wanted was someone who
wasn't afraid of you, you'd be here with me."
"I
am with you."
"Are
you?" This time his smile is a little less bitter, a little more resigned.
"It's getting harder to tell these days."
"Oh?
Perhaps, then, I ought to… reassert my presence."
Coolly,
he watches me for a moment; silk hisses as he gets to his feet.
I
rise to meet him, taking one of his hands between mine, pressing my palm
against his so I can feel the places on his skin that have been worn bone-rough
by the hilt of his katana.
"Muraki…"
he says quietly. "I trust, in the end, you'll do what's best."
I tilt my head against his shoulder. My hands guide his down between our bodies. I'll be damned if I spend another moment snagged on the memory of Nanjo Hirose.