Goodnight Butterfly
folder
+G to L › Loveless
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
5
Views:
3,345
Reviews:
11
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
+G to L › Loveless
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
5
Views:
3,345
Reviews:
11
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Loveless, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Wish Matrix
I want to say thank you so much to all of you that reviewed! It really made me happy! I hope you enjoy chapter 3. :D
Sweet little words made for silence
Not talk
Young heart for love
Not heartache
Dark hair for catching the wind
Not to veil the sight of a cold world
The first thing he was aware of was warmth.
It was only a sensation at first, not seeming to come from anywhere in particular, but as Soubi slowly gained consciousness, the source became clearer; a small, soft ball of warmth under his chin... And something furry was tickling his face. His eyes fluttered open slowly, and he shifted to look down. Ritsuka was curled against him with his head under his chin, the tips of his soft black ears tickling his cheeks as they twitched in sleep.
“Ritsuka…” Soubi whispered in surprise, reaching up to touch the boy’s hair, smooth as silk against his chin and neck. At his touch, Ritsuka stirred slightly, his large violet eyes lazily blinking open halfway and fluttering up to Soubi’s face for a moment before he drifted once more into his innocent, unburdened sleep, leaving Soubi‘s consciousness imprinted with the image of that small, childish face looking up at him with complete innocence.
“Soubi.”
Soubi could barely bring himself to move. Ritsuka’s small back was warm against him, and he felt far more comfortable than he could recall feeling in a long time. The silence in the room was serene, the pull of Ritsuka’s breathing was relaxing, and for the first time he could remember, Soubi felt at peace. Why could it never be this way with Seimei? Why could he never sense this thing in Seimei that he sensed in Ritsuka… this complete, unyielding capacity for trust and love? He had known Ritsuka for less than a day, and already he showed him complete trust, while he had known Seimei for over a year, and he still refused to show anything of the sort to his Sentouki. He sighed deeply, and Ritsuka shifted against him, almost waking before slipping back into his world of dreams.
The light outside the window was starting to fade now, the bright sky streaked with subtle, faint hints of pink and purple. Soubi took a mental snapshot so he would remember that scene for a painting later on, and then slowly he shifted his weight, little by little, careful not to wake the sleeping boy. By the time he had successfully gotten himself across the bed and stood up, Ritsuka had rolled onto his stomach, purring softly at his dreams(1). Soubi smiled lightly.
“Thank you, Ritsuka,” he whispered before exiting the room quietly and journeying out of the house and into the twilight.
XXX
The empty streets were bathed in the twilight as he walked, musing, staring down at his feet as he moved swiftly through the dimming city. Through the trees above, the pinks and purples in the clouds deepened, the purple stealing the pink, and deep blue stealing the purple farther up while fiery orange still gnawed at the sky against the horizon. It was so beautiful that Soubi had trouble focusing on coherent and logical thought. Everyone called Soubi a romantic… and he smiled slightly at the fact that this was probably true, especially given the fact that you could give him a sunset and he would forget everything else in the world for as long as it commanded the sky.
The air was cooling already; autumn was steadily on its way, and though the last fibers of summer clung to the landscape with their desperate little claws, it would be the cooler season that got its say in the end. He slipped his hands deeper into his pockets to ward off the chill in his fingers. He hated when his hands were cold. It killed his dexterity, and painting with grace was nearly impossible. If he could keep his hands warm, he could finish the piece he had been working on before he’d left for Seimei’s…
He was knocked out of the pattern of thought by the sight of a butterfly. It was deep blue… the twin of the one he had held earlier, and it flew so close, its wings a riot of azure glitter, brushing his cheek with its wingtip and then arcing up, up into the changing painted sky. Soubi lowered his head and hurried onward, all color drained from his face.
When Soubi reached his home, he was not surprised to find the door unlocked. When he had left Shichisei Gakuin(2) one year previously, the school and his legal guardian Ritsu Minami had granted him emancipation rights. Since then, his new home had become the virtually permanent art studio and “bachelor pad” for Soubi and his best friend, Kio Kaidou, a fact that left Soubi secretly glad; it was easier not to think unpleasant thoughts when he wasn’t alone.
Sure enough, as he stepped into the home and inhaled the aroma of acrylic paints and his own slight scent of jasmine, he caught sight of the blond reclining on the sofa almost immediately, picking at his fingernails. When he heard Soubi enter, his eyes flew up from his task almost instantaneously.
“Good evening, Sou-chan!” he said cheerfully, sitting up and giving his friend a slight wave. “Where have you been? I‘ve been waiting for you!”
Soubi smiled at Kio. His best friend was thin, extremely short for his age (though he swore he would catch up to Soubi one of these days), and animated, talking from behind stylish glasses from under a soft curtain of silken blond hair. He had started calling Soubi ‘Sou-chan’ years ago, and by now, though Soubi was growing and starting to fit the label less and less by each passing month, there was little he could do about the affectionate nickname now. “I was with Seimei,” he explained calmly. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Kio.”
“Oh, it’s alright, maybe I’ll forgive you this time.” Kio laughed easily, shaking locks of hair out of his glittering gray eyes. “Or maybe I won’t. You‘re always with that guy.” he put up a front of mock heartbreak. “And I thought we had something special!”
Soubi laughed and took a seat beside the shorter teenager, who was shaking with fake sobs. “Really, Kio, you expect me to buy that?”
Kio sighed and stopped his charade, stretching and slumping back against the back of the sofa. “I can’t fool you, can I?” he grabbed the can of soda sitting beside his feet and took a sip, offering some to Soubi, who shook his head. He continued to drink from the cola in silence, his eyes on his best friend, and then suddenly he sat up straight. “Sou-chan, what happened to your neck!?”
Soubi’s blood ran cold, and he attempted to fake a smile, something that he was terrible at. “Nothing, Kio. I was just…” there were really no excuses that he could think of, and before he could speak another word, Kio had flown over to him and was removing the band-aids that Ritsuka had so painstakingly pressed in place.
“Sou-chan,” he whispered when he was finished, looking up at him and trembling. The smaller teenager collapsed against him, clinging to the front of his jacket. Soubi sighed softly and embraced his friend, stroking the unruly blond locks gently. “What did he do to you?”
“What do you mean?” Soubi asked, knowing full well what Kio meant.
“Seimei. What did he do to you? I know he did this! Why? How?” he could see actual tears quivering in Kio’s eyes now, though he doubted he would let them fall. “You told me… you told me his name was Beloved… so I know he did this to you! What did he do it with?” Kio was shaking him a bit now, and Soubi still held him as he clung to him in desperation.
“It’s nothing, Kio. I’m fine, really,” he told him softly. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Don’t have to worry!?” Kio drew back from him, and Soubi could see the willpower he was exercising to keep from crying. It had been a long time since he had seen Kio so close to tears, and it hurt. He reached for him, but Kio was already getting up and heading toward the dining area of the house. He returned with the first aid kit that Soubi always kept on top of the refrigerator, a sullen look on his face but the impending tears gone from his eyes. “I don’t know why you let him hurt you like this, Soubi,” he mused as he began to swab the wounds with antiseptic. “It’s just beyond me.”
Hearing Kio actually call him by his name showed just how serious the situation was, and he lowered his eyes as he allowed his friend to tend to his wounds with all the tender care of a lover. “I’m sorry, Kio.”
Kio sighed heavily. “Don’t be sorry, Sou-chan,” he whispered, spreading some ointment over the wound and beginning to wrap it in heavy linen bandages. “You’ll have to keep this wrapped up for a while, or it’ll get infected.”
Soubi nodded, watching Kio’s nimble hands fasten the bandages around him. “I will. Thank you, Kio.” Kio managed a small smile as he closed the kit, and then lunged for Soubi, grabbing him in a tight hug and burying his face in his chest. Soubi hugged him back wordlessly, taking in the familiar butterscotch scent of his close friend’s hair, and staring up over the top of his head out the window at the sky, which was overtaken now by a hazy, pre-night violet. “I’ll be more careful from now on.”
XXX
By the time Kio’s mother called and demanded that Soubi return her son for the night, it was getting late. Empty soda bottles littered the floor where the two boys had lay sprawled out on the warm wood, musing about life in general and working on Kio’s Biology homework. It felt cold in the house after Kio finally bid Soubi goodnight and disappeared out the door to embark on the short walk home with the promise “We‘re going to take you for a tetanus shot tomorrow”.
Soubi hummed softly to himself as he cleaned up the mess the two had left on the floor and put away his first aid kit, and then stopped to look around. Soubi loved his home. Though it was small, it suited him perfectly. It was simple, one room divided into parts by several screens. Everything was pale wood, warm and light to the touch, and during the day the whole house was lit with the warm, cheerful glow of sunlight. It had a small balcony overlooking the rooftops of the city, and Soubi loved to set up his easel in front of the glass doors that led out to it, as he did now.
It felt good and natural to tie on his smock and pull his chin-length hair back as he always did when he painted. He set up a fair amount of primaries; Kio liked to use pre-made hues at times, but Soubi loved to mix every color himself, creating his own spectrum of rich color that belonged to him alone. He sighed happily, staring out through the glass into the velvety sky with all its tiny, jeweled stars, and wet his brush to make mixing easier.
Soubi had intended to paint the sunset from earlier, had planned to captured every rich blend of color seeping into another through the lacy pattern of tree branches, but instead of mixing the bright colors he would need, he found himself putting the yellow in with the red and blue, making a brown. He swirled in more of the deepest cyan hue, more and more, until the brown deepened, became richer, darker, into a delicate, soothing hue of black.
Soubi went to work, the brush gliding across the canvas as easily as it ever had, but somehow there was something different about the feeling as he brushed in the delicate wisps of hair, painting a flowing black head of it, with twitching black ears. He mixed and mixed, the hues almost seeming to blend themselves, becoming perfect as he swirled his brush through the oceans of paint. He painted pale skin, slightly pink cheeks, a smiling, cheerful mouth. And then finally, with his brush trembling ever so slightly, Soubi finished and rinsed his tools. It was the first time he could remember ever finishing a painting in one sitting. The burning desire to keep painting had not released him until he was finished, and now, glancing at the clock, he realized he had a right to be this exhausted.
Without bothering to wash the smears of paint from his face and arms, Soubi slipped out of his shirt and crawled beneath the cool, welcome layers of sheets in his bed. And as he drifted off, and the painting sat drying on his easel, from the canvas he felt the comforting gaze of those soft, violet eyes.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(1)- I like to imagine Ritsuka purring when he’s happy… this doesn’t mean in any way that I’m convinced he’s actually a cat XD
(2)- Shichisei Gakuin is Japanese for “Ursa Major Academy”, the Sentouki school Soubi attended.
It’s been a few years since my last acrylics class… so I don’t really remember if it was cyan that was the deeper blue or if that was cerulean. Don’t eat me. It’s also been ages since I was ambitious enough to mix my own black.
Sweet little words made for silence
Not talk
Young heart for love
Not heartache
Dark hair for catching the wind
Not to veil the sight of a cold world
The first thing he was aware of was warmth.
It was only a sensation at first, not seeming to come from anywhere in particular, but as Soubi slowly gained consciousness, the source became clearer; a small, soft ball of warmth under his chin... And something furry was tickling his face. His eyes fluttered open slowly, and he shifted to look down. Ritsuka was curled against him with his head under his chin, the tips of his soft black ears tickling his cheeks as they twitched in sleep.
“Ritsuka…” Soubi whispered in surprise, reaching up to touch the boy’s hair, smooth as silk against his chin and neck. At his touch, Ritsuka stirred slightly, his large violet eyes lazily blinking open halfway and fluttering up to Soubi’s face for a moment before he drifted once more into his innocent, unburdened sleep, leaving Soubi‘s consciousness imprinted with the image of that small, childish face looking up at him with complete innocence.
“Soubi.”
Soubi could barely bring himself to move. Ritsuka’s small back was warm against him, and he felt far more comfortable than he could recall feeling in a long time. The silence in the room was serene, the pull of Ritsuka’s breathing was relaxing, and for the first time he could remember, Soubi felt at peace. Why could it never be this way with Seimei? Why could he never sense this thing in Seimei that he sensed in Ritsuka… this complete, unyielding capacity for trust and love? He had known Ritsuka for less than a day, and already he showed him complete trust, while he had known Seimei for over a year, and he still refused to show anything of the sort to his Sentouki. He sighed deeply, and Ritsuka shifted against him, almost waking before slipping back into his world of dreams.
The light outside the window was starting to fade now, the bright sky streaked with subtle, faint hints of pink and purple. Soubi took a mental snapshot so he would remember that scene for a painting later on, and then slowly he shifted his weight, little by little, careful not to wake the sleeping boy. By the time he had successfully gotten himself across the bed and stood up, Ritsuka had rolled onto his stomach, purring softly at his dreams(1). Soubi smiled lightly.
“Thank you, Ritsuka,” he whispered before exiting the room quietly and journeying out of the house and into the twilight.
XXX
The empty streets were bathed in the twilight as he walked, musing, staring down at his feet as he moved swiftly through the dimming city. Through the trees above, the pinks and purples in the clouds deepened, the purple stealing the pink, and deep blue stealing the purple farther up while fiery orange still gnawed at the sky against the horizon. It was so beautiful that Soubi had trouble focusing on coherent and logical thought. Everyone called Soubi a romantic… and he smiled slightly at the fact that this was probably true, especially given the fact that you could give him a sunset and he would forget everything else in the world for as long as it commanded the sky.
The air was cooling already; autumn was steadily on its way, and though the last fibers of summer clung to the landscape with their desperate little claws, it would be the cooler season that got its say in the end. He slipped his hands deeper into his pockets to ward off the chill in his fingers. He hated when his hands were cold. It killed his dexterity, and painting with grace was nearly impossible. If he could keep his hands warm, he could finish the piece he had been working on before he’d left for Seimei’s…
He was knocked out of the pattern of thought by the sight of a butterfly. It was deep blue… the twin of the one he had held earlier, and it flew so close, its wings a riot of azure glitter, brushing his cheek with its wingtip and then arcing up, up into the changing painted sky. Soubi lowered his head and hurried onward, all color drained from his face.
When Soubi reached his home, he was not surprised to find the door unlocked. When he had left Shichisei Gakuin(2) one year previously, the school and his legal guardian Ritsu Minami had granted him emancipation rights. Since then, his new home had become the virtually permanent art studio and “bachelor pad” for Soubi and his best friend, Kio Kaidou, a fact that left Soubi secretly glad; it was easier not to think unpleasant thoughts when he wasn’t alone.
Sure enough, as he stepped into the home and inhaled the aroma of acrylic paints and his own slight scent of jasmine, he caught sight of the blond reclining on the sofa almost immediately, picking at his fingernails. When he heard Soubi enter, his eyes flew up from his task almost instantaneously.
“Good evening, Sou-chan!” he said cheerfully, sitting up and giving his friend a slight wave. “Where have you been? I‘ve been waiting for you!”
Soubi smiled at Kio. His best friend was thin, extremely short for his age (though he swore he would catch up to Soubi one of these days), and animated, talking from behind stylish glasses from under a soft curtain of silken blond hair. He had started calling Soubi ‘Sou-chan’ years ago, and by now, though Soubi was growing and starting to fit the label less and less by each passing month, there was little he could do about the affectionate nickname now. “I was with Seimei,” he explained calmly. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Kio.”
“Oh, it’s alright, maybe I’ll forgive you this time.” Kio laughed easily, shaking locks of hair out of his glittering gray eyes. “Or maybe I won’t. You‘re always with that guy.” he put up a front of mock heartbreak. “And I thought we had something special!”
Soubi laughed and took a seat beside the shorter teenager, who was shaking with fake sobs. “Really, Kio, you expect me to buy that?”
Kio sighed and stopped his charade, stretching and slumping back against the back of the sofa. “I can’t fool you, can I?” he grabbed the can of soda sitting beside his feet and took a sip, offering some to Soubi, who shook his head. He continued to drink from the cola in silence, his eyes on his best friend, and then suddenly he sat up straight. “Sou-chan, what happened to your neck!?”
Soubi’s blood ran cold, and he attempted to fake a smile, something that he was terrible at. “Nothing, Kio. I was just…” there were really no excuses that he could think of, and before he could speak another word, Kio had flown over to him and was removing the band-aids that Ritsuka had so painstakingly pressed in place.
“Sou-chan,” he whispered when he was finished, looking up at him and trembling. The smaller teenager collapsed against him, clinging to the front of his jacket. Soubi sighed softly and embraced his friend, stroking the unruly blond locks gently. “What did he do to you?”
“What do you mean?” Soubi asked, knowing full well what Kio meant.
“Seimei. What did he do to you? I know he did this! Why? How?” he could see actual tears quivering in Kio’s eyes now, though he doubted he would let them fall. “You told me… you told me his name was Beloved… so I know he did this to you! What did he do it with?” Kio was shaking him a bit now, and Soubi still held him as he clung to him in desperation.
“It’s nothing, Kio. I’m fine, really,” he told him softly. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Don’t have to worry!?” Kio drew back from him, and Soubi could see the willpower he was exercising to keep from crying. It had been a long time since he had seen Kio so close to tears, and it hurt. He reached for him, but Kio was already getting up and heading toward the dining area of the house. He returned with the first aid kit that Soubi always kept on top of the refrigerator, a sullen look on his face but the impending tears gone from his eyes. “I don’t know why you let him hurt you like this, Soubi,” he mused as he began to swab the wounds with antiseptic. “It’s just beyond me.”
Hearing Kio actually call him by his name showed just how serious the situation was, and he lowered his eyes as he allowed his friend to tend to his wounds with all the tender care of a lover. “I’m sorry, Kio.”
Kio sighed heavily. “Don’t be sorry, Sou-chan,” he whispered, spreading some ointment over the wound and beginning to wrap it in heavy linen bandages. “You’ll have to keep this wrapped up for a while, or it’ll get infected.”
Soubi nodded, watching Kio’s nimble hands fasten the bandages around him. “I will. Thank you, Kio.” Kio managed a small smile as he closed the kit, and then lunged for Soubi, grabbing him in a tight hug and burying his face in his chest. Soubi hugged him back wordlessly, taking in the familiar butterscotch scent of his close friend’s hair, and staring up over the top of his head out the window at the sky, which was overtaken now by a hazy, pre-night violet. “I’ll be more careful from now on.”
XXX
By the time Kio’s mother called and demanded that Soubi return her son for the night, it was getting late. Empty soda bottles littered the floor where the two boys had lay sprawled out on the warm wood, musing about life in general and working on Kio’s Biology homework. It felt cold in the house after Kio finally bid Soubi goodnight and disappeared out the door to embark on the short walk home with the promise “We‘re going to take you for a tetanus shot tomorrow”.
Soubi hummed softly to himself as he cleaned up the mess the two had left on the floor and put away his first aid kit, and then stopped to look around. Soubi loved his home. Though it was small, it suited him perfectly. It was simple, one room divided into parts by several screens. Everything was pale wood, warm and light to the touch, and during the day the whole house was lit with the warm, cheerful glow of sunlight. It had a small balcony overlooking the rooftops of the city, and Soubi loved to set up his easel in front of the glass doors that led out to it, as he did now.
It felt good and natural to tie on his smock and pull his chin-length hair back as he always did when he painted. He set up a fair amount of primaries; Kio liked to use pre-made hues at times, but Soubi loved to mix every color himself, creating his own spectrum of rich color that belonged to him alone. He sighed happily, staring out through the glass into the velvety sky with all its tiny, jeweled stars, and wet his brush to make mixing easier.
Soubi had intended to paint the sunset from earlier, had planned to captured every rich blend of color seeping into another through the lacy pattern of tree branches, but instead of mixing the bright colors he would need, he found himself putting the yellow in with the red and blue, making a brown. He swirled in more of the deepest cyan hue, more and more, until the brown deepened, became richer, darker, into a delicate, soothing hue of black.
Soubi went to work, the brush gliding across the canvas as easily as it ever had, but somehow there was something different about the feeling as he brushed in the delicate wisps of hair, painting a flowing black head of it, with twitching black ears. He mixed and mixed, the hues almost seeming to blend themselves, becoming perfect as he swirled his brush through the oceans of paint. He painted pale skin, slightly pink cheeks, a smiling, cheerful mouth. And then finally, with his brush trembling ever so slightly, Soubi finished and rinsed his tools. It was the first time he could remember ever finishing a painting in one sitting. The burning desire to keep painting had not released him until he was finished, and now, glancing at the clock, he realized he had a right to be this exhausted.
Without bothering to wash the smears of paint from his face and arms, Soubi slipped out of his shirt and crawled beneath the cool, welcome layers of sheets in his bed. And as he drifted off, and the painting sat drying on his easel, from the canvas he felt the comforting gaze of those soft, violet eyes.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(1)- I like to imagine Ritsuka purring when he’s happy… this doesn’t mean in any way that I’m convinced he’s actually a cat XD
(2)- Shichisei Gakuin is Japanese for “Ursa Major Academy”, the Sentouki school Soubi attended.
It’s been a few years since my last acrylics class… so I don’t really remember if it was cyan that was the deeper blue or if that was cerulean. Don’t eat me. It’s also been ages since I was ambitious enough to mix my own black.