nomadicflame | open post

[Chishiya doesn't turn and he doesn't twitch, just keeps staring up at the cloudless sky. One hand in his pocket and the other on the railing in front of him.]

Phyre.

[Slowly he steps up alongside the shorter figure, looking over at him. He longs to reach out, to touch him.]

I am sorry.

[Chishiya shrugs, and if Phyre is listening he might hear the sharp uptick in Chishiya's heartbeat before it flattens back to calm.]

It's fine.

[He catches it with relief, in fact. So he isn't all cold ice.]

It is not fine. Look at me, please.

[He reaches out with a slow, hesitant hand before gently taking Chishiya's cheek in his cold touch.]

I should not have spoken to you that way. I was hurt and afraid, and I let that turn into anger instead of telling you the truth about how I felt.

[Chishiya looks away, deliberately, eyes cast to the sky because Phyre is dangerous and eye contact could be needed for deletion. Catching only a glimpse of him, same red eyes and wild hair, from the corner of his eye.

And his hand comes out of his pocket, pressing the cool metal prongs of a taser against Phyre's neck.]

Don't.

[But he doesn't press the button.]

[The response is expected, but he does not withdraw; he simply lets Chishiya stab the prongs into his frigid skin.]

Go ahead. If it will convince you I am not here to harm you.

[He likely deserved it, but he isn't even sure an electrical pulse could interact with his dead muscles.]

Don't touch me.

[And Chishiya does move, a slow slide to the side until Phyre's grip on him slips, his hand never wavering and the taser stays.]

You're fast. You can hear my heart beating, you can find me no matter where I am, and you threatened me. Tell me why I should listen.

Because I am asking you to. Do you not think if I had wanted you dead or your mind erased these things would have already happened? I wanted to see you.

[Defeated, he lets his hands fall to his side.]

As you say I can find you on my own. I am faster than you. And yet I asked you to tell me where you were. I asked you to look at me. I am asking instead of taking.

[For the first time in his existence.]

[It takes a minute of silence, of nothing moving except for Chishiya's chest, rising and falling slowly as he breathes.

As he thinks. Watching the stars, mind racing. But it always was.

And then he lowers the taser.

Shoving it back in to his pocket and slowly, he turns his head and looks at Phyre.]

[The tension in the moment passes, and what's left is the two of them standing there just as they were before. It's clear Phyre has been Going Though It, though. There are traces of dried blood around his eyes, visible over the darkness that mars his skin.

Evidence that he's been crying; signs of remorse.]

Thank you.

[Chishiya does look. Tiny flicks of his eyes as they roam Phyre's face. From the dip of his throat to the tips of his hair. The traces of blood around his eyes.

He looks and he lets Phyre see that he looks.

Before slowly dragging his eyes back up to lock on Phyre's.

Crying isn't remorse, it's self-pity. Violence isn't an answer, but a question and Chishiya never lets go of the taser in his pocket.

Chishiya tilts his head back, chin jutting out and lips closed, before raising an eyebrow.]

You are still whole. Memories intact.

[Raising his hands, he shows them to Chishiya: palms forward as if an offering of peace. A gesture showing he means no harm.]

You matter to me. I did not know... How to handle my pain, what I felt, without bleeding. Without lashing out. That was not fair to you. I am truly sorry. I have never had to handle emotions like this before.

[If he felt exposed in Borderland, he feels even moreso now; no pretenses, no poetry, no guarded, impassive stoicism. Just raw openness.]

[His eyes go to the held out hands, to the gesture and the implication and the eyebrow goes up again. As does his gaze, finding Phyre's like a bad habit.

Phyre didn't have to be armed to be dangerous, not when it was all of him. From his teeth to his magic, ancient and occult. An exotic religion echoing through modern-day Tokyo with twisting contradicting rules and rituals.

Phyre still smells like a shrine. Like remnants of his childhood and visits to Kyoto.

Not dew-wet grass, crushed in fists and under writhing bodies.]

If some were missing, I wouldn't know. I would never know.

You would not know me. I would not be here. But I am here with you.

[Ever present as always, smelling like tomes and incense; that much, at least, is still the same.

His gaze lingers on Chishiya's before he steps closer, close enough that the space between them becomes a choice rather than just distance. His voice is lower than before, stripped of its edge.]

I am sorry. Truly. Not for being hurt, but for making that hurt your burden. What can I do to make this right?

[So total erasure, not simply selective memories missing. A person-sized hole in his mind and Chishiya probes for it, stringing his memories together like beads on a necklace.

Finds only the same hole as always, fireworks exploding over Shibuya. Borderland. Waking up in the hospital with no memory of the meteorite impacting or buildings exploding around him. No memory at all about how he was injured or buried in debris.

Chishiya doesn't move back, doesn't startle but he does still, chest barely moving with each soft inhale and his eyes track Phyre.]

Why?

Why? Because I know what it is to wake up with a silence where a life should be. Because when you left me on the ground, I felt your absence. Absence is a wound. A corridor. Endless. I walked it, touching the walls, waiting for something - pain, memory, grief - to prove I was ever whole. How I felt whole with you in that moment.

[Sighing, he glances down at his feet, shuffling them uneasily.]

When you left, I heard that corridor open. And I was afraid that if I let it stay open - if I let myself look too long - I would discover that parts of me had already gone missing. Quietly. Without ceremony. So I reacted poorly. With anger. Anger leaves evidence. It says this happened. It says someone was here to be hurt. It felt like you wanted to erase me. Us. When you left me and said it was nothing but a game.

[Chishiya lets him talk. Lets the accent roll around in his head, wrap around his mind and gather memories of every other time he's heard it. On rooftops and side-streets, face down on Phyre's bed and wrapped up a cold embrace to not-fly through the city.

Dripping with desperation under his hands, smeared in blood and stained with desire.

Chishiya doesn't forget, he compartmentalizes.

And he watches. The tone of Phyre's voice, tracks where Phyre's gaze goes and how he stands. How he shuffles, and looks away. The sharp line of his shoulder and the way the wind doesn't touch him even when it's freezing.]

It was a game. There was no choice.

[He would have done the same no matter who had entered that garden with him. Chishiya would have followed the rules to the letter, let himself be undressed and would put his mouth to use.

He didn't have to be kind.

That was the only choice he had, and he'd used it fully.

But threats?]

[The dark figure nods. Slow, as if aligning himself with the truth of it. Yes, that is all there is.]

I know.

[No accusation. No challenge. He believes him. Perhaps out of nervousness, he runs his left hand up below his right shoulder and lets it settle there.]

Games are built to erase choice. They launder necessity until it looks like consent.

[That scarlet gaze drops - only briefly - to Chishiya's mouth, then back to his eyes. Not hunger. Memory. Sweet, delicious memory.]

You did what the rules demanded. You used the only margin you were given. Kindness.

[That word is handled carefully. Reverently, almost. Another pause but this one is for himself.]

I reacted as though you had chosen to hurt me; you had not. You were surviving. The fault is mine for answering survival with rage.

[Finally, he looks away - not in shame, but in restraint; he grips his forearm with such force the knuckles would go white if he had mortal blood.]

Thank you for the kindness you chose. And forgive me for mistaking the rules of the game for your intent.

[Chishiya is smart. Clever. Mind always spinning, always thinking four steps ahead in borderland. Playing the games like chess, moving pieces like they don't have a heartbeat.

Warching for fractures, brittle little cracks he could dig his mind and fingers into to tear it wide open if he needs to.

But this isn't borderland.

He promised someone once, that he'd do better in his second chance. Sure, it had been Niragi and they hadn't remembered everything.

And yet.]

You're a piece of shit. Don't text me and threaten to murder me.

[A slight shift in his stance, less weight on his back-foot and Chishiya pulls his phone out, deleting a text before it sends.]

Borderland is cruel, I didn't want to be. But I did not give you a choice.

[Phyre stills.

Not stiff - deliberately still, like someone choosing to absorb a blow rather than deflect it. The words land. He doesn't flinch from them, and he doesn't argue.]

You are right.

[Immediate. Unequivocal. He has earned that title.

His gaze drops to the phone, to the unsent text, and something in his expression tightens - not anger this time, but shame, clean and earned.]

That message should never have existed. There is no world - game or no - where threatening you was acceptable.

[It hurts. But these are the results of his actions and he cannot deny that.]

I will leave you.

[Chishiya hums, tilting his head and ignoring the quib about his text. A short three-word message to Kuina. In case Phyre had decided to kill him on sight and not talk.]

And yet you did. You text me about drinks and threaten me.

[He watches the stars again, the same deep darkness that exist always. The stars change at alarmingly slow rates, the same constellations for thousands of years.]

Alright.

I did. I am sorry. I do not know what more I can say.

[There's nothing more to be said. That can be said. With one last gaze - it could possibly even be described as sorrowful - longing and sadness visible in his eyes, he turns away.

As quickly as he came, he is gone again into the shadows.]

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Re: @surgicalcynicism)

Re: @surgicalcynicism)

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"and i took that personally"

Dog in room on fire - this is fine

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