Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Taki awoke shortly after dawn when the smell of a new day was still being made outside, being delivered to him in gentle waves. Before he had a chance to properly open his eyes, a large arm reached for him and dragged him across the mattress, holding him fast against a huge, warm body.

‘Klaus?’

But Klaus kept snoring.

Taki almost smiled at the strength of him; strength even in sleep. He looked down at the hand on his chest which had loosened its hold since it pulled him close. He carefully picked it up and held it up to the weak light of dawn.

He spent the next few idle seconds in his state of half-sleep examining the hand that was the size of a dinner plate. Though he would never admit it in a thousand years, it was those hands that had most intrigued him about Klaus, physically, in Luckenwalde. Taki had often cast furtive looks at the size and shape of them, how they held textbooks or closed around the handle of his bag, how they would rest like live creatures on his chest when he was lying on his back, telling a story. How they were cumbersome but surprisingly swift and graceful in their actions. Those thoughts had, of course, been laden with a brand new, consuming sort of shame and disgust.

Now he inspected the hand freely. He stroked it and turned it over. He observed the size of each finger, the way the knuckles were slightly, and somehow charmingly, wider than the fingers themselves. The toughness of the palm. The light golden hairs on the back. When it was a sleeping giant like that, it was hard to believe all the things it had done to him.

‘You know,’ a voice rumbled behind Taki, making him jump. ‘If you like it so much I can cut it off for you.’

Turning slowly, he met Klaus’ sleepy, amused gaze between the hairs that had fallen typically low over his forehead. Taki's eyes roamed over the golden, diagonal slash on his cheek and reached out to brush the hair back from his eyes. He then gently ran his fingers over Klaus' lips.

Over the past few months, it had been happening more and more. At first, Klaus had borne it with breath-held, anxious patience, again feeling like the hunter whose one wrong move might make him bolt. Now he sank into it. His new reality.

He buried his face between Taki’s pillow and the back of his neck near his shoulder.

‘You always smell so damn good here in the morning.’

He tilted his head slightly into Taki’s neck and kissed it while running his hand over Taki's chest and up to his jaw, his thumb parting Taki’s lips.

Taki’s breathing alerted him to what might be happening further south. He slid his hand back down over Taki’s chest and taut stomach and held his cock firmly, prompting a small moan. Before Taki was submerged in the sensation, he felt about for Klaus’ and found it. He felt it stiffen under his touch and Klaus breathed more urgently onto his skin.

For a few minutes their hands worked slowly but steadily, drawing out the pleasure. They both breathed heavily, Klaus’s face still firmly wedged against Taki’s neck where he would occasionally plant small kisses or pull at Taki's earlobe.

An idea slowly took shape in the back of Klaus' mind. With each stroke from Taki's hand, and each little sound that escaped Taki's lips, the image began to gather momentum. And suddenly, Klaus' need to see it had taken over.

He kissed Taki's neck and swiftly rolled them over so Taki was on top. He then drew back a bit.

'I want to try something,' he said.

Taki tried to look at him through eyes that were misted over. His pupils were blown wide, Klaus thought, his cock stiffening even more.

'Sit up.'

The way he said it – a tone that was somewhere between being commanding and coaxing – made Taki's body flush with anticipation. He pushed against Klaus' chest and sat up.

'Turn around.'

Blinking a few times, Taki nervously obeyed. As he tried to reposition himself over Klaus' body, he felt Klaus grab hold of his hips and pull him up until his lower half was spread wide and hovering above Klaus' face. The sudden shift in position made Taki gasp and almost fall face-first onto Klaus' thigh. Klaus' cock, stiff and slick, was right beside his cheek.

'Suck it.'

There was nothing at all coaxing about that command. Lust raced through Taki in a powerful wave, both from the raspiness of Klaus' voice and the feeling of being so exposed. He lifted Klaus' cock carefully and his lips met his hand halfway down the shaft.

Klaus groaned and pressed the back of his hand to his forehead.

The tip of Klaus' cock nudged against the back of Taki’s throat.

‘Fuck, yes,’ Klaus grunted.

As Taki slid his mouth over him, always meeting his hand around halfway, he considered taking Klaus all the way down his throat again; something which always required at least some forethought and focus. He was distracted, however, by the hand that was kneading his ass cheeks. And suddenly, Klaus’ finger had pushed in, deep, without any warning.

It surprised Taki enough that he bit down on Klaus’ cock near the tip.

Klaus gasped.

Taki pulled off to apologise in shock, and was both guilty and relieved to hear him laugh.

‘My own fault,’ Klaus conceded.

Without another word, he then tilted his chin up and swallowed Taki’s cock right to the base. Taki moaned and dropped his head on Klaus’ thigh. He felt Klaus’ tongue circle the tip of his dick before his mouth plunged over him again.

It took Taki a few seconds to remember where he was. With effort, he raised his head and took Klaus into his mouth once again.

They sucked in sync for long minutes, Klaus breaking off to thrust his tongue into Taki, occasionally alternating with his fingers as well, pushing in as deep as he liked from that angle. He felt the reverberations from Taki's moans on his own cock, loving the closed circle of it.

Taki then pulled off again, gasping, and warned him to stop or he would come.

Klaus took him far, all the way into his throat, at the same moment that he pushed three fingers in, angling them just right so they would brush his prostate hard. Klaus felt Taki’s cock shudder and release in his mouth.

It was an effortless transition from Taki’s cock to his ass, where Klaus pushed Taki’s own come inside him, massaging it in with his fingers, pulling the rim apart as wide as he could. Taki made soft sounds, his cheeks blazing, feeling entirely at Klaus' mercy.

Klaus then sat up so suddenly that Taki’s breath left him. His face was pressed down against the mattress by the footboard. He held his breath when Klaus’ cock nudged at his hole.

Changing his mind, realising suddenly that he hadn’t yet kissed him that morning, Klaus then flipped him over. Their eyes met for a few moments as he lowered his torso over Taki, arms on either side of his head, claiming him fully.

Taki’s eyes, blue-black and glossy, were still lost behind the cloud of his climax. His hair was everywhere. Klaus took his face in his hands and kissed him. The room smelled of sandalwood and spring but Klaus, for one, could only smell one thing. Taki's mind, meanwhile, on the way Klaus' huge hands were holding his own in an unyielding grip. He thought about how they had held textbooks and bags. Then how they had curled around the handle of a gun. How they plunged deep into fresh soil. And how they had held Taki's face as he kissed him.

In a voice that was small and full exhales, so much so that Klaus could barely distinguish the sounds themselves, Taki then murmured, ‘I love you.’

Time froze. Every particle hung suspended in the air. Klaus pulled back completely and stared. Taki stared back, completely unaware of the gravity of what he had said. His eyes were focused on Klaus and glazed at the same time.

For Klaus, it was both a kind of splintering and a kind of fusion. Something small breaking like dainty glass, and something piecing together. He lowered himself slowly and rested his face against Taki’s neck against the blanket, in the same place he’d buried it earlier that morning, and the rest of his body pressed down on top of Taki’s.

Taki was immediately worried. ‘What's wrong?’

Klaus didn’t move.

‘Just – just give me a minute, okay?’

And in fact, he lay there for exactly a minute, just breathing, his rigid cock pressing against Taki's thigh.

Taki hesitantly wrapped his arms around him and waited.

He reflected. Yes, it may have been the first time he said it, but surely he knew? Surely there wasn't room even for a shred of doubt after all they'd been through?

Klaus had never before in his life had to try so hard to hold back tears. He succeeded only by dint of fact that it was highly unbecoming to cry while fucking someone.

He finally lifted his head up and locked eyes with Taki again. Then he raised his body and pushed Taki’s legs up closer to his chest, his cock once again pressing hard against its mark but not penetrating. Taki felt a hard shiver race through his body from the anticipation. The look Klaus gave him then was impossible to read. It was a mixture of things Taki hadn’t seen before.

‘Say it again,’ Klaus demanded, voice deep and dangerous.

Taki’s breath hitched in his throat. He hesitated.

‘I… I love y–’

Klaus thrust in and Taki’s words were lost to his moan.

Chapter Text

On set: THE FINAL CHAPTERS 

Scene: INTERIOR, Haruki's bedroom in the compound 

Klaus checks in on Haruki while he's dressing for Ambassador Feulner's soiree 

Take 3

‘I wasn’t going to go,’ Haruki continued, sounding a little tired, ‘but in the end Hasebe figured it might help.’

‘Hasebe? Doesn’t sound like him.’ 

‘He’s not crazy about Feulner,’ Haruki admitted, recalling how much Feulner had ruffled Hasebe’s feathers on the few occasions they met. ‘But I think he respects him. The way he sees it, Feulner’s doing it as a gesture of goodwill, as usual. And there’ll be people from east and west and everywhere, really. Hasebe said it might be our last chance to rub shoulders with higher-ups in other countries before that kind of thing starts getting labelled suspicious. Or even treasonous.’

Klaus understood only too well. He also reflected, with some dry amusement, on how far Hasebe had come since the xenophobic Grand Chamberlain he had once been. For a moment, he allowed himself the flattering thought that the colonel's transformation perhaps owed, in part, to Klaus' own influence in the last war.

‘Anyway, I’ll only be gone a few hours,’ Haruki went on. ‘Kolya's coming with me.’

Most of Haruki's hair was swept back but wayward strands still fell over his forehead as he struggled with the cuff link again.

‘Here, let me,’ Klaus offered, stepping forward.

Glancing up, Haruki felt an entirely unwarranted spike in nervousness.

‘Oh. No, it’s okay.’

‘I got it.’

Haruki’s pulse hit the roof for no earthly reason when Klaus took his wrist.

As he pulled the brass links through the openings, Klaus noticed Haruki’s right cuffs were already done.

And then he noticed the whiteness of Haruki's wrist. The shape of his palm, upturned, cupped. The creases and the hollow at the centre. Klaus' hand was still hovering over the cuff links. Only millimetres away from his skin. Without thinking, Klaus slipped his little finger into the crease of Haruki's palm.

Haruki's heart skipped several beats. It was a wayward slip of Klaus' finger. Surely.

And then Klaus let go of the cuff links. He traced Haruki's palm. Fingers huge and gentle. Haruki's mind raced.

'Klaus…'

Klaus heard the catch in Haruki's voice. And suddenly he was grazing the entire length of Haruki's hand with his own. Then he lifted it to his lips and kissed the palm. In a quick glance, he saw the way Haruki's eyes were both startled and misted over. The way heat rose to his face.

He turned Haruki's hand over and kissed the back of it, still keeping his eyes on Haruki's.

And then he pulled Haruki's hand forward and up, flinging it over his shoulder. A hand on Haruki's waist pulled him close and then their lips met hotly —

'CUT!'

As soon as the director yelled out, the set released its breath in giggles and sighs of exasperation. Kenji, who up until a few moments ago was lost in the role of Haruki Yamamoto, tried to pull away to laugh but his co-star held on and thrust his tongue past his lips.

'Alright, that's enough,' Wenton tried.

After another heated few seconds, Erik Vahlen finally pulled back, his smile stretching from ear to ear. Erik, who played Klaus von Wolfstadt, was still holding Kenji close when he turned to the director, as though he had only just noticed he was there. He, and the blinding lights, multiple cameras and dozens of on-set stage hands and crew.

'What was my line again?' he asked blithely.

'You're left-handed,' the director said in a kind of weathered annoyance.

'Right, right,' Erik said. 'I'll get it next time for sure.'

'This is the third take, guys. We're running out of reel.'

'I can't help it. This whole scene sets me off. He's wearing that vest and acting all flustered while I'm doing up his cuff links. How the hell am I supposed to keep my hands to myself?'

Kenji laughed and blushed, still having been unable to push Erik off him. Wenton sighed.

'Roll film.'

But when he turned back, they were locking lips yet again. Just as Wenton groaned, a song with a jaunty, suggestive beat exploded from the ceiling.

Just say you feel the way that I feel
I'm feeling sexual
So we should be sexual

Klaus pulled back to laugh. He craned his neck up at the ceiling. 'Meiji, is that you?'

Wenton turned and tried to figure out whom to scowl at. Everyone looked both innocent and struggling to contain their laughter. The mood was infectious – on set, in the 1930s world of a division commander's bedroom, with a fictitious civil war and cold war raging in the background, Klaus in his tan coat and Haruki in his shirtsleeves and vest were dancing impulsively and irreverently to a very twenty-first century beat, foreheads still close, Klaus occasionally grinding his hips against Haruki's whether the song's beat called for it or not.

By then the crew were laughing openly.

Wenton sighed and sagged in the director's seat.

'This is what I get for casting a real couple.'

Erik and Kenji sat in separate armchairs, Erik with his legs crossed, leaning his head into his left hand. The journalist had gone through the standard pre-movie questions and was now inching her way into personal territory. As seasoned actors whose relationship was widely known to the public, Erik and Kenji could sense it coming.

Her question was directed at Kenji.

'What was it like for you during the sex scenes that Erik shared with Aoki?' she said, referring to the actor who played Taki Reizen.

Kenji gave his co-star a look that the journalist tried to interpret. Erik raised his eyebrows at him, curious to know how he would field that one.

'I was a little jealous,' Kenji admitted with a good-natured smile at Klaus. 'A little turned on. Nothing you wouldn't expect.'

All three chuckled.

'How would you describe your relationship with your co-star, Aoki Nakamura?' the journalist asked, turning to Erik.

'Good,' Erik said with a tip of his head. 'He's great. Very dedicated. Made me feel bad when I was memorising lines on the morning of the shoot,' he added with a laugh. 'He knew both mine and his back to front, which was handy for me.'

'And were you nervous at all about the sex scenes? Given this is your first time acting a homosexual role?'

'A little, I guess. Not what my fan base is used to, after all.'

An appreciative smile from the journalist. The actor's very public divorce from his wife and his new relationship with fellow actor Kenji Watanabe had been front-page tabloid news for some time.

'But Aoki was great. He helped me through those scenes if I ever got nervous.'

'You certainly came across as anything other than nervous in those scenes,' the journalist said, with a sly inflection both the actors heard.

'Thank you.'

'Hard to believe it was Aoki who gave you a helping hand in those scenes.'

'What can I say? He's a professional.'

'The chemistry between yourself and Aoki was very real on screen. Behind the scenes, are you two close?'

'I'd like to think so, yes.'

'Are the rumours true about Aoki and Johann Rheingold, who played Hans Regenwalde?'

Erik gave her a warning look. It was commonly known that Aoki's private life was his own. He didn't plan to indulge any rumours.

'No idea. You'll have to ask him.'

The journalist could tell she had strayed onto thin ice. She tried to reroute. 'Is there anything juicy you can give me? Just a little something for the readers?'

Erik and Kenji exchanged a glance.

'There is one thing,' Kenji said, somewhat hesitantly. 'I don't think she'd mind would she? They've been fairly open about it.'

The journalist leaned forward.

'Nah, you know her,' Erik replied. 'She's pretty much shouting it from the rooftops. And I doubt he'd care much. I don't think anything fazes him.'

'Who?' the journalist asked.

'Kolya di Lupo,' Erik said with a devilish grin.

The journalist's pulse soared. Dimitri Volkov, the Russian heartthrob, had been a mystery for years, even more so than Aoki. This would be some scoop if she managed to get her hands on it.

'What about him?' she asked breathlessly.

'He's sleeping with the writer.'

The journalist blinked. 'The writer?'

Her heart plummeted over a vague image of the little nobody from Australia. Nobody cared who the writer was sleeping with.

'You should see them on set,' Kenji said. 'They're like teenagers.'

'Well she is, anyway,' Erik added. 'He just does whatever she wants, even if she pulls him off set between takes to suck face.'

'At least she waits until they're off set to do that,' Kenji added pointedly at Erik, though his smile was back. Erik shot him a very Klaus-esque wink.

'I hear you two also met on set,' the journalist said, anxious to take the conversation back to the glittering world of actors. 'On a different film a few years ago?'

'We did,' Kenji answered. Another meaningful glance. 'Erik was the lead and I was only playing a supporting role but –'

'He caught my eye,' Erik said, gaze simmering. 'And I haven't looked away since.'

'Oh, God,' Kenji laughed, a little flushed, throwing the journalist a sheepish look. 'Good thing he's not a writer.'

'Even writers love cheesy lines,' the journalist confided with a smile. 'Speaking of leading roles, The Final Chapters is your first leading role, is that right?'

'It is.'

'What's it like playing your first leading role alongside the Erik Vahlen?'

That time, Kenji looked down at the floor instead of at Erik, though the journalist noticed Erik's gaze never left him.

'I still feel sometimes like I might wake up from it,' Kenji said, again with a smile that was small but managed to take up his whole face. 'I mean, I had a poster of him in my room growing up.'

'Way to age me there,' Erik drawled, and Kenji smiled in apology.

'It's been amazing,' he said, eyes on Erik.

'Ditto,' Erik replied. 

There was a pause as they stared.

'Okay, that's too much cheese even for me, you guys,' the journalist quipped, feeling strangely like they left her behind.

They barely heard her.

[The End]

Chapter Text

There are times when I struggle to express how amazing my readers are. This is one of those times.

Moratorium, my reader/soulmate/best human being ever, has recently put together these AMAZING screenshots of Kenji Watanabe and Erik Vahlen's Instagram pages, based on the fic I wrote in the previous chapter:

I don't think I'll be able to describe it nearly as well as Moratorium has:

I don't have an Instagram though I'm a little familiar with the site, so I tried my best to make it look like the photos were shot by another individual rather than by a drone or a professional wedding photographer or something LOL. I shamelessly used pictures of Charlie Hunnam for Eric Vahlen just because he's got a dog and a motorbike and he's blonde and kind of ripped. And I very shamelessly used childhood to photobook pictures of Kora Kengo for Kenji Watanabe just because I have a lot at my disposal. Please forgive me.

HC is that Kenji is a casual user of the app, and Erik just signed up for Kenji and only ever posts pictures of Kenji...sometimes bordering on NSFW. Oh yeah, he found some childhood photos on their trip to Japan, he just have to use a photo of middle-schooler Kenji as his profile picture.

Okay so let me try to channel my NEVER-ENDING LOVE FOR MORATORIUM AND THIS BEAUTIFUL, THOUGHTFUL WORK OF ART into some dot points:

• Erik having 2.7 million followers despite having been on Instagram for like two seconds
• Erik having a website called theerikvahlen.com
• Kenji's 'impossible' quote from my story why are you so amazing moratorium are you trying to kill me
• Charlie Hunnam being so effortlessly Klausian, like how
• Erik having a young Kenji as his profile picture, I want to imagine his fans being confused at first and then melting
• The rings. THE RINGS.
• Their feet! Omfg why does a picture of feet move me so <3 <3
• Erik calling Kenji 'little master'

I can't deal with how real Erik and Kenji have become thanks to this. I am not deserving and neither is my ridiculous movie AU which has now been made so much more awesome. Thank you so much to the hands-down wonderful Moratorium :')

UPDATE: Moratorium has added to the Instagram shots (because sometimes awesomeness knows no bounds).

Erik's sneaky shot of Kenji that had to be taken down: 

^THIS IS SO HARUKI OMG. I mean Kenji. Lol both/either/I'm in love.

And I have no words for Klaus-at-the-cottage/Erik-in-New-Orleans:

*cries silently

Here are the other shots:
Erik's first post: http://i.imgur.com/p4faESu.png
One of Kenji's posts: http://i.imgur.com/Kb3S9ig.png

Check out Moratorium's long amazing comment below for more :)

Chapter Text

...a dream from the previous night. Taki and Klaus had stood on a sunset-drenched cliff face somewhere bleak and foreboding if not for the epic colour palette. It occurred to Klaus, suddenly, that they had been childhood friends for years and years. Yeah, he went on, his smile as wide as the horizon, don’t you remember? After we first met under the swaying purple flowers, I moved in next door. I became younger, you know, so I could be closer to your age. Taki remembered frowning at this, annoyed that he’d gone to so much trouble. And we were best friends for our entire childhood, practically in-fucking-separable, Klaus finished in triumph. He stared sideways at Taki, his short spikes of hair buffeted by the amber breeze. Do you remember? Yes, Taki had to admit. There they were, round-faced and wide-eyed, Taki teaching Klaus how to pour tea correctly with a little toy China set, Klaus teaching Taki how to analyse and differentiate varieties of snails before pocketing them. Sure, they’d had years together. And somehow they’d just forgotten it all. Let’s try not to forget again, Klaus decided.

Taki had awoken knowing they probably would.

Klaus followed through with his decision to become younger to become closer to Taki’s age. But he overshot it.

By six years.

So when they met under the wisteria tree, Taki was nine and Klaus was three. Small golden eyes stared up into dark obsidian ones. They were each as surprised as the other. The violet clumps of flowers swayed behind them.

‘Can I keep him?’

The question, which carried from whisper to whisper, shocked the entire Reizen compound within an hour.

When it was first asked, Lady Reizen considered her son thoughtfully. She had to fight back a smile at the sight of them together.

Taki kneeled perfectly upright before her in his ceremonial dress robes and headdress, his expression as solemn as ever. Sprawled on the floor beside him, alternating between staring about the room in open-mouthed wonder and trying to fit his own foot in his mouth, was a tiny golden-haired child in slightly soiled foreign clothes.

‘Keep him?’ Taki’s mother echoed.

‘Yes,’ Taki said confidently.

‘Where did you even find him?’

‘He escaped the bad guys,’ Taki said, his tone entirely serious. ‘They were going to sell him to a zoo.’

‘Sell him to a –?’

‘Don’t let them sell me!’ the small child piped up immediately and instinctively in his native tongue.

Lady Reizen looked at him. Golden eyes, she thought. How extraordinary.

It took a little more investigating before her attendants discovered that the child, whose name was Klaus von Wolfstadt, had been orphaned in the war that had just ended. With no next of kin, he had been taken to the east as part of an outreach program that her own brother, the emperor, had arranged for war orphans. Dozens of orphans from the west and Eurote and their own nation alike were to be gathered at a foster facility nearby in the hopes of being adopted.

‘Why was the child here at the residence?’ Lady Reizen asked as she swept back up the hallway bordering the courtyard.

Her attendant kept a respectful distance.

‘They were brought here by bus this morning, Your Grace. The emperor is scheduled to be photographed beside his wards this afternoon. From what I understand, the child has been missing since early this morning. His minder has been worried sick.’

They re-entered the room where Lady Reizen had left the boys together.

Taki looked up when the door slid open. Little Klaus was asleep in Taki’s lap, his thumb fastened securely in his mouth. Lady Reizen’s heart fluttered.

She knelt beside her son and tried to explain the situation to him. He listened with his usually piercing gaze and made no sound until his mother reached the uncomfortable conclusion.

‘We have to send him back.’

‘No,’ he said at once.

The sound awoke little Klaus who looked up at Taki sleepily.

‘You said he’ll go somewhere where he’ll be adopted by a family,’ Taki said, though Lady Reizen could sense a rare tantrum somewhere behind his carefully measured words. ‘So why can’t we just adopt him now?’

‘Taki –’

‘I told him I won’t let them sell him,’ Taki said firmly.

Lady Reizen was shocked to see his eyes welling with tears.

‘He’s not going to be sold, Taki –’

Klaus’ eyes grew wide when he saw Taki crying. He sat up and gripped Taki’s sleeve.

‘What if he goes to a family that treats him badly?’ Taki reasoned hotly.

His mother noticed how he had shifted himself so Klaus was partly shielded by his body. The child stared up at Lady Reizen from the safety of his new keeper’s side.

‘He can’t stay here, Taki. He doesn’t even speak our language.’

‘He can learn. I’ll teach him!’

There was a conviction in his tone that Lady Reizen couldn't help but believe.

She then noticed, for the first time, the wisteria in her son’s headdress. It occurred to her that he would have been too short to pluck them by himself.

‘How did you manage to reach the flowers?’ she asked.

‘Klaus climbed the tree and took some. And then he fell out and hurt his knee.’

Lady Reizen couldn't help but smile at the pair of them. They had known each other for all of an hour and it appeared they were already inseparable.

From behind them, the attendant made a small sound.

‘We’re going to be late for the ceremony,’ Lady Reizen told Taki gently. She hoped a few hours apart might bring them back to their senses.

‘Can Klaus come?’ Taki said without pause.

Lady Reizen sighed.

She then turned to the attendant and asked how quickly they could draw up a bath and whether they had any of Taki’s old kimonos on hand.

The only set they found were sky-blue.

They suited the child perfectly, Lady Reizen thought despite herself as he came out with shining, freshly washed hair, billowing sleeves and a smile as wide as the horizon.

[To be continued]

Chapter Text

Cena wasn't exactly known for any famous landmarks. There was just one old fort on a ragged shale cliff that overlooked the ocean, and in fact its story was more interesting than the building itself.

Klaus and Haruki were already at the old fort, and had already heard the story, by the time they realised that neither of them particularly wanted to be there. They only discovered this when Klaus complained about the heat in an undertone.

'I can't believe I let you drag me here, kid,' he said, undoing the second button of his shirt.

Haruki was startled. 'I thought — weren't you the one who said you wanted to go?'

'Me? The hell do I care about some old fort?'

'I don't care either,' Haruki admitted with a quiet laugh.

'Then what the fuck are we doing here?'

Their conversation, hushed though it was, earned them a stern look from the tour guide nearby. They had gotten used to the fact that no one in Cena understood them and it had slipped their minds that the tour guide was probably fluent in several languages.

They were standing towards the back of a group of tourists who had spent the past half-hour eagerly taking photos and inspecting the ruins. The prim woman leading the group continued to glare at them for a beat or two before resuming her monologue, for those who were keen, about the precise quarry that was mined for the stone they were standing on.

Klaus and Haruki took their cue and slipped away.

The group had been taken to the windy, open rooftop of the old fort and Klaus and Haruki had to make their way down a spiral stairwell. Their laughter echoed around them, bouncing ahead of them down the stone steps.

'We spent half an hour on a tour neither of us wanted to be on,' Klaus remarked dryly.

'I don't understand,' Haruki replied, trying in vain to remember which of them had suggested that they visit the fort. 'How did we even decide to come here, then?'

'Beats me.'

Haruki laughed again as they passed one of the windows cut into the outer wall. He paused on the staircase and peered out at the ocean and the clouds scudding the horizon. He had seen the same ocean every day for a week since they arrived in Cena, but for some reason, the fact that he was seeing it through a narrow window framed by old stone made it seem new again, in an ancient way.

'It's kind of beautiful, though,' he said vaguely.

Klaus, who had descended a few steps below him, paused and turned. He glanced up and saw the way a thin beam of light came through the narrow window and made Haruki's face light up in the gloom of the old stairwell. He came back up and stood behind Haruki, taking in the framed view of the ocean.

He had stood behind Haruki like that half an hour ago, in the line to get into the fort. Haruki sensed Klaus standing perhaps a little closer to him than was necessary — about as close as one could be without raising eyebrows. There was a delicate art to it that they had subconsciously perfected over their time together in Cena. He glanced down and saw Klaus' huge hand on the rail by his hip. The man in front of him was jostled by his young child and he stumbled back a step into Haruki. Haruki, in turn, stepped back into Klaus, who took the opportunity to move forwards, pressing strongly against Haruki's back for a long moment. Haruki's lips twitched in a smile and he heard Klaus breathe in deeply behind him before they stepped apart again.

The man in front of Haruki turned around to apologise and wondered why the young Easterner looked so flushed.

'What's the story of this place?' Klaus asked as they stood on the narrow spiral stairwell by the narrow window. 'I was only half paying attention.'

'A rich baron built it, hundreds of years ago,' Haruki said, surprised and pleased when Klaus' arms wrapped around his waist despite the heat. ‘He was one of the richest men in the country. He refused to fight in a war that was waging at the time, even though everyone in the country had been drafted.'

'Because his wife died,' Klaus said, remembering the paintings that were hung everywhere in the fort, each of them showing the same woman.

'Yeah. When the army came to recruit him, he stayed behind the walls of his fort and they couldn't spare the resources to get him out. So they left him alone for years.'

Klaus thought of the immense grounds and vast hallways they had walked through that day. It was all crumbling to dust but it was like observing the frayed edges of a masterpiece. He imagined the baron living there alone for so many years. He had only occasionally tuned in to what the tour guide was telling them.

‘But didn't he die in the war, in the end?'

'One of the generals convinced him to fight. The tour guide said no one knows why this general managed to persuade him even though no one else could. Whatever the reason, he fought again, and he died in battle.'

'Hmm,' Klaus said, his voice echoing in the small stone space. 'Glad he got out of this depressing place.'

'He came back, though,’ Haruki pointed out. ‘After he died.'

'What?'

'You really weren't paying attention,' Haruki observed with a smile.

'Apparently not.'

'He came back here,' Haruki repeated. 'That's why this place is kind of interesting. After the war, his servants welcomed him home. They reported that they fed him, and the maids said they bathed him. And,' Haruki added, thinking of something that had left an impression on him above all else, though he wasn't sure why, 'they even heard him wishing his dead wife goodnight before he went to sleep, like he did every night. The next morning, while the baron was still asleep, the general and some soldiers arrived at the front gates of the fort with the baron's body. They told the servants that the baron had died in battle the previous day, on the last day of the war. The servants didn't understand. They checked the bedroom and it was empty.'

Klaus raised his eyebrows slightly.

They stood in the centuries-old stairwell and felt the centuries-old legend taking shape within the stone walls. Klaus thought of the painting in the gilded frame that hung in the bedroom. It showed a woman with fair hair and deep, dark eyes; a rare and striking combination. It was the only thing about that old fort that didn't leave him feeling unsettled.

'Poor bastard,' he said, imagining the baron’s ghost wandering the fort still. 'He got out of this place for a while before getting pulled right back in.'

Haruki was silent. He couldn't help but think there was something beautiful to the return of the baron's ghost, unnerving though it was. It was like he and his wife were reunited in death.

Klaus kissed his neck then, which pulled him quite effectively from his thoughts. He turned his head and met Klaus' mouth in a kiss; a heat that neither of them minded. Haruki reached up and ran a hand through the hair on the back of Klaus' head.

With his eyes closed, Klaus pictured the gentle smile he would see when he drew away. He opened his eyes to see it there, exactly as he imagined. He pressed his jaw against Haruki's temple and gazed out at the bright blue of the sky; a small sliver that pierced the thick, grey hide of the fort walls. He thought of the baron.

'His loss,' Klaus decided lightly.

He didn't know precisely what he meant. Certainly it seemed that the baron's life had been nothing but loss, so Klaus wasn't sure why he felt begrudgingly towards him. Perhaps he was simply grateful for what he himself had, now, and he was trying to learn to feel worthy of it, even if it came at the expense of others' tragedies. Even if it didn't feel real at times.

They heard footsteps on the stairs above them and pulled apart. One of the tourists nodded at them as he squeezed past.

Klaus looked at Haruki and inclined his head, not wanting to stay there for a moment longer. He took Haruki’s hand as they descended. That place was the baron's curse, not his.

Their rental waited for them outside the fort. The car had become a welcome sight over the past week and they climbed in happily, only to be met by the intense heat that she had worked up in their absence.

They caught the sea breeze as they drove away from the shale cliffs towards their hotel and it made the temperature bearable. Haruki drove and Klaus kept his eyes on the ocean and felt vaguely regretful that a certain spiral staircase in an old fort would only ever be graced with a narrow sliver of something so expansive. It was blinding like that, like a crystal canvas had been split into two subtly different shades of blue along the horizon.

The road gradually drifted further from the white sand until there were stretches of coarse grass and bushlands separating their car from the surf.

Klaus caught sight of it through lazy, half-lidded eyes — a telltale gap in the grass on their left. He told Haruki to stop and turn around.

It was barely a path, but they made it so as they eased the car into the bushlands and the canopy immediately sheltered them from the glare of the sun. They seemed to be heading uphill. Haruki carefully guided the car around bends, and once or twice, Klaus got out to move a fallen branch or to check whether the gap between trees was wide enough for them to pass through.

As they continued to head uphill, Klaus was reminded of the day he took Verner's truck into the trees to show Taki the waterfall. He was reminded of the small clearing beyond which his mother had found, and which no one else knew about, not even Haruki.

He was thinking of the mottled, multi-coloured canopy of trees being reflected in a river as the path levelled off and stopped abruptly in a shrub-lined lookout that offered a beautiful view of the entire ocean and the curved inlet of Cena. It was a view as surprising as it was placid; a secret that had waited patiently for them to find it. The soft, distant sound of waves reached them, punctuated by the sound of the trees behind them and the gulls above. Even the heat seemed distant there, somehow.

‘How much better is this than some old fort?’ Klaus said, sliding low in his seat and propping his feet up on the dashboard.

Haruki had to agree. He leaned his head on his arm against the open window and breathed in lungfuls of salty air. He smiled when Klaus reached for his hand again and held it down on the car seat between them. Drowsiness set in for them both. Haruki understood then why some cultures believed in a midday siesta.

‘You know what we should do, kid?’ Klaus said, after some peaceful minutes had passed. ‘We should live here.’

Haruki smiled again. ‘In Cena?’

‘No, right here. We should head back into the bush behind us a little ways and pitch a tent. And just never leave.’

Haruki chuckled in surprise.

‘Why not?’ Klaus said lazily. ‘No one’ll know where the hell we’ve gone. No one knows we’re even in Cena, right? We could stay here and not know what's going on anywhere in the world. East and west and Eurote can all go fuck themselves and we’ll sit here counting stars. Our own fort. A fort made of canvas.’

It was a thought he had also had when he and Taki spent time together in the clearing. But given how whimsical it was, he had always been content to keep it to himself.

Now he glanced up at Haruki and watched him consider the fantasy with a broad smile.

‘What’ll we do for food?’

‘I’ll shoot seagulls. You can cook them.’

‘I can't cook.’

Klaus turned his head. ‘You're kidding.’

‘No, I never learned. When Ryoumei and I were in flight school he did all the cooking. I survived on canned food when he went home to visit family.’

Klaus made a noise of dismay. ‘First thing I'm doing when we get back to the cottage is teach you how to cook.’

Haruki's eyes twinkled. ‘I thought we were staying here.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

Klaus brought Haruki's hand to his lips and kissed it, just to see him blush, which he always did without fail. He thought of forts of stone and canvas, and the fort they had made in their hotel room. Even the cottage. All fronts against the world where they could hide and pretend none of it was real. But the outside world always came in, and forts always crumbled until they were nothing more than ancient stones and echoing stairwells.

He considered his own feet on the dashboard and realised they were in another one then. A fort of overheated metal and chipped red paint. And Haruki sat beside him, realer than any ghost or any paintings in gilded frames.

‘So is that a deal?’ he said, his tone changing slightly. He pulled Haruki’s arm and brought Haruki away from the car door where he had been leaning. ‘I’ll shoot seagulls and I’ll also be the house frau.’

‘Tent frau,’ Haruki corrected with a slight chuckle.

Klaus grinned. ‘Right.’

Haruki hovered over Klaus and, in a strange moment, he marvelled once again over how he could, so easily, be so close to Klaus whenever he wanted.

‘It doesn’t sound like I’d be pulling my weight,’ he said, casting an eye out the back window at the bushland where their tent would be.

Klaus ran a hand up Haruki’s thigh.

‘You can just look pretty for me every day, Commander,’ he murmured absently.

Haruki let out a loud laugh and Klaus reached up and pulled him in for a long kiss. His hand was warm on the back of Haruki’s neck. Haruki almost subconsciously moved closer and lifted a leg over Klaus’ stomach to straddle him fully, despite being aware that it was too hot in the car for such closeness. He was guiltily pleased when Klaus’ hands travelled over his back and stopped at his ass, which he then ground forcefully down against his hips. Haruki’s breathing changed. The air was full of salt and a chorus of gulls and cicadas and Klaus’ rich cedar scent. Klaus’ tongue and lips were warm against his own.

His pulse spiked when Klaus’ hand slipped into the hem of his trousers. He was suddenly self-conscious.

‘Wait…’ He tried to pull back, though only half-heartedly. ‘It’s too hot. And I’m — I’ve been sweating all day.’

But Klaus’ mind was already leagues ahead. He rolled his hips up into Haruki’s ass and kept a firm grip on his arms.

‘So have I,’ he said, his voice hoarse.

‘I — probably smell,’ Haruki protested, feeling Klaus’ hardness beneath him and realising it would take a feat to stop Klaus when he was raring to go like he was now. And he felt his own mind becoming lost in a familiar fog that only Klaus could bring about.

Klaus lifted off the seatback to kiss Haruki’s neck again and breathe deeply. ‘You smell great.’ He then ran his tongue flat over Haruki’s neck up to his ear, tasting the salt in his sweat. ‘Taste pretty damn good, too.’

Haruki shivered, aversion turning swiftly to arousal. Klaus felt it, and he knew it wouldn’t take much more to convince him. He was fired up at the thought, at the strong scent of both of their bodies in the overheated car.

‘Klaus…’ Haruki tried again, half-heartedly, still dimly afraid of Klaus being put off in any way. But Klaus’ scent was overpowering and doing away with his resistance.

Klaus tightened his grip on Haruki's ass and lifted his mouth to Haruki’s ear. ‘I want to see your ass swallowing my cock slowly, just like that, where you are.’

Haruki moaned quietly and ground his hips down over Klaus’ cock, again almost subconsciously.

He barely registered the awkwardness of having to pull off his trousers in that cramped position, or the fact that he had to lift himself to let Klaus undo the front of his own pants to release his cock. He barely even spared a glance out the window to make sure others hadn’t wandered there in their wake. Before he knew it, he was watching Klaus beneath him running a hand up and down over his own cock, his face covered in sweat. Klaus’ other hand was probing near his hole. His fingers slipped in and Haruki realised in another moment of aversion turned to arousal that sweat was functioning rather effectively as lubrication.

‘Fuck, kid,’ Klaus breathed. ‘It's even hotter inside you than it is out here.’

‘Uhn,’ Haruki moaned. ‘It feels so good. Go... deeper.’ He ground his hips again and Klaus pushed his fingers in further.

Klaus chuckled. ‘Who was complaining about it being too hot earlier?’ He added another finger and Haruki arched his back. ‘Now look at you.’

Haruki only rolled his hips in response, closing his eyes to better feel the merciless way Klaus probed inside him. He twitched and gasped with each curl of Klaus' fingers. His cock spasmed when Klaus pressed hard against his prostate, like he knew exactly where it was and what it would do.

All too soon, Klaus’ fingers were gone. Haruki gasped again and opened his eyes.

The look of need in Haruki's eyes was like a drug straight to Klaus’ head. Better than morphine. Better than any take-off.

‘Do it now,’ Klaus said, his voice coming out in a growl.

Haruki felt around beneath him for Klaus’ cock, which had been leaking steadily as Klaus’ fingers made room for it. He pressed the hot, bulbous head against his hole and they both groaned when it pushed through. Haruki leaned forwards onto Klaus’ chest, grunting.

Slowly, he lowered himself over Klaus’ cock, just as Klaus had imagined.

‘Good boy,’ Klaus hissed.

For a small, unsettling moment, Haruki felt as though he would suffocate. The heat of summer and the heat of Klaus’ cock and the sweat he could feel running down his neck and the side of his face, drenching his half-open shirt — it was all too much. But then he felt Klaus hands move up his bare thighs to his stomach. His thumb brushed Haruki's stiff cock, only lightly, just enough for him to simultaneously lose and regain his senses. Or rather, to regain them and defer them all to Klaus.

‘How you doing, kid?’ Klaus said, closely watching the strained expression on Haruki's face. He was caught between guilt and the unfairly erotic sight of him impaled on his cock beside the steering wheel. He felt Haruki's body contracting around his cock. A firm, perfect grip.

‘It’s so… hot,’ Haruki replied vaguely. An all-encompassing truth.

Klaus ran his thumb over Haruki's lips and slipped inside, swilling it around against his tongue. Haruki sucked reflexively.

‘You're right about that.’

He pushed his hips up slightly and Haruki moaned around his thumb.

‘Go on, kid. Let me see you fuck yourself on my cock.’

The words seemed to sizzle in Haruki’s ear. He used his hand on Klaus’ chest as leverage and began to move. The burning of Klaus’ cock very quickly translated into a fierce, invasive pleasure — one which he controlled almost entirely in that position.

In fact, he had learned a few more proclivities about Klaus since their extended stay at Cena. When he had some control, like that, he thought he knew how to make Klaus narrow his eyes or exhale suddenly with certain moves. For instance, he tried whenever he could to take Klaus’ cock fully into him on each grind, until he could feel Klaus’ pubic hair pressing against his flesh, and he would clench his innermost muscles right then, when Klaus was seated deep inside him. It was an effort that made him moan and it was rewarded each time with the way Klaus grunted and the way that his hands clenched Haruki’s flesh, wherever they were at the time.

He had also discovered that Klaus felt it strongest each time his cock entered Haruki’s body anew. And so Haruki tried to lift himself off Klaus’ cock completely, to feel the near-winding sensation of being empty, before letting Klaus’ cock breach him again. His body opened for Klaus with greater ease each time and Klaus hissed through clenched teeth.

‘Fuck yes,’ Klaus groaned, captivated by the way Haruki’s ass gaped open for a moment each time he lifted off. He was treated time and time again to the unreal sensation of pushing into Haruki's body, feeling the way his cock spread him open and pulled him into its wet heat.

He could sense how much effort it took for Haruki to do that. How much it must hurt on each re-entry. And so, at length, he pulled Haruki’s hips down hard and began thrusting up without drawing out fully, holding him in place as he plunged.

‘Ah!’

Haruki’s hand flew up and braced against the ceiling of the car as Klaus began thrusting up relentlessly, each plunge raising the temperature inside and around him by several degrees. The car rocked around them.

‘So deep,’ Haruki moaned. ‘Ugh, yes there! Mmh, so good. You’re in so deep!’

‘That’s where I’m going to shoot, kid.’

‘Ugh, yes!’

‘You’re tightening up. You going to come first?’

‘Yes... oh, Klaus, I’m going to come.’

‘Yeah, do it. Show me how I fucked the come out of you.’

It was entirely possible that Klaus’ gravelly voice alone was what sent Haruki over the edge. His hand was still on the ceiling when he came, yet another spurt of heat that flew from his body.

Klaus felt Haruki's body milking him and didn't last much longer. He gasped as he ejaculated, bucking Haruki upwards a few more times as he did.

In the few seconds of silence afterwards, he felt his own come beginning to slide back down around his cock. The thrill of sex eased off like the waves beyond were dragging it back out to sea. Klaus focused on the sight of Haruki straddling him, the flush in his cheeks and the look in his eye.

‘You do that a couple of times a week in our tent and I’ll be a happy tent frau.’

Haruki laughed then, a sound that was brighter than those of the gulls or the waves. He leaned forwards, breathing heavily, exhausted, sweat shining on his face and the exposed sliver of his chest.

Klaus lifted a hand to his jaw.

‘Goddamn, you're beautiful,’ he murmured.

Haruki blinked and then blushed scarlet. It was the first time Klaus had said anything like that. It felt oddly incongruous. Raw. Like a set of nerve endings exposed to air.

Klaus lifted a corner of his mouth at his reaction. Haruki leaned forwards, exhausted, still panting and Klaus pulled him close and kissed him. He felt his cock slide out of Haruki's body, slippery with sweat, just like everything else.

He kissed Haruki's bottom lip and his top one, then trailed down his neck and back up, biting lightly, a little regretful that their position meant he hadn’t been able to leave any new marks on Haruki. He realised that he had barely moved a muscle since climbing into the car outside the fort.

They kissed again as Klaus shifted until he leaned back against the car door with his legs stretched across to the driver’s seat,* allowing Haruki to rest against him comfortably. His hair was smooth against the underside of Klaus’ chin. Klaus ran his hands over Haruki's back and neck. It was a body he knew, now. One he could map with his eyes closed. Though, as he recently realised, he was still discovering things about the young commander.

‘Whether we stay here forever or not,’ said Klaus. ‘I’m teaching you how to cook.’

‘Okay,’ Haruki replied with a drowsy smile.

The regular thuds of Klaus’ heartbeat beneath his ear and the hypnotic roar of the waves were already sending Haruki adrift.

He was asleep by the time Klaus’ mind wandered from forts of canvas to the fort of stone that stood on a lonely cliff to the west. The baron had been protected from the wars and the outside world by his high walls. They, meanwhile, would be protected by bushland, by salty air and bird calls. And he felt protected then, by the feel of Haruki’s weight, the scent of his hair, the heat of the car. It kept the war away. It reinforced the idea that the war, that all wars were over and that Klaus had escaped, though whether it was an idea or an illusion Klaus couldn’t be sure.

More importantly, it kept blue dawns at bay. It kept the need for morphine at bay. It filled him, almost completely, with only a jagged piece missing somewhere he couldn’t reach.

It seemed in that moment to be a self-evident choice. The echoing stone emptiness of what they had left behind was already a dim memory compared to the vibrant sea air and the light and the laughter of now. Haruki shifted in his arms, and Klaus held on.

Chapter Text

Klaus was bare-chested, standing on a chair of questionable structural integrity, and sweating as he attempted to fix the ceiling fan. His suspenders were loose and he was barefoot.

And Haruki tried to look at something else.

That ceiling fan had been the subject of their derision since they arrived. Its speed was lethargic when set to its highest setting and didn’t seem like it was doing much against the oppressive heat of summer. And yet, when it ceased to work, they missed it almost immediately. Figuring that the rickety old woman at the reception wouldn’t be able to do much, Klaus tried his hand at fixing it himself.

This was despite the fact that they both knew Haruki would be able to fix it in half the time.

‘It’s a matter of ego,’ Klaus told him matter-of-factly as he set the chair firmly beneath the fan. ‘I need to assert my dominance in these small, petty ways.’

Haruki had laughed and sat back on the bed to watch. Klaus unscrewed the rotator blades and handed them to him before he got to work on the wiring inside.

It didn't take long for Haruki to grow uncomfortable. He tried to focus on the rotator blades in his hands but his eye was constantly drawn to the bronze sheen of Klaus’ bare chest and abdomen and the way the muscles of his arms contracted as he worked. Strangely enough, it was Klaus’ look of concentration that affected him most; a razor-sharp gaze that made him feel ludicrously jealous of the innards of a ceiling fan. Haruki’s eyes travelled slowly down the evenly rugged landscape of Klaus’ abdominal muscles, pausing at the front of his trousers before continuing down the full length of his legs. It was a body that commanded and dominated no matter where it was, even when it leaned casually against a wall lighting a cigarette, and no more so than when it was there, at the centre of the room.

Haruki felt heat rush through him, inopportune and somehow inappropriate, and he tried to pull his gaze away, but he wasn’t quick enough. Klaus caught his eye at that moment and did a double-take. He wondered if he was only imagining it or if Haruki seemed slightly put out.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Haruki said, a little too quickly, looking down once more at the fan blades he was holding. He didn’t know why he felt like he had been caught. He felt like a fourteen-year-old cadet again.

Klaus recognised it, suddenly, as the look Haruki had given him almost a year ago when he came across Klaus training by himself behind his shed, using a brass handlebar as a makeshift shinai.

And he grinned, only now understanding what the young commander must have been thinking back then, and why he had fumbled over his words. And why Haruki, now, was pretending to be absorbed by the curlicue design on the edges of the rotator blades. He suspected that the flush on Haruki’s cheeks had nothing to do with the heat.

Out of the corner of his eye, Haruki saw Klaus lower his arms and slowly drop to the ground. His heart was hammering even before Klaus drew up to where he was sitting. With some effort, he lifted his gaze, hoping his expression was casually curious despite his conviction that Klaus was somehow able to hear his pulse. Klaus’ gaze was the same as it was before, when it was focused on the fan. And it was trained on Haruki now, exclusively, with a predatorial gleam. Haruki's stomach lurched.

Klaus grabbed his ankles without warning and tugged him forwards, closer to the edge of the bed. Before Haruki had recovered from that abrupt movement, Klaus lifted his knee and flicked Haruki’s legs apart with it — a move that was somehow both deft and deliberate. He loomed over Haruki and planted his hands on either side of Haruki’s shoulders, hair hanging low, eyes glinting in the shadow cast by his own body.

Haruki tried to find his breath again. And Klaus felt his cock begin to throb over the way Haruki was staring at him. His eyebrows were drawn slightly, eyes half-lidded, mouth slightly open. And he reached out to touch Klaus’ chest just beneath his nipple. Klaus breathed in deeply as Haruki drew first one hand then both down his chest. He once more felt his own strength reflected in Haruki’s touch.

And Haruki let his hands do what his eyes had done earlier. Klaus’ skin was smooth, with only a thin film of sweat in places, and his muscles were firm beneath his fingertips. Strength that was dormant. Strength hovering over him, reminding Haruki of what it was capable of.

For a moment, Klaus suspended his thoughts of pulling Haruki’s clothes off and spreading him wide beneath him. Instead, he lowered himself onto the bed beside Haruki, lying side on, and he smiled when he realised Haruki hadn’t once broken his focus on Klaus’ body.

Haruki's hands moved from the oblique muscles of Klaus’ side onto his forearm, then up his biceps and to his shoulders. He sat up slightly and kissed Klaus’ chest, following the path that his eyes and hands had made before him. When he ran his tongue over the muscles of Klaus’ abdominals, Klaus sighed and closed his eyes. It wasn’t the first time Haruki had spent time revering his body, but for some reason it was more pronounced that day. He wondered if anyone had ever paid such close attention to him before.

And he couldn’t help but smile whenever he opened his eyes and caught Haruki’s half-flushed, half-dazed expression. He thought of how long the kid had wanted him. It made him feel powerful and humble at the same time.

‘How'd it start?’ he asked suddenly.

Haruki needed a moment to shift his focus from Klaus’ chest, where his lips had just been. He glanced up in surprise.

‘How did what start?’

‘Your crush on me. Back when you were a kid.’

Klaus’ smile was lazy but his eyes glinted. Haruki's flush deepened slightly. Perhaps he had been a bit too overt with his reverence that day. He wondered if he ought to trying to pare back the odd feeling that he had to make the most of every moment.

‘Uh...’

He felt like a cadet yet again, and wondered if he sounded like one, too.

Klaus moved his arms for the first time since Haruki began and brought Haruki back up until they were lying side by side. He brushed Haruki's hair back and drew his fingers over his jawline.

‘What kinds of things did you imagine back then?’

Haruki averted his gaze, which was something he rarely did. Klaus wondered if perhaps he shouldn't push too hard. But then Haruki smiled, eyes somewhere on Klaus’ collarbone.

‘It's like I'm chipping away at my ego just to feed yours,’ he said wryly.

Klaus gave his loud, booming laugh. He was always pleasantly surprised whenever Haruki bit back. He tried a different angle. ‘Look at it this way. I couldn't fix the fan, and I'm sure it'll take you three seconds when you try. So this’ll make me feel better.’

Haruki chuckled. He ran his fingers along Klaus’ neck.

Klaus breathed him in. His voice became quieter. Slightly hoarser. ‘Was it this kind of stuff you imagined back then? Touching me?’

Haruki hesitated. ‘Not exactly. Not at first.’

Klaus waited, intrigued.

Haruki cast his mind back to the compound ten years earlier. He had just heard that Klaus and Taki had taken leave to go to the west and he was coming to terms with the possibility that he would never see Klaus again. Earlier, Ryoumei had cast him a worried glance that Haruki could almost sense, despite the fact that he was under the blankets and curled against the wall. Ryoumei had then snapped off the lights and climbed into his own bed with a huff.

It was a disconnected series of thoughts that then led Haruki to fantasise. Glimpses, colours, streaks of sound, textures and even smells, though only in snatches. It was all tinted the gold of Klaus’ hair, and the deeper gold of his eyes. A bare chest and blood-splotched bandages on a gleaming afternoon in the square. Strong shoulders and arms concealed by a tan coat.

And then his mind lingered on those arms. It was the first time he had ever thought about anyone in such a way. He didn't know why he lingered on such details, on that precise detail, and where his mind was pulling him.

Ten years later, he lightly traced those same arms. He hesitated again, aware that he was still blushing.

‘At night, I just… I imagined that you lay behind me and…’

Klaus raised his eyebrows a fraction. ‘And?’

Haruki breathed out, trying to wade through his embarrassment. ‘And put your arms around me. And just… that was it.’

Klaus opened his mouth in surprise and closed it again. ‘That was it?’

‘I was young. I didn't know what I… felt. I just wanted to be near you, or something. That was as far as I wanted to go, at first.’

At first.

Klaus grinned. He lifted himself and moved over Haruki slowly until he came to rest on his other side, behind him. Haruki cast a questioning glance over his shoulder before Klaus pulled him close, pressing the full lengths of their bodies together.

‘Like this?’ Klaus asked.

A few moments passed where Haruki felt the tightness of his grip and the feel of Klaus’ breath on the back of his neck. He pressed back fully into his hold.

‘Yes.’

He remembered how the darkness of his dorm all those years ago transformed in the cocoon of his simple yet illicit fantasies into a place of warmth. He remembered imagining Klaus’ strength behind him, and around him, secure and gentle. He remembered that simple, aching desire for this, exactly, which was freely given now. He closed his eyes, feeling like he had fallen straight from that dorm into his present and again wondering if it was real.

Klaus, meanwhile, smiled gently. He nuzzled his mouth and nose into the back of Haruki's hair.

‘So this was as far as your imagination went, huh? For how long?’

Haruki smiled at his own naivety.

‘I can't remember now.’

It was possibly for the rest of his stay at the compound, until Klaus himself saw him off on the train home. But it was more than enough for Haruki's world to have changed and for him to struggle to meet anyone's eye, especially Klaus’.

‘Mm.’ Klaus pulled him closer. ‘Then what?’

‘Then…’ Haruki remembered all too vividly the heat that claimed his cheeks in the dead of night back home, when he was alone in his room. ‘Then I imagined you… touching me.’

Klaus breathed in again. It was strange how immediate an effect Haruki's quiet words had on his body.

‘Where?’

Haruki's mind was spinning slightly. He realised how bizarre it was that he should be divulging his deepest secrets like this, secrets which had once made him flush with shame and guilt, and that he should be confessing them to Klaus himself, of all people.

‘My chest,’ he said, his voice dropping considerably, aware that he sounded breathless. ‘And stomach.’

Klaus’ hands searched beneath his shirt. And Haruki felt his huge hands there, where he had imagined.

‘Did you touch yourself there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pretending it was me?’

‘Yeah.’

Klaus was hard, and he suspected Haruki was too. But he ignored it all. He focused solely on what Haruki had been thinking. All else fell away.

He ran a hand up to Haruki's nipple and brushed it, feeling it harden beneath his fingertips. He pinched it and Haruki arched his neck. Klaus saw his cheeks and slightly parted lips.

‘You didn't imagine me kissing you?’

‘I…’ Haruki struggled to stay focused. ‘Not for a while.’

Klaus hadn't expected that. Haruki wondered how he might convey that the act of kissing seemed too invasive, too irrevocable, even as a fantasy. He hadn't looked his feelings in the eye yet, not to its full extent. It was as though he had tried to keep a foot on the other side of the line, in the simple innocence of his childhood when he had felt nothing but admiration for Taki’s tall, fair-haired knight from the west.

‘But I did, eventually.’

‘Did what?’

‘Imagine you kissing me.’

Klaus moved his lips closer to Haruki's ear.

‘Where?’ he asked again.

Haruki remembered where he had imagined the warmth of lips.

‘My neck. And… mouth.’

Klaus kissed him beneath his ear, and then a little lower, lingering in each place for a long time. Then he tilted Haruki's face towards him and kissed his mouth. He let Haruki respond before he pushed his lips apart, and it took a while before he slipped his tongue into Haruki's mouth. His hands roamed where they were permitted; over Haruki's chest and stomach, never lower.

He pulled back to pin Haruki once more in his gaze.

‘Then what?’

‘Then you… I touched myself.’

Klaus slipped his hand into the front of Haruki's trousers. Sure enough, the front of his underwear was wet. Haruki arched his back and neck again when Klaus traced the outline of his cock.

‘Here?’

‘Ah... yes.’

And his huge, warm hand closed around Haruki's bare cock, better in every way than how he had imagined.

He moved it over Haruki's cock slowly, spreading the precum over the full length of Haruki's shaft. Haruki moaned and Klaus kissed his neck.

Klaus’ movements had seemed like a slow, rumbling earthquake when he imagined it in his youth, for he had imagined it out of focus; a huge body behind him, and he, Haruki, caught in its hold, powerless and tremulous and, incongruously enough, lucky.

‘What else did you imagine me doing?’ Klaus whispered.

Haruki’s youthful fantasies from this point on became a muddle of desires. Foremost was the need to feel Klaus’ weight on him or against him in some way.

‘You kissed me and… moved on top, between my legs.’

Klaus shifted fast enough that Haruki's breath hitched in his throat. He parted Haruki's legs and pressed between them, all while keeping his hand on Haruki's cock. He kissed Haruki hard enough to press his head back against the mattress. It took a long time before he drew back to let Haruki catch his breath.

In a slight daze, Haruki stared up again at Klaus’ bare chest and shoulders. It was once again better than anything he had imagined. It was oversaturated, filled with scent and even taste. He grunted when Klaus’ hand shifted lower and stroked his balls.

Then it slipped lower.

‘Ever touch yourself here, kid?’

‘Yes,’ Haruki gasped.

‘How old were you?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Took you a while, huh?’

Haruki smiled sheepishly. It had taken him a while, on various levels, even the most basic one involving the knowledge of how it all worked. He had to piece it together himself based on memories of his friends’ jokes, stories about their exploits with girls, and his own illicit need to give himself over, completely, to the Klaus that had taken shape in his mind for two years and never once left.

‘So you imagined that I put my fingers inside you?’

‘Not… your fingers,’ Haruki admitted.

Klaus’ wicked smile flashed above him. ‘So you skipped right to the good part.’

But he pushed in with his fingers first. Haruki's groan was long and made Klaus’ cock leak.

‘Did you put anything else in here?’ Klaus asked, his voice now entirely raspy.

‘No, just my fingers.’

‘How many?’

‘Nngh… three.’

Klaus worked three fingers into him, each of them pushing a new sound from Haruki. They had already indulged in a week and a half of almost continuous sex and it didn't take long to loosen him up. He felt that that Haruki was still swollen and sensitive from their intense bout last night. He watched Haruki's face closely, wondering if he would want to stop. But Haruki's face showed nothing but want.

And in fact Haruki was lost completely to desires that had transformed so many nights alone in his bed.

‘Did you imagine me fucking you, like this? Lying on top?’

Haruki’s nod made Klaus rear back for a moment just to pull Haruki's pants away from him completely, as well as his own. He kissed Haruki again as he peeled off his shirt. Once they were both fully naked, Klaus took his cock in hand and moved the tip to Haruki's entrance.

Haruki found that he was breathing raggedly and that his pulse was racing. After the unexpected and unreal lead-up of the past few minutes, he was now left feeling as though he was about to be breached for the first time.

‘Klaus —’

But he didn't get another word out before Klaus pushed in. He gasped and felt his body open for him and pull him in, all in a breath. A size and shape his body had come to know well, but a feeling that seemed new.

Klaus pushed up once, gathered Haruki's moan, and paused to suck the skin of his neck where it curved into his shoulder. He felt Haruki's grip on his back tighten and his staccato breaths grew more and more strained when he realised Klaus intended to mark him again.

The pressure of Klaus’ cock and the sharp, sweet pain of Klaus marking his neck made Haruki's whole body shudder.

‘So you fucked yourself with your fingers?’

‘Mmh,’ Haruki agreed, voice shaking slightly.

Klaus drew out slowly and pushed back in, taking his time at first, in homage to how Haruki had pictured it. Haruki squirmed and panted, his hair falling into his eyes and splaying against the pillow, dark strokes of ink on white.

Then Klaus picked up the pace. And Haruki clung to his back, feeling Klaus hit him somewhere deep, like he was knocking at something, trying to get in.

‘So good,’ he whimpered.

‘Yeah? This what you wanted back then?’

‘Ahhn, yes! More!’

Klaus flung Haruki’s legs over his shoulders and bent his body further before continuing to pound. Minutes sped by in the tightening and releasing of Haruki's passage and the changing landscape of his moans.

He felt his balls tightening too soon. He pulled out suddenly, about to turn Haruki onto all fours and plunge back in, but Haruki blinked in the open space and sat up before Klaus could move him. Pulling his knees beneath him, he bent low and took Klaus’ cock completely into his mouth.

‘Oh, fuck,’ Klaus hissed. He involuntary clenched Haruki's hair as he sucked. ‘Another fantasy?’

Haruki moaned around his cock in agreement. The sweat and scent of Klaus’ cock was a heady broth that worked on him like a tonic. He remembered his flushed fantasies of taking Klaus’ dick into his mouth. It had been nothing more than him demurely touching his own lips and wondering what it would be like. And now —

‘Shit, Wolfpup,’ Klaus breathed. ‘Take it deep, just like that.’

Haruki felt his cock in the back of his throat before pulling back again.

‘Whose pup are you?’ Klaus demanded in a growl.

Haruki moaned and began jerking his own cock.

Without warning, Klaus yanked his head back by his hair. Haruki moaned and gasped as Klaus’ cock fell from his mouth.

‘Whose pup are you?’ Klaus repeated, his eyes fierce.

‘Yours! Ugh… I'm yours!’

‘What else did you imagine?’

Haruki fought for breath again. Klaus’ grip in his hair was almost painful. It had the effect of making him bypass all of the positions he had fantasised — all of which he and Klaus had indulged in by then anyway — and he landed on an image that stood out above the rest. An image that guiltily took root in the very first day he had met Klaus.

‘I imagined that you… bent me over your bike,’ he gasped.

Klaus inhaled through his teeth. ‘Fuck.’

He suddenly, sorely wished they weren't thousands of miles from his bike. Forced to improvise, he pulled Haruki up by his arm and moved him to the bed’s wooden footboard. His hand was back in Haruki's hair and he clenched it even as pushed Haruki forward until he was bent far over the footboard. He kicked Haruki's knees apart again and stared at the way his hole glistened with precum, a sight that nearly made him groan.

They both imagined the same thing — the bike's leather seat, the yellow fender and the gleaming handlebars — when Klaus pushed in again and pulled Haruki's hair back in the same move. This time, Klaus didn't start slow at all.

‘How’s it feel, kid?’

‘You're so big! Oh, so good.’

Klaus wrapped a hand around Haruki's throat loosely and felt Haruki's moans in his grip.

‘Feels pretty damn good for me, too. Your hole’s so fucking hot, pulling me in each time like it's trying to milk me.’

‘Yes, oh I want it! I want your come.’

‘Did you dream of me filling up your hot little hole?’

‘Yes!’

‘You want it now, kid?’

‘Nngh, yes!’

Klaus let go of his hair in order to grab his hips with both hands. He plunged deep, ruthlessly, and came in a series of shudders.

The burst of heat that Haruki felt removed it entirely from his fantasies. For here was Klaus marking him deeply, where nothing he had imagined could reach. He felt Klaus reach for his cock and jerked it hard, better than he could himself, and finished him off in Klaus’ wake, so they were sent to their peaks almost in tandem, both panting and reeling over the seat of Klaus’ bike.

He came back to his senses when Klaus kissed his back gently, gentler than in any fantasy, and pulled out.

Klaus stretched out on the bed with his hands behind his head and watched Haruki work. As expected, it took him no time at all to fix the wiring in the fan and to reattach the rotator blades. He smiled sleepily as Haruki returned to the bed.

‘You're really something,’ he murmured.

His eyes lingered on Haruki's fair skin and lean, defined muscles. The angular jaw and the lips whose natural state was to smile, and in fact were doing just that.

Haruki lay down on his side next to him. He thought it strange that ten years of longing could be sated in a few minutes and that he could now stare closely at Klaus’ face at his leisure, unburdened, and without any urgent desire. He bent down and kissed Klaus’ broad lips.

Klaus rose up into the kiss and turned Haruki over onto his back again, gently this time, simply indulging in the fact that he could. He stared down at Haruki and thought again of everything he had admitted to. Ten years, he thought, not for the first time.

Haruki ran a hand through Klaus' hair.

'So,' Klaus said with a slow, wicked smile. 'My bike, huh?’

Haruki cast a glance at the footboard and blushed. Klaus laughed.

Above them, the fan whirled about lazily.

Chapter Text

I don't know if you heard, but Klaus met John Smith, and they sized each other up. Both were tall blonde westerners, strong-jawed and ruggedly handsome. They stood in the void between universes and tried to figure out if they should be friends. The conversation went like this:

Klaus: Nice helmet.
John: Nice coat.

[Pause]

Klaus: Stranger in a foreign land?
John: Yeah. You?
Klaus: Yep.

[Pause]

John: Ended up betraying your boss?
Klaus: Yes. You?
John: Yeah.

[Pause]

Klaus: Took a bullet in the chest in the name of the one you love?
John: Yeah. God, that hurt.
Klaus: Tell me about it.

[Pause wherein they both sense that the next question will be the decider]

John: Slept with the native royalty?
Klaus [with a grin]: Fuck, yes. You?
John: Yeah.
Klaus [confidently]: I think we can be friends.

And so, having made it past the sizing-up stage, they retired to a bar where they both ordered a scotch and quickly warmed to one another as they discovered more and more things they had in common. Klaus, however, may have overestimated how much they shared.

Klaus: Oh, ever rape the one you love because of a series of aggravating factors that brought out the worst in your nature?

[Awful, uncomfortable pause]

John: ...Dude.

[Awful, uncomfortable pause continues]

Klaus: Uh...

[He sweat-drops and tries to reroute]

Klaus: I mean... ever spent time with the one you love under a symbolic tree of some kind?

John [in his excitement, forgetting the unsettling previous question]: Yes!

[Klaus sighs with relief]

John [also overestimating how much they have in common, leaning in to whisper]: Did that tree ever talk to you?

Klaus: ...Dude.

Chapter Text

Meiji was born on the first day of the calendar year, in the year of the dragon, and the Chrysanthemum House rejoiced. Both his parents were in their mid-forties and the house, by then, had almost lost hope that it would be graced by a male heir. As soon as Meiji took his first breath and his sex was confirmed, the pressures of the ancient and noble Chrysanthemum House fell on his shoulders.

But Meiji didn’t respond to this honour in quite the way his family had hoped. In his earliest years, he was a rebellious and troublesome child who spurned his teachers and minders alike. He asked far too many questions of his sensei, particularly where religion and spirituality were concerned, and he would often scoff and sulk when the answers weren’t delivered in a way that he deemed satisfactory.

‘But how do you know the gods are real?’ Meiji insisted, his voice deliberately lilted in a way he knew would annoy his sensei most.

‘They just are. It is known.’

‘But even if they are, how do you know what they want? Why are you so important?’

‘Careful, Young Master,’ his sensei warned, turning away so the boy wouldn’t see the nerve twitching in his jaw. ‘You might find one day that your impiety is punished in a terrible way. The gods don’t abide blasphemy, even from chil- Young Master!’

He had turned back with extra copybooks in his hands to discover that the low table was no longer occupied and the study was empty. His six-year old pupil had given both him and his bodyguard the slip. A small figure could be spotted past the boardwalk, flitting through the garden and into the grounds beyond, his little yukata trailing behind him.

At six, it was clear that Meiji had inherited his mother’s beauty. He was small and spritely with eyes that were slanted steeply and romantically in a way that reminded people of ancient, faded portraits of a time when men and gods roamed the world together. In addition to his delicate frame and pale skin, his hair hung well past his shoulder blades. He would cause a tantrum every time someone attempted to cut it, and more often than not, Meiji’s mother begrudgingly allowed it to grow long, even though long hair was quickly going out of fashion for men.

‘Only an emissary from the gods will get this boy to cut his hair,’ she lamented one morning, as she watched one of his servants gather his hair into a bun as he sat still, which was a rare occurrence. In moments like that, when his hair was being tended to or when he was quietly completing his handwriting exercises, she saw a kind of gentle serenity in him that she hoped was a glimpse of what he would be like as an adult.

Young Meiji’s fear of his strict father worked on occasion, usually as a last-resort threat when his minders were at their wits’ end. Beyond this, Meiji seemed incorrigible.

His bodyguards were the most hard-done-by of all his carers. Some of them were fired when Meiji went missing for hours and was found in some corner of the grounds and sometimes even in town, sampling things from the outdoor markets. Others came to Meiji’s father, Kiku, and knelt with their foreheads on the floor and begged to be released from their burden lest they fail and be punished for it. The young master’s bodyguards never lasted more than a few months at a time.

One afternoon, Kiku’s Grand Chamberlain knocked on the door of his office and informed him that the replacement bodyguard had arrived. Kiku internalised a wave of frustration. He had lost count of how many they had been through in the past few years alone. When the replacement was presented, Kiku balked at his size.

At that moment, on the other end of the expansive Chrysanthemum House grounds, Meiji sat alone beneath the red arms of the maple trees. He loved the way sunlight changed colour when it filtered through the canopy. It made him wonder what colour the sunlight really was, if it surrendered so easily to the whimsy of something as insignificant as leaves. He made a mental note to tell the emperor, who liked Meiji very much and whom Meiji liked in turn, to grow some maple trees beside the huge pond in the Imperial Palace.

He was just musing over the idea that the emperor might actually do as he said, and that maple trees might actually grow in the Imperial Palace thanks to him, when he heard footsteps. He was sitting near the edge of the grounds where it rose in an incline to meet the tall perimeter wall. From there, he had a view of the Chrysanthemum residence, the little creek and the gardens, all partially shielded by the red canopy. So he had a good view of the stranger as he approached.

His lips parted just slightly in surprise. It was clear, even from that distance, that the man was huge.

It felt as though the wind gradually died down and the sunlight subtly shifted colours through the leaves. Meiji sat up a little straighter as the man drew closer.

Sotaro Kou stared at the young boy sitting before him higher up on the incline. He wondered if it was a trick of the light or perhaps some kind of trick of the senses. The child seemed, to him, to be part of a painting or a tapestry of some kind. His pale skin had acquired a kind of vivid, rosy glow. His hair was long and loose and his kimono, pearly white and pale grey, covered him in elegant pleats and folds and trailed a little on the grass.

In that moment when the wind died and their eyes met, Sotaro forgot his quiet resentment that his superiors had given him what was essentially a role as a glorified babysitter. His father had served as the personal bodyguard of the emperor himself, in his day, and it was his father’s fall from grace that had Sotaro beginning from the bottom of the heap. Still, it was work in a noble house and he still had the chance to regain the honour that his father had lost. Even if it meant being assigned to the six-year-old young master of the house, who was undoubtedly as spoiled and impossible as the rumours held.

All of that fled his mind when their eyes met. For the first time in his life, Sotaro felt small.

When Meiji got over his initial surprise, he got to his feet and took a few steps towards the stranger, drawn by curiosity. He was further taken by the man’s square jaw and steady, solemn expression. His shoulder span was massive and the dark robes of the Chrysanthemum House bodyguards only accentuated his size.

‘You’re tall,’ Meiji observed aloud, having to crane his neck to maintain his gaze.

Sotaro didn’t know what to say for some time. He was still confused about what had taken over him — him and the light and the sound — when he laid eyes on Meiji for the first time.

‘Young Master,’ he said at length, surprising Meiji with the rumbling depth of his voice. ‘They are looking for you.’

Meiji glanced past him towards the residence, unconcerned. ‘They’re always looking for me.’ Then he looked at the stranger again with interest. ‘How did you find me?’

‘I don’t know, Young Master.’

‘Why are you calling me that?’

‘I am to be your new bodyguard.’

Meiji tried to recall the ones that had come before, the ones he had gone to great lengths to avoid and thwart, and he suddenly couldn’t remember any of them. They all seemed small and distant and unimportant.

‘What’s your name?’ Meiji asked carefully.

‘Kou, Young Master.’

‘Kou?’ Meiji echoed, frowning slightly. ‘You’re too big for that name. What’s your first name?’

Sotaro hesitated. ‘Sotaro.’

‘I like that better,’ Meiji decided. He tilted his head to the side. ‘Sotaro.’

Sotaro felt a small flare at the base of his throat. They hadn’t once broken their gaze. He still felt strangely enchanted by the little master — his posture and his voice and the way he seemed to command without even trying.

As the seconds lengthened, they heard a call echo from the grounds below, somewhere near the residence. Sotaro tried to focus.

‘They’re looking for you, Young Master,’ he repeated. ‘You will be late for the Nagoshi Oharate.’

Meiji was taken by the deadpan way in which he spoke. His voice never lifted nor fell. There was none of the urgency or nagging or affected pompousness or patronising that he had heard from all other adults he had known. He took a step back up the incline, towards the maple tree trunk.

‘I hate the ritual,’ he said, though his voice was considerably less impudent than the one he usually adopted when complaining to his minders. It was as though a part of him knew Sotaro wouldn’t be moved by whining or tantrums. He picked up a red leaf from the ground and inspected the veins. ‘It’s stupid. Why do we have to purify every season? I haven’t done anything impure since last time!’

Another call echoed up from the grounds. Sotaro glanced over his shoulder. He remembered how tight and tense the master sounded when he told his guards and attendants that Meiji had entirely skipped last season’s ritual and had been sent to his room for a whole day for it.

‘We must go, Young Master,’ Sotaro urged.

Meiji glanced round. A frown touched his features again, different to the last one. He wondered if Sotaro was any different from the others after all.

‘No,’ he said. He sat firmly on the ground, twirling the leaf between his fingers in a way that was somehow both delicate and insolent.

It was a kind of stubbornness that Sotaro would face time and time again for the next ten years. The impasse that day, however, only lasted a few seconds.

Sotaro turned to face the grounds and sat down himself. His hand reflexively went to the hilt of his katana; a gentle touch to reassure him of its presence. He kept his eyes ahead.

Meiji was startled. The leaf froze. The canopy sighed above them in the lull.

‘You’re… you’re not going to drag me there?’ he tried, his tone careful again, staring at the back of Sotaro’s head. By now, any of his old minders would have pulled his hand or even thrown him over their shoulder, lest they face his father’s wrath.

Sotaro turned his head to the side. Meiji observed the strong line of his nose in profile.

‘I am not a chamberlain. I am your bodyguard,’ Sotaro replied evenly. ‘Young Master.’

He turned back to face the grounds.

Meiji considered his reply with a curious and grave sort of contemplation. The leaf twirled slowly. Cautiously.

‘You’ll get in trouble from Otousan,’ he said, looking at Sotaro out of the corner of his eye.

Sotaro made a small noise of acknowledgment. A small, deep sound that made Meiji smile slightly. He waited for Sotaro to say more but he remained silent and still. He might have been turned into a large statue on the incline, if not for the sash around his robes occasionally being lifted by the breeze.

Meiji made a decision then and got to his feet. He was pleased when it made Sotaro turn his head once more.

‘I’ll go to the ritual,’ Meiji said decisively, lifting his chin. ‘But only if you let me do something.’

Meiji’s parents had given up on the idea of their wayward son being present for the ceremony after all the guards and minders returned empty-handed. Less than ten minutes later however, on the eastern edge of the Chrysanthemum grounds where a crowd had gathered for the purification ritual, all heads turned when they heard a peal of laughter. To their surprise, they glanced round to see the new bodyguard walking towards them across the arched bridge with a beaming Meiji riding on his back, holding a red maple leaf.

‘How long is your hair?’ Meiji asked a few weeks later. He touched the thick knot of hair at the nape of Sotaro’s neck.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Is it longer than mine?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I like how you smell.’

Sotaro, by then, was used to the little master’s questions and non-sequiturs. He felt small fingers on the back of his head. As he walked, he shifted his arms so Meiji would sit more comfortably against his back. He had just picked him up from his lessons and was escorting him to his parents’ private quarters.

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘That’s really old.’

Sotaro made his trademark rumble — a noise of acquiescence — that Meiji had grown fond of.

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Meiji pressed, trying to think of questions he hadn’t already asked.

‘No.’

‘Me either. Are you all alone?’

Sotaro opened his mouth slightly and closed it. ‘I have my father.’

Meiji fell silent for a while, his chin on Sotaro’s shoulder. He flexed his feet back and forth, ensuring that his toes held on to the strap of his slippers. Sotaro always moved at a good, steady pace.

‘Is he nice? Your father?’ Meiji asked.

‘Nice?’

‘Does he play with you? My friend Tokaji’s father plays with him all the time. He’s lucky.’

Sotaro mulled the question over. ‘My father never played with me.’

‘Me either,’ Meiji said quietly. Then he perked up. ‘But it’s okay now, because you’re here. Do you want to go to the river again?’

‘I have to take you to see your mother, Young Master.’

Meiji pouted. Sotaro couldn’t see his face but he was able to sense it.

‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Meiji sighed huffily but didn’t make any further argument. Sotaro walked on towards the bedrooms.

The effect Sotaro had on the young master was recognised and lauded by everyone in the house. Minders would often relay their instructions to Sotaro, who alone seemed to hold any sway over the boy. Meiji’s teachers cottoned on to it as well and even asked that Sotaro come into the room and sit nearby, for this seemed to have a noticeable impact on Meiji’s inclination to study quietly and do as he was told. They didn’t understand or question the bond between the two. The pair — the largest and smallest members of the household — quickly became a familiar sight; Meiji riding on Sotaro’s back or shoulders, or holding his hand and pulling him along the river, or Sotaro following a few steps behind Meiji as he wandered in his own fantasies through the garden.

Only Kiku had reservations. That morning, he was leaving the bedroom just as Sotaro and Meiji drew up to the door. His face hardened in disapproval when Sotaro bowed and Meiji giggled as he tried to hold onto Sotaro’s back. Meiji always found a thrill in the fact that he was suddenly a head taller than his father.

‘He’s not a pack horse,’ Kiku said irritably. ‘You’re too old to be carried around everywhere like an infant.’

Meiji’s smile flickered and vanished. Sotaro, eyes downcast, gently slid him to the floor.

‘Oh, let them be,’ Meiji’s mother, Maiko, gently called from within.

Kiku glanced over his shoulder and back at Meiji for a moment before walking past them, heading down the boardwalk towards his office. Meiji stared after his father before going into the bedroom. He tugged Sotaro instinctively by the hand.

‘Young Master —’ Sotaro protested.

‘No, it’s alright,’ Maiko said. ‘You should come in too, Kou-san.’ She was moving a stool before the tall mirror in the corner and waved her attendant away when she offered to move it herself. Straightening again, she ran a hand down her kimono to smooth it and smiled. Though she was approaching her fifties, the lady of the house was beautiful. In fact, she was frequently compared to Lady Reizen in the capital. Her high cheekbones and delicate chin were prized, but her allure came from the uniqueness of her half-lidded eyes and a gaze that was simultaneously sage and piercing. Sotaro had seen in Meiji more than a little resemblance to his mother. Upon entering the room, Sotaro averted his gaze, feeling a small flush creep up his neck.

Meiji, meanwhile, saw the stool before the mirror and retreated immediately. He hid behind Sotaro’s legs.

‘Meiji —’ his mother tried.

‘No!’ Meiji wailed. ‘I don't want to cut my hair.’

‘But darling, it's been a whole year! It will reach the floor and trail away soon!’

‘Good!’ Meiji said, gripping the fabric of Sotaro’s pants. ‘I want it to be long! Sotaro’s is long!’

Maiko sighed. ‘Kou-san is a grown man who will do whatever he likes. But you, my darling —’

‘I will cut it,’ Sotaro said, quietly but unexpected.

Maiko glanced up at him in surprise. ‘I'm sorry?’

‘I will cut my hair, now. If it means Young Master will cut his.’

‘Kou-san, you don't have to do that!’ Maiko insisted.

Sotaro lifted his eyes to look at her and then down at his little master who was staring up at him, wide-eyed. A strand of hair had fallen over his face.

Despite Maiko’s continued insistence, Sotaro sat on the stool before the mirror and calmly asked for a pair of scissors. After a disbelieving pause, Maiko nodded at her attendant who approached. Meiji watched as Sotaro freed his hair, which fell almost to his waist. It was the first time Meiji had ever seen it loose. A sudden despair came over him at the thought that Sotaro was about to cut it all off for his sake.

He was about to protest but he caught Sotaro’s eye in the mirror. There was something reassuring about his gaze, though nothing had changed in his expression. A reassurance and a promise of some kind.

Although the attendant was waiting to do the deed for him, Sotaro took the scissors in one hand and his hair in the other. It took only a few cuts and it all came away. His hair now hung just past his ear.

Meiji approached solemnly; more grave than Maiko had ever seen him before. Sotaro turned on the stool, his eyes steady, giving nothing away. When Meiji reached out his hand, Sotaro passed him the thick locks of hair that he held in his hand.

Watching on in silence, Maiko didn't know what to make of it. She wondered why she felt like she was intruding on a private, powerful moment. She felt slightly awed. The feeling was replaced swiftly by gratitude and mild disbelief when Meiji quietly sat on the stool after Sotaro stood up.

Meiji held and stroked and inspected Sotaro’s hair and paid almost no attention to his own, which was finally cut and fashioned in the way Maiko had long dreamed.

She came to Sotaro’s side where he stood with his hands behind his back. They watched the attendant carefully trim near Meiji’s forehead.

‘You are gods-sent, Kou-san,’ she said softly. ‘That was nothing short of a miracle.’

Sotaro offered her the smallest of smiles, which she found somewhat startling. It was the first time she had ever seen him break his deadpan gaze. Sotaro then looked at Meiji, who again met his gaze in the mirror. He was still holding Sotaro’s hair in his lap.

Meiji’s rebellious nature had not been entirely quelled, however. Though he no longer went missing or skipped ceremonies or tried to give his minders the slip, there were still plenty of moments when minders wrung their hands or teachers felt they were doing permanent damage to their jaws based on how often they clenched their teeth.

Sotaro himself was not exempt. There were times over the next few years when he was forced to follow in his master’s wake up the riverbank, trying to remind him that he would be late for meals or classes. Meiji preferred when it was the two of them alone together, whether on the grounds or beyond, and he always resented being forced to part or be around others. Whenever Meiji was chastised or hit by his father for tardiness or unruly behaviour, Sotaro felt Meiji’s pain acutely. He would let Meiji lean against him and cry defiant tears in the aftermath.

‘Are you okay, Young Master?’

Meiji would sniff and nod before straightening. Sotaro would watch him and rein in the urge to stroke his head and let him know everything would be alright. But he knew his duties and his place. Meiji was his young master, the future shogun of the entire province, and it was Sotaro’s job to protect him and nothing more. Sotaro would also struggle beyond his need to comfort; he wanted to ask Meiji to be more obedient, more polite and submissive, because it pained him to see Meiji hurt in any way. He could never say anything of the sort, not in a thousand years, and so he struggled in silence. Thankfully, Meiji seemed to understand anyway and he would do his best to behave. Or at least, he learned to keep his disdain and frustration to himself, for Sotaro’s sake.

There was another specific challenge that Sotaro faced, one which made itself known in their first few months together and then cropped up in different forms and skins over the years.

‘Do you think the gods are real?’ Meiji asked at six. They were in Meiji’s room. Sotaro sat near the doorway, close to the boardwalk outside, watching over Meiji until his attendant arrived to dress him for bed.

‘Yes,’ Sotaro answered.

‘How do you know they're real? Have you seen them?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know?’ Meiji asked, a wide grin on his face. He came to Sotaro’s side and dramatically flopped, spread-eagle, on his back on the tatami. He tilted his chin up and stared at Sotaro impishly, as though he was testing the new bodyguard’s mettle.

‘Because our teachers and priests tell us they're real. And because it's written in scriptures.’

‘How do you know they’re not all lying?’

‘Why would they lie?’ Sotaro asked, reasonably.

To this, Meiji didn’t yet have an answer.

But he did several years later, when he turned twelve.

‘They’re lying just to keep us in our place,’ he declared, his voice caught somewhere between light-hearted and obstinate. ‘They don’t want us to drink or smoke because they’re worried we’ll be harder to control.’

Whenever the topic came up over the years, Sotaro’s answers remained more or less the same, though they evolved as much as possible in order to cater to Meiji’s hungry, discerning mind.

For Meiji, the fact that Sotaro’s answers remained the same became a source of both amusement and frustration. Sotaro was as unquestioningly devout as any of his teachers and so Meiji made it his life’s mission to reveal superstition and religion for the baseless, unintellectual, backwards force it was. He was alone in those kinds of dangerous thoughts — not only in his family but in the city and nation at large — and he never said them out loud. But with Sotaro, he was free to do and say as he liked, assured that nothing he said or did would ever reach anyone else’s ears.

‘All this hype about purity and laws and rules — don't tell me you believe it!’

Sotaro remained silent. Meiji reached out his foot and prodded him gently in the side. They sat on the boardwalk outside Meiji’s room, looking out across one of the many gardens in the residence. Meiji had grown a great deal in a few years. He was lanky and lithe and often roamed the grounds barefoot, still caught somewhere in his childhood.

‘Do you believe it all?’ Meiji pressed.

‘Yes,’ Sotaro answered finally.

‘Why?’

‘Because the gods are real,’ Sotaro answered. ‘I know it.’

Meiji tutted. ‘You're so boring!’

Sotaro remembered like it was only yesterday how Meiji had lain on the tatami mat beside them, challenging the gods, teasing and jousting in that effortless way of his. It was strange how so much and so little had changed in six years.

It was around that time when the head of security offered Sotaro a promotion. He could join Kiku’s personal guard or even transfer to another home and a different post that was a step up from his role as a child’s guard. Sotaro quietly and firmly turned it down. He never spoke of this decision to Meiji.

Meiji, who would turn to ensure he was there on their trips to town, or ask him how his day had been, how his father’s health was. Meiji, who still made life difficult sometimes, who still broke the rules and got punished and who would turn to Sotaro for comfort, even if he no longer leaned against Sotaro’s arm and cried like he did once. Meiji, who was sly and quick-witted and clever, with a grace and acuity that seemed beyond his years. Despite the fact that Sotaro had seen him almost every day for six years, there was still something otherworldly about his young master, enough that he was often reminded of the moment they first met years earlier. For the first time in his life, Sotaro was quietly grateful that his father fell from grace, that he slept with his master’s wife and destroyed two families, that he tarnished the family name, forcing his only son to work his way up from nothing. Because if none of that had happened, he would never have met Meiji, never served him, and never gotten to hear his lively laugh every day.

It began like that, in increments that he thought nothing of.

Three years later, Sotaro stood on that same boardwalk when one of Meiji’s attendants came to the door and told him he had been summoned.

Inside, Meiji stood before the mirrors while three attendants dressed him.

‘Did you hear? We're going to the capital.’

‘Yes, Young Master.’

‘Can you convince Otousan to let me go into the city afterwards? If you swear to shadow me, he might be okay with it.’

‘Where do you want to go?’

Meiji turned to look over his shoulder. His smile was familiar.

‘Tokaji knows a new place. A kind of high-end club.’

The attendants pretended not to hear. Sotaro hesitated on the point of sighing.

‘Young Master —’

‘I promise I'll behave! You'll be there to keep an eye on me, right? What could I get up to?’

Sotaro stood still with his fists by his side. It was yet another battle that came in a more insidious form — his young master blatantly flouting the gods by carrying on with his loudmouthed friend, Tokaji, whom Sotaro couldn't stand.

But it wasn’t Tokaji whom Sotaro was thinking of then. He wasn’t thinking of the idea that he would, in a few minutes, be knocking at Kiku’s door and stiffly promising to ensure his son’s safety and honour when he went into the city with his friend. He wasn’t even thinking of the fact that Meiji would, in all likelihood, drink and smoke that night, in contravention of all laws and vows.

He was thinking only of the fact that Meiji, fifteen years old, was standing before the mirrors with his arms partially outstretched, moving them when the attendants murmured or touched, twisting his body slightly so they could slip on the kaori. His hair was still short but it fell over his forehead, brushing half-lidded eyes and a half-smile that bewitched anyone who looked at him. A tall frame, strong now and somehow feline. It was Meiji alone that Sotaro could think of, and his thoughts made him flush with a guilt he had been battling for a whole year.

‘It's the only thing that's got me excited about visiting the capital. We’re not even going to the Imperial Palace this time, we’re just going to go see some new little prince. How dull is that?’

‘Now, now, Young Master,’ said Shumei, Meiji’s oldest attendant, as he buttoned the haori. ‘Little Taki-sama might end up emperor one day.’

‘He’s two years old. I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to be excited to meet him, future emperor or not.’

‘I hear he’s a very quiet and dutiful child,’ Shumei returned, his tone dry. ‘I wish all the servants in our land were equally blessed.’

Meiji grinned.

‘This fit is all wrong,’ Shumei said briskly before undoing the buttons. ‘You’ve outgrown it already, Young Master. I’ll have the tailor alter it before you leave.’

Unconcerned, Meiji let them take off the haori, leaving him in his thin undershirt. He looked in the mirror at Sotaro, who was still silent and looking strangely uncomfortable. Meiji felt a small tug of guilt which he managed to overcome.

‘Please Sotaro?’ Meiji said, tilting his head very slightly.

The last of Sotaro’s resistance crumbled. The attendants and Meiji alike knew him enough to know it was happening. Meiji smiled widely when Sotaro lowered his head and made his small, deep noise of assent, along with a nod that was stiff with reluctance. Their dynamic was familiar and predictable and the attendants almost rolled their eyes at how easily Meiji could manipulate his bodyguard.

But that morning, something unfamiliar happened that Meiji only happened to glimpse in the mirror. A look in Sotaro’s eye that he hadn’t seen before. Something sharp and focused and tentative all at the same time, all lasting for only the briefest of moments. Meiji, whose stomach gave a strange lurch for the first time in his life, turned in surprise only to see Sotaro look away, a faint glow in his cheeks that reminded Meiji of the way light fell through maple leaves.

[To be continued]