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[nineteentwelve]

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[bonecannon]

[ The laughter, like everything else, wasn't quite what Renji would have expected. It was too dry, too bruised. But it made the young man smile, enough that Renji relaxed and felt the shift away from this altogether too contentious mood. The tense atmosphere was his own fault (sort of, kind of, for being all too eager to stake his pride against a human's over something completely petty), so he might as well take some responsibility to ease it too. His crossed arms loosened from tight against his chest, his fists unclenching as they seemed to come to even ground in this exchange.

Renji snorted under his breath at the reply. He would have said something about how if a pretty boy like him was so worried about dying a heroic death, maybe he should start by living somewhere that wasn't in the lap of a luxurious estate. The sudden shift to respectful speech and the slight bow dulled his tongue, and the question stopped it entirely.

Renji's ink black eyebrows rose, nearly disappearing beneath his bandana. His stance rolled back on his heels, as if he meant to recoil but could not allow himself to relinquish what territory he'd claimed in their standoff. ]

Would-- [ Caught between raising his voice to the pouring skies, loud enough to crack the clouds apart, and clutching tight to what little dignity that he still had, Renji couldn't manage to force another sound out. ]

You want to-- [ The words died in his throat again.

Never mind. It was too ludicrous to repeat. Renji inhaled, a sharp, short sound to dismiss that second attempt to speak and usher in a new one. ]

The hell kind of question is that?!

[ His voice rose an octave, the sheer disbelief straining him like a string on a shamisen stretched and stretched until it was one peg-turn from snapping. Renji threw his hands out in a sweeping arc, all pretense of nonchalance shattered in an instant. ] You know I'm a shinigami, right?!

[ A flush coloured his cheeks, bafflement mixing with an irrational anger. This absolute deviant must know what he is. It would be impossible to not know. Or at least have a general idea! And yet, since he obviously did, Renji could not think of any reason that he would ask such a thing. He was a ghost, a harbinger of death, wielding power akin to a god. And yet the first things this human has asked him for was his name and to cop a feel. It's no wonder that he's on the back foot, flustered and stuttering in the rain. ]

[oldwarsfinished]

( Shinigami. That was the correct word, then, for this man in front of him, it covered his powers, the extent of his work and it explained why Kiyoaki could see him, when no one else could. Because he brought death about and ushered the dead onwards. His reaction, on the other hand, betrayed his unfamiliarity with close contact interaction with humans. Perhaps it spoke as to his unfamiliarity with Kiyoaki in particular as well. Kiyoaki who, in turn, wasn't fazed by the surprise or the resultant attitude at all. He had struck the man right at the centre of his pride and as such a fight was surely to be expected. No one, shinigami or human, probably liked to find themselves embarrassed, he knew this. He knew Satoko, after all, so he knew intimately.

Pursing his lips slightly, he just looked the shinigami up and down, not an appraising look, merely observant, taking him in. He was striking beyond what any human Kiyoaki had ever met could match. It wasn't just the hair, it was the built, the way he held himself - most likely the standards he held himself up against. They showed. At his sides, Kiyoaki's hands hung loose, rain dripping from his fingers and at this point, he was certainly going to get sick. Would the man let him touch him, were he dying? The thought shouldn't amuse him, but for some reason it did and the corner of his mouth curved, twisting. His eyes were bright in the sea of greyness they were bathed in. The garden was a display of muteness all around. )

So? That only means you will eventually be touching me, isn't that true? ( A slight shrug and he bit his lower lip, looking off to the side. He was touched by death in dreams often enough, he thought the only justice he'd see in this world would be if he got to touch death back.

It might not have been that he ever thought he'd get the chance, but the shinigami followed him, not the other way around. If Kiyoaki didn't take the chance when it presented itself, what kind of death-seeing man would he be? No, he didn't carry a sword, but this might be the kind of heroism he could brandish.

Turning his eyes, blinking droplets out of his eyelashes, back on the man with his red hair and bandana and all the things that made him a foreign element here, where Kiyoki, looking like just about everyone, albeit more attractive, was already a stranger among his family, his peers... Kiyoaki took a long, deep breath and gestured with one hand, like a wave or a beckon. Or a way to bridge something that was only there between them by name anyway.

After all, Kiyoaki saw him. ) Doesn't it only seem fair that I get to pay back that kindness?

[bonecannon]

[ Nothing could stoke a totally unreasonable spark of temper like the source of that irritation appearing by contrast wholly unruffled. Renji's face turned an even more saturated red as the young man took another look at him and found something amusing enough in his examination that he cracked a smile. In another life, a look like that was as good enough excuse for a decking as any. In this one, where Renji was technically on the job and also theoretically too old to be getting in scraps with school boys, he restrained himself to a deep scowl.

The furrows on his brow grew like faultlines the more he listened. Renji tried to follow the rationale of this request, struggling between giving in to his aggravation to dismiss it all out of hand and allowing his morbid curiosity to be pulled along the garden path of his very singular logic. He found himself caught in the brambles of technicalities instead. That and the... questionable phrasing that this human employed. ]

Look, let's get some shit straight. [ He leaned forward, gathering himself back into some semblance of authority. Very much relying on his ability to loom over this weedy, just-barely-adult man to make up for the feeling that somehow he was the one who had points to make up in this verbal sparring match. ]

First off, the only thing touchin' you even if you dropped dead right now is this.

[ Renji gestured to the blade at his hip, acknowledging it with the sort of casualness that a man might use to tip the brim of his cap. ]

Second. [ His eyes fell to the outstretched hand. After a pause, he took a breath of his own, letting it out as a rough sigh. ] Even as humans go, you're somethin' else, you know that?

[ As quickly as the anger ignited, it burnt itself out. Maybe it was that small wave or that moment to breathe, the olive branch or the chance to resurface for air. Maybe he just had no fuel for it besides his bruised ego which, like the rest of him, could take a beating and shrug it off. Either way, the scarlet in his cheeks seemed to fade. In the clarity of his spent irritation, it occurred to him that this human must have, in some way, a bizarre kind of courage to willingly extend a hand to what he must see as death itself. And a weakness to giving in to intrusive thoughts. Renji could relate to that.

Well, maybe one impulsive turn deserved another. ]

But if this is gonna keep things fair to you...

[ Renji reached out to catch the young man's wrist. His calloused fingers moved to close over the slim curve of his arm, his still-suppressed aura radiating an unnatural heat along with his palms warmed by his racing pulse. ]

[oldwarsfinished]

( While Kiyoaki wouldn’t consider himself brave, first and foremost because courage was a thing he associated with war and past eras of Japanese history, bygone, he also knew he was often left untouched by things that others feared, such as death, for example, or loneliness, while things others shrugged off and got over could ride him like a mare for weeks on end. A moment’s embarrassment. An amused glance out the corner of Satoko’s eye, a word from her lips… In many ways his world was an upside down one and he had gotten used to how it set him apart not only from his family, but from his peers, even from his closest friend.

Who it didn’t set him apart from was this shinigami who, as if Kiyoaki had asked to meet him in duel – or possibly worse than that, since no doubt the shinigami would win the duel and walk away unscathed, succumbed to his own emotions so visibly that on anyone else, Kiyoaki would have found it a great embarrassment. Because he would recognise it from himself and judge it a shortcoming. Still, the other man didn’t rouse any pity or unwelcome self-reflection or even – if not, least of all – fear in him, leaning in and looming over him like a tree in the wind like that. Instead Kiyoaki just looked up into his red face, half the heavens coming down into his eyes as he did, the rain cold and beating against his skin. At this point, he almost didn’t mind. It served as a contrast. It reminded him, he wasn’t dead.

Yet.

The sword by the shinigami’s side got a brief once-over, too, making him think of the sword kept in his grandfather’s shrine. His family was formerly samurai, and although neither his father nor Kiyoaki himself had served in that occupation, Kiyoaki had always got the feeling that the Marquis felt at least an affinity with what it symbolized. Kiyoaki was the first not to look at a sword and think belonging. If you asked him, swords were a tool of another time and in this world, in this world… Well, he’d thought it was a time after the sword, but following the gesture of the other man’s hand, indicating the weapon like an extension of his arm, perhaps that time simply hadn’t come yet. Maybe humans were really waiting, in between birth and death.

Then, the man did what Kiyoaki always struggled to do, maybe the sword would prove to be the real difference between them, then, and let his temper subside, he let go of his emotions and instead grabbed hold of Kiyoaki’s wrist, his arm, his touch curiously warm and hard, firm. In a way that was beyond this world, but very much in this world. This time it was Kiyoaki’s face that couldn’t suppress his reaction, his eyes going slightly wide and his mouth opening, closing again, opening as if to speak, but no words came out. It was real, then, not a dream, not a fantasy or a illusion of his mind. This moment belonged to the rain. It was truly happening.

Not quickly enough, but quickly nonetheless, he caught himself, scoffed and shook his head, not in a way that meant no, but in a way that meant yes, but it doesn't matter, shifting slightly in the other man’s hold, twisting his arm so that he could brush his fingertips over the sleeve of the shinigami’s uiform in careful reciprocity. )

It seems fair that if I asked to touch you, but you touch me first, then the one who asked for your name should be the first to give his own, right? ( His fingertips curled for a moment into the fabric that the other man was wearing, then Kiyoaki bowed his head and stepped back, acknowledging finally that the interaction for all intents and purposes was probably out of bounds. He wasn’t here to get the stranger in trouble.

He just had to be sure. He was too used to being apart from those around him. ) I’m Matsugae Kiyoaki.