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[nineteentwelve]

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[bonecannon]

[ Rain was falling over Shibuya today, which gave an appropriately funereal atmosphere to the work Renji performed. If he had been doing work, anyway. It had been a slow morning and a slower afternoon, which was fortunate for the human souls under his charge and unfortunate for his need for a diversion to crush this growing sense of unease.

Renji had a feeling for a long time that he was being watched. That wasn't uncommon in Soul Society—"that's the charity case from the Rukongai", "there's one of those mutts from the 11th Division"—but in the world of the living, he should be passing beneath notice, where not even the memory of him left a trace. But every once in a while, he'd felt that unmistakable prickle one his skin. The faint imprint of a gaze on him.

It took a few instances of that sensation to realize that Renji only felt it around an old estate on the outskirts of Tokyo. It wouldn't look so out of place back home if it weren't for the strange house in one corner. Nailing the location didn't narrow things down nearly as much as he'd hoped with how many people served in and flowed through the grounds. But Renji visited when he could, on days like today when so many humans were so tediously, stubbornly refusing to die, to search for the source of that gaze. He thought he had found it in a young man with a melancholy air. A young master of the house or something like it, Renji had surmised. Nobility was blessed with power that they didn't need in Soul Society; it wasn't such a surprise to see that this world was no different.

That air about his (potential) observer was even heavier today when Renji spotted him wandering aimlessly through the gardens. A gloom with its own sense of gravity, bending the rain and Renji towards him. It took a moment to fall into step a few paces behind, ambling at an obtrusive angle behind his shoulder. Renji was tempted to call out as he had to his previous suspects, none of whom had reacted. He was saved the trouble when the young man turned around on his own. ]

Ah-hah! [ Renji's voice was like a crack of thunder amid the patter of falling rain and susurrous stirring of drenched wisterias about to bloom. ] I knew it!

[ Heedless of the downpour, of the slick gravel that didn't crunch beneath his feet, of how terribly inappropriate this interaction was, Renji took a step forward. His arms were folded, an expression effused with triumph, a victor of this game that only he knew they were playing. ]

You can see me!

[oldwarsfinished]

( The Matsugae gardens were huge. It wasn't a difficult place to get lost or wander for hours, if one wasn't intimately familiar with the layout, the shortcuts and the seasonal changes that made certain areas more difficult or easy to navigate during specific times of year. This was a summer rain, the rainy season had just begun and Kiyoaki was at this point drenched to the bone. His mother would fuss if he caught a cold. His father would disapprove if he got sick enough to have to skip school. Kiyoaki, meanwhile, remained standing in the downpour, back turned to the tall, redheaded man, who was letting his voice ring out in a context that seemed unfitting for him. Kiyoaki didn't know where he was from, what type of existence he had led, but he felt strangely out of place here. And at the same time, strangely familiar.

Then again, in the Matsugae gardens as well as in the Matsugae house, where he ought to be more at home than anywhere else, so did Kiyoaki. Everybody knew it. The foreign element he was, even if no one said the words.

Raising both eyebrows slightly, Kiyoaki slowly turned around and came to face the stranger, the umbrella protecting only his face, so at least he didn't have to blink against the rain to make him out. It wouldn't have been a problem, of course, with that hair, he'd have been able to make him out anywhere. He wasn't difficult to recognise. It was definitely the same man, looking no older than almost a decade ago, when Kiyoaki had seen him first.

Death didn't age, of course, so why should the dealers of it do what their trade didn't?

With an angling of the umbrella to break the gust of wind coming from the east, Kiyoaki took a moment to consider how best to reply. He wasn't stupid. He could tell no one else felt death like he did, he could tell no one else reacted to the presence of the man who collected their souls, whatever he was, and if he had been particularly religious, he'd maybe have wondered about what this ability made him, but Kiyoaki had none such scruples. All he knew was that the redhead, with his attitude and his feet in their sandals that barely touched ground, didn't belong here and in some ways, neither did Kiyoaki, so maybe it was destined to be.

He was just waiting to figure out where he was supposed to go, then. )

You know, I'm waiting for you to tell me who it is I'm looking at.

( It was spoken with a kind of lilt to his tone that would have been arrogant, if he had been older and more set in his beliefs. Instead, it held - in Kiyoaki's voice - a certain dreamy quality. Like he, too, walked on a different plane.

That was why he wanted to know where the other man was from. For some reason it mattered, it even overwrote his gloom at Satoko's engagement. It mattered because if he knew where it was, it could be a place to start. )

[bonecannon]

[ This was the closest that Renji had ever been to the only human he had ever met who could see him. He appeared younger than he had seemed from afar, where Renji had assumed some aura of authority around him. Now that he was right in front of him, so close Renji could hear the way his voice would melt away with the breeze and see the elegant curl of his lily-white fingers and trace the soft curve of his jawline unshaded by his umbrella... he just barely seemed to qualify as a young man.

So it did rankle a bit to be addressed with that tone. This scarcely-graduated-from-boyhood man was about a hundred years too early to be standing around all impatient to receive an introduction.

Besides, Renji never did like doing what was expected of him. It was a curse, sometimes, to live so contrarily. ]

I only introduce myself to humans after they're dead.

[ Renji's eyes narrowed and the bridge of his nose wrinkled, the look of one dog sizing up another. ]

You wanna risk it?

[ This mutt was all bark and no bite. And barely any bark as it was, the tone more a shrug in the direction of a threat, carried by the coarseness of his voice more than any emotion in it. ]

[oldwarsfinished]

( Did he wanna risk it? Kiyoaki frowned, a deep furrow in his brow, as he looked at the other man with a slightly affronted expression. He was speaking plainly and straightforwardly and too directly for it to be qualified as anything such as "polite", but then again - around others, like Honda and Satoko, Kiyoaki himself wasn't known for his polite speech. He liked directness. He liked not having to worry about deeply-seated messages, secrets or pretences that would make his inner sense of dread flare.

It flared now, regardless. He had dreams like this from time to time, his dream diary was full of them, meeting unnamed, faceless perpetrators in the rain and not making it out alive. Why was he so afraid of dying, anyway? What did it mean, death?

You'd think this man who took care of the dead would know.

Suddenly Kiyoaki was overcome by an idea that he immediately found perfect to re-establish his currently wounded pride. Whether it was a good idea, particularly safe or even wise, wasn't his concern - his concern was how he looked in the eyes of that man there, speaking to him without a single ounce of respect. So, slowly, he swung his umbrella downward, pointing the tip at the ground and closed it deliberately, before letting it clatter onto the gravel-clad ground. Then, he began walking forward. It wasn't a march or any kind of charging, he moved unhurriedly and without any aggression. He moved like you would towards a barking dog you couldn't tell whether would eat your hand, when extended. )

That depends. Are you telling me I should be wary of dying?

( Are you telling me I should be wary of you, it meant. It was to prove a point, of course, that he kept moving, trying to guess how close he could come, without the other man backing off, if he was even going to. Around them, the summer breeze, wet and whipping rain into his eyes now, unprotected, was picking up. )

[bonecannon]

[ It only occurred to Renji then, as the umbrella snapped shut and he felt those striking eyes fully level their gaze on him, that he hadn't thought about how this encounter would go. He'd been so focused on just rooting out whatever human had the audacity to pierce the veil dividing the world of the living and the dead that what happened afterwards had never crossed his mind. Like a dog chasing a rickshaw, now feeling the wheels heave and shudder as his jaws clamped on the back of carriage, he was at a loss for what to do next.

Even if he had put one single, solitary second of thought towards the outcome of this meeting, Renji would never have guessed at this reaction. A stripling like the human before him standing face to face with a spirit and not even mustering a flinch, his handsome features not twisted by fear or shock or disbelief but instead slightly wrinkled with indignation. Not to mention that Renji was more used to humans trying to run from him more than approaching like they were about to shoo away an uninvited guest.

Still, Renji wasn't going to cede any ground to the young man's advance. His spine drew military-straight and his arms kept firmly crossed, feet planted and chin thrust out in defiant pride. He would not allow this young man--this pretty boy--the illusion that he felt anything close to intimidation. His indifferent expression seemed like a challenge, a declaration of his untouchability, goading him to come as close as he dared. ]

Most humans are.

[ Wary of dying in a general sense, at least. That's why that line sounded so cool in Renji's head at the time. Then again, most humans don't get to converse with shinigami while they still drew breath, so maybe he should just assume that this one was extraordinarily peculiar by default. ]

It ain't your time yet, though.

[ So the answer was, in fact, a very definite no. Renji's eyes flickered down briefly, to the young man's wet collar and the rivulets of rain streaking his cheeks and his dark hair stirred by the wind and sticking to his brow. ]

Not unless you catch a pretty bad cold.

[oldwarsfinished]

( Nothing happened. Nothing of the sort, at least, that would make him feel vindicated and his pride soothed. The spirit collector didn't let himself be intimated, instead straightened up to his full height in his black uniform that only made his hair stand out more, like it was fighting the restraints of militarism, both in colour and in length. For some reason, all Kiyoaki could think, stopping right before the man, only a fully extended arm's length separating their bodies, was that he found that rebellion refreshing. Himself, he hated anything that smelled like military anything, like Peers' school, like the customs of a nation that used to survive on waging war. His father's father had been a samurai, in his village of origin, he was still revered as a demi-god for his standing and his sword. As if Kiyoaki didn't know that Iinuma destested him for how soft he was in comparison.

He looked up at the other man, a wry laugh at his final comment. It wasn't a warm sound, it wasn't friendly in any way, but the way it broke the mood, piecing through the wind and rain, somehow took the sting out of it, too. It sounded solitary. Alone. When you could sense death and when people could tell, something about you invited a murky moon at the divination rituals, when you didn't belong to nobility, but you were not a soldier, either, it quickly proved a lonely path to go. This was the first time anyone had broken into that monotony, that melancholy.

And they were telling the truth like a bad joke. The smile didn't fade from his lips. ]

That would be regrettable, but mainly it would be unsophisticated. Not much of a heroic death.

( His expression changed, then. He drew in a deep breath, hands curling into fists at his sides. His fingers itched, not from the water dripping from the hems of his school uniform sleeves, but from a sudden inclination to touch. He didn't know why, perhaps because he had dreamt of himself dying many times and in his dreams, death came in a very physical form, he always felt the sword piece his gut. Then, he woke up.

This time, he didn't want to wake.

So, he straightened up to match the other man, though the other was taller, his whole stance harder, firmer, unyielding. In comparison, Kiyoaki was a reed in the wind, stubborn, but the wind would still make him waver. He looked at this nameless stranger and asked a completely ridiculous thing, but if he had to blame something for giving, it was the sword, right? The sword at that man's side.

Kiyoaki could almost feel it penetrating him. )

If you don't mind - ( Shifting to polite address, the way it would be expected of him in the house where he'd grown up, he offered a light bow. Since you won't give me your name, it meant. ) - would it be possible for me to touch you?

( Since that night at the vigil for the dead soldiers, he had wondered if it could be done, or if this man would be yet another impactless thing in his life. )

[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.