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Shinsuke laughs when he’s in pain. Bansai can’t recall when exactly it was that he learned such about him, because throughout the years he’s just taken to committing a good majority of their general’s idiosyncrasies to memory and the way he operates, if only so Shinsuke wouldn’t have to waste his breath on the incidental flimsy admonition.
Among Shinsuke’s quirks, like his occasional inclination to drink by himself to fireworks and moonlight in the middle of the night, or his usual tendency to sit improperly as if a single layer of yukata is still too stifling, Bansai’s observed that he really does have a habit of laughing when he’s in pain.
See, Shinsuke doesn’t smile often; more often than not it’s crooked smirks or twisted sneers, and the sound that seethes through them carries neither mirth nor cheer despite its resemblance to laughter, since Shinsuke doesn’t laugh that much, either.
He only ever does when he’s bruised or bleeding, either or both, too delirious from pain or the prospect of it to keep himself and his assumed sanity in check, because call it typical if you will but there are days when it’s the only thing he feels anymore. And in those personal episodes when Shinsuke demands to be left to his own devices, to attend to his own wounds, Bansai would, not without guilt for checking up on him against his explicit wishes and for letting harm come to him at all, catch him laughing.
Bansai catches Shinsuke laughing now, too, something sick and sordid in the back of his throat that though barely there is undoubtedly one of those palpable chuckles. Even this far, Bansai can tell for sure, and though he doesn’t resist the urge to test it by firming his hold on Shinsuke, he doesn’t go any further than that.
“Bansai…” Shinsuke calls, because it’s all he can do at the moment, and because it’s all he has to: “Don’t you stop now.”
Bansai shouldn’t have to be told twice, especially not when the longer he looks, the realer and meaner and more messed up it seems, that thin-lipped smile on Shinsuke’s face. And he hesitates, almost entertaining the natural impulse to defy by the dissonance that this position is giving rise to within him, but he ultimately smothers it and gives in. Because in the end, he always does do right by Shinsuke’s requests if it’s within his talent and capacity, whether it’s to play him a song on his shamisen, or to play him like one with it. Besides, it isn’t like he hadn’t considered the probability that it would end up like this since the onset.
When Shinsuke invites him into whichever quarters he’s decided are his for the night seeking a private performance from him, it’s only ever one of two things: Shinsuke’s in the mood to have sake poured for him for a change as he smokes and weighs between joining him in duet and basking in the music to lull him to sleep, or, otherwise completely and frankly disinterested in Bansai’s song Shinsuke would express special, deliberate curiosity and attraction towards his hands and what he can do with those wires outside of his skillset as a musician.
Bansai didn’t ask if Shinsuke had attempted to rest by himself before he turned to him to pass the time and restlessness; he just swung his shamisen over his shoulder, found a stage along the tatami, and played. He did so dutifully even when Shinsuke settled ahead of him after absentmindedly setting his cup and pipe aside, sitting in a posture quite obscene without a care for the possibility of distracting Bansai from his song, because he wasn’t actually paying attention. As he strummed along, Bansai chanced a glance up to find Shinsuke’s long-lashed, half-lidded gaze trained intently on his fingers, so he took that as he should have and quit mid-melody, to no consequence.
If Shinsuke had brought him in here for a lullaby, anything longer than a half-rest would rouse him to a state far worse and more weary, more uneasy than before Bansai even came, then another unmeant scolding would be the end of it. But because it wasn’t that to begin with, Shinsuke just moved back languidly and tilted his head in amusement at Bansai’s ever-unwavering loyalty to his whims.
Even if the whim was to have Bansai turn on him—turn him on—and string him up in a convoluted web of wires. The danger of it is real, positively thrilling and hilariously grounding, because ever since Bansai swore his life to Shinsuke he’s only honed his craft to lethal perfection, motivated by both the desire to unconditionally protect Shinsuke until he’s fulfilled his goals, and the self-preservation that renders him invincible to getting cut down for anything less than Shinsuke’s sake. All that notwithstanding, in the first place, he wasn’t prosecution-pending for failed merciful assassinations; if he didn’t share in Shinsuke’s ambition of destruction he’d have long since become the one to end him, and with zero trouble to boot.
But Bansai is of the same sentiment for this world as Shinsuke, and on top of that the sentiment he harbors for him competes in depth and profoundness with every sea he’s been sent to sail, every galaxy he’s been sent to travel; that’s to say, to put it plainly, even if the wretched lot of them don’t, by any stretch of morals or compassion, deserve the luxury of belonging to anyone but themselves, he’d do just about anything for Shinsuke, give him the world all to watch him burn it to the ground with his own two hands. So while letting Shinsuke treat him as instrumental to his erratic need to claim his own hurt isn’t exactly the easiest order, it doesn’t find him unwilling to try, either.
In fact, it finds Bansai awestruck. Out on ragtag battlefields charged with adrenaline and urgency, he rarely has time to admire his handiwork or do anything more complicated than straight, direct lines to enemies constricted before striking with a one-liner about desecrating music and a final pluck that sends heads flying then rolling. But the sight of Shinsuke arrested by those same wires—shot from his shamisen and bent around the room’s pillars and beams to hold him still as they dig harshly into pale, scarred skin but never, ever break it—has Bansai holding his breath, no unclever words waiting to be spoken nor finishing moves to be made, because he can’t let this end just yet.
All of Bansai’s focus and strength is currently devoted to teasing the wire around Shinsuke’s neck right below his jaw, levelling it to pick up the tempo of Shinsuke’s pulse and then attune himself to it, as if syncing with him is something he couldn’t readily do without the flourish of bondage or whatever the hell this is supposed to be. Bansai can’t help but relish in the odd intimacy of it, even if he has to stand back for the tension to work, to hurt, at least until Shinsuke’s satisfied. Any second now, he’ll flick his wrist and free them from this, himself and Bansai alike.
Except all Shinsuke does is lift his chin and lick the corner of his mouth, drunk not from the little alcohol swimming in his system but on the vivid sting of wires begging to cut into him mixed with an all-too-familiar impatience. He humors himself by sighing, “Won’t you come closer?”
Bansai loses count of the beats thrumming through his wires because his heart skips a couple on their own at Shinsuke’s lips and the words they formed around. He has to swallow slowly to keep his composure; he’s keenly aware that when it comes to Shinsuke, won’t-you-do-it’s are just as good as do-it-or-else’s, and this isn’t faith in him nor praise— it’s a challenge, a dare:
“I know you can do it.” Because can-do’s are just as good as will-do’s, so it’s not a matter of whether Bansai can or can’t (he can)—he simply will. Even with the tremendous effort it would require to muster all the skill and willpower he has in him and display it in impeccable choreography just for Shinsuke’s pleasure.
Bansai times his pressure with precision, retracting his wires a millimeter at a time in time with any advances, so that they neither tighten nor loosen around Shinsuke lest he wound him or displease him, because at this point he can’t for the life of him decide which is worse. He braces himself on a foot and slides the other forward, strengthens his grip on his bachi while he lifts a fingertip off a chord he was holding, all the while sensing the weight of Shinsuke’s anticipation with every motion.
Most of the appeal of this is in the unsurprising grace with which Bansai dances as he cautiously, ever-so cautiously, closes the distance they put between them. But admittedly Shinsuke is also partial to the idea that he’s gambling on the disgrace of losing a limb sooner than he can even react or falling fast and flat on his face if either of them were distracted, and neither of them could blame it on anything but their own selfishness.
“Shinsuke…” Bansai says, finally speaking up because he hasn’t been told to stop even though he’s already made it to the spot right in front of him. He’s pulled the wires short and kept them taut, but they’re vibrating madly and he’s compelled to remain silent while he’s unable to discern exactly just whose rhythm that is, if it’s his or Shinsuke’s.
It might be Shinsuke’s—he’s craning his neck up at Bansai now, as if to make a show of the fact that this is getting him hot and bothered—but it might as well be Bansai’s, because when he eases up for long enough to dislodge the beads of perspiration caught in the wires for Shinsuke’s comfort, they drop and trickle down his chest as if in slow motion.
It flusters Bansai just enough to warrant the realization that his concentration was slipping, and he’s lost track of what his hands are doing because they’d started imagining chasing the sweat into Shinsuke’s yukata. By the time he wins his control back from his fantasies Shinsuke is laughing again, bliss flaring in his eye because god, god, for something that won’t even leave a mark, it hurts so fucking good.
Bansai keeps the strain steady to draw it out for Shinsuke, though there’s something wrenching inside of him just as hard. Shinsuke’s laughs keep spilling forth and ringing hollow like the rest of him, testament to how he’s numbed himself to the core to survive all that this life has put him through and all that he has to put himself through to spite it, and not without guilt again Bansai listens, he listens to it all.
And Shinsuke’s song has always resonated like a storm, a cold calmness in the eye and a wild rage everywhere else. Bansai is tempted to quit this quickly just to catch Shinsuke if, when he comes down, embrace him instead—maybe then he’d come to accept that pain isn’t all he has to feel just to feel something.
Of course, Shinsuke recoils. He’d been so still that he could perceive even the coursing of the blood in his veins, weakening to the wires; when he can recognize the way Bansai looks at him, when Bansai looks at him like this, he knows it’s time to call this off. Wishing for the same thing matters none to Shinsuke if it isn’t about destroying this rotten world once and for all, so the second Bansai allows him enough slack to breathe, he spits it out: “Enough.”
In an instant, Bansai withdraws, gathering the lengths of his wire back in a run with a last wispy and severe caress at Shinsuke’s skin that has him shuddering and struggling the slightest to regain his balance. As Shinsuke settles once more, Bansai moves to put his shamisen away behind him, switch the shoulder the strap is on for the other.
When Bansai turns around to take his leave for good, an involuntary sound that’s all jaded and lonely escapes Shinsuke and echoes in Bansai’s ears. And more than the toneless, half-hearted “Won’t you stick around?” that follows, that it had sounded enough like a chuckle is all it takes, all that makes Bansai stay with him who’s oblivious to his own habits, and answer to him wholeheartedly:
“Yeah, I can.”