Chapter Text
If he were to be perfectly honest—although he'd never say it aloud—sometimes, Kabane thinks Akira's a bit of an airhead.
He can't cook, he can't fight, and he's not particularly bright either, unless you count a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the Harajuku district (Kabane doesn't). Still, the yuki-onoko has his strengths—and as it turns out, an innate understanding of love is one of them.
The very night he first admits his ignorance of the elusive concept, the blue-haired teen turns up at his door with a determined gleam in his pale eyes, clutching a stack of shoujo manga in his arms. For some reason, they all seem to depict variations of what is essentially the same visual motif: a boy and a girl, young and attractive, rosy-cheeked and starry-eyed, sometimes locked in an embrace, sometimes staring pointedly in opposite directions—but always, always with an almost embarrassing awareness of the other person.
"This'll teach you about love," Akira explains confidently, when Kabane just stares at him in blank confusion. "Between a woman and a man, at least. You just need to read it all—" he hefts the towering stack on his hip and beams with all the blinding radiance of the afternoon sun, "—and if you have any questions, just ask. Okay?"
He does, although he finds the stories endlessly confusing: it seems that love, at least according to the manga, is a bit of a mess, and not nearly as pleasant as how the nekomata's client had made it out to be. Worse, it seems to concern a whole lot of things he doesn't understand, like pounding hearts and flushing cheeks and breathless smiles and veiled words.
Kabane doesn't have blood, only a cold fire that burns in his veins. He doesn't get why anyone's heart would skip a beat, or why the sight of a person would take someone's breath away—even for him with his immortality, it just feels like an awfully inefficient way to live, especially since most humans are far more fragile than he is.
And the way that the characters in the stories always seem to be hiding how they feel, well, he just doesn't get that at all.
When he tells Akira this, the other boy seems momentarily at a loss for words. "Well," he manages to stutter, "well—that's not the point! I mean, love is good, but it's something that you can't really control, you see...and that way sometimes it makes you feel kinda sad and stuff."
Kabane purses his mouth. "That sounds like a sickness. I don't think I'd like to be in love."
A low laugh comes from the corner of the room. It's Mr Inugami, watching them with a kind of mild-mannered amusement. "But you do know what it's like to love, Kabane. Don't you remember?"
He frowns. "Remember what?"
"When I visited your village, I asked you whether you wanted to meet your parents." Mr Inugami smirks a little. "And you said no. You were hiding how you felt, weren't you?"
For a moment, Kabane feels momentarily like the livestock he'd driven into corners in preparation for slaughter, back in the countryside.
He still remembers how he'd felt, that night; back then, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd smiled, didn't even know if he'd still known how. But he'd still tried, forcing his lips to pull up at the corners in a pale imitation of the way the kids at school would do, bright and effortless, whenever they lied through their teeth: Sensei, I'm not feeling too well, could I skip club activities today? or Sorry, I'd go out with you, but I already have someone I like.
They'd always seemed awfully obvious to him, but with no weapons left in his arsenal, he'd ended up doing the same. He hadn't understood why, back then. He's not sure if he understands now.
"W-well," he manages to stammer, "I don't know..."
His colleague grins in triumph, and Kabane wonders how the blue-haired boy can make that expression look quite so beatific. "So you do understand!" he crows. "And that mean you also get how Kon—"
"Hey!" Mr Inugami interrupts, somewhat hastily, before Kabane can stop to wonder how exactly how the enigmatic kitsune could possibly be relevant to the conversation. "Let's decide on what to get for dinner tonight, shall we? I'm in the mood for ramen..."
"Ooh!" Akira lights up. "Dinner! I want pasta!"