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There is a sickness in Tatsumi's heart.
He's not sure how long it's been there. Long enough to make itself known, long enough to fester, long enough to rot away at the ventricles and arteries it surrounds itself with. It's pushing past them, poking holes through the pockmarked cell walls and reaching into his ribs to steal the air from his lungs.
Acknowledgement of a presence does not mean peace has been reached, and Tatsumi is fully aware of his sickness and fully aware that it should never, ever reach past his skin. If the rot becomes visible- if the skin on his chest decays, crumples and tears at the slightest touch, revealing the thing that has resided in his chest for far too long, the poisonous, corrupt animal that gnashes stolen air between its teeth- if that were to happen, he'd have to lock himself away from all the eyes that now lay upon him, for the shame would consume as much as the sickness has. Were it not a sin, he'd rid the world of himself entirely. He's sure the world would be better off without his sickness lying in wait.
(And perhaps the thought had crossed his mind that he could abscond before the sickness even has the chance to gnaw through his fetid chest. Perhaps he questions if in this case, it would make him a martyr, stealing back the air of the parasite only to never take any more again, ridding the world of its evil at the small price of himself. Perhaps, if he is a martyr, he will still be allowed passage to a gentler after.
This is a lie, of course. Tatsumi knows no amount of martyrship will pluck his sins away. Death, self-inflicted or otherwise, promises nothing for him but Hell.)
There is a sickness in Tatsumi's heart. And it wants to be seen.
_____
"Careful," Mayoi whispers, hands hovering at his knee but not touching, not once. "Your form- you're extending a bit too much, with, um, this leg here…" His eyes trail the length of Tatsumi's shin, and Tatsumi's eyes trail the planes of Mayoi's face. There is a rivulet of sweat making its way down from his forehead, pausing to hang precariously at his cheekbone before continuing its path and colliding with the beauty mark just under the corner of Mayoi's mouth. It hangs once more at the chin, and Tatsumi wants to take his finger and trace up, up, up back to the bone it precipiced on moments ago. He wants- he wants-
What does he want?
Mayoi's eyes are no longer on his leg, and with a start, Tatsumi realizes that they're meeting his own. "Um- Tatsumi-san?" he asks, and Tatsumi blinks.
"Yes," he says, not as a question, but as an answer, because Mayoi was asking him something and he could not hear, but the answer is always yes.
"Alright- sorry for this…" Back to his leg, eyes ripped from his in what his internal scales refuse to label as cruelty or mercy, but the scales are tipped entirely when he feels one palm brace his inner thigh and another his lower shin.
He lets out a sharp inhale, and Mayoi jumps- "Sorry!" he squeaks, hands waving in apology that is both overreaction and unnecessary. "Sorry, I'm so sorry, I should have warned you-"
"It's fine," Tatsumi says. It isn't, but that isn't Mayoi's fault.
______
When did his sickness start?
Perhaps it began with Kaname. Perhaps he is the catalyst to Tatsumi's infection. But that would be a lie, because Tatsumi's cradled the rot in his heart for longer than that, and he remembers the way it scratched against his ribs before he'd even realized Kaname was special.
So no, it hadn't begun with him. But it was present. And it was vile. Tatsumi harbored his sin for as long as he could, but the rot reached out, out, out, step by step until he couldn't take another, and Kaname was gone.
It hadn't started with him, but Kaname paid the price anyway.
______
When Mayoi's hands come to his skin once more, this time, he's prepared. As much as he can be, anyway. A thousand years isn't enough to prepare him for even the pad of Mayoi's finger.
His hands are gloved, because they always are, and Tatsumi's pants go to his ankles, but he feels the fire of skin against skin all the same. Mayoi grips his leg, not hard, because despite all warnings and protests, the hands that cradle Tatsumi's knee are too deft to ever cause him accidental harm. He grips his leg, and Tatsumi holds his breath, for fear that if he so much as twitches, Mayoi will let go and never look back. So Tatsumi does not move- and Mayoi, eyes wide like a shot went off but hands steady as a doctor's, shifts the leg into a position that eases pain he hadn't even realized was there.
"That looks better," Mayoi sighs, pulling away but taking none of the fire with him. "See, the angle you had it at before- it was a little too, well, over the toe, you know? When it's just even, like this," and he takes a finger, draws a line that grazes his knee for only a second before trailing down, right to the tip of his shoe, "it's less strain, and also looks nicer. More, um- organized?"
Tatsumi knows this already, but he nods along, knowing there's nothing he can do to stop himself from listening to Mayoi as long as he will let him. There's something about the way he relaxes once he's sure of the topic at hand, something about the way the locks that cage his sentences slowly come undone when he talks about dance or technology or dioramas. It is, for lack of a better word, intoxicating.
______
Once, when the weight of the sickness became too much to bear, when his pale, battered heart knocked hollowly against his chest like branches against an abandoned house, Tatsumi indulged in precarious sin.
As the clock had struck two in the morning, Tatsumi had struck gold, stealing one bottle of communion wine and one disposable cup. If it was disposable, then he could pretend, just for the night, that the sin could be thrown away. He could discard it much in the same way he wished to discard his sickness.
He hadn't wanted to steal. But the knocking echoed too many times, and the voice in his head held too many whispers, and the sickness plugged his nose and throat with unwanted tears and just- for one night. For one night, he wanted to rest.
So he drank, and willed the noise to be drowned by the tide.
The wine, to his disappointment, was not sweet, and went down dry. He'd had it before, of course, but not in such quantity- foolishly, he'd hoped that would change something. It hadn't.
But he willed it down, and the taste faded into something resembling sweetness as his putrid heart drowned and drowned and drowned.
Something else had sung in its place- something the sickness dressed in barbed wire, something it never allowed him to linger on without reminding him of the evil cupped in his hands.
For once, he could think of Kaname and think of all the times their knees had grazed under the table instead of thinking of Kaname's perfection and Tatsumi's desire to grasp it.
______
Mayoi demonstrates the next part of their routine, and Tatsumi swallows his teeth.
Loud, loud, loud, the sickness beats at the walls that encase it, and howls in his ear what it wants. The screams go willfully ignored- Tatsumi is very experienced now in the art of a straight face.
Mayoi dances, and Tatsumi watches, feels his throat go dry like sweet wine and the moisture that should be there goes to his palms instead, uncomfortable and clammy and completely unable to be inconspicuously wiped against his thighs. These symptoms are all manageable, however, because for all the discomfort in his mouth and his hands, it is not the fault of the sweat on his palms that his fingers clench and unclench with every pound of his heart.
The sickness wants to possess him. The sickness wants to take Mayoi under the heel of his hands and mold him into something untouchable by anyone but himself. The sickness wants control. Tatsumi just wants.
______
It didn't start with Kaname.
Maybe it started when he was thirteen, singing in his church's choir. There was a boy- Tatsumi's age, but his voice was higher and his eyes were softer. He was excellent at his craft, voice carrying through the church's pews like wind that a bird could glide upon. Maybe it started with him, when Tatsumi realized his gravitation towards the boy began to lean into obsession. Was it then? Was it with him?
No, it was there before. Quieter, smaller, not quite as rank but still just as rotten, it was still there, burrowed deep in Tatsumi's heart, swaying with the pump of blood. It didn't start with him because it was still there, whispering in his ears; the realization of obsession only gave the sickness larger lungs to yell with.
Tatsumi told the boy he was good. No, he'd told the boy he was great. It was the truth, of course, though could it even be called as such, when really, the boy's voice must have been picked for God's own choir?
The boy hadn't believed him, or at least he pretended not to. But Tatsumi insisted- more than that, he wanted to sing with him. He wanted to see how far the boy could go. He wanted to take his hand and drag him to the very top.
But the boy said no.
Heartbreak is a bitter thing on its own, but when one harbors a sickness such as Tatsumi's, it is much more akin to devastation.
______
"It won't be too bad, right?"
"Hm?"
"On your leg."
"Ah." Truthfully, Tatsumi forgot to pay attention to that part- too busy tracking Mayoi's hands, hair, hips, anything of Mayoi that moved, to really think about how practical the routine would be. "Yes," he says anyway, because if he's learned anything by now, it's that Mayoi veers on the side of caution, and has never once pushed Tatsumi too hard. "It will be perfect. You did a wonderful job."
Tatsumi expects Mayoi to shrivel, to back away and spout his usual protests of undeservedness and whatnot, and he prepares himself for the patient task of calming Mayoi down from his spiral and assuring him that yes, really, he did do a wonderful job, and he is not a 'vile, sinful creature' or whatever awful words he'll throw at himself today. If Mayoi would allow him, he'd give him every compliment under the sun, but unfortunately he can barely seem to handle one.
Any words Tatsumi prepared die at the tip of his tongue, because instead of cringing, Mayoi smiles, nervous, uncertain, but smiles nonetheless, tugging at the long strand of hair that never seems to make its way into his braid.
"A-are you sure?" he asks, as if Tatsumi will be able to respond with any words at all. "I mean, really, I can change anything if you need me to…!"
"No," Tatsumi says immediately, because he's just recognized what the shine in Mayoi's eyes is, and he wants to drink it in, gorge himself until drunk with it. "Don't change anything. It's perfect, really." He gives Mayoi a smile of his own- one that would never, not in a million years, be able to compare to the sight he's been graced with, but he hopes it offers something of his sincerity. "You are truly wonderful."
Mayoi's face, already flushed from practice, pools a deep red, and he stutters out something that doesn't really sound like words but might be one of his more classic protests, yet his smile remains.
Pride, Tatsumi decides, looks best on Mayoi above all else.
_______
It wasn't middle school, so was it before? Was it when he was eleven, eight, five? Was it from a time he cannot recall? How does one forget such a sickness making a home in their chest? How does one forget what it feels like to have a heart that is not made of rot?
_______
When he asks Mayoi to join him after practice, he expects a no. He expects Mayoi to have reached his limit of indulgence for the day, and has decided that someone as 'worthless' as he does not deserve to have both strong compliments and time spent with a friend in one afternoon. Yet Mayoi surprises him once again, pausing in a stupor before shaking himself out of it and agreeing with an almost frantic energy. Most likely, he was trying to push through any deprecating thoughts before they stopped him from enjoying himself. It makes Tatsumi's rotten heart swell up in his chest, taking up so much room that there's no more space for air.
Mayoi pushed through to be with him. Mayoi wants to spend time with him.
Is there even a word for how Tatsumi feels?
Unfortunately, due to Tatsumi's expectations of being rejected, he hadn't actually thought of anything to do, so when Mayoi asks him what he had planned, he thinks of nothing faster than a walk in the courtyard.
"To get some air," he says, hoping it comes off like he knows what he's doing.
Luckily, Mayoi goes with it. Whether or not he buys Tatsumi's bluff, he doesn't say, but it probably doesn't matter all that much. The courtyard is quiet, and Mayoi is still Mayoi, strange burst of positivity aside. The smallest push could send him back running if Tatsumi's not careful.
So they walk, too close and not close enough, and Tatsumi tries to focus on the desires that normal people have and not the ones the rotten sack of flesh and illness plant in his brain.
______
Desire is not unfamiliar.
There are many different types of desire, different facets, and while it is often affiliated with both, it is not an inherently positive or negative thing. Intense want that verges on need- that's all desire is, really. It gets conflated into so much more.
But desire doesn't work the same for Tatsumi as it does for everyone else. As he sees it, there are two ways his desire will run: gravitation and obsession.
Gravitational desire is the closest he has to normal. It is intense, and it is physical, manifesting in dry throats and clammy hands and fire all along his skin, but it is not bad. It is not sickness.
Obsessive desire is what he cannot think about, lest he get too close to the sun once more. Kaname suffered for his mistake. Everyone suffered for his mistake. His rotten disease spread throughout the hallways of his school, permeating the air and choking the student body until they couldn't breathe. His sickness nearly took control, and it pains him to think of where he might be now had it not been the very cause of his downfall.
Gravitation, obsession. What happens when he can't tell the difference anymore?
______
It's only when Tatsumi's pulling his hand away does he realize he's tucked that stubborn strand of hair behind Mayoi's ear.
Ah, he thinks, only slightly hysterically, and Mayoi's eyes blow wider than he's ever seen, wider than any compliment has ever made them go. He doesn't turn to Tatsumi- doesn't move, doesn't pull away, but doesn't come closer, either. His eyes have blown wide and his chest has stopped rising but he doesn't react further than that.
"Sorry," Tatsumi says belatedly, offending hand still hanging limply in the air. "It's just- you kept pushing it out of your face." As if that's an excuse. As if that's why. As if he's a good samaritan, helping out a friend fussing with their hair, and not a poorly concealed vessel for every way in which he could make their skin come in contact.
"It's…fine," Mayoi breathes, and Tatsumi breathes too, realizing only now that he'd held his breath just as Mayoi had. "It was only for a moment, and you- I mean, you always say you don't- it's, well-"
"Mayoi-san," Tatsumi interrupts, uncertain of what he's saying but already saying it anyway. "Would you allow me to hold your hand?"
That gets him to turn. And turn he does- his neck actually cracks with how fast it snaps towards him. The shock is most likely the reason he hasn't begun to blush, or stutter, or do anything other than stare, which gives Tatsumi plenty of time to consider what could have possibly convinced his mouth to say such a thing.
"...Huh?" Mayoi says, and that's all. Huh?
Tatsumi blinks. "It's alright if you don't want to," he says quietly, against the horrible, awful wailing from his horrible, awful heart that says it is not alright at all, and that Tatsumi should take both of Mayoi's hands, or just take him, all of him, and drag him wherever it is that the future would hold them. The rot makes his mouth taste sour. He does his best to ignore it.
"I want to!" Mayoi yelps- much like Tatsumi and his own request, this admission seems to take Mayoi by surprise. He makes a pained sort of sound, as if he's only just realized that spoken words have the ability to be heard, and he turns away, gnawing hard at the knuckle of his pointer finger.
"...You do?"
"Please give me…a moment, Tatsumi-san," Mayoi mutters around his hand. "You- you can, um, take it if- if that's really what you want."
Is it what you want? Tatsumi doesn't ask, because the rotten, selfish part of him fears that asking a second time will result in a no. So, sinner that he is, he indulges.
Finger through finger through finger, slotting slowly and thoroughly through, with his thumb coming to rest on the most prominent knuckle once it's over. And just like that- in merely one second, that felt like hundreds- Tatsumi now knows what Mayoi's palm against his own feels like.
Yes, he's still wearing his gloves, but who gives a damn about gloves, because what matters is that he knows the bones, knows that Mayoi's fingers are long, delicate, and nervous, inexperienced at holding another but very experienced at clutching. He's wearing his gloves, but it's Mayoi's hand in all the ways that matter, and Tatsumi drinks, and drinks, and drinks, and gorges.
_______
Was it something he was born with?
_______
It's not enough. It's never going to be enough, not for Tatsumi's sick, rotten heart, but he doesn't tell Mayoi that. He doesn't tell Mayoi what the voice in his ears is telling him, and how it makes his blood curdle.
What right does he have, telling Mayoi that he is no sinful creature, that he is as good as any other person, when it is Tatsumi's own heart that is doused in illness and sin?
"Tatsumi-san?"
He squeezes Mayoi's hand to let him know he's been heard, but finds that he can't seem to grip it any tighter. "Ah," he says. Too tight. Much too tight. Mayoi's bones could splinter and break under his grip. "I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Mayoi says, then hesitates. He worried his knuckle again before asking, "Are you okay?"
Tatsumi nearly laughs.
_______
Humans are not innately evil. Despite what the church says, he refuses to believe this.
Then perhaps, if Tatsumi was born with this sickness, then he is no human, indeed.
_______
Every day brings new touch. Every touch brings new desire. Every desire brings new rot.
The closer he and Mayoi get, the louder the voice in his head gets. Each new hint of reciprocation makes the rot in his heart fester painfully, and it's only a matter of time before it reveals itself.
But the rot isn't all he can focus on. Not when Mayoi is finally, finally, starting to giving back everything Tatsumi has thrust at him. Not obviously- certainly not easily- but he is. He is, and it's- well. Tatsumi never even dreamed such a thing possible. Not with someone like him.
Tatsumi's not sure what changed with Mayoi. Perhaps he's finally begun to quell the self-hatred he's been plagued with for seemingly as long as he's lived. Perhaps he simply wants to try something new, and saw that Tatsumi is more than a willing target. Or perhaps Tatsumi has infected him, let his sickness take hold of Mayoi too, let it tangle in his hands and in his hair behind his ear.
Perhaps it is none of that. Perhaps it is all of it.
Regardless of reason, when Tatsumi asks if he can kiss Mayoi, measured and slow against the rock hammer in his chest, it only takes one slow, agonizing beat before Mayoi says yes.
_______
Tatsumi called Mayoi beautiful, when they first met.
Was it then? Already, had the sickness claimed its next target?
_______
Mayoi tastes like lip balm and sweat, which is most certainly because they're sharing this kiss after practice. It seems both Tatsumi and Mayoi are at their bravest after practices, because that's when they always seem to take their bolder steps.
The lip balm makes sense- Mayoi worries at his lip so much it runs ragged, so it's no surprise he has something of an aftercare for that. Against his better judgement, Tatsumi takes that worried lip between his own teeth, biting just slightly. To see what all the fuss is about, he thinks deliriously, and wonders for a moment if people can become intoxicated from kissing.
"T-Tatsumi-san!" Mayoi gasps, not in fear but startled nonetheless, pulling back to reveal red cheeks and lips. Without thinking, Tatsumi leans forward again, so drawn to what's before him that it's all he can do to follow. When Mayoi pulls back again, Tatsumi stops, pulls back as well, and squashes the sickness in his heart that scream and begs for more.
"Did you change your mind?" Tatsumi asks, forcing it out but needing to prove to himself that he will not succumb to obsession. "Did you want to stop?"
Mayoi shakes his head quickly, then pauses, sort of nodding before shaking his head again. "I- I don't want to take it back," he says, and it occurs to Tatsumi that Mayoi looks, for once, nervous in the way a schoolboy might, not like he's crushed under the weight of a thousand fears. "I just- maybe a bit much? For now?"
"Of course," Tatsumi says, pushing himself back at once. The voice may cry for more, but Tatsumi is a patient man, and he can wait until Mayoi is ready.
"Why did you bite me?" Mayoi asks, and it's so genuinely confused that Tatsumi actually does laugh this time.
_______
What is desire, if not another facet of obsession?
_______
When Mayoi performs, Tatsumi thinks: He's beautiful.
When Mayoi performs, Tatsumi thinks: He's skilled.
When Mayoi performs, the sickness thinks: Take him to the top.
_______
The problem with hiding a sickness is that when symptoms do spill through, people don't know why it's happening, so they make their own conclusions.
Case in point: Mayoi has come to realize that Tatsumi is abnormal. He hasn't said anything, but Tatsumi can feel it. He knows he's had one too many close calls, knows he's hugged a little too tight and requested extra practice a little too much and kissed like it might be his last every single time. He knows these slips, knows his own cracks, because he's beating back worse ones every single day. The ones that manage to get through are the ones that were negligible enough to not have as much of a grip on.
Evidently, small things pile up. And now Mayoi knows.
_______
Take him to the top, the sickness says.
I'll take us to Hell first, Tatsumi replies.
_______
Tatsumi is expecting retribution.
Revenge, absolution, flaying- in simpler terms, heartbreak. Mayoi has glimpsed his sickness, and Tatsumi knows what comes next. It won't be pleasant. It never is. But it's par for the course.
So when Mayoi's can we talk is not followed up with a goodbye but with an are you okay, well. What is Tatsumi supposed to do with that?
"Of course, Mayoi-san," he says, because he is a liar. "Are you okay?"
Flipping the conversation does not work. Mayoi frowns, almost dejected but not quite, and brings his knees up to his chest. "You've just been, well," Mayoi starts, then worries his lip again, and Tatsumi wants nothing more than to steal one last kiss. "You've been somewhat off? I think?"
"Have I," Tatsumi says. It's meant to be a question, but it doesn't sound much like one. Too busy beating back his own panic to have any control over his tone.
When Mayoi pulls at his lip like this, it's a wonder that he doesn't ruin it completely. His teeth are so sharp, and his nerves are so often fried, how does he stop himself from scarring? Perhaps he takes it out most on the insides of his cheeks. Would he let Tatsumi see? Maybe next time, he would let Tatsumi trace the scarring that most likely marrs his mouth.
Oh. There might not be a next time, after this.
Mayoi's saying something. Tatsumi forgot to listen again. "... Distracted, I guess, though maybe that's not the right word…" Oh, irony. God's favorite joke to play. "Anyway! I just wanted to say, well-" Mayoi sits up a but straighter, though his knees stay close to his chin. Compact, tight, and robotic, but not hiding. It's a new look for him. "You help me so much," Do I? "And I know I, um, can be a lot," Never, "So I wanted you to know, that is- should you need me," Always. "I'm here."
Mayoi doesn't know what he's offering. He doesn't know the mines that lay under his feet.
"Tatsumi-san?" Mayoi says, and this time it's with stark alarm. Oh, not good, not good. He can't imagine what his face might be doing if it's made Mayoi so nervous-
Heat, gathering in his eyes.
Ah.
_______
If desire and obsession are intertwined, how is he supposed to know where desire ends and where rot begins?
_______
"Don't say something like that," Tatsumi says, marveling from outside his body at how level his voice still is. "Please."
"But- !"
Tatsumi shakes his head. It's sweet of Mayoi, it really is, but he doesn't know what he's saying. He doesn't know what he's getting into at all.
He never did, if Tatsumi really thinks about it.
"Why shouldn't I?" Mayoi asks- no, demands. That's new. Mayoi does not demand. He questions, begs, ponders, and stutters, but he doesn't demand. When did that start? It's almost wonderful. "Why should you get to- to tell me all these things, and be there for me, but- but I can't do the same for you?" His voice cracks, yet somehow, his eyes remain dry. Turned tables indeed. "Aren't we partners?" he asks, and Tatsumi is a weak man.
Are we? Does a partnership count if one side hides all the rot that makes up their insides? Does a partnership count if one side is unaware of the evil they hold in their hands?
"Aren't we?" Mayoi asks again, quieter, desperate, and Tatsumi is weak, weak, weak.
So he says, "Yes," and he says, "I'm sorry," and he says, "It's not-"
And he breaks.
_______
Tatsumi's father has told him that he's unsettling when he's sad.
Not pitiful. Not alarming. Not even scary. Unsettling.
When Tatsumi asked for clarification, his father had paused, stared into the air like he'd spoken a secret, then sighed in the resigned way one might sigh at a tipped over pan in front of the oven. "You become completely quiet," he had said, placing a hand on Tatsumi's shoulder, "and you cry, but your face doesn't change. You don't make a sound."
"Isn't that good?" Tatsumi had asked. Children aren't supposed to disrupt.
Tatsumi's father had looked very, very sad then, as his gaze lingered. "Not when I need to help you."
_______
Tatsumi does not break like most people.
This makes sense, of course. Tatsumi does not desire like most people, feel happy like most people, live like most people, so it wouldn't be a reach to say he does not feel sad like most people.
When Mayoi breaks, he shatters. Gasping, aborted breaths, shuddering movement that he can scarcely control, and an endless tumble of scattering words that never seem to make sense but all amount to apologies and flagellation.
Tatsumi can handle the way Mayoi breaks. The shrapnel wedges in his chest, and the pieces are so small, but they're there, and he can put the work in to put them back together. It takes time, as all repair work does, and sometimes, he's not the best one for it. He's a temporary fix, at most. But by the end, he can bring Mayoi back in one piece. He can make him weathered, but whole.
Tatsumi does not break like that. Tatsumi's not really sure how he breaks. He doesn't let it happen enough to see.
_______
Is breaking the same as rotting?
_______
Bare hands on his face.
Knees against his.
Words in his ears.
There are things, many things, happening around him, but he's not really sure what to do with them. This is how it always is. He breaks, he watches, he comes back together. It just takes time. Nobody sees him break, but when they do, it doesn't matter. He's underwater, watching from below, and the world is above him, putting things back together.
Maybe Tatsumi breaks like a machine. A cog gone rusty. A wire snapped. Perfectly put together on the surface, but behind the veneer of metal and smoke, out of commission.
Bare hands on his face.
Knees against his.
Words in his ears.
Bare hands…?
_______
If he was born with it, then there may be no way to excise it. What good is praying?
_______
I'm fine, is what Tatsumi means to say, but what comes out is, "I'm sick."
Mayoi's hands still from where they lay against his cheeks. Bare. He's never felt Mayoi's bare hands before, rarely even gotten to see them. He can't see them now, but he can feel them. They have callouses that scratch on his cheeks. He thought they'd be softer.
"Sick?" Mayoi repeats. He seems a bit apprehensive at the idea- Tatsumi never took him for a germaphobe, what with the vents and the walls, but perhaps it's different when it comes to sickness between breaths.
So Tatsumi shakes his head, which takes more effort than he'd like to admit, and says, "Not like that." He taps at his chest with frail fingers, and waits for the walls to cave in. "Here."
"Tatsumi-san…" Mayoi trails off, lending his gaze to Tatsumi's fingers, but his hands stay where they are and Tatsumi savors it. This will probably be the last and only time he'll ever feel this skin, so he has to. It's much easier to focus on long fingers and calluses than heat on his cheeks and eyes on his shame.
He shrugs once. "You've seen it," he says, gesturing to- well, not really anything in specific. Himself. "Haven't you?"
"I haven't," Mayoi replies with a shake of the head. "I don't know what you mean."
Still? He must know by now, he must. Perhaps he doesn't know what he's seen, doesn't have the words for it.
But Mayoi doesn't look disgusted at all. He looks nervous- almost scared- but not…of Tatsumi, exactly. Because his hands are still there, thumbs in the creases under Tatsumi's eyes, wiping away tears he can't feel being shed.
Why isn't he leaving?
"Do you mean," Mayoi hesitates, not lifting his gaze, "sick, as in…bad?"
Sick as in rotten. Sick as in sin. Bad is an all-encompassing word that feels so much lighter than what it is, but that's if that's the word Mayoi wants to use, then Tatsumi will give it to him.
So Tatsumi says, "Yes," and watches as Mayoi- smiles.
It's a watery smile. It's barely a smile at all. It's not really happy, either, a sad, hurt kind of thing, but it's still a smile. "Well, that's not true at all, then," he says, and it's too warm, too gentle, too kind, he doesn't see-
_______
Acknowledgement of a presence does not mean peace has been reached. Tatsumi accepted a long, long time ago that there is a sickness in his heart.
Perhaps he still has not accepted that the sickness will take everyone he loves.
_______
"I am," Tatsumi whispers. When did his voice become a whisper? "You've seen it."
Mayoi shakes his head again. "I think you're one of the kindest people I know, Tatsumi-san."
Mayoi holds him on a pedestal, he knows this. But he did not say pure. He said kind.
"I'm not-"
"You are. " Another demand. It shuts Tatsumi's mouth with a snap. "I- I don't know why you think such a thing, but you've certainly been kind to me, and it- I mean, you've helped me be better. That's kind."
"You do not believe me when I say you are kind," Tatsumi points out, if anything, to deflect from the words he doesn't want to hear.
Mayoi purses his lips. "This isn't about me," he says. It's spoken with finality. There is a blatant unspoken message: we are talking about you. You cannot run.
And oh, does Tatsumi want to run.
"You don't," Tatsumi starts, stops, waits. Waits for better words to come. Waits for something to get through his broken machinery. "You don't know the things I think."
"But I know what you do. " Hasn't he heard this somewhere before? An echo of past conversations, of broken pieces and mending with fire and gold.
Mayoi knows what Tatsumi does for him. "I ruined everything," he says. There are ghosts in front of his eyes- his school, his students, his followers. Kaname. "I ruined them."
"Not everything," Mayoi insists. "You're- I mean, you're still here, aren't you?"
Isn't he.
The beat of silence that follows is uncomfortable and stifling. "...I think things would be much more ruined if you weren't," Mayoi continues quietly. "I'm so happy you're here."
Tatsumi thinks he's crying again. Did he ever stop crying?
"I'm sick, " he says again, meaning, I'll ruin you, too.
"I am too," Mayoi says, meaning, try.
_______
Gravitation and obsession. Tatsumi only knows these. Never anything else.
Human desire. Neither positive or negative. Are these facets the same? Can obsession lead to anything other than ruin?
________
Tatsumi breaks, and Mayoi mends.
He's not sure what did it. He's not even sure that he's whole. But Mayoi pushed through the metal and smoke and found his broken cogs, made note of his snapped wires, and did what he could. He always was better with technology.
Mayoi is sick. Tatsumi knows this. He has issues that could fill a therapist's whole notebook in a day. He's sick in the way that Tatsumi knows is not the fault of anyone, certainly not Mayoi's, sick in the way that he's lived a life that could not be exited unscathed.
Tatsumi is sick with rot. Tatsumi ruins, ruins, and ruins. Should anyone see his sickness, he promised he'd lock himself away and take it to Hell.
But Mayoi saw, and said stay. Right here.
What was Tatsumi supposed to do? There's no other answer he can give him. So he responds as he always has.
_______
Tatsumi called Mayoi beautiful when they first met. Gravitation made its pull.