Archive of Our Own

To be touched is to be hurt.

That’s how it’s always been, so when Chihiro reaches out to hand him a handkerchief to staunch his bleeding nose, Hakuri flinches away. The handkerchief drifts down onto the tabletop and Hakuri scrabbles for it before Chihiro can pick it up for him, and he can’t quite bring himself to meet his gaze. His heart is racing and his chest tightens because the feel of another person’s skin touching his tells him that pain is next. It tells him that Soya’s about to burst into his room and yank him up by the wrist and inform him that he’s lazy, but it’s okay because his big brother’s here to help.

There’s a slight furrow in Chihiro’s brow when Hakuri wads up the handkerchief and holds it to his face but Hakuri doesn’t have it in him right now to parse meaning from that expression. His head is throbbing and darkness pulses at the edges of his vision.

It hurts, but he’s been hurt before.

He flinches again when Chihiro asks Char to heal him. He’s never been healed before. It’s a rare kind of sorcery – rarer than anything else, he thinks – but he’s sure that his father could have found someone if he’d really wanted to. Instead he’d done nothing as Hakuri’s siblings left him curled up in the dirt, his arms lifted in a futile attempt to protect his head. Hakuri had waited for the pain to fade from crippling to merely agonising so that he could push himself shakily to his feet and stagger off to his room, and then he’d done his best to tend to his own wounds. It had always been hard but he’d grown used to it over the years, having to gently wipe the blood from his broken skin and press down on his ribs to feel if they were cracked or merely bruised.

Char seems to sense something of his hesitation and she pauses, her arm outstretched where she was reaching for him. Hakuri grits his teeth and nods. She’s not going to hurt you, he tells himself, but his body doesn’t listen because his muscles tense as though he’s bracing for impact.

There’s no pain. The pounding in his skull vanishes and when he blinks he can see clearly again. Char smiles up at him, the sleeves of her oversized coat hanging down by her knees.

“Better?” she asks.

“Y—yeah,” Hakuri says, his voice shaky. “That’s better.”

“Here.” Hinao comes over with a damp cloth and when he goes to take it from her she waves him away. “You won’t be able to see what you’re doing,” she says, gesturing for him to tilt his head up while she wipes the blood from his face.

Hakuri closes his eyes when he feels the warm cloth against his skin and he tries not to cry again. Nobody’s ever wiped the blood from his skin before. Not when he was a little kid who fell over and skinned his knees and certainly not when Soya smacked his head off the ground and left him dizzy, his ears ringing and his white hair streaked with red.

“Good as new,” Hinao says. He opens his eyes and she flashes a sunny smile at him. When was the last time someone smiled at him, before today?

He supposes that people might have smiled at him out of politeness on occasion. It’s hard to remember. The period of time between his exile from the Sazanami family and the day he’d seen that lightning strike Chihiro is lost in a haze. He’d wandered from place to place like he was wading through waist-deep water, fog obscuring his vision and his thoughts thick and slow. That lightning strike had banished the fog and lit his heart ablaze, and when he looks across the table and Chihiro catches his eye he can feel that spark ignited once more.

Hakuri draws himself up, sitting up straight in his chair instead of slouching to make himself smaller. He fixes Chihiro with as determined an expression as he can manage. They’re going to stop the Rakuzaichi, and Hakuri’s going to help them.

“I’ll tell you everything I know,” he says, “about the Sazanami storehouse.”

*

Once, when he was younger – but still old enough that his inability to do an Isou was starkly apparent – his sister had held his wrist in a grip like a vice and Tenri had bent his fingers back until he thought they were going to snap like twigs. He can’t remember what he’d done to earn that punishment. Probably it was when Tenri had started getting good – really good – and he’d been furious at Hakuri’s failure to keep up with him. So, when Chihiro hands him a mug of hot tea in the morning and his hand brushes Hakuri’s he winces and drops it. The tea spills all over the floor and cracks into three big pieces of broken crockery.

“I’m sorry!” Hakuri drops to his knees and scoops up the pieces, the tea scalding his hands.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Chihiro squats down and reaches to grab his wrists, but he pauses before he touches his skin. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Hinao’s mug—”

“She won’t care.” Chihiro holds out his hands and motions for Hakuri to give him the broken mug. “I got her café destroyed. She won’t mind that we broke a mug.”

We. Hakuri was the one who dropped it, because even though he knows that Chihiro’s a good guy – he got himself struck by lightning so that no bystanders would get hurt during his fight with Sojo – his body won’t listen to him.

“You’re hurt.”

“What?”

“Your hand.” Chihiro frowns and motions again for Hakuri to give him the pieces. This time Hakuri relents and passes them over. When his skin touches Hakuri’s there’s a jolt of static between them; a little of that lightning passing over. Chihiro stands and dumps the broken mug into the trash, then grabs a towel and tosses it into the puddle of spilled tea to soak it up.

Hakuri gets to his feet and looks down at his shaking hands. His palms are red and splotchy from the scalding tea and there’s a thin line of red cutting across one of them. He must have cut himself when he hastily grabbed the broken shards of the mug. He didn’t even notice. It’s barely more than a papercut; a few drops of blood bead on his skin and he rubs at them with a finger, smearing it around.

“Don’t do that,” Chihiro says. “Come on. There’s a first-aid kit in the bathroom. We’ll bandage it and Char can heal you when she gets up.”

“I don’t need—”

“Hakuri,” says Chihiro, his voice soft but firm. “Come on.”

It’s still early, and nobody else is up yet. Chihiro and Shiba will be heading to the Sazanami estate today to confront his father, and a shiver of nervousness goes through him when he thinks of the steel in Kyora Sazanami’s eyes when he’d exiled his own son and banished him to the streets.

“Can I see your hand?” Chihiro asks when they’re in the bathroom and Hakuri’s sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. His voice is gentle, like it’s okay if Hakuri keeps his fist clenched and tells him no.

But he doesn’t. He takes a deep breath and holds it out, and he reminds himself that when they first met, Chihiro had saved his life. He’s holding out his hand and this isn’t Soya pulling him out of his room to throw him down into the dirt. Chihiro takes his hand and Hakuri doesn’t flinch.

“Okay,” he says, squatting down and inspecting it with his brows furrowed in concentration. “It’s not deep.”

Hakuri nods. He knows that it’s not deep; it was just a broken mug. It wasn’t the cold bite of a blade pulled from the Sazanami storehouse. Chihiro must know that this isn’t a serious injury, too. He’s cut down more criminals by now than Hakuri would have thought possible. The history he’d told him when he’d brought him back here was drenched in blood.

Still, he takes a small tube of antiseptic cream from the first aid kit lying open on the edge of the sink and dabs it on the wound. This isn’t necessary, Hakuri almost says before he stops himself. It isn’t necessary because it’s not a deep wound, and Char will heal it anyway. But he doesn’t stop him because this is something he’s never felt before. His fingertip is as light as a feather when he touches it to the reddened skin of his palm, and his other hand holds Hakuri’s only loosely.

It's gentle. It’s nice. When Hakuri had seen Chihiro fight Sojo it had lit his apathetic soul on fire, but seeing him crouched before him in this bathroom, tending his wounds, feels more akin to candlelight.

“I’ll put a bandage on it,” says Chihiro, taking a length of gauze and wrapping it around his hand. Hakuri nods, and when Chihiro’s finished tying it he finds he doesn’t want him to let go. He wants him to keep holding his hand.

“You okay, Hakuri?” Chihiro asks. He hasn’t let go. His thumb rubs over the pinkish skin where the tea burned him. “Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” breathes Hakuri. “I—I’m sorry.”

Chihiro shakes his head. “It was my fault,” he says. “I thought you had the mug, so I let go. Don’t worry about it, alright?”

It wasn’t Chihiro’s fault. Hakuri knows that and Chihiro knows it too. But he’s giving him this; he’s telling him that he understands what happened. Of course he understands. He understood from that first moment when their hands had brushed together and Hakuri had flinched away from him.

“Alright,” Hakuri says, and as he does he thinks he can see the slightest smile on Chihiro’s face.

*

If he was starting to forget what it was to be touched – and to be hurt – then when he rounds the corner on his way to run an errand for Hinao he’s quickly reminded. He only freezes for a moment before he knows what to do.

Hakuri won’t let Soya hurt him again.

He leaps off the stairs and into the open sky but Soya won’t even grant him that escape. Hakuri can feel the devastation in his voice when he tells him how he’s been searching for him, when he tells him how much he’s missed him, and beneath that devastation he can hear the thud of Soya’s boot connecting with his ribs as he kicks and kicks until they crack. He can hear the ringing in his ears when his skull collides with the hard-packed earth and he can hear himself choking as his mouth fills up with blood.

To be touched is to be hurt.

Soya reminds him of that when he comes for him. When Hakuri shouts for Hinao to run away, Soya punches him in the face, tears streaming down his cheeks as blood streams from Hakuri’s nose.

“She—she’s got nothing to do with this,” he hisses, grabbing Soya by the ankle because he’s not just going to curl up and take it anymore. “You’re the ones who’re crazy—”

When Shiba appears he thinks for a moment that things might be okay, because Shiba whisks Soya away up into the sky and Hinao squats down and tells him all about how they had a plan for something like this. She asks him if he’s okay and she puts a hand on his shoulder, and even though his face is still smarting from Soya’s fist, he doesn’t pull away. He smiles up at her and wipes the blood from his face with the back of his hand, but before his heart can stop racing he blinks and all of a sudden he’s back home.

Home.

“You led them here,” spits his father as he falls to the ground.

It’s not home. It never was.

“Father—” Hakuri looks up in shock. He can hear Soya’s delighted exclamation and both Chihiro and Shiba look just as surprised as he is. Shiba must’ve brought Soya back here, but how—

“I can retrieve, at will, any item registered in the storehouse.” He slowly lowers his blade to Hakuri’s throat as he explains and Hakuri feels his heart sink.

He was registered to the storehouse. Like a possession. Like a tool. Like an asset.

“So,” continues his father. He gives Hakuri a swift kick in the side and he falls flat on his face. He can taste dirt on his lips, and it’s a taste he knows well. “He’s your precious informant. Would you like him back?”

Hakuri just about manages to lift his chin and he sees Shiba staring over at his father, his face a mask of stone. “Too bad,” he says calmly. “He’s already told us everything he knows. Besides, we barely know him. Do what you want with him.”

Shiba doesn’t meet his eyes, but Chihiro does. Sweat is beading on his brow and his jaw is clenched. He’s holding his sword so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. It’s okay, he wants to say to them. I understand. He’s helped them as much as he can and in return he got to know what it was like to be cared for, even if it was just for a little while.

“I’ll leave your family matters alone,” Shiba adds.

His father’s heel grinds him into the dirt and his blade is at his throat, and Hakuri thinks that it’s almost as sharp as his words.

“What are you looking at?” snarls his father. “My trembling hand? Do you think I’m hesitating? Far from it. I’m trembling with rage and sadness.”

Hakuri’s taken off guard by another kick to the ribs, sharp and sudden. He coughs and puts his palm flat on the ground to try and push himself up, but the blade is back at his throat. It’s okay, he tries to tell himself this time. He wills his heart to slow because he knows what’s going to happen and it’s inevitable. He was willing to die when he leapt off the edge of the building to avoid Soya, and he’s willing to die now if it means that Chihiro can stop the Rakuzaichi.

“This pathetic wretch was born a Sazanami,” he continues, still not done with tearing him down before he slits his throat, “but he can’t even do sorcery. He’s useless. Worse, he’s a hinderance.” Another kick. “His life is worthless.”

He remembers the way he’d been before he’d seen Chihiro, the way he’d walked around as nothing but a shell after being sent away. He’d felt like nothing. He’d been nothing.

“But even so, it would sadden me to kill my own son,” sighs his father. It feels more like a performance than the truth, something to remind Hakuri of how badly he failed him. “At first, I thought merely to banish him, but my benevolence was wasted.” The sword is at his throat again, the cold bite of the metal pressed against his skin. It stings. He’s made a cut, a mark to tell him where to aim. “Once more, he’s caused nothing but trouble.” Hakuri’s face is pressed into the dirt and he can taste bitter iron on his tongue. “And now it seems he’s worthless even as a hostage.”

His father lifts the sword from his neck. This is it. It’s over. He closes his eyes and he thinks about Chihiro’s thumb brushing over his palm, the warmth of his skin against his.

“So be it—”

“Wait.”

Hakuri’s eyes snap open and he lifts his head to see Chihiro sheathing Enten. He blinks and his vision swims.

“As far as I’m concerned,” says Chihiro, his voice level and measured, “Hakuri is worth quite a lot.”

No. Hakuri looks up at him in disbelief. How could someone like him be worth anything to someone like Chihiro? Shiba was right, he’s told them all he can. He isn’t worth anything anymore. The venom of his father’s words still stings where they echo in his mind. A hinderance. Pathetic. Worthless.

“That guy saved me.” There isn’t the slightest hint of hesitation when Chihiro says it.

“In that case,” sneers his father, “show me what he’s worth to you.”

And in one smooth movement, Chihiro takes the sheathed Enten from his belt and sets it down on the ground.

*

Even though I wasn’t sure, you gave me the confidence to let it go.

That’s what Chihiro had said, but Hakuri still can’t help the guilt which sits heavy in his heart as they make their way back to Hinao’s apartment. He winces as they walk up the stairs, and he deliberately looks down at his feet when they pass the spot where Soya caught him. There’s a twinge in his side; though he’s cleaned the blood from his face, his ribs still hurt from being kicked. He thinks they’re going to bruise.

I realised that no matter what happens, it’s still mine.

Chihiro can still use Enten. He’d discovered that in the car. Recon, he called it. He’d charged the sword with spirit energy before they’d even gone to the Sazanami estate, and he’s proven now that it works. He can send those little fishes swimming through the air in the storehouse looking for information. Hakuri had spent the rest of the car journey recounting every single detail he could think of about that accursed place, because Chihiro gave up his sword to save his life and he doesn’t want him to regret that.

It's late, and they need to get some rest because it’s going to be a long day tomorrow. Chihiro and Shiba are going to be planning their next moves and they’re going to need Hakuri to answer any questions they might have about the storehouse or the Rakuzaichi itself.

Chihiro and Shiba were apparently staying somewhere else before Chihiro had defeated Sojo, but after that they started using Hinao’s apartment as their base of operations. Hakuri’s not sure what Hinao gets out of this and he’s too afraid to ask, because he’s been sleeping on the couch since they brought him here and he doesn’t want to be out on the streets again. Especially not now, when his side hurts and his face hurts and for some reason he can’t stop shaking. They all say goodnight to Char and Hinao herds her off to their shared bedroom, and before Shiba calls it a night he pauses in the doorway of the living room.

“We’ll get started tomorrow,” he says, and his eyes drift from Chihiro to Hakuri. “Will you be okay?”

Hakuri nods. The second that Shiba had teleported them all back here, Chihiro had said that what had happened wasn’t anyone’s fault. He’d said that everything went exactly as he’d planned.

But the guilt won’t seem to leave.

“’Night, then.”

When it’s just the two of them, Hakuri glances at the couch. He doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to sleep. He’s exhausted but he’s also not; the adrenaline is still coursing through his veins and he can hear the drum of his heart pounding in his ears. He knows that he’s going to be up all night, tossing and turning in the dark. He’s going to be staring up at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the city go by, wondering how Chihiro could possibly have thought his life worth enough to let Enten go.

No matter what happens, it’s still mine.

But, he didn’t let it go, did he?

“Hakuri,” says Chihiro, taking a step closer to him. Hakuri’s eyes drift down to his hip where Enten usually sits. It looks strangely naked, now. It makes him look off-balance.

“I’m sorry,” Hakuri whispers.

“You already said that,” says Chihiro, his voice soft, “and I already told you that it’s not your fault.”

“If I—” he starts to say, but he’s stopped when Chihiro puts a hand on his shoulder. He just rests it there, and the pain of Soya’s fist cracking against his jaw and his father’s boot in his side seems to fade a little.

“It’s not your fault,” Chihiro says again. “Hakuri, are you hurt?”

“No.” He pauses. Chihiro’s eyes are boring into him, a crimson so deep he feels like he could fall into them and drown. “Maybe a little,” he concedes.

“You shouldn’t sleep on the couch.”

Before Hakuri can say anything to that, Chihiro’s motioning for him to follow. He can’t deny that it’s not the most comfortable place to sleep; it’s too small for him, and his legs end up hanging over the edge. He follows Chihiro out into the hall and turns off the light on the way. Shiba and Chihiro both have their own rooms, though neither of them are really big enough for two.

“I can’t take your bed,” Hakuri whispers when Chihiro pushes open the door to his room. It’s only just wide enough for a narrow single bed and a nightstand. There isn’t even enough room for them to put a futon on the floor.

“You’re hurt.” Chihiro switches on the bedside lamp and shuts the door. “Is it your side?”

Hakuri nods and wraps his arms around himself awkwardly. Chihiro gestures for him to sit on the bed and he’s reminded of when he sat him down in the bathroom so that he could wrap a bandage around his hand. He wants that again. He wants to feel a touch that doesn’t hurt him. He sits on the mattress and rests his hands on his knees, waiting for Chihiro to tell him what to do.

“I want to check if your ribs are broken,” says Chihiro, crouching down so he can look up at him. “If it’s okay, can you take off your shirt?”

He’s only ever taken off his shirt in the privacy of his room before, after getting a beating and stripping down to check the damage. He would do it alone then, with the door closed so that nobody would see his eyes welling with tears if they happened to walk past. He would stand in front of the mirror and stare at the blur of red blood and purple bruises. Sometimes they would be so dark that they’d almost look black. He looks down at Chihiro with his red eyes and his black hair, waiting for him to say something or to do something, and he nods.

“Okay,” he says, his voice wavering because he’s still shaking, even though he isn’t cold.

Chihiro doesn’t tell him to hurry up as he slowly takes off his sweater and folds it neatly, setting it down beside himself. He waits patiently for him to unbutton his white shirt and set that aside as well. Last is the black shirt he wears under that, and when he pulls it up over his head Hakuri can feel his face grow hot.

“It looks like it’s starting to bruise,” Chihiro says with a frown. He rests a hand on Hakuri’s knee and looks up at him, the glow of the lamp shining golden in his eyes. “Hakuri, can I—is it okay if I touch you?”

“What?” Hakuri’s heart is in his throat. He thinks that if Soya were to put his hand on his ribs it would only be to break them.

“It might hurt,” continues Chihiro. “I just want to press down where you’re injured. Not too hard—” he adds quickly, “only enough to know if it’s broken or just bruised.”

“I think it’s just bruised,” says Hakuri, because he knows what broken ribs feel like. “But, you can check.”

Chihiro keeps one hand on his knee and with the other he reaches for him. When the tips of his fingers brush Hakuri’s skin he flinches and Chihiro pulls back.

“Sorry,” he says quickly.

“It doesn’t hurt,” says Hakuri. “It’s just—I—I’m not used to this.” It seems like a feeble way of explaining it. This. He doesn’t know how to name what it is he feels when someone touches him and it doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t know how to convince his body that when Chihiro reaches for him, there won’t be agony to follow. “It’s okay. You can check.”

Chihiro squeezes his knee in reassurance and this time when he touches him, Hakuri feels a little of the weight he’s been carrying since they left the estate seem to lift from his shoulders. He doesn’t flinch, though his heart is still racing.

“Does that hurt?” Chihiro asks, pressing down lightly on his bruised ribs.

“A little,” says Hakuri. There’s a throb of pain beneath his fingers, but it’s bearable. Definitely not broken. Chihiro presses a little harder and Hakuri hisses. "Ow.”

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Chihiro mutters, moving his hand over his ribs to feel along the lengths of each one. “I still don’t think you should sleep on the couch.”

“I can’t take your bed.” Hakuri shakes his head. “Not after—”

“Don’t.” Chihiro grabs his hands so suddenly that Hakuri stops in the middle of his sentence and stares at him with wide eyes. He brushes his thumbs over his knuckles and frowns up at him. “Stop blaming yourself. I told you I had a plan, right?”

“But—”

“If I hadn’t planned it, I wouldn’t have charged Enten with my spirit energy, right?” His expression softens and Hakuri thinks he can see that small smile again. “You gave me the confidence to do it. To know that I could give it up and it would still be mine. Do you believe me?”

Hakuri nods slowly, because as guilty as he feels about what happened, he does trust Chihiro. He looks down at their hands; Chihiro’s still brushing his thumbs lightly over his knuckles, and when he notices Hakuri looking he laces their fingers together.

“What—what are you doing?” Hakuri whispers. He knows that he’s blushing and all of a sudden he’s very conscious that he still has his shirt off.

“I don’t know,” Chihiro whispers back. “We should get some sleep.”

When he lets go of his hands and stands up to leave, Hakuri opens his mouth and he finds himself speaking before his mind can have a chance to catch up with his words.

“We can both fit in here,” he says, and Chihiro stops in his tracks.

“Hakuri—”

“I—I mean,” Hakuri stammers, “you need to make sure you sleep well if you’re going to be using Enten remotely tomorrow. If—if you don’t want me to sleep on the couch, we can both probably fit. Uh, if you want—”

“Okay.”

Hakuri blinks. He wasn’t expecting that. He isn’t sure what he was expecting. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Chihiro folds his arms and glances at the single pillow resting on the bed and then back at Hakuri. “I’ll stay.”

*

Hakuri’s been borrowing Chihiro’s pyjamas because when he was rescued he didn’t have anything but the clothes on his back, and when he’s changed into them and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed his heart is set to racing once again when Chihiro comes back into the room wearing the same ones. They’re plain and black, just like the rest of Chihiro’s clothes, a t-shirt and pants which are just slightly too big for Hakuri.

He stands up and Chihiro looks at him questioningly as he pulls back the covers. He doesn’t ask why Hakuri was waiting for him instead of getting into bed, and if he did ask, Hakuri wouldn’t be able to answer. He’s nervous. He’s nervous because he’s never shared a bed with anyone before and he wants to. He’s nervous because everyone else’s touch makes him cringe away in fear before but Chihiro’s makes him want more.

Chihiro gets under the covers and beckons for Hakuri. He’s shuffled right up against the wall to make room for him, and as Hakuri climbs in beside him he reaches over and switches off the lamp.

It’s dark, but Hakuri can still just about see. He lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling, acutely aware of Chihiro’s presence beside him. He can feel the warmth of him, the weight where the mattress sinks down slightly beneath him. He glances at Chihiro out of the corner of his eye; he’s rolled onto his side to face the wall, and Hakuri wonders what he would do if he put his arm around him.

He doesn’t know why that thought popped into his mind. He grits his teeth and stares back up at the ceiling instead. They’re supposed to be resting for tomorrow, but he doesn’t think he’s going to get much sleep. He’s going to close his eyes and listen to the sounds of cars passing by and he’s going to think about Chihiro’s fingers laced with his and Chihiro’s hand touching the bare skin of his chest.

“Hakuri?” whispers Chihiro after a while. He’s not sure how long. “Can’t you sleep?”

“I can’t sleep,” Hakuri mumbles.  

“I can’t sleep, either.”

The bed creaks as Chihiro rolls over to face him and Hakuri turns as well. The bed’s too narrow for two, really, and when they’re facing each other like this there’s barely more than a couple of inches between them on the pillow. Hakuri’s heart is pounding so loudly in his chest he thinks that Chihiro might even be able to hear it.

“You asked me what I was doing before,” says Chihiro, reaching out and brushing Hakuri’s bangs out of his face. He tucks the longer strands behind his ear and it’s a kind of touch that Hakuri wants more of. Like all of Chihiro’s touches, he supposes. “I said I didn’t know.”

“Do you know now?” he asks, hardly daring to hope that it might be what he wants as well.

“Yes.” Chihiro trails a finger over his jaw and cups his cheek in his hand and Hakuri shuffles forward. There isn’t much of a gap to close but he can feel the surge of electricity when his foot brushes against Chihiro’s shin and he sucks in a breath.

“Can—can you tell me?” he just about manages to say. Chihiro still has his hand on his cheek and his thumb comes to rest on his lips.

“Hakuri,” he breathes. “I was—I was thinking that I wanted to kiss you.”

He must have misheard. Maybe he managed to fall asleep after all, and now he’s dreaming, because when he’d seen Chihiro use himself as a lightning rod it had lit his heart on fire, and he can feel that wildfire igniting in him again. Chihiro wanted to kiss him. Chihiro wants to kiss him, because his thumb’s still resting on his lips and his eyes are searching Hakuri’s for an answer.

“I want that as well,” he says at last, and he closes his eyes as Chihiro closes the rest of that small gap between them and he kisses him.  

Hakuri’s never known a touch like this before. This is a touch which doesn’t hurt; instead he can feel the electricity, the fire, the surge of warmth coursing through his veins at the soft press of Chihiro’s lips. When they pull apart he feels breathless and his hand comes up to cover Chihiro’s, still resting against his cheek.

“Why?” he murmurs, because he can’t quite believe that Chihiro would want this. That Chihiro would want him.

“Hakuri,” he says, taking his hand and lacing their fingers together again. “You were raised your whole life to honour the Rakuzaichi above all else, and you still want to stop it. You threw yourself in front of the Flame Bone of the Starving so I wouldn’t take the hit. You got yourself dragged off by criminals to save a little girl.”

“That—that’s why you wanted to kiss me?”

“I wanted to kiss you because I like you.” Chihiro’s so close to him on the pillow that he can rest his forehead against his, and Hakuri lets go of him so that he can put his hand on Chihiro’s chest instead, feeling the beating of his heart which he thinks might be racing almost as much as his own. “And I like you because of the kind of person you are. You’re a good guy, Hakuri.”

“A good guy.” Hakuri can barely see his face in the darkness, but there’s just enough light that he can see the glimmer in his eyes. That was what he’d called him when he’d first brought him back here, when he’d convinced Shiba to let him stay and Char to heal him. When he’d first shown him that to be touched didn’t necessarily mean to be hurt.

Hakuri leans forward and kisses him again, and this time Chihiro slides his arm around his waist to pull him close. His tongue touches Hakuri’s lips and Hakuri’s mouth opens for it, and when he feels the heat of it sliding against his own he moans into his mouth. He didn’t expect it to feel like this. He didn’t know that it could feel like this. If it was a fire before then now it’s an inferno, a swirling firestorm inside him as bright and warm as the light of the sun.

Chihiro kisses him and keeps kissing him, his hand rubbing up his back and a leg resting against his. Hakuri thinks that he could keep doing this forever. He thinks he wants to keep doing this forever, or all night at least, but they have to break apart eventually.

“We’re going to stop the Rakuzaichi,” says Chihiro, his voice low as he reaches to brush Hakuri’s hair out of his face again. “We’re going to stop it together.”

Together. Ever since he proved himself to be a failure of a sorcerer he’s been told that he’s worthless. That he’ll never do anything. He’s been cut down by words and kicked down onto the ground. But now there’s Chihiro, and he’s telling him something different. He’s showing him something different. Chihiro pulls him into his arms and Hakuri closes his eyes when he feels him press a kiss to the top of his head.

The exhaustion of the day seems to finally be setting in. His ribs are still throbbing and his side is probably going to be black and blue in a matter of days, but that doesn’t matter. Chihiro holds him tight and before he drifts off to sleep he hears his voice again.

“Thank you,” he says.

“For what?” Hakuri’s voice is muffled where his face is pressed against the crook of his neck.

“For showing me that Enten’s still mine, even when it isn’t in my hand.” He kisses the top of his head again and Hakuri smiles. “For showing me what I didn’t know I could do.”

“We’ll get it back,” he murmurs.

“Hakuri, do you—” Chihiro pauses, the slightest hint of nervousness in his voice. “Do you want to stay with me tomorrow, too?”

“Tomorrow,” says Hakuri. He thinks about how things used to be. Every night he’d go to bed and he’d lie awake, dreading what the next day might bring and what new pain would be waiting for him with every fresh sunrise. “Yeah,” he yawns, and there’s no fear left in him now because this is what it’s supposed to be like to be touched. In Chihiro’s arms he can feel the glow of that fire warming him like the hearth of a home. “And after that, as well, if you want me to.” That last part slips out almost as an afterthought.

“I want you to,” echoes Chihiro. “Hakuri, I need you to.”

I need you.

Hakuri’s father had said that he was worthless with a blade at his throat. Soya had told him that he missed him and followed it with a fist to his face. But none of that seems to matter now. I need you. Those were the words Hakuri had said when he’d first met Chihiro, and now Chihiro’s saying them to him.

He’d once been drifting through his life in an apathetic fog until a lightning strike had cleared away the haze. He’d once thought that to be touched was to be hurt, but now he knows that it’s to be cared for.

Hakuri drifts off to sleep with a smile on his face and lightness in his heart, and for the first time in his life he’s looking forward to seeing the sun rise with the dawn so that they can move forward, together.