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 Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:02 pm
Kouyo stalks over to the wall and punches it hard enough to hurt his hand. Name burn him to ASH it is so damned difficult with Setsushi around all the time. Maybe Kouyo just cannot be a free maiden. He is something different and will be something different forever.
He hits the wall again with the other hand, half-heartedly, as he starts to cry. Kouyo is Kouyo, even if he learns to cook.
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:27 pm
Disturbed, Setsushi jumps up and runs to Kouyo's side... but hangs back a little, not wanting to approach too near to those thoughts.
He wants to plead for Kouyo to let him help him, but... did that make Kouyo angry? He bites back those thoughts and asks instead to look at Kouyo's hand...
Setsushi's messed everything up again...
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:41 pm
Kouyo's hand is fine just a little bruised because he hit a wall with it. Still, he thrusts it out for Setsushi to examine, but does not look at his friend.
And it is all Kouyo's fault. Setsushi should not blame himself for his friend's insanity.
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:52 pm
Setsushi inspects the hand very gently to confirm if it is, in fact, only bruised, then steps over to the sink to wet a towel with warm water.
Kouyo is not insane. Perhaps he's sick from being cooped up so long, from having to gaze upon such frightening things every day... But Setsushi believes that the right medicine for his ailment must be out there somewhere. They just have to keep looking.
Those aren't thoughts meant to comfort, but Setsushi's sincere belief. Setsushi tries to make this plain to Kouyo as he daubs his friend's hand with the water, hoping it will lessen the pain.
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 9:38 pm
Kouyo's hand gives off a sort of throbbing pain, but he does not seem to mind. It will be better in a few days. But like he told Setsushi before, there are some fragments of Kouyo that are gone forever.
It was easier before Setsushi and Kouyo lived together, and the High Priest only saw his friend perhaps every few weeks or months. Kouyo had all the intervening time to shout and cry and hit things, and Setsushi did not have to see it. But now, Setsushi wants to help him every day and it both lends Kouyo confidence but also terrifies him deeply. He does not want to hurt his friend with his continued madness because Setsushi has to see it and does not know why. His friend needs to know why Kouyo cannot always accept his help. The younger Porcelain truly believes that nothing can be done.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Kouyo steps closer to Setsushi and makes a great effort to put his entire heart behind a wall. Then he tells the Dragon Knight in the plainest whisper he can manage, "This fallen leaf is no longer a maiden."
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 9:49 pm
Kouyo should not fear Setsushi seeing! Kouyo can show all of his ugliness and rage to Setsushi, and he will not be afraid or angry... Setsushi will be a receptacle for his tears, or, or even a wall, silent, giving nothing more than protection from the scorn of the outside world--
...
Wait...
...wait...
Huh?
Setsushi is currently performing an excellent impression of a carp.
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:12 pm
The High Priest and his wall both promptly crumble into a mess of utter terror, and he staggers back, away from Setsushi, tripping over his robes on the way. He falls into a heap of tears and fabric, his thoughts of begging Setsushi not to hate him interspersed with random unbidden visions of Kouyo doing himself harm.
If only he had died at the foot of his tower, if only he had perished upon his arrival in Gaia, if only he had not promised to refrain from slaying himself in Setsushi's home.... Maybe the Knight would kill him now. All Kouyo can do is wait and cry.
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:23 pm
Setsushi stands there flabbergasted for a few moments, then... lunges towards Kouyo, grasping his shoulders. Although this may frighten the priest at first, Setsushi then gives out a blast of vehemence:
Setsushi would not be angry, even if Kouyo's wife were the woman Setsushi most admired! Setsushi can only feel joy that Kouyo has been able to love and anguish that his friend has been cut off from the Golden World.
Setsushi swears he shall search every corner of this lands, traverse oceans, fight any evil demon to find Kouyo a way home. Kouyo cannot despair, he cannot die, until they have proven there is no way back, and Setsushi is dead!
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:48 pm
"NO!" Kouyo shrieks, making an invested effort to keep Setsushi out of his personal space, though the Knight is more than strong enough to overpower him. ... Oh, wait, he is being held. For the first time in a very long while. The younger Porcelain hesitantly tries to wrap one arm around Setsushi, and cries into his friend's chest.
Setsushi misunderstands. Kouyo badly wants to see her again, but at the same time is not sure he could stand to look upon her. The fragments of Kouyo that are missing... she took them and he had permitted it. Or he had given them up even after he realized his mistake. She does not love him. Or perhaps she did....
Kouyo struggles to keep himself together and not get too tangled in the memories. But how exactly had it happened...?
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 10:56 pm
Setsushi, who normally so hates to be touched, puts one of his own arms around Kouyo, petting his hair gently.
Kouyo means... he means... she betrayed him? She broke him? Setsushi's mind reels. How horrifically cruel... to do that to poor, gentle Kouyo, to whom no maiden could possibly compare as a good, kind husband...
But Setsushi still swears he will use all his effort and strength to search for a way home, to Kouyo's wife. Kouyo must find her and then put a knife in her hand, so that she may relieve his suffer either by cutting open his heart or cutting off his hair.
... Even if they cannot find a way, or Setsushi dies, Kouyo is a powerful Lucid; perhaps he could break it as well-- But Setsushi stops that train of thoughts, unsure whether it would be appropriate to begin planning for that.
For he has no idea, other than the anguish Kouyo is showing him, what it must feel to be a broken husband...
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:11 pm
It could be broken? There is a surge of hope and profound desperation in his heart as he clings closer to Setsushi, his breath quickening. The- the burning arousal is coming back again, and once more the priest can only do so much to try to satisfy it. He missed her and the way she smiled when she called him cute and stupid in the same breath because he knew it was true.
Setsushi might be uncertain about telling him, but Kouyo has to know. It has been keep him from fully figuring out his recent vision, and the answer to Setsushi's question. Gods, how had he ever been able to keep this from Setsushi for so long?
Kouyo wraps his other arm around Setsushi's neck and tries to pull him closer, panting, "How do I break it? Tell me." Two years since she touched him the first and the last time. How long until this burned him away to nothing?
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:20 pm
Setsushi doesn't know! He has always been told, as he is sure Kouyo has been, that men can never break their bonds, that they can only be loved or die...
But the women who hurt them do it somehow, and there's the Celestial Oracle with his hundred children... And so Setsushi thought there might be some way, a reason for Kouyo not to give up. But he doesn't know; how would Setsushi know?
Though he accepted Kouyo's embrace before, he now starts to pull away, as if the much older yet much more innocent man is afraid of the intensity of Kouyo's feelings.
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:44 pm
Setsushi is not promising him false hope, was he? That's what she did and it broke his heart. Kouyo tries to continue to hold himself physically close to his friend, though if Setsushi really wants to pry him off, it would not likely take the Knight much effort. There has to be a way to set things right. And Setsushi had promised to help him. No false hopes, because Setsushi is the only one Kouyo can trust, and the only reason he is still alive.
"How can we break it?" he asks again, his voice thoroughly reflecting the emotional and physical stress he feels. Now that his secret is finally out to Setsushi after all this time, and his friend has so quickly offered the vaguest possibility of a solution, Kouyo cannot hold himself back. Finally he does not have to handle this alone, especially if Setsushi can help.
Kouyo tries to brush his lips lightly against the side of Setsushi's neck. He will walk beside him, yes, and not leave him? Setsushi loves him enough to keep him from disappearing before they have found a way to set things right, yes?
A very small part of Kouyo insists that the rest of him is insane and that this is terribly improper and wrong and Setsushi will hate him for it, but- but he cannot stop himself!
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:55 pm
Though part of Setsushi understands that Kouyo is in pain, and that part desperately wants to comfort him, the stronger part, the clean and proprietous part, leads him to recoil and slowly crawl backwards away from Kouyo.
It is not false hope... in the sense that Setsushi does not lie to Kouyo when he says that he believes it may exist. But Setsushi only believes that it may exist -- he does not know if it truly does, and has no idea what it would be like at all...! In the end it may be a false hope after all...
But he will stay beside Kouyo and suffer the falseness with him. He will hold Kouyo's heart to his; Setsushi will lend Kouyo his courage and wits when Kouyo cannot find his own. Perhaps Setsushi cannot heal Kouyo, but he will search for the medicine, and in the meantime he nurse his dear friend as he can...
He holds Kouyo's face in his (relatively) massive hand, a gesture that might be tender... or might be part of an effort to keep Kouyo's face away from his own.
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Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 12:15 am
The fire gradually begins to fade from Kouyo, more because he has exhausted himself than for any other reason. He finally releases Setsushi and slips to the floor, then rolls onto his back to watch his friend with a vaguely confused look on his face as he works to catch his breath.
After a few more moments, though, reason seems to return to the priest, and he politely and sheepishly hides the dull ache of his lingering dissatisfaction from Setsushi. ... Kouyo is deeply sorry. He has been terribly inappropriate. This one-sided bond... this is why he tried to kill himself by leaping from the tower. He had been afraid to breathe a word of it to Setsushi before, and he is still afraid that his friend thinks less of him for it, but... hopefully the Ice Maiden understands a little bit better.
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