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Posted by Anonymous at 20:05:14 13/08/2003.
> I *love* this...I love the dreamy, romantic, vampiric feel of the
scene with Subaru and Seishiro, and how Kamui is drawn into it...
I could read this over and over...thank you for sharing it!
Anonymous tylendel
Hello and happy Star Festival! *toddles about in her yukata*
> I'm new here. Not to the fandom--I've been writing for a few months--but I just signed up for the board. So I thought I'd start off with something smallish. ^_^
> Takes place before Subaru loses his eye but after Kamui's retreat to his own psyche (and subsequent retrieval by Subaru).
> Contains a character quirk which is neither supported nor refuted by X/Tokyo Babylon canon. You have been warned. Kinda.
>
> *`-,--
>
> Shirou Kamui had never loved music so much as he did at that particular moment.
>
> Somewhere at the other end of the corridor, in one of the Imonoyama mansion's many guest bedrooms, someone was playing the violin.
>
> Kamui didn't know the name of the piece. He didn't know when or where it had been written, who wrote it, how it was generally supposed to be played. He didn't even know if the violinist was hitting all the right notes.
>
> But he knew that he'd never heard music quite so expressive--no recording he'd ever heard had these long arching phrases full of sorrow, or agitated little staccato measures that lanced through the blue night air the way these did.
>
> And he knew who the violinist was.
>
> Subaru had never mentioned being a musician. He seemed a little embarrassed about his talents and habits, as if everything not connected to his destiny among the Seals was meant to be an absolute secret. Which was a little weird; after all, he was so friendly otherwise, and such a good listener...
>
> Still, Kamui could understand the desire for privacy.
>
> Although...
>
> For the past few nights Subaru had been playing, always after midnight and always for only about an hour, beautiful old pieces that made the mansion walls seem to sing. None of the other Seals had asked him about it, or even seemed to notice that he'd been playing at all; only Kamui, lying awake and trying to keep the nightmares at bay, heard his friend's music.
>
> It felt a little wrong.
>
> He didn't know why Subaru chose to play this late--maybe it was the desire for privacy, or maybe he just got inspired by the mix of streetlights and moonlight that poured in through the mansion windows on a clear night. Either way, it always felt a bit like eavesdropping on an intimate conversation each time Kamui heard the bow touch the strings. Maybe it was because his playing was so full of emotion, and so evocative: one night the notes had been so slow and so sweet that Kamui had found himself thinking of the careful, patient way Kotori used to weave daisy chains for him and for her brother, and the thought had made him cry himself to sleep.
>
> He wondered what kind of memories made Subaru's music so sad.
>
> It would be rude to just flat-out ask, but... maybe Subaru would be more inclined to trust him with them if he knew Kamui had overheard.
>
> Slowly he pushed the covers off and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He'd just go down and say hello, apologise for disturbing him, maybe tell him he liked the music...
>
> Subaru would probably be a little flustered.
>
> But it'd be okay, because they were friends, and sometimes Kamui thought Subaru needed a friend more than anyone he'd ever met.
>
> He pushed his door open as quietly as possible. The hallway was dark except for a sliver of pale light spilling past the threshold of Subaru's room. The door was half-open, and in this odd not-quite-darkness it looked almost like a lighthouse, white and shining. Kamui felt his heartbeat begin to rattle in his chest like some frantic iron-winged butterfly as he came closer--how would his friend react to the interruption? Would it be awkward and terrible and feel like betrayal?
>
> Worse yet, would Subaru just stop playing altogether?
>
> He hesitated at the door--no, he'd wait for silence before he knocked.
>
> Slowly, craning his neck, he peered past the doorframe.
>
> The window was half-open as well, and streaks of light threw every shape in the room into muted silhouettes: mostly what he could see was angles and arches, folds in fabric and the gleaming edges of things.
>
> Subaru stood at the foot of his bed, his eyes closed and the violin cradled against the curve of his shoulder. The bow glittered as he ran it over the strings, as if it were spinning the darkness itself into the melody he played now--a glowing needle against the fabric of night. As he moved, his upper body twisting with the flow of the notes like a streamer in a high wind, his arms and the side of his face became briefly highlighted and passed again into shadow. Kamui could tell he was only wearing a dress shirt, and that his lips were slightly parted as if he meant to speak but could only force out whatever he meant to say through the instrument in his hands.
>
> And then Kamui saw the second figure, perched on the edge of the bed, and had to press his hand over his mouth to stifle the gasp.
>
> He barely recognized the Sakurazukamori, out of the trenchcoat and the dark suit. The moonlight spilled softly over his broad chest and shoulders, and across the rumpled folds of his unbuttoned shirt--only the long, merciless lines of his limbs and the glint of his blind eye were truly recognizable. The sated, appreciative smile that curved his thin mouth was one Kamui hadn't seen before; it flashed in the pale bluish light like the edge on a piece of broken glass.
>
> As Subaru lowered the violin, that smile shone a little wider against the half-darkness.
>
> "That was lovely, Subaru-kun."
>
> Subaru said nothing. Kamui watched his eyes slide open, greyish-green against the blue and black of night.
>
> "You play with so much expression." The Sakurazukamori stood up, a long, slow inverted waterfall of motion, and began to cross the short distance between them.
>
> "It's not perfect yet," Subaru said simply.
>
> "It needn't be."
>
> And then their shapes blurred into one silhouette, black with brilliant edges.
>
> Kamui couldn't watch any longer.
>
> In silence, he padded back to his room, closed the door, slipped back into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.
>
> It was when I couldn't stop crying for him that I understood, Subaru had told him. I didn't want him to hate me.
>
> Your scars and mine are not the same.
>
> Kamui buried his face in the pillow as the first hard, tight sob raced up through his chest.
>
> No, Subaru, he thought, but they still hurt, don't they?
>
> *`-,--
> Author's Note: The Devil's Trill is a piece by the Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770). Tartini claimed that the Devil himself played the song for him in a dream.
> Whether or not Subaru was actually playing that particular piece I leave up to your imagination; there are a lot of very sad and expressive songs out there. ^.~
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