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“You can’t come here in the middle of the night like this.”
“So if it were during the day it would be fine?”
Kouen’s loose grip on thin wrists tightens. He feels like he might snap them. Part of him wants to, because he cannot tell if Hakuryuu is deliberately or sincerely misunderstanding him. He’s not sure which he prefers. Both offer their own set of difficulties he has no idea how to navigate.
Carefully, Kouen rotates his hands to envelop Hakuryuu’s, hoping the gesture will help in getting across his gravity. “No, Hakuryuu. This,” he squeezes the hands he’s holding for emphasis, “can’t happen. Do you understand?”
Hakuryuu’s neutral expression slowly furrows. “But it already happened.”
That was a mistake, a moment of weakness, something that wasn’t supposed to happen and shouldn’t happen again. Although those things are true, to voice them on their own is to deny a truth neither of them can refute.
That truth is more complicated than Hakuryuu knows but the surface is simple, that they are two people, cousins, brothers, who hold a mutual attraction.
The most immediate problem is that Hakuryuu is far more eager to act on this attraction than Kouen is.
Another problem, a more individual problem, is that the attraction—the lust—was one-sided right up until Hakuryuu had the nerve to act on it and Kouen responded like a fool, without a single thought to the consequences. However, that is more false than Kouen is willing to admit. He’s uncomfortably aware of the way his eyes have been lingering on Hakuryuu’s face, the unscarred side especially. He knows why his fingers twitch when Hakuryuu takes a step that puts him too far inside Kouen’s space.
It’s easier—it was easier—to ignore it, banish it, will it into insignificance. But he he’d been so focused on himself he neglected to pay attention to Hakuryuu. With hindsight it’s all so obvious, but he had no idea. He had no idea until Hakuryuu was kissing him and their hands were already fumbling with each other’s robes.
He’s taken too long to formulate a response, and now Hakuryuu has closed his mouth on one of Kouen’s fingers. His lips are parted too wide for it to be a kiss, but he doesn’t suck or lick or bite either. He looks at him with eyes waiting eagerly for more, for Kouen to touch him the way he had that night.
Hakuryuu’s other hand slides out of his hold to guide it to his hip. The robe’s fabric is so thin Kouen can practically feel the skin underneath. The hand he’s still holding is shaking, and Hakuryuu is nowhere near as confident as he was when he entered the room. The look in his eyes shifts as Kouen sits motionless, from eager to pleading to wounded, and Kouen is hit with guilt at the thought of refusing when Hakuryuu so rarely seeks anything from him.
Kouen breaks his hand free from Hakuryuu’s mouth and uses it to touch the scarred side of his face. Hakuryuu lets him. His fingers reach back until they pass the scar’s smooth texture. Then he reaches further back to Hakuryuu’s jaw to encourage him to turn his head, giving a better view of how much skin is marred. His thumb follows the scar to his other cheek and brushes over his lips on the way back.
Hakuryuu’s discolored eye watches him dispassionately for a moment before looking ahead. Sometimes, with the way that eye looks, Kouen questions how well Hakuryuu can really see from it, but he never asks and likely never will.
Kouen is compelled to apologize, although he’s not entirely sure if he’d be apologizing for something in particular or if the words would serve as sympathy on its own. But Hakuryuu’s feelings towards him must be equally complex. Kouen does not think Hakuryuu would view his condolences in the best light, no matter how honest they may be. Still, he wants to offer them. He wants to apologize until a day comes that Hakuryuu accepts it, and then he’ll apologize again.
His hand drops to check Hakuryuu’s pulse, which thrums along fast as a rabbit’s, and then turns his head the other direction. The mostly unscarred side of his face resembles his brother’s to a startling degree. Kouen met Hakuyuu when he was about this age, but he hadn’t looked so young. Perhaps his young age and the passing of time has skewed his memory, mixing the Hakuyuu he initially met with the Hakuyuu he knew at the end. A thought more nefarious than it seems in the long run.
In any case, Kouen can see the same lines in Hakuryuu that he knew in Hakuyuu. He can see how this face with lingering baby fat will mature and inevitably become a near duplicate of their long deceased crown prince. He wonders if Hakuryuu knows—if he realizes, and upon having that thought hopes dearly that he does, even if it causes them pain.
When he tilts Hakuryuu’s head up a little more, the angle sharpens his expression, especially when his eye darts back to Kouen and his eyebrow arches in question. In that moment he is an echo of Hakuyuu, and Kouen releases him before his heart can stop or race or do anything.
“What was that about?” And Hakuryuu sounds a tad self-conscious but doesn’t look it.
Kouen shakes his head, prompting Hakuryuu to frown and assess him before apparently deciding to not concern himself with what just happened.
Hakuryuu takes a breath, obviously steeling himself. Tentatively, his hands rise. They hesitate before placing themselves on his shoulders, gentle, but holding the fabric firm between his fingertips. He lifts himself higher so their heights are closer to being equal. Continuously checking Kouen’s reaction—or lack thereof—Hakuryuu brings their faces a finger’s width apart, and stops.
A trembling breath hits Kouen’s lips, but instead of kissing him, Hakuryuu sits back to stare up at him with an emotion he can’t place. After a few brief seconds that drag on with heavy silence, Hakuryuu says, flatly, “You don’t want to.”
Kouen’s hand still on his hip flexes.
That isn’t accurate.
That isn’t accurate, but the source of his desire isn't what Hakuryuu will expect or want. This is doomed to end up disappointing and hurtful, and Hakuryuu has no idea. The last thing Kouen wants to do is hurt this boy whom he owes so much. Not that it can be avoided at this point.
“That’s not it,” Kouen finally says. Hakuryuu waits patiently as grapples to find words for the thoughts he can’t align. His free hand comes up to cup Hakuryuu’s face again, thumb resting at his trembling bottom lip, brushing it absently as if to soothe.
Part of him doesn’t want to explain. Another part says he has an obligation to explain if he goes through with something like this. For the most part, though, the tears welling in Hakuryuu’s eyes coupled with his embarrassed flush and averted eyes are making his throat constrict. Thoughts of how he should be handling this disperse like mist in the morning sun.
With a pounding heart, Kouen ducks to press a long kiss to Hakuryuu’s forehead. He pulls back just enough see Hakuryuu’s face, but as soon as they make eye contact Hakuryuu’s arms are folding behind his neck and he’s being kissed with abrupt urgency. Hakuryuu’s kisses are messy, not taking care to target his mouth; they push like he’s running away from a persistent thought.
Kouen’s arm wraps around Hakuryuu’s waist. He meets Hakuryuu’s frenzy with calm, drawing away when the arms around his neck clench and when Hakuryuu presses against his teeth or bites. He slows them to a lazy point where he’s seeking more than receiving and Hakuryuu’s aroused panting falls heavy.
Hakuryuu’s hips start to swing forward and back a little, but there’s nothing for him to meet since Kouen is seated on the bed. When he grabs his hip and forces him to hold still, he whines, which is so unexpected Kouen’s lips quirk. To disguise it he makes his next kiss a peck, but it doesn’t fool Hakuryuu. He nudges him and mumbles his name and one of his hands grips his upper arm while he kisses him.
Kouen smiles, because if nothing else, the affection rushing through him is for Hakuryuu and no one else.