What Hates You (Will Someday Kill You) [tactics, Raikou/Kantarou]

[nekokoban]

Title: What Hates You (Will Someday Kill You)
Author/Artist: nekokoban
Rating: Hard R
Warnings: Mangaverse, vaguely noncon?
Words: 946
Summary: tactics, Raikou/Kantarou: chains and borderline non-con - Some things are worse than dying.

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There is a hall of the Minamoto estate that is filled, one end to the other, with the stuffed preserved bodies of youkai in their natural forms. Here there is a dragon with its jaws spread wide; there is a rokurokubi whose neck stretches the entire length of the hall; there's a delicate sphere of amber with a tiny winged spirit trapped inside. There's a crane spreading her wings as a fine kimono slides from her shoulders; there is a nue who lifts her head under a kappa's outstretched arm. All of them are very fine trophies, put together with grace and care: the sword-marks that killed them have been stitched back together and carefully hidden from sight. They look alive, each and every one.

There is a parlor in the Minamoto estate as well, one fashioned after the sitting-rooms so popular in the west, though decorated with a delicate -- and undeniably Japanese -- eye and hand. It connects off the hallway of youkai, so Kantarou can move easily from one to the other.

He never does: seeing it once is more than enough for him. Instead, he sits with tea and biscuits and waits for Minamoto to be done with his daily meetings. He's a busy man, after all, the young heir to an old family name and a decorated military officer; there are a lot of people vying for his time and attention. A few had been skulking at the gate when Kantarou first arrived; he wonders if they're still there, hoping for a few stolen seconds with the young master's ear.

The entire world is fooled by Minamoto Raikou's facade. Even most of those who know better are still taken in by him -- the brat certainly has charm and charisma and knows how to work them both.

In Kantarou's hand, his cup trembles.

The parlor door bangs open, and there is Minamoto, bright-eyed and grinning, quite the dashing figure in his clean-cut uniform and his hair artfully touseled. He grins, boyish and sincere. "Sensei! You came!"

Kantarou eyes him. "I don't see how I had much of a choice," he snipes. "You were pretty clear in your 'invitation.'"

Minamoto bounds across the room and drops himself into the chair across from Kantarou. He folds his long fingers together and leans forward with a smile that could cut. "Sensei, I'm hurt," he said. "Are you trying to imply that I forced you to come here?"

Kantarou puts his cup down with a firm clink. He meets Raikou's smiling gaze without blinking. "I'm not implying, you damn brat."

"Oho," Minamoto says. He puts a hand over his heart and the other on Kantarou's knee. He leans in till his smile is pressed to Kantarou's cheek, his breath hot and quick. Even through his glove and Kantarou's hakama, his hand is warm and hard. "Sensei, you wound me so."

"It's the truth, and you know it," Kantarou says, as he lets himself be pushed backwards, deep into plush cushions. He tilts his head and closes his eyes. "You can't play innocent with me, I know better."

"Perhaps," says Minamoto, with a laugh deep in his throat. He tugs at Kantarou's clothes with hard pinching hands. The material of his gloves are rough across Kantarou's skin and his hands are equally rough, though he doesn't quite rip the cloth as he pulls it back. "But still, Sensei, you could at least pretend. Aren't you supposed to set an example for young impressionable children like me?"

Kantarou says nothing. He bends his legs up when Minamoto's hands grasp his hips and pulls them up. He bites the inside of his cheek raw and breathes hard through his nose. It hurts when Minamoto twists two fingers into him; it hurts when his back is bent up to an uncomfortable angle; it hurts when Minamoto leans into him, so that he's forced to arch to accomodate. He can taste blood on his tongue when a hand curls around his neck, forcing his head up.

"Sensei," Minamoto croons in his ear. His breath is hot and damp and Kantarou flinches from it. "Sensei, don't you have anything to say now? You were so -- chatty -- just a moment ago." His hips jerk up hard and pull a rough noise from Kantarou's throat. "Come on, Sensei, look at me."

He shakes his head. He thinks about the hallway of stuffed youkai, and the empty spot at the end -- the space underneath Shuten Douji's leering skull, wide enough for a tengu's outstretched wings in their fully glory. He thinks about the madwoman's ghost trapped somewhere inside the Minamoto estate, the one who holds a different name-leash around Haruka's neck, who could force him to walk into Minamoto's blade if she so desired. Only Minamoto's good word and whim keeps her sealed now. A word from him and a turned head, and she could drag Haruka back down into her embrace before Kantarou even knew he was gone--

"Sensei," Minamoto breathes. "Look at me."

He doesn't cajole or promise or threat. Kantarou opens his eyes anyway and looks straight at the younger man, and looks straight through him.

"I do hate you," he says with clarity. He is perhaps more sincere than he has ever been in his life, even more than the moment when he'd been a child determined to find the Oni-Eater and befriend him. He lays his palms to either side of Minamoto's neck and curls his fingers in fine black hair, holding on.

Minamoto laughs and bites his ear; he doesn't flinch from the sting of it.

"Don't worry, Sensei," he says, a light in his eyes. "I hate you too."