Chapter Text
Katsuki feels the lingering burn of Eijirou’s eyes on the back of his neck, so glaringly hot he swears he can feel the remnants of his bath evaporate to steam. He rubs his skin until it’s pink and sore, trying to erase the way his hair has risen, electrified, as if recoiling some kind of shock.
It must be some dragon thing, he thinks. Something about Eijirou’s presence makes his body react strangely.
It pisses him off.
His footfalls echo loudly in the temple's emptiness as he stalks his way back to his room.
“Stupid damn overgrown lizard,” Katsuki complains aloud. With no audience, he isn’t sure where to direct the anxious feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, so he settles for clomping about as noisily as possible.
He nearly rips the neck of his festival robes when he yanks them from where they hang in his wardrobe. Despite himself, he winces, inspecting the robe for damage. Though he dislikes wearing such formal attire, the thought of damaging the fabric seizes him with panic.
The robe he is to wear today, as he does every year, is a priceless gift crafted by the last known master spinner of spider silk, an ageless woman by the name of Zhinü. Katsuki had heard that long ago, Zhinü had plucked stars from the sky to weave into her wedding gown. As he looks down on the gift she gave upon him, he thinks it must be true. He does not know why she gave such a treasure to Katsuki, not Eijirou, but he could not refuse her tithe.
The robe is practically weightless in his hands. The red threads are so fine, so thin and delicate and finely made that, if he tried, Katsuki thinks he could fold the entire thing up and hold it in his palm. It clings to his frame scandalously, accentuates his every move with carmine flair. As he slips it on, fingers dancing through bell-sleeves dusted with gold, Katsuki turns to face his looking glass and marvels at the absurdity of his plain face in such gorgeous clothing.
Staring into his own eyes, he scowls and grimaces, inventing facial expressions so horrible and ugly that he bursts into laughter. Katsuki ties his robe securely across his waist and wanders out to find his place on the temple dais before the crowds trickle inside. As always, a thick cushion rests on the floor to the right side of Eijirou’s seat of honor. His mother will stand behind, to Eijirou’s left, and will be in charge of leading the opening prayers.
Katsuki settles down into his seat and closes his eyes. The world around him is still quiet. For a moment he thinks he could be happy like this, silent and pretty, following orders obediently, but then he hears the call of a songbird outside and his mind wanders to the untraveled skies. His restless heart dreams of uncharted lands and faraway kingdoms and the illusion of such a placid, boring life shatters.
The world is quiet, but not for long.
🩸🩸🩸
Eijirou hastily retreats outside and runs until he thinks his lungs might burst. His shoulders heave, dragging ragged breath from his parched mouth. The wheat in the open fields surrounding him sways gently in the breeze, unbothered by his loud intrusion.
Each time he blinks, the image of Katsuki — no, Mitsuki and Masaru—making love sends an electric shock right down his spine. Eijirou stuffs his knuckles into his mouth and bites down hard, unable to soothe the impossibly powerful urge to snarl and tear flesh from bone. The pain clears his head, but only a bit, only for a second. Then he is teething again, face red hot and body on the verge of collapse.
He can still hear their coupling echoing in his ears, wet and pounding.
Eijirou sinks down to his knees and falls back to rest on his side, a small whine of frustration tearing itself from his throat. His free hand snakes down to tug at his trousers until they expose his groin to the chilly morning air.
He should be ashamed. It is a shameful, secret thing that he must do now, but Eijirou fears that if he cannot stem the rising tide of his emotions, he will set himself aflame with his undirected yearning.
Images of golden hair and bone-white teeth flash behind his fluttering eyelids as he holds his sex in a shaking fist.
“Hah—” his breath fogs around him as he curls into himself on the ground. Above him, the stalks of wheat continue their dance, blissfully unaware of the sins Eijirou commits right at their roots.
His hand quickens, angry, and fast, rough and dry and nearly painful as he catches a whiff of Katsuki’s scent still clinging to his skin from their shared bath.
Eijirou moans, drool and blood pooling in his mouth, as he holds his knuckles firmly between sharp teeth. When he closes his eyes, Katsuki’s scent is even stronger; a throbbing red mist that clouds around him like the great handfuls of colorful powder that thrown to honor him in mere hours.
His nostrils flare and Eijirou inhales deeply. He thinks, based on smell alone, that he might imagine how Katsuki tastes. His mouth waters at the thought. Liquid honey and burning coals. Soot and cinnamon. Wine and blood-red berries. He pictures his mouth smeared with the ripeness of scarlet carnage.
“Katsuki—ngh—” Eijirou growls, a stiffness leaching through his body until each sinew and muscle pulls so tight he thinks he will break. His tongue laves at the raw impression of his own bite marks across his hand and Eijirou’s word tilts into red, red, red.
Red like rubies, like treasure. Red of heat and fire and swollen sex. Katsuki’s eyes, his mouth, the scar that binds them both.
Eijirou has never made it this far when he has explored himself. A giddy, terrifying wave crests up, drowning his breath in his chest and Eijirou thinks that if he can just let go — one more second — just one more; he might—
“Ahnghhh,” he gasps. His hand slaps against the dirt as he feels heat ripped from his body. His seed muddies the surrounding ground, a filthy, dark stain to remind him of what he has just done.
Then his body flags, spent and liquid. Eijirou could melt into the field, the way his muscles have eased, the way his breath rolls off his tongue. If only he could rest awhile more.
A deep breath.
His mind clears. With each inhale, he catches notes of his own release comingling with the lingering scent of Katsuki. This eases the painful clench of his jaws, the unbearable need to shred apart flesh and drink down blood.
Eijirou senses eternity in this moment, a long stretch of ash and heat and pressure smothering him alive. There is fear, bright white and blooming around the edges of his vision. In a panic, Eijirou pictures Katsuki knelt beside him, his magical talisman, and suddenly the weight was no longer crippling, but something to be desired and won. He lets the moment crash down around him, glimpsing a moment of forever in the curve of Katsuki’s daredevil smile.
🩸🩸🩸
Katsuki’s fidgeting is noticeable enough that one of his mother’s handmaidens asks him if he’s ill. He rolls his eyes, pretending he doesn’t notice the way he’s sweating through his red robe, and brushes her off as if she’s asked him the dumbest question he’s ever heard.
Eijirou is late.
Crowds are whispering in the great hall, their voices a constant, buzzing drone in the background that grates on Katsuki’s nerves. They won’t start the opening ceremony until the stupid lizard brain arrives. Everyone is getting anxious. Katsuki is getting anxious.
What if this throws off his entire plan? If Eijirou doesn’t show up, there won’t even be a tournament. What the hell could be so important that he would just up and leave like this?
“Katsuki—” Mitsuki starts, staring down at her son. “Where is Eijirou?”
“I don’t know.”
Softer, behind a false smile that she shows to the crowd, she whispers, “What have you done now?”
“What did I do? I didn’t do anything!” Katsuki huffs, nostrils flaring. “I’m not his damn mom. He can do whatever he wants. He’s a god, isn’t he? He’s probably off doing stupid dragon shit.”
Mitsuki closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Katsuki knows by the way her closed eyelids shake she is using years of calming exercises to keep from smacking him.
Feeling momentarily untouchable, courtesy of the curious eyes of the crowd, Katsuki makes a rude gesture in his mother’s direction. Lashing out makes things feel more in his control, and Katsuki desperately needs that.
A whirl of gold abruptly interrupts his rude gesture as Eijirou leaps over the back of his throne. He hooks a loose string of his vest on the ornate carvings of the chair and nearly topples the whole thing over while simultaneously ripping the expensive silk top.
“Ei — what? What the hell?”
Eijirou doesn’t look at him. His face is red and damp, as if he’s been running.
It is so quiet in the hall that a pin dropping would sound like an explosion.
“Sorry! Sorry everyone,” Eijirou apologises. He turns to Mitsuki, mouth forming the words once more, but his head snaps forward, avoiding her at the last minute. “I’m here now. Go ahead, go ahead. Sorry.”
Katsuki gapes like a drowning fish.
Mitsuki recovers quickly and wastes no time. At her signal, a choir of temple handmaidens sings, and soon the crowd joins in.
Eijirou grins at the people, waving sheepishly. His shoulders are too stiff and his eyes too hard. Katsuki knows immediately that something is wrong.
“Hey—” he tugs on Eijirou’s trouser leg to grab his attention.
The dragon inclines his head in Katsuki’s direction but refuses to look him in the eye.
“Yes?”
“Why are you being so damn weird?”
“Ah — I just… I’m embarrassed I was late.”
Katsuki scoffs. “What the hell was so important that you missed—?”
At the crescendo of the song, Katsuki’s sentence is interrupted as the first handfuls of colored pigment are thrown into the air like powdery fireworks. A cloud of orange blooms, joined quickly by every other color of the rainbow.
“Eijirou!” the people say, laughing and twirling as they lob scoops of pigment at each other, at the sky, at anything that a splash of blue might better, or red, or gold.
Eijirou stands up quickly as musicians begin their first song of thanks.
“Ah, I love this part!” Eijirou says awkwardly, his smile wavering on his face.
It isn’t a lie. Eijirou loves the Many-Colored Blessing. Usually, he is the one who throws the first handful, too impatient to wait for the songs to finish.
Katsuki stands as a spray of green flies over his shoulder and lands across the white marble of the temple steps.
“Seriously. What’s wrong?”
Eijirou shakes his head. “Nothing, I swear. I just… I just lost track of time. I’m sorry.”
Katsuki chews his bottom lip, eyes passing over Eijirou’s tense face.
“Hey,” Eijirou says and looks down at him for the first time since their bath. Eijirou’s face is clouded with flyaway colors and his black hair shifts like sunlight on oil as he squeezes Katsuki’s shoulder.
Katsuki opens his mouth to protest further when a great, red flurry falls over his head.
“The fuck—?”
Eijirou guffaws and reaches down the ceremonial bowls lining the steps at his feet. He scoops up a palm of bright yellow the color of fresh pollen and lobs it at Katsuki again.
“It’d be weird if I didn’t cover you up, after all.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Katsuki says, smirking, and dipping low to reach for the closest bowl.
Eijirou smiles the same way poems feel.
Katsuki forgets to be angry, or indignant, or anything except enraptured by the glimmer of Eijirou’s grin.
An explosion of color clouds their vision as they both scramble to be the first to grab the other and smother them in dust.
And then they’re falling.
Eijirou falls, arms flapping wildly as he tries to catch his balance, as if wind and air might make suitable handholds. Katsuki tips forward and their chests collide. Time slows and warps ahead as their eyes meet, their corners crinkled in laughter until the two land heavily on stone.
Katsuki pushes himself up on his elbows and stares down at Eijirou, who laughs so hard he can hardly breathe. He sounds like he does when they’re diving off cliffs into lakes, when they’re chasing each other, when they stand on a mountain and let the wind tangle their hair. Cackling with wild abandon, as if they are still eight, as if nothing exists outside of what they can grab in this singular moment.
There is a bird in Katsuki’s chest, impatient wings flapping furiously against the rib cage that ensnares it.
Eijirou breathes deeply, reaching out to swipe at the tears that have gathered on his eyelashes. His grin is so wide Katsuki thinks that his lip will split.
A dark, vast, awful feeling creeps across Katsuki’s body, like the shock of icy waters on sun-warmed skin.
The way Eijirou looks at Katsuki is the way better men look at god. It’s a private look that betrays a warm intimacy that has all at once appeared. The look is too big to understand, too ancient, too raw, that he mistakes the swirl of confusion in his belly for fear.
Katsuki recoils. He throws himself off Eijirou and scrambles to his feet as quickly as he can, sweaty palms slipping on tile, eyes darting around to find sanctuary elsewhere. He doesn’t have time for all this weirdness today. Tomorrow he can wonder what it all means, but today he has something he has to do.
“Alright. I’m leaving now. Remember the plan. Tell everyone I’m sick and that I went back to rest.”
Eijirou nods, lips pressed into a thin, determined line.
“If this goes right, everything changes.”
🩸🩸🩸
As Katsuki fades from sight, Eijirou slumps back and stares at the ceiling. Each heartbeat shakes his vision. He feels rattled and hollow, both here and there, within his body and far away. His soul is a galaxy, vast and empty and brimming with life.
It’s not like Eijirou and Katsuki haven’t wrestled or slept next to each other. The feel of Katsuki’s cool skin is as familiar to Eijirou as his own. Hands soft and always scraped from one of their adventures. Legs long and bony, knees like knives when they jab into Eijirou’s side as they sleep. The slight bump of the little mole beneath one of Katsuki’s eyes, like a speck of paint against white canvas. Eijirou is familiar with Katsuki’s body, as studied it and held it for almost all his life and yet… Eijirou swears that something has…
Shifted.
The raucous shouts of festival goers are deafening, laugher loud like drums over the sound of the tinny samisens and cascading rain sticks. From the ground, Eijirou watches the way garlands of flowers and ribbon bob above him in the wind. He can’t just stay here on the ground, he knows it. Katsuki needs him. The people will become worried if he doesn’t move. But Eijirou closes his eyes and holds his breath, committing the memory of Katsuki’s familiar weight pressing him against stone. The smell of pigment and sweat and ripe fruit. The contrast of hard stone and pliant skin.
Remember this, he tells himself. Remember this no matter what.
The way Katsuki’s eyes seemed to glow like coals for just a moment. The way they sparkled as if filled with tears, shimmering and wild and focused on Eijirou’s face. The sound of their fall, of whooshing air and ugly laugher, stringed music and the pattering of sandals across the temple floor. The dryness of his own mouth as he caught Katsuki in his arms, the way his heart roared to life.
He loves Katsuki. This is nothing new, nothing he hasn’t told himself before, but the word feels different on his tongue, heavy like a stone. It feels like if he were to say such a thing now, that stone would fall from his lips and crack the very ground he stands on in half.
Brother tiger soul love. His warrior in red, his golden prince. Mirror half, bright and beautiful.
Eijirou loves Katsuki, and that is the beginning of everything.
🩸🩸🩸
Katsuki’s hands shake.
It’s adrenaline, of course, he tells himself. It is excitement for what is coming. It’s maybe nerves, or perhaps dehydration. A mysterious illness, or a curse. His hands shake like windblown leaves, fingers trembling, bones chattering. They might shake for many reasons, but Katsuki is absolutely certain that they do not shake because of Eijirou.
He escapes out of his robe and tucks it away out of sight for cleaning later. His reflection catches his eyes as he turns and so he pauses at his looking glass. He hardly recognizes the wild-eyed stare scowling back at him. His cheeks are flushed, streaked with pigment, and dirty. He reaches up as if to wipe away the smears, but catches himself at the last moment. It would be odd for any pious warrior entering the tournament to show up freshly scrubbed and clean. Katsuki shakes out his hair, watching colorful dust float to the floor and resists the urge to clean his face.
By now, his mother will have noticed his absence. The glaring emptiness beside Eijirou will be as obvious as if he’d suddenly lost an arm or leg. Panic bleeds deep in his chest as he mentally cedes control over to Eijirou. He has to trust him to take care of his mother and the crowds. He has no other choice. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
Katsuki retrieves a bundle of cloth hidden beneath their bed and unravels it on the bed linens:
A pair of silk trousers, each leg sporting a generous slit from hip to ankle for better movement. A braided strip of cloth to be tied around his breasts and neck, looped around his head like a thin veil. Leather bracers for each forearm, tough and sturdy to block an enemy’s spear. A pot of ink to paint his lineage and rank onto his skin. It is the uniform of a soldier, a warrior, meant to enhance speed and allow freedom and flexibility. Katsuki stole it from an unfortunate guards person on laundry duty while Eijirou distracted them with stories of his dragon mother.
Before he can put on the uniform, he’ll have to paint his skin. It feels wrong to rush such a sacred tradition. Warriors earn their colors and stripes from their families. Green to the north, yellow to the west, blue to the east, red to the south. These colors combine and mix into an entire array of vibrant hues noticeable from a distance and used to identify a person. Katsuki’s choice of orange — a common color by all respects, not flashy or attention-grabbing — will be enough to signal that he is perhaps from the mountain area or a little more from the west. It is enough that people might look at him and think he is familiar enough and his presence will not cause any suspicion.
Thin stripes are painted from neck to foot along the side of a warrior’s body to show how many generations served before. Katsuki hasn’t had the time to think through a complex fake lineage story, so he has accepted he’ll only paint one stripe for the tournament.
Hatches and symbols are painted onto the back of warrior’s necks, where it is impossible for them to do so themselves. It’s a sign of great trust to allow another person to paint your skin, especially your back. Warriors in battle always work in pairs, a sacred bond called Ikigai. It is never to be severed. Ikigai wear each other’s colors, fight together, live and die side-by-side. A warrior’s Ikigai is the only other person permitted to paint these ancient markings.
Katsuki undresses quickly and dips a paintbrush into the little pot of orange ink. The motion is unfamiliar and awkward and each time he tries to paint the straight line; it skitters and drips under his hand.
“Fucking shit,” Katsuki curses, using a spare cloth to scrub his awful attempt clean from his skin.
A warrior his age should have mastered such simple painting techniques by now, having done it for years prior. An unsteady hand is the mark of an unsteady warrior. Katsuki grits his teeth. He can’t afford to have people questioning his qualifications.
He takes a deep breath and wills his fingers to steel themselves as he places an ankle on his bed trunk and tries again.
“Steady,” Katsuki hisses at himself. It does not work.
“Katsuki, I’m--!”
Katsuki looks up to see Eijirou slipping inside the room, closing the door behind him. His face is red from running, breath clipped and erratic.
“S-sorry,” Eijirou claps a hand over his eyes and turns around.
Katsuki frowns.
“Get over here and help me, idiot. Why are you being so weird?”
“Ah— I was… it’s just—”
“Nevermind,” Katsuki says. He holds out the paintbrush to his friend and walks toward him. “I need you to help me paint my feats and lineage. I can’t get it right.”
Eijirou licks his lips, searching Katsuki’s eyes for a moment, before he nods. They both know that this is pretend. Katsuki and Eijirou are not Ikigai. Regardless, the weight of such a request is incredible. Ikigai might not be a proper marriage, but it is certainly a hallowed union.
“Hurry! I have to let it dry before I get dressed.”
“Right!”
Eijirou drops to his knees and skims fingers down from Katsuki’s knee to ankle, tracing the path that his brush must follow.
“Nothing complicated, alright? Don’t want to draw unnecessary attention. One line for first generation, hatches for spear work and sword.”
“Ikigai mark?”
“Obviously. How the hell else would I be painting the back of my neck?”
“No, I meant what should I use?” Eijirou asks, looking up at him, a warm hand wrapped around Katsuki’s ankle.
For a moment, Katsuki’s mind wanders. Eijirou in matching brushstrokes, his counterbalance, other half. Yuán fèn.
“Just make something up! It’s not real!” Katsuki snaps suddenly, eager to make words like marriage and Ikigai and fate disappear from his thoughts.
“Right.”
Katsuki watches as Eijirou thumbs at his skin, palm scorching and rough. The godling’s tongue slips through tight lips as he concentrates on the task at hand and Katsuki has to restrain himself from laughing at how absurd he looks. Or maybe he laughs because he isn’t sure what else to do with the nervous energy constricting his throat. It’s probably just because Eijirou looks stupid. Probably.
Eijirou dips the brush into the pot of paint and begins drawing a slow, steady line from Katsuki’s ankle to hip. The paint is cool, and the brush is soft and wet, like a hound’s tongue. If he isn’t careful, his laughter will shake through his body and ruin the lines.
“S’ticklish,” Katsuki remarks offhandedly, looking straight ahead at his exposed body in the mirror, lips twisted in a ghoulish grimace as he tries not to laugh.
Eijirou chuckles.
“Okay, turn around so I can get the other leg.”
Katsuki rotates, acutely aware of his nudity but unsure exactly why. He focuses on the sheen of sweat coating Eijirou’s thick arms, the way it moistens the powdered pigment and makes it drip like multi-colored streaks of rain instead.
“Did the hag suspect anything?”
Eijirou lifts the brush from Katsuki’s knee while he speaks.
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I mean, yeah? I told her you were feeling sick. She said it was probably all the spicy peppers you insist on eating.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes. Typical.
“How long do you think you have until she’ll notice you’re gone?”
Eijirou shakes his head.
“Not sure.”
“Well then, hurry!”
Eijirou nods quickly then returns to smoothing the orange paint from knee to hip. The closer his hand gets to Katsuki’s middle, the more his face reddens.
“Are you sick?”
“Wha-? No? Why do you say that?”
“You look like shit.”
Eijirou pales. “It’s been a long morning. I’m nervous.”
“Yeah, where the fuck were you?”
“All done with your legs!” Eijirou interrupts, ignoring Katsuki’s question completely. He jumps to his feet and sets about connecting a line from Katsuki’s shoulder to the middle fingertip. “Don’t move.”
Katsuki locks his position and watches Eijirou in the mirror. He’s been acting strange all day, whether he’ll admit it. It would annoy if Katsuki cared to think much about it.
Beside him, Eijirou moves thoughtfully, long neck bowed as he holds Katsuki’s wrist and allows the brush to lick across his pale skin. He has an artist’s hands, not a warrior’s, not a god’s. Thin, graceful fingers ghost under Katsuki’s forearm and rest to support his elbow as he works.
Katsuki’s head spins, and he takes in a gulp of air. He didn’t even realize he’d been holding his breath.
He has to get his shit together.
“Y’okay?” Eijirou asks, dark eyelashes fluttering prettily around concerned red eyes.
“M’fine,” he grunts.
And he is. Fine. He’s totally completely fine and his face is not on fire. His nerve endings are not lighting up like a cloudless night sky. He isn’t getting goosebumps from the way Eijirou’s warm breath warms his skin as he leans in close to inspect his work. His heart only rattles his chest because of the thrill of defying his mother, a victory close at hand. Not because of Eijirou.
“You need to settle down or you’re going to sweat the paint off before it dries,” Eijirou admonishes, finishing the next line to Katsuki’s shoulder.
“Shut up,” he squeaks back.
Oh, fuck.
His voice is even cracking now. Cursed anatomy. Why can’t Katsuki mature gracefully like Eijirou? A boy one day, the next, a man. Eijirou’s voice had slipped into a velvety baritone with none of these painful squeaks and squawks.
No, of course, Katsuki must fight through puberty like he fights through everything else in his life: desperately, aggressively, and full of rage.
For his part, Eijirou does not mention Katsuki’s cracking voice. “Just need to add the marks to your neck.”
“After it dries, you’ll cut my hair, right?”
Eijirou’s hand freezes in midair.
“You’re… really going to cut it?”
“The point is to blend in, shitty hair.”
“O-Ochako has long hair! And she’s a warrior!”
“Cheeks doesn’t count. She’s the favorite. She could punch you in the face and no one would say shit to her.” Well, that isn’t true. Punching a god directly in the face is probably grounds for pretty severe punishment. Not that Katsuki would know. He can’t count how many times he and Eijirou have fought with each other, how many black eyes and split lips they’ve traded.
“If you’re sure then, yeah, okay. You have a sharp knife?”
“Tch,” Katsuki sneers. “Of course I do. The fuck do you think I am?”
Eijirou snorts and his exhale causes the hair on the back of Katsuki’s neck to rise.
Did they normally stand this close to each other?
“What are you painting as my Ikigai mark?”
Did Eijirou always give off this much heat?
“Oh, um,” Eijirou pauses for a moment, “I thought I’d draw something simple. It’s a… uh, dragon feather.”
“Haaah?!”
“It means good luck!” Eijirou chirps, blushing a deep scarlet. “I don’t think it’s that weird or anything. Everyone believes in dragons.”
“Tch… whatever. Just hurry it up.”
Eijirou nods silently, then returns to his work on Katsuki’s neck.
A few moments later, the paintbrush again rests in its place beside the paint pot.
“I think that’s good,” Eijirou appraises, eyes raking over Katsuki’s nude body.
Their eyes meet for a moment like magnets, heavy and unavoidable.
Eijirou coughs and runs a hand through wild black hair. “So… what do you think?”
Katsuki stalks closer toward the mirror and turns this way and that. He hasn’t even put on the stolen clothing and already Katsuki’s eyes widen at the feminine way the lines cross his body and stress his limber, strong limbs. The orange paint marks are bold and neat. He wishes he could see the marks on his neck, but there isn’t enough time to track down another mirror.
He takes a deep breath.
“Okay. Now cut my hair.”
🩸🩸🩸
Eijirou can’t help but allow his fingers to tangle into Katsuki’s long, golden hair before he raises the blade to shear it off forever. His fingertips rub gently at Katsuki’s scalp, his temples, and tuck a long strand behind his ears. He’s fully expecting some sort of rebuff, but Katsuki stands quietly, staring up at Eijirou with a little dignified pout.
“Come on!”
“Right,” Eijirou says, releasing Katsuki’s head and mourning the great injustice he is about to mete out. He reaches for his bone knife, tucked safely within the folds of his robe, and withdraws it slowly, hoping with each second that Katsuki will come to his senses and tell him to stop his silly thing.
Katsuki must sense the hesitation. He reaches out, covers Eijirou’s hand curled around the grip with his own, and together they move the sharp blade toward the nape of his neck.
“Katsssuki,” Eijirou pleads, his serpentine accent overtaking his voice in a way it hasn’t for years. “You’re sure?”
“I have to do it,” Katsuki says. There is finality in his tone. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be a warrior, a hero. This is my only chance, Eijirou.”
Eijirou nods and closes his eyes as he takes the bulk of Katsuki’s hair into his hand, twists it around his wrist, and tugs gently. When he opens his eyes, Katsuki is already looking at him, twin pools of amber fire reflecting his own strange, black eyes.
Katsuki releases Eijirou’s hand and the knife arcs down, freeing Katsuki of his childhood.
There should be thunderstorms, hail, wails of sorrow. Eijirou holds his breath, unable to comprehend what he has done. Katsuki’s small hand drops away from his own, leaving him feeling cold and adrift.
Eijirou holds the long tail of golden hair in his shaking fist. Untethered to Katsuki, it seems less magical, less full of life and wonder despite smelling and feeling just the same as it had a mere moment ago.
Katsuki reels backward and turns toward the mirror, talking quickly, but Eijirou doesn’t hear a word of it. He opens his fist and watches Katsuki’s hair float gently to the floor like dying sparks.
“Yuán fèn,” Katsuki says awkwardly from the side. Eijirou has never heard him use the word unprompted. It feels like a warm breeze kissing frozen skin.
“Yuán fèn,” Eijirou repeats, voice raw as gravel, dry as dirt. His heart lodges in his throat, trapped, and crying. It feels as though he has lost something, but isn’t sure what.
The godling searches Katsuki’s proud, excited face, and feels the ground shift beneath his feet. This is love, or fear, he’s sure. The two seem inexorably linked.
When Wen Shi has to leave the mountain, she always plucks a feather to tie into Eijirou’s black hair. It shines like moonlight, a single silver dart in the darkness of their cave. It is her way of staying close, offering protection, and showing love, even though far away.
Words fail Eijirou, but he remembers his mother’s love and remembers the grounding strength it always gives him. Without thinking, Eijirou reaches up, plucks a thin golden feather from his hair, and quickly ties it into Katsuki’s before he can protest.
“For luck,” Eijirou tells him. “You're blessed by a good. How can you lose?”