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"How noble of you," Takasugi breathed out as he flung his head back. He snickered… recalling to snicker. He placed further force onto his palm, his right palm, one placed atop the head, trembling between his legs. A pair of glaring eyes shrank back into the dark abyss as he did so. The muffled choking and croaking only added to the theatrics of it all. His snickering dwindled, right on time. "And shameless, too… still clinging on to the past like a fool," he paused, savouring, getting accustomed, as he had before, to the innate bitterness of tobacco. The only difference was that, then, it had naturally occurred, without force or… the constant recallings. "There truly is nothing to change… It's ruined, forever, irreparable." Now, the pipe resting on his fingers didn't have a taste anymore; it was merely… normal. And he rejoiced in its normalness out of each drag. "So the only thing left to do is to destroy it."
Taut fingertips gripped his upper thigh, nails digging in. The pressure was enough to make him wince. He winced while goosebumps raised from his back all the way to the tops of his head. A bitter smile slowly emerged on his face.
"If this is how you'd end up, I'd say you'd be better off wasting away," he spat, face tensed and lips curled….
Then a click of his tongue and a sharp grip upon the scalp. "Ah… but you're on the right path, though, learning from the best of the best," he sneered before turning his gaze beyond, "Isn't that right, Gintoki?"
Immediately, the force got stronger, nails almost tearing the flesh. The strangled guttural sound had turned dire—it was growing a taste. The bitterness had developed into a strangeness that seemed to suffocate, taking Takasugi's breath away. He reached his peak; he couldn't savour it anymore: with the last firm push of his palm, he let himself drown. His smile, then, turned into a strange, gritted sweetness.
He sighed as he released his grip. "Don't spill it, Zura," he ordered lightly as he leaned back and placed his hand on the armrest beside him.
Katsura was choking and coughing with his head down and legs bent behind him. One of his hands was covering his mouth as Takasugi's body fluid threatened to spill. While the other was down on the tatami mat, bracing his weight, nail scraping the fibres with each cough. The palm of Takasugi's hand was now empty, but his words still held the chains: after a sharp, long exhale, Katsura swallowed softly.
Then, unable to be shrouded anymore, the approaching dull stepping sounds reverberated throughout the room. The spotlight had moved target. Takasugi gritted his teeth. The rocks on that cliff were once again grating on the side of his face—he didn't have to recall to feel it. The blood flowing through his veins turned boiling, melting his derisive sneer.
"Look…" he scoffed, taking a drag out of his normal pipe, "your bosom buddy is here."
Katsura was still. He didn't look back. But not forward either, his head was down, staring at his quivering, whitened knuckles. One look at the state he was in, and Takasugi's laughter burst through himself. His back hunched, trembling with glee. But there was this dull discomfort, like after cutting a fingernail down to its bed, a discomfort within the ecstasy of scratching an itch. Something had gone amiss; his heart was quickening its dull thumps without his permission, thumping quicker and quicker of its own will.
Perhaps it was the ends of his bandages that had caught his watching eye, that hung loosely as he hunched, daring its unravelling with every shake and tremble of his body. His heart— sensing what would come after that unravelling: the intervention, the dreaded rendezvous of his past and his present—raced with fright. It raced with its own fright, since Takasugi's watching self had lost the capability of seeing anything other than red.
But the shaking of his laughter continued still; he could not stop it by himself. The fabric swaying before his eye, yet to touch the earth.
"Listen…" the man standing before the two of them finally spoke, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry for ruining… whatever this is you guys had going on," he continued, slowly. "I lost my way and wandered into some sort of sex dungeon, it seemed— yours, I presume, Takasugi." He glanced at Takasugi, a short laugh croaking on his throat.
Takasugi's laughter had slowly died down in the midst of it all, face flattened of its curves. His revulsion thickened, the red taking over completely. He straightened his back. He met with Gintoki's half-lidded red eyes. In a blur, he could feel the crushing snow beneath the sole of his shoes, sinking as his feet rooted deeper in place. The white rabbit looked back for a split second, the red of its eyes stark against the white of its fur and the snow around it. Its nose twitched once— then it ran, ran on its four legs, disappearing among the white snow.
All of Takasugi's fingers were still gripping his spear long after the tiny pattering and shuffling sound across the thick snow faded out of earshot.
And now, as if out of spite, his fingers twitched. The beating of his heart eased agonisingly as he tensed, stopping the involuntary working of his muscle to unsheathe a sword.
"Anyway, I'll be taking my leave now…" Gintoki continued before his eyes trailed towards Katsura, who had turned his head slightly towards him, brown eye peeking behind his dark hair. Gintoki swallowed and furrowed his brows as he hooked his thumb on the inside of his belt, flicking his nail into the leather. The repetitive noise synced with the torturous beating of Takasugi's heart. "If you let me…."
—Oh, concerned now, are we…. Takasugi scoffed, a taunting smile creeping up on his face. He looked up at the fool with narrowed eye— Yes… the only thing this man is now is a fool.
"You can't just watch the show without paying, Gintoki," Takasugi chuckled as he inhaled a smoke. The gnashing sound of Katsura's teeth came before the burning glare he sent him. Takasugi didn't spare him even a glance. And he applauded himself for his lack of looking, for his convincing cruelty—and for what was coming, for what he had imagined. His heart began to race again, exalted. Normalcy was nearing; he could almost reach it with his arm outstretched. And his secret, for now, was tucked away safely behind thinning fabric.
"Hmm… I'll back off, Zura," he announced suddenly.
Katsura stared at him wide-eyed. "Do you mean it?!" he asked, voice grave. He waited, looking at Takasugi and his taunting smile. Then he blinked, and ultimately, sighed an uneven breath. He lowered his head again, facing his trembling, clenched fist. "…What do you want?" he gritted, voice tense as his fist.
"Hey, seriously, I think I'll leave! Let's go, Zura!" Gintoki rushed to speak, eyes darting rapidly from Takasugi to Katsura.
"Shut up, Gintoki!" Katsura shouted as he turned his head around in a snap, facing him completely for the first time. They locked eyes. Takasugi saw it all. He rested his head on his hand, the one placed on top of the armrest, while the other drew his pipe between his lips. He inhaled. The show was about to open. Katsura turned his head back to face him again. "What is it, then?" he demanded, resolute.
Takasugi blew smoke from his pipe in his face. "Entertain me, Zura…" he spoke, his voice blending with the expanding smoke. "Fuck him… or let him fuck you. I couldn't care less."
Katsura had recoiled away from him, the back of his hand covering his mouth and nose. Only his eyes were visible, glowing, like golden embers beneath the smoke. He got up with his eyes rooted in its focus, seeing through Takasugi's green. And Takasugi's eye, too, followed his with a roll. Between them, the leaden, tobacco-infused air seemed to stagnate.
"WHAT?!" Gintoki exclaimed, gripping the handle of his wooden sword. "Don't fuck with me, Takasugi!"
Katsura's frigid form cast a soft shadow on the tatami mat, making the yet dispersing white smoke lighter in its appearance. He stood there with his jaw set. With a decisive face, one that Takasugi had encountered countless times, that to him seemed to serve only one purpose: to make him waver.
Katsura's eyelids twitched. Then, a full blink, heavy. His eyes were watering… perhaps from the smoke.
Recalling Katsura's old green haori, Takasugi remained motionless. Seated as he always was, looking up to him as rays of sunlight filtered past the strands of hair left out of his ponytail, the verdant hills of Hagi stood behind him, comrades in arms.
With a last bitter exhale, Katsura broke his gaze away. The taste of tobacco lingered inside Takasugi's mouth as he watched him stride away.
With Katsura advancing, Gintoki took several skittish steps back to counter each of his bold ones. "WA—wait, hold on!" He raised his hand before him, putting a distance between them. Katsura closed it in a few broad steps and jammed his feet behind Gintoki's.
Gintoki stumbled on his bottom as Katsura propped down between his legs, shaking his head. "I need to save them, Gintoki," he said, fervent, "I can't let everything— this country and its people, everything we've worked on!— go down the gutter."
"By letting you, yourself, drown in the gutter!? Why don't the two of you just cut this shit out!" Gintoki cried out, hoarse, eyebrows knitted together. Katsura stopped the working of his hands on the buckle of his belt. His wet eyes stared at his unmoving fingers.
Takasugi leisurely observed. His seeing self anxiously rejoiced, outstretching his arm. But normalcy was still out of grasp. —Ah, perhaps it was all because of his seeing eye, his damaged pair of eyes. After all, he had been seeing the world with a faulty perception of depth.
"Yes, if it means the freedom of our people."
Takasugi's unbandaged right eye slowly blinked.
With regret, the slight blush and a stray tear on the side of Gintoki's cheek caught his eye.
—The white snow had turned red. He hunched over the carcass, face twisted into a grin. Blood gushed from beneath the spear he held with both hands. Then a droplet of water fell beneath its red open eye.
With a grit of his teeth, he closed his damaged eye shut, refusing to look any longer. But even the darkness enveloping both of his eyes couldn't save him; he still couldn't run away from seeing himself. He regretted not turning the other way when that sword pierced through his left eye, for being able to see at all was a mistake.
And normalcy, in the end, perhaps, will completely blind his damaged pair of eyes. He could only wish upon the star he once looked up at from roof tiles, shrouded by tree branches, with a perfect, deceiving pair of eyes that lied, that could see his—their phantom victory way past the horizon.
"That's sophistry—fuck!" Gintoki exhaled a staggered breath as Katsura put his head between his legs, "Selfish bullshit. I don't want your sacrifice—no one wants your sacrifice! Hey, Takasu— Ah!"
Suddenly, the wind blew from the open window. Strands of Takasugi's hair fluttered past him. The fabric intertwining atop his hollowed eye loosened. Perhaps sensing his acceptance, his heart settled with laguid beats, refusing to save him.
The truth that was ever approaching had caught up with him. The nail was ripped clean off. It had arrived, now, watching through the window with a vacant grey stare. With a sharp inhale, he turned his head towards the red window. The dreaded appointment had taken place. He froze as the wind slipped past him, stinging his nose with the cold scent of the night.
"…I'm sorry," Katsura whispered in the distance— the distant future or past?
The window displayed a moon, full and bloated, framed by its red casing. A soft breeze landed the final blow; his mask escaped, grazing his face as it fell. On the moon, a mirror stood, reflecting his whole image, free from the obstruction of the present. He blinked, heavy— his secret, unearthed. A muffled pathetic moan called his name, but he couldn't look away from the moon— jaw tensed as if seized: the truth was forcing him to look, to look away.
Katsura's long, wet sigh escaped into the air. The clutching of his jaw became stronger, pulling him closer. His reflection was communicating with him, its mouth clenched shut: dawn will soon arrive. —He wouldn't be able to suppress it any longer, pulling it down with his chain, borrowing its light. He shivered, breath hitched. In a moment, in a blink of an eye— in a blink of an eye against his forehead, wet black lashes fluttering, warm breath brushing his cheeks— the sun would peer from the horizon, glowing like amber beneath the veiling morning brume. He could almost nearly see it. His ceaseless anger frothing with an irritating adoration.
The grip on his pipe got stronger, its ashes threatening to fall. Where would this blood-soaked road eventually lead? The past and the present had merged for a second like an eclipse. And it asked for the future. Takasugi was seeing himself as one, but normalcy was getting even farther; he did not have an answer. So, would he, surrendering to the shaking of his hand, let the ashes fall? Would he knock his pipe down himself, scattering the ashes, burning everything it fell across? Once again—one again, he was torn. His reflection gave him no decision; all he could see was an angry man. His fingertips had turned white from the pressure. The pipe and his hand trembled.
But still, he couldn't let it fall…
No… not now,— he bargained with himself, his heart restlessly beating alongside the distant sound of undulating breaths that was growing beautifully unpleasant.