thenearshore | won't you take me

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won't you take me

Who: The Li Tieguai clusterfuck
What: Well, we're out of a shitty haunted forest, who wants dinner?
When: November 16, evening
Where: Li Tieguai's Temple

Usually, when there's some big nonsense in Heaven, Chikusa can be found out cold or "away" in his own head for most of the following couple of days afterwards... but that apparently only counts for event which involve people. Spending an entire day trekking through a possessed forest filled with violent plant-life and cultists is manageable.... somehow.

No matter how exhausted or injured anyone in the temple is, food still has to be made, and Hakka is in no condition to make it. Thus, dinner is being arranged by the other cook in the house, and invitations have been sent out to the relevant people Chikusa thinks care- namely Nanako and Ayumu, along with anyone they seek to bring. That doesn't mean people checking in on the Li Tieguai temple can't just waltz right into the dinner as well....

There's a lot to do in the time leading up to dinner, after all, depending on when people show up (or, you know, realize there's smells coming from the kitchen). Bon, the resident enormous Tibetan Mastiff, demands attention in the form of bodily flinging himself at people. There's a goat in the garden, tied away from all the important medical herbs. At least four different nekomata wander in and out of the temple ground whenever they please, including Pookie, the most permanent resident, and never shut up.... Not to mention that a Kung-Fu movie has been put on the television for people to watch.

There's also a sign on all entrances to the kitchen that says: CHO HAKKAI IS NOT ALLOWED TO COOK. Presumably Chikusa put it up while making direct eye contact with him.

Either way, mess around until dinner, have dinner, crash in the living room where another kung-fu movie has been put on again... Have fun.

Oh, and before it can be forgotten.... The dinner menu for the night is fritto misto, meaty Amatriciana sauce with bucatini noodles, and all the garlic bread in the world apparently. For dessert? Cannoli again. That... might be all he knows how to make on the dessert front.

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"I don't think most gods like being gods, byon," Ken notes, looking absently up at the sky past Chikusa's head. "Most of 'em seem to think it's kinda weird." Then he looks back at Chikusa. "But I meant Hakkai-sama's different with us, byon. And we're different with him."

He mulls this fact over for a moment, then announces his conclusion aloud. "But I like him anyway, byon."

"...It'd difficult if you didn't like him..." Especially since Chikusa guesses he does, too, or at least Hakkai is easiest to understand. Still, what Ken has said interests him, and he watches Ken as absently as Ken is watching the sky.

"...How is he different with us?"

"Well..." Ken tries to think of a way to articulate what he means. "Axel-sama and Roy-sama took care of us, and they took care of themselves, and they knew what they were doing and how to take care of themselves and stuff. They didn't need us for all that much unless they asked for us...they took care of themselves, and us. But with Hakkai-sama...he's kinda dumb sometimes, byon. Or he messes up. It feels like we're helping him, too, more than with our other gods." He pauses, then amends, "Except for Nanako-sama. But she's a little kid, byon. She was always gonna need people looking out for her 'cause she's too young."

Ken looks up at Chikusa. "It feels like Hakkai-sama needs us more. That's different, right? He feels like a person, not like a god."

Ken's not articulating what he means as well as he might want, perhaps, but he's hoping Chikusa understands him.

A person, not a god... Chikusa mulls over the thought for a moment, turning it over in his head with quiet patience. Well, perhaps it's not wrong, especially not with how he viewed Axel and how much Ken had cared for Roy. In comparison, then...

"Yeah. He's.... a lot more flawed." That's the only way to put it in the end. At the same time- "But you like him anyway... Right?"

"Yeah. He's different from Roy-sama, and how he takes care of us is different, but...he still cares about us and looks after us. Even if we're weird, or messy, or we screw stuff up. So I like him, byon." Ken then gives Chikusa a look. "You do too, shitty kappa."

....Okay, so he guesses he's being called out now, that's fine too. Chikusa stares blankly down at Ken, with only the brief flutter of a blink to show his surprise. "I didn't say I didn't."

"But you don't act like you do, byon," Ken points out. "Not like you did with Axel-sama. You didn't know Roy-sama that well, so I can understand not doing it with him, but you liked Hakkai-sama even before he was our god. So how come you don't act like you like him the way you acted around Axel-sama? You act like you don't like him as much, when you oughta like him even more than I do."

"Hakkai isn't Axel-sama." The words come out just a little faster than Chikusa usually speaks, although most might not normally see it as being particularly faster than normal people speak. Chikusa pauses, lips drawn together thinly, before he starts to speak again.

"I do like him.... but I don't like things he does sometimes." Especially now that the two of them are his shinki, and his actions affect them so much more.

"Neither do I," Ken agrees, eyeing Chikusa. "But did you like everything Axel-sama did...? I dunno why that means you treat Hakkai-sama differently from him." He pokes Chikusa's stomach. "You don't even call him -sama like I do. Why's it different, Kakipi?"

Honestly, after what's been a relatively productive night- making all the food, talking with Hakkai- this is the last thing he wants to get into. It's too exhausting with how much has happened, and he quite frankly doesn't like it. He stares down at Ken's finger, eyes a little dark.

"I didn't like that he ended up disappearing a lot," he says quietly, with some reluctance. "But that's it." Hakkai is around a lot more, which means its own things. "Hakkai... is just someone we live with, and help sometimes. It's not the same thing as a -sama." Or something like that, anyway.

"He takes care of us as much as Axel-sama did," Ken argues, frowning. "Maybe more, since he disappears less. And we serve him the same ways. Why isn't he a -sama? He is to me, byon. But you act like it's different, and...it doesn't feel like being partners the way it did with Axel-sama." This last part is said more quietly. "We both cared about Axel-sama the same way, just as much, and that's why we got along even when we didn't remember each other. Now it's different."

"We're always going to be partners." That much has been proven with how they've stuck by one another's side, even into death. The idea of anything different is... terrifying to Chikusa. That probably shows in the way his fingers curl just a little more against Ken, as if keeping him close.

...But that doesn't answer anything else, and Chikusa knows it. Body slowly growing tense, he keeps looking down intently at Ken's fingers- not away from him but definitely not making eye contact. He really doesn't want to answer this question... not with how well he knows Ken. "I'm waiting for Axel-sama," he mutters. "Either to come back... or for me to find out... how all of this is happening."

"If even you admit there's a chance he might not come back, why're you refusing to treat any of our gods since like they're really our gods? That's why you don't use -sama except when you're talking about Axel-sama, right? 'Cause you don't really think of anyone but him as your god." Ken looks troubled as he watches Chikusa. "So...we don't have the same loyalties anymore..."

Not that Ken thinks Chikusa isn't loyal to Hakkai or Nanako at all. But he can tell Chikusa's holding things in reserve, that there's depths to Chikusa and his feelings that he's closed off to anyone but Axel. And there aren't many people who share Ken and Chikusa's deep devotion to the people they serve, so Chikusa's detached attitude with gods Ken has embraced wholeheartedly...there's a sort of strange loneliness to it.

No... maybe they don't. While it's true that the two of them are as different as night and day, rain and sun, they've always been bound together, he thinks, by something deep... something innate. Following someone...

Thinking too deeply on that, who has earned their devotion, leads only to an abyss he knows he won't be able to claw his way out of. Chikusa stops as best he can, and tries to focus on the curve of Ken's knuckles.

"...I'm loyal to you." His hand creeps forward, resting along Ken's hand. "As much... as any god..." Is that good enough? Can that make up for it? He desperately hopes so.

"I know, but...that'd be true if you were as loyal to Hakkai-sama as I am, too. So it's still not the same..."

Ken gives Chikusa a look of faint frustration. "I don't get it, Kakipi. Even if Axel-sama comes back, why would it be bad if you were loyal to someone else while you waited for him? If you can be loyal to me and Axel-sama, and it's just as much as you being loyal to a god, why can't you be loyal to Hakkai-sama and Axel-sama? And I can get being loyal in that you'd go back to him if he came back, but what's the point of being loyal to him when he's not here and there's nothing we can do for him anyway? It's not doing him any good, right?"

If it were anyone else, Chikusa would shut down the conversation completely- either with stubborn silence that's faced mafia torture or quietly aggressive arguments that would inevitably end up in him leaving. But Ken? Ken, as always, is a special case. So even though he starts out silent, jaw tense as he stares down with his eyes focusing on nothing... He breaks, after a little bit.

Not that he thinks it will make any sense to Ken. After all... They've always been fundamentally different, in more ways than one.

"It feels... like I'm doing bad by Axel-sama. If I follow another god.... like I did him." As if his loyalty weren't real. And his loyalty... That's too much a part of him. If that's weak, dishonest, fake... what is the rest of him?

"But...Axel-sama was always nice." Ken gives Chikusa a thoughtful look. Much like Chikusa is willing to force himself to try to communicate on sensitive subjects for Ken, Ken is willing to put effort into trying to understand the complexities of Chikusa when he senses it's important to his partner. "I don't think he'd be mad at you for serving another god while he's not here anyway...he wouldn't think you're doing anything bad."

Ken doesn't quite get that Chikusa feels he'd be violating a standard he holds for himself, and not one that he thinks Axel would hold him to. This is mostly because Chikusa communicates in the fewest words he can get away with, so sometimes (often) he doesn't explain himself fully enough for Ken to get the picture in one go.

"Axel-sama... was very good to me." It's a simple agreement, because he can't argue with that, especially not after how he's praised their first god. That's never been the problem, however. What's the problem is making clear what his problem is to Ken. It's a little complicated, after all, and something Chikusa knows is one of the things opposite in their relationship, like his silence and Ken's exuberance, or his tidiness and his partner's mess. All of that is something they've just adjusted to in favor of sticking together. This is a little different.

After a moment, he gives it a shot. "But... Even if Axel-sama would be okay with it... I'm not okay with it. It... feels like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to. I want to be... a good shinki for him." And abandoning his god just because his god isn't around.... That doesn't fit the bill for him at all.

"But Axel-sama's not here," Ken says with a frown. "You can't be a good shinki for him any more than you can be a bad shinki for him, 'cause we can't do anything for him when he's not even here to do stuff for. So...why's it matter what you do in the meantime? How's it make you bad?"

"Because..." Chikusa's mouth tightens a little bit in the corner, the words hard to find and just as hard to speak aloud into the open air. He knows what the problem is, deep down inside himself, but it's getting it out there that's the problem. "What if it means... I'm not really loyal to him... if I immediately go find someone else just because he left? Then I don't know... what I would be."

But there's a problem with that, of course, and Chikusa remembers to add it on. "I don't know how to do loyalty... like you do." One shoulder twitches up, a bit of a shrug. "It'd probably be easier for me if I did..."

But he can only be himself, whatever that might mean.

Ken snorts. "You do the exact same loyalty as me, stupid kappa," he says, reaching up and tugging Chikusa's beanie down his forehead a little. "You just worry about it differently than me. You think you being as loyal as I am to the same person about the same things is different, just 'cause it's you doing it. How come you think what I do is enough, but you think you've gotta do more? You're already better than me at most stuff. How come you wanna be better than me at that, too?"

Even as Ken's fingers pull away from Chikusa's beanie, the other teenager is already reaching up to grab onto the offending hand, and his lips puff out just a little bit. It's more the principle of the thing than any idea that Ken would really mess with his beanie. He knows his partner, after all.

And his partner knows him... although, Chikusa has to admit, there are some things he's kept quiet from him, and most others. It's what has his sulky look ease up, something blanker and more thoughtful in its place as he stares down at Ken. It's almost funny that he would say something like that. After all.... "Because Ken," he says quietly, after a long moment of deciding, "has always been better than me." His gaze drifts back to the hand he has captured in his own, thumb rubbing circles against skin idly. "In a lot of things... I thought."

Ken blinks at Chikusa. "Me?" He looks baffled by this. "But...I'm stupid. I mess stuff up all the time, and get myself poisoned, and I smell bad - " This is something Ken takes on other people's authority, mostly. He's used to his own smell. " - and I get my clothes dirty all the time, and I'm not as good with borderlines as you, and I can't do spells, and I write bad, and - "

He could go on for awhile, if Chikusa doesn't stop him. Ken is very aware of his own shortcomings, even if he doesn't like to be reminded of them, and so the idea that he's supposedly better than Chikusa - who Ken relies on heavily - perplexes him.

"You smell horrible," Chikusa says, cutting in, because it's true. It's probably not helping anything, but it's true. Besides, it's not like he has anything to lose in this particular area. Ken's lack of bathing is something he's brought up more than once in the past, with varying degrees of annoyance.

...But that's besides the point.

Shifting to make himself more comfortable under Ken's weight, Chikusa thinks for a moment to organize his words better. It seems like he has to do that a lot, when he's really thinking on his feelings instead of just offering bare minimum replies. It only reinforces to him how out of touch with his own emotions he is. If not for that moment in the moon viewing, when he talked to Davesprite, he might never have gotten to this point with Ken for ages... assuming they ever had that long, here in the Far Shore.

He starts up again after some of that. "Even if you're stupid.... You're better at fighting than me. You were much better at it when we were alive... and if not for ayakashi causing blight upon skin contact, you'd still be better at it. Being smarter... is just me keeping up." Even though he can't remember entirely how he got smarter, or what he did, or where he went, Chikusa knows that much. It had hit him every time he'd looked at Ken and saw their differences in stark contrast. "So that's... one thing."

"That's only one thing, though," Ken says, frowning. "You're smarter than me, so...isn't that one thing, too? That means we're even." He huffs quietly. "Only not so much anymore, 'cause you can handle fighting as a shinki as well as I can, 'cause it's all different. So you don't need me to protect you, hardly ever. But I always need you to figure stuff out for me..."

won't you take me

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