Chikusa (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kokuyoyo) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thenearshore2019-06-03 07:49 pm
kokuyoyo) wrote in thenearshore2019-06-03 07:49 pm
[closed] with eyes sunk so deep in our skulls
Who: Chikusa Kakimoto, Ken Joshima, Nanako Dojima
When: when Hakkai disappears
Where: The empty lot in the Central District that used to be Temple Li Tieguai, later Temple Nanshe
What: Chikusa and Ken have lost two gods before, but it doesn't get any easier. Even for the third time.
Warnings: codependent teenagers reacting badly to loss, as usual
As had happened twice before, the disappearance happened so suddenly that it took a moment for the pain to set in, not too unlike how the brain would need a moment to accept the loss of a limb.
The Temple of Iron Crutch Li had been by no means been an enormous or extravagant temple in the pristine beauty of the Central District, but that had only served to make it all the more notable a landmark. The tall and sturdy red brick walls had stood out from the complicated designs of other temples, and the scent of herbs had wafted out from behind its simple decorated walls. It hadn't been a huge place, with enormous bedrooms or fancy kitchens... but it had been everything to some of the people who'd lived in it.
Just as utterly, it's now nothing.
As with the times before, not everything disappears. The bags and suitcases Chikusa had packed underneath their bed frame a long time ago, filled with spare clothes and poisons and rations, those had stayed. Chikusa's massive collection of beanies, although not the drawers that he'd kept them in, is still there and in a pile on the ground. A lot of their snacks, most of them Ken's, are scattered about.
There is a framed picture, drawn for lighter and brighter times.
There are letters.
There is not their bedroom, a little bit cleaner in recent days with renovations and expansions but still as full of their things as it had always been. There is not the herb garden, carefully maintained even by the two of them for chores, full of calming and comforting scents always found their way into the temple. There is not the kitchen, or its attached dining room, two places they'd all spent so much time in with food theft and conversation and an ease couldn't be found anywhere else.
There are not the things that matter.
There is not their god.
When: when Hakkai disappears
Where: The empty lot in the Central District that used to be Temple Li Tieguai, later Temple Nanshe
What: Chikusa and Ken have lost two gods before, but it doesn't get any easier. Even for the third time.
Warnings: codependent teenagers reacting badly to loss, as usual
As had happened twice before, the disappearance happened so suddenly that it took a moment for the pain to set in, not too unlike how the brain would need a moment to accept the loss of a limb.
The Temple of Iron Crutch Li had been by no means been an enormous or extravagant temple in the pristine beauty of the Central District, but that had only served to make it all the more notable a landmark. The tall and sturdy red brick walls had stood out from the complicated designs of other temples, and the scent of herbs had wafted out from behind its simple decorated walls. It hadn't been a huge place, with enormous bedrooms or fancy kitchens... but it had been everything to some of the people who'd lived in it.
Just as utterly, it's now nothing.
As with the times before, not everything disappears. The bags and suitcases Chikusa had packed underneath their bed frame a long time ago, filled with spare clothes and poisons and rations, those had stayed. Chikusa's massive collection of beanies, although not the drawers that he'd kept them in, is still there and in a pile on the ground. A lot of their snacks, most of them Ken's, are scattered about.
There is a framed picture, drawn for lighter and brighter times.
There are letters.
There is not their bedroom, a little bit cleaner in recent days with renovations and expansions but still as full of their things as it had always been. There is not the herb garden, carefully maintained even by the two of them for chores, full of calming and comforting scents always found their way into the temple. There is not the kitchen, or its attached dining room, two places they'd all spent so much time in with food theft and conversation and an ease couldn't be found anywhere else.
There are not the things that matter.
There is not their god.
no subject
Such a sudden change makes Chikusa freeze up in turn... even if it's only for a moment. It's his first response to everything that's always been to much for him, his brain freezing, leaving the body behind to react appropriately if there's even anything to react to. His eyes try to meet Ken's, frantic, lost. What is he supposed to do here? What can he do? Hakkai isn't there, Axel isn't there, Roy isn't there, they have no one...
Multiple somethings dig into his leg, and it takes a hot second for Chikusa to actually look down in order to see what it is. There's Pookie, still having shoved her way onto his lap, still yelling in distress... and her claws digging in past fabric to hit skin. It's not a bite from Ken, but it's enough to keep his mind tentatively tethered to the current here and now. Drinking in a shaky breath, he lets go of Ken just long enough to pry Pookie from his legs. "Keep an eye on him," he tells the cat, who finally manages to quiet down in favor of a determined nod. Once she's settled on Ken's shoulders, Chikusa quickly reaches down to pick up his partner's hands in his.
"Ken," he says quietly, floundering with his words or even what to do. Maybe all he can do is treat this like their life: a hideout being compromised, them having to clean up the mess, move on. If he can pretend it's like that... he can do something. Maybe. "I'm... going to gather all our things. I'm going to get whatever has been left behind. Okay? Do you want to come with me and help pick things up?" It doesn't sound.... like much, honestly. But he'll try anything to get Ken to react.
no subject
But at Chikusa's words, he stiffens minutely as everything in him rejects everything about Chikusa's idea. No. It's almost more sensation than thought. Picking up their things - it's the first step after Hakkai's departure. The first step to having to move on, to having to deal with the fact that Hakkai is gone. It is in fact the first act of Life After Hakkai.
Ken doesn't want that. He wants the opposite of that so strongly that his brain has basically shut down all non-essential functions of his body rather than deal with the reality of Hakkai's disappearance. So Chikusa gets a reaction, sort of, in that Ken closes his eyes. That's all, but it's the closest thing Ken can manage to an absolute refusal to even consider what Chikusa's suggesting.
no subject
He doesn't know what to do on his own. Can he even do this on his own? Axel disappeared, but he still had Ken on the other side of the ablution borderlines. Roy vanished, but they still picked each other up and dragged their way to Hakkai's temple. And before all of this, to the bloodied ruins of the Estraneo, the achingly clean spaces of the labs- they weren't alone. They couldn't be alone.
Even when he was dying, Ken was right there.
Perhaps dying is the closest thing he can compare this moment to, as Ken and him sit there with something separating them. When he was dying, he hadn't been able to move his hands to touch his partner. He couldn't truly reach him. Now, as well, he can't really reach him... Only the shoe is on the other foot now.
Trying not to shake and failing at it, Chikusa leans in against his partner and presses his face into the crook of his shoulder. Time is sometimes an uncertain concept to Chikusa's brain, during the worst of times, and this is certainly a time worse than most other things he's experienced. He has no idea how long he sits there, the animals crowding around them, before he forces himself upright.
If he could lay here forever, he'd want to. If it were him on his own, Chikusa knows he would. Yet he isn't alone, and he can't make himself alone, no matter that Ken is the one who's "left" this time. And if he isn't alone....
He has to take care of them. Because, just like their entire lives, no one else will.
"I'll be right here, Ken," he says, voice so tight that his words barely get out. Real effort is required to tear his eyes away from his partner to look to Bon, and he tries to mimic the stern effect of Hakkai's tone. "Bon, down." Whether he's good at it or not, Bon listens regardless with a kind of gentleness as he lays down right besides Ken. For once, Chikusa is thankful for the dog's massiveness. It's something to gently press Ken against, gently maneuvering his partner's hands into the fur and his head along Bon's back. "Cats- over here, too."
Ken loves animals. Maybe, Chikusa thinks with threadbare hope, it'll even help him Come Back, but, even if it doesn't, at least he'll have creatures that can protect him. From what... Chikusa isn't sure.
But there's always something.
As the cats begin to pile on the blond, uncharacteristically quiet even when Chikusa fusses with their positioning, he continues to speak to Ken. "I'll be right here. So this is fine. Alright?"