Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ When the Moon Hits Your Eye ( Chapter 18 )

Chapter 18

"When the Moon Hits Your Eye"

The outskirts of Tokyo’s suburbs had grown dark by the time Heero had collected up the deck of cards, put them back where they had sat for years, unused, and stopped for a second, unnaturally worried by that thought. He vaguely wondered if they would again sit there, untouched, in a quiet house, gathering dust while he simply grew older with the ghosts and the spiders. But he didn’t take the time to think about it—he busied himself before he could realize something he would regret and as he walked out of the kitchen he lost himself in the act of taking the hamper beside the laundry door and chucking in a load and pulling another from the dryer and depositing it in a basket to be folded later. That occupied him for a few minutes, but after that, once he’d stuffed the last of the dry clothing into that basket and nudged it to the side of the dryer with his foot, he was reminded of what he was trying to bury in the back of his mind when he heard a loud thud somewhere above him in the house. He gave his usual sigh and walked back out of the laundry room, shut the door, and stood there, squinting suspiciously up at the ceiling. The sound didn’t come again.

With the Shinigami, that was probably more troubling than anything. So the mortal turned and started up the stairs to the second level, his ears peeled for sounds that the Angel of Death staying temporarily in his house had dropped another framed picture or vase or something most likely breakable. As he walked cautiously up the stairs, awaiting another harrowing-sounding crash, he still heard nothing. Even when he stood at the lip of the second story hallway, nothing came and he could only see moonlight stealing its way into the house through the window at the end of the hall. Heero’s face twisted up slightly. He saw nothing to prove that the Shinigami had been there, even when he knew he had heard him up there—none of the doors to the rooms were open and the deity was no where to be seen. Heero turned his head to gaze back down the stairs and still came up barehanded.

Still nothing to reassure him there. As reluctant as he was to harbor the troublesome deity in his home, he wasn’t about to lose him either—there would be a literal hell to pay to Iria if he "lost" her son. He started trekking down the hallway, opening doors and flipping on the lights only to peer into an open room. After he’d inspected the bathroom and his bedroom, closest to the stairway, he stepped back and made a slight face down the hallway.

"Shinigami?" he called out. He turned his blue eyes toward the end of the hall, drawn by the moonlight spilling in from the window—a window that was only halfway closed. A window that he was sure, before he’d left his house for a trip to America that he had no idea would shake up his perceptions of reality or gods, he had shut tightly. There was no way it’d just opened itself for some fresh air, so he walked down the hall towards it. The cool outside air, littered with sounds of cars passing, faint voices from the streets and houses around him, and a general buzzing of night, leaked in and Heero lifted his hands to shut it. But before he could, he was struck with a thought and in his mind opened up a memory, unbidden.

His father hadn’t always been away on business, tinkering with his motorcycle, or busied with some other venture that left a young Heero to his own devices to entertain himself. In fact, he’d often taken time off to spend time with him when he was a little younger, though that habit lessened over the years, and one of the things he’d passed on to his son was the passion of young American boys to climb trees and whatever else stood to be conquered. So he’d taught him something, beneath his mother’s "radar", if you will. Just outside the Yuy household, there was a tree that had escaped the leveling of the Tokyo sprawl and had grown up along the side of the house, so close that it had started splaying almost artistically out to the sides where it grew close to the window. From the window at the end of the hallway, Odin had told his son, you could crawl out on a sturdy branch, put one’s foot on the top of the window, lift the other foot to another branch, and, in relative safety, step out onto the gradual slope of the roof. And, he’d told a young and curious Heero, if he was quiet, he’d be able to sneak out without his mother knowing he was doing anything but watching cartoons in his room and have the freedom to do whatever he wanted.

After a few excursions out onto the roof, Heero’d already devised ways to keep himself entertained with his newfound hiding place. He’d taken a tin from his room that had once held his tiny toy cars, filled with a handful or two of candy and snacks he’d sneak out from the pantry, tied a string to it, and hidden it in the hollowed trunk of the tree he used to climb onto the roof. Therefore, whenever he was hungry for a between-meals snack, and he couldn’t get by his mother, he’d simply sneak out the window, pull the string, and drag the box of sweets out of hiding. He’d also put pictures, notes, and some of his toys in the box and taken them out when playing on the roof. He had a pillow (an old one that no one really would miss if it happened to disappear one day) that he’d take out with him and sometimes take a nap in the summer on the warm shingles. He’d also planned to use that tree as his escape route for when he got grounded when he was older, but it never came. After a year and a half or so, the secret had gotten out and his mother had barred Heero from climbing on his roof. The habit died completely when his parents did as well.

It seemed a little strange to be back there, staring out the window at the arms of the tree now. He’d thought of it, sure, once in a while, but he’d never climbed it again. And for some reason, he suspected that was where the Shinigami had disappeared. So, with a wash of nostalgia, he opened the window and stuck his head outside. He listened again for another noise, but didn’t hear one. But he began to climb out onto the branch anyway. The old rhythm of it came back effortlessly, and with longer legs and a stronger body, it was a much easier and a much smoother journey up onto the roof. Heero practically glided up the branches and onto the roof without a sound. He’d forgotten his shoes, but he forgot about that quickly when he spotted the Shinigami and the Shinigami spotted him.

The God of Death sat where the roof came to a mild peak, his back turned toward the young Japanese man, and he turned away from gazing over the glittering metropolis lights in the distance to look over his shoulder at him. In the shine of the moon, his freshly preened feathers glistened as black as death, and his face glowed impishly as he smiled, spotting him just as his head appeared over the edge of the roof. "Care to join him?"

His whip-like black tail curled up to pat the roof beside him, and his wings fluttered happily, curled around his shoulders.

"I have neighbors, you know," Heero said, pushing away from the tree branch and stepping carefully on the shingles. They’d been unattended for some years and the last thing he needed now was to fall off his own house and get himself killed, with an Angel of Death sitting on his roof. "Let’s go back in before they see you up here. Come on, Shini."

The God of Death kept his voice low, almost as if not to disturb the beauty of the scene he could see from atop his Teishu’s home. "No, they’re sleeping—come on, Heero! Just for a little while? He’s not going to make trouble, he swears. What can it hurt to sit here for a little while longer?"

He turned his head back, once again losing himself in the beauty of a modern city at night, admiring the countless glowing lights of buildings off in the distance, staining the sky a faint, animate pink, and the sleepy yellow squares of lit windows in the surrounding houses. As he stared, an uncharacteristic solemn tone entered his voice. "There’s no telling how long he will stay in limbo if he should go back. And it is not beautiful there, no. You mortalsdo not always realize how fortune smiles on you, even if you do not last long." But that pitch made itself scarce in a grinning smile when the Shinigami turned back to see that Heero had actually sat down beside him and his tail teased at the air happily.

The mortal man folded his arms as he sat down on the small peak in the roof and rested his elbows on his knees. He sighed quietly and offered, while hoping that the wind wouldn’t get any colder, "I guess it’ll be fine."

Shini smile’s glowed a little brighter at the side of his face.

"After all," he shrugged, "I haven’t been up here in years. I might have forgotten completely about this place if you hadn’t reminded me of it." And after a moment of scanning the sublime beauty of distant city lights in the night, he let out another deep breath and let his chin rest on his crossed arms, the mild breeze whistling over the tops of the Tokyo suburb tousling his already mussed dark brown hair. The Shinigami could feel the cold air, but kept his warm, deathly black wings against his shoulders and kept warm, like a chickadee ruffling his feathers free of snow in winter. They both watched the glitter and bustling grandeur of the Tokyo lights from a far, closer to the homely glow of a bedroom window than to the neon brilliancy that beckoned. For a while, it was quiet, until the Shinigami glanced over to his blue-eyed husband and out of habit, he turned as well, analyzing the expression on his face for any opportunities for mischief growing there. Shini’s eyes brightened suddenly, glowing happily as an idea took him.

"He just remembered something. You want to see a trick, Heero?" For some reason, the hushed, excited way he said made him actually spark an interest in it, and he nodded. The God of Death’s face was practically split in half by the smile that bloomed there and he quickly shuffled closer to the mortal, almost startling him to slip off the peak of the roof, lifting his hands up eagerly so that Heero could see them. And at first, he simply frowned, seeing as there was nothing in them and the Shinigami was pressing his luck in pressing against his side, his head nearly resting on his shoulder and his feathers brushing accidentally against his back. He turned his head doubtfully, analyzing the expression on the deity’s face, and watched as the smile grew.

"He taught himself this one," he boasted happily, nudging Heero’s shoulder with his own to pay attention. "There is not much fun to be had in limbo, so he learned to make some of his own. He saw it from one of his brothers from when he still lived in Hell, but that was when he was very small and that was very long ago." His hands still hovered, palms up and slightly cupped, empty as the air they held. A second later, he bit at a corner of his tongue and made a face while nothing happened immediately.

"You didn’t forget it, did you?" Heero asked flatly, looking skeptical by moonlight.

An instant after the words had left his mouth, there came the faint sound like water at the bottom of an empty glass being slurped up through a straw, but sounding more like it was distant, hidden within a cardboard box somewhere he couldn’t see. It came from no place in particular; it instead seemed to just exist. And between the Shinigami’s palms a ring of crystalline white light also just suddenly appeared and as it brightened sharply, the center darkened to a jet black orb, roughly the size of a pool ball and ringed with brilliant light. Heero recognized it, yes—he’d been attacked by a monster of the same element before, after all.

Shini twisted his head, lifting an eyebrow smugly. "No way," he said, smirking.

Heero stared at the bundle of pure Darkness for a minute. Darkness, he guessed, was just the absence of light. And born a Shinigami, although a strange one, he’d been given command over it. So, did that mean there was also an absence of light in Shini? Otherwise it seemed that it would be impossible to ply such a characteristically untouchable thing as the night itself, but it seemed just as impossible. He couldn’t accept the idea that the mischievous spark in the deity’s eyes, the gleam in his smile that was seemed more human than it was, was an illusion of darkness. That thought somehow did not feel the best to mull over in his mind, like an unwanted taste in his mouth that he couldn’t wash out.

While he dazed slightly over that thought and allowed the Shinigami to lean against him without a protest, the black-winged deity glanced up to his face with a beaming expression of pride, nearly the same as when he’d presented his piece of crayon artwork.

"See? Bite of cake," he boasted again, chuckling proudly and not noticing his mis-worded saying. "It’s really an easy trick to learn. Heero. Even the runt of the litter, like himself, learned it without any trouble at all. What about you? He thinks you could do it, too, with a little help." As he finished, nudging still at the side he leaned against, and Heero vaguely returned to his normal mind, with the Shinigami resting his chin cozily on his shoulder, he watched the mortal’s face carefully. He waited for a response, but Heero just blinked back and stared at the quietly fascinating globe of black.

"Ne, Teishu?"

"No, I really don’t think I could—I mean, I’m not a Divine, or anything," Heero said, his eyes plastered keenly on the tiny condensed shadow as it shifted in to the Shinigami’s left hand, leaving his right to free to snake its way surreptitiously around his back and around his shoulder, focusing the God of Death’s heat on his back in a manner that was not unpleasant. The ring of light around it flickered as he moved his hand, as the darkness was sucked from the very air, leaving only the pure light behind. If the day and the night were marriages of the two pure forms, then the Shinigami now held both undiluted light and shadow in the palm of his hand. But he was a higher being, and Heero was mortal. He had scraped his knee on the sidewalk as a kid and he had bled red, mortal blood, not some finer blue type of Gods—he doubted what Shini had told him. He shook his head again and the moon smiled down on his tousled brown hair. As he looked at the deity, even his hair seemed to shine more radiantly than his and he doubted it more.

"No," he said again, shaking his head. "It’s alright. I don’t think I could even if you did help—"

Shini chuckled while he wrapped his arm around Heero’s back so that he could take up his other hand by the wrist and guide it like a marionette, smiling on his shoulder up at him. "Why do you automatically think you can’t, Heero? You’d be surprised what would happen if you only tried. And you are a very stunning mortal, so it should not be very hard for you," he whispered comfortingly, his tail drumming out a lazy rhythm as he released the little black orb to disappear silently and seep back into the night from his other hand, so that he could take the mortal’s other hand as well. "Dekimasu."

Beneath him, Heero didn’t respond with his reflexive tenseness, though he thought about the Shinigami being so close, and let the deity do as he would in a moment of calm curiosity. The freshly washed hair of the Shinigami rolled over his shoulder as he repositioned himself better to guide Heero’s hands, his long ear tails brushing against his neck. He fluttered his wings a bit to keep his balance and he leaned forward, moving the mortal’s hands in his own so that they took the same position that his had. "Now," Shini whispered eagerly, "it’s simple."

"Aa?"

"He will help you, but you can do the trick yourself." Already, there was a strange sensation passing from the palm of the Shinigami’s hands into the back of his own, like a warm, not unpleasant absence of weight, like they were liquid with the air. And into it, he could feel tiny, faint veins of cold traveling from his arms down to the tips of his fingers, as if filling them with ice cubes. Shini bit at the tip of his tongue in concentration, as he carefully moved his hands from Heero’s and then held his wrists. "This may sound a little strange, but trust him, it will work. Picture your favorite food in your head, Teishu, and make believe you’re holding it in your hand. It will work, he promises."

The mortal did twist his head to give the deity a look that said exactly that, that it was very strange, but Shini’s bright violet eyes were confident in him and he smirked. "Do not look at him—concentrate!" he hastened with a laugh, his tail curling up to nudge Heero’s head back around by the cheek, forcing him to focus again on his empty upturned palms, a hazy blue tone in the illumination of night. Shini nudged in closer, watching intently as Heero sighed, but complied with the odd command and in his mind groped around for a suitable subject. His more familiar frown returned when he came back from his search empty handed—he’d never really thought what his favorite thing to eat was, but he settled on ice cream sundaes and as soon as he had seen that image, he felt the cold in his finger tips suddenly spread across his palm, like he held the actual cold bowl in his hands. He heard Shini’s rumbling near his ear in a pleased noise and he opened his eyes.

Hovering between his palms was a small orb of Darkness, ringed in Light.

The Shinigami smiled and let his headrest on his shoulder without invitation but also without rebuttal. "Not bad for a mortal," he grinned softly, carefully letting go of his arranged husband’s wrists. The light around the supernatural creation flickered slightly as Shini parted and withdrew his Deathly influence, but soon settled and Heero sat, holding a bit of the night itself in his hand. He opened his mouth but not a word would dare slip out and he wouldn’t tear his eyes off it, fearing it might dissipate if he should do anything but concentrate fully on it. And without the touch of the Shinigami’s skin, the chilled, watery sensation in his hands turned into a mild thrumming of foreign energy, energy that no mortal could tap without a Divine hand first and coursed through his blood illegally.

Suprisingly, Darkness felt rather warm and enjoyable.

"You are a most uncommon kind of mortal, Heero," Shini said with a sigh of admiration, his one arm resting his weight against the roof while the other stole its way over the other man’s shoulders. "You have kept the trick continuing longer than any other that he has seen, you know. Usually," he whispered, "he has only to take away his hands and it will disappear in a few moments. Are you sure you have not done this before?"

Heero remained stone still, his blue eyes honed in solely on the tiny orb he maintained. The Angel of Death chuckled in his ear again, leaning into his side again to give him a hint of advice.

"You don’t need to worry so hard, Heero—it will be there if you want it to be."

Baited on the sight hovering between his palm, emitting a ring of transfixing white light. "But if I don’t concentrate, won’t it disappear?"

The Shinigami reached back up and gently closed the mortal’s left palm, causing the ball of Darkness to constrict itself, at the whim of its wielder’s hand, into such a tiny condensed orb that the white light surrounding it flared like a miniature star, burning in his hands. It became a single glaring light, as bright as any flame and as just as cold as the night air around it. Entranced by the idea that he had a bit of the heavens in his palm, Heero opened his hand a little, experimentally, and the star grew a little larger but the intensity waned as well. And Shini, who escaped physical rebuttal because of his husband’s fascination, put both his hands on his shoulder and rested his head there. He let out a peaceful sigh and said, "See, it was easy enough, no?"

Still drawn to the light in his palm like a moth to the flame, Heero chuckled, not parting his eyes from it. "I suppose," he said with a smile.

"See? Shini knows some things. Not many of your mortal things, but he knows others that mortals do not. He is Shinigami, after all," he murmured dreamily. As he spoke, his demonic tail wound lazily in circles and he slowly began closing his eyes as he kept his head comfortably on the mortal’s shoulder. And by the time they had closed fully, his soot black wings fluttered lightly and relaxed, brushing at the roof shingles and still gleaming in the moonlight.

Heero finally managed to pull his gaze off the miniature, tamed star and glanced over to see that the God of Death had indeed dozed off while leaning against him, but he did not move to shake him off as he might have done as an automatic response. His hand relaxed as he ran his eyes over the face of the sleeping deity and the Darkness crept back into its rightful place, saturating the night, and the light diffused with it. That left them back in the glow of the moon and alone with the faint warmth of the city radiating and the nearby lit windows. Heero now could realize that the Shinigami had slumped against him and drifted off lazily and that he could feel his chest rising and falling against his back. His bushy chestnut bangs scattered over his closed eyes in a way that seemed perfectly normal and even the way his mouth was slightly agape as he slept made the fact he was a Divine even harder to believe. The wings and the distinctive demonic tail were definitely give-aways, but without them, he would seem to be a relatively average human being. His features were not overly lavish except for his striking eyes; he looked more like tired teenager than age-old harbinger of death.

That made him wonder again how the hell he’d ended up here in an outrageous situation of chance—how it’d come to pass that he should take in the most troublesome Angel of Death in all of Hell into his home and now be sitting on his roof, watching the moon, with said god dozing on his shoulder. And why should it be him? How had he seemed so extraordinary, so unique out of all the mortal men and women of time past that they would pick him to marry to the Thirteenth Son of Shinigami? As his mind wandered, his physical body did as well and he found himself coming out of that daze with his hand brushing away the long trails of hair that hung around the sleeping Divine’s face. He moved it away haltingly before he decided to clear his throat and speak up.

"Shini," he said quietly. "Come on, let’s go back inside. You don’t want to sleep outside, trust me."

He responded drowsily by grumbling and squinting his eyes tightly closed, burrowing closer to Heero’s side like stubbornly clutching at his pillow. "Let’s not, Teishu, hmm? So comfortable here anyway, why wake up again?"

"It’s going to get cold out here, Shini. Come on, you can sleep in the guestroom, in a nice, warm bed. How about it? Come on," he urged gently, nudging with his shoulder. "You’ll feel much better there, I promise."

Shini heaved a sigh in his languor and turned his head so that he could almost kiss the mortal’s neck. "But you will not be in that room, will you? You’ll go to your own bed and he’ll be alone once again. It will be much colder then. No, he much prefers it right where he is, thank you very much."

Heero pondered for a minute, wondering how he’d settle this without ending up in argument and still find a way to get the sleepy Shinigami inside, whose stubbornness was not dulled by his slumber. And after a second of running his eyes over the dozing face resting on his shoulder, it came to him. He turned his head toward Shini while he nuzzled his face back into his shoulder, once again drifting off, and offered him, "If you come back inside with me, I’ll give you a good night kiss."

"Mmmm, that sounds good," Shini hummed happily into his shoulder. "You promise him?"

"Yes, I promise."

He lifted his head and his violet eyes opened lazily over an equally relaxed smile. "Then he thinks it’s about time to go inside." That grin widened happily when Heero leaned over to hold up his end of the deal, aiming initially for his cheek, and it grew impish and mischievous when he twisted his head to make their mouths meet instead. He made a slight surprised sound and was left with the distinct taste of cinnamon once again on his lips when the Shinigami drifted back, eyes blissfully closed and mouth quickly twisting back into its former grin. In a moment of mild euphoria, the God of Death almost clumsily put his hand on the side of Heero’s face, half-stroking, half-twitching while the rest of him swayed sleepily.

"Mmm, that was nice, Teishu," he murmured. "Well—g’night." And with that, he slumped against the mortal, already being pulled down by the soft claws of sleep and being pulled straight through the roof, as well.

Shini inadvertently slipped into a state of weightlessness, the one that allowed him to pass through solid physical objects, and after falling asleep, fell straight through the roof like a sack of potatoes. Heero jumped to his feet, startled, as the roof rippled like water where he passed through. Only a second later there was a loud thud from inside the house, which could only be the Shinigami hitting the floor, and Heero had already hurried over to scale down the branches and climbing through the window at the end of the corridor. Once he had gotten a leg inside and over the windowsill, he could tell where the God of Death had fallen, and didn’t bother to shut the window after him once he’d clamored through. He went to the door of the guest bedroom, which had incidentally been located beneath them as they sat on the roof, and found it open a crack. He opened it quickly on a dark room and the sight of the Shinigami snoring, unharmed and completely unaware of what had happened, on the floor just a foot from the bed. He lay on his back, his wings outstretched lazily, and one arm slung over his stomach as it gently rose with every breath.

With a soft, amused smile, Heero simply shook his head and went about the task of lifting up the Shinigami and dragging him into the bed. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, with such large black wings, but even in sleep the deity clung to him and made it a little easier to lift him. Once he had managed to drag him onto the bed, he crawled beneath the covers himself in a sleepy hurry to get warm and folded his wings against him like a pidgeon, ruffling and snuggling his face into the pillow. Heero watched as the God of Death drowsily sat back up to punch at his pillow, then flip over beneath the blankets, ruffling his feathers. He seemed to lull off to sleep almost instantly once he was settled and the whipping motion of his tail stilled beneath the sheets. Seconds later, a rhythm of light snoring could be heard and he was long gone.

Heero pulled out another blanket from underneath the bed and laid it over the Shinigami’s feet before he went back to the door. He glanced once over his shoulder before he shut it and walked down the corridor, still shaking his head in amusement. It would be long before that grin would fade, after he sighed and sat down on his own bed, sensing it bow familiarly beneath his weight, after he reluctantly set his alarm for the next morning with mild dread of work looming over him, and after he’d drifted off as well. And this time, his dreams were absorbed by old, nearly forgotten memories that had needed only to be dusted off a little to be remembered.

Dekimasu = "You can."

AN : Yes, I'm back. The Neko universe is over with, for the time being, and now I can finally get back to writing on My Shinigami, My Hamburger full time! I'm happy because this is a much lighter story and I don't have to get into a kind of depressy mood to write a poignant scene or something. I'm liking it. A little less Romeo and Juliet, a little more Midsummer's Night Dream. (Yeah, I know, I just used a Shakespeare metaphor--I can't help it. Pretty soon I'll be quoting Erasmus and Boccaccio. I apologize in advance ^_^). The title is a line of the song "That's Amore." We're just about to dive head first into the more high-stakes part of this particular arc of MSMH. Oh, and for any one who may not have read the one author's note where I explained the title, I think I'll do it again. Sometime during sixth grade, my friends and I found this little pink paperback romance book (You know the kind, with the cheesy shirtless guy and the girl with the long flowy hair standing against a seascape background) that was called My Darling, My Hamburger. And to sixth graders, it was a pretty racy book, the kind you'd giggle about and spread rumors about the person who checked it out and middle school stuff like that. Anyway, and this may seem a little... I dunno, perverse, but the scene where the guy objectifies this girl beneath her skirt, against the wall, upstairs at a house party is kinda what made me pick the title. Ha, it does sound worse when I say out loud, but I planned on Shini being a rather impish and sometimes lascivious horndog of a character, but in a loveable way. So, that book came to mind and I patched in Shinigami for Darling. I dunno, it might have a better effect if you knew the original title beforehand. And while I'm chattering on, here's some more soundtrack.

"Trip Through Your Wires" U2

"Don't Stop Me Now" Queen

"Sympathy for the Devil" The Rolling Stones

"Around the World" Red Hot Chili Peppers