Nabari No Ou Fan Fiction ❯ Learning To Share ❯ Learning To Share 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I do not own nor do I profit from the writing or posting of this story.

 

Learning To Share: 1

 

He awoke in the dark and for a moment couldn't remember where he was. It was a frightening realization and one that made his heart race painfully for several minutes. When his pulse at last returned to some semblance of normal, for him anyway, he allowed his body to relax; his muscles to loosen and ease back into the futon, and his eyes to open, showing him now what he had missed upon waking. He was in a bedroom, the guest room he imagined, in Hanabusa-san's house.

 

And now that the sound of his madly racing heartbeat no longer filled his ears, he could hear the gentle breathing of someone sleeping, and sleeping very close. He tilted his head to the left and down only to have his nose tickled by a mop of dark hair. For one horrible moment he thought that he might sneeze and wake the young boy who was sleeping so peacefully by his side. How embarrassing that would be, to be caught in such a position!

 

`Wait…' Why should he be embarrassed? This wasn't his doing, was it?

 

It struck Yoite then that he had no idea whose doing this was. In fact, the last thing he could remember was sitting in the living room, next to Miharu, and eating the evening meal that Hanabusa-san had made for them. `I fell asleep again.' Yes, that had to have been it. He'd been doing that quite a lot lately. Not that it was surprising; on the contrary, this sort of thing was long overdue given his condition.

 

`Well,' he thought to himself, `that explains why I'm in bed, but…' and he once again looked down at the small bundle of a boy that was curled into his side, head on his left shoulder and tucked up under his chin.

 

No, it didn't explain this at all.

 

Not that he minded. Miharu was warm, and soft, and his weight wasn't such that it was uncomfortable. Just the opposite in fact; this slight weight was somehow comforting, as if it were grounding him, reminding him body and soul that he was still a part of this world. How long had he wandered in the darkness of his soul, not knowing if he was really alive or just a walking shadow, a wraith? But here, in this place, with the weight of this small and unassuming boy laid upon him, he finally knew the answer.

 

It felt good. It felt right, far more so than he cared to admit. And therein lay the problem. He wanted this, had wanted it for longer then he had even realized, until Miharu had come along. But this wasn't the sort of thing that he was allowed to have. He knew Miharu thought otherwise, had been trying to convince him of it for a while now, but Miharu didn't know the truth. Yoite couldn't help but wonder, for the thousandth time, what he would think if he did.

 

At the moment Miharu lived in a world of quiet ignorance. Granted he was living in the world of nabari but that didn't necessarily mean he had given up his innocence, at least not yet. There were many things about this world, both worlds, of which he knew nothing. To him, Yoite was just another boy, a friend, and that was all that mattered.

 

Yes, they were friends, but would they stay that way, could they stay that way, if Miharu were ever to find out that Yoite was not another boy.

 

`He won't care.'

 

He knew this as easily and as concretely as he knew that the sun was round. Miharu had other friends, after all, and more than one of them were girls; so, the fact that his best friend wasn't a boy wouldn't bother him in the slightest. The problem was, he wasn't a girl, either. And how exactly was he supposed to explain that to his 15 year old friend?

 

Yoite had considered telling him lots of times. He had even dreamed of what it would be like, to finally let someone know, to let go of this awful, heavy secret. And he just knew that if anyone would understand, would accept it…him, for what he was without recrimination, it would be Miharu.

 

He allowed himself a moment of quiet reflection, a daydream really; of how nice it would be to hold Miharu like this, for Miharu to want to hold him like this, forever. How nice it would be to just lie here this way, any time they wanted, wrapped up close and warm against each other. No accusations, no harsh comments or ugly words; just acceptance, and maybe…love.

 

`Love…?' Was it even possible?

 

He'd had the sense for a while now that Miharu thought of him as more than a friend. And he had to admit that his own attachment for his young friend felt much stronger then that as well. But between them lay that awful truth that Yoite hadn't yet had the courage to speak to him about, and boy did it need to be discussed. Or it might, if by some miracle of miracles his feelings for Miharu weren't one-sided. Did he really feel the same, or was this all just wishful thinking, another pretty daydream?

 

The thing was, the longer he waited to bring it up, and the closer they got to the time when it wouldn't matter anyway, the harder it became for him to do it, to open up. The fact that Miharu was likely to be as ill prepared for this discussion as he was didn't help matters any. He gently brought his left hand up to rest on Miharu's back and let a small sigh escape him as he realized, not for the first time, that daydreams were just that, dreams.

 

So, what was he supposed to do now? He didn't have the strength, from this position, to move Miharu off of him in a manner gentle enough not to wake the boy. And he definitely didn't want him to wake up and realize that he was sprawled all over the top of…

 

Of what?

 

`Death.' He was a shinigami, a god of death. People didn't just lie down next to beings such as him and drift off into a comfortable and peaceful sleep. That's just not how the world worked. But Miharu wasn't people in any ordinary sense, he was Miharu. And to him, Yoite wasn't death or any incarnation thereof, he was just Yoite. He was a friend, and perhaps a little more. Well, he could hope.

 

Suddenly his heart began to race again. The feeling had returned to his lower limbs, now that he was awake, and he'd just realized that more than Miharu's head had found purchase on him, instead of being content to simply lie next to him. Miharu had at some point, presumably in his sleep, thrown his left leg over Yoite, and that was where it now rested, right between the older boy's legs.

 

He couldn't stop the feeling of near panic that hit him at that moment and his heart once again began to slam painfully against his ribs. It took every ounce of control he had not to throw Miharu off of him and curl himself up into a ball in the corner, as he did so often at Yukimi's.

 

`Oh Kami, if such a being truly exists; please, don't let him wake up like this! He can't find out like this!'

 

It was several more minutes until he had calmed himself enough to be able to breathe without pain, to relax once again back into the futon cushion. But this time, when he opened his eyes, what little light came into the room through the blinds swam across his vision.

 

He was crying.

 

How long had it been since he had cried? Not in pain, everybody cries in pain, at one time or another in their lives. This was fear. How long had it been since he'd known any fear, much less fear of a nature and level that could bring him to tears? How had it happened that he, a kira user, a murderer of dozens if not hundreds of people, a death god, could be so afraid of falling from grace in the eyes of one small boy, as to be brought to tears at just the thought?

 

He didn't know. And what was more, he didn't want to know. All he wanted and needed to know was that right here, right now, Miharu was his friend…and he needed a friend, this friend, every bit as much as he needed air. And that was why he couldn't risk telling him the truth.

 

He couldn't tell Miharu what he wanted so desperately to know but hadn't dared to ask. He couldn't admit, even to his best friend, why death wasn't enough for him, why he had to be completely wiped out of existence. Death, killing, even murder were understood, and to a degree they were even accepted in the world. But he was something far worse, something that he prayed Miharu would never have to know even existed in this world, or any other.

 

`I am neither.'

 

`I am nothing.'

 

So he laid there, on that borrowed futon as calmly and quietly as he could, silent tears sliding down his cheeks, and prayed that Miharu would move again in his sleep. Or, at the very least, he would be groggy enough when he did wake up that Yoite could shift the little one before he could realize the truth about his friend.

 

`I'm a freak who should never have been born. That's why you must erase me, Miharu. And you have to do it soon, before I need you so much that I can't let go. Being close to me will only spoil you, make you ugly, make you dirty…like me.'

 

He froze as a soft sigh brushed across his collar bone and grimaced when that slender leg shifted just the tiniest bit. It was staggering, really, to think how quickly the most beautiful of dreams could be twisted into a nightmare.

 

“Please Miharu,” he whispered as his tears slid down onto soft dark hair, “keep you promise.”