Chapter Text
“Fuck!”
The thunderous slam of a door barely hinged.
“Who the fuck does he think he is—“
The heavy thud of a backpack discarded.
“—ain’t some boy he can call ta warm his dick—“
The low whip of a jacket ripped off.
“—all these years, for nothin’—"
The woeful crunch of a photo frame cracked.
“—so stupid for trustin’, believin’—“
The strident screech of a rusted chair buckled.
“Fuckin’ Kaiba—”
The cacophonous banging of erratic fists on wood;
“—must be sick in the head—”
The cacophonous banging of erratic fists on wood;
“—I never wanna see ya stupid face again!“
The cacophonous banging of erratic fists on wood;
“Go ta hell, Seto Kaiba!”
The cacophonous banging of erratic fists on wood exhausted.
Katsuya hung his head in the gallows of his wrists; each uneven rasp he drew stilted by the weight of iron buried somewhere in the grave of his chest. With every surge of his veins, he felt the sear of pain burrow deeper into his left eye, coating his vision in a miasma of grey. Was it the void of solitude or the taint of his resentment that filled the darkness he was seated within?
He rolled his neck, imprints of his rage still reverberating in his ears. The cold metal of the chair an uncomfortable anchor for his limp body, limbs distending until they grazed the floor as he gave in to the weight of his own gravity. There, Katsuya sat, unmoving – his inner hurricane encased in the vacuum of Domino’s midnight; dim eyes, unfocussed, at the far wall – wondering if it was the absence of light or his own delusion that made the edges undulate and distort.
How did we end up like this?
The darkness was a kind tormentor: Within its negative space breathed that which was coveted; what the heart wanted, the darkness granted. Ideals and caricatures alike strung to life by determined longing, dancing in the wisps of suggestions in your mind’s shadow. Its stage was built upon your projections – helping shed your armour, creating the suggestion of safety, and catching when your knees buckled in confession; so it could coax inspiration from the deepest alcoves where you thought amnesia had long put what you held most precious to rest.
Tiredly, Katsuya pressed his knuckles into his throbbing temples, somehow finding enough lucidity to apply pressure on the stray protruding vein. He blinked, the flashes of phosphenes punctuating his sight but a momentary relief, replaced by the vision of the one who was never his to begin with.
Katsuya never really liked the colour blue. It was too clean, too dutiful; like the suffusion of mint meant to dissipate the sweet indulgence of desserts to a respectable decorum, or the deliberate cleansing of one’s self from unbridled expressions to an upright member of society. It was the colour of control, of soulless and capitalistic arrogance that slapped you in the face when a luxury ride rolled by. It dripped of stick-in-the-mud professionalism, of the unimaginative salaryman types who spent their days one-upping each other with corporate displays of perceived masculinity. At best, it was capricious – the rolling skies or churning oceans that simultaneously reminded you of your potential and your insignificance.
When Katsuya first met Seto, all he saw was blue: The clearest, most vivid shade of blue. Even against the navy of their high school uniform, Seto’s eyes burned bright, commandeering unmitigated attention. They exuded a rawness of emotions, holding all within his sight in unadulterated defiance. It was not pride but duty that fuelled his reign; piercing through compliments and curses alike until he whittled down even the most obstinate individuals to subservience.
Katsuya never hated someone more at first sight.
Like most, Katsuya came to tolerate, and perhaps nearly thrived, under Seto’s blue. Where he saw the restraint of reason, he complemented with imposed discipline; where he saw rigidity of order, he compensated with attempted routine; where he saw the reservation of civility, he conformed with practised impersonation; where he saw the rule of dominance, he compiled with careful acquiescence. No matter the hue, whenever Katsuya closed his eyes next to Seto, all he breathed was blue.
In contrary, white was a shade Katsuya never considered a proper colour. It was incomplete, suspended in a state of unbeing – a canvas awaiting the influence of a world unknown; imposing its suggestion of infinity without any commitment to reality, waiting, until it was bestowed glory or ruin. White was in the passing of eager fresh graduates in their immaculately starched shirts, necks in perpetual bow as they hurried about at the behest of temperamental seniors. It was the achroma that made its home in the naivety of the young or privileged; whispering promises of safety until the security of their pedestal became a prison – the veil of a life anew now the shroud of one adieu.
When Katsuya was finally apportioned – or rather, successfully wrangled – the privilege of peering past Seto’s intensity, he found Seto clad in white. Sat atop the pinnacle of luxuries and power, Seto was enveloped in blinding white; hypnotic in revered brilliance, he was a star no one could reach – enduring in synchronicity against mortal envy, alone, the gravity of his own prophecy denying his deliverance.
Katsuya never thought he could feel sorry for someone who had more than he could ever want.
It did not take long for Katsuya to understand that the white Seto wielded was not of surrender, but of a crusader. Born from the ashen bones of animosity, the language carved into Seto’s tongue was of malice and deceit; leashed fangs gnashing against taunting hands, could he have survived if he had not made his prison his throne? Where others saw the depreciated, he saw possibilities; in his singular pursuit to reclaim a utilitarian triumph beyond his revenge, what was a castle of ivory built upon the willing and conquered? Knelt before a martyr whose religion did not believe, Katsuya delivered his own light disavowed – holding past the translucence of time, nurturing through the other’s embattled loneliness, until they both ignited in radiant white.
If there was a colour Katsuya had never given a second glance to, it was brown. Brown felt like an afterthought; the boring filler between the action scenes of a blockbuster that instigated the clamour of bio-breaks. When appreciated, its back was the undergrowth where spirited reds, yellows, and greens flourished; settling in unobtrusive spaces, the monotony of uniformity from which others were amplified. More often than not, brown was the trail of dirt stubbornly adhering to personal artefacts; fingerprints of the downtrodden and scorned seeking recognition – muddied mediocrity indistinguishable from the next, where nobodies like him are buried alive.
To say Seto was any shade of brown suggested one’s proclivities towards mental gymnastics. Seto was an insouciance man of clear glass and exacting steel – definite and tenacious, uncompromising in ideals. However, the few who were allowed around his moments of respite saw the broad, buried roots that supported the trusses of his empire; they penetrated his foundation, nourished from the inadequacies of his youth, bark pulled inert from the expectations of the masses. The dichotomies between steel and earth the eternity in which Seto planted the mycelia of aspirations, assumptions, and desperations of his devoted, weaving the threads of their hopes into notches that lived within the permanence of his flesh.
Katsuya never found out if the hope that made him stay was of imposition or respect.
In the shelter of this monolith, Katsuya watched as thousands germinated from Seto’s tomorrow. He remained, searching within this cradle of brown until he cusped the cultivation of Seto’s tenderness; bursting from the ichor of a self thought long-discarded, fragile bud rooted in broken fingers, reaching, flagrant in fear until they unfurled into a world reborn. Katsuya held that seed close in the bloom of his chest – minutes into hours, weeks into years; until his days blossomed into fields of impatient chestnut brown, unyielding alabaster skin, vivid cobalt with an intensity that pierced past even the most resolute of his resolves—
The absent swirling of a single partially enjoyed glass of whisky—
Casual drinkin’ my ass!
The heavy ephemeral scent of sweet fermentation—
How much did you—
The outlines of emptied bottles—
Ya keep downin’ that much shit in what, an hour? Two hours?
Liberally poured a fresh glass of wine—
What if it killed ya?!
—sipped deliberately from his glass—
Ya’re right.
—lips only pulling away once they found their home in the stain of burgundy.
It really ain’t any of my business.
Katsuya gasped. His heart was choking in the abyss of his throat; reflex trembling, tongue swollen – his fingers desperate traced, pressed, scratched at the engorged veins of his neck, a physical plea to route any bit of air back into his lungs.
He fumbled, weakened knees painfully contacting hard tiles. Peering in panic past his matted fringe, Katsuya hurriedly scanned the darkened room.
It really ain’t any of my business.
The noose of his tongue hung in enmity, pulling the burden of his zippered jaw into the hinge of his skull. The base of his head pulsed with impending rhythm only he could see, tremors sending a kaleidoscope of pain – fireworks of blues, whites, and browns – into his vision that even the weight of his lids could not conceal.
Katsuya forced his left eye shut, slowing his breathing to the tempo of a melody his sister used to hum as he flitted from an indistinct shape to the next.
It really ain’t any of my business.
Every blink, every breath, every thought ignited the inside of his head; an incandescent supernova that set the map of his nerves ablaze, fusing joints and oxidising muscles, until even the most minute of motions provoked the cinders of bile from the broiling of his chest.
He felt the grey surroundings of the room shrink and fold, shadows of his vision descending from his peripheries, a crushing density that threatened to suffocate his rationality.
It really ain’t any of my business.
Katsuya finally locked on to his abandoned backpack, lying crumpled by the shoulder of his kitchen door.
Fingers faltering, breaths ragged, pupils constricted; he tugged at the side compartment, letting loose an audible cry of anguish when he felt its repeated resistance, hands haphazard with increasing frustration until the familiar box fell into his palms.
Ya were never mine ta begin with.
"Seriously," Katsuya rasped, "Fuck you, Seto."
The clop of a box shaken. The hiss of a spark. The rustle of combustion. The exhalation of relief.
Katsuya inhaled as deeply as his twisted throat could allow, curling the acridity of smoke into the urgency of his mouth. Relishing in the reunion of a friend no longer astray, he allowed the bitterness to sink between his teeth and under his tongue; he held it – feeling it creep behind his nose, expanding, until it unravelled the bolts of tension that held his head in its unremitting vice.
In the reclaimed reticence, Katsuya sat motionless; back loosely hooked from the base of the wall, knees pressed into the thrumming of his chest, and mouth slack with the injection of chemical relief. He felt the fog of anxiety lift, the pressure from the small of his back abating into the pacified dipping of his shoulders; the mania of fury and fear evaporating into the tendrils of smoke that spun lazily into the air.
He thumbed the glowing stick, a calm clarity absolving his inner disquiet with every puff. Katsuya traced the seams of his knuckles in the illumination, wondering how the split crimsons from his earlier outburst that plaited their length remained undiscovered until then.
We were always like this.
There Katsuya finally rested, his repose kindled by the incense from the mound of extinguished stubs that interred him in a mist of grey.