Branches

Title: Five Things That Never Happened to Shirou Kamui
Fandom: X
Characters: Kamui, Fuuma
Word Count: 1,122
Genre: AU drabbles, Kamui and Fuuma centric.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Pairings: F/K
Summary/Author's Note: Response to heavensgardener's "Five things that never happened to..." challenge in togakushishrine. Hope I didn't mangle it too much. ^^;




Author's Notes: Some of these are more AU than other, but none are completely canon, so I hope that this still fits the criteria. I prefer writing more the type of AU that is a deviation from canon, rather than a complete abandonment of it.

I'm not too sure of how this turned out...but I wanted to write it and see. Hopefully I didn't brutalize the challenge too much, and don't make people's eyes bleed out. O_o



Not every Dream a yumemi sees is the future. Some are merely flitting possibilities--perhaps blown in from other worlds, perhaps secret desires of their own hearts. It isn't always the inevitable ones that bring the most pain, that make those so accursed Wish for their own demise. Sometimes merely seeing what might have been and can never be realized before their mind's eye and then torn away is enough to rip out their souls.

And sometimes, it makes them cry with relief.


*~*~*~*~*

He stood atop the cross, the steel beams rust-red beneath his feet, and fingered the wires thoughtfully, violet eyes cold and distant. They gazed down at Fuuma, his twin star pinned by glass and shock into stone, and the wires crisscrossed like the bars of a prison, forever separating them.

"KAMUI! NO!"

Kamui didn't even seem to hear him.

When he plunged the Shinken into the girl's chest, he felt nothing, and his twin star's screams were the music of an old, old record playing brokenly in his ears.

*~*~*~*~*

"You don't like ice cream?"

Kamui blushed and stammered, not sure what to say to this almost perfect stranger who'd pulled him away from the stands after the game and ushered him to a nearby creamery. "Er...yes, but--"

Monou Fuuma, a rising basketball star who was already becoming infamous for his rising cult of fangirl followers, grinned. He knew he'd liked this young reporter the moment he'd laid eyes on him. He was just too cute, and probably pleasant to talk to once he got over his stammering.

"Come on. My treat. I don't bite. Promise." Fuuma winked.

Kamui coughed. "I..er...okay..." he submitted at last, sinking into his seat with the resigned air of someone who knew that they were trapped, and who wasn't altogether sure if they actually disliked it.

"Excellent. I recommend the mint chocolate chip, by the way. So, Shirou-san, you don't look quite like the sports reporter type."

Kamui blinked. "Er..."

"You were fidgeting," Fuuma explained. "And taking notes in all the wrong places. And you clearly didn't have a clue what the commentator was saying half the time." Fuuma ordered his ice cream, and cocked an eyebrow at Kamui, waiting for the other man's choice.

"Oh, uh, same, please. And...er...how did you know that? Weren't you busy playing the game?"

Fuuma chuckled again. "The Tigers aren't that tough of a team. And besides, you caught my eye."

Kamui blushed slightly. "Eh. Thanks. I guess. I wouldn't tell the Tigers that, though."

Fuuma laughed. He had a feeling that they would get on rather well together.


*~*~*~*~*

"Shouldn't you have aimed...here?"

Kamui trembled as strong hands still sticky with blood grasped his own, the cold mockery of golden eyes belying the gentleness with which that hand was held, and placed it over his heart. "This is where the heart is."

Kamui trembled. This wasn't his Wish. This wasn't his Wish!

And yet...he'd come so close... The wound in his twin star's shoulder bled thickly and accusingly.

This is where the heart is.

Did Fuuma even know what a heart was any longer?

"One strike, and I'll be dead."

Violet eyes dilated, and tears streamed down his cheeks. He could see it clearly, feel it even. His hand sliding through skin and flesh, through bone to each muscle, and tearing through as the bleeding remnants fluttered onward in vain, not understanding the truth. He wanted nothing more than to free his hand from Fuuma's chest, but he couldn't move, couldn't move.

And why, why did Fuuma say such things? Didn't he know how they hurt?

"Why...Fuuma why...?"

And then Fuuma was leaning close, warm tongue--feverishly warm against his chilled skin--licking away his tears as if he cared.

"Such a pity..." his twin star's voice murmured, breath over his cheek. Kamui's throat clenched, strangling a sob. "Kamui. You don't even know your true Wish."

Before the younger boy could even process the meaning of those words, much less challenge them, the distance closed between them and Fuuma's lips pressed over Kamui's to shield the world from his cries. Kamui stilled, quiet and unsure, and finally just let go.

He didn't know what he Wished for anymore.


*~*~*~*~*


Fuuma leaned against the door to the study and watched for a moment in silent amusement as his friend beat his head against the desk top, slowly and periodically.

"Kamui, as relaxing as that might be, I can guarantee that it won't make the problem solve itself."

Kamui turned his head to shoot Fuuma a look. "Beating my head is more productive and useful than algebra ever will be."

Fuuma barked a laugh. "Now you're wrong about that." He paused. "Beating something empty rarely makes any difference."

Kamui huffed and raised an eyebrow. "Uh huh. So are you just going to stand there and gloat, or are you going to help me?"

"Depends. Do I get a kiss?"

Kamui rolled his eyes, looking more exasperated and long-suffering than anything else.. "Fuuma! Come on!"

"Aw." Fuuma attempted to pout, and failed miserably. Kamui fought the urge to laugh.

"Fine. A small one. Now get over here and help me with this."

Fuuma laughed, drawing the younger boy in with his lighthearted soul. He drew up a chair beside the desk and began to explain quadratics.

*~*~*~*~*


A machine beeped on inside an cold, sterile room, painful in the blank white that bleached the walls, floor, and ceiling. The only mercy to its sole occupant was that said occupant was too deep in a self-induced coma to notice or care.

The door shifted silently open and a dark shadow crossed the blank tiles towards the hospital bedside. He was a solitary Go piece surrounded by white, and it was his move.

It truly was a pity that the Sumeragi hadn't been able to revive Kamui. His twin star lay in the coma still, and after six months of waiting, he didn't think the boy would ever wake.

Such a pity. Fuuma gazed sadly down at the prone, pale form. Already he was whitening away into the sheets, body disappearing as the sun rose high in the window, disappearing along with his soul.

Kamui never would realize his Wish. And Fuuma would never see his own realized either. The only person he'd wanted to see happy, the person he'd wanted to live through this mess, lying there and refusing to live at all.

The world might as well end anyway.

Fuuma rose the Shinken above his twin star's chest and, after a moment's hesitation, plunged it downward, sealing the fate of the body with the fate the soul had already decided upon.

Kamui had been dead for six months anyway.

As the shadow left the room, Tokyo began to shake.

*~*~*~*~*