The door to the lecture hall opens and Hokuto’s eyes are drawn up by the sound. There’s someone sneaking in twenty minutes late, mop of bleached blonde hair bobbing in the lecturer’s direction. Hokuto is halfway through rolling his eyes at the disruption when the latecomer turns up towards the seats and his breath leaves him with a whoosh.
For a moment he thinks he must recognise the man from somewhere, that must be the reason for his unusual reaction. But as their eyes meet and static tingles over his skin, he knows that can’t be the case - he would remember if he knew this person, he would remember if he’d ever even seen anyone this beautiful.
He doesn’t believe in love at first sight, but as the attractive man smiles and starts up the steps towards him - or the empty seat beside him at least - Hokuto can’t think of any other explanation for it. He’s never loved anyone before, never even dated, but he’s had enough crushes to know that this is something else. He can barely even focus on the lecture after that, all of his attention pulled, like gravity itself has shifted, to the man beside him.
“Do I know you?” A soft voice asks, once the lecture is over and Hokuto is clumsily packing away his sorry excuse for notes. He means to say no, but he makes the mistake of looking up and for a moment he’s too lost in the depth of the other man’s eyes to answer. “Are you in the Theatre Society?”
The words won’t come, but Hokuto manages to shake his head, breaking their eye contact and he feels his skin flush with heat as he keeps his eyes averted. “No” he confirms, the word as breathless as he feels.
“Well it’s nice to meet you.” the man says, a pale, slender hand sliding into Hokuto’s vision. “I’m Taiga.”
Hokuto more takes his hand than shakes it, feeling electricity prickle between their skin as he answers. “Hokuto.”
“Hokuto.” Taiga repeats gently and Hokuto hears it again, like an echo, tender, yearning.
He tugs his hand away and shoves the rest of his things into his bag, barely looking at the wounded expression on Taiga’s face as he turns and flees.
***
He was tired, Hokuto reasons as he winds his way through the crowded hallway to the lecture hall the next day. He was tired, and caught off guard. People don’t usually speak to Hokuto, he doesn’t speak to people, especially not alarmingly attractive young men that are extroverted enough to be part of the Theatre Society.
He’ll do better today. Despite the pale skin and dark eyes that plagued his dreams, Hokuto slept well. He’s not tired, he won’t be caught off guard.
Taiga is already there, early as Hokuto is, sitting in the same seat, the one that usually remains empty beside Hokuto’s. Hokuto’s stomach still flips when Taiga smiles tentatively at him. The world still spins backwards for a moment as Hokuto swallows and forces his feet on their usual path to take the seat beside Taiga. And his heart still skips a beat when Taiga leans over ever so slightly to say “Good Morning, Hokuto.”
“Good Morning.” Hokuto smiles, and Taiga’s answering smile makes his heart skip again.
When the lecture finishes, he feels more than hears Taiga’s presence at his side again. “So this is probably a random question but how do you feel about Kabuki?”
“Kabuki?” Hokuto asks, turning to him in surprise. “I don’t know anything about it.”
Taiga’s lips quiver into a smile that Hokuto doesn’t fully understand but then Taiga is reaching into his bag to pull out an envelope. “Would you like to?” and then he shrugs in a way that doesn’t look as nonchalant as he probably intends it. “I have tickets to a show this Friday…my friend bailed on me so…do you fancy going?”
He looks from Taiga’s eyes to the envelope in his hand. Does he fancy going? He doesn’t even know if he would like Kabuki. He doesn’t even know Taiga.
“Me? Isn’t there anyone else in the Drama Society that would like to go?” He regrets it the instant he says it, even before the smile falls from Taiga’s face. He scrambles to save it, but he’s not good at social interaction at the best of times. “I just mean that since I don’t know anything, probably there’s someone that would be more appreciative…not that I wouldn’t appreciate…I mean…” he stops before he can dig the hole any deeper. “I’m making a mess of this. Is it too late to just say yes?”
Taiga laughs. It’s light and relieved and beautiful. It hurts Hokuto’s chest in some strange nostalgic way.
“It’s not too late.” Taiga says, sobering a little, the smile still hanging gently at the corner of his lips and the words sound heavier when he repeats them. “No, it’s not too late.”
***
He thought he would be more nervous, being alone with Taiga like this. He is nervous, but it's an excited kind of nervousness that he’s never felt before. It feels easier too, it feels natural.
They had dinner first, at the restaurant in the Theatre complex, while Taiga told him about the play they were about to see. A ‘love suicide’ Taiga described it as, one of the classics, so influential in it’s day that the whole genre was banned for a while to prevent copycat suicides.
He was thankful for the background too. The acting itself was fantastic, and easy enough to follow but the scenes seemed to skip around, making it hard to piece the story together otherwise.
“The entire play would take a full day to perform.” Taiga explains as he drives Hokuto home, his voice a soft rumble over the engine. “Today they tend to just do the key scenes, or the popular ones.” Hokuto can see him smile fondly to himself “For a period, the focus of Kabuki was more on the actors than the story…they would cut pivotal plot points to include minor scenes if the actor was popular enough. Theatre companies might turn a historical drama into a love story if they needed to showcase their starring onnagata.”
Hokuto knows the word, he knew of the tradition even before Taiga’s enthused retelling of the history of Kabuki. “Do men still play the female roles today?” he asks, more to keep Taiga talking than out of real interest.
“Mostly.” Taiga confirms, “Today it’s more due to tradition, Kabuki is a lot safer than it was when those traditions were introduced.”
He can’t help the small laugh. “I can’t imagine Kabuki being dangerous.”
A shadow passes over Taiga’s face but he covers it quickly, flashing Hokuto a devilish smile that might be flirtatious or humorous, either way it has Hokuto’s heart racing and he thinks somehow Taiga knows it. “Oh it had its dark side. For a long time Kabuki went hand in hand with prostitution. Women were banned from performing in an attempt to stop it but the pretty young men that took their places were just as sought after.” He raises an eyebrow and Hokuto can’t tell if it’s disapproving or challenging. “For a time, Onnagata were among the most revered and desired…”
He can feel the tension in the air crackling and he shifts uncomfortably even as the warmth of excitement squirms inside him. He can’t read the mood and he can’t decide if he likes it or not so he speaks, just to say something. “You know a lot about Kabuki.”
Taiga laughs, the sound just as striking as the last time Hokuto heard it, and it breaks the tension instantly. “It’s been in my blood for generations.”
“Do you perform?” Hokuto asks, letting out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.
“Not so much these days.” He says, shaking his head lightly. “I have other priorities at the moment, but I might have convinced the Theatre Society to put on a performance for the end of the semester.”
“Yeah?” Hokuto asks hopefully. “Can I come and see it?”
***
His eyes follow the brush as he glides it down, tracing the thick stripe of white he draws over Taiga’s alabaster skin. He feels Taiga’s shudder as he leans in, blowing warm breath over the back of his neck to dry the paint.
Their eyes meet in the mirror, Taiga’s already perfectly painted in black and red, his crimson lips parting in a whisper of Hokuto’s name.
It’s a plea and it’s a warning.
***
Hokuto doesn’t know if they’re dating. They go on dates every weekend, at least Hokuto thinks they’re dates. Taiga takes him out, sometimes for the evening, sometimes on a day trip, somewhere different every time and afterwards Taiga drives him home. Hokuto waits for it every time as they pull up outside his house, waits for Taiga to kiss him but he doesn’t. Hokuto would let him, Hokuto wants him to do it, heck, Hokuto would initiate it himself if he had any idea what he was doing.
Instead Hokuto bids him goodnight and goes upstairs to dream about him. The night they’d gone to the Kabuki, Hokuto had first dreamt of him in white face paint and a silk kimono. When they go hiking he dreams of Taiga in traditional dress and after the museum it’s a business suit. When they spend the day at Tokyo Disney he dreams of Taiga wearing a school uniform and after they watch the sunset over the beach he sees Taiga in a sleeveless tee and boardshorts.
But mostly, mostly he dreams of Taiga in extravagant Kabuki costume.
It’s just excitement, he tells himself. Anticipation about the Theatre Society performance which gets closer and closer every week.
By the time the night arrives, Hokuto’s skin is buzzing with anxious energy. Once again, he knows nothing about the performance he’s here to see though this time it’s not for want of trying. Taiga has obstinately refused to tell Hokuto so much as the name of the play, he claims it’s through fear that Hokuto will look it up and find a performance better than any Taiga can give, but Hokuto lightly suspects there’s something more to it.
It starts innocuous enough, at first Hokuto doesn’t even register that the young girl on stage is actually Taiga. As the scene progresses though, he becomes inescapably aware that it is, and inexplicably aware that he knows the performance he’s watching.
He knew, vaguely, as soon as he saw the billboard, because even if he’s never had any reason to see it, the name The Heron Maiden is notorious enough that even he has heard of it. But this is different. As Taiga moves gracefully across the stage, Hokuto doesn’t just recognise it, he knows it.
It’s like one of his dreams, only this time he can feel it. He can feel the rhythm singing through his bones. He can feel the weight of the melancholy notes settling in his chest, overwhelming him. He can see Taiga, see him, not as he is now but dancing the same steps in another time, another place. Like a flashback to a movie he’d forgotten he’d seen.
By the time the play is over he feels only half himself. He wanders the hallway to Taiga’s dressing room straddling the line between lucid and entranced.
“Hokuto?” Taiga asks, and his lips are no longer crimson but it’s a whisper in the mirror and Hokuto yearns again to kiss them.
“It’s alright, love.” he thinks, or says maybe because Taiga turns to face him, his expression longing and his hands clutching the dressing table behind him. He doesn’t know where the words come from, or from who, but the same force moves him across the room to take Taiga’s cheeks gently in his palms, to seize his lips.
“Hokuto.” Taiga gasps, the name just breath between their mouths as he clutches the back of Hokuto’s jacket, drawing him closer.
Not close enough. Taiga’s wig and makeup are gone but the elaborate layers of silken kimono still separate them. Hokuto shouldn’t know how to untie the obi, how to peel apart the fancy folds of fabric but he does so with practised hands until he can pull Taiga closer. Taiga unfastens his belt and jeans just as deftly, even as their mouths meet again in a passionate kiss.
It's Taiga that breaks the kiss, pulling back to heave himself onto the dressing table behind him and Hokuto shoves his own clothes down before stepping into the embrace of Taiga’s legs to press against him, flesh to flesh.
He moves on instinct, hands gripping Taiga’s hips as his own thrust fervently into Taiga’s restless body. And then it’s over too soon, Taiga crying out into the space between them as he jerks, wet heat blooming between their stomachs. Hokuto can’t last much longer than that, the slick slide against his burning skin and the soft gasps still echoing in his ears, compounding to drag him over the edge of bliss.
As he comes down, panting breaths against Taiga’s chest, he’s acutely aware that Taiga is crying.
He still feels dazed as he raises, first his head, and then a hand to wipe a tear from Taiga’s cheek “What’s wrong, love?”
Taiga’s eyes clench closed with a silent sob and another cascade of tears tumbles down his cheek. “You remember?” he whispers.
The words echo in his mind, like he’s heard them a hundred times before, and each time they bring him closer to lucidity. “Remember what?” he asks as the last of the haze turns to confusion.
Taiga’s eyes open, dark, desperate pools that threaten to drown him “You remember me? Us? When we were lovers…”
“When we were…” Hokuto repeats, perplexed. “When…When? We only met a few months ago…”
Taiga’s head is shaking as Hokuto pulls away from him, his eyes pleading. “You called me love…you remembered me from before…”
“Before what?” Hokuto asks, the bewilderment twisting into discomfit.
“Before…in another life.”
“That’s crazy.” Hokuto says and he sees the way Taiga’s face hardens, the sadness giving way to hurt. He backs away, but the few seconds it takes for him to pull up and fasten his trousers is enough for Taiga to close the distance and grab his wrist.
“You don’t believe me, that’s ok. You never do at first.”
“Get off me.” Hokuto growls, tugging at his wrist.
“They’re not dreams.” Taiga says resolutely and the fear spikes because Hokuto is sure he’s never even mentioned the dreams to him. “They’re memories.”
“Let me go.” Hokuto warns him, and maybe the panic is starting to show because Taiga lets go.
But he gives Hokuto one last desperate, doleful look before he turns away. “I love you.”
***
Taiga's words are ghosts, they haunt his dreams.
“You remember? You remember me?”
He hears them echo again, only they’re not echoes, he realises. Every time he asks it's different, a different time, a different place. Every reflection in the dressing room mirror is a different Taiga, a different Hokuto.
A different life.
***
“I don’t believe you.” Hokuto starts and Taiga looks up hopefully. “But you said I never do. Say for a moment that I could...how many times have we met like this?”
“This is the tenth time I've known you”
“Since when?” Hokuto breathes
“I was born in 1794, the last in a long line of celebrated Kabuki actors.”
“Of course." Hokuto snorts humourlessly. "And I was what? Your partner? Your rival?"
“Neither." Taiga answers bluntly. You were a Kuroko…the stagehands in the black robes...that assist with set and costume changes.”
Hokuto snorts again. “That would explain how I knew how to unfasten your kimono that night.”
Taiga's smile is both fond and teasing. “You’d had plenty of practice removing my clothes before I first played that role.”
“But you did play that role? Back then?” Hokuto asks, it's the only explanation for how he knew the dance without knowing it. It doesn't explain the way it shook him so deeply. "That was when I fell for you?" He guesses.
Taiga shakes his head softly. "I think you fell for me a long time before that."
“What happened then? During that performance?” Hokuto presses. There must be some significance to it, for Taiga to have chosen to perform that over what must be hundreds of other plays he’s done in his lifetime.
He shakes his head again but it looks sadder this time, almost lost. “It was the highlight of my career, the first time round anyway. I was admired throughout the whole of Edo, and you didn't like it."
Hokuto remembers what Taiga had told him about Kabuki and prostitution. “I wasn’t your only lover.” He states, he doesn't need to ask it.
“I had many lovers, but none like you." Taiga insists, eyes swimming. "Anyone with the right weight in their purse could be my lover. For the right price someone could buy out my contract and have me for their own...”
“Is that what I did then?”
“No.” he says softly, “You taught me that people are not objects to be bought, sold, or owned. I had many lovers, but I think only you loved me.”
***
Taiga stands still in the centre of the room, waiting for Hokuto to help him out of his heavy costume. Hokuto has never wanted to undress him less. He dreads seeing the evidence on Taiga’s skin again - pale flesh marked by other hands, by other mouths.
By teeth, he discovers, once Taiga’s obi hits the floor and he’s teasing apart the wide collar of his kimono. He doesn’t notice his fingers are lingering over the marks until Taiga’s hand grasps his wrist, forcing his eyes up to meet the challenge in Taiga’s. He can’t see the blush on Taiga’s cheeks beneath the makeup but it was always as much an expression as a colour on him. His eyes are defiant though, his nostrils flaring just slightly as he holds Hokuto’s gaze.
For the first time, Hokuto hates that he knows the exact sound Taiga makes when teeth sink into his skin. He clenches his jaw and tugs his hand away as he grits out. “Three different men came and left your room last night.”
He sees the uncomfortable swallow but Taiga’s nostrils only flare wider. “That’s none of your business.” It isn’t, Hokuto doesn’t have any claim to him, just because he was there first. “You’re just jealous.”
“Jealous?” Hokuto sneers, he’s not, it’s not jealousy seething beneath his skin.
“You can’t stand the thought of me with other men.”
“I can’t stand the thought of you degrading yourself like a common tramp.” he yells.
The slap stings his cheek before he even sees it coming and his own hand slaps back before he can think better of it. He pulls his hand to his mouth in shock, palm still tingling, and waits for Taiga to retaliate. He expects fury, but instead Taiga seems to deflate with a sigh. Instead of fire in his eyes there are only fading embers.
“Leave.” Taiga demands, his tone cold, but Hokuto can see the tremble in his lip.
He wraps his arms around Taiga’s shoulders. “No.”
Taiga struggles against him for a few moments but then relents, his arms wrapping around Hokuto’s waist even as he says weakly. “Get out, just leave…”
Hokuto shakes his head, bringing a hand up to soothe Taiga’s nape. “I’ll never leave you. I love you.”
“You hate me.” Taiga says, voice quiet and desolate and Hokuto pulls away enough to look at him, at the watery lines of black and red trailing down his cheek.
“No, love.” he assures. “I just hate seeing you do this to yourself. Those other men, they don’t care about you. They look at you and they see a pretty face and soft skin, an object of desire.”
“And what do you see, Hokuto?” Taiga asks sadly. “You've been where they've been, I've seen the desire in your eyes too.”
“But I never paid for you,” He argues.
“And that makes it better?”
“Yes.” Hokuto insists. “Because I look at you and I don’t see how much gold you’re worth, I just see you.”
***
“Is it the same for you?” Hokuto asks as he lays sated in Taiga’s bed, fingers walking the pale expanse of Taiga’s chest. “Every time?”
“Some things are different. Some things are always the same.” Taiga answers. His voice is soft as a feather but there’s a note of sorrow in it and when Hokuto leans up on his elbows to look at him, his face is sad. Taiga tries to hide it with a smile. “Your name is always the same, and you always look the same. You always tell me I’m crazy but you stay with me anyway.”
“How does it end?” Hokuto questions.
It’s like Hokuto is watching his heart break. “For you? You’re human, you die.”
He’d presumed as much, but he’s done the maths, his tenth lifetime in less than 250 years? It doesn’t sound like he’s dying of old age. It’s only the pain written across Taiga’s face that keeps him from pushing further. “What happens to you?”
Taiga shakes his head. “I just keep going, I don’t age, I can’t die…I just keep on existing, waiting until I can be with you again.”
It’s hard to keep the awe from his voice as he asks “You can’t die?” But Taiga just shakes his head solemnly. “You’ve tried? Why would you want to?”
“There are things far worse than dying.”
***
He should have been here by now, they were meant to leave at sunrise. It’s not the most ideal time to run away, Hokuto would have preferred the cover of darkness but Taiga had a performance that he would have been missed from. He had another appointment after that he definitely would have been missed from. Hokuto refused to hear the details but there had been whispers buzzing around the Theatre for more than a week about Taiga’s top secret client - supposedly one of the Shogun’s high ranking officials.
He waits with their stash of stolen supplies until noon, praying nothing bad has happened, but as the sun starts to dip back down towards the horizon he sneaks back to the Theatre. He ignores the worried looks of the other stagehands as he weaves his way to Taiga’s dressing room.
And there he finds Taiga, sitting at his dressing table, painting his face in white.
“What are you doing here?” Taiga hisses and Hokuto’s eyebrows furrow as he hisses back.
“What are you doing here?”
Taiga stiffens, his arms folding defensively over his chest. “I’m not leaving.” Hokuto lets out a long breath to calm the anger rising up inside him. They’ve been planning this for weeks, everything is ready, all they need to do is run. “I’m sorry.” Taiga says and it sounds like he means it.
“Ok.” Hokuto agrees, resignedly. “So we stay.”
Taiga’s face contorts into horror. “No. What are you saying? You can’t stay here…”
“I’m not leaving you. I told you I would never…”
“You have to go.” Taiga interrupts him. “They know that supplies have been stolen, that priceless kimono have gone missing…you weren't here and…”
“And you pinned it on me?” he realises.
Taiga’s face falls. “I thought you would be gone…”
It doesn’t make sense, how could Taiga do this to him? Why would he do it? “Why?” He demands. “If you knew I couldn’t come back here, why wouldn’t you come with me?” Taiga doesn’t answer, his expression closing, cold. “Don’t you love me?”
“My contract has been bought out…” Taiga answers with finality. “I’m not leaving.”
His blood feels like ice in his veins, only his heart, aching in his chest, still burns. “I love you. I won’t leave you.”
“Then you’ll be killed.” Taiga spits as they hear the sound of feet running along the hallway.
“Then you’ve killed me.” Hokuto counters, voice breaking. “I hope it kills you too…no…I hope you live an eternity, tormented by what you’ve done.”
***
***
***
“Did you ever love me?”
Taiga doesn't make the rules. He doesn't understand them either, he never knows how long he'll get or what it will be that triggers it but he's seen this look in Hokuto's eyes enough times to know that this is it - the final act, the crescendo.
It's barely been a few months this time, it hasn't been long enough.
“You betrayed me.” Hokuto accuses him. “You deserted me, for what? For money?”
Taiga won’t do him the disservice of denying it. “Yes Hokuto, I betrayed you. I chose money over love. I was a whore. That's all I knew. I've spent every lifetime since trying to prove to you that I know I was wrong.”
He knows. He knew even then but he was too scared, too arrogant. He had everything, he thought he could live without love. He thought time would heal his heart.
Time is all he has now and all it does is make it harder.
“How am I supposed to trust you?” It gets harder every time.
He fights back tears as he answers, not for the first time, not for the last. “You can’t. I won’t ask you to. Just please don’t leave me. We don’t have much time, please don’t waste it being angry at me.”
“How long?” Hokuto asks. He doesn’t sound surprised, he’s figured it out already, he just sounds sad.
“I don’t know.” Taiga answers honestly. Days, weeks, months, it won’t be enough.
“Can’t we change it?”
The tears fall as he shakes his head. Taiga has tried, he’s tried everything. He’s tried begging for forgiveness, he’s tried not asking at all, never even talking to Hokuto. He’s tried medical intervention - the last time Hokuto spent a week in a medically induced coma and it still wasn’t enough to keep his heart beating.
“I loved you and I betrayed you…I killed you.” he cries. “This is my punishment, to keep killing you for eternity, to keep losing you. Please, just let me love you while I can?”
***
***
***
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. As blue lights flash in the sky above him, ten lives flash before Hokuto’s. As he breathes deeply through the mask over his mouth he sees them all, like they’re in fast forward, in reverse. It’s getting dark, the sound of sirens fading and he sees Taiga’s face one last time, cheeks stained with tears, pink lips parting silently around his name. One last time…until the next time.