May All Be Pain or Love

Title: May All Be Pain or Love
Author: anasmaia
Band: Dir en grey
Pairings: KyoxKaoru (possible others)
Genre: AU
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I don't own any sort of rights to Dir en grey, that right is reserved by Free Will, Sunkrad and their mothers. Don't blame me if you can't tell the difference between reality and Fiction. I'm making no profit off this and if you sue me I could only give you a bit of pocket lint and some old cds.
Summary: Kaoru is a samurai, at war with his own insecurities stemming from his master and best friend since childhood, Kyo. When problems arise can he set things right again before they overcome him entirely?


Notes: Thanks to all my reviewers. Incidentally...the lack of reviews is really discouraging. And I'm going to say, just to encourage those of you who do actually read this and love it. I won't be updating the next chapter until after I get at least 5 reviews. And that's how it's going to work. So, if you want to read more, let me know this time, ::begs you:: Cause you all know I love you, but I'm not feeling much back.

Chapter 3


o o o


I hung on to the change in his tone, hoped for it to continue. 'Don't think you mean nothing to me'. But I had never thought that before, only now after his reigning coldness had been ever present. Now I was hoping for it to fade and die and for him to allow me some sort of peace where I could be satisfied with what we had and only worry on what this betrayal had meant.

It seemed as though he would come closer to me then, for his face had softened dramatically and his eyes were glittering sadly, as though he needed me, but with a shake of his head that shine flew from him and his expression became unreadable again. Almost at once he closed himself off from me and said nothing more as he stepped back from me warily and disappeared down the corridor.

Though I was in the mood to sooner leave him open and vulnerable more than cover him up with a protective gesture, I had decided to place two of our lower samurai to stand guard at his door all night long. I was afraid that Ryozen might get the idea to go straight for our proverbial throat. That is if Hirota hadn't managed to convince his lord that Miyamoto had been betrayed and had not caused the attacks directly, but I wasn't putting much stock in what Hirota did or did not manage to tell him. We were on our own in this starting feud, I knew that. And maybe I was over-reacting, thinking that we must protect ourselves so strongly, but at the same time I would have rather been mocked for my blatant paranoia than to be ill-prepared for any brash alternative.

When dealing with Kyo my protectiveness was often inclined to extend itself beyond any normal courtesy, and my trust outside the family was scraped thin. This all meant that whatever vicious thoughts I was harboring towards my master were thrown aside in lieu of my innate caution. And so for awhile after I had left the party I could have been found sitting on the floor outside listening for noises that didn't belong. I was afraid that if I didn't lighten up soon I would make myself sick, then I couldn't very well protect anything.

After half an hour of sitting cross legged on the wooden engawa I decided to go to bed. I took off most of my clothing, set out my futon and lay down. It seemed like it took me forever to relax enough so that I could sleep. My mind was busy concocting theories. Who out of us would have wanted the house to fall, and why go about it in such a way? Certainly there were much better ways of doing those things, and they must have known that Kyo wasn't so naive as to overlook the culprit simply because they were one of the men he trusted. No, absolutely not. So why was it developing the way it was? Nothing made sense.

Not long after I had finally drifted off I awoke to the sound of the shoji being slid aside and my eyes focused on a restive shadow. Naoya was in my room, gathering my things and pushing them at me.
"Shihan-sama is asking for you. Please get dressed." he said, voice low in the dark. A part of me leapt I think, happy to be thought of, but my spite was overflowing now and I was too tired to hold it back.
"I'm not going anywhere, if he wants me he'll have to come for me himself." I muttered into my bedding.
I felt his hand shake my shoulder anxiously, "Please Kaoru, don't make me go back to him and tell him that. He's in a mood."
I pulled the kake futon closer to me, which was nothing more than a comforter-like blanket, and it didn't serve very well to keep the outside chill from seeping under and biting at my legs. It wasn't cold of course, or even that cool, but warmth is all a sleeping person wants to be acquainted with and any other feeling becomes an antagonist. "Go away Naoya..." I growled.
I could hear him grinding his teeth above me. I knew Kyo made him nervous, but I figured now was as good a time to get him over that as any. He stalled for awhile, hovering like a moth hovers around a candle, probably deciding whether it was wiser to push me or to slink back to Kyo. In the end I think he decided that dealing with Kyo would be faster than dealing with me, though just as unpleasant, and he slunk back through the door and I fell back asleep almost instantly.

Sometime later I was struck by that same noise of someone entering my room, only this time instead of a slow push it was a loud clack as the door was thrown on its tracks and smacked against the frame. "You ignore me again..." Kyo muttered. For some reason the fact that he had come himself and not enlisted some other servant for the job startled me.
Ignoring him, I turned from my back to my side so that I was facing away from him. My anger was thrown out of balance, either rising to a boiling point or coming down to almost nothing. Moreover I felt unwanted, no matter his weak assurances, and was agreed that if he didn't want me then I wouldn't want him, though that was easier said than done.

His legs came down on either side of me, kimono hitched up to his thigh to allow him the freedom of movement he needed to straddle me as I lay on my side. My reaction to this was only to shove my face more into my pillow and try my best to will him to disappear. Really though, I have to admit that the fact that he was in such close proximity again, and straddling my body made my heartbeat thrum deep in my ears.

"This little performance of yours is starting to wear thin." he murmured from somewhere above me. "You're beginning to act like a child..."
I didn't answer him, but when his fingers fell into my robes and caressed my collarbone I shivered. "I know better. I watched you grow up just as you watched me...watched our bodies change, our wants...candy changed to the taste of skin and we have forgotten our innocent playthings, our dolls and our 'swords' made from sticks...and now we are each other's toys..." he trailed off, sliding his hand down under my robes till he feathered his fingers through the soft hair below my belly. "...and our swords have grown harder...thicker...You're not a boy anymore, Kaoru...stop acting like one."

I sat up suddenly, and he was forced backwards awkwardly, unbalanced. I was scowling at him. "Is that why you came here, to tease me? Don't be so cruel."

He stood, not angrily, in fact he looked almost thoughtful, but I thought he had meant to leave and I moved up to kneel before him. Instead of walking away his fingers ran through my hair, pulling it out of its ponytail, watching it fall around me. I boldly wrapped my arms around his legs and stared up at him.

"Or does something still burn for me in that husk of a heart you wear?"

Sighing, he closed his eyes and let himself fall forward in my arms, sinking to his knees as I gradually let him collapse against me. His head lolled to the side as he dropped and just like when we were young he kept his eyes to the floor, and it made it so that his fair, baby fine hair no longer framed his face but obscured it in a long sultry mess. We must have seemed like night and day, like the night embracing the dawn.

When he brought his face up it was so close to mine I could feel his breath warm on my face, could see the scaling round his eyes catch the light. I didn't expect an answer and really I didn't get one, at least not one that I wanted to hear. He whispered into the dark...

"Burns." he said, "Burns and fades and dies and that 'husk' is all the accumulative ash that you cause." It seemed as though he were speaking only to himself, muttering and musing and I didn't exist in that moment at all. "...but..." he hissed and then it died into a whisper again. "..the embers have a redder glow and something always starts again..., when the ashes harden...and the dryness kindles another raging blaze...like a moth around a lantern, wings dead and heavy with desire, she would fall into the flame..." he made a soft fluttering motion with his hands. "But there will always be another moth...that has her same face...and same love for the pyre..."

For some reason his words made me feel hollow. Not so much from the words themselves but because I knew then that I would never get a reasonable admission from him, never hear the real words I was silently asking for every time I looked at him. But it would have to suffice, being likened to a moth, and perhaps that had some sort of truth to it really. I did fall into his fire every time, knowing how much it would hurt once the heat hit my wings and tore them, ragged, by fire and a raw, savage wind that left me in tatters. But no matter. I would come back again, because he beckoned to me, and I would flutter around him in reverence until the same thing happened again. And really, this likening began to make me feel warmer...because in some way I felt he was saying that he allowed me to do it each time, and maybe that in itself was his way of telling me, "yes, you mean something to me."



Pressing his nose to mine, he whispered against my lips, "You protect me. I won't let anyone else."

You must understand that the relationship he and I shared had never been clearly defined. When we were children I felt myself falling under his spell. Eventually I realized that it was attraction, I felt attracted to him, but it had become more than that. I loved him...I had fallen in love, though I couldn't say with any real certainty what it was that he felt for me.
We were still only children when he kissed me for the first time, as nonchalantly as if he were only kissing his own hand, and we were barely teenagers when we explored each other. I had been seventeen when we first made love. Neither one us knew what we were doing: only that we felt compelled to do it. Now we were living like master and chief retainer, but we had to keep our affair secret, even when no one else was looking.

"Is that an order, my lord?"
He narrowed his eyes. "I am not your master, and you are not my samurai."
"I laughed, almost cruelly, "Yes, I think maybe you mean to say I'm just your moth."
I felt his warm hand come to touch my face, ignoring my catty behavior. "You are the lost soul of a devil. You shouldn't wander so far away from your body."
"How should I know where it is, or who it belongs to?
"This is your body" he said as he untied his obi and let his robes fall from him, revealing every inch of tight and toned muscle. His body was compact and curvy, small and lithe... naturally hairless, but every rippling muscle showed through his skin in delicious patterns. And wrapped right around this beautiful body was...the gift I'd left for him, a gold chain, encircling his lower belly three times.

Instantly I felt guilty.

He caught the stunned look in my eyes and fingered the chain playfully. "You didn't think I noticed did you?"
I shook my head. "I thought you ignored it."
He brushed his finger across my lips lovingly. "Of course not. I'm hurt." he growled. "I just thought you'd prefer it closer to my body...after all it's something very private...between you and I...should it not be pressed to my belly; compressed against the thrum of my heartbeat? After all...the pulse down here" he brought my fingers to touch his lower belly, skimming over the chain. "is much more intimate than the one up here." He moved my hand to his throat.

I could have groaned, but I managed somehow to keep silent, that stunned look on my face still. Here I had been so quick in assuming, and so certain and so angry, and for nothing.


I watched despondently as he undid the clasp and let the chain fall from him, leaving him bare. "Let me tell you something...whatever you may have thought, this thing does mean a lot to me, but only because you gave it to me and why. But I'm not going to keep it around if you can't see that."
Kyo kissed me before I could respond, and pushed me to lie down again and his hands slid between the folds of my robes and pulled them open, exposing my chest and my stomach and after a moment they slid underneath my body, caressing and coaxing my body to lift and arch toward him. I could somehow feel his pulse quicken in his mouth and his body go taut above me, his breathy moans swallowing my kisses. I felt then that I couldn't have wanted him more if he had laid himself bare before me and begged for me to devour him. Though after a moment everything ceased and I stared at him in confusion, when the kiss broke and his hands were gone away completely and he sat back away from me. Something cool remained on my stomach and I saw that the chain had been fastened around my waist. "Kyo..." I questioned, almost horrified. What did this mean?
"Until you get over your insecurity that's where it will stay and I'll have no part of it." He brushed my long hair away from my face, "I can't make a lover of a child, grow up...and then come find me."

He left the room without another word and I was left to the cold and my once again rising feelings of inadequacy and guilt.




o o o

I suppose I finally came to the conclusion that I had to exonerate myself somehow and so I ended up outside his door again, wondering if I should enter and apologize, but I only ended up staring at the door anxiously. Having sent away the two guards I had placed earlier I mulled around for quite some time, finally settling on the wooden walkway and I spent my time watching the petals on the cherry trees float down into the koi pond, deciding to stand guard instead. I couldn't think of what I could do that would have made him happy with me. It was amazing how a minute span of time could stretch on and on into eternity till you half expect yourself to have visibly aged and your body to have deteriorated in its place. No more than fifteen minutes had gone by when I began to hear a strange noise coming from inside the room. Immediately I pulled my sword and pressed myself flat against the wall. With my left hand I soundlessly pushed the screen enough to the side so that I had made a slit just big enough for me to peer through. I found nothing inside but scarce furniture and the moonlit configuration that was my master.

Kyo was sitting on his bed, the covers thrown away from him. I watched his shadow-shaded form as his long nails caught the fabric of his collar and slowly he moved it down until the silk slid away from his shoulders and gathered around his chest. The same wasn't done to the other side, instead he pushed it partly off himself and let it rest in the crook of his arm. The bronze of his skin had turned a gauzy blue as it was backlit by the beams lighting up the screens in the room.

Careful not to make a noise I fell to my knees in front of the gash so I could watch in comfort and secrecy. Without so much as a sound he felt around inside the fabric that held to his chest, dropping his head when he brushed a certain spot, his hair now seeming a staggering white in the diaphanous lighting cascaded down into his face to block my view.

After a moment he took back his hand and moved it down his body where he pushed the hem of his kimono up so that it rested on his thighs as he kneeled. That hand was gone a moment later, sunk deep under the folds of fabric somewhere between his legs. He moaned softly. Whereas he seemed to be lost in a world of blue ice tones, I half expected myself to be cast in red, because my own body was growing increasingly warmer by the second, my sight never leaving the subtle movement between his thighs.

Even now I could hear a geiko performance at the other end of the house, scattered feminine chanting and a koto, in a style they called nagauta, floating into the dark air outside. I turned my head toward the sound. One of the back houses, where the dining hall was located, was lit with a strong yellowed light, shadows of figures swaying on the thin shoji.

Within seconds their voices had become a spectral paean, rising up as if the wind had its own language, and the deep tone of a drum pounded through my body like an overzealous heartbeat. All other noises had been momentarily silenced. The shadows of the geiko performed against the walls of the courtyard where the light had cast them. There was something unnatural in them, almost as if what I was seeing wasn't the geiko at all but some ghostly display, spirits of this forest drawn to Kyo's scent, because there was a strong spice emanating from his room. It smelled bitter-sweet, something earthy that seemed to grow with every secret stroke across his body.

No doubt the spirits had been enticed by it. This house had been built in a clearing in the woods not far behind Kiyomizudera. In fact, from the temple there was a road that sloped downward into the wood that set around and underneath the temple and through an elaborate set of gates you could find our house.

It was an oni forest, which was why I should have relaxed a bit. No clan member believing the tales would have come in to that wood at night, but it was not those who believed I was on guard for, but the skeptics who would have braved hell for their house.

When I looked back to Kyo I saw that the robe he wore was split in the middle, exposing a line of skin from chest to belly. Long fingers wrapped around himself along with a partially overlaying shadow. The baser part of me willed my eyes to strain in the darkness, reaching blindly for a view of what lay in his hand. Even in this murky lighting I could see his fingers flex on what the few slats of light revealed to be his own substantial organ. I felt myself harden at the sight of it. Kyo barely moved at all, no doubt savoring every tiny sensation. In fact were it not for the sapphire blush of his skin showing through his robes I would have only seen a form sitting quietly in the dark.

But even sitting there, perfectly silent, perfectly still, he could make my blood boil and throb in my veins as if some necromancy consumed my body in flame. It wasn't only the vision of him that sparked my insides, but also the ambrosial scent that drained from the room. Soft noises in the forest compelled me to look toward them. Hazy, blackened forms were scattered amongst the foliage, and tiny phantasmal lights as bright as stars brooded in one place. All manner of creatures had come, intoxicated by the scent of my master, though none came a step beyond where they stood, hovered or sat.

I wondered if they were real, or if anyone else could see them, but nothing seemed to be amiss to anyone in the lit room, not even the voices of the dancing girls which had long since become something otherwordly. And when I looked back to the room and the light I saw that the shadows inside the room had turned to normal and the girls had gone back to serving their guests, but their previous, ghost-like shadows still lingered and danced outside, cast against the cobbled stone, and their song still carried...

Why did I see them, hear them, and no one else? I wanted to weigh it in my mind because it was such a strange thing to have happen, but my body was begging me to turn back to the room and forget that I saw anything else. My memory was being choked out of me, along with any capacity to reason in any consistent way. His image could do all of this, and I didn't see it reasonable to fight it so I turned back.

Light glinted off the wetness that was smeared along his fingers and now, in addition to the lovely trill in the air, I could hear soft, slick noises as he pumped the organ in his hand. Distracted, I reached for my own. It was impossible, but somehow I heard my own quaking breath loud in my ears, even when it should have been drowned out by the aery chanting and the steady strike of drumming.

The luminance in the room was enough that I could see his masks set up in a row on the vanity directly in front of where I kneeled outside. Somehow I felt that they were watching me, watching the fabric of my robe move as I stroked myself. And staring at the box I had lain on that very table earlier in the day made my thoughts drift back to the thing that wound my waist, and I could feel the end that dangled down my stomach hit against my arousal with every upward stroke.

Kyo spread his legs wide on the futon, hand sliding up and down his swollen member while the other sought out something that lay beside him on the bedding. Since it lay between the spongy folds of his blanket I couldn't tell what it was until I heard the hitching clack and recognized the sound at once... a sword leaving its sheath. And then he had lifted the blade and studied it carefully, and when it caught no light I knew it was one of mine, because all the blades on my swords were black. It wasn't very long, and with a numbing sort of feeling I realized that my tanto wasn't in my obi with my other daisho swords that I had brought. He must have removed it from my room.

I watched as he lay back, his knees still bent underneath him and his back softly hitting the bedding, his body arched tight like a bow read to fire and he brought the thing down and across his stomach, leaving a long, skinny trail of blood in its wake. His mouth parted, enough that his tiny fangs glinted against a stray moonbeam and sunk into his bottom lip. Blood trickled down the corner of his mouth, stroking his jaw as it fell. I squeezed myself when he whimpered in need, and blanched at what he did next.

The tanto was turned so that he had grasped the steel blade cautiously and with the hilt aimed toward him he pushed it inside himself, hissing in both pain and pleasure. My eyes grew wide and the pool of heat in my stomach grew to scorching and I had almost cried out.
My eyes were drawn to the small pool of blood that was forming on the mattress below him, the light glinting just enough so that a spark of red came into view. For awhile, he held the dagger still and simply moved on his arousal, pressing his thumb into the tip, smearing the glittering fluid down his shaft. The sounds it made echoed as though it were the only sound in my head and yet that, also, was impossible. My world began to spin around me with every jerky motion I made under the fabric. I imagined myself inside him, riding in to that beautifully tight body, my master submitting to my
will, just for that instant

When he began to move down against the hilt he moaned loudly, muttering licentiously, repeating all the deep, secret things I had told to him over the years when we had each other alone and unbridled. To anyone else the string of words, fragments of varied sentences would have made very little sense, but to me they rang as erotic and heart-shattering as if he were confessing to me a thousand times over.

He moved on the hilt, thrusting it in and out of his hole as his breathing became more labored and his words faded and began coming out in nonsensical bursts, his arousal seemed to throb so hard in his hand that it looked as though it would burst, and his raw, unprepared hole was bleeding droplets onto the pristine white mattress. With a few more violent thrusts on my dagger he shuddered and his right hand was painted white, his left hand red. As I watched his swollen lips give birth to my name I tensed and spilt myself against my own grasping fist.

I sank into the wall, my forehead pressed up against the door as I caught my breath. Then I realized that all was quiet: no singing, no drums...just crickets and the wind and the water. The lights were gone from the woods, the shadows had gone to rest, even the ominous forms that hid amongst the trees had become nothing but the wind. The lights in the house were all blown out. Everything was asleep.


Before I could rationalize anything the door was pulled aside and I had to throw my arms in front of my body to keep from hitting the floor. When I shook off my surprise I focused on a lovely set of feet. Kyo stood before me applying a curious expression.
"I don't think you're doing very well protecting me from out here." Came his calm voice and he bent and took my hand. Each one of my messy fingers he slid into his perfect mouth, and each came out remarkably clean, then he held my hand and pulled me into the room and shut the door behind him.
"Forgive me..." I started. "I became...distracted."
He chuckled. "I know. I could see you."
I was stunned. "H-How?"
He nodded to his line of hollow-eyed masks. "They were watching you, so I could see you."
That reminded me..."And what I saw outside. The shadows and...they were coming for you right? Your smell...it was..."
"I don't know what business they had with me. Perhaps they were just satiating their lusts like you." I blushed. "I'm not sure what it is you saw, but nothing would surprise me. This is a spiritual place, Kaoru, why do you think I asked that we build our house here?"
I nodded. "Just so long as they don't get the idea to step any closer than that."
"Nothing in these woods will hurt me."
I frowned, "It's not anything in these woods that I'm worried about."
Padding over to his futon he dropped his robe at the bedside, then he slid in between the sheets and looked at me. "You've become so protective." he said.
When I read the emotion in his eyes I got up the courage to sneak in beside him. He let me, pushing back into my embrace and lacing his fingers with mine that were wrapped snugly around his waist.

For this monumental closeness I felt myself harden against his body, then in his hands when he reached back and found his way through the fabric to hold my member in his hands. I couldn't remember the last time he touched me like this. These days we were so consumed with house affairs that time alone was growing increasingly sparse.
"I'm sorry." he said helplessly, when he turned his head to look in my eyes he detected my confusion instantly. "For getting mad at you. I just haven't felt like anything but a master for so long. I had almost
forgotten I was your lover as well..."
I buried my face into his shoulder blade. "Don't apologize. I understand."
He gave a firm stroke, but the way he was touching me...while it made my body react in such an abject manner, I didn't feel any need for release.
"Sleep inside me." he whispered, his voice sounded vulnerable. "Fill me and hold me."
My clothes had somehow come off and I was entombed within him before I had the capacity to figure out when or how. But I was suddenly so insanely sleepy and comfortable that I couldn't have been bothered to wonder. We slept like lovers for the first time in almost a year.


TBC


Post Notes:
Whew! Done with the slow chapters. Next it starts to pick up again, so it'll be better I promise. But REVIEW people, please. 500 some hits and only 13 reviews is absolutely making me sad.