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Entry tags:
KHR Rarepair Week - Storm - Ghosts
Mukuro-sama has ghosts dogging his every footstep, and Chikusa thinks that's fine.
It's not as though ghosts can truly do anything to harm them, Chikusa thinks, not really. Even the paltry whisp of a thing that wanted to steal Mukuro's face and talent, in the end, was tossed away back into the ether where it belonged, and things carried on as they always did. Who has no ghosts trailing after them, anyway, once the underworld has touched them?
An underworld in more ways than one, in more ways than just criminal.
Really, Mukuro-sama is only unusual in how many ghosts hang from his shoulders, a glorified cape that would catch on every little thing if not for the graceful way he twists and turns through life. Through his goals and actions.
And yet, people are disconcerted by him. By the ghosts which follow the click of his footsteps, which stain his hands something ghoulish, which lay behind the sharp and unpleasant curve of his smirk just there past his teeth. They act as though he is something wretched, for all those ghosts.
Maybe Mukuro-sama is something wretched. What other things could be born, down there, in the pits of the Estraneo? It is not only the ghosts of adults which are there, wailing about on Mukuro-sama's entire existence. There are quieter ghosts, too, the ghosts that are more invisible than invisible, and Chikusa knows all of them well. He can do nothing but know them well, because knowing is the only thing he has ever been good for, and so he knows them well.
He knows every single face of every single child that choked on their own blood, every child whose heart ceased to beat on the operating table. Children, ghosts, that Mukuro-sama says do not matter, and yet which are behind every little gesture of his.
The illusions and grandness and drama hide them even further. Their corpses covered in flowers and dirt.
None of the others may be aware of just how many ghosts there are, may know to call them ghosts at all, but that's fine. Chikusa thinks that's fine. He thinks he'd rather be the only one, besides Mukuro-sama himself, who can tell how many ghosts tag along and fill the imprints of their footsteps.
Of course... All this thinking about Mukuro-sama, and Chikusa has to admit that he's overlooked something obvious himself. He doesn't know it for a very long time, however.
Not until, one day, Mukuro traces his fingertip along the curve of his jaw and says, "Oh, how many ghosts you carry with you, Chikusa." He smiles, that smile full of teeth which guard the dead like gravestones. "For as long as we have known one another, you've held onto every single one."
Which sounds ridiculous, of course, except then Mukuro asks him a question, asks him the number of a child and how that number was erased, and, what else can he do? Chikusa is only ever good at knowing. He tells him.
That just proves Mukuro-sama's point, of course, and he laughs, whispers of the dead slipping out between every parting of his lips, his teeth. "At least we have a name for one of the ghosts who clings to you so pathetically," he says, as though they were not all pathetic, and very little separated the ghosts from those who managed to continue onwards. His fingers linger along Chikusa's jaw, thumb swiping along his lower lip. They are on the stage in the dilapidated ruins of somewhere that could have been for families, once, but the only ghost here is the ghost of too ambitious capitalism. It doesn't cling in quite the same way. "Well, I suppose that's fine. I'll keep you, no matter how many ghosts you have."
I'll love you no matter how many ghosts you have.
But much like some ghosts should be invisible underneath layers of dirt and fallen flower petals and grandiose gestures, there are some words which should never be stated so outright. In much the same way he knows the names of so many ghosts, Chikusa knows what words are never said behind Mukuro's teeth.
He simply closes his eyes, focuses on the fingertips along his face, and he says, "You as well, Mukuro-sama."
It's not as though ghosts can truly do anything to harm them, Chikusa thinks, not really. Even the paltry whisp of a thing that wanted to steal Mukuro's face and talent, in the end, was tossed away back into the ether where it belonged, and things carried on as they always did. Who has no ghosts trailing after them, anyway, once the underworld has touched them?
An underworld in more ways than one, in more ways than just criminal.
Really, Mukuro-sama is only unusual in how many ghosts hang from his shoulders, a glorified cape that would catch on every little thing if not for the graceful way he twists and turns through life. Through his goals and actions.
And yet, people are disconcerted by him. By the ghosts which follow the click of his footsteps, which stain his hands something ghoulish, which lay behind the sharp and unpleasant curve of his smirk just there past his teeth. They act as though he is something wretched, for all those ghosts.
Maybe Mukuro-sama is something wretched. What other things could be born, down there, in the pits of the Estraneo? It is not only the ghosts of adults which are there, wailing about on Mukuro-sama's entire existence. There are quieter ghosts, too, the ghosts that are more invisible than invisible, and Chikusa knows all of them well. He can do nothing but know them well, because knowing is the only thing he has ever been good for, and so he knows them well.
He knows every single face of every single child that choked on their own blood, every child whose heart ceased to beat on the operating table. Children, ghosts, that Mukuro-sama says do not matter, and yet which are behind every little gesture of his.
The illusions and grandness and drama hide them even further. Their corpses covered in flowers and dirt.
None of the others may be aware of just how many ghosts there are, may know to call them ghosts at all, but that's fine. Chikusa thinks that's fine. He thinks he'd rather be the only one, besides Mukuro-sama himself, who can tell how many ghosts tag along and fill the imprints of their footsteps.
Of course... All this thinking about Mukuro-sama, and Chikusa has to admit that he's overlooked something obvious himself. He doesn't know it for a very long time, however.
Not until, one day, Mukuro traces his fingertip along the curve of his jaw and says, "Oh, how many ghosts you carry with you, Chikusa." He smiles, that smile full of teeth which guard the dead like gravestones. "For as long as we have known one another, you've held onto every single one."
Which sounds ridiculous, of course, except then Mukuro asks him a question, asks him the number of a child and how that number was erased, and, what else can he do? Chikusa is only ever good at knowing. He tells him.
That just proves Mukuro-sama's point, of course, and he laughs, whispers of the dead slipping out between every parting of his lips, his teeth. "At least we have a name for one of the ghosts who clings to you so pathetically," he says, as though they were not all pathetic, and very little separated the ghosts from those who managed to continue onwards. His fingers linger along Chikusa's jaw, thumb swiping along his lower lip. They are on the stage in the dilapidated ruins of somewhere that could have been for families, once, but the only ghost here is the ghost of too ambitious capitalism. It doesn't cling in quite the same way. "Well, I suppose that's fine. I'll keep you, no matter how many ghosts you have."
I'll love you no matter how many ghosts you have.
But much like some ghosts should be invisible underneath layers of dirt and fallen flower petals and grandiose gestures, there are some words which should never be stated so outright. In much the same way he knows the names of so many ghosts, Chikusa knows what words are never said behind Mukuro's teeth.
He simply closes his eyes, focuses on the fingertips along his face, and he says, "You as well, Mukuro-sama."