Holding On to Flame

In the end, there was nothing she could do for Kanba. She couldn’t save his beloved sister; she couldn’t even prolong Himari’s life a little longer, yet a little longer. She couldn’t save Kanba from trying, either, turn him from the path that would destroy him.

But she couldn’t help wanting to.

When she held Kanba, all her illusions fell. No costumes, no arrogance: it was only her in this body that was not hers, this frail body that he prized so dearly. Because it held what was precious to him.

She couldn’t judge him for that.

She turned her face into the skin of his neck, her arms tight around his back. The scent of him was comforting; she didn’t know if it was her that felt that, or the body. The familiar scent of another human being.

Kanda didn’t hold her back, at first. She tucked her head closer against his neck, her lashes catching his skin, and she traced the curve of his spine through his clothes. She felt, rather than heard, his sigh, and for a moment he bent his weight against her, and she was the only thing supporting him in the world.

He brought his arms around her, the fabric of his coat rough against her bare skin.

‘Himari,’ he said. His voice was a shattered mirror of pain.

‘That’s not me,’ she told him. He wrapped her tighter in his arms, one hand cupping the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure he’d heard her at all.

She pulled her head back to look at him. The sensation of his fingers sliding into the hair at her nape made her skin tingle.

‘Do you want me to pretend?’ she asked.

She thought that might offend him. But maybe it was some other feeling that drew out the moment before he answered.

Maybe he was considering it.

‘Don’t pretend,’ he said, and he ran his fingers through her hair, and bent her head to kiss her forehead. He’d given up half his heart to her, the half that he possessed, and she could feel now how fast it was beating.

She pulled back sharply then, though that only meant his arms dropped to her waist. She lifted her hand between them, and she held her fingers to his mouth.

‘If that’s so,’ she said, ‘then you should not treat me so tenderly.’

Just for a moment, his lips brushed into a smile. Then he caught her hand in his, and he said, his voice low, ‘Then how should I treat you, princess?’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Do you even know what I mean?’

He pressed a kiss to her fingers.

‘You’ll have to explain to me,’ he said, his breath tickling her palm.

What she’d meant was that he should not treat her like he would his sister; but even when his voice had slipped into light mockery, she wasn’t sure what the difference was.

He looked up at her from under his brows, his eyes dark, willful. Telling her, with those eyes, that he wasn’t going to back down. Kanba never seemed to back down for anything. Except, perhaps, for Himari. Only sometimes.

She traced her fingertips down the line of his nose, down his cheek, while he kept hold of her hand. He kissed her, at the base of her thumb; he kissed her wrist, the spot over her pressure point, the precious blood that kept rhythm and proved Himari wasn’t dead yet, the skin so fragile over the veins and so sensitive. With his other arm looped around her waist, he pulled her tighter, so their bodies were flush. It wasn’t close enough, not with the layers of his clothing between them.

He brushed his lips further down her wrist, and that was the contact she wanted: lips on skin, skin on skin, nothing else between them.

This was her illusion – she could have done something about that directly. Instead, she looped her arms around his neck, and dipped her head, and she said, ‘Take me to bed.’

Kanba didn’t question it. He scooped her up in his arms, like she weighed nothing – which maybe she did if she were only a ghost, or a sick girl with no time left.

Because she willed it, the bed was there. And because it was Kanba, it was Himari’s bed. He laid her down, and the heavy red curtains became her sky, became the edge of the world. This place where the two of them could be safe, for however long this dream lasted.

Kanba pulled at the knot of his tie; she sat up on her elbows, the better to watch him, and something about that made him pause.

‘You really …’

‘I can speed things up if you like,’ she said – and she snapped her fingers and Kanba was naked too. It was worth it for how completely thrown he looked – like for once he didn’t know where to go from here. She couldn’t help smiling, self-satisfied, and Kanba recovered himself, narrowing his eyes as if he saw through her.

‘Isn’t it efficient?’ she said.

‘Efficient,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking that.’ And, not questioning the situation any further, he climbed onto the bed, crawling on top of her so that she had to lie back flat. He tangled his fingers in one of her hands, and he touched her face with the other. Brushed her cheeks.

For a moment his face crumpled and she thought he would cry.

Before he could do so, she wrapped her free arm around him, to pull his face closer to hers. She bent her head up and pressed her lips against his in a kiss.

It wasn’t true love’s kiss or anything like that. It was just what she had to offer him.

His kiss was softer than she could have thought, for someone who was all hard edges. As if he meant to be gentle with her. She wanted to say again, ‘don’t treat me so tenderly’, but she found she didn’t want to turn that tenderness down.

When he bit down on her lip, that was gentle as well. It was on her to introduce more urgency, to kiss back more fiercely. She ran her fingers through his hair, just for the sensation of it.

When he broke away, he said, ‘Himari,’ and she didn’t bother to correct him. She ran her hand back down along his spine to the small of his back.

‘It’s alright,’ she said.

He bent his forehead to hers, and then he began to kiss her. Not only on her mouth, but beside it, along the line of her jaw, on her cheek, in the curve of her neck, along her collarbone. He let go of her hand, and he placed it over her breast, to squeeze it gently, and to kiss the skin – and then to kiss back to her mouth. Now when he kissed her the gentleness was almost forgotten, subsumed by the heat that ran between them. She could feel his erection pressing against her, and she brought her knees up against his sides to grip his hips. He squeezed her breast again, running his fingers over her nipple until it stood hard, and he kissed down to her breast again, sucking lightly on the skin on the underside which was somehow more sensitive than that above. She found that she gasped. It was almost embarrassing – he looked up at her with those dark eyes, still tweaking her nipples between his fingers, and if she hadn’t been wet already, she was now.

‘Enough,’ she said, ‘with the teasing.’ She tried to keep the swagger in her voice, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

Kanba reached down, and he slipped his hand between her legs, to cup her vulva and to slide his fingers against the slick at her entrance.

‘Is that better?’ he asked her.

She whacked his shoulder with impatience – but not with too much force, because he looked, in touching her, happy. Focused, for the moment, on this one thing to the exclusion of all else. Focused, for the moment, on her.

He turned his hand to slide his fingers against her nub; she tightened her legs against him, repressing a shudder.

‘Relax,’ he said.

‘What sort of a situation is this to relax in?’ she said. And he laughed; be bent back down to kiss her – first on her nose, then on her mouth, while he continued to slide his fingers against her clit – enjoying it when she squirmed, and arced her back. She wanted to yell at him but she wasn’t sure what. Go faster. Don’t stop.

Don’t keep yourself separate from me.

Maybe he knew anyway, because he parted her labia with his fingers, opening her wide to slide inside her, until he was all the way and looking down at her with wide eyes – like he didn’t dare move, and hardly believed that he’d dare this much.

Experimentally, she squeezed herself tighter around him. Saw his eyes flutter.

‘You really –’ he lowered his face against hers, his cheek resting against hers, and he curled his fingers in her hair as he pulled out and thrust in – ‘feel so good.’

‘Less talking,’ she said, and he laughed again, as she lifted her hips against his, to take him deeper, to feel herself filled. Even the weight of him was precious to her.

She held onto his back, while he thrust into her, and the rhythm built inside her, to become more than just the physical sensation, the friction and the heat. She thought the edges of the world must be blurring. Maybe this place would disappear altogether, so that it was just the two of them, his heart burning inside her.

Had she thought to comfort him? And yet she was the one who wanted to hold tighter.

She came before he did, crying out, the indistinct edges of the world turning to stars. He whispered words in her hair; she couldn’t hear them over the beating of her heart. He thrust a few times more, and maybe he had come when she did, because he came to a stop, and his breath was as heavy as hers was.

She didn’t remove her arms from around him. He turned his head slightly, his breath warming her cheek, content to stay there for the moment.

Maybe now, they were coming back down to earth, regret would seep in. Kanba would realise what he had done, and with whom. She would have to acknowledge to herself that she couldn’t stop him from walking the path he’d set upon.

But for that moment, at least, they held each other. And she couldn’t have any regrets at all, except for the end they came to.