Work Text:
“Hey, Rei-kun! It’s time to get up, hmm?”
Hiyori shoves open the coffin lid with one hand. Head poking over the rim, he’s the risen sun brightening the cramped space.
Rei pries an eye open. With a bare few centimetres between them Hiyori comes into view, even up close still a face so austerely gorgeous, replete with eyes a pair of alluring amethysts.
“Am I dreaming…” he murmurs, and shuts that eye, wriggling into a new posture to return to sound sleep.
“Hurry up! Get up!” Hiyori seizes him and shakes. “Hey, I’m the real thing! Not one of your daydreams! Would you be dreaming of me in the middle of the day? Oh, how truly adorable, Rei-kun!”
Rei tries to ignore those words, but doesn’t resist his hands. There’s a heap of growling he’d like to do but when he opens his mouth all he says is: “Why have you, who hails from Reimei Academy, shown up inside my club room at Yumenosaki?”
“Hm? Because we’re working on some-thing together, of course!” Hiyori says this like it’s the most apparent thing in the world.
“...Why was I not aware?”
“Rei-kun’s so dumb! That’s clearly because I didn’t tell you.”
He lifts his head, peering at effusively smiley Hiyori, then lowers it assessing the cozy plush of the coffin. Sees that smile lovelier than a flower, and sinks into the supple cushions beneath him. Wrestles awhile with the war, godlike principle and human desire, inside of him. In the end, however, he comes around.
“What work is to be done?”
“Hm-hmm.” Hiyori beams, triumphant.
Under the crowning flare of the sun in the sky, Rei is dragged into a public park. The proverbial silver lining in the clouds: in it, there’s a small pavilion by a lake. At the very least he can hide from the glare under it.
“Hiyori-kun? You said this is the place?”
He looks around. Apart from them, there’s not a single soul. He wonders how Hiyori could have possibly found someplace this secluded.
“Yep, yep!” He retrieves from his bag a camera readied beforehand. “For us to properly complete this task, I’ve long cleared out the area! No one’s going to bother us. Don’t worry, Rei-kun!”
“I hadn’t been worried about that.” He can’t bite again. “What task? Did someone make you do something for them?”
“Not at all. This is something I, myself, seek to do.”
Head lowered with a serious countenance, Hiyori works the camera. His pretty purple eyes flicker with an emotion that Rei, at his side, drinks in.
“Rei-kun, look here! Raise your hand a little higher!”
“Bend back a little more, and show me that alluring expression you always wear on stage!”
“Yes! This kind of vibe! Hold it there, ‘kay—”
Seeing Hiyori with such a professional look, Rei feels baffled. When had he learned photography?
“Hiyori-kun, are you quite done?” He can’t really take any more. Posing under the scalding sun… it’s too great a difficulty for an aged vampire.
“Hm—well, I suppose this is okay.” Hiyori sees him looking utterly exhausted, and lets go of the idea of a retake.
He tugs Rei’s body into the pavilion, sits him down, then buries himself forcefully inside Rei’s arms.
“Hiyori-kun?”
Despite his reservations, Rei subconsciously returns his embrace. He knows his lover has always loved to act like a spoiled brat, but all of today has truly been rather unusual.
“Rei-kun.” Hiyori nuzzles him, feeling his temperature a whisper lower than that of everyday people. “Don’t you want to leave anything behind? Anything about this relationship.”
He falls silent. Eyelids droop and conceal the indescribable thoughts in his blood-red eyes, shaggy black hair cascading into a shadow obscuring his expression. Both of them understand—this is only a contract signed, a game to play. Hiyori brings Rei intelligence from Reimei and Shuuetsu, in turn Rei represents the Sakuma House in working with the Tomoe Foundation. All there is between them is an exchange of advantages. The ‘love affair’ is but a careless joke, an excuse that’s a disguise, all of it rehearsed for their families; a scene in acting.
Who would believe it?
Who would begin to believe it.
“I only want to hold on to here and now.” The warmth-swathed wind blows Rei’s voice to scattered shards, unclear.
Fortunately, Hiyori still hears it. Understands.
Hiyori grabs his collar. Four lips pressed closed, all eyes open. Muddy and obscure feelings floating in the silence, felt between their gazes.
“We only have right now.”
The camera sits on the bench. On the screen is two bodies, entangled.