worldbent | GOLDEN PEACOCK: INBOX+OVERFLOW

[Ugh, he's laughing. Matoba's eye rolls spare seconds before the hulking weight of his skull plops down into his lap, nestled nicely between his thighs. Thank goodness he's not face-down. How does his head manage to be so heavy when he's so brainless, anyway?]

[Glancing down with limpid distaste, slit red meets squinted gold, and in the comfortable quiet of birdsong and rustling trees, they simply look at each other. Matoba's hands take a few seconds to determine where to go, but one tucks across his waist and the other... comes to land atop Rokurou's head.]

[From past experience, one might expect him to begin yanking out every hair on his head- and while his fingers do initially rake into it- rather than clenching down, his nails merely scrape light at his scalp, a languid, repeated stroke through messy spikes, as his eye tears itself away and back to the birds.]

Well? [He is still waiting for that answer.]

[ Given all of their past experience, Rokurou almost expects a hard yank once Matoba combs one of his claws through his hair. Yet pain never comes. The light scratch runs across his scalp draws a shiver of pleasure, a tingle of delight down his spine, and his eyes crescent in enjoyment of it. Like a cat stretched out in a patch of sunlight, for a moment, Rokurou Rangetsu is the picture of contentment.

So contented that he drawls out an honest answer, ]

Mn, three years. [ his eyes squint to near close as he nudges his head against Matoba's fingers in encouragement. keep doing that. ] About that long, I think...

[ The daemon yawns, content to fall asleep like this. For the first time in a while his mind finally seems willing to calm, all the racing thoughts and restlessness biting at his nerves settling down. Is this too the power of an exorcist, or just Matoba? A question he'll never know the answer to because he'll never ask it. ]

[Three years.]

[Matoba gazes down at him, at his face, the youthfulness of it.]

[Three years.]

[It happens slowly. First his stomach, a flinch with a quiet snort. It continues, a movement that rocks his entire core, with snickering breaths. Then his shoulders join in as the laughter bubbles out more clearly, and soon Rokurou's peaceful resting place has turned into an earthquake simulator, jostling his head about freely while his arms grip his sides.]

[A childish, free laughter. No one will ever believe him when he claims to have seen it from the silky, collected Matoba Seiji.]

[ ...

.....

............ ]

What's so funny?!

[ His eyes finally snap open again as that sweet moment of contentment is cruelly snatched away by Matoba chortling like he's just heard something hilarious. Frustration digs itself into the normally genial lines of the daemon's face; not only had the beginnings of his nap been thwarted, now he's being laughed at? It's sheer spite that keeps him from sitting up off Matoba's lap; he opts to glare up at the other man, lips thin. ]

Haha, ah-- hahaha, oh, nothing.

[So he claims, shoulders still shaking. A chuckle continues to bubble out as he raises a fist to his mouth, a mockery of concealment.]

Three years. Looking at you, we're around the same age, probably.........? You really are just a man who's gotten a little cursed, aren't you.

[There's a strange fondness in his eye. His fingers comb back into Rokurou's hair, admiring that acidic sulk. A warm flush of attraction filters through his bones.] Why are you in such a hurry to be hated?

[ A little cursed? A little cursed? Rokurou's jaw drops at the absolute audacity of this man. He sits up onto his elbows, remaining half prone as he narrows the distance between their faces to add emphasis to his point: ]

I'm a daemon. A little cursed? Are you kidding me? [ obvious frustration deepens; rokurou's brow furrows and his lips turn down, looking every inch a young man kicking up a stink he isn't getting his way. ] And I'm twenty-two. What are you? Twelve?

[ ............... said in the pettiest and bitchiest way. How dare his lack of humanity and journey as a daemon be mocked? It's natural for someone like him to be hated. Natural for an exorcist to hate him. Ah, ah, aaaah? ]

[Rokurou raises up on his elbows and he nearly reaches eye to eye with Matoba; the easygoing smirk on the man's face doesn't diminish in the slightest as he grasps wildly for retorts, for justifications, none of which do much of anything to change his mind.]

Oh, so we are the same age. Splendid.

[Truly an infant. In fact--] In demonic years, I suppose that would make you something like an infant, hm? Even a cat does not become a bakeneko until it has reached a hundred years, yes? So you are something like the sparkle in the eye of an ayakashi, right?

[He can keep going. His beaming smile promises it.] You can't have even forgotten what it is to live, much less die. Do you really take yourself for something inhuman, like that?

I lost my humanity. [ he remains stalwart in trying to persuade this truth while staring right into that red eye, ] So yes.

[ The rest can't be denied. Daemons can live for a very long time, upwards of hundreds of years, if they aren't killed. Three years is nothing more than a blink to long-lived creatures; some may so nothing but slumber for so long. Even the fact that they're the same age (annoying) is brushed away in the face of this indignity. Were it anyone else he might just shrug and roll it off his back—the fact that it's this exorcist, that threw evil soap at him and burned a mark onto his chest, is maddening.

Annoyance so rife that color flushes across his cheek and chests. A rare sight; even when fucking he doesn't normally take on color, naturally warmer undertone often obscuring it. ]

Who cares about a cat? I'm a Yaksha. Yaksha.

Did you, [Matoba replies, sounding bored.]

[In his short life, Matoba Seiji has encountered many ayakashi, from those who had lived for decades, to those who had lived for thousands of years. To them, he is but a grain of sand; a blink of an eye. And that was what was so infuriating about them. After hundreds of years all of the scenery, all of the life in the world blend together as one; unremarkable, unchanging.]

[That was what separated humans and ayakashi, and why they could never understand one another: knowing what it was to be alive, to be born and to die. A lifetime of experiences, living vibrantly, and dying vibrantly.]

[Indignant fury builds in Rokurou's throat, in how it reddens attractively. The gold of his eye seems watery. Matoba's demeanor has changed completely from the standoffish prickliness of an exorcist regarding prey; now, he is simply teasing a fellow.]

Yaksha... like the Buddhist spirits, hm...? [He reaches up, and taps Rokurou's forehead, a mimicry of circumstances some weeks ago.] They are benevolent spirits, you know.

I don't know any—augh?

[ He doesn't know any Buddhists. Before he can defend his pride of being a Yaksha, a war daemon and certainly not a benevolent force with the way malevolence drips out of every pore, Matoba has the continued audacity to tap his forehead. Rokurou's mouth drops open in surprise before another flash of indignation has him do something stupid—snapping a hand up, he grabs Matoba's wrist and lurches forward to bite that finger.

It isn't a genuine bite. A snap of teeth, nothing more. He offers a resentful look while doing it, spitting the digit out of his mouth a moment later before slamming the side of his head back down onto Matoba's lap. He turns on his side so that he can look out into the vale and not at Matoba's stupid face.

He may be annoyed but he paid for this pillow, thank you very much. ]

I'm malevolent.

[ Harumph. ]

[How strange.]

[Matoba's hand nearly jerks away as it's grabbed, but confusion strikes him lame as teeth close down upon it in the gentlest pinch he thinks he's received from the man yet.]

[It leaves him baffled, watching the man drop back into his lap in a sulk, processing. Well. He certainly doesn't disagree with that assessment; yaksha he may be, but what benevolence had the man bestowed upon him so far?]

Yes, I suppose you are a little, [He agrees, placid, false flattery to soothe an aching ego. Just why the man held ego for something so hateful, he could only guess from his own experiences.]

[And, if it was anything like his... It was necessity. From what did the Rangetsu distance themselves, he wonders?]

[After a few moments of Rokurou being mercifully left to sulk, fingers trail in his hair again, soft. They're more idle than before, but if he bothers to glance up, Matoba is watching the birds again with a small, content smile.]

GOLDEN PEACOCK: INBOX+OVERFLOW

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