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He spoke with Toudou for the last time the night before the experiment. It was early-late, coming 8:00 o’clock, after dinner and before bed. Yukio had thought he might read. There were borrowed books in his borrowed room.
Toudou was waiting in the hall, standing with his shoulders braced against Yukio’s door.
“If you could have the life you wanted,” He asked, “what would it be? Your perfect life.” He didn’t look at Yukio. His eyes were closed. It was impossible to know how long he had been there.
Shima, who might have been of use with his silver tongue and flippant manner, had already gone. There was a girl in housekeeping, he’d said, beautiful eyes, perfect breasts, etcetera, etcetera. All lies, Yukio was sure, his keeper had gone to report on the day – and Toudou’d had the nerve to lecture him about honesty - but lies or truth, Shima wasn’t there to help him now.
“There’s no such thing,” Yukio settled on, and was pleased by how level his voice sounded. Disregarding Rin, who did not count, Yukio had little experience with demons dropping by his bedroom.
Toudou sighed and rubbed at his closed eyes with a hand. “It was hypothetical.” He said, not moving from his slouch against the door. “Why must everything be so difficult with you?”
Yukio shrugged. “You tell me.” Under other circumstances, he might have argued the issue, but the demon eater’s sudden appearance had put him off balance. After the awkward exchange in the cafeteria, Yukio had assumed they were done. Now the man was here, out late and alone and Yukio’s instincts told him to obfuscate, rather than defend. “Since you know me so well.” Besides, may as well play to expectations.
Toudou laughed. “Oh,” He said, “I’m going to miss you, Okumura-kun.”
“I can’t say that the feeling is mutual.”
“Now, now.” Toudou admonished, one side of his mouth rising into a smirk. “I’m the chosen one. The keystone of the elixir experiment. You have to be nice to me. It may be my last day on earth.”
Yukio grimaced. “So sorry,” he intoned from behind grit teeth, “O chosen one.”
“There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Toudou opened one eye, took in Yukio’s expression, and grinned, “oh, never mind,” he said, “It was.” Another snort of laughter. “Fine, fine. You may have special dispensation and call me ‘Toudou-san’. Now tell me all your hopes and dreams.”
It was Yukio’s turn to laugh. It was an uglier sound that he remembered. “Just like that?”
“Why not?” Both Toudou’s eyes were open now, half-mast and heavy lidded. He looked like he’d been drugged. Was that part of tomorrow’s preparation? “What’s the danger? Who am I going to tell?”
“Anyone.” Yukio shot back, “The commander, perhaps, your scientists, Toudou Homare.”
“They don’t care. She doesn’t care. The commander doesn’t care. No one cares.” Toudou shook his head, rolling it back and forth on his shoulders, “No, that’s not right. I care.” He stood up a little straighter. “I want to know. Tell the truth for once. Tell me.”
It was a clumsy jibe, but not ineffective. Yukio grimaced, swallowed, told the truth. “My father would be alive.” He said.
“I assume you mean Fujimoto-san, and not Satan. What else?”
He could see it behind his eyes, running like a filmstrip. His perfect life. He’s small again, five or maybe six, and he is with Rin. They are running through a field on the side of a hill with a dog at their heels, both of them laughing. The grass is high and tipped with tiny white flowers. Their father is there, and when Yukio gallops past, he reaches out and ruffles his hair. There’s a picnic basket under a tree, and everything is bright and new and possible. It hurt to imagine.
“He would…” Shiro had loved him, he’s sure of it. Shiro had loved him, just… not enough. “Explain,” he finished, lamely. “He would explain, and then I would know what to do.”
He did not hang his head, years of training kept him from breaking eye-contact with the enemy, though shame rolled through him like a wave, little eddies of it tracing down to the tips of his fingers, making them tingle and burn. To be here now, Lucifer’s guest in the Illuminati’s stronghold, and still not know what do to. Any of his exwires would have done better. Rin, at least, never lacked for action.
Toudou blinked, slow and reptilian. “That’s it?” He said, “My goodness, but you’re so boring, Okumura-kun. I ask for your perfect life, and what do I get? ‘I wish my daddy were alive’? What about untold riches and beautiful women and super powers? Fame and a fast car, at least! Dream big, Okumura-kun! Dream big!”
“I don’t want any of those things.”
“No,” Toudou said, “No, I suppose you don’t.” His eyes were dilated, the pupils glittering black. “What did you pretend to be as a child? An accountant?”
“A doctor.”
Toudou smirked again, knowingly. “And an exorcist,” He purred. “The greatest of exorcists. Banishing evil and saving the day. Paladin, I’d wager.”
Yukio willed down the heat that rose to face. It was nothing but the truth. He had pretended at all those things. God, how he had pretended, and then devoted hours upon hours, years upon years, the whole of his childhood, to making it so. And look at him now.
Toudou clucked his tongue, “Hey there,” He said, “Don’t look like that. There are worse dreams.” His smirk split into a broad grin, insincere and unhappy. “For example, I pretended to be this.” He stood from the door and held his arms out for inspection. “When I was boy, this is who I pretended to be.”
Yukio’s brows drew together in a frown. Toudou was a powerful monster: a living inferno, a creature of smoke and ash, untouchable. It made him a very dangerous man. He was to be respected for that, in the same way a snake was to be respected for its venom. Truly, his was a power little boys dreamed of.
But when Yukio looked at him, standing across the hall with his dark shadowed eyes, he didn’t see power. He saw an experiment. A sacrifice. A paving stone to someone else’s success. Someone better. More important. This is what you dreamed of being? Yukio thought. “A fawning slave to a new master? And why? Because he lets you set fire to the other boys? Because he’s pretty? Because his lies are pretty, and he tells you you’re so important, chosen one?"
That is who you dreamt of being?”
Toudou shrugged, a minimalistic gesture, so like Yukio’s own.
Yukio had not meant to speak aloud. It was anyone’s guess how many cameras nested in the walls of the Dominus Liminis, how little privacy was afforded here. It was not the place to disparage the chosen one, or better still Lucifer, the commander himself, but inexplicable rage churned in Yukio’s gut, and he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.
“You’re the same-” he said, trying to spit and snarl, but the words caught in his throat. His chest was tight. There wasn’t enough air. He was more upset than he had any right to be. “-as you’ve always been.”
Toudou’s mouth quirked and maybe it was a smile, but then again, maybe it wasn’t.
Yukio waited for him to say something, anything, to throw it all back in his face – he was aware of the parallels, thank you - to taunt and to tease, to set him on fire, to laugh. Yukio waited to be reminded that he had nothing like Toudou’s power. That he was weak. No flames here, no demon heart, and a pair of eyes that weren’t his own.
But Toudou said nothing, just leaned back against the door again, that strange little smile-not-smile playing across his lips.
“Do something,” Yukio snarled, “say something.”
Toudou tilted his head back, gaze catching on the ceiling, but clearly focused further away - out a window that didn’t exist. “I know.” He said.
Yukio blinked - (twice, quickly). “That’s it?” he said, “I disparage your hopes and dreams and that’s all I get? ‘I know’?”
Toudou shrugged again. “No matter what you say, or what you do, what you give away, or what you choose,” he said, intoning like a poem. “You’re always you. I devoured a demon – two, in fact - and here I am, like you said, as I’ve always been.”
“You could be different.” Yukio said, “You could try.” He was unsure of who he was trying to convince. There was a passion in his voice that didn’t belong. It made him sound like… “You could choose to be different.” He almost sounded like… He didn't close his eyes. He wanted to.
“Can I?” Toudou turned his gaze from the ceiling, let it cut across Yukio’s face. “Can you?”
“I’m trying.” Yukio said, and pressed his lips into a thin hard line.
Toudou laughed. “Not very hard.” He pushed away from the wall, a sudden riot of motion. “Come then,” he said, and grabbed Yukio’s arm, the left one, the no-longer-broken one, and pulled him close.
“Run away with me, and let’s be different.” He breathed, the words sliding along Yukio’s cheekbone, “We’ll go to America. Better! We’ll go to Argentina.” He was grinning, eyes wide, expression alive. Yukio could see a thin ring of shining gold around each pupil. “Come, Okumura-kun. Be different.”
Yukio flinched, but didn’t pull away. It took a conscious effort. “Why don’t I just run away by myself?”
“Haven’t you already?” Toudou said, and though the words were cutting, his tone was not. He sounded… warm, almost, indulgent. His grip shifted, sliding down to grasp Yukio’s hand, their arms stretched between them in an improbable bridge. “Besides,” He said, “it would be more fun, with two.”
It was a ridiculous proposition. More absurd than cloned limbs or flying strongholds, than all of Yukio’s lies rolled together, than the sum total of his and Toudou’s hopes and dreams. Even still, there was a moment where Yukio did not know what to say. The light of adventure was in Toudou’s eyes, gleaming in flecks of gold and amber like a flickering flame around cold, coal black depths.
Yukio could say ‘yes.’ It was physically possible. He wondered what Toudou would do then. Backtrack? Laugh it off? Report him to his superiors? Steal a helicopter? He wasn’t sure, couldn’t gauge.
“Fear,” Toudou mused, cutting into his reverie. His voice was still strangely gentle. “You’re always so afraid. Who will make you fight when I am gone? Who will call you out?”
“Are they really going to kill you?” Yukio asked, grateful for the shift in conversation. A reprieve.
Toudou shrugged, as if his conceivable death was of little consequence and less interest. “It’s the phoenix. We’re meant to die…and be reborn. No one is exactly sure how that is going to go.”
Toudou was still holding his hand. Yukio rocked back on his heels, putting distance between them, but didn’t shake him off. “If Lucifer were truly interested in ‘recreating’ the world, he wouldn’t be so set on retaining his head.”
Toudou laughed. “You may be right. But what does it matter? Come,” He said again, “run away with me. And I’ll be different.”
Yukio closed his eyes. “I never would,” he said, and both of them knew it was the unequivocal truth.
“No,” Toudou agreed. “Of course not. Because you,” and Yukio could feel the words on his skin again, knew Toudou was leaned in close, “are exactly the same as you have always been.” His breath burned like a brand. “How many demons do you think it’ll take before you realize?”
Toudou dropped his hand. Yukio opened his eyes.
The lights in the hall dimmed as the ship shifted into night cycle. Toudou’s eyes glowed in the dark: dying embers.
“Well,” He said, “I suppose that’s my cue. I have a big day tomorrow, after all. Goodbye, Okumura-kun. I’ve enjoyed talking with you. I wish… ah, well.” His smile was its familiar, one-sided affair. “We wish.” He inclined his head in brief farewell and was gone, walking briskly down the hall. He did not look back.
After he left, Yukio stood alone for what felt like a long time. It had been a test, he knew, to gauge his loyalty. He still felt like a failure.
He pressed his hand against the biometric sensor that controlled his door, and went to bed.