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The rays of golden light from the setting sun glittered the broken citadel in its glow. The hauntingly dark ring of clouds that flashed a deep pink still lingered above, making the warm descending sun seem like false hope and security. For right now the area of the once blighted domain was quiet and serene; no demon guards patrolling about, no people lurking around the corner to get their hit… just stillness. Eerily still and unusually silent.
A gentle breeze caressed Daigo’s hair as he stood in the center of the ruined citadel where the bedrock portal used to be. The deep glowing pink was still pulsing on the ground even after the horrifying presence of the tentacle monster was defeated. Daigo didn’t move from where he stood; his eyes fixated onto the ground where he used to be as that puppeted demon.
Was that him?
Am I really myself again?
It’s all Daigo could think. He rubbed his fingers together slowly, his arms by his side. Not believing he was truly free—and Real—he mindlessly fidgeted with his calloused fingers; feeling the roughness from years of mastered mask making. An irrevocable change had occurred within him. It haunted him like a shadow that wrapped around his body and constricted his very being. It felt like he clawed his way out of hell and didn’t come back quite himself.
His eyes darkened slightly, his brows furrowed in disgust. He felt naked and grotesquely used. Being reshaped into his plaything for so long left him crawling at his skin. He thought that if he closed his eyes he would be back in the spirit realm: stuck and corrupted, fear overpowering him until his memory goes blank. Hazy and far away were his memories as his time being that demon. His Champion. It made him want to hurl. Humiliation and embarrassment were left with what he was. Both feeding on him like maggots on a withered, desiccated dead body.
Daigo was so absorbed into his own thoughts that he didn’t hear the footsteps that crept up behind him. They were slow, cautious steps; they stopped and stood close enough to be Daigo’s shadow. A voice called out his name. A voice like the soft consolations of the sea. It drifted through the warm wind and ghosted his ear. Daigo tensed a little at the sound of his name.
He wasn’t alone anymore. He slowly turned to where the voice came from and his eyes went wide.
It was you.
You stood there with the Sun's tired glow on you; a sight he felt he didn’t deserve to see. Daigo felt a pang in his heart, he couldn’t believe you’d find him back here again. Then shame washed over him. He was so rude to you. So rude to anyone who he thought stood in his way. How could you forgive him for what he did? Yet, his heart was beating ever so slightly faster.
“Daigo…” you say his name again, making sure it was truly him in front of you. You took a step towards him and Daigo didn’t move an inch. Your eyes were fixed on Daigo, taking in all of him. His eyebags were bruised to his skin and his wounds were fresh; still open. Proof of the beating he took and the dreadful thoughts that plagued him. It was only when Daigo said your name back in the same gentle way, did you smile. He looked so innocent with soft, sad brown eyes.
The silence was filled with the faint sound of the distant waterfall. Your eyes wet with the precursor of tears on your lashes, like dew drops on an early misty morning. He didn’t know why you looked at him like there was something in him worth staring at. Daigo turned around, his back facing you again, gazing at the same ground just moments earlier.
He was quiet for a while. When he spoke again his voice was remote, detached. “Do you fear me?” he questioned. It was abrupt, but he needed to know what you thought of him.
“Fear you?” you echoed, staring at his back with a confused gaze. You gave a moment's pause before saying you don’t. You have never feared him. Your Daigo? Your heart wouldn’t let you.
A weight lifted off Daigo’s shoulders. He could breathe a little easier knowing that he didn’t frighten you. But his thoughts got the better of him too quickly — Was he human enough? Was he still someone to you?
“Am I still real to you?” his mouth moved before he could think, “still yours?” Daigo’s eyes closed. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. Memories of the past flowed through him; when Masked Meadows wasn’t reduced to something so unfamiliar.
Remembering how new you were to the island, you and him talking near his shop, and how he couldn’t forget standing on the red bridge together over the pond. The colorful koi fish swimming under both of you as the fall's sweet breeze danced around you, the pink blossoms spun and fell on the clear water. His eyes would linger on you longer than he intended, watching you laugh at the fish below, your sway bumped your shoulder into his. He didn’t want to admit he enjoyed your company, even all the questions he feigned annoyance with answering. Your naivety was endearing to him.
Though at the time, Daigo had to remind himself you were a stranger, someone who knew nothing of the island; he had a wall put up between himself and you. Yet, it broke each day you came by just to see and talk to him. A quiet curiosity planted itself in his chest, and he knew it was only a matter of time before you sunk beneath his bones. How you would nurture that budding affection into a love so fierce he would question if he’d ever been in love before.
You grew on him; he wanted your soft smiles and sweet laughter to just be for him. You were wrapped around his finger, and you didn’t even realize it.
Until the maelstrom of events with Jade and the demons forced Daigo to push himself away from everyone. Through his cold exterior his heart burned with love for his siblings, his island, and you. He told himself he was smart and strong enough to protect everyone. It had to be him. His responsibility.
Daigo’s eyes opened when he felt warmth surrounding him. Your head on his back and your palm above his heart, his blood insistent under your hand, quick and mortal. He was here with you. Full and real. Your Daigo was real and not gone.
“You’re real, Daigo,” you whispered against him, a hint of old incense and oud filled your senses. “Nothing you become will disappoint me… I will love you through all your faults. You’re the only person who understands me.” you let your words find their way to him as you hold him tighter. “Of course you’re still mine.”
Daigo’s throat filled with sharp, prickly thorns that would adorn the stem of a rich burgundy rose with how tight it closed on him; his chest heaved and for the first time he let his tears flow. His dark eyes burned but he didn’t care, you were there to hold him and guide him out of the dark, cruel isolation he felt chained to. Daigo loved you. He will love you through all of his disgusting performances. So he wept: wept for his actions, his selfish thoughts, his arrogance, and most of all his unadulterated love for you.
“I don’t deserve someone like you,” Daigo’s voice trembled as his body shivered in yours and you had to blink away the tears from your eyes because that isn’t true. It isn’t true at all. You unwrapped your arms from his body to move him to face you; your hand to his tear stained cheek, thumbing away the last few that fell from his lashes.
You drank up his features like you were in a blazing desert and found that holy oasis to save you. Caressing the scar on his chin and then moving your hand to run it through his long hair. He was so different, yet all the same. Daigo shifted under your intense gaze — loving gaze.
“Don’t say that,” you murmured, shaking your head. “That’s not how I feel.” You move your face closer to his and Daigo finally looks at you again. You locked gazes with him and you could see the Sun reflect in his eyes like pools of honey; you were stuck in the moment together an instant in eternity. So close you could feel the heat rise, and you dared to shift your stare down to his lips, right back to his eyes.
Daigo saw your shifted gaze and it brought him back to the cool nights in his workshop. Fleeting touches, hot and fast; the undulation of your body with his. It was something Daigo didn’t stop, didn’t want to stop, and it was as if you tied him to you with kintsugi magic; he was absolutely besotted with you. He would grasp your body, hot to the touch, bringing you closer to him, closing any space that seemed to keep you from him. Strong arms wrapped around your midriff, and held with reverence. His dark eyes scanned your body and his fingers, with a mind of its own, traced the faint purple scars that etched your skin like a wicked vine. The spirit absorption from Shogun X that will forever leave an indelible memory on your skin, but Daigo took your hand and placed it on his bare chest. Feeling that almost fatal slash across his chest taking the shape of a shooting star that glitters the distant sky.
Daigo came back to the present when he felt the faint ghosting of your nose against the tip of his own. You were so close, achingly so. All Daigo could do was blink as his hand found its way to your side.
“You have all of me; even if realities rip and bend and I’m gone.”
Your eyes close and you entangle yourself with Daigo, deepening your bodies together. Lips brushed together like it was the first time again: sweet and full of rapacious need. You feel like you’re losing yourself in the bliss of Daigo’s kiss and touch, his white-knuckled hold on you pulling you closer to him. Curling your body around his as the rosy setting Sun drapes both of you in gold. Daigo melts into your touch with each small gasp of air, and shamefully thinks about how you’re too good for him, how he cannot allow himself to ruin one more good thing. The sudden cacophony of thumping hearts against each other seemed to wash away Daigo’s thoughts as fast it came; each beat of yours then his, like a pluck from a harp, quieted him. Daigo relished every second your lips were on his, and lingered in the senses that made him burn. Each time you touch him reminds him of who he is.
Your head tilted to the side, face flushed, and your lips—bruised with love—kept up the pace Daigo had made. The force made you almost lose your balance, your foot skidding on the ground behind you. Daigo was quick to grab and steady you, one hand on your hip and the other on your back. This left you with both your hands on Daigo’s heaving chest, but he moved from your mouth to the soft crook of your neck. His breath is hot against your skin, his lips sweet and wet near your jugular and left a lingering kiss. Which elicited a quiet moan from you into him, and you let your hands clench onto his jacket.
“I’m so lucky,” Daigo crooned, “so lucky you’re mine.”
Daigo left your neck to search for your eyes. They were glassy and half-lidded, and he couldn’t think of anyone who he could be more in love with. He would pray to the Zero Point every night to thank it for bringing you to him. You’re his precious star that saved him, and continues to, embracing him with a tender warmth nothing else has given him. Your presence leaves him celestially, cosmically drunk.
So he will thank the Zero Point forever, as long as you are orbiting him.