"You move too quickly, cousin."

A low, hushed murmur, half-familiar. Shion stirred at the sound, finding the place beside him empty.

"Someone else would have claimed him, had I not."

"Perhaps, but I have seen the way you look at him, Yuma. I fear you will allow yourself to become distracted."

"You should go out and find a little distraction yourself. I will give you money, if you should need it-"

"I am not interested, as you are, in trifling little whores."

He felt his face go white. Was that what Teru thought of him? It was true that he and Yuma had only just met, and yet, all the same, it didn't seem exactly fair. He'd fled to the mountains because that was the last thing he wanted to become-

The bedding shifted. A heavy arm fell over his waist, and Yuma buried his face in Shion's neck with a sigh.

"Shion," he whispered suddenly, "are you crying?"

He didn't have the heart to answer. Yuma's hand reached towards his cheek and gently brushed the tears away.

"I suppose you overheard what Teru said to me."

Shion made a soft little nod.

"Do not mind him. Being utterly cold, he despises all warmth." The embrace around him tightened.

"I ran away because my master wished to loan my body out for money-"

"I have paid you nothing," Yuma murmured, "nor have I forced you to do anything unwanted."

"Even so, my lord-"

Those strong arms pulled at him. Shion found himself too distraught to offer up the least resistance. Yuma's handsome face smiled down at him.

"You ease my loneliness. There is nothing to be ashamed of in that."

"Anyone else could do the same."

The man regarded him silently for a moment. Then he lowered his head. "You are the one that Kamui loved. The one who understands- what it is to have lost him."

That mask- it was slipping lower. How he longed to see Yuma's naked face.

Careless fingers brushed across his skin.

"I had every opportunity, Shion. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened had I placed more value on him, and less on myself."

Yuma's head sank against his chest.

"That medicine you tried to give him- did your master know?"

He hesitated. "No, Lord Yuma," he admitted.

"A man like that- it seems that it might have been dangerous for you to do so." Yuma was holding him so close. It felt wrong not to return the gesture. The samurai's tense back relaxed beneath his touch. "I have never risked anything for anyone's sake but my own. It makes me feel- truly selfish-"

He remembered how strangely jealous Yuma had acted with him the night before. This man was probably every bit as selfish as he considered himself to be, only it seemed to have begun troubling him a great deal.

Shion wanted to comfort him, but he honestly didn't know how. His fingers stroked thoughtlessly at Yuma's back.

"It feels good when you touch me, Shion." The man lifted his head to look at him. "It is as though you are asking nothing of me."

"Is that so strange?"

Yuma averted his eyes. He thought he saw the slightest hint of a blush. It was thoroughly fascinating in its sheer unexpectedness.

"I think it must be how Kamui would have touched you."

Shion's fingers trembled against his skin. "I do not know," he answered softly. "He never did. Not once."

Yuma frowned down at him. The moments passed in silence, far too deep and long.

"It seems our pain is more alike than I had realized."

The pain of waiting, hoping, for a thing that would never come.

Yuma kissed him quietly, a kiss which somehow managed to be both urgent and tender at once. Shion stared up into his naked face as the man pinned his hand against the bedding, stroking lightly at his palm. The slight touch left a strange tingling, delicious pain in its wake. Yuma was leaning out over his body with a heavy-lidded gaze.

"Since the moment I met him," Shion whispered, "I had not been with anyone else, not until you, my lord."

Little biting kisses fell across his neck.

"Then I will take suitable care of your heart," Yuma answered, his voice low and husky at Shion's ear, "along with all the rest of you."

His entire body ached.

Yuma had held nothing back from him. It felt like something he'd only imagined, slow and passionate, desperate in some inexplicable way. The man had poured his feelings into him, and he'd accepted them, all of them, whether they were meant for him or not. Now, in the harsh light of morning, lying there alone, he wondered which version of Yuma would return to him.

"Are you awake, Shion?"

Teru's voice was calling to him from just beyond the screen. He sat up, hurriedly gathering the coverlet around him. The man had already made him feel indecent enough.

"I am, Lord Teru."

The screen slid aside, and Teru slipped through, with a distasteful little frown. He must not have thought very highly of Shion at all.

"I have orders for you. Lord Yuma wants you to see to Toshiwara's injured leg."

Surprise flickered across his face.

"Get dressed. I will take you with me to the chamber."

"My lord, if I may ask, how was he injured?"

Teru tilted his head. For a moment, he was afraid the man wouldn't answer.

"He was wounded, then thrown from his horse, during the course of his last battle. Afterwards he was trampled by another. The wound is on his thigh, and so I am not certain which injury is to blame for his present condition."

"It is in his bone," Shion murmured. "The way he walks- something is out of place there." He gazed up at Teru. "Why has he sent for me? I am no surgeon, and the proper time to see into the matter is past-"

"If Yuma can help Toshiwara, it will go a long way towards consolidating Lord Hatori's control over Kamui's contingent."

For a moment, he'd hoped Yuma had done it for an altogether different reason, as a sign of forgiveness, perhaps, or empathy, or simply because it was what Lord Kamui would have done himself, had he lived.

"Do you object?"

"No, my lord," Shion murmured. "I will do everything within my power to help him."

"Then get onto your feet. I have other matters to attend to."

Teru hated him. He was sure of it. The man didn't seem to have any intention of leaving him to dress, and Shion had no idea how to ask, so he simply did as he was told, turning away and staring down hard at the tatami.

"Be careful with Yuma."

The warning was a little unexpected. He glanced back at the man, who seemed not to evince any interest in his nakedness at all.

"If you allow yourself to get too close, he will undoubtedly break your heart."

Shion hadn't understood why this man had sought to warn him in the first place. Now, he understood it even less.

"I'm not exactly certain why that should matter to you, my lord."

"Being able to see what will happen, yet never having anyone believe you- do you know how that feels, Shion?"

A shiver crept up his straightening spine. Shion turned towards him with a startled expression, forgetting his shame for a moment.

"Men are all the same," Teru murmured. "Stubborn, short-sighted fools, who care only for themselves, for their own comfort, their own pleasure. I had hoped you might be different." The man shook his head. "Perhaps you and Yuma are well-suited to each other, after all."

Teru turned abruptly and left him, while Shion stood staring behind him.

Those words had cut into him, stabbing at his heart like tiny sharpened blades. He wasn't sure why it mattered so much to him that he should have Lord Teru's approval. He only knew that the man was clearly hurting, and something he'd done had had some part in it.

Preoccupied with his thoughts, he finished dressing, combed his fingers through his hair, and silently opened the screen. Teru didn't speak to him. He only started walking.

"My lord," he murmured, once he felt he'd finally gathered enough courage, "what have I done to offend you?"

"You left a man who wished to gain your forgiveness to suffer and die without you."

He hadn't expected to hear an answer at all, much less this one.

"You are supposed to be a healer, and yet you left him there, in that wretched state, alone, with no thought for his discomfort or his humiliation, only your own pale mockery of it."

Yuma had lied to him. Teru wasn't cold, not at all. He began to wonder what other lies the man had told him-

"I admit it was wrong of me, Lord Teru. I was too shocked to think clearly at the time."

"Is that also your excuse for what has happened with Yuma?"

Shion sighed.

"Forgive me. That was impolite."

The chamber had emptied partway out. Teru led him through the curious crowds of gathered soldiers and to the furthest end.

"Shion." Toshiwara smiled at the sight of him. "Good morning. I hope you had a pleasant night."

Shion found himself blushing. "Very pleasant, thank you. How is your leg?"

"It- has been worse." The youth paused. "I am told you have come to ascertain the damage."

He glanced back at Teru, who stood with his arms crossed behind him.

"I am not entirely certain I can do much about it," Shion admitted.

"You coming here is more than enough."

Toshiwara looked so absolutely glad to see him. He wondered for a moment if Yuma's jealousy might not have had some justification.

"May I touch you, Lord Toshiwara?"

The boy's face reddened slightly. He nodded.

"I need to uncover your thigh."

That blush only deepened. Toshiwara reached for the hem of his luxurious garment and brushed it aside.

Shion traced his hand over the newly-healed scar, finding nothing unusual about it, then proceeded to run his fingers along the length of the youth's femur. Studying it so closely, he noticed an abnormal outgrowth of bone-

"Ugly, is it not?" Toshiwara's voice was despairing.

"It is only a wound, my lord, like any other." He pressed gently at the protruding mass, and Toshiwara winced, gritting his teeth together.

"The bone here has not mended correctly."

Shion's hands kept probing along his flesh, searching for any other possible fracture, then travelled across the edge of his hip. If this was dislocated, or broken away, there was not the slightest bit of hope of him-

But here the bone was sound.

""I dare not ask what I am to expect of it in the future," Toshiwara murmured.

"You will not be able to walk at all, my lord, or even stand, by the end of winter, unless it is seen to quickly."

He glanced up at the youth's anxious expression.

"The bone must be broken again, along the same fracture, and allowed the proper time to heal."

"Again?" Toshiwara laughed in disbelief. "No sane man would ever choose to feel that sort of pain-"

"Do you trust me, Lord Toshiwara?"

The boy stared at him for a long moment. He finally nodded.

"I owe you my life, Shion."

Teru made a startled sound behind him while he kept gazing into Toshiwara's eyes. He gave the youth an eminently gentle smile.

"There is a chance my efforts will fail. It must be done absolutely correctly, and I warn you that I am no surgeon, but, either way, you will be no worse off than before."

"Then, you mean to do it yourself?" Toshiwara's voice stumbled over the words.

Shion nodded. The faintest hint of a smile lighted upon those troubled lips. "That is, if Lord Yuma will permit it."

"I would not have it done by anyone else." Toshiwara paused. "Thank you, Shion. Words can never express the gratitude I feel for you-"

Teru pulled at his arm, stopping the moment short. Shion gave Lord Toshiwara a short bow before finding himself being all but dragged through the crowd. Teru drew him into an alcove close by the entrance, regarding him with an oddly worried look.

"Take care not to make Yuma more jealous than he already is."

"I have only done as I was asked, and, anyway, I made no promises to him, only shared his bed for a night-"

That look in Teru's eyes- was it pity? He'd begun to feel as though he'd made a terrible mistake-

"It makes no difference what promises you have or have not given him, Shion. You are his, until he wishes otherwise. If you care at all for Toshiwara, you will behave accordingly. Is that clear?"

Yuma couldn't possibly be so petty as to deny the youth treatment and doom him to a fate he considered worse than death. Surely, he would never-

"Perfectly, Lord Teru," he murmured brokenly, bowing his head. "It was kind of you to warn me."

A hand fell softly over his hair. He glanced up and found Teru's gaze upon him. Something about it made him blush.

Whatever it was he saw there vanished quickly. As the man turned away from him, Shion thought he heard a sigh.

"Why did Toshiwara say he owed you his life?"

Shion hesitated. "I followed him last night, intending that he should lead me back to the common chamber, but he walked out to the horses instead, gathered up a rope, and-" His voice faltered. "Arranged it as though he meant to hang himself."

Teru glanced back at him.

"I managed to stop him, but not before he told me I was an ill omen, that death followed me wherever I walked. Lately I have begun to think it might be true."

"Life follows you as well." The man paused for a moment, giving Shion a penetrating look. "One of the names given to manjushage is the heavenly flower. Another is the flower of hell."

Those cryptic words seemed somehow familiar.

"People see what they wish to see, Shion. It does not alter the truth of what is."

This, too, felt familiar to him. He stared into the abyss of Teru's dark eyes.

"What you see in Yuma, my lord, and what I see- might be very different, but neither may be quite correct."

Teru tilted his head at him for a moment, then, strangely enough, the corners of his mouth twisted up into the slightest imaginable smile.

"I am willing to be proven wrong."

For some reason, this felt like the most gracious thing the man could've ever said to him.

"I will present your proposal to Yuma. Do not attempt to persuade him yourself, no matter how strong your feelings are about it. I will also keep watch on Toshiwara."

"Thank you, Lord Teru."

"Once the snows have come and melted, he will be under my direct command. Until then, do whatever you must to make him ready for war."

A sudden pain burned in Shion's chest. If he managed to heal Toshiwara's leg, it meant he'd only be sent out again come spring, to fight and perhaps, this time, to die-

Teru watched him as though sensing every one of Shion's thoughts.

"As you wish, my lord."

Yuma didn't return until late into the evening. The sun had set long before, and Shion had lit what lamps he could find. The frail light spilled over the man's face. He looked thoroughly exhausted.

Shion stood and bowed to him. "Good evening, Lord Yuma."

"It is only good because I have finally seen you," he murmured, beginning the slow process of taking off his armor.

"I would like to help you, but I have no idea where to begin-"

Yuma glanced over at him with a smile. "You will spoil me, fussing over me like that."

"Do you not wish to be spoiled?"

"You are not my wife, little peasant."

He wasn't at all sure what Yuma meant in saying that, if it was a matter of respect or simple adherence to custom or an effort to establish some sort of boundary between them. It felt awkward standing alone there, watching. Perhaps he could use this as an opportunity to learn how to accomplish it more easily in the future-

"I am doing my work now and Lord Hatori's as well," the man muttered gruffly, "since he has shut himself up with that boy."

Shion's heart fluttered with anxiety at the mention of Kagamine. Yuma didn't seem to notice.

"And with nothing to show for it, either, except weariness and aching." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "How was your day, Shion?"

"Thoroughly uneventful, my lord."

"Teru says you think you can save young Toshiwara's leg." His hands moved from the chest piece to those on his legs.

"There is some chance of it."

Shion studied his movements carefully. He was surprised to see pieces of armor covering Yuma's thighs.

'Those pieces, my lord- do all of the samurai wear them?"

The man gave him a curious look. "Not all. They are known for making it difficult to ride. Why, though, do you ask?"

"Toshiwara was wounded in a place they ought to have covered."

"I am hardly surprised. His body is young and slight, and the pieces are heavy." Yuma stood up for a moment. "Nevertheless, it is foolish not to do so. A spear can get under you so easily, and severing the artery will quickly bleed you out."

He turned towards Shion with a small uncertain smile. "I do not much care for the thought of you staring at other men's thighs."

"Toshiwara's muscle has atrophied, my lord, and the bone beneath it has become malformed."

"Perhaps you find such things appealing. It is not so uncommon to possess an attraction to scars."

Shion met his eyes for a moment. He remembered Kamui's body, crossed at every angle. Perhaps it had made Yuma feel the same way he did.

"I would have you show me yours, Lord Yuma."

That tremulous smile grew truer, deeper. He approached Shion slowly, standing close before him, and pressed Shion's fingers into his hand.

"I was wounded while riding as well. A spear slipped under the joints in the armor." He placed Shion's hand over the line of his hip and drew it softly along the edge of the bone.

Shion glanced down at the pale thin line underneath his fingertips. Yuma's hand traced it all the way around to his back.

"Only slightly deeper, my lord, and this wound would have killed you."

"You may thank my cousin that it did not. I was hardly in any position to defend myself afterwards."

It was strangely aesthetic, the way the line clung to the bone. Shion kept caressing it, even after Yuma's fingers had drifted away.