The intensity in his voice set all Shion’s nerves on edge. Kagamine gave him an unfaltering look. He could tell him no, of course, but whether he wanted to admit it or not, Shion still needed his help. As much as he’d hated to hear the boy’s advice, the night might have gone badly without it. Kagamine had taken the medicine to Kamui and brought Shion safely through danger. Without him, his lord may never have found him at all.

“Yes,” Shion murmured quietly. His eyes dropped beneath the weight of that heavy gaze.

“I know I’m not Kamui, but I’d like to leave you as he should have.” The boy hesitated. Shion glanced up at him. He was blushing. “So please do as I say, and allow me to kiss you.”

“Wouldn’t Lord Kamui find that objectionable?”

“I would never have asked if it wasn’t allowed.”

Shion’s attention caught on that last word. Allowed-? He narrowed his eyes at Kagamine. The boy wasn’t lying, but at the same time, there was something significant he was choosing to leave unsaid.

“Shion?” Kagamine’s voice sounded strained. He was probably beginning to think he shouldn’t have bothered to make the request at all.

“All right,” Shion answered softly. The boy still seemed uncertain, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, as though he wanted to move towards him but found himself unable to close that slight, impenetrable distance.

This halting, innocent tension of his was sweetly charming. Shion smiled at him, putting his arms around Kagamine, feeling the boy’s body melt against him fervently, without reservation. Kagamine was right. He was nothing like Kamui, but Shion found he didn’t mind it.

He pressed his lips to Kagamine’s mouth. The boy shuddered against him, halfway startled. Shion drew gently away. It was done, the condition satisfied, but-

He liked having him there. He didn’t want to stop.

Shion brought his mouth to meet Kagamine’s once more. This time the boy’s lips parted, pulling him inside. He held Kagamine to him more tightly and abandoned himself to his warmth. He never wanted the boy to be so distant from him as before.

“I will come again for you soon,” he breathed, as Shion finally broke away. “You have my word. No matter what happens between then and now, don’t despair. I will always protect you, Shion.”

The words his lord should’ve left him with tumbled out of Kagamine’s mouth instead, with similar fervor, as though the two of them shared the same depth of feeling for him.

“Let’s go. Our horse is waiting.” Kagamine ushered him from the room, pulling the screen shut behind them. “That mess all over the floor- I’m sure you know who’ll have to clean it.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, Kagamine.”

"Don’t be.” The boy grinned back at him. “It was worth the trouble hearing you cry out like that. I’m glad it went so well.” Kagamine suddenly reached for his hand, pulling Shion up alongside him with a gently frustrated sigh. “It’s as though you keep forgetting the two of us are equals.”

Shion hadn't walked at anyone's side since those long-ago days with Kamui. It felt a little strange.

“I was worried how you'd react to him. Kamui used to bring me along to keep watch for him during his trysts. I may have been watching some things I wasn’t intended to see-” The boy’s voice trailed off meaningfully. He gave Shion a conspiratorial grin. “Anyway, I know what he’s like. I doubted you would be much accustomed to that."

Shion stared down the dark hallway in front of them. “I’m not,” he admitted haltingly, “but I took your advice, Kagamine.”

“You found it useful, then?" The boy positively beamed at him. "I thought you were going to hit me when I gave it to you, though.” He nudged playfully at Shion’s shoulder. “You and Kamui have so much patience- I don’t understand how you manage. It makes me want to push back and break it.”

“You can’t, not without doing something awful. Even then-” Shion hesitated.

“You’d never actually hit me, would you?” Kagamine’s voice was soft and strangely patient. “I suppose you have some sort of code, as Kamui does, that you adhere to just as strictly, although it causes endless problems.”

He understood what the boy meant all too well. Not causing anyone intentional physical harm was a perfectly reasonable ideal until others refused to share it. He found himself wondering what issues Lord Kamui’s code had presented.

“Fortunately for you both,” the boy continued, “I reject all that nonsense.”

“It isn’t nonsense,” Shion answered quietly. “If you call yourself a healer, you must have people’s trust. Nor can you pick and choose who you find deserving. A life is simply a life.”

“I doubt your master would agree with that.”

Shion sighed. “Before Lord Kamui came here, no one knew what the daimyo looked like, nor did anyone wish to know. They lived in a world separate from ours, and whenever the two worlds met, nothing good ever came of it. We kept our heads down and did what was demanded. Lord Kamui was the first to walk among us, to speak to us, to pay us for the goods that we provided or take any interest in governing the province. No one else ever tried to help us. The weakness doesn’t lie in our ideals, Kagamine. It lies in our hearts.”

The boy laughed softly. "That's exactly what he would say."

"You have your own ideals, don't you?"

"Why bother?" He shrugged. "It's not as though I'll ever actually meet them."

"Protecting me is an ideal. Wanting me to have warm clothes, and not to be abandoned- being honest with me, keeping your word- even demanding that I not bow to you, or follow behind you- why else would you care about those things?"

"Why indeed," the boy murmured softly.

Shion stopped walking. He regarded Kagamine with a curious tilt of his head. He couldn't explain how, but he thought he sensed exactly what the boy had been hiding.

"We have to hurry. It won't do for your master to wake and find you absent." Kagamine turned towads him, frowning. "Shion? Are you feeling unwell?"

He shook his head distractedly. Was it really so unthinkable? His feelings for Kamui had developed in a single moment, from a single smile. He found himself wondering what that moment had been for Kagamine.

"No, I'm fine, I promise. I just got a bit lost in my thoughts."

"Well, stop it. It's downright eerie when you freeze up like that."