𝙍𝙊𝙎𝙀𝙎    -               true romantic, loving the classics, pricked fingers, perfect makeup done to impress, bruises easily, beloved but unknown, soul as old as time, overused and under-appreciated.

𝘿𝘼𝙄𝙎𝙄𝙀𝙎    -               clean linens, youthful naivety, family, wide open spaces, running barefoot, moving towards instead of away, trying to forget about death, sun blindness.

𝙎𝙐𝙉𝙁𝙇𝙊𝙒𝙀𝙍𝙎    -               standing tall, strong roots, a home to always return to, warm summer air, holding onto lost hope, belief in growth, painted overalls, split ends.

𝘽𝙇𝙐𝙀𝘽𝙀𝙇𝙇𝙎    -               the end of spring, determination for the truth, cold and cautious, moonlight on windowsills, the taste of ice, unnecessary shyness, quiet belief in the extraordinary, complicated morals.

𝘿𝘼𝙁𝙁𝙊𝘿𝙄𝙇𝙎    -               mom friend, sweets, the smell of baking, riverbanks, leaving behind a toxic situation, being happy with your reflection, believing in luck, moving in a pack.

𝙄𝙍𝙄𝙎𝙀𝙎    -               sour candies, unappreciated elegance, valour, crystals projecting rainbows on white walls, unintended organization, old royalty, refusal to bow, learning a new language for the fun of it.

𝙇𝙄𝙇𝙄𝙀𝙎    -               secret poison, perfect handwriting, crisp consonants, pressed and ironed sheets, open windows, infinite persistence, thick skin, colder hands.

𝙇𝙄𝙇𝘼𝘾    -               fleeting and fair, strong but delicate, radiating good vibes, the beauty of falling apart, the joy in being scattered, soft fabrics, whirlwind romance, keeping the door open.

TAGGED    BY    :  i stole this. 

TAGGING    :  anyone.

asura didn’t think that he was ever going to become accustomed to living a normal life,   not with how long things had been different for him.   it was nice,   though it was still hard for both of them,   as taishakuten had to deal with all of the strain that came with getting him to act normal.   he would never be able to entirely,   but he could at least act normal enough when he was around the other.   other people didn’t get the same treatment from him,   they never would.   no matter how friendly they tried to act towards him,   he saw everyone but the smaller as a threat to himself,   and acted hostile no matter what.   taishakuten always tried to correct him,   but that was a lesson that was never going to stick with him no matter how hard either of them tried.   he just wasn’t a people person   –   he never was and never would be.

he always felt so out of it after those freak outs happened,   mostly because he wasn’t used to coming out of it when it happened.   he never meant for it to,   but it was hard to prevent it when he was still trying to get used to the feelings that came with having a conscious mind.   it was never something that he had to deal with before he had been helped,   so they were often overwhelming for him,   and that was anything but a good thing.   he didn’t mean to hurt people,   no matter how much people might have thought that he did.   he didn’t really care if people viewed him like he was a monster,   that sort of thing was to be expected.   but he really couldn’t understand how taishakuten still cared for him,   not when he was there,   leaning over his blood soaked and barely conscious body.   his head was pounding,   thoughts still a bit fuzzy   –   he wanted to do anything but talk at that point,   since he didn’t even know if he was awake himself.   “ i don’t know, “   he said,   his voice sounding very lost   –   he could tell exactly who was in front of him,   of course,   even if he wasn’t all there yet.   the familiar calm feeling that came over him when he was around was enough to give it away to him.   “ did i do it again? “   he asks,   voice devoid of any sort of guilt.   he didn’t feel things like that,   not yet   –   he didn’t see why he should have felt bad for doing what he was meant to when he was around a bunch of people who meant nothing to him,    but he knew that it might have hurt his chances of being accepted there,   and would be a good explanation to why he felt so lost.

it was strange,   he really never understood why taishakuten was never afraid of him after things like that would happen.   he thought that everyone should have been running,   since he was just as much at risk for getting hurt than everyone else was.   closing his eyes at the touch to his face,   it was definitely soothing to his pounding headache   –   no matter how bad the freak out,   this one was always able to somehow make it better in the end,   though he would never understand why or how.

there was a  lot  to show him when it came to fitting in with their  semi - human  society.   for a demon to fit in among celestials ... it was practically unheard of.  their species was not so fond of  demons  at all  --  often referring to asura himself as a  sinner.   taishakuten didn’t think that way however,   thinking  that he had a lot of potential to be a hero to them.  there was no point in pushing him to try and like other people,  not when he knew that asura was so quick to snap when it came to other people.  he wasn’t all that afraid of him coming to like anyone as much as himself,  not when he wouldn’t give the half of them the time of day.  it wasn’t all that worrying,  it gave him a sense of security that the other wasn’t going to ditch him for anyone else. 

it was his job to go and collect asura after these incidents,   naturally  --  he was the one who was looking out for him.   not one  of his men would stay behind to help.  all of them had long since scattered,  running off to try and find safety.   no matter how much his own feet told him that he should run,  he knew  that the other needed him more than he wished to run away.   it was hard to fake that kind of fearless behavior,  especially when people had been  running  and trying to pull him with them.  he wished that he could say that he was confident that his  asura  wouldn’t hurt him,   but he could never be sure.  there had been plenty of times where he had been  burned  for putting too much trust in the other.   for now,  he seemed to be down for the count,   walking up  slowly towards him.  hearing his voice,  he was  somewhat  convinced that the other must have been awake by now;  or at least,  he was in a  place  where he felt like he was no longer so  out of it.   his eyes had gone back to normal,  even if his expression was still daze.  he looked a whole lot  less  aggressive at the moment,   which was enough to relax taishakuten into crouching down next to him.  “ you  did,   but it’s alright.   i’m here now. ”  he told him,   not caring to try and force any kind of guilt onto him.  asura was a man worth a  hundred  men  --  a  thousand  men, even.  it didn’t matter how many of their soldiers died,  not if he still had his designated hero. 

they really did need him,   knowing just how bad of a state he had been in before asura had joined their army.   things would be much worse without him there  –   they wouldn’t have made nearly as much progress as they did with him there,   even if asura could cause major setbacks.   it wasn’t like it happened every time there was a fight,   but it definitely was a risk when e got too into things.   asura was like an untouchable weapon,   but that only was a good thing when he was sane enough to be helping them and not working against them.   the two of them were a strange pair,   but without taishakuten,   nothing would be able to work out,   since he was the only one asura cared about.   no one else mattered to him at all,   since no one else could do what he could do for him,   so no one else was really worthy of him being around them.   everyone else was just an annoyance that kicked his mental state into a much worse place.   the start of it all was definitely not promising,   since asura didn’t even truly care for him until a little while into their relationship when he realized that taishakuten genuinely didn’t annoy him at all,   and it wasn’t only because of the way he calmed him down.   he went out of his way to teach asura about things that he didn’t know after he had been out of his mind for so long,   even though the first thing he did upon meeting him was impale him.   he went out of his way so much for him,   even if he was teaching him about basic things that anyone should know.   there were things that he told him about that he really didn’t need to know,   though,   things like marriage   –   and just knowing that they were things he liked from the way he talked about him always made him stare with interest when he talked,   making note of everything.

in the beginning,  asura never would have thought to leave him,   despite feeling more like a wild animal in a place it didn’t know.  now when he would consider leaving,  it no longer sounded good to either of them.   asura had grown more attached to him now than he ever did anyone else,   since he never had a reason to like anyone besides him.   when he hurt him like that,   though,   he really didn’t think that he had a reason or a right to stay with taishakuten,   if he was only going to be able to thank him with more pain for everything that he had done to him.   asura relied on him heavily,   but at the same time,   he was more than aware that taishakuten relied on him very heavily as well.   he was very fragile,   and it wasn’t smart for him to be left alone without him there,   considering how much he had gotten hurt before asura came along to him.   he would stay,  but it was only for the reason that he was going to get more hurt without asura there than he would with him there,   since him snapping wasn’t an every day thing.   the only thing that made him happy was him knowing that he would always heal from it,   despite it being slower than he might have wanted.   him healing at all was enough for him,   since he was always scared that he was going to be the one to cause the two of them to end up in a tragedy   –   and he most likely was going to be,   but neither of them liked to think about it.   neither of them would acknowledge it,   no matter how many times he snapped,   or how obvious it became that asura wasn’t going to be able to stay sane forever.   that he wasn’t going to be able to truly be the hero that taishakuten viewed him as.

despite him healing from it and being fine in the end,   him being so okay with being near him was still a mystery to him,   since asura was the one who injured him so badly in the first place.   the way he viewed it,   he shouldn’t have been allowed near taishakuten after that at all,   but even so,   he couldnt help being around him,   wanting to make sure that he was being taken care of properly,   that he was actually healing and that everything was going to be fine with him.   as much as he didn’t feel right being near him after that,  he had to make sure that things were fine,   since he was only going to feel more guilty had he been the cause of something going wrong,   or the cause of his death earlier than either of them could expect it to happen.   “ i can’t say i believe that. “   as much as taishakuten didn’t like it,   asura was one of the people who babied him the most.   when their strength comparisons were so far apart,  there was no way he was going to believe that taishakuten could handle a wound from him,   or that he wasn’t at least a little afraid of him after what had just happened.   that was something he worried bout as well   –   taishakuten thinking that it was something that happened on purpose,   when that was the furthest thing from the truth.   when he was like that,   he would barely call it being conscious.   he couldn’t even tell who taishakuten was,   always feeling horribly guilty once he come back to it,   but that was probably what helped him realize that it wasn’t something done on purpose.   “ i don’t think these are the kind of surprises that you would want from me.   i just wish i could stop it. “   he couldn’t   –   his own nature was never something he could suppress for long,   no matter how hard he tried to.

before he had joined,   taishakuten  was having a very hard time keeping everything together on his own.   since it was his  own  group,  he was naturally the one in charge.    there was a  lot of stress being the leader of a militia when he  truly had no  offensive  powers of his own.  he was fantastic with taking care of his team,  but it all came to have a toll on himself.  he really just needed  someone  who could be  strong for him.  that was where asura was immediately appealing from   first  glance.   he had so easily wiped out a  whole  army of demons as the  wings  sat and stared.   at first,  they had thought they were saved  --  though it was very quickly turned on them to show that  asura  was not one for picking sides;  not until  he  came to his aid.  they definitely did compliment each other well in strange ways,   but aesthetically as well as personality - wise,  the two of them were entirely opposites.  it was a miracle that he was even able to get the other to  care  about his existence.  the two of them tried to brush their previous meetings off as much as they possible could,  not  really  wanting to remember how it had gone.   he was content just knowing that he wasn’t going to  hate  him forever.  now,   he took an interest in semi - human endeavors,   something that he probably couldn’t have said that he did before.  of course,  the blonde was willing to teach him anything that he wanted to know.  though,  that did include him  filling  his head up with plenty of the things that he wanted as well.  he loved to tell asura about  silly  things like dating and marriage as well  --  his own way of trying to hint at his own intentions with him. 

having him leave now would have only created stress on both of them.   they were so attached to one another,  and he didn’t think that they would be  nearly  as successful without him.  though,  his  biggest  fear in having him leave was not so much that he was going to have to figure things out on his own  --  he’d done that before.  it was more that is asura left,  then he  became  his enemy.  he wasn’t so sure if he could handle being on opposite sides as him.   while he didn’t think that the other would ever want to kill him,  it was not so certain if he wanted to go back to the abyss  --  that was somewhere that taishakuten couldn’t follow him.  the excessive amount of demonic energy would have broken  the restraints that he put on him.  he would act the same as any other demon,   and that was where he was not so certain that he would be safe around him.  instead,  he would much rather keep asura here,  where he could keep him under control  the  great  majority of the time.  he knew that it was much more enjoyable for him to be  sane,  so he likely wouldn’t have ran away  --  or so he hoped.   he really hoped that the demon  preferred  to be by his side,  otherwise,  he would have been  gone by now.   even if keeping him there meant that they were safe,  but not entirely ...  that  was good enough for him.  he didn’t like to think too deeply into the thought of dying at his lover’s hands. 

most people really had nothing positive to say about him,   as he avoided being nice to anyone but him.   there was no need for anyone to have something positive to say about him,   since he really couldn’t say that he cared at all for other people.   everyone got on his nerves,   and he thought it was going to be that way for absolutely everyone,  so it had gotten to be something he was more used to by then   …   but shockingly,   taishakuten made it feel different.   he actually didn’t mind being around him all that much,   so the times when he would come to talk to him weren’t as unwelcome as they usually would have been with other people.   he didn’t see how someone like taishakuten could think of him as attractive when they were absolute opposites,   but there wasn’t much he was going to do about it,   especially not when he was too dense to even realize that taishakuten liked him in the way he did,   but what other reason would he be approaching him for?   he’d tried to make it clear to him that his feelings were different than that,   it was beyond obvious that he wasn’t going to get it until taishakuten smacked him in the face with the fact that he had that kind of crush on him.   he just didn’t think that someone was going to like him like that with how much of an asshole he could be,   but especially not someone as sweet as taishakuten was.   he didn’t really care that people might have seen them together,   despite how much he angrily denied that he was gay to other people,   it was mostly because he was annoyed about being teased like that,   but he could solve most things with his fists.   it’s not like most people would dare to spread things about him,   and it was doubtful that they would even know taishakuten was a guy to begin with.   

he definitely put a lot of effort into focusing on asura when he would cheer for their team,   just the same way that asura would get just a little too into the games himself.   there was no way they would lose with someone like him on their team.   with how he was built,  and how much he could get into a game,   there was no possible way that someone as huge as him was going to lose the game for anyone,   especially not if he didn’t want to embarrass taishakuten for having to go all into cheering for a team that was losing.  asura could save him from that,   even though it meant maybe getting into a little bit of trouble with the coaches.   people would argue with him,   and he would get in trouble   –   but asura didn’t fear them kicking him off the team at all,   since he didn’t doubt that they would pull any string they possibly could to keep him on their team with how much of an advantage he was to them.   taishakuten definitely fit the cheerleader role with how he looked   –   he thought it was a cute choice for him,   especially since no one would ever assume that he was actually a guy unless they chose to tell him.  he could easily pass as a girl,   which was exactly what asura thought he was at first.  another girl he would brush off and ignore when they came to talk to him,   but it turned out to be the exact opposite in every way.   not that he was going to complain about it,   since he was the one person who was actually nice for him to be around.

they both fit in very well with their chosen circles,   but there was one thing that was very opposite about the two of them.   taishakuten could get along with the people he chose to be around,   but asura really didn’t.   he got frustrated too easily,   something that they liked to poke him around for,   which they usually ended up getting into  fights over.   a bunch of girls definitely seemed a lot more easy to get along with,   but he wouldn’t know,   always brushing off the girls that approached him as he had no interest in them.   the smaller blonde was the last person that people would probably assume that he was going to get along with,   but the last thing he cared about was what they thought of it when he finally felt comfortable with someone.   “ no one else? “   the answer was exactly what he wanted to hear.   asura really wouldn’t have been happy had he been sucking up to every guy on the team because it was what he thought was attractive,   he would have begun to ignore him,   giving him the same treatment as anyone else.   he assumed what they had was something he wouldn’t go around giving to anyone else,   so he was pleased to know that he was the only one taishakuten talked to   –   that was probably the reason the rest of them were so surprised that he was approached by him,   since it wouldn’t have been nearly as strange if he went around talking to all of them.   if that were the case,   it would be common knowledge among everyone that he wasn’t actually a girl.   “ this was just what i needed,   though. “   being stopped after the game by him ready to greet him with things he knew he liked    –  it was definitely the most pleasant surprise he could have gotten when he was trying to cool down from how angry he usually was after most games.   pausing for a moment,   realizing he forgot to say something,   he glanced down at him,   expression almost warm.   “ thanks. “

he had no idea why the other hated people so much,   but he had to take a gamble to hope that he didn’t hate him the way that he did others.   he was fully expecting that he was going to be considered the same as anyone else,   a  simple  annoyance in his eyes.  with the way that he presented himself,  he was expecting that he was going to be ignored just the same.  he was cute,  but he was nothing all that different from any other girl on the cheerleading team.   nothing about him was exceptionally different,  except for the fact that he was fitting in when he wasn’t actually female himself.  the way that asura reacted to him,  it was much more kind than how he treated anyone else.   he was expecting to be brushed off and ignored  —   the first time that he had managed to get him to meet him behind the bleachers,  he had been entirely in shock.  he never imagined that if  anyone  could get his attention,  it was going to be someone like himself.   maybe he just happened to be lucky enough to be asura’s type,  but even then … he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who was easily motivated by someone’s appearances.  if he wanted that so badly,  it would have been easy for him to have  —  there was so many  girls  willing to throw themselves at him;   the fact that he would settle for the one who everyone probably just thought had the  smallest  chest.   he wasn’t so sure if that made any sense at all.   most people didn’t know about him,  but by  now,  asura better have known.  they had gotten close enough to where he  had  to have known  —  regardless of whether he wore a skirt or not.  at that point,  it was much easier just to keep the act up all the time,  he was fine with being in that situation.  

there was no one else that he cared to watch aside from asura.  truthfully,  he did like being a cheerleader,   but  he did not care all that much for football.  the only interesting bit about it was the fact that he got to see the taller absolutely mauling people when he got too invested in the game.   he must have known that he was too good to get kicked off,  since   anyone  else might have been removed from the team already from being overly aggressive.  he’d seen the other being  scolded  for his actions,  but that never ended with him being benched  —  their team couldn’t  afford  losing him,  there was not a lot of men that were as big as he was,  without him,  they probably would have been screwed.  he never  minded  to see the other get so aggressive about it,  since he was not aggressive with him afterwards.  he was always soft with him,  he didn’t know why;  but there was never a time where he was nearly as rough  with him as everyone said.   it should have been obvious why that was  —  but he didn’t want to be hopeful.  he truly doubted that the other saw him as anyone more than someone to  kiss  behind the bleachers after games.   it was his favorite part of the night,  but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that it meant more to him than anyone else would have.  for all he knew about asura,   he could have been doing this with half of the cheerleading team.  well  —   actually,  he knew that wasn’t the case … since most of them didn’t have anything nice to say about him. 

the anger was usually the answer when it came to him snapping,   since it was the thing asura had always struggled with the most in his life no matter what.   the only time he wasn’t angry was when he was alone in the quiet with taishakuten,   but it was a little too easy to get under his skin.   he didn’t like other people at all,   so just knowing that others were around was enough to bring him some kind of mild annoyance,   but that would never be enough to set him off in such a dangerous way.   it was only in battle that he really needed to worry about it happening,   not that he did until he could already feel himself slipping,   and by then,   it was far too late to do anything about it.   it wasn’t as if he could just run back to taishakuten in the middle of a fight,   since it could put him in a lot of danger   –   despite it already being bad enough that when he snapped and went crazy and couldn’t even remember who he was,   the other who loved him so much still ran up to him knowing that he was going to get hurt just like he had so many times before.   it was a wonder to him that taishakuten still chose to keep him around when he saw how horrible he could be,   losing it enough to even entirely forget about him.   it had to hurt,   but nothing could be worse than the physical pain he forced on him,   usually so bad that it took him longer to heal than any other wound.   hurting him was normally what brought asura back to it,   his mind wandering back to a certain scene he recognized from the past,   but he would much rather it happened before then.   they both did.

if he could go back on his own,   he would have a long time ago,   but it was entirely impossible for him to do so.   there were so many people who relied on him,   and though asura was obviously very regretful for everything that he did when he ended up coming back down to his normal self,   he understood that it was likely something that he was never going to be forgiven for   –   he could expect that much,   especially when people believed he was a hero,   only for him to turn around and kill half of the men he was supposed to be leading to victory,   all because he got too tied up in his own feelings.   the thing he always regretted the most was how badly he would end up harming the one he loved the most,   and even though he knew that taishakuten was in more pain than he would ever be,   he couldn’t help but feel horrible at forgetting who he was even for a moment.   he never understood how he could be forgiven after that,   how he could be someone he still loved after he hurt him so badly.   there were times where he strongly thought that it would be better if he walked away from him and never came back to keep him safe,   but he knew how that would end up for him anyway.   he would much rather stay when taishakuten still wanted him,   and as selfish as it was  –   even if he hurt him at times,   it would be much worse if he left and was plunged back into that horrible cycle he was in before him.

asura himself really didn’t understand why taishakuten refused to give up on him,   enough for him to even rush in and try to bring him back down from what was happening,   fully knowing that he was going to get hurt in the process.   he had to be terrified doing it,   but at that moment,   asura couldn’t even acknowledge it.   he didn’t recognize anything around him,   didn’t know the actual reason that he was there in the first place,   though it had only been moments before when he was normal and entirely aware of his surroundings.   it was terrifying just how quickly it was happening,   and when he was getting so into it himself,    asura never thought to warn anyone to hurry up and get away.   even if he could,   there was no doubt that it was still going to turn out the same way no matter what.   he was trying to stay calm to prevent working him up even more,   but it did very little   –   he swore he knew who this person was,   but not in the way that taishakuten would have wanted.   through his blurry,   tinted vision,   the only thing that he could picture there was his mother   –   and that was what made him falter,   the guilt only starting to kick in then.   he pulls back from him,   but its very clear that he’s still not there,   since normally asura would have been rushing to pick him up from the ground,   despite how horribly guilty he felt touching him after messing up so badly.   he had not get been put down,   still impaled on the appendages coming from him.   it was not likely that he was going to get out of that situation until he was either dead or asura finally started to come back to his senses,   though being around taishakuten was enough to make his head start to hurt ore,   being around him horribly conflicting with the state his mind was currently in.  the nasty expression on his face was beginning to fade,  which could only be a good sign   –   but it was clear in his eyes that nothing had truly changed.

he  knew   that it was dangerous to have him around scenes like this,  but they didn’t have much of a choice.  without his strength,   they tended to  lose  things like this  --  and yet,   when he was on their team,  they still seemed to  win,  but not without a whole lot of losses.  more often than not,   asura got tied up in his own  business.   before they knew it,  taishakuten was no longer next to him,  and he had already gotten too far from himself for him to pull him back in a reasonable amount of time.   there was  surely a lot of their men who were  against  fighting with asura out on the field with them,   not that taishakuten would allow them to speak ill of  him.  if anyone thought that he was anything  other than the  hero  that they had been waiting for,   he would interject without much thought.   it was true that he put the other on a pedestal,  but he  knew  that he deserved it.  without him,  they really had no chance of getting anywhere.   it had been  months  of them making no progress,   and within the first few  weeks  of asura joining them,  they finally were starting to gain some influence.  did much of that come from the  fear of asura?   it might have,  but he would have been none the wiser.   he knew that inside of himself,   he held just the  tiniest  bit of  fear  for him as well,   but he had to push it back as far as he could.   letting asura see that wouldn’t have done anything to help him recover.   it was only obvious when they were against one another  --  which,   while he was not in his right mind,  he  doubted  that he could even differentiate the fear in his heart from any other emotion.  the rage blinded him enough.  

when he would come down from it,  there was obvious guilt in his heart.  it wasn’t his intention to put the other on this constant cycle of  feeling  horrible for the things that he couldn’t control.   in many ways,  it was taishakuten’s fault for continuing to push him towards this  --  especially when he couldn’t keep the hold on him that he was supposed to.  there would have been no way that he could do it on his own,  not when he could hardly keep a grasp on him as it was.  asura’s spiritual  energy  was so much stronger than anything else he had ever felt.   not even  other demons  that they had met were as strong as him in that way;  it was no wonder that he thought that asura was something truly special.   no one else wanted to give the  celestial  with the blood of a demon a chance,   marking him as a  sinner,  but he would never see it that way.  he was too busy trying to convince everyone that he was a hero.  anyone in their group might have agreed,   if not for the fact that he was constantly killing off their troops left and right.  many called the blonde  cruel  for not caring more about it,  but he was so smitten with the demon,  there was no changing his mind. 

their situation was difficult,    but he understood.   it was hard getting used to taishakuten being around him,    considering how bad the two of them used to be at getting along,   but    ….   when he could barely trust being around his own boyfriend in his current state,   he had been around him much more.   staying with them was the safest place for them while asura’s mental state was still recovering,   especially since none of them trusted him with just taishakuten,   as shuten knew of the ways that he had hurt him due to snapping before.   at least there,   shuten and ibaraki would be able to do something about it if things were to happen   –   maybe in the end they were still weaker,    but they could still do a good job in making sure that taishakuten was at least uninjured.    they got along much better now,   mostly since things were usually too upsetting for them to be bickering the way he used to,   but it was weird seeing taishakuten so down.   being in the demons walk was definitely not good for him,   and even though asura wasn’t in the best mental state,   shuten had still been very angry with him for daring to take someone like taishakuten into a place filled with creatures who would have loved to tear him apart.

he flinches at the feeling of his fingers on his neck,   though he knows exactly what he’s so curious about,    eyeing him as he stared at the scar around his neck.   he didn’t know if ibaraki had told him about that one yet or not,   since it was a story that tended to upset the both of them when it was talked about.   taishakuten really didn’t know all that much about him,    shuten used to refuse to tell him much,    though he really didn’t know how much ibaraki had told him,    since the other tended to have a very strange fascination with him,   one that he loved to share with everyone.    “ did you just notice that? “    he asked,   looking confused   –   it was definitely a little less noticeable with how old the scar was becoming,   but it being around his neck definitely put it in a more obvious spot.   he was sure that it wasn’t the first time he had saw it,    he’d probably wanted to know about it before then,    but the two of them had never been very close before,   not enough that shuten would tell him a story like that.   but now,    when they were so much closer,   since shuten was practically his replacement bodyguard while his boyfriend was out of commission…   he had come to realize that taishakuten was more than the weirdo who would come over to tease him,   since he no longer did it nearly as bad as he used to.    seeing him act so down definitely changed what he thought about him a whole lot,  and he almost missed the way he used to ask.    “ i’d be shocked if ibaraki hasn’t already told you. “

he didn’t have much of a choice but to be there with him  --  not when the other really  seemed  to be off of it.  he’d tried to convince them that he could keep asura under control,  he  wanted  to believe it,  but this was the first time that the demon felt  so  afraid of hurting him  that he needed to spend time  away  from him.  taishakuten could object to it as much as he wanted,   but it wasn’t going to change much for him.  if asura didn’t want to be around him,  he was not going to be able to change that.  no matter how far that he was,  they were  still  connected by the lotus he had placed inside of their chest upon first meeting.  no matter what,  he still  knew  that he wasn’t far.  he was  accustomed  enough to spending time with the two demons  long  before he was abandoned by asura.  they had stayed with the two at their palace many times  --   for some extended periods too.  it wasn’t like they were strangers,   though,  he had never been so close to the eldest demon.  it was always ibaraki who he felt the closest to,  since they were both the  overly  emotional types.  his own femininity clearly made shuten uncomfortable,  as well as the way that he reserved no shame for openly showing emotions.  when he was upset,  or when he was happy  --  they were going to  know  what his mood was for that day,  the opposite of asura. 

Choujou’s silent cries grew to sobbing as the safety near the other sets in. For months he ran from monsters and onmyoji alike. Most wanting to bring him harm. There was little resting for hours upon hours. Now someone is kind to him. Did the gods hear his pleas of wanting safety? Gods do exist in this world right? With everything he’s seen, they should. Sobbing ceases to hiccups. His right eye remains closed. “I don’t remember where I’m from. But the clothing is different, much prettier”, his left eye stares at Taishakuten’s clothing. As if he’s judging it. It’s still more modest than what Choujou’s wearing. The chimera is reduced to pouting. “Is your home as grand as your clothes? If it is can I run around it?” He smiles, showing small fangs and he hiccups.

The chimera tilts his head. “What kind of food is there?”

he is  definitely  not one to pick on a child,   especially not one that is not being aggressive towards him first.   had  he been  tricking  him,  it was likely that taishakuten’s own  maternal  instincts would  block him from  properly  reading the mood.   he was much more invested in the chance at taking care of a young child,   the consequences were often forgotten in that situation.   he is willing to offer shelter,   as well as any other commodities that the other needed,  they had  more  than enough room at the palace. 

his curiosity about  where   he truly is from is  strong,   but he knew better than to push for  information  when he should have been empathetic towards  his situation.  pushing for needless information while he was  hungry  and crying,  that would not have been very  fair  of him.  details like that could come later,  when he had more time to pry,  after he got the other to relax.  upon seeing the  smile  from the other,  he gave him a  nod.   “ i think you’ll like my home a  lot. “  of course,  it was not  exclusively  his home  --  it was home to a lot of political figures when they would visit the capitol.  “ only if you’re careful when you do. “  he warned him,  not wanting him to run around and  break  something.