I turn at the mention of my name, the breeze blowing my hair over my eyes for a moment, and see Yuiko not three feet from me, waving manically as though I might not see her if she stood still. Yayoi is behind her, waiting patiently for her to finish talking to me.

“Hello, Yuiko. What is it?” I ask her.

“Yayoi and I are going to my house! Do you wanna come?” there was excitement in her voice at the simplest of things as always. “We’re going to play some video games!”

I can’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. “No thanks, Yuiko. I think I need to go home today… I have something important to do.” there, on the steps of our high school, I knew there was nothing important that I could possibly do today. I would be too swept up in memories of the past to do much of anything. But today… today doing anything social will not work. It is part of the very nature of this day, something not in my power to change. And I don’t really care to explain it to anyone else. “But I’ll do something tomorrow, okay?”

She seems satisfied with my answer and heads off with a happy wave. “Okay, Ritsuka-kun. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then!” she heads quickly in the direction of her house, dragging Yayoi by the arm. The two of them are inseparable these days, and it doesn’t bother me that I am only a frequent visitor in their little world. It hadn’t even surprised me that Monday morning last autumn when they had both shown up without their ears. It was bound to happen, it had been from the beginning.

As I start for home, I brush my hand over my own ears, soft, black, still intact. True, being only a year away from graduation and still having ears is a bit unconventional these days, but it doesn’t bother me too much. Trivial things like what age you lose your ears at don’t matter, anyway. Though I haven’t had sex, I have penetrated someone, in some sense.

His name was Agatsuma Soubi. I met him when I was twelve years old, and since that day, my first day at a new school, my life has never been the same.

He was calm, always so calm, and that comforting voice of his softened the intent of the words when he said harsh things to anyone. He was an adult… a 20-year-old college student. But something about him was different from others, always was. He came into my life that day out of nowhere, as elusive as the butterflies he painted. “Suki da yo, Ritsuka.” and just like that, everything changed. Those beautiful words, in that wonderful voice, and I could never see a single thing the same way again.

The night I penetrated him was different from anything I have ever experienced. Those ears, so soft and perfect… was I truly to deface that soft skin? I couldn’t understand how he could ask those things of me. The piercing gun was so harsh, the light glinting angrily from its sharp needle. “Pierce the needle through and make me yours.” His arms were wrapped around my waist, his hands at the small of my back, holding me. His hands were warm and dry and always so intimate in their touch, whether they touched my hand, my face, a paintbrush… their touch was unlike anything I have ever known. There was something so natural, beautiful, and painful in the tender way they held me at that moment that I could barely breathe.

“If you don’t pierce all the way through, it’ll hurt more.”

He was an enigma in my eyes, something I could never hope to understand. He was always so far away, even when he held me, and yet so close, closer than anyone else could possibly get. Hidden under that flowing blond hair, behind those placid, chilling blue eyes was a secret disguised as a man, and I would never know the things he kept from me. It was all so confusing, so frustrating, and scared me to death. But I did as he asked. I held that piercing gun in my shaking hand, and I pierced him… first one ear, then the next. Through the flesh, cut the veil of the skin between us, made him mine. Always mine.

I held him afterward, held him as I never had before. I draped my arms over his shoulders and clung to him, exhausted from such a simple but heavy action, penetrating those perfect ears. His hands stayed at my waist, full of perfect love that I could not accept, would not accept.

“Does it hurt?”

“It tingles a little, but I’m happy.”

How could he be this way? How could anyone be this way? He was simply Soubi, someone I could never understand, didn’t want to accept, and could never get out of my life if I wanted to. We had broken together that first day. The shards of him were embedded in my soul. I could never pick all of them out. Even today, when moods shift I’ll feel one of them, stuck in a place that was empty before he invaded my life. A picture of his face, his beautiful face.

He was always so beautiful, with a floating grace that drew others irresistibly to him, though he let few of them get close. He let me closer than I have ever gotten to anyone, let me feel the beat of his heart so many times, so many nights, taking me just far enough, just high enough, just a step beyond reality, though he never took my ears… I doubted sometimes if he even wanted to. After a time, closeness was enough. Soubi was enough. And maybe I wasn’t so Loveless after all.

Loveless is still there, still deep within me. It is my true name, and nothing can change it. Not even the love of someone named Beloved. But I doubt I’ll ever need that name again. It becomes clearer each day that Soubi was the only Sentouki I could ever take pain for. He was the only one that made that part of me come alive. Maybe for that reason, the other half of Loveless is still out there somewhere, but won’t ever come for me. But it would never work. It would never be Soubi. No one would ever be Soubi. Beautiful Soubi. He was always so beautiful… even on that last night, with the crimson staining that lovely hair.

On the last night, Soubi stayed close to me. He lay wrapped around me, close enough to let me hear the warmth of his heartbeat. Such warmth he brought me on nights like those, more than from the blankets. He warmed something inside never before discovered, that tiny wedge of my heart that still lived in a place where I could believe in love.

He had brought the piercing gun with him again, tucked into his bag with all the things he had brought for me… the papers that held his delicate kanji, explaining everything he knew about Seimei, about Septimal Moon. I wouldn’t see those until later when I rummaged through his bag, frantically searching for his phone to call for help. He held the piercer with delicate purpose after I brought it to him, loading in two butterfly earrings that matched his own. “Your ears are so small, Ritsuka.”

It didn’t hurt, really. I only cried out because of how much the piercing symbolized… how much he wanted me for his own, how much he needed me, how deeply I belonged to him. When the metal pierced my skin, the air in the room changed, his eyes softened, and I saw Soubi. I saw him for the first time, the Soubi behind that serene face. Soubi was afraid, hurt, angry, just like everyone else. Soubi was not a secret, Soubi was only something easily offered but never understood. And Soubi was mine.

He had never held me as lovingly as he did that night. He held me with a closeness I had never dreamt of. He had never kissed me as tenderly, never poured the love into me with his kisses as he did that night. And I had never kissed him back that way before, never clung to him and wanted so much more than he would ever give me between those blankets. Never tasted him that deeply, feeling the warmth inside his mouth. I didn’t feel the sticky warmth of his blood soaking through my clothing until I tasted it. It had run down his arms and onto his face, where I kissed him gently and came up with the metallic tang of blood on my tongue.

His wrists bled freely as he held me. Beloved, that beautiful name forever in its place on his neck, bled with them, for reasons I’ll never know. I hadn’t cried for so long that night, and the tears were bitter, choked with anger.

“Soubi, why!?” the tears made it almost impossible to see his face, but his smile was as obvious as ever.

“I cannot kill Ritsuka. I cannot live without Ritsuka. I’ll die for you.”

His words had always been so cryptic, but for once, I understood what he meant. Seimei still controlled Soubi just as much as I did, and the order to kill me had finally come. Soubi loved me, that much I do believe, but he loved Seimei equally, even if he tried to forget. But when it came down to what mattered, I almost wish it had not been me who won his loyalty, whose heart Soubi truly wanted to possess. If he had chosen Seimei, Soubi never would have had to die. I would have easily given my life for him at that moment.

A phone was left off the hook somewhere in the house, so I couldn’t call for help. My mobile had been dead for days. Soubi had purposely left his at home. Soubi had planned it all. In the end, there was nothing I could do. All I could do was let him die. I stayed with him, close to him, held him against me. The blood from his wounds streaked his hair scarlet and smeared over both of us, soaking our clothing and skin. I stopped my tears and talked softly to him, saying things he had always wanted to hear me say. I spoke of love and of our bond, and of all the different ways he mattered to me. And he smiled. All Soubi could do was smile that night, whispering into my hair, stroking the fur of my ears, kissing me gently in every place he could think of. There were no thoughts but my wishes that he could be alright. But Soubi had made his choice, and there was no turning back.

“Suki da yo.”

As Soubi began to fade, Beloved, that beautiful name, began to morph itself. It made little sense to me at the time, and it was difficult to tell what was happening beneath the leaking blood. But suddenly, it was clear. The letters had changed. It would have been a trick of the eyes, or the smeared blood making it appear differently, but that word had become something entirely different. Loveless. I touched it. The blood was warm beneath my fingers. There was something about the way it looked, something that made me despise it so much less to see it on him.

“Soubi…”

That name was there, binding us. And I could feel it. The pull of his heartbeat, synchronizing with my own. That was what it truly was, for that moment, to be linked. The bond was so fierce I could barely breathe, and as his eyes locked with mine, there was nothing left in either of us that felt loveless. For that beautiful moment, before he gave me that last kiss, whispered those last words of love, we were truly master and servant, linked for all eternity. For that moment, his name was mine, his name was Loveless. And then as he closed his eyes, it faded into nothing, leaving behind only that bond that had formed, as strong as the moment before, and I could feel it in all its intensity. This will not go away. This is forever. This is love.

It would be easy to say that Soubi died for me. But in the full truth of the matter, he died for a lot of things. He died because of something I could not comprehend, he died because of the selfishness of someone else, he died because he could not kill me. He died for falling in love, in a sense.

I realize now that I haven’t been heading for home. In all my musing, I veered off course somehow. Now I’m standing at that place I’ve visited so many times before, the place that I came to for weeks after his death to pray, to mourn, to light candles to keep his memory alive. Losing Seimei all those years ago was hard. But losing Soubi… losing Soubi was impossible. His name is forever immortalized on that slab of stone before me now. Agatsuma Soubi. That wonderful name that has echoed through my head for so many years, along with that face that fills every dream.

As I stand before this sacred place now, bowing my head in prayer, it’s easy to believe he is standing behind me, watching, his face calm and patient and slightly amused at the intensity of my prayers. It’s easy to believe that I’ll wake up and see him outside my window again, silhouetted against the moonlight. It’s as though he’s gone, but still so vividly here. I can still feel that bond between us, even after he’s gone, still loving me from wherever it is you go after you die. Mother says it’s the end. I don’t know what I believe. But I know it has to be some kind of beginning.

There were never butterflies in this place when I used to come to visit Seimei. But as I stand here now, one flutters by, its wings a deep, vivid blue. Soubi hated butterflies, but he painted them obsessively, and they’ve always made me think of him. I can’t help but smile now as the delicate creature flies close, so close I could touch it with one hand, and then darts away, as elusive as Soubi himself. Turning slowly, I watch the insect circle, drawing nearer and nearer, and at the perfect moment, I stick out one hand and catch it, neatly and gently, in my fist.

“Caught ya.”

The tiny wings brush against the inside of my palm, and I only hold my butterfly for a moment before I release it and watch it fly higher, circling up into the perfect blue sky. The sun, warm on my face, is the brush of his hand on my cheek. Everything is full of Soubi, and it feels good.

As I start for home, I look back once toward his final resting place, the stone gleaming in the sun. “I’ll visit tomorrow, I promise,” I whisper softly. The butterfly flutters past again, nearly brushing my face with the tip of my wing, and I smile, turning away and walking in the direction of home. Leaving this place is never leaving him behind. When I get home, he’ll be there with me. Soubi is everywhere. Soubi has penetrated my soul. Soubi is mine.

“Suki da yo, Ritsuka.”