“Is something troubling you, Mika?” Masahiko asks, carefully, watching him over his bowl of tea.  Lovely violet eyes are demurely lowered, his brother’s gaze firmly fixed onto the floor, and he isn’t even touching his tea. Mika usually holds to silence, keeping his secrets close to his heart, but even this is unusual for him.

“I am...uncertain.” Mika says, finally, his eyes still fixed on the floor. “A...troubling dream.”

“Tell me about it,” Masahiko tries to coax him to talk, frowning inwardly. Mika had been asleep the whole time he’d had him, he was certain. Asleep and entirely unknowing of what his body had been used for. "I am no onmyoji, but..."

"It was a dream too strong for me to control," Mika says, finally, almost too soft to be heard. "A heavy weight on me, pinning me down. A man's voice in my ear. Someone I should have known almost as well as my own name. And..."

He trails off, hiding his face behind his sleeve for a long moment.

"I'm sorry," Mika finally says, lowering his sleeve. "I do not know what came over me."

"Poor omens," Masahiko says, carefully. "Have a way of doing so."

"...an omen?" his brother asks, softly. "...of...?"

"Your marriage." Masahiko says, and watches Mika's face fall, his expression cloud over even more. So sad. So lovely. But why would his marriage be different? Mika's betrothed wants just as much as Masahiko does, after all, and he cannot imagine that Mika would welcome his touch either. After a moment, he pushes Mika's tea bowl closer to him. "But you have time before you have to think about this too closely. Eat: you are too thin."

After a moment, Mika nods, trusting and obedient, and reaches to pick up his tea.

~~~
Unfortunately, Masahiko realizes soon enough, that one night had not taken the edge off his jealousy nor slaked his desire: instead, he wants Mika all the more. So sweet, so trusting, and the one thing he wants that he cannot have.

Between his brother’s continued reclusiveness and his own duties, Masahiko does not cross paths again with him for some time. The rumors, as always, are fascinated by Mika's lack of socializing: he has never truly participated in court life, unless obligated by ritual, but his separation does not mean he goes unnoticed. Especially with his beauty. His lack of lovers and empty bed is something the court gossips comment on avidly, especially with how he still does not allow his betrothed behind his screens, leaves Fujiwara Hiroshi to pine outside the painted screen.

It is not good news, precisely, but he does privately savor it. The thought of his brother in anyone else's arms, even those of his betrothed - especially those of his betrothed - is maddening, though he does his best to hide his thoughts. Occasionally visits his lovers, when he has time, and even more occasionally his wife: none of them are Mika, delicate and lovely, and none of them are satisfying. None of them are enough.

One night, during the season of the autumn equinox, Masahiko pens a brief fragment of a poem, with an intention to visit, and sends it to his brother: there is no reply, which does not entirely surprise him. He does not send another missive, but instead chooses to wander the cool hallways, not thinking about where he is going, until he realizes that he's wandered to the distant hallways where Mika's rooms are.

Masahiko does not expect his brother to be entertaining a visitor - and yet, irritation and anger welling up in him, he sees that is the case. Fujiwara Hiroshi sits properly just outside the screens closing off Mika's rooms, saying something in his low, deep voice, though Masahiko cannot hear what the younger man is saying.

A clear, ethereal sound catches his attention, light like water or petals falling, unfamiliar at first, until he realizes what it is: laughter. Mika's laughter, rare, brief, and treasured.