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川
“—said Dad will be fine—”
“Chie? Get back here, I can’t see you!”
“Hey, look!”
Shuuzou holds a hand against his ear, wincing at the echoes ringing in his ears. Maybe bringing his siblings out was a bad idea after all, though the walk had seemed like a better idea in the cold confines of the hospital. Of course his mother had cautioned him to stay nearby, but that caution had been thrown to the back of his head almost immediately after leaving the gates.
That, and his siblings’ insistence upon the discovery of a nearby tunnel, half-hidden behind a huge banyan. He blinks as he emerges, shielding his eyes from the glare, and sees the grassy steps of a dry riverbed stretch out before him.
Beyond is a deserted street, though he could see rising steam and hear the creak of wheels. Shuuzou frowns; it’s not a likely time of day for everyone to be indoors. The breeze ruffles his hair, strangely cold. Not even the hospital, with its droning air conditioners, had given him such a feeling.
He looks up, where the clouds seem to still in front of his eyes. Then to the distance, where a towering building rises into the sky, unlike any he’s ever seen even in the concrete jungle of Tokyo. A hotel? No—what is this place?
When Shuuzou’s glance comes back to earth, he realizes his siblings have already vanished.
風鈴
“Chie? Kenzo?”
The crash of plates and cutlery was what had alerted Shuuzou to the spot where he now stands, staring at the overturned dishes. A single wind-chime above his head flutters in the wind, its noise too sharp, too biting.
“Oi, this isn’t funny…”
If he loses them here—Shuuzou shakes his head, thoughts darkening. They’ll certainly be in for the scolding of their lives if they keep hiding— he’s not going to be the one explaining this mess to the owner, wherever they are. Whoever they are.
Shuuzou walks over to the expansive bridge, towards the wondrous mansion that looks decidedly closed. Then the low rumble beneath his feet alerts him to the first sign of life; he opens his mouth as a train emerges from the tunnel under the mansion. It’s a dizzying drop, far too much for someone fearful of heights. Shivering, Shuuzou steps away, only to notice another boy standing where it had been empty moments before.
He’s beautiful , is Shuuzou’s first thought. His second thought is panic as his wrist is seized, and painfully.
“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be here!”
The sound of the wind chimes starts up again, faster, erratic, as much in tune with his heart as the warning in the boy’s voice. Shuuzou turns to flee, but even as he does all around him the shadows are seeping out from cracks between the rocks, from behind paper doors. He remembers now, frantic, the stories his mother had told about the things that come out in the dark.
He runs.
(He tries to ignore the laughter following his footsteps.)
The iciness of the water bites into his bones as he steps away in surprise. What had been a dry riverbed is no more, replaced by a vast dark lake. Shuuzou backs up the steps, almost slipping on the mossy rocks. A hand touches his shoulder, just barely, only for him to realize the light reflected off the ships in the distance go right through his fingers.
“Who are you?” Shuuzou asks the boy with the beautiful face, wondering if he’s also an illusion. Am I going to die?
“Tatsu,” the boy replies, his visible eye gleaming. “A friend. That’s all you need to know.”
Shuuzou stares at him, transfixed, the spell broken only by the very real pain of fingers digging into his skin, pulling him back into the night.
名前
“No,” says the man with the impossibly green hair, his long thin frame illuminated by the firelight. “If you want to break the rules—”
“I don’t know them, Midorima-san.”
“Take it up to Akashi then. I’ll have no part in this foolishness.”
(Never mind that he’d earlier put a blanket around Shuuzou’s shoulders and told him, if gruffly, to stay by the warmth of the flames.)
He does not ask Midorima about Tatsu, or about the thing that he’d seen circling the skies, or the about coals that dance beneath his feet as he walks out the room.
And it does not matter, it seems, for the moment Shuuzou steps out the room he feels a tremendous pull on his body, yanking him forward—if he’d had an inkling of where he might be now, that understanding leaves him completely as soon as he is thrown through an open door, sprawling face-first onto an ornate carpet.
“Stand.”
“Who the hell are you?” Shuuzou sits up, staring up into a pair of mismatched eyes, the intensity of which sends a chill down the back of his spine. This must be the Akashi they speak of.
“One could stand to talk to the proprietor of this institution with more respect.”
“You have my siblings,” Shuuzou replies, realization slowly dawning. Akashi does not speak, but instead beckons him to the table. “You—”
“I have a proposal for you, human.” Akashi sits, gaze never leaving him; Shuuzou figures at this point it is best to swallow his next words. Whatever would come would perhaps be less painful were he to follow through the motions. “Work for me, and I will think about returning them to you.”
Shuuzou bites his lip. “You will think about it.”
Akashi smiles. “Not many even get a choice.”
“It’s true.”
Shuuzou doesn’t need to look up to know the owner of that voice, but he starts involuntarily all the same. Akashi’s eyes gleam in the firelight, but he says nothing as Tatsu materializes, his footsteps so soft Shuuzou is starting to think he might be a ghost after all. “It’s the only way.”
The moment his pen touches the page Shuuzou feels a great weight on his hand, almost as if directing him through the motions. He watches his name appear on the page slowly but surely, the dark ink seeping into the pages stroke by stroke. Akashi hums in appreciation and draws the pages close.
“This will do.”
His fingers tap over the document; as if dancing, the words fly off the pages, swirling in the air as Shuuzou watches, aghast. Akashi’s fingers curl around them, figments of his person, and soon they vanish into the mage’s voluminous sleeves.
“Shuu.”
It’s Tatsu who says it first, bringing Shuu back in from his trance. They are all staring at the pages, were only one character remains. The doors behind him open wide, and the next, and the next...
“Until the contract is finished,” Akashi says, a hint of triumph in his voice. “Your name belongs to me.”
忘れ物
“Is it someone important?”
“Yeah, so just...stay out the way, alright?”
The boy Shuu had been assigned to—Sen, but Shuu wonders if that’s really what he’s called—heaves a bucket of water at him, frowning. “You’re taking care of him. I’ll help you, but you better not fuck up. Don’t want Akashi on our asses, y’know.”
They scramble out of the way as the spirit moves past them, hesitating near the rim as if testing the temperature before sliding in. The water washes over Shuu’s feet, and Sen shoves a bucket of cleaning materials at him, his other hand pinching his nose. “Go!”
Warily, Shuu approaches the spirit, whose face he could not even see. They must be joking giving him a dingy little washcloth and scrub for all the filth he sees—still, he slides into the tub, armed and ready.
—Not ready enough , as he barely has time to cry out before the surge of water pulls him under. The wave comes in quick and heavy, knocking Shuu backwards. He gasps for air, slamming his hands into the sides of the tub as hot, murky water fills his vision.
—he’s been here before. Drowning, kicking his legs up, crying out, the surge of water beneath him powerful and wild—
“Hey!”
Shuu shakes his head, coughing up water as he crawls to the side, a hand grasped tightly on something hard. He feels arms around his, pulling him up; Sen stands aside, allowing him to catch his breath. “The hell I told you about not fucking up?”
“I...I slipped,” Shuu murmurs, the images still fresh in his mind. What the hell was that? Then he looks down at his hand, at the chain stretching into the dark water. “What...”
The other boy groans, shaking his head even as he places a hand around Shuu’s, pulling with him. “Man, you sure are trouble.”
狩り
It happens then, as he’s busy scrubbing the floors. Sen is elsewhere in the room, but Shuu likes staying by the window, though too close and images from his dreams would float imperceptibly to the forefront of his mind. The excitement of the incident had already faded back to normalcy, but for Shuu it’s as if a switch has irreparably turned on. Of memories that haunt him close to the heart, of voices he remembers but faintly when he wakes in the morning.
He’s standing near the window when he hears it: a loud bang, followed by a rush of what sounds like a stack of paper tumbling down. Shuu turns and a million talismans rush him, gentle in the way paper moving at that pace could not be, but once he sees what they are chasing his heart catches in his throat.
The sharp scent of blood hangs in the air as the dragon thrashes about, tearing long gashes into paper walls. Shuu follows it through the hallway, cautiously at first, tracing the scarlet red splashed across the floor. And then his feet are moving faster, faster—
He’s in Akashi’s study before he knows it, lunging forward to catch Tatsu before he can slip into the fireplace. The blood, slick in his hands, is nauseating even as Shuu pulls him back, scales cutting into his hands. He tries not to look at the abyss below, though the shivers travel down his spine as there is a sigh, at once familiar and strange.
“I’m afraid your friend there has something of mine.”
Shuu’s turns in surprise. “—Akashi?”
—but no. When this Akashi smiles, it’s a smidge more benign. He surveys the room slowly, his form fizzing in and out like images in a broken television screen. Shuu’s grip tightens, even when the scales beneath him grow hot with agitation. “Not the one you’re used to.”
Out of the corner of his eye, a single paper talisman stands perfectly still.
“I didn’t think it prudent to come as myself, you see,” Akashi continues, his scarlet gaze sweeping across the blood on the floor to the sparse offerings on the desk. “It seems my brother is not yet ready to see me again.”
Two Akashis?
Shuu opens his mouth, but Tatsu writhes beneath his arms, his tail slamming down hard. He twists his body, sending both of them down, down, down…
返還
“Are you sure about this?” Sen asks, the wind in his hair obscuring his expression. Shuu could see a silhouette in the distant door-frame, sliding into the darkness as soon as he’d laid eyes on it. “Well, don’t die.”
Shuu climbs up from the dinghy, the concrete of the station solid and warm. “I’ll be back.”
The train is not long in coming. When he boards, he feels the air whoosh out beneath his feet.
There’s no going back this way.
Shuu does not make eye contact with the myriad shadows that swarm around him, curious. He sits straight, the ticket clenched so tightly in his fist that he eventually lets go, afraid the ink would run. The wooden seal shifts in his pocket as he looks out the window, digging painfully into his leg.
The world flies away from him as the train starts again, gaining speed. For miles into the distance there is only water, like the way he came—only this time it is the afternoon sun casting its warmth over the horizon. Shuu had never been particularly fond of swimming, though his siblings had clamored for him to take them to the beach every year since their father’s hospitalization.
They must be worried.
The train rumbles onward. Shuu does not blink, does not avert his eyes from the setting sun.
記憶
“Your ride is here,” Akashi says pleasantly, over a cup of hot tea. Shuu almost chokes on his sip, and Akashi’s smile widens. “You didn’t think I’d keep you here too, did you?”
“Can’t say that thought didn’t cross my mind,” Shuu mutters. Fortunately Akashi does not seem offended—though the doubt lingers—and instead motions for him to open the door.
He wonders, hand placed on the doorknob, who it is. Sen, maybe. Midorima. His siblings, his parents, miraculously here to wake him from this dream. But as Shuu turns the handle, he realizes there is only one person it could be.
The wind sweeps him off his feet, caressing his face as he feels himself rise with it. Shuu reaches out, his fingers curling instinctively around the scales and mane, breathing in—
“Tatsu?”
— cold. He remembers now, feet flailing as he sinks into the deep, water at his lips. A story he has only ever heard his parents tell, one that’d stayed a vague memory until now.
Where was that?
Tatsu in this form is fast and graceful, his scales shimmering in the moonlight as Shuu clings on tightly. The night is quiet below them, sleepy towns and the wide, winding river from before snaking its way back to the bathhouse. Like the river that flows in his dreams, almost as if—
“Tatsuya.”
He remembers now, something gently pushing him, bearing him ashore. There had been a plaque behind his parents’ worried faces, and he’d cried out then, clinging on to strong arms, the water swirling at his feet.
Time seems to still around him, though he does not yet know until the name is rolling off his tongue again, certain this time.
“Himuro Tatsuya.”
The sky shatters around him; no—Shuu gasps as he finds himself falling, unable to hold on anymore as the scales fall away one by one. He is plummeting to the ground, until he reaches out, grasping the hand that had pushed him all those years ago.
“I remember now,” he breathes, the same time Tatsuya—beautiful, radiant Tatsuya—says it. “How could I have forgotten? You saved me.”
“Yes,” Tatsuya replies, pulling him up, up; the clouds part as they are flying again, somehow, and this time Shuu dares not take his eyes away. “And now you’ve done the same for me.”
別世界
When his feet touch the ground again, they are already waiting—on the eaves of the building, at the bridge where the river is melting away into dry earth. Akashi is there, his expression unreadable, a familiar scroll in his hand.
“My siblings,” Shuu says. “You know what I want.”
“And why should I agree?”
“They don’t belong here,” Tatsuya replies, his hand warm in Shuu’s own, and yet his voice is ice. “Shuu as well—he’s more than completed his services to you now. And—”
“He’s done something for you, I see,” Akashi cuts him off, eyes narrowing. “A heartfelt gesture.”
“Though—” and now Shuu feels a dread spreading inside him as Akashi continues, “Since Tatsu seems to know what you want best...
“Your siblings are alive, of course. They will go, as they are of no use to me. However, that leaves little manpower for me to spare.”
Akashi smiles thinly. “Tatsu is free to go, if he wishes; you’ve already given his name back after all. But you, Shuu, will stay.”
The temperature around them immediately drops as Shuu feels Tatsu’s grip tighten even more. “No!”
“Alright,” Shuu says, and the world seems to halt around him as the voices die down. “If that’s what you want.”
He holds out his hand for the contract, which he knows will not tear, or break, even if he tries his hardest with his hands. Shuu ignores Tatsuya’s lingering gaze upon him, though the sound of his heart pounding does not abate.
“Shuu will stay,” he says finally, locking gazes with Akashi. “But I am done here.”
The relief is almost worth the pain of knowing what’s to come when the parchment turns to dust in his hands.
“Don’t look back when you go,” Tatsuya says, softly.
Shuuzou doesn’t let go of his hand. “Are you really free now? Can’t you come—”
“Not yet, but soon.” It’s a grin Tatsuya shows him, but by now Shuuzou knows better.
“Promise me.” The wind weaves through his hair, blowing aside Tatsuya’s bangs for a fraction of a second; Shuuzou’s eyes water, though from what he cannot bring himself to want to understand. “Soon.”
“I promise.”
His words still feel warm on Shuuzou’s lips as he re-emerges from the tunnel, the summer song of cicadas loud in his ear—and two familiar figures, asleep at the foot of the banyan tree.
「10年後」
It hadn’t been easy finding the plaque; it had been a shot in the dark, a spur-of-the-moment thought that’d led Shuuzou here on a detour before heading to his hotel.
After all, he thinks as he brushes aside the dust and grime, wiping it down with a clean cloth, it’s been a while .
“That’s a nice thing to do,” says a voice behind him. “Public service. They don’t clean this place enough.”
“Yeah,” Shuuzou agrees, after almost jumping at the sudden intrusion. “I guess you can say—”
He turns around, and the cloth flutters from his fingers.
“Thanks,” Tatsuya says, older now, still lovely, his hand warm over Shuuzou’s own. “I appreciate it very much.”