Chapter Text
Hyakkimaru liked to walk on his way home everyday. Despite being blind, he knew his way around the town pretty well, and was usually able to find his way home after every school day.
He observed the way the soft wind blew on his face, how the birds sang, how the children laughed. He smelled the appetizing meals opened windows offered to the streets.
These kinds of things often repeated themselves with each new path he took.
There was one thing, however, that Hyakkimaru didn’t expect to meet repetitively almost every day.
And that was the presence of a clearly homeless child that kept making trouble look for him.
He recognized the child’s voice, trying to sell items on the street, to people who didn’t know he stole said items the day before. He could hear him playing with stray dogs and singing with the birds. He also heard his witty comebacks when adults started yelling at him, and his pained grunts when they started to hit him. Hyakkimaru could tell that he was always okay the next day, though.
Simply put, that child seemed everywhere, and to think he didn’t have a place to stay around and be safe in made Hyakkimaru worry quite a bit.
Despite that, Hyakkimaru kept walking different paths since they had never really met.
One day, a body collided with him and his walking cane, making them both lose balance and fall. Both a bit stunned, Hyakkimaru said nothing, but the child reacted quicker.
“Ah- I’m sorry, Sir, for bumping into you. That won’t happen again.” He got back up, but winced between his teeth, as if injured.
Hyakkimaru took the child’s hand and pulled him away from the angry men who raised their fists, claiming he had stole goods from their gardens. The child shouted insults back to them, throwing little rocks. Hyakkimaru lead the child behind a park and made him sit on the sidewalk.
“Hurt…” he asked softly, kneeling to be eye-height with the boy, even thought he couldn’t actually see him.
“Uh ? N-No, Sir, I promise I’m okay, I swear I just…” he tried to insist. Hyakkimaru managed to make his stare insistent enough to make the child comply.
“…my right knee got scratched”, he mumbled, as if ashamed to admit defeat.
Hyakkimaru took off his backpack and searched for the bandages he always kept inside, an advice he took to heart from his parents. While he treated the child’s wound, a silence sat between them. Hyakkimaru didn’t mind it, but the other seemed to, since he kept fidgeting around.
“I’ve seen you before a few times,” spoke the child to break the silence, “you don’t seem that bad of a guy, even if I’ve never seen you talk to anybody before today. What’s your name? I’m Dororo.”
Hyakkimaru finished tying up the bandage and put away the rest in his backpack. “Hyakkimaru.”
Dororo repeated his name under his breath and stood back up. “Well, thank you Mr. Hyakkimaru, it’s been nice to meet you. I’ll see you again!”
And with that he left running. Hyakkimaru signed as he got back up and started to walk home again, this time with a bitter feeling in the pit of his stomach.
After that day, Dororo tried to cross paths with Hyakkimaru whenever he could, calling the name of the other and running across the street talk to him. Dororo would ask all sorts of questions, to which Hyakkimaru would always give short, simple answers. Dororo then talked all about his day, and the day before that, and the day before that, until he all but babbled about his life, happy to have someone to tell all those things to.
That’s how Hyakkimaru learned that Dororo was 9, and that he had lost his father in a fight with violent neighbors, and his mother to hunger, after being kicked out of their apartment and a few months of homelessness. Hyakkimaru wondered how this kid managed to keep a smile on his face as often as he did. His father would say that his will to live was phenomenal, like Hyakkimaru’s despite his many disabilities.
“Goodbye, Aniki!”, had Dororo said one day as they parted ways. The boy didn’t seem to notice the nickname, but Hyakkimaru surely did. He decided to let it slide.
With each day and each new conversation, Hyakkimaru realized that he really liked Dororo. He wanted to be there for him from now on, to protect him and help him take care of himself. However, Hyakkimaru didn’t know how to help Dororo, since he felt that it wasn’t really his place to help him. The sharp feeling stayed everpresent within him whenever he thought of the situation of the kid.
Hyakkimaru had stayed at school for a project. It was so late when he left that it was dark outside and on top of that, it was raining quite a lot. He was currently hurrying home under an umbrella.
At some point on the way, he heard faint sniffles from a faint voice he knew a bit too well.
He found Dororo between two houses, trying his best to shield himself from the cold rain. He was shivering and slightly drenched when Hyakkimaru touched his arm.
“Ah! Aniki,” Dororo exclaimed, “what are you doing here?”
Hyakkimaru kneeled to face Dororo. “How are you feeling,” he asked instead of answering the previous question.
Dororo huffed a bit. “I’m fine, Aniki, I promise.”
A shiver throughout his entire body betrayed him.
“Alright, I’m freezing. But I swear this is the best spot I could find to hide from the rain!”
Hyakkimaru blinked. He gently pulled Dororo’s arm up and close to him, under the umbrella. Then he started walking.
“Wait, wait, Aniki, where are we going?” asked the child.
“Home,” Hyakkimaru said simply.
“Home? Aniki, you know that I don’t have a… Hold on, did you mean your house?! Wait no, we can’t- I mean I can’t-”
“It’ll be fine,” said Hyakkimaru to calm the panic of the other.
“Y-you really don’t have to this, Aniki, I can manage on my own, you know?” Dororo was trying to pull his arm away from Hyakkimaru’s grip.
“It’ll be fine,” the latter repeated, not letting go of the other.
Dororo paused, then let out a defeated sigh.
“I really don’t want to be a bother…” he mumbled.
Hyakkimaru didn’t give a response, but squeezed the child’s body closer to him in comfort.
His family would probably look at him funny when they’ll get home, but Hyakkimaru didn’t care at the moment. He knew that he’d have to talk to both of his parents though, because November was coming up soon, and there was no way that he’d leave the boy he cared so much for outside in the cold.
Not when he already took a place this big in his heart.