Work Text:
Serene.
In all of Hyōgo’s bucolic charms, to be encompassed by an endless breadth of vibrant azure overhead, adorned only with stretched out puffs of cotton white clouds and the occasional fleets of feathered dots miles and miles from reach — it fills you with a sense of serenity that is almost unlike any other.
The vast fields of beaming grains swaying with spring’s breeze, blurring slowly but surely into where the tall, lush highlands began — it drives the sensation deeper into your bones. Sinking itself with each passing second until you could almost feel it in your soul. Until you could almost feel rural Hyōgo in your soul.
Almost.
Almost because it isn’t the worldly expanse of the sky or the prolific spread of Japonica rice or the distant mountains where the tranquility of Hyōgo’s countryside is felt — it’s in him.
“Shinsuke.”
In him is where it lies.
In his eyes, bright and cherrywood hued, reflecting the guerdon of his tireless work beneath unrelenting seasons and mischevious weather. In his hands, chafed and calloused in all its surface with years of routine built upon routine in two tender palms and ten giving fingers for his family, his friends, his country. In his muscles and tendons — worn, taut, and strained. Soaked in blood and sweat that seemed to drown him in darker days, but unyielding and determined in its practised hold. Defined, trained, and passionate as he tends to his life’s commitments.
“My love.”
In his smile, so comforting and so honest, sweet in its curls and soft in its warmth, is where you feel the collective soothe of rustic Hyōgo and all that it can offer in your barest soul.
In Kita Shinsuke is where your serenity can be found.