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It’s a lonely evening and Katsura is tired. Gintoki is resting in the nearby temple and Sakamoto is on a roof. Gintoki is with the soldiers he protected, a big group of young men huddled inside on mats. Sakamoto has found solace in the sky, his head full of stars.
Katsura is empty. He hasn’t eaten all day, hasn’t had a moment to himself or even a second to think. Men drift around the camp, nursing cups of saké and wounds that he has bandaged (they have no medic, and he is the best person they have), and he finds himself searching for a home comfort.
He finds Takasugi perched on a log around the campfire they had built the night before. Beside him there is a book (Katsura can see the flickers of kanji in the firelight spelling out “Confucianism” and it makes him want to scowl, but religion isn’t something they talk about anymore, not when so many of them have died).The young man pulls a matchbox from his coat pocket and sets the fire alight, poking at the logs and the dry grass with a stick.
Katsura hasn’t seen him for days. He’s too busy with his Kiheitai, too busy smoking the pipe he acquired from the nearby village. He wanders over to his friend, and Takasugi looks up. His eyes are glazed and weary, but he offers him a softened look in silent appreciation.
“I haven’t seen you for a while,” Katsura comments softly as he sits next to him on the log. He’s been on his feet all day and he can’t contain the sigh of relief that slips from his lips as he feels his shoulders slump.
Takasugi continues to poke at the fire. The flame catches the grass and begins to spread to the logs. When he is satisfied, he pulls back and begins to draw patterns in the dirt. The pages of the book beside him flutter gently, but Katsura can’t feel any breeze.
“I’ve been busy,” is all that he says, his eyes following the stick as he draws out kanji Katsura doesn’t recognise.
Katsura blinks and turns to the fire. Takasugi’s scent finds him (it’s rougher than usual, not as sweet) and he wants to move closer but the other man is lost in the kanji and he feels too far away. They never normally go days without talking. Katsura always sought him out to chat, to have tea, to check his wounds, but Takasugi has been distant recently and he doesn’t like it.
“Sasaki tells me you picked up a shamisen,” he offers, hoping Takasugi will look up. He does, and his green eyes reflect the light of the fire. When Katsura meets his gaze he doesn’t want to look away. They are dull, tired eyes but they are green, and all of the greenery around them has been burned and trampled so he decides that Takasugi’s green is something he wants to cling to.
“He says you can play,” he adds.
Takasugi presses the stick down into the soil. He wrings his hands together, a nervous disposition that doesn’t suit his sharp gaze or the pointed lapels on his coat. He’s wearing those fingerless gloves that Gintoki mocks him for, but Katsura has always liked them. His fingers are slender, and he thinks that perhaps Takasugi would suit the piano; but despite the young man’s western uniform, they both share a deep hatred towards foreign implements and he knows his friend would only scoff at the suggestion.
“My father used to play,” he mutters simply, turning away from Katsura’s gaze. He never talks about his family; not since they disowned him and he found solace in a dojo and a man they all missed so much it hurt. Katsura knows he despises them, and he can’t help but despise them too.
“Did he teach you?” He asks hesitantly. The air is still. The blossoms haven’t bloomed yet. He feels like he’s holding his breath.
Takasugi shakes his head and his nervousness is gone, replaced by the brash pride of the young boy he grew up with. Katsura doesn’t feel as tense; this familiarity soothes his soul. Gintoki’s snarky quips always take him back to that dojo, but it is hard to find remnants of the past in the man Takasugi is becoming. The war has changed them all, but Katsura can feel Shinsuke slipping away, as if tempted by something he himself cannot see.
“No, but I used to watch him.” He sits up a little, straightens his shoulders. Takasugi has always been slender, but the sharp cut of his coat doesn’t mask the thin frame that somehow got him through the winter.
“I found it easy to pick up after watching him for so long,” He puffs his chest a little, proud. Despite his meagre diet, it is a strong chest that he has slept on many times before. Katsura smiles endearingly at him. At the start of the war, Takasugi would show Katsura his poems, compositions he would write during the night watch. That had stopped long ago as the fighting had eroded his spirit. This flash of boyish pride is something only he is privy too. He wants to capture this moment so he can keep it forever, protect Shinsuke like he had done when they were boys (“Back off Gintoki, Shinsuke didn’t do anything wrong, you just want to start a fight”) and offer his own chest as a pillow.
The young man’s cheeks are taught and he is paler than usual, particularly in the light of the fire. They are all malnourished, but Katsura is shocked to see how the war has sucked his friend of life.
“Can you play me a song?” Katsura asks gently. He clasps his hands in his lap.
Takasugi blinks. He is silent and then hums an affirmation, his eyes shining. He reaches behind the log and retrieves a worn shamisen, holding it as naturally as he would hold a kiseru (smoking is a nasty habit he has recently acquired). He takes a cautious strum, checking the instrument is in tune. He seems satisfied and begins to pluck at the strings.
Katsura closes his eyes. He blocks out the background hum of soldiers talking nearby and the cackle of the fire. There is faint gunshot in the distance, but he pushes it away with a soft breath through his nose.
His eyes flicker open when he hears singing. He stares at Takasugi who is plucking strings and gazing into the fire, offering the flames gentle words that follow the tune.
“I used to chase rabbits on that mountain,
I used to fish for minnow in that river...”
Katsura doesn’t recognise the lyrics or the tune. He ponders the thought that Shoyou taught Takasugi this song.
“I still dream of those days even now,
oh how I miss my home town...”
Takasugi closes his eyes, plucking at the strings effortlessly and allowing his head to drift with the tune, only ever so slightly. He hums between lines, the crease between his brows gone and the tension from his shoulders lost. In that moment, he looks far too young. His coat suddenly looks too large, his frame too fragile and the dark colouring beneath his eyes befitting of a young child awoken from a nightmare. Katsura feels the compulsion to hold him. He wants to embrace him and protect him from everything that is tearing down his spirit because his passion is beautiful and he wants to preserve that fire in his heart.
“I wonder if my parents are doing well,
I wonder if my old friends are alright,”
His voice is deep and rustic. It has a worn edge to it that still manages to sound soft. It makes Katsura feel safe. He wants to grab Takasugi and run all the way back to Hagi. He wants to run from the war, he wants to go home and he wants to reclaim the days they spent by the river in the spring.
“When it rains, when the wind blows,
I think of my home town,”
The fire dances gently, lulling Katsura into this world that only Takasugi is part of. He has created a barrier, separating himself from the fire, from the camp, from the war; he falls in and it hurts Katsura’s heart because he isn’t meant to love him because war is no time for childish fantasies or proclamations of love that are probably just fuelled by loneliness, but everything he sees and hears is Takasugi, Takasugi, Takasugi Takasu-
Takasugi’s voice cracks. It shakes Katsura from his thoughts and reminds him that they are no longer boys and no longer in Kansai. Shinsuke is growing into a voice deeper than his.
“Once I've done what I set out to do,
'l’ll return home one of these days,”
Katsura moves closer. Takasugi is too enveloped in the song to notice, his eyes still closed, and Katsura is enamoured. This man is no longer a general. He’s not a soldier digging the graves of his comrades or a beast cutting down everything in his path. He’s just Shinsuke (Katsura is the only one allowed to call him that) and Shinsuke is changing and distant, but right now Katsura wants to close that distance and savour the soul of the man who, perhaps in another life, would be a writer, a poet, a musician in a small village by the sea.
“Where the mountains are green,
my home town,”
His voice grows softer as the song finishes. Katsura feels his breath catch in his throat.
“And the water is clear...”
Takasugi slowly opens his eyes. He turns to blink at Katsura, sending one last strum into the cool, spring night. But Katsura has time to breathe, Takasugi is cupping his cheek and bringing his face close. Katsura’s eyes flicker to his lips; they are chapped and he smells like smoke.
Takasugi murmurs to him but Katsura doesn’t catch it.
“my home town...”
When Takasugi kisses him, it is slow and deep. Katsura meekly grasps at Takasugi’s collar, encouraging the other man to pull at his kimono and deepen the kiss. He tastes like tobacco and tea.
꧁ ❀ ꧂
Takasugi has always been prideful. He carries himself with an air of authority, albeit a relaxed one, which creates the perfect stance of a man who just wants to sit by a window and smoke from his pipe. It is always a gentle affair. His yukata falls from his shoulders and collects like waves at his waist, the front parted widely as to display a broad chest that rises and falls with the gentle rock of his ship. A leg is propped up on the windowsill, an arm resting on his knee, a hand finding the fabric of his yukata and fingers playing with the folds. He holds his kiseru in his other hand, grasping it carefully like it is an art. When he brings it to his lips, his breaths are silent. The smoke drifts into the night and the process begins again like an old religious practice.
Katsura watches him as he takes a long drag. Takasugi is clothed once more, almost like he’d never been without the fine silk framing his shoulders.
“It’s not good for you,” he comments softly, a condescending tint to his tone as he pulls his kimono back on. (Katsura tells himself it’s loneliness, but that lie is wearing thin). “It’s a nasty habit. You should stop.”
Takasugi tilts his head slightly, not turning to face his old friend. He is silent for a few moments, as if contemplating a witty remark.
“You should stop playing with your hair when you’re worried about something,” he responds smoothly, finally turning to look over at him from his spot by the window. There is a light summer breeze but it doesn’t reach him. “It gives away your thoughts. ” He adds, allowing his lips to rest against his pipe, not yet taking a drag.
Katsura finds his fingers playing with a few stray black locks and he immediately cups the empty cup of green tea by his feet.
When Katsura had first arrived, they had drank saké (one he had never tried before), and he had suggested winding down with some green tea. He can still feel the alcohol in his head, drumming behind his eyes and beneath his skin. He cradles the cup like it is still spilling with heat. A soft sigh escapes his parted lips.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,”
Katsura’s thoughts are too fervid. He looks down at the floor. He can feel Takasugi’s eye boring into him like agitated sunlight (moonlight would be more fitting, but it’s been ten years and Katsura can still see those flames in his gaze).
Takasugi quirks an eyebrow when he doesn’t receive a response, slipping his pipe into the inner pocket of his yukata and pushing himself from the windowsill. He pads silently across the room and places himself beside Katsura on his futon, holding out his hand so he can take Katsura’s cup and refill it.
Katsura wordlessly hands Takasugi the cup. He watches as the man’s tanned, slender fingers curl around it. He has always been darker than the rest of them.
The water is still hot so Takasugi pours the drink carefully-he always did things carefully-before he hands it back. Katsura takes it slowly, making sure their fingers don’t meet.
“Thank you,” He murmurs, resuming in holding the small, ceramic cup like it was a lifeline.
They talk about the war sometimes. Katsura asks about the things in Takasugi’s room, the kimonos he’d never seen before, the sheets of calligraphy scattered on a nearby table. Takasugi wasn’t much of a talker, but he instigated conversation when he was in a good mood. Tonight his mood is undetectable; despite the humour (probably snark) in his eye when he had been smoking, and the way he seemed so relaxed as to simply drink tea instead of argue or lament about the past he couldn’t change. Katsura didn’t want to push his friend over the edge that he was constantly teetering on.
Takasugi rises to his feet and drifts across the room. He retrieves his shamisen before placing himself next to Katsura-closer than before-and making sure the instrument is in tune. He takes a gentle strum, and Katsura immediately recognises the sound (how can he forget, when that voice and those lips had been so soft?).
Ten years have passed and the distance between them is painful. Takasugi is no longer the cheeky, passionate punk he once was. Katsura wants to scream. He wants to scream until that good-for-nothing punk hears him and claws his way back.
“Do you remember it?” Takasugi asks gently. Katsura knows he is the only one privy to this gentle tone and he thinks himself selfish to be so pleased about it.
‘Of course I remember’ his mind flurries ‘I could never forget’.
“No,” he murmurs, his eyes flickering upwards. It is a lie he doesn’t regret uttering and his heart flutters. He wants his old friend back. “Sing to me, so I can remember.”
Takasugi begins to play and Katsura is suddenly back around that campfire, craving the taste of smoke. He sings and his voice is still as deeply brazen and sombre as it was ten years ago. Perhaps he hasn’t changed so much.
The song is somehow shorter than what he remembers. Or perhaps he is too enveloped in Takasugi to register the passage of time.
“I still dream of those days even now...”
Katsura sings the last line with him and their gazes meet, momentarily lost within each other and the soft voices they exchanged in their youth.
“Oh, how I miss my home town...”
Katsura cups Takasugi’s face and kisses him tenderly. He feels the other man smile against his lips. He lets a hand push past the soft material of his yukata as to find the faint freckles on Takasugi’s shoulders, caressing his skin as if he were glass. Takasugi hums his content and discards the shamisen as to draw Katsura closer and thread his fingers through soft, inky hair.
They don’t talk for the rest of the night. Katsura looses his kimono once more and Takasugi holds him so gently that Katsura cannot fathom how such a troubled man can also be so tender. As the river beyond his window stills, Katsura lets himself admire the shadows spilling into the grooves and crevices of Takasugi’s face as they lay in his futon. His eye is closed and his expression is soft, undisturbed and free of the tension that makes his brows crease in a way that Katsura doesn’t like. His breathing is even and Katsura buries his face into the crook of Shinsuke’s neck, breathing in his scent and wishing for smoke.
As Katsura feels the rhythmic thrum of Takasugi’s heartbeat against his lips, he thinks that after ten years of running and aching for the past, that perhaps he has returned home.
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