Archive of Our Own

Alright, look. Maybe Kentarou always has to learn things the hard way. And maybe right now his takeaway should be that bears don’t actually like being serenaded by moonlight when they’re rifling through his campsite for the food in his pack.

That didn’t mean the bear had to take a swipe at him.

It had knocked his lute from his hands and sent him flying backwards into the treeline. He used every muscle in his thighs and calves to turn that momentum into motion, running fast and frightened through a part of the forest he’s never spent time in. The moon is bright - the stars too, the brilliant, familiar sky - and it lights the ground ahead of him and the trees around him. Even as he races through the night, he only stumbles occasionally on roots and loose patches of dirt, trying to outrun the threatening growls and sounds of slashing behind him.

He ignores the ache in his chest while he runs, so focused on escaping. His thighs burn with every step and his breathing is harsh, but eventually the forest stills. The bear seems to have retreated, crickets and frogs the only chorus remaining. When he comes to a stop, panting against a tree, he has one hand against the bark and the other pressed against his heart.

It comes away wet. There’s a breeze that stings him.

“Oh,” he mutters quietly to himself, joining the evening choir. “That’s not great.”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Hours later, sunrise is just at his fingertips, and Kentarou is - though he’ll never admit it - lost. For all the years he’s spent travelling he’s never really had to navigate by starlight or find his way through the woods. He knew the road, the treeline within meters of it, and how to make stops in towns and cities along the way, serenading barflies and merrymakers alike.

He’s torn off one of his sleeves to form a makeshift bandage for the wound on his torso. He’s devastatingly hungry - he hopes the bear enjoyed the last of his jerky - and craving water. And worst of all, he’s been wandering alone below the big, pale moon. At night all the trees look the same.

Come to think of it, they’d probably look the same in daylight, too.

Minus the bear and the wound besides, this whole thing isn’t unusual for Kentarou. Although he’s joined his fair share of bands and caravans, his stints with them always ended prematurely. He’s got talented hands that can strum a lute at top speed, a brain that could hear a tune once and sing it back, and a knack for writing witty ditties. But he “could also stand to be a bit more deferential,” he’d overheard the flautist of his last troupe say, before he chugged his mug of ale, slammed it on the table, glared at the man roughly a dozen years his senior, and stomped out of their lives for good.

It’s a common story for him. He’s talented enough to join a group with a brief audition - and they’re always elated to have him - but eventually they do something or other to get on his nerves. Some were too invasive, always asking him sneaky questions about his life, his parentage, who he’d travelled with before. Others looked down on him, a half-feral bard in bland clothes, and wanted to curb his lack of manners and make him a perfect court musician, turn him into something he could never be. He’d run away from court before, after all, and he’d do it again.

On one memorable occasion, his party turned out to be a roving group of bandits, and he’d had to sneak away in the dead of night, holding his lute strings down so they wouldn’t make a noise.

Running away is in his blood. He’s used to it by now, the switch at night from noise to silence, the freedom to walk again at his own pace, the way he doesn’t have to force himself to change to fit in. It’s nice, even. It’s something like freedom.

It also absolutely sucks.

There’s no safety net. Just him, whatever rations he’s sorted out, and no one to keep watch when he wants to sleep at night. Only the hope that the next town is willing to support a solo bard, at least for a little while. No one there to warn him that this part of the forest was full of bears, or at least one large, hungry, angry bear.

He’s not even sure, at this point, where he came from or where he’s headed. For all he knows, he could be walking in circles. He’s a little lightheaded with hunger and thirst, and he’s sweating even though the night is still cool.

He presses on, He has to, because he’s the only one in his corner. That’s one thing that’s always been true, in every caravan or band he’s joined, even way back to his school days. Kentarou was, is, and will forever be the only person he can trust, so he’s gotta make it, survive till morning, find some water and food and freedom again.

And then - just as the night is finally giving way to dawn - he sees, just beyond the treeline, the shape of a large building. “Gotta be an inn,” he says or thinks to himself. He can’t be sure. His mind is fuzzy and dim at the edges, and it’s all he can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

An inn means safety. It means water, food, and maybe a nice, lively crowd to replenish his purse. If he makes it he wins; if he gets there, it means he can keep on living like this, running away and trying to make it on his own until he’s convinced, through hubris or something stronger, to join a group again.

He’s gotta make it. He’s reached the edge of the line of trees and the inn is beautifully backlit by the pinkening sky, the sunrise cresting over the horizon. Just a few steps further, even as his chest continues to ache and the wind stings his wounds.

Maybe he can see the back door of it open. Maybe he can make out the shape of some kind stranger at a window. He can’t be sure, because his vision flees from him before he falls and his mind goes blissfully, worryingly blank.

He doesn’t make it.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Shigeru doesn’t know what he expects when he sees a shadow wavering by the treeline behind his inn. Maybe a horse got loose or the old shed finally collapsed.

He’s definitely not expecting a half-naked blond with claw marks across his chest lying passing out in the middle of the field, but weirder things have happened. Oikawa lives in this town, after all.

When he slides his hand under the man to pick him up and bring him into the inn, he realizes that he’s denser than he looks and is suddenly grateful for all the strength he cultivated in his short life. Even with his eyes closed, the blond’s face coils with tension, and Shigeru doesn’t imagine the whimper he lets out as his body is moved.

Looking up at the sky just before he brings the stranger inside, he realizes that the full moon has completely set. There's only the faint remembrance of stars, and the fat sun on the horizon waiting to rise.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Kentarou comes back in stages. Three of them.

The first thing he’s aware of makes him wonder if he’s still dreaming. He can feel, beneath him, a bed softer than he's lain on in years. It’s almost as soft as the tiny bed he slept on at Oxenfurt when his parents shipped him off, after they got too tired of him acting out and wanted to make him someone else’s problem.

It's been a long time since he's missed those beds. Not since he slipped out of the dorms in the middle of a midsummer night, just on the cusp of his graduation exams, with no intention of looking back. In those first nights sleeping under the stars, using his stolen blanket as a makeshift sleeping mat, he’d thought fondly of the soft, featherdown mattresses and the way they cradled his back after long days of practice and studying. In those quiet, vulnerable moments, he wondered if the school might take him back. It would take him years before he realized he was better off this way, with all his hard-edges and bite.

The softness beneath him makes him wonder if he’s somehow gotten dragged back to Oxenfurt, and that sends him bolt upright, which leads him to the second sensation: a relentless, pulsing pain on his torso. When he runs his hand along his chest, pushing it in to try to make it stop, it only gets worse, and he can feel bandages. Fresh ones, nice and clean.

“What,” he mutters, or tries too, because this brings him to the third feeling, and finally full wakefulness. His throat is dry with dehydration and scratchy, like he hadn’t used it in a while, and it makes talking hurt too. There’s a window to his left, sunlight streaming in, and he tries to look at it, but when he turns his body hurts more and he winces.

“Don’t you feel silly?” a voice says, from the doorway he hadn’t noticed. Standing there, holding a tray with a mug and bowl, is...

Huh. It’s just some guy. Kentarou's never seen him before.

Behind him there’s the shadow of another man. Also a complete stranger, but he’s waving at him as the first man drops the tray on the table next to the bed. “Here,” he says, and the light catches some of the gold in his light brown hair, “drink this. You’ll feel better once you’ve had it.”

Kentarou tries to grab the cup, but the stretch makes the pain throb. The man is watching his face closely, and catches the slightest give in his expression. He sighs, grabs the cup and holds it to his lips.

Kentarou clamps his mouth shut. It’s a habit, unfortunately. A lesson learned the hard way. Always piss downstream. Don’t eat the red berries or mushrooms. Don’t take kindness from strangers.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,” the stranger mutters, as some of the water trickles stubbornly down the side of his face. “Drink, asshole, or else I’ll let Oikawa handle you alone.”

Oikawa? Kentarou wonders, and then the second man, wrapped in a horribly eye-searing red and blue shirt with yellow stitching across it, and holding a large bag, steps forward into the room. “Yahoo, little guy!” the man-who-must-be-Oikawa says.

Kentarou sputters. “Little guy,” he tries to say, and fails again, because the first man took advantage of his open mouth to tip the entire cup of water down his throat.

As he sits there, damp and coughing, but his long thirst finally, finally, quenched, he listens to them talk. “Hmm, Yahaba,” Oikawa says. “Maybe you should have been a little more gentle.”

Yahaba - still holding the cup - looks at Kentarou. “Maybe,” he says, but he doesn’t look sorry at all.

Later - after he finishes coughing and Yahaba throws a towel at him to cover the damp spot he left on the side of the mattress - the dynamic duo of his nightmares fills him in on what he’s missed since he’s been out.

It’s not much, in the big scheme of things.

Oikawa - who reeks of magic, and must be a witch, but Yahaba introduces him as a doctor and Kentarou isn’t ready to dispute it - opens up his bandages and explains the wound, the care he needs. “You’ve been asleep for about three days. You’re lucky Yahaba found you when he did, because any longer and you might have been a goner! It’ll take a few more weeks for the wound to heal,” he adds, rewrapping it with a poultice that smelled like sweet herbs and sugar.

“What do I do in the meantime?” Kentarou asks, because he doesn’t have a place to stay, doesn’t have a change of clothes - he’s still shirtless, even in bed - and doesn’t have his lute, his single source of income.

“Hmm,” Oikawa says, stepping back and letting his eyes go wide like he’s really thinking about it. “Absolutely nothing,” he says, definitively. “Doctor’s orders. You’re banned from doing anything until you heal!” He finishes by pointing a finger at him, his long arm stretching out.

Kentarou bites at him, but Oikawa retracts his hand quickly and plants it against his heart. “How could you!” he’s openly pouting. “Bad dog! Mad dog!”

If he looked to the side, he’d see Yahaba stifling a laugh, but instead his eyes are trained on the witch doctor. He’s a wall; the only thing standing between Kentarou and freedom, a man forcing him to rely on the kindness of strangers when the only thing strangers have done to Kentarou is disappoint him.

He snarls, Oikawa squawks, and Yahaba takes the opportunity to push him out. “Thank you for the supplies, I've got him from here, you can visit again in a few days,” he calls, before shutting the door behind him.

Then he turns to Kentarou. “He’s right, you know. You had a pretty bad wound. You really need to rest.” His face plays at earnestness, something like a soft smile crossing it, like he’s trying really hard to be kind, gracious, everything a welcoming innkeeper should be.

It makes Kentarou roll his eyes, and he’s delighted when Yahaba glares at him. “I’ll rest over my dead body,” he says, crossing his arms even though it hurts.

Yahaba sighs. “That’s the point, dimwit.” He comes toward the bed again, sits on the edge of it and grabs the bowl and a wooden spoon. Kentarou had forgotten it was there. “Look, eat something.”

Stubbornly, Kentarou presses his lips shut again, and watches Yahaba’s brow twitch, like there’s something inside him trying to escape. “Give it here,” he manages to say without moving his lips too much. “C’n do it myself.”

But when he reaches out his arms, he winces again because the stretch sends the pain rearing through his whole body, radiating out from the wound, up his spine and to the base of his neck. He lurches over, his whole torso coiled with pain, pressing his hands against the freshly wrapped wound to get some heat on it, some relief, anything. Distantly, he hears a clatter, and feels a warm hand on his shoulder.

“Look,” Yahaba says, voice stern and forceful in a way that it hasn’t been before. “I can tell you’re a bit of an asshole, but a wound like this isn’t something you can heal by yourself. If I left you on your own you’d be dead on my back lawn by now, and you’d be an ugly ghost haunting my inn. So be glad some people in this world know what it means to be kind and helpful, because otherwise you’d be dirt.”

Something about his starkness cuts him to the quick; it hadn’t hit Kentarou how close he’d been to dying, so dehydrated and lost in the forest, and it’s grounding, more than anything else, to have someone admit to it cleanly. He’s not sure if Yahaba’s really kind like he says he is, with the way he let him choke on water, but he’s glad he’s not putting on airs anymore. There is one thing, though.

Kentarou slowly eases himself up, turns his head to the man. “Did you really have to call me ugly-” Yahaba cuts him off by shoving a spoonful of soup in his mouth.

“Surprise,” he says, flatly, the spoon still between Kentarou’s lips. He swallows it down. It’s shockingly good. “Want some more?”

And Kentarou could keep running - refuse food, sneak out of his bed once Yahaba leaves, try to find his old camp and salvage his lute, heal naturally and painfully over the course of months - or he could enjoy this while it lasts.

So instead of fleeing, he leans back in his bed, opens his mouth wide, and nods at the bowl.

“Jackass,” Yahaba says, but they finish anyway.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Later that day, after Yahaba left to “attend to the rest of the inn, you’re not my only resident, Mad Dog,” Kentarou’s left on his own for a few blissful, peaceful hours.

He should spend it trying to figure out how to pay Yahaba back for his hospitality, grudging and heavy-handed as it is. Instead, he sleeps, exhausted by eating and drinking and talking and the faint aura of magic wafting off of Oikawa. There must be some magic in whatever’s healing him, too, because it drains him. He’s always been a little more sensitive to magic than most.

A knock on the door rouses him, and even though he feels like it’s only been minutes he must have slept for hours, based on the position of the sun outside. “It’s me,” Yahaba says. “I’ve got a visitor.”

Kentarou hisses, and Yahaba rolls his eyes. “It’s not Oikawa,” he says, and there’s a sharp bark of laughter behind him that raises the hackles on the back of Kentarou’s neck. As Yahaba walks into the room, he’s followed by a shorter man with huge arms, a strong core, a short and scraggly haircut, and a single scar across one of his brows. He’s got something that looks vaguely familiar hefted over his shoulder. “This is Iwaizumi. He’s a hunter, and he found something in the forest while he was scouting - “

“My lute!” Kentarou interrupts, finally clocking the familiar shape and carrying case. Iwaizumi grins, and removes the lute and his entire pack - bedroll and all - from his shoulder effortlessly. Kentarou wishes he were strong enough to do that; he still falters a little when picking it up or placing it down.

Probably worse, now, given the wound.

“This yours, then?” Iwaizumi asks, but barrels on without waiting for an answer. “It’ll be nice to hear you play when you’re well. We haven’t had a bard pass through in months.”

“Quiet town,” Yahaba adds. Kentarou’s already sitting up, suppressing pain so he doesn’t look weak in front of this strong stranger.

“I can play for you now,” he says, voice still a little gruff with disuse and sleep, and Yahaba pointedly refills his cup with a flagon of water he didn’t notice he was carrying.

Iwaizumi crosses his arms and shakes his head. “Nope,” he says. “Only when you’re healed. Doctor’s orders.”

And Kentarou wants to complain and protest, but Yahaba, sensing a fight, coughs into his hand and mutters, sotto voce, “He and Oikawa go way back.” So Kentarou wilts back onto the pillows.

“Fine,” he huffs. “But I’ll play for you one day!” His honor rests on it, or something. Maybe his pride, and he thinks Iwaizumi senses that, because the man smiles.

“I’ll hold you to it then, Mad Dog” he says, and salutes them both before backing out of the room.

Kentarou watches the door close, and hears Yahaba rustling beside him. When he turns, he’s handed a cup of water. “Can I trust you with this?” Yahaba asks, and he nods in return.

As he drinks, Yahaba looks him up and down. “Are you really going to listen to Iwaizumi?” Rolling his eyes, Kentarou shrugs. “I’ll take that as a yes, then. He’s not even a doctor, no matter how long he’s known Oikawa.” He pauses for a minute and replays the day in his head. “He told you the exact same thing Oikawa did!”

There’s something kind of funny in the way passion rises in Yahaba. Or maybe what’s funny is what triggers it; it’s not the fact that Kentarou is reckless, and lacks any sense of self-preservation. It’s not the suggestion that he’d waste whatever help Yahaba and Oikawa have already given him.

No, it’s the slightest indication of disrespect against Oikawa, and maybe Iwaizumi too; it’s good to know, and it’s fun to see Yahaba like this. So maybe he fans the flames, just a little.

“He said it differently,” Kentarou insists, staring up at Yahaba with his narrow, stoic eyes.

“No he didn’t! He said the exact same thing!” and Kentarou can’t laugh without it hurting, but he can smile, just a bit.

They wait in silence for a while, Kentarou slowly sipping at the water, Yahaba simmering down, when something comes to mind. “Hey, Yahaba? Why do people keep calling me Mad Dog?”

The look on his face hits Kentarou like a physical blow. “You’ve been asleep for days, dude. No one knows your name.”

Oh, he thinks. Makes sense. “You can call me Kyoutani,” he offers. “Kyoutani Kentarou.”

Yahaba looks at him for a long, cool, considering moment. “Call, huh? The fairies get you?” Kentarou looks down at his feet below the blanket - light for summer, but still thick enough to make him feel secure, tucked in. “I’m Yahaba Shigeru, then. At your service.”

When Kentarou sleeps that night, wound a little less painful and throat a little less dry, he dreams of music.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Shigeru has been fighting off the townsfolk with a stick.

“Ahem,” Watari, who bakes bread in the kitchens attached to the inn and is as trapped in this building as he is, coughs.

Fine. Watari is beating them off with a stick, because Shigeru can’t afford to lock the doors.

No one really comes here for the inn, after all. It’s a quiet little village in a spread out network on this corner of the continent. It’s the bar and food and bread that keep them going, all with a dollop of good company, courtesy Shigeru - shut up, Watari. They get visitors every so often, trading food or selling goods, but it’s always the same, few, familiar faces. No one interesting, really.

No bards in a long while.

And Kyoutani, for all he was a half-dead lump for his first few days in the village, was the most interesting thing to cross their path in ages.

There’s no real way to keep a secret in this village, especially not when he needed to call Oikawa to help with the wound on the stranger, when Oikawa is both the source of gossip and the one that spreads it among their neighbors. As grateful as he is for Oikawa’s aid, he could do with a little more peace and quiet while Kyoutani healed in one of his little used backrooms.

What he has instead are -

“Oh come on, are you really going to keep him all to yourself?” Matsukawa asks over his bread and cheese.

“Yeah,” Hanamaki joins in, sipping at his drink. “Iwaizumi got to see him! Oikawa got to see him! How is that fair?”

“Oikawa and Iwaizumi,” Shigeru says, pausing while sweeping some of the grit out the door and checking to see if anyone else was in earshot, “helped him. You two are a public nuisance and would set his health back.”

“We’re not a nuisance,” Hanamaki whines, while Matsukawa turns his narrow, searching gaze toward Yahaba.

“Why do you wanna keep him to yourself so bad?” he asks, biting into his cheese. “Is he handsome? Hideous? A monster?”

“Could be a prince,” Hanamaki says. “Or a princess, I don’t think Yahaba’s got a type. Maybe he doesn’t exist, and this is all a ruse.”

“You think Iwaizumi’d get involved in something like this?”

Hanamaki shrugs. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Can you two be quiet? It’s none of that,” Shigeru insists, and Hanamaki’s eyes light up, as if he’d said exactly what the layabout was waiting for.

“So it’s something then?” he says, resting his elbow on the counter and his head in his hand, blinking up at Shigeru. “There’s a reason you’re keeping him secret?”

Shigeru wonders about that. He’s not too sure why he’s kept Kyoutani hidden these last few days. Matsukawa and Hanamaki travel more than anyone else in the village; had he been someone from a neighboring town, they’d surely recognize him, even in his sleep.

But there was something nice about having a secret here. In this village they all lived out of each other’s pockets; had to, in order to survive a world where monsters lurked in the woods just waiting to steal your sheep or your children, and mysterious illnesses could take root in the well overnight. You don’t keep a secret long if you know what’s good for you.

But Kyoutani - for however much he bites while awake, really earning that nickname - looked soft in sleep, even when his expression was contorted with pain. His hair was funny and interesting and unique - blond, with patterns in it - and soft, when Yahaba rinsed away some of the grime. He seems strong, even though he’s shorter, and even though he’s a bard. Shigeru always thought them soft, but Kyoutani has something hard about him. Something sharp in his edges, wild and untamed.

Maybe something monstrous, like Matsukawa suggested. Or maybe something more human, meant for a world beyond their town’s gates.

Whatever it was, Shigeru couldn’t help but admit that he was interesting. The curiosity of the rest of the village was understandable, but couldn’t he keep this one thing - person - to himself, just for a little longer?

And now that he’s awake, maybe Shigeru wants to dull the edges of the knife of him, just a little bit, before he pisses everyone off while he still needs to heal. Kyoutani is abrasive, a little uncouth, a disquieting presence in the halls of the inn. But he’s unique, and a bit silly, even if his immediate distrust of Oikawa and mirrored admiration for Iwaizumi is baffling.

(And maybe Shigeru can admit he’s handso-)

“Oh!” Matsukawa says, interrupting his thoughts. The duo are staring at him, and even Watari pokes his head out from the kitchen. How long has he been standing there? “I’ve got it!” But he doesn’t say anything more.

Hanamaki nudges his shoulder. “Do you wanna share with the rest of us, Mattsun?”

Matsukawa shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “What kind of a story would it be if I gave it all away now?”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

After a week of being bedridden, his lute held out of his reach, and meals carried to his bedside, Kentarou knows one thing for sure.

He is not made to be still.

There’s a whole wide world around them, pulsing with stories and vibrant with song, and he’s sitting in a bed, coddled and mothered by a strange innkeeper and some of the other misfits from around the village.

At this point, he’d take anything, and that’s why he’s resorted to begging Yahaba.

“Begging? Really, I wouldn’t call this begging.”

Saying please, then.

“Oh, being polite? Well that’ll get you somewhere, I guess.”

That’s how the two of them walk the furthest Kentarou’s traveled in a week - just outside, just against the stairs that lead to the back entrance of the inn near where Yahaba found him, a clearing edging the forest - to sit in the starlight and eat sweet, summer fruits.

“See that?” Yahaba says, pointing at a rock sticking right out of the ground. It’s big, like a marker. He nods. “That’s where I found you.”

Kentarou’s surprised and wary. “Really?” he asks, but Yahaba’s already snorting.

“No, that’s where I bury my winter pickles.” Kentarou rolls his eyes, punches Yahaba gently in the shoulder. “No fair when I can’t do that too.”

“I could take you,” Kentarou says immediately, snapping at him - but the sudden movement reminds him of the pain, and he sighs. “In a week, probably.”

“I’ll say a month to give you a fighting chance.”

“That gives you enough time to bulk up, then.”

Yahaba laughs, and they finish their fruit. Neither of them move - Kentarou because, even though he’s loath to admit it, it still hurts a little, but he can’t fathom why Yahaba doesn’t, not when he has a whole bar to run.

Oikawa was right, he thinks, aimlessly rubbing against the bandages still on his stomach, it’s gonna take a while to heal.

“So,” Yahaba starts, after they’ve watched the stars twinkle and the wind rustle the leaves for a while. “How do you expect to pay me back for all this, if it’ll take you a month to get into fighting shape?”

“A week,” Kentarou says, absently, but he’s been thinking about it. Still, he can’t help but try. “You look like one of those guys who’d help someone out of the kindness of their heart.”

To his credit, Yahaba gives him a full ten seconds of silent consideration before laughing. “Sure, sure,” he says, looking away, but Kentarou feels like the lightest touch of panic, so he starts speaking without thinking. He can’t accept that someone might help him just for the sake of helping, or that survival in this world means working together.

“I’ve got some coin saved up in the meantime,” he starts, and Yahaba raises an eyebrow. “And I can definitely start helping you out around here once I’m well. But don’t even think about bleeding me dry, because I’ll take my leave without looking back. I’ve survived worse-” he’s cut off by a soft, yet firm prod against his wound, and winces.

“I don’t want you to die when I’ve already put so much work in you,” he says. “Face it, Mad Dog, you’re an investment, and you’re stuck with us now.”

Even though it should make Kentarou want to shrink into himself, he smiles just a little bit. He’s been part of groups before, had so many broken promises and near-misses, but something about this village - maybe the stars, or Watari’s bread, but his money’s on whatever Oikawa’s put in his healing salve - makes him almost want to consider sticking around.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Healing is a process; that’s what Kentarou learns, at least, and it’s what Oikawa grits out from between his teeth at every check-up. They started off on the wrong foot and have been stumbling around ever since, while Yahaba stands near the doorway of the room that’s become Kentarou’s to ‘supervise.’

Watari tells Kentarou it’s “free entertainment.”

Most days, it goes like this.

“No,” Oikawa says, the moment he walks into the room, Yahaba at his heels. “Immediately, no.”

“I didn’t even do anything!” he protests, loosening the ties on his shirt. Oikawa heads to him and pushes him onto the bed before opening the bag he carries, the one that seems to hold more than it could possibly fit.

“You were thinking about it, though,” Oikawa says as he examines his healing. “Our little Mad Dog wants to do something risky,” his voice goes sing-song at the end, and Kentarou swears Yahaba snorts. But when he looks up, his face is blank and empty, like a cliffside. Intimidating for its promise.

“Iwaizumi promised me he’d wrestle when I’m better,” Kentarou admits, and he can feel his cheeks warm.

“That means,” Yahaba says, crossing the room to sit in the chair by his bedside, “that he’s actually going to focus on getting better, instead of trying to force himself to heal faster.”

Kentarou huffs, but Yahaba’s not wrong. Watari’s taken to barricading his door shut just before dawn when he wakes up to keep him from sneaking out and helping him heft bags of grain, while Yahaba glares at him through the window whenever he notices that he’s up and pacing. He’s never successfully gotten outside without one of the two intervening, but Yahaba’s allowed him to hang out in the tavern area of the inn to curb the behavior. When he does, there’s any number of townsfolk keeping him occupied and busy with chatter, even when he’d rather hunch over a bowl of soup or sit quietly by the fire. It’s a little suffocating, and he knows he’s getting babysat, and he always thinks he could make it out the door before anyone notices. Despite it all, he stays plopped in whatever seat he chooses that morning, gets up occasionally to stretch and eat, and gets to know the people around him.

Matsukawa, for example, stares at him, examining the lines and wrinkles in his face, throwing out names and titles of distant, far-flung families because “There’s no way you sprouted out of nothing. Bone structure like that doesn’t pop out of nowhere.” He’s often simultaneously hassled by Hanamaki, bearing some mix of berries and mushrooms he’s foraged, claiming they’ll help him heal faster.

Oikawa has banned him from eating anything the man offers, and it’s the only time Kentarou’s easily and willingly agreed with his advice.

There are these two guys, too, a little younger than him - Watari calls them Kunimi and Kindaichi, but Kentarou cannot remember which is which - who keep an eye on him whenever the other two are travelling. They don’t really ask him questions, just sit there, which is eerie enough that it makes Kentarou blurt out stories to fill the silence. The one with taller hair will indulge him, ask about travelling and songs, but the other one - whose fingers are calloused in a way that’s familiar to him - will stay quiet.

It’s mind-numbing, but cozy too. A nice rest after he’s spent years travelling, fleeing, bouncing from group to group and town to town. Maybe it’s making him a little stir-crazy.

But a wrestling match with Iwaizumi? That’s enough to make him wait.

Oikawa narrows his eyes at him suspiciously, leaning back. “You’re… listening to Iwa-chan?” he asks. Turning to Yahaba, he adds “Has that been the secret this whole time, Yahaba? Just get Iwa-chan to say it?”

Yahaba nods. “He listens to one man in this village and it’s not the guy housing him, go figure.”

“Hey,” Kentarou cuts in. He hates when people talk like he’s not there. “I listen to you sometimes.” And it’s true - he sits back in his bed whenever Yahaba hits him with a particularly cutting glare, drinks his water calmly and carefully, and continues to let the other man change his bandages, even when Kentarou protested that he was well enough to do it on his own.

“It’s okay,” Yahaba had said, the first and only time he offered. “I’ve got this. Don’t want you rushing and having to stay here longer.”

Something about that made Kentarou warm, but he didn’t want to look too closely at it.

Sighing, Oikawa turns back to him. “Well, at least you’re taking my good advice, even if it’s by proxy. And all signs show you’re well enough for some activity. Light activity,” he adds, when Kentarou’s eyes alight in joy. “You can’t lift anything heavier than a bushel and you’re not allowed to run, but you can walk around and make yourself a little useful to Yahaba in the meantime.”

“Really?” Yahaba asks, interested. “You’re allowing this?”

Oikawa nods. “He’s at the point where moving can only help him. Remind the body what it’s supposed to be doing. Do you understand, Mad Dog? ...Mad Dog?”

Kentarou’s lost the stream of the conversation, because he’s staring at something in a corner of the room, untouched in weeks and covered in the lightest layer of dust. “Hey Oikawa,” he asks, even though his mind is in a faraway place, dreaming of song. “Is a lute heavier than a bushel?”

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

He’s a little out of practice, but music is like a muscle and it’s something he’s worked on since before he could talk. There are moon-shaped carvings along the neck of his lute - the different phases of it embedded in the rosewood - and the body has telltale scratches from his pick and fingers. A sign of love, use, and care. He brushes away dust and tightens the strings before strumming it for the first time in nearly a month. “I thought the bear might have smashed it,” he admits to Yahaba, once Oikawa’s left.

Yahaba snorts. “Bears don’t go after things that have value, dumbass. They just want food.” But he stays in the room for a while and listens to Kentarou start up again, anyway. To the hesitant plucking of strings giving way to more confident lines of melody, the ones his fingers remember, the songs burned into his mind.

Within a day, he’s back at it, dragging his lute into the main room of the tavern and noodling patterns on the strings, or strumming during quiet moments, just to inject the room with energy. Soon enough, the townsfolk are visiting the tavern at night to listen to him, dance along to the music he plays and hear the stories he tells through song - the ones from those far-off places Matsukawa somehow knows about.

That’s what music’s for - to help stories travel, to keep the memory of strong women and loving men alive, to warn of dangers and risks of war, to share a touch of the wider world with people in a warm tavern, with food in their bellies and hope in their hearts.

Or something like that, at least. Kentarou likes playing fast songs for people to dance to most of all.

The townsfolk pay him in coin for his songs, and he hands it over to Yahaba, who splits the fee in half and hands it back. “You’ve got a mighty debt to repay,” he says, “but I’m not going to leave you starving when you’re done.”

Hanamaki slips him extra coin to turn some of his embarrassing stories about Matsukawa into songs, and Kentarou’s willing to take on anything if it means getting one over on the man and his massive eyebrows. And one day, while helping him sift through grain, he learns Watari is something like a poet.

“It’s nothing much,” he shrugs, before reciting something beautiful that would make the teachers at Oxenfurt weep. Kentarou commits it to memory and vows to put it to music.

But keeping secrets like that requires space, and quiet, and privacy, and a little bit of time. He gets none of that at the inn. He decides to take his notes and his lute out to the forest to practice; as long as he doesn’t let it get too dark, he can easily find his way back to the village. Even at night he thinks he might be able to navigate back by the smoke coming from the chimney of the inn. He’s becoming familiar with this place now.

The first day he does this, it’s a full moon. He gets back later than expected, but he thinks he’s found a melody for Watari’s poem and a chorus for Hanamaki.

The next morning, all the village can talk about are the chickens missing from Kindaichi’s coop.

“Where were you last night?” Yahaba grills him while they’re hauling trash to the heap. “Did you hear anything?”

“Just out,” Kentarou mutters, and Yahaba hums. “I was on the other side of the village though, and didn’t hear a thing. ...Shame about the chickens.”

“Yeah, it’s a bummer. Kindaichi raises the best eggs. He won’t tell anyone how. Luckily he can always get more hens, but it might take a while.”

It keeps happening, though. Whenever Kentarou returns from practice - or even sometimes when he wakes up in the morning after a long night in the tavern - there’s another story. A few mysterious scratches on a tree by Matsukawa’s shack, a howl in the moonlight that Kunimi swears, up and down, he heard. A few dead squirrels that Oikawa stumbles upon one morning.

Once, they get a messenger from a neighboring village - a tall, broad man with blond and black hair like Kentarou - who tells them about the rabbits his friend keeps and how they’ve been going missing at night.

“Oh hey!” he says, noticing Kentarou sitting in the corner with his lute. “Are you a bard? We don’t see those often! Play me a song?”

Matsukawa looks between the two of them. ‘Are you related?’ he mouths, and Kentarou growls at him. “Interesting,” he says.

---

Shigeru’s not a fool. He knows Kyoutani’s keeping secrets.

He just wishes he knew what they were.

Now that the not-quite-a-stranger-anymore has been given the all-clear by Oikawa to keep active, Shigeru hasn’t had to keep quite as close an eye on him. It’s been a blessing and a curse.

The rest of the village is overjoyed they’ve got a bard now, and have been filling the tavern night after night. Kyoutani doesn’t realize this, but the inn’s started getting more guests - travellers from neighboring villages who want to hear music and song. With the increased traffic alone, he’s more than repaid any debt he owes to Shigeru, who keeps the coin Kyoutani dutifully gives him in a separate pouch for when he, inevitably, leaves.

But then that full moon, and Kindachi’s missing chickens, and the dog. It’s all a little uncanny. He remembers the night - or morning, rather - that he’d found Kyoutani. It had been the full moon, and for him to disappear again?

And for strange happenings to occur every time he’s out of the inn for more than a few hours? The shape of it is forming into something Shigeru doesn’t want to admit is plausible, but he’s worried. The village loves him, Watari’s opened up to him, he’s somehow cowed Matsukawa - and even though he’s still clearly a little antsy around Oikawa, he respects Iwaizumi enough to keep it to himself. Shigeru doesn’t want them to be disappointed.

So he resolves not to think about it, and focuses on other things, like the way Kyoutani’s voice and lute fill the inn during the evenings as the music resounds through his chest. The way he lets himself smile a little when one of the kids compliments him as they walk through town. How starlight plays in his hair when they sit together on the back steps.

The dog that arrives at his backdoor almost every time Kyoutani leaves to go gods-know-where.

He’s golden all over, except for little black markings near his eyes. He’s definitely still a puppy, but one still high energy, and strong to boot, because when he first sees Shigeru he barrels him over, knocking him to the ground to lick and kiss his face.

His arms are covered in bites from sharp little puppy teeth. When he notices Kyoutani squinting down at them, he rolls his sleeves to his wrist, and smirks.

If he squints, maybe the dog looks familiar. Maybe.

---

Fall is breaking, and a full moon is just a few days away when Kentarou gets the all-clear from Oikawa.

“No wrestling!” he says, like he’s expecting Kentarou to run straight to Iwaizumi and challenge him in the middle of the town square. “But you can travel a little bit, if you’d like. You don’t need bandages anymore, but the skin and muscle are still going to be a little tender. Have Yahaba help you rub in this salve,” he winks in the other man’s direction while handing over a small, clay pot.

“Can’t I just do that on my own?” Kentarou protests, and absolutely doesn’t wilt under Oikawa’s glare. He’s not going to cave.

“Frankly? I don’t trust you to remember to do it on your own.” He winks at Yahaba again, who looks baffled. “Just apply it once a day, but that’s more than enough time to get to another village and back, if you’d want to.”

“Why would I want to?”

Oikawa shrugs. “More songs, more money. New audiences. See the world, a little.” He’s very pushy about it, and even Yahaba looks confused. “Now, it’s time for me to go! But if you even think about applying it by yourself, I’ll get Iwa-chan to yell at you!”

He swiftly alights from the room, and Kentarou looks at Yahaba. “Look,” he says, “you don’t have to-”

“What Oikawa says goes,” Yahaba cuts in, flushing a bit. “Doctor’s orders.”

---

Kentarou’s ears are better than people expect - which is weird, he’s a bard after all - so he overhears a lot of things.

He hears Kindaichi and Kunimi talking about some guy a few towns over they used to know who disappeared years ago; catches Watari softly trying out different lines for a poem he’s writing; listens in on Matsukawa and Hanamaki's increasingly nonsensical flirting.

Most importantly, he can hear Iwaizumi and Oikawa when they're whispering one morning near the fountain. He's heading to pick up something from the butcher for Yahaba when he notices the two standing awfully close together, heads bent towards one another.

Neither of them are particularly good at whispering, but neither of them seem to have noticed Kentarou either; he's got quiet feet, well-honed from sneaking out of camps and beds in the dead of night.

"The situation's getting dire," Iwaizumi says. "We might need a Witcher." He doesn't seem pleased to admit it, and Oikawa's body language goes tight with anger.

"Don't say that. We can take care of it ourselves. It's not bad enough to call for one yet."

Kindaichi lost more chickens a few days ago; they must be talking about it.

"If it gets any bigger we're calling one." Iwaizumi seems to end the conversation there. He's starting to turn around, so Kentarou adds some weight to his steps, and nods at the duo when they notice him before scurrying off to the butcher.

A Witcher, huh? He's never run into one before.

---

Yahaba’s been asking him weird questions - about his diet, about his sleep, about where he goes - and even though his answers are normal - chicken, could be better, the forest - he always purses his lips and hums, a little uneasy.

It's disconcerting, so Kentarou focuses on his song for Watari instead. The one he composed for Hanamaki was a hit in their network of villages - for everyone except Matsukawa, of course, who wasn’t too keen on being the butt of this joke - and he's hoping that this one, at least, Watari enjoys. Maybe Yahaba too.

With Oikawa’s clearance, he's been travelling more. Just short overnights along the paths connecting the villages, leaving just before sunset and returning just after dawn. He meets the messenger - the one Matsukawa thought was related to him - again, and a lot of interesting people besides, and brings back more stories and news and songs and inspiration to Yahaba’s village.

It's slowly becoming something like a home to him. The realization strikes hard as he's sitting up in his bed, letting Yahaba apply the balm to his stomach.

His friend - because Kentarou can say that now, call them friends - has warm hands. They’re warm enough that it melts a little on his fingers. It smells like lemongrass and mint and something medicinal and secret; the first touch to his skin always tingles, like a spark jumps from Yahaba’s hands to the tender flesh of his scar.

In that moment, the world narrows to the point where he's touching him. Kentarou’s mind is on the burn of Yahaba’s fingers, how it almost tickles, how he wants him to press deeper and deeper and -

And then cold rockets through the balm and around Kentarou’s stomach, because Oikawa’s magic finally kicked in. "Do you feel it too?" Kentarou'd asked once.

"No," Yahaba had said. "Oikawa does fine work."

As he continues massaging the salve into Kentarou’s skin, rubbing in tight circles around the angry, pink scars that will live on his stomach forever, Kentarou focuses on how warm his hands are. It’s his only reprieve from the peculiar, magical chill, the way Yahaba's hands feel like the fire; like hearth and home.

It's funny. Kentarou hasn't thought of anything as home in years. It's been a long time since he's sought out protection, or relief, in the hands of someone else and trusted it. He's always felt the need to rely on himself and be ready to run when the world asks too much of him. Always felt restless.

But, sitting on the bed in Yahaba's inn, having been in the man's care for months now, embedding himself into the ebb and flow of the village and their lives here, Kentarou finds himself, for the first time, able to breathe. He can come undone in this place, release the tight coil of his heart, body, and mind, and relax, blanketed in safety.

And to feel, in that gentle pressure, the touch of fire against his stomach, something like home, day after day? That’s a luxury Kentarou’s never had; it’s something he wants to make familiar.

---

Kentarou accidentally debuts his song for Watari on a night the tavern is uncommonly full. There are strangers spread around, people he half-recognizes from his visits to the other villages, who offer him ale and promise to buy him a plate and wink at him, too.

“What’s with the crowd?” he mutters to Yahaba when he sidles up to the counter. The man is busy, but pauses in his work to talk and pour him a drink. Kentarou warms from his attention.

Hanamaki cuts in before Yahaba has a chance to answer, though. “Word’s got round that we have a handsome young bard in our midst,” he smirks over his mug, and Kentarou stares at him, flatly, because he can’t tell if he’s mocking him or not. There’s a lightness to his tone that makes him hard to believe or trust, but it hasn’t bothered him until now.

Yahaba sighs. “Oikawa does these open houses sometimes,” he explains, with a mix of admiration and frustration. “He gives demonstrations of his work, but most people attend because he’s, well, Oikawa.”

“Huh,” is the only thing Kentarou can contribute. He doesn’t get it.

“I know you don’t get it,” Yahaba says, “but a lot of people like him. They really like him.” He nods toward the center of the room where Oikawa’s holding court in a golden vest that shines in the lamplight, as if that explains everything.

Oh. Now that Kentarou’s looking, he can see everyone in the crowd tonight looks a little flashier, a little prettier and handsomer. He can see rouge applied to cheeks, pierced ears and shiny jewelry and fine, embroidered jackets, and - “Hey, Yahaba, I think that guy’s got a sword.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Watari says, abandoning the stove he was tending, already jumping the counter and heading toward the man in question.

“The demonstration is tomorrow morning, right at the crack of dawn,” Yahaba explains as they watch Watari quietly and quickly dispatch the man of his weapon. “So everyone has to stay overnight in the inn. But Oikawa’s always here the night before, and they want to get his attention, so…”

So they dress up, look nice, and hopefully tip well. Kentarou shrugs. He’s dealt with distracted audiences before. “Hope Oikawa doesn’t get too mad when I steal his crowd,” he says.

Yahaba laughs and it sounds like a miracle. “Somehow,” he gets out, as Kentarou unstraps his lute from his case, “I don’t think he’ll mind.” He nods at Iwaizumi, sitting in a quiet corner, eyes locked on Oikawa.

“I’ve got it,” Kentarou grunts, and heads for his usual spot by the fire. The tavern’s a little too crowded for dancing tonight, and there are enough plates and cutlery out that he doesn’t want to risk anyone standing on the tabletops, so he’s got a long night of singing ahead of him.

It’s been a while since he’s played for a crowd this large and unprepared for him, but just like strumming is a muscle, so is the art of a performance. And he’s got it easier than other shows he’s given - the ones where he wanders into an unfamiliar town and has to gauge the waters quickly, lest he get chased out immediately - because he’s got fans and friends dotted throughout the crowd. There are familiar faces who have also come for Oikawa’s demonstration, presumably - and he’s glad to see that none of them are dressed more or less ostentatiously than usual - and his friends in the village, too, are all there.

If you can get one, you can get them all. When Kentarou was young, his dad let him stay up late and accompany him to court. He was wearing new, uncomfortable clothes - the golden thread embroidered throughout scratched him - and his mom had worried about the dark circles around his eyes. It was boring, his brief visit into this world of adults who spent so much time standing around talking and not enough time playing, until a sharp drumbeat split the air.

The room had quieted down, just a little. Just enough for a man to reveal himself at the center, standing tall with a lute in his hands. He’d made the sound with just the body of it, one hand hitting the wood. And when he railed one strong, nimble hand down on the strings, letting the sweet music fly free, it captivated Kentarou. His eyes locked onto the man and wouldn’t let go all night, even as the adults around him went from talking to listening to dancing, as people joined in with songs of their own and a woman used an empty flagon as a makeshift drum.

Later that night, he had cornered the man and asked a single question.

“How?” he’d demanded, wide eyed and wondrous, and the man smiled down at him and gave him that single piece of advice. Something that wouldn’t come in handy for years until he tried to perform for the first time after leaving Oxenfurt and almost froze in front of the crowd of the tavern.

He had taken a deep breath and focused all of his attention on someone in the crowd - to this day, he can’t remember anything about that stranger - and sang directly to them, until his energy ran into that person and split out from the node of them, infecting the rest of the crowd with song.

Maybe home is where people are already paying attention to you, where they care about your song and your music and your stories, and where you can trust that they’ll always be there to listen.

Whatever it is, he starts off with a perennial favorite, and the crowd becomes his by the second chorus. Their energy is like fire in his veins.

What really brings him to life is when he sings Matsukawa’s song and sees him roll his eyes at his table and smile anyway. And when he drifts into the one he’d overheard Kunimi softly admit was his favorite, and watches his face alight with surprise before he settles back into his chair and raises his mug. Everytime he notices Yahaba nodding along to a song, or tapping out a beat on the counter, or mouthing along to a particular chorus, it breathes air back into his lungs.

It’s with a heart full of joy, one that feels light and settled, that he segues into the song for Watari. He gives it no vocal introduction, just a light instrumental riff before breaking into the lyrics that sparks immediate recognition in Watari. He can tell by the sharp intake of breath, something like a gasp, and the soft smile on his face; galvanized, he rolls through the rest of the song easily.

Just a bard’s way to thank one of the people who’ve made him feel welcome in this small village. He’s still trying to work out a way to thank Yahaba.

Yahaba, who, he notices, doesn’t make eye contact with him for the rest of the night. Doesn’t tap along to the music, or nod his head, or mouth the words.

Who focuses instead on the pretty girls and handsome boys who step up to the counter, now that Oikawa and Iwaizumi have left for the evening.

Who doesn’t even say goodnight to Kentarou when he heads to bed, with numb fingers and a cup full of honey for his overworked throat. He’s turned away from him, having ignored him for half the night, and doesn’t even have the bravery to meet his eyes.

That night, Kentarou stares at himself in the mirror for what feels like hours, wondering if his mom was right to worry about the harsh lines around his eyes, or the wrinkles from his frown. Wonders if maybe this is the last time he could bring himself to feel unwanted, because he’s let this village worm its way so deep into his heart that losing them would make him the emptiest he’s ever been. He’s not sure what he’s done to earn the sting of Yahaba’s disregard, but he knows he’s a coward who doesn’t have the strength to try to earn it back.

Three days later, a whole cow goes missing during the night of a full moon. Kentarou’s out until late in the evening.

---

Shigeru doesn’t get why Kentarou’s song for Watari hurt him so much. It sent his heart aching with something like jealousy - why does Watari get a whole song, why not him? - and he knows he was petty in return, ignoring the other man for the rest of the evening and flirting with girls and boys from other villages. They spilled more coin than he expected, but things with Kentarou have been tense and quiet ever since. He’s pretty sure the pain is nothing compared to the wound Oikawa’s nursing from the dog that still comes around only when Kentarou’s out.

(He also doesn’t know when he started thinking about him with his first name, but that’s a problem for another day.)

“You really shouldn’t have provoked him,” Yahaba says, rinsing away the blood and spit. “It’s not that bad, though. You should be fine.” The dog is lying down nearby, his head in his paws, looking contrite.

“Which one of us is the doctor here?” Oikawa pouts. “Bad dog! Mad dog! Hmm, wait.” He squints at the dog, who perks up from the extra attention, but a glare from Yahaba cows him and keeps him still. “This might sound weird, but doesn’t he look a little bit like our very own Mad Dog?”

“Like Ke-Kyoutani?” he asks, catching himself at the very last second and hoping Oikawa doesn’t notice. From the elegantly raised eyebrow, though, he knows he has been caught. “Nah.”

But then he looks at the dog - really looks at him, and it clicks. The golden fur, the weird black markings, the dark circles around his eyes. His antagonism towards Oikawa on their first meeting. The way he lets Shigeru rub his belly for ages. “Wait, now that you mention it...”

Oikawa hums; he’s somehow wrapped the wound without Shigeru noticing. “Forget I said anything,” he says, his voice still light but strained. Edged with tension.

“But-”

“I didn’t mention anything,” Oikawa says. He’s staring directly at Shigeru now, something very pressing in his eyes. “You understand, right? This is just a dog?”

Shigeru gulps. He understands. This is just a dog.

Just a dog that looks exactly like Kentarou, that only appears when he’s gone.

Kentarou, who disappears throughout the day and doesn’t tell anyone where he goes.

Kentarou, who appeared in their lives just after a full moon, who didn’t return until well after moonrise on the last one, when Kunimi’s second-favorite cow got taken.

If this is just a dog, then Kentarou is safe. Because things have gotten bad, and the magic Oikawa’s tried to weave around the village isn’t working anymore.

But there’s no way this is just a dog. He looks at him - at their Mad Dog - with the huge paws he’s still growing into, and the strange markings on his face, and calls him over so the puppy can curl up on his lap while Oikawa sits across from them, sighing.

“I’ll do what I can,” Oikawa says, and Shigeru knows it’s a promise, but he also knows there isn’t much else the other man can do.

The dog licks him.

---

Kentarou’s spent the month trying and failing to puzzle out why Yahaba’s been alternating between coddling him and ignoring him when Oikawa solemnly gives him a clean bill of health and tells him he’s free to go, on the morning of the next full moon.

“What?” Kentarou asks, because there’s no way he’s heard properly.

Oikawa shrugs. “You’ve healed perfectly, thanks entirely to my skills and advice, of course. There’s nothing keeping you here, so you’re free to do what you want. Stay or leave, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got a nasty scar, though. Maybe you can write a song to go with it.”

Yahaba isn’t in the room for once, and it’s strange to be alone with Oikawa, who stares directly into him like he’s willing him to understand something without having to say it. Kentarou’s never been good at stuff like this, the subtext. He needs something visceral and direct, like a punch to the face or waking up to an empty campsite.

“You know there’s a Witcher coming, right?” Oikawa says. “Yahaba’s getting a room prepared for him, and Iwa-chan’s meeting him now.” The man looks serious for once, his eyes hard and pointed, his stance abrupt and awkward and hard for him to get a read on.

Kentarou nods. “I heard you and Iwaizumi talk about it once, by the fountain,” he admits. It startles Oikawa.

“That was weeks ago!” he sputters, stepping back. “You heard us talking about it then, and you’re still here?”

“Of course,” Kentarou shrugs. “This is as much my home as anyone else,” he says, dripping honesty now that Oikawa’s decided to be weird.

He stares at Kentarou for a long moment. The silence between them is heavy and weighted, like vines ripe with fruit in the summertime. Kentarou can hear the wind across the window, the distant sound of footsteps in one of the rooms on the second floor, the slight crackle of fire in Watari’s oven.

“I can’t tell if you’re brave or just this dense,” Oikawa admits, before closing his bag. “It’s all on you now, I suppose,” he adds, enigmatically, before leaving.

Kentarou has always thought Oikawa was weird, but now he gets the distinct sense he’s missing something.

---

Later that day, after the Witcher - a serious looking and surprisingly young man who asks for milk instead of ale, and seems to have some secret history with half the town, according to Matsukawa - arrives, Kentarou realizes he’s definitely missing something.

Although Iwaizumi had welcomed the Witcher into town, he swiftly disappeared. Kentarou hasn’t seen Oikawa since the morning, and Kindaichi and Kunimi - who normally haunt the inn around this time - are nowhere to be seen.

The Witcher disappeared too, up to the room that had been set up for him, after muttering his name - “Kageyama,” - to Kentarou and splitting away. Yahaba’s still at the counter, so he sits there in one of the tall, wooden chairs.

“Doesn’t look that intimidating for a Witcher,” Kentarou says, and Yahaba slams a mug onto the wood.

“Are you actually dense, or do you have a death wish?” he says. He sounds angry, and his eyes are blazing. Kentarou’s struck by how passionate Yahaba looks this way and doesn’t process his words at all, just stares. The tavern is uncommonly empty, and there are only a few guests in the building. Watari went out to run errands, so it’s just the two of them here now. It’s not the first time they’ve been alone since Oikawa’s open house, but it’s the first time Kentarou’s got a clean bill of health and doesn’t need Yahaba’s aid.

Suddenly, Yahaba reaches forward and grabs the collar of his shirt, dragging him across the bar so they’re face to face, nose to nose. He gasps, shocked by the suddenness. This close, Kentarou can see the small hairs in his eyebrows, his pores, and, just on the edge of anger, something like concern across his face. “There’s a Witcher here, Ken-Kyoutani. Do you know what that means?”

Frozen, all he can do is shake his head.

“I know what you are, Mad Dog. He’s going to kill you. You have to leave.”

This doesn’t make sense. He hasn’t even wrestled Iwaizumi yet. “Why would a Witcher want to kill a bard?”

Yahaba lets out a frustrated wail and releases him. Kentarou bounces back onto his chair. “Forget it,” he says. “Gods help me but I tried.” They pass a few more minutes in stony silence, before Kentarou retreats back to his room, baffled and confused. When he leaves him, Yahaba looks upset, his eyes watery like he’s on the cusp of tears.

The day passes slowly. The Witcher leaves just before nightfall, and Kentarou can admit that wrapped up in armor, with his sword on his waist and the sunset glinting in his eyes, he almost looks intimidating.

Half the town seems to crowd into the tavern that night. “Everyone wants to be the first to know,” Matsukawa shrugs, a little sadly. “And this felt like the right place to be.”

The moon rises behind clouds that night. It’s almost too quiet in the tavern, save for the sounds of eating and scraping of silverware. Oikawa’s there but he’s not saying much of anything at all, sitting with his knees curled up into his chest on a bench, leaning against Iwaizumi. The lanterns are flickering, and the silence is heavy, and every time Kentarou turns his head he feels the weight of a million eyes on him, but whenever he tries to catch them everyone is turned away.

It’s infuriating. It’s suffocating. It’s uncomfortable, and horrible, and it makes Kentarou feel like he’s on one of those caravans again, one that only put up with him because he looked a little intimidating and could reliably bring in coin, but that always made him set up his bedroll a bit further away from the rest of them, or would quiet down whenever he returned, obviously in the middle of a conversation they didn’t want him to be part of.

It’s isolating, when he thought he’d found a home. He almost wants to run away again.

Almost, but not quite. He’s thinking about it - fleeing by moonlight, once the clouds open up again, pretending to go to bed but sneaking out of his window without a word - when he accidentally catches eyes with Yahaba.

Accidentally, because he’s not actually trying to make eye contact this time. Accidentally, because Yahaba immediately turns away, like he hadn’t meant to do that.

Accidentally, because he could see, written clear as day across his face, something fond and bittersweet and cloying; worry, concern, and care. The full weight of it focused on and for Kentarou.

It’s the first time he’s felt something like that from another person in years; the feeling wraps around him, coils really, and anchors him down. It’s a look that wants him to stay here, forever, to always return to this place, that reminds him there’s always something and someone to come home to.

Comforting, the feeling that he can be tethered to a place and person and feel free, not restrained.

So instead of calling it an early night and sneaking out, he opens his lute case and returns to his home by the fire. It’s crackling, just a little bit, and his back is to the wall, so everyone has to look at him or away from him.

He knows, for some reason, that this one will be hard, but that’s fine. They have all night. And he knows it only takes one person. He knows just who to target, and even though the man is still looking from him, he sets the full power of his stare onto Yahaba before he breaks into his first song.

Yahaba’s the first to fall to the hum of his strings; he’s plucking out something soft, instrumental. A lullaby Yahaba’d once admitted he loved as a child. It seems the time for it, for those quiet, soothing songs from childhood, the ones Kentarou half remembers, but that he plays for the children in the town square sometimes anyway, making up their own lyrics where he forgets them, or never heard them in the first place.

Slowly, the rest of his friends turn to him, staring at him with wide eyes full of love and fear and concern. But something shifts; as the night behind them opens up - the clouds fading away so the stars and full moon can release the full force of their light - so too does the tension that had gripped everyone for hours. They’re still worried about the Witcher and whatever monster haunts the night, but they can relax, somehow, believing that he’s got it handled.

It’s late when the Witcher returns - Kunimi’s asleep on a table, his head curled in his arms, and Kentarou’s fingers are tired - with a bang, slamming open the door. He’s got a wound across his shoulder and streaks of dirt across his face, but he’s also got a bag full of something slung across his back.

They’re all silent, and Oikawa and Yahaba are exchanging worried, nervous glances. Kageyama clears his throat. “Um,” he says. “I got your monster?”

Iwaizumi’s the first to recover, and crosses the room. Kageyama slings the bag off his shoulder, and holds it open for him to look into. “Huh,” Iwaizumi says, puzzled and tired. “That’s not a werewolf.”

It’s Kageyama’s turn to be puzzled. “Of course it’s not a werewolf. Why would a werewolf be eating chickens?” His brow is furrowed, like he’s trying hard to process and understand Iwaizumi’s confusion, and coming up with nothing. Kentarou knows, because he’s in the same boat.

“But... the howling?” Iwaizumi tries, and Kageyama takes a moment to look thoughtful.

“I think you’ve got a pack of wild dogs nearby,” he replies, earnestly. “They’re not really any trouble, but dogs don’t like me much, so you might have to take care of that on your own.” The mention of dogs, somehow, is what rouses Yahaba.

“Oikawa,” he snaps, and points toward the exhausted Witcher, who - now that Kentarou is looking more closely, is shaking in his boots a little - startles. “Go help him, he’s hurt.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kageyama insists, as Iwaizumi takes the bag from him and mutters something about burning it. “I heal fast, it’s not a problem.”

“Let me at least clean it,” Oikawa says flatly. “I can help you just a little.” The Witcher and the witch doctor stare at each other for a long moment. Oikawa’s holding his hand out, and Kageyama’s staring back, looking impossibly young in the lamplight. Something passes between them, then, wordlessly, because Kageyama gulps and steps forward, and lets Oikawa drag him to his room.

“Well,” Matsukawa says once they leave, letting out a low whistle. “Isn’t that a relief?”

Kentarou has never been more confused.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

In the morning - almost noon, really - once they’ve all slept, and eaten, and the Witcher’s collected his coin and headed back off on his journey, Kentarou gets his answers.

“You thought I was a what? ” he exclaims through a mouthful of bread.

Matsukawa and Hanamaki are laughing like this is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard, and not like they were fearing for his life less than twelve hours earlier. Watari’s shaking his head beside them.

Yahaba’s the one who has to deal with the full force of Kentarou’s confusion. “Well,” he says sheepishly. “It made sense at the time?”

“You have a silver mirror in my room, Yahaba,” he says. “It literally never hurt me.”

“You kept disappearing! We found you after a full moon! And the wound! There were a lot of coincidences!” Yahaba retorts, but he’s flagging, and Kentarou gets the distinct sense that he’s hiding something.

Kentarou sits back in his chair, chews his next few bites while thinking. “I needed time to practice without anyone listening, and someone would always be around when I was here. Plus I wanted to surprise Watari - “ and Kentarou definitely doesn’t imagine the flash of jealousy that crosses Yahaba’s face, however briefly - “and Matsukawa with their songs, so it had to be a secret. Also it was a bear that attacked me, I think.”

Ignoring Hanamaki’s shriek - “You think?” - he thinks back to the weirdness of yesterday, and the way both Oikawa and Yahaba seemed to be insisting he leave. The way they gave him an out to escape instead of letting him answer for his imagined crimes. How upset Yahaba was when he refused to leave, or even acknowledge the monster they thought he was, and how everyone cared about him anyway, even when they thought he was really a - “werewolf, though, are you kidding me?”

Yahaba groans, and Kentarou laughs. “You’re never going to get over that, are you?”

“Not in a million years,” he says, and Yahaba rests his head on his chin, almost looking fond. It makes him warm, Yahaba’s fondness, and so does the sense that the village does care about him, even when they thought he was eating all their livestock.

“So are you going to stick around?” Watari cuts in, and both of them turn to him.

Kentarou nods. “I think I’m done with big travels,” he admits. “I’ve been wandering the continent for a long while, and it’s been pretty lonely most of the time. And although I might go out and travel for a month, here and there, I’d like to stick around.” He looks sideways at Yahaba, whose eyes are on him. “That is, if you’d have me.”

He’s definitely not imagining the way Yahaba blushes. Watari laughs at them. “I think Yahaba would kill you if you tried to leave forever,” he says.

“Watari,” Yahaba warns, laced with venom.

“Aww,” Kentarou says. “It’s almost like you care about me.”

They’ve both turned to each other now, their faces inches apart across the counter top. Barely twenty four hours ago, they’d been this close, and all Kentarou could be was confused; now, he’s more sure of himself than anything else, because up close, like this? He can see the fondness for him all across Yahaba’s face, the softness in his eyes and the light smile on his lips, a touch of a blush on his cheeks.

He thinks that maybe Yahaba sees the same thing on him. The love in his eyes, the clear and burning affection.

Distantly, he hears a scraping of chairs and the sound of footsteps, then a door closing. He knows, without looking, that they’re alone.

“So,” Kentarou says, his voice low. “I want to stay here. Do you have a place for me?”

“Right by my side,” Yahaba answers, simmering heat.

He’s not sure which one of them moves first, but when their lips meet, it feels like a homecoming. In Yahaba’s soft lips, the gentle pressure of his kiss, he finds himself melting.

Kentarou steadies himself with one arm on the countertop and one hand wrapping around the back of Yahaba’s neck so he can pull the man closer, suck on his lips and taste the bread and jam of breakfast. Food from the hearth and fire that keeps the world turning, keeps this village standing tall, turns a plot of land and a stack of wood into a place to call home. Yahaba, meanwhile, cradles his head in his hands so Kentarou can feel those familiar burning palms on the side of his face, the fingertips pressing into his skin and turning his head to the side so Yahaba can dot his cheeks with kisses, each one a promise, a command, a call towards forever.

“You’re staying,” he says, definitively. It’s not a question, but it never had to be.

“Of course,” Kentarou answers, twisting his head to catch Yahaba’s lips again. He wants to taste all of him, but he’ll settle for this for now, biting at them and licking at the seam to demand entrance and -

The front door slams open. “Yahoo!” Oikawa says, and the two of them split apart. Kentarou doesn’t want to know what he looks like, because he can see that Yahaba’s lips are pink from the biting and glistening with spit. His cheeks are pink, too, and Kentarou feels way too warm to be anything but flushed.

“Oh,” Oikawa’s looking between them now, smirking. “Did I interrupt somethi- ow! Mean, Iwa-chan!” He rubs at the top of his head while Iwaizumi steps out from behind him, brushing off his fist.

“Sorry about him. You know he’s a menace.” To his credit, Iwaizumi looks awkward standing there, clearly connecting the dots of what they were up to.

“So rude!” Kentarou knows Oikawa’s recovered because he’s pouting now, playful again. “And to think, I was just bringing Mad Dog over for a visit!”

It’s only been an hour since everything got cleared up, and now Kentarou is confused again. “Um,” he says. “I’m right here?” When he looks to Yahaba to see if he knows what’s going on, the other man’s eyes are wide and he looks nervous. “Yahaba? Shigeru, what’s going on?” he asks.

Oikawa whistles, and a dog bounds in behind them. It’s really a puppy, still gangly, with massive paws, and Kentarou immediately goes down on his knees to pet him and let the dog lick his face.

“Did Yahaba not mention this? He was convinced you were shapeshifting into the dog the whole time.” Oikawa looks like the picture of innocence, and even Iwaizumi lets out a bark of laughter.

Kentarou pauses, looking between Shigeru, staring defiantly at him, and the dog in his hands. “You thought this,” he says, gesturing to one of the dog’s floppy golden ears, “was me?”

Shigeru’s cheeks are flush with embarrassment this time. “The resemblance is uncanny,” he says. “And the dog kept appearing when you were gone! What else was I supposed to think!”

Maybe the dog just didn’t like Oikawa’s magic on his body, or something about Kentarou’s wound kept him away. He looks at the puppy - with his huge, golden eyes and fur, the little black markings and heavy rings around the eyes - and then he looks at Shigeru. Grins. His tongue could hold pearls. “Y’know what? I don’t really see the resemblance.”

Shigeru groans but Oikawa brightens. “Can we call him Iwa-chan, then?” he asks.

“No!” Shigeru protests, and so does Iwaizumi.

“You called the dog ugly, so what does that make me, Oikawa?” he says, while Oikawa starts to flee and Shigeru comes down to join them on the floo. But Kentarou hears very little of it, laughing because the puppy’s kisses are tickling his neck and his paws are battering at his chest. Smiling from the way Shigeru reaches his hand toward him, so they can clasp fingers while wrapped in the dogs fur.

“I dunno,” he says, looking fondly over at Shigeru, a whole future ahead of him. “I think he’s kinda cute.”