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He can see their silhouettes through the paper of the sliding door. Okita’s figure is imposing even when he kneels, and even now Kashuu feels a shiver of pride and longing as he watches the careful, seasoned gestures the man makes with his arms as he talks. No matter what happens, Okita’s hands are Kashuu’s home, and his body tingles with the need for their comfort. It hurts him, to stay on the other side of the screen.
He only knows one other among the crowd of men in the room, though it stirs in him a feeling of bitter repulsion despite the glowing warmth of its familiarity. Yamatonokami Yasusada, his weak, modest house-brother. The idea that a sword so clearly beneath him has a say in his future is more humiliating than his injuries. He has to grit his teeth when he hears Yamato laugh.
Laugh. At him.
Soundlessly, he picks up his crutch and gets to his feet. Let them conspire- he doesn’t have to be here for it. Hopefully nobody in there is bored enough of discussing him to be watching the shadows on the screen.
The garden is warm, and in its quiet he finds he can breathe around the knot in his chest. His abdomen protests as he sits down, bandages screaming at him to stay still and let them do their work. In spite of them, he stretches. If he can’t heal for Okita, why would he heal for himself?
He closes his eyes. He painted his fingernails carefully this morning and applied powder, borrowed from the swordsmen’s wives, to his face. The scars are still there, but he thinks and hopes that now they resemble the old, honorable scars of a long life of service than those of the swords on the walls; name-plates in careful calligraphy, a layer of dust on their handles as on the bones of their masters. Sunlight glints off the pond, lights up the glittering red of his eyes.
His father’s words ring in his head.
“You’ll do fine things, dear one. You’re the best I’ve ever made.”
If this soil wasn’t walked by Okita, he’d spit on it. Fine words, from a man too poor to smith him to his sure potential. The delusions of a man no better than a peasant.
It’s not fair. He tried so hard. He was the best, by his own effort and by Okita’s, not his father’s. He was the best, and when Okita used him, he said it felt as effortless and joyful as a dance.
It’s with dancer’s grace that Kashuu pulls himself up, with the agility of an actor that he drops to the ground and hurls his fist into the rock. His broken leg twists and his hakama scrapes against dirt and he thinks with a vicious sort of satisfaction that a better sword would take better care, that the blood leaking from his knuckles and rubbing off against the rock is a more similar colour to the earthy ground than the red of his eyes- and Kashuu Kiyomitsu, who has fought by his master’s side in countless battles and witnessed the deaths of countless good men, is crying like a child in loud, wailing sobs that tear from his mouth and spill down his carefully made-up cheeks to mix with the soil he’s sure to soon return to.
The next time he’s aware of himself- and it could be minutes, hours or seconds later- there are firm, weathered hands on his, and his body has stilled.
“That’s enough, Kashuu.”
Kashuu lets out a tiny, broken gasp, and turns his head. His face is a mess of artificial colour, smudges of pink flush on his pale skin and the raised irritation of scores of cuts and scars. For the first time in years, Kashuu feels unworthy of the arms around him. Okita’s scars are neat and white, his skin a healthy tan and his expression always only as telling as he wants it to be. It only makes him cry harder. When Okita pulls him close, he falls into him and starts to scream.
When he’s calmed- when his sobs become dry hiccups, when his eyes close once more in defeat despite his shaking shoulders- Okita lifts his chin and kisses him chastely, soft and kind. When he draws back again, his eyes are as firm as the veins in his hands.
Kashuu speaks before Okita can, croaking out-
“You don’t want me.”
To his surprise, the words make his master smile.
“Is that what you think?”
Cautiously, he nods, looking a little like a child waiting for a scolding. His master only smiles at him, though it’s a sad sort of smile that makes his heart twinge.
“Retired swords are not unloved, Kashuu. Indeed, like children’s toys, the damage only shows the usage. I was careless with you. Now we both must learn from it.”
Retired. So it’s true. Once again, his body is trembling, but he bows his head, does his best to accept it with grace this time.
“…I want to fight with you again, master. Just once more. Please.”
Slowly, Okita shakes his head.
“It would break you beyond even superficial repair- and we would lose. The risk is too great.” Here, his master smiles. “I am getting older, and have a cat to tend to. You, it seems, have only just discovered your own beauty,” (he gestures to Kashuu’s ruined face, making him blush with embarrassment), “and should continue to embrace it. You’ll be an antique someday. Even now, you are a treasure.”
Kashuu isn’t so sure he likes the idea of being antique, and his face must show it, because Okita continues quickly:
“However. Even if we cannot fight, we can still dance together.” He gestures, in that familiar, endearing way of his, to the centre of the garden. “Practice strokes around the wisteria. What say you?”
Okita’s hands are Kashuu’s home, and his body itches for their love, even when his master holds him. It's going to hurt him, always staying on the other side of a screen.
So he’ll take this chance, do this one, reckless thing. Even if it hurts, even when the wind whistles through the cracks in his metal and brings him almost to his knees, Kashuu will find it somewhere in this body diagnosed as ‘broken’ to smile at the pleasure of their unity.
If Kashuu is a storm today, then Okita is the sea; deep and dark and graceful, and there to catch his rain.