Chapter Text
Kirishima Eijirou's friends thought him mad when he decided to go hunting before an approaching storm. He admitted it was a horrible decision but he really wanted to go hunting. And skipping a good hunting day because of a storm wasn't manly at all. He thought he had enough time to hunt a deer and head home in time before the storm hit.
Except Kirishima underestimated the speed of the approaching storm. After half an hour of unsuccessful hunting, raindrops were falling through the sheltering trees. Very suddenly and very quickly the drops were falling harder and faster. It got dark and windy and cold, and Kirishima thought he might die in this storm. He tried retracing his steps, but because of the circumstances of the weather he got lost. Obviously.
Kirishima felt like he had wondered around the trees for hours before he finally stumbled upon a wooden cottage. It looked abandoned and desolate with overgrown vines and grass. A broken window and an unhinged door convinced him no one was living there. Especially not in this weather.
Kirishima walked into the cottage and it wasn't all that small. There was a kitchen area with a sink and a few cabinets and counters, a living room with a fireplace and a single cushioned chair, a wooden table that seemed like a working table, considering all the equipment on top and two doors on the farthest. Feeling safe and sheltered, Kirishima took to exploring. He opened the first door and found a small bathroom with a wooden tub and some contraption he has to guess is the toilet. This cottage was old.
He stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door again, out of respect to the previous owner. Kirishima was very respectful to both the alive and dead, yet his curiosity urged him to open the next door too. This one was a bedroom. The room way smaller than the kitchen and living room in the front of the house. It had a bed and a wardrobe. The bed could fit two people, but judging by how the whole place looked, whoever lived here, they lived alone. Kirishima pulled open some of the drawers and knew his hypothesis was correct. There were a bunch of clothes that looked centuries old and they were all the same size and tailored in the same designs.
Kirishima opened a smaller drawer on top and found sewing materials, such as needles and threads. He opened the previous drawer again and pulled out a pair of pants and he could tell they were tailored by hand. He folded the clothing item again and placed it back in the drawer, closing both drawers again. He concluded that whoever lived here tailored they're own clothing. That is if stitching machines went that far back. He was sure that it did. The wealthy often had a lot of equipment whereas the poor didn't. Kirishima inly knew this because he read some books as a hobby about folklore.
He stepped out of the bedroom, closed the door and made his way to the fireplace. He looked into it and saw wood logs half burned to ash. He pressed his foot to one and it crumbled beneath the pressure. With the wood in the fireplace reduced to crumbled wood chunks, and any other wood in the forest wet, Kirishima is left cold and wet. His outer layers at least.
Kirishima strips himself to his underwear and his shirt, hanging his wet clothing over the lonely chair. He shivers as he looks for lighting and finds candles places all around the cottage. He looks around in the kitchen drawers and cabinets in nothing but his underclothes, but he doesn't find any matches. Giving up, he debates with himself if it's manly at all to sleep in the bed since it might be his only chance to keep warm.
Deciding that he didn't want to die of hyperthermia, Kirishima made his way into the bedroom. The bed was dusty over the sheets like the rest of the house, so Kirishima took ahold of two corners and shook the sheets. A cloud of dust formed and settled again over the floor. He inspected the mattress and deeming it safe and unbugged, Kirishima crawled into the bed and pulled the sheets over his shoulders. He slept fitfully through the night and the storm hadn't ceased the next morning. Or Kirishima guessed it was morning. It was still gloomy outside and his watch wasn't waterproof so when the rain started it got busted.
Kirishima decided to try again to find matches or something to light all the candles. He scoured the wooden table and found flint and smooth stone discarded on the edge.
He blew the dust off the first candle and it took him a few tries before he managed to light the candle. He went around the living room and kitchen area, blowing off the dust of each candle before lighting them. He placed the flint and stone on the mantel price over the fireplace and really wished for a warm fire.
He patted his clothes he left out to dry and felt they were still damp. Probably because there were literal gaping holes where windows used to be, and the cold wind bothered him all night. The door wasn't any better. He thought for a moment and decided to brave outside to look for dry wood. He stepped outside and the cold wind hit him even harder. He shivered and moved around the house looking for his treasure.
At the back of the cottage there was a pile of wood that managed to survive the rain. But that begged the question; would it crumble like the wood in the fireplace? He pushed at a log and it held. Not believing his lug his picked up the log and squished it between his hands, using his brute force he worked hard to get. The log held. Picking up a few of the logs and holding them under his arm, Kirishima picked at dry grass and brought it all inside.
He placed the logs in the fireplace and the dry grass on top as a starter for the fire. He grabbed the flint and stone form the mantelpiece and hit them together to form sparks. It was a lot easier to light the fire than the candles, since one of the forst sparks that formed set the dry grass in fire. After a few minutes of nurturing the fire, the logs took on the flame and Kirishima finally felt warmth. He brought the chair with his clothes closer so that they could dry quicker and sat cross-legged in front of the fire.
When a gush of wind threatened to blow out his baby, he got up again and fidgeted with the door, putting it in the frame. It stayed in place like he wanted, and because he was desperate to get warm first, he decided he would fix the door properly at a later time.
And so he sat there in front of the fire with nothing to do. He had no company but his thoughts and he wondered who had lived here before. Wouldn't it be so cool if I could ask them?