Work Text:
Is it so much to ask, Kazuha wonders, for an afternoon nap in such pleasant weather to go undisturbed?
He’d awoken, body moving before his mind could, only to find himself surrounded by a group of men. Other wanderers, perhaps? Or more likely…
Kazuha shifts to feel for the weight of his belongings. Nothing is missing, but the men continue to circle him even as he unsheathes his blade. There’s about ten of them, and though he’s fought off his fair share of bandits before, he’s never had to face this many all at once.
The man who had been leaning over him when he’d awoken leers at him, dispelling any notion of goodwill. “Be a good boy and we’ll be nice.”
The Vision on Kazuha’s back burns white-hot in his panic— it isn’t uncommon for Visions to be stolen and sold after the deaths of their former owners. He could propel himself upwards, but then what? He has been practicing, but he doesn’t think he can get out of grabbing distance.
The late autumn air around him is crisp and oppressive. There’s nowhere for him to run, and so he must fight.
Kazuha’s grip on his katana tightens. He hasn’t had the experience of killing before, but he doesn’t seem to have the luxury of holding back.
As if sensing his hesitation, the bandits begin to move in, but before Kazuha can lash out, he hears the pounding of footsteps, smells the moment before lightning strikes.
A man, cloaked in red and wreathed in electro, collides with three bandits with very little elegance and even less mercy. The snap of bones rings out audibly over screams of pain. The odachi in his hands has yet to even be swung.
As the remaining bandits shout and scramble to accommodate the unexpected guest, Kazuha darts out of the center of their circle, eager to escape being cornered.
The other man looks up at him, eyes sparking with adrenaline— or perhaps those are literal sparks, because his fluffy ponytail seems to be crackling with the same energy.
Kazuha supposes that’s a sign if he ever saw one. He’s never seen his own winds infused with electro like this before, and he decides that, even under the rule of the Raiden Shogun, violet has never looked so beautiful.
--
The light scent of wisteria overlays the blood-tainted breeze.
Kazuha’s savior towers above him, tall enough that even the odachi now hanging at his back looks like a katana in his hands, whereas in reality it’s about as long as Kazuha is tall. Out of battle, the other man relaxes, tugging at his blue scarf to sit more loosely around his neck. There’s a young sort of confidence in his breath, not a single hitch of nervousness in earshot.
If Kazuha had not already come to terms with the fact that he would grow no taller, perhaps he would have been envious.
Fujitani Tomoaki, Kazuha learns his name is, and when he introduces himself as Kaedehara Kazuha, Fujitani laughs.
“How fitting,” he says, and Kazuha looks down at the maple leaves embroidered across the sleeves of his mother’s old haori, one of the last keepsakes from his home.
“ Ka-zu-ha,” Fujitani says, and the way his name is drawled out without an honorific attached shakes something inside him, but he supposes he should let it go, especially since—
“I’m in your debt, Fujitani-san,” he begins, but the other man wrinkles his nose.
“Ack, hearing you call me that with those earnest eyes of yours makes me feel like an old man. “
Kazuha has no idea what he means, but he tries to look less earnest. “Fujitani…. san?”
“No, no,” he swats a hand in the air as if physically batting away the words, “just Tomoaki will do. Or how about Tomo?”
“Tomoaki-san,” Kazuha concedes. The voices of Kazuha’s teachings reprimand him enough even without dipping into nickname territory.
“Ah well, someday.” Fujitani— no, Tomoaki laughs and tucks his hand into the collar of his kimono. “So what was it you wanted to say?”
Ah, that’s right. Kazuha berates himself for his forgetfulness and straightens up before pulling himself into a deep bow. “Thank you for helping me with those bandits. Without you, I doubt that my belongings would have remained untouched.”
“Your belongings, huh?” Tomoaki mutters, but when Kazuha looks up, the other man is grinning at him. Has he ever stopped? “Don’t worry about it. What kind of decent person would I be to let you get mobbed by bandits? Though with those skills and that Vision of yours, you would have been fine on your own.”
Again, Kazuha grows hyper-aware of the anemo Vision glowing a vivid teal on his back. “I lack the experience, it seems.” Experience in fighting off a group of ten, at the very least. Perhaps he’ll get there someday.
Tomoaki scratches his chin with his free hand. “In that case, why don’t you travel with me for a while? I’m no teacher, but it wouldn’t hurt to have someone watch your back.”
“I would be honored.” And perhaps it would do no harm for Kazuha to be more skeptical, but there’s a reliability to Tomoaki’s air, comfort and stability in his scent. Regardless, Kazuha can outspeed him if necessary. “I hope you find that I’ll be a beneficial travel companion as well.”
--
Though the winds are calm, the air is thick with the scent of incoming rain. Not a single bird lets loose its call, all of them having flown off to hide away from the storm.
Kazuha clears his throat, interrupting Tomoaki mid-narration of his thrilling tales of children-wrangling. “Tomoaki-san, we should seek shelter soon.”
“You know, you can just— Wait, what?” Tomoaki peers up at the sky, blurred by a thin layer of clouds. “Are you sure? It’s so quiet.”
Kazuha laughs, a light swirl in the still air. “That’s one of the signs of an approaching storm, you know.”
Tomoaki’s skepticism is visible in the arch of an eyebrow, but he follows Kazuha without complaint. They’re too close to a village to find proper shelter elsewhere, Kazuha realizes, and so despite his reservations of carrying their blades into a civilian’s house, they knock on the first door they come across.
A middle aged woman with hair just starting to show highlights of gray opens the door. Her tired eyes widen at the sight of the two of them, garbed in their patterned haori and their blades resting at their hips.
Quickly, Kazuha bows and raises both hands. “We’re only two wanderers; we mean no harm. We only bring advice and a request.”
The woman’s apprehension remains clear on her face, but her fear eases off. “Go on.”
“A storm is coming.” The words flow out as they have countless times in the past, just as they had the night Kazuha received his Vision. He keeps a genial smile on his face.
“A storm?” The woman frowns, looking out the door past them. “We’ve just set the clothing out to dry...”
“We can help bring them in,” Kazuha promises, even as Tomoaki’s nose wrinkles at the prospect of household chores. “That being said, could we ask for shelter until the rain passes?”
She lets them in with armfuls of still-damp clothing. Not five minutes later, the clouds thicken, and her thanks is accompanied by the unyielding patter of rain against the roof and a warm dinner at her insistence.
“I owe you thanks,” Tomoaki whispers later, when the two of them find themselves squirreled away beneath thin covers. Kazuha’s pillow presses against his cheek as he looks at the taller man, who lies flat on his back, hands folded over his chest. “If I’d been alone, I would’ve continued until I had no choice but to look like a drowned cat.”
Kazuha stifles a laugh at the mental image. “You would not be the only one.”
“Surely no one was foolish enough to ignore your wise advice?” Tomoaki’s head turns, and even in the dark, Kazuha can feel the curious intensity of his otherwise languid stare. “How did you even know?”
“Nature keeps no secrets, Tomoaki-san.” Kazuha knows he’s being vague, so he says, “Since I was young, I have been attuned to the sounds and scents of the natural world. The freedom of coincidentally finding myself caught in the rain was a sought-after reprieve from my childhood training.”
“The Kaedehara clan’s training,” Tomoaki muses. “You can be honest with me, Kazuha— how torturous was it?”
“From my father’s lectures, it seems that my training was like that of a child compared to what he learned.”
“What, really? You really hadn’t mastered your clan’s swordsmanship?”
Kazuha nods, even though their views of each other have blurred into shadows. “My clan may have been once-renowned,” he says into the darkness, “but now our fortune has dissipated into the wind, and the need for such strict training has followed. What I use now is a combination of the learned basics and my own creation.”
He remembers beginning his training at the age of three, as was expected of the samurai of noble clans, but time only brought less scolding for his mistakes and more of his mother’s distraught tears as their servants disappeared one by one, until one day he found himself alone in the dojo, clutching a katana still too long for his tiny frame. He had knelt there until the crickets began to sing, his knees sore from the hours of waiting for his father to return, only for his mother to silently take his hand and lead him out of the room.
His throat had prickled with disappointment, but he had quickly learned that one didn’t always need a partner to train.
“That sets you free, doesn’t it?” Tomoaki asks, his words slowing in the way they usually do when he tires himself out. “How does it feel to have no master but yourself?”
“It certainly is exciting.” That is, if exciting is the right word to describe a number of close encounters with bandits and wild beasts alike. “I’ve been granted the chance to visit new places and meet all kinds of people.”
Tomoaki’s noise of assent is weighed down with a stifled yawn. “‘Course. You… you met me, after all…”
Kazuha huffs out a silent laugh as the show of sleepy self-assurance fades into the deep, even breaths he’s become accustomed to hearing over the days of traveling together. He raises the blankets up over his nose and tries to match Tomo’s breathing.
The rain feels less intrusive than it usually does. Warmth creeps up on him easily.
--
The winds are becoming cooler, Kazuha notices. They no longer carry the heat of the sun with them, instead sneaking a brisk chill into the crevices of his kimono, where his scarf can’t reach.
He shivers on his rock, removing one hand from his lap to pull his clothing more tightly around himself. Maybe it’s about time he wore his haori fully.
“Seaborne clouds adrift,” he murmurs to himself, “a solitary gull cries…”
His train of thought grinds to a halt, as per usual when he reaches the final line. “Er…”
He repeats the first two lines to himself as he thinks, as if turning them over in his mind will reveal the last to him.
Electro-tinted wisteria approaches him from behind. “Searching for food to steal.”
“No, the count isn’t right.” Kazuha opens his eyes to see Tomoaki grinning at him. “Good morning, Tomoaki-san.”
“Morning. You get up too early, you know.”
Kazuha frowns. When he had crept a few paces away from where they had slept through the night, he had thought the other man had still been fast asleep, light puffs of breath rumbling through his mouth and nose. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”
“Not at all,” Tomoaki says. “But this is why you always have to take naps before the sun decides to set.”
“Hmm.” Kazuha decides not to mention that it’s the potent combination of the sun’s warmth and the other man’s scent that’s often lulling him to sleep. “If you grow restless, you are free to wander.”
“And what about you?” The taller man’s hand comes down on Kazuha’s head, ruffling his hair. “Even you become a defenseless little thing when you sleep.”
The tips of Kazuha’s ears grow hot, but neither his face nor his voice waver to betray him. “I’m sure I will be fine, Tomoaki-san. I would not want to chain you to a rock for the entire afternoon.”
Tomoaki’s grin softens into something resembling the sun-warmed sands outside of Inazuma City. Just the thought makes Kazuha sleepy again, despite the time of day. “It’s good to rely on people, but it feels nice to have other people rely on you too, you know?”
Kazuha nods. He understands, he thinks— there’s always a sense of relief that washes over him whenever he tracks down a family’s lost cat or rescues a batch of laundry. Perhaps it isn’t relief from being able to accomplish the task at hand, as he’d previously thought. “You’re a reliable person.”
Tomoaki’s laugh rings through the morning, loud and unrestrained. Kazuha blinks, both hands in his lap despite his urge to fiddle with his sleeve. Was what he said so funny?
“Kazuha,” Tomoaki says, his eyes still sparkling with mirth, “while I’m happy you think that, are you sure you haven’t been traveling with someone else all along? Reliable— ha! The last time anyone called me that was when a girl tried to lure me to bed and steal my sword! Not that she could have gotten very far—”
Kazuha’s brow furrows as he pushes the image aside, along with all sense of conversational etiquette. Evidently, this particular conversation follows none of those rules. “Then if you do not consider yourself reliable, why do you wander alone?”
Tomoaki raises an eyebrow, his cheer receding. “I’m not alone,” he says, but when Kazuha tilts his head and levels an unaccepting stare at him, he sighs. “I wasn’t cut out for life at home.”
Ah, that was much more personal than what Kazuha expected. But when he opens his mouth to reassure the other man that, no, Tomoaki-san, you don’t have to explain yourself if it bothers you; I apologize for asking, Tomoaki squeezes himself onto the rock next to Kazuha, his side bumping against Kazuha’s back.
“We weren’t anything close to noble, but they really wanted to be, and— you know what it’s like. That kind of thing wasn’t for me, and…” His grin turns bitter. “No one expects a wandering swordsman to be a prodigy anyway.”
The warmth against Kazuha’s back fades back into the late autumn chill as Tomoaki moves away to hunch forward, his forearms propped on his knees. Only Kazuha’s seiza stops him from chasing the heat.
With Tomoaki’s usual bravado and his tall stature, it’s easy to forget that he’s just another young vagrant, only a few years older than Kazuha himself. Perhaps Kazuha was too quick to judge, too eager to force him up onto the pedestal of an authority figure that he never wanted to be.
Kazuha hasn’t had to follow instructions in a long time, but he recognizes a request when he hears one.
“Tomo,” he says, and he purposefully does not turn to look at the way the other man’s eyes widen or at the brightness that creeps back across his face. Perhaps he should have done this sooner. “I think it may be fate that we’ve met each other as fellow wanderers.”
“Fate, huh?” Tomo takes the offering for what it is: reassurance and acceptance. The shared warmth seeps back through layers of clothing as he leans against Kazuha once more. “How romantic. Kazuha, you’ll make me blush.”
“Go ahead and blush,” Kazuha says, and the last line comes to him.
At peace with the world.
--
It takes some time for Kazuha to grow accustomed to addressing Tomo so familiarly, but once he does, the nickname flows from his lips as naturally as he breathes.
“Tomo,” he says, waiting for the affirmative hum, “how would you like some fish for tonight?”
“Sounds good,” and the boat drifts to a halt as the oars cease their beating. It isn’t often that the two of them travel on sea, but when they had wandered their way to the shores of Kannazuka, all it had taken was smile and a forlorn glance at the open waters for a young fisherman to lend them the boat, mumbling to himself all the while.
(When Kazuha had thanked him, the poor man had turned so red that Tomo could barely step onto the boat because he was laughing so hard. Kazuha had only smiled politely and pretended not to notice.)
Kazuha eyes the fishing nets piled on the floor. If the principle is to entangle the fish in the net, surely it can’t be so difficult. He grabs one before turning back to the sea, searching for the fish he’d spotted earlier, a sizable thing with silvery scales half-heartedly wriggling a few paces away.
Net in hand, Kazuha puts one foot up onto the side of the boat to extend his reach—
Only to hear a frantic shout of his name as the world tilts beneath him and he slips and tumbles out of the boat and into the sea.
The surprise of hitting the water is completely overwhelmed by just how cold it is. Kazuha doesn’t consider himself a poor swimmer, but like this, he can barely force his limbs to move, additionally dragged down by the weight of his clothing.
He almost wants to laugh at himself. How foolish of him to clamber about a small fishing boat perched so precariously on the sea, thinking that a companion would stabilize it. The light filtering through the trailing bubbles fades with each passing second, and every fiber of Kazuha’s being urges him to chase that light before it’s too late.
But there’s a smaller, quieter part of him that feels so at ease as he drifts deeper and deeper, water blanketing and soothing his senses even as his lungs begin to burn. Perhaps the sea isn’t so unkind after all, he thinks, and then a hand wraps around his wrist and yanks it up, and the rest of him has no choice but to follow.
“Kazuha!” Through sea-soaked lashes, he can see Tomo’s rare worry written across his face. A strong arm around Kazuha’s waist hoists him back up onto the boat, and when he blinks the water from his eyes, he notices the distinct lack of a red haori around Tomo’s shoulders, dark sleeves soaked in seawater.
Kazuha falls to his hands and knees and coughs once, then twice, and then he can’t stop because even though he’d managed to not swallow too much water, he feels as if he might never breathe again. As he tries to regain control over his breathing, Tomo lays a hand on his back, rubbing slow, warm circles over his wet kimono.
When it doesn’t feel like he’s gasping for air anymore, Kazuha pushes himself up onto his knees, but all thoughts flee his mind when he raises his head only to be granted the view of Tomo’s half-bare chest, the wide expanse of skin framed by the low collar of his kimono. Has the kimono always been so— so relaxed? Tomo’s scarf is missing too, Kazuha notices when his eyes linger near the upper collar piece, and his cheeks redden when he realizes that he’s been staring.
“Thank you, Tomo,” he finally manages, forcing his gaze up to his friend’s face. Worry still crinkles the other man’s brow, but he relaxes, seemingly not having noticed Kazuha’s fluster. “I apologize, I wasn’t thinking…”
“No, I should’ve told you. We’re just lucky we weren’t near any electro water.” Tomo scrubs a hand over his face, but a laugh escapes him. “Looks like you ended up being the catch, huh? The stray kitten who fell in the koi pond!”
Kazuha lets out an exasperated huff, but he can’t hide the smile tugging at his lips either. “You wouldn’t tease a real kitten like this.”
“And how do you know that?” Tomo’s gaze is intense as it rakes down Kazuha’s sodden form. Kazuha shivers in the crisp breeze, wondering if he looks especially pitiful like this. “Come on now, get undressed.”
In shock, Kazuha coughs out what little seawater he has left in his lungs. “Excuse me?”
“Do you think I didn’t see that just now?” Tomo jabs a finger against Kazuha’s admittedly cold shoulder. “You look like a cat freshly rescued from a snowbank.”
“Please stop with the comparisons,” Kazuha mutters, drawing his knees up to his chest to suppress another shiver. “I have nothing else to wear either.”
He blinks once and finds a bundle of red and blue shoved under his nose, almost as if Tomo were waiting for that argument.
“I won’t look,” Tomo says. “You’ll still be able to get married after this, I promise. I’m sure our generous fisherman friend wouldn’t mind too much...”
Kazuha makes a face at his companion’s crude humor but acquiesces, stripping down to his underclothes and accepting the haori and scarf into his arms.
They’re still warm, he realizes as he wraps himself in static and wisteria and something entirely Tomo . If not for the lingering chill, he’s sure he could fall asleep like this, surrounded by the sea with Tomo’s scarf pulled up to his nose. Instead, he tugs his hair out of its ponytail, squeezing the water out and combing it out of its matted clump.
When he looks up, he catches Tomo staring at him, something undecipherable in his expression.
Kazuha tilts his head. “Tomo? Is something wrong?”
“Are you still cold?” It’s almost funny, the way he sounds so determined to fix that even when he has nothing left to give.
Kazuha takes a moment to evaluate. “Not anymore.” He pauses, lets the wind whistle through wet strands of pale hair. “Are you?”
Tomo pats his own chest proudly, drawing Kazuha’s attention back to bare skin. “You think I’d get cold with this ? I’m tougher than that, Kazuha.”
Kazuha isn’t quite sure the cold works like that, but the way heat rises to his face again just might convince him.
In the end, they manage to scoop up as many tuna as there had been koi in the Kaedehara estate’s pond. When they return the boat, the fisherman takes one look at the oversized red haori and sighs, shoulders slumping as they leave him with a basket of still twitching fish as thanks.
Tomo’s grin is especially wide that night, but he won’t tell Kazuha why.
--
Every winter, Kazuha catches a crystal of the first snow on his tongue. This year is no exception: he stands still, head tilted up toward the sky, as he waits for snowflakes to drift down.
Tomo, on the other hand, lays himself flat on his back, arms outstretched.
“I want it to cover me,” he explains, even as the snow melts into tiny beads of water on his skin. “And then when I get up, it’ll be like coming back from the dead.”
Kazuha raises a hand to his mouth in thought. “If anyone could do it, I suppose it would be you.”
Tomo snorts, patting the ground next to him. “It isn’t so difficult. Come here and find out.”
It’s not quite what Kazuha means, but he pulls on the other half of his haori and lies down.
“We’ll catch cold,” he says, but he doesn’t get up.
A warm arm shoves itself beneath him and wraps around his shoulders. “Just for a bit,” Tomo promises, pulling Kazuha closer until they’re shoulder-to-shoulder. If Kazuha tilted his head, he could tuck it into the crook of Tomo’s neck.
And so he does, melting into the taller man’s touch. He chases the warmth so absent from his life until these past few months, the warmth now so unflinchingly present even as the cold nips through his clothing. Even though he’s sure Tomo’s arm must be going numb, it continues to cushion his shoulders from the ground.
The sound of snowfall has yet to reveal itself to even Kazuha, so all that surrounds them is the quiet whistling of the wind, almost as if the rest of the world is holding its breath, giving the two of them a moment of solitude.
While the sun suits Tomo with its loud, bright warmth, Kazuha decides, it’s this peaceful picture of Tomo’s fringe and eyelashes dotted with snow that encourages him to blink up at his friend’s profile, so rarely softened like this even in sleep.
Snow alights on silk , he thinks, suddenly motivated to overcome his hurdle in haikus, fluttering to kiss our cheeks …
He drifts off as he ponders the last line, and so he misses the other arm that reaches to drape over him and shield him from the cold.
--
With a steady calmness incongruous with the panic in his heart, Kazuha raises his katana. “Please let go of her.”
The Kairagi holding a blade to the shivering child’s neck laughs. “Mind your own business, boy.”
“I’m afraid not. Such despicability carries easily in the wind.” So easily, in fact, that Kazuha had not hesitated to leave the campsite even with Tomo still asleep. Hopefully he will be forgiven later. “Put the child down. I would like to challenge you to a duel.”
The morning’s tranquility is punctuated by the Kairagi’s shifting armor as he scrutinizes Kazuha. He sneers, the sound metallic through his helmet, but his grip on the little girl’s arm loosens. “Are you delusional, boy? You would make a finer housewife than samurai.”
“I would like to challenge you to a duel,” Kazuha repeats, brushing away the jab at his honor. He brandishes his free arm, letting silk-dyed maple leaves flutter with the movement. “I have more to offer than she does. If I lose, you are free to take what you wish from me.”
Though the Kaedehara clan is a dead one, its heirlooms have yet to diminish in their market value. Kazuha hopes he will never have to part ways with his mother’s old haori like this, but it’s his now. He can’t back away.
The little girl yelps as she’s unceremoniously tossed aside into the snow, but she seems to have enough sense to scramble out of sight. That’s good; she doesn’t need to see blood spill, whether it be Kazuha’s or the other ronin’s.
Kazuha takes a few steps back as he sheathes his blade, ignoring his opponent’s disgruntled huff. Perhaps it wounded his pride? “The witness to our battle will be the trees whispering their farewells.”
The Kairagi leaps, blade crackling with electro not unlike Tomo’s, but Kazuha is faster. He unsheathes his own blade in one swift motion, sweeping gusts of crimson leaves in stark contrast across the snow. His opponent hesitates in his step, just for a moment, but it’s enough time for Kazuha’s whirlwinds to pick up crystals of ice, infusing autumn winds with the bite of winter.
Before the Kairagi can shake off the icy gales whipping through the gaps in his armor, Kazuha launches himself into the air with a burst of anemo, high above the other man’s head, higher than he’s ever leapt before. It’s as if the world opens up before him, the sky welcoming him with open arms and the ground laying itself bare for him to see. In the moment that he hangs in the air, he observes the cruel horns on the Kairagi’s helmet, the pale swirling of his own slash, both of their footprints dragging through the snow in an uneven, clumsy dance.
With a swipe of his blade, Kazuha gathers the wind behind him and plunges down, stirring up another cloud of ice, but as he lands, slashing at the Kairagi’s arm, he feels the bite of an electro-infused blade in his side, just below his ribs.
He bites down a cry of pain, lashing out even as he leaps back. This electro is nothing like Tomo’s, has none of its comfort and sturdiness, crackles dryly and erratically down the length of the Kairagi’s blade. The cold seeps through the gash in his hakamashita, mingling with the warm bloom of blood drifting through his clothing and down his waist. He winces but doesn’t dare take his hands off his katana, not even to stifle the wound. His opponent looks no better, crimson droplets scattering with every swing of his left arm.
A sheen of blood glistens along the edge of Kazuha’s blade before he flicks it off into the snow. He grits his teeth and presses forward, the wind urging him on. Is this the honor of which generations of samurai clans have spoken of, the glory of a duel of two disagreeing lives?
With a groan, the Kairagi swipes at him again, his two-handed form now reduced to one, but Kazuha is still too fast, even with blood now trickling past his hip, blending into his hakama. He lunges again with a flurry of slashes, self-taught and unmerciful, slicing at every inch of the other man he can reach.
Kazuha doesn’t wait for his opponent to recover before forcing himself up into the air again. He doesn’t make it as high as he did the first time, but faintness is beginning to creep up on the edges of his consciousness.
He’s twisted out of position, wholly unprepared for Midare Ranzan. All he can see is the sky above, vast and bright in all of its silver-clouded tranquility. He steels himself for a harsh landing, using what little control he has left to flee the reach of his opponent’s blade.
A warm, familiar arm wraps around his back, plucking him from the air. “It’s over, Kazuha. You won.”
When the pain from having his wound crushed against Tomo’s shoulder subsides, Kazuha opens his eyes to see a turbulent mix of worry and relief in his friend’s eyes. In his other arm is the young girl from earlier, her small fingers clutching onto the back of Tomo’s haori as she stares at Kazuha with wide eyes.
Kazuha doesn’t realize how tremulously he shakes in Tomo’s hold until Tomo whispers something to the little girl before setting her down on the ground. The other arm comes to wrap around him, shifting to cradle him securely.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Tomo repeats. He doesn’t seem to care about the blood seeping into his own kimono. “You’re okay.”
Kazuha presses his cheek against Tomo’s chest, soft and warm even through layers of clothing. Where is his blade? It doesn’t matter— it wasn’t one of any note, after all— but perhaps there’s something to be said about discarding one’s blade after its first taste of a duel in one’s own honor.
How does it feel to have no master but yourself? Kazuha remembers, and he laughs, shoulders shaking even through the pain. He knows he must have startled Tomo because he feels the arm beneath his shoulders twitch and the heartbeat against his ear jump.
“I’m sorry,” he says. I scared you, but it’s muffled by victory pooling in his mouth, tasting of pride and of blood.
When he opens his eyes without realizing he had ever closed them, the little girl is hovering over him, her own eyes wide and unwavering, Tomo right behind her. When she’s processed that Kazuha has awoken, she springs to her feet with a gasp and dashes from the room, calling for her mother.
Without the girl’s visage blocking Kazuha’s vision, he can clearly see the uncharacteristic furrow of Tomo’s brow. The taller man is wound tightly where he sits cross-legged by Kazuha’s bed, almost as if ready to spring up and storm out of the room at any second.
Kazuha clears his throat, aching to lighten the mood. “A garden amidst the frost—”
“I didn’t expect this from you,” Tomo says. Kazuha closes his mouth, cheeks warming. “When I woke to find you gone from our camp, I didn’t expect to see your blade washed with blood instead of water.”
Kazuha sits up and tugs his hair out of his already half-destroyed ponytail, wincing as his fingers catch in the tangles. He looks up at Tomo carefully. “Do you think badly of me now?”
Tomo’s throat bobs as he swallows. “Not at all. I just wish I’d been there to do the same.”
Kazuha laughs. “I am not so sure there would be any honor in a duel like that,” he jokes. “Perhaps we would be the assailants then.”
Tomo frowns at that. “How do you feel?”
Glad that he doesn’t have to address the guilt that beginning to curdle in his stomach, Kazuha doesn’t question the apparent change in topic. His side burns as he tries to move his left arm. “I’m alright. Being alive is enough for me.”
It doesn’t seem to placate Tomo, his arms coming to cross over his broad chest, but the young girl tugs her mother into the room to fuss over Kazuha before he can say anything.
--
A pitiful mewl drifts up from the snowbank before them.
“Look, Kazuha,” Tomo says, digging through snow with half-gloved hands. The fruit of his labor is a tiny, white cat shivering in his palms. “It’s you.”
Kazuha sighs at the jab—it seems Tomo will never let go of that—and reaches over to cup his hands over the kitten in an attempt to shield it from the cold, ignoring the twinge of pain from the healing cut on his side. “I don’t hear any signs of a mother.”
“Damn. How did this little one get all the way out here on…” There’s a quiet squeak as Tomo lifts up the kitten’s tail. “...her own?”
Even Kazuha has to stifle a laugh behind his hand. “You learned to check?”
“Come on, Kazuha, there are cats everywhere in Inazuma City. It’s not that hard, so let me show…” But the kitten wriggles her hind legs, evidently protesting such indelicacy. “Oops, alright. Maybe another time.”
“Quite understandable,” Kazuha mutters, quite glad the lesson has been postponed. He too saw his fair share of cats wandering across the old Kaedehara estate, but he never had the chance to pick one up, much less take a peek at its genitals. “We should get her somewhere warm before—”
“Wait, Kazuha.”
He turns mid-stride to look back at Tomo. “Is something the matter?”
Tomo holds the kitten out to him expectantly. “Aren’t you going to use that talent of yours? Come up with a poem for this moment!”
Kazuha raises an eyebrow. “Why me?”
“If it’s you, I know it’ll sound beautiful.” In two quick paces, he catches up to ruffle Kazuha’s hair, laughing at the shorter man’s disgruntlement, but he slides the kitten into the folds of his kimono, where she forms a lump above his obi. “Isn’t that the magic of a poet’s tongue?”
“You should try as well,” Kazuha says, deflecting from the growing heat that combats the cold prickling his cheeks. Even such a quick glimpse of bare skin stirs up memories of Tomo’s warmth, felt as vividly as if he were being cradled against him even now—
“I never paid much attention to those sorts of lessons.” Tomo scratches his chin thoughtfully. “But maybe if you were the one to teach me…”
“She is very cute,” Kazuha says quickly. “But do you really plan on bringing her on your— on our travels?”
Whether or not it’s presumptuous of him to conclude that their paths are intertwined, he doesn’t find out. Tomo huffs good-naturedly. “You’re so cold, Kazuha.”
“So is she.” He tries not to think about how she’s getting warmed up at the moment, about how warm Tomo would feel without the barrier of his kimono between them. Surely, it can’t be any warmer than the blood rushing to his face as he tries to weave his fraying thoughts back together. “And she will need to be fed and properly cared for. This isn’t like carrying around a parcel for delivery.”
“Hey.” Tomo reaches out and pinches his cheek, snickering when Kazuha yelps and bats his hand away. “What happened to calling me reliable? Haven’t I taken care of you well enough?”
Perhaps too well. Kazuha hasn’t woken before Tomo in days. “I would like to think I need less supervision than a kitten does.”
Tomo mutters something under his breath before turning a pair of pleading eyes upon him. “I’ll keep her with me the entire time. I’ll carry her, I’ll feed her, I’ll…” He sighs. “But if you really do have a problem with her, I’ll find someone who can take good care of her.”
The lump inside his kimono wriggles until the kitten’s head pops out through its folds. She blinks up at him once, then twice, and then she dozes off with her chin still propped on the fabric. Kazuha has never been particularly unyielding, but now he truly feels as if even a gentle wind current could sweep him off into nothingness. He averts his eyes and tries to calm his thundering heart, fighting off the weight of Tomo’s stare. “What will you name her?”
--
Tama lives up to her name especially well, Kazuha finds, when she curls up in Tomo’s hakamashita, which she has apparently deemed her new carrier. Every time, Tomo insists on showing him, as if he needs more convincing to let Tama stay even though she has been traveling with them for several weeks now.
Every time, Kazuha keeps his gaze averted.
If Tomo notices, he doesn’t say anything. He opens his kimono once more to offer another peek, and this time, Kazuha reaches over to pluck Tama out and hold her himself, if only to preserve his own peace of mind.
He peers down at where she’s nestled against his chest, wrapped in his maple-patterned scarf and seemingly oblivious to the change in her bedding. Even after a couple months of Tomo’s spoiling, she’s still so small. Kazuha watches her nose twitch like one of the carefully budding cherry blossoms that must be blooming in Inazuma City by now. How would she have survived alone?
“Fate must extend to cats too,” he says, and then laughs. “I think I understand why you insist on carrying her in your kimono.”
When the laugh he’s expecting doesn’t come, he looks up to search his taller friend’s face, but his gaze is one with the evening sky, clouded in thought.
Kazuha suddenly feels starkly out of place in his crimson leaves and autumn breezes. He stretches to tuck Tama back in her owner’s kimono and tries to ignore the sudden loss of warmth. “Tomo?”
“Say, Kazuha.” Tomo still isn’t looking at him, even as Kazuha’s gaze bores holes into his cheek. It is a handsome cheek, all things considered, but that doesn’t matter quite as much as it would have if Tomo hadn’t gone on to say, “About the Musou no Hitotachi…”
A woman had been executed the day before. She was the subject of all the whisperings of the small fishing village the two of them had passed through. Foolish. Brave? No, naive. A lost duel is both lost life and lost pride. Kazuha had bit the inside of his cheek at that, almost hard enough to draw blood.
“Inoue Misaki lost a duel before the throne,” he says carefully. “That was her divine punishment.”
Tomo side-eyes him. “The duel spares one from death, only for the Shogun to finish the deed.”
“The Musou no Hitotachi is a symbol of the Raiden Shogun’s ultimate power.”
The taller man hums, the normally soothing timbre of his voice now stirring up unease in Kazuha’s heart. “There must be one who can withstand it,” he says quietly, then repeats himself, louder, “There will always be those who dare to brave the lightning’s glow.”
Kazuha likes to think he knows Tomo quite well by now, after months of traveling together, but for a moment, with that distant look on his face, it’s almost as if Tomo had never been with him at all.
--
This morning, unlike all others, is not spent in an exercise in haiku; rather, it is spent in deliberation of one he composed a week ago. Kazuha takes a deep breath, trying to steady its uncharacteristic shakiness. He's returned to waking earlier than Tomo again, especially when Tama takes it upon herself to squirm around atop Tomo's ribs in the middle of the night.
Kazuha keeps his eyes shut even as Tomo pads up behind him, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Happy birthday, my friend.”
Tomo pauses, then slings an arm around Kazuha’s neck. “Sharp senses, sharp blade, sharp memory.” The grin is audible in his voice. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
Kazuha wants to take the line that has been tossed in front of him and run, to distract himself until he loses his original intention. Instead, he opens his eyes and turns to look at Tomo, carefully shrugging off the arm around him. He nearly misses the crestfallen expression on his friend’s face before it vanishes as Kazuha takes ahold of his hand.
Perhaps that is the last push of courage he needs. “I wrote a haiku for you,” he says, “all three lines,” and Tomo laughs, and Kazuha follows along because he nearly hadn’t had the nerve to compose the third.
“Go on, then.” On top of their clasped hands, Tomo lays his other. “I want to hear it.”
Kazuha keeps his gaze fixed on their hands. It’s much easier than watching whatever expression may appear on Tomo’s face.
“Wisteria-born,” he begins, “beneath the radiant stars…”
His face burns. “None compare to you.”
The scent of wisteria grows stronger as Tomo bends to press their lips together in a sweet kiss.