Chapter Text
Muichirou was walking through the Ubuyashiki cemetery. He wasn’t paying any respects, just looking. And thinking. He was about to go off to train and it was as good a way as any to kill time he supposed.
“I can’t believe Oyakata-sama knows all these names.” Muichirou thinks out loud. He wanders around a bit more before he finds a cat and chooses to follow it. It wanders off to a nice place to watch clouds and there is already someone there. The water pillar. Muichirou watches the cat approach him and sees the water pillar put out his hand to let the cat approach him at its own pace but his hand is quickly attacked. Muichirou is surprised to see the water pillar act so nonplussed about it. He is a rather stoic man, he supposes.
Muichirou walks over to the older man and sits down next, the cat acting as a separation between the two. It’s a calico so Muichirou assumes she's female. His brother told him that once. He doesn’t know why he remembered that. Even when his amnesia was at its worst he remembered that.
He petted her head and then looked at Tomioka who was mildly glaring at the cat. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen emotion on the water pillars face so he was almost more interested in the reaction than the cat or the clouds.
“Are you more of a dog person?” Muichirou asks quietly. He’s not sure where to take the conversation, or why he even tried to start one in the first place. Tomioka looks towards the clouds and lets the silence wash over them before answering.
“Dogs and cats act the same towards me, so I guess I'm just an animal person. Birds too.” Tomioka keeps looking at the clouds. Muichirou takes a look at them for himself before responding.
“I think you mean not an animal person.”
“They just like to play with me.” Tomioka says before looking at the cat again.
“I guess me and the cats don’t really play, we just hang out and watch clouds. They usually fall asleep though.” Muichirou replies. Tomioka makes a small noise so Muichirou knows he heard. “You’re not holding a hashira training. I was surprised since you’re so strong, well that’s what Tanjirou said. And you’re a hashira, so you definitely have talent.”
The water pillar doesn’t say anything to this. He never was very talkative Muichirou already knew. He himself wasn’t either but since his memories came back he’s felt a bit more open.
“You’re still going to do the other hashira’s training right? Mine is speed training. I don’t think I’m going to be a very good teacher, but oyakata-sama thinks I can do it.”
Tomioka doesn’t respond again, Muichirou still doesn’t mind all that much.
“What do you like to do for fun?” The younger boy asks and Tomioka looks almost confused. “I like looking at the clouds and petting cats. If they stick around too long Ginko gets mad though. She’s my crow. So what kind of things do you like?”
“Salmon daikon.” Is the other pillar's answer after a moment.
“Can we go get some then?” Muichirou asks.
“Why?”
“Well I’ve never had it and we were doing exactly what I like for a while. It’s fair, right? To now do something you like.”
“It’s not as if either of us planned this. It was just a coincidence that we saw each other. Cats and clouds aside.” Tomioka argues, and Muichirou wonders why. This is something you like to do. Why not take any excuse to just do it?
“Are you busy now or something?” Muichirou inquires.
“No.”
“So let's just go. Who knows when you’ll get the opportunity to eat your favorite food. And I’m a hashira, my time is precious. Be grateful that I’m spending it with you.” Muichirou jokes, Tomioka doesn’t laugh, but that’s okay.
On the way out they stop at Rengoku’s grave. Muichirou doesn’t know what to say to him. He closes his eyes and claps his hands together and he says he’s sorry Oyakata-sama had to remember his name. Tomioka finished quickly as well.
Muichirou wonders about his companion on their way to whatever the closest eatery in the direction their going is. He doesn’t know much about him; he blames his amnesia. Gaining his memories back has been a double edged sword. He is immensely grateful to remember his brother and family, now he must come to terms with three years of life wasted. He spent all his time training and the little free time he allowed himself he spent trying to remember anything really. Calicoes are typically females. What a useless thing to remember.
They arrive in a small town. Muichirou has never been here but Tomioka has considering the warm welcome. Maybe he had been following the older man this whole time. He thought they both had been wandering aimlessly, well, loosely aimed at an eatery.
“Oh Tomioka-sama! It’s good to see you after all this time, doing well? We never got to properly thank you for killing that demon, you left so suddenly.” The woman notices Muichirou and turns to smile at him also. “Oh, is this your younger brother?”
“He’s not. And like I said before, you don’t have to thank me.” Tomioka informs the woman.
“We insist, please come into my family’s shop for a meal. Your companion can have one as well. We truly are eternally grateful, we wouldn’t be here without you.” The woman ushers them into a small restaurant and gives them a rundown of what they have, Muichirou doesn’t really pay attention when she finishes talking he orders two salmon daikons.
“So did you do something remarkable here or something?” Muichirou asks.
“There was a demon in the area for a while so I was sent here to kill it. It’s just our job.” It is remarkable, though both of them had trouble accepting the importance of their actions.
“I guess I’d be grateful if you saved my life as well. I mean I’m also grateful that you're eating with me.” Muichirou turns to smile at his senior and Tomioka looks at him somewhat blankly. He doesn’t mind. “Your facial expressions don't change very much. I had that problem too. I’m trying to smile more. I used to think I was just not very expressive but I realized I just wasn’t happy for a while. You should try to be happy more than you’ll have to smile.”
“You're not really a normal kid.” Tomioka says.
“That can’t be surprising.” Muichirou picks up his glass of water and starts to drink it. He watches the other customers and families come in, it’s somehow not as fun as watching the clouds. He looks to his companion and thinks that he’s not really a normal adult either. It’s actually not very often he is around people that can be considered normal anyway so he’s not sure. He tries his hardest to leave the normal people as quickly as possible so their lives can get back to what they were.
Not too long after, the food comes out. It smells really good, It looks good too. Muichirou has barely separated his hands from their clapped position and he notices Tomioka has already started eating. Rather messily at that.
“You do seriously like this stuff.” He says before he takes his first bite. It’s good he looks at Tomioka and sees a faint smile on his face. It brings a smile to his own. “I’m glad we chose to come here today.”
They sit in silence for a while and finish their food.
“Mitsuri talks a lot, usually I don't pay that much attention but she told me once that I should always finish my food so I could grow and be stronger. I’m usually so busy I can’t waste that much time eating.”
“She does talk a lot.”
“Yeah, very unlike you. Are you glad we came here today?” Muichirou asks.
“Why wouldn’t I be happy to eat my favorite food?” Tomioka says.
“You did smile so you probably were.”
“You’re usually very serious and I never see you lounging around like this. I’m surprised you wanted to spend an afternoon doing nothing.”
“I guess being happy seems like nothing. Slaying demons also feels like nothing though.” Muichirou pauses momentarily to think. “Recently I truly realized I lost myself with my memories. I used to be happy just to have my brother by my side, even if he was mean sometimes. When he died and I lost my memories I stopped feeling happy. I trained so hard because I knew something was missing and maybe if I saved enough people, maybe the world, I’d find it.” Muichirou looks into his water cup briefly before making eye contact with Tomioka again. “I wasn’t going to find it the way I was before. The last three years were completely wasted. All I ever did was train and slay demons. I heard about Rengoku-san’s death and couldn’t even say anything because he was almost a stranger to me. Everyone was. If I die after living like that my brother would be right, the “Mu” in Muichirou would have meant nothing all along.”
The waitress comes back before Tomioka can respond. It’s okay though.
“Oh you both are already done. Well before you go the town is having a festival so it’s incredibly wonderful that you both came on this night. Please take your time to enjoy the festival. And don’t even worry about paying, we are already in your debt.” The woman makes quick work of ushering them both out of the restaurant. “The festival is right down this street and you'll start seeing stalls soon.” She pushes them off and leaves them with one last thank you and a wave.
“You’re a lot more talkative than I thought you were.”
“Well until recently I wouldn’t have left much room to talk to me so you weren’t wrong.” There’s a short pause. “Oyakata-sama says breaks are important. That makes sense but I never really listened. Even my swordsmith told me to take it easy, he worried about me to the very end.” Looking back Muichirou hates how he was the last three years. He hates that Tetsuido-san died only knowing a memoryless boy who could only train until he coughed up blood. “Anyway you talk about as much as I expected. You never really talked to anyone that I saw at least. But I wasn’t ever really paying attention. I will now though.”
“I’m not sure I have anything important enough to tell you.” Tomioka replies. There hasn’t been anything that's caught Muicirou’s eye yet. Nor Tomioka, but Muichirou has a feeling the older man wouldn’t make them stop anyway.
“You’re so serious. Why would you even tell important stuff to a fourteen year old prone to amnesia.” Muichirou says laughing a little and looks towards Tomioka and notices the stall behind him. Its a bottle dropping game. “Look Tomioka, let's play that. If I win I get to decide a prize okay?”
“Don’t you have to pick from the prizes they offer?” Tomioka asks genuinely.
“No, I mean from you. We’re gonna compete and whoever wins can ask the loser for something.”
They end up playing the game for free because the stall owner remembers what Tomioka did for them. Muichirou decides that he is the winner because while Tomioka knocked every bottle over he was slower. Muichirou also broke a few of them so he is undoubtedly the winner.
“Okay I want you to give me something to tie my hair up with.” Muichirou demands and is surprised to see Tomioka take his own ponytail out and give the tie to Muichirou.
“I only have this one.”
“Your hair is really wild.” Muihcirou just looks at the older man for a moment. Tomioka is a bit of an oddball. He’s stoic but chooses to wear a mismatch haori and to not do his hair apparently.
“It’s just like this. I don’t like to tie it tight because then it hurts my head, because of that I get a lot of flyaways.” Muichirou makes one braid going over his left shoulder and ties it off right where his hair changes color.
“Do I remind you of Mitsuri now that I’m talking a lot and my hair is in a braid?” Muichirou jokes and looks at the older pillar. “Her hair is really pretty.”
The older man looks at the smiling boy for a long moment and Muichirou wonders if he’s going to say something.
“Oi! You two, please won’t you have a shaved ice. It’s no problem.” They turn in the direction of the woman who called out to them and then walk in the direction of that stall.
Miuchirou selects one that is blue because it reminds him of his own hair and the water pillar does the same.
“Did you choose blue because of water breathing or because you have blue eyes. Your sword is blue too right.” Muichirou picks up the end of his hair and holds it up for the other pillar to see easier. “My hair is kind of blue like this but the ice is darker.” Now that he looks it’s really not the same but it’s more similar than the red would have been. While he had been too focused on his hair he didn’t notice the other pillars eyes widening as he spoke he did however hear what sounded like a cough before he drops his hair and looks over to see Tomioka turned away from him.
The cough which was now more easily interpreted as a laugh continues. The water pillars cheeks slightly red.
“Why not get it because you like the flavor?” Tomioka says with just a ghost of a smile. “I didn’t know we were considering how the food looked against our hair when we chose it.”
“That’s because you don’t consider all things Tomioka. Presentation is important.’ Muichirou says with a smile on his face.
“Well then I did choose it because of how it looks against your hair. I just picked what you got for whatever reason you got it. I don’t usually get sweets.” Tomioka says calmly. He has a soothing and even voice. Muichirou wonders if one day he’ll have a voice like that. He can say his voice is even, but it's a bit too high to be of the soothing nature.
“Hmm, well next time we're together at a festival I’ll pick something that goes well with your haori. It’s really cool so it should be easy.” He sees Tomioka’s smile falter and then gently ease back into his regular stoic expression. Muichirou feels bad for a moment then Tomioka gently pats him on the head before looking forward again.
“Well as a hashira my time is very important. I should get back to the mist estate so I can prepare for this training. It’s on the way to the water estate so we can walk together.” Muichirou says as they continue down the road. Stall owners asking them if they want to stop and them politely declining.
They walk along dark roads until they get to the small estate that the younger boy resides between missions, when he is not unlucky enough to require a stay at the butterfly mansion.
“You should still come do my training. It’s going to be really hard and I’m not sure you’ll be able to handle it but I’d go easy on you if you came.” Muichirou tells the water pillar. It earns him a small smile but no confirmation either way.
“Good night, Tokitou.” And then the water pillar makes his escape.