Chapter Text
The house was dark and silent. Inaho paused before closing the front door. It slid shut with a barely audible click, almost as if it was afraid of disturbing the eerie atmosphere of the inside. The dust was swirling in the air, evident under the pale morning light that came from the lone window in the hall. The once bright design of the carpet on the floor had become indiscernible, and he put his dirty backpack over it without hesitation.
He made a step forward, foregoing his cane for a moment, and had immediately regretted his decision. The sharp pain surged up and down his wounded knee and knocked his breath out, so he had to prop himself up over the closest piece of furniture. It was a dusty wooden locker. He landed his elbow over its top harshly, brushing the things gathered on its surface. The crashing sound rang throughout the house, and he didn’t need to look down to understand that the photo frame had been destroyed. It was fine though. He would never forget Yuki’s smile even if there were no more photographs of her left.
He waited for the pain to cease, then grabbed his cane. At least it was easier to walk without his backpack. The road from the railway station hadn’t been long and most of it he had covered by riding a taxi, yet in spite of that his back now ached. His body still wasn’t ready to deal with any heavy loads. The war had taken much from him: his sister, his young years, his left eye and his health. He knew his leg would get better after rest and further treatment, but he also knew he would never be able to run again. However, it was a miracle that he had received such a serious wound only towards the end of the war. The loss of his eye had been a worse event, of course, but it had happened six years ago, and he had already gotten accustomed to it.
The living room met him with chaos. Chairs were overturned, furniture and curtains ripped and dirty; broken things had transformed the floor into the field of glass, and the two large windows were boarded up. He had heard earlier from the neighbors that a group of young rowdies had tried to turn the house into their base and that they had been chased away later by the local volunteer corps, but he didn’t expect the damage to be so bad. The elderly neighbors were kind enough to close the windows up in the only way they could since he hadn’t been able to take a leave from the army. He had to remember to thank them later, after he’d get his bearings.
The rest of the house was in the same way - kitchen was ruined, but not drastically. The bathroom and toilet needed cleaning; the bedrooms upstairs were obviously used for the teenage needs - used condoms were still lying under the beds together with the empty packages of chips and beer bottles. For a second he had regretted that boys under the age of eighteen weren’t rounded up for military services but he’d discarded the thought quickly: the establishment of peace had taken place, and surely now children would get more attention from their parents and government. The house was alright, and he had all the time in the world to do cleaning. He also had enough money saved up to do the renovations. In a month or so he would be just fine.
The inspection of the house tired him greatly so he ended up sitting on the stool in the kitchen and lifted his hands to massage his temples. The migraine - an often guest after his head trauma - was well on its way. It was better to take pills now instead of later or he’d just prolong the agony, but the heavy feeling inside his chest forced him to stay still. The sudden memory of how he and Yuki had shared breakfasts in the same kitchen years ago was so bright for a second it felt like he could hear her laughter.
He raised his head slowly and looked at himself in the mirror. The face that looked back at him was almost unfamiliar. The last time he had really studied his face was just after the bandages had been taken away from his head and his dead eye. Since then looking at himself was only a matter of disinfecting his empty eye-socket or cleaning away the dirt after another fight, his motions usually precise and automatic. He let his fingers drag over the wrinkles on his forehead, then pulled away the black eye-patch. Now that the war was over he could apply for getting the prosthetic eye but he doubted it could help his bad looks.
His face was pale, his wrinkles deep. The scars around his empty eye-socket looked utterly ugly. He could also see parts of his short hair were already turning into white. He combed his tousled hair back with his fingers and noted the hollowness of his cheeks. He was thin; he needed to eat more, but eating healthily had been a problem while the war lasted. The peace also felt tentative; the army waited at the borders, ready for any commands. He was just lucky to get into the first lists of soldiers to be sent home because of his leg wound. Hakkinen hadn’t been happy to let him go and had even paid him a visit at the hospital in an attempt to thwart his decision, but he had turned his back to him on the hospital bed and said impassively, ‘I’m done’.
He was exhausted. He didn’t care anymore about fighting. The only person who he had been trying to protect was his sister, and she had died years ago on the battlefield. A military doctor had always been a dangerous profession, and although Yuki had saved countless lives, no one could save hers when the sudden bombing started. For some time he had felt rage - deep-deep inside of him - and he fought with all his might and intelligence, rose fast through the military ranks. General Hakkinen had taken him under his wing, and he had come up with enough brilliant strategies to win most of their battles.
But there was no more reason to fight. However tentative, he knew the peace would hold. Fifteen years of fighting took away many lives, many resources and had turned all the greedy participants into a mere shadow of the glory countries they had once been. People also didn’t want to fight anymore; with each day the amount of deserters was rising higher. Hakkinen had sighed heavily but in the end had let him free.
And now he was here, back at the place he once considered home, wounded and crippled, looking at his almost-forty-years-old self in the mirror and suddenly realizing he had no reasons to live. He let his hair fall down again and returned the eye-patch to his dead eye.
The house continued to stand dark and silent, like an indifferent guard, not soothing him in any way.
***
Cleaning the house and doing renovations was a long process but it gave him something to busy his hands with. He had repaired most of the broken things, renewed the wallpaper in his bedroom, bought new furniture and cleaned the whole mess. He had also hired workers to install the new windows, because no matter how hard he wanted to work on the house by himself, his physical strength often gave out. Sometimes he pushed himself to the limits and then writhed from pain in his leg through the night.
He had also bought a car. It was not new but it was cheap and sturdy and suited his needs perfectly. Neighbors frowned as they regarded his eye-patch, and a lot of them had asked him if he’d be fine driving with one eye. In truth, he had been advised against driving but using a taxi every time he would need to go for food was not rational. The town was rural and his house stood away from all the important shops. He resolved to drive carefully and slowly and as little as he could.
Life seemed to settle into a routine, and he was glad: it distracted him from the painful thoughts and bitter memories. Sometimes neighbors would come to his porch and start a conversation - out of boredom, probably. He didn’t mind; he had never been very social but it felt good to share an occasional talk. It reminded him he was still alive. He had even helped the elderly couple by installing a new socket in their living room, and they had thanked him with a tasty peach pie as a present.
He didn’t hope for happiness. War had showed him the ugliest sides of humanity, and the only thing he longed for was peace. He would be quite content to spend the rest of his days in his home, recuperating and doing meaningless stuff like cooking. On top of what he had already saved, his military pension allowed him to live freely and comfortably, unless he’d suddenly start desiring all the riches of the world, but it was not in his character to waste money.
He was settled for life, he was away from death and destruction, and it felt like a small miracle. He had never believed in miracles. And as he limped down the porch for his usual morning walk he thought that, perhaps, he shouldn’t have started. There was stinking trash thrown all over his lawn, and a group of teenagers laughed as they ran away down the street. “Ugly!” they screamed in unison, the chorus of voices peaked and then went silent. He sat back on the steps; the mere thought of cleaning the whole lawn made his head ache.
He wasn’t really angry. Teenagers had it hard too; the war took their parents, their childhood and any secure future they could have had. The country was going through an economic crisis and would still be for a long time. Most probably, those unruly kids would have to spend their lives working unimaginable hours just to survive. Still, the trash on his lawn didn’t make him happy. He’d spent his life fighting for the future of those kids, and the least he wanted now was to be treated like an abomination. He knew he looked ugly but he didn’t understand the need to point it out to him.
Perhaps he should have gone to the police, taken some measures to not be assaulted with the teenager silliness again. He would have had if he was twenty again and full of confidence and energy. But he wasn’t twenty and he was sick of taking any action and so he did nothing. He suffered through a broken window, through his torn mail - not that he had any aside from the advertisements and a few official papers - through being hit deliberately by a football ball. When he saw a crowd of youngsters writing expletives on his parked car with the black paint he had only sat down at the porch to watch them and realized he was probably depressed. The level of his apathy was unnatural.
“Hey, little shits, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” someone suddenly screamed. The sound of a dropped bag slapped him out of his thoughts and he turned his head to the right to spot the newcomer.
It was a young man, in his early twenties perhaps, dressed into a simple blue t-shirt and jeans, with wild blond hair. He was quickly approaching the crowd with fisted hands. For some reason he looked livid. He glanced back to make sure it was his car being destroyed and it was indeed his. There was no reason for a stranger to get involved, like his neighbors never did in fear to be attacked too.
“Shit! It’s Troyard! Run, run!” the crowd shouted and he blinked in surprise. The speed with which the teenagers had dropped their cans of spray paint and had aimed to disappear down the street was impressive. Meanwhile the ‘Troyard’ person had lifted one of the paint cans and threw it into the direction of the running rowdies. It hit one of the kids at the back and the child screamed in terror, though, surely, the can couldn’t bite him. In mere seconds, the crowd was nowhere to be seen.
“And you!” Troyard said suddenly, coming up to him in obvious anger, hands kept at his sides. “Why are you just sitting there silently? Do you enjoy how those shits destroy your property?”
“I have money to fix everything,” he replied, puzzled. Troyard was now in his personal space and he could see his face closely. His sea blue eyes were peculiar; he’d never before seen such an interesting color, a mix of the deepest blue and green. His neck was elegant and his soft hair covered his pale skin so artfully - especially with the way the sun behind Troyard’s back lighted it in a halo - it was like looking at a picture of a famous artist, like when he went to visit museums with Yuki when he was small. Troyard was a bit thin but his shoulders looked wide and his hands seemed strong, the skin on his knuckles was a bit scratched - a perfect imperfection, his mind supplied. Troyard looked alive. He felt an unfamiliar tug at the pit of his stomach.
Troyard winced but did not lean away and kept looming over him. “If you have or do not have the money is barely an issue!” he continued with conviction. “The fucking shits are testing you and if you don’t kick their asses in time, you’ll only suffer more. They won’t respect you.”
“I have no need of their respect,” he answered truthfully. He didn’t expect respect; was there such a thing for someone who had killed hundreds of people, he wondered (thousands maybe if his battles strategies counted). He didn’t want respect; he wanted peace.
“Are you daft?” Troyard sneered. “You need respect everywhere or you’re an ugly nothing.”
“Then I’m an ugly nothing,” he agreed seriously because that was just how he could be called now, he guessed. He was a random face among the crowd whose deeds would never be known or remembered, not that he wanted them to be. He was crippled, disabled, ugly, a sinner with no friends, no family, no future, no appropriate work. Logically, he could understand easily why the kids would want to assault him; he was a liability to society, someone unneeded - an ideal weak aim that deserved the mistreatment.
Troyard finally leaned away from him and studied his face for a few seconds, his gaze fixing at his eye-patch for a moment. Then he went to pick up his bag - it was a backpack - and had snatched something out of it as he returned to him again. “There, a little gift. Should make you feel better, stupid.”
He accepted whatever Troyard had shoved into his hands and looked down at the sudden present in confusion. It was an orange. It settled comfortably on his palm, the long forgotten smell making his head whirl. He used to love orange juice before the war and he barely had any chances to taste it on the front lines. Sometimes they had tea to drink; most often they were simply glad to have water. He held the orange in his hand, ignoring the painful pang in his chest. The last person to gift him something - not as a thanks but merely out of kindness - was Yuki.
“You seem like an overgrown idiot,” Troyard added, throwing the backpack behind his shoulder. “So, fine, I’ll try to take care of the little shits for you. My condolences to your car though.”
Before he could reply Troyard was already leaving, a menacing smile stuck on his lips.
***
Ever since Troyard’s appearance watching his lawn had become something of an entertainment, like watching a movie. Things happened there - sometimes when he was present at home and sometimes when he wasn’t; sometimes he was woken during the night. Without a doubt, the teenagers were tenacious; they seemed determined to make his life hell, even though he had no idea why he’d become their target for so long; he couldn’t think of any reason aside from his disability and poor looks. But more surprising was Troyard who had turned his lawn into his personal tower and was refusing to let the rowdies bring harm to his property.
It was a war, less destructive and less ugly, but another kind of war he didn’t want to participate in so he only looked from the side. Troyard was just as relentless as he fouled the teenager’s plans and threatened them with physical fights, was it day or night. Sometimes he heard them speaking. “Why do you care?” the crowd whined while Troyard forced them to run in defeat again. “I’m appalled that you don’t,” he usually shouted at their backs.
Sometimes Troyard was so tired he kept falling asleep on his porch, sitting there, waiting, in his thin jacket, embracing his backpack. Sometimes he brought books and notepads and did his studies. Troyard was only a few years older than the teenagers, he surmised; he spotted some of his books and realized he was a university student, most probably from a second or a third course. He still couldn’t understand why Troyard would waste so much time of his precious life to defend his property. It was also strange that he didn’t ask to be paid and didn’t want any gratitude; more so, he kept leaving fruits under his door despite that he was obviously underfed and getting thinner with each day.
As the summer burnt away he got used to Troyard’s presence on his porch. He had found that there was no better distraction than to hear him groan after waking up from a nightmare. The knowledge that there was someone close, someone alive, someone there to anchor his feverish mind (even if that someone was suffering from sleeping on the wood boards outside) was soothing. He wondered if he would feel like that if he got a pet, but a pet needed attention and with his limp and too often migraines he would probably not be able to care for it properly.
Honestly, he should have known that things wouldn’t stay the way they were for long but he was so unused to these surreal civilian events that kept happening around him that he’d failed to think that Troyard had his own life too. When the rainfalls started he came upon a scene he’d thought he’d never see. Troyard had actually caught one of the kids - the one who was the tallest and who looked the strongest among all of them - and had punched him right in the face so the kid had fallen down. There was blood on Troyard’s knuckles and he had a scratch on his chin; he was also drenched wet. He must have missed the beginning of the fight while he was taking a walk (it was a bad decision to walk in the rain; his leg hurt like hell).
He watched as the kids cried, trying to get the tall kid up, and how Troyard loomed over them, apparently lecturing them on something, his gestures quick and harsh. It was impossible to hear the words from where he stood, but the way the rowdies left his lawn felt final. Troyard watched them like a hawk, like a beast, making sure his territory wouldn’t be breached again, and he felt a shiver. Troyard didn’t look like a student anymore; he had a look of someone who saw life and death and who knew the rules of the nature; he looked like someone who had a misfortune to get to know the deepest darkest parts of himself.
He paused near the porch and watched his approach, leaning on his cane tiredly and trying to hold his umbrella straight.
“I told them we’re dating,” Troyard said out of the blue.
He blinked.
Troyard looked away with flushed cheeks. “Look, it’s autumn already and I need to get back to classes. I can’t stay here every day so telling the idiots something like that was the only option. They wouldn’t back away otherwise.”
“I never asked to be protected,” he pointed out, perplexed at Troyard’s audacity. Well, he probably could protect himself if he aimed for it; he could fight despite his limp - it wasn’t that hard to ignore pain for a while; he’d learned to cope at the end of the war.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Troyard pinched the bridge of his nose, hissed when he brushed his hurt chin, then breathed deeply. “Well, it’s not like I was expecting gratitude anyway. But you are now under the protection of Slaine Troyard because you are Slaine Troyard’s boyfriend so act accordingly.”
“What do you mean by ‘accordingly’?” he inquired, somehow, disgruntled. He had gone through the war and was almost forty, and now a mere student was protecting him? And what was that about being his boyfriend? He was old enough to be Troyard’s father. Their age difference was… eighteen years or so, he surmised.
Troyard rolled his eyes. “If someone asks about our relationship tell them something believable,” he explained, pushing his wet hair back, baring his pale forehead. He looked sexy, he had to admit reluctantly. They were almost of the same height but Troyard hadn’t yet lost his boyish complexion fully; he was lean and would settle in his arms just right if they were to... His thoughts came to a halt and he froze; he hadn’t remembered about his needs for years. Where had this image come from? Troyard didn’t seem to notice his reaction and spoke on, “Something like that I stay with you over weekends and we do the walks and shit.”
“That is what you consider believable?” he clarified, stepping under the protection of his porch, glad to finally lower his umbrella.
“Well,” Troyard huffed and ruffled his hair again, giving him a smirk. “Or that I’m wild and insatiable in bed. Anyone around this area will most definitely believe this.”
“Are you?” slipped off his lips so fast he could not really stop it.
The way Troyard’s wet pale face flourished with color instantly was amazing. And it was not anger; he was evidently embarrassed. “Are you fucking c-crazy?” he stuttered like a virgin. “What kind of question is that?” he added angrier and looked away, his hand clutched nervously at the edge of his wet jacket. Well, maybe he was a virgin then; it wasn’t that surprising to have no experience at twenty or so; the fact just didn’t mix at all with Troyard’s earlier image.
There was nothing really to talk about anymore. He’d gotten Troyard’s idea of keeping his property safe and perhaps it wasn’t a bad one if it would keep the unruly children at bay. Troyard certainly had an aura of someone not be messed with (some of his neighbors had already advised him to stay away from him) and he wondered for a moment what exactly Troyard had done to earn it, but that information was irrelevant for now. The cold months were ahead and it would be nice if his property would get a considerable pause from being assaulted (his leg didn’t appreciate rains and colds, and any kind of action during that time would be arduous), so maybe fake dating Troyard wasn’t the worst plan he could accept at this point.
Troyard stood in front of him, drenched and getting even wetter with every second as the rain fell from the sky; he never seemed to have anything to protect him from the rain. He stretched his arm and hit Troyard’s hip with his closed umbrella lightly, forcing Troyard to look up at him in bewilderment, his embarrassment forgotten. He rolled the umbrella in his hand skillfully, like he used it to do with knives, so that the handle was directed towards Troyard. Then he offered it to him.
“Thank you,” he said softly. He hadn’t asked for help but Troyard had spent ungodly hours to stop the rowdies from ruining his property, just out of kindness. He had to acknowledge it; he would be someone his sister didn’t want him to become if he didn’t. He might have disregarded Troyard if he was younger but he had learned enough about emotions as he grew up and as he’d watched the war from the front rows. There was time to stay coolheaded and there was time to appreciate life and people it let you meet.
Troyard was looking at the umbrella for a long time, like he truly didn’t understand that it was a present. He looked at it too; it was pricey and it was new and it was black - an acceptable color to wear everywhere - so he reckoned it was a good offer. He kept his arm stretched until Troyard finally touched the umbrella with his fingers carefully like he was afraid to break it. It made him think if maybe Troyard hadn’t ever received a present; there was something tentative in his eyes, distrust fighting against longing. He’d taken it in the end and had pressed it to his chest instead of using it, and then he backed away, hiding his eyes, and was gone in mere minutes.
He stared at the veil of rain, puzzled.