Work Text:
01:22 – Compile Haru Matsuri Report
Ayaka enters his office around an hour past midnight, feet padding quietly on the otogi planks. Outside the window, the path up Mount Yougou remains adorned with lanterns and omamori, left over from the day’s festivities. “Are you working on the festival report?”
She comes to the desk to read over his shoulder, and Ayato nods as she mouths the words softly to herself. It is a leftover habit from hours of decorum lessons and policy making, something they have in common. “That was quite a feat, you know, closing the festival in the midst of a thunderstorm.”
Ayaka blushes and smooths long, damp hair out of her eyes. She’s dressed in a simple jinbei and fresh out of the shower, still smelling like the sakura wax soap that Thoma makes for them every spring. “Everything went smoothly aside from that!” A brief pause, and she smiles softly. “The attendees enjoyed themselves, I think.”
“Well, I did notice one or two angry vendors—” She sputters at the insinuation, and Ayato cannot help but laugh. “I’m joking. You did an amazing job. Even the decor was perfect, given how little time and… waterproofing you had.”
Ayaka gives him a withering stare and promptly sneezes. He raises his eyebrows. “Are you feeling alright? We did miss you at dinner, but Thoma didn’t want to wake you so we had some food put aside instead—”
“I’m alright, just tired.” She yawns and settles into one of the ornamental chairs facing the gardens. All the other rooms across the courtyard are dark save for one, and Ayato suspects that it must be Thoma, still tidying away after the festival’s chaos. “I’ll probably head to bed soon.”
“That’ll be for the best then. You’ve had a long day.” He grins at her and gestures to the paperwork, filled with line upon line of bureaucracy and procedure… and pride. “A long and successful day.” It had been a wonder to put it onto paper, to witness what Ayaka had been able to accomplish with barely a week and the Irodori Festival’s leftover funding.
Ayaka pays him no mind, but he does not miss the gentle set of her shoulders, or the brief smile that tugs at her lips. For better or for worse, they have fallen into a rhythm of subtleties and implications, of words inherently unsaid. It works wonderfully when navigating Tri-Commission affairs and political disputes—Ayato, of all people, knows this—but it is moments like these, late at night and smelling of homemade soap, that make him wish that it did not have to be this way.
He must have been staring, because Ayaka gives him a pointed look. “And how about you? What time do you plan on sleeping?” There is a pause, and then they both snort. He supposes that it’s par for the course at this point: Ayaka sleeps late, Thoma sleeps later. And Ayato? Well.
They’re silent for a moment, and Ayato turns his attention back to the paperwork, to organizing his sister’s accomplishments and maturity into neat little boxes, circles to be shaded, quantitative descriptors. It is entirely odd to think, to realize , that he’d been her age not too long ago, and completely overwhelmed by a mere fraction of her work now.
And he knows that it had not been an overnight change—far from it, really. It had been afternoon upon afternoon of tea ceremony, of bladework and Ayaka’s room locked from the inside for hours at a time. Where had he been, when the shift had finally happened? Bargaining with the Tenryou Commission? Studying trade routes with Thoma in Ritou? In this very room, looking in the wrong direction?
Somehow, sometime, somewhere between otogi wood and shoji panels, she’d grown into someone who ran festivals in the pouring rain without a second thought. Who said more with her eyes and shoulders than she ever did with her lips. It scares him a little, thinking about how much he might have missed.
“I had a dream, you know. While I was asleep during dinner.” He looks up. Ayaka is watching the courtyard, Thoma’s solitary light flickering at the opposite end of the compound.
“What about?”
“I dreamed of Mother. We were playing shogi in the garden, and she beat me. Like she always did.” Her voice does not waver as she speaks, and Ayato knows better than to see it as pretense. Like this, Ayaka has no need for lies. It comforts him, a little.
“You were always a bad shogi player.” He tries for a little bit of humor. “Still are. You lose to Thoma, of all people.”
She laughs and turns back to him, mouth carefully set and eyes bright. “I know. But it was nice, losing.” A silent, quick breath. “Remembering that failure wasn’t always a bad thing.”
Ayato cannot remember the last time he dreamed—constant sleep deprivation probably doesn’t help. But a part of him is glad that Ayaka still does, that this quiet escape for her and her alone still remains. She is staring at him, rosy-cheeked and fresh-faced, backlit by the moon, and he is truly thankful that she is still allowed to be like this, eighteen and dreaming of shogi and their mother.
Ayaka rises from the chair and heads for the door, stopping by his desk to give him a quick hug. Her dream needs no reply; many things between them do not. “I’ll have Thoma bring you some warm tea for that cold of yours tomorrow.”
“I don’t have a cold. Good night, brother.” She closes the door behind her, and it does little to muffle the sneeze that immediately follows.
03:16 – Shuumatsuban Bi-annual Debriefing Agenda
The smell of Naku Weed Tea hits him before Thoma even enters. A moment later, he slides the door open, tray and tea set balanced expertly in his other hand. “Still up, Waka?”
“Is that a question you still need to ask?”
Thoma sets down the tea set, puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Who knows! Maybe one day, my prayers will be answered and you and Lady Ayaka will stop sleeping so late —”
Ayato closes the Shuumatsuban folder and rises to match his height. Thoma had always been the slightly taller one, even when they were boys. “Aha! I saw you cleaning the storage rooms even after Ayaka went to bed! The lights were still on across the courtyard, and only you ever clean at this time.”
Thoma opens his mouth, then closes it again. Ayato grins. “I concede. One last thing though…” He inhales… and breaks into a full-on pout . “You didn’t meet me for takoyaki ! I thought we were supposed to buy some during the festival?”
Ah . “It baffles me that you continue to subject yourself to meals with me, despite my…” He smirks at Thoma. “ … rather eccentric choice of condiments. Who knows what I might have asked you to put on your takoyaki ?”
Thoma does not relent. “I waited for you in the rain! Even when the vendor moved to find shelter and I had to go looking for them again.”
The thought of Thoma in the rain, red jacket soaked and huddling in the shadow of a yumemiru tree, is amusing enough to chase away the yawn at the back of his throat. It’s barely four in the morning, and he’s already much more tired than usual. “I’m sorry Thoma, really. I got held up with the Shuumatsuban.”
“I know you did, Waka. I was the one who packed you your sword.” Ayato thinks back to earlier in the day, and recalls his gear neatly stacked by the door. It had taken him seconds to hoist it over his shoulder and leave, as opposed to minutes of loose buckles and stray rope.
“That was you?” Then again, who could it have been but Thoma, who seemed to know his schedule more surely than the rising of the sun?
Thoma’s faux pout gives way to a grin, both warm and familiar, all teeth and slightly crooked at the corners. “For once, I got to surprise you. And speaking of surprises—”
He heads back out the door. There are a few muffled noises from the kitchen down the hall, and Ayato knows that Thoma is taking great care to not wake Ayaka in her quarters: a thump as he sets a pot onto a padded trivet, a dull tinkle as he gently replaces their silverware.
When he was a boy and Thoma had been a newcomer barely conversational in the Inazuman tongue, one of the first rooms they’d toured in the estate had been the kitchens. Ayato had knocked a brass pot off the countertop and upset a basket of amakumo fruit, scattering purple rinds across the floor. The pot had made a harsh, loud clang ! against the cabinet on its way down, and Ayato could almost hear his mother’s feet coming down the stairs, heralding a harsh scolding.
And though it hadn’t been Thoma’s fault, and though Ayato had pushed through his own dread and told him to call for a senior servant instead, Thoma had knelt beside him that afternoon and collected every single piece, gesturing with his hands the words that he did not yet know. Ayato had not needed language, then, to understand the warmth in his movements, the honest sounds of knees against kitchen tile.
The door slides open, and Thoma reenters the office with two bowls of… takoyaki? “I asked the vendor to put it in a little box so that I could reheat it back home.” He places the bowls down with a flourish and pulls up a chair. “Do you like it?”
Ayato’s stomach growls in response. Thoma gracefully lets it slide and hands him a pair of chopsticks. “Thank you.”
They eat in silence, disturbed only by the sound of chopsticks against porcelain. Ayato is almost through his bowl when he realizes that Thoma is watching him, half-eaten takoyaki and utensils neatly set aside to the left.
“What’s wrong?” He absently pats at his cheek and his chin. Once after a particularly nasty hotpot session, Thoma had gotten him back by spiking his miso with dye, leaving his lips orange for the better part of a day. “Is there something on my face?”
To his surprise, Thoma just sighs. “No, Waka. It’s just…kind of obvious that you haven’t eaten the entire day.” He rubs at his neck sheepishly, but the sharp edge of his concern still stings.
“Was it that apparent?”
Thoma shrugs and gestures at the disparity between their bowls. Thoma’s is red and printed with pawprints, still half-full from the ten minutes they’ve spent eating. Ayato’s is blue ceramic with a whale engraving… and almost completely empty. “It was a bit hard not to notice.”
“Sorry.” He pours them both cups of tea, and Thoma glares at him in mock indignation before quietly dropping some of his own takoyaki into Ayato’s bowl. And they’re long past the formality of Have you eaten, my lord ’ s and Yes later, thank you Thoma ’s, but he appreciates it all the same: sticky-sweet takoyaki sauce between the clicking of his chopsticks, and Thoma’s quiet humming as he puts away the tea set.
Thoma stays with him for another half-hour, dusting off shelves with a small cloth as he continues on the Shuumatsuban meeting agenda. It’s another thing he hasn’t asked Thoma to do, that he’s gone ahead and done anyway.
“I’m turning in for the night, Waka. Anything else you need from me?” The tea set and bowls are back in Thoma’s capable hands, and he waits by the door for Ayato to reply, ever patient with him.
“Can you brew another pot of tea for tomorrow morning? Ayaka’s coming down with a cold, even if she won’t admit it.”
He smiles. “Understood.”
05:44 – Snack Break
Ayato steps quietly into the hallway an hour before sunrise, blinking blearily as he makes his way towards the kitchen. He’s just about done with his work for the night, and Ayaka probably won’t mind if he helps himself to the food that Thoma had set aside for her earlier at dinner. It’s only been a few hours since the takoyaki, but he’s long since become an expert at substituting food for sleep anyway.
He feels his way along the kitchen wall for the lamp, almost swearing as he collides with a cabinet left ajar. It’s unusual for Thoma to leave the kitchen anything but spotless before bed, but he pays it no mind and finds the switch. There’s a sharp click as he turns it on… and finds Arataki Itto frozen in front of his pantry. As if on cue, a piece of onigiri rolls off the shelf and to a stop by his feet.
“I can explain,” Itto begins.
“Can you?”
Itto pauses and gapes. “No, actually.” Ayato raises an eyebrow at that, and the oni places the rest of his spoils on the countertop. He spots a packet of miso, some readymade dango, and candy of all things in the mix. “I was hungry, okay?”
“And so you decided to steal from my pantry in the wee hours of the morning.”
“Hey, it isn’t stealing if I was going to ask permission. Afterwards.” Itto flicks a thumb in the direction of Ayato’s office, its light spilling into the dark hallway. “Besides, I know you! You’re always awake, so I would have been able to ask!”
His words make Ayato pause for a moment. It’s no secret to Thoma and Ayaka that he works without resting—it’s part of the job at this point. But hearing it from Itto is… something else, something that feels almost negative . “Do really expect me to always be awake?”
Itto nods around a mouthful of colorful dango. “I mean, you are right now. No one normal is awake right now.”
A part of Ayato, tucked away behind bookshelves and under desks, thinks of Ayaka sleeping in the room above them, of Thoma’s quarters just down the hall to the left. He considers the moments he’s given up to this , to the post of the Yashiro Commissioner.
“Do you think that’s… a bad thing?”
Itto considers his question for a little bit, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m not dumb, Ayato.” He pauses. “Not that dumb. But even a dumb person would be able to see that you’re always working because of the people you care about!”
Ayaka , he thinks, Thoma . And maybe Itto too, sometimes .
“I don’t just come here because of the free food either, you know,” Itto adds, toeing at the discarded dango wrapper by his feet. “Whenever I drop by, you always ask me if I need anything regardless of how late it is. Even though I sometimes ask for beetle fights!” Ayato doesn’t respond for a little bit, allows Itto’s words to settle into his bones with a peculiar warmth.
“So no! I don’t think it’s a bad thing!”
“Yes, I got that part Itto.” Despite himself, despite the time, Ayato can’t help but laugh a little. “Do you need anything else? Before Thoma wakes up and shoos you out for the mess you’ve made.”
The oni pales—Ayato doesn’t blame him, Thoma is terrifying with a broom—and shakes his head. “You want some of my dango?”
“Good night, Itto.” Ayato turns and makes his way back to his office, smiling at the sound of Itto loudly stumbling back out through the kitchen window. By the time he’s back at his desk, the sun has slowly started to rise, bathing the courtyard in tentative gold. Soon, Thoma will be up to begin the day’s chores, cooking breakfast and chatting with the rest of the servants. A few hours later, Ayaka will head out to Inazuma City on Commission work, diligent and graceful as ever.
He’s still got one or two read-throughs of the Shuumatsuban agenda left, and maybe some signatory work to do after. But something small that lives behind Ayato’s ribcage, in the intimate space between his lungs and heart, is content to let it go, to save it for later. Light filters over the peak of Mount Yougou in shades of yellow and purple, and he thinks sleepily, 04:00—Tea with Thoma and Ayaka.
07:36
The Kamisato Estate slowly wakes to greet the new day. Servants tend to the courtyard and find large footprints dotting the garden, tutting quietly before smoothing them away. In the kitchen, the clan retainer prepares breakfast for three and sets aside a single portion for later. Smelling of sakura and sleep, a young lady takes her tea in the sitting room, sniffling gently between sips.
And slumped at his desk, the Yashiro Commissioner sleeps and dreams of the Haru Matsuri, of warm takoyaki and rainy speeches, of beetle fighting and tea.