Work Text:
He noticed them again when he returned to Seimei’s courtyard after a mission, the group of shikigami huddled in a room. At a glance, there was the mistress of tales, the carp spirit, the moonscape princess, even the bunny and her frog.
The ladies’ club perhaps, he surmised, and strode on down the corridor.
Except something was amiss. Onikiri sensed their eyes following him as he passed. Worse, a cloud of giggles bursted out when he was nearly out of earshot.
He pulled to a stop after rounding the corner, and checked himself, wondering if he had worn his top inside out.
“Girls notice such things,” Yoto had explained to him. “Do be careful,” she cautioned, “especially when you come back from, ahem, you know.” She mimed, torn between trying to speak and trying not to, the resulting effect made her look like a goldfish out of water, helplessly gulping air.
His clothes appeared fine. Yoto’s comments remained cryptic.
The fifth time it happened, he was in a rush heading out on an errand. “Seimei-sama says we don’t need you until tomorrow after lunch!” Kohaku yelled after him, and he nodded as he hurried along the corridor.
“No dinner?” The immortal nun asked as he passed her.
He shook his head. “No need to leave breakfast for me too, thank you.”
It was only later when he was blissfully soaking in the hot bath, that it suddenly came to him — the glimpse of a conspiratorial grin slowly spreading across the usually placid face.
“Well then, have a good evening and don’t…overexert,” she waved him off, and giggled.
She giggled!
He caught Hoshiguma on the way down the mountain in the morning.
“There’s a giggling disease going on,” he concluded, after recounting the strange giggling fit that seemed to follow him on his heels.
“Only the ladies?” Hoshiguma asked him.
He nodded. They all seemed perfectly sane and healthy, except the giggling. It was beginning to unnerve him.
He surreptitiously checked to see no one was listening in.
“Should I be concerned?”
He had yet to bring it up to Seimei, for the onmyoji was usually perceptive. He did not want to look a fool by overreacting to something that was actually not so out of the ordinary. After all, he was the newbie, having recently moved there from the Minamoto estate two blocks north.
Hoshiguma looked at him, or he supposed the yokai was looking at him. There’s no telling sometimes with that habitual squint.
He waited, hoping the yokai was only being considerate in taking time to formulate his advice. The demon king was known to be wise, but in Ooe, they approached Hoshiguma for all worldly worries.
“Do you want the short answer or the long answer?” Hoshiguma’s expression was rather pained, in a you-don’t-really-want-to-know-but-you-won’t-let-me-fob-you-off-will-you way, which meant that it was not a serious matter in the conventional sense, that while there was dire consequence in the dangerous knowledge he was going to reluctantly impart to Onikiri, it probably would only implode one person’s universe.
Specifically, Onikiri’s universe.
Onikiri chewed his lips, feeling vertigo from the metaphysical leap that he knew he would take. It was not unlike looking over the edge of the cliff, and he knew himself enough by now to know that he would regret not jumping in.
“The long answer,” he affirmed, bracing himself.
“Well, well,” Hoshiguma led him carefully by the elbow away from the precarious mountain path. “Let’s see…have you heard them mention a ‘ship’?”
“No.” As far as he was concerned, Heian-kyo was on solid earthen ground.
“Let’s get the difficult part over first then.”
Hoshiguma gently directed him to a comfortable looking rock by a nice clearing, and sat him down on it. He started to feel apprehensive.
“Are things entirely innocent between you and that Minamoto onmyoji?” Came the question.
Onikiri blushed.
The question was very difficult to answer, but also very easy to answer.
“Ah.” Hoshiguma observed, not without a tint of pity.
Realising he had jumped on a very precise interpretation of ‘not innocent’ without being prompted, and the terrible disclosure he had unwittingly given, Onikiri gasped, helplessly. He could not see if he was blushing even more furiously, but his cheeks were so warm he probably was.
It was a terrible morning. Many thoughts tumbled through his mind, and crashed against one another.
“This is an atrocious thread of conversation,” he finally confessed.
“So it is, my friend,” Hoshiguma patted his shoulder, “do you still want to know more about this ‘ship’ which brings mysterious delight to the ladies?”