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The fire inside the paper lanterns burned low, doing little to chase away the darkness. The small house in the secluded cemetery had gone quiet a while ago.
Atsu lay on her side, facing away from the hanging lanterns, her fur cape pulled up to her chin more out of habit than for warmth. The night air in Ezo was cold as it came through the windows, the kind that settles into your bones and stays there. She told herself she was resting. She told herself her breathing was even, and her body was finally still.
She told herself a lot of things.
Sleep did not come.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw steel flashing and yellow leaves rustling. Felt the jolt in her arms when her blade met Oyuki's Kusarigama. Heard the sharp inhale Oyuki hadn't been able to stop when Atsu's strike landed—not lethal, not really meant to be, but far from gentle.
Necessary, Atsu had told herself then.
Necessary did not mean painless.
The futon on the other side of the room rustled softly. Atsu froze, every muscle tightening on instinct, even though there was no danger here. She listened, just as Oyuki had taught her. Slowly, she let her breath even out again, careful not to move. Through half-lowered lashes, she watched.
Oyuki had sat up, her back turned to Atsu, shoulders outlined in soft gold firelight while the rest of her stayed almost hidden by the shadows.
Atsu didn't want to think too hard about why she'd chosen to stay another night here, beside the older woman; she just did.
Perhaps it was the deep red of blood that had run down Oyuki's cheek after their duel. A small cut, but Atsu didn't like the contrast of it against Oyuki's skin.
Perhaps it was something else. But when night had arrived, Atsu followed Oyuki up the hill and into the small house of the familiar cemetery. Oyuki hadn't questioned.
Now, Atsu watched. And for a moment, Oyuki simply remained sitting there, head bowed, as if listening for something; confirmation, maybe, that Atsu was really asleep. All that could be heard was the wind howling outside, bringing snow through the cracks in the windows and causing the soft rustle of the paper lanterns.
Then, with a quietness that only belonged to her, Oyuki began to undo the sash around her robe. Her movements, however, were not the ones Atsu had grown used to. Instead of being precise and soft, there was an unsteadiness to Oyuki that shouldn't be there. Eventually, she slipped one arm free of her robe.
Atsu’s chest tightened. Her composure took a hit, and she almost made a sound.
The fabric fell just enough to bare Oyuki’s side, her pale skin marked by a dark, angry slash that caught the lantern lights in uneven red and purple hues. It wasn’t deep enough to threaten her life. Atsu knew that much immediately, the warrior in her assessing the wound like second nature. But it was long. Ugly. Still raw.
Atsu felt something twist painfully in her chest, sharp and disorienting. She had been the one to make that cut, too. She knew the angle of her own blade too well to pretend otherwise. Her anger had drawn blood yet again.
Oyuki reached for a cloth, fingers focused but slow, and pressed it gently against the wound. She didn’t hiss. Didn’t curse. She simply exhaled, long and quiet. Pain was something she had learned long ago to endure without protest.
Atsu turned her face into the futon, biting down on her tongue, eyes burning. Part of her hardened instinctively, trying to retreat behind familiar walls. She was the Kitsune. The duel had been necessary. It was the only way forward for both of them.
But another part of her—the part that had stayed awake counting Oyuki's breaths, the part that had watched her own hands tremble out of relief after pulling Oyuki up when she'd kneeled before her—refused to be quiet.
That part was winning.
Before she could talk herself out of it or lose the boldness that tiredness instilled in her, Atsu pushed herself up. The futon shifted loudly enough that Oyuki stiffened. Her shoulders tensed, and she began to hurriedly pull the robe back into place, hissing when the movement stretched the fresh wound.
"Oyuki…" Atsu said quickly, the name stumbling out softer than she intended. "You're bleeding."
Oyuki paused, holding herself impossibly still for long seconds, then let the fabric fall back to her lap. She didn't turn around. "It's nothing, Atsu," she said quietly, with a tone Atsu hadn't heard from her yet. "Go back to sleep."
Atsu hesitated, the silence heavy with everything they were not yet brave enough to name. And then, "That cut," Atsu spoke with a voice that didn't sound quite like her own. "You should… it should be cleaned properly before you wrap it."
Oyuki's shoulders rose and fell in a small shrug. "I know. I've had worse." A small smile could be heard in her voice, trying to lighten the weight of the air with something both of them already knew.
Atsu swallowed, feeling something foreign twist inside her chest. Her hand gripped the fabric of her pants. "Let me help?" She murmured.
The question surprised them both.
Oyuki finally turned, just enough for Atsu to see the shape of her nose and the gold lantern lights reflected in her pupils. Her expression was calm, but her eyes searched Atsu's; careful, guarded, uncertain. "You don't have to," Oyuki said. "Maybe I deserved worse."
The words landed heavier than any swing of her kusarigama.
"That's not-" Atsu stopped, breath shaking. She pressed her fingers into her palm, grounding herself, heart split in half. "That's not what this is." She closed her eyes as she spoke. There was a hint of desperation, a need for Oyuki to solve a riddle Atsu herself hadn't fully cracked yet.
Oyuki studied her for a long moment, then nodded once. A quiet, timid permission. She didn't get up, didn't move. It would always be Atsu's choice to come to her.
Atsu stood up with a breath of relief and came to kneel beside Oyuki, movements slow, as if approaching a wild fox. Up close, the wound looked angrier than it had from a distance, the skin around it tender and flushed. Atsu had seen a thousand dead bodies already, but this? It made her stomach twist and turn. She wasn't sure why yet, and part of her was afraid of the answer, while the other longed for it.
Years of loneliness made Atsu uncertain of where to put her hands, her eyes, her heart. She was almost embarrassed. Her fingers hovered uselessly for a heartbeat before she forced herself to act.
Her hand brushed Oyuki's skin as she took the cloth, her touch feather-light, careful in a way she didn't know she was capable of. Oyuki inhaled sharply—not in pain, but surprise as her skin filled with goosebumps under Atsu's touch—and then stilled.
"I… don't think I ever wanted to hurt you like that." The confession slipped free from Atsu before she could stop it. She refused to meet Oyuki's eyes again when her heart thundered against her ribcage. Atsu opened the small pouch at her sash and applied the mixture of herbs to Oyuki's skin with reverent motions.
Oyuki's gaze became impossibly softer; she shook her head faintly. "You did what you needed to do." Atsu flinched, but Oyuki continued, voice all gentle and sincere, "This pain is small. Compared to what I owe you."
Atsu's hands trembled uncharacteristically under the weight of feelings she didn't know the name of. Her vision blurred over, and she felt telltales of anger; at herself for caring this much, at Oyuki for allowing Atsu to hurt her. She messed up the knot when she tried to tie the bandage, mumbling a curse under her breath.
"You shouldn't have held back," Atsu whispered. "When we fought. It could've been worse."
Oyuki's breath caught at that. Not at the chance of what worse could be, but at how much Atsu worried for it, for her. Oyuki stared for a moment too long, quiet creeping in, and in the next moment, her hand was reaching out. Atsu watched as if underwater, the way Oyuki's arm moved with near deliberate slowness, as if it might be hard to do. Like it might startle her. She touched Atsu's wrist first, and then the back of her hand. The contact was all tentative and shy, asking rather than claiming.
Oyuki's fingers brushed over old scars on Atsu's skin, tracing the shape of them, feeling the warmth and the shiver that Atsu tried to suppress.
The touch, soft as if shaping notes on her shamisen, eased Atsu's erratic heartbeat into something tamer. She didn't know how Oyuki did it, how she was able to, again and again, bring Atsu back up to the surface before she drowned. With a simple word, a simple touch. Just by being near and looking at Atsu a certain way.
"I've helped bring you more pain than you ever deserved, Atsu," Oyuki's words came easily despite it all; she meant each one with a bleeding heart. "I don't want to cause any more."
Their eyes met then, really met. Between the paper lanterns dancing with the wind and bathing everything in hues of gold, Atsu felt exposed in a way no battlefield had ever managed. Her usual certainty was gone, replaced by something fragile and frighteningly honest.
"I don't know what you bring me," Atsu admitted, quiet in such a way that if Oyuki wasn't so close, she would've missed it. Like she could only say the words at a certain decibel level. Atsu pressed her lips together for a moment, and then, "But it's… not pain anymore."
Oyuki's thumb tentatively brushed against Atsu's skin. "I don't know what you bring me, either," she confessed, her carefully crafted composure stumbled. "And that terrifies me." Oyuki closed her eyes briefly, voice dropping lower; "But maybe we can figure it out."
Atsu's eyes swam in a pool of her own feelings, her cheeks flushed pink in an unfamiliar, but not unwelcomed, way. "Maybe we can." She finished tending the wound. When she withdrew her hands, the absence felt too loud.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then, Atsu did something reckless.
She stayed. She sat on Oyuki's futon and turned to rest her back against the wooden wall just beside them. She pulled her knees to her chest, making herself smaller. The obvious empty space beside her read like an invitation.
Oyuki stared at Atsu with something akin to longing. She waited a beat, and when Atsu didn't move away, Oyuki pulled her robe back into place and turned to sit beside her.
The wall, being kissed by the falling snow outside, was cold against her back, but Oyuki hardly registered it. She was too lost in how Atsu's closeness spread a warmth through her whole body.
There was no space left between them. Atsu made sure of it. Her shoulder pressed surely against Oyuki's.
They stayed like that for the remainder of the night, sharing warmth, breathing in tandem. The weight of the past still lingering in the wind, but no longer sharp enough to cut.
The lanterns burned low, and neither of them felt alone with the ghosts they carried.
When dawn arrived, Oyuki felt a gentle pressure on her shoulder and soft breaths tickling her collarbone before she'd even opened her eyes. She couldn't remember falling asleep last night; sleep had never come this easily.
But Atsu nuzzled closer, still lost in dreams. Maybe it became easier for her, too.