Chapter Text
Michikatsu had tuned out whatever his subordinates were talking about. He tended to do that sometimes, it was a habit of his.
They were traveling through a mountain—Mount. Kumotori something—back home. It would take about two days from that mountain for Michikatsu to arrive home.
Back to his slow and peaceful life. The battlefield brought a little rush, but not enough—nothing could match what he felt when he saw Yoriichi defeat the teacher that Michikatsu had been struggling to even touch.
Huh. It had been ten years since then.
Ten years since Yoriichi just disappeared.
Michikatsu idly wondered where Yoriichi was nowadays. Had he traveled across the lands at the mere age of seven and become a legend somewhere? Was he out there somewhere, trying to teach others to do what he could?
Well, it's not like he'll ever know. Father had sent countless men to comb through the forests, fields, and mountains to find Yoriichi, and no sign of him had ever been found. Like the ground had just swallowed him whole.
"You seriously cannot mean that we're actually lost." One of Michikatsu's subordinates groaned.
"We're not! I did not say that. We're just... taking the sceneric route." Another one stiffly protested.
Michikatsu blinked. "We are lost." He deadpanned.
The man was quiet for a moment. "...Yes sir."
Great. One short cut through the mountains won't hurt, they'll fine. They won't get lost.
Michikatsu sometimes wonders how these idiots ever became samurais with direction senses like that...
"I can see a house over there." Someone—Michikatsu wasn't bothered enough to remember the man's name—pointed towards a humble shack-like house.
The front door looked to be open and someone was sitting right by it, their back facing out. It was a young man wearing a deep red kimono and hakama pants tucked into simple kyahan. His hair was long and burgundy red, tied into a ponytail similiar to Michikatsu's.
"Excuse me sir?" The man who had tried to cover up the fact that they were indeed lost on a goddamn mountain spoke up. "Could you point us to the direction of the nearest village? We have lost out direction a little."
The man at the door did not answer. Michikatsu frowned. Something about him seemed... familiar almost.
Michikatsu dismounted his horse and walked closer—then immediately stopped upon noticing that the man was holding a bloodied corpse in his arms. The others noticed too and looked away.
Michikatsu took a step closer, intending on asking what exactly happened here, when he noticed the Hanafuda earrings hanging from the man's ears.
It wasn't Yoriichi, right? It couldn't be—no, Yoriichi would not be in such a situation. Yoriichi would never be sitting with a corpse cradled in his arms like that.
Yoriichi was strong, even as a child.
Despite it being impossible, the name still slipped from Michikatsu's mouth. "Yoriichi?"
The man perked up and turned his head to look at Michikatsu.
Familiar maroon red eyes stared back at Michikatsu. That same damned birthmark curling on his forehead like he was getting caressed by Amaterasu's blessed light. His features weren't so soft like they had been when they were little—he looked refined and sharper now, much like Michikatsu.
Time had flown and changed Yoriichi, but he was still the same. Still the same empty eyed prodigy whose absense had slowled time in Michikatsu's life.
...But everything else was wrong.
Yoriichi wasn't standing proudly like a warrior or sitting confidently like a strong miracle such as himself should. Instead, he was sitting like all life had left him—slightly slumped and defeated.
Yoriichi's expression was still as empty as it always had been. But now dried tears stained his face, like he had been crying. Was Yoriichi even capable of crying?
"...Aniue?" Yoriichi whispered, like he hadn't expected to see him.
Michikatsu shared the same thought. If he had ever thought about seeing Yoriichi again, he always thought he'd meet Yoriichi when he'd be a fierce and legendary warrior... not this.
Michikatsu had never seen Yoriichi like this.
Yoriichi looked like he was close to death.
"This is where you've been all these years? A two day travel away?" Michikatsu asked.
Yoriichi blinked, said nothing, and turned his attention back to the dead woman in his arms. She looked like she had been pregnant.
Michikatsu stared at the back of Yoriichi's head for a moment before motioning one of his subordinates to fetch him something to drink and eat. Yoriichi looked like he hadn't eaten in days.
"Who is she?" Michikatsu asked, sitting down next to Yoriichi.
"My wife." Yoriichi said, voice cracking slightly. "Her name was Uta."
Yoriichi looked so... human. He looked miserable and broken. Michikatsu didn't know which was more unnerving—Yoriichi smiling, or this.
Yoriichi's hand moved to Uta's mutilated stomack, only lightly brushing his fingers against the bloodied and torn skin. Michikatsu could see the remains of an unborn child just barely.
"I was away looking for a midwife." Yoriichi muttered. "I came back by sunset, and they were like this..."
Michikatsu stared at Yoriichi's face—at his sunken and hollow eyes, at his pale skin, and at his downright miserable expression. One of his subordinates came back with a couple of onigiri and a bamboo bottle of water, which Michikatsu took, but didn't push towards Yoriichi yet.
If Yoriichi was upset about something, but needed to eat, easing him into it had always worked. A trick Michikatsu and their mother had discovered once.
"How long ago was that?" He asked.
"Ten days." Yoriichi answered, then raised his gaze to look at Michikatsu. He noticed the onigiri and water in Michikatsu's hands. "Aniue, I just... I can't."
Michikatsu had never heard Yoriichi sound so... hopeless. It was wrong.
"It's okay." Michikatsu immediately said. He didn't want to hear Yoriichi like that. "You don't need to let go of her. We'll do it like we did when you were sick, remember?"
Yoriichi did remember, how could he not?
It had been winter, and an attendant had carelessly left Yoriichi's door open—and for some reason Yoriichi didn't notice it until it was too late—or he for some reason said nothing. Yoriichi had a fever the next day and couldn't get out of bed.
Michikatsu remembers pitying Yoriichi more than normally that day. It was hard not to, all Yoriichi could do was just lay in his futon and try to sweat the fever away, coughing and sniffling every other minute.
Michikatsu had sneaked into Yoriichi's room multiple times that day just to check up on him—espechially whenever he heard Yoriichi blow into his flute. He had even helped Yoriichi eat when he had been too exhausted from the cold to do so himself.
And so, despite being grown adults, Michikatsu held one of the onigiris to Yoriichi's mouth and waited for him to take a bite. Michikatsu ignored his subordinates standing awkwardly outside of the house, and focused his entire attention on Yoriichi.
It was ridiculous. Absolutely insane—but Yoriichi looked so pitiful and miserable. He had to eat something, and if the only way to get him to do that was to coax him with careful words like when they had been little, then fine.
Yoriichi did finish the onigiris and drank enough water for whatever worries Michikatsu for some reason had to be gone.
Yoriichi's gaze fell to Uta in his arms, and fresh tears started pouring down his face.
Michikatsu hated that. Yoriichi wasn't supposed to be crying.
While Michikatsu was fighting the urge to tell Yoriichi to stop, Yoriichi let the tears fall loose. He had lost Uta—his wife, the one who brought color into his world and made the birds sing a little brighter.
...But he was not complitely alone. Not right now, not anymore.
Yoriichi hadn't even realized that he had blown into his flute at first. It had been something he just did. After all, Michikatsu had told him to blow it if he ever felt scared or needed help, and had promised to run over and save him.
Realistically, he hadn't known that Michikatsu would appear. Blowing the flute just brought the feeling of safety that he desperately needed right now.
And yet, Michikatsu was here—by total coincidence, but here regardless.
Yoriichi could cry if he wanted to. Aniue would keep him safe until then. He always did that.
Yoriichi buried his face into Uta's bloodied shoulder, and sobbed.
The sight disturbed Michikatsu. But he didn't dare to command Yoriichi to be quiet.
Not when Yoriichi looked so human.
So instead he held his hand forward and rubbed Yoriichi's shaking shoulders, trying to soothe someone he thought was invincible.
When Yoriichi's cries started to go silent, Michikatsu spoke. "Come on, we'll take her back home and she'll be buried alongside mother and-"
"No." Yoriichi said weakly, but surely. "Uta loved this place. She grew up here. I can't take her away from here—not even now."
Michikatsu was silent for a moment before sighing. Better not force it. "Do you have an ideal spot where you'd like for her to be buried?"
"The tadpole pond." Yoriichi said like it explained anything. "Uta loved tadpoles and frogs."
Logically speaking, Michikatsu should've told Yoriichi that he had no idea what Yoriichi was talking about. But the harsh words died before he could even form them. Instead he stood up and turned to look at his subordinates standing stiffly by the door.
"Find a pond with evidence of tadpoles and frogs living in it." He whispered. "And if any sort of visible damage is done to the enviroment, there will be concequences. Understood?"
"Y-yes sir." They all nodded and ran off. It didn't take long for them to find a pond that had tadpoles swimming in the water.
"Yoriichi." Michikatsu crouched down next to Yoriichi. He was startled by the softness of his own voice. "Come on, let's bury her."
With some coaxing from his older brother, Yoriichi gathered Uta into his arms and lifted her up. Michikatsu had never seen Yoriichi hold something so carefully before. It was almost like Yoriichi was trying his best not to hurt Uta and their unborn child—even when nothing could hurt them anymore.
It was strange to see.
Michikatsu led Yoriichi to the pond that his subordinates had found—and the younger twin's silence said that it was the correct one. Michikatsu ordered a grave to be dug up, since Yoriichi didn't seem to want to let go of his wife and unborn child yet.
Michikatsu hated how pathetic Yoriichi looked. Yoriichi looked pathetic when clinging to Uta's corpse, he looked pathetic when he eventually had to let go of her, and he looked pathetic when they buried her and their child.
After the burial was done, Yoriichi sat silently by the grave, staring at the ground like he was hoping for Uta to push the dirt away and rise back to the world of the living.
Yoriichi hadn't been like this when their mother died. All he did was inform Michikatsu of that in the middle of the night then slip out of the estate without being seen again.
Their father had been similiar when their mother died—though he had been louder in his mourning.
Michikatsu had never had a bad relationship with their mother, but when she died, Michikatsu had stood by the door of her room and watcher their father break down like a child.
That had been the first and last time Michikatsu had seen their father cry. He didn't think anything of it.
Eventually Michikatsu had to pull Yoriichi up because it seemed like he would just sit by her grave until he withered away and joined her. Michikatsu had to wrangle Yoriichi to hop onto one of the horses because he kept saying something along the lines of "I don't want to force someone else walk. I can walk."
Like hell Michikatsu would let Yoriichi walk in a state like that.
And because Yoriichi was insistent, they changed who would lend their horse to Yoriichi.
No, nobody is allowed to ask why Michikatsu walked the longest amount of time and chose to walk right next to Yoriichi.
Even when they stopped for the night and set up a camp, Yoriichi didn't sleep. He just laid on his spot with his eyes open. Michikatsu did know a couple of tricks that could've helped Yoriichi sleep, but he doesn't know if they even work anymore—and he is not about to hug Yoriichi until he falls asleep.
Michikatsu spent most of the night keeping watch so no wild animal could get close. Yoriichi tried to volunteer, but Michikatsu firmly told him no.
By the time they arrived at the Tsugikuni estate, Michikatsu was about to just lock Yoriichi in a room just so he can't go anywhere and has to rest. Since when was his twin like this?
Michikatsu had assumed Yoriichi to be pitiful as children, since he always saw Yoriichi cling to their mother—but had later found out that he had been supporting her weak side.
Now Yoriichi was actually pitiful. The death of his wife had broken something in Yoriichi.
Michikatsu didn't like it.
"I was unaware that you had a brother." Haruhime admitted after exhaustion had caught up to Yoriichi.
"It is not something my family talks about." Michikatsu replied. "A sore topic, if you will."
Haruhime glanced towards the direction of Yoriichi's room. It was not the small room he was confided in as a child, that room was now mostly used for storage.
"May I ask what exactly happened? Before we met, specifically." Haruhime asked.
Michikatsu paused, thinking for a moment before deciding to answer. "Yoriichi is my younger twin brother, and he was born with a birthmark on his forehead—as you saw."
Haruhime's expression shifted a little. Twins were considered a bad omen, and a child born with an unusual birthmark such as Yoriichi's was basically a curse according to some.
"Our mother convinced our father not to kill Yoriichi at birth, and instead Yoriichi was decided to be sent to a temple to become a monk upon turning ten—and I was naturally chosen as the heir." Michikatsu continued.
"However, Yoriichi was born with... something I was not. Yoriichi's strenght is something I have never been able to overcome. Even as a child he could defeat my teacher, who I had been struggling to even graze." Michikatsu could hear the bitterness seeping into his tone. How could he keep it away? Yoriichi had always been better than him.
But when the memory of how miserable and pitiful Yoriichi had looked resurfaced, that bitter tone eased up.
"Our father found out, and switched our roles." Michikatsu sighed. "But once mother passed, Yoriichi ran away, and this was the first time I've seen him since then."
Haruhime was silent for a moment, taking the whole story in before speaking. "Why was I not told this when we met?"
"Father had sent men looking for Yoriichi to bring him home, but by that point he was starting to lose hope and assume Yoriichi had died somewhere out in the wild the night he left." Michikatsu answered.
It was never something he had said outloud, but it was clear he thought that. With each failed attempt at finding Yoriichi, the man had visibly lost a little hope of finding his youngest son. And by the time Michikatsu got married and his father died, the quest to find Yoriichi had slowed to a stop.
And now here Yoriichi was.
"Does it bother you that he's here?" Michikatsu asked.
"Not at all." Haruhime answered. "The loss of his wife has clearly taken a toll on him. You're very kind for letting him stay here and give him support."
Michikatsu honestly wasn't able to do anything but drag Yoriichi home. He couldn't leave Yoriichi alone in that state—Michikatsu knows that if he hadn't arrived, Yoriichi would've let himself die.
What if Michikatsu had arrived later and instead of finding Yoriichi cradling Uta's body, he would've found Yoriichi's corpse slumped over Uta's?
...Michikatsu didn't want to think of that.
Yoriichi was alive. Exhausted and starved, yes—but alive.
And Michikatsu would make sure it stayed that way.