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Abandoned WIP - October
Invalidation by new canon is the cruelest fate for a WIP.
So, here's October.
Title: October
Summary: Unfortunately for Yumi, the love of her life comes in a package with living in a cellar of a hideout and dealing with one hell of a troubled child. A glimpse of what passes for teen angst in Shishio's faction.
When Yumi first made Shishio's acquaintance, sometime after the last frost but before the sakura blooms fell—or less poetically, under the new timekeeping system imposed by the Meiji Government, near the end of March of 1873—he had come to Tokyo to negotiate with the man who kept her then: Kodama Yoshida, an underground artifact dealer who she was beginning to tire of. In the chaos of suicides, executions, confiscations following the Imperialist victory, he had managed to acquire a collection of many excellent swords. The swords attracted Shishio's interest—and Shishio attracted hers.
Of course, her first impression was dominated by the shock of seeing a living man with full-body burns. But then Kodama tried his usual parlor trick of welcoming him with a rigged game of cards to set the tone of the negotiations. Immediately after his first “win”, Shishio fixed him with those cold red eyes and in a moment, his hand shot across the table and plucked an eight and a two from Kodama's right sleeve.
“Now what's this?” he said with amusement. Kodama flinched, making the slightest protective gesture toward his left arm. Shishio's fingers darted out and revealed two threes hidden there.
“I hope this isn't any reflection of how you do business,” Shishio said, whisking his fingers across the surface of one three and setting it on fire.
Thoroughly emasculated, Kodama sold him his two best swords at a 0% profit, losing Yumi's interest in the bargain.
The next day, Yumi insisted on being the one to deliver the Kotetsu and Kikiuchimonji to Shishio's address. Kodama seemed to sense that she meant to leave. He seized her by the arm so tightly it would bruise and asked if she dared to betray the man who made a lover out of a whore on the streets. Yumi tsked and patted his hand. “You'll only make a mess for yourself if you beat me, Lord Kodama. Now let me go, and perhaps other women will still believe in your kindness.” He went so limp with helplessness that she could gently uncurl his fingers from about her arm, and strode out the door almost as free as the edicts had promised.
With the swords as her invitation, Yumi paid a visit to Shishio's room at a quiet inn. To her surprise, a boy with a sweet smile, about ten years old, opened the door just a crack and greeted her. “Good morning, Miss. Might you be making a delivery? I'm glad to see that you've made it here safely.”
“Oh, thank you for the kind greeting. Might I have a moment with—” she was momentarily torn between your master and your father, before settling on “Lord Shishio?”
In a complete about-face, the boy promptly bounced back into the room and began calling, “Shishio-san! Your swords came!”
Well, he was just a boy, she supposed. Having received no invitation to enter, Yumi stood outside the door, observing—through the slight opening—the simple wall panels of the inn and the single lamp in the corner of the room. She heard a man grunt, “I see.” Presently, Shishio stepped to the door and opened it all the way. The boy trailed him, beaming at nothing.
Shishio ran his red eyes over her, and then looked her in the eye with a smirk. “I don't imagine a man like Kodama would send his woman over to make a delivery.”
“He would not,” Yumi said. “May I come in?”
Still leaning against the entrance with one arm, a pipe between his fingers, Shishio casually turned his body to open the way for Yumi, saying, “Yeah.”
Physically, the burns rendered him ageless. But the careless pride of his speech and subtly flirtatious tilt of his chest marked him as a man who couldn't have been much older than herself. Yumi entered his room, the loose red cloth over her elbow just barely gracing his chest as she passed. She delicately leaned down to remove her shoes and set them by the entrance.
“Soujirou,” Shishio said authoritatively. The boy stood at attention. “Go downstairs and order us some tea.”
“Yessir,” he chirped, darting past Yumi.
Yumi pulled her arms in closer as if avoiding contamination, and gracefully went to kneel near the center of the room. “I hadn't thought you to be one for children.”
“I'm not,” Shishio said dismissively. “He started following me on his own. He's useful, so I've kept him around.”
He was showing off, of course. But that was a natural part of the game of courtship and Yumi didn't expect anything else.
“I see,” Yumi said, trailing into silence to let Shishio lead the conversation.
He took the lead gladly—clearly a man who was fond of making himself heard. “It wasn't long after I received these burns.” He lazily brought his eyes to meet hers, as if acknowledging her in passing, and said, “Surely you're curious? About how it happened?”
“Of course. If you don't mind my asking.”
“Not at all,” he said, twirling his pipe between his fingers. “It was at the very end of the Bakumatsu, about five years ago. I was doing a bit of undercover killing for the Choushuu faction.” Yumi noticed that Shishio had sat so that his sword, propped up against the wall, was discreetly within reach. “Of course, I did my part expecting due rewards for my skill and loyalty. Instead, once they had secured the country for themselves, they sent me to a rendezvous point, shot me full of holes, and set me on fire.”
Shishio paused and took a drag on his pipe for the first time since Yumi had come into the room.
Breathing out a plume of smoke, he added, “To be frank, I don't know how I survived. But I believe that I live now for a purpose.”
It was not the first time a man had regaled her with a tale of his life's disasters and miracles. But she did have to admire his sense of drama. No matter how well she knew that he was making a play, Yumi couldn't help but feel impressed. And part of her stirred at the realization that they had an enemy in common.
Abruptly, the sliding door opened and Soujirou burst into the room with a tea set on a tray. “I'm back!”
“I was in the middle of a conversation, Soujirou,” Shishio said with faint annoyance as the boy blithely came up and set the tray between them.
“That's why I waited for you to finish talking,” he said innocently. “Here's your tea.”
Yumi glanced between the two of them in disbelief, anticipating a slap across the boy's face that never came. Shishio simply shot the boy an irritated look and let it all pass, pouring tea from the cheap iron kettle into the cups. Soujirou took a seat by Shishio's side, slightly behind him.
Glancing at Yumi, Shishio said jokingly, “Is my tea etiquette that bad?”
Yumi forced herself to erase the surprise from her face—she would've never imagined that a man like Shishio would spoil a boy under his care.
“No, it's fine.” She politely kept her misgivings about Soujirou to herself and preoccupied herself with the tea. It was lukewarm, and tasted mostly of metal.
Across from her, Shishio seemed to have the same reaction to the tea and set his teacup aside without sparing it a word. “If I'd known you would visit, I'd have made better arrangements. As it is, I planned to slip in and out of Tokyo quietly.” Shishio looked at her with calculating eyes, then took his gamble: “I have a carriage coming this afternoon. Would you join us in Kyoto?”
Despite her waning interest in the man, she was in the mood for a change. There was little left for her in Edo-turned-Tokyo, nothing in her name and few friends alive. And although it had put her off in the moment, his softness toward the boy spoke to her that he was decidedly not a man like Kodama who stooped to petty displays of his power over others.
“Hmm. I've always wanted to see Kyoto.”
Shishio and his followers occupied a small mansion in the northern outskirts of Kyoto. His tactician—one Matsudaira Sakonohyoue, an obvious ex-noble by the ring of his name—explained that it had been seized from a political dissenter and largely forgotten in the mess of the reconstruction of the nation, and taking it for their own uses had been as simple as destroying some paperwork.
In Kyoto, Shishio impressed her properly, presenting her with gifts of Western sweets, fine antique jewelry, and wonderful black tea. In his own domain, the power and charisma that had first attracted her rang freely, echoed in the eyes of his adoring followers.
“Perhaps it would be most accurate to call them allies,” Shishio said one morning in bed, Yumi nestled at his side. (He would talk politics at any hour.) “I wouldn't claim that we're all united by a single purpose. Some follow me out of personal loyalty. Some hate the Meiji Government. Some just want to show their strength in a proper fight like in the Bakumatsu days.” She drew her fingers across his rumbling chest and considered it fortunate that she liked the sound of his voice. “In that regard, many of them are not unlike you.”
Did he think that she was here for his roguish charms alone? She propped her chin upon his chest and said, “Darling.”
“Hm?”
With a smile to charm the devil, Yumi whispered, “I want the government to burn.”
Shishio let himself smirk and said, “You really are one of us.”
[Notes for this scene: I was planning to elaborate somewhere near the end here on how Yumi has been hopping lovers to stay afloat and resents the system that put her in that position.]
The one thing he could not do, as a criminal who stood out in a crowd, was take her to see Kyoto. As consolation, he promised that he would send a guide to go sightseeing with her.
The next day, Soujirou turned up in their room.
Yumi gave Shishio a look that said Is this a joke? Shishio said, “Trust me. I wouldn't give you anything less than the best.”
And so, wondering if she was being used as a babysitter, Yumi followed Soujirou out of the manse. He kept a few steps ahead of her with no shortage of things to say, even on the road.
“Yumi-san, are you good at juujutsu?”
“Hmm? No...”
“Kempo?”
“I'm not trained in the martial arts.”
He tilted his head and, without losing his sunny grin, said, “Wow. I wonder why Shishio-san's so interested in you.” Soujirou himself had a sword held at his side by a sash, bobbing conspicuously as he walked.
Out on the road with no one else watching, Yumi let herself be short with him. “Lord Shishio is a man. Of course he appreciates having a woman to keep him company and look after him.”
“Aww. Don't get mad at me.”
His plea caught her off guard, and when he gave her a sweet little smile she felt vaguely guilty for losing her patience with a twelve-year-old boy—which, honestly, made her angrier. Yumi gave a little huff, but held her tongue.
“I mean, Shishio-san never showed much interest in women before. He's very focused on his work. I just don't get it.”
“You don't have to get it,” Yumi said tersely. Soujirou smiled brightly at her again, and she started to dread spending the whole day with him.
They were only a short way from the manse. There was time to turn back. But Yumi was not so petty—she could only imagine how Shishio would laugh if she gave up in the face of this boy. So she continued to endure him.
[Notes: They go to Kyoto and at some point Soujirou sends the signal for a bombing to happen. There's a ruckus with the police, Yumi gets caught up on it, and Soujirou bails her out. They have to relocate to the hideout.]
[Yumi and Matsudaira meet while moving into the hideout. She vaguely approves of him, though she thinks he's stuck-up.]
[Shishio explains to Yumi and Matsudaira that they'll have to put off their plans until after October, because Soujirou fucks up everything in October and it's really not worth taking the risk. Matsudaira isn't happy about this and insists on speaking to Soujirou, storming out of the room.]
[Yumi hears that Soujirou killed Matsudaira. Shishio angrily summons him.]
“Matsudaira-san lunged for me. So I hit him with a battoujutsu first. That's what you taught me to do, Shishio-san.”
Yumi could tell that Shishio was fighting back a deep sigh as he intoned flatly, “Matsudaira's arms were so slow and limp that he could barely swat a fly, and you mean to tell me you saw no better way to handle the matter than by slaying him on the spot?”
“He had three people with him,” Soujirou persisted. “Besides, if he was that weak, I don't see what's so wrong about killing him.”
“Weak?” Shishio echoed with a hint of disdain. “The man could organize the takeover of a village with an army of twenty average soldiers. Slaying him for his inexperience with the sword isn't justice. It's simply a waste of his true strength. Don't warp our ideals to make excuses for yourself.”
“Well, if Matsudaira-san were all that smart, then I don't think he should've—”
“Soujirou.” Shishio said sharply; Soujirou's smile redoubled. “Don't do it again. Now get out of my sight.”
“Yes sir,” Soujirou said with inappropriate cheer, turning sharply to the right and stalking down the hall.
Shishio crossed his arms as he watched him go.
Yumi had a hot medicinal bath ready for him by nine o'clock.
“Thanks,” Shishio grunted, leaving his bandages in a pile and sliding into the bath with a grateful sigh. Yumi knelt by the edge of the sunken stone basin and laid a hand against his shoulder, seeking approval. “You're a treasure.” She smiled to herself and kneaded at his shoulders.
He closed his eyes and leaned back into her hands, tensing his lips as he did when he was deep in thought. He rarely shared with her the details of his plans before he was ready, but tonight the matters that weighed upon his mind were clear to her.
“He's almost more trouble than he's worth,” he grumbled.
His back muscles tensed under her fingers just as soon as she had finished loosening them. Patiently, Yumi kneaded them again.
“If he keeps this up...”
Shishio didn't finish that sentence. He probably didn't know himself what he would do—all that was certain was that he was feeling sour about having his plans ruined twice in a row. Yumi leaned in next to his ear and murmured, “Would you like me to talk to him?”
“Well now, it's too early for you to die,” he said with a hint of humor.
“I think I know my way around troubled men much better than that boorish Matsudaira.”
“Do as you please.” Shishio gestured with one hand, somewhere in between dismissive and permissive. “But he's more boy than man. That's the trouble. Men have simple motives. Children are incomprehensible. Especially that one.”
Certainly a rhetorical exaggeration—Yumi had watched Shishio talk to Soujirou, and saw fatherly familiarity there.
“Well, we'll see how things go,” Yumi said lightly. Shishio had finally relaxed, letting his head loll back against her forearms. His neck was craned back, pulsing arteries exposed right by her fingers. “There now. That's better, dear. Completely defenseless as you are.”
“I am never defenseless. Not even in the throes of passion.”
“How cold,” Yumi chided, though she knew he was not.
[some quick stuff about how soujirou didn't come out for a day, and yumi had a bit of pity for soujirou after what shishio told her about his backstory, and got some rice from the kitchen.]
She tapped on the frame of the door. “Sou-chan? It's Yumi. I'm coming in.”
Balancing the bowl of rice in the crook of her arm, she entered through the sliding door and closed it behind her. With dark and tired eyes, Soujirou smiled at her from where he sat directly opposite the door on top of his rolled-up futon. His hair slightly mussed in the back, where he must have leaned against the wall, sitting in the light sleep of a warrior in enemy territory.
“I've brought you a meal.”
“Oh, that's too kind of you. I couldn't possibly.”
“Please don't be polite,” Yumi said bluntly. “I hear you haven't eaten in two days. You're going to ruin your health.” She held out the bowl and glass for him to take, which—after a moment of curiosity—he did.
“Well then, itadakimasu!”
Drinking from the glass and setting it on the table, he poked the chopsticks into the rice and brought little bites to his mouth with surprising reserve for a growing boy after a two-day fast. Yumi carefully moved to sit to his left near the edge of the folded futon, conscious of the sword at his hip. Soujirou didn't protest. His head came up just a little past her shoulder, and he'd ended the lives of more men than she had entertained.
As if sensing her thoughts, Soujirou stuck his chopsticks in his rice and said matter-of-factly, “Matsudaira-san shouldn't have tried to grab me.”
“I didn't come to talk about that,” Yumi said, not unkindly. “What's done is done. I came to check up on you.”
He gave a little laugh. “I'm fine as always, Yumi-san.”
“I've heard you've scarcely left your room except to train at odd hours of the night. You haven't attended to Lord Shishio, you haven't sent for meals, and you smell like you've been training and sleeping in the same clothes.”
“'Cause Shishio-san told me to get out of his sight,” Soujirou said nonchalantly. “Orders are orders after all.” He scooped up another small portion of rice and stuck it in his petulant little mouth.
“Kiddo,” she sighed. “Come now, don't twist his words.” He looked at her and tilted his head as if uncomprehending. “Lord Shishio was upset with you. That doesn't mean he wants you to hole up in here and starve.”
“Wow,” he said cheerfully. “You sure know him well.”
“Don't be obstinate. ... You know he prizes you.”
Soujirou stayed quiet and smiling as he took a bite of rice. Yumi had no idea if that meant that the boy agreed. Shishio did have a point: the boy was not at all easy to read. If not for what she knew about the situation—how he'd stayed shut in his room, how he hadn't eaten, and how he probably hadn't slept either—she probably couldn't have known at all what to say or do. She would have fallen for his act of perfect calm. But she did know, and that calm only made this child all the more alarming.
The boy intently scraped the last grains of rice from the side of the bowl with his chopsticks.
[idk where this is going]
[Over the course of the rest of the fic, it becomes apparent that Soujirou Has Issues (Yumi has issues too), Yumi and Soujirou vaguely bond and Shishio is bemused.]
So, here's October.
Title: October
Summary: Unfortunately for Yumi, the love of her life comes in a package with living in a cellar of a hideout and dealing with one hell of a troubled child. A glimpse of what passes for teen angst in Shishio's faction.
When Yumi first made Shishio's acquaintance, sometime after the last frost but before the sakura blooms fell—or less poetically, under the new timekeeping system imposed by the Meiji Government, near the end of March of 1873—he had come to Tokyo to negotiate with the man who kept her then: Kodama Yoshida, an underground artifact dealer who she was beginning to tire of. In the chaos of suicides, executions, confiscations following the Imperialist victory, he had managed to acquire a collection of many excellent swords. The swords attracted Shishio's interest—and Shishio attracted hers.
Of course, her first impression was dominated by the shock of seeing a living man with full-body burns. But then Kodama tried his usual parlor trick of welcoming him with a rigged game of cards to set the tone of the negotiations. Immediately after his first “win”, Shishio fixed him with those cold red eyes and in a moment, his hand shot across the table and plucked an eight and a two from Kodama's right sleeve.
“Now what's this?” he said with amusement. Kodama flinched, making the slightest protective gesture toward his left arm. Shishio's fingers darted out and revealed two threes hidden there.
“I hope this isn't any reflection of how you do business,” Shishio said, whisking his fingers across the surface of one three and setting it on fire.
Thoroughly emasculated, Kodama sold him his two best swords at a 0% profit, losing Yumi's interest in the bargain.
The next day, Yumi insisted on being the one to deliver the Kotetsu and Kikiuchimonji to Shishio's address. Kodama seemed to sense that she meant to leave. He seized her by the arm so tightly it would bruise and asked if she dared to betray the man who made a lover out of a whore on the streets. Yumi tsked and patted his hand. “You'll only make a mess for yourself if you beat me, Lord Kodama. Now let me go, and perhaps other women will still believe in your kindness.” He went so limp with helplessness that she could gently uncurl his fingers from about her arm, and strode out the door almost as free as the edicts had promised.
With the swords as her invitation, Yumi paid a visit to Shishio's room at a quiet inn. To her surprise, a boy with a sweet smile, about ten years old, opened the door just a crack and greeted her. “Good morning, Miss. Might you be making a delivery? I'm glad to see that you've made it here safely.”
“Oh, thank you for the kind greeting. Might I have a moment with—” she was momentarily torn between your master and your father, before settling on “Lord Shishio?”
In a complete about-face, the boy promptly bounced back into the room and began calling, “Shishio-san! Your swords came!”
Well, he was just a boy, she supposed. Having received no invitation to enter, Yumi stood outside the door, observing—through the slight opening—the simple wall panels of the inn and the single lamp in the corner of the room. She heard a man grunt, “I see.” Presently, Shishio stepped to the door and opened it all the way. The boy trailed him, beaming at nothing.
Shishio ran his red eyes over her, and then looked her in the eye with a smirk. “I don't imagine a man like Kodama would send his woman over to make a delivery.”
“He would not,” Yumi said. “May I come in?”
Still leaning against the entrance with one arm, a pipe between his fingers, Shishio casually turned his body to open the way for Yumi, saying, “Yeah.”
Physically, the burns rendered him ageless. But the careless pride of his speech and subtly flirtatious tilt of his chest marked him as a man who couldn't have been much older than herself. Yumi entered his room, the loose red cloth over her elbow just barely gracing his chest as she passed. She delicately leaned down to remove her shoes and set them by the entrance.
“Soujirou,” Shishio said authoritatively. The boy stood at attention. “Go downstairs and order us some tea.”
“Yessir,” he chirped, darting past Yumi.
Yumi pulled her arms in closer as if avoiding contamination, and gracefully went to kneel near the center of the room. “I hadn't thought you to be one for children.”
“I'm not,” Shishio said dismissively. “He started following me on his own. He's useful, so I've kept him around.”
He was showing off, of course. But that was a natural part of the game of courtship and Yumi didn't expect anything else.
“I see,” Yumi said, trailing into silence to let Shishio lead the conversation.
He took the lead gladly—clearly a man who was fond of making himself heard. “It wasn't long after I received these burns.” He lazily brought his eyes to meet hers, as if acknowledging her in passing, and said, “Surely you're curious? About how it happened?”
“Of course. If you don't mind my asking.”
“Not at all,” he said, twirling his pipe between his fingers. “It was at the very end of the Bakumatsu, about five years ago. I was doing a bit of undercover killing for the Choushuu faction.” Yumi noticed that Shishio had sat so that his sword, propped up against the wall, was discreetly within reach. “Of course, I did my part expecting due rewards for my skill and loyalty. Instead, once they had secured the country for themselves, they sent me to a rendezvous point, shot me full of holes, and set me on fire.”
Shishio paused and took a drag on his pipe for the first time since Yumi had come into the room.
Breathing out a plume of smoke, he added, “To be frank, I don't know how I survived. But I believe that I live now for a purpose.”
It was not the first time a man had regaled her with a tale of his life's disasters and miracles. But she did have to admire his sense of drama. No matter how well she knew that he was making a play, Yumi couldn't help but feel impressed. And part of her stirred at the realization that they had an enemy in common.
Abruptly, the sliding door opened and Soujirou burst into the room with a tea set on a tray. “I'm back!”
“I was in the middle of a conversation, Soujirou,” Shishio said with faint annoyance as the boy blithely came up and set the tray between them.
“That's why I waited for you to finish talking,” he said innocently. “Here's your tea.”
Yumi glanced between the two of them in disbelief, anticipating a slap across the boy's face that never came. Shishio simply shot the boy an irritated look and let it all pass, pouring tea from the cheap iron kettle into the cups. Soujirou took a seat by Shishio's side, slightly behind him.
Glancing at Yumi, Shishio said jokingly, “Is my tea etiquette that bad?”
Yumi forced herself to erase the surprise from her face—she would've never imagined that a man like Shishio would spoil a boy under his care.
“No, it's fine.” She politely kept her misgivings about Soujirou to herself and preoccupied herself with the tea. It was lukewarm, and tasted mostly of metal.
Across from her, Shishio seemed to have the same reaction to the tea and set his teacup aside without sparing it a word. “If I'd known you would visit, I'd have made better arrangements. As it is, I planned to slip in and out of Tokyo quietly.” Shishio looked at her with calculating eyes, then took his gamble: “I have a carriage coming this afternoon. Would you join us in Kyoto?”
Despite her waning interest in the man, she was in the mood for a change. There was little left for her in Edo-turned-Tokyo, nothing in her name and few friends alive. And although it had put her off in the moment, his softness toward the boy spoke to her that he was decidedly not a man like Kodama who stooped to petty displays of his power over others.
“Hmm. I've always wanted to see Kyoto.”
Shishio and his followers occupied a small mansion in the northern outskirts of Kyoto. His tactician—one Matsudaira Sakonohyoue, an obvious ex-noble by the ring of his name—explained that it had been seized from a political dissenter and largely forgotten in the mess of the reconstruction of the nation, and taking it for their own uses had been as simple as destroying some paperwork.
In Kyoto, Shishio impressed her properly, presenting her with gifts of Western sweets, fine antique jewelry, and wonderful black tea. In his own domain, the power and charisma that had first attracted her rang freely, echoed in the eyes of his adoring followers.
“Perhaps it would be most accurate to call them allies,” Shishio said one morning in bed, Yumi nestled at his side. (He would talk politics at any hour.) “I wouldn't claim that we're all united by a single purpose. Some follow me out of personal loyalty. Some hate the Meiji Government. Some just want to show their strength in a proper fight like in the Bakumatsu days.” She drew her fingers across his rumbling chest and considered it fortunate that she liked the sound of his voice. “In that regard, many of them are not unlike you.”
Did he think that she was here for his roguish charms alone? She propped her chin upon his chest and said, “Darling.”
“Hm?”
With a smile to charm the devil, Yumi whispered, “I want the government to burn.”
Shishio let himself smirk and said, “You really are one of us.”
[Notes for this scene: I was planning to elaborate somewhere near the end here on how Yumi has been hopping lovers to stay afloat and resents the system that put her in that position.]
The one thing he could not do, as a criminal who stood out in a crowd, was take her to see Kyoto. As consolation, he promised that he would send a guide to go sightseeing with her.
The next day, Soujirou turned up in their room.
Yumi gave Shishio a look that said Is this a joke? Shishio said, “Trust me. I wouldn't give you anything less than the best.”
And so, wondering if she was being used as a babysitter, Yumi followed Soujirou out of the manse. He kept a few steps ahead of her with no shortage of things to say, even on the road.
“Yumi-san, are you good at juujutsu?”
“Hmm? No...”
“Kempo?”
“I'm not trained in the martial arts.”
He tilted his head and, without losing his sunny grin, said, “Wow. I wonder why Shishio-san's so interested in you.” Soujirou himself had a sword held at his side by a sash, bobbing conspicuously as he walked.
Out on the road with no one else watching, Yumi let herself be short with him. “Lord Shishio is a man. Of course he appreciates having a woman to keep him company and look after him.”
“Aww. Don't get mad at me.”
His plea caught her off guard, and when he gave her a sweet little smile she felt vaguely guilty for losing her patience with a twelve-year-old boy—which, honestly, made her angrier. Yumi gave a little huff, but held her tongue.
“I mean, Shishio-san never showed much interest in women before. He's very focused on his work. I just don't get it.”
“You don't have to get it,” Yumi said tersely. Soujirou smiled brightly at her again, and she started to dread spending the whole day with him.
They were only a short way from the manse. There was time to turn back. But Yumi was not so petty—she could only imagine how Shishio would laugh if she gave up in the face of this boy. So she continued to endure him.
[Notes: They go to Kyoto and at some point Soujirou sends the signal for a bombing to happen. There's a ruckus with the police, Yumi gets caught up on it, and Soujirou bails her out. They have to relocate to the hideout.]
[Yumi and Matsudaira meet while moving into the hideout. She vaguely approves of him, though she thinks he's stuck-up.]
[Shishio explains to Yumi and Matsudaira that they'll have to put off their plans until after October, because Soujirou fucks up everything in October and it's really not worth taking the risk. Matsudaira isn't happy about this and insists on speaking to Soujirou, storming out of the room.]
[Yumi hears that Soujirou killed Matsudaira. Shishio angrily summons him.]
“Matsudaira-san lunged for me. So I hit him with a battoujutsu first. That's what you taught me to do, Shishio-san.”
Yumi could tell that Shishio was fighting back a deep sigh as he intoned flatly, “Matsudaira's arms were so slow and limp that he could barely swat a fly, and you mean to tell me you saw no better way to handle the matter than by slaying him on the spot?”
“He had three people with him,” Soujirou persisted. “Besides, if he was that weak, I don't see what's so wrong about killing him.”
“Weak?” Shishio echoed with a hint of disdain. “The man could organize the takeover of a village with an army of twenty average soldiers. Slaying him for his inexperience with the sword isn't justice. It's simply a waste of his true strength. Don't warp our ideals to make excuses for yourself.”
“Well, if Matsudaira-san were all that smart, then I don't think he should've—”
“Soujirou.” Shishio said sharply; Soujirou's smile redoubled. “Don't do it again. Now get out of my sight.”
“Yes sir,” Soujirou said with inappropriate cheer, turning sharply to the right and stalking down the hall.
Shishio crossed his arms as he watched him go.
Yumi had a hot medicinal bath ready for him by nine o'clock.
“Thanks,” Shishio grunted, leaving his bandages in a pile and sliding into the bath with a grateful sigh. Yumi knelt by the edge of the sunken stone basin and laid a hand against his shoulder, seeking approval. “You're a treasure.” She smiled to herself and kneaded at his shoulders.
He closed his eyes and leaned back into her hands, tensing his lips as he did when he was deep in thought. He rarely shared with her the details of his plans before he was ready, but tonight the matters that weighed upon his mind were clear to her.
“He's almost more trouble than he's worth,” he grumbled.
His back muscles tensed under her fingers just as soon as she had finished loosening them. Patiently, Yumi kneaded them again.
“If he keeps this up...”
Shishio didn't finish that sentence. He probably didn't know himself what he would do—all that was certain was that he was feeling sour about having his plans ruined twice in a row. Yumi leaned in next to his ear and murmured, “Would you like me to talk to him?”
“Well now, it's too early for you to die,” he said with a hint of humor.
“I think I know my way around troubled men much better than that boorish Matsudaira.”
“Do as you please.” Shishio gestured with one hand, somewhere in between dismissive and permissive. “But he's more boy than man. That's the trouble. Men have simple motives. Children are incomprehensible. Especially that one.”
Certainly a rhetorical exaggeration—Yumi had watched Shishio talk to Soujirou, and saw fatherly familiarity there.
“Well, we'll see how things go,” Yumi said lightly. Shishio had finally relaxed, letting his head loll back against her forearms. His neck was craned back, pulsing arteries exposed right by her fingers. “There now. That's better, dear. Completely defenseless as you are.”
“I am never defenseless. Not even in the throes of passion.”
“How cold,” Yumi chided, though she knew he was not.
[some quick stuff about how soujirou didn't come out for a day, and yumi had a bit of pity for soujirou after what shishio told her about his backstory, and got some rice from the kitchen.]
She tapped on the frame of the door. “Sou-chan? It's Yumi. I'm coming in.”
Balancing the bowl of rice in the crook of her arm, she entered through the sliding door and closed it behind her. With dark and tired eyes, Soujirou smiled at her from where he sat directly opposite the door on top of his rolled-up futon. His hair slightly mussed in the back, where he must have leaned against the wall, sitting in the light sleep of a warrior in enemy territory.
“I've brought you a meal.”
“Oh, that's too kind of you. I couldn't possibly.”
“Please don't be polite,” Yumi said bluntly. “I hear you haven't eaten in two days. You're going to ruin your health.” She held out the bowl and glass for him to take, which—after a moment of curiosity—he did.
“Well then, itadakimasu!”
Drinking from the glass and setting it on the table, he poked the chopsticks into the rice and brought little bites to his mouth with surprising reserve for a growing boy after a two-day fast. Yumi carefully moved to sit to his left near the edge of the folded futon, conscious of the sword at his hip. Soujirou didn't protest. His head came up just a little past her shoulder, and he'd ended the lives of more men than she had entertained.
As if sensing her thoughts, Soujirou stuck his chopsticks in his rice and said matter-of-factly, “Matsudaira-san shouldn't have tried to grab me.”
“I didn't come to talk about that,” Yumi said, not unkindly. “What's done is done. I came to check up on you.”
He gave a little laugh. “I'm fine as always, Yumi-san.”
“I've heard you've scarcely left your room except to train at odd hours of the night. You haven't attended to Lord Shishio, you haven't sent for meals, and you smell like you've been training and sleeping in the same clothes.”
“'Cause Shishio-san told me to get out of his sight,” Soujirou said nonchalantly. “Orders are orders after all.” He scooped up another small portion of rice and stuck it in his petulant little mouth.
“Kiddo,” she sighed. “Come now, don't twist his words.” He looked at her and tilted his head as if uncomprehending. “Lord Shishio was upset with you. That doesn't mean he wants you to hole up in here and starve.”
“Wow,” he said cheerfully. “You sure know him well.”
“Don't be obstinate. ... You know he prizes you.”
Soujirou stayed quiet and smiling as he took a bite of rice. Yumi had no idea if that meant that the boy agreed. Shishio did have a point: the boy was not at all easy to read. If not for what she knew about the situation—how he'd stayed shut in his room, how he hadn't eaten, and how he probably hadn't slept either—she probably couldn't have known at all what to say or do. She would have fallen for his act of perfect calm. But she did know, and that calm only made this child all the more alarming.
The boy intently scraped the last grains of rice from the side of the bowl with his chopsticks.
[idk where this is going]
[Over the course of the rest of the fic, it becomes apparent that Soujirou Has Issues (Yumi has issues too), Yumi and Soujirou vaguely bond and Shishio is bemused.]
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sorry i live under a rock i don't know what's going on cry
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Official manga coming out in bits and pieces about how Shishio met Yumi.
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i... had no idea there was a new manga
*flits off to read*