[TST] what comes after a war is one game (Yuuko + Rou)
Soooo I wanted to write more of my Inari AU thing, but instead this happened. SIGH SELF.
Title : what comes after a war is one game.
Fandom : theskytides (Twincest future AU)
Rating : PG
Characters/Pairing : Yuuko Ichihara, Hijikata Toshirou with a brief mention of Roy Mustang. Obvious hints of twincest.
Warning : Uuuuuuuh nothing much!
Notes : It's nice to have a very old fic idea finally written out, even if... it was unexpected. OTL Title is taken from the 31_days community for the prompt for 18th November 2009. For those who want to know the basic background stuff, this log should do the trick.
what comes after a war is one game.
2406 words oneshot.
It felt surreal, being in this place once again after all these years and time that had passed by. Hijikata was never one to really think much about these things, but still it felt strange to be standing here and knowing somehow that at the same time, this was where he had been standing so many years ago when he first saw this place. He could still recall that hot summer’s day when he had been only eight years old and totally unaware of the future that would befall him in the years to come. Now nearly twenty years later down the road and after so many things happening here he was once again, stepping before this strange place that hadn’t seemed to change at all even after all this time, as if he had only been gone for a second and not two decades.
The light of the sun shone down strongly on him, and Hijikata winced a little as he blinked, trying to get his vision adjusted properly. Really, he didn’t know what exactly made him come here to be honest-today he was on leave because Brooke had matters in other cities to attend to and there was nothing in the main office to attend to. It had really been a whim for him to come here, a sudden impulse that he couldn’t name at all; but still, he couldn’t say that this was exactly something that happened due to chance. Hadn’t he heard those words before? That everything in this world happened by fate and not by chance. Everything was already predetermined, and he was just following the path that led him to this day.
Just a few years ago the man wouldn’t have even given a second thought to something like that. But after everything that he had been though Hijikata guessed that perhaps just a little, he had come to understand what those words’ true meanings held. Nothing in this world happened by chance-everything was determined, and it was fate that brought him back here once more after all these years.
Trying to push down the lump that had formed at the back of his throat, Hijikata made himself enter the shop, stepping inside though the door that creaked ever so slightly as he pushed it open. The interior looked the same as always, exactly like how he remembered it when he first came in all those years ago when he was just a kid. Nothing had seemed to change at all-or perhaps, it looked just like how he recalled it because he came in. Hijikata supposed he would never understand it fully.
“A customer! A customer!”
The voices got the samurai out of his thoughts, and the man blinked as he raised his head to see the sight of the two girls (still looking pretty much the same as ever-there was no mistaking the bright and colourful hair) coming out from around the corner. Hijikata did his best not to look too uncomfortable as the duo circled around him and stared with their big, curious eyes before exclaiming. “You’ve come again!”
“Ah-” Hijikata started, pausing as he tried to figure out what to say next. “-yeah, it’s… nice to see you again.”
“And it’s nice to see you again, Hijikata Toshirou.”
The man turned his head around to look down the corridor once more upon hearing that familiar voice, and true to his guess the figure of Yuuko Ichihara appeared not a moment later. She looked the same as he had always remembered her even though it had been a good while since he last saw her-then again, she always looked the same to him, even when he had just been a kid.
The two girls circled around Hijikata one last time before they left him, now heading towards Yuuko instead as they called out happily. “We have a customer!”
“Indeed we do,” Yuuko simply returned with that ever-mysterious smile of hers as she patted one of the girls on the head before looking back up at Hijikata, still smiling. “Please, come in.”
“Uh,” the man started once more, not quite sure what he should say-he really hadn’t thought about properly entering, so to be suddenly invited like this was quite jarring. But since he was invited, Hijikata supposed he shouldn’t be impolite and turn the invitation down… “…thanks.”
Yuuko only smiled again at that, and then turned her attention back to the two girls who were beside here. “Maru, Momo, prepare some sake and take it into the room for us, please.”
“Yes, Mistress!” the duo chirped back in response before quickly making their way down the corridor to do just that. Hijikata looked at them as they left, blinking once before he turned his attention back towards Yuuko, who was of course still smiling in that strange way of hers.
“Let us make our way into the room then, shall we?”
“Here is the sake!” came the cry of the two girls as they entered the room, both of them carrying respective trays which each held a jar of sake with cups next to it. Yuuko gestured for the duo to place them down, which they did and then left the room soon after, most likely to attend to some other chores or something which Hijikata supposed he would never really know. Then again, he hardly knew anything about this shop at all.
A click got him out of his train of thought, and Hijikata blinked to stare at the sight of Yuuko currently pouring out some sake for herself. The man did so for himself as well after a moment’s pause, picking up the cup once he was done though he hadn’t drank from it just yet-instead he only watched the woman doing it, blinking again when she put down her cup soon after and glanced at him in that inquiring but yet amused look of hers.
“So,” she started, and Hijikata couldn’t help but frown a bit at the mirth that was audible at the edge of her voice. “What have you come here for today, Hijikata Toshirou? I am sure you’re not here simply to drink and talk like what you did twenty years ago.”
The man shook his head in response. “No, I didn’t come here for that.”
Yuuko’s smile widened by a fraction upon hearing that answer. “Then for what reason do you have to step in this shop again? Is there a wish you want granted?”
“...” A moment of silence on Hijikata’s end as he paused momentarily, staring at Yuuko quietly for a few seconds before he replied. “No, I don’t want a wish I want to be granted.”
The woman tilted her head up thoughtfully now, the smile still on her lips as she regarded the man with a mildly curious gaze. “Then for what reason have you come here, Toshirou?”
To that, Hijikata put down his untouched cup of sake back onto the table surface, other hand digging into the folds of his coat as he searched for what he wanted to find. It only took a moment before he did find it, and once he did the man took it out and presented it with one hand towards the other. When he opened his palm, Yuuko looked with mild interest at the battered-looking pocketwatch that was sitting in his hand, the long-tarnished casing glinting under the light.
“…I still haven’t paid you for the watch I took from your shop all those years ago,” the man spoke in an attempt of an explanation when Yuuko glanced up to look at him, smiling again when she heard his words.
“I see,” she returned, the tone of her voice light and conversational as she reached with one hand, slender fingers curling around the edge as she picked up the item from Hijikata’s hand and studied it curiously before absently pointing out after a pause. “This isn’t the watch you took from the shop.”
“…it used to be my cousin’s,” Hijikata explained as he glanced away slightly. “We exchanged our watches on the night I was exiled in order to remember each other.”
Yuuko only nodded in return at the clarification, but didn’t say anything else to that as she studied the watch some more, turning the thing in her hand and looking at it more for a few more minutes before idly popping open the cover. Though old and worn out due to time and age and exposure, the crude carvings that were inside the cover were still easy to make out, two numbers readable from the scratches that were there-‘5/5’. The woman stared at it for a few seconds, looking at the carving as if it was something interesting before a small smile graced her lips and she closed the watch back, placing it onto the table.
Hijikata looked back when she did that, blinking as confusion crossed his features. He looked up soon after that though as Yuuko picked her cup back up again, taking a moment to swirl the sake that was inside the cup and then speaking. “You are destined for great things. You must never fear anything as long as you are alive. Fight to live, and live to fight. Remember that when the time comes.” She paused after that in order to drink up the rest of her sake, cup placed back onto the table when she was done before glancing up at the man and smiled once again. “Those were the words I told you in our first meeting.”
“…” the samurai wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but it was the truth and he couldn’t deny it, so he simply nodded in response.
“Twenty years have passed since then,” Yuuko continued, still smiling as she reached for her jug of sake and poured another cup for herself. “And in those twenty years you have experienced many things. Sorrow, anguish, pain, regret, solitude, agony, despair; things that can all too easily break a man if he allows himself to succumb to those feelings.” A pause, as she set the jug back down onto the table and picked the now-refilled cup back up. “And though you have broken more than once, still you pick yourself back up one way or another and push yourself to move on. And because of that, you’ve experienced much more. Happiness, joy, relief, love, gratitude, hope, contentment.” Sip. “And having experienced all these feelings, you find yourself arriving at a destination that you have never imagined.”
The woman glanced up now, eyes sparkling in that strangely mysterious way as she tilted her head and looked at Hijikata in a way that was akin to mirth. “The watch that you just passed to me is proof of all that you’ve experienced. Every scratch and every nick that is there tells the story of what you’ve went though and the experiences that you’ve faced.” A smile. “A fine price, indeed. The wait was certainly worth the effort.”
Hijikata kept quite at that again, unsure of what he should say in response. He couldn’t deny her words at all, because he knew for a fact that they range true in his head-the woman hadn’t lost her touch at all for things like these, it seemed. The man remained silent as he reached out to pick up his cup once more, gazing at the sake which he hadn’t drank yet. “They’re over now though.”
“The hard part, perhaps,” Yuuko returned, smile still gracing her face as she shifted on seat. “The more you feel, the harder it is to let go. You have found contentment, but with that will come eventual agony-and that will hurt more than anything else, because you feel the pain.”
Briefly Hijikata was reminded of Roy and the long silence that he had been getting now for the longest while already, but the samurai quickly shoved those thoughts aside; his brother was still writing back occasionally, so he was fine. He knew that the alchemist would be fine no matter what. “Even then, I still can’t fear it even if I know that it’s coming.”
“Fight to live, and live to fight,” the woman returned, still sounding amused and strangely assured. “You seemed to have taken my words well after all, Toshirou.”
“Tch,” he returned with a small snort, finally letting himself take a drink from the cup of sake in his hand. “And you’re just as annoying as always.”
Yuuko only laughed.
It was sunset by the time Hijikata was finally leaving the shop, and he had to once again try not to feel too uncomfortable with the girls circling around him as they chirped out happily. “Do come again!”
“…if I can,” the man returned, looking as the duo returned to where Yuuko was standing. The woman tilted her head, a smile gracing her lips as always as the mysterious gleam took light in her eyes.
“I’m sure we’ll meet again one day, Toshirou,” she went.
Hijikata paused for a bit at that, but eventually nodded in return. “Until then, Ichihara.”
The smile on Yuuko’s face widened ever so slightly, and then the woman closed her eyes, hands idly patting the heads of the girls as she spoke up again. “Just as there is no light without shadow, sorrow does not exist without happiness. The end is only the beginning, but of course-” She opened her eyes then and gazed at Hijikata pointedly before finishing her words. “-even then, the story never ends just there.”
That said, she turned around, the two girls in tow with her as she made her way back down the corridor. “Now don’t keep him waiting, Toshirou. He’s waiting for an answer.”
Hijikata blinked at those words, not sure what to make of them and only getting his head back again when Yuuko disappeared down the corridor. Once he pulled himself back together the man himself turned around and left the shop, making his way back to the Mustang estate without really having the intention of anything. Which was why when he checked his journal later, the samurai pretty much found himself just staring at the screen in surprise when he saw the words that were flashing upon the screen.
Mind if I come back soon? It’s been a long while since I’ve been home.
- Roy
Title : what comes after a war is one game.
Fandom : theskytides (Twincest future AU)
Rating : PG
Characters/Pairing : Yuuko Ichihara, Hijikata Toshirou with a brief mention of Roy Mustang. Obvious hints of twincest.
Warning : Uuuuuuuh nothing much!
Notes : It's nice to have a very old fic idea finally written out, even if... it was unexpected. OTL Title is taken from the 31_days community for the prompt for 18th November 2009. For those who want to know the basic background stuff, this log should do the trick.
what comes after a war is one game.
2406 words oneshot.
It felt surreal, being in this place once again after all these years and time that had passed by. Hijikata was never one to really think much about these things, but still it felt strange to be standing here and knowing somehow that at the same time, this was where he had been standing so many years ago when he first saw this place. He could still recall that hot summer’s day when he had been only eight years old and totally unaware of the future that would befall him in the years to come. Now nearly twenty years later down the road and after so many things happening here he was once again, stepping before this strange place that hadn’t seemed to change at all even after all this time, as if he had only been gone for a second and not two decades.
The light of the sun shone down strongly on him, and Hijikata winced a little as he blinked, trying to get his vision adjusted properly. Really, he didn’t know what exactly made him come here to be honest-today he was on leave because Brooke had matters in other cities to attend to and there was nothing in the main office to attend to. It had really been a whim for him to come here, a sudden impulse that he couldn’t name at all; but still, he couldn’t say that this was exactly something that happened due to chance. Hadn’t he heard those words before? That everything in this world happened by fate and not by chance. Everything was already predetermined, and he was just following the path that led him to this day.
Just a few years ago the man wouldn’t have even given a second thought to something like that. But after everything that he had been though Hijikata guessed that perhaps just a little, he had come to understand what those words’ true meanings held. Nothing in this world happened by chance-everything was determined, and it was fate that brought him back here once more after all these years.
Trying to push down the lump that had formed at the back of his throat, Hijikata made himself enter the shop, stepping inside though the door that creaked ever so slightly as he pushed it open. The interior looked the same as always, exactly like how he remembered it when he first came in all those years ago when he was just a kid. Nothing had seemed to change at all-or perhaps, it looked just like how he recalled it because he came in. Hijikata supposed he would never understand it fully.
“A customer! A customer!”
The voices got the samurai out of his thoughts, and the man blinked as he raised his head to see the sight of the two girls (still looking pretty much the same as ever-there was no mistaking the bright and colourful hair) coming out from around the corner. Hijikata did his best not to look too uncomfortable as the duo circled around him and stared with their big, curious eyes before exclaiming. “You’ve come again!”
“Ah-” Hijikata started, pausing as he tried to figure out what to say next. “-yeah, it’s… nice to see you again.”
“And it’s nice to see you again, Hijikata Toshirou.”
The man turned his head around to look down the corridor once more upon hearing that familiar voice, and true to his guess the figure of Yuuko Ichihara appeared not a moment later. She looked the same as he had always remembered her even though it had been a good while since he last saw her-then again, she always looked the same to him, even when he had just been a kid.
The two girls circled around Hijikata one last time before they left him, now heading towards Yuuko instead as they called out happily. “We have a customer!”
“Indeed we do,” Yuuko simply returned with that ever-mysterious smile of hers as she patted one of the girls on the head before looking back up at Hijikata, still smiling. “Please, come in.”
“Uh,” the man started once more, not quite sure what he should say-he really hadn’t thought about properly entering, so to be suddenly invited like this was quite jarring. But since he was invited, Hijikata supposed he shouldn’t be impolite and turn the invitation down… “…thanks.”
Yuuko only smiled again at that, and then turned her attention back to the two girls who were beside here. “Maru, Momo, prepare some sake and take it into the room for us, please.”
“Yes, Mistress!” the duo chirped back in response before quickly making their way down the corridor to do just that. Hijikata looked at them as they left, blinking once before he turned his attention back towards Yuuko, who was of course still smiling in that strange way of hers.
“Let us make our way into the room then, shall we?”
“Here is the sake!” came the cry of the two girls as they entered the room, both of them carrying respective trays which each held a jar of sake with cups next to it. Yuuko gestured for the duo to place them down, which they did and then left the room soon after, most likely to attend to some other chores or something which Hijikata supposed he would never really know. Then again, he hardly knew anything about this shop at all.
A click got him out of his train of thought, and Hijikata blinked to stare at the sight of Yuuko currently pouring out some sake for herself. The man did so for himself as well after a moment’s pause, picking up the cup once he was done though he hadn’t drank from it just yet-instead he only watched the woman doing it, blinking again when she put down her cup soon after and glanced at him in that inquiring but yet amused look of hers.
“So,” she started, and Hijikata couldn’t help but frown a bit at the mirth that was audible at the edge of her voice. “What have you come here for today, Hijikata Toshirou? I am sure you’re not here simply to drink and talk like what you did twenty years ago.”
The man shook his head in response. “No, I didn’t come here for that.”
Yuuko’s smile widened by a fraction upon hearing that answer. “Then for what reason do you have to step in this shop again? Is there a wish you want granted?”
“...” A moment of silence on Hijikata’s end as he paused momentarily, staring at Yuuko quietly for a few seconds before he replied. “No, I don’t want a wish I want to be granted.”
The woman tilted her head up thoughtfully now, the smile still on her lips as she regarded the man with a mildly curious gaze. “Then for what reason have you come here, Toshirou?”
To that, Hijikata put down his untouched cup of sake back onto the table surface, other hand digging into the folds of his coat as he searched for what he wanted to find. It only took a moment before he did find it, and once he did the man took it out and presented it with one hand towards the other. When he opened his palm, Yuuko looked with mild interest at the battered-looking pocketwatch that was sitting in his hand, the long-tarnished casing glinting under the light.
“…I still haven’t paid you for the watch I took from your shop all those years ago,” the man spoke in an attempt of an explanation when Yuuko glanced up to look at him, smiling again when she heard his words.
“I see,” she returned, the tone of her voice light and conversational as she reached with one hand, slender fingers curling around the edge as she picked up the item from Hijikata’s hand and studied it curiously before absently pointing out after a pause. “This isn’t the watch you took from the shop.”
“…it used to be my cousin’s,” Hijikata explained as he glanced away slightly. “We exchanged our watches on the night I was exiled in order to remember each other.”
Yuuko only nodded in return at the clarification, but didn’t say anything else to that as she studied the watch some more, turning the thing in her hand and looking at it more for a few more minutes before idly popping open the cover. Though old and worn out due to time and age and exposure, the crude carvings that were inside the cover were still easy to make out, two numbers readable from the scratches that were there-‘5/5’. The woman stared at it for a few seconds, looking at the carving as if it was something interesting before a small smile graced her lips and she closed the watch back, placing it onto the table.
Hijikata looked back when she did that, blinking as confusion crossed his features. He looked up soon after that though as Yuuko picked her cup back up again, taking a moment to swirl the sake that was inside the cup and then speaking. “You are destined for great things. You must never fear anything as long as you are alive. Fight to live, and live to fight. Remember that when the time comes.” She paused after that in order to drink up the rest of her sake, cup placed back onto the table when she was done before glancing up at the man and smiled once again. “Those were the words I told you in our first meeting.”
“…” the samurai wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, but it was the truth and he couldn’t deny it, so he simply nodded in response.
“Twenty years have passed since then,” Yuuko continued, still smiling as she reached for her jug of sake and poured another cup for herself. “And in those twenty years you have experienced many things. Sorrow, anguish, pain, regret, solitude, agony, despair; things that can all too easily break a man if he allows himself to succumb to those feelings.” A pause, as she set the jug back down onto the table and picked the now-refilled cup back up. “And though you have broken more than once, still you pick yourself back up one way or another and push yourself to move on. And because of that, you’ve experienced much more. Happiness, joy, relief, love, gratitude, hope, contentment.” Sip. “And having experienced all these feelings, you find yourself arriving at a destination that you have never imagined.”
The woman glanced up now, eyes sparkling in that strangely mysterious way as she tilted her head and looked at Hijikata in a way that was akin to mirth. “The watch that you just passed to me is proof of all that you’ve experienced. Every scratch and every nick that is there tells the story of what you’ve went though and the experiences that you’ve faced.” A smile. “A fine price, indeed. The wait was certainly worth the effort.”
Hijikata kept quite at that again, unsure of what he should say in response. He couldn’t deny her words at all, because he knew for a fact that they range true in his head-the woman hadn’t lost her touch at all for things like these, it seemed. The man remained silent as he reached out to pick up his cup once more, gazing at the sake which he hadn’t drank yet. “They’re over now though.”
“The hard part, perhaps,” Yuuko returned, smile still gracing her face as she shifted on seat. “The more you feel, the harder it is to let go. You have found contentment, but with that will come eventual agony-and that will hurt more than anything else, because you feel the pain.”
Briefly Hijikata was reminded of Roy and the long silence that he had been getting now for the longest while already, but the samurai quickly shoved those thoughts aside; his brother was still writing back occasionally, so he was fine. He knew that the alchemist would be fine no matter what. “Even then, I still can’t fear it even if I know that it’s coming.”
“Fight to live, and live to fight,” the woman returned, still sounding amused and strangely assured. “You seemed to have taken my words well after all, Toshirou.”
“Tch,” he returned with a small snort, finally letting himself take a drink from the cup of sake in his hand. “And you’re just as annoying as always.”
Yuuko only laughed.
It was sunset by the time Hijikata was finally leaving the shop, and he had to once again try not to feel too uncomfortable with the girls circling around him as they chirped out happily. “Do come again!”
“…if I can,” the man returned, looking as the duo returned to where Yuuko was standing. The woman tilted her head, a smile gracing her lips as always as the mysterious gleam took light in her eyes.
“I’m sure we’ll meet again one day, Toshirou,” she went.
Hijikata paused for a bit at that, but eventually nodded in return. “Until then, Ichihara.”
The smile on Yuuko’s face widened ever so slightly, and then the woman closed her eyes, hands idly patting the heads of the girls as she spoke up again. “Just as there is no light without shadow, sorrow does not exist without happiness. The end is only the beginning, but of course-” She opened her eyes then and gazed at Hijikata pointedly before finishing her words. “-even then, the story never ends just there.”
That said, she turned around, the two girls in tow with her as she made her way back down the corridor. “Now don’t keep him waiting, Toshirou. He’s waiting for an answer.”
Hijikata blinked at those words, not sure what to make of them and only getting his head back again when Yuuko disappeared down the corridor. Once he pulled himself back together the man himself turned around and left the shop, making his way back to the Mustang estate without really having the intention of anything. Which was why when he checked his journal later, the samurai pretty much found himself just staring at the screen in surprise when he saw the words that were flashing upon the screen.
Mind if I come back soon? It’s been a long while since I’ve been home.
- Roy