DON'T GET EXCITED, THIS IS NOT RtS. But it IS new fic. :D
My dear flakedice expressed the desire that I share more "gems" from my secret hoard of 104 fics. And believe me, I DO hoard some of my fics. But for dear flakedice, I shall relinquish for public viewing one of my closely-guarded treasures. XDDD So here you go.
Title: Crossing the Rubicon
Rating: PG-ish? Watanuki, you know.
Summary: Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
A/N: The title comes from a phrase that means "to make a life-changing decision, one from which there is no going back." :D You'll see~!
Warning: This is set sort of future-ish. Not, like, halfway through their lives. But a few years down the road. ^__^
“You are certain,” said Yuuko for the third time in ten minutes, leaning on the doorway to the kitchen and watching Kimihiro with great interest, “that this is the course of action you wish to take?”
“Yuuko-san,” said Kimihiro patiently, removing his apron and shouldering his bag, “you will not talk me out of this no matter how often you hint that this is the worst decision I could possibly make.”
“Did I say that?” Yuuko wanted to know. “And would I, for that matter?”
“You hint,” repeated Kimihiro, with a quick glance around to make sure the kitchen was absolutely clean before he nodded in satisfaction. “You know you do. But it doesn’t matter because I’m certain, and I’m going to do this.”
“I’m merely trying to ascertain,” Yuuko corrected, following him like a shadow as he padded out to the front door, “that you are fully conscious of the possible ramifications of this endeavor.”
Kimihiro snorted as he bent down to slip out of his house shoes and into his loafers. “Employing your vocabulary as a weapon isn’t going to work either.”
Yuuko smiled faintly at the cheeky response. He had grown so much, her Kimihiro, she thought fondly. The years had taken much from him, but they’d also gifted him with much. Two years into his college studies, and the scrawny, gangly boy she’d taken under wing so long ago was now a man. A man who knew his own heart, and was determined to follow it.
“So you will do this thing, then?” she asked quietly. “No matter what it means for your future?”
He stood and looked over his shoulder with a grin that, had she been…some years younger (and considerably less jaded in matters of aesthetic beauty), would have melted her heart. “Yuuko-san,” he said again with faint exasperation. “Stop being all motherly. It’s creepy.”
She laughed. “You disrespectful child,” she chided. “I’m just looking out for you, you know. I’m not trying to dissuade you from your choice.” Her voice softened. “It is your choice, after all, and no one can change it but you.”
“You’re right,” he said after a moment. “And if I haven’t made up my mind after almost five years, I’m pretty hopeless, huh?”
Yuuko shook her head. “You were always hopeless,” she said softly. “That never stopped you before.”
“No,” agreed Kimihiro, pulling open the front door. “And it’s not going to slow me down now. Wish me luck!” He set off down the path to the gate at a brisk walk.
“You won’t need it,” she murmured. “Not with hitsuzen on your side.”
* * *
When he entered the temple, Kimihiro scanned the grounds for Shizuka, then shook his head when he didn’t immediately spot the temple’s young priest.
Probably in the storehouse again, he thought, and wandered to the shabby building on the edge of the grounds.
“Shizuka?” he called as he approached the house.
“In here,” replied the priest from within.
“Obviously,” muttered Kimihiro, and slid the door open.
Shizuka was seated cross-legged on the floor, nose buried in one of the ancient texts his grandfather had collected in his own time.
“You know, for someone who turned down every university that threw itself at your feet, you’re kind of a nerd,” Kimihiro noted as he closed the door behind him and kicked off his shoes.
“I’m not interested in pursuing a degree,” Shizuka replied. “You know that.”
Kimihiro did know that. He knew almost everything about the priest. It was not as discomfiting a thought as it would have been five years ago.
“You’re still a nerd, though. Here.” He handed his bag to Shizuka, who put his book down (carefully marking his place with a bookmark that looked just as decrepit and aged as the tome itself) and took it without a word, peering into it with curiosity.
“What’d you make today?”
“Tai no sashimi,” Kimihiro answered, glancing at Shizuka from the corner of his eye. “Also sekihan, and katsuoboshi.” He waited, holding his breath.
“Did you make any inarizushi?”
Irritation and disappointment mixed together. Kimihiro shouldered them aside. Damn it, he would not give up this quickly. It had taken him five years to get to this point. He wasn’t about to lose his nerve after five words.
“Yes,” he ground out. “You know, typically a thanks is warranted in situations like this, where someone goes out of his way not only to make you food, but to deliver it to you free of charge?”
“Thanks for the food,” recited Shizuka, and opened the first box.
“That’s not the kind of thanks I meant,” muttered Kimihiro, but he was already pulling out the thermoses. “I brought some sake, too.”
Shizuka lifted an eyebrow. “Okay,” was all he said, though, and Kimihiro suppressed an annoyed sigh.
They began to eat in silence, Kimihiro sneaking several sidelong glances at Shizuka. The priest didn’t seem to notice; if he did, he didn’t comment.
After about ten minutes, Shizuka pushed his empty bento aside and said, “Are you going to pour the drinks?”
Exhaling through his nostrils, Kimihiro set out the cups and poured two servings of sake. He didn’t hand over Shizuka’s drink right away. He held it in his hand and said pointedly, “How’s the food?”
Shizuka just looked at him. “Same as it always is,” he said slowly. “Why? Did you do something different to it?”
Seething, Kimihiro slapped the cup into Shizuka’s hand, slopping a little sake over the rim. Shizuka simply switched the cup to his other hand and raised the first one to his mouth, licking at the liquid.
Kimihiro wondered if he should just strangle the priest and bury the body beneath the floorboards here. No one ever came into the storehouse besides the two of them, anyway. This place was almost off-limits to other people; they’d been coming here to have lunch since they’d graduated high school and could no longer meet under their usual tree. Of the three of them, only Kimihiro had gone on to university. Shizuka had decided to fully take over the temple duties, citing his reason as being that he didn’t really see the point of seeking a degree when he was going to inherit the temple anyway.
Himawari had made some sort of deal with Yuuko that she hadn’t really explained to them; now she was traveling abroad, something she’d wanted to do all her life. She sent regular correspondence to each of them, including little gifts and photographs of the places she’d been. After a few exchanges with Kimihiro in which they’d joked about her collecting various obscure myths, folklore, and legends from around the world, Himawari had confessed to being sincerely charmed by the idea of writing a book based on her own curse. At first Kimihiro had been a little worried about the project, but it seemed to be making Himawari happy to write it bit by bit as she traveled, so he’d come to terms with her decision.
His own decision, however-he was only now getting around to doing anything about it. And stupid Shizuka wasn’t helping at all, of course, by being his usual taciturn self.
Kimihiro glared at Shizuka as the priest raised the sake to his lips, but remembered in time to sip his own sake just as Shizuka was doing.
Shizuka held onto his cup as he picked up his book again.
“You are not going to just sit there and read while I clean up our lunch,” Kimihiro exclaimed in disbelief.
“You’re welcome to leave the stuff out,” Shizuka said after a few moments’ contemplation.
“That is not the poi-oh, never mind.” Huffing, Kimihiro began to clear away the bento, though he left out the sake cups and the thermos.
Satisfied, Shizuka returned to his book, sake cup cradled idly in the other hand.
Kimihiro glowered at him when the lunch was cleared away and he’d pulled out a notebook in which he was halfway through a homework assignment. He too held on to his sake cup, keeping half his attention on Shizuka and the rest on his notebook.
The second time Shizuka took a sip from his cup, Kimihiro copied the gesture discreetly.
The third and fourth times, Kimihiro sipped with Shizuka in tandem, all the while appearing to be wholly focused on his homework, and Shizuka on his book.
The fifth time Shizuka lifted the cup to his lips, Kimihiro was in the middle of scribbling something down, and so didn’t notice. Shizuka briefly glanced at him from the corner of his eye and didn’t sip from the cup until Kimihiro had stopped writing and had suddenly seen the upheld position of Shizuka’s cup. Quickly, Kimihiro lifted his own to his lips, and Shizuka drank with him.
The sixth time Shizuka drank, Kimihiro was paying closer attention and managed to sip at the same time.
The seventh time was a repeat of the fifth time; Shizuka waited until Kimihiro noticed, and then drank.
The eighth time, Shizuka had very little sake left in his cup, and so had to sip a very small amount. When he, too, had sipped, Kimihiro tilted his head and glanced sidelong at the thermos of sake, but since he was pretending to not notice anything Shizuka was doing, he didn’t offer to replenish the drink. But he did abandon his homework and just sat holding his drink, repeatedly glancing at Shizuka.
But the ninth time, Shizuka simply held onto the cup and swirled the maybe four or five drops of liquid left. He stared at the same page of his book and didn’t turn it over for ten minutes, waiting.
And then Kimihiro realized that Shizuka knew what he had been doing. Shizuka had known all along.
“You complete ass,” he whispered, his face going pink. “You stupid, stupid jerk.” He took a breath. “When did you-?”
“Always,” said Shizuka.
The color in Kimihiro’s cheeks darkened. “I mean, when did you figure out…” He gestured to the bento, the sake, and then the space between the two of them.
“As soon as you listed three different foods normally served at weddings.” Shizuka shrugged and looked at his cup. “And the sake was a giveaway, as well. When you kept trying to drink at the same time I did, I was pretty sure.”
“Oh.” Kimihiro stared into his cup, mortified. He should have known Shizuka, the bottomless pit, would recognize the significance of certain types of foods, and that Shizuka always, always understood what Kimihiro meant even if the words were never said. “You were teasing me,” he realized.
“A little,” admitted Shizuka. His lips were ever so slightly quirked. “I couldn’t help it.”
“You can’t help a lot of things,” Kimihiro muttered. “Like the fact that you’re an idiot.” He ran a thumb over the rim of his cup and cleared his throat. “So…what do we do now?”
“This time, we do it right,” said Shizuka, holding out his cup.
Blushing uncontrollably-why did he always lose control of these situations when it came to Shizuka?-Kimihiro held his own cup to his lips with a slightly trembling hand.
They drained the rest of their sake together, then set down their cups at precisely the same moment.
Kimihiro’s face was hot, and he couldn’t look at Shizuka for a few more minutes.
“I,” he said in a low voice, “am not wearing a dress even if you beg me.”
“As long as you still cook the food,” Shizuka said in an uncharacteristically warm, soft tone. “And bake a cake, too.”
“You endless glutton.”
“Hn.”
Kimihiro put the sake cups and thermos away and picked up his notebook. Shizuka went back to his book.
“Yuuko-san will want to have another ceremony,” he said after a moment. “When Himawari-kun comes back next month.”
“Hmm,” said Kimihiro noncommittally.
“And they’ll make us dress up then.”
A slight pause. “I’m still not wearing a dress.”
Shizuka made an agreeable noise. “Will you wear red and white?”
Another pause as Kimihiro scribbled furiously. “Maybe.”
Content, Shizuka nodded.
After a moment, he said, “Do you think Yuuko-san will give us goshugi?”
Kimihiro snorted and scratched something out. “What, are you insane? She’ll probably extract a price from us in exchange for the ceremony.”
“Hn,” said Shizuka, and turned the page.
* * *
A/N: Goshugi are gifts or money given to newly-married couples at the wedding reception. Yes, all the foods Kimihiro brought are commonly-served wedding foods (besides the inarizushi, which is simply Shizuka’s favorite).
The reason Kimihiro is being anal (and failingly stealthy) about drinking sake at the same time Shizuka does is because of the Japanese wedding custom san-san-kudo, which is when the couple each sip nine times from special sake cups to symbolize union and happiness. More information here. Of course, Kimihiro is doing the ceremony his own way, since it’s not possible for them to marry in the traditional way, but the spirit is there. Don’t you love determined!Watanuki and teasing!Doumeki?
Title: Crossing the Rubicon
Rating: PG-ish? Watanuki, you know.
Summary: Sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
A/N: The title comes from a phrase that means "to make a life-changing decision, one from which there is no going back." :D You'll see~!
Warning: This is set sort of future-ish. Not, like, halfway through their lives. But a few years down the road. ^__^
“You are certain,” said Yuuko for the third time in ten minutes, leaning on the doorway to the kitchen and watching Kimihiro with great interest, “that this is the course of action you wish to take?”
“Yuuko-san,” said Kimihiro patiently, removing his apron and shouldering his bag, “you will not talk me out of this no matter how often you hint that this is the worst decision I could possibly make.”
“Did I say that?” Yuuko wanted to know. “And would I, for that matter?”
“You hint,” repeated Kimihiro, with a quick glance around to make sure the kitchen was absolutely clean before he nodded in satisfaction. “You know you do. But it doesn’t matter because I’m certain, and I’m going to do this.”
“I’m merely trying to ascertain,” Yuuko corrected, following him like a shadow as he padded out to the front door, “that you are fully conscious of the possible ramifications of this endeavor.”
Kimihiro snorted as he bent down to slip out of his house shoes and into his loafers. “Employing your vocabulary as a weapon isn’t going to work either.”
Yuuko smiled faintly at the cheeky response. He had grown so much, her Kimihiro, she thought fondly. The years had taken much from him, but they’d also gifted him with much. Two years into his college studies, and the scrawny, gangly boy she’d taken under wing so long ago was now a man. A man who knew his own heart, and was determined to follow it.
“So you will do this thing, then?” she asked quietly. “No matter what it means for your future?”
He stood and looked over his shoulder with a grin that, had she been…some years younger (and considerably less jaded in matters of aesthetic beauty), would have melted her heart. “Yuuko-san,” he said again with faint exasperation. “Stop being all motherly. It’s creepy.”
She laughed. “You disrespectful child,” she chided. “I’m just looking out for you, you know. I’m not trying to dissuade you from your choice.” Her voice softened. “It is your choice, after all, and no one can change it but you.”
“You’re right,” he said after a moment. “And if I haven’t made up my mind after almost five years, I’m pretty hopeless, huh?”
Yuuko shook her head. “You were always hopeless,” she said softly. “That never stopped you before.”
“No,” agreed Kimihiro, pulling open the front door. “And it’s not going to slow me down now. Wish me luck!” He set off down the path to the gate at a brisk walk.
“You won’t need it,” she murmured. “Not with hitsuzen on your side.”
* * *
When he entered the temple, Kimihiro scanned the grounds for Shizuka, then shook his head when he didn’t immediately spot the temple’s young priest.
Probably in the storehouse again, he thought, and wandered to the shabby building on the edge of the grounds.
“Shizuka?” he called as he approached the house.
“In here,” replied the priest from within.
“Obviously,” muttered Kimihiro, and slid the door open.
Shizuka was seated cross-legged on the floor, nose buried in one of the ancient texts his grandfather had collected in his own time.
“You know, for someone who turned down every university that threw itself at your feet, you’re kind of a nerd,” Kimihiro noted as he closed the door behind him and kicked off his shoes.
“I’m not interested in pursuing a degree,” Shizuka replied. “You know that.”
Kimihiro did know that. He knew almost everything about the priest. It was not as discomfiting a thought as it would have been five years ago.
“You’re still a nerd, though. Here.” He handed his bag to Shizuka, who put his book down (carefully marking his place with a bookmark that looked just as decrepit and aged as the tome itself) and took it without a word, peering into it with curiosity.
“What’d you make today?”
“Tai no sashimi,” Kimihiro answered, glancing at Shizuka from the corner of his eye. “Also sekihan, and katsuoboshi.” He waited, holding his breath.
“Did you make any inarizushi?”
Irritation and disappointment mixed together. Kimihiro shouldered them aside. Damn it, he would not give up this quickly. It had taken him five years to get to this point. He wasn’t about to lose his nerve after five words.
“Yes,” he ground out. “You know, typically a thanks is warranted in situations like this, where someone goes out of his way not only to make you food, but to deliver it to you free of charge?”
“Thanks for the food,” recited Shizuka, and opened the first box.
“That’s not the kind of thanks I meant,” muttered Kimihiro, but he was already pulling out the thermoses. “I brought some sake, too.”
Shizuka lifted an eyebrow. “Okay,” was all he said, though, and Kimihiro suppressed an annoyed sigh.
They began to eat in silence, Kimihiro sneaking several sidelong glances at Shizuka. The priest didn’t seem to notice; if he did, he didn’t comment.
After about ten minutes, Shizuka pushed his empty bento aside and said, “Are you going to pour the drinks?”
Exhaling through his nostrils, Kimihiro set out the cups and poured two servings of sake. He didn’t hand over Shizuka’s drink right away. He held it in his hand and said pointedly, “How’s the food?”
Shizuka just looked at him. “Same as it always is,” he said slowly. “Why? Did you do something different to it?”
Seething, Kimihiro slapped the cup into Shizuka’s hand, slopping a little sake over the rim. Shizuka simply switched the cup to his other hand and raised the first one to his mouth, licking at the liquid.
Kimihiro wondered if he should just strangle the priest and bury the body beneath the floorboards here. No one ever came into the storehouse besides the two of them, anyway. This place was almost off-limits to other people; they’d been coming here to have lunch since they’d graduated high school and could no longer meet under their usual tree. Of the three of them, only Kimihiro had gone on to university. Shizuka had decided to fully take over the temple duties, citing his reason as being that he didn’t really see the point of seeking a degree when he was going to inherit the temple anyway.
Himawari had made some sort of deal with Yuuko that she hadn’t really explained to them; now she was traveling abroad, something she’d wanted to do all her life. She sent regular correspondence to each of them, including little gifts and photographs of the places she’d been. After a few exchanges with Kimihiro in which they’d joked about her collecting various obscure myths, folklore, and legends from around the world, Himawari had confessed to being sincerely charmed by the idea of writing a book based on her own curse. At first Kimihiro had been a little worried about the project, but it seemed to be making Himawari happy to write it bit by bit as she traveled, so he’d come to terms with her decision.
His own decision, however-he was only now getting around to doing anything about it. And stupid Shizuka wasn’t helping at all, of course, by being his usual taciturn self.
Kimihiro glared at Shizuka as the priest raised the sake to his lips, but remembered in time to sip his own sake just as Shizuka was doing.
Shizuka held onto his cup as he picked up his book again.
“You are not going to just sit there and read while I clean up our lunch,” Kimihiro exclaimed in disbelief.
“You’re welcome to leave the stuff out,” Shizuka said after a few moments’ contemplation.
“That is not the poi-oh, never mind.” Huffing, Kimihiro began to clear away the bento, though he left out the sake cups and the thermos.
Satisfied, Shizuka returned to his book, sake cup cradled idly in the other hand.
Kimihiro glowered at him when the lunch was cleared away and he’d pulled out a notebook in which he was halfway through a homework assignment. He too held on to his sake cup, keeping half his attention on Shizuka and the rest on his notebook.
The second time Shizuka took a sip from his cup, Kimihiro copied the gesture discreetly.
The third and fourth times, Kimihiro sipped with Shizuka in tandem, all the while appearing to be wholly focused on his homework, and Shizuka on his book.
The fifth time Shizuka lifted the cup to his lips, Kimihiro was in the middle of scribbling something down, and so didn’t notice. Shizuka briefly glanced at him from the corner of his eye and didn’t sip from the cup until Kimihiro had stopped writing and had suddenly seen the upheld position of Shizuka’s cup. Quickly, Kimihiro lifted his own to his lips, and Shizuka drank with him.
The sixth time Shizuka drank, Kimihiro was paying closer attention and managed to sip at the same time.
The seventh time was a repeat of the fifth time; Shizuka waited until Kimihiro noticed, and then drank.
The eighth time, Shizuka had very little sake left in his cup, and so had to sip a very small amount. When he, too, had sipped, Kimihiro tilted his head and glanced sidelong at the thermos of sake, but since he was pretending to not notice anything Shizuka was doing, he didn’t offer to replenish the drink. But he did abandon his homework and just sat holding his drink, repeatedly glancing at Shizuka.
But the ninth time, Shizuka simply held onto the cup and swirled the maybe four or five drops of liquid left. He stared at the same page of his book and didn’t turn it over for ten minutes, waiting.
And then Kimihiro realized that Shizuka knew what he had been doing. Shizuka had known all along.
“You complete ass,” he whispered, his face going pink. “You stupid, stupid jerk.” He took a breath. “When did you-?”
“Always,” said Shizuka.
The color in Kimihiro’s cheeks darkened. “I mean, when did you figure out…” He gestured to the bento, the sake, and then the space between the two of them.
“As soon as you listed three different foods normally served at weddings.” Shizuka shrugged and looked at his cup. “And the sake was a giveaway, as well. When you kept trying to drink at the same time I did, I was pretty sure.”
“Oh.” Kimihiro stared into his cup, mortified. He should have known Shizuka, the bottomless pit, would recognize the significance of certain types of foods, and that Shizuka always, always understood what Kimihiro meant even if the words were never said. “You were teasing me,” he realized.
“A little,” admitted Shizuka. His lips were ever so slightly quirked. “I couldn’t help it.”
“You can’t help a lot of things,” Kimihiro muttered. “Like the fact that you’re an idiot.” He ran a thumb over the rim of his cup and cleared his throat. “So…what do we do now?”
“This time, we do it right,” said Shizuka, holding out his cup.
Blushing uncontrollably-why did he always lose control of these situations when it came to Shizuka?-Kimihiro held his own cup to his lips with a slightly trembling hand.
They drained the rest of their sake together, then set down their cups at precisely the same moment.
Kimihiro’s face was hot, and he couldn’t look at Shizuka for a few more minutes.
“I,” he said in a low voice, “am not wearing a dress even if you beg me.”
“As long as you still cook the food,” Shizuka said in an uncharacteristically warm, soft tone. “And bake a cake, too.”
“You endless glutton.”
“Hn.”
Kimihiro put the sake cups and thermos away and picked up his notebook. Shizuka went back to his book.
“Yuuko-san will want to have another ceremony,” he said after a moment. “When Himawari-kun comes back next month.”
“Hmm,” said Kimihiro noncommittally.
“And they’ll make us dress up then.”
A slight pause. “I’m still not wearing a dress.”
Shizuka made an agreeable noise. “Will you wear red and white?”
Another pause as Kimihiro scribbled furiously. “Maybe.”
Content, Shizuka nodded.
After a moment, he said, “Do you think Yuuko-san will give us goshugi?”
Kimihiro snorted and scratched something out. “What, are you insane? She’ll probably extract a price from us in exchange for the ceremony.”
“Hn,” said Shizuka, and turned the page.
* * *
A/N: Goshugi are gifts or money given to newly-married couples at the wedding reception. Yes, all the foods Kimihiro brought are commonly-served wedding foods (besides the inarizushi, which is simply Shizuka’s favorite).
The reason Kimihiro is being anal (and failingly stealthy) about drinking sake at the same time Shizuka does is because of the Japanese wedding custom san-san-kudo, which is when the couple each sip nine times from special sake cups to symbolize union and happiness. More information here. Of course, Kimihiro is doing the ceremony his own way, since it’s not possible for them to marry in the traditional way, but the spirit is there. Don’t you love determined!Watanuki and teasing!Doumeki?