'L'élégance du hérisson' for CrystalUsagi
For: crystalusagi
Title: L'élégance du hérisson
Characters: Yagyuu, Niou, brief Yanagi and Marui
Rating: PG-13 for referenced violence mentioned sex at the end
Summary: Yagyuu is alone after the war and he finds Niou is likewise
Warnings: Violence, vampires, steam punk.
Disclaimer: Not mine, totally Konomi’s, the titles is stolen from Maurice Baurby.
A/N: Super thanks to the mods for all the extensions, thanks to RP for all of her help. Apoligies to Crystal if this wasn’t what you were hoping for.
Yagyuu was in many ways not a clockwork man.
Every morning he woke up to the sound of church bells calling the monks to lauds, heavy sonorous ringing muffled by cobblestone pathways and thick stone walls. In the warmer months sunlight crept in through his small windows to crawl slowly across his floor. Yagyuu would lift himself from his bed, pushing down worn cotton sheets and a coverlet so patched it may as well be a quilt. The shadow of his lost leg would loom large in the early morning but daily Yagyuu ignored it. Next he pulled himself out of bed, reached for his crutch, and then stuck his crutch under the stub of his right arm.
Yagyuu limped to the small water basin and the pitcher he had filled the night before, he filled the bowl and splashed his face to shock himself into a more awake state of mind. Then, while he leaned heavily on the crutch, he would freshen himself up.
His morning ritual continued with him dressing, was he not in the habit of rolling up the sleeve of his shirt and the leg of his pants the hem would drag on the floor while he limped to the kitchen and the empty sleeve would hang uselessly by his side.
In Winter and Fall his kitchen is dark, only filling with light when Yagyuu twisted the knob of the gas lamp to fill the kitchen with a flickering light that shimmered off the two limbs of copper laid out on his scarred kitchen table. Yagyuu pulled out the chair, sat down, and began to wind up his clockwork arm first, the leg second. He polished the metal and oiled the hinges while light climbed upwards on the wall and slowly the sounds of movement filtered through walls. There were thuds on the stairs and floors above as the denizens of the apartment building began to move around, there were noises of animals on the streets and the creek of carts.
It was too early for the noise level to rise so that it was audible.
Yagyuu closed his eyes when he slid the clockwork arm into place. Every morning it hurt, the machinery pinching the nerves of his arm before it settled into place, heavy and cold and lifeless. Fingers rattled, tapping against the wooden table in succession and then Yagyuu bent the elbow, flexed the arm to make sure it worked. Then he settled his leg into place, it pinched his thigh, pins and needles shooting up and down his right side before the false limbs settled in. Yagyuu wiggled his toes, the sound of tiny taps the only noise besides Yagyuu’s breath. Then Yagyuu rolled down the sleeve of his shirt and the leg of his pants and, because he was not a clockwork man, did something different.
Every day was a different chore, a different experience. Oh, sometimes he repeated, every few weeks Yagyuu made sure to balance the accounts for the apartment building, but he never did it on the same day and he tried to not do it in the same room of the house. He moved around, changed things, and disliked monotony. He despised the clockwork men and women of the city, many of whom had no false arms or legs, who wandered about their life doing the same thing every day in the same manner at the same time. Yagyuu had never been the type of person who liked to be ‘the same’.
His father and his father before him and his father before him had owned the apartment building Yagyuu lived in, but none of them had taken up residence inside of it. Instead Yagyuu’s forefathers had lived in a large, though not too large, house just outside of the city where the noise and congestion and poor were not so bad. Yagyuu had grown up in that house, surrounded by well-tended gardens and attentive nurse-maids. When Yagyuu had outgrown the nurse-maids he had been attended by a private tutor who taught him all the things that a young man destined to grow up to be a doctor to the rich ought to know.
As Yagyuu’s father, and his father before him.
He had not run away from home, although he had been tempted, instead Yagyuu had been lucky enough to be born in a time of great unrest. A time of war, actually. At the time Yagyuu had been a young man and joining up had seemed natural, a way to escape his pre-plotted life, a chance to see the world, a way to make a mold himself into a man that was not his father.
Following Yukimura had not only been natural, it had been a matter of life or death. Yukimura kept Yagyuu alive and serving another man would have brought Yagyuu death. As it was, Yagyuu had only lost two limbs and part of his heart.
A knock on the door, shattered Yagyuu’s melancholy and almost startled him out of his seat. He rose with poise, however, and walked to the door. He already knew who was on the other side.
"Morning." Marui shouldered his way into Yagyuu’s apartment with the same lack of grace and care he had shouldered his way into Yagyuu’s civilian life years ago. Under one arm he carried a white paper bag already becoming thin from oil and smelling of fried food and sugar. "I’ve got the list of potential residents, you want to do the interviews here or at the office?"
The office was a broom closet of a room located in the front of the building. Yagyuu used it primarily for storage of the various articles of paper needed when one was a landlord. It was also a potential powder keg, stacks of dry papers and a half broken desk in a crammed room with one gas lamp. Unless someone requested his office Yagyuu generally met with people in the study of his flat, the apartment building was large and each occupant held one room to themselves, sharing only the hallways and stairs.
"My study will be fine Marui." The bag was set down on Yagyuu’s dining room table and Marui plunked himself down into one of the uncomfortable chair Yagyuu stocked the room with. Marui never seemed to care about sharp edges of uncomfortable padding however and Yagyuu had meanly thought once that it was because of the soft edges and extra padding Marui came equipped with. "Is there anything else on the schedule for today?"
Yagyuu sat across from Marui, his back as straight as the back of the chair, his hands folded politely in front of him. He knew his schedule as well, if not better, than Marui, but since Yagyuu was paying Marui for his services the other man might as well be put to use.
Marui opened the white paper bag with one hand, fishing out a powdered sugar covered bit of fried dough that when Marui bites into it squirts a bit of jelly onto the side of his mouth, the other hand fished in the satchel at his side and pulled out a stack of messy papers. Yagyuu closed his eyes while Marui rifled through the papers and attempted to ignore the jelly stain.
"Here’s the names." Marui shoved the papers across the table at Yagyuu, then opened up the book of accounts. "These haven’t changed since you checked them the last time. Oh, and here’s the mail from your family." A fist sized stack of letters, held together by twine, thumped onto the table next to the account book. Marui took another bite of the jelly donut.
The letters seemed to loom over the rest of the table, as if the small pack somehow took up more space than everything else. Yagyuu pushed them to the side (in part because he hoped, perhaps, they would fall off the edge) and instead leafed through the names of possible apartment residents. The apartments in this building were spacious, well located, and generally lavishly appointed. Yagyuu’s was the most Spartan of the bunch and that was by choice. Generally the apartments were passed down from family member to family member, but the old man on the second floor had no heir and his estate had bequeathed the apartment back into Yagyuu’s care. So Yagyuu found himself having to hold interviews for potential residents because god forbid he allow just anybody to move into the building.
Yagyuu flipped through the sheets of paper, having already seen the names. The paper slid easily between his copper fingers, although Yagyuu could not feel the pages. He had already read through the names before, but he double checked, just in case.
"Marui." Yagyuu pulled a single sheet of paper, crowded with the usual things, references, addresses, and annual income and pointed at the name that headed the top. "This is new."
Marui had finished up his first donut and was working on a twisted concoction of cinnamon sugar and glazing. "Uh, yeah, he slipped in earlier this week…" Marui licked his fingers and his lips. "C’mon, he’s an old friend Yagyuu. He makes enough money, you know he does, and he’s going to be stable in the city for the next couple of years…"
"I follow politics as well as you do, Marui." Yagyuu set the single piece of paper aside and stared at it. An old partner, an old friend, an old nuisance. "I know that General Yukimura was appointed to public office in the Senate and will be bringing his team to the capital." When Yagyuu had heard that he had spent a long time staring at his metallic hand, clinging a coin that he could not feel between his fingers. Yagyuu had not parted with his commanding officer on good terms.
No one parted with Yukimura on good terms.
---
When the time came for Niou’s interview Yagyuu was almost looking forward to it. He had already seen several politicians, an artist, two well-to-do heirs, one heiress, and three business men. While Niou would in no way be a ‘walk in t park’ he would at least be a breath of fresh air. Yagyuu had set his dented and blackened copper tea kettle on the stove for tea when there was a polite knock on his door. He walked towards the door, ignoring the way several spots in the floor creaked, to open it.
"Making a fella knock, Yagyuu, you’ve gotten cold." Niou lounged indolently in the doorway once the door was out of the way. His way of speech, as ever, reminded Yagyuu of a guttersnipe and his manner of dress was hardly what one would expect of a man working for the youngest, prettiest, and most likely to succeed new Senator. Niou’s shirt hung open around his neck, his cravat hung loose as well, and Niou’s shirt sleeves were unbuttoned, black ink spots stained the hem.
"I always expected you to knock, Niou." Yagyuu motioned for Niou to step inside and then closed the door behind him. For some reason the click of the latch hitting the strike plate rung loudly in his ears. "But when we lived out of tents there was no need." Not that it had ever stopped Yagyuu from knocking when he entered someone else’s tent, whether it was on a pole or on the debris left over from that day’s fight.
Niou flung himself into one of the chairs at the table, the same chair Marui had sat in earlier that day, and looked over the files spread across the table. "So, you find anyone less annoying than me?"
"Many people are less annoying than you." Yagyuu was aware that Niou was not as focused on the papers in front of him as he was on Yagyuu’s back as he walked to the stove and turned off the whistling tea kettle. Yagyuu poured the hot water carefully into a tea pot over loose tea leaves. "But you do have something to offer me."
Niou glanced up at Yagyuu from under his shaggy white bangs. When they had met Yagyuu remembered Niou having black hair, straight black hair that spiked like a manic riot out from his scalp, but after the first few battles it had started to turn white, and the shock of the attack by one of the B.E.A.S.T.S. it had turned completely white. Yagyuu turned away to get tea cups and rubbed surreptitiously at where flesh and blood met clockwork. He had lost his limbs in an unfortunate meeting with one of the B.E.A.S.T.S. after the war’s premature close, after he had submitted his resignation to Yukimura.
"Still bug ya?" Niou asked when Yagyuu returned to the table, taking the cups from Yagyuu and plunking them indelicately down on the scarred table. "Your leg I mean."
"Occassionally." Yagyuu gathered the interview files and prepared to ask Niou the same questions he had asked everyone else.
He expected different answers.
One hour later and Yagyuu was ready to strangle someone, either himself, Niou, or the next person to walk through his flat’s door (who would be Marui). One hour, and the interview was done, and Niou had answered every question in the exact same manner as had all the interviewees before him. It frustrated Yagyuu to no end, especially the manner in which Niou smiled as he spoke. It was a smile Yagyuu remembered pressed against the tips of his fingers and the line of his body while dirt and grit rubbed at his shoulder blades and the smell of blood and burnt flesh hung in the air. It made Yagyuu itchy under the skin.
"So, is the interview over?" Niou questioned as he leaned back in the chair and propped his ankles up on the table. His boots were expensive, rich leather well taken care of, but the heel was worn down dangerously. Old boots, not new ones. "I’ve got an appointment after lunch with another old friend. You’d remember him."
"I try to forget old friends like you." Yagyuu closed the folder and leaned back in his chair, pressed hard wood against tensed muscles. "What made you think that this apartment would suit you, Niou?" There were dozens of locally owned apartment buildings and many owned by people who lived outside the capital, not to mention housing specifically sanctioned for government employees like Niou.
"This part of the interview?" Niou dropped his feet from the table and the legs of his chair hit the floor with a creak and a thunk. "Or is this off your managerial record?"
Yagyuu removes his glasses, thin bits of wire and glass that hide his eyes from the world and help him see properly and he looks at Niou. Without his glasses the world softens slightly, edges become blurry, and Niou becomes nothing but a lump of memories and earth tones. Tired, a headache already spread out behind his eyes, Yagyuu rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Just… tell me, Masaharu." The use of Niou’s first name, as the removal of Yagyuu’s glasses, is a ploy.
"I needed a place to live." Wood scratched against wood and Niou thumped, rustled, and jingled as e stood. "And hey, when I heard you’d taken over this place how could I resist? It’s nice enough, right? And I figured ‘good old Yagyuu, he’s not likely to turn me down, right?’" The door to Yagyuu’s apartment opened with a scratched and a creak. "Well, I won’t make that mistake again. See you around, Yagyuu. Or not."
A thump, and then the muffled pounding of footsteps as Niou marches angrily out of the building. Yagyuu sits with his fingers, cold and calloused, pressed against the bridge of his nose before he lets them drop and puts his glasses back on.
Niou had been lying.
Yagyuu stood and carried the cold cup of tea and half-finished pot to the sink, carefully dumping the water down the drain while he thought. Niou Masaharu was a liar of course, a trained liar, as skillful a liar as he was a killer. Throughout the war Niou had lied left and right, lies and stories peppered with truths that only a handful of people could pick out. Yagyuu had learned to understand when Niou was lying or telling the truth, although he had never let on. Which was, perhaps, to his benefit now.
"It’s a good thing, I suppose," Yagyuu spoke to his empty apartment. "That I never told him."
---
A week passed after Niou’s move in and nothing happened. Nothing suspicious, in any case. Yagyuu had supervised the move in and noted everything that Niou had brought to the apartment. It was not much. A hand carved heavy wooden bed, chests of drawers, a table and chairs, but none of them were Niou’s style. If Yagyuu had been asked, which he was not, he would tell you that the furniture appeared to be picked out by someone else. There was no overabundance of pillows and sheets, silk, satin, and even cotton. There were no risqué pieces of portraiture. The apartment was stark with only the rudiments of a living spread out.
Yagyuu had not seen it since that first day, but Niou had not moved in anything more.
Yagyuu woke up that day, went through his morning routine, and stepped outside of the apartment building, relishing the cool dewy morning air. He rarely stepped outside in the mornings, but today had seemed like a day in need of a walk. He wore a light brown jacket, corduroy with shining brass buttons. Steam puffed along the edges of the skyline, mingling with clouds or fading grey and dismal into the horizon. Yagyuu turned up his collar and struck out down the street, his heels ringing along the cobblestones.
He headed past the bakery, past the delicatessen, he walked quickly past the bookstore where he had spent more than an hour or two shopping. Yagyuu picked up speed as he approached the center of town, dominated by a large fountain surrounding a clockwork monument. Every hour the statues in the center of the fountain moved ever so slightly, the country’s founders working together to build the town. Replicas of the founders anyway, six men whom Yagyuu knew by name and reputation, men who had left behind family lines that had controlled the country until the war.
Yagyuu stared at the faces of the copper statue, formerly glinting and orange and now turned green with age. He could see echoes of familiar faces, politicians and factory owners, in some of the statues. He saw faint shades of Yukimura in the one in the center. Yagyuu turned away just as the clock struck and the mechanical men began to move.
He could see the steps of City Hall from here, although the white building that rose above those steps was eclipsed by the edge of a café. Yagyuu bypassed the café and walked closer to the building where the senate and city council met. Once the pristine white marble glittered in the early morning sunlight bright enough to blind, now it glistened every once in a while, when the gray dust and coal stain had been blasted off by high pressure water. When Yagyuu looked at it all he saw was a building splashed in blood. He could remember when a handful of B.E.A.S.T.S. had made their way to the capital, sneaking round the army and invading their city. It had been a slaughter, blood had run through the streets and had stained the white steps of City Hall. Yukimura’s battalion had been the only one that had been sent to stop it.
It had been a slaughter for them as well. Yagyuu could still remember the feel of a B.E.A.S.T.S.’s stringy hair between his fingers as his sword plunged through its neck and severed the head from the body. The hair of the B.E.A.S.T.S. had been stringy, oily, and dried blood had covered its chin and neck, stained the carefully sewn gingham dress it had worn.
Yagyuu walked closer to City Hall, but then turned right into a small park situated next to the building. During lunch time politicians would walk through it, arm and arm, whispering conversations to each other while newspapermen skulked behind bushes and eligible young women flirted with gestures and glances with eligible young men. Yagyuu could remember a time when he had walked the paths of the garden with flirtation in mind but that had been before the war. After the war women held no interest for him, and neither did the company of other young men or politicians.
The garden did, however, afford a rather good view of the steps of City Hall and those politicians entering at such an early hour in the morning. Yagyuu wondered for a second whether his masochism had brought him on a fruitless errand, but then he saw a horseless carriage with a familiar emblem arrive. Steam poured from a pipe up top and there was a driver in front with a wheel instead of a driver holding the reins to horses. That and the lack of opulence was the only difference between Yukimura’s horseless carriage and the horse drawn carriages of the other early arriving politicians. Many of the young men and young women climbing the steps were merely aides however, as it was unusual for more than a handful of politicians to arrive so early in the morning.
Yukimura stepped down from the carriage with the grace of a hundred dancers in the state sponsored ballet. He was dressed in the army uniform, the dress uniform, covered in navy wool and golden buttons that shone and sparkled as much as the medals pinned to his chest. Yagyuu wondered if Yukimura would dress the same every day for the office, he knew how uncomfortable dress uniform could be.
Sanada climbed out of the carriage after Yukimura, his broad shoulders nearly making him walk sideways in order to clear the carriages slim door. He was dressed similarly to Yukimura, although without quite the same number of medals. Yagyuu waited to see if anyone else would exist the carriage, but no one else did. Instead Yukimura and Sanada took the steps at a quick pace and soon disappeared inside the grimy grey building.
It was no surprise to Yagyuu that when he turned he found a familiar face watching him.
"I never thought you would turn up here, Yagyuu." Yanagi spoke calmly, casually, as if he had not been sitting across from Yagyuu watching him since Yukimura’s carriage had driven up. Unlike Yukimura and Sanada Yanagi was dressed in a crisp black suit, but like Yukimura and Sanada a scabbard and a sword hung at his side. "You’ve avoided us until now."
Yagyuu almost found himself wishing for the weight of a sword on his hip, however it had been many years since that weight had been considered familiar. "You know why I am here, Yanagi."
Yanagi rose from his bench and nodded in the direction of the café. "So I do. Would you join me for a cup?"
---
Yagyuu stood on the rooftop of his apartment building, his elbows on the grimy bricks that rose up to form a low wall. The sun had set hours ago and the moon was now high in the sky shedding light on the city below. A few respectful men and women walked the streets now but generally only for the length of time it took them to exit their carriage and enter their homes. The alleys were filled with purse snatchers and murders, and sodomist’s row was rife with blackmailers and young boys in need of a proper home. Yagyuu could not see those things from the top of his apartment building as the street he watched as respectable. All he saw was starlight reflected off of a handful of puddles below.
There was a scratching sound, booted feet grinding against loose mortar and brick. Yagyuu did not need to turn to see that it was Niou approaching from the west side, as Yanagi had informed him he would. Yagyuu turned and rested his hips against the wall.
Niou was wrapped in a dark cloak and mud spotted his boots and the edge of the cloak. His face was masked by shadow but it cleared as he approached Yagyuu and stepped into the moonlight.
Dark spots were scattered over the edge of his mouth and chin and disappeared into Niou’s upturned collar. Yagyuu pushed himself off the wall and walked to Niou. "So, they changed you."
"You knew that." Niou grabbed Yagyuu’s hand before Yagyuu could touch him. "You were there that first time."
Yagyuu remembered the fight, the shock of seeing Niou with bright white hair, blood gushing from a wound on his neck. It had not been the heat that had made Yagyuu’s mouth dry, nor the sun high in the sky that had blinded him. Niou’s nails had dug into his shoulders through is rough cotton uniform shirt and split skin, drew blood, Niou’s teeth had skimmed the flesh of Yagyuu’s neck. Niou’s eyes had been golden and feral.
"Yukimura said it was temporary." Yagyuu pulled his hand out of Niou’s grip and stepped back. "A side effect because of the attack, like Kirihara’s devil mode." Or like Yukimura’s mysterious illness that no one spoke of. Yagyuu had long wondered who had been paid off or killed to hide Yukimura’s relationship with the B.E.A.S.T.S.
Niou’s chuckle was thick, like he was laughing with a throat full of blood. "You should know how well Yukimura lies."
Yagyuu did. He remembers waking up after the attack, not Niou’s attack but the final one that left Yagyuu without his leg and arm, to an anesthetic environment and Yukimura’s sorrowful face. ‘I’m sorry’. Yukimura had patted Yagyuu’s remaining hand with his ice cold ones. ‘We’ll get the finest prosthetic makers on it at once.’.
That hadn’t been a lie. The ‘I’m sorry’ had been.
"You hate liars, and yet you work for him." Yagyuu sat back down on the wall and braced himself. It was late, so late, he never stayed up this late. On a normal night he would have turned in, his arm and leg set on the table, moonlight hidden behind a sheer curtain while Yagyuu stared up at his grey and cracking ceiling and wished not to dream. Now he stared up at the far away ceiling of stars before he glanced back at Niou.
Niou unwrapped his cloak to reveal a blood stained shirt.
"So, you’re his killer."
"You followed Yukimura’s rise to power, didn’t you Yagyuu?" Niou tossed his cloak so it lay next to Yagyuu on the wall, then planted his hands on top and leaned over. He did not lean far enough to over balance or even tempt fate, but he leaned over and stared at the street below like a starving man stared at bread. "You know there were mysterious deaths."
Yagyuu nodded his head. He had noted the deaths, never those who were truly in Yukimura’s way but people with attachments, and almost always people who knew the secret of the B.E.A.S.T.S., that they were a virus engineered for government soldiers that had spread due to one stupid scientist’s mistake. Yukimura’s father’s mistake in thinking that the virus could cure his son’s mysterious illness.
"I’ve gotta feed somehow." Niou leaned further forward. "Can’t just bite down on some guy in an alley, can’t just kill a girl for a meal, naw, because that leads to problems. The spread of the virus and all that." Niou shuddered like he was cold, but Yagyuu placed a hand on his shoulder and found he was burning up. "It really sucks." Niou leaned into Yagyuu’s touch, heat radiated off of him like a furnace.
"How does Yukimura handle it?"
"Sanada. Something about the first person you bite."
Yagyuu nodded, stroked his hand over Niou’s side, enjoyed the way Niou shuddered and leaned even closer. The heat felt good pressed against Yagyuu’s body, the night was cold and Yagyuu had not bothered to grab a coat. "Which was me."
Niou lets out a soft sigh when Yagyuu wraps his cold metallic arm around Niou’s waist. "Yanagi told me Yukimura picked the apartment out for you." Niou’s back was pressed against Yagyuu’s front, hot and smelling of blood and sweat, Yagyuu couldn’t help but lean forward and lick at the blood that had dried on the side of Niou’s neck.
"Yagyuu." Niou’s voice was rough and choked off. "I won’t be able to hold back."
"Don’t worry, Niou." Yagyuu closed his eyes and thought about a lot of things. About Yukimura’s whims, and how Yagyuu had resisted them for so long, about how Yagyuu had fought the life everyone had wanted for him just as Niou had fought against the life that everyone was forcing on him. The clock tower started to toll midnight, a heavy repetitive bonging that caused Niou to shake in his arms. "I’ll hold you now."
---
Yagyuu woke in a room not his own the next morning, his artificial limbs chafing in their sockets, grinding uncomfortably against his real flesh. He blinked, and then covered his eyes to protect them from the sun streaming into the room through a broad opened window. He could hear bird song outside, and a small pale colored bird landed on the window sill and chirped at him before it flew off. Dried semen caused the skin of is stomach to itch and sweat covered Yagyuu’s back where he was pressed against Niou’s hot body.
Niou snuffled against the side of his neck, warm and wet and slobbery. Yagyuu placed a hand on the arm that lay across his waist and closed his eyes.
He would get up and get ready to face the day a little later, when he was not quite so comfortable. He could allow a short delay.
He was, after all, not a clockwork man.
Title: L'élégance du hérisson
Characters: Yagyuu, Niou, brief Yanagi and Marui
Rating: PG-13 for referenced violence mentioned sex at the end
Summary: Yagyuu is alone after the war and he finds Niou is likewise
Warnings: Violence, vampires, steam punk.
Disclaimer: Not mine, totally Konomi’s, the titles is stolen from Maurice Baurby.
A/N: Super thanks to the mods for all the extensions, thanks to RP for all of her help. Apoligies to Crystal if this wasn’t what you were hoping for.
Yagyuu was in many ways not a clockwork man.
Every morning he woke up to the sound of church bells calling the monks to lauds, heavy sonorous ringing muffled by cobblestone pathways and thick stone walls. In the warmer months sunlight crept in through his small windows to crawl slowly across his floor. Yagyuu would lift himself from his bed, pushing down worn cotton sheets and a coverlet so patched it may as well be a quilt. The shadow of his lost leg would loom large in the early morning but daily Yagyuu ignored it. Next he pulled himself out of bed, reached for his crutch, and then stuck his crutch under the stub of his right arm.
Yagyuu limped to the small water basin and the pitcher he had filled the night before, he filled the bowl and splashed his face to shock himself into a more awake state of mind. Then, while he leaned heavily on the crutch, he would freshen himself up.
His morning ritual continued with him dressing, was he not in the habit of rolling up the sleeve of his shirt and the leg of his pants the hem would drag on the floor while he limped to the kitchen and the empty sleeve would hang uselessly by his side.
In Winter and Fall his kitchen is dark, only filling with light when Yagyuu twisted the knob of the gas lamp to fill the kitchen with a flickering light that shimmered off the two limbs of copper laid out on his scarred kitchen table. Yagyuu pulled out the chair, sat down, and began to wind up his clockwork arm first, the leg second. He polished the metal and oiled the hinges while light climbed upwards on the wall and slowly the sounds of movement filtered through walls. There were thuds on the stairs and floors above as the denizens of the apartment building began to move around, there were noises of animals on the streets and the creek of carts.
It was too early for the noise level to rise so that it was audible.
Yagyuu closed his eyes when he slid the clockwork arm into place. Every morning it hurt, the machinery pinching the nerves of his arm before it settled into place, heavy and cold and lifeless. Fingers rattled, tapping against the wooden table in succession and then Yagyuu bent the elbow, flexed the arm to make sure it worked. Then he settled his leg into place, it pinched his thigh, pins and needles shooting up and down his right side before the false limbs settled in. Yagyuu wiggled his toes, the sound of tiny taps the only noise besides Yagyuu’s breath. Then Yagyuu rolled down the sleeve of his shirt and the leg of his pants and, because he was not a clockwork man, did something different.
Every day was a different chore, a different experience. Oh, sometimes he repeated, every few weeks Yagyuu made sure to balance the accounts for the apartment building, but he never did it on the same day and he tried to not do it in the same room of the house. He moved around, changed things, and disliked monotony. He despised the clockwork men and women of the city, many of whom had no false arms or legs, who wandered about their life doing the same thing every day in the same manner at the same time. Yagyuu had never been the type of person who liked to be ‘the same’.
His father and his father before him and his father before him had owned the apartment building Yagyuu lived in, but none of them had taken up residence inside of it. Instead Yagyuu’s forefathers had lived in a large, though not too large, house just outside of the city where the noise and congestion and poor were not so bad. Yagyuu had grown up in that house, surrounded by well-tended gardens and attentive nurse-maids. When Yagyuu had outgrown the nurse-maids he had been attended by a private tutor who taught him all the things that a young man destined to grow up to be a doctor to the rich ought to know.
As Yagyuu’s father, and his father before him.
He had not run away from home, although he had been tempted, instead Yagyuu had been lucky enough to be born in a time of great unrest. A time of war, actually. At the time Yagyuu had been a young man and joining up had seemed natural, a way to escape his pre-plotted life, a chance to see the world, a way to make a mold himself into a man that was not his father.
Following Yukimura had not only been natural, it had been a matter of life or death. Yukimura kept Yagyuu alive and serving another man would have brought Yagyuu death. As it was, Yagyuu had only lost two limbs and part of his heart.
A knock on the door, shattered Yagyuu’s melancholy and almost startled him out of his seat. He rose with poise, however, and walked to the door. He already knew who was on the other side.
"Morning." Marui shouldered his way into Yagyuu’s apartment with the same lack of grace and care he had shouldered his way into Yagyuu’s civilian life years ago. Under one arm he carried a white paper bag already becoming thin from oil and smelling of fried food and sugar. "I’ve got the list of potential residents, you want to do the interviews here or at the office?"
The office was a broom closet of a room located in the front of the building. Yagyuu used it primarily for storage of the various articles of paper needed when one was a landlord. It was also a potential powder keg, stacks of dry papers and a half broken desk in a crammed room with one gas lamp. Unless someone requested his office Yagyuu generally met with people in the study of his flat, the apartment building was large and each occupant held one room to themselves, sharing only the hallways and stairs.
"My study will be fine Marui." The bag was set down on Yagyuu’s dining room table and Marui plunked himself down into one of the uncomfortable chair Yagyuu stocked the room with. Marui never seemed to care about sharp edges of uncomfortable padding however and Yagyuu had meanly thought once that it was because of the soft edges and extra padding Marui came equipped with. "Is there anything else on the schedule for today?"
Yagyuu sat across from Marui, his back as straight as the back of the chair, his hands folded politely in front of him. He knew his schedule as well, if not better, than Marui, but since Yagyuu was paying Marui for his services the other man might as well be put to use.
Marui opened the white paper bag with one hand, fishing out a powdered sugar covered bit of fried dough that when Marui bites into it squirts a bit of jelly onto the side of his mouth, the other hand fished in the satchel at his side and pulled out a stack of messy papers. Yagyuu closed his eyes while Marui rifled through the papers and attempted to ignore the jelly stain.
"Here’s the names." Marui shoved the papers across the table at Yagyuu, then opened up the book of accounts. "These haven’t changed since you checked them the last time. Oh, and here’s the mail from your family." A fist sized stack of letters, held together by twine, thumped onto the table next to the account book. Marui took another bite of the jelly donut.
The letters seemed to loom over the rest of the table, as if the small pack somehow took up more space than everything else. Yagyuu pushed them to the side (in part because he hoped, perhaps, they would fall off the edge) and instead leafed through the names of possible apartment residents. The apartments in this building were spacious, well located, and generally lavishly appointed. Yagyuu’s was the most Spartan of the bunch and that was by choice. Generally the apartments were passed down from family member to family member, but the old man on the second floor had no heir and his estate had bequeathed the apartment back into Yagyuu’s care. So Yagyuu found himself having to hold interviews for potential residents because god forbid he allow just anybody to move into the building.
Yagyuu flipped through the sheets of paper, having already seen the names. The paper slid easily between his copper fingers, although Yagyuu could not feel the pages. He had already read through the names before, but he double checked, just in case.
"Marui." Yagyuu pulled a single sheet of paper, crowded with the usual things, references, addresses, and annual income and pointed at the name that headed the top. "This is new."
Marui had finished up his first donut and was working on a twisted concoction of cinnamon sugar and glazing. "Uh, yeah, he slipped in earlier this week…" Marui licked his fingers and his lips. "C’mon, he’s an old friend Yagyuu. He makes enough money, you know he does, and he’s going to be stable in the city for the next couple of years…"
"I follow politics as well as you do, Marui." Yagyuu set the single piece of paper aside and stared at it. An old partner, an old friend, an old nuisance. "I know that General Yukimura was appointed to public office in the Senate and will be bringing his team to the capital." When Yagyuu had heard that he had spent a long time staring at his metallic hand, clinging a coin that he could not feel between his fingers. Yagyuu had not parted with his commanding officer on good terms.
No one parted with Yukimura on good terms.
---
When the time came for Niou’s interview Yagyuu was almost looking forward to it. He had already seen several politicians, an artist, two well-to-do heirs, one heiress, and three business men. While Niou would in no way be a ‘walk in t park’ he would at least be a breath of fresh air. Yagyuu had set his dented and blackened copper tea kettle on the stove for tea when there was a polite knock on his door. He walked towards the door, ignoring the way several spots in the floor creaked, to open it.
"Making a fella knock, Yagyuu, you’ve gotten cold." Niou lounged indolently in the doorway once the door was out of the way. His way of speech, as ever, reminded Yagyuu of a guttersnipe and his manner of dress was hardly what one would expect of a man working for the youngest, prettiest, and most likely to succeed new Senator. Niou’s shirt hung open around his neck, his cravat hung loose as well, and Niou’s shirt sleeves were unbuttoned, black ink spots stained the hem.
"I always expected you to knock, Niou." Yagyuu motioned for Niou to step inside and then closed the door behind him. For some reason the click of the latch hitting the strike plate rung loudly in his ears. "But when we lived out of tents there was no need." Not that it had ever stopped Yagyuu from knocking when he entered someone else’s tent, whether it was on a pole or on the debris left over from that day’s fight.
Niou flung himself into one of the chairs at the table, the same chair Marui had sat in earlier that day, and looked over the files spread across the table. "So, you find anyone less annoying than me?"
"Many people are less annoying than you." Yagyuu was aware that Niou was not as focused on the papers in front of him as he was on Yagyuu’s back as he walked to the stove and turned off the whistling tea kettle. Yagyuu poured the hot water carefully into a tea pot over loose tea leaves. "But you do have something to offer me."
Niou glanced up at Yagyuu from under his shaggy white bangs. When they had met Yagyuu remembered Niou having black hair, straight black hair that spiked like a manic riot out from his scalp, but after the first few battles it had started to turn white, and the shock of the attack by one of the B.E.A.S.T.S. it had turned completely white. Yagyuu turned away to get tea cups and rubbed surreptitiously at where flesh and blood met clockwork. He had lost his limbs in an unfortunate meeting with one of the B.E.A.S.T.S. after the war’s premature close, after he had submitted his resignation to Yukimura.
"Still bug ya?" Niou asked when Yagyuu returned to the table, taking the cups from Yagyuu and plunking them indelicately down on the scarred table. "Your leg I mean."
"Occassionally." Yagyuu gathered the interview files and prepared to ask Niou the same questions he had asked everyone else.
He expected different answers.
One hour later and Yagyuu was ready to strangle someone, either himself, Niou, or the next person to walk through his flat’s door (who would be Marui). One hour, and the interview was done, and Niou had answered every question in the exact same manner as had all the interviewees before him. It frustrated Yagyuu to no end, especially the manner in which Niou smiled as he spoke. It was a smile Yagyuu remembered pressed against the tips of his fingers and the line of his body while dirt and grit rubbed at his shoulder blades and the smell of blood and burnt flesh hung in the air. It made Yagyuu itchy under the skin.
"So, is the interview over?" Niou questioned as he leaned back in the chair and propped his ankles up on the table. His boots were expensive, rich leather well taken care of, but the heel was worn down dangerously. Old boots, not new ones. "I’ve got an appointment after lunch with another old friend. You’d remember him."
"I try to forget old friends like you." Yagyuu closed the folder and leaned back in his chair, pressed hard wood against tensed muscles. "What made you think that this apartment would suit you, Niou?" There were dozens of locally owned apartment buildings and many owned by people who lived outside the capital, not to mention housing specifically sanctioned for government employees like Niou.
"This part of the interview?" Niou dropped his feet from the table and the legs of his chair hit the floor with a creak and a thunk. "Or is this off your managerial record?"
Yagyuu removes his glasses, thin bits of wire and glass that hide his eyes from the world and help him see properly and he looks at Niou. Without his glasses the world softens slightly, edges become blurry, and Niou becomes nothing but a lump of memories and earth tones. Tired, a headache already spread out behind his eyes, Yagyuu rubs at the bridge of his nose. "Just… tell me, Masaharu." The use of Niou’s first name, as the removal of Yagyuu’s glasses, is a ploy.
"I needed a place to live." Wood scratched against wood and Niou thumped, rustled, and jingled as e stood. "And hey, when I heard you’d taken over this place how could I resist? It’s nice enough, right? And I figured ‘good old Yagyuu, he’s not likely to turn me down, right?’" The door to Yagyuu’s apartment opened with a scratched and a creak. "Well, I won’t make that mistake again. See you around, Yagyuu. Or not."
A thump, and then the muffled pounding of footsteps as Niou marches angrily out of the building. Yagyuu sits with his fingers, cold and calloused, pressed against the bridge of his nose before he lets them drop and puts his glasses back on.
Niou had been lying.
Yagyuu stood and carried the cold cup of tea and half-finished pot to the sink, carefully dumping the water down the drain while he thought. Niou Masaharu was a liar of course, a trained liar, as skillful a liar as he was a killer. Throughout the war Niou had lied left and right, lies and stories peppered with truths that only a handful of people could pick out. Yagyuu had learned to understand when Niou was lying or telling the truth, although he had never let on. Which was, perhaps, to his benefit now.
"It’s a good thing, I suppose," Yagyuu spoke to his empty apartment. "That I never told him."
---
A week passed after Niou’s move in and nothing happened. Nothing suspicious, in any case. Yagyuu had supervised the move in and noted everything that Niou had brought to the apartment. It was not much. A hand carved heavy wooden bed, chests of drawers, a table and chairs, but none of them were Niou’s style. If Yagyuu had been asked, which he was not, he would tell you that the furniture appeared to be picked out by someone else. There was no overabundance of pillows and sheets, silk, satin, and even cotton. There were no risqué pieces of portraiture. The apartment was stark with only the rudiments of a living spread out.
Yagyuu had not seen it since that first day, but Niou had not moved in anything more.
Yagyuu woke up that day, went through his morning routine, and stepped outside of the apartment building, relishing the cool dewy morning air. He rarely stepped outside in the mornings, but today had seemed like a day in need of a walk. He wore a light brown jacket, corduroy with shining brass buttons. Steam puffed along the edges of the skyline, mingling with clouds or fading grey and dismal into the horizon. Yagyuu turned up his collar and struck out down the street, his heels ringing along the cobblestones.
He headed past the bakery, past the delicatessen, he walked quickly past the bookstore where he had spent more than an hour or two shopping. Yagyuu picked up speed as he approached the center of town, dominated by a large fountain surrounding a clockwork monument. Every hour the statues in the center of the fountain moved ever so slightly, the country’s founders working together to build the town. Replicas of the founders anyway, six men whom Yagyuu knew by name and reputation, men who had left behind family lines that had controlled the country until the war.
Yagyuu stared at the faces of the copper statue, formerly glinting and orange and now turned green with age. He could see echoes of familiar faces, politicians and factory owners, in some of the statues. He saw faint shades of Yukimura in the one in the center. Yagyuu turned away just as the clock struck and the mechanical men began to move.
He could see the steps of City Hall from here, although the white building that rose above those steps was eclipsed by the edge of a café. Yagyuu bypassed the café and walked closer to the building where the senate and city council met. Once the pristine white marble glittered in the early morning sunlight bright enough to blind, now it glistened every once in a while, when the gray dust and coal stain had been blasted off by high pressure water. When Yagyuu looked at it all he saw was a building splashed in blood. He could remember when a handful of B.E.A.S.T.S. had made their way to the capital, sneaking round the army and invading their city. It had been a slaughter, blood had run through the streets and had stained the white steps of City Hall. Yukimura’s battalion had been the only one that had been sent to stop it.
It had been a slaughter for them as well. Yagyuu could still remember the feel of a B.E.A.S.T.S.’s stringy hair between his fingers as his sword plunged through its neck and severed the head from the body. The hair of the B.E.A.S.T.S. had been stringy, oily, and dried blood had covered its chin and neck, stained the carefully sewn gingham dress it had worn.
Yagyuu walked closer to City Hall, but then turned right into a small park situated next to the building. During lunch time politicians would walk through it, arm and arm, whispering conversations to each other while newspapermen skulked behind bushes and eligible young women flirted with gestures and glances with eligible young men. Yagyuu could remember a time when he had walked the paths of the garden with flirtation in mind but that had been before the war. After the war women held no interest for him, and neither did the company of other young men or politicians.
The garden did, however, afford a rather good view of the steps of City Hall and those politicians entering at such an early hour in the morning. Yagyuu wondered for a second whether his masochism had brought him on a fruitless errand, but then he saw a horseless carriage with a familiar emblem arrive. Steam poured from a pipe up top and there was a driver in front with a wheel instead of a driver holding the reins to horses. That and the lack of opulence was the only difference between Yukimura’s horseless carriage and the horse drawn carriages of the other early arriving politicians. Many of the young men and young women climbing the steps were merely aides however, as it was unusual for more than a handful of politicians to arrive so early in the morning.
Yukimura stepped down from the carriage with the grace of a hundred dancers in the state sponsored ballet. He was dressed in the army uniform, the dress uniform, covered in navy wool and golden buttons that shone and sparkled as much as the medals pinned to his chest. Yagyuu wondered if Yukimura would dress the same every day for the office, he knew how uncomfortable dress uniform could be.
Sanada climbed out of the carriage after Yukimura, his broad shoulders nearly making him walk sideways in order to clear the carriages slim door. He was dressed similarly to Yukimura, although without quite the same number of medals. Yagyuu waited to see if anyone else would exist the carriage, but no one else did. Instead Yukimura and Sanada took the steps at a quick pace and soon disappeared inside the grimy grey building.
It was no surprise to Yagyuu that when he turned he found a familiar face watching him.
"I never thought you would turn up here, Yagyuu." Yanagi spoke calmly, casually, as if he had not been sitting across from Yagyuu watching him since Yukimura’s carriage had driven up. Unlike Yukimura and Sanada Yanagi was dressed in a crisp black suit, but like Yukimura and Sanada a scabbard and a sword hung at his side. "You’ve avoided us until now."
Yagyuu almost found himself wishing for the weight of a sword on his hip, however it had been many years since that weight had been considered familiar. "You know why I am here, Yanagi."
Yanagi rose from his bench and nodded in the direction of the café. "So I do. Would you join me for a cup?"
---
Yagyuu stood on the rooftop of his apartment building, his elbows on the grimy bricks that rose up to form a low wall. The sun had set hours ago and the moon was now high in the sky shedding light on the city below. A few respectful men and women walked the streets now but generally only for the length of time it took them to exit their carriage and enter their homes. The alleys were filled with purse snatchers and murders, and sodomist’s row was rife with blackmailers and young boys in need of a proper home. Yagyuu could not see those things from the top of his apartment building as the street he watched as respectable. All he saw was starlight reflected off of a handful of puddles below.
There was a scratching sound, booted feet grinding against loose mortar and brick. Yagyuu did not need to turn to see that it was Niou approaching from the west side, as Yanagi had informed him he would. Yagyuu turned and rested his hips against the wall.
Niou was wrapped in a dark cloak and mud spotted his boots and the edge of the cloak. His face was masked by shadow but it cleared as he approached Yagyuu and stepped into the moonlight.
Dark spots were scattered over the edge of his mouth and chin and disappeared into Niou’s upturned collar. Yagyuu pushed himself off the wall and walked to Niou. "So, they changed you."
"You knew that." Niou grabbed Yagyuu’s hand before Yagyuu could touch him. "You were there that first time."
Yagyuu remembered the fight, the shock of seeing Niou with bright white hair, blood gushing from a wound on his neck. It had not been the heat that had made Yagyuu’s mouth dry, nor the sun high in the sky that had blinded him. Niou’s nails had dug into his shoulders through is rough cotton uniform shirt and split skin, drew blood, Niou’s teeth had skimmed the flesh of Yagyuu’s neck. Niou’s eyes had been golden and feral.
"Yukimura said it was temporary." Yagyuu pulled his hand out of Niou’s grip and stepped back. "A side effect because of the attack, like Kirihara’s devil mode." Or like Yukimura’s mysterious illness that no one spoke of. Yagyuu had long wondered who had been paid off or killed to hide Yukimura’s relationship with the B.E.A.S.T.S.
Niou’s chuckle was thick, like he was laughing with a throat full of blood. "You should know how well Yukimura lies."
Yagyuu did. He remembers waking up after the attack, not Niou’s attack but the final one that left Yagyuu without his leg and arm, to an anesthetic environment and Yukimura’s sorrowful face. ‘I’m sorry’. Yukimura had patted Yagyuu’s remaining hand with his ice cold ones. ‘We’ll get the finest prosthetic makers on it at once.’.
That hadn’t been a lie. The ‘I’m sorry’ had been.
"You hate liars, and yet you work for him." Yagyuu sat back down on the wall and braced himself. It was late, so late, he never stayed up this late. On a normal night he would have turned in, his arm and leg set on the table, moonlight hidden behind a sheer curtain while Yagyuu stared up at his grey and cracking ceiling and wished not to dream. Now he stared up at the far away ceiling of stars before he glanced back at Niou.
Niou unwrapped his cloak to reveal a blood stained shirt.
"So, you’re his killer."
"You followed Yukimura’s rise to power, didn’t you Yagyuu?" Niou tossed his cloak so it lay next to Yagyuu on the wall, then planted his hands on top and leaned over. He did not lean far enough to over balance or even tempt fate, but he leaned over and stared at the street below like a starving man stared at bread. "You know there were mysterious deaths."
Yagyuu nodded his head. He had noted the deaths, never those who were truly in Yukimura’s way but people with attachments, and almost always people who knew the secret of the B.E.A.S.T.S., that they were a virus engineered for government soldiers that had spread due to one stupid scientist’s mistake. Yukimura’s father’s mistake in thinking that the virus could cure his son’s mysterious illness.
"I’ve gotta feed somehow." Niou leaned further forward. "Can’t just bite down on some guy in an alley, can’t just kill a girl for a meal, naw, because that leads to problems. The spread of the virus and all that." Niou shuddered like he was cold, but Yagyuu placed a hand on his shoulder and found he was burning up. "It really sucks." Niou leaned into Yagyuu’s touch, heat radiated off of him like a furnace.
"How does Yukimura handle it?"
"Sanada. Something about the first person you bite."
Yagyuu nodded, stroked his hand over Niou’s side, enjoyed the way Niou shuddered and leaned even closer. The heat felt good pressed against Yagyuu’s body, the night was cold and Yagyuu had not bothered to grab a coat. "Which was me."
Niou lets out a soft sigh when Yagyuu wraps his cold metallic arm around Niou’s waist. "Yanagi told me Yukimura picked the apartment out for you." Niou’s back was pressed against Yagyuu’s front, hot and smelling of blood and sweat, Yagyuu couldn’t help but lean forward and lick at the blood that had dried on the side of Niou’s neck.
"Yagyuu." Niou’s voice was rough and choked off. "I won’t be able to hold back."
"Don’t worry, Niou." Yagyuu closed his eyes and thought about a lot of things. About Yukimura’s whims, and how Yagyuu had resisted them for so long, about how Yagyuu had fought the life everyone had wanted for him just as Niou had fought against the life that everyone was forcing on him. The clock tower started to toll midnight, a heavy repetitive bonging that caused Niou to shake in his arms. "I’ll hold you now."
---
Yagyuu woke in a room not his own the next morning, his artificial limbs chafing in their sockets, grinding uncomfortably against his real flesh. He blinked, and then covered his eyes to protect them from the sun streaming into the room through a broad opened window. He could hear bird song outside, and a small pale colored bird landed on the window sill and chirped at him before it flew off. Dried semen caused the skin of is stomach to itch and sweat covered Yagyuu’s back where he was pressed against Niou’s hot body.
Niou snuffled against the side of his neck, warm and wet and slobbery. Yagyuu placed a hand on the arm that lay across his waist and closed his eyes.
He would get up and get ready to face the day a little later, when he was not quite so comfortable. He could allow a short delay.
He was, after all, not a clockwork man.