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He's lived too long to find joy in the mundane. Day in, day out. The same faces, the same greetings, the same jokes. "Tsurumaru-san is always joking around!" Fighting the same battles, history on repeat, wondering why he keeps dodging the same strikes over and over and over and-
Ookurikara is an easy target from the moment he arrives in the citadel. Not only does he pay little to no attention to his surroundings but he hates talking to people enough that he won't question anything.
It's perfect, really.
Tsurumaru walks boldly past him three times while setting up his first prank, once holding a stepladder, and still Ookurikara only glances up for a moment. His expression doesn't even flicker, the disinterest in his oh so familiar golden eyes never wavering. Tsurumaru gives him a little wave, laughing aloud at his own nerve, and continues about his work.
It's a classic. Tsurumaru has known this one since long before he took human form. History is going to be made using nothing but a stepladder, a bucket, the month's supply of honey from the kitchen and the feathers from inside Mitsutada's favourite pillow.. He hides behind a corner inside the kitchen and waits, eyes on the closed door.
It doesn't take long for Ookurikara to arrive. He never seems to sit still for very long as if afraid someone will join him. He slides the door open, muttering to himself about it being shut, and a bucket filled with a feathery sticky mess falls neatly on his head.
"Surprise!"
Honey doesn't work quite as well as tar but at least it tastes nice. Tsurumaru is glad he chose it as Ookurikara touches his cheek and then gives his finger an experimental lick. He looks ridiculous, white downy feathers clinging to his hair and sliding slowly down his face where the honey is just a little too liquid.
"Now we match, Kara-bou!"
Ookurikara stares at him, expression behind the mess as blank as ever.
"You don't even have feathers."
"Well no but I'm-"
"And I'm not surprised."
He really isn't. Tsurumaru can see that. Usually he'll get shouted at, scolded, eventually smiled at as well. Ookurikara does none of that and doesn't even bother cleaning his face off before he carries on walking into the kitchen in search of food.
Tsurumaru's prepared smile flickers into something sharper.
"Interesting," he breathes.
He's going to have to try harder.
Another spring, new buds on branches filled with hope. Early sunrises, late sunsets, less darkness in which to drown. Listening to them breathe warm night air, summer closing in, three pairs of golden eyes opening. "Morning." "Good night, Tsuru-san!" "Did you sleep well?" "G'night." Morning night morning night the days falling past with nothing changing, nothing except-
Ookurikara seems to like the summer. He wanders around the citadel with his usual apathy in nothing but his pants, white shirt scrunched up in his back pocket. He frowns just a little every time someone comments on his tattoo and so Tsurumaru makes sure to do it every time he sees it and sometimes when he doesn't.
For months he has been gathering insight, watching Ookurikara's reactions to life at the citadel, trying to find out just what might surprise him. He's tried all sorts of pranks by now, both new and old, and has never been rewarded with more than a gradually lengthening sigh. Ookurikara isn't afraid of scary rubber masks, or insects, or loud noises. He doesn't laugh at either puns or clever jokes and he fails to respond whenever Tsurumaru tries to tease him into a argument.
Ookurikara is a challenge, the first Tsurumaru has known in longer than he can remember. The other residents are easy to entertain, even Mikazuki laughs at his jokes however forced and dusty the sound might be to Tsurumaru's ears; he thinks that old swords like them humour one another to keep the horror of eternity away. Ookurikara has no sympathy for Tsurumaru's boredom, won't even fake a smile let alone a laugh. It's refreshing, fascinating, and Tsurumaru can't leave him alone to the point where Mitsutada often jokes about being left out.
It's the middle of summer when Tsurumaru catches Ookurikara alone in the bath house. He's standing at the side of the bath, still in his pants and shoes, and staring down at the water. It's warm, too warm, and the water will be even hotter. Tsurumaru imagines that this is why Ookurikara is hesitating.
It's the perfect opportunity.
Not a lot of thought goes into this trick. Tsurumaru slips out of his sandals and darts across the tiles in stockinged feet, reaches out to shove Ookurikara in the small of his back and is pulled off balance by a firm hand around his wrist. He catches a glimpse of a smile on Ookurikara's lips before he's falling, splashing into the water, flailing his arms as he goes. As he closes his eyes and sinks under, he holds onto the image of Ookurikara's smile.
"I'm still not surprised," Ookurikara says as Tsurumaru surfaces, pushing sodden white hair out of his eyes.
They share the bath without talking, the silence broken only by Tsurumaru's occasional bursts of genuine laughter.
Summer's laughter a distant echo, leaves crumbling in his hands. A gifted scarf from one of the children, one that is too small too kind too hopeful too much like the one sleeping alone under a blanket of browning grass. The same pain, less than the years before. He watches a dragon in flight, remembers how to use his own wings, remembers how to feel his heart pumping. Colder skies, longer rains, feeling hollow and empty and-
It's lonely when the others are sent out to the front lines. Mitsutada has been the captain of the first team for weeks now and has only returned to the citadel to be repaired before setting off again. Ookurikara has been attending expeditions for resources, his expression when he leaves exactly the same as the one when he returns; he doesn't seem to care what his orders are. Left alone in their shared room, Tsurumaru misses the way he had smiled during summer, the endless opportunities for games when they had all been here.
He knows it makes sense. Ookurikara has settled in now, doesn't need babying if he ever did at all. The Saniwa knows what they're doing, as always. Trusting in them doesn't make Tsurumaru feel any better, doesn't stop the room feeling too large and cold as darkness falls. He sits on the edge of his futon, listening to the rain falling on the roof and dripping from the eave of the porch outside, trying to find the energy to move. It's difficult. This is what he's more used to, sitting still and watching the world go by, fighting a losing battle against boredom and melancholy.
It's on days like this that he wishes he could be called to a real battle. Alongside his friends would be best; their passion feeds him a little more strength to keep going. If that is not possible then he will fight alone if needs be and if he falls and breaks then at least it is something new.
A grey day. He has never let the others see him like this. Mitsutada would be too sympathetic. He wonders if Ookurikara's expression would change at all. Maybe he would smile at the stupidity of it all. That would be nice.
The way that Ookurikara's futon carries his scent as Tsurumaru rolls onto it is something new. He hadn't meant to move, had been thinking of his rare smile and the deep timbre of his voice and his body had moved on its own. The pillows and sheets smell of sunlight, or spice, of warm earth. His robes spreading out on the floor around him like useless wings, Tsurumaru presses his face into the cotton and breathes deeply. This is a scent he could grow used to, alive and unapologetic. He takes a deep breath and longs for it to seep into his body through his skin, bleed into him and warm him from the inside out.
The door opens. Tsurumaru turns just enough to show one eye, lips slowly curving into a smile against the pillow as someone slides the door shut behind them. Spices in the air, a pleasantly heavy silence.
Tsurumaru doesn't need to say anything. Ookurikara knows how this works by now, how they work together.
“I'm not surprised. I knew this was going to happen,” he says.
“No you didn't.”
He forces a brittle laugh, wondering if the tears he can feel on his cheeks are real or just a memory. Ookurikara sits beside him, on Tsurumaru's own futon, and rolls his shoulders.
“Yes I did.”
“You can see into the future now?”
“Sure.”
Tsurumaru watches as Ookurikara removes his shoes, his outer clothes, wrings some rain water out of the copper ends of his hair and onto the tatami beside the futons without a care. He lays down, facing the door, one hand reaching up to curl around the edge of Tsurumaru's pillow.
“Kara-bou.”
“Tsuru?”
“Oho, no Tsuru-san for me today?”
Ookurikara shrugs and Tsurumaru rolls closer, touches one cold hand to the back of his neck and laughs for real this time as his hand is slapped away.
“What do you want?”
“What does it smell like?”
“What?”
“This.” He taps the pillow behind Ookurikara's head. “Mine.”
Ookurikara is silent for a time and Tsurumaru wonders if he's ever going to answer. The rain begins to fall harder, hammering on the roof, and distant thunder promises a stormy night.
“It smells like you don't really want to talk about it.”
Tsurumaru finds that he can't decide upon an expression to wear before Ookurikara has turned over and rolled onto his own futon, arms still covered in dirt pulling Tsurumaru close.
“And like I'm tired,” he adds and just like that he has said everything and nothing at once.
He's perfect, really.
Tsurumaru lets a gloved hand running up and down his back soothe him into dreaming of summer.
Winter's chill doesn't reach him. Instead there are silently agreed secrets, looks shared over crowded rooms, a hand that reaches, grasps and pulls him back every time he tries to fade away. A new feeling, the opposite of boredom, his mind in knots and his heart scrambling for words. Dangerous comfort, uneasy acceptance, it's fine like this if nothing changes, if no one says a word, if-
Mitsutada keeps leaving them alone.
Part of this is due to the arrival of Sadamune, the decision to teach him to cook. Tsurumaru suspects that this is all a cover; Sadamune is downright dangerous in the kitchen, for a start, and Mitsutada knows that both Tsurumaru and Ookurikara want to spend time with their final quarter as well. Sadamune is the perfect little ally and within the first week has helped him pull off more than a dozen pranks, most of them aimed at Ookurikara.
It's been almost a year and Tsurumaru still hasn't managed to surprise him. He's set traps, worn costumes, hidden in cupboards, faked his own death; nothing works. Ookurikara greets each prank with the same resigned sigh, the same one he uses whenever he finds Tsurumaru in a grey sky mood. Whether he's laughing or remembering, energetic or lethargic, alive or dead where it matters most – for Ookurikara, it all seems to be the same.
It's troubling. It's exciting, too. He's been watching Ookurikara with eyes alight, fond fascination, a teasing edge to his words that he can't quite keep out anymore. Mitsutada has noticed; this is why he has been keeping away. He's sensible, more sensible than the rest of them at least, and knows to move to safer ground before the storm arrives.
Something is going to change. He knows this as snow blankets the citadel, covering up any evidence of the seasons previous. He feels it in the icy wind outside, the warmth of a mug clasped in his hands. He hears it in the brittle silence of each winter morning, the creaking of icicles, the inexorable patter of snow. Backing away would be sensible, letting whatever this is die with the last season of the year. The problem is that he has no willpower to do so. The problem is that, after so many years spent in stagnation, turning away from something new would be tantamount to suicide.
Ookurikara seems to understand. It's a mystery to Tsurumaru, how the other is so good at reading the emotions that everyone else misses. He's anti-social, shuns almost everybody and says less than a dozen sentences a day. He should be terrible at this. Instead, his gloved hand is warm as he rests it atop Tsurumaru's, the two of them sitting on the porch bundled up against the cold.
“It's not worth worrying about,” Ookurikara says.
“Very sharp, very sharp,” Tsurumaru praises, voice filled with laughter but his hand still and hesitant in Ookurikara's hold. “To notice I'm worrying about anything at all.”
“You're always worrying about something.”
“Oh? Well if I am, it's your fault.”
Ookurikara almost smiles. His lips twitch and he looks away as he always does when his expression reacts without his direction. It's a sweet gesture, almost innocent, and warmth blooms in Tsurumaru's chest at the sight. He decides that it is indeed Ookurikara's fault that he leans across the distance between them, reaching upwards to chase the fleeting almost-smile with his lips as if he can draw it back out of Ookurikara's mouth through touch alone.
The kiss is warmer than the mug of tea sat beside him and far, far sweeter. He's been in this form long enough to have touched his lips to those of others but that is all they were; touches, physical adventures to ease the aching boredom. Compared to his past experiences this is tame, barely anything at all, but the brief touch leaves a shaking in his bones and a melody in a heart that has long since forgotten how to sing. Ookurikara lets Tsurumaru be the one to draw away when he's ready and he does so with a breathless laugh.
Ookurikara's eyes are bright, his cheeks touched by heat in a faint dusting of pink. Tsurumaru looks at him and thinks of chocolate and strawberries, of summer, of long days and warm nights. It is in this moment that he truly understands the idea of beauty for the first time in his long existence, in this small sign of shared emotion from someone so stoic and controlled, of something real that he can't describe.
“Are you surprised yet?” he asks.
Ookurikara shakes his head, weaves one hand into Tsurumaru's hair, and kisses him again. And again. Once more, for luck as Tsurumaru whispers with a smile and time melts away into something meaningless. Ookurikara says nothing, not even as darkness begins to fall and they retreat inside with held hands and reddened lips.
He's really perfect.
Tsurumaru thinks that this could turn into something dangerous. It's a dizzying, frightening feeling. It banishes the greyness from his mind and fills the empty cavity of his chest with new life, flowers tangling around his ribs. If this is what suffocating is then he never wants to breathe again.
It is the most beautiful spring he has ever seen. He names new flowers in the fields, counts butterflies, charts the flight of birds. Grass stains on his robes, leaves in the hair of a dragon, the way his hands no longer feel empty. Weeks have seven days, days have twenty-four hours and every minute passes slowly, each second something new. The hesitant blue of the sky. The dwindling space between futons. Real laughter tickling his throat, real smiles making his mouth ache, trembling in his fingers when-
He thinks about Ookurikara taking off his clothes. He thinks about running his hands over soft skin. He thinks about how it would taste.
These thoughts are plaguing him whenever they are alone and sometimes when they're not. He knows what he wants, how it works, how these human bodies have needs and all the other explanations that the other swords give when asking to be touched. He's done that, enjoyed it well enough and then moved on. This feeling, this longing, this is different. He can feel it when they kiss, in the small shivers he can feel when he traces his fingers along Ookurikara's tattoo, whenever they look into each others eyes for longer than a few moments.
It has been one month and five days since they first kissed; Tsurumaru has been able to count each day without getting lost in time and that by itself is a special kind of joy. One month and five days of tentative joy, of waiting for something to go wrong but finding instead that the world can grow more beautiful with each passing hour. Tsurumaru feels like the optimist he pretends to be. This is why he feels no shame in rejoicing when both Mitsutada and Sadamune are sent away on an expedition and the room is theirs for one night. Ookurikara shows no outward signs of feeling the same but that's part of his charm and Tsurumaru doesn't mind guessing.
Tsurumaru doesn't need to gather much for this prank. A small washbasin, some spare blankets, and all of the feathers out of Mitsutada's second favourite pillow is all he needs.
The sight that greets Ookurikara as he enters the room is unusual at best. Two futons pushed together, the other two rolled away. Blankets are spread across both of the futons and also parts of the floor, arranged to look like two large wings. In the centre lays Tsurumaru, covered from neck to thigh in a blanket of loose white feathers.
Ookurikara does him the courtesy of raising an eyebrow but little more.
“Don't tell me,” he says in the special voice he reserves for Tsurumaru when he's being difficult. “You're going to fly away if I don't hold you down?”
This is not what Tsurumaru had been going to say. It's better.
“I am a bird, after all,” he says, barely keeping his voice steady from the implications of Ookurikara's words. “If you want to keep me then you should-”
“Right.”
With this one word, Ookurikara removes his shirt and drops to his knees beside Tsurumaru before bending forwards and blowing sharply. Handfuls of feathers fly into the air, revealing very pale and very bare skin beneath. Ookurikara's expression is blank as he goes to remove the rest of his clothes and Tsurumaru can't help himself from raising his voice.
“Oh come on! You've got to be surprised by this one!”
“Nope.”
“But I-”
“Only by how pale you are. Look.”
And then Ookurikara is gloriously naked, warm and soft and eager, and Tsurumaru forgets to be angry. It's far easier to wrap himself around Ookurikara's body, to watch his porcelain hands pressing against a dark chest, to revel in the feel of the heartbeat there. They speak little, preferring to gasp and shiver as they tangle and merge. Ookurikara is quiet other than the occasional soft groan but he is all teeth and tongue, leaving bruises in the wake of kisses. Tsurumaru discovers how easy it is to moan and whimper in wanton pleasure, to raise his voice through raw feeling rather than thought. It's impossible to close his eyes, entranced by the sight of someone so beautiful and so different between his thighs, pliant to his every silent suggestion.
It's perfect, the way they fit together.
Like yin and yang, day and night, life and death. It seems only right to give all of his brightness to Ookurikara, to take the darkness into himself. It feels like waking up, like being forged, like everything has been burned away and rebuilt by the strong and gentle hands holding his own against the floor.
Afterwards, silence. He counts Ookurikara's breaths and thanks every single one of them for this feeling.
“I think this is called falling in love.”
His own voice surprises him. He feels Ookurikara laugh without sound, a fluttering in his stomach.
“Took you long enough.”
Joy has never lasted long. His first master, radiant, bleeding out too soon too early too cruel. The grave he was destined for, torn open, cold earth caving inwards, a gaping hole in the ground carried in his heart. Hands bloodied by war and treachery. Greedy fingers plucking him from sacred duties. These fears, ever present, clamouring for attention when-
Ookurikara kisses him awake. The nightmares, their familiar faces and words, fade away into nothingness. It's becoming easier to ignore them. The world has changed in that 'love' is no longer a foreign concept. He's starting to believe that his luck can change too, that the ever repeating pattern can be broken.
This is why he does nothing but smile when they are both called to sortie. Sekigahara, somewhere familiar, nothing to worry about. It's been some time since he has seen Ookurikara fight. They prepare for dispatch to the front lines with enthusiasm, sparing only a moment to share a kiss before they are ready to leave. It's a battle they've fought a dozen times. Tsurumaru thinks little of it as they head to their destination.
The enemy is predictable, as always. He knows just where to place his feet, when to dance away from a strike, when to thrust his own blade forwards and how to laugh as his opponent falls. They tell him he is too carefree in battle. He tells them to enjoy themselves and bares his teeth in a grin as Ookurikara moves to stand behind him as they fight, back to back, a turning wall of steel.
He wonders how he had ever lost the joy of this, his purpose, his only talent. Perhaps it was so that he could learn a new joy, rediscover the pleasure of watching Ookurikara fight, the way that hands that can touch him so gently grip his sword tightly, the sweat beading his brow. Around him the battle rages. Tsurumaru is entranced. The white of Ookurikara's shirt is stained with blood, none of it his own. Tsurumaru wonders if he looks the same and turns his golden eyes down to check his sleeves.
“Tsurumaru-san!”
He doesn't know whose voice calls to him, has no time to check. A revisionist is behind him, an ootachi rending the air, too fast, too close and instead of dancing he has no choice but to grapple, flinging his blade up to block, fragments of steel splintering and his arms on fire from holding back the weight. Another cry, movement in his peripheral vision, a tachi rushing towards him. A foe he could fell with his eyes closed if he chose but not now, not with all of his strength going into holding the ootachi back, not with his feet off balance.
Ah, he thinks. I let my guard down.
He closes his eyes. It has been worth it, he thinks. To watch Ookurikara dance, to have spent so many hours in bliss. If this is the price to pay then he is ready to accept it.
“Tsuru!”
A blunt impact to his side. A roar of rage. The sick, wet tearing of flesh. The dull thud of two bodies hitting the floor.
Something is wrong.
Eyes still closed, Tsurumaru's body moves on its own, ducking under the ootachi and tearing through the enemy's chest in one fluid motion. He doesn't wait to see where it falls before he is turning to the side, looking down, dropping to his knees.
Ookurikara's shirt is almost all red, now. Something dark and wet glistens out of a gash across his torso. Blood pumps silently out and into the thirsting earth.
“Kara-bou?”
His own voice a whisper. A hand raises, trembling, and pulls on the front of his robes leaving a red stain on the white fabric, the right colouring for a crane at last.
It's the perfect tragedy.
The same as always.
Joy has never lasted long.
Somewhere, someone is shouting. Somewhere, the battle is over. Here, in a world where Ookurikara won't open his eyes and Tsurumaru has forgotten how to breathe, nothing really matters any longer, not when there's-
-the dark lifeblood of a dragon slain.
The weak grasp of a dying lover's hand.
The sky shattering and falling in piercing relentless shards.
'A crane to bring fortune'?
But when, for whom, for what, when will-
"Sur...prise."
A dry whisper jolts him out of the darkness. The hand that had reached for him is pressing the thick cloth of his sleeve against the wound and its grown heavy with blood. Tsurumaru stares in incomprehension.
“C-come on, Tsuru...”
He looks upwards to find golden eyes hazy with pain watching him as if he is the only thing that matters. There are hands on his shoulders, people urging him to move, to hurry, but it is as if they are speaking another language and he has no time for them.
Ookurikara is smiling.
“That was a g-good one, right?”
Tsurumaru's voice doesn't sound like his own. He's not sure if he's laughing or shouting or screaming or all and none of them. He clutches at Ookurikara, pressing his hands against the blood still trying to escape, wills it to stop, wonders why he's smiling when everything has gone so wrong.
He's not perfect. He's a shaking mess, biting back choking sobs and trying to speak.
“Yeah,” he manages. “Y-you got me.”
Others take charge from here. There's a journey, the repair room, worried visitors. Time passes too slowly for the first time in Tsurumaru's life. And then a new morning, a body as good as new, hands stroking his hair until he cries himself hoarse.
He doesn't need to explain. Ookurikara knows.
He's lived too long to find joy in the mundane. Fortunately the dragon that coils around his heart is anything but. "Tsurumaru-san is always joking around!" His laughter is real, now. The sun feels warm when summer returns. So he will keep fighting the same battles, watching history on repeat, and he will keep dodging the same strikes over and over and over and-