A/N: Basically started out as me wanting to write something cute and domestic and ending with something bittersweet but still domestic. I don't even know. I just wanted to have Kuroh singing "Legend Kitchen" while cooking and I got this, because 2 paragraphs was too short. Yes I know the title is lame as fuck, don't judge me for my inability to title things. Also this is post-series so Shiro and Weismann are the same person. But I kept Shiro for continuity purposes. And I feel like he would keep the name should he not return to his original body in the future.


One thing he's noticed in the time they've spent together is that Kuroh is prone to humming while he does housework. Usually it's something they've heard playing on the radio, or perhaps a catchy jingle from some commercial. But just as often, it's just a tune that he admits to making up on his own, simply going along with what feels right.

He has caught Kuroh many a time humming an unfamiliar, upbeat tune as he works in the kitchen. He's certain it's something Kuroh made up himself, and though he's never heard the lyrics, he knows they exist. Once he asked, and Kuroh had turned a magnificent shade of pink, but staunchly refused to answer. Which was really a shame, because he really would have liked to hear them, but it couldn't be helped. (He'll just wait for Kuroh to slip up one day. Patience is a virtue, and whatnot.)

As it turns out, Kuroh is quite the singer, though he's rather uncomfortable letting anyone know it. Shiro has complimented him many a time on it, neither commenting on the trust it must take for Kuroh to be willing to sing around him – around them – as freely as he does. Kuroh, of course, assures him that it is something only natural for a disciple of Miwa Ichigen.

He wants to tell Kuroh that there is only so much singing lessons can do for a person, and there is some pride to be taken in a natural-born talent like that. But he's not sure Kuroh would even hear him, and it makes him think of a certain lieutenant who couldn't carry a tune to save his life, so he drops the subject instead. If Kuroh ever notices the shadow that briefly passes over him at that moment, he never points it out.

Regardless, there's something calming about Kuroh's singing voice. It's not too deep, since he's still so young, but it's not unfittingly high-pitched either. Listening to him makes it very easy to imagine a lone guitar player in a small, comfortable bar. Though he's pretty sure Kuroh can't play guitar – it is much more likely that he might know how to play more traditional Japanese instruments, but he doesn't pretend to know everything Kuroh learned under Ichigen-sama. He's still trying to figure out the helicopter thing, if he's being honest with himself.

Neko doesn't sing so much as create childish rhymes and recite them in a sing-song voice. He doesn't think she'd have much patience to learn to sing properly, anyway. But she does love humming quite a bit. Not that he's surprised, really – she's very much like a child most of the time, impatient and displeased by extended silence. It's her way of doing things, and he tends to just let her be.

Shiro himself hasn't been prone to singing in decades. Not that his interest in music ever waned, but he hasn't had much to sing about since that day, really. Recently he's found himself humming quietly now and then. It's always when he's alone, an unconscious way of filling the silence, he supposes. He's not sure when the silence actually started to bother him like that.

They've become a family of sorts, the three of them, despite the differences between them. Even before he'd disappeared again, along the way they'd become close. And now they were even closer. He can't help but doubt that he has earned this life. This peace and happiness that he wanted for so long, but ran away from all those years ago. Even more morbidly, he wonders if it will even last, or if it will be just as fleeting as it was then.

But then they'll call to him – his clansmen, his equals – and he wonders if, maybe, this might be the only way he can repent for what he did back then.