Well, I'm back! From being singularly unproductive, I return at last, prompted by a Tsukimine challenge!
The challenge: 'Roots', Canon-optional, 1000 words. Show why or how you got into liking your OTP. Show the little things that make it work.
So, my production:
G-rated, Canonically positive (or was meant to be), some number of words. Pairing: Touya/Yukito-Yue.
Disclaimer: No, I do not secretly have the rights to these characters stashed in my closet. And even if I did, you couldn't borrow them. Nyah!
Warnings: Pre-slash, past het (Touya/Kaho), minor angst. Very minor, really.
This is what I see; this is what I believe.
Journeys End…
The streets of Tomoeda saw a lot of Touya that summer, wandering here and there at all hours. Often he would spend entire Sunday afternoons in walking, or leave his room at night and roam till dawn. Every side road and half-grown path grew to know him perfectly, save only those that led past the Tsukimine Shrine. Those Touya avoided like a still-agonizing wound. Wherever he was going, it would not be there.
It was late August when, trekking idly along a well-trodden street, he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks. A boy he had never seen before was coming out of a house that he could have sworn was abandoned. At least, he thought the apparition was a boy. Two images were at war in his mind; one, that of a cheerful boy about his own age with glasses and short silvery hair, his mundane sight insisted was the only one; the other his occult vision presented to him, an inexpressibly ancient figure with violet eyes and wings sprouting from white-clad shoulders. Finally his mind agreed to alternate the images, faced with the impossible alternative of seeing two things at the same moment.
The boy-being glowed faintly silver in Touya's eyes, reminding him sickeningly of Kaho and also of something he had grown so used to seeing that he could no longer identify it. As he closed the gate, the mundane face smiled fixedly while the magical one scowled at everything. Something in the combination of expressions made Touya remember how he had felt just after moving to Tomoeda, and made him want to help this strange person the way…he cut the thought off sharply. To help him. So he did.
"Hello," he said, noticing that, though both of the people he could see spun around, the passably human was expectant while the other was nervous. "I haven't seen you before."
"I just moved here," the boy said, smiling almost cheerfully enough to mask the scowl his counterpart had now turned on Touya. "My name is Tsukishiro Yukito. It's nice to meet you."
"Kinomoto Touya. Likewise." He wanted to ask whom the boy was living with, and why he felt so familiar, but he didn't. If, as it might well be, Tsukishiro was unaware of his other self, it was not for Touya to tell him. Instead he asked, "Are you going to be in school here?"
Tsukishiro nodded. "I'm in my first year of high school. Are you…?"
"The same." Tsukishiro looked as if he was trying to ask a question, but couldn't think of how to word it. Taking a guess at what he wanted to ask, Touya said, "Would you like me to show you around?"
"Yes, please!" Tsukishiro's face lit up, and even his other self looked less angry. Touya found himself smiling as well. The boy's enthusiasm was contagious. "That is, if it's not too much trouble?"
"Not at all. Tell you what: it's getting late, and tonight's my turn to make dinner. How about I come by tomorrow noon or so and give you a tour of the town? Term hasn't started yet, so I'm free."
"That sounds wonderful!" Tsukishiro glowed literally as well as figuratively. The effect was somewhat spoiled by his other self's shooting Touya a look that, while generally indiscernible, contained a certain element of suspicion. "Well, I'm sure you have to be going, so goodbye until tomorrow!"
"See you then."
Touya walked home in an entirely new frame of mind from the one in which he had left. Somehow he knew he would no longer be compelled to wander. Odd that Tsukishiro and his silent, nameless other self had had such a profound effect. There had been something about their expressions of loneliness that had driven Touya to speak to them (him? Were they one or two?), and in doing so he was himself not so lonely. The part of him that needed someone to talk to as an equal was content, and with it the other pieces of his life started to slot back into place. The next day he would be able to walk past the Shrine, and when his speech faltered Tsukishiro—Yukito already by the very gesture—would smile gently but ask no more, and that would be another piece. Already Touya felt more tranquil, the days stretching before him full of things to do and see with his friend. Why should he keep wandering? He had found what he hadn't know he was looking for.
…in Lovers' Meeting
Question of the fic: Does this work for you as a representation of canon? If so, what makes it work best? If not, what would work better?
Title/ending quote from Twelfth Night, just to be pointlessly informative.
Yours in double vision,
Cygna