[Cross-posted from AO3; originally posted there on 10/04/2016.]
A.N.: Written for PB Prompt Stack, for the prompts 'Yagyuu Kyuubei/Shimura Tae, belonging, kimono, slow, sweetness'.
.-.-.-.
It's only by chance that Tae realises at all. Her reflection and the neat pleats of its kimono are hardly on her mind; she's folding and holding and manoeuvring fabric with the quick, efficient inattention of very practised gestures, thinking already of what she'll make for lunch, and whether she realistically has enough eggs in the house to accomplish it, not to mention baking trays or salt or patience. She wraps her obi tight – and then behind her, in the mirror, she catches sight of Kyuubei.
Tae very nearly asks for a second opinion on the matter of the eggs. But then she looks again, and notices Kyuubei's look of absorbed concentration – sitting not-exactly-bare-chested on the bed, wide clean sarashi cloth wrapped securely into place, frowning at Tae's reflection as thoughtfully as a tourist in an art gallery – and Tae closes her mouth instead, unnoticed.
She folds her bow across her stomach, and pulls it tight; she holds in her breath and grips the edges of her obi, and turns it, very carefully, very carefully, until the bow sits against her back instead. She's very nearly done, anyway: all that's left is tying her obi cord, only a cheap one, and already wearing thin where she knots it at the front, and then fixing the layers of her collars, smoothing the fabric held above her sash, straightening her sleeves, each cuff inside the next – but by now she's making minute adjustments that hardly need to be made at all, looking fondly into her mirror as she watches Kyuubei watching her.
"Kyuu-chan," says Tae at last. She's smiling; and at her voice Kyuubei starts in surprise, and begins to turn a very solemn shade of pink. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm starting to feel a little hungry; would you mind if we went for breakfast sometime soon?"
"You're not interrupting anything, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei, much too quickly, and turns pinker still.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
The difference between the infinite shades and varieties of Kyuubei's frowning – in interest, in confusion, in far-off recollection of something a thousand miles away – or even, really, asleep but still frowning about something mid-dream – is minimal, and occasionally absent; but Tae's quite sure that she can tell the difference. And she's equally sure, now she's paying attention to it, that at least a fraction of Kyuubei's interest in the tiresome, fiddly ritual of Tae dressing and divesting herself of every last layer of her clothes is focused on the clothes themselves.
Only a very small fraction, though. The rest of it is focused, entirely as it should be, on the fact that Tae is divesting herself of them.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
She stops one evening, reaching for her bow, and instead lets her hand fall. "You can, if you like," she offers, turning her back.
"I – but," says Kyuubei, sounding suddenly stricken, "I don't want to damage it, Tae-chan."
"You won't," says Tae. She looks back across her shoulder: Kyuubei's hand is uncertainly lifted, going nowhere. She takes it in hers and presses it firmly against her obi bow. "And even if you did, which you won't, but if you did, then we'd just find Gin-san and bleed him out a little, and then I'd take it to the club and tell them it was damaged by a customer, who I've since dealt with, as the blood would testify, and then they'd buy me another one to stop me quitting or taking out a harassment suit against them. A nicer one. A proper silk one. So you've nothing to worry about, Kyuu-chan," promises Tae, and sweeps her loose hair expectantly across one shoulder.
Nothing, for a moment. Then – a hesitant, exploratory prodding, as Kyuubei attempts to work out what's folded where and how and why – and unexpectedly Tae feels a sudden, agreeable warmth ripple through her: the kind of utter physical contentment that comes with stepping into bath water of exactly the perfect temperature, or of Kyuubei carefully, patiently tying back her hair for her, or waking up to find that neither of them has morning breath and both of them slept well, and the sun is bright and the day is warm and neither of them has any particularly pressing engagements elsewhere for at least the next hour or so. Kyuubei's touch is muffled by the layers on layers of fabric, but Tae's reaction is as strong as though her skin were bare.
It's a little looser already, she can feel it. And then all at once it's entirely looser, satin spilling across both their laps as it unravels from around Tae's waist, and Tae turns back just in time to catch Kyuubei's look of astonished delight in the achievement – which is enough to startle both of them into laughter, and already by now Tae's lost interest in anything but unravelling Kyuubei's own plain hakama sash to feel the shudder of that laughter beneath her hand.
She sheds her outer kimono easily with her obi gone – her lighter, looser inner kimono too, and she yanks loose the knot of her inner sash and sheds her thin under-kimono last of all, layer after layer falling away from her with the dignified rustle of heavy fabric and the undignified rustling of bedsheets getting kicked around. An occasional flurry of laughter, muffled against another mouth, an occasional burst of nonsensical conversation, nothing that ever reaches an ending: can we, what if, let's just—
Instead of cheap cotton sheets her back slides against satin, not soft nor rough but oddly scratchy, puddled beneath the two of them. It stays there for one long, preoccupied moment – Kyuubei's elbow skids against the fabric, embroidered flowers prickle in the small of Tae's back – and then she rolls to kick all of it aside, safely out of reach. When she rolls back, Kyuubei's tugging with minimal success and maximum impatience at the sarashi cloth tightly wrapped and fastened tighter, ribs to armpits.
Tae pushes herself up and begins, "Shall I—"
"Yes," says Kyuubei immediately, and turns away just as Tae had, hair swept aside just as Tae had. Tae doesn't bother undoing it, this time: with one little tug, the coarse layers of material fray, rip, tear apart right down the middle – it begins to unravel just as Tae's obi had, and with just as much impatient relief from Kyuubei, who shakes it all off and takes a deep new breath, and lets it out, and promptly whirls back around to kiss Tae as urgently as though all those other times had only been a dream, and this is the first time, and the most miraculous time of all.
There's rain pattering against the roof afterwards, steady and getting steadily heavier, rattling the guttering against the tiles with a sound like coins jangling in a pocket.
"It'll stop by morning," Kyuubei tells her, a confidential whisper. "The forecast said. It said tomorrow will be..."
Tae waits drowsily for the thread of thought to be picked back up, her eyes closed, feeling pleasantly heavy with the weight of oncoming sleep. A few seconds, two minutes, half an hour: she's no idea how long it is before a trace of doubt pushes up past the weight of tiredness. She rolls her head to the side and finds Kyuubei already asleep, mid-sentence.
Covering a yawn along with her smile, Tae sits up. Her clothes are where she left them, kicked haphazardly across the floorboards of her darkened room; quiet as she can, she slides out from beneath the sheets and collects the fabric in, and with long efficient folds from side to side and end to end and back again she creases all of it down into tidy rectangles no longer than her forearm.
She stacks them, and she sets them aside; and once she's done, she curls back up on her side of the futon and pulls the sheets back over both of them, and at last sinks into sleep to the untroubled whistling sound of Kyuubei's breathing, steady as the rhythm of the rain.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
Usually, Tae dresses with her mind distracted by the day ahead – on breakfast, on work, on the respective schedules of Kyuubei and Shinpachi – but the next morning she dresses with her mind on dressing, paying attention to the process that she hasn't paid for years.
She shakes out a clean loose under-kimono, and says curiously, "Why are you so interested, Kyuu-chan?"
Face splashed with water, hair pulled back: in thirty seconds, Kyuubei's already very nearly ready for the day. "I've never seen it before, Tae-chan."
Tae leaves an obliging pause, which drags out long enough for it to become clear that Kyuubei considers that sufficient information. "Never seen what, Kyuu-chan?" she prompts.
"How a woman dresses, Tae-chan. All the... parts. And pieces." The safety pin between Kyuubei's teeth is removed from its home and transferred to its new home, fastened through the layers of a new and less comprehensively shredded-into-gauze sarashi. "It's complex."
Tae's so surprised that she stops with only one sleeve on. "You've – really, Kyuu-chan? You've never?"
"Never, Tae-chan," says Kyuubei solemnly.
Though – perhaps it's not surprising at all, when Tae thinks of it. She remembers her own mother would dress with her – indistinctly, long ago, an impression of brightly patterned satins and woody perfume as all the while Shinpachi gabbled in his cradle, as noisy then as he's still noisy now – and she remembers the girls' changing rooms at school, and nowadays the cabaret girls occasionally change outfits in the back room in a dust cloud whirl of silks and powder and perfume... But she and Kyuubei had very different childhoods, for all they were inseparable, and the two of them hold none of that in common.
"It looks very complicated, Tae-chan. Like a mystery. Or a jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box and one piece missing. Or a secret handshake for a club you're not a member of and you were blindfolded when the Grand High Leader demonstrated it anyway. And you forget every time how many times you have to clap before the elbow bump, turn around touch the ground and—Twice," says Kyuubei suddenly. "You clap twice. I told Tojo it was—" An abrupt pause. "And very beautiful, too," concludes Kyuubei, quietly serious once again, sitting at Tae's low bedroom table, chin in hand.
"Oh, it's neither, really," says Tae modestly, "since I can't afford any nicer. And it's not all that different from yours, you know; it takes a little practice, but it's nothing you don't get used to." A thought occurs to her. She hesitates, and says carefully, "But – does that mean, Kyuu-chan, that you've never—"
"No," says Kyuubei.
Tae folds her flimsy inner sash and ties it at her waist. "I have spares," she says, in a voice as agreeably neutral and as free from judgement as she can, "and it's easy to change the length, so if you'd ever like to—"
"No," says Kyuubei. It's a very polite no, but it's a very firm no as well.
Tae hadn't thought so, but she's far too well-mannered not to ask anyway. She unfolds her inner kimono and pulls it on, smoothing its collars neatly flat. "You can help me, if you like," she offers. "You can get it tighter with someone helping – or that's what I hear, anyway, as I've never really had anyone to help; at least except the girls at the club, and you'd be safer snatching strawberry parfait directly out of Gin-san's hands than you would turning your back on women as likely to heartlessly sabotage an innocent colleague just because they're jealous of her beauty and success and humble nature as those women are..." She takes her outer kimono from her cabinet: yellow and green, springtime colours and satiny soft. "And there are all sorts of different ways you can tie it, with two people on the job. Would you like to?"
"I'd like to," says Kyuubei seriously, "but I don't think that's appropriate, Tae-chan."
"But – why in the world not, Kyuu-chan?"
"Trespassing on forbidden knowledge," says Kyuubei, and gives a small shrug of weary resignation, as though the forbidden nature of Tae's kimono is a fact of life, well-known and undeniable, and there's simply nothing to be done about it.
It's not uncommon for Kyuubei's train of thought to take unscheduled detours over impractical off-road terrain, and it's not uncommon for Tae to need a moment or two of consideration before she can work out how and where to follow. So she stops, and considers; but this time the consideration doesn't make it any clearer. "...Forbidden knowledge, Kyuu-chan?"
"Forbidden knowledge," confirms Kyuubei, grave as the tomb. "Like spying in the Imperial toilets to find out how regularly the Shogun goes each day. So regardless of whether I want to help you, it's not appropriate, Tae-chan."
Tae considers this, too. It doesn't help. "I'm sure the Shogun takes his dumps just like the rest of us do, Kyuu-chan."
This much, Kyuubei concedes with a sombre nod. "But he should still be allowed his secrets, Tae-chan. If I shared the secrets of the men of the Yagyuu clan, I would have to take my life. So you shouldn't profane the secrets of your womanhood on my account."
Tae considers this as well. She considers it for a while longer than before, thoughtfully smoothing down the satin in her hands as she does so, and at last begins: "Well – for starters, I suspect my womanhood's already been quite thoroughly profaned on your account," which Kyuubei concedes with an equally sombre nod, "and no one's committing seppuku in this house, Kyuu-chan; they can do it in the garden, if they have to do it anywhere, so long as they're spilling their guts onto the flowerbeds and not my floorboards—"
"—hygienic," says Kyuubei, quietly approving—
"—but either way, they would need my permission first. And neither of us have it," continues Tae, "so neither of us is dying here today. And anyway," she adds, her voice growing confidential as she prepares to make her argument—
But Kyuubei's already up, seizing the eyepatch from its resting site on Tae's desk and pulling it into place. "That's a very convincing argument, Tae-chan. Very convincing. You've won me over. I can't think of a single flaw in it."
That Tae hasn't actually made her argument yet in no way diminishes how flattered she is by its success. She explains, "The reason you can't think of any flaws is because there aren't any, Kyuu-chan."
"Because there aren't any... I see," says Kyuubei, suitably impressed. "Yes, I see. No flaws. A masterful strategy. What do you want me to do?"
"You can hold this in place for me," says Tae, and pats the waist of her untied kimono. "And listen, Kyuu-chan, I was going to say: that even if it was a secret, or if anything at all was a secret – then it'd be my secret, which would make it your secret anyway: since mine are yours, and yours are mine. Which means that whichever way you look at it, it's not a secret. Which means there's no need to worry about anything of the sort, not here, not between the two of us – not forbidden knowledge, or—"
"—betraying the Shogun," agrees Kyuubei, "or clan confidences, or meeting an elderly woman in the forest who tempts you with dark visions of a spirit world that exists invisibly alongside our own for the price of just three hundred yen, but you refuse because you know that such power should never fall into human hands. I understand, Tae-chan. Our love is neutral territory."
"Precisely!" says Tae. "That's precisely it – although not precisely how I would have put it; but you're precisely right, Kyuu-chan. Here," she adds, and moves Kyuubei's hands to where she wants them. By no coincidence, it's the same place Kyuubei wants them. Fabric rustles and slides and attempts to slither free; Kyuubei watches it with the intensity of a cat with a mouse, and traps it just as fast when it slips loose in a bid for freedom.
After a little while, Tae asks, "Has that ever happened to you, Kyuu-chan?"
"With the old woman, Tae-chan? Never."
"It was a very specific example though, wasn't it, Kyuu-chan?"
"It certainly was, Tae-chan."
Tae considers this. There's not much to consider: it's perfectly reasonable. Between the two of them it takes nearly twice as long as usual for her kimono to be tied, Kyuubei's willingness and quick fingers counterbalanced by Kyuubei's extreme distractibility in such close proximity to Tae; but there's no hurry, and beyond that there's at least a dozen eggs waiting in the refrigerator to be charred into a wholesome, powdery black lunch, and beyond that there's a clear-skied day with the rainclouds blown aside, and beyond that there could be anything, or maybe everything. There's no hurry here at all.
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