Picture perfect.
He simply couldn't find any other word for it. They were, simply put, picture perfect.
Ichimura Tatsunosuke had seen many mental pictures of said picture-perfect couple. Some of them were real, some, he had envisioned himself. No matter what, he thought, in every single picture, they were simply picture perfect.
It could be back-to-back fighting the Choshu, or sitting facing each other drinking tea, or one peering over the other's shoulder watching the latter write his infamous haiku, or sharing an umbrella, or just standing there – in every single picture, never had one or the other seemed out of place.
And even now, Ichimura reflected as he watched the two sitting side by side on the roof watching the fireworks – they looked picture perfect.
So picture perfect were they, that Ichimura frowned when he caught sight of the Commander, sitting next to the two, downing sake like there was no tomorrow. He covered his left eye so he could block out most of the Commander, and yep – they were picture perfect alright.
He contemplated it for a second. What did it mean if two people looked so good together? Did it mean that they belonged together?
To that, Ichimura felt his light-heartedness (which, weirdly enough, he'd felt ever since that slap that bastard Susumu gave him) ebb away, to be replaced by a familiar, dull ache.
He felt Susumu give him a Look. Seriously, that kid was born a spy. Or maybe a mind-reader.
Politely excusing himself, he left Susumu and made his way into the Shinsengumi quarters.
Maybe if he slept, the ache would go away.
He unrolled a futon and a blanket and snuggled down in a dark corner.
The darkness and faint murmurs of happy crowds dispersing lulled him to a semi-consciousness. It was peaceful. He couldn't see the Vice-Commander and the First Unit Captain together any more, and all by himself, he had gotten pretty good at blocking thoughts from entering his brain.
Then the sliding doors slid open loudly, and three boisterous samurai trumped in, singing an indiscernible song, and the peace was gone.
The samurai streamed in slowly, some from patrol, most drunk from the festival. Vaguely he heard complaints of how heavy his little brother was, and made a mental note to thank whoever it was that had hauled his sleeping brother home.
Then eventually, the noises faded away, and the room fell silent. The noises outside had died down as well.
It was deafening.
He tried putting a pillow over his head to shut out the silence, but his arms eventually cramped up.
Suddenly, he thought of something.
Sitting up, he ascertained that every soul in the room was asleep. Satisfied, he withdrew slowly from his futon and tiptoed past the sleeping bodies to the main corridor.
The moon shone brilliantly on the quiet garden, but Ichimura didn't think to notice it.
He made his way to the little room they used to keep all the book-keeping records.
Opening the sliding door and leaving it open for a stream of line to shine through, Ichimura took a piece of paper, a pen, a bottle of ink and placed a small table directly in the stream of moonlight.
Then he sat down and began to draw.
First, he drew a slender face. He added in long bangs of hair. Then a pair of big, happy eyes, a slender nose, and a smiling mouth.
He penned in a gi, but on second thought, changed it into a kimono. Satisfied, he completed his picture by drawing long, dark hair that reached the waist.
Just for fun, he drew a little round pig at the bottom. He thought it was pretty good.
Then, a few inches above and on the left of the first figure, he penned in another face, with a strong jaw. Then feeler-like bangs to frame the face. He drew stern eyebrows, accompanied with equally stern eyes. A long straight nose, and then, a frowning mouth. This time, he drew a gi accompanied with a katana sheathed at the side. Then he added a waist-long ponytail, and a pipe in the frowning mouth for good measure. A smoking pipe.
He nodded, satisfied. Picture perfect as usual.
Then he drew another face on the right, slightly shorter than the second, but taller than the first. He added a mop of hair on top, eyes, nose, and a straight line for a mouth. He drew a gi for this figure, and added in a thin ponytail. Then drew a book in the hand of the third figure to end it off.
He frowned.
He slanted the eyebrows of the second figure further to make him look more cruel. Then, grinning, he drew demon horns, fangs, and a demon tail for good measure.
The first two figures still looked good together. The third figure, no matter how he looked at it, was the obvious outsider. He covered the demon figure with his hand, but the first and the third figure just didn't seem to click.
Frowning, he put his pen on the second face –
"What are you doing, Tatsu-nii?"
Ichimura jumped a foot and grabbed his little drawing, folding it quickly and tucking it inside his gi. "W-what are you doing up this late! You should be in bed now!"
Yawning, Tetsunosuke rubbed his eyes. "I had to pee. The vice-commander made me drink all the tea I made just 'cause he wouldn't drink it and he wouldn't let Okita-san drink it, and he wouldn't let me throw it away."
Ichimura couldn't help but smile. "That's too bad. Let's get you back to bed."
"Na, Tatsu-nii," the sleepy voice mumbled as they trudged back to the sleeping quarters, "what were you doing up so late?"
Ichimura blushed hard, but thankfully, his brother was too sleepy to bother looking at his face. "I-I had some work to do. I couldn't sleep so I thought I would do it."
"Oh." Apparently lame answers satisfied most sleepy people.
They tiptoed in past the rows of sleeping bodies, and Ichimura tucked in his brother, who fell asleep even before he'd shut the sliding closet door. Ichimura smiled to himself, and tiptoed back to the corner he'd taken up.
Before he sank onto the futon, he took out the folded up piece of paper from his gi and looked at it again.
Making a mental note to burn it the next morning, he tucked it safely back inside.
The dull ache was still there, but somehow, he found that he could sleep.
A/N: My first PK fic! Haha! I love HijiSou, but somehow IchiSou wouldn't leave me alone! Hope you liked it!