The Year of the Boar

Mi/sì. The sixth Earthly Branch. Fourth Lunar Month. Ruling hours: 9 to 11 am.

In Chinese ideography,
A roof with a pig under it
Means home.

John Cotton, "Pigs (Four ways of looking at)"


Cougar decided that mid-morning was the best time for lying under trees and reading, though it pained him a bit to admit that he - Straight Cougar, he of Radical Good Speed for crying out loud – now had a desire to stretch out under trees and actually take the time to finish a book. To do nothing with his days but enjoy the slow pace. Not that Mimori would let him do much more, but there were worse fates in life than being fussed over by a beautiful, intelligent woman. He'd decided that much when he'd returned at Tachibana's urging – Mimori had flung herself into his arms and tearfully declared that she wasn't sure she'd ever been so glad to see anyone, and then launched into a five minute speech on how he had to take better care of himself. "It's a wonder your body hasn't totally given out - don't do anything rash, promise me?" she'd clucked to him like a mother hen.

So he didn't, and much to his great surprise, it suited him just fine. Of course, he occasionally felt like he was 80 … and he did sit and ponder his mortality a fair bit … but he always had to laugh when Mimori teasingly referred to him as"old man." It wasn't so bad, this slow-paced life. It could be worse. She smiled more frequently now, and he didn't catch her staring blank-faced out at the horizon as often as he had the first months he had been back. These days, though, her sadness was unpredictable, coming up suddenly. One of the children in the village had brought 'Kiryu-sama' a bouquet of spring wildflowers a month before, and Mimori had frozen, staring at the blue and red flowers bunched together, mouth open slightly. Kanami had presciently extracted the sad little bunch from Mimori's hands, saying something about finding a vase. That's the one to watch, the twelve year old who has more grace and innate sense of how to make things better than most adults could ever dream of, alter or no.

Mimori had gone out and watched the stars after that, even though the cold wind was biting that night. She rarely talked of Ryuho, or anything having to do with life 'before,' as she called it. She'd talked that night, though, when he'd found her by the same tree he was currently sprawled under. Her voice had been drowsy, and she'd leaned her head on his shoulder and talked of everything and nothing, speaking in imprecise language that was uncharacteristic of her scientific mind. 'He' and 'she' sufficed for proper nouns, standing in place of those unspoken names that hesitated coming off the tongue. Kazuma. Scheris. Ryuho. But he hadn't needed to ask whom they referred to; it was blindingly obvious. "Don't say anything to Tachibana," she'd mumbled. "He worries about me too much as it is. It's just getting used to familiar things being gone. That's all."

He wished Kazuma and Ryuho would reappear so he could give both of them, Ryuho especially, a violent tongue-lashing. In his estimation, it was entirely unlikely that two hot headed idiots would managed to beat sense into each other even if they fought for the next century, though one could always hope for miracles. He wasn't sure Ryuho would even care that there was a woman waiting for him, and it infuriated Cougar to see Mimori holding on to the past like she was. Oh, he could understand holding on to dreams and ideas, he could see longing for someone who actually deserved it, but Ryuho Ryu? An absolute waste of a beautiful girl. "Such a brilliantly romantic idea, if only she were pining away for someone who was worthy of her!" he had exclaimed to Tachibana.

Cammy had muttered something about a woman's heart, Cougar had geared up to defend his position, but Tachibana had shrugged – "Who knows, Cougar. About either of them. I stopped trying to understand it long ago." – and Cougar had to admit it was awfully tempting to fall into that line of thinking. Still … he'd declared to the sky one night that while Miss Mimori may not be destined to be by his side, that wouldn't stop him from trying. In subtle ways, of course. She wasn't in any shape for cheeky declarations of love or someone trying to lure her into bed, no matter how teasingly. Maybe she'd come around, maybe she wouldn't. Even if he could just take her mind off that green-haired jackass for a few months, it would be worth the effort. And no matter what, no matter how Fate dealt their hand, he wouldn't leave her …

"Daydreaming again?"

He looked towards the voice that came suddenly, and Mimori was smiling like a mother would smile at an errant child. "Daydreaming? Never! Besides, shouldn't you be busy working instead of attempting to curtail my thinking alone time? Surely there are ill chickens to nurse and broken bones to be set," he teased.

She smiled more broadly, and shook her head. "Not today. Nothing on the schedule. Short of someone falling off a roof and breaking their back, I think we're in the clear - good thing, too, I could use a day off." She sat down next to him, and picked up the book that lay in his lap.

"Sun Tzu? A bit heavy for a mid-morning read, wouldn't you say?" She looked up at him through those thick lashes, smiling.

He beamed back. "Nonsense, Kiryu-sama." Cougar found it hilarious that the villagers had bestowed such a young woman with the honorific, and he liked teasing her about her new status.

"Nothing like a little history with the morning coffee. You're not really one to talk, I saw you reading that … that book again last night. The one with all the gruesome plates. Over dinner no less, Miss Minori-" he waited for her correction, which came as swiftly as it always had, he lived for those words sometimes. Mimori. Such a beautiful name, even prettier when she said it.

"Oh, it's not gruesome and you know it," she laughed. "Nothing worse than anything I saw at HOLD or in anatomy classes. Besides," she added, her voice growing a little harder. "What are bones and tendons and organs compared to bodies decaying thanks to alters? That's gruesome."

He was waiting for her to wind up her favorite speech, the one about "don't you dare think of using it, if I find out I'll throttle you myself, there'sno need anymore, none. Cougar? Are you listening?" He always wondered if she'd have children, because she was becoming awfully good at sounding like the older women in the village who worried over and chided their offspring. This usually led to what he knew must be a halfway dreamy look on his face, thinking about Mimori's potential children. Surely anything touched by her – hell, sharing half her genes – would be beautiful … and then he'd find with a start that Mimori was staring at him, asking him what was wrong, was everything ok, did he feel all right, did he need to lie down?

So it was with some surprise that he realized she hadn't launched into her usual lecture, and instead had leaned her head on his shoulder. "I'm glad you came back, Straight Cougar."

"I'm glad to be back, Kiryu-sama." She laughed again.

For all his attempted smoothness, he never could find the right time or the right words to tell her that he'd rather die than never see her again. That as long as she was there, it didn't matter that his body was slowly giving out, that he tired more easily than he ever had before, that he wondered sometimes if he'd just not wake up from an afternoon nap – no, the fact that he took naps at all. That he'd happily stay by her side, even if she pined after Ryuho for the next fifty years, even if the asshole never came back and Cougar never got to deliver the beating the green-haired alter richly deserved for making Mimori so miserable for all these years. That nothing –nothing – in life mattered more than seeing her happy.


She left Cougar reading Sun Tzu in the shade, saying she had some books to page through before lunch, now that there was time for that sort of thing. Mimori was glad to have him near again, another steady constant in her life, though she'd been shocked by the change in him when he'd come with Tachibana and Cammy. But there was still that glint in his eye, the old smirk and roaring laugh made frequent appearances, and he seemed to be enjoying a slower pace. She hid her smile every time she came across the boys of the village clustered around him, begging him to regale them with old stories of his exploits.

"You saved Kiryu-sama once? Did you really? How?" They never got tired of hearing that one, and Cougar never tired of telling it, though it had grown and expanded in the numerous retellings, naturally.

Who would have thought we'd settle into this at the ripe old ages of twenty-two and twenty-five? But he was breathing, he was still here (and he had no intention of leaving her any time soon, as he was quite fond of telling her), and Mimori couldn't ask for much more than that. She loved him, was glad he adored her back, and sometimes, especially after a glass of wine (or three), wondered why she couldn't be in love with this one …

But she wasn't, and so she contented herself with the knowledge that Cougar's heart beat and that he would always been there to lean on as long as he was able. Contented herself with wordless nights passed watching the stars, her arm looped with his. Contented herself with trying to keep up with his intellectual exploits. She'd started jotting down his reading selections so she could try and keep up with him; evenings these days found her plowing furiously through whatever his latest literary passion was, simply so she had some idea of what he mused about over a glass of wine. Even now, when she caught himnapping on occasion, she found that Cougar's mind moved just as fast as his body ever had.

'At least some things never change,' she thought with a wry smile. Kanami still worked at a farm most mornings; Tachibana and Cammy were as love-struck as ever, and Mimori was grateful for being able to step out her front door and find herself a few steps from them. Cammy had taken to raising ornamental chickens of all things, and while Mimori often found herself wishing at sunrise that there wasn't a coop of thirty quite so near her house, it seemed a small price to pay for having friends close by.

She stretched out on her bed that was bathed in late morning sun, glad to be in this happy little house. And it was happy these days, most of the time, at least on the surface. A quiet kind of happiness, tinged with ghosts and memories that lurked in the corners, and while she knew she would never be able to expunge those ghosts – wasn't sure she wanted to, in truth – it was nice to be building something in theafter. They'd surprised her on her birthday two months ago, Kanami, Cougar, Cammy and Tachibana – a veritable feast, all sorts of fancy dishes she hadn't had in years. "You work so hard, Mimori, and you deserve a good birthday at the very least!" Cammy had bubbled at her. Mimori had grown so accustomed to discounting age as any sort of marker, gotten so used to feeling like she was years or decades older than she was, that birthdays had stopped holding much meaning long ago. But over dinner and a bottle of champagne that Asuka had gotten somewhere, Mimori felt for the first time that they were young, all of them.

She'd noticed the oven smoking while they were finishing dinner proper, and she'd laughed until tears were streaming down her face as Cougar and Tachibana swore over the blackened brick that had started its short and ill-fated life as cake batter. Chirping had brought her out of her fit of giggles, and Cammy produced a little grey-fuzzed chick – "Well, it's not exactly easy to get good gifts here, you know" – and told Mimori to name him, because he was hers now.

"A chicken?" Cougar and Mimori had asked simultaneously, voices incredulous. "He's a chabo, not an ordinary chicken," Cammy had huffed, and it had struck Mimori again how funny it was that Cammy – Tachibana's Cammy! – now happily presided over a flock of ornamental poultry, clucking and cajoling and worrying like a mother would fuss over her children. "They really do make sweet pets, and wait until you see his plumage once he grows up a bit. This type is known for their tail feathers," Cammy explained.

"We'll call him Suzaku, then, even though he's not red," Mimori had declared, and she always had to smile when she saw him, thinking about the night that Cougar and Tachibana tried baking a cake and the Yuta-Kiryu-Straight household acquired a pet chicken. That she, heiress to a huge fortune in what seemed like a former life, had a pet chicken that she went out to feed in the morning and who seemed to delight in settling on the grass next to her when she managed to catch a brief respite from work in the afternoon.

She rolled over on her side, watching the shadows shift in the sun and breeze. The dull ache wasn't strong anymore, or maybe she'd just gotten used to it; the sadness and grief now came in searing flashes at strange times. It's like an old break, she mused, one that's been set for years. But before the rains come, it aches and throbs no matter what you do, and you just have to wait for it to pass.


Kanami looked up at the sky, realizing that it was inching towards afternoon and that lunch was calling. It looked like they'd have one of those wild late spring rains today; the dark clouds were already rolling in from the sea and the air was heavy with moisture. She liked the days when Mimori had nothing to do and could lean up against the counter talking while she cooked, or they sat in the afternoon sun with Cougar and Suzaku. Kanami liked it when Mimori slowed down, even for just a few hours, and didn't have that terribly sad feeling about her that no one else seemed to notice. But it was still so palpable, so raw, that Kanami didn't even have to think about feeling it; it hung around the house, followed Mimori through the days and into her dreams. Kanami knew all this.

She wished she could articulate for Mimori everything that she felt, beyond "It will be fine, Mimori-san." Tachibana had commented once that she was never worried about Kaza-kun, and she had just smiled down at her bowl of stew. Of course she didn't. He would return, although she couldn't say when or why. She knew that he would return, and perhaps because she was secure in the knowledge that one day Kazuma would come blustering back into her life as a physical being, she didn't think about it. Ryuho would follow behind at some point, she was sure of that as well. And so she didn't worry about the man with ruby eyes, either.

Cougar was dozing behind the house under Mimori's favorite tree, Suzaku settled next to him, when Kanami finally made it up the winding dirt path from the farm. Kanami was glad Cougar had come back, because Mimori had been happier since he, Tachibana and Cammy had moved out here to the country. It seemed to help Mimori to have someone besides her patients to fuss over, to worry about in a concrete sense.

She was standing in the kitchen when Kanami came in the back door, poking suspiciously at a pot full of boiling noodles. "Is something the matter, Mimori-san?"

Mimori jumped a little, startled. "Oh! You're home early; I was trying to get a head start on lunch. But," she continued, her voice the slightest bit cross, "I don't think I'll ever make any sort of cook. I've scalded myself twice already."

Kanami covered her mouth with a hand to hide her smile. Mimori laughed. "I know; I'm hopeless." She looked towards the window. "I just worry about Cougar, whether or not he's taking care of himself. Even if my cooking's terrible, it's healthy, right? It's amazing he's doing as well as he is, but I just … worry." Mimori looked down, biting her lower lip. "I worry too much, don't I? No, I do worry too much."

"He lives for you, bad cooking or no, and Cougar-san won't be going anywhere soon. Here," Kanami said, taking the chopsticks from Mimori's hands, "Let me show you. You'll learn to cook sooner or later, Mimori-san. You manage everything you set your mind to.


What, youngster? Tell about my wounds?
There's nothing much to say ...
I needed life so much, I guess
I fought the angel back.
It's funny how you hate to die,
When lying on your back.

Frank S. Brown, "The Veteran"

A/N: Suzaku (or Sujaku) is the Japanese name for one of the four guardian animals of Chinese mythology, Zhūquè (the Red Bird Guardian of the South). The meanings attached to Zhuque have gotten mashed together with those associated with the Phoenix, and it has one hell of a tail! Chabo is another name for the Japanese Bantam, little chickens that were kept by the Japanese aristocracy for hundreds of years as pets.