Author's Note:

For thesweateristoobig ~ Happy Birthday! ~ I hope you enjoy this \(*^u^*)/

Prompt: "can you give me a little Heichi fluff... based around this song: Fireflies by Ron Pope"


Quote (verse 1 & chorus):

"Fireflies"

When the street lights come on and the fireflies flicker
I am walking her home
Making plans

With her shoes in her hands I am watching her dance
As the hem of her dress gently kisses the grass

It suddenly rains on us
She is laughing and turns up her hands

Like autumn turns leaves
Winter will breathe cold on our necks
Snow in our paths
Wherever she goes
All that I know about us is that beautiful things never last
That's why fireflies flash


Laughing at the Rain


It had been a strange afternoon. Shinpachi had come to see them, and at first Heisuke hadn't been sure quite how to behave or what to say. After all, he was still a fury—more or less, although it seemed to be rather less than more these days—and Shinpat had been against the furies, even against Heisuke's taking the ochimizu to save his life. But without the ochimizu, Heisuke could not have defeated Sannan-san. He couldn't have sat in a sun-dappled garden with his friend drinking sake almost a year after the war had ended. He wouldn't have Chizuru.

Chizuru had put things right, as she so often did. She had cried when Shinpachi had arrived, looking curiously about him as though unsure that he had arrived in the right place. When the two men had greeted each other awkwardly and traded cautious smiles she had laughed at them and scolded them and dropped everything to make Nagakura-san ("please, just Shinpachi is fine!") comfortable so that he could talk with Heisuke. She had cried again, of course, when Shinpachi had told them that Saitō was alive. They had heard the news of Hijikata-san's death, but not the news that Hajime-kun had somehow, miraculously, survived the slaughterhouse of Aizu. Heisuke had wanted to cry as well—it was such an indescribable relief to know that they weren't all dead.

They had invited Shinpachi to stay the night, but he had declined.

"I have other business in the area," he'd told them, although it was unlikely to be true. "I'll come back another time, though."

Chizuru had believed the last part; Heisuke wasn't so sure. He'd walked quite a ways down the path toward the road with Shinpachi when he'd left. Away from Chizuru, they were less at ease, but they could drop the pretence. They could discuss the fact that Shinpachi had been a fugitive for over a year, although he was likely to be pardoned shortly, along with Hajime-kun. And Shinpachi could ask him directly how he was finding life as a fury. The question had been hovering between them all afternoon, really.

"Not so bad, I guess," Heisuke had told him, shrugging. "I don't mind the sun now, which is great, but I get tired pretty easily during the day still, which kind of sucks. Also… I'm not sure how long I'll be around, you know? So I worry about Chizuru."

"Do you want me to keep an eye on her?" Shinpachi had asked, accepting the truth of Heisuke's situation without wasting time on exclamations. His tone had been sympathetic, and as genuine as Heisuke had ever heard it.

For a moment, Heisuke had wrestled with unexpected jealousy—he didn't want anyone to look after Chizuru but him. But he'd overcome it quickly.

"Yeah… I'd appreciate that. She'll probably be okay though. And who knows? We may still have a lot of years ahead of us. You know me—I like to venture into the unknown kind of thing."

"Still Master Forerunner?"

"Yeah, kind of. We have a good life, though. Don't really need to chase stuff much these days."

"Yeah, I don't know how you've stayed so scrawny, really, with Chizuru-chan feeding you up like that and nothing to do but loaf around!"

The rest of the conversation had deteriorated into inconsequentialities. Important inconsequentialities though, if there were such a thing. It was still a little weird. Those last two years had changed everything—their lives, their livelihoods, their goals… Japan itself. Only after Heisuke had said his final goodbyes and turned to go back to Chizuru had Shinpachi stopped him and told him, haltingly, that at some point in the future he thought he'd like to at least dedicate proper monuments to Kondō-san and Hijikata-san.

"We didn't always agree," Shinpachi had muttered, as though dedicating monuments was somehow shameful, "but they were damn good warriors. They… they deserve to be honored like the samurai they wanted to be, you know? It's too bad that they—Kondō-san mostly, I guess, but Hijikata-san was his man through and through—well, it's too bad that they kind of got to be a little bit too much like the old samurai if you know what I mean."

Heisuke had just nodded. His own time with the Shinsengumi hadn't exactly been without its difficulties and differences of opinion. But he had grieved over Kondō-san's merciless beheading and Hijikata-san's death in the far north on the isle of Ezo. They had been titans, and they had also been men that Heisuke had known personally, had obeyed loyally and had admired deeply.

He returned to find Chizuru waiting for him, her face calm, but her eyes a little worried. He'd wound his arms around her and they'd stood like that for several minutes, enjoying the very last rays of sunlight and the touch of a cool evening breeze.

"Let's walk, Heisuke."

"Yes." He leaned his forehead against hers. "How do you feel?"

Chizuru smiled at him and pushed a stray piece of hair behind one ear, a futile gesture, as she well knew. He was happy that she cared; so very happy that she wanted to be with him. He straightened and pretended to frown, which only made her laugh.

"I'm fine, just fine. I even managed a short rest once you and Nagakura—I mean Shinpachi-san—got to talking in earnest."

"I'm glad," Heisuke murmured, trying not to feel guilty that they'd ignored Chizuru for long stretches of time over the afternoon. Not that she would have minded; if anything, she was probably pleased that they'd managed to relax together for a while—he and Shinpat-san, that is. However… "I can't help but worry."

"I know. But I feel perfectly well, and quite rested, and I want to see the fireflies down by the river." Seeing that he still looked a little uncertain, she tucked her hand into his. "I expect the baby would like to see the fireflies too…"

That made him laugh, even though the idea of Chizuru being pregnant still scared him whenever he thought about it too closely. Especially since if anything went wrong—and things did go wrong, sometimes—it would be his fault. Well, his fault that she was pregnant in the first place. Involuntarily, he glanced sideways at the girl beside him. Even now, she looked too young and too innocent to be living with him like this and especially too young to be a mother.

Chizuru tugged at his hand. "I know what you're thinking. But you know, Shinpachi-san didn't call you a 'kid' once this afternoon. That's pretty amazing, really."

"Well I'm not a kid!" Heisuke replied reflexively. He grinned ruefully. "Yeah, I get it. Even old Shinpachi-san could tell that we've grown up a bit. Alright, let's walk. But it's not a river. A creek at most!"

It was a long-standing and entirely amiable argument. They held hands the whole time, picking their way along the now-familiar path to the river-creek that provided Heisuke with the water that seemed to have partially reversed at least some of the effects of the ochimizu. When they got to the water, they walked along the bank, greeting their favourite trees, admiring the way that the flowers grew especially well in one particular place, pointing out the birds heading home to their nests for the night. Fish leapt into the air from time to time, feeding on softly buzzing clouds of insects.

Eventually, they saw the fireflies, dancing around one particularly gnarled white willow. With a quiet hum of delight—as though she hadn't seen them many times before!—Chizuru started to hurry forward. Heisuke caught her up short and put his arms around her waist, pulling her close.

"A kiss for good luck first." He'd gotten better at telling her what he wanted, and it had worked out well for them. An unexpected flicker of desire made him blush when she tilted her face up towards him without hesitation.

Soft lips, soft skin… the scent of the day's warmth in silky dark hair. The mood shifted as his kiss became more passionate and less playful. They'd learned each other's needs and wants over the past two years, and Chizuru obviously sensed his unsettled state. Her fingers stroked his neck and wound themselves in his brown hair. After several minutes, they broke apart slightly.

"Ah… the fireflies will be here another night," Heisuke suggested tentatively.

"Impatient?" Her teasing was always very gentle, and he loved the fact that he was the only person that she teased.

"A little." He was about to say more, when the breeze suddenly carried the scent of rain to him and he noticed that the fireflies had disappeared. "I think we'd better hurry—because of the rain, of course."

Chizuru looked puzzled for a moment and then she blinked as a drop hit her cheek. "Oh!" With a laughing glance back at her lover she darted away toward the house. He caught up to her with ease, thanks to her rather confining kimono, and swung her up into his arms.

"Now then. Home!"

Chizuru laughed up at him. She was so much more open with her smiles now that it was just the two of them. He loved it. He loved her. He wished that they could be together forever and then set that thought ruthlessly aside. Right now he had everything he wanted. Why waste time demanding more?

[END]


A/Note: Please read and review or leave a comment if you enjoy the story! Many thanks ~ ImpracticalOni