Tale 4: A pyro's first love
By kira
Prompt: A Pyro's first love (Nefrune)
For Nefrune who also loves Ren… "smiles"
Author's note: This was a toughie as Ren is very reticent when it comes to personal things…
Thanks also to my friend and beta, Jen, for looking this over and pinking it for me!
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The Shichinintai were sitting around the campfire at night. They were on their way home from a rather profitable mission and the jugs of sake, they were busy imbibing, was a thank you gift from the daimyo who had hired them. So as the campfire cast a soft glow on them, the warm rice wine worked its magic on their insides. Their wounds were forgotten as they each told a little bit about themselves as per the drinking game they were playing.
"Alright, Jak, your turn, tell us about your first love," Renkotsu said. He took a large gulp of sake before passing the jug to the cross-dresser.
Jakotsu took it with all the dignity he could drunkenly muster, politely thanking the fire-breather, before taking a dainty sip. "Sparrow…" he said softly, the firelight casting his face in shadows. It was hard to see the look of sadness on his face, but there was no mistaking the emotion heard in his voice.
"Sparrow…?" the fire-breather said. "Some bird was your first love?" he asked obtusely.
"No, stupid!" the cross-dresser said peevishly. "She was a girl from the bathhouse!" Idiot!!
The play of emotion on everyone's faces except for Bankotsu and the claw-bearer, who had heard stories of Jakotsu's childhood, would have been funny if not for the fact that Jakotsu was starting to cry as the memories washed over him.
"She was the only one in that damned hellhole that was nice to me and they fucking let her die for no good reason!!" he said vehemently.
Renkotsu laughed drunkenly. "You mean to tell us, there was one woman out there you actually liked? I don't believe it!"
The cross-dresser struggled to his feet, while Bankotsu struggled just as much to hold onto his lover and keep him sitting him lap. So before a fight could break out, the young leader of the Shichinintai said, "Who was your first love, Ren?" Turning to his paramour, the fifteen year old whispered softly in his ear, "Don't listen to that asshole, Sweetness, he's drunk off his ass and doesn't know what he's saying," mollifying Jakotsu and calming his flaring temper.
"Besides fire?" Renkotsu snapped his fingers, a tiny flame appearing just above his thumb. "I like working metal… The two of them, fire and metal, are fine pair of mistresses." He grinned at the thought of catching his companions off guard with his remark. He had no intention of telling them about the girl he had loved in the village where he had lived as the adopted son of the local blacksmith that took him in. They would never know how much he loved her and considered asking the blacksmith to ask her father on his behalf for her hand in marriage.
As he sat there, staring transfixed at the tiny flame that danced above his thumb, all the painful memories came rushing back to him. Renkotsu took a deep breath and half sighed, half blew his breath out in fit of pique. If only she had kept her hands to herself and left his bandana alone, but no, she had to teasingly pull it off. And when she did, she saw the brand on his forehead. It marked him as possessed or hanyou depending on the interpretation, but the end result was the same; a deep, dark fear of and revulsion for the shy, hapless boy on the cusp of becoming a man. Renkotsu could still hear her screams of terror.
While he sat there, drinking with his new friends, the unruly group that was fast becoming a family, Renkotsu, in spite of everything, cursed the monastery for leaving him alive to suffer the pain of ostracism. And later on when he and his adoptive father had gone to the daimyo that ruled their village and did some work for him, the man's wife had taken him aside and used him to satisfy her own needs. And yet, it still felt good to be held in someone's arms and cherished even if it was only a lie. He still thanked his stars that he was old enough to see that for what it was.
Renkotsu reached for the sake jug. Picking it up, he took another long drink from it in an attempt to ease the pain and loneliness he felt. And as he looked around at the faces sitting in the shadows of the campfire, he realized they had all lost their first loves. Only Ginkotsu knew what it was like to be young and in love and have the object of one's affections reject them cruelly. The fire-breather was grateful his half-metallic friend had kept his mouth shut. Not even Suikotsu, who had grown closer to Renkotsu since he had joined the Shichinintai, knew about the girl who had broken his heart.
"Yeah, fire! Aren't you paying attention?" Jakotsu said peevishly, as he pulled the fire-breather from his reverie.
"Hunh?"
Idiot!! The cross-dresser let out a long suffering sigh. "I asked you what was so great about fire."
"Oh… sorry, I didn't hear you," Renkotsu said. "Well, for one thing, fire is as beautiful as it is deadly, kind of like you, Jak," he said sarcastically.
"Ren…" Suikotsu said softly.
The fire-breather looked over at him and sighed. "And metal is like her younger sister who wants to be like her. Metal needs Fire in order to get hot enough to burn, but Metal also wants to be like Water, and flow when she's that hot."
The cross-dresser stared at him like he had three heads. "What kind of shit is that, Ren?"
"The kind of shit you wouldn't understand, Jak." Renkotsu quickly added, "It's the same kind of shit that keeps me from understanding you and your attraction to every man who catches your fancy."
"I just like men; they never lie to you, they don't cheat on you, they don't tell you they love you and act like they don't," Jakotsu rattled off as everyone else looked at Bankotsu.
"Hey!" the fifteen year huffed as it was clear the cross-dresser had struck a nerve.
"So, Oo-Aniki, who was your first love?" the fire-breather asked, shifting the focus onto their leader. A good thing you haven't had a turn yet, because I really don't want to talk about her or even think about her any more. For all I know, she died in the chaos surrounding the take over of my old village by you, when you asked me to join up… Serve her right too… He grinned to himself as he stared intently into the campfire while Bankotsu told them all about his first love. It turned out to be less than the sordid affair they had expected even if she was his older sister, much to everyone's surprise.