#1: Yahoo
"I was born under a dark moon," he says with a voice like a campfire ringed by wide-eyed children. "But the moment I came into the world, lightning flashed and hung in the sky. It lit up my entire village like it was noon-day. I didn't cry or struggle. And at that moment, the village medicine man knew that the Chosen One for whom the nation had been waiting had finally come to free them from the curse of the past generations."
She fights a smile, considering the last inch of dark liquid at the bottom of her cup. The previous inch alone had barely left her able to identify the pros and cons. "Did you come out sarcastic and climbing trees, too?"
"Oh, Miss. I came out fighting wolves."
"Boring," she declares, taking a stinging sip of the inch.
He sits up straight, affronted. "Is not."
Something squirms in her, something earnest and indignant. It isn't the wine. She points at him, or she thinks she does - she keeps having to readjust the trajectory of the point. "You were born at two in the morning in the back of the midwife's place, just like everyone else. You were just something your dad did to your mom for the whole time she was in labor, but the second she saw you, she forgave you, even though you came out as red as a raddish and screaming your lungs out loud enough to wake your ancestors." With a jerk, Shirayuki downs the last of her inch. "Because she loved you. So much."
In the half-light of the cluttered greenhouse, across the table from her there's the glint of wide eyes and the angle of a slack jaw. His throat tightens and relaxes in a swallow. He's speechless.
"Why are you doing this?" he whispers, like she's just given him stripes.
The tone of his voice ignites a blush that percolates so deep, she wonders if she's bleeding. "Because I'm glad you were born," she snaps back, which is the last thing she remembers before the wood of the table is rough then luxurious as a pillow under her cheek. Then the greenhouse, and Obi, are gone.
It comes about after the first a-little-over-a-year passes. The morning after the vacation to the inn, Chief Garrack is watching Shirayuki weed the kala jeera plot, and it all comes out in a rush.
"I guess it makes sense," Chief Garrack muses. "He's a mysterious man. Doesn't seem like there's much keeping him here in the first place."
Shirayuki nearly drops her shears. Her heart pounds in an unfamiliar way - hot and uncomfortably sharp against her breastbone. "Chief, you know he would never actually leave."
"No," she says offhandedly. "Suppose not. He came back to you, after all."
Back to you. The endless root of a stubborn weed slips roughly through her grasp.
"But really," her boss continues, bending to tug helpfully at the root herself. "The girl you met sounds interesting. The whole situation sounds interesting. I would have loved to be there just to see it. Really, we know almost nothing about Obi. Why he's here. What he wants." The root rips with a crackle from the depths of the earth and comes free, clotted with dirt, in Garrack's hand. "Makes you wonder what he even knows about himself."
Later, Shirayuki thinks about years. She settles on one.
A year of Obi complaining about libraries, using body language alone. A year of the stretch of him reaching up to the top shelf. A year of ownerless blankets over her shoulders when she wakes facedown on her desk in the morning. A year of her humor sharpening to approach his. A year of -
A year.
Oh.
"You don't know?" This was her only plan. So easily foiled. "How can you not know?"
He laughs. She can't tell if it's because he thinks she's actually funny, or if it's because he feels that he should.
"It's just a day, Miss," he reasons. "It's not important."
The conversation with Chief Garrack plays loud in her ears. Her gut tightens, and she bristles. "Well, it's important to me."
She can tell he's still staring when she turns her back on him and marches out of the greenhouse.
A year after that, they are on her spacious, carved balcony, watching the capitol wink and flicker into placid darkness beneath them until the spangled sky overhead shines the brighter. They forego the alcohol this time.
"You realize," she chuckles, "if you hadn't been born, I'd probably still be wandering around Lyrias, trying to find the Olin Maris cave."
He scoffs. "You would've found it without me."
"No, no. I would've had to live like a mountain man, me and Kirito." She laughs. "We would've had to wait until snow-melt!"
He splutters into a chuckle, kicking his legs against the baulestrade in his breeches and black shirt, sleeves rolled up, baring a vee of his chest as he hunches over. His back is daringly to open space; he must like the swoop it gives his stomach. "Well! If I hadn't been born -" He cuts himself off so fast Shirayuki whips around to look at him to make sure he hasn't fallen over backward. He catches her eye, then looks away. "In Tanbarun. If it hadn't been me-"
"-I never would have made it back," she says firmly.
He stares at the castle wall, unresponsive next to her.
That painful heartbeat is back, the one that could shatter its way out of her chest. She curls her hands over the baulestrade. "Obi. I would not have made it back." If only she could swallow her tongue, maybe that would fix things faster. But - there is no fixing it, so - "I am here because of you."
At last, he looks at her. She doesn't know what he must see, but a small, tentative smile grows, then a smirk, the mischief returning to his eyes, and she wants -
- she doesn't know what she wants.
"Same here, Miss," he says. She doesn't know what he means. "Same here."
A year later, it's Lyrias.
"Miss," says Obi, voice high, snatching her attention. "I have a question."
"Okay." She's tentative, suspicious. The swell of his thigh is tough under the back of her head, and she adjusts herself so she doesn't crick her shoulders.
"Why did you pick this day in the first place?"
She laughs. "There's no way I could've known two years ago that we'd have to replant this whole greenhouse today!"
He huffs a laugh in return; she feels it roll through his body. "I know, I know, but seriously! Why today?"
There is no reason. Maybe that isn't the best thing to tell him. But - "I wanted to celebrate it as soon as possible, that's all." She wants to roll onto her side, but she worries that the added weight to his leg might hurt, so she stays where she is. In the middle of the greenhouse with nowhere better to sit or lie down than the floor itself, this arrangement was all they could come up with when she'd found herself unable to even sit upright in her soreness and exhaustion. "It wasn't a special day. Sorry."
There's pressure on her shoulder, a tug on her clothes. He smooths her cloak and leaves prickling gooseflesh in his wake. "Pfff. Don't be." Then she feels a tug on her hair, and she rolls toward him to relieve the pressure, his pants thick and rough under her cheek, to find him grinning down at her, a tilted slice of teeth that stabs her in the heart. "It's plenty special already."
It's the next year, and they are who-knows-where on assignment. It doesn't really matter where they end up, anymore.
Obi has never liked to make an - an event out of the day, but when the light fades and they can't continue their research, they end up in the village square, caught up in lanterns and the screech of fiddles and a country dance.
It's irritating how quickly Obi picks up the steps. He drags her along, laughing uproarously, coat discarded because of the exertion. They exchange every other dance for the food table, and yet by the third round of dancing, Shirayuki can actually keep up.
"You're improving," Obi huffs, smirking down at her, her arm tight where it's linked through his. They face opposite directions, pressed close so they can speak. "This time three years ago, you never would have been able to do this."
"This time three years ago, I was drunk," she gasps. "Plus, it's a village dance. I grew up on this. You should be nicer to me. I created this day, you know." They separate and she minces around him, skirt flaring when she kicks up her knees. Obi hooks her waist and pulls her in and knocks the wind out of her, her hands pressed to his chest and alive with too much sensation. "That's not part of the dance," she whispers, unable to bring out the dryness she wants.
He shakes his head, grinning as other couples - other pairs - maneuver around them. "I was just thinking," he says, raising his voice over the music, "that I'm really glad that I was born."
"Really?" Shirayuki laughs nervously as his hands tighten on her waist, holding her against him. "I thought you were sort of perpetually pleased with yourself."
"I mean, that's true." She's drawn in further, his arms going around her, and her hands have to slide up his chest to grasp his shoulders to keep herself comfortable, and he is just too close. "You make me happy, Miss."
"Oh?" Her hands tighten on his shoulders, and - it's a dance, but, but.
Three years ago, she honestly thought she was doing a good deed.
That's not what it is anymore.
"Happy birthday, Obi," she blurts.
He blinks at her, dumbstruck - and he bursts out laughing, so hard and so much that she pushes him away so he can laugh himself apart in peace.
Shirayuki is glad that Obi was born, too. Honestly.
Most of the time.