Kadsuki's one year younger than Juubei (and Tosh, I'm guessing) – thus the different ages.

First steps

Age 4/3

[Juubei]

The summer has come round again. The great wheel of the seasons has made another revolution, and now is the time of the long hot days when the sun scorches the skin and the evenings where it is too sticky to sleep comfortably on a futon, so the nights are spent in wide-eyed staring into darkness, listening to the interminable sound of cricket orchestras and the whine of biting insects outside the mosquito net, nights full of contemplation as to whether autumn will ever come, longing for the slightest breath of cool air and the bright colours of the trees as they shed their leaves in a final blaze of glory for the ending of the year.

But now summer is coming to an end.

The Kakei house is located on the fringes of the Fuuchouin estate: a small allotment of land and a comfortable home with easy access to the main facility for the doctors of the aristocratic line. It is a small house and old, old as the bond between needle and thread, but it serves its purpose quite adequately, and Kakei Aya thinks, as she sits fanning herself under the overhanging eaves of the low roof and listening to the sound of the children playing somewhere nearby, that she would much rather be here than in the awesome elegance of the compound, where every stick of furniture is a priceless antique and off-limits to small fingers, where We Do Not Run In The Hallways, Kadsuki and days are spent in a formal silence and strict exercise of etiquette. She has met the little Fuuchouin heir on a number of occasions, and is always struck by the innumerable constraints his family place upon him, even at such a young age where he cannot possibly hope to understand what is expected of him. If she hadn't seen the sternness of that family, she might have been tempted to consider herself and Mamoru as overly strict parents.

Two extremely loud and excited voices gradually get even louder as the children come into sight around the corner of the house. Sakura has a delicately embroidered ball, a traditional Geisha's toy all in white thread and blue and orange stars, and is tossing it up and down in the air. Juubei runs around her, waving his arms to try and catch it, but the girl makes use of her superior height and lifts it up out of his reach whenever he gets close.

"'Neechan, 'neechan! I want to play---"

"Sing for me, little Juubei," Sakura laughs, enjoying teasing him far too much. "Sing and I'll let you play."

Juubei, of course, needs no second bidding. Singing is one of the things he does best, after all. As Sakura begins gently tossing the ball to him (with a few fumbles on his part, but he is becoming more co-ordinated) and catching it when he throws it back with as much strength as he can, he starts in on his favourite song, aiming for volume rather than tune – in fact, when he hits the right notes it's usually a matter of accident rather than intention.

"Little elephant, little elephant,
You have a long long nose.
Yes sir, my mother has a long nose, too.

Little elephant, little elephant,
Who do you like best in the world?
Well, I like my mother best in the world."

Sakura catches the ball and instead of throwing it back lifts it above her head, standing on her tiptoes to increase her height. "Wait… who do you like best in the world?"

Juubei jumps up and down impatiently, quickly modifying the last line.

"Well, I like my Sakura-neechan best in the world."

Aya can't help chuckling as her daughter continues the game with a vindicated expression on her face and Juubei joins in, his enthusiastic too-loud-for-polite-company laughter echoing around the Kakei homestead, and it is not without a touch of regret that she calls for them both to come in out of the open before they get sunstroke.

[Toshiki]

Toshiki doesn't know why he's been given this stupid, completely time-wasting duty. That old geezer hates him, that's the only explanation for why he's out here again, getting in trouble again, and everyone else has gone down to the waterfall to view the momiji trees' flame-red colouring and he's stuck sweeping the temple grounds again.

Autumn comes round, and Toshiki sweeps the grounds.

It's not even as if he hit the other boy all that hard.

It really is a time-wasting task, especially when one goes about it the way Toshiki does. He concentrates just long enough to sweep up all the dead leaves in a quarter of the courtyard into a big pile, red and honey-yellow and interesting orange ones that look as if someone has nibbled all the way around the edges with funny-shaped teeth… and that's what gets him every time. He gets distracted examining the different sorts and colours of leaves he's raked into the heap, or something interesting leaps into the forefront of his mind and he can be absorbed for a good ten minutes turning it over and over, examining all its facets and flaws, the way it catches the light when he looks closely and following its implications as far as he can.

Then he looks around him and sees that all his work has been destroyed by a few malicious gusts of wind that have strewn the autumn rags all over the courtyard again. No wonder, he thinks, that the wind god Susanowo is always the troublemaker in the stories. He certainly makes enough trouble for Toshiki.

It's not even as if the other boy didn't deserve it.

If everyone else wants to view momiji leaves, he thinks, why don't they just stay and help me? There's probably more of the rotten things here than on the trees now anyway. He aims a particularly vicious kick at a small cluster of leaves by his feet, so close they almost look as though they're mocking him. One flies up and lands in his hair, and he grabs at it, tugging out a few golden strands in the process.

The shabby acolyte's clothes he wears don't really do much to block out the cutting breeze that knifes across the grounds time and time again. It really is getting close to winter – the wind has lost that refreshing touch that is so welcome in the summer heat, and when it blows from the direction of the mountains there's a taste of snow, a promise of snow, that wasn't there yesterday or the day before.

Snow will be welcome, if only so he won't have to sweep the damned leaves from the courtyard anymore. But of course, he'll probably get into trouble over something else and be made to shovel the snow from the square instead.

On impulse he spins round and sticks out his tongue at the elegant figure of the temple pagoda rising into deepening twilight sky, but spotting the monk watching him from under its eaves he quickly swallows it with an audible gulp and turns back to furiously attacking the leaves with his broom, sending them up in swirls and flurries that settle back in as much disorder as before.

The late afternoon shadows lengthen, sending the shadow of the pagoda creeping further and further across the courtyard, cutting out the feeble warmth of the sun wherever it touches. The autumn wind gusts gently again, and a fresh scattering of leaves are sent floating gracefully down onto the wide stones of the square.

Toshiki's going to be here for some time.

[Kadsuki]

Fuuchouin Kadsuki, three years old, direct and only heir of the long and noble line descended from emperors, is playing his favourite game.

He sits in a perfectly formal seiza position, long accustomed to the ache in his ankles with his hands apart to the width of his chest, a long koto string that has been tied to make a circle looped into a noose around his index, middle, ring and little fingers so it goes around the back of his hands and between thumb and forefinger.

His mother sits opposite him across the low kotatsu table, its warmth welcome in the draughty rooms of the manor that do little to block out the chill of this most recent January snowfall. They both wear heavy winter kimono, but Karin finds herself grateful for the small battery-operated heater installed under the table's blankets. She will have to try again to persuade Tsukihiko to get electricity installed in the house – untraditional or not, it's not good for the boy to be so cold all the time. She watches him finish adjusting the string around his fingers and asks, "well? Ready to begin?"

Kadsuki nods, and she reaches over and makes the first move, pulling the crossed strings away from the centre of the figure, then threading her own slender fingers through the taut lines and lifting them up, slipping the string from Kadsuki's hands to her own. "The Mountain Cat," she says, regarding the shape they've made.

Now it's Kadsuki's turn. He slides his fingers down into the nooses around his mother's thumbs and little fingers, pulling them out to the sides and moving his thumb and forefingers under to pull the strings straight again. "That's… chopsticks," he says, a small frown on his face as he concentrates.

They carry on in this vein for some time. All the favourite shapes are revisited, more are invented, forgotten forms rediscovered, and sometimes one or the other makes a mistake and the string slips from unwary fingers, collapses into a lifeless circle on the tabletop between them. It's a shape with limitless potential, but only with a master weaver to give it strength and breathe life into its forms. Kadsuki is feeling his way yet, learning without knowing what it is he does, integrating the feel and the movement of the strings into his very bones as he plays this ancient child's game with his mother for simple enjoyment's sake. He might not remember this when he grows older, but these games are his introduction to the threads that will form the core structure of his art, his discipline, and the lessons learned now are the most invaluable of all.

Now Kadsuki is attempting the tricky business of forming the Horse's eye, trying to push a particularly stubborn loop over one finger with the tip of another while attempting to straighten out a tangle he's gotten himself into with the nooses on the other hand. He's distracted and doesn't notice when the string twitches slightly and slips over his clumsy digit all by itself, but Karin does, and she smiles knowingly and with more than a little pride, and Kadsuki sees and laughs back, expressive eyes shining with delight.

* * *

The song Juubei sings is an actual Japanese children's rhyme. It's very cute ^_^