It was the sort of morning that was easily forgotten, one of those many mornings with remarkably similar weather, events and people that all blurred in to one. The sky was the sort of colour that a poet might describe as 'steel grey' and any other person (generally a lot more sensible about things like the weather), would call 'boring'. There weren't any poets around to comment on the sky that morning however; the village that was under that particular patch of grey was so dull that no cartographer remembered to put it on a map, bar as an afterthought for the university set nearby. Lowood was the kind of one horse village (the horse in question being a sullen old nag belonging to the Archchancellor of the university and rarely taken out of its stall) that was visited only out of necessity – distant and mildly embarrassing relatives or passing through on the way to somewhere much more exiting and consequential. The nearby university towered over the grimy little village below, a mass of stone buildings that spanned centuries of changing architecture. The university looked, with the right imagination, like a field of rather ugly looking mushrooms. The eldest, tallest and most unhealthy looking building, the central tower, worked as the first spore capsule, and buildings that sprawled below it were like the equally unpleasant and varying offspring, all smaller and newer near the outskirts of the college campus, while the middle buildings looked prone to collapse at a draft.
It was the central tower, a semi-shabby building that looked rather like a rook from a chess set (or a badly balanced mushroom), that Tsutsui Kimihiro came out of on that particular day, a random magical scroll that he had happened to be reading through stuffed under his belt for storage and slightly crushed by the overhanging thick material of his dark brown acolyte robes. Tsutsui was not part of the usual traffic to and from the central tower, which generally consisted of teachers, scholars, and servants. He was a student at the college, and as such was given a perfunctory curious glance by the entering and leaving the tower. Being the focus of such frank interest was unusual to the poor novice, who was almost feeling guilty for not being as interesting or important as people hoped until they saw what he was carrying. A bag of washing was slung over one of his shoulders and he was trying his best to look more important and determined than embarrassed at his lowliness, as the dirty laundry he was bearing down to the village well was not just anyone's discarded undergarments, but the Archchancellor's himself. Tsutsui tried to pretend that this mattered in the long run – that doing his assigned duties cheerfully and competently would influence his marks and his teachers' opinions of him. So Tsutsui reaffirmed his grip on the lumpy bag and plastered a delighted smile on his face, ignoring the strange looks he received from other students and teachers alike as he headed out of the university gates and down the uneven track towards Lowood, which wallowed below the college grounds like a pig in mud.
Down in Lowood proper, a figure lurked. He was rather adept at lurking, as he had over the years had many chances to practice it, in many different situations. The key to lurking, he had discovered, was to exude the aura of a man that no one, big or small, wanted to talk to, let alone cross. This generally meant finding a corner somewhere, not too inconspicuous, like he was trying to hide, but nowhere where people would have to get close in order to pass or go about their daily lives. It was ideal to find a place where he would almost always appear at the corner of their vision, like the ghost the suspicious peasants think they see at night in graveyards. In terms of posing, he found that arms crossed and sticking his chest out slightly to emphasise his size, head slightly bowed to give the idea of threatening nonchalance (and show off the heavy sword strapped to his back) worked remarkably well. He also found that chewing aggressively on the end of his long ivory smoke pipe added just the right touch to be actively avoided in the streets. The fact that he was standing on the corner by a rather unpleasant smelling alleyway had to help, but the lurker preferred to put it down to his talent, not the smell of old cat piss and rotten potatoes.
They mysterious new figure in Lowood looked briefly up at the sky, teeth absently grinding over familiar dents in his pipe. It looked like it was going to rain. He hoped the sort of person he hoped would pass would hurry up, before he was forced to lurk in the pub with a mug of ale instead.
It took Tsutsui around ten minutes to reach Lowood, and all of a minute to reach the village square, a desolate looking patch of mud with a few half-hearted merchants attempting to flog off badly made trinkets and rather sad looking crops. In the centre of the square was a large well, which was where the university both washed it's clothes and pulled its drinking water. While there was water available on the university campus, it had been so exposed to magic over the years it had the same effect on the drinkers as water did from lead pipes – general derangement and the occasional death. This meant that though it seemed distasteful for both parties (as the university thought the village was grimy and the village thought the university was snooty and frankly weird), the small economy of the village relied on members of the university occasionally visiting when the cloisters became all too much, and the university relied on the generally clean and untainted water from the village in order to survive.
Ignoring the other well patrons, as he had been taught to since arriving to further his education two years ago, Tsutsui hooked his own bucket onto the well chain and carefully lowered it down into the well. His glasses, a primitive affair of two ovals of spelled glass held together and hooked over his ears with silver wire, made this process much easier to do, but did not help his peripheral vision. This being the case, he only saw the lurking man as a vague grey blob at the corner of his vision, and passed him off as a sack leaning against a wall, or something of similar unimportance. He was unsure why such a large sack would be in a place like that and rather sure that it would swiftly disappear (hessian made wearable clothes, if one didn't mind the itching), so he paid it little attention. His mind wandered to the thought of wearing hessian undergarments, and the discomfort there provided.
The 'sack' stirred slightly from its post and watched the new arrival at the well. His robe was maybe a little too large at him, which he could tell by how far in around his waist it was pulled, but he estimated that the figure under it would be willowy, though not unhealthily so. He let his eyes flick clinically to the boy's wrists as he rolled up his sleeves, no, he was thin but not delicate. He could see the outline of bones, but nothing stuck out, like bones in a water skin. In his personal opinion, as a connesiur of both women and men, it wasn't a good look. Fashion these days, making perfectly good bodies waste away. The boy bent over, slightly waved black hair falling over his dark eyes and kind-looking features and the lurker pursed his lips slightly and firmly told himself that he was choosing the boy because he was convenient, not because he had a nice rump. Of course.
The lurker moved, breaking the sullen air that had collected around him, and drew his longsword out of its sheath with a noise that would have been ominous, if it had not been masked by the clucking of an offended chicken somewhere in the distance. Damn the soundtrack of the country.
Sword held casually in his right hand, he crossed over to the well, somewhat annoyed that the novice was obviously paying more attention to the knotted drawstring he was trying to open rather than his surroundings and the ominous approach of the shadowy figure.
He stopped, boots obviously in view under the boy's nose, but still ignored. Even more agitated than before, he used the tip of his infinitely sharp sword to nudge the water bucket with more force than necessary, slopping its contents all over the novice's robe, the bag of washing, and his lap. The boy squawked, jumped slightly, then scowled up at him finally, mouth twisted into a cutely affronted scowl.
The lurker smiled brightly and lifted his sword to press gently against the boy's throat.
"Good day," the lurker said, face shadowed and indistinct but red mane of hair glowing like a firey halo due to the position of the sun, "I'll be your kidnapper for today. Screaming and struggling are allowed and in fact encouraged for the sake of drama, however escape won't be tolerated. I'm looking forward to working with you."
End First Chapter
Hellooo. I love Kaga and Tsutsui stories, and this has been brewing in my mind for a while. It's supposed to be amusing to some degree, and it combines my favourite things – boys with boys, fantasy and humour. Please leave lots of reviews et cetera, it encourages me, and I'm a little lonely right now, since I'm living alone in Japan now. Love me! Review for me!