FASH: One of my favorite quarterback/receiver pairings are showing up later in this chapter (Oh, who ever could it be?), it's going to be fun!
""-speech
''-thoughts
Sena was aware of muffled sounds long before he actually realized he was awake and with a great amount of effort he opened up his heavy eyes.
He didn't even have the energy to scream in surprise when he saw Shin hovering over him and instead focussed on what was beyond Shin, a ceiling.
'Thank God.' He somehow managed to think, even though his brain was working at a sluggish pace. 'He knew what I was talking about.'
He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but found he was unable to relax enough to drift off due to the constant puff of Shin's breath against his face.
"I'm awake, you don't need to be this close anymore." Sena muttered, although he was still to tired to really care.
There was sudden peal of laughter of the female variety and Sena tried to look over Shin's shoulder to see who it was coming from.
"It's so cute how worried he was about while you were sleeping, his mom kept trying to separate you, but he just refused to budge." Suzuna's voice drifted over to him from behind Shin and soon enough her face came into view over Shin's shoulder.
"How are you holding up?" She asked with a smile and Sena shrugged.
"I feel really tired, what happened, how long have I been asleep?"
"Well, when young Shin here disappeared everyone went frantic and started a bunch of search parties, they came back when it started getting dark and everyone was about to get to bed when we heard some commotion happening outside. Imagine our surprise when we go outside and see Shin carrying you to the house. The lord of the house moved to you so quick I could hardly believe it. We changed you out of your damp clothes and tucked you in bed, you've been sleeping for about nine hours and you'll be happy to hear that the worst of your fever is over." Suzuna told him with a smile.
"Really? I've been sleeping for nine hours, but I feel so lethargic." Sena responded slowly, a blush creeping into his cheeks when Shin began nuzzling his neck, softly repeating his name.
"Yeah, so you should close your eyes and sleep some more." Suzuna said with a matronly air, waving her finger around as if she were presenting an undisputed fact.
"But... Aren't people worried that Shin will get sick by staying so close to me?" Sena shifted back a little on the bed, breathing a sigh of relief when Shin moved back a little to stare at him in concern.
"Not really, we figure he's developed a pretty good immune system. Plus, how do you propose we separate him from you, by force? His mother already tried that, and no one else is willing to follow in her footsteps."
"Oh no..." Sena murmured. "Did she... Did she try and take him away herself? Or did she try and get someone else to do it for her."
"Don't worry about that right now." Suzuna said, her expression not giving Sena any clue about the answer to his question. "Just go back to sleep."
Sena reluctantly did as he was told, a worried frown tugging at his lips.
The next time he awoke it was a bit more sudden than the last, he felt a little more aware of his surroundings than the first time and a little more energetic.
He slowly pushed himself into a seated positions, curiously looking at the foot of his bed where Shin rested his head on his folded arms.
'I guess that's as far away from me as Suzuna could get him.' He slipped out from under the blankets and stepped onto the cool floor a little unsteadily.
'Goodness, I feel really gross.' He wiped a hand across his forehead to try and rid himself of some of the sweat that clung to his body, but it hardly did anything to make him feel any cleaner.
The door creaked open and Suzuna peaked in, a smile flittering across her face when she saw Sena was up. She glanced about the room carefully and upon seeing Shin asleep at the foot of Sena's bed her eyebrows rose and her lips parted in a silent 'aww.'
After she pulled herself together she motioned Sena to follow her out of the room before pressing a finger to her lips and glancing at Shin, clearly not wanting the other boy to wake up.
Sena didn't need to be told twice.
He snuck out the room and into the hallway, slowly closing the door behind him.
"I figured you'd be all sweaty, so I thought I'd draw you a bath and wake you up for it." Suzuna whispered.
"Thanks, I feel pretty disgusting." Sena pulled at his nightclothes wearily. "I hope I don't smell too bad."
Suzuna choked back a laugh and covered her mouth with her hand for a moment before she was able to calm down.
"What's so funny?" Sena asked, eyebrows drawing together with worry. "I... I don't smell bad, do I?"
"No! No, it's just I thought it was kind of funny. Don't ask me why, it was just a spur of the moment thing or something." Suzuna grinned at him. "And once you have your bath you won't have to worry about how you smell, so let's get going before a certain someone wakes up, discovers you're not where you last were and decides to wreak havoc."
She lead him down the hallway towards the bathroom and was just about to open the door when a firm voice washed over them, beckoning them to turn around.
It was the lady of the house, her eyes dark and gloomy as she regarded them with an overall sombre expression.
"Seijuro, where is he?" She asked Suzuna who quickly answered that he was asleep.
"I see." Her right hand came up to rub against her left wrist gently and Sena wondered if it were a self-conscious gesture, or if there was a bruise hidden behind the fabric of her sleeves.
"My son has not had a bath since he first came to the house and he has become quite filthy from his... Romp through the forest."
"But ma'am..." Suzuna began uncertainly. "Last time he had a bath he was unconscious right? I'm not sure if he'll be... Easy to handle."
"Well, we have the person who can keep him calm right here, don't we?" Her eyes cooly moved to meet Sena's and the brunette found his eyes quickly darting away from the contact.
"Right, I suppose I'll go wake the young master up then." Suzuna curtsied before turning away, leaving Sena and Lady Shin alone in the hall.
"It has come to my attention that you keep calling my son by our family name." She began suddenly and Sena nodded to affirm the statement's truth. "I realize that you are doing what is proper for someone of low rank like yourself, but..." She paused for a moment and closed her eyes, wearily lifting a hand to her temples as if this conversation was entirely too taxing.
"Seijuro listens to you, and if you keep addressing him as 'Shin' he may come to think of that as his given name."
Her eyes flashed angrily for a moment as her hand dropped back down to her side and Sena took a small step back, feeling more than a little threatened by the look being sent his way.
She quickly regained her composure though and once again a look of cool detachment spread across her face.
"Call my boy by his given name from now until he comes to realize that Seijuro is his true name. Then you may go back to addressing him by the family name. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Good."
With that she turned and walked in the direction from whence she came and Sena uneasily stepped into the bathroom.
'I suppose an invasion of my privacy is quite imminent then, isn't it?' He thought with a sigh as he stripped of his damp garments and stepped into the bathtub, unable to help the smile that was painted upon his lips when he caught sight of the bubbly surface of the water.
He slipped into the water and cupped his hands together, bringing some of the bubbles up to his face for closer inspection.
'They're really pretty.' He shifted his hands around, delighted to see the array of rainbow colours each clear bubble was gifted with.
He blew into his hands and watched them scatter, allowing himself to lean back and relax.
Then the door burst open.
He lifted his head, a bit startled but not entirely too surprised at the entrance, he sunk a bit further into the water for a bit more cover and waved a hand at Shin, just in case the other boy didn't notice him.
Shin smiled and waked towards the bath, crouching beside it curiously as he reached out a hand to touch the bubbles.
Suzuna followed after him and, without a shred of embarrassment, began taking off the nightshirt Shin had been forced into.
"S-Suzuna, what are you doing?" Sena asked after he'd covered his eyes, feeling himself blush when Suzuna laughed.
"What, you weren't thinking I would let him bathe with his clothes on did you? Besides, if I just think of him as an overgrown child it's not nearly as strange as it actually is."
There was a splash and Sena felt the water rising up.
"It's safe to look now, right?" He asked as he peaked through his fingers and brought his knees up to his chest so that he took up less room.
"Oh, it's a safe as it'll ever be." Suzuna replied as she dragged over a stood so that she could sit behind the curious Shin. "You just sit over on that end and I'll keep the young master over here as I give him a good scrubbing."
She rubbed something between her hands and began to rigorously knead Shin's scalp, causing the liquid to foam up at the friction.
In what seemed like minutes Shin was practically covered in sweet smelling bubbles which were everywhere but his face, which peered out from the mountain of foam with a dry expression.
Sena would have laughed at the sight, were it not that Shin had been staring at him the entire time in the same, slightly unnerving fashion.
"Well, I think that's about as much as he'll let me do." Suzuna said as she pulled away, shaking her hands a bit to dispel any lingering particles, and reached for a bucket of clean water, pouring it over Shin's head without any warning to rinse him off, thankfully not shocking him in the process.
"I'll go inform the lady of the house that her son is as clean as a whistle, you can stay in here as long as you like, but try to get out before the water gets cold, alright?"
"Yes Suzuna." Sena drawled as if he were addressing his overly concerned mother, shifting about listlessly when she exited the room.
As soon as the door clicked shut Shin began to move forward, albeit clumsily.
"Now then Shi- I mean, Seijuro." Sena began softly as he lifted up a leg to push the other boy away with his foot. "That's your side, this is my side, it would be best if you didn't come over to-" Sena flushed darkly and he stumbled around for a word. "... Explore."
If Shin was going to be as personal-space-invading as he had been when Sena's shirt was off, it would be better not to know how curious he was now that Sena wasn't wearing anything.
Shin curiously looked at the foot that was pressing against his chest and brought up a hand to take hold of it by the ankle.
"Shi-Seijuro, what are you-Wah!" Sena slid forward as Shin tugged on his leg and in an effort to get a little further away he brought up his other foot, once again bracing it against Shin's chest so he could push himself back.
"Oh no, this is my side, so I'm going to stay on my side." Sena lifted his hands to grip the rim of the tub so that, incase Shin wanted to tug on him again, he would stay in place.
"Heart." Shin said by, Sena supposed, way of explanation.
"Oh no, I know what else you went for when you were feeling my heartbeat." Sena quickly covered his chest with his arms and Shin continued to look at him curiously.
"Sena. Heart." Shin continued, letting go of Sena's ankle so that he could crawl forward.
Sena, not entirely in the mood for what was promising to be a somewhat violating confrontation, removed himself from the bath water as quickly as he could and wrapped a towel around himself, hopefully before Shin could realize he was indecent.
Shin himself began to stand up unsteadily, slipping around in a way that made Sena fear he was about to fall.
He reached forward and took Shin's arm in an attempt to steady him.
"Now slowly step out, slowly, be careful." Sena instructed Shin lowly as the older boy stepped out of the tub, looking down at himself in fascination as some of the bubbles clung to his skin.
The look of child-like wonder was enough to make Sena forget how embarrassing the situation was and instead smile brightly at it.
"Those are bubbles Sh-Seijuro." He began, slowly getting used to saying the older boy's given name. "Can you say bubbles?"
Shin gave him a blank look.
"Oh well, I suppose once that speech panthro- patho? Uh, specialist gets here you'll be able to say all sort of things anyways." Sena began conversationally as he grabbed a towel for Shin and began to conservatively dry him off. "But I wonder how long it will take for them to get here? You may be stuck with just me trying to teach you words for weeks." Sena chuckled nervously, the sound apparently was of a great interest to Shin, who lifted his hand to rest it against Sena's vocal chords.
Sena stopped not long after he had set out to investigate it though, so he sent him a look as if to say 'do that again.'
"Uh, faking laughter isn't really my specialty Seijuro." Sena meekly said, stepping away from the hand so he could, while looking at the wall to his side, wrap the towel around Shin's waist.
"Alright, I suppose now I've got to change into my pajamas..." Sena trailed off when he saw a set of clean clothes placed where he had set down his nightclothes.
"Suzuna's incredibly silent when she wants to be. Maybe she was an assassin in a past life or something." He pondered aloud, trying to keep himself from blushing as he wondered just when she had come back into the room.
He cleared his throat abruptly when that train of thought took a turn for the worse and instead picked up the shirt he'd been left and quickly pulled it over his head before turning back to Shin, who was tugging at the towel around his waist uncomfortably.
"If you had your way, you'd just run around naked all the time, wouldn't you?" The brunette asked with sigh, willing away the mental image that wormed it's way into his mind at the notion.
"Anyways, let's get some clothes on you before you catch a chill."
Once the both of them were decent Suzuna had come around to tell them that lunch was almost ready and the mention of food as enough to make Sena realize he was famished.
The last time he ate, well, he didn't really want to think about that. But it was a pretty long time ago.
He lead Shin down to the dining room where the lord of the house rose up to greet them.
"Sena, it's good to see you alive and well!" He exclaimed as he walked over to them, patting Sena on the back with an air of familiarity. "I must say, Seijuro was quite worried about you, it's nice to know there's someone he cares about, a link to our world, if you will."
Lady Shin discreetly coughed into her fist and her husband quickly changed the subject.
"I'm sure you're hungry after all that feverish sleeping you've gone through, now hurry on to the table, I've got some news to tell you."
Sena did as he was told and found him once again sitting beside Shin, who had been placed beside his mother.
"Now then, I've received a letter from the specialist Hiruma recommended, he said he'd be arriving within a day or two, weather permitting, and that he'd be bringing along someone who kept records of other 'feral children', figuring his accumulated knowledge on the matter may make teaching Seijuro easier."
"Well, that's very good news, sir."
"Indeed it is, but don't worry yourself with news, eat before you become weak and fall feint."
So Sena ate.
The rest of the day passed in a lazy sort of way, after lunch Sena had retired to his and Shin's room, with the older boy following him of course, and had, for lack of a better thing to do, tried teaching Shin a couple more words.
He'd begun by trying to teach Shin his name, pointing at him and saying: "Seijuro, Seijuro." over and over, but Shin seemed to think that Sena was referring to whatever body part that he'd be pointing to, so then he'd point out to Sena's chest and say: "Seijuro."
He'd quickly given up on that and, despite his better judgment telling him it would only bring trouble, had begun trying to teach Shin the names of body parts.
He had started with the hands, since the older boy had seemed quite interested in their hands when they had first met. So he had taken one of Shin's hands in both of his own, his fingers trailing over the palm and repeating the name until Shin repeated it as well, and then he moved on to each of the fingers and the thumb, doing the same as he had before.
Then they went over the arms, legs and chest, although Shin kept on wanting to call his entire chest his heart, and Sena wasn't quite sure how he could clear up that misunderstanding, so he decided to leave it for now.
Then he moved onto the face, and the touching began.
Throughout all of his explanations so far Shin had just sat beside him curiously and hadn't reached out to mirror Sena's gestures.
Maybe it was because, without the help of a looking glass, Shin was unable to see his own face and was using Sena's to make sure everything was correct. But even if that wasn't the case, it reminded him a lot of their first meeting.
First he had started with the ears, which hadn't been so bad since Shin was quite gentle when he gripped ahold of them. Then came the eyes, the nose and at last the lips.
The mouth was really, Sena supposed, his downfall.
Just as he had before Shin had traced Sena's lips with his thumb in a manner that Sena thought his mother would be quite furious with. And, while Sena had only just brushed over Shin's lips with the tips of his fingers before, Shin had enclosed Sena's hand in one of his own so that the contact was stronger.
"Lips. Sena lips." Shin all but whispered and Sena found himself blushing for what felt like the hundredth time that day.
"Yes, my lips. Sena's lips, because they belong to me. Sena's lips."
Shin had begun moving closer, well within Sena's personal space and ongoing without Sena really noticing until he could feel the puff of Shin's unsteady breathing against his face.
"Lips." Shin whispered again and Sena opened his mouth to say something, anything, but found that he was frozen in place.
Then came a knock at the door.
"Sena! Dinner's going to ready soon!" Suzuna called through the plank of wood and the sound of her voice allowed Sena to pull himself together and turn his head before anything potentially bad happened.
"W-we'll be out in just a while Suzuna, thanks!" He called back, mind racing.
How could all of that time pass by without him realizing it, it hadn't felt like he'd been sitting beside Shin, trying to teach him things for very long at all.
'Time flies when you're having fun.' A voice in his head informed him, but he quickly shook it away and looked over at the expectant Shin, still leaning close, his eyes still fixed on the bottom part of Sena's face.
"Well Seijuro, we'd better get going." He'd said nervously before standing up and making his way out of the room, Shin following after him gloomily.
He rushed through supper and was quick to get into bed that night, for a moment hoping that the small amount of distance Shin had given him while he was sick would hold up, but he had no such luck.
Shin, now that he knew Sena wouldn't be dying off any time soon, was back to his normal clingy ways when it came to going to bed.
At least he was warm though, that way Sena could just think of him as an especially nice blanket.
The next day just a little after lunch was when the carriage containing the speech pathologist and his companion arrived and at once Sena and Seijuro were gathered by the lord of the house to come and meet them.
They were both quite tall, which normally would have made Sena a little nervous, but neither of them bore a harsh expression and they both seemed very nice, so Sena found himself quite calm in their presence.
The older one introduced himself as Takami while the younger one, with his eyes glued to Shin the entire time, introduced himself as Sakuraba.
"Sakuraba has always been quite interested in this sort of thing, and there is no one in the world who has a better understanding of feral children, I believe with his help, as well as the co-operation of Sena, teaching your son will not be as difficult as one might think."
"And it's absolutely necessary that this 'feral child specialist' remain here?" Lady Shin drawled and Sakuraba flustered for a moment before pulling out a book.
"Well, Lady Shin, since I have studied over this sort of thing for many years I've come across many important things. Grammar for instance!"
"Grammar?"
"Yes! Usually if a child does not have a proper understanding of grammar as they enter childhood, while they will be able to learn words and associate objects with words, they will find it hard, if not impossible to communicate with others."
"Impossible? How do you mean?"
"Words are just words to them, they don't understand sentence structure, past and present tense and things like that." Sakuraba explained, trailing off before he seemed to realize something. "But while it would be hard for them to learn it later in life, that doesn't mean it's impossible for everyone!"
He opened up the book he'd been holding and flipped through a couple pages.
"There was a case in France, around 1731 where Marie-Angelique Memmie Le Blanc was found after surviving over ten years in the forests. She is one of the few who succeeded in a complete intellectual rehabilitation. She was found when she was nineteen, even older than your son and thus, more set in her ways then he would be. She lived a long, successful life. There was also a boy in Ireland who-"
Takami, with a wry smile at Sakuraba's excitement, lightly patted his shoulder to signal him to stop.
Sakuraba did so with a flush, closing his book and shifting self consciously .
Takami turned back to them, his smile not fading. "As you can see, I felt that with Sakuraba's help my teaching methods would become much more effective, I trust that he was convinced you likewise?"
"Indeed he has!" Lord Shin exclaimed as he clapped his hands together. "I am sure that under your guidance Seijuro will learn at an amazing pace." He stood up and shook hands with both of them excitedly.
"Now you must go and make yourselves known to him. Do not worry one bit though, raised by bears or not, he's always on his best behavior around Sena."
Sakuraba as the first to step towards the two boys.
"Um, is there anything I shouldn't do in front of him? Bear my teeth, look in his eyes?" He asked and Sena shook his head.
"No, at least, he's been fine with those things so far." Sena turned to look the at the boy sitting beside him, looking quite uncomfortable at being forced to stay still.
"Seijuro, this is Sakuraba, can you say that? Sakuraba. Sa-ku-ra-ba." Sena emphasized as he pointed to the young man in front of him.
"Saku... Raba." Shin repeated, eyebrows drawing together as he voiced the new word.
Sakuraba looked about ready to die from excitement while Lord Shin laughed heartily.
"Well, I suppose you two will need to settle in today. Tomorrow the lessons shall begin!"