This micro-drabble series is based off of the song "Hallelujah", originally performed by Leonard Cohen. Standard disclaimer applies.
i.
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Shishou had taught him the sword, but he had learned how to drink on his own.
The sake is hot down his throat, harsh and copper-tasting. It is reminiscent of the sting of bile as his stomach emptied itself after his first mission, disgusting and guilty and so, so young. Now as he sits tucked away in the corner of the bar clutching a cup with still-small hands, he feels neither guilt nor revulsion; simply a hollow ache and the wine's slow burn.
He listens to the loud, drunken clamor of a couple of men behind him with distanced interest, but his body moves on its own in terrible instinct at the sound of a blade sighing from a sheath. Even now, as he warns the men to flee from Kyoto, from the bloody streets and the miasma of death, the words feel like stones on his tongue; heavy and hard, with just the slightest hint of jagged anger. It bothers him that these men could manage to get a rise out of him, but Kyoto is no place for cowards, and the thought of these two fishing for glory and harassing a young woman in the name of his clan leaves a sour taste in his mouth.
He apologizes mechanically to the restaurant's owner as he turns for the door, trying not to think of the metallic aftertaste of his sake or the sickness that festers inside him.