Need endless updates? I GOT YOU COVERED!
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Need Valentine's Day chocolate? I DON'T GOT YOU COVERED because it's all mine.
Happy Valentine's Day, folks! A chapter just for you!
(Dear Risa9559, thank you again for such a kind review! I'm thrilled you like it! GET SOME SLEEP, EAT SOME CHOCOLATE, HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND, HERE'S A CHAPTERRRR!)
note: so parents' day is a thing at Ocentisa
note 2: gosh I need to draw this. I did, however, draw Zenshi and Tsukuyo at a ball. :D
DISCLAIMER: "Don't give me love, just give me chocolate! I WANT CHOCOLATEEE!" - Sakata Gintoki - (c)Sorachi Hideaki
Eyes of Wolves
- 35 -
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
"I say," Gintoki announced with as much gallantry as he could muster, "we go bowling."
Under Tsukuyo's oppressive gaze, Kagura's insatiable hunger, Sa-chan's intemperate obsession, the eye patch girl's subtle irritation, and the brunette's somewhat evil smile, even Zenshi could appreciate Gin's boldness. All three males in the party had eaten very little, never daring to cross utensils with the ladies without receiving misanthropic glares.
"Why, Gin-san," chimed the brunette, "that's actually a great idea!"
A sigh of relief among the two men and the pair of eyeglasses.
The entire meal, Gin had been chancing cheeky comments here and there, as was his nature. With an odd sensation of discomfort, Zenshi found that he was inexplicably perturbed by Tsukuyo's gradual relaxation. Her tension turned to mollified smiles, mostly when Gin cracked another joke (usually ending up at the mercy of the violent brunette at the other end). She was precariously comfortable around the silver-haired samurai, breaking into arbitrary blushes that colored her cheeks a thorough pink. Zenshi was deterred from conversation. However, despite the strange soreness in mood, he discarded the sour feelings and began thinking up an escape.
Tsukuyo glared at Zenshi, who had been running through multiple scenarios of his subtle get away. He wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
Unless, that is, Tsukuyo decided to split from the group.
To his relief, that's exactly what she suggested.
"I promised Seita I'd bring'im bowlin' up above the city, so we'll come next time," she clarified when the group began to drift in the opposite direction.
"Then go get him. We'll wait, yes?" suggested Kagura. Tsukuyo politely declined, and her adamant use of we made apparent the nearly-forgotten issue of Zenshi. The tall Yato refused to hide beneath his umbrella. Instead, he stood with the parasol jauntily cocked against his shoulder, his chin jutting out almost rebelliously. He felt like a child, but grudgingly accepted that that was simply the niche he'd been reduced to around Tsukuyo. She held a certain power over him; he felt indebted, and could not defy her.
Gin made a face, and it was so suggestive that Shinpachi grabbed the older man and began to dramatically sob that he didn't want to die by Tsukuyo's hands. Luckily, most did not see, though the brunette — whom Zenshi learned to be the older sister of the plain boy, named Otae — produced such an ominously sweet grin that Gin balked from his cheekiness.
"Well?" Tsukuyo prompted, once the group had meandered away to the bowling alley.
"Well?" Zenshi parroted, lonesome.
"You can start," she said, "by tellin' me where ya went."
"To the Planet Pheromones, visiting my mother, the queen," he quipped. She appeared tempted to slap him again, but for now, a smile would suffice.
.: THREE YEARS AGO :.
Petty Officer Jenhao is a mild man, in his mid-thirties, who typically runs the ship's daily business with disciplined efficiency and endless patience. He is Ensign Delong's right hand man, and while Delong is of higher rank than Mei, he and Mei both report directly to their lieutenant, Zenshi. Before the younger Yato's promotion, the ensign had been in charge of Tabs, Mei, Jenhao, and all of the younger ship technicians. He is a few years older than Jenhao, but the two are common companions and hometown friends. On a regular basis, Zenshi will request the two of them to complete the more difficult diplomatic preliminary negotiations for him, while Mei handles the paperwork and Tabs the schedules and arrangements.
To say the least, Zenshi has grown fond of his little squad, which includes all of the mentioned as well as the pensive Maolin, the younger brother of one of the technicians and an officious computer boy himself, and the peevish Jinlin, the pale older woman who usually accompanies Mei to make sure the piquant little petty officer doesn't run into trouble with other higher-ups. Though they report with their ranks in mind, the fact they are the lieutenant's team make them a tad more prestigious than the rest. Some of the older Yato are resentful, uneasy of the youthful composition of leaders in their midst. Even Abuto is considered young to some of the wizened, white-haired Yato; it one day dawns upon Zenshi that his father figure was hardly a father at all, but more likely to be an exasperated older brother. Even so, the majority of youth is due to the fact that in this business, only the young and full of verve will survive in the pirates' cutthroat society.
"Lieutenant," Jenhao says in his soothing tone, "Lieutenant, we've returned."
Among the five other petty officers, Jenhao is the most prominent leader, despite not being Zenshi's right hand aide. He is accommodating and doting, a trait that defines him as a father of a little boy and, as far as they have all heard so far, a possible second, hopefully a daughter.
In fact, Jenhao is probably a parent to all. He's got a horribly soft side, but because he's not a direct aide to Kamui, he's never scolded for it. As he jostles the lieutenant lightly from his snooze, he smiles.
"It's a long report, sir. I'd suggest you start now." He lays the documents on the table, accepting Zenshi's pervasive, sluggish glance. "I certainly hope Mei didn't give you that chamomile. It's a very strong brew I made today. It was supposed to help Jinlin sleep, but I guess it works for you more than for her."
Zenshi has long since forgotten how Jenhao and Jinlin are related. Cousins, maybe? He is sleepy and fatigued, and he appreciates the patience. It's almost as if when Zenshi runs out of patience, Jenhao is there with infinitely as much, sitting at the end of the table with a cup of warm tea or even hot chocolate, looking wistfully at his squad members as if he remembers they aren't exactly his family.
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
She wasn't exactly the mothering type, and she wasn't at all acquainted with coddling. Zenshi never expected her to be.
But even so, when she sat him down quietly at a moderately populated little café, her lenient silence made him wary. The blonde courtesan ordered her coffee — a sweet, milky latte, to his surprise — before returning to their stymied situation.
"What's in the suitcases?" she addressed immediately. Zenshi knew her goal — it was to find out why he'd left, where he'd gone, and most likely guilt him in apology. She was hurt, and he fully understood that. Of course, Tsukuyo wasn't the type to convey her feelings without some slight retribution from the other side.
"Treasures from my home, Planet Pheromones." So he got snarky with her. She glared.
"Enough," Tsukuyo snapped briskly. "Yer gonna spit out everythin'."
"And why should I?" Defensive now, Zenshi guarded his reasons with care. He felt a stigmatized guilt, as if he was tempted to tell her. It was enigmatic; strangely enough, he felt comforted by the thought of spilling the situation. But that would do more harm than help, so he rescinded those intentions.
"Question nineteen," Tsukuyo asserted confidently. Her tone was amused, but her face and her eyes were everything but. "What's in the suitcases?"
Fair game, the Yato decided, acknowledging her recalcitrance in disguise.
"I'll answer," he contended, "but you'll have to answer my question nineteen first."
"Why should I—"
"Do you want to know, or not? I'll tell you more than you asked if you answer me first." It was a spike in his comfort zone, telling her the wholesome truth. He didn't want to reveal anything, yet felt as if he was betraying her if he didn't. Zenshi washed over the sentiment with his usual glazed indifference — the same façade he'd mustered when he left his mother alone, when he pretended he didn't leave his squad behind, when he killed that man with the knife, when he hurt anyone — and a breath of plaintive sorrow.
There was an ornate spear of guilt that pulsated beneath his sternum, down his throat, when he looked at her. This courtesan with the light, straw-colored hair and lavender eyes that shone amethyst within her smile. This woman of grace and strength and chivalrous ideals — at times, slightly violent and little more than fearsome sarcasm and wit, but beautiful nonetheless.
In her maple-leaf kimono, sweeping the floor like the breeze of looming autumn.
She paused.
"Ask away," she came forth, hesitantly. She sipped her coffee.
"Why do you want to know so badly?" he asked, then, seriously. Instinctively, his right hand found the hilt of his umbrella, as if to steady himself. Despite being seated, the suddenness of the almost anxious flush on her face was dizzying.
"I just do," she replied nearly inaudibly. Her shy, lowered tone was both forward yet magnetic.
"You'll have to give me a better answer than that."
She looked up from her coffee.
"I just do."
.: MARCH, FIVE MONTHS AGO :.
Tabs swallows hard when he looks over the technician's shoulder. The camera is fixed, and he subtly returns to his usual quibbling, his typical soliloquies about the strange reports that he was to give, the particularly long announcements for the day.
But he has seen what he has seen, and now that Kamui has approached the large screen, where the footage is being projected, Tabs is afraid.
The Yato blood, which courses through his veins like every other, trembles because he has tendency to believe he has thin inheritance, thin blood thirst. And now, as the center screen in the bridge of the ship displays a blurred figure dashing through the halls, he fights the urge to look away because now everyone has their eyes riveted to the moving image.
Kamui's expression is one part delight, one part murder, one part everything, and one part nothing.
"Would you look at that," he murmurs, with a speculative awe. "Look who it is."
There is only a flash of a face, but the one camera that manages to catch it does it with enough resolution to reveal an identity.
The man that throws himself to his feet after the ship lurches in the video is none other than their Lieutenant Zenshi.
Tabs cannot swallow the bile that rises in his throat like the tide of tsunami, brutally conscious and merciless in the fear it carries.
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
Her hands flew to her coffee cup as if they'd offer her refuge, safety.
She was conflicted.
He had his answer, yet he yearned to hear more. The practical lieutenant lying nearly dormant within him voiced a stilted protest: You don't need bonds, an arcane voice assuaged convincingly. No more bonds.
Yet he had made so many that he fell immobile in the middle of a web, tangled in sticky threads, from his home to his ship to this peculiar planet Earth, where the blonde courtesan in the maple leaf kimono strummed a lulling tone until he succumbed to suffocating immobility.
YUZURU HANYU TAKES THE GOLD
I am ECSTATIC!
A lil sad that Plushenko's retired, but he gave a lot to the sport!
but hanYU
omg.
Also: USA TAKES SKIING SLOPESTYLE BY STORM
SWEEPS THE PODIUM
*pride*
Anyone watching the Olympics?