Waiting
by Michalyn
Pairing:Tomomasa +Takamichi

Why haven’t I
thought of it before?
This body,
remembering yours,
is the keepsake you left. [1]

Where are you this morning? The dew wet upon your ankles as you move through the grass. Which way are you going?

I am waiting for you.

The rain is falling softly with a murmuring like the vows shared between lovers. Hush, hush, can you hear it? The pitter-patter pitter-patter of rain drops under the eaves….

Or is that my heart longing for you?

The nights are too short. Through the window I can see the sun creeping above the horizon, but what need have I for dawn when that color there, spreading across sky cannot rival one of your blushes?

The scent of your perfume is still upon my pillow, the space next to me warm from your body. You are shy. You worry that the others should find out about the time you spend here and you have forgotten your book in your haste to leave. I thumb through it, seeing the pages that you have marked. When have I not found you with one of these in your hands? Whether in the library or bent at your desk, these little tomes are never far from your reach. I wonder, do you think I will not notice the way your fingers tremble as you turn the pages?

Has no one ever told you that words are a precarious shield?

When you lose yourself to me in the darkness neither of us can speak, yet nothing remains unsaid. The suppleness of your hip beneath my palm, the hitch of your breath as you lean into my caress…. These moments of beautiful incoherence are what I hold dearest.

Yet, here your General lies in wait.

Not by siege or in ambush, for you have conquered me. I am defeated, not by dagger but the precision of your brush, by dusty books and musty bureaucracy.

By your gentleness and your smile.

How shall I resist them? I have never learned this art of war-making. My defenses are weakened, battered and blasted by heart’s fire.

It seems only fitting to surrender.

The rain is softly falling and I wait.

Your prisoner.

Your lover.

Counting the hours till you return.
————
Notes: [1]This beautiful poem is by Izumi Shikibu, a famous Heian poetess.

Hotaru
by Michalyn
Pairing: Tomomasa + Takamichi

Pinching the firefly
he has caught, the boy’s fingers
go green at the tips
(Seishi Yamaguchi)

“Come with me.”

“Where?” Takamichi blinks suspiciously.

Tomomasa’s lashes lower. His laughter bubbles up, rough as a cat’s tongue over Takamichi’s senses.

“Come and watch the summer moon with me.”

Takamichi nods. A warm breeze tickles beneath his yukata as they make their way across the field, their footsteps muffled in the summer-ripe grass. The air is vibrating with the chirping of cicadas and beside him, Tomomasa’s fan opens and shuts with a sound like the fluttering of wings.

The evening is beautiful and Takamichi presses forward into the fading light. He cannot stray too far, however, for Tomomasa’s hand is in his: warm, rough, keeping him close, measuring the pace.

A little boy in a red kimono is catching fireflies near the pond. One hovers on the tip of his finger, trembling in the instant between freedom and captivity. Near his feet, its brethren wink on and off, glittering in a makeshift bamboo cage . Takamichi smiles wistfully.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand why the children catch them.”

Tomomasa cocks his head. In the moonlight his hair is limned in silver, his eyes unreadable.

“This world is so sad, so fleeting….” He pauses, his gaze seeking Takamichi’s. “Sometimes when we find one bright, beautiful thing we don’t want to let it go.”

Takamichi frowns, considering. The boy is still bobbing near the pond, his kimono muted by the darkness. Only his face, moon-round, moon-pale, is easily visible.

His face and the fireflies, blinking and winking, burning against the cage.

Tomomasa’s palm tightens around Takamichi’s.

When he extends his arm, Takamichi allows himself to be folded into it.

End

Shoji
by Michalyn
Pairing: Tomomasa + Takamichi

Screening the moonlight,
sliding doors brought together
firmly into place. [1]

Courtly pleasantries and green tea cooling in narrow cups. I think the scroll there in the nook is your calligraphy.

You smile and nod, laughing politely at some witty remark, some paper-dry joke the visiting official tells you. Why is he here, again? I have made myself forget.

You are relaxed, graceful in your movements. How can you sit so calmly when the sight of your naked wrist, emerging from your kimono as you replenish the tea is enough to set me a-clamor?

Red, yellow, incandescent orange: the maple leaves shake outside the window.

Inside there is only muted spring: watery tea in delicate cups, your robes fastened and tied, your hair bound in a demure clasp. I sit in silence, watching as he watches you, this intruder come from some snow-wreathed country far away. He follows your every movement, hangs on your words.

“The state of affairs in the city? In Hokkaido our records are all in disarray. Ah, if only we could borrow your expertise, Vice-minister, Takamichi.” A smile, a sidling look.

Tittering, twittering locust.

You do not know your charms. What would happen to me if I were not here to protect you from them?

He studies you over the rim of his cup, coveting the amber of your gaze, but these eyes, they are my sunlight. The warmth that turns this twirling maple leaf to fire.

Who dares to touch our playground with frost?

“Tomomasa-dono?” You look up, puzzled.

“Yamaguchi-san, it is growing late and the emperor requires your presence. Allow me to show you to the door.”

You press your lips together, forming them into a displeased line.

But that too is spring fire.

I light the candles and slide the doors shut.

Concealed behind the glowing rice paper, I beckon to you.

End

——————
Notes: Haiku by Seishi Yamaguchi

Mikan
by Michalyn
Fandom: Harutoki
Pairings: Tomomasa + Takamichi, Tomomasa POV
Warnings: None?

Summary: What I really wanted to do was write a long,lemon between these two but I couldn’t get the balance quite right so I ended up with this little ficlet instead.

The mikan blossom–
supplying the passing breeze
with burning fragrance. [1]

Stay with me in this hollow grove and let the trees close us round with mikan blossoms.

The meal is laid out and I have spread the blanket over the grass. You are munching on a slice of watermelon, collecting the polished seeds in your palm. To plant or to hoard? Which way will your mood move you? I have discovered that you have a penchant for collecting odds and ends, a myriad of discarded things: snatches of poetry, forgotten books….

And disillusioned generals.

Last night I found a scrap of silk beneath your pillow. Why did you put it there, I wonder? Perhaps you wanted to soar in your dreams like the patterned crane, endlessly gliding, never having to alight.

Last night I dreamed I was flying, yet not once did I see the clouds. I have only memories of your tangled hair and your body next to mine.

Come closer and lie with me under the fragrant shade. Yes … you can rest your head there. There is no need to worry; no one will interrupt our retreat. I have closed off every entrance, taken every care.

You shiver as I part your yukata.

Pungent scent on a summer breeze and the heat staining your cheeks with color. The blossoms are cool, their petals pale as you are pale, but you are warm beneath my touch. Do not think, or if you must, think of me as the bee, sipping delicately at the flower. Seeing that look on your face, the way you arch—

Do my words embarrass you? Then close your eyes.

Dream of the patterned crane and tumbling endlessly through the clouds.

These long summer days are meant to be spent like this:

Perfumed with the scent of blossoms and with your body next to mine.

End

Notes
———
[1] Seishi Yamaguch

Cook Smoke
by Michalyn
Fandom: Harutoki
Pairings: Tomomasa + Takamichi
Warnings: mild violence, angst

Beyond the scraggly
mulberry grove–
cook smoke
coming closer [1]

Takamichi awakens to the sound of Tomomasa dressing in the darkness. The morning is cold and a fine mist is seeping through the windows and curling through the cracks beneath the sliding doors. Takamichi shivers; he does not pretend to be asleep though he knows Tomomasa wishes it. Instead he listens to the slide of cloth and the whisper of metal being eased into its sheath. Tomomasa is barely discernable, a shadow moving against the stillness. Tied and rolled, tucked and bound, not a tendril of his bright hair is visible. Yet, only a few hours ago Takamichi had buried his fingers in those soft strands to caress the warmth of Tomomasa’s scalp beneath. How different the shiver that had raced through Tomomasa then from the one that Takamichi cannot cast off now.

Must you go? The words are on the tip of his tongue, but he knows it is useless to utter them.

“You know you have nothing to worry about,” Tomomasa says to him without turning around. There is exasperation in his voice.

“I know that I should be going with you.”

Takamichi sighs and Tomomasa echoes him. There is so much more to be said, but on this wet and dreary morning all their heated words are silenced, compressed into ghostly plumes of breath. Tomomasa seeks Takamichi out beneath the bedclothes where he lies naked. His kisses are soft, his lips warm against Takamichi’s skin, but the tips of Tomomasa’s fingers, so recent from the unheated water of his bath are cold; they steal the fire from his touch. Takamichi huddles closer beneath the blankets.

The leaves have barely fallen but already winter seems to be upon them.

————————–

There is water in his eyes and water creeping down Tomomasa’s neck, yet nothing bothers him so much as the soft tracks they are leaving behind in the mud with every step. He woke to a feeling of unease this morning and it has not left him since. Their archer is a nervous young man on his first mission. Every time the wild geese cry overhead he starts, bow trembling. Tomomasa curses as Takamichi’s steadfast gaze returns to him. He knows he has made a mistake.

He had been careful to keep his arguments weighty, but in the end, Tomomasa was moved only by selfishness. That Takamichi is a skilled archer with an equally treacherous dagger means little to the man in love with him. Fighting to protect the Miko is one thing, another thing entirely to include Takamichi on this cold-hearted mission against emperor’s assassins. Tomomasa remembers Takamichi’s gentle hands and luminous eyes and the thought of losing his young companion clenches his heart like a fist.

It is not so much Takamichi that he fears for, but himself.

Today that fear will cost him. Tomomasa feels it as surely as the wind chilling his bones, for fear is walking beside him, keeping time with the young archer’s footsteps. They near the traitors’ camp and the hair on the back of Tomomasa’s neck prickles as his men ready themselves. The smell of charred meat and a glimpse of lingering cook smoke is all they’re allowed before the enemy falls upon them. Ten to their five, the odds are not in their favor. They slice through the throng and the tang of blood fills the air.

The rain will not stop nor will the cold release them. Five to five now and Tomomasa is sure they will make it. Already he is dreaming of Takamichi’s unbound hair.

The young archer falters; he is out of arrows. Fumbling, he cannot draw his dagger quickly enough, nor can Tomomasa’s shout reach him before the ground is stained red. The chain is broken; confusion reigns. The soggy earth now seems unquenchable in its thirst for the blood of his men. The wild geese circle above the trees but they are too high up for Tomomasa to hear them.

One man left now and he is all alone.

They face each other: two leaders, both the worst of their men. There will be no taking of prisoners here. Tomomasa raises his sword.

His last thought as he surges forward is that he should have made love with Takamichi before he left.

————————

They have told him that he is being kept here.

Though the sun has barely risen, a curl of wood smoke is already wafting above the trees like an omen. Takamichi’s heart is pounding as he gallops ahead of the Miko’s lumbering train. Seven days of wondering, seven days of agony are too much to allow him to be patient. He hurries to the old inn and bangs on the doors. The shuffling of feet from within, a few exchanged words, the glimmer of coins and Takamichi is rushing up the stairs.

The room is dank and unlit, the figure on the futon still.

Is he breathing? Takamichi does not know until he touches his palm to Tomomasa’s chest. He grimaces at the seeping wound in Tomomasa’s side and the hastily tied bandages. Unchanged for seven days. Takamichi unpeels the soiled cloth with trembling fingers. He has brought medicine and clean bandages, his love and a desperate hope that he has not lost the person most important to him.

The cloth is unfurled and the wound’s red mouth stares back at him, miraculously uninfected. Takamichi’s eyes are burning and his hands cannot stop shaking. He is angry at Tomomasa’s suffering, angry for his own torment, which he knows could have been prevented if, instead of trying to foolishly protect him, Tomomasa had only seen fit to exercise a bit more common sense. Yet, in the pure heart of the wound Takamichi also sees Tomomasa’s implacable will, that same stubbornness that brought him so close to death. His anger leaves him. He kisses Tomomasa on his cheek and strokes his bright, unbound hair.

Takamichi goes downstairs to ask for water and the innkeeper questions him about the man sleeping in the room above. He tells Takamichi the story of the bleeding nobleman stumbling on a cold night into the inn. The innkeeper is poor. He can offer him no care, only a room for his coin and a promise to deliver the message that the nobleman writes with fingers still wet. Imagining it, Takamichi mutters a prayer.

Steam rises from the basin Takamichi rests next to the bed. Of course Tomomasa awakens just as he is washing him.

“Could not wait to get me out of my clothes, could you?” he jokes feebly though his lips are white and his face is wan.

Takamichi shushes him and continues to rub the cloth over Tomomasa’s skin. It is the best he can do anyway through the moisture clouding his vision and the constriction in his throat. He applies the ointment, securing the fresh bandages. Their fingers are twined tightly together and it is enough, for neither can say a word. The miko’s train has finally arrived and Takamichi can hear shouting and the clattering of men on the stairs.

The innkeeper reappears to tell them that dinner will be ready shortly, and Takamichi thanks him, though his hands never stray from Tomomasa’s and his eyes linger on his lover’s face. They will eat here before taking to the road once more. A chill has desecended and outside all the leaves are dead. Winter has returned in all its indifference.

The road will be long and difficult but no matter how arduous the journey Takamichi does not worry. Wherever there is cook smoke, the weary traveler knows that it is a sign of life within.

End

———————
1. From Passing by a Mountain Village at Dusk by buddhist poet, Chia Tao.

Goofy
by Michalyn
Pairing: Harutoki; Tomomasa + Takamichi
Warnings: None

If I’d the knack
I’d sing like
cherry flakes falling (Basho)

“What,” Takamichi asked as Tomomasa pulled him into his arms and twirled them naked about the room, “do you think you’re doing?”

“Dancing for joy, my love. Dancing for joy,” Tomomasa purred, giving a lewd shake to his hips.

“You’re drunk aren’t you?”

“Why must I be drunk? Did you see me dipping into the sake?”

“No,” Takamichi said slowly, allowing himself to be dipped and whirled, “but I must ask, since surely there is no other explanation for this.”

“This,” Tomomasa repeated, “is the effect your lovemaking has on me.”

Tomomasa raised Takamichi’s hand to his lips, kissing each soft finger in turn. His eyes lingered on Takamichi’s face and Takamichi’s breath caught, his heart suddenly thumping. His response was so instinctual, so automatic that Takamichi did not realize he had moved until he found himself pressed tight against Tomomasa’s chest. When he raised his mouth for a kiss, Tomomasa did not oblige him, but instead threw his head back and warbled into the ceiling.

It was a peasant song Takamichi often heard as a child before he had come to his father’s house, one little boys sang to their sweethearts. The moment could have been romantic, would have—if Tomomasa could sing. As it was, the older man’s modulated voice, so finely tuned for seduction, could not rise out of that low register, even for song. Takamichi winced.

“I’m guessing this is not the voice that wooed a thousand lovers.”

“No.” Tomomasa laughed, bending to capture Takamichi’s lips. “Just one,” he said winking. “Just one.”

End

Gardenia
by Michalyn
Warnings: Tomomasa + Takamichi. Angst?
Rating: PG13

Notes: A maiko is a young geisha in training, an obi, the wide belt used to fasten a kimono. Tabi are special split-toe socks worn with Japanese clogs (geta) or sandals. People can also be seen wearing them (tabi)inside since Japanese consider entering a house with shoes on, rude.

The breeze shakes the lanterns on the verandah, bringing with it the sound of muffled voices. The koto twangs in the stillness.

Outside, Takamichi can just make out two blurry figures making their way across the garden path from the main building where celebrations are in full swing. The breeze rushes in again, carrying a woman’s trilling laughter and the huskier tones of her companion as they pass beneath the lanterns. A flash of white, the bold patterning of a flowered kimono…. There, is that a touch of aquamarine he sees? The candle guts.

Fireflies burn against the darkness.

Takamichi makes an impatient sound and rises. He lights the candles again and returns to his desk. The scroll fanned out against its surface remains half-written. He cannot concentrate and his hands tremble as he dips his brush into the ink. Swish, swish, swish across the paper. Soft, soft, soft like the ritualized steps of tabi-covered feet against the tatami.

Tonight, the maiko was very beautiful.

A fine young woman, about Takamichi’s age, pale and graceful, bound in an iridescent obi. He had been close enough to smell her perfume. A delicate scent, something flowery. A lingering hint of gardenias. Takamichi was not her only admirer, there were other eyes on her as well.

He has only written one more sentence. Takamichi sighs and contemplates abandoning his work for bed, but is startled bythe padding of feet on the verandah. There is a quick knock and his door is opened.

“There you are, Vice Minister, Takamichi.” The man leaning against the doorframe smiles, watching Takamichi from beneath drooping lids. “Running away from the party, again?”

Takamichi stills. He will not stop writing now for the world.

“Ah, Tomomasa-dono.” He smiles. “What brings you here so late in the evening?”

The older man does not wait for an invitation and instead advances. His fan, normally plied between his fingers, is tonight notched in his belt. He makes himself comfortable, sitting next to Takamichi, with one leg stretched out before him. His other knee is raised and he rests his arm on it as he leans over to peer at Takamichi’s work.

“Do the civil affairs of the city keep you up so late, Takamichi-san?” There is sake on his breath.

Takamichi shivers as their shoulders brush. The space between them is heavy with the scent of crushed gardenias.

A surge of heat, not quite anger but with a pain like lightning shoots through him. Takamichi inclines his head. “You must forgive me, Tomomasa-dono, if I ask you to excuse me, but as you can see, I must complete this.”

Tomomasa studies him. Do those eyes miss anything? Takamichi’s brush moves rapidly over the page. He doesn’t think so, but then, he cannot be sure of anything when the General’s hand covers his. Large and warm and more callused than one might expect.

“Your penmanship is beautiful, Takamichi-san.”

The ink blots on the scroll, spreading as fast as concealing darkness. Tomomasa laces their hands together, his fingers insinuating between the slenderness of Takamichi’s own. The wind howls on the verandah and this time when the candle guts Takamichi does not move to re-ignite it.

His hair is loose about him, his glasses tossed aside. Tomomasa’s breath is hot against his ear. Clothing rustles and shifts and now he can feel the night air against his skin.

Takamichi recalls the noise of the party and the brightness of Tomomasa’s hair in the firelight, turquoise and burning aquamarine as the maiko dances before them. A different kind of fire is stealing through him now and Takamichi’s breath is coming fast. The perfume of gardenias clings to his nostrils and he cannot remember where he first scented it:

From the girl twirling in an iridescent obi or the handsome General sitting next to him.

End