The Otohime's Revenge
Part Eight
"I can walk, you know," Saeki said, as Yuuta dickered for a spot on the cart that was going to deliver their trunks to—wherever it was that they were heading. In all the long months of the ocean crossing, he'd never quite gotten Yuuta to say.
"So can I, but that doesn't mean I want to," Yuuta told him. "It's a good three miles."
"I see." Three miles might be more than he wanted to walk, too, he decided, resting his hand over the scar under his shirt. Healed, yes. Recovered all the way, no.
Yuuta concluded his negotiations, evidently to his satisfaction, because he grinned and motioned Saeki onto the cart with the trunks, and swung himself up after. After the drover had concluded a few other matters, the cart lurched into motion.
Saeki kept himself busy watching the town roll past, busy with people and animals. It was no good wishing for a clean salt breeze to wash away the noise and the smell, he reminded himself. Not yet, anyway.
Fortunately, they left the busiest parts of town behind soon enough, rolling through thinning houses and then out into open countryside.
"I'd forgotten how green it is," Yuuta said, after they'd been traveling for a bit.
"It's different," Saeki agreed. "How much further—"
"Not too much further," Yuuta said, leaning back against a trunk. "My great-something grandfather didn't like towns very much, so he built out in the country."
There were still houses frequently enough that it didn't look very country to Saeki, but he'd grown up in a town, so what did he know?
The drover twisted in his seat and called back, "Is the lane coming up the one you were wanting?"
Yuuta raised himself up and looked, and called an affirmative. He settled back down, and shrugged at Saeki. "Town started growing, of course," he added. "We've still got a little ways, though."
"Mm." Saeki leaned back against the trunks as they turned into a tree-lined lane, and looked up at the branches passing overhead, falling into a half-doze. The cart jerking to a stop woke him up again. "Here?" he asked, yawning and opening his eyes—and stopping mid-stretch to stare.
He'd known, or suspected anyway, that Yuuta's family had been well-off. Tachibana had made plenty of money in trade, and Fuji was, after all, a captain for the navy, and officers' commissions did not come cheap. He had not expected extremely wealthy, as demonstrated by the imposing house before him, set on immaculate grounds.
"Horrible, isn't it?" Yuuta asked, catching him staring. He hopped out of the cart, helping the drover unload the trunks. "Swear I don't know what my great-whatsit grandfather was thinking."
"...it's certainly something," Saeki agreed, dazedly.
Yuuta looked at him, eyes sharp. "Koujirou—" he began, but the sounds of distant shrieks (rapidly growing louder) distracted them both. "What on earth—"
A collection of children came pounding around the side of the house, whooping loudly and so intent on their game that the foremost of them was upon them before he noticed Saeki and Yuuta, and skidded to a stop on the neatly-raked gravel. Not everyone in the little band was as observant, and for a moment the shouting redoubled as various small persons collided with each other.
"This wasn't quite the welcoming committee I'd imagined," Yuuta muttered, fielding the boy who'd been knocked into him.
"Who're you?" the boy demanded, shaking Yuuta's hand off and eyeing them suspiciously.
"Your uncle, I expect," Yuuta told him. "Which one are you, then—Hayao or Yuuto?"
One of the smallest girls spoke up. "Our uncle's dead. We got a letter." She eyed him. "You don't even look like Uncle Kippei."
"Your other uncle," Yuuta sighed.
That set off a hasty conference of "Do we have another uncle?" and "Mama never said—" and "Of course we do, it's the one in the hall."
Saeki covered his laugh with a cough, while the drover grinned. Yuuta waited for the hubbub to die down. When it didn't, he sighed, and interrupted. "I don't suppose your grandmother or grandfather might be able to sort this out?" he inquired.
That set off another stir, but the eldest boy nodded and took charge of the chaos. "Yuuto, go find Mama," he said, and the other boy took off at a trot.
"Ah. That means you're Hayao." Yuuta looked over the collection of girls. "Hm, lucky things, they take after Ann and not Shuusuke. I'd introduce you, Koujirou, but I honestly couldn't tell you which one is which."
"I'm sure someone will sort it out for you later," Saeki replied, amused by the collection of variously beady and frankly curious stares.
Yuuta shrugged, and paid the drover for his time. The man grinned, and wished them luck, before rolling away.
The noise of the cart had barely died away when the front door of the house opened, and a woman came hurrying down the steps. She was dressed in sober black, and her face was more lined than it had been in her portrait, but she was still recognizable. "Yuuta!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. "It really is you!"
"Shuusuke got tired of nagging me to visit," Yuuta told her, grinning crookedly. "So here I am."
"And high time, too." Ann turned warm eyes on Saeki. "And who is this?"
"Saeki Koujirou, ma'am," he introduced himself, with a bow.
Ann's eyes widened in surprise. "I see. Kippei's letters spoke very highly of you. It's a pleasure to meet you." She stopped and shook herself. "Look at me, keeping you out here in the sun! Come in, come in!" She shooed them indoors, chattering away. "I sent Yuuto off to find your mother, Yuuta, so she'll be down any minute. My goodness, I'm sure she thought she'd never see you home again."
"Overwhelming, isn't she?" Yuuta whispered to Saeki, as Ann turned her attention to the servants, giving orders to go fetch the trunks still outside, and prepare rooms for the unexpected guests.
"A bit," Saeki agreed.
"Yuuta!" An older woman, led by Yuuto, came sweeping out of a side hall, brushing through the crowd of staring servants and wide-eyed children to fold her arms around Yuuta.
"Hello, Mother," Yuuta said, stooping to embrace her. "I happened to be in the area..."
Laughing and crying at the same time, she shook him. "Oh, you horrible boy," she said. "How could you stay away for so long?"
Ann touched Saeki's shoulder, drawing his attention away from the reunion. "I trust you'll be staying with us?" she murmured, softly.
"Ah... yes," he said, awkward, wondering if it was presumptuous of him.
"Wonderful," she murmured. "I have so many questions for you... that is, if you don't mind?"
"Of course not," he assured her.
"What's all this commotion?" a stern voice boomed, and the hall went quiet.
Saeki had never seen Yuuta's spine snap so straight. "Father," he said, to the man standing at the head of the staircase.
The man stared, and then his face broke out into a grin so like Yuuta's own that it was uncanny. "Well, I'll be damned!" He came bounding down the steps. "Finally come home, have you?"
"It was time," Yuuta said, awkwardly, relaxing only marginally.
"'It was time,' he says!" Yuuta's father clapped a hand on Yuuta's shoulder. "It's good to see you, boy." He turned sharp grey eyes on Saeki. "And now what sort of stray have you brought home this time?"
Stray? Saeki wasn't sure he quite liked the sound of that.
Yuuta drew himself up even straighter. "This is Koujirou," he said, softly. "Koujirou, my parents, Fuji Shuuichi and Yukari."
Saeki squared his shoulders a little under their scrutiny. "I'm pleased to finally meet you," he said, all the while keeping half an eye on Yuuta.
Yuuta's father grinned again, huge and delighted. "It's about time you settled down, boy," he said, and seized Saeki's hand, shaking it vigorously. "Welcome, welcome! Any friend of my son's is a friend of mine."
"Doubt you'd say that if you'd known Akutsu," Yuuta muttered, but he was relaxing, so Saeki could let himself relax a little, too.
"What was that, dear?" Yukari asked.
Yuuta shook his head. "A long story."
"Is there any other kind?" she asked, smiling. "Especially since you didn't bother to write?"
"Sorry, Mother," Yuuta told her, and Saeki stared, not quite sure whether he could bring himself to believe that he was seeing actual meekness from Yuuta.
Ann clapped her hands together. "Why don't we get the boys settled, and then let Yuuta tell us this long story?" she suggested.
Boys? Saeki's brain echoed, but Yukari was already in motion, clucking directions to servants to take their trunks upstairs, chattering at Yuuta—"We'll put you in the grey rooms, dear, I hope you don't mind, but Sayuri has your old room"—and scolding her grandchildren for being underfoot, all without pausing for breath. Before he quite knew it, he and Yuuta had been swept upstairs and into a set of rooms that were entirely too fine for Saeki's tastes, and a series of servants were moving in and out with their belongings.
Saeki edged closer to Yuuta, surreptitiously. "Your sister-in-law isn't the only one who's overwhelming," he muttered to Yuuta.
"Tell me about it," Yuuta muttered back. "Let's clear the servants out and use the bedsheets to make a rope."
"Don't tempt me," Saeki told him. "...what are they doing?"
Yuuta huffed. "Mother has a prejudice against dirt," he said, as a pair of servants lugged in a hip bath, followed by a series of servants with pitchers full of water. "So guess."
Saeki ran a hand through his hair, suddenly self-conscious. "...wish you'd told me your family was stupidly rich."
"I was trying to forget," Yuuta sighed. He looked at Saeki, sidelong. "We could have a rope made in no time."
"Please don't tempt me."
As tempting as escape via sheets-and-window was, they didn't run, and Yuuta showed him the way downstairs to where the entire family was waiting in Yukari's parlor. Yuuta's nieces and nephews were wide-eyed and curious about their heretofore unknown uncle, and the adults all had questions for him, from Yukari's "Why did you go?" to Shuuichi's "What have you been doing?" and Ann's blunter "And why are you back now?"
Yuuta sighed, fending off their questions, and said, "I may as well start at the beginning," and launched himself into an accounting of the past decade and a half.
Most of the story was as new to Saeki as it was to the rest of them, so he listened with interest, and noted the pauses and the hitches as Yuuta told it. Yuuta was giving them the expurgated version, he decided, and Yuuta only confirmed it for him when he glossed over the Heron's rum-running and spying as "a little of this, and a little of that."
"Did you ever run into any pirates?" one of the girls interrupted to ask, eyes gleaming with an unwholesome interest in the subject.
"A few," Yuuta said, and tilted his head at Saeki. "That's where Koujirou comes in."
Saeki found himself taking over the story to give Yuuta's voice a rest, and told how pirates had taken the Otohime, and how lucky he'd been that the Heron had rescued him. The telling went quickly—there was no way to explain his own bewilderment, without telling about what the Heron had been doing, and it came out sounding like Yuuta had made the decision to chase the Rose without any help to rely on.
"It was lucky for you that Shuusuke was there to pick up the pieces, eh?" Shuuichi asked, but his laughter didn't do much to cover up what Saeki judged was a genuine strain of fear. "You'll have to leave the pirate-hunting to the professionals now."
Saeki bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard, as Yuuta nodded his head and gravely agreed, "Yes, I suppose I'll have to."
Later, safe in their rooms, Saeki looked at Yuuta. "I say we make that rope now."
Yuuta let himself fall backward onto the bed, and sighed. "Can't. Shuusuke ordered me to stay here until his next leave."
Saeki kicked his boots off, and crawled into bed with him. "You know when that's going to be?"
"Could be months. Years. I don't know, and he didn't say."
"Shit." Saeki moved closer.
"You don't have to stay," Yuuta began, but stopped himself when Saeki raised himself up on an elbow and glared at him. "Well, you don't. Unless you want to."
"I want to," Saeki said, firm. "So shut up."
Yuuta's laugh was a little short, but he wound his arm around Saeki anyway. "Have I ever told you that you're crazy?"
"Mm, not lately." Saeki rested his head on Yuuta's shoulder, and decided it was time to change the subject. "Sounded to me like you left a lot out of your story, today."
"Was it that obvious?"
Saeki snorted, and slid his arm around Yuuta. "Only to someone who knows you. Tell me the parts that you left out."
"I left out a lot," Yuuta murmured. "It could take a while."
"What do we have, if we don't have time?" Saeki argued.
"Hmph." But after a moment, Yuuta began the story again, filling in the rest of the details, until Saeki drifted to sleep, lulled by the soft rise and fall of his voice. He continued it the next night, and the next, until he came to the morning that they'd seen a column of smoke rising on the horizon, and he'd changed the Heron's heading to go investigate.
"Did I ever say thank you for that?" Saeki asked, sleepily, once Yuuta's voice trailed off.
Yuuta's frame shook with near-silent laughter. "No, you didn't."
"Oops." Saeki stretched himself to place a soft kiss under Yuuta's jaw. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Yuuta said, drawing him closer.
Maybe it wasn't quite the whole story, even then, but Yuuta was like that, and if there were still things he needed to keep private, Saeki thought, he could live with that.
Once his mother could bear to let him out of her sight again—it took several days—Yuuta began taking Saeki over his family's grounds. It was, Saeki thought, as Yuuta pointed out the tree he'd climbed and then promptly fallen out of ("Bashed my head right open, and I still have the scar, see?"), halfway between a guided tour and a reunion between Yuuta and his childhood. He followed along obediently, watching Yuuta and listening to the things he didn't say as he pointed out the fort he'd had (now firmly in the possession of his nephews).
It was obvious that the Yuuta he knew didn't fit into the genteel family mode. As Yuuta stopped himself from telling his most colorful stories, and bit off curses on a regular basis, and told him about scrape after childhood scrape ("And this is where they caught me fighting with—fuck, what was his name, anyway?"), he began to wonder whether Yuuta ever had.
He woke early one morning, only to find that Yuuta had slipped out of bed and was dressing in the grey light. "Where're you going?"
"To see if something's still there where I left it." Yuuta's voice was hushed, and he leaned over the bed to ruffle Saeki's hair. "Go back to sleep."
"Mmf." But it was no good; he was awake. "You want company? Or not?"
"I'd like to show you," Yuuta said. "If you want to come, that is."
Saeki hid his smile at Yuuta's diffidence by yawning, and climbed out of bed. "I guess I'll come along."
"Then hurry up and get dressed," Yuuta ordered, already tugging on his boots.
"Working on it," Saeki said, pulling on his clothes between yawns, and then struggling into his boots. He'd barely got them on before Yuuta was moving, leading them out into the hall, down the back stairs and then outdoors, where the air was still cool and the dew was heavy on the grass.
Yuuta hurried them along, silent, as the world began to stir—sky gradually lightening in the east and birds beginning to chirp sleepily—through the kitchen garden and along a path, then across a pasture without a path at all, where the long grass soaked them to their knees.
Saeki quashed an urge to ask where they were going—the early-morning stillness precluded idle chatter—and followed Yuuta into a patch of woodland as the sky turned gold. Yuuta pushed along through the trees and undergrowth, showing Saeki the way without speaking, and then they were through the trees and in a clearing with a small pond on the far side of it.
"Here," Yuuta said, and stopped.
Saeki stopped too, and looked around. "...here?"
"Yeah." As the sky turned brighter, Yuuta pointed. "Look."
Saeki followed Yuuta's pointing finger to the pond, not sure what he was looking for, when a shape moved in the reeds—a bird, tall and stately, and then another moved.
Yuuta's sigh was deeply contented.
"What are they?" Saeki asked, keeping his voice quiet.
"Herons," Yuuta told him. "I used to come watch them all the time after Yumiko showed them to me..."
"They're beautiful," Saeki said, watching them move across the shallows of the pond.
"Yeah. Always remembered them, and wondered if they were still here." Yuuta's voice was distant. "It's funny. They were one of the things I missed the most."
"Mm." Saeki looked away from the birds to Yuuta, and asked the question he'd been wondering for days. "Why did you—" Run away "—leave?"
Yuuta watched the herons silently for a long time before he answered. "I told you that Yumiko raised me," he said. "She almost had to. Mother entertained—still does, I'm sure—and I didn't like my governesses, which didn't leave anyone else to do it." His gaze had turned inward. "I suppose she spoiled me. Let me do what I wanted, as long as I didn't cause too much serious trouble. And then... she got married."
Saeki made a soft sound, encouraging.
"I still wouldn't have anything to do with governesses." Yuuta shook his head. "I won't tell you how many I terrorized. Mother had to take me over, since she couldn't find anyone who would keep a place with us. Neither of us had an easy time of it. I wasn't nearly as well-behaved as Shuusuke, and I was stubborn to boot, and my temper... eh."
"The more things change..." Saeki murmured.
Yuuta's smile was dark. "Hah. You think I'm bad now. You didn't know me then."
"Saints preserve us."
Yuuta snorted. "In any case... it was a hard year. And then Yumiko..." He trailed off. "I'm sure you could get Mother to tell you how horrible I was after that. I just couldn't stand it." He rubbed his forehead. "I very nearly wasn't allowed to attend Shuusuke's wedding, for fear I'd spoil the whole thing. Except that I knew he'd kill me if I did, so I promised to behave. Good thing I did, too. I doubt I'd have met Kippei, otherwise." Yuuta went quiet. "He was... so strong. And so calm, even though the rest of the world was fussing around him... I think I must have fallen in love on the spot. When he left to go back to his ship, I followed him."
Saeki's thoughts tripped over that, and when they picked themselves up again, had formed new patterns. So Tachibana hadn't just been a captain to Yuuta, but a lover as well. "That explains a lot," he managed, a trifle weakly.
Yuuta looked away from the herons to give him a tilted smile. "Does it?"
"Definitely." No wonder Yuuta had wanted Yukimura's head so damn badly. No wonder Yuuta was the man he was. Everything made more sense now.
"Mm." Yuuta looked back at the herons. "Kippei was one of the best things that have ever happened to me. I would have smothered if I'd stayed here."
Saeki thought that over and concluded that he was probably right. "Your parents seem very... nice," he allowed. "You're... not." Passionate, strong, and honorable in a way that was peculiarly Yuuta, but not nice, and hardly respectable.
Yuuta laughed. "No, I'm not. Thanks for noticing."
"I could be deaf, blind, and dumb, and I'd still notice that," Saeki said, grinning. "Oh—"
The herons, disturbed by their laughter, were spreading their wings and taking to the air.
Yuuta watched them, and exhaled slowly. "Just like I remembered," he said. After a moment, he turned to go back to the house.
"Thanks for showing me," Saeki said, falling into step with him.
Yuuta grinned over his shoulder. "My pleasure."
They didn't say anything else on the walk back. Yuuta seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, and Saeki was wondering what he might be able to do to keep Yuuta from smothering in the time it would take for Fuji's leave to bring him home.
The days passed slowly, turning into weeks, spring deepened into summer without any word from Fuji, and Saeki became very familiar with all the ways there were to stave off the monotony of boredom on a country estate.
The weeks turned into months, and Saeki began to wonder whether Fuji was ever going to come home. Yuuta grew restless, and Saeki found himself dreaming of the sound of wind blowing through a ship's rigging, and the slap of the waves against a hull.
And they waited, until one evening, Yuuta had sighed one time too many, and Saeki's patience came to an end. "That's it," Saeki announced. "I've had it." He marched over to the window, unhooked the latch, and threw it open.
"...beg pardon, Koujirou?" Yuuta asked, pausing in the act of tugging his collar loose.
Saeki leaned out the window. "How many sheets do you think we'll have to tear up to make a rope?" he asked, eyeing the distance to the ground. They were only a floor up, which was probably a good thing.
"What in the hell are you talking about?" Yuuta asked, and he looked confused when Saeki turned around.
"We have been here for three months, Yuuta," Saeki said, speaking slowly so that he could be sure that Yuuta was following along. "We're getting fat and lazy, and I miss the ocean, and so do you, damn it. Neither of us belongs here, so let's go."
"Don't tempt me, Koujirou," Yuuta said, with a wry tilt to his grin. "I might just take you up on that offer."
Saeki snorted. "That was the point," he said, pulling the heavy duvet off the bed, and beginning to strip the sheets off. After a moment, he looked up to see Yuuta staring at him. "What?"
Yuuta hesitated. "My God. You're serious, aren't you?"
"Completely serious," Saeki agreed, holding up a sheet and eyeing it critically. "Tell you what. You write the letter to your mother, apologizing for this, and I'll get started on the rope." The fine cotton made a satisfyingly loud rip as he tore off the first strip. "And then you can pack."
"Why do I have to pack?" Yuuta protested, starting to smile.
"Because I'm making the rope," Saeki told him, and tore off another strip, wondering if his grin looked as gleeful as it felt. When Yuuta still hadn't moved, he looked up from the destruction he was wreaking. "Well, go on. It's a three-mile walk into town, remember? We haven't got all night."
Yuuta crossed the room in three quick strides, and leaned down, kissing Saeki. "God, Koujirou," he breathed. "What would I do without you?"
Saeki grinned up at him. "Be miserable, I expect," he said, perfectly cheerful. "Now, get to work."
"Aye, sir," Yuuta said, throwing him a lazy salute and making for the desk.
An hour of work later, it occurred to Saeki (as he was halfway down their makeshift rope, which was beginning to creak alarmingly under his weight) that they could have just as easily packed the bundle of clothes and money and snuck out of the house by way of the stairs, although they lacked a certain panache. He snorted at the thought, and shimmied down the rope a little faster, dropping the last few feet to the ground.
"Ready?" Yuuta, a dim shape next to him, whispered.
Saeki smiled at him, even though it was probably lost in the dark. "Yeah. Let's go."
A rough hand found its way into his, and Yuuta tugged him forward, into what was left of the night.
On the whole, he decided, there was no place he'd rather be.
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