“I Love You” - Hyuuga/Hototogisu
2207.03.25
The garden is alive with music. It’s early spring still, so there are few flowers, but the snow is gone from the open areas, and the ground is dry. A group of swords - tantou, mostly - have gathered together. Kotegiri Gou is trying out a new idea for playing music with technology he’s set up, and other swords have joined in with their instruments, or their voices. The rest are dancing.
Not a coordinated dance, the kind that Kotegiri likes to put on and the kind the swords sometimes perform for their master. Rather, they’re dancing with each other, paying little heed to any real sense of rhythm or proper form, giggling and singing as they hold each other’s hands. It’s nothing formal, or even unified. Just another way to have fun together.
Hototogisu watches them from where he sits on the veranda, but does not join in. He wouldn’t be able to dance, he knows. His body is no longer in extreme pain every day, but the pain is there still, and the lack of coordination too. But it does look fun. He watches the tantou, admires their quick feet and their smiling faces, and his heart aches to join them. He drums his fingers against his knee to the beat.
Within just a few heartbeats, the tapping of his fingers slips out of time with the music, and he stops. He curls his fingers into his palms, and goes back to silently watching the tantou.
They thread in and out of each other. Hototogisu catches only a glimpse here and there of Gokotai, and he tries not to make eye contact, because Gokotai looks so happy dancing with his brothers, and he knows that if he sees Hototogisu, he’ll join him instead, and Hototogisu doesn’t want that. But still he watches, the lantern light reflecting off Gokotai’s pale-blond hair, and Midare’s red-gold, and off their eyes and any bits of metal the tantou might be wearing.
One of the tantou, her own hair almost golden in the light and her violet eyes gleaming, breaks off from the rest, and comes to sit beside Hototogisu on the veranda.
“Hototogisu-san!” Hyuuga Masamune says, her smile wide. “Do you want to join us?”
She offers her hand, like she already knows he’s going to accept.
He looks at it, and swallows.
“I c-can’t,” he says. “I…”
He presses his palms to his thighs, hoping she will know what he means.
Hyuuga’s brows furrow, but she’s smiling at him anyway.
“Are you sure?” she says softly. “You looked like you wanted to join. I want to dance with you.”
He swallows again, this time against the ache in his heart.
“It’s - I-I’ll fall-“ he manages, even if it’s only part of the problem. His thoughts are caught up in their own kind of dance, whirling between the music and the ache in his legs and how beautiful Hyuuga is, less than an arm’s length away.
The current song is winding down, and he wonders if she’ll leave him for the next one.
“Ah, I see,” she says, standing. Between the fading strains of the last notes of the song, she calls out, “Kotegiri-san! Play something slower next, please!”
Hototogisu’s eyes go wide as Kotegiri acknowledges her words. Another song starts up, this one slower - but still something to dance to. Hototogisu can almost see it, the way he can almost see which steps need to be taken in combat.
Hyuuga offers him her hand once more.
“You don’t have to do it for long,” she says. “But it would be a shame not to try, right? Come with me. I’ll show you how.”
He couldn’t refuse her, even if he wanted to. And he doesn’t want to.
He takes her hand - soft, and her grip strong - and she leads him closer to where the other swords are dancing. But like she can read his mind, they aren’t too close. He would hate for someone to trip because of him.
Hyuuga guides him, and slowly but surely, he is dancing. It’s not much of a dance, but it’s something, and even though he’s much taller than her, she holds him close.
Hototogisu feels his cheeks heating up as he tries to hold her back. She smells like plum blossoms, and she is smiling at him, for him, and all around them are their comrades. Brothers.
For a moment, all he can think is I love you.
Everyone in this Citadel. His heart burns for them.
He closes his eyes against the heat. When he opens them again, it’s to Hyuuga’s gentle smile.
“Want to keep dancing?” she asks.
He nods, and she pulls him into the circle with the other swords, and the music washes over him in a rush of dreams.