MC|Y/N|YOU

“Well enough,” Diluc smiles back a little. “It was a rather slow day, save for a few Adventurers looking for their lunch.” No Knights of Favonius, he recalls. Jean must have started cracking down on the ones who drink during the day as if they haven’t any work or assignments. Once or twice when Diluc went outside for some air he glimpsed knights on their proper patrol routes and stations. Noticeably, none of the Angel’s Share regulars came anywhere near the tavern until the end of day once he had left. As it should be.

“I see you have everyone started on mounding the vines.” Diluc looks to the farmers working around the winery. “Good, never hurts to start early.”

Tunner nods. “Correct, Young Master. Especially when it comes to preparing for winter.” He does his own once over of the area, his eyes deceptively keen for his age. Though that may be because he’s been watching and caring for these lands since before Diluc was born. “Although, you can see it all around. The coming winter will be kinder to us than most.”

“Oh?” Diluc fights with a smile, knowing the last time Tunner started talking about folktales and farmers’ omens, nobody went to bed until late into the night. “How so?”

Tunner laughs. “You may not believe in the signs Young Master, but they haven’t steered me wrong in all my years,” he assures. Keen eyes for his age indeed, Diluc muses. Tunner pulls a pouch from his belt, wrinkled fingers still deft and precise as he unties it. “You can see it on the boars, not so fat as they were last year. The onions Elzer ordered from Springvale are of thinner skin as well and finally-“ the words stall in his throat, halted by a wet, hacking cough. He drops the pouch to cover his mouth. Diluc barely catches it by the strings.

“Tunner? Are you alright?” Diluc touches his shoulder, trying to guide him to a nearby create. “Please, sit and rest,” he says and Tunner follows, pointing to the pouch as he works through his fit. Diluc nudges it open with his fingers.

“Sweet flowers?”

Tunner nods, clearing his throat twice. “Yes. Still in bloom this late into the fall. A good omen.”

“Very good if it means Jilliana will have enough to make your medicine.” Diluc points out. Tunner tries to hide it, to power through but he’s not very good at it. His age doesn’t help. “Please, Tunner. You shouldn’t be pushing yourself so much. Especially if your sickness won’t go away.”

Tunner only smiles and Diluc tries his best not to flinch at the spot of red on his teeth. “I’m alright Young Master,” he croaks. “The sisters say I just need to keep myself healthy and drink the medicine they make for me.”

“And your son?” Diluc asks, recalling seeing Guy just this afternoon by the eastern gate. “You still haven’t told him? He’s your only child, he should be taking care of his father.”

“He’s a Knight now, he has duties to fulfill. I don’t want him worrying about an old man like me.” He tries to laugh but coughs again.

Diluc frowns. “He has a duty to you,” he says, remembering when Guy used to help his father around the winery and insist on doing all the heavy work. “What work could the knights have for him more important than that?”

“It’s alright Master Diluc,” Tunner insists, taking the sweet flowers from him. “I know how much you… dislike them. But for what shortcomings they possess, the Knight of Favonius serve Monstadt well. In fact, it just so happens they’ve recruited. Guy tells me that someone is coming Monstadt to be their head doctor.”

Diluc grits his teeth. “Have they now?”

No information, from idle gossip among the sisters to the sordid affairs of the knights, escape Diluc’s eyes and ears. That said, Jean must have demanded that the matter be sealed tighter than the Favonius treasury. He’s heard tell of the recruitment of a “travelling doctor” for ages now but all Diluc’s gotten are bits and pieces. Supposedly, the new head doctor will arrive at Monstadt this month and still, all he knows is a name and a vision.

“Well I certainly hope whoever it is, they’ll be of some use,” Diluc says and it would be more than he could say for a lot of those knights. “Still Tunner, while we wait for this doctor, please pace yourself. There are plenty of younger farmers around here you can task.” He pleads and smiles when Tunner heaves a defeated sigh.

“I’ll give this to Hillie to give to Jilliana,” Diluc says, snatching the sweet flowers before Tunner can ask or protest. “Just do me a favor and call it a day. The worst winter we could possibly have is one where you aren’t well enough to be with us.”

Tunner laughs, a real one and nods. “Alright, Master Diluc. Thank you.”

Diluc nods back, heading towards the manor where Adelinde is waiting at the door. He turns, making sure Tunner is still seated on his crate while the others work around him. But as he scans the rest of the area, his expression hardens spotting telltale white and gold armor in the distance. A party of four Favonius Knights stride along the dirt path, giving Dawn Winery a wide berth as they have no doubt been instructed to do. Diluc knows for a fact that no knights patrol this close to the winery. So, the only reason they’d be passing by directly is if they were heading to the Stone Gate, the border between Monstadt and Liyue. Another endeavor Diluc knows little of. It isn’t difficult to put the pieces together from there.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he mutters to himself. “Maybe there is something to Tunner’s omens.”

Hillie tilts her head a little as he approaches. “I’m sorry? Did you say something Master Diluc?”

“Nothing. Just musing to myself.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When night falls, so does the rain with it. Staring out from the window of his quarters Diluc wonders if he should have asked Tunner about omens for sudden storms as well. High winds aren’t uncommon in Monstadt, especially not in the latter half of the year. But accompanied by a heavy enough rain fall and the two make for conditions less than ideal to be out in.

For Diluc, they’ll be a minor inconvenience.

“Rain...” he mutters as he sorts through his wardrobe for a thicker coat. Regardless of how heavy the fall, Diluc has his mission, but he’ll never forget the dangers that come with a downpour like this. Faces and shapes are harder to discern in the rain, the paths are more treacherous and slippery. Mud can slow you down no matter how careful your steps, no matter how much you hurry. Rain washes away tracks all too easily. And Diluc will never forget how quickly and cleanly it also washes away blood.

Like it never happened.

He draws in a breath, willing darker memories away from the forefront of his mind as he slips his arms through an old hunting jacket. “If only it could cl-“

A bang jolts him. Thunder? But there wasn’t a flash. More follow, booming thumps in quick succession. His quarters are at the far end of the Ragvindr manor, on the second floor. But whoever’s knocking, pounding, on the front doors are desperate enough to slam up against the solid oak over and over to get the attention of whoever’s inside. The clang of the hinges beginning to give rush Diluc into action. It’s no surprise it also rouses others in the manor.

One of the maids, still dressed in her night clothes and a robe, is throwing the door open before he’s even out. “Hello?! Who is that making a ruckus at such an hou-oh! Oh archons’ grace!”

The view of the entrance is obscured by the balcony and Diluc can’t see who’s standing in the doorway, but he recognizes the voice in an instant.

“Help! People hurt! Need healing!”

Diluc’s feet pound on the hardwood, darting around the corners of the balcony and almost jumping over the railing. “Razor?”

Razor finds him in the dark. Their only light is the candle in the maid’s hand and the dim glow of the Vision at Diluc’s belt. But everything is clear enough. “Diluc!” Razor pants, his chest heaving, his clothes and hair dripping wet. Razor grunts as he struggles to hold up the shivering, blood and rain-soaked man wrapped in his coat. “He is cold! Won’t make it to the city!”

Diluc rushes down the steps. “Get a fire going!” he commands, rushing to take the injured man. Razor follows, his legs shaky and he’s struggling to catch his breath but he stays on his feet peering out into the rain through the doorway. Diluc glances at him as he sets the knight down by the fireplace. “Hillie, the fire. Did you run all the way here?”

“Yes.” Razor pants. “From the water.”

The injured knight trembles and whimpers. Hillie’s hands shake almost as badly as she tries and fails to spark the iron and flint. “Step back Hillie.” It’s her only warning before a ball of red-hot flame ignites in Diluc’s palm and he lobs it into the fireplace. “What happened? Were they attacked?”

“Hillichurls.” Razor nods, kneeling beside Diluc and the Knight. “Lots of them with big ones and Abyss Mages on the road. I could smell it from Wolvendom. Blood.”

Diluc scowls. Of course, there were Abyss Mages. Of course, knights like the ones he saw traversing the road earlier that afternoon were no match for them. Diluc glances at the young man on his floor. “You were smart, bringing him here but I don’t know how much we can do for him.” Grabbing Razor’s coat, Diluc prepares himself to shield him from Hillie’s wide, terrified gaze but is left just as dumbfounded as her. The bandages around his chest are damp but they’re not getting any bloodier. Diluc leans in a little and the man’s breathing is clear and equal. While his lips are still pale, being near the fire has stopped his shivering. “He’s-“

“Okay. For now.” Razor says, wiping away some of the blood from the young knight’s face. All that red had made it look worse than it actually was. “Razor was told to find a place that is safe, warm.”

“By the other Knights?”

Razor shakes his head. “Not not knight. They are with the Knights. They are coming here. A healer.”

“Healer.” Diluc’s brows furrow. “The Doctor?”

“Yes! Doc-tor! They are coming here. Bringing more wounded.”

More. Diluc can see by the crest on his belt that the young knight at his feet is newer and of a lower rank, sent because no one ever expected they’d encounter anything on the road. He thinks back and remembers all four were the same. How many of them got hurt tonight because they were so unprepared?

“M-master Diluc!”

They turn to Hillie who’s lips quiver, pointing at three figures running through the rain up the path. Two of them carrying something between them. Someone, wrapped in a blue cloak. Once again, Diluc hears the voice before he sees who speaks.

“Make room! A bench, a cot, anything!”

Diluc turns. “Clear the table!” He says, grabbing papers and books and setting them on the floor. Hillie does the same for the inkwells and quills. “Here!” he calls, turning right as you rush in, trailing blood and rainwater across his carpet. You walk right past him hauling a heavy trunk and setting it down on one of the chairs.

“There’s not much time. This one’s barely holding on,” you say, unlatching the trunk and Diluc gets a glimpse of steel and glass before Hillie’s scream tears his eyes away. Diluc’s stomach churns. The two Knights had used every ounce of their strength and will to not jostle their wounded comrade on the bamboo stretcher, but they moved him enough for the blue cloak covering him to fall away and reveal the gashes in his chest and the icicle shards embedded in his stomach. Water and blood run from them onto the table, pooling under the Knight. You pay none of them any mind, pulling tools from your trunk and placing them on a tray you set on the table.

“Oh my gods, oh my gods!” Hillie gasps, dropping one of the inkwells in her arms. “That’s so much- s-so much blood! Is he going to be alright?!”

You don’t even glance at her. “He will be.”

“But the blood! He’s dying!”

“Not while he’s on my operating table,” You say, finally tearing your gaze away, but your hands are still busy pulling vials and tubes from your trunk. “Look at me. I understand if you’re disturbed but you need to be calm. If you’re going to help, I need you to be calm. Otherwise, I’m going to need you to leave.”

Hillie stares, shaking in her robe. “I-“

“Now.” You focus back onto the injured knight, uncorking a vial of clear liquid and pouring it out onto your hand. Instead of spilling through your fingers it condenses, forming into shapeless haze hovering above your palm. At your belt, a Hydro Vision comes alight, dimming to a soft glow as you let the little cloud darkens, taking all the dirt and blood off your hands. “I won’t ask again, miss.”

“Hillie, go wake Adelinde please,” Diluc speaks up, putting his hand on her shoulder. She jolts but nods in understanding when she meets his eyes. Her first steps towards the door are shaky but she manages to hurry to the maid’s quarters, calling out for Adelinde.

“You two.” You look to the last Knights as you pull your palm away from the mist, letting it hang in mid-air. They don’t look hurt, save for a few bruises and a nasty cut on the brow of one but otherwise they’re unharmed. “Whichever one of you still has the energy. Get to Monstadt, tell them about what happened and have them prepare beds.”

One of them, a lanky, young blonde man steps forward. He’s missing both his pauldrons and one of his bracers but his eyes are resolute. “I can go.”

“Good. Go. Take the safest path you can,” You give him a stern look. “The safest, you hear me? No one else is getting hurt tonight.”

The knight nods, saluting to you. He casts worried glances at his friends on the table and by the fireplace before rushing out the door. Razor, jumps to his feet, the urgency reigniting him. “You need Razor? What can I do?”

“You’ve done so much already,” you say to him, looking past him to the knight by the fireplace whose face is beginning to color again. Then you look to the last Knight, who’s collapsed onto the floor on his backside. “But all three of you should get out of those wet clothes and warmed up fast.”

“I can do that.”

You turn and a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes is already coming around your operating table to the Knight by the fireplace. “Will one of the guest rooms upstairs suffice Master Diluc?”

“Yes. Give them some of my spare clothes if you must.” Diluc begins to make his way over to the fireplace, but you stop him.

“My apologies Master Ragnvindr,” You say, grabbing a pair of shears and cutting through the knight’s undershirt. You peel the shreds away and Diluc is glad now that Hillie didn’t see the worst of it. Diluc recognizes wounds that could scar deeply. The knight shivers and the shards shift, they rise and fall as he breathes. Despite the grisly sight, your voice is even. “If I could please have you stay and get your assistance here?”

He approaches the table. “What do you need from me, Doctor?”

“Your vision.” You nod to the glow at his hip. You pick the vapor out of the air again, this time sweeping it over your patient’s body. Blood and dirt dye it dark red, cleaning the knight enough for Diluc to see how closely one of the icicles is buried in his ribs, mere inches away from his heart. “He fell into the lake before he got blasted by a cryo mage.”

Diluc nods, “He’ll die of the cold before you could get all of those out of him.” He peels his glove off, rubbing his hands together. His palms and fingers flush with heat.

“As close as you can get to the torso, please. Just keep them away from the shards,” you say as you gather the blood mist with a wave and let it fall, draining red into a tray. Diluc hovers his hands above the knight’s shoulders, allowing the heat to seep into the man’s pale skin. His shivering lessens but the icicles in his body begin to sweat. You gesture at him. “Turn it down a little please, the last thing we need is to melt water into his body.”

Diluc follows.

“Good.”

You pull one of the icicles right out of the knight’s stomach. Diluc gasps a little, not as much as the knight and not as loud as when you pull out another. After that it’s as if Diluc isn’t even there. He is reduced to being a heat lamp as you move his hands to where you need them and the contrast of the coolness of your skin on his heated palms make steam curl up into the air. Your hands are a flurry of movement, raining red into the tray and cleaning the wounds you pull more shards from. It makes Diluc’s stomach curl a little, seeing bits of flesh rip away with one of the icicles. You curse and out of the moist air, condense moe mist that glows a faint blue. You hover it above the wound and let it rain and the skin heals, but you pull it away before the wound closes. You murmur to yourself. “Come on, Garret. Work with me here.”

Garret. Diluc had just been calling him “the knight”.

You are more cautious then. Moving Diluc’s hands close to warm up the skin around the shards before pulling, then drawing the water out of his wounds into more dark, bloody mist drifting around his foyer.

Diluc’s arms have long gone numb before you finally tell him he can stop with a curt nod and a thank you. Diluc takes the dismissal. He may have a stronger stomach than most but even he can’t watch as you cut the knight open to look at the damage to his insides. He sits back in one of the chairs, turned away from the table, trying to massage the feeling back into his shoulders. You ignore him. At some point Razor comes back downstairs, dressed in some of Diluc’s old clothes and asks if he can help. Diluc tells him he can go back up. Razor refuses and sits by the fireplace.

Diluc almost nods off at some point. Razor goes under completely, curling up on the carpet but Diluc fights it off long enough to hear you let out a deep, relieved sigh. Diluc forces his eyes up and looks back as you are cutting the last suture. You pull your hands away from the knight’s, from Garret’s, body and look around. You find Diluc still sitting there and you startle. Your eyes dart back and forth between him and then Razor, asleep by the fireplace. “...your coat. Please.”

It takes him a moment but Diluc comes to his senses and sheds the old hunting jacket, handing it over. Before you cover Garret up Diluc catches a glimpse of a miracle. The knight’s torso was clean, the deep wounds already scarred over or gone, save for the incision going up his left side held together by big, ugly but clean stitches. Even covered, the steady rise and fall of Garret’s chest is obvious. His breathing is a little shallow but clear and equal. You put your hand on his forehead, murmuring something too low for Diluc to catch. Then you pull away.

“Fuck.”

You collapse onto the carpet, leaning back against one of the table’s legs.

Diluc pushes one of the chairs nearer. “Please. Sit.”

You shake your head with a laugh. “Can’t really get up right now. Thank you, though.” You tip your head back, eyes sliding shut as you let the light of dawn flooding in from the window soak into your haggard skin. Diluc turns, staring back at the rising sun, realizing that the rain, and with it the night, had passed in a blink. It must have been forever for you and never once had you shown any sign of tiring all throughout. But now you are just as out of breath as he would be after a long, hard-fought battle. You glance over to the fireplace in the foyer, taking in Razor curled up nearby to stay warm. “I have a lot to thank you and him for,” you chuckle but it’s more of a huff.

“He led you here.”

“Yeah and I thought he was fucking crazy. I thought,” you laugh a little, “I thought I was going to have to fight some rich asshole for a space in his basement again.” Diluc can’t help his curious stare. Watching you give orders and work for hours straight then hearing you laugh and jest is jarring. You smile, beaming at him like the dawn. “Thank you Master Ragnvindr, for helping me save their lives.”

Diluc blinks. He opens his mouth to speak.

“Doctor!”

Razor peeks out from behind a couch, leaping over to get to you. “You are done? Knight is safe?”

“Yeah kid, he’s going to be just fine, thanks to you.” You reach over and pat Razor on the head, smiling just as brightly.

Razor grins. “And you? You are okay? Everyone is okay?”

“All good.”

“Everyone is okay!” Razor nods, smiling at you then at Diluc. “I am glad!”

“So am I,” you laugh, reaching down to a skein around your waist. “No one’s dying any time soon.”

There’s a sureness in your voice that has the back of Diluc’s mind tingling and his chest aching.

“Not while I’ve got them.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“-defy orders!?”

“I’m doing wha-“

He can’t make out all of the words people around him are yelling. At him? At each other? He can’t tell that either, allowing himself to sink further.

“- so be it!”

Diluc gasps. A coolness envelops him, and he screams. The gash in his chest burns again, his body coming alight with pain. He thrashes, screaming louder when the hands holding him up grip tighter.

“-is a mistake.”

“Put him down right there.”

There’s crashing and grunting. Another spike of pain shoots up his nerves as he’s lowered down onto something and he gasps for air. The hands leave him and are replaced the same coolness that pulled him back into agony. He fights, trying to pull away from it but he can’t even manage that. The feeling travels down his chest, leaving his clothes damp and soothes his burning skin but it doesn’t do much else. “Broken ribs, bruised organs and… his lung is pierced,” someone says, a gentler voice and Diluc feels every ache and pain they list, the shadow of the Harbinger’s blade hasn’t left his chest. “He’s bleeding out inside.”

“What are you doing, then?!” Diluc can hear them clearer now, distressed, and panicked protests from a man with a deep voice.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do.” A third voice worries, a quieter voice.

“Exactly! This is a fool’s act. He’s as good as dead!”

Yes, he is. Let him go, he wants to say. Let the suffering stop, he wants to beg. He musters up what strength he can trying to but is silenced. “Shush, don’t talk. Your jaw is broken too.” The same gentle voice chides, stricter now as the coolness caresses the side of his face. Something is touched to his lips and the voice commands. “Drink.”

He won’t.

“What. Are. You. Doing?!” One asks again, and the coolness leaves his face. Diluc manages a groan but the gentle one is right, his jaw aches. “If the Harbingers find out we helped him-“

“Leave then. If you want so badly to not get involved, to protect yourself, to let him die, leave.”

“But you-“

“I am doing my job. And if you’re going to help me. I need you to calm down. And if you can’t do that. Get. Out.”

The coolness comes back so does the thing touching his lips. “Drink,” the gentle one says and when Diluc doesn’t something slithers down his throat too fast for him to even choke on. Diluc almost gasps as his entire body relaxes. His ragged breathing slows.

“Well?”

He doesn’t know who they’re asking.

“…fuck it.” The quiet one, the worrier, speaks up. There’s rustling and shuffling. “What do you need me to do?”

“You’re fools! Insane! Both of you!”

The gentle voice says something else but Diluc doesn’t catch it. The ache in his head ebbs away and he barely feels the hands on his chest, peeling his clothes away. He almost protests again but whatever he’s drank has rendered his faculties useless, numb. He catches one last thing before he’s pulled under. The gentle voice huffs.

“Sorry, but you’re not dying today. Not while I’ve got you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 

A Delinquent’s Journal

Like any troublemaker going through “probation” Atsume’s supposed to keep a diary. In all honesty, she has more trouble deciding what’s not worth writing. Two weeks in, and she’s the manager for “grand uncle Yasu’s” volleyball team, she’s gained a shadow with a bad dye job, and a captain who looks at her like she's going to set the Nekoma gym on fire. Should she keep that part out? Or maybe let her probation officer know about the gang of misfits who greet her everyday by bowing at her feet. Or about the school’s betting and backmail ring. She did not sign up for any of this but, fuxk it. Teams need to be managed and gangsters don’t take themselves down. Time get to work. 

Lightning Strike

Fukurodani’s teams already have enough managers and everyone knows this. Still, they get the occasional application from people with crushes on some team member that they use for paper scrap and memos. They almost think its a joke when they find Katsumi’s application among them. No not a late application for the girls’ team, something they would’ve accepted in a heartbeat. Not even one as manager for the boys’ team. No one expected the coach to come in with junior high legend, the Raijin, Inszuma Katsumi by his side. No one expected her, a student, a freshman, to be their assistant coach. And certainly no one expected her to come in on the first day and proclaim she’s given up her sport to pursue her love for their vice captain.

Game-Play

Hikari’s never lost a match. She’s won every chess tournament, shogi competition and weekend radio show trivia quiz they’ve pointed her at. Schools all over Miyagi were clamouring for a chance to have her boost their average, to increase their prestige so it’s no surprise she goes to one of the best. Shiratorizawa wastes no time putting her to work and for two years that’s exactly what she does. When she quits yet another club, they know she’ll jump right into another. And she does, just not where anyone would’ve thought.

To follow...

Rough Draft

The Ice Princess

It’s a month and two weeks in that Tetsuro reconsiders that noise complaint or at least considers gathering his neighbors from the same floor and staging an intervention. Mrs. Mamizuka across the hall has expressed her concerns to Kuroo in the elevator one morning, telling him they’ll surely notice how loud and disturbing they’ve become when they realize she hasn’t been giving them as many of her baked goods as she normally does. And Tanaka who’s taking up residence at the end of their hall has advised him to just go out at night, go to the convenience store next to the building and wait till they tire each other out or go partying with friends.

Oh, to be a college student again.

He’s not even in his mid-twenties and he wishes for the energy he used to have, the kind that could drive him through all his classes on just 3 hours of sleep. Maybe then, he could finish his damned paperwork. Maybe then he wouldn’t fall asleep on the bus and miss his stop.

“Been up working late nights Kuroo-san?” the night guard, Sato asks him when he drags his feet into the lobby after midnight.

Kuroo nods, also wishing he had half the middle aged man’s energy, because even at the latest hours of the night, Sato-san greets every tenant and guest with a smile. Kuroo could only force himself to return it. “Something like that.”

“Well you look pretty tuckered out. You should probably put off whatever you’re working on for the night Kuroo-san.” He wags an index finger like a weather man telling a fact about nature on the news. “Sleep is important you know.”

Doesn’t he know it.

When he crosses the threshold of his apartment, he doesn’t bother turning on the lights. He heads straight for his bedroom and musters up the energy to take off his jacket, tie, socks and shoes. The night is silent, save for a light chorus of crickets outside his window. He’s gotten home later than he would have any other time, a crescent moon sitting just past its peak outside his window. And he hopes, oh does he hope, that it means his neighbors have already fought all they can fight for the night. Or maybe the husband hasn’t come home yet and that’s why it hasn’t started. 

He regrets even thinking of it when he settles into bed and hears the distant sound of a door being unlocked and slammed open.

Tetsuro sighs, already rolling over to each for his messenger bag, his earphones sitting somewhere at the bottom. He stops his rummaging when no bedlam disturbs the night. Footsteps prick his ears but they don’t stomp and aren’t followed by booming voices trying to talk over each other. He rolls back over, leaning towards the wall and hearing nothing. Odd. More shuffling and trudging draw his eye up to the crag ceiling, to the apartment above his.

The kind elderly couple who used to live up there had mentioned wanting to move to the country for months. “The air is fresher there, better for old people like us,” the wife chuckled at him once when he’d helped carry her groceries across the lobby to the elevator. Not a week later, Tetsuro was helping the husband and their son move furniture out, just in time to miss the beginning of a hard spot in their neighbor’s relationship. But whoever has taken their place isn’t so fortunate but then again, maybe it’s him that’s out of luck. In the darkness of his apartment he stares up at the ceiling, brows furrowed.

He prays, prays to whatever kami watches over the luck and serenity of apartment buildings that it isn’t another couple that should’ve broken up yesterday. Hell, he’ll even take a new family with a rowdy kid. At least kids are usually out by 10 with their parents careful not to wake them, not banging on the walls or banging each other. No movie he’s watched or game he’s been in has ever left him in such suspense. After some more shuffling and gentle creak of chair legs against a wood floor, there’s silence. 

Tetsuro sits up, holding his breath.

“Full moon sways, 

gently in the night of one fine day.”

A car drives by, the doppler effect of it rushing down the street drowning out the first few notes of an acoustic guitar. Deft fingers play with practiced ease but do so with languid movement, catching on the strings more than plucking them. The voice, high and crooning, is the same, beautiful but almost lazy. Tired, he realizes, is a better word; she sounds as tired as he remembers he feels, once all the irritation at his neighbors and frustration with missing his stop ebbs away. Laying back down, he listens.

"On my way,  looking for a moment with my dear. 

Full moon waves, slowly on the surface of the lake. 

You are there, smiling in my arms 

for all those years."

Even as the song switches to strumming with the slightest bit of force, Tetsuro finds himself sinking deeper into his pillow, eyes growing heavy.

"What a fool, I don’t know ‘bout tomorrow, 

or what it’s like to be, Ah,"

He’s never heard the song in his life, neither does he remember enough of his English classes from high school to understand everything, but he doesn’t need to.

"I was sure, I couldn’t let myself go, 

even though I feel, the end."

Her voice and her guitar are muffled by the layers of wood and concrete between them. His window is open to let the cool night air and silver light of the moon in and he can tell hers is as well but she drowns out the chirping of crickets, the cars that drive by and even Tetsuro’s own thoughts as little by little, then all at once, he falls asleep.

"Full moon sways, gently in the night one fine day 

You were there, smiling in my arms,

 for all these years."

When he opens his eyes, it’s slow. Sleep inertia from a deep sleep is always worse but he finds his eyes widening as it goes away in minutes and he feel more rested than he has in years.

He blinks, staring up at the ceiling.