todojirou hell

"the geoglyphs are our best guess at discovering where the princess is."

"link-"

"the princess. the person you're sworn to protect."

"a couple days is all im asking for. he's going to come back soon."

"yes, and I'll be here to greet him. you're a sheikah, your priority is the goddess' bloodline. act like it."

is this canon? i can't find it anywhere?

but anyway my version of fuyumi is. hm. both a very good sister and not a really good one. it's how i prefer to write her/think about her, a good sister when she lets herself be but so chained in the idea that enji might become better that she unconsciously hurts her brothers sometimes. and it's not that it makes her a terrible person, because that's just her way of moving forward and she should be allowed to be a person instead of just someone's sister, but it's certainly a sore point for them to try and get over together.

she's a study in trauma and mistakes and endless affection too, it's honestly really interesting to write about.

also horikoshi can try and destroy my "fuyumi was shouto's mother figure" as much as he wants im not giving it up.

it's summer and i'm once again thinking about what it means to be siblings. where one ends and the other starts, where the memories blur together and you're not quite sure which of you did what because there's a certain point in your childhood where your siblings are extensions of your own body, of your own mind. maybe it lasts. maybe it doesn't.

but it happened, nonetheless. we were there.

and how confusing it is, to be the last one home. when everything's silent and the spaces they used to fill are empty and they're a phone call away but it's just not the same and the words seem to die in your mouth, melting on your tongue with the distinctive taste of loneliness.

it's not going to be the same, ever again.

and so. how hurtful, for fuyumi, to have all but raised that child. to have been shouto's only female figure. and to wake up one day and help him pack his bags and watch him walk away. watch him live somewhere else, eat at another table and sleep in a bed she's never made, somewhere that fuyumi has never touched. somewhere they've never existed together.

(how do other people go through life as one? I've been four and then everyone told me i should be three but how do you do that? how do you move past your sibling? i'm four, still. i don't know how to be anything else.)

how awful. how awful to know that they're gone. both of them. how terrible, to be cooking and cleaning only to stop. suddenly aware of the silence. suddenly aware, i'm the only one home.

(i still cook too much food, i still pack it away neatly. i still think you'll come home for lunch. because how could you not? i was born knowing you. how am i supposed to understand your absence?)

it's summer and there's fresh fruit in the kitchen and no one to eat it with me. i used to count every piece so that we could share them fairly. used to think one, two, three, four, five, six so it's two for each of us.

(they need to be cut in smaller pieces. there's not enough for the four of us. except.)

count every last slice with too sticky fingers, so that they won't whine that you got more. and then share it. share every last bite because you've never known a world where fruit was eaten all by yourself.

it's summer and you've never known a world where your siblings aren't by your side.

nothing ever stays the same. it's futile to try and change that, so Shouto doesn't try. he's broken enough nails, teared them out by holding onto things that weren't his to keep. his hands are bloody and dirty and he doesn't think he's strong enough to do it again, anyway.

he learned to eat fruit as it is, biting into it peel and all, never quite taking his eyes off of it in fear that it, too, might be taken from him. quick and efficient and starving. it tastes like dirt and gets stuck in his teeth but he's so glad to have it at all, so thankful to be sated for a while that he can't bring himself to care.

kyoka's the opposite. everything changes but some things are hers, always, and she's never felt the need to dig her nails deep in an effort to keep them. her hands are clean, gently holding all the things that make up who she is - all that her parents have given her and all that she has made for herself.

she never quite learned how to peel fruit, someone else used to do it for her, and her movements are stilted and awkward still. she takes small bites, savouring the sweetness. fruit is the end of the meal, after all, and she's almost full just by looking at it.

they move in together a year and a half after graduation. early sunlight streams into their small kitchen and kyouka's just coming home, tired after a night patrol took a turn for the worst. shouto's sleeping, the house is quiet and still, and there are oranges on the counter. the bowl is cracked and badly painted, splashes of yellow and light blue mixing in some places (shouto made it in a pottery class he took with his mom. it's not quite round and not quite perfect and it fits nicely between all their mismatched dishware), and it's so full that a couple of oranges have fallen out.

she'd like to sleep, would love nothing more than to sink into his arms and rest, but. there's a cracked bowl on the counter and blue sneakers near the door and a slice of strawberry shortcake in the fridge (his favourite, from fuyumi. purposefully left in the red dish. hers.) and the love of her life is asleep in their bedroom and maybe she's so tired she's gone a little hysterical but.

she's so full of love and safety and purple and blues and all those not quite perfect things are just so overwhelming.

she peels three oranges, cuts up strawberries and picks a couple cherries for good measure, and leaves them by his usual seat, brews some tea and pours it in the mug by the sink (the one with calico kittens playing with a roll of blue yarn on it, a gift from uraraka). adds a couple eggs to the pan and almost burns the toast.

and then she feels awfully silly, looking at it. its unbalanced, not a good breakfast for their kind of work. certainly healthier than the cereal he seems to prefer, though. but shouto won't be up soon on his own, the tea and eggs will go cold and-

"for me?"

every anxiety she'd been nursing disappears. strong arms wrap around her waist and shouto leans down to press a kiss to her head, nuzzling her hair gently.

"thank you, baby. you shouldn't have."

"i know," she huffs, "i'm exhausted, i wasn't thinking."

"yeah? how about we share it? and then i can tuck you into bed."

"i dont need to be tucked-" she protests.

"of course not. but last night was scary and i would like to do it."

"alright then."

they walk to bed slowly, leaning on each other - last night was scary. for both of them. too many close calls, too many times where she'd thought she wouldn't make it home. the horror of it had been put in the background after he'd called her, after she'd convinced him to rest instead of coming to help her with the paperwork. it's back in full force now, and she's so grateful that his arms are around her because she's not sure she'd make it without crashing to the ground without them.

shouto stays by her side, pressing soft kisses to her cheeks, all throughout the morning. only gets up to retrieve the breakfast she'd prepared.

the world is a blur, every motion too fast for link to comprehend. he needs it to stop, needs a moment to breathe, needs everything to just slow down.

it wasn't supposed to be like this. it was supposed to be over.

and yet. he's camping on an island in the sky after losing his right arm. going to find a shrine, again.

and shouto's somewhere under all of these ruins, alone.

it was never supposed to be like this again.

he wonders how shouto will react to his right arm, wonders if he'll be disgusted - if his last time running his fingers through red and white strands was a week before, on the morning he left.

it's even worse, that link knows he won't care. he should. shouto should care about what touches him - what dirties him. he never did, though, and maybe that's just another thing that drew them together. no matter how filthy and unworthy link may be, shouto's never been afraid of his touch. had always known how to clean both of them from their mistakes.

history's repeating and his love is alone, sleeping in their bed without link to keep him warm - keep him grounded, far away from those old childhood nightmares.

and link is here, camping in a field like he was years before, when everything kept ending. alone. with only the memory of shouto to keep him going, trying to catch the faintest wisps of his scented soap in his own too long hair.

he's been here for a couple days, he thinks, but he might've slept more.

so much more.

the thought is chilling, enough on its own to haunt his dreams. nevermind that he'd seen what was nothing more than a skeleton wake up and zelda fall into an abyss with him - shouto, growing old and brittle in an empty house, surrounded by malice. golden light shining out of his reach. or. shouto, growing old and brittle with some unnamed man at his side. the one he'd called love in his youth reduced to nothing more than a half forgotten memory.

he should be more scared, maybe. but there's just so much exhaustion and loneliness that he doesn't have the energy for anything else. it'll change. or it won't. or it'll keep growing and growing, getting bigger for every moment he's here.

every moment spent alone when there used to be someone at his side, when for so long he'd thought he'd get to have it - get to have shouto, everyday for the rest of his life. that he'd earned it, they both had. that there was a reason for his first failure, after all. because there was no shouto, a hundred years in the past, and surely there couldn't be a world where they weren't meant to be each other's home.

there couldn't be a world where cool hands weren't meant to hold his own, where his own nightmares weren't meant to be soothed by shouto's sleep soft voice and gentle affection.

there couldn't be a world where he was left empty in the aftermath of the end.

but there is, maybe. he's living in it right now. hylia is a benevolent goddess until there comes a time for her hero and her princess to rest, apparently.

red and white dance at the edge of his vision, just barely out of sight every way he turns. the echo of a warm voice in the chill night air. sleep now, love, you've been too tired for too long. he doesn't stop turning, still. desperate for every sign - every delusion - that might bring him home.