#onlyjuniper

Sometimes, time wasn’t always kind to people like them. I could give and give, but it could take and take. For someone as short-lived as himself, Itto had the barest idea of the sort of trials and tribulations that Naoki had gone through, but there was enough knowledge there to possess an idea. Though ideas didn’t know everything, that was the beauty of them: they could keep germinating until something grew, something deep and verdant as the forests that yokai like them called home. So, when the day of Naoki’s birthday came, Itto had worked closely with Onibaba to brainstorm ideas until it came to him: a collage. 

Life was a long journey through memory, and though theirs together was still limited, Itto hadn’t lived long enough to dream of creating something monumental but it didn’t need to be. In a simple, leatherbound book had Itto devised a collage, filling it with pressed flowers his aunt helped him to create, a technique that was well-loved by him. From there, Itto found as much as he could fill it with: ukiyo-e prints, brochures and advertisements from events they’d attended, columns of scripts that contained nonsensical poems he’d written, otherwise overflowing with thoughts about them, or Naoki, the past... Anything and everything he could think of. 

“Happy birthday, Mori-sama,” came the teasing nickname borne from his own birthday just a week or so before, wrapping the kitsune from behind to present the wrapped collage for him to open while Itto comfortably perched his jawline atop Naoki’s head, warm with contentment. 

“Hm, and here I thought I’d never see you again, kokuo.” The warmth in his voice was honeyed as a pleased, warmed haze saturated him at the thought of the recently bequeathed gift. The luminous blossoms illuminated his room at Onibaba’s night and day, and frankly, he couldn’t get enough of it. Winding massive arms around the shorter yokai’s waist, Itto exhaled contentedly. 

“Wha-- You again?!” Overreactions seemed to be a signature of the massive Oni, sputtering at the sight of the kitsune he’d already had two strange encounters with since the conclusion of the Irodori Festival, face one of comical outrage. 

“Fun shit, I hope!” With the kitsune seated comfortably on his lap while the pair observed as fireflies flitted through tall sweetgrass, engulfed as she was by his larger frame, a few streaks of color highlighting the contentment on their features while grasshoppers filled the dusky night air with their chorus. It was the kind of peace that half-Yokai couldn’t find in crowded human towns and villages, simply letting themselves become part of the environment. With Naoki’s warmth against his chest, it shielded him from the beginning nightly chill, resting his chin on his petite shoulder with a soft huff.

            “   . . .   ”   a ‘loud’ pause ,   “   he is not ugly ,  quite beautiful ,  but . . .  why the meowing ?   ”

it’s  a  greatly  theatrical  fact  that  since  his  inception,    scaramouche’s  understanding  of  his  own  mortality  or  lack  of  it  has  been  nearly  non-existent.    he  had  been  pieced  together  by  one  pair  of  hands,    and  pulled  apart  by  another.    seen  the  shifting  of  his  organs  within  his  own  stomach  while  he  sat  conscious  on  the  cold  table  within  the  fatui’s  stringent  lab.    dottore  wasn’t  a  fan  of  anesthetics,    and  they  didn’t  work  well  on  him,    anyway,    so  the  procedures  that  had  awakened  him  had  been  ones  done  in  consciousness.    he  hadn’t  whimpered  or  winced  or  begged  for  mercy,    and  he  hadn’t  cried.    he  had  sat  there  in  silence,    watching  with  burn  eyes,    mutinous.    every  harm  catalogued.

this  situation  isn’t  all  that  different,    except  he  gets  to  keep  his  guts  inside  this  time,    which  is  a  step  up  all  things  considered.    that’s  what  he’s  laughing  about.    a  quiet  snicker,    just  to  himself,    that’s  all  rotted  out  of  its  own  awareness.    the  haunting  sounds  outside  their  little  perimeter  of  safety  carry  with  them  a  dire  warning  of  lost  souls  and  lost  wanderers,    but  he  just  curls  his  leg  tight  to  keep  his  skin  far  enough  away  from  the  fire.    wouldn’t  want  to  have  to  repair  that  when  they  got  home.