there's a river in me still
Feb. 11th, 2019 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seleniasTitle: there's a river in me still
Prompt: 22. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Characters/pairing: Natori/Matoba, almost
Rating: all audiences
Word Count: 1964
Notes: The line Natori recalls on Seiji's palm is known as the masukake line, and is said to be the mark of a conqueror. For context: https://jpninfo.com/39193
-
Matoba Seiji wore the head’s robes with the grace of someone who had done it before. The mean streak at the edge of his mouth he’d worn as a child had turned upward into something cool and practiced, his hair had grown past his shoulders to require he tie it back, and his jaw was sharp and sweet against the line of his yukata, sharp enough to turn the heads and interests of everyone in the room.
Natori had missed all of this development. He’d balked, uncertainly, when he’d arrived in the hall, and seen what he’d have to face.
More importantly, and what baffled him the most: Matoba was smiling, teeth catching the light and illuminating him, and Natori wanted to blow up the entire room and walk away. There was nothing to be happy about.
“There will be no delay in our conference this summer. While we convene and decide on an avenue, we will continue to host our monthly meetings here--”
The whispers floated around with the collective sigh of a hundred guests or more, pieces of conversation breaking against the shell of his ear: did you hear that the Matoba head already nearly lost the eye? He did great work as a kid, but shouldn’t it take a lot longer before someone of his talent breaks?
“--A lot of traveling to get here, when will they start using the southern estates again?”
“--disgusting that they allow children to run their business,” a man to Natori’s left muttered, the elastic strap that held his mask in place drawing a sharp line across the back of his skull. A woman pressed in beside him, looking harried.
“Better their children than ours. The new head has a mean streak though, unlike his father. You should watch your mouth--”
Natori excused himself from the gossip and found himself moving south, toward the staircase that wound up gently to the second story. Yukata slipped across the floor around him, feet moving opposite of his. He passed through the open door beside the narrow wooden steps and began to climb. To gaze down at everyone was what children did, and he allowed himself to glance back, once, toward the head of the room -- Matoba and his entourage weren’t looking at him or anywhere in his direction. A relief, that.
The air from outside was cool and soothing. It did nothing to hide the tremble in his hands, but as he clenched them into fists and let them turn slack, so the tension left too. He brushed petals off the railing and considered how he had heard a similar story once before and chosen to ignore it then, too. Too concerned with his own problems, he’d avoided the ones right in front of him.
Still not his problem, but regardless -- Natori could put a name to the feeling now, the same one that dogged after him as he shed his youth and left that whimsical world behind -- left Seiji behind, by extension.
Shame.
--
“A minor set-back,” Matoba confessed, “though I admit it’s not what I had anticipated.” He flicked a piece of lint from the sleeve of his yukata, face turning toward the courtyard below, the blooming hydrangeas and the line of willows that stretched along a dark, clear body of water. Red and silver koi in that pond, Natori remembered.
He’d caught Seiji feeding the fish crushed slivers of crackers from a plate of them once. Now, they were large enough to spot from a distance, swimming circles in shallow water, slipping between lily pads and pink blooms before disappearing entirely from sight.
Natori leaned away from the balustrade to his full height. The metal was smooth and cold under his fingers, warm only where he’d pressed himself against it. The afternoon sun reached no further than his knees. This comfort was temporary. “A match for the Matoba clan,” he began carefully, “--I didn’t think that was possible.”
Matoba laughed and stepped closer into the light, hands slipping out of the sleeves of his yukata to brush petals from the rail. “It happens. A head so long ago believed in betrayal as a way of power sharing. It was also a time when we carried swords and bows and worked as bushido. Most of those things are gone now, of course. This is one path we can’t change.”
“I know the stories,” Natori said. He watched his gecko scrawl up the back of his hand, disappear into his robes.
“Funny, that.” Matoba craned his neck, expression inscrutable. “You don’t discuss them with anyone.”
Natori raised his eyebrows and shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, blue sleeve falling down to his elbow. “I don’t care for gossip.”
“It’s how you learn things. You think asking will always yield the correct information?”
“We’re talking now, aren’t we?” And tiredly -- aren’t you done giving me advice?
“Ask,” Matoba said, eyes narrowing, “while I’m getting some air.”
He pressed forward and Natori stepped back, cursed himself for moving. Matoba took another. His hand reached out and grabbed Natori’s just above the wrist. He flipped it palm side up and leaned in close, breath warming his fingers. The movement carried his black hair over a shoulder and it grazed Natori’s arm on the way down, made him shiver and jerk -- like a summer not so long ago, when Seiji had regarded him over a swatch of field grass, eyes shuttered and crimson, and leaned over to kiss his mouth for the first and last time.
Similiar to now, except -- no. Natori breathed sharply through his nose. The top of Matoba’s head was level with his mouth. That time was past. It was world's away.
“Your life line was always short,” Matoba muttered, spreading Natori’s hand flat. “I could fix that.”
Natori wheezed out a laugh, tried to remember the shape of a fist. “You failed to convince me when we were kids. What makes you think you can now?”
Matoba traced the crease in his palms, middle finger blunt and calloused against the clammy skin. He was smiling. “You say that like it was so long ago. You’re nineteen.”
“So what.” Natori pulled and Matoba held on, fingers sliding down his arm to settle at the base of his wrist. Natori couldn’t curl his fingers without catching hold of Matoba’s.
“Fine, I’ll bite,” Natori sighed. The inked cloth stared back. “Your eye -- did it hurt?”
“Imagine leaning in too close to a candle to blow it out,” he began carefully. He pressed into the base of his thumb, making muscle ache that Natori recently forgotten could. The lines in his palm converged into a singular mess; unreadable for Matoba’s purpose -- which was what?
“You can’t stare down a flame.”
“Correct. It burns you.”
He said nothing. Matoba’s fingers lined up right over the pulse in his wrist; Natori felt the thrum of it between their skin, one vulnerability exchanged for another.
“Ask again,” Matoba remarked. He lifted his face away from Natori’s hand but didn’t let go. Natori couldn’t hold his gaze for long and stared at a point thru and past him, stared at the way the sun turned glittery against the north wall, the light looping through the garden, the pond and the trees, the slope of the roof.
He swallowed. Considered. “Are you going to let yourself get worn down by duty?”
“Duty.” Matoba snorted. “Strange for you to say. You don’t know what that is.”
“It’s what you think this is,” he snapped, watched Matoba’s lashes droop low.
Don’t tell me you talked about it only to convince yourself of its importance? How many other lies are you telling yourself these days?
“It’s simply what must be done. It’s not a secret. I’m certain the Natori clan kept tabs on us, perhaps about as much as mine did centuries ago. You already know. Fictitious, to think I would do anything otherwise. I don’t intend to leave it. I belong here.”
“Good for you, then.” Natori yanked his hand back and Matoba’s grip released; whatever lines had once been strung between them chaffed and could not be soothed. His self-imposed exile had been good for one thing, he supposed: himself.
Matoba slipped his fingers into his sleeves and stepped back, hem sweeping against his ankles. His smile faded, though it returned to its crooked shape soon enough, something almost pitying along the sloping angle of his jaw. “Natori-san, you’re wasting time worrying over the small things. You always did have--”
“Save it.” Natori sucked in a breath through his teeth, tried to focus on what he knew, what he could ascertain, the desperate fact of the moment: Matoba Seiji sought him out because -- because they knew each other? Because he was lonely? Because Natori would only ever register as a cheap threat on a board of them and that made him a safe fixture to turn to?
(But he wondered, sometimes, what visions Matoba could have lead him to have -- if he’d said yes that day as children, if he’d admitted that a friendship could have been comfortable, if Seiji had been honest with his intent from the start --
No. Too many unknowns. There was no clear path to take, only what felt right and only what felt wrong.
Perhaps the wrongness had been with himself, but he could never admit it now.)
Natori leaned on the rail and it creaked, sleeves trailing along the metal. The trellis climbed two floors and ended above their heads, where purple flowers from a wisteria bloomed nauseous and sweet. Natori watched a bee land on a petal and crawl toward the stem, yellow pockets bulging. “Your garden is beautiful to look at,” he finally managed. “Aren’t you keeping your guests waiting though?”
“I am,” Matoba said. He reached out, unconcerned, to touch a slick, unopened bud. “These only bloom once a year though. A shame, as I quite like them. Your garden is nicer though, Natori-san. You probably find this distasteful."
The bloom slipped out of his fingers, bounced back into place, as if it had only been stirred by the breeze.
Natori couldn’t respond quick enough to correct him, then realized it didn’t matter anyway.
In the hour after Matoba left, Natori crept down to the genkan to retrieve his shoes and slipped out along the gravel pathway. Blooms littered the path, crushed underfoot by party-goers and shiki alike. A youkai servant was lighting the tōrō when he passed, the sky just turning pale and crusted with yellow, and the lick of the flame burned black spots in his vision when he looked away again. The path through the trees was still and dark.
In the end, Matoba never did voice what question he was supposed to ask. He was as elusive now as he’d been as a boy, except for the hungry glint of his eyes, now singular, he looked at Natori the same way. Curiously, then less so -- as if they were river watching, and something interesting had gone under and out of sight.
It was just something Natori noticed.
(Something else he noticed, that he entertained for far longer, at his most miserable, but would take significant blows to admit: he would always wonder whether Seiji had wanted him to stay when they were children, and wonder why he never had the courage to ask.
He thinks he knows the answer. His hands confirm it. All he would have to do is go back--)
Natori waited at the bus stop for not very long.
When he withdrew yen bills from his pocket, the residue from the flowers he’d crushed in his earlier temper made his fingers stick together. The doors opened and exhaled cool air in his face, the engine hummed and rattled.
He climbed aboard.
--Come to think of it, Matoba’s hands always faced away from him these days.
Prompt: 22. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Characters/pairing: Natori/Matoba, almost
Rating: all audiences
Word Count: 1964
Notes: The line Natori recalls on Seiji's palm is known as the masukake line, and is said to be the mark of a conqueror. For context: https://jpninfo.com/39193
-
Matoba Seiji wore the head’s robes with the grace of someone who had done it before. The mean streak at the edge of his mouth he’d worn as a child had turned upward into something cool and practiced, his hair had grown past his shoulders to require he tie it back, and his jaw was sharp and sweet against the line of his yukata, sharp enough to turn the heads and interests of everyone in the room.
Natori had missed all of this development. He’d balked, uncertainly, when he’d arrived in the hall, and seen what he’d have to face.
More importantly, and what baffled him the most: Matoba was smiling, teeth catching the light and illuminating him, and Natori wanted to blow up the entire room and walk away. There was nothing to be happy about.
“There will be no delay in our conference this summer. While we convene and decide on an avenue, we will continue to host our monthly meetings here--”
The whispers floated around with the collective sigh of a hundred guests or more, pieces of conversation breaking against the shell of his ear: did you hear that the Matoba head already nearly lost the eye? He did great work as a kid, but shouldn’t it take a lot longer before someone of his talent breaks?
“--A lot of traveling to get here, when will they start using the southern estates again?”
“--disgusting that they allow children to run their business,” a man to Natori’s left muttered, the elastic strap that held his mask in place drawing a sharp line across the back of his skull. A woman pressed in beside him, looking harried.
“Better their children than ours. The new head has a mean streak though, unlike his father. You should watch your mouth--”
Natori excused himself from the gossip and found himself moving south, toward the staircase that wound up gently to the second story. Yukata slipped across the floor around him, feet moving opposite of his. He passed through the open door beside the narrow wooden steps and began to climb. To gaze down at everyone was what children did, and he allowed himself to glance back, once, toward the head of the room -- Matoba and his entourage weren’t looking at him or anywhere in his direction. A relief, that.
The air from outside was cool and soothing. It did nothing to hide the tremble in his hands, but as he clenched them into fists and let them turn slack, so the tension left too. He brushed petals off the railing and considered how he had heard a similar story once before and chosen to ignore it then, too. Too concerned with his own problems, he’d avoided the ones right in front of him.
Still not his problem, but regardless -- Natori could put a name to the feeling now, the same one that dogged after him as he shed his youth and left that whimsical world behind -- left Seiji behind, by extension.
Shame.
“A minor set-back,” Matoba confessed, “though I admit it’s not what I had anticipated.” He flicked a piece of lint from the sleeve of his yukata, face turning toward the courtyard below, the blooming hydrangeas and the line of willows that stretched along a dark, clear body of water. Red and silver koi in that pond, Natori remembered.
He’d caught Seiji feeding the fish crushed slivers of crackers from a plate of them once. Now, they were large enough to spot from a distance, swimming circles in shallow water, slipping between lily pads and pink blooms before disappearing entirely from sight.
Natori leaned away from the balustrade to his full height. The metal was smooth and cold under his fingers, warm only where he’d pressed himself against it. The afternoon sun reached no further than his knees. This comfort was temporary. “A match for the Matoba clan,” he began carefully, “--I didn’t think that was possible.”
Matoba laughed and stepped closer into the light, hands slipping out of the sleeves of his yukata to brush petals from the rail. “It happens. A head so long ago believed in betrayal as a way of power sharing. It was also a time when we carried swords and bows and worked as bushido. Most of those things are gone now, of course. This is one path we can’t change.”
“I know the stories,” Natori said. He watched his gecko scrawl up the back of his hand, disappear into his robes.
“Funny, that.” Matoba craned his neck, expression inscrutable. “You don’t discuss them with anyone.”
Natori raised his eyebrows and shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, blue sleeve falling down to his elbow. “I don’t care for gossip.”
“It’s how you learn things. You think asking will always yield the correct information?”
“We’re talking now, aren’t we?” And tiredly -- aren’t you done giving me advice?
“Ask,” Matoba said, eyes narrowing, “while I’m getting some air.”
He pressed forward and Natori stepped back, cursed himself for moving. Matoba took another. His hand reached out and grabbed Natori’s just above the wrist. He flipped it palm side up and leaned in close, breath warming his fingers. The movement carried his black hair over a shoulder and it grazed Natori’s arm on the way down, made him shiver and jerk -- like a summer not so long ago, when Seiji had regarded him over a swatch of field grass, eyes shuttered and crimson, and leaned over to kiss his mouth for the first and last time.
Similiar to now, except -- no. Natori breathed sharply through his nose. The top of Matoba’s head was level with his mouth. That time was past. It was world's away.
“Your life line was always short,” Matoba muttered, spreading Natori’s hand flat. “I could fix that.”
Natori wheezed out a laugh, tried to remember the shape of a fist. “You failed to convince me when we were kids. What makes you think you can now?”
Matoba traced the crease in his palms, middle finger blunt and calloused against the clammy skin. He was smiling. “You say that like it was so long ago. You’re nineteen.”
“So what.” Natori pulled and Matoba held on, fingers sliding down his arm to settle at the base of his wrist. Natori couldn’t curl his fingers without catching hold of Matoba’s.
“Fine, I’ll bite,” Natori sighed. The inked cloth stared back. “Your eye -- did it hurt?”
“Imagine leaning in too close to a candle to blow it out,” he began carefully. He pressed into the base of his thumb, making muscle ache that Natori recently forgotten could. The lines in his palm converged into a singular mess; unreadable for Matoba’s purpose -- which was what?
“You can’t stare down a flame.”
“Correct. It burns you.”
He said nothing. Matoba’s fingers lined up right over the pulse in his wrist; Natori felt the thrum of it between their skin, one vulnerability exchanged for another.
“Ask again,” Matoba remarked. He lifted his face away from Natori’s hand but didn’t let go. Natori couldn’t hold his gaze for long and stared at a point thru and past him, stared at the way the sun turned glittery against the north wall, the light looping through the garden, the pond and the trees, the slope of the roof.
He swallowed. Considered. “Are you going to let yourself get worn down by duty?”
“Duty.” Matoba snorted. “Strange for you to say. You don’t know what that is.”
“It’s what you think this is,” he snapped, watched Matoba’s lashes droop low.
Don’t tell me you talked about it only to convince yourself of its importance? How many other lies are you telling yourself these days?
“It’s simply what must be done. It’s not a secret. I’m certain the Natori clan kept tabs on us, perhaps about as much as mine did centuries ago. You already know. Fictitious, to think I would do anything otherwise. I don’t intend to leave it. I belong here.”
“Good for you, then.” Natori yanked his hand back and Matoba’s grip released; whatever lines had once been strung between them chaffed and could not be soothed. His self-imposed exile had been good for one thing, he supposed: himself.
Matoba slipped his fingers into his sleeves and stepped back, hem sweeping against his ankles. His smile faded, though it returned to its crooked shape soon enough, something almost pitying along the sloping angle of his jaw. “Natori-san, you’re wasting time worrying over the small things. You always did have--”
“Save it.” Natori sucked in a breath through his teeth, tried to focus on what he knew, what he could ascertain, the desperate fact of the moment: Matoba Seiji sought him out because -- because they knew each other? Because he was lonely? Because Natori would only ever register as a cheap threat on a board of them and that made him a safe fixture to turn to?
(But he wondered, sometimes, what visions Matoba could have lead him to have -- if he’d said yes that day as children, if he’d admitted that a friendship could have been comfortable, if Seiji had been honest with his intent from the start --
No. Too many unknowns. There was no clear path to take, only what felt right and only what felt wrong.
Perhaps the wrongness had been with himself, but he could never admit it now.)
Natori leaned on the rail and it creaked, sleeves trailing along the metal. The trellis climbed two floors and ended above their heads, where purple flowers from a wisteria bloomed nauseous and sweet. Natori watched a bee land on a petal and crawl toward the stem, yellow pockets bulging. “Your garden is beautiful to look at,” he finally managed. “Aren’t you keeping your guests waiting though?”
“I am,” Matoba said. He reached out, unconcerned, to touch a slick, unopened bud. “These only bloom once a year though. A shame, as I quite like them. Your garden is nicer though, Natori-san. You probably find this distasteful."
The bloom slipped out of his fingers, bounced back into place, as if it had only been stirred by the breeze.
Natori couldn’t respond quick enough to correct him, then realized it didn’t matter anyway.
In the hour after Matoba left, Natori crept down to the genkan to retrieve his shoes and slipped out along the gravel pathway. Blooms littered the path, crushed underfoot by party-goers and shiki alike. A youkai servant was lighting the tōrō when he passed, the sky just turning pale and crusted with yellow, and the lick of the flame burned black spots in his vision when he looked away again. The path through the trees was still and dark.
In the end, Matoba never did voice what question he was supposed to ask. He was as elusive now as he’d been as a boy, except for the hungry glint of his eyes, now singular, he looked at Natori the same way. Curiously, then less so -- as if they were river watching, and something interesting had gone under and out of sight.
It was just something Natori noticed.
(Something else he noticed, that he entertained for far longer, at his most miserable, but would take significant blows to admit: he would always wonder whether Seiji had wanted him to stay when they were children, and wonder why he never had the courage to ask.
He thinks he knows the answer. His hands confirm it. All he would have to do is go back--)
Natori waited at the bus stop for not very long.
When he withdrew yen bills from his pocket, the residue from the flowers he’d crushed in his earlier temper made his fingers stick together. The doors opened and exhaled cool air in his face, the engine hummed and rattled.
He climbed aboard.
--Come to think of it, Matoba’s hands always faced away from him these days.
