Secret Worlds: A Beginning
Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.
Things were boring and blurry until he was finally sitting down: his mother's fingers combing through his unruly hair as they had climbed aboard the palanquin; the sights and sounds and smells of the outside world he wasn't allowed to visit yet but wasn't really interested in; her fingers again, pulling harder this time (she even licked her palm, to his utter mortification) as they had stood in the courtyard of the Shihouin estates, waiting for their attendants to exchange pleasantries with those of the Shihouin family. She had kept on combing and tugging and straightening right up until the very moment the shoji had opened, and his father – who had arrived much earlier that day, to talk things over – had risen and beckoned his wife and son into the room.
The princess was there, sitting quietly beside her mother, gazing at the floor. He supposed she was pretty, but he didn't really like girls. They were silly, and only wanted to do stupid stuff. If they got to play together, she would probably just want to show him her dolls, or play house.
While the adults talked, the children began to take stock of eachother. It started as hesitant glances on his part, and blatant staring on hers. She wasn't shy about it. He could feel her eyes running over him – across his messy hair and recently washed face, his stiff, stuffy clothes and bony little feet – like ice water trickling down his spine. She didn't smile, and she didn't frown: she just stared. It made him uneasy.
"Yoruichi," the girl's mother said, with a simpering smile that was almost genuine. "Why don't you take Kisuke outside for a walk in the gardens, hmm?"
The Princess murmured acquiescence, rising easily in her elaborate little kimono, seeming to glide across the floor as she came to stand before him. He glanced at his mother, who was smiling and nodding encouragingly, and took the small, dark hand Yoruichi offered him.
It was calloused and rough; not at all what he had been expecting. It was like his, and not like his mother's.
A servant slid the door open for them, pressing her face to the floor as she bowed her young mistress and the honored guest out. As soon as it was shut again, Yoruichi dropped his hand, scowling at him as she scrubbed her palm on her yukata.
"Sorry," he said, giving her a sheepish smile. "Sweaty hands."
She sniffed and moved off down the path, plucking a reed from the edge of the koi pond and using it to switch the heads off of the fluffy pink flowers clustering around the bushes. She didn't turn back to see if he was following, so he followed, intent on being as obnoxious as possible. It was something he'd found himself to be very good at.
When they were out of sight of the servants and guards, Yoruichi took a quick glance back at him, gesturing for him to come closer. As he drew even with her, she grabbed his wrist and tugged him off the path, into a big stand of thick, scratchy bushes.
"What are you doing?" he demanded as she struggled to shove her way through to the hollow created by the branches close to the trunk.
"What does it look like?" she retorted, shooting him a glare that clearly said, 'be quiet and keep up'. "I'm trying to get out of this kimono. I feel like a trussed pig."
Even as she spoke, her rough little hands were stretching and straining to reach around her back and pull at the cords holding her obi in place. She managed to catch the tail of one end, but couldn't get her fingers on the knot.
With something between a sigh and a grunt, he batted her hands away, and tugged the knot loose with only a few pulls. Together they unwound the obi and pulled out the padding and peeled away the kimono and soon she was standing in her white linen underclothes, hopping around on one foot as she pulled off her sandals and socks.
"Me next," Kisuke told her, when she'd picked her now-useless outfit up off the ground: neither one of them would be able to retie the obi.
"You next what?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I helped you," he pointed out.
She stared at him. "You're yukata ties in the front."
He began to whistle, lacing his fingers together behind his head, clearly displaying the fastenings of his little blue robe.
While muttering things like "useless", "lazy", and "stupid", Yoruichi bent and unfastened his yukata. He kept whistling until she undid his hakama.
"There," she announced, straightening as he shrugged out of his clothing. He almost tripped more than once stepping out of his pants.
"Right," he said, dusting off his garments and slinging them up beside hers. The gray-blue clashed very badly with the sunny yellow and grass green of her kimono and obi. "So what are we doing now?"
"Something better than sipping tea," Yoruichi replied, crawling on her hands and knees through a tiny hole on the other side of the hollow: it just happened to be a hole in the estate's outer wall as well.
On the other side of the hole was a shallow, muddy channel that ran around the back wall and off into the distance, disappearing into the trees that marked the edge of the Shihouin lands.
Kisuke took a good look at the mud – it had rained recently – before turning to glance at Yoruichi. He gave her a long, searching look before saying; "You're going to get me in trouble, aren't you?"
AN: The beginnings of what I hope to be a fic of around 10 chapters in length, focusing on key points in the development of the friendship of Kisuke and Yoruichi. How am I doing so far?