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Asogi Kazuma was six years old, and had never trained without his hands in compression wraps or gloves, with his yukata drawn tight across his back. He had an agreement with his father, meticulously lain out to allow him to be both restrained and happy, if never quite relaxed. "Relaxation are for those who are not as controlled or just as I know you will be," his father had said, and because his father never lied, that must have been true.
He trained with his practice sword and never complained about how tight his gloves were. He meditated under the waterfall not so far from their home as his mother had taught him, sitting in proper seiza and never moving a muscle no matter how cold he got, only ever pulling his yukata closer to his skin. He couldn’t last as long as his mother could, who could spend the day from dawn until dusk meditating, but even for only an hour or two…
Karuma-sensei, when rarely he could be alone in a room with the great blade, only ever seemed to tell him in its way to be patient, to save his restlessness for later. That the time would come to be like the tsunami, rising and rising until it staked a claim upon the land that had for so long ignored the currents under the waves. But still he was restless, even as he repeated his training exercises for a third time that evening, wishing the restlessness would leave his body.
It always buzzed under his skin, trapped energy with no way out. He didn’t know what would happen if he lost control of his restraint, if he didn’t focus so much on control and fluidity and being like the water. It pleased his father greatly when he was good, when he stayed calm. Even when Kazuma was restless, pacing around the room and unable to pick up his training sword, utterly convinced that if he did he would end up breaking it by accident, he didn’t let go of his restraint.
Be like the water, his father would say. Do not allow the impulse to change you. Let it slip away on the winds like driftwood.
Kazuma curled up on his futon, long after the lights had been extinguished and the moon, waning gibbous in the sky, watched on, and breathed deeply and evenly even as his restlessness formed tears on his cheeks.
Asogi Kazuma, sixteen years old, would have traded the invisibility of his curse and every scrap of restraint he had if either of his parents would come back, even if all they did was scold him for unsheathing his claws instead of Karuma-sensei. He hadn’t meant for this to happen, even as it should have been obvious even to him that this was going to happen eventually. Of course, admitting that this was a possibility was to admit to failure, and Asogi Kazuma did not fail.
Or so he kept telling himself, anyway. He lingered after school for an hour and a half, to finish his schoolwork for the day and study for whatever time was left, before he returned to the Mikotoba residence for the evening. Sometimes, he did his studying in the student library or the lounge, but other times he would take his studying outside, in secluded areas, keeping a few favourites in rotation but never visiting one place so frequently that anyone would think to look for him there.
The best way to not be noticed, he had long since learned, was to step into the background, never standing in the spotlight, never being so odd as to be an anomaly. He was, of course, an anomaly and everyone knew it: Asogi Kazuma, who had been banned from carrying the family katana at school and who didn’t have parents and who never met a class discussion he didn’t think was some sort of intellectual warfare. But the more he kept his head down and worked, the less of an anomaly he would be.
So he worked, and he studied, and on one particular day, two of the other boys approached him as he was studying out on the grounds, not quite out of the way but easily passed by without being remarked upon. It was a nice place to study for a little while, near the bubbling stream but high enough that it was generally dry enough to sit on the rocks and not worry about more than the insects. He looked up as they approached, noted that they shared classes, but not much more about either one. He hadn’t bothered to learn either of their names. They clearly knew his, the way one looked furious and the other looked smug.
The one that looked furious stepped forward. "Asogi. You slept with my girlfriend."
Ah, right. He did occasionally forget himself, or get distracted from his studying. Both boys and girls could do that to him, if he felt like dispelling his restlessness while playing hard-and-fast with his restraint. He didn’t quite sigh, but set his books aside: this confrontation was going to last more than a few minutes, and he still had two classes’ worth of work to deal with.
"No one told me she already had someone," he answered flatly. He didn’t bother to ask which girl in their grade they were talking about. It really didn’t matter, and rumours would have flown if he hadn’t had a relationship or two. So far as he was aware, he hadn’t broken any sort of societal agreement, even if he didn’t know what they were talking about.
"I told you he wouldn’t deny it," said the smug one.
They’re lying to me, he thought. He rose to his feet, folding his arms over his chest. He had half a foot of height on the furious one, and at least twenty pounds on the smug one. Even without Karuma-sensei, he was quite sure he could handle two-on-one without any of his textbooks ending up in the stream.
The less he would remark about the next five minutes in his journal, the better. The smug boy got out of the way within seconds of the first punch being thrown, clearly having set this up to get them both in trouble for fighting. When Kazuma had sufficiently defended himself from the furious one, the foolish one, he turned on the smug one. The coward.
He could feel the restlessness sparking under his skin. He didn’t have to end the fight here, quick and dirty as it was. Fighting honourably was for an honest foundation, and all of this was built on lies. The restlessness centred itself in his hands. If he relaxed, if he lost his restraint, while he wasn’t so sure what would happen, he was sure everyone would know one of the two real reasons why his father’s family disowned him. He wasn’t going to be the sort of man they believed his father had been.
They’d both been set up into fighting, just because one boy who couldn’t keep his mouth shut wanted entertainment. Really, there was only one way he could answer such an insult. Be like water, his late father had said, over and over. Let your anger wash away on the tide. The way he surely would have.
Kazuma forced his restlessness into his back, certain the smug boy wouldn’t notice. He stepped forward. The boy’s smugness wavered. Kazuma stepped closer again, planted a still-sinew-and-bone hand on each shoulder, and shoved him into the stream.
The boy hit the rocky riverbed with a yelp. Kazuma huffed. He dusted off his uniform, picked up his books, and walked away. They wouldn’t bother him again. The restlessness sparking underneath his skin remained.
"Come on, kiss me more," Ryunosuke teased, as the back of Kazuma’s head hit the pillow. His seasickness had finally abated two days into the journey on the S.S. Burya, and feeling significantly better - while pleading he was still sick to Judicial Assistant Mikotoba and the crew - they’d taken to spending time together around their studying. He’d been teaching Ryunosuke little bits of law around more educational periods of physical activity, learning each other’s preferences with a lot more privacy than either was exactly used to.
They’d started sharing a dorm at the beginning of their second year, and had combined their futons almost immediately. Yumei University didn’t have the thick stone walls of a steamship, though, and certainly didn’t allow its students to lock their doors from unwanted guests and classmates. Kazuma smiled, his elbows resting on Ryunosuke’s shoulders, and pulled him down for another kiss.
Ryunosuke kissed deep and hard and with more tongue than teeth, angling his head so they didn’t slam their noses together. Kazuma relaxed into it - never fully relaxed, never fully without tension, but releasing bits and pieces of it like driftwood on the waves - and returned his kiss with significantly more teeth. Ryunosuke hummed into it, rubbing his thumb against Kazuma’s hip.
Kazuma pulled him in a little closer, his legs wrapped around Ryunosuke’s hips. He’d missed taking notes in more than one lecture while Ryunosuke was making his argument, pacing from one side of the classroom to the other, his brush still but his eyes tracking those hips, utterly captivated. Having Ryunosuke here… It made him want to be reckless. He wasn’t a reckless person, had never quite managed to express nearly that much ferocious anger for more than a moment.
Ryunosuke’s kiss slipped from his mouth to the line of his jaw, sneaking a bite in just under the bone. Kazuma let out a soft gasp. He could feel the restlessness again, the restlessness he’d long since stopped noticing return in full force. Even with the sweet pain of Ryunosuke’s bite against his neck, he couldn’t make himself let loose. He couldn’t make himself relax, find out what happened when he let go of his restraint. Something terrible, that was what his father had said once, when he thought Kazuma was asleep. That was all he knew, if he let go of his restraint. If he wanted that, if he wanted to trust Ryunosuke the way he knew he couldn’t trust anyone else, his love would have to goad him into it.
He wanted that. Right here, right now, before the steamship docked in London and he had to be the water that weakened the foundations of all of their lies… He wanted that. He wanted to trust him. He wanted to let go. Ryunosuke looked up again, smiling. There wasn’t a day that Kazuma’s heart didn’t flutter at that smile. It had taken him six months to find the courage to hold his hand without gloves on, but from the moment Ryunosuke helped him off the stage before utterly destroying him, his heart fluttered at that smile.
Ryunosuke kissed him again, and Kazuma returned it, arms thrown almost carelessly around his shoulders, hands never touching him. Even now, lying on his back with one of his biggest secrets between his legs sliding kisses down his cheek and jawline to his neck, tugging the fabric away… No, some things he couldn’t make himself say. Not when it might ruin everything, even if he wanted to trust him. Trusting him would be a step too far.
Ryunosuke’s kisses brushed the base of his neck and he hummed, faintly ignoring how it tickled the way he ignored the rest of his emotions, and he was relaxed, he was. Nothing was going to go wrong, at least not today. For now, nothing was going to go wrong.
Maybe one of these days he would believe his own lies. "You need to get out of your head, Kazuma," Ryunosuke murmured against the skin of his collarbone. He grunted in answer.
"Easier said than done."
Ryunosuke huffed, pulling the blanket up over them both a little more. "Then relax, and let me do the rest," he said softly, the warmth of his hand slipping from Kazuma’s hip into his trousers. He wasn’t so sure about relaxation, but he could all but feel his brain’s higher functions turning off, and that was the closest he was likely ever going to get.
For better or for worse, Kazuma trusted him.
"Cap’n, we’ve got a uh, a stowaway?" The voice was rugged and low alto, grumpy and a little confused-sounding. The nameless man flinched as the speaker pulled the barrels out of the way, betraying his hiding spot. They’d been speaking English at port, they’d said they were bound next for London…
The speaker was a woman with cropped silver hair and a sailor’s outfit, flowers braided into her hair and green, ivy-shaped tattoos marking each side of her face. Her eyes were a sort of red-pink he’d never seen on a person before, but was clearly there all the same. She made for a tall and imposing figure, muscles clearly worn from decades working the ships.
A soft clip-clop of hooves preceded another woman walking into his view: this one had a crown of braids the same red-pink colour as the first woman’s eyes, and had the legs of a goat at least from a little under her skirt down. The deck was slippery. She wasn’t sliding. Rather, she glared at him like he was vermin unexpectedly found on her ship, and given her tricorne hat, maybe he was.
He held up his hands in surrender. He might find himself walking the plank in short order. He hadn’t thought they were pirates, or otherwise nefarious, but given the way she was looking at him…
"You want to give me a reason why you’re stowing away on my ship?" asked the woman with the red hair and goat legs. The captain, then. "Haul him up, I can’t see him well."
The silver-haired woman reached down and grabbed him by the bicep, dragging him up to his feet and into the light. His vision faded out, for a moment, before returning as he squinted into the sunlight. He was shorter than both women, although burlier than the captain. The one with the silver hair looked like she could probably pick up one of the masts all by herself, if she needed to.
"You said you were going to- to England, ma’am," he managed. The words all felt just out of his reach… it was so hard to think. It had been ever since he’d woken up alone in a Hong Kong port, his neck bandaged and wearing only enough clothes to sort-of call himself decent. "I can work."
The captain raised an eyebrow. "That’s not how you get on my ship, boy," she said, flatly. She didn’t look any older than he was, even if her eyes - a grey cold enough it bordered on violet - suggested something different. "He might tell differently if he realizes how unlikely he is to live. Shake him."
The silver-haired crewmate shook him. Pain ruptured up his spine from the mysterious injury on his neck - likely the reason he didn’t remember who he was. He’d jostled it, but never like this. Never with this much carelessness.
He screamed. The crewmate stopped shaking him, and the pain remained. He went limp against her grip. She muttered something under her breath, grabbing him by his ribs on the other side to keep him upright. He stayed limp, the pain too overwhelming for anything else.
After a few more moments, the pain slowly subsided enough to see again. A few more, and he was left gasping, but able enough to stand if he leaned on the crewmate a little. The captain had an odd expression on her face, hard to interpret through the dizzying remnants of the agony. "Who ’n the bloody Meikai are you, boy?" she asked.
He shrugged with one shoulder, weakly. That seemed to be the most motion he could manage without aggravating his neck. "Dunno. I think… I think I lost my memory. Don’t remember… anything before a week ago." His voice came out raspy, worn through by his scream.
The crewmate and the captain exchanged a glance. Then the crewmate leaned over. Without any further fanfare, she took her hand off of his ribs and stuck a finger under his bandages, against the wound. He yelped in pain, forcing himself forward, away from her touch-
-and straight into one of the barrels, slamming into it and then going over. His nose hit the deck before the rest of him. His neck bent a little too far with the impact. Something warm gushed against his face, just before he registered the pain. He blacked out.
When he awoke, he was in a bed, his neck pleasantly numb from his collarbone to his jaw. The silver-haired crewmate was waiting for him in a chair, now marked by her dark grey horns and the flowers, which he’d mistook for braided into her hair, clearly growing directly from her skin. He looked down, and his hands were normal and human, unlike the rest of the crew he’d seen so far, if a little bloody from the apparent breaking of his nose from when he went down. He could feel a fizzling under the skin, one he hadn’t been aware of before now.
"Welcome to the crew, cousin," she said dryly. "Figured Fionn would’ve told us if he was expecting anyone, but hey, that’s what baby brothers are for, being useless." She smiled, then, all teeth, and he weakly, uncertainly, smiled back.
When Captain Iselinn had let him go at the ports of London, it had been with a shallow bow, some money that she said would pay for his food and lodging for a year if he was resourceful, and the promise that should he call on her again, she would answer him. She was one of five non-dragons on her ship, as he was the only human. She never called him anything but ’cousin’, refusing to explain why she thought they might be related, despite looking nothing like each other and definitely not being the same species. Although she said the same of every crewmate she had, and only the dragons actually bore any resemblance to each other. Sort of.
"Keep that under your cloak, Apprentice," his mentor rumbled, a comforting presence beside him. He nodded, and shifted the evidence under his arm to be more firmly under his cloak. The cabs weren’t running at this hour, and they’d been investigating on foot for two, tracking a criminal back to his lair, watching, and then getting out with the evidence that would prove their case and put another gang behind bars.
London reeked of them, like mould. They weren’t quite running, trying to blend into the crowd, slipping away from the scene of multiple crimes. If they could just get away…
They stepped out of the small side street, onto a larger street, and no less than eight men jumped out of the crowd, all armed. The nameless apprentice froze, not two feet away from his mentor. They couldn’t let them get their hands on the evidence.
"Nice to see you again, Reaper," spat one of the men, his face largely hidden by a scarf across his face and a hat. "Be nice if it was the last time, hm, boys?"
His mentor glowered, and drew his sword. "Don’t linger here, I’ll follow you back," he hissed to his apprentice. The nameless apprentice nodded, drawing his own sword. Eight men - four each. He could handle four-on-one. His hands were itching for a fight, all restlessness and focus.
He smiled, almost feral, and lunged at one of the men with a gun. The man stepped back, raising the gun to fire. He never got the chance. The apprentice slammed into him, sword across his assailant’s shoulder, driving the heel of his boot into his foot.
The crunch of bone was enough to let him pivot to the next one. They weren’t lining up to fight him. He sidestepped, slashing at the other gunman, aiming for the arms. Manslaughter through self-defense would be a headache. Two shots rung out, one grazing his forearm. He snarled, his hands fizzing with energy, and dropped, driving his shoulder forward into the man’s stomach.
He didn’t drop his sword as he stood up, slinging the man over his shoulder and onto the ground. He kicked the gun out of the man’s hand, sending it spinning off towards the gutter. The crowd had parted around them, some horrified onlookers remaining without being useful. Two swordsmen to go, he could take them.
A third shot rang out, and one of the two swordsmen dropped, blood gushing from the hole in his neck. He turned to look at where it had come from, to find his mentor’s sword through one of the gunmans’ shoulder, three other criminals on the ground. Their eyes met, yellow-golden against pale blue. The gunman his mentor had stabbed dropped the gun, still aimed accidentally past Lord van Zieks towards his own compatriot.
"And that, Apprentice, is why I do not carry a firearm," his mentor remarked dryly. The energy in his hands remained.
He nodded in answer. Still, even now, he wasn’t supposed to speak. He would have to sheathe his sword in order to sign a proper response, and it was coated in gore.
"Apprentice…" his mentor said, almost hesitant. "Did you get shot?"
He glanced down at his right arm, the only place he remembered there being a bullet anywhere near. His sleeve was torn, the edges burnt like he’d definitely been shot, but he wasn’t so much as scratched. He was bruised, and quite badly, but the evidence in front of his eyes implied he was shot almost dead-on, and he was simply… impervious. As though the bullet had bounced off his skin entirely.
He looked up again, and shrugged. No idea, m’lord, he thought. Not nearly loud enough to be heard, but understood all the same. His mentor’s frown didn’t subside, but he could see understanding in his eyes, overlaying the ever-clear love and worry that always graced his mentor’s expression when their eyes met. It made him want to step forward and kiss him, ignoring the criminals that were waking and realizing that maybe it was smarter to crawl away while they still could. The one who his mentor had speared through the shoulder, well, he wasn’t going anywhere.
The nameless apprentice shifted the evidence under his left arm to under his right, wiping at the bottom half of his face. He didn’t mind the London rain, but not this late at night. They would go home after making their report at the Yard, and likely draw themselves a nice bath to relax.
Annoyingly, he didn’t want to relax. His heart was racing, and his hands craved to move: he wanted another fight. Why, he didn’t know. In almost all cases, a nice bath together with his mentor and a bottle of wine was preferable to any other sort of evening. And yet…
"Scotland Yard!" came the cry, followed by the blazing light of a torch. He turned around, stepping back from one of the criminals to rest his shoulder blades against his mentor’s cloak, keeping his face neutral. Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see Inspector Gregson, and a few other policemen, start picking up the criminals. "What happened here, boys?"
His mentor sighed, a deep rumble of a thing, and it was heaven to listen to. "We’re looking into the Fische twins," he said darkly. "Apprentice, give him that."
The nameless apprentice held out the bag of evidence to Inspector Gregson, who made it disappear into his jacket with a frown. In exchange, the inspector held out a handkerchief. He took it gratefully, beginning to wipe off his sword. "We’ll take these boys back to the shop."
"Good. We will see about offering a plea deal come morning. Come along, Apprentice." He gave Inspector Gregson a polite nod, before following his mentor into the police carriage.
They found themselves briefly alone, sheltered from the rain. His mentor dropped into a seat, sighing to himself and leaning his head back against the headrest. The nameless apprentice pulled his cloak out of the way before sitting down beside him, leaning against his mentor for warmth. Lord van Zieks didn’t seem to step out of his woolgathering, only slipped an arm around his apprentice’s waist.
He rubbed at his fingers through his gloves. They still felt fizzy, the way they always did when he started moving more than normal or rested for a little too long. The fizzing didn’t quite hurt, but it was a near thing, and he never knew how to make it settle. The bruise on his arm also fizzed, and after a moment, he abandoned rubbing his fingers in favour of rubbing at the bruise.
Lord van Zieks leaned over, and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. "Peace, Apprentice." He paused, and relaxed, although the fizzing only increased. It always felt like he was too tense, but like a muscle strain, he couldn’t let go. For the moment, however, he snuggled closer into his mentor’s side, and let his warmth envelop him in something resembling safety.
Kazuma Asogi couldn’t think of a single major life event that happened when it wasn’t pouring rain. He wasn’t surprised as he stalked down the streets at the edge of London town, the hood of his cloak over his head even as a small, annoyed part of him thought that he’d have a better chance of keeping the rain out of his eyes if he’d still been wearing his mask. Not that there was a reason to, now. He remembered, and it was both a cruelty and a kindness, even if the kindness there within was in of itself, a cruelty.
On one hand, he had forgotten his mission, and if he hadn’t recovered his memory, his father’s name would never be cleared, and the Reaper would never be stopped. On the other, he had been happy, and perhaps that was the worst part: knowing that if it weren’t for who he fundamentally was as a person, if it weren’t for the mess he’d been left to clean up and salvage a life from, he could have been happy.
He didn’t remember the last time, before his amnesia, that he’d been truly happy. He strode onwards, until he spotted a sign for an inn, shifting his direction to head inside. The woman at the counter was reading a copy of Randst Magazine, and even that hurt in some deep, unformed part of him. He wouldn’t be able to get away from any of this unless he went back to Japan…
No. There was nothing there for him, back in Japan. Every bridge he had, he’d already burned. Judicial Assistant Mikotoba was clearly happier with Ryunosuke, her father had burned the bridge between them years ago, and Ryunosuke… Part of him wanted to ask him what he was doing. Why he was doing all of this, he didn’t believe for a second that Ryunosuke was doing any of this for Kazuma.
Only a little farther to go, he thought to himself, and dropped a few shillings on the secretary’s desk. "Do you have a room for one night?" he asked, voice raspy and dry, forcing the British accent. He sounded like he’d been crying for a while. He didn’t remember the last time he’d cried as anything but an amnesic apprentice to the Reaper.
She nodded, barely seeming to actually notice his presence, and took a shilling, switching it out for a room key. "Room twelve, on your left," she answered. "Shower’s on the right." He took the key, signed the book, and turned to head into his room for the night.
It was small - smaller than the room he technically had at the manor, even though he’d almost never used it - and had a bed barely bigger than a cot shoved into one corner. He pulled off his cloak and hung it up on the back of the door to dry - not that it would. He didn’t have an interest in showering right now, couldn’t seem to find the dexterity in his fingers to do more than strip to his underclothes. The tingling in them was back, as it always was, worse than it had ever been before.
His father had told him, over and over again, that restraint was the key, and to be reckless was to be dangerous to oneself and others. Be like the water, he’d said, and if Kazuma could remember nothing else about him, he could remember his father’s face, and enough of his voice for that one phrase to echo, distant and foggy but all too present.
Outside his small window, the rain came down heavy and hard, not enough to flood but enough that the residents of London would be concerned that it might start. Be like the water. Kazuma sunk to the floor, exchanging his traditional seiza for all but collapsing, legs in front of himself but knees bent, leaning the back of his head against the wall.
"Would it be so bad?" he asked, to no one in particular. His words hung heavy in the air, physical enough he could almost reach out and touch them. He already knew he wasn’t going home, not after this.
Home… He couldn’t have said where home was, anymore. It wasn’t the room he’d lived in as a child, before his father had left, filled with restless nights and restraint that felt more like manacles around his wrists. It wasn’t the room he’d lived in at the Mikotoba residence, too distant from the family to truly rest, too angry at the world to try to reach out. It wasn’t his dormitory at university, for within it would be Ryunosuke, who he couldn’t reach out to. And it certainly wasn’t the van Zieks manor.
It hurt. A wave of emotion crashed over him, powerful and singular. He didn’t know where his home was, only that he wanted to be there, safe and warm and able to breathe. He hadn’t taken a full breath in years, ignoring his time as an apprentice. He may as well have been drowning.
He lifted his head from the wall, watching the rain outside. Thunder cracked, briefly lighting up the sky. The tingling in his hands felt not dissimilar to the static in the air outside, moments before lightning struck. He lifted one hand, wondering. What would happen, if he relaxed all of his restraint? Would could he even hurt, now? No one that mattered.
Kazuma rose to his feet, almost painfully clear-minded. The only family he had left… ’Welcome on board, cousin. Guess that’s a good reason as any not to kill you for sneaking on board.’ He’d been the only human on that ship, and yet, every single person on board had moved with the swordsman’s grace that had always come naturally to him. The grace that he hadn’t seen in anyone else, not even the Russian ballet famed for their fluidity. He stared at his hand, wondering. Even his mentor had been surprised when he’d been shot twice point-blank in the arm, and walked away with only bruises, and not a scratch on him.
He punched the bedpost. Vaguely, he heard something like fabric ripping. The remains of the post landed on the floor, torn through and spiked. Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he looked up, towards the dirty vanity mirror at the small desk.
A man stared back at him, or a beast did, and he wasn’t sure which was more applicable. The man had dark brown hair, wet and tangled and sticking up in a few directions. The beast had pale yellow eyes and gray-black sclera. The man had tanned, freckled skin, with noticeable tan lines from where his mask had protected against the late summer sun. The beast had scales, dark grey-brown, running from his knuckles up the backs of his forearms, large and solid like plate armour. The man stood about five-nine, somewhat hunched over in his exhaustion and the weight of the world upon his back. The beast was graceful beyond anything so infallible and mortal, and the scales that ran down its arms continued from the nape of its neck down its back, held out and flared, like a pangolin ready to strike.
The tingling in his hands was gone. He lifted his hand, the one he’d punched the bedpost with, to see what had changed. Instead of fingers, he had claws, sprouting out just past his knuckles, razor-sharp and a half-inch longer than his fingers might have been.
"Huh," he said, almost surprised, and yet not quite able to pull up the emotion for that. So this was what the crew had meant. He’d seen most of them shapeshift between varying degrees of primarily dragon and human, but this…
No wonder his father had insisted on restraint. No wonder his mother’s sisters, when they performed their own funerary rites after he’d buried his mother, had told him he was cursed, and no family of theirs. He’d always believed they had refused him because he was her son and not her daughter, as per the Ayasato tradition. He’d never thought the curse had been literal.
His mother would have been disowned, if she’d had a curse anything like this. His father… he had always spoken of restraint, and the pose of his waxwork…
"Thanks for that, Otou-san," he muttered, and strode the three steps it took to collapse facedown into bed. Cousin, indeed.
Ryunosuke Naruhodo looked over at his sleeping best-friend-slash-boyfriend, arms folded, unsure how to begin to break the silence. "So… did you know he could shapeshift?" was what he settled on, although it seemed far too little for the situation at hand.
Barok van Zieks, whose bed was occupied by said best-friend-slash-boyfriend, ran a hand through his hair. The longer the night went on, well into the morning, the more tousled it got, and the more obvious it was that he was closely related to Iris. Save for her colouration matching her father more than her uncle, she was the spitting image of Barok. He could even see where the roundness of her jawline would sharpen out. At least right now, they were settled together on one side of Barok’s chambers, under his favourite surprise of the manor of all: a kotatsu. "No," he admitted, "although I did have my suspicions. I trust you have noticed the fluidity in which he moves?"
Ryunosuke smiled a little, at that. "He can stumble over all sorts of things, and never really seem to lose his balance. Even when he hits the ground, it’s like he’s choreographed it."
Barok nodded. "Yes. So far as I am aware, that is the easiest way to tell Greek shapeshifters from the humans they imitate."
He blinked. "Kazuma’s Japanese. If he was part something else, I definitely would know about it." Susato-san had confirmed that, looking into her adopted brother’s history when she’d been forced to return to Japan, starting from the pale blue magatama she’d found among his possessions on the steamship and ending in finding out that everything pointed to him having buried his mother alone. Had either of his parents been part Greek, Susato-san would have found mention of it.
"Not so." Barok inclined his head. "They are named Greek shapeshifters due to their place of discovery. Herlock Sholmes, as I am sure you’ve noticed, is Irish, and yet he is quite unskilled at appearing any more human than Balmung."
That did cause Ryunosuke to crack a small smile. Balmung, Barok’s hellhound, was asleep at the foot of the bed, as if guarding Kazuma in his slumber. It seemed once he’d fully settled into the understanding that the trial was over, that his mission was complete, he’d completely collapsed. At least in the past thirty-six hours, he really only woke up for food or affection, clingier than he’d been on the steamship before everything had fallen apart.
"Mr. Sholmes is pretty bad at subtlety," he agreed. He’d seen the man more than once wander around the flat in nothing more than his underclothes, his legs furred and hooved, his dragon’s tail knocking over everything that wasn’t bolted down to the coffee table. "Kazuma doesn’t look anything like Mr. Sholmes, though. He’s some sort of dragon, I think, and Kazuma’s a… pangolin? Of some kind?"
Ryunosuke leaned closer to Barok’s side, resting his shoulder against his elbow, his eyes admiring a sleeping Kazuma. His hands had turned at some point into claws - Ryunosuke had noticed early on that Kazuma was loathe to touch him with his hands, and he’d almost always been absently rubbing at his fingers.
Now knowing that he had been a shapeshifter, uncannily good at holding one form over the other, it made sense that his nervous tics had only been signs of that. Now seeing him relaxed and asleep, well. He was beautiful, disarmingly so, in rest as much as in motion. His scales hadn’t seen much use, judging by how shiny they were, but there were a few scuffs on his right forearm, noticeable in their dullness.
Barok shifted his arm, sliding it around Ryunosuke’s back and allowing it to rest against his ribs, a little above his hip. His face remained set in his customary frown, however, Ryunosuke had come to see underneath it: thoughtfulness, puzzling through the latest mystery. "Either a pangolin or another type of dragon would seem to be the case, yes. Much as I loathe the idea of asking Mr. Sholmes for any information he may have, it may be the only option. Most of the knowledge I do have originally came from him."
Kazuma grumbled in his sleep, and then sat up, rubbing at one eye with the claw that was also his thumb. "Morning, sleepyhead," Ryunosuke answered, looking up from his tea. Oddly, it was a green tea, although Barok was drinking a darker breakfast tea alongside his quiche.
Kazuma grumbled at him, and then opened his eyes, his gaze focusing first on his claws. He huffed to himself, and then inhaled deeply. His claws retracted and darkened, shifting from keratin to skin, flesh, and bone. It was fascinating to watch, surprisingly non-gory the way it simply shifted from one form into the other. Once his hands were human-shaped again, Kazuma rose, trudging over to the kotatsu and sitting down between the two already seated, clearly unsurprised by its existence. He almost immediately slumped against Barok’s side, his tail dropping itself neatly across Ryunosuke’s lap.
He blushed. It was hard not to. Kazuma didn’t often show how possessive he could be, tended to hide it under teasing and challenges and an easygoing nature, but it was there all the same. Barok made a soft sound that sounded an awful lot like amusement, resting his free hand in Kazuma’s hair and beginning to stroke it. "I see you have finally opted to rest, my dear," Barok remarked, and the amusement was clear in his voice the way Ryunosuke was still learning to read it in his address.
Kazuma grumbled, higher-pitched on the second half. Ryunosuke ran his hand across his tail, stroking it. It was warm and smooth, not quite rough around the edges of his scales, nor sharp enough to cut, but nice to the touch. An idea came to him, and he smiled, continuing to stroke Kazuma’s tail. "You should let Iris at you. She made me a court outfit, and I bet if you let her do the same to you, she’ll wrap your tail all up in ribbons."
That was enough of a threat for Kazuma to lift his head, only one eye open, but a familiar smirk holding lopsided on his face. "Our dove and I once had to go to a ball, hosted by his parents," he said, the edge of trickery slipping into his voice. "But he wasn’t given a plus-one invitation, furthering our suspicions that his parents would try to set him up with a lady. So I went to a tailor, and donned a dress and a different mask, and found my way inside anyway. All this to say, of course, that if Iris wants to make me an outfit, I will allow it, but I cannot promise I won’t have opinions about the lace."
"Okay, I’d love to see that one." He looked up at Barok, still smiling. "Any chance of another ball coming up? Since apparently I wasn’t invited to the last one."
Barok set down his tea, the hint of a smile across his face. "There is the annual Midwinter Masquerade," he said, "which you will be invited to, as a fellow member of the judiciary. Perhaps this year, I will actually use my invitation."
Ryunosuke smirked.
Kazuma Naruhodo - because changing his surname and inventing a new cousin for Ryunosuke was ironically easier than convincing the Japanese government that he wasn’t dead - leaned against Ryunosuke’s shoulder, banished outside the hallway for the crime of hovering. Ryunosuke bounced their young son on his thigh, Katsuhito chewing on a yam instead of his thumb or Kazuma’s tail for once. Both men were impatient, as were the pair of dogs at their feet: one a hellhound, the other a huntsman, anxiously tugging a piece of rope between them.
After all, it wasn’t every day that they were waiting for the birth of their child. Not that either man actually knew who had fathered the child: Katsuhito proved to be Ryunosuke’s almost immediately, but that wasn’t always a guarantee. It was still better than being up until seven in the morning because Barok had gone into labour in the middle of the night - the shops were actually open, and if any supplies were needed last-minute, they were capable of obtaining them without shoplifting.
A scream split the air, too high and shrill to be Barok, too unexpected to be Dr. Murasame. Both men sat up, as did both dogs: the huntsman dropped the rope, bolting to the closed door that would lead to Barok. Professor Mikotoba, who had been banished outside to the garden to prevent him from trying to assist the birth, stuck his head inside. "Give them five, and then you should be able to see them, assuming nothing’s going wrong," he said, voice a blend of excitement and paranoia.
Mostly, Kazuma tried not to think about anything potentially going wrong. It was part of why Susato-san was spending the day with Iris and Sholmes, out elsewhere for the time being. The scream settled after a moment, and he could faintly hear Barok’s muffled laughter. Even on this side of the door, it was a wonderful sound.
The door opened. Dr. Murasame didn’t have the chance to say anything before both dogs bolted into the room, incapable of being stopped by anything short of leashes that neither would willingly wear. She didn’t even blink at this, and smiled wanly at them. "It’s a girl," she said. "They’re both fine. His Lordship will see you now." Her eyes didn’t betray if she knew any more, and Kazuma knew better than to ask before he saw the evidence for himself.
He took Ryunosuke’s hand, and they walked slightly more sedately than the dogs had, into the room where Barok was resting on a futon, propped up by several pillows and otherwise cleaned up. He held a small, brown-haired girl to his chest, and shifted his hold on her to raise a hand in greeting.
Noticeably, the girl’s back was as scaled as Kazuma’s own when he was more relaxed, her own tail curled around her mother’s wrist. Ryunosuke knelt at their side, grinning, Katsuhito already reaching out with yam-sticky fingers to touch his sister for the first time. "I think the evidence points to her being yours," he commented.
Kazuma grinned, kneeling on Barok’s other side, allowing his tail to curl around Barok’s leg in a mirror of their daughter. "Welcome to the world, Naruhodo Yumiko," he murmured. You’re going to be perfect, he thought. And I’m never going to try to tame the storm that you are into a stream.