cold.

[daiquiri]

.cold [ fic ]

title ▸ cold
characters ▸ shuusuke
timeline ▸ pre-series
divergence ▸ albatross and swallow

.cold His memories of his aunt's death are cold. Shuusuke had been entirely too young to have witnessed it firsthand. In fact, he barely remembers her face, the way her hands held his waist, the way she smiled when his sister brought her a stone that she proclaimed to be an aquamarine, paragon of the fourth fonon. But he remembers that the death occurs after he’s stopped thinking of his father as ‘his father’ and his mother as ‘his mother’, and started thinking of them as ‘Shuukaku’ and ‘Yoshiko’. It’s a long time ago, he knows, but he’s never particularly been good with time. He had been young enough that he should’ve not retained any memories of the time, but did, anyway. He doesn’t know if he is lucky. He doesn’t remember the snow the day she died, but he does remember the cold. The messenger at the open door, ushering in the cold, winter air, his face pale and taut. The flash of recognition in his father’s eyes. The confusion in the maid’s eyes as his father quietly tells her to get Yoshiko. He remembers the way he holds onto Yuuta’s hand, the two of them standing quietly to the side, having been interrupted from a review session with the tutor. The way Yumiko looks grave, serious beyond her years, even despite her glassy eyes. Remembers the fonstone fragments that scatter around her feet, even as the maids are hurrying to shuffle her away and to sweep up the broken pieces. He doesn’t remember the way the messenger gives him a look, a fleeting, flickering, indecisive thing, even as he bows to Yoshiko in deference. He remembers the even look that Yoshiko gives the messenger as he speaks. Remembers the way she does not falter, even as he bows his head. He remembers the look of detached concern on Shuukaku’s face—not a look of concern for her well-being, he later realizes, when the same look passes his own face like a ghost of a memory, but a look that gauges for complications that must be watched for. Deviations from patterns. Abnormalities to be studied but not to be understood. What he remembers most starkly are those five words that come clipped from her lips, even and steady. “And what of her murderer?” “He is a mere child,” the messenger goes on to explain, looking properly contrite for his station. “It was an accident; a mishap. A fonic arte gone wrong.” The child is blameless, misguided, surely, but innocent. It’s to the messenger’s credit, he would later think, wryly, that he did not convey how such an action for a child like that is unprecedented—a stroke of genius, unfounded prodigy found in an orphan that they would otherwise not care about. Those unsaid tones fly over his young head at the time, because all he can remember is the clipped tones of those five words that come like a steady march. “And what of her murderer?” The child is being questioned, the messenger conveys. The child will be punished in due time. The child will understand the severity of its actions, and will repent as proper. “And what of her murderer?” And what of the child? Shuukaku asks. He remembers the look of shrewd amusement on his face, the gauging look he gives to Yoshiko. “And what of her murderer?” Mother? Yuuta is looking plaintive now, eyes darting from person to person as though not quite understanding the on-goings. Of course he doesn’t understand, Shuusuke knows. Yuuta doesn’t have to understand. Not now. He squeezes Yuuta’s hand and whispers to him quietly. Shh, Yuuta, it’s okay. Mother is okay. It’s going to be okay. And what of her murderer? In a way, those words are frozen in memory. She asks them again, and again, and again. And long after the messenger has taken his mead and left, she sits in the parlour, sipping tea quietly. Shuusuke remembers peering in after he’s taken Yuuta to Yumiko’s room and set him to watch over her for the time being. Remembers Shuukaku sitting across from Yoshiko, fingers crossed and contemplative. “Perhaps you married the wrong sister,” he hears Yoshiko say, evenly. Shuukaku hums, a tilt of his head to the right which Shuusuke will eventually recognize as a motion of contemplation. Dispassionately. “I have little use for corpses.” In hindsight, this is why he finds the colonel’s nickname so fascinating when he hears of it for the first time, sitting in the cafeteria with an acquaintance on either side and gossip all around. “The Necromancer,” he hums, idly, even as he twirls his spoon in his tea. “I don’t know. He sounds like a pleasant person, doesn’t he?” “It’s said that he uses corpses in battle,” a young cadet to his left pipes up, disgust evident in his tone of voice. He must be from Engeve, he thinks, where respect for the dead is the first thing they drill into you, after they show you how to lasso a rappig by the tail blindfolded. “Even though they're rumours, they're still despicable.” He thinks back on Shuukaku’s laced hands, and closes his eyes. “Even corpses have their uses.” Then, before silence can descend upon their little group, he takes a sip of his tea and frowns mournfully. “It’s gotten too cold to drink.” Three seats down to his right, a bespectacled boy with tousled hair raises his head, subtle motion at the corner of his eyes. “Want to get to the training hall early?” A classmate proposes. “We can snag a good area before the rest of ‘em.” "I say we go for it," another classmate pipes up, shuffling his chair back. It makes a noise that both rumbled and screeched. "I'm through with settling for courtyard corners. You comin', Fuji?" It’s no longer cold outside, he knows. So Shuusuke leaves his teaspoon in his cup with a gentle clink of metal against porcelain and shrugs. “Sure.”

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