Toshizou Hijikata ♦ 土方 歳三 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
koukai_kirai) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thenearshore2016-11-15 12:35 pm
koukai_kirai) wrote in thenearshore2016-11-15 12:35 pm
Love is a ghost train, rumbling through the darkness [OPEN, mostly]
Who: Hijikata and OPEN; Hijikata and Souji
What: After dealing reasonably well all things considered with a lifetime's worth of Issues for a month, Hijikata's been unexpectedly reminded of something pretty painful, and he's struggling to handle it. He's trying to sort himself out a little, but it's hard when you have, like, a fraction of a single coping skill on a good day.
When: May 13th and 14th
Where: Around the Near Shore (a riverbank in the Western suburbs of Tokyo, Kouenji temple in Kyoto, a bench in a public place of your choice in Kyoto); Hachiman's shrine on the Far Shore
Warnings: PTSD, survivor's guilt, regular guilt, intense grieving, graphically violent memories, memories of death, memories of suicide, smoking, depressive behavior, grown men who really need hugs, profanity. Full-blown nervous breakdown happening by the third prompt, but he's not in a good place mentally in any of the prompts. (He's slightly better off in the second one, though, and it's a little more open for silly things to come of it?)
[I. - I took the Cannonball down to the ocean - By the Tama river, western suburbs of Tokyo, May 13th, afternoon - OPEN]
[He's here.]
[It isn't as if Hijikata didn't know it was possible for his old comrades to show up. It isn't as if he hasn't thought about it, thought about every last one of them...]
[Out of all of them, he finds himself thinking, wincing immediately with guilt at the thought, why Sannan?]
[(He'd been so determined to die, isn't it a little cruel to make him live again?)]
[(How is Hijikata supposed to look him in the eye, of all people?)]
[He can't stay in his shrine. Staying there means Souji will know something's wrong with him, means he'll have to find ways around explaining. No, he needs to get out, needs to keep some space between them until he can be calm...]
[So he goes to the Near Shore, once Yamanami's shinki is gone. And since there's no hope, not really, of taking his mind off this, he takes it a step further -- he goes to Hino, to the banks of the Tama River...]
[To the streams and fields of the place where he was born.]
[He can't find the exact spot he's feeling drawn to. He's sure that old stand of bamboo is gone, and the fields it overlooked are too changed to recognize. Perhaps even the little hill it stood on has been bulldozed smooth to make way for some shop or other, after so long.]
[Instead, he wanders up and down the banks of the river for hours, smoking one cigarette after another until he's completely out of them. He doesn't seem to completely notice his surroundings, and might even stumble into oncoming pedestrians, with a slightly delayed, detached-sounding apology.]
[II. - 50 million feet of earth between the buried and me - Dawn, May 14th, Kouenji Temple, Kyoto - OPEN]
[When the night passes and he still hasn't found any peace, he lets his inner urge for self-punishment drive him a step further, further than he's dared to go in this last month:]
[He goes to Kyoto.]
[The buildings in the center of town are taller, shinier, all glass and metal and lights -- but the shape of the streets, unlike Tokyo's, is largely unchanged. It's nearly as easy as it was in his hometown, to let his feet bear him without conscious thought.]
[The gates to all of the temples are closed, at this hour. So are most if not all of the flower shops in town. But, well... that doesn't matter so much, does it, when no one can see him? He buys incense at a convenience store, and fills his arms with flowers from the outer gardens in the houses he passes.]
[Getting over the temple walls with an armful of flowers is... something more of a challenge.]
[Once he's over, he starts to feel a little silly. It's odd, isn't it, to visit the grave of someone who isn't dead anymore? Especially since he couldn't bring himself to visit it when he was still living in Kyoto...]
[But he continues, all the same -- past the room where the one old monk who tends the place is sleeping, around the main temple building, out to the back lot. There's a camellia tree nearby, and... there it is.]
[Hijikata lays the flowers all around the base of Yamanami's gravestone, sets a stick of incense to burn, then kneels down, bowing until his forehead touches the ground.]
...I'm sorry. I never listened to you enough, and...
I'm sorry.
[He stays there a little while, the light of morning beginning to spread around him, until finally he feels like he ought to leave. He goes back to the front of the building, clambers up to the top of the wall -- and pauses there a little awkwardly, as he realizes there's someone on the other side of it.]
[Well. Well, they're probably human, right? It's not as they're someone who's going to notice a tall, scowling man in a slightly rumpled but impeccably stylish suit looking very much like he's trying to sneak out after trespassing in a damn temple...]
[Right?]
[III - I watched the diesel disappear beneath the tumbling waves - Kyoto, anywhere, morning or afternoon of the 14th - OPEN]
[It felt a little better, after he visited the grave. Not better, but maybe nothing a little more walking around the city couldn't help.]
[And then, a few hours later, it hits him like a freight train all over again.]
[It starts with Sannan, of course. It starts with how did I let it end up like that, with the sick sensation of blood clinging to his skin, with his heart dropping down through the empty, gnawing pit of his stomach, with I trusted him and this can't be right and how could he do this to Souji? all clamoring for space in his head.]
[As he finds somewhere to sit down -- a park bench, a corner, somewhere, he doesn't even know or care at this point -- it keeps going from there, passing through all his memories and mercilessly dredging up the worst of his regrets from the bottom of the lake where they'd settled.]
[Kondou's dead. You failed him, you failed him, you couldn't keep him safe--]
[--should have done more to stop Itou from the beginning, you knew, you knew he was trouble and you let him walk away--]
[--just walked away and let him die alone, he loved you, he never loved anything in the world like he loved you and what makes you think you deserve for him to love you again when you turned your back on him and for what, for a cause you knew was lost--]
[--talk about honor as if it's ever meant anything to you, as if your hands aren't dirtier than anyone's and what did it achieve in the end, who did it protect--]
[--how many men died so you could prove yourself--]
[--Toudou wouldn't have died like that if he hadn't left, wouldn't have left if you'd just--]
[--was going to be a doctor, he was going to use that mind of his for something good, and you took that from him, you took--]
[--sons of bitches called him a traitor, fucking Kondou, a traitor, the goddamn nerve of the bastards, the nerve of them killing him like a common criminal after all he'd done for his country, the nerve of them taking away my best friend, my best friend, my brother--]
[--They trusted you. All of them put so much faith in you, and look where it got them.]
[He folds over on himself like he's been punched in the gut, hiding his face in one large hand, shaking as he tries to hold everything in. It will pass, it will pass, it always passes...]
[IV - Hold on to me, darlin', I got no place to go - Hachiman's Shrine, night of the 14th, CLOSED to Souji]
[He can't stay out another night. Souji's going to be frantic, if he does.]
[He can't stay still, either, so soon after coming home in the afternoon, he goes out to the dojo, picks up one of his heavily-weighted practice swords, and shuts off his thoughts as completely as possible.]
[The sun goes down. He stops, lights a lamp or two, and starts again.]
[It's hours past midnight by the time he misses a step in one of his kata, falls, and just can't find the will to get up again.]
[They trusted you, his mind whispers as soon as it has the opening, cold and vicious. They all deserved better. Sannan deserved better...]
[He closes his eyes, curls his fist against the tatami mats, grits his teeth, and doesn't get up.]
I know...
[God, he's tired.]
What: After dealing reasonably well all things considered with a lifetime's worth of Issues for a month, Hijikata's been unexpectedly reminded of something pretty painful, and he's struggling to handle it. He's trying to sort himself out a little, but it's hard when you have, like, a fraction of a single coping skill on a good day.
When: May 13th and 14th
Where: Around the Near Shore (a riverbank in the Western suburbs of Tokyo, Kouenji temple in Kyoto, a bench in a public place of your choice in Kyoto); Hachiman's shrine on the Far Shore
Warnings: PTSD, survivor's guilt, regular guilt, intense grieving, graphically violent memories, memories of death, memories of suicide, smoking, depressive behavior, grown men who really need hugs, profanity. Full-blown nervous breakdown happening by the third prompt, but he's not in a good place mentally in any of the prompts. (He's slightly better off in the second one, though, and it's a little more open for silly things to come of it?)
[I. - I took the Cannonball down to the ocean - By the Tama river, western suburbs of Tokyo, May 13th, afternoon - OPEN]
[He's here.]
[It isn't as if Hijikata didn't know it was possible for his old comrades to show up. It isn't as if he hasn't thought about it, thought about every last one of them...]
[Out of all of them, he finds himself thinking, wincing immediately with guilt at the thought, why Sannan?]
[(He'd been so determined to die, isn't it a little cruel to make him live again?)]
[(How is Hijikata supposed to look him in the eye, of all people?)]
[He can't stay in his shrine. Staying there means Souji will know something's wrong with him, means he'll have to find ways around explaining. No, he needs to get out, needs to keep some space between them until he can be calm...]
[So he goes to the Near Shore, once Yamanami's shinki is gone. And since there's no hope, not really, of taking his mind off this, he takes it a step further -- he goes to Hino, to the banks of the Tama River...]
[To the streams and fields of the place where he was born.]
[He can't find the exact spot he's feeling drawn to. He's sure that old stand of bamboo is gone, and the fields it overlooked are too changed to recognize. Perhaps even the little hill it stood on has been bulldozed smooth to make way for some shop or other, after so long.]
[Instead, he wanders up and down the banks of the river for hours, smoking one cigarette after another until he's completely out of them. He doesn't seem to completely notice his surroundings, and might even stumble into oncoming pedestrians, with a slightly delayed, detached-sounding apology.]
[II. - 50 million feet of earth between the buried and me - Dawn, May 14th, Kouenji Temple, Kyoto - OPEN]
[When the night passes and he still hasn't found any peace, he lets his inner urge for self-punishment drive him a step further, further than he's dared to go in this last month:]
[He goes to Kyoto.]
[The buildings in the center of town are taller, shinier, all glass and metal and lights -- but the shape of the streets, unlike Tokyo's, is largely unchanged. It's nearly as easy as it was in his hometown, to let his feet bear him without conscious thought.]
[The gates to all of the temples are closed, at this hour. So are most if not all of the flower shops in town. But, well... that doesn't matter so much, does it, when no one can see him? He buys incense at a convenience store, and fills his arms with flowers from the outer gardens in the houses he passes.]
[Getting over the temple walls with an armful of flowers is... something more of a challenge.]
[Once he's over, he starts to feel a little silly. It's odd, isn't it, to visit the grave of someone who isn't dead anymore? Especially since he couldn't bring himself to visit it when he was still living in Kyoto...]
[But he continues, all the same -- past the room where the one old monk who tends the place is sleeping, around the main temple building, out to the back lot. There's a camellia tree nearby, and... there it is.]
[Hijikata lays the flowers all around the base of Yamanami's gravestone, sets a stick of incense to burn, then kneels down, bowing until his forehead touches the ground.]
...I'm sorry. I never listened to you enough, and...
I'm sorry.
[He stays there a little while, the light of morning beginning to spread around him, until finally he feels like he ought to leave. He goes back to the front of the building, clambers up to the top of the wall -- and pauses there a little awkwardly, as he realizes there's someone on the other side of it.]
[Well. Well, they're probably human, right? It's not as they're someone who's going to notice a tall, scowling man in a slightly rumpled but impeccably stylish suit looking very much like he's trying to sneak out after trespassing in a damn temple...]
[Right?]
[III - I watched the diesel disappear beneath the tumbling waves - Kyoto, anywhere, morning or afternoon of the 14th - OPEN]
[It felt a little better, after he visited the grave. Not better, but maybe nothing a little more walking around the city couldn't help.]
[And then, a few hours later, it hits him like a freight train all over again.]
[It starts with Sannan, of course. It starts with how did I let it end up like that, with the sick sensation of blood clinging to his skin, with his heart dropping down through the empty, gnawing pit of his stomach, with I trusted him and this can't be right and how could he do this to Souji? all clamoring for space in his head.]
[As he finds somewhere to sit down -- a park bench, a corner, somewhere, he doesn't even know or care at this point -- it keeps going from there, passing through all his memories and mercilessly dredging up the worst of his regrets from the bottom of the lake where they'd settled.]
[Kondou's dead. You failed him, you failed him, you couldn't keep him safe--]
[--should have done more to stop Itou from the beginning, you knew, you knew he was trouble and you let him walk away--]
[--just walked away and let him die alone, he loved you, he never loved anything in the world like he loved you and what makes you think you deserve for him to love you again when you turned your back on him and for what, for a cause you knew was lost--]
[--talk about honor as if it's ever meant anything to you, as if your hands aren't dirtier than anyone's and what did it achieve in the end, who did it protect--]
[--how many men died so you could prove yourself--]
[--Toudou wouldn't have died like that if he hadn't left, wouldn't have left if you'd just--]
[--was going to be a doctor, he was going to use that mind of his for something good, and you took that from him, you took--]
[--sons of bitches called him a traitor, fucking Kondou, a traitor, the goddamn nerve of the bastards, the nerve of them killing him like a common criminal after all he'd done for his country, the nerve of them taking away my best friend, my best friend, my brother--]
[--They trusted you. All of them put so much faith in you, and look where it got them.]
[He folds over on himself like he's been punched in the gut, hiding his face in one large hand, shaking as he tries to hold everything in. It will pass, it will pass, it always passes...]
[IV - Hold on to me, darlin', I got no place to go - Hachiman's Shrine, night of the 14th, CLOSED to Souji]
[He can't stay out another night. Souji's going to be frantic, if he does.]
[He can't stay still, either, so soon after coming home in the afternoon, he goes out to the dojo, picks up one of his heavily-weighted practice swords, and shuts off his thoughts as completely as possible.]
[The sun goes down. He stops, lights a lamp or two, and starts again.]
[It's hours past midnight by the time he misses a step in one of his kata, falls, and just can't find the will to get up again.]
[They trusted you, his mind whispers as soon as it has the opening, cold and vicious. They all deserved better. Sannan deserved better...]
[He closes his eyes, curls his fist against the tatami mats, grits his teeth, and doesn't get up.]
I know...
[God, he's tired.]
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[Leo shrugs]
History is of course never entirely accurate and subjected to misinterpretation, not to mention it leaves out swathes of personal history, but clearly you were doing something right if I can go ten steps to a nearby shop and buy a shirt with your face on it despite having been on the losing side.
[Seriously. So freaking weird. So. Freaking. Weird.]
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I... what?
[There... there have to be at least two or three reasons that history would be aware of that that's stupid, right? Even if they don't know about Kamo. Even not counting the part where they lost.]
[Distantly, he remembers Izuminokami telling him something similar before, but Izuminokami is his sword, so he's... he's biased. It's distinctly stranger, to hear it from a more neutral source.]
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Mhm. It was...more than a little disturbing, coming here to visit the museums and running across several places selling things with your face on them.
[To say nothing of the historical fiction surrounding them.]
Meanwhile there will no such vindication for me, whenever I return home. Training to be and then playing the role of your brother's enforcer will do that.
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[Well. He was the enforcer, in a way. The one everyone was afraid of when they put a toe out of line, the one they were right to be afraid of. The "demon" who stopped at absolutely nothing, when his goals were at stake.]
[He's sure history remembers that, too. But at least he's pulling himself together enough now to say it without sounding completely like he's lashing out in panic.]
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[If very strange respect]
It takes great men to lose a civil war and still be remembered and in a way honored hundreds of years later.
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...I don't deserve that.
[There's so much that he didn't deserve...]
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[Leo finally sits down, sighing a bit]
I don't doubt that you did terrible things, and I don't doubt that history has forgotten or ignored most of them. But speaking as myself, as someone who admittedly doesn't know you very well but does understand being a terrible person, you aren't so bad that you should be villanized by anyone. If the people who won haven't done it, I don't think it's healthy for you to do it.
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[(He should argue, he feels sure. Because he doesn't deserve understanding, doesn't deserve forgiveness, and it's almost like deceiving people, to let them believe any differently.)]
...It's the only way to hold myself back. If I don't regret the things I've done, I'll only get worse.
[Yamanami literally threw his life at his feet to teach him that. What right does he have to let it go?]
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Then again, he can sympathize.]
You can regret all you want, gods know I've done hundreds things I regret and I'm younger than you. But regret isn't the only way to keep yourself from getting worse. Knowing why you did the things you did, knowing there may have been no other choice, knowing that it needed to be done and no one else would do it or could do it without irreparable damage--those are remarkably good at keeping one's darker impulses in check, I've found. That last one may just be me, however.
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Not just you.
[Oddly, remembering what he did to Masuya still doesn't trigger any sort of guilt in him. Bastard deserved it. But Sannan...]
I just...
My friends deserved better than I could be for them.
[Yes, better than "even his enemies' descendants look on him with grudging respect hundreds of years later."]
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[Leo needs it to count for something, on his bad days.]
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[He can't bring himself to disrespect what he meant to any of them, no matter what he thinks of himself right now.]
[Hands still moving a little slower than usual, he sets down his barely-touched food, patting down his pockets before he remembers--]
...Damn. Smoked all my cigarettes yesterday.
[In hindsight, missing his usual fix probably isn't helping his stability any, either.]
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[And give Hijikata a few moments alone]
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[And he's not going to say no to a minute or two to just sit on this bench with his head in his hands and get the stewing out of his system a little bit.]
Would you mind?
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[Leo chuckles a bit and heads over. He purposefully takes a bit longer than strictly necessary to give Hijikata all the time he can possibly have.
When he returns, it's with a pack of cigarettes for Hijikata and an iced coffee for himself. He offers the pack to the other man]
There are too many ways to package tiny sticks of tobacco. It's tobacco rolled into paper. How many ways can you roll tobacco into paper?
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[The cigarettes are going to help, though. He takes the pack and opens it with minimal fumbling, withdrawing a small, tasteful, silver lighter from his pocket.]
Hell if I know. I usually just buy the tobacco and the paper and roll them myself, but there aren't as many shops that sell loose tobacco as there are for packaged cigarettes...
[A mild nuisance, but what are you going to do? He flicks the lighter on and lights the end of the cigarette, the ritual of it a little bit bracing even before any actual hint of nicotine has a chance to get to him.]
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[Leo just bought Hijikata the most expensive plain kind he could find, assuming it would both be higher quality and more familiar to a man who died a few hundred years ago.
And also because Leo's a snob, even for other people]
It's absurd.
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[He gives a derisive snort of laughter, which is probably more okay than he's sounded at any point in the last 24 hours, and puffs carefully at the filter end to get the lit end burning properly.]
You mean besides "tobacco smoke"? Ridiculous.
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[He really likes coffee]
Feeling more human?
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Relatively.
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[He doesn't ask what the problem was, though he's going to guess it involved his friends, given where they are and what Hijikata was saying]
...and I was serious about your face being on a shirt. I don't suggest going west from the park.
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No? Could make a good souvenir for Souji. You know, from my Kyoto vacation.
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[It would certainly be disturbing.]
Never mind then. Perhaps a stuffed animal, then.
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