Lavendre (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lavendre) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
femslashficlets2017-11-08 10:56 pm
lavendre) wrote in femslashficlets2017-11-08 10:56 pm
Entry tags:
[131] no right way home
Title: no right way home
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Prompt: #131 storm
Characters/pairing: Reiko/Hinoe, pre-slash
Rating: all audiences
Word Count: 442
Good tidings are far and few between. It means that, in between feeling sorry for herself and rage for that people are so assuming, Reiko swings the softball bat harder than she means to.
It bursts a flowering cherry limb apart on contact, petals and bark scattering in lovely pinks and browns. The cicadas drown the noise of her destruction out so thoroughly that even though she wilts as quickly as the flower, she misses the moment where the youkai scrambles from the tree in a downward slump of kimono and hair. Too focused, too preoccupied -- Reiko swings the bat into the ground and rattles from tooth to toe. It’s self discipline. This way her thoughts will be as clear as water when she goes home to read her books. Her parents will ask about her long walk back and she’ll respond ordinarily.
“Honestly, I think the youkai are more afraid of you than that stick you carry around. You put a lot of strength into that. Try not to vaporize anyone accidentally.”
“Hinoe.” Reiko doesn’t bother to look over. A purple kimono walks around to her front, and then the hand she’s not tapping her tobacco pipe out with brushes the bark from her hair. Reiko blinks up at her, sucks in a deep breath through her teeth, and makes herself stare at the setting sun until her eyes turn dry again.
Hinoe’s hand curls against her bruised cheek. “What are you doing here so late? Won’t your human parents be worried?”
“They’re out. So it doesn’t matter if I go home.”
“Don’t you have a cat to feed or something?”
“No.” Reiko looks toward the pink sky and purpling fields, back behind the blooms and sweet smelling grass, the rice paddies flickering in an in-between state of light, roadside dust, and evening gnats; what is the point, she wants to say, of going home if there’s no one to go home to?
“Well. It seems to be me the problem isn’t there, then. I’ll walk with you,” Hinoe concludes breezily. She takes several steps toward the edge of the forest, sunlight dying her in fairer, warmer colors. Reiko only considers it for a moment, as she does here and there, the possibility of walking up the hillside and quietly disappearing. But it’s a problem when human children become absent from their homes. And there is no world in which she would be the welcomed one, so it’s just as well that she’ll weather this as she does everything else.
“We should take the route through town." Reiko catches her by the sleeve of her kimono. "Do you like sweet buns?”
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Prompt: #131 storm
Characters/pairing: Reiko/Hinoe, pre-slash
Rating: all audiences
Word Count: 442
Good tidings are far and few between. It means that, in between feeling sorry for herself and rage for that people are so assuming, Reiko swings the softball bat harder than she means to.
It bursts a flowering cherry limb apart on contact, petals and bark scattering in lovely pinks and browns. The cicadas drown the noise of her destruction out so thoroughly that even though she wilts as quickly as the flower, she misses the moment where the youkai scrambles from the tree in a downward slump of kimono and hair. Too focused, too preoccupied -- Reiko swings the bat into the ground and rattles from tooth to toe. It’s self discipline. This way her thoughts will be as clear as water when she goes home to read her books. Her parents will ask about her long walk back and she’ll respond ordinarily.
“Honestly, I think the youkai are more afraid of you than that stick you carry around. You put a lot of strength into that. Try not to vaporize anyone accidentally.”
“Hinoe.” Reiko doesn’t bother to look over. A purple kimono walks around to her front, and then the hand she’s not tapping her tobacco pipe out with brushes the bark from her hair. Reiko blinks up at her, sucks in a deep breath through her teeth, and makes herself stare at the setting sun until her eyes turn dry again.
Hinoe’s hand curls against her bruised cheek. “What are you doing here so late? Won’t your human parents be worried?”
“They’re out. So it doesn’t matter if I go home.”
“Don’t you have a cat to feed or something?”
“No.” Reiko looks toward the pink sky and purpling fields, back behind the blooms and sweet smelling grass, the rice paddies flickering in an in-between state of light, roadside dust, and evening gnats; what is the point, she wants to say, of going home if there’s no one to go home to?
“Well. It seems to be me the problem isn’t there, then. I’ll walk with you,” Hinoe concludes breezily. She takes several steps toward the edge of the forest, sunlight dying her in fairer, warmer colors. Reiko only considers it for a moment, as she does here and there, the possibility of walking up the hillside and quietly disappearing. But it’s a problem when human children become absent from their homes. And there is no world in which she would be the welcomed one, so it’s just as well that she’ll weather this as she does everything else.
“We should take the route through town." Reiko catches her by the sleeve of her kimono. "Do you like sweet buns?”