The days have begun to grow shorter and colder with winds blowing a gale over the stripped land, the earth grows wet and muddy by the day. There's been times where you've caught yourself slipping an almost had your wellies swallowed whole by the numerous marsh pits lining along the perimeter of the fields. Temperatures have dropped and it seems that everyone is in mourning of the bountiful hot summer days for the cruel winter is knocking at everyone's doors. The whining of your bedroom window has been adding fuel to the fire to try and disturb your already restless nights being spent tossing and turning for a position that won't elicit a bedspring to poke you.
But that now means your morning breakfast calls have returned to Kita dragging you out of bed even when you whine about how tired you are or how cold it was throughout the night. He hasn't sought to care about your complaints as you've only found thread-bare, thin blankets stuffed deep within his Narnian wardrobe that you've now resorted to wearing double layers to bed and making do with shivering. Your teeth still chatter even as you slurp up the remainder of your miso soup trying to lessen the prickle within your throat.
The cold season is coming.
Kita the barbaric man has all but spoken a few words to you this morning and that's just how you like it even with him furiously scrubbing away in the kitchen keenly interested at the sink. His silly pink frilly pinny hangs snuggly off his frame as he too has succumbed to the drastic drop in temperature within this poorly insulated house. He dons a thick woolly jumper; finally, something other than his favourite maroon one and his leather bomber jacket. Unlike you and your endeavours to remain warm and to stop chattering your teeth there's not a peep of a sound or grunt coming from him.
Just silence.
You're surprised since he's only a few days away from full blown mania or what Togashi explained to you yesterday as a farmers most important time of the year. Having his yield inspected from a grain inspector all the way from the big city to grade his rice and if it's acceptable for markets. But if it's not then everything for the past six months has been for nought and not even Osamu would want to buy Kita's rice. But Kita told you that he's not worried, he knows he'll pass it, and you call Amiru egotistical when really all farmers are slighted big-headed about their produce.
"Aye, it's bloody cold out there." Togashi grumbles, stomping into the kitchen removing his thick scarf and gloves.
Kita turns briefly in acknowledgment before swivelling back around to business, you assume this is just how they greet each other during this time of the year, or it could be that Kita's just grown accustomed to the old man's grumbling like any adopted grandson would. Togashi however sees no problem with Kita's lack of greeting and dives right over the stove into boiling some tea in hopes to warm his own chattering teeth. At least you're not alone in the chilly factor but the only difference is that the house is only a few degrees warmer than outside. As Kita does turn back to his precious sink you notice something strange, a small, mangled cleaning brush that looks like it's seen better days but it's rather too small to be doing any damage to the grime. Craning your neck as far out as you can, your chair creaking under the imbalanced weight as you leer sideways. A choke of a sound stumbles in your throat as you're mixed with something like shock and something rather ticklish.
He's officially gone mad.
He's using a bloody toothbrush to help scrub away the finer grime cemented into the little crevices, that you burst out laughing swinging back onto your chair that you almost go tumbling down. The two men pause to look at you, Togashi has that parent smile but it's Kita who looks like you've grown a second head.
"Ya, alright there, love?" Togashi chuckles as he takes out a few mugs from the cupboard.
Kita has yet to return to business.
"I'm fine, I guess Shin-chan is surely not as stressed as he think he is." Your teasing tone doesn't go amiss as his dull eyes become slits; he fists his toothbrush like a child told to brush his teeth after eating his sweets.
But he doesn't blow a fuse merely takes a deep breath before returning to his sink, you know that he's a bit of a clean freak, everyone has their own little ticks with dealing with stress even you understand the importance to unwind. But from day one you've had to fight tooth and nail with him when it comes to doing your own laundry, quite frankly you believe he doesn't trust you with the washer. But time and time again you've found him sifting through the laundry pile as unfazed as a doctor opening someone up as he dissects his shirts from your panties. You've profusely told him not to do it but when has he ever listened to you?
There have been days where even you have found him massaging his arms or shoulders from a long tiring day, yet he still manages to make time for his routine deep clean. You've found him nose deep between the basin of the toilet and the tile floor scrubbing away like a man on a mission and that he was wearing his white kerchief keeping his hair out of his eyes. He was so completely lost in his head that you've contemplated flashing him but that would be as a traumatic experience as it would be for him as the thought is for you. Kita seeing any unfiltered parts of your body sends a creepy shiver down into regions you didn't know existed.
A gnawing excitement bubbles up your throat.
That's a sickening thought.
As Togashi is about to sit down a drilling tone reverberates off the walls and only then you realise it's a ringtone, that sort of ringtone is about fifty-years old. Kita seriously needs to update his house. There's a pause within the room and only after a hefty sigh from Togashi does he relinquish his rights to a morning brew as he heads off to the office down the hall. It's the one place you're not allowed to be in, well there hasn't been any sign or rule said by one of them but on the first day you came in it was the one room they didn't let you see.
Kita's and Togashi's office.
That's enough to tell you that not a lot of fun happens in there.
But now it's just the two of you alone within this room and the thought should be trifling but it's been a week since you caught him red-handed in the kitchen and you still don't know how you feel about that.
Getting up you walk over towards the cubby-corner or well where Kita keeps all his books, you find an old stereo and decide to plug it in at least there will be a buffer between you and him and this godforsaken tension. Switching it on the only station that it connects to must be the local village one-
"***- PATHWAY OF THE TYPHOON WILL HIT US- I REPEAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS ISSUED A WARNING THAT HYOGO IS WITHIN THE LINE OF DESTRUCTION-***" The radio then conks out dying on the famous last words of 'typhoon and destruction'.
Well, that explains why the days have been so shit recently there's a bloody storm on the way. The floorboards creak and you turn to find Togashi heaving as he wipes sweat from his brow.
"It was Kiki-chan she needs help with boarding up the school, everyone does." Wincing as you hear the anxiety in his voice.
Turning around you almost have a heart attack from the proximity that Kita stands next to you, bloody hell how did you not hear him coming? Noticing only now that he's removed his gloves and pinny and stands almost protectively over you. What the fuck, leaning away from him you shuffle a few steps to breathe and think more clearly.
You're used to storms, back home you would have thunderstorms and sometimes hear about flooding within the neighbouring counties but why does it feel too real here. As if you've just been dropped right out of your comfort zone into deep, deep water.
"There's a storm comin', they think it's goin' to hit tomorrow night." Togashi rushes over grabbing for his scarf and gloves.
"We need to get going." both turn to you noticing how you're still in your pyjamas.
"Alright, give me 5 minutes."
Looking out the window reminds you of the beginnings of all those apocalyptic movies with the darkening sky looking more like someone smudged the clouds. Togashi went ahead to alert more people of the impending storm and to see if anyone needs help with boarding up their homes, before you thought that people only did that sort of stuff in movies but now you realise how real shit is about to become. Kita for one has never been more focused than he is now, not even harvester Kita had that furrow between his brows nor that deep stern look deepening his frown lines.
It almost makes you want to shiver if he were to look at you right now.
Ahead there seems to be a commotion with many villagers getting out of their cars and crowding around the area, it doesn't take you long to spot the broken tree stump used to rest peacefully on the corner. It's now broken with spikes that could impale any unlucky soul poking out of the stump, to think that the wind did that is frightening. It could sweep anyone off their feet.
Getting out of the car Kita makes a beeline for the other adults crowding around the fallen tree, you don't spot anyone that you know and refrain from getting in anyone's way. Only when a few of the adults start retrieving ropes and with one of the trucks backing up towards the tree does Kita walk up to your side.
"Everyone's panicked, worried about their fields." Nodding you fall into step behind him as he gets into the truck and reparks it a hundred yards away from the tree.
You both watch the remaining adults stand around the tree where one hooks a rope from a pulley system around the trunk looping it around before signalling to the others to start. It's understandable when one's entire livelihoods are based on field health and how much they can produce that year, floods are farmers arch-nemesis.
Puffs of your own breath heat your face as you, Kita and Togashi assemble around students, elderly and other adults as the speaker ahead orders everyone on the storm prevention protocols. The speaker is clear, but your Japanese level isn't and so all his words mush into one ending into a muffled incomprehensible sound. All you can do is watch and play a crude version of charades as groups are set and tasks are divided, it's Kita that briefly looks at you his eyes flickering to another much younger woman.
She looks familiar but you can't seem to place her.
But as she comes over to you and Kita you forget how short the women are over here than back home, it certainly doesn't help that you and Kita are virtually the same height minus a few inches on your part. Also spending everyday together is like becoming nose blind but to height, she on the other hand just reaches up to his shoulders but that's if she goes onto her tippy toes.
Kita flags her down with a come-hither gesture of his nod, great he's going to lump you onto someone else's shoulders to burden.
You notice that she has a blue staff lanyard on unlike the guest stickers you and Kita were made to wear upon entry. Cladded in a long dark cotton coat that swallows her up entirely with her dark as night hair bundled up out of her face. She smiles and greets the two of you with a brief bow, you both follow suit, as her smile pushes her round cheeks to squish against her round eyes, she oddly resembles Ema-chan.
"Manabu-chan, would it be alright if Y/n-san accompanies you with taping up the windows?" He pulls you forwards his grip slack and gentle as he practically shoves you in her direction.
This Manabu woman who you're now starting to see the resemblance between mother and daughter bulges her eyes out, mouth falling agape before quickly shutting. She looks you up and down assessing you for your capabilities as if what she finds suitable is enough for taping windows before she glances back to Kita.
"That's fine by me." She drawls her accent thick and heavy with the Kansai dialect.
It isn't long before she directs you to a classroom and hands you a thick role of tape and scissors, the room is dark with only the limited light from outside illuminating the room. Walls are kept to a minimum of bare corkboards and a mixture of elementary and junior high school work sheets, small shoe lockers line to your right and about thirty single one-person desks row and column out before you.
"Is this your classroom?" You ask beelining for the sliding windowpanes on the right-hand side of the room.
"Yes, I was surprised when Kita-san ushered me over." She laughs short and sweet.
She's only a few armlengths away from you peeling off and snipping a considerable amount of tape away before applying it in a cross formation.
"Why?" Asking dubiously as you mirror her actions.
"Well, it's odd ta see 'im act around ya, I've known 'im since we were kids, but he never looks so... soft before." She pauses smiling softly at the taped 'X' window.
Is she okay? You and her most definitely have different accounts of the definition of soft and attuning that with the likes of Kita. He can be soft but the times that he has been for you is also during the times that softness is expected when you had sliced your finger on the sickle or when he draped a blanket over you as you slept.
But being soft around you is far from it, Kita just tolerates you like a babysitter with his child.
"Don't you think you might be reading into things... Kiki-chan." You run a guess that who you're talking to is in fact Ema's daughter, Kiki.
She shuffles getting closer to you.
"No, well, I do call ma'self a lil bit of a romantic but the way he looks at ya," She blushes fanning a hand to her face as if to cool down before turning to you. "I heard about the Amiru thing, and someone had ta say it to 'im." She grabs for your hands smiling fiercely before letting go.
You're surprised at her giddiness and well her over all joy with meeting you, she seems more than ecstatic but you can see it from her point of view as to finally have a companion within her solidarity of being a young person in a village full of elderly people. Add a strapping young man like Amiru to the mix is a pot for disaster leading to him to become big-headed and well an asshole to people he grew up with like Kita.
Cracking a smile, you look down bashfully at your worn quivering hands, it's still cold but the day has started to warm up before looking her in the eyes.
"It also helps knowin' that I'm not the only one being paired up." She scratches her cheek.
"Why do they do that? Don't tell me they set you up with that *bastard* Amiru?" Indignation flaps within your chest.
Oh, they have no right pushing men onto young women as if embracing individuality is frowned upon in rural villages, you withstood their initial bribes and jabs at you being a prickly woman against the likes like Amiru Ren. He was very attractive that is until he opened his troll of a mouth that makes Kita's rude condescending tone like an old grump that's actually a cinnamon roll.
Rather Kita reminds you of a fox, cool and calculating yet his bristles are only just him and not him purposely trying to piss you off even if you try to taunt him into bickering with you. He holds his ground as he sees through you and your quips or the fact that he's not all that golden as he's made up to be with him being hypercritical and stubborn.
Very, very stubborn.
"Ya thinkin' about Kita-san aren't ya?" Suddenly Kiki is all you can see.
Yelping away you stumble into the nearest desk dropping your tape and almost hazardously impale yourself by dropping the scissors as it lands just a few inches away from your feet.
"What? No." Your voice breaks and heat blemish your cheeks red.
She laughs.
"Don't worry my mama wasn't successful with arrangin' a date with me and 'im but ya should be quick before someone else snaps 'im up." She teases.
This is not what you want to be talking about whilst bonding with Kiki, it will be good in the long run to branch away from the safety hold that is Kita's farm and make friends with people your own age. Even if that means bracing for a slog of ' romantic moments she believes you're having with Kita ' if it means you won't be alone anymore.
"By all means she has my blessings." Extravagantly curtsying as you teasingly add.
"But I'll tell you now pigs will be flying before Kita and me ever get together." But even as you say that you feel horrible and can taste the lies spewing out past your lips.
Kiki smile drops and she steps away from you as a sense of loss pits out in the centre of your chest.
Then and only then does the door to the classroom slide open revealing the man of the hour and the very reason why your initial perception of him has slowly changed into something else. He's removed his jacket and has it slung over his shoulders like an old money student attending Harvard when in reality he's just a simple farmer with his weird quirks.
You smile softly at him.
It's barely been two months yet so much has changed, what you call tolerance is really just a coalition of sorts, a truce. He promised he would be gentler with his words and be less of an asshole when it comes to his wants, and you promised to give him some slack.
Have you done that?
Or are you just too stubborn to accept this robotic man that at times shows you his caring nature. When you told him you were cold, he then alerted you that there were blankets in the wardrobe and that he without prompting makes you hot chocolate each night before bed. Even today you found an old-style heater hiding at the foot of your bed that you didn't put there the night before.
There are all these things that really make it hard for you to not like him.
Today is no exception he pushed you onto Kiki because you know in some weird little way that he knew you had no idea what was going on, it has no meaning that you know. Seeking something like an ulterior motive out of Kita is pointless because he gives you that sense if he wanted to, he would make it very clear to you that he has feelings for you. Not that you currently have feelings for him when it's okay to look but really, you're only looking there's no need for you to check out and go full steaming ahead for something that isn't there.
Blinking back out from your time away spent inside your head you find the two of them chatting as closely and as freely as people would if they have grown up together but a nasty unspoken voice whisper to you in the back of your mind.
" Aren't they a bit too close for comfort to be just friends ."
It's only natural for Kiki to defend Kita, they're just childhood friends.
" Look she's even flirting with him right in front of you after just saying to go get your man ."
Kiki isn't like that; she was in fact excited to have a friend. Plus, why should you care if she suddenly changes her mind about Kita, his dating life is of no concern to you, and he is NOT your man.
You'd rather shrivel up and die than mistake him as yours.
" Shin-chan , shouldn't we get going?" they both stop talking and Kita eyes you suspiciously, he's never particularly liked you calling him that name, but seeing as you only use it to piss him off.
Using it right now however is not one of those moments.
Kiki regards you for a split second unsure of what to make do with herself until she looks between the two of you, her mouth gaping with shock bulging out of her eyes, she gives you a secret ' okay ' sign behind Kita. What the fuck. She's not taking this the wrong way rather she might be on a completely different hemisphere as she then pushes Kita away which causes him to glance down trying to discern her reasoning.
"Y/n-san is right ya should be on yor way now; ya 'ave been all very helpful." Shes adds as rigidly as possible clearly not used to pulling a stunt like this.
You don't know if you should be thanking her or telling her to stop it, it's not like that. But you don't, enjoying the show you let her manoeuvre you both out of her classroom until the both of you awkwardly stand in the hallway, the chill prickling your face.
Your eyes flick from his jacket to his expectant face as if he's waiting for you to fill in the gaps. Not today.
"How was securing the entryways?" Asking as you saw him and some of the men drag – easily haul - sandbags against the weakest points of the school.
"We managed just fine securing the doors and the surrounding outbuildings, making sure they're closed off in time for the storm tomorrow." His answer returns to you with a questioning look, the same kind he just held with you a few moments ago.
Strange things are happening to your body as you stand beneath his watchful gaze, before you recalled it as a hawk hunting their prey but now it feels even deadlier than that. A strange bubble flutters from within your gut, your dreams swim to the top of your mind swallowing what's left of your vision in your fanciful version of him.
They're all the glimpses that you've sneakily taken of him when you're sure he couldn't have known. When he first fixed that water pipe, his shirt becoming sodden, his arms rippling with defined muscles only made from hard labour. His rough palms stroking against your much softer skin sends a shiver throughout your body and down into your nether regions, oh fuck it's a 'that' type of feeling.
You haven't been able to masturbate for two months now since the creaky, Victorian bed regards it as sinful and cries out in protest each time you so much as shift to breathe. Let alone stick your hand between your legs and relieve the biting tension that has most definitely been building since you've arrived. You can't even do it in the bath since it echoes, and the house is as soundproof as your wailing window during the night.
As much as you don't care if Kita finds out that you do in fact touch yourself, you just can't bring yourself to do it when he's in the house, it's wrong and always makes you think of him. You just start picturing him and then the fantasy man from your spank-bank shifts to accommodate Kita's broad shoulders, shorter stature, thick biceps and those thighs-
Yeah, no, not today.
"That's good." Answering as your heart thunders rapidly, heat swelling up to your ears.
Speeding ahead in hopes to rip yourself out from this conversation faster than you landed yourself into it.
Fuck, now you have Kita swimming about in your head rent free when you already must deal with him every day, twenty-four-seven. Not even in your wet dreams are you safe from his... his golden flecked eyes that glow like the sun.
You need to stop.
"Y/n-san don't walk too quickly." Oh, now he's telling you to slow down after all those times of leaving you behind.
Speeding up even faster now you find yourself outside where the winds have picked up and your hair doesn't quite know which way to be a nuisance for you, whipping you in every direction. Waiting beside the truck the howling of the wind eerily sets goosebumps across your skin as Kita emerges from the school, his frown heavy and set deeper than usual.
There are questions pointedly staring at you from across the courtyard but as he gets into the driver's side and even on the way home, he remains silent and eerily still.
Back at the farm you don't confuse yourself with what needs to be done this time as you go to retrieve any loose equipment laying around – the kind that Kita warned you take back to the shed after using them in the first place – fuck is there a lot of them. Closing the shed doors, bolting it shut with the only modern object on his farm, a bloody lock. Until you hear the slam of car doors and the revving engine parking just behind you.
It's Togashi and Kita, he steps out and motions you in.
"What is it?" You find them panting for breath.
"The water system malfunctioned." Kita answers sliding in behind you.
Again. You have a gnawing feeling that it won't be the last time that will be happening either.
Squeezing between the two men fully realising now why all three of you haven't sat in the car at the same time for a while, it's as if the van was only made for two. Packed like a can of sardines you shift uneasily feeling the full extent of Kita's large, muscled thigh press up fully against your hips and right leg. The windows begin to steam, and your warm raincoat is starting to feel like a bad idea the longer you're here, Kita rolls down the window allowing some fresh air to circulate.
He's rigid and stricken with unease as his left shoulder caresses your side, his breathing steadying and being this close to him you get hints of sweet lavender and coconut wafting up your nostrils. You don't particularly like lavender since it can be pungent and overly floral, but this scent seems to be perfectly sweetened like candied apples. There's also the power of earth sticking to his clothes like the smell of fresh dewy grass, you try not to be obvious as you deeply inhale savouring the full extent of that rich sweet smell.
Glancing up at him finding his hair still stubbornly clinging to the sides of his head, but it seems fluffier than before as if the wind has added that wind-swept texture.
His eyes lock with yours and you feel his hand shift to rest on his thigh, it's not a contest on who can stare the longest but... but fuck. Averting your gaze quickly to look ahead as you still feel the strange prickle on your temple before it shifts over towards Togashi.
"What happens if it happens again?" You ask to hopefully to fill in the space as the road becomes bumpier.
"Erh, well, the a, water pressure would get too high and well flood the fields. The system could also explode if it takes in too much." Togashi scratches at his grey stubbly chin.
"Really? Explode?" Exasperated you look between the two.
"That's the worst-case scenario but yes that is still a risk that we're not willing to take." Kita cools your curiosity with his finite explanation.
The water system is just how you remembered it a grey scourge on the beauty of the land with its hard edges and industrialised pipes rooting out from the ground, the small shed connected to it that has all the controls is just as unsightly. The chicken wire fence marks the rich aesthetic the land prides itself on even within this dreary winter that it currently finds itself in.
Funnelling out of the car like multiple clowns emerging from a tiny clown car in comparison to the sardine space that you were given during the journey, men and their manspreading.
There is a blaring alarm call coming from the small shed attached to the fenced off area where the hollering sound wails aimlessly with all its dramatic effects, surely, you're not living in some sort of movie where this will now proceed to blow up. Kita and Togashi get to work with unbuckling the lock and trying to work out what's wrong with the bloody thing.
Useless and completely lost with what to do with the mechanics you refrain from burdening them by standing off to the side closest to the treeline, even now the stream appears fuller than before. The water level has risen to the banks strongly gushing along down the field and you can only admire the tenacity that nature has with preserving its grace. The foreboding ire hidden beneath the shadowy canopy of the forest with its orange tops and spindly arms shivering the wind to do its bidding.
The tall snowy tops of the mountains appearing more like icing on a cake than the harsh winter to come to pass as the picturesque scene makes you feel that you have more time to submerge yourself within the in between. Summer has ended but winter seems so far away, yet the cold brittleness has begun to eat away at your fingers and toes, swell your nostrils red and prickle at your throat. The earth is dying yet there is some sort of elegance to how the ground becomes barren, and the trees shed their coats and enter a deep slumber.
If only you could follow them.
Sleeping for all of winter sounds blissfully tempting when your recent nights have been shredded from the howling wind, being terribly cold that a corpse has more comforts than being stabbed throughout the night.
A faint yowling picks up between the gusts of wind and the drilling of the pipes, crossing your arms over your chest as you miserably try to remain warm. The sound picks up again almost sounding like mewling or-
"Y/n, get over here." Kita calls like the Sergeant fuck-face he likes to think he is.
Rolling your eyes, you shuffle over away from the crying wind and the eerie forest and much closer to the frowning farmer commanding you where to sit.
"Don't stand so close to the stream, the embankment is dangerous, and you could fall in." Kita frowns.
He's never happy with you, he's in a constant state of permanent unhappiness when it comes to you.
"Aye, we shall call that a day. I need ta get back ta the missus before the weather starts ta really kick in." Togashi wipes his hands on an old, dirty ragged towel.
You have no idea what they did but the blearing alarm has finally stopped, and all seems well again... for now.
The night has crept in and with-it thundering rain, strong winds and the blistering chill you're beginning to welcome within this shack that Kita and you call a home. For one thing, however, Kita has finally lit his fireplace up allowing for some peace to quell the biting cold and the crackling of the logs brings some peace of mind to the gnawing tension that's dripping over the edge since this morning.
He's going to ask that you're certain of.
What about? Whatever's been eating him up. Hopefully .
Kita sets tonight's dinner down, it's hotpot which you're for once grateful for as the warm spoonsful of broth and noodles quells the ache at the back of your throat. Kita shifts in front of you one second eating calmly the next picking up his glass and then changing his weight on the seat as the chair creaks with every movement.
Until he finally asks.
"What happened between you and Manabu-san?" He finally disturbs the tension.
Testing the waters with a small poke that ripples into bigger tides.
Between mouthfuls you glare up at him in warning. It might be due to the weather or your strange feelings for him starting to quake within your body but you're particularly not in the mood to be accused of doing something to Kiki when in reality it was about him.
It always comes back to him.
"Are you implying that I did something to her?" Asking simply, continuing to finish your dinner as if he didn't ask you anything.
"No, but-"
"But what?" Quipping back quickly catching him off guard before his defences rise for an attack.
Kita sighs, his chopsticks faintly clatter onto the surface of the table as he leans over elbows on the table, knotting his hands together in front of him.
"But you're not exactly an agreeable person." He states it as if it was fact which in some fucked up way, he's right which only pisses you off even more.
Only he gets to taste your unagreeable side when he's the one with all these unachievable expectations of you and being the dismissive one in this relationship. He wrote you off first, he tried pushing you out, he didn't give you the time of day, if you're the unagreeable one then he's an outright bastard.
"As if you are either." Biting back.
Sooner or later this dinner will become far messier if he keeps going down this road.
"No, I didn't do anything to her," Breathing quickly you feel the race of your heart bang against its cage. "She was just getting ahead of herself like everyone else in this *fucking* village." Seething now you pull away from the table, rigid and pin straight as you come around to face him.
His eyes track your every movement never leaving your body as you become breathless in this heated argument, would you even call it that?
Kita rises and then there's a sound of electricity draining and then the room bleeds black not even the moon can light the room for you, you can't see him, but you know he's there. He can't see you either which makes this a bittersweet moment for you to crack under the pressure of this fucking village and the impending loneliness it keeps reminding you off.
"I'm *fucking* tired of it, of everything, I, I just-"
That god awful alarm blares out again this time silencing your words, there must be a backup generator for that bloody system, seriously Kita needs to get his priorities straightened if he values his fields over his own home luxuries.
But the floorboards creak there's a shifting weight besides you, reaching out hoping not to grab onto nothing but your hand connects with the fuzzy material of his woolly jumper. Stopping him from passing you, having him this close to you can see his eyes dead set on a stupid idea forming behind them, he's not possibly thinking of going out in that?
"What are you doing?" Instantly losing the interest to engage him in a heated argument when he's about to do something incredibly reckless.
Something he would have expected for you to do.
"The fields will flood and ice over." He answers matter-of-factly as if he's not seriously thinking about the risks of going into a bloody storm.
You hold him tight even as he tries to push forward, lightning striking briefly illuminating his form, the crease furrow of his brows, the serious expression marring his face. What a stubborn fucking man. The light is gone and you're both swallowed back into darkness only this time his hand engulfs your wrist, not roughly pulling away just waiting.
"What, are you seriously more concerned over your fields than your-"
"It'll ruin next year's rice-" He quickly interrupts before you follow up with an even more pressing issue than worrying about tomorrow.
"Are you *fucking* nuts? Do you even hear yourself?" Do you?
Acting like the voice of reason for a change is a very strange sensation but it feels right and justified especially when Kita. The man that always has his head screwed on, reprimands you about safety procedures, the first one to make sure if you're okay. Is about to make one of the biggest mistakes that anyone could make all because he's thinking about his stupid fields over his own goddamn health is fucking bizarre.
Him.
Kita fucking Shinsuke is not thinking straight as he marches you both over towards the front door slipping his boots on with relative ease as he still has you attached to him.
"I am and I'm going." He looks at you squarely before pulling your hand away to pull his thick raincoat on.
He can't possibly be this dumb.
But you can't let him go even if he's dead set on fixing the water system, even if he gets on your nerves all the time you just can't let him go but you can't exactly stop him either. He's a fully grown adult male who by which can easily haul multiple bags of rice with ease and has been doing such labours for years.
Looking down at your hands and feet, you can't see them, but you know they're there with only one very stupid idea of your own swirling around your mind.
If you can't beat them, then join them.
"What are you doing?" Kita asks as he finishes zipping up his coat but hears the shuffling of wellies slipping onto feet and the rumpling of cloth.
You don't answer as you pull on your raincoat, wrapping your scarf around looping tightly beneath your hood.
"Y/n." He calls again, irritation and anxiety dripping from his voice until two large hands pull you before him.
They rest on top of your shoulders, his grip fierce but not bruising as you feel his gaze search your face with any indication of hesitation or backing down, but he finds none.
"I'm coming with you." You say with as much conviction as you can muster.
"No." He releases you as if that's the end of it.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Kita Shinsuke but you've never let him back out before saying your final piece.
"Yes. Before you even think about telling me otherwise you have to be a *fucking* moron to even think about going out during a *fucking* typhoon." a wash of clarity seems to pass over him as you hear his breathing steady, but a hand brushes up and along your forearm.
"I'm not risking-"
"I'm not asking you to. But I'm not about to let my host kill himself for his fields. I'll help you." stepping closer to him enough so you can feel his breath tickle your nose.
Your eyes have adjusted slightly allowing you to see the contours of his face from his angled jaw, his flat pointed nose and those eyes piercing you to the floor. It feels like a lifetime ago that you were just arguing about you being an unagreeable person when now feels like an eternity stuck under his gaze, trapped within this moment.
His hand cups around your elbow, his thumb making circles over your coat, yet you can almost fool yourself into thinking that he's touching you directly.
"Y/n." There is torture in his eyes as he whispers your name softly.
There's hesitation there and a pause that draws out long enough for multiple sirens to start wailing dramatically.
He breathes steadily, his touch making you surer of yourself than you initially thought.
"Then stick close to me."
Kita opens the door as he battles between sleet and hail, thunder rumbles the earth and the sky crackles alive with spindly coils of blue, purple, yellow and white. Kita keeps a firm grasp on you and the torch as he wades through almost blind towards the truck.
You're both sodden and shivering with a thin layer of ice sticking to your body as he revs the engine alive. There's no moon in the sky tonight just thick and heavy clouds blanketing the stars, not even the thrum of the vehicle can smother the sounds of the howling wind. But Kita should have been more worried about the state of the road rather than his fields as constant sprays of dark murky water splashes up and over the hedgerows with shards of broken twigs and stones knocking against the truck. Beyond the headlights is just the torrential downpour and nothing but darkness, the bumpy roads make for an even dangerous ride. To think he wanted to this alone is beyond you.
Looking at him now, you find him still with his hood up with drips of rainwater falling onto the bridge of his nose and his hair plastered onto his forehead.
Arriving faster than you had anticipated, Kita gets out first and comes around to your side battling the wind to stay upright as he hands you a torch, he comes close. Too close, his teeth chattering but his eyes blaring homed in and completely focused.
"Stick close to me, don't go near the stream. The water level has risen to dangerous heights." He speaks slowly and clearly even as the heavens open above.
Nodding, Kita helps you out keeping his hand on yours directing you towards the water system where red emergency lights illuminate the surrounding area. Kita keeps you behind him as he one-handedly unlocks the gate and pushes you both inside the gate swinging and clattering against the fence.
Metal hits metal, rain continues to hit like hail, thunder rumbles overhead and the lightning seems to be taunting you to frighten and freeze. What did they say about being out in the open, near trees and never surround yourself in metal when there's a lightning storm. That it's one way to get yourself fucking killed.
Kita struggles at the shed, gusts of rain hit from every direction, this seems like a fucking mistake. The storm has arrived early, and you and Kita now find yourself stuck in it. You shouldn't be here; he shouldn't be here.
"Let me go. You need both hands to get into the shed, I won't wander." Bringing him close, your breath caressing his cheeks.
The raincoats are useless against this storm as both of your faces continuously have streams pouring down them and droplets clinging to lashes. You tug once on your hand, Kita holds strong before sighing, you keep your torch on the lock as he finally lets you go and focuses on the keys.
He gives that look again but this time only worry blossoms in his eyes.
Fuck, this doesn't feel right the storm should have arrived tomorrow but today continues to act like a shit-show. The key fits and Kita stumbles into the small, shed clutching at the walls to steady himself, there's only enough room for one.
"What are you going to do?" You ask but it doesn't appear he heard you as you squint to watch him fiddle with the controls.
"Kita, what are you doing?" Shouting this time hoping that he heard.
"I'm going to shut it off." You barely catch his words under the lashing sounds of the storm raging on.
The wind and the rain furiously batter down onto your clothes, you're soaked from the inside out, but you remain just outside the shed. It wails and yowls louder than before turning to face the treeline when a very faint almost indistinct sound of... meowing carries in the wind.
You can barely see ahead of you, only what your range of light offers as the torch skirts over pipes and the chicken wire fence but nothing more, just the dark. The yowling sounds again in the direction of the trees, looking over your shoulder you find Kita hunched over the controls doing something to them before you look out over towards the treeline again.
It's like you're begging for an early grave.
Slowly but surely, you shuffle away from the shed and manage to slip out from the clanging gate and slip on a muddy puddle catching yourself on the fence before you could fall. The fence jingles waving in pulses, and you wait for the furious call that Kita will make when he finds out you didn't heed his warning.
You say he never listens to you but quite frankly you're just as bad.
Walking over towards the treeline remembering that at a certain point there's a dip where the embankment resides, pausing just a few meters away from the stream. The forest seems even more haunting under the cover of night, and you've never felt so scared for the anticipated jump scare that you know is not going to happen.
Today has just been one big convolution of horror-film moments.
Even from here the stream ferociously laps at the bridge of the embankment to where you are standing, night seems to be strongest here even as you shine your light. Sweeping over the splashing water only being able to visibly discern between sticks and stones and nothing else. You shouldn't do what you're thinking of doing and you know that it's just as reckless as Kita wanted to be earlier but if there is in fact a cat stuck out here then you'd rather risk everything than knowingly let an animal drown. So, you take another step forward the grass slides slick with rain and earth and you ground yourself to prevent further slipping. Swaying your torch over towards your far right you find a fallen tree branch on the other side of the stream, luckily the stream is small and not that wide so the tip of the branch bridges over to your side. What isn't good are the three soaked kittens latched onto dear life as the charging current continuously splashes them in the face.
Yowling their calls of distress are swallowed up by the slashing winds, hailing rain, rumbling sky and now the waves of the stream lapping at the edges furious with its small confinement. Looking over your shoulder again in hopes to see Kita and wave him down but all that bombards your vision is the red flashing light of the emergency system.
You can't just leave them.
But what are you going to do, if it was a normal day, you could simply leap over the stream and get them or walk through it but on a night like this you have no idea what could be lurking within the stream. There's a reason why they say to never get stuck in a flood because it's not the risk of drowning that's the dangerous part it's what can impale and injure you beneath the surface.
But they're kittens struggling to stay on.
"KITA!" Aimlessly shouting for him but your words are lost within the current of the wind.
"KITA!" Your throat becomes hoarse.
After the battle of today its grown weak and tired, aching from swallowing and now this you'll be lucky to have a voice tomorrow. You'll be even luckier if you manage to call him down to help but there's no sign of him just that red blinking light.
Fucking hell.
This might be one of the stupidest decisions of your life as you step closer to the divot where the branch meets land, and the water dangerously begins to rise swallowing the base of the branch. Kneeling onto the wet muddy ground the immediate squelch gives a comforting suction sound as you place your torch besides you, blinding the poor kittens.
It won't be for long.
Leaning across the stream testing your hand on the stability and weight of the branch, it seems to have fallen from the storm and not because its hollow inside. The kittens are closest to the bank opposite you meaning you'll have to lean some of your weight onto the branch to scoop them up. As if that's not a daunting task to do, the crackling thunder rumbles overhead.
Fuck you don't want to do this but it's not about what you want. Sucking it up, taking a deep breath in and exhaling slowing as you shuffle closer and slowly adding your weight to the branch. It has some give with your weight creaking under it but nothing to tell you it will break as water continues to spray into your face.
You're already wet so a bit more can't hurt.
From what you can see they are all grey with blue eyes, but you don't know if they were abandoned here, or their mother left them, or they got separated but for one thing you do know is that they're going to be just fine. Leaning over with your right hand they cry out clawed into the bark unable to move, the other two latch on behind the one closest to you.
You're going to have to hold them by the scruff of their necks to make them unlatch but as you continue to lean forwards a jarring very uncomfortable sound of wood breaking cracks beneath you and everything happens so fast. The kittens continue to cry, the branch breaks in half and to save them all you can do is lurch forwards plucking them off the branch and accept your fate.
That is until two strong hands swoop around your waist and pull you back kicking your torch in the process, and you watch in horror as the branch careens into the stream with the dissolving embankment. Panting your heart races within your ears and the thundering heart leaping out of his chest vibrates onto your back as Kita's arms pull you further onto his lap and away from the stream.
His knees knock into yours as he swivels you around to face him, his hood is down, and you have no idea how he's not squinting at you to see in this heavy rainfall. Rather a mixture of many feelings' seeps from his eyes: rage, anxiety, frustration and gratitude.
"Are you stupid? What the fuck do you think you were doing?" He pants yelling into your ear.
His temper dissipating when the soft nuzzling of the kittens continues to cry out in your arms, they're all safe and sound just wet and shaken. Watching his eyes widen in realisation until all he can see is you again and your nervous smile beaming up at him.
A laugh bubbles out of you as the nervous energy of your close call finally cools off from your stupid, incredibly reckless body. You might be as dumb as him.
"Y/n."
"Shinsuke." Breathing slower, steadier now as he lifts you up careful of the kittens exhausted in your arms.
Looking at him, really looking at him you find that his eyes aren't wet because of the rain nor has his composure completely settled.
"Did you manage to turn it off?" He nods curtly his jaw taut.
He guides with one arm around your waist and the other with the torch as he protectively shields you entering the truck. He follows behind you and all you can see before exhaustion knocks you out is Kita's rigid posture and his knuckles fisting white around the steering wheel.
Only when the feeling in your toes return from nothing to prickling sensation of pins and needles, the sound of crackling fire and the condensed warmth cooking your bones wakes you from your slumber. Fitted into the sofa shifting to your side you find the orange light caress your eyelids open and quickly shutting them again only after the third try can you blink blearily awake, and you quickly notice before you rest the very reason why you did all that. All curled up into a small ball before the fire on top of a cushion are the three little kittens sleeping soundlessly. Dry and safe.
The floorboards creak and Kita crouches before you, he's washed and changed and only then do you realise why you're so warm. You're dry and in new clothes and the realisation hits you hard as you suddenly sit up the thick blanket swaddling your arms droops a little.
His gaze steadies your beating heart.
He couldn't have seen much other than your underwear which aren't the flattering matching sets you left back home but still it sets off a flurry of feelings you don't want to get into right now. The way he's looking at you is even more dangerous than how you felt when saving the kittens.
"How are you feeling?" He asks gently offering you a mug of hot chocolate.
It's just the right thing you needed to wake up to.
"Good, a little sore but I'm fine." A brow raises a question to that certainty.
But it's as if all the weight on his shoulders slips away after you say so, falling to his knees, his head is in his hands and his fingers smoothing into the crown of his hair. Tufts of black and white spike out like miniature horns as he begins to nod in understanding, his hands smoothing away any despair as he looks at you.
"Good, that's good." Whispering in a heavy voice he leans forwards capturing your knees with his head.
He's crumbling.
"Kita."
He doesn't respond.
"Shinsuke." He looks up at you with big owlish eyes.
"I'm sorry, I-" He stops you by smoothing his hands onto your lap as if he's reaching for a hug.
"Just promise me you won't do something so stupid again." He adds like a reprimand however his tone is soft and painful and your heart breaks.
Fuck, you can't take this cumbersome feeling anymore.
Succumbing to him as you fumble into his arms and latch onto his shoulders awkwardly pulling him up and he you down arching your back towards him. Your face finds the crook of his neck and you inhale deeply, it's that rich sweet scent again clinging to his skin. It must be his bodywash or something he can't just naturally smell like this. His nose nuzzles into your hair and his hands secure around your waist pulling you more so onto his lap like before but this time only the flutter of the moment teases at your heart.
Fingers fist and knot into his worn maroon jumper the bloody thing feels like it's going to fall apart, and you grip fiercely as for the first time you truly feel held by someone. Even if that someone is Kita it still tickles that urge and makes you feel satisfied in this greedy body you have because now you never want to let go and that's a fucking terrifying thought.
"Only as long as you do the same."
He chuckles.
~*~
I just like to preface if you didn't realise but words found between these: ** are in English.
Things are picking up now.