Mark of the Firefly (Tsukkiyama)

Reckless Company

Yamaguchi had half a mind to not answer and let whoever was out there freeze or asphyxiate or get pelted with meteors. Still, as the rain got heavier and the pounding at the door got louder, Yamaguchi felt his resolve weaken. Despite his circumstances, Yamaguchi could never bring himself to be truly selfish or unkind, and the habit was once again besting him. Surely this person couldn't be dangerous, a desperate traveler caught unawares at best, petty criminal at worst. It wasn't like the door was particularly sturdy anyway; if they really wanted to, it would take only a few kicks to break down.

With a heavy sigh, Yamaguchi unwound himself from his nest of clothes and hauled himself out of the basement, taking care to close the trapdoor and trap in what little heat was left. Slinking as quietly as anyone could across the packed dirt floor, Yamaguchi grabbed his knife from the kitchen table and crept up to the door. The person was still hammering away at the door, sounding more desperate by the second. Just as he reached his hand up to the handle, he heard the person on the other side begin to shout.

"Dammit Tadashi, it's just me! Let me in!" then a pause, "Please?"

Instantly, Yamaguchi flung the door open to reveal a very wet and bedraggled Kageyama Tobio. Yamaguchi wasted no time in pulling out a towel and the warmest set of clothes he could find and thrusting them into Kageyama's shivering arms. Turning around to let the other change in somewhat privacy, Yamaguchi began to lecture his friend.

"Are you insane? Don't you know how dangerous it is to be out in the storms like that? What on earth were you thinking Tobio?"

Kageyama only grumbled as he toweled off his head, now fully dressed in dry, albeit a little small, clothes. "Are you mad? Why? I'm fine."

Yamaguchi huffed as he grabbed the other by the wrist and dragged him down into the cellar. "Yes, Tobio, I am mad! You could've gotten yourself killed. You could've been pummeled to death by meteors, I was almost going to let you freeze because I didn't know it was you!"

"Yeah, but I didn't. So, it's fine. I have something to show you."

Yamaguchi silently cursed Kageyama's emotional ineptitude and switched his focus to the damp bag slung over Kageyama's shoulder. "This better have been worth it, Tobio."

Kageyama simply grinned, or at least as much as Kageyama could smile in any sense, and gently dumped out the contents of the bag. The satchel was chock full of beautiful, shiny, trinkets still wet with rain and mud.

"Oh, Tobio! Where on earth did you find these, they're wonderful!" Yamaguchi delicately picked up what seemed to be a music box, painted with vibrant colours and engraved with gold filigree. The olive-haired boy turned the box over, inspecting it at all sides, before turning back to Kageyama and shooting him a beaming smile.

Kageyama practically preened as he gave his answer, "I got them in the Meteor Fields; they were some of the early ones that I managed to grab before the storm got too bad."

Immediately, the smile fell off Yamaguchi's face. "The Meteor Fields? Tobio, what the hell?"

"It's fine, I hid under that rock thing out by the Crow's Wing. These ones landed right in front of me, I had to take them."

It took a second for Yamaguchi to register where the Crow's Wing was before remembering it was the name for a dangerous scavenging spot. It was right at the bottom of the mountain range, by the foothills, where an eroding boulder and overhang of rocks created the illusion of a giant bird with an extended wing, if you look at it from the right angles. It took a second longer for him to remember that the gas hung low in that area, came earlier, and lingered longer than it did in other places.

"You have got to be kidding me. You could have died to the gas out there, not to mention the fact that it's still storming! Why would you even try to pull a stupid stunt like that?" Yamaguchi all but screamed both for emphasis and to be heard over the roaring storm.

"These artifacts alone could feed my family for a whole year if I get a good price. We could maybe even pay to send Miwa off to that nice school she likes." Kageyama stood defiant and resolute in his reasoning, stubborn and bullheaded as ever.

"Yeah, well, you're no use to Miwa dead! Does she even know you're out here?"

"She thinks I've been here with you the whole time. I'm here now, so it's not really a lie."

"No. No, no, no. Let me run by this again. You use me as a lie to your older sister, who loves you more than life itself, so you can run off and get yourself poisoned and killed by the gas, all for the sake of some dumb artifacts?" Yamaguchi knew Kageyama was well-intentioned, he always was, but the raven-haired boy just didn't seem to ever think about the consequences of his actions.

Kageyama pouted in that angry, stoic way of his. "No human has ever died from that gas in one night anyway. What Miwa doesn't know can't burn her."

"It's hurt her, not burn her, and yes, it can! You know just as well as I that that gas poisons you. So what, it doesn't end you instantly, that slow ailing death is a million times worse!" Kageyama's eyes hardened as Yamauchi spoke to him. His parents spent most of their time at the coast, trading and selling fish so they could send the money back to their kids. That left the Kageyamas, both Miwa and Tobio, in the care of their grandfather. The senior Kageyama had been a scrapper in the old days before people realized how bad the gas could be. It ate away at his lungs and skin for forty years before he died from its poison, hacking up blood and blistering from the slightest touch. Both Yamaguchi and Kageyama had seen the horror firsthand, and it was not a pretty death.

"I just want to help. Won't you at least fix them up so I can sell them? I'll split the earnings with you. I've already done the dangerous part, don't let that go to waste." Kageyama pleaded, eyes downcast and hands fiddling with the straps of the bag.

"Yeah, fine, only if you promise to never scavenge early again. Go out and collect whatever else you can once the storm is over and the gas clears. I'll repair all your mechanical ones and keep tabs on repair fees. You don't need to split the profit with me, just pay me for my services after you sell." Yamaguchi gave in. Kageyama was right, the damage was already done, better to make as much money off it as possible. "Oh, and make sure Miwa does all the haggling. You scare away the city stiffs with that angry face of yours; she'll make more money selling than you will." Miwa was far nicer and far more charismatic than her younger brother. More often than not, he would scavenge, and she would sell. Sometimes, though Kageyama made him promise to never tell anybody least of all his sister, he would manage to sneak into one of the gambling dens that cropped up in the area after a celestial storm. Gambling was illegal, but half the time, the highest betters were the law enforcement themselves, lovingly dubbed the Ticks by the locals for their shiny black armor.

Kageyama simply nodded and made to curl up in their now shared nest of clothes. It was no bed, but it was soft and mostly comfortable, if not a little cramped. Maybe a wealthier set of people would have issue with being so close to someone of the same sex, but heat was a necessity in the cold of the storm. Besides, Kageyama had long since been like a brother to Yamaguchi, a solid source of comfort in the otherwise stressful and draining life on the outskirts. Even others in town sometimes whispered about them. Some called them unnatural, and whispered that Yamaguchi would let the Kageyamas have their way with him for a cut of their profit. Others would claim them a mooch, either the Kageyamas feeding off of Yamaguchi's kind disposition or saying he leeched off the hard-working nature of the Kageyamas. Others still found no issue in it at all, finding it entirely normal for the three veritable orphans to stick so close together. Neither boy paid any mind to the gossip of the townspeople, they were greedy and selfish like everyone else, but the people couldn't do without the cleverness of either. As they finally settled in a comfortable way, Yamaguchi heard one last utterance from his near brother.

"Thanks, Tadashi."