Bare-faced and bare-headed, long black hair broken up by the teeth of a simple comb, pretty lips quirked into the slightest ghost of a smile; Yoshitsugu looked beautiful but beyond that exposed. Takatora had peeked into the cracks before but never seen his beloved friend so devoid of all the layers of mystery. It was... mesmerizing. Enough so that he forgot entirely what he'd been doing and drew to a stop, gaze fixed on the vision he'd stumbled upon. Even on that fateful day, when the ground had been scattered in the crimson of petals and blood in one swipe of a blade, Takatora hadn't seen so much of his dear friend's face.
Wait.
“What?”
It wasn't his most intelligent moment, it really wasn't, but the realisation of Yoshitsugu's death all that time ago placed against the reality of what lay before his eyes was a bit too much for one mind to process at once. None of what he was seeing made any sense whatsoever. A dream?
“Close your mouth if you have nothing else to say.” Yoshitsugu placed his comb down and turned his head, smile widening a little. “You look like a fool.”
“And you don't look dead,” muttered Takatora, glancing away. “But you are, so I think you can give me a moment of foolishness without comment?”
“You don't look dead either. Or old. But you're both, in case you've forgotten, so 'fool' still stands.”
It probably should have been a shock to hear that. Should have sent him to panicking again, which he now remembered was what he'd been doing; running around the echoes of the estate he'd had in life searching for the people that had leant it a heartbeat. But it just... didn't. Instead the oddest blanket of emotion settled over and around him, lending calm to his pulse and a warmth to his body.
If it could be called that. Certainly felt and looked like one. Maybe that was enough. Takatora looked back at Yoshitsugu and found that he really didn't care about the distinction right now.
“Fine,” he said, stepping closer and reaching out. “But you're one too, huh? Waiting around for me like this?”
“I didn't have a choice... but I would have stayed anyway.” Yoshitsugu's expression grew softer, in a way Takatora hadn't seen since they were very young men indeed, as he turned and stood. “So yes. I suppose I am.”
Takatora had so many reasons to be angry in this moment. He'd carried the pain of Sekigahara for decades. It had been bad enough losing his dear friend to the pains of war but that at least was the expected cost of their choices, taken on and accepted by them both; being basically forced into the position of acting as Yoshitsugu's second in seppuku had been beyond horrifying, cruel, and it had been Yoshitsugu himself who had done that.
Red flowers bloomed around them, peeking through sudden cracks in the wall and floor. Vines started to wrap around the furnishings. Takatora took Yoshitsugu's hands and stared down at his friend, his... his beloved, ignoring the shift in his environment to instead take in every single detail of Yoshitsugu's face. The familiar parts looked exactly as they had before their very first battle with the Azai, free of sickness and the wearying effects of war; the grey of Yoshitsugu's eyes was so vivid and bright it looked more like liquid silver, though that might have been Takatora's well-hidden romantic side making comment on what it saw. Those lips were fuller than expected, now that he thought about it... but what had he expected, anyway? He couldn't be sure, just not this.
The anger was still there, wrapped around the hurt and sorrow, but for the moment it seemed distant. Unimportant. Years fell off, blowing away in the breeze now moving through the room, as Takatora dropped Yoshitsugu's hands to instead cup Yoshitsugu's face and kiss him like he'd always wanted to.
Since the start.
Since the end.
Even when his name was too painful to speak, and as an old man on his deathbed, Takatora would think of Yoshitsugu and that damn facecloth and regret not pulling it away, curses be damned. Having the memory of at least one kiss might have eased some of the unfulfilled longing he'd carried around beneath his ice-cold exterior. Now there was none of that to be concerned with he felt free and light, not embarrassed at all to act on the demands of his heart or restricted by the demands of the world around him. They could just kiss, couldn't they? And maybe do other things. That would be nice. More than nice.
Yoshitsugu laughed into the kiss and Takatora felt his cheeks burn. Apparently dying couldn't spare him from all embarrassment, and, really, it made him even more the fool he'd been accused of being, because it wasn't like Yoshitsugu could read his thoughts.
...right?
“Your vines are climbing up my legs.” Yoshitsugu stepped back from Takatora and the kiss, but only to shake off the encroaching greenery. “Feeling possessive, are you?”
“No,” muttered Takatora, crossing his arms and pouting lightly (thought there was none of his usual defensiveness in the gesture). “I just missed you... and hey! How are they my vines, anyway?”
“This place is yours, isn't it obvious? It's shaped by you, defined by you.” Yoshitsugu tipped his head back, staring up into the clear sky now unveiled by the vanishing of the ceiling. “Until now you never let the outside in. I've always preferred being indoors, but never getting to go outside was a bit much. This is welcome, if overly dramatic.”
His, huh. Takatora tore his eyes away from Yoshitsugu for a moment to actually look at their new surroundings; the final traces of wall were rapidly vanishing in a sea of long grass, new trees growing fast and strong in place of the furniture. Every single one was covered in flowers and while some part of him had expected to see camellia, red as his beloved's blood, it was clumps of purple wisteria that bloomed instead.
There was no sign of Lord Nagamasa and Lady Oichi beneath the trees they had so loved, but why would there be? They wouldn't be here, would they?
“Hey, Yoshitsugu...” Takatora turned back to his friend and walked over, pulling him in closer, taking a beat to marvel at how easy and natural it felt to do so. “When you said you had no choice but to be here, why is that, exactly? Shouldn't you be with everyone else by now?”
“I gave you my soul.”
“...you what.”
“Do I really need to repeat myself?”
“This is... you can't just do something like that!” Takatora's fingers gripped a little harder; the wind blew sharper around them, not quite chilled but close enough to leave goosebumps. “When? Why? I don't... it's not...”
“Does it matter when?” Yoshitsugu shook his head a fraction, before reaching up to touch Takatora's face. “I couldn't split myself into two, so instead I gave Mitsunari my life and you my soul. That seems to be what kept me tethered here, unable to fully leave life behind so long as you were still breathing. But like I said, I would have made the choice to stay around. It's nothing for you to get upset about.”
“But Yoshitsugu... it's... you just shouldn't do something like that! It's...”
Too big. Too vast. Too powerful a choice. Yoshitsugu continued to stare up at him with an expression of amused fondness, like he really did believe it wasn't something to get wound up over, like it wasn't the vast gesture Takatora felt it was. Had he known about it in life... well, actually, he probably would have waved it off and treated it like something foolish but in this 'place,' this grand ever after that was reacting to his current feelings by starting to hail on their heads, it mattered too much. He took a deep breath, thought for a single second about how he didn't really need to breathe at all anymore, then embraced Yoshitsugu tighter for just a few more seconds before stepping back.
“...it's done now, I suppose.”
The hail was already starting to let-up, calming and changing into a very powdery kind of snow that was catching in Yoshitsugu's hair. Yeah, it really was something too big to examine, so maybe Takatora just wouldn't for now. He'd just got here, after all. No point in losing themselves further in the choices of the past. The confusion and bewilderment could sit in the box with the anger and wait their turn.
He took Yoshitsugu's hand again instead and squeezed it. Marvelled at how he could now know just how expressive Yoshitsugu's face was, know that the movement of every little part was so revealing that it had to be part of the reason for that damned facecloth. There really couldn't have been much mystery without it.
“If you're been stuck here all this time,” Takatora said, ignoring the spectacle of dancing flakes around them, “this means you don't really know what comes next, yeah?”
“That's obvious.”
“So we've both got a lot of surprises coming, then.”
“Plenty.” Yoshitsugu's tone turned into something gentler than Takatora had ever known for one moment, stripped of humour and any kind of dryness. “But the flow tells me they're going to be good ones, this time. Are you ready?”
The swell of emotion that Takatora felt in that moment, vast and wonderful and, yes, confusing but good, whipped the snow into a frenzy, a dance. The light split and sparkled in unnatural but beautiful ways. Had Yoshitsugu been given a chance he probably would have poked fun at the excessive metaphor going on, but the opportunity was denied, because Takatora kissed him again.
They had a likely forever for the journey ahead. For now he'd take as many kisses (and more) as he could get away with.