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tamavonpineapple · 1 year

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TURTLE SOUP -DELETED CHAPTER 6-

Since I have deleted the original chapter 6, I decided to post the whole thing here for anyone who didn't read it (tho it's not that good)

I'm currently rewriting most of the chapters since I'm not happy with the results. Once done with that, I'll update everything with the true chapter 6.

THE OTSUKIMI FESTIVAL.

He would have understood if his friend felt cloistered and disappointed to spend a celebration like the otsukimi festival in a town smaller than Usagi's home village. Usagi looked up at the sunning pink and orange sky of the sunset. The people passing by praised the view on their way to the temple.

Moments like those were charming despite the shortage of luxury and comforts. Or rather, the wealth of the capitals did not overshadow the warmth of more secluded towns. That's how Usagi lived his entire childhood, after all, but a fact that he could not forget, is that his companion appreciated those stunning and over-the-top festivals they have in his worlds. He could only imagine the scope of a festival in a city that is home to as many people as Usagi's entire nation

"Hey, 'sagi" Leo nudged slightly, adjusting his new coat. "Why did the trew stones at that arch"

Usagi turned his head to see two kids throwing pebbles at the top of a Torii gate. He hummed before answering. "It is said that if the stone you throw at the top of a Torii stays on top, you will be blessed with good luck."

He illustrated his point by throwing his own rock, which hit the surfaces of the torii before rolling down. He clicked his tongue with a grimace as Leo laughed. “Oh, well…”

"Okay, my turn, my turn." The stone he threw stayed up much to Usagi's dislike, he saw Leo's pride swell up, he watched from below keeping his chin up. "Ha! Take that. Turtles must be luckier than rabbit's"

"Yes, Leo. I saw it" Usagi rolled his eyes, guiding the way to the temple. Leo picked Usagi's rock before following up the stairs, he noticed Leo bent down to pick up another stone, the one that Usagi had thrown. Usagi Glanced sideways as he threw it to land perfectly on the center of the torii.

"double lucky!" Cheered. " Don’t worry, I'll be lucky for the two of us!"

“Show off” He mumbled with a half smile.

Once there, Usagi showed him how to purify himself with the clear water from Chozuya, using the paddle to wash his left hand, then the right and finally his mouth –he even asked if Spot should be purified as well–. They greeted the shinshoku before kneeling to the altar to pray to the moon for the new harvests to come. He offered his remaining pieces of rice balls while Leo played with Spot Behind his back. As he left his offering, he felt Spot excitedly jumping onto his lap to try to eat the rice balls. Fortunately, Leo was able to catched before he could eat any of it. Leo held him in his arms while Usagi scolded Spot who jumped off his arm and ran away annoyed with Usagi, slipping out of the temple behind the bushes. Usagi assured Leo that he would return to them eventually.

"But he'll got lost"

“They are wild animals Leo, he is used to wandering.” He went back to his prayer when Leo seemed to give up. Leo waited a while as Usagi recited his chants, now unsure what to do with himself without Spot around.

"I've only seen these things in movies.” Leo mumbled looking around looking around at the visitors, busy with their own rituals

Usagi stopped his plea to respond under his breath, catching him off guard. “Why don't you pray with me?”

“I- I’ve never prayed before" He said playing with the straws of his coat "I don't even know what am I supposed to do”

Knowing that Leo wasn't the type to pray, Usagi thought he would have laughed and dismissed his requests at first. The air felt cold between them, he was closer than necessary, but too far from what he would have liked to.

He decided that it was better to start again at the top, so he could show Leo the entirety of the ritual. Usagi looked in his purse for a coin and lent it to him “toss the coin into the Saisen-bako –the offering box–” taking the thing between his fingers, he saw him stumbling with himself as he followed his instructions, Usagi told him to bow and clap his hands twice, while he himself repeated the process, He wait for Leo to finish and look at him again expectantly, so Usagi decided to smiled at him to calm him down. “Good, and now repeat after me”

He focuses on Leo's struggle to replicate the cadence of his chants. He slowed rhythm, he honed his speech, and waited for him to catch up, even repeating himself to make sure he did it right.

He prayed for the harvests to come, for the land prosperity, for Lord Noriyuku safety, he prayed for his hometown. He prayed for the living as well, he prayed for the dead. He prayed for his father, mother and–... for his Lord and his, he prayed for Mura, for Atsuko, and even for Shugo's family.

He knew his gods meant nothing to Leo, but Usagi wondered that if he were to pray for him and his family, the gods would answer. However, he shoved down the thought feeling, too embarrassed of himself.

“Now make a wish,” Usagi whispered. “And bow again”

“M’kay” Following his example, he bowed, touching the floor with his forehead.

“That's it” He simply stated, standing up with a smile. “Thanks for coming with me”

Leo smiled uneased, he returned a nervous smile as he rubbed his arms under his coat. “Isn’t this part of the experience?”

“Yes” Usagi softly laughed looking at the offerings “As well as the mochi”

His eyes sparkled “And why are we still here? Let's find Spot and go for those sweets”

On their way back to the mainstreet Leo was always fascinated by the Komuso playing their flutes. Every time he asked Usagi the reason for the strange "baskets" covering their heads, although he remembered well that many of them were ninjas in cover.

Leo was also intrigued by the mochi offerings and the wares of the botefuri that went from here to there.He was too self-absorbed to notice the occasional glances he received. However, it was no worse than the looks directed at Usagi himself. So he assumed that it was a problem with his class and not with him.Two little brothers even bowed to Usagi in honor of the moon rabbit, Usagi bowed back as Leo watched the exchange with a teasing grin.

They overheard the vendors gossip about a bake-kitsune terrorizing a small village on the Geishu outskirts. But the details were fuzzy under the bustle of the street, and the children's laughter.

“Should we worry about it?” Leo asked, pointing at the vendors.

“About the bake-kitsune?" Usagi shocked his head and gestured a circle with his thumb and index. “It’s a swindle, they won't fool me twice”

His change completely to a wide sneered smile “Oh ho ho ho! Has my sly bunny been deceived?”

Usagi frowned. “No. Not like that. A merchant tricked me to accept a bet, yes, in exchange for my service for a year. It turns out that the Inn was popular because it was surrounded by a bunch of yokai… But it was a scam played by the innkeeper's daughters and the yokai were puppets. Long story short I won the bet"

“You think it is the same case? This seems to be the type of things that came to bit you later”

“What are the chances?” Dismissed. They reached the vendor stall surrounded mostly by kids and their parents. Usagi bought a stack of mochi and lended to Leo's trembling hands, Noticing that, Usagi puffed and approached a vendor across the street. He evaded the two staggering drunks and held up two fingers at the vendor “Two bottles of sake, please”

Leo panicked, almost dropping in their sweets. “Wowowow! Sake, like the real deal? No, I- I can’t drink!”

Usagi blinked at leo and deadpanned looked back at the vendor face to correct, holding just one finger up “One cup of sake, please”

“You can’t drink either!”

“Why not?”

Leo sighed and looked away. “Where’s my emotional support anyways?”

“It wouldn't be the first time he ran around like this, but he doesn't do it when you're around” he said leisurely, keeping an eye on Leo still shivering, he put a hand on his shoulder. "You're still freezing, you should stay in a Inn, and I can look for Spot later"

"You want us to stay inside now? Really Usagi? We haven't even seen the moon yet?! It's just a little cold, but I can take it! It hasn't started snowing yet!

He went along with Leo despite his doubts, but promised to get something hot to eat later on to compensate. In part, because Usagi still wanted to attend a poetry reading.

"Poetry? You guys are stuck ups!" Leo yelled before seeing Usagi's unimpressed expression "Well, except for you, 'sagi! You' re cool, you're cool"

They saw kids playing in a pond, catching frogs, making it impossible to see the moon reflection on it.

They wandered for a while, looking for something that caught their attention, Leo kept embracing himself and Usagi could even hear his teeth clapping together at moments. However, every time he offered to share sake with him Leo would turn it down and call for Spot.

"Hi, Long ears!" He heard a woman's voice behind him. Usagi turned to de sound, right before hearing the same voice from the other side. "Bye, bye~ long ears"

Leo turned around looking for the voice's owner, but as quickly as she came, she was lost in the crowd, turning in the nagaya –long building– off the main street."What was that?"

From behind came a group of exhausted police officers, and it was no surprise to Usagi that they decided to approach him right out of all the people.

"Samurai" called the captain, already fighting for his breath. "Have you seen a woman passing by?"

"Sir, we've seen like a hundred women today, you need to be more specific…" Leo mocked

The cop seemed annoyed by his intrusion. "A fox, she's been stolen the merchants belongings"

"A fox thief?" Usagi pretended to ponder it, tucking a hand under his chin and looking up with a grimace before shrugging. "I'm afraid we didn't see it!"

The cops growled, Leo did see Usagi hold back a laugh as the lost officers continued their manhunt. Once they were nowhere to be seen, Leo turned his head to face him.

"You're an enabler!"

"The nature of our relationship should have made that clear by now," Usagi laughed. at Leo's dumbfounded face. "I rather not meddle in Kitsune's affair, it never goes well to me"

"Wait, her name is kitsune, really?"

"Yes, now let's get out of here before she finds us"

They wandered around for a few minutes looking for a good place to settle. Until they finally sat under a tree when a poet captured Usagi's attention and Leo by extension, who although having winced at the idea of sitting through the whole recital, accompanied Usagi without protesting –not out loud, at least–.

Leo frowned at Usagi as he watched him open his sake bottle. "You're really gonna drink it."

Usagi took a sip and gently blew out a sound to warn him to lower his voice so that he would not interrupt the poet. "Just for the occasion, it is part of the tradition, I can't see a reason not to"

Leo finally sighted, resigned "al right, all right, cotton tail. You win"

He felt his fur puffing up again. "What happened to long ears?" Usagi mocked.

"Ugh everybody calls you long ears! Is not special anymore"

Usagi hummed taking a big sip straight from the bottle, it gained a surprised face out of Leo.

"Well…I bet a lot of people call you Leo, should I give you the same courtesy?"

"I– Really? And which one will be?"

"Mhhh~" He hadn't expected to be faced with the possibility of calling Leo something other than his name, certainly Leo's choice of words sounded too cheesy in his own mouth. Not even looking for some inspiration in his face, he seemed to find a name to his affection. Not even witnessing his huge smile once again, nor the light sound of his laughter.

"Now, lemme save you before you have a shut down, Cotton Tail." Leo planted a hand on his shoulder. "I know holding hands it's already third base for you guys''

Usagi didn't know what 'third base' meant, but he had to brush away the idea of holding Leo's hand, being that it was something he didn't know he wanted. "Let us hear the Waka"

The conversation died for a while, especially on the part of Usagi who pretended to listen to the poet's verses, which were nothing more than hums buzzing to the back of his mind. Leo didn't even have the decency to feign interest, he just sat in there munching the mochi balls, while staring at the moon.

Still tasting the sake's warm savoriness inside him. He looked back at Leo, looking curiously at the moon, the brightest of the year, decrypting a mystery that only hounded him. He took the mochi to his mouth out of sheer unconsciousness, one after the other as if he didn't have to share it.

He took another sip, to keep his heat, to make his blood burn, to feel like it burned equal to fugu poison running through his veins. Although, against the cold weather, he welcomed its warmth and went for another cup. Perhaps it would've been wiser having a diner before a good drink, but he didn't bother enough to care this time. He was not going to regret that moment, not listening to the sweet words recited in love poems. Not with the strange warmth of his companion as he watched the beautiful autumn moon.

"You already found the rabbit?" he asked after a few seconds.

Leo's head snapped to look into his eyes. Usagi took another sip, waiting for him to come back from his stupor. "I think That the rabbit in the moon being a thing here of all places gives me heebie-jeebies as much as I think is hilarious.

"Is there a reason why it wouldn't be that way?" He asked, looking at Leo's blank face, as if he hadn't considered that possibility. As if their moons couldn't be the same. "Mhh, it's not like I don't understand the feeling… Tell me again about that thing you said before– was it Mubii?"

That seemed to cheer him up "Movie! Oh man, where do I start–?"

He deviated from the question, again. He should apologize to the poet, but Leo's ravings about his world were simply fascinating.

And so, he continued rambling and rambling about things Usagi might never understand. Leo seemed never to be at a loss for words, as much as he seemed to always be in high spirits. And he was the first to get up when the poet had finished his recital, leaving Usagi to worry about the leftovers left behind. At least there was something left for Spot, wherever he was.

"Ronin" called the same voice from a while ago, Leo, who had already gone ahead, immediately turned his head to see Usagi.

None of them expected the call to be for Leo, from a dancer walking up to him as if she had known him all her life. It took Usagi a few seconds before he recognized Kitsune. Leo, nonetheless, was quite stunned by the stranger's intrusion. He tried to step aside and looked back at Usagi for help. But he soon pulled himself together and greeted with the same enthusiasm. "Wasn't it obvious that I'm a ninja?"

"It is, it is!" she nodded, hugging Leo's arm in hers and resting her head on one of his shoulders. "You know Usagi, right? I'm also a friend of him"

"Aren't you too old to stalk teenagers?" Kitsune's face changed at the sound of being called old, which made Usagi realize that it was time to intervene.

Usagi took his bottle and tied it to his obi before calmly walking over to them. "Don't bother, Kitsune. Leo doesn't even have a purse for you to steal"

"Oh, Usagi!" She crooned, throwing herself to Usagi's arm, attempting to put her arms around him. "Something he must have"

Usagi gently pushed her away, keeping his chest out of her reach. "Only what I have on my own"

Leo rolled his eyes and scoffed "That and sixty-nine cents, you know what that means~"

"My, my! A big one!" she praised Leo "I don't see any clan emblem, I suspect you're a ronin, too? Maybe working as a shinobi has its perks.."

"Not his case, Kitsune." Usagi laughed.

She tried to sugarcoat it with her best smile. "Must be enough to spare a poor lady a bowl tsukimi soba"

Before giving Leo a chance to think about a comeback, Usagi intervened. "Maybe if you didn't try to steal from me every time we meet I'd feel more generous"

Leo looked at the street above their heads, lighting up his face when something went right for him, then spoke at the top of his lungs, shutting down any argument between Usagi and Kitsune and quieting the whispers around him." Oh Ma'am, it is very generous of you to treat two poor ronin to a delicious dinner, you must be rich!"

Usagi raised his head to see the group of policemen from a while ago, walking in their direction.

Kitsune's head snapped around, and her ears faced fully forward. As she lunged forward pushing Usagi by the chest, he heard a curse directed at Leo as he smirked.Likewise, the officers swept away anyone who got in their way, barely giving Usagi time to get out of the way.

"She'll be fine, right?" Leo asked, just slightly concerned.

"They'll be…" He nodded looking in the direction where kitsune had fled.

"They?"

"She and her little sister" Usagi shrugged "is her accomplice"

"Oh– I– right! … right, yes. She and someone else" His voice had trailed off with a sudden realization he kept to himself. "I didn't see her, tho"

"Me neither, but she's always around" Usagi patted her chest, feeling only Mura's manuscript inside her kimono. "Kitsune! That thief stole my purse again!"

"Mhh no soba, then.." It seemed as if Leo had wanted to say something else, but whatever it was, the opportunity was lost when he finally caught sight of his lost friend, who was coming back with something between his teeth. "Spot!... Seems like you were the lucky one"

Leo squatted down to coddle Spot as he took a coin from his teeth. Spot happily swished his tail as Leo rewarded him with the mochi that Usagi still had in his hands, then he stood up and raised the koban to Usagi's face, wrapping his other arm around his shoulders to bring him close to his chest.

“I guess enough for one meal" Usagi tightened his grip on the cloth bag and tried to ignore the sudden closeness of that blatant display of affection as he looked at the koban. He then felt Spot snuggle against his legs and was able to take advantage of the situation to get rid of Leo to carry Spot who tried to search the bag for more Mochis.

"It's something I guess" Leo hugged Usagi's shoulders again as they walked.

"If you are so cold, we can eat inside, they will have no problem for us to share a bowl"

Despite the statement being true, they still received stares from various strangers, and Usagi didn't know that among everything about them, it was the thing that drew attention the most

It looked like Leo was finally warming up, though his hands still moved roughly, and his grip on the chopsticks was rather clumsy. He would have a hard time holding his odachi in those conditions and he hoped he wouldn't have to come to that situation.

"So–" Leo says, blowing at the noodles between his chopsticks. "Her name is Kitsune? And your name is Usagi?"

"Indeed"

"Why?" Insist in a muffled noodle voice.

"Well" Usagi gently stirred the inside of the bowl. "Kitsune is not her given name. She left her name with her old life, I don't know what her name is either."

"Okay, get it! But you're not a thief" He chewed.

"Correct"

He swallowed. "And your name is Usagi anyway…why?"

"Because…" Usagi puts his chopsticks down on the stand with a heavy sigh. "Usagi is just a fraction of my Yōmyo –common name–"

"A fraction, you say?" His confusion overshadowed the mockery in his laughter, his hand freezed halfway to the bowl.. "How long could your name be, don't tell me your name is Shiroi Usagi ?"

His first response was a frown and a small sound of frustration. He savored the aftertaste of the soba that seemed heavier in his mouth now that his own name dangled from the tip of his tongue. He sighted. "It is 'So having made a clay boat the badger rowed out to sea along with the rabbit. Then the badger's boat began to sink... And when it was sinking, the rabbit brandished aloft his oar and struck the badger dead, thus avenging the old man's wife'... "

Speechless, for the first time, his eyes stared somewhere far beyond Usagi. The tips of Leo's chopsticks dripped broth onto the table, he saw one of the sticks wobble between his fingers.His jaw nearly hit the table. Then he stuttered "That's– that's– that's not a name, that's an event, how that even goes with your last name?"

"I'm also not happy going around with a pretentious name like that" He sighed massaging the bridge of his nose. "Not to mention my jitsumei –true name–! No, no, Usagi is just fine"

"No shell, Sherlock, of course Usagi is just fine! Like– I know anime goes crazy with their long-ass names, but this is ridiculous! How'd you fit that on your ID card? Imagine giving that name in a Starbucks! What on the Pizza Supreme name is that?! HAH! And I thought my name was weird!"

"– Is the end of the Kachikachi Yama monogatari, and please use your inner voice… " Usagi was quick to stop his tirade, not only before suffering a stroke from the nonsense that came out of her mouth. He looked around at the scowling brows of the people inside the Inn. "My name is the end of that story"

"Oh, geez! That explains it all, thank you very much!" Leo stabbed wildly into his noodles, letting some of the broth drizzle onto Usagi's sleeve.

"Why? you have problems with my name" Usagi took her chopsticks as well, waiting for Leo to clear the plate that was already less than half full.

"I don't have a problem! But you don't go around naming children after their species. Much less named them after the end of a revenge story about killing people with an oar. Why is that your name?"

He took advantage of Leo resuming his tirade to eat a ration of noodle and rectified it with a mouth full. "More like retributive justice"

"Same difference!" he yelled pointing at Usagi with his chopsticks. Usagi looked at it, outraged. But he swallowed his pride, and another time he would explain the manners. But he didn't miss the looks some of them gave him. "You're kidding, that's not your name"

Usagi's response was a seethe, many times he had to acknowledge that Leo was far too gushy for his own good. That night in particular he didn't feel like being thrown out of the Inn during a cold night because of Leo's unconventional manner, again. "Well, that was the kind of woman my mother was. I may not remember much of her, but the name she gave me always reminds me her view on the world"

"Oh she's…– She gave you that name" His entire raving seemed to dissipate the moment he tried to hide his face in his shell as he stared intently at the raw egg in the bowl. "But didn't you say it was pretentious? Now that you mention, it isn't crazy if she was, cuz she was a samurai, and many samurai are way too far from being as cool as you, but I would expect— I mean, I should probably shut up, cuz I don't wanna bash on your mother, that would be wrong and—"

"My mother was a samurai, yes" He cut him off to save him from his own words. "I believe her good intentions don't reflect in the name she gave me. But it was the values behind the name what it ought to evoque"

"But why name you that, and not as the rabbit?"

"That's the point, that rabbit doesn't have a name. Nothing matters about him but what he did. Think of it as the Komusō, monks of nothing, they wander the land with a 'basket' on their heads"

"I think I get it?"

"She didn't want it to be about me, but what I should be a samurai, a humble servant, that I should lack ego just like a Komusō"

"But how is pretentious"

"Because it is a statement. it proclaims the virtue expected of me as a Samurai. When you talk out loud about your virtues for everyone to hear how righteous you are, it becomes disingenuous. Having no name on my own, beyond the most basic of my existence, being a rabbit, brings me closer to being myself beyond my reality… although, thinking like that isn't pretentious as well?"

Leo pondered his thoughts staring, maybe with too much intensity, at the raw egg inside the bowl. "Dude… I was name after after a color and a painter … and I only know one of his works"

He now felt genuinely interested in that new information. "Which one?"

"The sunflowers"

Usagi blinked, trying to place an image of a painting he had never seen, an artist he had never heard of. How different could his technique be? How unique can his strokes be? How many will be the lucky ones who have been able to lay their eyes on something so special. However, the only thing he could be sure of was that despite everything, even on the other side of the world there would be an artist with a noble soul, painting all kinds of beauty, as the flowers were. "Those are pretty flowers"

"Yeah…" He mumbled, "Tell me your name again?"

"Ugh, please no!"

"Oh common! I wanna learn it!"

"But why!"

"... I just want to!" Leo whined.

Usagi kept her voice neutral despite the slight frustration. "I won't let you use it against me"

Leo gave in and Usagi saw once again that fragile glimpse of bitterness on his eyes, and the sight gave him a little pain to his heart "Your mom must have been something else… to give you a name like that"

He looked at the table, suddenly interested in the stains and gouges in the battered wood. "She wanted me to be a good man…"

"She can be proud…" The wistful edge to his voice was unlike Leo, but he didn't seem to be lying when he said it. Though his gaze was still on the bowl, playing with his chopsticks.

"Are you going to eat that?" Usagi asked, unsettled by the intense look at the raw egg, still in the bowl. Leo disappeared before giving Usagi a chance to reply. Not tonight, as any other night, perhaps it was time to go back to the abandoned shrine he was staying in, or just start planning how he should earn money again. At last he ended the raw egg's misery and ate it in one go and folded Leo's hakama to save it inside his kimono.

He was about to get ready to leave when he heard the thud of coins falling next to him, he looked down to see his purse was quite full and its thief standing with her little sister to one side.

"The soba was good," she simply said with a smile.

"Cheers to that" Usagi swung the half-empty bottle of sake at her. With a resigned sigh, he grabbed his purse and tucked it into the folds of Leo's hakama.

"You're friend is funny," Kiyoko giggled. She took a seat on the other side of the bench while Spot sniffed at her. "You know every kind of person! He seems nice… But he's a bit rowdy"

A fist hit the table hard. A huge dog stood like a wall baring his fangs, looking down at him. Usagi had a few theories as to what her problem with him might be."Ronin!".

#turtle soup #Fanfic #It will probably won't take too long #The chapters are already planned out #I'll keep some of my favorite stuff #But its for the sake of the plot

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