Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ken Kaneki (1895-1982)
The Marquess of Anstruther (I) December 1918

Lance-Corporal Kanae Rosewald, Shuu Tsukiyama's batman during the First World War, used to scream every time they were unceremoniously woken by bombs or the gas whistle.

"Wake the fuck up!" Kanae would roar before punching Tsukiyama awake if he wasn't already.

He would follow this initial exclamation with a slew of German. Kanae's cursing, despite constantly undermining the admittedly poor effort that the Tsukiyama family had put into disguising Kanae's German origins, served as a highly effective warning to the rest of the camp. Not because anyone thought that Kanae was about to attack them but because Kanae's voice at top volume was both extremely distinctive and extraordinarily loud as to be expected of someone operatically trained. By late October 1917, everyone was more than used to the eccentricities of the even more eccentric Lieutenant Shuu Tsukiyama's batman.

"You're like our canary in the mine," Yuma joked once after they made a narrow escape of chlorine gas.

"Canary," Shuu had echoed before bursting into giggles; he was very tired as none of them had slept in over thirty hours, so giggling was tolerated. "It rhymes!"

They probably survived the war as they did due to Kanae's cursing as much as Tsukiyama's tactics. Kanae woke them up. The swearing gave them a sense of normality. The language and the volume gave them something to smile about, which annoyed Kanae until he caught on that it was good for everyone. They had, by November 1918, very little to smile about.

"Oh, sure, we smile in our letters and during visits home," Mairo murmured, ironically the night before the Armistice of Compiègne was signed, "but copping a packet -"

"It doesn't do to say," Kanae muttered; although Shuu was pretending to write a report, he knew they were all glancing at him. "Now where's the damn matchbook?"

By the time Shuu and Kanae finally journey home a month after the end of the war, the Isle of Bute, the seat of the Tsukiyama family, is cold and damp. Then again, all of Britain is cold and damp this year, having skipped spring, summer, and fall and gone straight from one winter to another. There's a distinct tang of absurdity. This is not a new feeling. One could argue quite easily the past four years of war were themselves surreal.

It doesn't mean that Shuu enjoys these thoughts. He doesn't. Shuu shivers in his greatcoat, even under the woolen blanket and in the heated carriage. Next to him, Kanae dozes, mouth open. It's not very dignified, but that makes it comforting. Kanae, since they'd disembarked the ferry at Rothesay, is allowed to sit again at Shuu's side. For the week they were down in London and then on the train up to Edinburgh, they had to sit apart in a mimicry of the stations that they once wore as second skins. The charade of manners might have fallen apart in the trenches, but that is a whole other world. It no longer exists, except as scars in the earth.

Instead, it is December 1918. Shuu has recently been made Captain down in London, where the top brass are eager to curry favour of Shuu Tsukiyama, Marquess of Anstruther, only son and heir to the Duke of Bute. Shuu is acknowledged, respected, and decorated, if still eccentric. Kanae has also been promoted to Sergeant and is now far too decorated and eccentric to be a batman. These titles and decorations, earned in mud and putrid squalor, mattered for the past four years. The war is over. Mirumo Tsukiyama, Duke of Bute, has summoned his son and heir home. Kanae as well, of course, but one does not summon a servant; they command. Papa wants the whole family home for Hogmanay.

"It'll be nice," Shuu finds himself mumbling as the carriage rattles on the road.

It wakes Kanae, who emits a displeased noise. "You mustn't mumble, Master Shuu," he murmurs, a gentle reminder.

Shuu grimaces. Kanae's right. Mumbling isn't a good habit. Shuu started it because it was necessary to whisper and mumble in the trenches. He'd been prone to shouting the majority of his life. Now, he's going to have to train himself out of mumbling. The task is already giving him a headache.

"No more iron rations," Shuu says, closer to his usual volume. "I shan't miss those."

"No," Kanae says, very dozily. "It's very warm."

It's not a complaint. The heat of the carriage is not something either of them are used to anymore. Shuu knows he shouldn't still be cold, but he is.

"We will have chocolate biscuits," Shuu says as Kanae's eyes begin to droop again.

Kanae smiles at that. "Yes," he murmurs, looking at Shuu with half-shut eyes. "Matsumae promised."

Shuu smiles. Matsumae had sent packages of her and Eliza's biscuits to Shuu and Kanae throughout their service. It made the entire platoon terribly eager for the days Tsukiyama Co.-stamped hampers arrived. There was whisky and Dunlop cheese and admittedly bland oatcakes along with the coveted chocolate biscuits. Shuu had originally shared only the whisky and the biscuits, but, by his second time out to the front and Kanae's first in 1917, he was sharing his entire hamper. He wanted to see his men smile in that terrible winter. Good food and drink makes people smile.

The carriage rattles through the gates to the Tsukiyama estate. The rain has briefly let up, although everything is still wet. It's all very green, Shuu cannot help but think. Everything outside of the cities here in Britain seems so green and lush. There's a part of Shuu that expects to see the dark, dreary mud of No Man's Land every time he blinks. He looks out the window of the carriage at his childhood home at the top of the drive. It feels like a dream.

Or a nightmare. Shuu has been having trouble lately telling those apart.

Mirumo is not there to greet them, although the entirety of the staff is. Logically, Shuu knows he cannot expect his father, who is so very busy, to stand out in the rain and cold. Shuu is happy to see everyone else. He honestly is, and he knows they understand that. He also knows they see the way his eyes sweep over them, looking for his father. Shuu has never been good at hiding his emotions, which is something that the war has not changed about him. He makes himself smile as Matsumae steps forward. She bows. The rest of the staff bow as well. It's perfectly rehearsed.

"Welcome home, Master Shuu, Mister Kanae."

There's an echo. A chorus. Shuu feels his smile wobble. He wants, rather alarmingly, to cry. He cannot, of course. He is the heir of Tsukiyama, a Captain in his own right, Marquess and one day Duke. When he speaks, it's same tone he used to send men over the top, but he knows his emotions are too plain. He is not so changed from the little boy many of the household know. Too loud, too enthusiastic, too mouthy for his own good.

"Thank you, Matsumae, everyone," Shuu says; "It is good to be home."

There is a famous propaganda poster that features a girl sitting on her father's lap while her brother plays with toy soldiers at their feet. The girl points to a picture in the book in her lap, her face turned towards her father, who looks outward.

The poster reads:

Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?

The first time Shuu saw the poster was after he'd gone to the Front for the first time in September 1916. It was old for a propaganda poster by then, and he only saw it because Yuma, his first batman, had a copy of it that he used as a dartboard.

"What a stupid poster," Yuma griped, much to Mairo's agreement.

"The curtains are nice," Shuu had said, which made everyone laugh.

Shuu was an odd commander. Shuu was book smart, having completed university at Christ Church, Oxford in June 1916 before going to officer training, but only his knowledge of languages was of real use in the trenches. He was odd, but he wasn't hated. He wasn't stupid nor reckless. Shuu had always been good at memorising faces and names, so he learned the names of his men quickly. He was good with maps and could process multiple streams of information, so he was able to adapt the commands that came down from the top. In the mud, he'd learned more practical skills like minor wound dressing and how to be quiet. He thought well on his feet, and he wasn't phased in the heat of battle.

He was, in the end, a good commander. Shuu doesn't think that he was particularly brave nor that his tactics were particularly innovative, but his platoon had a lower than average casualty rate. His men appreciated that. They grew fond of teasing him, especially after they found out he was the Duke of Bute's heir. Shuu would have gotten mad, but the atmosphere of the trenches, of no-man's land, of the war had started eating at him almost as soon as he set foot in the hole. It ate away at the elitism he'd haboured throughout university, and it started to break down something deep inside of Shuu he doesn't have a name for. It made him cry sometimes, alone in the private quarters being an officer afforded him. It made him sympathetic in a way that he hadn't been before.

It's the sympathy that made his men trust him.

"He's odd," he'd overheard Mairo commenting when Shuu was supposed to be trying to sleep, "but he's..."

There was a shuffling noise. The clinking of Mairo's silver cigarette tin, his sole indulgence. It had been a gift, Mairo had said, a little defensively because Shuu had called it pretty. Shuu hadn't meant anything negative. It is pretty, an etching of a Welsh pastoral scene on the lid.

"The lamb," Shuu had said, a little miffed at Mairo's annoyance. "The detail to the face is amazing."

Mairo had stared at him for a long moment before smiling, a little too toothy. "My tad did it," Mairo had said. "He's an engraver."

It had made Shuu smile, too. His relationship with his men got better after that. Shuu learned he had to explain himself. His turns of phrases and poetics weren't appreciated by those who hadn't grown up steeped in Shuu's world of classics, languages, and music. Shuu learned to be clear, if in a somewhat roundabout way. He learned how to be quiet when he needed to be, how to scream to be heard over planes and open fire at other times. But he didn't learn, not in time, to hide that he had no hesitation in wielding his sword or his pistol to kill.

His men were smart, if not in the bookish manner Shuu was used to. They noticed.

"He's," Mairo whispered, again thinking Shuu was asleep; Shuu had started to sleep badly around the same time he took to crying in private, "clearly -"

"Shh," Yuma hissed. "He's eccentric. That's all."

A long pause. The wind whistled. It was a very chilly night.

"Well," Mairo muttered, "better someone like him than Big Madam."

Big Madam was Mairo's nickname for his previous commander, a Major Powell, who was renowned for his cruelty and high casualty rates. Mairo had acted up under Big Madam's command and had been hastily transferred under Shuu's command. It did not pass Shuu by that his platoon was made up of men who had been considered troublesome by their previous commanders. Conscription had brought in a broader mixture of people, and Shuu didn't attempt to fool himself into thinking that he, a Scottish aristocratic upstart, would receive a cohesive machine. Mirumo's influence wasn't strong in the army, which was why Shuu was there in the first place. The Tsukiyama family sensed the world was changing; Shuu was just as much a tool in expanding the family's influence as anyone else.

No one is born into this world wanting to kill.

Shuu sucks in a breath. He blinks rapidly. Shakes his head. He sets his book down in his lap, looking up and around himself. The familiar wood and carpets of the family library surround him. Shuu breathes out. Reaches up and rubs his eyes.

A headache. Bad eyesight runs in the family. Perhaps he should have his eyes checked.

Shuu sighs. He moves the book to the reading table. Stands up and sets the woolen blanket he had over his lap on the chair. He stretches. Feels his back and left shoulder pop.

"Kanae!" Shuu calls, leaning out the east window of the library. "Where are you?"

Kanae appears in the window of the glasshouse. Waves. Shuu waves back, motioning for Kanae to come back to the house and the library. Kanae raises a hands in acknowledgement before disappearing back inside. Shuu steps back in. Pulls the windows closed against the dreary weather.

He hopes, as he makes his way back towards the fire and his books, that it will not be as terrible a weather as last year. It can't be, Shuu tries to tell himself. After all, weather is always partly in the mind. It couldn't help being miserable this past year, deep in the trenches. Even with the news of the spreading influenza, it cannot possibly be as bad.

It cannot.

Shuu's head throbs. He sits back down by the fire. Rests his elbows on his knees. His forehead head on his upturned hands. He hadn't come to the library to think about this. On the table, there's a volume of Virgil's Georgics that he's been attempting to translate for the past two and a half years. He's a little over halfway through it, which is much the same as where he left it last May, when he last came home. He's only made fifty pages progress since he graduated university.

He'd meant the translation as a gift to Papa two Christmases ago.

"Master Shuu?"

Kanae. Shuu opens his eyes. Lets Kanae take his hands. Kanae doesn't smile. Doesn't ask if he's alright. Out of everyone in the house, Kanae understands. The missing pinky and ring fingers on Kanae's left hand mar the symmetry of their hands.

shit shit Kanae don't -

"It's cold," Kanae says, very gently. "I will build the fire back up."

Despite what Shuu tells himself during the day, he has changed.

It's irrevocable, Shuu suspects. He doesn't let Matsumae dress him anymore. It's not because he doesn't want her to. It's because the last time she did, a little over a year ago when Shuu came home to recover from gas burns, the sight of the gnarled, splotchy scars on his feet and legs made her hands tremble so badly dressing took almost half an hour. He only takes coffee at breakfast, which he takes in his private reception room. As he sleeps badly, his stomach wakes unsettled, and he's poor company before he's had time to properly wake. He elects, as he never used to, to spend a lot of time alone. He's supposedly working on Virgil translations, but, really, Shuu is not sure where his head is most days.

Kanae has changed as well. He goes out even in the inclement weather to the glasshouses, even though Kanae's position in the household will never be that of a servant again. There's talk of Kanae taking over some business in Germany, once things clear up and trade is stable. If this had been before the war, Kanae would have leap at the chance, eager to prove himself and to see his homeland again. Now, Kanae grits his teeth and shields his bad hand. He says nothing, for if this is what Mirumo decides, Kanae must obey. It's made the three dinners since they arrived back which they've shared with Mirumo terribly awkward.

"Papa," Shuu starts, after Kanae has excused himself from the drawing room; the mode of address is too childish but it's already left his mouth, "perhaps we should wait until after the Peace Conference to discuss such things."

Mirumo doesn't respond. Shuu watches his father sip his whisky. He is reading the evening paper. Shuu has a cup of coffee. He looks down at it. It's very dark. With the headaches he's been suffering, he's opted to stay away from liquor until the Christmas Eve party when it will be impolite to abstain. Shuu didn't grow up drinking much coffee, but he was never fond of tea. He got very used to coffee in university.

Shuu calls on Kanae late that evening. It does not disturb Kanae's sleep. Kanae greets him in the shirtsleeves of his dinner suit. There's a fresh lamp lit at his desk, which means Kanae was not about to sleep any time soon. Both of them do not sleep well.

"Let's go down to the kitchens," Shuu says.

It's an imitation of when Shuu would be back from Eton and would shake Kanae awake in the middle of the night. It's a poor imitation. Kanae now has proper rooms instead of the servant quarters he shared with two other boys, George and Naver, both of whom died in Gallipoli. Shuu hadn't known them very well. Kanae does not speak of them.

"Do you want more sweets?" Kanae asks, carrying the lamp in front of them.

When they were young, Shuu was always sneaking sweets, even up through his first year in university. He liked chocolates and candied orange peels best. Kanae didn't have as much of a sweet tooth, but he would eat whatever Shuu picked, smiling all the while. Nowadays, the only sweet thing that Shuu or Kanae feel inclined to eat are Matsumae's biscuits. She didn't make any today.

Perhaps she's realised it's all that Shuu and Kanae are eating. That and coffee.

"No," Shuu says, and he nods towards the opposite hall. "Let's sit with Bach for a bit instead."

Shuu builds the fire while Kanae sets the lamp down and retrieves blankets from the trunk by the door. A year ago, Kanae would have insisted on doing this all himself. Now, when they are together, they do not have to pretend that nothing has changed. Kanae joins Shuu on the rug that Shuu has dragged close to the fire. They cover themselves each in blankets. Kanae fishes out a cigarette holder and lighter. They light up together, sitting back to back.

"Master Shuu," Kanae says after they're both on their second cigarettes, "I have a selfish request."

Shuu nods. Breathes in a lungful of smoke.

"Don't," Kanae whispers, "send me away."

Shuu breathes out. He reaches down. Tangles his fingers in Kanae's good hand. Kanae grasps back. Kanae's cigarette burns between them. Ash flakes onto the carpet.

They stay like that, smoking by the fire, until dawn. Matsumae comes to fetch them in the morning. Kanae doesn't stir from where he rests, head pillowed on Shuu's chest. Shuu looks up at Matsumae. She stands with a basin of hot water resting on her towel-clad arms. A small, private smile curves her lips. Lights her eyes.

"You," she says, which makes Kanae stir, "look like when we were children."

It makes Shuu smile. Kanae murmurs inaudibly, blinking up at Matsumae before shifting slightly to look up at Shuu. His eyes are half-lidded and shadowed. Matsumae bends down to set the basin down. She kneels by them, folding the towels over her lap.

She washes their faces. Shaves them. It's nostalgic. It helps Shuu wake up. Feel something close to what he is supposed to be: the heir of this house and not the Captain waiting for gas and fire. It's temporary, and it probably won't last more than a few hours at most. Matsumae stands up with dirty towels and basin.

"Would you like breakfast brought here?"

Shuu nods. Kanae has moved to the fire, working on building it back up again. Matsumae looks between them. At the blankets. The fact they're still in their dinner clothes. Her expression sobers.

"I will bring day clothes," she says, and it is not a reprimand but a reminder. "Today is the twentieth."

Four days until Christmas Eve. Shuu looks down at his hands. The blankets. He should be helping prepare the household for the Hogmanay festivities. There are menus to plan. Guest lists to check. Rooms to prepare. Shuu used to love working with everyone on this. Now, Shuu can barely motivate himself to do more than drink coffee and sit by the fire. He has not been down to the kitchens since returning home. He has not gone riding with Matsumae nor to the glasshouses with Kanae. He hasn't even completed the translation of Virgil for Papa.

"Yes," Shuu murmurs, although it sounds like his voice is coming from underwater. "I know."

It is fairly popular these days for people to want to publish memoirs of the war.

They sell well, much like war poems did during the war. Some are serialised in newspapers and magazines. Shuu knows a couple of people from university and several more from Eton who are publishing or working on writing up their memoirs. Chronicling their childhoods, their service, what they thought, what they saw. People are desperate to understand what happened even though they lived the war. Or, perhaps, it is because they lived the war.

"Have you considered it?" Kanae asks.

He asks this after Shuu reads a letter from Mairo, who has written to inform Shuu he is thankful for the good word Shuu put in for his and his father's employment at Liberty. He wrote, too, that his father was thinking of writing about his work in munitions from the eyes of an artist. Kanae had read the letter over Shuu's shoulder in the library. It is not proper, but Shuu does not mind. He would have passed the letter to Kanae to read right after.

"Absolutely not," Shuu says.

It does not surprise Kanae, who takes the letter and hands Shuu the updated guest list. There are many stories that Shuu will never tell. Many that Kanae will never tell. Neither of them have experiences that would do well on paper.

Of these experience, there is one that Shuu doesn't find particularly alarming but is the most likely to get him in trouble. Ironically, it did not occur in the trenches or even on a battlefield. It took place when Shuu was recovering of his gas wounds in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. His status as an officer and the Marquess allowed him a private room, and Papa sent Matsumae to attend him. When he was recovered enough to have time to convalesce before returning to the front, Shuu and Matsumae made use of the West End apartment instead of making the long trek back to Bute.

One afternoon, not long after Shuu was cleared to return to duty and was simply idling away time as he awaited orders, Shuu went out. It was an unusually clear if brisk evening, and the fresh air coming from the sea was pleasant. He started the walk in just after a light lunch and meandered slowly on his just-healed legs until he reached the Botanic Gardens. He made his way slowly up the sloping hill towards the Kibble Palace glasshouse.

Shuu, in his youth, had visited Glasgow four times. On each of those visits, Papa had had business, and Shuu had been sent away to amuse himself. The last time, when Shuu was sixteen and on Easter break from Eton, he come here. The Kibble Palace has a collection of ferns from New Zealand and Australia. Back then, Matsumae and Kanae had accompanied him, Matsumae humouring Shuu and Kanae's shared interest in botany. Shuu remembers blathering on for the hour they spent here. He used to love the sound of his own voice.

This time, the visit to the ferns was quiet. Because of the mild weather, most people were outside or in the other parts of the glasshouses. The main attraction was the begonia collection. The ferns were green and unassuming, no seeds beneath their leaves at this time of the year. Shuu sats down on the bench, leaning back against it. The atmosphere was warm, and the scent of vegetation was very pleasant. It calmed something that Shuu did not entirely understand in his chest.

After a long time, in which Shuu simply sat among the ferns and breathes, slow footsteps alerted him to someone else's approach. Shuu turned his head to the right in time to see a young man wearing a white medical armband at the lip of the path. The man stopped as their eyes met. He had an eyepatch over his left eye. His hands were at his sides. He hadn't had any hobble in his steps.

"Oh," the man said, very softly; there was a local tilt to the way he formed the vowel. "Good afternoon."

Shuu smiled, a little slow. "Good afternoon."

They stared at each other for a long moment. The man's eyes moved over Shuu's breast. Shoulders. Taking in his rank. Shuu's gaze drifted in much the same manner. The man was a Second Lieutenant of the Royal Flying Corps. It made Shuu blink. Open his mouth.

"You are a pilot?"

The man blinked. For a moment, Shuu thought he had made a mistake. Some people, even though they must wear their uniforms, did not like to focus on it. Shuu knew he had moments of this. He opened his mouth again to apologise, but the man shifted. He smiled, a little nervously but not unwelcoming. He was the type of person who smiled with his entire face.

"Not anymore," he said, and he pointed with a bit of humour to his covered eye. "Unless this miraculously heals."

Oh. Of course. Shuu grimaced.

"I'm sorry," he said, and it was too loud; Shuu sighed. "That should have been obvious."

The man shrugged. He didn't look away from Shuu. He blinked again as his hand came back to his side. He stood in parade rest unconsciously.

"I've seen you," he said, a little uncertain as his eye flicked to Shuu's upper arm and then back to his face. "You were in hospital not too long ago?"

Shuu nodded. He motioned needlessly to his unadorned arm.

"I turned it in this morning," he said. "I'm awaiting orders."

"Oh," the man said before pausing and struggling a little because it was neither a happy nor a sad thing; it was simply how it was.

Shuu nodded again. There wasn't anything to say. The man stood for a moment, the two of them watching each other. It was quiet. The glasshouse was very warm.

"Would you," Shuu said, and his voice was slow, soft, and more than a little stilted, "like to sit down?"

The man blinked. Once. Twice. A small smile twitched his lips. Nervous again but also not unwelcoming.

"Yes," he said, inclining his head just slightly. "Thank you."

Shuu shifted to the left. The man made his way to the bench. Watching him move, Shuu could tell that his slow gait wasn't due to injury. It was steady and more due to discomfort for the lost field of sight. He sat down in the vacated space, leaning back and folding his hands his lap. He turned his head, looking at Shuu with the same steady watchfulness they'd been engaged in before.

"Do you," the man started, the careful, halting tone at odds with the gaze, "mind me asking?"

"About?"

The man's eye flickered. Took in Shuu's face. Neck. Shoulders. They worked their way down. It was a concise, intense cataloguing. Shuu swallowed. When the man met Shuu's gaze again, it was very bold.

"Your injury."

"Ah," Shuu said, and he felt his lips twist; it was not a smile, but Shuu didn't know what else to call it. "Gas. My boots saved my feet."

The man's mouth formed into an O. His eye widened even as he blinked.

"I'm," the man said, and it was very soft and very sincere, "glad."

For the first time since he woke up in the field hospital, something in Shuu's chest uncurled. It must have done something to his face, his demeanour, or both because the man beside him blinked again. Something shifted in the intensity of his gaze. Some of the wariness eased.

"I wish," Shuu said, and it was a voice he barely recognised; it was whimsical, "I could have kept them. The boots, I mean. They were rather heroic."

It earned him a bright, honest laugh. It moved the man's entire face. His cheeks rose and his eye crinkled. His hands relaxed on his lap. There was a lightness to Shuu's chest. A warmth to his stomach.

"Would you," Shuu said, very low, "like to go for tea?"

There are three guests who are arriving today. One is the Baron Matasaka Kamishiro, who is thankfully not bringing his daughter, the Hon Miss Rize. Shuu is not particularly looking forward to interacting with the Baron. He holds no particular ill will against the Baron, but, since they grew into adulthood, Shuu and Rize have not gotten along. In their youth, they did not pay much attention to each other aside to make polite conversation, but there had been a fairly tumultuous summer when Shuu was nineteen and Rize seventeen. They'd exchanged letters at their fathers' prompting. It had not ended well for a variety of reasons. Shuu does not look forward to the inevitable awkwardness.

"All of today's arrivals should be here by tea," Matsumae says she meets Shuu on his way out to join Kanae in the glasshouses.

"Then I am unfortunately occupied for tea," Shuu says, very bland.

There is a short silence. Matsumae's expression gives nothing away. They grew up together. Shuu is not a child. He sighs.

"Do not worry. I will present myself shortly after."

He sets his hat on his head and steps out. The rain has tapered off temporarily. Shuu takes his time on the wet path. The other two people arriving today aren't people that Shuu knows. They are a Mister Ken Kaneki and a Mister Hideyoshi Nagachika, who were both labeled as artists. Shuu supposes he should have attempted to speak with Mirumo about their business, but Mirumo has been occupied with correspondence for the morning. Shuu knows he is more than allowed to interrupt, but he is reluctant to do so.

Instead, he has removed himself to the glasshouses with Kanae. Kanae is attending to his ongoing botany project of breeding roses. He doesn't look up as Shuu joins him, his entire attention occupied with pruning. Shuu draws up behind Kanae, looking over the wintering plants. Shuu reaches up, removing his hat and holding it loosely in his hands.

"Are you planning to graft onto this one come summer?"

Kanae hums, gently untangling two close-growing stems from each other. "It is a good candidate," he murmurs, a fond, small smile on his lips.

It makes Shuu smile as well. He stands beside Kanae, content to watch his cousin work. There are a couple other people in the glasshouse, so Shuu does not have the liberty to squat down and join Kanae in the work. Shuu himself has never been half as talented at botany and horticulture as Kanae. He appreciates the beauty of nature, but Shuu did not have the patience for it. Shuu had been attracted to what he'd considered more exciting and important before the war. Poetry, language, high society. Billiards, fox hunting, salon debate. Cloistered off in Eton and then in Christ Church, Shuu had thought he'd known all the world had to offer. That he had all the answers.

Shuu had been, he realises now, an imbecile.

Kanae finishes with the bush. He sits back on his heels. Tilts his head to look up at Shuu. It's a steady gaze they share.

"It is late, Master Shuu," Kanae says, the language of their stations. "You should return for tea."

Shuu breathes out. Nods. He knows that Kanae can tell he is not enthusiastic for tea. Kanae saw the guest lists and was likely informed of the schedule. Neither of them are much for tea these days, especially when there are none of Matsumae's biscuits. Kanae's lips twitch.

"I will see you at dinner," Shuu says.

"Of course," Kanae says, very softly.

It is immature and poor of his rank and station, but Shuu drags his feet on the way back to the main house. He does not want to see the Baron, who Shuu fully suspects has heard the entirety of the disastrous exchange between Shuu and his daughter. Looking back on it, Shuu recognises now that he was ungallant in his conduct, but he still holds that the things that Rize said were equally intolerable. Shuu should not have responded after the third letter. He should have simply informed his father he did to think any further communication would be viable. He should not have insulted Rize has he had, should not have let his temper get the better him. That is Shuu's fault. That the Baron still does business with the Tsukiyama family says much for Mirumo and the Baron's friendship.

Matsumae meets him at the door. She raises an eyebrow at him as he hands her his hat. Shuu realises she must have been watching him meandering up the path, kicking little pebbles like a child. He grimaces.

"Master Mirumo and the guests are in the western drawing room."

Shuu shakes his head as she offers to take his gloves and coat. "Thank you."

Matsumae steps back. Shuu makes his way towards the west wing of the house, deliberately taking the long way through the main halls of the house. Usually, Shuu would use the servant passages, both because they're faster and because he used to enjoy popping out and giving everyone a bit of a surprise. Shuu still uses the servant passages and doors, but he doesn't enjoy surprises anymore.

The doors to the sitting room are slightly ajar. Shuu can hear his father and the Baron discussing what sounds like fairly light business. Shuu stops on the hallway carpet. He pulls off his gloves. Folds them in his hands. The kid leather is very soft and pleasing. It's not particularly warm. Shuu is stalling.

Deep breath. Step forward. Shuu is a Captain. He is the Marquess, heir to the Duke of Bute. He needs act like it.

Shuu opens the sitting room doors. It draws everyone's attention except for his father, who is sitting with his back to the door. The Baron doesn't smile, but that is not unusual. The Baron is a dour man. Shuu inclines his head.

"I apologise for my tardiness," he says, drawing back up and looking over the other two occupants, "I -"

Whatever excuse Shuu had to offer dries up in his throat.

Adjacent the Baron and sitting beside the blond-haired man Shuu does not know is the pilot from Glasgow.

He looks at Shuu, his singular eye impossibly wide.

Shuu has dropped his gloves. The right falls on the carpet. The left over his right shoe. His heart clogs his throat. It attempts to beat out of his ears.

"Shuu," Mirumo says; he turns in his chair and faces his son, "this Mister Hideyoshi Nagachika, who I have hired to install electric lighting. And this is the painter I commissioned, Mister Ken Kaneki. Mister Nagachika, Mister Kaneki," and he turns back to them both with a small, thin smile, "this is my son."

It is an absurd comedy.