Yagyuu started the game, not to any of Masaharu’s surprise. Successful surgery or not, the bus ride back from the hospital needed some distraction, and Yagyuu had these flights of fancy. This one was abundantly suggested by Jackal’s remark that Marui reminded him of a hummingbird: voracious and viciously territorial, but pretty enough to watch that almost no one noticed those parts.
While Marui tried to decide whether he was insulted or complimented, Yagyuu smiled. “What animal would you be, then, Jackal-kun?”
“Should be a horse,” Kirihara put in. “They like him because he’s just as strong as they are.” Masaharu’s lips twitch, recalling that the horses had not gotten along quite so well with Kirihara.
“Nah.” Marui shook his head. “Lizard. You should see him basking in the sun some time.”
“So what’s Sanada-fukubuchou?” Kirihara asked with a grin. Sanada gave him a dark look, but it didn’t have quite the usual weight.
“A tiger, perhaps,” Yanagi mused, ignoring Sanada’s snort.
“Prickly and dangerous, and really good at glaring,” Kirihara agreed, secure in the two bus seats separating him from Sanada.
“Does that make you the deer then, Akaya?” Sanada inquired, and returned a sardonic look to Kirihara’s glower.
“Akaya’s an otter,” Marui corrected. “Always showing off.”
“All right, then, what’s Yanagi?” Jackal asked, over Kirihara’s indignant Look who’s talking!
“A turtle,” Sanada answered, finally entering the game in the name of payback. “All observation and deliberate movements.”
Yanagi simply laughed softly.
“And Niou-kun?” Yagyuu asked, in the tone of someone baiting a trap. Masaharu snorted and lifted a brow, placing a small bet with himself.
“Fox,” Kirihara said, decidedly.
Yes, he’d rather thought that would be it.
“Perhaps also the snake,” Yanagi offered. “Given how rarely he does anything in a straight line.”
“That should count for Hiroshi, too, then,” Marui pointed out with a thoughtful bubble.
“Their combination is a snake?” Yanagi sounded amused. “So what is Hiroshi alone?”
The whole team paused, considering. “A bear,” Jackal said, at last. “Powerful. Needs a large range. Extremely dangerous if provoked. Very communicative, if you know how to read their body language.” He traded a slightly sheepish smile for Marui’s astonished look. “I took my brothers and sisters to the zoo last weekend.”
Masaharu leaned back in his seat. “What’s Yukimura?” A much longer pause followed his question.
“A crane?” Kirihara suggested, at last. “His game is graceful enough.”
“A butterfly would seem most appropriate to his emergence, just now,” Yagyuu murmured.
“A dragon,” Sanada said, quietly, looking out the window.
And the game ended on a rustling sigh of agreement.
They were all getting off the bus, stretching and exchanging dinner plans, when Masaharu heard Yanagi ask Kirihara, softly, “So which are you going to be, Akaya? A tiger cub, or the boy who swallowed a dragon pearl?”
Glancing over his shoulder he saw Kirihara looking up at their strategist with an expression caught halfway between question and decision.
“I’m going to be the thunder.”
Masaharu tucked away the glint of approval in Yanagi’s smile to think about later.
End
*delighted* Well. An otter. *grinning* Of course Akaya would be an otter, at least to start with. *snugs*
*grinning* It’s the whole attention-getting thing. It’s so Akaya.
…Very pretty. I love how the mythology is just woven into there (and Yanagi’s input).
I completely agree with Yanagi being the turtle, although I probably would never have thought of that before. Not so much the tiger and dragon ones; maybe because that’s what fandom already attributes to them? (or did you start that, you brilliant writer you) Yukimura I can see, Sanada I might have to disagree on…
I love Kirihara’s idea of who/what he is. That was so him right there.
**piles love for the beautiful ficlet**
Thank you!
*considers* The Yukimura-dragon thing may trace back to me. The tiger, though… *grins* That’s another Chinese legendry reference, which made it across to Japan as part of the martial arts traditions–the dragon and the tiger tend to be complementary opposites, and opponents.
The elf actually surprised me, on this one. I hadn’t expected him to pick that way. *proud of him*
*flails at you for the Chinese mythology, because I’m patriotic, yo*
And tiger! Eee! It fits, though, what with Sanada’s family background. 🙂
*pleased* Thank you!
These bits of mythology really do fit nicely with what we know of the characters; it was huge fun putting them together. ^_^
I can imagine. Did you have to do research, or just drew on memory?
*thinks back* I believe the dragon’s pearl was one of the things I found while looking for something else, and it so resonated with Yukimura and Kirihara, for me, that I had to write about it. I’d already thought Yukimura fit the whole dragon-storm-water mythos, though I did look up the difference between Chinese dragons and Japanese dragons in more detail for this arc, and the dragon/tiger thing I knew from way back. *grins* The most research I had to do for this one was finding out what animals are native to Japan that I could have the team use for each other. That took forever!
*laughs awkwardly* Thank you for pointing out that you had to research the difference between Chinese and Japanese mythology. I got so caught up in the whole legends thing I completely forgot about the difference in, um, nationalities.
*nodnod* I hadn’t realized how different it was until I went looking, either. It made sense to me that, since the legends came from China, they would be quite similar. And they are. Just… there’s a different emphasis, in character and location.
Admittedly, I was entertained that absolutely everybody insists their dragons were the first dragons. *wry*
Naturally…OUR DRAGONS ARE THE FIRST DRAGONS!
XDD
Or at least Asian Dragons were before Western Dragons. *sniffs haughtily*
*laughing*
*bows*
I live to amuse.