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The Onsen, Thursday Afternoon

Allerdale Hall offered only water that ran red from the clay and that didn't get warm enough to make it relaxing rather than purely functional to have a bath. Lucille remembered the Onsen; she hadn't visited it a lot when she had been living in Fandom before, and she did have a comfortable bathtub in her apartment, but she longed to relax in warm water, perhaps washing off some of the memories she preferred to leave behind.

Those memories didn't include killing her mother in the bathtub with a meat cleaver. That was one she would cherish forever.

She slipped into the water, wearing a swimsuit that would have been more or less respectable in her own time, then closed her eyes.

[Open]

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Shunsui considered himself an exceptional expert at breezing along. It was as familiar and as natural to him as swordplay, and he paid just about as much attention to the process as he did his fighting, which was to say hardly any at all. And one of the elements of this was routine, so the timing couldn't have been better, if there were any silver linings to any of it. A new session, new class, summer activities, new routines, and perhaps a return to old ones. Despite the memories. Or perhaps because of them.

To think, anyone would call Shunsui sentimental! As he breezed through with a dead women's haori over his shoulders, a dead couple's hairpins neatly in his hair. The new, empty bottle of sake tied with a black leather ribbon being slowly filled with haiku about birds. He thought maybe he would add another, today.

And since his last training session with Katen had not left him with any open wounds this time and the old ones were well healed over by now, it was perhaps time to get back to old routines.

With, it would seem, new faces.

"Ahhhhh, Lucille-chan~~ ♥," he sang brightly when he arrived and saw someone already there in the water. "What a pleasant surprise ♥! I knew today would be a lucky one the moment I woke up ♥!"

Lucille opened her eyes slowly.

"Really?"

At least Shunsui was very far from deserving a meat cleaver, even if Lucille wasn't going to admit to herself that she didn't mind the company.

Was that a really of incredulousness that Lucille could not believe her own luck in having Shunsui arrive to interrupt her once again? Or was it a curious really with regards to his comments about the luckiness of his day?

Did it really matter? Nope! Shunsui's response would have very much been the same either way.

Also, there were plenty of people who would probably disagree with that cleaver comment.

"I must say, Lucille-chan," he commented with a grin her way, "I know they are very stringent about the charmingly puritan notion of wearing swimwear in a bath house here at this onsen, but you appear to have done a marvelous job of....covering all your bases ♥."

Shunsui himself, aside from his hat and the flowery pink haori that he now let slid from his shoulders in able to catch, somehow, a perfect breeze to allow it to flutter away, was clearly leaning in the direction of figuring out just how little of a swimsuit he could get away with, though now that the haori was lost to his dramatics, he and the jug in his hand moved to step into the water.

"A little sake to accompany your soak, my dear ♥?"

"You drink in the bath."

It was a statement

"And if that us a hint that you wish I'd wear less, I'll let you know that it's rude to imply such a thing."

She looked more amused than offended though.

"I drink everywhere, Lucille-chan ♥," Shunsui chuckled, extracting a cup from...somewhere, as he got settled not too far from her and began to pour. Carefully, of course. "In the bath. In my store. In bed ♥."

Most people would consider that a problem.

"You seem rather fond of assuming on one's intentions, Lucille-chan ♥," he added, with a grin, knowing full well that this neither confirmed nor denied whether those assumptions were correct. "There are some who might consider that rude...♥"

And lest anyone be any ruder than the two of them had clearly already been, he made sure to do the polite thing by offering out the poured cup to the lady.

"I never said rude was a bad thing," Lucille replied.

She accepted the cup. Perhaps she should get used to drinking in the bath with half-naked men? She had done things that might be considered worse, after all.

Half-naked was incredibly generous toward the side of modesty.

But Shunsui was pleased that Lucille had taken the cup, and went to go find his second one.

"Then I suppose," he mused as he poured again, "that makes it easy to know what we'll be toasting for, Lucille-chan ♥." Now poured, he the judge aside at arm's length and then lifted his cup toward her. "To mutual rudeness," he declared, "assumed or otherwise ♥."

Lucille smiled.

"To mutual rudeness."

She sipped the sake.

"There are no baths like these where I'm from."

And Shunsui, smiling back, sipped his own, before he settled more into his spot. He draped his arms on the edge of the pool, as if to take up and fill in as much space as possible, sinking down a little, and closing her eyes. Taking a moment to fully appreciate the warm water, the cooler air, the distant sound of a woodchuck chucking wood against...something nearby.

"Onsen simply means hot spring," he then drawled as he soaked it all in. "They're incredibly popular where I'm from. Lucky you, Lucille-chan; I am an onsen expert ♥. My favorites are the ones tucked away in some quiet, remote snowy mountain, with the snow falling all around, but never able to touch you ♥. And then that brisk shock of the cold air when you emerge, driving you very quickly to find warmth again elsewhere: a soft robe, hot sake, the arms of a beautiful woman ♥."

"All of that sounds very pleasant," Lucille said. "Well, maybe not the arms of a beautiful woman."

She had to make that clear, of course.

"My home is situated on a clay pit," she continued. "The water turns blood red from the clay, and it's expensive to heat."

"Perhaps you have just not spent enough time in the arms of a beautiful woman, Lucille-chan ♥," said Shunsui, who really couldn't help twisting that one a little with a crooked grin. "I confess, as someone who has spent a great deal of time in the arms of many beautiful women, that is far and above the most pleasant ♥.

"That does sound like quite the nuisance," he added with a thoughtful sort of rumble ot his voice, moving his cup back to his lips for a sip, "and far from pleasant. It's little wonder you would want to escape it ♥."

Lucille was going to ignore that first part.

"I'm... I suppose you could say attached to my home. But without my brother to share it with me, it is more of a burden filled with old secrets."

"I can certainly appreciate the sentiment in that," said Shunsui, glad his cup was still close to make it easier to lift in acknowledge and sip while thinking of how long it would have been since he last visited his own estate if not for that weekend when they were children and those old, old memories drove him back. He was quiet a moment, his smile still plastered in place but distant, until it sparked again, like pushing all those thoughts away to make way for cheerfulness.

"Are you the younger sibling, Lucille-chan ♥?" he asked. "Or the elder?"

"The elder," she said. "It seems I failed in keeping my little brother safe in the end. Do you have siblings?"

It was less awkward to be in a bath with an almost naked man than she had expected. Fandom habits returned quickly, it seemed. Well, not like that, Lucille scolded the narrative.

"Ahh." His expression softened, Shunsui tilted his head at her. "So ka? O-kuyami mōshiagemasu, Lucille-chan, my condolences. That is a less happy thing we appear to have in common, then. My brother was the older one, though, and it has been a very, very long time."

"I'm sorry," Lucille said. "I don't expect painful memories ever go away."

She sipped her sake.

One would hope they could at least fade, though, after more than a thousand years...

There was a moment, and then Shunsui let out a small laugh. "All the more reason," he declared, beaming brightly again, "to make happier ones, Lucille-chan ♥! It appears our conversation has taken quite the morose turn, so let's take a turn back the other way! What do you like to do for fun?"

"I play the piano," Lucille said. "Although I don't have one at the moment. I read poetry."

Poison people? No, that wasn't for fun, that was something else, and regardless, something she wouldn't talk about.

"And yourself?"

"Ah, poetry ♥!" Shunsui brightened more, enough to warrant another laugh. "Oh, that's very good, Lucille-chan, did you know I actually write.poetry ♥?"

"You do?"

Lucille sounded almost curious.

"What kind of poetry?"

"Oh," Shunsui's hand danced in the air in a dismissive fashion, though his grin was anything but, "a little bit of everything, really ♥. But I do find myself partial to haiku and grand, sweeping romantic ballads &hesets;. I'm also a novelist ♥. As a matter of fact, part of the reason I decided to come back for a spell, besides the excellent napping and the even more excellent women, was to work on my next book ♥."

The exact same one he'd come here to write nine years ago.

But you couldn't rush art.

"It was? How is it coming along?"

Shunsui didn't come across as a very productive person, but he did seem a little like a romantic poet, if less of a tortured soul.

"Surprising well ♥!" said Shunsui with an amused sort of chuckle, knowing full well that his surprise was fairly genuine, as there were actually a siginificant amount of pages written for it, though they had not been touched in a while. "Considering all the excellent distractions one may find here on this island... ♥. Perhaps I should find you a copy of my work thus far; no doubt you'll be simply dying for more, Lucille-chan, and how could I ever want to disappoint you ♥? It will quite the motivator ♥."

"I do need more books to read," Lucille said. "Should you need inspiration I brought some volumes with me from home."

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The Onsen, Thursday Afternoon

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