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Grey foreboding clouds casted dreary shadows onto the forest below, teared as they pulled themselves across the sky, and specks of the pure white sky bled through. Goemon prudently crunched leaves, dirt, and sticks beneath his sandals, catching every sway of his body and his loosening grip of Zantetsuken. He felt his fingers flex, tightening around the bamboo and then forcibly relaxing. There was no rhythm to his steps. Like a creature struggling to find its footing, he slithered along, his current comfort knowing that he wasn't lost, he just needed to keep moving.
To his side was the river that he always followed to and from the hideout, his aquatic beacon guiding him out of the enchanting seclusion of the forest and back into the comforts of the lonely French manor beyond its reach. He was done for the day. By the ‘books’ he was done hours ago, but his body moved unsatisfactorily all day, unable to perform the techniques it’s known for decades how to do.
His legs swayed again, like he was drunk, and the ground moved on its own. His soul at least felt intoxicated, rumbling on autopilot as reality itself glided through him as if the river's waters were flowing through—past—his body. His hand pressed to the tree’s trunk, skinny and dark with strips of bark hanging off of it. His back slumped against it; his mouth heaved a sigh. The trunk was more stable than it seemed.
His legs stopped. A weight from his hand suddenly lifted as Zantetsuken clattered to the floor and spun towards the riverbank. His eyes observed it, taking in how serene the bamboo sheath looked next to the slow-moving water. With a grunt, he moved towards his katana, bending down to pick it up, eyes now catching the silhouette of a man in the water’s glimmer.
The murky waters reflected only the fools that tried to grab a glimpse of themselves. It waits for those fools to break the surface tension and dive in, sinking beyond the depths. The comfortable pace askew the shape of the samurai. Did he really look like that? Fingers pressed into the side of his face, was his skin always that texture? He was warmer than he remembered. The crevices under his eyes were dark and hard worn, from the years of battle that forged them. Why did his left hand look bigger than his right? Though he stopped picking and prodding at his appearance since he became a samurai, the boyish urge remained at his fingertips like when the ocean eats away at cliffside rock.
His eyes gazed upon the river’s flow. It stowed away from his destination. The journey back into the forest was less painful than heading home in moments like these. When he is painfully honest with himself, he can admit only to the presence in his head that he trains to hide and hides to train.
He can be as dramatic as he likes when he ends up back at the hideout. He might be presentable by the time he gets back. Right, so today was August sixteenth.
◊◊◊◊
The silhouette of the hideout was blocked in with pools of inky shadows and strips of light from different windows across the building. The depths of the forest had wanted to anchor him in their branches, but he politely declined and plodded to the chateaux and the refusal took him until the sun sank below the mountains to convey.
The practical thing about French mansions in the countryside is that they have big, wide roofs for a stray cat or a samurai to crawl up onto (against his body’s better judgment). The details obscured, only showing him just enough to navigate to the top.
He flopped down on his back once he felt the flat surface beneath his fingers. His heavy breaths were the only thing that filled the dark empty sky. There wasn’t much going on in it, other than the occasional dotting of stars, and the moon was unusually absent. His arms ached and wrung out a cry begging why the brain would let him do this, but there was another Goemon who dealt with the body's soreness, and this wasn't that Goemon.
Goemon is hardly a man of want, and what he wants are practical things: money, a place to sleep, stuff to keep Zantetsuken shiny and sharp. Sometimes he wants bandages, antiseptic, pain relief, but he prefers to attain them without three other pairs of eyes.
Today was unfortunately a day he couldn’t just simply pass with training.
Bumping into Lupin this morning was agonising when he already had that stupid grin on his face.
“Don’t make us wait on you.” he had said, his eyes boring into Goemon; half-lidded.
“I’ll return when I’m done.”
“But it’s August sixteenth!” Lupin pressed.
Some time ago, it had to be years at this point, Lupin pressed Goemon to make a fake identity for a heist in a tiny country. Back then, his friend had been into giving his heist plans like presentations and required audience participation. When he called upon Goemon, the samurai gave him the first date he thought of. Now, a singular day became magical upon utterance. It lit up their eyes the week prior to it every time like clockwork. Goemon himself had no problem letting his eyes have that warm glow when their heist-mandated birthdays rolled around. It's just himself. It was a truly random day.
Regardless, he hardly remembers the interaction; what Fujiko was wearing, or if Jigen was polishing his gun. The others might as well not have been there. The memory existed in a black haze with only Lupin staring him down for an answer.
Goemon had remained silent in the morning's interaction, turned his back to his friend, and went to escape into the vast outdoors.
“You don’t get it do you?” Lupin had asked.
Goemon had gripped the handle of Zantetsuken. What was he supposed to get?
“I’m just tryna’ have some normalcy around here.”
For thieves who are magnetised to bad habits and trouble, what good could come out of that? Goemon didn’t need normal. He needed clarity.
When was the last time he even celebrated anything like that?
Oh, he remembered. That time in China, all those years ago.
Seiryu looked stunning under the glow of the fireplace. He held up one of the cups they had used for tea that morning, though Goemon could smell not fragrant oolong but something more astringent.
“Liquor?” He asked, as he felt compelled to stay staring at his friend, who had a pleasant smile despite camping in the middle of nowhere in some cave.
“It’s been a year since you arrived at the dojo. It’s worth celebrating”
“Ah… thank you.”
Not an accomplishment by any means, but Goemon indulged his good mood. Knowing Seiryu for at least a year left his body warm, as if his mind had a shot of the liquor without him noticing. He remembered the feeling of the apples of his cheeks raising. He must have smiled. If he could go at least a decade without caring about the thoughts and feelings of others, it would give him peace of mind.
And it would be a lot easier if he could just keep ignoring how much he over did it.
◊◊◊◊
The bad thing about countryside French chateaux is that they are big, wide and will not alert your trained senses when you sense quiet footsteps here-and-there. At first, he thought, birds, an actual stray cat, or even some other woodland creature, but as the footsteps felt heavier, he sat up and his vision filled with the silhouette of a woman.
“Is daydreaming really how you want to spend your birthday?”
He honestly had no snarky rebuttal for that, but just having her gaze on him was the best he’d felt all day. He gestured with Zantetsuken.
“You can spend the day however you please,” Fujiko said. “But just don’t forget us when we’re the ones who actually remember it.”
Fujiko did, in fact, sit down beside him with an unbelievably cute pout, and to demonstrate her choler, she flicked him on the forehead.
“Happy birthday, dummy.”
Jigen and Lupin ascended, one had a cooler, the other a garish, over-decorated cake. How Lupin managed to get the cake all the way up here was something he was going to inquire about later. Both smiled when they made eye-contact with him, Lupin snickering as he sauntered over, wearing elegant lounge wear. Goemon now realised too late that the cake was covered in a ridiculous amount of lit candles.
“Happy Birthday! It’s the big three ‘o’ for you!”
Jigen had suddenly teleported to his side, shoving a cold beverage against his cheek.
“Happy birthday, man.”
His turtleneck and casual slacks made Lupin look severely underdressed. Goemon’s eyes flickered between Lupin, the cake (is it melting?), Jigen, the can, Fujiko, and the sky. His mouth agape, like each breath was reducing the harshness of his current state, sanding down the rough edges until he felt like he was alive again.
“I think thirty is quite enchanting, actually.” Fujiko commented.
She touched the back of his hand, and he manoeuvred with hers accordingly, always in sync. Their fingers locked, Fujiko’s depressed into the spaces between his, the greatest anchor to reality. Her cosy red sweater and black skirt made it look like she had been out earlier, but her shoes were the dead giveaway; plain sandals that she only uses to traverse this property. He leaned his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes.
“That makes me five years too old to lie to myself… and ‘call it an honour’.”
"Well, that's true, but you'll find that the rest of your brain comes in and adulthood finally becomes fun."
Lupin gagged like a petulant child.
“Hurry uuuuup! No way I’m listening to you make terrible references to great American novels when your cake is made of ice cream!”
Upon saying such a childish, warm statement, the cake began to melt further, and Lupin burst out laughing.
“Alright then,” Goemon relented.
Taking the drink away from Jigen, he leaned forward to blow the (one, two, three…) thirty candles out. He’s far too prideful to submit to Lupin, but he’s open to being primed with Jigen, or Fujiko, or alcohol. But all of this was nice, objectively. If you ran tests on it over and over again, there would have to be a specific set of circumstances that you would need to meet for this not to be a nice thing.
A small but merry cheer from the three of them erupted as the candles lost their flame. The smoke wrapped around him and stole that bitterness, and Goemon knew that he had to replace it with sweetness. Fujiko immediately let go of his hand to practically crawl over him to get to Jigen and the magical cooler. Jigen chided her playfully as he pulled something out and shoved it into her hands.
Goemon looked up at Lupin with a cheeky smile on his lips, paired with a half-lidded gaze.
“May I have my cake now? It’s not the samurai way to be discourteous to someone who bothered to put thirty candles on such a short-lived dessert.”
“I’ve had it with you!” Lupin said, rolling his eyes, producing some spoons, and sitting down in front of him, giggling. “Turning up the samurai nonsense right at the last second!”
“Be nice to him,” Jigen chided, taking a spoon from his partner’s grasp. “It’s his birthday.”
“That’s right, it is my birthday.”
Goemon pressed the spoon decisively into the centre edge of the cake, scooping out a large mouthful of ice-cream. It's sweet chocolate flavour cut out the rest of his bad mood. Really, he owed it to them to put up with his bad moods and his random decisions to reject the birthday he imposed onto himself. He felt their love, passed around through word, touch, and object that left him thinking this might just be the clarity he was looking for.
It was just a random date, but he could indulge in the magic of it.