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Hira loved naps. Hira liked humans. He could even admit that he respected the ayakashimori. Even so, if one were to ask the Hira of last year where he saw himself today, it certainly wouldn't be in the embrace of one such ayakashimori, using him as a person-sized pillow.
Tengu did not need sleep, but neither Hira nor the girl he currently held in his arms cared about that. He would not dare say it aloud, but often Hira would just lie there, holding her, and reminisce on how he was so fortunate to have gotten to this point.
Hira had always enjoyed watching humans. Typically from afar, though sometimes he would venture closer to observe. Hira had lived a long life. Sometimes he grew bored of watching them from the mountain.
He couldn’t quite place a feather on when life began to grow dull. Perhaps after the first millennia? Humans had such short little lives. It was almost as if he would blink, and those he had grown so fond of observing were dead and gone. It was difficult to find motivation to spend time watching them when they would be gone in a mere moment.
Hira often wished he could be one of them. He wanted to know what it was like to live a tiny little life; to feel human emotion and know what truly made them work. Of course, he had witnessed them do many things (some of which he would certainly be interested in experimenting with with the one currently drooling adorably on his shirt), but there was a fundamental difference between seeing and doing.
He supposed one of the reasons he grew tired of life was because there was truly no end to his existence. No matter what he did, or who he spoke to, it didn’t matter in the end. They would die, and he would endure. No amount of wishing otherwise would change the fact of his existence, nor the inevitability of the end of everyone else’s. So he decided it was easier to just not care and sleep away the time.
Then he came to Sakuratani and became the Shire of Amatsuna. And it was so much work , but what was the point? The ayakashimori he worked with would just die soon anyway. Takao could handle it, and it's not like Hira wanted to be Shire. He only did what he did because it was what old man Tengu told him to. Takao would occasionally challenge him for the position. Part of Hira considered letting Takao win simply so he could be rid of the responsibility and exile himself in peace, but tengu were nothing if not prideful. Even as unmotivated as he was, Hira's pride would not allow Takao to win. If Takao wished to become Shire, he would have to be able to defeat him in combat. Besides, the old man would have proceeded to lecture Hira for ‘abandoning his duty’, and that was even more tiresome than being a Shire. And so, Hira endured. Takao would issue a challenge, and Hira would defeat him. Eventually, Takao stopped trying.
Every year, new ayakashimori would introduce themselves to him. Hira would ignore them, as he was wont to do, and they would soon turn to Takao for any important matters instead, leaving him in solitude. There was no point in getting to know the humans. They were no more than a speck of dust in the galaxy of Hira's immortal, unending existence. They would fade, and Hira would endure , just as he always had.
That is, until he came.
Tokitsugu Semi, a new ayakashimori from a renowned onmyouji family. Not that Hira paid him any particular mind at first. No, he attempted to ignore Semi just as Hira had done the centuries’ worth of ayakashimori before him. The difference was, Semi didn't quite listen like his predecessors had.
In his numerous years of sloth, Hira had begun to underestimate human ambition and stubbornness.
Semi had pushed his boundaries, trying to get Hira to ‘do his job’. (What a pain. Just get Takao to do it.) Apparently, the onmyouji’s words and actions had had an effect on Takao as well, as the other tengu had grown more volatile in his interactions with Hira. Hira found this even more tiresome than anything else he had experienced thus far. The human simply wouldn't give up. If Hira brushed him off, Semi would push until he got a response. He supposed it was slightly better than the ayakashimori from before, who would typically give up after one attempt at interaction with Hira. A bit of variation in the monotony was somewhat enjoyable, though his interactions with the human often left Hira more exhausted than anything. He wouldn't say he considered Semi a friend. Hira didn't even consider Takao a friend, and the two had been together for centuries. Semi was… an annoyance. But, still, an annoyance was at least memorable, even if only for a short time.
And then, the ayakashimori brought in an obnoxious loudmouth of a human girl. She never stopped talking. Hira would ignore her, and she would continue to carry on as if he were paying attention to what she had to say. (He did pay attention to what she had to say, but she didn't need to know that.) Sometimes she would grate on his nerves to the point he would bluntly tell her to stop speaking, or use his divine power to seal her mouth shut, and the girl had the nerve to continue to prattle on regardless! Even so, the girl never pushed too far. Sure, she tested boundaries, and forced him to interact with her, but she always stopped before he reached his limit. This woman was exhausting .
But still, he found himself beginning to miss her when she wasn't around. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, not even to himself at the time, but Hira looked forward to the girl’s patrols in Amatsuna. He did notice she spent more time in Amatsuna than the other Shires’ domains, which secretly pleased him. Takao would tease him for his thinly veiled affection, much to Hira's chagrin. Of course, Hira denied it, when he could muster the energy to do so, but Takao had spent far too long by Hira's side to not notice the effect the girl had on him.
Slowly, (or rather quickly by an immortal's standards, he supposed) Hira began to have just a bit more energy. He would banter back and forth with her more often than not, and to Takao’s surprise, he would occasionally actually perform some of his duties. She really was an obnoxious woman, but at some point the annoyance morphed into affection.
She had such impossible ideas about friendship between ayakashi and humans, too. However fond he may have grown of the ayakashimori girl that he considered his personal form of torture (affectionately), they were not friends. She would die, and he would live. If Hira were to put into words the attachment and affection he felt for her, it would hurt all the more when she died. Hira’s misguided solution was to attempt to seal those feelings away.
He couldn't help himself, though, and he gave her the bracelet. Hira was worried. He played it off, saying he was only going to let her keep it if she managed to land a hit on him, but the gift was truly made from a place of concern. He had a bad feeling he couldn't shake. Hira loved her, and dreaded the thought of something happening to her because of a failure on his part.
Love.
A four letter word. So simple, so mundane, so human , and yet so undeniably important to him.
Hira had spent most of his existence wishing he was human. Now, though, he was grateful for his eternal life, because it meant he had lived long enough to experience what it was like to truly experience the feeling of love. Every moment of his immortal existence had led him to this point.
He gently traced a finger along her cheek, careful not to wake her. The corner of his lips turned up at what he saw.
They were truly a messy entanglement of limbs at this moment; her legs were entwined with his, her arms were around his middle, her face was buried in his neck. Even so, there was nothing Hira wanted to do more than be where he was right now.
For as much as he loved her, he knew she loved him, too. It mattered not to her that his body temperature was lower than a human’s, or that he didn't always know what to do with his limbs when holding her like this. Every time she came to Amatsuna, she would snuggle into his arms, saying she missed him. And every time she did that, she would inevitably fall asleep.
For millennia, Hira had thought relationships and friendships between ayakashi and humans were doomed from the start. But then he met the spitfire of a girl currently sleeping soundly in his embrace, and Hira did not mind reevaluating his perspective. After all, she was worth it.
While Hira could not exactly put a feather on the moment the world began to grow dull, it was far easier to determine when it began to regain its color. He merely had to think back to the day she had come into his life.
Hira held her all the tighter.