#as for Goemon I think if he marries Murasaki she's going to have to just join the polycule!

[the-golden-ghost]

First/last meme: Fujiko/Goemon, 28

28. First/last photograph

~

The hideout had never been so cluttered with photos. Ever since Jigen swiped that camera during their last gig he’d been obsessed; pretending to be cool and nonchalant about it but the sheer number was enough to prove otherwise. Lupin was threatening to cut his paycheck and just convert his salary to film.

Goemon liked to look at them, though. And though Fujiko tended to get exasperated when he wouldn’t use her as a model, he often caught her rifling through them too. There was a simplicity to most of the shots; a quiet stillness that reminded Goemon of home, wherever home was.

Fujiko was curled up on the bed near him, in her slippers and ready for sleep. She’d be leaving the next day, and Lupin and Jigen had taken off just that morning, but that gave Goemon a night alone with her.

“He didn’t take any of his pictures with him,” Goemon remarked, looking at the nightstand near where Jigen had been sleeping during their stay.

“He’ll take more,” Fujiko said, her eyes shut.

Goemon had to agree, but he picked up the photos anyway and began looking through them. Mostly they weren’t of people. Jigen didn’t take portraits very often. Mainly they were interior shots taken from inside dark rooms, or close-ups of the piles of mess they tended to naturally leave around when they were heisting. There was a shot of Lupin at his worktable late at night with a single lamp illuminating him, a few pictures taken from outside the window at passing cars, and one or two that appeared to have been snapped quickly from the rope ladder of a rising chopper.

As he flipped through, Fujiko sat up and started looking over his shoulder. “There’s a lot of you,” she remarked. Goemon flushed and pretended he hadn’t noticed, but yes, there were pictures of him meditating, of him preparing dinner, and one of him dozing off in the back of the car with the city lights on his face.

It was pretty clear that Jigen had a favorite subject when it came to portraits, but Goemon was a bit annoyed that there were virtually none of Fujiko. If she appeared at all it was in the background of a shot of something else, never the main focus.

Until they got near the end, and she took in a breath beside Goemon. It was the two of them in the kitchen with the morning sun coming through and she was kissing him on the nose. As usual with Jigen’s photos he had a knack for lighting and timing so that everything fell into place. “I want to keep that one,” she said, taking it. Goemon wasn’t sure if it was out of vanity or sentimentality, or perhaps a little of both. Either way, Goemon was somewhat flattered that the photo she chose to keep was not just one of herself, but that he was there too.

Goemon would keep one or two for himself, he was sure. Jigen would probably never miss them. Maybe someday they could organize them and put the best ones in proper albums instead of scattering them to the winds, but not tonight.

Tonight they’d just sleep together. These memories would not be saved on film to last for an indeterminate number of years, but they would live on in their minds, and that would be plenty for them both.

~

It was a warm night and Goemon was engaged to be married in two days.

Instead of spending every moment with his bride-to-be, though, he was out on a walk with Fujiko. It would have seemed unkind in any other context, perhaps. But Jigen and Lupin were teaching Murasaki how to cheat at poker, and when Goemon had left the house, she was beating them by miles.

“So you’re leaving the day after,” Goemon said. “I thought maybe you’d stay a while. Lupin and Jigen are planning to spend a month here...” after that, they’d go, too. And Goemon would not.

“Well,” she said at last. “It’s not gonna be forever. When the wedding’s over I’m going to do a few weeks in Nepal, but after that... who knows. I might come back and see you again.”

And it wouldn’t be forever, Goemon knew. When he’d proposed to Murasaki the second time he’d taken her aside first and explained everything. They had to walk all the way through the village and surrounding forest and back again before it was all told, but eventually he got it out. Everything from his birth, his family history, his training as a samurai, his career as an assassin, and then a thief. His bravery and his criminality and the people he loved. He told her in the end that she couldn’t be the sole love of his life. That she’d have to share him because though he’d tried for years to make an end, he would never be able to untangle himself from the people he’d made a life with for years and years. He could choose her as his wife, and give her that space in his heart and future that would be hers alone, but other parts would belong to the three people he’d loved first and would love always.

He told her all that, and then asked her if she would still have him. And he’d been expecting a no, so the outcome he was facing now was a surprise to him, though not an unpleasant one.

“I’d like that,” he said. He didn’t think he could have said goodbye to Fujiko any more than he already had. “Oh, there’s something...” he’d meant to give it to her, and he didn’t want to forget before she left. Sometimes she could disappear suddenly and he wouldn’t know when to expect her again.

Jigen had slipped him a handful of photos when they arrived and told him to keep them safe. They were, Goemon guessed, a sort of wedding gift. Jigen would never be the sort to do anything official like that, but he realized that they were intended to be something to have with him even as he started his new life.

They were of the four of them, taken throughout the years and their journeys together. Goemon had noticed with amusement how Lupin’s jackets and Fujiko’s hair color had changed and changed back, and how Jigen stayed more or less the same although sometimes he traded his clean-cut mobster look for something more resembling a modern cowboy. How Pops even showed up once or twice, always in the background, always watching quietly.

Many were of Goemon and Lupin, or Goemon and Jigen. A few of the three of them. Even more of Goemon, Lupin and Fujiko, with Jigen’s presence being felt mostly in the angle and focus of the shot. And then a few, just a few, where all four of them had managed to cram into a single photo and stood smiling. There were only a small number of Goemon and Fujiko alone. But there was one, taken just last week in the hotel in Tokyo where they’d stayed over before making the drive to Murasaki’s home. Goemon stood looking out the window at the city, lost in thought, and Fujiko was looking at him. Neither one had noticed Jigen’s sneaky photography but it was clearly taken by him and not by Lupin. The composition was far too advanced.

He held the photo out  to her.

“This is from last week,” she said. “Are you giving it to me?”

Goemon nodded because he didn’t know how to say why, or what it meant to him. He didn’t even know how to say yes, it’s for you, so you don’t forget me while we’re apart. She never would, of course. So all he did was nod and she smiled and slipped the photo into her pocket and maybe she’d keep it and maybe she wouldn’t. But she would NOT forget Goemon.

But it didn’t matter, really. He was walking with his lover on a warm night, soon to be married, but not to her, and that was okay. His boyfriends and his fiancee back at home, the three of them already close friends. The family changing and growing and separating for now, but not forever. It had never been forever before and it never would.

Fujiko was right. And life was fine.

[theimpossiblescheme]

“Where have you been?!”--for Goemon and whoever you want!

Goemon could already feel his heart sink a bit when a boy no older than seven answered the door, cracking it open just enough to turn on the porchlight above them.  “C-Can I help you, Mister—” he nervously eyed the sword at his side—“Mister Samurai?”

“Yes, can you tell me if… if the lady of the house is home?”  He wasn’t exactly sure what the proper form of address was.  Calling her by her first name seemed too familiar, but he couldn’t be sure if she’d changed her last name in the… fifteen years?  Since he’d last seen her.

(Had it really been fifteen years?  How had he let the time fly away from him like that?  What could he have possibly been too busy with to come back, even just to say hello?)

The boy nodded and hid a few more inches behind the door, turning his face away.  “Mom!” he called, and Goemon’s heart sunk a little bit deeper. “There’s somebody at the door! Says he wants to see you!”

“What is it, Kōhei?” A woman’s voice sounded down the inside hallway, followed by the whisper of socked feet.  Then another hand came to nudge open the door, and there was Murasaki.  Dressed in worn grass-stained blue jeans and a yellow cardigan, her long hair pinned up out of her face in a loose bun and showing a few strands of grey at her temples. Certainly thinner and more tired-looking than he remembered her, but her face lit up with a brilliant smile as she recognized him.

“Goemon!”  She sounded shocked, but delighted at the same time. “What are you doing here?”

Suddenly that sounded like a very good question.  But Goemon tried to maintain his composure.  “I… I hope I’m not intruding.  I thought I might stop by and—and see how you were doing.”

“Okay.”  She nodded slightly, as if still registering his presence, before seeming to relax a bit and opening the front door wider.  “Yeah, come on in!  Kōhei—” she ran a gentle hand through the boy’s hair—“this is Mom’s old friend, Goemon.  He’s the one who saved our whole family from the Fuma clan, remember?”

Kōhei ducked behind Murasaki’s pantleg and muttered a quick “hi” before dashing off down the hall.  Goemon couldn’t help but give a tiny smile as he slipped off his shoes, discarded his sword, and stepped inside.

“Don’t worry about him, he’s just shy,” Murasaki said as she watched him run off, tucking a few loose strands of hair back into her bun before turning back to Goemon.  “So what brings you all the way out here?”  The where on earth have you been?! was implied, even if it was a gentle urging rather than a demand, and for a moment Goemon had no idea what excuse he could possibly give.  What did one even say after fifteen years?

“I—Lupin and Jigen and I had been travelling for a while, and I had… I had started to miss home. And I figured along the way I would come and visit you… since it’s been so long.”  We’ve done so much together, Murasaki, you wouldn’t believe, his thoughts raced wildly.  We stole from palaces, we robbed the biggest casino in the world, we saved a princess and uncovered a worldwide conspiracy… and I never even thought to write to you.  And it’s been too long for any apology to be good enough.  I wish you could have seen it, I know Lupin wanted to invite you along all those years ago, and I know you wanted to see the world.  I’m sorry I never took him up on it when I had the chance.  “I hope I didn’t come at a bad time,” was what he said instead.

“No, no, it’s okay!” she quickly reassured him.  “Actually, you came at a great time—I was just making us a late supper.  We’ve been so busy today the time kind of got away from us, but you’re welcome to join us!”

Goemon blinked.  Of all the responses she could have given, that was the most optimistic one, but he’d always suspected it was just wishful thinking.  Now that he was here… “I’d… I would like that.”  

Murasaki gave him another smile, an even brighter one this time, and gestured for him to follow her. He still remembered his way around the Suminawas’ old home surprisingly well, although the large TV in the living room and the power strips with multiple long extension cords running to and from the kitchen threw him for a moment, and he almost sat on someone’s stuffed dog next to the dining room table.  While Murasaki busied herself in the kitchen, he glanced around the place through the open dividing screens, taking it all in.  It was still the same house, the same woodwork, the same art on the walls and shelves, the same view of the garden outside… but it felt very different now.  More energetic in a way, more lived-in.

“That boy, Kōhei… is he yours?”  He had to be—she’d clearly named him after her grandfather, who must have passed away years ago.  Another pang wrung through Goemon at the thought.

“Mm-hm.”  Murasaki rearranged a few pots on the stovetop before getting a new one out for tea and filling it with water.  “Kaneto and I adopted him.  We’d always wanted kids, but neither of us wanted…”  She shrugged demonstratively.  “You know.”

Goemon nodded.  At least she’d found someone else who understood what she truly wanted in a marriage, even if it might seem like comparatively little.  “What does Kaneto do for a living?”

“We both teach!  At the high school the next town over—he teaches history, I teach biology.”  Setting out two teacups on the counter and leaving the water to boil, she turned back around to face her guest.  “And one the weekends he helps me with the garden.  That’s what we were doing all day until I sent him out to go run errands for me,” she added with a somewhat embarrassed wave down at her jeans.

Goemon only nodded again. He remembered her telling him, way back when they first met, that she wanted to earn her teaching degree someday, even if she had to put it on hold to care for her family.  Now she seemed truly happy with both, and he was happy for her truly—it would be selfish of him to even entertain the slightest bitter thought…

It wasn’t bitterness exactly.  More of a heaviness that sat at the bottom of his ribs and the pit of his stomach, even at seeing her current happiness.  A feeling he’d always tried so hard to transcend over the years, but it never quite worked.

A photograph hanging nearby caught his attention—a family portrait.  Murasaki stood beaming next to a man in a smart, slightly old-fashioned suit with dark brown hair.  They were about the same height, which made Goemon chuckle, but the Kaneto in the frame still managed to smile down at his wife like he couldn’t believe his good luck. Next to her stood a much more energetic Kōhei, grinning from ear to ear, and at Kaneto’s side stood a little girl, presumably their daughter, in bright yellow overalls and a fluffy white bow in her ponytail.  All four of them looked deliriously happy, and Goemon’s heart suddenly ached so much he could feel his shoulders sinking as the heaviness expanded.  He’d missed it.  He’d missed all of it.  She’d found love again, gotten married for real this time, taken in her own adorable children, built a new life for herself…

And he hadn’t even thought to write to her.  She’d never left his thoughts, never for a moment, but thoughts couldn’t be delivered to someone’s home, couldn’t be read as plainly as words on a page.  So much time he’d never get back, so many chances gone. He didn’t even feel bitter at the loss—he just felt sad, almost ashamed, that he’d never known, never got a chance to be there when it all happened.  It felt odd, almost too simple assigning such a basic word to such a strong emotion, but sometimes the simplest explanations were the best.

“It sounds like I’ve missed quite a lot.”

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but a frown line in Murasaki’s forehead deepened as she tended to the tea.  “Well… you were gone for a long time.”  Her voice was still gentle and nonjudgmental, but the additional weight of her words settled at the pit of his stomach and joined the sour, regretful churn there.

“I know.”  It was silly, really… Goemon wasn’t entirely sure what he’d expected.  Even years before the whole mess with the Fuma clan, they had both been practically children when they first met.  And while she’d been able to stay that way a little longer, joyous and bouncy and carefree even into her twenties, he had to grow up rather quickly.  Momochi’s treachery, Jinen’s murder, that terrible cult pursuing Fujiko… and all of this before he and Lupin found each other.  Since then he’d met three new friends, watched at least two old ones die, and forced himself to reconsider his place in the world. He could never be the same callow naïve youth he’d started as, and he could never be the same man who’d left that day, promising her he’d return once he’d completed his training… maybe he just didn’t like the reminder.

I’m not going to wait for you, Goemon!

It seemed nothing had. And it was selfish of him to expect otherwise.  He’d once though that no matter how much the world changed, he would stay the same… now he realized even that wasn’t true.  He was part of the same world as Murasaki, as Lupin and Jigen and Fujiko—time passed the same for all of them, no matter how they tried to fight it.

“I didn’t know it would be so long.”  It was no excuse, but more of a musing… no one ever did, did they?  And then the next thing they knew, fifteen years had gone by without so much as a by-your-leave.

And Murasaki, kind and forever buoyant soul that she was, still refused to judge him.  Or if she was, she never betrayed even a hint of it. “I get it.”  She poured the water and tea leaves back into the pot to let them steep a few minutes.  “Life goes on, you know?  It just… happens, no matter where we are.  That’s what Grandpa used to say.”  A silence ensued then, not quite entirely comfortable, but still companionable as Goemon pondered her words.  They were true enough—if someone had told that callow naïve youth that he’d spend years of training to be an assassin, that he’d throw in his lot (and fall in love) with a pack of thieves, that he’d turn down marriage into another proud and noble family… he definitely would have laughed.

What was the phrase? The best laid plans of mice and men… they all certainly seemed to go awry in his experience.

“But for what it’s worth,” Murasaki ventured, emerging from the kitchen with two fresh cups of tea and pressing one into his hand as she sat across from him, “I am glad you came to visit.”

“… I am, too.”  He was here now, at least.  And perhaps… for all the time he’d lost, there was still time to make it up.  He wasn’t planning on stopping anytime soon.  As strangely final was his last goodbye to Lupin and Jigen had felt, he loved them and Fujiko far too much to leave their sides entirely.  Besides, a samurai’s lot was to serve until death, or at least until he was no longer useful.  Retirement simply wasn’t in the cards for Goemon—he’d made peace with that long ago.  But strangely enough, the sentiment didn’t have the same… rigid structure it once had. It was less of a solemn vow, a mast he needed to lash himself to lest he be tempted by some other siren song, and more of a recognition of the way things were.  Of where his life had led him and would continue to lead.

It had led him and Murasaki in different directions.  With their own respective families, unorthodox as his own was (and he could just imagine the insufferably saccharine look on Lupin’s face if he’d heard Goemon refer to him as such).  And they were both happy.  Maybe years ago he might have resented that, but now… this also felt like the way things were meant to be.  Tea on the table, supper on the stove, sitting across from a loved one.  What more could he ask?

He did want to at least offer a little more, though—it only seemed fair.  “I will probably go back to my family’s old home for a little while, but… if you ever need somebody to help you with the children or in the garden, I’d be more than happy.”

“That sounds wonderful. Oh!”  She reached across the table to pat his hand excitedly, a quick succession of feather-light taps.  “And you have to meet Mayumi—she would adore you.”

Goemon smiled again, and some of the weight in his chest began to lessen.  “I look forward to it.”

[theimpossiblescheme]

#the more i think about this movie the more wild it is to me that these two made it ALL THE WAY TO THE ALTAR #and it took murasaki getting kidnapped by ninjas mid-ceremony for goemon to realize that maybe he hadn't thought this all the way through #(which is SUCH an aro/ace thing to do djdhdjsdgfkl. i usually hc him as bi but he gives off SUCH ace energy in this movie.) #and it brings up all sorts of questions; like how much did she know? was she just totally cool w/him being an assassin & notorious thief? #i mean i like to think so bc murasaki is an absolute pal and it would be REALLY shitty of goemon not to say #but i wish we got ANYTHING more than the super brief montage they gave us of their relationship together #i've seen people talk in fic about them doing a long-distance thing which i can TOTALLY buy #but how did they get this far without realizing they wanted different things? were they both just determined to make it work #bc they got along so well platonically (and MAYBE romantically) and knew it would be a good move for their families? #(the Advanced HC is that murasaki is also ace but given that she seems to want more physical affection from him in canon that's hc only) #anyway. they should have let murasaki join the gang even if she and goemon weren't going to work out as a married couple #i know that franchise policy is not to let one-off female npcs reappear but it would be so much fun to see or even just hear about her again #with several more years under everyone's belts

[the-golden-ghost]

September prompts: 23, FujiGoe <3

23: “When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them and their response is “you’re safe with me” – that’s intimacy.”

~

Goemon was walking along the shore in the middle of the night, with the waves lapping the sand like dead and grasping hands. This would have been a grim scene if Fujiko hadn’t been with him. As it was, it was a grim scene anyway. Goemon stared out at the sea and the distant ships with their lights beckoning and scowled.

“It’s a pretty night,” Fujiko said. She was wrapped up tight, furry jacket over her kimono to keep out the sea breeze and the cold air.

Goemon didn’t say anything. He just continued to gaze out at the sea and let the wind whip his hair, and Fujiko’s too.

They stood there for a while. Goemon hadn’t been intending on taking her with him. He’d planned to go out alone, to think, and to meditate on his choices and where his life was heading. Just a short time ago he’d known exactly the route he was going to take. But things had changed, and because of Goemon’s decision, changed drastically and left him uncertain.

“You don’t want to talk to me, do you?” Fujiko asked. When Goemon still didn’t reply, she stepped closer, trying to press up against him. “It’s so cold, why don’t we -”

He sidestepped her and moved further down the icy shore. She came after him and it was all he could do not to send her away. “Goemon!” she called out, as he kept walking away from her.

He didn’t stop until he felt a warm hand grip his tight. He turned, all sharpness and narrowed eyes and flooding anger that she might feel the brunt of if she wasn’t careful, but when he caught sight of her, he could see that she wasn’t afraid. Not in the slightest. She looked up at him with nothing but trust and understanding and an iron-willed stubbornness that matched his own, something he cherished and hated.

“I want to be alone, Fujiko,” he said finally.

“I know. But I can’t just leave you by yourself like this,” she said. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. But you’re not going off alone.”

He tried again to walk off and she blocked him. “You’ll have to push me into the sea,” she challenged him. “You can drown me if you want. But I’m not going anywhere.”

He met her gaze for a time, already knowing that he’d find her unyielding. “Fine,” he said at last.

They walked together for a time. Goemon’s mind didn’t quiet down, but Fujiko’s presence was - to his own surprise - not completely unwanted. Until she said what she said next.

“I don’t think you really loved that girl.”

Goemon stopped still, staring at her with shock and fury. How could she know how he felt? How could she even have the slightest idea, let alone the nerve to pass judgement on him? He was about to protest and let her know excatly what he thought of that, but she silenced him with a sidelong look and a raised hand. “I mean it, Goemon. Maybe you thought you loved her. But I think you were more in love with the idea of being who you’ve always thought you should be.”

“What does that have to do with Murasaki?” Goemon asked in a low voice.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. And maybe you really did love her in some way, but I don’t think - at least, it doesn’t seem like it from where I’m standing - that you ever really wanted to marry her.”

Goemon couldn’t meet her eyes. He didn’t dare admit, even to himself, that she wasn’t too far from the truth. It bothered him too much.

“It’s okay,” Fujiko said quietly. “You can be honest about it. I’m not going to think less of you for it. If anything, I’m happy that you’re not settling down before you’re ready, with someone you’re not going to be content with for long.” She turned away, staring out at the water. “It wouldn’t have been fair to her. And it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Goemon was silent for a long time. “I did love her,” he said at last.

Fujiko sighed and linked her arm through his. “Okay,” she said. “Do you regret not marrying her, though?”

“Yes,” Goemon replied. He paused for a moment before he looked back at Fujiko. “But I cannot say that I am not also relieved.” He swallowed, not without difficulty. The air was weighing on him. “She said she would not wait for me and I don’t think she will. I think I have lost her, and there is nothing that I could have wanted less, but...”

Fujiko remained silent, waiting.

“I was not safe for her. I would not have been able to keep her out of harm’s way, and... I do not think I was ready.” Goemon said. “To leave this life.”

“You don’t have to be ready,” Fujiko said. “Personally, I don’t know if I’ll ever settle down. Sometimes I think about getting out, but then I think about how bored I’d be, and how I’d have to somehow be okay with finding a man somewhere to fulfill me for the rest of my life, and how much of a feat that would be... I’m just too used to it all, I guess.”

Goemon shut his eyes. “I want to settle down,” he said. “Someday.”

“Then do it someday. Maybe it won’t be with Murasaki and maybe it will. But trust me, you’ve got a lot of options. I think most women would be glad to have you.” She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “I wouldn’t, personally. But only because of the reasons I just said.”

Goemon smiled.

“You’ll figure it out. You’ve got us, in the meantime,” she said.

He nodded. He really could not have wanted better friends. And though it would take him a long time yet to stop regretting the decision he’d made - if he ever did - he had to admit, he felt a little warmer.