#no. 6 shion | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

daboyau · 24 days ago

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Here’s a little No. 6 fic I’ve been working on off and on for years. It is Shion focused and a little emotionally angsty, I guess? Enjoy, or don’t. :)

Hamlet dies when Shion is nineteen. It does not come as a surprise; he had read that the lifespan of a rat was two years, on average. All things considered, Hamlet lived a remarkably long time.

Still, it feels like a slap in the face for Shion; a wakeup call he wishes he could ignore. He had always thought that when that promised reunion came at last, all three of the rats would be there for it, and that it would be like nothing had changed at all. Now, he has lost another part of Nezumi with the death of his little friend, and it hurts more than he could have imagined.

He buries Hamlet in the little plot of land behind his mother’s bakery, beneath the cover of the flowers she had planted just the year before. He kneels in the grass and stares at the freshly turned dirt for a long moment, eyes glazed and thoughts distant. The morning sun shines brightly, breaking through the rise of buildings all around him. The dew soaks into the knees of his pants and even finds its way into his shoes, somehow. The flowers look beautiful.

Shion does not notice any of it.

Hamlet has been a constant at his side for three years. He has been with him through too many lonely nights and forced-cheerful days. He has been a much-needed reminder of what had happened, because despite the city changing for the better all around him, there are dark days when Shion finds it hard to believe that the time he spent with Nezumi was real.

And if Nezumi, who was possibly the most vivid thing to have ever happened to him, was not real, then what did that mean for everything else?

Slowly, Shion pushes himself to his feet. There is something growing in his chest, an emptiness that he does not know how to fill. Maybe it’s always been there. After all, he had felt it before, during those years between 12 and 16, before Nezumi swept in like a storm for the second time and undid his world yet again.

It hurts, like something visceral and real. Like a knife to his throat or gunpowder burning his hand. Unlike those things, though, there is no physical evidence to show for the horrible pain. He finds himself wishing that there was.

He lets himself linger for one moment more before he pushes the thought away and turns his back on the fresh grave. He ignores the void inside his chest, changes his pants, kisses his mother goodbye, and goes to work. It is just another day.

There are not many who are invited to attend his birthday party, but that does not stop his mother from having cheerful conversations with all of them, or from laughing like this is the happiest day of her life as she brings out a cake. There are 21 candles on the top, and Shion’s name written in her careful scrawl. It is easy to tell how much love went into the creation of it.

Shion thanks her with a tight hug, the sensation of her arms wound tightly around him and her familiar smell comforting. He laughs at something Rikiga says and waves off compliments and well-wishes from the few coworkers he has invited to join them. Everyone cheers as they sing happy birthday to him.

He feels nothing but exhaustion as he blows out the candles. He watches the flames flicker and die and, suddenly, 21 years feels like a horribly long time to be alive.

He feels a hand come to rest on his shoulder, a gentle pressure meant to sooth, and he very carefully does not flinch at the contact. He smiles up at his mother, who wears such a fond expression it almost makes him feel bad. Inukashi stands to the side, little Shionn practically glued to their leg. They are both smiling at him, expressions so close to identical in the same way Shion and his own mother tend to wear similar expressions without realizing it. Shion has known Inukashi for far too long to miss the sharpness in the way they narrow their eyes once the happy moment has passed, or the worry hidden in the tight stretch of their lips.

He hopes they won’t say anything to his mom. She worries too much as it is.

After the party is done, Inukashi will try to corner him. They will try to get him to talk, and just like every time before, Shion will smile and say that he is fine. He will promise that nothing has changed.

It will, of course, be a lie.

Ever since the day that Hamlet had died (or maybe earlier, when he watched Nezumi leave him alone to pick up the pieces of something too heavy for him to bear by himself — or earlier still, when he was a child and the stifling sense of being trapped and helpless and angry enough to want to tear it all down around him but knowing he couldn’t was too much to bear) something within him had begun to change. It was a buried something, and it had been growing bigger, more and more each day until he could feel it broiling just beneath his skin. He is drowning beneath the weight on his shoulders and the roiling sea of emotions within his mind.

There are people counting on him, though, so he bears it with a smile and keeps pushing forward.

The piles of papers on his desk have been steadily growing. Even eight years in, the plans for the city have not slowed in the slightest. As head of the restructural committee, it is up to Shion to keep the reformation of No. 6 moving forward at a steady pace. He is the only person in the whole city who truly understands what is at stake. It is up to him to keep their promise to Elyurias, to make sure that every step the city takes is in the right direction. The burden of responsibility feels like shackles around his neck. A collar heavy on his neck. It is something he had borne gladly before. He’s not sure what’s changed; only knows that he has to keep pushing onwards.

He shifts through the documents, processing and filing and highlighting, approving or denying, making changes and proposing entirely new ideas. It is exhausting work, and he has fallen asleep at his desk more times than he cares to remember since he started this project at the tender age of sixteen. If he can ensure that the city and all its inhabitants stay safe and happy, though, it will be worth it.

It has to be worth it.

“You need a break,” his mother says. The sun is filtering in through the window over the sink, slanting golden shafts of morning light over the table. The dark liquid in his coffee mug glows amber for a moment and he squints down at it before shifting the mug an inch to the left and out of the sun.

It’s too early to admire the beauty in something so simple. He has a budget meeting in two days and he still hasn’t finalized his proposal. His mother is still talking, but he can’t focus on her gentle words. His eyes are heavy and burning. He wonders idly if Nezumi would prefer his coffee black or sweetened with cream and sugar. Maybe he’d hate coffee, preferring hot chocolate even well into their adulthood. The fact he doesn’t know hurts more than he cares to admit. He hopes he’ll get the chance to find out.

He offers his mother a smile, bland but genuine, and kisses her forehead as he stands from the table. He had gained several inches in the last few years of puberty and he towers over her, but she still finds a way to glare him down. There is no anger in her eyes, only concern, but it still makes him want to cringe away from her gaze.

“I’ll take a break next week,” he lies. “I just have to get through this meeting. It’s important.”

She sighs but concedes, hugging him tightly. He allows himself just a moment to melt into her warm embrace and enjoy the feeling of being loved. There had been a time when he did not know if he would ever see her again, so even years down the road, he makes a point of enjoying these moments with his mother whenever he can. He hates how hard it is sometimes, how much effort he has to put into reminding himself to smile and hug her back, but it is worth it. This is all for her and he wants to be strong, but sometimes it feels like an insurmountable task, and they can both see him struggling to keep up.

“Have a good day, Shion. Don’t work too hard. I’ll be making stew tonight, so come home for dinner.”

Shion laughs and says he will. Maybe he’ll be able to keep that promise today.

The typhoon is roaring outside his home, wild and free and dangerous. He can feel it calling to him, singing in his blood and roaring in his throat. It feels like fire and acid and gunpowder burning him away from the inside. He wants to wander out into the storm just to soothe the pain. It would wash away all the filth and all the anguish that’s built up inside his soul over the years and lighten the burden of the chains that grow heavier year after year. He knows it.

His chest is tight, his throat is stinging. He yearns to escape the confines of his bedroom and lean out into the storm. He wants to open his mouth and let all the sorrow and exhaustion and that strange deep ache be pulled from his core.

If only he could let the wild of the storm sweep him out into the night, the wind to carry him somewhere far far away, and the rain to fill his lungs until he can’t breathe anymore. The thunder crashes and lightning flashes, and he feels a smile grow so wide his cheeks hurt. This is the most alive he has felt in years. He can feel the scream bubbling in his chest, begging for escape.

It is agony to deny it.

But.

His neighbors’ homes are pressed close to his own. They’re probably asleep, unaware of the storm promising release as it rattles their windows and pounds upon their roofs. Who knows what they would think if he woke them by screaming into the night.

He sits in silence by the window and watches the storm rage outside, wishing he was one of the storm clouds high above the city. It aches.

Shion wakes one day to find that he is 26. It has been a decade since the walls fell. Since Nezumi left him to clean up the mess.

Nothing has changed, so Shion goes through the motions and ignores the ache inside his chest, same as always.

He files his paperwork and smiles at the woman who is kind enough to bring him coffee and a pastry once in a while. She smiles back and asks him about his day, brushing long brown hair away from her eyes and listening earnestly to his every word. He invites her to come to his mom’s house that evening for birthday cake and she accepts, a blush dusting her round cheeks. Shion smiles politely and excuses himself from the conversation after just a few moments. He has work to do before the evening comes.

His coworker brings him a gift that evening, which surprises him for some reason. Most of the reconstruction committee have worked together so long that the little things like birthday gifts get lost in the shuffle of day to day life. It stopped mattering to him a long time ago, but somehow, he still finds himself touched by the woman’s kindness.

She smiles at him, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her dark eyes sparkle as she hands him the wrapped package and her teeth are white as pearls and straight as tombstones when they flash at him from between painted lips. Shion thanks her earnestly before tearing the paper away.

A pale purple scarf sits in the remnants. He stares at it for a long moment, taking in the heavy yarn and the single missed stitch. It is handmade. Not something she could have done in a single afternoon, which means she has been working on this knitting project for a while.

He looks at her and is reminded of another girl, young and smart and deserving of the world. His coworker stares back, anxious and shy and not at all like Safu except in the way her feelings and intelligence shine from behind her dark dark eyes.

The moment passes, and Shion smiles. His coworker slumps in relief and smiles back.

“Thank you. Did you make this yourself? It’s lovely.”

He sets the scarf aside as they chat, already knowing that he will never be able to bring himself to wear it.

Inukashi finds him huddled in the bathtub, naked and shivering as the water runs cold. They watch him for a long moment, silent and calculating, sharp mind unchanged despite the softness that parenthood has brought to their life. Shion buries his face in his knees, too tired to even feel ashamed.

“You’re ridiculous,” Inukashi grumbles, sweeping forward and taking charge like the pack leader they have always been.

Despite their slight size, they are able to lift Shion easily, hauling him to his feet like he doesn’t have more than a foot on them. They wrap him in a towel and turn on the heater, not at all thrown by his nudity or the way his eyes stare blankly into some distant memory that only he can see. His scar twinges when their warm fingers brush it. He flinches away from their touch and Inukashi freezes, dark eyes watching his face with an intensity that no one born and raised in No. 6 could ever hope to have.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” Shion tells them, a smile trembling at the corner of his lips. Inukashi scoffs. They don’t need any explanation to know exactly what is on Shion’s mind.

“Me? I’ve got more food than I know what to do with and a house big enough to keep my whole pack warm and comfortable. You should be more concerned with yourself.”

Shion tilts his head, uncomprehending, and Inukashi looks like they’re debating whether to slit his throat now or wait until he’s asleep. They pinch the bridge of their nose and heave a put upon sigh.

“You’re an idiot. You always have been.” Inukashi leans in close, lips curled into a snarl, an accusatory finger hovering just an inch from Shion’s face. “You’re not happy Shion.”

“...what?”

“You heard me. It’s been ten years and I’ve watched you get more miserable and complacent every year.”

“Nezumi—“

“It has nothing to do with that rat bastard!”

Shion stares, wide eyed, as Inukashi seethes. His sleep deprived brain turns the words over slowly, almost reverently, until they click into place.

“Huh,” Shion says.

“Yeah,” says Inukashi. “Now get dressed and come downstairs for dinner. Your mom and little Shionn have been worried about you for months. Maybe even years. You owe them an apology.”

They won’t meet his eye, and their hands are clenched into shaking fists at their side. For the first time in a long time, Shion smiles. It is sad and bashful and real, and Inukashi stares back with wide brown eyes. Shion reaches out and pulls them into a tight hug.

Inukashi stiffens at first, cheek smushed against the scar on Shion’s chest. Then, all at once, they melt into the embrace. He hears them sniffle, feels the way they tremble.

“I’m sorry,” Shion murmurs, and Inukashi presses themself tighter against him.

“Idiot,” they say, but it comes out wet and muffled as they bring their arms up to return his hug.

Shion lays awake that night, mind reeling. He already knows he will need at least three cups of coffee before he even leaves the house for work. It’s just that kind of night, and every day is that kind of day. As he often does on these troublesome nights, he prays.

It isn’t to any god he learned about from theology books. There are no churches constructed for her. Instead, he prays to Safu, asking her for strength and guidance. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he knows exactly what she would say if she had lived to see the way he is now. He can almost picture the way her forehead would crease, and how her mouth would turn. He knows she would be worried and disappointed in turn, would know exactly what chemical imbalances have him off kilter and wrongfooted, have him distant and hollow inside despite his best efforts. She has haunted him for so long, and he is grateful for it.

He wonders if Elyurias is out there somewhere, and whether she would care enough to listen. Maybe this is a punishment. Maybe being shoved back into a cage after tasting freedom is worse than never knowing what you’re missing at all. He probably deserves it.

When he gets up in the morning and looks into the mirror, he sees a wrinkle beginning to appear between his eyebrows. He frowns and watches it deepen. He wonders what Nezumi would think, and how the other man’s face has changed with the years. It’s hard to imagine that beautiful, youthful face ever changing, but he hopes he gets to see it. The honor to trace fingertips over new wrinkles and morning stubble is something he fantasizes about sometimes, when he dares to allow himself to imagine the future he once thought they’d have together. The signs of a life lived would only make Nezumi’s face more beautiful. He yearns to see it for himself.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get the chance.

He goes to work and goes through the motions.

He can feel an itching beneath his skin and thinks of parasitic wasps. The fine line between his brows and the bags beneath his eyes continue to deepen and grow, becoming valleys and walls and reminders that time continues to pass and neither Safu nor Nezumi are coming back.

On the evening of his 29th birthday, Shion walks out of the office, waving goodbye to his coworkers. He has no intention of ever going back.

After 13 years, they had finally created a system that would sustain itself for the foreseeable future. The plants would continue to grow in tandem with the buildings, the soil outside the borders of their city had finally healed enough to support life, and trees were standing proud and strong all around and within the city. There was no more caste system, and Shion and Inukashi and Rikiga and Karan had personally waded through every government record and chased down every rumor and lead until he was absolutely certain that there was no more corruption.

He has done everything he could, and the city he had sworn to protect and reform is finally at peace. He feels a lightness in his chest, a melodic buzzing inside his head, the quiet curl of satisfaction that is not quite his own, and he knows that Elyurias is pleased. Maybe, at last, it means that he can also be free.

Free to rest. Free to roam. Free to learn more about himself in a way he hadn’t been allowed to explore when he was a child, and hadn’t allowed himself to dream of after the walls came down and he took the burden of ensuring the continued survival of so many humans upon his trembling shoulders.

As Shion walks through the familiar streets, he watches the people all around him. He smiles at the familiar faces and stops to make friendly conversation when they wave him down. He realizes with a strange jolt of grief that he doesn’t know any of their names. The smile he offers is the same for each and every one of them. They all greet him with the familiarity of old friends, while he is left speaking with strangers.

He packs his bags that night, after the guests leave. His mother watches him, and her eyes are soft and sad, but there’s pride in the way she smiles as she reminds him to pack an extra sweater. The lump in his throat threatens to choke him, but Shion smiles back and does as she says.

In the morning, she wraps him up in a tight hug, face buried in his shoulder, and he can feel each shaking exhale. She doesn’t hold on like she’s afraid to lose him, though. When Inukashi steps close, she lifts one arm to let them join, and little Shionn is close behind. The four of them huddle together, and Shion smiles as he presses his cheek to the top of his mother’s hair.

“You’re so tall,” she says with a breathless laugh, pulling back to gaze up into his face. Her eyes are red rimmed and glistening, but there’s a happy glow to her that has him catching his breath, realizing for the first time that she’s happier now, preparing to say goodbye, than she has been in years. “My baby boy.”

His smiles through tears, and the bubbling brightness inside his chest threatens to overwhelm him. Laughter rises to meet hers, and it’s like a weight off his shoulders, because he feels the same and it feels so good to know that she’s going to be okay without him there.

“You might be big, but you’re still as airheaded as ever,” Inukashi scoffs, mouth twisted in a scowl but eyes suspiciously swollen and cheeks all flushed. “Watch yourself out there.”

“Of course,” Shion promises, reaching out to tuck an errant strand of long hair behind their ear. He doesn’t duck away from the punch he knows is coming, well aware that his dear friend’s default when trying to hold back tears is violence.

He laughs even though his arm stings from the blow, and is startled to realize that he means it. A final kiss pressed to his mom’s cheek, one to the top of little Shionn’s messy hair, and a final tight hug for Inukashi. Then, he hoists his pack a little higher on his shoulder and turns to face the path out of the city. The sunlight is bright and dazzling as it glitters off the rocks that line the path and the early morning dew.

“I’ll be back soon,” Shion promises, but it doesn’t feel like a tether or a burden. The world is laid out before him, bright and beautiful and exciting, and for the first time in thirteen years, he greets the morning with excitement for a new day, finally free to forge a path towards the future he wants.

(And the next time a storm blows through, Shion won’t hesitate to spread his arms wide and scream his feelings towards the sky, smiling all the while.)

#No. 6 #no. 6 shion #no. 6 anime #no. 6 beyond #Shion #Nezumi #Inukashi #Its focused a lot on depression and burnout and the complicated feeling of getting older and feeling trapped or just not happy where you ar #Projecting? Onto MY favorite character?#it’s more likely than you think #my writing #I’ll probably revise and post on ao3 as well eventually #Maybe once I come up with a name for the story idk

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