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tonguetiedraven · 2 years

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I dare you to write whatever the heck you want

I have written half of the fic I want, and I'm going to post the other half on my second dare, lol. Thank you very much for the dare, and the push to do something I want :)

— — — — — — — —

Title: Knit Happens

Summary: Ryuuji Suguro has been knitting since he was eight, and if he has any luck, no one will ever find out.

Izumo Kamiki has been crocheting since she was eight, and if she has any luck, no one will ever find out.

As it turns out, neither of them have any luck.

Part: One (you're here.)

— — — — — — — — —

“Ryuuji, sit down!” Torako snapped, her eye twitching as she caught Ryuuji by his ear. He tried to break away, but she pulled him into the inn.

“But ma!”

“No buts! Sit down.”

Ryuuji sat down (he wasn’t an idiot) and scowled (he was a bit reckless.)

“Honestly! What’s wrong with you?” Torako huffed as she slid the door shut. Still scowling, Ryuuji glared at the floor and didn’t answer. He was angry, but she wouldn’t listen. She’d just tell him to stop thinking about the temple and focus on his studies. Like he wasn’t already doing that.

“What are we gonna do with you?” She sat down across from him, staring at him like he was a puzzle she could pick apart if she just looked long enough. He didn’t like that look. He’d never really liked being studied like that.

Still… part of him always wanted her to figure it out, while most of him just wanted to be left alone so he could go punch something. Maybe a pillow.

“Why are you always so angry?” She finally sighed.

Ryuuji slouched and fisted his hands against his knees. “I ain’t angry!”

“And now you’re lying.” She huffed out an irritated breath and reached for her basket of yarns and ribbons. “Fine. We’ll just sit here until you feel like chatting.”

Ryuuji immediately scowled as defiance welled up in his chest. He hated being made to sit still, even though he loved it most of the time. He like meditating and chanting and concentrating and reading. He liked quiet things. Being made to do them though, that stole all the joy out of it. That made him twitchy and indignant and angry.

“I’m not chatting.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the side as his mother lifted her partially made blanket up.

“No?” She asked quietly while her needles started to click together in a familiar rhythm. “You’re not?”

“No,” he muttered petulantly. He tightened his fists and wished he could punch that pillow.

The clicking stilled. “No,” Torako finally murmured. “You’re not going to chat. You’re going to knit.”

Ryuuji’s eyes shot to her. “Am not! That shit’s for girls!” Torako’s eyes narrowed dangerously and Ryuuji swallowed nervously. Uh oh. “I mean,” he stuttered, “it ain’t manly. I’ll get… teased…”

Torako’s expression was dark. “What, little one, do you mean it’s for girls? Hmm?”

He could either grab the needles and hope she forgave him and accept a lot of teasing for this, or… Or he could try and fight.

Ryuuji wasn’t stupid, but he was very reckless. “That it’s girly! It’s all frilly, and… and—” agh! What was it? Why couldn’t he think of any words to explain the problem? It was just a thing girls did and boys didn’t. It was silly.

Yeah! “It’s silly!”

Torako’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. A shiver raced down Ryuuji’s back and he immediately wanted to apologize, but he was standing his ground. Or sitting his ground.

Slowly, holding eye contact the entire time, Torako reached into the basket at her side and drew out two large needles. She set them in front of her knees and lifted out a ball of bright red yarn.

“You know what else is silly, Ryuuji?”

“No?”

She frowned.

“No ma’am.”

Torako nodded her approval and lifted the knitting needles back up. “Stomping around the inn and causing a ruckus because your father was late to a meeting you weren’t part of.”

“He shoulda—”

“And,” she continued, talking over him, “yelling and ruining other people’s afternoon when they’ve been working all day. It is also silly to declare something as useful and versatile as knitting silly. It’s silly to call an activity girly or boyish. It’s silly to put something as simple as looping yarn together in a category that you see yourself too good for.”

“It ain’t like that!”

Torako clicked her needles together and finished the row. It was mesmerizing how quickly and nimbly she manipulated the yarn and needles. It actually looked a little like when his father would go through his exercise with the prayer beads. Their ability to manipulate the yarn and beads was on the same level.

“It isn’t?” She asked softly, all signs of her earlier anger gone. “Then what is it like?”

“I… I don’t want to get teased.”

She flipped the piece and started to knit back in the other direction. She did something different with the yarn, and it really was interesting to watch how she twisted and tied it and looped it without ever looking at the stitches.

“Isn’t it sad how small-minded people are? How insecure they are that they have to find things in other people to tear them down with? Things that aren’t bad or silly, but things they can make them feel like are bad or silly? Like being the heir of a temple? Or growing up among such strong monks who fought off Satan himself? Or creating something warm and soft for a family member?”

Ryuuji watched her finger work and thought about the kids at his school. He thought about harsh words, and how he’d always been so proud of his home until their words.

He loved the sweaters and blankets and toys she’d made him. He loved wearing them, and he’d never thought it was silly to wear them.

“I… I guess.”

Torako nodded and picked up a strand of silvery yarn. “I can understand you not wanting to do it though. It is quite difficult.”

What?!

Ryuuji straightened and scowled in indignation. “I could do it.”

“Maybe… I don’t know. The more I think about it, the more I’m not sure you could. It’ll take a lot of patience to master. I’m not sure you—”

“I’m patient!” Ryuuji snatched the needles up and fumbled with the red yarn. He missed the delighted sparkle in his mother’s eyes, and he didn’t see his father giving an approving nod by the door as he gently slid the door shut again.

— — — — —

Ryuuji was good at knitting, and the more he looked into it, the more he found out it was actually a tremendously useful skill. One with a lot of health benefits. Hell, he even sold a few items (never once admitting he’d been the one to create them.) He could do it anywhere, it eased the stress that always seemed to coil itself into a tight, angry knot in his neck and shoulders, it made his fingers more dexterous, and it helped fight against how cold winter always seemed. It also made it so much easier to patch his school uniform vests and sweaters. Exorcist work was a menace on the clothes, and money was not something he had a lot of.

To his personal pride, he’d never once been caught doing it. It might not be silly to knit, but the anxiety of getting caught and teased had never actually gone away. Ryuuji was teased mercilessly about a large number of things, and he was not giving anyone further ammo.

He kept it a secret through demon king attacks, through fights against miasma, through fights against secret organizations, through long sleepless nights studying, through creepy walks through abandoned labs, through the awful cold of the first Satan fight, and even through the return to school and the stress of resettling.

As the new year progressed, he found himself knitting more and more to combat the stress, and really, it was inevitable.

It was a scarf, which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it at least wasn’t embarrassing, and a curse, because it didn’t really show off any of his skills. If he was going to get caught, he wanted to get caught looking talented. This was just a bland striped scarf. There wasn’t even any cabling.

“This,” Ryuuji started, knowing it was pointless, “is not what it looks like.”

It took him a moment to realize Izumo was speaking in tandem with him, and that she was clutching something to her own chest. Focusing his slightly bleary eyes (he forgot to blink when he was concentrating on the tiny stitches) he realized that she was holding a bundled up bit of yarn and what looked like a partially made hat.

“Holy shit,” he yelped as she squeaked out a startled: “No fucking way!”

“You can’t tell anyone!” They shouted together, and part of Ryuuji wanted to laugh while the rest of him was worried about the partially open door. He carefully gathered his needles in one hand and grabbed her elbow with the other one. He gave her one good tug to pull her fully in the room, sat partially up in his chair, reached around her, and pulled the door shut again. He’d flip the lock, but none of the classrooms had any locks.

“Sit down,” he barked as he returned to his chair. He kicked his bag of yarn and half finished projects under the chair and ignored the scowl she gave him.

Okay. He could save this. He could absolutely spin this so it didn’t look silly. It could be worse. Izumo could have come in without her own yarn, or it could have been someone else in the group.

Looking up, he locked his gaze on her face. She was looking away from him to glare at the wall. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her bundled up project half in her arms and half in her lap.

“It’s for aria practice,” he finally said. “It keeps my fingers limber and I can stitch magic circles or symbols in my stuff this way.”

Izumo’s head slowly turned towards him. Her face was bright red, her jaw was clenched, and her eyes were huge. She looked thoroughly flustered, and for a moment, she seemed to puff up with frustrated air and then—

“Bullshit!” She hugged herself tighter. “That’s not why you’re doing it!”

“Yeah?” He growled, straightening and clenching his needles too tightly. “Think you know—”

“You’re doing it because it’s fun!”

“Well so are you!”

“Yeah, but you don’t see me lying about it!”

“Just hiding it.”

Izumo opened and closed her mouth a few time before turning to glare at the wall again. “Well… it’s embarrassing!” Her voice went up a little, and somehow that made Ryuuji relax a little. They were both being stupid.

“You knitting or crocheting?”

Izumo’s eyes shot back to him. “You… you know the difference?”

Yeah, he thought sarcastically, I do one of them.

“Yes.”

“Crocheting.”

He nodded. He hadn’t seen her needles, and what he could see of the hat didn’t look knit.

She eyed him a moment longer. “That a scarf?”

He shrugged and shifted the needles around in his hands so he could continue his row. “It will be.”

Izumo’s body relaxed slightly. “The color combination… looks good.” She said it like it hurt a little to admit. He was proud of the combination, and it did look good.

Ryuuji’s own cheeks were warmer than he wanted to admit. Still, he clicked his needles together, working through a few stitches as he tried to force the tension from his hands and arms.

“I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me.” He kept his eyes on his stitches as he spoke, trying to concentrate on keeping them even. He’d have a color change when he finished this row.

Izumo swallowed and her face twisted like she wanted to say something mean, but after a moment longer she took another breath and nodded hard. “Deal.”

He finished the row and switched colors. Izumo watched him like a spooked animal.

Without quite meaning to, Ryuuji started to laugh. His needles slipped, and he almost lost a stitch, but he caught it at the last second and gave Izumo an amused smile.

“I never woulda guessed it’d be you.”

Izumo clutched the edge of her seat. “Huh?!”

“I mean, it was likely someone else in the class did it, but I’d never have picked you.” He grinned, eyes a bit blurry from how hard he’d laughed. His stitches were loose. He tugged on the strand to tighten them and gave his head a fond shake.

“I should have figured you out. I knew those patches on your sweater were hand done, I just thought it was your mother.”

Ryuuji shook his head. “Nah. I do ‘em myself. Cost too much to ship that shit back to Kyoto every time something gets ripped.”

Izumo released the chair and slowly took up her hook. She gripped her hat tightly, and slipped the hook between the yarn. Ryuuji watched in mild fascination. His mother could crochet passibly, but she preferred knitting and only really crocheted dolls. Ryuuji hadn’t bothered to learn it yet.

“What?” She asked after a second of his staring. “Never seen someone crochet?”

Ryuuji shrugged and turned his row around. Two more rows of this color and he’d need to switch again. He made a few checks on his pattern and moved on.

“Just fun to watch. How long you been doing it?”

Izumo relaxed a little at his non-judgemental tone and zipped along her circle a bit faster. “I started after, uh, Maria.”

Ryuuji nodded. He didn’t need more than that.

“You?”

“When I was eight. Ma wanted me to calm the hell down and made me knit.” He grinned, remembering how proud he’d been. “I made myself some shitty black handwarmers and thought I looked all edgy.”

Izumo laughed. “I made a scarf that I used to wrap around my face a bunch of times and thought made me look mysterious.”

They slipped back into momentary silence, zipping along with their stitches and letting the sound of Ryuuji’s needles fill the air. Izumo asked him what yarn he was using, and he explained that it was some his neighbor in Kyoto dyed and sold, and she told him about the little craft shop at the bottom of the Academy town.

When his alarm went off to let him know there was only seven minutes until class, he found himself a bit sad about it. He quieted the alarm and set to putting his yarn and needles away.

Izumo watched him do it with a small frown. She hid it when he looked at her, and hastily stuffed her own project in her bag.

“You know,” she muttered as she zipped it close, “if you, uh, want to do this again sometime, or want to check out that shop, I, uh, probably wouldn’t be opposed.”

“Yeah,” Ryuuji said as Renzou’s grating crackle sounded in the hall. He hastily pulled out his book and splayed it open. “Sounds fun.”

The door opened and their classmates piled in, all rambling about random things, none the wiser.

[◺~(✿ ⇀ ‸ ↼ )~◿ : Tomorrow after PE. Don’t be late.]

Ryuuji stared at the text notification, kept his amused smile carefully hidden, and typed back a few words as Tsubaki strolled into the room.

[For the shop?]

The … of Izumo’s response popped up while Tsubaki turned to erase the previous class’s scrawls off his black board.

[◺~(✿ ⇀ ‸ ↼ )~◿ : Yes.]

[I have a dragoon review after PE. I’m free at 4 pm.]

[◺~(✿ ⇀ ‸ ↼ )~◿ : Fine.]

“Alright!” Tsubaki spun on his heel to face them, Ryuuji carefully turned his screen off, and tried not to think excitedly about what all sorts of yarns might be in that store. He’d have to wear some glasses and a hat so he wasn’t recognized, but it’d still be fun. At least Izumo’s purple hair stood out more than him.

— — — — — — — —

Or not.

Izumo had on a wig, and it was quite probably the funniest thing ever that she not only owned a cosplay wig, but she owned a nice one. Everything in her body language made it clear she was ready to stab him with the houchoudou Lucy had given her, so Ryuuji kept his amusement to himself.

“Stop smiling like that!”

Mostly.

He was in a bland gray shirt, some dull jeans, sneakers, and had a hand knit hat obscuring his hair, ears, and as much of his forehead as he could get away with. He had a thick scarf around his neck, sunglasses that covered his eyes, and a mask he’d put on in a minute to cover what all of that didn’t. He looked cold and a bit like he might be robbing someone.

“Sorry,” he muttered, managing to more or less hide his smile. Izumo tweaked her wig and pulled on her own glasses, and Ryuuji felt bizarrely like he was going on a mission with Lewin again.

All so they could get some yarn.

“I don’t expect we’ll know anyone there,” Izumo muttered as she sashayed past Ryuuji and down the path. It was a bit annoying how clearly she expected him to follow her, but he did because he wanted to see the shop, and really, it was entirely too funny that they were even doing this. “But just to be safe, try and not sound like such a grumpy gorilla?”

“Hey!”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Honestly, all that time trailing after Lightning, didn’t you learn to, I don’t know, change your voice or something?”

Ryuuji stuck his tongue out because she couldn’t see, and just decided he’d speak French if anyone talked to him. He’d make Izumo handle the interactions.

The actual walk to the shop was pleasant. It was still winter cold, but Ryuuji was covered enough that he didn’t mind it, ad the sky was clear so it was bright and pretty. The winter flowers were still blooming, and only a few of their classmates were wandering about. It was easy to follow Izumo’s short self down to the lower levels, and he never saw anyone familiar.

He had expected something cutesy, especially since it was obviously a place Izumo liked, but it wasn’t. It was colorful, not terribly big, smelled of the same sort of incense he used at his temple, and full of tempting types of yarn. There was bookshelf after bookshelf stuffed full of yarn, all different materials and colors and thickness, dozens of different types of craft supplies — supplies for crafts he didn’t know but now found himself immensely curious about — a few knit, crocheted, woven, and stitched wares, and an overall homey feel that made Ryuuji want to find a corner to nestle down in and stitch the afternoon away.

Ryuuji took one look around, found himself immediately charmed, and made a beeline for the wool. He had missed his father’s birthday in the utter madness of Satan’s attack, and he had wanted to make him a new hat and slippers. His father hated the cold, and without Karura, he had a feeling the winter would be even more miserable. They had a lot of yellow, and he quickly found a rich golden yellow that his dad would love.

“You like to use wool?”

“Yeah. Dad’s got allergies.”

“Huh.” Izumo eyed the wool like she wasn’t too impressed by it. Ryuuji stuck his tongue out again, thoroughly grateful for the mask. “I prefer the bamboo.”

“Always splits on me.”

“Of course it does.”

Ryuuji gave her a glare and grabbed a few skeins. It wasn’t too expensive, and he didn’t recognize the label. Was it handmade?

“What is this?” A too loud voice asked from somewhere in the shop. Ryuuji and Izumo both went entirely rigid.

He knew that voice.

“Yarn, sir?”

Ryuuji carefully tucked the yarn in his arm and took two steps to the end of the aisle where Izumo already was. Her mouth was hanging stupidly open, and following her gaze, he knew exactly why.

“Yeah, I get that,” Lewin ‘Lightning’ Light said as he peered down at a bundle of neon red yarn. “But what’s it made of?”

“Cotton?”

“Is it toxic?” Lewin asked, picking up one of the balls and peering at the label. “Say a snake ate it, would they be hurt?”

“A snake?” The clerk’s eyes were huge. “I—sorry?”

“Would it kill a snake? What’s it made of? Has it got any plastic in it?”

Ryuuji reached forward very carefully and wrapped his hand around Izumo’s shoulder. She stiffened at his touch, but before she could do anything else, Ryuuji jerked her back into the aisle and the cover of the merino wool yarn.

“I-I don’t know? You could… Ma-maybe bamboo? Or hemp?”

“Perfect!” Lewin exclaimed. “Osceola will love that!”

Osceola? Lewin was getting yarn for Redarm?

“Run,” Izumo squeaked. Ryuuji shook his head. He wasn’t fleeing the shop. Besides, you had to pass the cashier to get to the exit. They’d be seen. Nope. They were going to have to wait for Lewin to finish his shopping and hope the arch knight stayed on the other side of the shop.

“We have some natural wools too,” the shopkeeper said, and Lewin beamed.

Shit.

A/N: I am a knitter and a crocheter, and it really is a great past time, but you will get teased about looking like an 80 year old. It's a personal head canon that these two do yarn crafts.

Also, this is the scarf Ryuuji was working on. It's a randomized stripe scarf based off True Cross' colors. You can use this site for making randomized stripe patterns and it's great! This is one I've used for a True Cross style scarf :)

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