koukai_kirai: (And the history books forgot about us)
Toshizou Hijikata ♦ 土方 歳三 ([personal profile] koukai_kirai) wrote in [community profile] xavier_institute_logs2015-06-26 01:52 am

To the Place I Belong [OPEN]

WHO: Hijikata and YOU!
WHAT: Poetry-writing, quiet introspection, and probably interruptions.
WHERE: Out on the grounds, not far from the mansion.
WHEN: Early evening, the day before the Dazzler concert
WARNING(S): None, unless things take a truly unexpected turn, in which case I'll edit.

Sometimes, Hijikata hated summer.

He spent most of the school year grumbling about teaching -- about brats who weren't half as funny as they thought they were, about endless papers to grade, about the mistakes in those papers that made him cringe -- but in all honesty, the job was good for him.

He was a person who needed to stay busy.

Even when he had work to occupy him, he was prone to thinking too much. He spent too much time looking at the world, trying to figure out everything he could, and all too often found himself growing tired and melancholic as a result. Training could calm his mind a little, but he could only do so much of that in a day.

All through the day, he wandered the campus, trying to find something to occupy his mind. As evening drew near, he found himself out on the lawn with his back to the trunk of a tree, watching the beginnings of the sunset in the sky over the mansion.

The crews working on cleanup had done a great job so far, but when he looked at the building, he saw fresh scars layered on top of old ones. There was no place in the world he loved as dearly, nothing in the world he'd fight as single-mindedly for, but at times it felt like whatever he could give would never be enough. He'd fought with Sentinels and with Magneto's people and with the mansion itself, over his long years defending the school, but it wouldn't ever be enough to keep his students safe, or his old friends, or his home, or Souji...

He needed to think about something else. Lighting a new cigarette, he brought out a battered little journal and a pen, and tried to bring his focus in on the sunset.

"No," he muttered to himself, as his cat tried to bat the cigarette from his lips. "Too many syllables. Where would I fit the kigo?"

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