The Bear and Barnacle

Anotsu yawns tidily behind his fist. He hesitates before touching the handle, looks up at the sign above the door. He hasn't been out for ages. Not that he forgot; other things have been on his mind. Distraction is not a concept he endorses, even if his mind sometimes loops around itself enough to distract him; he does not need to venture out for that.
The warmth and the smell of a pub, he's forgotten those. The door chime jingles. He almost expects a yelled welcome from the bar until he remembers that this is England: if someone looks up or grunts at you, that means they're going out of their way to greet you. Slipping in unnoticed, it suits him fine.

There are other things he not-forgot: renewing the registration and license of the dojo with the association. This, too, suits him. Things that you forget deliberately... it's beautiful, he thinks, how a simple omission turns into action. How passivity becomes an agent. The sea gently laps at the rocks until they are sand. Speaking of which, he still collects flotsam on the beach, picking up bleached bone and water-whittled wood, rocks to arrange on Makie's orange-crate.

He looks up and studies the new faces hovering around the bar. Names you never knew are names you can't forget.

Anotsu isn’t given to reminiscing. Not much, at any rate. Time, history, his history... He shrugs without thinking. A river feeding an ocean feeding the clouds feeding the rain.

Last winter wasn’t good. He’d been sick, he remembers, and instinctively tucks deeper into the plush, fur-lined bomber jacket. This year he feels better. Stronger.

Had anybody asked him, last year, to give a gift, he would have got up and walked away. Now there’s a small bundle wedged under his arm. He does not pretend that he’s good with children, no. Magatsu was, he thinks, pushing against the door with his shoulder.

It’s warm in here. He does not care for the spilt beer smell, but if Xellos-san is around there‘s a good chance of green tea and sake.

He looks up, pursing his lips. "I have something for Dora-chan," he mumbles. And prays to all gods great and small and very small that she’s already in bed. ( It would help him save face in case she didn’t like his gift. )

He sees it the second he kicks the door shut behind himself.

He doesn't mind; his belongings are few, and if there was any disarray before, if there is cleanliness now, then the difference is fractal.

Which doesn't mean that he doesn't draw, the second he kicks the door shut.