“Sensei?”

The big man looking down at his hands. Tracing wetness down the crease of his thumb on his palm. A drop fills the corner of his eye and drips, caught by his warm hand. His eyes follow its path, to join its fallen comrades across a landscape of hair-thin lines. Down the curve of a wrist.  To the floor.

“…Shibuo,” a note of alarm fills the voice of the man who’s just entered the dim study.

“I’m all right.” Lie. Blue-white shirt pulled across a broad back.

Makoto’s hand reaching, fingers squarely towards the river of dark hair that flows between shoulderblades, black on white in the low light.  Getting up, a step takes the older man out of arm’s reach.

A movement brings him to where his sensei was and his hand closes on oxblood leather instead of human warmth. Warmth still in the chair, warmth fading fast. The silence between them cools rapidly.

Time, intimidating, brings down the younger man’s gaze. Dark sheen on dark wood, his sensei’s tears.

Hand tightening, the creak of leather.

Finally Shibuo sighs, and nods. Without turning, he begins to speak his mind for the first time in twenty-three years.

(Getting back into the writing. A context-less drabble that maybe one person will understand is still writing. ::cracks knuckles::)