"how to prevent smile lines" there are a thousand more important things to do with your time than postpone evidence of life's joy on your face

UzuRen 🔥𓍯𓂃𓏧♡⚔️ WIP snippet:

Kyojuro had faced down members of the Twelve Kizuki without flinching. 

He had weathered his father’s fury with patience and grace, accepting Shinjuro’s cruel insults (and, later, his even crueler apathy) in good humor. When Ruka had finally given up her hold on life, Kyojuro held it together—even as his own heart had been breaking—because his father and little brother had needed him to be strong.

But nothing had ever startled him quite so much as when Tengen Uzui dropped to one knee before him.

It went like this:

Ubuyashiki Mansion was so much more than the Corps’ base of operations. For Kyojuro, it had also come to be like a second home, far warmer than the one he’d been born into. The Rengokus were an old family and an honorable one, and they'd possessed an estate that, while nowhere near as sprawling, had certainly been just as grand as this. 

Kyojuro had never felt quite the same peace there as he did here, though. He'd often felt like he was walking on eggshells at home—still did, in truth. The Rengoku Estate was lovely, but there was always a sort of tension in the air, a hushed stillness; servants rushed from room to room with lowered eyes and bowed heads. 

It was as if ghosts were haunting the halls, malignant and malcontent, hiding just beneath the surface of the perfectly manicured grounds and storied family histories. The ghosts of his father’s happiness, of his mother’s laughter. The ghosts of his father’s drunken rages, the way they seemed to echo in the house long after he'd already passed out from his sake and whiskey. 

If it hadn’t been for Senjuro, he would have long since cut his ties to the estate, only visiting once or twice a year out of some misguided sense of obligation. As it was, Kyojuro made the trip as often as he could, which was still much less than he would have liked, but his duties kept him busy, far afield. He worried about his brother, though, all alone in that house, the one bright spot of life amongst all those restless shades. 

His father’s anger, once white-hot, had become like a sleeping dragon, roused only if one was foolish enough to cross him. Senjuro was a bright kid; he mostly stayed out of the way. When Kyojuro was home, he always made sure to be twice as loud, twice as boisterous, risking their father’s ire to chase the ghosts away, if only for the moment. 

He knew there was probably a lot that Senjuro didn’t tell him. 

“Please, don’t hate him,” Kyojuro whispered to him, embracing his brother early one morning on the steps of the estate, preparing to leave—again—and trying to smile as his brother hugged him for dear life, knowing it was taking everything him not to beg Kyojuro to stay. As always, their father had been absent. Senjuro had sighed at that, but he hadn’t replied one way or the other, and maybe that had been an answer all on its own. 

Kyojuro shook his head, chasing away those thoughts. 

It was hard to feel troubled here. There was tranquil air at the Ubuyashiki Mansion that seemed at odds with the Corps’ dangerous work, but Kyojuro had always appreciated it.

The Hashira had been so named because they were meant to be the pillars of the organization, the best and brightest that the Corps had to offer. They rarely gathered all at once, but between missions, it was not uncommon for one or more of them to drift back here, searching, perhaps, for a moment of tranquility. 

Everyone needed a place to call home, Kyojuro mused. 

“Rengoku.” 

Kyojuro jumped, looking up to see Shinobu Kocho and Giyu Tomioka both staring. 

Giyu was expressionless as ever, his deep sapphire eyes partially shaded behind the jet-black fall of his bangs. Shinobu's lips had curled in one of her bright, cat-like smiles, but there was something vaguely irritated about the way she ticked a brow up as she regarded him.