Authorly preamble or something: I don't normally go in for fanfiction that just retells or elaborates on canon situations, it's just not my thing, but for some reason the "Pursuit" section in The Street of a Thousand Blossoms really stuck with me and I just wanted to do something with it. Retelling it from Mika's perspective, which was never explored in canon, seemed like the best idea. Kenji and Mika were always my favourites.
A Game of It
The first time Mika realizes Kenji is following her, she at first thinks she is imagining it. Many men have taken to wearing their hair long and their beards cut short, after all; she simply must have mistaken another man for him. It would not be a difficult task in the dense crowd making its way to the train station. But the moment she settles this in her mind is when she catches a second glimpse of him, and this time there is no mistaking him — the gentle grey of his kimono, the quiet sharpness of his eyes. He is looking for her, she realizes, and turns away quickly without knowing why. She is at a loss to explain his pursuit, certain she has not left anything behind. When she shifts her gaze back in his direction, he quickly looks away, hesitating in his stride to let the crowd conceal him.
"He's following me."
Their actions repeat the next day, and the day after that; Mika becomes certain that Kenji believes her oblivious to his pursuit, and she begins to find his efforts endearing. She makes a game of it, stealing as many glimpses as she can without his realizing. She becomes thoughtful in her clothing choice each day, selecting kimono that will help catch Kenji's eye in a crowd with their vibrant colours and entrancing patterns. In spite of this, she never breaks her brisk pace, as much to avoid tardiness as to keep Kenji from catching on. She's secretly pleased each time he follows her to the station successfully; she is right to offer him no handicap. Despite their distance, they are connected.
It goes on for weeks in the same fashion, Mika secretly thrilling at her husband's careful protective pursuit, before she loses sight of him in the crowd. Her heart skips a beat, a tight, restricted feeling settling into her chest as she casts a guarded glance over the usual traffic, and she sternly tells herself to calm down. Breaking her own rules, she slows her pace gradually in case he has accidentally fallen behind, but Kenji fails to appear. Desperately, she turns a quick circle, as much to search as to make herself visible. The connection of their fragile distance is no longer tangible, and she feels suddenly lost and alone.
"Kenji," she cries out in a shuddering, strangled voice that hardly sounds her own, and though several faces turn at the sound, none are the one she seeks.
She is reminded, suddenly and startlingly, of their lack of children. Though they continue to try, it feels increasingly like a pretext, a hopeless masquerade. Kenji has given up hope, she can see it in his face. He's had to, for his own sake, and neither of them acknowledge it for Mika's.
A cold fist clenches in her stomach — it's the same. Once again she cannot help but feel, helplessly, that he has given up on her.
Her fabric samples seem suddenly impossibly heavy, her vibrant saffron kimono insufferably restricting.
She does the only thing she can do. Chest tight, she turns back and sets off at a run.