Mitsuba Okita was anxious. She did not exactly know why – she was only meeting up with her younger brother.
Mind you, she had not seen him for many years, and although they had talked on the phone it had been hard to speak about anything in detail. Especially after the way he had parted along with the Shinsengumi.
She used the metal surface of a lamp post as a mirror to again check how she looked. Her green yukita seemed too look good on her.
As to why this was significant, Mitsuba was not really acknowledging it to herself. There was a lot that she had not been open about lately.
He had wished to meet her at Bushuu and accompany her from there but she had insisted that he need not take the trouble and that she could manage coming to Edo by herself. Since she brought him up from a very early age when they were both orphaned, he had always been attached and overprotective of her.
Sougo opened the door soon after MItsuku arrived in front of his residence at the Shinsengumi headquarters and knocked at it. She could not help but glance him up and down – at once she became aware that when they had said farewell he was still a child – now he had grown very much into a man. She saw that he was also appraising her as she was staring at him. 'Aneue', he said, and smiled. 'You look beautiful!.'
His smile was contagious. She was able to not say, 'So do you' but the thought stayed in her head. She was happy with his remark and smiled right back. 'I missed you', she said. 'I missed you, Sou-chan'.
Everyone else called him Sougo but she was the only one to call him in that affectionate way.
They embraced. It was the first time she had physical contact with his body after so many years apart and he was taller and physically stronger than she recalled.
'My goodness, look at you' she said. There was a muscular hardness about him that she supposed must have come from his training and work as a member of the Shinsengumi. He was also very handsome – well he was always handsome, but now he appeared to have the confidence to go with it. He was not the same younger brother who had departed along with the Shinsengumi – he was more her equal than he had been before. That was both fascinating and a bit alarming to her.
In an effort to reassert her charge over him, and the circumstance, she insisted after keeping her belongings down as fast as possible that he show her around Edo. Sougo looked happy with her proposal.
After touring around for a while, Sougo and Mitsuba eventually settled down in a restaurant. A few drinks after and in spite of the noisy music, they managed to get all the small talk out of the way. He had made her giggle at his stories about a particular group called Yorozuya that did random errands, and made her marvel at the risks he took to capture certain dangerous Jouishishi rebels and terrorists. Mitsuba had to acknowledge that he was a more grown-up man – and a very good-looking one at that.
She observed him now as he weaved to the front of the restaurant, talking to one girl, charming another. On the way back he was ambushed by one of the regulars and he started flirting with her. He had both a simple elegance and the sexual confidence to go with it.
Many years ago she had very certainly been his elder sister, more knowledgeable, more the one in charge. Now she was not so certain. The experience that Sougo had here in Edo had appeared to have provided him a new self-confidence and positiveness in his demeanor. He was alluring, more sophisticated, and his body motion certainly had the air of a predator around it.
Mitsuba discovered, to her surprise, that she was a bit envious that other women were taking a notice in him, and that he could give attention to them so easily. She did not need to search a long way for the reason she felt this way though. She began to recollect the events that took place just before Sougo had departed for Edo.
To be continued...