Disclaimer: Mushishi does not belong to me! I just promote it by writing crappy fanfiction! Yay!
The Last Story
"There isn't a single story you have left to tell me?" Tanyuu's voice was both skeptical and slightly pleading.
Ginko's eye strayed to the floor, betraying his dishonest proclamation.
Tanyuu smiled triumphantly and, her voice bearing some resemblance to a queen's in one of the traveling shows Ginko had seen said, "well, get on with it!"
His eye returned to her face, pale from all of the time she had been forced to stay inside, and seemed to consider her for a moment before beginning.
He'd only been passing through; well he was always just passing through. This town was, at its root, the same as every town he'd passed through in all his years of wandering. Small, houses with tiles missing from their roofs and dry from the latest drought. Only now the drought had ended and the rain was pouring down so fast that each droplet felt like a rock thrown hard as it his skin.
He sought shelter in one of the little houses, and was welcomed quickly, pulled into the house before the tatami was soaked and the fire extinguished.
"You're welcome to stay here until the storm passes." had been the reply from the worried looking woman who'd answered the door. He learned her name was Yuki. She had a son named Toya.
It was nice to pass an evening in company for a change. Not to mention rice that was actually well cooked. He'd never claimed to be good chef. His stomach certainly never thought so. But it never really mattered. Food was for living on, not his enjoyment.
They told him about the town. The little village had had an unusually good crop this year. The people considered it to be a blessing from the gods. As such they owed hospitality to whomever they could give it to.
Ginko considered himself lucky to be just happening past this particular village and to have a good meal.
But the harvest was not a gift from the gods.
Ginko took a deep breathe and paused, closing his eyes before opening them again slowly, his eyebrows drawn together. Tanyuu was scrutinizing him. Worry plastered across her face. A bitter smile had crept on to the mushishi's features.
The next morning Toya fell ill. Several other villagers along side him. Ginko found himself feverishly searching for the source of an illness that could only be mushi related. At least—he thought- there was enough food to properly feed the ill.
It was a full week later before he realized the cause was the rice itself. Or rather, the small white mushi that looked so similar to rice that it was near impossible to tell the difference. It took him another two excruciating days before he found the cure, a simple recipe of steaming the mushi until they resembled burnt rice.
By then, the mushi had already claimed most of the village as well as Yuki's only son.
And she and Ginko had both contracted the illness.
Ginko fell silent. Tanyuu let him remain for a moment before asking, "what… what happened? I mean, obviously, you're here and…" she trailed off.
He sighed, and buried his hand in his long bangs, covering the eye she knew was not there.
A pause.
"I tried to give her the cure." His voice was silent, and filled with regret. "She wouldn't—she wouldn't take it." He refused to look at her.
A tense moment passed before he gave a dry chuckle and whispered, though loud enough for her to hear in the quiet of her writing room, "Now you know why I didn't want to tell you."
She replied some time later with a quiet, "I'm sorry."
"No." She looked up at him. He was giving the penetrating stare that only his sole green eye seemed to be able to manage. "I understand how she felt, now." He stood, and padded over to the doorway. He paused there, for a moment, and added, "It's the loved ones in one's life, that allows you to keep going." He stepped through the doorway, and slid it shut behind him.
In the emptiness of her lonely quarters Tanyuu replied, "You think I didn't know?" She placed her hand, now black with the words of a story of a woman and a man, on the parchment in front of her.
"It's what's allowed me to keep moving towards my goal since..." The tears running down her face were not purely from the pain of dispensing of the mushi thriving inside her.
"…Since I met you, Ginko-san."
AN: Definitely not my best work. They're both out of character. –sigh- please review, and tell me what you think.