These Cuts Of Mine
two: never looked so down
i.
Aoshi uses the time he spends awake to examine further memories, but he's not sure what he seeks in them. The less recent past can tell him nothing more about absolution, and he knows enough of it, now, that he can stop his search for it. He shies away from the puzzle he'd been thinking about before, the puzzle he hopes he hasn't solved - now, with her here beside him and his own offer made, thinking about it feels like an invasion of privacy.
When she wants him to know, she'll tell him.
He corrects his thoughts: if she wants him to know. Though it's all but certain - or is it? She's never mentioned it, never alluded to it at all. Perhaps she simply hasn't seen a reason to, perhaps she's never seen an appropriate moment.
Or perhaps she doesn't want him to know.
But if she doesn't... he can't simply forget it. He can let it rest, can let it wait, can even let it go, if she needs him to - but he can't take back the knowing. Would that satisfy her?
He never comes to a conclusion: she begins to stir in her sleep again. At first, her movements look like mere restless tossing and turning, but he knows her better than that. She only sleeps that restlessly in the height of summer, but it's a coool day and she's curled herself into the shadiest space in their car.
She begins to murmur after that. She's sleep-slurred and quiet enough that he barely hears her over the rattling of the train. He only makes out a few words, but they're enough to chill him regardless of his unwillingness to analyze: no, stop, but I'm not.
At last, she says in scarcely a whisper, scarcely a breath: please.
He's heard that tone too many times before not to recognize it. He's heard it from the women bought by men of Edo Castle, from the "amusements" the yakuza sometimes gave out to its lesser enforcers, from the boys kept by high-ranking army officers. And he's heard it from far, far too many Oniwaban agents.
He says her name in an attempt to wake her.
But the only response he hears is the sound of a sleeping body, turning over.
He has a hard time focusing on any one topic, after that. Thoughts of Shikijou and Hyottoko give rise to thoughts of Sagara and Saitou. Memories of training alongside Okon and Omasu somehow blur into long hours spent watching sunlight play over four gravestones.
Her first new whisper jolts him out of his thoughts. He stands, crosses the rocking train only a touch unsteadily, and seats himself beside her. He draws the curtain aside and watches her.
It's almost like half a bunraku play, though admittedly a sick one. Just as before, she begins to murmur denials. Not just "Stop," but "That's not true," and "But I'm not!" Her murmurs only grow quieter when she begins to tremble.
She kicks her right leg once, then goes still.
And then she begs again: "Please."
He reaches out to touch her shoulder, grasping as gently as he can. He nudges her lightly, unwilling to shake her. "Misao."
This time, she wakes. He watches her sit up, moving so quickly he almost wonders if she has springs instead of joints. She scoots back along the train's bed until she's pressed up against the wall.
"Aoshi-sama," she says. But for some reason, the blush that covers her face doesn't strike him as endearing. "Uhm, I, sorry, didn't mean to bother you -"
"Aa," he says, because leading questions crowd his thoughts and he refuses to do that to her.
She produces a tangle of sound, then, that he can only blink at. She flushes red, then looks away, and says, just a hair slower, "It wasn't my parents."
"The nightmare?"
"Yeah. It wasn't my parents, Aoshi-sama."
He nods once. He wants to offer to listen, but it's too close to asking. And to ask would steal any element of choice from her telling him.
After a moment of silence, he says, "I thought not."
She blinks up at him.
He should tell her that he has invaded the privacy not only of her sleep but of her past. He should tell her that he has spent too many early morning hours watching her sleep on this trip. He should tell her - but he can't bring himself to.
"You behaved differently when you were dreaming of your parents," he says.
She stares up at him. Her mouth rests in a mild pout, as if she's a bit confused by him, but her eyes are wide, troubled. "What do you mean? Did I do something... weird?"
"You spoke this time," he says.
There's no missing the panic that crosses her face. He wants to reach out, to touch her, to hold her as Hannya held her when she was a child.
Once again, he wants to turn back time.
ii.
He sees the city on the horizon half an hour before the train groans to a halt.
Aoshi murmurs a request into the ear of a nondescript youth standing in the train station. Misao turns to watch him, but he doesn't allow himself to look at her until the brief conversation ends. Kyoto ia a city of people who know people - even more so than Tokyo - and for now, the news of the Aoi-ya's "newest employee" leaving town with the owner's "granddaughter" while carrying a no-dachi, a few burlap sacks, and a shovel should stay quiet.
Their walk back to the Aoi-ya is mostly quiet. Every now and then, Misao calls out to a vendor, trading greetings and news. She turns her head to look at him just before or after each exchange, as if she wonders if he minds.
At last, a block away from the Aoi-ya, she finally asks: "What was I saying? When I was asleep on the train?"
"I didn't understand much," he tells her.
Panic and relief war on her face. She shakes her head as if to clear it and then smiles. "So who were you talking to in the station?"
"A supplier."
Her smile grows even wider, even happier. It's almost blinding.
Her pure, unfettered joy stills his breath in his chest for a moment. How could anyone hurt such a person? No. More than that... How could anyone want to harm Misao?
Okina awaits them at the Aoi-ya's front door. He pretends to be busy splashing water over the entrance to clean it, but the faint line of tension in his shoulders tells Aoshi that the older onmitsu is on alert.
"You're back, I see," he says, sweeping Misao into a hug.
Once he's set her back down and she's caught her breath, Okina looks over to Aoshi.
He inclines his head but says nothing. Misao will tell their story far better than he.
"I take it Himura did need help?"
"It was a pretty serious bind," Misao agrees. She looks to Aoshi, as if requesting permission to tell the story. He nods. "Come on, Jiya, I'll tell you all about it inside."
He hears their voices retreat, listens until the city sounds swallow Misao's words.
In the end, they spend the rest of the day in Kyoto, and sleep in the Aoi-ya that night. It feels strange to sleep with Misao somewhere else. He's spent weeeks sharing a room with her.
He misses the sound.
iii.
During their trip to the grave site, he's the only one to wake with nightmares. Sometimes he recalls them in every horrifying detail. More often, he doesn't. He wakes with only snatches of images or vague impressions of memories to explain why he's hyperventilating.
It takes them three days to cover the distance. That final night, Aoshi contemplates his mental map as he builds a fire. If he were given to nostalgia - if it were possible to be nostalgic about this trip - he'd find comfort in the familiarity of tallying distances while he places twigs. He rises from his crouch by the fire pit, satisfied more with his calculations than the small fire. They'll arrive at the grave by mid-morning if they leave at sun-up.
Misao only lays out one ground blanket. He looks down at it, then looks to her. He raises an eyebrow in a question he doesn't trust himself to voice.
She flushes prettily, stammers half an answer, stops, and finally says, "Aoshi-sama, it's getting too cold, and the fire won't last all night."
"Aa," he says. But her offer confounds him.
Is she... ready? To spend a night close to him, even without intimacy? He can't even ask. To ask would impugn her privacy.
"I don't need much sleep," he says.
"Aoshi-sama." Her voice is gentle, but he sees a hint of steel in her gaze. "Aoshi-sama. You haven't been getting much sleep lately."
So she's noticed. He shouldn't be surprised; given the opportunity, Misao can read him well. She always has.
In the end, he slips out of his boots, unties his obi so he can slide onto the blanket beside her. He keeps his back turned to her. She's small and warm against him; he can feel her even through his gi. He wants to roll over; he wants to hold her in his arms, as if his touch could keep her nightmares and memories at bay -– or maybe her touch would ward him from his own.
That night, he sleeps dreamlessly. Though he wakes at measured intervals, he never hears her cry out or senses her kicking.
They both wake in the gray hour just before dawn. He doesn't know which of them woke first. With his back turned, it's impossible to be sure.
She's silent for a while. He stays quiet, too, content to listen to her even breathing. The light shifts from gray to a weak, watery gold and the air warms, degree by degree.
At last, she shifts underneath the blanket. Her bare foot brushes against his calf; the sudden rush of heat through his veins, pooling low in stomach, makes him glad his back is to her. The blanket whispers as she moves yet more. Her knee brushes against him for an instant, there and gone again, and his body flushes in response.
He rolls onto his back, stretches his arms above his head to make his propped knee look more natural, then breathes out and relaxes. He turns his head to meet her eyes. She's rolled onto her stomach, with her arms crossed and her chin resting against her hands. She's looking at him out of the corners of her eyes.
"Aoshi-sama... Will you tell me?"
"Tell you?"
"What happened in Tokyo, I mean."
"I accepted a job from trash. In his grudge against me, he killed the others."
She's quiet for a while. At last, she lets out a little sigh. "That's not all, is it, Aoshi-sama?"
He makes no reply. Of course there's more to the story, and of course she knows it, but he'll lance this wound when it's time.
She sits up to look at him, then.
"There's more," he tells her.
She nods. Her expression is patient, as if she's waiting, but after a few moments, she closes her eyes. She relaxes, her breaths slow, but then her breath hitches and she sits straight up. She turns her head to look at him, opens her mouth to speak -
"The rest can wait."
He watches her cycle through expressions: surprise, curiosity, irritation, back to curiosity, and finally settling on determination. She nods at him, but her then her mouth curves as she says, "Will you tell me... when we get there?"
He sits up as well, reaches for the obi. He wraps and ties it off without looking, turning to face her only once he's fully dressed.
"I will."
iv.
The grave site hasn't changed much since he was here last - strange to think it's been so long. He sees more leaves on the ground, taller grass. That's all that's changed.
Misao stops short as they reach the clearing. Her eyes are wide, a little wet. One hand flits to cover her mouth, and she turns to look at Aoshi.
She's not asking if they've arrived at the grave. He nods at her silent question.
She takes a step forward, toward the graves. She stops abruptly, her head jerking up as she speaks: "Aoshi-sama?"
"Yes?"
She turns to look at him. One foot pivots, causing the knee to pivot inward in a stance that's shy, almost unaccountably so. "Aoshi-sama... who's where?"
He's silent a moment, then moves to follow her. He makes sure his steps are audible. Rather than side-step when he reaches her, he simply keeps moving forward. His arm brushes against hers.
She follows him, just as he knew she would.
He stops before the graves, then tilts his head to indicate that she should move a little closer. He turns his body to face the left-most stone. "Hannya," he tells her, then turns to face the next stone, "Shikijou." A pause as he turns, "Beshimi. Hyottoko on the far side."
Misao looks up at him then. Her lips curl into something he hesitates to call a smile. It's not joyous; it's not even happy - but her lips have curved up, rather than down.
Aoshi looks back down at her, makes eye contact for a brief moment.
She kneels before the graves without saying anything. He watches her fingers touch the stone markers, brushing tenderly against them.
When she bows her head, he turns away. Steps far enough away to give her privacy, if she's quiet.
If she speaks to them, he doesn't hear it.
After several minutes, he sees her drifting amongst the trees. He steps out from behind a tall, thick pine and she moves straight toward him. She stops a little closer to him than she usually stands, looks up as she places a hand on his upper arm.
Her eyes are still wet, but not red-rimmed.
"Aoshi-sama," she says, taking her hand from his arm. "Do you... want a little time with them?"
"Aa," he says.
She offers him a small smile. "Then I'll wait for you here."
"Aa." He takes a few steps past her, then pauses. He looks back once, meets her eyes again.
She smiles for him, and vanishes into the trees.
Alone with them, he surveys the graves. Their stones bear no names. He saw no need to mark the stones when he buried them; he knew where each was. He had refused to memorialize them permanently with anything but a title and his own death.
He stays silent. There's little enough to say now: Misao will have told them - or will tell them soon enough - all that's happened.
"You'll have flowers soon," he says instead.
He's given them - he's given himself - the only answer he can. It doesn't quite feel like enough. Maybe it never will.
He stares at the stones, at the mounds of earth. At the green that's grown, and the leaves that have fallen. They're all healing from something, he thinks. The forest heals from the wound of his shovel. He heals from the loss of his men.
Yes, he thinks. It's time.
He looks back when he leaves the clearing to search for Misao.
In the end, he tells her the full story while he's digging. It spares him the torment of having to watch her reactions, of having to see her tears in addition to hearing them fall. He hears every hitch of her breath and that's hard enough. He nearly stops in his telling each time, but she always draws him back with a leading question.
He knows, intellectually, that speaking of the memories can ease the pain of holding them. It's never struck him as true. He can think of a thousand tortures more pleasant than this, than speaking of this.
Than speaking of it to Misao, whom he never wanted to learn this sort of pain.
But who more than he should tell her? And when should he tell her, if not now?
At the end, he collapses by the fourth grave, with Hyottoko's head wrapped away in more than one bag. Physically, he's not fatigued, but he's mentally and emotionally drained. The tiredness in his chest seems to weigh him down.
v.
The trip back to the Aoi-ya passes almost without incident. She sleeps at his side for most of the trip, only retreating to a more appropriate distance on their final night. They're in sight of the main road into Kyoto from this direction, which means they're half a day's walk from Kyoto, at best.
That's the night the worst nightmare he's seen yet strikes her. Later, when there's time to process beyond the simmer of fury and fragnented, kaleidoscopic impressions of the night around them, Aoshi will wonder what might have summoned it. Later, he'll examine every detail of that night - and the peaceful nights before it - and try to find a touchstone or a sign.
But the events resist interpretation.
Everything seems normal: he settles on their campsite and digs a shallow firepit. She hums as she heats rice - pulled from a tiny bag he didn't realize she was carrying, but when he turns to look at her, she only smiles at him. He sees a gleam of mischief in her eyes and decides not to ask directly.
They eat. They lay out ground blankets. He'll look back on and wonder about the way Misao chews on her lip for a moment, her thicker blanket still rolled under one arm. She peers around the camp, shifting her weight uneasily, for another minute or so before she finally makes her bed a short pace from his.
Whether or not she's comfortable so far from him, she falls asleep quickly.
Aoshi stays awake just long enough to ascertain - again - that their campsite is safe. Everything he sees and hears lulls him into a sense of peace: the moon rises crystal clear in a dark sky, a sea storm still a few days from land scents the breezes with salt, the wind rattles too loud through dying grass for them to be anything but alone.
His dreams are a weak, shadowy blur. They don't make sense, even while he's dreaming them, and at first he thinks he woke out of irritation at his own sleeping mind.
Then he hears - something. He's heard her toss and turn at night before, but this noise gives him pause. He listens closely, trying to determine just what's wrong with the sound.
It takes him a moment to recognize it. Her movements are strange. Nonsensical. She isn't tossing or turning, isn't kicking; instead she seems to be lying mostly quietly. Lying still. But every now and then, he hears her heartbeat speed up, and he hears the thud of a limb striking the ground.
Aoshi sits up. At first, between the sea fog hazing over the night sky and the dull embers of their fire, he can barely make out what she's doing, nevermind her face. But he doesn't need much light. His eyes adjust.
The sound that accompanies her increased heartrate is her arm, he realizes. For some reason, she's moved one arm above her head, and when her heartbeat speeds up, she lifts it, then lets it fall.
"Misao," he says, dropping into a crouch as far from her as he can while still able to reach. He presses his hand against her shoulder. But he can't bring himself to shake her, can't even tighten his grip. He nudges her, gently, and keeps nudging when she doesn't respond.
It takes a few repetitions of her name for her to finally hear him and wake. Her eyes snap open, perfect blue even when seen with so little light.
The innocence of her expression clashes with the blood that drips from her lower lip. He watches a drop fall, stares at the ragged shred she's torn her lip to, and recalls the wicked, mischievous smile of earlier that night. The contrast makes him feel ill.
A shudder rolls through her. She bows her head. Flyaway locks hide her mouth and most of an eye from him, but there's no mistaking the way her hands tremble when she brings them to her face. She shakes her head, after that, shakes her head while she digs the heels of her hands into her eyes.
There's no shaking away nightmares like this one. No shaking away memories like tonight's.
He doesn't tell her so. Instead, he releases her shoulder and settles in a little closer to her. Her body heat travels the gap between them, carried by the way she shivers, even now.
Gradually, her hands stop trembling. The shivers slow and then cease altogether.
"I'm better now," she says.
He only looks down at her, still faintly unnerved by her mouth.
She looks back up at him, and for an instant, she gives him a smile. But the smile vanishes as she looks away.
For a few moments, the only sound is of the wind through the grass. For reasons of her own, she doesn't say anything. And he doesn't trust himself to speak. The questions crowd his mouth; some leading, some direct.
"You're not asking what it was about," she says, at last. "You've never asked what they were about."
She seems to be waiting for some sort of reply. He almost can't find one, but he eventually settles on, "I haven't."
"It's so obvious by now," she says. "You have to... have to have guessed. But you've never said anything about it. You and Okon. You've never said anything at all!"
He looks down at her again. This time, when she looks back up at him, she seems more herself. Obviously tired and with a flaring temper, but still Misao.
"Why?"
The word comes out ragged, as if she's forced it out of her throat. She's not just asking why he's never said anything, but why she has to remember it. Why it happened at all.
He can only answer one of those 'whys.' "Forcing you to explain would only have hurt you."
Misao nods. Her expression is faintly distant, a little troubled; she's still processing what he meant. "Like when that old woman at the inn...?"
"Aa."
She's quiet a long moment. Aoshi uses that moment to listen for changes in the night around them, but the only thing new is the too-quick beat of her heart.
"Aoshi-sama, does talking about it really make things any easier?"
He has no immediate answer for that. It helps some. It's never helped all. He's listened to the stories of more than a few Oniwaban agents. Some walked away a little lighter. Others didn't. Okon in particular seemed to draw her strength from not talking about it.
"It varies," he tells Misao, and hates that he's saying this, hates that he's said it to others. Hates that he's saying it to Misao, who should never have learned any of this.
"So sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't?" At his nod, she looks away a moment, chewing on her lip again. "Can you ever tell? Whether it will help or not?"
"Nothing certain." He pauses. "Misao. When you do, start slowly. Keep an exit."
She nods. "Give myself time to see if I need to stop?"
"Aa."
Despite how close he's crouching, the night seems to stretch out between them. Wind wispers through the grass. Somewhere a creek burbles. The sea breeze plays with Misao's blankets.
She looks up at him, still chewing on her lip. He wants to tell her to stop. She's already torn it enough for one night.
"I've never told anyone what happened. Not even Omasu or Okon, and they both -" She stops, shakes her head.
"They both?"
"I went home right after. He'd cut me so badly that I needed a week just to be able to leave. When I got home, I was still limping."
"Omasu and Okon noticed?"
Misao nods again. She swallows, looks away. "They knew. I mean, it's pretty obvious, I guess. They just didn't ask, and I never said it, and - and I'm so tired of hiding from it. I've been trying so hard to act like it never happened, but."
He doesn't say anything. Even now, he can't ask. Can't instruct her to tell him. It all has to go at her pace. So rather than reply, he reaches for her. He keeps his movements slow, visible, watching for a flinch, for any sign of fear, of further distress.
But she lets him touch her. She puts a small hand over his own and rests that way.
"Aoshi-sama, can you hear it? I don't want -" She stops, looking up at him a little confusedly, then looks down. "It's not that I don't think you - I -"
"I can hear it."
She closes her eyes. "I was fourteen."
The words fall from her mouth, hang tonelessly in the air. The hearing is like knives, regarldess. From the innkeep's comments, he had guessed that much. Despite his suppositions, how long he's been making them, the confirmation burns as much as conjecture did.
"And pretty stupid, I guess. Maybe if i'd been more on guard, or left sooner..." She stops, laughing at herself. It's not a happy laugh. "I know Omasu and Okon would say it wasn't my fault, but if I hadn't been there at all-!"
How many times has he heard that regret? If I just hadn't been there. He says nothing. What is there to say, but what she already knows?
"I met him in the minshuku. He had dinner with the rest of us guests." She pauses for another long moment. "The doctor's son. Tanaka Tadashi."
He'd already wanted to kill that doctor. Now, though, he takes the doctor's attempt at subtle threats, combines it with the news that it was his son, and he wants them both dead so badly that his hands ache.
He relaxes his other hand from the fist it had curled into, ignores the sting of half-moon cuts in the meat of his hand and the red that follows after. He shifts his gaze from the blood that's dried on the edge of her mouth, the ragged tangle she's chewed her lip to.
She looks up at him, uncertain.
Between the pressing need to murder two men and his own prohibition on asking, once more, he can say nothing. Instead, he tugs his hand away, gently, then moves to rest it against her shoulder.
She leans into his touch, waits a moment, and then begins to speak again.
Aoshi listens, forcing himself to say nothing. But every word that leaves her bloodied lips only leaves him aching more and more for murder.
I watched you walkin' home from school
Your friends on the old playgrounds
You never looked so down
-The Wallflowers, "Josephine"
