First Meeting, part two

No matter what a man's past may have been his future is spotless. ~Hannah More (1745-1833)

At the dinner table Yukimura returned to his dozing state when he heard an extra pair of footsteps. He opened his drowsy eyes and looked for his mother's figure. He rubbed his large black eyes and focused better. While he had fallen asleep, the sun had set and the kitchen had gotten darker. But Yuki could still see two figures towering over him.

He recognized his mother, her white apron over her pale skin. But there was a larger, darker person behind her, hiding in the shadow. His sleepy eyes fluttered as the fluorescent lights blinked on.

The man stood by the small refrigerator in the dark. Yuki was a bit frightened by the look on his face. It wasn't menacing, but nonetheless, he felt a chill run down his spine. He had a towel around his shoulders that Mayuri had given him and reminded Yuki of a demon lord he had read in a storybook.

"Yuki dear," his mother said quietly as she knelt down beside him.

"Mother," he said, confused. "Who is that person?" he asked quietly so the man wouldn't hear.

"He's your uncle, Sasuke," she said.

"Uncle?"

"Yes. He came a very far way to come here. Why don't you say, 'hello?'"

"Hello," he said shakily. "Nice to meet you. My name is Yukimura."

Sasuke didn't reply or even react. He just stood there patiently watching him. His eyes flicked to Mayuri. He was surprised when he found her smiling at her son as she combed her fingers through his hair. The boy looked exactly like his father.

Sasuke closed his eyes and covered his face with his hand. His heart was in racing circles in his chest. They all felt awkward in the room, but Yuki was intrigued with the stranger her mother called his uncle.

The first impression Yuki had of Sasuke was that of a cool silent ninja hero that gave off a demeaning aura. He couldn't help peeking up at him swiftly as they ate at dinner. But as soon as Sasuke's eye fell on him, Yuki quickly turned back to his bowl and ate in silence.

After dinner, while Mayuri was cleaning up, Yuki played with his rubber ball at the corner of the kitchen entrance as she watched Sasuke sitting on the far end of the living room in the dark corner adjacent to the kitchen where there was barely any light at all.

Sasuke watched the little boy constantly glance back at him as the boy rolled his ball around his lap, too nervous to approach him. He didn't know how to interact with kids. But he remembered when he was just a five year old kid. Everything had impressed him then, no matter how awfully someone had done it, or how unskillful it was. It had awed him just the same.

He stretched out his hand from his long dark sleeve. And small flame floated on top of his palm. How many times had he used this flame to destroy the bodies of his enemies' to a crisp? Now he was using it entertain a boy who barely has all his teeth.

The little flame captured Yuki's interest like a cat to a yarn ball. He watched, widening, and his mouth opened large, gaping.

He flipped his hand around and held it in a fist as the fire died, and becoming no more than a billowing smoke smoldering to the ceiling. Yuki leaned a forward, only slightly nervous. He was still sucked up in the "magic" of Sasuke's jutsu. Sasuke turned his hand up again with his fingers flat out and the flame came back, lighting up his dark corner. After he turned the fire on and off again, he used another trick with fire.

He spread out his fingers. Each finger lit up with a little flame as Sasuke made them he made them dance around his palm, creating different shapes and figures. Then he gathered them into a bigger flame and clasped his hand around it, smothering the dancing flame.

Yukimura was speechless for a long time. The first thing that occurred to him was to tell his mother, who had just finished washing the dishes.

"Mother, Mother!" he said, tugging at the corner of her apron.

"What is it, dear?" she asked patiently as she squatted to wipe down the table.

As he was about to tell her mother about the magic flame from Sasuke's hands he was at a loss of words as to what to call him. So, he just pointed.

Mayuri looked over at Sasuke who was sitting at the corner looking over, being just a little more attentive than she thought he would be.

"What is it Yuki? What did Uncle do?" she asked.

Sasuke's heart jumped a little when he heard her call him that.

Yuki opened up his hands, palm-up like Sasuke, and shouted, "Fire! Fire came from his hand! And then his fingertips," he said in a mouthful.

"Did he now?" she said with a smile as she placed her hand across his forehead to take his temperature. Then she glanced up at the clock. 8:14. "Yuki, I think you should take a bath and go to bed. You better go to bed earlier or you'll never get better," she said. Yuki glanced over at Sasuke one more time. "Now go get your clothes and I'll prepare the bath water."

Yuki stood up on his little legs and went over to his room. Mayuri was alone with Sasuke again. Think of something clever to say, she told herself. The rain that pitter-pattered outside reminded her of the hyoshigi instrument and its clacking sounds. It had been one of the few things that brought them together, her and her husband.

"It's still raining quite hard," she said. "Why don't you stay until the rain stops," she invited.

"I can't wait until then," he said huskily. The rain probably wasn't going to let up any time soon, but he couldn't stay here for that long. Not like this. "I may be your son's uncle, but I'm still a rogue ninja. There are people after me here. You and your son will be pulled into danger if I stay for long."

Mayuri felt disappointed and blamed herself. If only she didn't reject his choice when she first met him, perhaps he would be more open to her. "At least stay for tonight."

Sasuke averted his eyes from hers cautiously, or else he be sucked into their depths. He let out a long taut sigh and Mayuri smiled. She knew that meant he agreed.

"Mother," Yuki called.

"Coming," she said and went to her son to bathe him.

Mayuri sat in the steamy room, aside the tub with Yuki. She couldn't help but smile as they blew up bubbles and popped them in the water, making all the little bubbles come up.

"Mother," Yukimura said, looking up at her face, "what are you smiling about?"

"Nothing much," she said, patting his head.

"Aw, tell me," he said turning around in the water.

"It's a secret," she said and laughed as he made an adorable pouting face. His eyebrows looked like two "U's" on his face.

But soon he was distracted by the gold of his mother's hair as it glistened in the steam. He wrapped the strands around his fingers and imagined them as the fire from Sasuke's hands.

"Mother," he said ready to ask a question.

"What is it?" she asked as she washed the soap away from his back.

"How do you make fire come from you hands?" he asked.

"You mean how your uncle did it?"

"Yea."

"Well, I don't know. I'm not a ninja. Maybe you can ask him when you're older and he'll teach you. But I think we've been in here long enough. Let's get you out and get into bed before you become too prune-y," she said as she lifted him out of the water. She set him carefully on the towel she laid on the floor when they came in.

She dried him quickly so he wouldn't catch another cold and dressed then dried. She dressed herself, leaving the towel wrapped around her shoulders so her clothes wouldn't become damp.

"Yuki," she said as he was about to run to the living room where Sasuke was still sitting at. She knew very well he wanted to see him again.

Yuki turned around and gave her an innocent look. His large round puppy eyes made her heart melt. It was unbearable to let down a face so pure.

She let out a sigh. "Go say good night to your uncle and then straight to bed in my room."

"In your room? What about my room?" he asked.

"Your uncle is going to use that room. You can't expect him to share a room with you since you're still sick," she told him. Of course it was just an excuse. She really couldn't leave her son with him just yet. Not until she understood his plans. What he was doing and what he would soon do. "Now go."

Yuki was still just as happy to see the strange cool man one more time, but when he saw him sitting at his dark corner he felt a bit perturbed again. So he just hid behind the wall and jutted his head out slightly.

"Good night," he said quietly, waiting for a response.

Sasuke turned his head around slowly and looked into the boy's face. "Good night," he said even more quietly, but Yuki heard. His hearing was impeccable. His face gleamed when Sasuke said that. He turned away to go to Mayuri's room, a large smile on his face.

"Then, we'll be off to sleep. If you don't mind you can use Yuki's room tonight. It's across from the kitchen," Mayuri said and then watched him as he got up in one swift motion.

While standing up his head almost touched the ceiling. She didn't remember him being that tall. He walked across the room as if he was floating, avoiding all the little toys and cushions on the floor with ease and entered Yuki's room without a word. The futon was already laid out since Yuki had been in bed most of the day.

Mayuri returned to her room and played with Yuki just a little to get him tired and told him the usual bedtime story he would ask for, one he believed she made up about the traveling minstrel and a dark ninja who had many secrets.

He particularly liked the minstrel since he created her to be just like his mother, with her pretty blonde hair and delicate fingers. That was how he imagined her to be; exactly like his mother. But he could never imagine the face of the ninja; no face was handsome enough to match the beautiful musician. But today he thought that Sasuke might just look like the ninja in his imagination would look like. Icy cool silent, dark, and mysterious with just a little hint of danger.

"And then what happens?" Yuki asked as they got to the ending.

"What do you mean, 'and then what happens?' You know this story backwards and forwards. How many times have I told it to you?" she said. "You probably know it better that I do."

"Yea, but let's change the ending this time," he said with a childish grin. He wanted the story to end the way he wanted it to end. "Let's make the Ninja go away to help fight the war, but then he dies and never comes back to the minstrel."

Mayuri fell silent as her heart dropped from her chest to her stomach. Perhaps it had even stopped beating. All sound and feeling droned on and left her. Warmth and light was drained from her body. He left her. Her body felt like it was shrinking in her skin as the air escaped her lungs.

"Mother?" she heard Yuki almost cry as he shook her shoulders with his little hand. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said, whipping a bead of sweat away and taking a few deep breathes as subtly as possible. "So then," she asked to get Yuki to stop worrying about her, "what happens to the minstrel?"

"Um, well," he said, "I haven't thought about that yet. What do you think should happen to her?" he asked as he curled his mother's hair around his finger.

"Well, let's see. How about this? She gets a house, not too big, not too small and then has a little boy that can't stop asking questions," she said while tickling her son until he was too tired to move at all.

Yuki put his head in Mayuri's lap, signaling he was ready to sleep. "Alright, time to close your eyes, little one," she whispered in her lovely voice as she smoothed out his jet black hair. Yuki closed his eyes obediently and Mayuri started humming a song she had written herself. Around the middle of the song, she weaved in another part different that the usual, a part just for Yukimura.

Soon he was snoozing away in his own dreamland. Mayuri set his head on the pillow and switched off the light and slid the sliding door closed quietly. Now it was time to do the bills; mom time.

She walked quietly to the kitchen to get a glass of water and readied herself for a night's work of calculating numbers and stressing over how to keep a roof over their heads. She took the old file where she kept it all and was ready to work when a dark figure at the corner of the living room frightened her.

She let out a tiny yelp, and water spilt on the ground when she realized it was Sasuke. She set the papers and the water down and sat on the ground to calm down. Sasuke didn't move, but his eyes followed her.

"So what are you doing here?" she asked quietly as she sorted out the papers. "Can't sleep?"

"Something like that," he answered half heartedly.

"Insomnia?" She said more than asked.

"No. Just not used to sleeping on comfortable futons," he said coldly.

"Haven't laid your head on pillow in too long," she said, like she totally understood that feeling. In a way she did.

Sasuke looked up at her to see if she could read minds.

Mayuri smiled. "I've had this conversation before. You're not that different from your brother."

Sasuke didn't say anything. He looked over at some boxes that were stacked on a shelf by size. Instruments, he thought.

Mayuri took a peek at Sasuke and found him staring at the boxes. Then she had an idea.

"I can play them for you if you'd like," she said with a smile. "Perhaps you'll be able to sleep with a little music."

Honestly, he doubted that it would work. He had too many years of crouching next to a fire on icy nights keeping an eye opened for things bigger than bedbugs on missions that might cost his life to be vexed to sleep by a little string twanging. But he let her. There was no harm in that. He'd keep his promise and stay here for one night and be gone the next morning.

Mayuri took out her beloved kokyu and placed the bow at the three strings and started playing the melody of a song everyone should be familiar with, Sakura. The famous tune was the best for calming hearts.

Music. Something Sasuke hasn't sat down to enjoy before. When he was younger all he thought was about getting the approval of his parents and catching up to his brother, then revenge, then more revenge until he was at his limit. How he found himself at her house with her son sleeping in her bedroom and her playing music for him.

Soon she started to hum a harmony. He couldn't help but close his eyes, let a tune sink in for once. It may never happen again, so he took the chance to believe in the peace people that have the time and money to enjoy music say it brings.

Suddenly the tune changed. It was the song she sang to Yuki. There was a sadness to it that could have broken anyone's heart.

"I played this song for him many times," she said suddenly. "I didn't know if he slept or not when I played for him, but he made it seem like he was."

Sasuke didn't want to get on a subject talking about his brother, but she seemed so inviting.

"Were you that minstrel in the story?" he asked.

"You heard?" she asked. "Yes."

That topic died. He thought of a new one unconscientiously and said it.

"Yukimura," he said quietly, using the boy's name, "looks a lot like his father."

"He is completely like his father, didn't get a drop of his genes from me. I hope he doesn't inherit his father's illness along with his great abilities."

The tune switched to the part she sang for Yuki. The melody was softer, less melancholy than before. The two didn't talk for a long times as she played for him.

After a while she spoke. "So what are you doing now, if you don't mind me asking," she said. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

And it was the truth. She wouldn't ever sell him out and he knew it. That, added with the guilt that still made his heart heavy, made him feel compelled to tell her.

"After Uchiha Madara was killed," he started thinking perhaps she would feel relieved that the man is dead, "I disbanded my renegade team. Or what was left of it. There was still one that wished to follow me, and he's still out there looking for me," he said. "I hid in different countries, concealing myself, using aliases and working as a mercenary. That's all I have done for the last five years."

His eyes felt heavy. What kind of spell she used on him? he thought. Then the melody changed again, this time just a little more dramatic and dark. Then it took a turn for better like the climax of a story.

"This is for you," she said continuing the awkward yet touching tune. It switched between dark and light. It was him at the time, but he didn't know. Perhaps this place wasn't as bad as he thought it was.

He didn't know when he drifted into something humans called sleep, but he remembered he enjoyed it. The music played in his head. How nice it felt. Something new to look forward to, he told himself.

The next morning Mayuri found a pouch of money on her living room table with a note stuck under it. She read it to herself and smiled. He'd be back. That's what he promised. Nothing could be better than that, although Yuki was a bit disappointed that the man with fire hands was gone.