House
of Cards
Chapter
Three: My Brother
A Story for the Smoke Signals Thread
By Nekochan
Author's Note
And we have arrived at the final chapter, what I call "the plothole-filler chapter", though last chapter managed a good deal of that too I suppose. This was just the kernel of thought that prompted the whole story, so I've always been rather attached to it.
Arigatou Minasan! (Thanks everyone!)
Nekochan
(-)(-)(-)
Stupid-head aniki, I grumble to myself as I let loose the crescent-moon side with the chain towards a tree. I don't hit my target – a low branch – but at least I didn't miss the tree entirely this time. Runnin' me outta' th' village like that – now I gotta' get my own food- I yank on the chain, but the crescent won't come out. My own place- I yank again, getting a little upset now. My own- "AH!"
I fall backwards to the ground, the chain coming straight back at me, so I cover my head out of instinct. The crescent comes swinging back and slices my right upper arm.
"OW!" I scream as the stinging begins. I press my thumb against it, lick the blood off, then press again.
My butt hurts, my arm hurts, I suck with my shakujou, and to top it all off I'm hungry.
It's all Jien's fault, dangitall… Why'd I hafta' leave anyway? Not like he gave me a lotta' money or food or anythin' … how th' heck am I s'possed ta'… ta'…
I try to keep from crying. I hate crying – anyone crying, for that matter.
Stupid Jien… coulda' at least given me a few more pointers on th' whole huntin' thing… Never thought I'd actually hafta' kill anythin' with this thing… 'S all aniki's fault…
(-)
"Aniki! Aniki!"
He turned around and shifted the net on his left shoulder as it started to fall off. He could tell I was running up for a hug, so he dropped the basket in his right hand at his feet. As I slammed into him, wrapping my arms around his waist, he ruffled my hair and chuckled, "Yo, Gojyo, comin' fishin' today?"
"Nope!" I smiled with that I-know-something-you-don't-know look. " 'Cuz aniki promised he'd teach me ta' fight t'day!"
"Well, yeah, I did, but-"
"NOW!" I pouted, burying my face in his shirt. "C'mon…"
I heard him sigh. "Sha-gojyo, you know I have to go fishing each morning or we don't have anything to eat."
"MEANIE!" I yelled & pulled away. "MEANIE!" I repeated, stamping my foot, tears welling up. I noticed the basket again and lunged for it, then started running away. I wasn't even sure which direction it was – away from the house, towards the house, towards the forest… I just know that I didn't care.
I heard him drop the net and come chasing after me. "GOJYO! Hey, Gojyo, come on, that's not funny! RYAH!" He tackled me from behind and the basket went rolling out of my hands.
"You promised, aniki! You promised, you promised, you PROMISED!" I cried as I kicked & tried to get out of his grip.
"Gojyo, just- GOJYO!" He pinned me to the ground by my arms with his hands and sat on my legs. "Look, you need to listen to me- LISTEN!"
"NO! I DON' WANNA' JUS' SIT AROUND ALL DAY! I wanna' do somethin' an' yesterday you promised you'd teach me how ta' get a weapon like yers an' Dad's an' practice with me an' now yer just a LIAR! A STUPID, STUPID LIAR, ANIKI!" I thrashed some more, whimpering.
"Come on, Gojyo… Don't be like that… Just-" he sighed again, "Just go back t' Mom, okay?"
"Mom didn't like the flowers I picked for her…" I mumbled, looking away. "She never likes anythin' I bring her… I'm bored, aniki!"
Jien frowned at me. "You can't possibly tell me you can't find a single thing to do while I'm fishing?"
"Wannabewifaniki..."
"Sorry, what was that?" Jien leaned closer to me, listening for my reply.
"I wanna' be with you, aniki… Mom's been actin' funny…"
"I know, I know." He got off me and held out a hand to help me up. "Look, Gojyo, how about this…" He walked over and picked up the basket. "If you help me catch a whole bunch of fish, then we get to spend the rest of the morning 'til lunch practicing summoning a weapon."
I sniffed as he handed me the basket. "Really?"
"Yep. If we catch a lotta' fish – an' fast – then that's a lot more time we getta' spend workin' on your weapon-summonin'."
I smiled and wiped the rest of the tears from my face. " 'Kay."
(-)
I think it took us a few hours, but I would've never known it at the time. Once we reached the river, aniki attached the net to some rocks and the two of us chased schools downstream so they got caught up in it. I don't think I ever had so much fun splashing water around as that morning when I learned how aniki had been "fishing" for us all by himself.
(-)
"All right, Gojyo, watch me again…" Jien said as he dismissed his sword. "All you gotta' do is clench your hand real tight, concentrate on the kind-a' weapon you want – picture it in your mind, and then imagine it in your hand…" He clenched his right hand into a fist and the sword reappeared.
I remember trying at least four or five times to imagine a sword like aniki's in my hand before I got upset and stamped my foot again. "Why can't I do it?" I pouted. "Bet it's 'cuz you got a sword like Dad's an' I can't have one too."
Jien arched one of his eyebrows. "You've only been trying to imagine a sword, Gojyo?"
"Well, yeah…"
"Not every youkai can summon a sword, Gojyo. You should try a dagger, or a club, or a staff… Something different each time. Is there something you really wanna' use?"
"Uh…" I thought really, really hard before remembering the coolest weapon I'd ever seen – the day we said goodbye to Dad, the guy who came had it. "Yeah! I got one!"
"Okay, go ahead and try again."
I stood up and clenched both fists as I bent my knees and concentrated as hard as I could, picturing the weapon in my hands.
Then, there was a bit of a humming noise and some light bright enough I could tell it was there through my eyelids.
"YOU DID IT! Gojyo, you…" Jien trailed off. "You didn't…"
"YAY! I DID IT, I DID IT! IDIDITIDIDITIDIDIT!" I jumped up and down, both hands in the air and clenching my weapon tightly. "YAY!"
"Gojyo, why the heck didja' summon a- a…" he scratched his head, trying to remember its name. "What'd that guy call it… a yueyachan I think?"
" 'S not that, 'cuz mine's cooler!" I pulled the crescent-moon side off with my right hand – it was only barely over my head with the shovel on the ground – to show off the chain. "See? Neat huh!"
"What the- So… you made a- a… getsu- gegga-" (1)
"It's a shakujou."
"What? No, it's not! A shakujou doesn't have two blades and a chain-"
"So? It's my weapon an' I say it's a shakujou."
Jien didn't look convinced. Finally, he sighed. "No matter what you call it, I don't think you can actually wield that thing. How do you plan to fight with it?"
I grinned and pointed the shovel at him, still holding the crescent in my right hand. "Let's find out!"
"Not so fast, kiddo," Jien insisted as he held up a hand. "First you'd better make sure you can summon that thing consistently."
"Huh?"
"Ya' gotta' be able t' make it go away an' bring it back the same way each time."
" 'Kay!" I laughed and gripped my shakujou tightly, before looking down at it, 'cuz I wasn't sure what I s'posed t' do with it. "Uh… How d'ya make it go away?"
"Ya' know how ya' concentrated on it so it appeared in yer hands?"
I nodded.
"Don't think about it so hard an' it'll go away on its own."
"Oh." I tried opening my palms flat an' staring at it. Go away, I thought, but it didn't. I closed my eyes an' though about my hands bein' empty. As I opened them, I heard something like th' sound of a soft wind blowing in my ears – my shakujou was gone.
"Good, good. Now, can ya' bring it back?" Jien held out his right hand, the sword at shoulder-level an' pointin' to his left side.
"Sure can!" I shouted, then grinned an' held out my right hand too. I made a ball with my fist, but my shakujou wouldn't come back.
Jien looked as confused as me. "What's wrong?"
"Iydunno."
"Well, you could do it with both hands… Oh shit..." Jien put his left palm flat against his face and grumbled, "Gojyo, try it with just your left hand."
"Why?"
"Just- please, try it."
So, I held out my left hand an' thought about my awesome shakujou. I was real excited when that hum and bright light happened again. "SWEET!" I put my right hand on the staff part and started swinging it around a bit.
Jien looked furious, though. "Damnit, Gojyo- you- baka!"
"Wha' th'- what'd I do?"
He started yelling at me, "Not only didya' have-ta' summon a freakin' weird weapon, yer LEFT-HANDED too!"
"Why th' heck d'you care?" I growled.
" 'Cuz I'm the one who's gonna' hafta' train ya', moron!" He shouted back.
"I'M NOT A MORON!" I ran at aniki with my shakujou, but all he did was step to the side and knock me on the back of my head with the bottom of the sword – hard, 'cuz I fell down. I turned over onto my back, rubbing the back of my head.
"Lesson number one, bro," Jien said as he crouched low t' look me in th' eyes. "When yer fightin', think about th' fight, not anythin' else." He offered me a hand up.
I was still mad at him for doing that, but I sort of understood what he meant. So, I took his hand and we kept sparring.
From that day on, we began a routine – we fished in the early morning, then it was playtime. Most of the time we summoned our weapons an' sparred. Sometimes we'd just play tag or something.
It was all that time playing that helped me figure out what kind of moves I could do with my shakujou. Some of 'em, aniki came up with and told me, but sometimes I just came up with something all on my own – it was so cool when it was those moves that helped me win.
Maybe that's why the time started flying by so fast. I know it had to be about six or seven years that Jien and I sparred like that, but…
(-)
I miss those days, because it really was just like we played every single day, just aniki and me. Looking back at the village I couldn't stay in – because no tavern would accept the word or coin of a "taboo child", whatever that meant – I actually started missing home. It was never home 'cuz my mom was there or 'cuz it was my dad's village – I barely remember him at all – but the one person who cared about me, aniki… he's there. At least, he might still be there… maybe he left too.
I saw the sun dipping below the horizon and let out a sigh – I've slept in the forest before, but that was because I got lost in it. Aniki found me that following morning, carried me home, and I slept most of the next day in my warm, comfortable bed.
I start looking for deadfall wood to make a fire, then remember it's nearing the end of summer – when it starts getting a little cold. I stand up an' clutch my shakujou tightly, then loosely so it disappears. I fix my eyes on the village again an' gather my courage – I know I'm going to have to steal a blanket if I'm going to make it through the night.
I walk up to the edge of the village before I start ducking into the shadows wherever I can find them. I spy a long, wide blanket hanging on a clothesline and hesitantly reach out for it. As I grip the soft fabric in my hand, I get the sinking feeling, in the deepest pit of my stomach, that this won't be the last thing I have to steal just to stay alive.
(-)(-)(-)
-owari-
10/19-11/12/2007
(1) Here, Jien is attempting to make a compound word out of the Japanese pronunciation of the characters for yueyachan [Chinese pronunciation (crescent-moon, teeth, blade) and kusari (chain) as in kusari-gama (chained kama; a weapon used by ninja), but Gojyo cuts him off. The readings that Jien is trying to pronounce include the following: Getsu/gatsu - ga/ge - san/sen - ren/ten. Thus, I have him shooting for "Geggasenden" as one option for a "Japanese" pronounciation. For those who care, I used the ON (Chinese-originating) readings because the yueyachan is Chinese in origin.
Yay! Thanks for reading the whole thing! (Smiles) Yep, one day ASeptemberRose and I were just sitting around chatting when a little plotkappa© came bounding up to me and insisted that only little kid Gojyo could have gotten away with summoning something resembling a yueyachan but calling it a shakujou. Go figure, huh?
Oh and if you notice, Gojyo couldn't summon anything with his right hand alone; Jien assumed that Gojyo was right handed like himself. This happened to my younger sister, Jesimidi, where it wasn't until 1st grade that we realized she was left-handed, because her teacher realized she was writing her S's backwards. By then, she'd already learned to do so many things with her right hand that she's sort of ambidextrous now.
Lastly, there's a change in tense in this story – completely out of the ordinary for me; normally, I despise the present tense when it comes to storytelling. However, I felt that I had to have a way of showing that the 'storyteller' in the middle section was teenage Gojyo, not adult Gojyo, and in particular using Gojyo's mentality right after he and Jien parted ways. I chose to include 'childhood-slurring' for added emphasis.
Nekochan
Japanese Dictionary
Aniki – older brother; very informal / close
Shakujou – literally just "staff"
Yueyachan – the priest's staff mentioned in the previous chapter
Baka – silly idiot
Plotkappas© ASeptemberRose aka Saruzake. Used with permission.
(It's a joke, people. She invented the word, yes, but feel free to use it!)