Somebody...
Anybody...
...Get Takechi to stop making those damned Edo Developmental Youth opposition signboards...!
Takasugi forced himself up, his head throbbing excruciatingly and his murderous rage at an all-time high. Pressing fingers to his left temple, he squinted through the nauseatic pain, ready to direct a glare that could terrify even a shinigami to that idiot paedophile.
Except... It wasn't him that was causing those infuriatingly loud hammering noises. It was a sunburnt middle-ager who was mending a broken picket fence.
Oh, that's right... Takasugi wasn't in his Kiheitai ship anymore; he was in some hillbilly Amanto village. As if to reinforce that fact, memories from yesterday night's celebration accelerated through his mind, compounding the pain afflicted by his already massive headache. He growled in both agony and exasperation, tearing his eye away from the small, squared window and setting it down onto the frayed rug he was provided as a blanket. It was then he caught a whiff of an odd smelling scent coming from his right. Odd, but not unpleasant.
The Joi extremist twisted his head lazily to see a familiar steaming teapot and an empty cup lying about a couple of feet away from his mattress. Taking those strenuous few steps over (he didn't bother to wear his zori), Takasugi poured himself the translucent yellow liquid and took a gulp without waiting for it to cool.
...Her medicines really are the best.
Chapter Three:
The Human Heart Is Appreciative
The Sun scorched down ruthlessly on toiling field workers, but generously bathed the crops they were planting in its warmth. Birds zipped through the cloudless sky, and a four-eared dog bounded after it's giggling adolescent owners, who were in turn chasing fluttering butterflies. Takasugi stepped up a sandy trail and found her sitting at a misshapened stone table in front of a great oak.
As he drew closer, he noticed that she was doing, -his eyebrow arched up-, embroidery?
"Yo."
Suseri raised her miscoloured eyes to look at him, but blinked them back down to her needlework without saying anything. The purple-haired man smirked amusedly, padded over to the treestump next to hers and took a seat, resting his left elbow on the tabletop to leave his hand hanging off it. "You're still upset?"
No reply. Needle in-
"You are."
-and needle out. Still no words from her.
Takasugi rolled his eye, but the smirk stayed on. "The pot of remedy you left told me otherwise though."
"Who said it was from me?" Finally, even if her eyes didn't leave the stitching. "Was there a note?"
"I saw that pot in your house before."
"Halmeoni must have left it there." She sniffed, then adding for good measure, "obviously."
"Oh?" The human cocked his head slightly and proceeded to lift himself off the stump. "I'll go thank her now."
"Wait!"
Takasugi cast a half-lidded eye down onto her, his lips curling. The girl stiffened, and then swiftly snapped back to her work, her actions faster and more forceful. "Halmeoni's doing afternoon exercises with all the other old people now. You can... You can thank me."
"Heh. Thanks, then." The Kiheitai leader said, sitting back down. However, Suseri wasn't appeased, as evident from her huff. "You didn't mean that."
And he didn't deny.
"Oh well." She sighed, continuing her stitching. "That was leftover brew anyway."
The samurai held the girl in his stare, starting to grow a little tired of her antics. She seemed to have picked up on that, because her eyes flickered over before she set the needle and threads down to grin at him. "Alright, alright. I was just joking! I'm not upset at all! If I still am, then how petty would that make me?"
Takasugi didn't supply that with an answer, opting to look up at the endless blue instead.
"And just to let you know, that wasn't really leftover brew. I made it specially for you." He heard while following a flying hawk with his eye. "So... You should do something for me too!"
Suseri found an olive orb looking her up and down. This girl, the Joi extremist thought, is asking me to do something for her? His lips quirked up and he rested his left cheek on his knuckles. "Very well. What?"
"Not much." She fiddled with some fabric. "I just want you to tell me your name."
"My name?" An eyebrow arched up. Takasugi wondered what would happen if she (or any of the villagers) did find that out, or rather, the list of crimes that came along with those four characters. The smirk on his face could not grow any wider. "Earthling-shi."
"Tsk." The Amanto shot him a reproachful look, then snatched up the needle to resume sewing. "And your accent's wrong. Its 'ssi'."
"My bad." The japanese moved his hand to rest it down instead. "I'll tell you when I feel like it."
"Liar," she mumbled, which Takasugi chose to disregard. He reached out to pull on the heap of red silk in front of him, straightening it to study its intricate flower patterns. He can't remember when the last time he saw a girl doing such a traditional thing was (Matako was very much incompetent in handling anything outside of a gun and eating utensils, and almost every Edo girl bought their machine-manufactured textiles from shops). "Don't you have more important chores to do like milking a cow instead of making clothes for your dolls?"
"Not my dolls." She said lightly, paying no heed to his hidden insult. "Our doll. The village's doll."
A pretty face appeared in his mind and the samurai struggled to remember her name. "Nami?"
"Nayu," the Asato corrected. "And making her the best clothes is the top priority of every female for now."
"Is she getting married?"
"Well... hopefully, yes." Suseri ceased her embroidering so that she could explain properly. "Every five years or so, the prettiest and most well-bred girl of each village in Asa must be sent to the King for him to pick as a concubine. Nayu's the one in my batch."
Takasugi recalled his memories from the night before. True, with long, straight obsidian hair and porcelain skin, that girl was indeed a sight for sore eyes. And no wonder only some girls are provided with education; they're to be groomed. "But what if the King doesn't like some of them?"
"Then they'll just be sent to work as palace performers." She said simply, resuming her stitching of a yellow petal. "Even that kind of life is way easier than ours, so any girl who gets chosen is lucky, I guess."
"Then are you disappointed that you aren't chosen?" The purple-haired human asked somewhat cruelly, wanting to hear her response.
"Abit," Suseri admitted. "But even if I am the prettiest, there's no way I can leave this place. The villagers cannot have only halmeoni as their doctor, and somebody needs to take care of that old woman."
"But don't you want to?"
She pushed the needle in but held it there, casting her eyes down. The man sitting beside noted that the atmosphere around had gotten significantly heavier.
"...I would be lying if I said no." Her voice was soft. "Which girl doesn't want to wear pretty clothes? To not be needed to do chores, to eat good food everyday?" He caught her tightening her grip on the cloth. "Which girl doesn't want to see her parents?"
Deciding to be tactful, the samurai kept quiet (even though he was thinking 'Matako'). Now that he remembered it, that old hag did say something about her parents being in the palace. The Amanto returned to her spritely nature, quickly recovering from her brief bout of melancholy, but Takasugi wondered if it was just a mask. Nevertheless, she brought the needlework closer to her and smiled brightly. "Oh well! I'm happy with being here anyway! Happy to be who I am, and how I'm living. Things do get a little tough sometimes, but that'll just make us cherish the better times and not take things for granted. Plus, there are some very nice things here that the palace doesn't have."
"Oh?" An olive eye glinted in disbelieving amusement. "Such as?"
Suseri brought her red and blue orbs up to meet his, an impish smirk on her usually unassuming face.
"I'll show you."
The inky dark night sky reflected Takasugi's mood as he navigated his way through the waist-high grasses, resisting the urge to cut them all off with his sword.
She had told him to, in her exact words, "go play with Seoki and the kids for the rest of the day while I get ready". The Kiheitai leader scoffed derisively in his mind. Play? Does he look like he plays around? If Suseri had meant it as toying with the lives of other exploitable pawns like Ito Kamotarou, then yes. But apparently, she thought 'play' of its most literal meaning, even involving a handstitched ball made from old rags and a treebranch for a bat. Following that, the aggravatingly smiling Asato ushered him to the bunch of brats who had welcomed him with too much enthusiasm and screaming. Needless to say, the disinterested human sat out of their silly games, only to have their insufferably squeaky voices whining in his ears for him to join them.
So he sliced their ball in half, using the blatant excuse of not knowing that his sword was unsheathed when he made the degrading show of utitilizing it as a bat.
They did not question.
And now, the Joi extremist was supposed to meet her at some godforsaken lake in the middle of nowhere. To make matters worse, she had forgotten that he wasn't a local and thus he was forced to rely on vague directions and his wits to find that damned place.
Finally reaching his destination, Takasugi stepped out of the grasses and saw the girl biting nervously at her thumbnail. Upon hearing the rustle, she whipped around to jog up to him. "Ah! Earthling-ssi, it slipped my mind that you don't know the area! Was it very hard for you to get here? Mianhe, I mean, sorry!"
The Kiheitai leader shot her a dirty glare, ready to make her suffer for what she had put him through. However, the earnestly apologetic look in her mismatched eyes had unexplainably quelled his anger down abit, and hence he only spat out an irritated "It's fine."
Suseri knew that it wasn't, but since he said so...
Grabbing his wrist and ignoring his appalled expression at that gesture, she dragged him to an old, wooden boat floating on the shallow edge of the lake. They both got in and the girl rowed away eagerly while the man leant back, free of the work.
"Where are you taking me?" He inquired, voice lofty.
"Right..." She looked backwards and made the last three rows. "Here."
...Takasugi was not impressed. She made all that fuss to show him some muddy swamp? And they're not even docked yet. Frowning and nonplussed, he opened his mouth. "Oi, you-"
"Shh!" The Amanto pressed a finger to her lips, causing him to deepen his scowl. Nobody has ever shushed him before. Nobody dared to, not even strangers. The samurai watched as she picked up a stone from the bottom of the boat and flung it over to the weedy mass, and turned his head to decipher the purpose of her actions.
The scenery remained unchanged at first, then, millions of tiny lights rose up from the swamp grasses, floating over the boat and illuminating the place with their soft, yellow-tinted glow. Upon closer inspection, the purple-haired man noticed that each of them had small, translucent wings,
"Fireflies?" He queried, then gave a low chuckle. "This is like something out of a Ghibli film."
Suseri cocked her head cluelessly at his odd comment, but didn't pay much attention to it as she was too occupied with admiring the floating lights. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
"...Ah."
The luminescent orbs glittered like stars, and its beauty was further enhanced by the soft rays of the moonlight. The still surface of the lake only provided as a mirror to double the stunning visual, lighting up even the waters. It was undeniably a breathtaking sight.
Despite the reversal of roles, it could have been somewhat romantic, if the man wasn't the contemptuous criminal he is.
Takasugi directed his eye from the fireflies to the girl sitting opposite him, taking the time to study her face. She is actually really quite pretty, he noted. Unlike Nayu who was more fitted in the 'drop-dead gorgeous' category, Suseri gave people the impression of a sweet, pleasant naïve girl. Especially when her wide eyes are looking up in amazement like that. Completely gentle, she lacked the spunk which those girls in Edo whom Gintoki hangs around with possess, and Takasugi doubt that she would be capable of using force to protect herself. Heck, he doubt that she could even think of hurting an offender. He cruelly imagined the scenario of tossing her to a pack of Harusame pirates to have that innocence ripped apart. Yes, she would definitely give in without a struggle. But he also had an inkling that there was more to her than meets the proverbial eye; after all, still waters run deep. Perhaps like the one they're on now.
Sensing eyes (or an eye) on her, Suseri tore hers away from the dazzling lights to see the purple-haired man staring scrutinizingly. He wasn't even inconspicuous about it. Duo-coloured optics met olive, then he gave a smirk and returned to watching the firefly spectacle. Suddenly feeling very self-conscious, the Asato decided to dissipate the awkwardness by pulling out a long, rectangular box from her cloth-bag.
"Here, this is for you." She passed it to him, gauging his reaction anticipatingly.
"Ho?" Takasugi opened it and drew out a long, thin smoking pipe. A kiseru. "You made this?"
"Only half of it," the girl admitted, scratching her cheek sheepishly. "I tried to engrave some things to make it prettier, but really messed it up and got the tobacco farmer to finish the rest."
True enough, there was a rather deformed outline of a butterfly on the wooden tube. He noted condescendingly that it was made of inferior material, as expected from a one-day job, but he'll just have to deal with it until he could hold his original one.
The two watched as the last of the fireflies fluttered away, and Suseri rowed them to land where they would stroll back together to the main road, with her yapping away about how she happened to stumble across the gratifying sight while returning home from a late-night herb-gathering. Her spirits were higher than usual, mainly because she had finally managed to present her guest something that he would appreciate.
...Little did she know that it was because the lights resembled the embers of war and destruction to him.
Author's Note: Okay, I know, I know. This chapter's not only short, it is also boring. But I had to slide in some filler to establish the base between Suseri and Takasugi! Don't worry though, things will start to get interesting in the next one, so please bear with it and don't give up on this yet! And some of the dialogue here feature some important stuffs, so take note!
...and Takasugi wasn't checking her out (BTW I DIDN'T MAKE HIM OOC DID I?). He's just observing her. Really! And it would be good if you readers visualized the lake scene in your minds! :)
AND THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS, little101, Rosenkreuz Orden (OMG YOU WATCH TRINITY BLOOD?) and cy-grl! They made me feel better than how a cup of warm cocoa and cookies would. :') And I hope the top part answers your question, little101! I'm not having him give them his name for a reason. ;) (yeah, constant repitions of 'Earthling-ssi' are irritating, huh?)
I've actually already gotten the plot skeleton and ending all planned out. I just need to fill in some gaps when I type them out. And I may have to warn you guys that things will get a lot heavier in the future, and heavy isn't exactly my usual style, so I'll be experimenting quite abit. Thus, I may not be able to captur- alright, I may fail at it. Hmm... why am I saying all these now? Let's leave it for next time! :)
That's all for now! As always, comments of any kind are greatly appreciated! Even flames, but only if they're constructive. ALRIGHT, SAYONARAAAA!