Chapter Ten:

A Decided Inconvenience

At first, Naoto had been mostly indifferent to Soujiro's presence in the Takani household. Just another mouth to feed for a while, until his little cousin grew tired of her latest stray. After a few weeks, however, when he'd seen how industrious the vagabond was, he began to appreciate him. The time that Soujiro spent watching Arata gave Naoto some very useful, extra time.

Now, though, the flaky boy with the weird clothing combination was really on his last nerve.

It was one thing to have an assistant who blew in on a wind, but it was quite a different thing when that assistant kept disappearing as suddenly as he'd come. Especially when Naoto was the one who ended up looking for him. In the dark. When any decent-minded man would be in bed.

But Yuri had been worried, and he was somehow honor-bound to assuage his wife's nervous fears. Add to that the fact that Megumi had looked seriously concerned, and Naoto felt obligated to go out into the night and look for the little runaway.

Frankly, he hoped that if he did find him, he'd find him soon, before his irritation wore off and he became more forgiving.

- - -

With an embarrassing amount of difficulty, Soujiro pulled his lame leg onto the dark road. He was thankful to see that no one was on it. He didn't want to be embarrassed any more than he'd have to be. After a few, somewhat painful, hobbling minutes, he did catch sight of someone coming in his direction. 'Maybe they won't say anything to me,' he hoped. But, on closer inspection, he saw that it was Naoto.

"Oh, Takani-sensei," he called, trying to show his reliable smile. But Naoto seemed to have a tight-faced anger, Soujiro noticed uneasily. The doctor kept the muscles in his face rigid and didn't say anything. People like that had always made Soujiro rather apprehensive: he was far more accustomed to explosive tempers.

"Soujiro!" Naoto called, obviously peeved. "What are you doing?" When he saw the young man's gait, Naoto's tone changed instantly and he hurried his pace to meet him. "What's wrong? Did you hurt your leg?"

"I think I might have broken it, sensei." Sou stopped hobbling and stood still as Naoto met him, glad to put his weight onto his good leg.

Naoto knelt down to look at the ankle. Without a great deal of care, he lifted Soujiro's foot, turned it, and flexed it. Soujiro grit his teeth in a smile and forced what would have been a exclamation of pain to come out as a short laugh. Naoto looked up at him strangely and then put his foot back down.

"I won't be able to tell for sure until we get you back to the house," he said. As though remembering the house that he -should- have been in, he said "I've been out looking for you for an hour, you know. And Megumi-chan is worried over you. You really need to stop taking off like this. Let someone know when you leave so we don't have to waste time looking for you."

"I'm sorry."

"Were you at Sakuragi's house?" Naoto demanded abruptly.

Too startled to think of a lie, Soujiro said, "How did you know that?"

"Megumi told me that's where you might be. She didn't tell me why, though. You know, Soujiro, I'd like to know what's going on."

"Going on with what?" Pained smile etched in place, Soujiro shifted his weight entirely off of his injured ankle.

"With whatever you and Megumi are conspiring about. What does it have to do with Sakuragi?"

"We aren't conspiring ..." Soujiro couldn't think of a good cover for his late-night escapade.

Apparently, the older man relented. "Here," he said, "drop that stick and let me carry you back home."

"Oh, you don't need to do that -"

Naoto looked at him sharply and Soujiro fell silent. "I'd rather not take the next three hours to get back home," the doctor said.

Reminded that it was his own fault that he'd hurt his leg, Sou buried his pride and allowed himself to be carried.

- - -

Far from the state her apprentice expected to find her in, Megumi was indeed worried. The boys had been put to bed, and Yuri was keeping Megumi company as they waited. Megumi had wanted to accompany Naoto in his search, but Naoto told her to stay "in case he comes back." She was about to point out that Yuri would be home, but she held her tongue. If Soujiro had gotten into trouble, she didn't want to leave Yuri alone with the two boys and her aged uncle.

The two women were sitting close to the front door when they heard Naoto approaching. Yuri opened the door.

"Soujiro!" Megumi stood, surprised to see her student being carried. "What happened to you?" A quick glance revealed no blood on either man, so Megumi assessed that the damage couldn't be too severe.

"I'm sorry, Megumi-sensei," Soujiro said as a nearly automatic response.

Naoto set him down on the tatami. "He thinks he broke his leg."

"What on earth were you doing out so late?" Yuri asked.

"Let me see." Ignoring Soujiro's apparent discomfort at being examined, Megumi pushed back the leg of his hakama and carefully felt around Soujiro's swollen lower calf.

It was the first time Soujiro had gotten a good look at his own injury. "It's so swollen," he said in wonder at how quickly his bony ankle had doubled in size.

Naoto too, knelt down and started giving Soujiro commands. "Turn your foot to the left. Now up. And point it straight out."

"Is it broken, sensei?"

"No," Megumi said slowly. "It doesn't appear to be."

"Megumi is right," Naoto affirmed. "It isn't broken. It's worse than that. You must have some strong bones, because instead of just breaking your calf, you've twisted your tendon around the bone. That may never go back to normal. You'll probably have a limp for the rest of your life."

Sou's eyes widened.

"Don't be so dramatic," Megumi said dismissively. "He can heal just fine from that if he doesn't push the injury. However," she said to Soujiro, "It will take some time. Possibly a couple of months."

"A couple months of what?"

"Of staying off your feet," she replied flatly.

He looked down at his now enormous ankle. "Oh," was all he could say.

- - -

Four days had passed since Naoto had carried an injured Soujiro over the Takani house's threshold, and things had more or less returned to normal. Megumi had feigned complete surprise when the news came about Sakuragi-sensei retiring, but Soujiro hadn't seemed to care at all. In fact, the young man who was normally so annoyingly cheerful had been rather withdrawn after his accident.

Naoto had carried him out to the clinic that afternoon, before going out to see his bed-ridden patients. Sou was currently assisting Megumi by grinding dried cinnamon bark into powder in the back room. The boy had been listless and sulky all day, and it was beginning to annoy her.

"What's wrong with you, Soujiro? I told you that you didn't need to be worried about your leg. If you take care and make sure you walk evenly while you're healing, you should be fine."

"It's not that, Megumi-sensei." He looked up at her and shrugged. "I don't know what it is though. It's ... confusing." When he saw that she was still listening, he set the pestle down and went on. "Sakuragi-sensei said he didn't bear a grudge against your family, even though his daughter died and Takani-sensei couldn't help her. He just didn't care about hurting you."

"I should think you wouldn't be surprised to hear that. Shishio's soldiers certainly didn't seem to care about hurting anyone."

"Yes, but they all had a reason. That's the part I don't understand. Shinamori-san and Anji-san and everyone else thought that they were justified in hurting people, because it was for their cause. But the school teacher didn't have any cause. None at all. And ... I guess that's kind of sad."

"Sad?"

"Oh, I don't mean that being pathetic excuses him from bringing so many troubles to you, but I think I feel sorry for him. He just seemed like he didn't care about anything. I don't know if I've ever known anyone who had so little drive in life." He shrugged again and resumed his work.

Megumi thought about what he'd said. Could that be a trace of sincere compassion in the boy? "Well, try to show a little more drive in finishing the job I gave you," she said. "It's not like grinding cinnamon is difficult." When her apprenticed apologized with a smile, she turned and went into the front room. No need to let the boy see that she was growing soft over him.

Notes:

I assume that Soujiro (like Marvel Comics' Quicksilver) must have some strong bones, with the pounding they take using his shuku-chi (which he may never use again - gasp!). So rather than a broken bone, it made sense that he'd give himself a peroneal tendon strain. But before anyone calls me out on the "two months of inactivity," Megumi just seems like the kind of doctor who is accustomed to prescribing more bed rest than is necessary. After all, she deals with people like Sano and Kenshin, who aren't very good at staying still and heeding doctors' orders. So it makes sense she would assume Soujiro is the same way.

There aren't very many chapters left (I finally finish a story? And one that I started three years ago? No way ...). After this I'll have about three more to do before I put up my pen on A Road to Aizu. Eh, maybe four more ... we'll see.