Angst revisited.
She had taken to wearing an obi with the same Ryukyuian pattern Mugen's holster bore. She didn't pursue her friendship with Takeshi, far too hurt by his rebuttal and quickness to assume. She devoted herself to her family and other friends. She learned how to sail like the best of them from her father who easily recognized the predisposition for piracy in her.
Shinsuke grew taller and even more beautiful, almost frighteningly so. His amber eyes regarded Takeshi coolly as he came to retrieve Isamu.
Isamu looked to his older brother, sensing the tension rippling between him and his best friend.
Takeshi scratched the back of his fair neck and turned surprisingly earnest eyes on Shinsuke.
"How is Yoko?"
"Hasn't been the same since she came home crying a few months back," he retorted icily.
Pain lanced through Takeshi.
"What do you mean?"
"She spends all her time at the beach, fingering some pearls and learning how to sail. Mum thinks that dad has taught her how to pickpocket too."
Soft footsteps had him turning around, seeing her face for the first time in two months. She looked wild, and even more beautiful then before. Her silky hair was coiffed much like her mother's with lacquered sticks holding it up. Her bronze skin was smooth and golden and he itched to brush his knuckles over it. Her dress had changed slightly. She wore a peacock green kimono and with a green and yellow triangled sash as an obi. A string of black and white pearls was draped around her fair neck and the accursed rope bracelet hung around her wrist.
"Takeshi-san," she said politely before stepping into the house, a picture of Japanese grace and civility despite the underlying cold tone in her voice when she spoke to him. That suffix cut him deeply and for a minute he felt regret seep into his bones for shattering a friendship that had been nurtured since infancy. Then his hubris set in and he raised his chin in defiance.
"Isamu it's time to leave."
The boy looked to his brother with sad eyes.
"Yeah let's go."
Takeshi could almost hear the rest of that sentence 'before you upset her'. And it hurt, but he would not give in, never ever again.