Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Beta'd by drowsyivy and UmbreonGurl. Next update: Wednesday.
The morning after his wedding, he is greeted in the courtyard by Hiroto, who cups his hands together and bows. "Good morning, Second Young Master. Kawaguchi-san has said that from this day forward, I will be serving as your manservant, so feel free to call me for tasks you need completed."
He stands there, stunned for a brief moment. "Hisa tells me that you are a field manager?"
"Was," Hiroto agrees, most pleasantly. "But you know, my training was not originally that, since I was of an age with the First Young Master. It'll be pleasant to be in the household for most of the day again."
Ah.
He'd originally been in the service of Hisa's older brother, then.
"Call me Izuna," he says and tries to figure out what he is supposed to do with a manservant.
He's never had one before, and no one in the house he grew up in did either.
"Izuna, then," Hiroto agrees, still very pleasant.
"What do you…" He pauses and rewords his sentence. "What tasks should I call on you for?"
Hiroto shrugs. "Household tasks? Running your messages? Helping you get dressed in the morning? Glaring menacingly at guests you don't like?" Hiroto considers it. "Fetching your tea trays is still reserved for the handmaids though."
A friend.
His father-in-law has assigned him Hiroto to be his friend.
"You'll have to remind me of the things you are meant to be doing." This is another one of those things he suspects had gotten lost when his family stopped having enough money to maintain the proper social indicators of old nobility, the feud having eaten every extra and nonessential ryo. "I didn't grow up with servants, so if anything I say is out of place, it is a misstep made out of ignorance."
"So formal of you." Hiroto rubs the back of his neck. "I don't need that much formality. I'm just here to help."
And keep his secrets.
And glare at guests he doesn't like.
And apparently, dress him like he doesn't know how to dress himself.
At least Gifu-san has a sense of humor.
Learning how to properly grade the quality of silk is difficult at first, if only because he's never really had reason to consider that silk might have grade and quality beyond being expensive in all conditions except damaged, but listening to Hasuyo-ba speak about it as she calmly reels silk is worthwhile.
He'd chosen this path in life, husband of a silk merchant's daughter, so eventually he will have to learn at least something about the nature of the silk business. Even if Hisa is the one who will eventually manage the Kawaguchi properties, he has hardly married her so he can be a pretty bauble to show to guests when they have them.
She does not necessarily need his shinobi skills at all times, so he'll have to grow new ones. Some of them will include working with silk, because that is what matters to her.
"Can I try?"
Hasuyo-ba glances up at him, a little bit surprised. "You've got such dainty hands, Izuna-kun," she laughs, still spinning the reeler. Beyond, in her workshop, there are other women bent over large vats and laughing and singing among themselves. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." His hands are not dainty, though he doesn't protest, since that would be silly, scarred as they are by the work of his trade prior to marrying in. But he supposes he has long, thin fingers and slender palms, and they could be termed dainty if they weren't also so good at killing people with sharp objects.
He banishes that thought from his mind, because the feud is broken, having died with the former head of the Senju, and he has tasted too much grief in recent days to consider hatred again.
Hasuyo-ba lets the turning stop as she rises, hand still holding the filaments rising from the pot at her side. "There's a rhythm to it, but it comes from practice." She smiles at him, motherly in a way that reminds him of Aya-ba at the restaurant. "You'll have to try it for yourself."
It takes him a few tries, the handle of the reeler much lighter than he'd expected, to really grasp what she'd meant by rhythm, and he certainly does not have the ease or speed with which she moved — the Sharingan could help him with remembering many of the motions, but knowing why and replicating them are harder, and he preferred to try at first without its help.
"You're doing well."
He laughs at that. "Hasuyo-ba, just tell me I'm doing terribly."
His silk thread is lumpy. He would despair, but it's like picking up a sword for the first time, you try to hold all the weight in your wrist before realizing that it should be held with what Chichi-ue called the soul.
But thinking to this point reminds him of the empty space at his waist, where no sword will ever hang again.
He still hasn't gotten used to it, not enough weight, not something to prevent from banging into things or something to rest his hand on when there is danger.
Kajin-ji had sent him a fan with metal spines and a terse note that since he'd gotten the previous handiwork melted, he should at least have the grace to take care of himself and this new object with better attention than the previous or there would be more than words from his quarter.
Kajin-ji does not joke, so he'd sweated and put the fan away someplace where Momo-chan wouldn't be able to get to it.
He hardly can write to his uncle to explain that such things don't…quite belong in civilian houses. Or that Hisa's family has no idea what to do with such things.
As for such fans belonging to noble ladies, well, he's sure Kajin-ji already knows.
He spends the afternoon there in the first silk workshop, listening to Hasuyo-ba tell him how the reeler ought to be worked and of the first processes of raising the silk. Sometime later in the week, he will go out to the fields to pick the mulberry leaves, and some other time, he will attend classes with the newest of the junior dyers to learn the dye process.
He will need more practice in everything.
But this is life, and this is the building of a life.
Nothing ever comes easy.
He eats dinner with Hisa, Kimei, and Hiko that night — luffa and egg drop soup, thin sliced raw cucumber with crushed garlic and vinegar, and gently braised duck.
Hiko picks a bit of star anise out of the duck sauce with his chopsticks and makes a face.
"What?" he asks, slightly amused by the face. "Not to your liking? After Kuma worked so hard on this duck for us?"
The elderly cook had caught him in the kitchen just before dinner, trying to figure out where he should find Hisa for dinner, and spent some time telling him all about how roasted duck is made.
It had been delightful, but he'd been late for dinner and Hiko had laughed at him for it.
"Have you ever put one in your mouth?" Hiko shudders and carefully nudges the bit of spice aside. "I wouldn't do it if I were you."
"No need to be so obvious about it." Kimei shrugs. "No one likes to eat it, but it's what gives duck flavor."
Hisa, however, is silent, still sipping soup and staring slightly off into the distance as though dazed. Normally, she'd be fighting with Hiko over the duck.
"Hisa?" he asks. "Is something the matter?"
She jolts slightly, though she hides it well. "No, nothing." She shakes her head. "I was just thinking about O-Shiki wanting to plan a river boating trip."
"You want to go." He reads it from the way her brows had furrowed slightly. She's trying to calculate if she can be spared for however long the Countess Asukabe wanted to be out on the river, and if it would be alright of her to go. "Why not go?"
"The workshops are busy." She sighs. "I'm not sure I should step away."
"I'll go look at them." Hiko flaps a hand at her. "If you want to go, you should go."
He counts it as a victory, however brief.
His wife speaks a language of deprivation, sometimes so careful to never occupy any more space, that he wonders how it is that even so many years after leaving her maternal uncle's house — and she had only lived there for a matter of months if Hiko's memory is to be believed — she still cannot forget what had been said to her.
In all other things, she is logical and understanding, but in this, even now, she speaks in deprivation and value, so careful to understate her own if it is not essential to assert it.
It is not as if he is entirely fond of leisure. Sometimes the space it brings weighs on him.
But for Hisa…
For Hisa, even leisure is calculated, her mind wrapping circles around it multiple times before settling on a course of action.
"Did the Countess invite only you?" He teases, mostly so he can see her smile. This battle is already won. He has no need to press further.
"I don't know," she says, the hint of a tiny crooked smile tugging at her lips. "I think she invited someone quite important to me, but somehow, I cannot seem to recall who it was."
"Such tragedy," he shakes his head, but cannot resist laughing. "Such cruelty! That your danna was not invited to what promises to be such a fun time!"
That does prompt a laugh from her. "Oh my," she says in mock surprise, eyes all alight with joy, "that is who O-Shiki-chan wanted me to invite. My danna."
Hiko and Kimei share a glance they think is secret in amusement at their antics, which he is almost certain Hisa will remark upon, but she lets the moment pass them by, with only a slight quirk of her lips and a glance at him.
He nods once.
And they shelve the conversation for after dinner.
"Why didn't you say you wanted to go?" He asks that night, after Hiko and Kimei had both left, having wrapped his arms around her from behind, and impeding her from combing out her hair or braiding it.
Later in the evening, he'll do that himself.
"There are more important things to worry about at home than parties and social gatherings." She sways, slightly, back and forth as she thinks, and he sways with her, a rocking motion that reminds him of being on a boat on the lake at night. "And I think it's time to consider them more seriously, now that my affairs are settled."
Settled, with him. The thought still delights him.
Yes, if he honors his commitments, as he intends to, every day of his life, her future will always be settled and sure of itself.
"The rest of your family?" Gifu-san's future is settled as well, for someone able and sure will be able to take on the management of much of the family business when he grows older and less fond of travel.
Chiba-san's fortunes are unlikely to change — the resident of the west courtyard is with child once more, and though Hisa had not much commented upon it when the news was announced, her eyebrows rising for a brief sliver before her face had slipped back into a facade of faux-geniality, she'd not seemed unhappy since.
She hums. "Mmm, Hasuyo-ba would like to see her daughters married. Somei-chan is too little still, having only come of age two years ago, but Retsu-chan is the age I was when I met you, and old enough to be considered for a match."
"Like you were considering matches?" He remembers that first party he'd been invited to, when he'd shown up in his working indigoes, expecting some sort of attack, and the disdain she'd shown the poor fool that had attempted to speak to her there. She was not his class and never would be.
"Oh," she laughs, "far more seriously than I was considering matches, danna."
"Oh?" He raises an eyebrow. "Because you were waiting for someone specific?"
She'd never told him if she'd had any romantic inclinations for people of her own age, despite her clear and easy association with several male members of her social circle and her clear disdain for others.
Then again, he didn't know that she had romantic inclinations towards him until she'd gone and nearly slaughtered all the Senju for daring to hurt him.
"No," her hand absently pats his arm, "because I do not have a mother to worry about such things for me. Chichi-ue loves me, but he does not think of marriage in the same way a woman would." There's an edge of wryness to her smile. "When one loves one's children, one must plan for their futures. Haha-ue would've worried about different parts of my future than Chichi-ue has."
He considers it. "I think he did worry." Gifu-san had worried about his elder daughter's future, but in a way that seemed much less obtrusive. "But he didn't know how to tell you that he worried."
Else, he suspects that Hiko and Hisa would be friends of a much different type.
But then, it is true that Gifu-san did not force his daughter to make any choices about the matter.
Perhaps that is what Hisa means.
"I'm afraid I will leave the matchmaking of your little cousins to you." He snorts, lightly amused by the matter. "I know nothing of matchmaking or what Hasuyo-ba wants for her daughters."
"Money." That… is more bold and forthright than he had expected. "Kindness. Someone who would treat them well and not take concubines."
"Is it really so hard to find a man like that?" He does not think it would be so hard. The bar is set rather low when the qualities are taken altogether.
The ideal man for Hasuyo-ba does not seem to include great accomplishment or achievement, neither needing to be particularly intelligent or ambitious or handsome or well educated or well mannered or well versed in either art or literature or music or calligraphy or Go or fighting.
Altogether, it seems like much less of an ask than men typically ask of women — who must be virtuous and good looking, good with children, a household manager, pleasant in demeanor, well educated and refined, gentle, with a good family background and plenty of connections, well versed in poetry, music, literature, dance, and the household arts.
"If the moon were to sweep a net across the whole country, she wouldn't find that many men who fit that criteria." Hisa sighs, her hand resting against his arm quite warm. "Men with money are not often kind or faithful, no matter their background."
It is on the tip of his tongue to name at least two who fit that criteria, before he remembers that Gifu-san, for all his kindness, has still managed to cause such struggle for the women in his life. "Lord Kusakabe?" he asks, instead.
"Kusakabe-sama is a rare man." Hisa arches one brow at him, amused. "And so highly titled. You'd be hard pressed to find a second one like him in all of Fire."
He almost laughs at this. The height of irony is finding that they both admire the same man to this degree.
"But enough of Kusakabe-sama," Hisa continues, half dreamy, half deeply realistic. "I think it's time for Toraki-kun to leave home."
Toraki-kun, who he has met more and more often these days as the boy finished up his lessons in Baron Sato's schoolhouse and spent time shadowing Hiko and learning the accounts, had, suddenly, in the past year or so, gone from a gangly long limbed boy to someone who more resembled a young man who had more grown into his limbs.
Izuna envies him.
It had taken him far older than sixteen to grow into his limbs.
"Niwa-ba has mentioned that she wants to see him educated further." There are fewer options in Chubu in that regard. Most merchant household children seemed to finish their education with Baron Sato at sixteen or seventeen, depending on how well they had been progressing, and come home to learn their parents' trades, and most noble children who wished to proceed further in their education seemed to travel further afield either to the shijuku in Yanai which promised wise discussion with learned men or even further, to the capital which boasts a wide and dizzying array of academies and schoolhouses, if one had the fortune of landing a place there.
"We will have to think about this more," Hisa sighs. "I know Chichi-ue did not wish to send Toraki-kun away for so long when he was twelve, but he is sixteen now." Hisa makes a face. "And even though we won't send him to live with my maternal uncles even if they were still respectable, Yanai is the closest place we could send him to study more, but Aunt Niwa would never let her only child go live with strangers."
He prods her cheek. "Who says he'd have to go live with your maternal relatives or strangers if he goes to Yanai?" He remembers her older maternal uncle, and the heavy jade ring he wore. If he didn't have a twisted ankle at the time, he would've torn the man from limb to limb for striking Hisa.
No, his wife's little cousin will never go to live in such a house.
She blinks at him. "Where else would he go to live?"
"You have a whole clan of in-laws living there in Yanai." His family still lived there for the most part, even though the feud had been buried for over nine months now. "I'm sure someone can afford to feed an extra mouth and house an extra little boy for a few years."
It's an uneasy burial in that even with the words from the Son of Heaven, it's hard to tell if the feud will flare up again, so of course no one has really traveled further than the edges of Tohoku, though even that was far to travel alone in the days of the feud. Maybe eventually, Uchiha will travel abroad in the world again, even if they are not particularly skilled in battle.
"It is our family's affair…" Hisa frowns while thinking of it. "Are you sure it would be proper to ask?"
He flicks her forehead. "Whose son am I that I can't open my mouth to ask for something from my own blood-kin?" Abruptly, he realizes that she has succeeded in distracting him, at least for a time, and yanks the conversation back down the proper path. "In any case, stop worrying. You know you want to go boating on the river."
She pouts at him, but he is undeterred.
They go boating.
He'd just come out of the dye house, where one of the senior managers was teaching him the formulas for different shades of dark green when he spots Fuku heading towards Hisa's courtyard with a tea tray and pastries.
This is not unusual, except for the fact that that is clearly the tea set reserved for guests with only two gaiwan present on the tea tray. He had not heard of any guests arriving today, and Countess Asukabe preferred when Hisa went out to call on her, not the other way around.
"Fuku," he calls, wiping his hands on a rag. "Does Hisa have a guest today?"
She'd not mentioned so, and doesn't typically like visitors, so he wonders.
"Greetings to the second young master," Fuku bobs him a curtsy with her eyes downturned, careful to keep the tea tray level. "Yes, she does."
But no mention of who. How strange. "Am I expected to attend?"
He rather suspects not, but he can think of no guests that Hisa would take such care to hide from him.
Then again, he doesn't suspect her of hiding this guest from him so much as failing to mention their arrival, which could've happened for any number of reasons.
Fuku curtsies again. "No, she did not say anything about you attending."
He pauses here for a moment, thinking about it before he rearranges his face so that he smiles. "Well, go on then, I've kept you long enough."
He's dressed plainly and more than a little splattered with dye. If he'd been meant to see guests today at this hour, he likely wouldn't have had the dye house in his schedule.
He steps back inside, nodding to the senior manager. "I'll finish up this vat."
He does return to Hisa's courtyard — where he lives now as well — after he has finished hanging the dyed silk out to dry.
He takes his time. Maybe her guest has left already.
Maybe it was a family member he hasn't met yet.
Maybe—
The sound of a man's voice, excited and amused, though slightly indistinct. "A lovely tree."
"My mother was very fond of it." That would be Hisa. Whoever the man is, he'd be her guest then. "It was her favorite."
He pauses there on the walkway, before he turns the corner, not sure if he should turn around and go back.
He has completed what he had set out to accomplish in the morning, and clearly the guest is not being hidden from him, so why is it strange?
Why does he pause here, unsure if to stay or go?
"She must've been a lovely woman to have such good taste."
This voice is not one that is particularly familiar to him, but he still feels like he ought to be able to place it anyway.
Hisa laughs. "I'm not sure many people would agree with you, Senju-san."
Senju—
He rounds the corner to find Anija's most unforgivable friend standing there, in front of the peach tree, gesturing enthusiastically. He's saying something about peaches and peach trees and their values but Izuna doesn't hear him.
Senju Hashirama.
In his house.
He sees red for just a moment before breathing out.
The feud is not ongoing.
Senju Hashirama has never been an active participant, unless the one time he'd been attacked by a group of cousins and 'accidentally' grown a rice stalk into the leg of the person who had stabbed him is counted as 'active participation.'
Senju Hashirama's bastard little brother is an entirely different story, but he rather suspects that Hisa will not take that justification well in the slightest.
"Izuna," Hisa comes to take his hand and they walk back over to the trees, "I would've sent someone to fetch you, but well, our guest wasn't sure if you'd appreciate it."
Senju Hashirama smiles at him worriedly, though he does not understand the man.
"I didn't take you for a coward." He crosses his arms, one hand instinctively reaching for his side anyway.
There's no sword hilt that meets him there.
Just space.
Another reminder.
The feud is over, if he knows what's good for him.
The Senju laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just didn't know if you would want to see me! So many people don't nowadays!"
He takes a long deep breath.
Hisa had let this man into their house for a reason. It's not as if she even really likes guests, so Senju Hashirama had come into their house for a reason.
"Anija seems to think it just fine to go see you, so you needn't feel so aggrieved." He'd heard about his brother traveling to Danmai to go see Senju Hashirama.
Anija had done that even when the feud was ongoing, so obviously he would only be doing that more now that the feud is buried.
Hisa's hand tightens on his arm.
"I wanted to apologize to you personally for Tobira." The Senju clasps his hands together before him, radiating nervousness. "He wished to do good things for our family, but in trying to do so he caused you harm, and as his elder brother who ought to have taught him better, I apologize."
"And you didn't want to see me?"
For the barest, briefest of moments, he had seen a glimmer of the something that, yes, Anija would hold so dearly.
Genuine men who mean their apologies are rarer than fine jade.
The Senju's smile has an edge of contriteness to it. "Well, I would've said it eventually. I just wasn't sure if it would be today."
"Let it be today, then." They sit down together, though he is still unhappy about it. "You weren't the one who stabbed me. You aren't the one who has to apologize."
The feud is buried, but its ghost lingers in the spaces between people who had never learned to get along.
He hopes that His Majesty never asks for more than that, because further bridge mending seems quite impossible.
On the first morning of the week, he goes to bid good morning to Gifu-san and gives him well wishes for the rest of the week. In more strict households, he would have to do this every morning as a sign of respect to his in-laws, but soon after the wedding, Gifu-san had told him it only needed to be once a week.
He is still unclear if it is because his father-in-law does not entirely wish to see him so often or if it is for the reasons stated.
He knocks gently on the door. "Greetings to Gifu-san."
"Come in!" There is the shuffling of books and scrolls inside, and the sound of footsteps.
Ah, Gifu-san had not yet gotten to his study or cleared his desk quite yet this morning.
He pauses for a count of three before pushing open the door.
The first time he'd arrived, he'd entered faster than his father-in-law had expected. Since that had inadvertently been a social misstep, he now counts slightly before actually entering.
"It is good to see you." Gifu-san is still arranging his books, inkstone and brushes still unused, though a pot of tea had already arrived, and is lightly steaming on one corner of the desk. He is waved towards a chair. "Sit, sit, no need to stand in ceremony with me."
He does sit, though he beats Hisa's father to pouring the tea.
"Please forgive me," he says and wonders how to say this, because sometimes, even despite his efforts to become the ideal son-in-law that his wife's father clearly desires and deserves — someone who has borne such loss with such grace does deserve what he can give — he feels as though he falls short somehow. "It's not," and here he stumbles again, because while shinobi do not live lives with nearly so many societal rules as civilians seem to, there are some rules not made to be broken. "You are my elder, a generation above me, and the father of my honored wife. I ought to be the one serving you in all things."
Though the Uchiha are not always observers of all the proper societal rules and social regulations, there are some old and powerful, meant to be observed strictly.
"You do not have to." There is a slight crease in Gifu-san's brow, a furrow he wishes was not there, but is, so he will have to continue explaining somehow, even though he fears the explanation might offend the man more.
There is so much he does not understand still, talking past people he wishes to honor properly.
"I do have to." He swallows hard and wishes that he was better with words somehow. Togaku-nii would've known the right words to explain. He always did know the moral texts better. "Confucius says that we must love and honor the ones who gave us life." He is blessed already that Gifu-san does not mind that he still refers to Haha-ue and Chichi-ue as Haha-ue and Chichi-ue, and that he does not have to go to the shrine every morning to pay respects to his mother-in-law.
The son ought not sit before the father, and only if he is invited.
The man across from him raises his eyes, watching him from over the rim of the gaiwan. The tea is set aside. "Izuna-kun," Gifu-san sighs, "I do not own that honor, and I do not hold you to the rules that dictate such. You were not born my son, and I do not need your filial reverence or your obedience. Your affection would be enough."
He wishes he could shut his eyes. The whole thing is a mess, for surely, this is not meant to feel so much like a rejection. But then, he should've known it would be like this from the moment that the man across from him had told him to call him 'Gifu-san' instead of 'Chichi-ue'. There is a gap here, whether civilian or just a Kawaguchi quirk that he has not quite bridged. "I took leave of my parents after I spoke to Hisa."
How to tell Gifu-san that this was a permanent break? That even if he returns to his childhood home now, it would be as a guest and never as a family member?
But these are the changes he chose to keep Hisa's heart and honor it as it should be honored.
"Haha-ue told me that," and here he pauses, because though it had been his choice, it had still been hard to hear and even now, hard to say, "that if you agreed to let me marry here, there would be no difference between you and the father that raised me."
Gifu-san rises and slowly comes around the table. "That is a cruel thing to ask of you." His father-in-law is certainly frowning now. "Of course there is a difference. There always will be."
He has made such a mess of things, of things that should be easy to explain properly, but aren't, for he knows that Gifu-san also read Confucius growing up because he had gone to school in the shijuku in Yanai, just several decades earlier.
"Respect and love must be earned." Gifu-san sets his hands on Izuna's shoulders. "And I would like to earn it from you if I can. But I do not require this from you, for we are far too old to be father and son quite the same way, no?"
It feels like forgiveness, that he will not have to fit himself into a box he is not sure he can fill.
But at the same time, he still aches with this unmooring, this sense of being no longer sure where his hometown lies and which ancestors to pray to for guidance.
He'd been a rascal as a boy, hiding in mine shafts and avoiding punishment. He remembers the evening falling, and the light of a red lantern bobbing to come find him in the dusk after Chichi-ue's temper had cooled.
Chichi-ue always knew where to find him.
He remembers kneeling in the family shrine, watching as the night came down and deepened, settling all around, the light of hundreds of candles dancing, generations of ancestors who had worn the Uchiha name looking down upon him kneeling there.
What proud tradition it is to bear.
The roots and trunk that bind the disparate branches.
He remembers the sudden shock that summer day, when Hisa had pushed open the door to a shrine bearing nine placards, each one so personal, and so shot through with grief.
A memorial to the living memory can only be borne with grief, never pride, like that to the long departed.
And he had been humbled, in the moment, by the sparseness of it all.
He is humbled now, by more acceptance and kindness than he had ever been able to find within himself.
"I would be honored," he admits. "Thank you."
Their talk had turned to other, lighter things by afternoon.
His father-in-law is an avid painter and collector of poetry books, uncommon of the merchant men who once hired him to protect their shipments, sabotage their rivals, and fetch back their wayward daughters.
"These are just little things," Gifu-san smiles, still clearly delighted to have someone to talk to about them, standing over a painting of a white tiger. "Shabby skills to show off, I'm sure, for someone who has come from a count's estate."
"No." He does not think so, for the literati painters of the capital and among the learned nobility liked to style themselves amateurs — men who clearly never had to sell their paintings to get by in their lives which, if one is to be believed, is always leisurely and without troubles. Likewise for calligraphy. And music. And any number of other hobbyist talents.
The only things a literati gentleman truly prized himself as an expert in would be poetry, go, and an excellent understanding of the classics.
He tells Gifu-san so, who laughs, half shocked, half wildly amused. "Don't embarrass them so, Izuna-kun. Noblemen never appreciate it when merchants are too uppity or appreciative of their own skills."
He opens his mouth to protest before remembering that suddenly, he is a merchant now.
Or, at least, the very pretty arm ornament of one.
"Ah," he says, suddenly abashed. He used to be a nobleman, just half a year or so ago he was still one. "This is a foolish question, but—"
"You want to know why I never took the imperial exams?" Gifu-san turns to him, seemingly lightly amused, but there is history here, under the surface, not yet brought to the daylight, rock face submerged beneath the water.
"Even if it didn't lead to the capital, surely, there would've been a position in Chubu open to you?" For a man so talented and self aware to have never taken, or not passed the exams…
Gifu-san sits, an edge of rue in his downturned eyes. "In those days, when I was a young man, to take the exams in the capital when one had no clan name and no relative already serving in the capital, one had to have a stamped and sealed letter of recommendation from a minister who already served there."
Such doors were closed to me.
"My father bought his contract from Kusakabe-sama's father. The nobility here would not have looked well upon any attempt for me to call myself one among them."
Oh.
So that is what it was.
No wonder Hisa wore her name with such pride and yet such fragility.
"I was not aware there was such a rule." Despite it being summer, there is such a heavy chill here, like a sudden snowfall, a blanket of thick frost.
"There still is such a rule." Gifu-san does not seem much surprised by his ignorance of such a thing, but then—
But then.
He is the fifth son of a count, and Tohoku is not a small province.
"I—" He pauses. "I see," he says and wonders if he can ever quite bridge this gap.
He goes to speak to Niwa-ba in the afternoon regarding the matter of Toraki-kun's future, since he has cleared the idea with Gifu-san.
He knocks on the outer courtyard doorway since the door is open, passes his arrival onto a handmaid, and waits until the older woman has someone tell him that she welcomes him in.
"Izuna-kun!" Niwa-ba rises from her loom where she'd been working, careful to set the bobbin aside in its appropriate place before coming to greet him. His wife's third paternal aunt is a woman younger than he had first expected, having only just turned thirty-four this past year, but good natured and cheerful, with much less level-headed steadiness compared to Hasuyo-ba. "Come in, sit down."
But then, Hisa had explained to him that her third aunt had been a very young widow and that Gifu-san had always been careful to remember that when it came to his third sister-in-law.
"Niwa-ba." He nods before he sits. "I think Gifu-san might've told you why I wanted to come speak to you?"
"Yes, yes," Niwa-ba hides a smile behind her folding fan, clearing away her embroidery thread spread all over her table, movements quick and sure. "Big Brother mentioned that it had to do with the future of my only child."
"I had, perhaps, a foolish thought that I thought Auntie could consider." He is, after all, unsure how Niwa-ba truly views shinobi, and if she would be happy to let her son live among them for several years on his suggestion alone.
There is much that Hisa's family has indulged him in because he is Hisa's husband and thus dear to her, but the prejudices of people run deep sometimes.
He may yet be only an exception and not a rule.
"I'm sure that if Big Brother told you to come talk to me about it, it is not as foolish a thought as you are pretending it is." Aunt Niwa turns to him after setting her basket down on a different table a little farther away. "You just don't think I will like it very much."
Had he really been so obvious?
He covers his embarrassed smile with a hand. "Forgive me for being transparent, then, Auntie. I know that Toraki-kun has mostly finished school here in Shunan, so I wanted to suggest that he stay with my uncle, Uchiha Ikame if he wished to study at the Shijuku in Yanai."
There is a small silence, as though time had frozen, but in the next moment, Niwa-ba had already risen, looking at him, almost alarmed. "Such a thing is possible?" she asks, voice hitting an uncharacteristically high note. "For my son?"
He is suddenly far too aware of himself and of his boundaries, that he exists and all the space that he takes up. "Ikame-ji will appreciate someone who actually cares to speak with him about the moral teachings and classics and poetry by the old masters."
He'd expected, perhaps, for there to be some careful consideration of the matter.
Or maybe for some deeply held prejudice against shinobi to surface, and for himself to have been stung by that idea.
But he did not expect Niwa-ba to cry, quite overwhelmed by the suggestion of it all.
He recounts it to Hisa later, when they are in their room, still surprised. "Is it the thought that he will have to go far away?" He can always return to her when he wants to, and he will certainly come home for the new year.
Ikame-ji wouldn't keep him.
Hisa sets her accounts aside and looks up at him, one hand on her abacus still. "Izuna," she says, with perfect seriousness, "that is more than people like us can dream of our entire lives."
People like us. People like them.
People like Gifu-san who never had the chance to take the exams.
But why not?
Why not people like them?
Why not when what he has heard all his life is that the imperial exams are based on merit alone?
I do not believe you will like it here half so much without the ability to leave again when you so choose.
He did not quite understand it then, a half year ago, when Gifu-san had said this. Perhaps he'd been too happy. Perhaps he did not know what he was leaving.
He understands more now. Both what he has given away and what he has received in return.
But there is no life without struggle. Here in the mortal realm, there is no life of perfection. "Would it be too much presumption if I told you that I don't believe in such things?"
She sighs and rises, cupping his face as she looks up at him. "It does not matter what you do and do not believe. Titles open doors. Those without can never cross some thresholds."
Just as some can never touch the moon.
"I have been very unfair to you." She lays her head against his shoulder, arm around his waist.
"How have you been unfair to me?" He holds her without second thought.
"Because I knew that you would not be happy with this, and yet I wished to possess you for myself instead of thinking of your future happiness and sending you away."
"I chose to offer." He may not have fully understood, but he has made that choice and he does not regret it. "And I chose with my eyes wide open." He does not want to live a life without her, and he does not wish to uproot her, so here he is.
There are more things to build in the future.
She sighs, eyes downturned. "When Anija was alive, Chichi-ue had hoped he would take the exams, and after…" She turns to look away. "Well," she says, fakely cheerful in a way that hurts his heart. "I could never take them."
Women are not allowed to become literati, this is true.
"Then I'll do it."
It is, perhaps, presumptuous of him, for these men who intend to take the exams have been studying their entire lives.
He only has a year, and he cannot say that he necessarily wants it more than them.
But he will have failed more than himself if he does not try.
Hisa does his hair before he leaves for his trip with Toraki-kun. It will be the first time that he has returned to Tohoku since their marriage. She reaches up into her own hairstyle and pulls out one of the plain darkly lacquered wooden hair sticks and slides it into his topknot.
"To protect you from the spirits that might seek to harm you," she says by way of explanation, though he doesn't quite need it, having understood what she means.
The action is only traditional, since he will have to do his own hair for some days, both while traveling and while he is visiting, but he smiles at the bronze mirror anyway. "My wife thinks highly of me."
Her hands fall to his shoulders. "I won't worry." No, the feud is not entirely completely banished, having become more of a hungry ghost than anything tangible and real enough to rule men's lives any longer, and one wooden hair stick isn't going to prevent bloodshed if it does come, but—
To know that she cares and to wear the symbol of that care back to his parents is a heavy, heady thing indeed.
"I will return to you safely." He sets a hand over hers, in the weak morning light. "And when I do, I will return it to your keeping."
She nods, the corners of her eyes softened by her smile. "Danna, you look good today."
He laughs. "I look good every day."
She wrinkles her nose. "Hold still, I'm not done."
His topknot is wrapped tightly with a ribbon of dark blue silk, and with that final task finished, he rises to head out to the courtyard.
At the doorway, he turns to look at her.
She nods once, and he nods back.
He turns and goes.
"Are you ready to go?" He shoulders his pack, though they do not have too far to go to reach the carriage. Still, at his parent's house, he'll be expected to do more manual labor than he's gotten used to leaving to servants here at home.
Might as well get some practice in before he has to go.
Toraki-kun huffs a bit as he shoulders his own pack, clearly not used to the weight. He nods firmly. "Yes, Izuna-nii." He nods, once, firmly.
He'd bid goodbye to his mother at the door of Niwa-ba's courtyard, and now he looks out at the front gate and swallows, hard.
Izuna remembers the struggle of leaving home for the first time, and that had only been for a few days, a mission down south that had turned a little bloody — but then again, he'd also been much younger than sixteen when he left home.
He claps Toraki-kun on the shoulder. "It's not as if you'll never be able to come home again. And you'll be with family. My uncle won't be mean to you."
Ikame-ji could be strict at times, which is why as a child he'd always run away to hide in various abandoned mineshafts that only small children could climb into until Chichi-ue had ended up teaching him instead of Ikame-ji, but Ikame-ji had never been mean.
Hikaku's father is a master of the disappointed glance, but he never so much as says a cutting or painful word. If Toraki-kun doesn't happen to be as disappointing as his uncle's youngest nephew, who he cannot remember the name of, who didn't learn to read a single word until age seven, well, he probably won't suffer much from Ikame-ji, who, though stern, seems to have all the discipline of a wet piece of rice paper.
Toraki-kun straightens his shoulders. "I won't give your uncle any reason to think ill of our family or regret accepting your entreaty to help me with my schooling at the Shijuku, Izuna-nii. It means a lot to me that he would be willing to open his house so I would have someplace to live at and people to ask for assistance in Yanai."
"I don't doubt that you'll be fine." Hisa's little cousin is a fine boy, and he has no doubt will likely do well in the civil service exams whenever Torakichi chooses to take them.
By now, the rest of their family has gathered to bid them goodbye. He kisses Hisa on the cheek, nods once to Gifu-san, and waits for Toraki to make his way around and hug every one of his relatives before tearfully climbing into the carriage waiting for them.
Izuna himself stuffs his pack in the carriage and stretches out his shoulders. "Let's head out," he calls to Hiroto, who is sitting in the driver's seat. "I'll keep your pace."
Hiroto nods, and with a shake of the reins, they are off.
A.N. Izuna and Hisa start dealing with life post marriage, and what that means for them from here on out, especially since Izuna has now been prohibited from being a shinobi and has technically lost his nobleman's status since he's now married into Hisa's family.
Things are about to get interesting from here on out!
In other news, I've gotten through finals! Grades are looking up in that regard, and I'm excited to go home and see my parents for a bit, and then it's back to my new apartment and summer job and also (hopefully) getting my second vaccine shot! Things are definitely looking up after a hectic few weeks, and I think I'm going to need the break because man, I am very exhausted.
Thank you so much to all of you for your kind wishes and lovely words. It means so much to me.
~Tav (Leaf)