Chapter Twenty-Two – Apologies, Said and Unsaid
The fine-boned figure waiting for me when I emerged from the bath house stood still as a statue, his mismatched eyes gazing into the distance. Rain blew across the walkway from the open rock garden, but if he felt the wet, he ignored it. Why was Kenshin, of all people, still here? And…
"Where did everyone go?"
Slowly he turned toward me as if surprised by my presence, even though I knew nothing got past that thousand-meter stare. "Mai is waiting for you in Yoshimoto's rooms." He pronounced her name as if she were more necessary than air – and to him, maybe she was. "The others walked her over."
Well, that answered the question I had verbalized. Hopefully the answer to my unspoken query would become clear. "Ah, ok. Thanks for passing that along." I turned toward the main part of the castle. Without comment, Kenshin fell into step beside me. I still didn't understand why he was sticking around. Maybe he was also waiting for an apology? I tried that out for size. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Succinct as always. It left me with the burden of conversation – although maybe that was his goal.
"Everything that contributed to Iekane's being able to … well, you know." He frowned at the mention of Iekane, but otherwise didn't say anything. "That pretending to be someone I am not helped lead to the events of last night." I hoped that made sense to him – it was a struggle to converse with him when our only real link was affection for Mai.
Kenshin – well, he didn't shrug, but he managed to convey the essence of one without actually moving. "Your only pretense was in clothing. You are who you are. No matter. I'm not the one you should apologize to for that."
"I know." No… Mai was not our only link. And Kenshin's relationship with Shingen was possibly as complicated as mine was. They'd been enemies for years, and yet Kenshin had respected Shingen to the point of inviting him into his home. Welcomed him even. They must have so many stories – stories that I had no right to ask him about.
We walked in silence, our sandals splashing through the puddles that had collected over the course of the storm. It wasn't that it was awkward, well, odd, because I had no idea what he expected of me. I didn't even know if conversation was expected of me.
Finally, Kenshin said, "I apologize for last night's accusations."
Unlike Kenshin, I did shrug. "Technically, you didn't accuse me of anything. And to quote you – I'm not the one you should apologize to for that." Hopefully he would take that in the spirit with which it was given, and not as an invitation to stab.
"I have apologized, but words are not enough to make up for a broken trust. Mai and I will find a way though, because she is more forgiving, more loving, than I deserve." I agreed but wasn't stupid enough to say that out loud. "Even so, I inflicted a wound that will not heal quickly. I pledged to do whatever I can to mend things… and more importantly to ensure it will not happen again."
"That's good." My version of a smile and nod. Even though I didn't understand him, didn't understand the entity that Mai and Kenshin comprised, I hoped everything would work out for them, because they both clearly loved each other.
"I never feared in war, never gave a thought to my own death… but the idea of losing the people close to me … it shakes me to my core." He stopped walking then, and out of politeness, I skidded to a halt as well. "I try not to hold on to them too tightly – fighting my self is a harder battle than any I have fought in the past." Well, he was the God of War. Fighting himself would be an epic battle. But I didn't know him well enough to say that out loud. He'd never struck me as someone who I could share a laugh with. "Learning not to fear loss is a hard lesson. I suspect it is one that you need to learn as well." He gave me a brief nod, then started walking again, without bothering to see if I was keeping pace.
And… I wasn't.
I didn't want to have anything of that sort in common with Kenshin. And truly, I'm not possessive – if anything I'm the opposite, so why did he think I ought to learn from his mistake?
Finally, he turned around and glared at me, so I hurried to catch up. Not wanting to dwell on his lecture, I simply said, "I'm glad you and Mai are healing from last night. You two deserve to be happy."
"It will take time." We reached what had to be Yoshimoto's rooms – even from the corridor it smelled of incense and opulence. "Everyone deserves happiness, Katsuko. I hope you will have time for that to happen as well."
He turned and left, and I realized I had finally seen the side of Kenshin that inspired such loyalty and love from Mai and Sasuke.
Of course… he still scared the crap out of me.
"How on Earth does your hair contain so many different lengths… all on one head?" Yoshimoto pulled and tweaked various strands of it this way and that, muttering darkly about it ending up too short for anything elaborate.
Mai was off on the other side of his room, setting out fabric somethings, although she had cautioned me not to look yet. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I could see jewel tones, which made me happy. I'd been afraid she would have picked out the pastel shades she appeared to favor for herself.
I returned my full attention to Yoshimoto. "When I was a housemaid, the chatelaine didn't like the way it looked, so she cut most of it off, and it never grew back right." Fume had chopped the turquoise streaks out of it, but there was only so much I could explain. "I tried to even it out some-"
He made a pained noise and let go of my hair. "Do not tell me you used your sword to cut your hair!"
"Of course not! I would never mess up my sword that way." I used a dagger, actually, but self-preservation had me keeping that fact quiet. Yoshimoto continued to run his hands through my hair, scrutinizing it closely. "Um, Yoshimoto, have you ever cut anyone's hair before?"
Hopefully, he knew what he was doing. Going by the décor in his rooms, it was obvious he had exquisite taste – paintings, vases, tapestries, decorated fans and screens filled the space, and I'd been touched to see the watercolor I had sent to him a couple years ago on display. But having an artistic eye didn't necessarily translate to being able to cut hair.
"I cut Shingen's." My stomach squeezed painfully, at the rush of guilt the sound of his name provoked. I pushed it away – this wasn't the time to dwell on that. Yoshimoto gazed at me sympathetically. "I promise, I'm only going to even it out a bit."
"Alright, you could hardly do any worse than I do on my own," I said.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Mai called from across the room. "It's not that bad."
"Yes, it is." Yoshimoto ended the discussion by snipping off a long strand of hair.
I blinked as it drifted to the floor. That's…evening it out? Another long strand joined it. Maybe it would be better to keep my eyes closed. Not that it mattered, because Yoshimoto wouldn't let me look until the transformation (so to speak) was complete. "I thought you wanted to keep the length for … the princess thing?"
He waved away my concern. "I'll deal with that when I need to." He tilted my head to the left, then the right. With my luck, his way of dealing with that would be a wig.
"You can look now," Mai said. Yoshimoto turned me toward her, then he sighed. Mai held up a kimono in the deepest of blue, with a floral pattern in lighter blues, greens, and violet. "You said dark colors, but I couldn't bear to make anything in black or brown." Behind her, spread out on a display rack was a simpler one in dark red with subtle burgundy and gold embroidery.
"They're gorgeous. I can't believe you made these." Her skill left me awestruck. "Your talent is incredible."
"Truly works of art," Yoshimoto agreed. "Katsuko, if you don't want-"
Mai cut off that avenue of inquiry. "You're too tall for these, Yoshimoto. I can make something else for you." She handed me the kimono. "Try it on – I want to make sure it fits."
I scooted behind a decorated folding screen to put on the kimono. I appreciated that even though the fabric was rich and lovely, the design was a deceptively simple one that would allow me freedom of movement – if I needed to, I could fight wearing this. I loved it. But …after everything I had said, and not said, and done, and not done, keeping this kimono would be wrong. "Mai, I can't accept these."
"You can accept them. If not out of friendship, if not because it would make me happy to see you in clothes that I made, then accept them as a reward for saving my life." Her tone was final – I suspected she had already prepared rebuttals for any argument I tried to make.
"Yoshimoto saved your life, remember?" I experimentally raised my arms up and down. Yes, lots of freedom of movement. This wasn't a typically upper-class restrictive kimono and I understood what Yoshimoto had meant about it being unsuitable for getting to Yoshiaki. As beautiful as these were, they had an athletic quality to them.
"I wouldn't have had time to save her if you hadn't called out a warning." I could hear him rattling around with what sounded like ceramic boxes.
Mai joined me behind the screen and made minute adjustments to the kimono.
"Last night… after you left." I took a deep breath. "I let Shingen…"
Her eyes got very big, and she started to smile.
I tried to redirect her thoughts. "No, it's not what you're thinking. I let him believe… made him believe a lie about himself. He's your friend. You should take his side."
Yoshimoto joined us behind the screen. He started to twitch a fold on my kimono, but Mai slapped his hand away. Then she made whatever adjustment he'd obviously had in mind. "We're on both your sides," he said.
"Friends don't take sides," Mai added. "You've done something wrong? Fix it." Unspoken were the words, 'stop talking about it to us because that does nothing.' Which… good point. Continuing to self-flagellate without making any effort to repair the damage was an indulgence I couldn't afford.
"If the lie took root, then there might have been an element to truth to it," Yoshimoto took some of my hair, gave it a little twist and clipped it behind my head.
Hm. I took my mind back to the encounters at the lake and at the Inn. I hadn't been unwilling either time – wary, yes, but unwilling, no. I'd never felt like either situation was out of my control. Another woman though, one with less resources, less training, a woman of this time, might have felt compelled to silently go along with things even if she were not willing. Last night, yes, I ought to have tried to explain myself better, but it had been a situation so fraught with emotions that maybe in the moment, I had done the only thing that I could do?
Mai herded the three of us out from behind the screen saying, "why are we still back here?"
"I have make-up for you to try too." Yoshimoto gestured to a table where there was now an array of cosmetics in ceramic and lacquer pots.
Oh. The make-up felt like a step too far.
Yoshimoto must have sensed my resistance to that. "Well, we'll leave that to another day – but it is something you will need to learn to apply… sooner or later. I used to wear it myself when I had to appear at court. You could think of it as a form of armor." He smiled, somewhat bitterly. "I always did."
He took a step back and examined me from all angles. "Katsuko, you've always had an understated beauty, like an uncut jewel, waiting for a craftsman to set it and allow it to shine. Mai has given you a setting, but you were a precious gem even before."
The Takeda charm is strong with this one.
But it was nice to hear anyway, I thought, as Yoshimoto unearthed a bronze mirror and showed me my reflection. Oh, cool. My hair was still past my shoulders, but he had given me bangs. I liked them. Even better, I thought I still looked like myself – just a version of myself with the volume turned up a bit. Kind of like how Clark Kent always sort of looked like Superman but taking off the glasses raised—
!
Glasses.
In slow motion reverse, my brain replayed the dream where Aki had thrown Sasuke through a plate glass window. Glass. That was what my brain had been telling me.
Another rewind to the moment when I collided with Sasuke and his glasses had flown off. I'd picked them up and examined them for damage. Sasuke's glasses had plastic frames. Plastic, which wouldn't be invented until… well, I had no idea when plastic was invented, but not for at least another three hundred years.
!
Holy shirtballs.
Sasuke was from – my brain finally spit out the realization it had been sitting on for nearly two weeks – the future. And if he was from my time, or even a time after my time, because time travel could be from any when, right? –then he might be able to explain how I got here. What if he had a time machine in his room? Maybe he could help me find my brother?
"I believe she is in shock," Yoshimoto said to Mai.
His aside jolted me out of my thoughts. "Oh! No, I'm not. I suddenly realized something that I desperately need to investigate, but I love it, you did a wonderful job, both of you, I'll never be able to thank you enough-"
"Seeing you smile is a reward all its own," Yoshimoto said.
"Making clothes that make people happy is my mission in life," Mai added, so sincerely, that I couldn't help but believe her.
They had been lovely to me, and while I didn't want them to think that I was dissing their efforts, I needed to see a ninja about a time machine. "I am happy, this is wonderful, and … do either of you know where Sasuke went after he walked Mai over here?"
"Sasuke?" they both asked, more or less in stereo.
"Yes – Sasuke. Ninja, glasses, hangs out in ceilings." Please don't make me go into the ceiling to find him.
Neither of them knew, both had suggestions, and I took off in search of a time-travelling ceiling spelunking ninja, with both Mai and Yoshimoto yelling after me not to run in the halls.
As soon as I was sure they couldn't see me, I ran in the halls, until I nearly collided with—
Shingen.
Of course, I found Shingen before I found Sasuke.
It was as if he and I were under a curse to keep running into each other like we were each at the end of a rubber band and could only get so far away before being snapped back into each other's orbit.
If things had been different, I might have been elated to encounter him when I looked better than I had ever looked in my life. But we were beyond that. Even if I might possibly have had a moment where my heart warmed at the spark of appreciation in his eyes, it was replaced by sadness when that spark was snuffed out and replaced by the hurt. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was, but the cold anger layered over the hurt was too big a barrier to breach.
Neither of us spoke. We did the 'I go here/you go there dance' to try to get past each other. Even after two false starts, we were still blocking each other's paths. I opened my mouth to say something - anything, but the look on his face stopped me. He didn't look angry. He looked tired. Tired of me, probably. I froze in place and let him go by.
I'm sorry. Is it that difficult to say? The more I meant it, the harder it was. I'm sorry Toshiie, for worrying you so much that you dropped out of medical school. I'm sorry mom, for not knowing how to make you happy. I'm sorry Shingen… for the half-dozen lies I told you, and the truths I was afraid of.
I half turned, convincing myself that it had to be said, even if he didn't want to hear it, prepared this time to run toward him - but then I heard Yukimura and Sasuke's voices as they rounded a corner ahead of me. I stopped, torn between his retreating back and the person who might be the key to finding my brother.
Then –
"Sasuke!"