Mukashi no Koibito

4 : The Meaning of Dreams

The young woman sat alone in a small room. Her pale lavender kimono and the purple michiyuki she wore over it were crumpled, as if they had been through some abuse. Hanging her head low so that her long hair shrouded her face, she sat quite still. The only movement from the woman came from her pale hands, which were clasping and unclasping each other in her lap. Her slender figure juxtaposed against the emptiness of the room made her appear especially vulnerable, more so since a palpable sadness emanated from her being. As she lifted her head, fine features and fair skin were revealed.

Strangely there was a short sword on the floor near her, and she bent over to pick it up. She stared dazedly at the object in her hand, as if contemplating its significance. For a woman mired in despondency, there was only one use for the weapon.

Megumi jerked up from her futon, her heart beating a frenzied rhythm. The dream had been so vivid and quite frightening, as it always was. It was a dream that had been recurring for the past weeks, and by now so familiar that it was disturbing. The protagonist of the dream, that young woman, she belonged to another era. Her traditional attire, her gloriously long hair, her delicately powdered face; those were attributes of an antiquated beauty. And she looked so much like her.

She shuddered slightly. "It's just a dream!" she said aloud in an attempt to comfort herself and to quell the barrage of thoughts the dream triggered. Her voice sounded loud and clear in the silence of the room. Too loud and too clear. She was so very alone in her little apartment. Right here and now, it would be more than comforting to have the warm embrace of another to indulge in.

Sanosuke. Instinctively, she thought of the man who not long before was merely a stranger. She wrapped her arms around herself momentarily; trying to imagine it was his arms that were holding her. He would feel solid and warm. She would be seeing him in a few hours. With that thought in mind, she lay down again, burrowing under the sheets of the futon and pulling them up over her head. She shut her eyes, forcing herself to sleep despite the uneasiness she felt. The melancholy that haunted the woman in her dream now haunted her, for the poor creature had wanted to end her life.

In the dark, under the sheets, she tried to suppress another shudder. Morning would come soon, and hopefully thoughts of the disturbing dream would fade slowly with the darkness.

---

"Oi, Megumi!" Sanosuke sauntered over to her with deliberate casualness. He would have bounded towards her with the kind of enthusiasm he felt at seeing her again, but the mental image of himself as a large and eager breed of dog was quite unappealing.

She smiled, a genuine one reflecting her own enthusiasm at his presence. She looked quite the young sophisticate, always wonderfully groomed and with perfect posture. It almost made him want to take his hands out of his pockets, a habit he possessed ever since he could remember. But she did not seem to mind it, the same way she did not mind the slightly aggressive way he walked or the lazy drawl that characterized the way he spoke.

He tugged gently at her ponytail in affectionate greeting. He wished she would undo the band that held her hair up and let the long strands loose. Somehow, she did not look quite right with her hair like that.

"Why is your hair always tied up?"

"Why not? It's practical."

He fingered the band around the base of her ponytail, wondering to what degrees she would be annoyed if he pulled it off. "Hair as long as yours should be flaunted."

"Don't be such a man about it!" With that, she tried to swat his hand away from her hair.

He grinned. "There are just so many things I would do to that long hair if only you would let it down."

"Like what?" she asked, her head tilted up towards him. Whether she was conscious of it or not, Megumi was a natural flirt.

"Like run my fingers through it. Stroke it. Maybe ah, kiss it." He let the soft strands fall through his fingers. She really did have beautiful hair. He cleared his throat at the last suggestion. There were things he imagined doing with her, but they sounded somewhat brazen said aloud.

"In due time, Sanosuke," she retorted suggestively, a promise of things to come. Then she slipped her arm through his in her usual way. But he retracted his hand from his pocket so that he could hold her hand instead. Maybe not for the sake of etiquette, but anytime for Megumi. Besides, the bandages were finally off his right hand and he wanted to feel her skin against his. Funny, they had been seeing each other for close to two weeks and never once had he attempted to hold her hand as they walked.

"What's this?" She raised his hand close to her face and scrutinized the palm. She touched the thin, almost horizontal line of raised skin at the center. That part of skin was strangely sensitive to her touch and he watched mutely as she moved her thumb along the line.

"Looks like a scar of some sort, but then it isn't really one either. It's different from the other ones on your hand." She turned his hand over to examine the variety of markings all over it.

Suddenly embarrassed, he withdrew his hand from hers. So it was not the most perfect of hands. It was rough and callused. And being his active fist, it bore the marks of numerous brawls. Not the most refined looking of hands, to say the least. Gruffly, he reached for her right hand with his left one instead. At least the skin of this one would feel better against hers.

"So what is it?" she persisted, making an attempt to grab the right hand that he had shoved back into his trusty pocket.

That scar or mark or whatever the proper term for it was had been there on his right palm since he was young. He used to have vague dreams about impulsively catching a sharp object of some sort in that hand. The details were always blurry yet the moment when the blade sliced through his flesh was vivid. Perhaps he injured himself like that as a boy, although he could not recall ever having done so.

"It's always been there."

"But it doesn't look like a birthmark."

"You're the doctor, you tell me what it's supposed to be?"

She frowned slightly. "I don't know."

"One of life's little mysteries."

He shrugged the matter off. That was the difference between him and Megumi. He was insouciant to her proper. There was always a fine line between attraction and antagonism.

---

That same night, Megumi dreamt of the young woman again. She was still despondent, still alone in the room, still wanting to end her life. As she clasped the short sword in her trembling hands, the door to the room was violently kicked down, revealing a threesome of fighters. Words were exchanged, but somehow they were not enough to dissuade her from her ultimate purpose. She made a move to slash at her exposed wrist with the sword, until the tall youth stopped the swift path of the blade with his hand.

Even her despairing soul could be frightened by his intensity. Frightened, and then confused, ultimately touched. His hand was bleeding where the blade had sliced into the flesh, and his warm blood dripped onto her hand that was still clasping the hilt of the sword, warming the cold, clammy skin.

He was shouting at her, his dark eyes flashing with an odd light, his words a multitude of vulgarities addressing the foolishness of her intended action, yet her mind only understood, even if only in a muted way, the enormity of his gesture. She felt the tears teetering precariously on the precipice of her lower eyelids, and they blurred her vision of this angry, momentarily handsome boy.

What she did not know before, she knew now.