Tears and Rain
Chapter Eleven -- One Fine Day: Even The Best Times Become Memories
By Gabi
Soujiro was momentarily at a complete loss. He had never for once considered that Kuri could be wrapped up in this mess. In fact, all the information he had thus far gathered pointed as far away from that direction as possible. The woman who wanted him dead was a fine, upstanding, well-off woman of the upper class. This woman had been raised as a boy and trained as a samurai, but when the Tokagawa dynasty had ended, she had married a peaceful politician and they had had two beautiful daughters. Then, five years ago, on an errand for Shishio, Soujiro had taken the life of her pacifist husband while she and her daughters vacationed on the seashore. He had thought nothing of it at the time and had not recalled it at all until one of the Kyoto informants had repeated the name two or three times. It was strange, he had thought at the time, that of all the men he had killed, the only one he was facing repercussions for was a lowly governmental official. Now with Kuri's new admission, his mind hastily jumped to the conclusion that there was more binding him to Toyotomi Noriko than he had previously thought.
He loosened his hold on her and turned her so he could see her face, "How did you know?"
Kuri trembled at this sudden cross-examination and was uncomfortable under his blank smile. She felt as if she had betrayed him. Briefly she wondered what would have happened if she had told him about Noriko immediately after meeting her. Perhaps then he wouldn't have been hurt. She shook her head for no one's benefit but her own and forced the tears back.
Soujiro took her head shake as a refusal and he spoke again, "Onegai, Kuri-san. It's important."
At this prompting the words tumbled out one after another. Kuri's narrative was once again disjointed, but once again, Soujiro managed to make sense of it. More than any of the actual facts of the matter, the most pressing thing Soujiro gleaned from her babbling was her pure and worrisome affection for the woman who had attempted to kill him. After she had finished explaining she grew silent and Soujiro did not expect her to add anything more, but quietly, she spoke again.
"I don't know why Noriko-san is trying to kill you Soujiro-kun, but I know that she's a very good person and that she has two wonderful little daughters that need her to take care of them. Growing up without a mother is horrible," she trailed off into a whisper, and as she looked at him, she seemed to regain strength, "And I know that you're a very good person. You can't kill her."
Soujiro was silent and simply watched her.
Taking his noncommittal gesture as just that, she turned her face away from him and pressed against his chest again as she sobbed, "Please Soujiro, you can't kill her. Please. Please."
Soujiro swallowed. He couldn't stand this. She was begging like it was her own life on the line. He sighed. If she cared for the woman this much, there was nothing else for it. She did have a point after all. It was horrible to grow up without a mother.
"All right, Kuri. I won't kill her."
Kuri tore away from him and looked at him hard in an attempt to determine if she'd heard him correctly. He repeated himself and such a look of relief passed over her that she might have been at her own acquittal.
"Swear you won't, Soujiro-kun. Swear!" her voice still trembled, but the tears seemed to have cleared, "Swear on -- oh, I don't know, but you have to swear."
He nodded and after thinking a moment, he took her hand in both his hands and bent forward, cursing silently as he pulled the muscles in his bandaged shoulder. He bowed until she felt his warm forehead press against her open palm and then she heard him softly speak, "I swear that I won't kill her."
She breathed a sigh of relief as he straightened and looked at her again, "I won't kill her, but she will always hunt me and I can't put you in that kind of danger," his voice was so soft she could barely discern the words. He was about to go on, but she interrupted him.
"Wait, Soujiro-kun, why don't you try talking to her, like I talked to you? You can explain to her that you don't want to kill her. I don't know," her voice was pleading, "Maybe she'll listen."
Soujiro suddenly recalled a similar encounter in his past and the situation painted itself in the vivid colors of memory. He had once learned the hardest lesson of his life due to a soft voice and a non-killing sword. Perhaps he too could perform a miracle with them. Like the red-haired wanderer, his happiness was also at stake. He did not have all he needed yet. He possessed the soft voice but he lacked the non-killing sword, and he was not naïve enough to think that he could survive without a proper blade. What he needed was a substitute sword.
"Hai, Kuri-san," he said softly, and with such a look on his face that Kuri knew that he honestly hoped so.
"You can go and talk to her. I'm sure everything will be all right then," she sounded as if she were desperately trying to convince herself. She suddenly jumped up and ran across the room to rummage in some linen. When she came back, she was carrying a little slip of paper, "This is Noriko-san's address. She gave it to me so I could find her if I needed her, only I forgot to tell her that I couldn't read," her voice softened, "Maybe it will help after all."
Soujiro took the slip of paper from her and studied it as if it contained some great secret. Then he nodded and spoke.
"Kuri-san, we need to go on a shopping errand."
*
Kuri had been quite flustered when Soujiro had announced his intention to go shopping. At first she had forbidden it, citing his less than recovered state, but after he had insisted, she had fluttered on to more practical problems. For instance, what were they going to wear?
Both Soujiro's gi and his shirt had suffered such deep cuts to them that they were currently unsuitable to wear in public. They also had large bloodstains on them, which also was a good reason for them to be kept from the public view. Kuri's gi and hakama had suffered much the same predicament sans the rents. They were currently being laundered in the back yard by Hisashi. This left Soujiro nothing to wear but his hakama and Kuri nothing to wear but her borrowed yukata, which she certainly couldn't wear in public. Hisashi immediately volunteered his own spare gi so that Soujiro could at least be dressed properly. He was about to volunteer some more of his clothing to Kuri when Yoshida stopped him.
"She's gone about too long in ragged boy's clothes. She might as well wear something that fits her if she's going to go around borrowing clothes," the old man had grumped and then he had fetched an intricately carved wooden box which he laid carefully onto Kuri's futon.
She finally moved to open it when Yoshida grunted in impatience. Soujiro watched the old man closely as she gently set the lid off of the box and then squealed at what she found there.
"Is this for me? Really? Can I wear it? You're so wonderful!" she cried all at once and then hugged the old man in happiness. The old man was quite at al loss, but Soujiro noted that he seemed to be happy, although it only showed around the corners of his mouth.
Inside the box was a beautifully embroidered kimono of the deepest crimson. It looked extremely expensive and very well kept. Soujiro could tell that it had never been worn for the creases were so precise and the color so vibrant that he believed it had been rarely even taken out of its beautiful prison. Belatedly the significance of the color registered and Soujiro drew in his breath. For some reason, in the dusty far reaches of his closet, the crotchety old bachelor doctor had a very expensive, very well tended wedding kimono that had never been worn. Soujiro looked at him hard, but the old man betrayed no emotion other than crabbiness as he watched the girl delicately finger the robes. The unpleasant man remained an intriguing enigma. Kuri broke into his thoughts again by tugging on his sleeve.
"Yoshida-sensei's going to teach me how to put it on. You have to come and watch."
The color drained from his face and even the smile flickered, "Nan desu ka?"
"The knots and bows are all so complicated I'm never going to remember them on my own. You're good at things like that. You have to watch so that if I ever get another kimono you can help me remember how to tie the knots right," she explained so seriously and naively that he had to smile inwardly, however the grumpy old man would have nothing of it.
"Come on, girl," he said, grabbing her by the arm and hauling her off despite her protests, "There are some things you need to learn to do by yourself."
While Yoshida instructed Kuri in the art of tying kimono, Soujiro donned Hisashi's spare gi. It was the same fine quality that his own gi had originally been when new, however it lacked the threadbare travel stained quality that were the trademarks of a ronin's gi. In the borrowed gi, Soujiro had to admit, he did look like a young boy of the upper classes. It was strange, Hisashi was almost ten years younger than he was, but they could wear the same gi comfortably. Yet even though they might look to be of similar background, time and experience had differentiated them forever.
After putting on the gi, Soujiro then took a clean oiled rag and divested the sword of all the little bits of rubbish it had acquired during its three day stay under a pile of garbage. Once he had thoroughly polished it, he tucked it back into his belt. With his sword back close at hand, Soujiro felt much more relaxed and had no trouble inquiring where his money pouch had gotten to. Hisashi cheerfully fetched it and Soujiro tucked the pouch and the address into his gi.
As Kuri was still not ready, he requested a pen and paper and then wrote a short letter which he put in an envelope with only a name scrawled across it. This he also tucked into his gi. He had just returned the pen and paper and was watching Hisahi do the laundry in the backyard when Kuri finally appeared.
She came forward slowly, and Soujiro could hear the wood on wood clacks of her sandals on the porch floorboards. Soujiro tried to keep his eyes focused on her feet in an attempt to remain undistracted, but inexorably they traveled up, despite his best defenses. The kimono was beautiful, an affair of embroidered silk and cotton underlay. Its main color was a deep crimson and embroidered into it were tiny figures in gold and pale green. There were small flowers and broad leaves and a lovely curling vine. The obi was primarily gold, but it had an overlay of the pale green to give it contrast. All in all, it was a splendid garment, but for once, Soujiro was not particularly observant concerning the trappings.
She was small, but not a waif any longer. Her eyes were averted, staring at the ground, and even in the shade of the porch overhang he could see the blush that colored her cheeks. Her skin was milky in contrast with the dark crimson of the kimono and she had clasped her hands in front of her for want of something better to do with them. Her hands were so delicate. She was so fragile, yet even as he watched her he knew it was not the delicacy of a girl-child. She was in transition. She was unsure of her place, just as he was, but she was certainly not a child playing dress up.
His eyes softened inadvertently as she took another step forward and he captured her image forever in his memory. This is how she should be: shy, demure, taking a step off her porch on a beautiful summer's day. It was possible for him to forget completely all they had gone through, all they had come through together and to see her as a beautiful, fragile china doll.
Then she smiled at him and hopped from foot to foot as best as she could in the unfamiliar wooden sandals.
"How do I look?" she asked excitedly and he wanted desperately to grab her up, throw her over his shoulder and take her off to someplace where no one would bother them for a long, long time. This was Kuri the child. This was Kuri the little thief. This was Kuri the conspirator and confidant. This was Kuri the woman-girl who belonged to him in every bouncing step she took and every silly caper she cut and every vibrant mood she swung through. He could not control the exhalation of relief as he answered.
"Like yourself."
She was puzzled, "Nani? Don't you like it?"
Immediately the blank smile was up again, "You look very pretty, Kuri-san. Did you learn how to tie the belts and bows properly?"
She was immediately distracted by his question and she made a little face, "It's almost more trouble than it worth. Yoshida-sensei taught me some rhymes to help me remember them, and I'm pretty sure I could do it again, although tying the ones in back are hard if you have to do it by yourself. And here I thought the laces on the hakama were hard," she grimaced.
Soujiro nodded politely and Yoshida grumbled something unintelligible. There was a sploosh as Hisashi dumped some more lye into his laundry tub and then pushed Kuri's rumpled, bloodstained hakama into the water.
"Will you two be back for lunch?" asked the boy as he scrubbed with a scouring cloth, "I need to know how much to make."
"Hai, hai," responded Kuri without waiting for Soujiro's answer.
Soujiro nodded in agreement, "Our errands shouldn't take us very long."
"I'll see you all at lunch then," he grinned, "You'd better hurry back though, Yoshida-sensei has a bigger appetite than you'd expect. He's always swiping dumplings from my plate."
"I believe that's the other way around you little scamp, only I'm to genteel to make an issue out of it," grumped the old man.
The boy laughed and retorted, "You're so genteel you can't do your own laundry."
While they were throwing insults back and forth at each other, Soujiro caught Kuri's arm and led her off before they could be caught by any further hindrances or awkward pauses.
Once on the streets, Soujiro knew more or less exactly where he wanted to go, although he had to moderate his speed so that Kuri could keep up in her geta and kimono. They ended up strolling leisurely along, although she kept a firm grip on his borrowed gi. He surmised that she was still not comfortable in the immense city, and he let his own hand stray up to loosely clasp her arm.
Eventually, Soujiro led them off the beaten path and to a small store without even a signboard outside to denote its mercantile status. Still, he barged into the shop with few qualms about what he'd find there. The shop was small and dimly lit, and there was only one rather old man at the counter. He seemed to recognize Soujiro immediately.
"Ah, Tenken, it's been a while since I saw you last. I take it you're here on business. What can I do for you?"
"I need your finest iaitou."
The old man looked at him curiously, "Iaitou? Boy, you could go to any store in town and get one of those. They're unsharpened, you know that. There's no law about carrying a sword that has no blade."
Soujiro scratched the back of his head absently, "I know I could get one anywhere, but I need the highest quality iaitou you have. I need something I can bet my life on against an excellently balanced nihontou. I don't need a toy."
The old man shrugged, "Well, it's your money, although I personally think you've gone a bit batty if you expect to defend against a nihontou with an iaitou. Nevertheless, I do have something that might interest you."
He ducked into the back room and Soujiro could hear him rummaging around. Kuri stayed close behind him, as if she were afraid there were some monster in the shop waiting to hop out from behind a corner and grab her. After a time, the old man returned and placed a short sword with a beautiful hilt on the counter.
"You know, it's said that this once belonged to Okita Souji," intoned the old man mysteriously.
The boy laughed, "Old man, you would have me believe that everything in this shop once belonged to Okita Souji."
The old man was indignant, "Have you ever known me to sell you anything that wasn't worth what it cost? You can see for yourself that this iaitou is high quality, and you did ask for them best, but if you're not interested . . . "
Soujiro shook his head, "I didn't say that, old man. It's fitting that I take another of Okita-san's swords with me to this fight, although hopefully I'll keep this one in better repair."
The old man put his hands on his hips, "You know boy, you're lucky that I managed to find a swordsmith who could forge another blade for that handle you brought me, although how you managed to break the blade of the Kikuichi Norimune I'll never know."
Soujiro let one hand drop over the hilt of his katana protectively and his eyes grew distant, "I had help."
"Well, yes, I assumed so. In any case, at least you'll have a matching set now," he said, sheathing the iaitou.
Soujiro nodded and Kuri was distressed to see him hand over the better part of the money in the pouch. The old man passed him the sheathed, edgeless short sword and he tucked it into his belt. Kuri cringed. If he hadn't been noticeable before when he only carried one sword, he was certainly noticeable now. Kuri had the feeling they were going to have more scuffles with the police over his swords soon enough.
Kuri had thought their shopping excursion over when they'd left the small shop, but Soujiro led them on to a clothing shop. Kuri immediately realized that he was going to have to buy a new gi and shirt because of the damage they'd sustained in his previous fight. Her clothes would come clean with a few spirited washings. His were a little more difficult to repair.
The shop they stopped at was a fine expensive one, and while Soujiro debated the price of a new gi with the owner, Kuri couldn't help but gaze longingly at a display of ribbons. They looked foreign, and the strange crenellated fabric was so tempting to touch that she hand to ball her hands into fists to keep herself from fingering the fabric.
Suddenly, she was startled by a voice directly behind her.
"And one of those too."
"Which one?" inquired the shopkeeper pleasantly.
"The light green one, there, near the top."
Kuri whirled around and found herself nose to nose with her smiling ronin. Immediately, he took a step back but he didn't seemed to be effected by her confused stare at all.
"But Soujiro-kun! We don't have money to waste on ribbons!" she protested in a manner that was not particularly convincing.
His eyebrows arched over his indigo eyes, and he said simply, "The ribbon goes with your eyes."
At Soujiro's request, the clerk handed over the ribbon before wrapping the rest of the purchase in brown paper. Soujiro didn't ask before gathering up Kuri's loose hair and deftly tying the ribbon around it. As soon as he was done, she bent and peered into a small mirror on the counter. She was grinning happily when she looked up.
"See? I told you you were good at things like that!"
With a brown paper package under one arm and Kuri attached to the other, Soujiro headed to the river, or rather to a graceful bridge over the river. He left Kuri and the package there while he dashed off to perform one other errand he'd forgotten, he claimed. He was gone before Kuri could protest, so she found she had nothing else to do but stand on the bridge and peer into the serene blue water.
When Soujiro finally returned, she couldn't help but blurt out, "It's all so wonderful!"
Soujiro was confused by her sudden display of exuberance, "Nani? What's wonderful?"
"Everything! Being with you, being in the city, being alive!"
He laid a hand reproachfully on her back as she leaned over the railing to study the blue on blue of the sky and water, "Kuri, everything isn't always wonderful, you know that."
She shook her head and refused to acknowledge it, "But that's the past. I don't care about the past at all," she cast a sidelong glance at him before returning her attention to the water, "I care about the future, and the future is always beautiful."
"Always?"
"Do you know what's going to happen?" she demanded.
He was forced to shake his head.
"Then how do you know it's not beautiful?"
He laughed lightly at her logic, "I guess you're right. The future is always beautiful, no matter what happens."
*
After lunch, Soujiro spent the majority of the evening learning the balance of his new sword. He pointedly ignored the angry glares Yoshida gave him and concentrated on learning the idiosyncrasies of the blade that was not a blade.
Kuri had shed the kimono immediately on returning home and was now wearing her borrowed yukata and happily digging in the dirt in the garden with Hisashi. Their clothing had been completely laundered by the time they had arrive home, and now Kuri's gi and hakama along with Soujiro's damaged gi were hanging over the banister railing on the porch as they dried. Hisashi had counted Soujiro's undershirt as a complete loss, and when they had come back, Soujiro had given him leave to throw it away. Hisashi claimed that the gi could still be salvaged, although the large cut over the right shoulder made Soujiro quite skeptical.
Kuri had pried into the paper package almost immediately when they had arrived back. She had been so horrified by the pale peach color of Soujiro's new gi that she had demanded he take it back and exchange it for a different color immediately. Soujiro had sweatdropped as he had explained that this was the only color gi that they had had and he hadn't thought too much about it when he had bought it. It was just a gi after all. She had protested that the new gi wouldn't match his hakama at all, and that "Soujiro-kun just isn't Soujiro-kun if he's not wearing blue!" Well, there hadn't been anything she could do about it anyway. They didn't have money enough to buy another gi and they couldn't return the new peach one. Kuri had been quite in a tilly until Hisashi had distracted her with garden work.
She seemed to be enjoying that to a great degree. She liked playing in the dirt, Soujiro realized, and she was good at gardening. He reflected that this was likely due to the fact that she'd been raised on a farm. She'd also grown quite close to Hisashi in the time that they had stayed. She seemed quite at ease prattling along with him about turnips or yelling at Yoshida for a snide comment. She seemed at home. Of course, Soujiro noted this all absently, as he counted kata in the backyard.
As evening drew to a close and the fireflies came out, Kuri secreted herself away in her room, claiming that she wanted to go to bed early so she'd have a good night's rest. Soujiro continued to practice a long while in the moonlight, reflecting over the events of the previous day and of the previous months. His shoulder had gotten a good deal better, and it no longer bothered him even when he taxed it, although he noted that his sword arm still moved slower and would likely continue to move slow until the wound had completely healed.
Sometime shortly after midnight, soft gray storm clouds rolled in and Soujiro was gently washed by a soft pattering rain. He sheathed both his swords and stood in the rain for a while, simply thinking, then he crept silently into the house. His things were in a neat bundle where he'd left them, and he swiftly shed the wet borrowed gi for the dry peach colored gi. He folded the borrowed gi neatly and left it in front of Hisashi's door, then he stole quietly back to his room to gather the remainder of his belongings. He packed them silently away into a small brown sack and slung it over his shoulder.
Then he found he could go no further. He had wanted to leave without seeing her again and keep the image of her leaning over the railing discussing the nature of the past and future with him as his eternal picture, but he found he couldn't. He had to see her one last time.
He crept up to her door quietly and he only peeped in when he had assured himself of her slow, regular breathing. She was all bundled up under a blanket and her left foot was sticking out from under the covers. The moonlight bathed her and made her seem silver and ethereal, as if she were already a memory. She stirred slightly and snuggled closer to something she held tight in her arms and as Soujiro studied it closer, he realized it was his gi. The moonlight was bright and Soujrio could pick out all the details of his gi, even the line of crooked stitches on the right shoulder. Her fingertips were covered with little pinpricks and Soujiro could see the ball of floss she'd used to mend it with near her foot. Her last act of care for him touched him so much that he wanted to gently take the gi from her arms and put it on. That way she'd at least know that a piece of her went with him, but he knew that if he ventured into the room that she would surely wake up and then he couldn't leave. And he had to leave. He had to leave.
So he didn't creep close to her and he didn't retrieve his gi which she had so carefully stitched.
He simply whispered "Sayonara, I know your future will be beautiful,"
And as his words melted into the soft splashings of the rain on the window covering, Soujiro turned and walked away.