(Disclaimers: Nobuhiro Watsuki is the man, see Chapter 1 disclaimer for details)
4/15/02
5/12/02 – revised
Chapter 2
Wisteria Moon Rising: Saitou Makes His Choice
Kyoto, Nabetake Tearoom
Dinner was over and Toshizou Hijikata and Kojuurou Takagi were deeply engaged in conversation. Hajime and Tokio's tables and zabuton had been prearranged to be closer so they could talk and get to know one another.
So far Hajime knew that she could sew, cook, read, write, play the shamisen, and was a competent bookkeeper all without her saying a word. These praises were delivered, much like bargaining points, by her father before Toshizou managed to get him in a conversation about security and the transport of goods from one region to another.
He drank the sake in his cup and set it down. Immediately she saw to it that his cup was refilled. She was slender but not overly so. The cotton kimono she wore tonight was just as deceptively simple as the one she had worn that afternoon; a seascape, straightforward in design and yet intricate in execution. Her beautiful hair was heavy silk, piled skillfully atop her head and secured with two artistic dragonfly kanzashi.
Her kimono was secured high on her neck so that between her collar and her hair not an inch could be seen from behind; oh so proper. The class-climbing father may be angling for a samurai but the girl wasn't lowering herself to play the bait. He admired that. He was attracted to her, that much he'd admit to himself at least.
Her gaze always down, he had yet to see her eyes. All he saw were thick lashes occasionally resting against her pearl smooth cheek. He didn't think she was beautiful, not in the classical "heavenly maiden" sense, but she had something. What it was he had no idea, and if he didn't find a way to engage her in some meaningful dialogue he would never know. "Come on Hajime think," he demanded of himself, "You can find proof of corruption on some of the most powerful men in the region. You should be able to get one sheltered young woman to talk about herself, if you don't Hijikata is going to be peddling you around like a crazed zegen."
On that cheerful thought Hajime emptied his sake cup, the girl immediately refilled it. He emptied it again, and again she moved to refill it, but this time he raised it up slightly. She moved the sake bottle up higher to compensate. He moved his cup up just slightly higher. Now the bottle would be at an impossible angle to pour and not spill some. She couldn't help but look at him and try to judge what was going on.
"Well, now that wasn't so hard was it," he said.
"Captain?" She was at a loss. "Did you want any more sake?"
"Please, call me Hajime, and no sake… not just now, thank you," his lips curled up ever so slightly at the corners. "What I would like," he paused putting his hand on hers and setting down the sake bottle resolutely, "is for us to talk. Do you think you could do that while looking at me?"
She took a deep breath, like someone preparing themselves for a battle-charge. "Yes. What would you like to talk about?"
"For starters how old are you?" he asked.
"Nineteen," she replied, as if reciting in a classroom.
"You do know that all this," he gestured around him, "is about a marital arrangement."
"Yes, I'm aware," her eyes cast down again, almost painfully embarrassed.
"You said you could have this conversation while looking at me," he reminded her. He picked up the sake bottle and poured her a cup. "Drink it."
She did as she was told, drinking it perhaps a bit too fast. She didn't drink sake at home very much, preferring green tea. He refilled her cup again and raised a hand, indicating that this too should be consumed immediately.
"Why are you thinking of marriage now instead of waiting until you are older. Don't you think a few more years would allow you time to find out what kind of husband you want?"
She bowed her head again but brought it right back up before he could say anything. How did she explain this? "My father is… that is, my father wishes for me to make an advantageous arrangement. His will must be mine."
"So you don't want to get married right now," said Hajime.
"That is not exactly true either… Hajime," she said softly.
"Can you honestly say that you are interested in marrying me?" He stared straight at her. It wouldn't' be an easy life for her. He wasn't wealthy and his calling was demanding.
She looked at him for some time. Eyes light amber, an uncompromising face, she knew that she must speak no falsehoods with this man.
"By all accounts you are an honorable man, held in high esteem. I have no objections to a union between us."
"Are you that eager to wed a samurai?" It was said quickly and with a touch of cynicism.
She looked like he had slapped her. "That is not the criteria that I would use to judge a man. Not all samurai are honorable," words like steel wrapped in velvet.
"I can't be everywhere."
"Captain?
"Forgive me," he said waving away the comment, "I didn't mean to upset you."
This was said easily and she didn't believe him. She thought, "He meant to shock me, see if he could startle me into saying something that I didn't want to say." She knew she should apologize for making such a comment but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Would he get angry?
Instead he said, "Do you have any questions you'd like to ask? I mean wouldn't it be better to find out now that I've been married three times before?"
"But…Commander Hijikata said…were you?" she stuttered, completely forgetting about him getting angry, or anything else, at the thought that he may have had three wives.
She looked slightly flustered, her absolute composure making the slight deviation all that more entertaining, and for some reason he thought she looked quite sweet. Not a word usually in his vocabulary. He had an irresistible urge to run his thumb over her full bottom lip. Hmmm… maybe Toshizou had a point earlier.
Concentrating a bit more on the conversation and less on her lips, he smiled, "No, but isn't here something you would like to know?" He filled up her sake cup again.
The girl was silent for a moment and he had the feeling that there was a question of some import that she wanted to ask. She started to say something but stopped, and then she said, "I know why my father wishes me to wed you, and I know why the Daimyo wishes me to wed you, but why would you wish to wed someone of the Sho? Does this not demean your status?" She didn't think she could be in a marriage where her husband was ashamed of her.
"If it does then it's in the eyes of people I don't care to impress. My concern has more to do with a woman's personal integrity. In all honesty I wouldn't have gone outside the Shi-no-ko-sho, not out of any conviction of my own other than following the tenets of the samurai, but this joining is my Daimyo's wish and so long as his choice is a woman who can maintain her honor and protect mine then I am satisfied." He saw that she understood him completely, and some short-lived relief played over her features, but then he could tell that she was thinking of something else, her original question perhaps.
She quickly emptied her sake cup again. That raised a brow.
Almost too softly, and most certainly soft enough that her words reached no one else's ears but his own, she asked, "Have you… have you killed many people? You don't have to answer that if you don't want to," she hurried on, "I just wondered…because, well, I've heard that you are a very fierce fighter," she finished in a very small voice.
Hajime was taken aback that the question had come up so soon in their acquaintance. The question had to surface sooner or later, and this was definitely sooner. "Yes, quite a few," he said honestly. "I'm somewhat young to be a squad captain, but I find that I have a certain natural skill for being efficient." Would she understand that?
She was looking straight at him now and for some reason he almost wished she weren't. There was nothing like pure innocence to tear into a more jaded soul. It was as if she was searching for an answer to a question he didn't know, or didn't want asked. He did what he did and he was good at it. He liked that he was good at it. He didn't like killing, and he didn't mind it either. It was a means to an end, and yet if he was particularly honest with himself he would have to say that, yes, he reveled in dispatching lesser men who challenged him to do his job, that of keeping the peace.
Some women were amused by taking a killer into their beds. It gave them a feeling of titillation or a sense of power by association.
It sickened him.
That was definitely not the case here. He felt that it took everything she had to ask that question and she wanted the answer, the real answer, and did the real question have anything to do with the bruises on her wrists? The ones he had seen when she had raise the sake bottle up to his cup.
"It must be very difficult," she said with shy sympathy in her voice, "I don't know how you do it."
He felt exposed, and raw. "You draw a line in the sand and you don't cross it, ever."
His last word was so…so final. "How do you do that?" She was constantly second guessing herself in everyday matters. The enormity of what they were discussing was almost outside her ability to comprehend it. What would it be like to be so sure of yourself that you could kill a man, many men, and feel justified?
Hajime said, "Somewhere in the storm that is a man's life he must decide what he is going to cling to. If it is something that is simple, solid, and well secured then he has a chance to keep his head above water. If he chooses to cling to something that shifts and moves beneath him then he most assuredly will go under and be lost."
His words were directed at her but it was almost as if he was reliving some previous revelatory moment in his life. He looked back to her then, not just at her. "For me," he said matter-of-factly, "it was the Shinsengumi motto, AKU SOKU ZAN."
"But how do you know for sure what is evil?"
"It's either black or it's white. Even a young child knows the difference between right and wrong."
"Not always. They don't always have the experience to…to tell if something is good or bad? What about the grey areas in-between black and white?"
"There are no grey areas," his voice was deep and resigned, "just someone else's definition of black and white."
What must it be like, she thought, to be so utterly unconditional in your convictions? Unconditional? More like unrelenting. "And women? Women too?"
"Women can be very intelligent creatures, and with intelligence comes the ability to plot and conspire. If they are honorable then they have nothing to fear from me. If they are not then I offer them the same chance of redemption in their next life as I do men."
Her mind was numb. What could she have been thinking of! This would be like going from the cooking pot into the flames. She couldn't do this, she just couldn't. Where did all the air in the room go? Why was he kissing her hand?
Hajime had kept his side to the others in the room and no one had seen the kiss. Her skin smelled faintly of citrus, yuzu. He was still holding her hand. "I apologize," he said, not looking the least apologetic, "but if you decide to see more of me you'll quickly find that I'm results driven, and at least now you don't look like you're about to faint." He was smiling slightly, but she thought she saw some concern in his face. "Imagine what my commander would think of that. I'd never hear the end of it."
She smiled weakly, "I'm…I'm fine."
"You're afraid of me," he said evenly.
"Yes – no, I don't know"
"Tokio, perhaps it was unwise of me to answer your question so candidly."
"No," she said in a forceful whisper. "I don't know how I feel about your… beliefs, but I know that I needed to hear it, now and not later."
Hajime looked at her face; her eyes were guileless and beautiful. "I don't know if everyone else sees this union as a foregone conclusion and we are merely playing out our roles, but I want you to know two things," and he raised her hand in his a bit and allowed her sleeve to fall back. She tried to withdraw her hand from his but his grip was too sure; not tight, but utterly immovable.
Turning her hand palm up in his larger one, he let just two fingers from his other hand trail ever so lightly across the inside of her wrist. She shivered. She imagined that they both could hear her pulse thump as he kept up this steady sweet torture.
He let them trail outside the purple and yellow marks there. It was as if he were committing a map to memory. "The first thing I want you to know is that I would never hurt you, not like this."
Then he paused for a moment concentrating as if the next words out of his mouth were vital for her to understand, "The second is that while I do have a strict personal code, I fight with the darkest elements of Kyoto. It's never yet been a matter of being anywhere close to the division between black and white. I admit that sometimes we've been repelling garbage for so long we forget there was ever a sweeter smelling place. Even members of the Shinsengumi can forget their obligations and priorities. That can't be allowed to happen. The chaos would disrupt the lives of innocent people.
"I want you to give this some careful thought, and if you know that this is something you can't live with then there is no sense in letting this go on. Send word to me directly at the Shinsengumi headquarters in Mibu and I'll stop any further discussions and accept any responsibilities for the failure."
He meant that he would take the anger of Matsudaira, and probably his Shinsengumi commanders, upon himself alone. "I couldn't let you do that," this came out somewhat breathless, as he had not stopped his seductive assault on her sensitive wrist.
"Give it some consideration. The Hanami festival is next week. If you haven't decided against the idea of my courting you by then, I'll escort you." He gently laid her hand down upon her lap and drew her sleeve down in place. She wondered briefly if he would be intimate with that level of attention to detail and felt overly warm at her thoughts.
At that moment Toshizou and Kojuurou seemed to have exhausted their conversational topic and Kojuurou indicated to his daughter that they should prepare to go. The prospective couple had been heads down in conversation for some time and the merchant was looking quite pleased with himself, but it wouldn't do to have the samurai grow tired of the girl.
After father and daughter had taken their leave of the other two, Toshizou turned to Hajime and poured him a cup of sake. "Well, that was mind-numbing. I now know more about getting fine trade goods to market than any warrior has the right to know."
Hajime gave him a smirk, "No more than you deserve, you meddling matchmaker."
"And what I really want to know," continued Toshizou, as if he hadn't heard that impertinent remark, "is what you found to talk about for so long. One moment I was thinking you were just going to stare at her all night and the next moment you two are in the middle of a discourse so ardent that if Takagi and I had left the room you wouldn't have noticed."
"I hope you don't expect me to satisfy your voyeuristic curiosity?" Hajime elegantly slouched against a padded armrest and drank his sake.
"Unless you want to hear in detail how many porters it takes to get raw silk from Aizu to Edo you better start talking."
Hajime raised an eyebrow, "Fine. We simply traded a few questions back and forth, and then spoke of what my work is like and whether she would be able to accept such a life with me."
Toshizou got a bit more serious, as he often did when anything touched the Shinsengumi, "And what did she have to say?"
"Nothing yet. I told her to think about it until the Hanami festival. If she finds by that time that the idea of my courtship doesn't repel her then I'll let you go ahead with the marriage arrangements."
"So you find her acceptable. That means I've lost a wager to Matsudaira. He anticipated this, while I thought for sure you would have gone for the Okakami tigress over Takagi's mouse. He is an excellent judge of men, our Daimyo."
"I agree, but I think you misjudge the girl. Her life at home has not been easy, even less because she is so resolute. She is more like a wisteria vine. Delicate, and shapely," he added with a smile before turning serious again, "but needing a strong support to thrive. What is interesting about the wisteria vine is that in its unremitting climb it will torque a weaker structure. Only the stoutest supports of wood or stone can be used for supporting wisteria, but the effect is worth it. I would say that once Tokio has made up her mind about something then nothing will stop her. It may be slow, it may be quiet, but it will be sure."
"Oh, ho, then maybe it's a certain Shinsengumi captain that should beware," said Toshizou with humor but also a tad sincere. "Perhaps I did misjudge her. Women like that can burrow into the heart of a man and they can't be put aside easily. On the other hand, you have a job to do."
"I'll be her support, and in turn she'll follow my lead, but I'll do it without using force, unlike her father, the ahou." The marks on her wrist were burned into his mind, and there would be a reckoning. He would see to it.
"How could you possibly know what her father is like?" Toshizou looked mildly confused. "You've just met the man."
"You pay me to know things. Do you remember the conversation we had in the garden? Yes? Well, at the time I thought that Takagi was upset with his daughter, and it looks like I was correct. My guess would be that she displeased him by not doing more to attract my interest. His displeasure exacted a physical reprimand." Hajime's slender eyes narrowed even more.
"This isn't good," thought Toshizou, "Ahem, Hajime, I admire your wish to protect the girl, but the Daimyo has plans for Takagi."
"So do I," Saitou's voice was menacing.
"Yes, well, unfortunately Matsudaira's plans call for him being alive. So you will have to defer your vengeance."
"He can keep his head. I'll just remove some superfluous item… like an ear."
Toshizou and Hajime proceeded to have a lengthy discussion, over several bottles of sake, on the merits and problems associated with dismembering your future father-in-law.
After the Nabetake owner had politely evicted them so he could close up his shop, an inebriated Hajime and Toshizou walked back to their rooms while Hajime waxed poetic on the pleasing features of Tokio until Toshizou almost couldn't walk because he was laughing so hard. He supposed it could be worse; Hajime could be singing, and with that thought he was off into fresh peals of laughter until his sides ached. He fervently hoped Hajime remembered some of this the next day. Hell, he hoped he remembered some of it the next day.
***
Author's Notes:
First, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed my first chapter. What a rush!
I hope you like this one. I like reading Saitou stories too, and who can resist the many incarnations of Tokio. I love it.
Second, I would like to take a moment to express my deep appreciation for all the wonderful information on Saitou and the Shinsengumi that is on the Web. It has definitely been a boon to my research.
You'll note that at this point in time I still have Saitou willing to imbibe in sake. I'm an amateur Vodka connoisseur myself (that would be a shaken Vox martini, two olives, thank you ever so much, and if you get Vermouth anywhere near the building I'll be forced to practice my budding Gatotsu move on you), so I've been trying to educate myself on Sake. If anyone has any suggestions on what is good I would appreciate it. Hey, it's for research. ;-)
