Here's the second chapter…it takes place on the same day as the first chapter (I just realized that I forgot to put a date on the first chapter, I guess I should fix that…). For those of you who wanted to know the name I made up for Hiko means something like secretive beauty of dawn (I'm not sure how accurate that baby name website was though…) I promise the chapters will get longer after this, its just that the first 2 chapters seemed better to me when they were separated (the first chapter is in a different point of view also because its kinda just setting the scene- the rest of the story should be in 3rd person.)
Blaze Coyotlhart- Thanks for the review! I know that Hiko used the name Kakunoshin Niitsu after he became a potter, but since it didn't say that it was his real name I decided to make one up. Mostly though I know I wouldn't want to keep writing that name over and over cause its kinda long (I usually write everything by hand first…). But thanks so much for the information and the review!
Gouki- Thanks! I'm glad you think my story is interesting so far (although I haven't really written too much yet but I have it all planned out) and thanks for the review.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin, it would be cool if I did, but I don't. Please don't sue me….
April 18, 1844: The Night of Fragile Silence
Hisoka Akemi had barely noticed anything on his solitary walk after he left the clinic that night. He had wandered back to his house because subconsciously he couldn't bring himself to just leave without at least taking a change of cloths with him. The sun was already lying very low on the horizon as Soka sat down to eat the few scraps of food he scrounged up which didn't need to be cooked. He ate them in a very robot like fashion, staring straight ahead, eating just because his instincts told him to. The house was so empty without his mother's presence, the silence felt as if it was strangling him. He could barely get any food down his constricting throat.
Daylight was starting to wane as Soka crept around the house fearing that one loud noise would cause the fragile silence to shatter. He neatly folded the two other sets of cloths he owned and placed them in the bag his mother frequently had used when she went shopping. He didn't take anything else, all of his other belongings seemed trivial, but it wasn't like he had much of value anyway. His mother was the most important thing to him and it had always seemed like he didn't need anything else with her around.
He held his breath as he reached out to open the screen to his mother's room. The small room was the only truly separate room in the whole house. It was dimly lit with the last few rays of the setting sun that peaked through the single window. Her light flowery perfume still hung in the air and it wafted around Soka as he walked to the opposite side of the room. He ran his fingers over the simple silk of the kimono his mother had laid out to wear next day. She always did things like that; she always wanted to be prepared. Several tears dripped off his cheeks at that thought and soaked into the delicate silk leaving dark perfectly circular spots in their places. She had laid out her favorite hairpin to wear the next day as well. He hesitated to touch it, but got enough courage to rest his fingers on top of it before closing his hand around it and placing it in his bag with his cloths.
He took a deep breath and turned around to leave as quietly as he had come but his eyes suddenly blurred with tears and he collapsed onto his mother's futon. Her perfume was the strongest there. Sobs rattled his tall yet still childlike frame and he fisted his hands in the blankets.
"Why?" he choked shakily. Memories of the previous night flashed violently in his head. The samurai had no reason to attack his mother. She had done nothing to him and probably had never met the man before.
Soka's mother had always tried to protect him as much as possible from the horrors of the world in which they lived. She knew the dangers of living in the pleasure district, and she knew what the others in the upper classes thought of them, but she didn't dare to let Soka know these things. Many Samurai thought that she and others like her were expendable and wouldn't hesitate to test out a new sword, or work on their killing skills. Not that all Samurai were bad in her mind, but she knew that these kinds of killings happened too often. Liking to be prepared she carried a letter on her person for her son just in case something happened to her. This way he would know to go to his father, she just prayed that the man would have the compassion to take the child in.
'Why didn't I try and protect her? Why couldn't he have killed me too…' His mother's injuries hadn't seemed that bad to him at the time when a passerby had helped him carry her to the clinic, but now he regretted not walking faster. Soka's sobs started to slow down as he started to drift off into a dazed sleep state. He was so mentally and physically exhausted that for the first time in his life he cried himself to sleep.