title: Picture Bride | Part 2
rating: pg-13
author: Mir
email: mir@despammed.com
website:
disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin was created by Watsuki
Nobuhiro, published by Shueisha in "Jump," and
produced by Sony Entertainment. All rights are theirs.
AN: Ah, so here I am, back again with a second part. I actually went to the library the other day and pulled a couple books on the Japanese migration to California at the turn of the century. There's a lot of good information out there, and it quite interesting in fact. Now all I need to do is to settle down on a good plot and write! I'm trying to weave the RK characters in and keep them as IC as possible… Oh, and in case you have any fears, the main pairing in this piece will be K&K. As much as I know some people like the alt. E&K pairing, it just feels really awkward in my mind, and I wouldn't even begin to know where to begin if I tried to write it. So, onward…
--------------------------------------------------
*part 2*
--------------------------------------------------
When the ship finally sailed into San Francisco Bay, the air was heavy with early morning fog, and the gray clouds above seemed to press down upon the deck, muffling movement and silencing conversation. Kaoru stood in line beside the other women she had met during the long voyage, but their time together was already blurring in her mind, and each face was just a smear of black and white against the foreign seacoast. She'd put on her best kimono, slipped her feet into the clean pair of tabi she'd saved for especially this day, and brushed her hair until it fell through her fingers like black water. But when they began herding the third class passengers off to the fenced enclosure like cattle, she understood that all her efforts would be pointless. Willing away the tears of frustration and humiliation that threatened, she stolidly put one foot before the other, knowing that each step would bring her that much closer to her father and whatever else that awaited her. There was, of course, no turning back now.
And at last, two days later, when the men with cool, clammy hands and pale, stony faces were certain she wasn't host to disease or parasites, when she was finally free to leave and enter the New World, the golden land of opportunity, she stood by herself alone on the dock, enveloped by fog, nervously waiting. Noises resounded from every direction – people talking, dogs barking, carriages creaking past along roads half-pavement, half-mud. Then with a start, she turned sharply at the sputtering motor behind her and jumped as a dockworker slammed an armful of grimy crates on the dock beside her.
"Sorry Miss, gotta watch where you're standing," he murmured with look in his eyes that made her shiver though she hadn't understood a single word he said. "You sure are a pretty one aren't you? Fresh off the boat I imagine… wearing that… thing and all." He squared off in front of her, and she noticed the sweat and oil smeared careless across his cheek and the large, rough fingers he thrust casually through his oversized belt loops. His mouth curled into an odd sort of half-smile, and her heart began to pound heavily in her chest as she fought the impulse to run. 'I'm supposed to wait here for Father. There's nowhere else I can go… Please Tou-san, come quickly!'
He strode closer, eyes narrowing and lips parting. "You're all alone here, aren't you, right? And you don't have a clue what I'm saying, do you?" Kaoru quickly averted her eyes, determined to ignore him. 'If only I had my bokken and weren't wearing a kimono. I'd show the big brute what happens when he looks at women like that.' There are, of course, certain desires in life that need no words to convey. She stared at the ground as he reached out roughly to grab her arm, and she clenched her teeth in preparation for his sour breath against her face – but it never came, and when she dared to look up again, it was violet eyes that met hers, not brown.
"You shouldn't let them do that," the newcomer advised softly in Japanese as he wiped his hands down the legs of his pants, as if to remove the lingering remnants of the dockworker sent swiftly on his way. "They'll take advantage of you at the drop of a hat."
"And how do I know you won't do the same?" She had been caught by surprise by the man's (albeit slightly accented) Japanese, as his bright red hair screamed 'gaijin' as clear as daylight, but she wasn't about to trust him unconditionally just because he'd rescued her from one potentially dangerous situation. One had to keep in mind that there was no reason for his motives to be purely altruistic. 'Wouldn't that be just my luck – delivered from one barbarian into the hands of another.'
He merely shrugged in response, rocking back on his heels as his shoulders rose and fell beneath his shirt. It was an odd color, probably brick red at some point in history but faded into a sickly magenta underneath the unforgiving sun and rain. And even Kaoru, certainly not the most trendy of young ladies, mentally cringed at the glaring fashion faux pas. 'No one trying to pick up girls would wear something that hideous.'
But before Kaoru had time to contemplate the realization, before she could make up her mind whether to thank her rescuer or ask if he was colorblind, she caught sight of a familiar face striding towards her down the dock, and her eyes lit up at Takani Isao's bouncing mop of black hair. She met his eyes and smiled, relieved to see him but wondering why her father hadn't come himself. 'Silly, he'll be busy working long hours no doubt. He'll be earning money and can't take the time off, that's all.'
"Kaoru-san, it's good to see you. Welcome to America… I'm glad you were able to make it through customs in one piece. You'd think we were savages without official visas the way they treat us sometimes…." The spidery wrinkles around his eyes had deepened since she'd last seen him, but they still crinkled in that warm, gentle way when he smiled. If she failed to notice the dark smudges of fatigue beneath his eyes or the slight shaking of his hands before he shoved them self-consciously into his pockets, it was because she had other things on her mind.
"It's wonderful to see you again as well…" She forced herself to smile in response, forced the corners of her mouth to rise as she tried to sound honestly pleased with the reunion – not that she wasn't, but it was just that… "…and a relief to be on solid ground again." At least the second assertion was entirely true – she'd taken no pleasure in some of the other women's moaning and complaining about the quality of the food and their inability to keep it down. Why did they feel compelled to force their weak constitution on the rest of the ship? "Is Father…"
The hesitation as Takani wordlessly opened his mouth set off warning bells in her mind, and when his gaze slid from hers to some far-off sight behind her, she couldn't stop herself from falling across the distance between them to tug intently at his sleeves. "Please say that he's okay. Tell me that he's anxious to see me and that he misses Yoshiro and Grandpa too. He's been too busy working lately to write, hasn't he? He's always been so dedicated to whatever he does…"
But the other's arms slipped around Kaoru's waist, pulling her gently against his chest, and as he leaned down until his mouth was beside her ear, the myriad of sounds resounding from the dock were drowned out by the frantic racing of her heart. "I'm sorry and ashamed Kaoru-san… that I cannot say otherwise. You Father—" Even in public he couldn't help the constricting of his throat and the single tear that slid down the side of his nose and into the black hair beneath his chin. "—sickness swept through our section of the city three weeks ago. We lost so many…"
Swallowing hard, he pressed an envelope into Kaoru's hands, and she stared mutely at the pristine white paper that contrasted so sharply with all the dirt and grime around her. Flowing down the right side was her name penned gracefully in a hand she didn't recognize. She traced each stroke over and over with her eyes, enveloping herself within the familiarity and denying vehemently that what she'd heard was true. It couldn't be – not after she'd come all this way, and…
"He dictated it to my niece when he knew…" Takani muttered awkwardly into the pregnant silence. "…her name's Megumi, and she's determined to be a doctor some day… 'though everyone tells her that it's impossible. You'd like her, I know…"
And Kaoru knew, although she didn't say a word, that she wouldn't. How could she forgive someone who had been able to be by her father's side in the hour that he had needed her the most? How could she look at this woman without thinking of Tou-san sick and dying in a foreign country thousands of miles from his family and his homeland? How could she ever… 'But that's silly. After all, it's not her fault, and I suppose I should be thankful that someone was there.' And yet, there are things that only the hand of time can ease.
"Thank you." It was an automatic response that came from some part of her that wasn't reeling in shock, some part of her that was still functioning at an instinctive level. But if her response lacked the depth of sincerity, he didn't seem to notice or mind.
"Come then. I'll take you back to my place, and we'll get you cleaned up…" The casualness in his tone was forced, but Kaoru had no desire to stand exposed on the street, and she mutely followed him as he led her by the hand through the crowds away from the water. She could feel the eyes that followed her as she walked, and it then that she finally realized how far she'd actually come and how truly different the world was around her.
"We'll get you some Western clothes. I'm sure there's something around that'll fit you…" Her once spotless tabi were already coated in dust and dirt kicked up from the road. But it wasn't as if she could even pretend to care anymore.
- - - - - - - - - -
"There now, doesn't that just make a world of difference? It takes so long to heat up enough water for a bath, but I swear it's worth every minute and every cent." Tae, young, short-haired, and good-natured, stood on the far side of screen sectioning off part of the small space that served both as washroom and kitchen. She'd received Kaoru with open arms and a knowing nod. 'When I first arrived, it was absolute torture – all the wrong clothes, no idea what anyone was saying, no idea whether my husband would be a decent guy or not.' She talked constantly as Kaoru soaked up to her chin in the large wooden tub , and when she closed her eyes, Kaoru could almost imagine that she was still back safe at home relaxing one warm afternoon.
"Kaoru, I know Enishi…" The comment caught her by surprise, and as she didn't want to think about any of that at the moment, she found herself listening with morbid curiosity. "…He's very…" Tae waved her hands in the air before her, floundering for the right words. "… very dedicated, a little intense. He's tall –right up there with Americans – and his hair's the most striking feature. It's so white, almost like snow in fact." She had been pacing slowly back and forth across the creaking floor, but she stopped directly in front of the screen, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Everyone has a story, you know. There's no one who goes through life without creating some sort of interesting history, but Enishi's is particularly… different."
And Kaoru, because it seemed as though she was going to hear all about the man she was supposed to marry whether she liked it or not, settled in for the long haul.
"He came to America with his parents when he was young, no more than five or six. There were four of them: Father, Mother, Enishi, and his older sister, Tomoe. His Father had money, enough of it in fact to start his own business here in California, a laundry or something of that sort, I think. They raised their children to be as properly Japanese as possible in this setting, and the daughter, in fact, grew up to be a perfectly gorgeous young lady – if somewhat quiet and withdrawn. Enishi absolutely doted on her and would follow her around the city whenever she went out, always sneaking out after her when he though she wouldn't notice. Her parents engaged her to a young man name Akira, but he was tragically killed in an accident involving the crossfire of a streetfight a month or so before the wedding. It wasn't too long afterwards that Tomoe, to her family's shame and immense displeasure, chose to elope with a young man born in the states to a Japanese mother and an American father. He had red hair like fire and odd, haunted eyes that seemed to take everything in and let nothing out in return." She paused, swallowed, and then admitted with a hint of guilt. "Of course, this is all just what I've been told…"
"Once Tomoe left, no one heard anything from her for almost a year, and Enishi, never the most jovial of adolescents, became increasingly sullen and ill-tempered until one day he, too, abandoned the house – vowing to find his sister and bring her back to his side, her proper place where she belonged, he insisted… He returned several months later in the dead of winter with her ashes and his hair as white as the fog that wrapped itself around him. No one's ever been able to find out exactly what happened while he was away… but perhaps he'll tell you certain things he won't share with others."
"But… I thought he was going to be a —" Kaoru replied, thinking out loud as she tried to make sense of the massive influx of information that was trying to force its way into her head.
"—and he is. He studies more than anyone else I know. From the first light in the morning to the last light in the evening and sometimes by candlelight after dusk he's working either at the books or earning some money doing the odd job here or there." Tae stopped, laughing to herself as she realized what she'd been saying. "But that's probably not what you want to hear, right? Every girl wants a husband for who she'll be the center of the universe, the light in the morning, and the moon at night — but trust me, in this country you'll be lucky if your husband's home at night for dinner and probably even luckier if he's not." She shook her head, forgetting that the screen blocked the movement from view. "I'll be honest, Kaoru. America changes men… and sometimes not for the better. They're never the same once they come and live and realize that their dreams will never be realized and that they'll never be able to return to Japan with their pride intact."
She turned away and began drying dishes, as though keeping her hands busy would help distance her from the words that still flowed from her mouth. "They come with their head full of Confucian scholarship and the memory of their country's long history and are told by white men to wash windows and clean toilets. They learn they've lost as soon as their bosses set eyes upon their Asian faces, and they understand that their dreams and ambitions mean nothing in the glaring face of reality."
Then, almost as if ashamed of her long-winded tirade about America, she smiled, and with a lighter tone continued. "That's where Enishi's different. He wants to break the cycle where the white man always wins. He's got a mission, Kaoru… Are you okay with that?"
And as she sat in the now lukewarm water and stared at her wrinkled fingertips, words flew through her head like wild birds fleeing from the hunter's riffle. She felt her chest expand and contract with every breath, and when at last she found her voice, it hardly sounded like her own. "I'll have to try my best. In any situation, it's the only thing to do."
--------------------------------------------------
*end part 2*
--------------------------------------------------
That's all for now. Glad that you stuck around for part 2 ^_~. Part 3 will probably be a little longer in coming since I had this mostly written when I uploaded the first chapter. Oh, and just as a little teaser, the next chapter will be from Kenshin's POV and will introduce some of the other RK characters that are going to have a part in this story. I'm not exactly sure what the end result is going to look like, but I've planned it out at least to the halfway mark, and for some reason, it's been surprisingly easy to write!
Many thanks to everyone who's read the story and written your comments. Kairan Akiyama, irksome one, Haku Baikou, Mae, Calger459, Fuuko-san, Heki-chan, Koneko, April-san....
- Mir (06.03.03)
