I'm not even going to apologise for my short chapters any more. I'll be unrepentant and hope you don't notice. ^.~
All the characters belong to Toei, not that the company knows what to do with them, as the last episode more than proves. O.o
Can I also plug my new Takari site? It's up at http: //www. kbruce. rcthost.net/ reflections (Just take out the spaces. FF.net eats URLs otherwise.) Visit and be amazed by the pinkness!
Finally, this chapter's for Araki Kae. ::grins:: She'll never read it, of course, but I thought she deserved something for having to do Hikari's boring track on the Original Story CD. Yawn.
Takeru's was a little disappointing too, although his seiyuu did the cutest voices in places, which more than made up for it. And I thought Takeuchi Junko was the only one who could do adorable voices. *.*
THE TALE OF HIKARI
CHAPTER 7
'LETTERS TO THE CAPITAL: MIYAKO E NO TEGAMI'
Tapping the end of her brush on the table, Izumi read through the letter that she had written to Mimi. Her step-son was making the long trip to Miyako, in order to see some friends in the capital and to determine whether or not the Yagami's fortunes had changed. He would be able to deliver it for her, together with the few brief notes that she had written to her family and friends.
Not for the first time, she thought about leaving it unsent, about tearing it up and forgetting about the whole matter. What business was it of hers if Hikari was conducting some sort of relationship with a man in the capital? She remembered the time before her own marriage - the carefully-composed poems exchanged in secret, the night-time trysts with lovers that seemed more dream than reality, the promises made that never could be kept. So, why did the thought of Hikari having an admirer disturb her so greatly?
Frowning, she pulled another sheet of paper towards her. It was a painting that she had found in Hikari's box. Her step-daughter had so many of them that she doubted she would miss one of them. It was a sketch of part of a garden - a lane of maples softened by the morning-glory that grew wild all over them. As a painting of a landscape, it was remarkable, but that was not what had drawn her to it. It was the fact that she had walked down that lane of maples, smelt the faint fragrance of morning-glory around her, every morning. It was a part of the Yagami estate in the provinces. How would a man in the capital have been able to reproduce it so perfectly?
Then, there was the mystery of the signature in the corner: Takeru. The strokes of his writing were clumsy compared to the graceful manner in which the painting had been executed. It reminded her of the writing of a young child, not yet familiar with the characters and having to think about how to paint each one. She would have believed him a young boy, had it not been for the skill and assurance of the drawing itself.
Was he a peasant, who had somehow learnt to draw and write? The thought, which she had earlier dismissed as ridiculous, came back into her mind. She knew that upper-class men sometimes consorted with peasant women in the provinces. There were even rumours of children born from their unions, although those were hurriedly hushed up and the baby itself was never acknowledged by its father. However, she had never heard of a woman lowering herself enough to be with a coarse peasant. She found it hard to believe that Hikari would.
At the same time, she was aware that she did not know her step-daughter as well as she should. It was not that Hikari was unfriendly or standoffish when it came to her. That fault was her own, if anyone's. In the first few months, she had wanted no-one to guess her misery, and solitude had too easily become a habit. At the same time, Izumi always had the sense that Hikari kept some part of herself hidden, like a rare pearl at the depth of the ocean.
"There's only one way to be sure," she told herself, "I don't believe Hikari would, but . . . but anything is possible in the provinces."
Pushing her misgivings away from her, she folded the picture and the letter together, and tied a strip of colourful silk around the bundle. It would be within Miyako within a matter of days, and she would be one step closer to solving the puzzle.
Putting one hand to her aching back to ease it, Sora glanced across to where Takeru was working beside her. He bent and rose between the tall, green rows of plants, harvesting the rice in a regular rhythm. In the bright sunlight, his hair and skin were golden, and his undyed robes shone white. He was humming a song beneath his breath, his voice surprisingly sweet. She had always thought of Yamato as the only singer of the family. (1)
She remembered sitting with him on the rare evenings when they finished their work early. The moon had been full and white in a starless sky, and the spreading trees cast mysterious, rippling shadows around them. While she had rested her head on his shoulder, he had sung old tunes to her and his rich, smooth voice had made them new all over again. A little way off, Takeru had sat with paper spread out in front of him and drawn the night.
The thought of her dead husband still brought tears to her eyes, although his soul had flown to Amida's paradise many months ago. She wondered what he would say if he could see her now, alone apart from the unwanted child that she carried. Knowing Yamato, he would not have said anything, simply put his arms around her and allowed her to cry. Sora knew that she could not afford to be weak, but there still were times when she wished for a pair of strong arms around her to help her carry her burden.
As she watched Takeru work, she wondered how her life might have been different if she had accepted his proposal of marriage. He had come to her a week after Yamato's death. His blue eyes had been almost black; his robes had been creased; his hair had been a sunlight-tangle down his back. In a voice that had sounded nothing like his own, he had asked her to be his wife. Even knowing it meant going against Yamato's last wishes for her, she had refused him. She had refused him, and she was suffering the consequences of her actions now.
She grimaced as she felt the child kick inside her.
"Is everything okay, Sora-san?" her brother-in-law asked in concern, rising to look at her, "Should I . . .?"
"Everything's as it should be, Takeru," she replied, the words only half in reply to his question. He nodded and bent back to his work.
If she had the last year to live over again, she knew she would not choose any differently. It was not because she could conceive marrying another man - she would remain single until the day she died - but because Takeru deserved better than a life spent trying to be his brother to her. He deserved the same happiness that she had found with Yamato; the same knowledge of a bond of karma that held firm through all lives and worlds.
She knew Takeru understood that as well on some level. Although some of the women in the village consoled themselves with the thought that he was waiting for her to relent and accept him, his unwedded state had nothing to do with her. It was because he was never prepared to compromise. He set his eyes on the farthest star in the heavens and could not accept that it was forever out his reach.
She had seen the way he had been looking at Lord Yagami's daughter at the poetry contest: he had the same expression on his face that she had seen on Yamato's every morning when he had leant across the bed to kiss her. All that had allayed her fears was the knowledge that Yagami Hikari was forever beyond his reach. Yet that particular star had somehow fallen to earth, and would burn him with its fiery brilliance. She could not let that happen.
"Takeru."
"Un?" he asked, lifting his head to look at her.
Subtlety would serve no purpose, "Were you with Lady Yagami this morning?"
Hot colour rose to his cheeks, and she knew she had not missed her guess. She did not wait for confirmation from him before continuing, "Takeru, if they discover you've been with her, I don't even want to think what they'll do to you."
He ran a hand through his hair, brushing it clear of his face, "It's not like that, Sora-san. Hikari and I . . . . We aren't . . . aren't doing anything like that."
"Hikari! You call her Hikari? Takeru, even if you haven't done anything yet, you're treading on dangerous ground!"
"Sora-san, we aren't doing anything wrong! She's just teaching me how to read and write, and I'm helping her with her painting!"
Looking at him, Sora wondered whether she had ever been that naive. She doubted it. Takeru simply saw the world differently from the rest of them. Even as he had grown into a man, he had managed to retain the innocence and simplicity of childhood. It enabled him to look at Yagami Hikari and see her as a woman like any other, while the rest of them only saw the daughter of their lord.
"Which is why you lied to me this morning. Which is why Lady Yagami is probably lying to her family as well," she heard her voice getting louder, and quickly dropped it before anyone could overhear them, "Takeru, even you must realise that this affair cannot end well."
"It's not an affair," she could see that he was beginning to lose his temper with her. His hands were curled into fists at his side, and his mouth was set in a stubborn line, "Sora-san, in what world would I ever have a chance with a woman like Yagami Hikari?" (2)
"But you wish you had one," she said quietly, "Takeru, do you love her?"
He looked away from her, "I need get back to work."
As he bent back to the rows of rice, she felt a little shiver of fear pass down her spine, as if she could see the path he was to walk and knew it as hard beyond imagining.
"I'm riding to Miyako now," Taichi said without ceremony as he came into his father's study. The older man was sitting behind a low table, working on what looked to be a set of administrative reports. He could see column after column of figures painstakingly calculated and written out in his neatest handwriting. He couldn't understand how his father could stand a life in the provinces, counting grains of rice and barley and supervising the work of dull peasants. It was little better than being a farmer himself!
He would be glad when their family fortunes were restored and they could take their rightful place at the imperial court again. He looked forward to evenings of sipping osake beneath the stars, to games of shogi and go, to having better company in his bed by nights. For now, this visit to the capital might be the only means of preserving his sanity, which had been worn thin by his years in the provinces, "Izumi and Hikari have given me their letters, so I'm here for yours. I'll go see if mother has anything she wants me to take next."
Lifting his head from his work, Lord Yagami motioned for his son to come closer and extracted a sealed sheet of paper from the piles on the table. He handed it to him, "It is critical that this is delivered to Lord Motomiya, Taichi. The future of our family may depend on it."
Raising an eyebrow in surprise, "Lord Motomiya? Do you mean what I think you mean?"
"Yes," he replied, "I'm relying on you, Taichi."
"I understand."
DOOOOOOOOM! TO BE CONTINUED!
(1) Which he is. No-one in the Digimon cast tops Kazama Yuuto when it comes to singing, other than AiM and perhaps Konishi Hiroko. I was so excited to finally find a copy of Negai Kanaeru Kagi (The Key to Granting Wishes). I want to get his new tracks, although I'm ashamed to say I've not see a single episode of Dr Rin.
(2) All together now . . . the Digital World! ^.~
