Yoake Mae no Yami ni
by Mirune Keishiko
Two: No Need for Tears
Megumi leaned the broom against the post and sat down on the porch gratefully. She'd been sweeping the yard for all of an hour--her predilection for neatness and precision had gotten the best of her--and as she sagged wearily against the post, the sight of the now impeccable yard filled her with satisfaction. It was similar to what she felt after a successful, particularly difficult surgery. She smiled at the thought. Only similar.
"Megumi-sensei. You seem tired. Would you like some tea?"
She turned. A twelve-year-old boy stood next to her, bowing respectfully, his small honest face flushed bright red. Tatewaki Akira, supplied Megumi's memory banks helpfully--a student boarding at the dojo. Several years ago Yahiko, Yutarou, and Kaoru had begun accepting poor children as students to help out and study at the dojo free of charge. Akira was the son of a washerwoman, one of Yahiko's neighbors when, before marrying Tsubame, the kenkaku had stayed at Sanosuke's old longhouse.
And within moments of first meeting Megumi, Akira had developed an obvious crush on her.
Megumi smiled at him. He was a nice boy and a good student altogether, though Yutarou complained that since Megumi arrived at the dojo Akira had lost much of his formerly excellent concentration.
"I would appreciate that, Akira, thank you."
Some time later, as Megumi leaned against the post, sipping her tea, admiring the beauty of a well-swept yard, and half listening to Akira practicing his perfect kata very loudly in the courtyard, she felt the afternoon was passing enjoyably enough.
At least I haven't lost all my charms yet, mused Megumi, hiding her smile in her cup. Even if I am thirty-six.
Going on thirty-seven. Her smile turned very slightly rueful.
She had long since dealt with the issue of being thirty and single. Over the past fifteen years, she had worked her way from being just another resident at the Sanada clinic in Aizu to being one of its highest administrators, top consideration for eventually heading the clinic itself once the current owner and director retired. Sanada Hiroshi's family had been friends and colleagues to the Takanis for generations, and unlike the many other doctors whom Megumi had approached, the wise old doctor had been quick to see past her gender to her ability. Megumi had been so dedicated to her work that she had spared little time for personal affairs. And though she had had no shortage of suitors, none of them had managed to spark any true feeling in her heart--not the way Kenshin had, and certainly not the way one other person had...
And so she had spent years ignoring the sympathetic looks and knowing glances of her colleagues' well-intentioned wives, coolly evading the attempts of sundry matchmakers to tear her away from a schedule she determinedly kept hectic. At first it had been sheer pride that made her resent others' interference and speculation. But, eventually, Megumi had come to laugh at the silliness of it all. As nice as it would be to wake up beside someone else every morning, love could be neither orchestrated nor forced. Besides, serving people as a healer was fulfillment enough.
On the rare nights when sheer exhaustion from her work failed to send her to sleep, she'd lain awake contemplating dying alone, and the loneliness had been met with a wry sigh and a smile.
In much the same way she sighed and smiled wryly now, shaking her head slightly at her own train of thought. High overhead, wispy clouds drifted across a clear sky. Outside Kaoru's room, the chime rang out with the breeze. Megumi picked up the cup--firmly shooing away Akira who was offering his assistance--and headed to the kitchen to wash up. After those few minutes of idleness, it was time to go back to work.
In her room she could hear the rhythmic, practiced shouts from Yutarou's students in the training hall; she found the sounds both soothed and energized her as she rummaged among her things for a wide, shallow leatherbound box. She laid it on the writing desk--the only one in the dojo; at her behest, Tae had lent one from the Akabeko--and, for a moment, simply stared at it, fingers drumming on the desktop.
Then, setting her mouth in a grim line, she lifted the lid. The old leather--fifteen years old, to be precise--was cracked and lusterless in spots, and it crackled brittly as the box yawned open, revealing inside several black-bound notebooks and many sheaves of yellowed paper covered in her own and another's writing.
It took all of Megumi's control not to slam the box shut and hide it away among her belongings once again, ignore its existence for another fifteen years, perhaps. Still, her fingers trembled as they tentatively touched the aged papers. They bore notes from three years of concentrated work, results from experiments, quotes from various books and manuals ancient and modern, and recipes for several variations on a drug that could be used to heal and to kill.
She would have burned all of this a long time ago, perhaps, and scattered the ashes gladly, had not her training interfered. This was still knowledge, however painfully earned. And Megumi knew--she had not spent these months at the dojo in idleness--this was knowledge the medical community did not have and dared not obtain by itself.
So she steeled herself with a long, deep breath and a cleansing of the mind, firmly setting aside her emotions, slipping into intellect and expertise as she would slip into a surgical smock. Out of a drawer came a sheaf of clean white paper and a pen. She reached for the notebook on the top of the stack, opened to the first yellowed page, and began to read.
* * *
The images that came to her were rough, jagged, soundless, yet her heart twisted within her with some emotion her senses could only vaguely justify.
Enishi, nerves bulging from his skin, charging with all the sinuous grace and finely harnessed violence of a tiger.
Kenshin meeting him head on, eyes blue-violet with determination. Her own joy bursting from inside her as she realized those beautiful eyes were not and would never again be golden. Him falling into her arms, she staggering under his weight, yet certain she would never let him touch the ground.
His whisper reaching not her ears but her spirit--"Call me Shinta," and then, "Sumanai"--and how he loved her, how she loved him back, demanding all that he could share with her, unwilling to be satisfied with less.
Waiting at the pier each day and watching ship after ship dock with its load of passengers, searching tirelessly through the crowds for flame-bright hair and a peaceful smile. Scanning the papers anxiously for news of another nation's war. Each night muffling her loneliness in her pillow, sometimes sensing--and sometimes not, for even at his young age he had learned to hide his presence well--her young son hovering outside her door. Sinking gratefully into Kenji's sympathetic embrace and at the same time mourning the core of ice-edged steel that was already beginning to form in him.
And, finally, that day when she woke with something unfamiliar tempering the all-too-familiar pain--an unaccustomed sense of urgency, of need--and fought the heaviness in her limbs to hurry down the street... to meet a wanderer come home at last, never to leave again...
"Ken--shin..."
Yahiko looked up from his meditation at the broken whisper. Kaoru slept on, her mouth halfway between a grimace and a sorrowful smile, her fingers twining together on the blanket. A tear was creeping down her pale, sunken cheek.
Sighing, Yahiko moved closer and gently dabbed at the tear with a piece of hanagami. He remembered belatedly that he had what Tsubame called a hankachii with him--apparently it was what Western gentlemen used instead of tissue paper--but then he'd never really gotten used to such things. Tsubame chided him for putting obviously unused handkerchiefs in the laundry, but whenever she did, he would merely grin sheepishly and scratch his head, and say something to make her blush and forget whatever else she might have wanted to say.
Obligingly, thinking of Tsubame and how pretty she was whenever she reprimanded him for something, Yahiko pulled out his hankachii and swabbed at the sweat on Kaoru's forehead. At least the handkerchief would be used when he put it in the laundry this time. When it came away, Kaoru's blue eyes were open and staring at him gravely.
He jumped. "Anou..." Now that's scary, he thought, tucking the hankachii away.
"Yahiko?"
"Kaoru," he said. He grinned sheepishly.
"How long have I been asleep? I'm completely out of touch." Her chuckle came out in a soft rasp. "Kenji-chan?"
"Still in Kyoto with Hiko. Learning the ougi already, I wouldn't be surprised."
"Aa. That will be good for him, I think." Kaoru's eyelids slid shut as though it took too much effort to hold them up. "Megumi-san?"
"Working in her room."
"It should be time for Yutarou-kun's class about now, ne?"
Yahiko smiled. It was just like Kaoru to be checking up on everything and everyone the moment she awoke. "You're right. He'll be done soon, though, since the sun's about to set."
"Tsubame-chan is at the Akabeko as always? Tae-san?"
"Fine as ever. Souichiro-chan came home with a girl last night, so she's torn between acting like a mother hen and being the matchmaker she's always been." Yahiko grinned, remembering his own childish awkwardness with Tsubame at the tender age of ten. "It doesn't make things any easier that the girl was a good friend of Miyako-chan's." Miyako, the twelve-year-old Sekihara daughter, had been mortified at the thought of one of her girl friends with her otouto.
Kaoru chuckled again. "So much that I've been missing. I miss the Sekiharas. We should invite them to dinner sometime, catch up."
Yahiko hesitated. The ease with which Kaoru had spoken unsettled him. "I don't know," he said carefully, "they seem awfully busy, and Tae-san has plans for renovating the Akabeko again. But I'll see what I can do."
Kaoru didn't seem to notice his uneasiness, merely nodded. "And Outa-kun? Has he left for Yokohama already?"
Higashidani Outa had left on a trip to the seaport city almost a month ago to obtain some imported goods he had ordered, and each time Kaoru had woken from her stupor the past few weeks, she had asked the same question. The repeated query would have pained Yahiko as it usually did, but this time the young kenkaku was eager to respond with new information.
"We got a letter just yesterday. He's on his way back, should be here in a week." Yahiko let pass the almost fatherly tone of pride in his voice. Outa at twenty-one was so unlike his older brother with his gentle, meek ways--and yet so like Sanosuke in his unwillingness to tolerate oppression of the weak--that, in the twelve years he had been training at the dojo, he had endeared himself to Yahiko as more than just a student. "The trip is going fine, he's having a lot of fun. The idiot didn't mention anything about the trouble he ran into in the city, but then he probably doesn't know I'm keeping tabs on him through Misao."
Yahiko frowned. Outa was also like his brother in the impulsivity with which he reacted whenever he saw wrongdoing. What the Oniwabanshuu had learned and Outa had not written of was that he had been involved in the police bust of a smuggling ring in the city. Yahiko privately suspected Outa's rashness was in some part due to his confidence in his skills. After all, Yahiko thought smugly, the Master of the Thousand Shirabadori himself had taught him.
"And how are you feeling?" he asked quickly, before Kaoru could go on asking about other people.
"Daijoubu," replied Kaoru as she always did, with a smile she tried to make sunny. "I know Megumi's doing her best."
Yahiko suspected, not for the first time, that she'd become infected with more than just Kenshin's disease--perhaps his tendency to cheerfully lie and evade questions so as to prevent others worrying, as well. Or his ability to sense other's thoughts, he thought uneasily as Kaoru's big blue eyes focused on him again. Despite the lingering effects of Megumi's medicine, they were remarkably clear and intent. He braced himself for some remark that would cut right to the heart of his suspicions.
"Could you please open the shoji?" Though her mouth did not smile, her eyes did. "I'd like to see outside."
After a startled moment Yahiko complied, and as he moved back to sit again by her bed he watched her carefully, probing with his kenkaku's awareness. Kaoru's eyes were shut again; she was very weak, her ki fractured with the pain and the drugs, but it was nonetheless pure and calm. Yahiko was, as always, both comforted and awed by the strength of his shihandai. He decided that a full frontal attack would be the only way to do justice to it.
"Megumi is doing her best. But she doesn't think that you've... that you've got too much time left."
He had stumbled there, and he cursed the emotion that had caught him off guard and choked him. But Kaoru's solemn expression did not change; the almost-smile curving her mouth did not waver.
"It's not her fault. I know. I accept that. I accepted that from the beginning."
Yahiko sighed, running a hand through his hopelessly rumpled hair. "I don't know if Megumi-sensei can accept that."
"It's hard for her to stop being the doctor she's been for so long. She forgets sometimes that she's only human, just like the rest of us, and that there are many things we still can't control--" Kaoru ended abruptly, gasping for air.
Yahiko stared hard at her, trying to gauge her remaining physical energy. She was clearly struggling to simply stay awake and keep up the conversation, but there was something he needed to ask.
"Megumi does remember that, though, sometimes. That's why she asked me, the other night... we decided to settle it with you first of all..." Yahiko trailed off, watching Kaoru's face expectantly, all too ready to just let her sleep if that was what she preferred.
But her brow furrowed, and slowly her eyes opened again, the blue leaden with shadow. "Nani?"
"If the pain gets too much--you don't have to suffer, Kaoru." There, he'd said it. Yahiko sighed. "Megumi can do it, and she will if you consent."
Kaoru was silent for several moments, and Yahiko glanced back at her, wondering if she'd fallen back asleep. But her eyes were open if distant, and from the way her fingers twitched restlessly in the blankets, the pain was returning.
"Would I have more time?"
"Not really," came a cool voice. Megumi entered by the open shoji with a tray of tea and knelt down beside Yahiko, who quietly helped himself. "But you wouldn't feel the pain, Kaoru-chan."
"I'd sleep more." Kaoru's tone was flat.
Megumi hesitated. "Yes. I still have to find a way to numb you without rendering you unconscious, so, for now at least, yes."
Kaoru fell silent; her eyes closed again. Megumi and Yahiko exchanged uncertain glances over their cups.
"Not until Kenji-chan comes home," Kaoru whispered at last, firmly.
Megumi raised her eyebrows, but nodded. "Wakatte. And how are you feeling, Kaoru-chan? Should I get you something to eat?"
"Mm. Onegai. I feel stronger than I've felt in a while." Kaoru smiled faintly.
Megumi excused herself and left to prepare food, as Yahiko made sure Kaoru was comfortable. She made him arrange the bed so that she could see out to the honey-colored sunset. Yahiko settled himself beside her bed, and both watched in silence for a while.
"I'll send for Kenji then," he said presently.
"He should be coming back anyway," Kaoru murmured. "Shinta will want to see him when he gets home."
Yahiko glanced at her sharply. But she had fallen asleep, hand fisted next to her cheek, her hair in tendrils glistening in the amber sunlight.
* * *
Kaoru did not wake again that day. Or the next. Megumi could not keep the anxiety out of her voice as she told Yahiko and Tsubame over the third evening's dinner that this was not unexpected, that Kaoru could slip away at any moment, that it was the most peaceful end they could want for her. To avoid starvation Megumi ordered special equipment from a hospital, and with Yutarou's help she assembled it for an intravenous infusion of vital nutrition. Had the situation been less grave, Yutarou would have been more openly enthusiastic in his admiration for modern medical technology.
Kenji arrived from Kyoto by morning of the fourth day. He went straight to his mother's bedside and refused to leave. No one asked as to the progress he had made under Hiko Seijuurou, but Yahiko, watching the boy closely whenever he could, sensed a new resoluteness, a certainty with which he grasped his sakabatou, that had not been there before.
That evening, Kaoru began to writhe in pain even in her sleep. Roused from his silent vigil in a corner of the room, Kenji called on Megumi.
The night air was frosty with oncoming winter. Megumi hurried into Kaoru's room, wrapping a haori around herself. The examination was brief; Megumi soon hastened to the kitchen with orders for Kenji to make sure the syringe for the intravenous was not broken or dislodged.
Though emotions and memories stirred uneasily in her heart, Megumi's mind was clear, her hands steady, her movements precise as she prepared the drug. For this, she told herself grimly, she had to thank three years of making it under considerable psychological and physical stress.
Before the hour was up, she had administered the treatment. Soon Kaoru's creased face smoothened, her muscles relaxed, her breathing grew quiet. Kenji was almost as pale as his mother, but he thanked Megumi profusely. She tried to accept his gratitude graciously and, after replacing the empty bag of intravenous, left him to continue his vigil over his ailing mother.
She gathered her things and rearranged them neatly, carrying the various vessels out to the well to wash them. The dojo was still and silent under the bright moonlight. Carefully, Megumi washed out her instruments in water so chill her fingers soon grew numb.
When everything was once again in place, she wandered out to the porch. Kenji had roused her from a sound sleep, but now, though exhausted, she was wide awake. She sat down and leaned wearily against a post, her idle gaze drawn to the rhythmic movements of the bamboo pump in the courtyard.
The dose was very weak; Kaoru would probably need more before the night was through. But she had been filled with a fear so enormous it had almost interfered with her duty before she'd managed to shut it out, and now that the urgency was over, the fear rushed back upon her, almost choking her in its ferocity.
Because it was Kaoru this time, Kaoru with the sharp tongue and bright eyes, who could be counted on to greet Megumi with the same cheerful smile as if mere days and not whole years had passed since their last meeting. Because Megumi could not let her down, could not let Yahiko, Yutarou, Kenji and the rest of their patchwork family down. Because it was Kenshin who, in her mind's eye, stood behind the doctor and strengthened her with his gentle, knowing smile, making Megumi yearn to trust her own abilities as he always had.
Because in the process of making the medicine Megumi had smelled again that distinctive sickly-sweet odor of a lifetime long past, and the undesired memories now left her slender hands fisted and trembling. Closing her eyes against the tears only made the images more vivid.
The doctor who had begun it all, lying in a pool of his own blood. Cowering under the leer of Takeda Kanryuu. Innumerable faceless thugs laughing as she fought to keep her dignity as a captive. The fearsome fanged visage of Hannya, keeping eerie watch over her; Beshimi's wide grin, Hyottoko's imposing bulk, the scars that Shikijou had never been too shy to show. Aoshi's impassive eyes that drove home to her all the worse just how alone she was in the world, and night upon night upon night of voiceless, terrified misery, a will to live attacked and taunted by everything around her.
Dimly Megumi realized she was crying, curled up in a tight ball against the post in the frigid night. She cursed in rage through her grief. Would she ever be free of these memories? Were fifteen years not enough to forget?
Then upon her bent shoulder there was a hand, solid, warm, and heavy; when she looked up into keen brown eyes she could only be glad of the happier turn her memories had taken. Weeping silently, she had already collapsed into his strong arms by the time she realized she was at the night-steeped dojo, not imprisoned in a high and lonely mansion tower; and his hand upon her hair was not bleeding from a knifeblade he had wrested from her.
~ tsuzuku ~
A/N. Heartfelt apologies for this revision. It was only when I was finally (as I ought to have done at the outset) totted up the numbers did I realize that Myoujin Shin-ya wandering Japan was well nigh impossible. After all, Yahiko and Tsubame are still obviously unmarried in "Haru ni Sakura", and this story is set ten years after that. So if the two lovebirds get hitched when Yahiko's eighteen (I think the most plausible age for him, ne?), Shin-ya can't be older than seven. Eek! So anyway, this is the revised chapter... yeah, I was shocked to realize just how old Outa already is, too. They grow up so quickly, don't they? T.T
In revising this chapter I also took the opportunity to change the formatting. So much better now, ne? ^.^
