Yoake Mae no Yami ni
by Mirune Keishiko
Glossary:
anou = um, er...
arigatou = "thank you", very plain form (as opposed to formal/polite form)
-chan = suffix for children and among (usually female) friends
che = Sanoistic cuss word ^.^
daijoubu = it's all right.
gaijin = foreigner
iya = "no" plain form
kata = among many other meanings, the standard practice forms of kenjutsu
Ken-san = Megumi's nickname for Kenshin ^.^
Kitsune = fox. one of Megumi's nicknames
-kun = suffix commonly for male friends or colleagues
kuso = another cuss Sanoism ^.^
maa = it's okay, calm down...
Megistune = see "Kitsune"
nani = what?
ne = all-purpose tag question/statement: "isn't it?" "right?" "don't you think?"
ohagi = chewy rice balls covered with sweet bean jam
oi, oei = "hey"
onegai = please
ora = interjection for when annoyed/offended; also what Megumi says when she pounds Sano ^.^
oyasumi nasai = good night
-san = suffix for "Miss", "Mrs.", or "Mr."
-sensei = suffix for a teacher or doctor
shoji = a sliding panel with a wooden frame and paper panes that may be kept open or shut
soshite = and, furthermore, moreover
sumanai, sumanu = I'm sorry.
toriatama = literally, "rooster head"; one of Sano's nicknames
Toriatama no baka = Stupid/silly roosterhead...
tsuzuku = to be continued
wakatte = I understand.
Three: Things that Must Be Said
Long arms and legs spread out luxuriously, Sagara Sanosuke lay on the floor of the dining hall, his head pillowed on his cloak, his eyelids half lowered. Absent-mindedly rubbing the stubble on his chin, he gazed around him at the changes modernity and prosperity had made to the room: new scrolls and paintings, fat new sitting cushions, and a few unfamiliar pieces of furniture that gleamed in the light of what was Yahiko's pride and joy—a small chandelier fitted with half a dozen real lightbulbs. Intrigued despite himself by this showcase of imported technology, Sano whiled away several minutes flicking the switch on and off, inspecting with fascination the tiny prisms in the crystal pieces.
He was still playing with the switch when Megumi came in bearing a steaming pot of tea and some cold ohagi.
"You'd best leave that alone." Her eyes shone with amusement as he flashed a sheepish grin and sat down across from her. "Kaoru-chan keeps worrying the dojo will catch fire any minute."
"I didn't know Jou-chan went in for fancy gaijin things like that," said Sanosuke before engulfing a whole piece of ohagi with his mouth.
"Yutarou-kun brought it from Germany a few years ago." Megumi tried to conceal her pleasure as she watched him close his eyes and start to slowly chew.
"Kami-sama." His eyelids fluttered in bliss. "Real ohagi." He had hardly lost the bulge in his cheeks before he stuffed another piece into his mouth. "Kuso, I've missed these. Nothin' like 'em in the world."
"Looks like the toriatama hasn't changed one bit, at any rate." Privately battling amusement, pride, and irritation all at once, Megumi poured two cups of tea. "Still all the table manners of a dog. You do look like a wet dog, by the way, with that awful hair. And that beard!" She frowned, sipping her tea. "I take it you didn't wander into any civilized areas. Or did they just throw you back out into the wilderness?"
"Ora, ora! Maa, Kitsune, I missed you too. You don't have to pretend." Sano smirked at her, white teeth oddly contrasting with the black hair sprouting unevenly upon his chin.
Megumi glared at his shaggy mop of hair, itching to yank it out by the roots. "Why you pompous..."
"That's more like it." Sanosuke's mouth was stretched around another piece of ohagi, but he still found room for another grin. "That's the Megitsune I remember."
Megumi started to snap something, then unceremoniously shut her mouth as she felt tears ominously pricking at her eyes for the umpteenth time that day. Half irritated at the warmth she felt suddenly blooming in her, she looked away with a well-practised sniff.
"I'm amazed you still remember anything," she said scornfully when her voice was back under control, "after travelling the world with barely a word to those you left behind."
She had hardly planned such frankness. This time it was he who took a moment to respond, and Megumi glanced at him warily. He was munching his ohagi with an unusual amount of concentration, eyes downcast, mouth twisted in half of a smile. Admiration for the thick black lashes dusting his cheeks popped into her mind and was just as quickly shoved out of it.
"Sumanu," he said at last, laughter in his voice. He reached for the last piece of ohagi slowly, as though lost in thought—or maybe his seemingly cavernous stomach was finally nearing full capacity, thought Megumi dryly. "You're right, I did kinda forget to keep in touch."
Megumi let go of a breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding. She'd half expected him to explode. "For fifteen years," she said archly over her teacup, savoring the carefully tempered indignation simmering within her. This was, after all, her moment of catharsis.
"Aww, Megitsune. I didn't know you cared." His tone was teasing again and the flirtatious twinkle was back in his brown eyes as he looked up at her. Megumi felt her cheeks heat and she returned his wicked stare with a lethal one. She felt her face flame even more when he let out a quiet chuckle and returned to his food. How dare he act so... so knowing! This was her moment of truth, after all—time to settle grievances nursed for a decade and a half. He wasn't supposed to be laughing at her!
"Toriatama no baka," she ground out through gritted teeth. "I'm just glad you decided to come back when you did, finally. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten all about"—she hesitated, hating herself for losing momentum—"well, everything!" she finished in exasperation.
"Ho, that's harsh, Kitsune." Sanosuke, having inhaled all there had been on the tray, lay back with an injured expression. Megumi wished he wouldn't do the puppy-dog look on her; he pulled it off too well. "Of course I didn't forget. I'm just glad your message found me when it did."
They had been preparing Kenshin for burial when they found Sanosuke's note tucked into a pocket, bearing instructions on how to reach him by way of a friend in Peking. Megumi had held off writing him until Kaoru's condition had clearly and irreparably worsened. That had been nearly a month ago, but still Megumi remembered the indecision that had nearly paralyzed her when she'd taken up pen and paper, the despair she'd fought to keep off as she wrote—despair that the message would never reach him in time, that he would be held back by whatever concerns he'd acquired over the last fifteen years, that he would simply not care.
"Well, you certainly took your time coming back," she muttered, drinking the last of her tea.
"Hey, you caught me out in the middle of the freakin' steppes. I had a lot of ground to cover."
Megumi sighed, wrapping her chilled fingers more snugly around the still-hot ceramic cup. "I thought... you'd want to say goodbye to Kaoru-chan. At the very least."
They both fell silent, Sano taking up his own teacup even as Megumi set down hers. As he sipped quietly, staring into the swirling brown liquid, Megumi eyed him from behind long bangs. There was a question she wanted badly to ask, but she was unsure as to whether to ask it.
Fifteen years had made him leaner yet more muscled than ever, as his Chinese-style crimson jacket gaped open to reveal. Deep-set in a lean, tanned face, his brown eyes still had that intensely focused look about them, but the intensity was tempered by what Megumi recognized as age—age and the experience it brought. It seemed his travels had done him this perceptible good. She wondered if he would ever tell them the stories of his adventures, and whether he would ever be finished telling them all.
He finished his tea with a last, satisfied gulp and got up to open the shoji. As cold air rushed into the room, he leaned against the shoji frame and stared out at the stillness of the night. Gathering her haori more closely about her, Megumi ran her gaze thoughtfully over the long, lanky figure he cut against the moonlight. Different clothes, an amplified physique, and an unfamiliar air about him that seemed at once quietly commanding and extremely, proudly lonely—this man felt like a stranger to her, and it saddened her more than she could understand why.
Suddenly he turned, caught her eye, and winked. As she sat there blinking with surprise he drew the shoji together, leaving a scant inch for the wind to whistle through, and sat back down across from her.
"Admit it, Kitsune, you dig the rugged look." His grin was sly. "All the chicks did."
Megumi ignored the sudden sinking of her heart—"chicks"?—and reined in her temper with an ease born of practice dealing with spiky-haired boneheads. Apparently old skills, even if they had lain unused for years, were easily revived.
"I'm sure they did, Toriatama... until they got close enough to smell the body odor and horse dung."
"Oi—! Low blow!" Surreptitiously Sanosuke sniffed at himself as she muffled her peal of laughter in her sleeve. He glowered at her while a pair of well known fox ears mischievously twitched his way. "That's a manly smell! How much would *you* know of manly smells, eh, Kitsune?"
It hit harder than she'd expected. Suddenly the playful spirit drained from her, and Megumi just felt tired. "Not much, I suppose, now that you ask, Toriatama." A smile tugged at her mouth, but she hadn't the energy left for it. "And that's enough horsing around. It's getting late; unlike a certain bonehead, some of us have work in the morning." The insult was halfhearted. She gathered the cups onto the tray.
"Che." The tone was mingled disappointment and guilt; Sano had apparently noticed his blunder. "Kitsune, I didn't mean..."
"Daijoubu. You don't know any of what's happened in the last fifteen years, after all." Megumi regretted the note of bitterness she let slip into her voice. After what had been a very long day, it seemed, she was beginning to lose control.
"Iya. I guess I don't."
He sounded unexpectedly subdued. As she neatly placed the cups, pot, and plate on the tray she waited for an impatient demand to learn exactly what he didn't know. But he said nothing, merely stood up to push aside the shoji again and meet the cool night air.
Eyebrow raised, she glanced up at him. He had his hands in the pockets of his long black pants and his bearded chin upturned to the bright moon. She wondered if, only days or perhaps even just hours on soil he had once called home, he already missed being out in the wide world.
"Whatcha lookin' at, Kitsune?"
She smiled and set down the tray. "You really will have to tell us someday about everything you've done, toriatama, everywhere you've been." The question she had put aside a while ago resurfaced in her mind, and after another moment's tense deliberation within herself she decided at last to ask it.
"Why didn't you come with Ken-san?"
And once the words had left her lips she realized the longing that suffused that simple question, the plaintive tone she hastened to gloss over by adding, "I mean, he could have gotten lost, or hurt. Do you know he came all the way to Tokyo from Yokohama? As ill as he was?"
She heard the anger rising in her voice, and apparently, Sanosuke did as well. He looked down at his feet. "Aa, that was stupid of me." His voice, already low, grew lower till it was near inaudible. "I was weak."
Megumi waited expectantly, but as seconds ticked by without another word from him, she realized, disappointed, that that was all he had to say.
"Onegai. Explain it to me," she asked quietly. The anger was gone; it was a moot point, she was too tired, and seeing him at last was too unexpected and happy a surprise. "You and Ken-san were friends. You understood him better than any of us, almost better than Kaoru-chan. He said, once, long ago, that he was the one he trusted the most. Why did you let him go home alone and sick as he was?"
"'Cause." Sanosuke closed his eyes, frowning. "'Cause as much as I knew it was my responsibility, it was hard enough taking care of him after I found him. We spent about two weeks gettin' down to the sea from the mountains... and you have no idea, Kitsune, no idea at all, how hard it was for me to see him the way he was."
Megumi nodded silently, her gaze on her hands twisted together in her lap. Yes, she had no idea, because she had been in Aizu all that time, and neither Kaoru nor Yahiko had mentioned anything in their letters about the sickness: Kaoru because she had not wished to distress their friend with an illness that was incurable, Yahiko because, until the very last minute, Kenshin had hidden it and Kaoru had not told him—the young kenkaku had simply not known.
And as much as she bitterly regretted to admit it, Megumi too had forgotten all about Kenshin's increasing debilitation. After leaving Tokyo and busying herself with her new life in Aizu, she had heard nothing about Kenshin's condition; and thus she had allowed herself the indulgence of denial. After all, Kenshin had left to travel and fight abroad. He would have had enough consideration for himself and his family to stay home if he'd felt he was unfit, wouldn't he?
Apparently not. Twenty-five years after the Bakumatsu, Kenshin had been as determined as ever to protect others' happiness even if he had to throw his own life away. And despite Kenshin's brush with Rakuninmura, Megumi had misjudged his life's goal one more time. She had paid for it with bottomless regret when she had rushed back to Tokyo for her dear friend's funeral and his widow's slowly nearing end.
"He was damn sick when I found him." Sanosuke's voice was hoarse. "Near blind, could hardly tell I was there. Too weak to move much. He might've died of hunger if I hadn't gotten there. He couldn't sleep much either, 'cause his whole body was just about ripped apart by the pain." Megumi, watching him, could see the tension in the set of his shoulders and arms. "He was half delirious, most of the time; just kept mumbling Jou-chan's name. The whole time I was with him till I saw him off at the docks, that was about all I ever heard him say."
Megumi covered her face with her hands. She was exhausted beyond tears, and her eyes burned beneath their lids. But something inside her bled at the image Sano was describing—an image heartbreakingly different from the strong, serenely smiling man she remembered. In a dark, secret place she kept squirreled away in her soul, she was glad she hadn't seen Kenshin dying.
Not the way Sano had.
"I couldn't go with him," he said quietly. "I knew he might get in trouble goin' home, but at the same time I knew he wouldn't, so I let that be my excuse. I couldn't... I just couldn't face—" His voice broke, and he abruptly fell silent for several moments. Finally he mumbled, "Sorry."
Megumi merely nodded. She looked up at him, but he still had his back to her, his head bowed. Then she stood up and wrapped her arms around him from behind. She felt him tense even more, the muscles across his back going rigid against her cheek before relaxing again a moment later. She felt rough fingertips brush the skin of her arm tentatively, raising tiny hairs in their wake, then his warm, strong hand wrapped itself around her wrist.
"It doesn't matter now," she whispered, half to herself. And somehow, she found it within her to smile. "Okaeri, toriatama."
~ tsuzuku ~
add'l glossary: okaeri = casually short for "okaeri nasai," or "welcome home"
A/N. Many thanks and apologies are in order...
This unworthy writer is very, very sorry she forgot to include a glossary of Japanese terms, that she is. So the one at the top of this chapter will serve for the previous chapters and this one. Glossaries will be tacked on to the rest of the chapters de gozaru. FYI, the English title of this story would read "In the Darkness Before the Dawn." (I do hope I got the Japanese right.)
And certainly a very hearty thaaaank youuuuu!!! (hearts) to all the nice people who took time to read and review, not just this but my other stories (plug plug plug!). eriesalia, babeekoko, Mistress Battousai... Words cannot do justice to my gratitude, so I'll just do my best to be worthy of your praise, that I will. ^.^
By the way, eriesalia-dono, I also didn't enjoy Seisouhen that much... too darn depressing. Kenshin!! Wahhh!!! T.T But well... it's kind of gotten engraved already in my RK mindset, so I guess what I'm desperately fixating on now, to try to cheer myself up, is some sort of pleasant closure to all that gloom and doom. Let's all hope I succeed, ne? Ne?? ^.^
Incidentally, as I struggle to think up a plausible resolution to this story that sometimes really does seem to write itself, the possibility of an Aoshi-Megumi story dangles before me. I've already scribbled halfway through a tentative Fire/Ice fic... but Aoshi's kind of a difficult character for me to quite grasp, and I don't know—something in me just doesn't like the idea of Sano getting Misao... Nothing against either of them, but it just doesn't seem right somehow. Anyone care to support me... or persuade me otherwise? ^.^
