Yoake Mae no Yami ni

by Mirune Keishiko

Six:  Of Shoes, and Ships, and Sealing Wax

Megumi shut the shoji behind her with a relieved sigh.  Perhaps it was the effect of fifteen years of living alone, but she easily tired of parties, and she was glad to sit out in the cool free air of the evening and nurse her last cup of sake in peace.  In the dining hall, Yahiko's children, Tae's children, and the student boarders were still noisily cheering on Sanosuke and Kenji, who were locked in a ferocious drinking contest.  Megumi had left once she'd noticed Kenji's eyes glazing over.  She didn't want to witness him goaded into drunken oblivion by his father's long-lost best friend—and right in front of his wide-eyed girlfriend Kiriko too.

As she sat down on the engawa, behind her an enormous collective roar shook the house.  She glanced back in curiosity just as the shoji opened and a tall, lanky figure swaggered out of the dining hall to an accompaniment of cheers, laughter, and gleeful shouting.

 "The kid's good, but I'm better."  Sanosuke plopped down beside Megumi, looking flushed and immensely pleased with himself.  Arching an eyebrow at him, Megumi threw back the last of her sake and felt its warmth surge through her chest.

 "You should be ashamed of yourself.  Challenging a boy less than half your age.  Only a brute would do that."  Megumi hid her smile in her hair.

 "He's no ordinary kid, Megitsune.  You and I know that."  Chuckling, Sanosuke leaned back on his hands, clicking a fishbone against his teeth.  "Maybe Hiko's losin' his touch."

 "Somehow I doubt that."  Megumi shook her head to dispel an image of a fifty-eight-year-old Hiko Seijuurou the thirteenth, seated before his potter's kiln and tipping the last contents of yet another sake jug into his mouth.

From the other side of the hall, hurried footsteps and excited voices slowly trailed away toward Kenji's room.  They sounded as though they were carrying something heavy among them—a young man's limp body, perhaps.  "Maybe you should just wait another thirteen years," murmured Megumi, wondering if she should check on Sano's poor victim.

 "Maybe so.  Anyway, you should be ready with some hangover antidote in the mornin'."  He lay back with a satisfied belch.  "Man, Tae's cooking is still the best I've ever had."

 "It's really too bad fifteen years of world travel hasn't yet trained you out of that disgusting belch."  Wrinkling her nose, Megumi fanned her hand to dissipate the stale smell of semi-digested sushi.

 "Sumanu."  Scratching his head, Sano sounded so sheepish Megumi had to laugh.

 "Why, toriatama, wonders never cease.  You apologize for your bad habits now?"

 "I'm not like a kitsune-onna I know.  My pride ain't too big to swallow once in a while."  He ducked just as Megumi made a swipe for his ear.  Still laughing, he stood up.

 "Going to bed already?"  Megumi made no effort to hide her amazement.

He made no response—which annoyed her no end—and strode over to the dojo's entrance.  Seeing shadows underneath the gate, Megumi realized the arrival of visitors must not have been heard in the noise of the party.  Curious, she followed Sano, steeling herself to take steady steps as the alcohol buzzed pleasantly in her head.

Sano unlatched the gate and flung it open, nearly tearing it off its hinges.  In the lamplight outside, a tall, fine-boned young man, one foot on the step of a carriage and another on the ground, blinked mildly at the sudden welcome.  Megumi had already met him months ago, and as she took in the rosy cheeks, cleanly handsome face, and slightly mussed hair, she sighed not for the first time.  Ken-san, I swear, if I were just fifteen years younger... you'd have met your match at last.

The young man turned toward the inside of the carriage, earnestly thanking for the ride an occupant neither Megumi nor Sanosuke could see.  Sano stood leaning against the jamb of the gateway, head bowed, arms crossed over his chest, saying nothing as the young man conversed cheerfully with the invisible carriage occupant.  Megumi, standing in the courtyard, strained surreptitiously to hear; the voice from inside the carriage was young, female, and solicitous, and apparently concerned as to the young man's safety at the dojo with such a rough-looking older man around.

Soon, however, farewells were said, and Megumi smiled at the obvious warmth in their voices.  Then the carriage door was shut, the horses coaxed into a canter, and as the carriage rattled on down the street, Higashidani Outa turned toward the dojo and the lanky, well-muscled man silently standing in the gateway.  The long, thin bundle tied to his back cast shadows down on the younger man's face.

 "Komban wa," said Outa politely, bowing.  "Anou... is Myoujin-sensei in?"

 "Yahiko-chan is in all right."  Sano inclined his head to grin at him in the lamplight, teeth flashing over fishbone.  "You're just in time for the party, Round-Cheeks."

Outa's confused expression quickly faded into one of amazement.  Megumi chose that moment to approach.  "Okaeri nasai, Outa-kun."

 "Sensei.  It's good to see you again."   Outa bowed again, but his brown eyes darted swiftly toward Sano.  "This man..."

 "You can't blame him, toriatama," Megumi teased Sanosuke, enjoying the irritation that flickered across Outa's face as she spoke past him.  "He was still a child then.  Or so Uki-chan told us."

 "Round-Cheeks.  None of that look in your eyes.  You oughta be used to the kitsune by now."  Sano shut the gate and turned to Outa, who was still standing on the pathway, uncertain and visibly flustered.  Sanosuke held out his hand.  "And none of that bowing for me either.  I find an honest handshake from the West suits me better."

Outa grasped the offered hand with a wide grin.  "Oniisan."

Neither brother spoke for a moment and the handshake did not become an embrace, but somehow Megumi felt emotion enough in the warmth with which the two pairs of very similar brown eyes met.  Evident in Sano's eyes, his broad smile, the firm strength with which he grasped the other's hand, was his approval of the young man his younger brother had become.

The two brothers began walking toward the dining hall, Megumi leading the way.  "How was Yokohama?  Still dirty and smoky?" asked Sanosuke after spitting out his fishbone, which landed with a rustle in the bushes.

 "Very Western.  Not a kimono in sight, and you couldn't walk a block without seeing a gaijin or twelve.  Fascinating, but Tokyo is still a bit more old-fashioned, still more beautiful for me.  You must be well acquainted with such people, though."

Megumi, walking silently ahead of them, heard the wistfulness in Outa's tone.  The young man was more a scholar than a warrior—he'd been to Yokohama to obtain foreign books, among others—but wanderlust, it seemed, ran in the blood.

 "Well, you can't exactly avoid 'em when you're out there.  But after a while you kinda start longin' for people from home, a language you don't have to twist your head up to speak."  Sano grinned.  "So that's enough small talk.  Who was the chick?"

Megumi let out an irrepressible laugh, imagining, behind her, Outa turning red from the question.  It was hard to believe he was related to Sanosuke sometimes.

 "Ah, her?"  Outa obviously couldn't feign innocence to save his life.  Megumi squashed the giggles that were rising within her.    "I just hitched a ride with her on the way here.  I um...  I never met her before."

 "Otouto's holdin' back on me.  Well, if your tongue needs a bit of loosenin', I hope Yahiko and the others haven't polished off all the sake yet."

They entered the dining hall, where the merriment had faded somewhat, on account of the younger ones—Shin-ya and his siblings, the students boarding at the dojo—having already been sent off to bed by Yahiko.  Tsubame bade Akira escort the two Sekihara children home, well aware that Miyako had been making eyes at the boy for some time now.  Megumi was surprised and amused at the streak of matchmaker the typically shy younger girl appeared to have in her.  While Akira was clearly dragging his feet about the request, avoiding Megumi's gaze as he passed her, Miyako seemed both mortified and pleased as they went out by the gate.

Outa quickly helped himself to what remained of dinner, telling Sanosuke of what had happened while he had been away, while Megumi served him sake so flirtatiously Sano's amused glances soon turned menacing.  Outa pretended not to notice, though he stumbled frequently over his words and his cheeks grew redder and redder until Megumi finally subsided, fearing the younger man would start bursting blood vessels.

Outa had been seven when his father and sister took him to the dojo for his training.  When he had been left in the care of the Himura household, Uki insisted on staying faithfully with their father, despite the attentions of a young Shinsuu silk merchant and her own reciprocation.  After two years of bullying, Kamishimoemon finally succeeded in convincing the young man to propose and his daughter to accept.  "You've got two nieces and a nephew now, 'Niisan," finished Outa with a grin.  "Uki's never been so happy in her life."

Sanosuke smiled with a wistfulness that startled Megumi, who was watching and listening intently as she picked at a plate of pickled vegetables.  "The family's growin', eh?  Didn't really know I had one left to come back to."

 "Oh, Uki still talks about you sometimes."  Outa smiled back over his sake cup.  "She's always said you'd come back, you know."

Sanosuke paused, and then shook his head, still smiling.  "Women's intuition.  So the old man's still alive and kickin', ne?  I guess bad grass is hard to kill."

His brother chuckled, then appeared to remember something.  "Ah, Megumi-sensei."  Outa pulled a fat, cloth-covered bundle out of a bag and held it out to her.  "I brought the package you asked for."

Megumi smiled, placing it on her lap.  "Arigatou."

 "Package?"  Sano popped the last piece of sushi into his mouth.

 "Just some research I mean to conduct," Megumi said dismissively.

 "But you must tell us of your adventures now, 'Niisan," said Outa eagerly.  "Stories of back home must be pretty tame compared to what you've seen, where you've been."

 "'Guess you could say that."  Chuckling, Sano leaned back against the post, hands placed behind his head and eyes gazing distantly across the room.  "I spent some time in the cities, some time out in the wilderness.  I saw some pretty amazin' things... huge waterfalls and great big canyons, opal mines and caves that had these really old paintings on the walls, all kinds of animals—some of 'em were beautiful and some of 'em were just plain ugly, like these big gray four-legged hog-like things with little trunks in South America.  There's this tiny island out in the biggest ocean in the world without anyone livin' on it, but there are these gigantic stone heads set in the grass, and nobody knows yet how they got there and who made 'em.  And when you get in the cities you notice that different kinds o' people have different kinds of buildings.  You oughta see the temples they got in India and Morocco, Round-Cheeks—those Muslims go all out on the decor.  A totally different style from how we make 'em in Japan, with these fat bulbs on top that look like onions.  And in the desert they ain't got roofs pointy like ours; their houses are flat on top, like big brown boxes, 'cause they hardly ever get any rain or snow..."

Sanosuke ambled on, telling dreamily about Arabian marketplaces and American cotton plantations, storms at sea and in the desert, cavernous stone castles in Spain and triangular royal tombs in Egypt perhaps half as big as Mount Fuji.   Megumi smiled at the faraway look in his eyes and wished she could have seen these fantastic images for herself.  She laughed when he told about riding a camel, picturing tall Sanosuke growing so nauseous from being pitched from side to side by the camel's slow, rocking gait that he finally got down and ran the rest of the way.  And she closed her eyes to better imagine his descriptions of copper-skinned natives dancing around heaps of burning herbs, of ladies simpering behind their plumy fans, draped in lacy white finery, embodying the elegance of a glamorous seaport city many leagues to the southeast.

After about an hour of storytelling Outa's energy, if not his attention, was visibly flagging, so Sanosuke postponed telling of his adventures until some more rested moment.  The younger man staggered off to one of the spare rooms—Yahiko had given him Sano's old longhouse years before, but Outa was too tired for the walk halfway across town--while Megumi and Sanosuke brought the last of the party's dishes to the kitchen.  The rest had already been cleared by those student boarders still sentient after the evening's festivities.  They left only Tsubame, Yahiko, and the Sekihara couple in the dining hall discussing politics.

"It's too bad you didn't finish telling all about your travels, toriatama."  Despite the nickname, Megumi spoke mildly; Sanosuke had, after all, worn himself out obliging them with his stories.  She washed the last of the plates while Sano did his part of cleanup by systematically emptying the sake bottles one by one.  "But I suppose you've so much to tell after fifteen years that an entire evening wouldn't be enough."

 "You got that right, kitsune."  Leaving the last sake bottle with its equally empty companions in the corner, Sano yawned, rubbing his hand in contented circles over his flat, muscled stomach.  "'N' now I think I'm ready for a nap on the old porch again."

 "You must miss the free air after being out there for so long."  Megumi stepped out onto the porch that led to her room several doors away.  Following in her wake, Sano slid the kitchen door shut behind him.

 "Tokyo ain't so bad yet, but it's different out there in the wild, kitsune.  There's a different smell to the wind, and it seems colder and fresher somehow than any winter air in Japan."

Megumi, padding toward her room, smiled in wonder at the distant, certain tone in Sanosuke's voice as he trailed along behind her.  No longer the brash, earthy ex-gangster enthusing about violent encounters with gamblers and criminals, he was a wanderer returned, new visions and ideas seeded in his active mind by alien winds and softening his voice with an awe and a joy that Megumi could not for the life of her recall hearing from him before.  Not even Kenshin had spoken thus, the former hitokiri whose life had been too early shadowed with one small country's war to take on the mysteries and wonders of entire continents.

She paused with this thought and glanced back at him.  He had his hands in his pockets and his bearded face turned toward the setting moon.

 "Do you know how much you've changed, toriatama?"

He grinned as he looked at her.  "Not really.  Have I?"

Megumi smiled.  "A little.  Decent enough polish for the fighting idiot you are, I suppose."

 "Even a one-hit guy like me can learn a few new tricks now 'n' then."

She laughed softly.  "See?  You have changed.  I suppose you've learned by now that I'm always right, so you've finally realized it's stupid to argue with me like you used to."

"Nah.  I just learned to respect my elders, that's all.  And ignore 'em when they're bein' senile."  Sano grinned broadly as she shot him a dirty look.

She was pointedly silent as she slid open the door to her room when, fumbling in his pocket, he said, "Here, Megitsune, I got somethin' for ya.  I left my stuff at the Akabeko, but I figured I'd drop this off first.  Save me yappin' later on."

 "What is this?"  Curiously, Megumi accepted the leather case he thrust toward her abruptly, as though decisively tearing himself from some beloved object.  The flap was fringed, with red and yellow beading, and the brown leather was soft and finely furred to her fingertips.  She turned it over in her palms, admiring the neat stitches in black and red thread.  She looked up expectantly, but Sano had already turned and was making long, easy strides in the direction of the courtyard.

 "Open it an' find out," he called out; Megumi would in younger days have been incensed by such an answer, but now she merely sighed in exasperation.  "I'm down for the count.  'Yas'mi, kitsune."

She slipped into her room glad to be out of the late autumn evening cold.  The sake's effect had mostly ebbed, and though she had been sleepy only a few minutes before Sanosuke's surprise gift had reawakened her.  She quickly unrolled her futon and snuggled into the welcome warmth of the sheets, then propped herself up on her palms and opened the leather case.

She gasped as paper spilled out—perhaps one hundred yellowed sheets of paper of varying textures and sizes and amounts of smudged and blotted ink, all covered in a handwriting Megumi immediately recognized as Sanosuke's.  She was amused to notice as she flipped through the sheaf of papers that the penmanship on the pages on the top was markedly messier than the pages on the bottom—as though time and practice had somewhat succeeded in taming Sanosuke's wild handwriting.

She turned to the first page and was stunned to discover that it began with a date over twelve years ago and the characteristic salutation, "Oei Megitsune!"

It dawned on her as she hastily skimmed the rest of the page that it was a letter he had addressed to her—and as she hurriedly leafed through the other papers it became clear that everything else he had written were all in the same letter format, each addressed to her.  And it told her, in phrases that over time grew ever richer and more colorful, of where he was, what he was doing there, how he had come to be there; the state of the weather, the costumes and food of the locals, the make and style of their towns and cities, the extent to which Western influence had already permeated the native culture.

It was clearly too much to finish reading in one night, but she decided to read until she fell asleep.  As she rearranged the letters to their former neatness, a few pages fell out before she could catch them and scattered across her blanket.

 It's frickin' beautiful out here in the desert.  I won't say sorry for that word, 'cause that's the only way I can properly say it.  I never saw so many stars in so many sizes and colors even when I was a kid and it was a new moon in Shinsuu.  Out here I almost don't wanna sleep just so I can keep lookin' up at 'em.  I bet there ain't a sky so pretty even in your beloved Aizu...

She had been drawn well into the first scribbled paragraph before she realized her fingers were clutching the paper far more tightly than necessary and she was holding her breath.  Exhaling long and slow, she replaced the page in the sheaf, checking the date.  Sanosuke had written the lines almost six years ago.

...and even if there were a sky like this, you'd be too busy sewin' up patients and fixin' broken bones to look up an' see it.

And Megumi, neatly inserting the papers back into their case with the exception of the first few pages, could only smile and shake her head ruefully.  Sano could be stupid sometimes, but it seemed he knew her more than he let on after all. 

As she turned to the first page, she thought of calling Sanosuke back to explain to her just why he had written so many letters he never sent—and the question that pulsed with her heart's blood, Why her?  Brow furrowing, she hesitated over the first page as that question burned through all her other thoughts, leaving them in ash.

But then he had, after all, given these to her to read at last, and read them she would.  Perhaps she could find the answers in the yellowed pages and the writing that—Megumi giggled uncharacteristically—did, after all, look like a chicken's scratches in the ground.  So she took out the reading spectacles she was too proud to wear in public and turned on the electric lamp Kaoru constantly feared would burn down the dojo, and was soon lost among the twisted pines in the cloud-enshrouded mountains of northern China.

Outside, far on the other side of the engawa where he could see both the gate and the bright yellow light from Megumi's room, Sanosuke sat up long into the night despite the palpable cold, smoke curling gray and filmy from a long thin pipe, his shadowed, distant eyes closing at last only as the sky began to lighten.

~ tsuzuku ~

* one-hit guy – Sanosuke's other character theme (after "Kokoro no Hadaka") is "Ippatsu Yarou", literally "One-Hit Guy" or "One-Punch Dude."

A/N.  Gomen, this was quite a heavy chapter.  I really intend to put in a somewhat more lighthearted bit soon, but as I'm not too handy with comedy, I'm still procrastinating. ^.^  I hope you're not too bogged down yet by all these huge feelings and realizations and things.

Heartfelt apologies for the long delay.  The holidays were stressful and really busy, and now that school has resumed, papers and projects are coming at me again with the same old vengeance. @.@  Anyhow, I hope the wait was worthwhile... and that none of my characters have missed the mark.   Especially with the last part, I felt like I was walking a tightrope portraying the rooster and the fox...  Do you think I made it across safely, or did I fall?  ^.^;  Dialogues are tricky to write too, so I hope I didn't trip up with that aspect.  And were the letters overdone?  I did want to put a bit like that in... just to make up for his not communicating with them for so long. ^.^  Ah, I beg your patience and pardon for any missteps.

Zeh Wulf just finished her really cool story "In These Final Hours" (go check it out!  You won't be sorry! ^.^) and it's kinda given my conscience a bit of a kick.  So I will try my very best to have this tale all done by, hmm, March.  (Eep, that's just about two months...)

Thank you for reading!  Please be so kind as to drop me a line or two with your feedback.  Greatly appreciated every time, I promise you.  ^.^