I'm sick of sight without a sense of feeling.
His trip had taken longer than he had expected. He had found that he was being tailed, and had therefore delayed his stay in London until the tail was forced to make a move, seeing that he himself was not about to budge. His mission had been successful, in the end – the documents were filled out and delivered, and the tail thrown into the interrogation room. The police, of course, had been as grateful to their Japanese associate as they always were, and he had had to postpone his return even further as a result of the dinners they gave, which he could not, in all politeness, possibly refuse.
He knew something was different from the minute he stepped into the house. The manor had always had a melancholic, despairing air about it, reminiscent of sorrows long past, but all he could feel was a heady lightness about the surrounding atmosphere that almost made him giddy just by the buoyancy it had. The manor looked different, too – furniture hadn't been shifted, nor had there been any repairs … all that had happened was a curtain thrown open here and there, a table knocked out of it's neat, orderly arrangement, a few books left open on a sofa, things that gave the house a lived-in look that he found quite fascinating.
He had just begun to ascend the staircase in the main hall when he was arrested by the sound of delighted laughter from above him, and as he watched, light, running footsteps rounded the corner at the top of the stairs and stopped a few steps above him, bright blue eyes staring at him in round-eyed surprise.
Must we always meet unexpectedly? said a disgruntled voice inside of him, and he brushed it away, saying instead, "Good morning, Makimachi-san."
She opened her mouth, presumably to acknowledge his greeting, then tilted her head to one side, her long black braid bouncing about her, and said wryly, "It is morning this time, isn't it?"
He stared at her, mildly surprised by her response, knowing that this was his cue to smile in answer to her good-natured remark, but unable to make himself do so. "Yes," he said finally, trying not to look at the indecent amount of leg that her hitched-up skirt revealed.
"Did you just get back?" she asked, still standing a few steps above him. It made her taller than him, and he was forced to look up at her, something he was not used to doing for anybody.
"Yes," he said again, his neck beginning to ache from the unusual position it was in. He supposed that she wanted more from him than monosyllables, but he knew he wouldn't be able to make himself say anything. It wasn't that he'd lost his cool … he simply couldn't find anything to say that could possibly increase the light in her eyes, or the brightness of her smile. And that was all he wanted to do when he looked at her.
"Did you have a good trip?" she continued, looking undaunted by his lack of response. Wasn't she tired of having a conversation like this, standing right in the middle of the hall at the top of the staircase? She could have chosen some other place. And where would that be? Your room? She'll be mad to ever go near it again, the way you spoke to Okon later about it!
"Yes," he replied, his mental chiding not allowing him to formulate a further sentence.
She screwed up her face, rubbing the back of her hand across her nose much the way he remembered himself doing when he had been a child, frustrated with something. "Mou!" she said in exasperation. "You say something now! This is really weird, living in the same house with a guardian who can't answer you in more than one word!"
He couldn't argue with that. But what could he possibly say? Your skirt needs to be lengthened. He doubted she would appreciate that. You really need to clean your shoes before you come inside. What was he, her mother? Yes, her boots were leaving muddy imprints on the otherwise flawless carpet, but someone could take care of that. You have beautiful eyes. Where did that come from?
"Mou!" she said again as he said nothing. "Don't say anything, then! I was just trying to make friends, anyway. But I guess you have some place to go to, or some such thing, ne? We could talk some other time, perhaps? Because we really need to."
Do we? His thought was surprised. He couldn't think for the life of him what they had to talk about, when they'd only met each other once before and he was already thinking uncharacteristic thoughts and she was acting like she'd known him forever. "As you wish, Makimachi-san," he said, inclining his head and walking past her up the stairs.
As he opened the door to his room, he could only think that his last statement was one word more than 'good morning, Makimachi-san.' Maybe, with a little bit of work, he might just be able to hold a conversation with her that was not one-sided. Sighing as he looked at the fresh pile of paperwork on his desk, he almost laughed at the improbability of his last thought.
He had been avoiding her shamelessly for the past two days, and he knew it. He'd shut himself up in his room, taking his meals there as he always did, and not even stepping out for his usual stroll in the gardens. He wondered, of course, what she did all day, and had once caught sight of her out in the twisting walkways of the gardens from his own window. She had been sitting on the ground, cross-legged, her skirt once again hiked up around her knees to allow freedom of movement, talking animatedly to Shiro, the gardener's son. Shiro had gone on with his leaf-raking, unperturbed by her steady stream of talk, for a good two hours, until she finally got thirsty and went inside for a drink of water.
But apart from that, he had not seen or heard from her for a whole forty-eight hours, and he could sense – from the crackling atmosphere – that the new occupant of his manor wasn't happy about his evasion. He didn't think that she would ever have the guts to come to his room herself if he didn't talk to her soon, but apparently he had misjudged her, because, right after breakfast, there was a confident rap on his door, and he had no choice but to say, "Come in."
The door was pushed open slightly, and a head poked itself in. "Shinomori-san?" she said hesitantly. "Are you busy? Or do you have time to talk? It's okay if you don't … I can always come back later, or something … "
She was offering him a chance to put off their 'talk' further, but he knew that it would only make it harder for him later on. "No, come in," he said, putting down his pen from where he had had it poised above his unfinished paperwork.
She looked relieved as she opened the door fully and came in, standing in the middle of the room a little way away from his desk. "Thank you," she said, and he noticed vaguely that her skirt had been ironed and was being worn properly today, still a little shorter than was usual for young women, but good enough.
"What is it that you wanted to talk to me about, Makimachi-san?" he said calmly, deciding to treat her as any of his other business associates, since that was the only way he knew how to talk to people.
"Well," she said, twisting her fingers together, "you could start with calling me Misao, perhaps. Because since you're my guardian and all, I can't possibly have you addressing me by my family name, right?"
He said nothing, continuing to simply look at her. She wanted him to call her by her first name? Well, what she said made sense, but … "As you wish, Makimachi – Misao-san."
"Okay, fine, '-san' will do …" She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand again, casting around for words. "Well, um, Shinomori-san, I … well, I … have some – some questions."
Questions? About what? Her parents? His responsibilities? Most likely, yes. He did have an obligation to answer whatever she asked, just by virtue of being her stand-in parent. He found that phrase abhorrent – 'stand-in parent' – when he thought about it, but it was true. "And what are those?" he said, his eyes on the documents in front of him.
She cast about for words. "Well, for example … can I go down to the village, someday? Kaoru-san goes everyday, and it's quite safe, the drive across the moors is … "
"Someday," he said, nodding. "I am well aware that the moors are safe, but I would rather not have you risk the drive just now."
She frowned, but said nothing. Apparently, she respected his authority. "All right," she acceded. "I have some more – ah – personal questions, too, if you don't mind. About my – my mother and father and … and you … "
I should have expected that. Wearily, hoping that he could skirt the truth easily, he said, "And what are those?"
Now that she had his permission to ask, she squirmed uncomfortably. "Well … I was never – um – told that I had a guardian in England. I always thought that if something happened to my parents, I'd stay with Jiya, the old man who brought me up. So … so how did your parents know my mother and father?"
She didn't even know that? Someone should have addressed that issue with her beforehand, definitely. "My father was a close friend of your father," he said, the bitterness in his voice when he spoke of his father almost undetectable. "Since you have no blood relations still living, your father entrusted your guardianship to my father."
"And so you got it after he died, right?" she said, looking thoughtful.
"Yes," he said. "I had to be above twenty-five to – "
"Oh yeah, I know that part," she said, waving him off. He looked at her, unused to being cut off in the middle of his sentences. All his acquaintances were usually so happy to hear him talking that they never ever interrupted him. She looked as if she was going to ask something else, then sighed and said, "Well, I guess that's all I mainly wanted to ask. Thank you for telling me, Shinomori-san. And … um … how old do I have to be before I don't need guardianship?"
"Twenty-one," he said coolly, his eyes once again on the papers on his desk. Was she already sick of this house? Well, she'd have to put up with it for another five years, at the very least …
"That old?" she said, staring at him. "I thought it was eighteen!"
"This is England, Maki – Misao-san," he said, almost severely. "Not Japan."
She made a face. "Yeah, yeah … I know. Why, they think women can't take care of themselves at eighteen here? Talk about oppression … "
"I would think that women are more oppressed in Japan than they are here," he said, feeling almost amused by her assessment of the guardianship laws.
"Only if they want to be," she said seriously. "I mean, I ran about in shorts and an old hand-me-down ninja shirt all day until I was fifteen, 'til my mother finally remembered that I was alive and threw me into the house with a kimono. But I could still go about and do what I wanted, if I set my mind to it. But you are right, in a way … not all people do that."
"Yes," he agreed, surprised by the turn the conversation was taking. "But you are right, also; people can do it, can get rid of the restrictions traditions impose on them, if they try."
"Hai," she said, and then made a face as she discovered her lapse into Japanese. "By the way, Shinomori-san, how come you don't talk in Japanese?"
He looked back at her inscrutably for a minute, finally saying, "That is up to me."
She reddened again, then smiled to cover her embarrassment. "'Course," she said. "Well, thanks for answering my questions, Shinomori-san – you've been a great help. Sorry for bothering you, though."
"It was no trouble, Misao-san," he said, inclining his head slightly. As she bowed and left the room with the smile still on her face, he was dimly surprised to realise that what he had said had been true.