When You Meet Your Match

Chapter Nine

No, Tasuki, it wasn't something you said. Mayumi thought, running towards the lake. The lake was become her favorite place fast. It was nice and quiet there, hardly any of the bandits go there when it was nearing the afternoon, so she was sure that no one would disturb her.

Her necklace felt unusually heavy today, as if her thinking about her brother made it heavier than usual. This didn't bother her, in fact, knowing that her brother's presence in the necklace was reassuring to her.

She sighed. Maybe she should tell Tasuki what's going on, after all, he deserves to know why she ran away from him without any reason at all.

"Hey,"

Mayumi turned, her knees tucked around her arms. Tasuki was there, his fan resting in his shoulder, smiling at her a little, but looking a little confused. "Did I say something wrong?"

Mayumi smiled, he still smelled of alcohol, and she wrinkled her nose a little.

Tasuki must have noticed. "You've spent a night with me smelling worse than this," he said stubbornly, looking down at her, "I'm sure you can handle what I smell right now."

Mayumi smiled and nodded. "You didn't do anything wrong, Tasuki," she said, "it has nothing to do with you."

"Oh," he said, sitting beside her, "I guess that's a good thing then."

Mayumi nodded, still playing with her necklace.

"Do you mind if-"

Mayumi looked at him. He seemed genuinely interested, and curious. There was hardly a time when anyone apart from her brother truly listened to her, really tried to understand, and now he had two of them, Kouji and him.

"Is it about Akira?" he asked softly.

Mayumi nodded slowly. "My brother died a year ago today," she said, her voice breaking a bit, "he was murdered."

"Oh," he said quietly. "I'm sorry,"

"It's okay," she said, "it still hurts a bit, and I never got the revenge I wanted."

"So who-"

Mayumi smirked. Curious, aren't you? She thought."My uncle ordered his death," she answered. She smirked at the look of surprise on Tasuki's face. "Yeah, I know, surprising isn't?"

Tasuki said nothing, maybe he didn't know how to react to that kind of situation.

"My brother died saving me," she continued after she was sure that Tasuki wasn't going to say anything. "My uncle and his wife killed our parents, because my grandfather didn't give him any inheritance. He was jealous of father, he got everything, the money, the lands, the riches while all he got was a house. He's lucky he even got a house, my grandma put papa - granddad - up to it.

"But that wasn't enough, Uncle Kito was greedy, very greedy and thought up ways of stealing the riches of our family. But father was smarter than that, until the only option left was to kill them.

"I even saw them do it," she said, choking a bit, remembering the day.

"It's okay, Mayumi," said Tasuki, "you don't have to tell me everything."

Mayumi smiled and shook her head. "It's okay," she said, "I've come this far."

"My uncle had these group of big men with him and they came in the middle of the night, and they killed my father in front of me, but he didn't see me. My brother and mother woke up to the fight, and Akira hid me while trying to stop my mother from going after father. But he couldn't.

"My uncle killed mother," she said, tears starting to form, "and my aunt was watching laughing like a maniac."

Tasuki looked horrified, but didn't say anything.

"Akira and I ran away after that, or more like they found us out, and then forced us out of our own house," she said, smirking a little. "The inheritance belongs to us, and when they realized that, they hunted us down. It took them a while to find us, we hid really well here in the mountains. For two years we were homeless, no one knew we existed. We only went down to the village to visit the graves of our parents, and in the dead the night to make sure that no one would find us. Akira taught me how to fight, how to use my fists and my swords, knives and everything I know, I learned from him.

"Then someone found us out," said Mayumi, again, choking at the thought.

"We fought, naturally, Akira told me to run to leave him behind, but I didn't want to. He fought bravely, with all his heart, trying to protect me and himself.

"But he got killed. And it's all my fault." she said, tears flowing freely. "He died trying to save me, one of the guys was going to stab me in the heart but he blocked me and he got stabbed instead.

"He died in my arms."

Mayumi's tears were flowing freely now as she felt a hand on her shoulder. Tasuki looked extremely grave, all he did was listen and she was happy about it, she didn't think she could continue if he interrupted her. She smiled at Tasuki and wiped her eyes. "Thanks for listening," she said.

Tasuki smiled a small smile and nodded. "It's okay," he said, "and I'm really sorry about your family. If it makes you feel any better, I have a dysfunctional one myself."

Mayumi looked at him. "Really?" she sniffed.

Tasuki nodded. "I'm the youngest and I have five older sisters. Five big, older sisters."

Mayumi smiled.

"They order me around a lot, and scold me all the time," he said, rather darkly, as if angry at the thought. "Then my mother, oh my mother,"

"What?" asked Mayumi, rather curiously. Tasuki's story was getting her away from the topic of her pwn family.

"Well, that's embarrassing, you don't need to know that,"

"But I want to," insisted Mayumi, grinning, "tell me, please."

"Well, when I was a baby..." he began, blushing slightly. "She kind of-"

"Kind of what?"

"Well shesuffocatedmewhilebreastfeedingmethereareyouhappy?" he said very quickly turning a very deep shade of red, thinking that saying it really quickly would make the embarrassment any less.

However Mayumi got every word and she tried not to laugh, but she couldn't help it.

She laughed. And laughed, and laughed.

Tasuki frowned and crossed his arms across his chest. "I don't see what's so funny."

"I - " she said, laughing, "I d-do, I s-s-see it..."

Tasuki frowned even deeper as he stared at Mayumi who was probably picturing what he was like as a baby.

Well, he thought, at least I got her to laugh.