Wayward Ransom, chapter 17.
Bankotsu found himself holding the red nodachi tassel up to his lips again. It had taken him only a moment to remember everything about his brief stay here...the knife in the door, the pathetic small crew of assassins that Bankotsu defeated single handedly, the pompous official who had not only quickly given him and his men their reward, but who sought him out to do it.
Yeah...and Akiko.
He turned back again to the opened screen to the rear room, and set his eyes on the scrolls that lined the desk in the back room. He grinned. He tried so hard to be able to use things like in that back room--the scrolls, brushes, ink. She tried so hard to teach him.
Soon afterward of leaving the cottage back then, Bankotsu and his men had an extended job keeping some other daimyos in line, who had been so strangely working together recently instead of using himself and his men to tear one another apart. He would have completely forgotten about Akiko had he not needed to continually rely so heavily on Renkotsu so much for any written communications. He never forgot his promise to himself, and his flirtatious comment to Akiko, that he'd enjoy having her teach him how to write. So, when they returned from their near two-month stand, and after getting paid yet another generous reward, Bankotsu swore to himself he'd seek her out.
She wasn't easy to find, though. It forced Bankotsu to be doggedly persistent in his search for her. He had to go to from brothel to brothel, searching out the places he learned she'd worked to find her, asking around for her whereabouts. He had to assure many people he was, in fact, not out to kill her. Whether they believed him or not was a different story. All the time he searched, women either left his presence quickly in fear of him or clung around his shoulders in fascination of him.
He finally found her in a town near the abandoned village in which she was temporarily housed. He thought it was strange she ended up back here and not at her stepfather's place. Once he found exactly where she lived, he told himself he'd come back the next day wearing his finest. He was wearing a rather presentable-looking outfit rather than his usual armor...but when you needed to impress your future teacher, he grinned to himself thinking, hey, you needed to do it in some real style. Hell, it wasn't like he couldn't afford it anyway!
He was ready to do a bit of explaining, preparing it all as he walked up to her door. Townspeople who knew about him and his reputation watched him in silent apprehension as he walked the streets and eventually knocked on Akiko's door.
She turned ashen and looked ready to fall over as she saw him standing there after opening her front door. After a few strained, nonsensical syllables escaped from her throat, she finally got some questions out, asking him what he was doing there and how in the world he found her?, while all the while taking in everything about him...from his jet black trousers, to his pure white undershirt, and finally his elaborately gold-brocaded, dark indigo outer jacket. And finally resting her yellow eyes in his own, just for a moment, before embarassment at his sudden presence, and the wild-yet-elegant beauty of his face forced her to look away.
He tried to make a joke about having "connections", who told him he could get some reading lessons, while leaning against the doorframe, and crossing his arms. Even cocking an eyebrow and smirking flirtatiously didn't help, because his joke obviously fell flat on its face when she looked worried about his "connections". So he made a note to be careful about making any more of his usual flippant comments to her. The excuse that she never finished telling him her story went over much better, after he jogged her memory about which story he was talking about.
Akiko said she didin't have time to do anything with the story yet, but she did use the money Bankotsu gave her to start a little silk-dyeing business, something she always dreamed about while sitting at her desk poring over letters and numbers. Seeing some of her beginning custom silkwork only impressed Bankotsu further. She was pretty darn cute, but above all, he loved her mind.
In further conversation, she said she paid off her stepfather's debts just in time for him to pass away one month later. Akiko was sad, but knowing he was with her stepmother comforted her. So she moved back here, where she had more materials easily available to her, instead of staying in her and Bankotsu's rather isolated childhood village back east.
Getting back to some reading and writing lessons, Bankotsu had to encourage her many times that yes, he was serious. He wanted her to teach him.
He began seeing her semi-regularly, in between various lengths of time due to his injuries and his men's battles and random assassinations. What struck him the most about her now is how her arms and hands had changed. He found himself fascinated by them every time she had to push up her sleeves in order to take his hand, showing him how to distribute the ink evenly on the paper. Soon, his curiosity got the best of him, and he insisted on holding one of them, to her utter embarassment. He was fascinated at how they were so much more normal-looking now, the thick, vein-like red lines almost completely gone. She told him they seemed to have greatly lessened in the past two months after he gave her his reward money, and the most improvement was seen when she paid off her stepfather's debts. She said when she became absorbed in learning how to use all the silk dying processes her mentor was teaching her, they lessened to the point where they disappeared.
Many lessons and weeks later, he finally grasped good brush technique, managing to hold the brushes without gripping them so tightly they broke into splinters in his strong hands, and without awkwardly spilling the rather expensive red ink all over the place. He was glad Akiko was the one to see him like this, and no one else, because any attempts to write before made him turn pale, sweat a lot, and shake with nervousness. It was so embarassing for the young warrior. His innocent frustration with it all caused Akiko to giggle at him many times. She even laughingly told him that when she tended to catch the scents of musk and fine incense wafting from the closed front door, she smiled to herself. Because she knew she had to muster up all her patience for the next short while.
Those were some of the best times of his life. He had no qualms about learning something new, but the heat of battle continually made his retention with written language a problem, and Akiko had to reteach him many things after he was gone for a couple weeks at a time. Sometimes, he briefly entertained the notion that he forgot things so often was maybe because she was teaching him. But...on second thought...naaah. He was just compeltely inept with anything involving written language.
And then...it happened. They were both seated, and he managed to write a complete, simple document on his own. He was sooo excited. Forgetting himself for a moment, he did what he knew he shouldn't quite have done...which was lean over to Akiko, looking deeply into her eyes. Which is when he noticed her pupils, by the way. They were slitted, shaped like a cat's, not a human's...which he never noticed until now...now that he was so temptingly, maddeningly close...and then...he gracefully attempted to kiss her.
That fell flat on its face, also. He did too, literally...when she pulled away from him instead of letting him do it. After a few whimpers, she explained that she was warned about welcoming him in. Her neighbors didn't appreciate it, and she wanted to keep it as platonic as possible. Lessons only. He deeply sighed, and lay there on the floor for a second or two. He accepted that, though he never, ever told her or anyone else how heartbroken it made him. They agreed to both pretend it never happened, and soon picked up where they left off, language-wise, Akiko getting paid well by Bankotsu every time for her patient efforts.
His grin disappeared, and he came back to the present, tearing his eyes away from the documents in the back room. His brow furrowed. He was so angry with himself. He ended up forgetting almost everything she tried to teach him after he was resurrected, and couldn't even write a threatening letter to that disgusting bastard young daimyo who had turned on him and everyone else close to him so horribly that day. Renkotsu still had to handle the communications. But...at least he tried to write something down before the rest of his men caught up with him.
He turned his face quickly toward the west, and became a little dizzy again. He exhaled and inhaled quickly and deeply in agony for a while to try and keep the little blood left in his body flowing. He simply wouldn't make it much farther from here without collapsing. He had to slap the doorframe with a hand to keep himself from falling over right now, and his arm, his very badly bruised hip, in fact, his whole body, were all begging for mercy.
His heart had to beg for mercy, too...for what happened that day, over there to the west, and here, at this cottage. It begged for Bankotsu to forget it all...it pleaded and whimpered. But to no avail.
Memories came rushing back faster than he could handle now, and it made him angrier...and dizzier, and weaker...
Now that he was so utterly alone, and there was no one and nothing to help distract him from them, they played themselves out all over again.
That fucking daimyo, damn him to hell.