Disclaimer: Of course Peacemaker doesn't belong to us. It belongs to the powers that be.
CHAPTER THREE
The atmosphere is thick with excitement, as visitors of all status jostle around, keen on quenching their thirst for lust. Overhead the cherry trees sway gracefully, unaffected by the commotion below, their petals dancing as they swirl and spiral through the air...
Only to be trampled on by the crowd, the stench of alcohol overcoming their sweet fragrance.
The painted faces of women peer sadly from behind silk curtains at the sight of delicate petals crushed under the feet of these men. They can't help but smile at the irony. Their resplendent eyes focus on the stares of those who begin to look up at them, and slowly they turn away.
They don't see the lone petal that has managed to rise up in a swirl of dust towards an open window. The pale petal has not yet reached the skies before it is stopped by the sweep of a branch. It is almost as if nature itself is imitating the unspoken truth about this dreamlike realm--- once you have fallen, it is almost always useless to try and rise again.
The petal is unfazed as it drifts back amongst the bustling congregation, much like those before a temple. But here, different gods are worshipped and envied.
It floats through a courtyard of mirth, past rooms of passion, behind a box of cracked masks, into restless corridors, up a winding staircase, and through a crack into a forgotten room.
The exhausted petal falls onto a quivering palm.
The palm belongs to a little boy who is shivering, despite being wrapped in a blanket. Roars of laughter and the twangs of a shamisen reach the dark corner and each time it does, the child withdraws further under the wardrobe and into himself, until he no longer lingers there on the wooden boards, but somewhere in the depths of his mind.
Amidst the blurry memories of a sparse childhood. A childhood he is unconsiously leaving, at an age where children begin to relish in it.
He exhales shakily and closes his eyes, trying to comfort himself as children do when situations become too complex. Like most he fails.
He rocks back and forth, wondering what he has done to his family to deserve this abandonment by them. His family...The little boy fingers the hem of his yukata and recalls painful snippets of conversations already swallowed by time.
"Our Sakura is gone... why her and not him!"
"..Gaki! What are you standing here for? Go and fetch water."
"He's such a puny and weak looking child... a disgrace to his samurai heritage..."
He desperately puts his fingers in his ears, trying to ward off all the voices and faces spinning around in his head. His family, despite the way they treated him, will take him back from this strange place, he knows they will. They have to...they are all he has.
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The twinkling of elaborate hair ornaments can be heard as a shimmering girl glides down a carpeted passageway. She abruptly stops, just in time, before a puddle of spilt sake. A sigh is released from rouged lips, her slender hands lifting the many layers of kimono as she tiptoes around the mess, taking care not to stain her garment.
The hallway looming before her is richly furnished, too exquisite for her likes, but enough for the visitors. The visitors...She nibbles on almond shaped nails as she wonders whether she should enter her usual gathering or...
She turns her head to meet darkness in the form of an aisle.
She smiles almost cheekily as she makes a quick decision and the swift rustle of silk accompanying it prompts a man to impatiently slide open the shoji. He blinks.
A cloud of perfume greets him, and nothing else. Annoyed, he slides the door shut again.
Her choice, though she doesn't know it yet, has unerringly altered the threads of fate in a way she will never imagine.
For now, she steers through mazes of debilitated corridors, as skillfully as a sea captain whose knowledge of the oceans go beyound that of maps. Her surroundings become darker and darker with each step, but not as dark as that hidden void within her. Within all of them.
As she drifts further away from everyone, hallways become pathways into enchanted forests and her laughter is the tune to which she sways. From afar, she's like a doll puppet, attached to gossamer strings that quietly restrain her every move--- her chains.
Feeling a little giddy, she supports herself against a wall covered in a layers of dust. People won't believe her if she tells them she prefers this dingy place to her spacious quarters, but then again people won't listen even if she proclaims that the ground sparkles with fallen stars. Most of the women are too envious to actually want to speak to her.
She really wishes they wouldn't envy her so. Sometimes, she wishes for a real friend. But everyone here is a rival. Everyone wants to make more money than the next. Everyone wants to be the star.
The girl rests her head against the wall and breathes in the musty scent.
She must have been breathing hard for the dust disappears to reveal a carving. Moving her arm away, her fingers trace over the engraved lines; slowly and wonderingly.
She peers closer and sees something that willl always be etched into her memory, just as it is etched into the plaster. Despite the crudeness of the carving, she can make out a couple in embrace, above a full moon and down below, the vines entwining them together.
Their faint expressions betray their undying love, for she is sure that's what it is. Her own expression becomes wistful. It wasn't as if she had never seen ink prints and woodblocks before, she had even posed for some, but this seems different...
She wonders why such a sight can evoke so much feeling within her and why the engraved moon is oddly illuminated. Perhaps my head is going funny...She grins. If it is not already...
Smiling sadly, she tries to picture herself in that embrace, but as hard as she tries she can't. So instead she just forlornly gazes at the wall, as if trying to suck it's warmth into her chilled bones.
As she peers closer, a sudden draught surprises her, and she moves back, astonished. She puts a hand to her mouth and lets out a giggle as she realises what is going on. With great interest, she scrutinises the tiny moon, noticing now that a hole was made there intentionally, so that the moon outside could be caught in the carving.
Far off voices reach her ears then, reminding her where she is.
Turning her back, she reluctantly walks away from the lovesick couple immortalized in time along with the essence of passion. She repeats to herself the key rule she and the others abide by here. To play at love, but never, never to allow oneself to feel it, for that is where disaster lies.
And that is why that picture can never apply to me, she thinks a little bitterly as she leaves the corridor, embracing the darkness of the next.
Wind whistles through the hole and covers the art with another layer of dust, and patiently it waits, for the next time it will be discovered.
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He closes his eyes and tries to imagine the day they will come back for him, but as hard as he tries, he just can't picture it.
Anxiously he looks around, before he comes crawling out of his hiding place, intrigued by a thin layer of dust covering the floor. Disappointed that he can't see his reflection, he uses the dust for a different purpose, he wants to trace his family. The dust curls upwards as he draws them coming for him, just like he hopes but can't picture.
Although he finishes the picture, his finger remains at the spot where a mother should be. He blanches suddenly, causing his fist to release the pink petal, which for a moment hovers over the dusty sketch. The little boy realises it has settled in the middle of the dirt portrait--- right where he has planned to draw a mother.
With a painful jolt, it finally makes sense to him and he stares in horror at the petal, and the room spins before him. He feels like he is trapped inside a top of unwanted images, and lets out a startled cry.
His family has despised him from the begining and he can't deny it any longer, the memories finally flooding him.
He sees a man, holding a woman's kimono, the fabric a creamy colour and decorated with sakura petals. The man cries, and he is quickly picked up from the hallway and ordered never to go near the room again. He sees himself, grasping an older boy's yukata, only to be pushed away and left alone.
In front of a courtyard with burning cherry trees. Falling petals becoming falling ash. A man, standing to the side, shaking. Face twisted in anger.
He never understood what it was that caused the man he knew was his father to do that. The one whose room was forbidden territory. He faintly remembers that day, when he had toddled over to him and raised his arms, wanting to be held. Longing to be held. And because of him, the trees had burned. When he had gone to sleep, he had thought he could hear them crying.
After that experience, he had never gone near the man again, he was too frightened.
And he never wanted to be held by anyone again, not that anyone had ever tried.
Salty droplets stain his face, falling on the floor like rain and his family drown under his tears. The little boy shakes under the weight of them, they have never felt so heavy...
I killed her...my mommy...she's dead...
It repeats through his head, echoing what he has always heard since he became old enough to remember.
Quaking sobs echo through the room as he makes himself understand why he is left here, it is because he killed his mother, the lady his father considered his life, and he can't' deny it any longer, he can't escape the truth of the matter, that his family will never claim him. That they have already forgotten him.
He withdraws under the wardrobe once more, wrapped in his blanket...the blanket a womb and he the rotting foetus, clinging onto a fractured childhood.
To see the world through a child's eyes is said to be blissful, but that depends on the child, and this one is an exception.
He is crying tears that he should not have to shed. He does not understand that the lady he believes he killed passed away giving birth to him, something that was not his fault. Since no one took the effort to explain this to him, he carries the agonising burden of guilt, when most kids his age only carry sweets...
A gentle breeze lifts the petal drenched in his tears, and slowly, it sails back through the crack, leaving the little boy alone in the room.
-------
She reaches the last step and leans against the wall to catch her breath.
In doing so she crushes her intricately folded obi knot. Maybe I should just tie it in front of me like expected, she thinks. She doesn't deny it makes her job harder to tie it the way she does, and after all their obi knots are meant to distinguish them from geisha and other women. Despite her trade though, she still refuses to tie it in the front, and mark herself as she puts it. That's what makes her different from the other women, a part of her still clings to self-respect.
She smiles suddenly as she realises she's in the boys quarters, away from the source of her troubled thoughts.
Glancing around to see if no one is watching, she gathers up her kimono and starts to skip, albeit a little heavily, under the weight of all that material. She giggles, and it's not forced, this is what she loves about the boys quarters, she can just relax around here.
No need to think about the looks on her clients faces if they saw her prancing about like a little girl, or how her rival Rozu would smugly wrinkle up her nose, muttering 'immature' under her breath. Even though Chubei told her it was futile, he hadn't specifically said she couldn't go there...Of course, she had known and he had known, that she wouldn't have any time anyway. But occasionally...
She turns her head just in time to see a cherry petal floating past her ornate locks and landing gently on the floor. She stops and slowly bends over to pick it up, noticing the moisture as she rolls it between her fingers. Oddly, she thinks of tears.
Gracefully letting go, she expects it to continue on it's journey, but it doesn't. The petal lands on the floor at her feet, and does not rise.
Looking up, she hears teasing voices coming from the room to her right. Slightly abashed, she gathers her kimono and tries to tiptoe past, but the voices become louder with each step. She knows its not her place to question what went on behind the screen doors, but the laughter sounds oddly familiar. Laughter she has not heard in a long time...
A faint memory of clouds occupies her mind as she quickly slides open the shoji, yelling childlike, "Taizo! Taizi!"
Two lanky young men jump at the same time. They look more confused than embarrassed, especially at hearing a woman's voice here.
She raises her eyebrows. It seems as though they are hiding something behind them. She twists from side to side, trying to see what it is, while they move closer together so she won't see. They look alike, and though she could always tell them apart when they were younger, their similiarity is making her dizzy so she stops, and instead, smiles at them eagerly.
It has been a long time after all. She has turned into a woman, and they into men. Yet it feels like only yesterday to her, and she wonders why they don't return the smile.
"Uh..." began the taller of the two sheepishly, "Do we know you?"
Seeing her smile falter, the other, who has been peering at her intently, nudges his brother. "I think we do."
Taizo squinted at the girl. "Yeah...come to think of it, she does look familiar...but I'm not sure..."
"You moron, look at her eyes."
His brother was indignant. "I knew all along." He blusters. "I was just pretending. You're the moron."
"You knew?" Taizi laughs, shaking his head. "Then why were you acting like such a dumbass? Oh wait, I forget. That's normal for you."
"Hey!"
The young woman, who was holding her eyes wide open so the brothers can see better, now rolls them.
Some things never change, she thinks, amused as she watches them bicker. Finally, she clears her throat. "Ahem. You have to know me. Don't you remember all those afternoons we spent together in the back garden? When we'd lie on the grass and stare up at the sky..." Her voice quavers now, and she can't finish her sentence. She feels embarrassed at becoming so unexpectedly emotional, looking down at the floor, but Taizi's gentle voice makes her look up again.
"Pretending all the clouds were animals and things, right?"
"And there was that fat one that looked so much like Chubei," cust in Taizo, grinning. "Sure, I remember."
She can't help it, she has to laugh. Then there was a blur of colour as she practically flings herself at them, so forcefully they nearly lose their balance. They hug each other tightly, the three of them, like a happier repeat of that day when they were forced to part, when they felt as though the sky had come crashing down on them.
Then they drew back, and there was a momentary silence.
"It's been ages," says Taizo at last. "We missed you like hell when you were gone."
"I know. So did I. A lot has changed but," She swallows. "I'm mostly happy." She gives them a bright smile.
Taizi looks sceptical. "I can still read your eyes. And they don't seem happy to me. But hey, can't complan right?"
She nods. "That's true."
Unknown to her, the brothers are secretely awed by how much she has changed from the scrawny little girl she once was. Now they know why she is Chubei's favourite. She is lovely to them, not only on the inside, but also on the outside. But it was this growing beauty that had played a role in their separation.
A blessing and a curse, thinks Taizi as he watches her joke with his twin. He feels a sense of contentment being around her, feels as though he can bask in this moment forever. Suddenly, at just the moment when they all stopped talking, a whimper sounds through the room. The brothers look at each other nervously.
She raises an elegant eyebrow as they immediately stand in front of her again, shielding her view of the wardrobe. "What was that?"
"That?" says Taizo, laughing an extremely fake laugh. "Er, that was just my stomach!" He patted it fondly. "I've gotta go eat, I'm starved."
Another whimper follows. And then another. Her eyes widen. "Why, it's a child!" she exclaims in surprise, pushing them apart and bending over to see. The child, small enough to fit in the space underneath the wardrobe, is wrapped in a blanket that seems too big for him. His hands are shielding his face.
She looks at him in astonishment, then twirls back to face the twins, her face suddenly angry. "Don't tell me you two have turned into bullies!" She looks truly furious, and they back away from her. Taizi frantically waves his hands in front of him. "No, no, we weren't bullying him!"
"We were just laughing at him," Taizo blurts out in his enthusiasm to properly explain the situation. A swift nudge in the ribs from his brother shuts him up.
"No, we were just looking for someone and found him here, honestly," said Taizi weakly.
She is just about to inform them that she hasn't lost her habit of tweaking their ears, when they are interrupted by a loud and shouting voice. She rolls her eyes, she knows who it is. Unfortunately, Chubei wasn't the only person who ran this place.
"Right," says Taizi. 'That's our cue to head back then.' Unable to look her in the eye, he moves past her, heading for the corridor. 'Bye then.'
'Duty calls!' adds Taizo jokingly.
"Wait," she says, looking a little offended, "Don't you want to meet again?"
"Don't worry, we can find you," Taizo replies. "Now that we know you're still here. You know, they told us you were taken somewhere else." His eyes flashed in brief anger. "Got us to stop looking..."
"That's exactly what they told me!" she exclaims, her own temper flaring. "The nerve!"
"Anyway," interrupts Taizi quickly, "The skies have been filled with many clouds lately..." He winks. "So what do you say? Next week, same day as always?"
She gives them a radiant smile. "Of course! But before you go..." She turns back to the now still child, and asks quietly, "So he is...?"
"Oh...the new one looks like."
She nods. Of course she'd known about another addition to their place, she always knew. She just hadn't found the time to seek him out, like she does all the others.
She turns, and swallowing, peers closer at the child, half wondering, half wishing...His bangs are matted to his forehead, his eyes are tightly shut, and he looks like a wounded animal.
She is a little disappointed. It's not him...He is too old...
She turns around to find the twins gone, she is momentarily sad, but remembers they will meet again. She kneels down, then presses her face sideways against the floor, so they are eye to eye except his are still closed. She wonders why he is so scared, so she waits there, waits until he has stopped trembling so hard.
He hears a sweet humming tune and the scent of lavender wafts under his nose.
Slowly he opens his eyes to see a doll staring at him. No it wasn't a doll, it was a girl. Her lips are red as though she had just finished sucking on red candy. He smiles wistfully at the thought of having some candy and his stomach grumbles.
"I bet you're starving," she says sympathetically.
Her painted eyelids are still closed yet her lips moved, his ears have never heard such a pleasant and gentle voice, so different from when she was talking before. He wonders briefly if she is an angel, then remembers where he is. This loud, noisy place that his young mind still doesn't understand. Angels wouldn't live here, he thinks.
Noticing the way he is still trembling, and how small he is, she feels sorry for him. Brushing a hand lightly against his shoulder, she tries to comfort him. To her suprise the boy opens his eyes and they seem calm, despite his state she feels as though she is peering into the eyes of an old man not those of a little boy.
She smiles and gently extends her hand. "Hello there. My name is Kaiyoumi."
The boy blinks at her. The suddenly his violet orbs widen.
Her eyes...they are so...
His mind is bubbling as slowly, tentatively, he grasps her hand. He feels strange, as though he is leaving everything behind, this room, his thoughts of family, everything...
Her eyes are the most beautiful colour he has ever seen.
-------
Take me down to the underground
Won't you take me down to the underground
Why oh why there is no light
And if I can't sleep can you hold my life
And all I see is you
Take my hand, I lost where I began
In my heart, I know all of my faults
Will you help me understand
And all I see is you...
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The dirt road ahead of him had green patches of grass growing in the middle, and Kichisaburo's eyes were grateful for the change of colour.
He sighed in relief as his bruised feet came upon the softness. Looking around, the murky colours were nothing but specks now in the green company which was good, he would be at a village soon... He started to pick up a few pebbles to throw across the road. Knowing now that he was so close, he was beginning to feel more restless than before.
As he bent down again, he felt something poke him--- it was his old fan. He used it to shield his eyes as he observed the area to his right, making out a figure with arms outstretched, just standing in the middle of the field. He raised his eyebrows, and his mouth twitched in annoyance.
"He seems to be enjoying the weather."
He shut his fan, and as he did, a petal gracefully fell from it's edges, he saw it out of the corner of his eye. A spot of pink danced amongst the drab background, and Kichisaburo's eyes widened as a memory briefly flashed before him.
For a minute he seemed frozen in time, unable to move, then he regained his senses and angrily scuffed the petal into the grass.
Satisfied with it out of sight, he wiped his face for a moment, before starting off towards the outstretched figure.
Slowly and surely, the petal drifted upwards and burned from the heat, and the wind scattered the dust into the stretching sky.
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