Hi, Happy to see you!
Last year was a terribly sad and difficult year for me, wrought with death, despair but also hope and experience. I wish everyone to move forward into this year with gratitude, hope, and a thicker skin that will allow us to pursue our ambitions, triumph over challenges, and love those around us.
I apologize I have been away, but this tale will be completed! Thank you my long time readers for sticking with me thick and thin to watch this tale unfold. It means a lot to a quiet girl with a loud imagination who just wants her (literary) voice heard in the world. You know who you are.
translation notes
geta : japanese clogs/ sandals
doushita: loose translation of 'what's wrong'
Nostalgia
"Where are we headed?"
Her inquiry drowned by the beating of hooves against moist earth.
"To town," his curt reply coming from behind her ear as he steers the reins left.
She wants to ask why but his sudden yank on the reins prompts his steed to an abrupt trot, and the transition steals her balance.
A small gasp, squelched by the General's arms tightening around her small waist.
"It's nothing," he assures her as they reach a clearing in the woods.
The small hamlet is all too familiar to Ran, and she felt a pang of nostalgia upon reaching the wooden stables.
Sometime ago in a village not so different from this, she had met an incorrigible, moody General. Everything changed afterward, but as the young woman lays eyes on the hay lean-tos, farmers peddling produce, old men playing go and boisterous children running down a dirt road, a bittersweet sense of nostaglia washes over her.
"This is….." she breathes, walking past the wooden gates, "...wonderful. It's like my home town."
Her smile finally resurfaces and Mitsunari stares, thinking it could be as bright as the sun in the sky.
Ran gives him a quizzical look. "Mitsunari-dono?"
Hn. "It's nothing." He strides ahead.
The young General turns towards a shop bustling with a blithe female juggling rolls of textile.
"Welcome, esteemed guests! Please have a look around!" She chirps, stowing away the fabrics. "How may I be of assistance?"
Mitsunari wordlessly drops a pouch of coins and gestures to the small woman with porcelain features behind him.
"Mitsunari-dono, why are we-"
"I've business to tend to and will return for you," he instructs, turning to exit.
Ran trails his figure with knotted eyebrows. What?
"My lady, your husband has left you in our care, he must trust our services. We mustn't disappoint him!"
"Services" Ran mouths, eyes still glued to the samurai's retreating figure.
"Our shop is the best in town for crafting seasonal kimonos. Come right this way!"
There's a tug on the sleeve of her thin, brown sleeve, ushering her past the tengui into the back of the shop.
Like a jolt of lighting, it hits her.
"Ah! He's not my husband!'
There wasn't anything wrong with her clothes, but Ran had no complaints with her new outfit. Delicate embroidered goldfish of orange and red hues flutter on the ombré white to pale blue background of her furisode. The shop keeper had taken the liberty of selecting a gold inner collar for her, tweeting along the process that it would add to her glow.
"Finished," the older woman announces triumphantly, tying the red belt to her gold obi. "I hear your husband is back and with your new outfit he will absolutely adore you. Come to think of it, I doubt any man could look away!"
"He's NOT my husband," Ran repeats with a sigh, resigning to the fact she will probably die a misunderstood woman.
I doubt he will so much as look my way.
The shop owner raises an eyebrow. "Oh! Then your lover! It's no surprise how he looks at you with such a warm gaze."
"Warm?" Her choked reply, evoking all the cold, steel glares of a certain sinister General.
The older woman nods with a romantic sigh, hand on her face. "Of course, the way he looks at you, no woman could think otherwise! That samurai only has eyes for you. Oh to be young again!"
Ran bites back a smile.
"He is not like that….Thank you for your assistance," the healer bows prior to stepping out.
She is a vision of blue. And gold and red. Like the autumn koi pond in the old compound where he trained and lived alongside Hanbei-dono. Glimpses of his childhood flash as she emerges from the small storefront, and his usual scowl grows lax.
A few men stop midway their routines to see her cross. With her porcelain skin contrasted by ebony locks, of course he expected no less, but he still gave them pointed glares.
"Mitsunari-dono, thank you," she bows to him as he nods. His tall, silent form leaning indifferently against a wall, despite Ran's radiant smile.
"The shopkeeper said this would be a suitable color for the season," her sleeves flutter a display of fish swimming in pale blue waters, "I must say it's beautiful, wouldn't you agree?"
Hn. If she was fishing for compliments, he'd prove to her it's a pointless endeavor.
"Ah."
He bites his tongue the instant said syllable leaves him.
"Eh?" She looks over with a curious smile.
"There is a deceased I need to pay my respects to," he clears his throat, "come."
Ran is quiet for a moment, before asking who's grave they are visiting only to be told she will know on arrival.
Could it be his family? Ran never heard any mention of his parents, not even from the elderly Tschiyo who cared for the young General since childhood. Lord Hideyoshi's grave was nowhere near here. Perhaps an old lover?
She wrinkles her nose at the last assumption and Mitsunari gives her a hiked eyebrow to which Ran immediately catches on.
"It's nothing," with a shake of her head, "Very well, Mitsunari-dono, I will accompany you."
This woman is unbelievable.
"This had all be necessary," he mutters, turning back to her staggering, panting form.
Ran throws her weight against a tree trunk, dabbing forehead with sleeve. Mitsunari sighs nasally, adjusting his grip on the enormous basket in his non dominant hand.
Kami, she isn't even carrying anything.
"The dead NEED only respect," she pants, pushing herself off the trunk towards him to scale the upcoming boulders. "Everything else I would like them to have."
He looks up. "Up this, and we will have arrived."
Like a cat, Mitsunari climbs up the path dotted with boulders and laced with branches. A clearing greets him, not of dirt but grass - an earnest attempt of nature to reclaim its rightful land. He stands before the moss-covered tombstone and couldn't fathom the amount of time that has passed since his last visit.
Mitsunari drops the basket and flickers down the small ravine to the straggling female. She looks at his extended hand.
"The sun will set at this pace of yours," he mutters, pulling her up the last stretch of uneven rocks and vines.
"This is wonderful," Ran breathes, reaching the clearing.
"He deserves at least this much," Mitsunari murmurs, genuflecting before the tombstone and setting down his sword.
She peers over his shoulder. He? All this time she was dreading a deceased lover and it's a man!
As if to read her mind, Mitsunari brushes off the moss, revealing kanji chiseled on stone. "Ore no Sensei."
Takenaka Hanbei.
"Hanbei-dono, was your teacher?"
Mitsunari replies with a silent prayer.
The sword. Bushido. Samurai. Duty. The World. All are from Hanbei-dono.
Teacher. Mentor. Father…. Friend. All was Hanbei-dono.
I am forever in your debt Sensei. Forgive my irreverent absence. I have been fighting for the unity of our nation since your death and will continue this endeavor until the end of my days.
A shuffling breaks his meditation. His eyes dart over to the young woman and her layout of multi-colored confectioneries.
"Hanbei-dono, must be lonely up here," she murmurs, arranging a sake set, "he must be elated you visit bearing so many gifts. That is what I think whenever I visit my mother."
There's a sharp pang in his core that Mitsunari finds foreign but any man would recognize as guilt.
"He prefers the peace and quiet," his stifled grunt, pouring sake into the cups.
"Is that so?" She absentmindedly adjusts the bouquet of lilies laying on the grass.
"Hanbei-dono was my guardian and teacher," he elaborates solemnly. "He was a man of great wisdom and military acumen, and served as chief strategist to Lord Hideyoshi."
Ran sends him a sad smile. "Thank you for telling me of Lord Hanbei," she stands up dusting off her kimono. "Please pardon me, I will be down by the main path awaiting your return, Mitsunari-dono."
Ran had visited her mother's grave too many times to underestimate the importance of privacy and peace. With a cursory bow she excuses herself and hopes the young General finds the same.
Regardless of the deep divide, there will always be words the living wish to confer to the dead. Time and a world's difference cannot corrode the roots of a love embedded in a living heart.
Okasan, this isn't how I pictured my life.
A certain cantankerous samurai. A secret birthright. The war and a sacrifice so great it almost cost her life. There's so much Ran wishes to tell the woman who left prematurely.
However, I promise you I will continue to live and be happy.
"It's time to head back," Mitsunari announces, practically sliding down the gully littered with leaves and branches.
She breaks from her reverie and hurries to catch up to him.
SNAP!
With a cry, Ran finds herself sprawling before the ground, hands slammed against dirt and stone.
"Are you alright?" Mitsunari asks, at her side.
The young woman tells him it hurts.
"Of course it hurts," he mutters under his breath, brushing off her hand and checking for injuries, "you fell."
She sits up, noting the tear in the wooden clog. Inwardly Ran regrets not asking for new geta at the store, seeing her current pair was functional.
Without missing a beat, Mitsunari cuts in. "You have new clothing, yet old shoes. Are you an idiot?"
The healer flounders for a reply to Mitsunari's rhetorical question.
He drops one knee to the ground and raises another. "Come," he beckons with an open hand.
"Eh?" The quizzical look she sends him is short lived as he yanks her into his lap.
"Don't move," he orders, tying the straps of her slipper together.
"Ah! Mitsunari-dono, please you need not do this!" A flash of crimson floods her pale countenance. Kami-sama, to think the General of the Western Army was tying the sandals of a common girl! What would people say!
"It's fine. How else do you expect to walk home? Barefoot?" He sneers and she grows even redder at his furtive jabbing of her past.
Before she could answer, he tells her it's done. She thanks him and finds a shock shooting up her leg that sends her reeling to the side.
"Oi! Doushita?" It's a paltry effort catching her.
She winces, bearing weight on the ankle.
He motions for her to sit on a boulder and bends down to inspect her ankle.
"Ah! It's alright! I can at least take care of this," turning away with a pink discoloration on her cheeks. "I just need to wrap it up."
The young man nods and without a word, rips at the helm of his purple hakama
Ran's eyes grow wide at the General of the Western Army tearing his clothes apart.
For her.
"Here." His wordless reply, handing over the slender fabric. "We haven't all day."
She swallows, taking the cloth. "Yes, thank you."
He turns his back to her and kneels. "Do not walk, least your injury worsens."
"But we need to get back," the young healer blurts out, crooning her head until realization hits hard. "Oh! I cannot, Mitsunari-dono, I don't dare!"
"I'd sooner carry you than have you non-ambulatory for days," he throws her a side eye. "Get on with it."
Reluctantly, she climbs on his back and he's off trekking through the woods back to town.
"Mitsunari-dono, are you worried I may not be able to walk?" Arms wrapping tighter around him.
She thinks her smile is a secret. How wrong.
Mother, I am in love with a man who says he feels nothing for me. I should be sad, broken, in tears….
He scoffs, avoiding a low hanging branch aimed at her. "You are mistaken. The thought of you irritates me."
...but I am not, for even these small moments with him...
"Because you worry for me? Is that why it bothers you?" Resting her head against his neck. The smell of leather and musk swirls her head.
...bring me the greatest joy I've ever known. He is a difficult man but with him...
"You are delusional," he huffs, catching a whiff of the jasmine soap from her.
...my sadness melts away. I think...
Ran smiles again and even Mitsunari is not immune to the warmth as it sends his heart drumming. "Perhaps, was this arranged so you could carry me?"
...Even if it's not possible...
The young man scoffs, readjusting his hold on her. "Have you lost your mind?"
...I wish to stay by his side because...
A small laugh as she whispers in his ear. "Perhaps I have."
...just these small moments will suffice.
A wistful sigh escapes the young maiden. "Mitsunari-dono, you don't have to come to my aid once again. I am already grateful and indebted to you."
"A large debt," he mutters, reaching a clearing at the town now illuminated with multi-colored lanterns.
Her jaws drops. "There's a festival? How wonderful! Can we please go?"
He grumbles how she cannot walk and no sooner she throws herself off and sprints into town, leaving the flabbergasted General rooted to the ground.
"What!"
Author notes:
I believe the phrase is: "Boy got played!"
Hope you enjoyed the lighthearted moments in this chapter. Some sugar and spice to make the read end nice :D
Speaking of spice, I am considering increasing ratings to M(ature) later in the tale. This is an advancing romance after all. I think if I decide to pursue such details I can only promise it will be tastefully done without compromising the quality of my work, but alas, I can't decide so I'll leave it to you. Let me know so I can finish this story in a way that brings satisfaction and happiness not only to me, but for you as well. Thank you.
Xoxo,
Gravism