It's 2021, for better hopefully not worse.
These last two years have been extraordinarily difficult for me as I'm sure it has been for you, my dear readers. Pain, suffering, uncertainty- all that is washed away for me when I write and read. A great story keeps me going, and I hope it can do the same for you!
Thank you everyone who continues this journey with me after so many years (2012!), sharing the magic and tolerating my absurd writer's block (procrastination).
Prefacing this with the cultural norms of 15th-16th century to set the mood: people were ultra conservative but in strange ways. Privacy screens were used to separate men and women while they conversed, LOL! Funny. I love it. Taking a woman's hand in broad daylight would probably make the headlines- not that they had newspapers yet. Dating maybe not a thing, but going open season at a brothel was a norm? There were a lot of gender roles/ rules/ expectations. It's wild, true, unfair, sometimes endearing but it's Mitsunari's reality and I totally here for it.
This chapter entitled, "LOVER", isn't who you think. Plot twist?
CHAPTER 27: LOVER
The sound of pattering rain starts just as he slides the shoji door close. On the opposite end of the small tea house he lays down her futon.
"Rest," comes his quick command as he leaves to fetch the young woman water.
Surely, she could manage to lay on the ground.
Moments later, he returns with a tray in hand almost tripping over layers of her furisode sprawled on the tatami mat.
"What are you doing?" He barks, overstepping the forgotten coil of obi, to seize her wrist in mid reach for a ribbon.
Effortlessly, Ran shrugs off the final layer of her furisode, leaving only her sleeping kimono.
"It's hot," she hiccups, kicking the folds of turquoise textiles away. They gossamer against flickering candlelight like waves out at sea.
He brusquely sets down the tray, kneeling by her seated form and turns to slide open the shoji panels overlooking the garden.
"There, it should be cool- what! Stop!" He turns around to see her shrug fabric off her shoulder and snatches her wrist again.
"It's hot!" She whines, facing him with tendrils of loose hair framing her pale countenance, stained by a faint blush.
A compression against his chest is near intolerable.
"You are not decent," he frowns, reaching to reposition her loose collar only to stop abruptly. His hand hovers over a healing scar, still scarlet despite the passage of time.
"Oh, Mitsunari," she hiccups again, leaning forward to meet his face, "you are staring." Her large dazed brown orbs meet his steel ones.
He casts his gaze on the mat, retracting his hand. He scoffs. "In your current state, who would look at you?"
"Hmmm, you. Is it because I'm pretty?" She gives him a lopsided grin as her head rolls to the side, exposing her neck and more of her shoulder.
His throat runs dry and he downs the cup of water in the tray. "You are indecent and have no idea the nonsense you spout."
She pouts, tussling her sleeves left and right.
Ridiculous, did liquor reduce this quiet, humble peasant to a child? It was obvious she did not heed his commands and this left Mitsunari pensive for a moment to seek another approach.
He gets up on one knee and turns to leave. "If you don't stop, I will leave you here."
If she does not listen to reason, perhaps she will heed threats.
Another impromptu hiccup. "No! Don't go…" Ran attempts to rise from the mat but with impaired balance finds herself tumbling.
He turns, hearing Ran cry from the pain and kneels before her. The pressure previously in his chest now replaced by an incessant drumming.
She murmurs an apology, commanding every shred of coordination to right herself.
"Please stay."
Her request was clearly out of the question.
Scandalous.
Complete lunacy.
No exception.
Absolutely not.
Resigned that she had clearly lost her mind, Mitsunari ponders his reply.
"Such a dangerous request" he remarks, finally having a solution, "do you not fear I will do more than stay?"
The young lady gives him a confused gaze much to Mitsunari's dismay.
This woman is impossible.
Mitsunari sighs nasally. He had reasoned, even threatened her but to no avail and it dawned on him why. Her brain must have been Irreparably impaired from whatever she imbibed.
Kami….
He seizes both her shoulders with barely contained violence.
"You could be taken advantage of- save yourself! You will regret this come daybreak."
For a moment she's silent before bursting into laughter with wild abandon.
"Mitsunari would never hurt me!" She giggles, and like a twisted tragedy begins to cry.
The profound confusion shown on the Western General's facade was marked only by a quirked eyebrow.
"You would not even kiss me," she wails, sobs rattling her small frame.
"That has nothing to do with this!" He hisses, releasing her hastily, a maelstrom raging in the confines of his chest.
"You don't have to -hic- kiss me, but please don't go," her desperate plea. She extends her arms before him and he's relieved by the distance between them.
"Please General…"
No.
"Minister of Misfortune…"
It is improper.
"Mitsunari…"
The Code of Bushido forbids it.
"Mitsunari has many titles but to me you are just a man," she sniffles, arms still out, "whom I love."
His knuckles grow white in a fist, unable to meet her gaze.
I am a villain. A monster.
"I want to...hold you." Her voice is soft with sad clarity.
"You ask for the impossible," he mutters, a pattering drizzle outside mirrors the fresh falling tears from her face. Without even looking at her, he can feel her small, quivering outstretched arms reach for him.
"Please..." her broken whisper is so low but Mitsunari always hears it.
His mouth runs dry again, jaw is stiff and the thunderous palpitations inside his chest grind to a halt. The sight of her trembling small frame and wet crystal eyes stabs him and he's certain the pain from his sword wounds combined could not compare.
"...I long for you."
Mitsunari whirls around, confirming with eyes what his heart saw. With each of her sobs, his breath grows short and shallow.
He knew the pain of longing, having bemoaned the untimely passing of both Lord Hideyoshi, a hero he worshipped and Hanbei-dono, mentor and the closest father figure one could have with a fractured past during turbulent times. Despair, loneliness and loss were old enemies Mitsunari fought years ago. He'd hate to engage them again, but for the young woman before him with shuddering shoulders, he would have no reservations.
"I am alive and yet you wail as if lamenting my death," he crosses his arms, sitting before her, "if you cease your bawling, I shall stay."
Ran murmurs an apology and proceeds to smear tears off her face with bare hands.
Muttering under his breath, Mitsunari tears off a square of white cloth from an abandoned kimono and hands it to her wordlessly.
She hiccups a word of gratitude before using it to dry the corners of her eyes.
"...they call me the Southern Flower but Mitsunari won't even look at me," the young woman pouts, shivering.
Adroitly, Mitsunari reaches over to reposition her collar. It would be more troublesome if she caught her death from the cold, he reasons, tossing the torn kimono over her.
Oblivious, she continues her inebriated tirade. "...Ne…Am I hideous," she turns to face him, leaning forward, "or you have met a woman before me?"
The Minister of Misfortune regards the young woman before him, crossing his arms.
"In the spring of my fifteenth year, I met a woman."
There is no function to divulging such a story, but as he looks upon her dazed, round eyes on an alabaster palette framed by gentle ebony tendrils, he thinks she would not recall anyway.
"Ah, tell me no more," she grumbles, tossing her sleeves.
Kami, so he did have a lover! Oh woe! To think he would look at her when had another!
"Hanbei-dono arranged for our meeting. She was older," he states as if recanting an antiquated mantra.
Ran's face scrunches. She could NEVER compare to this lover of his who had the favor of his deceased mentor! Mature and likely a lady of samurai lineage. How could she compare?!
A heavy weight drops in her chest as eyes squeeze shut.
"...Stop, I don't wish to hear-"
"The encounter was at night in the red light district of the old kingdom. An unsightly, filthy place."
His gaze aimed at the candle is distant and unreadable.
"Heh, AND you love her," Ran retorts with a haughty pout turning away, her hair a black curtain following suit, oblivious to the small details.
Mitunari sneers. "Don't be daft. We met once."
She turns back to him, leaning forward. Her full,feminine lips curl with curiosity paired with a faint sprinkle of scarlet on her cheeks. The flicker of candlelight paints her with an amber glow and there's no questioning the worthiness of her moniker.
"But you still speak of her!" She huffs, eyebrows furrowed with a pout. Perhaps she would be considered adorable by some men's standards, but Mitsunari is not your average man.
He sighs. Nay, he is just a frustrated man.
"To satisfy your inquiry! This was a trial under Hanbei-dono's tutelage; to become loyal vassals one must not hear the voice of riches, nor be deceived by the promise of power, but above all, never succumb to the guiles of women. Only then can one remain true to the path of Bushido."
"Ah, but she was beautiful!" She barely manages a pointed finger at him. Her baseless accusation struck him so hard, his head hung sideways.
Is this the purpose of her inquiry? It seemed endlessly fruitless and painfully unreasonable.
"Hanbei-dono paid her a soldier's entire year's pay, in return for one night of her services. At the time she held the highest rank of Oiran in the red light district. Isn't it obvious?" He deadpans.
Ran's nose wrinkles. "YOU think she's beautiful," she huffs, barreling his chest with open palms.
She dare hit him!
Had it been anyone else, he or she would not live to regret their actions. But she wasn't just anyone and as Mitsunari catches her flailing wrists even he subconsciously concedes it to be true.
He firmly grasps her wrists, though not removing them from his chest. "Factually it is true," the young swordsman confirms, eyes looking into the distant garden ahead, "however I cannot recall her face having met her just once. I have forgotten such a trivial detail."
Mitsunari could not conjure a face, let alone a name.
"Heh. Fine, fine," she sighs, folding her arms into his chest and leaning into him, " I forgive you. Ii desu yo."
His wild eyes darted back to the young woman folded into him. There had been a cacophony in his chest this evening from buzzing, humming to pounding, but now there was nothing. His tongue is numb- paralyzed by a steel weight suspended above his bottomless core. The irascible general famous for his biting remarks, could say nothing, let alone consider WHAT wrongdoing he earned a pardon from the small woman.
A serene silence stills the air as he sits frozen with the small woman against him. Her hiccup shatters the silence.
"Ne...will Mitsunari forget me?" A soft, solemn whisper against gentle pattering of rain outside.
Mitsunari feels his throat sore with disuse despite having spoken moments ago. "How can I forget a woman who is brave enough to intercept arquebus fire?"
For a sinful man like him no less.
She looks up at him, with a small inebriated smile but he refuses to meet her gaze. He swallows, dropping her wrists and placing his hands on his sides. "What a foolish thing to ask."
"Is that so? I just wanted to be sure." A sigh escapes before she resumes her head against his chest with heavy lids.
The moist draft drifts inside, casting a shiver over her small, square shoulders. In one swift motion, Mitsunari adjusts the torn kimono over her, an action so reflexive he doesn't register until after the fact.
He acknowledges however, that despite the young, beautiful woman asleep and pressed into the folds of his kimono, mouth askew, this should mean nothing.
His conscience is clear.
Hanbei-dono, I have engraved your teachings into my heart. Your tenets I adhere to with great scrutiny. Never will I fall prey to beguiling wiles of women.
The rain dances serenely outside and the occasional wind carries to him a whiff of her undone, jasmine scented hair.
He exhales in measured waves.
This woman saved my life; I owe her my gratitude. That is all. This moment means nothing. However, Hanbei-dono…
Ran shuffles and Mitsunari sits petrified on the tatami mat with the same cold insidious sweat tracing down his back as when he found her unconscious at the O-kiya.
If this means nothing, why am I afraid to move?
When writing this, I questioned who is the LOVER. To whom? I'd love to hear what you think.
Also for anyone interested, I will be starting a new piece after this one wraps up. If you like my work, check it out in the future. It'll be a story of love and light triumphing over darkness and despair. There's a brave woman of immeasurable fortitude, an arrogant man who is a visionary without peer and the dividing darkness of vengeance between them. It will be from an anime older and more popular than Sengoku Basara.