Part 9:
Cleanup was going slower than usual, it seemed; even with the girls helping Genzaisensei and myself, time just dragged on forever. All I could feel was a very mild regret about the whole situation. Though it had been many weeks since that potentially awkward night arranged by my friends for which I'd finally decided even to forgive them, it was at last clear even to them that Ishioka Hiro and I were not compatible in the romantic sense. We could never be more than friends, and I was okay with that. I'd agreed never to reveal his secret, though it didn't seem to be such a big deal to me. Part of me wished something could have come of it, sometimes.
Today was as dreary as late autumn could be. The morning had gone slowly, lunch had been no swifter. This afternoon was positively dragging. The air was becoming heavy with an approaching storm; it would be raining heavily by morning. I still hated the rain, sometimes, on the darker nights...
"Megumisan, are we out of willow bark?"
"Not yet, but we have been running low. I'll check; I know I need to run an inventory again."
"We'll help!" Ayame and Suzume were actually very good at organizing things, when they wanted to be helpful. They didn't know much about the medicines and herbs we used, but they shared a gift for creating a logical system of storage. They were practically climbing all over each other today, trying to be good. I think they still felt bad after trying to start something between me and their sensei. Not that it was their fault, not hardly! He was a wonderful young man. He just wasn't THE wonderful young man for me. Even had all else been equal, he was just too... Tame. I needed someone with more... Spine?
Sighing, I dismissed the thought and studied the medicinal cabinet. The girls brought things out and put them away while I noted levels in each jar.
"Are you gonna be able to read that, Megumineesan?" Ayame was peering over my shoulder.
"I'll have you know that as a doctor, I can read just about anything," I informed her primly.
She shrugged. "If you're sure," she said.
"So young, and so skeptical!" my colleague snorted.
"Oh, because your handwriting is so spectacularly neat," I scoffed.
"I'm a doctor. I don't need neat handwriting, as long as my stitches are even!"
I conceded the point gladly, and leveled a superior look at Ayame. She looked unimpressed.
"Now, Ayamechan, don't go picking on Grandpa and Megumineesan... It's not their fault they don't have enough room in their heads to know good penmanship. They have to hold all that medical stuff." Suzume chided her sister as primly as I. Genzaisensei and I shared a look; was that a compliment, or not?
We tacitly agreed to let it go.
"I think that's everything," I said, looking at my notes. I was reasonably sure that was "aloe leaf" I'd written. Wasn't it?
"Are you going now? Maybe the girls can come with you to help carry."
I shook my head. "No, that's all right. I know going shopping with me can be boring, when it's for medicine," I smiled at the girls who looked relieved. "I won't be long. There are only a few things we really need, and I can get them quickly. Besides, they have homework to do."
At that, the relief fell away from two young faces. "We'd rather go buy medicines. Besides, you're leaving in two days. We want to spend more time with you."
"Yeah."
Genzaisensei shrugged. "Be that as it may, Megumisan has a point. To your books, girls."
It didn't take much to prepare for my short jaunt. I was almost to the door, doublechecking to make sure I had enough money, when a long, lean shadow fell across the doorway. The girls were off somewhere, studying; doubtless Genzaisensei was with them.
"I'm home. Oiy, Kitsune, what's for lunch?"
Time froze. I froze. That voice... If anything, it was deeper than I remembered. The devil-may-care attitude was exactly the same, however, and the willingness to leech.
I looked up. It was hard to keep my tone arch, condescending. "You haven't changed one bit, have you."
"Probably not," he said, leaning in the doorframe. "So?"
I covered the short distance between us and studied him for a long moment. Actually, he had; I could see the intervening years had not left him untouched. Slight traces of lines around his eyes, shoulders broader even than when I'd last seen him, more than a hint of stubble… His hair was much longer, and he had a wilder, more untamed look. But there was something else that was indefinably... different.
Somehow he didn't look too uncomfortable under my scrutiny. He was doing a very good job of playing annoyed. "I asked what's for lunch," he said. "After all the time that I've been gone, the least you could do is feed me."
"No, you really haven't changed. Except you need to shave." I shook my head, trying to figure out what it was that had changed, something just beneath the surface.
"Why should I? Not like anyone ever complained about it," he cracked with a grin.
"I don't have time to worry about making you lunch. I'm going back to Aizu next week." I looked up at him. "My clinic is doing well but not so well that I can leave it forever." I was trying to keep my tone formal but it was so difficult... I was beginning to realize what it was.
"Good to see you too, Kitsune," Sanosuke growled. He sounded good, even if he looked like he'd been dragged around the world.
"Do Kensan and the others know you're back yet?"
He nodded. "I stopped by there first. Jouchan told me you were here. The midget looks just like his dad, don't he?" I could feel him watching my face carefully for any reaction, but I managed not to flinch. Much. His eyes narrowed. "Sou. That's still the way of it, then?"
"Sano, it's been that way since the moment I met all of you. However, in case you hadn't noticed, things have changed somewhat since then."
"Oh, I noticed," he said, and that slow grin spread across his face. It was some time before he spoke again.
I wanted to be infuriated by that grin. I sighed instead.
"I'd ask if you missed me, but you never answered my original question, which is far more important."
"Which was?"
"What's for lunch?"
"I may have changed, but you certainly haven't!" I turned away. "I was on my way to restock some supplies. I suppose if you care to take a walk, I suppose we could get something to eat while we talk."
"I could manage a short walk," he said plaintively. "It'll be good to have proper Japanese food again. No one does it like home cooking," he grumbled.
"I think I know what you mean," I said. Out in front of the clinic, the girls were practicing their hiragana in the dirt under their grandfather's supervision. The reunion was sweet to watch, and though my colleague seemed quite happy to see Sanosuke again, it was me on whom he kept his most careful eye. I supposed that Sano's return so soon after what they all believed to be my recent heartbreak had him concerned.
When the girls finally let him go, Sano stood up and flung the white cloak back over his shoulder. Cloak? When did Sagara Sanosuke start wearing a cloak? Then I began to notice other differences; not just his hair or his stubble (which now that I looked at it, was more than simple stubble), but his entire demeanor. His outfit was completely different - although somehow since I had turned my back on him, he was still chewing those filthy fishbones.
It didn't matter. He was here, now. That niggling little feeling that had hovered in the back of my mind for years burst into bloom. "Let's go," I said simply. I studied him out of the corner of my eye as we walked.
"Lunch first?"
"Fine," I said, tossing my hair at him. He wasn't fooled; it seemed he'd mellowed in the intervening years.
"Is the Akabeko still there?"
"Yes," I said. "But I'm not sure Taesan will let you in the door."
"Oh, she will," he smirked. "I have a little something for her." He stopped and pulled from his satchel a thin board. I looked again – it was two boards. He separated them and showed me two beautiful nishiki-e artworks. Painted by his old friend Tsukioka, who Taesan and Tsubame both utterly adored, the watercolors showed a very familiar pair of faces.
It was Kensan and Sanosuke. I was impressed. I said so.
"He gave me one for everyone, but I think Tae would kill me if she didn't get first dibs," he grinned.
"She'll kill you for having let your tab go for so many years," I pointed out. He said nothing, just smirked infuriatingly. Why was I so happy to see him, again…?
"Welcome to the Akabe—You! I shouldn't even let you in this door!" Tae's customary polite greeting cut off abruptly at the sight of my companion. "I'm sorry, Megumisan, but with his tab, and all the interest he's accrued over the past several years, I should have taken his apartment except that Yahiko lives there now."
"Yeah well, I ain't stayin' too long in Tokyo," Sano said nonchalantly. "I'm goin' to Aizu in a week."
Tae and I both turned to look at him. "Are you now?" I wasn't even sure if it was she or I asking him.
"Yeah. The Kitsune's gonna need someone to keep her busy all the way up there. Let us in. I brought you something," he added.
Tae looked at me.
"What're you lookin' at her for? Don't you trust me?" Sanosuke seemed offended. I couldn't imagine why.
"It's true, Taesan. He has a present I think you might enjoy. For you and Tsubamechan both."
Tsubame, hearing her name, came over to us. "Sanosukesan! You're back!" The smile that lit her features warmed me; she and Yahiko were indeed well suited. She was always so calm and sweet, she kept him balanced. "Yahikokun! Come see who's here!"
"These are for you two," Sano said, pulling out the nishiki-e he had just shown me.
"It's Kenshinsan and you! And it's by Tsukiokasama!" Tae all but dissolved into a puddle of happiness, Tsubame right behind her.
"What's all the fuss," Yahiko said. "Oh. It's you," he said with a tilt of his head, but the grin that accompanied the words threatened to split his face in half. He stuck his hand out.
"Ahh, c'mere, ya brat," Sano said, pulling him in and scrubbing the top of Yahiko's head with his knuckles.
"Who're you callin' a brat?" Yahiko glared from under Sano's arm.
Tae and Tsubame were still thoroughly basking in the Tsukioka-art-induced glow, so Yahiko led us to a table and took our order. Sano indeed asked for miso soup and rice, as his last letter had threatened.
"That's it?"
"Yeah, for now. You can't imagine how much I've missed good miso soup," Sano said. Neither Yahiko nor I could quite stop looking at him, for different reasons. Finally the younger man turned to bring our order to the kitchen.
"Hey!"
Yahiko turned at Sano's outcry. "What now?"
"I just noticed. You have something on your back," Sano grinned. There was something different now, something… proud? Indulgent? The thought that here was a man who would be a good father crossed my mind. I immediately took a page from Kaoruchan's book and beat that thought down within an inch of its life. Then I took a page from Sano's, and I kicked the thought a few times for good measure.
Yahiko grinned in return, the cocksure grin that was a combination of Sano's and his own special brand of insolence. "It's all Tsubame's fault. You know how she goes for the bad boys." Turning back around, he continued to the kitchen with a jaunty step.
Sanosuke was chuckling. I shook my head. "You truly did warp that boy's mind, you know."
"Ain't it great?"
I felt the beginnings of a headache coming on.
"Hey, Fox, you don't mind, do you? Me goin' to Aizu with you? I've… uh… learned how to do my own laundry," he finished lamely.
All these years and he still knew how to keep me unbalanced. It wasn't just the laundry thing either. "Sanosuke… I don't know what you expect, but my clinic and my patients must always come first. I can't be a proper hostess to you while you're visiting."
He shook his head. "I'm not talkin' about a visit. All this time there was only one thought that never changed. 'Someday I'm goin' back for her.' The day I watched you get into that carriage, it was just before they came after me, and I thought I was doing the dumbest thing in the world, lettin' you leave like that. I don't ever plan to say goodbye again. If you'll have me."
"What are you saying…?" Was he asking what I thought he was asking?
"I'm sayin' I know you're a doctor first. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll do my best to stay out from underfoot. I might even find a job, if you're real nice," he grinned again, but it faded quickly. "Fox… No. Megumi, I wanna marry you."
Yahiko dropped our soup. Quietly, Tsubame (having put the precious artwork away safely) came over and cleaned up while Yahiko stood with his jaw on the floor with the soup bowls. I understood the feeling. My expression must have been no less flabbergasted.
"Marry me?" A hundred thousand storms broke in my mind. I had resigned myself to a life of solitude, surrounded by men who despised what I represented, friends who were in awe of me, and strangers who didn't care as long as they got the care they needed. Now, this man…
Sanosuke. Who I had known for less than six months before we were separated for as many years. This man, who had barely been back in my life for half an hour, with whom I had never been able to spend more than two minutes without any conversation devolving into a sarcasm war, was asking me to marry him.
Sagara Sanosuke. Did I love him? Yes. There was no question in my mind of that. But love… Love can't pay the bills. It doesn't clean up the bathroom or sit up with a sick child til all hours of the night. It doesn't cook or do laundry or massage stiff shoulders at the end of a long day. It helps, unquestionably, but I needed more than love.
Overwhelmed, I responded the only way I could. "After all this time, I had hoped you might have changed. The least you could have done was propose properly," I said with a toss of my head. I focused on the ends of my hair, pretending I was looking for split ends.
"I wasn't planning this. I didn't know until I saw you again how much I needed you. I never stopped thinkin' about you but the minute I saw you at the clinic, I knew I had to go wherever you went. I don't care about the law bein' after me (although I hope they gave up on that) or about any of the rest of it. Like I said, Aizu ain't that far away that I can't visit everyone else. But you, I don't just wanna visit you. I need you, Megumi. I don't care what it takes. 'Kensan' made the biggest mistake of his life when he chose Jouchan. I'm not gonna be as stupid as he was. I ain't gonna let you out of my sight ever again. I may not be all that, but you make me want to be more than I ever was. I know I ain't got much to offer, but it's yours for the taking."
Tae and Tsubame were trying to pretend they weren't eating it all up. Yahiko still looked as though he'd been beaten over the head with a bomb.
Sano pulled a heavy-looking wallet out of his satchel. "Taesan, here. This should cover me, up til the end of the week." He tossed it to her and she caught it. Her eyes widened as she gauged the weight of it before looking inside. "This… This is…"
"For my debts. And lunch today. And will you please leave me and Megumi alone for five minutes?" The smile he gave her was almost apologetic.
I have never seen her move so fast in my life. Tsubame returned to drag Yahiko away by the ear.
It broke the spell. Sano and I shared a rueful glance as we laughed.
"It wouldn't be easy for you, being the husband of a doctor of my reputation."
"Ne, when did I ever want it easy?"
"Only for as long as I've known you."
"Nah. That was lazy, not easy."
"I'd like everyone from Kyoto to come too."
"As long as I don't have to take the train."
"How did you think we were going to get to Aizu?"
He paled. "I hate those things…"
"It could be worse," I reminded him. "You could have to walk."
"I'd get there eventually," he groused.
"But lonely," I pointed out.
"Kitsune."
"Tori-atama." Even as I called him a bird-head, I couldn't help smiling at him.
"See my hand?" He held it up.
"It looks like a hand."
"I haven't used it since I left."
"So you do listen occasionally."
He snorted. "Only to you."
"And only when it suits you."
He shook his head. "From now on, always. I mean it. Do you trust me?" He held his hand out to me, palm up.
I reached across the table and placed my hand into his.