Blurbs: In the bloom of Cherry Blossom under the sun of spring, Seta Soujirou escorts a child to the Kamiya Dojo, life is about to get very interesting, and not necessarily in a bad way.
Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin and subsequent characters belongs to Nobuhiro Watsuki. Steal my characters without my permission and die
Timeline: Spring, 1882—Meiji year 13; PostJinchuu (No, I don't know when the Meiji year starts or whatnot, this is just estimated through the birth dates)
Beta: Khori Bannefin and Bloodedwyngs
04: Approaching, Deep Dive
She flung the small vase at him in utter irritation. "Worrying about you is a lost cause!"
"I know," he soothed her gently. "But you still worry, the heart is never ours to rule, after all." Putting down the pottery he caught, he went over to her and gently enfolded her in a reassuring hug. "I'm sorry to make you worry."
"Don't." She replied harshly. "Given another choice, you'd still have done the same thing."
He chuckled, "You know me, Himeccha(1). Come on, smile for me?"
Despite her best effort, she smiled.
Yahiko woke early that morning to the chirping of the birds and the almost unearthly quiet the dojo had settled into since he found out about Kaoru's son. He had tiptoed carefully around his sensei; knowing that she was as uncollected as she had ever been and her temper would be haphazard.
It made him realize just how much hidden potential and concealed power there was in the slight frame of this Shihandai of Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu, potential that even she might not be aware of, herself, that she was gradually finding out. Not that he hadn't been told about it before—Kenshin's sensei was as blunt as sledgehammer.
The man had asked where she was when he was looking for a successor. Kaoru had wittily informed him that he was too impatient to wait until she was born, so he had had to settle with Kenshin—not, she had added, that she thought Kenshin was a bad choice at all.
Yahiko chuckled softly. He idolized Kenshin nearly to the point of worshipping the ex-hitokiri, but sometimes he wondered if the man's dumbness were real after all. He was sharp enough on the battlefield, but something Hiko and Kaoru had both said…
Well, it made Yahiko wondered.
He had found, also, that he was looking forward to know Keiji, once the boy had been found—he refused that it could be otherwise, someone needs to hold on to hope. Kaoru was desperately grasping any hope she could, but she was a mother, and mothers tends to visualize all sort of things that they loses sleep over. Yahiko could see that she had not been sleeping well, lately. He had never known when exactly does she go to sleep or wake up, but she usually was always fresh in the morning.
She looked depressed, tired, anxious and ready to drop this last few days, even the Wolf got worried.
That was certainly something he had never seen coming; Saitou Hajime and Kamiya Kaoru weren't friend in the traditional sense, but there was a certain rancour between them that told him they would have no problem guarding each other's back were the situation to call for it.
It had gone beyond that, even, and to Saitou Tokio and Eiji's delight—and Sano's horror and Kenshin's mild trepidation—the Wolf and Raccoon had became friendly enough to banteringly needle each other, without any fear of repercussion. Just yesterday, the Wolf had covertly asked what was wrong and if he could do anything to help.
The sight of his face when he had found out about Kaoru's son would have send Yahiko to laughter, if he had not valued his life too much. Tae and Maekawa-sensei came and tried to console her—apparently, they knew about Keiji, and the reason he was not with them—to little avail.
Nevertheless, Yahiko knew this could not continue. Already Kaoru looked gaunt, her usual poise not gone, but strained by anxious energy almost graver than a graveyard. She also spent a lot of time staring at the cluster of old sakura trees in the backyard—intriguing collection, Yahiko always wanted to ask, but for some reason, it always slipped his mind—that couldn't be healthy.
Today would be a full week since that fateful day, and Yahiko resolved that he would drag Kaoru out of the house, maybe to Akabeko, anything but letting her brood through another day. With that resolve firmly in mind, he made up his room and stalked to the kitchen to make breakfast—someone need to force Kaoru to eat, and she uses the fact that she couldn't cook to cover up her lack of appetites.
Before he could get to the kitchen, however, someone knocked on the front gate, and frowning, Yahiko went to open it. This better not be some stupid peddler, they're bad enough on good days. Kaoru might fry them alive in this kind of day.
But it was a little boy with cheerful face and tiger-hued eyes trailed by a young man with an unwavering smile.
"Good morning," the little boy chirped brightly. "Is Kamiya Kaoru available?"
Yahiko blinked, "Er… huh? Why are you looking for the shihandai this early in the morning, kid? Want to learn Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu?"
"Eventually," the boy informed him perkily. "But Keiji needs to talk to the shihandai. This is important, and she is usually up before dawn even if she pretends otherwise. May we come in?"
Keiji?
Keiji?
Keiji!
Kaoru's son! The first disciple of Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu gawked ungracefully, mouth working a couple of time without a sound. Tiny kid, cutely adorable, with Kaoru's hair; the eyes must have come from the father, then, those curiously bright, shifting-hued orbs…
"You brat!" Yahiko exploded. "Do you know how worried your mother get? In! Now!" The boy scuttled in, and Yahiko glared at the young man looking like a deer that might bolt at any moment. "You too!" He got a gulp and a hurried obeisance.
Both of them watched him warily as he showed them to the dojo and stomped out to get Kaoru, muttering under his breath about apparently runaway kids and stupid people that helps them.
"Runaway?" Soujirou's strained whisper reached Keiji's ear, and the boy grimaced.
"Otou-sama… well, that was way over two years ago. Okaa-sama wasn't… reacting very well, so they had to put me under their best friend's custody. She's gotten better, though, and missed me. And I… well, I wanted to go home. I would have got home eventually," he paused, voice very small when he continued. "But I didn't want to wait any longer."
Sitting back on his heel, Soujirou nodded to himself. So that was why Keiji-kun had been travelling alone, and also why he did not tell Soujirou his family name. It made sense, and when it comes down to it, he really couldn't blame the boy.
"Three months," the boy whispered. "Three months since she asked me to return. I have waited long enough."
What could he say to that, pray tell? "I understand."
Kaoru was staring at him dazedly, and he had had to repeat himself twice before suddenly finding himself talking to empty air, and blinked. Hiko was right.
Shaking his head ruefully, Yahiko trotted back to the dojo.
"Keiji!" Soujirou turned to the woman's voice as Keiji-kun bolted from his side, and was momentarily taken aback by the sight of the person who must have been Keiji-kun's mother.
She was beautiful, even as haggard-looking as she was—worry had eaten at her, he saw—pale porcelain skin, delicate face and the most arresting dark blue eyes framed by long, dainty eyelashes bright with suppressed tears.
When they reached each other, the woman went down to her knees and caught the little boy in a tight embrace, white hands clenching on the back of the child's gi. Keiji-kun, for his part, buried his head against his mother, small hands holding fistfuls of the pale purple kimono.
She pulled back after a moment, stroking the child's face. "Oh, musuko(2), don't do that to me again. When Orgulla's letter came, I thought my heart would stop. But you're fine. Yokatta(3)…" Her voice trembled, and for a moment Soujirou found himself envying the boy.
Apparently, this response was more than even Keiji-kun expected, because from his vantage point Soujirou could saw the stunned wonder in that young face, then the boy did something that threw him off-balance; his face scrunched, then with a little shout threw himself against his mother, arms around her neck and holding tight, teary sobs loud in the still morning air.
The mother merely tightened her arms around her little boy, burying her face in the inky black hair. Soujirou sat back on his heel and smiled with all sincerity.
Yahiko grinned as he leaned against a dojo post and watched the reunion. It was a big relief; now that Keiji's here, Kaoru wouldn't be strung tighter than a bow ready to shoot. Her in that mood was a singularly frightening experience.
It doesn't hurt that the kid was cuter than a kitten, too. He could already see Ayame, Suzume, and the weasel girl cooing around the child until he was sick of them, and that vision made him grin wider. Poor kid.
On the other hand, he was itching to see the little boy handling that shinai hanging on his back—almost as tall as him—it will be good to have a fellow to measure himself up against. Yutaro might say he was coming back, but so far the half-gaijin hadn't show hide or hair.
The other guy made him curious, too. There was something in his carriage that practically screamed quite a bit of skill, and Yahiko had a niggling suspicion that, given the right motivation, the smiling man could be very, very dangerous.
His grin settled into a speculative smile; if nothing else, no one can say that life in Kamiya Dojo was ever boring.
He knew, since the beginning, that he missed his mother. He just never fully realized the extent of how much he missed her, not until her arms were around him again, until the warm jasmine that was his mother enclosed him again.
He was home, and all's right with the world.
"You've grown so big." Okaa-sama's voice had steadied, and he swallowed a small smile. A trace of wonder, a little pain in that steady melodic thrum that was his mother's most beloved voice; Keiji burned to erase that pain, but there was nothing he could really do. "It has been so long." She whispered. "So long… Keiji, I missed you so much."
He tightened his hold, trying to tell her without word that he missed her too, that he didn't blame her at all, that her choices were for the best, and knew that it was inadequate. But there were other times to talk.
Finally, she loosened her hold, let go, and sat back on her heels. "But I do think that your sense of responsibility needs some work. Come, we must talk."
He gulped. That was coming, he knew, and hardly undeserved. Nevertheless, he was not looking forward to it.
Aunt Orgulla warned him, once, that his mother was very good in guilt tripping. No, he was definitely not looking forward to it.
"Yes, Okaa-sama."
Meek, he followed her. A lamb to the slaughter.
Soujirou and Yahiko had quickly introduced themselves and were perched before the slightly opened shoji of the room Kaoru and Keiji had disappeared to, about as tense as the child kneeling before his mother.
Kaoru pulled out the crinkled letter Orgulla had send through kamidori and placed it between them. When she finally opened her mouth, her tone was flat and even she might have been commenting on the weather.
"This is from Orgulla when she found you were missing."
Keiji was wincing when he read it.
"The city was in red alert."
Soujirou and Yahiko could practically saw the big stone labelled 'selfish' being dropped on the boy's head.
"Every able personnel were deployed to find you."
Another wince, another proverbial stone dropping on his head.
"Orgulla was frantic."
This time, Yahiko and Soujirou could not help but winced in sympathy with the boy currently being guilt tripped to within an inch of his life.
"She was crying."
Keiji grimaced deeply. "I'm sorry."
"You're saying that to the wrong person." His mother returned breezily. "And I'll tell you now that there's a very frantic woman a couple of oceans away that is very worried whether something had managed to slink its' way into her house and gobble up her ward."
Keiji turned red, then pale. "Can we send word?"
"Indeed, you will. Go write, I shall teach you to send it by kamidori when you are finished." She rose gracefully to her feet. "Flesh as well as spirit. Think of consequences, Keiji. Now I must go apologize to the young man you dragged here."
Yahiko and Soujirou looked at each other and promptly bolted back to the dojo, trying their best to be silent and failing miserably.
Kaoru sighed and shook her head. "Children…"
Keiji snickered and went off in search of paper.
When Kaoru returned to where she had originally left her other guest, she had found both the young man and Yahiko sitting nervously, and smiled. "Forgive my manners, young gentleman. I had been remiss."
Soujirou blushed, "N-not at all… under the circumstances, it is very understandable."
"You are too kind, young sir." Kaoru demurred, and Soujirou blushed harder. Yahiko stifled a guffaw. "Will you let me have your name?"
"Ah," Soujirou wavered; he had avoided using his full name since he started wandering, but like with Keiji, there was something in this woman that demanded more than banality. "Seta Soujirou."
Kaoru stared at her guest a bit before it clicked in her mind just why did Keiji dragged him all the way here. "The Tenken." Beside them, Yahiko started and got to his feet, remembering Sanosuke's story about the people Kenshin fought in Shishio's Headquarter.
Soujirou blanched. "Ah, I…" He made to rise when the woman before him waved a hand that commanded both he and the spiky-haired youth to sit down, and sit still. How had she known? Had he finally compromised himself?
Soujirou never had fear of going into jail; it was hardly something he didn't deserve, but somehow the thought that he would never again see the cheerful, mysterious boy who was this woman's son hurts. His smile was strained, and he desperately tried to smooth the trembling edges.
Yahiko was wary. Soujirou, if Sanosuke was right, was as fast, if not faster, than Kenshin, and if he took it into his mind to do something to them now that Kenshin wasn't at place they have very little defence. Oh, but he most certainly wish he had thought to get his shinai earlier, though how much help that might be, he wasn't sure.
"Please, do not be alarmed." Kaoru commented breezily. "I have no intention of turning you in." She gestured sharply to Yahiko to make him shut up. "I owe you Keiji's safety, Seta-san, and I do believe people deserves second chances." Her smile was gentle and mysterious and old. "Yahiko," she turned to her apprentice. "If you will be so kind as to start breakfast and boil a kettle of water for tea, it will be greatly appreciated."
Yahiko frowned; his sensei was sending him away. How could he leave her with that smiling… "If you aren't afraid that breakfast could be ruined." Are you sure?
"It will be fine." I am, now get.
Giving the confusedly smiling man a warning glare, Yahiko went out.
Kaoru smiled comfortingly at the nervous, slightly twitchy swordsman in front of her. "Keiji told me that you helped him come down here from Kyoto on foot. Allow me to apologize in my son's behalf for dragging you around."
"N-no," Soujirou mumbled. "I was thinking of visiting an acquaintance here in Tokyo anyway, so it was not that much of a trouble."
"Indeed? That is a delightful coincidence, that it is. But you must be exhausted, do you have a place to stay in Tokyo?"
"No, but it's no problem, I'm accustomed to sleep outside."
Kaoru widened her eyes and faked her gasp. "Oh, but that would not do at all! We have space enough for you here, Seta-san. Why don't you stay with us while you are in Tokyo? It is the least I could do to thank you for bringing my son to me."
Soujirou's strained smile was replaced by a shocked look. "But- you- you know who I am, why would you want me in your house? I am-"
"Was." The shihandai declared firmly. "I owe you my son's safety, so let me repay your kindness."
"But you owe me nothing at all! It was the least I could do!"
Oh, young man, Kaoru thought sadly, has no one cared for you before? "But I do." She said firmly. "And as long as you are on my grounds you have my protection. No harm will come to you here."
"But-" his mind whirling, Soujirou was having trouble stringing two thought together. This woman knew who he was, and cared not a jot for it, was this trust what Keiji-kun inherited from her?
"Allow me, Seta-san." She countered firmly. "If Keiji trusts you, so do I, and I do not believe our trust is misplaced." She smiled again, that old, mysterious smile. "Will you harm us, Seta-san?"
Soujirou's eyes widened. "Of course not!"
"Then what is there for me to worry about?"
Speechless, Soujirou stared at the beautiful, elegant, undeniable woman. "Do you truly not care?"
"I believe in second chances, as I said." The woman returned tartly. "Besides, it is more convenient this way. Kenshin will return in a day or two. In the meanwhile, please make yourself at home."
Kenshin? Kenshin as in Himura-san? "H-himura-san?"
Kaoru tilted her head slightly in amusement. "He is the acquaintance that you were going to visit, is he not?"
Oh, that was too much, too many coincidences all at once. Soujirou's mind blanked and he pitched forward in a dead faint.
Kaoru blinked at the prone form in front of her and poked. He twitched, but didn't wake. She chuckled slightly in amusement; so cute, she was very tempted to pinch him. Keiji brought him here to heal, that she realized, and silently pledged to help.
There were risks in taking him in, she knew. The government was very interested in the young man currently unconscious in front of her when it had talked to the surviving members of the JupponGatana. And the nature of that interest was not healthy.
Silently, she cursed them; why could they not leave it alone? They had ruined so many youthful, idealistic innocent for their revolution. Was that not enough? How many more must they destroy?
She was almost in half a mind to-
No, don't think of that. Do not go there at all.
"Okaa-sama?" Grateful for the interruption of her undesirable line of thought, she turned to find her son watching nervously from the door, holding a letter. When she nodded, he crossed over to her. "What happened to him?"
"Information overload," she replied dryly, holding out her hand and gestured for the letter so she could examine it. Keiji handed it over and went to make the unconscious man more comfortable.
Keiji's handwriting was very fine for his age, slightly shaky around the edges, but evenly spaced and nicely clear. Much better, she grimaced, compared to Kenshin's—ooh, she was very fond of that oro-ing swordsman, but his handwriting was bad enough to make her cry.
"Can we, okaa-sama?"
She lifted her eyes to watch her son, to find him watching the young man bearing the name Tenken, and smiled. "Aa, certainly." He grinned brightly at her, pleased as if he just had an early birthday present.
Kaoru smiled, then took her son to the engawa and proceed to teach him how to make a kamidori. As an assurance that the letter reached Orgulla post-haste, she stuck on a couple of extra speed charm on it, and let the letter flew. Keiji frowned adorably as he watched the procedure, biting his lower lip the way she does when she was thinking.
Sighing, she patted him on the head. "Go see if Yahiko is finished with breakfast. I will wake our guest."
"Un!"
The tatami was quite comfortable, Soujirou thought absently.
"Wake up, Seta-san, you're going to catch a cold if you sleep there."
But it's comfortable. He hadn't been so comfortable for a long while, and he wanted to keep himself in that comfortable cocoon for a little more while.
"Seta-san, if you don't wake up now, you're going to miss breakfast."
A missed breakfast or two wasn't a problem. He grunted slightly and curled in on himself.
"A futon would be more comfortable, Seta-san. And if you don't wake up now I'll sic Keiji and Yahiko on you."
Who? He blinked awake, finding himself curling on the floor of a dojo, a beautiful woman kneeling in front of him. Keiji, Kamiya dojo, invitation. He blinked again before righting himself. "Are you sure about letting me stay here, Kamiya-san?"
She laughed softly. "Mou! Seta-san, I may be many things I am not proud of; but I am not fickle. I said I am sure, so I am. Come, Keiji is anxious to find out if I had not feed you to the wolves."
He laughed shakily and rose as she did.
Following hesitantly, he studied the woman in front of him and the place she calls her domain, because even if she did not say it out loud, in these enclosure she ruled, a firm but gentle queen. He wondered how old she was; he could not place her any younger than her mid-thirties—that confident elegance and deep set power wouldn't let him—but for some reason he didn't think his estimates were anywhere near accurate.
She was, like her son, at the same time old and young, naïve but ancient—though not so much naïve than strangely trusting. But was it even that?
The dojo on the other hand, was much simpler. Worn but sturdy; Soujirou could see patches of repairs that had been done over the year. Good repairs, neither clashing nor compromising the original structure of the place. Lovingly maintained and well cleaned, this was a good place to live. It will be hard, when the time comes, to pick up his feet and leave it.
Clear glass bell laughter echoed easily from wherever the kitchen must be, Soujirou could not help but smiled. Dear, dear boy; was this what having little brothers feels like?
The glass bell laughter was joined with mellow, honeyed chuckles that Soujirou realized belatedly came from the woman walking in front of him, and absently he wandered what she was laughing about.
"Yes, I think so too. It's a good place to live."
Soujirou paused, one foot hovering above the ground as he gaped at the retreating back of the woman. "Am I that transparent?"
She waved a careless hand. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Gah. He must have made an expression that betrayed his thought, because she laughed.
"Unlike your expression, your ki is honest." Her voice was gentle and patient, a mother's voice if Soujirou had ever heard it. "Here is where we eat. I will show you around the house after breakfast." She turned to me, stopping in front of the door. "Yahiko will be slightly wary around you, but that cannot be helped at this point of time. I shall talk to him soon about it."
"Oh, no, please don't trouble yourself, Kamiya-san."
She tilted her head in amusement, and Soujirou knew that it didn't matter what he said, she will talk to the young man anyway. "Seta-san—"
"Please, call me Soujirou." He never cared so much, but being called Seta by this woman somehow made him slightly uncomfortable. His request earned him an unreadable gaze, endless cobalt depth ringed by slight cerulean grey. He knew there was no hiding from this woman, so he didn't try. Smile absent, he returned the trust mother and son both had given him and allow them to be his judge, jury, and executioner, all the while wondering what she saw in his own eyes.
Finally she closed her eyes, and it was like the settling of doom. But she opened them again, and the lightning of indigo in that cobalt depth spoke to him of brutal, total honesty. "Soujirou, then."
He had not been found lacking.
"Well, Sou-kun," she began, something like mischief flitting in her eyes and made him smile. "Shall we go in and see just what my apprentice had been cooking up that had my son in stitches?"
"Lead the way," Soujirou replied gamely, enjoying the banter. "It couldn't be any worse than my cooking." It made her laugh. He decided that he likes her laughter, all warm mellow honey. Nevertheless, knowing of her acceptance no matter what he was did not prepared him for the way she turned around and slung her arms around his shoulders in a casual, warm embrace. His surprise allowed her to pull him into the kitchen and soon he was seated on the small table, chatting amiably with Keiji, drowning in the warmth of easy laughter and uncaring joy.
When Keiji had undertook to show Soujirou to his room instead of Kaoru, Yahiko spent no time in cornering his sensei. "What were you thinking?"
"Second chances, dear descendant of Tokyo Samurai. I gave them to you, to Sanosuke, to Aoshi. Why not him? Listen to this and listen well, Yahiko, but you don't turn away from someone as lost as that young man is."
"He's wanted by the government." The young apprentice pointed out mulishly.
"So is Sanosuke." His sensei parried. "I will talk with Saitou, and we'll see if we can't work something out. In the meanwhile, Yahiko, Sano tried to kill Kenshin once, why aren't you more antagonistic toward him? In fact, Aoshi tried to kill Kenshin too, and we drink tea with him."
Yahiko deflated. "I know," he muttered grudgingly. "Alright, I'll try my best to make him welcome, promise."
"Do that, and be kind. You are lucky, you know, compared to him. He had no one to teach him about life and family and feeling."
The reflective tone in Kaoru's voice perked up his interest. "Nee, Kaoru, are you thinking about asking him to stay, like, permanently?" Yahiko will always have reservations about everything, he convinced himself, because everyone else was too trusting. Nevertheless he had not felt anything hostile from the Tenken, and had no reason to suspect that possibility.
Yahiko trusts his instinct, and they were telling him to give the Tenken a chance—like Kaoru had given a little pickpocket a chance, all those years ago.
"Should I not?"
The final say was hers, and yet Kaoru will consider his opinion in the matter. That, he knew plainly. "I see no reason not to," he answered honestly. "But that will be your decision, right? Your son likes him, I think he will be devastated if Tenken leaves."
Kaoru chuckled. "Keiji? Maybe, but perhaps not for the reason we think of. What do you think?"
"Of your son? He's a doll; the girls will have him coddled until he's sick of it."
Kaoru laughed.
Yahiko smiled as he put away the last of the dishes; traces of the last week were being quickly washed away, ice sleet melting under the early spring sun.
Saitou Hajime stared almost uncomprehendingly at the small crowd gathered in the yard of Kamiya dojo. One or two, he could dismiss as coincidence, but this?
She started with Battousai, then acquired Zanza, after that she adopted that opium woman. If his memory hadn't been playing trick on him she was also of good relation with that two Oniwabanshu Okashira.
Now the Tenken? He was starting to think that she was running a charity house instead of a dojo. He'd bet that she lets the Tenken live there for free as well.
And whom was that little boy peering at him from behind her kimono? Her son he heard was missing just a couple of days ago? Whose, for that matter?
Battousai would either faint dead away, or burst a blood vessel, because his woman had a son and it certainly wasn't his. Hajime found himself somewhat looking forward to find out.
His own wife, in the meanwhile, had rushed forward to coo over the little boy, who ducked his head shyly and smiled in a way that was going to get him mobbed. An edge of a smile kicked up the corner of his mouth, earning a raised eyebrow from the Raccoon.
Hajime didn't care just what his wife said. Battousai's woman was a raccoon when he met her, and a raccoon still. It wasn't an insult, despite Tokio's accusation. There were layers to this woman that were more numerous than an onion, darker than the dark side of the moon and more unpredictable than a thistle in the wind. Since the day he met her until now he had yet to be able to place her; the people around her were easy, it was only she who defies any attempt to put her in a box.
The Tenken was edgy, trying his best to hide in the spare shadow of the support beam, and failing miserably. Hajime didn't know what made him so nervous; it was not like he was going to get arrested when he was loitering around in the dojo. This place was almost like a sanctuary—until people trying to get the Battousai attack it.
Hajime admired strong people, but strength sometimes had nothing to do with the physical. His wife was one such, and the Raccoon, another. He was always curious to test the edge of his blade against Battousai's skill, but it really was too bad his spirit really weren't anywhere near his woman's level.
What's the point of fighting someone who didn't feel it necessary to win?
The Tenken, on reflection, was very much like a nervous hare, or a deer in the spotlight, and the ex-Shinsengumi captain turned policeman could not help but smirked wolfishly, earning a shadow of a nervous gulp and an attempt to press even more into what shade he could find.
Ah, ah. The Raccoon was giving him a warning look, shaking her head slightly. She had caught onto him very quick, and he wondered inanely if she would want a career with the police; they could use that sharp eye and mind.
It was good to see that she had gotten her bite back. It wasn't worth riling her otherwise.
"I see you've got yourself another stray." He began nonchalantly, watching as the Raccoon's son effortlessly charmed Tokio.
"Which one you're referring to, now?" she returned innocently.
Hajime smirked inwardly—she always gives as good as she gets. "Either, both."
"That one," she pointed to the little boy, "is my son, Keiji. Keiji, say hello to uncle Gorou. Fujita, be nice."
He grunted. The boy smiled brightly, undaunted by him at all. "Hello, nice to meet you, uncle Gorou." Oh, this one had spirit too, what could he be? Beside them, Tokio fairly squealed. Their children were grown; maybe she would like another little one?
"And the other one?" he ventured quietly as he watched the boy conversing animatedly with his wife.
"You know who that is, I think, more than I do." She returned. Good, so she understood that this was serious business.
"I almost prefer the one Battousai fought before," he snorted. "This one looks as scared as rabbit."
"Like you weren't helping that impression." She retorted with precision. "Do you think it's necessary, Saitou-san?"
Hajime shrugged, "Chief Uramura and I both turned blind eye to that Ahou's presence. But the Tenken—"
"Tenken who?"
He stared at the Raccoon, so that's the way they're going to play it. "Indeed. No such thing, is there?"
Smart woman. She knew him well enough to know that he would found no pleasure in hunting down the Tenken as he was then. Much like the reason why he wanted to fight Battousai rather than the Rurouni, Hajime Saitou were never known to be doing things in any way other than his own, or for any reason other than his own, as well.
Personal opinion aside, while duty might demand he turn in the nervous young man, Saitou really didn't see any point in doing so—it was clear what the government wants him for, and while Okubo Tokimichi's death on the boy's hand was a blow to the government, Saitou didn't think there was any use of trying to make the Tenken work for them in exchange for freedom.
One, he could always run away—all that speed must be good for something. Two, he didn't think the Tenken would, or could, ever kill again.
This allows him to turn another blind eye, and if the nervous hare behaves, there would be no need to disturb that water.
Aku. Soku. Zan(4).
She understood him very well, it seems, and on that uneven ground, he shall concede her the victory.
He absently asked her if she would hide the brat and the hare until he could be there to see Battousai's reaction. She looked at him incredulously, and then laughed, drawing Tokio's confused look. He smirked and went to his wife, promising her that he would explain later.
Poor Battousai. Hajime almost pitied him. Almost being the imperative word.
"Go on ahead, say it." Kaoru invited with an almost impish tone.
Hisui opened an eye from when he had closed it to savour the scent of the gyokuro(5) and sent her a slight look. "I told you so."
She smiled slightly and bent her head to her own steaming yunomi. He had half-expected the usual inward bristling, but it seemed that today her silence wasn't a reining in of temper, but genuine amusement and disregard in the wake of relief.
He hid a smile by raising the yunomi to his lips, sipping the tea and let it wash over his palette.
Many took her silence as weakness of will, but Hisui knew that it wasn't at all true. Disregard wasn't the same as passive acceptance—though he still thought she had too much of that passivity—and Kamiya Kaoru might be a willow, but she was also an ocean. A woman who will never break—they had tempered the steel of her soul too much for that to ever happen.
And it was their sin to simply watch her from the sidelines.
"Are you sure you won't come see Keiji?"
Hisui lowered the yunomi back to the matting. "I have met him earlier, but it was late and he was exhausted."
"Then stay another day."
"I must return to Kyoto tonight." He replied firmly.
They exchanged no pleasantry other than what the barest of good manners entails, and she said nothing more as he excused himself and left.
If he had been anyone else, he might have stayed to talk more with the little boy. But Hisui makes allowance for no one, not even himself. He had work to do.
The last of ice sleet had melted away, grass were peeking out, though it'd be a bit yet before the fields were again verdant in shades of green. The young leaves were timidly growing on their trees, still wary of sudden blast of cold that would rake them down without mercy.
The beginning of spring always was full of confusion.
(My) Reflection on the pond's surface,
tentatively taking shape
under the hazy moon.
Author Note:
-Sou-chan faints a lot, ne? I'm sorry, it's probably out of character, but it's really too funny not to do it that way.
-Keiji-chan is really selfish, isn't he? The problem is that everyone is too human not to fall for his reasons and persuasion techniques. Keiji-chan is truly a manipulator of the first degree, wonder who he learned it from?
-Gyokuro… (cries) I'm jealous of my own characters. That is so weird.
1 Himeccha—Corruption of "Hime-chan" lit. "Little Princess"
2 Musuko -- Son
3 Yokatta --Thank whatever force from the heaven looking over you
4 Aku. Soku. Zan --Saitou's motto, the more poetic translation is "Sin. Swift. Slay."
5 Gyokuro--- Lit "Jewel Dew", also known as "Jade Dew". Considered to be the best green tea in the world by numerous sources. Sweet, rich, and delicate, this tea is normally reserved for distinguished guests. Kaoru-chan respects Hisui very much, ne?