A week went by without further incident, mainly because Genrou had made a point of not being alone with Kai if he didn't have to. Their plans to check the other traps had been postponed with the excuse that they needed him and Nami together on the road if the Mt. Kaou bandits were going to start stirring up trouble again. Kai hadn't argued but Genrou got the feeling that he was a little disappointed, something that made things even more complicated.
There were other things to think about, though. They finally had another new recruit, which meant that Kai was finally relieved of his water-fetching and laundry duties. He seemed to have taken to cooking, however, so he stayed in the kitchen and cooked meals while the new kid – a boy named Yuta – took out the plates and served the others.
Since Genrou's plan to keep himself from groping the clever young man that had somehow worked his way into his head meant staying away from Kai whenever possible, he'd passed off the new kid onto Kouji who in turn had handed him off to Kai so he could be shown how to do the chores properly. It was what he'd wanted to do in the first place but letting Kouji act as the go-between was safer. He didn't mention any of this to Kouji, though he knew that his best friend was a little suspicious about what was going on.
"So what did he do to piss you off?"
"What?" Genrou turned to find Kouji standing just inside the doors of his room. "I didn't even hear ya come in. And what're ya talkin' about?"
"I'm talking about the kid." Kouji considered this, then grinned. "We're gonna have to come up with a better way of talking about him now that there's two kids around here." He laughed. "It's like we're runnin' the Mt. Leikaku day care or something."
"You could just call him Kai," offered Genrou.
"Sure, why not. He's been here long enough. Still doesn't answer my question, though. You were all fired up about him being the third around here, now you barely speak to him. He must've done something to seriously piss you off when you were in Souun." Kouji dropped into the leader's chair and folded his arms over his chest. "What'd he do, try to steal something?"
"Nah," Genrou said, trying to keep his tone light. There was no way he could tell Kouji what had happened. "He knows better. Besides, he doesn't have any reason to steal now." He sighed. "I ain't pissed at him. I just don't feel like hangin' around him. Plus he's babysittin' the kid now."
"If you say so." Kouji shrugged. Genrou got up from his chair and retrieved the tessen from the wall. "Where're you headed?"
"Just for a walk. Don't worry," he said as Kouji opened his mouth. He already knew what he was going to say and he shook his head. "I ain't goin' down the mountain. I just need to get some advice about somethin' real quick."
"Advice?" Frowning, Kouji walked with him out the door. It clicked in his head a moment later and he nodded. "Yeah, okay. I'll keep the place from burnin' down until you get back. Be careful out there, though. They're not just gonna come up and go after you. Don't forget what happened to Kai."
"Yeah, I know." How could I forget? He coulda died for me and I can't even look him in the eye. They walked together all the way to the front gates and Kouji put his hands on his hips, watching his best friend until he was gone.
Genrou walked up further into the mountains, his mind going in circles as he did. Kouji's reminder of what Kai had done for him was playing and replaying in his mind, making him feel guilty about distancing himself from the boy. There was no pretending he didn't like him, not with what he'd done, and a part of him didn't want to try.
He walked until a mound-shaped building began to appear on the horizon. It looked small at first but grew as he walked toward it. There was something comforting about the shape and he started walking faster, eager to get inside.
It wasn't the first time he'd gone to the crypt. In the first years that he'd been the leader of the Mt. Leikaku bandits as a teenager, he'd visited often to talk to the man who had changed his life and his destiny. Though Hakurou could no longer seriously give him advice, just talking to his memory helped Genrou tremendously. He wondered if Kouji had done the same when he was fighting with the Shichiseishi.
Hakurou's coffin was still in the same place, incense and torches burning as usual. It was Yuta's job to light them now and it occurred to him that he'd never asked Kai to do it. In fact, the only time he'd even mentioned Hakurou was on the trip to Souun. The memory of the ride and what it had led to make him turn red again and he shook the images out of his head. He felt a little awkward, as if he was coming to report a job that had gone badly, but tried to laugh.
"Hey, Kashira," he said as nonchalantly as possible. "I figure if you're keepin' an eye on things here from where ya are, ya have a pretty good idea why I'm here." The coffin sat silently on its pedestal and Genrou sighed, then put his back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the ground. "Remember when I said this place was a paradise 'cause there ain't any women around? I guess it doesn't hafta be a woman."
There was no answer, either from Hakurou or from his own mind and Genrou looked up at the torches on the wall. Absently, he took the tessen from his back and started tapping it against the groun without opening it.
"I never thought I'd end up like this," he said. "I mean, what does this mean? It ain't like I've been into guys before. The only person I really loved was-" He stopped, hesitant to say her name in case it would somehow reach her ears. "Anyway, it's the same thing with Kai. The same feeling, I mean. I wanna protect him." He chuckled. "Not that he needs my protectin' or anything. Hell, he saved my life. He's tougher than I thought when I first saw him.
"So I guess what I'm here about is whether or not you'd be ashamed of me for the way I feel. Ya always knew I'd hafta leave the mountain, but I'm back for good now and I think I've kept it safe. I just, I dunno." He looked at the coffin. "Ya think it's okay? To be this way, I mean." Still no answer, and he sighed again. "Wish I could get your advice just one more time. For real."
Even though the silence in the crypt was complete without his voice he listened for Hakurou's voice, as if it would come down from above and tell him what to do. He thought about Miaka and how he'd had to come to terms with the fact that he was in love with her but couldn't do anything about it. He thought about Kai and how he'd worked so hard and come so far. And he thought about how good it had felt to kiss him. Even better than with Miaka because he had sort of kissed him back. It wasn't a one-sided feeling this time. This time he had a chance to really fall in love with someone.
"C'mon, Kashira," Genrou said with a sigh. "Ya really ain't helpin' this time, ya know."
000
While Genrou was in the crypt trying to sort through his feelings, Kai was in the yard doing some target practice. She had learned over her time in the mountain that there was nothing better for clearing her mind than focusing on something else. Her favorite way of doing so was lining up a shot and sending it toward the tree. It might not have done much for helping her state of mind but it was turning her into quite the archer.
Kai sighed deeply as she drew an arrow from her quiver and looked at it. She'd been shooting for the last hour but her head wasn't any clearer than it had been when she woke up. All she'd been able to think about was the kiss and her surprise at the way it had turned out. She hadn't expected him to suddenly turn into her lover but she also hadn't expected him to disappear completely.
It was all her own fault and Kai couldn't stop thinking about this either. The new recruit threw an apple in the air and she shot at it, catching it and pinning it to the tree dead center in one of the painted circles. Normally this would have filled her with pride but at that moment she just couldn't stop thinking about Genrou and what had happened on the road.
She was in love with him, but it wasn't anything new. From the moment she'd saved his life she'd known that what she felt for him was more than just affection or appreciation. It had been hard to think that he would never feel the same way about her, but now that it seemed like he was attracted to her as well, she found herself feeling sadder. To him she was a boy, just another one of the guys, and for him to be interested in another guy meant that if he found out she was a girl the very possibility of being with him would disappear.
"Ready for another, Aniki?" The young man standing with the bushel of apples looked over at her and Kai snapped out of her daze. Her worries didn't matter at the moment. There was no point in worrying about it when there was nothing she could do, and she couldn't let her training fall by the wayside just because she might or might not have inadvertently ruined her chances with Genrou by being a girl.
"Sure, go ahead. Toss two if you want."
"Okay!" Two apples flew into the air and Kai shot two arrows in rapid succession, hitting the apples at almost the same moment. One hit the target and the other split in half, falling into the dirt as her arrow stuck in one of the branches. "Great job!"
"Not really," Kai said, more to herself than her helper. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Genrou coming over to her from the gates and she looked over at Yuta. "I'll take it from here," she called. "You go ahead and go take care of the laundry." He looked like this was the last thing he wanted to do but he didn't argue, picking up the basket before he went. "Take those ones I shot and given them to the horses," Kai called before he left. With a nod, he stopped to pick them up and went on his way back to the fortress. Acting as if she didn't see the leader coming over to her, she took out an arrow and got ready to shoot.
"Uh, hey." Genrou came up beside her and she looked over at him, trying to keep her face from breaking into a smile.
"Hey." She fired the arrow and it hit dead center in the most difficult target, making Genrou whistle when he saw it.
"Great shot," he said, shielding his eyes from the sun. "You're really great at that now."
"Thanks," Kai replied, dropping her bow to her side. "I'm actually quite proud of it." Finally, she smiled. "I still remember when you had to help me shoot that one time." The memory seemed to have the same effect on Genrou as it did her and her heart soared at his smile. She'd missed it.
"So, about before," Genrou said, his face bright red and his eyes turned up to the sky. "I'm sorry if I freaked ya out or anything. I don't want ya to think I'm some kinda jerk or somethin.' It just kinda happened."
"Yeah," Kai said, searching for something to say. "Stuff like that happens between guys," she went on. "Right?"
"Uh, not really," replied Genrou. "I mean, not to me. But I mean, if ya wanted to forget that it happened, stuff doesn't hafta be weird between us. That's all I was gonna say." He pointed back at the fortress. "I'm gonna go. I, uh, I've got some stuff to do if you're-"
"Right," Kai said, pointing to the targets. "I-I was just gonna do some target practice. I'll, uh, I'll talk to you more later?"
"Yeah, that's, I mean if you want to," Genrou said, smiling at her. "I just didn't want to-"
"No, I-"
"It's just that-" Genrou looked at her as if he expected her to step on the end of his sentence again, then scratched the back of his head nervously when she didn't. "I'm sorry things've been weird. I've kinda acted like a jerk and I'm sorry. That's pretty much all I wanted to say. See ya at dinner?"
"Of course." He started to walk away and Kai strung another arrow onto her bow, then lowered it and called after him. "Hey, Genrou?" Her voice caught him before he'd gotten too far and he turned back to her.
"Yeah?"
"I don't want to forget about it." It took all her courage to say this and she held her breath waiting to see what he would say. It was a huge relief when he grinned and nodded. Then he waved at her and went up the steps into the fortress. Kai watched him a little longer, then went back to looking at the target tree. She didn't know what made her say it but she was glad that she had.
As she was thinking this, Nami came through the gates with Goh. They parted ways with Goh going up the stairs to the fortress while Nami came over to where Kai was standing by the tree. He looked at the arrows stuck in their targets and nodded.
"Nice work," Nami said. "Can't believe you're the same kid who couldn't even make an arrow reach the tree. Maybe one of these days you'll even get one in a person."
"Seems like everyone's complimenting me today," Kai said. Her smile became a little deeper as she put her bow on her back and went to collect her arrows. Since she'd been in charge of Yuta for the last two weeks she hadn't seen much of Nami, so seeing him made her happy as well. "Missing me?"
"I never said I missed you," Nami said with a scowl. "Now that you're dealing with the new kid, you've got a pretty good idea of what it was like for me. At least you don't hafta sleep with him." Kai raised an eyebrow at him and he rolled his eye. "You know what I mean."
"Yeah. But I'm just showing him how to take care of the place." She followed him into the fortress and to the room they had shared. "You know, it's weird not having to do you guys' laundry. Not that I'm complaining, it's just kind of strange going into the laundry room and finding someone else scrubbing shirts."
"I'm sure if you asked him nicely Kashira would let you keep doing it."
"I didn't say I missed it."
000
Inside his room, Genrou could hear Kai and Nami's voices as they passed and couldn't help smiling. He hadn't expected them to become such good friends when he had put them together but was glad that they had. He couldn't help wondering if Kai would become as good of friends with Yuta but he supposed it wouldn't be a bad thing.
At the same time he wished he could have caught Kai on his own. Their brief exchange in the yard hadn't gone the way he'd expected and he'd surprised Genrou by saying he didn't want to forget about it. The words had made him both happy and relieved at the same time, and as soon as he'd gotten back to the safety of his room he had sank into his chair with a smile. Part of him had expected Kai to say he wanted to pretend the kiss had never happened or for the boy to simply brush it off.
It made things easier for him this way. After he'd left the crypt, he decided that he was going to be a man about it. It didn't matter of Kai was a guy or not, the attraction was there. Pretending it wasn't only made things harder. At least this way he'd be able to hang around him again without feeling awkward. He had a feeling there was about to be a whole different level of awkward the next time they were together, but somehow it didn't bother him. As always, visiting with Hakurou made things clearer in his head, even if he couldn't help him directly.
Genrou stepped away from the door and went over to the box where he kept his jewelry. He put his hand on the lid, then took it away again. It won't do ya any good to look at it, he thought, closing his eyes. Ya already made up your mind, didn't ya? Stop thinkin' about her and start thinkin' about what you're gonna do about Kai. He sighed and turned away from the box.
Whether he'd decided what to do or not was irrelevant. He'd admitted to himself that he liked Kai and that the kiss hadn't been a mistake, and decided that he wouldn't mind kissing the boy again if he was up for it. But he wasn't so sure he was willing to have the rest of the bandits see him walking around with another guy. He would have to explain it somehow, though, if not to everyone else then at least to Kouji. He already suspects somethin's up. I gotta tell him, though. He's my best pal. Genrou knew that there probably wasn't anything he could ever tell Kouji that would change their friendship but it still worried him a little. He wasn't sure he was ready for that level of teasing just yet.
As if he expected Kouji to knock right then, he looked up at the door. When it remained closed and silent, he opened the jewelry box but didn't take out the photograph. There was something else in it that he wanted.
000
"Where're you off to?"
"Nowhere," Kai said evasively. The fortress was quiet in the middle of the night and she'd expected everyone to be asleep. It was well past dinnertime and the time she would have expected everyone else to either have fallen asleep or passed out drunk. The last thing she thought she would see was Nami standing in the hall outside what used to be their room. "I just thought I'd take a walk. No law against that, is there?"
"With a towel?" Nami sighed heavily. "That's right, you go bathe about this time." He looked at her with his arms folded across his chest. "So this is it? This is how you're gonna do it the rest of your life?" Shrugging nonchalantly, Kai started down the hall past him.
"If I have to," she said. She expected him to go to his own room but he followed her and stepped into her path.
"It doesn't bug you that there could be Mt. Kaou bandits out there waiting for you? What do you think they're gonna do if they see you?"
"I'm taking my sword," Kai said by way of a reply. She knew what he was really saying but to be honest she wasn't too worried about it. In all the time she'd been up to the waterfall at night she'd never seen so much as a deer around it. That was the whole reason she went there. "If you're that worried about me you can come along." She stepped around him again – no easy task – and walked down the hall. Much to her surprise, Nami caught up with her and sighed. "Where are you going?"
"Isn't it obvious? I'm coming with you."
"You are?" This came as a complete shock to Kai. In all the time she'd known him, Nami had never once volunteered to come with her when she took a bath and she looked at him closely. "Are you feeling all right?"
"Just walk, brat, before someone sees us."
"All right," Kai said. "But you'll have to keep up with me." Nami gave her a look and she ducked out the door with him behind her.
Kai led the way to the back wall of the fortress where a small tree leaned against the wooden pillars. She planted a foot on its trunk and used it to crawl up the wall, then leapt off and landed easily on the ground outside. It was something she'd done at least a hundred times but the first time she'd waited for someone else to come along behind her. Looking up at the wall, she waited for Nami to come over it. When he didn't, she wondered if maybe he'd changed his mind about coming with her. She was just about to go by herself when he came walking around the corner casually.
"Where-"
"I'm not climbing any walls. I just went around the front." He laughed at the look Kai gave him. "Don't tell me you never thought of that."
"Of course I did," Kai said, looking in the direction from which he'd come. She had thought of it before but had always decided against it because she didn't want anyone wondering where she was going at night. "I just like doing this better."
"Right."
Not saying anything else, Kai led the way to the waterfall. The familiar sound of water rushing reached her ears before she could see it and the smell of the spray came next. Smiling, she hurried toward the waterfall, stopping at the base and looking at the pool at the foot of it. It was about a quarter of the size of the lake that had been in her town as a girl and surrounded by rocks and trees. It was the perfect place for someone trying to hide to take a bath. She completely forgot Nami was there with her until he spoke.
"So this is it, huh?" Kai nodded without a word and Nami looked around. "Nice. I must've passed this place plenty of times and never thought anyone would bathe out here." He went over to one of the trees and sat with his back to it. Suddenly Kai felt self-conscious. Even though he wasn't looking at her, she wasn't sure she could undress with someone else around. Reading her mind, Nami raised a hand and waved at her dismissively. "Better get on with it," he said. "I'm not gonna look at you."
"Like I'm worried," Kai said, stepping out of her boots. She remembered that he'd already seen her bound breasts and hadn't batted an eye, and it put her a little more at ease. Besides, it's Nami Aniki, not some guy who's going to be sneaking peeks at me. Once she finished undressing, Kai got into the water and moved out to the deeper part. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Is it gonna make a difference if I say no?"
"Probably not." Nami grunted in reply to this and Kai sunk under the water until only her shoulders were visible, then turned to him. "Why are you doing this? Why are you out here with me in the middle of the night?"
"I already told you I don't want you to get ambushed by the Mt. Kaou guys," Nami said in a long-suffering tone, his back still to her. "And I figured I might as well come out here and make sure you don't drown or anything."
"Uh-huh. Now I know you're lying. You don't give a damn if I drown." She sank deeper until the water was at her chin and her hair floated around her face, making lazy ripples in the moonlit water. "Come on, you can tell me. I already told you my deepest secret."
"You didn't tell me, you just weren't smart enough to lock the door behind you." Kai tried to look offended but remembered he couldn't see her and gave up. "All right, fine. I guess it's because you remind me of my little sister."
"You have a sister?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Kai regretted them. Her family was gone. If he was up here on the mountain, it stood to reason that his family might also be dead or worse. Most of them didn't talk about their families and it was an unspoken rule that no one asked. "Sorry. You don't have to answer that."
"Yeah, I got a sister. She was a baby when I was ten or twelve so I kinda helped take care of her. We were close." This was the sort of thing Kai didn't want to hear. It always made the rest of the story even sadder. "I didn't see her much after she got married and I fell in with these guys a little while after. But I went to see her about a year ago and her husband's been treatin' her real bad. Hittin' her and stuff. So I beat the hell out of him and said I was takin' her outta there. Only she didn't come. She got mad and told me she never wanted to see me again."
"Are you serious?" Kai stood all the way up, forgetting that it exposed her to her waist. Nami didn't turn around at the sound. "What did you do?"
"Left. It wasn't like I could drag her here, she's too strong for that." He turned this over in his head. "At least I thought she was."
This hung in the air between them for a long moment, then Kai sat down in the water and finished her bath in silence. She didn't quite know what to say to this. Everything she wanted to say would be wrong coming from a near stranger and she stayed quiet until she got out of the water and picked up her towel from the rock to dry off. She was half-dressed when Nami finally turned around and looked at her.
"Since we're sharing, what happened between you and Kashira? You're not hanging around him like you used to." He grinned at her. "Is your little crush over?"
"Oh, shut up," Kai said irritably. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Let me guess, you couldn't stop yourself from telling him and he told you to leave him alone." The look of mingled pity and amusement on Nami's face only annoyed her more and she considered telling him what had happened just to make him leave her alone. She knew telling him would only have the opposite effect, though, so she kept her mouth shut. "Aw hell. Don't tell me that's really it."
"It's not," Kai said. "I'd never tell him straight out like that. If I did that, I'd probably run away from here and never come back. And what's it to you?"
"It must be bad, you're getting pretty defensive." Nami sat patiently and waited for her to answer while she put her clothes back on. She knew anyone else might have backed off, but Nami wasn't that easy to get rid of. Still, she wasn't kidding when she said she didn't want to talk about it. Things had only been better for half a day, far too soon to tell Nami that things were probably back to normal. As normal as the situation could be, anyway. "All right, it's none of my business anyway. Just don't let it get you down," he said in a tone that was far kinder than the usual way he talked to her, making Kai turn around in surprise. He was still looking away and she tied the sash around her waist a little too tightly.
"Thanks, Aniki," Kai said with a smile. "Is that why you were hanging around the hall waiting for me to come out?"
"I wasn't hangin' around anywhere," replied Nami, throwing her wet towel at her. "Let's get back to the fortress so I can get something like a couple of hours of sleep."
"Hey, I'm the one who has to get up early and cook for all of you bastards." Kai folded the towel and draped it over her arm. This made Nami laugh loudly enough that she was sure someone would hear him.
"We'll get you talkin' like a bandit yet," he said and Kai grinned. Her parents would have been horrified by the thought but she sort of liked it, just like she liked being part of the bandits' crew. They were her family, and one she loved dearly at that. Not that she'd ever be able to say that to them, of course. Thinking it was enough for her.
She parted ways with Nami at the wall, leaving him to walk through the gates and past the guards by himself while she scaled the wall and jumped over. This time he didn't meet up with her and she went on inside by herself through the laundry room as usual, dumping her wet towel into the pile as she did. By this time she was quite tired, but it didn't seem she was going to be able to sleep just yet. Leaning on the wall beside her door was Genrou, arms folded over his chest.
"Where've ya been?" He straightened up as soon as he saw her and she was glad she'd tossed her towel in the laundry. It would have been hard to explain and she didn't much want to lie to him any more than she had to.
"Bathroom," she said simply. This seemed to satisfy him and Kai looked at him curiously. "What's the matter?"
"Nothin.' I just didn't get a chance to talk to ya after dinner and I had somethin' for ya. Here," Genrou said. He took something out of his pocket and held it out to Kai. She looked curiously at him, then held her hand out so he could put it in her palm. It was the necklace she had been looking at when they went to the market and she looked up at him in surprise. "I thought ya might like to have it," he said, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I saw ya lookin' at it when we were out."
"Wh-what would I do with this?"
"Wear it, for a start. That's what ya do with stuff like this, isn't it?" A look of uncertainty, so brief it was only there for a fraction of a second, passed over his face. "If ya don't like it, give it to me. I'll wear it." He held his hand out to her and she closed her fingers over the necklace protectively.
"No," Kai said. "That's not it. Just, you know, doesn't it seem a little girly?"
"Girls ain't the only ones who wear jewelry," Genrou replied with a shrug and a smile that Kai could have sworn was relief. "Sometimes good-lookin' guys who kick Mt. Kaou bandits' asses wear it." He opened one eye and looked at her as if he wanted her to agree, but she was terrified of what might come out of her mouth so she kept it closed. "Besides," he said. "I used to know a guy who dressed like a woman and it looked great on him."
"Oh." Kai opened her hand again and looked at the necklace. It was even prettier to her now that it was hers, and far more precious since Genrou had given it to her. Even if she got teased by Nami and the others for it, even if the two people in the hallway were the only ones who knew where it had come from, she would wear it. "This must have been expensive. I should at least pay you for part of it."
"Don't be an idiot," Genrou said, putting his hands on his hips. "It's a present. Ya don't try and pay someone for a present, do ya?"
"But it's-"
"It's a present," Genrou repeated. "And I don't wanna hear anything else about it other than which one of us is gonna be wearin' it." He looked at Kai closely. "Ya like it, right?" She nodded. "Then here. I'll put it on ya." Before she could say yes or no, Genrou scooped the necklace out of her hand and unfastened the clasp. He stood behind her and draped it over her, and Kai automatically reached back to lift her hair off the back of her neck.
The stones were cool against her skin and she held up her ponytail so he could put it on her. As he did, his fingers brushed the nape of her neck and she shivered. Genrou's hands were warm and he fumbled with the clasp slightly, something that made him laugh nervously.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm kinda used to puttin' this stuff on myself. I've never really done this for someone else." The tone of his voice had changed completely now. It was softer, more private, and this sent a fresh wave of shivery warmth down her back. She wanted him to keep touching her but knew that he would have to stop or risk someone seeing them. "There. Ya like it?"
"It's really nice," Kai said, holding the stone up so she could see it better. She wished she had a mirror so she could look at herself. For a moment she considered tucking it into her shirt to avoid any questions about it from the others but she decided against it. She didn't want Genrou to think she was ashamed of his gift. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. It looks good on ya." He smiled down at her, pleased with what he was seeing, and she was struck with the urge to hug him. It didn't seem like a very manly thing to do though, so she just smiled back. "So, uh, that was pretty much it. I just wanted to give ya that and, y'know, I'm glad ya like it. So I guess I'll see ya tomorrow?"
"Bright and early," Kai said. Genrou opened his mouth as if to say something else, then changed his mind and hurried down the hall toward his room. Kai wasn't sure if it was her imagination or not but she could have sworn his face was red when he went. She went into her own room and folded the necklace's charm into her palm, thinking that she would never take it off, no matter what happened.
You're going to have to tell him sooner or later, a small voice in her head said and Kai pushed it away. She could think about things like that tomorrow. For the moment she was happy and that was really all that mattered as far as she was concerned.