Chapter 19

Nokomis stirred in her fitful sleep as she tried to get comfortable against Jin's shoulder. Jin sensed that she was going to move before she even adjusted her head against him and called out softly to her.

"Noko?"

"Hai," she replied weakly.

Jin knew that she wouldn't understand him but asked the question anyways.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked in Japanese.

"Sori," she replied weakly not even bothering to open her eyes this time.

Jin held her fevered body tighter and wished that the rain would stop so that he could get her to an apothecary. Placing his chin on top of her head he closed his eyes and also tried to sleep.

It was almost a month since Noko had come into his life. For the first week they had stayed at the Enkiri Dera Temple until she felt up to walking. Every day and night he had kept watch over her, fed her, and placed ointment on her burns. He had even wrapped her left hand, which had a cut across the palm, every day with clean strips of cloth that the nun's had brought to him.

Jin remembered how Noko had watched him, sitting up in bed, as he took the thick, tapered, spiny leaves of the "royal plant" and cut them in half, along its length, to obtain the gel inside with his wakizashi sword.

Jin had used the "royal plant" for embrocations on himself after an altercation with a former student. He knew that the clear gel inside the leaf had an immediate soothing effect and it also placed a protective coat over the affected area. In his case it had sped up the healing rate of the deep gash on his left shoulder.

When Jin had brought the leaf to her Noko had cried out when he tenderly applied the gel to her back. Soon however her cries had died down when she realized that the gel felt good on her burnt skin.

"Luhui?" she asked in Mandarin as she took the Aloe Vera leaf from his hands pointing at it.

They played this game often when she needed to know a word. She would hold an object in her hands or point to it and ask him what he called it. He had grown used to it by the third day and he was even learning her words too.

"Aroe," he answered taking the plant leaf back, sitting in front of her now and reached for the bed sheet she clutched to her chest.

"Hey," she cried out in English seeing where his hand was going, "what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Jin dropped his hand when he saw her trying to back away from him. Noko clearly didn't understand what he wanted to do. And yet here was that second language that she knew. Being a girl and him being a young man he demised that she thought he wanted something more from her.

"Shinai," he said shaking his head no.

Jin knew he would have to show her what he wanted to do and slid his left arm out of his kimono's sleeve to reveal his white gi underneath. Pulling open the top of the gi Jin placed some of the gel onto his fingers and rubbed it into his chest.

"Hai?" he asked her when she saw what he was doing.

"Not on my breasts you don't!" she spat back at him in Mandarin.

Jin had seen her point to her breasts and even though he didn't know what she had said back to him he spoke to her anyways.

"I've seen your breast's when you were flapping the sheet around the first night remember?" Jin said as he pantomimed flapping a sheet against his chest.

"Sori," Nokomis replied not understanding what Jin wanted.

Jin sighed, putting the leaf on the floor in front of him. He wished she would choose only one language to speak to him in. He had forgotten that he must go slowly with his new ward.

Pointing to her breasts Jin asked, "Chibusa?"

"Rufang," she replied.

Jin nodded his head and spoke to her in Mandarin.

"Bu rufang," he said pointing to her breasts.

Pointing to her stomach he asked in Japanese, "Ibukuro?"

"Wei," she replied back in Mandarin.

Jin demonstrated to her that he wanted her to cover her breasts with her hands by placing both of his hands on his chest.

"Bu rufang," he said in Mandarin and then dropped his hands down to pick up the Aloe Vera Leaf.

"Shi wei?" he asked holding up the leaf and pointing to her stomach.

"Hai ibukuro," she replied in his native Japanese language dropping the sheet and covering her breasts with her hands.

When the gel touched her skin Noko once again spoke harshly to him.

"Ta made!" she hissed out through clenched teeth.

This was the second time she had said this to him and he wondered what it meant but had no way of asking.

"Sori," Jin said gently rubbing the gel into her stomach.

When he was done he reached down and offered her the sheet again as he took first one arm and then the other to apply the gel to it.

After he was done with her arms Jin then gently changed her bandage on her left hand.

"Ueta?" he asked picking up the used leaves as he got up and walked back over to the small table by the fireplace.

"Hai," Noko replied getting up herself and following Jin to the table.

Jin smiled in his sleep. He had learned that Noko liked fish over the eel that he usually ate for his meals. He also had to teach her how to raise the bowl that contained her food close to her mouth. Wherever she had come from she didn't touch her plate and brought the food to her mouth.

She had complained loudly to him about this but he didn't know what she was saying.

"At home I sit on a chair and our table is higher."

He had just shook his head at her.

"Sori," Jin had replied.

There were no chairs used around the dining table in Japan. Diners sat either on tatami (straw mats) or on the wooden floor. Vessels containing the food were served on a small, low, portable table called a zen. Because of this the custom was to bring the vessel containing the food to your mouth and use a pair of chopsticks to deliver the food into the diner's mouth.

At least he didn't have to show her how to use the chopsticks, but she did have a hard time with her new clothes.

Because Jin had cut her clothes off of her when they had first met, Noko had to wear traditional Japanese garments. Before they left the temple one of the nuns had tried to get her dressed but Noko didn't understand and had yelled at her.

Finally giving up the nun had walked out of the room.

"I quit Takeda Jin," she said, "Noko is your responsibility. You deal with her. I don't know what a "chang fu" is but I'm sure it's not nice."

"Sorry dear mother," Jin said as the nun walked away from him depositing Noko's new clothes into his arms.

He didn't know how to explain to Noko why she had to get dressed. She had taken to wrapping the bed sheet around her waist and wearing her purple kimono looking top but she couldn't do that when they left for Nagasaki.

Letting his head fall back against the wall behind him Jin closed his eyes. He didn't know what to do.

"Takeda Jin?" a voice called to him.

Jin opened his eyes and raised his head up to see a young girl close to Noko's age standing before him. She was new to the temple and had only been there for a few hours because she still had on her regular clothes.

"I overheard you and the nun talking," she said, "maybe I can help."

"I doubt it," Jin replied, "Noko only speaks a few words in Japanese. I can't explain this to her," he said holding up the clothes in his arms.

"No you can't," the girl replied as she took the clothes from him, "but you can show her."

"How?"

"Use me as a model," the girl said as she opened up the door to the room where Nokomis was staying.

Jin followed her inside and closed the door behind him. He could see Noko pacing the back wall clearly upset about what the nun had tried to do.

"Noko," he called to her.

"Jin," she replied as she stopped pacing to face him.

Jin walked over to Noko unaware of what the young girl was doing behind him. Taking Noko's hand he tried to lead her over to the futon.

"No way," she said in Mandarin, her eyes growing wide with fright, "I'm not into that!" she yelled pointing behind him.

Jin turned around just in time to see the young girl remove the wrap from her breasts and let it fall to the floor. Jin stood there mesmerized at her beautiful body and held Noko's hand tighter. That didn't help matters any as Nokomis broke away from his grip and ran away from him into a corner of the back wall.

"Shite Kudasai Shinai," Noko said in Japanese with tears in her eyes trying to hide.

"Te, onegai shimasu," Jin said turning to face her, correcting her when she had said 'please no'.

"Takeda Jin," the young girl said to him.

Jin turned around to look at the naked young girl before him with only a loin cloth on. Jin watched as she started to take that off too.

"Stop," he said, "Noko has one on already."

"Okay," she replied, "but please let me try my way."

"Noko," she said quietly pointing to Nokomis in the corner, "Sayuri," she said pointing to herself.

Nokomis pointed to the lily that sat in a vase on the table beside the young girl and said, "Sayuri."

Sayuri turned to look to her left. Seeing the flower she quickly crossed the room to pick the flower up out of its vase and brought it over to Nokomis. Stopping a few feet away from the trembling girl, Sayuri held the flower out to her.

"Hai Sayuri," she said pointing to herself.

Nokomis tentatively took the flower from the naked girl wondering what she wanted as Sayuri turned and walked away from her and back over to the futon.

"Sayuri?" Nokomis quietly asked.

"Hai," Sayuri said turning around holding a white strip of cloth in her hands.

Sayuri pointed to the cloth and then to her breasts.

"Sarashi," she said holding the cloth out to Jin.

Jin crossed and took the sarashi from her and walked over to where Nokomis was cowering in the corner. Nokomis ignored him, when he came up to her, as she watched Sayuri pick up another cloth and roll it up from one end.

Placing the rolled sarashi just below her left armpit Sayuri unrolled it as Nokomis watched. Sayuri unrolled the material across her body widthwise and gradually changed its angle downwards as she went. When Sayuri went to wrap a second time upwards she pressed her chest down while wrapping up. When she was done Sayuri tucked the remaining material into the other layers.

"Sarashi," Sayuri said pointing to her chest.

"Hey, wait a minute," Nokomis said in English crossing to stand in front of the young girl. "Is that what the other lady was trying to show me?" she questioned as she felt the cloth on Sayuri's chest.

It reminded Nokomis of a balconette bra without the straps.

"Takeda Jin," Sayuri said as she watched Nokomis fingering the linen material on her chest, "what is she saying?"

"I have no idea," Jin replied back, "Noko speaks two different languages."

"Three if you count our language too," Sayuri said, "No wonder you are having problems."

"Shinai Noko," Sayuri said as she saw Nokomis take her purple top off and grab the cloth from Jin's hands trying to wrap it around her own breasts without rolling it up first.

Sayuri gently took the cloth from Nokomis and rolled it up for her and then handed it back so that Nokomis could bind her breasts with the cloth.

"Hai!" Sayuri said as Nokomis tucked the end into the other layers.

Sayuri then reached down and picked up a white jacket looking top.

"Gi," Sayuri said as she placed her arms into the sleeves of the top. Sayuri showed Nokomis the hidden ties on the inside as she placed the right side down first and tied the two hip strings together in a bow. Sayuri then placed the left side over the right and tied the other hip string together just like she had done on the other side.

Nokomis bent down and picked up her gi putting it on like her bathrobe from home. Grabbing the left side first she went to place that across her chest and felt a hand on her wrist. She looked up to see Jin with tears in his eyes.

"No Noko," he said in Japanese knowing that she wouldn't understand him, "please you're not dead. Not that way."

With trembling hands Jin helped Nokomis place the right hand side down first and then the left.

"Sori," she replied to Jin squeezing his hand.

Clearly there was something wrong with crossing the gi top the wrong way.

Jin opened his eyes and kissed the top of Nokomis' head as he slid further back into the small cave he had found to keep them out of the rain, taking her with him. His kimono and hakamas were soaked and he was cold, but Noko's fevered body was keeping him warm. He had hoped that the cold rain would bring her fever down but it had not.

Jin turned his body so that Nokomis' body was inside the cave and his back was facing the opening. This protected her from the elements but left Jin with getting splattered by the pelting rain.

Lightning flashed across the sky revealing Jin's dark blue silk kimono with its kamon four-diamond emblem in white in the middle of his back. Jin had four kamons on his kimono, a sign of a ruling class family, with one on each of his sleeves and one on the left side of his chest.

Noko had had one on her kimono, in the middle of her back, but when Sayuri had shown Nokomis her kimono and how to put it on Nokomis hadn't liked the blue one that Jin had gotten for her.

Sayuri had a purple homongi kimono with two white peacocks on the front. Their tails feathered out onto the back and right side of the kimono. There was also one peacock on the right sleeve, in the back, with the bird's tail feathers flowing out across the sleeve and onto the left sleeve too.

Nokomis had fallen in love over the homongi kimono and had tried to trade her plain blue one with Sayuri's. Jin had tried to explain that she had to wear his kamon so that people would know that they were of the same family and not stop them and ask questions, but failed.

"Takeda Jin," Sayuri said taking off her homongi kimono and handing it to a very happy Nokomis, "let her have it. I can't wear my kimono for three years now anyways. I'll sew your kamon on her left chest so that people will see it."

Jin had thanked Sayuri as she showed Nokomis how the Hara-awase obi, that had sides of two different colors, was worn to produce a drum bow look. It had taken Noko a few times to figure out all the parts to her obi but she had gotten it in the end.

Another flash of lightning followed by a loud clap of thunder woke Nokomis up with a start.

"Jin!" she cried out in the darkness.

"Hai," he replied holding her closer to his chest so that she would know that she was safe.

"Mizu?" she asked in Japanese.

Nokomis was thirsty and her muscles ached. Fever racked her body and her head ached also. This afternoon she had found it hard to walk and after a rest period, in which she had soaked her tired feet in a cold stream, she tried to keep up with Jin.

They had left the temple twenty-two days ago to a place Jin said was "Nagasaki" when she had asked. That's when it hit Nokomis where she was. Nagasaki was the capital and largest city on the island of Kyushu in Japan. That's where she had recognized the word 'arigato' from. It meant 'thank you' in Japanese.

Unlike her mother, her father was interested in Japanese history and often had his nose in a book about it. Nokomis only wished that she had learned how to speak Japanese now instead of Mandarin that her mother spoke. It would make speaking to Jin so much easier.

Nokomis knew that they were walking south by the sun, away from a place Jin had called Edo, but she didn't recognize the city.

"Maybe it's a small town," she said to herself as she followed after Jin, who walked ahead of her with his left hand always on the two swords that he wore on his left hip.

She had recognized the shape of the swords, a katana and a wakizashi and yet as she followed him there was something oddly familiar about the young man. The thought had been pushed to the back of her mind as they walked the dirt path out of town. Nokomis was confused. If this was Japan where were the roads? Nokomis saw no cars, no planes, nothing of any modern technology as they went along.

That first night there had been no hotel, no inn, only a blanket on the ground and a small fire in which Jin had roasted some fish that they had caught before the sun had set.

Twenty-two days of nothing but rolling hills and fields where rice grew. Twice they had stopped at a Zen Temple where Nokomis and Jin had watched the priests chanting and offering fruit and rice at an altar in the monastery.

Before the day was out she had watched Jin reverently kneel before the altar and mutter something with his hands held together, fingers peaked up, in prayer before he got up and closed the wooden cabinet doors of the shrine before the sun set for the day.

She had liked the Zen Temple at first. At least she was inside, sleeping on a futon, but she found she missed Jin by her side. He was not allowed into her room at night. She didn't understand why, when she had gone to his room, she couldn't stay there either.

"Sorry," Jin told her showing her back to where she was to sleep for the night, "but I can't stay with you here in the temple."

Jin kissed the top of her head after depositing her back into her small room and slid the door shut behind him. She had gone to open the door, not wanting to be left alone.

"No!" Jin had sternly told her in Japanese as he held the rice paper door shut.

Finally Nokomis had gotten the message, but she wasn't happy about it. Jin had always been by her side since day one. Watching over her, protecting her. She had found it a little awkward the first night when Jin had laid down by her, on his left side, with his back towards hers. After the third night she had come to expect it and on the twelfth night she had come to rely on him.

That night two men had tried to rob them late in the night but Jin, who slept with one hand on his katana, had frightened them off killing one in the process.

Nokomis watched in horror as Jin cleaned his sword with the rice paper that he carried in his kimono, tucked into the folded flap of his left chest. When he had gone to offer his hand to her he had seen the horrified look in her eyes and had dropped his hand.

"Sori Noko," Jin said to her dropping his face to the ground and walking a few feet away.

Nokomis hadn't talked to Jin for a day after the incident but realized that in the end all he was doing was protecting her. That was why she didn't want to be alone. She didn't know how to protect herself. There was no phone, no police. She had lost everything she ever knew. Her clothes, shoes, socks, even her parents. She didn't know anyone except Jin in this place.

"Jin," she called out again, "Mizu shite kudasai."

Jin shook his head from side to side. "Sori," he replied.

Noko was asking for water. He knew that she must be thirsty but he had nothing to offer her. Her fever had started up eleven days ago as well as her vomiting up everything that she ate.

Twelve days ago they had gone through a small village that had been brought down by hososhin just like Enkiri Dera Temple. Jin, having had the disease as a child, didn't give it much thought as he and Noko had stayed in the stable of a family who had been infected.

"Noko just has a cold," Jin had told himself when she had first become sick, but now he doubted himself for saying that.

Noko pointing over his shoulder brought Jin back to the present.

"Mizu," she said again.

"No Noko," Jin said in Japanese, "Not water."

"Mizu," she insisted pointing to the rain.

"Ame," he told her releasing her to hold his right hand outside the cave.

Bringing his wet hand back inside he showed it to her.

"Ame," he told her again.

Instead of repeating the word Noko grabbed his wet hand and placed his fingers into her mouth. Sucking off the water.

"Stupid," Jin told himself when Nokomis released his hand. He had been so worried about her that he didn't realize he had water. Buddha was providing him with plenty as he quickly placed his hand outside the cave again to let the rain fall into the cupped palm of his hand.

Bringing it carefully back inside he offered his hand to her. Noko eagerly drank from his hand and watched as he went for more. The pair kept this up until Nokomis was full.

"Arigato," she told him placing her head back onto his left shoulder.

Jin smoothed her hair back on her forehead with his wet hand. Her fever was worse. He needed to get her to the local apothecary and soon. "Hopefully the rain will stop in the morning," Jin told himself as he pulled her body close to his and rested his chin on top of her head, finally able to fall asleep himself.