THE GENPUKU (III)

The shamisen wasn't really his thing to begin with. And being honest, neither was monkshood. The work robes were cool enough, mind him, but the constant shaving, the peace, quiet and more than anything else the celibacy were definitely not his vibe. He scratched the stubble on his head, frowning at the rougher patches and wondering when get back his former good looks. Maybe his great idea wasn't so great after all.

"It was the most stupid idea you've ever had," he opened an eye at the familiar voice echoing his own thoughts. The ever-worrying Shingoro stood before him, arms crossed and a stern gaze on his moji-shaped face. "Knowing you, that's saying something!"

"What part of it are you referring to? The part where I shaved my head and became a monk or the part where I ran away from a fucking suicide squad?"

His friend's wide face scrunched up in frustration.

It hadn't been a good couple of days for him. Actually, it had barely been decent since he arrived, what with everyone having an opinion on his life. 'What do you think you're doing?!' and 'Where's your fighting spirit gone?' rang in his ears from day one; but lately, the one he heard the most was the 'Choshū needs you, Shinsaku' and 'You must come back!'. But hearing anyone call Takasugi stupid was actually refreshing to hear: How else would you describe shaving your head on a whim, declaring you are now a monk, and putting half a country between you and your home to protest an idiotic, losing battle? Anything less was pure bullshit.

Resting the shamisen on his thighs, Shinsaku sighed. "What will I be going back to, Shingoro?" He wanted to know, he really needed to, "Ouno is safe for now, away from Shimonoseki. But what about tomorrow?" Daring his friend to hold his gaze, Shinsaku let the welled-up frustration he drowned in for the couple of months bleed through.

"That's no excuse to let everyone down," Shingoro somberly retorted, but not before trying to understand: His friend hadn't seen what he had witnessed in Shanghai; he didn't feel the impotence, the dread as the western ships showed all that was in store for anyone who tried to resist their might.

"Gimme one more day— One more," he insisted, interrupting his friend's protests, "I need to think. Please."

Shingoro's gaze fell heavy over his shoulders. And pinched his tiny nose with a grunt. "Ok, one more day," he conceded, a tinge of pity warming his voice.

Shinsaku followed his friend's back as he left with his attendants, leaving room for the arriving peregrines—that back was the only thing Shinsaku knew of wider than the man's face. Since it was noon prayer, it was best not to call any attention and leave. The would stay close-by, of course; no one wanted the great Takasugi to vanish into another temple under the cover of night.

"How low have you fallen, Shinsaku," he sneered at his hand: Marred by calluses and lines, and even a couple of scars from when he hadn't learned to sheathe a sword without cutting himself, it was without a doubt the hand of a warrior.

He had given his all to fight back against Townsend and his goddamned kin, yet they were but headless hens: scrambling in chaos, frantically tearing at everything on their path, even if it meant each other's throats. All while the butcher waited on the sidelines for them all to drop dead.

Shinsaku let his head rest against the cool mud wall of the main hall, eyes closed and fists tight. Maybe it was time to go back and face the inevitable. Everybody likes songs of heroes, but they only remember the tragic ones Ouno used to say as she closed the night with one of the sad ones. And boy, how he missed a good tune on the shamisen…

A striking figure strode past him, making Shinsaku snap out of it: A man large as a bear, clad in white and crimson brocade, cape bellowing over mail and iron boots like the warriors of old; he moved with a solemnity rarely pulled off without arrogance. Trailing closely was a squire, ridiculously small and fair next to his master. Despite their different strides, the squire deftly closed the gap with quick, agile steps.

Throwing caution out the window, he stared agape at them on their procession toward the burial grounds. Only when they disappeared behind the fence did the world come back in its dust-filled, smelly glory; with tough-skinned folks that had to carve their livelihood from earth to the day they died. Shinsaku gingerly touched the top of his head: nope, not enough heat to drive him mad yet.

"Let Ouno hear about these guys…!" the man entertained, picking up the shamisen once again. He pictured the dimples in her cheeks, the skeptic frown with which she'd playfully judge him. "I'm sure she'd come up with the best songs about of them…"

He had yet to reach the second verse of his favorite song when a muffled growl cut through his hard-earned notes: "… more important things.. keeping their stupid pupil alive.. they just forget about time, boy." So he wasn't hallucinating?

Stumped, he waited in silence in case there was more to come.

A few moments later, the squire walked out on his master, making a beeline to the temple's entrance. If Shinsaku had to guess from the way he stomped the ground, the kid was definitely throwing a fit. And just as he confirmed the man's theory by throwing away his straw hat, he uncovered a flurry of the deepest red hair trailing behind him.

"What the…" the man mouthed, eyes stuck on the foreign kid. It took him a second to remember where he was, where the kid was. Tsk. Standing up, he took the straw hat in hand and followed the redhead to the water basin next to the entrance, in which the idiot then proceeded to wash his whole face in. "Hey— Hey!"

The kid stepped back, quickly wiping away the water from his eyes. Shinsaku found himself gaping yet again: from the flat cheeks to the profile of his nose, the kid didn't look Dutch—nor at all western for that matter. But his blood-red hair and the big, bright eyes seemed almost jarring, something so very wrong in such familiar features. "Uh… sorry," the redhead apologized in a perfect Kansai accent. He was getting curiouser by the second…

"I take it you're not from around here," Shinsaku smirked, gathering his bearings behind a practiced smile. As questions bubbled behind the kid's eyes—so clear to read, it was so, so weird,—the man added: "People these parts know better than to use the basin to wash their face in it."

One of the redhead's eyebrows shot up in the most cynical, petulant-looking face a kid could ever wield. "You don't sound from these parts either." Oof, keen ears, definitely not western at birth.

"Got me there, kiddo," hearing this, the kid squinted, irritated. Before things escalated though, Shinsaku rushed to offer him an olive branch: "I'm here from down south, quite far from here actually. You can call me Tani."

The redhead studied him, and for a second the man felt like a hare in a hawk's sights. "Kenshin," the kid finally replied, still looking ready to lash out at the smallest provocation, "I'm live up in the mountain."

Shinsaku's jaw fell open. And bursted with laughter.

"What next? You're gonna say you born from a peach too?!" He was in tears, it had been a while since he'd laughed that hard. The kid, however, looked dead-serious. Shinsaku's smile dropped.

"Well, let me give you some advice since you're not from around here," peering over the kid's head, Shinsaku set the straw hat snugly on the tuft of red hair. "Don't go around these parts without one of these, ok kiddo?"

For once, the redhead seemed to get the meaning of his words as he pulled the brim lower over his head.

"Why." Shinsaku looked down, where he was met by a piercing gaze: The kid wasn't asking; it was a demand. "Tell me why, Tani-san."

He really did come from a peach, didn't he? "Look, kiddo" he started, planting a hand over his head and turning it around towards the village. "See the cooking fires? How many do you see? —and forget the people in here, they come in hopes of getting a decent meal. There aren't that many, right?" The kid counted. He really did. "They have been barely scraping by ever since those ships arrived."

The redhead stared blankly.

"For gods—… The black ships?" He probed, a flicker of recognition lighting up the kid's eyes. "Foreigners with weird faces and hair the color of hay…? or blood?" His last word made the kid pause. He looked up at Shinsaku, rattled to the very core. The man worked his jaw. "Tsk. Come, kiddo: Let's take a walk."

• • •

He crammed almost twenty years of history and politics over a cool plate of soba noodles: from how he was practically smuggled into a ship on a mission to spy the westerners, to his glorious rouse under the guise of a nobleman. Shinsaku's teachers would be proud of him—if any of them were still alive, that is. Sitting across him on the road-shop's bench, the kid did his part, devouring his every word like it was the most enthralling bedtime story the kid had ever heard. By the time Shinsaku finished, the sun had warmed up the noodles and his lunch was ruined.

"So, there: Ships buy things, yada-yada-yada, taxes rise by the day and people starve," he summed up, barely gathering enough will to flicker a fat mosquito off his big toe. "So when people see you, they see a Dutch or an Englishman—maybe even an American,—and they get mad. And this is just the countryside," the man grimaced, "The Sanjo bridge doesn't see a day without at least one head on a pike."

The kid, Kenshin, remained silent, eyes fixed on the empty plate of roasted dango. Shinsaku was not the only one for which lunch had been miserably ruined. Still, seeing a kid take on his small shoulders the weight of the guilt from some people he never knew…

"Tsk… It's not your fault you were born like that, kiddo," But your mother's definitely in hell the man muttered, leaning against one of the shop's pillars in search of shade. The bench wobbled precariously, and a stray dango rolled over the edge. Fuck.

As Shinsaku reached for the fallen dango, the kid looked up. Having aged at least five years in a single sitting, his voice was ragged at the edges when he asked: "Why is nobody doing anything?"

"Oh, we are, kiddo, but…" Shinsaku started, and he couldn't help but smile softly at the way the kid seemed to jump at the prospect. He leaned forwards, picking up the soft little ball of dough, now covered in ants. Tsk. Annoyed, the man started flickering off the bugs one by one, and thus found a compelling example for the kid to visualize: "We're like ants compared to what those ships got in store," flick, flick, ouch, flick, "I told you about the gatling-gun, didn't I?" he wondered, forgetting about the dango to draw him the damned gun.

But as the man pondered using a noodle to illustrate his next point, the kid held the battered dango a breath away from Shinsaku's face. Oi, kiddo…! An ant bit down hard on one of Kenshin's fingers, even after it drew big fat drop of blood from him.

"Even ants can kill a tiger if it steps on their anthill."