Hello, I hope everyone is doing well and want to share a few critical updates:
1) Apologies for the delay but on the upside, the majority of my stories are written in advance before publication occurs. So why no updates? Some of it is travel (I travel leisurely quite a bit), but the rate-limiting step lies in the editing and revision segment. Nothing gets published until I deem it my best possible work.
2) No story of mine will ever be abandoned. It's a marathon, not a sprint :)
3) I'm not on social media but happy to share/ accept art for my works. Thank you for reaching out.
4) Initiating transition to archive of our own. It's important for me going forward to be connected to a community for feedback, growth and just overall fun of great story-telling and writing. I look forward to the robust writer and reader infrastructure offered by AO3.
5)In accordance with 4, this will be the LAST update here. I will be posting exclusively on AO3 in the future and hope to see everyone there!
6) Recommend checking out my other work for a lighter read: A Tale of Woman, Man and Ramen. It's lighthearted, fun, modern with a handsome upbeat man who loves to eat and cook. What is not to like?
Now without further ado, onward with the tale of an insufferable man to answer a burning question!
Chapter 28: Cry
Sunlight dances over Ran's fluttering eyelids.
A weary groan escapes her dry lips as she untangles layers of textiles piled over her. Some were torn, but the majority of them were her clothes.
Kami, what happened last night?
Any attempt to recall is stalled by a sharp stinging in her head.
"Oh no it's late," her slurred murmur, rubbing sleep off heavy lids. "I must get up."
Peripherally, Ran catches sight of a folded lilac yukata with a white obi. She had only one furisode, so surely, this must have belonged to the residence's previous owner.
She scans the small tea room, devoid of a dresser, and decides not to mull over whether or not a certain moody samurai prepared her clothes.
The aroma of ginger, garlic, onion wafts into the tea room and Ran follows it back to the main compound. Past the garden, well system, down short winding corridors and into the kitchen.
"Mitsunari-dono, ohayo gozaimasu," she greets him, though his back is turned to her and occupied with matters at the stone counter.
He mutters she's finally awake and the young woman scratches her head, adding he may wake her at any time.
"It would take an act of the shogunate to wake you," he counters, fishing cabbage out of a water basin.
She pouts, but still manages a small smile at the sight of the fierce Western General in a white kimono, with purple hakama, and sleeves hiked up to….
"Mitsunari, are you cooking?" The incredulous excitement barely contained in her small frame peering from behind his larger one.
"How perceptive," he deadpans, aligning pale vegetation on a wooden chopping board.
Never in her wildest dreams could she see the nefarious Minister of Misfortune behind such a mundane task. Unthinkable! Ran bites back a growing grin. Despite the blood on his hands and destruction left in his wake, the young man before her now seems so….normal.
"I did not expect you could-"
"Tschiyo was the chief stewardess overseeing all services arranged in the Toyotomi compound. Suffice to say it would be humiliating if her charge fails to prepare a simple meal," he turns to her, curious why a peasant would find food preparation a novelty, "what of you?"
She wrings the folds of her yukata. "Ah, I don't know much. Iroha-sensei has always commanded the kitchen. The last time I prepared a meal was for Mitsunari-dono and Ieyasu-dono. I had five other ladies-in-waiting help," her meek reply met with his baffled gaze.
Aha…
Perhaps the elderly man had always known of her prestigious birthright and spared her most manual labor. She recalls outside of medicinal training, he's never allowed her to tend fields or chop firewood. Simultaneously, it's likely the crew at Ieyasu's compound spared her most food preparation for fear of setting the kitchen ablaze.
She rubs her soft hands together. Woe, her deficiency now laid bare!
"...can you teach me?"
He scoffs, with a half crooked smile. Unbelievable, this woman is truly stranger than fiction.
"Watch closely. To use a knife, principles are simple and few. Cut with firm, steady, repetitive and precise motion while keeping your hand and fingers curled away from the blade."
He slices slender sections of the cabbage with such speed, it's done as he punctuates his sentence. With a flick of his wrist, he transfers the cabbage in neat folds onto a lacquered tray using the blade. A paltry effort at most for him, but it leaves her jaw agape.
"May I?" Hand outstretched and Mitsunari obliges, relinquishing the knife.
"Keep your fingers in," he warns, stalking over to a flour splattered station to knead dough.
He vaguely wonders if the task is too difficult as she struggles with the large knife and slippery vegetation.
"This is difficult," she grumbles, grinding the knife into leaves.
Mitsunari exhales nasally at the mangled cabbage she will have to eat. Fools have to learn from failure and he believes they must learn viscerally, not vicariously through others. So be it.
He passes her a plate. "Eat this when you've completed your task," his curt command as he resumes kneading dough.
She ambles over with bright eyes, the abandoned mountain of mauled cabbage an afterthought.
"This is…" her big, bright brown orbs shining down on the green gelatinous confection, "mochi?"
Ran could only stare back and forth with a giant grin between the verdant sweet and the General in civilian clothes.
"Well?" His frown challenges her.
"Mitsunari, made this…" her voice whispers with pink tinted cheeks, "...for me…"
"A simple matter," his brusque reply, returning to work. "Get on with it."
In the corner of his eye, she slips in an "itadakakimasu" and bites into the soft bean-filled sweet before leaving him in the small eternity to await her response.
Her eyes close but even that cannot conceal the smile more luminous than the sun outside. The fond memories of her mother pinch out deep dimples.
Mitsunari smirks but she will never know with her eyes closed.
"Oishi desu." Her soft murmur, through beautiful reminiscence.
Ran walks over by his side. "This is delicious!"
"Of course it is," his cold retort, despite the drumming in his chest at the sight of her enormous smile and loosely tied hair, "considering I prepared it."
Not dampened by his frigid reply in the least, she pushes her face closer to his and Mitsunari could feel a thunderous pounding in his ears. "I must have more. Please allow me to assist?"
This peasant woman who ironically cannot cut or cook, desires to prepare one of the most labor intensive items in Japanese cuisine? Hilarious, he ought to laugh. Most men would, but he is not most men.
Mitsunari stares at her pensively.
"Fine," he concedes, gesturing to a high shelf, "get the flour."
If she can't perform skilled labor, perhaps she can be occupied with menial tasks.
"This is quite high," she comments to no one in particular, scaling the wobbly stool.
Mitsunari follows her like a hawk. Surely even she can perform the child's task of fetching items. Surely…
It happens so fast Ran cannot register the sequence of events.
One instance she grasps the sack of flour, and in the blink of an eye Mitsunari is before her yelling in a snowstorm of swirling white.
"Are you hurt?" He repeats to her frozen frame.
She blinks and coughs in the cloud of flour.
"I think I fell…"
Ran waves the swirling fog between them away. The immediate vicinity is a growing mushroom of white.
Kami, he must think I am useless.
"Ah," he confirms, releasing his arm around her waist, "are you hurt?"
Absently, she shakes her head as Mitsunari breaks into a coughing fit.
Her eyes grow wide. She has a patch of flour on her but it must have hit him entirely as evidenced by his usual silver hair now bleached ghastly white. His countenance is stripped of its usual ivory shade, stained with an ethereal pallor.
"Oh," she gasps between his whooping cough, leading him to sit on a bench.
"My eyes…" he wheezes, rubbing them with a fist.
"Don't!" She seizes his wrist with a strength he never knew she had. "It will worsen the insult, hold on."
Ran pulls out a white handkerchief and dabs it in warm water.
"Hold still, it's alright, I will help you," her voice firm but anxious, meticulously wiping at his eyes.
He isn't blind and his chest drums on relentlessly. Quite the contrary, he sees with crystal clarity the apprehension written on her face as she desperately dabs away the offending agent from his face. The pounding in his chest grows louder with an added heaviness.
She parts his hair exposing an expansive, violaceous purple over his right temple.
"Oh! Kami! How did this happen?"
"What?"
She brushes his hair away completely. "You have a bruise here! How awful! What happened? Who did this to you?"
And despite his sullen indignation, Mitsunari has never felt so…content.
"There were a few ruffians last night who needed to be disciplined," is all he says.
"Even so, how could this have happened?" Her expression continues to wrinkle with concern, fingers grazing the ecchymotic patch.
"It was a difficult encounter." He mutters with crossed arms.
"But you have a sword," she counters, patting fabric nonstop to rid him of the ghostly powder.
The thought of being outnumbered and weaponless leaves his palate with a bitter aftertaste.
"It was...lost in the brawl," he grunts, arms uncrossing to rest on both knees. He'd sooner be executed than divulge the truth.
"This is terrible," she whimpers, fingers ghosting his injury while tears threaten to fall from corners of her eyes.
He can hardly ignore the thunder drumming in his ears, reminiscent of an impending battle.
"A flesh wound," he replies, the sight of her causing him to swallow the rock in his throat.
"It's not! It must hurt so much. How I wish this did not happen to you," she sniffles.
Mitsunari certainly didn't think much of the bruise, but as her fingers continue to trace his temple, time stops and so does his breathing.
Hanbei-dono, I committed unspeakable evil and continue to ask for the cruel strength to achieve your vision and Lord Hideyoshi's ambitions. The atrocities I committed are a testament to my villainous nature and stalwart devotion.
Whatever she continues to say with tear-laden eyes falls to deaf ears.
I am reviled throughout the land, a monster to behold.
He watches her, eyebrows knit with focus, dabbing the powdery substance off his forehead.
Yet this weak and defenseless woman does not look upon me with aghast fear.
Instead, she healed me.
"The needle that stung you on the chest has left you poisoned…I have made the antidote."
That time, he had thought himself a dead man after losing all sensation in his extremities.
She spoke to me.
"No matter what needs to be said or done, people are more receptive to kind words and politeness. Mitsunari-dono should try it some time."
He recalls having grimaced at the truth of her words, much to his dismay and denial.
She was loyal.
"If Mitsunari-dono falls ill on account of me, the men of the Ishida army will suffer. I shall remain here with you."
She lied on my behalf.
"Last night, Mitsunari-dono was not there. He was with me. The entire night."
Words of deceit that cost the young woman her chastity, for him- a villain.
She died for me.
Images of her intercepting a wound meant for him flickers in his mind.
She cried for me.
"I cannot imagine the pain you've experienced with such large scars. It must hurt immensely. You are so brave..."
He catches sight of her blurry eyes and lips pursed with concern.
She cries for me.
"You are worried," Mitsunari observes with an unreadable expression, his steel gaze locked on her before deciding he prefers her foolish grin instead from moments prior.
She looks upon me with kindness, smiling as if…
"Of course I am worried for you," she sniffles.
…I am a hero…
He clears his throat studying her face up close. "Why?"
Eyes fall to the ground and arms drop to her side. She sniffles.
Forgive me, Hanbei-dono. I can no longer remain unmoved.
"Seeing Mitsunari like this -"
He leans forward and kisses her.
It's a microscopic eternity. A silent, surreal free fall that is simultaneously so loud it's deafening. However miniscule this moment in time may be, it cannot be frozen regardless of one's ardent wish.
Mitsunari breaks away, silently regarding her avoidant, wet gaze with a raised eyebrow.
Did she not have a million words but a moment ago?
"Why do you weep?" His impatient demand.
Her hands wring the handkerchief into spindles. "Mitsunari has always refused my affection, but now abruptly kisses me," she whispers with glazed eyes that refuse to meet his perplexed ones, "how difficult- I do not know what you want."
What HE wants? Was she not the one who coerced him into a vow for a kiss? During a raging battle, amidst a dangerous rescue nonetheless! Now, he finally fulfills his promise and this?
Mitsunari has half a mind to yell when she rises to leave.
His hand instinctively catches hers.
"Halt."
"What," her stifled sob, tearing free of his grasp.
"I cannot see. How can you leave, abandoning your duty?" Inwardly, he scowls at his own fraudulent but necessary falsehood.
The young woman puffs her cheeks and it's a sight Mitsunari will remember in his dreams. If he were to have any. He only had nightmares.
"Ii desu yo," she nods, returning to her kneeling position in front of him, and continues cleaning his face.
He remains silent, basking in her company until she announces completion.
"Here," her miffed reply, shoving the fabric into his hand, "most of the flour is removed. Use this to clean up."
With a huff, she stomps out the kitchen, leaving him with a white handkerchief.
His fingers curl over a corner of the fabric with her name meticulously embroidered in lavender threads.
He's a sea of red flags but...
Burning question: is he husband material? ;D
Let me know!