"Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart?
Who holds the stars up in the sky?
Is true love just once in a lifetime?
Did the captain of the Titanic cry?"
("Someday We'll Know," New Radicals)
For weeks, Kaoru had been sitting out on the engawa every evening at dusk and listening for the buzzing cicadas. If the cicadas buzzed, summer had arrived, and the Kamiya would be leaving for Edo. Their annual trip to Edo for the summer festivals was the year's highlight, and Kaoru always saved up her pocket money to buy as much candy, hair ribbons, and paper fans as she wanted. And the games. Her five-year record of beating Sanosuke at goldfish scooping was unbroken.
Little could Kaoru have imagined she'd be going several weeks earlier this year and accompanied by her strange, red-haired bridegroom.
Or, at least, that's how Himura explained their relationship to the kago-bearers who carried them as far as the city gates and the servants at the inn where they were staying. If they found anything odd about the samurai with the x-shaped scars and his pretty young wife, they kept quiet about it. Himura was polite to them, but a man with two swords at his hip was someone to be wary of.
Kaoru observed her companion closely for clues to his origins and background. His manners were antiquated, and he spoke in the overly formal Kyoto dialect. Both came across as trying too hard and hinted at a commoner imitating the ways of the Imperial Court.
He was gone on business for most of the day, leaving Kaoru in the care of the inn's elderly proprietress, but when he had time off, they went for walks and rickshaw rides around the city.
They took in the obligatory sites, such as Edo Castle and Sensō-Ji Temple, but Kaoru most enjoyed going down to the harbor. She couldn't help but gawk at the smoke-belching metal ships from the west and the bizarre-looking gaijin they carried inside them.
The men were unusually tall and had hairy faces and the women wore dresses with vast bell-shaped skirts laden with ruffles and flounces.
"How can they move in those things?" Kaoru whispered to Himura during one of their walks by the harbor.
Himura looked up at Kaoru. In her new platform getas, which were the literal height of fashion, she was taller than him. "They probably think the same thing about your getas," he said.
Kaoru looked down at her feet and conceded the point.
On their final night in Edo, Himura surprised Kaoru with tickets to see a Kabuki play, having heard that she enjoyed the theater. Kaoru put on the nicest of the ready-made kimono Himura had bought for her. Pale yellow silk, the color of primroses, printed with myrtle branches and butterflies. She'd had no reservations about choosing the most expensive. Wasn't it a wife's privilege to spend her husband's money? And Himura had the pleasure of escorting a beautiful lady around the city.
Hana-San, the inn's proprietress, helped Kaoru arrange her hair and tie her obi according to the latest fashions set by Yoshiwara's most glamorous courtesans and disseminated to their patrons' wives and daughters through prints available at every bookstore and newsstand.
"Your husband won't be able to keep his eyes on the stage this evening," Hana-San said. She nudged Kaoru toward a waiting Himura.
Himura had also put more effort into his appearance. Instead of his usual old and dusty traveler's clothes, he wore a new silk kimono and hakama. He'd combed his hair and pulled it back into a fashionable topknot. The dignity and command he carried himself with made up for his lack of height.
Kaoru blushed. This wasn't the bumbling Rurouni or the vengeful Battosai, but a Himura Kenshin she'd never seen before. He bowed and offered a hand to help Kaoru into the rickshaw.
During their jaunts around the city, Himura tried to make small talk with Kaoru about her family. Kaoru told him tall tales about having ten brothers and twenty male cousins, each as tall as a tree and as broad as a mountain. The oldest, Sanosuke, was the embodiment of the storm god, Susanoo, and was married to a witch skilled in poisons. Her cousin, Aoshi, had hundreds of spies and ninja all over the country, who were probably looking for her...
"And how is Tomoe-San?" Himura asked. "Are she and Akira-Sama happy?"
Kaoru scoffed. This was just about the last thing she wanted to talk about. "She's as happy as she deserves to be."
What was it about Tomoe Yukishiro that clung onto people's hearts and souls and wouldn't let go? She'd betrayed and humiliated Himura, and he still wished her well. Did she have saké-flavored nipples or something?
Himura smirked at Kaoru. "You're not fond of her, this one takes it?"
"Where does it say I have to be?" Kaoru folded her arms.
"This one thinks you're jealous. Tomoe-San is more beautiful than you. And she's considered a paragon of grace and refinement, while you're a..."
Kaoru raised her hand. How dare he tease her like a silly little girl being nasty out of jealousy, especially after everything he'd seen her go through because of Tomoe? She ought to slap that patronizing grin off Himura's face. "Stop!" she said to the rickshaw driver. If he was going to taunt her about that insipid ninny, she wasn't going to stick around and take it.
The rickshaw driver came to a halt, and Kaoru jumped out.
"Where are you going?" Himura called after her.
"Back to the inn." It shouldn't be too hard to find her way back, and she could always ask for directions.
"You can't walk around alone at night. That you can't, Kamiya-Dono."
"Just watch me!"
Himura paid the rickshaw driver and ran after Kaoru. Luckily, they were within walking distance of the theater, and there was a noodle stand along the way, where he apologized with a bowl of somen.
The play that evening was called "Yuki-onna and the Red Devil." It opened with a scene of three Shinsengumi patrolling the streets of Kyoto, complaining about the cold weather and arguing over the likelihood of snow, where they are attacked by the titular Red Devil, a clownish figure called Bakkyusai.
It was easy to guess the real-life personage who'd inspired the character of Bakkyusai. If Kaoru were in Himura's place, she wouldn't be flattered by such a buffoonish portrayal. Still, Himura laughed at Bakkyusai's bumbling escape from the Shinsengumi as heartily as anyone in the audience, and Kaoru could titter behind her fan without feeling bad about it.
A sudden blizzard allows Bakkyusai to escape the Shinsengumi. Bakkyusai notices a female figure in a white kimono, standing underneath a red umbrella. Thinking she's in distress, Bakkyusai approaches to offer assistance, but she disappears into the snow before he can reach her.
Kaoru smiled. Watch out, Bakkyusai. Yuki-onna will freeze your heart. She darted her eyes toward Himura, who was seated next to her. A wistful grin crosses his lips when Bakkyusai is captivated by the cool reserve of a mysterious beauty, who called herself Plum-Blossom and often sat alone, scribbling in her diary.
Not Yuki-onna. Kaoru let out a giggle she didn't bother to suppress. But Yukishiro.
Bakkyusai marries Plum-Blossom, even though their short acquaintance and her aloof nature mean that he knows next to nothing about her. Plum-Blossom is the perfect wife, bears Bakkyusai many children, and remains as beautiful and youthful as she was on the day Bakkyusai first met her. The loving couple are sitting together by the fire one evening after their children are asleep when Bakkyusai realizes that Plum-Blossom has an eerily strong resemblance to the woman in white he found in the blizzard many years before. With her cover blown, Plum-Blossom transforms back into Yuki-onna and disappears with a blast of snow, leaving Bakkyusai shivering and confused.
"I pity Bakkyusai's second wife," Kaoru said to Himura as they left the theater. "She could be Benten herself and still she'd never measure up to Yuki-onna, the one that got away."
Himura raised an eyebrow. "So people can't love more than once in their lives?"
It was only natural that a man who'd had two wives should favor one over the other, though he might claim otherwise. Just like Otou-San always said he didn't have a favorite child, but everyone knew he liked Kaoru best. "Second loves are always second best and men never appreciate what they have."
"And you're an expert on men?" There was Himura's patronizing smirk again.
"I know enough." Kaoru pouted.
The camellia trees outside the theater were in bloom. Himura plucked a red camellia and held it between two fingers.
"And what if a man loves two women who are so different..." He tucked the flower behind Kaoru's ear. "...that comparison would be useless."
Kaoru blushed. Himura wasn't her first suitor, but none of the others had dared to go further than flowery compliments and even more flowery poetry.
"Different? So one is a paragon of beauty, grace, and refinement while the other is a...?"
Flirting with her wouldn't make her forget what he'd said earlier. That she was the caterpillar to Tomoe's butterfly.
"Please forgive this unworthy one, Kamiya-Dono, for his careless words earlier." Himura bowed to Katara as if she were an empress.
Kaoru rolled her eyes. Nice try Rurouni-San. Tomoe's not my big sister. I don't have to wear her castoffs.