2008 - Glendale Community College

polite gratitude, Takayuki-san steered
the conversation into another direction.
“I did what I believed was right, Kosamechan.”
The shattering of ceramic rang through
the room, the only visible sign to his
rage. “How dare call me that?”
Takayuki-san, with sadness and pity
lining his eyes, continued. “It was never
meant to happen like that.”
A strained laugh, low and sneering,
escaped Gisei’s lips, his hand clenching
around the shattered saucer. “Never meant
to happen like that? You murdered my
father, took my mother, left me there,
and I‘m supposed to let it go?”
“We returned for you, Kosame-chan. That
was the plan. You disappeared; we couldn’t
find you and we searched everywhere.”
Takayuki-san explained, looking into his
sake cup. “Mana-chan died six years ago,
never knowing what became of you.”
“So sorry to hear that; I never
received my invitation to her tsuya.”
Gisei waved off the news without a second
thought. She was dead to him long before
her true passing.
Takayuki-san tossed back the rest of
his sake, and refused the offer for a
refill. He contemplated the younger man
sitting before him; Gisei knew what he
was seeing. Still a child in his eyes,
but in the gear of a killer. A deadly
weapon laid on his lap like a cat, and
looking back at him with the familiar
face of a child that he thought lost
forever. “Your father was not a good man,
Kosame-chan.”
“This coming from you?” Gisei quipped,
before dropping the chips of ceramic onto
the tray and wiping his hand free of
blood. “No one is a good man these days,
Takayuki-san.”
“I was his friend,” Takayuki-san
admitted. “I was no saint myself, but
I loved your mother. Your father only
took her into his harem because she was
an offering from a fellow lord from the
west. The one thing that kept her alive
there is that she was the only one who
bore him a son.”
Gisei shifted his weight, his legs
tingling after sitting on them for so
long. “You’re not going to say I’m your
son and my mother kept it secret from my
father, are you?” It was a wonder that
sarcasm wasn’t dripping out of his mouth.
Takayuki-san gave a weary smile, and
shook his head. “No, Yuzuki-san was your
father, but you were your mother’s child.
I loved you as if you were my own.”
“Mana-chan’s father was a wealthy
lord, and Yuzuki-san murdered him to
32
gain control over his land and riches.
However, Mana-chan did not mention she
had an elder brother who was heir. Manachan
feared for her life, and the only
way I could protect her-”
“Was to murder my father.” Gisei
finished, picking up the tokkuri and took
a swig straight from the flask. “How...
unoriginal, Takayuki-san.”
Takayuki-san sighed, folding his
hands in his lap. “Mana-chan was against
the idea at first, despite the threat
to her life. She didn’t want to leave
you behind, but it would have been
difficult to take the both of you with me
immediately. As Yuzuki-san’s best friend,
I would have been sent a message to take
you into my care. You had more protection
in the world than your mother would have.
She would have been given to another lord
closer than I was, or perhaps even killed
or kidnapped.” Takayuki took a moment
to collect himself, and then continued
in a tone that only came when one was
fighting back tears. “But no message ever
came, nothing beyond news of Yuzuki-san’s
death. Your mother and I became frantic.
We looked for you, Kosame-chan.”
“Are you seriously telling me you
expected me to await the return of my
father’s betrayers? How stupid did you
think I was?” Gisei restrained himself
from breaking the flask by slamming it
onto the tray.
“Kosame-chan-”
Gisei snapped his strange eyes up to
meet Takayuki-san’s old gaze. “I was
there, Takayuki-san. I saw you murder
my father, and I saw my mother watch. I
watched you kiss her and lead her away.
All I knew was that the man I called
father, the woman I called mother, and
the one I trusted and loved like an
uncle, was all a lie. My father cared for
me. I was his son. My mother scolded me
for manners, and to be proud because of
who I was, and then she’d slip off with
you or other ladies of father’s court
for the rest of the time. You didn’t
just betray my father, Takayuki-san. You
betrayed me.”
Takayuki-san’s shoulders slumped with
the weight that his sin was greater than
he thought it was. “They were hard times,
Kosame-chan.”
wGisei knew, of course. The son of a
dead lord had little chance of survival
in the world of his father’s enemies. His
scars were proof of that. He killed his
first man when he was eleven, and it was
either fight or become a slave, or worse,
to the drunken ronin.
Traveler