From: "Jan Story" This was actually the first Kenshin story I wrote, and the first I tried to post, but I did something wrong, or Netscape screwed up, and it never got there. Here it is again... If you don't know *anything* about the Revenge arc this has some minor spoilers. SNOW Standard Disclaimer: All characters © by Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Sony, etc. and used without permission. "A padded jacket is an acceptable gift even in summer." --Japanese proverb It was still dark when he got up, dark and quiet and bone-numbing cold. /*I hate winter,*/ protested the memory of his child-self. /*Never enough clothes, never a big enough fire, never enough food, never even enough work to be really warm...*/ Silent as sunrise, he glided through the house to light the fire in the kitchen and the brazier in the main room. In the fire's dull crimson glow he could see his breath hanging in a frosty cloud. He slid the shoji open. Cold air swirled around him, clawed through his worn kimono like a dead woman's fingers. Icy kisses stung his face and exposed chest. /*Snow... always snow...*/ Courtyard, engawa, roof... everything was covered with a thick blanket of pristine white. More snowflakes danced around him, powdering his long red hair and collecting in the folds of his clothing, cold and pure... /*I wish I could be snow falling toward you...*/ He turned to the tasks at hand, splitting wood for the fires, finding center in the rhythm of mallet and wedge. /*Before I was enlightened I chopped wood and carried water.*/ He smiled slightly, appreciating the irony, as he raised bucket after bucket from the well. Water for cooking, for laundry, for the bath. His straw sandals left oval prints in the snow. The wind's chilly fingers plucked at him insistently through the thin fabric of his clothing. /*And now... I chop wood and carry water.*/ Memories blew through his concentration, cold and insistent as the wind, the triple scents of snow, white plum, and blood... * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Icy air nipped Kaoru's nose and she burrowed sleepily under the quilt, snuggling closer to... the edge of her futon. /*Mou! That's cold! Now I'm awake, and I was having such a nice dream too. Kenshin no baka.../* Shivering a little, and irritated with herself for being disappointed that it *had* been only a dream, she dressed quickly in kimono and hakama, and after a moment's thought added a quilted hanten. /*I guess I'll run Yahiko around a little bit to warm up.*/ But when she got outside she found a world covered in icy, dazzling white crystals, and a very out-of-sorts Yahiko. "Hey Ugly, you order this lousy weather?" "WHAT did you call me?" Kaoru-youkai snarled, towering over her student. "Just for that, you can sweep all the snow off the engawa!" "Hey, how come I hafta do all the work?" But he took the broom and began sweeping. Kaoru watched him for a few minutes, then took another broom and went outside the walled enclosure to clear a path for people to walk. The snow was light and powdery, and it took her only a little while to sweep the paths. When she opened the gate to come back in, a snowball narrowly missed her head. "Missed me!" she yelled, scooping up a handful of snow and retaliating. Her aim was little better, mostly because Yahiko ducked *very* fast. Kenshin listened to the battle as he put the finishing touches on breakfast. /*Sounds like they're having fun.*/ He opened the shoji just as Yahiko dove by at top speed. He had one split-second glimpse of Kaoru, snow-covered, pink-cheeked, and laughing, before icy whiteness blanked out his vision. "Oro?" Kaoru stared for a moment in shock and horror as Kenshin wiped the snow from his face. "I'm so sorry!" she gasped. "I didn't mean to hit you!" "Daijoubu!" he replied, with his sweetest, sunniest smile. "Breakfast is ready." As she brushed the powdery crystals from her clothes, she noticed him surreptitiously fish a lump of snow from inside his kimono. "So what's for after breakfast? Sweep the courtyard?" Yahiko asked. "Nope. We're going to practice out there today." "What, in the snow?" "You can't always count on having everything ideal when you fight. Snow's slippery and it shifts under foot, so it's good to practice in those conditions. Ne, Kenshin?" "Sou de gozaru yo. If you want to practice the 'sword that protects life,' you have to be able to fight in all kinds of situations." "Did Hiko make you train in the snow, Kenshin?" Yahiko asked. "Oh yes, all kinds of conditions. Snow, rain, mud..." /*Drilling for hours in heavy wet snow, unable to feel my feet or the shinai in my hands, until I mastered using my ki to keep warm...*/ "Whenever we had a big snow, my father would drill all the students outside, and after practice we'd have a snowball fight," Kaoru went on. "It was lots of fun. Come on, Kenshin, let's make it a three-way match today." "No, I have all this work to do..." /*They don't need my memories spoiling their happiness...*/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * /*They certainly are having fun.*/ As he hung the clean wash on the laundry poles, he watched Kaoru drive Yahiko back toward him. Suddenly the boy broke and ran, angling toward the well with Kaoru in hot pursuit. /*He's going to use the well-curb to push off for a Ryuu-tsui-sen.*/ He'd used much the same tactic at Yahiko's age. Just as Yahiko launched himself into the air with his "learned-by-watching Ryuu-tsui-sen," Kaoru hit a patch where water had sloshed out of the washtub and frozen. She skidded out of control, straight into Kenshin, and they went down in a tangle of arms, legs, and shinai. "Ow, I gotta work on my landing," Yahiko muttered to himself. He had missed his strike and landed hard and off balance as a result. "Kaoru? Kenshin? You guys okay?" "Oro..." Dizzily, Kenshin collected his scattered wits, finding his arms around something warm, soft and firm at the same time, something he didn't want to let go... "Kaoru-dono? Daijoubu de gozaru ka?" "I'm all right, are you? I didn't hurt you, did I?" Still shaken, she didn't really think about getting up. It felt so safe with his arms around her... "Hey you two, quit it!" Yahiko yelled. "What're you doing, cuddlin' like that? This is supposed to be practice!" "Well when did *you* get so serious?" Kaoru demanded. "Actually I think that's enough. Don't you have to go to the Akabeko after lunch? And I need to change and go shopping." She disappeared into the house. "Che," Yahiko muttered. "I bet neither of you saw how I landed wrong, huh?" He stomped off. Kenshin shook his head. /*Yare yare...*/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Kaoru took a lined wool kimono from the clothes-chest, her favorite deep blue with a scattering of jasmine flowers, old but still pretty, and most importantly warm. On impulse, she chose a flame-orange hair ribbon she had bought in Kyoto the previous summer and not worn since. Every time she looked at it, she remembered Misao's teasing with a twinge of embarrassment. /*I know why you want that! Himura's hair's the same color!*/ It wouldn't have nettled so much if it hadn't been true... She opened the door and looked outside. Kenshin was crossing the courtyard with an armload of wood. Snow had dusted his bright hair and settled in the folds of his clothing. She watched him for a moment, then slid the door closed. /*I don't care if he can use ki to keep warm. It can't be good for him, out all the time in the cold with nothing but that thin kimono.*/ She dragged out and opened the clothes-chest that held her father's garments. The pungent odor of camphor rose around her as she lifted out one item after another, until she found the thing she sought -- a thickly padded hanten, dyed indigo blue. She took it from the chest and momentarily ran her hands over the formal haori packed beneath it, her callused fingers catching a little on the heavy silk, imagining the flame of Kenshin's hair against its black luster, imagining herself in figured white... /*Someday,*/ she told herself as she replaced everything but the hanten. /*Now to give it to him... now to get him to take it...*/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * He sensed her approach and looked up from his work to see her coming toward him with a bundle of dark cloth in her arms. She placed herself in front of him with a nervous, resolute expression, and stared at the floor. Her cheeks were pink. "Oro?" "Kenshin, I..." She looked up at him, but turned even pinker and dropped her eyes again. "I was worried that you wouldn't be warm enough, so... please wear this," she finished in a rush and thrust the bundle at him. Slowly he took it from her, shook out the camphor-scented folds. The hanten was of stout fabric, thickly padded and quilted, worn but still good. /*It must have been her father's.*/ "Kaoru-dono, I can't possibly..." /*I KNEW he'd be like that! Kenshin no baka!*/ "Please, Kenshin," she insisted. "Otherwise I'll worry." She raised her eyes to his, pleading, insisting. /*Please take it.*/ Any resistance he might have offered went down without a struggle before those eyes. "I never want to make you worry," he smiled, and put the garment on. It settled around him, its thick folds blocking out the insistent wind. He hadn't owned anything this warm for many years, not since that last winter outside Kyoto. /*Yatta!*/ "Come on, Kenshin. We need lots of stuff today. Vegetables, rice, soy sauce, miso..." "Kaoru-dono, you just want me to carry all those heavy things," he protested as he followed her out the gate, carrying the market pole over his shoulder. Outside the courtyard's shelter, the wind was brisk, but its insistent fingers couldn't reach him through the hanten's padding. The scents of camphor and jasmine mingled with the clean no-scent of snow, stronger than the remembered aromas of blood and white plum. /*It's time for new memories. Happy ones.*/ /*He really does look good in that. But he almost didn't take a stupid thing like a warm coat... how do I get him to take the things I *really* want to give him? Forgiveness... acceptance... love...*/ Impulse struck him. "Maybe we can make tomorrow's practice a little more interesting," he said. "How about the rocks by the river? All three of us?" Sudden sunlight turned the world to dazzling crystals... but it was only Kaoru smiling. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - NOTES, EXPLANATIONS, JAPANESE ETC. I wrote this last winter. We'd had a *lot* of snow -- powder up to my knees, and like a complete idiot I decided to hike to the local imported-anime-goodies shop on my lunch hour to see if they had any Kenshin manga. They didn't, but they did have a small poster of Kenshin sitting on the engawa with snow all around and a very sad expression, and I thought it's always snow with him, isn't it? The snow kept shifting under my feet -- I turned the same ankle 4 times -- so I started wondering what it would be like to fight on footing like that, and well... Engawa is the word for the little veranda that runs around a garden or courtyard. A hanten is an informal jacket that can be lined or not; I got it out of a book called Make Your Own Japanese Clothes by John Marshall. I got my copy from a local remaindered-book store, but I did see it on Kodansha's English website. A haori is a man's formal jacket, and wedding kimono are traditionally made of white silk with a figured weave, I believe often designs of cranes or pines which are symbols of longevity and happy marriage. I finally found my notes on where I got the reference for wedding kimono, there's a description of a wedding in Tales of Old Japan Vol. II by A. B. Mitford. Mitford was one of the main Victorian writers on Japan and Tales was published in 1871. I don't have a lot of notes on that, though, I found it a couple of years ago when I wasn't into Kenshin and I was looking for other stuff. And I just found out that some kimono are wool; there are a number of woolen ones on a website called Asahi Japan Collectibles that I turned up when I was looking for textile images. Sou de gozaru yo: Yes, that's so Daijoubu: It's all right --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Who is the most visited e-mail list community Web Service? http://www.onelist.com ONElist.com - where more than 20 million e-mails are exchanged each day! ------------------------------------------------------------------------