From: "Jan Story" This is the final version of the "Tanabata Special" I posted last month. A few minor tweaks, a spelling error corrected, and now it's ready to go out into the big wide world! TERATERABOUZU A Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction by Jan Story All characters © Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Sony etc. The summer she was six, she pestered us all for days demanding to know if it was going to rain for the Tanabata festival. Finally Okon got sick of it and taught her how to make teraterabouzu. She filled up a whole basket of them, one for every window in the house except mine. Then she handed me the "special" one. It was dark blue, cut from a kimono she'd torn climbing trees. "I want the sun to shine for you specially, Aoshi-niichan," she told me. The sun did shine, for all of us - but then it did, back then. Before the world changed. Before I… Hannya wore one of his disguises and went to that festival with us. The old Okashira pretended to ignore the way Okon was flirting with me, and Misao rode on Shikijou's shoulders, laughing to be up so high… That was one of the last happy times. Not long after that, the old man died, and they made me Okashira - me, a boy of fifteen, commanding men two and three times my age. There was no more flirting and fumbling in corners with Okon after that; an Okashira can't be seen to have favorites. Maybe someone older, but I was too young, too unsure of my authority. Tokyo was getting dangerous, with too many diehard Bakufu supporters protesting the new Meiji government, so I sent Misao to stay with Okina at our base in Kyoto. She never called me niichan again, only sama. I don't remember her making teraterabouzu again either. But she's making them now. A whole basket of them, little white balls with faces on them, to hang in the Shin-Aoiya's windows. To make sure the sun will shine on Tanabata. So the birds will fly, and Orihime and Kengyu can meet. It's strange that Misao should be so serious about this; she is always so disdainful of ordinary girls and their preoccupation with love… I watch as she shapes one of the little charms, picks up her brush and paints a suggestion of a face on it. Big round eyes, a mouth open in surprise… she pauses, thinking, and then adds two more quick brush strokes. With the addition of a cross on its cheek, the teraterabouzu becomes Himura, with that deceptively idiotic expression he gets when something surprises him. Then I notice that all the charms have something recognizable about them. Okina's beard, Kuro's jowls, Okon's flirtatious smile. And one with an expressionless mouth and slashes of black ink over its eyes and down its cheeks. Me, I suppose. She picks up another square of cloth. It's purple, looks like it was cut from one of her sashes. /*I want the sun to shine for you specially, Aoshi-niichan.*/ I turn away, but her every move is a pressure in the air I can feel on my skin. I should get up, leave the room, but I am rooted to this window-seat, as immobile as the wooden statue I know they call me. Misao, Misao, don't do this, don't wish for the sun to shine on me. There are things the sun should not see. There are things innocence like yours should not know. "This one's for you, Aoshi-sama. I made it special." "You don't think hanging those things up is going to make the sun shine, do you?" My voice is harsh and cold in my own ears. She recoils as though I had struck her. I hate myself for hurting her, but better this small hurt than the pain she would suffer if I ever let her into my heart. "Only in your heart, Aoshi-sama." And with that, she picks up the basket of teraterabouzu and walks out of the room, leaving the purple one abandoned on the floor. I can hear her footsteps ascend the stairs, walk in and out of the rooms. Hanging teraterabouzu in the windows. /*Only in your heart.*/ Her words bury themselves in mine, accurate and deadly as a thrown kunai. /*Only in your heart.*/ Misao-whom-I-don't-dare-call-mine, you carry sunshine with you wherever you go, what do you know of darkness? What do you know of the river of betrayals that runs between you and me, too wide to bridge, too deep to ford, too swift and freezing-cold to swim? It would swallow you whole as it has already swallowed me. /*Only in your heart.*/ Her words slide through my memory as the silk of the purple teraterabouzu slides through my fingers. I listen for her footsteps, her voice. Crimson fire sinks behind the mountains; tomorrow's festival will be as bright as she could wish. But now the world is veiled again in safe, merciful darkness. Overhead the stars come out, one by one by one, and span the heavens in a river of light. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC. Once again, teraterabouzu are the little ghost-figures you see hanging in windows. They're supposed to be sun-charms, and children hang them up for the Tanabata festival because the legend is that if it rains, the celestial river will be too wide for the birds to bridge so the lovers cannot meet. This has actually turned into the middle part of an "Aoshi trilogy." The first part will be the beginning of their relationship, and the third... well, one of these days I'll actually manage to finish a lemon, truly I will! --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Having difficulty getting "in synch" with list members? http://www.onelist.com Try ONElist's Shared Calendar to organize events, meetings and more! ------------------------------------------------------------------------