Three Months Later, Springtime in Tokyo
“Naoya?” Tokio lifted the length of her kimono enough to step over a box lying in the back of Snowflake Sweets. April was such a busy time, and the store had become littered with packages waiting for Eiko’s attention. The enterprising teenager had started her own business of sorts. Delivery. She constantly ferried orders to the outer districts, stopping along the way to take the next day’s orders from busy customers. Eiko’s tireless efforts had increased the popularity of the store twofold, leaving Tokio and Naoya nigh shorthanded in the cooking department.
“Naoya? Are you about?”
“Oi!” Naoya replied from behind a stack of boxes. “I’m back here, Tokio-san.”
Tokio rounded the shelves to find Naoya packing handfuls of tan-colored chitose-ame into small boxes. “Oh my, there’s a call for that at this time of year?”
Naoya laughed as she wiped a bead of sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. “A foreigner that Eiko-chan found. He says he’s become an addict and can’t leave the country without a year’s worth at least.” Naoya looked up at her employer. “You’re dressed nice, Tokio-san.”
“Mmm, yes. I must go on a visit today. I hope you won’t mind my absence terribly?”
Naoya clicked her tongue lightly and shook her head. “Tsk, tsk, Tokio-san. Dressed like that it must be a gentleman you are calling upon, ne? Well, I won’t tell Fujita-san, but you will have to give me a raise.”
Tokio pursed her lips at her friend’s teasing but did not respond. Instead, she slipped two small boxes out of a pile and added them to the covered basket hanging from her arm.
“I should be back before closing time. But if I’m not—”
“Mou, Tokio-san, I’m not sixteen anymore. I’ll handle things. Go … go …” Naoya waved her hand dismissively and turned back to her work. As the store’s proprietor left, Naoya muttered, “That woman is as bad as her husband. Everything has to be under her control. You’d think I hadn’t worked here half my life. Silly old bat …”
“You’re being nasty, Mama. Is it that time of the month?”
Naoya jumped. How long had her daughter been standing there? “Don’t say things like that, Eiko. You sound like your father.”
“Why can’t I say what Papa says?”
“Because your father is a goddamn savage. Now, go get more of these chitose-ame from the back before I’m forced to lash you like the little imp you are.”
“Hai, hai, Commander Mommy.”
Tokio wandered the streets of Tokyo casually. The air tasted remarkably fresh and light after having been so heavy and moist because of the spring rains. Vendors hawked their wares with renewed vigor, enticing passersby with the promise of the highest quality, the lowest prices. Children ran haphazardly through the streets, their older brothers and sisters trying fruitlessly to tame the wild spirit of youth. A few of the shop owners called out to Tokio, sharing tidbits of gossip as she drew aside to politely acknowledge their greeting.
Beyond the market, the streets became less traveled but not enough to be considered dangerous. Sometime later, Tokio stepped off the road, strolling into a grove of trees—a shortcut, yes, but one she often took to reach this particular destination. It cut the travel time in half and allowed her the solace of the thicket. Birds chirped in the trees, tiny noisemakers to celebrate the confetti thrown down by the cherry blossoms.
Tokio let her thoughts drift to her sons. They’d gone fishing today. Well, as long as they didn’t bring their catch in the house and annoy Hajime with the smell, she didn’t mind. They were growing boys and likely needed meat, especially Tatsuo.
The denseness of the trees began to dissipate as the sound of water attempted to compete with the songs of birds. The fallen sakura became so thick that it felt like a slick carpet underfoot, and several times, Tokio had to steady her journey by putting a hand upon a tree trunk.
Suddenly, as a break in the tree line came into view, Tokio stopped. In the distance, across a creek, two people sat together in a haze of falling blossoms.
Himura-san and Kaoru-san.
Tokio pushed herself behind a tree, hiding from the pair of lovers upon whose private scene she had unwittingly stumbled. Peeking quietly around the trunk, she watched as Kaoru stroked the rurouni’s auburn hair, speaking to him in tones so soft they would not reach Tokio’s ears. Both Himura and his wife looked … so pale, Tokio thought, and even from her distance, she could make out the bandages encircling the man’s forearms and neck.
Tokio was about to turn back when she heard a cracking noise to her left. As she looked over her shoulder, something pressed against her from behind and a hand closed over her mouth to stifle her surprise.
“Yare, yare, Kitty, I didn’t expect to find you here.” Saitou released his wife’s mouth and put his gloved hand on her shoulder.
She turned to find him gazing at the same scene upon which she had been spying only moments earlier. “I saw Megumi-sensei in the market yesterday. She said that Kaoru-san was ill and hardly eating. I thought it might be nice to take her something tempting, sweet dumplings and …” Tokio blinked, realizing her husband had literally appeared from nowhere. “Why are you here, Hajime?”
“My informants sent word as soon as he stepped off the boat in Yokohama. I was surprised. No one’s seen him for almost a year.”
“Ah.” Tokio understood. He’d come to make certain that the man who returned was the rurouni, Himura Kenshin, and not another man, the one who posed great danger to their city and to their nation. But from what Megumi-sensei had said and from what Tokio could deduce with her own eyes, neither of the pair would be able to draw a sword (or bokken), much less use it to inflict harm.
Tokio felt her husband’s hands at her hips, strong arms holding her in place as they both gazed on the scene. It must have been hard for Kaoru, Tokio thought, to wait for her husband, especially if she knew how ill he was before he left. Tokio knew all about waiting. But Hajime didn’t leave anymore. He hadn’t for a long time. They’d taken him off active duty, and he now spent his time managing the intelligence department that he, himself, had helped to create.
He hated it.
Day in and day out with nothing but paperwork and underlings to direct. Nothing but files and Chou’s chatter to engross his mind. He hated it, and Tokio knew it.
Tokio watched as Kaoru pushed back her husband’s hair, gazing at the paleness of Kenshin’s face. The whirl of sakura enshrouded the pair, a beaded curtain of white and pink, trying desperately to shield the two from prying eyes. Springtime held them, caressed them, seemed made for the pair of lovers to whom time had been so cruel. The season wished to comfort her children, to stroke their faces, wash away the past, and laughingly seal away the future.
Springtime belonged to these lovers. Himura-san and Kaoru-san were as delicate as the unfurling flower in morning, as kind as the fawn, as compassionate as the warm breeze, which troubled no traveler. Tokio had never cared much for spring. It always meant the end of winter, the absence of the sound of snow. Yes, if springtime cherished the Himuras, then it was the crisp chill of deep December that protected Hajime and Tokio.
Behind Tokio, her husband’s arms stiffened, only for a moment, and then relaxed. “He’s gone.”
The tone of Saitou’s voice surprised Tokio. It was soft but not sad or regretful. It was a hue of sound that she’d previously only heard him use on very few occasions—deep and utter respect.
“Should we …” Tokio moved forward slightly, trying to decide if she should go to Kaoru to comfort the woman. She found herself restrained by her husband’s arms.
“No. Let her be. She won’t be far behind him.”
She turned as Saitou’s hands released her, looking up at the former Shinsengumi captain, a defender of the last Shogunate, who had just watched his old nemesis perish, not to the sword, not in the glory of battle, but to one enemy no man could conquer: the ultimate inevitably of life’s end. As always, he appeared unaffected, his countenance as firm and unrelenting as ever. The man was not one to mourn, Tokio knew, especially not for someone he might have respected. As he often said, to do so would be to invalidate that life.
Saitou stepped away from Tokio and lifted his hands. He brought the left one to his mouth and quickly used his teeth to dislodge his fingers from the tight gloves. After removing the left, he pulled the other off and deftly folded both in half.
He placed them in the crook of the tree’s trunk, leaving them either as a memorial or perhaps because they were just no longer necessary.
“I’m quitting the force, Tokio.”
“The commissioner will be distraught,” Tokio replied, picking up her basket from the ground. “You’ll take the job Okita-san offered, then, I suppose? Teaching kendo to the girls?”
“Aa. For a while, at least.” Saitou turned away from the scene, giving one more glance to the couple in the distance before saying, “Let’s go, Tokio.”
She took her place behind him, following as he walked through the grove, his Western shoes crushing the cherry blossoms below. Long ago, she would have experienced overwhelming joy at the thought that Himura Kenshin had died. But now, she merely felt a bizarre detachment, as if the events couldn’t have taken place inside the confines of reality. Besides her husband, there seemed to be very few people who would possibly live forever. And one had just now died peacefully within his wife’s arms. How strange for him to go in such a manner. But then, he had turned out to be not at all what Tokio had expected—not evil incarnate, not a murderous demon, just a quiet and genial little man who very much liked the simpler things in life and who wanted to put right some very bad things he’d done in his past.
Tokio supposed that he was not a man too many people could truly understand—except, perhaps, for Kaoru.
“He was a good man, ne, Hajime? In the end?”
Saitou stopped. He plucked a petal of sakura off a tree trunk and rubbed it across his fingertips, slicing it in two with a fingernail. “Better than most, Tokio. Better than most.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~