“My father told me the story. He said it was the most “unboring” political event he’d ever attended, that he did,” Kenji replied with a nod, sitting up straighter against his bedroom wall and wrapping his arms tighter around Evangelina.

“Oh, then what was it?”

“Well, it was a…”

***

“..memorial dinner for a man named Toshimichi Okubo. It was the anniversary of his death and there was a tremendous banquet in his honor,” Soujirou explained. Yozakura faintly noted that his grip on her hands tightened. “I’d turned myself in a few weeks before…”

“Turned yourself in for what?”

Soujirou took a deep breath and forced out the truth he’d kept hidden from his daughter for her own good. But now it seemed to be the time for everyone’s secrets to take flight from the owner’s hearts.

“Before I met your mother and began working for the government, I did have another life.”

“Did you steal or something?” the girl implored, concern, shock and a hint of fear swimming the depths of her blue eyes.

“In a way,” her father trailed off. “I stole lives, Yozakura. I was an assassin.”

For a moment, Yozakura just stared blankly at the floor. Finding his bloodstained hands too impure to hold on to such innocent ones, he went to let go, only to have his daughter tighten her grip as well.

“You came out here to tell me about mother. You are still my father, no matter what you did. Please, just continue.”

After a brief pause to collect his thoughts, Soujirou began again. “Since I was new and respectable-looking, they wanted me to attend so they could show me off. I didn’t want to go, however. I didn’t want to face a room full of people there to celebrate the life of a man I killed…”

***

“So here we are, Himura is being dragged there, Seta’s an emotional wreck and there’s a million and five rumors going around Tokyo about your mother and I’s marriage,” Saitou explained, flicking his cigarette ashes into the ashtray by his knee. He and his daughter sat cross-legged on red cushions across from each other on their living room. “Shinomori and I were used to it by then. Seta had waited till the last of his sources were depleted until he finally came to us. He knew he’d be fine, it was just facing it all that kept him from doing so.”

“But you said something before about rumors,” Hawatari reminded him.

“Yes, those,” he remember with a sneer. “No one but Chou had seen her so, of course, when left with ignorance people make up their own intelligence. I had hoped to keep her from harm by not exposing her to the public, but it proved to be less and less beneficial as time passed. They started off small, saying that she was only 12 or some obscenely small number like that. Eventually they escalated into rumors about her missing arms or legs, coming from a cheap brothel or being completely blind and needing a stick to walk. They were pitiful excuses for fact, but since no one had anything else to go by, it was what they had to believe. Never-the-less, I still wondered if introducing her would be the lesser of two evils. You know about all you mother’s medical problems. What if she couldn’t hear someone calling her name? What if she got sick in the middle? What if she had one of those attacks where she can’t move? I wondered if it was enough of an important risk.”

“Sounds like you were ashamed of her,” the girl broke in, almost sounding accusing in the statement.

“And you weren’t?”

Silence.

“As I was saying, it’s obvious what my final decision was. I decided she would go…”

***

“So everyone’s headin off to this fancy party, Gensai and Megumi are off on a house call, and even Yahiko had a date!” Sano grumbled shaking his fist. “It was just me and your mother, and I was itchin at get outta there. Thing was, she wanted to go with me.”

“So whatdya do?” Duil asked, taking a swig from the sake jug they were sharing.

“I had no choice. I tried to talk her out of it, even tried to bribe her with letting her go home and clean, but no matter what I said she wanted to go with me.”

“Heh, I can only imagine how the guys reacted to that.”

“No, Duil, I don’t think you can…”

***

“Apparently when the words ‘dress’ and ‘shopping’ are put together your mother goes crazy and begins dressing everyone up like dolls,” Kenji continued. “She shoved a pile of dresses into their hands and then herded into the dressing rooms. In the end my mother ended up with this really light yellow one she still keeps for special occasions. I’m sure you’ve seen your mother’s red one that she’d had since before this party, for she’d been to a few already. But the strange thing was what Mrs. Seta and Mrs. Saitou chose. They chose blue and pink, that they did.”

***

“Your mother knew why I didn’t want to go. In the days before the banquet, I was so nervous. Still, your mother stood by me. I don’t know what I would have done had she not been there with me the whole way. That night, when she finally came back from getting ready, I didn’t think anything in the world could look more beautiful. I guess…I guess pink always was your mother’s color…”

“You know, I still put on that dress sometimes,” Yozakura confessed. “It still smells like that perfume she wears when you two have to go out to those parties. I’ve always liked it. It makes me feel like someday I’ll grow up to be like to her. Now it seems I have to save the world a few times first,” she finished with a slight laugh.

Smiling and nodding, Soujirou continued. “We headed out in a carriage shared with Mr. Himura and his wife. I was silent the whole ride. I had no idea how big of a night it would turn out. No idea at all…”

***

“Your mother and I shared a carriage with Shinomori and his wife, but no one spoke. It was a good thing I went with them, because that friend of hers taught me something. She asked her if she was okay because she’d been staring out the window the whole time. As I’d learned from the party after their wedding, Mrs. Shinomori and your mother, when put together, were extremely talkative. When she didn’t get a response, she knocked tree time on the wall.”

“So that’s where that started,” Hawatari realized.

“It was effective,” Saitou pointed out. “I saw no reason not to take advantage of it. It seemed that was already what she was accustomed to.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she was ‘thinking’ and the conversation ended at that. It wasn’t until we arrived that things started to get interesting…”

***

“Now of course your mother had to pick that day, of all days, to wear a pink kimono,” Sano remembered with a laugh. “The minute we get there and I step aside to show them Kit, they all busted out laughing. Now I’d warned her this would happen, but she still didn’t back down.”

‘Hey, Sano brought his wife.’

She wasn’t my wife at the time, so I told them that.

‘Sorry, Sano brought his girlfriend.’

Before I could even think of a comeback she was already saying, ‘What’s wrong boys, jealous cause all you got is your right hand and some dirty pictures?’”

Duil promptly fell over laughing. “Mom actually said that to them?!”

“Yup, loud and clear. No one spoke or moved for a while and for a minute there I thought she‘d just killed them all. But Shindou finally spoke up and said something like ‘Cute, blonde and vaguer…. Why aren’t you two married?’

Truth is I was beginning to wonder that myself…”

***

“Conveniently enough, everyone arrived at just about the same time, so they all walked in together. My mother and your mother went off to socialize, but Mrs. Seta and Mrs. Saitou had people to be introduced to. My father was dragged with them into the room where the women were having tea and actually walked in on a group of women they’d never met before talking about your father. The two of them looked at each other and motioned for my father not to say a word. According to him they jumped in and began talking about his eyes and his hair…he wasn’t really paying attention, though he does say it was very funny.”

“I can only imagine,” Evangelina commented, laughing a little at the thought. “So how’d she tell them all who she was? I know she did.”

Kenji laughed as well. “She said something to the effect of ‘Oh, but I think he looks most attractive when he’s proposing to you. Something about a man professing that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you really gets you deep down, don’t you think?’”

***

“I spent most of the entire night introducing myself and your mother to people,” Soujirou regretfully remembered. “Every person I talked to seem to have the same comment. ‘Oh, you two make such a beautiful couple.’ It was embarrassing, but the two of us just smiled and went along with it. But that seemed to earn us a small crowd and I could tell it was putting both of us on edge. Neither of us had ever been very tall, and be closed in made everyone feel taller.

Just as I thought I couldn’t take it anymore the conversation shifted to the sadness everyone felt when they’d heard of Lord Okubo’s death. I tried to stay calm and keep out of the conversation but they just kept dragging us in, or at least trying to. Finally your mother asked to speak with me privately and I escorted her out to the room where the women were having tea in time to find a group of women crowding around Mrs. Shinomori…”

***

“I was pleasantly surprised to find your mother was a very capable actress. She usually kept quiet unless someone was asking her a question.

Problem was things only went that well for a few minutes before disaster stuck.”

“In what form exactly?” Hawatari asked.

“In the form of Itagaki Taisuke’s son, Rokutarou.”

“Wasn’t Itagaki Taisuke assassinated 7 years ago?”

“Yes, but at the time he was advocating representational government.”

“But how did his son cause trouble. Rokutarou couldn’t have been any more than 9 at the time, and he’s deaf,” the girl pointed out.

“The boy came over to his father while the two of us were in the middle of a conversation and began tugging at his coat. Then he started gesturing in a way that confused me but seemingly fascinated your mother. Taisuke just shook his head at his son, and when I asked what was going on he told me the boy was signing and his translator couldn’t make it. You’re mother had yet to take her eyes off the boy.”

“I think I see where this is going.”

“She said something about how Sign Language has interpreters, not translators. I tried to get around what she was saying before it was too late. I apologized and tried to tell her they were the same thing. The boy gestured to his father again and then began crying and throwing a fit on the floor. Before I even saw it your mother was already kneeling on the floor in a very expensive new dress trying to get the his attention by waving in his face. For a moment I contemplated dragging her out by the arm before she embarrassed herself and me any further, but by then everyone in the hall was staring at her.”

“So what’d she do when she got his attention?”

“She told Taisuke that his son was just hungry and wanted to know when he could eat. Then she began speaking and moving her hands at the same time. I could hear those snobs all whispering about who she was. Fujita’s wife, the one no one had met before.”

“So she could actually communicate for Rokutarou?”

“That’s part of what saved us in the end. He asked her if she was deaf and she looked at me for a moment before smiling and replying that deaf people cannot be interpreters for the deaf. That is was difficult to hear for them when you cannot hear for yourself. When he laughed everyone joined, and for the time being it seems we’d escaped a potentially disastrous situation. However, that boy didn’t leave your mother’s side the entire night…”

***

“Of course the guys weren’t gonna let your mother gamble. She just sat behind me while I kept losing bets. Finally she got bored enough that, without us noticing, she swiped the jug of sake I was drinking from. It wasn’t until she was practically done with it that we finally noticed. When she was done she just wiped her mouth with the back of her kimono sleeve and looked at us looking at her. For the second time that night she’d gotten everything all quiet until she just…well she just belched at all of us.”

“So?” Duil shrugged. “Mom belches all the time.”

“Yeah, but that usually doesn’t cause my gambling buddies to propose to her.”

Duil’s right eyebrow rose. “And what’d she say to that?”

“If I remember right it was ‘No’ ‘God no’ ‘Hell no’ and ‘Fuck no’…”

***

“Everyone but the Mr. and Mrs. Saitou were chatting in the tea room when everyone began whispering and filing out into the main hall. My father said he’d never seen Mr. Saitou try so hard to look so calm. He didn’t think anyone else noticed, but it seemed to him that the man was nervous about the way he wife was communicating with Mr. Taisuke’s son, Rokutarou. Mr. Taisuke seemed pleasantly amazed that he could talk to his son through her and commended Mr. Saitou on marrying such a talented young lady.

My father thought it was odd that your mother seemed very happy to see her friend like that. She rejoined your father, who was discussing translated works of Western literature with Aritomo Yamagata. My father and mother admitted they knew nothing about the subject but your mother apparently took of the subject and her and Mr. Yamagata got into a very in-depth discussion about things my father can’t remember because he couldn’t understand. Seems Mrs. Saitou wasn’t the only talented young lady there…”

***

“We got the announcement that dinner would be ready shortly and we all went to take our seats. The group of us eight sat together and Rokutarou and his father followed Hoshiko. I was overjoyed that all the formal introductions were over and all that was left was to eat and talk. But it seemed I would have to do one more thing before I was allowed my piece. Another politician, a man by the name of Kido Takayoshi, suggested that the ’new recruit’ make a toast in Okubo’s honor. I couldn’t decline, it would have been rude. So I got up and went to say something, anything, about how good a person this man was, but nothing came out. All I could see was myself, running after his carriage like I’d be instructed to. I didn’t know what I was saying, but apparently I just kept repeating ’Toshimichi Okubo was…’”

“So what happened?” Yozakura asked quietly, leaning in as her father kept his anxious to hear him finish.

“Your mother stood up and laughed and said that I was a horrible public speaker. She asked Mr. Takayoshi if she could make the toast. He nodded and everyone raise their glasses.

‘To Toshimichi Okubo,’ she said. ‘Though his death was tragic for all, we must continue to go forward and not dwell on the past. We must work to create a nation beneficial for the people of Japan, like he had intended. I toast to that as well as him.’

The she just smile at me and the two of us sat down…”

***

The children went to sleep but their fathers remained awake. Kenshin had stopped the story of that night after the toast to Okubo. The other fathers decided to stop there as well. A simple story of their happier times showcasing what set them apart from everyone else there would be enough to lift their spirits for now. However, that night was not over…

***~~~***

The dining hall filled with conversation as everyone emptied their plates. Amidst the bustle of waiters and calls across the table, no one noticed the nervous and out of breath messenger rush to General Yamagata’s side and whisper something in his ear. Aoshi, who was seating on the man’s left side, inquired as to what was wrong. It seemed the entertainment they had scheduled couldn’t make it. Their boat had to dock in Kobe due to a storm.

Hoshiko and Shizuka’s eyes met, but they didn’t utter a word.

‘If you hard of hearing you hear him how?’ the boy asked her in sign language. She formed a bent V shape with her index and middle fingers and circled them around her mouth.

‘Read lips.’

A sudden shiver went down her spine. She turned to her left to find her husband glaring at her.

Shizuka leaned over and whispered in her husband’s ear. He looked back at her, almost faltering to show shock. Quickly his face returned to being impassive and he nodded, turning to relay the message to General Yamagata. Hoshiko didn’t need to read lips, the blurry, affirming nods told her everything.

Shizuka was going to sing.

She quietly excused herself, most likely to converse with the musicians. They were foreign as well, however. When she asked what language they spoke and received an answer of “Italian” she needed only say “Lascia ch’io pianga.”

“For anyone who wishes it so I can translate,” Hoshiko offered, smiling politely as her husband so often did.

“Sign Language and Italian? Are a worldly scholar of sorts?” one of the ambassadors spoke up.

She couldn’t control herself, she said it without thinking. “Yes, you could say that.”

Saitou’s quick eyebrow twitch went unnoticed, but he was still cringing inwardly. These little things she kept letting slip could come back to hurt her. He didn’t want to see that happen. He wouldn’t see that.

The dimmed light form the chandelier washed a surreal glow across the entire room. It set an eerie tone for a song Hoshiko wished she didn’t know. Wished she didn’t understand.

“Armida, dispieta ta colla forza d’abiso, rapirmial caro ciel dei miei contenti e qui conduolo eterno Viva mi tieni in tormento so inferno!”

“Armida, without pity, with the strength of a demon, you drew me from the heaven of my contentment, and here in grief eternal, living you hold me in torment most infernal,” she translated, her voice slightly matching the melody of the song. However, everyone’s eye were fixed solely on the women performing beautifully on the small wooden stage.

“Lascia ch'io pianga mia cruda sorte, E che sospiri la libertà! E che sospiri, e che sospiri la libertà! Lascia ch'io pianga la cruda sorte, E che sospiri la libertà!”

“Leave me in sorrow that knows no morrow; deep is my longing for liberty. Deep is my longing; deep is my longing for liberty. Leave me in sorrow, that knows no morrow; deep is my longing for liberty.”

The audience was deeply moved, to say the least. The movements of her hands, the look in her eyes; it all seemed to spell out true longing hidden deep within the singer’s heart. A truly emotional performance indeed.

“Il duolo in franga queste ritorte De miei martiri sol per pietà.”

“O tears assuaging pain’s bitter raging, from my great torments, in pity free me. From my great torment, O set me free!” Hoshiko lost all realization that people were paying her any mind. For a moment she felt outside of herself, like nothing had changed. Her friend was on stage and she was playing the intellectual center of attention. It felt like…home…

“Lascia ch'io pianga mia cruda sorte, E che sospiri la libertà! E che sospiri, e che sospiri la libertà! Lascia ch'io pianga la cruda sorte, E che sospiri la libertà!”

“Leave me in sorrow that knows no morrow; deep is my longing for liberty. Deep is my longing; deep is my longing for liberty. Leave me in sorrow that knows no morrow; deep is my longing for liberty.”

The two repeated the verse as if they’d done it many a times before. No one person in that room ever knew, nor would they ever know, that they had.

It was her first realization that her life had taken this turn. Her could have been any girl in that room. The artist smiling to diplomats and making gracious toasts, the performer reduced to this final performance for 20 forgotten years, the gifted student left to play the docile housewife in a world she cannot use…

***

“Hey, Kit, pick a number one through six,” Sano shouted over his shoulder. He figured he’d let her in on the action and allow her to pick one of the numbers.

After a few moments of what looked like a mixture between intense thinking and mindless distraction, the girl spoke up with a peppy, “Eight!”

Everyone’s face dropped.

“Eight it is then,” the man with the cup of dice announced, laughing heartily at the young man’s flustered confusion.

“No! I didn’t say-” But it was too late. The bet was in.

Sano buried his face in his hands and waited for the mocking, drunken laugher that was bound to fill the room at any moment.

Instead he was greeted with silence until, “Hey look, I won!”

Almost timidly he glanced up at the dice before him.

Two fours…

“Dot it again!” Sano immediately begged, turning to clutch at the front of Kitai’s kimono.

“Do what?”

“Pick a number!”

“What kind of number?”

“ANY!”

The girl almost jumped out of her skin. “Eh…er…thirty-seven?”

“Thirty-seven. Okay, that’s three plus seven, which is ten. I’m betting everything on ten!”

Kitai’s eyes nearly doubled in size as she reached out her hands and began violently choking her dimwitted boyfriend. “You idiot! Who told you to do that?”

“Ten!” was shouted from the center of the room.

And from then on the night was theirs…

***

The ride home form the banquet was far more comfortable than the ride there. Shizuka and Hoshiko returned to their normal, talkative selves and the husbands remained silent through their excited chatter. A rather noticeable difference, however, came in the constant motion of Hoshiko’s hands. Saitou watched in growing annoyance as his wife gestured like some child telling a story about a monster or something of the sort.

He thought he’d be able to stand it until he got home and could confront her about it privately. However, as she continued on and on without and signs of ceasing, he couldn’t help himself. In a quick motion he grabbed both her wrists and pinned them to her lap. After that all talking stopped and the carriage ride became uncomfortable for the second time that night.

***

Sano and Kitai stumbled out of the gambling house, jug of sake in one hand and back of yen in the other. It was well past midnight but neither cared as they shouted their happiness to the moon above an awoke half of Japan. It was a miracle they even remembered their way back to the dojo.

The figures that had been following them shifted across to the ally ahead of the intoxicated pair laughing hysterically at the memory of the expression on their friends’ faces. If they weren’t so out of it they probably would have heard the sound of knuckles cracking loudly and sinister laughing rolling through a grin.

The two bandits in the ally figured it’d be a synch. Swipe the girl’s money and tell the drunk idiot they’d cut her if he didn’t give up his. Simple enough, right?

WRONG!

The moment Kitai knew something was touching her (that wasn’t Sano [for of course, she’d KNOW if it were Sano]) she delivered a swift kick the groin so hard the shabby, muscular bandit holding her wrist promptly released her in favor of curling into the fetal position and sobbing.

However, Sano’s confusion with the whole situation and Kitai preoccupation with the first man gave his accomplice ample opportunity to carry out everything as planned. He wrapped a scrawny arm around her neck and used his other to hold a rusty dagger threateningly at her throat.

“You fu-”

“Go ahead,” the lizard-looking man dared, poking the tip of the blade enough into Kitai’s neck that a small trickle of blood came out. “Try it and yer girlie here gits it.”

If Sano hadn’t been so hazed he probably could have though of some way to get out of this. Instead he just stood still.

“There ya go. Now just hand over the money and no one gits hurt,” he man coaxed. At the sound of Sano raising up his bag of yen Kitai’s eyes flew open like a deer caught in headlights.

“Fuck you bitch, that money’s mine!” she screamed, flailing around in her captives arms.

Sano was a split second away from rushing in to do something, it didn’t matter if he was clueless as to what. Instead he listened to the second man give out a similar scream to his partner’s not too long ago. It seemed he’d been bitten, hard, in the arm. It was barely a few fleeting moments before Kitai grabbed two fistfuls of her kimono and proceeded to hike it up so as she could kick her attacker in the small of his back. If he’d heard correctly, Sano thought the man’s back had snapped.

Kitai straightened herself up and dusted off her hands before spitting disgustedly at the vile vermin on the ground. Sano simply blinked a few times as he watched his future wife pick up her back and curse at her broken sake jug. They’re eyes met and they both tilted their heads to opposite sides in an attempt to expression their confusion with the other’s behavior.

“So we gonna like, move or anything?” she finally asked, motioning to the rest of the street they had to walk to get to the dojo.

“Yeah…sure…” Sano replied as if he were half asleep. The rest of the way home they walked in awkward silence, and odd feeling of uselessness flooding his head.

***

Hoshiko was shaking inwardly as she walked through her door, slipping her shoes off as she went. She could feel the anger radiating off her husband as the two strode into their home. She listened to the door shut but wouldn’t look up. Maybe if she could just get to bed he could sleep off his anger.

The was no warning to what happened next. She expected him to yell, maybe ever to shove her, but not to smack her across the face. It was enough to send her crashing into the wall behind her, knocking the wind out of her lungs. She slumped to the floor and bit back the urge to scream. It was difficult tough, as she felt an odd mix of anger and concern welling in her heart. She couldn’t let his emotions control her. Not then.

“Do you understand why I did that?”

A whimper and a nod came from the disheveled figure on the floor.

“Tonight was quite possibly one of the most embarrassing nights of my life. You knew, I told you not to discuss the things you brought up tonight. You were to stay quiet and follow my lead. Do you know how much danger you may have put yourself in?”

No answer, and he mistook her shaking for fear, not infuriation. Under the veil of her thick brown hair that had been knocked in front of her face, Hoshiko was biting the inside of her cheek until she could taste coppery traces on her tongue. It stopped, however, when the anger and concern shifted suddenly to concern and guilt.

But that tone never changed.

“Hopefully tomorrow I can clean up this mess you’ve left me.”

Hoshiko felt the footsteps recede into their bedroom, yet continued to sit, unmoving. It was always going to be like this, wasn’t it? He’d try to fool her with his supposed lack of emotions. But she knew. She couldn’t help but know…