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When She Cries
By hye-kyo
A/n: There’s this certain song, I really don’t know the title but I guess its of the same title as that of my tentative title. It gave me the idea for this story. It was really wonderful and it would be more wonderful if I’ll get to have you all listen to it first. It’s so heart-warming. Anyway, this is using Kenshin’s POV. Please do try to understand the story because it would be unfolding quite slowly. There would be too many pronouns relating to specific circumstances that had happened to Kenshin and Kaoru but would be discussed in the later chapters. Please do bear with me for I am still in the progress of planning this all out. Thanks!
R&R!
Chapter One: mornings after
--
I opened my eyes and stifled a yawn. I felt for her beside me but just like yesterday and the day before yesterday and even days before that, even months before that she wasn’t beside me anymore. I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the blinding morning light.
I sat up, and looked down on the creases on her side of the futon. I saw her sleeping there in my mind, and turning to look at me to open her eyes. That was what had been happening every morning few weeks after we got married. But after the festival she had started drifting.
I ran my hands through my hair and tied it neatly just above my nape. I stood up and folded the futon, returning it to the sliding doors of the cabinet. Since the festival I’d been accustomed to waking up alone every morning, folding the futon and arranging the room.
I wonder if she is still in the dojo or if she is already out, or if she has already gone to the market. I’d be surprised to find her in the dojo every morning.
I stepped out, breathed the fresh spring air and looked up into the bright blue sky. We used to look at this sky every morning two years ago. But now, I guess we still look at this same sky but we are both different people now.
I sighed and went towards the kitchen. I prepared a quick breakfast, one that would not require too much time and effort. Besides, I guess I’d be the only one eating this.
As soon as I had the meal done I ate it alone, tossing the fried egg roll unmindfully. I don’t really want to eat; I’m just eating to do something, to be able to pass the time without becoming bored. But I’m starting to get bored. Usually, she would arrive just as I was having breakfast and I would ask her to join me and she would politely refuse. She seemed distant.
I respect her need to be left alone, and though she is my wife already I leave her on her own and I think we’re much distant from each other now that we are married as compared to when we are still living here with the rest of our make-shift family.
I looked at the time and realized something must have taken her longer than usual. I stood up, carried my tray back to the kitchen and dumped it in the sink. I’ll just wash it later.
I had been wondering why she had been going out so early every morning. At first I thought she was just going to the market. Sometimes she does that but most of the times she goes somewhere else, somewhere of which I don’t know of.
I hurried to the gate, my pulse beating hard in my temples. I almost ran and when I reached the gate I sighed in relief. She was finally home.
“Kaoru-dono,” I called out to her.
She smiled that little smile that doesn’t show anything. By now, I should already be used to that kind of smile but somehow there’s still something about it that puzzles me. It was a smile that makes me wonder if she really means to smile. I really don’t know.
“Kaoru-dono, have you eaten?” I asked, opening the gate for her. I looked at her hands and found out she doesn’t have any parcels at all. She didn’t go to the market. I wanted so very much to ask her where she had gone to but that little smile that showed nothing told me not to ask her anything about it.
“Hai,” she curtly said.
I’m used to her curt responses but it still makes me feel uncomfortable everytime she does that as if I’ve done something really bad. Which of course I know I did but only, I don’t know what it was particularly.
“You? Have you eaten?” she asked, not letting me close the gate for her even if I offered to.
“Sessha just finished eating Kaoru-dono,” I said then continued warily, “Where did you eat?”
She looked at me and at a point there I thought she was going to slap me but she didn’t. It took her a while to answer, “Akebeko, Tae asked me to join her for breakfast.”
“Sou,” I whispered. I watched as she continued inside the dojo. Her hair was very long now and all I wanted to do was to touch it and ran my fingers through it. But I know I can’t.
I followed her inside.
--
I know she was watching me as I was doing the laundry.
I hang the last piece of clothing and wiped my hands on my apron. Deliberately, for after laundry it would be another awkward moment where we couldn’t find a thing to talk about, I gathered the wooden tubs and then put the laundry soap inside it. I took a deep breath then turned around.
I smiled as I saw her. It was a genuine smile, a smile that’s only for her. Only for her yet I couldn’t tell her that it was only for her because I’m such a coward.
“Kaoru-dono,” I said then walked towards her, “I’ve finished doing the laundry. Is there anything you would want me to do?”
I saw her eyes moving from the tub to my hands. And I felt her uncertainty.
She shook her head, “Nothing more Kenshin. Nothing more.”
She looked up at me when she said that and it was the only time after two years of being like this that I got a glimpse of them. Her eyes were no longer young; the sparkle that used to grow there wasn’t there anymore. She looked tired and beaten. I felt my hands shake slightly.
“I’m going—” she started.
But before I could even think of it, I reached out for her hands and just stood like that.
“Doushite Kenshin?” she asked, looking down at my hands.
“I…I” I searched my head for something to say. I wanted to tell her I know about it, but I felt myself choking just at the thought of saying it. I still couldn’t.
She looked at me, with unfocused eyes.
“Do you want to eat at Tae’s tonight?” I suddenly asked, without even thinking of saying it.
“Why?”
Why does she have to ask for every bit of reason? I bit my lower lip and shrugged, “I guess…I guess I just want to eat at Tae’s…we haven’t eaten there together for a while…”
She smiled, that small thin smile that stabs at me, “Not at Tae’s please. Somewhere else…”
My eyes widened, I thought she was going to say no. “Of course Kaoru-dono…wherever you like.”
She smiled that small smile again and her eyes were glassy.
I released her hands and smiled a genuine smile at her. “So tonight then?”
She nodded, her eyes still glassy.
“Do you know the small tea house overlooking the city?”
She looked at me. At that moment I thought her eyes were moist, not glassy, as if there was some liquid in it, some feature of life. But when I blinked to look at her again, her eyes were the same glassy doll-like eyes that go with the small smile. I hated myself.
“Or you haven’t been there?” I asked warily. I just remembered, it wasn’t she whom I brought there; it was somebody else. A knife stabbed through me.
She shook her head, “You have been there many times?”
I felt a lump caught in my throat, the same lump that appears everytime she asks me about what I feel for her. I haven’t felt this lump in two years. In two years. For that was when she stopped asking. And she stopped trying.
“I see,” she whispered and again I thought I saw the signs of life in my wife’s eyes. But in an instant it was all glassy again.
“Tonight then?” I said, broaching the topic to a different scheme.
She nodded. She then turned to go inside.
“Ah,” I called out. I didn’t know why I did or how I did it but it just happened.
She turned slowly to me, “Hai?”
“Ah,” I took a deep breath, “I just wanted to tell you I’m happy.”
She nodded, her face without any expression.
--
I tied my hair into its usual ponytail and glanced at myself in the mirror. I looked weary and tired and I remembered her. I remembered how weary and tired she looked earlier, how old her eyes had become.
I saw her face in my own reflection and I realized she was I and we were one. I looked at my reflection hard and it was then that I told myself that all I want to do in life is to be with her, make her happy, make her contented and nothing more. That’s all. I smiled at my reflection and I found out I’m happy, happy with my own realization, happy that we are going to eat out tonight. Just her and me. Just the two of us.
I stepped out of my old room and found her already at the porch. She was lovely, just like that day when we got married—thought at that time I hadn’t resolved yet to do just what I had resolved to do earlier.
I took a deep breath then walked towards her, “Kaoru-dono.” My voice was moderated, I don’t want her to think I’m too excited or too eager to do this. But thought my voice was moderated, my hands were fidgeting at my sides.
She turned. There was that small smile again. That small unfathomable smile on he lips that makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong, which I know I have but I’m too much of a coward to admit so.
I stopped, “Are you ready?”
“Hai,” she curtly said.
“Let us go now,” I offered her my arm. But she didn’t take it. She started walking and I realized I must have been too subtle doing it so that she hadn’t noticed it or maybe she had noticed but she had mistaken it for something else.
I followed her instantly, looking down at my feet.
“So,” she started. I have to admit I was taken aback by surprise when she opened a conversation. “So, that place you’d said, you’ve been there before?”
“Hai,” I said, not looking at her.
She looked at me like she was expecting me to add more to what I’ve said. But I didn’t quite understand the meaning of her gaze at that time so I kept quiet. She didn’t speak for a while nor did she move. She nodded then asked no more. I turned to look at her and she seemed so much immersed in thought. I decided to keep quiet still.
--
We haven’t spoken since she asked me about the frequency of my visits to the teahouse until we came to the place and we were ushered inside.
I sat across her but even though, I still couldn’t see her face. I don’t know what she was thinking about. I don’t even have any inkling.
A female server came up to our table brining two brown booklets. I guess those are the menus. The place had changed, up to the menus they place before the customers. It had changed a lot since I’d last been here. The female server gave my wife and me the menu booklets and told me she’d just wait by the counter. I nodded then turned towards my wife.
“What do you want to eat?” I asked her, opening the menu. I smiled, though the place has changed architecturally, the list of foods were still the same.
She opened her booklet too, “What do you suggest?”
“The sukiyaki is wonderful and the sweet shrimp sushi. Also the beef and vegetables ramen with shiitake mushrooms. My favorite here is the steamed rice served in bamboo with braised pork in oyster sauce,” I said quite unconsciously.
“You seem to know everything they serve here,” she said, her tone flat.
“Not really. I just do know a couple of food combinations that they have,” I felt quite nostalgic and I didn’t sense the warning in her tone of voice.
“But it seems to me that you’ve had every bit of everything they have here.”
“Iie,” I laughed, still looking at the booklet, too much unaware of her facial expressions, “I’ve been here just a couple of times, well actually several times with To—” I stopped abruptly and looked up at her slowly, warily.
Her face was blank.
I stopped then folded the booklet and placed it back on the low table. It was then that I became aware of the koto being played.
I looked down on my lap; the orange light from the lanterns beside me was making my hakama tinged with yellow. Slowly, I looked up at her and said, “What do you want to eat?” I heard my voice quivering so I looked away, at the female server waiting by the counter. I beckoned to her.
The server came. I looked at my wife then to her and said, “We’d like to have a pork katsudon with egg soup and,” I turned to look back at my wife.
She nodded, “You decide Kenshin.”
I nodded then tuning to the server, “Make that two servings each and do add fried vegetables, tuna cream cheese maki and two bottles of sake.”
The server nodded, repeating everything to us. She then disappeared through the counter.
--
We were walking back to the dojo when I sensed that her silence was more uncomfortable this time than before. I decided to break the deafening silence with a conversation.
“Did you like the food?” I asked, turning to look at her.
She didn’t even turn to look at me. With her eyes still fixed on the road she said, “Hai. It’s delicious.”
I nodded, “We should eat there again sometime.”
She fell silent for a while then said, almost whispered, “I think not.”
It took me a while to comprehend the meaning of what she said. At that moment when I looked at her she seemed distant, far, somewhere else. Or maybe I was the one who is distant, only I couldn’t notice it until now. Either way, I do not know. I continued gazing at her until I asked, “Why?”
She shrugged, taking time to answer, “I think Tae might not like it. She’d feel bad about it, us eating in someone else’s restaurant,” she finally said.
“Ah,” I said, trying hard to smile. I know it wasn’t the real reason. I know she made it up.
That was our last conversation before reaching the dojo. We both fell silent, unable to say anything.