Disclaimer: Still applies

Chapter 5

At age twenty-six, he had the woman—one he was possibly too fond of—glaring at him with hate.

Adam had strolled through the village after a particularly gruesome battle. (or so it had seemed from where he had been watching)

Yaeko had not run to meet him, as he would have imagined a countless thousand times before. She walked, slowly, deliberately, as if she did not want to be near him. As if she was in mourning.

He frowned and waited for her.

“My father. He was taken this morning by Whitebeard’s men.”

Adam’s mouth fell open. He had no words, no words of experience, stories, or poetry. Yaeko’s eyes faded from hate to grim and dead disappointment.

“What have you done?”

At age twenty-six (the worst year of his ever-life), he…he hid.

Adam stayed away from the tavern, from Yaeko, and from the village. He saw her eyes before him every time he closed his own. He nearly…he wondered about the possibility of death.

Of gracefully bowing out.

He then realized he didn’t have a bloody sword to do the deed with, anyway.

All he knew was that he couldn’t stand for her to look at him that way. He must do something. Something. Anything. He’d do anything just to make it better, please.

Though the aid of sake—quite a bit of it—he managed to have his humor back.

He marched through the village and into the tavern.

“Hear me out, Yaeko,” he said, direct and fierce. Everything he had always wanted to be. “I will save your father.”

A drink sailed past his head and crashed against the wall. Several people fled. He wished she would bloody stop spinning around the room.

“I mean it. I know what happened, I…didn’t mean for it to happen, all right. I liked your father. He was a sweet old guy.”

Yaeko padded out of the corner softly, staring at him with deadened eyes.

“I swear. I swear on every mother’s grave in the world now and to come. Please. I can…”

“Can you? With more tales. With more lies.”

“All I need is a sword.”

She hurried across the room in a flurry, scared the hell out of him. Etc. Only her hand was on his heart and she stared deep into his eyes with the true look of a last hope. It was the most unbelievably, horribly beautiful thing of darkness he had ever seen.

“Is this the truth? Are you being honest with me?”

With her hand on his heart, he said he was. What else could he say?

What do you tell a girl who asked you—you of all people in the village—to save their father? What can you really say? NO. I will not save your father, I will sit in your quaint but rustic tavern and we will listen to his last cries of mortal terror together while watching the sunset.

Then add the prospect of her saving your life, once. Then add the prospect that you might love her.

It would have been rude to say anything less. “…Absolutely. Yes. I will do everything in my power to help your father.”

Not exactly a lie at all.

“All the other men I’ve asked, they’ve refused. They have family’s of their own.”

Oh. Grand.

“I don’t have anyone else but my father.”

He was quiet. He knew he was going to mess up. He felt the fear that was typical of him. He hoped his decoy was good this time. It was his way of helping. It was the only way a man like him could help.

“I have the best blades for miles. Come with me, I’ll help you pick one. I have the perfect one, Kensei.”

She said he would be her godsend if he managed to save her father.

Adam cursed his life and what it had become. A fairytale without a spine, without a heart.

As per usual, he failed.

“It’s been months! My father could be dead by now!”

He was drunk. That hurt things, but what else could he do? His head hurt. He hurt. Death was getting very close, he could feel it.

Well, he could feel something bad coming.

“Now, now. I highly doubt that. Those blades they have a still quite top notch. I’m sure he’s alive.”

He smiled reassuringly and held on to his drink. He might need it.

Yes, it made him depressed.

“I’m…trying. I really am.” And something was happening. The rumor of the undefeatable Kensei was spreading like wildfire and the men of this beast was actually staying away from some of the territories.

Just not this one. If only she could have some perspective on the matter.

“Maybe it’s time you accept things as they are. Learn to live with the less than pleasant trials of life. I…still do—think he’s alive. I just don’t know if he’ll be alive with you. If you understand my me-.”

She knocked the drink out of his hands.

It certainly wasn’t a surprise when she told him she never wanted to see him again. It made him feel vile.

By the same measure, he wasn’t a miracle worker. The feudal lord had rows upon rows of fully trained men. He’d like to see her try.

He thought these things drunk.

He made sure he was going to continue thinking them. She wanted to fight Whitebeard herself. She could, he thought, and do better.

She had more fire in her than he would ever have as long as he lived.

His thoughts, he could not bear them.

He drowned them like the worm he was.

During the worst year of his life,

What could he say?

He met a man with amazing abilities. A man who was very…optimistic. A man who claimed to be from another time, but apparently, it would be from another reality.

He made a face like a fish when Kensei revealed himself to the man who had messed up the entire battle with Whitebeard. So. Carp, then. Swimming against everything, swimming against time, but here’s the thing.

He got into Adam’s head. He did one of the worst things anyone has ever down in centuries to come.

He gave Adam hope.

When Yaeko looked at him, with her eyes alive, her eyes a miracle…

Near the end of the worst year of his life:

“I thought you had…stopped looking for sake, Kensei,” Yaeko said, touching his shoulder briefly with her hand. He felt the heat through the clothing, the gentleness of her attention, and felt—for once—like a man.

Like a good man.

“Sometimes even I need a drop of courage,” he said. “I find it makes me better than myself. I don’t expect someone like you to understand.”

Her face grew pinched in frustration. It seemed that without Hiro, he could do no right. Blinking quickly, he shoved that thought away, looking at the drink and wanting it more than a dying man would want water.

“I meant that as a compliment. Uh, by the way.”

“I don’t need a compliment. I’ve had plenty of men do that.”

Well. Hell. Never mind, then. He smirked and went to sip, and found his drink being stolen from him by a delicate, gentle flower. What in blue…

“You are better than you think you are. I have faith in you.”

“You have faith in the idea of me, Yaeko.” Adam had had plenty of that, as a matter of fact. Not that he was keeping count. “That’s a fair bit different than me, the man. The scoundrel, remember.”

“I was…” Pinch. “Mistaken. I thought great men had no flaws. But it is those who have flaws and the strength to stand against them that are the true heroes. I was foolish at first. I wonder if you like me for it. I was…ugly towards you.”

He stared, his heart beating oddly fast, and then shifted on the grass, focused on just the boring grass. Anywhere else. Oh, just a bit out of his league, a bit over his head. He could have used some help here. Really. Where was Carp when you needed him?

“I was the uh…one who was a bit of a bastard.”

“No, no. I was hostile, petty.”

“I was a smarmy idiot,” he declared, putting some gusto behind his words.

“…I was a silly woman.”

“…I was a buffoon. A wanker, straight out, first class wanker-.”

She had look of confusion on her pretty, perfect face but it certainly didn’t deter her. “I was a bitch.”

Adam looked up suddenly. “…well, here-…”

She crossed her arms.

“And never. That’s what I was going to say. Right…”

Yaeko laughed. He jumped. He had never heard her laugh before. Not for him.

This time it was true.

“I saw that you were a good man, you know. I know you never will…believe it. But I saw that you were good. I just didn’t think you would show me that side of yourself. I didn’t think I was…”

She lowered her head. He placed a hand under her face and lifted her head up. This didn’t seem real. But he so wanted it to be real. He didn’t want to lie in a white, closed room with just a statue, something close but worlds away from him.

"Someday, Kensei. I want you to be happy. I want to show you that life can be like the poetry you wanted it to be. That even the smallest things can be special."

So close but never truly his.

"I already have that."

It was true. The idea of love had made everything beautiful. The cherry-blossoms, the sky, the clouds, the wind, the people...everything in his eyes was seen anew.

“You are my goodness. No, don’t deny it. You were what I’ve been looking for…my whole life.

I think I love you.”

She smiled, half laughing.

“I think I’d like you to think that.”

They kissed.

Sometimes he thinks he dreamed it.

At the age four hundred, there is only one thing of worth to say. One thing that is always consistent and never fades. Engraved in the stone of his heart.

“Hiro Nakamura is a cruel man."

I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading, I appreciate it.