Kendo no Go
In the Language of Kendo:
A Fanfic in 100 Chapters
by Akai Kitsune
54: Kiiro
~*~
The colour of your favourite
kimono, lined with orange and decorated gaily with sakura petals. The kimono
of a young, unmarried woman, informal, comfortable, having no reason at all to
dress up, except to please yourself. The kimono that, gradually, spends more
and more time in the closet, as you seek new ways to gain the attention and
smiling appraisal of your favourite tenant - too polite to call a freeloader,
too familiar to call a guest, too distant to call anything else - although you
receive that no matter what you wear, even when you dart around in well-worn
kendo gear.
The colour
of your fear, your cowardice, when that same tenant left you to face death in
Kyoto, the age-old capital to which he was summoned, even though his duty was
done, even though his summoner was dead, assassinated.
Or maybe because of
that.
Your fear, momentarily
dissolved - by the bold, mocking statements of the elegant lady you secretly
admired, and the blunt, yet encouraging rewards of your one and only student -
returning with a vengeance as you face him once again, wondering what he will
say, what he will do, if he is angry.
He is, but only half, and he
is relived as well, so maybe it was all right, maybe you don't need to hold on
to such fear.
The colour
of his eyes - deep and dark, glittering with anger and the promise of pain,
defeat, and yes, through it pains you to admit, death - as he faces his oldest
enemy. The colour of fear, though it is your fear, not his, and there is
nothing you can do to hold him back, to save him, and that fear is the deepest
of all fears, the one that drives you to despair so easily.
The colour of the eyes of
your lover, jaded and heavy-lidded, as his gaze pierces your own, and you no
longer feel the trepidation that once caught your heart, drove the air from
your lungs. Now, the only thing that leaves you breathless is the way he loves
you, gently, warmly, without the danger or fury he shows to his enemies, and
you know that it is only you who sees this side of him; you alone, and there
is pride in this knowledge.
The colour
of your favourite kimono which is finally relinquished, packed away with the
rest of the clothes of your youth, after your marriage, exchanged for the for
the modest, less decorative and more traditional wear of a wife. There is
nostalgia and sadness as the clothes disappear with a flurry of dust and
mothballs, but also hope: hope that your marriage will be as wonderful as you
imagine it to be; hope that someday you will have a daughter to wear the same
kimono, and you will tell her proudly that even such a simple outfit is enough
to win over a man like her father.
The colour of fear, faded,
almost gone, in the light of such hope.
y
~*~
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