Kendo no Go
In the Language of Kendo:
A Fanfic in 100 Chapters
by Akai Kitsune
85: Storyteller
~*~
Kenshin,
Kaoru realized - though when, she couldn't precisely say - was not a very good
storyteller. Watching him in those early days with Ayame and Suzume, she
marveled at his patience and loving gentleness as he followed along with each
and every game, allowing them to mold the world around them as they pleased.
But she noticed that it was not he, but the girls who invented the games, who
brought the world to life. He never questioned them, but he never offered his
ideas, either.
It wasn't as if he had no
ideas, she thought to herself, with a tight frown she reserved for Kenshin and
his quirks, for he had proven time and time again that he possessed a strong,
calculating mind, capable of plenty of creativity. It was simply that he
refused, for some obscure reason, to share them.
"I'm not a
storyteller," he admitted to her one day, when she questioned him. "I think...
I think I lost a part of that, during the war. It's not something that can
survive in that kind of chaos."
There wasn't much to say to
something like that, Kaoru later mourned.
After
Kenji was born, it seemed that, after all, some things could survive.
Kenshin was a strong source of information for his young son, doing his best
to help the boy grow up with the beliefs that he and Kaoru had followed all
their lives - and, in the end, perhaps make a choice to follow those he formed
himself. Kenshin carried high hopes for Kenji; hope that his son would be an
heir to his name but not his legacy, hope that he would never stumble along
the road but instead be a steadfast example for his child, hope that he would
be the kind of father a boy would want.
High hopes, he thought wryly,
but of whom, really?
His stories weren't really
stories, he knew, but a simple relay of past experience, an extended biography
of who he had been in order to aid his son on the path of who he would be.
There were no dark, bloody tales of assassins in the night, no quiet
murmurings of secret death and cold madness. He knew that one day, Kenji would
have to know - about death, at least, for it was unavoidable - but the longer
such truths were averted, the better, in Kenshin's opinion. He had his own fears
of such things, anyway.
Kaoru knew, he was certain.
She knew - and didn't know - a great deal of things in his life. Some things
he planned on telling her - in time, when his fear, perhaps, faded -
and some he would keep to himself, knowing them to be unfit for any ear in
this day and age.
Kenji had
been chasing the butterfly all morning, running through the garden as Kenshin
tended the vegetables, dodging plants and gentle chiding from his father, when
suddenly he grasped the tiny body too tightly between his fingers. His smile
wide at the success, he opened clasped hands to reveal the brightly coloured
creature.
Kenshin spun at his abrupt
wail, hurrying over to where Kenji gazed at his hands in horror.
"What is
it?" he asked softly, his eyes fiercely protective.
His only answer was another
sniffle, and two outstretched palms. Gazing down, Kenshin noticed the captured
butterfly, unmoving on bare skin.
"Oh," he
said simply, after a moment.
He felt alarm bells in his
heads, shrieking their sharp warning even as he took a breath to speak.
"It won't
fly," Kenji moaned before he could say another word, shaking the butterfly a
few times. Kenshin winced helplessly.
"Um..." he
tried again. "That's because it's... er... it's dead, Kenji."
"Dead?"
Kenji repeated, eyes wide and utterly uncomprehending.
His father pursed his lips,
waving a hand through the air as if that should be answer enough. He looked up
to see Kaoru standing in the doorway of the house, watching. He raised an
eyebrow, silently asking for aid, but she didn't move, wearing that
frown, and so he sighed and hoped that three was his number.
'Storyteller
indeed,' he thought with an inward scowl, but Kenji was staring at him,
and he knew all too well the boy's patience was thin.
After a moment, an idea began
to form, and with it, words. "Kenji, do you remember the fireflies?"
The child peered down at the
lifeless bug, baffled by the connection, but nodded.
That made things easier. "Do
you remember what I told you about them?"
A pause. Finally, another
nod.
"What did
I say?"
This time, there was a
struggle with memory. "You said... um..." Kenji's eyes narrowed in
concentration. "The fireflies were people who weren't... weren't around
anymore."
Kenshin nodded his head in
approval. "That actually means that... well, it happens to everyone, not just
people. So... now it was time for it to happen to the butterfly."
Kenji's eyes were enormous
once again. "The butterfly turned into a firefly?"
His father shrugged, somewhat
relieved for an escape. "That's... one way to put it, yes."
The boy stared at the bug.
"But it's still here!" he persisted.
Kenshin's lips cracked a
small smile. "Well... it's the soul of a person that becomes a firefly, right?
So it doesn't need a butterfly body anymore."
"Oh."
He still sounded a little
disappointed, so Kenshin continued. "Kenji, what do you like about
butterflies?"
"They
fly!" Kenji answered immediately, eyes dancing with delight.
"Fireflies
do," Kenshin said mildly. "What else?"
The child paused. "They're
colourful..."
"Ah,
that's it," Kenshin nodded slowly. "Maybe the butterfly got tired of being
colourful and wanted to try something different."
"What?"
"Light!"
Kenshin smiled at the boy's query. "The butterfly wanted to glow at night."
"Ohh..."
Success, Kenshin allowed
himself to think, hoping that Kenji would go back to his play or begin helping
him with the garden, something he was more certain of.
"Tousan?"
Or not. He scolded himself;
surely he was being a bad father with such thoughts. "Yes, Kenji?"
Small arms wrapped around his
waist, a face buried in his gi. "I'd rather be a butterfly."
Kenshin thought of the
fireflies then; of dark farewells, of watching them with his family not long
ago, of what they were, at the end of all things.
The end.
"So would
I, Kenji," Kenshin finally whispered, brushing a hand through his son's
hair.
Gently, he pulled back and
looked pointedly at the small, crumpled insect still in Kenji's hand. "Shall
we bury it in the garden?"
As the light reappeared in
his child's eyes, Kenshin thought of stories, of lessons, and his own faded
childhood.
Not all gone, he realized,
and not all bad, either.
~*~
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