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A Road to Aizu: Chapter 3 - Further Introductions

by ShoshanaFlower

Soujiro's presence at the clinic became an accepted part of daily life. Everyone found him helpful and pleasant. Surgical instruments were always washed and sterilized before anyone even had a chance to ask. He kept the rooms swept and clean, and he was never underfoot.

Still, Megumi found him somewhat ... off. She couldn't place it, but there seemed to be something lacking in her young assistant. Since she'd met him almost a month ago, she'd never heard him complain or even show discontent about anything. Though Megumi reasoned he was simply grateful and respectful, the answer didn't satisfy her. There was some form of shallowness about him that she simply couldn't name.

Sometime during the third week of Soujiro's stay, Megumi was locking the front door of the clinic when she heard a sound from outside. Pausing where she stood, she listened. It sounded like someone crying, and it sounded like it was coming from the side of the clinic. Quietly, she opened the door and slipped outside. The moon offered her little light as she sought out the source of the noise. As she rounded the corner, the faint sound became more audible. It was someone crying, she was sure. Moving away from the wall of the building, Megumi followed the sound to a small thicket of trees a few yards away. After a few steps, she was able to make out the form of a person sitting against one of the taller trees.

"Excuse me," she called. "Who's there? Are you hurt?"

The figured looked up, apparently trying to focus on the doctor. Megumi stepped closer to him. Her jaw loosened when she realized it was Soujiro.

"Soujiro?" She quickly moved over the sandy ground towards him. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

The boy made an obvious effort to smile. Half-succeeding, he said, "Nothing's really wrong, I was just crying. I'm - I don't know why."

Apparently not satisfied by the explanation, Megumi waited for more.

"I'm usually okay during the day, but at night I just can't help it sometimes. I come out here so that Haru and Arata won't hear me."

Megumi was taken by surprise by his last words. He'd been out here crying before? The doctor felt a twinge of guilt for not knowing. Or for not paying attention enough to know. She held her hand out to him.

"Well, you don't need to cry all alone in the bushes. Come inside the clinic."

Slowly, Soujiro rose and the two walked back inside together, Megumi thinking about what he'd had said.

Here," once inside she handed him a cloth, "come wash your face."

After Soujiro had cleaned away his tears and insisted he was all right, the two locked the clinic and walked back to the house. They parted at Megumi's room with Soujiro smiling and assuring her that he would be fine. Although Megumi finally bade him goodnight, she was hardly convinced that he was "fine." She was also more confused by her charge then she had been before.

For the next few days, things went well. Bearing in mind the way she'd found Soujiro in tears, Megumi was careful to speak to him kindly, and tried not to snap at him when things became stressful. One day, when there was nothing pressing to do, and the two were alone in the side room of the clinic eating lunch, Megumi finally decided to ask what had been on her mind for some time.

"Soujiro, where were you before you came here?" Before finding out his age, Megumi guessed that he'd left his home or that he'd been orphaned. More recently, however, she wondered if he'd perhaps just set out on his own - a bit less than adequately prepared.

Soujiro swallowed what was in his mouth and looked at Megumi. It seemed safe, as far as he could tell, to tell this woman the basics. "Before I came here I was just in another city. I'm sort of a wanderer." He lifted another clump of rice to his mouth.

"A wanderer? What do you mean?"

Taking a brief moment to consider his answer, Soujiro set down his chopsticks and said, "Maybe I should have said 'rurouni.' I used to carry a sword, but now I'm just wandering for a while."

Megumi blinked in surprise. "Are you serious?" 'Then the marks on his hands were sword calluses. But that doesn't make any sense. This boy is far too young to have seen the bakumatsu, but what other reason would there be for him to have been a swordsman? The son of a samurai maybe?'

"No, I'm quite serious, Megumi-sensei. I knew two men who both wandered for ten years, and they ended up with two opposite truths. I want to find out which truth I believe, or else find my own."

Megumi felt as though her heart had stopped. 'Two men. Ten years. A wanderer. A swordsman.' A name came to the top of Megumi's mind. One that Sanoske had told her. Seta Soujiro

Her Soujiro.

"Seta Soujiro," Megumi whispered.

Upon hearing his full name from the doctor's mouth, Soujiro's shock matched Megumi's. A nervous smile wound itself around his lips as he said, "What?"

"Your name," Megumi said, taking back her voice. "Your name is Seta Soujiro."

Soujiro looked around, suddenly feeling trapped. Trapped in the same room he'd come to tell himself he was safe in. He couldn't find the words to protest her accusation. It was true. Though he had no idea how she could have known …

The stories Sanoske had told Megumi all came flooding back to her. "You fought for Shishio Makoto. You're the one who fought against Ken-san." Scores of thoughts raced through her mind, but one realization stood out among them: This boy - who'd been living with her, who's stay she had fought for - had come very close to killing Kenshin.

"You little demon," she shouted at him. "You gave Kenshin the scar on his back. You helped that monster who nearly killed him!"

Again, Soujiro had no answer.

Megumi sat in blank astonishment at the realization. She was looking at Soujiro no Tenken.

"You ... Get out. Get out of here right now."

Soujiro rose, methodically, and moved towards the door. "I'm sorry, Megumi-sensei."

'How is it my past can find me here? Of all the people in Aizu, I happen to find someone who knows Himura-san.' Soujiro quietly slid open the door to the house and made his way down the hall to the room he shared with the boys. 'I wonder who on earth she is?' In the midst of being recognized as a murderer and thrown out of a makeshift home, Soujiro was curious.

'Our information never said anything about a doctor. At least, not to my knowledge. A lover? But why would she be here in Aizu? Himura-san was living in Tokyo.' He sighed. As usual, nothing made sense.

His bed was already made up, with his worn traveling bag resting next to it on the floor. It only contained an extra pair of shoes and a small amount of money, so he'd never found a reason to unpack it. 'I guess I always thought someone would find me out. It's not like I could stay here forever, though wandering is a lot more tiring that I thought it would be.'

Sou paused. It was one of those feelings again. Vainly, he tried to blink away the coming tears. Emotions really did have a way of showing up at the most inopportune times, as he'd often thought in the past year. Slinging his light bag over his shoulder, he stood to leave. The sooner he could get away, the sooner he could put it from his mind and start somewhere else once again.

Megumi sat in the clinic, trying to rein in her thoughts. All this time. All this time she'd been harboring the personal assassin of Shishio Makoto. She berated herself for not realizing it before. His appearance, his nearly perpetual smile, even his name. She hadn't had a clue. Even so, she reasoned, a hundred boys could have passed by the same description, and "Soujiro" wasn't an uncommon name.

She looked down at his unfinished lunch. It was only a bowl of rice, as her family didn't have much money to squander on food. His chopsticks lay neatly on top of the bowl. Without knowing why, Megumi suddenly felt sorry. She couldn't help thinking of the boy curled against the trunk of a tree, crying without a reason. Or the thin young man with the hacking cough and trembling hands who'd come to the clinic not even a month before.

But her bitterness returned as she remembered the day she'd arrived in Kyoto after receiving Kaoru's letter. Kenshin lay unconscious and injured beyond anything she'd ever seen. His pale skin so frighteningly contrasting with his limp, red hair was a picture stained into her memory. She remembered sitting with him one night, replacing the bandage over the horrible scar - Soujiro's scar. She never wanted to see him hurt like that again. Hurt by an evil like Soujiro.

No, she thought, that didn't work. Soujiro wasn't evil. The young man who cleaned her scissors may have been a murderer, but he wasn't evil. Like ...

Not like Kenshin.

As much as the image of Kenshin's blood-soaked bandages, the image of Soujiro's callused, shaking hands fought for ground in her mind. 'Don't you dare feel pity for him,' she warned herself. 'He's a hitokiri.'

Abruptly, Megumi looked up. The word seemed so hard, even if she hadn't actually spoken it. 'Hitokiri.'

Just like Kenshin.

Kenshin, wandering for ten years, with the merciless ghosts of his past following him no matter where he tried to take refuge. Kenshin, patiently washing dishes or clothes, being thankful for a place to stay. Kenshin, making no defense for himself when someone threw part of his past in his face. There was only one image in Megumi's mind now. That of Kenshin, sweet and smiling, telling her that she'd suffered enough, and to let go of her past.

"Damn."

She sighed.

"Soujiro!" Megumi called to the boy as he closed the front door of the house behind himself. He turned when he saw her and waited.

"Soujiro . . ." she paused when she reached the house.

"You needn't worry, Megumi-sensei. I know you have every reason to ask me to leave. I'm not angry at you."

Megumi tried to force the words from her throat. "Soujiro, you don't need to leave. I'm . . . I'm sorry for what I said to you. You don't need to leave."

Soujiro's timid expression turned to one of confusion and partial distrust. "Well, I'm sure it would be best for me to leave anyway. I am a wanderer after all."

Megumi took hold of his arm as he turned away from her. "Soujiro, I'm sorry," she repeated, her voice more harsh than apologetic. Her attention was momentarily drawn to his hand, which had begun to quaver slightly. "I don't want you to go. But you can only stay here if you tell me something. Tell me that you're not a murderer. Not now. If you can say that and mean it, then I don't care who you used to be."

Soujiro watched her face intently as she spoke. The situation, for him, had gone from confusing to hopelessly confusing. Why on earth did she want him to stay? "I don't believe I can say that, Megumi-sensei. You say you'll forget who I was, but I'm not even sure who I am. And it's not like I have some kind of vow like Himura-san does."

Not like Kenshin.

Megumi thought about his response. "Then just tell me that you'll never lift a sword to kill while you're here. This is a place of healing, not death."

'Why does she want me to stay?'

"Soujiro? Can you say that?"

The boy looked up at her, but didn't smile. "Yes, Megumi-sensei."

"Then come back inside." Still holding his arm, she led him back into the house. 'Please, please let me be doing the right thing, and not something stupid.'