This really is just a silly aside. I'm revisiting this fic out of pure
nostalgia and a desire to write something to amuse myself while I wrestle
with the "other RK project" and to cheer myself up.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
"Father." Anxious brown eyes sought out blue-grey ones as he heard the screams of a woman in the other room. "Will mother be alright?"
"Ah." The eyes shifted in the direction of the woman's cries of pain and then back to the young boy who sat across the table from him needing his reassurance. "She was this way with both you and your sister."
"Really?" Hajime's eyes widened. "But if it hurts so much, why do you and mother keep having children? Grandfather says I'm going to have at least two or three more-"
"Children are a blessing!" "Grandfather" Okina materialized from nowhere. "Right, Aoshi? Especially with such a wife as you have. "
Aoshi raised his eyebrow and gave the man a warning glance.
Okina laughed weakly. On any other day, Aoshi would simply ignore his remarks, but today the man was clearly on edge.
"Shinomori-san!" The midwife peered through the open door that separate the room from the hallway. "Please come. She needs you."
"Papa!" The young boy jumped up after his father, who moved quickly to follow.
"Hajime." Aoshi turned back and shook his head gently at his son. "I want you to stay here with Okina. Please."
"Father." The child's eyes began to well up with tears of worry as his father disappeared.
"Hajime," Okina picked up the child. "Your mother needs your father now and if you're there, he will be worrying about you as well. It'll be alright, Hajime. Your mother has had plenty of practice by now so we'll just go outside and wait patiently for your new brother or sister to come."
"Will father be okay too?"
"Oh, of course, child." Okina and his surrogate grandson were now moving towards the kitchen. "He's a very strong man, you know."
"Really?"
"Really. I mean everyone thinks he's just a businessman, but he used to be okashira to a clan of ninjas. Your father was probably one of the strongest men in Japan."
"Really?!" The boy's face lit up.
Okina seated the boy at a chair in the kitchen. Ignoring the women bustling about, Okina grabbed a few sweet things and handed them to the child.
Okina grinned. "Would grandfather lie to you?"
The boy took a bite of a cookie and looked at his grandfather. "Mother says I shouldn't listen to you sometimes."
"She did, did she?!" Okina huffed.
"She's right you know." Okon leaned in, interrupting their conversation.
"Hey!" Okina growled at her, "Not in front of my grandson."
Okon merely rolled her eyes and went back to supervising the cook staff.
"What about mother? Was she a ninja too?"
Okina laughed. "Goodness no! She'd have a fit if you thought so too. She was a doctor probably for as long as she can remember. She was one when your father and she met."
"When they met?"
Okina hesitated. The topic of how they originally met was not exactly something he wanted to be the one to tell. "I think you should ask your parents some other time."
"Oh," the boy's face fell.
"But I can tell you another story about them. About the day your father and mother decided to get married."
Hajime's eyes grew round. "Is that when I was born?"
Okina nearly choked on his cookie. "No, no, Hajime. You shouldn't go around saying that. People will start thinking strange things about your father. Let's see . . . after your father had asked your mother to come to Kyoto, we expected them to get married right away. But well, it didn't happen as we thought it would. A few months passed and we really started to wonder. Your father is a very quiet man, Hajime and we ourselves stopped asking.
But that one day . . .I'm sure that's the day it happened. It was a little more than a year after your mother came to Kyoto. . . Your father was in a very good mood that day for the renovations on the Aoiya were complete. You know we were expanding this place then ." Okina took a sip of water.
"'We should be really quite proud of our work.' I remember telling everyone. 'And to celebrate we should have a round of sake before we turn in!'"
"Okina," Obaasan marched over somewhat perturbed by this story. "Sake!?"
"Err," Okina hesitated aware that perhaps he should be careful in what he said about the doctor to her son. "It was only a round. Anyways, your father hates sake, so of course he didn't have any. But your mother did. of course, she's a much better--
"Okina!"
"I meant that your mother really was a fun woman. After she had several, umm-after she had a round of sake, I asked her to bring in your father. You see, we had finished the construction but we wanted to have a special event to reopen the restaurant."
Okina looked at Hajime, to make sure that he was still following. "Did he ask her then?"
"Oh no, of course not. But I'm getting to that part."
"I was starting to get worried you know when your mother didn't return right away, so I left all the other people and went out to spy - I mean - I went to make sure they were alright."
Hajime's eyes were really wide now. "Did they get kidnapped?"
"No - in fact, they were sitting under the tree out there in the courtyard . . . err," Okina looked up and saw Obaasan and Okon glaring at him, "they were out there talking. Your mother was very talkative that evening."
"I think that you can skip the next part," Okon interjected somewhat dryly. "So when they returned-"
"Oh yes, when they returned, they both looked very happy. Your father and mother both told me that they wanted to be married that following week in the Aoiya. I guess having the building done finally made it seem like the right time. And of course they had a huge Japanese wedding and hundreds of people came by to visit because your mother was a very popular woman in Kyoto and of course was one of the most beautiful. And they traveled away for awhile after that and a little while after --"
Okon coughed.
"Uh," Okina stopped short. "Well, that's about all I can remember. So-" he said brightly, "What do you think of that?"
"Wow." The boy nodded.
Okina smiled and patted Hajime on the head.
"Hajime, Okina," Omasu peeked into the kitchen. "They've asked for you."
"The baby is here?" Okina scooped up his grandson. "Is it a boy or girl?"
"Why don't you come see for yourself. Obaasan too."
"I have to finish here," the elderly woman seemed a bit torn.
"Oh I'll help Okon finish it," Omasu smiled and waved the three off. .
"Omasu," Okon handed her friend a bowl of mung bean sprouts to clean. "This may seem like a strange question to you, but exactly when did Aoshi- san decide to marry Megumi-san?"
Omasu gave her a strange look. "Why do you ask that now of all times?"
"Well, Hajime asked Okina and he mentioned it happened the day we finished the first phase of construction. But I thought -"
"Didn't they decide on it before then, during that trip up to Aizu?" Omasu frowned. "Megumi had to return home to settle some business, and Aoshi had insisted on going with her. Obaasan went with them part of the way."
"And when Obaasan came back she was very happy."
"Ah, so that must be it then. "I wonder, did he actually propose marriage to her, or did he offer her a business proposition."
"Knowing our leader," Okon laughed, "I'm sure that it was more of a business proposition."
Omasu joined her in her laughter. They stopped suddenly when the door slid open.
"Okon." Obaasan smiled as she entered the kitchen. "If you'd like to see our new family member, it would be a good time to go."
"Oh!" Okon quickly put away her food and flashed a smile before pulling the door shut behind her."
"Were you girls having fun chatting?" Obaasan picked up a cloth and began to wipe down the various surfaces used for preparing food.
"Actually, we were discussing exactly how Megumi and Aoshi decided to get married. I heard that Hajime had asked Okina about that."
Obaasan chuckled. "That Okina. You're never quite sure what to think of what he says."
"Did he say they decided to get married the day the Aoiya construction had been finished?"
"I suppose so."
"But I thought it was before that. You had traveled with them outside of Kyoto."
"Oh yes, a lovely day it was. We went to see some friends of ours, that we did."
"Did they discuss it then?"
"Oh of course, they discussed it and discussed it."
Omasu frowned. When the elderly woman wanted to be vague, she could be vague. But she wasn't quite sure where this was heading.
"But for Okina to imply that Megumi and Aoshi were kissing in public like that and that to suggest that sake was involved, well that's just not right. They were already m-"
"-married?" Omasu nearly shrieked. "You mean to say that were already married at that point? So they had gotten married on their trip to Aizu?"
"Oh dear heavens no. The Morimotos would have had a fit if the two showed up again in Aizu unmarried. Megumi created such a scandal when she left the way she did that Aoshi insisted that on getting married before then."
"Then on those two days when you were with them."
"Oh yes," the woman nodded seriously. "They were married then. "
Omasu blinked and then began to laugh. "And this whole time, none of us had known anything about it. I'll have to drag all the details out of Megumi when she's better. Poor Okina! He's thought this whole time that it was his sake that started the whole thing. If you don't mind my leaving Obaasan-"
"Of course not," the woman nodded. "Everything is nearly done and I'll put everything away."
"Thank you!" Omasu opened the door and slipped out eager to find the other woman and speculate on the details.
Obaasan sighed as she finished cleaning her workspace. With a third child here, that day when they had all quietly disappeared outside Kyoto seemed even much more distant.
When Megumi had first approached her, to tell her of their plans to marry in such a fashion, she had resisted, not for her sake, but for the sake of the others.
But when she saw that Aoshi, in particular, had set his mind on such a matter and he had explained why, she agreed. After all, he was correct to want to avoid exactly what Okina had threatened to do - and that was to turn their marriage ceremony into a circus.
Obaasan helped Megumi with finding some of the things they needed quietly. She went to her clinic in the afternoons to help fit her kimono and haori. It was during those times when the women sat together that Megumi finally spoke of all the things that had happened the night Aoshi Shinomori had shown up on her doorstep and convinced her to return with him to Kyoto.
Megumi told her also of how she finally told him that she was ready to allow him to fulfill his promise to her of a home and family. As the anniversary of her parents' death approached, she asked him to go with her to Aizu, to pay respects to her family shrine. And he, of course, understood.
And so they were married quietly at a small shrine near the village where Megumi had stopped on her way out of Kyoto back to Aizu. Only she and the Takehimas were present as it had been during that long few weeks when Megumi Takani had been gravely ill and the thoughts and feelings of Aoshi Shinomori for Megumi Takani had slowly changed.
As their journey had continued towards Aizu, she had continued to watch them or rather over them, as they began to form a strange and wonderful companionship. That it had eventually blossomed into something else, pleased her greatly.
And now, more than five years later, she again had something to please her. One more child to add to their family -- a girl with strong blue eyes and a much stronger name.
Susumu.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Yeah. Susumu is really a bit masculine. It means "advancement or progress" and I am not sure why I picked it originally for Obaasan, but it's there and I have to stick with it .
Hope you enjoyed this quickly dashed off piece of fluff. It's probably a bit more light hearted than the entire fic itself. BTW if you're interested in the other fic I'm working on, make sure you to give me someway of letting you know.
Also, remember Meg/Aoshi shippers to keep visiting the shrine and submitting your stuff for the contest or just in general. That URL is mindspring dot com slash ~shrineoficeandfire .
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
"Father." Anxious brown eyes sought out blue-grey ones as he heard the screams of a woman in the other room. "Will mother be alright?"
"Ah." The eyes shifted in the direction of the woman's cries of pain and then back to the young boy who sat across the table from him needing his reassurance. "She was this way with both you and your sister."
"Really?" Hajime's eyes widened. "But if it hurts so much, why do you and mother keep having children? Grandfather says I'm going to have at least two or three more-"
"Children are a blessing!" "Grandfather" Okina materialized from nowhere. "Right, Aoshi? Especially with such a wife as you have. "
Aoshi raised his eyebrow and gave the man a warning glance.
Okina laughed weakly. On any other day, Aoshi would simply ignore his remarks, but today the man was clearly on edge.
"Shinomori-san!" The midwife peered through the open door that separate the room from the hallway. "Please come. She needs you."
"Papa!" The young boy jumped up after his father, who moved quickly to follow.
"Hajime." Aoshi turned back and shook his head gently at his son. "I want you to stay here with Okina. Please."
"Father." The child's eyes began to well up with tears of worry as his father disappeared.
"Hajime," Okina picked up the child. "Your mother needs your father now and if you're there, he will be worrying about you as well. It'll be alright, Hajime. Your mother has had plenty of practice by now so we'll just go outside and wait patiently for your new brother or sister to come."
"Will father be okay too?"
"Oh, of course, child." Okina and his surrogate grandson were now moving towards the kitchen. "He's a very strong man, you know."
"Really?"
"Really. I mean everyone thinks he's just a businessman, but he used to be okashira to a clan of ninjas. Your father was probably one of the strongest men in Japan."
"Really?!" The boy's face lit up.
Okina seated the boy at a chair in the kitchen. Ignoring the women bustling about, Okina grabbed a few sweet things and handed them to the child.
Okina grinned. "Would grandfather lie to you?"
The boy took a bite of a cookie and looked at his grandfather. "Mother says I shouldn't listen to you sometimes."
"She did, did she?!" Okina huffed.
"She's right you know." Okon leaned in, interrupting their conversation.
"Hey!" Okina growled at her, "Not in front of my grandson."
Okon merely rolled her eyes and went back to supervising the cook staff.
"What about mother? Was she a ninja too?"
Okina laughed. "Goodness no! She'd have a fit if you thought so too. She was a doctor probably for as long as she can remember. She was one when your father and she met."
"When they met?"
Okina hesitated. The topic of how they originally met was not exactly something he wanted to be the one to tell. "I think you should ask your parents some other time."
"Oh," the boy's face fell.
"But I can tell you another story about them. About the day your father and mother decided to get married."
Hajime's eyes grew round. "Is that when I was born?"
Okina nearly choked on his cookie. "No, no, Hajime. You shouldn't go around saying that. People will start thinking strange things about your father. Let's see . . . after your father had asked your mother to come to Kyoto, we expected them to get married right away. But well, it didn't happen as we thought it would. A few months passed and we really started to wonder. Your father is a very quiet man, Hajime and we ourselves stopped asking.
But that one day . . .I'm sure that's the day it happened. It was a little more than a year after your mother came to Kyoto. . . Your father was in a very good mood that day for the renovations on the Aoiya were complete. You know we were expanding this place then ." Okina took a sip of water.
"'We should be really quite proud of our work.' I remember telling everyone. 'And to celebrate we should have a round of sake before we turn in!'"
"Okina," Obaasan marched over somewhat perturbed by this story. "Sake!?"
"Err," Okina hesitated aware that perhaps he should be careful in what he said about the doctor to her son. "It was only a round. Anyways, your father hates sake, so of course he didn't have any. But your mother did. of course, she's a much better--
"Okina!"
"I meant that your mother really was a fun woman. After she had several, umm-after she had a round of sake, I asked her to bring in your father. You see, we had finished the construction but we wanted to have a special event to reopen the restaurant."
Okina looked at Hajime, to make sure that he was still following. "Did he ask her then?"
"Oh no, of course not. But I'm getting to that part."
"I was starting to get worried you know when your mother didn't return right away, so I left all the other people and went out to spy - I mean - I went to make sure they were alright."
Hajime's eyes were really wide now. "Did they get kidnapped?"
"No - in fact, they were sitting under the tree out there in the courtyard . . . err," Okina looked up and saw Obaasan and Okon glaring at him, "they were out there talking. Your mother was very talkative that evening."
"I think that you can skip the next part," Okon interjected somewhat dryly. "So when they returned-"
"Oh yes, when they returned, they both looked very happy. Your father and mother both told me that they wanted to be married that following week in the Aoiya. I guess having the building done finally made it seem like the right time. And of course they had a huge Japanese wedding and hundreds of people came by to visit because your mother was a very popular woman in Kyoto and of course was one of the most beautiful. And they traveled away for awhile after that and a little while after --"
Okon coughed.
"Uh," Okina stopped short. "Well, that's about all I can remember. So-" he said brightly, "What do you think of that?"
"Wow." The boy nodded.
Okina smiled and patted Hajime on the head.
"Hajime, Okina," Omasu peeked into the kitchen. "They've asked for you."
"The baby is here?" Okina scooped up his grandson. "Is it a boy or girl?"
"Why don't you come see for yourself. Obaasan too."
"I have to finish here," the elderly woman seemed a bit torn.
"Oh I'll help Okon finish it," Omasu smiled and waved the three off. .
"Omasu," Okon handed her friend a bowl of mung bean sprouts to clean. "This may seem like a strange question to you, but exactly when did Aoshi- san decide to marry Megumi-san?"
Omasu gave her a strange look. "Why do you ask that now of all times?"
"Well, Hajime asked Okina and he mentioned it happened the day we finished the first phase of construction. But I thought -"
"Didn't they decide on it before then, during that trip up to Aizu?" Omasu frowned. "Megumi had to return home to settle some business, and Aoshi had insisted on going with her. Obaasan went with them part of the way."
"And when Obaasan came back she was very happy."
"Ah, so that must be it then. "I wonder, did he actually propose marriage to her, or did he offer her a business proposition."
"Knowing our leader," Okon laughed, "I'm sure that it was more of a business proposition."
Omasu joined her in her laughter. They stopped suddenly when the door slid open.
"Okon." Obaasan smiled as she entered the kitchen. "If you'd like to see our new family member, it would be a good time to go."
"Oh!" Okon quickly put away her food and flashed a smile before pulling the door shut behind her."
"Were you girls having fun chatting?" Obaasan picked up a cloth and began to wipe down the various surfaces used for preparing food.
"Actually, we were discussing exactly how Megumi and Aoshi decided to get married. I heard that Hajime had asked Okina about that."
Obaasan chuckled. "That Okina. You're never quite sure what to think of what he says."
"Did he say they decided to get married the day the Aoiya construction had been finished?"
"I suppose so."
"But I thought it was before that. You had traveled with them outside of Kyoto."
"Oh yes, a lovely day it was. We went to see some friends of ours, that we did."
"Did they discuss it then?"
"Oh of course, they discussed it and discussed it."
Omasu frowned. When the elderly woman wanted to be vague, she could be vague. But she wasn't quite sure where this was heading.
"But for Okina to imply that Megumi and Aoshi were kissing in public like that and that to suggest that sake was involved, well that's just not right. They were already m-"
"-married?" Omasu nearly shrieked. "You mean to say that were already married at that point? So they had gotten married on their trip to Aizu?"
"Oh dear heavens no. The Morimotos would have had a fit if the two showed up again in Aizu unmarried. Megumi created such a scandal when she left the way she did that Aoshi insisted that on getting married before then."
"Then on those two days when you were with them."
"Oh yes," the woman nodded seriously. "They were married then. "
Omasu blinked and then began to laugh. "And this whole time, none of us had known anything about it. I'll have to drag all the details out of Megumi when she's better. Poor Okina! He's thought this whole time that it was his sake that started the whole thing. If you don't mind my leaving Obaasan-"
"Of course not," the woman nodded. "Everything is nearly done and I'll put everything away."
"Thank you!" Omasu opened the door and slipped out eager to find the other woman and speculate on the details.
Obaasan sighed as she finished cleaning her workspace. With a third child here, that day when they had all quietly disappeared outside Kyoto seemed even much more distant.
When Megumi had first approached her, to tell her of their plans to marry in such a fashion, she had resisted, not for her sake, but for the sake of the others.
But when she saw that Aoshi, in particular, had set his mind on such a matter and he had explained why, she agreed. After all, he was correct to want to avoid exactly what Okina had threatened to do - and that was to turn their marriage ceremony into a circus.
Obaasan helped Megumi with finding some of the things they needed quietly. She went to her clinic in the afternoons to help fit her kimono and haori. It was during those times when the women sat together that Megumi finally spoke of all the things that had happened the night Aoshi Shinomori had shown up on her doorstep and convinced her to return with him to Kyoto.
Megumi told her also of how she finally told him that she was ready to allow him to fulfill his promise to her of a home and family. As the anniversary of her parents' death approached, she asked him to go with her to Aizu, to pay respects to her family shrine. And he, of course, understood.
And so they were married quietly at a small shrine near the village where Megumi had stopped on her way out of Kyoto back to Aizu. Only she and the Takehimas were present as it had been during that long few weeks when Megumi Takani had been gravely ill and the thoughts and feelings of Aoshi Shinomori for Megumi Takani had slowly changed.
As their journey had continued towards Aizu, she had continued to watch them or rather over them, as they began to form a strange and wonderful companionship. That it had eventually blossomed into something else, pleased her greatly.
And now, more than five years later, she again had something to please her. One more child to add to their family -- a girl with strong blue eyes and a much stronger name.
Susumu.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Yeah. Susumu is really a bit masculine. It means "advancement or progress" and I am not sure why I picked it originally for Obaasan, but it's there and I have to stick with it .
Hope you enjoyed this quickly dashed off piece of fluff. It's probably a bit more light hearted than the entire fic itself. BTW if you're interested in the other fic I'm working on, make sure you to give me someway of letting you know.
Also, remember Meg/Aoshi shippers to keep visiting the shrine and submitting your stuff for the contest or just in general. That URL is mindspring dot com slash ~shrineoficeandfire .