...if I'm going to lose you... I'll lose you now for good...


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     The great stone steps leading up to the dojo from Oyamada were as Goemon remembered, left cracked and jutting unevenly after an earthquake long ago had shaken and shifted them. It was easy to stumble and fall if climbing in a hurry, as he had learned as a boy all too eager to ingratiate himself with his Sensei. He had gotten off lucky with only skinned knees to show for his clumsiness, though he knew he had already failed his first test. It was with a sense of deep embarrassment that he had approached Jinen for the first time biting his lip and defying the limp in his gait.

Despite mid-afternoon tiredness settling quietly into his bones, Goemon was at peace with his work, frowning with gentle thoughtfulness as he moved at an easy pace. The rice broom rhythmically swished from side to side, back and forth, like the tail of a grazing horse. It lifted ancient dust from the stairs in swirling clouds. The bone-dry scratching sound seemed to carry far across the mountain pass.

Swiping the back of his hand against his gleaming forehead, he stopped for a moment to look outwards. From the top of the stairs, all the world unfurled before him; thatch-roofed houses, rice paddies, and dense woodlands dotting a roughly hewn landscape resembling a large patchwork quilt. People moved back and forth along winding footpaths like little ants, their backs bent under the weight of bamboo baskets.

He remembered carrying firewood in a load on his back as a boy, made to hurry back home when the first drops of rain found the holes in his sedge hat. The days of laughing and trying to thread his way between raindrops were banished by his mother's stern, upward glance every time he stepped up from the genkan, and as she asked him if he had helped his father in the field. She would be kneeling, very carefully measuring white rice for the day's watery okayu.

Yes, Okaa-sama.

A look of mild relief would wash over her wearied features at this and she would say nothing more, appreciating the weight of the rice in her palm before deciding how much to pour back into the jar. He would try hard not to stare.

Some people from neighbouring villages were said to have given their ailing fathers and mothers nothing but water, for fear of wasting rice on those doomed to die early; others were said to have eaten their children. His mother had been horrified by the rumours that trickled through Shimagahara.

Not in my house!, She had cried, with a vehemence that had scared him more than the stories of roaring planes, and the sky raining fire upon villages.

Life had since changed... but the dojo, irregardless of the years that had swept past, still stood like something on a shelf, untouched and gathering dust. With his broom in hand, Goemon walked towards the broad sliding doors of the dojo and after a moment's hesitation, pushed it open with a bit of effort. Shafts of hazy light spilled through. He looked about open space, the poignant, haunting sense of familiarity twisting his stomach. The sword rack was there, mounted on the wall, and the Butsudan too, where candles and incense were once set and burned,  spicing the air with a warm muskiness...

“What would you be looking for, Goemon-san...?” A voice, devoid of accusation, cut into his thoughts. He stiffened warily, surprised that he had not sensed the man's arrival – and turned to face him. Quickly leaning the broom against the outer wall of dojo, he bent into a low bow, his gaze deferentially slanting downwards.

“...Forgive my idleness, Jinen-Sensei.”

The sage hesitated, tugging fondly at his beard. “...Now I seem to remember this young boy from Shimagahara, who came to me on bleeding knees, professing his desire to be my student.”

Goemon flushed to his ears.

“...Alas, Goemon-san...”  The amusement drained from Jinen's wheezy voice; his age began to show through. “I am no longer your teacher, as you are no longer my student.”

The ronin reluctantly took this as an invitation to straighten, nodding dimly at the words despite the hollow ache in his chest. Sensei's rueful smile came as bittersweet consolation.

“I am sorry to say that there is nothing here, Goemon-san; no soul has walked this place in years.”

“No...” Goemon interjected swiftly, and with a defiant edge that would have earned him a blow from any other instructor. His sensei kept a respectful, even-tempered silence. Swallowing past the rawness in his throat, the ronin pressed on, his tone subdued, his eyes piercing and wet. The air was dizzyingly crisp with the sharp scent of pine. “...There is someone. You are here.”

Jinen looked to one side, to where the mountains met the sky in the distance, the air churning with the things left unsaid.

Goemon remembered nights in the dojo spent straining his ears, and hearing only the bounce of his heart between his sternum and his ribs; he remembered sitting up stiffly at unusual sounds – his hips aching from the hard floor - and squinting into hazy darkness. The air had been thick with the smell of sleep and the fierce chemical odour of sweat on unwashed bodies. Wariness would give way to exhaustion and he would doze off until the moist pad of footsteps across the tatami mat woke him again, and he'd find a pair of phosphorescent, animal eyes watching him intently from above.

They weren't children anymore, exploring their nascent sexuality – they had been restless young men, too many thrown into a single cage. Sometimes violence broke loose, the more passive students hungrily pulled into chaos, kicking and screaming.

Many times, the same pair of strong hands had grabbed at him and tugged hard at his obi, expecting his kosode to come loose, expecting him to surrender without putting up a fight. Goemon could only wonder if Sensei had ever known how vicious the competition had been outside of practice, whether he had read tightly pursed lips and darkened eyes.

A near-palpable unease coalesced between former teacher and student; the ronin felt the thrum of his pulse in his ears, his throat tightening as he met the eyes of the man who had taken him under his wing, and had watched him mature in a way his father hadn't been there to do. Though he had resisted growing attached at first, Sensei had found himself crossing boundaries to fill the void in a young Goemon's soul, for want of his own son.

“...I have taught you everything I know, Goemon-san. You are a grown man now –“ He remarked with a wistful twinkle in his eye, folding his hands behind his back, “And I have faith that you will right the wrongful accusations and the indignities you will come across in your lifetime. ...Remember, that as long as you have tried your hardest, there is no such thing as failure.”

A cold, intimate discomfort of male intimacy clenched Goemon's stomach, suffusing him with the tingling, sweaty numbness he felt long ago when his honour had been threatened – but there was something else taking hold of him now, equally fierce. A platonic love filled every notch and moth-eaten hole in his heart, urging him to respond in ways strong men couldn't respond, in ways he couldn't respond. His mind turned round and round in restless circles, leaving him fumbling dumbly for words. His knees felt weak; he needed to sit down.

“...Thank you, Sensei.” The ronin managed firmly, at last, his eyes hard and shimmering like shards of glass – and though an ache inside him willed him to smile, his lips remained frozen in a solemn line as he dipped his head in parting, and pivoted sharply on his heel.

Goemon ran until his lungs burned and his eyes blurred, the wind raw against his skin, never once glancing back towards the lone figure at the top of the steps. And Futaro Jinen, listening to the quieting rhythm of sandals slapping against heels, watched his former pupil disappear.


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