reunion;;

[derepressed]

Yukimura Residence.
Edo, Japan, January 1864.

[The years have stretched on and on, agonizingly slowly. Part of it is because Chizuru lacks the child-like lack of perspective that makes time fly by so quickly in the earliest years; mostly, it's because the Nagumo are so very cruel. Time flies when one is having fun, but among that clan...

This is the first opportunity she's had in years to even consider a visit to Edo, and though she might pay for it later, she doesn't care. There's something she has to do here, and so here she is, dressed in the finery one would expect of the wife of the young master of the Nagumo. Perhaps it's strange, to see such a finely-dressed young lady in front of the humble Yukimura clinic.

She doesn't care. She just doesn't care.

She is stopped, outside the house, because it's both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The house looks mostly the same, but the subtle differences, are they there because it's not her that's living there? All the touches of a young woman are gone. Chizuru has never lived here, but Kaoru has, and -

The differences are Kaoru's touch. That eases the knot of tension in her gut the slightest bit and gives her the courage to move forward, to call into the house as though she's a patient and this is a perfectly normal visit.]

Excuse me? I was wondering if perhaps I might speak with Yukimura-sensei...

[He won't be here. She's sure he won't, sure she's remembered the timing because her memories are all that's gotten her through the years at the hands of those horrible people, but that's okay. He isn't the one she is here to see.

She's depending on the fact that it will be Kaoru who will answer her call.]

Comments

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[souredsweet]

[hearing that— even though he had been trying to keep himself from slipping back into that strange place, hearing that gets under his skin like a tanning knife. she had been nothing but kind to him so far, and he doesn't know her well enough to believe that she might act any different around anyone else, so he can only interpret this in one way:

a kind person has been taught to believe that they aren't kind by a group of people that show true unkindness. he pulls his lower lip in with his teeth briefly, one finger gently running around the rim of his tea cup.]

...It doesn't seem to me like a lack of forgiveness in this case means that you aren't kind. Not wanting to give people like that what they want... That doesn't seem like anything unkind, either. It's only natural, isn't it? Not wanting to forgive those who force you into a corner? Not wanting to cave to cruel demands? Looking for a way out? [the more he talks, the softer his voice becomes, but it's a strange sort of softness - hollow and increasingly brittle.] So to say "that isn't kind", and to think that you come here out of spite... It isn't a good way of looking at things, is it? Because you aren't the one at fault here. Don't you think that you should be looking at them rather than at yourself in this situation? You're only doing what you can do, right? They were the ones who created the action that has brought about this reaction. It isn't kindness or unkindness; it's just what follows naturally. This is what they get.

[while he had been looking at his tea, his gaze rises at that, and his eyes lock onto Chizuru's with a bizarre intensity.]

And I think that those sort of people deserve what they get. Don't you?