Hakuoki: Oni Monogatari » Places

         She seemed surprised to learn he could tell she was a woman. Obviously passing as a guy wasn’t something she was used to. Maybe she looked enough like a boy in the clothes she was wearing – if you didn’t look too closely - but she didn’t behave like a boy. She was scared, and she acted scared, whereas a man would at least try to conceal it by getting angry or defensive.

If that wasn’t enough, once she started asking him questions about the whereabouts of her father, it looked like she was going to cry. He really hoped that those beads of water forming in the corners of her eyes weren’t going to fall out. Even though it wasn’t his fault, he’d certainly feel guilty about it, and he had no idea what you were supposed to do to comfort a crying girl. The best thing was to avoid it happening. Maybe he could cheer her up.

“Yes,” he smiled, nodding, in reply to her questions about her father. “Well, I don’t know him, but I have seen him a few times.” A small frown formed between his brows and he looked off to the side as he tried to remember where and when he had seen that bald head bobbing along. “Maybe he was visiting Kondo-sensei? It definitely wasn’t in the last month or two though… but who knows, he’s probably still around the area somewhere.” He gave her a reassuring grin again, hoping it would lift her spirits, or at least distract her from crying.

Yutaro didn’t think there was anything really unusual about not seeing Yukimura-sensei for several months, or that it meant he was gone for good. Kyoto was a bit like a maze, so it wouldn’t be surprising if someone lived right around the corner and you didn’t see them for months at a time. Where he grew up among the mountains and fields, there were few people, and in the village there was only one road and it sensibly went east to west, not round and round. Even though he’d been in the city a while, he still hadn’t got used to it. As he nostalgically compared the capital city with his home in the countryside a thought struck him, and he looked back at “Yahiko” with a quizzical look. “Saaay, you’re from the east, too, right? You have an Edo accent!” He found himself warming to her a little and waited hopeful that he had guessed right. If she was from the Edo area, that lowered the possibility she was a Choshu spy. In fact, he had serious doubts that she was any kind of a spy at all, she seemed totally devoid of guile. Maybe he was just being naïve. He should really be more on his guard, but it really seemed like the only thing she was concealing was whatever it was she had witnessed that she (unconvincingly) denied having seen.

Finally she decided to give her real name. Information for information, some kind of fair exchange, and maybe he was just a little closer to having his curiosity slaked about whatever it was that was going on out there. “Emiko-san, huh? Nice to meet ya.” Now they were getting somewhere, at least. “You know,” he said, watching her appraisingly, “I’m sure you had your reasons for pretending to be a boy out there, but if you admit to being a girl, it will probably go easier on you. The Shinsengumi are all honourable men, nothing bad will happen to you. You’d get treated more harshly as a man. It’s up to you, I guess, but chances are the captains that brought you in already know. Especially the one that tied you up.” And nothing much got past Saito-san.

“Eh… ? Red eyes!” It was the first scrap of information he even had about what went on, but he wasn’t going to leave it there. “That’s all you remember? What did they look like? How were they dressed?” he whispered harshly. Damn it but if that one clue wasn’t even worse than knowing nothing at all.

The girl shifted about uncomfortably in her bonds, and Yutaro stood up, tucking his sheathed sword back into his obi. “Let me take a look at those knots. It’s not like they need to be that tight.” He moved around behind her, where her hands were tied, but before he touched the ropes that were expertly restraining her, he poked his head around over her shoulder to look her in the eye, his blue eyes narrowed briefly to icy shards. “You’re not going anywhere, are you?” He asked, phrased coldly as a warning. He knew he was a soft touch and totally taken in by her story of her missing father, but he wasn’t going to let her think that he would be easy to escape from. “If you try anything …” he hesitated to say it, but it was almost as though he could hear Okita-sensei slyly whispering the words – I’ll kill you He didn’t want her even more terrorised, so he settled for “Just keep still and keep quiet or I’ll have to knock you out, alright?” Okita-sensei had definitely done a number with these bindings… they were so tight the girl’s fingers were turning white. He loosened all the ropes a bit, and retied all the knots. They should still be firm enough and yet at least give her a bit of wiggle room. “There, at least your arms won’t have fallen off by the morning,” he laughed quietly.