Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Kanji ❯ Kanji ( One-Shot )

This story is set a few days after Yahiko comes to live with Kaoru and Kenshin and before Sano come into the picture.

Kanji

By Hime

"Shit!" Yahiko cried out in anger and threw down his calligraphy brush, not caring that the ink splattered on the white paper and onto the table. The two young girls beside him looked at each other and with great big grins began to yell "Shit!" at the top of their lungs, to the horror of their grandfather.

"Suzume! Ayame!" Gensai-sensei shouted at the two, but was completely ignored by the enchantment of shouting their favorite new word as loud as they could. Yahiko looked at Dr. Gensai's angry face and began to mutter, "Oh fu-"

"Yahiko!" Dr. Gensai interrupted the young boy before he taught the two girls another new word. "Suzame, Ayame, why don't you two go and play with Ken-niichan, alright?"

"Wai! Wai!" the two shouted as they raced off before their grandfather could change his mind. When the two were out of earshot, Gensai-sensei turned to the young boy with a stern expression on his face. "Please don't teach my granddaughters anymore swear words right now. Leave them something more to learn when they become your age."

"Gomen," Yahiko muttered, his head down, his eyes looking into his lap. "I didn't mean to swear but why do I have to learn this for?"

"Well for one thing, it is your name." Gensai-sensei said wryly. Yahiko blushed a light pink. Why did his name have to have to be so confusing to write? Why did he have to learn to write it in kanji? His mother had taught him how to write his name in hiragana, isn't that enough? "And secondly, Kaoru-chan and Kenshin-san asked me too teach you alongside my granddaughters. They felt you needed an education of more then kenjustu."

"But I don't! I'm going to be a swordsman, not a scholar! I don't need this kind of education."

"Everyone does, even swordsmen. Do you think Kenshin-san woke up one day just learning how to write? If you're family was still alive, you would have been studying Confucius at your age, not learning to write your own name."

"I can write my name! My mother taught me how! Don't you dare say anything bad about her!" Yahiko raged, jumping up to his feet in anger.

With an apology, Dr. Gensai said, "I'm sorry, Yahiko-san if you feel I have insulted your mother."

Yahiko sat down again, his head bowed. "I'm sorry too. About me yelling and stuff."

Dr. Gensai looked at the young boy in front of him. 'How can I reach him?' he thought to himself before an idea struck him. He took out a fresh sheet of paper and laid it before him on the table. Gripping his brush lightly, he began to write, strokes appearing on the paper began to form little pictures. Finally he stopped and watched Yahiko look at his writing.

"Do you know what the kanji of your name means?"

Yahiko shook his head no.

Dr. Gensai smiled and looked at the paper before him. "Do you know why we learn the kanji of our names? It's not for our sake but for the ones who named us. They brought us into the world, cared, nurtured and loved us to the best of their abilities. We hold our names in honor for them, not for us." With his right hand, he gestured to the two kanji. "Ya," he pointed to one of the black markings and then to the other, "hiko. Full of virtue and skill." He looked at Yahiko, noticing the boy's slightly stunned face. "You're parents named you well. Or should I say, that you live up to your name very well." Dr. Gensai watched as Yahiko stared at his name in deep concentration. Smiling, Dr. Gensai got up and bid the boy goodbye.

Yahiko barely noticed that the older man had left him. The idea of honoring his parents by learning his name had never occurred to him. He closed his eyes slowly and let out a deep sigh. He opened his eyes once more and with a steady hand he reached for his abandoned brush. He squinted at the kanji that made up his name before trying his own hand at writing them. 'Full of virtue and skill.' He thought to himself. 'To honor you both, I'll live up to my name.'

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Myou=bright, smart, glowing, famous ...you get the idea

Jin=spirit, mentality, can mean God nowadays :>

Ya= full, filled, full of

Hiko=common ending for a guys name (you can see this word a lot on other Japanese male names), in old days it referred to a person with virtue and skill

" Full of virtue and skill "; surname denotes " bright spirit/bright God "

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Go to http://laine.anime.net/RuroKen/ to read all the different names and their meanings of your favorite characters. This wonderful page is where I got the information above.

Well this was intended for Mir-san's fanfic contest but unfortunately my computer broke down two weeks before the contest ended and I only got it back on a week after the contest ended. Even though I missed the deadline I figured I should just finish it anyway so here is my results. I hope you guys liked it since this is the first time I've written a short story about any of the RK characters. Thanks for reading…^_^