Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Life the Saitoh Fujita Way ❯ Against the Odds ( Chapter 19 )

30 Romances Theme: Mission Impossible/Possible

Will the desire of the heart ever become a reality?

Against the Odds

I left Tonami for Edo the year he married her. I could not bear to stay with the Kurasawas while the two of them lived nearby. Seeing them together, not being able to avoid them, would have been more than I could bear at the time. I had already become attracted to him, while he lived in our household that year.

At the time I could not say if the feelings between us were mutual. He is so stoic and masks his emotions so well. But he owed the Kurasawas and the Uenos a lot. They helped him re-establish himself after the war and exile. Looking back, I truly doubt that he needed their help. He is so capable on his own. I shake my head at the thought. He does everything by himself, in his own way. He always has.

He married Yaso, a woman of samurai lineage, because he felt obligated. It was a matter of her inheritance passing to someone else. Her father put it in his will. If she was not married, she would receive nothing, everything passing to his younger brother, her uncle. She needed to be married for a period of time, also, in order to secure the inheritance permanently.

Of course we knew her. She was a neighbor. She stayed with the Uenos, who were the adoptive parents of our sponsor, Kurasawa Hiejieumon, my eventual adoptive father. She had no one left at the time: no father, no brother, no sister and brother-in-law. She would have literally been out on the street, a horrible way for any woman to have to survive. Hajime could not let something like that happen to someone he knew and respected. That is why he agreed to Kurasawa-san's request. At the time I did not know about the obligation he felt for having his life saved by Katamori-sama and Hiejiemon-san.

Yaso and I knew each other, as all neighbors do, but I did not know her well enough to be close to her. I did not want to be, especially after the talk started, especially after the planning started. Hajime is compassionate in his own way. Marrying her and staying with her for almost three years was a way for him to show his gratitude towards the family he lived with. They were my adoptive parents, and it pained me that they did not choose him as a match for me. But they desired him to do a favor for their close family, the Uenos. Maybe they did not think that he was a worthy match for me. The future would show that he was that and much more.

I remember the day I left for Edo, the great pain that had settled in my heart. They had married some months before. I bowed politely to both of them, as was expected when bidding someone farewell. When I moved to stand again, my eyes caught his briefly. I know she did not see the look that I gave him. It was one of unrequited feelings with all of the great sorrow that goes with that.

I only learned after I married him, that he felt as much pain as I. He rarely expresses his feelings in words, but he made a point of telling me that. Usually there is no need for words between us, since his actions speak clearly and louder than any words ever could. How he feels towards me is fully revealed in how he treats me and what he does for me, and our children.

He stayed with her for the time required to permanently secure her future; and then, his duty fulfilled, he came to Edo to marry me. Matsudaira Katamori knew that his marital obligations would soon be completed. Through his sister, Teru-hime, he learned of my feelings for the Third Captain. She was my lady, and I was her secretary for many years before the Boshin War. There were no secrets between the two of us.

I know that she shared my feelings with her brother. I learned later, that Hajime had approached Katamori as well. As the end of his marital obligation drew near, he went to our former Daimyo to ask for his help to arrange a marriage to me. He did not know how lucky he was that I was not taken. After I moved to Edo there were many who approached me to try to win both my heart and my hand. But I never responded to any of them, because of an amber-eyed man, who had stolen my heart years before.

Secretly, I hoped that he might feel the same as I. I knew his obligation to her had a time limit, but I did not know whether it would turn into something more, causing him to stay with her as her husband. I later learned that he did not even fulfill his husbandly duties to her. In his mind he could not afford the risk. He did not want any children to give him a reason to remain with her. He may not have wanted her for his wife, but he would never have allowed any children of his to be in anyone's care but his own.

He is so focused, and once he makes up his mind, nothing can deter him. He made up his mind about me, before he even linked his life with hers, knowing what he intended to do when his time of obligation was completed. If it were not for doing the favor for the Uenos and Kurasawas, I would have been the one he married that day in August 1871.

All of that is behind us now, and has been for years. I only think about it sometimes. I am so thankful that my fate was eventually linked to his. I smile to myself, when I think about how he is never deterred from his goals, regardless of how long it takes.