That little beggar

 Tatsuya didn't react at first so I thought he hadn't heard me.

Then his attention slapped the side of my face and I turned to him, reading part of the answer in his strained breathing and the way his eyes stayed wide even as his gaze floundered.

“More than –?” He hardly seemed able to get his own question out.

“Or was it like a one sided thing?” I sat down on the second to last step leading to Uchi's house and watched Washi calm the drion down, stroking its scales and speaking close to its face, whilst Kohaku checked the underside of the white and grey wagon. “If so, sorry about that.”

“I'm –” Tatsuya stopped and drew in a fortifying breath before he sat down beside me. “– your friend.”

“Okay, so it wasn't a two way thing?” I nodded.

His embarrassment scorched the left side of my face and chest too. Though I wanted to get a better picture of Shizuka's life, I had no desire to cruel about it.

“I don't know,” he said quietly, hiding behind the hand he propped up on his knee. “I never had the chance to find out before –”

“Oh,” I replied, muting my own tone. “That – must have been frustrating.”

His silence was loud.

“If I remember anything, I'll let you know,” I said.

The offer was bound to be a poor form of compensation but it was all I had. If he was telling the truth – and the pain radiating from his semi curled up figure made me think he was – it meant he had been harbouring an unrequited and unexpressed love for Shizuka for the last ten years. That was a special kind of torture that I could almost understand in a familial form.

That being said, I had no idea whether he had been alone throughout that decade or whether he had been able to get over the woman who died before he could confess. The way he had rushed to meet me at Aoto's, the intense tenderness of his embrace, and the speed in which he had transformed into a dragon to save me all hinted that his feelings were far from gone and that he hadn't found anyone else to occupy his heart.

But I couldn't forget how familiar Toshi had been around him and the yearning in her eyes whenever she looked at him. Ten years was as long a time to spend with someone as it was to spend without them, and the other woman was attractive enough. She had been here to fill in the space Shizuka had left behind and god only knew how well she had managed to do just that. The thought prompted another memory without warning and I was hurled back into Shizuka's past like a leaf in a hurricane.

“Shizu?” The urgency in Tatsuya's voice snatched my focus from Uchi's book of rare herbs and I marked my page with a finger as I stood up.

“Tatsu?” I emerged from the back of the shop and nearly walked straight into him. “What's wrong?”

“I tried to talk to him,” he said, his agitated eyes slowly steadying as they connected repeatedly with mine. “Like you do but –”

“Tried talking to who?” A movement behind him nearly made me pull him towards me but the child standing at his side flinched as my hand neared her head. “Who's this?”

“Her name's Toshiko,” said Tatsu. His words tumbled out so much faster when he was nervous and normally it was amusing. Now it was a relief. “She hasn't done anything but he keeps hurting her.”

I withdrew my hand and crouched down to get a better look at the little girl holding on the back of his clothes with one hand, her jet-black stare fixed on my face even as she trembled uncontrollably.

“Someone hurt you?” I asked her softly.

She hid her face against his waist for a second, then peeked at me before nodding.

“Who?”

The evidence marred her throat and thin arms in patches of red and purple. Long periods of wakefulness had bruised the sensitive skin around her eyes and the corners of her mouth curved downwards as if tiny anchors had been attached to them. Slivers of pale skin peeked through small slits in her light brown tunic and frayed thread dangled from its hem. The lower legs of her trousers had been torn off at knee height, revealing legs that were as thin as her arms and covered in grime. A completely different picture from the well dressed, round faced boy who had brought her here.

Before she could answer me, a loud shout made us all jolt on the spot.

“Where is she?” roared a man just outside the shop. “Where did that little beggar run off to?”

Toshiko whimpered and held onto Tatsuya with both hands, eyes still wide open even as she pushed her forehead against his side. He placed a hand on her back but terror rattled his own expression as he looked at me.

“Who is he?” I asked as a shadow darkened beneath the curtain that hung in the doorway of Uchi's shop.

“Her father, I think,” he said breathlessly.

I stepped around him just as a muscular arm shoved the fabric aside and a man with straw-coloured hair twisted up into a bun atop his head pushed his way into the shop.

“There you are,” he growled, stopping as I barred his way with my right arm. “Get out of the way, brat.”

“You seem angry,” I said, sidestepping when it looked like he would barge past and grab the quivering children who moved in sync to stay hidden behind me. “Can I ask why?”

“Isn't it obvious?” he said, looking at me now instead of them, and his rage might have been powerful enough to force my gaze aside but that would have encouraged his current behaviour. “That little wretch keeps running off, no matter how many times I teach her not to.”

“What's she running from?” I asked, showing him my empty palms and shaking my head. “She seems really scared.”

“She should be,” he said. “I don't have time to waste telling her the same thing over and over again. I'm a busy man and she's costing me a lot of money.”

“Money?” I wished I didn't have an idea about what he could mean but life in Outer Town had shown me things I would never have been ready to see, no matter how old I was. “Has she stolen money from you? If so, she should just give it back –”

“All she has to do is do whatever she's told.” He took several steps closer, looming over us. “It's as simple as that.”

Tatsuya's fingers latched onto the back of my kimono and I realised I should have signalled to him so he could lead the child away. Sweat warmed my skin but my palms heated up in a different way. I lowered them before he could noticed and tracked the movement of his rib cage, the bottom of which was well within my reach. His protruding stomach helped outline it better than I could have hoped, even through the thick fabric of his sleeveless shirt, and his right hand moved more animatedly than his left.

“Do you need money, sir?” I asked, half focused on the middle left quadrant of his abdomen, half distracted by the movement of the curtain beyond the top of his head.

“I need you to stop wasting my time and get out of the way,” he snapped, raising his open palm.

The movement was aggressive, smooth, clearly second nature. Tatsuya started to pull me back. A smaller hand twisted into the other side of my kimono, lower down than his, and Toshiko's gasp sounded like it had been squashed against a wall. I braced myself but, before her father could bring his hand down, someone caught it with their own.

“This might be a bad time but I can't let you hit that healer,” said a tall youth with a cheerful face that barely matched the sturdiness of his frame.

“What?” The older man tried to pull himself free of the other's grip but he gave up quickly, his face growing red and blotchy. “Get your hands off me.”

“I heard she's one of the best medical psychic warriors in the land,” said the newcomer, pulling his arm down and using it to draw Toshiko's father closer to him. “And I'd like her to help my sister.”

“I don't give a damn about your sister –” A lean finger pressed against his mouth, cutting his words off.

“Well, I do,” replied the dark skinned stranger, sliding into the space between him and us. “Very much.”

I couldn't see his face from this angle but the change in his tone was likely a reflection of his expression. He let go of the older man and straightened his deep blue silk jacket.

“Now, did I hear that right? Do you need money, kind sir?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. I nodded and he winked. “If so, I think I have a solution all of us will like. Would you like to hear it?”