Walk

The two paused after their exchange. The soldier didn’t speak; instead he filled a tankard with water from a pump nearby and passed it to Hideo. They both sipped from their tankards and reassumed their positions.

Now there were about seven spectators watching. One had his eyes boggling softly. Another stood by the door with his arms crossed, his tail swinging. Another had his eyes squinted and his ears pointed upwards.

The soldier looked at Hideo’s face, then at his unfitting clothes.

“A rat should be in those clothes,” he thought.

He looked at Hideo’s sword, then at the grip on it.

Then he looked back at Hideo, focusing on the beads of sweat running from his head, the sun bouncing off his blonde hair, igniting the brown in his eyes into an astonishing honey-gold.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Hideo.”

“How come you’re wearing those clothes?”

“What clothes?” Hideo said.

The soldier just stared for a moment, “Those are rat clothes,” he said.

“I’ve had these my whole life!”

“Where were you born?” he scoffed.

“Here,” Hideo said sternly.

The soldier then looked at Hideo, this time in his eyes; seeing that he could not see him as a rat. It wasn’t a choice of Hideo’s, but a truth. The soldier kept looking him in the eyes, but he couldn’t see a human anymore.

The soldier raised his sword.

“Ready?”

Hideo looked the soldier in the eye, piercing his resolve.

準備

“Ready.”

They inched closer.

The spectators’ heads moved in.

Whiskers tightened.

Mouths hung open.

Snouts twitched.

The two clashed again, Hideo assuming the same style as before. This time, the soldier watched Hideo’s feet.

Hurriedly, the soldier tried to change his stiff footwork to unmatch himself from Hideo’s patchwork silhouetting. The soldier started to squeak and struggle again, being pushed back.

He rebuked, pushing forward. They danced between each other. Hideo skipped over tail sweeps. The soldier blocked haymakers. Hideo jumped.

The soldier’s tail flew out to clip his feet and disturb his balance.

But Hideo’s feet weren’t there.

Hideo reappeared in the soldier’s peripheral vision, halfway through a somersault, and slammed the wooden sword down.

THWACK~

“HIDEOOO!!!” a voice boomed from the back of the tavern, cutting through the silence.

Hideo jumped and smiled meekly.

“That’d be my mom,” he sighed.

Hideo’s mother stomped between the soldiers, pushing them aside.

“WHY DID YOU HIT THAT MAN?!” she screamed.

“What… no, we were just spa—”

“Sparring?! Sparring my ass! Apologise to him right now!”

Hideo turned around to apologise. But before he could complete the turn, the soldier was already standing back and scratching his growing, throbbing, bump on the top of his head.

“H-how did you do that?” he said.

“Do what?” Hideo answered.

“You dodged my tail… midair.”

“Well, I couldn’t just leave my feet hanging there, could I?” Hideo laughed.

The soldier stood there, still as a rock.

“This kid is actually stupid,” he thought.

“Anyway, I need to apo—” Hideo muttered.

“No. Sanae, he’s not lying. We were sparring,” the soldier told Hideo’s mother.

Her whiskers tightened, and her eyebrows furrowed. She looked down at Hideo and picked him up.

“We are going to talk about this when we get home.”

She walked away while holding Hideo over her shoulder.

He smiled as he was carried away.

The spectators all watched, stunned. Not because he had just been picked up, but because they had all witnessed the same impossible manoeuvre.

No one stopped her.

No one laughed.

“I need another drink,” the soldier’s friend said, cutting through the silence.

“I need to buy him a drink,” the rat said.