Earlier, after returning and while Yukiko-san went to get the children, I checked the garden. It’s growing well enough, our harvest to help feed us through winter.
I remember her hands. Even though she wasn’t entirely corporeal, I her hands felt warm… and rough. Did she have to work in the dirt as well? Probably. She doesn’t seem like the sort to watch him ruin his sword in the earth, just sitting by. She probably worked just as hard…
I didn’t say the right things to Hajime this morning. Certainly said the wrong things to Ueda-sama. I close my eyes. My instincts just seem… off, lately. I whine about things being hard but I miss every clue to improve it… all while avoiding anything that could have been vaguely unpleasant. And now Hajime lies there in that hospital, with that doctor who brushed off my questions, injecting him with -who- knows what.
Pain… how he must hurt. How brazen I was, to smile and steal kisses, knowing that he’s bleeding – not from that doctor, but -inside-.
I should have told him that he has to be both selves. All of his selves. Not just picking one, the one that’s too soft that I seem to be able to deal with better, or the one that’s too hard that has some attachment to me and this family, but has such a hard shell. And if the man who comes home doesn’t want me here… I look down. I told him I wanted him restored.
Will it always lead back here? One of us chasing after the other? I pick up a leaf from the engawa. Ueda-sama said that I don’t care anymore. I do care. Otherwise… why do I endure? Why did I wait -years- when he disappeared on me, without a word? Waiting those endless nights… maybe I was left alone too long. Maybe in those long nights I re-read all of the *nice* stories and none of the bad, the struggles. I would have known, better, how some words from me only served to hurt him, in ways he hid.
Oh Yaso-san… I close my eyes. I love this man so much, the one you loved so much that you were willing to tell the -worst- lie to to burn the bridges so he’d never look back. I just want to bring him home. Other people here love him, too.
I need to find Eiji-san. I know he’s been through some shocks lately.
(OOC – it’s after dinner and the younger children should be in bed. Hide is sitting on the back engawa, looking out)