InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 104

I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi


Chapter 103



As InuYasha and Kagome drew near their little house, almost reaching the verandah, the hanyou suddenly stopped, his ears focused intensely forward.  He started to growl, but caught himself and stopped.  

“Kuso,” he said.  “Here, now?  Just when I thought...”

“What is it, InuYasha?” Kagome said.  She looked around but didn’t see or sense anything.  

“Damn it boy,” said a voice from behind the house. It was loud and irritated and sounded like it belonged to Kinjiro. “Don’t hold it that way. Didn’t your otousan ever teach you how to handle a shovel?”

“I can’t believe it,” InuYasha said, slamming one fist into his other hand. “We’re never getting away from that brat, are we?”

“But it hurts,” Aki’s voice sobbed. “My back hurts, my hands hurt.”

Kagome sighed, and rested a comforting hand on her husband’s shoulder. “I guess Kinjiro was serious about wanting to get right to work.”  

A series of complaints both from the boy and the man colored the air as Kagome lifted the door mat, about to step in.

“Doesn’t sound like Aki’s taking to being told what to do very well,” Kagome said, frowning at the stream of talk.

“Feh.” InuYasha scowled. “I’m not surprised. As tough as he is, I wonder if Kinjiro bit off more than he could chew. That brat is full of resentment. Damn hard to make someone do something if they really don’t want to.”

She dropped the doormat, and nodded, stepping a little closer to her husband. “Maybe Kaede should make him a Kotodama necklace,” Kagome said, tugging on InuYasha’s beads. “It worked on you.”

“Hey,” the hanyou said, prying her hand off the strand of beads. “Don’t put me in the same group as that boy. I wasn’t that bad, even when I was being really stupid.”

She gave him a smile and a quick kiss on his cheek. “Nope, you never were, really. Maybe at first. You did come after me like you were the bad guy, you know.”

He gave a little sigh, and got a funny look on his face. “Hey, you get shot with an arrow, sealed to a tree for fifty years, and then suddenly woken up by a beautiful girl who pulls your hair, see how clear you can think...” He kissed Kagome’s forehead. “Between that and being thrown into everything that happened right afterwards, I’m surprised Kaede didn’t turn around and reseal me on the spot,” InuYasha said, pulling her closer for a real, if brief kiss.

“You have a point,” Kagome said, pulling away enough to look up at him. “But Aki doesn’t have that excuse.”

InuYasha let Kagome loose and nodded. “I guess we can’t complain too much. Sooner he gets done here, the sooner he goes somewhere else.”

“You’re right,” she said, giving him a small approving smile. “Give me the stew. I’ll heat it back up. If you’re really hungry, I can give you an onigiri right now to hold you until the stew reheats.”

InuYasha looked toward the side of his house as they heard Aki complain. “I can wait. I’d rather eat the rice with the stew. I’ll go work on the tree while you’re doing that.” He turned back to her and handed her the pot. “Pickles?”

“Of course, silly man. Have I ever forgot the pickles? I still have some of the pickles that Sayo-sama sent over. Or we have some of Chime’s.”

“Those are good,” InuYasha said. He grinned. “Make sure there’s enough.”

“I better, if I want any to eat myself.” Smiling, she walked into the house.

InuYasha lifted up the doormat to let her go in, and as the mat door rattled behind her, he walked over to the side of the house where his woodpile stood. The logs that had been knocked down off the stack by Daitaro’s cow were now back in place, and the pieces waiting to be split rested in a semi-contained pile. He took off his jacket, folded it and put it on the stacked wood and picked up his axe. Ignoring the wood that was waiting to be split, he headed further away from the house, toward the tree he had been limbing so it could be used for boards. It had a better view of the garden and the back of the house, and he was curious.

Stepping on the base of the trunk, he walked down the length of the half-limbed tree. The top of the tree pointed in the right direction, which made his efforts at least feel a little less like spying. Looking up, he got a glimpse of Kinjiro checking Aki’s hands.

“Why are you getting these blisters?” the farmer asked the unhappy boy.  

Aki held his head down and shrugged.  

Kinjiro took his water container, unstoppered it, and poured liquid over the boy’s right hand.

“Ow!” Aki said, trying to jerk away. “That stings!”

“You want me to help or not?” the farmer said. “I’m not the one with broken blisters.”

Aki kept quiet while the man tied strips of cloth across his palm.

“If you had been working like a boy your age ought to,” Kinjiro said, scowling at the boy, “instead of pulling pranks on people like Daitaro-sama, you’d have callouses on those hands of yours already, or know how to do the right things to save your hands from blisters.”

“But...” the boy said. His eyes were wet, but at least he wasn’t crying at the moment.

“Just get to work, boy.” Kinjiro picked up his hoe and went back to what he was doing.

“Kinjiro must have gotten some work out of him already,” InuYasha muttered, looking at the two of them.  

The boy had a big dirt smear across one cheek and his feet and knees were already mud stained. The farmer, with one more glance at Aki, began working on restoring the garden bed. For a moment, Aki watched Kinjiro work as he picked up and leaned against a shovel that was almost too big for him to handle. From his place on the tree trunk, InuYasha wondered how Kinjiro was daring to let him work without tying him to a tree or his cart, but then he noticed that there was a rope tied to each of the boy’s ankles, the length long enough to walk with, but that would keep him from running.

Kinjiro pointed and barked an order, and reluctantly, Aki lifted the shovel and shuffled to where he was told to go. As Aki began shoveling something into the wheelbarrow, InuYasha turned his back on the two and began to examine the tree to find the best place to start working himself. Choosing his target, he let the axe fly.

Two hits of the blade later, a large branch he freed rattled to the ground. As he moved to pull it free from the other branches, he heard a yelp from the boy.

“Kinjiro-sama! Look!” Aki said, pointing towards him.

“What?” the farmer asked from where he was bent over a row he had been hilling. He looked up and saw InuYasha dragging the branch to the pile of cut limbs.

“That mo...InuYasha-sama is here.” Aki dropped his shovel. His voice wavered between angry and frightened. “You’re not going to let him get me, are you? I still can’t believe he let me go at Tameo-sama’s.”

“Of course he’s here. He lives here, you know that,” Kinjiro said. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been up here. Why are you surprised to see him?”

Aki wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “I’m...I’m not surprised.”

Kinjiro frowned at him. “Then don’t act like a baka. I helped him cut those trees so he could make boards, and he’s finishing up the job. You didn’t think you would see him? He has work to do, just like the rest of us.” He lived up his hoe. “Get back to work.”

Sighing, Aki nodded, and grabbing his shovel, he lifted part of a cow patty, still not very dry and attracting a few early flies, and tossed it into the cart.

For some reason, InuYasha grinned as Kinjiro used him as an example of someone who had work to do. “Somebody appreciates what I do,” he said. “I think I could get used to that.”

The hanyou moved to another place on the tree, and chopped through another branch, hearing the wood creak against the other branches as it loosened. It was too thick for the axe to bite through in one or even two blows. Leaping to the ground, he lifted it up slightly, and rolled another piece under it for support, and struck it again, twice. It gave way with a satisfying crunch. Grabbing the branch, he untangled it from its neighbors and added it, too, to the pile.

Aki paused before lifting another shovelful. He looked at InuYasha toss the wood onto the other branches. “Work?” he said, knitting his brows together. “He did all of that himself? I never thought youkai or warriors did stuff like that. Isao’s otousan always said that he was going away to be a soldier cause farming wasn’t worth the sweat. I thought only farmers had to work hard.”

“Yes, work. He has to make a living, too.” Kinjiro said. He walked down one of the rows of the garden, and plucked a weed coming up. “Only farmers work? That’s a laugh. He might not grow rice, but he has a lot he does, too.”

“But he’s a youkai!” the boy said. “I know people who aren’t farmers make other things. But a youkai doesn’t make things.”

“The manure’s not going to shovel itself into the cart, boy,” Kinjiro said. He reached into the pouch draped around his chest and took out a packet of seeds, and knelt down to put some in the ground. “The sooner you get it up, the sooner we can go down the hill and see what Matsume has for lunch. But don’t be stupid. Even people with youkai blood have to eat, and like us, they need a place to live, and fire, and clothes to wear. How did you think they got it?”

“Magic?” Aki said, shoveling up more of the manure. “Ghosts don’t need fire.”

“The magic of sweat,” Kinjiro said. He stopped at a section that had been well trampled and squatted down. “Right in the middle of the early daikon,” he said, shaking his head. The farmer stood up, walked over to his tools, and picked up a rake. “Even magic takes effort. Even ghosts have to eat. Why do we offer food to the ancestors and kami, eh? Ghosts might not have to work with a shovel, but a hungry ghost will terrorize people. You could even say that’s a type of work. The ghost does it until people do what it takes to feed it. ”

Aki looked thoughtfully at the farmer. “I thought magic just happened.”

“It might look like that to you or me, but it’s just another type of work. Nothing just happens,” Kinjiro said, raking up the trampled area. “It takes doing, and doing is work. The yamabushi and sages and monks study hard, work hard, live hard to get their powers. From what I hear, some of their studies make farming look easy. How would you like to have to stand outside every day during the winter and pour ice cold water over your head several times a day?”

“They do that?” Aki asked, wide-eyed.

“Some of’em. And other hard, nasty things, like go days without anything to eat. Magic users do all sorts of weird stuff. Then there are artisans - woodcarvers, stone workers, potters. They all work hard. Look at all the women in the village who work in the fields and then go home and work at their looms to have something to sell on market day. I know your obaasan does that.”

Aki nodded. “But...”

Kinjiro ignored his interruption. “You ever go by with Fumio-sama’s working?”

“Sometimes,” Aki said. “He doesn’t like the boys hanging around.”

“I can understand that. Smiths bend over fire hammering away in the heat.” Kinjiro bent down over another section and added a few more seeds. “And Fumio just works on farm tools. Swordsmiths and the men who make other things work even harder at it. Silkworkers raise worms and stand up for hours to reel off the silk. Merchants have to worry about guilds trying to keep them away, and bandits stealing what they have to sell, and daimyo charging fees and all that traveling to sell their stuff.”

He stood up, and dusted his hands a minute. “You said Katsume-sama went to be a soldier because they don’t work hard. He was wrong.”

Aki pitched a little more into the cart, then put down his shovel. “Wrong?”

“Soldiers have to practice all the time, with swords and spears and arrows, until their arms are ready to fall off,” Kinjiro said. “I’ve seen Susumu come home so tired he could barely lift his chopsticks. And then when they do fight, they put their lives on the line. It’s all work.” He looked at the boy. “Which you obviously aren’t doing. How are you going to ever get that manure in the cart if you don’t shovel? No more questions until it’s done.”

Aki began shoveling again.

InuYasha snorted. “Magic, eh? So things I want just happen, eh? No magic I have can build a shed,” and flashing his axe once more, he culled another branch. Ignoring the two working on the garden, he continued with his own work until Kagome stepped out on the porch and called him in to eat.