InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 321

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

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

Chapter 321

InuYasha’s cross-country path down the hill may have avoided running into Miroku or anybody heading to Miroku’s house, but it didn’t necessarily mean he would avoid the people at Daitaro’s place. The path he was on ran directly to a fence on the farmer’s land where some years he kept his cows.  When he reached it, there was only one cow in the field, and no humans.

She lowed at him, but didn’t move in his direction.  

“Same to you, Hoshi,” he muttered.  “Can’t stop to chat now.”  Smiling a little at the silliness, he continued heading down hill.

InuYasha might not have had time to talk with Daitaro’s cows, but it was hard getting off the hill without talking to someone from Daitaro’s family.  In this case, it was Genjo, working near the fence line.  

Genjo spotted him first.  He waved, then leaned on his hoe like it was a walking stick, looking very much like a younger version of Daitaro, he watched as InuYasha came near.

“Been a rough day, eh?” the farmer said as he got in easy earshot.

“Something like that,” the hanyou grumpled, but stopped as he neared where Genjo was working.  

As he watched, Genjo  lifted his hoe and then moved towards the fence, smiling up at his neighbor, as he leaned the hoe and himself against the rail.  Behind him, neatly worked rows, freshly planted with something showed his industry.  Closer to the main house, his wife, carrying their baby on her back, was on her knees working in a vegetable patch that was definitely further along than Kagome’s.  She looked up and smiled, waving a little, but immediately went back to her work.

“For people who had such a big celebration yesterday, and all the crazy that happened last night, your day doesn’t look all that restful, either.  I’m amazed that you aren’t all headachy today yourself,” InuYasha said.

“I guess I just take after my otousan,” Genjo said, chuckling.  “Unlike some folk in this village, I’m not a light weight when it comes to all that.  Even after all those pickles.”

“We did manage to put some away, didn’t we?” InuYasha said.  “I didn’t know I could ever get my fill of pickles...”

“A man after my own heart.” Genjo smiled.  “If only the things that made pickles didn’t take work to get them there.  Look at Mariko.  After all the cooking and pickling and even after last night’s craziness, out in the vegetable patch to make sure there’ll be more things to pickle when it’s time.”

“Is that what she’s doing?” the hanyou asked.  “And is that Aki there working with her?”

“Yes it is, paying off his debt to Otousan.”

Surprisingly to InuYasha, he was working with some enthusiasm, chatting happily with Mariko as he tugged a stubborn weed out of the dirt.  “He’s sure working better than the first time I saw him when Kinjiro put the garden in at our place.”

“Growed up a bit since then,” Genjo said. “There’s hope for him yet.”

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, InuYasha let out a long sigh, and his ears drooped a bit.  This caught Genjo’s attention, and he tilted his head to the side.

“You look like a man who’s not quite sure of where he should be,” Genjo said. “A little lost, perhaps.  I know Kagome-chan was feeling pretty bad when you went up the hill this morning, but when I saw you walking by I figured things had gotten better. Was Kaede-obaasan able to help out?  You aren’t acting like everthing’s all right.”

“Lost?” InuYasha asked.  He frowned a little.  “Not the right word.” Frowning he scuffed the ground with his bare foot, kicking loose a pebble. “Just not sure of what to do with myself, I guess.  We found Kaede-baaba, and she dosed her with something that’s making her sleep.  The old woman said she worked too hard, and needed to take some time off.  Rin came over and Kagome sent me out of the house.  Told me I needed to go do something.”

“She’s probably right. Our women can be good at spotting when we’re getting wound up. My okaasan does that to my otousan, and my wife tries to do it to me.  Or maybe we just make them nervous when they don’t feel good and can’t take care of us.”

“Feh,” the hanyou said, his ear flicking. “Stupid women ought to know we just want them to feel better.”

“We do, but maybe we’re not so good at being the ones to help them get there?” Genjo shrugged.

InuYasha grumbled, but it was too soft for the young farmer to make out.

“Anyway, I could put you do work farming,” Genjo said, “if you just need something to do with yourself.  Bet you’d be a better worker than my brother right now.  I got maybe a half hour of work out of him, then Erime-chan came out to ask Mariko something, and he got all moon-eyed, and followed her back into the house.” He shook his head, more in humor than anything.  “Newlyweds!”

This comment pulled InuYasha out of his grumbles.  He smirked  at the younger man.  “I bet Shinjiro said the same thing about you the day after you got married.  To multiple people.”

This made Genjo laugh.  “I know he did.  Eiji told me all about it, one day about six months later.  Who knows?  Maybe my happiness led to him to take a chance on finding happiness with Erime?  It wasn’t long after that before he started trailing her around.”

“Then you’re at fault for your own lack of help today, aren’t you?” InuYasha said.

Genjo sighed.  “I guess I am, and if I don’t get back to it, Chichi-ue will have my hide when Haha-ue ever lets him get back home.  I’d thought they’d be back in time for lunch, but you know how Chichi-ue likes to talk.”

“Not just him,” Mariko said from the garden.

“Huh,” Genjo said, looking over at his wife.  “I didn’t know you were listening to us.”

“Of course I was,” she said, giving him a cheeky smile.  “If I didn’t, then Okaa would be pestering you for days about what you two men were talking about.  You never remember what’s important to tell us women.”

This made both men laugh.  “Anyway,” Mariko said.  “Don’t be blaming Otou when Okaa is with him.  There are women where she’s going, right?”

“I suspect so,” Genjo said.  

“Then it’s no telling who’s the reason they haven’t gotten back yet. Okaa loves to talk even more than Otou.  But I’m ready for lunch,” Mariko said.  “Erime was fixing it before Shinjiro swept her back off her feet.  I need to see how far she got along. And I bet Aki-kun here is ready to eat, too.”

Aki looked up from where he was tugging on a stubborn weed, rather surprised at Mariko including him.  “Yes, please!”

“Well, I guess that’s my signal to let you go find something else to spend your time on,” Genjo said, “if I can’t interest you in farming.  Nothing quite like using a hoe to get your frustrations out.”

InuYasha though about that briefly and shook his head.“I guess. You don’t want me farming.  I wouldn’t even know where to begin and probably ruin everything. I was thinking of fishing.”

“Probably a good time for it.  I bet the boys are all too afraid of Grandfather Catfish to even try today,” Genjo said.  “Maybe you going fishing will bring them back.”

“Maybe so.” InuYasha began to move away from the fence.

Genjo turned and headed towards his wife, and InuYasha headed to the main road through town.

On the far side of the village, Kazuo no Kami and his two fellow kami watched the small group make small talk with Hiroki and Hana.  “Let’s get this show started the right way, and see if Hitoshi is right about oil, water and flour.”  He tapped his hoe on the roof, and suddenly the humans below him froze.  Tsuneo was caught with his mouth open, laughing at something Daitaro had said.  Hana, beaming at Chime, was shifting a small bundle between one hand and another.  Haname was caught in mid-nod, and Hiroki was arching an eye up coyly at Daitaro, while the old farmer was frozen halfway through a nudge he was giving the young man.

“You and your jumping out of time,” Yoshio-no-kami said.  He frowned at the scene below them. Hitoshi-no-kami and Kazuo-no-kami, on the other hand, floated over the people gathered in front of the house where Chiya was staying.  

“I was just a simple farmer’s spirit when I became a kami,” Kazuo said, floating down from the rooftop.  “I don’t think fast on my feet.  This gives me the time I need.”

“It is easier to plant the ideas in people’s heads this way,” Hitoshi said, nodding at Kazuo, as he drifted down to the ground.  

“It didn’t do us much good with Michio this morning,” Yoshio said, frowning even deeper.

“Oh, you put a bigger crack in his wall than you realized,” Kazuo said.  “But he is noted for being hard-headed.  We’ll work on him some more later.”

“Michio is almost as much into drama as Chiya is,” Hitoshi said, nodding.  “Perhaps that’s why they gravitate to each other.  They’ve been that way since he first started courting her.  That’s one reason, I believe, that Haname never approved the match, even if she doesn’t put it quite into those terms.”

“Could be,” Kazuo said.  “Now who do we start with?”

“I think Tsuneo might suggest it,” Hitoshi said, after looking at his people for a moment.  “And Haname is in a really, really good mood. She should be wide open to the suggestion. This shouldn’t be hard at all.”

“Well, then, shall we?” Kazuo asked.

Hitoshi straightened his rush hat. “More fun than making mochi.”  He tapped Tsuneo with his farm fork, and the magic was begun.



In the center of the village, Koume and Nahoi  walked over to Kimi’s yard, where Kimi was washing clothes.  She had a good assortment of them hanging up on rods and a clothes line stretched between two polls.  They fluttered wetly in the breeze.  Near at hand, but safe from getting splashed, a tired looking Tazu was sitting near the washtub, some sewing in her lap and a basket at her side.  From the construction and wear on the cloth in her lap, it looked like she was mending.

Koume walked over to the girl, and watched her deftly work to close a rip. “So, Granddaughter, what is it today?  Did your brother rip the seams on his kosode again?”

“Yes.”  Tazu blew a stray piece of hair out of her face.  She was not happy with her chore. “And tore the knee in his hakama,” the girl said in a whiny, disapproving voice.  She lifted up the garment she was working on, where she had neatly patched the knee of a pair of boy sized hakama.  “See!  You can count the patches.  It’s not the first time I’ve had to do it!”

Koume chuckled. “Oh, I remember the days where I had to patch my brothers’ things.  It makes you wonder sometimes how they can get into so much clothes trouble.   Maybe if they had to do the spinning and weaving and sewing...”

“And the washing,” Kimi said, wringing out a kosode. “Don’t forget the washing.  All that dirt they manage to find.  They have to go looking for it!”

“I’ve always suspected so,” Koume said, nodding.

Kimi gave her mother a big smile.  “What brings you over here, Haha-ue? And you, too, Nahoi-chan?  I didn’t know when I was going to get to see you again.  You’ve been so busy with Maeme and her boys today.  And with Chichi-ue being made their guardian...”

“So the word’s gotten out already?” Koume asked.

“Well, Hisako-obaasan knew, and once she knows, everybody finds out sooner or later,” Kimi said.  She gave the kosode an extra hard squeeze and watched the water drip back into the tub.  Deciding she had gotten all she could out of it, she reached for a rod to hang it up with.

“For being so old and needing a stick to get around, she does get the word out,” Nahoi said.

“She just goes to the well and talks to everybody who comes to get water.  And they tell everybody else.  You’ve seen how she’ll go there with her sewing and her otou’s sake bottle and just watch and talk,”  Kimi said.

“If she didn’t, he’d find it.  And you know how Kaede doesn’t want him to drink too much,” Nahoi said.

“Maybe that’s why she does it,” Koume said, but there was doubt in her voice.  “I think she’s trying to get him to walk into town.  He’s a bad as gossip as she is.”

“But he’s so rude!  All the women leave when he shows up,” Nahoi replied.  Her look of confusion made it clear she didn’t understand the fine point of the game that Hisako and her father played with each other.

“It doesn’t matter if he chases them all off, daughter.  It’s that he walks to the well and gets some exercise.  And the men who show up will talk with him, usually about all the women who’ve walked off,” Kimi explained.

“If you say so,” Nahoi replied, shaking her head.