Revealed – Chapter 9

Sakai rolls the red wine in his glass, watching the way the blood red liquid clings to the inside before snaking back down to the pool again. Silence descends over the table between him and Lucy, her knife and fork no longer clinking against the plate.

“What’s going on, Mark? You’ve been quiet since you came back from Ku 8 today.”

He had planned the trip for months, wanted to show Sanaa more of the colonization preparations she was unfamiliar with. Her knowledge will need to be wide-reaching for this to work. Not only will she need to deal with the politics but also the non-Japanese population and the scientists.

He hadn’t anticipated her reactions to the labs, the way she slipped in and out of the scientists on instinct. She belongs in the labs, not cooped up in Ku 1 everyday. She is tired and lost, dark circles forming under her eyes. She doesn’t see her friends anymore. Every night she either works even more on the data he gives her at a local restaurant or goes straight home.

“I wish you’d let me cook for you,” he says, ignoring her question. “You know how much I love working in the kitchen.” He sets his glass down on the table and stares at his empty plate. He doesn’t even remember eating.

“We’re both busy people. If Maia didn’t cook for us, we’d starve. Besides, you love her cooking.” She points her fork across the table at his empty plate. “Don’t change the subject on me.”

Sakai sighs and leans back in his chair, rubbing his face with his hands, but not saying anything.

“We haven’t talked about it, and we should. I let you handle all of the Sanaa plans because you have a history with her family. But you’ve deviated so far from the plan, we need to address it now.”

A spear to the chest. Lucy is right. She let him take care of everything, and he blew every single opportunity to tell Sanaa about her birthright and heritage. He was going to do it today after Ku 8. He was going to take her back to Ku 1 and tell her everything, and he couldn’t.

“She continues to defy all of my expectations. We took the tour of the artifacts and the labs, and she was so excited by all the work, just like a little kid. She even pulled at my arm and begged me to stop and examine an Egyptian sarcophagus.”

He smiles and shakes his head at the memory.

“But it was the zoo…” His voice cracks and breaks, and he clears his throat as Lucy sets down her wine glass and folds her hands, resting her chin on them. “The zoo. She stopped and touched or talked to every animal, and I swear each one of them listened. It was amazing and eerie to watch each head turn and stare after her. Some of them even seemed… disappointed she couldn’t stay any longer. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He picks his wine glass back up again and sips. “When we were done, Sanaa was so determined to help preserve what’s left of Earth, my heart just wasn’t in it anymore, and I let her go home.”

“We talked about this. This was the last possible day to do this. Tomorrow she starts training with Jiro and Koichi. She was supposed to go into the dōjō knowing how important it was to defend her own life. She was supposed to know her heritage so Jiro wouldn’t get in the way…”

“She’s forgotten about him. I haven’t given her any time to do anything but work.”

“But you’re throwing them together in the dōjō tomorrow. What do you think is going to happen?”

Sakai pinches the bridge of his nose and takes another deep breath. “I have Koichi handling Jiro now. He listens to his father even if he doesn’t listen to me. It’s quite likely something will happen. It’s also likely something will not. They don’t know each other at all. Maybe they’re not compatible. I certainly wasn’t compatible with her mother.”

Lucy pushes back from the table and comes straight over to him. There are days when Sakai still doesn’t believe the relationship he has with her. He sees her in official photos or on the news and she seems so unattainable, but then she’s standing over him like she is now, her fingers grazing his temples, and he could easily pull her onto his lap and kiss her. She chose to be with him.

“Tell me.” She issues a soft-spoken command, one he’s unable to avoid or ignore. She picks up the bottle of red wine and fills both their glasses before pulling her chair around the table next to him.

“Sanaa’s mother, Junko, and I grew up in the same neighborhood, but we never spent any time together until we were in our late teens. Her parents home-schooled her and kept her secluded from the education system because everyone at the time knew who she was and what her role was going to be…”

“Not everyone,” Lucy says with a smile.

“Well, everyone in Ku 6 and your predecessor. Sorry.” He smiles, trying to inject a little humor into an otherwise unfunny situation. “She and Mariko were good friends — one of the few she had — and when Mariko became interested in Koichi, Junko and I came along for the ride. We were always at each other, joking or poking fun or arguing. She was my friend first before anything else happened between us. But then it did. We were drunk and being stupid and before I knew it, we had slept together. I wasn’t her first and she wasn’t mine, but it was addictive to meet in secret and not tell other people.”

Lucy raises her eyebrows at him, and he laughs. “Wow, I never thought about how our relationship is similar that way.”

“It’s okay. Someday.” These are the moments Sakai lives for, the promise of normality somewhere down the line.

“See? That’s what’s different. For Junko, there never was a ‘someday.’ She didn’t want to be with me indefinitely because she knew… Oh gods, she knew how important she was. For her to align herself with Sakai Clan would be an insult to her heritage. She was always on the lookout for someone better, someone with a bigger pedigree, and she shopped herself around between Minamoto, Maeda, and Taira.”

“Are you joking?” Lucy’s eyes are wide in disbelief.

“She wasn’t sleeping with everyone. Just brokering deals like an arranged marriage, or in her case, an arranged consort. She did sleep with Tadao Matsuda and one of Minamoto’s cousins. It was enraging because she kept coming back to me, and I was powerless to resist her. Then Matsuda tried to kill her once on behalf of Miura and it shocked her. Shocked us all. I’ll never forget the way Mariko yelled at him. He’d had a crush on both Mariko and Junko. We all sound like a pack of hormonal teenagers.”

“Someday, I’ll tell you about my past, and I think you’ll find this a common theme.”

“Skipping to the end, Junko was afraid and paranoid after that and decided if the big clans couldn’t behave she’d choose none of them. She partnered with Max but…”

“You stayed together?”

Sakai swallows, but he should tell the truth. “It was complicated.”

“I can see that.”

“Even when she was with Max and pregnant, I still came to her and her to me. Sorry, Lucy. I was a complete ass. I haven’t even told you about Charlotte, whom I cheated on, with Junko.”

He stops, silent and watching his wine glass instead of his lover. He’s never confessed to anyone about what happened in his past. At least, he’s never been this honest about it, though he’s leaving a lot out.

Lucy leans over and touches his cheek lightly, showing him the tears she pulls away on her fingertips. Sakai doesn’t cry. He didn’t even realize he was crying. She rubs her fingers together and takes a sip of wine, thinking and not looking at him.

“Should I go?” he asks. Now would be the time to kick him out. He seduced a pregnant woman, and she ended up dead. Her partner and sister-in-law, too. The whole situation was buried far in the past, but a hard-nosed journalist could dig up that information should his relationship with Lucy ever be discovered.

“Go? No. Definitely not. Why would you think I’d kick you out? Because of this?”

“I’m a cheater, a horrible person.”

“You may have been those things, though I would debate that, even if you were unfaithful, it sounds like you were kind and loving. But now? No. I get the feeling you know the price of privacy and have learned hard lessons over the years about who to trust, much like me.” She smiles at him, and his mind races. Lucy has a sordid past too, he’s sure of it.

She’s silent again, but relaxed in her chair, her head cocked and chewing on her bottom lip which means she’s deep in her thoughts. Not the kind of logical step-by-step thinking she does in meetings, but the soul-searching she does when subjects are truly personal.

“We’ve been together now for two years. I always knew you had the relationship with Junko and the one with Charlotte. It’s in the past.” Rising from her chair, she motions for him to move from the table, so he pushes back and she sits on his lap.

“I’m not sending you away. I want to be with you. It doesn’t change anything.” He closes his eyes and rests his head against her chest as she squeezes him tight. “But…”

But? Sakai’s body tenses.

“This does bring into focus what’s going on with you, with Jiro, and with Sanaa. You need to decide what’s important here. Is it that Sanaa should choose an appropriate consort of high status?”

“There are several options I can think of.”

“Or is love any part of this equation? Because listening to your story, it seems that Junko tried to do what was right for the lineage but was ultimately unhappy because she wasn’t in love.”

Sakai nods. He’s always struggled with this. It’s one of the many reasons, besides his own cowardice, he hasn’t revealed anything to Sanaa yet.

“And maybe, just maybe, you should consider the fact that your clan is the best match for her. She needs to remain impartial as Sakai clan always has, even if it’s not one of the noble families.”

Sakai rolls his eyes, and she smirks at him. Lucy is rarely shown disrespect.

“Even if I believed that, the others wouldn’t. Aligning with Sakai Clan would mean certain death for her.”

Leaning in to press her cheek against his, she whispers, “I see your point.” With a light kiss, she pulls back and checks the wine bottle. Still a little left.

“I think we go on as planned,” Lucy says, pouring the rest of the wine in their glasses. “She learns to defend herself with a sword under Koichi and Jiro’s guidance. We’ve told Jiro to keep her at arms’ length, but we can’t interfere any further. I mean it. If they hit it off, you have to let them be. And another thing, no more plans to tell her about her family. The timing is never good. You tell her when the moment is right.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He spent years, decades, getting ready for this, and yet, handing over big decisions to Lucy has been so easy, a relief. She’s somewhat detached from the situation even though she’s spent many hours going over Sanaa’s records and watching the video of her in Ku 1 that Sakai provided.

“Now, let’s go and finish drinking our wine… in bed.” She picks up her glass and smiles seductively over the rim at him. His heart soars. “Last one there has to take off all their clothes.”

Sakai watches her happily lead the way. This is a race he’s willing to lose.

—-

After spending all morning with the Takahashis going over their sword carrying permits and planning two spring festivals, Jiro and Koichi arrive at the dōjō in time for a quick lunch. They pick up dumplings and noodles from the vendor two blocks away and eat at the table in the back surveillance room while their staff member goes out for lunch.

Jiro was out with Usagi until way past midnight last night and his morning tea did nothing to combat the fatigue. Maybe once lunch is over, he can rest on the cot here and take a nap before his usual workout.

Both father and son inhale their meals, barely stopping to breathe, but Jiro catches Koichi glancing at the clock. One thirty PM.

“Are you expecting someone?” Jiro asks. “I wanted to talk to you about this, but the Takahashis took up the whole morning. I’d like to change the schedule so Usagi and I can workout together in the afternoons. It’s just not as much fun fighting alone especially since Yoichi doesn’t come anymore.”

Koichi wipes his face and leans back in his chair, rubbing his belly and letting the dumplings expand.

“You won’t be fighting alone.”

Jiro pauses bringing his chopsticks up. “Really? Well, if not Usagi or Yoichi, who? You? Oh gods, not Kentaro… You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

Koichi’s smiles before he shakes his head. “No, not Kentaro. You’d probably kill him. You’re going to be training someone new again. I promise it won’t be as much of a disaster as Eriko was. This one is required to stick around.”

“Training? Again? But, what about my work? I don’t want to train people for a living.” Teaching would be a completely miserable job for someone like Jiro, and his previous attempt ended when Eriko ran out of the dōjō embarrassed and upset. He was hard on her on purpose but hadn’t expected such an explosive reaction. Jiro’s sure now she had liked him a lot more than she let on.

“It’s…” Koichi’s eyes squint, and he shakes his head side to side. “It’s complicated. I don’t know how long this job will last, but you will still have mornings to work.”

Jiro sighs and pushes his lunch away. He ate most of the noodles, but now his appetite is gone. His life is already complicated with rules and boundaries he didn’t set. This doesn’t sound like an improvement.

“Okay, fine. I don’t want to, but I know I have no choice,” he says, resignedly.

“Hey, Jiro, come on. Business is business, and I’ve given you a lot of freedom even after what happened…”

“Not Sakai!”

Koichi sighs. “I know. But I’ve made a deal with him, and what goes on here at the dōjō is my business, not his.”

Beep-beep-beep! The front door chimes ring through the room, indicating someone is entering the building, and Jiro’s head swivels over to the monitors to see who’s come in.

“Now Jiro… Let me explain.”

Jiro’s heart races in his chest. Sakai is ascending the stairs with a girl in tow.

But not just any girl.

With her hair tucked behind her ears and her eyes searching every shadow around her, Sanaa’s face comes into focus on the second landing. Jiro’s hand snaps out to the monitor to change the camera direction. She’s nervous, biting at her lip, and his breathing stops. During their last meeting, she flirted with him, and it was written all over her face that she liked him. Now he sees fear and apprehension.

“You’re not serious, are you?” A rash mixture of disbelief and elation color his vision. “Sanaa. You want me to train her?”

When he looks up at his father, Koichi has his arms crossed.

“You remember what Mark said, right?” He clears his throat as Jiro’s face falls. “She’s off-limits. You are to train her and nothing else.”

“But…” Jiro turns back to the monitor, and they’re at the third floor landing now. Right outside.

“I’m sorry. I know you liked her, but you’ll have to put that aside. You’re her teacher now. Be kind to her. Don’t let me catch you being mean.”

“Father!” How could he even think of it?

“I want you to be demanding, though. Throw her to the mats and see if she can fight. It’s important she learns, and you’ll be here with her every afternoon from now on. Make it work.”

Koichi’s tone leaves no room for arguments, and Jiro is speechless as his father walks to the door. On the other side is the main dōjō and their new guests.

He asked the gods for this girl’s love and then honestly thought he’d never see her again. Ideas race through his head as he tries to come up with ways to train but not alienate her. It’s not possible. He can’t do it. When he trains, it’s all or nothing. There will be no relationship but teacher and student. This is a disaster.

“Jiro?” His father’s voice breaks through and startles him back to attention. “Pull it together. It’s time to get started.” He smiles, a hint of evil gracing his eyes. “You go first.”