A Brand New Life

Dawn was breaking over the village of Kosui. It was in that stillness between the ending of night and the beginning of day that a small figure opened the door and walked out, closing the door quietly behind her. If anyone would have been awake, they would know instantly who it was. She was often out and about this early in the morning, sneaking out of the house like a thief. She had to. If she was caught, well, she just wasn’t up for that this morning.

Spring was finally coming and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, falling all around her softly like snow. She made her way to the lake, picking her path with care. Last time she stubbed her toe on a partially hidden rock and she walked funny for days. He gave her another lecture about wearing shoes but she loved the soft feel of the grass and the warmth of the sand between her toes.

There it was! Her favorite place to sit and plan her day while she caught fish for dinner. She placed her rod and fishing supplies on the big rock that she claimed as hers. The lake was calm this morning, no breeze to mar the smooth blue surface. She watched the first faint rays of light touch the surface. She put a worm on the hook and cast off, letting her mind start to wander. She had much on her mind. The business wasn’t doing as well as it had in the past and she was worried. The village was getting larger and since the elders decided to move the center of town a half mile away, they didn’t live near the center of town anymore, many people started going to other stores closer to their houses.

She lived with her grandfather for these past four years, her parents having been killed when the minus wave swept the earth. Daisuke, her grandfather, took her in with loving arms. She smiled as she thought of him. He was really a character. He only came up to her shoulders but his eyes still sparkled with life and warmth. Heavily wrinkled from too many years in the sun, but with a perpetual grin on his face. He shuffled around the house these days from joint pain but luckily her mother was a brilliant healer and she passed down much of her knowledge to her daughter. Most of the time, she could help him but she still worried about him.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear the quiet footsteps behind her until it was too late. A hand shot out and grabbed her around the chest and hauled her up against a hard body. From the smell, she knew who it was.

Dropping her fishing pole, she turned in the strong arms and pulled back her right hand and made contact with a bearded cheek with all her might.

“Ow! Damn it, Yuuko! What the hell was that for? I only wanted to say hello.” The man let her go and backed up several feet, holding his face. “

“I told you yesterday, Jiro, I had no interest in you and to please leave me alone.” Her chest rising and falling with heavy breathing. She was tired of this. He was persistent, she would give him that, but he needed to learn that no meant no!

“Yuuko, you’re 20 now and you need a mate. Daisuke-san isn’t going to be around forever and it’s not good for a woman to live alone. You need someone big and strong, like me, who can give you lots of brats to take care of. Just imagine our life together.” Jiro got a stupid smile on his face as he gazed into the distance.

Yuuko could imagine their life together. Waking up next to a sweaty, hairy guy. Getting breakfast ready for all the little hairy kids they would have. Cleaning up a house that she hated, for she couldn’t imagine Jiro letting her have any say in how the house would be set up. Cooking dinner for a sweaty, smelly, hairy guy at night. She shuddered as she thought about bedtime. Granted she knew the facts of how babies were made and her mother made sure to tell her that sex just wasn’t for procreating but…to do that…with Jiro…Yuuko was glad that she only had a cold rice ball for breakfast because anything else and she would be seeing it all over her kimono.

Yuuko gathered up her fishing gear and turned to Jiro. “I’m going back to my house and I suggest you leave for your house. I am not marrying you. I don’t love you. I don’t want someone who only looks at me like I’m another part of his collection. I want my soul mate and I know that someone isn’t you.”

She turned and left for home, leaving a stunned Jiro behind her. The nerve of him! She must have rejected him at least three times last week alone. And he isn’t the only one. Several times a day, she has to deal with stuff like this.

Yuuko made it back to the little home that she shared with her grandfather. He wasn’t waiting for her at the door, thankfully. But he was waiting in the kitchen and he was sipping his morning tea, reading the paper.

“Did you have any luck fishing?” His quiet voice came from the kitchen table.

“No, Jiro showed up and scared the fish away. They must have thought he was a bear coming to eat them.”

Daisuke laughed, his shoulders shaking. “And here I thought you liked bears.” He looked at her, his eyes twinkling. One look from Yuuko made him stop and think about what he was going to say next. He decided to be serious.

“I worry, Yuuko. I’m old and I would like to see you settled with someone who can take care of you and maybe put a baby on each hip. I’d like to see you happy.”

“But, Grandfather, I am happy. You took me in and gave me my life back after the youkai attack.”

Daisuke put the paper down, hard. “Don’t lie to me, Yuuko! I see the look in your eyes when you see the village children, families walking down the street, coming into our store to buy things for their home. You want that so badly that you are afraid to voice it. I want it for you. Yes, I am worried about what will happen to you after I die…no, let me finish. It’s more than having just another warm body around to keep you company. I don’t want to die knowing that you will never have what I had with your Grandmother and what your parents had. That kind of love is what I’m worried that you’ll never know.”

Tears began to fall as she looked at her grandfather. She never knew that he felt that way. She thought he was only concerned with her material life, not her heart. She knelt by his chair, hugging him.

“I didn’t know. I promise to keep a more open mind about marriage.”

Daisuke wiggled in his chair. “Child, you’re squeezing me too tight. You might break me!”
Yuuko laughed as she let her grandfather go. “Besides”, he said, the twinkle back in his eyes, “if you marry Jiro, think of the wood you won’t have to use to keep the house warm! It would be like having your own bearskin rug!”

She groaned as she went to change clothes in preparation for opening the little store that they owned next to their house. As she looked in the mirror, she tried to see what made men so interested in her. Her hair was her best feature, long and thick, but it was just brown with unusual highlights. She thought it made her look weird. It was mostly brown but it was the different colored strands that made it stand out. Blonde, a little bit of red and even some pure white hair. Father had called it “rainbow hair” and said it was what made her blue eyes shine. She looked at her eyes. They looked just like any other blue eyes to her, except around the iris they went to almost white. One man said her eyes looked like they could see into his soul. That was before he planted a slobbery kiss near her lips.

She did have nice skin, that she was willing to concede. But her hands were chapped from work, not nice and soft like a lady’s was supposed to be. And she was short. Not a damn thing she could do about that. Her shoulders slumped as she turned away from the mirror and took off her old kimono and put on one of the nice ones she saved for work. She thought about putting her hair up, but the weight of it would give her a headache by the end of the day. She pinned it back from her face using her Grandmother’s mother of pearl combs.

Going downstairs, she saw Grandfather looking out the window. “Child, there’s smoke coming from the center of town. Would you be a good granddaughter and go see what it is? I would love to go and see, but my knees are bothering me this morning and the walk is too much for me.”

Yuuko nodded, kissed her grandfather on the cheek and left for the center of town.

There was a huge commotion in the village square. Two huge dragons, one blue and one green, were there with three men near them. There looked to be a strange bed hooked between the huge dragons. And in the bed-like contraption, there was a man. He looked to be dead but when she got closer, she could see he was breathing. The one man wore Sanzo robes and there was a shorter man next to him. He was going from person to person asking where the nearest place to eat was and the monk pulled him back to his side. Yuuko couldn’t hear what the monk said, for he spoke in the brown haired man’s ear but whatever he said, put a frown on his face.

She couldn’t see the other man very well, except for his brilliant red hair. He was surrounded by women. And not just young women, Yuuko thought she saw a friend’s grandmother try and touch his rear. She saw her friend’s grandfather grab his wife’s hand and pull her next to him, all the while frowning at the tall redhead.

Yuuko would have dearly loved to go and see what was going on, but her grandfather needed her. She ran back to the little grocery shop and yelled for her grandfather.

“Well, what was it?”

“Dragons”, she was breathing hard from running. She had seen nothing like this in her life. She still couldn’t believe it.
Her grandfather was looking out the front window. “And here comes Saira and Myhiko and I’m sure they will have all the gossip for you”, her grandfather said, referring to her two childhood girlfriends. They were a few years younger than her but Yuuko didn’t mind.

The little bell above the door chimed as Saira and Myhiko raced to get to Yuuko. They were flushed and breathless and trying to talk over each other. Her two friends were like night and day. Saira was a beautiful blonde with wide open green eyes. As she talked, her hands danced in the air. She often wore kimonos with turquoise colors and fan patterns in them to bring out her eyes. If Saira was the bright light, Myhiko was the mysterious night. Hair black as a crow’s wing, with deep brown eyes, shaped like a doe’s. Her kimonos were slashed with jewel colors and sakura blossoms

“Yuuko, did you see them! They are gorgeous! And so big!” Saira practically danced over to Yuuko.

“Yes, I did see the dragons. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one up close before.”

Saira laughed. “Not the dragons.” She sighed, “the men.” She placed her hands over her heart and sighed again, dramatically. Yuuko rolled her eyes.

Myhiko spoke up. “You know who they are, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for Yuuko to answer. “That’s Priest Sanzo and his party. The tall redhead is Sha Gojyo and the shorter one is Son Goku. They are the ones that stopped the youkai attacks! I didn’t find out all the details but Goku, that’s what he said to call him, said that the four of them went to India and fought a mighty battle and stopped the youkai from changing into monsters. All the youkai are alright again! Isn’t that fantastic?”

Yuuko was stunned. The heroes of the youkai war, right here in her little village. She didn’t know what to feel. She was taught by her parents that youkai were just another race, not any better or different from humans. Many of her playmates when she was still clinging to her mother’s kimono were youkai. But, that changed when youkai killed her parents.

She fought against the hate she felt in her innermost heart. She didn’t want to become like some of the others in town, hating and fearing the youkai. Many of the youkai left before they could become bloodthirsty killers, most were friends to her and her parents. The youkai that killed her parents were strangers to her.

“D…did they say what they were doing here?” Yuuko managed to say.

Myhiko spoke for the both of them, as Saira was too busy staring out the front window at the redhead again, sighing every once in awhile.

“They are settling here for good! At least, that’s what Goku said. I just think he’s adorable! His eyes were the most beautiful amber color and his shoulders were so broad.”

“Gojyo’s shoulders were broader and his eyes were as red as the sunset. My mother said they were ‘bedroom eyes’ and when I asked her what that meant, she just blushed. She said I would understand when I get married.”

Yuuko stepped between her friends to gain their attention. She still had questions about why they were settling here. “Why are they settling here, of all places?”

“Goku told me that he and Sanzo, his first name in Genjo but he only answers to Sanzo, were going to settle at the monastery outside of town. Gojyo and the man in the bed-like thing are staying here.” Myhiko was wandering around the little kitchen. “Really, Yuuko, doesn’t it bother you that the house is such a mess? I know you are busy helping at the store but you should take pride in having a clean house. Your wash is still soaking in the tub by the backdoor, dishes are still on the table from breakfast and don’t get me started on the layers of dust!” Myhiko wrinkled her perfect nose.

“Oh, Myhiko, don’t bother. You know Yuuko is busy and they are so poor that they can’t afford a housekeeper.” Saira said, while trying to keep the hem of her kimono off the dusty floor.

Yuuko’s cheeks flamed with shame. So her house was dirty, the wash wasn’t hanging on the line and she had dust bunnies the size of cats under most of the furniture. Her friends didn’t have to point it out to her. She had more important things to worry about, like her grandfather and their store. Yuuko shuttled her friends out the door, begging them to let her get to work so her grandfather wouldn’t be alone in the store more than he had to. Yuuko closed the door and leaned her back against it. Tears of anger flooded her eyes and she put her hands to her mouth so she wouldn’t scream in frustration.

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. She sighed, thinking it was her friends again, she threw open the door and said, with her eyes closed, “What now? Did you come to talk about how dirty I am?”

A soft, deep chuckle made her eyes fly open. Standing in front of her was the tall redhead she saw earlier. Except this time, it wasn’t the back of his head she was seeing. It was his long-lashed red eyes, the corners crinkled up from his feral grin. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and said, “No, but let’s see how much more dirty I can make you.”