Cherry Blossom Rhapsody
First published in Queer Fish 2, Pink Narcissus Press, 2012.
It had taken the ronin seven years to track down the man responsible for his daimyo’s death.
For seven years he had searched, following endless leads, rumored sightings, and words made of wind down from wintery Akita in the north to rain-drenched Nagasaki in the south, and back again. He had traveled the five highways, through snowy mountain passes, up rivers and once even across the sea to the Ryuku islands. Along the way he had continued his training in the most prestigious dojos in the land; kept his instincts and steel sharp as a bodyguard, a mercenary, or an assassin.
The ronin finally caught up with the traitor late one afternoon in early Spring on the road outside of Kyoto. Words were exchanged, steel drawn, and each warrior took a fighting stance, sandals grinding traction into the dirt as fingers tightened around the katanas’ woven hilts. Confident of his skills, and with the knowledge that divine right was on his side, the wandering ronin was able to face his opponent with a courage that bordered on arrogance. He had trained seven years for this moment. He could not fail.
He failed.
As the ronin lay dying, he had three thoughts. First, he thought that at least death would bring relief to the pain of the shame that throbbed within him, much like the wound from the traitor’s expertly-inflicted strike. Second, despite the shame of failure, he considered himself fortunate to have died on the battlefield as a samurai should. Third, he was somewhat surprised that the color of death was different than he had imagined. Neither the white of a funeral, nor the black of oblivion. Instead, death was varying shades of red: the flash of crimson light off his opponent’s blade as it sliced across the setting sun; his own blood as it spilled over the long, pale grasses that lined the west side of the road; the fur of the slender, white-muzzled and black-booted fox that crouched at the edge of the forest, watching him with cunning eyes and head curiously cocked; and red the darkening horizon as the sunlight slipped away along with the ronin’s breath.
Death surprised him. He had never expected it to be so beautiful.
∞
The next time he opened his eyes, he was disoriented. The pain that knifed through him indicated that he was still alive. He blinked a few times, then examined his surroundings. He lay supine, half-naked and bandaged, on a musty futon while half-shattered stone goddesses smiled down upon him. Daylight from the holes in the temple’s roof speckled the floor. Near the altar crouched a man, clacking mortar and pestle together.
The ronin stretched a hand out from under the blanket, groping for his sword. His fingers clutched at empty air, and he grunted in frustration just as much as from the pain the movement caused him.
The man at the altar turned. “Oh, you’re awake.” Setting down his tools, he stood and approached the ronin, kneeling down at a respectable distance.
The ronin considered the stranger. He was a long-limbed sort of slender, young, and fox-faced: a broad forehead tapered down to a narrow chin, forming a triangle, with close-set eyes and delicate features. On his lip and chin sprouted a thin patch of hair, as red as the hair on his head which was raggedly cut and stuck out in all directions like the flames of a bonfire. Nearly as odd as his hair was the fact that he wore a hitatare which was a riot of color but bore no identifying crest. He appeared unarmed.
“Who are you? Where am I? And…where are my swords?”
“My, full of questions, aren’t you?” the stranger said lightly, with an accent that the ronin didn’t recognize. His mouth twisted into a mischievous grin. “By the way, it’s generally considered rude to interrogate someone without giving your name first.”
He grimaced and attempted to pull himself upright, but the pain rocked him back down to the futon with a grunt.
The stranger was then leaning over him, his previous mirth having disappeared. “Careful. That wound of yours was pretty serious.”
The ronin lay still momentarily, just breathing. He turned his head to look up the stranger, who cocked his head curiously. The sunlight behind him turned his hair into a corona of fire. No man had hair like that. He couldn’t be real. “You…you’re that kitsune.”
The stranger chuckled, then ran a hand over his head. “You know, you’d be surprised how often I get that.”
The stranger’s laughter curdled his blood and quickened his temper. Yet all he could do was lie there, helpless, an object of ridicule. “You don’t deny it.”
Despite the ronin’s accusatory tone, the fox man only grinned again. “I didn’t think it was worth denying, but…” He rose from the floor, then slowly turned full circle, his bare feet crunching dead leaves and kicking up puffs of dust. “See? Just a man. Also the man who saved your life. You do realize that you were dying by the side of the road when I found you?”
Shame was a hot knife, rending and plundering. The ronin hissed his ingratitude through gritted teeth. “You should have left me to die.”
“Die? Why the hell would you want to do that?” He paused, waiting, but the ronin remained tight-lipped, staring at the ceiling. “Well?”
The ronin looked at him. No crest, no swords, and no samurai worth a damn would be caught dead in such old-fashioned and garishly-colored clothing. Not to mention the fact that those scrawny arms couldn’t belong to a swordsman. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
The ronin seethed. He snapped. “I swore an oath to kill the man who killed my lord. We fought. I failed.” He glared at the stranger. “The least you could have done was let me die with honor on the battlefield. If you have any sense of decency at all, you will bring me my swords.”
“Why? So you can commit seppuku?”
The ronin narrowed his eyes. “This is not your concern.”
The fox man hesitated, then jerked his head towards his right. “They’re over there on top of the altar. If you want to kill yourself so bad, then go get them.”
Falling silent, he crossed his arms before his chest, and stared defiantly down at the ronin. In his eyes, a challenge.
Damn him. The ronin eyed the distance to the altar. He decided that he didn’t care if the stranger watched him crawl. Summoning all his strength, the ronin rolled over and attempted to pull himself up. Once again the knife of agony revisited his flesh. This time he gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it. Yet each small movement brought only a fresh torment of fire to his flesh, his head dizzied and vision blurred by the pain. He had only managed to cover one third of the distance to the altar before he collapsed on the floor, a barely suppressed whimper in his throat.
Arms curled around him from behind, hands pressed against his chest. Stronger by far than he appeared, the stranger lifted him from the floor easily, as if he weighed no more than a bundle of twigs. Strong, patient hands eased him back down on the futon, then adjusted and smoothed down the blanket.
As his vision swam back into focus, he saw the fox man crouching over him with a stern look of disapproval. “Look,” he said softly. “It seems to me that if you swore an oath of vengeance, then you got no right to die until you kill the bastard that killed your daimyo. Killing yourself is just the coward’s way out.”
The ronin glared at him. Unflinching, the fox man held his gaze. Eventually, the ronin was the first to break contact. He stared at the far wall, at the tattered panes of paper in the sliding doors that quivered with the incoming breeze. In his throat, the shame was lodged, a sticky thick ball of pitch that made it difficult to speak. He forced out the words. “He was too strong.”
The stranger’s voice bore the steely thrust of conviction. “Then I guess you better just get stronger.”
∞
When he slept, his dreams were strange. Awake, he refused to speak when the fox man was there, instead watching him in stony silence as he floated, restless, through the temple’s shadows. Or, when alone, he stared at the ceiling, cursing the gods, his own helplessness, and his fate. Once he dreamed of his younger brother, of playing fox-fist together in the garden as the cherry blossoms fell. When he woke, the sticky ball of pitch in his throat had dissolved, washed away by the perspective of time. Near the altar crouched the fox man, sifting silvery knife through silver-scaled fish, translucent flesh luminescent against the glossy dark green of bamboo leaves.
As the ronin cleared his throat, the fox man lifted his gaze, staying his hand mid-cut. A clump of fish offal slowly tentacled its way down the blade, clinging precariously for a moment before dripping to the ground. He ignored it, waiting.
“I have thought on your words, and now I see their wisdom,” the ronin admitted. “You were right. I must make myself stronger. To think otherwise is…selfish.”
The fox man studied him for a long moment, then he lay down the knife, discreetly wiping his hands on the sleeves of his hitatare. “Well, if you want to live, then you’ll need to eat.” He gathered up the bamboo leaves and carried them outside. Eventually he returned with two bowls, a pair of lacquered chopsticks balanced on each. Setting aside the dishes, he helped the ronin into a sitting position, propping his back against one of the hall’s center columns. He then shoved one of the bowls into the ronin’s hand before sitting down and picking up the other.
Fish, lightly sauced, lay on a mound of still-steaming white rice. Reluctant, the ronin picked up the chopsticks and tasted the dish. Swallowing, he glanced at the fox man with surprise. “This is quite good.”
He hadn’t been able to keep the surprise from his voice, and now the fox man cocked an eyebrow at him. “An artful compliment for a swordsman,” he teased. “You must be very popular with the ladies.”
The ronin stared down into his bowl as he felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Fortunately the motion caused his hair, free of its usual topknot, to fall down to obscure his face. After a moment he returned his attention to the fox man, who had returned to gobbling down his food. Like an animal. His manners were atrocious, yet his countenance was pleasing. “You didn’t tell me your name.”
“You didn’t ask.” He grinned. “They call me Kasumi.” A nickname meaning the Mist. “And you?”
“Ashikaga Kuroda.”
The chopsticks in Kasumi’s hand slowed in their journey from the bowl to his mouth. “Of the Kyoto Ashikaga clan?”
Bitter the taste of the words. “No, I am a descendant of the Kanto Ashikaga.”
The chopsticks became stationary as the fox man hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, but that still makes you samurai royalty, doesn’t it?”
“The Kyoto branch of the clan defeated the Kanto many years ago.”
“Hn,” Kasumi muttered, then shoveled the last bit of rice into his mouth. Tossing down the bowl, he then bounded to his feet and slipped outside once more. This time he returned with a teapot and two cups which he arranged between them. Having finished his own meal, Ashikaga picked up one of the cups, admiring the fine workmanship. Equally lovely were Kasumi’s hands as he prepared and poured the tea: long-fingered, graceful, the movements rivaling those of a renowned Yoshiwara geisha Ashikaga had known years ago.
The light glinted off the gold rim of the cup as Ashikaga turned it in his hand. “Where did you get these?”
“Found them in a secret stash of monk goods here in the temple,” he said. Then he smiled. “You should see it. Once you’re able, I’ll show you.”
The ronin made a non-committal noise, but accepted the tea that Kasumi poured for him. To the eye it was straw-colored, to the nose, fragrant, but to his tongue it was bitter awful. He’d never tasted anything so vile, yet with only one sip, he could already feel something warm and mystical budding inside him, uncurling in his blood. “What is this?”
Again, the playful grin. “Special recipe handed down from my Old Man,” he said, with a tone of mystery. “Drink it—it will do you good. Get you healed and up in no time.”
The ronin considered that as he stared down at the pale elixir in the beautifully crafted cup. Then he considered Kasumi, long fingers wrapped around his own cup as he sat cross-legged on the floor, lazily sipping. “I would like my swords now. Please.”
Sly eyes became suddenly grim. “You’re not still planning on killing yourself, are you?” he asked. “Because I didn’t save you just so you could spill your guts onto the floor.”
“No.”
“Hn. Well. How do I know you’re not lying?”
Ashikaga angrily set down his cup. “According to the Bushido, untruthfulness is an act of cowardice. As such, lying is dishonorable. Therefore, the warrior strives to be honest in all situations. I do not lie.”
Kasumi hummed thoughtfully again, considering. Then he shrugged. “Fine. But only if you finish your tea.”
He finished his tea.
∞
A warrior’s sword was more than an instrument of self-protection. It was a reflection of the warrior’s soul and a vehicle for achieving spiritual perfection. The two swords together—the daisho—formed the core of a warrior’s identity. Thus it was no small sense of relief Ashikaga felt when Kasumi, having carefully fetched the swords from the altar, placed them in the ronin’s hands. Without his daisho, he was nothing.
After a cursory glance at the wakizashi, he laid it beside him and lifted the katana. With a practiced flick of the wrist, the katana slid partway from its scabbard, revealing a hands-width of steel. The blade was clean.
“Is it true that samurai always sleep with their swords?”
Kasumi’s voice drew Ashikaga out of his reverie. He snapped the sword back into place. “I’m no longer samurai. I’m ronin.”
“Then you’re a criminal?”
“Not all ronin are criminals.”
Kasumi made a dismissive gesture with one hand as he picked up the fresh teapot with the other. “So you say,” he said, then tipped the pot in the ronin’s direction. “Real tea,” he added before Ashikaga could form a polite refusal. Kasumi filled the cups with the same artless elegance as before, spilling not a single drop. Settled back on his heels, he continued, “If you’re not a criminal, though…why don’t you just seek a new daimyo?”
Ashikaga sipped the tea slowly, thinking that the situation wasn’t so simple as all that. Thinking, too, how this man—or whatever he was—was annoying and crass, and yet he had acted benevolently: saving his life, caring for his injuries, feeding him. Certainly he wanted something. “If you hoped for a reward, then you’ll be disappointed. I have no money.”
Kasumi shrugged. “It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.”
“You weren’t obligated to get involved.”
“Maybe I needed the karma.”
“Karma?”
Kasumi smiled gently around his cup, lifting a hand to point at the string of beads woven around the ronin’s wrist. “You’re Buddhist, ain’t you?”
Ashikaga lowered his arm to his lap, covering the mala with his other hand. “This was a gift. It’s not that I’m a follower of any particular school, or anything.”
Kasumi watched the ronin’s fingers twitching over the beads. Then he bounded up to his feet again, this time stretching his lanky arms high above his head. “Well, whatever. Kami, Buddha, or ancestors—gods are a pain no matter what the religion.”
∞
Outside the abandoned temple, the weather grew warmer, bringing a lush of green to the forest. The significance of the season, full of renewal and promise, was not lost on Kuroda Ashikaga as he made his way, for the first time unaided, across the great hall.
He found Kasumi sitting outside on the steps, his hands on his knees, staring at the moon. Without turning, the younger man mused, “You must be mostly healed, moving around like that.”
Ashikaga would have cut off his own arm before ever admitting to feeling weak. However, he did ease himself down next to Kasumi, and admired the night. On the cherry trees, tight buds clustered, ready to explode, faintly pink in the light of the moon, round and bright in the hazeless sky, its rays illuminating both the stones in the path and his companion’s profile.
Although they had grown to be on friendly terms with the passing of time, Ashikaga still knew little about him—other than he still may be a fox, although he had yet to admit it. But in the moonlight, he was subtly alluring. The kitsune in the old tales often were when they took on human form.
“I suppose you’ll be off soon to find that man who killed your daimyo,” Kasumi said, his voice low and nearly lost in the breeze, his eyes lingering longingly on the moon.
Ashikaga shivered, wishing he’d thought to put on his haori as he pulled his kimono closer. He needed to train more. Become faster. Stronger. “Fujioka. Yes.”
Now Kasumi looked at him, thin eyebrows dipping down. Then his brow smoothed out again as a glint of cunning sparkled in his dark eyes. “Well, since you’re able to move around…you wanna see the monks’ secret stash?”
∞
Ashikaga had started to question his decision to follow Kasumi even before he found himself crawling through a dark hole in the wall at the end of the narrow passage that Kasumi had unearthed during his explorations of the temple’s kitchen. He didn’t enjoy the sensation of being underground, nor the feel of a many-legged insect as it slithered over his hand unexpectedly in the dark, yet once they emerged into the hidden chamber and Kasumi adjusted the lamp to illuminate its contents, Ashikaga forgot all about his concerns.
It was a treasure room.
Kasumi chuckled at the expression on Ashikaga’s face, conspicuously pleased with himself. “Pretty awesome, huh?”
Piles and piles of the finest lacquer ware and ceramic, weapons, bolts of brightly-colored silks, painted screens, objects of gold, ivory and jade, and more were crammed into what appeared to be an eight-mat room. He frowned in Kasumi’s direction. “This can’t be here. Monks disdain wealth of all kinds.”
His frown went unnoticed, as the red-haired man had already set the lantern down on a dark wooden chest and was rooting around the goods, carelessly knocking objects of dubious quality aside. “Hn. You have a point.” He paused over a stack of folded silk women’s kimono, his trailing fingers making the painted cranes and koi dance. “Maybe this stash is bandits’ loot then. But they were all killed or captured before they could return to claim it.”
Ashikaga’s frown deepened as he pondered the possibility. The ronin supposed that Kasumi could be right…and if so…well, in the karmic sense, there were worse actions than stealing from bandits.
Also, he was broke. He joined in.
They each chose a corner of the room to explore.
Kasumi was the first to break the silence. “So…why did this Fujioka kill your daimyo?”
A sudden chill ran through Ashikaga’s blood. He closed the shunga book he’d randomly discovered in a stack of printed matter and leaned against the wall. He ignored the dirt that crumbled perilously down his back. “Greed. He’d been promised his own land by a rival clan, should he manage to kill our lord and wipe out his entire family.”
Kasumi eyed him with surprise. “So you shared the same lord?” he asked. Then, with suspicion, “Were you friends with this Fujioka or something?”
Ashikaga busied himself by unwinding the string from his hair, letting it down and gathering it back into a simple tail at the nape of his neck again. “When I came of age and officially joined the clan, Fujioka…he was the one that oversaw my training.”
From the corner of his eye, Ashikaga watched as Kasumi began to worry his bottom lip with his teeth, thin brows dipped down over his eyes again. Then he huffed. “Well, he sounds like a total bastard to me. Are you really going to throw away your whole life on trying to get revenge on that guy? Does your life have such little value?”
Ashikaga’s eyes flashed. “I have no other choice.”
Kasumi growled back at him. “What bullshit. There’s always a choice.”
“Perhaps. But this is the path I chose.”
“Didn’t it ever even occur to you to choose a different path?”
“The code—”
“The code is for samurai,” Kasumi snapped. “As you said, you’re no longer samurai, you’re ronin.”
Ashikaga’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “Just because a man changes his status, it does not mean he forsakes his principles.”
“Do you always do what other people tell you to do?”
“Do you ever not say whatever stupid thing you’re thinking?”
Kasumi paused, seeming to consider the question. “Well, where’s the fun in that? And besides—eh, what’s this?” He stopped as a small crate filled with bottles, previously overlooked, caught his eye. Crouching down, he scooped up a bottle, uncorked it, and sniffed the contents. “What the…oh damn.”
“What?”
Kasumi turned back to him with a wicked grin. “Sake!”
∞
Their argument was completely forgotten with the discovery of the secret stash of sake. At least Kasumi, in high spirits at the prospect of celebrating the hanami—albeit early, as the cherry trees had yet to blossom—had forgotten. Ashikaga, on the other hand, was happy to pretend that the subject of his past relationship with Fujioka had never been mentioned.
In the temple courtyard, Kasumi whistled a tune as he prepared the picnic for their hanami feast. Upon a blanket spread below the cherry trees at the edge of the clearing, they dined on an extravagant meal of inarizushi, lotus root tempura, unagi and daikon, all washed down with the pilfered wine.
The night was beautiful, the dishes carefully constructed, the moon full, the conversation and sake flowing. At some point, the ronin realized that he was drunker than he had been in a long time. And—judging by the happy, free smile on Kasumi’s face, he was in a similar state.
In the moonlight, Kasumi was subtly alluring. Adding too much sake to the equation, his beauty was nearly alarming. Ashikaga admired his youth, the grace of his lanky limbs, and his fox-like face. “Kasumi-kun. Just admit it. You’re kitsune.”
Kasumi half-snorted, half laughed. “Oh? Am I?” He reached for the sake bottle, refilling both their cups. “If you’ll recall—in the stories foxes usually transform into women.”
Ashikaga shrugged. “In some tales they are elderly men. And some say the kitsune can take any appearance they wish. Human or other. One even mimicked the moon.”
“Yeah, right. The moon.” Kasumi chortled derisively into his cup. He tossed the sake recklessly down his throat, then cocked his head at the ronin. “So…how do you know so much about kitsune, anyway?”
“Ah. In Kamakura, in a place called the Hidden Village, there’s an Inari temple. Everyone who lives there knows of it. And kitsune are well known as the servants of Inari—they often serve as his messengers. Many a tale is told of the fox spirits of Inari where I’m from.”
“Izzat so?” Kasumi drawled. He set down his empty cup. In two heartbeats he had moved closer, practically climbing into Askikaga’s lap. His sake-tainted breath was hot against the ronin’s face. “Now tell me, Ashikaga-san—do I really feel like a spirit to you?”
Having Kasumi in such close proximity, together with the sake that had replaced his blood, Ashikaga flustered. He felt the heat in his face and hoped it wasn’t visible by the moonlight. “Ah, if…if you’re not a kitsune, you could prove it easily.”
Kasumi’s breath rushed over the ronin’s lips. “Oh? And how’s that?”
Ashikaga cleared his throat. “If you’re kitsune, then there would be some sign of it. Most likely a fox’s tail, hidden in your hakama.”
Kasumi stared at him. So close, his eyes were twin pools of midnight. He blinked languidly, once, twice, and then he broke out in an amused cackle. “What you mean is that you wanna see what’s in my pants.”
The ronin growled. “That isn’t what I said.”
He stopped cackling. Suddenly serious, he edged closer, staring into Ashikaga’s eyes. “You know…you didn’t say this either, but it’s pretty clear that this Fujioka was more than just your friend. More like he was your nenja, right?” Kasumi paused to offer a most lascivious grin. “Why, he probably taught you all sorts of things–”
Rage streaked through him. He didn’t let Kasumi finish. Instead, Ashikaga seized him by the arms, fingers bruising flesh.
Kasumi stopped talking.
Briefly they stared at each other, solemn as death. But then the usual coy grin curled out from the edges of Kasumi’s mouth. “Well, Ashikaga-san?” he murmured, all hot breath and promising like Spring. “You want me? Because I’ve only been holding off jumping your bones until your wound had healed.”
Kasumi’s unexpected confession was like a slash of a blade, rending through him as though he were soft as tofu. Ashikaga sought deceit in the fox man’s eyes. He found none. He ignored the urge to run the man through with his sword. Instead, he reeled Kasumi in with a jerk, lips mashing as two pairs of hands became temporarily slack before curling desperately into fabric.
Kasumi moaned into his mouth, his cock hardening as the ronin’s hands thrust under his clothes, exposing his chest to the rapidly-cooling night air. He shuddered as the ronin’s hands twisted in his hair, his tongue trailing snail-slow down his neck, teeth capturing nipple with exquisitely painful pleasure.
“Ah…Ashi…uhh…”
How long Kasumi had wanted this. He felt boneless as the ronin pushed him down to the blanket with the weight of his body, the promise of his hard cock against Kasumi’s thigh. Sword-calloused fingers tore at the straps of his hakama, revealing his cock already straining towards the moon. He shivered deliciously as the night air brushed against his swollen member, and then groaned as the ronin slid down his body and took Kasumi’s cock into his mouth.
Ashikaga devoured him like he was starving.
Above him the stars twirled across the sky as the ronin expertly sucked his cock, his mouth hot, the tongue teasing circles around its tip until Kasumi writhed and moaned. Hands clawed at the blanket below as he melted, gasping and begging, in Ashikaga’s mouth. Involuntarily he arced his hips, needing more. Damn, but Ashikaga was good at this. Gods, he was going to…oh, gods…
And then, unexpectedly, the ronin seized him roughly, flipping him over. The blanket scratched his face. Before he realized what was happening, Ashikaga had seized the back of Kasumi’s hakama, and with a swift yank, jerked it down.
Kasumi yipped as the fabric tore.
Released from the confines of the hakama, his tail sprang out as if overjoyed to finally be free, and struck Ashikaga in the face. The surprise of it was enough to knock Ashikaga backward, half-sprawled now across the blanket.
Kasumi scrambled up, twisting around so that he was now crouching before Ashikaga. “What the hell, man…?” he began, but Ashikaga’s expression stopped the words in his mouth. He glanced over his shoulder to see what Ashikaga saw. “Oh. Well, that’s a game changer.”
Ashikaga stared at Kasumi’s tail—as red and bushy as anything he could have imagined—as it twitched in an irritated manner. I was right all along. He’s not human.
Kasumi returned his gaze to Ashikaga, a strange mix of ferocity and apprehension. And yet, Ashikaga wasn’t really all that surprised. He had suspected the true nature of his companion all along. And he had been attracted to him all along, despite—or, in truth, perhaps because of—this.
It took Ashikaga very little time to come to terms with the fact that the man he’d been about to fuck wasn’t actually a man.
Leaning up, Ashikaga grabbed Kasumi by the hair.
“Hey, wait…umph…mmm…” Kasumi began, only to be cut off as Ashikaga’s tongue darted eel-like to fill his mouth, and hands pushed the hitatare from his shoulders. He would have protested about how Ashikaga had tricked him into revealing himself, except that when the ronin’s hand found its way down to his cock again, it didn’t seem that important anymore.
∞
One thing the fox tales tended to veil—rather thinly, Ashikaga thought—was the taboo of bestial love. It did not stop him, however, from returning later to the secret room to fetch the shunga book so that they could enact the various positions depicted within its covers.
As Ashikaga unfolded the book, Kasumi gave him an innocent look. “Ashikaga-san, is that what you want to do to me? You perverted old man.”
Ashikaga ignored his teasing, responding instead by reaching for Kasumi and dragging him down to the bed. To Kasumi, it was just a part of the game. According to the old tales, a fox had to be at least fifty years of age, if not a hundred, in order to transform into a human. He’d chosen to transform himself into the role of beautiful youth, and insisted on using the proper honorifics. This insistence dictated their roles as lovers, as well. Ashikaga had become the kitsune’s nenja.
Kasumi had not been wrong in his assessment of Ashikaga’s past relationship with Fujioka. At fifteen, Ashikaga had become the older man’s wakashu, and, as was the custom of the bido, had received instruction from him in both the martial arts and the arts of love. Like any other discipline, the beautiful way served also as a path of awakening.
There were tales of samurai romance, too. Invariably, one lover would throw his life away for the other, a sign of the strength of his devotion.
“Bastard,” had been Kasumi’s comment. “Did he really expect you to sacrifice yourself so he could get what he wanted? I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Fuck me on the altar.”
His experiences with Fujioka had awakened two things in him: the desire for vengeance, and the desire for men. For seven years, he had fulfilled neither, excepting a few nights of pleasure with kabuki boys on the rare occasions he had coin to spare. Combining his long-neglected sexual needs with the fox’s bestial insatiability, it was no surprise that most of their time was spent having carnal relations, and in every place and every position they could think of.
By the time they had valiantly attempted every position in the shunga book, all the cherry trees had finally blossomed. Kasumi insisted that they go outside and have a proper hanami this time, after which, of course, they would fuck like monkeys.
“And if you’ve never seen monkeys fuck, let me tell you, you’re missing out,” Kasumi had said with a salacious leer. Then his expression had become vaguely dreamy. “They’re also surprisingly tasty—of course, if you can catch one.”
Ashikaga said nothing, but was secretly relieved to learn that monkey was not on the menu.
They supped below one of the larger cherry trees, hidden from the light of the moon, the air redolent with the subtle fragrance of the flowers. Then, with the remains of their repast scattered about them, as Ashikaga thrust into the intoxicating heat of the kitsune’s body, he wondered if the bido was perhaps a legitimate path to spiritual awakening after all.
Above him, Kasumi writhed. His tail swished, trembling, across Ashikaga’s thighs, his hands pulling fistfuls of the ronin’s long hair as he panted in his ear. By his expression—the flushed face, the eyes squeezed shut—Ashikaga recognized that he was about to come.
The ronin was also close. He snaked one hand from where had been clutching Kasumi’s hip and slid it down the kitsune’s spine until he reached the tail.
He’d learned that Kasumi didn’t like to have his tail touched, but if Ashikaga scratched the base of it at precisely the right moment, Kasumi came harder than a tsunami.
He scratched.
Perhaps there was truth in the beautiful way as a path to enlightenment. As Kasumi’s body clenched around him, wracked with sounds like sobs of pleasure, Ashikaga achieved a state of perfect mushin no shin—no thought, no mind.
Afterward, they lay on the blanket side by side, as crickets serenaded them from the darkness. For a while, Ashikaga floated in the blissful state of mushin.
Then Kasumi barked out a laugh at the moon. “Damn. That was intense.”
The ronin stretched out a hand to find Kasumi’s. Palms pressed together as their fingers entwined. Ashikaga squeezed lightly. Kasumi’s curious gaze met his. “Kasumi. The road can be a lonely place. When I leave here, I would like it if you accompanied me.”
Kasumi’s eyes widened in surprise. “For how long?”
Ashikaga’s voice was soft as summer clouds. “Until the end.”
Kasumi stared at him silently. Then he disentangled his hand from Ashikaga’s as he sat up. Resting his arms up his upraised knees, his tail slowly flicked back and forth as he stared up at the branches of the tree.
Ashikaga waited a moment, but impatience drove him to sit up and lay a tentative hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Kasumi?”
“In a week, the blossoms will fall,” he said.
∞
One day, while the cherry blossoms were falling outside, the ronin woke up to discover that Kasumi was gone. He’d left nothing behind other than a fox gift—an artfully-arranged pile of small stones, dead leaves and dried twigs—and an ache in Ashikaga’s heart.
Ashikaga lingered until early afternoon, even though he already knew that the kitsune would not return. Once dressed, he tucked his swords into his obi, tied his hair into a topknot, and carefully rolled the fox gift up in a swatch of red silk, secreting it away inside his haori next to the heavy purse of gold coin taken from the bandit’s stash.
Sandals tied on, he slid open the temple door. For a moment he stood at the bottom of the steps, squinting in the brilliant light. At his feet, a carpet of pink flowers. Scarcely visible on the ground to his left was the stone path that wound down to the road which would eventually lead him to Fujioka. To his right, a thin line of petals were crushed lightly into the mud, as if trod upon by a fox’s feet, leading into the woods.
Two paths. One choice.
A breeze detached the final cherry blossom from the nearby tree, and Ashikaga reached up a hand to catch it as it brushed against his cheek.
Drawing a deep breath, he stepped forward, into the sunlight.
For seven years he had searched, following endless leads, rumored sightings, and words made of wind down from wintery Akita in the north to rain-drenched Nagasaki in the south, and back again. He had traveled the five highways, through snowy mountain passes, up rivers and once even across the sea to the Ryuku islands. Along the way he had continued his training in the most prestigious dojos in the land; kept his instincts and steel sharp as a bodyguard, a mercenary, or an assassin.
The ronin finally caught up with the traitor late one afternoon in early Spring on the road outside of Kyoto. Words were exchanged, steel drawn, and each warrior took a fighting stance, sandals grinding traction into the dirt as fingers tightened around the katanas’ woven hilts. Confident of his skills, and with the knowledge that divine right was on his side, the wandering ronin was able to face his opponent with a courage that bordered on arrogance. He had trained seven years for this moment. He could not fail.
He failed.
As the ronin lay dying, he had three thoughts. First, he thought that at least death would bring relief to the pain of the shame that throbbed within him, much like the wound from the traitor’s expertly-inflicted strike. Second, despite the shame of failure, he considered himself fortunate to have died on the battlefield as a samurai should. Third, he was somewhat surprised that the color of death was different than he had imagined. Neither the white of a funeral, nor the black of oblivion. Instead, death was varying shades of red: the flash of crimson light off his opponent’s blade as it sliced across the setting sun; his own blood as it spilled over the long, pale grasses that lined the west side of the road; the fur of the slender, white-muzzled and black-booted fox that crouched at the edge of the forest, watching him with cunning eyes and head curiously cocked; and red the darkening horizon as the sunlight slipped away along with the ronin’s breath.
Death surprised him. He had never expected it to be so beautiful.
∞
The next time he opened his eyes, he was disoriented. The pain that knifed through him indicated that he was still alive. He blinked a few times, then examined his surroundings. He lay supine, half-naked and bandaged, on a musty futon while half-shattered stone goddesses smiled down upon him. Daylight from the holes in the temple’s roof speckled the floor. Near the altar crouched a man, clacking mortar and pestle together.
The ronin stretched a hand out from under the blanket, groping for his sword. His fingers clutched at empty air, and he grunted in frustration just as much as from the pain the movement caused him.
The man at the altar turned. “Oh, you’re awake.” Setting down his tools, he stood and approached the ronin, kneeling down at a respectable distance.
The ronin considered the stranger. He was a long-limbed sort of slender, young, and fox-faced: a broad forehead tapered down to a narrow chin, forming a triangle, with close-set eyes and delicate features. On his lip and chin sprouted a thin patch of hair, as red as the hair on his head which was raggedly cut and stuck out in all directions like the flames of a bonfire. Nearly as odd as his hair was the fact that he wore a hitatare which was a riot of color but bore no identifying crest. He appeared unarmed.
“Who are you? Where am I? And…where are my swords?”
“My, full of questions, aren’t you?” the stranger said lightly, with an accent that the ronin didn’t recognize. His mouth twisted into a mischievous grin. “By the way, it’s generally considered rude to interrogate someone without giving your name first.”
He grimaced and attempted to pull himself upright, but the pain rocked him back down to the futon with a grunt.
The stranger was then leaning over him, his previous mirth having disappeared. “Careful. That wound of yours was pretty serious.”
The ronin lay still momentarily, just breathing. He turned his head to look up the stranger, who cocked his head curiously. The sunlight behind him turned his hair into a corona of fire. No man had hair like that. He couldn’t be real. “You…you’re that kitsune.”
The stranger chuckled, then ran a hand over his head. “You know, you’d be surprised how often I get that.”
The stranger’s laughter curdled his blood and quickened his temper. Yet all he could do was lie there, helpless, an object of ridicule. “You don’t deny it.”
Despite the ronin’s accusatory tone, the fox man only grinned again. “I didn’t think it was worth denying, but…” He rose from the floor, then slowly turned full circle, his bare feet crunching dead leaves and kicking up puffs of dust. “See? Just a man. Also the man who saved your life. You do realize that you were dying by the side of the road when I found you?”
Shame was a hot knife, rending and plundering. The ronin hissed his ingratitude through gritted teeth. “You should have left me to die.”
“Die? Why the hell would you want to do that?” He paused, waiting, but the ronin remained tight-lipped, staring at the ceiling. “Well?”
The ronin looked at him. No crest, no swords, and no samurai worth a damn would be caught dead in such old-fashioned and garishly-colored clothing. Not to mention the fact that those scrawny arms couldn’t belong to a swordsman. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
The ronin seethed. He snapped. “I swore an oath to kill the man who killed my lord. We fought. I failed.” He glared at the stranger. “The least you could have done was let me die with honor on the battlefield. If you have any sense of decency at all, you will bring me my swords.”
“Why? So you can commit seppuku?”
The ronin narrowed his eyes. “This is not your concern.”
The fox man hesitated, then jerked his head towards his right. “They’re over there on top of the altar. If you want to kill yourself so bad, then go get them.”
Falling silent, he crossed his arms before his chest, and stared defiantly down at the ronin. In his eyes, a challenge.
Damn him. The ronin eyed the distance to the altar. He decided that he didn’t care if the stranger watched him crawl. Summoning all his strength, the ronin rolled over and attempted to pull himself up. Once again the knife of agony revisited his flesh. This time he gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore it. Yet each small movement brought only a fresh torment of fire to his flesh, his head dizzied and vision blurred by the pain. He had only managed to cover one third of the distance to the altar before he collapsed on the floor, a barely suppressed whimper in his throat.
Arms curled around him from behind, hands pressed against his chest. Stronger by far than he appeared, the stranger lifted him from the floor easily, as if he weighed no more than a bundle of twigs. Strong, patient hands eased him back down on the futon, then adjusted and smoothed down the blanket.
As his vision swam back into focus, he saw the fox man crouching over him with a stern look of disapproval. “Look,” he said softly. “It seems to me that if you swore an oath of vengeance, then you got no right to die until you kill the bastard that killed your daimyo. Killing yourself is just the coward’s way out.”
The ronin glared at him. Unflinching, the fox man held his gaze. Eventually, the ronin was the first to break contact. He stared at the far wall, at the tattered panes of paper in the sliding doors that quivered with the incoming breeze. In his throat, the shame was lodged, a sticky thick ball of pitch that made it difficult to speak. He forced out the words. “He was too strong.”
The stranger’s voice bore the steely thrust of conviction. “Then I guess you better just get stronger.”
∞
When he slept, his dreams were strange. Awake, he refused to speak when the fox man was there, instead watching him in stony silence as he floated, restless, through the temple’s shadows. Or, when alone, he stared at the ceiling, cursing the gods, his own helplessness, and his fate. Once he dreamed of his younger brother, of playing fox-fist together in the garden as the cherry blossoms fell. When he woke, the sticky ball of pitch in his throat had dissolved, washed away by the perspective of time. Near the altar crouched the fox man, sifting silvery knife through silver-scaled fish, translucent flesh luminescent against the glossy dark green of bamboo leaves.
As the ronin cleared his throat, the fox man lifted his gaze, staying his hand mid-cut. A clump of fish offal slowly tentacled its way down the blade, clinging precariously for a moment before dripping to the ground. He ignored it, waiting.
“I have thought on your words, and now I see their wisdom,” the ronin admitted. “You were right. I must make myself stronger. To think otherwise is…selfish.”
The fox man studied him for a long moment, then he lay down the knife, discreetly wiping his hands on the sleeves of his hitatare. “Well, if you want to live, then you’ll need to eat.” He gathered up the bamboo leaves and carried them outside. Eventually he returned with two bowls, a pair of lacquered chopsticks balanced on each. Setting aside the dishes, he helped the ronin into a sitting position, propping his back against one of the hall’s center columns. He then shoved one of the bowls into the ronin’s hand before sitting down and picking up the other.
Fish, lightly sauced, lay on a mound of still-steaming white rice. Reluctant, the ronin picked up the chopsticks and tasted the dish. Swallowing, he glanced at the fox man with surprise. “This is quite good.”
He hadn’t been able to keep the surprise from his voice, and now the fox man cocked an eyebrow at him. “An artful compliment for a swordsman,” he teased. “You must be very popular with the ladies.”
The ronin stared down into his bowl as he felt the heat rise in his cheeks. Fortunately the motion caused his hair, free of its usual topknot, to fall down to obscure his face. After a moment he returned his attention to the fox man, who had returned to gobbling down his food. Like an animal. His manners were atrocious, yet his countenance was pleasing. “You didn’t tell me your name.”
“You didn’t ask.” He grinned. “They call me Kasumi.” A nickname meaning the Mist. “And you?”
“Ashikaga Kuroda.”
The chopsticks in Kasumi’s hand slowed in their journey from the bowl to his mouth. “Of the Kyoto Ashikaga clan?”
Bitter the taste of the words. “No, I am a descendant of the Kanto Ashikaga.”
The chopsticks became stationary as the fox man hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, but that still makes you samurai royalty, doesn’t it?”
“The Kyoto branch of the clan defeated the Kanto many years ago.”
“Hn,” Kasumi muttered, then shoveled the last bit of rice into his mouth. Tossing down the bowl, he then bounded to his feet and slipped outside once more. This time he returned with a teapot and two cups which he arranged between them. Having finished his own meal, Ashikaga picked up one of the cups, admiring the fine workmanship. Equally lovely were Kasumi’s hands as he prepared and poured the tea: long-fingered, graceful, the movements rivaling those of a renowned Yoshiwara geisha Ashikaga had known years ago.
The light glinted off the gold rim of the cup as Ashikaga turned it in his hand. “Where did you get these?”
“Found them in a secret stash of monk goods here in the temple,” he said. Then he smiled. “You should see it. Once you’re able, I’ll show you.”
The ronin made a non-committal noise, but accepted the tea that Kasumi poured for him. To the eye it was straw-colored, to the nose, fragrant, but to his tongue it was bitter awful. He’d never tasted anything so vile, yet with only one sip, he could already feel something warm and mystical budding inside him, uncurling in his blood. “What is this?”
Again, the playful grin. “Special recipe handed down from my Old Man,” he said, with a tone of mystery. “Drink it—it will do you good. Get you healed and up in no time.”
The ronin considered that as he stared down at the pale elixir in the beautifully crafted cup. Then he considered Kasumi, long fingers wrapped around his own cup as he sat cross-legged on the floor, lazily sipping. “I would like my swords now. Please.”
Sly eyes became suddenly grim. “You’re not still planning on killing yourself, are you?” he asked. “Because I didn’t save you just so you could spill your guts onto the floor.”
“No.”
“Hn. Well. How do I know you’re not lying?”
Ashikaga angrily set down his cup. “According to the Bushido, untruthfulness is an act of cowardice. As such, lying is dishonorable. Therefore, the warrior strives to be honest in all situations. I do not lie.”
Kasumi hummed thoughtfully again, considering. Then he shrugged. “Fine. But only if you finish your tea.”
He finished his tea.
∞
A warrior’s sword was more than an instrument of self-protection. It was a reflection of the warrior’s soul and a vehicle for achieving spiritual perfection. The two swords together—the daisho—formed the core of a warrior’s identity. Thus it was no small sense of relief Ashikaga felt when Kasumi, having carefully fetched the swords from the altar, placed them in the ronin’s hands. Without his daisho, he was nothing.
After a cursory glance at the wakizashi, he laid it beside him and lifted the katana. With a practiced flick of the wrist, the katana slid partway from its scabbard, revealing a hands-width of steel. The blade was clean.
“Is it true that samurai always sleep with their swords?”
Kasumi’s voice drew Ashikaga out of his reverie. He snapped the sword back into place. “I’m no longer samurai. I’m ronin.”
“Then you’re a criminal?”
“Not all ronin are criminals.”
Kasumi made a dismissive gesture with one hand as he picked up the fresh teapot with the other. “So you say,” he said, then tipped the pot in the ronin’s direction. “Real tea,” he added before Ashikaga could form a polite refusal. Kasumi filled the cups with the same artless elegance as before, spilling not a single drop. Settled back on his heels, he continued, “If you’re not a criminal, though…why don’t you just seek a new daimyo?”
Ashikaga sipped the tea slowly, thinking that the situation wasn’t so simple as all that. Thinking, too, how this man—or whatever he was—was annoying and crass, and yet he had acted benevolently: saving his life, caring for his injuries, feeding him. Certainly he wanted something. “If you hoped for a reward, then you’ll be disappointed. I have no money.”
Kasumi shrugged. “It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.”
“You weren’t obligated to get involved.”
“Maybe I needed the karma.”
“Karma?”
Kasumi smiled gently around his cup, lifting a hand to point at the string of beads woven around the ronin’s wrist. “You’re Buddhist, ain’t you?”
Ashikaga lowered his arm to his lap, covering the mala with his other hand. “This was a gift. It’s not that I’m a follower of any particular school, or anything.”
Kasumi watched the ronin’s fingers twitching over the beads. Then he bounded up to his feet again, this time stretching his lanky arms high above his head. “Well, whatever. Kami, Buddha, or ancestors—gods are a pain no matter what the religion.”
∞
Outside the abandoned temple, the weather grew warmer, bringing a lush of green to the forest. The significance of the season, full of renewal and promise, was not lost on Kuroda Ashikaga as he made his way, for the first time unaided, across the great hall.
He found Kasumi sitting outside on the steps, his hands on his knees, staring at the moon. Without turning, the younger man mused, “You must be mostly healed, moving around like that.”
Ashikaga would have cut off his own arm before ever admitting to feeling weak. However, he did ease himself down next to Kasumi, and admired the night. On the cherry trees, tight buds clustered, ready to explode, faintly pink in the light of the moon, round and bright in the hazeless sky, its rays illuminating both the stones in the path and his companion’s profile.
Although they had grown to be on friendly terms with the passing of time, Ashikaga still knew little about him—other than he still may be a fox, although he had yet to admit it. But in the moonlight, he was subtly alluring. The kitsune in the old tales often were when they took on human form.
“I suppose you’ll be off soon to find that man who killed your daimyo,” Kasumi said, his voice low and nearly lost in the breeze, his eyes lingering longingly on the moon.
Ashikaga shivered, wishing he’d thought to put on his haori as he pulled his kimono closer. He needed to train more. Become faster. Stronger. “Fujioka. Yes.”
Now Kasumi looked at him, thin eyebrows dipping down. Then his brow smoothed out again as a glint of cunning sparkled in his dark eyes. “Well, since you’re able to move around…you wanna see the monks’ secret stash?”
∞
Ashikaga had started to question his decision to follow Kasumi even before he found himself crawling through a dark hole in the wall at the end of the narrow passage that Kasumi had unearthed during his explorations of the temple’s kitchen. He didn’t enjoy the sensation of being underground, nor the feel of a many-legged insect as it slithered over his hand unexpectedly in the dark, yet once they emerged into the hidden chamber and Kasumi adjusted the lamp to illuminate its contents, Ashikaga forgot all about his concerns.
It was a treasure room.
Kasumi chuckled at the expression on Ashikaga’s face, conspicuously pleased with himself. “Pretty awesome, huh?”
Piles and piles of the finest lacquer ware and ceramic, weapons, bolts of brightly-colored silks, painted screens, objects of gold, ivory and jade, and more were crammed into what appeared to be an eight-mat room. He frowned in Kasumi’s direction. “This can’t be here. Monks disdain wealth of all kinds.”
His frown went unnoticed, as the red-haired man had already set the lantern down on a dark wooden chest and was rooting around the goods, carelessly knocking objects of dubious quality aside. “Hn. You have a point.” He paused over a stack of folded silk women’s kimono, his trailing fingers making the painted cranes and koi dance. “Maybe this stash is bandits’ loot then. But they were all killed or captured before they could return to claim it.”
Ashikaga’s frown deepened as he pondered the possibility. The ronin supposed that Kasumi could be right…and if so…well, in the karmic sense, there were worse actions than stealing from bandits.
Also, he was broke. He joined in.
They each chose a corner of the room to explore.
Kasumi was the first to break the silence. “So…why did this Fujioka kill your daimyo?”
A sudden chill ran through Ashikaga’s blood. He closed the shunga book he’d randomly discovered in a stack of printed matter and leaned against the wall. He ignored the dirt that crumbled perilously down his back. “Greed. He’d been promised his own land by a rival clan, should he manage to kill our lord and wipe out his entire family.”
Kasumi eyed him with surprise. “So you shared the same lord?” he asked. Then, with suspicion, “Were you friends with this Fujioka or something?”
Ashikaga busied himself by unwinding the string from his hair, letting it down and gathering it back into a simple tail at the nape of his neck again. “When I came of age and officially joined the clan, Fujioka…he was the one that oversaw my training.”
From the corner of his eye, Ashikaga watched as Kasumi began to worry his bottom lip with his teeth, thin brows dipped down over his eyes again. Then he huffed. “Well, he sounds like a total bastard to me. Are you really going to throw away your whole life on trying to get revenge on that guy? Does your life have such little value?”
Ashikaga’s eyes flashed. “I have no other choice.”
Kasumi growled back at him. “What bullshit. There’s always a choice.”
“Perhaps. But this is the path I chose.”
“Didn’t it ever even occur to you to choose a different path?”
“The code—”
“The code is for samurai,” Kasumi snapped. “As you said, you’re no longer samurai, you’re ronin.”
Ashikaga’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “Just because a man changes his status, it does not mean he forsakes his principles.”
“Do you always do what other people tell you to do?”
“Do you ever not say whatever stupid thing you’re thinking?”
Kasumi paused, seeming to consider the question. “Well, where’s the fun in that? And besides—eh, what’s this?” He stopped as a small crate filled with bottles, previously overlooked, caught his eye. Crouching down, he scooped up a bottle, uncorked it, and sniffed the contents. “What the…oh damn.”
“What?”
Kasumi turned back to him with a wicked grin. “Sake!”
∞
Their argument was completely forgotten with the discovery of the secret stash of sake. At least Kasumi, in high spirits at the prospect of celebrating the hanami—albeit early, as the cherry trees had yet to blossom—had forgotten. Ashikaga, on the other hand, was happy to pretend that the subject of his past relationship with Fujioka had never been mentioned.
In the temple courtyard, Kasumi whistled a tune as he prepared the picnic for their hanami feast. Upon a blanket spread below the cherry trees at the edge of the clearing, they dined on an extravagant meal of inarizushi, lotus root tempura, unagi and daikon, all washed down with the pilfered wine.
The night was beautiful, the dishes carefully constructed, the moon full, the conversation and sake flowing. At some point, the ronin realized that he was drunker than he had been in a long time. And—judging by the happy, free smile on Kasumi’s face, he was in a similar state.
In the moonlight, Kasumi was subtly alluring. Adding too much sake to the equation, his beauty was nearly alarming. Ashikaga admired his youth, the grace of his lanky limbs, and his fox-like face. “Kasumi-kun. Just admit it. You’re kitsune.”
Kasumi half-snorted, half laughed. “Oh? Am I?” He reached for the sake bottle, refilling both their cups. “If you’ll recall—in the stories foxes usually transform into women.”
Ashikaga shrugged. “In some tales they are elderly men. And some say the kitsune can take any appearance they wish. Human or other. One even mimicked the moon.”
“Yeah, right. The moon.” Kasumi chortled derisively into his cup. He tossed the sake recklessly down his throat, then cocked his head at the ronin. “So…how do you know so much about kitsune, anyway?”
“Ah. In Kamakura, in a place called the Hidden Village, there’s an Inari temple. Everyone who lives there knows of it. And kitsune are well known as the servants of Inari—they often serve as his messengers. Many a tale is told of the fox spirits of Inari where I’m from.”
“Izzat so?” Kasumi drawled. He set down his empty cup. In two heartbeats he had moved closer, practically climbing into Askikaga’s lap. His sake-tainted breath was hot against the ronin’s face. “Now tell me, Ashikaga-san—do I really feel like a spirit to you?”
Having Kasumi in such close proximity, together with the sake that had replaced his blood, Ashikaga flustered. He felt the heat in his face and hoped it wasn’t visible by the moonlight. “Ah, if…if you’re not a kitsune, you could prove it easily.”
Kasumi’s breath rushed over the ronin’s lips. “Oh? And how’s that?”
Ashikaga cleared his throat. “If you’re kitsune, then there would be some sign of it. Most likely a fox’s tail, hidden in your hakama.”
Kasumi stared at him. So close, his eyes were twin pools of midnight. He blinked languidly, once, twice, and then he broke out in an amused cackle. “What you mean is that you wanna see what’s in my pants.”
The ronin growled. “That isn’t what I said.”
He stopped cackling. Suddenly serious, he edged closer, staring into Ashikaga’s eyes. “You know…you didn’t say this either, but it’s pretty clear that this Fujioka was more than just your friend. More like he was your nenja, right?” Kasumi paused to offer a most lascivious grin. “Why, he probably taught you all sorts of things–”
Rage streaked through him. He didn’t let Kasumi finish. Instead, Ashikaga seized him by the arms, fingers bruising flesh.
Kasumi stopped talking.
Briefly they stared at each other, solemn as death. But then the usual coy grin curled out from the edges of Kasumi’s mouth. “Well, Ashikaga-san?” he murmured, all hot breath and promising like Spring. “You want me? Because I’ve only been holding off jumping your bones until your wound had healed.”
Kasumi’s unexpected confession was like a slash of a blade, rending through him as though he were soft as tofu. Ashikaga sought deceit in the fox man’s eyes. He found none. He ignored the urge to run the man through with his sword. Instead, he reeled Kasumi in with a jerk, lips mashing as two pairs of hands became temporarily slack before curling desperately into fabric.
Kasumi moaned into his mouth, his cock hardening as the ronin’s hands thrust under his clothes, exposing his chest to the rapidly-cooling night air. He shuddered as the ronin’s hands twisted in his hair, his tongue trailing snail-slow down his neck, teeth capturing nipple with exquisitely painful pleasure.
“Ah…Ashi…uhh…”
How long Kasumi had wanted this. He felt boneless as the ronin pushed him down to the blanket with the weight of his body, the promise of his hard cock against Kasumi’s thigh. Sword-calloused fingers tore at the straps of his hakama, revealing his cock already straining towards the moon. He shivered deliciously as the night air brushed against his swollen member, and then groaned as the ronin slid down his body and took Kasumi’s cock into his mouth.
Ashikaga devoured him like he was starving.
Above him the stars twirled across the sky as the ronin expertly sucked his cock, his mouth hot, the tongue teasing circles around its tip until Kasumi writhed and moaned. Hands clawed at the blanket below as he melted, gasping and begging, in Ashikaga’s mouth. Involuntarily he arced his hips, needing more. Damn, but Ashikaga was good at this. Gods, he was going to…oh, gods…
And then, unexpectedly, the ronin seized him roughly, flipping him over. The blanket scratched his face. Before he realized what was happening, Ashikaga had seized the back of Kasumi’s hakama, and with a swift yank, jerked it down.
Kasumi yipped as the fabric tore.
Released from the confines of the hakama, his tail sprang out as if overjoyed to finally be free, and struck Ashikaga in the face. The surprise of it was enough to knock Ashikaga backward, half-sprawled now across the blanket.
Kasumi scrambled up, twisting around so that he was now crouching before Ashikaga. “What the hell, man…?” he began, but Ashikaga’s expression stopped the words in his mouth. He glanced over his shoulder to see what Ashikaga saw. “Oh. Well, that’s a game changer.”
Ashikaga stared at Kasumi’s tail—as red and bushy as anything he could have imagined—as it twitched in an irritated manner. I was right all along. He’s not human.
Kasumi returned his gaze to Ashikaga, a strange mix of ferocity and apprehension. And yet, Ashikaga wasn’t really all that surprised. He had suspected the true nature of his companion all along. And he had been attracted to him all along, despite—or, in truth, perhaps because of—this.
It took Ashikaga very little time to come to terms with the fact that the man he’d been about to fuck wasn’t actually a man.
Leaning up, Ashikaga grabbed Kasumi by the hair.
“Hey, wait…umph…mmm…” Kasumi began, only to be cut off as Ashikaga’s tongue darted eel-like to fill his mouth, and hands pushed the hitatare from his shoulders. He would have protested about how Ashikaga had tricked him into revealing himself, except that when the ronin’s hand found its way down to his cock again, it didn’t seem that important anymore.
∞
One thing the fox tales tended to veil—rather thinly, Ashikaga thought—was the taboo of bestial love. It did not stop him, however, from returning later to the secret room to fetch the shunga book so that they could enact the various positions depicted within its covers.
As Ashikaga unfolded the book, Kasumi gave him an innocent look. “Ashikaga-san, is that what you want to do to me? You perverted old man.”
Ashikaga ignored his teasing, responding instead by reaching for Kasumi and dragging him down to the bed. To Kasumi, it was just a part of the game. According to the old tales, a fox had to be at least fifty years of age, if not a hundred, in order to transform into a human. He’d chosen to transform himself into the role of beautiful youth, and insisted on using the proper honorifics. This insistence dictated their roles as lovers, as well. Ashikaga had become the kitsune’s nenja.
Kasumi had not been wrong in his assessment of Ashikaga’s past relationship with Fujioka. At fifteen, Ashikaga had become the older man’s wakashu, and, as was the custom of the bido, had received instruction from him in both the martial arts and the arts of love. Like any other discipline, the beautiful way served also as a path of awakening.
There were tales of samurai romance, too. Invariably, one lover would throw his life away for the other, a sign of the strength of his devotion.
“Bastard,” had been Kasumi’s comment. “Did he really expect you to sacrifice yourself so he could get what he wanted? I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Fuck me on the altar.”
His experiences with Fujioka had awakened two things in him: the desire for vengeance, and the desire for men. For seven years, he had fulfilled neither, excepting a few nights of pleasure with kabuki boys on the rare occasions he had coin to spare. Combining his long-neglected sexual needs with the fox’s bestial insatiability, it was no surprise that most of their time was spent having carnal relations, and in every place and every position they could think of.
By the time they had valiantly attempted every position in the shunga book, all the cherry trees had finally blossomed. Kasumi insisted that they go outside and have a proper hanami this time, after which, of course, they would fuck like monkeys.
“And if you’ve never seen monkeys fuck, let me tell you, you’re missing out,” Kasumi had said with a salacious leer. Then his expression had become vaguely dreamy. “They’re also surprisingly tasty—of course, if you can catch one.”
Ashikaga said nothing, but was secretly relieved to learn that monkey was not on the menu.
They supped below one of the larger cherry trees, hidden from the light of the moon, the air redolent with the subtle fragrance of the flowers. Then, with the remains of their repast scattered about them, as Ashikaga thrust into the intoxicating heat of the kitsune’s body, he wondered if the bido was perhaps a legitimate path to spiritual awakening after all.
Above him, Kasumi writhed. His tail swished, trembling, across Ashikaga’s thighs, his hands pulling fistfuls of the ronin’s long hair as he panted in his ear. By his expression—the flushed face, the eyes squeezed shut—Ashikaga recognized that he was about to come.
The ronin was also close. He snaked one hand from where had been clutching Kasumi’s hip and slid it down the kitsune’s spine until he reached the tail.
He’d learned that Kasumi didn’t like to have his tail touched, but if Ashikaga scratched the base of it at precisely the right moment, Kasumi came harder than a tsunami.
He scratched.
Perhaps there was truth in the beautiful way as a path to enlightenment. As Kasumi’s body clenched around him, wracked with sounds like sobs of pleasure, Ashikaga achieved a state of perfect mushin no shin—no thought, no mind.
Afterward, they lay on the blanket side by side, as crickets serenaded them from the darkness. For a while, Ashikaga floated in the blissful state of mushin.
Then Kasumi barked out a laugh at the moon. “Damn. That was intense.”
The ronin stretched out a hand to find Kasumi’s. Palms pressed together as their fingers entwined. Ashikaga squeezed lightly. Kasumi’s curious gaze met his. “Kasumi. The road can be a lonely place. When I leave here, I would like it if you accompanied me.”
Kasumi’s eyes widened in surprise. “For how long?”
Ashikaga’s voice was soft as summer clouds. “Until the end.”
Kasumi stared at him silently. Then he disentangled his hand from Ashikaga’s as he sat up. Resting his arms up his upraised knees, his tail slowly flicked back and forth as he stared up at the branches of the tree.
Ashikaga waited a moment, but impatience drove him to sit up and lay a tentative hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Kasumi?”
“In a week, the blossoms will fall,” he said.
∞
One day, while the cherry blossoms were falling outside, the ronin woke up to discover that Kasumi was gone. He’d left nothing behind other than a fox gift—an artfully-arranged pile of small stones, dead leaves and dried twigs—and an ache in Ashikaga’s heart.
Ashikaga lingered until early afternoon, even though he already knew that the kitsune would not return. Once dressed, he tucked his swords into his obi, tied his hair into a topknot, and carefully rolled the fox gift up in a swatch of red silk, secreting it away inside his haori next to the heavy purse of gold coin taken from the bandit’s stash.
Sandals tied on, he slid open the temple door. For a moment he stood at the bottom of the steps, squinting in the brilliant light. At his feet, a carpet of pink flowers. Scarcely visible on the ground to his left was the stone path that wound down to the road which would eventually lead him to Fujioka. To his right, a thin line of petals were crushed lightly into the mud, as if trod upon by a fox’s feet, leading into the woods.
Two paths. One choice.
A breeze detached the final cherry blossom from the nearby tree, and Ashikaga reached up a hand to catch it as it brushed against his cheek.
Drawing a deep breath, he stepped forward, into the sunlight.
