pounds, shillings, and ounces

“Don’t look, Yucchan.”

Arms reaching out, wrapping around my tiny body, pressing my head into a skinny chest. I don’t understand it, only that my mom and my dad aren’t there, and I’m terribly afraid. My stubby fingers clench into the shirt that belongs to the boy holding me tight, keeping my face away from whatever is going on behind me. I start to squeeze my eyes shut but then change my mind, because the darkness is scarier, and instead look up at the high cheekbones, the rounded jaw, and the unwavering eyes. Those eyes sit in the face of a twelve year old boy, but they belong to an adult. Realizing this, I suddenly feel safe, though my hands only clench tighter.

“Nii-chan…” I whisper, tugging at his shirt.

“It’s all right, Yucchan,” he says, hugging me closer. “It’s almost over. Just don’t look until I say it’s okay.”

I nod, because I believe in him. But I don’t ever close my eyes. I just keep watching his face, watching as he stares at whatever it is that’s behind me, as his eyes narrow and his jaw tightens, as a thunk echoes from behind us and the crowd gasps. But the boy holding me never flinches, only grips me tighter. Tears almost reach his eyes but he blinks them away. Another thunk, and the shuffling of feet, and then he looks down at me again and nods, forcing a weak smile. “You can look now, Yucchan.”

So I turn, but there’s nothing there anymore, just an empty platform and two stains, though they don’t mean anything to me. Something comes to me, I’m not sure why but it does, and I ask without really thinking, “Where are Mama and Papa? I want to see Mama and Papa.”

He untangles my hands from his shirt, though he keeps one of them gripped in his own, an anchor to keep me from disappearing into the crowd of people and noise. “Let’s go home, Yucchan.”

“Will Mama and Papa be there?”

But he just swallows and turns, staring forward with that same stubbornness and strength and anger, though his voice is calm, gentle, and his hand is comforting, wrapped around my own. I hesitate and he tugs at me, saying it again, and I know not to disobey. “Let’s go home.”

That was my first memory of my older brother.

Somehow, when I think about it now, I’m always a little sad, much sadder than I was at the time. Because back then, I didn’t understand how much he was protecting me, and how much of his own innocence he was giving up to do it. But at the same time, I’m sort of happy, too, because from my very earliest memory I am so, so proud to be his brother.

There would be a lot of moments like that, actually.

“Cover your ears, Yucchan,” he whispered, plugging his fingers into his ears and crouching down low. I imitated him, right down to his closed eyes and scrunched mouth.

BLAM!

The blast echoed out behind us and I jumped, clapping my hands over my mouth to stifle my startled squeak. I glanced over my shoulder, my eyes widening even further as I saw the blast of fire and smoke shooting up from the guard tower behind us. “What was that?” I cried, though even with as young as I was I still knew that I needed to keep my voice down.

A hand ruffling my hair, and an impish smile from the boy at my side. “Like a firework,” he explained, “only bigger.”

“Whoa…” I gaped, but he was already grabbing at my wrist and dragging me away, calling over his shoulder, “Don’t stand there gawping, Yucchan! We don’t want to get caught by that Bastard Chou, right?”

“H-hai, Nii-chan…!”

I didn’t know the first thing about “that Bastard Chou” – didn’t even know that he was the Lord of Takkan, really. I only knew that our parents had hated him, and then he’d made them disappear, and now my brother and I hated him, too. We hated him so much that we stole his food and put big fireworks into his buildings, and we shouted things like “Down with Chou!” and “Long live Toushi-sama!” when the soldiers walked by. My brother was taking orders from a bigger kid in the city, who was taking orders from someone with the revolution – who, we all figured, was taking orders directly from Rei Toushi himself. I didn’t know what the revolution was, and I’d never even seen Toushi-sama, but I thought that I probably loved him as much as I did my brother, and that I’d stand up and shout “Long live Toushi-sama!” right until they chopped off my head.

“They aren’t going to chop off your head, Yucchan. I won’t let them.”

I believed him, too. More than anyone, I believed him.

“When’re we gonna win, Nii-chan?”

“Just another year, I think.”

It was another two years, but I didn’t remember that. All I remembered were the arms wrapping around me and swinging me up in the air, and that lanky boy laughing and shouting and clapping his friends on the back, and all of them screaming “Long live Toushi-sama!” and me shouting it with them until we were all so hoarse we could barely speak. And that night I ate meat for the first time, and it was the most delicious thing I had ever had. Then Jiro ‘Too-chan and Mariko ‘Kaa-chan, who weren’t any of our actual parents but we called them that anyway, they made sweet buns and we all ate until we couldn’t hardly move anymore. And I thought I’d burst from happiness, though I still barely understood what we were so happy about. But my brother was beaming, and he looked like a kid again for the first time since I could remember, sitting there singing traditional and original songs with that beautiful voice of his, and I somehow knew that things were going to be okay. For the first time, things were going to be okay.

And they were. For a while.

“Y’ ‘ear th’ news?” my brother’s lady friend said, thumping a basket of fresh-picked daikon onto the table in the little house that belonged to my brother and me. “Toushi-sama got it on th’ battlefield, they ’s sayin’.”

“Toushi-sama?” I paled. “B-but… but then…”

A hand on my head, ruffling my hair like it always did, even though I was too old to be treated like that anymore. I looked up anyway, waiting for reassurance, and sure enough there was my brother’s carefree smile. “Never-you-mind, Yucchan, Kitchan. Even if the rumors are true, we’ve nothing to worry about. Toushi-sama’s daughter will take care of things. We won’t have to bother with another messy rebellion, not this time.”

The two of us relaxed, though his friend pretended to be annoyed. “Enough wiff th’ ‘Kitchan,’ aho. I’m five years too old f’ ‘at talk.”

“But I’ll have to call you by some sort of pet name once we’re wed, Kitchan!”

“Ch! An’ wot makes y’ fink I’m marryin’ you, huh?”

“Sa…”

I laughed, and I stopped worrying, because everything was just as it had always been, and there was no reason that that was ever going to change. I believed in my brother, and he believed in our lord’s daughter. So there was no reason to worry, I thought. And for a long time I didn’t, probably for longer than I should have, because my brother always smiled and shrugged and went back to his life, even when harvests were bad and taxes got steeper and there were complaints flying in from all over the city, my brother just kept smiling. I didn’t understand that he was still trying to protect me. Even though I was practically grown-up myself, he was still trying to protect me.

But then two of my closest mates came to me one night while my brother was out, and they told me that there’d been a big ruckus kicked up in front of the palace, a sort of protest from the people, and that things had gotten out of control and some people had been arrested. And they told me, with that look in their eyes that said they didn’t want to but couldn’t possibly keep it from me, that my brother had been one of the captured protesters.

For a terrifying moment I was four years old again, and I was looking for that shirt to grab but I couldn’t find it anywhere, and I had a sudden, horrifying sensation that those arms that had held onto me for so many years were never going to grab me again.

And then, just like that, I knew what to do.

“What’re these, Yu-kun?”

“Like fireworks,” I said with a grin, setting the wick to the wall and the lamp to the wick, “only bigger.”

BLAM!

“Whoa…” From my two friends, staring open-mouthed at the hole that we’d just blown in the wall of the palace’s holding cell. A cluster of dust-covered Takkan citizens came pouring out of the hole, staring around as if they were trying to figure out where they were and what had just happened. “What now, Yu-kun?”

I blinked, because I’d never gotten that far, but a voice from the back of the prison cell took care of me just like it always did. “Sa! Not the quietest way to solve the problem, but effective nevertheless! Come on, come on, everyone this way, we’ll sneak out the side entrance before the guards are aware of us. I daresay they won’t expect us to know that escape route.”

I resisted the urge to grab him in a hug, dirty though he was, but he just smiled at me and ran past, gesturing for everyone to follow his lead. And, of course, we did.

“Whadda we do now?” my mousy-haired friend whispered once we’d gotten far enough from the chaos of the Takkan Palace.

“Er…”

“Have everyone lay low for a while,” my brother said from behind me. “In another couple of weeks we should be able to return to our daily lives. It was dark when they captured us and dark when we escaped – those soldiers shan’t recognize a one of us. Even so, everyone, please be careful.” He looked down at me and smiled again, a smile that said that, for the first time since I didn’t know when, he was proud of me in the same way that I was proud of him. “Don’t you agree?”

Never mind that I’d find out a couple of days later that the Takkan shogun had intended to release his prisoners all along. Never mind that they would have only been in jail for another night at most, to “teach them a lesson,” and then they’d have been sent back to their homes. At that moment, because of what I had done, my brother was proud of me. I felt like my whole chest was going to burst open, I was so happy.

“Mm!” I agreed, following him down the side streets and back to our little home, but at the last minute he turned right and went in the opposite direction, towards the west side of town. I frowned, following him as always. This time, though, I followed with a question. “Where’re we going, Nii-san?”

“To Otoo-san’s and Okaa-san’s,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder to beam back at me and my two friends. “I believe it is quite time that I introduced you and your comrades to the RAFT.”

We were inducted that very night into a group of protesters, the Rebel Alliance Forces in Takkan, and discovered with the sort of surprise that can only be described as “earth-shattering” that my own brother and his lady friend had been the ones to begin it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little upset—

“You BASTARD! Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Sa…”

—But I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t understand his logic. I couldn’t remember my parents. All I could remember were his skinny arms and his tiny hands holding onto my even skinnier arms and even tinier hands, and his voice soothing me each night, promising me that things would be all right, that everything would work itself out, that we wouldn’t have to run and hide forever. My brother had spent his life protecting me. It had simply made sense for him to keep doing that.

Even so, I had proven myself that night, and I intended to keep doing that. In fact, I took it one step farther and vowed that I would not only fight the good fight, but would enjoy myself every step of the way. I made it my solemn goal to cause the Takkan soldiers and their Lady as much pain and frustration as I could possibly manage. Thankfully, I was blessed with two enthusiastic friends and the mind of a trickster-fox.

“Come on Tori, Kirei, we’ve got to hurry before those guards get back.”

“Phwaaa! All this sneakin’ ‘round, waitin’ hours ‘n’ hours jus’ so’s we c’n raid th’ storehouses! I gotta take a leak like you wouldn’ believe!”

“Me too, actually.” My eyes snaked towards the sake jugs in the corner and I felt a little smile creep onto my face. “Hm…”

And later that night as we hid behind a crate of persimmons and shook with silent laughter:

“Gragh! Tanaka, this wine tastes like piss!”

Perhaps we did get a little carried away on occasion—

“You did what to their uniforms?”

“Well, the latrine was right there, just asking for something to get thrown into it…”

—But we were devoted to our cause, even if we didn’t always take it as seriously as the others seemed to expect. We just didn’t see the need for such somberness, not at that point. The lady and her shogun essentially left us alone, as long as we didn’t become too violent, and no real arrests had been made since that public protest in front of the palace. Our bellies were a little unhappy with bean sprouts and rice gruel, but they were never hungry, not like they had been during the Deposed Lord Chou’s rule. For us, at that moment, the rebellion was a game, and an entertaining one at that. We thought we were all invincible, and maybe we were, at the time.

Until the summons, anyway.

“Tori, mate, you’ve got a face as long as a mare’s. What’s the problem? Got a cute girl on your mind?”

He said nothing, just handed me the sheet of paper that would change all of our lives. I read it in a breathless hurry, then whipped my eyes back up to meet his, surprised at how pale he looked. “‘One son from every’… But Tori, that means—”

“I gotta report t’the palace t’morrow mornin’,” he said numbly. “They’ll issue me a uniform, a weapon an’ livin’ expenses. I’ll be livin’ in th’ palace… Though I don’t think I’ll be in Takkan all that much longer, with th’ way everyone’s been talkin’ ‘bout war so much.” He forced a weak smile. “But hey, least I’ll be gettin’ carved up with friends around me, right? Kirei-chan said she’s signin’ up as a cook, so she c’n keep an eye on me, an’ your brother’ll be there, too, so—”

The summons crumpled in my hand. “No.”

“No?” he repeated, but by then I’d already turned and was bolting back down the streets, weaving my way through the winding roads of Takkan, my mind a frantic, jumbled mess. My brother was brilliant, a genius, even – no one in the city could write more beautiful poetry, more engaging plays than him – no one knew how to create a spy network or a sabotage plan like he did – no one could map out a system of leaders and co-leaders, of checks and balances in power, the way he had mapped out the formation of the RAFT – but he wasn’t a fighter. Years ago, when Jiro Otoo-san taught us all how to swing a staff and use a knife, my brother had laughed at his own clumsiness and tossed away the lessons, spending his time building his “fireworks” instead. He could protect himself in a pinch, but he wasn’t fit for the battlefield.

I, on the other hand…

 I slammed open the door to Jiro Otoo-san and Mariko Okaa-san’s house, where I knew everyone would be, and sure enough, there in my brother’s hand sat the summons, and there was his lady friend across from him, pink-faced and shouting. “But you’re th’ best spy we got in t’ city, wot i’ th’ bloody ‘ell’re we gonna do if y’…!”

My brother’s gaze flitted over to me and his friend’s gaze followed. She trailed off, staring at me, uncertain what to say. I opened my mouth but my brother cut me off. “No,” he snapped, reading my thoughts like always. “Before you even begin: No.”

“But Nii-san—”

“The RAFT will manage without me,” he interrupted. Something rattled and I glanced down, realizing that the summons in his hand was shaking – and then realizing that it wasn’t the summons, but his body itself that was doing the shaking. He clasped his hands together to still the noise, forcing a smile onto a face that suddenly seemed much, much paler than usual. “We were discussing the possibility of infiltrating the military with some of our own as it is. This will be a good opportunity to accomplish exactly that.”

He swallowed hard, reaching a trembling hand up to run through his sweat-slicked hair, and it struck me that my brother was afraid, more afraid than I had ever seen him. And, for the first time in my life, he wasn’t afraid for somebody else.

“So… it’s fine. It’ll be fine. All right?”

I nodded, too stunned to say anything else, and knowing that even if I did it wouldn’t make any difference. He wasn’t going to listen to me. More than his own life, more than his own fear, he would protect me no matter the cost. And he was going to die. Deep in my heart I knew that, if my brother reported in the morning, then he was going to go to war. And if my brother went to war, he would die.

And once I knew that, I knew exactly what I had to do.

That night I lay draped across one side of the big straw mattress that my brother and I shared, eyes closed, pretending to sleep. I waited hours – I don’t know how many – but when at last the tossing and turning behind me quieted and the short breaths slowed into longer, more even ones, I rolled off the edge, landing lightly on my feet and slipping to the other side of the bed. My brother had tucked the summons under his makeshift pillow – like I said, he knew me well – but I didn’t let that discourage me. Silent as a cat, I sneaked my hand forward, reaching into the bundled-up shirt until my hand touched paper. Slowly, slowly, with more care than I’d ever given anything in my life, I tugged it back out, folding it into a neat square and stuffing it into my belt.

As I turned to leave, the sleeping form on the bed shifted. I glanced back, wincing as my brother’s eyes opened halfway. I hoped that he would go back to sleep, but he saw my shadow and he frowned, eyes widening. “Yu—”

“Don’t look, Nii-san,” I murmured, pressing one palm to his eyes and the other to his shoulder, forcing him back to the mattress. “We need you to stay here, okay? So… so just this once, please, let me be the one to protect you.”

He hesitated, opened his mouth, tensed his arms against the bed, and for one horrible moment I was afraid that everything was going to fall apart. But then he simply reached up a hand to clasp over the one I had on his shoulder, and he squeezed my fingers lightly, and I saw a faint, relieved smile touch his lips.

“Well, I suppose those miscreant friends of yours would be disappointed if you didn’t join them,” he whispered with a forced chuckle. “Good luck. And tha—”

“Don’t,” I said, removing my hands from his eyes and shoulder. “I never thanked you for any of it. Because we’re brothers. This is what brothers do.”

I thought I saw the threat of a tear in his eye, so I turned, grabbing the bag that I’d prepared the night before and rushing out the door. I scrubbed hurriedly at my own eyes as the door clattered shut behind me, separating the two of us for the first time since I could remember. I thought I might start sobbing, but after a couple of gulping breaths I found my balance again and I nodded, remembering what I had to do. I was going to join the Takkan Army. For the good of the RAFT, I was going to infiltrate and spy and do everything I could to frustrate our enemies for as long as I stayed alive. And I would have to stay alive. My brother would never forgive himself if I didn’t.

I wandered the nighttime streets for a few more hours, then met up with my two friends in front of Jiro Otoo-san’s home, smiling cheerfully even though I felt like I might expel last night’s dinner at any moment. They stared at me slack-jawed, though only my lady friend could find any words. “But I thought you were—”

“What? Stay behind and let the two of you have all that fun without me? Perish the thought! Besides,” I added, turning my gaze toward the rising sun and the Takkan palace, standing dark and imposing at the center of the city, “it’s high time we made a name for ourselves, don’t you think? And we’ll never be able to do that in the shadows of our elders. So come on, you two – let’s get ourselves written into one of Nii-san’s famous ballads.”

They laughed and followed me towards the palace, and for at least a few moments we all forgot about the dangers awaiting us, both as spies within an enemy palace and as members of a war-hungry nation’s army. We weren’t prepared for what lay in our futures – we didn’t realize that we would have to stand quietly to the side as RAFT members were captured and executed –didn’t realize that we would find ourselves thrown into a war against two opponents who could leave trails of dead in their wake – didn’t realize that some of our friends would never return from those fields in front of the Konan gates. And we certainly didn’t realize that in all too short a time I would become the youngest captain in the Takkan military, tying us all to the responsibilities and cares of both the common soldier and the shogun himself.

But perhaps, in the end, that ignorance was for the best. Had we known what lay ahead, we might never have marched up to those palace gates and bowed to that shogun, beginning a long journey toward a future entirely dependent on our own decisions and actions. Toward our lives as adults.

“Names, please?”

“Yoh Tori.”

“Takada Kirei.”

I smiled, clapping palm to fist in front of my chest and bowing low to the imposing man before me, the perfect picture of obedience and duty. “Furosaki Yuki, at your service, Shogun-sama.”