My DAIMYO is dead. I only want BUSHIDO. | Nori | Epilogue
It’s hard to stand on your own two feet again.
The theater is as familiar as ever, with its cobwebbed corners and the permeating smell of dust. The constant looping de-deng of a shamisen from the brittle speakers of an old CD player. Little has changed since the last time he was here, though he can only hope that the building’s fixtures are more secure. Having a lead actor shattered under a mountain of wood and cardboard should be a wake-up call for any respectable businessowner.
He fields the usual questions, the ones he’s been rehearsing in his head so as to not stumble over his words. Going through the motions, like usual. Yes, he’s alright. He’s still going back to the hospital for physical therapy, his limbs atrophied from the medical bed’s stiff frame and starched sheets. It might be a while before he takes another role, but he’ll be back. He just wanted to come visit and see how everyone was doing. It’s been a while, after all. But it’s a real shame what happened to Shishou. Still, he passed away in his home, surrounded by loving friends and family.
And isn’t that nice? Not everyone gets to die that way. Shouldn’t we all be so lucky.
The hospital’s stark, white interior bore little difference from the clinical atmosphere of the TRIAL. When Nori first opened his eyes, there was a flash of panic. Maybe he’d never left. Could it have been a lie? But before he could process that, he was flung back to reality by arms thrown around him and the sobbing of an-chan, oh, god from his younger sisters. Asuga, red-faced and looking as if she’d like to slap him for making them all worry so much. Kaida, barely restraining herself from pouncing on him like an old friend she hadn’t seen in years.
And their mother, teary-eyed and trying to find the right words with which to greet her son.
Welcome back.
There was some sort of mysterious theatergoer who had gone to see The Love Suicides at Sonezaki that day. A foreigner, one of his fellow actors would later tell him, maybe some kind of tourist. If so, it was kind of strange that he was at their humble establishment rather than a more famous one like the Kabuki-za. The story was relayed to him of how this man, with a strange name that his fellow actor butchered every time he tried to say it, rushed the stage after the collapse of the tree and started digging through the rubble, finally managing to pull the comatose lead actor out by the arm.
Nori listened, and a smile tugged at the edges of his lips. He was met with a scolding. What are you laughing about?! You almost died!
It was kind of funny, though. Picturing Crocell carrying him bridal-style out from the remains of the set.
But he kept this to himself. How would he explain it to anyone?
He was still at the hospital for treatment, but he went with his family to Shishou’s funeral. People stood and spoke in hushed whispers, eyeing the kabuki master’s portrait sitting on the butsudan. But there were flowers, so many flowers, and the whispers were those of fond memory. His teacher had affected the lives of so many, not just him.
Nori tugged at the cuffs of his suit jacket and tried not to think of how, if not for his luck, his family would have had to sit through another funeral.
Shishou’s widow approached him as his family prepared to leave. The Yagyu name is yours now, she said. She held his hands in her own, and he could feel her every raised vein and the wrinkles on her palm. Do what you like with it. But know that you are welcome here, always.
During the TRIAL, he had thought of hanging his hat and leaving the stage. It felt like the world was changing around him, but he stayed the same. Had he gained anything meaningful from the experience? It felt like the others had, and that he had fallen behind. The detective and dealer had found love. The idol and the killer had found family.
What did he have, but a name he felt he could not live up to? But the pity of others as they crested so easily through the water while he floundered and struggled for air?
Maybe what he had found was resolve. A desire to keep living. He had viewed himself as a flimsy reed, incomparable to the might of a great tree. But a reed bends in the wind. It does not break, and it does not fall.
Taneyori Yagyu IV stands on the theater stage in plainclothes, his shoes directly on the tape-marked X where he was meant to stand during that fateful performance. He wouldn’t be returning to the theater for a while. Right now, his stage was the couch in his therapist’s office, and she was his only audience.
Someday, he’d come back. He’d cake his cheeks in paint again and sing to the heavens in hopes that those who stayed behind would hear. He’d reach out to the others and finally be able to face them without feeling that they had something he fundamentally lacked. He’d grow old and withered and pass on his name to another aspiring actor, like his mentor had before him, and his before that.
For now, though, he stands on his own. Soon, he’ll be able to run.
「終わり」