Spear & Shield

Spear & Shield
Chapter 43

Yasu truly felt at peace in the mid-mornings. She awoke from a surprisingly restful sleep, more than glad to erase the stress of her day under her warm comforter. There was a slight chill in the air, but the sun was shining brightly, casting her bedroom in a soft light through her white curtains.

There was something about the birds twittering outside her window, and the first sip of perfect-temperature tea that just warmed her soul. She had just sat on her couch, a blanket over her lap, and a sketchpad in her hand.

She had already roughed out the floorplan to a dojo she had come up with the other day. Sometimes her brain just sunk its teeth into an idea and wouldn’t let it go. It was a very traditional lay-out. She was already imagining a zen garden in the back and a stone path with a torii gate, something grand and timeless.

Bao-chan purred as she hopped onto the sofa, resting her plump body directly atop Yasu’s feet. Yasu spared a brief moment to scratch between the cat’s ears before returning to her sketch and falling into a familiar trance.

An hour slipped by, though she hardly noticed.

…And then something happened. She couldn’t explain it, really. It was as if she was being watched. Her instinct took precedence, making her tense and wary for some unseen threat. 

Instead, she got a knock on her door. “Family meeting!” The call came first from the other side.

Bao-chan, startled by the sudden noise, shot up from her nap to dart into Yasu’s bedroom.

Yasu sank deeper into her small couch, tucking her chin and remaining perfectly still. Maybe if she didn't move, he would just go away…

"We know you're in there!" The knocking started again. "Family meeting!" His voice and knocking grew louder, clearly not at all caring whether or not her poor neighbors heard.

She scowled over her shoulder at her locked front door, quickly realizing she was over-reacting and the only threat was her brother's affect on her sanity. “Go away, Saburo!” she called back, adjusting where Bao-chan had flipped the blanket in her scattered attempt to hide.

“Family meeting!” 

Yasu jumped in her seat, spinning around to see two faces staring at her through her living room window. Her sketchbook flew across the room, bouncing off the wooden sill, “I said leave!”

Fear began to fill her stomach as she realized Saburo had brought Shiro and Goro as reinforcements.

“Family meeting!” This time, her door burst open, revealing Saburo as well as the most seldom-seen of her brothers, Jiro.

“No!” she cried, throwing a pillow.

“Family meeting!” and her window creaked open.

“Get lost!” this time, she threw her pencil. It lodged in the drywall.

“Family meeting!” Her head snapped up to see Ichiro cheerily hanging from her ceiling.

"It's my day off!" she cried woefully to the heavens.

Shiro and Goro were hauling themselves through her single window, while Saburo and Jiro had burst through the door. Ichiro seemed to be taking great joy in breaking into her apartment while she was there, and without her noticing. Maybe Gai was right; she did need work on her sensory skills.

Yasu stubbornly refused to admit defeat, even though she was hopelessly outnumbered. Her brothers came at her from all sides, piling into her tiny apartment and surrounding her. 

“Family meeting!” they chorused, blocking every exit.

Yasu panicked. “No family meeting!” she hissed, throwing the blanket over her head and clutching her tea. 

It was Jiro who snatched the blanket from her head, meeting her hateful glare with a look of smug indifference, “Family meeting, Yasu. You know the drill.”

“When did you get back?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. She had to crane her neck back, even with him bent over her. He was the tallest of all her brothers, inheriting her mother’s intimidating height, but her father’s gruff disposition. 

“This morning,” he shrugged. “I wanted to be home in time for the ceremony, but couldn’t make it.”

Goro came to join her on the couch, now carrying a disgruntled Bao-chan from Yasu’s bedroom, “It wasn’t anything special,” he informed them.

“Shut up,” she scowled, knocking her youngest brother in the arm. 

“The festival was kinda fun, though,” he added as if an afterthought. "There were fireworks and this one takoyaki stand--"

“Would you focus?” Saburo frowned. “We’re here to support Yasu, remember?”

“Saburo’s right,” Ichiro grunted, dropping from the ceiling. He was still wearing his apron from the teahouse, looking quite the contrast to Saburo’s jounin uniform and Jiro's traveling clothes. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

Jiro sighed, shoving Yasu to the middle of her already tiny couch and flopping down on her now vacant seat. Shiro stayed by the window, feigning disinterest in their discussion, even though Yasu knew he was listening keenly. Ichiro and Saburo, who were arguably the most mature out of the six of them, remained standing. 

“Look,” Ichiro began with a heavy sigh, “We heard about what happened last night…” 

Yasu’s stomach dropped, “Heard what?”

It was Shiro who cleared his throat, his arms coming to rest behind his head, “Well… They didn’t exactly tell us, but Mom was yelling about how the miai went.” Yasu glanced over, noting the look of displeasure on Shiro’s usually ambivalent face.  "'How dare she embarrass me like that!' and 'She'll never get a husband at this rate!'" he quoted with a surprisingly spot-on imitation.

Her heart sank, cheeks flushing with embarrassment, “It’s not a big deal…” she turned back to the others, “It’s not like she hasn’t done it before.”

“Yeah, but…” this time it was Ichiro who spoke, bashfully rubbing the back of his head, “She promised she would stop, didn’t she?”

“Well, yeah… But are you really surprised?” 

Jiro had left the Village specifically to get away from their parents. Ichiro’s wedding was a disaster because of her mother’s constant unwanted intervention, and the fact that his relationship survived that far is pretty much a miracle. Saburo lived primarily in the jounin barracks, only returning home to sneak in an easy meal or two. And sure, Shiro and Goro were still young enough to not get the brunt of their mother’s nagging, they still heard all of it. Every family issue, every flaw she picked at, every argument, every passive-aggressive comment… It wore them down after a while.

Yasu regarded her brothers quietly, somewhat overwhelmed by the solidarity in their eyes.

With a sigh, Yasu slouched back into the cushions, scrunching in on herself like a pouting child.

"It's okay, really…" she told them in earnest. "She can keep trying, if she wants, but she can't make me do anything I don't want to. Besides, last night wasn't really that bad. When I realized what was happening, I walked out."

“Dad says you told her about your boyfriend, too,” Goro said, breaking the tension with a snide grin, dubiously scratching Bao-chan’s ears. 

Yasu froze, “What-- when? I mean, I-- I said, uh, I--” she sputtered, “I don’t have a--”

"Wait, so which one is it again?" Shiro asked with a bored expression on his face. "Your creepy friend with the thousand-yard-stare? Or the green one who only speaks in capital letters?"

“First of all, Yamato isn’t my friend,” Yasu choked, clearly stalling. “Second of all-- I don't-- I mean, I-- W-what’s this actually about? You didn't come here just to whine about mom? Gods above, you're all just as bad with all your gossiping. What I do with my social life--"

“The green one,” Shiro whispered to Saburo, who mouthed ‘I told you,’ back. Ichiro, being the only one who has so far actually met Yasu’s mysterious suitor, merely shrugged and nodded his approval.  

"No, I--"

Jiro didn’t seem to care for his little sister’s embarrassment the same way his brothers did. He shut down her stuttering by loudly clearing his throat. “We'll be resuming family dinners this weekend,” he sighed, crossing his arms. “Mom and Dad aren’t invited.”

A surprisingly solemn silence settled heavily into the cramped room. Six pairs of identical brown eyes silently came to an agreement.

“Megumi and I will host,” Ichiro added. “We’ll close the restaurant early, but Mom and Dad will not be in attendance.”

“They’re gonna be mad,” Goro sang, rubbing Bao-chan’s belly as she purred in his lap.

“For how long?” Yasu clarified.

“Until they apologize,” Goro tentatively added, leaning into his sister’s side as Bao-chan curled up on his lap.

“Just to Yasu?” Jiro grumbled with a scowl. “What about--”

“Look,” Ichiro continued, clapping a hand on Jiro’s shoulder, “We all deserve an apology at this point, but what they did to Yasu was crossing the line. Especially since she already has a boyfriend.”

Snickers erupted around her as Yasu tried to sink into the cushions and disappear. “Shut up,” she grumbled to no one in particular. 

“He can come, by the way,” Sabruo added with a smirk. “Better introduce him to the rest of us now, before Mom scares him away.”

"If you don't scare him off yourself," Jiro snorted.

Yasu elbowed him hard enough to make him wheeze. "He's not even my--" she cut herself off, her voice trailing. “You guys won’t be mean to him, right?”

“Ninja’s honor,” Saburo vowed, holding up a hand with a serious expression. 

“Is he as weird as the kids from the mountain?” Goro’s mouth twisted, “Dad was so mad at them.”

“Uh, he’s weirder, actually…” Yasu admitted sheepishly, yet unashamed.

“He may be a little strange, but I like him,” Ichiro butted in, “And Megumi likes him, too. So he’s invited.”

Yasu’s perpetual pout lessened slightly, “If he wants to come. And if he can make it... When are we doing this, anyway?”

Her brothers shared a dumbfounded look. Somehow, their elaborate break-in scheme had overshadowed their actual dinner planning. “Uhh… Tuesday?” Saburo blurted out.

A quick glance around had the others nodding and shrugging. “Tuesday,” Ichiro confirmed, looking at Yasu expectantly.

She pretended to think about it, humming into the room, finding great amusement at the eager expressions on her brothers’ faces. “Hmmm…” she sucked in a deep breath, “I guess I can make Tuesday work.” 

Saburo clapped his hands together, “Tuesday at the teahouse!”

Yasu grinned at them, unable to deny how good it felt to have their support after last night's miai fiasco. She always knew her brother's had her back, but it was nice to see it in action. Their bond was blood-deep, and nothing in the world could change that. Even if she lost everything else, Yasu would still always have her brothers.

The finality of Saburo's words was the que her younger brothers were waiting for. The two young teens made a beeline for her front door, “See you then, Yasu!” Goro bothered to shout over his shoulder, releasing Bao-chan to scamper back under the couch. Ichiro raced after the young pair, calling out a request for covering a shift later that day. Yasu and Saburo shared an eye roll before Saburo decided to slip out through the window, lest he become Ichiro’s next victim. 

“So you’re really gonna invite your boyfriend?” Jiro asked slyly once it was just the two of them.

Yasu snorted, taking a sip of her now frigid tea, “It's a hard ‘maybe.’”

“Do I know him?”

“Probably not. Ichiro met him and Saburo worked with him on a mission or two.”

“So what was wrong with the quiet one that Dad likes? I thought he was pretty cute.”

“Yamato and I have never been on good enough terms for me to notice his looks,” she scoffed. “And Dad only likes him because he makes groundwork easy. Besides, I'm too busy working to care about stuff like that.”

Jiro rolled his eyes, “You say that about every guy. What makes the green one so special? What’s he like?”

Yasu shifted uncomfortably, still unsure of how to talk about Gai to her family. She swallowed, choosing her words carefully, “He’s a very strong ninja… He’s a jounin-sensei with a team of genin…” she shrugs, pulling her blanket off her lap to stand, “And I... I just like him, I guess. So you gotta be nice to him.”

"We'll see," Jiro huffed, snatching up her blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders. He flopped across her couch ungracefully, his long legs hanging off the end. The heavy fall of his body made Bao-chan shoot out from underneath, racing to hopefully find some peace in Yasu's single bathroom.

“Aren’t you going with the rest of them?” she raised an eyebrow at Jiro’s lanky form spread out on her tiny couch. “Have you even gone home yet?”

“Actually…” he drawled, offering her his best smile, “I kinda need a place to crash…”

Jiro had a reputation for being the most stand-offish of all her siblings, but he had a soft spot for Yasu. Perhaps it was because of the contention with their mother, or the weight of their father’s expectations. She smiled back, just now realizing how badly she missed him, “You can take the couch, I guess.”