Well, that’s it then. She’s gone. Back to Aizu, ridin’ in a carriage like she was the Empress herself. I thought she’d wait a little longer before she left, thought that Jou-chan and the little girls might talk her out of it. Not me. Che, she’d never stay ’cuz I wanted her to.
Man, Tokyo’s gonna be boring without the megitsune!
I guess she didn’t want to stick around and watch Kenshin and Jou-chan together. Huh. She musta been more serious about Kenshin than I figured – I sorta had the idea she was mostly doin’ it to get a rise outta Jou-chan. Jou-chan is even more fun to tease than Uki useta be, but…
Speakin’ of Jou-chan, she’s cryin’. Go figure. You’d think she’d be glad to see the last of the megitsune and have a clear field with Kenshin, but Jou-chan’s funny that way. She can’t stand to have anybody leave. Guess I’m sorta the same way. I got this crazy urge to run after that carriage all the way to Aizu. Instead I open my mouth and say we oughtta get something to eat. That’ll snap Jou-chan out of it for sure. Yahiko’s runnin’ around sayin’ he wants Western food. I sure won’t say no to that if Jou-chan’s the one payin’ – beef’s good stuff!
Oi oi, what’s with the cops? Runnin’, yellin’, tootin’ their whistles – somebody musta spotted Kenshin’s sakabatou. Sheesh, guess the cops in this part of town ain’t got the word about him. What a hassle.
It ain’t Kenshin they’re after, it’s me! Damn that sonofabitch Tani, and after me and Kenshin saved his worthless ass too! Che, ain’t that just like a fuckin’ Ishin Shishi? Bet he was one of the bastards who sold out Sagara-taichou and the rest of us back then – there’s too damn many cops to fight, I better run or I’ll end up just as dead!
Guess I don’t hafta worry ’bout bein’ bored…
NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC.
I’m not a great one for challenges – I write much too slowly for that. This is no exception; I hadn’t intended to participate in Tae’s 60-second challenge at all. It came at a very bad time, as I was working 12-14 hours a day to redo my site graphics, and writing had gotten shoved to the back burner. Anyway, so much of my earlier stuff is introspection… But I couldn’t get Megumi’s departure out of my head, so I banged this mini-piece out. The title comes from Sano’s statement in the manga that Aizu is “only a day’s distance” (according to the translation I used) from Tokyo – according to my map of Japan, the actual distance is somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 km.