It has been two weeks. It is somewhat disturbing to me how easily it is to fall into a routine of work for the inn, though I imagine it isn't so different from life in Edo as I had done much the same in our home. Always it has been survival first and everything else later. Kiyosatto-sama's death has been the only time where it wasn't so.
If I didn't know who these people were it would be very easy to see them as any other common men. Put them in a group and it is always the same--bawdy humor with little care as to who is in the room. They have said little to me aside from pleasantries. Perhaps it would be different if I wasn't seen as "Himura's woman". There is that much respect at least. Some of them try to joke with Himura-san in regard to me. He flusters and bristles each time and I can't help but find it amusing with the contrast of the image in my mind to the reality. And then that becomes unsettling as well. How on earth could this... boy have found himself in this position? Surely he was still a child when he was brought into this clan... thirteen or fourteen at the oldest. How long has he been killing? Why did he start? It makes no sense to me, and even with the proof all around me and having seen the evidence with my own eyes I still find myself questioning the validity of who he is. He is soft spoken and unimposing. There is a gentleness about him when he isn't trying to be purposefully off-putting.
I can tell when he's had an assignment. His demeanor changes. He doesn't speak much to begin with, but it is a comfortable sort of silence. After he has killed it is different. There is a weight about him that I can almost feel in the air. He will stand for hours washing his hands over and over despite the fact that there is nothing on them. I have stood and watched him several times now and he ignores me, or tries to. Perhaps he feels me judging him, or trying to. The last time I asked him if he intended to just keep killing like this and the only answer he gave was to plunge his hands back into the water and continue scrubbing at his hands.
I imagine I should feel some sort of satisfaction seeing that he is tormented by his actions... but I don't. I can't help feeling as though I'm looking at someone trapped... What is wrong with me? He is a killer. A murderer. He has killed over one hundred men including Kiyosatto-sama. What sort of woman am I that I can look at him with anything other than hatred?
May 1864
If I didn't know who these people were it would be very easy to see them as any other common men. Put them in a group and it is always the same--bawdy humor with little care as to who is in the room. They have said little to me aside from pleasantries. Perhaps it would be different if I wasn't seen as "Himura's woman". There is that much respect at least. Some of them try to joke with Himura-san in regard to me. He flusters and bristles each time and I can't help but find it amusing with the contrast of the image in my mind to the reality. And then that becomes unsettling as well. How on earth could this... boy have found himself in this position? Surely he was still a child when he was brought into this clan... thirteen or fourteen at the oldest. How long has he been killing? Why did he start? It makes no sense to me, and even with the proof all around me and having seen the evidence with my own eyes I still find myself questioning the validity of who he is. He is soft spoken and unimposing. There is a gentleness about him when he isn't trying to be purposefully off-putting.
I can tell when he's had an assignment. His demeanor changes. He doesn't speak much to begin with, but it is a comfortable sort of silence. After he has killed it is different. There is a weight about him that I can almost feel in the air. He will stand for hours washing his hands over and over despite the fact that there is nothing on them. I have stood and watched him several times now and he ignores me, or tries to. Perhaps he feels me judging him, or trying to. The last time I asked him if he intended to just keep killing like this and the only answer he gave was to plunge his hands back into the water and continue scrubbing at his hands.
I imagine I should feel some sort of satisfaction seeing that he is tormented by his actions... but I don't. I can't help feeling as though I'm looking at someone trapped... What is wrong with me? He is a killer. A murderer. He has killed over one hundred men including Kiyosatto-sama. What sort of woman am I that I can look at him with anything other than hatred?