Page 37 of Yoshi (Land of Jade & Fire #1)
Chapter 37
Kaneko
I rie insisted on closing her shop and cooking, despite my protests that I wasn’t hungry, swatting away my words with a sharp, “Nonsense, boy. Susanoo could probably fart and blow you off the island.”
How does one reply to a fart joke from an elder about a god? I was speechless.
The meal itself was simple—steamed fish, seasoned vegetables, and rice—but after our harrowing flight through the jungle, it tasted like a feast from the Emperor’s own table.
Kazashita ate in silence. Irie eyed him several times between bites but let him stew, instead directing her full interrogation toward me.
“Where are you from?”
“Tooi,” I said cautiously, mouth half full.
“I know that much.” Irie clucked her tongue, then softened her tone. “You poor thing.”
I swallowed. “It was a good place.”
“Was.” She sighed dramatically. “Terrible word, that one. Always makes my back ache.”
I blinked. Her back?
Irie carried on, peppering me with endless, rapid-fire questions. What did I do before the raid? How was I handling the jungle? Had Kazashita been “insufferable” the whole journey?
She barely gave me time to breathe, let alone answer properly, but I didn’t mind. It kept my mind from wandering to places I didn’t want it to go.
Then, just when I thought I would never be free of her barrage, her attention snapped back to Kazashita.
“Taira will be glad to see your pretty face again,” she said, far too innocently.
Kazashita froze mid-bite.
I perked up. “Who is Taira?”
Irie grinned like a fox that had found a particularly slow chicken. “Oh, just an old flame of dear Kazi.”
Kazashita groaned, setting down his chopsticks. “She was never a flame.”
“Barely a flicker?” I suggested.
Irie cackled. “Oh, I like you.”
Kazashita exhaled sharply through his nose. “We were children . She probably doesn’t even remember me.”
Irie waved a bony hand, a gesture, I now realized, she made with virtually every word. “Oh, come now, Kazi. Who could forget you? And if I remember correctly, she was quite smitten. She’s lovely. You want to stop all that sailing and start a family. I know you do. And she has those good birthing hips. Good for the pushin’ but better for the droppin’.”
I spat tea across the table.
Kazashita turned six shades of red and scowled in my direction.
Irie howled and clapped her hands.
“Yes, I want to leave the sea behind,” Kazashita confessed, looking like he’d just sucked on a particularly bitter lime. “But Taira? She’s, well, you know how she is. I’d probably spend my life sleeping with one eye open, wondering when she’d decide to stab me.”
Irie snorted. “Oh, please. She wouldn’t kill you. Maybe take a finger or two if you annoyed her . . . something a little lower if you really piss her off.” She leaned toward me conspiratorially, patting my forearm with a bony hand. “Might want to keep his kimono cinched tight, though.”
Kazashita rolled his eyes. “I can’t fathom why, but it is good to see you again, Irie.”
And despite his feigned annoyance, he smiled, a rare sight that made him look entirely different. Lighter. Younger. No longer a first mate carrying the weight of the world—or a ship—on his shoulders. “I can’t remember the last time I could just relax and laugh.”
Irie beamed. “That’s because you keep surrounding yourself with ugly brutes and drunken fools.”
“That sounds about right,” I muttered into my bowl.
She pointed her chopsticks at me. “See? He’s smart, this one.”
We ate in silence for a while, the warmth of the meal easing the tension in my muscles.
Then Irie’s voice turned serious. “Tell me what happened, Kazi.”
Kazashita hesitated. He stared at the rice on his chopsticks for a long moment before setting them down. Irie watched him like a hawk, her old eyes sharp despite her easy humor.
For the next hour, Kazashita spoke.
He told her everything—the raid on Tooi, Kichi Taichou ’s orders, the months of planning before they’d sailed toward our island. I could hear something beneath his words—something tired, something bitter. Regret, maybe? Remorse, perhaps, though he’d never say it outright?
He spoke of a woman—an unnamed “she” who had given the orders. A woman with power over Kichi and the pirates. I couldn’t understand it. Wakō weren’t known for following women, yet Kazashita spoke as though her will was absolute.
I clenched my hands into fists as he continued.
Her orders had been as simple as they were brutal: Kill the men. Kill the old women. Take the young women. Seize weapons, valuables, and burn what remained.
My stomach churned. I had lived through the raid, but hearing it spoken aloud, so plainly, so casually, as though Kazashita was moving game pieces across a board rather than snuffing out lives—it made it real all over again.
I had stopped eating. Tears stung my eyes, but I forced them back.
Irie eyed me, then turned back to Kazashita. “What happened to your ship? To Kichi and his crew?”
Kazashita relayed our escape from the Imperial ship, the battle at sea, and the creature. Irie barely breathed as he spoke of the monster from the deep. For the first time, she was completely still.
Kazashita finished his tale with a shake of his head. “I haven’t seen Kichi since we leaped from the ship. There were men combing the beach—I assumed they were from one of the outer camps—so we fled into the jungle. Kichi may still live, but I doubt it.”
Then he described our fight at the outer camp.
Irie folded her arms. “You let one escape?”
Kazashita nodded. “He was gone before I could reach him.”
I held my tongue. Kazashita could have stopped the man, but he’d let him go. I’d seen the whole thing.
She clicked her tongue. “Well, that’s inconvenient.”
“They will come for us, Irie,” Kazashita admitted. “We had no choice but to come here.”
Irie sighed. “You really do like making my life difficult, don’t you?”
Kazashita winced. “I need your help keeping Kaneko safe. The islanders will welcome me back, but he will be an instant curiosity. If the men think he has meaning to me, well, you know how that could go. That is attention we cannot afford.”
Me? Have meaning to Kazashita? I wondered. What the hell does that mean?
Irie arched a brow. “You want me to hide this delicious little land fish in my home?”
Kazashita exhaled, rubbing his temple. “Irie.”
She grinned. “Relax, boy. You didn’t even have to ask.”
Then she turned to me, her expression warm despite the sharpness in her tone. “My home’s in the back of this shop. It isn’t much, but I have an extra pallet that will serve, and I’d love the company. Not enough people listen when I talk.”
Was my captor asking my permission for me to stay with his half-mad, adopted grandmother? Would every step on this journey be stranger than the last? I stared at Kazashita, then at Irie.
“I know that look,” Kazashita said. “You are on an island, Kaneko. That means you are surrounded by water . . . and apparently, mythical sea monsters.”
“I know that—”“And hundreds of pirates.”
“Thousands,” Irie added, shrugging at Kazashita’s shocked expression. “We’ve grown.”
“Fine, thousands,” he conceded. “You would never make it to shore, and even if you did, you would never make it across the sea on whatever small boat you could steal.”
“So I’m still a prisoner?” I set my bowl down and crossed my arms.
“No,” Kazashita said. “You are our guest, and you are free to go whenever, wherever you like; but we live in a very bad neighborhood, and you are a stranger, a very obvious stranger.”
“Obvious? How am I—?”
“Oh, child,” Irie said, patting my folded arm again. “We might have grown in numbers, but we aren’t so large as to miss a pretty young thing showing up. We all know each other. Besides, you look like you just fled the law—forgive the expression on a pirate isle. Everyone will want a piece of you.”
“A piece?” I stammered.
Irie chuckled through a toothy grin. “The girls will want what’s in your trousers, while some of the men might want to tap that perky little keg of yours, if you get my meaning.”
“My . . . keg?” Now it was my turn to blush and look away.
Even Kazashita colored at that remark.
Irie cackled at our discomfort. “Enough of this talk. Let’s get you settled.” When I didn’t make to stand, she hefted a brow and added, “Well? You going to sit there and nod like a nervous rabbit, or do I have to drag you into the back myself?”
Despite everything, I smiled.