36 Views of Mt. Fuji: Winter (2/9)
Title: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji: Winter (2/9)
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji is a series set early in Batman and Superman's careers, shortly after the S/B annual #1. The full series can be found here.
Rating: PG
Summary: New Year's Eve at the Yoru dojo--Japanese food, painted tigers, and the moon.
Word Count: 3800
The moon is full
The night is very still
My heart beats
Like a bell.
--Anonymous
Clark Kent shouldered his backpack and glanced at the man standing beside him as the bus rattled away. In front of them a narrow road snaked up the side of a mountain. "Up there?"
Bruce Wayne nodded, a small smile on his face as he gazed up the road. "I could find it in my sleep. Spent a lot of time running up and down the side of this mountain." He started upward and Clark followed, feeling the crisp air on his face, heavy with the scent of pines and cedars all around them.
At the top of the hill they turned off the road and passed under a series of torii gates made of wood silvered by age. The path eventually opened out into a courtyard ringed with old Japanese buildings, their sloping tile roofs gleaming in the weak afternoon sun.
"Wayne-san!" A clear high voice called out, and a young woman in jeans and a t-shirt burst from one of the buildings and pelted across the courtyard toward the pair. She looked about fifteen, her glossy black hair pulled back into a ponytail. When she neared Bruce she skidded to a stop on the gravel and bowed deeply, seemingly overcome by bashfulness. Bruce bowed back to her gravely and Clark bobbed in what he hoped wasn't too awkward a motion. Then the girl glanced up at Bruce, her eyes sparkling, and threw herself at him in a hug. < Wayne-san, it's been too long. >
Bruce put his hands on the girl's shoulders as she drew back and held them gently, looking at her. < Tokiko-chan, you've grown up! It's been, what? Four years now? >
She dimpled. < Five and a half, actually. Not that I've been keeping track. >
Bruce ruffled her dark bangs. < Of course not. >
Tokiko beamed at him. < Yoru-sensei picked me to see you and your companion to your room. > She looked past Bruce to Clark, suddenly shy again, her eyes dropping.
< This is a colleague of mine, Clark Kent. He's a reporter for the Metropolis Daily Planet. >
The girl bowed gracefully. "I'm happy to meet you, sir," she said in decent English.
Clark bowed back. < I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. > Her eyes shone at his use of Japanese, but she said nothing more to him, chattering instead to Bruce as they walked toward one of the wings of the little compound. Most of what she was talking about seemed to be a running recap of the last five years: marriages, deaths, and promotions. Clark soon lost track of all the different names, but Bruce seemed sincerely interested, nodding and asking questions.
They stepped indoors, taking off their shoes and changing into slippers, and made their way through a narrow hallway. The slippers were far too small for Clark's feet and reduced his gait to something like a waddle. Bruce, of course, slipped gracefully along the gleaming wooden floors. Clark felt an embarrassingly strong desire to lift off the ground just enough to glide as elegantly as Bruce, but squelched the impulse.
Eventually Tokiko brought them to a sliding door, opening it and gesturing inside. Bruce removed his slippers and Clark followed suit, leaving them outside. As the two men entered the room, the girl went gracefully to her knees and put her forearms on the floor in a deep, formal obeisance, her dark hair spilling on the floor. Appalled, Clark stammered, < Don't--don't do that! Please! No! > which caused her to glance up at him with dancing eyes.
< He's cute! > she said laughingly to Bruce, then leapt up and pelted down the hallway.
"She and her sister, Kaori, were adopted by Yoru-sensei as very small children," Bruce explained at Clark's questioning look. "They were orphans. They're like daughters to him." He smiled slightly. "Tokiko was just a little girl when I was here training."
Clark looked around the room. It was nearly bare of decoration beyond the flowing drawings on the paper walls: tigers undulating between bamboo stalks and cranes spreading their wings in the mist. In a far corner, two small, swift brush strokes stood in for Mt. Fuji. The floor was of straw matting, smooth and springy beneath his feet. In a tiny nook, a calligraphy scroll hung over a vase holding a twig laden with small red berries. "So where's my room?"
"This is our room, Clark."
"I don't get my own?" Clark tried to hide his dismay at being forced to share a room with Bruce Wayne. What if the playboy snored?
Bruce was studying the wall paintings. "Generally it's presumed that if people of the same sex are travelling together, they'll share a room in traditional lodgings. A room like this could accommodate ten or so people if necessary." He shot Clark a sardonic look. "Don't worry, Kent, no one's assuming we're lovers."
Clark sputtered, recovered himself. "I didn't think they were! I just like my own room."
"It would be the height of rudeness to insist on separate rooms, when Yoru-sensei has been so kind to have us as guests." Bruce went to the one piece of furniture, a low coffee table, and filled a teapot with hot water from a sort of electric thermos. He settled down on the floor with his legs crossed, gesturing to Clark to sit down as well. "The cruise, this trip--I'm afraid it is our cruel fate to be stuck with each other." He poured green tea into two teacups and placed one cup next to Clark with a small package of sweets.
As Clark sipped his tea and nibbled on the sweet, which had red bean paste in the center, Bruce looked around the room. "This was my old room," he said softly. "I remember the tigers on the walls. When I--was up late at night, sometimes, I'd tell myself that the tigers were keeping an eye on me." He uttered a small half-laugh and took a mouthful of tea.
Clark tried to imagine any form of Bruce Wayne needing reassurance from painted tigers and failed. "It's beautiful here. And so quiet."
Bruce nodded absent-mindedly, his thoughts clearly somewhere else. They sat in silence for a while, until there was a polite knock on the door and Tokiko's voice said, < Excuse me. >
The door slid open to reveal Tokiko and an older girl--young woman, actually--holding trays of food. Bruce jumped to his feet, Clark following after, and bowed. The older woman's hair was cut shorter than Tokiko's, but there was a definite family resemblance. < Kaori-san, > said Bruce affectionately, < It's good to see you again. >
Kaori smiled at Bruce, more reserved than her sister but still clearly pleased to see Bruce. < Wayne-san. It is an honor to have you back. > Her dark eyes turned to Clark. < And this is the reporter from Metropolis that my sister declares 'cute'? >
Clark bowed politely, feeling himself blush. < Thank you for having us. >
The two women moved into the room with their trays, Tokiko giving Clark an impish grin as she placed his tray on the table. At the doorway, Kaori turned again. < Yoru-sensei will be by soon to bid you welcome. He says he will talk with you in more detail tomorrow. > Another bow and she was gone.
Clark turned his attention to the tray, which had a bewildering assortment of tiny plates on it. Things that looked like slices of roots, tiny purple flower-like things--well, that thing was definitely tofu, at least. He picked up his chopsticks and began to dissect the tofu.
Across the table from him, Bruce raised his eyebrows. "You know how to use chopsticks? Impressive."
Clark gave the other man a withering glance. "They do have Chinese restaurants in Kansas, you know." Condescending bastard. He finished the tofu and nudged something that looked like a piece of gelatin with little squiggles in it. "What's this?"
Bruce popped the wobbly bit of food in his mouth and chewed, considering. "It's delicious," he declared.
"I just like to know what I'm eating," Clark grumbled. He tried one of the purple things and found it crunchy and sour. Not bad. "Why don't we get to eat with Yoru-sensei and his family? Are they afraid of gaijin contamination?"
Bruce looked rather offended on his teacher's behalf. "Hardly. But it's New Year's Eve, and in Japan that means you spend it with your family, the people you're closest to."
"And you're stuck with me."
"And we're stuck with each other, yes." Bruce continued to eat, his look somewhere between glaring and musing.
As Clark finished up his rice, there was another tap at the door. At Bruce's < Come in, > an elderly Japanese man entered the room. Unlike Tokiko and Kaori, he was wearing traditional Japanese clothing. His face was lined and weathered, a white goatee and mustache framing a mouth that curved serenely. Power and stillness simultaneously rested in the lines of his body, a grace beyond that of the physical.
Clark felt a shock of something like recognition when he realized he had seen that same coiled balance in both Batman and Bruce Wayne at times.
Yoru-sensei bowed, and both Bruce and Clark rose quickly to bow deeply before the master. < Welcome to my humble home, > Yoru said quietly. < Wayne-san, welcome back. >
Bruce lifted his eyes to his old master. < I'm honored by your hospitality, sensei. > He gestured toward his companion. < This is Clark Kent, an...acquaintance of mine. He works as a reporter in Metropolis. > Clark bowed nervously.
"Mr. Kent," Yoru said in English. "Yes. I read your story recently about Intergang's influence abroad. Very interesting."
Clark blinked. "Thank you, sir. I'm honored."
Yoru nodded gravely and turned back to Bruce. < We shall discuss what you wrote me about in greater length tomorrow, Wayne-san. For now, please take this evening to recover from your jet lag and rest. The bath is ready whenever you like. You remember where it is. > A faint smile made it clear giving Bruce his old room had not been a coincidence. He switched back into English to address the two of them. "Please, feel at home."
Bruce didn't smile, but his voice was warm as he bowed. "I always do, sensei."
After the door closed behind his teacher, Bruce opened one of the sliding doors in the wall to reveal a closet stacked with bedding. He pulled down a couple of futons, blankets, and pillows, and arranged them on the floor, a decent distance from each other. Then he pulled out a cotton robe, white with blue markings on it, and began unselfconsciously to strip in a corner of the room.
"Now Clark, don't embarrass me by having bad bath etiquette." He spoke without looking at Clark, stripping off his sweater and turtleneck. "You wash before you enter the bath. No soap in the bath. Rinse yourself really well." Clark saw a long silvery scar that trailed down Bruce's back. He found himself wondering just how many scars a man like Bruce Wayne would end up with before his death. Bruce started to take off his pants and Clark quickly began to study the tigers and cranes dancing across the walls. "And don't drain the bath when you're done, other members of the family may be using it." The door slid open and Clark looked to see Bruce in a light cotton robe cut almost like a kimono, standing in the doorway. "I'll go first and give you some privacy to change," Bruce said, with a hint of a sardonic smile. Clark wondered if his discomfort had shown that clearly.
The door slid shut. Clark took the opportunity to change into the light robe, but discovered that what Bruce wore with grace merely made him look like a very...big...foreign guy. He was still fiddling at the belt with annoyance when Bruce came back.
Bruce snorted with laughter at the sight of Clark with his belt twisted and the edges of the robe askew. Clark scowled. "How the hell should I know how to wear a kimono?"
"It's not a kimono, Clark. It's a yukata, and it's a lot simpler to wear than a kimono." Bruce smiled slightly as if at a private joke. He reached out and adjusted the edges of Clark's robe, evening them out, then straightened the belt until it lay smooth. "There you go. You're ready for public consumption again, gaijin." He gestured. "The bath is on the left, down the hall."
Clark crammed his fat foreign feet into the tiny slippers and waddled down the hall, fuming--whether at Bruce's condescension or his own ineptitude, he wasn't sure.
: : :
Bruce took advantage of Clark's absence to call home again. Dick had come out of his sulk tonight, and chattered cheerfully about how Alfred was going to let him stay up until midnight tonight. He was a mercurial child, swinging between gloom and happiness in a way Bruce never had at that age.
As Dick talked, Bruce watched the tigers on the walls. He remembered each of them like old friends; he had even given them names during the long nights. His eyes were drawn to the two who seemed to be frolicking, wrestling together like friends or lovers, one's paw thrown over the other's back, the playfully pinned tiger chewing gently on the ear of his companion. Toshio and Kouhei, he had named them. He reached out and ran a finger lightly down Toshio's striped back, over Kouhei's flanks.
Dick was still explaining something interesting he had learned in school today--and how Kelly had tried to kiss him--when the door slid open again and Clark started to enter the room. "Take off your slippers!" Bruce hissed at him as he stepped in. "No slippers on tatami!" Clark glowered and removed the slippers.
Dick's voice on the phone went up about an octave. "You said you'd be working with Superman while you were there...is that--is that him?"
Bruce eyed the uncomfortable-looking man who had managed to get his sash twisted around again. "I suppose so, yes."
"Can I..." Dick cleared his throat and dropped his voice a little. "May I talk with him?"
"Superman? You want to say hello to my ward, Richard Grayson?" Bruce held out the phone toward Clark, who picked it up as if handling an adder.
"Hello, is this Richard?" Bruce could make out Dick's excited voice on the other end, all pretense at sober adulthood dropped instantly. As Bruce watched, Clark threw back his shoulders and took a breath--and was Superman. Superman in a ridiculously twisted yukata, but still Superman. "I'm pleased to talk to you too, Richard," Superman said. Not Clark. Superman. Bruce felt his eyebrows rising. He wondered if Clark was even aware of the change. He didn't seem particularly to be.
Superman was listening to Dick's excited chatter, not getting many words in edgewise, but clearly listening. Listening more closely than Bruce had been, Bruce thought with a sudden pang of guilt.
"You know, Richard," Superman was explaining, "This could be a dangerous trip, and Bruce wants to make sure you're well-trained before--" Dick's distant voice cut him off. "--No, no, I'm sure it's not that he doesn't think you're good enough, or brave enough. Yes, I'm sure you're brave enough too." A complicated look crossed Clark's face, moving through frustration and sadness into something close to a smile. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing, Richard. No, I don't think that would be appropriate. He's a...very strong-willed man, and if he said you're not to come, I sincerely doubt anything I could say will change his mind." He shot Bruce a look; Bruce looked back blandly. "I'm sorry," Superman said softly to the boy on the other side of the world. His eyebrows shot upwards suddenly and his look at Bruce became mischievous. "Why thank you, Richard, I'd love to come by for dinner sometime. Yes, I'll consider that an official invitation," he added hastily as Bruce made a big production of jostling the phone away from him.
"All right, Dick," Bruce said, glaring sternly at the snickering Clark, "You've gotten Superman invited to the Manor, are you happy?"
A long silence on the other end. "Dick?"
Something suspiciously close to a sniffle. "I wanted to be with you when the new year started. So we could start it together."
Bruce sank down onto the tatami floor, leaning his back up against Kouhei's painted belly. "I'm sorry, Dick. One of the things you're going to have to learn is that my job, this life--it means you can't always be where you'd like to be." No response. "I wish I were with you too. I'll be home soon. Okay?" Definite sniffling on the other side of the line now, and Bruce was acutely conscious of Clark's direct blue eyes on him, watching him make his ward cry.
The sniffling resolved into a teary voice. "Okay. I love you, Bruce."
As always, Bruce forced himself not to hesitate, not to consider the hideous implications of what he was about to say. "I love you too, kiddo."
He hung up the phone and shrugged uncomfortably at Clark, who was just looking at him. No recrimination in those eyes, and yet Bruce felt...recriminated. He went to the paper blinds at the far side of the room and pushed them open to reveal a glassed-in veranda with two chairs and a small table. Outside, the moon drifted above the sloping shoulder of the mountain, dark with pine trees. "Don't you have someone to call, check in with?" he asked, looking out at the moon.
When Clark didn't answer, he glanced back at the other man just in time to catch the tail end of an expression that Bruce would have called "woebegone" if it hadn't been on the face of the most powerful being on the planet. Clark dropped into the other chair, his features nondescript again. "Not really, no. No one like you do. I mean, I'm sure my parents would like to hear my voice, but they know I'm okay, and on a reporter's salary...I can't afford to call them from Japan and just chat."
Bruce took out his international cell phone and slid it across the table. "Check in with your folks, Kent."
Clark stared at the phone. "I couldn't--"
"It's only money. Call your family. Wish them a Happy New Year."
Clark reached out gingerly and rested his hand on the phone. "Thank you," he said softly.
Of course, that meant Bruce had to put up with fifteen minutes of listening to Clark explain to his folks the mysterious intricacies of waste disposal and recycling in Japan, but the look on the guy's face when his mother picked up on the other end made it--well, maybe not worth it, but rather satisfying. It never hurt to have a Kryptonian consider himself in your debt, after all: a sheerly pragmatic decision.
After Clark hung up, Bruce poured him some more of the light green tea and they sipped for a moment in silence. Outside, the moon lifted itself slowly above the mountain. The air was cool and crisp.
Keeping his eyes on the moon, Bruce said, "When you were twelve, did you know you wanted to do something great with your life, Clark?"
A slurping noise, which Bruce didn't look toward. Clark swallowed tea. "When I was twelve, I didn't have any powers." Bruce made a mental note of that: he had scoured the Smallville newspapers and records of that time and found no sign of a super-powered kid flying around, but that didn't mean much. It made a huge difference in Superman's personality whether he had grown up with powers or without. Bruce was relieved to hear it was the latter. "I knew I wasn't from Earth, but I didn't know just how...different...I was going to be."
"That's not what I'm asking. Did you want to do great things?"
"I...suppose so. Mostly I wanted to become an astronomer and find out where I came from, maybe be the first person to contact another civilization. I never really planned on flying around and saving people."
"But once you knew you had the powers, you didn't consider just hiding them and living a normal life?"
"What?" Clark sounded honestly surprised. "How could I do that?"
Bruce looked down at his teacup, then back up at the moon. "This kid, Clark. He's like us. He's going to help people, and he's going to start as soon as he can. I can't shackle him in a closet. I can train him. Try to stall him as long as possible. Make sure he's got the skills, the...wisdom...to stay alive."
Clark snorted gently. "Only Batman could have stalled him this long, I suspect. He...seems special."
Bruce felt himself smile. "He is."
Clark cleared his throat. "I wasn't anything like the two of you at that age. I was really just an ordinary kid. Nothing special."
Bruce looked at Clark, his face in shadows, touched with silver, a chiaroscuro. "I don't believe that."
The statement seemed to hang in the silvery silence between them for longer than Bruce liked, but before he could make a safe, sarcastic addition, a new sound reached their ears. Distant and deep, a bell was ringing somewhere far away, echoing off the mountains around them.
"What's that for?" Clark's voice was hushed.
"It's a temple bell. They start ringing them at midnight." Bruce glanced at his watch. "It's a new year."
Clark smiled at him and lifted his teacup in a toast. "Happy New Year, Bruce."
Bruce didn't return the smile. "We're going to the local temple with Yoru-sensei tomorrow. We should probably turn in and get some sleep." Bruce started to push his chair back.
Clark continued to hold up his teacup, waiting, his smile unwavering. Stubborn oaf. Grudgingly, Bruce touched his cup to Clark's. A tiny clink of china on china.
"Happy New Year, Clark."
--------
Toshio (実雄): The character for "Truth" combined with the character meaning "Hero, Manliness, Magnificence"
Kouhei (公平): "Justice"
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji is a series set early in Batman and Superman's careers, shortly after the S/B annual #1. The full series can be found here.
Rating: PG
Summary: New Year's Eve at the Yoru dojo--Japanese food, painted tigers, and the moon.
Word Count: 3800
The moon is full
The night is very still
My heart beats
Like a bell.
--Anonymous
Clark Kent shouldered his backpack and glanced at the man standing beside him as the bus rattled away. In front of them a narrow road snaked up the side of a mountain. "Up there?"
Bruce Wayne nodded, a small smile on his face as he gazed up the road. "I could find it in my sleep. Spent a lot of time running up and down the side of this mountain." He started upward and Clark followed, feeling the crisp air on his face, heavy with the scent of pines and cedars all around them.
At the top of the hill they turned off the road and passed under a series of torii gates made of wood silvered by age. The path eventually opened out into a courtyard ringed with old Japanese buildings, their sloping tile roofs gleaming in the weak afternoon sun.
"Wayne-san!" A clear high voice called out, and a young woman in jeans and a t-shirt burst from one of the buildings and pelted across the courtyard toward the pair. She looked about fifteen, her glossy black hair pulled back into a ponytail. When she neared Bruce she skidded to a stop on the gravel and bowed deeply, seemingly overcome by bashfulness. Bruce bowed back to her gravely and Clark bobbed in what he hoped wasn't too awkward a motion. Then the girl glanced up at Bruce, her eyes sparkling, and threw herself at him in a hug. < Wayne-san, it's been too long. >
Bruce put his hands on the girl's shoulders as she drew back and held them gently, looking at her. < Tokiko-chan, you've grown up! It's been, what? Four years now? >
She dimpled. < Five and a half, actually. Not that I've been keeping track. >
Bruce ruffled her dark bangs. < Of course not. >
Tokiko beamed at him. < Yoru-sensei picked me to see you and your companion to your room. > She looked past Bruce to Clark, suddenly shy again, her eyes dropping.
< This is a colleague of mine, Clark Kent. He's a reporter for the Metropolis Daily Planet. >
The girl bowed gracefully. "I'm happy to meet you, sir," she said in decent English.
Clark bowed back. < I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. > Her eyes shone at his use of Japanese, but she said nothing more to him, chattering instead to Bruce as they walked toward one of the wings of the little compound. Most of what she was talking about seemed to be a running recap of the last five years: marriages, deaths, and promotions. Clark soon lost track of all the different names, but Bruce seemed sincerely interested, nodding and asking questions.
They stepped indoors, taking off their shoes and changing into slippers, and made their way through a narrow hallway. The slippers were far too small for Clark's feet and reduced his gait to something like a waddle. Bruce, of course, slipped gracefully along the gleaming wooden floors. Clark felt an embarrassingly strong desire to lift off the ground just enough to glide as elegantly as Bruce, but squelched the impulse.
Eventually Tokiko brought them to a sliding door, opening it and gesturing inside. Bruce removed his slippers and Clark followed suit, leaving them outside. As the two men entered the room, the girl went gracefully to her knees and put her forearms on the floor in a deep, formal obeisance, her dark hair spilling on the floor. Appalled, Clark stammered, < Don't--don't do that! Please! No! > which caused her to glance up at him with dancing eyes.
< He's cute! > she said laughingly to Bruce, then leapt up and pelted down the hallway.
"She and her sister, Kaori, were adopted by Yoru-sensei as very small children," Bruce explained at Clark's questioning look. "They were orphans. They're like daughters to him." He smiled slightly. "Tokiko was just a little girl when I was here training."
Clark looked around the room. It was nearly bare of decoration beyond the flowing drawings on the paper walls: tigers undulating between bamboo stalks and cranes spreading their wings in the mist. In a far corner, two small, swift brush strokes stood in for Mt. Fuji. The floor was of straw matting, smooth and springy beneath his feet. In a tiny nook, a calligraphy scroll hung over a vase holding a twig laden with small red berries. "So where's my room?"
"This is our room, Clark."
"I don't get my own?" Clark tried to hide his dismay at being forced to share a room with Bruce Wayne. What if the playboy snored?
Bruce was studying the wall paintings. "Generally it's presumed that if people of the same sex are travelling together, they'll share a room in traditional lodgings. A room like this could accommodate ten or so people if necessary." He shot Clark a sardonic look. "Don't worry, Kent, no one's assuming we're lovers."
Clark sputtered, recovered himself. "I didn't think they were! I just like my own room."
"It would be the height of rudeness to insist on separate rooms, when Yoru-sensei has been so kind to have us as guests." Bruce went to the one piece of furniture, a low coffee table, and filled a teapot with hot water from a sort of electric thermos. He settled down on the floor with his legs crossed, gesturing to Clark to sit down as well. "The cruise, this trip--I'm afraid it is our cruel fate to be stuck with each other." He poured green tea into two teacups and placed one cup next to Clark with a small package of sweets.
As Clark sipped his tea and nibbled on the sweet, which had red bean paste in the center, Bruce looked around the room. "This was my old room," he said softly. "I remember the tigers on the walls. When I--was up late at night, sometimes, I'd tell myself that the tigers were keeping an eye on me." He uttered a small half-laugh and took a mouthful of tea.
Clark tried to imagine any form of Bruce Wayne needing reassurance from painted tigers and failed. "It's beautiful here. And so quiet."
Bruce nodded absent-mindedly, his thoughts clearly somewhere else. They sat in silence for a while, until there was a polite knock on the door and Tokiko's voice said, < Excuse me. >
The door slid open to reveal Tokiko and an older girl--young woman, actually--holding trays of food. Bruce jumped to his feet, Clark following after, and bowed. The older woman's hair was cut shorter than Tokiko's, but there was a definite family resemblance. < Kaori-san, > said Bruce affectionately, < It's good to see you again. >
Kaori smiled at Bruce, more reserved than her sister but still clearly pleased to see Bruce. < Wayne-san. It is an honor to have you back. > Her dark eyes turned to Clark. < And this is the reporter from Metropolis that my sister declares 'cute'? >
Clark bowed politely, feeling himself blush. < Thank you for having us. >
The two women moved into the room with their trays, Tokiko giving Clark an impish grin as she placed his tray on the table. At the doorway, Kaori turned again. < Yoru-sensei will be by soon to bid you welcome. He says he will talk with you in more detail tomorrow. > Another bow and she was gone.
Clark turned his attention to the tray, which had a bewildering assortment of tiny plates on it. Things that looked like slices of roots, tiny purple flower-like things--well, that thing was definitely tofu, at least. He picked up his chopsticks and began to dissect the tofu.
Across the table from him, Bruce raised his eyebrows. "You know how to use chopsticks? Impressive."
Clark gave the other man a withering glance. "They do have Chinese restaurants in Kansas, you know." Condescending bastard. He finished the tofu and nudged something that looked like a piece of gelatin with little squiggles in it. "What's this?"
Bruce popped the wobbly bit of food in his mouth and chewed, considering. "It's delicious," he declared.
"I just like to know what I'm eating," Clark grumbled. He tried one of the purple things and found it crunchy and sour. Not bad. "Why don't we get to eat with Yoru-sensei and his family? Are they afraid of gaijin contamination?"
Bruce looked rather offended on his teacher's behalf. "Hardly. But it's New Year's Eve, and in Japan that means you spend it with your family, the people you're closest to."
"And you're stuck with me."
"And we're stuck with each other, yes." Bruce continued to eat, his look somewhere between glaring and musing.
As Clark finished up his rice, there was another tap at the door. At Bruce's < Come in, > an elderly Japanese man entered the room. Unlike Tokiko and Kaori, he was wearing traditional Japanese clothing. His face was lined and weathered, a white goatee and mustache framing a mouth that curved serenely. Power and stillness simultaneously rested in the lines of his body, a grace beyond that of the physical.
Clark felt a shock of something like recognition when he realized he had seen that same coiled balance in both Batman and Bruce Wayne at times.
Yoru-sensei bowed, and both Bruce and Clark rose quickly to bow deeply before the master. < Welcome to my humble home, > Yoru said quietly. < Wayne-san, welcome back. >
Bruce lifted his eyes to his old master. < I'm honored by your hospitality, sensei. > He gestured toward his companion. < This is Clark Kent, an...acquaintance of mine. He works as a reporter in Metropolis. > Clark bowed nervously.
"Mr. Kent," Yoru said in English. "Yes. I read your story recently about Intergang's influence abroad. Very interesting."
Clark blinked. "Thank you, sir. I'm honored."
Yoru nodded gravely and turned back to Bruce. < We shall discuss what you wrote me about in greater length tomorrow, Wayne-san. For now, please take this evening to recover from your jet lag and rest. The bath is ready whenever you like. You remember where it is. > A faint smile made it clear giving Bruce his old room had not been a coincidence. He switched back into English to address the two of them. "Please, feel at home."
Bruce didn't smile, but his voice was warm as he bowed. "I always do, sensei."
After the door closed behind his teacher, Bruce opened one of the sliding doors in the wall to reveal a closet stacked with bedding. He pulled down a couple of futons, blankets, and pillows, and arranged them on the floor, a decent distance from each other. Then he pulled out a cotton robe, white with blue markings on it, and began unselfconsciously to strip in a corner of the room.
"Now Clark, don't embarrass me by having bad bath etiquette." He spoke without looking at Clark, stripping off his sweater and turtleneck. "You wash before you enter the bath. No soap in the bath. Rinse yourself really well." Clark saw a long silvery scar that trailed down Bruce's back. He found himself wondering just how many scars a man like Bruce Wayne would end up with before his death. Bruce started to take off his pants and Clark quickly began to study the tigers and cranes dancing across the walls. "And don't drain the bath when you're done, other members of the family may be using it." The door slid open and Clark looked to see Bruce in a light cotton robe cut almost like a kimono, standing in the doorway. "I'll go first and give you some privacy to change," Bruce said, with a hint of a sardonic smile. Clark wondered if his discomfort had shown that clearly.
The door slid shut. Clark took the opportunity to change into the light robe, but discovered that what Bruce wore with grace merely made him look like a very...big...foreign guy. He was still fiddling at the belt with annoyance when Bruce came back.
Bruce snorted with laughter at the sight of Clark with his belt twisted and the edges of the robe askew. Clark scowled. "How the hell should I know how to wear a kimono?"
"It's not a kimono, Clark. It's a yukata, and it's a lot simpler to wear than a kimono." Bruce smiled slightly as if at a private joke. He reached out and adjusted the edges of Clark's robe, evening them out, then straightened the belt until it lay smooth. "There you go. You're ready for public consumption again, gaijin." He gestured. "The bath is on the left, down the hall."
Clark crammed his fat foreign feet into the tiny slippers and waddled down the hall, fuming--whether at Bruce's condescension or his own ineptitude, he wasn't sure.
: : :
Bruce took advantage of Clark's absence to call home again. Dick had come out of his sulk tonight, and chattered cheerfully about how Alfred was going to let him stay up until midnight tonight. He was a mercurial child, swinging between gloom and happiness in a way Bruce never had at that age.
As Dick talked, Bruce watched the tigers on the walls. He remembered each of them like old friends; he had even given them names during the long nights. His eyes were drawn to the two who seemed to be frolicking, wrestling together like friends or lovers, one's paw thrown over the other's back, the playfully pinned tiger chewing gently on the ear of his companion. Toshio and Kouhei, he had named them. He reached out and ran a finger lightly down Toshio's striped back, over Kouhei's flanks.
Dick was still explaining something interesting he had learned in school today--and how Kelly had tried to kiss him--when the door slid open again and Clark started to enter the room. "Take off your slippers!" Bruce hissed at him as he stepped in. "No slippers on tatami!" Clark glowered and removed the slippers.
Dick's voice on the phone went up about an octave. "You said you'd be working with Superman while you were there...is that--is that him?"
Bruce eyed the uncomfortable-looking man who had managed to get his sash twisted around again. "I suppose so, yes."
"Can I..." Dick cleared his throat and dropped his voice a little. "May I talk with him?"
"Superman? You want to say hello to my ward, Richard Grayson?" Bruce held out the phone toward Clark, who picked it up as if handling an adder.
"Hello, is this Richard?" Bruce could make out Dick's excited voice on the other end, all pretense at sober adulthood dropped instantly. As Bruce watched, Clark threw back his shoulders and took a breath--and was Superman. Superman in a ridiculously twisted yukata, but still Superman. "I'm pleased to talk to you too, Richard," Superman said. Not Clark. Superman. Bruce felt his eyebrows rising. He wondered if Clark was even aware of the change. He didn't seem particularly to be.
Superman was listening to Dick's excited chatter, not getting many words in edgewise, but clearly listening. Listening more closely than Bruce had been, Bruce thought with a sudden pang of guilt.
"You know, Richard," Superman was explaining, "This could be a dangerous trip, and Bruce wants to make sure you're well-trained before--" Dick's distant voice cut him off. "--No, no, I'm sure it's not that he doesn't think you're good enough, or brave enough. Yes, I'm sure you're brave enough too." A complicated look crossed Clark's face, moving through frustration and sadness into something close to a smile. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing, Richard. No, I don't think that would be appropriate. He's a...very strong-willed man, and if he said you're not to come, I sincerely doubt anything I could say will change his mind." He shot Bruce a look; Bruce looked back blandly. "I'm sorry," Superman said softly to the boy on the other side of the world. His eyebrows shot upwards suddenly and his look at Bruce became mischievous. "Why thank you, Richard, I'd love to come by for dinner sometime. Yes, I'll consider that an official invitation," he added hastily as Bruce made a big production of jostling the phone away from him.
"All right, Dick," Bruce said, glaring sternly at the snickering Clark, "You've gotten Superman invited to the Manor, are you happy?"
A long silence on the other end. "Dick?"
Something suspiciously close to a sniffle. "I wanted to be with you when the new year started. So we could start it together."
Bruce sank down onto the tatami floor, leaning his back up against Kouhei's painted belly. "I'm sorry, Dick. One of the things you're going to have to learn is that my job, this life--it means you can't always be where you'd like to be." No response. "I wish I were with you too. I'll be home soon. Okay?" Definite sniffling on the other side of the line now, and Bruce was acutely conscious of Clark's direct blue eyes on him, watching him make his ward cry.
The sniffling resolved into a teary voice. "Okay. I love you, Bruce."
As always, Bruce forced himself not to hesitate, not to consider the hideous implications of what he was about to say. "I love you too, kiddo."
He hung up the phone and shrugged uncomfortably at Clark, who was just looking at him. No recrimination in those eyes, and yet Bruce felt...recriminated. He went to the paper blinds at the far side of the room and pushed them open to reveal a glassed-in veranda with two chairs and a small table. Outside, the moon drifted above the sloping shoulder of the mountain, dark with pine trees. "Don't you have someone to call, check in with?" he asked, looking out at the moon.
When Clark didn't answer, he glanced back at the other man just in time to catch the tail end of an expression that Bruce would have called "woebegone" if it hadn't been on the face of the most powerful being on the planet. Clark dropped into the other chair, his features nondescript again. "Not really, no. No one like you do. I mean, I'm sure my parents would like to hear my voice, but they know I'm okay, and on a reporter's salary...I can't afford to call them from Japan and just chat."
Bruce took out his international cell phone and slid it across the table. "Check in with your folks, Kent."
Clark stared at the phone. "I couldn't--"
"It's only money. Call your family. Wish them a Happy New Year."
Clark reached out gingerly and rested his hand on the phone. "Thank you," he said softly.
Of course, that meant Bruce had to put up with fifteen minutes of listening to Clark explain to his folks the mysterious intricacies of waste disposal and recycling in Japan, but the look on the guy's face when his mother picked up on the other end made it--well, maybe not worth it, but rather satisfying. It never hurt to have a Kryptonian consider himself in your debt, after all: a sheerly pragmatic decision.
After Clark hung up, Bruce poured him some more of the light green tea and they sipped for a moment in silence. Outside, the moon lifted itself slowly above the mountain. The air was cool and crisp.
Keeping his eyes on the moon, Bruce said, "When you were twelve, did you know you wanted to do something great with your life, Clark?"
A slurping noise, which Bruce didn't look toward. Clark swallowed tea. "When I was twelve, I didn't have any powers." Bruce made a mental note of that: he had scoured the Smallville newspapers and records of that time and found no sign of a super-powered kid flying around, but that didn't mean much. It made a huge difference in Superman's personality whether he had grown up with powers or without. Bruce was relieved to hear it was the latter. "I knew I wasn't from Earth, but I didn't know just how...different...I was going to be."
"That's not what I'm asking. Did you want to do great things?"
"I...suppose so. Mostly I wanted to become an astronomer and find out where I came from, maybe be the first person to contact another civilization. I never really planned on flying around and saving people."
"But once you knew you had the powers, you didn't consider just hiding them and living a normal life?"
"What?" Clark sounded honestly surprised. "How could I do that?"
Bruce looked down at his teacup, then back up at the moon. "This kid, Clark. He's like us. He's going to help people, and he's going to start as soon as he can. I can't shackle him in a closet. I can train him. Try to stall him as long as possible. Make sure he's got the skills, the...wisdom...to stay alive."
Clark snorted gently. "Only Batman could have stalled him this long, I suspect. He...seems special."
Bruce felt himself smile. "He is."
Clark cleared his throat. "I wasn't anything like the two of you at that age. I was really just an ordinary kid. Nothing special."
Bruce looked at Clark, his face in shadows, touched with silver, a chiaroscuro. "I don't believe that."
The statement seemed to hang in the silvery silence between them for longer than Bruce liked, but before he could make a safe, sarcastic addition, a new sound reached their ears. Distant and deep, a bell was ringing somewhere far away, echoing off the mountains around them.
"What's that for?" Clark's voice was hushed.
"It's a temple bell. They start ringing them at midnight." Bruce glanced at his watch. "It's a new year."
Clark smiled at him and lifted his teacup in a toast. "Happy New Year, Bruce."
Bruce didn't return the smile. "We're going to the local temple with Yoru-sensei tomorrow. We should probably turn in and get some sleep." Bruce started to push his chair back.
Clark continued to hold up his teacup, waiting, his smile unwavering. Stubborn oaf. Grudgingly, Bruce touched his cup to Clark's. A tiny clink of china on china.
"Happy New Year, Clark."
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Toshio (実雄): The character for "Truth" combined with the character meaning "Hero, Manliness, Magnificence"
Kouhei (公平): "Justice"