|12 years earlier|

'Michiko, be a good girl and stay here, okay?' her father said as he motioned for her to sit down on one of the pillows in the room. He was here on business again, though with her full six years of age she didn't really know what that business was supposed to be. Her father walked further, leaving Michiko in the room on her own. One of the servants brought her some tea, but left the girl alone again quite soon.
Being left alone in a room like this wasn't terribly interesting for a young child. Her father was a smart man, but he sure didn't know what it was to be a kid in this kind of circumstance. She pulled a small children's book from her kimono sleeves, before getting up so she could go and read outside. The man's house they were in now was at a busy street, so she wasn't supposed to go out through the front door. Instead she made her way to the back garden, which had a fence around it so people wouldn't run through it.

In the garden was a lovely peach tree. It was big, and the peaches were ripening up very nice. Michiko thought that if she asked nicely, maybe the adults would let her have a peach. Adults really like it when you asked things nicely. They also liked it if you did your best to study a lot, and were quiet. The small girl picked out a big root to sit on, so her kimono wouldn't get dirty from sitting on the ground. A little while later she was so absorbed in her story, she didn't notice time passing by.
A slipper fell next to her from the tree. Surprised she looked up, to see two boys in the peach tree. The oldest one had a peach stuffed in his mouth, next to the ones he had hidden in his shirt for future eating. The youngest one was the one who had dropped his slipper. Dark blue eyes looked down at her in mild annoyance.
'Hey girl! Give me my slipper!' he shouted at her, sitting in the tree.
'What are you doing up there?' she asked, standing up. She craned her neck all the way up so she could see what the two boys were doing. The youngest one casually picked a peach and stuffed it in a bag he had tied around his waist.
'What do you think? We're stealing peaches, of course.' He answered her. 'If you want one, just come up here and give me my slipper. Then I'll share.'
The older boy looked at her in mild annoyance. 'Bankotsu, that's a girl. You don't expect her to be able to climb up a tree, right?'
'I wanna see if she can.' The younger boy replied to his friend. The older boy looked like he was almost twice her age, but that didn't stop her from sticking out her tongue at him.

'I can do anything a stupid boy can do.' She said back to them, slipping her book back in her sleeve. She added the slipper to it after beating the dirt off, before she started to walk around the tree. She started to pout when she couldn't find a way to go up.
'You're pretty stupid, right?' Bankotsu taunted from his place in the tree. 'Why don't you try to use that rock over there?' he pointed to said rock, which was close to a branch that looked like it would be able to support her.
Michiko stuck out her tongue out again, having no better reply to this kind of event. She had climbed up a tree before… once. She hoped she wouldn't fall down, because this time there wasn't a pond right next to it she could fall into. The youngest boy was five branched higher up while his friend was even higher than that, starting his second peach. When the older boy caught her looking, he stuck out his tongue out back at her, as a revenge for her earlier transgression.
Bankotsu kept pointing out where she had to climb so she could reach him. When she finally reached the same branch he was on, she remained close to the trees trunk, asking him to come closer to her.

He sat down next to her, putting his slipper back on. After he had done that, he looked at Michiko, inspecting her.
'You shouldn't steal peaches.' She told him, pouting. He ignored her comment, plucking an especially big peach.
'Why not? It's not like the guy living here is going to eat all of them. Would be a waste of good food, and me and Jakotsu like good food.' Jakotsu let himself dangle from a higher branch, until his feet reached the same branch the two younger children were on.
'Why are you talking to her? She's just a kid.' He asked, giving Michiko a sideways glance as he adjusted his shirt. It was overflowing with peaches. The girl gave them both disapproving glances, before she pulled out her book to prove her point.
'Because! There's a story in here about a thief, and a lot of bad things happened to him. Hey!' she yelled out when Bankotsu grabbed the book from her hands. When she tried to take it back, he stopped her with one hand, leafing through the book with his other.

'There aren't enough pictures in this book to understand the story!' he exclaimed, looking disappointed. 'Don't tell me you can read this?' he asked her, giving her a look that showed more interest than he had before.
'I can! Now give that back!' she demanded. Bankotsu handed the book to Jakotsu, who started to leaf through it as well. The younger boy held her back, even though she didn't dare to move much on the tree branch.
'We will. But you have to do something for us.' Bankotsu said. 'First, what's your name?'
'Michiko.' She mumbled, looking aggravated with the situation.
'Michiko – chan, we'll give you your book back, but you have to learn us read it first.' Bankotsu announced, while the older boy nodded absently before adding the book to the collected peaches.
'Well… okay. But why can't you give me my book back now? It's my favorite!' she looked like she was ready to cry. The boys didn't look concerned about that in the least.

'Because, if we give it back to you now, than you probably won't come back. But if you're a good girl, and you come back and teach us, we can play together.'
'I don't want to play with her.' Jakotsu said, looking annoyed at that promise.
'Play? What kind of games?' she inquired, her curiosity piqued. The man that lived here didn't have any children, and she wasn't allowed to go on the street to look for playmates. 'And can we play here?'
Bankotsu frowned. 'We could stay here… but we can go to the forest and play hide-and-seek, or villain and samurai or demon and slayer! Doesn't that sound nice?'
'I guess. But you have to promise! Pinkie swear on it!' she demanded. The boys complied with her request, before they got up to leave when they heard someone in the house call her name. Bankotsu told Jakotsu to help her down, and the older complied, even if he didn't look like he enjoyed the request.
'Michiko – chan!' Bankotsu yelled after her. When she turned around, he threw the big peach he had gotten from the tree down. 'Come back soon, okay? I'll be waiting!'
She caught the peach, fumbling with her two hands. The boys left the garden by dropping down from the branches that grew over the fence. Michiko smiled. Now she wouldn't have to play alone anymore when she came here with her father.

|A Few Months Later|

'You're late.' Bankotsu told her as he helped her up the last branch. He didn't even have to try very hard to help her get up. Michiko looked around the tree to see where Jakotsu was.
'Where's Ja-chan? I have a present for him.' She asked, showing Bankotsu the package that had made it hard for her to get up. The boy had grudgingly accepted her once Michiko had let him try on her hair ornaments.
'He had to stay home today, his mother wasn't feeling too well.' Bankotsu told her, sizing up the package in her hands. 'What's in there?' he asked.
'My sister said that she doesn't need this kimono anymore, because she doesn't like the colors. So I thought, maybe Ja-chan will be happy with this. He always thinks my kimono are pretty.'
Bankotsu nodded when she said that. 'That will really make him happy, yes.' He looked at her, expectantly. 'Do you have anything for me?'
She pulled out a piece of several colored threads entwined. He looked at it quizzically. 'You got me a piece of thread?' he sounded disappointed.

She shook her head, motioning him to turn around, pulling out a comb as he did so. 'It's pieces of silk from my kimono, the one with the butterflies. You said you liked it, Ban-chan. That's why I cut some off, to tie your hair together.'
'You ruined your kimono?' he asked, looking back at her. She smiled, and started to get the knots out of his growing hair.
'I didn't ruin it. I cut it from places that nobody will ever see. And you're letting your hair grow so long, it had to be tidied up. It'll be as long as mine soon.' She added, trying to not hurt him while combing out his hair.
'… I like long hair.' He mumbled, not looking at her. He felt how she started to braid his hair for him, 'tidying it up' as she liked to call it. When she finished, he could just see the colorful piece of entwined silks that was now keeping his hair together in the braid.
'You look nice with a braid, Ban-chan. Just like the great hero Susanoo.' She said admiringly when he turned back around. Her dark brown eyes seemed to sparkle as she clapped her hands happily.

'You think so?' he asked, surprised. He smiled when she told him 'yes, you do', before he pulled out the book he had brought back with him. He liked to read the stories, even though it wasn't easy. And he would have to pay double attention, since Jakotsu wasn't here to help him re-read it later.
She placed her finger on the beginning of the sentence he had to read. 'The… there once was a… bandit. And he…'
The words didn't come as fast as he liked, and sometimes he got really frustrated at the book or at her. But already he could read a little bit, and she'd start to teach him how to write soon too. The story they were reading now was really short, so he got to the ending fairly quickly as well.
'… and the bandit ma-married the princess, and… they lived habbily ever after.'
'Happily.' She corrected him, pointing at the paper.
'Happily.' He repeated after her, angry at himself that he had made such a simple mistake.
Michiko took out some rice cakes her father had given her as a treat, sharing them fairly with her friend. They sat in the tree like that, eating their rice cakes and watching the street next to the garden, filled with people.
'Michiko – chan… are you a princess?' Bankotsu eventually asked her. He had already asked Jakotsu about it, but the older boy had started laughing hysterically at that. The older boy had replied that there was no way Michiko was a princess. Princesses didn't climb trees.
Michiko thought about that for a little while. 'Daddy says I'm his princess… but I don't think I'm really a princess. Those are usually girls with really large houses and rich parents. Daddy works as a clerk for the daddies of princesses.' She had just recently learned the word clerk, and thought it sounded a bit weird. She wondered what a clerk had to do all day long.

'Oh…' he sounded confused about that. He had been sure she was a princess, because she was smart, and could read, and sing little songs to him. 'Then can we still live happily ever after, you think?' he asked again.
Michiko thought about what the fairytales said about that. 'I think you have to marry someone to be able to live with them happily ever after, right?'
Bankotsu nodded, and put two and two together according to his logic. 'Then, Michiko – chan, will you marry me?' he asked, putting the rest of his rice cake in his mouth.
'You want to marry me?' the girl asked, surprised.
'If you marry someone, you live together forever, right? Then Jakotsu can come and live with us too, and we can live happily ever after forever.'

Michiko's smile grew bigger when she heard that. 'That sounds like a lot of fun! Okay, then, I'll marry you, Ban-chan.'
'Pinkie swear on it, okay?' he asked her. She agreed, and then they returned to eating rice cakes, and talking about adventures until the people in the house started to yell her name again. Before Bankotsu helped her climb down again, he pressed a kiss on her cheek.
'Don't tell anyone I kissed you, okay?' he asked her. She nodded, blushing red, before running to the house.

|One Month Later|

Michiko ran into the garden, crying. The two boys weren't there yet, which sometimes happened. She continued to cry, sometimes trying to stop which only resulted in more painful sobs. She couldn't believe this was happening to them.
The boys arrived a few minutes later, when her crying had subsided. When they saw her red eyes, they let themselves drop from the tree in surprise. Jakotsu was the first to reach her, with his longer legs.
'Michiko, what happened to you? Did you fall again?' he asked, bending through his knees to be on the same level as her. She shook her head, trying not to cry. By the time Bankotsu had reached them, her tears were flowing again. When the boys kept asking what was going on, she finally told them.
'Daddy… daddy was asked to work for an important man. But the man lives far away… so… so we have to go and live there. So I won't be able to come and play anymore.'
Bankotsu stomped his foot on the ground when he heard that. 'No! You can't do that, Michiko – chan. You promised to marry me, right? If you leave, we can't all be together as a big family.'

'I can't really see what you're going to do about that though, brother.' Jakotsu said, standing up. He was wearing the kimono Michiko had brought him. He was also sporting a black eye he had gotten in a fight recently. Michiko had been scared when she had been told that the two boys had been in a fight, though she had been relieved when she had been told that they had won.
'I'm going to tell her father that he can't take her away.' The boy exclaimed. Before Michiko could say anything to stop him, he was already inside shouting about wanting to see her father. The adults of the house soon came out, surprised to find a street urchin inside.
'What do you want with me, kid? And how do you know my daughter's name?' her father asked. He looked very tired from talking with the man that lived here.
'You can't take Michiko – chan away! She's going to be my wife, she promised. It was a pinkie promise, so you know she can't break that.'
'Brother.' Jakotsu mumbled, coming into the room together with Michiko. Her father looked even more surprised to see a boy in a kimono that was discarded from his house a while ago.

'Michiko, what is the meaning of this?' her father asked her. The girl blushed, clasping her hands behind her back.
'It's true, daddy. I promised to marry Ban-chan. We're going to be a family, together with Ja-chan.' She explained.
Her father let out a sigh. Four guards came inside the room, two for every boy. Bankotsu began to swear loudly when the men lifted him up. He was giving them a struggle, but he couldn't break free. Michiko looked on, worried about her friends.
He lowered his head to the level of Bankotsu, meeting the dark blue eyes of the minor romantic with a look of humor in his eyes. 'I'm sorry, little friend. But even if Michiko has said that she wants to marry you, her father is the one who decides who she will be marrying. Don't worry, there are plenty of other girls in the world. You can marry one of those and be perfectly happy with your life.'

He motioned the men to remove the boys. Michiko could hear them shouting to let go of them immediately. She worried about her friends. Bankotsu had looked like he really was hating every moment of what had been happening.
'Daddy… can I go and say goodbye to them? Please?' she pleaded. She hadn't told them where they would be going. If her friends knew that, then maybe they would be able to find her when they were old enough to go somewhere without adults. Her father shook his head sadly, looking at the girl in a way that suggested that she still had a lot to learn before she could be trusted on her own.
'I'm sorry Michiko. But that boy wasn't really someone you should waste your life on. Where we are moving to soon, there will be a lot of other children to play with. You will forget about him soon enough. In a few months, you won't even be able to remember his name. You'll see.'