Author's notes: Aoshi's not mine (unfortunatelly... wahhhh!!!): he's Misao's-- uh, I mean, he's Watsuki-sensei's. Misao is not mine, she's Watsuki-sensei's too. And Okina is Watsuki-sensei's, and Okon and Omasu and Kuro and Hiko (even if he doesn't appear on this fic) and all Rurouni Kenshin characters. "Still Loving You" is not mine either, it's Scorpions's. In fact it was written and recorded before I was born. Now, to the fic.
It must have been six o'clock in the morning, but it didn't seem that the sun had the intention to rise that day. It was still and dark, grey like a mourning crying face, a wide misty one that Aoshi could gaze through the window. His depth was kind of quizzicall about that weather. For almost one year the days looked bright and cheering, as if the rays of the sun were warmly trying to embrace him and wipe his tears while he kept on brooding over his faults since he left the Aoi-ya, more than a decade before. And now he satrted feeling the weight on his shoulders die down, the sky had grown dark, as if it was trying to make him feel guilty again.
Crawling upon his knees, still slowly moving due to a deeply-slept night, he headed to the restaurant' back door. Nothing was different from what it used to be: the kitchen was neatly organised, a slightly messed corner that Omasu hadn't had the mood to clean up. There was nobody awake that time, so the whole building was absolutely silent except for Kuro's sawing wood. Tiptoeing he meant to get out from Aoi-ya without waking anybody up, but just when he got to the door he heard his name being evoked. "Aoshi?"
He stood the very place he were and waited to hear Okina's voice again, without turning his back to face him. Of all the people at Aoi-ya, the old ninja was the person Aoshi avoided the most to put his regretful eyes upon.
"Aoshi? Are you still there?"
"Yes. What do thou want?" he said bitterly.
"I must have a conversation with you, lad."
"What about?"
"What do you think?"
"I am not in the mood for riddles, Okina." His husky voice was almost unaudible. But just when he finished his sentence a piercing thought came to his mind, making him finally turn to the old man as if guessing what he was going to say.
"Misao."
"What?"
Okina sighed and stepped forward. "Eh... Misao..." Aoshi lowered his head. "She's acting rather oddly."
"She always acts in an odd way..."Aoshi mumbled, not daring to louden his tone.
"The both of us know it's not true. She's a girl and nevertheless her mind had grown up some years since she fighted Kamtari, since you came back."
Aoshi didn't move. He felt like a child being told off about doing something wrong. Okina didn't know but inside Aoshi was nodding. "I know, Okina..." he thought without a word.
"Okon told me so." Okina went on. "I had already realized she was very silent these times, but I thought she was just sick. She's not, though."
"And what do thou want me to do?"
"Talk to her. I want you to have a conversation with her, find out what's going on."
"Why me?"
"Don't pretend you live in a shell. You know you're the only person she listens to.
"I do not think it could ever have any sense. But I will try anyway, Okina-sensei."
Okina walked closer to Aoshi and stood there for a while -an enormous one to Aoshi. "Tack!" the empty sound of the old ninja's hand swating the younger man's pale face reached every corner of the kitchen, hurting the later much worse than the slaping indeed. "Face me, Aoshi. Stop acting as if you owed me something!" His eyelids didn't move an inch, head still down; Okina in front of him, gazing his wan face as if they were really facing each other: the okashira pretended nothing had happened though. Okina taped his shoulder tenderly as a father. "You are not a bad man, my fellow." Then he walked away, leaving Aoshi standing there alone.
"And after all I had done he still calling me a fellow..." Aoshi finally opened his eyes and headed to outside.
-_-
The grass was gentle beneath his feet, it didn't seem to pierce his skin anymore as it did some time before. And also the air seemed less thick: it flickered among the leaves and danced into his lungs. "Oh my... And this route had once seemed so painful to me..."
Aoshi wasn't going to the temple yet. He decided to drop by a certain place before his meditation, a place he had avoided the more he could since he came back to Aoi-ya, one that made his spine get cold... A spot he once wanted to honour with blood, then with tears and that time with reminding. "My companions... this time I shall visite yer graves without moping, without sadness... I come to ye light-heartened."
He paced firmily along the trees, his heart throbing with the sound of his bare feet caressing the grass. The memories of that night when he burried his friends, his companions, his subordinates, came to his mind as an arrow, spinning, piercing, thrusting. The sound of the shotgun, the pain caused by the bullets on his tights, the knot on his throat hampering his voice and his tears, Hannya's falling carelessly on the ground -the strongest man at Oniwabanshuu- , his having to manage to take their heads from there, colours indisctinctely blotched face his eyes, the wind whizzing on his ears, his running to burry them, oh his legs hurted, cry, Okashira, cry while thou are alone...
He got to the graves. It all vanished from him.
Somebody was kneeing in front of their thombs. A petite sillouette with crossed hands and lowered head was crying in silence, then wiped the tears from her eyes -it must be a woman. She raised herself and turned round to go away. Aoshi blocked her way with his own body.
"Misao... What are thou doing here?"
An unfinishable minute was spent with absolute silence. "I was praying for their souls." She answered slowly and in a low voive, her bulky eyes hiding the ocean she had on them. "I know they can hear me. Excuse-me, I'm leaving. I don't want to hinder your prayers." And she meanted to leave.
"Do not." He grabbed her elbow, she faced him. "I must have a conversation with thee. Beshimi, Hannya, Shikijou and Hyottoko will understand me."
She turned her eyes aside. "Okay. Go ahead."
She was cold. Too cold and too still. It didn't even seem to be Misao, his tinny Misao-chan who would jump and run, shout and laugh. It was a woman, with sad ocen-blue eyes, measured movements and minced words. Who was that woman?
Aoshi sat beneath a tree; Misao stood in front of him, showing she didn't mean to stay long. "Now go ahead, then." Her voice was icy.
"Okina... He is worried about thy behaviour these days."
"Waste of time."
She had cut his introduction.
"Omasu had also told me about it."
"Again it's waste of time."
She did again. And they said nothing for a while. Again she meant to leave. Oh, why did he have to be so wild, so unreactive with people? He had to do something for her to stay... Instincts, do not thou dare to make him say something he can--
"I got worried about it too." It just fled from his mouth. Now it was done, it was to be continued. "I had already realized, but when Omasu told me I got much more concerned. This morning Okina came to me and I decided to talk to thee."
She stood where she was, balling her fist, her back to her Okashira.
"Did you? Oh, come on, don't make me laugh..."
"It doesn't seem to affect thee."
She chuckled as in dismiss. "If you really did, it may have affected me. But I'm not so naïve, Shinomori-sama."
He blikned.
"Please do not call me that way..."
"How should I?" she turned. Not even her braid whiped the air as it used to. "Should I call you 'Shinomori-sensei'?"
"Stop being childish..."
Her voice turned raging and full of regret, even ressembling Aoshi's. "Childish? Do you think I'm childish? I had been childish all the times I waited for you, I died little by little for you, missing part of my life fancying about someone that didn't exist, and never had existed. Yeah, I was childish, but I've grown up, Shinomori-sama. Finally the "Misao-chan" is aware of how ridicule she was: now she's placed by an adult Misao. Does it satisfy your wishes?"
He said nothing. She said nothing. The trees turned silent and suspicious, waiting for them to end their conversation. He felt choking, as if her words hampered the air from going to his lungs. He felt choking because he was not in control. Because his hands were tied with her sorrow, his eyes folded with her muffled tears.
"Thou... Thou are acting like I used to."
"Congratulations, professor." She claped her hands, a stony look on her eyes. "You've created a monster. Are you happy now? Would you be fond of me like this?"
"I did not want to see thee like this. It hurts."
"You don't seem to care."
They faced. Her eyes seemed colourless. Gray just as the morning. She was a mirror.
Misao turned her back and mean to walk away. Aoshi stood sitting under the tree, carelessly. "She is leaving, and now it may be the last time." He felt the weight again on his heart. It wasn't something he meant, hurting his would-be daughter, his tinny girl, his girl, his... "She is not mine. Why does it scare me? Could it be that I took her for granted? Damn coldness, it's making me aloof and--" he sang aloud, without him controling his instincts.
Aoshi:
Time, it needs time
To win back thy love again
I will be there, I will be there
Misao stopped dead. She turned back slowly, rage still on her eyes, her voice flickering with the amount of tears she piled up on her eyes.
Misao:
Love, only love
Can bring back my love someday
Would you be there? Would you be there?
It sounded to Aoshi more than a challenge, as it would have sounded in back times. It sounded a doubt, it sounded disbelief. She didn't trust he was able to have her back, to unburry al she had decided to hide from thw world for keeps. He raised his body humblely -for the very first time in his leading life-, opened his arms wide and poured his wish.
Aoshi:
Fight, babe, I will fight
To win back thy love again
I will be there, I will be there
Love, only love
Can break down the wall someday
I will be there, I will be there
Misao chuckled, a sad chuckle, as if she had to substitute her tears for something else."You say you need love to break down your wall. What about me? When will I have love back? How long will I have to go on spilling my love and crying? I give up, Shinomori-sama."
Aoshi walked in her direction and grabbed her wrist strongly. "Do not name me this way again, Misao-san." He said in angry voice and tender eyes, facing her close. She got scared and surprised at the same time. Her eyes earned back the ocean-blue they had in them, a fact that made Aoshi sigh in relief and release her arm from his clutch. She didn't seem to fight it, so they stood touching each other as he sang, gloomily.
Aoshi
If we would go again
All the way from the start
I would try to change
The things that killed thy love
Misao, turned her head aside, still touching her okashira. Her ocean started coming afloat her eyes, being spilled out of them.
Misao:
Your pride has built a wall, so strong
That I can't get through
Aoshi shook his head, frightened with the thunder inside of it. Her sorrow echoed on him, his coldness has frozen her heart, their looks didn't meet, their silence did.
Aoshi:
Is there really no chance
To start once again?
I am loving thee
"How many times... How many times had I wanted to believe it was true... How many times had Omasu and Okon told me you cared for me? And how I wanted to think it was true. But I got fed up of decieving myself, Aoshi-sama. Kami-sama knows how I waited for you. But the show must go on."
Painfully she took her hand away from his clutch, both of them kept on feeling the other's skin. She turned her back to leave, but had no courage.
He felt a looser, groundless, as if all the air and all the water and all the earth on Earth had got together and he had to breathe earth and step on the water... Never more would he be able to feel the warmth of her thoughts on him, her silent prayers for his coming back from his shell -yes, Okina was right, he liven inside a shell. In a last desperate try to make her believ him, he closed his eyes, not to look to inside himself, but to have the courage to let himself to be shown.
Aoshi
Try, baby try
To trust in my love again
I will be there, I will be there
Misao didn't turn to him. She tried to protect herself from heaving herself to him so easily, so she kept her back to the okashira. "Why should I? Have you ever tried to make me believe in you?"
Aoshi didn't answer. He approached to her and started singing, but soon corrected himself.
Aoshi:
Love, thy-- our love
Just should not be thrown away
I will be there, I will be there
For the very first time in her life Misao heard that from Aoshi himself. "Our love", that was what he said. That stony heart, that cold person, that husky voice, always lackadiasical and kept to himself, this Aoshi, her Aoshi-sama told her something about feelings, about his own feelings. She kind of started believing he could really be true to her. She turned slowly, but kind of "misaoish", a shy and daring smile like the ones she used to wear on her face, and asked, yet defending herself.
Misao:
If we'd go again
All the way from the start
Would you try to change
The things that killed my love?
Your pride had built a wall, so strong
That I couldn't get through
So there must be a chance
To start once again
Aoshi opened his eyes and faced her. He was almost loosing the spirit when she finally got convinced. She would give him one more chance -and he knew it would be the last one, but he didn't intend to waste it-, it was something he wasn't expecting anymore, after the fright he experienced. He held the side her shoulders firmly and made her look at him, heed his words, so as to let her aware of his regret.
Aoshi:
If we would go again
All the way from the start
I would try to change
The things that killed our love
Yes, I have hurt thy pride, and I know
What thou have been through
Thou should give me a chance...
Misao smiled her particular complete smile. Her eyes glimmered as much as they did when Aoshi returned to the Aoi-ya, after ten years of abscence. She waved forth and threw herself against him, placing her arms around his neck and burrying her face on his shoulder. He stood the way he was, surprised by her reaction, but recognizing in it the woman he held dear. She sang happily, expelling the tears that wanted to be cried.
Misao:
This can't be the end
I'm still loving you
Aoshi sighed in relief and, not knowing very well how to do it, he embraced her the best he could, not very tight, not very loose (oh my, how awkward he was on those matters!), messing her hair gently with his hand that shuddered a little.
Aoshi:
I am still loving thee, I need thy love
I am still loving thee
-_-
*It's me again* (onomatopoea) Fzzzzzzzzz! (wipes the nose with a white handkechief) Snif, snif, oh it was soooo lovely... (recovers herself) Awh, it got WAFFy, more than I intended it to get... My first idea was writing about Misao's going different to please him (the song would be "Just The Way You Are", by Berry White); then it would be a, Aoshi POV of Misao's leaving him. But when I thought about that lovely man with a "dog-with-no-owner" face, I decided to make them get together. Despite everything, didn't it get cuuute? Sugestions, please? (blinks, blinks, blinks)