Anime: Basilisk
Characters: Mino Nenki and Hotarubi, mentioning of Yashamaru/Hotarubi
Rating: K+
Word Count: 394
Author Note: Ages are my own perceptions and aren't necessarily correct.
Blossom
It was about time he realized that he was old enough to be her uncle.
When he turned forty, she was still fourteen, and that was a problem.
He had no romantic interest in her, and in fact had given up that idea all the way back when he was seventeen and realized that the common woman would never find an abnormally hairy man attractive, and he would be absolutely damned if he were to chase a hairy woman. Since then he'd come to terms with living a life in celibacy, but there was still a problem.
For instance, when he tried to talk to her about growing old, she chuckled and told him, "I don't know, maybe you should take this conversation over to Rousai-dono." How sweetly she had said this, but that didn't help. The girl was a flower only beginning to blossom, and he was already losing his petals.
On the flip side, when she attempted talking to him about the things that young adults go through, like young love and puberty, all he could say was something like, "Well, I've always been covered in hair, so I can't help you there." (Promptly was he slapped after a statement like that; "I'm not talking about that!" and off she went, temper in tow.)
But when Yashamaru confessed his love, it was he who she first ran to with that silly, lovesick grin on her face, and her delicate hands grabbed a large and calloused one of his in a surprising grip. She was nineteen and in love, a feeling that he had never associated with anyone, and yet felt the most compelled to congratulate and tease and make life a living hell for the both of them in the most compassionate of ways. They thought he was being difficult, but he justified that he was putting their love to the test.
He was actually more inclined to provoke every little emotion until it frustrated her and him both.
And he didn't know it, but he was the last Iga to see her sorrow and her scorn. In the middle of rain and only a mile after their departure in pursuit of the Kouga, he allowed himself to say a comforting word (as rough as it may have sounded), and then he became the last Iga to see her smile.