Nine Lives will be a collection of 9 one-shots, each set in a different time period. As with all my other works, please correct me on grammar, spelling, and historical mistakes if spotted. Thank you for reading!

Communist China, 1968.

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She met him when she had barely grown out of her gangly teenage years, a young woman of twenty with raven black hair, creamy skin and wide, amber eyes. She was wearing the Red Guard uniform, and it was unmistakable that she was a local authority. Maybe it was the way she walked, with a straight back and slow, surely steps, or maybe it was the way she always took in her surroundings, with a clear gaze and a stare so intense it could make any pro-capitalist man blush.

She stood at the front of the fancy, western-style home, on the outskirts of her district. She was to survey the belongings inside the house, and question the homeowner. And possibly arrest him.

She knocked on the door, and it was swiftly opened by a foreign man with tousled, blond hair.

She stared.

He stared back.

He was young, yet deceptively young, because although all the roots of his hair were the same bright yellow and his face was a smooth canvas of skin, his eyes captured her attention and made her wonder his age. They were an exquisite green, bright and inquisitive, possessing so much depth and secretive sadness that made her heart tug a little and her nose twitch in suspicion. Definitely a capitalist, she thought. Aloud, she said, "Mr. Usui Takumi? I'm Ayuzawa Misaki. Would you be so kind, sir, as to give me a tour of your house, and also answer a few questions about yourself?"

His face lacked any emotion, but she knew he knew he was in trouble. Logically, a foreigner- a British, at that, did not belong to an Asian country during a cultural revolution. And to be approached by the authority meant that he could lose all his possessions and be thrown in jail.

Her gaze swept down, and she realized that he had a violin under his arm and a bow on his right hand, but her thoughts were interrupted by his response.

"Aren't you a Japanese?"

Inwardly, she rolled her eyes and gave an exasperated sigh. She might have answered this question a thousand times. "I was raised by my grandmother," she explained with a bland, monotone voice, "who was Japanese."

His pinkie traveled to the neck of the instrument, casually plucking the E string as he tilted his head, as if surveying her. "Fair enough. Don't bother taking off your shoes, unless you have a liking for cat feces." He opened the door wider.

She stepped inside the french doors, and momentarily forgetting her position, wrinkled her nose like a child. The residence was beautiful, with fancy tables and paintings, gilded portraits and a spiraling staircase. It was also teeming with cats. "You raise cats for a living?"

He glanced back and gave her an amused smile as he led her to the living room. "I'm a violinist." He nodded his head at the piece of paper Misaki was still clutching. "I thought you would know that already."

She flushed as she sat down on one of the purple, velvet sofas, and across from her he followed suite. "I was too taken back by the number of cats in your house."

He threw back his head and laughed. While his face was devoid of any expression just a few moments ago, she noticed the crinkle in his eyes and the lopsided grin. He was, as reluctant as she was to admit, charmingly handsome. Charismatic. Mesmerizing.

He placed the violin carefully onto a glass table and folded his hands in front of him. "So, what's a pretty girl like you doing in a single man's house?"

She glared. Apparently, he was a pervert, too, but she sat up straight and answered him, pretending to be unaffected. "You do know, Mr. Usui, that I have the power to arrest you."

Her bark had no effect on him.

He chuckled and leaned back on the couch and gazed at her, an arm supporting his head, like a bored student. "And what good would that do to you?"

She ignored his question. She had a duty. "Sir, I'd like you to answer a few questions on your background."

He mocked a bow from where he was sitting. "Certainly, my lady," he replied smoothly.

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She was annoyed. First of all, she had wasted thirty minutes trying to dish out any valuable information he might have, but all his answers were light, flirtatious, and irritating. Second, the questions that he dared to ask back were twice as provoking. He had even gone so far as to ask if she had a sweetheart. If he's not a creepy pervert, she thought, pigs can fly.

He left her alone "to feed the cats" on the second story of his house after telling her to look around. She started looking in rooms from her right and found nothing too uncommon (only foreign books and antique art) until she opened the door to the last one on her left and stepped inside.

She didn't know what to say. Surrounded by an unmade, messy bed were violins- parts and whole, strings, knobs, bows. She let her mouth drop in surprise and confusion. She did not notice that he had come up behind her.

"Here," he said, his face so close that she could feel his breathe on her neck, "is my bedroom."

She jumped away. "Don't you know it's rude to sneak up on someone?" she cried indignantly.

He smirked and shrugged. "I thought you knew."

She turned back, and looked in again. Carefully, she said, "You told me you were a violinist? Would you care to play for me?"

"Ma'am, I'm sure you know this already, but Red and Western music don't mix."

Now it was her turn to shrug. "My father use to play it. I grew up with it."

He brushed past her as he walked inside, picked up a violin and settled it under his chin. "Any requests?" he asked as he took a bow in his hand.

"Paganini."

He raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything. Instead, he brought the bow to the strings and the music that came out of the instrument rocked Misaki with so much nostalgia that she felt sick.

He was playing the No. 17. She would have recognized it any day, since it was one of the pieces she often heard when she came home from school and her father was still with her family.

Headache. It felt like there were hundreds of little gnomes pounding her head. She turned her heel and set off, but the music stopped behind her and he grabbed her hand.

What's wrong? Are you sick?"

She shook her head. "I have to go," she mumbled.

Awkwardly, he released her and placed his hands on his sides. "You're welcome to visit me again," he said. "But, like, without your uniform."

She nodded her head and left.

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She did go a week later, on a Saturday. He played her Caprice No. 11. The next time, it was No. 24. And she went again the week after that. And again.

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It became a routine.

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Once, after he had finished playing for her, he asked, "Why aren't you ever going to arrest me?"

"I changed my mind."

"You ever gonna do it, though?"

"No."

He flashed a brilliant smile, and her insides turned warm and fuzzy, just like the champagne they were drinking.

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She found company in him. He was witty, intelligent, and interesting. She felt comfortable talking about her past, and her job. She talked about her sister Suzuna, and her father, and her grandmother. He would listen, legs up on the couch, a glass of wine in one hand. And finally, when it was September and the leaves had begun to change colours, she knew it was love.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, when a glass of champagne turned into a few more, and then he kissed her, and she kissed back, and her arms tangled up around his neck as she pulled him closer and her back pressed against a wall. He broke off and raised an eyebrow, but she stood on tiptoe and placed both her hands on his face.

Please.

He burrowed his face into her neck. "I love you, Ayuzawa," he whispered.

An hour later they were on his bed. He was lightly asleep; his breathe tickled her neck and his arm circled around her waist. A cat slept on her pillow, another by her feet.

She felt complete.

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He was arrested, thirteen days later. Misaki did not know until the Friday after, when she went to visit him and saw smoke coming out from the shattered windows. Gone.

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Afterwards, she moved a little farther away, resigned her job, and worked as an editor for a newspaper. Even after six years, not a single person knew of her clandestine relationship.

Her heart wrenched every time she passed by his abandoned house, but she would turn her head away and continue walking.

Under her bed she kept a violin, a bow, and a stack of sheet music. It was her birthday gift. He had placed the items in her hands, and told her that if she ever changed political ideologies, he would be more than happy to teach her. She took it out every night, stroked the smooth, glazed wood, and flipped through the Caprices, and sometimes she would cry herself to sleep, and in the morning, Suzuna would ask her why her eyes were puffy.

She buried her misery into her work. She would leave home at seven in the morning, come home at ten, and work some more in her room. It was her routine, and this routine kept her from breaking down.

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It was one of these nights when Suzuna rapped on her door. "Big sister? There's a British man with yellow hair asking for you. Should I send him off?"

Misaki was puzzled. What man would ask for her at eleven at night? she wondered. What man could- wait. Man. British. Yellow hair. Oh my God, no, it can't be, no-

She bolted out of her room and flew down the stairs, sobbing with- what? Relief? Joy? She didn't know. It didn't matter, anyway.

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And when his strong arms wrapped around her body, she felt complete, once again.