Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin, Aoshi and Kaoru are not mine.
Aoshi is like winter to most people: cold and unyielding. The planes of his face are beautifully smooth, frozen as a newly settled snowdrift, eyes burning chips of glacial ice. He moves with grace and economy and a minimum of effort. He is all long limbs, hard edges and lean frame...and so very, very brittle. His chilly demeanor wards off even the most energetic of pursuers. He stands alone even when he is amidst the people he has known for years, a giant tree covered in frost. He is a part of them all, towering over them, influencing, yet still separate. He is waiting.
Kaoru is like summer to anyone who sees her: vibrant and intense. She may lack refinement, she may be rough, but she is caring, and the passion that burns within her is undeniable. She is the epitome of restless vigor unchecked, a wildflower in full bloom. She is the heat of summer, tantalizing, untamed and infectious. Too often she wilts under the pressure of her days, but always manages to blossom again, unbroken and strong. The weight of her worries is crushing, yet she stands tall, proud and upright and unrepentant. She is soft and delicate, welcoming and pliant. She will bend, but she will not break. This is who she is. She, too, is waiting.
When they meet for the first time, Kaoru's exuberance has faded. It is autumn in her heart, bared and abandoned but still holding out for the last traces of glory. Aoshi's wintry plains are open to her, if not exactly inviting her in. He is unbending and proud and driven beyond rationality and he can see beyond her pain, beyond what everyone else sees. Theirs is an inauspicious start. There is something broken and yearning in both of them; slowly dying. They're unsure and preoccupied and still too much strangers to recognize it at the time. She is striving to be the redemption for one man, he is striving to freeze one woman out. Danger surrounds them in many forms, as does fear. The greatest fear is the one you can never escape. So they let this tiny seed pass, ignore it, bury it. This secret they share (that they do not fully know) lies dormant, waiting for a chance, for better opportunities.
The next time they meet, it is spring. Their worlds have changed more dramatically than imaginable. They have changed, they have grown, they have become more than what they were. Aoshi is thawing, rousing things he long thought dead inside. He is unfurling slowly, tentatively, unused to it all. Kaoru is rising, brighter than before, stronger and hardier than before, determined. She is a shining beacon of promise and forgiveness and she is drawing him to her inexplicably, like a moth to a flame. Aoshi cannot resist her pull, and he finds that he does not want to. He faces her, turns to her, as a plant does the sun, soaking up new spirit and second chances. They complement each other, his winter and her summer. Together they fell, and together they woke. Theirs is a regeneration, because they are changed, subtly, together; not different people, no, because that would mean nothing. As their fingers intertwine, theirs is a natural fit, as seamless as the flowing seasons.