Just a random piece done a long time ago, inspired by a story told by a friend although in different point of views and edited for characterisation purposes.
I'm not a devout Aoshi+Misao fan, but this couple was the only one I could fit into the storyline. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin and all its related characters are the sole ownership of the maestro Watsuki Nobuhiro-sama, that genius man!
A gust of wind brushed the dark bangs off his forehead, mussing up his style while ruffling his jacket. Leaning with his elbows behind his back on the balustrade, he appeared unconcerned.
He asserted to himself that he did the right thing. Misao would be hurt worse if it's much longer down the track. He knows it.
Yeah right. Uncertainty. That's the plague of the century.
It's not that he can't tolerate her. It's also not that he hated her; and it's not that he doesn't find her passable in the least. She's practically confessed to him twice (3 years apart!) but since she asked him for a reply only at the 2nd time round, he just had to say "no".
Knowing her love for poetic words, he gave her his version of "many fish in the sea" hoping she'd find it satisfying. That's before her expected consultation with her BFFs, the openly violent-with-a-bokken Kaoru, and the wolf-in-a-sheep-skin-violent Megumi. Violent being the only common ground between those two raccoon and fox.
Aoshi has had his fair share of admirers, but none he found as persistent, as brave, and as idiotically entertaining as this one. There's no one in his heart at the moment, considering his love for solitude and perfectionism. But somehow, she has managed to keep her foot lodged in the doorway for a long time now.
A fact he's taken for granted. The moment she replied his rejection with fake candor and light mood, he felt the figurative foot leave and the door left ajar. Emptily.
He missed it.
People think he's playing hard to get, or just uninterested in her. Actually, he does find her fun, in a childish, stubborn, persistent and weird kind of way.
And her battery can run till the wee hours of the night with not a single sign of running out, he mused to himself. Shaking his head while dislodging a flown dandelion on his hair.
He thinks Misao is one of those ladies with whom he can be together with till the end of time, but he doesn't pedestal her as much as she does him! And that ladies and gentlemen, is why he cannot accept her obvious yet subtle advances. He's vowed to himself long ago: to love his wife more than she loves him.
Here's hoping there's a flaw in his theory!
Taking a few more deep breaths of the fresh n crisp morning air at the park, he composed himself before heading back home.