Backwards Glances
1 of 1 - Complete
It was her secret pleasure.
She was guilty, very, very guilty.
She was getting older and her life wasn't really "going anywhere" so to speak. She had shed her childhood long ago, or that's how she felt, the others treated her much the same. There had been changes, but not enough to make her feel like the woman she rightfully was.
Still yet, she couldn't complain or else they'd treat her as a child.
"Misao?"
She looked up to see Omasu's head in her doorway.
"Can you come downstairs and help us?"
Misao nodded quickly and stood up. By the time she reached the doorway, straightening her kimono Omasu was already gone, disappeared downstairs and back into the restaurant.
She'd been working in the Aoiya for what felt like ages. No longer was it a task that she hated but a responsibility and she took it seriously.
That wasn't to say she didn't enjoy kicking out carousers and getting into arguments with big dumb drunks, she just didn't do that as often as she once had.
She headed down and slid open the door. The scents, warmth, and chatter of the dining area were a welcome sight. She could almost breathe them in. This place had become her "territory" her place to shine and perform, chatting with customers and generally "selling". She considered herself quite talented.
There was another reason she liked working the dining room.
It was one tall, dark, and handsome reason to be specific about it; a reason that went by the name of Shinomori Aoshi, previous Okashira of her ninja clan.
Aoshi-sama had done something that had caused her extreme grief, he'd moved out of the Aoiya. His new residence was a tiny little shack in town, and it could be called little more than a shack with its one room, practically one person occupancy. She had railed up and down about it and been ignored. She'd had no choice but to accept it.
He hadn't abandoned them, he still came to the Aoiya and that was part of the reason she had been so taken with serving in the dining room.
She was able to serve Aoshi-sama as a waitress.
Her lurid little daydreams had only seemed to get more lurid after that. Her fantasies seemed to center on his mouth and his fingers, his perfect hands… well, his perfect everything.
He was polite and spoke to her and he had even invited her to sit with him a few times. He always came alone and he always left alone.
She had thought for a good long while that had had left the Aoiya because he desired other women and wouldn't dare bring them within view of the Aoiya.
Within view of her…
She hadn't the courage to confront him about it and the doubts, the thoughts continued.
She'd even gone so far as to stake out his residence for a week all past midnight, but no one had come or gone, there were no throaty moans to give away a lover.
Nothing.
She had given up the theory but the doubts remained… he couldn't be chaste, she refused to believe it and at the same time she willed herself to think nothing else.
Her singular joy and pleasure was to watch her beloved eat.
It was not the silly obsession of a girl in love nor the manic ravings of a woman scorned, it was simply her daily pleasure. It was all, in a sense, that she had left and so she grabbed it and held on tightly.
After all, what else was there?
She waited for him with bated breath. His timing was never quite perfect as though the little variations made him feel less stoic and more normal. Of course, she was probably just making her own assumptions and maybe he simply didn't consult a clock and went on instinct, in any case, he never arrived at the same time, but always close about the same time. Between one and one thirty in the afternoon.
Lunch was usually busy and he would settle at a small table near the back of the Aoiya where the doors led into the back of the house. He never ventured toward that doorway, never escaped beyond it; he behaved as a stranger while in the Aoiya.
In some ways, she thought, he was a stranger to them, all huddled up in his one man shack alone.
He did appear as expected, his gaze low, his walk smooth. It was just after one thirty today, she noted glancing at the clock. Neither Omasu or Okon would interfere in her bid to serve Aoshi.
She walked to his table cheerily, smiling gaily ignoring the knot tightening in her belly.
"Good afternoon, Aoshi-sama, welcome to the Aoiya. How may I serve you?"
Sometimes she asked that hoping he'd tell her he wanted to take her there against the table while everyone watched, but she had grown accustomed to and accepted her garish fantasies.
"The usual," he replied stiffly, his eyes toward the table, never moving, never shifting.
The usual for him was tea, soup, rice, a small plate of dumplings, a filet of fish, and a fruit plate. He never varied and the others often had lunch prepared for him or ready to be prepared.
Misao nodded happily. "I'll have it for you shortly."
She kicked herself for acting like he was any other customer but the time between them had grown taut and she wasn't sure she knew what to say anymore.
Wasn't he a stranger these days after all? Wasn't he just a man she fantasized about without knowing? A ghostly figure of the past?
She quickly made for the kitchen not noticing when his eyes rose from the table and centered upon her.
Leaving the Aoiya had been more painful than he'd expected, but ultimately he'd deemed it necessary. He cut his ties to the place. He'd left his room empty, spotless even, with no reminders that he had once lived and slept there.
Gifts from Misao in her youth had been callously tossed away. He could no longer carry on in silence as she toiled away beside him, always present, always smiling, always there.
Misao was the light that caused him to cast great shadows. His sins were laid bare to his gaze, shadows she never saw, and never knew to look for.
It was not annoyance or irritation that led him to go. It was not dissatisfaction or alienation from the group.
Misao was free and open and giving. Misao loved and he knew, he knew, that she loved him.
He could feel it in the way she looked at him, the way his skin crawled with unease.
Love.
He was loved and the feeling made him paranoid and obsessive.
It made him feel guilty to know that she had no idea the kind of man she thought she loved. It made him feel dirty.
She made him feel and remember his sins. She made him look back at things that made him feel ill, crimes that shamed him, stained him forever.
Worse than all else, however, were the carnal feelings. Images and sensations he never wanted association with her came to his mind without bidding. His attempts at muffling and killing them off were unsuccessful.
In his frustration he broke things, he injured himself, he trained, he slept, but there was no haven to be found. Misao was a riotous storm inside his head, wreaking havoc upon his mental state.
He'd been left with one option, the life's path of all cowards: he'd fled.
He'd run away from her allowing himself only the small indulgence of her serving him at meal times at the Aoiya.
He was no fool, he saw the admiring gazes of young males upon her. He saw their smiles and flirtations. She was pretty, it was to be expected.
She was young and unmarried. She was an available woman.
She deserved a happy young man to woe and love her.
Misao deserved the best and he was not, could not be that for her.
Discreetly, he watched her flit about the restaurant delivering things here and there, offering her smile, her company freely.
Misao was something akin to a wild force of nature, something he dared to suggest, that couldn't be contained. Wild force of nature or no, he couldn't help but feel that one hard tumble behind the closed doors of a bedchamber would break her.
She was so tiny and yet so fierce.
He lowered his gaze as she moved away from the table she'd been serving, heading back to the kitchen.
It wouldn't do for her to catch him watching her.
The scent was entrancing. Maybe because it was Aoshi-sama's food, maybe because she hadn't eaten, she wasn't quite sure.
She smiled as she pattered back and forth bringing him dish after dish. He waited, as he always did, for her to sit everything before him.
As she completed he lifted his head and she waited for the words to spill forth.
"Would you bring me a pot of tea?"
She nodded, smiling, lost in her own nostalgic little world.
Routine was a godsend, it was a perverse comfort. Spontaneity, once something she enjoyed, was now an unwelcome intruder upon her structured world, at least within the confines of her work in the Aoiya.
The tea was already prepared in the kitchen, but she made him wait those precious few moments before she took it out. He would not eat until she had brought the tea and the thought made her lips quirk, another part of their routine.
Eventually, she took it out setting it upon his table without flourish. She then asked him pointedly if he required anything else and he would decline. He would not raise his eyes again until he was prepared to leave.
Such a humble man.
Such a beautiful one.
She moved away keeping a careful eye on her other customers in case they beckoned her but it was a simple reality that her service slipped when Aoshi-sama was present. The other tables simply lacked importance.
He lifted his chopsticks to his mouth and she held her breath watching the precious morsel slip between his lips.
She was sick, she thought, as she stared at him.
Unhealthily obsessed, maybe even beyond that.
It didn't stop her from watching him, from envying every scrap of food that touched his mouth.
When his tongue slipped past his lips to catch a grain of rice, she gasped and whirled quickly ducked into the kitchen.
Omasu and Okon giggled no doubt at her and Misao glowered at them.
"Aoshi-sama being naughty with his food or are you imagining him being naughty with it?"
The two women had "opened up" to her to an entirely new degree. It hadn't helped her at all they teased her about his mouth and his fingers and the things he could do to her with both.
Granted, they never spoke of Aoshi-sama specifically most of the time, they made ambiguous remarks about men in general that usually made her blush.
Or… it had at one time.
"You better go out there or you'll spend the rest of the day lamenting the fact that you hid in the kitchen the whole time he was here," Omasu noted, gently turning the girl by her shoulders toward the door.
Silently, Misao obeyed and stepped back out only to be waved over by another table.
Disappointment couldn't begin to describe her feelings. A quick glance toward Aoshi-sama's table had confirmed the fact he was nearly through with lunch.
Either she had been in the kitchen longer than she expected or his normal haste to finish had caught her unawares. The persons currently occupying her attention wanted more sake. Misao nodded numbly and set about to grab it.
The kitchen was empty and she was forced to head to the storage shed out back. By the time she arrived Aoshi-sama had completed his meal and was gone.
Her world deflated abruptly, she was lost. Numbly, she delivered the sake to the requesting table and stumbled blindly into the kitchen. Nothing could've been so unexpected.
He never left without saying goodbye, never.
Had someone come along and he'd slipped out before she could return? In a clearer sense, had a female someone come along and he hadn't wanted her to see, to know?
It felt like there was an awful weight upon her chest, her throat felt swollen and tight, barely allowing air through. Her hands trembled caught between fear and anger.
The others… were they avoiding looking at her?
Omasu quickly peeked over at her and then rapidly looked away.
Her heart plummeted to her feet.
"I…" Misao started. "I have to go; can you cover for a little while?"
"Of course," Omasu answered blithely, steadily chopping. "Go ahead and tend to yourself."
Tend to herself?
The heart on the ground was crushed by her own feet as she practically fled the kitchen.
Her room wasn't safe. It wasn't a haven.
The Aoiya was a prison, suffocating her.
Her body felt heavy and tingly all at the same time. She felt the urge, the overwhelming need to flee.
Maybe running would ease the pain… because it hurt, it hurt so much.
She thought she was beyond the pain.
She thought she was beyond this much pain.
She thought she could handle it…
She didn't know anything, she thought to herself as she slipped into her bedroom immediately making for the window, yanking it open. She climbed out, balancing herself on the slippery tiles, tipping precariously and then sliding straight down.
She plummeted to the ground, landing on her feet, but barely and overloading one ankle with too much awkward weight. The pain was instantaneous and sharp.
She limped away.
She didn't know what drew her there, if it was because she just needed to see that he was alone or maybe just to see if he was there at all. Why had he left so abruptly?
She came around the bend, still limping and stopped cold at the sight. Where Aoshi's house had once stood was now a crumbling mass of charred wood and smoldering ash.
The man himself, the one she'd convinced herself had stolen away with a lover was staring at the wreckage with dull eyes. He looked as though his whole life had suddenly burned away from him in that little shack.
In silence, without provocation of any sort on her part, he looked up. His surprise was evident in the soft part of his lips and the faint widening of his eyes, very faint.
She looked away from his desolate stare toward his house.
Gone.
He was homeless.
Would he come back now?
She turned her eyes toward him again, but he was again staring at the mess.
His house wasn't the only one effected; an entire row of houses had been obliterated in the fire. Farther down the lane she could see and hear the frantic efforts to put the blaze out before it skipped over to another row.
It was too late for Aoshi-sama's house though, it was done for.
Should she go over or should she leave?
The other bystanders appeared to be just that: bystanders. There was no woman at Aoshi-sama's side.
Could she go over?
She took a tentative glance in his direction to see him staring at her again. The same desolation she'd glimpsed before stared back at her, but now it seemed there was a dark loneliness reflected back at her.
Had she been wrong?
Had… had he been alone all this time?
Had his only company been when he came to the Aoiya?
It was too Aoshi to be wrong.
She felt horrible, as though the breath had been knocked out of her violently. Had she been moping all this time and he'd been lonely?
Had she left him lonely?
She started toward him, fumbling slightly on her injured ankle. He waited, standing still, watching her approach him.
"Mmm- you're… are you…" she found she wasn't sure what to say. Should she tell him she was sorry his house was gone or just jump straight to asking him back to the Aoiya?
"I'm sorry, Aoshi-sama. Are… Are you going to rebuild?"
He glanced toward the remains of his residence and didn't answer.
"You can come back to the Aoiya, of course."
He didn't move or respond.
Struck with grief she leaned forward and snagged his wrist.
"Come on."
She pulled and he obliged, he didn't fight, he didn't refuse, he walked along behind her quietly.
Joy burst deep within her in a way she hadn't known in what felt like ages.
Aoshi-sama was coming home!
Once there, Aoshi retreated to his old room. It was the same as when he'd left it. Misao had all but forbidden anyone to even enter the room, even though she herself often did so.
While he was upstairs she dressed and headed off to the kitchen, serving in the dining room. There was a bounce in her step and a twinkle in her eye.
The others soon caught on to her enthusiasm.
Hours later, when the Aoiya had finally closed they all began preparations for their own suppers. Misao wondered how Aoshi got dinner, but she could always ask him later.
She was surprised when he appeared without her having to fetch him. He sat down at the table long before anything was finished and as she was passing by, smiling at him brilliantly, he caught her by the wrist in the same manner she had done earlier to him.
She paused and waited.
"Sit with me."
Numbly, she did so, folding herself down onto her knees. Her heart thudded fast in her chest, racing. Excitement fluttered in her belly, swimming through her veins, she felt like her fingertips were throbbing.
He withdrew his hand and stared ahead much like she remembered him from the temple.
"Did you want to talk about something?" she asked hesitantly.
He took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. "Tell me about the Aoiya. What have you done since I left?"
Astonishment quickly gave way to happiness at the question. He was asking after her!
She smiled brightly and began to narrate her non-adventures. If he noted that her excited tone and her boring daily schedule didn't match, he didn't comment.
"Aoshi-sama, I've wondered… If you came here for lunch, where did you eat dinner?"
He glanced toward her. "I took a job in the late afternoons down at the docks to support myself. There is a tiny noodle shop by the water."
She blinked, dumbfounded.
Aoshi was working?
Well, of course, she thought, how else could he afford to live?
"Oh."
Several long moments stretched between them without words and Misao's tension grew and snapped. She couldn't stand the silence any longer.
"Are…Are you going to leave again?"
She prayed she said no. She silently begged and pleaded.
He looked toward the table and she felt her heart plummet. He was going to say "yes".
"Maybe," he replied softly. "It depends."
She didn't want to hope, but she couldn't stop the light feeling from growing within her, a buoy in a dark, tumultuous sea of fear.
She swallowed dryly. "Depends on what?"
She was sure her voice would crack, but it didn't, it failed her entirely allowing her only a pained whisper.
He shifted and at first she thought he was standing to leave, but instead he brought up his arm, his hand plucking hers from her lap where she'd been wringing her fingers together.
Her breath quickened in fright or anticipation she couldn't be sure only that he was causing it. She licked her lip and then bit down on it nervously.
He took her hand and laced his fingers with hers, pressing their palms together loosely and then tightening his grip.
"It depends on what I have to stay for."
She felt as though the world had opened up and swallowed her and then spit her out again.
He wanted…
He wanted… her vision blurred, did she hear that? Her eyes felt hot, pooling with moisture and she couldn't stop, didn't even try to contain the tears. They spilled over, her teeth almost chattered, her breath hitched.
She rocked forward and up all but tossing herself at him and his arms came around her awkwardly as he fumbled to release his fingers from her to encompass her.
She cried, hysterical uneven sobs into his chest, overjoyed, overwhelmed.
He was going to stay.
Better yet, he was going to stay for her.
In the years following, she'd never remember what they had for dinner that night, even though she seemed to recall every other detail fondly.
AN: Another SL challenge. I swear sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me writing at all.
Edited: 8/7/05