A/N: "Ain't Afraid to Die" by Dir en Grey's lyrics have always touched me. While I do go for something like "THE FINAL" or "KR Cube", AATD has something that…. just inspires me. Guess that's the reason why I wrote this one shot.
This also includes my own thoughts on why Aoshi wanted to be the strongest. Whether you agree or not, your choice. Just some theories to think on.
Reviews are wonderful, but you do not have to. Whether you review or not, I hope it serves the purpose of being entertainment, as that is what it is.
Ain't Afraid to Die
"The road we walked back then is gone
but I still walk along it anyway.
The snow quietly falls on the gentle slope,
Now I put your favorite flower in your room
Even though I know it will never reach you."
He stands by the window, looking out over Kyoto in the winter. His blue-green eyes flicker over the city, wondering whether or not the snow will be as bad as it was last year. Last year, the Aoiya's front was so packed with snow that it needed to be shoveled three times every two hours on good days. The tall man smiled remembering that.
A tug on his sleeve reminded him that he was not up here for meditating on his own thoughts. He looked down into the green eyes of a child no less than seven, looking back into his own blue-green eyes.
"Father, why are you always so sad in the winter?" The boy asked so innocently that the man could not refuse to answer.
"Yukino, this is the time to respect the dead."
"When I remembered our unyielding promise
From last year's last day of snow, it began to melt,
And spill from my hands."
"Is it because Mother died at this time of year?" The boy was young, yet he knew death at a young age.
"Yes, son, that is why." Though the boy did not catch on to it, his father choked out the words. He slipped in saying them, but the boy was thinking hard on an issue.
"How did Mother die?"
"Yukino, it's time for us to go work in the kitchen, do not you think?"
The man avoided all questions on his late wife. Her death last year had caused him great pain, such a pain that so many thought he would go crazy with it. The only reason he kept going was because of his adorable six-year-old. Oh how the father, Shinomori Aoshi, loved his son. It was all that was left to him from his wife. His late wife, dead and buried under the snowy ground now.
He promised her he would go on with life. He promised her that he was not afraid to die.
"As I remember you watching the snow from the window all alone,
I recall you through the window and give you one last kiss..."
It had been a long day and now Yukino was asleep in his father's futon, snoring quietly, just like his mother had.
His mother, how that brought pains to Aoshi's heart. Yukino's mother was perfect in every way Aoshi could want her. She was his everything. Now, she is dead. And Aoshi is not afraid to die. His fear left him.
With the deaths of his companions, he did not want to admit that he feared Death. That is why he went on the quest he did. To become the strongest meant he could conquer even Death. Death was something too proud for him. Death was a great fear. Death was what he wanted to conquer. That was his being the strongest. If he sacrificed everything and let it all float away, Death's river would take him and cast him off too. He would just have to wait.
But, fate did not want him to conquer Death. No, fate threw him back into the cold world of his soul and threw him no blanket. Reality was too harsh. He might as well live in a fantasy.
It was instead through his late wife that he conquered Death. He wished it had not been though. He wished she could still be alive and he still be afraid. He would give up his overcome for that. His dead wife was worth more than his dead fear. But the gods did not give him a choice. One or the other. He did not get a chance to choose. Before he could, it was chosen for him and he was swept away in the tide, his body and soul battered by the sea.
"Please, smile, stop your crying now...
I'm always watching you from here."
His wife would tell him to stop thinking on her, think of their son. Their son was safely asleep, tucked into dreams of better things than Death. Yes, his son did not fear Death yet. He hoped Yukino never did.
His late wife, how he loved her from the start. From holding her in his arms as a child to lying in her arms in bed, feeling her small frame against his. Either feeling he was die to feel again. He would give his dead fear…
But, the gods would not take his dead fear. They gave him his wife dead. Yes, they took her from him. His choice, so long ago, before he truly realized his love. He had chosen to overcome Death, but he now wished to keep his wife alive and healthy. No, Death took her. So, he overcame it. He isn't afraid any longer.
"The snow quietly falls on the gentle slope,
Now I put your favorite flower in your room
Even though I know it will never reach you."
They had always shared his room and she had just kept her old room full of storage stuff. Aoshi did not change a thing when she died. Only the dust on the floor changed when he walked in there every night to say a little pray to her and kiss her good night, as he had done before she became his "late wife."
Tonight, he came to replace her flower on her unused futon. The flower was dried and shriveled now, nothing like it had been at her funeral. Nothing as it had been the day after or the week after. No, Death claimed it too. It lay blacked from the sun and lack of water and nutrients. But, he knew his wife did not care. A flower was still a flower. Her favorite flower no less, making it even better.
He knew she was watching him always, she was taking care to see them in their daily lives, but Aoshi wished she could be there instead. If not to talk to, to laugh with, to make love to, to grow old with, to smile with, but to simply be with. To spend five seconds in her presence was intoxicating. He drowned in her. He would willing give up his life to be with her. Instead, she gave up her life to…
"All over the city quietly colored white by the light,
The last seasonal color you saw.
You shed tears, reality is cruel isn't it?
The last seasonal color you saw."
"Father, why are you in here crying? I thought you said this was a room for the dead." It was Yukino, obviously awake.
"It is a room for both the living to grieve and the dead to rejoice." Aoshi had not realized that there were tears streaked down his face.
"That does not make any sense!"
"Maybe you'll understand when you experience love." Aoshi smiled at his son and shooed him off to bed, rumpling his hair and kissing him good night before letting him go.
Yes, the world was white outside. Aoshi saw that. His late wife would have seen that too. The snow right before she…
It was not right to think about her death in this room of life. It was just not proper.
Her death, if only he could have been there with her, he would have given the world.
"The colors of you have finally disappeared with the four seasons
The snow melts and flowers bloom on the street.
The 'shades' you saw are melting."
She lay in that room across the hall, screaming in pain as the labor bore heavily upon her body. Aoshi had sat by the door, or actually had been pinned down there. His kodachi had been beside him as he tried to slash through the door and attend to his wife. Her screams were maddening; her pain was evident to all around. Her child was near death, the attendant had said. He hoped her decision would not be what he thought it would be.
It had been.
The midwife was instructed to care more for the baby, not his wife. His wife decreed it. The midwife had to follow orders.
Oh how he wished he could have made the decision, not his late wife.
The babe was dead ten minutes after her birth. His wife followed an hour later.
He would have scolded her if she were in a better condition. But, she instead was dying before his eyes. He was slowly losing his fear as he watched her pain. He was slowly losing himself as he watched her.
That was a year ago, four seasons previous. He thought he could forget a little about her everyday to the point it would not be so painful anymore.
It was the opposite. His love for her grew stronger as he realized more and more things about her. He realized he knew her deeper than he even thought. She was one with him. She bared her soul to him and he to her. He never realized it until after her death. What a fool he was.
"The last day of snow this year
(One flower in the street, when I looked up to the sky,
The final snow was pouring from the palm of my hands)"
That night was the last snow of the year, but Aoshi knew it was not the last snow he would see. He was not afraid to die. He was not afraid to live. He was afraid to lose Yukino, he was afraid to lose himself. Death did not scare him any longer.
Death stared him in the eye and laughed at his meager attempts to thwart it, but he was ok with that. He was ok with the fact that he had put a fight but still lost Misao in the end. It was ok.
What was not ok was the fact that he lost his wife because of his foolishness, his choice. It was unacceptable. He was unacceptable.
No, Misao would say he was acceptable. Everyone has their bad years, their bad choices, and their bad mistakes.
He still was not afraid to die.
Misao knew that when he told her he would take care of Yukino. He told her then. Aoshi told her that he would go through Death to be with her. He was no longer scared. He was not longer afraid.
His late wife, oh his dear Misao. She knew he was not afraid. She knew then. She knew he was the strongest then. He finally achieved his goal. His life was complete. It did not matter that she died for him to finish it. She had already achieved her goal of being with him. She could wait in Death a little longer for him; she had waited long in Life.
Aoshi is the strongest. He earned his title.
He ain't afraid to die.