A/N This is a Sano/Kaoru pairing. Hope you like it.

"So this is it?" The rain was dripping down both of our faces, concealing my tears and cooling his anger. "You're just going to run away?" He sneered out the last part, trying to get a reaction. I knew he was trying to scare me. That wouldn't work; I'd been around enough to people to know his words were just hot air, an exaggerated scare tactic.

I shook my head, trying to keep a calm front. I couldn't break down, I couldn't lose my nerve. I couldn't back down. Not now. Maybe he would go away if I didn't show any frailness. Maybe if he wasn't such a stubborn person.

I was breathing so loudly, my lungs echoing in my chest, my heart only adding to the noise, threatening to practically burst. I needed to calm down. This was just mind over body, if I lost this battle it would just be pathetic. One more step and I could be free, I could be the one to control my fate. Take that body.

"Jumping will solve nothing." His eyes were blazing. This just confused me. Why was he angry? He wasn't the one who was being used as a bargaining chip.

"I thought you were stronger than this." The smirk on his face was obvious. My breathing stopped. Why did this man know all of my weakness? Oh wait, I mentally slapped myself. I was the one who had told him, years ago.

"Even in hell you won't be able to escape me." Now his toothy, feral grin was unconcealed. He getting closer, I was being cornered. He seemed fairly confident in dragging me back to my father.

With a swift upwards motion he hefted himself onto the ledge, this was bad. He was closing the distance between us, and I had no way out. I was the one between a rock and a hard place.

"I'll jump." I warned. This was my last trump card, if I could get him to back away. Just a little bit, and then I would have a chance of escape.

He only snorted at my threat, and stepped even closer. My trump card was useless. I was quicker, a lot quicker than him, but there was no way I could overpower him. My window of opportunity was closing. Now I was keeping my gaze level, I refused to tilt my head to look up at him. Possibly he would see me as a cornered animal and keep his distance.

"Kaoru, is it that such bad a thing?" His breath faltered. "Would it really be that terrible to marry me?" He was pleading, begging. I could just hear it in his voice.

Now I looked up, and my resolve all but turned to dust. Sano was crying. This wasn't supposed to happen, Sano wasn't supposed to cry. I was the one who had caused him to cry.

"Please, I know you're being forced into this. I know this isn't what you want, but I love you." I touched his face. It felt real. This couldn't be real. This had to be a dream.

My own tears were threatening to make a reoccurrence now.

This couldn't be happening. Sano, my best friend since childhood, the brother I never had, the son of my father's business partner loved me. Not as a good friend, or even a sister, but as a woman.

He loved me. That phrase seemed to repeat in my mind, ingraining itself deeper every time. Time seemed to stop.

Jolting me out of my self-induced stupor I felt his fingers interlacing with the ones on his face. They were pleasantly warm, probably a byproduct of his hot headedness.

What scared me the most was his expression, he looked like the puppy that had been kicked one too many times. That was his trump card, the face that could bend anybody's will. Sano squeezed my hand gently and I knew I had just lost.

I knew I would cave, that I would let myself be dragged home, that I would ungracefully accept my marriage, allow Sano to love me, and in a matter of time, fall in love with Sano.

The rain wasn't helping my thought process much either. The way the droplets pounded on the top of my head and rolled down my neck washed away my concentration. We were both also soaked to the skin and I knew I'd probably have a lingering cold by the end of this week.

It only took one more glance at his doleful face to resign myself to fate. To accept that things would never go back to the way they were, but that was the past, and sometimes I had to let the past go.

So did you like it? Reviews appreciated.