The snow outside fell heavily. He watched it through the open window. Near him someone coughed, a baby gave a little cry in its sleep. He closed his eyes for a moment, took in a breath, hunched his shoulders more against the wall at his back and adjusted his sword in his grasp. Several people gave him a wary look, but he looked past them emotionlessly. Still the snow fell outside the window, casting an icy draft of air into the room. But no one present had anything to spare to cover it, including himself. They huddled amongst their groups. Homeless families, poor soldiers traveling home after the war, hopeful brothel girls. Only he was alone, in his small corner of the grimy room across from the window. The small lamp in the center of the room flickered, nearly sputtered out. He shuddered as the red glow cast reflections into his dark eyes, then closed them…
"Tomoe?" He ducked through the door of their modest dwelling. His hands were dirty from yard work and there were several beads of sweat on his brow. She knelt next to the fire in the center of the room where she was preparing food. She looked up at him as he entered, nodded, and continued her work. He sat down and leant against the wall, sighed softly as he looked through the open sliding doors at the garden. She wordlessly presented him with some water and a small towel so he could wash his hands and clean away his perspiration. He thanked her with the smallest of smiles, a quick nod of acknowledgement. She finished the last of dinner as the sun finally set behind the trees.
"Arigatou," he said, receiving the tray of food she gave to him.
"I hope," she began timidly, "that it has good flavor with the spices we were able to buy yesterday." The chopsticks clacked in the ensuing silence.
"I got a lot of work done today," he said after a while. "It won't be long until the snow." She nodded meekly. "Our next trip into the town will be our last until the spring thaw." He commented. He watched her in the flicker of the fire's glow. She was a dark silhouette with liquid eyes and midnight hair. She ate in silence, never glancing up his way. A soft evening wind began to creep through the open door, and several minutes later he saw her body release the faintest shiver.
He set his chopsticks down, crossed the room to the door. She looked up in silence. He dropped to his knees, slid the door shut, and returned. She watched him thoughtfully as he continued to eat. "Is that better?" he finally asked.
"Hai." She looked at him, nodded gently. On the subject he said nothing more.
After dinner he leant once more against the wall. Nearer to the fire Tomoe wrote in her weathered book. Her delicate fingers were graceful as the brush danced across the page, as her opposite hand held the sleeve of her kimono. He watched her still, as several slender strands of hair slipped from their tie and dripped around her face like streams of ink.
As he watched her haunting silhouette in the meager light he thought not of her family, or her past, or her future. He thought only of her present. What she might be writing in her weathered, crackling pages, what she was thinking. As she sat there, casting her mesmerizing silhouette behind her, her silence was stifling to him and he wanted to hear her voice.
He watched her for a long time. Lost in thoughts of heavy rain and the smell of white plum. Of comments between the men that made him angry of the new serving girl. And finally of a night soaked in blood and defeat, running through dangerous streets—an order for Tomoe to flee to Otsu with him. And she had come, quiet as a whisper, trusting as a child.
She lied down her brush, shut her book, and looked up, straight into his eyes. They seemed slightly surprised, but didn't look away.
"I am sorry," he said quietly, and now her eyes grew wider, her brows furrowed just barely. "I am sorry that you ever had to meet me that night—in the rain, down that street." Her eyes slid closed, she dropped her hands to the floor and bowed her head. Shining, inky hair slid past her shoulders.
"You shouldn't apologize to me." She shook her head sadly, unaware that he slowly crawled to her. "You should never apologize to me…" But he slid his fingers under he chin, lifted her eyes to meet his. Her lip quivered, but she shed no tears. He simply stared at her, his chest tight and hot, and the fire beside them crackled and flickered. Their silhouette against the wall was a dramatic and solemn portrait.
She didn't make a sound as he drew close to her and pressed his lips to hers. She melted into his arms, indebted to him for his compassion, desperate for his mercy, but not able to present herself in full honesty to achieve it rightfully. And so she melted into his arms, his kiss, clinging to a hope that this monster who had become a savior would forgive her all her sins against him. Clinging to the hope that she might reverse that which had become his fate at her own hands.
He did not understand why he should never apologize to her, and she couldn't tell him. Those words, that apology and regret he had expressed to her had sent a gaping hole into her heart, solidifying the guilt within her of what she had set out to do to him. It had begun when she had seen his young, innocent face, asleep by the window. It had continued as she watched him and had brief glimpses to his soul. And now, here complete with the integrity he displayed for her, kneeling before her, apologizing to her—her!—and holding her with arms that had both destroyed her happiness and also borne it anew. These arms that held her, slender and yet strong, had held the sword that had driven her love to his death. But she could not hate him for it. She had at first, but now, as he held her tenderly, she found him guilty of nothing. How could the monster she had set out to destroy, become the man in whose eyes she saw innocence and whose soul she yearned to save?
Tears spilt to her cheeks as he kissed her. He felt them under his thumb as he brushed her cheeks. He pulled away quickly, but she shook her head and kissed him again. She clutched at the neck of his kimono desperately when the tears wouldn't stop and her body shook. He pulled the tie from her hair and ran his fingers through the black strands. They both sought acceptance from the other. He for thinking he had brought her into a life she didn't want, of loneliness and unfamiliarity, with only the company of a blood-drenched assassin. She for knowing what fate she had cemented for him, desperate for a way to free him from it. And so they clung to each other in silent retribution.
He kissed her until her shaking stopped. And then he held her in his arms as they sat before the dying embers of the fire. Her silent tears died, and he dried them from her cheeks with his fingers, his chest rising and falling with each breath against her back. He left caressing kisses along her jaw, down her neck, and across the bit of shoulder her kimono had slid off of. He did not ask what had upset her, or why she suddenly cried. He just held her gently in arms not as quick to grasp a sword, with hands that did not reek as much with blood as before. And while he hated that he had torn her from a normal life into his warring world, he was also grateful for her gentle, timid smiles and that smell of white plums. That she had come into his life and saved his blood thirsting soul. She drifted into sleep with a soft sigh, and he brushed a strand of hair from her porcelain cheek.
"Arigatou, Tomoe," he whispered in her ear. Their forms cast a sad, lonely silhouette against the wall, and then the last embers of the fire died out.