Shadows
…………
Chapter 5 : Breaking the silence
…………
Aoshi, deep in his thoughts, was gazing absent-mindedly at the travelling bag, practical and easy to carry on the shoulder, lying on his futon. The bag was half empty, but Aoshi didn't know what to take else than what he had already put in.
For the third time at least, he looked around him, scrutinizing the functional room which had been his office during years. He would not miss the room – that kind of room would be found in every house, every place he would get in – but he would miss… the atmosphere. The memories.
Yes, wherever he would go, never would he find such a room. In this place was drifting the smell of old books, of steel, and… the sweet scent of Misao.
He would miss his books, too. His gaze wandered on the set of shelves, carefully lined up. This meant months, years of patient collection and reading, and though he wouldn't admitt it, abandonning everything here was painful to him. His calloused fingers, so much more like a fighter's ones than a scholar's, brushed against the bindings, then abruptly clenched in a fist. There was no time for regrets, he decided.
His glance came back to his package. The two kodachi, hidden in their sheath, were lying right nearby, threateningly cold and lifeless.
Aoshi sighed. He should have gone since hours. But he couldn't help thinking he was forgetting something.
As he bent over to catch his bag, something caught his gaze. On his former desk, a sheet of paper was slightly juting out in the middle af a neat pile of files. He had not payed attention to it before, but now in the sober decor, the detail was quite obvious.
He grabbed the paper, and in answer his heart wrenched for an aching heartbeat. He had totally forgotten the existence of the drawing he was holding in his shaking hand.
Misao. A drawing of Misao and him, young. It was only a mere sketch, but the drawer had so perfectly caught Misao's features that she seemed alive. During a short while, he thought that maybe she was going to smile.
It was so… so far, so old, so deeply burried in the back of his mind that he had nearly forgotten how much he was happy in those times. To becoming the strongest, he had allowed himself to leave aside the past, and in the meanwhile, leave aside the truth. He loved Misao, far much more than what he admitted. Far much more than a sister. Far much more than he would ever realize it.
And he was there, leaning again the wall and staring at the paper with painful insistence, unable to remove his look from Misao's genuine smile. How harsh it was, to remember the past, their lost happiness and the rip in his heart, growing bigger now when he thought of what could never be found again : trust, joy, heedless attittude… and Misao's fiery look, that he would never see again.
All his behavior was stupid. He shook his head in irritation ; there was no sense in mourning about what he had definitely lost.
No time for regrets, he had decided.
His face colder than ever, he stared at his fist clenching on the drawing, the paper crumpling and writhing as in pain in his tensed hand, and finally falling on the ground with a dull sound.
On the paper, Misao's smile was distorted in a sad grimace. She was crying.
…………
The moon had never been so white, Misao could have bet it. Febrile, her eyes gleaming with anxiety, she was convinced that something was wrong. Even though it was full, the moon shouldn't be so white.
She was sitting on the edge of the window, hoping that the cloudy lightness of the night would soothe her pain, that its sky, shudded with stars, would flood her sorrow. But she couldn't help gazing at the moon, and its view, its sickly paleness was filling her with some dreadful madness.
Something was wrong.
Closing her eyes, Misao tried to recover her serenity, slowly breathing in and out. Nothing was wrong. This was a mere fantasy of her exhausted mind, delirious for want of sleep. She felt something moist on her cheek, and brushed it with a shaking hand. A tear.
Suddenly, a sharp pain burst in her chest, resounding in her whole body like a wave of fire. She tried to scream, but no sound managed to leave her lips. It hurt as if her heart was going to explode, torning her chest, aching in her limbs and letting her breathless and tearful. She burried her face in her hand, curling up in a ball, trying to conceal her pain by crying noiselessly in her lap.
As abruptly as it had come, the pain lessened and disappeared. She breathed in deeply, in lack of air, wide-eyed like in a crisis of dementia.
Definitely, something was wrong.
There was something she had to prevent, something that she was the only one who could prevent from.
Misao jumped on her feet, stumbled, and fell on the tatami. She moanned. God, she hadn't thought she was so weakened. But it was not amazing… When had she eaten for the last time ? Not today, anyway, and not the day before, as far as she could remember. She hadn't cared about it.
Clinging on the edge of the window, her phalanges turning white because of the effort she had to put in, she managed to get up. She felt dizzy, everything was blurred around her. She had to wait for a moment until the walls stopped to turn all around, and her sight became clearer. Before her legs would give way beneath her own weight, she opened the door and hurtled down the stairs.
…………
Aoshi turned over, in order to see the numb building for the last time. It felt strange to think that he would never see it again ; he had seen it being built, livening up when, to be a cover for the Oniwabanshuu, the Aoiya had become an inn, and then resouding with Misao's first cries.
It felt strange, how much each of his memories was linked to Misao.
The all building was quiet. No sound, no move. Everyone was asleep. Things were probably better like that. Nobody would hear him leaving.
There would be no goodbye, no sighs, no tears.
When Misao was leaving the Aoiya, even for a few days, everyone gathered together to tell her goodbye, wish her to have a great journey, he thought with a pang of bitterness. If Misao was leaving now, Okon would heap recommandations on her, and Omasu would hold back bowlfuls of tears.
But tonight, there was noone to wish him a great journey or even say him goodbye. Noone would shed tears on his departure.
And that's all that you deserve. Too many tears have already been shedded for you. You're only getting what you sowed. Indifference.
He shivered to the bone. So many times, he had boasted about being able to leave everything behind without any regrets, and now, as he saw the dark windows of all those peoples that he had learnt to like, leaving became a rip. But this was for Misao's own good. Without his fiendish presence surrounding her, she could regain health and happiness.
He bowed slightly. This was his way to say them goodbye, and thank them for everything.
Aoshi knew that Misao wouldn't understand, when she would wake up, why he had gone. Maybe, at the moment, would it hurt her, maybe she would cry ; but after that, she would take a new start. Everything was going to be alright for her from now on.
The large door closing Okina's garden would only have been a few steps further if he had cut off by the lawn, but for the last time he decided to follow the raked path of gravel. The narrow path was getting around an old, immense cherry tree. In the cold wind of the night, its white blossoms flew like stars on the black-blue sky, danced, drew arabesques to end their flight somewhere in the ethereal haze.
Aoshi's gaze followed with nostalgia one of the delicate petals, falling and whirling up to two bare feet…
Aoshi stiffened, his heart froze in recognition of those two small, so feminine feet. What the hell was she doing here ? She should have been sleeping in her room ! What for an explanation was he going to give ?
There was nothing to explain, he thought. Brace yourself.
Having immediately regained his composure, he glanced at her, with that unbearably cold look of his, that he himself hated so much.
How pale she is. This has to be the moonlight. I want to believe it's because of the moonlight.
But she really was pale, and not only because of the milky lightness throwing polls of shadows on her cheeks and around her eyes. Misao had never looked so thin, so fragile, so near to break. And she stood here, staring at him in answer, with those deep blue eyes wider than ever by pain and need for slumber.
"Where are you going ?"
The words had escaped her pale, trembling lips in a breath, as if spoken by someone else. Even her voice sounded weak, empty, like done in with all the worry and the sorrow of life. He hadn't understand that her despair had so deeply wreak havoc on her.
"You should be in your bed, Misao."
Unbearable voice… Why in the hell did it sound so irritated, so distant…
But anger flashed in her eyes, and she started shouting with an incredible strength for her state of exhaustion.
"Where are you going, Aoshi ?"
He took a sted towards her, raising his own voice to make her be quiet.
"Stop with it, Misao ! You're going to wake up all the neighbourhood !"
But his remark wasn't necessary. Misao had caught a glimpse of the bag he was carrying on his shoulder, and had instantaneously frozen, wide-eyed and tearful.
"You're leaving, she stammered. You're leaving, Aoshi."
She had breathed the word in a toneless voice, her lips shaking, drained of blood, as she was understanding what was going on. The truth, so obvious, hit her head on. Aoshi was leaving, leaving her alone. Her hand clenched in a fist, and she raised accusing eyes on his steady face. Gritting her teeth, she laughed.
"So that's the only way out you found, Aoshi ? Of course, you didn't changed in eight years."
The bitterness, her own painful sarcasm were tearing her chest open and riping her heart ; and she couldn't help but felt her eyes moistening. Don't show him your weakness, she thought. Don't cry.
So she went on shouting, taking a deep breath.
"True, it's the second time you're escaping that way, by night, remember ? Don't you remember, Aoshi ? Why are you running away ? You're fleeing from me, true ?"
In prey to rage and confusion, she threw a punch in Aoshi's chest. He shivered, didn't react. Frustration overwhelming her, she hurled herself against him with a shriek, and hit, hard, knocking disorderly his chest with her fists, hammering blindly blows on him, but still helplessly, as he took the shocks with a frightening indifference.
What sould I do to make you react ? she screamed soundlessly, while tears began running on her cheeks.
"You're running away, as always, Aoshi ! And you're leaving me… This will be the second time you'll leave me alone, Aoshi… The second time you'll abandon me… But this time I'm tired and bored of running after you ! I'm weary of being the one who's looking for you !"
Aoshi's face remained unruffled, and he let her drum against his chest. Better that anger bursted out once and for all ; but his own rage and frustration were raising, increasing until it itched.
What was she thinking ? That everything was so simple ? That he wanted to let her alone ? Did she think that he had asked her for running after him, he mused bitterly ? Was she imagining that it was easy for him to leave the only life that he had known, on a sudden impulse ? Moreover, for her own good ? She was only thinking to her own happiness, what was going on with his ? Who did she think she was to talk to him that way ?
But in a last blow desesperately thrown on his rib cage, she stopped pummeling. Aoshi glanced at her, intending to find her fierce look focused on him, and accusing. But even so, her head remained turned at the gound, her eyes hidden by her undone hair, shining in the darkness, her hands clenched in the black fabric of his shirt, shaking.
And suddenly, in a slight gesture of giving up, she moved closer, and leaned her forehead against his chest, clinging on him with the foolish hope of holding him back by her side.
During a second, they stood here, unable to speak. Aoshi's mind was rushing into wild thoughts, feeling her so close, so intolerably close, and so soft… so frail, sobbing and shedding tears on his heart… But he was not the one who could answer to her sorrow, he knew that already…
As if his heart had spoken to Misao with his steady beat, she stiffened and, her voice cracking and filled with bitter tears of defeat, she whispered for the last time :
"Where are you going, Aoshi ?"
Like a rope tensed for a too long time, something broke in his chest, just where Misao's damp cheek was leaning on. His principes, his determination to leave… All his futile reasons fell apart like a tower of cards, merely erected to hide to himself the truth : he hadn't wanted her good by leaving, but he indeed had fled. Fled the odd feelings she aroused in him.
Where are you going, Aoshi ?
Don't leave her.
Where are you going…
With a smothered shout, he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her tightly in his embrace, clenchind his fists in the soft folds of her yukata, and whispered beneath his breath his answer.
"Nowhere, Misao… Nowhere."
…………
Chapter 5 : Breaking the silence
…………
Aoshi, deep in his thoughts, was gazing absent-mindedly at the travelling bag, practical and easy to carry on the shoulder, lying on his futon. The bag was half empty, but Aoshi didn't know what to take else than what he had already put in.
For the third time at least, he looked around him, scrutinizing the functional room which had been his office during years. He would not miss the room – that kind of room would be found in every house, every place he would get in – but he would miss… the atmosphere. The memories.
Yes, wherever he would go, never would he find such a room. In this place was drifting the smell of old books, of steel, and… the sweet scent of Misao.
He would miss his books, too. His gaze wandered on the set of shelves, carefully lined up. This meant months, years of patient collection and reading, and though he wouldn't admitt it, abandonning everything here was painful to him. His calloused fingers, so much more like a fighter's ones than a scholar's, brushed against the bindings, then abruptly clenched in a fist. There was no time for regrets, he decided.
His glance came back to his package. The two kodachi, hidden in their sheath, were lying right nearby, threateningly cold and lifeless.
Aoshi sighed. He should have gone since hours. But he couldn't help thinking he was forgetting something.
As he bent over to catch his bag, something caught his gaze. On his former desk, a sheet of paper was slightly juting out in the middle af a neat pile of files. He had not payed attention to it before, but now in the sober decor, the detail was quite obvious.
He grabbed the paper, and in answer his heart wrenched for an aching heartbeat. He had totally forgotten the existence of the drawing he was holding in his shaking hand.
Misao. A drawing of Misao and him, young. It was only a mere sketch, but the drawer had so perfectly caught Misao's features that she seemed alive. During a short while, he thought that maybe she was going to smile.
It was so… so far, so old, so deeply burried in the back of his mind that he had nearly forgotten how much he was happy in those times. To becoming the strongest, he had allowed himself to leave aside the past, and in the meanwhile, leave aside the truth. He loved Misao, far much more than what he admitted. Far much more than a sister. Far much more than he would ever realize it.
And he was there, leaning again the wall and staring at the paper with painful insistence, unable to remove his look from Misao's genuine smile. How harsh it was, to remember the past, their lost happiness and the rip in his heart, growing bigger now when he thought of what could never be found again : trust, joy, heedless attittude… and Misao's fiery look, that he would never see again.
All his behavior was stupid. He shook his head in irritation ; there was no sense in mourning about what he had definitely lost.
No time for regrets, he had decided.
His face colder than ever, he stared at his fist clenching on the drawing, the paper crumpling and writhing as in pain in his tensed hand, and finally falling on the ground with a dull sound.
On the paper, Misao's smile was distorted in a sad grimace. She was crying.
…………
The moon had never been so white, Misao could have bet it. Febrile, her eyes gleaming with anxiety, she was convinced that something was wrong. Even though it was full, the moon shouldn't be so white.
She was sitting on the edge of the window, hoping that the cloudy lightness of the night would soothe her pain, that its sky, shudded with stars, would flood her sorrow. But she couldn't help gazing at the moon, and its view, its sickly paleness was filling her with some dreadful madness.
Something was wrong.
Closing her eyes, Misao tried to recover her serenity, slowly breathing in and out. Nothing was wrong. This was a mere fantasy of her exhausted mind, delirious for want of sleep. She felt something moist on her cheek, and brushed it with a shaking hand. A tear.
Suddenly, a sharp pain burst in her chest, resounding in her whole body like a wave of fire. She tried to scream, but no sound managed to leave her lips. It hurt as if her heart was going to explode, torning her chest, aching in her limbs and letting her breathless and tearful. She burried her face in her hand, curling up in a ball, trying to conceal her pain by crying noiselessly in her lap.
As abruptly as it had come, the pain lessened and disappeared. She breathed in deeply, in lack of air, wide-eyed like in a crisis of dementia.
Definitely, something was wrong.
There was something she had to prevent, something that she was the only one who could prevent from.
Misao jumped on her feet, stumbled, and fell on the tatami. She moanned. God, she hadn't thought she was so weakened. But it was not amazing… When had she eaten for the last time ? Not today, anyway, and not the day before, as far as she could remember. She hadn't cared about it.
Clinging on the edge of the window, her phalanges turning white because of the effort she had to put in, she managed to get up. She felt dizzy, everything was blurred around her. She had to wait for a moment until the walls stopped to turn all around, and her sight became clearer. Before her legs would give way beneath her own weight, she opened the door and hurtled down the stairs.
…………
Aoshi turned over, in order to see the numb building for the last time. It felt strange to think that he would never see it again ; he had seen it being built, livening up when, to be a cover for the Oniwabanshuu, the Aoiya had become an inn, and then resouding with Misao's first cries.
It felt strange, how much each of his memories was linked to Misao.
The all building was quiet. No sound, no move. Everyone was asleep. Things were probably better like that. Nobody would hear him leaving.
There would be no goodbye, no sighs, no tears.
When Misao was leaving the Aoiya, even for a few days, everyone gathered together to tell her goodbye, wish her to have a great journey, he thought with a pang of bitterness. If Misao was leaving now, Okon would heap recommandations on her, and Omasu would hold back bowlfuls of tears.
But tonight, there was noone to wish him a great journey or even say him goodbye. Noone would shed tears on his departure.
And that's all that you deserve. Too many tears have already been shedded for you. You're only getting what you sowed. Indifference.
He shivered to the bone. So many times, he had boasted about being able to leave everything behind without any regrets, and now, as he saw the dark windows of all those peoples that he had learnt to like, leaving became a rip. But this was for Misao's own good. Without his fiendish presence surrounding her, she could regain health and happiness.
He bowed slightly. This was his way to say them goodbye, and thank them for everything.
Aoshi knew that Misao wouldn't understand, when she would wake up, why he had gone. Maybe, at the moment, would it hurt her, maybe she would cry ; but after that, she would take a new start. Everything was going to be alright for her from now on.
The large door closing Okina's garden would only have been a few steps further if he had cut off by the lawn, but for the last time he decided to follow the raked path of gravel. The narrow path was getting around an old, immense cherry tree. In the cold wind of the night, its white blossoms flew like stars on the black-blue sky, danced, drew arabesques to end their flight somewhere in the ethereal haze.
Aoshi's gaze followed with nostalgia one of the delicate petals, falling and whirling up to two bare feet…
Aoshi stiffened, his heart froze in recognition of those two small, so feminine feet. What the hell was she doing here ? She should have been sleeping in her room ! What for an explanation was he going to give ?
There was nothing to explain, he thought. Brace yourself.
Having immediately regained his composure, he glanced at her, with that unbearably cold look of his, that he himself hated so much.
How pale she is. This has to be the moonlight. I want to believe it's because of the moonlight.
But she really was pale, and not only because of the milky lightness throwing polls of shadows on her cheeks and around her eyes. Misao had never looked so thin, so fragile, so near to break. And she stood here, staring at him in answer, with those deep blue eyes wider than ever by pain and need for slumber.
"Where are you going ?"
The words had escaped her pale, trembling lips in a breath, as if spoken by someone else. Even her voice sounded weak, empty, like done in with all the worry and the sorrow of life. He hadn't understand that her despair had so deeply wreak havoc on her.
"You should be in your bed, Misao."
Unbearable voice… Why in the hell did it sound so irritated, so distant…
But anger flashed in her eyes, and she started shouting with an incredible strength for her state of exhaustion.
"Where are you going, Aoshi ?"
He took a sted towards her, raising his own voice to make her be quiet.
"Stop with it, Misao ! You're going to wake up all the neighbourhood !"
But his remark wasn't necessary. Misao had caught a glimpse of the bag he was carrying on his shoulder, and had instantaneously frozen, wide-eyed and tearful.
"You're leaving, she stammered. You're leaving, Aoshi."
She had breathed the word in a toneless voice, her lips shaking, drained of blood, as she was understanding what was going on. The truth, so obvious, hit her head on. Aoshi was leaving, leaving her alone. Her hand clenched in a fist, and she raised accusing eyes on his steady face. Gritting her teeth, she laughed.
"So that's the only way out you found, Aoshi ? Of course, you didn't changed in eight years."
The bitterness, her own painful sarcasm were tearing her chest open and riping her heart ; and she couldn't help but felt her eyes moistening. Don't show him your weakness, she thought. Don't cry.
So she went on shouting, taking a deep breath.
"True, it's the second time you're escaping that way, by night, remember ? Don't you remember, Aoshi ? Why are you running away ? You're fleeing from me, true ?"
In prey to rage and confusion, she threw a punch in Aoshi's chest. He shivered, didn't react. Frustration overwhelming her, she hurled herself against him with a shriek, and hit, hard, knocking disorderly his chest with her fists, hammering blindly blows on him, but still helplessly, as he took the shocks with a frightening indifference.
What sould I do to make you react ? she screamed soundlessly, while tears began running on her cheeks.
"You're running away, as always, Aoshi ! And you're leaving me… This will be the second time you'll leave me alone, Aoshi… The second time you'll abandon me… But this time I'm tired and bored of running after you ! I'm weary of being the one who's looking for you !"
Aoshi's face remained unruffled, and he let her drum against his chest. Better that anger bursted out once and for all ; but his own rage and frustration were raising, increasing until it itched.
What was she thinking ? That everything was so simple ? That he wanted to let her alone ? Did she think that he had asked her for running after him, he mused bitterly ? Was she imagining that it was easy for him to leave the only life that he had known, on a sudden impulse ? Moreover, for her own good ? She was only thinking to her own happiness, what was going on with his ? Who did she think she was to talk to him that way ?
But in a last blow desesperately thrown on his rib cage, she stopped pummeling. Aoshi glanced at her, intending to find her fierce look focused on him, and accusing. But even so, her head remained turned at the gound, her eyes hidden by her undone hair, shining in the darkness, her hands clenched in the black fabric of his shirt, shaking.
And suddenly, in a slight gesture of giving up, she moved closer, and leaned her forehead against his chest, clinging on him with the foolish hope of holding him back by her side.
During a second, they stood here, unable to speak. Aoshi's mind was rushing into wild thoughts, feeling her so close, so intolerably close, and so soft… so frail, sobbing and shedding tears on his heart… But he was not the one who could answer to her sorrow, he knew that already…
As if his heart had spoken to Misao with his steady beat, she stiffened and, her voice cracking and filled with bitter tears of defeat, she whispered for the last time :
"Where are you going, Aoshi ?"
Like a rope tensed for a too long time, something broke in his chest, just where Misao's damp cheek was leaning on. His principes, his determination to leave… All his futile reasons fell apart like a tower of cards, merely erected to hide to himself the truth : he hadn't wanted her good by leaving, but he indeed had fled. Fled the odd feelings she aroused in him.
Where are you going, Aoshi ?
Don't leave her.
Where are you going…
With a smothered shout, he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her tightly in his embrace, clenchind his fists in the soft folds of her yukata, and whispered beneath his breath his answer.
"Nowhere, Misao… Nowhere."