Summary: The experience of waking up beside your lover for the first time. Chapter 3, Aoshi's P.O.V. while he discuss his new relationship with Misao.
Disclaimer: RuroKen © Watsuki-sensei. Don't bother me.
My body is sore. My feet are numb. I'm happy.
I turn around, and she's by my side, already up, looking at me with her round deep-blue eyes, her right hand caressing my hair. The other hand, as I soon realise, rests on my torax, under the blanket. She says nothing, I say nothing, there is nothing to be said, everything that we had to say to each other has already been said. And I see - saw, last night - in her eyes, she doesn't want to talk. Misao, the most talkative person I have ever known, she doesn't want to talk. All she does is stare at me, mess with my hair, her expression unreadable. I want to understand what she is thinking, just like I've always been able to do, but I can't. The idea anguishes me. This is not the Misao I have once known. No, this is not the girl I have once raised, not even the young woman who detained my bloodthirst without even knowing: this is a different woman, a beautiful - astonishing - woman, a woman that terrifies while soothing, paradoxical woman, whose voice I'm eager to hear first thing in the morning.
"Misao?" I murmur. She doesn't answer. "Misao," I call her again.
"... Yes, Aoshi-sama?" She says mechanically, and it's as if a dagger had cut my skin. And now, when her eyes were still lost and her reactions still uncharted, it seemed that alcohol was being spilled over the wound.
"I told you not to adress me as 'sama' anymore."
"Sorry." Again, the monotone voice.
"Misao, what's wrong?" Wrong is her behaviour. Wrong is she, acting like I should, or would. Wrong am I doing the talking. Wrong am I, acting like she should, or would. I hate to admit it, but wrong is all this situation. She, coming to sleep with me without being my wife-- without being at least my fiancée. Us, hiding our affair from the rest of our so-called family. She, giving herself to me when I don't deserve such offering. Our relationship is wrong from the very beginning. Still, I don't want it to end.
She smiles - weakly, but the faint smile is enough to relieve me. "Nothing... anata." The new form of addressing me goes fine to my ears. "I was just thinking."
"May I ask about what?"
"Oh, you know - about you and I." Her answer is exactly what I feared. Am I prepared to discuss on that topic? I don't feel ready. Being the leader of the Oniwabanshuu for ten years hasn't teached me how to deal with subjects like love or romance. The only kind of love I learned during that period was the love for the battle. The love for the violence. The love of a swordsman. Am I ready for loving merely as a man? This time, I am the one speechless while she struggles for words.
"I... feel..." She hesitates. "... empty."
"Empty?" I ask, not implying anything.
"Yes. Empty," she decides, "empty as when you don't know what to do next."
I cast her a quizzical look. "I don't understand."
"All this years... I've been looking for you. Waiting for you." She explained, then added a nervous laugh. "And now that I have you... I'm confused."
The lump on my throat gets worse while I hear her. She has been looking for me all that time, and now she found out I'm not what she wanted. I should have guessed... shouldn't I? I've known from the start that her love for me wasn't but a puppy love, something she would surpass with time. Yet I insisted in giving her a "chance" of proving what she felt was something mature, reasonable - as much as love can be reasonable. Instead of giving her that "chance", I fell into a trap I myself created. Had I nipped the problem in the bud, she would have found the right person by now. And wouldn't have been disillusioned.
"I see," I meekly respond.
"Don't you feel the same? I mean, so many things changing so fast... my head's spinning!" She chuckles. "What, you look sad. What's--"
"Misao, look," I interrupt her, "I'll understand. If... if you don't want this relationship to go any further, I--"
"What the hell are you talking about?!" This time she interrupts me. "Break up? But-- but why? Is that what you want?"
"No!" I yell, losing my temper. Wasn't it obscure enough before? "No. No, I've never wanted to be away from you. Actually, I thought--"
"Then don't think." She whispers, putting a finger over my mouth. Soon her finger is replaced by her lips. "Don't think, don't think... just love me and that'll be enough..."
"Misao." I stop her reluctantly. "It's not so simple."
She sighs, rolling her eyes.
"I'm serious," I state. She closes her eyes in a bored way, then opens them to look at mine.
"What do you mean, 'it's not so simple'."
"I mean that, if we want our relationship to last long, we must assume it. We must take it seriously in order to fully enjoy it." I remain calm as I speak, in spite of the knot on my insides and my accelerated heartbeats. "I mean that we must get married, Misao."
"Oh, c'mon... we can wait a little longer for that, can't we?" She whimpers, hiding her face on my neck as she used to do when she was five.
"You know we can't. Especially after last night. We should have awaited until our honeymoon, but we didn't; that is to say, we should get married as soon as possible. You might have gotten pregnant last night... postponing an engagement would only bring us complication." Besides, I'd like to make things right with her, at least this once - I could have said that, but I didn't.
"Hmm. Is that all?" She asks, half-frowning, half-grinning.
I breathe in. "No, that's not all." And wait.
"Aren't you going to say 'the' words?" 'The' words? I look at her face, puzzled. She gesticulates with her mouth, forming mute letters. 'I'... 'L'... 'O'--
"I love you." I can hardly keep a straight face at her grimaces.
"There, good boy, I knew you could do this" She laughs at me, kissing my forehead. "I love you too."
"Another thing... koishii." I also change my way of calling her, to which she giggles and kisses my lips. "We should get up now and go tell the others about us."
"Oh, never mind about that, anata." She says matter-of-factely, playing with a lock of hair.
"What do you mean by that? Aren't we going to tell them?"
"We don't need to. Jiya's been spying us all the time."
WHAT?!?! "WHAT?!?!"
"Haven't you felt his presence? What happened to your 'ki' thingy?"
"You distracted me."
I hear muffled giggles and laughs from behind the shoji door to the corridor, and voices I recognise as being of Okina, Okon and Omasu.
"Guys!" Misao shouts in their direction. "Did you hear everything? The 'love you' part and all?" More giggles from outside.
"Ah, you little weasel girl!" I roll over her, and we repeat what we have done the night before - only this time a bit less careful over the noise.
Author's Notes: hey, Laura-chan, here's it! I said I was going to write A+M chapter. And I did. Hope you like it! (Not only you, but all the readers out there. Hi guys!) It is somehow related to my other fic, "An Odd Day" - independent, but it could be considered as a part of it, right before "Finally Happy". I thought on something more or less like that:
After what happened in "An Odd Day" (both Aoshi and Misao's P.O.V.), they stay at the temple for sometime, then go back to the Aoiya. At night, Misao feels alone and decides to sleep with Aoshi - after all that happened at the temple, there shouldn't be any problem on sharing the futon with him, right? (Of course they don't sleep immediately, but oh well.)
Anyway, the end was kinda cute. And it's Aoshi-sama! A fanfiction with Aoshi-sama can't be bad. Now that you've read it, what about leaving a review, huh? It's easy and doesn't hurt! *wink wink*
Love, Prudence-chan
On 24/10/2002 (being very lazy at home while the Internet isn't available...)