~Chapter Thirteen~
Tears You Knew You'd Cry


Once upon a time, in a land of magic and romance, as well as a certain amount of mayhem and people hitting each other with pointy objects for no apparent reason, a prince was in love with a princess. Or maybe she was a perfectly normal person. What mattered was the unrequited love.
The princess was intelligent, independent, and, hey, maybe even beautiful. At least on the outside. The turbulent terrors of the things that went 'round in her head would make you have no sympathy for her at all.
The princess knew the prince quite well, and even considered him her friend, a very good friend at that. Whatever else she felt for him, she didn't know. Anyway, the princess did something stupid and got into a lot of trouble with the obligatory Evil Guy. The prince saved her, sort of. While he was doing so, he told her that he loved her.
The princess received several nasty blows to the head and forgot all of this until the prince repeated it and kissed her.
Unfortunately, the princess was from yet another faraway land, where the people were even nastier to each other and hit each other with super-effective-long-range deluxe pointy objects. Nevertheless, the princess was proud to call it home, and entertained the idea that she would one day get back there. She wanted to sit in front of a silly device called a computer and eat silly things like energy bars and gummy bears, which she was rather fond of.


She shivered, although the room had suddenly grown uncomfortably warm.
Crushed.
Strong hands held hers against his chest.
Smothered.
Her heartbeat raced, quick and skittish as a jackrabbit.
Melting.
His arm curled comfortably around her, fingers gently brushing her hair.
A ragdoll in his arms.


It struck him how tiny she was; warm weight against his chest, unprotesting. Unlike herself. Aiumi would be small, but stubborn…would not be…had.
She had become vague and frightened, because of his errors. He loved her…but now he wasn't so sure that love would make everything right again.
And, as lightning flash and thunder grumble broke the silence, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was killing her.


A million wiry spiders of panic scuttled under her skin; shuddering up her spine. Thought became optional as she ripped from the comfort and safety of Tasuki's arms.
Their eyes met for a moment; hers hollow, dilated, and animal; his pained, confused. A garbled sort of sob escaped her as she turned and ran.


"Yamete…" The word died as it was murmured. His eyes flashed. She would understand…somehow, he'd make her…


Scurrying through the warren of halls, Aiumi gasped and sobbed; half in anger with herself, half in loneliness and separation from everything she knew.
Too late she realized the presence of the heavy wooden door to the outside, and she hit it at full speed with a crack she dimly realized was her head striking the wood.
Dizzily, she dragged herself to her feet and removed the heavy bar locking the door, her bare feet scrabbling on the marble for purchase as she summoned all her strength to open it. She stubbornly pushed the knowledge that he could run much faster, that he would certainly catch her, out of her head.
Raindrops slapped and stung at her bare face, arms, and legs, soaking her hair as she ran. The wooden bridge thudded and shuddered with her footsteps. A foot touched the grass on the other side just as another clap of thunder pealed, startling her. Momentum carried her forward, and she tasted metallic blood as she hit the grass with a squelch.
Aiumi lay curled into a ball on the pavilion roof, trapped on this spire of a mountain, no way down from the peak visible. She gnawed a fingernail nervously, a throwback from when she was a little girl listening to her parents argue late at night. A sob caught in her throat. They would never know where she was. That didn't hurt as much as that they might not care.
She'd been running since she was eight. Running from her warring parents to live with her sister. Running from her sister's hungry-eyed fiancee and her sister blind to his faults; staying out at all hours with whatever boyfriend she happened to have, who could get her into bars and help her forget. Running from boyfriends who only hurt her. Keisuke…she'd run from Keisuke, too sure he was like all the others, too afraid of what might happen. Too afraid to love anyone else.
Love is not gentle. Love will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you to die. She snuffled in self pity. And just when you think it's safe…you fall in love again.
She wanted to go home. No…she wanted to go somewhere else, just somewhere he couldn't find her, couldn't be impossibly wonderful and make her love him more.
Nothing is wonderful now.
You've seen to that. Something just behind her lungs twisted, and a banshee wail escaped her.
He'll be back.
No. Not yet. I need more time, more TIME! She thought in a petulant whine. Every time I don't stop to think, I get hurt.
Maybe this time…
…maybe you'll think too hard. Maybe you'll snap just a little more. Maybe you'll throw yourself off of a cliff. Maybe.  
Without thinking, she slapped herself on the side of the head. Hard. "Shut up!" She blinked. "Ow." And then groaned, falling slack onto the roof. "Bleah."
Looking up, lightning broke toothy grins across the sky, taunting her. Aiumi…decide, Aiumi…make up your mind, you stupid little bitch…Aiumi…Aiumiiii…
"AIUMI!" Tasuki halted his sprint under the shelter of the pavilion, directly below her. "Dammit, where are ya-" His voice cracked with emotion as he moved out into the rain. The bandit tossed his head, shaking water from his hair. Aiumi stifled a sob. I'm so stupid…so stupid stupid STUPID…
"Aiumi? Aiumi! I know you're out 'ere! C'mon…" A desperate smile fluttered across his face, and he chuckled. "Stop- stop jokin' around…I…" Tasuki's smile faded as he continued to view the empty space around the small mountaintop…so easy to fall from…or to jump…
"God fuckin' DAMMIT!" he howled, falling to his knees. "Don't do this to me!!"
I'm sorry so sorry just don't look up just forget me don't be stupid just stop being so sexy and clueless and perfect…
"Please…" Tears rolled down his face, mixing with the rain. "I love you…please…I'm sorry; would ya just come back…I love you…"
"Prove it." Trembling, she stood on the roof, clutching the metal spire in the center for balance.
Tasuki choked, the fire relighting in his eyes, struggling somewhere between fury and joy. "-umi…" His voice cracked again, barely audible.


Elusive balance thwarted her. One foot slipped precariously from the ridgepole; replaced itself with little trouble.
The thunder was not so much a sound, was more a force, like a headache that wants very much to be a migraine but didn't quite make it through the prerequisite Migraine 101 course before sending snarls through your grey matter. It squeezed, so close above her as to banish all other sound.
As the thunder squeezed, a single thought was wrung (behind and slightly to the side of her left temple): she was clutching the tallest, most convenient, and metallic lightning rod in the area for dear life.


If one jumps backward in fear just before lightning obliterates the area where one was just standing and one happens to be high upon a steeply angled roof, and if one is in the middle of another world with a stupid bandit-boy who doesn't seem to know what's happening and your name is Aiumi and you really don't want to die…


She blacked out, mercifully and ironically, just before she hit the ground.


Endless rain pelting her bare skin; a touch of silk to one cheek.


Sweetness of the raindrops drifting to her lips, tangy blood and bile in her throat.


A cinnamon she took to be dried leaves, pine, and crisp wood smoke, fresh in comparison to tobacco or oily mechanical smoke.


Pattering rain, nearly drowning out the voice whispering…whispering…

His head hurt. It was more comfortable to think in childish one-sentence observations; that is, if there was any need for thought.
Tasuki held her with a sense of caution he didn't understand, as if she were a china doll that could fly to pieces any second. His free hand rose with a disembodied sort of non-feeling. Almost timidly, he rested his hand along her jawbone, his thumb wiping away raindrops and tracing once down her little rounded nose.
"Wake up." It was the first thing he'd consciously spoken in several minutes.
"Oi, Aiumi. Wake up." The regaining of his childish simplicities of speech followed consciousness.
Aiumi did not wake, however, and it occurred to him to make sure that she was breathing.
He didn't know how to go about this. Instead, he leaned over and kissed her.
Nothing much happened. But, since nothing much is not necessarily bad, Tasuki repeated it several times, except with varying volumes of "Oi, wake up, would ya?"


Aiumi twitched and groaned. She peevishly pawed at the rain beading on her skin, suddenly finding the unnecessary wetness as much to her liking as a cat likes being thrown into a bathtub full of water and scrubbed thoroughly.
"You're an idiot, Tasuki."
"Ne…what?"
"We're sitting in the rain, and there's a nice, dry pavilion right over there."
"Huh? Oh, yeah…" He grinned sheepishly. "Uh…"
"Nevermind…it's kind of nice, I guess." Lightning shirred across sky, causing her to yelp in fear.
"Chotto hen…kind of weird. I could have sworn for a minute there that I fell and you didn't catch me," she remarked with a little twitch of a smile.
"'Course I caught ya. Don'cha trust me?" His eyes flashed in annoyance.
"I'm not saying I don't trust you, dumbass, I said that I thought you didn't catch me!" she snipped.
"Do ya trust me?"
"I…yeah…I do."
"Sounds like you're just sayin' that 'cause I asked."
"Why would it sound like that? Don't you trust me to tell you the truth?"
"What the fuckin' hell is that supposed ta mean?"
"What does it sound like it means?"
Tasuki frowned. Aiumi scowled. They kissed.
To Tasuki, she was fierce, wild, and the most confusing thing he'd ever seen. He also decided that kissing her was the single most interesting thing he was determined to do for the rest of his life.
To Aiumi, there were the voices in her head finally telling her Yes, this is right on top of the ones telling her hormones to go all wonky on top of the ones that had listened in judo class and told her that it would be so easy to get him in a kesa gatame chokehold.
Oh, hell. Stubborn capitulation is still capitulation.
Both gasped for air eventually.
"I love you…" Tasuki panted.
"Oh yeah? Well, I love you, too!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!" she spat. The world swam a little in front of her eyes, and her muscles went limp. "Wow."
"Heh…uh, wanna go inside?"
"Okay…"
A surprised little squeak escaped her as he got a better grip on her and stood up, holding her three feet off the ground.
"Hey, I'm a big girl. I can walk."
"Well…okay…"
"I mean…well…if you want to…if I'm not too heavy, I mean…"
"Nah."
"I'm still opposed to it, but if you insist…"
"I…" He paused slightly to adjust her weight, and his coat flopped away from where it hung around her shoulders. "...insist." She rearranged the coat, a bit fastidiously, and he grinned. She smiled, a little bit tentative.
"Uh…I love you."
"I love you, too."
"Okay, let's go."
"Okay."


And they lived…interestingly…ever after this chapter and onto the next, where the next period of happy ever after would be defined. The end…ish.