Notes:
This chapter took me awhile, even though it's slow and sappy -_-;; That's a question I want answered - is there too much sap in this fic? I can't help it, I'm a romantic *sob* (seriously, one of my friends once told me I should be a Harlequin romance writer o_O;;;)
Anyhoo... Even though they're not in this chapter, here's Amefuri - http://garuby.com/ryn/art/amefuribad.jpg - and Kokie - http://garuby.com/ryn/art/kokiebad.jpg - just some lil doodles. I'm planning on doing better portraits at some point, these are just to give y'all a rough idea ^^
And thank you very very very very very much to everyone who's reviewed so far :D I love getting reviews, since I'm not the most experienced author ^^; Oh, and if you leave a question, please make sure that you have a valid email addy, 'cos I'll try my best to reply to you ^^
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we arrived back at my village, I felt so overwhelmed that I nearly burst into tears. For all these months that I had been away suddenly seemed so long and I couldn't imagine how I had survived. So many times I had wished that everything could be over and I could just go home, and now that I was, I didn't know how to react.
Lina burst out of the door like a small tornado. I could barely even make out her figure before she jumped onto me and we both fell to the ground. Lina and I both started crying, Jin laughed, and Tokaki just looked confused. When we got to our feet, Lina started chattering away as if she hadn't been able to talk for months. "Look at you! You're all skinny! Don't they feed you in the capital? But those clothes, oh my goodness, they're even more beautiful than you said! Did you bring that blue one you were talking about? Why are you here? How come you didn't write me and tell me? I could've had everything prepared!" She glared at Jin. "Did you have something to do with this?" Jin just shook his head, still laughing, and Lina noticed Tokaki and narrowed her eyes. "Is that who I think it is?" she whispered to me, and I nodded slowly. Lina made a clucking noise and shook her head. "Let's go inside. You're staying the night," she added, not as a question but a demand.
When we were inside and she bustled off to make some tea, I noticed how round she was in the middle and I followed her into the kitchen. "Lina! It looks like I'm not the only one who hasn't been telling everything!"
She smiled sheepishly, patting her stomach. "Well, I didn't want to say anything until I was sure. If it's a girl, I'm naming her after you, Doulin. My sister, the Byakko Shichiseishi!" She exclaimed, looking proud.
I blushed and headed back to the main room, but paused outside the door when I heard Jin's voice. "…I should be kicking your ass for what you did to Doulin, but I'll let Lina deal with you first. My god, that woman…" I felt more than uncomfortable. Jin had always been like a big brother to me, even from before he and Lina were married. He was a good friend, and I would always turn to him for advice, but now I wished that I hadn't told him and Lina everything.
When Lina came back, Jin explained how he had found us and I filled in the blanks. Lina looked petrified when I told her I had been attacked, but I assured her that all was fine and she calmed down. Tokaki didn't say much the whole time we talked, and I felt rather sorry for him and guilty that I had put him in this situation.
Even though it was wonderful to be home again, I had an urge to get up to my room and just sleep. By the time I excused myself, the sun was setting. I stepped outside onto the porch and was gazing out at the familiar landscape when I heard footsteps behind me, and turned to see Tokaki.
"They're, uh, nice," he said slowly.
"I'm sorry. I kind of wrote them and told them everything that happened, so…" I trailed off. I didn't want to bring the subject up again, and Tokaki looked uncomfortable enough already.
Lina appeared in the doorway. "Doulin, you should get to bed! You've had a busy day."
I was surprised, but said goodnight to Tokaki and went inside, heading up the stairs. Just as I got to my room, I could hear Lina's voice, which had a bit of an edge to it. "You, come with me. We're going to have a talk." Remembering Jin's words from earlier, I shook my head and closed the door.
My room looked exactly the same, save for the fact that it was perfectly clean. I had never been much of a housekeeper, and while I wasn't a total slob, Lina's knack for cleaning evened us out. I sighed, sitting down on my bed. It had worked fine - Lina did the housework, Jin did the hard physical work, and I took care of the front end of the inn. It had seemed like such a bore while I had to live it day-to-day, but now I wouldn't have minded returning to that life one bit. I wondered how business had been since I left. This afternoon, we hadn't been interrupted once by possible patrons.
However, I reminded myself of the innkeeper from the previous night, who had talked of bandits in the area, but now I knew that they weren't just regular bandits, they were members of Karasuki's group. I tried to think of where Karasuki would keep his headquarters. I knew this area, I had grown up in it and lived here all my life - so why didn't anywhere come to mind?
I couldn't concentrate on the problem now; I was too exhausted. I vowed to think of a solution the next day, then closed my eyes and fell back onto the bed, drifting off to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
I awoke when I felt lips on mine. It was like a dream, but I knew that it was real. I didn't push him away, even though I knew I should have; I don't think I could have if I had wanted to. But when I shifted slightly to raise my hand to his face, he pulled back and mumbled an apology, getting up to leave.
"Don't--" I grabbed his wrist, and he stared at me. "…You don't have to leave." I let go of his wrist, and he nodded and sat down on the bed next to me, staring down at the floor. The moonlight was bright, but I got up and crossed the room to light the candles on my dresser anyway, adding a warm glow to the room. Returning to sit back on the bed, I wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and forget that words even existed, but I knew that couldn't happen. This had to be resolved; it was long overdue.
"You know," he started suddenly, "If you hadn't been there today, I probably would've fought Karasuki. But you were right, we shouldn't jump into anything. I didn't even think of that. You're like… A voice of reason."
I nodded slowly, leaning against the wall and hugging my knees to my chest. "What did you talk to Lina about?"
In the flickering light, I could make out a bit of a smile on his face. "She did most of the talking, actually. It wasn't so much a talk as it was a threat. "
I smiled. "Lina can get a bit carried away… The fact that she's on hormonal overload right now probably didn't help much, either. What did she talk about, then?"
"What do you want, a word for word recap?"
"I remember one time, when we were little, the village bully stole one of my dolls. Lina yelled at him so much that he ran home crying. We all got quite a laugh out of seeing the toughest kid in town sobbing like a baby."
"…And?"
"All I'm saying is that you deserve what you got," I snapped, a little harsher than I meant to, but I didn't apologize.
"Oh, come on," he groaned, covering his face in his hands. "I didn't come up here to get bitched at by you, too."
"Then why did you come up here?" I asked, but he just shrugged in response, and I sighed, exasperated. "So you showed up in my room, in the middle of the night, to kiss me and then run away without saying anything?"
He grinned. "I would've gone farther, but you woke up."
"You're an idiot!" I threw my pillow at him, but he ducked and it hit the wall. A moment later, we could hear Jin's muffled voice yelling at us to shut up. I shook my head, then whispered, "Normally it's me who has to tell them to keep it down."
Tokaki shuddered. "That's a mental picture I could've gone without, thanks." He noticed my quirked eyebrow and stammered an excuse. "I mean, they're nice enough and everything, it's just… Some things you don't need to know about." I nodded, and after a moment of silence, he asked, "Are you coming back here when this is all over?"
I nodded again. "This is my home. There's nowhere else I'd rather go. You know," I added after a second of thought, "It isn't quite fair that you know so much about me when I don't know anything about you."
"What's to know?" He shrugged non-commitedly.
"Where you're from, your family… I don't even know your real name!"
"That's probably a good thing," he cringed, but noticing my look, sighed. "Fine. Hahm Lan'uan, born nineteen years ago in some crappy village in the north, where it's fucking cold all the time. Parents died at the tender age of ten, went to live with some aunt in the capital. That's it. Happy?"
"Don't you care about anything?" I asked in a quiet voice, and he looked at me with a surprised expression. "I mean, you take everything so lightly, even your own history. Isn't there anything that's important to you?"
"Sure."
"…And that is?"
"What about being a seishi? That's pretty damn important. I mean, the whole 'blessed by Byakko-seikun' thing and all." He frowned, then looked at me again. "I'm not as shallow as you think I am."
"Why is that so hard to believe?" I said irritably. It was getting late, and I was starting to feel the exhaustion from the previous day's events. And then I said it: "You treat other people like they don't matter. You don't care about anyone, barely even yourself. The only reason you're going along with being a seishi is because it benefits you, whether with money, fame, or a bigger selection of women for you to harass." I was fed up with this game. Just when I thought he had changed and was about to profess his newfound feelings for me, my hopes were knocked down again. I didn't want this pain anymore, I was sick of it.
"Subaru…" He started, but I didn't look at him.
"Get out. Unless you're going to apologize, get out. Do you have any idea how much you hurt me?" I asked, all the while mentally repeating to myself that I wouldn't let myself cry.
"Subaru, listen to me, for god's sake." He grabbed my shoulders, but I turned my face away. "You know, I would rather face Karasuki than go through this. You don't know how fucking scared I am of this. You are… You're… kind, caring, smart, and like I said, a voice of reason, you make sense of things, and yeah, you are the sexiest and most beautiful woman I've ever seen, but that is the last thing I think of when I look at you. And, and that's why I left, because I don't know what…" He trailed off, then dropped his hands from my arms. "Shit, I'm not like Tatara, I can't make this sound any good."
"…I never fell in love with Tatara," I whispered in a shaking voice.
As if that were a reminder of what to say, he turned back to me. "Subaru, I'm sorry. I love you."
I didn't need anything more than those simple words. I had waited for months to hear them, in whatever form, and now that I had, tears welled up in my eyes and fell over onto my cheeks. "Was that really so hard?" I asked in a shaky voice, trying to smile.
"Don't cry… I'm not that bad, am I?" he replied, reaching up to brush the tears from my cheek.
"No, but it sure took you long enough!" I complained, but not without a tone of teasing in my voice.
But he just smiled, then leaned over to kiss me. I closed eyes, and idly ran my fingers through his hair. I felt so totally, completely happy that everything else just flew out of my mind. It didn't matter that Suzuno was, that we had to face Karasuki, that Amefuri and Kokie were in danger. We had each other, and he loved me, he truly loved me, and that was all I needed to survive.
He didn't try to push it further than a kiss, and although I probably would have gone further, I was content with that. After a while, we ended up cuddled up on my bed, my head resting on his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around me. Just before I drifted off, I whispered, "You'd better be here in the morning, or I'm going to kill you," and he laughed and told me he loved me again. With that warmth filling my body, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, he was still there, and we hadn't moved an inch. Not wanting to be awake and wanting to stay there forever, I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep again, but the sun shining through the window prevented that. In a half-asleep moment, I mused that I shouldn't have chosen the room that faced east, and then it occurred to me.
"The east! Of course!" I sat up abruptly, inadvertently jabbing Tokaki in the chest with my elbow, and he groaned and rolled over.
"Owww… Good morning to you, too," he mumbled.
"I know where Karasuki is!"
This chapter took me awhile, even though it's slow and sappy -_-;; That's a question I want answered - is there too much sap in this fic? I can't help it, I'm a romantic *sob* (seriously, one of my friends once told me I should be a Harlequin romance writer o_O;;;)
Anyhoo... Even though they're not in this chapter, here's Amefuri - http://garuby.com/ryn/art/amefuribad.jpg - and Kokie - http://garuby.com/ryn/art/kokiebad.jpg - just some lil doodles. I'm planning on doing better portraits at some point, these are just to give y'all a rough idea ^^
And thank you very very very very very much to everyone who's reviewed so far :D I love getting reviews, since I'm not the most experienced author ^^; Oh, and if you leave a question, please make sure that you have a valid email addy, 'cos I'll try my best to reply to you ^^
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When we arrived back at my village, I felt so overwhelmed that I nearly burst into tears. For all these months that I had been away suddenly seemed so long and I couldn't imagine how I had survived. So many times I had wished that everything could be over and I could just go home, and now that I was, I didn't know how to react.
Lina burst out of the door like a small tornado. I could barely even make out her figure before she jumped onto me and we both fell to the ground. Lina and I both started crying, Jin laughed, and Tokaki just looked confused. When we got to our feet, Lina started chattering away as if she hadn't been able to talk for months. "Look at you! You're all skinny! Don't they feed you in the capital? But those clothes, oh my goodness, they're even more beautiful than you said! Did you bring that blue one you were talking about? Why are you here? How come you didn't write me and tell me? I could've had everything prepared!" She glared at Jin. "Did you have something to do with this?" Jin just shook his head, still laughing, and Lina noticed Tokaki and narrowed her eyes. "Is that who I think it is?" she whispered to me, and I nodded slowly. Lina made a clucking noise and shook her head. "Let's go inside. You're staying the night," she added, not as a question but a demand.
When we were inside and she bustled off to make some tea, I noticed how round she was in the middle and I followed her into the kitchen. "Lina! It looks like I'm not the only one who hasn't been telling everything!"
She smiled sheepishly, patting her stomach. "Well, I didn't want to say anything until I was sure. If it's a girl, I'm naming her after you, Doulin. My sister, the Byakko Shichiseishi!" She exclaimed, looking proud.
I blushed and headed back to the main room, but paused outside the door when I heard Jin's voice. "…I should be kicking your ass for what you did to Doulin, but I'll let Lina deal with you first. My god, that woman…" I felt more than uncomfortable. Jin had always been like a big brother to me, even from before he and Lina were married. He was a good friend, and I would always turn to him for advice, but now I wished that I hadn't told him and Lina everything.
When Lina came back, Jin explained how he had found us and I filled in the blanks. Lina looked petrified when I told her I had been attacked, but I assured her that all was fine and she calmed down. Tokaki didn't say much the whole time we talked, and I felt rather sorry for him and guilty that I had put him in this situation.
Even though it was wonderful to be home again, I had an urge to get up to my room and just sleep. By the time I excused myself, the sun was setting. I stepped outside onto the porch and was gazing out at the familiar landscape when I heard footsteps behind me, and turned to see Tokaki.
"They're, uh, nice," he said slowly.
"I'm sorry. I kind of wrote them and told them everything that happened, so…" I trailed off. I didn't want to bring the subject up again, and Tokaki looked uncomfortable enough already.
Lina appeared in the doorway. "Doulin, you should get to bed! You've had a busy day."
I was surprised, but said goodnight to Tokaki and went inside, heading up the stairs. Just as I got to my room, I could hear Lina's voice, which had a bit of an edge to it. "You, come with me. We're going to have a talk." Remembering Jin's words from earlier, I shook my head and closed the door.
My room looked exactly the same, save for the fact that it was perfectly clean. I had never been much of a housekeeper, and while I wasn't a total slob, Lina's knack for cleaning evened us out. I sighed, sitting down on my bed. It had worked fine - Lina did the housework, Jin did the hard physical work, and I took care of the front end of the inn. It had seemed like such a bore while I had to live it day-to-day, but now I wouldn't have minded returning to that life one bit. I wondered how business had been since I left. This afternoon, we hadn't been interrupted once by possible patrons.
However, I reminded myself of the innkeeper from the previous night, who had talked of bandits in the area, but now I knew that they weren't just regular bandits, they were members of Karasuki's group. I tried to think of where Karasuki would keep his headquarters. I knew this area, I had grown up in it and lived here all my life - so why didn't anywhere come to mind?
I couldn't concentrate on the problem now; I was too exhausted. I vowed to think of a solution the next day, then closed my eyes and fell back onto the bed, drifting off to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
I awoke when I felt lips on mine. It was like a dream, but I knew that it was real. I didn't push him away, even though I knew I should have; I don't think I could have if I had wanted to. But when I shifted slightly to raise my hand to his face, he pulled back and mumbled an apology, getting up to leave.
"Don't--" I grabbed his wrist, and he stared at me. "…You don't have to leave." I let go of his wrist, and he nodded and sat down on the bed next to me, staring down at the floor. The moonlight was bright, but I got up and crossed the room to light the candles on my dresser anyway, adding a warm glow to the room. Returning to sit back on the bed, I wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and forget that words even existed, but I knew that couldn't happen. This had to be resolved; it was long overdue.
"You know," he started suddenly, "If you hadn't been there today, I probably would've fought Karasuki. But you were right, we shouldn't jump into anything. I didn't even think of that. You're like… A voice of reason."
I nodded slowly, leaning against the wall and hugging my knees to my chest. "What did you talk to Lina about?"
In the flickering light, I could make out a bit of a smile on his face. "She did most of the talking, actually. It wasn't so much a talk as it was a threat. "
I smiled. "Lina can get a bit carried away… The fact that she's on hormonal overload right now probably didn't help much, either. What did she talk about, then?"
"What do you want, a word for word recap?"
"I remember one time, when we were little, the village bully stole one of my dolls. Lina yelled at him so much that he ran home crying. We all got quite a laugh out of seeing the toughest kid in town sobbing like a baby."
"…And?"
"All I'm saying is that you deserve what you got," I snapped, a little harsher than I meant to, but I didn't apologize.
"Oh, come on," he groaned, covering his face in his hands. "I didn't come up here to get bitched at by you, too."
"Then why did you come up here?" I asked, but he just shrugged in response, and I sighed, exasperated. "So you showed up in my room, in the middle of the night, to kiss me and then run away without saying anything?"
He grinned. "I would've gone farther, but you woke up."
"You're an idiot!" I threw my pillow at him, but he ducked and it hit the wall. A moment later, we could hear Jin's muffled voice yelling at us to shut up. I shook my head, then whispered, "Normally it's me who has to tell them to keep it down."
Tokaki shuddered. "That's a mental picture I could've gone without, thanks." He noticed my quirked eyebrow and stammered an excuse. "I mean, they're nice enough and everything, it's just… Some things you don't need to know about." I nodded, and after a moment of silence, he asked, "Are you coming back here when this is all over?"
I nodded again. "This is my home. There's nowhere else I'd rather go. You know," I added after a second of thought, "It isn't quite fair that you know so much about me when I don't know anything about you."
"What's to know?" He shrugged non-commitedly.
"Where you're from, your family… I don't even know your real name!"
"That's probably a good thing," he cringed, but noticing my look, sighed. "Fine. Hahm Lan'uan, born nineteen years ago in some crappy village in the north, where it's fucking cold all the time. Parents died at the tender age of ten, went to live with some aunt in the capital. That's it. Happy?"
"Don't you care about anything?" I asked in a quiet voice, and he looked at me with a surprised expression. "I mean, you take everything so lightly, even your own history. Isn't there anything that's important to you?"
"Sure."
"…And that is?"
"What about being a seishi? That's pretty damn important. I mean, the whole 'blessed by Byakko-seikun' thing and all." He frowned, then looked at me again. "I'm not as shallow as you think I am."
"Why is that so hard to believe?" I said irritably. It was getting late, and I was starting to feel the exhaustion from the previous day's events. And then I said it: "You treat other people like they don't matter. You don't care about anyone, barely even yourself. The only reason you're going along with being a seishi is because it benefits you, whether with money, fame, or a bigger selection of women for you to harass." I was fed up with this game. Just when I thought he had changed and was about to profess his newfound feelings for me, my hopes were knocked down again. I didn't want this pain anymore, I was sick of it.
"Subaru…" He started, but I didn't look at him.
"Get out. Unless you're going to apologize, get out. Do you have any idea how much you hurt me?" I asked, all the while mentally repeating to myself that I wouldn't let myself cry.
"Subaru, listen to me, for god's sake." He grabbed my shoulders, but I turned my face away. "You know, I would rather face Karasuki than go through this. You don't know how fucking scared I am of this. You are… You're… kind, caring, smart, and like I said, a voice of reason, you make sense of things, and yeah, you are the sexiest and most beautiful woman I've ever seen, but that is the last thing I think of when I look at you. And, and that's why I left, because I don't know what…" He trailed off, then dropped his hands from my arms. "Shit, I'm not like Tatara, I can't make this sound any good."
"…I never fell in love with Tatara," I whispered in a shaking voice.
As if that were a reminder of what to say, he turned back to me. "Subaru, I'm sorry. I love you."
I didn't need anything more than those simple words. I had waited for months to hear them, in whatever form, and now that I had, tears welled up in my eyes and fell over onto my cheeks. "Was that really so hard?" I asked in a shaky voice, trying to smile.
"Don't cry… I'm not that bad, am I?" he replied, reaching up to brush the tears from my cheek.
"No, but it sure took you long enough!" I complained, but not without a tone of teasing in my voice.
But he just smiled, then leaned over to kiss me. I closed eyes, and idly ran my fingers through his hair. I felt so totally, completely happy that everything else just flew out of my mind. It didn't matter that Suzuno was, that we had to face Karasuki, that Amefuri and Kokie were in danger. We had each other, and he loved me, he truly loved me, and that was all I needed to survive.
He didn't try to push it further than a kiss, and although I probably would have gone further, I was content with that. After a while, we ended up cuddled up on my bed, my head resting on his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around me. Just before I drifted off, I whispered, "You'd better be here in the morning, or I'm going to kill you," and he laughed and told me he loved me again. With that warmth filling my body, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, he was still there, and we hadn't moved an inch. Not wanting to be awake and wanting to stay there forever, I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep again, but the sun shining through the window prevented that. In a half-asleep moment, I mused that I shouldn't have chosen the room that faced east, and then it occurred to me.
"The east! Of course!" I sat up abruptly, inadvertently jabbing Tokaki in the chest with my elbow, and he groaned and rolled over.
"Owww… Good morning to you, too," he mumbled.
"I know where Karasuki is!"