As a ninja, Aoshi had highly developed senses out of pure necessity, and maybe some natural help. There was very little he was left unaware of. Certiantly nothing that happened in the very same room he was in, no matter his current state.
Besides, fear has a very distinctive scent.
And that was what he woke to. Fear. Not blinding, mind-numbing fear, nothing so obvious as that, but a subtler kind.
Aoshi's eyes were open but his back was turned, so he never saw Tsukioka wake, never saw him sit up, hugging his knees to his chest, never saw the almost-unnoticeable quivers that wracked his shoulders, never saw him lie back down to sleep. That was not such a big problem, though. He heard everything just fine.
Especially those last words, dripping with bitterness and so frankly believed that it made him go cold.
Well … colder.
So it was that Aoshi stayed awake long after Katsu had drifted back of into sleep and blissful oblivion, wondering on the artist's last words. Artist …
That was right, he had yet to thank the man for that picture, hadn't he? He'd do it tomorrow, when they were alone.
Aoshi wasn't eager to do something as intimate as giving thanks (well, to him it was intimate – though he knew it wasn't so for others) where a crowd of oh-so-helpful onlookers could watch and shout out friendly pointers on the way.
He wondered what it was that had made Tsukioka so scared. The other man probably hadn't even known he had awoken.
He fell asleep before he found the answer to the first – or the answer as to why he felt so uncomfortable with the second.
******************************
We really are going to be getting somewhere soon, I promise. And then all mention of plot will disappear until it comes back up again. It's late and I really don't have that much to say. Except that I am thinking of both a) going back and giving all of these little chapter titles, just for fun, and b) starting up a fictionpress.net account. But not very hard on either of them. B, I will figure out myself, but tell me what you think about A – it wouldn't really be that hard, not for these chapters (overall story, yes – I came up with "Precious Moments" in about ten seconds, and I still hate it, but I don't have anything better – unless none of you would mind reading "My RK Fic, Which I Update Once Every Night, Except When I Don't," which is seriously how I mentally refer to this thing .
Kuroiyousei: Unrelated thing, my computer hasn't been letting me get at your site for Angels since the day after it started, so I've read exactly two chapters, and it's driving me crazy. crazy–er. I put up chapter 39 at about six/seven o'clock, I think. I'm glad you liked the dream – every once in a while I like writing like that, and it's a nice relief to know that other people enjoy it when I do. ^_^ Means I have an excuse to do it more often.
And this gave me a little bit of a shudder – not because of the actual content, but because the whole time I was writing it, I could just see someone saying this, and not Katsu. There's this little, little girl, with completely unclassifiable features that are described only as "cute," about six or seven years old, just saying all of this with this really big, dreamy smile on her face. She's playing with something too, outside of your line of vision, but you don't really feel like looking too closely at what it is. *shiver* It freaked me out for a bit there. Really, really bad.
(for 40) Does this answer your question? Yes, it was Saitou who said that, waaay back in chpt. 8 or something. I'm really glad you like the way I write Katsu – I've always felt that, while I love him, it's really hard to get a grip on his actual personality, since he is featured/talked about so rarely. In fact … I don't think there is a single episode in which Katsu doesn't appear that he is even mentioned. This is what I think is the most probable personality for him, based on what little the series gives us, but I know everyone thinks differently. Certainly I've never seen anyone else write "my" Katsu – and I've made it a point to read just about every Katsu fic I can get my grubby little paws on. For a general idea of how much plot to expect, just look at the manga/anime. They're obviously related, in the same series, and they do have plot but (excepting special cases) that plot never really makes it past one or two episodes, occasionally to resurface sometime later on. That's pretty much how I'm going to go. I trust, from your reaction, that I won't be a problem. ^_^
Nicky: Yeah … 39 was kinda cool, wasn't it? (Hey! I actually complimented one of my own writings! Look at the pretty blue moon!) And I never said I was going to commit suicide – just that I would want to if I followed the same ongoing storyline day after day for an undetermined amount of days. You have no reason to fear. ^_^