Disclaimer: Don't own jack shit (except Tansho)..but you already knew that.
A/N: I am soooo horribly sorry that this update took so damn long. I've been in Canada for the past week on my Senior class trip and unable to access the net to do much of anything. So please do forgive me! ^_^ Oh, and once again...so very sorry for my nasty little prank I pulled with the last chapter. But you should know it could never end there! ^_^
Chapter 19 Once You Love A Man
I don't know how I am able to continue standing. I feel so drained; like my soul has been sucked from my body and evaporated. I feel so ashamed--and so sad. I am wracked with sadness beyond my belief.
As if on cue, the remaining customers of the Black Dove begin to file out. They keep their faces turned from me so that I won't see the guilt painted there. These men whom I fuck in exchange for a couple of coins; these men who will watch me be beaten to death in front of them, are just walking past me as if I were an apparition, not really there. They don't laugh and stumble about with each other as they normally do when they exit the tavern. They are silent. And to my great amusement, they seem as sober as a pack of monks.
I pay none of them any attention as they walk by me. I just stand there, looking out into the city. He won't go away. He won't release my mind. Tasuki. That name. That goddamned name will repeat itself in my mind until the day I die. It will haunt me like the ghost he has already become.
Dear gods, I think, Is he really gone? Will I truly never see him again?
I can't cry anymore. I would if I could. But I just cannot. So I don't try. I turn around and walk back into the tavern once all of the men have left.
I keep my head low. For some reason I feel ashamed to look the other women in the eye. I have no clue why. It was me, after all, who nearly died on the floor of the tavern while they looked on, screaming in terror.
Sake is strong on the air, and I suddenly realize that it is coming from me. I run my fingers over my arm and an unwounded section of my face. I press my fingers together and they stick. I then raise them to my nose and sniff carefully. My nose crinkles at the strong smell of the rice wine. I am covered in it.
Probably from rolling around on the floor while getting your ass kicked, I think.
The room is empty, with nothing but tables and chairs being cleaned by Misa and Okichi. Koi is to my right, picking up the tables and chairs that Tasuki flung aside upon his entrance. I move to help her, knowing that what happened tonight is my fault. But my arm is suddenly snatched by an unseen hand and I am roughly drawn backwards out onto the veranda before I can bend to assist Koi in lifting the heavy wooden tables.
The fingers grasping my arm tighten and I am shoved up against the wall by the door to the tavern, Asako's worn face is suddenly staring at me. Her hard eyes look at me coldly, burning themselves into me. I can almost feel her anger rising off of her skin in waves of heat.
"Is he gone?" she asks. Her voice is strangely soft, as if she doesn't want to injure my fragile ears. But her undertone is assertive, just as it always is. She raises her eyebrows in question when I don't answer. At least she is not as angry as I thought.
"Yes," I answer simply.
"For good?"
I think that I know the answer to that. Tasuki and I said that it was over. We said that this was it. Over. Done with. He will go to Hokkan with his priestess and the other warriors on his quest to summon Suzaku. And then he will go home, to Mount Reikaku and his bandits. And I will stay here. Here. The Black Dove. The place that owns me. And he will never come back to me again.
"Yes," I finally reply, "He's gone for good, Asako."
"That's good," she says softly, nodding her dark gray head, "That's very good."
She releases her crushing grip from my arm and backs away from me a little. She sighs and grabs a hunk of her gray hair and pulls it over her shoulder. She works her fingers into it and begins to comb it gently.
"It's good that he's gone, Tansho," she tells me as she continues to pull her fingers through her hair, "You know that don't you? You understand?"
Does she think that I am a fool? Does she truly think that I don't understand the dangers that I faced if Tasuki and I continued our affair? The dangers of me leaving with him? Her eyes tell me that she thinks I am still a child. The trembling child she took under her arm five years ago. The innocent to whom she taught the art of pleasure. The little girl she taught how to shamelessly fuck a man and then do it over and over again without any thought.
All I can do is stare at her in disbelief.
"Who do you think I am, Asako?" I ask. I raise my head so that I am looking her in the eye. "Do you still think me a child? A child you have to teach?"
"You listen to me!" she suddenly shouts, releasing her gray hair from her combing fingers and grabbing my arm again in her unnaturally strong grasp. "I care more for you than any other person you know! I was the one who taught you how to survive! I was the one who taught you how to live, Tansho!"
"Live?!" I scream at her, my anger suddenly flaring again, "You call this living?!" I throw my free hand out behind me, motioning to the tavern. Her lips form a line, an unemotional line that tells me nothing of what she is thinking in her head. "I call it dying, Asako! All of us are slowly dying, and soon we won't be here any more! Soon we'll be nothing but rotting whores buried in the goddamned ground!! We'll be nothing!!"
She lets my arm go yet again and stares at me. "And just how long did it take you to figure that out?" she replies calmly, her tone deathly cold. She is unmoved, but I'm not shocked. If I were her, having seen what she's seen and done what she's done, then I would be unmoved by anything. Even death.
"What did he teach you, huh?" she asks, obviously mocking me. I don't reply. I won't give her the pleasure of seeing me admit the mistake she believes I made. "Did he give you anything, Tansho? Did he?!" She stares hard at me, and I stare back. I want to tell her "Yes". Yes, he did give me something. Something that no other man ever gave me--or taught me. Love. I smile as I say the word in my head.
"Love," I whisper, barely audible. But she hears, and her eyes widen in disbelief. But to my dissapointment, it is shock--not joy--that I have said such a thing. Her mouth drops open.
"You're fucking kidding me..." she whispers back, shaking her head almost sadly. "You think you're in love..." It is neither a question nor a statement. It is simply words joined together to stab me in the heart and break it apart.
My insides feel like they will errupt. How dare she do such a thing to me?! How dare she mock me like this?!
"Do not mock me, Asako!" I suddenly scream when I see that the degrading look on her worn face is not going away. But my rage dissapears as suddenly as it appeared when I see Asako's true face--and the years beaten into it. Scars, a slightly mishapen nose that has been broken far too many times, and the black spaces in her grin. I don't judge Asako. I forgive her--even now, as she continues to degrade me and the man I love.
Her demeanor suddenly changes again and she reaches a hand up to my face. Like a mother. She was like a mother to me when I first came here. And she's trying to play that role yet again, even after it's far too late to give me that true things a mother should give her daughter.
"I did not mean to mock you, my dear. But that doesn't matter right now, Tansho," she says, her voice returning to the soft, yet assertive motherly tone. "What matters is that he's gone and you're not distracted anymore."
Distracted. That's what she calls love. A distraction. I find that I suddenly pity her. For the first time since I have known her, I pity Aasko. Her life, her body, her mind, her soul. She is so scarred, so utterly destroyed. And I realize that she has never loved a man. Or either she did--once. That one time, and someone who told her it was a distraction, an illusion, a foolish game, was all it took. That was all it took to destroy any chance of her happiness. One time. She will never again be happy because someone told her it was simply a distraction. Just like she's telling me now.
"Don't ever love a man, Tansho," she whispers to me, cupping my face with her hand, "You won't be able to do anything else ever again..except love him. Nothing else will matter to you..only him." I do love Aasko, I realize. She was right when she said she taught me how to survive. I would be dead now if it wasn't for her wisdom of being a whore, a woman, and a human being. Her wisdom of simply living kept me alive. She's not yet even thirty, but her words are so full of years.
She pats my face gently and gives a weak smile. "Don't be sad that he's gone, Tansho. It's for the best--for both of you. Just forget about him. Forget that you ever knew him. If you don't, then you'll be miserable for the rest of your life." With that, she flips her hair over her shoulder again and leaves me. And when she leaves, the beginnings of thunder rumble deep in the heavens. A storm is approaching.
I stand alone again on the porch, my eyes staring into the night. Forget. Forget about Tasuki, the first man I ever loved. Oh gods, how is such a thing possible? Was Asako able to do it? Is that why she is the way she is now? Because she still loves a man--or because she loved a man, and knew she could never be with him, and forgot about him.
Can I forget? Can my soul and my body let go of Tasuki? His fire- like hair, his gold-laced green eyes, his gleaming fangs, his skin, his hands, his mouth, his chest, his arms. Everything. Is it possible to just heap it all into a bag and hurl it into the ocean like something you need to get rid of? No evidence left behind. No reminder. How is it possible?
I look into the city long and hard, as if trying to pry my answer from the lights. He's out there, in the center of it all, safe in the emperor's palace. Is he trying to forget me as well? Will he be able to do it? Has he already done it? Am I already nothing more to him than a whore he met in a tavern and had a good time with? Or am I a vivid memory that his mind is unable to let go of. Like he is to me. Like he always will be to me. Even if I try, I know that I'll never be able to forget him. Never. Even after I die, I know that I will watch him, waiting for him to join me in heaven or hell, wherever I end up.
And he said he'd always love me. And I said nothing to him. Nothing. And he's leaving tomorrow for Hokkan. He's going on a perilous mission to summon the god he serves and protect his priestess. And suddenly I realize that he may die. He may die and never know what I was thinking so fervently in my heart. The last time we saw each other, he told me he loved me and I said nothing in return. And he may die remembering that; how I stayed silent, too afraid of myself to tell him how much I loved him. He will remember me as a coward. He will die a hero and I will live a coward.
"Oh gods," I whimper into the air, sealing my hands over my mouth. I sob deeply as my soul burns to life within me. I feel it stir, and I press my fingers harder to my lips to keep it from escaping. I love him. Oh, dear gods, I love him. Once you love a man, you'll never be able to do anything else. That's what Asako said to me. And once again, her wisdom hidden deep in her seemingly malicious words has revealed itself. It is clouded by a whore's scarred thoughts, but I can see it and I am wise enough myself to understand it. And, even though I know it may be the death of me, I don't care. I love a man, and that is all that I will be able to do for the rest of me life. And that man is Tasuki. And he is leaving tomorrow. "I have to tell him," I whisper to myself, to the lights of the city, to the storm slowly building itself in the sky above the capital.
So, without another thought, I take the hem of my loose gown in my hands, lift it to my bare thighs, and I run. I run as fast as I am able in the direction of the palace. Above my head, the sound of thunder boils over from the gray clouds and erupts in the blackened sky. And the rain falls.
Run, Tansho, run!!! Yaaaaay! Go Tansho!! *ahem* Well, like I promised, it is continuing. So what will happen? Will Tansho make it to the palace before Tasuki leaves for Hokkan? Or will she never see him again?! *sniffle* So sad...I don't think I want to write anymore...just too sad. Just kidding again!!! ^_^ More to come soon!
Oh, p.s. Sorry again for the mean thing I did to all of you last chapter. I had no idea you would truly be so upset even if I did promise that this story wasn't over!! I felt kinda guilty for my evil deed when I was reading your reviews (which I love, by the way, so keep 'em coming!). So, just another confirmation..."Tansho" will continue!!!
A/N: I am soooo horribly sorry that this update took so damn long. I've been in Canada for the past week on my Senior class trip and unable to access the net to do much of anything. So please do forgive me! ^_^ Oh, and once again...so very sorry for my nasty little prank I pulled with the last chapter. But you should know it could never end there! ^_^
Chapter 19 Once You Love A Man
I don't know how I am able to continue standing. I feel so drained; like my soul has been sucked from my body and evaporated. I feel so ashamed--and so sad. I am wracked with sadness beyond my belief.
As if on cue, the remaining customers of the Black Dove begin to file out. They keep their faces turned from me so that I won't see the guilt painted there. These men whom I fuck in exchange for a couple of coins; these men who will watch me be beaten to death in front of them, are just walking past me as if I were an apparition, not really there. They don't laugh and stumble about with each other as they normally do when they exit the tavern. They are silent. And to my great amusement, they seem as sober as a pack of monks.
I pay none of them any attention as they walk by me. I just stand there, looking out into the city. He won't go away. He won't release my mind. Tasuki. That name. That goddamned name will repeat itself in my mind until the day I die. It will haunt me like the ghost he has already become.
Dear gods, I think, Is he really gone? Will I truly never see him again?
I can't cry anymore. I would if I could. But I just cannot. So I don't try. I turn around and walk back into the tavern once all of the men have left.
I keep my head low. For some reason I feel ashamed to look the other women in the eye. I have no clue why. It was me, after all, who nearly died on the floor of the tavern while they looked on, screaming in terror.
Sake is strong on the air, and I suddenly realize that it is coming from me. I run my fingers over my arm and an unwounded section of my face. I press my fingers together and they stick. I then raise them to my nose and sniff carefully. My nose crinkles at the strong smell of the rice wine. I am covered in it.
Probably from rolling around on the floor while getting your ass kicked, I think.
The room is empty, with nothing but tables and chairs being cleaned by Misa and Okichi. Koi is to my right, picking up the tables and chairs that Tasuki flung aside upon his entrance. I move to help her, knowing that what happened tonight is my fault. But my arm is suddenly snatched by an unseen hand and I am roughly drawn backwards out onto the veranda before I can bend to assist Koi in lifting the heavy wooden tables.
The fingers grasping my arm tighten and I am shoved up against the wall by the door to the tavern, Asako's worn face is suddenly staring at me. Her hard eyes look at me coldly, burning themselves into me. I can almost feel her anger rising off of her skin in waves of heat.
"Is he gone?" she asks. Her voice is strangely soft, as if she doesn't want to injure my fragile ears. But her undertone is assertive, just as it always is. She raises her eyebrows in question when I don't answer. At least she is not as angry as I thought.
"Yes," I answer simply.
"For good?"
I think that I know the answer to that. Tasuki and I said that it was over. We said that this was it. Over. Done with. He will go to Hokkan with his priestess and the other warriors on his quest to summon Suzaku. And then he will go home, to Mount Reikaku and his bandits. And I will stay here. Here. The Black Dove. The place that owns me. And he will never come back to me again.
"Yes," I finally reply, "He's gone for good, Asako."
"That's good," she says softly, nodding her dark gray head, "That's very good."
She releases her crushing grip from my arm and backs away from me a little. She sighs and grabs a hunk of her gray hair and pulls it over her shoulder. She works her fingers into it and begins to comb it gently.
"It's good that he's gone, Tansho," she tells me as she continues to pull her fingers through her hair, "You know that don't you? You understand?"
Does she think that I am a fool? Does she truly think that I don't understand the dangers that I faced if Tasuki and I continued our affair? The dangers of me leaving with him? Her eyes tell me that she thinks I am still a child. The trembling child she took under her arm five years ago. The innocent to whom she taught the art of pleasure. The little girl she taught how to shamelessly fuck a man and then do it over and over again without any thought.
All I can do is stare at her in disbelief.
"Who do you think I am, Asako?" I ask. I raise my head so that I am looking her in the eye. "Do you still think me a child? A child you have to teach?"
"You listen to me!" she suddenly shouts, releasing her gray hair from her combing fingers and grabbing my arm again in her unnaturally strong grasp. "I care more for you than any other person you know! I was the one who taught you how to survive! I was the one who taught you how to live, Tansho!"
"Live?!" I scream at her, my anger suddenly flaring again, "You call this living?!" I throw my free hand out behind me, motioning to the tavern. Her lips form a line, an unemotional line that tells me nothing of what she is thinking in her head. "I call it dying, Asako! All of us are slowly dying, and soon we won't be here any more! Soon we'll be nothing but rotting whores buried in the goddamned ground!! We'll be nothing!!"
She lets my arm go yet again and stares at me. "And just how long did it take you to figure that out?" she replies calmly, her tone deathly cold. She is unmoved, but I'm not shocked. If I were her, having seen what she's seen and done what she's done, then I would be unmoved by anything. Even death.
"What did he teach you, huh?" she asks, obviously mocking me. I don't reply. I won't give her the pleasure of seeing me admit the mistake she believes I made. "Did he give you anything, Tansho? Did he?!" She stares hard at me, and I stare back. I want to tell her "Yes". Yes, he did give me something. Something that no other man ever gave me--or taught me. Love. I smile as I say the word in my head.
"Love," I whisper, barely audible. But she hears, and her eyes widen in disbelief. But to my dissapointment, it is shock--not joy--that I have said such a thing. Her mouth drops open.
"You're fucking kidding me..." she whispers back, shaking her head almost sadly. "You think you're in love..." It is neither a question nor a statement. It is simply words joined together to stab me in the heart and break it apart.
My insides feel like they will errupt. How dare she do such a thing to me?! How dare she mock me like this?!
"Do not mock me, Asako!" I suddenly scream when I see that the degrading look on her worn face is not going away. But my rage dissapears as suddenly as it appeared when I see Asako's true face--and the years beaten into it. Scars, a slightly mishapen nose that has been broken far too many times, and the black spaces in her grin. I don't judge Asako. I forgive her--even now, as she continues to degrade me and the man I love.
Her demeanor suddenly changes again and she reaches a hand up to my face. Like a mother. She was like a mother to me when I first came here. And she's trying to play that role yet again, even after it's far too late to give me that true things a mother should give her daughter.
"I did not mean to mock you, my dear. But that doesn't matter right now, Tansho," she says, her voice returning to the soft, yet assertive motherly tone. "What matters is that he's gone and you're not distracted anymore."
Distracted. That's what she calls love. A distraction. I find that I suddenly pity her. For the first time since I have known her, I pity Aasko. Her life, her body, her mind, her soul. She is so scarred, so utterly destroyed. And I realize that she has never loved a man. Or either she did--once. That one time, and someone who told her it was a distraction, an illusion, a foolish game, was all it took. That was all it took to destroy any chance of her happiness. One time. She will never again be happy because someone told her it was simply a distraction. Just like she's telling me now.
"Don't ever love a man, Tansho," she whispers to me, cupping my face with her hand, "You won't be able to do anything else ever again..except love him. Nothing else will matter to you..only him." I do love Aasko, I realize. She was right when she said she taught me how to survive. I would be dead now if it wasn't for her wisdom of being a whore, a woman, and a human being. Her wisdom of simply living kept me alive. She's not yet even thirty, but her words are so full of years.
She pats my face gently and gives a weak smile. "Don't be sad that he's gone, Tansho. It's for the best--for both of you. Just forget about him. Forget that you ever knew him. If you don't, then you'll be miserable for the rest of your life." With that, she flips her hair over her shoulder again and leaves me. And when she leaves, the beginnings of thunder rumble deep in the heavens. A storm is approaching.
I stand alone again on the porch, my eyes staring into the night. Forget. Forget about Tasuki, the first man I ever loved. Oh gods, how is such a thing possible? Was Asako able to do it? Is that why she is the way she is now? Because she still loves a man--or because she loved a man, and knew she could never be with him, and forgot about him.
Can I forget? Can my soul and my body let go of Tasuki? His fire- like hair, his gold-laced green eyes, his gleaming fangs, his skin, his hands, his mouth, his chest, his arms. Everything. Is it possible to just heap it all into a bag and hurl it into the ocean like something you need to get rid of? No evidence left behind. No reminder. How is it possible?
I look into the city long and hard, as if trying to pry my answer from the lights. He's out there, in the center of it all, safe in the emperor's palace. Is he trying to forget me as well? Will he be able to do it? Has he already done it? Am I already nothing more to him than a whore he met in a tavern and had a good time with? Or am I a vivid memory that his mind is unable to let go of. Like he is to me. Like he always will be to me. Even if I try, I know that I'll never be able to forget him. Never. Even after I die, I know that I will watch him, waiting for him to join me in heaven or hell, wherever I end up.
And he said he'd always love me. And I said nothing to him. Nothing. And he's leaving tomorrow for Hokkan. He's going on a perilous mission to summon the god he serves and protect his priestess. And suddenly I realize that he may die. He may die and never know what I was thinking so fervently in my heart. The last time we saw each other, he told me he loved me and I said nothing in return. And he may die remembering that; how I stayed silent, too afraid of myself to tell him how much I loved him. He will remember me as a coward. He will die a hero and I will live a coward.
"Oh gods," I whimper into the air, sealing my hands over my mouth. I sob deeply as my soul burns to life within me. I feel it stir, and I press my fingers harder to my lips to keep it from escaping. I love him. Oh, dear gods, I love him. Once you love a man, you'll never be able to do anything else. That's what Asako said to me. And once again, her wisdom hidden deep in her seemingly malicious words has revealed itself. It is clouded by a whore's scarred thoughts, but I can see it and I am wise enough myself to understand it. And, even though I know it may be the death of me, I don't care. I love a man, and that is all that I will be able to do for the rest of me life. And that man is Tasuki. And he is leaving tomorrow. "I have to tell him," I whisper to myself, to the lights of the city, to the storm slowly building itself in the sky above the capital.
So, without another thought, I take the hem of my loose gown in my hands, lift it to my bare thighs, and I run. I run as fast as I am able in the direction of the palace. Above my head, the sound of thunder boils over from the gray clouds and erupts in the blackened sky. And the rain falls.
Run, Tansho, run!!! Yaaaaay! Go Tansho!! *ahem* Well, like I promised, it is continuing. So what will happen? Will Tansho make it to the palace before Tasuki leaves for Hokkan? Or will she never see him again?! *sniffle* So sad...I don't think I want to write anymore...just too sad. Just kidding again!!! ^_^ More to come soon!
Oh, p.s. Sorry again for the mean thing I did to all of you last chapter. I had no idea you would truly be so upset even if I did promise that this story wasn't over!! I felt kinda guilty for my evil deed when I was reading your reviews (which I love, by the way, so keep 'em coming!). So, just another confirmation..."Tansho" will continue!!!