Until The Cherry Blossoms Fall

Haruka let out a small satisfied sigh as she ran a finger lightly down his back, tracing the curve of his spine. The man lying in bed next to her mumbled something incomprehensible in his sleep and rolled over towards her, flinging an arm out in her direction as he did so. Haruka lifted her head and tucked his arm under it, cuddling up to him and pulling his other arm over her as she did so. With a little murmur of contentment she snuggled up against him and let sleep claim her as it already had her lover.

I love you Keitaro, was Haruka's last waking thought.

"I just don't know any more aunt – I mean, Haruka-san," Keitaro said tiredly, stopping himself at the last second from making the slip he knew Haruka hated.

"Every time I think I've gotten the girls to accept me something like this happens! Maybe I should just find a woman to manage the dorm and move out."

Haruka raised her head from the paper she'd been skimming and looked at her nephew in some surprise. Keitaro visited her at the tea house after hours a couple of times a week, to help out with chores, ask her advice or just talk and she didn't mind the company. Not that she'd ever said as much, but Keitaro knew her well enough to know that if she didn't kick him out on his rear it meant he was welcome to visit. He'd always been an open book – to everyone who knew him – but since he'd returned to Hinata Inn she'd gotten to know him better than before. And so Haruka was able to see that Keitaro was truly miserable now and not simply going through one of his fleeting but not uncommon bouts of depression.

"So what happened now?" she asked him, concealing her concern. Keitaro's personality was a good match for the rest of him – not impervious to harm but able to recover from almost any wound. His boundless optimism contrasted her own cynicism but she'd always had a certain respect for his determinedly positive attitude towards life. It was unusual to see him fundamentally unhappy – unusual and worrying.

"Kitsune kidnapped my diary," Keitaro told her with a sad little laugh.

"She said I had to pay a ransom to get it back but before I could Su took it and started reading out loud and then Naru came along and overheard her and misunderstood and hit me and I landed on Shinobu while she was hanging out her laundry and her underwear went everywhere and then Motoko showed up . . ." Haruka was nodding along sympathetically.

"Not a great day, nephew, I'll grant you, but aren't you used to this stuff by now?"

"Well yeah," said Keitaro, "but when I finally got back to the Inn Naru hit me again as soon as I walked in the door. She said something about 'making her an accomplice in my perverted scheming' and then she hit me."

"Making her an accomplice in your perverted schemes?" Haruka asked with with a suggestive lift of her eyebrows. "Is there something you're not telling me Keitaro?" she continued, a suggestive lilt in her voice.

At least teasing him might distract him from his depression for a while.

"What!? Ah! No, nonononono, you',ve got the wrong idea!" Keitaro exclaimed in a panic.

"It was just -" Keitaro halted in mid sentence and then slumped down in his seat again.

"You're teasing me, aren't you?" he asked, in a tone of voice that would have been aggrieved if it hadn't sounded so tired.

"Just so," Haruka agreed equably. "Now, what's this about Naru?" Keitaro groaned.

"I think she thinks that I let her hit me deliberately so I could land on Shinobu the way I did," he told her, sounding more depressed than ever. Haruka winced. Even for Naru that was paranoid. She got up from her seat behind the bar and came around to the table Keitaro was sitting at. Sitting down across from him, Haruka reached out and cupped his face with her right hand.

"I don't think you hear this often enough Keitaro, but you're special," Haruka told him as she looked into his dark brown eyes.

"I mean it," she insisted, ignoring his doubtful expression. "You're a good person and you shouldn't give up hope. If you didn't live at Hinata you'd never have time to study and work to pay your rent. It'll be okay." After a moment Haruka was rewarded with a tentative smile from Keitaro.

"Thanks . . . Haruka-san."

"You're welcome," she replied.

And then she kissed him.

Haruka smiled, remembering the moment. She had only meant to kiss him on the forehead, but somehow her lips had found his instead. Keitaro kissed with all of youth's clumsy passion, inexperienced but so full of warmth and energy that for a moment Haruka remembered being young, remembered how alive she'd felt when she was his age. It had only lasted for a moment before Keitaro jerked away from her, staring at her with wide startled eyes. Haruka had been too shocked by her own actions to notice at the time that though Keitaro's expression was dominated by surprise, there had also been something oddly thoughtful in the way he'd looked at her before he'd stumbled out of her tea shop and run home. It hadn't been until months later that she'd realized, remembering the moment, that Keitaro had been frightened by his own actions rather than hers. After he'd left, Haruka had sat there in silence for several minutes, her thoughts in turmoil, before deciding that a good night's sleep would help make sense of what had happened.

That was how it had started. A kiss given as comfort between friends, that had somehow become something else. And then . . .

Well, Haruka reflected, that wasn't how it ended.

Keitaro had come by the next evening, nervous as hell, stammering and shaking when he said they should talk. The kami only knew what he'd been like the rest of the day and what the girls had made of it. Haruka had cautiously invited him in, wondering what he was going to say. Wondering what the hell she was going to say, for that matter.

Sorry I almost jumped your bones, even though you're a family member – my hormones got the better of me for a moment there? Haruka thought whimsically. Yeah right. That wouldn't exactly help the situation now, would it?

"Um . . . Haruka-san . . . I think we need to ta-aaaaaaaahhhhhh!"

The timing of it made Haruka wonder, sometimes. If Keitaro had fallen and landed on her on any other day it would have been just another accident, one more annoying but unimportant bit of clumsiness on Keitaro's part.

But it happened on the one day there was even the slightest chance my response would involve something other than shoving him off and slapping him, Haruka reflected. I still don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing I decided to wash the floor that day. I still don't know which of us kissed the other first, either. Oh well. I Don't suppose it matters much now.

Not that they'd immediately started making out on the floor and progressed to bed, oh no. No, they'd kissed again – first tentatively and then with increasing passion - before Keitaro had run off again, jumping up in a panic and running out of the shop. That time he'd been gone for a week before he'd gotten the courage to come and see her again. Haruka had been closing up for the day when a tentative knock at the front door had caught her attention. Keitaro had been waiting outside, looking even more nervous than the last time – if that was possible – and once again she'd let him in. They'd exchanged a long, uncertain look and then the two of them had spoken simultaneously.

"Haruka-san I-"

"Listen Keitaro-"

After a moment's pause Haruka had indicated that Keitaro should go first. Her nephew had rubbed his forehead wearily before hesitantly beginning to speak.

"Um, Haruka-san, the thing is, I . . ."

As Keitaro struggled to express himself Haruka had tried to focus on his words rather than his face, or his eyes, or the memory of what his body had felt like against hers. She'd been trying so hard not to focus on that memory that she didn't immediately notice when Keitaro trailed off into silence.

Maybe it was the thoughtful look in his eyes that made her do it. The look that said I never realized you were so attractive. It had been a very long time since any man had looked at her like that and that time, when she'd stepped forward and kissed Keitaro he'd kissed her right back. That night they had slept together, or made love to use the more romantic expression. Haruka preferred to think of it the latter way. What she felt for Keitaro was love, in its own mixed-up, messy way. Unspoken between them was the mutual understanding that each was the cure to the other's loneliness. Together they brought some much needed comfort and companionship into each other's lives.

The kami only knew how it had happened, but they'd become lovers.

Amazingly, none of the girls suspected anything. Considering how long secrets usually lasted at the Hinata Inn that was nothing short of a miracle. The sheer improbability of it worked in their favour. Seta probably suspected though. He had always been oddly insightful, at least about things that weren't related directly to him, and he knew her better than probably anyone else alive. But Seta, being Seta, probably didn't care. Haruka would have wagered that even if he did know about her and keitaro he wouldn't have attached any significance to the knowledge, one way or the other. Even when they'd first met Seta had been so lost in the mysteries of the past that the present made only a fleeting impact on him. Not even his love for Sarah's mother had really drawn him away from his studies. Archaeology had been mother, mistress and wife to Seta for as long as Haruka had known him. That was one of the things that attracted her to Keitaro. He had the same naivete and optimism that she had once found attractive in Seta, but for Keitaro the people in his life would always come first. She'd never forgotten how Seta had once couched a request to mind his fossil collection in terms that had sounded like a marriage proposal. Typical Seta. Typical of their non-relationship. And this was the man Naru had been nursing a crush on! Perhaps it wasn't so surprising that no one had realized their secret.

Nothing lasts, Haruka knew, pondering the situation she found herself in after another of Keitaro's nocturnal visits. It was one of life's truths, hard learnt by her.

Live for the now and make what you can of it – it's all there is.

That was what she was doing with Keitaro. It had begun by accident and against all reason become something special – but it wouldn't last. Sooner or later Naru would realize how lucky she really was to have Keitaro's love and that would be that. That was how things should be, had to be. Besides, it was already be happening. Keitaro was lying next to her now, sleeping peacefully, but before he'd fallen asleep they'd talked, as they often did. He'd mentioned he getting along better with Naru lately and even if he didn't realize where that was leading, Haruka did. Jealousy was pointless, she knew.

He deserves to be with someone he can walk down the street with without being ostracized, Haruka told herself.

He deserves to be with someone his own age. He deserves to be with someone he can start a family with.

It was the last thought that stung most. Not because she harbored even the faintest dream of having a family with Keitaro – even in her most unguarded moment Haruka was a born pragmatist – but because it reminded her that she would probably never start a family of her own. It was an old ache, one she'd resigned herself to long ago, but her time with Keitaro had reopened it with sweet sharpness. But life was what it was.

Live in the now, Haruka told herself again as she laid her head against Keitaro's shoulder, especially when it's this good. Haruka quoted an old expression about all things having their own time to herself.

It will last until the cherry blossoms fall.

Naru looked beautiful, Haruka decided, which was fair enough. After all, it was the bride's prerogative to look beautiful on her wedding day. Just as she'd known would happen – and probably as Granny Hina had planned for since the beginning – Keitaro and Naru were married.

I suppose it couldn't have ended any other way, really. Haruka reflected, as she glanced across to where her own husband was standing. They'd never discussed it, but sometimes she wondered if knowing that she'd loved Keitaro had made him re-evaluate what was most important to him. She had a sneaking suspicion that it was her relationship with Keitaro that had given him the confidence to pursue Naru and succeed, as well. Ironic, that. It wasn't what she'd expected, but then life never was. She was happy with Seta and more content with her lot than she'd hoped to be at this stage of her life.

One door closes and another opens, I guess.

But in her mind's eye Haruka could see the face of a young man, beautiful in his innocence, smiling at her as though she was the only thing that mattered in all the world.

Author's Notes

And let the flames begin! Seriously, although it certainly isn't my intent to offend anyone with this it's possible I have. This is, after all, a story that presents an incestuous relationship in a (kind of) positive light. Just so we're clear, this story doesn't reflect my personal views in any way, shape or form, though in a weird way I think they actually make a sweet couple.

Okay, now that I've covered my ass, you're probably wondering why I wrote this at all. Well, a reviewer of one of my other Love Hina fics challenged me to make this pairing work and even though I laughed at the idea off at first it . . . well . . . grew on me. Hawk's story 'Married With Princess' helped keep the idea in the front of my mind and I started to wonder if I could present this relationship in a remotely believable context. This is my attempt at that. I never could resist a challenge. It also became, without my intending it to, a study of the relationship between Haruka and Seta and why it didn't work out the first time (personally, I can't see it working out at all, but that's another matter).

So did I succeed?

You can be the judge of that.

Oh, one more thing, if you're wondering about any of my other stories rest assured that I'm still working on them. Check my author bio for semi regular updates on the progress of all my stories.

And an extra 'one more thing'. It turns out someone else is writing a Haruka/Keitaro story on – I noticed it just before I put this up. I guess there really is nothing new under the sun.