Rainbows in the Water
Part 2 of 3
II
"Aoshi..." she spoke, voice dead and flat.
Her expression was mild, tired, but not hostile. Aoshi was back? So it seemed, she thought, staring at him as he leaned against the wall. His arms were crossed, his eyes trained on her.
He showed no signs of moving.
Her mouth twitched downward into a frown.
Just standing there.
Silent.
Just there.
Not moving. Not speaking. Not anything.
A ghost of a person, almost. Maybe she'd lost her sanity and he wasn't there at all. Maybe she was staring at nothing. Was that possible?
She shook her head as though writing off the entire 'insane' incident. After all, he hadn't spoken. Maybe she was just tired. She hadn't slept for well over 24 hours. Hallucinations were common the longer she stayed awake she'd found. Although, usually she just ended up hearing things. She'd never imagined a person before though.
She turned toward the window, walking to the cabinet on the other side reaching in for a yukata. It was a new one. Omasu had bought it for her. It was pink, not her favorite color, but she liked it. It was covered in white fluffy clouds or something, she hadn't been quite sure on that point.
She yawned, yanking the tie on her shirt and shrugging off the cold, wet garment. Even her hair was wet. She unfolded the garment and pulled it over her shoulders, wrapping her arms around her chest, pulling the material tight. It was so warm...
She pulled the tie at her waist and kicked off the cold shorts, pulling off the wet, white silk beneath. The undergarment worn beneath her shorts were hand-designed and hand sewn for her by Okon. Okon had taught her how to do it herself a couple years ago.She didn't sew very often, but occasionally she found it was nice to forget about other things. She was usually so caught up in trying to fix some mini-disaster in her stitching that everything else faded completely from her mind.
She sighed, tying the little strings she'd sewn onto the garment. She reached up, grabbing a blue sash from the dresser top and tying it about her waist.
"Misao."
She leaned forward, propping her elbows up on the window sill. It was hazy outside, the rain fading off again. It looked like fog was rising along the grounds, in between the buildings. She sighed.
"Misao."
She stood a bit straighter.
Was her illusion talking? She glanced back with tired eyes and just as quickly glanced away. He hadn't moved.
Rainy...
She was really starting to hate rainy weather. Maybe she could leave Japan...
Move to some other foreign country. Was there somewhere it didn't rain? Somehow, she doubted it.
She didn't hear silent footfalls along her floor. She didn't sense the movement of her illusion in the room.
She did hear the soft rustle of cloth as it hit the floor. A wet rustling sound as another wet garment hit the shiny wood floor.
She stopped, holding herself perfectly still, listening as more clothes hit the floor. Clothes, no, maybe just cloth. One more garment. Should she look back?
Surely, she hadn't imagined Aoshi and he was really standing there? And if she'd heard clothes, what on earth was he now wearing? She didn't dare turn away.
The lofty half-hearted notion that the Aoshi she'd seen staring at her, more than half-shadowed in the inky darkness, was an illusion now completely evaporated. She'd never imagined him standing around before anyway, at least, not where she could actually see him. He appeared over and over again in her head, but not before now, in her actual line of vision.
She turned back around - might as well face it. It wasn't like she could run and she was anything but a coward.
The sight had her mouth dry in a moment and eyes wide.
Nope, no imagination there.
There he stood. Bare-chested and beautiful and... why was he half-naked?
"Aoshi-" Her tongue itched for the '-sama', but she managed to refrain. "What are you-" She started to ask why he was in her room, but wondered maybe if that was the wrong thing to say.
Here he was, back from his "mission", he certainly didn't look any different. She felt a frown on her lips. She felt suddenly tempted to cross her arms, glare at him and demand an explanation for his absence.
Better yet, why wasn't the beautiful blockhead saying anything?
"Well?" she asked, feeling the explosive wick of her temper quickly expiring. "All soul-searched out?"
Nothing could have held back the bitterness in her voice and she felt suddenly sorry for it. Imagine, her, young girl that she was, bitter.
She'd always thought bitterness was reserved for middle-aged women who'd never managed to find a husband. How misguided she was...
Bitterness could strike at any age, with enough provocation, couldn't it?
He still did not grant her a reply, just standing there silently. Like a tree, she thought. Immovable and silent.
He stood - skin glistening wet, still half soaked. The bottom half, she noted, not about to comment on that.
What to say then?
Figuring he wasn't going to say anything she reached over, grabbed a towel from by the bureau and tossed it at him.
If it went sailing right through him and landed against the baseboard on the other side of the room she'd crack up laughing and then apologize to Jiya downstairs. Then she would explain to him she'd gone insane and needed help immediately.
But it didn't happen.
The cloth landed against his chest, hitting him in the face. One of his arms rose, his fingers fisting in the material, gathering it in his fist as he lowered it, pulling it down. For a moment, he let it hang by his side, the bottom not even touching the floor.
"If you're not going to say anything, get out of my room."
She silently counted, trying, actively trying, not to shout at him. She could behave herself, she could, she said, over and over again.
She heaved a sigh, and turned her back to him again, absently reaching for the end of her braid.
So, he comes back and then what?
If he couldn't say anything but her name did that make him more complete or less complete? Hadn't he been searching for some type of completeness? Wasn't that what "soul searching" was?
She'd never done any herself, having never felt compelled to do so. She knew that he'd had a rough time, and she knew she didn't understand the kind of pain he was in and had been through in the past. It didn't mean he had to push her away like she was some annoyingly persistent child determined to disturb him at every turn.
She pulled the clip from her hair and began sliding her fingers through the braid, letting the wet waves spill over her hands.
Letting it curl around and over her shoulder, she continued to comb through it, wondering.
What now?
She made a sour face and turned back, he didn't seem to have moved at all. She stared at him a moment, and he stared back just intensely.
"I wonder ..." she mused aloud and then shook it off. It wasn't the time for wondering, it was time for sleeping. Her exhaustion was catching up with her and an embittered chafing was setting in. "I'm going to bed now."
"You've been upstairs most of the day?" His voice was sudden, but didn't surprise her. It figured he'd want to be confrontational just when she was throwing him out.
And what the hell did he think he was doing speaking like that so out of the blue? He just walks in after months and doesn't even say hello? Instead, he starts right in on scolding her?
It was so unfair!
"I've been downstairs most of the day, actually," she corrected, reeling in her temper tight.
The towel was still hanging limply in his hand.
"You still behave like this when it rains?" he asked, voice devoid of any accusation or mockery, just flat. "You're worrying them."
As though he had some grand right to tell her about worrying. She knew more about worrying than he ever would - he'd wandered around the country with grown men, people he hadn't had to worry about. He hadn't worried about her having left her behind.
She grit her teeth in anger at the thought. She was so not in the mood for this.
"Don't you dare say two more words to me about worrying anyone!" She narrowed her eyes on him.
She heard, more than saw the towel hit the floor, but she definitely saw his hand when it rose and moved toward her.
She didn't feel at all threatened when his fingers touched the column of her neck, or even when they slid around, sliding up through her hair.
It wasn't until his hand tightened against her scalp, pulling against the strands of her hair and the sudden, forward motion that she gasped.
She closed her eyes as she fell forward against him, but his arms didn't wrap around her. He stood there stiff and still, one hand resting at the base of her neck, his fingers curled gently around, the other hand at his side.
"I was looking..." He started and trailed off. "...for the wrong thing."
Her eyes fluttered open. What did he mean?
Leaving the Aoiya, while he regretted it on one hand, on the other it had been far more beneficial than he could have anticipated.
At first, he merely wanted solace.
Away.
Away from her.
Away from Misao.
The easy forgiveness she'd heaped on him had been a crushing condemnation, although he was certain she had only been trying to make things easier for him.
Despite everything, she still welcomed him back.
She still called him "home".
So he'd had to get away - to leave. To see if he felt the same if she weren't around.
Nothing had changed. If anything he'd only felt empty. So he'd walked and he'd traveled aimlessly, he'd sought and worked his way through nature on a giant camping trip and found it all worthless.
The only thing he'd realized wandering around was he was doing the opposite of those dearest to him had wanted.
He wasn't "living".
He was breathing dead air, living a dead life.
It was that epiphany that had driven him to turn his feet in the reverse direction and head back. It was that that had compelled him to walk through the rain, soaking himself through so that it chilled him straight down to his skin.
It was that that had him following around an equally aimless girl through the streets of Kyoto and then stealing himself away in her room.
Misao was the closest thing to "life" he'd ever known.
He stepped away from her to strip off the clingy, wet pants and then grabbed her once more. He reached and held onto her as though he expected her to drag herself away, to fight or kick…
She remained still and stiff, her eyes locked ahead of her. He slid his hand to her waist and slipped the knot of her sash. With cold hands he pushed the material off her shoulders, feeling the quiver of her body as he did so.
It fell with whispered grace to the floor, and he, holding onto her, slipped down into her futon. He pulled her against him tight, their cold skin melding, warming slowly as the blankets held their body heat close.
Nuzzling his head down at the crook of her neck, he took a great, deep breath, and drifted to sleep.
Okon ascended the stairs irritably. Misao had promised she'd be up early to help. She slid open the door of the girl's bedroom without notice and paused, the girl's name dying promptly on her lips.
In Misao's futon, beneath the window, the girl was lying. It wasn't the sight of Misao in her own bed that startled her.
It was Misao lying in the naked arms of the once missing former leader, Aoshi. That startled her.
Her jaw fell.
Surely she wasn't seeing this.
Surely, his arms and obviously naked chest weren't pressed against Misao in an equally undressed position.
Surely, that wasn't Aoshi …
Surely…
Surely, she was wrong?
When his eyes flickered open and landed on her she almost jumped backwards out the door and slid it shut, heart pounding.
No…
That was exactly what she'd seen.
Quickly, she headed back to the kitchen. Omasu was already there, preparing little balls of rice. The other woman looked up as she heard her feet.
"Where's Misao? Is she ready? We need to be going soon."
"I don't think Misao will be coming with us today," Okon responded carefully, glancing around to see if the others were nearby. "She isn't…"
Omasu stopped what she was doing and dried her hands on a towel. "She isn't what? Is she sick? Is she exhausted? Is she hurt? What?"
"She isn't alone."
Omasu paused to take in the comment. "Alone?" she asked tentatively, obviously trying to figure out who could be keeping the girl. "You mean…?"
"I mean she's in bed with…" Okon glanced around, leaned forward and then whispered. "Aoshi-sama. They're up there in bed together, wearing nothing, Omasu."
The other woman's eyes widened. "Nothing? Are you sure?"
"Well they aren't laying there naked, but their chests are pressed together, and he's holding her and… I assume the rest of them is…"
"I didn't even know Aoshi-sama was back yet," the other replied, frowning. "Is that bad or good?"
"I don't know, but let's get out of here before the others wake. Maybe they'll assume Misao is with us and not disturb her."
She nodded; they finished their preparations and went.
AN: I have clinicals Sat. & Sun. and Comcast is doing work on Sunday so bleh... I don't know that I'll have time to upload this so I'm doing it now.