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She knew what was going on down there.
Downstairs.
They were making preparations for the wedding.
Her wedding.
Her wedding to Aoshi-sama… She wondered then, was he deserving of that title? Did she know if he was? Did his status as Okashira automatically award him that honor? She had always given it to him as had the others but… she didn't know. She felt like she didn't know anything. Her entire world view had been painted over in foreign colors.
She'd been home for almost a day and a half. Aoshi-sama had forbidden her from leaving her room. He'd gone so far as to station a guard beneath her window and one at the base of the stairs to prevent her from escaping. Whenever she left her room, Omasu was to escort her. Feeling humiliated by the fact that she was no longer trusted, she'd secluded herself in her chambers quite happily.
What was she confused over? When had this confusion started? She sighed softly and stood up. She knew one thing for certain. She was afraid of the angry, cold man that Aoshi had become, seemingly in the blink of an eye. Maybe she should talk to him?
The curt sound of knocking had Misao on her feet. She'd been so flighty lately, afraid he was going to come to her door and… and… well she wasn't sure what she was afraid he'd do, just afraid that'd he'd do it.
The door slid open and revealed it was Omasu with a small tray of soup. The older woman smiled. After the initial two hour lecture from her and then another from Okon they had calmed a bit.
"Brought you some soup, Shiro just made it. He says he hopes you cheer up soon. Everyone is so gloomy. It hasn't been this bad around here since the old war days."
"The old war days?"
Omasu nodded. "After hours it was always very tense and quiet like everyone was afraid to talk too loud. After you came to us with Aoshi that all changed but now… it's like a return to the past."
Misao frowned. "Was he like this when he was Okashira before? Before he left? What was he like then?"
"Hmmm, well, he was really pretty much the same," she answered. "I don't remember him doing anything he doesn't do now. Why? What do you mean?"
"Was he always so…" Misao trailed off briefly. "…scary?"
Omasu leaned forward. "Scary how?"
"He's just so…."
"Misao." Omasu gently laid her hands over Misao's. The girl had twisted her fingers together in her lap anxiously. "Aoshi-sama is the same now that he's always been."
"Always? So intense? Like he could burn holes through you? I don't remember him being that way."
Omasu's expression gentled, tension lines fading into smooth skin. She crawled closer so that she and the girl sat close, side by side. "Misao, Aoshi-sama was your guardian for a long time. He was your appointed caretaker and he brought you to us so we could keep you safe for him. When you're the guardian of a child you don't want them to be afraid of you…"
"I don't understand. Are you saying the Aoshi-sama I remember wasn't real?"
"No, he was real but what you held with him with familial. It was a bond of family you had, that's not the kind of man that he is, do you understand?"
"No."
Omasu sighed. "Aoshi-sama was taking care of you, a child. He couldn't treat you like an adult or a woman because you were neither. Now you are, you don't remember the man he was because he wasn't that man to you then. Now you're the woman he's going to marry. Aoshi-sama is a very intense man, very demanding and… dare I say, obsessive?"
"I'm meeting a man that was always there but that I didn't know was there?" Misao's eyes flickered closed. "Should that scare me?"
"It's okay if it does. Aoshi-sama has had a long journey and I want you to remember that. He's done bad things and there are probably parts of him inside that are still dark and scarred."
Misao's eyes widened at the solemn warning.
"I'm not saying he's going to hurt you," Omasu back peddled. "Just that you need to remember he's had a hard time and you need to be prepared for where that goes. Life with Aoshi-sama is going to be a journey for you and you could all but bet it won't be an easy one."
Misao nodded.
"It doesn't mean it'll be bad. I'm sure the part of him that took care of you when you were a child is still there. If you love him, though, you'll accept the man that he is now, right?"
Misao nodded again.
"Good and no more running away, right?"
"Right. I'm sorry about that. Is he still angry?"
Omasu stood with a small smile. "I'm pretty sure he's still stewing over something. He doesn't come out of the office lately much but today he did. He's been in the dojo for almost two hours now. We think it's a good sign."
"Oh."
"Eat your soup and then we can go down if you want. You could always try talking to him."
Sweat was pouring down his body, soaking into his clothes. His muscles burned and ached, but he wouldn't release his blades. He had to stay, he had to practice. He needed to work through this stress. He couldn't leave the training hall. He couldn't.
Misao...
He'd tried so hard to stay away from her. She couldn't possibly know how much of his day spent 'meditating' was lost to him and his erotic daydreams about her. She couldn't possibly know how he awoke in cold sweats at night, aching, restraining himself from stomping down the hall and living out his fantasies. He cringed, his left kodachi banging to the floor. He snarled at himself in frustration and dropped the other kodachi to the floor.
He wanted her so violently some days that he hated himself for thinking of anyone other than him touching her. He was lost and found and unsure. Misao was his now, he had guaranteed that, she had with her unexpected battle tactics.
He didn't turn around when someone knocked meekly at his door. It was either Omasu or Okon. The door slid open without his permission and he waited, listening.
"Aoshi-sama, Misao would like to see you. Is that permissible?"
"Bring her," he responded his voice low and tight.
He could barely hear her hesitant footsteps in the room. She was moving so warily. There was no need to see her to know that she was standing uneasily behind him. Maybe her hands would be folded, maybe she was staring at his back, maybe at the ground…
"Yes, Misao?"
What did she come for?
"Um… I wanted to say I was sorry. I had a talk with Omasu and it helped a lot."
"Helped with what?" he pressed. What was wrong with her in the first place? Did she not love him? Had she been mistaken in her feelings and upon the eve of marriage she realized she did not?
"Helped with understanding."
"Understanding what?"
"Stuff," she replied. "I had decided to give up on you, I decided to be a… a… just different and then suddenly you warped into someone different, too. I was just confused, I didn't mean to run away, I couldn't sleep, my heart wouldn't stop pounding, I felt like I couldn't breathe so I went out to get some air but… but once I got so far …Running away doesn't help it just makes it harder because then you get filled with 'what ifs' and it just keeps going and going…"
Again, Misao's maturity struck him like lighting through the clouds, brief, powerful, and illuminating.
"May I put your mind at ease about something?" he offered.
What exactly was bothering her?
"Probably, but I'm not sure how. It'll go away I think. Omasu helped a lot."
He stared and she fidgeted.
"I mean… I don't want to tell you because you'll get the wrong idea about what I was thinking. I just, you weren't behaving like you."
He turned away and reached down, scooping up one of his kodachi. He tossed it toward the floor at her feet, letting it skid by her ankle. She glanced down at it.
"Come, let me show you how that works."
He moved slow with his aching muscles and Misao eagerly took up the kodachi. Paying close attention to her movements, he watched her anxiety slowly vanish as she took to her new training with relish, listening attentively to his instructions. Whatever fears she had seemed to rest as they continued on with the lesson.
Bursting with enthusiasm she did a clumsy forward thrust and spun around a few times, tipping precariously as her arm was unfamiliar with the weight of the blade.
"Oop!" her arm weakened and she had to lower it. The end of the blade scarring the smooth floor.
As she looked up her bright smile faded, replaced by a flash of insecurity and then quickly a small grin as she tried to hide it. Now he knew what her problem was, he knew what was bothering her. Misao was used to being treated as a child, a subservient to him…She was afraid of him treating her like an adult.
"You're afraid of me?"
He saw her almost impulsively deny it. It was second nature of hers to deny and defend.
She fought it an answered him honestly. "You're not who I remember anymore."
No.
He wasn't.
He took some odd pride in the fact that she'd noticed, that she understood he was not the hero of her childhood fantasies. He motioned her forward and she pulled the sword tip from the floor so it didn't drag. Holding his hand out she raised the sword up and handed it to him trying to keep their hands from touching.
He slipped it from her fingers and tossed it behind him. He listened to it skid across the floor.
How long?
How long would it take for her to conceive? How would she react to being pregnant? How would she look with that thin frame filled out and rounded by pregnancy? Would birthing be difficult for her with those narrow hips? How would she mother their child?
"When are we getting married?" she asked, her voice small and anxious.
"Tonight," he replied. He turned his gaze to her once more having drifted away in his thoughts. Tonight they would be married and he would have nothing more to worry over. Not his feelings, not his lust, not his life… he had back the things he'd cast away, he'd been given them back to an extent and he never wanted to part from them again.
The fond memories of Misao's childhood were put away, replaced by the pretty visions of Misao as an adult, a woman who would be with him by dark and rise with him. For the first time in a long time he found himself certain of the path he wanted to take and fairly certain of its outcome.
As conversation lapsed and with an uncertain glance in his direction, she escaped out the door. With his lustful thoughts running about his head in such an uncontrolled manner, he was glad to see her go.
Late that evening, after the wedding, after the party, after the alcohol, Misao retired to her room alone. Overcome with anxiety as she waited for Aoshi-same to show, she slipped out an upstairs window and escaped into Okina's garden.
She was officially wed.
She was a married woman.
The thought that she was now part of that group of society women woke something in her and that part seemed to exude warmth. She was a married woman!
Better than the fact that she was married when she'd once feared she'd never marry was the fact that she was married to Aoshi-sama. It was her life dream come true. Unfortunately, the sparkling rainbow colors of fantasy had been repainted in the harsh black, white, and gray tones of reality.
She stood beneath a tree, tempted to hide behind it but she dared not reinforce the idea that she'd run away again. If someone came looking she would be easy to find… she'd often come outside to the garden in her youth when she couldn't sleep. Aoshi-sama would know to check for her there.
That, however, was part of the problem. The dark part of Aoshi-sama scared her a little bit. The entire situation frightened her in some degree or another. It was an entirely new saga of life and she felt completely unprepared. She tilted her head back and looked up at the canopy of her head.
She heard footsteps, no doubt purposely loud, and looked up to see him. He was tall and thin and looked menacing in the darkness. He was wearing something dark. He'd dressed in a black wedding kimono and if she wasn't mistaken he was still wearing it.
He stopped several feet away from her and stared. She could barely see his silhouette.
"Are you afraid?"
Dare she answer the truth or should she lie?
"A little bit." Half truths were always more convincing, she decided, pulling her hands behind her back nervously.
"Of tonight or more?"
She sighed. "Of everything."
"Misao," he paused. "You can solve nothing by worrying over it."
She nodded before realizing he probably couldn't see her doing it.
"That's different. Before I was always working towards something, usually something toward you and now it isn't that way anymore. Even when I decided to take over the Okashira position it was because you forced me to do it but now…"
"…"
"If you work towards something and then you get it but… then the person involved isn't quite what you thought but they're still the same person… is it supposed to be this confusing? Plus here's that little… um… wedding stuff."
"Are you confused about the man that I am?"
"No, yes. Omasu says- okay never mind what she says. I'm just trying to rush too much I think. I'll… it'll be okay."
He stepped forward and she felt her breath quicken. "Not even you, Misao, can conquer the world in a day."
She smiled softly, gasping as he lifted her up into his arms and started back toward the Aoiya. "Doesn't mean I wouldn't try," she murmured.
Amusement settled over her like a warm blanket for a brief moment.
"For the other worries you have, experience will cure them."
She settled back against him and let him carry her to his room. Or, was it their room? When the door slid closed behind him she heard Omasu's words echo back in her head once more.
"Life with Aoshi-sama is going to be a journey for you and you could all but bet it won't be an easy one. It doesn't mean it'll be bad. If you love him, though, you'll accept the man that he is now, right?"
She was struck then with inspiration. She wasn't lost at all! Her new object was right in front of her! Not to turn herself into his daughter figure, not to cast away her feelings for him, not to see him up with another woman, not any of those things.
It was time for her to learn about the man that Aoshi-sama truly was. With him at her side she could learn and grow and watch him do the same, she could learn all the things she thought she knew or relearn them or learn new things.
Overcome with enthusiasm the moment he set her feet upon the ground she leapt at him, back into his arms.
"You're right, Aoshi-sama!"
He cocked an eyebrow at her in curiosity.
"I don't have to tackle the world in one day; I can tackle it a little bit at a time."
He didn't seem to share her enthusiasm for the topic. "Aa," he answered absently. His hands were large at her waist and warm. She could feel him pulling at her obi.
"Are you ready to get tackled, Aoshi-sama?"
He leaned down and she could feel the curve of his lips against her cheek. "For tonight, Misao, leave the tackling to me." His voice was low and husky and it made her tremble. Her face flushed, her heart thudded heavily and her breaths felt shallow.
She felt herself almost forcing a laugh in her nervousness as he very gently tackled her to the futon mat.
He lowered his head and his mouth was hot against her neck. She tried to speak, she was certain she did, but afterwards she'd never remember what she said and by that point she didn't care anymore. She was married to Aoshi-sama. She felt like she had already conquered the world.
AN: Well that was a horrible experience, I am glad it's over. The entire second half of this fic felt like a cheap rip off of "Decay" by Hikaru and so I didn't want to write it anymore. I'm just glad it's over. I feel like a bug spattered on a windshield.
Second half of this fic inspired by Hikaru's "Decay" in case you didn't gather that from the above paragraph. I believe I sent it to her at some point to ask her permission.