Hi and thanks for coming back. I don't own S7, I'd like to own the series on DVD, Yukino owns Roji-san. Parental guidance necessary for this chapter. Nothing explicit, but now I'm going beyond just mushy. This thing is getting more serious than I expected it to be.

I don't claim to know much about Japanese dances, so please forgive my mistakes. Here we go.

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"Yo." He bowed to the headmaster and Yukino as he greeted, half leaning on a staff. "May I stay and watch? Nothing to do right now."

The headmaster was seated close to one of the walls, as she watched Yukino practice her dances. The headmaster said yes, so Shichiroji walked to a corner near a window, and sat. The headmaster plucked the shamisen again, and Yukino continued with her practice.

As was most of the dances a geisha had to master, the one she was practicing was slow and deliberate, each slight movement delivering a multitude of meaning. Each gesture had to be done correctly, precisely, or it might send the wrong message.

But all of the messages of the dance were lost. He was longer watching her, but looking out the window. Every once in a while, he let out a little sigh, and looked down at his left arm.

The headmaster called the ending of the practice for the morning, and left them in the room. Yukino walked closer to her ward near the window.

"Shichiroji? Yukino to Shichiroji, over? Shichiroji, please respond…."

Finally he looked at her. "Sorry. I was just……thinking."

She looked out the window as well. "About what?"

He gave her a sad smile. "It's nice how the sky looks now, doesn't it? Blue, no smoke….no cruisers…no mecha samurai…."

"Well, yes……"

"But what happens to me now?" he kept looking out. "I'm a pilot by training, a samurai by rearing. Now, I'm neither."

Oh, that's right, Yukino realized. Everything he used to be was now gone. All he had left was what he had now. Even his present was currently uncertain.

He was still too weak to find work elsewhere. He was still considered an enemy of the new government. As a pilot his services were no longer needed. Being neither completely human nor completely mechanized, he would be accepted by neither group of samurai in the future. Both he and she were not sorry he was still living….but the consequences were starting to appear.

She wanted him to forget that for a short while, though. She took up his hand.

"I'd like to practice one dance that I haven't done for a while. I need your help for that."

He raised an eyebrow, but stood up. "I'll try my best."

She walked to the center of the large room, and assumed the starting position of the new dance. He stepped forward, but she held out a hand. "No, stay there."

She danced a little bit of that routine she was practicing when he arrived. It was the dance equivalent of a woman trying to attract a man's attention. The implication was obviously not lost on the man near her, because she saw him smirking slightly.

Then, she stepped up to him, with a slight twist to the hips. "Did you see how I stepped closer? Can you do that, too?"

He imitated her last step exactly.

"Now step closer, and try repeating the last few things I did."

He bit his lip, and slowly but surely copied her last few moves 80 percent correctly.

The last step involved presenting a hand to the partner, and he did this with grace. He was a little surprised when she placed her hand inside his, and stepped even closer to him. She could now feel his warm breath just a little over her cheeks.

"Now just do what I do."

Hold hands. Right foot forward. Right foot back. She led, he followed. Change hands. Left foot forward. Left foot back. They were falling into sync. Bow to each other. Face each other. She looked at him, and found him more handsome at a distance of 3 inches away. He saw her looking at him, and smiled a bit. Hold hands. Right foot, left foot. Turn around.

After a while, she did not have to prompt him about the next movement. It was as if their minds were now one, and he could predict the next move from just seeing her face, feeling her gestures. She went through each step, gesture, and movement, smoothly, naturally. As she looked at his handsome face, she felt like she could do this dance forever with him.

It felt perfect. It felt like being in love. It actually even felt like, making love.

It was terrifying, but she did not want it to end, not yet….not yet….she had never danced this piece this well before, this naturally. But her brain and her body were leading to the last steps, and it was over before she wanted it to end.

Although, she now understood why it was called what it was……

"Beautiful thing," her partner noted. "What is it called?"

She felt a deep blush rise to her cheeks. "It's called, the Dance of the Lovers."

He smirked. "Interesting. Are we?"

She was struck dumb by the bluntness. She stepped back a foot away and tossed her head. "Don't be too cocky."

He just grinned.

"Anyway," she turned her back on him, "I've just given you a dance routine. You can use it tomorrow night at the presentation for the guests. That should make sure you get to stay here for good."

"Um, thanks, I suppose…"

"You wanted a life, right?" she asked, as she walked to the door. "I'm giving you a life right here. If you want it."

She closed the door hastily behind her. She could not believe she said all that, did all that.

………………………………

Yukino did not see him for the rest of that afternoon, as she had errands to run before going to work that evening. It was alright; Shichiroji would be fine on his own, she told herself.

Still, her mind kept going back to the dance that morning between them. It was a surreal experience, one she had never before felt in her several years of being a geisha. How could she believe what her heart felt just then? It had only been three weeks. She did not know him.

If truth were told, then yes, she knew about being in love, and making love. It was not a requirement of the profession, but she had allowed herself to engage in it, a few times before. But it was incredibly unusual, how she felt while the dance proceeded. Only their hands touched and their eyes met, but still……it felt like she had given him her heart and soul. That was more than she ever gave to others who had seen more of her than he did.

But she can't feel like that about him, she can't! If she wanted a patron, she had to have enough love saved up for that patron. She did not want to be artificial to the man who would be willing to spend for her.

And yet……and yet……his blue eyes bore into her heart, and made it hurt.

What in the world was it about that man?

Her musing was not over when she finished applying her makeup, and when the hairdresser finished putting on her wig for the evening. She made a conscious decision to set aside those thoughts of that dance, to get to work.

But as she came down, she found Shichiroji and one of the older maikos at the foot of the stairs. She found her ward's arms all over the young woman's, while she cried and cried. "Stop, Mayo-san, stop!" he begged. "Tell me what happened." If the young woman were not completely distraught, she would have been very mad at him just then.

Mayo looked up as the tears kept flowing. "He……he……did this!" and she raised her sleeves to show red welts across her arms. Yukino saw it, and gasped. "He turned over the table, and broke all the plates and cups!"

She ran down the stairs as quickly as she could and went beside them. "Who!" Yukino finally demanded. "Who did this to you, Mayo?"

"He did!" Mayo's head dug deeper into Shichiroji's clothes. "He did!"

"Who?"

"Stop it already, Yukino, I think I know who," Shichiroji answered with a deep frown. "If you don't mind, I'll take Mayo up to her room."

She raised her nose at him. "Doesn't matter to me."

He accompanied the sobbing girl up the stairs. She walked away, and went to work.

Her ward did not appear to her that whole evening, which was a relief. She threw her whole heart into entertaining the guests of her favorite customer. She sighed at how none of them seemed to notice her efforts. They just kept laughing among themselves, treating her like one of the furniture.

But she did catch snippets of conversation among the men, slowly getting drunk.

"You shouldn't have done that, you know, Kinomoto!" one of her customer's guests chided. "Such a pretty little girl, too!"

"It was her fault!" Kinomoto drawled back. "The tea was awful, and she wouldn't let me touch her!"

"Do you do this to all the women?" another guest teased.

"A woman has to know her place," the customer gulped down another cup. "And she will know it, even if I have to hurt her."

Laughter among the men rang loud and clear. Yukino kept her hands together over her lap, to keep them from shaking.

Yukino and the customer spent time again apart from the guests, alone in a room. She let him smell her clothes and her hair, and touch her kimono. She was feeling indulgent. She was feeling desperate. She wanted to believe that she had enough of herself to give to him. She wanted to believe that what she had just heard was not true.

Her mind kept going back to that dance, that dance that felt so natural and so perfect. No matter how much she tried to push it back, she kept comparing this moment with her favorite customer with that moment with her……her…….what in the world was he?

When Kinomoto left, she calmed her confused head by visiting Mayo in her room and asking how she was. Someone had dressed her wounds already, and placed bandages on them.

"Shichiroji did this, yes?" she asked about the bandages.

Mayo nodded. Her hair was now loose over her shoulders, her makeup all washed away. "He was very nice. He told me silly jokes, and made me laugh. He listened to me. He promised to make sure it would not happen again. And I believe him."

She drew her closer, and gave the young woman a hug. "So do I, so do I."

Yukino returned to her room, much more confused than when she woke up that morning. She had felt like an incredible, beautiful woman, for the very first time in her life that morning…but with the man who could not possibly be right for her. If only he weren't so nice, so sweet, so understanding, so alone, so handsome…

She heard a few taps on her door. "Your generous client's a dangerous guy, and you know it," he called out through the screen door.

"Stop poking your nose in my affairs, you meddler!" she shouted back.

"I've been around girls like you before, you know! I know when you girls are just forcing the issue."

"Oh, really? So what?"

"I'm just saying. Don't force the issue with that guy so much. Now, good night." The thump-thump of the staff faded deeper into the hallway.

Really, the man was exasperating!

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I'm really sorry about the replies I've been sending you people. I'll get the hang of the new reply feature eventually and send more coherent replies. Also, some of you might not realize that I haven't heard the English version of S7 yet! I come from the Animax distribution, and I've seen the show several times all the way through since last May.