Another brilliant version of "Genji Monogatari" is the 1951 film which stars Kazuo Hasegawa (who was a superstar back in the day) as Prince Genji, and was directed by Kôzaburô Yoshimura. The movie is on YouTube listed as "Kôzaburô Yoshimura - Genji monogatari 1951 VOS". :D Enjoy if you wish to view it!

Chapter title another oldie from TCM channel.

I thought to repeat myself: much of the dialogue is from the 11-episode anime "Genji Monogatari Sennenki". :3

Chapter Five

The Passionate Ones

Never in her life did she ever presume to think what transpired between her and Prince Itachi would be a reality in her wildest dreams - nor did she expect it to be on the same night he and his retinue took shelter at her mansion at the most unorthodox of times, but circumstances like this couldn't ever be helped.

Konan forsaked her pride only this once - or rather, for the second time - just to allow the prince whom she taught the last several nights to rest here, and after she had her bath while her daughter slept in her room. Pray Aoi doesn't awake for something again.

She supposed she could admit to herself she was glad it hadn't happened. Though she never counted on his declaration of LOVE for her when he gave her that letter without words he couldn't admit without making a mistake - she couldn't remember a time anyone meant such a confession - and she'd mistaken it all for mere flattery after everything she taught him. And all this time, I thought he needed nothing more when he is already...the equal I never thought was there.

That meant not even her husband, the man she'd loved and father of her child, had ever done that, much less engage though encouraged her.

A part of her wondered if Itachi was still pining for that one woman he never spoke of - the one who wasn't even his wife - despite his words of "resigning it to a waking dream". It seemed his actions tonight proved it.

Konan shamed the unknown woman who turned this glorious man down.

He did things to her that she never imagined to ask for, something that was spoken subtly about in poetry and love stories. When this was over, she was considering dropping hints of this in her next inspired work. And she'd NEVER been touched the way he did to her breasts and other parts of her body with his lips and his hands, every inch worshipped as though she were a goddess and he was her devout follower...and it prompted some of her barriers to start falling so that soft tears coursed down her cheeks, which she had to wipe off before he took note of. Some of her pride remained for that.

The night was deep when they were eventually sitting upright in the place where they'd made love, the screen toppled to the ground and no longer an obstacle for them. All sense of propriety vanquished between them once and for all, now that she was brave to say it.

It was at this moment the rain had stopped, but who knew when it would begin again. You could smell the freshness that would become morning dew when the sun rose for a new day.

"What a...strange thing love is," Konan murmured against her lover's porcelain, powerful shoulder, drawing the outer layer of her kimono up to cover her before him. "Until a short while ago, we were each walking down our own separate paths..." And yet here we are: in each other's arms, together and whispering into one another's ears.

She wanted to do this every evening now, let the flood free from her eyes, just be who she really was with him. So, she tried to relay that message to him when she turned into him and slithered her body up to his, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, and pressed her nose into his. All those separate paths they'd walked down, each step taken...brought them together.

It felt like destiny.

However, for the entire night and well into the dawn breaking, while he only smiled at her and leaned into her caresses of his warrior's body and combing of his glorious hair with her fingers, she never got one word out of him.

Just when she thought he would never speak to her, she found herself laying on her back, some of her hair falling over her breasts, and Itachi was leaning in, breathing against her lips. Her hands caressed the firm lines of his back.

"It may be so." Konan arched her head back when he traveled down her body again, continuing with his meaningful seduction. "Don't forget to fix the iron and shackles. If you don't, I just might run riotous..."

Didn't anyone ever wish they could just lock themselves away from the world and be like THIS forever?

Unfortunately, she would learn there was indeed no such thing as forever, for when the sun rose, the maid came to her - not seeing her mistress in the state she was in due to the screen somehow being put back up - and knelt but turned her face away as if knowing what was there. This made the lady suddenly very angry when she sat up and pulled her kimono layers close to her naked body.

"Prince Itachi has suddenly departed, my lady. He said his attendance was required at the Imperial Court today. And he apologizes for leaving without telling himself."

Konan's thread snapped. "When will he be back?" she demanded, pulling the cloak around herself and tying it in place, ignoring how she must appear; she was ready to curse if she got no answer, but she calmed down when the maid told her it would be tonight, as usual.

She thanked the woman, then insisted she leave and wait for her until she returned to bathe. If he's coming back tonight, that means I shall only have to endure these feelings of loneliness until evening. I can wait that long...

But if she could endure until then...how would it explain what was now happening to her? Especially whenever he was not here? When she felt her heart growing restless in its beating every time she thought of him, and her body parched as if thirsty when water and sake only did so much?

Last night with their bodies joined together for the first time would make her into a different person than she knew herself as, and she was certain that nothing would ever be as it was again...

...but the fact he was still married bothered her immensely. Why did she not understand how these things worked when she herself once had a husband?

~o~

He could never stop thinking about the goddess he linked with like the red thread of fate the previous night. His heart was beating immensely before, but now it was calming down with each breath he took.

Her sculpted body of ivory lacquer feeling like the softest silk...

Her breasts full as the moon...

Her hair blue as the darkest waters...

...her eyes warm as fire.

She was cultured and beautiful in one, the ideal woman that no other man would be able to keep up with. She seemed to know what he was thinking without him talking, as if she were using her eyes to see into his heart; she wouldn't speak with her tongue, but she seemed to know. Fulfilling every desire he wanted to give...

But he loathed leaving her before she woke, and the sight of her made him not want to disturb her slumber since she looked so tranquil. No doubt expecting me to be beside her and then wish me off. Only Grandfather expects my return and no later than today.

Not only that, but as he, Shisui and the others journeyed home, he found himself dwelling on this: every time he met with Konan, her kindness and attentions were gradually becoming...stifling.

He saw it only the first morning after when she begged him to return the love she was certain she felt for him, craved the attention and wished it were them as man and wife. He was certain of that last part, at least, but it couldn't happen like that.

Shisui had to interrupt his musings by asking him what he wanted to do when they got home, and the young prince could only decide he needed a rest before he attended his duties.

~o~

What got around always came around: Crown Prince Itachi Uchiha frequenting Lady Konan's mansion in the past couple weeks.

Princess Izumi got the word back from Sakura who heard some of the servants speaking and got the information in return from visiting nobles outside the estate. She felt her hands shaking in midst of combing her hair that morning, staring at her own reflection in the mirror and listening to the imaginary gossip which replayed from her cherished chief handmaiden.

"...who was it, I wonder, who claimed there was nothing amorous going on? And that it was naught but a simple desire to study literature? I suppose we should have known: a young, handsome prince and an intelligent, beautiful and exceptional noble lady? When they started meeting that often, something was bound to happen..."

Something was bound to happen...

And the fact it had to be the "worldly and talented Lady Konan" - the widow of a nobleman not too far away from the Imperial Court. The one whose poems Izumi admired like everyone else, but to think of her HUSBAND with the woman! And people going on about how Itachi melted her difficult heart...she couldn't bear to hear anymore.

"The rumor is that they are in love," Sakura spat when she was finished. "That your husband had no equal in love with you, my lady, but I call chopsticks on that!"

"I am indeed with you on that, Sakura," Aunt Kazue said, announcing herself and coming in to kneel beside her great-niece who hadn't moved a muscle while still trying to process everything...though inside, she was strangely unaffected after her heart somehow recovered since she was certain Itachi never meant to HURT her. They had history, after all, and knew each other well even if they never spent every living minute together. "My dear, the courtiers are talking about how they envy that husband of yours who managed to capture the heart of a woman like Konan of Nagato." Kazue huffed and reached to take the mother-of-pearl comb to run it through Izumi's hair and finish the job for her. She was relieved and relaxed.

She knew she did nothing to deserve this treatment, for she'd been schooled since early childhood that a man taking a mistress would happen sooner or later - or more than one mistress even - but she did her best to assure herself everything would be fine.

Even Kazue knew it just as well, assuring her gently with a hand on her shoulder. "There is a chance his little love affair could end in the future, and he'll come back to you, my child. You have so much to offer as much as SHE does," the woman said with a sniff. "Because you are his wife at the end of the day."

~o~

The word about his romance with Konan spread like a wildfire devastating the forest in a day or so.

When it got back to his grandfather who requested a private audience with him, Madara simply chuckled and stated, "I knew it would one day happen sooner or later, as everyone else - but never had I expected it would be with the cultured Lady Konan. Stubborn woman I couldn't achieve myself. However..." His lined and sagged face became hard to match his eyes and his tone.

"...I'm certain that wife of yours might be devastated after you've been faithful to her all this time, my boy."

That is the reason for this guilt taking pieces of my heart.

It was truly a...strange thing that love could do to you. No matter how many times one was in love, the reasons for the meetings and partings of lovers were a mystery that no man could ever fully grasp.

His relationship went on for some more weeks, well into the season which blossomed with more than cherry blossoms. Whenever he visited Konan's mansion, their lovemaking locations would go from her sanctuary behind the screen to the bathing area where they were surrounded by her bamboo and lotus scene...ending with their white yukata thrown off their bodies and left to sink to the bottom of the small steaming pool so that they could see each other.

It was suggested once that they make wild, passionate love out in the light rain at night while exposed, but somehow, the notion never came to fruition...

...or it was because of the news that tragedy had struck at the home of the prince's wife.

At first, Itachi dreaded it had been Izumi, but it was someone else who was near and dear to her - and when he arrived, seeing his wife devastated and visibly showing tears down her perfect cheeks, smearing the powder, caused his heart and the other insides to roll over like the land in the event of an earthquake.

Her great-aunt Kazue had suddenly died from a failed heart, by the looks of it.

"My gods, what are you going to do when you get there, Your Highness?" Shisui asked as he hurried to keep up the pace on horse. Itachi only closed his eyes, lost in his thoughts before speaking them aloud.

The funeral arrangements have to be made, but for the while on, I have to be there for Izumi, especially after what I have done to her...

Itachi was out of the cart as soon as it came to a stop, and he went ahead without waiting for the others, rushing through opened corridor after opened corridor. When he arrived in the room where his in-law would sleep and have all her time alone, he was greeted with the sight that was the gathering of the household, the priest and his attendants saying the rites and blessing the dead - and finally Izumi holding the cold, dead hand of the body. Her head was bowed, but her body visibly trembled as she sobbed.

Sakura was right behind her mistress, hand on her back, but when she looked up at Itachi in the doorway, she pursed her lips and asked him to come in when no one bothered to greet him, not that he minded for once. He was here now, and that was all that mattered. Ignoring the rosette of his desires - still present even after spending time with Konan - he knelt on the other side beside Izumi and softly whispered he was here.

To look upon the peaceful face of Kazue made him fall inside. She'd been a good woman, but now she was gone. It was inevitable and natural, but at the same time, he wished it hadn't happened. He could only pray that she had peace in the next life.

He could feel Sakura's hard eyes on him, but he refused to look at her.

Despite his strong need, Itachi wished she would start showing respect. He could only take so much. If he didn't know any better, he'd say she was being this way to him because of last time they met - or rather, when he went to her. I don't blame her, but she needs to understand I am true to my word, and I am here for my wife only.

When the day was over and everything was taken care of, the body to remain undisturbed until tomorrow morning for the services, he was finally alone with his wife in her chamber, with all the servants dismissed. Just the two of them.

"Izumi." He didn't know what to say to her, since he had no doubts she knew about his affair with the Nagato Palace widow. "I'm sorry."

"For...what?" she asked, and that was either two things or both: the fact Kazue is dead? The liaison everyone speaks of?

He answered without hesitation. "Both what I have done, and not being here before," Itachi stated, and in this time, he was sitting across from her as the small black table covered with steaming tea separated them. He had no right to touch her yet, not until everything was settled. "I should shame myself for betraying you. You must not have wanted to show your face in public. Even Sakura cannot bear looking at me..."

She had been staring down blankly at the glazed black surface of the table the entire time, but now she looked up at him, and her matching eyes were misted over as well as rimmed with puffy red from crying all day. But he saw no trace of heated hatred in her eyes, or anger and everything else.

There was nothing but pain and confusion, as well as longing.

"I tolerated it because it was my duty as your wife, and knowing I would still be here if you stopped seeing her. And the fact you come when my great-aunt dies...what do you expect me to say?"

He turned his eyes to the side, staring at the lamp which was still flickering. "I don't expect you to say anything. But I wish to...make peace and stand by your side, make up for everything unless you forbid it."

He meant everything as always, but that meant breaking his promise to Konan. The passionate one who woke something deep within himself, but now he was uncertain because here he was now...

I just pray that things can resolve after this, if I can explain to her in the future when I see her again.

As always, his wife managed to smile and forgive him...and accepted his invitation to bed that same night. No matter the rumors regarding him and Lady Konan still spreading throughout the court.

She was so beautiful, just like a magnolia - and her breasts full but nothing different to expect, otherwise comforting - or a lotus blossom amongst water, especially the ones in small fountains. Because that was what she was named for, which attributed to her serenity and generous heart: just pure and simple but could be deeper than imagined. She welcomed him because she understood everything about him, let him do what he wanted...and she wasn't smothering like Konan.

Though he found an equal in the blue-haired woman, he realized that he let his desires get the better of him as he joined with the woman he was spending the rest of his life with. Pledged to him since coming of age by his grandfather and her great-aunt, now dead. It took the latter's loss to bring them back together.

Itachi wasn't yet aware of it, but as he comforted his grieving wife who needed him more than ever, his heart began to drift from Konan.

~o~

Itachi's visits began to be very...seldom as of late. After he promised he would see her every night when he wasn't called away immediately.

Hearing the maids talking about it made her mood worse than ever before. Only it wasn't entirely what she thought it was, when she assumed he found another woman - no, he had gone back to the mansion of his wife, Princess Izumi, because her great-aunt had died of a heart attack. He had been there ever since, no doubt nursing his wife who was mourning the loss of the woman who raised her ever since the death of her parents.

Nursing his wife...that can mean one of many things.

Konan swore to herself and then demanded the maids to ready the bathwater, interrupting their gossip with her venomous glare and sending them off, gasping in horror that they had been heard. But despite the small fire burning in her core, she had to say these words to just get them to calm themselves down.

"It's only natural, ladies, that he would comfort his wife after the death of a loved one. She would do the same for him."

Add in the fact that she was a decade older than Itachi, while his wife was exactly the same age as him...and that meant youth had to be more appreciated. Beauty and youth combined made wonderful.

That in mind, Konan began to dwell morbidly on the possibility that she was too old for Itachi Uchiha after everything they had. Which would explain why he frequented her residence less and less...

~o~

Her husband slumbered while she lay awake, looking upon his face and smiling after what they'd done...and it proved how much they DID miss each other.

Itachi...you were wonderful.

Never did she think he would end up being more...passionate than she remembered. The way he kissed her body down, squeezed and lapped his tongue and lips over her breasts and everything - he must have learned it while with that woman, but she decided it didn't change anything. The effects mattered most, and life was about learning this and that.

Izumi almost felt a little better after the death of her great-aunt, though the grief was still there. Kazue raised her from girlhood, was there when she got her education and eventually married, though death had to come eventually. Such was the way of things. With time, she would heal from the wounds as long as her husband and the others were here. And Sakura when she wasn't speaking ill about Itachi, which was enough for Izumi to put her in her place before she joined her husband that evening.

"Sakura, I understand your concerns, and that it has to do with Lady Konan, but he is here. That's how things are in the world whether we want it or not; Itachi is a good man no matter what he does. I know him better than even YOU do."

That seemed to shock the pink-haired woman who begrudgingly accepted her words. Somehow, Izumi suspected there was more to this dislike than the girl let on. With his affair with the widow of the Nagato Palace, what if he tried coming onto her lady-in-waiting and failed?

Part of Izumi didn't know how to take that if it went too far. And tonight, she wanted to sleep, but found she couldn't.

The twinkling yellow lights outside were the reason. The fireflies have come out.

It took her back to the memories of her and Itachi going out there, by the streams when the fireflies were in flight. And afterwards back to the bedroom, but tonight, she laid beside him and watched the flies pass by the window...

"They're beautiful," Itachi's voice whispered to her, informing her he'd awoken on his own and came to lie so the front of his body was pressed against her back. "And I did not think I would see them tonight. The timing couldn't be more perfect." He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, making her sigh and lean into him. One of his hard thighs came and wrapped around her waist.

I feel so terribly happy I can hardly bear it. If I could die happy, this would be the way...in this god's arms.

But then he would be all alone, having added another personal loss to his heart. So, she was going to just live happily with him even if their lives were far from perfect. No matter how far he traveled, she would wait for him.

"Izumi...I think I can finally be truly happy with you. I can finally begin to truly be at ease. You might be the one soul mate I searched long and hard for."

His passionate words made her cry and turn into him, burying her face into his chest, and bringing a hand to trace the hard lines. Forever should exist if we can make it.

~o~

Itachi...where are you?

But the answer was before her as she sat in front of the mirror...and with incense lit up in the extravagant urn that had been a wedding gift. She busied herself with caring for her appearance that evening, thinking that if it were urgent matters, it was all right.

Except when it came to his wife, that genteel spirit who made Konan envious more than ever.

She picked up the jar that had her favorite fragrance, which was now part of all those nights they'd spent together. You always loved my scent, said I was fresh as the rain and the flowers it drenched.

The tears poured down her cheeks. She missed him so much it HURT. HER. HEART! Because at the moment, he was in the embrace of his lawful wife, no doubt whispering words of love he should have given to Konan alone. Her logical mind warned her to not cry over such things...

She had no choice but to wait and be strong. The time would come one way or another when he would find his way back into her arms.

Doing this chapter really made me cry like a fool. :') I don't even know what to say at this point. Feedback please!