Part IV - While I pondered, weak and weary...

I had felt content... I also knew, too well, that this was not my right. The man who held me now, and who had held my heart from the moment we'd met, belonged by rights to another.

"Megumidono?" If anything, his voice was softer than before, hardly more than a whisper in the cool darkness.

I made a small sound of inquiry, afraid to let go of the fragile moment. I felt his fingers beneath my chin, his silhouette searching for my eyes. I could make out his features, barely, but his vision was better than mine. The little light that filtered down from the moon gave him the advantage, showing him my own face more clearly.

"Megumidono, listen." he whispered. My heart began racing, but for a new reason. With him holding me the way he was, looking up at him I could feel his breath on my lips.

"Kensan, I -"

It was natural and almost inevitable. The moment had been years in coming. The situation was almost too perfect; it was almost as if the kami of fate had written this moment into being. I felt as if they were watching, waiting for it to happen. I was waiting for it to happen. I was dreading it would happen. And praying for it, too. I couldn't let it. But I couldn't move.

"Don't." He cut me off, stopping the words before I could get them past my lips. He was so close. I wanted this, ached for it with every ounce of my entire being. But as far as I was concerned, he belonged to another, and I couldn't bring myself that extra half inch. I couldn't do it.

"But you and Ka-"

Apparently, he could. And did. And it was all that I had imagined, asleep or awake. I did not count the kisses Kanryuu had forced on me. Those were not real, not true kisses. For him, they were machinations of hate and domination. For me, they were just part of the whole nightmare. But I knew what a kiss was, and how it worked, and this...

This worked. Every emotion of the recent days, and all of the feeling I had for Kensan, all came together in that close moment, overwhelming me as surely as his presence did. His lips on mine became my entire world for that moment.

This worked magic on me, transforming me from the pain-filled creature of frustrated angst I had been into someone who could feel joy and passion and love. The kiss didn't even last a full heartbeat, and yet, the simple warm pressure of his lips against mine reminded me that there were other lives in my care, and I was not to blame for this one's loss. I was not irredeemable. And I liked it.

And that like in turn became regret, almost before his lips had left mine. Because he wasn't mine. I had renounced my "claim" on him long ago.

How fiercely I wished I hadn't done that then... How I wanted to give in, to relax my body against his and let the voyeuristic gods have their thrills! I ached to surrender to his embrace, there on the hidden ground, deep in the woods away from everyone and everything we knew. I wanted him, I wanted to possess him and be utterly his all at once. And it would be so easy, almost too easy... And this wasn't like him. Not the tightly controlled warrior I knew. I think that's what held me back. That, and no small part of me thought that he did it just to distract me.

All that, in the space of a single heartbeat.

No matter how much I wanted him, I was not a creature prone to give in to moments of passion or weakness. Neither was he. The mere fact of our kiss was all the more surprising for being so unlike either of us, but I wasn't going to delve into any underlying meaning. I was afraid of what I might find.

But it felt so good...

"Kensan." I couldn't even whisper his name. I tried again. "Kensan, what just happened?"

He took a deep breath. "Megumidono." He leaned back a little, and I could feel his eyes on me again. "There was a question that had to be asked. This one asks your forgiveness." I didn't understand what he meant, then; I assumed it was something about us. Later, much later, I would come to the understanding that he had needed to know if I had given in to despair again. He was afraid I would once again try to kill myself. At the time, I'd thought he had wanted to find out if I still loved him even though he was well on the way to being involved with another woman. It angered me.

"I'd believe it of the tori-atama. Not of you, Kensan. This isn't right..." The anger faded back into sadness. "No matter how much I wish it were. It isn't... right." Those were quite possibly the hardest words I'd ever spoken, harder even than admitting defeat to little Mariko's parents, or any of the times I'd had to break such news to a heartbroken family. Harder even than what I had told Kaoru. I turned my head away. "Kensan... I have never stopped... caring for you. I probably never will. But far more importantly, I am your friend and your physician, and I..."

He waited for me to complete the thought. I couldn't speak. "What is it, Megumidono?" He seemed to sense my need to talk.

"I couldn't... fight her for you. I told her that I was not going to go after you. That she was free to do so if she chose. I told her that she was the reason you would return... Not me."

He still said nothing.

"I was being selfish. I was scared of losing you, and of losing my friends."

"Megumi." He sounded so surprised; I don't think he had been expecting all of that. At the time, it didn't even register that for the first time, ever, he had called me Megumi. Not Megumidono, but plain straightforward Megumi. Later I would wish over and over again that it had not been the only time.

He sighed, my name still hanging lightly on his lips. "I wish you weren't right." I tucked my head under his chin and we held on to each other. I wanted more. I knew that the temptation, no matter how great, could only lead to disaster at the best, and several shattered lives as the more likely outcome. Sometimes I think I could have pushed for something more intense; to this day I sometimes hate myself for it. I'm never sure whether I wish I did or I'm glad I didn't. Those moments are always brief, but no less piercing. I don't know, even now, if he truly felt that kiss the way I did. I don't know that I want to; I choose to think that it meant something to him. It's a small comfort to me, and doubtless false, but it helps. I believe I understand what he was asking, now. I would rather he had meant it as something other than a way to verify that I wouldn't kill myself.

He had left sometime after I fell asleep. Even the passion of the moment, no matter how one-sided, had no power over the other, more demanding needs of my body.