The Color of Chinese Bellflowers
Chapter fourteen: Life: Part Two
Disclaimer: Loveless is property of Yun Kouga.
A/N: This is an original AU fic. I love writing this story so much, so review lots minna! I guess you could say this chapter is a bit of filler but it's good for Soubi's history etc.
Yukata - thinner kimono worn on hot days, the sleeves are tied up.
Mid February rolled around. It no longer snowed daily but that dreadful chill still hung around lightly in the crisp air. Spring hadn't come yet, but it was expected to come early this year. This made Ritsuka glad, since the spring and summer months were his favorite. Hot and sticky days meant ice cream and shaved ice, and lighter bedding and clothing. He loved wearing a yukata(1) , it was much easier to move in them versus the many layer of delicate kimono he wore while performing his duties as a geisha.
Speaking of those duties, he hadn't done his job in a long time. Not since going missing for several days about a month ago. When he came back he couldn't find the will to, and Soubi being the understanding man he is (towards Ritsuka anyway) told him, "Many patrons are worried about you Ritsuka. However I've told Natsuo and Youji to inform them of your safe return. For now life will move at your own pace and the decision of when to return to the world of geisha is completely up to you."
When Ritsuka heard that, he didn't know why but it brought him to tears. Soubi seemed to have that effect on him recently. Everything that came out of the man's mouth was so kind and caring that Ritsuka could feel his heart being warmed up. It felt good, especially since he used to believe his heart was nothing more than a useless hunk of ice in his chest. It wasn't supposed to be used, it wasn't becoming of him and it didn't earn his okiya any money at all.
So in the past month, the entire okiya had celebrated his birthday. It was only a few days after his return, and Kio was careful to lock away any sake that might fall into their hands, especially the increasingly needy hands of Youji and Natsuo. Thinking of the duo made Ritsuka shake his head, those two were becoming more like delinquents every day. But no matter how unruly and lazy they become in the privacy of the okiya when they went out on the town for the night they both put on the perfect mask of feminine mystery. Truly, he thought, they were professionals as geisha.
Both the cat boy and Yuiko had grown a shy distaste for alcohol. Not because it destroyed families or wealthy business men or anything like that, but their closet rendezvous had mentally scarred them. And of course the first thing Yuiko did when Ritsuka had returned home, after he could thaw out and eat something was apologize a few thousand times for 'what she'd done' and 'the mistakes she'd made.' But surprisingly enough he returned to find her much happier than she'd been since he'd met her.
But back to Soubi, who was sauntering into the young teen's room. No cigarette hung between his pink lips, making Ritsuka smile to himself.
"Why are you smiling? I didn't interrupt anything did I?" Soubi took a seat next to the cat boy, who was sitting by his window.
Ritsuka sighed a sigh. Not a bad one though, a peaceful one. He felt relief around the man. "No not at all! I was just thinking about starting up again with being a geisha. I just hope that I can return successfully, in a busy place like Gion I've probably been passed by and forgotten by everyone."
"That's not the truth at all, actually." Soubi's eyes slowly wandered to Ritsuka's face to take in the boy's face.
"Really?" Ritsuka's cat ears perked up a tiny bit, while his tail wiggled about excitedly.
Soubi smiled and chuckled lightly, something he didn't do everyday. "Natsuo and Youji have gone nearly crazy answering questions about you. A lot of your usual patrons want to know where you are, if you're in good health. Youji almost pulled out a lock of hair last week, I don't think he likes repeating himself."
"He would never pull out a lock of hair while entertaining, would he?" The teen asked.
"Of course not," he answered, "no matter how much of a strong personality he has here in the okiya both him and Natsuo are completely different while in a teahouse."
"I've noticed, it's amazing. I really envy both of them. It's hard sometimes to keep up a polite face, to keep up with all of the tricky talk. If you aren't up to date constantly you'll get left in the dark." Ritsuka ran one of his thin hands through his hair, grumbling a little while pulling his fingers through the knots roughly.
"Hey, stop that or you'll pull your hair out." Ritsuka couldn't tell if he was serious, since the mans face rarely changed from that peaceful yet sad and enigmatic look. "Here I'll get that knot out for you." Soubi gently untwisted the cat boy's fingers from his silky locks and gently began to untangle the one bothersome knot in the teen's hair. It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't in the front of his hair, which he had let grow just below his collar bones. Strangely enough Ritsuka chose to keep the back relatively short.
"Ritsuka, why do you let the front grow so long? Well except your fringe. But these side locks," he idly twisted them around a pointer finger, "have grown much longer in the past six months." It was true, they hung about four inches lower than they used to.
"Well," Ritsuka began smiling shyly, "I'm a little envious of how long Youji and Natsuo's hair is. But I still like short hair, so I keep that short and the rest long."
"Natsuo has a good length for his body, although I think Youji's has grown a bit too long. It always gives hairdressers a hard time." Youji's hair had reached just past his bottom now. "But I didn't come in to talk about your hair, or Youji's. I want us to take a bath together."
The cat boy's eyes shot open, and his tail went bone straight. "W-what?! You pervert!"
"I'm not a pervert, I meant going to a public bath house together." Soubi didn't even look the least surprised that the cat boy had called him a pervert. In fact the blonde was expecting a more explosive reaction.
Ritsuka relaxed, but he still blushed and looked away to his fingers that were attempting to pick away at the floor. "Why would you want to do that, anyway?"
"It seemed like fun, and a good time for me to learn how I can understand you better."
There he went again, asking weird questions. But lately they didn't feel uncomfortable, Ritsuka soaked them in. They made him happy. He looked back up at the enigmatic man beside him. "If you really want to, I guess that will be fine." His lips turned into a hard line, "just don't pull at my tail, I hate that."
Soubi laughed softly, running his hand over the silky tail. "I wouldn't do that. Do people in the bath houses normally grab your tail?"
The cat boy's eyes closed with an angry scowl. "Natsuo and Youji."
Just those two names were explanation enough. "Hm, that isn't surprising. But I have some business I have to take care of soon. Will you go to the bath house with me later, Ritsuka?"
He sighed. He would never let Soubi know it, but on the inside this made the teen very happy. "I would love to."
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Ritsuka giggled, and flipped the hair out of his eyes. It was in the early evening hours now, and he was kneeling down in front of his spicket in the bath house. Soubi was in incredibly high spirits, smiling and laughing more than he usually did.
"I haven't laughed this much since I was a Maiko." Soubi said with small smile. He was in front of his own spicket, hiding his modesty with a fuzzy white towel as was Ritsuka.
Said cat boy's eyes popped open, "you were a Maiko?"
"And a geisha as well." he stated simply.
Ritsuka cupped his hands together, collecting water and splashing his face with it. "If you were a Maiko then naturally you became a geisha afterward but I had no idea Soubi, that you had that kind of a life."
"I certainly did, I looked very feminine until about the age of sixteen. Although my deep voice shattered the illusion once I hit fourteen."
"You look feminine now..." the cat boy muttered to himself.
"What was that?"
"Oh nothing!" Ritsuka gave him a large and angelic smile.
"Anyway yes I used to be a geisha. I lived in a small okiya owned by a woman named Miya. By time I came into her okiya I was eight years old and she was in her late middle ages. For her age though, she was very beautiful. A former popular geisha of Gion."
"Was she anything like Mieko?" Ritsuka asked with curiosity.
Soubi paused to think, "from how you describe her no. She was a kind woman. At the time that I was a Maiko, when I was ten, she was such an air head that many nights I was able to sneak Kio in to my room."
That made Ritsuka blush. "You two weren't like Yamato and Koya or Natsuo and Youji were you?"
Soubi laughed, "not at all. And those boys are far more innocent than Yamato or Koya. Kio was a maid at the time in an okiya down the road. I met him while leaving a teahouse one night," he took a short pause, "I stepped out of the teahouse and looked over to see him peeking into the window of the room I had just danced in. He was shocked to see me behind him asking 'why are you looking in that window?'"
"So Kio has always been weird!" Ritsuka said a little too loudly, catching attention of a few people around him. "I knew it," he whispered.
"Maybe just a little bit. But like I said I used to sneak him into my room at night. That is when I started smoking, when I tried a cigarette from a pack he'd pick-pocketed from some rich man."
"Kio is a bad person."
Soubi shook his head slowly, "no not really. He's actually a very nice person, but he is also loud and outgoing by nature. May I rinse your hair, please?"
Ritsuka had used an overly generous amount of soap in his hair, making it a sudsy mess that dripped down the back of his neck. Taking a finger he wiped off some, rubbing it into a line under his nose. "You want to rinse the hair of an man with a mustache???" He giggled.
Soubi chuckled and just stared at him for a while, finally wiping off the soap mustache from Ristuka's face with his thumb. "Having a mustache doesn't make you a man. And yes, I do." He grabbed Ritsuka's small shoulders gently and turned him to face away before he poured a full bucket of warm water over the teens head.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
Natsuo's eyes drifted from left to right at the two faces in front of him. Faces that stared back with popped open eyes, and mouths hung open in anticipation. The redhead grinned sadistically. Speaking in a cracked and slightly feminine voice he said, "...she couldn't turn around! Two big strong hands here wrapped around her neck and she couldn't breath. She was being strangled!"
Youji gasped and the two of them leaned forward, "by who by who?!"
"She tried to fight her way out of it but she was too weak. But suddenly he let her go and in her split second of freedom she looked around to see the menacing face of her evil murderer! As soon as she could see him his hands shot back and were around her neck. He was going to kill her!"
Ritsuka kept his voice to a hushed whisper. "Who's face is it?!"
"AND as she TOOK - her last attempt at a breath she saw ..."
"saw?"
"...saw..."
"Saw?!" Both boys shouted in unison.
Natsuo gripped the balled up kimono he wore yesterday between his fingers. "Saw Kio's ugly face bwarrrrgh!!" he screamed it and chucked the kimono at Ritsuka's face while laughing. Youji laughed and pointed at the dark haired cat boy as he fell onto his back.
Ritsuka peeled the kimono off of his face and threw it back over Natsuo's head. "That was a lousy ending, Natsuo! You can't tell horror stories!"
The red head giggled. "I seemed to have you two shaking," draping the kimono over himself he stood up with outstretched arms, like a ghost. "When she saw that ghost! Woooo!" he pretended to be a ghost and playfully slapped Ritsuka over the head.
"Hey ghosts can't slap people!" Youji said.
"Ghosts that are actually Natsuo can though." he said, smiling cutely at his other half.
The three geisha were having a sleep over. Yes, they live in the same okiya but sometimes Ritsuka would sleep in their room and they would stay up through the night telling stories and laughing. It's not that they were best friends, in fact the two made Ritsuka a little uneasy at times but they were still friends. And all the same, it was a fun time.
"So Ritsuka, why were you and Soubi gone earlier?" Youji asked.
The dark haired teen blushed. "We went somewhere together."
"No way!" Youji shouted sarcastically. "I knew that but where did you two go?"
"To a bath house. He suggested it..."
Silence. Natsuo and Youji began snickering and the red head spoke up, "hey hey I think Ritsuka gets credit for torturing Soubi."
Ritsuka's eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "Torturing? What are you talking about?"
"You're stupid! You honestly don't know?" Youji said, making a small angry face. Ritsuka only looked more confused as he seemed to shrink under Youji's intimidating stare. "Soubi loves you!"
Ritsuka's faced blushed a deep crimson. Sure Soubi told him that all the time before he ran away but he never believed any of it. He was just saying that to make him stay in the okiya, so he could make more money. Right? That was the way things worked, wasn't it? "Why is everyone always saying weird things like that?" he mumbled to himself.
Natsuo and Youji both shook their heads. Natsuo smiled. "Hey, so who wants to play cards?"
Ok so I managed not to catch what my family had but I still developed my OWN sickness (severe abdominal pain) -- just my luck, but I'm better now! See you guys next time!!!
PREVIEW FOR CHAPTER FIFTEEN - February 29th, 2008
Sure Soubi noticed him now, but he felt when he put on the mask of a geisha that he could better attract the man's attention. He thought of himself dressed as a beautiful geisha, side by side with Soubi watching the cherry blossoms that would bloom in the next few months. The thought sent his heart into a flurry of heated beating, and all of his thoughts parted in his mind. I want to be the one who is at his side.
I love Agatsuma Soubi...