"Rending Hearts"
"Watanukiiiii~!"
Yuuko sang, shaking her empty sake cup for emphasis.
"Coming! Coming!"
The seer appeared on que with a tall fresh bottle in hand. His feet pressed lightly on the smooth hardwood, each step causing his expression to pinch. Yuuko was lounging on the decking, impervious to the winter chill in a thick red kimono blooming with huge golden flowers. She eyed Watanuki from half lidded eyes as he crouched down beside her with a barely stifled hiss.
He began to fill her sake cup.
"You know, there's this saying..." Yuuko mused. "'He who doesn't forgive keeps his own wounds green'."
"Yuuko-San, whatever do you mean?" He rolled his eyes with supreme sarcasm. "Honestly, if you keep dropping these vague hints I'll never understand what you're trying to say."
Going to stand up a sharp pain shot through his legs causing him to expel a painful gasp and drop back down to his knees.
"Doumeki sacrificed his much treasured relationship with you so that you could be free. Surely that must tell you something of his resolve." she said, sipping her sake.
"He stabbed me!"
"Yes, and your body will hurt for a while, but how long do you think Doumeki will suffer with the consequences of the choice he made?"
"I don't care."
"I wonder about that." she said, and setting down her sake cup she placed a gentle palm beneath his chin. "I think it hurts you not to be around him just as much as it hurts Doumeki." Steering his face up to look at her, it revealed teary eyes and a grieving expression. "Who else would these tears be for?" she smiled, embracing him as Watanuki's expression crumpled completely.
"What do I do?" he sobbed, fingers clenched in heavy red satin. "How can I face him? What can I possibly say? I'm still angry with him, and how he never explains himself. That idiot!"
At the empty Shizuka Temple, Doumeki sneezed.
"Somebody's talking about me..."
He sat with his legs crossed beneath the warmth and comfort of a kotetsu, a myriad of parchments and spiritual manuals spread out on the table top. Among them were guides to casting protection charms on individuals and wards that can be activated from a distance. There were fresh lashes on his cheek from snapped bowstrings, ones pulled back too tight in haste, in frustration, in grief. He had been practising new techniques to aim further and pierce sharper. Most of them had resulted in him straining the bowstring to breaking point. Much like the archer himself.
While on the surface his stoic, detached expression remained enforced, internally Doumeki's emotions churned in chaos.
He let out a hefty sigh and lay flat on his back the floor.
Watanuki...I love you!
That's what he wanted to say. What he burned to say.
Doumeki's hand sunk into his kimono and there in the dim light he allowed himself an ounce of private selfishness. He sighed again, deep and husky.
"Watanuki..."
Hey guys, this will probably be it until after Christmas, but I'm planning on picking this story up a bit and maybe expanding into a sort of epilogue since a plot bunny has bit me. I hope you'll stick with me until the end! Happy Holidays!