"Little one..."
The voice was little, barely a whisper, but it was enough to pull Ryumiko back from the realm of dreams. It took the voice to repeat itself once more before she was able to think coherently.
"Little one, I must insist you wake up..."
"Akinobu? What's wrong?"
"I believe you know the answer to that."
Her mind still quite hazy from sleep, it took her a surprisingly long while to notice the soreness of her body. One side of her face was nearly numb with ache, her wrists and ankles felt as if they were burning slightly and her head pounded fiercely. She would have winced from the pain, but she figured that at the slightest movement, her cheek would start hurting. After much struggle against the pull of sleep, she blinked her eyes open blearily, taking in the soft light outside. Outside was tinted with a pale blue, signalling that it was somewhere between day and night but she couldn't tell if it was just before dawn or just after dusk. There was no form of clock or calendar in the room, so she could neither tell how long she had been asleep or what time it was at the moment. This also meant she did not know how long Retsu had been sitting there. Yukaoi was not on her bed across the room, so maybe it was still before bedtime, but that didn't tell her anything else.
Her eyes quickly strayed from the window and towards something that had startled her by tickling the side of her arm. This happened to be the mass of red hair that lay on the bed just next to her shoulder. From the way Retsu was positioned, it seemed he had been sitting beside her - and for quite some time as the bowl of empty food next to him indicated - before falling asleep with his head rested on the edge of her bed. Seeing his face brought on the memory of when she had last seen him. She remembered when Yubaba had taken her, he had tried to stop the witch but was seconds too late. She recalled the streak of red and the flash of his gold eyes as he sped towards her before she fell unconscious.
Had he been worried for her this whole time? She knew he had been asked by the Dragon Clan to watch over her, and although it was technically all her fault, he had been unable to do so. She hoped he didn't blame himself for the incident, as it wasn't his fault in any way. He wasn't the one who decided to play around outside without someone to supervise in a stupid act of childish defiance against Haku.
Lifting her hand up carefully, she gently brushed a couple of messy strands of red away to reveal his face. She smiled lightly at the sight, ignoring the pain running across her face because of the action. Up close, she could see that his eyelashes were dark but flecked with shades of red and the odd streak of golden yellow. Much to her brief dismay, she noticed his eyelashes were also thicker and longer than her own. Her eyes trailed over the pale skin of his cheek, along his nose and down to his lips. She stared at them for a while before quickly catching herself and moving her eyes back up to his. She expected him to be awake, as he usually seemed to catch her in her most embarrassing moments but his eyes remained hidden behind his lids.
She breathed a silent sigh and moved her hand to gently run her fingers across Retsu's hair, enjoying the silky feel against her sore hand and he continued to sleep peacefully without any awareness of her probing eyes. With sudden realisation, she noticed the thick white bandages that covered the entire length of her forearm. She blinked and wondered how bad her bruises really were. But this thought did not carry far as the silence in the room was broken by a loud and deep rumbling. Now alarmed and puzzled as to what on earth the noise was, she tensed as if anticipating an attack. The rumbling continued until she noticed that the rumbling kept rising and falling in an even and steady rhythm, almost like... purring. Ryumiko was then able to locate the source of the rumbling noise as she stared at Retsu, whom she was still patting absent-mindedly. The rumbling noise mirrored the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, making him resemble something like an enormous cat... And upon realising that she had made Retsu purr, she was unable to stifle the giggles that bubbled through her lips.
Though when the rumbling abruptly stopped, her giggling shortly drifted away, and blue eyes found wide golden eyes staring back at her.
He had wondered why he had suddenly felt so calm. After two days of stress and worry, he was quite confounded with the sudden though not unwelcome change. In fact, he had not felt so comfortable in a very long time. He didn't have to wonder long when the sound of gentle laughter reached his keen sense of hearing. And it wasn't just any laughing either, it was hers. Retsu doubted his ears briefly, but his open eyes confirmed that she indeed was laughing. Her eyes were closed and her mouth set in an open smile that not even the blackish bruise on her cheek could detract from her mirth. He made note of the hand that was rested atop his head, and he quickly made the connection between his relaxed mood and the feel of her hand and fingers running through his hair.
She stopped giggling soon enough, and he realised she was looking straight at him.
Ryumiko gaped silently as she stared at Retsu, mortified that she had been caught patting him, while she laughed at his purring.
Meanwhile, Retsu was unsure of why she had stopped laughing (though at the same time wanting to know what it was she found so amusing) but simply kept his eyes fixed on her to make sure he wasn't dreaming or hallucinating.
"Ryumiko?" he asked tentatively, hoping that this was indeed reality.
She pursed her lips embarrassedly, taking this as her cue to move her hand away and awkwardly avert her gaze. "Ah, sorry... just uh... I didn't mean to wake you..."
Relief spread through him at the sound of her voice and the knowledge that this wasn't a dream. He lifted his head off of the mattress to face her from a less peculiar angle, however keeping his arms of the edge of the bed to stay close to her. Her gaze was captured by his yet again, the golden rings framed by his unusually coloured lashes locked onto hers with a fiery rapture.
The intense look in his eyes rendered her mind hoplessly ineffectual and she struggled to find coherency in her words as she blurted, "Uh s-so, how l-long much sleep I erm... did?"
She watched with a nervous awareness as he tilted his head while interpreting her jumbled question. A brief moment passed and he answered, "As far as I know, you've been asleep from midday until dawn."
Her mouth opened into a silent 'o' before she continued, taking extra care to not let his eyes distract her, "And how long have I been missing?"
At this, his face lost almost all light, his mouth set in a tight grim line, loosened only when he spoke, "You were taken two days ago. We sent Haku to get you as he was the most... competent to go at the time."
She raised her brows at his statement, "Competent? I'm sure you're perfectly competent. I mean, you have saved my life twice already."
She had intended for the words to lighten the somewhat dampened mood, but they seemed to fall on ears that refused to listen.
"I let Yubaba get away with you... Yes I may have saved you twice from death, but death is an easy road to take. Living is much harder, and had Yubaba gained but a few mere seconds more with you, she would have made you live a long life filled with the suffering of your body and mind. This would have only been the beginning," he growled, gently brushing the backs of his fingers over her bruised cheek.
Ryumiko figured from the way he was acting, he blamed himself for her capture. She would have sighed in frustration at his believing that her childish mistake was his fault but thoughts of how to clear Retsu's misplaced guilt took priority over her immediate thoughts. Knowing Retsu, she'd have to make him see logic... That somethings were unavoidable and that he couldn't be there to save her every single time. She'd have to say it in a way that didn't make him feel useless either..."Well then did you try to take me back or did you stand and watch me get taken away?" she asked, her eyes scrutinising his.
"I would never just stand there and watch as you were abducted," he immediately declared, scowling at the thought of doing such a thing. His declaration sent a rather warm feeling through her, spreading through her entire being and pulling the edges of her lips into a smile.
"Then you didn't let Yubaba take me, you did the best you could, and that is more than I could ask for." When it looked like he was going to protest, she silenced him quickly by covering his mouth with her hand and insisted, "I'm not lying to make you feel better Retsu, it's the truth."
'Ryumiko would kick me halfway across the world if I let you keep thinking that you've let her down or something.'
Retsu smiled into the palm of her hand when he was reminded of Chihiro's words. And she was right, Ryumiko would not let him think any of this incident was his fault. Ryumiko felt his lips move beneath her hand and felt a tingle stirring in her palm. A light blush coated her cheeks but her moment was abruptly interrupted by one tiny dragon.
'Must I endure your displays of affection for much longer, or have you finished?' Akinobu asked with slight exasperation laced in his tone.
"Oh!" she cried, startled by the surprise of his voice and a little discomfited by the fact that someone had been watching their entire conversation (sort of...), which was something she had assumed was private between the two of them.
"Is there something wrong?" Retsu asked, worried by her sudden exclamation. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine Retsu, really. I just remembered that I need to tell you all something important," she reassured him, wondering how on earth she was going to bring up the topic that was Akinobu.
He seemed to let go of a breath he had been holding and thought of something that she should know as well. He started, "I also have something important to inform you of. Your cousin has-"
But before he could tell Ryumiko about her cousin's arrival in the Spirit World, Chihiro herself bounded straight into the room with a tray full of food and a wide grin on her face, "Good morning Retsu! I brought your break...fast..." her sentence trailed off when her eyes locked on Ryumiko's wide bewildered ones.
The silence was thick... suffocating even. Chihiro seemed at a loss on what to do, she had no idea what to say to Ryumiko now that she was finally awake and out of Yubaba's clutches. Ryumiko however, looked as if she were torn between believing she was hallucinating and feeling like a cornered rabbit. Retsu didn't know what to do, stuck between the dumbfounded stares of each girl, so he opted for a quick exit.
"I shall leave you two alone then," he said non-chalantly before manuevering around Chihiro's still form and slipping out the door before either of them could say anything about it.
Chihiro gently put the tray of food down, taking the seat Retsu had just left and kept her focus on her cousin. She honestly was so happy that Ryumiko was better already, but the bruises and bandages only told her that this could happen again and that the danger was not yet gone. She fixed her gaze on Ryumiko's very shell-shocked expression and exhaled silently, preparing herself for what felt like an impending headache.
Ryumiko's mind was blank. Even the attempts made by Akinobu to try and bring her out of her stupor proved to no avail. All she could register was what she perceived as rather predatory gaze of her cousin and the oncoming verbal lashing that was sure to come.
The silence lingered on for a few more moments before Ryumiko broke under the tension, all of the pent up things she wanted to say bursting out of her like a flood.
"I'm sorry okay? I was curious and to be honest I didn't expect to actually find the Spirit World, I thought it was just a plain old tunnel that you didn't want me to get lost in! And I'm sorry I didn't tell anyone where I was really going, I thought you'd get mad at me for looking! Besides, why didn't you tell me that your fairytales weren't fairytales? Don't you think a heads up would have been nice? Even something simple like 'Hey, Ryumiko! Just so you know, there's an evil witch out there who you may want to look out for in the future!' Though I know I'm at fault for winding up here in the first place I suppose but still one thing led to another and well, I'm sorry."
"Sorry? That's all you have to say? Mum thought you had been abducted or killed! I left college in middle of... something important! Then I came all the way here only to give me the fright of my life when I discovered you'd been kidnapped by Yubaba! Not only that but I find out you're stuck here for some unknown amount of time! And what's more, you come back looking like this!" she cried, gesturing to the bandages that covered Ryumiko's arms and legs. "And you expect me to settle with a simple apology?
Wincing at the harsh scolding, Ryumiko lifted her arm a little to see one of the bandages that her cousin was scowling so viciously at.
"Oh come on, they're only a couple of bruises!" she argued.
Chihiro scoffed, "A couple of bruises? If those are a couple of bruises then I'm a vegetarian lion."
Ryumiko raised her brows in mild surprise. "They're really that bad?"
Chihiro stayed silent, leaving her to come up with answer on her own. And from the look her cousin was giving her, the bandages on her body covered something worse than a bruise could ever hope to be.
Catching Ryumiko off-guard, Chihiro flung her arms around her, crushing her in a tight hug, pinning her to the bed while being mindful of her injuries. "I'm just glad you're still breathing," Chihiro mumbled.
Ryumiko smiled happily, and returned the hug before asking, "Does this mean you forgive me?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Damn."
They talked for a while longer, but Ryumiko's howling stomach and with a bit more nagging from Akinobu, they came down the stairs to have breakfast. Albeit, Ryumiko was quite unsteady, or more unsteady on her feet than usual, and relied heavily on Chihiro to help her move. She saw that only three out of the six other spirits currently in Zeniba's house were awake and in the room. Retsu, who was previously seated reading something, put down his book to watch her slow movements with great attentiveness, Yukaoi, who was bent over searching for something in a large bag (and somehow looking elegant while doing so), and Rin, who was stirring something in a large pot over the glowing heat of the fire. The whereabouts of Zeniba, No-Face and Haku were beyond her.
Once she had been seated at the table, Yukaoi came over to her, having found what she was looking for and draped a blanket around her, giving her a small smile.
"It is good to see your improved health," she said quietly, moving off to take her seat at the table.
Ryumiko smiled at the dragoness's words then found herself staring at Retsu, who was also watching her. Both having caught the other staring, they both quickly changed their line of sight and let light awkward blushes settle over their cheeks. Chihiro saw this silent exchange as she went to help Rin with breakfast and grinned at the two's obvious blossoming feeling for each other.
"Need any help Rin?" she asked.
"Not for this but could you change her bandages for me?" Rin asked, though it was more like an order than a request, then gestured to the pile of bandages behind her. With an affirmative nod, Chihiro gathered up the necessary equipment before making her way towards her cousin, who was hastily gulping down her meal in a frantic attempt to avoid anymore awkward interaction with the red dragon seated not so far away.
"Lift up your leg," Chihiro instructed, to which Ryumiko followed without even batting an eye. During the years in which Ryumiko had participated in dance lessons, she had also come across many injuries in the form of strains, cramps and knotted muscles. Whenever such things befell her, Chihiro would always sit next to her and massage the aching appendage, which more often than not proved to be more useful than what her doctor would prescribe for her. Now, it had become second nature for her to do as Chihiro asked whenever she was hurting, and so, her leg ended up resting on her cousin's lap without giving her time to question why.
Before Ryumiko realised, the bandage around her ankle had been unwrapped, revealing rings of mottled purple and yellow that encircled her leg. She froze mid-chew as she stared at her bruised ankle. To be honest, it looked worse than it really was, but it still came as a bit of a shock to Ryumiko who was thouroughly unaware that wounds beneath the white fabric were that bad. She had been in darkness for the most part of her little 'visit' to Yubaba's and fallen asleep on the way home before waking up to find herself already bandaged up. Now that she could finally see them, they suddenly seemed more sinister.
A silence settled in the room as Chihiro continued to place fresh bandages on her, to which Ryumiko felt the overwhelming urge to fill with sound.
"Um... So how long will these take to, you know, heal?" she asked no-one in particular.
Rin took the liberty of answering, "You should be fine in a week or two, though your arms might take a little longer."
She frowned, "Why would my arms take longer to heal than my legs?"
Rin turned away from the simmering pot to face Ryumiko with a raised brow, "If you think those are bad, then those are the least of your worries."
Ryumiko felt her eyes widen as they darted to each person in the room to see if Rin was telling the truth or just exaggerating. Her eyes locked onto Retsu's face and she could tell from the strongly impassioned glare he regarded her ankle with, that Rin wasn't exaggerating. Now she was filled with dread thinking about what horrific state her arms were in. Though once both legs had been re-bandaged, Chihiro requested that Ryumiko hold out one of her arms. She apprehensively let Chihiro take hold of one arm and watched with an uneasy feeling as the white fabric was slowly unravelled away from her outstretched limb.
Open air stung the scratches that were slowly exposed as the bandage unwound towards her wrist. As more and more angry red lines were unmasked, the more the scratches would sting and burn. Some of the scratches began to bleed from the loss of pressure the bandages provided but in Ryumiko's eyes, they just seemed to get worse as the end of the bandage neared. Once the last bit of bandaged was removed, the dark ring of bruised flesh was revealed and she winced at the memory of how her arm had gotten so damaged. The second Chihiro went to gently wipe away some of the blood coming from the scratches, she gasped in shock and yanked her arm out of her cousin's reach, cradling her aching arm with a series of loud, "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow"s.
"Sorry!" Chihiro apologised.
Getting her bearings back Ryumiko replied, "No it's fine! In fact technically this one's my fault!"
Seeing the confusion and disbelief on her cousin's face she explained between pants, "Well I panicked when Yubaba captured me a second time and I tried to, um well, get my arms out of the chains. I clearly wasn't in my right mind at the time..." she remarked grimly as she glanced down at her discoloured forearm. "So technically I inflicted these."
Chihiro sighed at her cousin's foolhardy recklessness before turning to Retsu, "Would you mind helping me? This is going to sting a lot and I need her to not move otherwise it'll hurt much more than it needs to."
He wordlessly left his seat and glided around the table to seat himself next to Ryumiko, waiting for Chihiro's instructions. She got him to sit behind Ryumiko, whilst he supported her arm in such a way that wouldn't hurt her and wouldn't allow her to pull her arm aside again. Under normal circumstances, Ryumiko would have been terribly embarrassed with the way he had one arm wrapped around her middle with his face close to hers, but at the moment, she was too busy fighting the whimpers of pain that tried to escape her mouth than to be concerned about Retsu's ridiculous proximity. However, even during the moment of agony, she couldn't deny that Retsu's closeness brought a kind of comforting warmth.
When her arm was rebandaged, she took a deep sigh of relief and Retsu released his hold on her, but the moment of solace was abruptly destroyed when Chihiro demanded, "Now your other arm..."
Haku was awoken from his slumber by a shriek that sounded something only akin to the sound of a particularly vile bird having it's feathers plucked out whilst still alive. Getting rid of the initial shock of having his ears ringing for a few split seconds, he rushed towards the noise suddenly panicking that someone, more specifically a human someone, was in danger. Hearing whimpering from behind the kitchen door followed by the raised voices of others, he ran a little faster and slammed the door wide open, desperately suppressing the urge to change into his dragon form until he had understood the situation entirely.
And what a situation it was...
Instead of a Yubaba-sent-monster to attack them all as he had anticipated, the sight before him was much stranger... and possibly more violent.
Chihiro had Ryumiko pinned face-down on the ground by sitting on her younger cousin's back. It seemed Retsu had been recruited by Chihiro to hold Ryumiko's arms down as she thrashed around like a fish out of water, trying to get free from her captors. Yukaoi was on her knees beside Ryumiko's head, trying frantically to console her with semi-calm words while Rin screamed abusive advice to whomever would listen from her place next to the stove. After a couple more seconds, he realised Chihiro was attempting to clean one of Ryumiko's unbandaged arms which caused the girl to howl in very loud protest.
Hearing an exasperated sigh, Chihiro whipped her head around to notice Haku who was standing in the doorway staring at them with a tired countenance.
"Haku! Help me with this!" she ordered, 'this' being Ryumiko who had orders of her own to give to the newly awake dragon.
"Haku!" she began with an incredibly menacing tone in her voice. "I swear if you do anything to help Chihiro right now you will find yourself in danger of becoming my personal pony for the next decade!"
Whilst he debated about which out of the two cousins would be worse to offend, a loud voice reverberated through the room, silencing all noise and freezing everyone's movements.
"ENOUGH!"
...
"Oops," came Ryumiko's small voice as a glowing vapour began to seep out of her body, forming the small shape of one very irritated dragon.
*Cringes and waits for readers to slaughter her*
No words can describe how ridiculously sorry I am I haven't updated in ages, and this chapter was all waffle and no plot further-ing (if that's even a word) !
However I seriously have tried as best as I could this time to update but my final year in high school is really much more work than I anticipated and my poor stories are getting neglected as much as I want to write! I will try to get better but to be honest I can't guarantee anything this year...
What makes it worse is that I've had a massive breakthrough with this story (It's going to be amazing guys get excited! :D) and I've pretty much worked out the entire thing (finally), but I don't have the time to write it which makes me want to stab my art folio (more than a little violently(more like stabbing it then ramming it down my art teacher's throat knives and all(which is completely fair in my defense since she's asked us to do 60 pages of artworks/art research in only two weeks!))) which is the damn thing that is consuming all of my spare time...
I am so sorry but I hope you at least enjoyed this chapter and I wish you all a happy Easter filled with chocolately goodness :3 Or if you don't celebrate Easter... I hope I can update faster as a replacement Easter egg for you :)
NEXT CHAPTER SHALL COME BEARING HAKUXCHIHIRO FLUFF! ! ! ! ! !
Many thanks to you dear reviewers!
WildCroconaw (Indeed haha! Thank you for reviewing!)
Anabelle9 (Ah Rin, forever causing Haku pain XD Thank you for reviewing!)
WoodsWolf (Agreed. Haha interesting theories, although Ryumiko isn't gonna die... She's kinda necessary to the ending :P Although don't worry... Yubaba's blood shall be shed *chuckles evilly in corner* I love reading your reviews thank you so much!)
BloodyFantasy (Thank you very much for your review! :D)
FanFactor1996 (Thank very much your for your review!)
Moongirl12121 (Apologies for being slow to update again! For both stories! I'm trying :3 Anyways, Thank you so much for your reviews!)
InkWoven (I'm glad you like the direction this is going! It's going to get better and full of evil cliffies X3 And by the way I need the pressure haha! Thank you for reviewing!)
Please Review!
Because clearly the giant kicked-puppy eyes didn't work last time...
My traffic stats showed me visitors... but where were the reviewers hmm?
REVIEW OR GET MAULED BY EVIL CROW THINGY RESURRECTED FROM CHAPTER FIVE! ! ! !
Button is here!
l
v