Awakening

Something tickled his forehead. He frowned and lifted his eyelids, catching into them the first sunlight. It had to be morning already, he thought not very smartly, feeling the cold air on his face. He suppressed a very unmanly desire to curl down, bury himself under the cover and drift off to sleep again. Although... the bed felt so nice...

He levered himself up on his arms, valiantly letting the cover slide down from his back. The morning coldness clung to his bare skin right away, but the warmth of the sun was a fact. He raised his head.

Oho.

The world spun. He closed his eyes, trying to calm the reality swinging around him. Really, his head could get used to sake finally, but no - every time he woke up with the splitting pain under his skull and the feeling the vertical is an abstract concept for him. The bedding looked invitingly indeed.

Resolutely, he opened his eyes. No-one would say Sanada Genjirō Yukimura lost to alcohol! He refrained, though, from shaking his head to sober up.

He tried to recollect the events of the last night - and he couldn't at all. He tilted his head and only now realized it wasn't his bedroom. He frowned again. The name "his bedroom" applied to the room he was assigned in Ōshū.

He stirred.

Ōshū. He looked around furtively. Everything indicated that he had spent the last night in the bedroom of... Masamune-dono. What backed that idea most, was the fact Masamune-dono himself, leaning against the frame, sat by the garden door.

He squinted, deliberately ignoring that his heart, beating quite fast anyway, leapt in his chest.

Masamune-dono sat with his head inclined, dark hair hanging along his face. He was asleep. Sake bottle lay by his hand, forsaken. The rising sun enveloped his silhouette with its white light, playing with his hair and folds of kimono. He looked so...

Yukimura realized he was gaping. He felt the blush suffusing his cheeks. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember how he had ended here. He must have been dead drunk, he thought rather depressed and embarrassed. He should be grateful someone had taken care of him in such state. Someone, or...?

He gulped.

Really, he didn't need to cause inconvenience to Masamune-dono. Sanada Yukimura, you could grow up at last, he reproached himself. Definitely, later he would apologize and promise that wouldn't happen again. In fact, he could already start to compose a speech.

The morning wind brushed against his skin. He shivered. It still had to be early. It would take some time before the day got really warm. He lifted his eyes again. Masamune-dono would freeze if he stayed like that, he thought, slightly disturbed. The best would be to cover him, but then he would wake and...

He gulped again. For some unknown reason, he didn't feel like looking Masamune-dono into eyes after having spent the night in his bedroom. He pulled the kimono on and tied round his waist, intensely thinking over the problem and ignoring the headache. He moved closer, still not any wiser, and knelt beside the man he held - he realized it now - in equally high esteem as his Lord. Something inside him twitched almost painfully. So he knelt and only looked, unable to tear his eyes away, absorbing all the details of the man's face: straight nose, firmly set eyebrows, long eyelashes and sensitive lips. He looked and still wasn't satiated. There was something magical in that moment and that place...

Another cold breath of wind brushed his hair. He sat down, carefully resting against Masamune-dono's side. Perhaps he could keep him warm like this...

He didn't manage to think longer, for then One-Eyed Dragon moved and lifted his head. Yukimura froze. Well, it was foolish indeed to expect that experienced warrior would sleep like a child when someone cuddled up to him. He was under the impression the blush would incinerate the skin of his cheeks; nevertheless, he raised his head bravely. The blue gaze of Masamune-dono was surprised, above all. He heaved a sigh of relief.

And then, unexpectedly for himself as well, he craned his neck and drew his lips closer to Masamune-dono's.

If the man's gaze had been surprised before, now it couldn't be described in any other way than shocked. Yukimura moved away, not knowing what exactly he had done - knowing only that he had done the only possible thing he could do. Masamune-dono sat still, regarding him with one wide-open eye. Yukimura didn't dare to think about anything at all. His reality suddenly narrowed to the sunlight shining through Masamune-dono's hair, the blueness of his astonished - and so calm - gaze, the smell of summer flowers coming from the garden, and the softness of the slighly parted lips. His heart pounded fiercely, absorbing, experiencing, waiting. His head spun again, yet, this time, the sensation wasn't nearly as unpleasant as before.

Then Masamune-dono, as if unsure, inclined towards him, moving his face closer... Yukimura felt the soft hair tickling his forehead...

"Masamune-sama!"

The door was slid wide open.

"Masamune-sama! We're setting out on the inspection in..."

Katakura Kojūrō rarely felt surprised by anything and even more rarely he let himself show it; nevertheless, the sight before his eyes stupefied him completely. Behindhand, he realized he should leave discreetly; that moment, however, he only stood there and look, hands still on the door wings. He hadn't expected to find Yukimura-dono, of all people, in Masamune-sama's bedroom.

And, for all he saw, it seemed he had just rudely interrupted Masamune-sama...

For a moment, there was a shared dismay. Masamune-sama only blinked, bewildered and confused like never. Yukimura-dono looked at Kojūrō with his eyes of a frightened bunny. Kojūrō, for his part, couldn't drive away a thought that occurred to him: that Masamune-sama and Yukimura-dono looked rather lovely together... However, that frozen tranquillity ceased quickly when Yukimura-dono flung himself on the mat and bowed deeply.

"Katakura-dono! I beg your forgiveness! My act was shameful, and I am ready to bear the consequences and receive my punishment!"

Kojūrō blinked. Certainly, a dose of healthy chaos was a good thing, but even he was amazed by Yukimura-dono's eloquence so early in the morning. Besides, he wondered what exactly the young lord was apologizing for and if he even knew it himself. He looked at the youth, whose forehead still touched the mat, long hair tangled all around his head.

Kojūrō's eyes shifted to Masamune-sama, ready to meet his knowing gaze, mocking and amused, the one Yukimura-dono usually brought onto his face. But Masamune-sama didn't look at Kojūrō; his eyes lay on the boy, still bowed down on the mat. Kojūrō felt something warm fill him inside. He didn't remember when he had seen so affectionate look on his Lord's face before. Masamune-sama smiled softly.

Inwardly, Kojūrō sighed. "It is me who should apologize for such an intrusion. It will not happen again," he said. "I wanted to remind of our inspection of the west grounds." Masamune-sama looked at him. "Of course, Yukimura-dono is invited as well," Kojūrō added.

The young man lifted his eyes, in which astonishment mixed with relief. "Thank you very much, Katakura-dono!" he shouted, bowing again.

Now Masamune-sama rolled his eyes, his face expressing the usual amusement. "Come on. Breakfast is waiting," ha said, nudging Yukimura.

Kojūrō left to the corridor. He wasn't able to forget - and, in fact, he didn't feel like at all - his Lord's smile. He looked back over his shoulder.

He hoped Sanada Yukimura would stay in Ōshū longer.