AN- Well I promised an Aoshi x Misao story and here I have one. With school started, I haven't really had time to work on my other stories. This year in school is really important for me, and I need to do so many things. Just give me time, and I will have chapters out. I always do, it just takes me a while.

Don't forget to drop a review; I do believe that they work as bribes. In my case at least.

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Mistakes
Chapter One- My First One
By Venus Goddess

This shouldn't have happened. It was a mistake, one that would cost dearly.

Looking around the room I avoided the futon in the corner. She had kicked it there shortly after I had told her to leave.

Why did I invite her back with me anyway? Was I that afraid of my own feelings that I needed a whore to reassure myself? If that had been my intention, the only thing I had succeeded in doing was to prove myself entirely wrong.

Sinking further into myself, I tried to block out her face and her reaction. But the images, her image, were burned too deeply into my mind and they would not be pushed aside so easily. Just like her personality, her memories were stubborn. Once again I gave in to the guilt and went back to earlier in the day when I had made my first mistake.

It wasn't possible. I couldn't handle this.

"Aoshi-sa-…no. Aoshi, I-I love you," she said looking so shyly up at me as she brought forth her admission. Her hands were nervously clenching and unclenching the fabric of the kimono that Omasu and Okon had wrestled her into.

I didn't have anything to say to this, but I knew she was expecting an answer. So I racked my brain to give her one.

"You shouldn't Misao."

Her head, which had been bent down to cover the blush on her cheeks, snapped up to look at me. I watched as her eyes widened in dismay before sinking into despair. Small pools of tears began to form but she wouldn't let them fall. They wouldn't fall, she wouldn't let them because she was too proud and too stubborn to let them. I knew Misao like no one else. So then why wouldn't I let myself be with her?

Her mouth moved, but she didn't say anything that I could hear. Swiftly pulling herself together, I saw her retreat behind mental barriers, safely staying away from me.

It was a simple trick that all ninjas, and most warriors like the samurai, were taught to do. At the first sign of danger, reign in all your emotions. This made it easier to concentrate on the battle, and made the chance of mental damage less likely as well. It pained me to know that Misao now had to resort to this to protect herself from me.

But what other choice was there? She deserved better than the hollow person that I was. I was a relic from the past that someone as young as her should not spend her time on. No, we shouldn't, couldn't be.

At least that was what I kept telling myself.

Bending forward slightly to pick up the tray she had brought my tea on, I placed the cup I was still holding on it. Carefully standing up to keep the tray balanced, she said one thing before slowly walking back to the Aoiya.

"So then it shall be, Aoshi-sama."

Unable to take seeing her at the dinner table, I had left shortly after. I didn't even know what I was doing, but eventually found myself in the red-light district of Kyoto. I walked into the nearest door and paid for the first woman to come up to me and took her home.

I hadn't cried all day, not even after I had gotten back to my room and it would have been safe for me to do so. Not even now, after I had seen him bring that woman home, did I cry. I was stronger than this, it would not destroy me.

His rejection I could handle, I had even been expecting it. But to shove it in my face as he had done, that was just cruel.

The candle fizzed out in its own wax, plunging me into darkness. Here, in the complete nothingness of the black room, nothing could protect me from what he had done. But I would not cry. That was and is my only goal, to not cry. Because if I did, it would only prove that I still cared for him which he obviously did not want me to do.

I heard the back shoji downstairs slide open.

Shortly after dinner, he had left and now he was back. Opening my shoji, I walked down the hall towards the steps where I would greet him. He would probably be annoyed, but I didn't care. My feelings for him would not be pushed aside so quickly and easily. Besides, I just had to make sure he was alright.

Waiting at the top of the stairs, I wondered on what I would say to him. After about a minute had passed and he still hadn't come up the stairs, I went down. I had heard the door open, hadn't I? I wasn't going crazy this easily.

When I got to the kitchens where the back door was, I saw why he hadn't come up and suddenly found myself wishing I were crazy. That way, this could all just be in my mind.

Aoshi was pressed up against the wall by a woman who was kissing him quite eagerly. His hands lay on her waist and did nothing more as he let her have her way with him. She only stopped kissing him when Aoshi stopped kissing her because he had opened his eyes and seen me.

Pulling himself up straight, he looked at me with those cold chips of blue ice. I turned my head away because I couldn't bear to look in them. There was no shame, no guilt, not even the barest hint of lust that I expected to find there. This especially hurt me because if he didn't feel passionately about her, then why bring her back here at all? I knew that Aoshi wasn't the type to regularly sleep around with women, so my mind came up with one reason. He did it to intentionally hurt me, to show me that what I said earlier meant nothing to him. I felt tears begin to fill my eyes. I had to get away and soon.

Looking back up at the two of them, the whore decided to speak. She wasn't that ugly, but she wasn't the prettiest thing either. Her mouth curled up in a wicked smile and I knew that she reveled in being the cause for my obvious pain. I developed a furious hatred for her immediately.

"Go run back to your room little girl and leave us so we can get back to what we were doing," she said as she slid a hand into the folds of his shirt. "We were having a good time, weren't we?" she asked, turning her head up to look at Aoshi.

He didn't say anything. Not in affirmation of what she claimed or to defend me against her brutal words. All he did was look at me. My chest hurt, and I could have sworn that I had just been stabbed.

His not answering obviously didn't please her, so she pulled his face back down for a kiss. I didn't stay to watch it happen. Quickly turning on my heel, I took her advice and ran to my room.

I could feel my heart shatter all over again into a million jagged pieces. The tears were coming and I bit my lip to stop them. Biting until I bled, I was surprised to find myself cursing Aoshi and hoping that he would one day feel the pain of having his heart and soul torn apart as cruelly as mine had been.

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