a connotation of infinity

Summary: The door closes, and they are alone. The wind carries the scent of fall. Drabble- Kiki, Mitsuhide. Post-chapter 55.

Warning: 30 minutes challenge/drabble.

Set: Directly following the events of the newest chapter (55), posted around June 17th, 2014. While it is not necessary to have read the chapter it might explain a bit more.

Disclaimer: Standards apply. Title and poem by e.e. cummings.

When Zen leaves he still looks like he has no idea what is going on.

Mitsuhide knows exactly how he feels. But Kiki just steps aside to let the Second Prince pass, and something flits across her face – maybe a smile, maybe a frown – as he disappears through the door into the corridor. His footsteps are swallowed by the carpet, and then the door closes behind him.

Obi snorts. "Well." The shinobi has folded his arms behind his head and stretches like a cat. "That wasn't very subtle, Miss Kiki."

"I have no idea what you mean." Kiki's face is impassive, as always, and her voice gives away nothing. Mitsuhide fights the urge to whip his head back and forth between them to try to read those minutiae changes on their faces that rarely anyone notices but which are there, he knows because he knows them. Before he can try, though, Obi drops down on one of the beds and yawns demonstratively.

"I will go to sleep now. I've been the one who did all the work of tracking and stopping those kids today, after all, so I claim this room. You guys can share the other one." He gestures at the inner bedroom. "Don't wake me up."

"Wait," Mitsuhide starts to protest. "Kiki can sleep there, but I-"

"Mitsuhide." Kiki's voice is quiet. "Come on." She tugs him into the other room by his sleeve and he is too flustered by her actions – and by the smirk on Obi's face – to fight her. The door closes, and they are alone. The breeze coming through the open balcony door carries the scent of fall.

Mitsuhide stops next to the entrance, frozen, but Kiki walks into the room and towards the open balcony door Zen was sitting in a few minutes earlier.

"So what was this about?" Mitsuhide finally asks, deciding to take things one step at a time. And honestly, he cannot wrap his head around this, so he'd just as well try to see the sense in what actually brought them to this point. "Shirayuki didn't ask for Zen to come see her, but she probably wants to see him? Did she even send you at all?"

"Can't you imagine what's going on?" Her voice drifts through the room, along with another breeze of cool air.

Mitsuhide sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. He's not stupid, after all. He just likes to pretend he sees less than he actually does – for the sake of the people around him. "I guess I can."

"Good." Kiki closes the open doors and turns back towards him. In the light of the reading lamp on one of the bedside tables, the only lamp illuminating the room, her features are soft. Something flashes across her face, directed only at him: a brief smile. A warm, warm gaze, so incredibly familiar Mitsuhide can't help the stab of the something he has not ever permitted himself to think of. She's not wearing her armor now, only a short-sleeved tunic over her trousers and her sword belt, her uniform jacket thrown over it loosely. The stone in her earring gleams like liquid fire when she turns her head a fraction. To Mitsuhide, she is even more beautiful with her short hair than she was before, and Kiki always was pretty.

The moment stretches. It expands and shapes itself around them until there is nothing in the world left except for the two of them, it rises up and embraces him, and what whispers with a thousand soft voices, what feels like home and what shines from her eyes might be infinity.

He swallows and turns towards the door.

"I will let you rest-"

"Don't be stupid." She doesn't look at him, just puts down her jacket and belt and selects a bed. The next moment she is looking at him from below, her hair spread out over the pillow. "Switch off the light, please."

Mitsuhide does as she bids him and wonders why he is not putting up more of a fight. He debates choosing one of the beds on the other side of the room and then deems it nonsense. They have known each other for such a long time. They have come this far. She knows him, better than anyone else. If Mitsuhide would put his life in the hands of another person, it would be her. They have been through duels, battles, abductions, council meetings and evening galas, they have gone through deserts, forests, over hills and fields. There is rarely something in Kiki that can still surprise Mitsuhide – maybe, perhaps, because he has learned that she will always surprise him no matter what, so no surprises there. But he knows her. He would never be so callous to say he knows all of her, but what she has given him is enough. Consistently, he believes few people know him as well as Kiki does, and the thought is gratifying. So no. There is no sense in playing this out even further, in delaying the inevitable. This is not an impossibility, merely something that never has happened before. And denial never was one of his strong traits. You're so honest it's painful, Mitsuhide. Strangely, it is not awkward in the least. It is just him and Kiki, the way it has been many times before. It has been desert nights and empty summer homes and cool forest ground before. Now it is a bedroom in a Lord's mansion, and they still are the same.

So he pulls back the sheets of the bed next to hers and props down on it, abandoning shoes, weapons' belt and uniform shirt, and slips under the covers. He turns, bedding his head one arm, and faces her.

Kiki is smiling. She is beautiful.

"Good Night."

"Good Night, Kiki," he says in return. Kiki smiles one last time, so small and so precious, and closes her eyes. Her breathing evens until her shoulders and her chest rise and fall in a steady, almost invisible movement. Mitsuhide watches until her face relaxes and her hands open and when he is sure she is completely asleep he watches her a bit longer. The moonlight falling into the room paints shadows onto her hair.

Mitsuhide drifts off finally, a half-smile still on his lips.

on such a night the sea through her blind miles
of crumbling silence seriously smiles

[a connotation of infinity, e.e. cummings]