All is quiet. Still. Not even the sound of my breathing can be heard. I know you are asleep, I can tell, not only by the softness your face finds in repose but… because I am near you, watching you, it is the only time I am allowed to do so freely, openly, the way I have always wanted. Any other time would be too… revealing. That cannot be right, I have already revealed my feelings, to everyone, even to you, although, somehow, you fail to see it, or you choose not to. Either way. What does it matter.

The color of your eyes is hidden behind closed lids, such a beautiful hue. I almost wish you awake just so I can see them, if only for a brief moment before you can realize what I am doing and I am forced to look away. Better to keep my wishes to myself, they will only take from me the pleasure I am finding in this silent tranquillity of yours.

The delicate sweep of your coal-black eyelashes against your pale skin I find just as intriguing; soft and fragile like the brush of a butterfly's wings across your cheek. They add to the calm of your expression while sleeping. You are so beautiful. No, it is more than that. You are beauty. Enchanting and surreal… a seraph.

Your hair, deepest black, it shines like threads of silk; the lamplight catches strands in its glow and turns them blue. I am tempted to run my fingers through them, to disperse the unnatural color, to command, at my whim like an artist painting a portrait. Which color and where. I have always wanted to feel the softness of your hair through my fingers and the urge grows as my gaze drifts over the fine wisps that fall across your forehead and caress your cheek.

I am almost envious at how your hair greedily clings to your skin, how it touches what I desire to touch. I wonder. Would you wake, if like your hair, my fingertips feathered over your cheek or if my lips brushed against your mouth, ever so lightly? I… wonder. Your eyes slowly drift open and meet mine and I am captive within their unclouded and aware, depths.

"Touch me." The breath from your husky whisper is warm as it touches my skin. "Kiss me… again."

Again? My eyes widen in surprise. Did I give action to my thoughts without realizing it? No, I couldn't have. But, I'm so close… I could feel your breath against my own lips as you spoke just now and this feeling of warmth that is slowly spreading through me as my senses relay what my consciousness failed to realize. Yes, yes I did kiss you, touched your hair and brushed the backs of my fingers against your smooth, pale cheek.

I have, unwittingly, branded the feel of you upon myself and there it will always remain. Always.

"Aoshi?"

"Yes, Misao."

Consent has been asked and given, neither of us need hesitate any further and so, consciously, resolutely, I close the short distance that still remains between us and taste your mouth once more with my own.