Title: Groves of Clockwork Oranges

Author: Nagia

Rating: PG (to be safe, because I am a disturbing person, with disturbing mental processes)

Summary: Aoshi meditates. Misao thinks.

Notes: I hammered out most of this story in 15 minutes, then went back and nit-picked. It's based on a "100 themes" theme, ('Sunlight streaming through the trees'). Not really an A/M romance. Not fluffy enough. (...) are thoughts. /.../ are... I have no idea what you call it, but it's neither thought nor speech. Basically, it's what you'd LIKE to say, but don't. Discarded speech, maybe?

Feedback: PLEASE. And thank you.

He is lost in the forest of his own mind. She can tell just by looking at him. His eyes are distant, even for him. He does not seem to notice what is going on around him. His actions are automatic, as though he has fallen under the control of a waterclock or pulleys or something.

Look at tea. Lift teacup with both hands. Put teacup to lips. Tilt head. Sip. Put tea down. Repeat process.

He doesn't taste the tea. She is sure of it. He is acting out of habit, not out of volition.

She does not wonder when or where or why she learned to understand him so well. His actions, his motivations (in some small part), his desires... They are apparent to her. She knows what he wants or needs the same way she knows how to tell if her quarry has taken a certain path through the woods. She knows his moods as well as she knows her own and can decipher his blandest expressions with the ease of an eagle-eyed traveller reading a mile stone on the Tokaido.

"I wanted to give them flowers, once, but would not," he says. He says it in the same tone with which he sometimes recites koan.

/I know the sound of one hand clapping/ she wants to say. But she knows he would twist it until it became the sound of him attacking Okina, and not the way Shikijo laughed at her when she cried because she wanted to climb trees.

For once, she is the silent one. She is the one who watches the play of darkness and light in the Temple. They have not reversed roles. He does not fidget, he does not sigh. He is, as usual, single-minded in his determination to figure out whatever the hell it is he's trying to figure out. She wonders, sometimes, if it is healthy, how well she knows her Aoshi-sama.

Surely it is her imagination, but does she detect the shadows of leaves inside the Temple?

She blinks the illusion away. (Not enough sleep) she tells herself. (Go to bed earlier.)

"Even now, I cannot give them flowers... My hands are too stained. To kill flowers in honour of their deaths..."

Her vision seems to mist over for a moment. She is close to crying. How does he do this to her? What is the one quality within him that pulls every last thread in her heart? IS there a single quality, or is it his entire being? How can she convince him that she has not fallen in love with an illusion, that she does not love a monster?

She remembers her trips with Beshimi to the forests. Beshimi and Shikijo taught her to climb trees, and Aoshi watched without a smile on his lips. But there was something about his eyes. Even though he never smiled, she always knew she amused him. She pleased him.

"I remember," she says. (I remember you... I remember you, when you were shiny...) "I remember learning to climb trees. I remember falling. I remember who caught me."

He looks over at her. His expression has not changed, not really. The shiftings in his facial muscles don't really count as a change in expression. This is just a third form of blankness.

This is his puzzled face. The light catches in his eyes, and she could swear she sees a reflection of green in that endless blue. Green light, like the light that filters through leaves...

/So lost.../ She wants to whisper. /How do you get lost in the forests of your own mind/

But she is content that he has rebelled against the water clock. So she repeats the question to herself, knowing that he could not answer even if she asked. (How do you get lost in the forests of your own mind?)

EL FIN