I do not write this for monetary profit, nor do I own the characters I use which are already owned by someone else.
Suggested for mature readers only. Ü
mini-glossary:
okyaku-sama something like "honored guest"
shoji a rice paper sliding panel that acts as door / partition
Broken
by Mirune Keishiko
Winter, 11th year of Meiji (1877)
He sent them away for the night. He didn't particularly care where they went. He almost didn't care, either, that despite his orders they had probably remained in their rooms, awkward and uneasy and irresolute. Hyottoko and Shikijou would be making stupid jokes against the tension; Beshimi's laughter would be sharper and shriller than ever. Hannya would finally stand up, tired of the pretense, tired of the doubt, and remind them—as if they needed to be reminded—that their Okashira had never failed them yet, never yet faltered in his wisdom and judgment—
He felt the hollowness inside him echo with that thought.
His men would never truly doubt him, and so he doubted himself on their behalf.
In the vast lamp-starred darkness spreading before his eyes from where he stood on the balcony, Tokyo slept fitfully. Somewhere in that tangled sprawl, a drug dealer compulsively counted his money, now several thousand yen short.
Two hundred years of exalted service to the Shogun himself, and now...
There was a tapping at the shoji, and when Aoshi grunted his consent, a girl clad in the inn's uniform slid it open. Late though it was, Okami-san had prepared a lavish meal; the steam curled visibly from the teapot, the homey scent of miso filled the room. The girl laid out the trays, her movements silent and steady. Aoshi glanced idly over the dishes, noting their number and variety, knowing he would likely actually eat from only one or two. Clearly Okami-san knew nothing of the Okashira whom she still wished to honor, even now, even after everything that had happened here in Edo—or had not happened, as it were.
The girl finished arranging the meal and then—silent still—knelt in a corner near the door. She could not have been older than sixteen.
No, Okami-san obviously didn't know Shinomori Aoshi.
"Sh... shall I play the pipe for you, okyaku-sama?" said the girl, very softly, not raising her head from where she knelt gazing fixedly, appropriately, at the floor.
"No." Music was for those who would hide from the silence and the ugly truths that it whispered. "You may leave."
Aoshi watched as the girl bowed low and made for the door. He noticed, as she did, that the skin that peeked from underneath her collar was porcelain-smooth and clear, and warmly colored from the sun.
"Wait."
Obediently the girl stopped; she had been about to close the shoji behind her.
Aoshi covered the distance between them with swift strides, upturned her face to him with fingers firmly crooked under her chin. As the girl's eyes hesitantly drifted up to his, Aoshi felt an ache, very small and cold, blossom in the hollowness inside him.
He withdrew his hand; the girl bowed her head immediately, giving him that glimpse of sun-kissed skin again.
"On second thought... stay." He turned away, forcing himself to sound less tense, almost casual. "Tell me how you got... those eyes of yours."
He settled down to his meal and made himself eat, while the girl once again knelt in the corner and began, hesitantly, to speak. He didn't really want to know; he didn't even really pay attention to her halting, lightly accented speech. But he needed to hear her speak, to hear her almost mindless chatter, her words stumbling over themselves in the gaping silence that he returned. She seemed to take it as dissatisfaction with her response, and she rushed to fill the void with details, extraneous, inconsequential details like her little half-brother who had dark eyes just like everyone else, the name of the ship of the foreign sailor who had raped her mother, the fullness of the moon when she had been born...
And Aoshi tried not to stare at her unusual blue eyes as she rambled on; their color was that of the sea on a winter's day. They were not nearly as beautiful as another's, who had eyes like the ocean beneath a naked summer sun. But he had not seen her in many years, and this girl was enough for him to remember.
By now, she would be only a little younger than this nameless girl. Was she still as talkative? Still as cheerful? Did she still have that boundless energy that had tired out even well-trained warriors like Hannya, at the tender age of five?
She used to ramble on like this as well, but her voice—those many years ago—had been strong, bold and bright with childish confidence. She had thought nothing of scolding him for, say, staying out late when she had refused to sleep without his bedtime stories, or for abandoning their game of hide-and-seek for a sudden meeting with Okina and the others. He would always end up apologizing to her, oddly helpless before her fits of pouting, constrained despite himself by a longing to stay in her good graces, to have her grin and giggle at him again and imperiously demand horsy rides around the yard, or blizzards made of sakura petals or autumn leaves.
So he and his men had left while she was sleeping, a five-year-old blissfully snoring like a fifty-year-old. She would have cried against him otherwise, the tempestuous crybaby that she was, and he could not have her piercing his heart in the one soft spot that it unwillingly bore.
She would have accused him with those eyes of hers, blue as the ocean and shiny with tears a child knew not to hide; and he would have felt shame, grief, regret, as he could not have afforded to feel, still could not afford to feel, eight years on.
"Okyaku-sama? Have I displeased you?"
He started, only now realizing that he had become lost in his memories. And that the girl had crept close to him, stopping just short of touching him, her eyes wide and soft with concern as they settled on his face. The scent of soap and hair and clean, warm skin drifted to him, sweeter and more intoxicating than any perfume. He looked away, repulsed even as he was attracted, feeling revolted by the response that his body was making in spite of himself. He so rarely allowed himself the unique indulgence of a woman...
Young, so young! so like her! came the unbidden, desperate, angry thought. How cruel Fate was to send her to him, now, this night, after so long that he had not thought of her or of everything else he had left behind!
The girl had to be new, had to be ignorant and untrained—for he suddenly felt small, light hands upon his arm, a thoughtless, instinctive near-embrace.
At another time, under different circumstances, he would have thrown her aside, scorned her for her stupidity and impertinence; but she was warm and soft and temptingly close, the fresh smell of her skin enveloping him. He looked away from the sympathy shining in her eyes. Instead he fixed his gaze on the lightly tanned skin at the nape of her neck, where it peaked gently over the bones of her spine and sloped into the depths of her kimono. When she was this near to him, her strange eyes hidden from him, she did not seem so very young or so achingly similar to someone else; indeed she seemed almost a full-grown woman, like so many others that had been brought to him before, the way her hair was looped and pinned and oiled and the sleeve of her kimono tipped past her shoulder, baring more of smooth, richly colored skin.
And he needed to forget, now that he had remembered he needed to forget, needed to put all that behind him and never look back again. He would play hide and seek with the memories no longer; he could not allow such thoughts to weaken him and hold him back, not when he needed to make decisions for others in these unsettled times. His men—those who remained—needed him now more than ever. And so he would shut these from himself forever, these recollections of the child who was just as surely lost to him now as the child he might have been.
You... are not... her...
The thought burned in his mind as he gripped her slender shoulder tightly, far more tightly than he needed to, and stripped her with near-brutal efficiency; blindly he sought the comfort of warm female skin and soft curves, inwardly thankful that she had closed her sad, blue eyes. She made no sound, barely even whimpered as he bared her lithe body to him in equal, stony silence.
She is not... her...
The girl made little, hitching gasps, moving feebly beneath him, as he sucked her pebbled skin into his mouth. Her scent was strongest between her small breasts, soap and bathwater and a trace of musky sweat. No, this one was not quite a child any longer.
No... not any longer.
He slammed into her, noting with little surprise the agony that contorted her face as he did so, the strangled gasp that escaped her parted lips. He closed his eyes as she opened hers. He knew tears were running down her face; he could feel a hot droplet on his hand. Instead he focused on the raw, physical sensation of it all, the tight wet heated clamp of her flesh on his, the delicate shudders that racked her slender body.
Someone had to break you, sooner or later.
He was close already, so very hungrily close; she bore his hard, driving movements without complaint, even threading her fingers through his hair, as she bit her lip and shut her winter-blue eyes against the pain. He buried his nose in the softness of the skin between her arm and neck, nestling his cheek against her collarbone, two last, hazy words coalescing in his mind as he edged closer to his release—
Forgive me...
He left her slumbering in the futon while he rose and began to dress in the darkness of the room. Only her deep, muffled breaths stirred the silence. He glanced out the window; the predawn gray was just barely beginning to creep over the land.
A warrior always awoke before daybreak, and a leader always awoke before his men.
As he slid open the shoji, he paused.
She was awake, staring up into the darkness. Her quiet, even breathing and languid limbs spoke to him more of curiosity and wonder than any fear or worry or despair.
Not that it concerned him. He left, closing the shoji noiselessly in his wake, and headed down the hallway. There were many duties yet to be done, and he and his men had an early appointment to keep.
owari
A/N. About the date: The Meiji year, as far as I know, ran from one October to the next. Hence it's already the 11th year of Meiji even though it's only 1877.
I'd like to be fussy and point out that this shouldn't exactly be considered rape. It's not entirely nonconsensual (the girl really did feel sad for Aoshi), but besides that, as far as I know it was the custom at that time for girls to be sent up to inns' guests' rooms. Virgins, of course, were especially prized.
Feedback and constructive criticism very much appreciated. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed reading this angst-o-rama. Ü