Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ My January Years ❯ Chapter 1

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

My January Years

Author: Western Ink

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Angst/Romance

Pairing: Aoshi/Misao

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.

Author's Notes: This is angst-ridden, don't give out hope till the end.

It was that time of year again, she smiled, almost unable to contain her happiness.

It was Aoshi's birthday!

Aoshi, during their daily tea ritual that morning had surprised her when he informed her he didn't want her doing certain things.

She frowned and then smiled as she recalled it.

"Misao?"

The girl looked up from her tea cup, the steam still warming her face.

"Yes, Aoshi-sama?"

"My birthday is approaching," he stated, his voice flat.

She brightened. "I know."

"I would like you to do something for me."

She nodded. "Anything you want."

"Dissuade Okina from throwing me a party as he is currently planning one week from now."

Her lips thinned into a frown. "You don't want a party?"

Her voice was soft and saddened, but he was unmoved by her expression.

"No." His tone was crisp and definite.

She tilted her head to the side as though contemplating it. "I'll agree to talk Jiya out of throwing you a party if you agree not to spend you birthday holed up in this Temple."

His eyes brightened with surprise at her suggestion.

Or ultimatum as it were.

"You will only do so if I agree not to spend the day here?" he paused briefly. "What would you have me do?"

She half smiled at him. "You say that like you expect me to start naming off chores or something."

He didn't say anything, he merely waited patiently for her to continue on with her conditions.

"Take a walk with me."

"A walk?" he questioned.

She nodded. "I have something I'd like to show you."

He hesitated, watching her intensely as though some aspect of her behavior bothered him. "There is no need to wait, I will go with you now..."

She shook her head, unable to push away the sadness that suddenly swept over her.

"No, we can't go now. Agree to the walk then and I'll talk Jiya out of the party."

She kept her voice firm and tried to push away the sadness. It didn't go without a fight, but finally, she managed it.

Aoshi still watched her, looking slightly conflicted.

Was it that big a thing that he couldn't agree to talk a walk with her on his birthday? she wondered.

He finally nodded. "Of course."

She had left him after that half happy, half sad.

Maybe the sadness was silliness on her part. She hadn't gotten any bad news. She hadn't heard any rumors, salacious or otherwise. No one had hinted that Aoshi was getting too old for her to be crushing over. She'd heard nothing of him dating any other women, or even having seen any for that matter. He hadn't rejected her attentions, nothing so overt had happened.

So why the sadness?

It had been six years.

Truthfully, she was starting to feel old.

It hadn't really occurred to her, not really. Not until a few weeks ago when she'd met up with some people. They weren't friends of hers, just business people she knew through the Aoiya.

It wasn't that Kaoru had married Kenshin and that they had children, it wasn't really the children of her friends around town.

Well... maybe it sort of was.

More than anything was the lines.

The lines in peoples faces.

The lines of age... and she knew, sooner or later they would eventually appear on her own.

That was what had struck her a couple of weeks ago. It had been a stranger's off mark comment about mortality that made her realize that waiting forever for Aoshi was a long time.

She had, for the first time seemed to understand, she had only one life. But it wasn't that that had bothered her, it was the realization that she'd spent every second of that one life waiting for him, and she wasn't sure he understood it.

She wasn't sure he understood how much he meant to her - how much she'd do for him.

That was where it had all come from.

It was overwhelming, it was the absolute pit of despair.

She'd tried to hold it in but couldn't. When she broke down crying in the Aoiya kitchen she'd run out the back before anyone saw her and vanished for days.

For two days she'd wandered around. She'd had presence of mind to send a carrier message to the Aoiya and they were always good about obeying her wishes and leaving her be.

For two days she'd wandered in obscurity, hardly eating, lurking anonymously in the shadows of the giant city of Kyoto.

For two days she'd felt small and worthless and underappreciated.

And then she went home.

No one questioned where she'd been, but she could see it in their faces. She saw it in Aoshi's face, the worry in his eyes. She'd gotten angry at him for it, and he hadn't understood it.

He didn't understand and she didn't understand and maybe no one really did.

That made it all worse.

She thought he saw her as a child, but then, he hadn't come after her either.

Maybe that was part of the anger, too. She'd asked to be left alone and they had accepted that. Maybe they never told Aoshi where she was or what she was doing. Maybe they had lied to him about where she'd been.

There were so many "maybes".

But that had been a while ago. The overwhelming feelings had faded, but the sudden awareness of time and life hadn't.

She was racing time for Aoshi.

She wondered if he knew it.

What would come first? The love she wanted from Aoshi? The lines on her face? Or maybe even sudden, unexpected death?

Yeah, sometimes she was depressed.

But that didn't matter, because it was almost Aoshi's birthday and that made her happy. She'd had a dream, that was what had inspired her to ask about taking a walk.

Hannya had been there, guiding her. He'd led her someplace beautiful and she had followed the same path in daylight as Hannya had led her in her dreams and found it was real.

She didn't know the significance of the location, but Hannya had promised her. The message had been simple.

"Bring Aoshi-sama here."

And she intended to do it.

She couldn't explain why she didn't accept his offer to go outside of his birthday. She didn't want to admit to herself that, previously she'd jumped at the chance of spending time with him, now she wasn't as apt to do so. Sometimes the silences and the questioning stares and just his flat out presence... well, it kind of hurt.

It made her sad in a way that something deep in her ached.

It wasn't longing, although that feeling was still there.

It was more the deep hurt that resulted when someone close to you died. It was... grief.

Sometimes she felt like Aoshi had died and she was grieving for him and he was sitting right next to her.

She didn't think he understood that. She certainly didn't, because sometimes, when something happened he really enjoyed, he looked alive.

Aoshi was a music fan, a lover of an instrument called the violin. It was beautiful and expensive and foreign.

He couldn't play it, but he loved it.

He'd confided in her once that he'd heard the instrument first working for Kanyruu. Aoshi didn't talk much and the admission had surprised her. She'd have loved to have taken him to a musical hall or show, but there were none to be had at this time of year.

Oh.

She looked up.

She was daydreaming the day away...

"Misao?"

She turned, trying to cast off her angst ridden daydreams and looked toward the doorway where Okina appeared. His face was downcast and she could tell from the way he stood and the very shadow of his eyes he was about to give her bad news.

"I have bad news for you."

Of course, she knew that already. He knew she knew he was about to tell her something she wouldn't like, but he always said it anyway. As though he couldn't get through the announcement without first beginning that way.

"Okay, what's up?"

She tried to sound cheerful, tried but they both knew she was dreading whatever he was about to say.

"I'm afraid there's been a problem come up. You recall how you told me you and Aoshi had plans for his birthday?"

She nodded.

"I'm afraid he won't be able to make it. I need Aoshi to handle some Oniwabanshuu business, I'm sorry, it can't be delayed."

Her shoulder sagged and she dry swallowed, trying to push away the disappointment.

There was no surprise left her.

She nodded. "I understand, it can't be helped."

He didn't have to say he was sorry, she knew he was. No one was sorrier than her.

But was she sorry he wasn't going to be here, or sorry that she wasn't going to have to face him on his birthday?

Okina quietly left her and she rose slowly. It was only three days until his birthday, he was probably already gone.

As she reached the top landing and padded into the sanctuary of he room, her feet slowed even more. The shoji door clicked as the frames tapped and she bit her lip.

Maybe it wasn't the fact she feared Aoshi still saw her as a little girl...

That wasn't really what she thought, but she'd been fighting it. Desperately trying to convince herself otherwise.

Her throat hurt badly, her chest ached, her eyes stung... she was going to cry, she tried to fight it off.

It had been six years.

She wasn't worried Aoshi saw her as a little girl.

She was worried Aoshi saw her as a woman he had no interest in.

She choked on a hitched breath and the tears spilled past her defenses. Words she'd never wanted to acknowledge blazed in her mind.

Blazed and burned and glowed, because no matter what she told herself, she couldn't escape them. There was no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Aoshi treated her exactly the same as Omasu and Okon.

Exactly.

She was no one special.

Maybe she wasn't even the little girl he'd raised for a time. Maybe that was a memory and she was...

She was... just another nameless, faceless... woman.

She cried because it hurt.

She cried because it made her angry.

And she cried because the tears wouldn't die.

It rained.

It rained on Aoshi's birthday.

The entire Aoiya seemed quiet that day, as though someone had died and no one dared mention their name. No one had, in fact, mentioned Aoshi since he'd left.

That alone made her wonder if maybe he hadn't just gone on a mission, but had left.

Really left, to go wandering like Kenshin had all those years ago. She'd even confronted Okina about it and he'd denied it, reassuring her it really was just business as usual.

She'd seen the worry there. Not worry for Aoshi, worry for her. Maybe she'd been overreacting.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

She hated maybes.

The rain cleared up after that, or she thought it had. A few days later, it rained again.

And that time, it rained for days.

In a way that was completely illogical to her, the rain made it all worse.

Four days after Aoshi's birthday, he came back. He was soaked through. He wasn't sick. He wasn't hurt.

She listened to his footsteps take him past her door and to his own during the night hours.

He didn't stop by to see her, she didn't expect him to. He went to his room and closed the door.

It had been four days.

Where was he for a total of seven days?

Okina had told her he would be back at or around his birthday, but he suspected it might run a day over. Instead, he'd run three days over.

What was he doing those three days?

She wondered, she agonized, and she worried over it.

Three days.

The possibility of him in another woman's arms suddenly seemed like such a real possibility. Maybe he'd walked past a brothel and caught the eye of courtesan and decided to indulge himself.

Maybe, maybe.

She imagined him kissing another woman.

She imagined him touching another woman.

She imagined him doing all the things she wanted him to do to her... to someone else.

And she hated it.

And she cried because it hurt.

She cried because she felt helpless and she had always told herself she was never helpless.

Weak people were helpless.

And she cried because she was getting old.

And nothing, absolutely nothing would stop that.

And she cried because she was afraid. Because up till that point she'd never really thought she could've spent her life loving a man who would never love her back.

As she lay, crying away the tears she thought would never cry again, she knew her heart was finally broken.

And it only seemed to hurt even more.

Dawn was bright and beautiful at the Aoiya.

Misao missed it.

She woke two or so hours later and moved sluggishly about her room. It was one of her scheduled days to work in the Aoiya, so she donned a kimono instead of her ninja uniform.

She kept kunai sheaths beneath the sleeves along her arms and she even had a couple strapped to her legs in case she ever got into "situation". She actually had, once or twice. Nothing she would ever dare to tell the others about though.

Though the guys who'd come after her were complete low life's who got rightfully pummeled, by her, the memory kind of made her feel good. Because those two guys, separate incidents, had ... well... wanted her.

There had been no ulterior motives.

When she realized what she was thinking and the looks other people might give her for such thoughts she quickly lifted her head and left the room. She didn't do anything special over her appearance, she rarely felt the need.

She knew what she looked like, the others knew, the customers didn't care.

The rain had stopped.

She followed the stairs down, the others were milling around.

Well, actually the others were already prepping the Aoiya to open later. She still had like two hours before the customers would appear.

She wandered into the dining room and found Okina there. She was surprised to see Aoshi there too. She sat down where she normally sat and greeted them both with smiles.

Okina smiled and returned the cheerful greeting, Aoshi merely nodded in her direction without looking up.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, looking at Okina. "You seem sad."

He shook his head. "No, nothing is wrong. Are you sad?"

She was puzzled. "No."

His smile seemed a little more genuine then. "Good. Then we are all fine."

She knew she'd missed something and whatever it was Aoshi knew about it and she didn't. But she didn't ask, they wouldn't tell her.

Sometimes, no matter how old you got, you were still the baby and they still kept things from you. She'd stopped fighting it ages ago.

Breakfast came and went at its usual pace with the exception that Aoshi was there. Misao tried to ignore that since it was throwing her off a little bit. Okina surprised her when he asked to talk to her in his office and, bewildered, she agreed.

"In case you were wondering, Aoshi's mission was completed successfully." He smiled and she didn't.

"Actually, I hadn't really thought about that."

She was not acting as Okashira anymore, but it didn't matter, nothing had changed. Except that Okina was getting more frail by the year. He wouldn't live forever, another something she didn't want to acknowledge.

"Misao..." She looked up at his voice. "You look tired."

She looked away, downward toward the floor. She was tired. Not a little bit tired, the bone heavy, weighted kind of tired that had nothing to do with lack of sleep. It was the weight of her depression, the weight of her sadness and her unhappiness clinging to her like heavy, wet clothes she couldn't peel off.

She nodded numbly.

"That's what happens, Jiya," she murmured, raising her eyes to his. "...when you get old."

They were both standing near the open window. His eyes were sad and burdened when their gazes met.

"Is that what's been bothering you?" his voice was hushed and soft and his pain at being unable to help her was evident. It bled through his voice straight to her ears.

She nodded and he opened his arms and she leaned into his embrace. "I'm sorry..." she murmured. "I keep thinking to myself, what have I done? My life is gone, what have I done with it? But it's too late to do anything else and... I'm tired of crying and I can't stop because... " She sniffled. "It won't stop hurting."

She cried against him and he held her patiently.

"You don't need to work today, Misao, we can handle it without you."

She shook her head. "I have to. If I'm doing something at least I'm not thinking about it."

He shook his head. "What about Aoshi?"

She looked up, totally dazed. "What?"

"Don't you have plans together? He's waiting for you."

She shook her head. "He's the last person I want to see..."

"Do you not love him anymore?"

She smiled bitterly. "I love him more than anything. I'd give everything I have for him, but it doesn't change anything. It doesn't make it not hurt."

Okina smiled tenderly, rubbing her back comfortingly. "Then go on your little trip with him, Misao. A man has a birthday only once a year, surely, for the man you love, you can bear it."

She straightened and something about the words strengthened her heart and she smiled.

Bright and real and genuine. "Yeah. I can."

She managed to plead a half hour more out of Aoshi. When an half hour became almost forty-five minutes and then an hour, he never complained, he just waited.

Omasu, after yanking and pulling and being generally annoying, finally gave in and helped Misao find a piece of cloth and then promptly sent her away. She found him where she'd left him, in the dining room.

"Aoshi-sama?"

He looked up at her call and stood, stretching slowly as though he'd sat for a long time and she didn't doubt he'd done just that.

"Okay, before we go I have one condition."

"Condition?" he questioned.

She nodded and pulled her hand out from behind her back revealing a long strip of fabric. "You trust me, don't you, Aoshi-sama?"

He didn't answer, he just stared at the cloth curiously.

"What's the condition?"

"You get blindfolded until we get there."

He just stared for a moment. "How is it I am meeting your conditions for my birthday?"

His voice wasn't bitter or anything, just the same old dead-pan Aoshi.

She smiled sweetly. "Because I talked Jiya out of a birthday party for you."

He agreed and she tied the blindfold around his eyes when they stepped outside. She tried to refrain from touching him too much and then drew away.

"Can you see anything?" she waved a hand in front of his face. He didn't react, he probably wouldn't have even if he could really see her doing it.

"No," he responded.

"Good," she chirped and took his big hand in hers and led him off.

The hour hadn't been an hour for nothing. She'd had the kitchen staff prepare a lunch for her and Aoshi-sama and once she'd explained it was for his birthday surprise the grumblings had disappeared and they'd all complied.

So, birthday supplies and birthday boy finally checked off her list, she headed out of town, following the path Hannya had given to her in a dream.

They didn't speak on the way there and along the way sweat from their hands accumulated between their palms but neither let go. Aoshi was good at following non-verbal cues and when she stopped, he stopped.

The trip was relatively long, especially for one they were only going to stay at for a couple hours. It was almost two hours before they arrived and by the time they got there, she felt bad about leaving him blindfolded the whole time.

He didn't complain though.

"Okay!" she chimed. "We are here. Blindfold off!"

He complied, untying the cloth and pulling it away. He shook his head and wiped his hand across his forehead as though the cloth had been irritating and looked around.

At first, he didn't react and she thought it had been a complete waste of time to bring him out here. But as his eyes drifted over the treetops, she could see recognition and familiarity there and wondered what this place was.

He stepped past her without a word, walking toward something behind her. There was a set of stones in the earth, tall and fat and pointed. She hoped this wasn't a gravesite, but she didn't know who could possibly be buried here.

"Do you know what this place is?" he asked, his voice a quiet and sedate timbre.

She glanced around at the beautiful scenery. "Um... pretty?"

He smirked at her and it was clearly the wrong answer. "What brought you here?"

She shifted. "Well..."

He turned his eyes completely toward her and she felt compelled to answer. No one looked Aoshi straight in the eye and refused to answer.

"Hannya told me."

Aoshi's surprise was immediate and visibly apparent.

"You ... You can't remember that far back." He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than her.

"I don't remember a thing about it, I don't have the first clue what this clearing is. Hannya told me in a dream I had a while ago. I came afterwards and found out it was actually a real place."

Aoshi seemed to be in awe of the information and the settled for a time in silence. Misao admired it.

It really was just an ordinary clearing, but at night time when she'd had the dream, it had been beautiful.

Granted, it was pretty, but it wasn't the glowing sight it had been in her dream.

"Did he say anything?"

His voice was strained, as though he were pained to ask it.

"He said to bring you here. That was it."

She had turned her back to him, not to avoid him or not to look at him, but simply to look around.

"This was your playground," he answered.

"What?" She turned back, stunned at the very possibility. "Say that again."

"This was your playground. I sat with you in my lap, right here, when the afternoons turned to dusk. We would watch the others practice. This was our practice field. We couldn't be too close to the Aoiya then."

"And then what?"

"We used this field up until the time I left the Aoiya," he answered.

He looked back at the stone structure he had sat himself.

"This was built for us."

Huh?

"Us?" she questioned, before she realized she'd said it aloud.

"Shikijou and Hyokkotto laid these rocks here. You called it my rock throne and we would sit here and watch over the others."

She smiled softly, but it was tainted with sadness.

"You called me the ninja king and Hannya and the others bowed and you said..." he trailed off and she could hear the pain his voice.

It was thick and filled her lungs and made it hard to breath.

"I'm sorry, Aoshi-sama," she murmured, tears glittering in her eyes again. "I didn't want to make you sad for your birthday."

He ducked his head briefly and then looked up again and motioned for her. His knees were apart and he pulled her near, between them. He looked at her, and cupped her face in his hands, his voice earnest when he spoke.

"You aren't old, Misao."

She knew, then, he'd overheard probably everything she'd said to Okina that morning.

"You haven't wasted your life on me."

It hurt and she was so tired of hurting, but his voice was so sincere. He pulled her close and her knees buckled and met the stone he was sitting on, their bodies close.

He pulled his arms around her and she clutched at him.

His breath was at her ear. "You told me I'd be your king forever and you'd never leave me."

She smiled, wrapping her arms up around his neck holding him tight. "I won't. I won't ever leave you. I'd waste my life on you all over again, even if it hurt this much."

He moved, pulling her back from him and she struggled a bit, not wanting to let him go.

"But I won't be anymore giving, Aoshi-sama. I don't want you to be anyone's else's king, I can't just give you up to someone else."

Her sadness was turned to astonishment as his lips met hers. She felt herself being moved and didn't realize what was going on, nothing outside of the fierce, ardent pressure of his lips, his mouth against hers.

She moaned when she felt the solid pressure of the ground beneath her back. He lifted his head and she giggled, feeling like a teenager all over again.

"So, you're giving me you for your birthday, Aoshi-sama?"

He didn't answer and she could see it in his eyes. He didn't want to talk anymore, he wanted to love her.

She opened her arms to him and he leaned down into her embrace. They'd wasted years pining and worrying over each other, they didn't really need to talk about it.

Maybe they'd understood each other all along. Maybe they really hadn't. It didn't matter.

Aoshi's name became Misao's moan carried on the wind as they clung to one another.

Aoshi's birthday had come and gone and neither seemed to mourn it much. Later, Misao would attach specific significance to it and naughtily insist they "celebrate it" in their field where Aoshi was her King.

Aoshi never complained.

Author's Notes: Not what I intended when I first started writing this, most days nothing turns out like I planned it, but I was generally happy with it.