May All Be Pain or Love

The first thing I noticed when I walked back through the halls was that Kozi was no longer in my room. With no one there to pay any attention to him I could only imagine he'd gotten bored and maybe a little bit resentful and had slunk out with his nine phantom tails tucked sullenly between his legs. It was all the better. I wasn't in any mood to banter with him, but I thought it a little strange that in my current frame of mind I would rather have suffered his presence than Kyo's and that made me even more upset than I had been.

When I'd gone half the length of the house I had felt the same stiffness in my joints from earlier in the morning but this time it was coupled with a subtle shifting in my chest that came aside a stinging sensation and a slight but annoying wave of nausea that sent me scrambling through one of the open air walks so that I could gift the contents of my empty stomach onto a poorly kept and probably currently disgruntled bush, specifically a partially bare yew that curiously reminded me of old Somura's beard. I insulted the thing in this way for almost a quarter of an hour before my stomach settled. Once it had I righted myself on shaky legs, left hand braced against the side of the wall, and I realized that Midori and Eri, our prettiest kunoichi, were staring at me from the other side of the unfortunate hedge with a look of wide eyed wonderment. Unfortunately Kyo, Toshiya and Naoya were also staring at me from their places on the lower part of the hill. I wondered if they had all watched my performance with the bush as well. I assumed so since despite the turned down expression of annoyance on Kyo's face his eyes were entirely concerned. It was strange to find that it pissed me off somehow.
"Are you alright?" Midori asked cautiously as though I was about to target her next.
"Wonderful." I groaned, trying my best to sound pitiful because at that moment all I wanted was a little bit of sympathy. Something I seemed to be getting very little of despite all that I had endured. I was trying my hardest not to look down at the bush for fear I would become ill again, but I had glanced down partially nevertheless and noticed at least that some of the leaves were tinted a soft reddish color. I was mesmerized by it until she spoke again.
"Were you looking for Kyo-sama...er...before..." she politely (and quite discreetly I might add) gestured to the bush and I flushed with embarassment. "Because if you are he's just..."
"I see him." I said almost hatefully and he glared at me.
In a flash my irritation reinstated itself and I glowered at her. "I'll not speak to him today."
She gave me a small, bewildered nod and I decided to regain something of my displaced dignity by holding my head high and walking back into the house angrily and continuing through the halls as though I hadn't just been trolling for sympathy or half-hugging a decorative shrubbery. I felt stupid and graceless and as affable as a dog that was caught licking himself in the middle of a busy road and I was sure that it was Kyo's fault and if it wasn't then it should have been because I was past taking blame for anything just then.


As I came upon my grandmother's room I noticed three things amiss: The shoji door had been left unclosed (which was insanely rude), bits of mud and debris marked footprints into the room and she was sitting at her table sipping tea with a very relaxed, very familiar redhead with very dirty feet. Instantly I caught myself sighing dismally. The only thing I wanted to do was pour my heart out to the woman and I knew that wasn't going to happen with him grinning like...well, a fox, in such close proximity. She caught me staring in disbelief and smiled broadly. "Oh Kaoru! Kozi's just been telling me what had happened to you. I can't believe you're still standing. If only your grandfather had had half that stamina he would never have died before his time."
"What is he doing here?!" I blurted out before I realized it sounded very rude.
"I was..." he began but she finished for him in her excitement. "He came to visit me! Wasn't that sweet!?"
I decided that nodding was the only action I could give without seeming rude, because if there was one person I couldn't stand to offend in any way it was her. "You know each other then?"
Once again he looked as though he were going to speak but let her instead. "He and I are very old friends."
Kozi's smile was sly and brief and then he went back to sipping his tea. "Old, Yumi?" There was a sort of airy sigh that came through his nose and the light air disturbed the surface of his drink.
"Ancient." She quipped back at him. "At least you are. I'm not ready to be ancient just yet."
The fox's smiles were different with her than with anyone else, more modest and respectful as opposed to his usual lewd and sinister ones. I kept concentrating on them as if they were some great mystery that needed solving.
"How long have you..."
"Known him?" She finished. "Oh heavens! Ages! Near on sixty years I'm sure. I remember because I was a twenty something beauty and he was..."
In a lazy gesture Kozi held a long finger to his lips. "Shh, Yumi. Don't expose all my secrets, dear." His tone was so perfectly gentle that I had to wonder if he was the same person I had spoken to earlier.
She smiled devilishly at him. "Well...he wasn't young."
"But I was beautiful." He added with a grin and she nodded. "I seem to remember telling you I knew a fox spirit, Kaoru. Don't you remember?"
Confused and a little numb I nodded. I did remember but it had never dawned on me that my grandmother would have ever gotten along with Kozi of all ...people. The thought briefly crossed my mind that he was up to something but I couldn't get myself to believe it, not with the way he was being skittish around her. When she moved to pour him more tea he had pulled his hands away from her as if afraid to touch her and get infected by age.

Kozi didn't sip his tea this time, he drank it quickly and then set the cup and his hands flat on the table. "There needs to be a talk, don't you think?" He said to me, his eyes bright and focused.
"I've said enough to be satisfied." I said kindly, still trying my best to keep from seeming rude but I wasn't fond of the idea that he wanted to speak with me alone. There seemed to be a rash of bad things that followed whenever that happened.
"I haven't." He cleared his throat and rose from the table, stretching languidly. "I'll come visit you again if you'd like." He said to my grandmother and she stood and smiled.
The sight of her fondly patting the fox's rear mortified me. And it was clear I wasn't the only person it made ill at ease, Kozi looked rattled for the first time since I'd met him. "I'd love it. I had such a wonderful time catching up."
Kozi chuckled nervously and removed the wrinkled hand that was still lingering near his backside. "Yumi, I've half a mind to cut off your hands. You've gotten old person all over me..." He brushed off his clothing, plainly overwraught at the idea that she might have left traces of her mortality on him and then gave her a startlingly sweet smile and walked to the door.

Having stopped in the doorframe he looked over his shoulder at me and the way his profile was tilted seemed evidence of an attempted seduction or else I was just being paranoid again. "Aren't you going to follow me?" He asked and I gasped a little because he had said just the same thing to Kyo before they...
Just to be wry I answered just as Kyo had, "I wonder if I should." But the distress of it was that I had already started to trail after him.


Before I got out the door he threw a hand out and looked crossly at me. "I thought I taught you manners, kitten. Say goodbye to your grandmother."
A little sound of disbelief forced its way past my lips, finding it incredibly strange that he was accusing me of losing my manners with her when he had tracked mud all over her room, still I bowed politely to my grandmother and then followed him as he strolled out the door.

We walked down the hall to a room that was used mainly for entertaining guests. Furnishings were sparse, a low table and floor lamps but the walls were decorated with scrolls and antique art. I sat down next to the table but he arranged himself by the door frame, his pose not indecent as usual but composed and almost refined. The only telling of his uncultured attitude was his dirt covered feet and immodest state of dress. The rest of him seemed polished enough to pass as a person of mores and not the wild forest spirit that he was. He was playing with the little braids that cascaded over his chest almost shyly as he waited for me to acknowledge his presence.

"Please tell me you two never..." Trailing off I gave him a look that hopefully conveyed the words I didn't want to say.
And Kozi understood because he made the same face one makes when they've smelled something vastly unpleasant. "Kaoru, I told you not to insult me."
"Then you haven't..."
"NO!" he almost shouted. "No...not ever. She and I...well she's quite a woman. We were once great friends. She's almost as bad as me, you know." he smirked. "But I had no idea you were her grandson. No wonder I like you."
He crossed his arms over his chest. "Now, I wanted to tell you that I appreciate you thanking me earlier, even if it was sidled with cynicism."
I couldn't help but grin a little, "You picked up on it then?"
"You didn't make it very hard to see." He grinned back. "Incidentally, and this is a first for me so I expect you to feel very special..." In the few seconds he paused his face underwent several changes of expression, all of which painted discomfort. "I'm going to do that thing where I admit to having done something regretable and redeem myself...as best I can."
Honestly, I was stunned. "You're going to apologize?!"
"Don't make it sound so important." he laughed.
"Well..." I waited for him to continue.
He stared at me in confusion for a minute before he jerked back against the door, realizing what I expected him to say. "Oh! I thought I'd done it already." I only shook my head.
"My..." he laughed. "This is uncomfortable. No wonder you humans would rather kill one another in liu of redress." He brushed his hands over his arms. "Do you feel messy when you do this?! Oh, it doesn't matter, if you don't, you should, it's horrifying. Listen... " He sighed dramatically. "Since this is a...well, a concept unfamiliar, if you will, you could take pity on me and pretend I've done it and know that... I meant...whatever it is I'm supposed to have said."
Since it was already an enormous step for him I agreed.
Silence fell again and neither one of us looked at the other. Occasionally I would glance to the feet that shifted impatiently on the tatami, watching the small bits of dirt and grass fall against the straw. The concept of keeping clean feet in the house was also something he wasn't a practitioner of, but since I had forgone the custom as well that day I decided it wasn't important. I tried to keep my focus from straying up from his feet and onto the legs I knew were in beautiful position above. Finally he crossed his ankles and I looked up at him. "I realize I'm not the easiest person to get on with, but you're going to have to deal with that on your own. I'm selfish and..."
"I've noticed." I said loudly, but he ignored both my tone and the insult.
"Let me finish and then you can be cheeky." Kozi finally pushed himself fully into the room and, throwing manners out the window, sat on the table in front of me which unfortunately put me in a vantage where I could almost see up his short robe. God help me but once I found myself actually trying. "I'm selfish and maybe a little impulsive, and I know you think I'm a whore..."
"But?"
He raised a thin eyebrow. "But...I'm not going to leave."
"This is not your house." I calmly commented.
"These are not your woods." He replied, his accented tone sugar sweet despite the sterness of the words. Kozi leaned forward so that his elbows rested on his knees. "Wish me away all you like, but whether you like it or not, you're in my world. Everything from Kiyomizu to Sennyuji is mine. Kyo knows it, and let me tell you something...Miyamoto would have fallen without the alliance he and I had arranged."
"Kyo is stronger than you." I said softly.
"Ugh, would you stop putting him on a pedestal. Yes, he's strong, but that strength is both untapped and unpredictable. He wasn't holding out as well as you think. Kaoru, I'm not saying all of this to try and instill respect for me. I'm not even going to bother. You can think whatever you like. I'm not trying to intimidate you either."
"Then what is your point?" I snapped.
"Just that Miyamoto and the oni bargained for cooperation and you're going to have to accept that. Now, as I was saying before you interrupted, I'm not going to leave so you might as well try and get along with me as best you can and I'll do the same, but there are some things that I have to say to keep the peace."
"For instance?"
"If you don't want me to touch you...stop getting hard when you look at me." He purred out and I noticed with horror that I was actually a little turned on. "Kitsune can smell arousal, so if you're throbbing when you look at me that tells me you want me to touch you, not the other way around. That's instinct and I'll tell you now that I don't plan on trying to control it. It's pointless so you're going to have to take preventative measures yourself." He smiled when I crossed my legs on the bed. "Secondly, for what it's worth...if I had known you before now I may never have touched him." He paused to contemplate then reclaimed his statement. "Well...I might have, but I would have felt sorry for it."
"I'm supposed to believe that?" I wondered outloud.
"Actually...it is a little much. Nevermind, the truth of it is if I had known you before now I would have had you both and neither of you would have complained." He smiled at me and I tried not to return it but failed. I wanted to be angry at him, but the truth of it was that I kind of liked the bastard.
"I'm surprised you're not trying for that now." I commented.
"Give me time." His bright smile spoke volumes and I was a little nervous as to what it insinuated.
I sighed, "Would it work the same way if you pretended I apologized as well?"
"Yes." he said. "I think that's exactly how it would work."
After giving him a brief smile, bordering somewhere between pleasant and uncomfortable, I stood to leave.
"Kitten." he called out softly and I grumbled silently at the name but acknowledged him anyway.
"Fox?"
Kozi paused, fingers running back and forth over his lips and for a minute his worried expression disturbed me. Then he gave a soft laugh to himself but that curious look never left him. "Nothing."



o o o


Miyamoto's private bath was dark, despite the lamps littered along the outer reaches of the room, the dark wood that completely enshrouded the chamber absorbed the yellow light almost completely. The only practical illumination came from the keyhole cuts in the top of the room where the sick sunlight of late afternoon tried desperately to shine through the gloom. I leaned against the wall and sighed deeply, silently looking forward to the hot water on my skin but dreading the quiet and the knowledge that I was only giving myself ample time to dwell on the fact that Kyo was detached from me for possibly the final time and I had no idea where we went wrong.
"Kaoru." My world collapsed when Kyo's ascetic voice strayed into the room. "Are you alright?" He tried to take my hand in his but I pulled it away and rooted myself to the hardwood. I knew that if I let him touch me it would be the end of it. All my efforts to rebel would have died and I would fall into pretense again.

"Don't." I stared at the floor, counting the biggest bands in the woodgrain so that I could have something else to concentrate on besides his face. "Please, don't touch me." I said in the kindest way possible because I didn't mean it to offend as much as I wanted him to rethink his unconscious invocation of power over me and how helpless it would make me feel.

I didn't look at him but from his tone of voice I imagined his face was glowering with contempt of me. "Fine!" He kicked aside the wooden washbucket that was near my feet and it spiraled across the floor and into the steaming bath. I didn't even look up to acknowledge he'd done it. Like a dead fish the bucket bobbed in the water until I walked the few feet to the edge of the bath and brought it out. Bowing my head I poured the overflow of water it contained over my hair and watched through the wet distortion as it fell into the grates embedded into the mahogany floorboards as though it were heavy as molten steel. A splash of gold was thrown at my feet and I put my foot on the thing before it washed down the drains as well. Anger rose through me when I realized it was the chain I'd given him.

"I thought you grew up, but you're no better than you were." he hissed at me, but his voice wavered with sadness. "Still married to jealousy. Well, go drown in it on your own."
"Jealousy..." I whispered through clenched teeth. "You think this is still about jealousy?"
"Isn't it?"
I flipped my hair back and it made a trail in the air. I could hear the drops of water hit the ground seconds later and feel the wet mass soak through the back of my kimono. "I followed you!" I yelled, trying to swallow past the lump in my throat but it just felt bigger than before. "I watched you touch him...kiss him after your tongue had just been in my mouth. So what if I felt jealous. Shouldn't I? Do you think I should have been happy?"
He tensed, and I could tell by the way his eyes darted around that he hadn't known I was there.

"You said you were afraid of losing part of you..." I stared at the chain that half-hung in the drain underneath my feet. "Now I've lost my heart and myself and I wonder if I'll ever feel either again. My body feels as though it were made of pain and I'm wondering why I had to endure all of that if it didn't even make a difference." I looked him in the eye but his usual stoic veil guarded him. "I was already dead to you. Nothing's changed except now I have the scars to prove it. Now I feel it." I said, and picked up the piece of jewelry from the floor. A good portion of it hung out of my fist like a whip.

"You're just being dramatic." He sighed as though anything I felt was inconsequential.
Just out of spite I threw the chain at him as hard as I could and it whipped across his face in a very satisfying way. I hope it stung. "You're a bastard." I said, not accusingly but as though I were realizing it for the first time. "When I saw you today you looked so broken, so mad with grief that I believed it was real. Then once you'd had me you played between concern and indifference. I've realized now which you was real. You're a good actor."
Static clouds of dizziness weighed down my head and they were adamant I sit down, so I fumbled for the dark wooden bench that ran along the wall. "I'm tired of caring about you. All it does is hurt."

"I wasn't acting." Unsteady legs brought him to where I sat and he wrapped his strong arms around my neck, climbing onto me as slowly as a person could, but it felt like wasted effort to me. But even though it hurt, even though my anger threatened to devour my mind I knew I would love him until I died, but just then I couldn't stand the insincerity so...

Kyo let out a gasp of surprise when I literally threw him off of me and he tumbled ungracefully backward into the bath.

"I trust your tears as much as if it were the kasha weeping." I growled at him. "You and he have both blackened my heart. There's nothing left for you to destroy. Why are you even trying?"

His head shot up and uncertainty and--was that fear?--washed over his face. "Kaoru..."
"Will you listen to me for once in your life!" I yelled. "Four years, Kyo? I wasn't enough for four years?! And I'm supposed to believe that I'm enough now!?"
"Kaoru, please just..." he begged but I didn't want to hear it. He saw it in my eyes and began to weep.
I scoffed. "Don't you dare cry again. You're not going to make me feel guilty anymore, I'm tired of feeling your shame by proxy. It's time you felt it for once." I glared into his eyes, looking at him as if he were nothing to me, but I think it hurt me more than it did him. "Survive it. I had to."

His laughter, more insane than risible, was born inside a wave of sarcasm. "Survive, Kaoru? You've been dead for years. I just didn't have the heart to tell you." he spat, tears still streaming from his eyes.
"Kyo." I warned but he stood up fast and the water came up with him and then crashed back down with a turbulence that ran deafening in the otherwise silent room.
"You are nothing!" The walls echoed his scream as though they were speaking amongst themselves and all on the subject of my worthlessness. "You are the likeness of a man I loved more than life and that's the only thing that makes me touch you."

Kyo reeled and fell back down into the water again when I'd jumped down into the bath and hit him...hard enough to bloody his nose which was bleeding swirling shapes into the water. He let out a sob that was meant to be grieving but sounded more like a cheerless laugh and he touched the blood once to observe it on his fingers before he just let it fall without care.

There was nothing but the pacific drift of the water and all other motion was still as an illustration. The thought did occur to me that I might have ended everything with that blow but Kyo proved that I had only begun something he'd be forced to finish when he grabbed a fistfull of my clothing and pulled me down into the water so that he could hold me under it. I thrashed but his nails were caught in the fabric on either side of my collar and he held me down underneath with malice infesting his being. When he was satisfied I'd been under enough to threaten but not harm he released his grip on me and that was all it took for me to grab onto him and throw him back against the side of the bath and within seconds we were absolutely brawling. The moments ago pure water was now contaminated with bits of dirt and debris that we had failed to clean by just a change of clothes, and splashes of red were dancing around the grime in mock reverence as the water churned violently beneath us.

"STOP!" he yelled and it took me by surprise because it was he that had hit me last, hard on the jaw, and I was too busy spitting the blood out of my mouth to have gone after him again just yet. I didn't want to stop. I knew it was futile but...I felt satisfied when I saw his blood on my knuckles, satisfied that he was paying for this love the same as I, in blood and pain. Frustration...absolute...brought me to do what I did next. I grabbed his hand and pointed his claws at the hole in my chest. "This will not finish until I am understood or I am dead!" I yelled as loud as I could. "I am tired of being your fool!" I swallowed hard and looked away. "If you don't love me then kill me and end this, because the only reason I am not a corpse is so that I could stay by your side. If I am unwanted there then end it and leave me some peace." I sobbed into the air.

His tears were heavier than stone, his panicked gasping louder than the thunder outside. I was too preoccupied with him to have wondered when it had begun. It wasn't raining yet, or if it was it was light because I couldn't hear anything other than the periodic rumbling and the sky was still fairly bright. His hands quaked in my grasp and I knew the fact that his hands were posing no threat to me meant something wonderful. He loved me.



"I used to think you were the strongest person in the world." he cried. "When we were little and I told you I wanted to be a lord you acted as if becoming daimyo were as easy as breathing. You remember? You told me you'd be my retainer and swore that bit of tree branch you called a sword to me."
He stared at the blood in the water. It was dripping down his face in a small river. I must have hit him harder than I thought. "I thought that was the end of it. I thought we would grow up and you and I would be ronin living day to day on rationed rice and soba and wearing the same clothes we soiled the night before when we were fucking in one of the back alleys in pontocho. And I was...that life was tolerable because the passion was still there."

"You weren't happy." I groaned as my stomach contracted in a dull pain. I was getting tired of feeling bad, it was really starting to get repetitive.
"Something's wrong, you're in pain.." he said almost sadly, interrupting his own speech.
I laughed mirthlessly. "After what I've been through if there wasn't any I'd worry." I stated. "Nevermind it, go on..." I don't know why I wanted to hear what he had to say, but I thought that maybe there was something in his words that would give me closure.
He touched the blood that trailed down my chin and I recoiled. "You shouldn't be bleeding that bad."
"Go on, Kyo. I'm not going to listen forever."

He continued with reluctance.

"You took those mercenary jobs so that we could afford to buy that small house just outside of town. I hated it. Every night I couldn't sleep...afraid you'd never come home, afraid you'd get killed. But every night you'd come through the door bloodstained and exhausted and lay beside me and you'd always say 'one more day' as if that was all it was gonna take. But you didn't stop until I was daimyo. You risked your own life, spilled your own blood so that I could have everything I wanted."
He took a shaky breath. "And then it was...intoxicating. Me, on my high horse as acting daimyo being dominated by my retainer when no one else could see and the next morning it would start all over as if we'd never touched one another, and then that night..." he looked at me and his eyes were remembering a lust unrivaled. I remembered it too. "After dark we'd live in each other like it was the first time. And then there was that day where everything changed."
"What day?" I tried to keep the nausea out of my voice.
"You really don't remember?" He laughed sadly. "No, of course not. Why would you? You had no idea I was even in the room."
I tried my best to convey my confusion with my face. An effort he ignored.

"I shouldn't have been surprised. I had wondered about your friendship for a year, you spent so much time with him."
"Who?" I asked, finally unable to stay out of it any longer.
"Daisuke!"

Before I tell you how I responded I would like to clarify, because no doubt you're wondering what he was talking about. Ochida Daisuke was an old friend of mine who had been a samurai for Ryozen in the days before the house was inherited by the former lord's younger brother. His incredible skill with a sword had been noticed by the shogun and he'd been recruited by the bakufu almost three years ago and had since left for Edo to be a retainer for one of the military houses. He had trained me in kendo and in doing so we had been together constantly. There had never been anything more between us.

Instead of screaming again I settled on a grim sort of calm that I was sure was more threatening than outright madness. "Don't make me hit you again." I stated flatly. "You're out of your mind."
"You think I'm stupid? That I didn't know? I don't like sharing my lover with Ryozen samurai."
"And I like sharing mine with a half-breed kitsune!?" I yelled, absolutely irate that he was accusing me of something I had never done. "I can't believe you, condemning me for my jealousy. At least has mine has substance."
"I saw you!" he shouted, angry at me for belittling him when he thought he was being principled. "In this room! He was pressed to you like a whore and moaning. Not that it surprised me, why wouldn't you have wanted someone more...human." he cocked his head to the side in the way that I loved. "Someone more like you. And I left you in peace despite it."
I cursed and my hands tore at my hair in frustration. "And I suppose you think you should be praised for it."
"Why shouldn't I be?"
"You never brought it up before, you never bothered to ask me. You..." I laughed a little psychotically and it made me question my own state of mind, but I remembered the day he was referring to with perfect clarity and his misconception of it was appalling. "You've spent your years punishing the guiltless. Praise is the last thing I'm prepared to give." I shook my head in irritation, deciding he probably needed a final clarification. "He was moaning from pain not pleasure."
"What's the difference?" Kyo hissed again.
I was trying to keep my head from splitting by holding my cold fingers to my eyes and I was sure I looked at least a little unbalanced, especially when I lowered my voice to absolute calm and recounted what I could remember in quick succession. "We were sparring. I had injured him. We came here to clean up. He couldn't reach the cut to clean it so I did it for him. That's why he was against me, and that's why he cried out, because it hurt, not because I was doing anything to him." I growled because I felt completely ridiculous trying to explain myself for something that happened innocently a little over four years ago.
"You were both undressed..." he said softly as if trying to justify his paranoia.
"Do you expect that I should bathe with my clothes on?"
"You..." He started, obviously trying to find another point that could implicate me.
I was getting angrier by the second so I glared at him. "Accuse me again and I'll cease to sit here passively."
He was still riding the tension of our fight because he was trying to be taunting but even that was belied by tears, "You can barely stand..." and the sheer implication of weakness, however truthfully noted it was, offended me so much that I grabbed him again, intending only to bring him down with me so that he could calm down and realize what he was saying before he began to believe his lunacy again, but he immediately flew to the offensive and broke out of my grip easily and after struggling against one another for a minute or two he ended up pressed flat against the west side of the basin, my back against his chest and I went still because his nails were pressed to my throat defensively, but we both knew there was no threat in it.

He swallowed and said nothing, knowing now that I would fight again if he gave me cause. Lovers or not we were both still men and that instinctive aggression was very hard to restrain when we were both at our limit. I decided to say something.
I turned my head so that I could look him in the eye. "Kyo, if I had been having an affair with him of all people, do you honestly think I would have tried so hard to keep you with me? No...let me rephrase. Do you think I would have obsessed, begged for your affection like I have? Twisted my pride and wanted you more than anyone could want another living thing. I swear to you I never touched him that way, and if you say that I did again I'm walking out that door and I am never coming back." I knew I was being cruel...but...

Kyo's breath seemed to have stopped somewhere in his throat because for the longest time he held it in and stared directly into my eyes as if he were trying to see if I were telling the truth. I could see it in his eyes that he had never seen it in any other way than my betraying him and that this new explanation held a staggering truth.
He believed me. It both amazed and relieved me though the look of shameful realization on his face was almost heartbreaking. "I...I thought you...felt obligated to keep me. You made a promise to me that you would always be with me and I thought that you were just keeping your word. So I never said anything...When you confronted me with Kozi I thought you had no right to..."
Strings of wet hair fell into my eyes and I had to look past them to see his face. "Promise or not...if I didn't want you I would never have stayed." I whispered. "I wouldn't have vied for your attention and I certainly would never have died for you. Is that why you wouldn't touch me?"
He nodded and his head seemed heavy with guilt.
"I thought that if I stopped touching you that you would miss me...reclaim me, but you never did. You just...changed. Your confidence, your strength, the way you talked to me, even the way you touched me. And then it was easier to be detached because you weren't really you anymore. That's why I went to Kozi..." He sighed and it seemed as though it took all the air in the room to do it. "I didn't feel like it was an affair, Niikura Kaoru was dead. You never proved me otherwise."

"Why didn't you just come to me?" I asked quietly. "Why didn't you accuse me then...confront me then instead of ....punishing me on assumption. Giving up on me..." I mentally cursed when the last of those words made my voice quiver and break.
His eyes went blank as he stared down into the trails of red that still swirled around us. "I was s...scared you'd leave. You're all I have and I couldn't challenge you and hear it from your lips that I was worthless to you. And after I'd been quiet awhile...how do you tell a person that gave everything for you that you couldn't touch them because they had become someone else. I couldn't tell you..."
"You just did." I told him.
"I thought I could pretend I didn't see anything...so I just waited for you to come and take me. When you never did I..I just assumed it was because you didn't want me anymore."
I shook my head in disbelief. "I've only ever wanted you. I thought you hated me."

Those ice blue eyes were looking down at me as if begging me to forgive him. Save him. Take him, and I hated the way it made all the anger start to melt away, because it was the only leverage I seemed to have over him.

"I wish it had been you in Aomori instead of me." I said, trying desperately to hold onto the rage that had given me the edge I needed to convict him in the first place. "I wish I had slept with Daisuke..." He gasped but I ignored it. "So you could be right...so I could be the one who messed up. I'm used to swallowing down guilt for you. I'm used to being wrong. This is backwards...it's..." Coughing once brought a wave of them out of me and soon I was leaning against him for support as my lungs spasmed inside my body. Kyo rubbed soothing circles over my chest to try and help me relax. "This is..." I coughed again and felt my clothing shift. The ties on my obi were undone and I looked crossly at him as he pulled it off of me, but the focus it required made my head swim with dizziness. I was so tired.

"I'm listening." His now meek voice assured me and I might have continued had I not noticed he was removing my clothing as gently as he could. When the obi was off he undid the koshi-himo that kept my kimono in place and I watched as it floated away from me. The water parted my kimono for him, the feeling was so strange. I wasn't sure about him all of a sudden. He had never acted so docile with me. Of course, Kyo had his moments of being overly sweet, but they were always short lived and never were so many of them compiled together in one day.

"I need you to be sorry..." I begged him within a whisper as I relaxed against him, the heat of the water finally getting to me.

"I am sorry." he whispered. "Please believe me, I would die without you, but I've never been able to love you without hating you in some way. You understand, you have to because you feel the same with me." he sighed and looked as though he were about to tell me the whole truth of it. "I left Kozi at the spring. I didn't finish it with him." Of course I knew this already, but I let him go on as if I were completely unaware. "I was sorry then. I was going to go back to the house and beg you to take me because even if you were not yourself anymore...the only time I am every myself is when you're inside me." He bowed his head and his hair tickled my neck. "But the next time I saw you was in the courtyard and I saw the arrow and..." he was gasping and I was made to wait while he collected his thoughts and his breath. "...Blood was just pouring out and I knew that you had to have been close, that I had caught you with my voice and when you fell I knew that I had done it." His eyes widened at his own words. "I killed you. When I finally got down the stairs you were gone and I could feel every part of me die with you."

My mouth opened to speak but he screamed at me again and this time he was as powerful as I'd ever seen him. "Let me finish! I didn't finish the fight, Kaoru...I lied when I said I didn't know how Dai almost died. He was trying to fight for me because I could not. I stood there and let them come but he protected me. He wasn't going to let them touch me. Then something just snapped in me and I screamed, this...rough, inhuman sound and everyone fell. It took me a minute to realize they were all dead and that Dai was coughing up blood at my feet." His eyes refocused and he stared into mine. "He still tried to comfort me, after what I did to him. He still held me and let me cry until I realized that I didn't have any right to be there. I went to find your body..."

I started coughing again and he was back rubbing circles over me again.

I gasped as he stroked down my stomach and grasped my limp organ, stroking it absently as he talked."When you came back and let me...When you touched me it felt like how I remembered...before that day. You didn't seem to care about Kozi anymore and despite submitting to me you seemed even more in charge than before. I thought that if I pretended everything was the way it was before that it would really be that way. I was counting on you to pretend too..."
"I tried." I moaned out as my body started to respond to his insistant hands. "What are you doing, Kyo? Not now, please..."
"You're starting to worry me. You keep bleeding. Your body's stressed. You have to relax. That shadow only saved your life it didn't renew it. You have to relax or your body could still give out. You need to feel something good." He pressed a flat hand against my growing erection and held it down against my stomach as he kissed me, deep and apologetic.

I tried my best to will myself calm, but it was more difficult than you could imagine. My health was the last thing on my mind though. "I could have made you stay." I brushed my lips against his and he pressed into me as hard as he could without kissing me again. "I could have taken you to the floor and reminded you of whom you belonged to."
"I know who I belong to." Kyo set both of his feet down on the bottom of the basin so that they set against the side of my thighs and then slid them outward, spreading my legs so that they were comfortably trapped by his. I could feel the water surge against my erection when he exposed me and had very nearly cried out. It was a little irritating, because I knew I wasn't ready to be so physical again. Especially not after our fight. I knew he hit harder than I did, I was sure of it and I was sure I would have some deep bruises in the morning. "I told you that I couldn't belong to you without giving up a part of myself and you thought it was my pride not wanting to break, but that's not it. Niikura Kaoru was the biggest part of me there was and I was the only one who remembered him. You weren't the man you were and you couldn't make me let him go."

His quick movements were making my stomach swim with nausea so when he laid his hand flat on the head of my cock I grabbed his wrist and said, "Please, just stop. I'm so tired..."

He didn't listen, instead he began to palm me slowly and whisper in my ear, "I'll go slow." He said as I panted into the humid air. And he did, he went slow, keeping a gentle pressure on me as I was rendered incoherent underneath the slow burn of pleasure.

A tongue snaked into my ear and I shuddered. "I was going to let you walk away, I was wishing you would...but the moment you hit me I knew you were...you again."
"I'm sorry." I said, feeling guilty for laying a hand on him.
"No. I'm glad you did. You would have fought me back then too,"
"You make it sound like I was..." I gasped as he squeezed me again. "...abusive."
"No...but you wouldn't have backed down from me, and you didn't. So I'm grateful for that...And I've been so...I've made such offenses against you for something you never did. I know you don't trust me, but I'm telling the truth. I am sorry."

Leaning my head back I kissed his throat and he sighed lovingly, neither of us really noticing the red I'd left behind. "You're a beautiful mess." I said, half smiling because it was such truth.
Kyo didn't smile though. I don't know if I expected him to. He did clear his throat with a soft little sound and sniffed, "When you're well you can have my apology in any way you wish. Though I'm hoping you'll take it from inside." I knew it was hard for him to say these things to me, because it was against his nature to seem so subserviant. He started to stroke me a little harder and I felt my eyes drift closed. It felt so incredibly good. He set his other hand to caressing my stomach which was one of my most sensitive areas. I loved the feel of his hands pressed firmly against my belly as it contracted in response to his ministrations.
"I can't remember the last time my body cried your release." He murmured against my neck.
"Kyo." I moaned his name so loud it echoed in the room.
While his right hand worked my cock, his left ran lovingly over my body, pausing when I'd wince from the contact. The entirety of my skin felt bruised and sore and my insides were still grumbling from everything that happened from the unfortunate meeting with the arrow onward.
"I'm so sorry. I keep forgetting you're hurt and then I..."
"I hit you first, you don't have to feel sorry." I said as firmly as I could considering.
I whimpered a little when that feeling of nausea rose up again and I felt the dark wetness hit my collarbone and shivered. It was blacker than before and when I stared at it my head began to spin. My eyes fluttered closed. Kyo sniffed and pressed his face into my neck. "Please...don't go to sleep. You need to stay awake."
When we shifted I could feel his hardness against my back and I sleepily reached back to touch him but he batted my hand away like he would a child. "No, Kaoru. I'll come when you've fully recovered, not before."
"Kyo."
"The first time in almost a year...you'll come in my body. It's reason enough to wait."
He started stroking me faster and I felt that heat in my stomach and all of a sudden I was arched back against him and moaning out my bliss as I came into the water. For that moment my body was in complete peace but when it started to fade the aftermath and accompanying dizziness was sinking in to me within a heavy gravity and it hurt and didn't hurt all at the same time. I felt my vision blur and leaned back against him so that I wouldn't drown if I passed out.
"Kaoru...don't go to sleep." he pleaded meekly, wiping the blood off my face from where it was still wet on my lips. "I'm sorry. Kaoru, I'm sorry, I l..."

He was startlingly beautiful in faded ebony frame.

All the love gone bad turned my world to black, tattooed all I see...

Beneath the black was a fair colored everything.



o o o
TBC


REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW ::begs you:: ;______: PLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE

Notes:

1)I was listening to Pearl Jam's Black during this end part...so..yeah that's why it has a line from the song XDDD
2)I hope this chapter was decent. I've already done about 3 pages toward Chapter 12 and I'll work on it as often as I can. I'm not going to make any guesses as to when my chapters are coming out anymore cause something always stops them from finishing when I want them to. Oh yeah...I DO XD My brain is against me. This time it was mostly work though. Weird hours.
3) I promise you from this point forward the relationship between Kyo and Kaoru is settled. Now that they both understand eachother there will be no more conflict between them. YAY. It was making my headache anyway ^^ I never even meant for it to happen, it was never in my original plan for this story but it happened anyway. And then I realized that this story wasn't about just their relationship so I had to move it along.
4) I hope you guys are realizing that Kozi is NOT a bad guy...he's just a little self-conceited and slutty :3 But it's expected if you've lived a long life as a semi-immortal and been boss of everything around you for the longest time and now you've got some confused human wandering around bantering with you like an idiot. You'd be a little crazy too. Even if you still don't like him, TOUGH because he's gonna be in it ALOT from now on.
5)Penis!