A glance at the past...

---

"...." Everyone had left the room, the discussion of the next patrol long since ended. The table had been cleared away except for the recently refilled cups of tea, still steaming, and the papers in front of Sazaeno, which he continued to review.
What she'd brought made it ridiculously awkward to stay behind, and while the clock tracked the time from its perch on the wall with quiet ticks marking the seconds, she carefully planned several escape routes per basic tactical training When In Enemy Territory With No Backup, noting tools at her disposal: pen, paper weight, blotter, tea cup. All easily applicable to the situation, but not what she was looking for. Window. Door. Several easily moveable ceiling panels. Second door, not applicable, as it ended not in a hallway but a closet. Useless. She'd have to get it over with.
After she'd spent a suitable amount of time in growing anxiety, the box appeared hurriedly on the table beside her, sitting between them like the incriminating evidence of some horrible crime, her hand retreating hastily like she'd been burned. Silence.
"........ for you," she blurted abruptly. "... not that... I...--you don't have to like it." Her foot twitched. The sound of the door swinging open and then slamming shut emphatically suggested she'd fled, though actually catching the flash steps she used would have been a feat.

Silence.

"....... oh," the closet sighed, pathetically. That wasn't supposed to happen.




His eyes froze upon the words that he had been glancing over, mentally marking their place before flicking to the side at the box that had seemingly decided to ninja its way into invading his table space. His brow arching in an almost accusatory gesture, he followed the movement of what he assumed to be the hand of the offender in question, the blink that followed testifying to his surprise as he realized who it was. All too quickly she was gone, and he'd not gotten further than opening his mouth before finding that there was no one to speak to, and with the sound of a door shutting behind him, he felt it only reasonable to do the same, snapping his jaw shut.
Sazaeno eyed the box that sat there on the table for what seemed like ages, cycling through the abrupt words that were spoken before he finally lowered the papers he had in hand to set aside so that he could take a proper look at the box's contents. A glance was cast over his shoulder then at the door to the closet, if he had not pinpointed the direction of the slamming wood, then it wouldn't have been too hard for him to discern that she was still within the room, even if she hadn't sighed then. Shifting where he sat, he turned to fully face the melancholy door, and there he sat for another long, silent while. "......"
Finally, he stood, taking up the box in his hands before quietly padding over towards the closet, and he lowered himself to sit beside it, leaning against the wall, resting the box in his lap.




The closet gave the distinct impression of being extremely mortified. She'd barely stopped herself short of slamming into the back of the closet, recovering valiantly short of breaking her nose, saving herself from adding further insult to injury -- not that it eased her distress. She should have known this would happen. Going back out wasn't an option now, so after standing there for several very frozen minutes, head down, brain repeating 'no good' dully over and over, she finally slid down to sit cross-legged on the floor of the closet. If she got lucky... what? He'd leave? She could request a transfer... dye her hair... he'd never recognize her... she could do lots of things, it didn't matter.
Except it did, she just had no words to explain.
She didn't catch his footsteps, and she couldn't feel his reiatsu-- ... what if he /had/ left? That was a silly question. Of course he would. He had to have.
The door creaked open, just a crack--and slammed shut again immediately when she caught sight of his tabi next to the door.
The silence stretched uncomfortably again.

"...... you're going to sit there forever, aren't you," the closet finally said, miserably.



"....probably," came his response. He had his eyes closed, glancing sidewise only when he heard the door open, and after it had shut firmly once again did he resume his almost sleep-like appearance. He said nothing further. He wasn't sure, really, what to say. At the very least, he knew he'd probably feel foolish talking to a closet, but if things kept on as they did, then he'd have little choice in the matter. But he could sit there as long as it would take. Okiko would probably know this well.
Resting his hand on the floor, he slid it against the wall until he felt the edge of the doorframe with his knuckles, and he pulled it back so that his hand remained closer to his side of the wall. Next chance he got, that door was going to stay open. While he'd not mind sitting here for days, maybe even weeks on end (hey, they've had missions that stretched on as such), this wasn't a place that they'd be given such a luxury- and he was certain there'd be questions if anyone else came in to make use of the room. The stalemate had to end today.




An hour passed. Not because she was stubborn, not because she was trying to prove that she could out-patience him in the waiting game -- they were all trained to wait, like soulless soldiers, immune to the passage of time. They could wait forever, until they either received the cue they were waiting on, or they died. It would have been useless, just like trying to save what little dignity she had left. No, it was because at first she was honestly baffled, and then eventually because she expected that whatever had possessed him to sit outside the door would fade. Surely he saw no point in actually waiting longer? She'd lost this one either way. "....."
It took another ten minutes before the door gave an imperceptible creak. She was clearly possessed by some crazed urge to embarrass herself further, she thought, her fingertips splaying carefully along the wood grains as it cracked open. Might as well, she thought dully: surely it couldn't get worse. But whatever resolve she'd managed in opening the door immediately vanished when she saw him again, and she reflexively yanked back.


Had it already been an hour? As uneventful and still as it had been, one tended to lose track of the time, which could be good or bad. Thankfully no one had come back to the room, leaving the two, one seen and one not, to quietly waste away.
His own hand was like a tarantula lying in wait for its prey, and as soon as he sensed the shift of the nearby reiatsu did it strike, slipping slowly at first to feel out the edge of the door as it passed the frame, and then suddenly moving as he wedged his hand between it. Sazaeno was smarter than to try this in the position he sat, and so he shifted accordingly, a ninety degree turn so that he wouldn't sprain his wrist or something if Okiko put that much force into trying to close the door again.


She didn't retaliate when he caught the door, hand dropping from the handle the moment she felt the resistance. It retreated back to her lap, and for the span of several very rapid heartbeats she examined her hands as if they'd become the most interesting things in the universe, which some might argue they were, given they had opposable thumbs. Eventually, she swung her head back to stare up at the dark ceiling of the closet gloomily, skillfully managing to avoid his gaze in the transition.
"... Did you know that statistically the odds of dying from falling down are one in two hundred and forty-six?" Embarrassment's mortality rate to date was zero, much to her current dismay.


Once he had succeeded in catching the door to keep it open, strangely enough, Sazaeno didn't move to swing it all the way back. Now facing the door while balanced on the balls of his feet, he crouched and waited in silence as he peered inside. He didn't say anything once he had succeeded in keeping the door ajar, and Okiko's statement left him somewhat baffled as to what he should respond with, if anything.
"...."
First attempt, a miss.
"........."
Second attempt, he'd at least gotten part of a word shaped on his lips.
"......thank you." Not for the statistics quote, of course. But, well, it could work for that as well. The thanks was more for the gift, however.


It felt like her heart was attempting to climb up her throat or perhaps burst out of her chest; either, she surmised, would have been significantly bloody, not to mention perfectly awkward if she had to go about the business of picking it up off the floor, cleaning it off, coming up with a valid excuse...
Her palms smoothed along her thighs slowly, getting rid of the faint sheen of sweat that she hadn't noticed previously, but mostly because she was stalling. "... you're.. welcome.. it's just--you lost your other set last time--so I thought--I mean you could've gotten them replaced already for all I know but I was out and I saw them so... I made sure to check the weights, you like the 250 gram ones..." she trailed off into a melancholy silence.



Patiently he listened, waiting until she finished speaking, nodding in pleased understanding. He slid the box around to his side so that he could open it and remove one of the small knives from within, holding it in hand, slipping it in the various positions he would make use of it. Again he nodded. He wasn't sure whether to be surprised that she was aware of his weight preference for them or not, as to know things or find things out was a part of their occupation.
Setting the knife back amongst the rest, Sazaeno took several small steps, as was about all he could manage given his current stance, and he nudged the door of the closet open a ways more with his knee so that it was wide enough that he could squat there.


"..." It was when he shifted to pull the box in front of him that she finally brought her chin down again reluctantly, and not entirely of her own volition. She was watching. It was the way he had with his hands; she liked them. He made the way he used knives almost mesmerizing, and part of her wondered if he even knew.
And then he stopped, moved closer, and the spell was broken. Before her gaze could take evasive action she found herself unexpectedly looking him straight in the eye. She opened her mouth, then closed it, and then sat there staring dumbly for several minutes.
"..... ssssso, since you didn't kill me... and I didn't kill you... what now..."


Kill her? Such words were of many that he'd heard her speak, only to be lost trying to fathom what could have possibly gone through her mind. They were on the same force, they'd been for quite a while. Missions were an odd way to get to know someone, but then they were also most ideal, considering how close you had to work with a person, how much trust you had to put in the person you were partnered with. Okiko was a woman that although many would be charmed by her looks, they were steered off by her oddly pessimistic personality. And yet this only piqued his curiosity, and the more he worked alongside her, the more attracted he found himself, even though for all its worth he still couldn't find a specific reason. Perhaps it was not just one thing, but all things that made her. He'd been reluctant to say anything, but was subtle in how he'd tried to show his interest towards her. Until now he hadn't really been sure about how she'd received them, and even at this moment, Sazaeno wasn't sure if he would be risking too much or if he was justified to make this move.
Missions were full of risks, life was full of risks. The direction of the wind sometimes was all that made the difference between survival and death. Sometimes one had to trust their instincts. Other times, one had to wait. Decisions taken slow or at the drop of a hat, they all amounted to the same, in the end.
He said nothing as he leaned forward, knees settling upon the floor at the threshold of the closet, but his body didn't stop there as he continued to lean into the small space, and if he didn't find a knife in his gut, his face would pause a hairsbreadth from her face, eyes searching... for something before closing as he moved to brush his lips against her's.


It had been a purely nonsensical statement, something to say because she had nothing better to say and surely she had to say something or rot there in miserable silence staring at him like a fool. It was her closest equivalent to a nervous laugh. Gods only knew she'd been sitting there since the beginning hoping the ceiling would fall on her or some freak accident would cease and desist the crazy pulsing in her veins permanently, saving her the discomfort of either being pushed aside and ignored, or worse, laughed at. Pitied. She did not like the look people got in their eyes when they felt pity.
Perhaps that was why she'd gone unresisting when the onmitsukido had picked her up so many years ago; they hadn't pitied her when they found her. They'd offered her a use, instead, and surely being useful was better than clawing and scraping out a half-starved life in Rukongai with dirty nails and everyone else with dirty, diluted, empty gazes.
She sat very, impossibly still while she watched him, expecting an answer along the lines of perhaps-she'd-like-to-leave-the-closet-for-starters, but it never came. Instead he moved again, and she frowned, brow furrowing in confusion -- and then realized what he was doing a second short of preventing it, eyes widening when he kissed her. She stiffened immediately, which probably wasn't the response he was looking for, but she couldn't make herself move.


It was a better response than he had expected, although he was extremely thankful he felt nothing sharp being stabbed into his stomach as he leaned so far forward. Would that his gesture have been better received, he wouldn't have argued, but with Okiko, he had already minded the fact that she was definitely not like your run-of-the-mill females. In all truth, he half expected her to scream.
Sazaeno felt her tense, and in an effort not to pull back so abruptly that it might make the kiss seem even more awkward, he let himself linger there for a second longer after he'd pulled his lips away. With no further reaction from her, he wondered if perhaps he had overstepped his bounds. "...if you want me to, I'll go.." he whispered before slowly rocking back to his feet. There he stayed, still squatting at the doorway, waiting to see if Okiko would deign to answer.


Her expression was briefly anguished when he pulled away, hurt and upset at her or him or both, she couldn't say. She struggled to say something, at least, anything, but thoughts that had been racing seconds before hurtled over the steep end of a cliff and left her with nothing, free-falling. She was paralyzed with fear that he really would leave, and it was only cruel irony that that was what kept her from preventing him. Move, move, move! she wailed at herself.
A small catch released, and when pain shot up her arm it took a very perplexed moment for her to register what, exactly, she'd done.
It was hard to see with him blocking most of the light, but she felt the slickness in her palm first, and then metal on bone, and the slippery feel of blood between her fingers where she clenched the throwing knife. Oh. ... More importantly, she realized, she could move again, free hand grabbing for the front of Sazaeno's uniform hastily, reflexes acting belatedly. She didn't look down.
"No." The word was quiet and hoarse, and she had to swallow once, twice, to find her ability to speak clearly again. "Don't.. please." She gave a tentative tug, and then carefully pulled his face back to hers, pressing her mouth to his in another quiet, hesitant kiss.
The sound of the knife dropping and hitting the floor beneath her other hand was loud in the silence, but it was ignored in favor of sliding the same hand up, fingers awkwardly brushing his sleeve before they drifted further up, cupping his cheek, smearing blood distractedly.


It was a small hope that he had clung to, and he almost thought he'd misheard her response, half distracted as he was by the noise he was sure he hadn't imagined. If there had been any doubt as to what he'd thought to have heard from Okiko, it was quickly diminished as he found himself hastily pulled towards her. His knees knocked against the floor as he was pulled forward, the pain easily dismissed as his lips once again touched her's. She was all there was, right then. The risk had been taken, the mission... No, not a mission.
He felt the sticky wetness that touched his face, left in trails by her hand. He knew what it was from the sharp, coppery smell. It was not hard for him to piece together the sound of the knife falling, the blood on her hand. He brought his hand to grasp her's, to clasp his palm tightly against it to stop the bleeding, but all the while his gaze never left her face.


She looked up at him silently, eyes flicking over his features curiously. "....."
As foreign a concept as privacy was to them, the sound of a door opening the next room over was jarring, and the sudden thunk of her head hitting the back of the closet when she jumped out of startled reflex nearly made her leave her skin entirely, expression guilty.
She slumped against the back wall and groaned miserably but quietly, one hand still tangled in his uniform, the other still clamped in his hand where she refused to let go, even if he did. ".... could have picked a better place..." muttered gloomily, embarrassment creeping back up on her while she ducked her head, and finally had to let go of his uniform so she could feel along the floor for the knife, retrieving it and wiping it off on the leg of her uniform quickly.


"...." She would probably have felt him grow tense, just as she did with the sound of the doors being worked on the other side of the wall. He used her as an anchor, his hand still clasping her's, his eyes the only things that moved to look in that direction as though he could see what went on beyond the room. To a certain extent, he could; the presences of whomever was in the next room over, he could tell how many, perhaps even who.
For a long, long while did he wait and watch, but only until Okiko broke the silence that had fallen between them again. Sazaeno blinked as though waking from a dream, and he looked at her. The realization of the ridiculousness of the situation seemed to settle upon him only then, and closing his eyes, he tried to smother his chuckles, his shoulders shaking from the effort.


....... she swung her gaze back up to him while she bent forward beneath him finally, enough to slide the knife into her tabi boot, not bothering with resetting it in its sheath at her wrist for now. "... you're laughing," she stated blankly, hoping it wasn't at her, trying to fathom why. She flexed her fingers between his experimentally, feeling the sticky coagulation between their palms, nearly glueing them together. It didn't feel as if she'd severed anything important in her bout of stupidity, which satisfied her. It would have been her luck to lose the use of her hand over this. She squinted back up at him.


For her to point it out only made him smirk as he failed to hide this fact. "...yeah... sorry," he murmured, clearing his throat just as most usually did whenever they were caught doing something inappropriate in public. "....you... you're right though." He lifted his other hand, gesturing vaguely at their current surroundings. "But... at least no one else saw..." he pointed out, dropping his gaze to the hand he yet held, at least not one to be disturbed by such a feeling against his flesh. At least it didn't feel like any fresh blood was spilling from her wound, but nevertheless, Sazaeno kept his hand pressed against her's.
"...um..." It was probably the most he'd been speaking all day. He could usually count the amount of words he used within the period of twenty-four hours on one hand. "...so... do you want to come out of the closet...?"
.......
"...not in that sense."


She stared at him, halfway to making a comment either in reply to his sudden talkativeness or the joke he'd made unintentionally, but her hand twinging involuntarily made her turn the strange look she was giving him into a thoughtful frown. "Either you have to let go now.... or we walk back to the barracks like this..... in front of everyone." She blinked slowly, then shrugged. "Either way, it's going to reopen." His attempt to stop the bloodflow had succeeded, but now her palm was stuck to his and separating them would peel the wound open again. She would have to wrap it when they got back.
... they. It was a strange thought. She found she didn't mind that much.


He blinked as he glanced back at her hand, and then back at her face. "...right..." he consented, holding her hand up as he gave her a warning look before moving to pry his palm as gently as possible from her's. "...if we go back like this, they'd likely wonder anyway..." he murmured in afterthought, idly touching his bloodied cheek. The blood had long since dried, but he felt it there all the same.
Slowly he rose from his squating position, a position most would have toppled over from after several minutes. With the deliberate movement he stretches out, uncurling like a fern unfurling its leaves towards the light. He was mindful enough to step back as he did so, stepping from the mouth of the closet. He offered Okiko his other hand to help her up, not that she needed it, but it was the thought he decided mattered.


If it'd been Shihouin-san as the Corps commander still, it might not have mattered. But since the Soifon girl had taken over, it was... best to avoid such things, so she offered no comment when he began removing his hand from hers, though she would also not have commented if he had equally decided to haul her back that way.
She remained expressionless, tracing the wood grains in the doorframe without acknowledging her hand until his hand was free completely and she felt the blood welling up again, consciously avoiding clenching her hand into a fist so she didn't strain anything further. When he stood up and offered his hand, she looked at the hand, then up at him. "..." She took it with her good hand, letting him haul her up from the floor before she headed for the door with him, finally.
They were partners, after all. That much hadn't changed.

Tags: okiko