In the Forests of the Night

It was morning again. Just like yesterday, sunbeams were reflecting off the inside of the glass dome above the house and bouncing down through the smoke vent in the next room. Or at least that was the general look of things, judging from the wall beside the futon. As she lay curled on her side, Kaoru blinked at the diffusely-lit wood with the emotional equivalent, a vaguely renewed sense of warmth and hope.

She felt much better now, though that was inevitable. Last night after Enishi left, she'd been so wiped out that she'd never gotten around to going downstairs for food and clothes. It had felt like a major victory just to drag herself out of the tub and into his bathrobe, and after that she'd just crawled back to the next room. It was too bad he'd already taken the trouble to fold up the covers on top of the futon, because all she did was just shove everything out vaguely flat again and curl up in the middle of it.

So now her first priority was to get up and find the sakabatou, she thought, then instantly downgraded that to the second or third priority as her abdomen gurgled at her. All she'd had to eat yesterday was breakfast and a rice ball, so she was pretty hungry now. However, she'd had plenty of milk, juice, and tea that wanted to move on in the world. Well, she knew where the kitchen and the bathroom were, so with her destinations clearly in mind, she sat up.

Almost instantly, she ricocheted back down again. Ouch. Someone was lying on her hair, and it wasn't her. This reduced the list of possible suspects to one. Cautiously, she turned her head to look behind her.

Sure enough, Enishi was lying there with his cheek mashed firmly into her hair. One of his arms was shoved all the way beneath the pillow, too; now that she knew to look for it, she could see his hand and the edge of his jacket sleeve just peeking out from under the pillowcase, in front of where her face had been. He seemed to still be fast asleep, though, so Kaoru began to tug her hair free, slowly and smoothly to avoid waking him.

She monitored his face while she did so, freezing at every flicker of motion. He must've just come back in from wherever he'd gone outside last night. Folded up on the tea-tray behind him, his glasses were filmed over with condensation, and small twigs and broken leaves clung to his hair along with the wild white air of winter. Whatever he'd been doing, he looked really wiped out now-- not only was he out cold, but one side of his face had a set of ragged scrapes, and his clothes were almost as grungy as hers had been the other night.

By now, she'd nearly worked free, but one pesky strand of her hair just wouldn't let go of his face. When she tugged at it, he started to move around more actively, nosing into the pillow and clenching the hand tucked against his chest. Finally, he pulled his other arm from under her head and seemed to settle, but then rolled over to squash her beneath him.

Her involuntary squeak of getting air squeezed out didn't have any effect on him at all. He was totally sleep-glomping her, with a tight clutch around her waist and his head mashed up under her chin. And he wasn't trying to tickle her in his sleep too, was he? Or did that mean he wasn't really asleep?

Craning to the side, she watched his fingers flex against the bathrobe. It wasn't a really truly tickle, just an odd semi-rhythmic grip on the fabric like kneading dough. He was burrowing against her as if she were the pillow, too, and the combination reminded her of something she wasn't sure of. Kenshin? The back of Enishi's neck didn't look much like his, and this was more fretful than Kenshin's being-scritched cat-sprawl. Cat-sprawl... that was it, not Kenshin but Megumi's real live cat, Psycho Kitty Keisuke.

Kei had been the last kitten left from a litter whose mother had been hit by a car. So he'd been weaned too early, even though Megumi fed him with an eyedropper for the next few weeks while her parents finished hashing out the details of their divorce. For years, Kei was incredibly overprotective of Megumi, meowing reproaches at her for every absence and proudly bringing miscellaneous squirrel guts to bribe her out of going to school. And every so often, he'd still pounce into her chair and pin her down by lolling out in her lap, pricking his claws in and out of her jeans as he tried to nurse milk from the hem of her shirt. Kei also had a tendency to bite anyone who came nearby when he was doing this, and if whoever it was stayed persistent enough to keep dodging him and talking to Megumi, he'd start biting her instead.

He didn't want to share Megumi with anyone, and had only made an exception for her half-sisters once they were born. Well, he couldn't've very well done it before then, but they were obviously permanent additions to the household and just as ready to adore him as Megumi was, and maybe he'd mellowed a bit with age. So as soon as Ayame and Suzume were old enough to pet him without pulling his tail, he accepted them as additions to his harem of worshippers, taking some of the pressure off her.

Which was great for Megumi, but Kaoru couldn't exactly recruit more girls to show up and distract Enishi. She tried to relax and hold herself completely still, in hopes that he would too. But the moment she tried to worm up from his loosened grip, he burrowed even closer, edging his face into the bathrobe's neckline. She gave up on stealth and just poked his shoulder. "Hey, Enishi?" she whispered. "Can I get up now?"

He bolted upright in a dazed, wobbly way, actually lifting her off the futon by the bathrobe for a moment. "Oh. It's you. It is you, isn't it? Bluebird?" Before she could answer, he dropped her and dive-bombed to reglomp her all over again. "Feels the same," he murmured behind one ear. "Lovely hair looks and smells the same." He licked her shoulder. "And tastes the same. So I didn't dream you up, did I?"

He nipped at her neck, seemingly oblivious to the multimedia ticklishness of it all: the whuffling breaths against her skin, the long fingers kneading her ribs, and his hair getting into her nose. By reflex, she curled up into squealy giggles, sending her feet into wiggly kicks against his legs.

"Mmm. Moves and sounds the same way, too." He sat back more alertly and started to pat down his jacket. "Brought you a present, love. Hang on a bit and I'll fish it up for you."

"Can I go to the bathroom first?"

"Just gave you a bath last night, didn't I? Your hair's still damp, but I wouldn't mind going back to splash about if you'd like."

"Oh. I meant the toilet." Another emphatic gurgle underscored this.

His sigh morphed into a yawn. "Well, all right then. Guess I'll just catch a few more winks in the meantime. But come back soon, won't you, pretty bird?" After helpfully goosing her onto her feet, he plopped flat onto the futon again. As he curled onto his side again, he pulled her pillow against his chest as a glompy placeholder and tucked his head onto it, then twisted partway around. "Left your clothes in the other room downstairs," he sleepily added, and nestled back down.

Oh boy, Kaoru thought as she tiptoed downstairs. He was still acting weirdly affectionate, but at least she wouldn't have to deal with that until she returned up there. Meanwhile, first things first. Apparently Enishi went with the old-fashioned division between bathrooms and toilets, but the toilet had to be somewhere near the two rooms she'd seen before with the bathtub and the shower stall. It turned out to be in a little cubby tucked between them, so that took care of that.

While washing her hands, she glanced at the mirror above the sink, then quickly away. Her face and throat were smudged with random hickeys behind the white terrycloth collar of his bathrobe, and just as he'd said, her hair was in a damp, snaky tangle. Sighing, she shoved the sleeves farther up so she could comb out the worst knots with her fingers. She hadn't had a good look at herself since before he'd brought her here, when she was still-- was this really something she wanted to think about right now? Well, she certainly wouldn't get much of a chance once Enishi was up and around again.

So. The last time she'd seen her full reflection, she'd still been a virgin. She wasn't sure whether she felt different now because of that, or if she was just in a special extended condition of weirded-outness in general. She'd slept off enough of the physical and emotional stress that she wasn't on the edge of meltdown any more, so she could get back to concentrating on how to get out of here. The only trouble was, she wasn't sure anymore how much she really wanted to leave.

It wasn't like she'd been much use lately, with almost everyone else gone out of town. Yumi and Tomoe had only stuck around to keep an eye on her because Kenshin didn't want her to follow the rest of them, so maybe she might as well stay with Enishi as anywhere else out of the way. She didn't think he'd hurt her, now that he'd started to treat her like some kind of fragile pet bird. Assuming there were fragile pet birds that could stand up to lots of vigorous sex. Which got her back to where she'd started with this line of thought. Except for the sakabatou, which was why she'd gone looking for Jineh in the first place, to show Kenshin that she could still help him. And she would, once she found the sword and an exit. Right?

She took one last look at the mirror, then trooped around to the room where Enishi had first cornered her. The bed had been remade with fresh linen, with the pillows fluffed up and the sheets turned down. The only thing throwing off the perfect symmetry was the stack sliding across one side: a few closed boxes and a lot of new clothing.

The sizes must've been taken from what she'd been wearing before, but the styles weren't. They reminded her of Yumi's gallery wardrobe, with an air of cool elegance undercut by a few subversive touches of seduction: layer after layer of fine wool, linen, silk, and lace. The rough edges of her fingertips snagged against the fabrics, rustling through them like leafless trees in the rain.

At the very bottom, her own clothes looked distinctly out of place in such grand company, even in their freshly-rehabilitated condition. The mud had been washed out, with the rips mended so neatly that she wouldn't've spotted the repairs if she didn't know where they'd been. For that matter, the ragged hems of her jeans were snipped clean and patched over. When she unfolded her coat, her scarf and mittens fell out with the fuzzballs trimmed off them, just like her sweater, and how the heck did anyone get this sort of laundry service these days?

Her shoes were inside the first box she opened. They'd been cleaned just as thoroughly, and her broken shoelace had been replaced. The next three boxes had one pair each of sensible ankle boots, high-arched patent-leather stilts, and soft fuzzy slippers. The very last one held her socks, neatly darned where the heels had been wearing thin, as well as her panties, bra, and practically an entire rack from Victoria's Secret. There was a lot more underwear than outer clothing. She had a feeling this meant that Enishi considered it to be disposable.

Last of all, a bulky envelope had fallen off the edge of the bed. It was sealed, with an inventory of its contents printed on the front: keys, petty cash, and wristwatch (jeans pockets); packet of tissues and tin of peppermints (coat pockets); costume jewelry (coat lining).

Jewelry? She shook the envelope, puzzled, then held it up to the light, but there was too much stuff in there to see the outline of any one item. But when she opened it and poured everything onto the bedspread, there it was: the fine silver chain and fishbone pendant Kenshin had given to her. She'd thought the necklace had fallen through the hole in her coat pocket and gotten lost forever, but it'd just been stuck in the lining the whole time.

By now, she didn't have any emotions left. But she pressed the fishbone to her lips until the cold spines stung her like the salt of tears.

---

The pillow retained the scent of Kaoru's hair, but it wasn't nearly as nice to hold as she was. She'd been so sweet to curl up next to, as warm and tender as a cake fresh from the oven. A lovely moist cake, waiting to be turned out and drenched with milky glaze....

Enishi yawned, stretched, and faded into a pleasant doze until he heard her footsteps on the stairs again. He rolled around to blink in disappointment at her outfit. "Didn't you like what I brought you?"

"They looked too complicated to put on by myself." Self-consciously, she smoothed her sweater, then put her cup on the tea tray. She folded her legs onto the floor in that unladylike way that inspired futile yearnings for a very short skirt in place of those denim trouser things. "What kind of people iron jeans, anyway?" she asked, wincing.

"If they're chafing you, you could take them off." Funny, she didn't seem to warm to this advice, any more than she'd brought him his own drink of whatever it was. He sniffed at the steam, then sat up for a peek at it. "What've you got there, anyway? Miso soup?"

"Um, kind of."

He wrinkled his nose at the taste, perplexed, then realized it'd been his fault for putting so many things out of her way in the kitchen. "Sorry you couldn't reach up to the knives and katsuobushi plane, sweet. At least if I'd put the kombu on a lower shelf, you could've made some kind of dashi instead of just mixing miso paste with hot water."

"That's okay," she said as she took the stuff back, not blaming him at all for reducing her to this sort of makeshift. He was further chagrined when she gave him a longer look. "Your face healed over since I went downstairs, but your jacket's really messed up. I know the post-holiday sales can get pretty rough, but isn't that a lot of trauma from just shopping?"

He checked the damage, poking through the muddy shreds to make sure he'd healed there too. "Oh, that. Just a few sword cuts, that's all."

"Sword cuts?" That miso water was right nasty, but it wasn't the only reason she'd choked, was it? Before she could spill any more of her cup, he set it aside. Despite the hot water, her fingers were cold and trembling. She looked... afraid? For him?

He squeezed her hand reassuringly. "You are a sweet little bird, aren't you? No need to worry about me, love. Forgot how bloody fast the bugger can be, that's all. Got to pay him back for what he did to you, don't I?"

"Who?" she asked, just like the adorable owlet she was imitating again, wide-eyed and gap-beaked as if begging for a worm. He could think of better things to feed her than that. Unfortunately, she resisted his first gentle tug.

"Well," he began, easing her into the news. "He's pinned down with nowhere to go, right? But I can't get a proper slice at him, not the way the rat in the hat scuttles about. So the best I could do last night was shove him into one of his own pit traps, like the one I found you in. Made sure he didn't miss any of the pointy sticks like you did, but this one's too deep for me to reach in and finish him off. If he's still there when I go back tonight, I'll trot out the sakabatou and put him away. So I haven't killed him for you yet, love, but once I work up to it, it'll be good practice for the real fight."

Once she'd absorbed this, her shoulders sagged into a long sigh, tumbling her hair forward like a veil of tears. "So you were fighting Jineh. Not--"

"Not Battousai, no." He knew she'd be disappointed, but her despair made his heart hurt for what she must've suffered. "But if I can kill Jineh first, it'll get my watou woke up with its appetite back, and then I'll be my old self again. I'll need that edge to take on the scaly little brat, wherever he's gone to. But even if I can't find him, I can change you then. I'll miss the lovely blue that your eyes are now, but they'll be just as pretty when they've gone hellfire-gold, the way mine will be too."

She swallowed hard, on the verge of tears. Damn it all, he was going to comfort her whether she wanted it or not. With a swift, ruthless pull, he hauled her off-balance and onto the futon, pinning her down before he remembered why he shouldn't. Just in time, he stopped himself from kissing her poor raw mouth again, and leaned back for another check of his pockets. "I forgot you didn't like Battousai doing that," he muttered, abashed at her frozen tableau of panic. "Don't want to remind you of him any more than I have to. Hold still, now."

The little jar of ointment had warmed up while tucked away in his jacket, soft enough for him to scoop out a healthy blob. He dabbed some over the flecks of blood on her lower lip. She grimaced. "What is that? It's tingly."

"Medicated lip balm, it says. Hush so I can rub it in." He would've preferred to do that with his own mouth, but she didn't look nearly ready for that yet. His fingers would have to do for now. "There now, that better?"

She nodded, but that lost, distant haze still clung to her. This peeled away with her sweater when he tugged the latter upward. A muffled protest emerged from the fleece flailing over her face. "Hey!"

"Hush, I said. Cripes, that looks nasty, all chapped and flaky-like," he said, and plopped the rest of the balm onto her bare breasts.

Her resistance shivered away into more owl sounds. "Ooooh," the sweater whispered. Tingly stuff, was it? Maybe it was time for him to find out. After all, his mouth was getting a bit dry too.

---

He was touching her the same way Kenshin used to-- not in the same places, of course, but with the same delicate restraint. Enishi had already taken things slowly that first time, but in a completely different way: gauging her responses as if testing a new computer game, carefully investigating what this touch or that movement might do to her. And after that, he'd just gone full steam ahead every time. But now... now it was almost like he cared whether she might get hurt. The lip balm had helped with the physical part of that, but as his kisses floated above her body, she felt like dying would've been easier.

Static crackled through her hair. Woozily, she opened her eyes as Enishi finished pulling her sweater off her face-- not by whipping it over her head, as she'd expected, but by lowering it back down again. Something about his expression reminded her of Kenshin too, and she turned aside so she wouldn't have to see it. At least their voices weren't anything alike. "Oi. Bluebird?" Except if he was going to talk this gently. "Thought I heard you peeping away under there. You all right? Come on, let's have a look." He slid one long hand along her cheek, touching her lashes with a fingertip, tracing the curve of her lips with his thumb.

"I'm fine," she insisted, trying to blot her nose on her shoulder without him noticing. It didn't work. He tsked and helped her sit up, then went into another jacket pocket for a handkerchief to give to her. Okay, so his glasses weren't the only Hiko-like thing about him; guys from Okusofodo must just have magic handkerchief dispensers built in somewhere.

As she dried her sniffles, she watched him watching her. She didn't think he could see her clearly through the tangled curtain of her hair, though she could make out the oddly pained, puzzled furrow to his brow. Almost too softly for her to hear him, he murmured, "What am I going to do with you, pretty bird? Can't keep you safe 'til I can go nick one of the other lads, but then you might fly away while I'm out. But you wouldn't do that, would you? Not when there's such a lovely nest right here?"

She didn't know if he expected a response. When she held his handkerchief back toward him, he closed her fingers around it with one hand and took her wrist with the other. Until he trusted her enough to slip up and let her escape, she'd have to play along.

To her relief, he didn't escalate immediately once he'd pulled her close. He just settled her sideways in his lap, tucking her head under his chin and folding his arms around her. Both of them leaned against the wall, just breathing quietly together for a while. Some of the wood-smell came from the house itself, she realized, adding the rich scents of cedar and pine to the sandalwood and bergamot of Enishi's soap. These were further overlaid with the aromatic residue of the lip balm he'd put onto her and the leafy, earthy fragrance that still lingered in his clothing. Both of the latter tantalized her with the thought of actually getting back outside again.

"Didn't do you much harm, did I?" His question was scarcely more than a blurred shadow against the back of her neck, its warmth flickering like the sun through clouds. "But you were crying again. Still shy from what Battousai did to you?"

Kaoru supposed that was true enough. She nodded, not trusting her voice yet.

His slow exhalation had the hint of a growl beneath its surface, though his clasp around her waist remained light and steady. "You'll have to explain that to me proper in time. If he just teased you a bit and then shoved you off, I don't see how it could've hurt you so."

After another long silence, she took a deep, steadying sigh. "I don't think it's something I can really explain to you. You wouldn't understand unless you'd been there."

"Then go on and take me there." He ducked away from the threat of collision as she jerked her head around at him, startled. "If you can't tell me, praps you'd best show me instead."

"I can't," she protested wildly. "It wouldn't work, because--"

"Coz what?"

"Well, um, you don't kiss the same way he does." At least not until just now. "And you wouldn't back off, either."

"Hmm." That measuring gaze was making her even more uneasy. "What about the other way round?"

Her shoulders slumped, dragged down by her heart. Uselessly, she folded her arms around it and tucked her chin down. "You know I can't hold you off. Especially not after yesterday."

She could practically feel his narrowed stare burning through her skull. Suddenly, he dumped her off his lap and loped downstairs. Oh no, she'd pissed him off by refusing him, she thought at first, before it occurred to her that if he'd really wanted to, he could've gone ahead anyway. There wasn't anything to make him bother with getting her to cooperate if he didn't want to, so what was he doing now?

Before she'd had time to decide whether this was a good development or a bad one, he'retureturned with a pile of stuff in his arms: some clothes from the bedroom, plus a smaller box than the others she'd already seen there. He reseated himself at a safe distance across the futon, dumping everything onto the floor beside them. "This one tumbled behind the
edge of the bedspread, so reckon you missed it," he said, pushing the box toward her.

A hairbrush? There wasn't much else it could be, since underneath it lay a bunch of other hair toys: silk scarves, barrettes, and ornamental pins. But when she tried to use it, it wouldn't brush. Clicking his tongue, he took the wooden handle away from her and leaned closer again. "Not had a proper set of boar's bristles before, have you? Bend your head this way, sweet; you don't use these by dragging them from the top like those nasty cheap things that tear your scalp. You bring it up and under like this, see, then let the weight of your hair do the work instead of forcing it through. There now, isn't that nice?"

There wasn't any way to figure him out, was there? She gave up for now and let him brush her hair smooth, drifting into a half-sleep until he poked her in the ribs with the rest of the box. While she picked out a scarf and tied up her ponytail, he pulled a few pieces of cloth off the pile-- more obi things again?-- and started to knot them together. She didn't really want to know why he was doing that, but figured she might as well ask since she was bound to find out anyway. So to speak. "Um...?"

That grin of his flashed up before she could get out a real word. With a few deft movements, he slid two of the loose loops over his wrists, tossed her the tail ends of the silk, and thumped spread-eagled onto his back. "Be a love and slide those under the futon, would you? I'll tell you how to manage the rest of the knots, and then we can get started."

---

He knew she'd come 'round eventually. After a bit of fuss, she'd added a few more wrappings for good measure, tugging his limbs in all sorts of directions to make sure he wasn't just pretending to be trussed up. She'd got everything right, not so tight they'd pull his hands or feet off, but not loose enough to slide over and let him out. As a last-minute precaution, he wiggled from side to side, as well as he could with one of Tomoe's gauze undersashes winding around his waist several times and back behind the futon to meet up with the rest of the knots. "Likely to be a bit of slack if my shirt slips out from under that. Might as well take care of that beforehand, don't you think?"

Obediently, she pushed his shirt hem up and out of the way. His jacket was already bunched up behind his shoulderblades, where she'd run a folded obi through both sleeves as an extra precaution. She tugged at the undersash again, put another knot into it at the side, and tucked that under the futon's edge. Luckily the padding was thick enough to keep him from feeling every lump.

"All right then, ready if you are." Despite his confident tone, he wasn't sure she wouldn't nip off and leave him here. She couldn't get away on her own, but she might still have some notion of trying. He could squirm out of the tangle if need be, but it might take more time than he had the good temper to spare for it.

So when she sat beside him, it put him a bit more at ease, though not entirely so. After all, whatever she was about to try on him had been something that made her curl up like a poked bug at the very memory of Battousai, as brave as she'd been when Enishi had first faced her down. But she was just a tender little bird, so how bad could it really be without leaving any scars that showed? And it was for her own benefit, not just a frolic for his own amusement, so he could enjoy this in good conscience. "So where do we start?"

There was a certain stillness to her face as she leaned toward his. From fighting down those memories again, or from trying to imagine whatever Battousai had been thinking at these times? It didn't make much difference, Enishi supposed. She pushed her ponytail behind her so it wouldn't fall onto him. "Hush," she whispered. "Close your eyes and don't say anything."

Her kisses on his lids were as weightless as snow, soft and cool with the tingle of balm. Had Battousai's mouth trembled like that when he'd kissed her? Enishi doubted it. But if their luck would hold, this would be the closest that Kaoru ever need be again to thinking about the poisonous little snake in this way.

He made himself relax, in case his own tension about that was making her hold off. But it didn't seem so; she was just hovering above him, her mouth barely touching his forehead. Slowly, with such subtle touches that at first he thought he was just imagining it, she traced her lips along the edge, brushing the fine strands of the hairline with the delicacy of a cat sipping the breath of a sleeping child. Every so often, her tongue would dip against his skin to leave a ghost-print of warm moisture that cooled as it evaporated, long before the next time she'd do it again.

The first minutes of this simply puzzled him. But the faint sensations forced him to concentrate, listening for the rustle of her clothes against his, inhaling the warm fragrance of her skin. As time passed, each tiny spark added to the last, building and burning until he found himself straining toward her from the knots. When she backed off entirely, he hissed with frustration, then at himself for possibly frightening her again. But no, her expression was just the same as before, perhaps only a little sadder.

"Shhh. Close your eyes," she repeated. This time, she cradled his head in her arms, tilting it to give the same tenuous attentions to the outer whorl of his ear.

So this was what hell was like. Battousai was going to die for sure.

---

Kaoru suspected she wasn't doing this right. Even if it weren't for the logistics of Enishi being tied down in the first place, she wasn't sure that either of them could've stopped cold from necking to switch to this instead, which was how she'd always started out with Kenshin. But since the initial warmup, Enishi had started responding kind of like how she remembered doing herself, so maybe she wasn't that bad at it after all.

The funny thing was, this was much too easy. From this side, it hardly felt like she was doing anything at all. If she hadn't already been on the receiving end, she might've thought Enishi was completely overreacting. But at least now she was sure there wasn't just something weird about her, since first Kenshin had briefly echoed her own reaction to this, and now Enishi was providing more complete confirmation.

The futon was creaking and boinging with tension, and some weirdly frothing growly noises were bubbling through the hand she'd clamped over his mouth-- not to the extent of actually geysering out drool, but vibrating all of the little bones in her fingers. So she guessed he was having fun, or at least as much as she'd ever had under the same circumstances. While there was a certain exhilaration at wringing so much activity from him with so little effort on her part, somehow she felt nearly as much pity as power.

Forehead, ears, throat, collarbone... oops, she'd forgotten his face. She pushed her hair behind her again, clearing some vagrant wisps of ponytail off his cheek, then moved back up to the edge of his jawline. He'd shaved while he was out, but there were still proto-whiskers tucked under his skin that tickled her tonguetip when she pressed down on it.

Well, she was definitely on the right track now: there was that head-jerk she remembered trying so often, with bared teeth that blurred the line between a kiss and a bite against her palm. And Kenshin had shyly teased her, just once, by saying that the rasping shriek of Sano's fish-sharpener was a much louder version of what he usually heard from her when he knew it was time to stop. If she allowed for the drop of a lot of decibels and about two octaves, that was exactly what Enishi was doing now. So she stretched out over his body and held him tight as if to completely immobilize him, though it would never have worked without all of this silk knotted into place.

Eek. There was definitely a party in his pants. But he couldn't do anything about it while tied to the futon, so she just lay there with her head on his shoulder. He'd been pretty good about not saying anything while she was giving him the demonstration, and he kept not saying anything while he simmered down. Finally, she asked him, "So what now?"

He coughed weakly through her hand, reminding her to take it off his mouth. "Funny, I was about to ask the same. You mean that's it? He stopped just there?"

"Yeah. Usually."

"Well," he said, and blew out his breath in a long sigh. "Handbaskets ahoy, full speed ahead."

"What?"

"Never you mind, sweetheart. Bloody did that on purpose, eh?"

"But you asked me to," she began indignantly.

He raised his head to bonk hers with his chin. "I meant him. Order of the garter snake with a side of chips on his shoulder. Looks like I got the benefit of all the work he put into you, and lucky for both of us about that."

Not quite sure what he meant, Kaoru ventured, "I was just trying to copy what I remembered from my side. He didn't let me--"

"I know." He nabbed some of her hair into his mouth and started idly biting at it. Between languid slurps, he continued, "See, Battousai trained you up careful-like so you'd just about wet yourself from a peck on the cheek. So your first taste of the real thing would put you round the bend, and there you'd stay 'til you were too knackered for anything more. Maybe even longer. But now I'll keep you safe, so don't you worry about that n'more."

That couldn't've been what Kenshin had been planning. Could it? That night in the gazebo had been the only time she'd ever managed to pin down Kenshin for payback, even briefly, so maybe he hadn't really understood what he was doing to her. But after however many years of romping around with Yumi and Tomoe way back when, how could he not have known? This was worse than nightmares of being unprepared for a final exam, because while Enishi kept giving her the study-cramming sensation of suddenly understanding a lot of concepts under pressure, some of the new knowledge flaked apart again on further reflection and left her even more confused than before.

"So, what now?" she asked again. Anything but untie him, she hoped.

"Well, you could untie me," he inevitably suggested. "Either that, or you don't. As long as we're both comfy, you could finish your turn from yesterday instead."

"Um...."

By now, she could recognize the grin in his voice without needing to see it. "Can't decide? I'd offer you a coin to flip, but 'fraid the only thing in my trous has gone 'heads up' already."

---

Even the back of her neck was blushing. Since he couldn't get at it yet for a proper kiss, Enishi blew some cool air down at her. "Come on, then; you can do that thing with your hair a bit more this time. What do you say?"

She sat up, protectively tucking her ponytail over her shoulder. "Which thing? The sort of swirly smooshing thing, or the other one that got you all Tigger-pouncy?"

"Whichever you'd like, pet." As she continued to hesitate, he coaxed, "Or whatever else comes to mind. I know you wouldn't be as cruel to me as he was to you, teasing you up and then just leaving you that way. But if you'd rather, you can untie me and have a bit of a lie-down yourself again. No? Well then, I'm ready and waiting."

She bit her lip. "We already did the hair thing. Don't you want anything else?"

"Something new, you mean? If I recall rightly, you hadn't yet tested your grip on the family katana."

"But your watou is downst-- oh."

---

The lower edges of his shirt and jacket had bunched up in an uncomfortable-looking way, so she straightened and folded them back onto themselves to lie flat. Just below them, the undersash around his waist had tightened up, but not badly enough to cut into his flesh. Some bits of twig and gravel were stuck under his skin from his fight with Jineh, but when she asked Enishi about them, he made it clear that their removal was not his top priority right now, compared to his pants.

His pants worried her, and so did their implications. The cords that fastened them were in a knot that looked even more complicated than the ones he'd directed her through, but there had to be some way of easily untying them so he didn't need two hours' notice every time he went to the bathroom. That might also mean that there was some trick shortcut out of the futon bindings. But after she loosened a few loops, the structure of this knot became more obvious. She unthreaded one cord end, pulled it, and slid down his pants, revealing a nest of pale silvery haze like dandelion fluff, only more so.

Despite what he'd said a few minutes ago, he didn't seem to be in imminent countdown mode for blastoff. Gingerly, she poked at him, eliciting a chuckle. "Won't bite you, birdlet. Go on, introduce yourself and shake hands." The texture was almost like those carpal-tunnel squeezy toys, at least at first. "Mmm, that's a bit ticklish. You can do better than that, can't you? Not like you'll break it." Sheesh, some people were just never satisfied. She went for a really cow-milking thorough squeeze, and was rewarded with a wince. Hah. Served him right.

He waved at her from one bound wrist as if holding a white flag. "Easy there, don't choke the poor lad. Give me your hand?" When she scooted up to his shoulder level, he took hold of her forearm instead, encircling it in a soft glide that merely brushed the surface and made her shiver. "See, that's how you started out. Your arm doesn't stick to my hand this way at all, if you see what I mean. But then you had to go and do this," he demonstrated, compressing the flesh down to the bones.

"Ow."

"Too right. So what you want is something in between. Like this, see?" His grasp lightened to a caress that stayed anchored on the same patch of skin while sliding over the flesh beneath it. His fingers flexed, kneading and massaging her arm, so really only his palm was the only part staying put.

When he released her, she sat back, eyeing him warily. He'd gone back into tech-manual mode, as if he didn't have any intermediate state between acting as if he were coolly tweaking the best performance out of a gadget, or completely losing his mind like an out-of-control catnip kitty. All in all, it felt safer to be treated like a gadget than a shredded calico wad of cat spit. But he couldn't change his mind about going out of turn this time, so she might as well get back to work.

"Come on then, love. All's forgiven and they won't have to amputate, so I'm ready for another try if you are." He aimed an inviting twitch in her direction, then half-closed his eyes as she went back to where she'd been. "Bit higher so you don't pull my hair. See how the skin's a bit loose, especially up top? Just slide it up and over-- ahh, that's right, but slowly now, don't rush things yet."

Once she'd adjusted to the rhythm, he stopped giving directions and his eyelids drifted all the way down. Cautiously, she asked, "Does that mean I'm getting it right, or do you just not feel like talking any more?"

A sliver of turquoise reappeared. "Well, I spose I did interrupt our game before, and it's not as if I didn't keep making you sing. So what do you want to hear?"

"No more Kojiki. But other than that, whatever you feel like, I guess."

"I feel like my lovely bluebird of paradise is going to take me to heaven, that's what I feel like. That sort of thing good enough for you?" She didn't protest, which seemed to be good enough for him. Still languid at first, he produced another phrase or two every so often, strategically timing them between her movements. "Kaoru-hime, my Tanabata princess of birds-- mmm, feather-soft flutters soaring up like a warm summer night..."

The gauze wrapped around his abdomen started to tighten and creak as his breathing deepened and his hips began to flex. The motions were subtle at first, just emphasizing the motion of her hands, but enough out of phase to slowly accelerate the pace. When she took the hint, he diversified into more of a circular wriggle that reminded her of Sano's pet snake from years and years ago. She and Megumi had sometimes agreed to hold the snake after it had been fed, but even sleepy and docile, it was still a solid length of carnivore, smoothly pulsing with the residual warmth of the mice it'd just eaten.

Meanwhile, Enishi was still holding up his side, even if his enunciation was losing its crispness as he squirmed around. "My bright sapphire star of the sea, with those warm tides waiting to drink me down, drowning me in those deep, sweet waves from your soft bluebell petals, as tender as your pretty hands...." He twitched again, much more thoroughly than before. "Honey love, don't stop--"

She'd pulled away, concerned, but he kept coaxing her to return until she did. The moment she touched him again, he surged up against her fingers, straining against the silk lengths tying his body down. The entire futon twisted and buckled from his effort, and she accidentally tightened her grip rather a lot. He didn't seem to mind nearly as much this time, though his word quota went down to short gouts of broken whispers, with a lot more repetition.

"Oh, crikey-- squeeze me tight, pretty blue-velvet rope, my indigo girl--" If it weren't for all the silk tying him down, his back would've been arching enough to make him levitate. As it was, all she could see of his face was the bottom of his chin, what with his head tipped all the way up. Well, that one too. "Honey-sweet heart of the ocean, my precious jewel, my bright starry sky--"

Suddenly, she got worried all over again, and let go. She wasn't reassured any more by his reaction, which involved more futon deformation, crazed bulging veins and eyeballs, and the hint of a ripping noise from an obi. "What?!" he demanded.

She stayed where she'd landed on the floor, a few feet away and well out of reach. "You're, um, leaking or something. Are you okay?"

"Yes! Now come back here!"

"So it's supposed to do that?"

"Bloody damn right it is. Back. Here. Now!" He lunged at her, yanking the futon a few feet into the air before it folded over onto itself on its side. The only visible sign left of him was a few wisps of pale hair poking out the top of the Enishi burrito, plus the tension still twisting the loops of obi tied around it. After a moment of stunned silence from both of them, he added in more contemplative tones, "Ow."

"You don't look okay to me."

"Shush." His fingers reappeared around the edge, wiggling into the extra slack. Afraid that he might pull that loop over the top and get free, she tried to push that corner out flat again. "Ow," he said again, then, "Pushing from the middle might be best."

She shifted down to approximately his waist level, which did provide better traction but also the effect of a pop-up book as she opened the futon out flat, revealing his happy self all over again to bonk into her neck. After wiping the warm smear away, she examined her hand with wary curiosity, remembering something he'd said the day before. "Does it really taste bad?"

"What? Oh. Yumi didn't care for it." Between the intermission and the effort of actually thinking, he'd calmed down enough for his eyes to float back into focus. "Kaoru love, it just means you're making me happy, same as when you drip your honey onto me. So come back and nestle close, won't you?"

His body language had downshifted into the equivalent of Psycho Kitty Keisuke watching Megumi open a can of tuna, but he hadn't really answered Kaoru's question. There was only one way to find out, so she slipped her fingers into her mouth, furrowing her brows in contemplation. When she glanced back at him, he'd squinched his lids shut and was lightly shuddering all over. But he didn't say anything at all, even when he settled down again, and his eyes stayed firmly closed.

"Enishi, are you sure you're okay?"

He opened his mouth, breathed slowly through it a few times, and then closed it again. Other than another drop of leakage, that was all the response she got. Okay, fine. She edged up to him again, sniffed at the liquid gleam, and was bapped in the nose by another twitch. There hadn't been enough for a really good taste test so far, but it didn't seem that bad. It didn't smell like anything horrible, either. But when she licked a bit more off him, he finally made another noise, stuck somewhere between a choking gulp and a drowned gasp. She considered asking him how he spelled that, but decided not to.

It still didn't taste like anything in particular. Mostly it was slippery, a little bit like the texture of natto but without all the other nattoid horrors. Slightly sweet, maybe? Or was it salty? She tried again, with a more confident motion as if slurping melty ice cream. When she stopped, his new cover version of that noise was an extended dance remix with a backbeat of sad puppy. No, not just sad puppy; the full-scale operatic aria of tragic puppy locked out in the rain to be all cold and lonely.

To avoid getting bapped again, she wrapped one hand back into place to hold him still as she leaned forward once more. He felt the same to her mouth as he had to her fingers, only more so-- both tender and firm somehow, like a sword sheath wrapped in heavy brocade. However, it seemed way too slobbery to let spit keep dribbling into the turtleneck folds up top, so she eased the loose cowl all the way down to clean that out. Underneath, his skin was smooth, taut, but also resiliently yielding, like a perfectly ripe plum with juices running down it. And there was a narrow ridge running out from the front of the main structure to the edge of the soft sleeve, as delicate as a silk thread against her tongue.

Wow. She'd never heard a sound like that before. Or had she? The closest thing she could think of was when Hiko had gotten Battousai's knife stuck into his shoulder, with that fresh minty sensation of getting his heart ripped out through his throat. Except that Enishi was being much, much louder with the same general noise, and he was trying to talk through it again. "Mind the teeth," he groaned at first, then, "Oh, heaven-sweet hummingbird--"

Oops, she'd made a questioning noise at that brief protest; so much for not talking with her mouth full. She felt bad about accidentally nicking him with a molar, but where was she supposed to put the silly thing, anyway? The first few angles she tried all got dangerously close to her teeth again, either at front or back, and it didn't help that he still kept moving around. She'd just have to keep her hand there as a guide. It helped the extra skin from rolling back up on itself like a windowshade, too. Paradoxically, the more she moved her hand, the more he stayed still, at least relative to whichever way her hand was going.

As a final dental-avoidance attempt, she tilted her head and nudged him up against the top of her mouth. Ooo, he liked that. He liked it even more when she started to rock her head very carefully, sliding him back and forth from the textured ridges of her palate to the tender flesh just behind it. At least, as long as that stream of broken gasps was a sign that he liked it. The only reason they sounded like words was because she knew they were supposed to.

"Pretty bird, drink it down-- sip my nectar, turn it into your own honey for me to taste. Warm honey on your lips, cream and honey under your tongue and your sweet perfume pouring all over me, out of my own secret garden, my flowering fountain, my heavenly whirlwind of wings, oh, my bluebird girl--"

This was really messy. Despite her best efforts at sucking it back up, her saliva just kept leaking out around him until her whole hand was slippery with it. This wasn't helping with the grip, at least not from her point of view. And he was moving around again, darn it. Wasn't there any way to keep him still so she could concentrate on figuring this out?

Hm. If she nudged him all the way in, she could do a weird-feeling squeeze to the very tip with the back of her throat when she swallowed. Or at least it felt weird to her. Judging by his reaction, he'd never felt anything quite like it either. He was practically choking on each syllable, as if he was the one with a hairball stuck in his mouth. "Oh, your tongue-- more-- ah, sweetheart, please more--"

She still didn't have a good concept of the flavor, but it was starting to change for some reason. His body flexed hard again beneath her face, and then she heard a thoroughly terrifying sound from the top of the futon: the sound of the undersash tearing free from around his wrists.

---

Her hair was all over him, spreading out like an ocean of silk, honey, and myrrh, caressing his chest and throat even more softly than her hands lower down. Or her mouth.

Her sweet, sweet mouth-- Yumi had never liked doing this for him, and had simply gotten it over with as quickly as possible. Which had its own charms, in a way, but that'd been nothing like this divine torment. He'd already failed once to remember how fragile Kaoru still was, as an ordinary human, and it would've served him right if she'd nipped him raw. But instead, she was being so tender, as if he was the one who could be hurt. That thought nearly hurt him by itself, unless it was just that thinking anything would've hurt right now.

Other than that and the slow pace, the only element of pain was the strangulation of the silk still binding him down, no matter how much he pulled and strained against it. He wanted to get free and taste her again, make her writhe and wail until she was sprawled out like a broken doll, and then plunge deep into her for more until her legs pressed close beside him, flailing up from his shoulders like broken wings. But there would be time enough for that later, all the time in the world. All the same, right now didn't seem like a bad time for it either, if he could just get free.

Words were still babbling out of his face. He had no idea what they were. She gave him that exquisite inner kiss with the back of her throat again, and the thin gauze cut into his palms as he wrenched at the bindings harder than ever before. This time, they gave way.

---

Startled, Kaoru whipped up to see how bad the damage was. Maybe it was just a tiny rip?

She ducked just in time to avoid her nose getting mashed into his ribs. Behind her, she felt her ponytail glancingly whap him again. His arms were loose, all right, and as he lurched up from the waist, his fingers scrabbled through her hair to try to push her back into his lap. But it was too late for that. All he had time to do was clutch her head hard against his chest, and then the game was over.

There was a warm splash against the back of her neck, followed by several more. Pinned half-upright, she stared at the extraordinary range of expressions that cascaded over his face as he cried out. This wasn't just something he was doing to her, she realized, mentally bonking herself for having been dense. He felt it too, just as wild and uncontrollable and maybe even more so. Not that she hadn't already known that on an abstract level, but she hadn't viscerally understood it until now.

He convulsed one last time, then sank back down, still holding her face against his jackhammering heartbeat. His fingers trembled against her scalp but didn't loosen, even when she tried to raise her head. "Enishi?" She hoped he could hear her, what with her voice being muffled and, well, stuff. "I can't breathe."

"Me neither," he gasped, but let go of her. Wait, no he didn't; he was just shifting his grip down to her body to haul her flat against him. Once he'd done that, he locked his arms around her shoulders just as tightly as before. He looked so vulnerable that she felt strangely sorry for him. If she had the sakabatou, she could sink it right through that exposed throat. Or could she?

His breathing gradually slowed, until he'd recovered enough to shake off the pseudo-rigor-mortis and slide one hand up into the spattered trail he'd left behind, viscous and cooling. His voice was slurred and slow, too, as unsteady as his eyelids drifting open. "Opals and pearls in your hair, like the moon on a chain of stars. My lovely honey dove, my own true-blue lovebird...." He trailed off again, nipping a loose strand of her hair between his lips to mouth it gently until she shifted position. "You won't leave me, will you?"

She succeeded in hooking the blanket with her toe and kicked it up into reach to spread over him. "You look really tired. I should let you rest for a while."

His grip was surprisingly firm for someone who was practically passed out. "Promise you won't leave," he insisted.

"Can I just take a walk around the garden out there? I didn't get to see very much of it yesterday."

"Not much to see. Hasn't got any flowers as sweet as my bluebell posy right here; anything in bloom'll just hide away from fading in comparison when you walk by."

"It's okay," she reassured him, trying to remember every babysitting tactic she'd ever used to talk Yahiko into his naps. "Look, I'll finish untying you so you can be all comfy. You're too sleepy to do anything right now anyway. And then once you wake up, you won't be tired any more, and you can come get me from the garden so we can fix a snack downstairs. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

To get around his lingering hold on her ponytail scarf, she reached back and untied it, letting it slide free. His sigh was a premium blend of resentment and resignation. "Mmphlgl," he complained, but once she'd gotten the remaining obi off him, he curled up under the blanket instead of trying to grab her again. She picked up the box of hair gizmos for a replacement scarf, but this time there was extra stuff in there as well: the handkerchief he'd lent her, and the remaining bit of lip balm.

She paused to look at him before leaving. He'd tucked her scarf up against his face, and muttered one last thing into its folds before finally relaxing into sleep. With reluctant affection, she stroked his hair, then headed out.

A small structure like a Zen tea gazebo perched over one end of the pond, raised on posts from the end of a dock-like walkway. There wasn't any wind inside the dome, but the surface rippled from the waving fins of the koi as they swam back and forth. The garden was warm and sunny and pleasant, and if she stayed here with Enishi, it would free up Yumi and Tomoe to join everyone else in Okusofodo. To go join Kenshin, who didn't need her any more.

She reached into the pocket of her jeans, looked at Kenshin's necklace for a while, and then dropped it into the pond. A few koi nipped at the silver fishbone as it sank through the clouded water. Even before it fell out of view, she'd turned away from it to sort through the little box again. She'd better figure out that hairbrush this time, because she was going to need it.