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 Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 3:19 pm
Jianyu fell back asleep next to Yue, driftting in and out of consciousness for a few more hours. He tossed his head restlessly until finally, when the sun was once again low in the sky, he managed to drag himself back into reality. Jianyu opened his eyes.
The reverberating in his skull had lessened somewhat, but he felt significantly less hot, less sweaty. Reaching up a tired hand, he touched his fingers to his damp forehead. The fever seemed to have broken, which meant he was out of immediate danger; at least for the time being. His fingers drifted downwards, brushing over the scar on his eye, and Jianyu closed his eyes again briefly. Beside him, he could hear the soft sound of Yue breathing, and he turned his head, seeing her sleeping beside him, her fingers wrapped around his own. Carefully, he extracted his hand from hers, smiling gently at the slumbering girl. She looked tired; worn out and exhausted, and Jianyu felt a pang of guilt for causing her weariness.
Trying to push himself up, his injured side gave a twinge, and Jianyu fell back down, his breathing somewhat labored. He felt much better than he had previously, much stronger, and less reliant on the others, but that didn't mean that the stab wound in his side was any less painful. Gritting his teeth, Jianyu tried again, pressing his hands against the futon and propelling his body vertical. Ignoring the sharp, stinging pain, he managed to get all the way to his feet, standing there on unsteady legs for a few seconds before making his way across the room.
Jianyu was not wearing much; merely a pair of loose silk pants, his upper torso bare. He assumed that his clothes had been bloodstained and mud-streaked, so it had been necessary to remove them to clean and bandage his injuries. Leaning over the basin of water on the nightstand, Jianyu dipped his hands into the cool liquid, bringing them up to wipe his face. The water felt cold and refreshing on his tired face, wonderfully soothing. He repeated this motion several times, washing his face, and then reached for the small hand towel, patting his face dry. Turning around, he looked back at Yue, still asleep beside the futon. Jianyu crossed over to her, and not daring to bend over (his legs were already shaky, his whole body feeling weak), crouched beside her and touched her shoulder.
"Yue?" he murmured softly. "Yue, wake up."
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Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 6:43 pm
Unlike her first rest since the fight, Yue's dreams were not peaceful. Sleep had snuck up on her, as she lay near Jianyu, and her nightmares were beginning. They filtered through to her, hazy and indistinct. Newly emerging. They were still forming, waiting, drawing on the memories of that night to haunt her. They were fledgeling nightmares: Yue was forced to stand at the crossroads, and choose the left path, even knowing what was ahead. She walked down it, and saw Jianyu vanish around the wall behind the row of houses. Yue ran after him, but her feet kept getting heavier and heavier until she could barely move. She could see Jianyu, then, as he stepped into the path in front of her, still too distant to speak to. Then the most vivid part of her forming bad dreams started. It called upon the horror she had felt, watching the Noble get up behind Jianyu. Shadows swirled around the dream Jianyu and threatened to roll over him in a wave. She opened her mouth to cry out, and he waved.
She heard his voice calling her name, and woke, feeling too warm, and uncomfortable. She had fallen asleep fully dressed. She sucked in a breath and started from the touch, before her eyes adjusted, and she saw Jianyu crouching beside her. Her muscles relaxed immediately, and she stretched. "You're well enough to get up, Yu?" She asked, overjoyed, her voice laced with worry which she tried to hold deep inside herself, tried to hold away from her best friend. She believed in his strength, and didn't want him to think otherwise.
Yue immediately realized she didn't know when she'd fallen asleep, or for how long. Where were Chishio and Mayu, Seto and Jianyu's parents? Had they gone home? She couldn't see them just leaving Jianyu there, but maybe they'd made arrangements to return. "You should let me make you something to eat. I think I can make it edible, at least," she mumbled, sitting up. She still felt disoriented, half trapped by her bad dream. However, when her sight cleared, and she looked up at Jianyu again, and her smile lit her face. It was Yu. Yu was awake, and crouching; he seemed lucid, for possibly the first time in days. She reached up as if she was going to brush his face, and dropped her hand down; he seemed tenuously perched, and she didn't want to disrupt that. She got to her feet, reaching her hand to him incase Jianyu wanted to brace himself to rise. "It was pretty quiet without you," Yue said, grinning, though she was remembering, in part, the worry she had felt over the past while. Which still wasn't over, she had to remind herself, as she looked at Jianyu's wound. She had barely noticed how little he wore, but now her eyes traced over the bandages Chishio must have applied over the wound.
"What do you say, fierce warrior? Food, water? Tea?" Yue offered. She wasn't exactly the best cook, but she was hungry, and she wanted to make sure Yu was taken care of.
Her strongest desire at that moment was to rush into him and envelope him, listen to his heartbeat and know he was awake at last. She didn't, though. She stood there, and it was perhaps one of the greatest marks of how much she cared for him, because although she had only had glances of physical contact in the last few days, she restrained herself in favour of his physical condition. Of course, she brushed her hand against his at the first opportunity; she was still Yue Lao, after all. However much that night had shaken her, and still affected her. It wasn't as if it had happened so long ago.
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Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 9:58 pm
Jianyu let his shoulders rise and fall in a shrug, looking down at Yue. "I am well enough to attempt to get up." he said lightly. "However, how long I am able to stay up is an entirely different matter."
His best friend looked tired, her expression just barely hiding what must have been anxiety. Under normal circumstances, Jianyu might not have noticed it, but having been in Yue's company for quite some time now, he was starting to be able to read the minute details of her facial expressions. Reaching down, he laid a hand on the top of her head, smiling gently at her.
"Do not worry about me, little stargazer." he said. "I heal quickly. I will be all right, and so will you."
The last part of his words had not been meant entirely for just physical injuries. Jianyu had a sinking suspicion that the events of the night two days ago had most likely been Yue's first foray into the actual war between the Nobles and the Legion. Jianyu himself had been exposed to it far too much already; his blind eye was evidence enough of that, as well as the dozens, almost hundreds, of battles he had already encountered, the men he had killed without hesitation. However, Yue was several years younger than he was, and not nearly as experienced in the matters of the war as he was. Jianyu was slightly devastated at the effect he knew would have on her, and he did not like that he had been the one to cause most of her pain.
He let his hand drop from her head as she stood up, and smiling gratefully up at her, he reached out, taking her hand to pull himself to his feet as well. The movement hurt, and he flinched involuntarily, letting out a few choice swear words that his ex-lover would have been proud of. Turning to face Yue, he said wryly "I could use some sustenance, yes, if my stomach can handle it."
Jianyu could hear the quiet, barely audible voices of Chishio and Mayu in the other room, as well as...were those his parents? A quiet feeling of relief made his face relax and Jianyu looked over at Yue, crossing to stand next to her. He reached out, very carefully, so as not to cause either of their injuries any more pain, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling Yue against his chest.
"Yue," he said gently, the smile evident in his voice. "Don't worry. I will protect you. You know I love you, right? I'll always be here for you."
It was true; he did love this brash, bright, wild, beautiful girl he had come to know. However, his love was not the romantic kind; it was the kind of love that he reserved for only those dear to his heart, for the ones he wanted to protect. He was not the type to show his emotions, to share what he felt, but this was one of those times where it seemed necessary in order to reassure Yue.
Pulling back, Jianyu smiled at her again. "After all," he said, his voice gently teasing. "What kind of best friend would I be if I couldn't even protect a wild child such as yourself?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:24 am
Yue Lao's eyes narrowed at him, but she grinned, "You'd better recover, Yu! Or else...!" She waggled her finger at him. She laughed, then, and added, "I'm always okay, silly. Why wouldn't I be? I have my fierce warrior back! Nothing can bother me now." In a way, it was true. So long as she knew Jianyu was conscious and recovering, Yue's joy was buoyant. The nightmares that would probably bother her for some time, and the taste of war sinking to the pit of her stomach, those things would be dealt with on her own time. For now, she was so overjoyed that she could only think about the moment.
Yu's swearing almost made her giggle, if she hadn't known it was because he was in pain. "Someone has been keeping some vulgar company," Yue sing-songed. "And that 'someone' may have been me, all along!" She teased Jianyu. She eased up, however, when he agreed to eat. In the silence after, she could also hear her mother's voice, along with Jianyu's parents and Mayu. She was about to bolt out the shoji to tell them he was recovering, but he reached out to her, and pulled her in. Her face grew warm, and something inside her fluttered. It startled laughter out of her. She was careful, in wrapping her arms around him, to avoid his wound and the tender flesh around it. The arm that would have circled around that injured side went instead around his hip. She leaned her head against his chest and listened to his heart, again. "Yu..." she began, smiling, but couldn't find the words. She wanted to squeeze him, and made herself hold still, so she wouldn't hurt him worse. "I'll get strong, so I can watch your back. Maybe if we protect each other, we won't have to worry so much about something... like this... happening again." She paused, trying not to think back on that fear, and then fixed on what he had said to her like it was a beacon. "I love you too, Yu. Too much! You'll spoil me. Love is so irrational," she said, sighing dramatically.
Even though she was bad at showing it, it had meant a lot to her to hear those words. But it had also opened a door that she couldn't go back through. To admit she loved him, what did it mean? She recognized the tenderness between them, but it was the kind of softness they had as best friends. It wouldn't do to love him any more or less than that, and she would have to find the strains of logic around her, to keep her from straying from that. She was never meant to have her own red thread, and she didn't know if it was simply tangled with Jianyu's, or if it was him she wished it would lead to. Yue refused to deal with those thoughts; she would not acknowledge the possibility.
When Jianyu pulled back, she had carefully erased all traces of her internal debate. All she let through was her love for him, which was the only thing she knew, for certain, was lasting. Of course it was lasting; whenever she was around him, instead of becoming kind of manipulative and sharp, she developed a sort of tenderness. A desire to be with him, and just relax. There was nothing she would deny him, if he asked. That knowledge was terrifying for someone like Yue, who prized her own brand of logic and seldom developed relationships with anyone. Not true ones, in any case; so, of course, love had to sneak up on her and smack her over the head, then drag her off to its domain. She would not have gone quietly, otherwise. "Still my favourite kind of best friend," she began, "The Yu-kind. The only kind worth having, as far as I'm concerned," she said, winking at him, laughing.
Whatever it was that she felt for him, she wasn't going to deal with that right now. She did love him, of course, and had for so long. If she looked back, she could probably pinpoint the exact moment she had began loving him in a different way, though she did not want to think on it. Still, unbidden: the image of him with his hair unbound in the garden, the starlight and moonlight painting across him as he drew his bow. Yue interrupted her own thoughts. "Now! On to crucial business: you need food," she said, "And I'm sure your parents would love to see you lucid." Yue swaggered off to the shoji, slid it open, and called, "Jianyu's awake! ..and hungry," she laughed.
"My little moon girl, you don't have to be so loud! We are all sitting right here," Chishio scolded her gently, sighing and shaking her head.
"She's just excited, Chishio! Can you blame her?" Mayu laughed, and she got to her feet, beginning to prepare breakfast.
Before Yue left the room, she turned, as though she had forgotten something. She walked over to Yu, stood on the tips of her toes, and kissed his cheek. "Love you always," she whispered, her smile pouring into her voice, and she escaped off through the door with a giggle.
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