Characters are not mine. Comments are welcome.
Who the Morning Embraces
Where am I?
The golden sun glints upon the ocean’s face and blows kisses of sunlight upon your wakening self.
Where am I?
You open your eyes, trying desperately to remember what had happened and was surprised to find yourself in a man’s arms.
Sanosuke?
Yes that is his name. This handsome young scoundrel that has stolen your heart. You smile at this. He did steal your heart. How only hours ago you hated this boy and now the thought of leaving him seems unbearable. How fickle a woman’s heart can be, and how cruel fate sometimes becomes.
The pain, it is unbearable.
The pain of what? The bullet lodged somewhere in your body? The sickness slowly eating you from within? The people who you will leave behind not being able to tell them the truth you have only just discovered? Or knowing that you have found the one person who has taught you how to trust love and now you will have to leave him? Which is it priestess? Which pain causes your tears to fall?
All of it.
All of it?
But losing him even more.
Ah, so it is true. This man holds your heart in his hands and you die a second time knowing you will never be able to feel his heart beat with yours again.
Why do I have to die?
You regret your decision now? Do you wish that you could have been saved?
Why not? Am I not entitled to happiness? Have I not suffered enough?
Yes lady, you have suffered enough it is your right to be saved. Shall I call back the doctor?
Let me be selfish this once.
Shall I call back the doctor?
Let me be selfish this one last time.
What do you wish my lady?
Let me revel in his warmth one last time.
He smiles dangling your precious momento in front of your eyes. Whispering for you to hold on.
Do you know Sanosuke?
What do you wish him to know?
That you are the most precious thing I have in front of my eyes?
Tell him.
No.
Why not?
For he has a future before him. One with a beautiful wife and strong children.
What has this got to do with you?
Nothing.
Would you let him slip away from you now?
Yes.
Why?
Our story ends here. My story ends here. His does not.
Tell him how you feel.
No.
You will never get another chance. Stop being a martyr.
I am not a martyr. I just love him too much to destroy him with my love.
How can love destroy?
When he is destined for the love of another.
Would you die like this? Buried in your own self-pity?
What else is there for me to do?
Tell him. You owe him that at least.
He knows.
You lie. You wish to be the one who holds his children. You wish to be the one he calls wife, beloved.
Yes.
You wish to feel this happiness for your own.
Yes.
You wish to be held in his arms forever.
Yes.
You wish to live in his love forever.
Yes.
You wish to feel as you do now. How you long for the life everlasting your god promised. How you need to feel his arms encircling you longer than what the earth can allow.
Yes. But as of right now, this is enough.
I cannot understand you. You wish to be loved yet every chance I have offered you, you have refused. You are not a saint Sayo!
For him I will be.
Then you have lost. I have lost.
Who are you?
I am you.
Thank you.
For what?
For understanding.
I mourn for you, I mourn for us.
Hush now and let it be.
Let it be.
Let me bury myself in his warmth one last time before the morning takes me away forever.
~end~
I have another fic for Nuriko of the same title but both him and Sayo are both doomed anyway so it’s ok. They’re on the same boat.
Well what the title alludes to is those who have a future and poor Sayo does not. This takes place when she lay dying in Sano’s arms and she gives way to those who can still live.