Fandom: Mai Otome
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.
Rating: T

Reason.
By Victoria G.

"Is Natsuki planning to sulk all night?" She asked, flexing her fingers beneath the steamy surface and dripping a bit of the captured water over her shoulder. Shizuru did not enjoy a sulky Natsuki… it was her least favorite of the incarnations she'd yet encountered. It depleted none of her attractiveness, but it did make her rather difficult.

A deep crease etched itself in her brow and she continued to work the dry sponge with nervous hands. "I'm not sulking." That sponge had not once entered the scented bath, hadn't yet glided pleasant and warm across her back and the brunette was growing impatient for it.

"What is this then?" A gentle finger flicked her protruding lip.

"Cut it out Shizuru!" She whipped her face away and a single light eyebrow rose. There was no blush, not even the slightest suggestion of pink… odd.

"Should I wash my own back tonight?" Her smile was met with that sponge tossed in the water beside her as the other woman stood, crossing her arms. The reaction was much stronger than she would have anticipated and so she began to worry. "Something is bothering you…"

"Nothing's wrong." It was most definitely a lie, Natsuki had no talent for them.

"If that is the case, Natsuki should apologize for throwing the sponge at me, should she not?" A light-hearted tease and another smile, but it faded when there was no trace of amusement in the other's face.

When green eyes met hers, they were shimmering and dark. It was not an expression she was accustomed to having directed at her. "I hate that you slept with her. I know that you did it to escape, but there wasn't any other way Shizuru? It had to be that?"

The woman in the bath reclined, closing her eyes and calming her nerves. She had been waiting for this conversation…she'd been dreading it. "Natsuki has always been the better of us two."

A seat was taken, back on the stool, but body turned away, slouched… closed off and pulled in. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Fingers dipped beneath the surface of the water and Shizuru watched them through the parted bubbles left in their wake. Natsuki had such an unusual sense of timing. Selecting her bath as the appropriate time to speak about this, there was a touch of brilliance in it. She was vulnerable, unable to walk away. Shizuru had considered how this chat would play out many times… how to explain it to the other woman, how much to reveal or how little, what the ratio of truth to half-truth should be. "The love an Otome has for her master is intended to be pure. My love for you is different than that. I cannot live as you do."

A puzzled frown formed in response. She didn't understand the change in subject or the statement itself. "...I'm not your master, Shizuru."

"You're what I fight for. It is the same." A smile smaller than most she gave because there was too much honesty in those words. It was uncomfortable.

"What does this have to do with Tomoe?" Natsuki grumbled, put off by the riddle-like speech, by ideas strung together in a manner she could make no sense of.

"Besides the most obvious reason, I slept with her because I am weak that way."

Eyes rolled to the ceiling. It was not that she didn't catch what was meant, it was the dressing it up that bothered her. "So you slept with her just because you wanted to."

The woman sighed and turned her eyes to the other. A high proportion of truth to half-truth then, because it seemed to be necessary. "It is something I will continue to want Natsuki... and you will not touch me."

Her jaw shifted. "You only tease me Shizuru. You're not serious."

She twirled her delicate looking hand in the hot water again, let the discomfort flow out from fingertips to mix in with the bath. "There has always been truth in the teases."

Eyes narrowed. "You tease everyone…"

A slow roll of her head toward the speaker. Was it anger? Disgust? No, neither of those. Shizuru scanned Natsuki's face, the set of her shoulders, the curve of her brows, followed muscles… all tension, all tightness, but nothing to conclusively pinpoint the seed of her feelings. "I mean nothing by it with others. I do not tease them the way that I tease you."

The dark-haired woman was deeply unhappy… that much and little else was clear. "What you did with Arika when we first met her…"

"Has it occurred to Natsuki that I was attempting to make her jealous?" There was a part of this conflict that struck the brunette as unfair and so she fell back into the cool calmness she cultivated. Lifting her palm, she blew away a few of the suds resting in its center, closing her eyes. The apparent nonchalance infuriated the woman watching. She didn't understand that Shizuru was nervous and a bit annoyed herself. "You've known this about me, that I took pleasure in such things and still it upsets you."

"Because I also know you've never tried anything with me except when you thought I was your fangirl and you could just screw around with me. You still only screw around with me." The bitterness in the statement took both women unaware. The walls Shizuru had erected due to her own apprehension began to lower as she realized that whatever else Natsuki may be feeling, she was also hurting.

Those words though… they were such a stark description of what was between them, such a harsh rendition of their history. With guard dropping, Shizuru found they wounded her. In her deliberately undefined relationship with Natsuki… she always seemed to fall short of the expectations set for her, seemed to pale in comparison to whatever new mental pedestal had been imagined for her, seemed to disappoint. She could never fully realize the adored 'Shizuru Onee-sama' from their school days, or 'the Bewitching Smile Amethyst,' or what was between them now… 'Shizuru the pure lover'. This most recent version had been impossible from the start. To subsist on nothing but the friendship between them, love without desire… that was the farthest removed from her true nature.

These painted likenesses were always there, staring back at her from the depths of green eyes and Natsuki never seemed to recognize they were simply pretty pictures, wishful thinking. The words spoken by a younger Natsuki, when she asked a second time to be her room attendant… a promise to cast aside preconceptions, a fresh page on which to write the real Onee-sama had never been fully realized either. At first, Shizuru had believed it was possible, but there had always been parts of her, one part in particular, that the dark-haired woman found disillusioning. Failure was not something she was accustomed to nor was it something she dealt well with. She found herself beginning to believe there was no such thing as a fresh page and that she would never be exactly what Natsuki wanted. It was not for lack of trying on either part, there was so much they knew of each other, so much that existed only between the two of them, so much they understood of one another... but those few things that fell outside of that... those things they both got so wrong.

"If I recall correctly, I disappointed you so acutely that you slapped me and refused to look at me for days, did I not? Somehow I've disappointed you again in that way even though we are not and have never been lovers." Her voice was just starting to dampen at the edges, a bit of feeling bleeding through.

Arms crossed defensively. "Because that's not what I want from you."

The response stung the woman in the bath. It was painful to hear, but she did not show it outwardly. She smiled at the bathwater instead and sorted through her thoughts in silence. She wondered if her companion had honestly desired for them to remain virgins, to sacrifice their lives to serve something else without taking a bit of pleasure for themselves. "Natsuki, do you honestly believe in the ideals of the Otome, in vestal love? If that is what you expect of me, I will continue to disappoint you. It is not what I want for myself."

"That's not it." Her head turned and the emotion inside those eyes, it shook Shizuru. "It's because you don't touch me like you mean it. You're always teasing me… back then, that's why I slapped you. Not because of what you did, because of how you did it. You play with me. If you meant it… it would be different."

She was further shocked by the words, by being misread so entirely and by the pain that Natsuki could not hide. It flowed outward, blanketing the room and Shizuru's defenses were further weakened.

"Why Tomoe? Why is it always a big joke to you with me? Is it because I haven't ever done that before?" The dark-haired woman tried to control her blush, tried to disguise her crumbling pride while Shizuru could do nothing but blink through the cognitive devastation wrought by such an unexpected question. "If you could mean it with me, I would've learned how to…" The blush broke through and overcame her cheeks. "…please you."

The blinking continued, but the self-doubt, the weaving insecurities in the other woman's words were rare to hear… they stabbed at Shizuru, forcing a response. "It was never that. You've never been a joke to me and I feel nothing for Tomoe." Honest reassurance, truth spoke in hushed tones, but it did nothing to comfort Natsuki.

There was something of staring contest between them. "… but you slept with her anyway."

She regarded the other woman steadily. "I do not need to feel for someone to be with them sexually... it was a need. It would not be that way if we were together." It needed to be said, as did the reveal that followed. "I've waited years for you, you never came to me."

She wrapped an arm around her exposed midriff, trying to control her breathing. "You didn't come to me either! I was waiting too!"

A hand reached out and rested damp, on top of black pants and Natsuki stared at it as though frightened of it. The teases were always meant to be that, an indication of interest, but it was becoming devastatingly apparent how far from their intention Natsuki's interpretation was. "How was I to approach you after what happened the first time?"

Shizuru wondered if it was her imagination or if there were actual tears gathered in the corner of green eyes. The answer came when a single drop escaped. "What was I suppose to say Shizuru? The first time you didn't feel that way, I wasn't anything to you, just another girl who followed you around. I was the only one who felt anything. You've never said you feel like that, not to me and you know I do!"

"I knew that you used to."

She glared, falling eyelids crushing tears, pushing them down. "Everyone knows how I feel. I can't hide things like that. I was so excited when I saw you again, and the first thing you do is look at me and tell me you had fun? You had fun sleeping with Tomoe while I worried like an idiot over you!"

"…I should not have said that. It was cruel of me. Kanin-na." What she had spoken then, it was hinged on a hope for some reaction. That flash of jealousy, it was her only reassurance in this thing that connected them… that despite what they did not have, what they did have was something different.

"I don't wanna do this anymore." She murmured, angry and upset. "Not this way."

"Natsuki..." The brunette made to lift herself from the bathtub, unable to bear seeing the other woman so uncharacteristically upset.

A hand flew out, stopping her. "No. Stay there." Gaze dropping, the brunette stared at the bathwater surrounding her. "Shizuru… if I told I was still in love with you, used those words, would it change anything?" Uttered so quietly, a touch of fear inside that voice...

She closed her eyes against the emotion she felt and spoke her answer softly. "Would it make a difference to Natsuki if I used the same words, said that I am in love her?"

After tense seconds passed, the dark-haired woman stood. The noise of stool legs dragging across tile called Shizuru's gaze. Slowly, with shaking hands, the dark-haired woman undressed herself while intense maroon eyes followed each movement. With a blushing face, she lowered herself into the tub in front of the other woman. Natsuki was caught off-guard by gentle arms that passed around her waist, pulling her close. Where she half-expected the notoriously passionate woman to take her, would have invited it despite her nervousness, there were only soft fingers in her hair, across her face… things that hadn't happened between them...novel sensations... feelings novel in their openness.

"I don't want you to touch anyone else Shizuru, I wanna be the only one to touch you…" That low voice was broken and sharp. The confession dragged across Shizuru's breastbone and floated into the steamy air landing on the brunette's ear like a sweet kiss. They were beautiful to her... their possessiveness welcomed... very nearly reveled in.

There was a kiss placed on the top of Natsuki's head. The older woman stopped herself from justifying, from explaining because none of that really mattered anymore. "Kanin-na, for hurting you my Natsuki." The whispered apology brought more tears because there was so much more than just Tomoe. She was not happy about that yes, but in everything that had transpired, there was something equally as important. A deep exhale, the raven-haired woman could hear it, Shizuru's breath like the ocean against her ear. "Am I so much less than you dreamed?" The soft words, unusually strained, brought a frown. Vulnerable crimson met surprised green. Natsuki realized her upset was being misinterpreted completely.

Shyly, she leaned forward, pressing a kiss to lips that twitched in momentary shock. "You're not." Hands passed through light brown hair. She brought their mouths together again, slow, and Shizuru responded with mind hazing kissing the likes of which Natsuki had always wanted but couldn't fully imagine. When they pulled away from one another, the younger woman felt overwhelmed, took a second to find her voice. "I wasn't saving myself Shizuru… it's just that I've never wanted anyone else."

The brunette's gaze softened, melted and smoothed… a contrast to the powerful beating of her heart. Thumbs brushed away the tears and the dark-haired woman ducked her head. "Why is my Natsuki crying then?"

"You just jumped in front of me, you gave yourself up. I didn't even know if you were okay… they could've killed you …and then you tried to shield me again. I don't want you to die for me. I don't wanna do this by myself Shizuru. I wouldn't be any good without you. You can't keep protecting me like that."

"If it is for Natsuki's sake, I do not mind."

She held the woman's chin in her hand, stared with intense seriousness. "I mind. I don't want you to. Promise me."

The brunette head shook gently, taking the hand from her face and draping it over her shoulder instead. "When you were first appointed to the columns... when you first became Gakuenchou, I told you that it would be this way."

Her forehead wrinkled and she glared, pushing herself up, "You don't get to finally kiss me like you just did and say that! Why Shizuru?"

A soft smile and the palm of a hand against her neck. "Natsuki knows why."

She looked down again. "I know you won't listen. You never tell me why."

Her head fell back slowly against the rim of the tub and lids slipped down. "Because I would let this world burn if I meant I could keep you Natsuki. I would let everyone and everything else die. I would destroy them myself if it came to that. That is why."

Green eyes opened wide… a slight blush coming to her cheeks at words that she found both romantic and terrifying. She lifted herself to look at the other woman. It wounded her ego a bit to say what came next, but she knew it to be true. "Shizuru, you're a better fighter than I am..."

A finger silenced her. "At your core, you want to do well for this world Natsuki. I do not share that passion. I fight because these things matter to you, because I swore to, not because they are right or wrong. That has never been my concern." She paused, watching the reaction of the other woman… for traces of disgust, traces of disappointment, but there was nothing like that. The woman looked torn instead. "Natsuki is the one thing I can say that I believe in, that I trust completely. I love you and because I love you, I will protect you with my life… always." She smiled at her.

The dark-haired woman's brows cinched. "…but who's gonna protect you?"

Those beautiful lips curled higher. "Such a kind heart."

She frowned at the response. "You're just gonna keep doing it, aren't you? So I can't do anything?"

A gentle hand passed across her cheek, her tone was light and almost cheerful. "Natsuki gives me a reason. There's nothing more anyone could do." They watched each other… one smiling softly, the other overwhelmed, traces of uncertainty still pinching her forehead. Lips pressed against another set in a firm kiss that drew widened eyes and pinking cheeks before it was returned. Quietly, they settled against one another in the warm bath… moving only to shift impossibly closer, both soaking in the sensation of secrets revealed, of a love that lay between them, ignored for far too long.

End.