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Motonari Mouri has never been one for physical intimacy. Never been fond of embraces, kisses, or even the slightest contact of the skin - never.
That was until he met the woman who alleviated his misgivings about skinship. He can still remember the time they both got locked up in the same space, soaked from the rain and basked in suspicions for one another.
Despite the obvious harm he could have inflicted unto her given as they were both from the opposition, she still found it in her fiber to close the distance between the two of them. She had braced risk, all to simply wipe off the rain permeating through his tresses.
“ Cheeky and naive of a woman. ”
Motonari always believed that she must have been the pioneer explorer to all types of stubbornity. He thought that with the nature and ways of the olden period, one day, her very personality might cause her own demise.
Now that they are together, he could only hope he was wrong then - that perhaps he judged her way too soon. But for the first time in his premeditated sailing in life, he was wrong.
Over the course of only a few days, her milky white skin flushed to that of dappled faded blush. He had noticed it, of course. Even if the two of them are at a distance during the day, the myriad of nights spent for making love would still be an avenue for him to see the faded blush grow redder each night.
“I’m just weather-beaten, don’t worry about it.” She sounded merry about it, and he accepted it without much of a thought. After all, she wasn’t just someone from the future, she was also someone not accustomed to the coasted life. Perhaps it was her body’s method of coming to terms with the environment, he thought.
Only to once again, be in the wrong.
“It’s...a mutated measles and smallpox.”
Motonari became listless, piercing ruby eyes darkened at the mention of not one, but two pernicious conditions. Sasuke had gone on with the numbers, relaying statistics of the two diseases albeit conformed to suit the time period - but Motonari was no longer listening.
All his senses were intent on latching onto were the raspberry patterns etched on her uncovered skin and the raggedness of breathing that befalls from her lips. If he closes his eyes and shuts his ears, he could still smell the stale sulphur breeze stuck on her disheveled hair and he swears he could still taste the clinging saltwater on her lips.
“She...” Sasuke paused, almost to ascertain in his own words, “She wouldn’t survive it.”
His face was vacant, eyes empty, not even filled with the usual touch of crazy. His limbs were lethargic, arms seemingly want to move but are unable to do so, only showing occasional bits of tremor.
Sasuke thought best to leave him for awhile, to allow him to collect his bearings even if there’s only scraps of it left. But Motonari’s idleness wasn't pure idle at all, a plan had clogged in his brain - a plan that will only succeed with the answer of one question.
“She can be cured in yer time…?”
Because he could not decipher if it was a statement or a question and because of the words itself, Sasuke was momentarily stupefied. Quiet in his staring at the man who had spoken his words softly and clearly, uncharacteristic of him to do so.
“There’s a cure in yer time. ‘m correct, right ninja?”
Knowing where it was going to lead to, Sasuke stared at her docile figure writhing on the billet before looking back at the man with new resolve in his eyes. Sasuke quietly nodded in response.
“Then...can ‘ya bring her back...to where ‘ya both came from...please?”
It was the most out of the ordinary that Sasuke has seen of Motonari Mouri. The man was ruthless and bordered on being a mad man before he met her. Even in the course of the months that they have spent together, his tinge of psychopathy surfaces from time to time - the only difference was that he no longer pursued to burn the world.
Yet, a man Sasuke saw so warped and vile was pleading for him to return home with her, to save her life - even if it means he wastes away his own.
As Motonari noted from the start, she was cheeky and naive. But he should add that what shines the most, was her implacable vigor. Even in her frenzied state, she manages to underline just how self-willed she was.
“Mo...Motona...ri”
Snapping back from their reverie, both whipped their head towards the barely conscious woman. Just as Motonari was about to rush to her side, Sasuke quickly stepped in, “What are ye blockin’ the way for?!”
“No, I don’t mean to stop you. But smallpox, and even combined with measles, is highly contagious. You shouldn’t expose yourself to contag- to the illness.”
“If t’was goin’ to do me for, I woulda been so the sec she got it.”
His words were demotic and niched to that of a trader’s language, but anyone listening could feel the weight of the burden in his words. He was blaming himself for what happened to her. He was implicating himself in both beliefs that he was the one who got her the illness and that she got it, but not him.
In understanding, Sasuke paced a few steps to the side and right on cue, Motonari kneeled by her side, “How’s my Princess doin’, huh?”
Chaffed and riddled with tears her eyes may be, she could still make out the weary smile of the man he so adores. Presumably having heard her friend's words, she tried to ward off Motonari with a gesture to keep him at a certain distance from her.
“Oh no ya don’t have to sweat ‘bout me.” There wasn’t much to argue, she didn’t have the energy to drive him away nor will he allow himself to be driven away. Not now, especially not now, when he had plans to have her sent back.
Motonari’s rarely ungloved hands clasped one of hers. He pressed a chaste kiss on her thumb before pressing her hand to his furrowed forehead. A moment of silence ensued before her raspy voice resounded into the silence of the space.
“Moto...nari, I...I don’t want to go.”
“Real stubborn, ya know that?”
“Ple-please...I won’t…I can’t.”
From the corner of Motonari’s eyes, he saw Sasuke exit quietly but his shadow looms on the sliding door, still ready to get back when he’s needed by either of them.
“Princess.” It was hushed, airy and almost sobbing. The only thing holding him together was quite literally her hand that he was tightly latching on. Her held hand was already quite flushed in both the ailment and the way he has tensed in it.
“You...you said you’re not going to,” She breaks off for awhile in a fit of coughing, “Not going to hand me to anyone...that’s what you said, Moto...nari.”
“‘Yakno that’s...different. Dont’cha let yer bullheadedness kill ‘ya.”
“You’ve made...your mark, Motonari. I already...asked you to make me yours...didn’t I?”
“Yer makin’ this extremely difficult.”
“Motonari...I still haven’t sailed...the world with you...haven’t...the Kanmon strait you told me about...you also haven’t...taken me to Aki province.”
Her eyes were threatening to close and even if it’s only out of weariness, Motonari had to hold back a curse at the state she was in. He could not bear to just watch his lover reduced every single day.
“Okay then. I’ll bring ‘ya there. Ya better be cured when we get there.”
She woke up to a familiar setting she grew penchant for over the past months. The sight of the sun high in the sky as it glares down on her perched on the ship, the sound of waves hitting the rudder in a swift and natural rhythm of nature, and the smell of fathomless salt of the ocean wafting into the air as it hits her face.
As she adjusted her head from where she was languidly rested on, she caught sight of Motonari’s hardened face staring out into the vast horizon. Her still supple and growing redder arm hovered as it clutched on to his beige kimono .
The coldness of his face faded as mirth replaced it. She smiled at the change and he whispered to her, “ Just wait a little longer, we’re almost there. ”
She hummed at his words as once more she fell back to slumber, eyes failing to stay open. In the gradation of going to sleep, she failed to hear the next words Motonari whispered into the searing weather, “Looks like we’ve gotta settle for just a few months, Princess. Can’t do with five, ten, or even yer whole lifetime. I’d rather let ‘ya go if it means yer alive and well.”
The second time, she woke up to a familiar setting. Only this time, it was a distant familiar setting, one she knew she had not seen in months and would not have expected to see again. The sight of the white ceiling above stared back at her in utter bleakness, the sound of breedle emanated from a nearby machinery, and the smell of medicine and antiseptics strongly penetrated her nose as she struggled to make sense of her surroundings.
Motonari Mouri has never been one for physical intimacy. Never been fond of embraces, kisses, or even the slightest contact of the skin - never.
That was until he met the woman who stirred him to become a man who craves it. However, he thinks he’ll never be able to feel the same craving ever again. Not when he lost the only woman who managed to water down the intensity of his fire, not when he had to forever let go of the only woman to touch him like it was the only thing that mattered.