Author's note: Second MegSan fanfic. The characters are definitely not mine. :) Enjoy!
Megumi bit her lip and stared at the decrepit shoji door of Sano’s small raw house. What was wrong with her? She’d promised herself she’ll do it today.
Sanosuke, she thought with sadness. My Sanosuke. Megumi heaved a sigh as she remembered herself on the verge of ending her life when Sano grabbed her wrist and caught the blade of the dagger in his hand to stop her . . .
“What are you doing?!” He shouted at her, eyes twitching in irritation, voice thick with fury. “After all the trouble that we went through to get here and save you, you’re just going to commit suicide? Are you stupid or what?!”
Megumi’s eyes were round with shock and she gaped down at the blood rushing out of the long gash in his palm. Then she looked up at him as her tears started to roll down her cheeks, “But, Sanosuke . . . I killed your friend. I killed a lot of people. I don’t have the right to live any longer . . . I . . .”
Her statement only infuriated Sano even more. He hurled the dagger to the wall and shot at Megumi, “Are you trying to waste our efforts, huh, woman?! You’re more stupid than I thought!”
“But I . . .” she blurted out, bowing her head in shame, pressing her hand to her mouth to muffle her cries.
“No buts!” Sano said, slipping his hands underneath Megumi and carrying her in his arms. “We’re going now.”
Megumi gasped and slapped him on the head, “Put me down!”
“No, I won’t,” Sanosuke firmly said as he stomped out of the room with a protesting and squirming Megumi in his arms.
Her Sanosuke. He changed her life. With her life obscured in so much misery, guilt and pain she had never thought that it was possible for her to laugh and smile again. But Sanosuke’s presence in her life proved her otherwise.
Yes, they always got on each others’ nerves far too easily and bickered and fought over something really shallow all day long and called each other stupid names, but all this time, she secretly wished that someday, Sano would just look at her straight in the eye and tell her how much he loved her.
But that’s too ridiculous, of course, Megumi thought wryly. After all, she killed his friend and he downright despised her for it.
She tried to flirt with Kenshin to shove away her feelings for the idiotic rooster. But whenever she flirted with the red headed wanderer, she always ended looking up at Sanosuke in the hope to see a hint of jealousy in his features, only to find him guffawing hard at Kaoru’s enraged and envy expression and fall hard in disappointment.
But last night, while she lay fully awake on her futon, staring at the ceiling as she thought of all the times that she held Sano’s hand in hers to treat his injuries, of his pinewood and cinnamon scent, of his rakish grin that captivated her heart, of his raucous yells when the medicine stings his wound, of his habit to jut out his thin lower lip whenever defeated in an argument or disappointed, a ridiculous idea infringed her mind: What if she plucks up her courage and tells him what she really feels for him? After all, he’d decided to sail off to Nagasaki to find a job the first chance he gets. What if he decided to go tomorrow? Or tonight? What if she was too late?
It made her feel lonely, the thought of him leaving. It broke her heart to think that someday, Sano was going to follow the path he had chosen for his life, seek his future and leave them—her—behind. In any case, Sano was just nineteen and Megumi knew he had a long way ahead of him.
But what if . . . What if Megumi admitted her feelings to him? Will he change his mind? Will it hold him back? Will he stay with her and say, “I love you too, Kitsune”? Or will he reject her, tell her she’s nothing more than a good friend and a doctor to him and leave her shattered and broken?
