Gentle Turbulence - Uchiha Madara Love Story

Chapter 15 - Compassion

Mi Ho pov:

"And check mate." "Aww man! I lost again!" I whined and threw my hands up in defeat. I looked at Izuna suspiciously as he chuckled. "Or maybe you cheated." I said with a pout and he shook his head. "No. I don't need to cheat in a game of shogi." I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. "Then that means I just suck at shogi." I said depressed at my not so good playing skills.

"On the contrary, you're actually a good player." Izuna said as he began to clear off the pawns from the board. I helped too and watched him unhappily. "Really? Then how come I keep losing?" "That's because you have to spend more time thinking before your next move." He advised. I rolled my eyes as I put some of the shogi pawns into the box. "I do take time....the only reason why one game of ours took almost two hours is because I was taking so long to think before I played my moves."

"True, but you just think of the next best move. You have to try to analyse and predict your opponents move after you have placed down your chip. Its the same way you face your enemies when you're at war." I thought for a minute and nodded. "Yeah....sounds right. Heh, I'm actually pretty good at these kind of stuff and I'm surprised I didn't think about it." I shrugged and folded the board in half and placed it aside.

"You're good at these things? I'm sure you are." I looked up as Madara entered the room while chuckling. He was messing with me again. He sat down near the window and I stuck by tongue out at him.

After the incident, I had been given my own room. Madara had tried to be more compromising so I was given the personal space that I had wanted. He had also given me privacy after I had promised and convinced him that I wouldn't try to escape from the Uchihas. So the guards who usually kept an eye on me stayed outside my room and I had some personal time to practice my dances and do my regular workouts as well. Besides that, I was allowed to work at the infirmary instead if doing other chores.

I enjoyed helping out in the infirmary and Madara and Izuna had seen the positive change in me because of the work I did. They were satisfied that I didn't complain about anything anymore and we got along rather well. Madara and Izuna visited me often and Izuna had taught me shogi. It was very similar to chess so I had caught on quickly. But he was still a much better player than me and I always lost.

Madara and I usually had very simple and general conversations. Well, we usually never had conversations actually, except for when he gave me sarcastic compliments just like earlier. But our conversations were mostly light humor which I have to say, I enjoyed having with him. He would sometimes watch me specifically when I played against Izuna....which was weird. Other times when it was only the two of us in the room, we would sit silently wrapped in our own little bubbles. I would be reading a book or listening to music while watching the garden and Madara would be watching the garden with me or he would be going through scrolls or paperwork.

In all, we had become comfortable being in each other's presence. Perhaps a but too comfortable actually, since now I enjoyed his company.

Madara was strange in some ways. I had never taken the time to get to know him, but now that we spent time together often, I could see that he was a very sharp person in terms of intelligence and skill. He was amazing when he spoke about battle strategies during meetings, and he had the aura of authority and that ring of dominance in his voice when he spoke. He sometimes allowed me to attend meetings if they weren't secretive in any way. And I have to say, I was impressed.

Besides learning more and more about his personality, there was one thing that I had noticed about him. Even though I didn't want to admit it, he was drop dead gorgeous. He was tall, with broad shoulders, a well toned body but not too buff, and his facial features were perfectly carved out. His eyes were very attractive to say the least, his eyes being charcoal black. His jaw was well defined and he had high cheekbones as well.