‘A Dance in the Rain’ – an Otogi Zoshi fanfiction

Mansairaku and Minamoto no Hikaru (Otogi Zoshi 2004)

Minamoto no Hikaru’s fingers played her flute expertly as a beautiful dance scene unfolded in front of her. Fleetingly, she recalled how she wasn’t expecting it – at all – when she ran out of her house in despair earlier, in the rain, after receiving the shocking news that her father wished her to return to her pre-magatama maiden life. Deep inside, she understood why he wanted her to stay at home. He had lost his son Minamoto no Raikō a while ago, he certainly didn’t wish to lose his only daughter either. But the daughter herself wasn’t ready to give up her freedom, certainly not after she collected two sacred magatama stones and was unexpectedly grounded due to her being deemed “underperforming” by the two main ministers.

The Minister of the Left and Minister of the Right were indeed quite a challenge for her. She used to think that she served a noble cause by collecting magatama stones, yet after witnessing firsthand how self-serving those two ministers, she grew disheartened. And what was this mightier-than-thou attitude from Abe no Seimei, the Palace Onmyōji?! Unceremoniously brushing her off after she almost lost her life during her quest to obtain the water magatama, in service of her country! Hikaru started to believe in what Watanabe no Tsuna said, that the Onmyōji and the court weren’t to be trusted.

Yet, mesmerised by the dance in front of her, all those worries melted away. Mansairaku, the dancer, had delivered what he intended to do: dancing to sooth her soul. Silent drops of tears ran through her cheeks as she realised his dance was about to be concluded. She didn’t want him to stop; yet she knew all dances, like all musics, had a beginning and an end.

“It was beautiful...” she whispered as Mansairaku came to a full stop. “My gratitude to you...”

The dancer said nothing, only solemnly nodded in his calm demeanor, tinted with concern this time upon seeing her sorrow. Yet, there was also a relief there upon realising that his dance had a desirable effect on her. With a tiny smile, he beckoned for her to sit next to him; the girl didn’t need coaxing. Just like in Chinzei, she shifted towards him and then sat next to him as her sakura-coloured lips released a tiny sigh. Then, also just like in Chinzei, with no hesitation, she then leaned on his chest.

“I wish this moment would last forever.”

“I hope that one day I’ll be able to dance only for you.”

She leaned closer to him. “Mansairaku, I’m so glad I met you...”

Never in Mansairaku’s life on Earth that a girl captivated his heart like this, and now she said that she was glad they had met. A sudden flood of certainty swept him as he squeezed her arm.

“I am as well,” was his simple answer, but he knew that the girl knew and felt the love surging from within him. “My heart was healed by the melody of your flute.”

She looked up to see his face, glowing like the moon in that moonless night, his eyes like the northern star, despite his solemn demeanour. The face and the eyes of a man in love. A man she had come to love.

“You danced to venerate the deceased, out of concern for the people.” She looked down and continued with a disappointed tone. “Yet, people fight and destroy themselves over a single magatama. I no longer understand why I took this journey.” Then, with a sudden certainty, she looked up again at the man she had come to love. “But once my journey is over, the answer should emerge. At that time, I –”

That longing, adoring look of hers. The love pouring out of her eyes almost made him turn the other way; it was almost too bright to see. ‘Hikaru’ the shining princess was definitely a name befitting her. She also wore her emotions on her sleeves, unlike him. In fact, she was the only person he felt safe enough to be honest with her.

Thus, he was not hesitant in finishing her sentence for both of them:

“Me too. With you.”

Oh, when the hearts sing as one...

Yet, realisation quickly dawned on both of them: They both had unfinished businesses.

“But — not right now!”

See, they even finished each other’s sentences.

Then they slowly smiled upon realising it.

The smile that left Mansairaku’s lips too quickly even for his lone wolf taste when he realised they had to part ways.

“You have to go, do you not?” He didn’t have the heart to say he, too, had to leave.

“Mansairaku, do you also have to leave?” She shouldn’t say it like that. Really, she shouldn’t look at him like that.

He knew he should say, yes he had to go. He also knew he should just rose and, after kindly taking leave, leave. But instead, he stayed. As if there was an ethereal force in that abandoned balcony of Rashōmon that forced him to stay. Thus:

“I...could stay for a bit longer,” was his unexpected reply that surprised even himself. She blushed. Timidly, she then shifted closer to him, a brazen act for a girl of her stature, for both of them were already as close as it was possible.

Well, there was indeed a way to make them closer... but when that though fleetingly visited Mansairaku’s mind, he was unexpectedly washed in both uncertainty and longing. After all, Hikaru was a noble maiden. Surely, surely that disturbing thought, the one that had been perching in the corner of his mind since he held her in Chinzei, wasn’t something in her pure mind?

But then, slowly but surely, he sensed her heightened awareness and her more rapid breathing. When he caressed her long silky black hair and subconsciously tugged it slightly, she flinched but not in an uncomfortable way. Surely, Hikaru...

“Are you sure you want to be here, Hikaru?” Mansairaku, the famous sarugakushi, who was always sure of himself, found out that he almost feared her answer.

Trembling, she whispered “Do you not want to be here with me, Mansairaku?”. As soon as she said that, she quickly hid her face in his embrace, embarrassed by her own thinly veiled desire.

“Can you not tell?” Mansairaku’s soft whisper made her blush even more.

The rain grew harder outside, but what Mansairaku could hear was only their breathing, more rapid and urgent by the minute. The sarugakushi decided to gamble. He lifted Hikaru’s chin and longingly gazed at her lips. If she showed a sliver of hesitation, he’d stop right away.

Yet, it was only love and longing that he saw.

Mansairaku was indeed unsure earlier whether he should’ve left or stay. But when he kissed those sakura lips of his lover, he knew he made the right choice to stay.

-xxx-

The rain started to ease as their passions subsided. Watching the derelict ceilings above him, Mansairaku laid on the floor of the Rashōmon balcony, sighing as he felt the trembles leaving his body. His left hand subconsciously caressed Hikaru’s hair as his right hand held her protectively closer to him. There was only one way they could’ve been closer in their state of undressed, and they had just done that. Not just once, but twice. Mansairaku shuddered in pleasure as he remembered how he tasted her maiden honey and fruits, how she whispered his name as he did so, and how she tugged his own long hair and screamed his name as he gave her the ultimate pleasure for the first time (not that she didn’t do so during the second time...). He tilted his head to see how she was, but when he saw her glistening eyes and half open sakura lips, he realised she was still up in the rainbow cloud.

A cloud he would gladly enter again.

“Hikaru...”

She gathered her strength to make sense of anything, to say something, but only a sigh escaped her lips.

That was the only sign Mansairaku needed. He rolled her back onto his kimono he’d been using as their bedsheet and lowered himself back into her. As he felt her tightening self, he prayed that the Universe gave them more time. A time that warped into eternity when their passions exploded again once more.

-xxx-

“I suppose I have to really go now...” Minamoto no Hikaru whispered as she secured her sandals, the last item of her warrior clothing. She was about to steel herself when he gently touched her chin once more.

“You don’t regret this, do you?” Mansairaku whispered, his black eyes drilling into her starry eyes, half fretting the answer. Yet, when he received a resounding head shake from her, indicating a total absent of regret from her, he relaxed. Playfully, he kissed her lips lightly before getting up. He told her that he needed to go, yet he still held one of her hands firmly. She said nothing, but her resigned look was the permission he needed.

Mansairaku

His face turned sombre again upon the prospect of leaving her. He let go of her hand, rose and turned to face her. As he whispered “We’ll meet again”, he clenched his jaws, turned away from her and jumped off the Rashōmon balcony.

Hikaru watched him swallowed by the night; her lips still carried his sweetness, her skin still carried his senses.

-xxx-

In the modern Tokyo, Minamoto Hikaru gasped as she suddenly jolted up from her sleep. A strange arousal feeling enveloped her, making her blush. Trembling, she looked around to find that she was in her room in the Minamoto Manor, alone. With no tall, handsome, magenta-haired, stranger kissing her and etc-ing her in the manners that even her female high school friends wouldn't dare to discuss.

“That cannot be…” she whispered, feeling flushed and flustered. The dream was too vivid. That man was not wearing the black coat she had gotten used to seeing; he was instead wearing some Heian clothes that came right out of the Genji Monogatari scenes. But his touches, his kisses, his caresses were so vivid, they were almost real.

“I don’t even know him…” she whispered again.

But the way that man touched her in her dream was definitely the way a man who knew her touched her, if such a man ever existed. And… he does exist, right? He rescued her a few hours ago in Ueno, right? The one man who hugged her and told her to stay still in the pretext that the time rift was still unstable, but somehow she now thought that he also wanted to just hug her then, to ensure that she was safe? The very one who said he’d been waiting for her for so long?

Hikaru watched the night sky outside her window until it turned purple, and then turned slightly orange, all the while the figure of a Heian-era tall, long-haired man, kept perching in her mind.

“Who…are you… really?”

It was dawn when Hikaru finally returned to sleep; fleetingly recalling a moment on an abandoned gate a long time ago, when she was one with a tall, long-haired stranger…

-xxx-

In his white refuge, Mansairaku suddenly opened his eyes. He dreamt of her again. One of those same sets of dreams again and again. Sometimes just a snippet of her leaning on his chest in Chinzei. Sometimes her playing the flute as he danced. Sometimes, just like just now, of them communing in Rashōmon...

But this time, it was so vivid that he felt he was there again on the Rashōmon balcony, returning to the hopeful time a thousand years ago, when he truly had her with him, when he was within her.

He remembered her silky hair. And now, having just held her hands and embraced her this evening, he once again remembered her scents.

He longed for her. But… does she long for him?

Does she even remember him?

-xxx-

Author’s note:

When I watched Otogi Zoshi for the first time, I was rooting for Hikaru/Tsuna pairing. I honestly was indifferent when Mansairaku appeared for the first time. Yet, somehow the latter stole my heart, despite all the miseries he brought to Hikaru. True, under normal circumstances, Hikaru/Tsuna would be my pairing. Yet, Mansairaku repented and tried to repay his karma. Hence, I still hold a soft spot for this lonely 1,000 years old Protector of the Capital… 

By the way, Mansairaku and Hikaru never made love in the anime. Yet, there were gaps in the Chinzei and Rashomon episodes that I could use for such a scene. I chose the latter, particularly the night before Hikaru went to Mt Hiei.