Chapter 5: The Kiss

"Soon." The thought drifted, as the presence unseen bided its time.

Watching quietly as Sasami turned and left for the kitchen from the eves above of the entry hall,

"Just a little longer" A silent promise was made from the shadows which clung there. "And he'll be all mine!" Patiently observing as the chosen quarry returned just below, watching as Tenchi set to stowing his heavy work boots. Waiting pensively for the right moment to strike!

The instant Sasami hurriedly disappeared into the kitchen, she descended. Silent as a shadow.

Claws, long and sinuous encircled the unsuspecting prey from behind. Sliding effortlessly through cloth to touch bare flesh.

Tenchi felt the curious and at once familiar electric tingling, tracing the outline of his pectoral muscles.

Glancing down, having just straitened from putting on house shoes, to see his shirt visibly in motion even as suddenly a slight weight was settling noticeably onto his back.

"Ryoko." He breathed wryly, observing her hands now just visible while feeling yet intangible fingertips trailing through the material of his shirt, solid and undeniable against his skin.

"Morning lover!" She sighed longingly into his left ear.

It was curious him thinking at this point, but a version of this scene had played out repeatedly over the past three years. Before, that is, Not counting the one previous, he honestly did not 'actually' recall ... exactly. It was all so confusing!

Ryoko would get aggressive and he would push her away, again and again. However...

The past few months, since returning home had been strange, to say the least.

His thoughts, turning often inward, to glimpses of things barely half remembered. To dreams of soft golden eyes silently beckoning from close above him in the dark. Eyes that were like ... and yet somehow not Ryoko's.

A lingering sense ... of closeness and 'belonging', Tenchi suppose was the word that best described. Half remembered ... No, less even than that, He did not remember!

Other than for brief 'impressions', and the most solid of them were ... phantoms. Vanishing whenever he tried to trace them down. Resurfacing over the past few month, often unbidden. All serving to evoke that feeling of restlessness. A vague, something ... Not even a half feeling, of something he had lost?

Again, he had tried to deny it, tried like hell! What did these girls expect of him?

He'd always assumed, during his earlier years that he would meet someone. They would fall in love, get married ... yada, yada. The same way his father and mother had, right?

Oh, yeah right! He didn't even want to go there!

Even thinking about, that 'little trip to the past' made Tenchi's head hurt, even worse than the fight with that monster Kane.

I mean actually, even briefly? Meeting your own mother when she was close to the same age as you? 'Hello? Mcfly!' Sheesh!

Zemeckis and Spielberg had nothing on him! Hell, there had even been a photo involved. Nothing at all like the cinematic vanishing act, they had used however.

Back When Tenchi had been around eight years old, the same chest in which his mother's formal kimono had been stored had yielded an odd photo, expertly framed of his mother, still dressed in her black school uniform. Seated besides her however, were two other young girls that no one could ever seem to be able to identify.

At least, not back then.

Later, after all the chaos from the near, 'disaster in time', had at last died down. A bit of sentimental browsing had again unearthed the photo, along with the knowledge it was Tenchi's father who had taken it.

What had turned out to be the most unsettling however was recognizing immediately, the two 'unidentified' girls where in fact Ayeka and Ryoko! Argh?

In a real sense, his feeling were like a kind of 'time travel also.

He didn't want to hurt anyone! Wishing again, to just go back to the way things were ... before.

Perhaps that was the problem? He finally had realized, since coming home, that things had simply changed and that he was doing it 'again'. Hiding behind a wish, wanting something that simply couldn't happen.

To just to be, normal again. To go back to a life that had in fact been the illusion!

Only the passage of 'time' had cured that notion. And yet here he was, trying again to pretend!

Oh, he had denied it. That was for sure! He was good at that! Ask anyone.

The weirdness of just settling back in had provided a kind of buffer.

Everyone was working so hard to make it all better, just like always.

Each, in their own small way was denying the one glaringly obvious conclusion. Things had changed.

He himself may not have remembered the year that had been for all intensive purposes stolen, but everyone else had lived through it.

Moreover, just trying to pretend for the last several months, that nothing was different, made all the difference, as bizarre as a line of reason it seemed.

It had all made him wonder, and for perhaps the very first time, Tenchi was actually wondering ... why?

It had never been a problem with Ryoko's looks. While not classically beautiful like ... well, 'Ayeka'.

Ryoko had a style and yes, a grace! All her own.

He had come to know, over the short time he had known her, in spite of some of the most atrocious habits imaginable, she had one of the most beautiful souls he had ever known.