********* (I Love You) Interlude III: Closeness (Kinmitsu)Follow

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Okay, Interlude time. You know the drill, what Hitomi says is in Japanese...

This is also the beginning of Kasho IV, of my FFXI love story ************ (I Love You)[/i].

Previous chapters, aki, and Interludes

Part I - Connection (Enishi)

Kasho II - Kodoku (Solitude)

Part III - Reunion (Saikai)

Read and review, please and thank you!

Dedicated to those of you who find happiness in being simply being there with the one you love, be it requited or unrequited love.
******
When you love someone...

Just being close to them is often more than enough...

To make you happy.
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Interlude III: Closeness (Kinmitsu)
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"Wake up Hitomi...its time to go."

"Dimitri-chan...go kudasai..." I mumbled slowly to him, as I feebly reached up, to try to take the blanket back from him, that only moments before I was ever-so happily wrapped up in.

Through my blurry eyes, I could tell that Dimitri-chan shook his head as he pulled the blanket just a bit further out of my reach.

"Come on butterfly...we have a chocobo to catch to Selbina, remember?" He said to me, gently as he took my hand, and squeezed it gently before letting it go again.

I blushed.

He just smiled.

I then rubbed my eyes with the back of my right hand a couple of times, working the sleep out from the corners of it as I slowly woke up.

"All right..." I said faintly, as I started to move my tired limbs a bit to sit up in bed.

The room became much more clear, and I could see that the couch on the other side of the room where Dimitri had spent a precious few hours asleep was made back up into something fit for company, not that he was going to have any during the time that we were going to be gone.

We...

Why did that just send a shiver down my spine when I said that?

Dimitri’s smile never wavered at me, but he simply stood up and walked off to the kitchen in order that I might have some privacy while I got up and then got dressed.

I reached over to my bedside, and plucked up that old felt hat of mine that had seen more wear and tear than most things this side of Mordion Goal. I then forced myself out of bed, dragging the hat limply in my left hand as I stumbled my way to the full length mirror in Dimitri-chan’s closet.

Black hair, down to my waist. Glowing green eyes. A waist that wasn’t fat, but definitely not anorexic either. A nose that was a bit too big, and ears that seemed to just stick out.

I looked away in disgust, and tied one-handedly onto my body my Bastokian kimono which was hanging on a wire next to various, long forgotten outfits of Dimitri, back in the days when he was with those Ducal Guardsmen...

The yellow butterflies swooping through the dark blue sky on my kimono echoed his nickname for me, and I suddenly realized where he got that name for me.

"Baka..." I chided him, even if he couldn’t hear me while he was in the other room.

I then pushed the felt hat down onto my head firmly, and strolled into the kitchen where Dimitri was hastily packing up a few food supplies for our journey ahead.

"Almost done Hitomi", he said as he looked paused for a moment from his work to look up at me.

I nodded gently, and then moved to pick up both of our small personal bags that were lying in a heap by the door, feeling the coarseness of the handles rubbing against my two hands as I then waited for him.

After a few more minutes, Dimitri-chan came to me, dressed up in his disguise and carrying a small sack of food and drinks. He nudged the door open for me, and allowed me to go first outside into the chilly Jeuno night.

We climbed down the steps from the residential area, and carefully made our way to the town gates, where I then slept the guardsmen with a simple sleepga spell. The two Mithras crumpled down to the ground noiselessly, and Dimitri-chan and I quietly left town, with only the little prism light above the town gate to see us go.

Once we were safely away from the town, Dimitri-chan touched my arm, and pointed over to a small tree in the distance and then motioned we should go to it. As we got closer, I could see that the chocobo that Gilgamesh had promised was there, tied up eating a small helping of gyshal greens out of a feeding bag tied around its head. When he heard our footfalls approaching, he turned his head with a wary eye, but made no attempt to get away or stop eating. Even so, we both approached slowly and it wasn’t until Dimitri placed his hand upon the chocobo’s reins that either of us bothered to relax.

"Here Hitomi, let me help you up?" Dimitri said, as he cupped his hands and made a foothold out of them for me by the chocobo’s side.

I could only understand part of what he said, but I understood what he was asking from his body’s motions. I nodded my assent, and quickly got into the chocobo’s saddle on its back. Dimitri-chan then passed me the reins to hold as he then tied all the bags down to the various loopholes that dangled off of the saddle. Once that was done, he leapt his way onto the chocobo’s back singlehandedly, and then took the reins back from me.

"Hold onto me Hitomi, so you don’t fall off." he said to me quietly.

I placed my hands on his waist a bit clumsily, and gripped down on him.

"No...like this..." He then took my hands off his waist, and pulled them tightly around him, to where I was embracing him from behind with my face in his back. I felt the warmth from his body, the smell of sweat already forming beneath his armor, the rippling of his muscles pressing against my cheek as he snapped the reins, telling the chocobo to go forward.

I...I don’t care if Love is something that is forbidden or leads only to pain...

I love you Dimitri-chan...

We rode like that for several hours through Rolanberry Fields and Pashdow Marshlands, before finally stopping for a rest break in the Highlands.

The blades of the never freezing windmills overhead made a steady thump-thump-thump sound as they swayed overhead in lazy circles while we sat down against the tower’s white cermet walls. The chocobo was tied up not too far away, close enough to where we could grab it at a moment’s notice, but far enough away that its random noises wouldn’t bother us.

"You rest here, before we arrive at Selbina. We should be safe here for a couple of hours." Dimitri-chan said, moving his body in a way that also conveyed his meaning to me.

I only nodded a couple of times and then sunk down to the dirt, curling myself up into a ball to keep myself warm while I slept. I was still tired from not having gotten much sleep from the night before, and it must have been obvious if he could pick it up.

As I slowly closed my eyes, I felt him sit down next to me and then place what must have been his disguise over my body. I mumbled out a thank you, and then slowly drifted away to the dreamworld...

Dimitri-chan...when you are like this...

Its easy...

Its easy for me...

Its easy for me to pretend that you love me...

-fin Interlude III: Closeness (Kinmitsu)