Heart's Inferno - An Uchiha Madara Fanfic

21 - Separation

My eyes went wide at his words, my face slowly warming up quite a bit. I could not calm as he lowered himself to kiss me, but the hangover I was having thwarted any bit of romance that Madara wished to rouse between us. It caused a sharp pain through my head, making me shut my eyes and wince when Madara's lips were mere millimeters from mine. My hand found its place on my temple where it was hurting the most.

"You do not hold your liquor well, as you said," Madara said, having raised himself a little. "Perhaps some hangover soup would be of help."

"I think I would like that," I mumbled, opening my eyes to meet his gentle but amused gaze.

He did lower himself to give me a chaste kiss before getting up, while I remained lying down and waited for someone to bring me hangover soup. When Madara was dressed and ready, he gave me another kiss, though on the forehead, before he left to take care of matters for the day. I waited for a while, being lazy on the mattress, until there was a knock on the door. I sat up with another wince and gave permission to enter. Unfortunately, it was Chiharu san who brought me the soup, giving me a glare as she set it down in front of me.

"You are shameless," she spat.

It seemed that she could not find any other insult to throw at me in her anger of not being able to be with Madara. I was not in the mood to argue with her though, so I only sighed and reached out for my soup.

"Yes, yes, I'm shameless. I apologize for that," I mumbled and took a sip of the sweet and spicy soup.

"If you didn't have Madara sama's attention, or protection for that matter, I would have killed you the moment I knew that you had any feelings for him."

Sighing exasperatedly, I put down my spoon and looked up at her. Her glare faltered slightly under my placid stare but she held her ground. I asked, "When are you going to stop bothering me about this matter, Chiharu san? As much as I am aware that you are upset for not being chosen by Madara as his partner, there is nothing that I can do about it. Madara and I love each other, so neither of us are going to give up on each other. I know it is hard to stop your feelings once they have grown to quite an extent but you have to move on. Getting angry at me won't change anything. Or are you not going to stop until we are officially married?"

"Married?" she questioned, then scoffed. "You don't really think that Madara sama will marry you, do you?"

"What does that mean?" I asked with a frown.

"Madara sama deserves someone much better than you. You're not really worth his time or attention."

Her words had me scoffing slightly. Running a hand over my face once with an amused laugh, I said, "I'm sorry, I just don't get what you mean. Madara deserves someone better than me? In what sense? I love him and I'm doing everything I can to make him happy. What is it that I lack? Tell me so I can-"

"You can't do anything for him," she cut me off. "Do you think that this is a matter of love? While it is certain that love will slowly grow for the chosen partner, it is more important to think of whether one is good enough to stand by Madara sama's side, in terms of power and what they can pass on to the future generations."

"Are you saying that you wanted to marry Madara just because he's a powerful shinobi? And the clan leader? You don't love him?"

"I respect him and I will surely come to love him when we are married. When we should have been married," she seethed.

I did not know if this was how everyone thought in this world, but it was something I found to be stupid. Chiharu san was speaking of marriage as if it was a business, as if Madara's feelings in marriage did not matter.