My eyes washed over the many faces before me. The performing arts group from China, The Swan, were seated in an orderly, tightly-knit huddle in the front of the stands. All were young, their ages likely not far off from my own. The rest of the stands were empty. It should be. The Taipei Municipal Stadium was the last venue for The Swan's tour. They were a pioneering troupe, specializing in Chinese performing arts. That itself was not new. They were a pioneering group for their entire act, save for the trapeze, was on ice. Me and my partner, Kurookano Shijima, were standing in front of the troupe as their coach introduced us. The both of us were figure skaters and guest performers on this last tour venue performance of theirs. I was, admittedly, a little nervous at how they would respond to us. If they did so positively, then the rest of the one-and-a-half months, I would have nothing to worry about. But if not, then well, it would be uncomfortable. I stole a glance at Shijima. Her face wore no expressions as she stared into the troupe. She looked somewhat intimidating, i noted, if one did not know her. i must bring this matter up sometime. She did not even look like she was paying attention to what the coach was saying. I sighed inwardly. The sigh was meant to be irritated but i found her habitual flaws like these amusing. So the sigh came as an amused one. We have been friends way too long for me to get irked at things like that.

The situation at the stadium was far from favourable. The ice rink was no more than a shallow, rectangular pool of water. Bright orange refrigerator lines, resembling normal bright orange wires, arranged neatly along the length of the pool were meant to freeze the ice. To little effect apparently, as I looked onto the scene. This was bad. It takes at least a few weeks to get the ice hard enough that it was safe for skating. Even if the rink was properly frozen by the shortest of estimates, it meant that the troupe, and Shijima and I, had only a day to train for the preformance before it commenced on the day after. The Swan were visibly forlorn. I heard snatches of their conversation before, all of them charged with anxiety on how the unprofessionally unprepared ice-rink would affect the quality of their act. Some were in dire need to practice move they were not even good at yet. As The Swan was being pep-talked by their coach at the stands, Shijima and I were seated out of ear-shot behind the troupe.

"Looks bad, huh?" she said, like stating an observation, nothing more. Her face however, in the way her eyes were half-lidded as opposed to her normal scarily wide-eyed expression, told me of her worry.

"Exceptionally," I answered, frowning. "We're all performers. I know how it feels to be inadequately prepared for an act. The worst case scenario."

"Yeah. No need to be concerned that our names will be ruined if we do our routine bad too. We are guest performance because we're a little bit special, and a little bit special enough to draw in more crowds for these people, or so The Swan's publicist hopes," she drawled, giving me a despairing look.

I laughed. "Hey, my heart goes out to them."

"Get your heart back in it's place, Kouichi."

"Hm," I said simply, smiling. "I'm coming back tonight to see how the ice is coming."

Shijima cocked an eyebrow at me. "Sure? 'Cause your loss if I yell at you tomorrow for blundering due to sleep lack."

I snickered.

* * *

It was pitch black at the back of the stadium where the generators for the refrigerator lines were supposed to be. The time was about 12.45 in the morning. I couldn't and didn't want to check what the real time was. Not in particular. The dark was irritating. I wanted to see clearly, I needed light, and I felt like just swatting the dark away like it was a black piece of cloth draped across my face. The beam of my torch finally found the generator and I neared the machine. I didn't quite understand the point of me being here myself. I knew not what I could do that would help the situation of the rink in any way. When a person asks you for help, you try to render it. If you can't render that help, you try to seek something that would help that person get the help he needs. And when you know that you can't do that either, you pretend that you can help him until he realizes that you really cannot be of much service. Taking a look at the generators felt like that. Like a show of concern, because I really was concerned but I couldn't do anything useful to aid the no-ice situation.

Before I even reached the generator, I suddenly felt my legs being kicked out from under me. Startled, I whipped my heavy torch like a dagger towards my attacker. My torch was parried with a long object. The impact jarred my hand as my muscles tensed. I ground my feet into the soil, assuming what I assumed was a fighting stance. The torch was busted and as it flickered on and off and on and off, the light washed over the face of my assailant and me.

"OH! YOU!!!" as if trying to remember my name but failing and settling with a 'you' instead. " Oh my god oh no," a voice cried. It was the voice of someone who felt that she had made a big mistake. In an instant, the immediate area around us two was washed with light. She had a torch too of course. Peripheral white clouds floated from our mouths into the space between us as we panted hard.

"I'm so, so sorry! I was checking out the generators and I saw your light and I knew that no one else was supposed to be out here so I thought you were some.. person," she said the last word as if the other substitutes for it that had come to mind were offensive, "come to like, spoil the machines or something." She laughed nervously at that, as if expecting me to agree with her about the stupidity of her actions. I supposed she thought what she did was stupid.

She was one of the performers of The Swan. I saw her when Shijima and I were being introduced to the troupe yesterday. It took me a moment to recognize her. She was wearing a hat this time. It was the kind of hat you saw on the heads of high-ranking officials in the navy, except this one was black. Another reason I hadn't recognized her on sight was because her long, neatly tied up blonde locks from yesterday were now stuffed underneath her hat, with a few errant locks spilling out of the black head accessory due to the short prior violent confrontation. She was gripping a wooden sword in one hand with an expert grip while the other held the flashlight. She wore a thick woolen blue turtle-neck sweater and very baggy grey jeans.

"Ah," she said. Awkward, she meant. "I know I'm going to sound like the biggest loser for asking you this," she started, with an edge of apprehension in her expression, "but what's your name again. I know," she laughed lightly, "I wasn't really listenting. Heh. Sorry." I think she is talking about the introduction where mine and Shijima's names were announced to the troupe.

I held my hands over my torso, palms out, indicating that it was really no big deal. "Aizawa Kouichi. Your name?"

"Shimizu Raimei." Her eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?" She clenched the hilt of her sword, looking for all the world like a warrior ready to defend, i don't know, her nation? Her speech and her actions give me directly opposite impressions of her and I'm getting confused.

"And you?"

"I was checking on the generators. I told you that already." Normally a girl would be a little scared being alone in the dead of the night with a guy, with unknown intentions, she barely even knows in a place where no one could hear her screams. I wasn't about to try anything of course. That was unthinkable. But I suppose being armed and, by the looks of it, trained with a sword, can do much to put any girl's heart at ease when venturing out at night. Being in a circus troupe very likely has put her in prety good shape too.

"Me the same." Her brows were raised slightly. "I'm in your performances too right? Why would I sabotage it?" That did it. She believed me.

"Alright then. Bye." Giving me a short smile out of politeness, she strode past me into the night.

I followed, trying to fall in step next to her. I had no more light source to guide me out of the encompassing dark fo the stadium premises and into the lighted streets of Taipei, and Raimei seemed to know more about the situation of the generator than I did, judging by the way she looked it over. If I were to be more informed of the machine, my night would not have been a total waste. She always walked a little faster than me though on purpose, even as I asked her questions. "How is the generator looking?"

"Generators actually. Another one was added to speed up the freezing process. They both seem to be working at full speed. I don't know whether this is enough though. Did you see? When the workers added crushed ice to the rink to try and speed the freezing up. It totally messed up the refrigerator lines. The lines are supposed to be neatly arranged, or else the ice will form unevenly. That's what I think at least."

* * *

We talked and talked. It was amazing, the instant bond that sparked between us after the lingering hostilities diffused away into the air. I never understood what authors said in books about knowing someone just for a while but feeling like you've "known them your whole life". I found that tremendously corny, or so Raimei-san would say. But I finally understood that famous authors' phrase tonight. After a while she stopped leaving me trailing behind her and we walked in step, trudging the path back to the hotel The Swan performers and Shijima and I were staying in. As we walked, it dawned on me that the hat was to make her look more like a boy at a glance. It worked I supposed. I wouldn't say that conversation flowed between us as easily and smoothly as a clock ticks from one hour to the next, but the occasional silence... I don't think either of us thought much of that. It seemed that our personality wavelengths were so very compatible. I just felt happy being with her. Happy is such a simple word, but an appropriate one to describe a.. simple elatedness. We smiled as we conversed, even though neither of us had said anything particularly funny nor were we discussing an especially cheery topic. It had more to do with the fact that we were in each other's presence. When we reached the lobby of the hotel, it seemed as natural as anything that she ask that we sit together for our meals. If she hadn't asked first, I would have asked a moment later. No, Shijima wouldn't mind, I assured her.

As I bid my goodbyes to Raimei-san and Raimei-san waved goodbye to me, I think it went without being said that we had become best friends. Not the kind of friends whose care and companionship for each other swelled as time skipped forward, but the kind of friends who needed each other as our friendship offered what time could not, and that is a kind of subconscious knowledge that we were deliberately created so we could be friends.

***

There ain't enough KouichiXRaimei luve and you know it.

I'm using the TextEdit programme on a Mac so the first letter in every sentence isn't automatically capitalised and neither are the "I"s in the story. So, sorry if you see these punctuation mistakes despite my proof-reading!

I am often, often, very often told that my stories have many holes in it in terms of me explaining things in the story. This is because I know what I'm trying to convey 'cause it is my story so I forget that not many people can read my thoughts straight from the inside of my head. Even if I do remember, I just can't see these holes. So when you find something you don't understand, PLEASE copy and paste that segment into a review. I really want to get better at this, really I do. And thanks in advance if you do want to help me!! *smiles!*

regardless, review please!!!!