BEAUTIFUL;
Shortdrabble;
He's used to being surrounded by beautiful women. That doesn't quite explain things when it comes to her. [ minato x yuko ]
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He's spent three days, seven hours and six minutes mulling over it.
And he still doesn't quite comprehend what troubles him so.
There's the fact that he's used to being surrounded by beautiful women. He isn't new to how the entire school consistently spread rumors about him being with Mitsuru-sempai one day, and then with Yukari the next. Or he'll wake up the next week and hear about him and Fuuka having finally getting it on. Sometimes he wishes he isn't so popular--- but when he thinks about how Akihiko-sempai opens his locker everyday to retrieve about tens of thousands love letters only to see them all into the trash bin, Minato counts himself lucky enough.
That, probably is precisely the problem.
He's worked in an all-female team defeating tons and tons of Shadows before. He's touched Yukari's fingers countless of times when he helps her up from her falls, he's lifted Fuuka onto his back before when she's gotten knocked out from a fight, he's even tore Mitsuru's jacket apart just to heal that wound around her shoulder before. Intimacy with females was never a problem for him; it was kind of like a norm. When one is a Tartarus night visitor, such situations usually complex, are otherwise considered ordinary.
That is why he doesn't understand why, if he's so used to contact with the opposite sex, so supposedly comfortable around them --- that he clams up like a shell and acts abnormally, abruptly like a performing guppy with open mouth when he's around her.
Like when she throws a smile in his face the last time it happened in the hallway, Junpei wonders why his best friend literally wobbles on his feet and then excuses himself to the toilet, claiming he "saw stars". And come to think of it, it is kind of true. It's as if when she smiles, she glows, and it shines so much like those little astronomical twinkles that dot the sky----
Or like when she borrows his pencil, with apologetic smile on her face, and he constantly reassures her it's okay, it doesn't matter (and inwardly he ignores his conscience going: I don't mind if you do it over and over and over and over again. Really, I don't.), their fingers ...
He swallows when he recollects.
...Their fingers touched.
And that is where the trouble begins.
Minato stares off somewhere into the distance in the classroom when the teacher tries to explain something about Chemistry equations. A minute passes, and he fixes his gaze in front of him --- there is her, studiously hunched over to copy notes into her lecture pad. He notes how gray hair fall over her ruby eyes, wonders why there is an itch in his fingers when he imagines himself combing through those loose strands slipping from her ponytail --- why there is a maelstrom of emotions working throughout him, and why his blood is coursing like hot, hot, hot.
He contemplates asking her illogically if she wishes to borrow another pencil.
It's probably just an excuse, for another moment, just one more time, where she'll smile at him, and then their fingers will touch, and maybe, just maybe, she'll say thank you and ask him if he's free during lunch period-----
"Arisato!"
He jumps in his chair, and draws a lazy eye to the teacher, who glares at him warningly.
He bites back a sulk, and looks back onto his Chemistry textbook.
Somewhere in the distance, he hears a silvery giggle, and traces it back to her.
Their eyes catch.
He simultaneously drops his pencil onto the ground---- heart, soul, floored.
Shit. He wants to let loose a long string of curses, but decides he'll only draw unwanted attention to himself.
He touches his heart, confused.
It beats like crazy---faster, harder than he ever remembers it doing when he faces ten and hundreds of Shadows. And he thinks rescuing Junpei and Yukari from being knocked out in tough boss battles are scary. Now that he appropriately compares it --- this is crazy.
His heart is nearly falling over.
He wishes his ears will not turn beet red so.
He trembles when he picks up his pencil.
He checks his sanity --- thinks he's lost it somewhere in that fleeting moment when she turns and offers him that smile.
A little song plays in his head.
And he wonders why, comes up with a million and one reason, but reaches nothing logical.
(A little voice in his head goes: love isn't ever logical.)
He bites his lips so hard, blood trickles.
If it's true he's so used to being around beautiful women, so comfortable with female contact, is the last to ever proclaim himself somewhat shy of women,
Then why does nothing make sense,
Why can't he make absolute sense of what his heart feels ----
Likeit'sabouttodropout, likeit'sabouttoturnover, like it feels so funny and light, he thinks it can actually fly out of his body literally, like a cloud, into the sky, high, high, high----
---when their fingers touch, when she smiles at him, when he looks at her and thinks she's so, so much more beautiful than all the beautiful women he's always surrounded with?
They're beautiful. Mitsuru-sempai, Yukari, Fuuka, Chihiro. All the other women he's ever come across always are beautiful.
But she,
Her,
She's perfect.
Owari