Hi there, it's Nodoka.
This is a little one-shot I dreamed up at work the other day, and it kept gnawing at me until I gave in and wrote it. Since writer's block has set in a little with my current story (one based on Love Hina) it was a nice distraction for a while.
A little aside note – I know FMP up to the end of TSR/Fumoffu – I have no knowledge of the novels thereafter, so this piece is set a little after the end of the second raid. Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer – I do not own the series or any of the characters used in this piece of fiction, which is produced purely for enjoyment, hopefully both my own and those reading it.
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A Simple Storm
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If you had asked Kyoko Tokiwa to describe her best friend, the bright and bubbly girl would have had more than enough to say. Enough, maybe, to fill an entire book, or at least write a decent prologue. The cheery student could chatter on for an age about the girl's determination, her positive outlook, her inner strength which she almost seemed to wear like a suit of armour. Pressed further, the tan-haired girl may have referenced her friend's severe (almost pathological) dislike of mornings, and even hinted towards the shortness of her fuse (particularly in situations involving a certain fellow schoolmate).
Yes, Kyoko could talk for hours about Kaname Chidori. To the point where the listener would probably beg for mercy or death, whichever would arrive to end the monologue first.
But one thing the girl would not have said was that Kaname was superstitious.
That is, not until recently.
Kyoko was often seen as a bit, well, shallow. No, that's not quite the right word either. Perhaps…..carefree. Letting the world slide by, allowing the bitter to float past her as clouds on the breeze whilst enjoying the sweet. It seemed that she rarely had a bad word to say about anyone, as her effervescence would only allow her to see the sun and never the shadows that are inevitably cast.
This was not true in the least.
Her keen hazel eyes, so often found gazing through a camera lens, saw everything. What they had been seeing recently was enough for her to re-consider the girl she considered her best friend. And at this moment in time, studying the lethargic figure at a nearby desk, Kyoko wondered if she had been misguided all along.
Determination still drove Kaname, yet it wavered from moment to moment. The suit of armour occasionally fractured, chinks appearing in its flawless surface. The short fuse was still present, but disconnected from the explosive charge it used to ignite.
And superstition…..the first time Kyoko had dismissed it as nothing. She had been visiting Kaname at her tidily furnished apartment, chatting as close friends do about everything and nothing in particular. The blue-haired girl had poured two cups of coffee and stirred them vigorously, laughing slightly too loudly at a joke Kyoko had made about how unnatural peace had come to feel at Jindai High School. As her laughter died, Kaname picked up the cups and paced from her kitchen towards her sofa, feet padding softly in her favoured house slippers. Without any kind of warning one of the cups in her hands had cracked, the handle snapping cleanly off and allowing the rest of the cup and its contents spiralling to the floor. A smash had echoed conclusively through the room, and for several long seconds its occupants then stared in unison at the brown puddle spreading rapidly across the floor, one adorned by dozens of blue china fragments. Kyoko had been about to speak, perhaps to sympathise or offer her help in cleaning up, when she had caught sight of Kaname's face.
Wide, staring hazel eyes, an expression frozen somewhere between surprise and horror. As her visitor watched, the girl seemed to tremble from head to toe, the remaining coffee cup dangerously close to spilling its own load and adding to the devastation currently pooled on the floor. Kyoko was moments from waving a hand in front of Kaname's face when the thousand-yard stare had re-focussed, and her friend had hurriedly apologised for being a klutz before equally hurriedly vanishing back into her kitchen with the expressed intention of finding something to clean up with.
Staring at the detritus littering the floorboards, Kyoko's only thought at the time was 'Kaname must really like that cup'.
Since that day, however…..
Next it was a black cat crossing her friend's path. The same reaction, before Kaname gave another forced laugh and marched onwards with a vigour that left her friend (who was trying to take a picture of the cat) scurrying to catch up. Then a random light bulb shattering while Kaname was in a cupboard searching for school supplies. Next her food catching fire in cooking class, despite meticulous adherence to the recipe. The puzzled Kyoko had taken to photographing each episode (much to Kaname's irritation) in the hope of working out why her friend had suddenly subscribed to the world of superstition, but it wasn't until Kaname had walked under a ladder and subsequently chuckled about it being bad luck that she had twigged.
It wasn't simple superstition that had Kaname running scared.
Bad omens on the other hand…..
Once the light of realisation had shone down and bathed her in its welcome glow, it took Kyoko no time at all to put two and two together.
The answer was obvious.
It was him.
Never did a broken cup bother Kaname unless a certain friend was absent without leave. Failing lights were nothing more than an irritation unless the class was a member short. Black cats could cross her path unnoticed with every step the azure-haired girl made unless the chair beside hers was vacant.
Kyoko didn't need to turn around to know his desk sat unused and accusing as it had for the entire week.
Kyoko had little idea of exactly what Souske Sagara did during his mysterious absences, although her ever observant eyes combined with a mind sharper than most would credit her for had pieced together what few fragments of the puzzle she possessed and come up with a most unusual picture. It was visible to anyone with sight that Souske was……unusual. An obsession with things military and mechanical was not unheard of, but usually such enthusiasts took Shinji's route - the boy in question currently buried in a magazine at his own desk, oblivious to the rain pouring outside or the unrest of the class within. No, to actually live as if the entire world was your adversary, and do so without a moment of hesitation or a single slip of character…..
On the subject Kaname had either been evasive or dismissive, and questioning Sagara himself was like throwing pebbles into a lake – barely a ripple, then all was still as if the stone had never been cast in the first place. But of two things Kyoko was sure; one was her best friend cared more deeply for the man than she would ever admit to anyone, and two was whatever Souske did during his mysterious absences was enough to scare the girl out of her wits.
Somehow, Kyoko doubted Souske had a part-time job delivering birthday cakes.
Looking across at her friend, the bespectacled girl frowned minutely at the sight of Kaname still staring listlessly outside at the rain which was teeming down, droplets continually pattering against the windows with worrying enthusiasm. The forecast that morning had been for a bright summer's day, and the sudden bad weather had caught most of the class by surprise, leaving them marooned at school after class bereft of coats and umbrellas. However, Kyoko suspected the downcast expression the dark-eyed girl wore had nothing to do with the prospect of getting wet, and everything to do with the empty seat behind her.
A sudden flash of lightening drew a cacophony of shrieks and yelps from most of the class, but Kyoko merely winced in sympathy as the unwelcome expression once again plastered itself across Kaname's face. Worry lines prematurely appearing, pupils dilated and staring, hands tremulously planted on the desk as if to stop them reaching out for something (or someone) that simply wasn't there.
Feeling her fingers instinctively searching out her camera, Kyoko sighed gently and forced them to return to her book. She had no need, or any desire to take any more pictures of the person that replaced her friend in such moments. What she desired was the chance to find out why her closest friend became an empty shell when he was away. The opportunity to comfort her, do something to help, anything. For the thunder to cease, and stop showering Kaname with reasons to worry.
In truth, what she desired above all else was for Souske to walk through the door, and bring her friend back to her.
To turn a bad omen into a simple storm, nothing more, nothing less.
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A simple little piece, might have the potential to become something more, but I suppose time will tell.
It's my first attempt at anything outside my Love Hina fic, so please leave some constructive feedback! For those awaiting the next chapter of 'Repercussions' it's about two-thirds done, so I hope it won't be long.
'Til next time.
Nodoka Miyazawa.