"Huuuhhh ....." Ran exhaled some air through her mouth to warm her freezing hands and rubbed. She looked around the busy people in the town, searching for a familiar figure.
Where could he be? Did anything happen to him? She wondered why the person she was waiting for could be this late. She looked up at the giant clock tower opposite her. The hands of the clock pointed out 4:50. It was almost as hour late to the appointed time. Huh ... I don't think anything could happen to him, he must have forgotten about this or he had gone out with other girls .... She guessed it out disappointedly. Perhaps I should leave after another 10 minutes.
Suddenly, she felt something hot and solid touched her face. She jumped a little at the touch and spun around. A boy standing there, raising a can of drink in a hand and another can in another hand. He laughed a little at Ran's reaction.
Ran felt her face warmed a little and said angrily, "Hey, where have you been, Shinichi? You made me waited here for almost an hour!"
"I'm sorry, I was caught up with something that made me late," he apologized and grinned sheepishly.
"What was that important that you are late? You are the one who asked me to meet you here!" Ran said as she placed both her fists at each side of her waist.
"Well .... it's a secret," Shinichi replied. "Forget about that, okay? I'm really sorry, just forgive me, please?" he asked for forgiveness.
"Let me think about it first," she said as she folded her arms.
"Oh well .... Anyway, let's go," Shinichi said as her beckoned her to follow him.
"Where are we going?" Ran asked curiously as she lowered her arms.
"Just follow me and you'll know," he answered and grinned. "Oh, and this is the hot chocolate that I got for you at the vendor machine there. It's still hot," Shinichi handed the can to Ran.
"Thank you," she took it and rubbed around her palms to warm her numbed hands. Then, she heard Shinichi opened up the can and she followed. She took a sip and it was a nice one to keep her warm.
Ran walked behind Shinichi as he walked and turned into the familiar routes in the town. She threw the empty can into a nearby garbage bin. To keep her hands warm, she slid both her hands into her overcoat pocket. She felt something in her right pocket and she remembered about the present. It was a Christmas present that she was going to give it to Shinichi.
After a long walk, she found themselves at a lake park.
"This is it .... " Shinichi said as he was looking around, as if searching for something. Ran looked around too, but she found a lot of couples around, as if this was a place for couples in love. Most of the couples walked hand in hand, some were even hugging. Ran looked at Shinichi, who was still busy looking around and blushed a little.
Ran was about to say something when Shinichi cut in.
"There they are!" Shinichi exclaimed as he pointed to the other side of the lake. Ran turned her head and looked at the direction where Shinichi was pointing. She saw a couple walking towards their direction, one of them even started to run towards her. She almost jumped with joy when she realized that it were Kazuha and Heiji.
"Raannn ...." Kazuha called out loud as she ran and waved her hand at the same time. As she almost reached Ran, she leaped forward and hugged her tightly. Ran hugged her back softly, almost can't express her joy.
"Ran, I missed you very much! It's been a long time since we had met!" Kazuha blurted out and she hugged even tighter.
"Kazuha, how are you? Yeah, it's almost two years since the last time we went out together," Ran said. Kazuha loosen her embracement and let go. Ran looked at Kazuha's face and she saw tears beads in Kazuha eyes. Kazuha wiped it off as it flowed down.
"I'm fine. How about you? I heard that you and Shinichi are studying in the same university now," Kazuha said and smiled.
"Yeah ... I heard the same happened to you guys too. Well, if it wasn't my eyes playing trick on me, I saw you guys were actually holding hands just now?" Ran questioned as she recalled what she saw earlier. Both Kazuha and Heiji blushed, Shinichi laughed a little. Then, Heiji walked forward and put his hand on Kazuha's shoulder.
"Uh .. we, uh ... got together .. a few weeks after .... uh .. we enter the university," Heiji stammered a little and his face was still blushing, unable to hide his shyness.
"You two looks nice together. Well, what brings the two of you together?" Shinichi teased and grinned.
"Secret!" Kazuha and Heiji answered in unison. When they realized it, both of their faces turned redder.
Ran giggled a little at their reaction. She felt happy for Kazuha too that they are going out together. She knew that Kazuha liked Heiji all the time, and vice versa, yet both of them never expressed their feelings to each other. She looked at Shinichi. Her situation was just the same as Kazuha but why Shinichi and her had ended up differently? Shinichi never told her how he felt about her and they argued all the time, just the same as Kazuha and Heiji.
"It's really cold. I'm going to get some drinks at the nearby shop," Shinichi's voice pulled Ran away from her deep thought.
"I'm coming with you," Ran said as she followed behind him. This is a good chance for me to give him the present. It's kind of awkward to give it to him in front of everyone.
As they reached 7-11, they stepped in and grabbed four cans of hot chocolate and mocha. After paying at the cashier, they stepped out of the shop. Ran reached into her right pocket, about to retrieve the present when Shinichi turned to her.
"Wait for me here for a little while. I need to help my mum to buy something. Please hold these too," he said as he handed the bag of canned drinks and jogged off.
"Let me come with you," she called at him.
"No, just wait there. I'll be back soon," he called back, and waved.
Why is he making everything that mysterious? Why can't I follow? Does he think that I'm troublesome? All the while we are walking around together, I don't think there's any problem? Fine, I don't feel like walking further anyway! She was deep in thought that she wasn't aware of what was happening around her. Should I tell him how I feel when I give him the present later? What if he don't have any feelings for me? Would that ruin our friendship?
She took out the present and looked at it as she was thinking what she should do later. Lost in her thought, she felt something hit her back hard suddenly. She flung forward and kneeled over. Great thing that she was in time to land on her hands preventing her from falling flat on her face. A little boy ran towards her and collected his football that hit her hard.
"I'm sorry, I didn't noticed you were standing here. Are you all right?" the boy asking, a worried look displayed on his face. Ran pushed herself up forcefully and stood in front of him.
"See, I'm fine, don't worry," she assured him with a smile and turned a circle to show him that she wasn't hurt at all.
"I'm glad that you're fine," the boy said in relief. "Oh, I have to leave, my friends are waiting for the ball, bye!" the boy said and ran off towards his friends.
"Be more careful," Ran called to him. Looking at him, reminded her of Shinichi when he was young. When she was about to turned back to her previous waiting spot, she realized that the present was missing. She looked around, searching for it high and low but the present was no where in sight.
She started to turn her sight to the road when something shiny caught her eye. It's the present! It must have flown forward when I fell! Without wasting any seconds, she dashed forward to pick the silver-dust coloured present. When she just bended forward to grab it, a beam of light attracted her to faced up and she saw a truck just a few feets away! It must had came out from the corner, that's why she didn't noticed it. The truck didn't even slowed down a bit, as if she was invisible to the driver.
Ran felt something embraced her and pushed her away from the road. They both hit the ground but Ran didn't feel any pain. Instead, she felt that the ground was soft and warm. She heard the truck moved away. Knowing that she wasn't at Netherland, she pushed herself up and she was shocked to see herself on top of Shinichi! It was Shinichi who had saved her from being knocked down by the truck. Shinichi opened his eyes and looked at Ran's worried face.
"Are you hurt?" Shinichi asked worriedly. Ran shook her head and Shinichi let out a sigh of relief. He tried to sit up but the pain on his elbows prevented him from doing so. Ran helped him up.
"What do you think you were doing?! To run into the middle of the road without even checking for any cars passing!" Shinichi scolded her angrily.
"I'm sorry, I didn't do it on purpose. I dropped something and I was trying to collect it back," Ran said. Her head was facing the ground because she didn't dare to look at Shinichi.
"Well, what's that so important that it almost cost your life?" Shinichi asked curiously, the tone of anger could be heard. He didn't understand why she was that careless. She was almost knocked down to death!
"It's this ...." she aswered as the showed him the present. "Merry Christmas, Shinichi. It's something that I made myself, I hope you'll like it," she wished him and she looked up. She smiled and apologized again, "Don't be mad, I'll forgive you for your lateness if you don't be this mad." Shinichi was a little taken aback when she reminded him that incident.
"That was a different matter. Anyway, I'm not mad. It's just that, you almost scared me to death!" Shinichi said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a present. "There's a reason why I was late. I accidentally dropped the present when I was on the way to meet you. I turned back to look for it. Merry Christmas," he wished her after explaining and handed the present to her.
"Can I see what's inside? I'm anxious to find out," Ran requested.
"Why don't we find out together? I wonder what had you made for me?" he wondered as both of them unwrapped their presents and both revealed a box. They uncovered the box and both of them were starint at the present they got. Ran took out a pair of cotton-made hand glove. She put them on and looked up. She saw Shinichi wearing the white muffler which was knitted by herself. Shinichi even noticed that Ran had embroided his name, Shinichi and a football beside it. The embroidery were nicely done and it looked beautiful.
"It's nice and it's warm too. I like it very much, thank you," Shinichi thanked her. Ran raised both her hands and showed Shinichi that she had worn the gloves.
"I like this too. Just like the muffler you're wearing, it's soft and warm, thank you," Ran thanked him. "Perhaps we should go back to join them? They must have waited long for the drinks," Ran said as she got up to collect the scattered cans. Then, she saw a bouquet of pink roses lying on the ground. Shinichi walked towards it and lifted it up.
"Err ... this is for you too. I bought it from a florist just now," Shinichi told her as he gave her the bouquet. "Well ... err ... I always thought that ... uh .. we are more than ... uh ... more than just best friends .. well ... uh .. you know ... " Shinichi couldn't said everything as he was afraid of Ran's reaction. Well, since he already said most of it, might as well continue on. "I like you. All this while, only you," he blushed a little when he said it.
Ran was stunned, couldn't believe what her ears had heard. Am I dreaming? If yes, please don't let me be awake! Let me stay in this dream forever! Whatever it is, she can't hold back her feelings anymore.
"Me too! I was always concern and care about you. I've always wanted to let you know how do I feel, yet ... it's hard. I-I... I like you too!" she blurted out at last but her face was brick red.
"I'm glad to hear that but it was hard for me to say it too," Shinichi said in a warm tone. He moved towards Ran and took the bag of cans from her and held her hand. Another hand of his pushed back her fringe and he planted a kiss on her forehead. Ran felt her face was steaming hot! This is unbelievable! And this feeling, is indescribable too!
Ran felt something really cold landed on the tip of her nose. She wiped it off but flakes of snow dropped more. Ran and Shinichi both looked up into the darkening sky and saw lots of snow falling.
"It's snowing! It's ... beautiful ... " Ran loved snow, especially on Christmas.
"Well, Christmas won't be perfect without snow, right?" Shinichi said.
"I think Christmas won't be perfect without you!" Ran was pretty surprised she said that. She looked at Shinichi, he looked a little surprised too yet he just replied her with a warm smile. She felt like she could be melted by his smile and gaze.
"Come on, we really should go back now," he said, the warm and tenderness still exist.
"Mm ..." Ran agreed and nodded. Both of them walked back to the lake park together, hand in hand. Such a lovely couple!
- - - - - end - - - - -
Notes from me ...
Yo, minna. What do you think about this story? Pretty simple, huh? I don't have great brain to think of a complicated story. It tooks me like 2-3 days to complete this. Well, I think there's some grammatical error or spelling error, since I didn't really edit the whole story. Well, there's still a few days before Christmas, why don't you guys write one too? I wanted to put in background music too but I don't know the HTML code for it and I don't know how .... *sigh* I intended to put the song "Winter Bell" from Kuraki Mai. It's a nice song, I love it very much. The song really have the atmosphere of Christmas. Well, I recommend this song. Try to get it elsewhere *hint* *hint*. ^__^
I'm going for holiday somewhere here in M'sia (Pangkor Island) with my best friends and we'll be celebrating Christmas Eve together. What about you guys? Any of you celebrating with someone you like? Heehee .... How I wished I have. But then, as long as I can be with my anime and mangas, I'll celebrate with the bishi characters!! XD XD XD XD
Anyway, Merry Christmas to all of you!! Have a wonderful and fun Christmas!!
Copyright © 22/12/2003 by saiyuki_gaiden